RHIZOME DIGEST: 9.9.05

discussion

Posted Sept. 8 2005 20:00

RHIZOME DIGEST: 9.9.05

RHIZOME DIGEST: September 9, 2005 Content: +opportunity+ 1. Rosanne Altstatt: ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF NEW MEDIA/INTERMEDIA-PURDUE UNIVERSITY +work+ 2. rick silva: surface to air 3. alex galloway: CarnivorePE version 2 4. Brett Stalbaum: C5 Landscape Database API 1.0.3 release +announcement+ 5. Peter Horvath: Peter Horvath opening Saturday September 10 @ 64 Steps Contemporary Art, Toronto 6. Lucy Kimbell: New projects in Berlin and Portsmouth 7. Marisa Olson: New Media Syllabi +thread+ 8. Michael Szpakowski, curt cloninger: two things (not an exhaustive list) about which I was wrong on this list +Commissioned for Rhizome.org+ 9. nathaniel stern: Report from Unyazi + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Rhizome is now offering Organizational Subscriptions, group memberships that can be purchased at the institutional level. These subscriptions allow participants at institutions to access Rhizome's services without having to purchase individual memberships. For a discounted rate, students or faculty at universities or visitors to art centers can have access to Rhizome?s archives of art and text as well as guides and educational tools to make navigation of this content easy. Rhizome is also offering subsidized Organizational Subscriptions to qualifying institutions in poor or excluded communities. Please visit <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/info/org.php">http://rhizome.org/info/org.php</a> for more information or contact Lauren Cornell at LaurenCornell@Rhizome.org + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 1. From: Rosanne Altstatt <roseira@gmx.de> Date: Sep 9, 2005 10:41 AM Subject: ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF NEW MEDIA/INTERMEDIA-PURDUE UNIVERSITY ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF NEW MEDIA/INTERMEDIA PURDUE UNIVERSITY Position: Entry level, tenure track academic year appointment beginning August 14, 2006. Salary: Commensurate with experience and qualifications. Responsibilities: Teach cross-disciplinary courses and develop curriculum in New Media/Intermedia across the four divisions of the Patti and Rusty Rueff Department of Visual and Performing Arts and in association with the Purdue University Envision Center for Data Perceptualization. Courses taught will depend upon candidate?s areas of expertise. Possibilities include: net art, computer animation, computer-mediated performance and object art, video installation, video design for dance and theatre, design as performance, show control systems, Max/MSP/Jitter, scripting and/or programming for visual and performance artists, and related areas. Continuing professional work in creative endeavors and/or research beyond Purdue University is required as is participation in usual departmental activities. Qualifications: M.F.A. or equivalent professional experience required. Professional experience and university teaching preferred. Applicant must be a practicing New Media/Intermedia artist with a strong theoretical basis and have expertise in two or more of the following: motion capture, CAVE? technology, motion graphics, tele-presence, robotic or sensor-based technology, performance art, programming and/or scripting, human-machine interface, virtual reality, or other related areas. Department: The Patti and Rusty Rueff Department of Visual and Performing Arts is comprised of four divisions (Art & Design, Dance, Music, and Theatre) and has more than 950 undergraduate majors, 57 graduate students, 58 faculty and 15 professional and administrative staff members. Facilities: The Yue-Kong Pao Hall of Visual and Performing Arts is a state-of-the-art facility with eleven computer labs, design and performance studios with integrated technology, and rehearsal, performance, and exhibit spaces dedicated to the visual and performing arts. Audio production studio and performance spaces, music computing, visualization of three-dimensional objects and environments, motion capture, digital photography, and digital textile production are some of the technologies available to support a wide range of experimental techniques, research., and teaching. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/vpa/">http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/vpa/</a>. The Envision Center for Data Perceptualization is an interdisciplinary, high-performance visualization teaching and research facility that supports computer graphics, advanced visualization, and human computer interface technologies such as auditory, haptic, and multimodal interaction. These technologies are integrated with state-of-the-art advanced computational! networking and high-end immersive visualization environments. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.envision.purdue.edu">http://www.envision.purdue.edu</a> Procedure: Send a letter of introduction, a resume of professional and (where applicable) academic experience, a digital portfolio (CDs, DVDs, websites, etc.) of representative work, copies of reviews of art works (if available), a statement of teaching interests and (where applicable) previous teaching experience, three names and contact information of current references, and a self-addressed stamped envelope for the return of visual materials to: Star Brown, Administrative Assistant to the Department Head Yue-Kong Pao Hall for Visual and Performing Arts 552 West Wood Street Purdue University West Lafayette, IN 47907-2002 Application: The preferential deadline is January 31, 2006. Screening will continue until the position is filled. PURDUE UNIVERSITY IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY/EQUAL ACCESS/AFFIRMATIVE ACTION EMPLOYER. WOMEN AND MINORITIES ARE ENCOURAGED TO APPLY + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 2. From: rick silva <rick@cuechamp.com> Date: Sep 7, 2005 9:34 AM Subject: surface to air new work: surface to air <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/</a> over 4 thousand surface pics from 4 continents taken over 4 years. tags / black / 15 pages / 288 photos / <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/black/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/black/</a> blue / 15 pages / 296 photos / <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/blue/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/blue/</a> brown / 34 pages / 680 photos / <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/brown/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/brown/</a> gray / 45 pages / 887 photos / <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/gray/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/gray/</a> green / 28 pages / 544 photos / <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/green/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/green/</a> orange / 13 pages / 255 photos / <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/orange/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/orange/</a> pink / 6 pages / 119 photos / <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/pink/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/pink/</a> purple / 4 pages / 66 photos / <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/purple/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/purple/</a> red / 17 pages / 321 photos / <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/red/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/red/</a> white / 18 pages / 348 photos / <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/red/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/red/</a> yellow / 16 pages / 301 photos / <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/yellow/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacetoair/tags/yellow/</a> werd, rick www.cuechamp.com + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Rhizome ArtBase Exhibitions <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/art/exhibition/">http://rhizome.org/art/exhibition/</a> Visit the fourth ArtBase Exhibition "City/Observer," curated by Yukie Kamiya of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York and designed by T.Whid of MTAA. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/art/exhibition/city/">http://rhizome.org/art/exhibition/city/</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 3. From: alex galloway <galloway@nyu.edu> Date: Sep 7, 2005 11:24 AM Subject: CarnivorePE version 2 hey rhizomers.. i'm hoping some of you can download and test the new version 2 (beta) of CarnivorePE. to solve previous bugs in the windows version, the app has been completely rewritten in java and has been tested on MacOSX, Win2k+XP, and Slackware Linux. if you like, you can test it here: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/carnivore/">http://rhizome.org/carnivore/</a> please let me know if it works for you. feedback always welcome… if you have made a carnivore client in the past, fire it up and let me know if the new carnivore works with your client. backward compatibility is key, so let me know if you have problems… //RSG + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Rhizome.org 2005-2006 Net Art Commissions The Rhizome Commissioning Program makes financial support available to artists for the creation of innovative new media art work via panel-awarded commissions. For the 2005-2006 Rhizome Commissions, eleven artists/groups were selected to create original works of net art. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/commissions/">http://rhizome.org/commissions/</a> The Rhizome Commissions Program is made possible by support from the Jerome Foundation in celebration of the Jerome Hill Centennial, the Greenwall Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Additional support has been provided by members of the Rhizome community. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 4. From: Brett Stalbaum <stalbaum@ucsd.edu> Date: Sep 8, 2005 10:21 AM Subject: C5 Landscape Database API 1.0.3 release C5 Landscape Database API 1.0.3 release An Open Source GIS API for Digital Elevation Model processing and performance © C5 corporation 2002-2005, under the GNU Lesser Public License As exhibited (1.0.3b) in Fair Assembly: Making Things Public, online project at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (The Center for Art and Media Technology), Karlsruhe, Germany, Curator: Steve Deitz. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://makingthingspublic.zkm.de/fa/intro.do?lan=en">http://makingthingspublic.zkm.de/fa/intro.do?lan=en</a> * DEM packages * RDBMS packages for DEM data * Support for processing DEM data dynamically * Analytic table support for landscape searching * Simple GUI (demtool) for viewing DEMs * Support for data export and management <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.c5corp.com/research/demtool/index.shtml">http://www.c5corp.com/research/demtool/index.shtml</a> Overview of C5 Landscape Database API 1.0.3 The C5 Landscape Database API 1.0.3 began as a Digital Elevation Model browser and data export tool, (DEM Tool), written in java. Now a part of the C5 Landscape Database API packages, the C5 DEM Tool is still useful for browsing a collection DEM files via a simple graphical user interface. But since the original release of the Dem Tool utility and related classes in 2002, the library of related Java classes have grown and were significantly reorganized. The mission of the API also drifted as C5 theorized the relationships between landscape data and art practice and began implementing software mediated performances in the landscape, all of which led us to theorize more, rewrite the software, and perform yet more experiments in the landscape. Now merged with the capabilities of a number of C5 Perl modules (which were retired after being ported to java this year), the software has evolved into a robust platform for data mediated practice in the landscape, through much experimentation and performance during the course of developing the C5 Landscape Initiative Projects. For more information on C5 Corporation <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.c5corp.com/">http://www.c5corp.com/</a> Current Applications of the API: The Other Path (2004 and ongoing) <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.c5corp.com/projects/otherpath/index.shtml">http://www.c5corp.com/projects/otherpath/index.shtml</a> See also Deitz, Steve, *The Path More or Less Taken*, May 2005 <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.yproductions.com/writing/archives/000707.html">http://www.yproductions.com/writing/archives/000707.html</a> The C5 GPS Media Player - a visual interface providing the ability to navigate and display the GPS tracks and their related media <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.c5corp.com/projects/gpsmediaplayer/index.shtml">http://www.c5corp.com/projects/gpsmediaplayer/index.shtml</a> And various other projects… C5 hopes others will find these packages useful. Written in Java, C5 Landscape Database runs on UNIX variants and Windows systems with Java 1.5 (Java 2), or any other system for which Java 2 is implemented. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Support Rhizome: buy a hosting plan from BroadSpire <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/hosting/">http://rhizome.org/hosting/</a> Reliable, robust hosting plans from $65 per year. Purchasing hosting from BroadSpire contributes directly to Rhizome's fiscal well-being, so think about about the new Bundle pack, or any other plan, today! About BroadSpire BroadSpire is a mid-size commercial web hosting provider. After conducting a thorough review of the web hosting industry, we selected BroadSpire as our partner because they offer the right combination of affordable plans (prices start at $14.95 per month), dependable customer support, and a full range of services. We have been working with BroadSpire since June 2002, and have been very impressed with the quality of their service. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 5. From: Peter Horvath <rhizome@6168.org> Date: Sep 2, 2005 1:36 PM Subject: Peter Horvath opening Saturday September 10 @ 64 Steps Contemporary Art, Toronto FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT Bradley Baker, 64 Steps Contemporary Art, 1164 Queen St. W. Toronto, Canada. Gallery hours Wednesday - Saturday 12 - 5. Opening reception Saturday September 10, 7pm - 10pm Phone: 416.535.7837 Email: 64steps@rogers.com TORONTO, CANADA 64 Steps Contemporary Art is pleased to announce the opening and subsequent exhibition of Peter Horvath's newest work of web cinema 'Tenderly Yours' as a projected installation. A 65 page, limited edition hardcover publication accompanies the exhibition. With appearance and narration spoken by Joséphine Truffaut, Tenderly Yours resituates the personal, casual and ambiguous approach of French new wave cinema in a net art narrative that explores love, loss and memory. "The story is recited by a striking and illustrious persona, who moves through the city with her lover. Her willful independence is intoxicating, though her sense of self is ambiguous and a fear of intimacy consuming. Then, one day she suddenly disappears. Her lover is left bewildered and is posed to question whether she is a fiction, who fades with every passing recollection. At this moment, her face reappears only to be united with that of a movie actress, whose striking resemblance further questions the certainty of her existence. Here we encounter a series of filmic ?doubles?, of French new wave cinema rendered as net art and in turn, of net art as cinema." - Celina Jeffery "Life, for Jean-Luc Godard's 'children of Marx and coca-cola,' was an extended meditation on politics, pop culture and the vicissitudes of dating. Peter Horvath adapts the concerns of this generation and the filmic style in which they were rendered in his new work of net cinema 'Tenderly Yours.' Here, the story of Joséphine–a contemporary French woman who 'detests money/ thinks herself a marxist/ and thinks she is too old for her age'–unfolds (…) Nodding both to the early writings found in the journal Cahiers du Cinema and Lev Manovich's more recent Soft Cinema, 'Tenderly Yours' exploits net conventions to emulate the spontaneous, fragmented and naturalistic mode of new wave filmmaking." - Lauren Cornell Peter Horvath works in video, sound, photo and new media. Camera in hand since age 6, he inhaled darkroom fumes until his late 20?s, then began exploring time based art forms. He immersed himself in digital technologies at the birth of the Web, co-founded 6168.org, a site for net art, and adopted techniques of photomontage which he uses in his net and print based works. Exhibitions include the Whitney Museum Of American Art?s Artport, the 18th Stuttgarter Filmwinter (Stuttgart, Germany), FILE Electronic Language International Festival (Sâo Paulo, Brazil), Video Zone International Video Art Biennial (Tel Aviv, Israel), the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (Québec City, Canada), as well as venues in New York, Tokyo, London, and numerous net art showings. He is the recipient of commissions from Rhizome.org at The New Museum, NYC (2005) and Turbulence.org New Radio and Performing Arts, Boston (2004). A founding member of the net art collective Hell.com, he likes to consider a future when high bandwidth will be free. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 6. From: Lucy Kimbell <inbox@lucykimbell.com> Date: Sep 4, 2005 11:41 AM Subject: New projects in Berlin and Portsmouth —Product & Vision: Interfaces and boundaries in art and economy Exhibition at Kunstfabrik am Flutgraben, Berlin, Germany 9 September - 9 October What happens if a corporation - in this case, the Berlin-based publishing house Cornelsen - opens its doors to a group of artists? Can artists or arts and Cornelsen or the corporate sector in general learn something from each other, or will their autonomy be questioned? The participants of Product & Vision have studied, amongst others, the finance structure, the identification of the employees with the company, the products (schoolbooks), the production process, the image of the company, and the organisational structure. This exhibition presents the results of this artistic process in installations, videos, pictures and performances, together with other works from the field of art and business. Product & Vision is initiated by artists Mari Brellochs and Henrik Schrat in cooperation with the Berlin-based art venue Kunstfabrik am Flutgraben. Product & Vision focuses on businesses/enterprises as a dominating form of social organisation. Interfaces and boundaries between art and economy are one of the central issues. How do companies learn, how do artists learn? What does social responsibility mean for artists, and for companies? On the other side the enterprise becomes a model, a source of inspiration for artistic and academic work. To provide a real-life example, the publishing house Cornelsen has been incorporated into the project as a case study, producing exciting interactions for both sides. The company gave the participants of the project insight into their organization and into the working processes, to develop ideas, comments and criticism about them. As part of the project, a Reader ?Sophisticated survival techniques. Strategies in Art and Economy? is published. A catalogue will be published after the exhibition. Participants of the exhibition: Acces Local (Paris), Mari Brellochs (Berlin), Cornelsen Verlag (Berlin), Neil Cummings/Marysia Lewandowska (London), Katja Diallo (Dordrecht/Berlin), etoy.CORPORATION (Zürich/international), Rainer Goerss (Berlin), Kent Hansen (Kopenhagen), Imagination Lab (Lausanne), Lucy Kimbell (London), Learning Lab Dänemark (Kopenhagen), Orgacom (Amsterdam), osb-i systemische Organisationsberatung (Tübingen, Wien), REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT (Dresden), Institut für Ressourcenschonung Innovation und Sustainability (Berlin), Henrik Schrat (Berlin), Enno Schmidt (Frankfurt a.M.), Barbara Steveni (London), Joël Verwimp (Berlin). Opening: 8 September 2005, 7 pm Performance "I?m an archive?, Barbara Steveni (Organisation + Imagination, London) Panel discussion: 9 September 2005, 8 pm "Organisational Art. Exploring the relationship between art and business" (in English) with Barbara Steveni (artist, GB), Wolf-Rüdiger Feldmann (CEO Cornelsen Verlag, GER),Fritz B. Simon (Sociologist, GER), Matt Statler (Imagination Lab Lausanne, CH). Moderation: Pierre Guillet de Monthoux (Stockholm University, S) <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.produktundvision.com">http://www.produktundvision.com</a> —Day-to-Day Data An exhbition of artists who collect, list, database and absurdly analyse the data of everyday life. Curated by artist Ellie Harrison. Artists include: Cleo Broda, Richard Dedomenici, Jem Finer, Ellie Harrison, Tony Kemplen, Lucy Kimbell, Christian Nold, Abigail Reynolds Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, 17 September ? 29 October Danielle Arnaud Contemporary Art, London, 10 March ? 23 April 2006 <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.daytodaydata.com/">http://www.daytodaydata.com/</a> Other current projects by Lucy Kimbell include: - Pindices, a collaboration with sociologist Andrew Barry, in Making Things Public, ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany, until November <a rel="nofollow" href="http://http://www.pindices.org/">http://http://www.pindices.org/</a> - One Night with Rats in the Service of Art, performance lecture at Rules of Engagement sci-art conference, York, September 5-7 <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.rulesofengagement.org.uk/">http://www.rulesofengagement.org.uk/</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.lucykimbell.com">http://www.lucykimbell.com</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Rhizome Members can purchase the new monograph on Thomson & Craighead, Minigraph 7, for a discounted rate: £10.80 which is 10% off £12.00 regular price plus free p+p for single orders in UK and Europe. thomson & craighead Minigraph 7 Essays by Michael Archer and Julian Stallabrass Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead ¹s extraordinarily varied, almost unclassifiable artworks combine conceptual flair with sophisticated technical innovation. Encompassing works for the web alongside a host of other new media interventions, this book ? the first monographic survey of the artists¹ work ? highlights a number of impressive installation and internet-based pieces which use digital technology to echo the art-historical tradition of the ready-made. Part-supported by CARTE, University of Westminster. Published by Film and Video Umbrella 52 Bermondsey Street London SE1 3UD Tel: 020 7407 7755 Fax:020 7407 7766 <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.fvumbrella.com">http://www.fvumbrella.com</a> To order, Rhizome Members should write Lindsay Evans at Film/ Video Umbrella directly and use the reference ³Rhizome T + C² in the subject line. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 7. From: Marisa Olson <marisa@rhizome.org> Date: Sep 9, 2005 10:18 AM Subject: New Media Syllabi Hi, all. I've started making a list of new media syllabi, here: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://del.icio.us/marisaolson/syllabi">http://del.icio.us/marisaolson/syllabi</a> It's a very basic list, fleshed-out by my own surfing, Trebor Scholz's great de.icio.us links, and contributions from subscribers to Rhizome_Raw. The list includes mostly history & theory courses, in addition to a few general educational resources. Please feel free to send me URLs to additional syllabi about which you know. I will continue keeping the list and if it quadruples in size, I will post another ping to the list. Meanwhile, bookmark it and watch it grow! Hopefully it can be a resource to students and teachers, alike. Marisa + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 8. From: Michael Szpakowski <szpako@yahoo.com>, curt cloninger <curt@lab404.com> Date: Sep 8, 2005 7:47 AM Michael Szpakowski <szpako@yahoo.com> posted: For anyone who cares: I was wrong about Tracey Emin - it's a body of work of real substance & I'm now especially taken by her drawing. I was also dead wrong about Cory Arcangel's Data Diaries -I've been looking at these again prompted by a post on Doron's DV Blog & I think they're great ( I love the sound in particular, but its all good) In both cases it was a combination of personal experience ( so, getting stuck into drawing & also doing hard practical thinking about lots of different approaches to video) but also mulling ( over some time) over stuff discussed , points made, here on RAW that made me (a) appreciate the value of stuff I hadn't really got before & (b) come to slightly more nuanced positions on some of the philosophical issues. best michael curt cloninger <curt@lab404.com> replied: Hi Michael, I'm not trying to put you on the spot or anything, but it would be interesting to hear you expound a bit more on: 1. what you thought about the works before 2. what you think about them now 3. (most interestingly) what changed in your understanding that caused you to appreciate them. Personally, I like data diaries on several different levels, not the least of which is abstract/aesthetic. Tracy Emin's work still seems awkward. So much of its alleged impact is derived from Emin's alleegedly self-aware situationing of the work vis-a-vis the context of the artworld stage she's been given, which in turn undermines any endearing outsider impact the work might otherwise have had. I love the rhetorical deftness of this dis (by Richard Dorment): "What interests me about Emin is not her relentless self-absorption, limitless self-pity or compulsion to confess the sad details of her past life, but that all of this adds up to so little of real interest." Ouch. Are you up to defending "My Bed," or is it her entire oeuvre that need be considered? peace, curt Michael Szpakowski <szpako@yahoo.com> replied: Hi Curt < I'm not trying to put you on the spot or anything,> well I pretty much invited it.. <what you thought about the works before…2. what you think about them now…3. (most interestingly) what changed in your understanding that caused you to appreciate them> I *was* pretty splenetic about Data Diaries - a few things came together on that but the gist of my position was that it was a one liner - essentially fairly disposable conceptualism with some almost optional visuals and sounds ( and way too many of them, in that I felt then that they were there just to *illustrate the point*) that came with the "idea". Furthermore Alex Galloway in his intro piece made a big point, indeed a virtue, ( and of course it was entirely unfair of me to take this out on the work itself) of that fact that it stemmed from a clever but essentially very quick hack. I would want to say that I find the one liner culture in general a depressing thing & that I see lots of work that gives me no reason to feel any more charitable to it than I did then. The artistic one liner currently comes, as you know, almost inevitably with some sort of explicatory statement, usually by the artist her/himself although in this case the honours were done by Alex Galloway. In general, its something I'm pretty uncomfortable with since the pairing of one liner and usually theory laden explanation is often at kindest banale. Nevertheless I was wrong about Data Diaries. The main reason is that I was blind then to the fact that the work is simply enormously beautiful - I've spent a lot of the past two years thinking about film and video both theoretically and practically and I think that this has perhaps improved my *looking* - I do see the piece in a completely different way now -I've also recognised ( and said elsewhere) that I've come to understand that artists whom I don't greatly care for have made it possible for me to use -rather conservatised -forms of their innovations within my own work and this has made me less ready to rush to judgement. Secondly I feel less dogmatic than I did about the artist statement, again partly through personal experience; whilst I hope never ever to be caught quoting Baudrillard in speaking about my work I realised practically that when people ask me questions about it I'm not averse to answering, either artistically and technically, so it seem both hypocritical and perverse to rail *on principle* against those who provide such answers in advance (when they write crap, as is so often the case, because someone has told them that what artists do is to write inpenetrable artists statements, they are of course entirely fair game). I also have thought a great deal about how art fits into society more generally,and the more I think about it the more it seems to me that the life of any artwork exists way beyond the boundaries of the work itself, indeed way beyond the artworld - it's part of an huge ongoing conversation between human beings, some of whom are members of the "artworld" many of whom are not -this is what a "tradition" is, or rather this is what a tradition is part of. "Everything is connected" as good old Vladimir Ilyich so rightly said. So I now accept the factual content of Galloway's introduction as a helpful and enlightening contexting of the piece. Lastly, I think I was rather stuck up about craft - I'm not recanting here, it's something I'll continue to fly the flag for *but* (a) Data Diaries *is* *very* clever -and a bit like jazz improvisation, which we've discussed before, the act of creating a particular, apparently effortless (not quite effortless, I'm trying to say something like apparently-unstriven-for) piece has to be put into the context of all the preparatory work on pieces or solos that necessarily prepared the artist for *this one* (b) which of us has not made work that contains whole strings of accidents? I think my former , rather prudish, account of how an artist worked, couched in terms of an initial vision realised through a highly controlled craft process simply doesn't match up to the evidence of my own making experience ( and what my increasingly educated eye reads in the work of others.) which is maybe 50-80% planning and craft, 20-50% accident. Another factor that helped along my change of mind was my growing appreciation of the work of MTAA, to which I was originally quite hostile, but which gradually really got under my skin for a number of reasons -wit, a way of generating real substance from quite flimsy conceptualist premises and last but not least the fact that craft-wise their work is always *so* irreproachably made. I think my essential postition and tastes have not substantially altered from those I've argued and displayed here on a number of occasions - what I think has changed is that I'm looking and thinking better -I've understood that work I intially dismissed has merits that with a little bit of wriggle room are pretty much within my consciously articulated tastes-of course enjoying them viscerally is the key test, the thing that always come first. This brings me on to Emin. Didn't like her at all -now a lot of what she does, I do like -especially the drawings & the embroidery pieces & it's a visceral, not an intellectual change - the drawings were the way in.For the last year or so I've been struggling with drawing, which I find *really* difficult but also fascinating and absorbing - I saw some of Emin's a few months back and they *moved* me.'Bed' seems to me pretty dull, derivative and lazy & but I now think this is the exception and that I was wrong about her in general. The reason that I posted the original "recantation" was that I enjoy enormously the stimulation of being involved with discussions here about work - I don't think *my* change of heart is of any great significance to anyone but I did want to say in all honesty that I think I did make two serious errors of judgement - I don't feel guilty or anything but I wanted to offer testimony of a mind changing through doing, looking, thought and discussion. warmest wishes michael Curt Cloninger <curt@lab404.com> replied: Thanks Michael, That all makes sense. I haven't seen Emin's drawings, so I can't comment. Regarding MTAA, I'm surprised at how frequently I wind up showing their work to students as an example of this or that conceptual approach. For whatever reason, it is pedagogically illustrative and object-lesson oriented (while still being funny). We had a lively discussion in class the other day about the relative merits of: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.mccoyspace.com/201/">http://www.mccoyspace.com/201/</a> vs. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://mteww.com/RAM/">http://mteww.com/RAM/</a> (but my favorite is still: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://mteww.com/five_small_videos/on_then_off/">http://mteww.com/five_small_videos/on_then_off/</a> ) peace, curt + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 9. From: nathaniel stern <nathaniel@hektor.net> Date: Sep 9, 2005 Subject: Report from Unyazi Electronic Music Symposium and Festival 2005 Wits School of the Arts, University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg, South Africa September 1-4, 2005 by nathaniel stern–<a rel="nofollow" href="http://nathanielstern.com">http://nathanielstern.com</a> Positioning itself as ?the first festival of electronic music and sonic art in Africa,? the main successes of Unyazi can be summed up in two words: listening and exchange. Director Dimitri Voudouris and Associate Director Christo Doherty hoped that the festival would open up more potential for experimental sound art in South Africa, by introducing it to the international scene. It also became a platform for the re-examination of the polyphyletic origins of electronic music as rooted in listening, performance, and improvisation –exactly the things that African culture has to offer. The two most exciting composers at the festival had to be Pauline Oliveros and Halim El-Dabh –each of whom gave a lecture, a workshop, and a performance, in addition to being all-around playful, giving, and interesting characters. Pauline Oliveros coined the term ?Deep Listening,? and considers most of her pieces to be ?Sonic Meditations.? Always interested in the undetectable delay ?live? music began having after the introduction of electronics (even with the simplest amps and speakers), her early experiments used echo and modulation effects, in hardware loops, as a kind of improvisational collaborative instrument. Having worked with the likes of Philip Glass and David Tudor (one of her more interesting compositions is made up of a water bottle chorus and apple box orchestra, circa 1965), she's now moved into the world of self-produced software, with the Extended Instrument System (shareware!). ?What were you like at 5?? she asked one of her workshop's participants, after he questioned how some musicians might be frustrated by her distortions of their sound. ?Either you want to play with me or you don't; there's plenty of room for other sandboxes.? At first I found Pauline's misuse of some technical terms a bit annoying, mixing up CPU with memory, and continually shifting definitions–like what ?real-time? means. But after spending some time with her, I realized that she was probably doing this on purpose; she's cheerful about having no training in music or engineering, likes breaking (or pretending there aren't any) rules, and loves bringing non-musicians into the fold. ?Set up an environment like this,? Pauline contends, ?and pretty soon people start listening,? improvising, making music. The highlight here was an impromptu duet with South Africa's own emerging arts celebrity, James Webb. Pauline said he played ?a mean water bottle.? Halim, on the other hand, was experimenting with wire recorders to organize found sounds in the 1940s, in Egypt–well before tape recorders were a twinkle in the loopmaster's eye. He takes pride in the fact that he was ?just a farmer who played with noise,? until producing his most famous piece, and becoming an 'international composer' overnight (?neither of which was I before!?). A contemporary of Haile Selassie's (this isn't vital to his music career, but plays into his passion for African politics), he's considered a pioneer in his field, and has worked with the likes of John Cage and Martha Graham. He's also very sweet, excitable, more than a bit of a partier (actually pretty hard to keep up with, even though he's now in his eighties), and a very cheeky bugger. At his talk, Halim asked his listeners to detach the history of electronic music from its assumed Western base. In all his research in the ?most remote parts of Africa,? the commonality he seemed to always find was a tradition in ?transformations of sound.? Although some forms of experimental and electronic music sound foreign to the Western ear, he argued, they ?made sense? to his fellow Africans. This is not a matter of taking found sounds and overlaying them into a timeline; it's a tradition of performative ritual and meditation, of finding and re-appropriating aural instruments. While contemplating this, I kept thinking of when Brian Eno came and did some workshops in Joburg, and was reminded of an interview in Wired, where he asked, ?Does this make clearer why I welcome that African thing? It's not nostalgia or admiration of the exotic–it's saying, here is a bundle of ideas that we would do well to learn from.? Aside from their amazing engagement with South Africa's academics, artists, fellow musicians, and other interested parties, Pauline and Halim also put on some hot performances. The former worked with her laptop, a conch, some percussive instruments, her voice, and a few sticks of wood to produce a semi-improvisational ambience, while Halim had a series of collaborations with international and local musicians, open to the public. The best of said duets had to be 'Michael And The Dragon,' on Friday night, with George Lewis; rustling, kissing, bending and distorting–he's all up in there–Lewis treats his trombone like a cross between the monkey bars and a lover. After running this sonic treat through some simple hardware, and re-mixing it with Halim's real-time wave generation and electronic tape, the composition literally made my insides crunch. And so the backbone of the festival was set: playful and provocative, experimental and exploratory, collaborative, and amusing. I couldn't get to everything on offer, but here's a report on some of the other work I saw and people I spoke with. In the lobby of the Digital Convent, home to Wit's Digital Arts program, were Toni Olivier's (SA) interactive installations, one of which allowed participants to trigger and modulate her homemade sounds, and the other, a cool piece that played short clips from 80s films. It was in the Convent where Unyazi housed its ?Listening Room? for some international musicians who could not make the festival, or pieces created in the studio and intended for headphones. The Listening Room also screened the newest works of acclaimed SA filmmaker Aryan Kaganof. After the fest's opening remarks, Thursday kicked off an ongoing, four-day workshop with Luc Houtkamp's POW Ensemble. It encouraged local musicians who play indigenous instruments to use computer technology alongside their acoustic creations. This culminated in a short performance at the end of the fest. Matthew Ostrowski gave a talk about worldwide shared sounds from a large database of aural material, and went on to ?sculpt a sonic experience,? by using a sensor-driven glove and real-time 3-D space in Max/MSP. Local experimental-jazz-pop star Carlo Mombelli did a set with Berlin's electro-acoustic newcomer João Orecchia, and Cape Town's Brendon Bussy collaborated with Trumpet player Etienne Moorcroft to perform a crazy, piece lacking time signature, ?Tick.? Thursday's highlight, for me, was the kinetic-sculpture-installation-performance thing by Canadian Maxime Rioux. Simply called 'Unyazi 2005,' it used about 30 sculptures of speakers attached to SA-found noise and musical instruments on springs. Each individual device was triggered by electrical impulses to create an orchestra of generative music. Yannis Kyriakides later screened 'Wordless,' an utterly beautiful series of sonic interviews, where he removed all the words, leaving portraits made only of the breaths and pauses between. The night ended with South Africa's now-legendary turntablist and bassist, Warrick Sony (originally from the Kalahari Surfers), mixing German and African music in real-time. Friday saw Rodrigo Sigal presenting, and playing alongside, audio-visual work from Mexico, and Sandra Ndebele's traditional Zimbabwean dances. One of the real treats was ?…anywhere far,? a collaboration between Natal's Electronic Music Studio (Ulrich Süsse and Jürgen Bräuninger) with the extremely talented jazz musicians Zim Ngqawana (sax, percussion) and Sazi Dlamini (Mbira, flutes, percussion). After Halim's series of duets, Friday ended with an incredibly physical dance / performance from Zim Ngqawana and his saxophone. Saturday began with Theo Herbst, from Stellenbosch University, using EyesWeb and a webcam between the audience and a B-Grade film, to playback and modulate electro-acoustic samples. Pauline's 'Sounding in the Sonosphere' was the aforementioned gem of the day, and Director Dimitri Voudouris composed 'L22P08M02,? a political piece dedicated to the Landless People's Movement. Athena Mazarakis, probably South Africa's most underrated choreographer, worked with students to produce an appropriately sombre theatrical accompaniment. That evening, and the following day in his workshop, Francisco Lopez (Spain) had to be the man that really opened my eyes to some of the more experimental and ambient sides of electronic art music. Working solely in concrète music (the editing together of natural and industrial sounds–in his case, the former) and performing it acousmatically (?shot and developed in the studio, and projected in a hall, like a film, at a subsequent date?–thank you, Wikipedia), he had us walk into 'Untitled' to find blindfolds on our seats, with an invitation to lie on the floor. His beautiful piece used the natural world as a source, but never tried to approximate or simulate from whence it came. He simply layered his field recordings, which he's been collecting for the last 25 years, to produce hundreds of compositions. Francisco's workshop followed electronic music's history through a variety of practices, and explained his use of acousmatics in order to produce immersive aural spaces. He laughed about how everyone from DJs to lip-synchers had been ?upgraded? to performing on stage, while he mostly uses concert halls for their great acoustics; not really a performer with a rock star attitude, Francisco just hits the play button and sits down somewhere else. My favorite project of his was one in which he had blind participants lead blindfolded sighted people through their cities. The night ended with Johannesburg-based experimental duo, Schnee–Christof Kurzman on a G3, clarinet, and voice, Burkhard Stangl on guitar and ?electronics.? Sunday, the final day, saw a lot of hanging out with our newly formed clique, and a fair number of collaborations between the artists in residence. I caught a great improv performance by Lukas Ligeti, known mostly for using combinations of Western and African traditions in new and interesting ways–he performed with some electronic percussion, and a marimba lumina. The festival finally closed with James Webb and James Sey's (SA) new piece meant for radio, 'The Utopia Travelogues,' a beautiful journey in ironic text and narrative sound about a lost Englishman in North Africa. My favorite line had to be, ?I think the poor fool wants to build a thought-activated sound weapon to use in his pitiful desert wars. Perhaps he can be converted to the cause… and after dessert we've been promised hermaphrodites.? >From here, visitors started their tours of South Africa, the Kruger Park, Cape Town, etc. South Africans are listening a little more carefully to their surroundings (the Associate Director told me he could now hear three distinct notes in his leaky faucet), and are feeling inspired while planning their next projects. Dimitri is working on his solo album (to be released on Pauline Oliveros' label), he is in talks with Christo Doherty about starting an experimental sound lab at the University of the Witwatersrand, and both are already discussing possibilities for the next Unyazi festival (now declared a Biennale, and scheduled for 2007). I've promised to down-low their potential guests, but the bar is set, and they're aiming even higher. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Rhizome.org is a 501©(3) nonprofit organization and an affiliate of the New Museum of Contemporary Art. Rhizome Digest is supported by grants from The Charles Engelhard Foundation,  The Rockefeller Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Rhizome Digest is filtered by Marisa Olson (marisa@rhizome.org). ISSN: 1525-9110. Volume 10, number 36. 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