RHIZOME DIGEST: 12.30.01

discussion

Posted Dec. 29 2001 19:00

RHIZOME DIGEST: 12.30.01

RHIZOME DIGEST: December 30, 2001 Content: +editor's note+ 1. Alex Galloway: Net Art Commissioning Program–Reminder! +announcement+ 2. atty: net-art01 nominations 3. mriver: Live MTAA 12/31/01 +interview+ 4. Mark Amerika: net.dialogue.6–Digital Hallucinogens +comment+ 5. Jordan Crandall: Fitness in Wartime + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 1. Date: 12.30.01 From: Alex Galloway (alex@rhizome.org) Subject: Net Art Commissioning Program–Reminder! Happy new year! Let me remind you of our Net Art Commissioning Program. Rhizome invites proposals for three net art commissions with total awards of $15,000 (USD). The deadline for proposals is February 15, 2002. For more information, and to submit a proposal, please visit: <a href="http://rhizome.org/commissions">http://rhizome.org/commissions</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +ad+ Artistic Environments of Telepresence on the World Wide Web" by Luisa Paraguai Donati and Gilbertto Prado addresses the use of live images in artistic spaces. Find out what events you'll participate in via the web. Pick up a copy of LEONARDO's Digital Salon, Volume 34 Number 5 and visit:@: <a href="http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo">http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 2. Date: 12.26.2001 From: atty (atty@no-such.com) Subject: net-art01 nominations Keywords: internet, exhibition After some delay from normal schedule … nominations are open for net-art01, the fourth annual edition of the open and democratic arena for 'net-art' projects visit <a href="http://club.net-art.ws">http://club.net-art.ws</a> (as you will notice the domain has changed to www.net-art.ws or www.net- art01.org from <a href="http://www.net-art.org">http://www.net-art.org</a> which was kidnapped for ransom by russian porn e-mafia type) net-art01 is kindly hosted online by warp-interactive and Monbro of London AND non-virtually hosted by the squatted pub and venue BRADYS of Brixton, London (conjunction of songs 'Living on the Frontline' and 'Electric Avenue' + conjunction of many rail and road networks + many other network conjunctions past, present and future) entries to net-art01 will be publicly projected on to various suitable surfaces in the centre of Brixton from BRADYS from 4.30pm to 6.30pm every evening at the end of net-art01 voting (approximately end of January '02) for the first time we will be holding an award ceremony consisting of a banquet in BRADYS with food prepared by the famous 'ROB the chef', assorted entertainments, with guests of honour Florean and Alexandria from hi-res.net and Mike and Emerald from www.urban75.com. More details for those who might like to attend later … <a href="http://club.net-art.ws">http://club.net-art.ws</a> <a href="http://www.net-art01.org">http://www.net-art01.org</a> <a href="http://www.hi-res.net">http://www.hi-res.net</a> <a href="http://www.urban75.com">http://www.urban75.com</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +ad+ **METAMUTE ECHELON COMPETITION WINNERS: Metamute announces the winners of the Echelon competition. 1st prize: The Avatar Group - Isis, followed by runners up: Tessa Laird - Pink Noise and Edward Lear - The Owl and the Pussycat Assassinate the EuroFeds. Read all the entries: <a href="http://www.metamute.com/mfiles/index.htm">http://www.metamute.com/mfiles/index.htm</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 3. Date: 12.28.2001 From: mriver (mriver@mteww.com) Subject: Live MTAA 12/31/01 Keywords: performance, exhibition The Update Live Redirect (AKA Everyone in Seedbed) To celebrate the end of the year and the end of our stay on the Whitney's Artport splash page, MTAA will perform a live redirect/remix of the vitoAcconciUpdate on January 31, from 2PM to 5PM EST. How can you get involved? Just email mriver@mteww.com an URL (off list please) you would like to see within the work. We will be changing the site as much as we can during this 3 hour window so stop by and watch the fun (just F5 or reload). We'll also be video-conferencing through iVisit (<a href="http://www.ivisit.com">http://www.ivisit.com</a>), so you can see/chat us sweating it out live. At the end of the three hour window, we will be returning the vitoAcconciUpdate to its former self. The remix work will be documented at mteww.com. iVist location information will be posted will be posted on list and at mteww.com on 12/31 <a href="http://www.whitney.org/artport/">http://www.whitney.org/artport/</a> <a href="http://mteww.com">http://mteww.com</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +ad+ STATE OF THE ARTS SYMPOSIUM * UCLA APRIL 4-6, 2002 * RHIZOME DISCOUNT * <<a href="http://www.eliterature.org/state">http://www.eliterature.org/state</a>> ELO invites Rhizome subscribers to join leading web artists, writers, critics, theorists for the seminal e-lit event of 2002. Rhizome subscribers who register before FEB 15 2002 may register at ELO member rates ($25 discount). + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 4. Date: 12.29.2001 From: Mark Amerika (Mark.Amerika@Colorado.EDU) Subject: net.dialogue.6–Digital Hallucinogens Keywords: internet, design, audio, animation "telltarget ("memoryfield") { gotoAndPlay ("disintegration"); "Digital debris. Excess cache. Spiritual bedlam. "The glue of minds. "Ultimate execution: triggering a digital weapon, a recordable memory device that captures your seeing for you, that tells it like it is, but with a supplemental metacommentary that is always ready to rip you, mix you, burn you into being. "Who are the image killers? "Who writes the Action Scripts?" [from FILMTEXT] + + + Mark Amerika: I just received email from Andrew Chetty, new media curator at the ICA in London, saying that our collaborative project, FILMTEXT, and the net art retrospective it is part of (HOW TO BE AN INTERNET ARTIST), will get an extended exhibition profile in the New Media Centre. The second exhibition will take place January 9-31. How do you feel about having your web work in a high-traffic art institute like the ICA? John Vega: Having FILMTEXT in a major art venue is both an honor and also abstract. It is an honor in that digital art (and specifically Flash art) is certainly not part of the mainstream art world and having an actual on-site version of the piece is one of the real rewards of creating this piece. It is abstract in that I could consider the ICA simply another node on the network, meaning that the piece really ISN'T there physically, but simply extends to there from here. I hope that this new showing will continue the movement of digital art (net.art, Flash.art) into the museum realm so that more folks are exposed and challenged by it. MA: Sometimes Flash art gets a bad rap in net art circles. The biggest criticism is that it all starts looking and feeling the same. Can you relate? How can artists working in Flash silence their critics? JV: I can relate to the criticism as much Flash art has been created using only the "timeline" or "movie" capability of Flash. In other words, many commercial and fine art applications of Flash are simply attempts to create sequences which could just as easily exist in digital (e.g. QuickTime) or traditional movie forms. What is missing in much of this work is "surprising familiarity" - the use of interaction, mathematics, randomness and networking technologies that are available with Flash's underlying scripting layers that would transform these simple linear movies into four-dimensional, cyber-physical experiences where art is created anew each time the users interacts. Flash artists can silence their critics by pursuing original ideas that step outside the traditional timeline metaphors (so prevalent in most commercial Flash work) and extend into metaphysical space where "time" is dispensed with and the need to derive ideas comes not from what has preceded (the Flash crap we see now), but from what is yet to be. For me, nearly anything I can "see" with my artist's eye can be translated into a net experience using Flash. MA: Seeing, being seen, and being the seer: this is what FILMTEXT explores, especially in relation to digital narrative and how the story behaves (or doesn't behave, as the case may be). One thing I find most interesting about our use of action-scripting in this work is how we use the code to, in essence, bring Flash into the net art fold. Which, by the way, was not so easy for me, as I have been resisting this format for a few years now. Along these lines, how does Flash art become a kind of Internet art and what are the net art works that have recently influenced your thinking as an artist working primarily in Flash? JV: Flash art becomes Internet art when it extends beyond a simple "player" and "movie" model, and reaches into the realm of a connected piece whereby the engine of the net helps fuel the Flash work as it breathes in datastreams, responds to user's thoughts and emotions (interaction) and generates the digital art answer. A good example of what has influenced me lately would be the generative (and multi-user) work of Mark Napier as well as the ambient-generative work of Joshua Davis. With Davis's Praystation, we see the "player" and "movie" dissolve as the art is recursively grown, three dimensionally displayed, and distributed to the users mind via phosphor screen. MA: Flash seems so well-suited toward narrative and gaming, both in a mainstream sense but also in an artistic way. In FILMTEXT, it was weird, because, even before the Playstation 2 commission, we were already developing our self-described "ambient game" model where progressing through different levels became the net art equivalent of navigating into higher or alternative states of consciousness; as if "playing" the game were part of a meaning-making adventure i.e. "how much meaning do I have to generate out of these filmtext scenes to make it to the next level?" This, of course, brings up the issue of how much intelligence needs to be programmed into an "ambient game" so that it can deliver conscious otherness. JV: Yes. Because the machine (Flash) can monitor, track and evaluate the user's actions, the idea of game is fully realized with an authoring tool like Flash. With a net art application, this capability becomes transparent as the user travels through the artists' dream unknowingly diverted and persuaded to follow paths intended or not. By evaluating and acting upon the users' decisions, the game then becomes art as new idea-seeds are flung and planted into the lines of action-script blossoming into new cyber-realities which gently (or not) tweak the set and setting of the digital hallucination. MA: Yes, that was one thing I found really fascinating about our collaboration, that is, the entire team of collaborators from Twine and Williams to you and me – it was as if we were all intuitively generating images, sounds, texts, design and action-scripts heavily geared toward the psychedelic. And yet, even as we were creating this trippy narrative-game, we were also highly conscious of the final output, the instrumental use of technology. The ESSENCE of technology (as Heidegger reads it) was, of course, explored too – this time in FILMTEXT via that long meditation on Digital Thoughtography (DT). Editing the digital images while writing those DT scenes and listening to Twine sound loops in the background made for a powerful work flow experience. JV: Working with Twine on FILMTEXT was both a functional and revelatory experience. The sound art of Twine acted both as functional soundtrack for the piece and "sound-map" for me as the Flash artist. As with most multimedia construction, the artist (or designer) ends up listening to endless playings of the sound objects to be used in a piece. In the case of FILMTEXT and Twine, this repetitive consideration soon revealed the true nature of the piece as it eased me into cyber-meditation-space where my mind's eye opened to the world of FILMTEXT. + + + Mark Amerika's first European net art retrospective, HOW TO BE AN INTERNET ARTIST, and his new work of net art, FILMTEXT (commissioned by Playstation 2), will enjoy a second exhibition at the Institute for Contemporary Arts in London from January 9-31, 2002. The site is accessible now at amerika.newmediacentre.com John Vega is a digital artist and animator living in Boulder, Colorado. His award-winning interface design work can be found at his web base of operations: dancingimage.com <a href="http://amerika.newmediacentre.com">http://amerika.newmediacentre.com</a> <a href="http://www.dancingimage.com">http://www.dancingimage.com</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 5. Date: 12.18.2001 From: Jordan Crandall (crandall@blast.org) Subject: Fitness in Wartime Keywords: mobility, internet, interact, identity, body Not so very long ago, in America, we were in danger of becoming embalmed by the image. The specter of the "couch potato," propped up in front of the television set, haunted what seemed to be an increasingly sedentary culture. Fused with the image in a kind of mind-meld, the body became a fulfillment vehicle for the desire-creating machine that is television. But it very often just became fat. In the early days of cyberspace, this figure morphed into a "meatself" parked at the computer monitor – a viewer who, released from the restraints of the body, frolicked gleefully in the matrix. In both cases, we had a nearly inert lump of flesh whose only life signs were tiny eye and finger flickers. With television, the body was immobilized; with early cyberspace, there was the premonition of its abandonment – in a "lifestyled" culture increasingly at odds with the reality of its flesh. We wondered: what would become of the body rendered obsolete in the playgrounds of virtuality? Those days, for better or worse, were soon over. The rallying cry became: Time to get in shape! Wrested from the chair and launched into circulation within new mobile communications landscapes, we were to get our asses in gear, outfitted with arrays of portable devices. Mobile phones that were Web-enabled. Palm PCs outfitted with modems. Wearable GPS systems. Internet-enhanced eyegoggles. Smart shoes. Personal satellites. Implants. It made one long for the days when one could just sit there. Once upon a time in America there was an immobilized viewer, a fixed screen, and a stream of visuals that seemed to course in between, pulling the arrested viewer along a landscape that increasingly seemed as "travel." We went "to" the image – or rather traveled through it, to its offerings, whether by Web or television or by the Fulfillment Vehicle of the automobile. Lodged within a shelter outfitted with ports, we were held in thrall by the screen yet mobilized in terms of the places that could be accessed through its confines. Through the image, the shelter was secured yet made portable. We carried it with us as a shield. It protected us from the elements and from danger, while with the remote control or the mouse we fired bullets at the screen in order to defend that for which it stood. Our house stands for something. We stood for something. Through this tapping of the finger and the mini- projectiles it launched, friend/enemy divisions coalesced, helping to determine the contours of shelter and self. Fueled by the disaster imaginary – Hollywood, videogames, CNN – combat dynamics were filtered through an easy logistics of Choice. To select a channel and to meld with the image flow was to create a "for" and an "against" – a feeling that "I" stood here against "them" – and a means of eliminating that which did not fit within the barricades of the here-and-now. "We will have none of that in this house," one's parents would say, banishing opposition to the exterior. The automobile extended the im/mobile home: we steered through the image, cushioned occupants soothed within the travel-flow. The car allowed a shiny projectile to be launched across the commons, its immobile occupant sealed inside, as it raced en route toward the fulfillment of its duty: to gather resources from afar in order to fortify the home-in-mobility. The home-shield and the transmission/transport-weapon. Both corporealizing, in whatever degree of inertia. The finger-taps on the remote control, the hands on the wheel, or the hand turning off of the cathode ray tube as the light fades and the womb of the shelter cradles its occupant in a soothing net of safety. + + + To Hunt, and to be Not Harmed The vision of legions of Web-enabled citizens on the move in the name of commerce has morphed into that of a populace armed with communications appliances, taking to the streets with a warrior spirit, bunkering down in the name of protectionisms, or engaging in some combination of both. (We carry our shields with us.) We are assured of our right to hunt – to shop – and to be protected from danger, in a world that seems increasingly fraught with peril. Under the possibility of danger – danger defined in terms of corporeality as well as transmissions assault - - a hybrid body is generated to require new fortifications. The logic of protection intertwines with that of enhancement: to improve is to make safer; to bring the body up to par is to make it adequate to meet new production demands as well as to make it adequate to meet new threats. Inefficiency, the contouring agent of business, combines with danger, the contouring agent of militarization – though the distinctions erode as they outsource together. What does it mean to be a "fit" individual? What does it mean to be "safe"? What does its "outside" tell us? Justified in the name of convenience and defense, we are promised a vast extension of the net, where appliances of all kinds are tied into one another and where new kinds of observing networks extend a deceptively soothing gaze of protection. It is an infrastructure where every movement – not only just mouse-clicks but street-level activity – is trackable and potentially contoured through the advent of location-based services and new ideologies of preventivity. Through net-enabled devices, GPS-systems, and monitoring networks connected to shared databases, we are able to be locked onto for the purpose of targeting information, creating a desire, steering us in a specific direction, finding us should Help be necessary, or containing us if we are suspected of a crime. Combined with the increasing precision of surveillance technology, the rise of proactive policing, the lowering of governmental restraints, and the increasing acquiescence of a public that has been numbed to the threats this might impose, we face a situation where the body has not been immobilized by the image, or caused to abandon itself in the face of the image, but is in very many real senses replaced by it. In turn, the image is replaced by something else. The mobile user is imaged, transformed into a calculus of patterns, habits, opinions, and functions by an observing system that ~compels~ movement – a movement very often called forth and enacted by those whom it hails. Frozen in an image, or replaced by one. Detective strategies are always met with new means of deception. New agencies are spawned. The seemingly immobilized body at the television or monitor was the site of the production of new mobilities: a stepping stone toward the fracturing of mobility, toward the splintering of corporeality into layers of embodiment, and toward the multidimensional layering of the immediate. Forms and motions follow one another in an elaborate dance: bodily orientations and behaviors change in relationship to communications devices, as they revolve about the body and are intertwined with specific concepts of what it means to move and to move well. What it means to move efficiently, what it means to move safely. Different kinds of movements, technological interventions, combat conventions, and bodily faculties help to continually shape and constitute one another, interlacing a "here" and a "there," resolving disparity by warping distance and space. And further: helping to determine and "us" and a "them," filtering into the very basis of the political. Relays between movement and technologies of registration loop through a newly figurable viewer. Foes are produced; a shelter coalesces; and a subject appears. Install a projectile and a shield, and one can always count on a body to appear in the circuit. The projectile maps its vectors of movement and desire; the shield its bodily and subjective contours. Exit couchpotato and screen, meatself and monitor, at home and clicking away upon command. We no longer have subjects and objects that sit; we have relays or clusters through which forms and movements coalesce. We have body/machine/movement clusters, into which a fitting (weapon- gadget) is introduced, and which is enmeshed in an incorporative/integrative dynamic: its visual faculty extended through the network, its rhythms intertwined within the demands and enhancements offered by communications and battle machines, its body lodged within a protective encasing or squeezed within an invasive projectile. In this space of mobility, mutations are left in the aftermath, like a whisk of air from a passing car that coalesces in a form. + + + The New Inertia Fellow Americans: think about these things the next time you feel the pressure to move. Defend your right to sit still! There are too many people moving around already. With all this mobility, no one is going to be home any more. And remember that it is war out there. Right in the palm of your hand. <a href="http://jordancrandall.com">http://jordancrandall.com</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Rhizome.org is a 501©(3) nonprofit organization. If you value this free publication, please consider making a contribution within your means. We accept online credit card contributions at <a href="http://rhizome.org/support">http://rhizome.org/support</a>. Checks may be sent to Rhizome.org, 115 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10012. Or call us at +1.212.625.3191. Contributors are gratefully acknowledged on our web site at <a href="http://rhizome.org/info/10.php3">http://rhizome.org/info/10.php3</a>. Rhizome Digest is supported by a grant from 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 Alex Galloway (alex@rhizome.org). ISSN: 1525-9110. Volume 6, number 52. Article submissions to list@rhizome.org are encouraged. Submissions should relate to the theme of new media art and be less than 1500 words. For information on advertising in Rhizome Digest, please contact info@rhizome.org. To unsubscribe from this list, visit <a href="http://rhizome.org/subscribe.rhiz">http://rhizome.org/subscribe.rhiz</a>. Subscribers to Rhizome Digest are subject to the terms set out in the Member Agreement available online at <a href="http://rhizome.org/info/29.php3">http://rhizome.org/info/29.php3</a>.