<br />RHIZOME DIGEST: March 24, 2006<br /><br />++ Always online at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/digest">http://rhizome.org/digest</a> ++<br /><br />Content:<br /><br />+opportunity+<br />1. Conor McGarrigle: Call for entries : Stunned Net Art Open 2006<br />2. dmacwilliam@eciad.ca: Director, Intersections Digital Studio (IDS)<br />3. Juliet Davis: Call for Papers<br /><br />+work+<br />4. Turbulence.org: Turbulence Commission: "Ten-sided" by Francis Hwang,<br />et al<br /><br />+announcement+<br />5. jillian mcdonald: artists' talks: Luke Murphy + Marcin Ramocki, March<br />28th<br />6. Lea: Press Release: Object Lessons at Gigantic ArtSpace [GAS] (New<br />York City)<br />7. Christiane_Paul@whitney.org: New artport | Tate Online commission:<br />"Screening Circle" by Andy Deck<br /><br />+Commissioned by Rhizome.org+<br />8. Nathaniel Stern: Interview with Michael Szpakowski<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome is now offering Organizational Subscriptions, group memberships<br />that can be purchased at the institutional level. These subscriptions<br />allow participants at institutions to access Rhizome's services without<br />having to purchase individual memberships. For a discounted rate, students<br />or faculty at universities or visitors to art centers can have access to<br />Rhizome?s archives of art and text as well as guides and educational tools<br />to make navigation of this content easy. Rhizome is also offering<br />subsidized Organizational Subscriptions to qualifying institutions in poor<br />or excluded communities. Please visit <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/info/org.php">http://rhizome.org/info/org.php</a> for<br />more information or contact Lauren Cornell at LaurenCornell@Rhizome.org<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />1.<br /><br />From: Conor McGarrigle <lists@stunned.org><br />Date: Mar 21, 2006<br />Subject: Call for entries : Stunned Net Art Open 2006<br /><br />Submissions are now invited for the fourth edition of the Stunned Net Art<br />Open.<br /><br />The Net Art Open takes a different approach to the curation of Net Art<br />online. Rather then present a single event based exhibition selected by a<br />curator or panel of selectors the Net Art Open is an ongoing blog based<br />process delivered by RSS feed. Curatorial bias has been removed by<br />accepting all work which meet the criteria The result is a true reflection<br />of the state of Net Art now.<br /><br />The emphasis in this edition will be bringing the exhibition to the<br />audience taking account of the changing way people access the net. With so<br />much new work being produced all the time even with the best will in the<br />world it's difficult to keep up so the Net Art Open will be blogged one<br />work at a time with RSS feeds for newsfeed readers and blog aggregators,<br />each entry will be tagged for technorati and del.icio.us and a flickr pool<br />will be created. In addition each entry will feature on the front page of<br />Stunned.org.<br /><br />New in this edition we will reintroduce a little curatorial bias by<br />inviting a number of guests to, yes, curate a personal selection from the<br />exhibition and we will be investigating a gallery version of the Open.<br /><br />The net art open was started in 2002 by Conor McGarrigle and Arthur X<br />Doyle as part of the Irish Museum of Modern Art.com intervention,<br />subsequent editions were in 2003 and 2004-5.<br /><br />Closing date for the first call April 20th.<br /><br />More information from <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.stunned.org/netartopen2006.htm">http://www.stunned.org/netartopen2006.htm</a><br /><br />Net Art Open<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.netartopen.org">http://www.netartopen.org</a><br /><br />Stunned.org<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.stunned.org">http://www.stunned.org</a><br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />2.<br /><br />From: David MacWlliam <dmacwilliam@eciad.ca><br />Date: Mar 22, 2006<br />Subject: Director, Intersections Digital Studio (IDS)<br /><br />Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design + Media is one of Canada's leading<br />art and design institute's offering undergraduate and graduate courses in<br />art, design and media. We are opening Intersections Digital Studio (IDS)<br />of Art, Design and Media in Fall 2006. Our goal is nothing less than to<br />create the best and most innovative multidisciplinary research centre in<br />the arts in Canada and the world. We are inviting applications for a<br />Director, IDS to lead this exciting initiative in the rapidly evolving<br />multidisciplinary domain where traditional art disciplines and new<br />technologies meld in highly innovative creative expressions.<br /><br />Reporting to the President, the Director, IDS is responsible for the<br />development, growth and leadership of the new research centre, with a<br />particular focus on promoting and stimulating a culture of teaching and<br />research collaboration within the Emily Carr community and among a broad<br />and diverse external community. The Director establishes and maintains<br />strong collaborative relationships with key individuals within and outside<br />of Emily Carr to secure research and development funding from a variety of<br />sources. The Director is also responsible for the day-to-day operations of<br />the IDS facility. In collaboration with the President, this position<br />provides strategic direction in the development of the goals, objectives<br />and philosophy of research at Emily Carr.<br /><br />The successful candidate will have an advanced degree (Ph.D.) (or<br />equivalent educational and teaching experience) and a strong background in<br />post-secondary interdisciplinary research in the art, design and media<br />fields, with particular technical expertise in 2D and 3D prototyping<br />equipment and other technologies required for the growth and development<br />of IDS. S/he will also have a successful record of securing substantial<br />research funding from diverse sources. Experience in managing a research<br />centre or department is essential.<br /><br />In addition to the requisite education and experience, a strong commitment<br />to the goals and vision of IDS and a demonstrated ability to enhance the<br />integration of research in digital technologies with traditional creative<br />approaches to art and design is essential. Strong collaborative leadership<br />skills in research and strategic planning and the ability to establish<br />successful working relationships with a variety of individuals within<br />Emily Carr and the external community is critical.<br /><br />This is a five year contract with the possibility of renewal. Salary will<br />be commensurate with experience with excellent benefits. Please forward a<br />current curriculum vitae and letter of application (quoting competition<br />#A001-2006) by 4:00pm, Friday, 31 March 2006 to:<br />Human Resources, Emily Carr Institute<br />1399 Johnston Street, Vancouver BC V6H 3R9<br />Fax: (604) 844-3885 Email: hr@eciad.ca<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Support Rhizome: buy a hosting plan from BroadSpire<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/hosting/">http://rhizome.org/hosting/</a><br /><br />Reliable, robust hosting plans from $65 per year.<br /><br />Purchasing hosting from BroadSpire contributes directly to Rhizome's<br />fiscal well-being, so think about about the new Bundle pack, or any other<br />plan, today!<br /><br />About BroadSpire<br /><br />BroadSpire is a mid-size commercial web hosting provider. After conducting<br />a thorough review of the web hosting industry, we selected BroadSpire as<br />our partner because they offer the right combination of affordable plans<br />(prices start at $14.95 per month), dependable customer support, and a<br />full range of services. We have been working with BroadSpire since June<br />2002, and have been very impressed with the quality of their service.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />3.<br /><br />From: Juliet Davis <info@julietdavis.com><br />Date: Mar 22, 2006<br />Subject: Call for Papers<br /><br />Call for Papers:<br />College Art Association Conference, NYC 2007<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.collegeart.org/conference/2007-call-papers.html">http://www.collegeart.org/conference/2007-call-papers.html</a><br /><br />DIGITAL DIFFERENCE: RECONTEXTUALIZING NEW MEDIA ART<br /><br />Chair: Juliet Davis, University of Tampa, 302 49th St. N., St. Petersburg,<br />FL 33710<br /><br />>From fine-art games to electronic literature, new media have introduced a<br />host of terms that might seem contradictory in the context of traditional<br />art scholarship and cultural studies. While some writers have made cases<br />for new media as extensions of art and literary traditions, others see<br />completely new cultural forms that largely break with tradition.<br />Furthermore, while some cultural studies scholars have seen interactive<br />media as the ultimate postmodern expression, others note modernist trends<br />such as generative-software artists' focus on form. This panel seeks to<br />identify attributes of new media that distinguish them–culturally,<br />politically, and phenomenologically–from their predecessors in art and<br />literary worlds. How does the configurative nature of computer-generated<br />art differentiate it from a traditional interpretive work?<br /><br />How might we make distinctions about types and degrees of interactivity<br />and immersion in all these media? How does the pleasure of experiencing<br />interactive media correspond to our notions of the pleasure experiencing<br />other kinds of art, such as viewing a film or reading a novel? How does<br />digital media uniquely problematize representation? How do these problems<br />compare to those in other media, currently and historically? To what<br />extent do these problems relate to digital art as medium versus digital<br />art as genre, and to what extent do they indicate an art movement that<br />might be characterized as modern, postmodern, or beyond postmodern?<br />Proposals from artists, historians, and theoreticians are welcomed;<br />nontraditional formats are encouraged.<br /><br />GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR SPEAKERS<br /><br />1. CAA individual membership is required of all participants.<br /><br />2. No one may participate in the same capacity two years in a row.<br />Speakers in the 2006 conference may not be speakers in 2007; a 2006<br />speaker may, however, be a discussant in 2007, and vice versa.<br /><br />3. No one may participate in more than one session in any capacity (for<br />example, a chair, speaker, or discussant in one session is ineligible for<br />participation in any capacity in any other session), although a chair may<br />deliver a paper or serve as discussant in his or her own session provided<br />he or she did not serve in that capacity in 2006. Exception: A speaker who<br />participates in a practical session on professional and educational issues<br />may present a paper in a second session.<br /><br />4. Session chairs must be informed if one or more proposals are being<br />submitted to other sessions for consideration.<br /><br />5. A paper that has been published previously or presented at another<br />scholarly conference may not be delivered at the CAA Annual Conference.<br /><br />6. Acceptance in a session implies a commitment to attend that session and<br />participate in person.<br />PRELIMINARY PROPOSALS TO SESSION CHAIRS<br /><br />Due May 5, 2006<br /><br />Proposals for participation in sessions should be sent directly to the<br />appropriate session chair(s). If a session is cochaired, a copy should be<br />sent to each chair, unless otherwise indicated. Every proposal should<br />include the following six items:<br /><br />1. Completed session participation proposal form, located at the end of<br />this publication.<br /><br />2. Preliminary abstract of one to two double-spaced, typed pages.<br /><br />3. Letter explaining speaker's interest, expertise in the topic, and CAA<br />membership status.<br /><br />4. C.V. with home and office mailing addresses, e-mail address, and phone<br />and fax numbers. Include summer address and telephone number, if<br />applicable.<br /><br />5. Slides, videotapes, or other documentation of work when appropriate<br />(with SASE), especially for sessions in which artists might discuss their<br />own work.<br /><br />6. A stamped, self-addressed postcard for confirmation that proposal has<br />been received. If mailing internationally, it is recommended that<br />proposals be sent via certified mail, return receipt requested.<br /><br />CHAIRS WILL DETERMINE THE SPEAKERS FOR THEIR<br /><br />SESSIONS AND REPLY TO ALL APPLICANTS BY JUNE 2, 2006.<br /><br />ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS TO SESSION CHAIRS<br />Due September 1, 2006<br />At the session chair's request, a final abstract must be prepared by each<br />speaker and submitted to the chair for publication in Abstracts 2007.<br />Detailed specifications for preparation of abstracts will be sent to all<br />speakers.<br />FULL TEXTS OF PAPERS TO SESSION CHAIRS<br />Due December 1, 2006<br />Speakers are required to submit the full texts of their papers to chairs.<br />Where sessions have contributions other than prepared papers, chairs may<br />require equivalent materials by the same deadline. These submissions are<br />essential to the success of the sessions; they assure the quality and<br />designated length of the papers and permit their circulation to<br />discussants and other participants as requested by the chair. Failure to<br />comply with the deadline or with a chair's request for materials in<br />advance may result in a speaker's name being dropped from the program,<br />even though his or her name may appear in the online Preliminary Program<br />in October 2006.<br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />4.<br /><br />From: Turbulence.org <turbulence@turbulence.org><br />Date: Mar 18, 2006<br />Subject: Turbulence Commission: "Ten-sided" by Francis Hwang, et al<br /><br />March 18, 2006<br />Turbulence Commission: "Ten-sided" by Francis Hwang, with Johannes<br />Gorannson, Jess Kilby, Tao Lin, Brendon Lloyd, Jessica Penrose, Glenis<br />Stott, John Woods, Taren McCallan-Moore, and why the lucky stiff<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://turbulence.org/works/ten-sided">http://turbulence.org/works/ten-sided</a><br /><br />"Ten-sided" is a textual performance in which ten authors collaboratively<br />improvise on a single online narrative. For three months, each author will<br />blog as a fictional character. All ten characters must somehow be<br />connected, and all ten authors are responsible for ensuring that this<br />connection is explored through the course of the story. However, authors<br />are forbidden from coordinating the story beforehand. Instead, they can<br />only take their cues from one another's public entries. The resulting<br />improvisation resembles a jazz performance or a session of exquisite<br />corpse, but in a new form of creative practice that comments on and<br />employs the multi-vocal nature of blogging communities.<br /><br />"Ten-sided" is a 2006 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.<br />(aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with<br />funding from The Greenwall Foundation.<br /><br />BIOGRAPHY<br /><br />Francis Hwang is an artist, writer, and software engineer. His earlier<br />artwork includes "The Unauthorized iPod U2 vs. Negativland Special<br />Edition", in which he combined a U2 iPod Special Edition with<br />Negativland's back catalog and auctioned the result online; and<br />"firmament.to", which uses the Google Web API to turn any HTML page into a<br />free-associated index for the rest of the web. His writing on technology<br />and culture has appeared in Spin, Wired, ArtByte, and FEED Magazine. An<br />active member of the Ruby community, he has spoken at the International<br />Ruby Conference and currently serves as a technical lead on free software<br />projects such as Ruby-DBI and the object-relational mapping library<br />Lafcadio. He lives in Brooklyn with one roommate, two computers, and two<br />cats.<br /><br />See <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/002239.html">http://www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/002239.html</a> for additional<br />biographies.<br /><br />For more information about Turbulence, please visit <a rel="nofollow" href="http://turbulence.org">http://turbulence.org</a><br /><br />Jo-Anne Green, Co-Director<br />New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://new-radio.org">http://new-radio.org</a><br />New York: 917.548.7780 . Boston: 617.522.3856<br />Turbulence: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://turbulence.org">http://turbulence.org</a><br />New American Radio: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://somewhere.org">http://somewhere.org</a><br />Networked_Performance Blog: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://turbulence.org/blog">http://turbulence.org/blog</a><br />Upgrade! Boston: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://turbulence.org/upgrade">http://turbulence.org/upgrade</a><br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome ArtBase Exhibitions<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/art/exhibition/">http://rhizome.org/art/exhibition/</a><br /><br />Visit "Net Art's Cyborg[feminist]s, Punks, and Manifestos", an exhibition<br />on the politics of internet appearances, guest-curated by Marina Grzinic<br />from the Rhizome ArtBase.<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.rhizome.org/art/exhibition/cyborg/">http://www.rhizome.org/art/exhibition/cyborg/</a><br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />5.<br /><br />From: jillian mcdonald <jmcdonald@jillianmcdonald.net><br />Date: Mar 22, 2006<br />Subject: artists' talks: Luke Murphy + Marcin Ramocki, March 28th<br /><br />Pace University and Pace Digital Gallery are pleased to present Spring<br />2006 Tuesday evening talks with new media artists.<br /><br />Please join us on Tuesday March 28th at 6:30pm<br />Luke Murphy + Marcin Ramocki<br />Room 313, 163 William Street, New York, NY<br />directions/map on the website:<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://csis.pace.edu/digitalgallery/art_talks/spr06/spr06_arttalks.html">http://csis.pace.edu/digitalgallery/art_talks/spr06/spr06_arttalks.html</a><br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://pace.edu/digitalgallery">http://pace.edu/digitalgallery</a><br /><br />Rev. Luke Murphy is an information-based artist whose work is united by<br />common themes drawn from the impossible task of quantifying the elements<br />of the psyche and spirit. The work's failure to deliver what they<br />ostensibly promise is at once menacing and reassuring. Rev. Luke Murphy<br />was born in 1963 in Boston, MA. He graduated with an MFA from SUNY<br />Purchase after completing his BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and<br />Design and a BS from the University of Toronto. He is the co-director of<br />cabinetmagazine.org and Vice President of Web Development at MTV Network.<br />Murphy's talk will accompany his installation, "The Twelfth Gate,<br />Reflected" at Pace Digital Gallery. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.lukelab.com">http://www.lukelab.com</a><br />Marcin Ramocki is interested in the computer as a source of non-linearity,<br />either generative, random or interactive. His interest is specifically in<br />building metaphors through software. Marcin Ramocki was born in 1972 in<br />Krakow, Poland. He received his BA from Dartmouth College and MFA from the<br />University of Pennsylvania. Currently Marcin lives and works in<br />Williamsburg, Brooklyn and teaches Digital Media at Jersey City<br />University. He is also a founder and curator of vertexList art space in<br />Brooklyn. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ramocki.net">http://www.ramocki.net</a><br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome.org 2005-2006 Net Art Commissions<br /><br />The Rhizome Commissioning Program makes financial support available to<br />artists for the creation of innovative new media art work via<br />panel-awarded commissions.<br /><br />For the 2005-2006 Rhizome Commissions, eleven artists/groups were selected<br />to create original works of net art.<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/commissions/">http://rhizome.org/commissions/</a><br /><br />The Rhizome Commissions Program is made possible by support from the<br />Jerome Foundation in celebration of the Jerome Hill Centennial, the<br />Greenwall Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and<br />the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Additional support has<br />been provided by members of the Rhizome community.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />6.<br /><br />From: Lea <info@giganticartspace.com><br />Date: Mar 23, 2006<br />Subject: Press Release: Object Lessons at Gigantic ArtSpace [GAS] (New<br />York City)<br /><br />FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:<br />OBJECT LESSONS<br />CURATED BY TOM LEESER<br />Director, Center for integrated Media, California Institute of the Arts<br /><br />March 29 ? May 19, 2006<br /><br />PLEASE JOIN US FOR THE OPENING RECEPTION: Wednesday, March 29, 2006, from<br />6-9pm.<br /><br />Gigantic ArtSpace [GAS] presents Object Lessons, a group exhibition of<br />seven emerging artists from the media-saturated terrain of Southern<br />California.<br /><br />Part technological history, part emergent media, and part theoretical<br />response to these media and their innovators, Object Lessons investigates<br />the current debates of communications literacy and the extent to which we<br />are constituted by our technologies.<br /><br />Contributors:<br />Kelli Cain and Brian Crabtree: Almost Certified (Grade-A noise for<br />non-discerning consumers) is a distributed network of sixteen precarious<br />egg-tapping robots. Each individually amplified unit features a select<br />unconventional egg. Calculated sequences emerge, conducted by beautifully<br />rendered software on a resurrected mainframe (a sweet Mac LC3).<br /><br />Peter Cho: Takeluma is an invented writing system for representing speech<br />sounds and the visceral responses they can evoke. The project explores the<br />ways that speech sounds can give rise to a kinesthetic response. The<br />Takeluma project explores the complex relationships between speech,<br />meaning, and writing and comprises several animated, sculptural, and print<br />works.<br /><br />Sean Dockray: Cabinet is based on a research project in which the recorded<br />and archived the applauses he has received as a performer and in doing so<br />has documented the temporary moments when we leave our isolated bodies and<br />become part of a collective body, with its own temperament and desires.<br />The cabinet itself is a homemade device that has been designed around its<br />contents, much like a library's card catalog furniture is based on the<br />dimensions of a single index card.<br /><br />Nate Harrison: Can I Get An Amen? is an audio installation that unfolds a<br />critical perspective of perhaps the most sampled drums beat in the history<br />of recorded music, the Amen Break. The work attempts to bring into<br />scrutiny the techno-utopian notion that 'information wants to be free.' it<br />questions its effectiveness as a democratizing agent.<br /><br />Tom Jennings: Story Teller is a self-contained system for telling stories,<br />which are stored as rows of tiny holes in long spools of paper tape. The<br />stories are on a wide range of subjects, but they are all about text,<br />mediation, representation and deconstruction.<br /><br />The Center for Integrated Media is an interdisciplinary, peer-to-peer<br />experiential learning and studio environment for CalArts graduate students<br />and visiting artists wanting to explore and critique computer programming,<br />interactive systems, the Internet, digital video and digital audio<br />technologies as part of their artwork. The Center is designed for artists<br />whose work has reached an advanced degree of development and who possess<br />the desire to integrate multiple forms of media into new modes of<br />expression, while opening up critical dialogues between artists,<br />scientists and writers on issues related to new forms of media.<br /><br />An electronic catalogue, co-produced by CalArts and Gigantic ArtSpace, is<br />forthcoming.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />7.<br /><br />From: Christiane_Paul@whitney.org <Christiane_Paul@whitney.org><br />Date: Mar 22, 2006<br />Subject: New artport | Tate Online commission: "Screening Circle" by Andy<br />Deck<br /><br />Screening Circle<br />by Andy Deck<br />launched March 22, 06<br />artport, the Whitney Museum's portal to Internet art<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://artport.whitney.org">http://artport.whitney.org</a><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/screeningcircle/screeningcircle.shtml">http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/screeningcircle/screeningcircle.shtml</a><br /><br />Screening Circle adapts the cultural tradition of the quilting circle into<br />an online format. Visitors to the site can enter the drawing area to<br />compose loops of graphics and affect and edit each other's screens. The<br />pieces can be made by one person or by several people and the arrangement<br />of the segments can be haphazard or precise. In the screening area, the<br />resulting motion graphics will be on view instantaneously. The "circle"<br />invoked in the title refers to the circle of participants, and,<br />indirectly, to the loop of images that are produced. "Screening" refers to<br />the pre-viewing of film in the film making process. It is a form of<br />viewing that allows people to have some influence over the final product.<br /><br />Accompanied by an essay by Alison Colman, "A temporal block-to-block: The<br />electronic quilting frame of Screening Circle"<br /><br />++++++++++++++++++++<br />"Screening Circle" is the third in a series of three works co-commissioned<br />in collaboration with Tate Online. See<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/new_commissions.shtml">http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/new_commissions.shtml</a><br /><br />Critical texts and video interviews with the artists will accompany the<br />works at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/netart/">http://www.tate.org.uk/netart/</a><br />++++++++++++++++++++<br /><br />Previous commissions:<br /><br />The Dumpster (launched Feb. 14, 06)<br />Golan Levin with Kamal Nigam and Jonathan Feinberg<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/thedumpster/dumpster.shtml">http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/thedumpster/dumpster.shtml</a><br />The Battle of Algiers (launched March 1, 06)<br />Marc Lafia and Fang-Yu Lin<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/battleofalgiers/BattleofAlgiers.shtml">http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/battleofalgiers/BattleofAlgiers.shtml</a><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />8.<br /><br />From: nathaniel <nathaniel.stern@gmail.com><br />Date: Mar 24, 2006<br />Subject: Interview with Michael Szpakowski by Nathaniel Stern<br /><br />+Commissioned by Rhizome.org+<br />Interview with Michael Szpakowski by Nathaniel Stern<br />Michael Szpakowski has spent the last 30 years collaborating across<br />varying theatrical, visual, sonic, and digital media. His vlog, "Scenes of<br />Provincial Life," was recently featured on Rhizome's Net Art News. Rhizome<br />is our shared community that he claims literally changed his life. We had<br />an e-conversation about his work, philosophies, and interests.<br /><br />Nathaniel Stern: I find it fascinating that the two of us were recently so<br />drawn to each other's work, despite the fact that we knew nothing other<br />than current projects. When I suggested an interview, you first sent me to<br />"Enemy of the People" <<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/enemy/AnEnemyOfThePeople.html">http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/enemy/AnEnemyOfThePeople.html</a> > -<br />an interview with your father. It's haunting to me that both of our<br />parents/ grandparents are Holocaust survivors/ victims from Eastern<br />Europe. I feel like I might have known. How do you think this comes across<br />in and/ or influences your work?<br /><br />Michael Szpakowski: I shy away from the idea of "national character." It's<br />always struck me as deeply absurd that one should feel allegiance to the<br />particular lump of earth on which one happens to have been born.<br />Nonetheless, I think my background did have a big influence on me,<br />concretely through the person of my late father who died aged 91 in 2004.<br />I adored him & he brought me up with a sense of a world beyond the rather<br />parochial suburb of Sheffield in the North of England in which I grew up.<br />He was a link to a vanished world, of pre-WWII Eastern Europe. Most<br />importantly, he was a paradigm of what it means to be a decent, gentle,<br />modest, yet resilient human being. His spirit haunts much of my work He<br />also left me with a soft spot for East European culture - though he had no<br />great interest in the arts - nature was his thing,<br /><br />NS: I hadn't seen your "Five Operas" Shockwave works <<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/5operas.html">http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/5operas.html</a> >, and they kind of<br />blew me away. When were these made? Can you talk a bit about the<br />collaborative process? The combination of Kurt Weill-like music with<br />Brechtian themes, a bit of fluxus style–there's a real interruption of<br />the 4th wall, but it becomes new in the digital, through your use of clay,<br />static images, your framing of the frame, found objects, collage. Can you<br />tell me about your choices for visual representation of the sound?<br /><br />MS: This project was a coming together of two lives: a personal project &<br />a massive collaboration, which included arts outreach work. The end<br />product is online, the original material & collaborators were gathered &<br />recruited online, but lots of stuff happened in the real world in between.<br />I issued a call for opera libretti exactly 100 words in length & received<br />a large number of submissions. Heartbreaking choosing, but I narrowed it<br />down to five that I thought were unequivocally great. I set them to music<br />& found singers–a chorus from a local Primary School & soloists from a<br />Further Education (16-19 yrs) college. It was a long series of<br />rehearsals–the music is difficult and demanding to sing. We did a<br />performance of the pieces one night for the kids' parents and friends &<br />recorded everything the next day. Then I created the visuals. A lot of<br />these consist of found or appropriated stuff - my drawing skills are<br />rudimentary, but I can cut & paste with the best of them. So the clay<br />figures came about because one of the teachers at the primary school<br />thought it would be fun to make them & I'm for going with the flow. I also<br />used manipulated photos of participating kids, rough sketches by the<br />librettists… lots of stuff, lots of image-related ducking & diving.<br /><br />NS: How would you say these compare to your more recent works: "fresco",<br />"motion picture", "noir", "road movie"? <<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/netpieces.html">http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/netpieces.html</a> ><br /><br />MS: My interest in computers is to augment the conventional moving image<br />with another dimension. Instead of a single work, I like using generative<br />processes, and a database of material to create a suite of closely related<br />works, pretty much infinite in number. –i.e. A generative work which<br />would be both somewhat predictable in rhythm, but also surprise you in its<br />specifics. I'm not terribly interested in "interactivity." It strikes me<br />as rather dull in most instances. Really great art is always interactive<br />in a really deep & gripping sense, a sense much deeper than that of<br />picking from a menu and clicking on something.<br /><br />NS: Can you tell us a bit about your process? Both generally and<br />specifically, I mean–what are two projects you've worked on whose<br />processes differed greatly, why, and which collaborative efforts changed<br />the way you work or the ways you see your work process?<br /><br />MS: With the movies, I start with stills, or some video footage. Sometimes<br />this will involve preparing some kind of performance, or maybe some<br />drawing or painting, prior to any imaging. Then sometimes it's<br />simple–edit the video in Premiere, animate the stills. More often it's<br />quite a complex routine. I'll export some of the footage as stills. Work<br />on them in Photoshop or whatever, bring them into Director, do stuff with<br />them there, re-export them as QuickTime. Then quite often do some stuff<br />within QuickTime, filters, etc. Occasionally, two or three cycles of this<br />process. There's also the sound/music, which I usually score in Sibelius,<br />send to a software sampler & then fit to the images, or sometimes the<br />other way round. I'm quite interested in accidents–so on occasion I'll<br />deliberately use apparently "inappropriate" music to see how the outcome<br />reads. I'm fascinated by how the spectator contributes to artistic meaning<br />& how this meaning is malleable to a point, but not infinitely so. There<br />are 'anchor points'–the work itself, including the artist's intentions;<br />social & historical context–how the existence of the work in time<br />contributes to an accretion of new & altered meanings for it; and finally<br />what an individual viewer–her psychological makeup, her personal story<br />etc–brings to the work.<br /><br />All are in a highly complex dialectical relation. I'm interested in<br />testing this question of the viewer as meaning-maker, as it were 'inside'<br />the work, which is where my interests in chance and generativity come in.<br />In terms of chance operations I'm a Lutoslawskian rather than Cagean–I'm<br />interested in controlled chance. In musical terms, I'm just widening the<br />normal parameters of performance a bit. At one time in the Western<br />tradition, dynamics wouldn't have been notated & nor would the particular<br />instruments a work was to be performed upon (whereas 20th century<br />classical notation is in general notoriously fussy). So in works employing<br />generativity I always try and have a notion of how all possible<br />combinations of the source material might turn out. I do a lot of testing<br />& if even only once out of a hundred runs through something unsatisfactory<br />to me comes up, I go back to work on the piece. Hardly a Zen-like<br />surrender to chance is it?<br /><br />NS: I love your new vlog of 100+ quicktime shorts, "Scenes of Provincial<br />Life." <<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/vlog/ScenesOfProvincialLife.cgi">http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/vlog/ScenesOfProvincialLife.cgi</a> ><br />Aside from the sorrowful beauty, the quirky and experimental framing, I<br />found it fascinating that you also published such a long text about the<br />work process (on Intelligent Agent <<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.intelligentagent.com/archive/Vol4_No4_video_szpakowski.htm">http://www.intelligentagent.com/archive/Vol4_No4_video_szpakowski.htm</a> > ).<br />It feels like less of an artist statement, and more like a glossary of<br />interventionist strategies. It feels like a very generous series, a gift<br />to the art world on some level. Can you talk about the series, and your<br />commitment to others in the digi-arts community?<br /><br />MS: The fact of the moving image is what rings my bell, more than anything<br />else–anything. It simply awes me that such a thing is possible, and the<br />philosophical questions arising from the moving image (& indeed the image<br />tout court) seem endlessly fascinating. This stream of frames that give<br />the appearance of motion! Also, the possibility of editing at the level of<br />each individual frame. The way the moving image brackets within it masses<br />of different practices: performance–narrative or otherwise–drawing,<br />painting, sound/ music work, collage, confessional, diary, documentary,<br />various kinds of appropriation/remixing/variation forms–and also the<br />possibility of generative work. Once I'd got used to using a computer for<br />music, I realised that essentially the digital was an enormously<br />democratic sphere–a stream of ones & zeros is a stream of ones & zeros &<br />subject to similar processes, whatever it represents - sound, image,<br />process… I started making pieces of what I suppose could loosely be<br />called "net art"–things with a degree of interactivity/ generativity<br />partly because I felt it was the done thing. Then in 2003 there was a call<br />for ten-second films somewhere. I made a couple of these, one of which, "A<br />Tiny Opera for Anna," became one of the first in the collection of<br />QuickTime movies. Then I thought, I love this! I really don't give a<br />monkey's whether what I am doing is "idiomatic" or not. As for subject<br />matter, I use what I know–lots of references to my own life but in the<br />hope (& belief) that there's some universality there, that "everything is<br />connected" as good old V.I. Lenin said, not at all trivially.<br /><br />NS: Finally, how does this influence your "double life," and versa vice?<br />Your CV exhibits a very different image to the net.artist I know from the<br />ether. Many digital artists have a bread and butter "day job" they mostly<br />don't talk about in their online personas, but it seems yours have an<br />interesting interplay. Talk about this work and its impact.<br /><br />MS: I started off working in 1977, as a musician, in small scale touring<br />theatre, often with quite a political/ educational edge. I did that until<br />1988 when I did a math degree. I was set to become a professional<br />mathematician when someone offered me a job teaching music & theatre & I<br />couldn't resist the siren call. I taught throughout the nineties but<br />increasingly also did lots of arts outreach, often site-specific, work for<br />the arts department of a local council. In 2000 I quit teaching to work<br />full time in the arts–mostly outreach work, but also for the first time<br />developing a personal body of work which is what anyone who knows me from<br />the web will be familiar with. It was like being reborn. Things like<br />Rhizome, Webartery, Netbehaviour, etc were an absolute lifeline. I'm so<br />pleased I happened across a reference to Rhizome in Lunenfeld's "Snap To<br />Grid"–it literally changed my life. I continue to do outreach work. It<br />keeps one grounded. Currently I'm working with my friend, the dancer &<br />choreographer Jo Thomson, towards a dance/ music/ video performance piece<br />in a special school for children with severe learning difficulties & also<br />with a group of adults with similar difficulties, with whom we have<br />established a regular working relationship. There's a lot of debate about<br />this sort of work around "process & product." For me they're equally<br />important:<br /><br />(1) Process is not all–if the participants have had a great time & the<br />end result is crap then you've failed.<br />(2) Equally if you make something utterly beautiful & the participants<br />have been miserable, alienated & resentful then you've failed too. You've<br />got to aspire to make art that is as good as if you'd made it yourself<br />under perfect conditions, but that also respects, challenges & engages the<br />non-professional participants. As long as society is organised the way it<br />is there are going to be specialists. I see no point in downplaying any<br />skills I have in the interests of a falsely democratic notion of<br />"empowerment" because inevitably, the artist's influence is still there,<br />but hidden & hence dishonest. Nevertheless, I do firmly believe cultural<br />activity to be a profound & universal human drive and need and I look<br />forward to a world in which everyone will have the right & the time to be<br />artistically active at a high level and where I and other professional<br />artists become redundant as professionals, because everyone is doing it,<br />just as everyone eats, sleeps and breathes.<br />LINKS:<br />+ <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/enemy/AnEnemyOfThePeople.html">http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/enemy/AnEnemyOfThePeople.html</a><br />+ <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/5operas.html">http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/5operas.html</a><br />+ <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/netpieces.html">http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/netpieces.html</a><br />+ <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/vlog/ScenesOfProvincialLife.cgi">http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/vlog/ScenesOfProvincialLife.cgi</a><br />+ <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.intelligentagent.com/archive/Vol4_No4_video_szpakowski.htm">http://www.intelligentagent.com/archive/Vol4_No4_video_szpakowski.htm</a><br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br />Rhizome.org is a 501©(3) nonprofit organization and an affiliate of the<br />New Museum of Contemporary Art.<br /><br />Rhizome Digest is supported by grants from The Charles Engelhard<br />Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the<br />Visual Arts, and with public funds from the New York State Council on the<br />Arts, a state agency.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome Digest is filtered by Marisa Olson (marisa@rhizome.org). ISSN:<br />1525-9110. Volume 11, number 11. Article submissions to list@rhizome.org<br />are encouraged. Submissions should relate to the theme of new media art<br />and be less than 1500 words. For information on advertising in Rhizome<br />Digest, please contact info@rhizome.org.<br /><br />To unsubscribe from this list, visit <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/subscribe">http://rhizome.org/subscribe</a>.<br />Subscribers to Rhizome Digest are subject to the terms set out in the<br />Member Agreement available online at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/info/29.php">http://rhizome.org/info/29.php</a>.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br />
