RHIZOME DIGEST: 2.24.02

discussion

Posted Feb. 23 2002 19:00

RHIZOME DIGEST: 2.24.02

RHIZOME DIGEST: February 24, 2002 Content: +announcement+ 1. Technologies To The People: Tomando las Riendas/Taking the Reins 2. Wolfgang Staehle: 217.174.192.66 +work+ 3. alex galloway: James Buckhouse With Holly Brubach–Tap 4. napier: A flag for the Internet +feature+ 5. RSG vs. BEIGE: Low Level All-Stars–Interview with Linus Walleij/TRIAD + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 1. Date: 2.22.02 From: Technologies To The People (daniel@IRATIONAL.ORG) Subject: Tomando las Riendas/Taking the Reins Encounter/Workshop MediaLab Madrid - Centro Cultural Conde Duque <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.cibervision.org/tttp/html/">http://www.cibervision.org/tttp/html/</a> (from 11th to 13th March) International Medialab Encounter: Taking the Reins/New Spaces in the Artistic Community The first International Medialab Encounter examines the question of self- organising culture on the Net. For this urpouse, Technologies To The People invites you to attend a program of presentations, conferences and debates that seek to analyse a series of fundamental experiences undertakend in four very significant cities and contexts, namely, Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels and London. It will involve the direct participation of a large group of artist and theorists, the creators and protagonists of these initiatives, who will explain their ideas, needs, motivations, fustrations, successes and failures. Participants: Inke Arns, Heath Bunting, David Casacuberta, Daniel García Andújar, Walter van der Cruijsen, Thomax Kaulmann, Eric Kluitenberg, Sebastian Luetgert, Dirk de Wit y Simon Worthington. Free registration. Limited capacity. Information and registration: Tel.: 91 588 52 86 e-mail: condeduque@munimadrid.es (from 11th to 15 th March) Workshop: Take the Reins! Take the Reins! is a practical workshop organised by Technologies To The People where you can learn to develop your own technological infraestructures, such as how to build your own Internet plattform using Open Source and Frre Software applications and technologies, such as Linux operating system. But that is not all: it is the chance to share experiences with groups of artists who have been developing or helping to develop autonomous plattforms for collectives of artits since early 1990s. Participants: Walter van der Cruijsen (Amsterdam-Berlin-Lubliana), Thomax Kaulmann (Berlin), Heath Bunting (Bristol- London), Daniel G. Andújar por Technologies To The People (Valencia) Free registration. Limited capacity. 15 places Information and registration: www.medialabmadrid.org e-mail: info@medialabmadrid.org <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.cibervision.org/tttp/html/">http://www.cibervision.org/tttp/html/</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.medialabmadrid.org">http://www.medialabmadrid.org</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +ad+ Read Peter Anders article "Anthropic Cyberspace" in the latest LEONARDO Digital Salon Volume 34 Number 5. Learn first hand about defining electronic space and give yourself space to think. Visit our web site @ <a rel="nofollow" href="http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo">http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 2. Date: 2.20.2002 From: Wolfgang Staehle (wolfgang@THING.NET) Subject: 217.174.192.66 Keywords: exhibition, internet, design A presentation by Grégoire Maisonneuve Sunday, February 24, 7pm (19h) at THE THING, 601 West 26th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10001 artists net projects - starting with patrick bernier, ludovic burel, dr-brady, claude closky, rainer ganahl, jan kopp, gianni motti, téléférique 217.174.192.66 is a private initiative - a desire - which, from its production to its promotion, intends to be accompanied by artistic projects specifically developed for the Internet. 217.174.192.66 is a platform for artistic proposals. Willed by its commissioner, Grégoire Maisonneuve, to be a work of art in itself, the interface of 217.174.192.66 is the fruit of a collaboration with the artist Patrick Bernier and the computer programmer Jean-Noël Lafargue. Minimal graphics, access without preliminary navigation, no links or intermediate pages, neither menu nor alphabetical list. Just art. The particularity of 217.174.192.66 is shared time. At any given hour, one project and one project only can be consulted. In order to discover other projects, one must take the time to come back. This restriction is incentive for lingering over one project instead of skimming over many. The manner in which the projects appear on the screen is pre-programmed. Movement is perpetual. At present, the looped program containing this first visible body of work must be able to thrive. 217.174.192.66 is an invitation to support artistic production on the Net and to support the presence of artists in this domain which is becoming more and more real. The projects produced by Patrick Bernier, Ludovic Burel and Téléférique were produced by and for 217.174.192.66. Those by Claude Closky, the Collection Yoon Ja & Paul Devautour, Rainer Ganahl, Jan Kopp and Gianni Motti were a sign of encouragement for artists and for the initiative of 217.174.192.66. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://217.174.192.66">http://217.174.192.66</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +ad+ **MUTE MAGAZINE ART ISSUE** Peter Fend 10 page special, Andrew Gellatly on selling art online, Benedict Seymour on the closure of London's Lux Centre, Michael Corris on Conceptual art, Hari Kunzru in Las Vegas. Reviews: Don't blow IT conference, Wizards of OS, Wolfgang Shaehle's 2001 Show <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.metamute.com/mutemagazine/current/index.htm">http://www.metamute.com/mutemagazine/current/index.htm</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 3. Date: 2.19.2002 From: alex galloway (alex@rhizome.org) Subject: James Buckhouse With Holly Brubach: Tap Keywords: wireless technology, design Dia Center for the Arts press release 2/14/02 JAMES BUCKHOUSE WITH HOLLY BRUBACH: TAP Artists' Project for the Internet Makes Use of Wireless Technology On March 1, 2002, Dia Center for the Arts will launch Tap, a work created by James Buckhouse in collaboration with Holly Brubach for Dia's series of artists' projects for the web. Tap may be seen at www.diacenter.org/buckhouse. Dia and the artists will launch the project on Friday, March 1, from 6 to 8pm, with a party for the public in Dia's bookshop at 548 West 22nd Street, New York City. For Tap, a project commissioned by Dia Center for the Arts, presented in cooperation with Creative Time, and selected for the Whitney Museum of American Art's 2002 Biennial, Buckhouse has created two animated dancers, one male and one female, that the user may direct to practice movements or give recitals. Tap is made for distribution on wireless handheld networks and is accessible via Dia's website, as well as from beaming stations that interface with all Palm PoweredTM personal digital assistants (PDAs). By taking advantage of beaming technology, which enables wireless transmission of data, Buckhouse encourages the project to expand beyond the internet and individual computer desktops: Users may pass dancers to other users and exchange choreography with those who already have a dancer. When instructed to "practice," a Tap dancer begins to learn a series of sixteen basic moves, inevitably making mistakes but gradually expanding the number of steps it has mastered. A dancer may then combine the steps into a dance, either through randomized improvisation or with a sequence of moves specified by the user. Once codified, the dances may be saved for future performances. While digital media traditionally allows users to exchange exact copies of data, Tap, with its potential for the transfer of unique choreography, emphasizes difference rather than repetition, treating digital data not as defined packets of information but as the seeds for a creative process. By enabling interchange between and among users, the project creates a network of communication. Buckhouse's collaborator, Holly Brubach, organized the dance elements of the project. She recruited ballet dancer and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, resident choreographer of the New York City Ballet, to participate in the project, and taught Wheeldon to Tap dance. Videos of Brubach and Wheeldon were used by Buckhouse as templates for the female and male animated line drawings. From March 1 through July 27, 2002, users may download the project onto their PDAs from a beaming station at Dia. During this same period, Creative Time will present additional beaming stations at the Barnes & Noble at Union Square and two additional locations in New York City. Tap, which was selected for the Whitney's 2002 Biennial, will also be available via a beaming station in the Whitney's lobby during the course of the Biennial, from March 7 through May 26, 2002. + + + James Buckhouse James Buckhouse, born in 1972, currently lives and works in San Francisco. He has exhibited in museums, galleries, and festivals in the United States and Europe and recently completed a year as a visiting artist at the Stanford University Digital Art Center, where he created and co-curated an exhibition on artist-produced screen savers as a form of public art. Buckhouse has also created computer-based animation for major-release films. Artist and programmer Scott Snibbe assisted Buckhouse with the programming for the project. Holly Brubach Journalist and fashion designer Holly Brubach began her career as a dancer. The author of three books, she has also been on the editorial staff at Vogue, Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and most recently The New York Times, where she served as style editor for almost five years. Former director of Prada's home and sport collections, Brubach recently started her own business. She lives and works in New York and Milan, where she continues to teach Tap. Artists' Projects for the Web Dia Center for the Arts initiated a series of web-based works in early 1995, becoming one of the first arts organizations to foster the use of the world wide web as an artistic and conceptual medium. Previous projects, which can be visited on Dia's website, include Shimabuku's Moon Rabbit (2001), Feng Mengbo's Phantom Tales (2001), David Claerbout's Present (2000), Stephen Vitiello's Tetrasomia (2000), Arturo Herrera's Almost Home (1998), Diller + Scofidio's Refresh (1998), Molissa Fenley's Latitudes (1996), and Komar and Melamid's The Most Wanted Paintings (1995). All may be viewed at www.diacenter.org. Dia Founded in 1974, Dia Art Foundation plays a vital and original role among visual arts institutions nationally and internationally by initiating, supporting, presenting, and preserving art projects in nearly every medium, and by serving as a primary locus for interdisciplinary art and criticism. Dia presents a program of exhibitions at Dia Center for the Arts in Chelsea, New York City. Supplementary programming at Dia Center for the Arts includes the artists' projects for the web, lectures, poetry readings, film and video screenings, performances, scholarly research and publications, symposia, and an arts education program that serves area students. Dia is currently constructing a new museum in Beacon, New York, sixty miles north of New York City, to house its permanent collection. The museum in Beacon will open in spring 2003. Creative Time Creative Time is a nonprofit arts organization with a thirty-year history of presenting public arts projects of all disciplines, through both grassroots activism and highly prominent venues. From the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, Grand Central Terminal and Times Square to milk cartons, billboards, and skywriting over New York City, Creative Time has a distinguished history of commissioning and presenting art that enhances the public realm, inspires and provokes discussion of socially relevant topics such as domestic violence, HIV/AIDS pandemic, genetic engineering, and now, the proliferation of wireless technologies in the arts and society at large. For more information about Creative Time, please visit www.creativetime.org. Funding Tap was commissioned by Dia Center for the Arts. Its presentation is being made in cooperation with Creative Time. Technology is provided by Palm, Inc., with additional support from hi beam. Dia's series of artists' projects for the web receives funding from the New York State Council on the Arts. For confirmation or additional press information on this project and programming at Dia Center for the Arts in Chelsea, New York, please contact Sarah Thompson, tel. 212 293 5518; fax 212 989 4055; email sthompson@diacenter.org. For additional press information about Dia:Beacon, please contact Heather Pesanti at Jeanne Collins & Associates, tel. 646 486 7050; fax 646 486 3731, email info@jeannecollinsassociates.com. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.diacenter.org/buckhouse">http://www.diacenter.org/buckhouse</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.creativetime.org">http://www.creativetime.org</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +ad+ STATE OF THE ARTS SYMPOSIUM * UCLA APRIL 4-6, 2002 * RHIZOME DISCOUNT * <<a rel="nofollow" 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: 2.18.2002 From: napier (napier@INTERPORT.NET) Subject: A flag for the Internet Keywords: internet, colonialism net.flag <a rel="nofollow" href="http://netflag.guggenheim.org">http://netflag.guggenheim.org</a> The unofficial flag for the Internet opens today. The visitor to net.flag not only views the flag but can change it in a moment to reflect their own nationalist, political, apolitical or territorial agenda. The resulting flag is both an emblem and a micro territory in it's own right; a place for confrontation, assertion, communication and play. Commissioned by the Guggenheim Museum: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.guggenheim.org/internetart">http://www.guggenheim.org/internetart</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://netflag.guggenheim.org">http://netflag.guggenheim.org</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.guggenheim.org/internetart">http://www.guggenheim.org/internetart</a> + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 5. Date: 2.22.2002 From: RSG vs. BEIGE (rsg@rhizome.org) Subject: Low Level All-Stars–Linus Walleij/TRIAD [To coincide with the exhibition "Kingdom of Piracy" (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://kop.adac.com.tw/">http://kop.adac.com.tw/</a>) RSG and BEIGE have entered into a head to head, 8-bit computing battle in search of what we call "the low level all-stars." First round goes to Cory Arcangel of BEIGE who contacted Linus Walleij of the legendary Swedish demo crew Triad (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.triad.c64.org/">http://www.triad.c64.org/</a>). In the following interview Linus describes his craft: the art of the cracker "intro." Part demo, part graffiti, intros are the animations that appear at the start-up of a cracked video game. Designed to showcase the cracker's talent, these mini projects also shed an interesting light on computer art…and where it came from.] + + + Cory Arcangel: How did you get started in the intro scene? Linus Walleij: You know, intros were around. Intros gave you the impression of following an old tradition, just like the groups that the intros were for. They made the impression of having existed forever. They all portrayed themselves as organizations as old and powerful as the Freemasons, and their art was just as serious-looking. So intros stuck to my mind, they followed their own code of beauty. Cory Arcangel: Would you consider intros to be graffiti, art, information? Some combination of the three? Linus Walleij: Intros are graffiti and both intros and graffiti are art. It is graffiti-like in the sense that intro makers want to be seen, and want to belong to something. Just like intro makers, graffitti creators live under the impression of being a part of something much bigger that has been around for ages. That both things are art is obvious, intros are deeply human in character, they reflect on classical symbolism and beauty ideals and so on. Cory Arcangel: I am interested in how the architecture of a specific machine effects the aesthetic of the work produced on that machine. For example, Mario is a square because the Nintendo Entertainment System displays graphics in groups of 8*8 pixels. How did the architecture of the Commodore 64 (C64) effect the look of the intros? Linus Walleij: Characters are displayed in groups of 8x8 pixels just like on the Nintendo. This had profound influence. Also the groups of 8x8 characters are just 256 different "characters" so, for example, a logo was never bigger than to fit in 256 characters (including some empty character). The C64 had 8 sprites which are graphics blocks in 24x21 pixels. These could float over other graphics, making it a popular feature. They could be expanded twice along X and Y axis, which was used for some nice blocky logotypes (see old Hotline intros for an example of this). Fading color: this seems obvious, but flashes and the like actually had to be invented from scratch. The Commodore 64 had 16 colors which had to be arranged by luminosity in order to "fade" things in and out. Rasterbars were invented on the C64 (also called copper-bars on the Amiga). It was common to just change the color at a certain raster scanline using raster IRQ and color registers. Hardware registers for scrolling lead to smooth scrollers. "Bugs" in the hardware that made it possible to delay the drawing of a certain charcter line (40 8x8 characters) were used to created whole blocks of graphics moving smoothly in sinusoidal Y-patterns over the screen. And so on. Cory Arcangel: I am also interested in the idea of space limitations. Today it is easy today to get a 90 Gig firewire hard drive for a few hundred dollars. Size is no longer a constraint when making work on a computer. What were the common size limitations when making an intro, and how did the size limitations effect the look of the demo? Linus Walleij: Each C64 intro was only a few K. Perhaps 6-8k if it was a big one. When you only have 64k to play with this is quite natural. Also it was hard to use more memory: what should you use it for? A full character on the C64 is 2k, you can have 2 of them, some sprites, a tune may be 2-3k. That is 7k. It is actually hard to use more memory without going to high-res graphics and sampled music, or entire sprite character sets. And the Intro-form didn't usually include that. This would often be used in stand-alone demos however, but NOBODY would attach that to some game. Cory Arcangel: In what way were the disks commonly traded? Linus Walleij: The most common way was "swapping," i.e. people sent them in the mail. A "swapper" was a special member class in the group and an active swapper had up to 500 contacts that he constantly mailed and got mail from. Cory Arcangel: How much effect do you think the disk distribution network had on the development of the intro? Linus Walleij: Well it was vital, When you coded an intro you never knew who was gonna see it and how big the network was. Perhaps you lived in the imagination that hundreds of thousands would see your intro, and then you'd be like a pop star, see. But I guess not more than a thousand at most would actually see your intro, usually a lot less than that even. Cory Arcangel: What are the hallmarks of a good intro, and who do you think the best groups were? Linus Walleij: Hard to say, what is good art generally? Something that touches on the human condition in one way or another, something that affects you emotionally–that is good art. Cory Arcangel: Can you briefly explain the idea of training a game, and how it got started [I understand Triad invented this…] Linus Walleij: I don't know if this was how it happened generally, but in Triad, a cracker named Mr Z always created cheat backdoors in the games in order so that he could himself play through the games and test them, so that we hadn't f**ed it up somehow in the cracking process. So he actually left the hooks in, and in the games you could usually press "C" (for "Cheat") in the intro screen instead of the usual "space." This activated "Cheat mode." At some point Ixion started mentioning this in the scroll texts, and then later it became a part of the art of cracking for a lot of groups. I don't know if this is the whole story about how the "training" came along, but it is definately part of the story. Cory Arcangel: Do you have any favorite intros? Linus Walleij: Yep, Ikari, Hotline and C64CG intros from the late 1980's are the best. Cory Arcangel: Do you still code in 6502? Linus Walleij: Absolutely. I'm learning MIPS assembler right now, but my heart will always be with the 6502. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://kop.adac.com.tw/">http://kop.adac.com.tw/</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.triad.c64.org/">http://www.triad.c64.org/</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 rel="nofollow" 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 rel="nofollow" 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 7, number 8. 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. 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