<br />RHIZOME DIGEST: January 17, 2003<br /><br />Content:<br /><br />+opportunity+<br />1. Jonah: Eyebeam opportunity<br />2. Justine Bizzocchi: Web Producer Needed<br />3. Taylor Nuttall: Art House / Esmee Fairbairn Artists¹ Bursary Scheme<br /><br />+announcement+<br />4. Sergei Teterin: MACHINISTA 2003 [RU] - additional prizes for VJ's<br />5. Alexei Shulgin: read_me 2.3 software art festival<br />6. Michelle Deignan: Os_anm by Slateford<br /><br />+interview+<br />7. Tilman Baumgaertel: Interview with Amy Alexander<br /><br />+review+<br />8. ryan griffis: a (contextual) review of xurban\\\'s Knit++<br /><br />+feature+<br />9. Brett Stalbaum: Database Logic(s) and Landscape Art [3/5]<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />1. <br /><br />Date: 1.16.03<br />From: Jonah (jonah@eyebeam.org)<br />Subject: Eyebeam opportunity<br /><br />Eyebeam is pleased to announce an open call to apply for the Spring 2003<br />cycle of its Artists in Residence Program, a multidisciplinary initiative<br />that supports the development, creation and presentation of outstanding new<br />works of art made with digital tools. The AIR Program offers five-month<br />residencies to exceptional artists in three different areas: Education,<br />Emerging Fields and Moving Image. Residents receive a stipend, access to<br />cutting-edge tools, expert technical support from Eyebeam staff, production<br />help from apprentices, and the option to participate in an annual group<br />exhibition. <br /><br />The wide-ranging annual AIR exhibitions mirror the interdisciplinary studio<br />environment by presenting a constellation of other events, including open<br />studios, demonstrations of research in progress, panel discussions, on-line<br />projects, and multimedia performances. The twelve artists who participated<br />in the program's '02 pilot year were featured in Beta Launch: Artist's in<br />Residence 2002: (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.eyebeam.org/artists/air02.html">http://www.eyebeam.org/artists/air02.html</a>).<br /><br />The open call for applications begins January 10th. Applications are due<br />February 10th. For more detail about the different residency programs,<br />deadlines, applications and instructions, please refer to the information on<br />Eyebeam web site: (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.eyebeam.org/artists/index.html">http://www.eyebeam.org/artists/index.html</a>).<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />2.<br /><br />Date: 1.15.03<br />From: Justine Bizzocchi (justine@DIRECT.CA)<br />Subject: Web Producer Needed<br /><br />The Banff New Media Institute at The Banff Centre is now hiring.<br />Producer, Horizon Zero - <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.horizonzero.ca">http://www.horizonzero.ca</a><br />Remuneration: $42,000-47,000/year<br />Application deadline: January 25, 2003<br />Submit a letter of intent and full CV to: Horizon Zero Hiring Committee -<br />MVA<br /> The Banff Centre, 107 Tunnel Mountain Drive<br /> Box 1020, Station 40 Banff, Alberta T1L 1H5<br />or via email: Horizon@banffcentre.ca<br /><br />This position will, provide administrative and programming leadership in<br />effecting the successful delivery of the Horizon Zero web publication. This<br />position supervises four full time contract positions, one part-time<br />position, as well as workstudies and freelance workers. In addition, this<br />position oversees the monitoring of priorities and contracts established<br />between The Banff Centre and The Department of Canadian Heritage and the<br />monitoring and priorities of the contracts established between The Banff<br />Centre and Horizon Zero contributors, freelance workers and service<br />providers. This position initiates a long term implementation plan that<br />relates to the overall development and delivery of the Horizon Zero web<br />publication within the context of The Banff New Media Institute and The<br />Banff Centre.<br /><br />EDITORIAL VISION HORIZON ZERO<br /><br />The Banff New Media Institute publishes the Horizon Zero, with funding from<br />the Department of Canadian Heritage. It is available in its entirety in both<br />French and English.<br /><br />Horizon Zero is dedicated to the digital arts in Canada. The term "digital<br />arts" is taken to include: net.art; cd-rom and dvd-rom art; location-based<br />art and interactive installations; virtual reality systems; digital<br />photography; digital cinema and video; digital animation; artists' software,<br />tools and games; electronic literature; and electronic music.<br /><br />The ultimate goal of Horizon Zero is to open up the field of new media to<br />the larger realm of culture and promote Canadian artists in Canada and<br />abroad. It should foster a dialogue between Canadian new media practitioners<br />and their possible audiences, as well as encourage the cross-fertilization<br />of "other" arts and new media.<br /><br />EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS REQUIRED<br /><br />This is a senior position that requires at least 10 years experience in<br />producing, preferably in a web environment. The ideal candidate will<br />understand and have technical skills in production of new media, and in<br />managing production processes. They must have experience in preparing and<br />managing budgets and preparing funding proposals and reports. The producer<br />also provides direction for marketing and communications for HorizonZero.<br />This position requires someone with mature judgment and the ability to<br />provide leadership to a team, as well as work collaboratively within the<br />larger management structure of The Banff New Media Institute.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />3. <br /><br />Date: 1.15.03<br />From: Taylor Nuttall (taylor@greenquarter.co.uk)<br />Subject: Art House / Esmee Fairbairn Artists¹ Bursary Scheme<br /><br />Art House / Esmee Fairbairn Artists¹ Bursary Scheme<br /><br />Project Description<br /><br />The Art House has secured funding for 12 artists¹ bursaries from the<br />Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Barclays and supported by the National<br />Lottery through the Arts Council of England A4E scheme. The bursaries<br />will be offered over a three year period (2003 / 2004 / 2005).<br /><br />The bursaries will be awarded primarily to visual artists and<br />craftspeople, working in a wide range of media including digital media,<br />sound, installation, sculpture and other media. Please get in touch if<br />you are unsure whether your work is suitable.<br /><br />The Art House is an inclusive organisation and our intention is that<br />artists with and without disabilities will be appointed. All of the<br />artists will be enabled to make new work while receiving professional<br />development training and access support. The Art House will provide all<br />necessary to support to disabled artists in applying for the bursaries<br />and all partner venues have good access. We will provide additional<br />support to artists with disabilities in undertaking bursary projects.<br /><br />The artists will all be at an early stage of their careers, probably<br />within the first three years of their professional practice.<br /><br />It will be possible for collaborating artists as well as individual<br />artists to apply to the scheme. Six of the bursaries will be offered in<br />Yorkshire and six elsewhere in the country.<br /><br />The bursaries will be offered in partnership with other organisations,<br />which will provide the artists with space in which to work and exhibit.<br /><br />The brief for each residency will be different and reflect the character<br />of the partner organisation as well as the aspirations of The Art House.<br /><br />The partners range from studio complexes such as Yorkshire Artspace<br />Society in Sheffield, to internationally recognised sites such as<br />Grizedale Arts and Yorkshire Sculpture Park. They include conventional<br />gallery spaces, non-art spaces and public art opportunities, ensuring a<br />wide range of potential projects. The briefs will be very open in many<br />cases, allowing for artists working in a variety of media to respond,<br />and for research and development within the bursary. Most are not<br />commissions but opportunities for artists to extend their practice.<br /><br />Synergy between the residencies will be maximised, as it is important<br />that the scheme operates as a single project rather than as 12 isolated<br />residencies. This will occur through face to face contact and through a<br />dedicated website, which will develop throughout the project. This will<br />include visual and textual documentation of process, work in progress,<br />finished work, critical assessment of the work and issues raised during<br />the project, as well as being a medium for communication through a<br />discussion forum and webchats. There will be a conference / event at the<br />end of the project, which will bring together the artists, partners and<br />other participants in the project, showcasing the work produced and<br />establishing models of good practice for the future. This will be<br />accompanied by a publication.<br /><br />How to apply To be eligible you should preferably be in the first three<br />years of working as a practicing professional artist. This means you<br />should be no more than three years out of full time education, or be no<br />more than three years into returning to a career as an artist after a<br />break, whether this was for reasons of illness, disability, economics,<br />childcare or any other reason. If you are unsure whether you are<br />eligible please contact us before applying.<br /><br />Please only apply for one bursary. You will not be given more than one<br />award during the three years of the project. If you are unsuccessful<br />this year you are free to apply again in future years.<br /><br />You need not necessarily apply for a bursary close to where you live, as<br />there is likely to be support for accommodation near to the partner<br />venues. We would encourage you to apply for the opportunity that most<br />interests you.<br /><br />Please submit the following information:<br /><br />* No more than two sides of A4 describing your current practice /<br />statement. * No more than two sides of A4 describing your approach to<br />the venue you are applying to work at, and a proposal for the project<br />you would like to undertake there. You may include sketches or other<br />visual material as part of your proposal. You should take into account<br />the nature of the venue and its audience, but most importantly you<br />should make a proposal which will significantly extend your artistic<br />practice. You should list equipment and materials you expect to use, and<br />if possible give a rough idea of what these would cost. Get in touch if<br />you want to discuss your proposal before submitting it. * Curriculum<br />Vitae * Samples of work. Ideally one or more of the following : 6 to 12<br />slides or prints and / or catalogue excerpts; CD-ROMs; list of URLs;<br />audio cassette tape or CD; showreel tape in VHS PAL format (no longer<br />than 30 mins). You may submit material in more than one format. Please<br />include a sheet listing any work included by medium, date produced and<br />title. * Copies of any press reviews of your work. * A stamped<br />self-addressed envelope for the return of material. We will only return<br />work accompanied by an SAE. * Please ensure that you submit your<br />application by the application deadline for the bursary you are applying<br />for. Late applications will not be considered.<br /><br />===================================================<br /><br />Bursary Three Folly Gallery, Lancaster<br /><br />Background: Folly promotes photographic, video, digital art and live art<br />from its premises close to the centre of Lancaster. Folly has<br />established itself as an innovative promoter of digital and media arts<br />through its programme of exhibitions and events, and through its<br />website. Further information at www.folly.co.uk<br /><br />The vision for Folly is: to act as a centre for excellence for emergent<br />contemporary arts practice<br /><br />The aims of Folly are to: establish itself as a forum and melting pot to<br />develop dialogue & discourse around the creative use of digital media,<br />thereby raising the profile of contemporary art and artists in the<br />region; become a centre for excellence for research-based practice in<br />photography, film & video, digital media and live art; develop skills<br />and provide progressive experiences for all its participants; ensure<br />that the use of its resources is maximised.<br /><br />Folly is developing new resources to extend its current base of a<br />publicly accessible darkroom, a linear video editing suite, a Linux<br />based media lab and good online access with broad band connection.<br />Current funding plans are in place to additionally provide an Apple Mac<br />based laptop suite.<br /><br />The Bursary: The bursary will place an artist working in installation /<br />new media or other suitable media in residence with a number of local<br />artists to act as a catalyst for a broad range of interventions in non<br />gallery settings. It is anticipated that in addition documentation in<br />progress and discussion activities will take place online. The residency<br />will form part of Folly's ongoing ?edit/copy/paste¹ and ?unencoded¹<br />programme (see www.unencoded.co.uk).<br /><br />To coincide with the project a one-week practical workshop will be based<br />within the gallery, and the commissioned artist will be invited to<br />participate in this workshop event and lead part of it.<br /><br />Location: the artist will be in residence at Folly Gallery and in the<br />homes of artists local to Lancaster.<br /><br />Timescale: the start point for the project will be July 4th / 5th when<br />Folly will be jointly hosting a film and new media festival. Current /<br />previous work by the commissioned artist will be presented as part of a<br />one day forum. The residency will run over a 2-month period from this<br />event.<br /><br />Fee: £4,500 including materials. Support will be available towards<br />expenses and accommodation costs.<br /><br />Application Deadline: Applications must be received by Friday 31 January<br />2003.<br /><br />===================================================<br /><br />Bursary Four<br />Yorkshire Artspace Society, Sheffield<br /><br />Background:<br />Yorkshire ArtSpace exists to support visual artists and craftspeople by<br />offering them affordable studio space, business support services and access<br />to outreach opportunities. Just as importantly they aim to increase public<br />access to the skills of artists and every year they offer a wide range of<br />visual art and craft events and activities. Further information at<br />www.artspace.org.uk .<br /><br />Persistence Works, designed by award winning Feilden Clegg Bradley<br />Architects, is the UK¹s first purpose built fine art and craft studio<br />complex. It provides a permanent new base for Yorkshire ArtSpace with 51<br />studios providing workspace for 68 artists and makers including painters,<br />sculptors, jewellers, furniture makers and ceramicists.<br /><br />The Bursary:<br />The bursary is for an artist working in any medium. The Public Art Space<br />will become the studio of the successful candidate for the duration of the<br />bursary and like all studios at Persistence Works is fully accessible and<br />designed to accommodate the various needs of artists and makers in an<br />atmosphere that offers privacy and security. Access to studios is 24/7.<br />The public art space is 14m x 10m x 5m high so very large. The space would<br />be suitable for a variety of working practices such as: large sculpture or<br />installation, projections or lightworks or any process which takes full<br />advantage of the space available. The studio is north facing, on ground<br />level, has a concrete floor and block work walls, heating, lighting, power<br />points, a sink with hot and cold water and extractor point. As the space is<br />adjacent to the public reception area it is also ideal for showing work and<br />is regularly used for this purpose.<br /><br />Location: The artist will be in residence at Persistence Works, Yorkshire<br />Artspace¹s building in Sheffield.<br /><br />Timescale: The artist will be in residence for approximately six weeks<br />between 14 April and 26 May.<br /><br />Fee: £3500 including materials. Support will be available towards expenses<br />and accommodation costs.<br /><br />Application Deadline: Applications must be received by Friday 31 January<br />2003.<br /> <br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />4.<br /><br />Date: 1.16.03<br />From: Sergei Teterin (teterin@pisem.net)<br />Subject: MACHINISTA 2003 [RU] - additional prizes for VJ's<br /><br />"MACHINISTA 2003" - media art festival in net, organized and coordinated in<br />Perm City, West Ural, Russia. Main subject of the festival is "Artificial<br />Intelligence in Art: Faces of Machinic Ingenuity". The focus is on the new<br />interaction of machinic and human in art and culture.<br /> <br />Categories of accepted works:<br />)· "Machine as the artist's co-author"<br />· "Machine in place of the artist"<br />· "VJ's vs. visualizers"<br /> <br />Accepted are all media art works without genre limitations: video-art, music<br />and sound, vj demos, multimedia installations, net-art and web-art, software<br />art, graphical and 3D experiments etc. Works are accepted on the festival<br />web site and published automatically.<br /> <br /><br />NEW ADDITIONAL PRIZES FOR VJ'S:<br /> <br />1. "ArKaos Interactive Visual Technologies" company (Belgium) will<br />contribute special prizes for authors in the "Vj's vs. visualizers"<br />category: "ArKaos VJ 2.2.1" BOXES and CDs with "ArKaos Visual Art Library",<br />and some "ArKaos" t-shirts [:-)] URL: www.arkaos.net<br />(<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.arkaos.net">http://www.arkaos.net</a>)<br /> <br />2. "Electronica-Optica" is a visual distribution company that produces<br />"VJTV". "VJTV" is a a show featuring interviews, mix sets, and shorts of<br />various VJ and Visual artists around the world. "E-Optica" will be featuring<br />a select portion of the works in "Machinista" to be aired on "VJTV". URLs:<br />www.VJTV.net (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.VJTV.net">http://www.VJTV.net</a>) www.electronica-optica.com<br />(<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.electronica-optica.com">http://www.electronica-optica.com</a>)<br /> <br /><br />All necessary information and submission form can be found on the festival<br />web site: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.machinista.ru/en">http://www.machinista.ru/en</a><br /> <br />Deadline: January 31, 2003.<br />Director: Sergei Teterin (Perm City, Russia) (teterin@pisem.net)<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />5.<br /><br />Date: 1.15.03<br />From: Alexei Shulgin (alexei@easylife.org)<br />Subject: read_me 2.3 software art festival<br /><br />call for submissions - please, distribute<br />____________________________________<br /><br />Read_me 2.3<br /><br />Software Art Festival<br /><br />May 30 - 31, Media Centre Lume, Helsinki, Finland<br /><br />Deadline for entries: March 1<br /><br />More info at: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://m-cult.org/read_me">http://m-cult.org/read_me</a><br />_____________________________________<br /><br />Read_me 2.3 is a festival of software art that explores the territory<br />between art and software culture. Read_me 2.3 draws connections between<br />histories and practices in both software culture and art, and aims at<br />creating an extended context, against which software art may be mapped.<br /><br />Read_me 2.3 is the second edition of Read_me, the first festival<br />dedicated entirely to the phenomena of software art (Read_me 1.2 at:<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.macros-center.ru/read_me">http://www.macros-center.ru/read_me</a> ).<br /><br />Read_me 2.3 continues with the open structure of Read_me: all projects<br />are submitted on-line to a publicly accessible database. However, the<br />second Read_me edition has logically developed this idea further: the<br />simple database / submission form has turned into the software art<br />repository Runme.org (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://runme.org">http://runme.org</a>).<br /><br />All projects, submitted to Runme.org up to the Read_me 2.3 deadline (1<br />of March) will be reviewed by a collective of "experts"<br />(<a rel="nofollow" href="http://m-cult.org/read_me/experts">http://m-cult.org/read_me/experts</a>) and the best ones will be presented<br />on the Read_me 2.3 event.<br /><br />Read_me 2.3 is not a competition in the traditional sense, and it will<br />not have monetary prizes. The festival event on May 30-31 will present,<br />discuss, and celebrate a selection of works singled out and featured<br />without ranking by the Read_me experts collective. Read_me 2.3 will<br />focus on the variety of discrete contexts and will aim at building<br />bridges between them.<br /> _______________________________<br /><br />To submit a project for Read_me 2.3 go to<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://m-cult.org/read_me/submit.php">http://m-cult.org/read_me/submit.php</a> and follow instructions.<br /><br />If you have any questions, please, contact og@dxlab.org and<br />alexei@easylife.org<br /><br />Welcome! <br />________________________________<br /><br />The project is a co-operation between NIFCA, The Nordic Institute for<br />Contemporary Art (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.nifca.org">http://www.nifca.org</a>), Lume (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.lume.fi">http://www.lume.fi</a>), and<br />m-cult (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.m-cult.org">http://www.m-cult.org</a>).<br /><br />Curators: Olga Goriunova, Alexei Shulgin<br />________________________________<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />+ad+<br /><br />See who made the list of all-time greatest digital works in the 10th<br />Anniversary New York Digital Salon issue of LEONARDO, Volume 35, Number<br />5. Curators for the issue include Christiane Paul, Steve Dietz, Benjamin<br />Weil, Joel Chadabe, Lev Manovich, and others. Order your copy @<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/">http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/</a><br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />6.<br /><br />Date: 1.6.03<br />From: Michelle Deignan (mdeignan@variablemedia.info)<br />Subject: Os_anm by Slateford<br /><br />Variablemedia is pleased to announce it's latest project, os_anm by<br />slateford. Started January 3rd 2003 os_anm will be hosted for three<br />months at www.variablemedia.org.<br /><br />Os_anm is a lo-resolution pixel animation tool (programmed in Java). It<br />is partly inspired by the proto-digital media of teletext. The tool<br />combines drawing functions, playback and its own scripting language.<br />Slateford provide the tool, the visitors to variablemedia provide the<br />content. Animations created on os_anm are stored in an online database.<br />New animations can be created, existing ones viewed, added to, or<br />'re-mixed'.<br /><br />Os_anm is open source prototype software. Currently os_anm operates in<br />an online environment. Slateford have decided to use their residency at<br />variablemedia.org to develop a standalone version of the software.<br />Updates to os_anm will be posted to the site. The source code for each<br />update will be freely available, as will the final software when<br />complete. A development kit to help others develop their own variations<br />and additions to the core system will also be made available. Progress<br />in the project development will be reflected in changes to the Java<br />applet on the site. New functionality will be added to this to<br />demonstrate and test developments in the main software. Info on the<br />software development, along with source code downloads and the<br />developer's kit, can be found in the 'development' section of the<br />variablemedia project site.<br /><br />Os_anm is currently suitable for: Mac OS X, Solaris, Linux, or Windows<br />98/NT/2000. Windows XP users will need to upgrade to the latest Service<br />Pack.<br /><br />Slateford are Simon Yuill (Scotland) and Tryggve Askildsen (Norway).<br />They have never met. Their work is produced through online<br />collaboration. It derives from their common love of old-school coding<br />and an interest in exploring its aesthetics through contemporary<br />computer media. All slateford works are black and white. Slateford are<br />supported by Lipparosa. Lipparosa is a code repository for speculative<br />software and theoretical codeworks. It was set up by Simon Yuill in<br />November 2002.<br /><br />" - we are making old-time code - we live in a grey world - we hope for<br />the future but enjoy today - sometimes we do not know why we do what we<br />do - it works for us - we hope it works for you - "<br />slateford, 2002.<br /><br />Variablemedia was created by artists Michelle Deignan and Simon Goodwin<br />as an Internet space for artists to explore place, process and<br />temporality. The www.variablemedia.org site hosts a continuing series<br />of artists' "site specific" web projects. Artists occupy the site's<br />space for a period of between one and three months. This space is<br />available for them to change, update and add to during their project's<br />run.<br /><br />New Media Scotland are currently hosting another slateford project<br />called 'greylines 00-06', a series of interactive code-doodles exploring<br />simple graphical ideas. The project is presented as part of New Media<br />Scotland's HOST commissions and launched on 15th December 2002.<br /><br />_______________________<br /><br />Links:<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.variablemedia.org">http://www.variablemedia.org</a><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.variablemedia.info">http://www.variablemedia.info</a><br /><br />'greylines 00-06' at New Media Scotland: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://host.mediascot.org">http://host.mediascot.org</a><br />Lipparosa: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.lipparosa.org">http://www.lipparosa.org</a><br />slateford web-site: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.slateford.org">http://www.slateford.org</a><br /><br />For further Information please contact: info@variablemedia.info<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />7.<br /><br />Date: 12.30.02<br />From: Tilman Baumgaertel (tilman_baumgaertel@csi.com)<br />Subject: Interview with Amy Alexander<br /><br />Ultimatively, everything becomes video games<br /><br />Interview with Amy Alexander / By Tilman Baumgärtel<br /><br />Colorful letters crawl across the screen like insects or fly like birds.<br />American net artist Amy Alexander directs the swarms of words from the<br />internet with a remote control and her mighty Mattel Power glove during<br />her performance piece ?B0timati0n? (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videopolis.botimation.org/">http://videopolis.botimation.org/</a>). In<br />?B0timati0n?, Cut Up writing meets Oskar Fischinger, Konkrete Poesie is<br />cross breeded with a psychedelic light show, and all that is turned into a<br />VJ set. After a performance of the piece in Berlin at Raum3, I talked with<br />Alexander about "B0timati0n" and her previous works.<br /><br />?: You did a performance last night here in Berlin. Can you describe<br />"B0timati0n"?<br /><br />Amy Alexander: "B0timati0n" is a performance search engine. I am<br />UeberGeek, the internet VJ. I have a program that is really a front-end to<br />a commercial search engine. I type in search terms, and it grabs search<br />results through the search engine, which than animate in psychedelic<br />colors. As UeberGeek I sort of conduct this thing, waving my arm. I have a<br />lot of geek toys, like my Mattel Power Glove, a remote control and an air<br />mouse.<br /><br />?: It almost looks like a light show. Have you performed at clubs and<br />discos with it?<br /><br />Alexander: So far I have mostly done it at media arts festivals, but I<br />want to bring it more into public places. The most public places I have<br />performed in so far were storefronts in Munich and Los Angeles. Those were<br />good spots, because people were just passing by on the street, and they<br />didn't know what was coming up, and all of a sudden there is this weird<br />performance in their face.<br /><br />?: The performance looked very slick and could be dismissed as eye candy?<br />Are you trying to make a point that goes beyond a good looking VJ-type of<br />show?<br /><br />Alexander: Yes, you have to be careful - you never know what someone will<br />sneak into eye candy nowadays! "B0timati0n" is about the juxtaposition<br />between geek culture and pop culture. The stereotypical geek is really<br />obsessed with computers, is not very interested in the rest of the world<br />and doesn't have very good social skills - a geek used to be this cliché,<br />nobody wanted to be thought of this way. But that has changed: programmers<br />started making a lot of money, and all of a sudden they had this cult<br />status. They started to appear in popular culture, with websites like<br />"Slashdot" and so on. So suddenly it became cool to be a programmer. Of<br />course, that was initially money-induced, during the dot com boom…<br /><br />Even pop culture and leisure have become really geeky. Rock'n'roll used to<br />be about electric guitars and smashing things. Now the coolest things are<br />laptop techno (which is typing) and DJ-ing (which is turning knobs). The<br />tools of toil have become the tools of leisure. In the States, people are<br />going to coffee houses with their laptops, and they "relax", while doing<br />work on their computer. There are also gaming rooms, that are replacing<br />the arcades, where you see teenage boys playing computer games. But they<br />are sitting in this office furniture, typing away. Somehow, this<br />commercial, technical culture has made leisure culture really boring.<br />B0timati0n is the answer to the tedium of DJ-ing! (laughs)<br /><br />?: Are you geek yourself?<br /><br />Alexander: It is hard to say. I guess in real life, I'm a backwards geek,<br />because I actually started out making music and then film and realtime<br />video art and hating computers. But then I ended up programming my digital<br />media projects. I got very tired of programming, and I felt like a geek. I<br />was working on these art projects, but there was a lot of tedium.<br />Programming, even on art projects gets tedious - well a lot of ways of<br />working on and experiencing - digital art get tedious and geeky - at least<br />for somebody hyperactive like me who is used to doing things more<br />kinetically. So, I started looking for ways to combat that - or at least<br />tweak it!<br /><br />?: To me it also seemed like the performance was also an attempt to<br />dramatize the mundane interface of the computer?<br /><br />Alexander: Yeah, I am trying to dramatize, tongue-in-cheek. There is this<br />interface level, but there is also the content level. People used to watch<br />movies in cinemas on these large-scale screens, and now they are sitting<br />in front of their computer, watching little Quicktime-Movies and DVDs on<br />the laptop screen. The web is supposed to be so cool and programming is<br />supposed to be so cool, but the content is all mostly about commercial<br />content and commercial culture, of course. But it's the juxtaposition of<br />the two that I think creates the web's aesthetic. The crux of "B0timati0n"<br />is typing in these search terms, abstract concepts like "Love" and<br />"Safety" or sometimes more political things, like "War Games"… and what<br />comes back, in some authoritative way, are these commercial, "webified"<br />definitions of these terms. Watching how the individual searchterms come<br />back is important though, not just, OK, here's some arbitrary commercial<br />trash appropriated into something. These terms are being redefined.<br /><br />?: One of the search results that appears most frequently are things like<br />"Copyright by"?<br /><br />Alexander: Yeah. And a lot of the content we have on the web is just<br />things like: "You're browser doesn't support frames." And a lot of what<br />comes up are people trying to sell you some web-based service. The web<br />tends to be very self-reflexive. I am very interested in search engines,<br />because they are this universal, worldwide meta mass medium. It becomes a<br />very big propaganda tool. The way they are structured tends to be very<br />incestuous, despite what you read about the democracy of Google's page<br />ranking system. Companies that own a lot of domains can link all their<br />domains together, and so they come up very high in the ranking. So if<br />somebody looks for something, this corporate version of the answer to his<br />question is what comes up the highest, and individuals are ten pages out.<br /><br />So it is quite interesting to me to use search engine results as material<br />for this performance. This is supposed to be cool culture, but what comes<br />back is a lot of trash. I have it animated, it looks like video games, so<br />there is this friction between what I - as UeberGeek - want to be cool and<br />the reality of the content. And the same thing happens with my geek toys.<br />They are very physical, but ultimately I am waving around a mouse and<br />controlling onscreen this horrible web texts that says: "Looking for love?<br />Try the love calculator!"<br /><br />?: Is there also the idea to make data accessible again in a sensual<br />fashion, to enter into the data space?<br /><br />Alexander: It is about the attempt to enter into the data world or have<br />data enter our world. Of course, this is a ricidulous proposition. As<br />UeberGeek, I continue to try, because this is the epitomy of cool for me<br />or her. Sometimes people ask if it's a reference to Stelarc. In some ways<br />it is. It is about the obsolescence of Stelarc. (laughs)<br /><br />?: There is a obvious connection between the way you use text in your<br />performance and the Cut-Up-technique of people like William Burroughs. I<br />sometimes think that this kind of high art concept from 20. century<br />avantgarde movements have turned into pop culture by computers. A high art<br />concept like "cut up" can become material for a psychedelic light show<br />like "B0timatiOn".<br /><br />Alexander: Yep, I guess it's true that everything becomes pop<br />culture.Ultimatively, everything becomes a video game, is another way to<br />look at this. All these pop culture elements are homogenizing, like the<br />Web homogenizes everything. In some of the remixes I am doing, I mix songs<br />from the 80's with sounds from video game themes. When I put in search<br />terms, I use words from the songs or games that often also have meaning in<br />another context. "Doom" is a real word, but most of the responses to a<br />search queries of the word "Doom" don't have anything to do with the real<br />meaning of "doom", but rather with the game "Doom". Thanks to search<br />engines, the meaning of every word gets changed into a Web-Culture-ified<br />or Game-ified redefinition.<br /><br />?: You only use text, but technically it would also be possible to use<br />images. Why do you rely on text exclusively?<br /><br />Alexander: That is something I thought about a lot. Not that I would never<br />use images, but I don't want to use them for the sake of being visual. For<br />now it is going to stay only text, because it is the ultimate reduction of<br />the content. And also it is also the best representation of nerdiness and<br />dryness. Low tech is the ultimate high tech, text is the ultimate cool<br />technology. When I was a kid, the adults used to criticize the kids,<br />because kids wouldn't read and would watch TV all the time. Now the new<br />pop culture is reading on the internet. Everything is text: the web,<br />instant messaging, SMS. But still the adults complain about the kids -<br />these text-based technologies are going to turn your brain to mush!<br /><br />?: The name of your website is plagiarist.org and a lot of your work is<br />about the issue of intellectual property.<br /><br />Alexander: The idea of intellectual property in the digital age is that of<br />course when you are stealing you don't take anything away. That is one of<br />the tenets of Open Source. If you steal a car from someone, this person<br />doesn't have the car anymore. If you steal a website, they still have the<br />property and you have a copy too. My attitude with plagiarist.org is that<br />it is a moot point.. At some point appropriation was a big deal in the<br />arts, but now that has become just a part of the fabric. You either<br />appropriate or you don't, it is just something that it is there. If I am<br />stealing from anyone, I am stealing from the search engines, because they<br />already stole it from the original authors. One has to look at it that<br />way. My point is that it's ridiculous to worry about these issues.<br /><br />?: In fact most of your work wouldn't possible without other people's<br />data.<br /><br />Alexander: Yes, but it is ironic, not for shock value. "Plagiarist" on the<br />plagiarist website is this imaginary character, always stealing from<br />others and hoping to get away with it. In 1999, when there was a lot of<br />hoopla around the zero one group stealing other people's site, Plagiarist<br />decided that it would be a good chance for a plagiarist to get into the<br />act. Plagiarist felt this duty to settle the whole damned thing by<br />stealing the whole zero one site and then announcing it to the net art<br />scene as a Christmas gift. We wondered: would they steal it back, and in<br />fact they did. What was interesting and funny and sad all at the same time<br />was that this was a prank about how self-reflexive things have become in<br />the net art community. I wondered would this get a disproportionate amount<br />of attention, and in fact it really did. That was really sad. (laughs)<br /><br />?: Do you think that this would change, if the community would open up<br />more to the general public? That there should be more museum shows with<br />net and software art?<br /><br />Alexander: I don't think that's really it. The art world still wants<br />something that they can put into a gallery and exhibit, and not something<br />that is just on the net. When the "Multi-Cultural Recycler" was in gallery<br />shows, people would say: 'Can you make a custom version of the<br />"Multi-Cultural Recycler" that the rest of the world can't post to?' And<br />of course this was just the point that everybody could participate. There<br />were a lot of shows that wanted to print out the images and hang them on<br />the wall. And the funny thing about these images is that they are really<br />nothing. The user just clicks on some buttons, and it is ridiculous to<br />hang them on the wall. It would be the equivalent of a sound bite.<br /><br />I also know some art gallery people, and they find it difficult to present<br />the pieces technically. Net art is a strange animal for art museums. Some<br />net artists are very much against art museums. I am not, because as much<br />as I am interested in the net as public space, I also think that art<br />museums are public space I wouldn't want to exhibit just in an art museum,<br />but if a gallery asks to show my work, I usually let them, because there<br />is some segment of the population that is going to the art museum, that<br />won't see it on the net.<br /><br />As far as net art is concerned the problem is not how accepted it is in<br />the art world, because I think it is not such a big deal. To me it is more<br />important to be accessible to the public. Net art has this big advantage<br />of automatically exhibiting in a public space. There are a lot of artists<br />who are working heavily in that area, to make it publicly available, so<br />that the general public can see it, and it doesn't become just an art<br />piece and it is not just about staring into its own belly button.<br />Obviously the work that is about net art has a little tougher time in that<br />area. It doesn't mean that it shouldn't exist. I did things like the<br />"Interview yourself" project, that are just net art community projects. I<br />wouldn't want to do fifty of them, but I think it is OK to do some things<br />that just relate to this community.<br /><br />?: You considered to be a public space for the presentation of art, but<br />unlike in the early days of the net, there is now so much stuff on the net<br />that it is so much harder to find these projects. How do you deal with<br />this fact?<br /><br />Alexander: That still happens, projects appear in "Slashdot" and so on. Of<br />course, it is much harder, but then again there is a proportionally much<br />larger number of people looking at the projects, too. For example, I get a<br />lot more hits from search engines now than I used to, because people are<br />looking up things like "plagiarist" or "bot" or "geek". I look in my log<br />and I see what strange links people are coming from. And they are rarely<br />looking for net art, but more often for intellectual property thieves! So<br />actually it should be easier to reach people. Often people can use the<br />strategies that big corporations do to increase their rankings in the<br />search engines, and that can be desirable - depending on the situation.<br /><br />?: There used to be these buttons inside the Netscape browser "What's<br />hot?" and "What's new?" that presented links to interesting and weird<br />sites. I would think that things like the "Multi-cultural recycler" got a<br />lot of exposure over these channels.<br /><br />Alexander: Yeah, that was in a lot of "What's hot", "What's new" lists,<br />Yahoo, etcetera. I had a couple of hits like that with other projects. I<br />mean it's fleeting, it is fifteen minutes fame for sure, and you disappear<br />after that. But it is useful.<br /><br />?: Then there is your project "Netsong", which is a very interesting<br />interface between internet data and browser. Tell me about it?<br /><br />Alexander: ?Netsong? sings the web. It is the second in a series of<br />projects that use software bots. The first one was "The bot (One investing<br />the horse)". Bots are the software used by search engines to create their<br />indexes. They are also called spiders, and these programs are used by<br />search engines like Altaviasta, Google, all of them. They crawl around on<br />the web, they follow links from page to page and they gather all this<br />data, and that becomes the searchable index. So if you look for a search<br />word, you type in "dog", and the results for dog come back. But you never<br />see any of this underlying stuff - the links the bot followed to get<br />there.<br /><br />Sometimes artists have become interested in visualizing these process, and<br />not just artists, but all kinds of web geeks. They make these graphical<br />projects with diagrams of web spider links, which I think is interesting,<br />but ultimately this comes down to data visualization - you can only see<br />the data in an abstract and aggregate way. I am rather interested in<br />anti-data visualization. I am interested in making it<br />hyper-representational, looking very closely at the content. This happens<br />in "B0tmati0n" of course, where there is this over-highlighting of web<br />text, but also in some of the other projects.<br /><br />In theBot and Netsong, I took up the stereotypical temptation to<br />anthropomorphize software. I have the bot being this creature that runs<br />around in the net and is really very excited to read all this text, and<br />that's why it reads it so enthusiastically. I layered speech synthesis, so<br />it reads web text sort of like some strange beat poetry, even though there<br />is this underlying boredom to it, too, as with most speech synthesis. And<br />there is this weird cadence while reading the URLs: http:// whatever dot<br />com. The bot is sort of ritualistic. It sort of creates this narrative. If<br />the web has a story, this is it. And the only person that gets to read<br />this story, is the bot - this spider.<br /><br />In the second project, I collaborated with Peter Traub, who is a composer,<br />net artist and programmer. We decided that the bot would be now be<br />inspired to start singing. It works like a radio program - different<br />people can tune in to one another's "requests". And the music is complete<br />with lyric sheets in case you can't understand what it is singing.<br /><br />?: These bots feel so helpless, you almost feel sorry for them.<br /><br />Alexander: Yes, you can't help but feeling sorry for him. But he claims he<br />has a good time. In fact he must have a good time, because he has stamina<br />for this endlessly.<br /><br />?: It seems that you use a lot of characters in your work, like<br />"UeberGeek", "Plagiarist", "The Bot".<br /><br />Alexander: I'd love to say that this is a brilliant strategy I came up<br />with, but in reality I just do this. Maybe it has to do with the tendency<br />to anthropomorphize computers. I need to psychoanalyse myself at some<br />point to find out why I do that. But I do seem to do it a lot. (laughs)<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />+ad+<br /><br />Mute, issue 25, is out this week. Conceptually and volumetrically<br />expanded, (involves more cartographic & artists' projects & has doubled<br />the pages), this new bi-annual volume is phat. Articles on: WarChalking,<br />the Artists' Placement Group and Ambient Culture and more.<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.metamute.com">http://www.metamute.com</a><br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />8.<br /><br />Date: 1.15.03<br />From: ryan griffis (grifray@yahoo.com)<br />Subject: a (contextual) review of xurban\\\'s Knit++<br /><br />A short collection of thoughts collected with the help of xurban<br />collective's _Knit++_ <a rel="nofollow" href="http://turbulence.org/Works/Knit%2B%2B/index.htm">http://turbulence.org/Works/Knit%2B%2B/index.htm</a><br /><br />The textile industry is where capitalism began; it was the industry the<br />brought the industrial revolution from England to America - and it is<br />the means by which capitalism is gradually conquering such places as<br />Pakistan, to the eternal regrets of Luddites like Bin Laden. Lewis,<br />Mark, _From Lowell to Islamabad, Via Greensboro_ forbes.com<br /><br />Equipped with networks and arguments, backed up by decades of research,<br />a hybrid movement - wrongly labeled by the mainstream media as<br />_anti-globalisation_ - gained momentum. One of the particular features<br />of this movement lies in its apparent inability and unwillingness to<br />answer the question that is typical of any kind of movement on the rise<br />or any generation on the move: what's to be done? Lovink and Schneider,<br />_A Virtual World is Possible_ (posted to n5m4.org)<br /><br />After recently connecting to the xurban collective's online portion of<br />_Knit++_ a few relationships between _global_ social/protest movements<br />and the rise of networked art and culture presented themselves as<br />interesting for discussion. Or at least i imagined these connections<br />within the context of other projects and discussions on _New Media_ ,<br />tactical media, US aggression, and cyberfeminist practice. Not that any<br />of this would be new, or form a consolidated theory, but - maybe<br />suffering from the inability to answer _the question_ as Lovink and<br />Schneider argue of new social movements - the asking of questions can be<br />as serious a project as answering them, even if those questions may seem<br />redundant.<br /><br />_Knit++_ presents an interface that allows visitors to navigate through<br />narrative, pictorial, and animated information that, when seen in the<br />context of the project, makes connections between textiles, computer and<br />social networks, and institutional power. While the composition of the<br />interface is fairly familiar, with a screen-like field for changing<br />information above a control panel of sorts, the conceptual links created<br />are not. The control panel symbolically replicates the groups<br />proposition of _entanglement as opposed to intertwining_ (artists'<br />statement), which is what occurs conceptually when one moves through the<br />project's space. Various projects incorporating sewing, issues of<br />women's work, and global locality can be moved through by selecting from<br />the tangled map of virtual locations in the control panel.<br /><br />Drawing connections between textile production and the WWW, especially<br />in terms of work, has been explored in other projects, most recently<br />Helen Whitehead's _Web, Warp, and Weft_ (<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/www/webwarpweft/">http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/www/webwarpweft/</a> ). As has the Neo/Luddite<br />connection, though perhaps, not always adequately. The original textile<br />worker Luddites of 19th Century England fought to destroy the machines<br />that were replacing them, not just out of fear of the machines, but<br />because they knew (at this early stage of industrialism) that the<br />machinery was the evolving capital class's method for dealing with the<br />problem of labor. Looking at the questions and attempts at solutions<br />raised by _Knit++_ through the historical and contemporary rhetoric that<br />forms the narratives of the Neo/Luddite movement can be useful and<br />interesting for those interested/involved in continuing social movements<br />and networked communication. (see also Slacker Luddites from Electronic<br />Civil Disobedience by Critical Art Ensemble <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.critical-art.net">http://www.critical-art.net</a><br />for another reading of the significance of Luddism)<br /><br />The work of the xurban collective takes, what many would call an<br />oppositional position toward the global expansion of capital and state<br />sponsored culture: _Civil society should be constructed outside the<br />State and the Capitalist sponsors network. Non-profit organizations are<br />traps._<br /><br />Statements like this would place xurbanites into a new catagory of<br />Luddite for many technocrats and economists that represent libertarian<br />interests like Forbes or other, authoritarian yearnings (<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.pantos.org/atw/perspectives/0301.html">http://www.pantos.org/atw/perspectives/0301.html</a> ). Many such<br />technocratic pundits find it ironic that groups of people (like the<br />Carbon Defense League <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.hactivist.com">http://www.hactivist.com</a> ) are using high tech to<br />fight so-called _progress_. But there is also irony in the rhetorical<br />use of _Luddite_ to describe someone like Bin Laden, someone who has<br />profited from modernization and construction and whose terrorist<br />organization isn?t exactly an international labor movement. Of course, I<br />feel ridiculous even having Al Queda and arts/activist groups like the<br />CDL and xurban in the same paragraph, for obvious reasons, but, after<br />looking at US Congressional hearings on _cyber protests_ and DDoS<br />attacks, I'm not sure the authorities would feel the same (<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/dag0229.htm">http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/dag0229.htm</a> ). Terrorism and<br />attempts to form networks that operate in opposition to undemocratic<br />institutions are apparently the same, and it doesn't matter if the virus<br />is of the biological or computer variety. The line between email from<br />Electronic Disturbance Theater participants and envelope bombs from the<br />Unabomber is a fine one according to the US Congress and its business<br />leaders, who seem to want to draft another Frame Breaking Act-like law<br />governing digital information (where the DMCA doesn?t).<br /><br />But all this throwing around of loaded historical terms like _Luddite_<br />seems to fit nicely into the, by now well-worn, discourse of _the<br />Other_, allowing us to easily create shells of identity based on<br />irrational fear and aggressive desire. While most discussion of _the<br />Other_ (academic or not) has focused on gender, ethnicity, and race, the<br />model is equally useful when looking at contemporary incidents that have<br />a history in the ongoing treatment of labor in the West in general.<br /><br />But this nice fit is not so comfortable. As modern Western/Northern<br />capital is more globally expansive than ever, the models for personal<br />and labor relations seem to be homogenizing, so _the Other_ is adapting<br />to the needs of capital. Race and ethnicity become problematic as<br />locations of fear and anxiety in a global economy ruled by capital, but<br />class - and many argue gender ? is multicultural as far as economics is<br />concerned. At least it could seem multicultural by masking lingering<br />racial/ethnic fear ? since overt class oppression is apparently<br />acceptable (in the US anyway) while other forms aren?t. The rhetorical<br />power of terms and concepts like _Luddite_ to simplify both history and<br />the present is not easily dismissed. Such concepts may become the mask<br />for older fears that will allow for the popular repression of future<br />resistance to domination by capital, especially in a so-called global<br />setting.<br /><br />While _Knit++_ appears to primarily function as an interactive, if<br />fairly static and by now conventional, artwork, one can also view it as<br />a document and solicitation for something else. It's obvious, as one<br />goes through the project that you're only getting a remnant of what's<br />going on - and I don't just mean the coinciding physical installation,<br />though that's a part too. Visualizing relationships, like that between<br />the struggles of women, labor, and geography can be a tool that helps us<br />allow for difference while forming working networks. -ryan griffis<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />9.<br /><br />Date: 1.6.03<br />From: Brett Stalbaum (beestal@cadre.sjsu.edu)<br />Subject: Database Logic(s) and Landscape Art [3/5]<br /><br />Database Logic(s) and Landscape Art<br />Brett Stalbaum, C5 corporation<br /><br />Mountainous: Semiotics, and the precession of semantic models [3/5]<br /><br />To explore the issues of virtuality in a cultural context, I observe first<br />that the semiotic context culturally (for artists) is one in which the<br />precession of models is related to a supposed semiotic reversal of<br />syntamatic axis and paradigmatic axis within the more general cultural<br />logic of database. Roland Barthes (generation 68) demonstrated that symbol<br />systems are capable of taking on additional layers of meaning as systems<br />of connotation (paradigm) emerge on top of systems of denotation<br />(syntagm). [20] Lev Manovich (generation 89) demonstrates that one of the<br />cultural implications of database is that paradigm (model) becomes<br />increasingly visible in relation to syntagm, speculating its eventual<br />replacement as the explicit axis. [21] The model (name, address, phone,<br />email) moves to the foreground, while the story of the population of the<br />database (first sale, 7 billionth customer served), becomes less visible.<br />I say that this is the "context culturally" because this axis (in various<br />positions) has been apparent as an aesthetic issue since the early 20th<br />century. For example, consider the classic Hollywood style of narrative<br />film editing (tending toward emphasis of the syntagmatic axis) versus the<br />paradigmatic montage techniques of Vertov and Eisenstein in early 20th<br />century cinema. I will raise questions about this bi-axial cultural model<br />soon enough, but for the present time we need it to chase out those<br />questions.<br /><br />This axial semiotic context and its supposed historical shift toward<br />paradigm are historically simultaneous with the precession of the model<br />through active digital sign systems. [22] The virtual is not a result of<br />computation, but rather the virtual was discovered during a two century<br />period when the resources making computation and model based exploration<br />possible were developed, including many mathematical discoveries. The<br />virtual (call it what you will: attractors, abstract machines) was<br />discovered using these resources, rather than being created by them. It<br />would be extremely difficult to argue against the notion that the late<br />axial shift noted by Manovich (somewhat simultaneously with the<br />postmodern), is not related to computerization and informatics;<br />particularly the emergence of database starting in the 1960's. And<br />Baudrillard, for his part, makes it quite plain that "the real is produced<br />from miniaturized units, from matrices, memory banks and command models"<br />[23] in his discussion of precession. Hence the axial shift observed in<br />semiotics is very likely bound to precession in some way through<br />information systems and the discovery of the virtual. How might we tie<br />these phenomena together?<br /><br />A preliminary view is that the precession of models is in fact an<br />intermediary between the technical logics of database and its expression<br />culturally. For example, the design of a relational database management<br />system starts with semantic techniques such as entity relationship<br />modeling (ERM) in order to build a bridge between the cultural world of<br />the problem (Customer, Invoice, Order, Part number), and the technical<br />organization and type of data (such as tables in a RDBMS). Still, the<br />matter of how precession mediates between the interfacial cultural logic<br />of database and data as technical form is complicated by the embeddedness<br />of precession in a context where it can be manifest, simultaneously, as<br />both a cultural mediator, and within the technical logic of database. Thus<br />it seems that in order to escape a bad patch of tautological quicksand,<br />(precession mediates between technical form and database culture because<br />technical form is also precession which mediates database culture), we<br />need to distinguish between the analytic mechanics of precession, (where<br />Delanda's reading of Deleuze might be of help to us), and precession as<br />evaluative cultural analysis. To some degree, this describes the split<br />between science and the postmodern, and the analytic tradition and the<br />continental tradition in philosophy.<br /><br />Artist/programmer Carmin Karasic gives a brilliant example of evaluative<br />cultural analysis when she observes that the long financial recession in<br />the United States in the early 21st century was preceded by a decline in<br />the stock market, rather than the decline in the stock market being<br />preceded by the beginning of a recession. [24] In this, we see a situation<br />where the complex, distributed, abstraction [25] that we refer to as<br />capital markets leads the rest of the economy in the dance; inflecting<br />other aspects of economic activity such as labor, production and consumer<br />confidence more so than reflecting them. Indeed, a casual look at the<br />general data seems very much to support the thesis. This is the profound<br />influence of the virtual (in this case, more in the Baudrillardian sense<br />than the Deleuzian), over the actual (such as jobs.) Many view this type<br />of analysis as representative of the triumph of precession, which as we<br />have seen is bound in some way to the foregrounding of the paradigmatic<br />axis in aesthetics. However, working with this largely metaphorical notion<br />of precession, as is the tradition of Baudrillard, seems inappropriate for<br />the kind of landscape as database practice C5 is interested in<br />specifically because it is largely metaphorical. Thus it is as amicable to<br />irony and other distractions of postmodernity (such as Baudrillard's<br />delightful discussions of Disneyland), as it is to insightful observations<br />such as Karasic's. It is hard to get a hook into the actual mechanics of<br />economic history through such evaluative cultural analysis. Certainly, the<br />provocation of the example would leave economists of different<br />intellectual persuasions arguing on both sides of the proposition.<br /><br />The notion of precession for our purposes as database/landscape artists is<br />more usefully defined in a narrow technical manner, if mostly for tactical<br />reasons. Under this view, data and informatics inflect a powerful<br />influence over what happens because technical models are precession.<br />Precession is technical form that mediates culture through database<br />because we can relate data to everything actual; and "everything is<br />everything that happens". [26] For better or worse, this suspends the<br />matter of cultural analysis, (and a lot of problems with metaphor),<br />postponing precessive cultural analysis at least until we have a clearer<br />picture of actual dynamics. Another tactical reason to work with technical<br />models is that it is to the degree that any speculated shift toward<br />paradigm is expressed in a technical basis of data in database logic that<br />there is some space for computer artists to work as computer artists. The<br />models (manifolds, vector fields and phase portraits) we discuss in the<br />context of these tactics are (at least initially) [27] semantically<br />stable, thus we might name the basis of the cultural shift more<br />specifically: the precession of semantic models, which allow for<br />calculable processes of deduction to perform algorithmic prediction based<br />on attractors. We view this as an enhancement to the use of connotative<br />traits such as qualities of character, which were formerly the basis of<br />prediction and decision-making, in both the arts and in the political<br />aspect of the landscape.<br /><br />In a fine example of the latter, explorer, poet and the 1856 United States<br />presidential candidate John C. Fremont [28] explained, "We encamped on the<br />shore, opposite a very remarkable rock in the lake, which had attracted<br />our attention for many miles… This striking feature suggested a name for<br />the lake, and I called it Pyramid Lake." [29] Today, decisions regarding<br />'where' are made very differently due to the precessive shift: place is<br />evaluated through technical qualities derived from data, because romantic<br />aesthetic analysis of character (such as "remarkable"), can not answer<br />many of the most important questions we have about the landscape today.<br />[30] Rather, the task for artists today is to explore why examples of the<br />sublime [31] are sublime [32] by modeling them and revealing more of their<br />complexity in relation to other systems. This is in addition to examining<br />the prowess of our human aesthetic sensibilities [33], which is still<br />interesting; there is no good reason to jettison the sublime just because<br />it is romantic. Rather, the goal is to understand the sublime as a likely<br />indicator of (or pointer to) the presence of attractor(s) which can<br />ultimately be modeled. Humans are significantly superior to computers in<br />regards to inferencing; possessing profound abilities of induction as<br />compared to the computer's profound ability of deduction. Our tact<br />involves utilizing the participation of people and extremely large sets of<br />data to enhance and even replace what was once the seemingly boundless<br />landscape of the 19th century, a landscape which has become suddenly<br />smaller in the 21st century , with a boundlessness of data relations to<br />explore.<br /><br />The precession of semantic models extends even to naming of place, for<br />example, the UTM [35] system allows the naming of every square meter on<br />the surface of the Earth in terms that emphasize not characterization but<br />calculability. Thus we might infer once again that it is the calculable,<br />mineable, predictable relations of data that function as the primary<br />aspects of data that drive the real. Data and their semantics tend to<br />guide the way they are used, almost as cultural reflex. Are artists bound<br />to work through semantic models in a way dictated by the purposes for<br />which data is collected, such as "economic, rainfall and surveillance?"<br />Are the strategies of contemporary data processing (data processed into<br />information begets knowledge) the artistic Zeitgeist of our time, in much<br />the same manner that the writings of Edmund Burke [36] influenced the 19th<br />century romantic style in the landscape arts during that previous era?<br /><br />[image: 11 286471E 4428277N]<br />(<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.c5corp.com/raw_images/pyr.jpg">http://www.c5corp.com/raw_images/pyr.jpg</a>)<br /><br />The seeming victory of precession and the axial shift toward the<br />paradigmatic in the regime of active cultural processes may not be as<br />complete as the tradition of postmodern aesthetics leads one to believe,<br />because postmodernist thought may in fact be guilty of excessive focus on<br />emerging cultural conditions as these make the sometimes slow transition<br />between novelty and ubiquity. Blinded by novelty in a few dimensions, our<br />observations of the manifold constituting our contemporary semiotic<br />network culture may be lacking important vectors. The semiotic axis may be<br />but two dynamic dimensions/descriptors of a larger semiotic multiplicity.<br />A manifold of undiscovered vectors needing semantic description in order<br />to approach a complete semiotic model may be required to explain our<br />cultural conditions. Such inquiry might explain how dominantly syntagmatic<br />systems co-exist and interact beside dominantly paradigmatic systems.<br />Through this, it might be possible to explain or predict the instability<br />of the polar axis.<br /><br />These propositions can not quite be demonstrated yet, but there are<br />certainly ample indications hinting that contemporary cultural conditions<br />do not exactly snap to the axial grid. For example, technologically<br />progressive cultural assumptions embedded as secondary meanings on top of<br />primary denotative scientific data can be viewed under the former semiotic<br />regime of the syntagm, while the use of a database and data mining to<br />unearth relations amidst large datasets can be viewed under that of a<br />paradigmatic order through model based processing. Thus there is at least<br />the appearance of quite possibly interoperable systems actively<br />functioning in the midst of different semiotic regimes. An even bigger<br />question mark can be planted in the Earth regarding subject-less<br />informatic relations. Such relations, if they exist, of course remain<br />completely uncertain relative to any axial analysis, because this semiotic<br />context is after all subject-oriented to begin with. We can assume, and<br />probably must assume, that precession plays a role here, but again,<br />uncertainty abounds.<br /><br />These are unresolved questions best addressed in practice. This<br />preliminary survey of the issues is the only map we have right now. Even<br />though the shape of the coastline may be a little warped, and even though<br />we know only a little about the terrain to be discovered inland, we can<br />say that we are confident about the general shape of the problems that<br />face artists working with database and landscape. It is time to let the<br />unexpected modify, fill in, even transform that understanding in practice.<br />It is a common safety practice to leave a note, or let some friends know,<br />where you are going (in case you do not come back). The rest of this essay<br />discusses where we are planning to venture.<br /><br />[next installment: Multiplicity of the local: Applications of database<br />logic in the landscape]<br /><br />[20] Barthes, Roland, The Rhetoric of the Image, Image/Music/Text,<br />translated by Steven Heath, The Nooday Press, 1977<br />[21] Manovich, Lev, Database as Symbolic Form, 1998,<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www-apparitions.ucsd.edu/~manovich/docs/database.rtf">http://www-apparitions.ucsd.edu/~manovich/docs/database.rtf</a>,<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.manovich.net/docs/database.rtf">http://www.manovich.net/docs/database.rtf</a><br />[22] This is especially digestible if we recognize that Georges Boole,<br />Charles Babbage and Lady Ada Augusta Lovelace were all 19th century<br />figures; that Alan Turing, Grace Hopper, and Vannevar Bush are<br />contemporaries of the early and middle 20th; and E.F. Codd a figure of the<br />late 20th century and early 21st century. The simultaneity of romanticism,<br />modernism and the beginnings of postmodernism is noted.<br />[23] Baudrillard, Jean Simulacra and Simulations Stanford University<br />Press, ed Mark Poster 1988, page 167<br />[24] Paraphrased from a personal conversation, with permission.<br />[25] Abstract by definition, given that money is an abstraction of market<br />value.<br />[26] Ibid. Slayton and Wittig<br />[27] Such models are often utilized to demonstrate or predict bifurcations<br />of the system, or critical singularities under which the systems behavior<br />takes on new forms, including new vectors requiring observation and new<br />semantics.<br />[28] <a rel="nofollow" href="http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/jan31.html">http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/jan31.html</a><br />[29] Ibid.<br />[30] For example, the insurance industry would never allow a housing<br />development to be built on an intermittent flood plane, which would be<br />predicted of course by computer models in a GIS system. That is, unless a<br />short, inexpensive dyke is easy to build and does not impinge on water<br />flow into other areas. In other words, topological and geological data<br />again make the decision, even if the homes to be built there would be<br />aesthetically pleasing, or "remarkable".<br />[31] I am aware that Kant's notion of the sublime involves the idea that<br />the amount of information available to the senses can not be processed,<br />and that the human ability to inference intuitively under these<br />circumstances (and the related feeling), define sublimity. But there is no<br />reason not to suspect that virtuality will not progressively impinge on<br />sublime, specifically because the virtual has enhanced our ability<br />(cybernetically) to model and posses cognitively insights into complex<br />systems. It is likely that the sublime will be constantly forced to<br />retreat into beauty, but new sublimity revealed, as we ascend a thousand<br />plateaus, so to speak.<br />[32] This is the specific area of inquiry for C5's "The Perfect View"<br />project. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.c5corp.com/projects/perfectview/index.shtml">http://www.c5corp.com/projects/perfectview/index.shtml</a><br />[33] The notion that the ability to use human aesthetic reasoning to<br />problem solve under circumstances of sublimity is in no way defunct.<br />[34] For example, it has often been said in the post 9/11/2K1 period that<br />the oceans no longer protect the United States. We could also refer to the<br />ongoing cultural debate over Globalism.<br />[35] USGS, (United States Geological Survey) The Universal Transverse<br />Mercator (UTM) Grid Fact Sheet 077-01 (August 2001)<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://mac.usgs.gov/mac/isb/pubs/factsheets/fs07701.html">http://mac.usgs.gov/mac/isb/pubs/factsheets/fs07701.html</a><br />[36] <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.library.yale.edu/beinecke/sublime1.htm">http://www.library.yale.edu/beinecke/sublime1.htm</a><br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome.org is a 501©(3) nonprofit organization. If you value this<br />free publication, please consider making a contribution within your<br />means at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/support">http://rhizome.org/support</a>. Checks and money orders may be sent<br />to Rhizome.org, 115 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10012. Contributions are<br />tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law and are gratefully<br />acknowledged at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/info/10.php">http://rhizome.org/info/10.php</a>. Our financial statement<br />is available upon request.<br /><br />Rhizome Digest is supported by grants from The Charles Engelhard<br />Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for<br />the Visual Arts, and with public funds from the New York State Council<br />on the Arts, a state agency.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome Digest is filtered by Rachel Greene (rachel@rhizome.org). ISSN:<br />1525-9110. Volume 8, number 3. 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 /><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 />
