Furtherfield Reviews and Interviews November 07

Furtherfield Reviews and Interviews November 07
=======================================

Welcome to the latest reviews/interviews on Furtherfield.
http://www.furtherfield.org


From Entropy8Zuper! to Tales of Tales: Games and the Endless Forest Part 2
Interview with Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn by Maria Chatzichristodoulou (aka Maria X).

In 2002 E8Z! founded the for-profit company Tale of Tales. Their aim is to produce alternative commercial video games for a niche market that does not enjoy the violence and blood-shedding of most mainstream games. They design and develop 'immersive web sites and multimedia environments with a strong emphasis on narration, play, emotion and sensuality.' In their 1st interview they discussed the culture and history of their previous incarnations as net art collaborators, Entropy8Zuper!

This 2nd part of the interview by Maria Chatzichristodoulou (aka Maria X) with Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn is part of a retrospective on work on Furtherfield. They discuss their gradual mutation and growth into the prolific and challenging games group Tale of Tales; why and how this change came about.
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=287

A review of THE THIRD MIND at Le Palais de Tokyo by Joseph Nechvatal.
THE THIRD MIND, curated by Ugo Rondinone is a group show that criss-crosses an assortment of generational frontiers and stylistic barriers, including works of Brion Gysin - William S. Burroughs, Ronald Bladen, Lee Bontecou, Andy Warhol, Nancy Grossman, Cady Noland, Martin Boyce, Paul Thek and Emma Kunz.
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=289

Review of Olia Lialina's Vernacular Web 2 by Natasha Chuk.
With nostalgia for an earlier era of web identity and exploration, Olia Lialina brings light to these first elements of discovery in Vernacular Web 2, a project that serves as an archive and ode to a time when one wasn't able to fully grasp the potential of the medium but experimented with the freedom that only infancy can provide. 'Lialina carefully studies this notion of first-run web creator, sacrificial trial and error as a way of reaching our contemporary web styles and functions. Vernacular Web 2 aims to classify and describe those very elements that later became relics of the web world and objects of current mass produced amateur web design.'
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=288

IF/THEN - by Joseph Nechvatal.
A Book Review of 'Digital Contagions: A Media Archaeology of Computer Viruses' by Jussi Parikka (Peter Lang Books, 2007, 327 pages)

One could be forgiven for assuming that a book with the title 'Digital Contagions: A Media Archaeology of Computer Viruses' would be of sole interest to those sniggering hornrimmed programmers who harbor an erudite loathing of Bill Gates and an affection for the Viennese witch-doctor. Actually, it is a rather game and enthralling look, via a media-ecological approach, into the acutely frightening, yet hysterically glittering, networked world in which we now reside. A world where the distinct individual is pitted against - and thoroughly processed by - post-human semi-autonomous software programs which often ferment anomalous feelings of being eaten alive by some great indifferent artificiality that apparently functions semi-independently as a natural being.
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=290

If you are interested in either having a media art project, exhibition reviewed, or wish to become a reviewer - please contact marc.garrett@furtherfield.org