Culture, Technology and New Media

2009-05-31T14:54:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bduQaCRkgg4

The Army's Remote-Controlled Beetle

2009-04-06T14:15:00.000-07:00

Read the article

(image from)

2009-03-15T18:19:00.000-07:00

delappe.net
http://www.strangethingshappen.org/
no santa for hazelton
http://www.flong.com/

get real real

2009-03-14T07:28:00.000-07:00

this is pretty helpful when thinking about our online communities

2009-03-12T08:10:00.001-07:00

Saudi Woman Drives for Youtube Protest

esc: Stefani Bardin

2009-03-11T09:11:00.001-07:00

esc: Stefani Bardin
Great Taste, Less Theory

Friday, March 13, 4.30pm
128 Forest St. (Behind Lord-Saunders)
http://contrary.info/esc for additional info and directions.

•
Stefani Bardin is a media maker whose work slides between video,
film, installation, performance and net based mediums. She has shown
and presented her work nationally and internationally at venues
including the University of Technology Sydney, UCLA Hammar Museum,
The Slade School of Art, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center and Alfred
University.

Having spent many years on projects revolving around the writings of
the German cultural critic Walter Benjamin she is now working on a
series of projects on the subject of food entitled Chemical Proust:
Remembrance of Things Pastiche. Great taste, less theory. She is
currently a Visiting Artist in the Department of Media Study at the
University at Buffalo. www.petrifiedunrest.net.
•

response to readings

2009-03-09T08:37:00.000-07:00

“Deciding what counts as media technology is a difficult task.” I believe this statement to be highly relevant given the context of the article and what we have been discussing in class. As we become increasingly astute and the velocity at which we can advance our usage and intertwining of the internet with art, culture, media and thus, the human experience in a modern day world advances, we will be on a constant search to refine our concept and usage of media technology. Because the internet is truly still a new prevailing practice, we are still conceptualizing its role within the emerging worlds of art and technology. The idea that new media art is a response to the information technology revolution and the digitalization of cultural forms enables us to understand it as a ground breaking outlet for those who are aiming to delve into what I believe to be futuristic potential for the creative process. Comparing new media art to that of Dada is a fascinating notion due to integrative process in which various mediums that could be seen as arbitrary or random, when combined correctly, are viewed as intricately connected, thus bridging gaps among supposed unlikely combinations. Both forms of art utilize the forces of interactive media or technique, bridging political statement or interactive purpose with the creative process, enticing the interests of individuals from all spectrums and walks of the world.
Another undeniably influential component of media art is its accessibility and thus, it’s cross-cultural input. As one of the articles explain, the new media movement enabled communities to form without regard for geography, enabling varied perspectives and the emergence of a “global village” to contribute and diversify the spectrum of art and expression on the internet. This is an incredibly dynamic component of new media art because it is a form of unification, allowing individuals to have similar technological experiences and generate new and inventive forms of interaction, changing the practice for all those following. The internet allows artists to share their work and presents the constant possibility for intervention with the incredibly popular and thriving blogosphere. As expressed, the internet is a means of modern expression and creativity in which we can manipulate visual and interactive elements of our experience and communicate with a wide array of people, programs and thus, possibilities.

Blogger would totally not let me post yesterday...

2009-03-03T05:55:00.000-08:00

These articles give some interesting examples of how to look at and conceptualize digital art (especially from viewpoints predating the technology in question), and I agree with the five characteristics of new media, but I disagree with the percieved "struggle" between the paradigms of marketing/broadcast and free exchange as one of good versus evil. Without going off on a rant, the ability to earn a living from creativity and innovation has been one of the primary motives for technological advancement as well as artistic achievement in digital media and elsewhere and I don't think we should be content with multimedia as we know it as the end-all of artistic practice... anyway, my favorite part of the one article is the idea that this is performance art:

Readings III

2009-03-03T04:42:00.000-08:00

Some of the most striking large ideas include 1) how new media is the medium to converge art and life, by providing the tools with which to reveal an alternate world and reach into a person's mind, 2) the shifting idea of artist as facilitator ('interactive' art), 3), the idea that a media that can more thoroughly provide an all-compassing experience, that can somehow converge all the past intellectual and technical advances in the arts, is somehow 'better', and 4) the overarching optimism about how new media can improve quality of life.

I think all of these large ideas are both very fertile but also evident of just how new new media is. The history is so short, and all the possibilities are there, but even just art as... the culture, or the institution, has yet to come up with a convincing approach in which to evaluate it. For this reason, new media can strike a sort of populist note that really rings true with what is happening now in the world. It is teeming with creative energy, and its popularity or reception is dependent upon the viewer in its most pure form. All the obstacles that might exist between a person and getting this person to a gallery to see the art, they are gone and are instead replaced by easy anonymity where real consequence are not immediately real. One might not have to worry about what 'image' they present to the outside world while they go to a gallery when they are alone in their room at a computer.

I also think this is also interesting though because this brings to question ideas of 'taste'- its relevance and its functional significance. When art is suddenly dependent upon so many new people, many of which are not familiar with the history of art or its ideas, the success of a work can suddenly depend on (oh no!) the layman, the everyman, art that pleases the people. I don't think this means new media will evolve to please and entertain, putting pretty girls in the forefront and replacing substance with catchy humor. But I do think this is a new problem that new media will have to contend with. A larger audience is a good problem to have.

Responses

2009-03-02T23:19:00.000-08:00

We already kind of covered the birth of the computer and so forth in class, but the article explained a lot more concerning the gradual steps the computer or the internet we have nowadays came to be. I find it amusing how the internet was initiated as a semi-random project which turned out to be one of the greatest technological leaps.

The article on media art provided a lot of insight into the motives behind Net art and the different kinds of ideas the artists were trying to express. I think the thing that stood out to me the most was how so much is counted as Net art - before, I have always thought Net art to be graphic design and, basically, computer graphics more or less resembling traditional art but produced on the computer. The article gave numerous examples of other types. I admire the Net artists who create their art to prove a point; it gives so much more meaning to the project than just doing it for self-satisfaction (which is, in every way, a sensible incentive as well). But I have to admit this is all very new to me and a few forms of Net art still surprise me because aesthetically they look so different from more traditional pieces.

Response to Readings - March 2, 2009

2009-03-02T19:50:00.000-08:00

It’s so fascinating to imagine the early conceptualizations of computers compared to the machine that we think of today. What is an even more abstract idea is that people can even see the similarities between a ballistics table generator and a MacBook Air, or how about an associative indexing memory machine compared with the hyperlink we love and know so well? This is an excellent article that gives recognition and appreciation to the early pioneers of computers and “new media”, while not even realizing they were apart of it (Norbert Wiener, for instance).

Something else that I keep noticing popping up is the notion that the realm of new media is a pool where all networks of art or information can flood together to form a massive social network. I used to think about being connected to others across the world through the Ethernet chord that runs into my laptop, but now I realize that this is not what keeps us connected. These articles have shown me that it is our desire to share experiences and data with others and to relate over issues that drives the ever-advancing technology that we call the internet.

Da Readings

2009-03-02T13:56:00.000-08:00

I think its pretty nuts how this guys was able to predict so many of these technological advances so early on. The idea of predicting blogs, the internet, email and all of these current communications devices so far in advance is extremely impressive. I can't wait for our site to be up. Its gonna be the new flyness.

Asa

reading assignment III

2009-02-28T14:34:00.000-08:00

Sorry this is late, I totally forgot about these readings until I was checking blackboard for something.

One thing I found particularly interesting about these articles (and many of the readings we've had so far in this class) is that New Media is so closely intertwined with the theoretical dreams and theories of the past. These technologies and ideas seem so completely contemporary to me that when I read about Licklider predicting computer networks making work more efficient, it's astonishing to me. I never would have thought there was a relationship between a German composer from the 1800s like Wagner and the sort of art I make when I create an online community, although the idea of the Total Artwork is pretty broad.

While finding out there is a historical basis for the principles of new media art, it still worries me to discover that there are certain theoretical ideas we use as the basis for all of this kind of artwork. Besides the fact that many of the people writing about the possibilities of new media were male (at least according to this article), I am worried that this linear historical train sets up a teleological endpoint for all new media....like ultimately we're running faster and faster towards an entirely virtual reality, and that's the only goal that matters?

but i suppose these are only minor quibbles. everything we do is rooted in history and the past; what we try to do now is an attempt to build on something that came before. I'd love to be able to say that using computers and the internet and new media is a way to full break away from all power structures, but since the internet was first fully developed for the army, i'm not sure it's entirely possible to escape the ramifications of history (and politics for that matter).

Digitize your brain.

2009-02-22T21:53:00.000-08:00

This is incredible. You can drastically increase your speed-reading ability by turning your brain into a computer.

Subvocalizing is the sounding out of words in your mind as you read, routing the signal through the speech center of the brain before comprehension, which limits most people's reading speed to roughly the same speed at which they would speak. This online gadget will allow you to totally bypass this with practice.

"Drop some text into it and run it. The only "problem" is that the default speed isn't really all that fast (which is probably why some people try it and "don't get it" since they can actually subvocalize that fast) so they aren't getting any benefit yet. The magic is in gradually bumping up the speed you are using and it will get you to the point where the part of your brain that subvocalizes starts "falling behind."

Now push it just a little faster and your brain will "give up" trying to subvocalize, but (probably much to your surprise) you will actually have very high comprehension of what you just read anyway. In fact, then as you push higher over time (and not that much time actually, your brain is VERY good at this once you get used to it) you'll find you have VERY high comprehension at speed that would have sounded absurd. I've honetly shocked myself at the word per mintue my brain can recognize when I'm not trying to pronounce them in my head at the same time.

Basically you are training your brain to directly connect visualized words to their known meaning without having to go through the "detour" of your brain's speech center."

-from Digg user comments

visual architecture

2009-02-21T18:09:00.000-08:00

hey class,

i just found this blog post about visualizing new york through searches done on major new york blogs, which creates an typographical representation of the city and naturally thought of the project that we did last semester in illustrator.

here's the link:
http://io9.com/5157709/enjoy-a-virtual-new-york-as-seen-by-keywords

kS

My Trip to Liberty City

2009-02-21T07:28:00.001-08:00

My Trip to Liberty City
Created and narrated by Jim Munroe

"I never feel like getting into a car is the best way to see a city." I watched this video at the How to be a Canadian screening curated by Brett Cashmere and Astria Suparak. It is hilarious.

Search responsibly :)

2009-02-12T06:46:00.001-08:00

A film by Lernert Engelberts & Sander Plug: I love Alaska

"August 4, 2006, the personal search queries of 650,000 AOL (America Online) users accidentally ended up on the Internet, for all to see. These search queries were entered in AOL's search engine over a three-month period. After three days AOL realised their blunder and removed the data from their site, but the sensitive private data had already leaked to several other sites."

Make sure to click here to see the search queries.

Tryit Editor v1.4

2009-02-10T07:25:00.001-08:00

http://www.w3schools.com/TAGS/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_table_test

Letters in Binary

2009-02-09T19:05:00.000-08:00

A 01000001
B 01000010
C 01000011
D 01000100
E 01000101
F 01000110
G 01000111
H 01001000
I 01001001
J 01001010
K 01001011
L 01001100
M 01001101
N 01001110
O 01001111
P 01010000
Q 01010001
R 01010010
S 01010011
T 01010100
U 01010101
V 01010110
W 01010111
X 01011000
Y 01011001
Z 01011010

And the semester begins!

2009-02-03T07:42:00.000-08:00

Some examples of net art and art on the net:

Keith and Mendi Obedike
Chris Barr is Available on Thursday
Mark Napier's Shredder
wwwwwwwww.jodi.org
Code Zebra
http://0100101110101101.org

esc: Orkan Telhan and website launch party!

2008-12-08T18:05:00.000-08:00

Thursday, December 11, 7.00pm
128 Forest St. Oberlin, OH
Click for directions.

A Post-Decartes Future

2008-12-02T11:06:00.000-08:00

I thought one of the most interesting moments in Blade Runner was when the replicant Pris ironically states Decartes’ famous formulation, “I think therefore I am.” The irony lies in the “I am,” because “I am human” is the implied complete phrase. With the invention of artificial intelligence, however, rational thought no longer is the determining factor of an entity’s humanity. It is this philosophical problem that necessitated new postmodern metaphysical formulations, such as those of Baudrillard.

Baudrillard’s theory of the hyperreal accounts for the existence of copies, which paradoxically are not reproductions of original (real) things, but can exist in their own right—not as a copy of the real but as a part of the hyperreal. These are called simulacra. Baudrillard once claimed that New York will soon cease to be a city (real), but will in fact be a New York-themed amusement park (hyperreal).

The replicants are a good example of simulacra—they seem to be copies of humans but have surpassed being mere reproductions and have become “more human than human.”

As for the unicorn, it appears in Deckard’s dream and then at the end when Edward James Olmos’ character gives him the origami figure. The small figures that Olmos’ character gives him throughout the film seem to indicate that he knows more about Deckard than Deckard knows about himself…the unicorn at the end indicates that he knew Deckard had a dream about a unicorn. Perhaps, then, it is an implanted memory, and Deckard is a replicant. However, a more interesting clue, I think, is the stick figure man (with a penis? Is that just my imagination?) Olmos’ character gives him. The figure of the man is a copy, a replica, perhaps indicating that Deckard is in fact a simulacrum.

And for anyone else who is as much of a Sci Fi nerd as I am, I highly recommend...

Invertuality: Jules says goodbye...

2008-12-02T07:46:00.000-08:00

search images by color

2008-12-02T07:30:00.000-08:00

there are some applications that will allow you to perform image searches by colors:

Multicolor Search Lab Flickr Set

Color Fields Colr Pickr

blade runner

2008-12-02T07:13:00.000-08:00

Holden: Describe in single words, only the good things that come in to your mind about your mother

Leon: My mother?

Holden: Yeah.

Leon: Let me tell you about my mother...

[Leon shoots Holden]

Deckard and Baudrillard

2008-11-29T13:55:00.000-08:00

I really liked Blade Runner. I thought it brought up some very interesting issues about post-humanity and an age of artificiality. Overall, I thought the visual aspects of the film were well done. Since it was made in the early eighties there were some pieces that felt outdated (funny…an outdated version of the future) like the semi-low-tech computer screens and the hovercrafts emitting billows of white smoke. But the mood and the atmospheric qualities of the film matched perfectly – the wetness and smoky haze that accompanied every scene “outside.” It created an oppressive, trapped feeling.

I am curious about what people have to say about the vision of the unicorn. I think it could be a clue that Deckard is a replicant. Is it an implanted memory that never actually existed? A part of someone’s dream? Also after Rachael asks Deckard if he ever took the replicant eye-screening test, he never answers. If he is a replicant, do we assume that he is unaware of that fact?

I looked up Jean Baudrillard’s theory of simulacrum –copies of things that no longer have an original or never had one to begin with. Models of a real without origin or reality. Baudrillard is saying that in a post-modernist world (are we there?) the distinction between reality and simulation breaks down. Just like in the film it was almost impossible to tell the difference between humans and replicants. Eventually it will become impossible to tell the difference between reality and unreality. I think that this version of "reality" has begun to manifest itself - in all the different post-human ways we've talked about - but I'm not sure how far simulation will go.

Image Credit:
http://bladerunner2019.com/blog/2007/11/19/new-blade-runner-font/

helvetica + the nyc subway

2008-11-26T20:46:00.000-08:00

The (Mostly) True Story of Helvetica and the New York City Subway

An article about the history of New York City's Subway and that ever-ubiquitous typeface Helvetica.

mad politikal dizzine

2008-11-25T06:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.designforobama.org/

http://thisfuckingelection.com/

http://www.30reasons.org/

Zombie Day Invite!

2008-11-19T10:05:00.000-08:00

The Bacon Tree

2008-11-14T06:56:00.000-08:00

An open to public event by Kayla Cohen.

Bionic Contact Lens

2008-11-12T07:20:00.000-08:00

- Photo credits

Well, speaking of post-humanity what do you think about this?

"Parviz added that the bionic lens could have many possible uses for virtual displays. The lens give drivers the possibility to see a vehicle’s speed projected into the windshield. Video-game companies also can benefit from the new device and give their players the possibility to immerse themselves in a virtual world without restricting their range of motion. And, last but not least, people on the go could surf the Internet on a midair virtual display screen that only they would be able to see." Quote credits

Presidential portraits

2008-11-11T16:36:00.000-08:00

Presidential portraits: Art and politics collide

uppercase scarf

2008-11-11T06:02:00.001-08:00

This scarf is composed entirely of typography - Helvetica uppercase letters, to be exact.

Typography using objects- OBJECTIFIED

2008-11-10T17:38:00.000-08:00

http://www.wearebuild.com/blog/2008/11/whats-in-a-logo/

The man behind Helvetica is making a new documentary called "Objectified." This is the story of how the logo for the new film was created. Be sure to check out all the iterations of the word as it was designed: http://www.wearebuild.com/temporary/objectified.jpg

intense.

Things I have learned in my life so far - Stephen Sagmeister

2008-11-04T07:58:00.000-08:00

Watch the video
Watch similar videos
Go to things i have learned in my life website

Starring Type

2008-11-04T07:16:00.000-08:00

* Typoanimation with "circus"
* onTheMove
* Typo Moution
* "Roots"
* experimental in type in motion
* Motion Graphics 1, Pt3
* Graphic City
* Kinetic Typography
* Typolution
* Pulp Fiction in Typography

esc: Millie Chen

2008-11-03T19:06:00.000-08:00

Millie Chen
Thursday, November 6, 8.00pm + after party
128 Forest St.
http://contrary.info/esc for additional info and directions.

helvetica

2008-10-28T06:48:00.000-07:00

From Typocalypse: another opinion on the ever controversial font, Helvetica. The flickr set has comments on other common typefaces, too.

The Rather Difficult Font Game

2008-10-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

http://fontgame.ilovetypography.com/

Contemporary Means of Torture

2008-10-15T20:34:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone!

I just wanted to throw out a concept I had for the next project and see what people thought. It was something that Claudia Pederson, the speaker from Monday night's lecture, brought up. She was discussing the Iraqi artist, Waffa Bilal, and his newest work, which was an interactive online voting piece called "Dog or Iraqi". People voted on which one - the dog or the Iraqi - would be waterboarded in an undisclosed location in Upstate New York. Bilal was voted to be waterborded and he made a video documenting it. This net art piece made me think of another artwork featuring waterboarding that I had read about this summer.

Steve Powers, a graffiti and conceptual artist, created an installation piece on Coney Island. An audience member puts in a dollar, peeks in a window, sees a scene of a Guantanamo Bay prisoner being waterboarded. The people in the scene are animatronic dummies, but the blindfolded prisoner struggles and convulses as a hooded man pours water over his face.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/arts/design/06wate.html?_r=1&scp=4sq=Waterboarding&st=cse&oref=slogin

I am very curious about this exploration of such a horrendous torture technique in art. I think I would like to comment on it in my next project. Let me know what you think.

Thkx
Franny

Mail Art at Oberlin

2008-10-14T17:39:00.000-07:00

All you could dream of knowing about Oberlin Mail Art: http://www.oberlin.edu/library/art/mailart/Default.html

Art librarian Barb Prior put together this website after curating a mini-exhibition on our mail art collection in the Spring. Enjoy.

typographical do's and don'ts

2008-10-14T09:52:00.000-07:00

This page offers great hints and tips for design students: style tutorials for graphic design students by Elif Ayiter.

"Elif Ayiter is an artist, designer and educator, specialising in the development of hybrid educational methodologies between art&design and computer science." She was my graphic design teacher actually back in college, in 1996.

2008-10-14T08:02:00.001-07:00

http://www.papress.com/other/thinkingwithtype/resources/crimes_scale.htm

also at the bottom of this page...

http://www.papress.com/other/thinkingwithtype/index.htm

there is a link that says "TYPE CRIMES LECTURE!" download it. its hysterical

Too late?

2008-10-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

Here is my Gleaners post. I apologize for how late it is!

I saw this documentary as ultimately a film about how individuals resist negative change, not by calling for an end to the corrupt system itself, but by creating new sites of discourse within the structure, ultimately proving that power does not just flow from top to bottom in any given system.

This way of creating new sites of discourse within a structure is what Varda’s film and new media have in common. Both are responding to a revolution: in the gleaners’ case the industrial revolution and in new media’s case technological or digital. In both revolutions, the result seems to be the alienation of humanity as the result of mediation by a new force (machine or digitization). Gleaners and/or new media artists can come together in a post-machine world and reap their own benefit from the new non-human process. There is a sense that both gleaners and new media artists are on the fringe. Working outside of the system, gleaners refuse to participate in capitalism and instead almost revert to a hunting/gathering modus operandi. Working outside the museum/gallery system, many new media artists try to reach audiences directly and avoid the pitfalls of the art market. Ultimately it is this subversive, anti-capitalist drive that unites gleaners and cutting-edge artists.

Z-Trip Obama Mix

2008-10-07T08:34:00.001-07:00

http://www.djztrip.com/obama/

its aight

Gleaning

2008-10-06T18:28:00.000-07:00

Even though it was just a quick scene in the beginning, the shots of people in the museum, taking pictures of the portrait of the Gleaners, was a pivotal part of the message for me. What are these people doing, after all, but gleaning the image for themselves? Of course, their version is not the original painting, which makes me think about the gleaning of images that makes up film. Is this film just a series of images gleaned from Varda's journey? What makes these images Varda's? Especially when the shot is of postcards, or the art of someone she met, or of abandoned potatoes in a field. How is her act of claiming these images for herself an act of gleaning? Who owns these images? How can we even suggest that one can "own" images, in this case?

Varda's alienation of the audience

2008-10-06T18:06:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago in French Non-Fiction film class I saw one of Agnes Varda's films, L'Opera Mouffe which mirrored this film in many ways. In Mouffe, Varda is much more poetic and this film fits less so in the documentary genre then Gleaning. However, as confusing at times as both films seemed to be, it is apparent that Varda has a deep interest in (H)umanity. Her films are enjoyable and interesting but they still fail to address a larger theme or goal. It's either that I cannot pinpoint what Varde is trying to achieve as a filmmaker or maybe she is just making art, developing a technique without a mission or a focus. It seems as though her projects and films aren't whole to me--they definitely have a technique but they lack something at the same time. Or perhaps she does this on purpose--leaves her films so open to interpretation that its her goal for the viewer to "complete" the film themselves through their own interpretation. I feel like Varda can get away with this because she focuses on Humanity, a subject everyone is familiar with but what happens when other artists start to leave their work so open to interpretation that they start to alienate their audience?

Video Screening This Week

2008-10-05T17:09:00.000-07:00

Fellow classmates,
I will be hosting a screening of the video works I am looking at for my honors project. They're examples of early experiments in new media, so if you're interested, you should totally come. It won't last long, and there will be cookies, if I'm not too lazy. I've posted the details below. - Martha

VIDEO SCREENING: John Baldessari's early video works

Wednesday October 8 at 4:30 in Classroom 1

Works shown:
"I am Making Art"(1971)
"Baldessari Sings LeWitt" (1972)
"I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art" (1971)

Optional discussion to follow.

About the artist:
Throughout his career, John Baldessari has defied formalist categories by working in a variety of media—creating films, videotapes, prints, photographs, texts, drawings, and multiple combinations of these. In his use of media imagery, Baldessari is a pioneer "image appropriator," and as such has had a profound impact on post-modern art production. Baldessari initially studied to be an art critic at the University of California, Berkeley during the mid 1950s, but growing dissatisfied with his studies, he turned to painting. Inspired by Dada and Surrealist literary and visual ideas, he began incorporating photographs, notes, texts, and fragments of conversation into his paintings. Baldessari remains fundamentally interested in de-mystifying artistic processes, and uses video to record his performances, which function as "deconstruction experiments." --text courtesy of Video Data Bank

The Gleaners

2008-10-04T15:06:00.000-07:00

The first obvious parallel that I drew between this movie and new media is that with this photoshop project, each of us became a gleaner. We rooted through the online detritus of images and selected other people's leftovers to create new meals of imagery...Bringing it back to notions of authorship, isn't there a sense of releasing an image to the wind once it goes online? It becomes a possession of whoever takes the time to get into their online car, drive down the information highway, and pick it up from the website-field. And outside of new media, perhaps we're reaching a time where if we want to truly "own" anything, or to truly protect our ideas from being gleaned and reworked in other pieces of art or other people's lives, you would have to hide that idea under your mattress and keeps the lights off in your room so nobody would ever see it. Anytime you release an idea into the world, others begin feeding off of it, changing it, and using it for their own purpose--or ideally they do, if the idea is any good.

I think gleaning also relates to advances in technology and individualization in modern society. Gleaning was once a bonding activity for French women--now gleaning is a largely individual process for those who live alternative lifestyles. The type of people she interviews makes it clear that gleaning is not a mainstream activity, not like it used to be. My instinct is to blame technology for this--after all, a field can now be harvested by one man in a tractor, and the rest of us are all going to our isolated office jobs at our singular computers. The demise of gleaning represents the ways in which we can hide ourselves from the real world and real human interaction when we escape into the computer.

Unrelated to new media, I found the movie very compelling. The filmmaker had a curious eye and brought forth very diverse ideas and opinions about gleaning, a subject that sounds banal at first listen. So i end this post with a quote from her, when she describes the nature of harvesting with machines:

"Some people are quite pleased when the machine malfunctions."

Thank you, I'll take a walk in the cabbages.
Kelly

The Gleaners and I(a.k.a. the new media artist)

2008-10-04T08:56:00.000-07:00

I’ve actually seen this French documentary before. We watched in my French class two years ago, but I didn’t think about it in the context of new media art or issues of authorship/ownership. When I looked at it through this lens it really struck me that this is exactly what I have been doing in this class – gleaning images from the internet. We take what is available, what is left over, what hasn’t been protected properly. It’s a different type of gleaning (artistic, personal, individualistic), but gleaning nonetheless.

Another interesting aspect of the documentary that I picked up on was the fact that the gleaners were always outsiders, the other. Even people that didn’t glean from necessity were seen as eccentric. Even in a country where gleaning was an established tradition for so long. Is there something inherent in gleaning that makes it an activity for those outside of the mainstream? Does this also apply to us as image-gleaners? It is something to consider.

An interesting side note: I saw this article in the New York Times today about Gilbert and George. Thought it brought up some intriguing examples of “photographic ensembles”. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/arts/design/03gilb.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=design

-Franny

Monday, October, 13

2008-10-03T10:53:00.000-07:00

Claudia Pederson and Nicholas Knouf

Monday, October 13, 8.00pm + after party
128 Forest St. formerly named "Orchard St. Kindergarden Studio"
http://contrary.info/esc

Claudia Pederson: On computer games and Wafaa Bilal (Wafaa Bilal's recent exhibition at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, Virtual Jihadi, was closed by the University's administration a day after its initial opening.)

Claudia Costa Pederson, PhD candidate at the history of art and visual studies department at Cornell University. Her interests center on exploring the intersections between play, creativity, critical theory, and social activism. She is currently working on her thesis that investigates digital games as devices for critical inquiry into the relationships between theoretical and scientific thought, art and technology, and institutional powers and social energies. She is also teaching a writing seminar this fall on contemporary art and technology.

Nicholas A. Knouf: on Fluid Nexus (Fluid Nexus is an application for mobile phones that is primarily designed to enable activists to send messages and data amongst themselves independent of a centralized cellular network.)

Nicholas A. Knouf is a PhD student in the Information Science Program, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. His work explores the interstitial spaces between information science, critical theory, digital art, and science and technology studies. His current projects include a mobile phone messaging application that works independent of a centralized network, and a robotic marionette that provokes non-speech sounds as a means of encouraging the expression of the unspeakable.

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Glean wit it, Rock wit it

2008-10-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

Dear Blog,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleaning

I think that it is interesting how an action that is many times associated with worship and prayer (bending down) is also an action used in times of desperate need.

It is great how gleaning has also become a act of charity which reverses the idea that gleaning is an act to be looked down upon

I also found the stuff about salvaging very interesting. My dad loves to pull stuff out of dumpsters and off the street and put it around our house. I used to be super embarased about it but I came to appreciate it. Also, I wrote my college essay about my dad dumpster diving.

Love,

Asa

getty

2008-09-28T13:23:00.000-07:00

If you didn't know, Gettyimages is a great place for stock photos. You can type in something like "woman saving cat stuck in tree" and the turnout is pretty spot-on, no matter how specific you are. Also, the way the site's designed--mostly as a browser for companies and corporations to easily find and buy an image--is some insight to our own project about ideas of authorship, copyright, etc.

good luck on projects

http://www.gettyimages.com/Home.aspx

Let's try to never be on this site

2008-09-25T14:28:00.000-07:00

http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/

Seeing other people's mistakes reminds me of things to check for myself in my work. Plus, it's fun to have these pointed out, since it reminds us that all of these images have, in fact, been photoshopped extensively, and what to look out for in a professional piece.

Photomontage

2008-09-23T16:04:00.000-07:00

I found this slightly hokey website about cut and paste when I was trying to find a particular piece by John Heartfield. It has some basic history and some good photomontage examples to look at, if you're interested

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/davepalmer/cutandpaste/hillen_big2.html#

Appropriation and Authorship

2008-09-20T22:21:00.001-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherrie_Levine

Sherrie Levine is a pretty cool artist who dealt with notions of authorship.

Check it out.

Crash

2008-09-18T11:29:00.000-07:00

William Gibson, in his interview, was critical of the post-human state our society has come to today. However, he didn’t advocate fighting against it or returning to more simple, idyllic times. His tone was one of sad acceptance of post-humanity as the result of a distinctly “human” impulse—to create new, faster technology to supposedly better our lifestyles. One element of the film that I think reinforces his tone of critical acceptance is the setting. Gibson, the interviewer, and the filmmaker are all in a car that remains in motion, passing everyday moderately decrepit semi-urban landscapes. Such a choice of layout only seems natural in light of J. G. Ballard’s apparent influence on Gibson. While I was watching the film, Ballard’s novel Crash came to mind (I can’t remember whether Gibson mentions the novel explicitly or not). Crash chronicles the exploits of two men’s pursuit of sexual fantasies through engaging in and reproducing car crash scenarios. Throughout the novel it is clear that commonplace sexual practices cease to interest the characters. The only way they can achieve full gratification is through the mediation of their own sexualities through the car. In a way, the car becomes their own post-human prosthesis, an extension of their sexual beings. They spend much of the novel merely driving around, playing voyeur to the world inside this man-created machine that has taken over their sexual identities. I can see how this would greatly influence Gibson’s idea that digital technologies mediate our interactions with the world. Engaging with the world either from behind the wheel of a car or behind a computer screen both have results of alienation from humanity albeit perceived connection. Ultimately the artistic choice to hold the interview in a moving vehicle, conveys the impossibility of escaping a mediated interaction.

2008-09-18T08:10:00.001-07:00

Post Human

2008-09-18T07:16:00.000-07:00

I thought our discussion about post-humanism as a a process rather than a binary state was very interesting. Is there a point though, when post-humanism will terminate? Is there a point at which humans will be so driven by technology that they are no longer human?

The Car, Time, and Space

2008-09-17T20:25:00.001-07:00

The thing I retained the most about the documentary was the format. There's something to be said about a large portion of the film taking place in a car. And the backseat of the car for that matter. I found the film quite disorienting--usually a car is used to take a person from point A to point B. Rather, the car was used to explore notions of time and space (we traveled back to Gibson's adolescent life and we also went to the east coast, the west coast, the woods, the city, etc.) The fact that we (the viewer and Gibson) use a relatively primitive vehicle to do this is interesting. Of course it would have been really corny to have Gibson in a simulated spaceship or time machine or something like that but I thought the car in relationship to time communicated well the idea that our notions of the future, progess, and technology are founded upon former advancements making the Future very possible and real. Also, the filmmaker could of had Gibson driving in the front of the car or in the passenger's seat but having him in the backseat said that technology will happen to us even though we often think of it as the other way around.

Post-Human?

2008-09-17T20:20:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about our discussion of the post-human condition as it was put forth in the interview. I have a friend who has been talking to me about his own thoughts of post-humanity for a year now, but they had all involved a sort of "going back" to a primitive state. However, the term as Gibson uses it suggests something else- a dystopian future where humanity has put an end to natural selection and taken control of its own evolution. More and more, the things that I use on a daily basis are far from being natural- synthetic fibers in my clothes, and plastic everywhere, not to mention the amount of silicon chips in my phone, computers, etc. What does this mean for art? In my friend's version of post-humanity, going back to a "primitive" state meant a return to "primitivist" art. But if post-humanity really means a continued augmentation of the human body and human experience*, it is hard to guess at what art in such a world would be. Of course, the mind jumps to digital art, which complements our new digital lives, but I think that answer might be too simplistic. I am thinking more and more that maybe bio art is the answer; art that comments back on what we have become. This is not to say that I think post-humanity is necessarily evil- I am in fact a big proponent of much of technology. Yet, I do think that we are moving in a path that is hard to turn from. As Gibson put it, we have only ever existed in a mediated state; how can we imagine anything but?

*By augmentation of the human body, I mean those technologies that extend us into Gibson's post-human realm: eyeglasses correcting sight, cell phones extending our voices and ears, computers extending our memories, etc.

Internet: The Cities of the Technology Age

2008-09-17T17:06:00.000-07:00

One of the most interesting concepts I took away from William Gibson’s interview in No Maps for These Territories, was the way the Internet has fundamentally and inextricably become part of our world, our reality. Gibson compared the invention of the Internet to the invention of cities. He suggests that the Internet has begun to change our lives in the same way that cities completely changed the way people lived ten thousand years ago. It will infuse the most basic parts of our lives. The way we take in information has already changed dramatically – I think this is what the stylistic form of the documentary was commenting on. Television and subsequently the Internet have made the shear amount of available information increase exponentially; the faster we can digest it, the better. The flashing images, the car constantly moving forward, people moving backwards and forwards out of the frame of the window – all reflected the vast amounts of information we experience everyday, whizzing past us.

no myths for these countries of the mind

2008-09-17T13:13:00.000-07:00

My title is a quote from the beginning of the Gibson film, which came after the official title, No Maps for These Territories. The idea that we no longer have any myths for these new technological areas of thought and perception is extremely interesting. With mythologies, we construct value systems, patterns for perceiving the world, an overall structure to a culture. The fact that we are now moving into uncharted waters points to the perpetuation of isolation and alienation; a structureless future; chaos. Without these myths, we step forward on the path towards becoming post-human. We drop Grecian heroes in order to embrace the Warholian 15-minute celebrity, who is soon forgotten, and all sense of interconnectedness and community is transient in our increasingly mobile society.

Examining Bio Art

2008-09-17T11:13:00.000-07:00

Fall Exhibition at CEPA Gallery to Feature Four International Artists
Exhibition Dates: September 19, 2008 – December 20, 2008
Opening Reception: Friday, September 19, 7 pm - Midnight

BUFFALO, NY – CEPA Gallery is pleased to announce Trans-Evolution: Examining Bio Art, an exhibition exploring the intersection of art and science. All featured artists will be present at the public opening reception on Friday, September 19 at the Market Arcade at 617 Main Street in conjunction with Curtain Up! The exhibition will present solo projects by artists internationally recognized as pioneers in the field.

Paul Vanouse (Buffalo, NY) will exhibit his latest body of work, Latent Figure Protocol, a multi-media installation centered around a live science experiment that manipulates DNA samples to create emergent representational images.

Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr of the Tissue Culture and Art Project (Perth, Australia) will present Victimless Leather and NoArk, two projects that document advancements in science utilizing living tissue.

Elizabeth Demaray (Brooklyn, NY), will display a commissioned sculptural installation entitled Corpor Esurit, or we all deserve a break today, featuring a colony of ants subsisting on meals from McDonald’s for the duration of the project.

Visit www.cepagallery.org

No Maps for these Territories - William Gibson

2008-09-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

"I suspect I have spent just about exactly as much time actually writing as the average person my age has spent watching television, and that, as much as anything, may be the real secret here." - William Gibson

THE LUCE NEW MEDIA LECTURES - THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2008

2008-09-15T16:12:00.000-07:00

All lectures take place @ NOON @ THE CAT IN THE CREAM. PIZZA AND SOFT DRINKS WILL BE SERVED!
ALL LECTURES FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Matt Coolidge of the CENTER FOR LAND USE INTERPRETATION
Matthew Coolidge is the Founder and Director of the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) in Los Angeles, a non-profit art/research organization that employs a multimedia and multidisciplinary approach to increase and diffuse knowledge about how the nation’s lands are apportioned, utilized and perceived. He serves as a project director, photographer and curator for CLUI exhibitions, and has written several books published by the CLUI, including Back to the Bay: An Examination of the Shoreline of the San Francisco Bay Region (2001), and The Nevada Test Site: A Guide to America’s Nuclear Proving Ground (1996). He lectures widely in the United States and Europe on contemporary landscape matters, and is a faculty member in the Curatorial Practice Program at the California College of the Arts, where he teaches a class about “nowhere.” Coolidge received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 2004, a Rockefeller New Media Fellowship in 2005, and in 2006 was honored with the Lucelia Award from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, an award given to one artist a year under 50 who has made a distinguished contribution to American art. The work of the CLUI has been exhibited in museums, galleries, and other institutions around the world.
http://www.clui.org

Forwarded by
Julia Christensen
Luce Visiting Professor of the Emerging Arts

Ways of Seeing - BBC TV Series - 1972

2008-09-14T20:52:00.000-07:00

WAYS OF SEEING (final episode - advertising) 1/4
WAYS OF SEEING (final episode - advertising) 2/4
WAYS OF SEEING (final episode - advertising) 3/4
WAYS OF SEEING (final episode - advertising) 4/4

The film and the book offer useful tools for thinking critically about art and the media. No longer groundbreaking, but the philosophies and observations of John Berger still apply today.

some links

2008-09-14T08:08:00.000-07:00

http://www.djspooky.com/
http://www.piperboy.com/
http://www.piperboy.com/playground/scrapbook.htm
http://www.flyingpuppet.com/
http://potatoland.com/

Failure

2008-09-03T17:32:00.000-07:00

"Every failure is a masterpiece, another branch of the rhizome"
Deleuze and Guattari