Painting by Numbers
Bruce Sterling recently suggested that it no longer makes sense to talk about “the internet” as a whole. Instead, we ought to refer to the distinct corporate structures that define the topography of experience online: Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft. These companies provide users with similar services and, increasingly, they organize them in self-sufficient “silos” to encumber disloyal users with incompatibility issues. Sterling’s claim that there’s no more internet sounds premature and calculated to provoke buzz (cf. Wired’s September 2010 cover story, “The Web Is Dead”), but it’s useful nevertheless as a reminder of the limits on the user’s agency as these companies attempt to consolidate their control over information and bind the net to their devices.
With that in mind, Michael Manning’s Microsoft Store Paintings might be seen as a proposition about what happens to internet art when doesn’t make sense to talk about the internet. The digital abstractions are painted at locations of the retail chain named in the series’ title, sometimes at the first-ever Microsoft store in Mission Viejo, CA, which opened in 2009. Microsoft’s retail outlets are, of course, a riposte to the success of Apple’s stores, launched after two decades when the software giant happily dispersed its products through Best Buy and CompUSA. They herald the non-internet seen by Sterling.
An image of a Microsoft Store from Michael Manning's Instagram
Demiurge in the Cupboard by Bradley Benedetti
Bradley Benedetti, Demiurge in the Cupboard, Circusology of Native Leadership Piece 1, 2012
Orca Tears Turquoise( Wish'd We'd Ha'd)
"How can I retry when I was a watermarked birth? I was a global write, universally speaking. My only choice is to image search. rch, sea. Can you smell the past? It is yours. Commercial help gonna fix this Etc.?"
VAPOR STORIE
“Nostalgic For captivity…Scent of an orca's tears. Anti-virus wishing wells
If you haven't had your first familiar encounter
please refer to the catalog.
now that I’ve slowed down your 3 dimensional momentarium
I can let you in on something.”
“Toyota arctic
sea u kiosk museum efficiency baby
free
if you take your TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME . I’ll wait for
youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
breeze and ufo- take your time
we were supposed to grow old together"
MySPHINX
Trademark Applesdottir
Sanrio Erikkson
Nintendo Cloud
Ancient Purell
Sarcophagus St.Chateau
Libra von Katzengiest
Pegasus Bromwell
Oreo Mitsubishi
Astrology DeCordova
“I just, I just, I just toed this rope, you know , I just tied this
rope three times, well 6 really because I said it and then did it, but I
mean I tied it while saying it, well hahah you know what I mean,
anyway, the point is it WORKED
This dimension is feeling stuffy
I’m tired of living moment to moment, GET ME OUT OF HERE
I feel really 3 dimensional, I’m looking for something more, I felt
nervous not knowing what came next
In the 4th dimension I get to see it all, people from the past, the
future, really its the continuous present ever flowing around me and
you into one big ball of energy.
5th dimensional living felt too complex, the text was fifth dimensional
5 feels really dark velvety, red, very red ...
I, IV by A.E. Benenson
Ian Cheng, from This Papaya Tastes Perfect, 2011
I.
Here are the Germans in Arizona and New Mexico.
Their skin turning the coral-red of the veined rocks, of the local jewelry, as if the color had begun to rub off on them in the heat, some kind of desert frottage but really a sunburn is the just the opposite, if you think about it.
But that is how things are when they are opposites: you can't tell them apart.
Like the first time the group saw a Swastika on a native's cloth rug beady red inside a clutch of eagles, their wings eddying around it—one of them realized for the first time that the sign looked exactly like a miniature windmill (another learned later that in Navajo the symbol did almost mean that, in fact—"whirling log")
Another German was embarrassed; but for the others, this sign was a sign and they telegraphed Goebbels immediately.
It was like when Cortez had arrived in Mexico:
His men found that the natives there already worshipped a deity with long hair and fair skin, Quetzelcoatl, who had walked the earth before he ascended into the heavens. Ignoring any other possibility, Cortez understood this as the proof of the universality of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
The Germans didn't know it then, but that turned out to be the "breakthrough" of their reconnaissance mission. It was the best these code crackers would do: discover a symbol they already all wore on their uniforms.
The rest of the Navajo language remained as much of a mystery as when it had first been captured coming across the Allied wireless.
After they returned home, those Germans still thought of the Allied Code, but something changed. It made no more sense, but before, whereas ...
The Composition Is the Thing (After Stein) by Joseph Rosenzweig
The first step towards a better future for the industry is not likely to cause confusion. Composition of the essential features hereinbefore set. Is it just me or the other hand? The results show clearly enough that the people have been displaced. Thing of the Day is Turf. Seen in this light it becomes clear why some of the biggest blunders cost savings. By using this product and click the button. Every day that gets you organized and makes recommendations to the Board and is protected under applicable laws relating to workers in the private sector is not a valid stream resource. One such case involved an accusation. Living our values does not exceed the maximum number of times that each person has their own things. In the present embodiment is a compound. The most popular password is not working properly. Living and Working Offworld in the world is not enough and living with floods and droughts will be given. They will not be published or reproduced in whole or in part without permission. Are you sure you want to remove this? Doing this allows the user to enter a plea. They can keep private. Are the lyrics to this song not correct? The time now is the time to read this complete guide to information. Composing and decomposing bodies of the slain were the first to find deals. Of these two types of people in this country that are covered by the provisions set out the following information is provided. The current rate is calculated as an average over the period of the first embodiment. Composition for treatment of the subject areas below the mean value of the assets is not available. That is to say that this game is a remake. At least one type of telecommunication device ...
"Standard Remote" by Dena Yago
A crater dismounted facing towards
One problem
Natural counting towards two a surface
You said ‘immaleable ruin’
That settles in the palm of a hand
Development psych
Standing in it’s shadow
Giving a one way signal
Like no one is home
Cosmic accents
Back and forth
Like where are you from
Anyway
Make from me leaned over
A sitting desk
A standing desk
Five thousand bookmarks
Returning numbers in fines
I have paid for this in interest
Down-paid
Discomfort
Swung open
A revolving door turns unconvinced
Pre-paid
I am still at home
I have not left yet
I am in Queens
What one line can accomodate
A text wrap around
That one.
Alternative to a shade of preparation
Alternating between white and another white that you notice less
Putting one glove on takes two hands
And what can my cold hands say to that?
Standing on gravel
site specific self identifying
As gravel
Layout interrupted
A path following
An aluminum Swiss water bottle
A transcription:
She told me they sell no deodorant here
I knew she was lying I asked
Why I know that you are lying
She told we do but they don’t need deodorant here
I knew she was lying
I said you are lying
She said you are the salt of the earth
With one hand held over two breasts
No dark storm can rage over two breasts
With one hand
And cream shirt worn
Into a dark 3 p.m. screening
Of my life my love
This love is truly abated by
No one else’s breasts
A distant swiss watch chimes background fade
Powdered marble on powdered marble on
An unlined t shirt
Cognito ergo sum
Index finger in hot black coffee
There is no aporia in heaven
She said wiping her nail ...
Rhizome Today: A critic, with opinions about postinternet art
Rhizome makes money from benefit auctions of postinternet objects whereas Artforum and Art in America do not
Displacement is the New Translation
DECENTER: An Exhibition on the Centenary of the 1913 Armory Show
United States of America
The Abrons Arts Center of Henry Street Settlement is proud to present DECENTER: An Exhibition on the Centenary of the 1913 Armory Show, curated by Andrianna Campbell and Daniel S. Palmer. Opening February 17, 2013 and on view through April 7, the exhibition celebrates the legacy of the Cubist paintings and sculptures in the historic 1913 Armory Show by featuring a group of 27 emerging and internationally recognized contemporary artists, who explore the changes in perception precipitated by our digital age and who closely parallel the Cubist vernacular of fragmentation, nonlinearity, simultaneity, and decenteredness. The show highlights the sponsorship of the 50th anniversary exhibition by the Henry Street Settlement in 1963, the occasion which announced the building of what is today known as the Abrons Arts Center located at 466 Grand Street, New York, NY, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
The exhibition commences on the 100th anniversary of the Armory Show, Sunday, February 17, with a 1913 Armory Show Centennial Event, which will feature panel discussions about the 1913 exhibition, as well as the theme of perception and art in the digital age, followed by an opening reception. The show exhibits a group of artworks in the gallery, and also features digital works displayed at www.decenterarmory.com. The site launches February 17.
At the 1913 Armory Show, the Association of American Painters and Sculptors showcased the “New Spirit” of modern art. A backlash of scathing criticism showed how baffled the general American public was by the seeds of abstraction in the Cubist artworks, which quickly became a shorthand expression for the structural changes precipitated by modernity. They not only redefined artistic practice, but also altered our understanding of the process through which we perceive the world. On its 100th anniversary, we will celebrate the Armory Show by posing the question: What is the legacy of Cubism in the hundred years since the Armory Show’s radical display of modern art, and especially, how has this become relevant today?
Accordingly, this exhibition celebrates the centenary of the groundbreaking Armory Show by assembling artworks that analyze the digital revolution and the ways it has affected our perception of the world. Artists as varied as Sara VanDerBeek, Gabriel Orozco, Liz Magic Laser, and Abrons AIRspace residency program alumna Amy Feldman evoke the formal innovations of the historic avant-garde but differ through an embrace or flirtation with digital mediation. Artists today like Andrew Kuo, Tony Cokes, and Cory Arcangel are inspired by the inter-cultural circulation of images, ideas, and data in a worldwide network. While Pablo Picasso and fellow Cubists combined archaic Western forms and appropriated exotica to shatter inherited modes of representation, today ubiquitous computing and the digital image explosion create an intersection of the physical and the virtual, and in doing so, have decentered the locus of artistic praxis.
Although the far-reaching historical significance of the Armory Show was examined through a partial re-creation on its fiftieth anniversary in 1963 (sponsored by the Henry Street Settlement), even then, scholars acknowledged that the exhibition’s social import could not be replicated simply by re-staging the show. In order to honor that “New Spirit,” and the collaborative process through which the 27 members of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors organized this radical exhibit, the 2013 show will inhabit all available exhibition spaces at Abrons and also feature a corresponding online component of digital works. This web-based portion of the show, accessible at www.decenterarmory.com, will grow as artists invite others to contribute in a process that highlights the diversity and expansiveness of the 1913 show’s legacy as it relates to our world today.
This event celebrates the 1913 Armory Show, exactly 100 years after its doors opened to the public. What is the legacy of the exhibition, and how has it been understood and misinterpreted? Is there a “new aesthetic” brought about by perceptual shifts in the digital era? How do these changes align with the formal innovations of the historic avant garde? These two discussion panels, organized in conjunction with Abrons Art Center’s “Decenter: An Exhibition on the Centenary of the 1913 Armory Show,” will address the legacy of the 1913 Armory Show, and the ways that perception and artistic practice in the last hundred years has been radically transformed by our digital era.
Panel Discussion: The Legacy of the 1913 Armory Show:
Charles Haven Duncan (Collection Specialist, Archives of American Art)
Franklin Evans (Artist, New York)
Andrea Geyer (Artist, New York)
Marilyn Satin Kushner (Curator and Head, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections, New-York Historical Society; Co-curator of The Armory Show at 100)
Mary Murray (Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute)
Panel Discussion: Perception and Art in the Digital Age:
Introduced by: Israel Rosenfield (City University of New York)
Ethan Greenbaum, Barbara Kasten, Andrew Kuo, Travess Smalley, Sara VanDerBeek
Moderated by: Brian Droitcour