BIO
Curt Cloninger is an artist, writer, and Associate Professor of New Media at the University of North Carolina Asheville. His art undermines language as a system of meaning in order to reveal it as an embodied force in the world. His art work has been featured in the New York Times and at festivals and galleries from Korea to Brazil. Exhibition venues include Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Granoff Center for The Creative Arts (Brown University), Digital Art Museum [DAM] (Berlin), Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (Chicago), Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, and the internet. He is the recipient of several grants and awards, including commissions for the creation of new artwork from the National Endowment for the Arts (via Turbulence.org) and Austin Peay State University's Terminal Award.
Cloninger has written on a wide range of topics, including new media and internet art, installation and performance art, experimental graphic design, popular music, network culture, and continental philosophy. His articles have appeared in Intelligent Agent, Mute, Paste, Tekka, Rhizome Digest, A List Apart, and on ABC World News. He is also the author of eight books, most recently One Per Year (Link Editions). He maintains lab404.com, playdamage.org , and deepyoung.org in hopes of facilitating a more lively remote dialogue with the Sundry Contagions of Wonder.
Cloninger has written on a wide range of topics, including new media and internet art, installation and performance art, experimental graphic design, popular music, network culture, and continental philosophy. His articles have appeared in Intelligent Agent, Mute, Paste, Tekka, Rhizome Digest, A List Apart, and on ABC World News. He is also the author of eight books, most recently One Per Year (Link Editions). He maintains lab404.com, playdamage.org , and deepyoung.org in hopes of facilitating a more lively remote dialogue with the Sundry Contagions of Wonder.
Introducing
Hi Ryder,
>> in most social settings our self consciousness and ego makes discourse an act of performance.

>>Possibly a better use of a de Certaeu reference would be in trying to understand why people are drawn to such "mind-numbingly banal visual language"..

>> dump.fm is a medium, a tool for communication, what is posted on it is not dump.fm... it is always in motion and influx.

>>Also why can't you google "Antonin Artaud drawings" without ever having heard of him?




-Most people find theory extremely banal. I bet there are more chatters than theorists in the world.

I realize dump.fm isn't a community with an ethical agenda, a political agenda, or even an "artistic" agenda. That's fine and probably preferable. My (admittedly personal) concern is simply this (following Deleuze and Guattari) -- some lines of deterritorialization (potentially new ways of being in the world) are dead-ends. They lead to reterritorialization (established ways of being in the world), or to whirlpools of capture (dead-ends, infections, deaths). Sometimes these new lines break free and lead to altogether new/emergent places (monstrous places, thrilling places, gorgeously useless places). You can't know where these lines will lead until you put them into play. Once in play, theory can sometimes be useful in stewarding lines of potential deterritorialization so that they don't wind up in the same old closed-circuits. It's not so much a qualitative judgement of whether something is "good/bad," "high culture/low culture," "pretty/ugly," "hip/stale," or even "boring/fun" (although "boring/fun" is usually a pretty good test). The question is more along the lines of "is this vector/trajectory still eluding recapture?"
I don't mean to police, freeze, isolate, or kill anything. As you rightly point out, dump.fm is in motion; it is what it does. To set something new in motion at all is a commendable thing. I wouldn't be writing about it if I didn't think it might matter. Take what you can use of my feedback and leave the rest.
Respect,
Curt
>> in most social settings our self consciousness and ego makes discourse an act of performance.

>>Possibly a better use of a de Certaeu reference would be in trying to understand why people are drawn to such "mind-numbingly banal visual language"..

>> dump.fm is a medium, a tool for communication, what is posted on it is not dump.fm... it is always in motion and influx.

>>Also why can't you google "Antonin Artaud drawings" without ever having heard of him?




-Most people find theory extremely banal. I bet there are more chatters than theorists in the world.

I realize dump.fm isn't a community with an ethical agenda, a political agenda, or even an "artistic" agenda. That's fine and probably preferable. My (admittedly personal) concern is simply this (following Deleuze and Guattari) -- some lines of deterritorialization (potentially new ways of being in the world) are dead-ends. They lead to reterritorialization (established ways of being in the world), or to whirlpools of capture (dead-ends, infections, deaths). Sometimes these new lines break free and lead to altogether new/emergent places (monstrous places, thrilling places, gorgeously useless places). You can't know where these lines will lead until you put them into play. Once in play, theory can sometimes be useful in stewarding lines of potential deterritorialization so that they don't wind up in the same old closed-circuits. It's not so much a qualitative judgement of whether something is "good/bad," "high culture/low culture," "pretty/ugly," "hip/stale," or even "boring/fun" (although "boring/fun" is usually a pretty good test). The question is more along the lines of "is this vector/trajectory still eluding recapture?"
I don't mean to police, freeze, isolate, or kill anything. As you rightly point out, dump.fm is in motion; it is what it does. To set something new in motion at all is a commendable thing. I wouldn't be writing about it if I didn't think it might matter. Take what you can use of my feedback and leave the rest.
Respect,
Curt
Introducing
Hi Ryder (and all),
On the whole, I have enjoyed my time at dump.fm. Here are some theoretical and personal thoughts:
+++++++++++++++++++++++
1.
I would love a javascript dump widget (a la tumblr) for my browser bookmarks bar which allows me to post directly from the URL of the image I am viewing without having to cut and paste that URL into the chat form. The google search widget is very cool for speed dumps.
2.
I think the ability to post text inline with the flow of the images makes the whole experience less cool. Participants have a tendency to fall back on using familiar/safe Times New Roman English to communicate. It would be more uncanny if the main forum were just images. Text conversation could happen off-site via other channels.
3.
The revenge of animated gifs! Animated gifs prevail online where Flash and Quicktime fail precisely because they are so RSS-able. The animated gif does not take the monadic form of the complete book, the complete sentence, or even the complete phrase. It is a grammatical molecule, a syntactical hieroglyph, a jpg on wheels. It is ideal for this form of visual chat.
4.
Following Virillio and McLuhan: Real-time speed of exchange fundamentally alters the nature of communication (which is why the Rhizome discussion forum was dead in the water the moment it became moderated and time-lagged). In a real-time chat environment, images begin to head toward an actual form of "discourse" (Heidegger) and "utterance" (Bakhtin). When these visual exchanges are handled with a modicum of care, this kind of "language" moves toward event performance and away from mere semiotic representation. It's a good thing.
5.
The dump.fm environment (potentially) changes the way I curate images and create images online.
a. My tumblr site ( http://lab404.tumblr.com ) now becomes a repository for future dialogues, a kind of personal lexicon / visual dictionary / expressive arsenal. I stockpile images not for what "they say" in and of themselves individually, or even what they say next to other images in the context of my tumblr site; but I stockpile them for what they may allow me to say at some future time in some heretofore unknown visual chat context.
b. I am tempted to begin creating animated gifs not so much for their novelty, beauty, or integration into larger, self-determined, holistic online contexts (like http://playdamage.org ); but for their versatile use as visual "terms" at some future time in some heretofore unknown visual chat context.
6.
The "visual chat" medium alone is not enough to ward off mind-numbingly banal visual language. Pornography, gore, scatology, racism, rehashed 4chan memes, blingee-modified nuptial-script typography -- it's like giving a bunch of six-year-olds access to a home recording studio and watching them spend all their time whispering "poo poo" into the microphone and giggling about it. I get it; I just don't have a fetishistic craving for it.
McLuhan says the content of any new medium is always the previous medium. We're given film technology, and all we can think to do is film theater dramas. We get the chance to construct our own visual language and do some actual net.REsearch, and all we can do is regurgitate the de facto net.surface languages we have inherited from corporations, people transfixed by the spectacle of corporations, people impotently and "ironically" giggling at corporations and their transfixed audiences, Lord of the Rings fans, and mySpace users.
de Certeau says we can't necessarily control the content we are fed, but we can control what we make of it, how we "make do" with it. Posting a litany of blingee pink unicorns acquired by doing a google search for "blingee pink unicorns" is not really "making do" with much.
7.
The problem (when chats get boring) is not even the banal content, but the lack of innovative visual syntax, alternate search strategies, and ingenious recontextualizations.
a. tiresome: http://www.profilebrand.com/imgs/layouts/21gangster/282/282_L-gangsta-gun.jpg
b. un-tiresome: http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_kyx3k7HhWE1qb58eqo1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=0RYTHV9YYQ4W5Q3HQMG2&Expires=1268073834&Signature=CHXoN8yOw4BVdzjwLHsZTWxp%2BFs%3D
A lack of digital craft skills means a lack of modulation agency: you can find, tile, and title, but you can't get under the hood and tweak. A lack of historical knowledge means rehashing the same old bottom-of-the-barrel net.swill ad infinitum: you can't Google "Antonin Artaud drawings" if you don't know who he is. What results is a hermetically sealed Baudrillardian hyper-reality left to fester in the flat/uniform light of a perpetual present. "Maybe go out, maybe stay home, maybe call mom on the telephone" [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4svG-6vHDfk ].
8.
This banality is partially excused by 2 factors:
a. chatting is more banal that writing, so visual chatting is going to be more banal that visual blogging (aka "surf clubbin'").
b. some chatters are more banal than others.
9.
Having said all that, it still seems worth the risk to keep things fast and open. The fast pace forces a performative aspect and a curious type of improvisational thinking (a thinking which synthesizes research, memory, gestalt recognition of forms, semiotic cultural memory, wordplay). This kind of performativity and improvisational thinking does not occur at the slower pace of bulletin board or newslist communication.
10.
It's fun. It would be fun to recruit a posse of old school freaks and hijack it for an evening.
for great justice,
Curt
On the whole, I have enjoyed my time at dump.fm. Here are some theoretical and personal thoughts:
+++++++++++++++++++++++
1.
I would love a javascript dump widget (a la tumblr) for my browser bookmarks bar which allows me to post directly from the URL of the image I am viewing without having to cut and paste that URL into the chat form. The google search widget is very cool for speed dumps.
2.
I think the ability to post text inline with the flow of the images makes the whole experience less cool. Participants have a tendency to fall back on using familiar/safe Times New Roman English to communicate. It would be more uncanny if the main forum were just images. Text conversation could happen off-site via other channels.
3.
The revenge of animated gifs! Animated gifs prevail online where Flash and Quicktime fail precisely because they are so RSS-able. The animated gif does not take the monadic form of the complete book, the complete sentence, or even the complete phrase. It is a grammatical molecule, a syntactical hieroglyph, a jpg on wheels. It is ideal for this form of visual chat.
4.
Following Virillio and McLuhan: Real-time speed of exchange fundamentally alters the nature of communication (which is why the Rhizome discussion forum was dead in the water the moment it became moderated and time-lagged). In a real-time chat environment, images begin to head toward an actual form of "discourse" (Heidegger) and "utterance" (Bakhtin). When these visual exchanges are handled with a modicum of care, this kind of "language" moves toward event performance and away from mere semiotic representation. It's a good thing.
5.
The dump.fm environment (potentially) changes the way I curate images and create images online.
a. My tumblr site ( http://lab404.tumblr.com ) now becomes a repository for future dialogues, a kind of personal lexicon / visual dictionary / expressive arsenal. I stockpile images not for what "they say" in and of themselves individually, or even what they say next to other images in the context of my tumblr site; but I stockpile them for what they may allow me to say at some future time in some heretofore unknown visual chat context.
b. I am tempted to begin creating animated gifs not so much for their novelty, beauty, or integration into larger, self-determined, holistic online contexts (like http://playdamage.org ); but for their versatile use as visual "terms" at some future time in some heretofore unknown visual chat context.
6.
The "visual chat" medium alone is not enough to ward off mind-numbingly banal visual language. Pornography, gore, scatology, racism, rehashed 4chan memes, blingee-modified nuptial-script typography -- it's like giving a bunch of six-year-olds access to a home recording studio and watching them spend all their time whispering "poo poo" into the microphone and giggling about it. I get it; I just don't have a fetishistic craving for it.
McLuhan says the content of any new medium is always the previous medium. We're given film technology, and all we can think to do is film theater dramas. We get the chance to construct our own visual language and do some actual net.REsearch, and all we can do is regurgitate the de facto net.surface languages we have inherited from corporations, people transfixed by the spectacle of corporations, people impotently and "ironically" giggling at corporations and their transfixed audiences, Lord of the Rings fans, and mySpace users.
de Certeau says we can't necessarily control the content we are fed, but we can control what we make of it, how we "make do" with it. Posting a litany of blingee pink unicorns acquired by doing a google search for "blingee pink unicorns" is not really "making do" with much.
7.
The problem (when chats get boring) is not even the banal content, but the lack of innovative visual syntax, alternate search strategies, and ingenious recontextualizations.
a. tiresome: http://www.profilebrand.com/imgs/layouts/21gangster/282/282_L-gangsta-gun.jpg
b. un-tiresome: http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_kyx3k7HhWE1qb58eqo1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=0RYTHV9YYQ4W5Q3HQMG2&Expires=1268073834&Signature=CHXoN8yOw4BVdzjwLHsZTWxp%2BFs%3D
A lack of digital craft skills means a lack of modulation agency: you can find, tile, and title, but you can't get under the hood and tweak. A lack of historical knowledge means rehashing the same old bottom-of-the-barrel net.swill ad infinitum: you can't Google "Antonin Artaud drawings" if you don't know who he is. What results is a hermetically sealed Baudrillardian hyper-reality left to fester in the flat/uniform light of a perpetual present. "Maybe go out, maybe stay home, maybe call mom on the telephone" [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4svG-6vHDfk ].
8.
This banality is partially excused by 2 factors:
a. chatting is more banal that writing, so visual chatting is going to be more banal that visual blogging (aka "surf clubbin'").
b. some chatters are more banal than others.
9.
Having said all that, it still seems worth the risk to keep things fast and open. The fast pace forces a performative aspect and a curious type of improvisational thinking (a thinking which synthesizes research, memory, gestalt recognition of forms, semiotic cultural memory, wordplay). This kind of performativity and improvisational thinking does not occur at the slower pace of bulletin board or newslist communication.
10.
It's fun. It would be fun to recruit a posse of old school freaks and hijack it for an evening.
for great justice,
Curt
post- media art manifesto
Hi Renato,
My meta-manifesto approach (a bit tongue-in-cheek, but related to ideas of who, how many, and sharing drafts):
http://playdamage.org/manifest-o-matic/
Best,
Curt
My meta-manifesto approach (a bit tongue-in-cheek, but related to ideas of who, how many, and sharing drafts):
http://playdamage.org/manifest-o-matic/
Best,
Curt