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.
Re: source code mix an explanation
cf:
http://slicks.ulyssis.org/coverdb/home/
for a database of sample sources.
this beastie boys track is particularly dense:
http://slicks.ulyssis.org/coverdb/song/1259.html
also, feel free to:
http://www.lab404.com/audio/tbomv/
and finally, somebody needs to mash up "fell in love with a girl" with "hey ya."
getting farm-fresh crazy w/ the cheese whiz,
the artist formerly known as brion gysin
\_
\_
rick silva wrote:
> after a couple of emails asking what i am doing with this mix,
> i thought i would explain further:
>
> all the tracks in this mix are the original sources for some of
> the most known hip hop, breakbeat and drum n
http://slicks.ulyssis.org/coverdb/home/
for a database of sample sources.
this beastie boys track is particularly dense:
http://slicks.ulyssis.org/coverdb/song/1259.html
also, feel free to:
http://www.lab404.com/audio/tbomv/
and finally, somebody needs to mash up "fell in love with a girl" with "hey ya."
getting farm-fresh crazy w/ the cheese whiz,
the artist formerly known as brion gysin
\_
\_
rick silva wrote:
> after a couple of emails asking what i am doing with this mix,
> i thought i would explain further:
>
> all the tracks in this mix are the original sources for some of
> the most known hip hop, breakbeat and drum n
a more exciting delerium
A MORE EXCITING DELERIUM
A Response to Paul D. Miller's "Rhythm Science"
Curt Cloninger
Paul D. Miller (of DJ Spooky fame) recently wrote a book called
"Rhythm Science" for MIT Press. The book comes with an original DJ
Spooky mix CD. In the following review, I'm going to criticize
Paul's prose, analyze the inherent media differences between
turntablism and the essay, praise Miller's brilliant use of media
filtering as a tactic for self-identity preservation, and exonerate
the intuitive aural playsmithing of all things Spooky. As I proceed,
I'll try my darndest not to get sucked into the meta-meta-meta-mire
of de/re-construction that even now pulls like a gaping maw at the
mere thought of responding to this text with something resembling
lucid criticism.
PROSE != TURNTABLISM
Freestyle turntablism is when DJs get together and improvise mixes in
real-time, as Jazz musicians have done for decades. Freestyle
rapping is like a form of contemporary jazz scatting --
improvisational rhyming, real-time rhythmic spoken verse. The two
forms aren't unrelated, but mastering one by no means assures the
mastery of the other. Louis Armstrong could do both; Miles Davis
could only do the horn thing.
In the first and last sections of "Rhythm Science," Miller attempts a
sort of prose freestyling. It reads like most of his CD liner notes,
and is my least favorite part of the book. It's not that a freestyle
prose genre isn't possible. Indeed, there are very interesting
similarities between mix culture with its digging and sampling, and
academic prose with its research and footnoting. Both cultures are
attribution/remix cultures, and props to Miller for foregrounding
their semiotic similarities. It's just that the end result of
Miller's particular experiments generally come up short. For example:
"From now to the beginning let it be like a record spinning. Nets
and bets, tasks and masks, codes and modes, it all just flows. Do
you get my drift?"
"The circuitry of the machines is the constant in this picture; the
software is the embodiment of infinite adaptability, an architecture
of frozen music, unthwarted. Watch the flow: That's the content
versus context scenario of DJ culture. Hardware, wetware, shareware,
software: The invisible machinery of codes that filter the sounds is
omnivorous. Opposites extract."
Stacked up against Ginsberg's "angel-headed hipsters burning for the
ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of
night," Miller's freestyle prose pales considerably. It reads less
like Burroughs or Ferlenghetti (or even Gibson) and more like a train
wreck between a cyber-utopianist Gil Scott Heron on Ecstacy and
Derrida at his most impenetrably obtuse.
The middle, more autobiographical sections of "Rhythm Science" fare
much better. Miller is at his best when he is simply describing his
personal experiences and inspirations.
Even so, Miller's overall approach to prose is generally,
detrimentally oblique. In many ways, "Rhythm Science" attempts to
port the mojo of mix culture to the medium of the prose essay, but
crossing between media is a lot more sticky than crossing between
operating systems, particularly when you're starting from the
visceral/ethereal extreme of media (music) and hoping to arrive at
the encoded/didactic extreme of media (the prose essay).
Poetry seems the most logical bridge between these two extreme media,
but poetry is art, and not all great jazz musicians make great poets.
If "Rhythm Science" is art, it's pretty fragged. If "Rhythm Science"
is academic scholarship, it's pretty loose. For example, Miller
writes, ""Flip the script, open the equation, check the situation.
Guy Debord used to call this style detournement, Sigmund Freud called
it the uncanny -- we call it wildstyle." Definitely illuminating in
terms of Spooky's personal influences, but more of an assertion than
an academic argument. I'm inclined to forgive Lev Manovich's
plodding prose for the frequency of his useful insights, and I
gleefully forgive Lester Bangs' illogical ramblings for the sheer
delight of his frolicking prose. But "Rhythm Science" comes off as a
kind of awkward in-between.
Semiotically, written prose doesn't "flow" like mixed audio, or even
freestyle rapping. It's a more strictly encoded medium. If I miss
the exact flow of Spooky's freestyle audio mix, I still land more or
less in the same intended analogical zone, and I have a pleasant trip
getting there. If I miss the exact flow of Miller's freestyle prose
(and I almost always do because of its unapologetic subjectivity), I
get a binary disconnect.
The synthetic "flow" of Spooky's Dj-ing seems intuitive to him. He
has the conceptual ear of an arranger/composer. It's not just the
intriguing source samples that he digs, and it's not just the
physical dexterity of his hands to scratch, cut, and play other
instruments. Spooky's genius as a turntablist has to do with his
overarching understanding of hierarchical rhythmic, tonal, and
thematic relationships.
The synthetic "flow" of writing is a combination of reason and
prosecraft. You can allude to dope source texts all you want, you
can even synthesize these texts in your own mind to your personal
intellectual satisfaction, but if you lack the prosecraft necessary
to convey the vibe of your intellectual remix to your reader, then
your text will never generatively ascend to the next level; it will
remain a mere sum of its parts. Simply layering memes in prose isn't
enough. The memes have to be interleaved and woven, and on more than
just an instantaneous, syntactic level. Miller himself admits, "The
danger within writing, of taking sampling too far -- too much
citation, not enough synthesis -- leads to the break with the old
form." When "Rhythm Science" fails, it's not for lack of attempted
synthesis, but for lack of accomplished synthesis.
To his credit, Miller is obviously enjoying the novel process of
porting mix culture approaches to the prose essay. He even seems
aware that his experiment might not be working out as well as
expected. He writes:
"It is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent."
"It's a dyslexic shuffle of autopoesis between two undercover agents
who carry their orders clutched in dead hands -- the transfer of
information between them is an Inter-relationship between music and
art and writing."
"Have I spoken around the topic too much. That's kind of the point."
Still, Miller's own awareness of the difficulty of his task doesn't
make my reading experience any less obtuse.
IT WORKS IF YOU PLAY IT
"Rhythm Science" works best when I approach it as massive liner notes
to the accompanying CD. The CD is presented as a sort of artistic
"proof" of the book's text, but the audio mix proves so strong an
"argument," it actually backgrounds the book and makes it seem almost
incidental. Miller writes, "At the end of the day, when you press
PLAY on the CD, you don't necessarily care what the DJ was thinking
about. You're just going to see if you like it or not." Amen.
My favorite parts of the CD include text readings by Joyce and Tzara,
both so overboard hypnotically rhythmic that Spooky barely has to
recontextualize them as rap. Various spoken texts are read by their
own authors, and there's even a Debussy piano piece played by Debussy
himself. Here in this other/ether medium of audio, Spooky's
influences are no longer worn, time-shifted memes on a page
("palimpsest," "flanneur"); here they are real-time, pneumatic
personalities. In this other/ether medium of audio, Spooky's
influences are no longer disembodiedly floating in the back of his
mind, they are crisp and crackling at the tips of his fingers. In
other words, his influences are in the mix -- a mix that's finally
reaching me; a mix that's deftly narrated; a mix that suddenly
matters.
I wonder whether Miller will take offense at my toggling the primacy
of book and CD? I'm hoping Spooky will understand. The book
actually allows itself to be read as supplement. Miller writes, "I
do know that average kids from the street are probably not aware of
the connections between Derrida's deconstructions and turntablism's
mixes, but it's there if they ever come looking, and my own writings
are a place to start." However you read/play it, Miller can hardly
be accused of advantageously pimping hip hop culture to the academic
set. If anything, it's almost the opposite.
The CD appeals to me more than the text because it "reads" as more
genuine, more vital, more crucial to the everyday life of the artist.
Why this should be so brings me to the main value of the book, the
CD, Paul D. Miller, DJ Spooky, and all things pertaining thereof...
I AM THE DJ, I AM WHAT I SPLAY
The single coolest thing about Miller/Spooky is the way he implements
the role of "filter" as a self-preservation mechanism. Spooky's
music is vital not because it's based on some formulated conceptual
theory that panders well to the contemporary academic art set. His
music is vital because its creation is the way in which he maintains
his own identity in a world constantly seeking to erode it.
Miller writes, "There's so much information about who you should be
or what you should be that you're not left with the option of trying
to create a mix of your very self. The mix absorbs almost anything
it can engage -- and much it can't."
A seemingly intuitive solution to this dilemma is to become a content
producer rather than a content consumer. The problem is, once
"content producer" becomes your role in contemporary society,
whichever marketer redistributes you, whichever critic evaluates you,
whichever entity ultimately filters and contextualizes you -- that
entity gets the last spin on who you are. How to avoid this
conundrum? Simultaneously become both producer and filter. On the
"Rhythm Science" CD, Spooky is remixing remixes of remixes. He even
remixes his own remixes. Once you start filtering yourself, the only
person who can filter you now is a meta-filter. And if you become
you're own infinitely telescoping, self-filtering meta-meta-filter,
who can filter you now? The catch is, in order to maintain your
most-meta position, you have to wake up early and go to sleep late
and swim all day long in fresh streams of steely media, imbibing and
remixing, imbibing and remixing, all in order to stay one step ahead
of the system's constant attempt to meta-name you. Fortunately for
DJ Spooky, he doesn't seem to mind the hours.
What arises is a constant flux of creative variability serving as a
sort of talisman/immunization strategy against commodification. You
ward off stereotypes of yourself by absorbing them and spinning them.
I won't tell you who I am. You'll just misinterpret me anyway.
Instead, I'll take who you say I am (which is skewed) and own it just
long enough to hybridize it and spit it back out at you. Now do you
know who I am? Guess again; here comes the 2.0 remix. And on and on
and on. In the 50s, Ralph Ellison declared, "I am an invisible man.
When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or
figments of their imagination -- indeed, everything and anything
except me." Spooky transcends invisibility via the remix. In
situations that defy reason, the most effective strategies are often
counter-intuitive.
Miller writes, "By Dj-ing, making art, and writing simultaneously, I
tried to create a new role that's resonant with web culture: to
function as content provider, producer, and critic all at the same
time. It's role consolidation as digital performance." Ultimately,
it's this tactical approach that makes the "Rhythm Science" project
worth wading through. Spooky is one of the few artists
simultaneously prolific and optimistic enough to perpetually speak
the ever-churning language of new media. Consequently, most of his
static detractors will wind up eating his dust, because his dust
doesn't appear to be settling any time soon.
A Response to Paul D. Miller's "Rhythm Science"
Curt Cloninger
Paul D. Miller (of DJ Spooky fame) recently wrote a book called
"Rhythm Science" for MIT Press. The book comes with an original DJ
Spooky mix CD. In the following review, I'm going to criticize
Paul's prose, analyze the inherent media differences between
turntablism and the essay, praise Miller's brilliant use of media
filtering as a tactic for self-identity preservation, and exonerate
the intuitive aural playsmithing of all things Spooky. As I proceed,
I'll try my darndest not to get sucked into the meta-meta-meta-mire
of de/re-construction that even now pulls like a gaping maw at the
mere thought of responding to this text with something resembling
lucid criticism.
PROSE != TURNTABLISM
Freestyle turntablism is when DJs get together and improvise mixes in
real-time, as Jazz musicians have done for decades. Freestyle
rapping is like a form of contemporary jazz scatting --
improvisational rhyming, real-time rhythmic spoken verse. The two
forms aren't unrelated, but mastering one by no means assures the
mastery of the other. Louis Armstrong could do both; Miles Davis
could only do the horn thing.
In the first and last sections of "Rhythm Science," Miller attempts a
sort of prose freestyling. It reads like most of his CD liner notes,
and is my least favorite part of the book. It's not that a freestyle
prose genre isn't possible. Indeed, there are very interesting
similarities between mix culture with its digging and sampling, and
academic prose with its research and footnoting. Both cultures are
attribution/remix cultures, and props to Miller for foregrounding
their semiotic similarities. It's just that the end result of
Miller's particular experiments generally come up short. For example:
"From now to the beginning let it be like a record spinning. Nets
and bets, tasks and masks, codes and modes, it all just flows. Do
you get my drift?"
"The circuitry of the machines is the constant in this picture; the
software is the embodiment of infinite adaptability, an architecture
of frozen music, unthwarted. Watch the flow: That's the content
versus context scenario of DJ culture. Hardware, wetware, shareware,
software: The invisible machinery of codes that filter the sounds is
omnivorous. Opposites extract."
Stacked up against Ginsberg's "angel-headed hipsters burning for the
ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of
night," Miller's freestyle prose pales considerably. It reads less
like Burroughs or Ferlenghetti (or even Gibson) and more like a train
wreck between a cyber-utopianist Gil Scott Heron on Ecstacy and
Derrida at his most impenetrably obtuse.
The middle, more autobiographical sections of "Rhythm Science" fare
much better. Miller is at his best when he is simply describing his
personal experiences and inspirations.
Even so, Miller's overall approach to prose is generally,
detrimentally oblique. In many ways, "Rhythm Science" attempts to
port the mojo of mix culture to the medium of the prose essay, but
crossing between media is a lot more sticky than crossing between
operating systems, particularly when you're starting from the
visceral/ethereal extreme of media (music) and hoping to arrive at
the encoded/didactic extreme of media (the prose essay).
Poetry seems the most logical bridge between these two extreme media,
but poetry is art, and not all great jazz musicians make great poets.
If "Rhythm Science" is art, it's pretty fragged. If "Rhythm Science"
is academic scholarship, it's pretty loose. For example, Miller
writes, ""Flip the script, open the equation, check the situation.
Guy Debord used to call this style detournement, Sigmund Freud called
it the uncanny -- we call it wildstyle." Definitely illuminating in
terms of Spooky's personal influences, but more of an assertion than
an academic argument. I'm inclined to forgive Lev Manovich's
plodding prose for the frequency of his useful insights, and I
gleefully forgive Lester Bangs' illogical ramblings for the sheer
delight of his frolicking prose. But "Rhythm Science" comes off as a
kind of awkward in-between.
Semiotically, written prose doesn't "flow" like mixed audio, or even
freestyle rapping. It's a more strictly encoded medium. If I miss
the exact flow of Spooky's freestyle audio mix, I still land more or
less in the same intended analogical zone, and I have a pleasant trip
getting there. If I miss the exact flow of Miller's freestyle prose
(and I almost always do because of its unapologetic subjectivity), I
get a binary disconnect.
The synthetic "flow" of Spooky's Dj-ing seems intuitive to him. He
has the conceptual ear of an arranger/composer. It's not just the
intriguing source samples that he digs, and it's not just the
physical dexterity of his hands to scratch, cut, and play other
instruments. Spooky's genius as a turntablist has to do with his
overarching understanding of hierarchical rhythmic, tonal, and
thematic relationships.
The synthetic "flow" of writing is a combination of reason and
prosecraft. You can allude to dope source texts all you want, you
can even synthesize these texts in your own mind to your personal
intellectual satisfaction, but if you lack the prosecraft necessary
to convey the vibe of your intellectual remix to your reader, then
your text will never generatively ascend to the next level; it will
remain a mere sum of its parts. Simply layering memes in prose isn't
enough. The memes have to be interleaved and woven, and on more than
just an instantaneous, syntactic level. Miller himself admits, "The
danger within writing, of taking sampling too far -- too much
citation, not enough synthesis -- leads to the break with the old
form." When "Rhythm Science" fails, it's not for lack of attempted
synthesis, but for lack of accomplished synthesis.
To his credit, Miller is obviously enjoying the novel process of
porting mix culture approaches to the prose essay. He even seems
aware that his experiment might not be working out as well as
expected. He writes:
"It is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent."
"It's a dyslexic shuffle of autopoesis between two undercover agents
who carry their orders clutched in dead hands -- the transfer of
information between them is an Inter-relationship between music and
art and writing."
"Have I spoken around the topic too much. That's kind of the point."
Still, Miller's own awareness of the difficulty of his task doesn't
make my reading experience any less obtuse.
IT WORKS IF YOU PLAY IT
"Rhythm Science" works best when I approach it as massive liner notes
to the accompanying CD. The CD is presented as a sort of artistic
"proof" of the book's text, but the audio mix proves so strong an
"argument," it actually backgrounds the book and makes it seem almost
incidental. Miller writes, "At the end of the day, when you press
PLAY on the CD, you don't necessarily care what the DJ was thinking
about. You're just going to see if you like it or not." Amen.
My favorite parts of the CD include text readings by Joyce and Tzara,
both so overboard hypnotically rhythmic that Spooky barely has to
recontextualize them as rap. Various spoken texts are read by their
own authors, and there's even a Debussy piano piece played by Debussy
himself. Here in this other/ether medium of audio, Spooky's
influences are no longer worn, time-shifted memes on a page
("palimpsest," "flanneur"); here they are real-time, pneumatic
personalities. In this other/ether medium of audio, Spooky's
influences are no longer disembodiedly floating in the back of his
mind, they are crisp and crackling at the tips of his fingers. In
other words, his influences are in the mix -- a mix that's finally
reaching me; a mix that's deftly narrated; a mix that suddenly
matters.
I wonder whether Miller will take offense at my toggling the primacy
of book and CD? I'm hoping Spooky will understand. The book
actually allows itself to be read as supplement. Miller writes, "I
do know that average kids from the street are probably not aware of
the connections between Derrida's deconstructions and turntablism's
mixes, but it's there if they ever come looking, and my own writings
are a place to start." However you read/play it, Miller can hardly
be accused of advantageously pimping hip hop culture to the academic
set. If anything, it's almost the opposite.
The CD appeals to me more than the text because it "reads" as more
genuine, more vital, more crucial to the everyday life of the artist.
Why this should be so brings me to the main value of the book, the
CD, Paul D. Miller, DJ Spooky, and all things pertaining thereof...
I AM THE DJ, I AM WHAT I SPLAY
The single coolest thing about Miller/Spooky is the way he implements
the role of "filter" as a self-preservation mechanism. Spooky's
music is vital not because it's based on some formulated conceptual
theory that panders well to the contemporary academic art set. His
music is vital because its creation is the way in which he maintains
his own identity in a world constantly seeking to erode it.
Miller writes, "There's so much information about who you should be
or what you should be that you're not left with the option of trying
to create a mix of your very self. The mix absorbs almost anything
it can engage -- and much it can't."
A seemingly intuitive solution to this dilemma is to become a content
producer rather than a content consumer. The problem is, once
"content producer" becomes your role in contemporary society,
whichever marketer redistributes you, whichever critic evaluates you,
whichever entity ultimately filters and contextualizes you -- that
entity gets the last spin on who you are. How to avoid this
conundrum? Simultaneously become both producer and filter. On the
"Rhythm Science" CD, Spooky is remixing remixes of remixes. He even
remixes his own remixes. Once you start filtering yourself, the only
person who can filter you now is a meta-filter. And if you become
you're own infinitely telescoping, self-filtering meta-meta-filter,
who can filter you now? The catch is, in order to maintain your
most-meta position, you have to wake up early and go to sleep late
and swim all day long in fresh streams of steely media, imbibing and
remixing, imbibing and remixing, all in order to stay one step ahead
of the system's constant attempt to meta-name you. Fortunately for
DJ Spooky, he doesn't seem to mind the hours.
What arises is a constant flux of creative variability serving as a
sort of talisman/immunization strategy against commodification. You
ward off stereotypes of yourself by absorbing them and spinning them.
I won't tell you who I am. You'll just misinterpret me anyway.
Instead, I'll take who you say I am (which is skewed) and own it just
long enough to hybridize it and spit it back out at you. Now do you
know who I am? Guess again; here comes the 2.0 remix. And on and on
and on. In the 50s, Ralph Ellison declared, "I am an invisible man.
When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or
figments of their imagination -- indeed, everything and anything
except me." Spooky transcends invisibility via the remix. In
situations that defy reason, the most effective strategies are often
counter-intuitive.
Miller writes, "By Dj-ing, making art, and writing simultaneously, I
tried to create a new role that's resonant with web culture: to
function as content provider, producer, and critic all at the same
time. It's role consolidation as digital performance." Ultimately,
it's this tactical approach that makes the "Rhythm Science" project
worth wading through. Spooky is one of the few artists
simultaneously prolific and optimistic enough to perpetually speak
the ever-churning language of new media. Consequently, most of his
static detractors will wind up eating his dust, because his dust
doesn't appear to be settling any time soon.
meet-in-a-nice-restaurant
meet in a nice restaurant - belgrade - 30th april - 1st may
you are invited to participate in 7th meet in a nice restaurant in
belgrade, serbia
http://www.meet-in-a-nice-restaurant.org
meet in a nice restaurant is an informal meeting of different people
(artists, businesspeople, designers, technicians etc)
on 30th april and 1st may we will have dinners in nice belgrade restaurants
to participate you must register by sending your first & last name,
email, phone and country to nikola@tosic.com
if you have any questions about coming to belgrade, staying in
belgrade, etc please email me at nikola@tosic.com
feel free to forward this email
if you do not wish to receive these emails anymore send an empty
email with "unsubscribe" in the subject to nikola@tosic.com
you are invited to participate in 7th meet in a nice restaurant in
belgrade, serbia
http://www.meet-in-a-nice-restaurant.org
meet in a nice restaurant is an informal meeting of different people
(artists, businesspeople, designers, technicians etc)
on 30th april and 1st may we will have dinners in nice belgrade restaurants
to participate you must register by sending your first & last name,
email, phone and country to nikola@tosic.com
if you have any questions about coming to belgrade, staying in
belgrade, etc please email me at nikola@tosic.com
feel free to forward this email
if you do not wish to receive these emails anymore send an empty
email with "unsubscribe" in the subject to nikola@tosic.com
Re: confessions of a whitneybiennial.com curator
Hi Patrick,
Yeah, maybe all that stuff you said, or maybe the dude at the U-Haul counter screwed up the truck order.
My problem with this particluar "intervention" is that it doesn't really dis the Whitney (although the physical trucks may have, had they been there). Instead, it seems to dis Miltos' collaborators -- the archinect guys, the Flash designers (although they don't know anything other than they got asked to be in another online collab by some art guy), and you. Maybe this was done to some high-minded conceptual end, or maybe the only end was to increase the value of Brand Miltos. I suppose increasing one's art-fame market value used to be a high-minded concept at one time, but it seems fairly played by this point.
To the Flash designers, the project is presented as, "I think your work is really next level and I want to give you some well-deserved uptown art world exposure." But to the art world, it comes off like, "this Flash crap is just as good as any of your other crap and I'm going to use it as fodder to tactically create a buzz for... Brand Miltos." And the interesting conceptual goal of it all is... ?
As a critic, you're forced to try to tie together a bunch of loose, divergent ends (branding, design/art, flash/code, physical/virtual) to make the intervention seem intentional and give it the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it was just a screwy, misdirected piece.
The RTMark hack seems to me a much more focused and interesting conceptual tactic (as your article seems to imply).
peace,
curt
PS. Kudos to ryan for the accompanying image:
http://rhizome.org/imagebase/23807.gif
_
patrick lichty wrote:
> Two years ago, I was asked to collaborate in a project organized by
> Miltos Manetas to problematize the disciplinary agendas of shows like
> the Whitney Biennial by being a co-curator of a site called
> whitneybiennial.com, which gained worldwide attention.
>
> One year ago, Miltos asked be for a quick reflection upon the events
> and
> the issues whitneybiennial.com dealt with for the CD release of the
> site. Seldom am I 'quick' or 'brief', and although the bulk of the
> paper was formed in 2003, it was not completed.
>
> Today, those reflections are complete, and I submit them to you as
> additional view of the whitneybiennial.com intervention. The final
> essay is called, "Confessions of a whitneybiennial.com Curator", and
> it
> is slightly too long for most listservs to accept as a text.
> Therefore
> I offer it to you as a PDF from my website with my humblest
> recommendations.
>
> http://www.voyd.com/whitneybiennial.pdf
>
> Thank you,
> Patrick Lichty
> Editor-In-Chief
> Intelligent Agent Magazine
> http://www.intelligentagent.com
> 355 Seyburn Dr.
> Baton Rouge, LA 70808
>
Yeah, maybe all that stuff you said, or maybe the dude at the U-Haul counter screwed up the truck order.
My problem with this particluar "intervention" is that it doesn't really dis the Whitney (although the physical trucks may have, had they been there). Instead, it seems to dis Miltos' collaborators -- the archinect guys, the Flash designers (although they don't know anything other than they got asked to be in another online collab by some art guy), and you. Maybe this was done to some high-minded conceptual end, or maybe the only end was to increase the value of Brand Miltos. I suppose increasing one's art-fame market value used to be a high-minded concept at one time, but it seems fairly played by this point.
To the Flash designers, the project is presented as, "I think your work is really next level and I want to give you some well-deserved uptown art world exposure." But to the art world, it comes off like, "this Flash crap is just as good as any of your other crap and I'm going to use it as fodder to tactically create a buzz for... Brand Miltos." And the interesting conceptual goal of it all is... ?
As a critic, you're forced to try to tie together a bunch of loose, divergent ends (branding, design/art, flash/code, physical/virtual) to make the intervention seem intentional and give it the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it was just a screwy, misdirected piece.
The RTMark hack seems to me a much more focused and interesting conceptual tactic (as your article seems to imply).
peace,
curt
PS. Kudos to ryan for the accompanying image:
http://rhizome.org/imagebase/23807.gif
_
patrick lichty wrote:
> Two years ago, I was asked to collaborate in a project organized by
> Miltos Manetas to problematize the disciplinary agendas of shows like
> the Whitney Biennial by being a co-curator of a site called
> whitneybiennial.com, which gained worldwide attention.
>
> One year ago, Miltos asked be for a quick reflection upon the events
> and
> the issues whitneybiennial.com dealt with for the CD release of the
> site. Seldom am I 'quick' or 'brief', and although the bulk of the
> paper was formed in 2003, it was not completed.
>
> Today, those reflections are complete, and I submit them to you as
> additional view of the whitneybiennial.com intervention. The final
> essay is called, "Confessions of a whitneybiennial.com Curator", and
> it
> is slightly too long for most listservs to accept as a text.
> Therefore
> I offer it to you as a PDF from my website with my humblest
> recommendations.
>
> http://www.voyd.com/whitneybiennial.pdf
>
> Thank you,
> Patrick Lichty
> Editor-In-Chief
> Intelligent Agent Magazine
> http://www.intelligentagent.com
> 355 Seyburn Dr.
> Baton Rouge, LA 70808
>
Re: RFC: nettime nominated for Golden Nica
Francis Hwang wrote:
>One
> question to ask is: How does change happen? Do bold gestures do more
> by inspiring others and capturing their energy, or is it just all
> about the details?
I'm not opposed to art as a change agent, but I don't think it's necessarily obliged to change anybody in any overt way. Art can just hang brightly and then be gone.
Some of the best evenings of live music I've ever enjoyed have been down the road at Canton Municipal Park, just impromptu acoustic bluegrass bands made up of local musicians playing songs they didn't write and never will record. Sometimes three or four different circles of musicians will form, barely out of earshot of each other, and you can spend all night wandering from one circle to another. They knock off around midnight, go home and work all week at the mill, then come back next Friday evening and pick up where they left off. All summer long. The utter ephemerality and total anonymity of these events just makes the music that much more sweet.
>One
> question to ask is: How does change happen? Do bold gestures do more
> by inspiring others and capturing their energy, or is it just all
> about the details?
I'm not opposed to art as a change agent, but I don't think it's necessarily obliged to change anybody in any overt way. Art can just hang brightly and then be gone.
Some of the best evenings of live music I've ever enjoyed have been down the road at Canton Municipal Park, just impromptu acoustic bluegrass bands made up of local musicians playing songs they didn't write and never will record. Sometimes three or four different circles of musicians will form, barely out of earshot of each other, and you can spend all night wandering from one circle to another. They knock off around midnight, go home and work all week at the mill, then come back next Friday evening and pick up where they left off. All summer long. The utter ephemerality and total anonymity of these events just makes the music that much more sweet.