Ivan Pope
Since the beginning
Works in Brighton United States of America

BIO
In the place where analogue and digital overlap, that's why you will find me in the kitchen at parties.
Everything is at my site, http://blog.ivanpope.com
Discussions (225) Opportunities (0) Events (0) Jobs (0)
DISCUSSION

Re: Re: Get your "NO WAR" on


on 20/3/03 10:04 am, Eryk Salvaggio at eryk@maine.rr.com wrote:

Eryk,
Thanks for the considered reply. Of course, my email wasn't aimed at you in
any specific way. I was just getting a bit peeved with the flow of 'war,
bad, bad, war, no, no' messages that are flooding Rhizome (though of course
this is not surprising considering the media blitz on it).
Actually, your postings are thoughtful and interesting and add a lot to the
discussion, so maybe I shouldn't have used you as a response trigger.
I can't accept that war is not interesting, merely useless. Useless things
can be interesting. I have a view that we are on the planet, sentient,
concious. We can't but absorb what goes on around us and regurgitate it one
way or another in our work.
I was thinking about this in the shower this morning. Picasso made an
anti-war work, Guernica. Guernica was where modern ariel city bombardment
was invented. But Guernica took place during the spanish civil war. So maybe
a parallel would be an artist who had made work about the gassing of the
Kurds in Iraq. Of course, there was no western 'crisis' about this, so no
media blitz, so no flood of artists proclaiming on the subject.
Where's the flood of artists emails about the war in Congo or Ivory Coast or
Chechnia? I don't see it. All us media artists are terribly susceptible to
the media, we are all in a tizzy about something that may not turn out to be
much at all. From that I extrapolate that artists should shut up about
specific events and get on with their job of making art.
War is interesting in that it makes us behave in strange ways, and by
examining this behaviour we can maybe learn something and maybe make good
art.
Cheers,
Ivan

>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
>
>> War is obviously bad, but it is also interesting.
>
> I've been thinking about this, and I think it really isn't. Like there's
> that stereolab song "Les Yper Sound," I don't know if you know it; "You Go
> On That Team, I'll Go On This Team, Stigmatization, Okay, Now We Can Fight!"
> It's not interesting as much as it is useless.
>
> Also, I think good/bad is an idea of an ego, but I can't say I have let go
> of that one yet. I mean I think that war is "bad," but I mostly think that I
> am supposed to think war is "bad". I can create the idea that war is bad
> deliberately out of a set of core values that I decide to take, but doing
> that means that I would need to take full responsibility for ending war, and
> I don't know if I am ready for that one yet. I would rather focus on a
> couple other things first, like my own prescence with the world.
>
>
>>
>> War is ongoing, nothing is really about to start.
>
>
> War is ongoing but only because everyone is always starting it. I mean I am
> always starting them. I started one today with someone I claim to love
> because she didn't love me in a way that I thought was the right way to love
> me. So I mean, there you go, that's where all war comes from.
>
>
>> Even worse is to get all introspective, 'oh god, I am so impotent in the
>> face of all this horribleness'. Yes we are, but so what, we always were.
>
> I think that line of thought is only 1/10th of my introspective process. I'm
> not really saying I am impotent, but that I am unwilling to actually act. In
> that sense you might say its an extrospective process in that I am looking
> at how I impact the world- I don't. But there is a huge difference between
> the two, I think. If I am unwilling to act, that means I could act, if I
> chose to. I don't know if I have that power *yet*- the power to choose to do
> anything and everything- but I have some power of choice, paradoxically, by
> realizing _why_ I am impotent in the face of all this _________.
>
>>
>> If you believe in art and in your art, you need to go on doing what you
> have
>> always done and not become an activist just because there is this
>> overwhelming media story about.
>
>
> Ha. Believing in my art gets me into all kinds of trouble. Because if I
> believe in my art I have to be kind of careful, or else I could just believe
> in whatever internal system I was using my art to perpetuate and recruit
> people into. I mean, I have always identified as an artist as an activist.
> Now I am starting to wonder about both. As an artist I am slightly less full
> of shit than I am with activism. I want to choose to be an artist again but
> I am wondering if I am ready really, because there is a lot of
> responsibility with what type of artist I would actually want to be.
>
> I think a major flaw with my past art has been that it has been largely
> reactive. The stuff people respond to the least I tend to like the most. So
> maybe I won't have a career per se. I mean I would like to make art that can
> generate. But wow, you know, like, who the hell can do that, seriously?
>
>
>
> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
> -> post: list@rhizome.org
> -> questions: info@rhizome.org
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> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
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>

DISCUSSION

Re: Get your "NO WAR" on


on 19/3/03 7:17 pm, Eryk Salvaggio at eryk@maine.rr.com wrote:

>
> I can't say I know what the right thing to do about the war is, as an
> artist.
> This war is probably, really, not about oil or money or revenge, so much as
> ...
> The winner gets to look thier best in whatever instance the theatre is
> played out on in thier heads.
>

In light of a stream of war related postings I would like to muse a moment
on the current situation as an artist.

War is obviously bad, but it is also interesting.

War is ongoing, nothing is really about to start.

Artists can obviously make a response to war, but there is little point in
them ranting about how bad they think it all is.

Even worse is to get all introspective, 'oh god, I am so impotent in the
face of all this horribleness'. Yes we are, but so what, we always were.

If you believe in art and in your art, you need to go on doing what you have
always done and not become an activist just because there is this
overwhelming media story about.

War will provide you with a huge reservoir of material for your work if you
want it. If nothing else, you can examine your own brain patterns before,
during and after the event.

Don't wear your heart on your sleeve.

Cheers,
Ivan 'Only exist' Pope

DISCUSSION

Tochki Inc. seeks new member


Tochki Inc. (http://www.tochki-inc.com)

As our previous third member has moved to Wigan, Tochki is looking for a so=
uth of England based third member to join us in our search for the perfect =
installation. Tochki currently has a R&D grant from London Arts and a commi=
ssion from Newworknetwork to keep us moving.

Tochki Inc. is Ivan Pope and Greg Pope. We have worked together for many ye=
ars, originally as part of the film installation/performance collective, Lo=
ophole Cinema. Since 1999 we have worked as Tochki Inc. Tochki is the Russi=
an word for 'dots'. Tochki springs from an interest in using a mix of high =
and low tech to create site specific time based installations. Specifically=
, Tochki is interested in using compouter printers in these works, though o=
ur interests range much wider than that.

We are interested in the print, the act of printing, the actions of the pri=
nter, the print production as performance and installation. If we enable th=
e collection of video images from a building, collect those images, convert=
them to single digital frames, channel those frames to a multitude of prin=
ters, allow those frames to float free from the heaven to earth, allow thos=
e printed frames to gather in drifts on the floor, allow visitors to pick o=
ver and remove images. If we do this, are we making a movie, an installatio=
n, a performance?

We are looking for someone who can join us and become a full contributing m=
ember of Tochki. We are specifically looking for someone with technology an=
d programming skills and interests. We need to create network mangagement t=
ools for our installation/performance work and to install and manage these =
networks for live events. We are keen to push the boundaries and are intere=
sted in where a new member may take us.
Greg and Ivan have a long history of inventive artmaking and work as artist=
s in their own right. A new Tochki member joins on equal footing with us. A=
ll we ask is that they can contribute code and art and that they live close=
enough for reasonably regular get togethers in London or Brighton. We are =
ambitious for Tochki and hope to prove our unique approach over the next ye=
ar and to take our work around the world. While we believe totally in art a=
nd in our art, we are more loose than rigorous and more inventive than theo=
retical.

Please feel free to get in touch for a chat, with ideas or contributions an=
d to pass this on wherever you feel it may be read with some interest.

Cheers,
Ivan
--
Ivan Pope
ivan@ivanpope.com
www.ivanpope.com
www.tochki-inc.com

"Faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death"
Hunter S. Thompson

DISCUSSION

Some New Work


3 new net.works
Clutter and Cabinet are webcam installations.They currently sit in my studi=
o. They are designed to go into live spaces, but do not as yet have anywher=
e to go. They are both somewhat unstable, with good reason. If they don't s=
eem to be alive, come back later. That is the nature of the net, and that i=
s the nature of my work.
Fragile is an html installation that also, and more specifically, has insta=
bility built into it. I thought I might as well get it out now, even though=
it is a work in progress.
Thanks,
Ivan

Clutter
Mixed media installation with web cams and computer. 200 x 200 x 200 cm. A =
round table is covered with collected bric a brac. The table can be manuall=
y rotated. Two webcams view the surface of the table, one from each side. E=
very three minutes the active camera changes. Every six minutes an image is=
uploaded in sequence to the work. 100 archival images are laid end to end,=
increasing in size by six pixels at each image. These images form a look b=
ack at the recent history of the table. It takes ten hours for the entire s=
equence to renew. The table is only rotated when I am in the space, and the=
n intermittently. I also move the clutter on the table occasionally.
http://www.ivanpope.com/cams/twincams/history2.html
http://www.ivanpope.com/cams/clutter/

Cabinet
A glass cabinet containing a webcam on a motorized pod and an assortment of=
toys. The webcam is controllable from the web.
Visitors from the web can look around and take pictures. They are looking b=
oth internally and externally at the cabinet. In other words, visitors to t=
he cabinet in the analogue world become part of the exhibit in the digital =
world. Visitors from the street see the cabinet and its contents. They also=
see the webcam in motion as digital visitors come and go. They can also se=
e the web view of proceedings on the computer screen.
http://81.86.241.132:8090/remote6/
http://www.ivanpope.com/cams/cabinet/index.html

Fragile
It is in the nature of our systems to be fragile.
I thought this would be a simple work that played on the fragile nature of =
the web and entangled a comment on the limits of power. I am interested in=
the nature of broken. That the web never works properly, but that this is =
its design and also one of its joys. Further, it seems that the breaks in =
the web are incomprehensible to us, that we never really can understand whe=
re things went: possibly because we dont understand where they came from in=
the first place.
http://www.ivanpope.com/fragile/index.html

--
Ivan Pope
ivan@ivanpope.com
www.ivanpope.com
www.tochki-inc.com

"Faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death"
Hunter S. Thompson

DISCUSSION

Beans on toes puzzles police


Oh, those art students

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2828797.stm

--
Ivan Pope
ivan@ivanpope.com
www.ivanpope.com
www.tochki-inc.com

"Faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death"
Hunter S. Thompson