Jim Andrews
Since the beginning
Works in Victoria Canada

ARTBASE (2)
BIO
Jim Andrews does http://vispo.com . He is a poet-programmer and audio guy. His work explores the new media possibilities of poetry, and seeks to synthesize the poetical with other arts and media.
Discussions (847) Opportunities (2) Events (14) Jobs (0)
DISCUSSION

net piece that uses


i haven't tried this out (i don't have a webcam), but i thought the concept
was kinda funny: http://www.playdojam.com . this is a shockwave 3d piece
that uses i guess some flash code or something that does motion tracking of
a webcam image. it's a basketball game you don't use the mouse or keyboard
on but instead use your hands in the air. there's a video at bottom left you
can view if you don't have a webcam to try the piece out with.

here we have an interactive net game available over the public internet that
doesn't use the mouse and keyboard but motion tracking of a webcam image.

i like the concept. well, the webcam motion tracking net piece concept. the
basketball part is dull as art. it's kind of a tasty concept for art, ie,
ditch the basketball and explore other possibs.

ja
http://vispo.com

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: Re: Re: Mark Tribe's - New Media Art, book.


> > Only Jodi is sufficiently famous. And,
> > even
> > then, were the book about net art since 2000, well, wasn't it
> > around then or
> > perhaps even before when Jodi pretty much stopped making net art?
>
> Oh for general fame, yes, although Soda have done very well with
> Constructor. The context for net.artists would be net.art, rather
> than American art or art in general, so MTAA, Glorious Ninth, Stanza
> et al would all be included along with Jodi, assuming as you say it
> wasn't net.art since 2000.

I recall you saying you worked for or with Soda on Constructor. Yes, that is
a fully-realized piece, a fully-realized net app, and its been around for a
long time. And has attracted a large general audience, not only an art
audience. And it still works. A lot of net art doesn't. And the others you
mention are significant artists as well.

Net art is quite broad in its formal range. It spans various arts. Rhizome
has usually been visual-art-oriented and affiliated with galleries. trAce,
Webartery, the ELO, Poetics/EPC, and Alt-x have been writerly, primarily,
with tendrils into the visual, sonic, programmerly, etc. Some have stressed
the sonic more than other arts. And then there are others who are trying to
do things with video on the Net. And then there are the artist-programmers
developing software art. And there's the 'generative' as opposed to both the
static and even the interactive. And also there's the crossover dimension
into print or galleries or TV or film festivals or the music business or
music festivals, or CDs/DVDs etc, the online-offline dimension. Some net art
finds its audience within the art world whereas other work is only
peripherally related to the art world and finds its audience in the pop net
whose audience can be much larger. Turbulence and Furtherfield of course
continue to be strong supporters of net art.

And of course I will have missed several general vectors that should be
included also.

In any case, the edge is usually in some sort of hybridity, some sort of
cross between arts and/or media and/or technology and/or other fields. In
the nature of its connectivity and what that sparks. Although some could
say, no, the edge of another large group is elsewhere, in connection with
political reality regardless of the hybridity you mention; cut the formalist
crap; make some way, please, for work that tries to do something other than
mess with arts, media, technology, and science.

The metaphor of the rhizome is really strong. The network is much like the
rhizome. The basic thing about the network is connectivity. Connecting x and
y. A "complete graph of n vertices" is such that each vertex is connected to
every other vertex, has n(n-1)/2 edges or lines. Alexis mentioned how the
internet is "a piece of crap" in that it is too centralized in its
architecture. And, yes, the ideal is toward something less centralized.
Similarly, in criticism of net art, the ideal is something that acknowledges
the ideal of the rhizome/network as enabling a fully interconnected
mentality, the impossibility of holding that all in mind at once, and ways
to traverse the network, some sense of the larger picture. Not to the
exclusion of the rest.

ja
http://vispo.com

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: Re: Re: Mark Tribe's - New Media Art, book.


Rob's post is very well-considered.

I remember talking with a musician digital artist--he wasn't knowlegeable
about net art, but he had Rachel Greene's book and one other, I can't
remember which--and he said, basically, "you're not in these books. you
don't rate as a net artist."

How about your work, I asked him. Are you in the publications you think you
should be in? You should know better than to take those sorts of books as
definitive.

Of course he reconsidered. But books that survey art, whether they want to
or not, give the reader the impression that only the best work is considered
therein. It isn't in the publisher's interest to give a different
impression. That would diminish the value of the book. But, also, they *are*
meant as arguments for the value of the work they consider. They *are*
competitive by their nature for attention for the book itself and of course
slightly less for the work they consider.

> If I don't know who Barbara Kruger is and I write a book on 1980s
> American art
> that omits her I am incompetent. If I do know who Barbara Kruger is and
> I write
> a book on 1980s American art that omits her I have some explaining to do.

That may well be. But concerning net art, isn't it really only Jodi about
whom you could say the same? Only Jodi is sufficiently famous. And, even
then, were the book about net art since 2000, well, wasn't it around then or
perhaps even before when Jodi pretty much stopped making net art?

In the early nineties I wrote a little essay called "On the impossibility of
the mere existence of the great works of the late twentieth century". Not
that great work is not being produced. But only through humbug can there be
even the pretence of concensus on just which ones are most worthy. Because
there is so much art being produced and it is so relatively heterogeneous.
The Internet exposes us to net art around the globe. And fails to expose us
to much other net art from around the globe. Also, there are many
conflicting ideas of what makes 'good net art' and also conflicting ideas
whether there even can be any 'good net art'. New York is well situated as a
center of international net art, but we see less real development of the
notion of international net art, these days, as "a mass of exclusions,
score-settling, favors, boosting, covering-up and right moves". The theory
of the 'rhizome' does not seem to cover this.

I saw an interesting little interview with David Cronenberg on rocketboom
about the influence of the Web on film. He said he felt the big influence
was on further splintering of the audience. He said that might end up
meaning that $200 million dollar movies stop being made because it's only
when you can summon a mass audience that those sorts of projects are
possible. He also talked of the conception of audience historically,
mentioning that painters before the twentieth century certainly didn't paint
for a mass audience, mentioned that our conception of the size and scope of
audience is changing in the light of splintering shards of media.

> I do agree that any "comprehensive" survey is going to be a mass of
> exclusions,
> score-settling, favors, boosting, covering-up and right moves.
>
> This doesn't mean that we are forbidden from asking what those are.

Well said.

ja
http://vispo.com

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: Re: Re: Mark Tribe's - New Media Art, book.


The Art of War
Eyal Weizman

Eyal Weizman is an architect, writer and Director of Goldsmith's College
Centre for Research Architecture. His work deals with issues of conflict
territories and human rights.

http://infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story 060801170800738

Intro:

"The Israeli Defence Forces have been heavily influenced by contemporary
philosophy, highlighting the fact that there is considerable overlap among
theoretical texts deemed essential by military academies and architectural
schools."

Exit:

"When the military talks theory to itself, it seems to be about changing its
organizational structure and hierarchies. When it invokes theory in
communications with the public

DISCUSSION

US army ranger veteran on Iraq


Here is Jessie MacBeth, US army ranger veteran, on what the USAmerican
military is doing in Iraq:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docidb32757351172260101&q=war

ja