ARTBASE (1)
PORTFOLIO (3)
BIO
Marc Garrett is co-director and co-founder, with artist Ruth Catlow of the Internet arts collectives and communities – Furtherfield.org, Furthernoise.org, Netbehaviour.org, also co-founder and co-curator/director of the gallery space formerly known as 'HTTP Gallery' now called the Furtherfield Gallery in London (Finsbury Park), UK. Co-curating various contemporary Media Arts exhibitions, projects nationally and internationally. Co-editor of 'Artists Re:Thinking Games' with Ruth Catlow and Corrado Morgana 2010. Hosted Furtherfield's critically acclaimed weekly broadcast on UK's Resonance FM Radio, a series of hour long live interviews with people working at the edge of contemporary practices in art, technology & social change. Currently doing an Art history Phd at the University of London, Birkbeck College.
Net artist, media artist, curator, writer, street artist, activist, educationalist and musician. Emerging in the late 80′s from the streets exploring creativity via agit-art tactics. Using unofficial, experimental platforms such as the streets, pirate radio such as the locally popular ‘Savage Yet Tender’ alternative broadcasting 1980′s group, net broadcasts, BBS systems, performance, intervention, events, pamphlets, warehouses and gallery spaces. In the early nineties, was co-sysop (systems operator) with Heath Bunting on Cybercafe BBS with Irational.org.
Our mission is to co-create extraordinary art that connects with contemporary audiences providing innovative, engaging and inclusive digital and physical spaces for appreciating and participating in practices in art, technology and social change. As well as finding alternative ways around already dominating hegemonies, thus claiming for ourselves and our peer networks a culturally aware and critical dialogue beyond traditional hierarchical behaviours. Influenced by situationist theory, fluxus, free and open source culture, and processes of self-education and peer learning, in an art, activist and community context.
Net artist, media artist, curator, writer, street artist, activist, educationalist and musician. Emerging in the late 80′s from the streets exploring creativity via agit-art tactics. Using unofficial, experimental platforms such as the streets, pirate radio such as the locally popular ‘Savage Yet Tender’ alternative broadcasting 1980′s group, net broadcasts, BBS systems, performance, intervention, events, pamphlets, warehouses and gallery spaces. In the early nineties, was co-sysop (systems operator) with Heath Bunting on Cybercafe BBS with Irational.org.
Our mission is to co-create extraordinary art that connects with contemporary audiences providing innovative, engaging and inclusive digital and physical spaces for appreciating and participating in practices in art, technology and social change. As well as finding alternative ways around already dominating hegemonies, thus claiming for ourselves and our peer networks a culturally aware and critical dialogue beyond traditional hierarchical behaviours. Influenced by situationist theory, fluxus, free and open source culture, and processes of self-education and peer learning, in an art, activist and community context.
Representing Labor: Ten Thousand Cents and Amazon's Mechanical Turk.
Dates:
Mon Feb 01, 2010 00:00 - Mon Feb 01, 2010
Representing Labor: Ten Thousand Cents and Amazon's Mechanical Turk.

review by Madeleine Clare Elish
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=376
Ten Thousand Cents" is a digital artwork that creates a representation of a $100 bill. Using a custom drawing tool, thousands of individuals working in isolation from one another painted a tiny part of the bill without knowledge of the overall task. Workers were paid one cent each via Amazon's Mechanical Turk distributed labor tool. The total labor cost to create the bill, the artwork being created, and the reproductions available for purchase (to charity) are all $100. The work is presented as a video piece with all 10,000 parts being drawn simultaneously. The project explores the circumstances we live in, a new and uncharted combination of digital labor markets, "crowdsourcing," "virtual economies," and digital reproduction.
"Arriving at the homepage of Ten Thousand Cents, an Internet artwork by Aaron Koblin and Takashi Kawashima, a mottled image of a one hundred dollar bill slowly fades into view. Ben Franklin looks out sedately. Mousing over the large image, the cursor is replaced with a small red rectangle. And here lays the beauty of the project; with the click of each rectangle, a zoomed in portion of the one hundred dollar bill is revealed. On the left side is a high-resolution photograph of that tiny portion of the bill. On the right side, a real-time moving image plays, revealing how the image was drawn by a human hand in a drawing program created by Koblin and Kawashima. There are, in fact, 10,000 such rectangles and each was created by a Turker through Amazon's Mechanical Turk marketplace."
Aaron Koblin is a media designer and artist focused on the creation and visualization of human systems. Currently working out of San Francisco, California, Aaron transforms large abstract data sets into humanly contextualized information. In doing so, he hopes to raise at least as many questions as he answers. Takashi Kawashima is a designer and media artist living in San Francisco. His work explores the re-contextualizing of commonplace items to create new awareness of the mundane.
About Madeleine Clare Elish:
Currently studying as a Masters student in the Comparative Media Studies at MIT in Boston. Her thesis for the program is focusing on print and TV advertising about early personal computers. Madeleine is particularly interested in thinking through how material objects extend and sustain agency and social relationships, as well as critical studies of technological innovation and consumer culture.
Equally important is Madeleine's interest and research about the communities and practices of technology, research and activist -based art. She has a degree in Art History from Columbia University in New York. Worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the commercial art gallery, Gavin Brown's enterprise (as well as an assortment of other jobs!) Last year I was involved in Boston's Cyberarts Festival as a "correspondent." More recently, Madeleine spent the summer with the folks at the Medialab Prado in Madrid, working on a (still in process) research project about collaborative modes of artistic practice. Also currently involved in the planning stages of a digital archive project at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies and Visual Arts Program.
------------>
Other Info:
A living, breathing, thriving networked neighbourhood...
We are on Twitter
http://twitter.com/furtherfield
Other reviews/articles/interviews
http://www.furtherfield.org/reviews.php
Furtherfield - online media arts community, platforms for creating,
viewing, discussing and learning about experimental practices at the
intersections of art, technology and social change.
http://www.furtherfield.org
HTTP Gallery - physical media arts Gallery (London).
http://www.http.uk.net
Netbehaviour - an open email list community engaged in the process of
sharing and actively evolving critical approaches, methods and ideas
focused around contemporary networked media arts practice.
http://www.netbehaviour.org
Furtherfield Blog - shared space for personal reflections on media art
practice.
http://blog.furtherfield.org
VisitorsStudio - real-time, multi-user, online arena for creative 'many
to many' dialogue, networked performance and collaborative polemic.
http://www.visitorsstudio.org/x.html
Furthernoise - an online platform for the creation, promotion,
criticism and archiving of innovative cross genre music and sound art
for the information & interaction of the public and artists alike.
http://www.furthernoise.org

review by Madeleine Clare Elish
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=376
Ten Thousand Cents" is a digital artwork that creates a representation of a $100 bill. Using a custom drawing tool, thousands of individuals working in isolation from one another painted a tiny part of the bill without knowledge of the overall task. Workers were paid one cent each via Amazon's Mechanical Turk distributed labor tool. The total labor cost to create the bill, the artwork being created, and the reproductions available for purchase (to charity) are all $100. The work is presented as a video piece with all 10,000 parts being drawn simultaneously. The project explores the circumstances we live in, a new and uncharted combination of digital labor markets, "crowdsourcing," "virtual economies," and digital reproduction.
"Arriving at the homepage of Ten Thousand Cents, an Internet artwork by Aaron Koblin and Takashi Kawashima, a mottled image of a one hundred dollar bill slowly fades into view. Ben Franklin looks out sedately. Mousing over the large image, the cursor is replaced with a small red rectangle. And here lays the beauty of the project; with the click of each rectangle, a zoomed in portion of the one hundred dollar bill is revealed. On the left side is a high-resolution photograph of that tiny portion of the bill. On the right side, a real-time moving image plays, revealing how the image was drawn by a human hand in a drawing program created by Koblin and Kawashima. There are, in fact, 10,000 such rectangles and each was created by a Turker through Amazon's Mechanical Turk marketplace."
Aaron Koblin is a media designer and artist focused on the creation and visualization of human systems. Currently working out of San Francisco, California, Aaron transforms large abstract data sets into humanly contextualized information. In doing so, he hopes to raise at least as many questions as he answers. Takashi Kawashima is a designer and media artist living in San Francisco. His work explores the re-contextualizing of commonplace items to create new awareness of the mundane.
About Madeleine Clare Elish:
Currently studying as a Masters student in the Comparative Media Studies at MIT in Boston. Her thesis for the program is focusing on print and TV advertising about early personal computers. Madeleine is particularly interested in thinking through how material objects extend and sustain agency and social relationships, as well as critical studies of technological innovation and consumer culture.
Equally important is Madeleine's interest and research about the communities and practices of technology, research and activist -based art. She has a degree in Art History from Columbia University in New York. Worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the commercial art gallery, Gavin Brown's enterprise (as well as an assortment of other jobs!) Last year I was involved in Boston's Cyberarts Festival as a "correspondent." More recently, Madeleine spent the summer with the folks at the Medialab Prado in Madrid, working on a (still in process) research project about collaborative modes of artistic practice. Also currently involved in the planning stages of a digital archive project at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies and Visual Arts Program.
------------>
Other Info:
A living, breathing, thriving networked neighbourhood...
We are on Twitter
http://twitter.com/furtherfield
Other reviews/articles/interviews
http://www.furtherfield.org/reviews.php
Furtherfield - online media arts community, platforms for creating,
viewing, discussing and learning about experimental practices at the
intersections of art, technology and social change.
http://www.furtherfield.org
HTTP Gallery - physical media arts Gallery (London).
http://www.http.uk.net
Netbehaviour - an open email list community engaged in the process of
sharing and actively evolving critical approaches, methods and ideas
focused around contemporary networked media arts practice.
http://www.netbehaviour.org
Furtherfield Blog - shared space for personal reflections on media art
practice.
http://blog.furtherfield.org
VisitorsStudio - real-time, multi-user, online arena for creative 'many
to many' dialogue, networked performance and collaborative polemic.
http://www.visitorsstudio.org/x.html
Furthernoise - an online platform for the creation, promotion,
criticism and archiving of innovative cross genre music and sound art
for the information & interaction of the public and artists alike.
http://www.furthernoise.org
Valentines Day

A punchy lo-fi, energetic, rhythmic and poetic story about Marc Garrett's Valentines Day experience. On making his first cardto whom he thought at the time would be his everlasting love, how wrong he was...
http://www.furtherfield.org/otmonkeys/docs/valentines_day.htm
This is a few years old now, but I think you'll understand my pain ;-)
marc
If not you not me - Annie Abrahams.
Dates:
Thu Jan 28, 2010 00:00 - Thu Jan 28, 2010
If not you not me
Annie Abrahams

http://www.http.uk.net/exhibitions/ifnotyounotme/index.shtml
HTTP Gallery, London
12 February - 20 March 2010
Open Thursday - Saturday, 12-5pm
Private view and performances: Friday, 12 February 2010, 6:30-9pm
Free admission to exhibition and events.
Annie Abrahams (b. NL 1954 , lives and works FR) is an internationally regarded pioneer of networked performance art. 'If not you not me' at HTTP Gallery in London is the first exhibition of her work in the UK. Where social networking sites make us think of communication as clean and transparent, Annie Abrahams creates an Internet of feeling - of agitation, collusion, ardour and apprehension. Working with simple interfaces, carefully crafted instructions and disruptions in data-flow, Abrahams sensitises participants and audiences to glitches in communication and invites them to experience and reflect on different ways of being together in a machine-mediated world. The exhibition asks how we deal with the tensions of collaboration and physical separation as we negotiate relationships through video imagery, computer software and digital networks.
Abrahams has created three new works for 'If not you not me' at HTTP Gallery, inviting collaboration from visitors to the gallery and others around the world. Shared Still Life / Nature Morte Partagée, a telematic still life for mixed media and LED message board, asks visitors to HTTP Gallery and Kawenga - territoires numériques in Montpellier, France to communicate with one another by arranging objects in the still life and sending messages to one another, with the results visible in a projection in both galleries.
The exhibition's private view also includes two new collaborative performances to be documented and shown in the exhibition. On Collaboration Graffiti Wall, a collective text and speech performance, draws on reflections around the nature and problems of online collaboration collected via a website.
Huis Clos / No Exit - Jam involves four women artists sitting before webcams in different locations around the world. They will try to organise a unified sound performance, working with and around the inevitable delays that result from the international live feed. In addition to the new works, the exhibition presents documentation of recent networked performances created and curated by Abrahams.
If not you not me is co-produced by Furtherfield.org and HTTP Gallery, London, and bram.org and Kawenga - territoires numériques, Montpellier, France. Furtherfield.org supports experimental practices at the intersections of art, technology and social change. This exhibition was conceived in connection with Furtherfield.org's Rich Networking project interrogating the transparency of communication, artistic collaboration and sociability through digital networks. This is the fourth event in Furtherfield.org's three-year Media Art Ecologies programme which foregrounds practices sharing an ecological approach - an interest in the interrelation of technological and natural processes: beings and things, individuals and multitudes, matter and patterns.
Events
======
Private view and performances: Friday, 12 February 2010, 6:30-9pm, HTTP Gallery
7pm: On Collaboration Graffiti Wall - Collective text and speech performance at gallery.
To contribute or view texts to be used during the performance visit http://bram.org/collaboration/index.php.
8pm: Shared Still Life / Nature Morte Partagée goes live - telematic still Life installation at HTTP Gallery and Kawenga - territoires numériques, Montpellier, France.
8:30pm: Huis Clos / No Exit - Jam - Telematic performance projected at HTTP Gallery, featuring Anteye Greie (Hailuoto, FI), Pascale Gustin (Paris, FR), Helen Varley Jamieson (Wellington, NZ), and Maja Kalogera (Madrid, ES).
More Information
Annie Abrahams - http://aabrahams.wordpress.com
Bram.org - http://bram.org
Kawenga - territoires numériques - http://www.kawenga.org
Furtherfield.org's Media Art Ecologies programme - http://www.furtherfield.org/mediaartecologies.php
HTTP Gallery
Unit A2, Arena Design Centre,
71 Ashfield Rd, London N4 1NY.
http://www.http.uk.net
HTTP Gallery is Furtherfield.org’s dedicated space for media art.
Furtherfield.org and HTTP Gallery are supported by Arts Council England, London.
Contact:
Lauren Wright, HTTP Gallery
info@furtherfield.org
Annie Abrahams

http://www.http.uk.net/exhibitions/ifnotyounotme/index.shtml
HTTP Gallery, London
12 February - 20 March 2010
Open Thursday - Saturday, 12-5pm
Private view and performances: Friday, 12 February 2010, 6:30-9pm
Free admission to exhibition and events.
Annie Abrahams (b. NL 1954 , lives and works FR) is an internationally regarded pioneer of networked performance art. 'If not you not me' at HTTP Gallery in London is the first exhibition of her work in the UK. Where social networking sites make us think of communication as clean and transparent, Annie Abrahams creates an Internet of feeling - of agitation, collusion, ardour and apprehension. Working with simple interfaces, carefully crafted instructions and disruptions in data-flow, Abrahams sensitises participants and audiences to glitches in communication and invites them to experience and reflect on different ways of being together in a machine-mediated world. The exhibition asks how we deal with the tensions of collaboration and physical separation as we negotiate relationships through video imagery, computer software and digital networks.
Abrahams has created three new works for 'If not you not me' at HTTP Gallery, inviting collaboration from visitors to the gallery and others around the world. Shared Still Life / Nature Morte Partagée, a telematic still life for mixed media and LED message board, asks visitors to HTTP Gallery and Kawenga - territoires numériques in Montpellier, France to communicate with one another by arranging objects in the still life and sending messages to one another, with the results visible in a projection in both galleries.
The exhibition's private view also includes two new collaborative performances to be documented and shown in the exhibition. On Collaboration Graffiti Wall, a collective text and speech performance, draws on reflections around the nature and problems of online collaboration collected via a website.
Huis Clos / No Exit - Jam involves four women artists sitting before webcams in different locations around the world. They will try to organise a unified sound performance, working with and around the inevitable delays that result from the international live feed. In addition to the new works, the exhibition presents documentation of recent networked performances created and curated by Abrahams.
If not you not me is co-produced by Furtherfield.org and HTTP Gallery, London, and bram.org and Kawenga - territoires numériques, Montpellier, France. Furtherfield.org supports experimental practices at the intersections of art, technology and social change. This exhibition was conceived in connection with Furtherfield.org's Rich Networking project interrogating the transparency of communication, artistic collaboration and sociability through digital networks. This is the fourth event in Furtherfield.org's three-year Media Art Ecologies programme which foregrounds practices sharing an ecological approach - an interest in the interrelation of technological and natural processes: beings and things, individuals and multitudes, matter and patterns.
Events
======
Private view and performances: Friday, 12 February 2010, 6:30-9pm, HTTP Gallery
7pm: On Collaboration Graffiti Wall - Collective text and speech performance at gallery.
To contribute or view texts to be used during the performance visit http://bram.org/collaboration/index.php.
8pm: Shared Still Life / Nature Morte Partagée goes live - telematic still Life installation at HTTP Gallery and Kawenga - territoires numériques, Montpellier, France.
8:30pm: Huis Clos / No Exit - Jam - Telematic performance projected at HTTP Gallery, featuring Anteye Greie (Hailuoto, FI), Pascale Gustin (Paris, FR), Helen Varley Jamieson (Wellington, NZ), and Maja Kalogera (Madrid, ES).
More Information
Annie Abrahams - http://aabrahams.wordpress.com
Bram.org - http://bram.org
Kawenga - territoires numériques - http://www.kawenga.org
Furtherfield.org's Media Art Ecologies programme - http://www.furtherfield.org/mediaartecologies.php
HTTP Gallery
Unit A2, Arena Design Centre,
71 Ashfield Rd, London N4 1NY.
http://www.http.uk.net
HTTP Gallery is Furtherfield.org’s dedicated space for media art.
Furtherfield.org and HTTP Gallery are supported by Arts Council England, London.
Contact:
Lauren Wright, HTTP Gallery
info@furtherfield.org
Call For Workshop participants: Dr Geert Lovink workshop, Adelaide Festival Artists' Week 2010
I am not sure whether artists should be blamed for losing some kind of edge, when it is obvious that the structures that were in place sold them down the river. In fact, there are many artists who still have what is being discussed as 'edge', but perhaps it's certain institutions, platforms and organizations who have lost their 'edge', in ignoring the contemporary wave, lacking self-critical depth and authentic stances to challenge mainstream trends, instead of fighting for the culture of 'media art' and related practices.
One general criticism I have of many artists out there is that, they have not fought for their culture enough, relying on others to re-invent their practices. It is not artists who have been killing our culture, not by a long shot...
One general criticism I have of many artists out there is that, they have not fought for their culture enough, relying on others to re-invent their practices. It is not artists who have been killing our culture, not by a long shot...
CCTV in the sky: police plan to use military-style - spy drones...
Hi Rhizomers,
Found some interesting information about 'surveillance'. We know that some artists on this list have been exploring in their work, various aspects regarding this subject...
Wishing all well.
marc
CCTV in the sky: police plan to use military-style spy drones - Arms manufacturer BAE Systems developing national strategy with consortium of
government agencies. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/23/cctv-sky-police-plan-drones
"According to documents obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act, the UK police plan on deploying unmanned drones in the UK to 'revolutionize policing' and extend domestic 'surveillance, monitoring and evidence gathering,' which will be used in 'the routine work of the police, border authorities and other government agencies.' The documents come from the South Coast Partnership, 'a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan' in conjunction with BAE Systems. The stated aim is to introduce the system in time for the 2012 Olympics. Initially, Kent police stated that the system would be used to monitor shipping lanes and illegal immigrants, but the documents reveal that this was part of a PR strategy: 'There is potential for these [maritime] uses to be projected as a "good news" story to the public rather than more "big
brother."' However, the documents talk about a much wider range of usage, such as '[detecting] theft from cash machines, preventing theft of tractors and monitoring antisocial driving,' as well as 'road and railway monitoring, search and rescue, event security and covert urban surveillance.' Also, due to the expense involved, it has also been suggested that some data could be sold off to private companies, or the drones could be used for commercial purposes." Comments from Slashdot.
Also - Here are some links on furtherfield to reviews/articles about
art, related to surveillance:
Mapping CCTV around Whitehall.
"Mapping CCTV around Whitehall", 2008, is, as its name implies, a
performance of mapping Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) security cameras
around the UK's parliament in London and a video record of that
performance by Ambient.tv's Manu Luksch. Review by Rob Myers.
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=366
The 4th Radiator festival. Going Underground - Surveillance and
Sousveillance.
Exploits in the Wireless City is the 4th Radiator festival and symposium
to date, which lasted between 13-24 January 2009, 10 days of
Exhibitions, Events, Screenings, Music, Artists' Talks and more. Marc
Garrett writes about the commission for the festival 'Going
Underground', enquiring how the works relate to the theme of
Surveillance and Sousveillance.
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=338
Norwayweb and Data Bodies.
A Net Art project by Bjorn Magnhildoen that Scrapes tax information from
over 4 million Norwegians from different databases into a real-time artwork.
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=295
Found some interesting information about 'surveillance'. We know that some artists on this list have been exploring in their work, various aspects regarding this subject...
Wishing all well.
marc
CCTV in the sky: police plan to use military-style spy drones - Arms manufacturer BAE Systems developing national strategy with consortium of
government agencies. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/23/cctv-sky-police-plan-drones
"According to documents obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act, the UK police plan on deploying unmanned drones in the UK to 'revolutionize policing' and extend domestic 'surveillance, monitoring and evidence gathering,' which will be used in 'the routine work of the police, border authorities and other government agencies.' The documents come from the South Coast Partnership, 'a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan' in conjunction with BAE Systems. The stated aim is to introduce the system in time for the 2012 Olympics. Initially, Kent police stated that the system would be used to monitor shipping lanes and illegal immigrants, but the documents reveal that this was part of a PR strategy: 'There is potential for these [maritime] uses to be projected as a "good news" story to the public rather than more "big
brother."' However, the documents talk about a much wider range of usage, such as '[detecting] theft from cash machines, preventing theft of tractors and monitoring antisocial driving,' as well as 'road and railway monitoring, search and rescue, event security and covert urban surveillance.' Also, due to the expense involved, it has also been suggested that some data could be sold off to private companies, or the drones could be used for commercial purposes." Comments from Slashdot.
Also - Here are some links on furtherfield to reviews/articles about
art, related to surveillance:
Mapping CCTV around Whitehall.
"Mapping CCTV around Whitehall", 2008, is, as its name implies, a
performance of mapping Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) security cameras
around the UK's parliament in London and a video record of that
performance by Ambient.tv's Manu Luksch. Review by Rob Myers.
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=366
The 4th Radiator festival. Going Underground - Surveillance and
Sousveillance.
Exploits in the Wireless City is the 4th Radiator festival and symposium
to date, which lasted between 13-24 January 2009, 10 days of
Exhibitions, Events, Screenings, Music, Artists' Talks and more. Marc
Garrett writes about the commission for the festival 'Going
Underground', enquiring how the works relate to the theme of
Surveillance and Sousveillance.
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=338
Norwayweb and Data Bodies.
A Net Art project by Bjorn Magnhildoen that Scrapes tax information from
over 4 million Norwegians from different databases into a real-time artwork.
http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=295