Marisa Olson
Since the beginning
Works in Brooklyn, New York United States of America

ARTBASE (7)
PORTFOLIO (3)
BIO
Marisa Olson is an artist, writer, and media theorist. Her interdisciplinary work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Centre Pompidou, Tate(s) Modern + Liverpool, the Nam June Paik Art Center, British Film Institute, Sundance Film Festival, PERFORMA Biennial; commissioned and collected by the Whitney Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Houston Center for Photography, Experimental Television Center, and PS122; and reviewed in Artforum, Art21, the NY Times, Liberation, Folha de Sao Paolo, the Village Voice, and elsewhere.

Olson has served as Editor & Curator at Rhizome, the inaugural curator at Zero1, and Associate Director at SF Camerawork. She's contributed to many major journals & books and this year Cocom Press published Arte Postinternet, a Spanish translation of her texts on Postinternet Art, a movement she framed in 2006. In 2015 LINK Editions will publish a retrospective anthology of over a decade of her writings on contemporary art which have helped establish a vocabulary for the criticism of new media. Meanwhile, she has also curated programs at the Guggenheim, New Museum, SFMOMA, White Columns, Artists Space, and Bitforms Gallery. She has served on Advisory Boards for Ars Electronica, Transmediale, ISEA, the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, Creative Capital, the Getty Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Kennedy Center, and the Tribeca Film Festival.

Olson studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths, History of Consciousness at UC Santa Cruz, and Rhetoric & Film Studies at UC Berkeley. She has recently been a visiting artist at Yale, SAIC, Oberlin, and VCU; a Visiting Critic at Brown; and Visiting Faculty at Bard College's Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts and Ox-Bow. She previously taught at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts' new media graduate program (ITP) and was Assistant Professor of New Media at SUNY-Purchase's School of Film & Media Studies. She was recently an Artist-in-Residence at Eyebeam & is currently Visiting Critic at RISD.

More branches, objects, sounds and empty rooms.


Chelpa ferro is a brazillian collective of visual, video and audio artists.

branches, sound objects and an otherwise empty room

As with Jessica Rylan, I don’t really know how their installations sound like, but I love them.

more branches, sound objects and an otherwise empty room

More chelpa ferro

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Kinetic Sculptures by Conrad Shawcross


Conrad Shawcross

London based artist Conrad Shawcross creates these fantastic kinetic sculptures that draw inspiration from philosophy and scientific theories.

Shown above is ‘Loop System Quintet‘ (2005):
“Each of the five oak machines in Loop System Quintet â�� connected by a single drive-shaft - draws a different â��knotâ�� of light in space, predetermined by the ratio of the cogs that drive it. These ratios are directly related to formal theories of musical harmony (Harmonics). The resulting light patterns, perceived by the viewer only as the machines rotate, can therefore be regarded as visual transcriptions of musical chords….The circles of energy produced by the lights also relate to string theory, a complex scientific theory stating that matter is comprised of vibrating â��stringsâ�� of energy rather than single, isolated particles”

Watch video

Conrad Shawcross

Created in 2004, ‘Light Perpeptual I‘ (2004) must have been a precursor to the work above.

“Displayed in a darkened gallery, the device works as a giant drawing machine, blasting itâ��s luminous patterns through the wire grid onto the walls, leaving the viewer seeing spots, like from staring into the sun. Conrad Shawcross isnâ��t making paintings on canvas, but rather through mechanical invention, heâ��s imprinting his image directly into the eye”

Further reading & sources above:
In the studio: Conrad Shawcross (Telegraph, 2005)
Conrad Shawcross, sculptor (Guardian, 2006)
Portrait of the artist as a young boffin (Observer, 2005)
BBC Feature

The exhibition ‘No Such Thing As One‘ brings together a body of work that explores ideas concerning time and the essence of matter. On display at the Victoria Miro gallery, east London, until 18th November.

You may also want to visit the Kinetica Museum in Spitalfields to see more moving sculpture artworks.

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Jane McGonigal


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This Might Be a Game

This Might Be a Game: Ubiquitous Play and Performance at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century by Jane Evelyn McGonigal :: Doctor of Philosophy in Performance Studies :: University of California, Berkeley.

This Might Be a Game examines the historical intersection of ubiquitous computing and experimental game design, circa 2001 AD. Ubiquitous computing, or ubicomp, is the emerging field of computer science that seeks to augment everyday objects and physical environments with invisible and networked computing functionality. Experimental game design is the field of interactive arts that seeks to discover new platforms and contexts for digital play. The convergence of these two fields has produced a significant body of games that challenge and expand our notions of where, when, and with whom we can play. This dissertation explores how and to what ends these playful projects reconfigure the technical, formal and social limits of games in relation to everyday life.

To mark the heterogeneity of this experimental design space at the turn of the twenty-first century, I propose three distinct categories of ubiquitous play and performance. They are: ubicomp games, research prototypes that advance the scientific agenda of ubiquitous computing through game design; pervasive games, performance-based interventions that use game imagery to disrupt the normative conventions of public spaces and private technologies; and ubiquitous games, commercial entertainment projects that replicate the interactive affordances of video and computer games in the real world.

I examine seminal games from each of these three categories, including Can You See Me Now? (Blast Theory/Mixed Reality Lab, 2001); the Big Urban Game (The Design Institute, 2003); and The Beast (Microsoft, 2001) respectively. My discussion draws on original gameplay media, design statements, and first-person player accounts. My critical framework is based on close readings of the play and performance values expressed in ...

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Bodydataspace - Ghislaine Boddington and Armand Terruli


Building Design Magazine (BD) has published an article by Elaine Knutt discussing the potential for telematic experiences to be constructed in public spaces by the use of interactive architectural surfaces. Telematics (tele-communication and informatics) broadly explores how communication has transformed our experience of social connectivity and new emergining patterns of communication and power structures.


visualisation of how a waterfall image would look projected on to Canary Wharf.

Thanks to this article I was pleased to find out about a new group of artists and architects called bodydataspace ( b>d>s) created by Ghislaine Boddington and Armand Terruli who are exploring ‘the integration of interactive and body-intuitive interfaces into public sites. Bodydataspace have proposed that Canary Wharf,  London’s tallest building 235m, have a giant projected waterfall cascading down its facade. The waterfall would not be a computer generated animation but a real-time projection of Angel Falls in Venezuela. the world’s highest free-falling waterfall at 979m.


BDS’s entry to the Lift New Parliament competition was for an inexpensive demountable structure-cum-projection-screen. Audiences inside these mobile venues — in London and Namibia, for instance — could be digitally connected

Ghislaine Boddington is an artist, director, curator and presenter, a specialist in dance/performance and the evolution of body responsive technologies, virtual physical body networks and interactive interfaces. Previously Ghislaine was director and founding member of the London based sound/movement research unit shinkansen  (1989-2004). Armand Terruli is an architect of fifteen years who has diversified his design output through interactive exhibition design, audio/visual work and into responsive environments. Over the years Armand has notably designed and project managed galleries at the National Maritime Museum, the Saudi Arabian Pavilion at Lisbon Expo 1998 and the Faith Zone at the Millennium Dome.


Body Data Space’s 3m diameter balloon acts as a projection screen ...

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1st Reno Interdisciplinary Festival of New Media



Joseph DeLappe:

RIFNM 06 The 1st Reno Interdisciplinary Festival of New Media
http://www.unr.edu/art/RIFNM.html

The Department of Art at the University of Nevada, Reno, presents the 1st Reno Interdisciplinary Festival of New Media (RIFNM 06) RIFNM 06 highlights an international selection of work by graduate and Phd students working with new digital technologies for the creation of art. Artists working in and across disciplines were invited to submit works to be considered for five interrelated events/venues: exhibit, netart, perform, project(full-dome) and present. The resulting festival schedule of events presents a unique opportunity to directly experience innovative work being created by a diversity of emerging artists exploring digital systems for visual and experiential production.

Participating Artists/Affiliations:
-Arthur Elsenaar and Remko Scha, Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom
-Gudmundur S. Gunnarsson, Mills College
-Sabrina Berryman, University of Utah
-Margaret Noble and Edyta Stepien, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
-Jolanta A Lapiak, NSCAD, Nova Scotia, Canada
-Martin Machado, San Francisco Art Institute
-Suzanne Yo Martinsen, University of Central Florida
-Pete Froslie, Massachusetts College of Art
-Alejandro Duque, European Graduate School, Switzerland
-Jamie Timms, University of California, Santa Barbara
-Mike Godwin, University of California, Santa Barabara
-Conor McGarrigle, National College of Art & Design Dublin, Ireland
-Stephanie Jeanjean, Graduate Center of CUNY (City University of New York)
-Melissa Grey and Robert Kirkbride, The New School, New York City
-Pamela Kray, The New School, New York City
-So Jung Kwon, Otis School of Art and Design, Los Angeles
-Si Jae Byun, School of Visual Arts, New York City
-Walter Nelson, Griffith University, Australia
-Stephen Cady, University of Illinois, Chicago, School of Art and Design
-Jeanne Jo, Rhode Island School of Art and Design
-Jake Lee High, Massachusetts College of Art

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Discussions (281) Opportunities (10) Events (4) Jobs (0)
DISCUSSION

Rhizome Today: A critic, with opinions about postinternet art


Great post, Michael! What an exciting (if facebook-thread-dramatic!) couple weeks for Postinternet discussion. I appreciate your breakdown of these three (obviously not mutually exclusive) approaches. To my mind, the results of approach #1 have only had fickle results. i.e. Ed, I actually talked about Postinternet Art before I read the "internet aware" comment from Guthrie--I believe first on a Rhizome panel Michael was on at EAI--but then again, Guth & I used to gchat every day then, as we were just about to start Nasty Nets when I brought it up. But moreover, as I recently posted in an FB thread, I truly believe there was a zeitgeist around recognizing these ideas (and using whatever word or phrase to do so; not just postinternet) in 2005-2006, as expressed in writings and talks by Lev Manovich, Steve Dietz, Sarah Cook, Josephine Berry Slater, Jon Ippolito, myself & Guthrie, etc.. (Christiane Paul touched on this in her responses to Karen Archey's Ullens questionnaire.) I don't think it's productive to construct/dismantle/bash origin myths, if only because it's led to a rash of ad hominem attacks on a number of artists & writers lately, completely sacrificing the point of critical writing.

My own effort in talking about Postinternet, at least in those early instances, as on the panel, was to (a) expand Rhizome's mission--I was then Editor & Curator--to cover and support a wider variety of practices; and (b) just to describe my own work and how a project like my Monitor Tracings (totally "offline" drawings) could be contextualized as internet art, or art 'after' the internet (i.e. In the style of & made after I log-off.) I think Michael puts it *perfectly* when he says, "we should understand all our gestures, 'online' and 'offline,' as actions in a network that is mediated and administered by computers." Perhaps this is obvious, but I'd say this applies to all of waking life, not just art production+reception.

I've personally moved from discussing Postinternet Art as "art after the internet" toward discussing Postinternet as "the symptoms of network culture." I am less interested in discussing PI Art specifically/exclusively, now that people have brow-beaten and/or branded the term into something far different than what I originally meant, and much more interested in discussing the social affects around the production of postinternet conditions and their manifestations. And, meanwhile, I have said (particularly in the Ullens catalogue & also in an interview in the Art and the Internet book put out by Black Dog) that, to me, Postinternet is just a 'placeholder' term around which to convene in having conversations around the latter symptoms. (I've started working on spelling these out more explicitly in recent & forthcoming writing-- including the keynote lecture I just gave at Pratt's UPLOAD conference, entitled "Postinternet is Dead. Long Live Postinternet.")

Likes/Dislikes around the word, aside, I hope this very long-running conversation around art and the internet can continue to incorporate careful consideration of the affects of network culture, as networks themselves evolve.


DISCUSSION

Breaking the Ice


Hi, everyone! Wow, I've got to say, it's nice to see some familiar names here! Michael, Congratulations on your new job. As someone who held that same title (and various permutations of it) for several years, I know you are in for a heavy load and I also know that you are also more than up to the task.

Like most of the folks above, I too am a "forever member," from the days of the Rhizome Communications ascii RAW listserv and, later, fancy Dreamweaver/Flash "Splash Pages," to the present. Reena Jana and I were the first two paid writers (poached from Wired!), when Alex Galloway was running "content," which at that time meant programming and editorial--though Rhizome was declaratively non-editorial, so they just commissioned book & exhibition reviews, and some interviews from us that were fed into the RAW stream and included in the Digest as Features. Oy vey, I can still remember the cross-eyed weekly ritual of trying to untangle parallel conversations to reassemble them into a coherent thread for the Digest, when I was editing it--and the race to get it out by noon one day each week!!

I've seen Rhizome go through so many changes, and I've been a part of the back channel conversations on years of them, including huge ones that we decided not to go through with. I have to say that it's always hard to serve a membership-based organization, which is what Rhizome has always thought of itself as. But I can say that every change in content or form has been discussed critically, at length, and typically not without a degree of passion.

I am also biting my tongue because I *really* do not want to put words in any staff member's mouth (past or present), but I can say that I believe everyone who's ever worked there has taken their position as a labor of love, with users/reader/members/community (everyone has their favorite self-identification; semantics trolls please don't hate today!) in mind, and everyone has collaborated with the staff to bring a unique take on how best to serve you in the current creative and technological climate. For instance, I remember that my big objective coming in the door was wanting to change the mission statement to reflect not only net art and not only highly technological art, but also art that "reflects" on technology in a meaningful way. In fact, I think contemplating this change was very much a part of my conceptualizing Postinternet.

There is so much to say here, but I think I'd best sign off. This is not my soap box, and in some way, it feels weird to comment so much. I used to be a Superusing Megaposter, but as soon as I became Editor & Curator, I stepped back to focus on trying to facilitate and amplify other voices, which I do believe every Rhizome Editor has done in their own way.

I'll end with this, then. I'd be surprised if every reader, writer, or editor loved everything that ever appeared (structurally or content-wise) in their newspaper of choice. I'd be surprised if every curator or museumgoer loved every artwork shown (or every exhibition design decision) in their favorite museum. But it's the day we stop reading, stop going to look at art that disappoints me. It's the day Rhizome stops experimenting that scares me. And I wish them well on this new experiment.

DISCUSSION

Conference Report: NET.ART (SECOND EPOCH)


Hi, Josephine.

Thank you for these points of clarification. I actually tried to convey (and forgive me if I failed) that your presentation was unique in identifying multiple generations of networked artists, and I particularly liked the way you talked about artists working before the internet in ways that anticipated network culture.

You also made that great point (via Hal Foster) about the ways in which critics' work is influenced by what is/ was happening at the moment they entered the art world. I admire how you helped pioneer new media criticism and yet have continued to stay on the pulse of new work. This is what I had in mind when recalling your point about your relationship to a previous generation of net-dot-artists, versus the artists of the era Inclusiva was calling the "second epoch." I just really liked the way you fleshed out more than two epochs and I wanted to highlight your catalyzing role in the net-dot-art scene, in particular.

In my own presentation, my intent absolutely was not to dismiss any previous artists, movements, practices, etc. It was simply to flesh-out one niche of new media art practice. In fact, I really liked the pointed questions that the audience asked afterwards, because it helped us have a really meaningful discussion about the problematic relationship of pro surfer work to art historical discourse, and my calls to action revolved around getting those artists to participate in learning about their own pre-histories and writing historiographies that situate their own trajectories on their own terms.

So I don't think we're in disagreement. But I appreciate your call to fine-tune my articulation of these scenarios.

DISCUSSION

Go Ahead, Touch Her


Why are vocal remixes different than video? This is a very interesting distinction. Can you please say more about this and why one is ok and one isn't, beyond the rubric of industry standards? I think that remix and parody have the potential to be very useful and viable political tools. The best-known examples of such efforts would be the work of the Yes Men, but examples of parasitic media within the field abound. In your comments (i.e. "Here it seems the remix does imply ridicule") it seems as if you think that remixing automatically equals mockery but I don't agree and don't see that implied in the project. Laric's video simply shows us (or arguably amplifies) what's already there and gives both fans and critics a chance to say what they will. This is the pact that all artists make with their audience when they release their work into the world--that people will interpret it as they will, whether that means reading it a certain way, hearing it a certain way, or incorporating it into their lives in a certain way. This is how the popular preconscious works. I don't think it's fair to call this project a senseless derision of Carey, but I do still think that your vehement apprehension towards remixes says something interesting about the ways that certain corners of the cultural community (particularly academia) perceive the effects of these acts. I just think they need fleshing-out. There is a big difference between real violence towards women and perceived theoretical misdeeds towards a celebrity's highly-guarded public image. If this is the true issue, I think our energies are best directed toward prevention of the former rather than scandalizing the latter.

DISCUSSION

Go Ahead, Touch Her


Hi, Brittany.

I'm sorry that you found my article objectionable. I didn't intend to make the implications you suggest, but I believe your response cuts to the most interesting aspect of Laric's piece, which is the effect of remixing.

For those who care to review the lyrics to this song, they are here:
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/mariahcarey/touchmybody.html

They include the refrain:

Touch my body
Put me on the floor
Wrestle me around
Play with me some more
Touch my body
Throw me on the bed


So, in fact, I do think that Carey's lyrics (and video) invite sexual fantasy, but my article doesn't say that she is asking to be violated, it says that she's asking to be remixed. Of course, the slippage between the two that you identify is what's so interesting.

In an interview with Laric, he told me that he noticed that the video takes-on an increased sexual tone when all but Carey is masked out. He was interested in how this first-person invitation to "touch my body" could be construed as an invitation to remix the visage of her body (and/or the voice emitted from it), particularly given (a) the implicit link to digital culture embodied by both the lyrics and video, and (b) the fact that the remix is now such an important part of the media ecology of pop culture.

In the last 25+ years of pop music, lining-up celebrity remixes and making singles remix-ready has been an important part of the production cycle, often preceding the release of the original recording. Almost all historical accounts of Madonna's rise to fame cite her relationship with DJs and openness to remixing as a key factor in her success. So while you may see the remix as a violent act, clearly those participating in this industry see it as an imperative.

Discussions of why a remix is or isn't violent are interesting, as they get to questions of the status of the digital reproduction. Are we remixing a person or "just" her image, and what's the difference when thinking about how a person's identity--particularly a famous person's identity--hinges upon their image? Carey's image was already manipulated before it came to us. In the interview with Laric, he pointed to a segment in the original video in which the shape of a cup becomes distorted as a result of distorting the footage to make the singer standing behind the cup appear slimmer. So this is already not her. If you listen closely, I believe there is also a question as to whether all of the voiced parts of the song are her, so the audio issue adds another layer to the phenomenological question of the brute force of the remix.

These issues of the import of the remix, the relationship to broader pop culture (rather than an insular art world), collective authorship, and the nature of Carey's invitation are what I hoped to address in this article.