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.
Why didn’t I do that?
Have you ever seen a piece of work and wish that you’d done it? Are there projects that you know about that make you want to weep at their brilliance? Well that was the topic of tonights Christmas Lecture, organised by Cybersalon and New Media Knowledge.
Tonight I wore my blogger hat, something I don’t wear often, so here is a summary of each talk. I won’t go into detail on each project mentioned, but will try to get across some of the main points of each speaker. I took a camera, but the space was so intimate for the lecture, I didn’t want to spoil the mood, although a here are a few shots.
Some of the capitals hottest home grown and exported new media talent are coming together for this unique celebration of outstanding work. Four accomplished digeratti will be discussing not their own work - but great work that they admire, they marvel at, and that they wish they’d done. Chaired by digital design pioneer Malcolm Garrett (Applied Information Group) speakers include Jason Bruges (Jason Bruges Studio), Andy Cameron (formerly Antirom, now head of interactive at Fabrica), Sanky (AllofUs) and Simon Waterfall (Poke and newly-elected D&AD Deputy President).
************
Malcolm Garrett opened the session by introducing the theme of the event. He talked about the newly launched Dynamo London website, “the online showcase for all that is successful, creative, and ground-breaking in the professional world of interactive and digital media. If you have ever seen a project and wondered ‘why didn�t I do that?’ now you can share, discuss and celebrate what impressed you. Objective and altruistic, dynamo london celebrates otherwise unsung talent. We encourage you to nominate the work of others � work that inspires you ...
Shared Encounters: Content Sharing as Social Glue in Public Space
Call for Submissions
Shared Encounters: Content Sharing as Social Glue in Public Space :: Workshop at ACM SIGCHI 2007, San Jose, California :: Sunday April 29th 2007
Our everyday lives are characterized by encounters, some are fleeting and ephemeral and others are more enduring and meaningful exchanges. Shared encounters are the glue of social networks, although our everyday encounters are increasingly mediated by communications technologies that free up our social interaction from fixed spatial settings. We propose that content sharing through mobile and ubiquitous technologies, consciously situated in public space is a valuable new social practice.It can contribute towards redefining boundaries of access between communities, and create more fulfilling sustained encounters in Spatial settings.
In this context we aim to: * identify the types of encounters, and the characteristics which make an encounter a rich experience * understand the qualities of situations which sustain shared encounters * investigate how sharing through mass media and personal media provide ways for people to communicate and engage with others * differentiate the relationship between the types of social groups in networked communities * determine the components of situated computing which enable them to act as key enabling platforms.
We welcome contributions from researchers from a diverse range of fields, such as HCI, architecture, media, psychology and urban studies. Authors are invited to submit a four-page position statement in the ACM SIGCHI workshop publication format. Position statements are particularly invited which identify and discuss qualitative and quantitative methodologies, present specific case studies or that take a structured perspective reflecting on the workshop themes.
Selection of workshop participants will be based on refereed submissions and selected participants will be invited to participate actively in the workshop sessions. It is our aim to publish and document the outcomes of the workshop. At least one author of accepted papers needs to register for ...
La Superette Saturday and LoVid performance
this saturday Dec. 9 is La Superette, where you can get wonderful artist made items and gifts. in addition to the merch there's a great free and open to the public performance program I curated (thanks to ETC for support) and workshops through this year's La Superette partner, Eyebeam's Holiday Hackshop. all details are below in this message and on line at lasuperette.org where you can also browse the catalog to think of gift ideas. also, thursday night Dec. 7, LoVid will perform at Diapason with Bill Etra. details for that event, Optosonic Tea, are included below the La Superette announcement.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
LA SUPERETTE 2006 IN ASSOCIATION WITH EYEBEAM'S HOLIDAY HACKSHOP '06
SATURDAY DECEMBER 9th - 12:00 TO 10:00 PM EYEBEAM - 540 WEST 21st STREET - NEW YORK, NY 10011
This year LA SUPERETTE comes to Chelsea, where artists will showcase original, handmade gifts (ranging from $1-$100) including recycled accessories, multifunctional stuffed animals, artist publications, funky house wares, and homemade clothes, with a special focus on "hacks," the custom configuration of pre-existing hardware or software. LA SUPERETTE is an annual art market where professional and amateur artists and craftsmen present and sell their creations to a wide range of visitors. LA SUPERETTE is a collaborative project seeking to enhance the dialog between artists and their audience, placing art in the middle of daily life. This year LA SUPERETTE joins EYEBEAM in conjunction with HOLIDAY HACKSHOP '06, a DIY tech-workshop featuring activities from circuit-bending to laser-cutting in a festive atmosphere.
LA SUPERETTE is conceived and organized as a place for artists to meet and collaborate on a specific project. A catalog zine is published, which distributes contact information of all participating artists, a web catalog is hosted at WWW.LASUPERETTE.ORG, and a video catalog is ...
ProvFlux IV :: Call for Participants
Part festival and part conference, ProvFlux brings together artists, theorists, urban adventurers and the general public to share their visions of what the city can be. Exciting and provocative performances, urban games, films, lectures, and positive public activities collectively activate Providence with critical dialogue, new directions, and lasting friendships. [......]
Upgrade! Seattle
Caleb Larsen + Brett Walker
Come join us for the December Upgrade! Seattle meeting featuring Caleb Larsen and Brett Walker on Thursday December 14 at 7pm at 911 Media Arts Center.
Upgrade! Seattle is a once a month event for new media artists working in the Seattle area. Every second Thursday of each month Upgrade! Seattle invites artists / curators / thinkers / everyone to gather at 911 Media Arts Center to see and critically discuss new media work. Upgrade! Seattle is hosted by the 911 artists2artists group and is affiliated with the Upgrade! International network. If you are interested in presenting your work, please contact Carrie Bodle (artists2artists[at]911media.org).
Caleb Larsen is a young Seattle based new media and installation artist. He was raised in the northern reaches of Michigan's Upper Peninsula and attended school in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Originally trained as a painter, Larsen attempts to treat technology, not as a gimmick, but as natural addition to the artistic practice. His most recent works loosely revolve around two central concepts: Language and Mapping. Larsen��s current point of inspection involves creating intersections of digital and physical culture by reinterpreting online information and resources from community based websites.
At the present Larsen is working on a suite of projects based on Google News headlines. The headlines are processed in realtime and produce simultaneous outcomes ranging from bizarre video montages to large generated associative word drawings. Using computer programming, Legos, video, dynamic images, and printed text Larsen aims to create an alternate methodology for exploring contemporary culture.
Larsen holds his Bachleor of Fine Arts from Western Michigan University. He has exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Canada, Greece and Romania. He attended the Yale Norfolk Summer School of Art, the School of Visual Art Artist Residency, and most ...
Rhizome Today: A critic, with opinions about postinternet art
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.
Breaking the Ice
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.
Conference Report: NET.ART (SECOND EPOCH)
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.
Go Ahead, Touch Her
Go Ahead, Touch Her
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.