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.
ACC Postdocs and Visiting Researcher Fellowship, April 30 2006 Deadline
Please post and distribute:
The Annenberg Center for Communication (ACC) (www.annenberg.edu) at the University of Southern California invites applications for up to eight postdoctoral positions and one visiting scholar position. These Visiting Research fellows will take part in a major multi-disciplinary research initiative to explore the "The Meaning of the New Networked Age: Innovation, Content, Society, and Policy." We welcome researchers from various disciplines including anthropology, architecture, the arts, business, communications, computer science, design, economics, engineering, history, international relations, law, library science, neurosciences, political science, rhetoric, and sociology.
ACC is a research institute devoted to the study of new media from a multi-disciplinary perspective. We are in a period of fundamental transformation in the nature of the networks that connect people, information, objects, and locations. But, what does it mean and what, if anything, should be done to guide the process? The ACC research program will explore the drivers of these changes, their meaning, and their implications for business and government policy.
The 2006-2007 theme investigates the structure and evolution of today's political, social, cultural, technological, and knowledge networks. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
How new technology is transforming politics and citizen engagement worldwide, Communication law and policy New models of intellectual discourse and citation, Peer-to-peer cultural production and distribution, * The emergence of pervasive mobile and wireless networks.
The ACC intends to convene a multi-disciplinary cohort of scholars to focus on a topic of pressing concern not well addressed in more established disciplinary and departmental institutions. The visiting fellows will work with the ACC's senior fellows and also will be expected to pursue their research in residence at the Annenberg Center during the 2006-2007 academic year. They will collectively be responsible for organizing one conference and a monthly speakers series ...
Lightbulb - Jeff Lieberman
Here's a great piece I saw a while ago and meant to post. Jeff Lieberman has explores two phenomena, the stabilization of unstable systems using feedback, and wireless power transmission. Feedback systems often levitate objects, stabilize inverted pendulums, and the like. Wireless power transmission has been around since Tesla's invention a century ago, although it is still not widely utilized. Jeff wanted to explore these effects together.
Lightbulb uses a special bulb, inside which magnets and circuitry are hidden. Using a magnetic hall effect sensor, an electromagnet, and a [modified] PD feedback system, it floats a lightbulb stably in the air, while power is transmitted wirelessly from the base of the sculpture into the bulb. LEDs in the bulb rectify this AC power and convert it to light. The power transfer functions very similarly to how radio station tuning works and requires a well tuned matched pair of resonant windings, but allows power transmission over through the air.
via Gravestmor
New Media and Performance Studies positions
Full Time Tenure Stream - Assistant Professor - New Media
Fine Arts Cultural Studies, Faculty of Fine Arts, York University
Toronto, Canada.
Deadline: March 29, 2006 Start Date: July 1, 2006
The Fine Arts Cultural Studies program, Faculty of Fine Arts, York
University invites applications for a tenure-track appointment at the
Assistant Professor level in New Media, to commence July 1, 2006. We
seek applicants who are engaged with new media arts and who are eager
to teach at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
The successful candidate will be a creative producer-researcher in
new media arts with a strong background in new media theory and/or
cultural studies. He/she will have a terminal degree, a PhD and/or an
MFA. Applicants must be suitable for prompt appointment to the
graduate Faculty. Candidates must demonstrate excellence in teaching
as well as a recognized record of accomplishments in their field. The
candidate will contribute to the expansion of the new media stream in
the program and be required to teach new media studio and studies
courses.
Full Time Tenure Stream - Assistant Professor - Performance Studies
Fine Arts Cultural Studies, Faculty of Fine Arts, York University
Toronto, Canada.
Deadline: March 29, 2006 Start Date: July 1, 2006
The Fine Arts Cultural Studies program, Faculty of Fine Arts, York
University invites applications for a tenure-track appointment at the
Assistant Professor level in Performance Studies, to commence July 1,
2006. The program seeks applicants who are engaged with performance
in the broadest sense and who are eager to teach at both the
undergraduate and graduate levels.
Applicants will have the ability to contextualize performance as an
activity that transcends disciplines and to consider it in view of
the concerns of cultural studies. In addition, a strong background in
the arts and knowledge of the ...
Turbulence Commission: "Peripheral n°2: KEYBOARD" by Marika Dermineur
March 1, 2006 Turbulence Commission: "Peripheral n°2: KEYBOARD" by Marika Dermineur with Maud Palmaerts http://turbulence.org/Works/keyboard/ Requires Flash Player 7, Speakers, and Fast Connection. Presented in English and French
"Peripheral n°2: KEYBOARD" reflects anew on the keyboard, this strange object which we have beneath our eyes without really seeing it. It explores writing and language and the articulation of the voice and hands; and examines their importance for data processing and media classification (images, texts, sounds). "KEYBOARD" is about automation, keyboards as primitive interfaces, a tool that makes it possible for us to write, capture, note, structure, communicate, index, research, etc.; and to navigate into virtual spaces, in computer games for example, where the four arrows are used to move and other keys are assigned to specific actions. It is one of a series of works exploring material devices that are connected to the computer of the Net-surfer.
"Peripheral n°2: KEYBOARD" is a 2005 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. "Peripheral n°2: KEYBOARD" was made during a residency at La Chambre Blanche, Montreal, Canada. [More....]
Artport | Tate Online Commission: "The Battle of Algiers" by Marc Lafia and Fang-Yu Lin, 3-1-06
The Battle of Algiers by Marc Lafia and Fang-Yu Lin launched March 1, 06 artport, the Whitney Museum's portal to Internet art http://artport.whitney.org http://artport.whitney.org/commissi ons/battleofalgiers/BattleofAlgiers.shtml
This work recomposes scenes from the 1965 film "The Battle of Algiers" by Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo. The original film is a reenactment of the Algerian nationalist struggle leading to independence from France in 1962. The success of the actual battle for independence has been attributed to the nationalists=92 organization: a pyramidal structure of self-organized cells. For their project, Lafia and Lin recomposed the film along a cell-based structure, in which French Authority and the Algerian Nationalist cells are represented by stills from the film and move according to different rule sets. When cells of different camps intersect, they trigger video cells di= splaying each side's tactics (as depicted in the film) according to the rules of the system.
Accompanied by an essay by Daniel Coffeen: "Film, Play, Power and the Computational, or Byting Celluloid: On Marc Lafia's and Fang-Yu Lin's 'The Battle of Algiers'"
++++++++++++++++++++ "The Battle of Algiers" is the second in a series of three works co-commissioned in collaboration with Tate Online. See http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/new_commissions.shtml
Critical texts and video interviews with the artists will accompany the works at http://www.tate.org.uk/netart/ ++++++++++++++++++++
Upcoming commission:
Launch Date: March 22
Screening Circle by Andy Deck This project adapts the cultural tradition of the quilting circle into an online format. Visitors to the site can enter the drawing area to compose loops of graphics and affect and edit each other's screens. The pieces can = be made by one person or by several people and the arrangement of the segments can be ...
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.