Rob Myers
Since 2003
Works in United States of America

ARTBASE (3)
PORTFOLIO (2)
BIO
Rob Myers is an artist and hacker based in the UK.

I have been creating images of the contemporary social and cultural environment through programming, design software and visual remixing since the early 1990s. My work is influenced by popular culture and high art in equal measures. My interest in remixing and sampling has led to my involvement in the Free Culture movement. I have been involved in the public consultation regarding the Creative Commons 2.0 and CC-UK licenses. All my visual art is available under a Creative Commons license.

My interest in programming has led to my involvement with the Free Software movement. I developed the Macintosh version of the Gwydion Dylan programming language compiler. All my software is available under the GNU GPL.
Discussions (509) Opportunities (1) Events (0) Jobs (0)
DISCUSSION

Re: Attention Please! (or, I pity da foo').


On 20 Apr 2006, at 17:18, Alexis Turner wrote:

> In spite of my general
> agreement with what you say on the list, however, I do find getting
> petulant
> about RFID projects every time they come up to be quite tedious
> insofar as it
> is rather a waste of righteous anger.

OK, I'm sorry.

- Rob.

DISCUSSION

Re: Attention Please! (An experiment and an Attention seeking video installation).


Quoting Alexis Turner <subbies@redheadedstepchild.org>:

> We make money, not art.

So how much do I have to pay you to agree with me?

> I hadn't realized that all artists had to have the same intentions
> and beliefs for their work to receive a stamp of artistic merit.

I'm not quite sure how we got here, but I do not particularly care what
artists
think. Unless they think "I'm going to kill Rob in three, two...", in which
case the fact that they are an artist is a secondary consideration.

What interests me are artists' actions and the effects of those actions,
particularly the unexamined, glossed-over, or dissonant effects of those
actions.

This is a separate issue from the work's merit as art, unless that merit rests
in part on such issues.

> Many atrocities and wrongs
> have been committed throughout history with the aid of artists, but
> that doesn't make
> their work any less art.

I'm not sure about that. Thomas Kinkade's shops would be a good
counter-example.

> It makes a call for those who disagree to respond with
> their own work rebuking the first.

If you see a mugging in progress, mugging someone else is not always the best
way of reporting the incident.

> But that requires action, balls, and
> creativity, each of which this project has in spades.

So, given this, its promotion of RFID is unproblematic? Or is it the
presence of
RFID that gives the work its "balls" and creativity?

> Enough, at any rate, to
> get a write up in Wired, ensuring a lot more people than those on this list
> will hear (about) it.

I'll take the audience of Rhizome over the audience of Wired any day.
Unless I'm
trying to sell an SUV, in which case obviously I'll take the conde nast
option.

> So. Do you want to make a whimper, or a bang?

I want to ask why the rash of RFID cheerleading in contemporary art.

- Rob.

DISCUSSION

Re: Attention Please! (An experiment and an Attention seeking video installation).


On 19 Apr 2006, at 20:24, Alexis Turner wrote:

> ::RFID: The neutral tool that art makes cool.
>
> RFID: The technology that, if we talk about hating it enough,
> amongst ourselves,
> without actually doing anything, will just disappear all by its
> lonesome, its
> evil little feelings in shambles.

And the art?

- Rob.

DISCUSSION

Re: Attention Please! (An experiment and an Attention seeking video installation).


Quoting Katie Lips <katie@kisky.co.uk>:

> Is it possible to measure our impact on space and on art? The
> attention Please! experiment attempts to answer this question using
> RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology.

RFID: The neutral tool that art makes cool.

- Rob.

DISCUSSION

Re: on spam and viruses


Quoting Jim Andrews <jim@vispo.com>:

> Good ideas are spread and propagated by consenting human beings who choose
> to spread the word, not by viruses and bots that simply propagate their
> creator's infantile willfulness.

There's a case to be made that the volume and duration of postings makes the
work sculpture. That their transgression makes them interrogative of
unexamined
social norms, which gives them critical content and value. And that this has
shocked the bourgeoisie, which you don't get too often these days, making it
radical.

To attempt to make that case would be academic narcissism hankering after the
decontextualised frisson of an unreflectively transgressive "real". Or would
it?

This is the problem with neoconceptualism: would it be if it wasn't? Or
rather,
is it or isn't it? There's assisted readymades and then there's making
something to nominate. The latter is more than a little suspect, a bit like
taking a felt pen to a laboratory mouse. If a spam flood attack wouldn't
ordinarily be art, which magical aura of art makes this spam flood attack
"art"? If this en-arted (created, nominated) spam flood attack is art, can I
nominate any real (authentic!) spam flood attack as (better!) art?
Particularly
one I might (or might not) unleash on the artist as an appropriation of their
ouvre to index its (presumably) vitally important content. Surely the Sistine
Chapel Ceiling of this particular genre would be a DDoS on the server hosting
the project (chosen randomly from a list of one).

Yeah, this (RAW) is the audience to expect to chin-stroke to the bone over a
(simulated?) flood attack. If we can ever be bothered to work out whether the
skript is functioning as intended or this is just technical as well as
conceptual incompetence. Where can we get the source?

The Tate buying a monoprint by someone who simply cannot draw is not
the same as
Rhizome Raw being graced by the genius of a would-be skript kiddie (please not
"hacker", we'll be at "hacktivism" next and then I will have to stab
someone to
death with their conference name badge). And I say this as someone who
can bang
out a decent nude as well as a decent killfile entry.

I, for one, welcome our new net.prick overlords.

- Rob.