The Temporary Travel Office produces a variety of services relating to tourism and technology aimed at exploring the non-rational connections existing between public and private spaces. The Travel Office has operated in a variety of locations, including Missouri, Chicago, Southern California and Norway.
Is MySpace a Place?
Networked Performance pointed me toward an interview (download in PDF)with Networked Publics speaker Henry Jenkins and Networked Publics friend danah boyd about Myspace. The site, popular with teenagers, has become increasingly controversial as parents and the press raise concerns about the openness of information on the site and the vulnerability this supposedly poses to predators (Henry points out that only .1% of abductions are by strangers) and the behavior of teens towards each other (certainly nothing new, only now in persistent form). In another essay on Identity Production in Networked Culture, danah suggests that Myspace is popular not only because the technology makes new forms of interaction possible, but because older hang-outs such as the mall and the convenience store are prohibiting teens from congregating and roller rinks and burger joints are disappearing.
This begs the question, is Myspace media or is it space? Architecture theorists have long had this thorn in their side. "This will kill that," wrote Victor Hugo with respect to the book and the building. In the early 1990s, concern about a dwindling public culture and the character of late twentieth century urban space led us to investigate Jürgen Habermas's idea of the public sphere. But the public sphere, for Habermas is a forum, something that, for the most part, emerges in media and in the institutions of the state:
The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labor. The medium of this political confrontation was peculiar and without historical precedent: people's ...
SWITCH: Issue 22
HI everyone. Just wanted to announce the new issue of SWITCH:
SWITCH : The online New Media Art Journal of the CADRE Laboratory for
New Media at San Jose State University
http://switch.sjsu.edu switch@cadre.sjsu.edu
SWITCH Journal is proud to announce the launch of Issue 22: A Special
Preview Edition to ISEA 2006/ ZeroOne San Jose.
As San Jose State University and the CADRE Laboratory are serving as
the academic host for the ZeroOne San Jose /ISEA 2006 Symposium,
SWITCH has dedicated itself to serving as an official media
correspondent of the Festival and Symposium. SWITCH has focused the
past three issues of publication prior to ZeroOne San Jose/ISEA2006
on publishing content reflecting on the themes of the symposium. Our
editorial staff has interviewed and reported on artists, theorists,
and practitioners interested in the intersections of Art & Technology
as related to the themes of ZeroOne San Jose/ ISEA 2006. While some
of those featured in SWITCH are part of the festival and symposium,
others provide a complimentary perspective.
Issue 22 focuses on the intersections of CADRE and ZeroOne San Jose/
ISEA 2006. Over the past year, students at the CADRE Laboratory for
New Media have been working intensely with artists on two different
residency projects for the festival – “Social Networking” with Antoni
Muntadas and the City as Interface Residency, “Karaoke Ice” with
Nancy Nowacek, Marina Zurkow & Katie Salen. Carlos Castellanos,
James Morgan, Aaron Siegel, all give us a sneak preview of their
projects which will be featured at the ISEA 2006 exhibition. Alumni
Sheila Malone introduces ex_XX:: post position, an exhibition
celebrating the 20th anniversary of the CADRE Institute that will run
as a parallel exhibition to ZeroOne San Jose/ ISEA 2006. LeE
Montgomery provides a preview of NPR (Neighborhood Public Radio)
presence at ...
Art & Mapping
The North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) has released a special issue of their journal, Cartographic Perspectives:
Art and Mapping
Issue 53, Winter 2006
Edited by Denis Wood and and John Krygier
Price: $25
The issue includes articles by kanarinka, Denis Wood, Dalia Varanka and John Krygier, and an extensive catalogue of map artists compiled by Denis Wood.
[-empyre-] Liquid Narrative for June 2006
Christina McPhee:
hi all, I am not sure we got this message out to Rhizome!
Please join our guests this month, Dene Grigar (US), Jim Barrett
(AU/SE), Lucio Santaella (BR), and Sergio Basbaum (BR) , with
moderator Marcus Bastos (BR), for a spirited discussion of "Liquid
Narratives" ----- digital media story telling with a dash, perhaps,
of 'aura' .
Here's the intro from Marcus:
The topic of June at the - empyre - mailing list will be Liquid Narratives. The concept of 'liquid narrative' is interesting in that it allows to think about the unfoldings of contemporary languages beyond tech achievements, by relating user controlled applications with formats such as the essay (as described by Adorno in "Der Essay als Form", The essay as a form) and procedures related to the figure of the narrator (as described by Benjamin in his writings about Nikolai Leskov). Both authors are accute critics of modern culture, but a lot of his ideas can be expanded towards contemporary culture. As a matter of fact, one of the main concerns in Benjamin's essay is a description of how the rise of modernism happens on account of an increasing nprivilege of information over knowledge, which is even more intense nowadays. To understand this proposal, it is important to remember how Benjamin distinguishes between an oral oriented knowledge, that results from 'an experience that goes from person to person' and is sometimes anonymous, from the information and authoritative oriented print culture. One of the aspects of this discussion is how contemporary networked culture rescues this 'person to person' dimension, given the distributed and non-authoritative procedures that technologies such as the GPS, mobile phones and others stimulate.state of the planet infographics
a small collection of beautiful information graphics documenting the current state of the planet.
see also gapminder & 3d data globe.
[seedmagazine.com]
Re: Re: Re: FW: Questioning the Frame
> ++++++++++
>
> Like Rob, I smell a straw-man. There is this false dichotomy implied
> within net.art of "hacktivism" vs. "techno-formalism,"
> techno-formalism being some vague derogatory term used to stand for
> any form of non-political net art. EDT thinks they're radical because
> they are alter-neo-liberal/zapatista, as if there are only two kind of
> relevant human activities -- zapatista style political activities and
> neo-libaral anti-globalism political activities. Relegated to the
> artistically and culturally irrelevant are the activities of
> beauty-making, particularly if such activities result in something
> resembling an object. The condescending materialist assumption is
> that any non-political art is part of the spectacle, reinforcing a
> system the opposition of which is implicitly assumed to be the noble
> goal of all compassionate sentient individuals.
Sure, an uncritical attack on "techno-formalism" is, well, uncritical.
i don't think "techno-formalism" can, or should be, equated with
"beauty making" however. You (curt) have, for example, criticized the
fetishization of certain tendencies in digital art - games, etc. while
i don't care to speak for the writers of the essay, i take their attack
on techno-formalism as an attack on the prioritization of wiz-bang
technology that lends itself to consumer product promotion (i.e. the
desire to wire the world with store bought CPUs). i don't think this
criticism is an attack on aesthetics itself, but an attempt to look at
how aesthetics is "used." i realize that we (curt and i) have widely
divergent concerns in this arena, but i don't think it's that any art
that doesn't look political is de facto just spectacle. art that uses
open source tech is practicing politics differently than work dependent
on licensed software/hardware. form carries as much weight as subject
matter. and, if you believe, as i do, that all work is already
political, it's about the politics practiced, not whether it is
political at all that is up for criticism.
>
> The Museum of Jurassic Technology is an across-the-board paradigm
> hijack. Talk about changing the world one inidividual at a time, not
> just by reconfiguring their understanding of political activity, but
> by reconfiguring their understanding of understanding. The MJT to me
> is as culturally relevant, as ethically laudable, and as
> spectacle-disrupting as they come. It's so successfully "tactical" it
> doesn't even read as tactical, political, activist, or even art.
the MJT is a rad project, and many self-avowed "political artists"
totally embrace it for many of the same reasons you mention. i would
say that anyone who has ever visited it would have to recognize just
how "tactical" it is. "political work" can be complex and define things
in the positive (as opposed to strictly negative critique)
>
> Domingo laments the art world's lack of interest in "hacktivism" and
> its increased interest in "techno-formalism." For one thing, I don't
> think the art world as a whole has ever been terribly interested in
> any form of net.art (hacktivism, tecnho-formalism, or otherwise); nor
> are either forms very salable (so his dis of "code qua code" net.art
> as intentionally catering to the object market is a lot of wind). For
> another thing, why does he care? It's like some punk rock band
> secretly pining to get on a major record label.
i totally agree with your criticism here. But this doesn't negate the
need (as i might see it) to critique the support for certain
manifestations of digital/networked art by institutions.
>
> Perhaps alter-neo-liberal hacktivist art is indeed more
> interesting/disturbing/effective/of-the-people than mere neo-liberal
> hacktivist art -- in the same way that a Toyota is faster than a Yugo.
> But the MJT is flying a Concord. There are more than two ways to
> skin a cat. There is often more "disturbance" to "techno-formalism"
> (read "pretty art that's not overtly performative or political") than
> meets the materialist-indoctrinated eye.
maybe, but i think "materialism" provides some good tools for avoiding
the tunnel vision you're pointing out. materialism demands dealing with
context and relationships in a way that attempts to avoid speculation
(though i'd concede that's next to impossible).
Re: FW: Questioning the Frame
has read any of the recent writings by Coco on Nettime or anywhere
else, this polemic shouldn't be a surprise. Unfortunately, she has a
lot of valid criticism on all kinds of concerns that get lost in the
unreflexive ranting. This kind of arch O'Reillyism dilutes any
substantial points that could, and need to be, made. The discussion
between Coco and Ricardo Dominguez is a much more lucid critique of NM:
http://www.metamute.com/look/article.tpl?
IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=1&NrIssue#&NrSection&NrArticle$1&searc
h=search&SearchKeywords=fusco&SearchLevel=0
(URL will probably be broken)
Re: Re: Arts Intolerance: Emily Jacir/Ulrich MuseumWichita
> I have so much faith in art. I have so much faith in creation. I know
> that
> it flourishes even in the most repressive political regimes (to wit,
> Zimbabwe, Eastern Europe...think of the art Cuba has produced). I have
> so
> much faith in art, and so much faith in the talent of Miss Jacir that I
> believe her work can survive--can thrive even--in a riotous, noisy,
> unpolished marketplace of ideas. And if it doesn't, well then so be it.
> History has a way of disposing of that which is useless to it
Good points Cinque. and i tend to agree with your acceptance of
political confrontation in the "cultural" sphere. But the problem here
is not that the University is attempting to elevate dialogue, it's that
it is attempting to frame the voice of the artist. it could just as
easily be the voice of a teacher, administrator, whatever. and is more
in line with the campaign to frame biological evolutionary theory as a
scientifically contentious thing. Sure, it may be contentious - it is a
THEORY - but to situate the issue as polar between creationism and
evolution is entirely, deliberately misleading. It's not whether
Jacir's work survives as Art. i mean, what's really at stake in that.
it's more that her voice be allowed to enter into a debate on its own
terms, not at the mercy of an opposed ideology. The analogy of the
"free market" is scary, frankly. As is your use of "History." History,
after all is the story of the powerful. And who's the powerful in the
US at the moment?
ryan
Re: Fwd: [undercurrents] Fwd: Arts Intolerance: Emily Jacir/Ulrich Museum Wichita (fwd)
i hadn't really recognized as such. though it should have been obvious
with Fox's "Fair & Balanced" news. certainly, neoliberal/conservative
cultural institutions have learned from past mistakes. The Guggenheim's
censoring of Hans Haacke's work for example didn't work so well as a
long term tactic of repression. I recently saw Gregg Brodowitz speak,
and his analysis of "queer eye for the straight guy" was essentially
that it promoted tolerance to the degree that straight guys "shouldn't
kill their hair dresser."
It seems that other interests, like religious fundamentalism, are
figuring this out too. Framing and co-opting, or "balancing," seems a
much more successful method of setting the agenda. It's easier to
demonize something if you can point to it.
But perhaps Lee's right... maybe "balance" it can be reappropriated.