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]
CAE case update from the Scientist
Artist bacteria case becoming costly
Steven Kurtz, the Buffalo art professor awaiting trial on federal
charges of mail and wire fraud, has received a worldwide outpouring of
financial and emotional support since his case made national news this
summer.
Kurtz and Pittsburgh genetics professor Robert Ferrell were both
indicted in July after Ferrell shipped bacteria to Kurtz to use in an
art project. That act allegedly violated a materials transfer agreement
Ferrell had signed with the supplying company promising he would keep
the bacteria inside his own lab. Kurtz pleaded not guilty in July and
is free on bond. Ferrell has still not been arraigned, however, because
he has been seriously ill and undergoing medical treatment since early
summer.
Since July Kurtz's and Ferrell's supporters have raised over $60,000
for their defense by holding fund-raising events around the world,
according to Ed Cardoni, fiscal agent for the defense fund of the
Critical Arts Ensemble, a collective of five artists Kurtz helped
found.
Some $40
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Fwd: The Thomas Kinkade Company Acquires Maurizio Cattelan
> The Thomas Kinkade Company Acquires Maurizio Cattelan
>
> Deal Will Significantly Extend Mr. Cattelan's Brand Presence in North
> America and Will Give The Thomas Kinkade Company a New Growth Platform
>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
> MORGAN HILL, CA and NEW YORK, NY, December 15, 2004--The Thomas Kinkade
> Company announced today an agreement under which The Thomas Kinkade
> Company will acquire, for an undisclosed cash amount, rights to all
> future
> production by the internationally known and critically acclaimed artist
> Maurizio Cattelan. In connection with the transaction, the parties have
> also entered into a long-term contract whereby Mr. Cattelan will
> continue
> creation and installation of original, temporary, site-specific works
> for
> important international museums and biennials under The Thomas Kinkade
> Company brand. The acquisition does not cover rights to Mr. Cattelan's
> past work.
>
> http://fromthefloor.blogspot.com/2004/12/thomas-kinkade-company-
> acquires.html
>
Re: FW: Questioning the Frame
> phrase is used so pejoratively and vaguely. But I'm guessing they are
> dissing a contingent of the bitforms crowd (
> http://bitforms.com/artists.html )
i'm not sure they're targeting particular artists (though this
probably just reflects my interest in what they have to say). if
there's any thing pointed at, i would say it's more systemic in nature.
i don't think there's much value in an attack on the artists' works you
mention, but there is (for me) in critiquing the valuation by
institutions on certain forms of work, and how that work is framed and
utilized by such institutions. i'm assuming you disagree pretty much.
again, i don't really have any investment in defending that interview's
content, i just think some of it's "charges" are more defined that
Coco's mapping essay.
>
> I think it's a case of folks getting into the nuances of what they are
> into, and lumping everything else. Code artists are going to get into
> the distinction between reactive and generative. Political artists
> will get into the distinction between anarcho-post-marxist communes
> and neo-liberal event-based sit-ins. Whatever. It's the moral
> high-ground and the condescenscion I take issue with. If they really
> give a rip, let 'em move to Chiapas instead of concerning themselves
> with white-box curatorial critique.
talk about your vague and pejorative criticisms. this sounds an awful
lot like "if you really hate this country so much, then why don't you
leave it." are you honestly suggesting that people can't care and make
statements about things outside of their neighborhood? And to say that
artists - whatever their concern - shouldn't feel free to criticize the
arena they happen to be a part of, if they don't think it addresses
things they find important...
>
> I agree with Coco's position (stated in the map article) that art
> needs to about humans rather than technology. But her critique of new
> media mapping is overly convenient and facile.
no argument here. i haven't talked to one person that has read/heard
her speak about this that hasn't said the exact same thing, including
me. and btw: most of the people i know involved in "political" mapping
projects utilize very "designy" visuals, very effectively (IMHO). but i
have read critiques from the establishment art world about the
threatening take over of art by design. not something i'm too worried
about.
>
> If the tactic is to shut down the government's server, then why wait
> for some gallery patron to walk by, read the artist statement, and
> decide whether or not to click "send?" That's pretentious and stupid.
many people say the same thing about most "web art," not to mention
"conceptual art" that seems to be only concerned with moving colors and
sampled sounds. but i guess "pretentious and stupid" is a valid
criticism...
> The click need not come from an elite gallery patron to have its
> effect. The click just needs to come from a bunch of different online
> machines (connectivity and ownership are "preferenced." for shame!),
> and once the software starts running, it's all automated. To try to
> present such a "hacktivist" event in a gallery setting may even be
> exploitive. It's using the cause of "disenfranchised" people as
> conceptual currency for the artist.
the exploitive argument has been used against people working with
representation of the "other" forever. that doesn't mean it's not a
needed argument, but it doesn't mean much without specificity to me.
How does one decide when the benefit of the artist isn't matched by the
benefit of a generated discourse for the represented. As for the
utilitarian argument, most artists practicing the work in question
position it in a symbolic realm, as a form of cultural statement, not
legislative or militaristic.
>>
>
> This is such a bogey I'm amazed it continues to get the mindshare it
> does.
OK - maybe i didn't make my point clearly. i agree with your general
sentiment, but i said that work reliant on "open source" tech practiced
politics DIFFERENTLY - not necessarily better. and i also meant the
generation of "open sourced" work - public domain and all that. i
merely meant to suggest that a political position could be taken by the
choice of tools used as well as the overt content created. i guess this
is another way of saying that materials and processes matter
politically. personally, i'm interested in the politics of tools, but
am so far invested in commercial technology.
>
> By the same argument, all art is religious. All art is about the
> senses, all art is conceptual, all art is about marital relationships,
> all art is about migratory bird patterns. The question is, need all
> art always be viewed and preferenced and criticized and evaluated
> through a political grid? It's the very thing that is so annoying
> about legalistic Christians. Every artwork is initially, primarily,
> and inordinately evaluated on whether it's "orthodox," regardless of
> what context the art itself might be trying to establish. It's the
> exact same thing that's so annoying about Marxists, Materialists,
> Feminists, Anti-Globalization Activists, etc. Really, who gives a
> shit whether http://turux.org was made using open-source Java or
> proprietary Macromedia Director? Care if you like, but it's almost
> totally tangential to the purpose of that artwork. You're imposing
> you're critical agenda on the artwork. Barthes and Derrida say this
> is OK/inevitable/happening anyway, but th!
> ey've yet to convince me that such carte blanche agenda-imposition
> makes for pertinent, insightful art criticism.
this reads like so much too-cool-for-school criticism. you can take
whatever interests you disagree with, slap a label on it - particularly
one that's loaded with the disdain that we seem to have for anything
"academic" - and dismiss it as insignificant to art, or culture period.
sure there is dogma in just about any ideological position, and some
don't get beyond what you have to memorize to be part of the "group."
but you seem to be attacking these things (marxism, feminism, etc ) as
ideological, as if you're own relationship to art (and whatever else)
is somehow outside of ideology! how do you not impose your "critical
agenda" on work when you look at/criticize/evaluate a work? and finding
tangential relationships in work is, honestly, what makes art
interesting for me.
obviously, we continue to disagree. interestingly, we have similar
tastes in visual aesthetics (and some in music).
best,
ryan
Bill Moyers
http://www.pbs.org/now/series/billmoyers.html