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]
review of Beyond Green at the Smart Museum
unedited form... it's fairly cursory (skimming the work mentioned and
leaving out quite a bit), as most reviews tend to be due to space
limitations and such. but the show includes some work that's
interesting to consider in terms of some of the discussions that have
been going on here, related to relationships between art and design,
functionality and entertainment.
note: A PDF of the exhibition catalog is available at the museum's
website as well, for anyone interested (for what it's worth, i
recommend it)
http://smartmuseum.uchicago.edu/exhibitions/index.shtml
Ryan Griffis
Review: Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art
Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago
6 October 2005 - 15 January 2006
For the April 1991 issue of Art Forum, critic Jan Avgikos contributed
an article exploring the works of artists involved in various ways with
the “environment,” including Mark Dion, William Schefferine, Meg
Webster, and Peter Fend among others. In the end, the author saw a
major flaw in the “green” desires of these artists - by trying to serve
as a mediator between nature and culture, it returned us to “old myths
that seek to naturalize culture.” The same year as Avgikos’ critique, a
group of international business leaders formed an organization that
would represent the voice of industry in discussions about how to deal
with environmental crises. In preparation for the 1992 UN Earth Summit
in Rio de Janeiro, this organization, eventually becoming the World
Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), would make sure
that governments would not take action to solve ecological problems
without their consultation. Their logo is a globe-like symbol
surrounded by a ring composed of some kind of liquid drops and gear
teeth. And, of course, it’s green. The WBCSD’s image seemed to offer
what the artists could not, a convincing merger of nature and culture
that would serve capital’s desires for economic expansion. Naturalized
culture sells.
This collision of affect and economics found in the ongoing battles
over environmental conditions forms the context of a new exhibition at
the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum titled “Beyond Green: Toward a
Sustainable Art.” Curated as a traveling exhibit by Stephanie Smith,
“Beyond Green” brings together several individual artists and
collectives tackling contemporary concerns of sustainability. Obviously
building upon the problems of artists, writers and designers of the
1990s invested in environmental discourse, Smith is rather expansive in
her definition of sustainability to include emerging models, while also
remaining conscious of the immediate institutional frame at work. The
exhibition is self conscious of its role as a producer of waste and
energy expenditure, making note of the Museum’s attempts to use the
show as impetus to make itself more environmentally responsible in
exhibition design.
The relationship between design and art, certainly a prominent theme
in the current art market, comes to the forefront in the work of the
selected artists as well, forming a thread connecting them that is as
important as that of sustainability. A utopian, DIY sensibility ran
through much of the work, providing solutions - or simulations of
solutions - to the material problems faced by various global
constituents. Nils Norman contributed “Ideal City, Research/Play
Sector,” (2005) a mural size print that depicts fantastical designs for
alternative, multi-use spaces that have more than a tinge of dark humor
embedded in their utopianism. For “Beyond Green,” Norman also explored
notions of utopia in public space through a course taught at the
University of Chicago. The collective Learning Group explores equally
utopian visions of space, but with their “Collected Material Dwelling,”
(2005) these desires are temporarily materialized as a structure built
from discarded plastic bottles.
Not all design solutions participate in utopian thinking, as the
problems they deal with contain an inescapable reality. A “Hippo Water
Roller,” (2005) an actual industrially produced object designed to
facilitate the transport of water over long distances by foot, is
re-presented by Marjectica Potrc from her larger “Power Tools” series.
The revelation that this water moving device also protects the person
pushing it from potential land mines, illustrated in an accompanying
drawing by Potrc, makes the geopolitical relationships between harsh
social and natural environments all too clear. Likewise, Michael
Rakowitz’s “paraSITE” series (1998), updating Krzysztof Wodiczko’s
earlier “Homeless Vehicle,” uses the language of modernist architecture
to make a ubiquitous, yet mostly hidden, homeless population visible.
Rakowitz structures, custom designed for specific individuals,
implicate the built environment, using the “waste” air from ventilation
systems for structural support and heat. Free Soil, an international
collective of artists, attempts to expose the massive, opaque
infrastructure of food transport. With their multi-faceted project
FRUIT (2005), visitors are asked to think about the ecological and
social ramifications of eating food that has traveled half way around
the world.
Many of the works generate an allusion to empowerment, both actual (as
in WachenKlauser’s “Material Exchange” community effort, 2005) and
symbolic (Allora and Calzadilla’s video meditation “Under Discussion”,
2005), revealing attempts at generating autonomy in the face of
globally-scaled crises. Such autonomous interventions are not
necessarily anti-establishment, however. Jane Palmer and Marianne
Fairbanks, collectively known as JAM, propose a consumable solution to
the energy problem - very fashionable carrying bags with flexible solar
cells for recharging personal electronic devices like cell phones and
iPods ("Jump Off," 2005).
With all the focus on “sustainability,” the unspoken centrality of
“development” in all of this can all too easily go unchallenged.
“Beyond Green” makes some crucial challenges to the economic
imperatives that have so far driven the success and failure of
environmental policy, providing a literal reflection on the
“greenwashing” of corporate identity. But the question of whether or
not we can design our way out of the problems of development remains.
Re: NYT art critic reviews Pixar exhibition at MoMA
>
> In what way does Pixar's work have no discursive component?
In what way does it? i'm not gonna argue either way, but it seems the
burden of proof, whether PIXAR or <your favorite conceptual artist
here>, is to make a case for its discursiveness. if one thinks there
should be a burden at all, anyway.
of course, anything can be discursive. my refrigerator has an
interesting history, i'm sure.
>
> Ignore the accompanying essay, or lack of it, and look at the work.
there's discursive for you.
my problem with the PIXAR thing is that it's already everywhere, it
doesn't need explanation - as the "look at the work" statement makes
clear. i'm sure lots of nice critical essays can be and have been
written about the role of pixar and popular animation in larger global
culture. and i'm also sure that there are plenty of interesting
connections with contemporary and historical art that can be made. but
is the exhibition doing this at all?
it seems an obvious blockbuster, bring-in-the-movie-audience move.
in that way, i'm with Patrick and twhid... why should we want to see a
cultural institution (of a specific mission) use its resources to
support something that arguably doesn't need its support in the least.
maybe i'll learn something extremely fascinating about pixar, but if
it's about their work... well, i can get it from just about any bog box
store/video rental place/free on network TV.
unless they've done some really groundbreaking or critical work that
would never make it in their usual market, i don't know why i'd care.
best,
ryan
Jrnl of Aesth. & Protest #4 Print Issue Available Now!!!
#4 issue of The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest
***www.journalofaestheticsandprotest.org
Available in paperback,
236 pages of radicality.
Contact us at contact(at)journalofaestheticsandprotest.org or order a
subscription at
www.journalofaestheticsandprotest.org/Subscription.html
($10.00)
Also available at:
33 1/3 in Los Angeles***Quimby's in Chicago***Bluestockings in New
York***ProQM in Berlin
You can also order copies through AK Press.
************************************
contents
1 Excerpt from issue's forward
2 Issue's Table of Contents
3 Ultra-red performance at LACE (non-journal event)
4 New Orleans Art Auction (non-journal event)
5 Walking to Guantanamo to Witness Torture (journal writer announcement)
6 Slide Library
*********
1 Excerpt from issue's forward
We are dancing in the dark. Tough luck kids. In January 2005, we held a
dark mass and wailed. We are now dark energy. Darkness has shifted with
this ever-expanding fucked-up system. Our dearly held agendas and
assumptions- once truisms- are now suspect. How can we work in this
glue gloom?
On May 13, 2004 cultural production in 5 cities in the Center of the
United States just stopped. The towns themselves didn't seem to notice,
their TV's still brought in moving images, their radios still played
the programmed music. It was unclear if the disappearance was a
coordinated act of refusal, or if the producers were taken away. It is
unclear whether similar events have occurred elsewhere. Are they dead?
Have they disappeared, are they dead or are they in hiding?
This fourth issue of the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest has been
most difficult to put together.
************************************
2 Issue's Table of Contents
Interview with Brian Holmes- By Robby Herbst
An open letter to Kalle Lasn- By Yael Grauer
Cooing over the Gold Phallus- By Sarah Kanouse
The Baby Haters- By Laurie Pike
A Critique of Current Social Change Politics- By Selina Musuta and
Darby Hickey (web only)
The interviewed thoughts of MT Karthik- By Marc Herbst
Lessons for the Left from Madison Avenue- Stephen Duncombe (web only)
PILOT TV: Experimental Media for Feminist Trespass!!!- By Daniel Tucker
and Emily Forman
Precarity explained to kids- by Aviv Kruglanski
Time for the Dead to have a Word with the Living- By Ultra-red
Seeing the Disappeared- By Chitra Ganesh
Physiology of the Oppressed- By David Murphy
The Flip Side to the Commodification of Revolution- By Nato Thompson
Temporary Public Spaces- By Ashley Hunt
Interview with Susan Greene- By Josh On (web only)
New Solidarities: After Ideology and Culture, There Is History- By Dan
S. Wang
Anti-war politics after the public sphere- By Craig Willse
On quasi-cinemas and hand grenades- By Mariana Botey with Cara Baldwin
Building a Future in the Here and Now- By Chris Carlsson
Toward an Embodied Home- By Doran George and Sarah Payton with Lauren
Hartman (web only)
WHAT HAPPENED ON NOVEMBER 2, 2004- Compiled by Gregory Laynor (web only)
Re-enacting Stonewall, Jackson that is- By Matt Wolf with Allison Smith
For a list of this issue's art projects, see
http://www.journalofaestheticsandprotest.org/4/issue4.php?
page=artProjects
************************************
3 Ultra-red performance at LACE
16 December | 7 PM Doors Open | 7:30 PM Performances Start
Ultra-red | Adam Overton | Slanguage | Jeff Cain
Ultra-red
Taking a break from their SILENT|LISTEN performances, Ultra-red review
the record accumulating from their inquiry into the state of the AIDS
epidemic in Bushnation. From Baltimore to Los Angeles to Pittsburgh,
Ultra-red have staged conversations with AIDS activists and organizers
on the ground. For this special performance, Ultra-red consider how the
voice itself functions as an object. Dangerously wandering off script,
liberated from the delusions of the ego, the voice becomes an object of
desire and anxiety. Ultra-red unleash "The Object Voice," integrating
real-time sound-processing and spoken reflection. The object voice par
excellence, is silence.
http://www.ultrared.org
************************************
4 New Orleans Art Auction
http://www.neworleansartauction.org/
************************************
5 Walking to Guantanamo to Witness Torture
"Journal contributor Frida Berrigan writes that she is currently with a
group in Cuba attempting to meet with prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.
witnesstorture.org"
************************************
6 Slide Library
The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Slide Archive & Library
http://www.journalofaestheticsandprotest.org/projects/library/
slidearchive.html
CONTRIBUTE to the archive
Print out the PDF, fill it out and send it in along with five labeled
slide or your video or posters (etc) and images.
http://www.journalofaestheticsandprotest.org/projects/library/
JOAaP\_SLform.pdf
Mail to Journal of Aesthetics and Protest 3424 Council Street LA, CA
90004.
crimewire
(from: http://www.lwk.dk )
Context
The RSA design directions set this brief 'Re-designing states of mind'
and the design challenge was to find, define and communicate a social
or economic 'contradictory behavior or practice', then design a service
that helps us engage, re-configure, manage and live with this
contradiction.
Technology today enables us to share files very easy - but illegal -
over computer networks. The project CrimeWire aims to reflect upon the
important consequences of these possibilities in a creative and
inspiring way.
Aims and objectives
CrimeWire is developed as a response to the growing number of illegal
music downloads that happens via peer-to-peer software. Especially it
aims to deal with the strong contradictory behavior that:
We want to support the music artists - yet we download music without
paying.
We know its illegal - but it is not "really" a crime.
CrimeWire is about re-designing states of mind by designing a service
that helps us engage, re-configure, manage and live with these
contradictions. Therefore CrimeWire does not aim to solve this complex
and controversial problem of illegally downloading MP3s but instead put
focus on it and actively provide different angles (not only those
against downloading) to open up a space for reflection in the file
sharer's mind. CrimeWire is about altering the experience of using
peer-to-peer software.
Description
The service I propose takes form as a "skin" for the existing
peer-to-peer software LimeWire. The new service called CrimeWire is
distributed like LimeWire's other available skins ready to download
from the LimeWire website. The new design is in the details. Using
metaphors from the criminal world the new skin CrimeWire renames the
buttons in the interface and thereby it provides a whole new perception
and experience of using the peer-to-peer software.
The consequence is that you will now hit a 'steal' button instead of
"download", be asked to "select crime" instead of "select file" and so
forth. You can perform all the normal functions of LimeWire plus a few
extra, but CrimeWire constantly reminds you what it is you are doing.
Fwd: LACE Presents: Final two Voiceovers events 15 and 16 December
> LOS ANGELES CONTEMPORARY EXHIBITIONS
> 6522 Hollywood Boulevard | LA CA 90028
> http://www.artleak.org
>
> Don't miss these two events this week at LACE. . .
>
> 15 December | 7:30 PM Doors Open | 8 PM Performance
> Joe Sola and Michael Webster Present
> Shakey's
> A Ragtime Slapstick Pizza Spinning Piano Extravaganza
> Admission $5 | Free for LACE Members
>
> Join artist Joe Sola and musician Michael Webster for an adventure in
> sound and motion. In conjunction with Joe Sola's exhibition Taking a
> Bullet. Come for the performance and to celebrate the release of the
> exhibition catalog!
>
> Joe Sola:Taking a Bullet features essays by Irene Tsatsos and Jan
> Tumlir and an interview with Stuart Horodner. ($20 plus tax)
>
>
> 16 December | 7 PM Doors Open | 7:30 PM Performances Start
> Ultra-red | Adam Overton | Slanguage | Jeff Cain
> Admission $5 | Free for LACE Members
>
> Join us for the concluding event of our Voiceovers series with
> performances by Ultra-red, Adam Overton, Slanguage, and Jeff Cain.
>
> Ultra-red
> Taking a break from their SILENT|LISTEN performances, Ultra-red review
> the record accumulating from their inquiry into the state of the AIDS
> epidemic in Bushnation. From Baltimore to Los Angeles to Pittsburgh,
> Ultra-red have staged conversations with AIDS activists and organizers
> on the ground. For this special performance, Ultra-red consider how
> the voice itself functions as an object. Dangerously wandering off
> script, liberated from the delusions of the ego, the voice becomes an
> object of desire and anxiety. Ultra-red unleash "The Object Voice,"
> integrating real-time sound-processing and spoken reflection. The
> object voice par excellence, is silence.
> http://www.ultrared.org"
>
> SLANGUAGE
> "sound video spoken word dj vj on subject of space travel and
> hamburger stands that kill us slowly refineries that pollute us and
> the only city on the entire west coast that has no beach access that
> is on the pacific ocean called wilmington wilmas." ~slanguage
>
> Jeff Cain: Radio LAPD
> Radio LAPD is a lecture/demo that outlines the historical and
> simultaneous growth of the The Los Angeles Police Department
> communications system in parallel with the concurrent growth of
> Hollywood, culminating in the creation of a one night radio station
> designed for use in the immediate neighborhood.
> http://www.rhzradio.net
>
> Adam Overton
> Adam Overton is a performance artist, composer, sound artist, and
> curator currently based in Los Angeles. His work is an investigation
> of invisible performance as well as a look into the hidden or
> overlooked performative worlds of the body, the mind, and the medium.
> He has been busy developing two parallel streams of work - his recent
> Medi[t]ations series which uses biometric sensors and interactive
> sound software, and a series of body-based performance texts for
> instrumentalists or spectators in acoustic settings.
> http://www.plus1plus1plus.org