ryan griffis
Since 2002
Works in United States of America

ARTBASE (3)
PORTFOLIO (1)
BIO
Ryan Griffis currently teaches new media art at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He often works under the name Temporary Travel Office and collaborates with many other writers, artists, activists and interesting people in the Midwest Radical Culture Corridor.
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 ...

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SWITCH: Issue 22



Carlos Castellanos:

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 ...

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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.

READ ON »


[-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.

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state of the planet infographics


stateoftheplanet.jpg
a small collection of beautiful information graphics documenting the current state of the planet.
see also gapminder & 3d data globe.
[seedmagazine.com]

READ ON »



Discussions (909) Opportunities (8) Events (16) Jobs (0)
EVENT

Fwd: AREA Infrastructure Talk#2 (6.12.06): S.European HackLabs, Intellectual Property + Internet Activism


Dates:
Mon Jun 12, 2006 00:00 - Mon Jun 05, 2006

Begin forwarded message:

> Join the discussion!
>
> INFRASTRUCTURE SERIES :
> "Hackmeeting and Hacklabs: technopolitics and reality hacking in
> south-european autonomous networks"
>
> Presenter: Xabier Barandiaran - Series Talk #2
> Monday June 12, 7-9pm
> Polvo - 1458 W. 18th St. 1R | Chicago IL | www.polvo.org
> Co-Sponsored by AREA Chicago Art/Education/Activism and
> CriticalArtWare
> www.areachicago.com | www.criticalartware.net
>
> Details Below:
> Title and Abstract of the talk
> Short Bio of Xabier Barandiaran
> About the INFRASTRUCTURE SERIES
> ------------------------------
> Title and Abstract of the talk:
> "Hackmeeting and Hacklabs: technopolitics and reality hacking in
> south-european autonomous networks"
>
> For the last 6 years a number of autonomous collectives called
> HackLabs (hacker or hacktivist laboratories) have been created at
> different squat social centers and other self-managed spaces around
> europe. The network of hacklabs has now more than 40 nodes (most of
> them located in Spain and Italy) dedicated to build-up community
> based free-software and open access spaces for skill sharing and
> collective intelligence, technopolitic experimentation and direct
> action on several digital struggles (cybercontrol, digital rights,
> intelectual property, etc.). HackLabs were born as a result of
> Hackmeetings: underground self-organized hacktivist meetings where
> grassroot activist and geek culture meet to discuss, exchange and
> coordinate different knowledge, resources and initiatives around
> technologies and politics. The talk will focus on a set of
> trajectories within the hacklabs and hackmeeting networks: the
> experience of Metabolik (one of the first hacklabs in europe), the
> distributed and self-managed organization of spanish and european
> hackmeetings and the recent direct action campaing against
> intellectual property (CompartirEsBueno.Net). Emphasys will be made
> on philosophical background, discussion on technopolitical tactics
> and opportunities for coordination.
>
>
> Some references:
> http://hacklabs.org
> http://metabolik.hacklabs.org
> http://sindominio.net/hackmeeting
>
>
> ---------
> Presenter Bio
>
> Xabier Barandiaran is a PhD student and researcher on Cybernetics,
> Neurophilosophy and Artificial Life at the University of the Basque
> Country (Europe), member of the autonomous server SinDominio.Net, the
> hacktivist laboratory Metabolik BioHacklab (located at the social
> squat center Undondo Gaztetxea), the spanish and european
> HackLabs.Org network and the recent copyleft activist campaing
> "CompartirEsBueno.Net" (SharingIsGood: a spanish network of
> hacktivists and media-activists against intelectual property regimes
> and the media-culture industry). He has also been involved on other
> grassroots movement such as alternative education, social
> desobedience, anti-war movements and squatting. Xabier has also co-
> organized and activelly participated on a number of HackMeetings
> (self-managed technopolitical meetings that take place in squatted
> social centers in europe), Copyleft Conferences and other parallel
> events, workshops and seminars. His work has been devoted to
> development and promotion of free-software tools for social
> movements, direct action and coordination of autonomous
> technopolitical networks as research on free technologies & culture,
> community based digital self-management and hacktivism.
>
> ---------
> About the INFRASTRUCTURE SERIES:
>
> AREA's ongoing and irregular "Infrastructure" series, which will
> continue with meetings, screenings, shows, dinners, writings, readings
> over the next few years. The framework of the series will focus on the
> questions of longevity, sustainability, institution building, and
> mutual aid relationships involved in the process of creating
> self-organized infrastructure. To imagine an existence beyond the rent
> gap speculation, beyond the non-profit (NGO) industrial-complex and
> beyond the academy - we must imagine another Infrastructure!
>
> AREA Chicago is a biannual publication focusing on the intersections
> of Art/Education/Activism in the city of Chicago. The website is
> currently having technical difficulties but is generally available at
> www.areachicago.com
>
>
> ---------
> ABOUT criticalartware:
>
> criticalartware is an [application/platform/concern] compiled at the
> turn of the twenty first century to address hyperthreaded hystories
> of new media, [software-as-art/art-as-software] and [connections/
> ruptures/dislocations] between early moments of {conceptual|code}-
> based art forms such as artware and Video Art. By drawing [parallels/
> paths] between the [concepts/discourses] of these early moments,
> criticalartware hopes to critically question and [re]connect the
> current context to its rightful unruley past: a multitude of
> [personal/subjective] hyperthreaded [her/hi/hy]stories.
>
> http://criticalartware.net
>
> --
> AREAchicago | www.areachicago.com |


DISCUSSION

Re: notes for a hypothetical essay on relocating the aura


On Jun 3, 2006, at 12:38 AM, curt cloninger wrote:

> 2. Art cannot merely be the expression of a particularity (be it
> ethnic or personal). Art is the impersonal production of a truth
> that is addressed to everyone...
>
> 9. The only maxim of contemporary art is not to be imperial. This
> also means: it does not have to be democratic, if democracy implies
> conformity with the imperial idea of political liberty.
>
> 10. Non-imperial art is necessarily abstract art, in this sense :
> it abstracts itself from all particularity, and formalizes this
> gesture of abstraction.
>
> 11. The abstraction of non-imperial art is not concerned with any
> particular public or audience. Non-imperial art is related to a
> kind of aristocratic-proletarian ethic : Alone, it does what it
> says, without distinguishing between kinds of people.
>
> 12. Non-imperial art must be as rigorous as a mathematical
> demonstration, as surprising as an ambush in the night, and as
> elevated as a star.
>
> 13. Today art can only be made from the starting point of that
> which, as far as Empire is concerned, doesn't exist. Through its
> abstraction, art renders this inexistence visible. This is what
> governs the formal principle of every art : the effort to render
> visible to everyone that which for Empire (and so by extension for
> everyone, though from a different point of view), doesn't exist.
>
> 14. Since it is sure of its ability to control the entire domain of
> the visible and the audible via the laws governing commercial
> circulation and democratic communication, Empire no longer censures
> anything. All art, and all thought, is ruined when we accept this
> permission to consume, to communicate and to enjoy. We should
> become the pitiless censors of ourselves.
>
> 15. It is better to do nothing than to contribute to the invention
> of formal ways of rendering visible that which Empire already
> recognizes as existent.
>
> (from http://www.lacan.com/issue22.htm )
>
> +++++++++++++++++++
>
> Again, I like that he forwards an ethical requirement to make non-
> imperial art, but the way in which he describes such art
> distinguishes it from a lot of overtly tactical political art.
> It's not my goal to bash tactical political art. I'm just positing
> a precedence for a kind of creative artmaking which effects peace
> yet is not overtly political.
>
> Plus thesis #12 freaking rocks the poetic manifesto block. awe &
> wonder city.

Curt, i'm totally with you on your like of #12... Craig Owens made
some very similar statements from a very different perspective. one
thing that bugs me about this manifesto however, is how closely they
resemble the tenets of the intellectual branch of the New York
School... especially someone like Motherwell, who i kind of still
have a lot of respect for. Their response to Surrealism, Dada and
geometric abstraction, i think, was totally about the "non-imperial"
that Badiou names above. But look how it became a component of an
imperial program. Perhaps that's how one arrives at #14 & 15?
i think part of the problem of this universalization is where it
assumes a humanism that places one subject position as a total
metonym for all of humanity. something i think you point to curt, in
your brief mention of the problem of "universal human rights." this
for me, is the problem with abstraction... that it can be assumed to
operate "without distinguishing between kinds of people." it's about
flattening difference in favor of the dominant subject position. Not
that i don't see the merits of the arguments for it.
This preference for abstraction as experimentation and innovation
were exactly the position of Adorno and Benjamin that i mentioned
earlier... the argument against socialist realism. But, Brecht, whom
Manik thankfully brought up, i think, found a space between
abstraction and realism-as-subject matter. Brecht's position was a
"committed" one, but one that was committed to ambivalence,
engagement and complexity as political.
i don't think there's a formula for making non-imperial art. and i
don't think it's a relativist position to say context matters... it
just isn't a position that ascribes universal values to aesthetics.
anyway, these are just my quick and imperfect thoughts at the moment...
best,
ryan

DISCUSSION

Fwd: revised schedule: State of Emergency etc


Begin forwarded message:

PLEASE NOTE:

NEW June schedule: Thursday and Saturday nights,
7:30-9:30

Free outdoor silent cinema. Provocative group
program projected in the
window
of a second-floor loft at 115 West 23 St. A silent
shout-out against
the
ever-deepening devastation of democracy, a group
response to the
manufactured
state of emergency in which we live.

State of Emergency: Program

WLM Demo Remix Mary Kelly
As the World Turns Leslie Thornton
Quailing in our Boots Millner/Larsen
Feral Louis Hock
5 Days That Shook the World Allan Sekula
All Haiku All the Time Michael Mandiberg
405 North, 405 South Annetta Kapon
Sight Gags #3 #6 #7#11 Millner/Larsen
Chatter: Return of the Atomic Ghosts Gregory
Sholette
August 9, 2005: Shoal Nuclear Test Site Jenny
Lion
Help Yvonne Rainer

DISCUSSION

Fwd: Urban Rangers hit Hollywood Weds, June 7


Begin forwarded message:

> STAR GEOGRAPHIES
>
> Weds, June 7, 5-8pm @ Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, 6522
> Hollywood Blvd. (between the stars of Frank Sinatra and Alfred
> Hitchcock)
>
> Join the Los Angeles Urban Rangers in exploring the ambiances of
> legendary Hollywood Boulevard and how this urban trail constructs
> the Hollywoodness of Hollywood. Ours is one of three presentations
> for Hollywood Confidential, an evening event co-hosted by LACE and
> Woodbury University on the occasion of the American Institute of
> Architects (AIA) National Convention. Other presenters: Margaret
> Crawford and Teddy Cruz
>
> [Los Angeles Urban Rangers is a mobile and site-specific
> interpretive force. We aim, with both wit and a healthy dose of
> sincerity, to facilitate creative, critical, head-on, oblique, and
> crisscrossed investigations into our sprawling metropolis and its
> various ecologies. Kindly visit http://www.laurbanrangers.org for
> details.]

DISCUSSION

Re: notes for a hypothetical essay on relocating the aura


On Jun 1, 2006, at 5:38 PM, Alexis Turner wrote:
>
> Do you find it rather absurd that you are trying to refocus the
> aura of
> MECHANICALLY PRODUCED art? It defies the very, very notion of what
> Benjamin was
> discussing. Digital art is the antithesis of what he was, and so
> many of his
> accolytes continue to, carry on about so doey-eyed. If you are
> truly committed
> to holding on to his idea so dearly, you should really take up oils.

this isn't really a disagreement or contribution into this thread,
other than an expression of my annoyance at the continuing
interpretation of Benjamin's text as simply nostalgic for a lost aura.
i thought Marisa already addressed this?
he was pretty firmly situated in the camp that believed in the
progressive potential of technology and mechanical reproduction to
add to art's ability to be "radical" and become something other than
a luxury while critiquing the aestheticized politics of fascism and
politicized art of the communists. In a lecture delivered to a mostly
Marxist crowd of Popular Front/anti-fascists, he basically stated
that experimentation should be considered more politically radical
than a reliance on subject matter-as-content, ala socialist realism/
propaganda (the whole "commitment" debate). While there is some
"mourning" that could be found in Benjamin's account, it's more
related to the context of the larger changes that occurred in the
experience of material culture in general, not specifically in visual
art. it's a change in the relationship between cultural/material
producers and audiences that seemed important.
Digital art doesn't "defy the very, very notion of what Benjamin was
discussing," it pushes the argument further. Think about all the
discourse on gaming, communication and telepresence... this is a
clearly documented extension of Benjamin's concerns (not that he was
the originator of them). And the concerns of people working with
technology for its relationship to mechanisms of war were preceded by
Benjamin's concerns that mechanization was a favorable condition to
war and dominant property relations.
To be critical of "mechanical reproduction" is not the same as being
nostalgic for a pre-mechanical past.
i'm not advocating the importance of Benjamin or his writing, i just
don't understand the consistent reference to a text, if what's
contained in the text really doesn't matter and just gets used willy-
nilly.
best,
ryan