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.

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[-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]

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

Re: Thinking of art, transparency and social technology


very interesting, if seemingly-not-getting-anywhere, discussion. is
there any other kind? ;)
in terms of the FF aesthetic that's being bandied about, i was just
thinking that it's very strange to suggest that it has nothing to
offer. Certainly it represents some aspect of a larger social imaginary
that can be mined critically for all kinds of things in terms of the
politics of aesthetics and desire. i may not find it very interesting
beyond design as work, but the interesting project for a critic, and
what i look for in critical writing, is to discuss and question what
aesthetic choices are about in a larger sense. A couple of years ago,
there was an article on the flash aesthetic
http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick"6 The work discussed isn't
that interesting for me, but the implications found in it (how it
relates, connects, reflects to larger phenomena) is. This may be the
kind of criticism that many here despise (seems like i got into this
with curt at some point? maybe not.), but it's what i'm interested in
and find important. Reality TV is the most vapid and boring thing i've
ever seen, and i like televised bowling, but i've read some pretty
interesting criticism of it that i feel i learned something beyond the
shows from. same thing with blogs.
the FF aesthetic has also had a huge impact on the larger field of
aesthetics, from painting to advertising.
just a couple of thoughts...
ryan

DISCUSSION

Keeping America Scared


> Those of you who have the Flash 7 plugin may be interested
> to see this video remix of the Republican convention in
> New York. It depicts graphically the way the Republicans
> have tried to manipulate the American public using fear.
>
> http://artcontext.org/edu/sva/advWebProg/flash/video/
>
> If you don't have the plugin, you can download the Quicktime
> movie from the original source, which is referenced.
>
> This has been a Free Love communique of Artcontext.
>
>
>
> great.

DISCUSSION

art, ideas and commerce (footnotes)


Where I differ is that Warhol believed you could penetrate the mass
through distribution and I continue to believe you penetrate the mass
with ideas."
Koons
"We want to see the newest things. That is because we want to see the
future."
Murakami
Artforum, October, 2004 p.242

DISCUSSION

"The Day After Tuesday" - call for submissions


CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
(Writing and Art)

"The Day After Tuesday"
Response-Based Feature Magazine Article
Wanted: Immediate reactions to outcome of US Presidential election
The Bear Deluxe Magazine
Issue #21, Winter 2004

Submission guides below.
PLEASE FORWARD AND POST

Summary:

The Bear Deluxe Magazine has reserved space in its next issue (November,
2004) for immediate and personal reactions to the US Presidential
election
(final outcome or non-outcome). This response-based feature story will
include both writing and artwork from submissions received worldwide.
Wanted: personal narratives, opinion, quips, poetry, drawings, cartoons,
graphics. Submissions should be EMAILED to bear@orlo.org (or
hand-delivered
to 2516 NW 29th, Bldg. 9, Portland, Oregon) by MIDNIGHT on Wednesday,
NOVEMBER 3. This is not a post-mark deadline. All submissions will be
considered for publication. There is no submission fee.

Word Length: Shorter the better. 400-word max limit, but again, you'd be
better off keeping it down. Indicate any special formatting.

Submission Deadline: Wednesday, November 3, Midnight

Publication Dates: November 10 (print), November 20 (web)

Submission Formats:
Writing: Send as email text along with attached Microsoft Word doc for
Mac
if available. Do not send attachment only. Art: PDF format highly
preferred.
Do not send any images over 1 mb. If image is too large to send
high-res,
send low-res and be available for other. NO FAXES.

What Else to Include: Full name, contact phone number, city/town/state
of
origin (optional but preferred), occupation (optional), age (optional),
additional credits other than sender.

Editing: The Bear Deluxe reserves the right to edit written material for
clarity and length. We will not crop or otherwise manipulate artwork
without
the permission of the artist.

Copyright: Upon receipt of email, The Bear Deluxe will assume one-time
publishing rights as well as rights to include work on our web site for
a
period of three months after publication. This useage extends only to
writing and art chosen for print or web publication in issue #21.

Compensation to published work: Publication credit and complimentary
issue.

About The Bear Deluxe Magazine: The Bear Deluxe Magazine is published by
Orlo, a nonprofit organization using the creative arts to explore
environmental issues. We have been recognized, among others, by Print
magazine, Adbusters and Utne Reader as one of the country's premiere
environmental publications. Based in the Pacific Northwest, we publish
20,000 copies of each issue and distribute them nationally. For more
information, visit www.orlo.org. For further information on this call
for
submissions: bear@orlo.org

DISCUSSION

Re: Thinking of art, transparency and social technology


> WOAH D00D. It's not about the canon, or the cult of the new; it's
> about your work contributing to an ongoing and meaningful discussion.
> To call the distributed cognitive processing of the art community a
> "conceptual fashion show" is to declare war against intellectual
> pursuit! If we're going to go that route, how about you take all of
> the diamond-in-the-rough idiotSavant "outsiders" you can "discover,"
> and I'll take all of the intellectually curious people who have
> anything to say. ;)

i'll add my own "woah dood" here. confusing sanctioned art world
discussions with intellectual pursuit is a bit of a dishonest trick.
Have you READ any of the well funded art pubs? how much "intellectual
pursuit" did you find there? the art world is not about transparency.

> Passion's always in, baby. To understand the art world, you need to
> understand the roles of (in alphaOrder) artists, critics, collectors,
> curators and [gallery owners/dealers]. They all have their own
> [economic/career] motives, and it's crucial to always remember this,
> no matter what they say about it all being about the art. Artists who
> get caught up in the economics and career strategies of the art world
> do so at the risk of confusing others' motives with their own, and
> diverting attention from their own work. See Exhibit A, Jeff Koons,
> who carefully engineered his own career, indeed making his celebrity a
> [focus/aspect] of his work -- however, it backfired when his
> popularity inevitably waned (as is the case with any celebrity who
> doesn't actively reinvent [him/her]self).

Jeff Koons' career waning? OK, so you haven't looked at ArtForum
recently.
ryan