The NomadicMILK project by GPS artist Esther Polak is in Nigeria until January 22. There, Polak is using satellite technology to track both the distribution of “Peak” brand milk from harbor city Lagos to the capital of Abuja as well as a nomadic Fulani family of cow herders in Abuja’s vicinity. By showing the people involved their own tracks and videotaping their responses to it she creates a reflection on current nomadic life.

A custom built robot accompanies her to Africa. Once fed the GPS data it draws the people’s recorded routes using sand, allowing large groups of people to gather around the image and reflect communally. Her activities can be followed live on the blog as well as via a twitter account she updates via SMS. Continue reading

To those of you who have already contributed to our fundraising campaign, thank you. We are deeply grateful.

As we look at 2009, there is real uncertainty about our organization’s survival. Faced with rapidly declining funds, we must either require a membership fee — thereby blocking public access to our sites; or we must take them all offline: Turbulence.org, Networked_Performance, Networked_Music_Review, and New American Radio.

We do not wish to do either.

At this point our only hope is that those of you who have not yet contributed to our Campaign for Sustainability will decide to do so.

Networked_Performance alone is accessed by 32,000 unique visitors per month; many of you return three or more times. If each of you were to give $5.00, we could continue to make our sites freely available.

Please act now. Pay via PayPal here or mail a check to:

New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.
124 Bourne Street
Roslindale
MA 02131

Thanks.

Helen and Jo

The following interview with Salvatore Iaconesi and penelope.di.pixel, hosted on artsblog.it, details our understanding and experience of new media arts funding in the U.S. Continue reading

Toni Dove’s Lucid Possession:: January 15, 2009 @ 8:30 p.m. and January 16, 2009 @ 10:00 p.m. :: HERE Arts Center 145 6th Ave., New York City ::

Lucid Possession, the uncanny manifestation of a virtual multiple personality, combines music, text, dimensional robotic screens and projections to create a character, like an instrument, that speaks, sings, and dances. On-stage performers Toni Dove and composer, Mari Kimura control the entity’s physical and virtual movements, singing and speaking databases, in a form like cinematic bunraku. This short demo is a trio for two humans and one virtual entity. Lucid Possession is Winner of The Eugene McDermott Award, M.I.T. Continue reading

Dorkbot SoCal 33 — Deborah Aschheim, Brian Evans, David Guttman :: January 10, 2009; 1:00 pm :: Machine Project, 1200 D North Alvarado, Los Angeles, CA.

Deborah Aschheim creates works that blur biology and technology, exploring concepts of memory, architecture, and neural networks through drawings, sculpture, writing, installation and sounds.

Brian Evans explores the intersection between reductivist sculptural form and the aesthetics of behavior, where structure and thought are fused. Continue reading

For hundreds of years, artists and craftspeople have been creating machines as artworks. The history of automata includes such traditions as European clockwork constructions, and Japanese karakuri ningyo. More recently, artists have begun working with robotics and embedded electronics to create self-contained mechanical and electronic devices. Initially, this sort of work often meant collaborating with engineers, or sponsorship by large corporation, but the barrier to entry has been lowered- there are many low-cost development tools available. Some, like the popular Arduino microcontroller are targeted specifically at artists. Many art schools schools now teach electronics, robotics, rapid prototyping, and wearable computing. At the same time, consumer electronics has been progressing at the exponential rate predicted by Moore’s law. Robots sold today as children’s toys would have been unthinkable only a decade ago. Continue reading

Upgrade Vancouver: The Memelab - Inaugural Performance of the Creative City Collective :: January 14, 2009; 6:00 - 11:00 pm :: ( ) space (attached to Emily Carr Masters Studios), 1612 West 3rd ave at Fir St., Vancouver, BC.

The Creative City Conversation is a collaboratively constructed, improvised performance that will bring together sound, media and dance artists to creatively address issues to do with our experience of the urban environment, civic development processes, and socio-spatial relationships. The impetus for the Creative City Conversation is the current buzz around civic development and cultural planning consultation that has been occurring in Vancouver over the past two years. Continue reading

Scalable Relations — a series of networked exhibitions of media artworks by faculty of the UC Digital Arts Research Network (DARnet) :: January 9 - March 14, 2009 :: BEALL Center for Art + Technology at UC Irvine + other venues at UCDARnet institutions.

Scalable Relations brings together works that explore digital media’s capability of representing a growing amount of data in constantly evolving relations. Addressing a range of issues, the projects in Scalable Relations illustrate the complexities and shifting contexts of today’s information society.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS: Sheldon Brown, Beatriz da Costa, Sharon Daniel, Ricardo Dominguez / particle group, Antoinette LaFarge and Robert Allen, George Legrady and Angus Forbes, Rebeca Mendez, Robert Nideffer, Greg Niemeyer, Marcos Novak, Simon Penny, C.E.B. Reas, Warren Sack, Ruth West. Continue reading

Upgrade! Östersund-Stockholm: PERFORMANCE & GAME ART - Rasmus Albertsen [SE], Nathalie Fougeras [FR], Bendix Freutel [CH] :: January 10, 2009; Exhibition: 11:00 am - 5:00 pm; presentation about machinima and performance in virtual worlds by Rasmus Albertsen: 3:00 pm :: Ahlbergshallen i Östersund, Rådhusgatan 42.

Rasmus Albertsen: “There are three keywords which have fitted my artwork through my art praxis: humour, cut-up and some sort of nostaligia. I am interested in new-media art and I work mainly with video and sound. I have explored this new-media art in a very basic way. In many of my latest work I have been using sampling to a large degree – using sound and video I find in second hand shops or on the web. I edit it and mix the sources together, so it becomes something completely different. I have often been taking the copyright issue very lightly. Another issue I sometimes deal with is gender roles“. Continue reading

Asian Hot Shots Berlin 2009 – Festival for Film and Video Art by Saki Satom, Sookoon Ang, Sung Hwan Kim, Chan Sook Choi, Jeuno JE Kim, Masakazu Saito, Shahram Entekhabi :: January 10 - 18, 2009 :: Opening: January 9, 2009; 6:00 pm :: Velvet Projects Berlin, Brunnenstr. 3, 10119 + Jet, Memhardstr. 1, 10178, Berlin, Germany.

This year the video art section of Asian Hot Shots Berlin presents eight video works by seven artists, who deal with strategies of visualization. All artists have an Asian background, and they live and work in different places such as Japan, Singapore, Berlin, New York, or London. This diversity and the bridging between cultures are reflected in the presented works. Continue reading

Audience — by Chris O’Shea (conceived by rAndom International) — is an installation consisting of around 64 head-size mirror objects. Each object moves its head in a particular way to give it different characteristics of human behaviour. Some chat amongst themselves, some shy away and others confidently move to grab your attention.

When members of the audience occupy the space, the mirrors inquisitively follow someone that they find interesting. Having chosen their subject, they all synchronise and turn their heads towards them. Suddenly that person can see their reflection in all of the mirrors. They will watch this person until they become disinterested, then either seek out another subject or return to their private chatter. The collective behaviour of the objects is beyond the control of the viewer, as it is left entirely to their discretion to let go of their subject. Continue reading