Programmed Visions: Software and Memory by Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, MIT Press:

New media thrives on cycles of obsolescence and renewal: from celebrations of cyber-everything to Y2K, from the dot-com bust to the next big things - mobile mobs, Web 3.0, cloud computing. In Programmed Visions, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun argues that these cycles result in part from the ways in which new media encapsulates a logic of programmability. New media proliferates “programmed visions,” which seek to shape and predict - even embody - a future based on past data. These programmed visions have also made computers, based on metaphor, metaphors for metaphor itself, for a general logic of substitutability.

Chun approaches the concept of programmability through the surprising materialization of software as a “thing” in its own right, tracing the hardening of programming into software and of memory into storage. Continue reading

Fifteen Days is a prequel of Jeanette Doyle’s work for Factory Direct: Pittsburgh, an upcoming exhibition opening in June 2012.

For a period of fifteen days (November 9-27, 2011), Doyle will perform a dematerialized act at The Warhol. An extension of the performance will be rendered immaterially on The Warhol’s website. The project emerges from a consideration of the relationship between “dematerialized” artworks versus current definition of the “immaterial.”

Each day from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., Doyle will change the light bulbs illuminating the museum’s entrance gallery. After Doyle’s daily performances at The Warhol, she will then commute to the offices of Ansaldo STS, a leading local technology company involved in traffic management, planning, train control, and signaling systems and services, where she will watch and record work processes. Continue reading

Powers of the Hoard: Artistry and Agency in a World of Vibrant Matter by Jane Bennett :: September 13, 2011; 6:30 pm :: Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor, New York City.

How can objects sometimes be vibrant things with an effective presence independent of the words, images, and feelings they may provoke in humans? This question is posed by Political theorist Jane Bennett delivers the inaugural lecture as the Vera List Center for Art and Politics embarks on a two-year exploration of “Thingness,” the nature of matter. In the face of virtual realities, social media and disembodied existences, the center’s programs will focus on the material conditions of our lives. Continue reading

Content | Form | Im-material — Five Years of http://CONT3XT.NET/: Book Launch with an introduction by Tom Waibel :: September 15, 2011; 7:00 - 10:00 pm :: Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, Herrengasse 13, Vienna, Austria

Why is it still easier to get an entire museum collection on the Internet than to get a single work of Internet-based Art in a museum space? As with the nature of this question, both aspects have to be taken into account: the field of Internet-based Art with its characteristics and proponents, as well as the mechanisms that allow institutions to filter what the public at large understands to be art. Continue reading

Botaniq: Workshop on the Conservation of Experiences with Unstable Art :: June 16-18, 2011 :: Centre d’Arts Santa Mònica, La Rambla, 7, Barcelona, Spain.

A new edition of the workshop Botaniq - Archive of Experiences will take place during the exhibition Sistemes Vius [Living Systems] of Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau.

Botaniq is an open archive of illustrated personal diaries that shows the experience of diverse interactors with works of art. The workshop does a theoretical parallel between the problematic of conservation faced by Performance, Digital Art, Bio-Art, Net Art, among other variations of intangible reality Continue reading

Gone with the Wind — Max Eastley, Takehisa Kosugi, Walter Marchetti and Resonance104.4fm :: June 9 - July 17, 2011 :: Raven Row, 56 Artillery Lane, London.

This exhibition brings together three pioneers of sound art, Max Eastley (born 1944, UK), Takehisa Kosugi (born 1938, Japan) and Walter Marchetti (born 1931, Italy). Each artist has developed a distinct approach to the problem of representing immateriality, while sharing a lightness of touch, approaching sound with patience, restraint and fidelity. As well as presenting new and historic work, the exhibition will comprise live performance, and a selection of material from the artists’ substantial archives.

Max Eastley is an artist and musician whose sound sculptures play on a balance between the natural environment and human intervention. Continue reading

For those of you who missed Dietmar Offenhuber’s brilliant Upgrade! Boston presentation last night, here are some of the projects he shared with us (headphones recommended): Continue reading

May 2011 on –empyre soft-skinned space: Wearable Technologies: Cross-disciplinary Ventures with Janis Jefferies (UK), Valérie Lamontagne (CA), Ashley Ferro-Murray (US), Sabine Seymour (US), Susan Elizabeth Ryan (US), Danielle Wilde (AU/FR), Sarah Kettley (UK), Lucy Dunne (US) :: Moderated by Renate Ferro (US) and Tim Murray (US).

During the month of May 2011, -empyre soft-skinned space will be featuring a discussion of wearable technologies, means through which technology augments or enables the body in interacting with the surrounding environment. The integration of wearables that augment the body with technological capabilities permeate our diverse worlds from entertainment to the military. Continue reading

Test_Lab: Clothing Without Cloth — Material Explorations in the Field of Fashion & Technology, curated by Valérie Lamontagne, featuring: Emily Crane, Christien Meindertsma, Carole Collet, Grado Zero Espace, Pauline van Dongen, Freedom of Creation :: May 26, 2011; 8:00 - 11:00 pm :: V2_, Eendrachtsstraat 10, Rotterdam + streamed live.

Material culture in clothing and fashion has always been linked to technology — from looms to sewing machines to the processes of harvesting raw materials and transforming them into ‘cloth’. However, the concept and materiality of textile is being contested with new technical practices which subvert conventional expectations of what cloth should be. Continue reading

The 14th Annual Subtle Technologies Festival in collaboration with Designing Digital Media for the Internet of Things (DDiMIT) presents The Network as Material Workshop with Julian Oliver :: May 28-30, 2011 :: DDiMIT, 376 Bathurst St, Toronto ON M5T 2S6 :: Register here.

In this three day workshop media artist Julian Oliver guides participants through an in depth study of the network as a medium for creating art. The workshop explores the many tools available for interrogating and manipulating data over both wired and wireless networks. Continue reading