Dynamic Ribbon Device, by Siebren Versteeg, elaborates software art exploiting the continuous flow of information from Internet, tapping into data streams and news feeds, to visually present them in the branding style of global corporations which mediate our consumer and info worlds. In Dynamic Ribbon Device, he transforms the realtime world news feed from a major press agency into a Coke’s cursive red and white typography flowing through the screen as droplets on a fresh can of soda. Part of KIOSK: Artifacts of a Post-Digital Age (curated by Yves Bernard and Domenico Quaranta).

“Can a noncommercial critical website use the trademark of the entity it critiques in its domain name? Surprisingly, it appears that the usually open-minded folks at Wikipedia think not.

Last February, a pair of artists, working with several collaborators, created a Wikipedia article and invited the general public to add to it, following Wikipedia’s standards of credibility and verifiability. The work was intended to comment on the nature of art and Wikipedia. But Wikipedia editors did not take kindly to the project, and it was shut down within fifteen hours for being insufficiently “encyclopaedic.” Continue reading

Confessions of a Recovering Data Collector is the first book to be published about Ellie (Harrison’s) work. It was released (today) to coincide with the artist’s solo exhibition at the Viewpoint Gallery, Plymouth College of Art.

Ellie Harrison was a ‘data collector’. For over five years she documented and recorded information about nearly every aspect of her daily routine, amassing reams of data in the process. She photographed and catalogued 1,640 meals and snacks for her project Eat 22, and calculated the total distance of a year’s worth of travel on public transport for Gold Card Adventures. But these laborious, demanding and introverted processes took their toll. Something had to give. Ellie had to quit! Continue reading

Falling Times by Michael Bielicky and Kamila B. Richter, in collaboration with Dirk Reinbold :: March 20–April 10, 2009 :: Opening: March 20, 6–8 pm :: Czech Center New York, Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd Street, New York, NY.

Falling Times is a real-time news translation machine representing permanently appearing and disappearing information about our times. Falling Times refers to the heavy InfoPollution we live in. The most consumed information today is the news. The news has been turning more and more into entertainment. Falling Times reduces the news content to headlines and key words that are then translated into a pictogram language considered to be universal and instantly understandable. Continue reading

Intimate Simulations with Susy Bielak, Dream Addictive Lab, Elle Mehrmand, Zac Montanaro, Priscilla Lazaro Rabago (curated by Katherine Sweetman, Micha Cardenas and Felipe Zuniga) :: March 14, 2009; 7:00 - 9:00 pm :: Lui Velazquez, Jose Maria Larroque 271-2nd floor, Colonia Federal, Tijuana, Baja California, México.

Lui Velazquez, a space for transborder, transdisciplinary dialog and art located just a few feet from the turnstiles of the US/Mexico border crossing, would like to announce our two new expansions. Lui Velazquez will be moving into a new space, three times the size of its previous location. Continue reading

Dear Readers,

I’m participating in Network Cultures Winter Camp, Amsterdam, March 3-7, 2009, so don’t expect any new content until March 9.

The Institute of Network Cultures invited Upgrade! International to participate in Winter Camp, along with Blender Foundation, Bricolabs, Dyne.org, Edufactory, Floss Manuals, freeDimensional network, Genderchangers, MyCreativity, and Planetart.

I will represent Upgrade! Boston (BTW, check out our new website, best viewed in Firefox).

Warm Regards,
Jo

We are pleased to announce the winners of our international juried competition, Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art). They are, ANNE HELMOND, PATRICK LICHTY, ANNA MUNSTER, and KAZYS VARNELIS.

Each will receive a commission of $3,000 to develop a chapter that will be open for revision, commentary, and translation. Networked will launch on July 1, 2009.

The runners-up are Ele Carpenter, Christine Nadir, Mark Shepard, and Jason Freeman. 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 on the Turbulence homepage 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

Last Days… by Michael Takeo Magruder: On the 27th of December 2008 the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resumed with brutal intensity. Last Days… is constructed from one hundred images collected from online news services during the final five days of 2008. The photographs have been removed from their journalistic context and stripped of all but their basic captions. The images and texts are then recombined, together with a persistent sound track, into an unending re-mediation of events that provides an alternative, contemplative space. This work is dedicated to the memory of the 390 Palestinians and 4 Israelis who as a result of this renewed violence did not live to see the New Year. Continue reading

Lights On Tampa presents Tampa Public Mood Ring by Will Pappenheimer and Chipp Jansen — A gradient project in art, steel, sports and blogspace :: January 10 - February 1, 2009 :: Downtown Tampa, Florida.

The Tampa Public Mood Ring (TPMR) is a combined internet and spatial artwork installation which allows an online news community to display the emotional condition of public news stories as color hue. It is based on the wearable “mood ring” which chemically changes color according to body temperature. For the Lights On Tampa program, the ring concept draws on the local and national sports community propelled by NFL fanaticism leading to the mega event, Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa. Continue reading