* This is the edited transcription of a teleconference which took place in the Sala de Arte Publico Siquieros (SAPS), Mexico City, on the 20th of April 2005, and which was moderated by the director of SAPS, Itala Schmelz. Translation from the Spanish original by Rebecca MacSween.

JLB: The distinguishing factor that defines modernity has to do with self-awareness, or the ability of the subject to both represent and represent self-reflexively his activities and relationships with the world. An important aspect of this is expressed in the Foucaultian concept technologies of the gaze. Throughout the history of art and visual culture various strategies of the gaze have existed. How do you distinguish and conceptualize those strategies that belong to the present and how are they manifested in your work? Continue reading

With L.A. at its center

“IÂ’m going to put the phone down now — just hang on.’

Media artist Michael Naimark was at LAX one morning a few weeks ago, on his way to the Banff CentreÂ’s Refresh Conference on histories of new-media art. Another artist, Simon Penny from UCI, was up ahead, also on his way to the conference, and UCLAÂ’s Erkki Huhtamo, a new-media theorist, wasnÂ’t far behind. Not wanting to lose our connection, Naimark put the phone into one of those gray plastic containers and pushed it toward the X-ray machine.

On my end of the call, the sounds of the airport grew muffled, and then everything got quiet. I held my breath as the phone moved along the conveyor belt. In spite of sitting in my sunny office, I looked around, poised for — what? A bright light maybe? But there was nothing, just a soft whooshing noise and the faint hum of distant voices. I hovered through another minute of stillness, suspended somewhere between downtown and the airport, waiting for Naimark to re-appear…” Continue reading Digital Universe: With L.A. at its center by by HOLLY WILLIS, LA Weekly. Continue reading

Origami Bus Pattern

For the MobLab [Related] bus adventure (a bus-gallery with on board artists-Mobnauts who challenge conceptions of public space), Kensuke Sembo and Yae Akaiwa from exonemo are filming sceneries from the window of the traveling bus. The Road Movie is made available for visitors to download from the internet.

Downloaded frames from the Web cam, which change every three to five minutes on the Web site, are complete with dotted lines for cutting and folding, and can be printed out and transformed into a paper sculpture of the Moblab bus with windows showing the captured images. Continue reading

Amplified Currents

Electromagnetic induction is based on the sounds resulting from the mutual interaction of magnetic fields. Audio artist Christina Kubisch developed magnetic headphones with magnetic coils that respond to electrical fields in the environment. At first she tried to filter the hum of the electrical wires out of the headphones. But the increase and spread of “unwanted” electrically-produced sounds inspired Electrical Walks. With special, sensitive headphones, the acoustic perceptibility of aboveground and underground electrical currents is thereby amplified.

The palette of these noises, their timbre and volume vary from site to site. They are ubiquitous. Light systems, transformers, anti-theft security devices, surveillance cameras, cell phones, computers, elevators, antennae, navigation systems, automated teller machines, neon advertising, etc. create electrical fields that are otherwise undetectable. Continue reading

Gamer Buys Virtual Space Station

“A virtual space resort being built in the online role-playing game, Project Entropia, has been snapped up for $100,000 (£56,200). Jon Jacobs, aka Neverdie, won the auction for the as yet unnamed resort in the game, which lets thousands of players interact with each other. Entropia also allows gamers to buy and sell virtual items using real cash.

The space station is billed as a “pleasure paradise”. Last year, a gamer bought an island for $26,500 (£13,700). The space station is described as a “monumental project” in the “treacherous, but mineral rich” Paradise V Asteroid Belt and comes with mining and hunting taxation rights. With the price tag also comes mall shopping booth and market stall owner deeds, a land management system, a billboard marketing system, and space station naming rights. Neverdie is a popular and well-known in-game character. He and another character, Island Girl, appeared in a 2003 dance music movie Hey DJ!, which starred Jon Jacobs, Charlotte Lewis, and Tina Leiu…” From Gamer buys virtual space station, BBC News. [Related] Continue reading

All Of Us (girls) Have Been Dead For So Long…

A girl pays homage to damned but beautiful women with bad habits & links these to myths having survived in sagas & fairy tales. She undertakes a journey into the land of the dead in order to become free. She loves the land of the dead. It has as a kind of opiate oblivion beauty, but she resists death. She refuses death on behalf of all the dead girls and also rages at the emptiness of life. Surviving in life despite its inadequacies and infuriating restrictions. She has returned with a powerful force, back into the land of the living. Survives as a fugitive, eluding the authorities that would attempt to transform her into death again.

Wednesday Nov. 16: premiere at 20h30; Thursday Nov. 17: performance ar 20h30; Melkweg Theatre, Lijnbaansgracht 234A, Amsterdam; Reservations: 020 531 8181. Price: 8/7euros. Related website; Images. Continue reading

A Self-Regulating Virtual Radio Station

PDradio, transmitting computed sounds in Pure Data format. The definition of streaming ‘radio’ involves a fundamental difference with respect to traditional radio, that is, the possibility to organize a deterritorialized and computable flow of sound data. The PDradio project, by Winfried Ritsch and Georg Holzmann, makes this possibility concrete. This radio station transmits Pure Data files uploaded by the audience and selected by a software-dj compiled in the code. This artificial entity also announces the pieces using voice synthesizing functionalities, telling the file name and the associated metadata, sprinkled with impromptu communications. If a user shows his appreciation for a piece, the dj will generate a personalized playlist. PDradio runs on a Linux server with the programs Zope and Plone and the calculated music follows the composition scheme, that is, the rules of this ductile tool, aesthetically reflecting them in the loops used in its compositions. It’s pure electronic music with a wide range of styles, but which can’t detach itself from machinic frequencies. If we may talk of ‘genre’, it abstracts the usual musical style categories to trascend into a style of composition, recursively widening its concept. [via neural.it] Continue reading

The Truth About Networks

The Truth About Networks: Between the total hell of networked, salaried labor and the promises of the commons by Trebor Scholz

In short succession the first two in a series of publications called DATA Browser were just released. Both start out with historical texts to search for effective contemporary models of cultural production that merge socio-technological with artistic critique. ‘DATA browser 01’ takes Theodor Adorno’s and Max Horkheimer’s notion of the culture industry (1944) as a departing point. ‘DATA browser 02’ links to Walter Benjamin’s essay ‘The Author as Producer’ (1934). Let’s start with Brian Holmes’ essay ‘The Flexible Personality,’ which contributes a rare meditation on today’s network society and sketches out an intellectual history of anti-systemic movements that becomes the critical backdrop for both volumes of ‘DATA browser.’ Continue reading

netPublics

During 2005-2006, The Annenberg Center for Communication at The University of Southern California is sponsoring a research group on “Networked Publics.”

netPublics explores the roles of audiences, activists, citizens, and producers in maturing networked media ecologies. These changes include but are not limited to the changing relationship between production and consumption, viral and peer-to-peer distribution, and networked lateral political mobilization. Although the Internet is clearly a central player, we consider media forms both old and new as part of a much broader media ecology undergoing profound social, technical, and cultural transformation. Continue reading

Exploring your City and its Connection to the World via Fruit!

Join an online demonstration. Your words will be part of a two year traveling exhibition. Remember to fill out the survey and add your urban plan dreams!! F.R.U.I.T. takes up the challenge of elevating the ecological knowledge of consumers and encouraging a way of life that is friendly to the environment. We want consumers to be conscious of the entire life of a product, from production to utilization, and not just what they see in the stores. Consumers must be aware that every phase of a product’s life influences the environment and ourselves.

Free Soil has produced a run of F.R.U.I.T wrappers, a website, and a traveling installation as part of an initiative to inform people about alternative food systems and local food movements. The wrappers are disseminated throughout the food chain by piggybacking on oranges. Information will be carried through the food system and into the hands of consumers. The wrapper holds information on a variety of aspects concerning food movements, transport and urban farming. Get your daily dose! Continue reading