ADDED: CONVERSATION BETWEEN MICHAEL BENSON AND BRIAN HOLMES ON NETTIME (BELOW). Watch her online until May 31, 2010. Continue reading

YTAND (You’re the Artist Now, Dawg!): A Digital Minimalism Exhibition Curated by Patrick Lichty: User-driven viral media sites such as YTMND.com have created a form of “internet – native” aesthetics that also seen on sites like deviantart.com, 4chan.org, and many others, that have inspired New Media artists like Marisa Olson, Jon Satrom, JonCates and Cory Arcangel to create forms such as “dirt style” and “glitch”.

As the YTMND.com site states, a “YTMND” is: A page(s) featuring a juxtaposition of a single image, optionally animated or tiled, along with large zooming text and a looping sound file. YTMND is also the general term used to describe any such site. (from ytmnd.com)

A YTMND, as a potential net.artform, is a highly formal/minimal structure, and it is through this format that the curator is inviting artists to create their own pages as exploration of digitally minimal forms. Continue reading

[Image: Seppukoo by Les Liens Invisibles] Sean Dockray wrote:

Everyone now wants to know how to remove themselves from social networks. It has become absolutely clear that our relationships to others are mere points in the aggregation of marketing data. Political campaigns, the sale of commodities, the promotion of entertainment – this is the outcome of our expression of likes and affinities. And at what cost? The reward is obvious: we no longer have to tolerate advertisements for things for which we have no interest. Instead our social relations are saturated with public relations. But at least it is all *interesting*!

Unlike the old days, when we could invent online identities daily, our social networks today require fidelity between our physical self and our online self. The situation is unbearable. Continue reading

An 11 minute documentary by Simon Cottee exploring the merits and impact of pixel art, animation and chiptune music. Interviews with Jason Rohrer, Joe Brumm and Alex Yabsley. Music from http://8bitcollective.com/.

The Academy Strikes Back — Renee Green, Irit Rogoff, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Dieter Lesage :: June 4-5, 2010 :: European Artistic Research Network (EARN), Sint-Lukas Auditorium, College of Art and Design, Brussels University, Groenstraat 162-184, Brussels, Belgium.

The Academy Strikes Back is the concluding presentation of a two-year project aimed at the current academicization of art education. The project takes place within the context of the European Artistic Research Network and was developed by Jan Cools (Sint-Lukas, Brussels) and Henk Slager (maHKU, Utrecht Graduate School of Visual Art and Design).

The project’s starting point is the importance of artistic research for formulating competencies, learning outcomes and didactic strategies in art education. Continue reading

U-Ram Choe: Kalpa :: until June 11, 2010 :: bitforms gallery, 529 West 20th St, 2nd floor, New York City.

bitforms gallery is pleased to present new sculpture by Korean artist U-Ram Choe in a second solo exhibition. Realized over the course of a year, this work is rooted in a journey to the American Southwest, where the artist encountered complete darkness for the first time. In this environment Choe observed the Milky Way, unpolluted by the atmospheric haze of artificial light. “I encountered the universe,” says Choe. “Passing moments of absolute being exploded into an immense history of life’s origin.”

“The speed of light fascinates me. Everything that we see in the sky has already happened,” says the artist. Evoking the awe and wonder of nighttime skies, several flickering orbs illuminate the gallery space and surround the viewer with sparkling nebulae. Continue reading

_feralC_ – A Socumentary* — by mez breeze— is textually driven by the interactions of five Twitter chars [primary characters or entities] and their Pupa Mistress [PM. The PM initially functions as a Twitter based information hub for the interactions between the chars and other contributing entities [such as yourself]. These additional contributing entities, or secondary chars, may or may not be biological-based: please note that Synthetic individuals may contribute to the project’s tweet flow. Please play nice with the Synths.

As the five primary chars [PCs] are unveiled, “audience” members are encouraged to participate in the project’s flow by following and responding to each individual char via Twitter. If you are tweet-responding, please make sure to tag your tweets with the #feralC hashtag. Continue reading

Coal Fired Computers: Graham Harwood and Jean Demars in conversation with Matthew Fuller :: June 1, 2010; 7:00 – 9:00 pm :: SPACE, 129-131 Mare Street, Hackney, London :: Book here.

Whilst we take in the shape of government, the politics of power takes on a new meaning as Harwood, Jean Demars and Matthew Fuller discuss the Coal Fired Computer Project and the implications layered under dusty marvels of everyday bits and bytes. Global fuel reliance, the price of a computer measured against the lives of 318,000 miners with choked up lungs, stark reality with no escape unless we begin to think.

Over three days at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle, in collaboration with Jean Demars and groups of coal miner activists, Coal Fired Computers articulated relations between Power, Art and Media. Continue reading

The Executive Series: Debriefing from Angie Eng on Vimeo.

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[Image: Cat Mazza/microRevolt] The New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Contemporary Craft :: Panel Discussion with Fo Wilson (moderator), Shaun Bullens, Donald Fortesque, Wendy Maruyama, Cat Mazza, Nathalie Miebach :: June 18, 2010; 12:15 – 1:15 pm :: Kresge Auditorium, Massachusetts Institute for Technology, Cambridge, MA.

Curated by Fo Wilson, The New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Contemporary Craft steps beyond the boundaries that currently exist among technology, art, and craft. The artists in this exhibition use new technologies in tandem with traditional craft materials – clay, glass, wood, metal and fiber – to forge new artistic directions. Continue reading