:: Saturday, March 29, 2003 ::

I remember my first giddy experience with a computer. I was six years old and my brother got a $50 Vic20 from Toys R' Us in the early 80's. If I was lucky, he'd let me spend hours copying a program from a manual. If I typed everything right, we'd be rewarded with a little flashing box or maybe a euphoric beep or two.

Such was the nostaligic excitement I felt when stumbling upon the hypnotizing Can-D.org by Berlin's own, Markus Kleine-Vehn. There's an assortment of mini projects which feature moving shapes, bleeping blips, and even the historic 09112001 dialed over and over again on the telephone keypad. (This seems to be the only project which refers to a specific event.)
The simplicity and antiquity of the shapes and sounds will awaken your inner computer child and provide a welcome retreat to a simpler time.

Artist: Markus Kleine-Vehn
:: Kristen Palana [+] ::
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Talan Memmott's Self Portrait(s)[as Other(s)] is a bit like Gertrude Stein's Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas--an obfuscated autobiography, only in this case Memmot sees himself in the guise of several other artists: Renoir, Cezanne, and Ingres, among others.

Memmott has constructed a blindingly beautiful interface to this DHTML work, one which relies on a two column table to present both a "doctored" version of the artists' biographies and a collaged portrait of the artist, complete with rollover poems addressing the nature of art and theory.

By recombining the textual and graphic elements of these artists' self-portraits and biographies, Memmott has "painted" a represntation of himself as contemporary netizen. As pop star Beck would sing, we're all "stuck together like a Ready-Made..."

:: Lewis LaCook [+] ::
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"Biome : A major regional or global biotic community, such as a grassland or desert, characterized chiefly by the dominant forms of plant life and the prevailing climate." (definition from dictionary.com)

This little known list based in England and used mainly by local artists and organisations has high aspirations and little that really differentiates it from other lists such as spectre. However if your living in England (especially in and around the south, such as Brighton) its a good list to follow to keep up to date on events / performances / exhibitions etc.
:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
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Viewing Marc Garrett's TuRmOil is hardly anguish. Instead, expect a menu miming a file tree, reminiscent of some of Alexi Shulgin's early work, providing iconic links to popup DHTML animations.

My favorite of the ten offered works is Darkness, in which an SOS icon is superimposed over a grayscale mirrored mushroom cloud. Clicking on the surface of the cloud moves the SOS to your mouse position; the mouse down event drops the icon to the bottom of the frame, where it bounces. Other pages make liberal use of barcodes and faces, interspersing these loaded images with Dubuffet-inspired graphics.

Ten pieces speaking eloquently about the precarity of the individual and the world around her, Garrett has here captured the dominant metaphors of our times and scripted them...with JavaScript.

:: Lewis LaCook [+] ::
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Not in our Name is a well developed site promoting the CD by DJ Spooky, Saul Williams, DJ Goo and Coldcut. A great introduction speech is followed by the titled hip hop track.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Felix Gonzalez Torres, the late performance/installation artist whose work became well known in the 80's and 90's, is currently receiving an homage on the net. The web project is inspired by Torres' now famous photograph of his bed which was exhibited publicly in New York City. The homage consists of photo contributions that can be sent by anyone who is interested in participating in the project. These photos will later be presented in different places according to the curator's decision. Some images have already been submitted and can be viewed at the official site.

The contributed bed photographs develop an interesting function when viewed on the net -- but one may wonder, how can these images move beyond Torres' influence to become pieces on their own, while still acknowledging their source of inspiration? This may be the real test for the work to become a locus for private vs. public discussions.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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In keeping up with global responsibility:

npr.org is an internationally respected news website currently featuring some of the most compelling news on the current war with Iraq.

note: even though the above link does not deal with net art or new media, netartreview.net features it to push global awareness.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Some recent additions to the new media fix:

stunned.org is a net portal offering news and interesting links with an obvious emphasis on the political.

netzwissenschaft.de was recently reviewed by Garrett Lynch on this very same log but is worth a mention here again -- an impressive web information resource that is a must for net researchers (the 2003 net art links is a sublink of this site).
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Software Art: A curatorial fiction or a new perspective is an international conference which took place on febuary 4th in Berlin and is now available online in transcript form. The conference looked at "software art and its legitimacy" with a panel of artists and critics from five different countries. Note there is also a list of links to other sites concerned with these problems and artists working in software art / Algorythmic art etc.
:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
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In the early nineties, the World Wide Web's major graphics were jpegs and gifs. Such simple images along with hypertext preceeded current sophisticated layouts. With the development of visual work specific for the web, some early web projects consisting of jpegs and gifs may no longer be considered web specific.

To complicate such dilemma, biro-web may prove to be "the end of the line" as John Burgerman himself writes in his press release. His project, however, could be considered more like an homage to the beginnings of the web. His piece presents simple gifs of scanned hand drawn images. Clicking throughout the site makes one wonder when exactly was the site developed, but the quality of the images as mapped links are quite welcomed in a time where actionscripts and lingo seem to be in vogue. What is even better, the narratives are open ended enough for multiple interpretations. If the photo still has a certain power in photobased media, gifs may be the equivalent in net media. How does hand drawn sensibility perform in more recent media one might ask? well, log on to the artist's website and find out.
Artist: John Burgerman
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Pogogallery is a great net portal that is sure to become popular for its diverse take on art. It not only features new media projects, but also hosts serious critical writing on other art media. Even better, it offers an open forum where anyone can post. No membership is necessary. This site is sure to be added to our New Media Fix. Pogogallery is a definite bookmark for all serious net surfers.
Developer: Chris Webb
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Contribute to a cell-phone musical event. Log on to neX_tOpen and find out how composers Sergio Maltagliati and Alessandra Rossi create musical performances from open call contributions.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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skintrip is an online collaborative exhibition by Furtherfield.org and Completely Naked in which the participants question global culture's relationship with their bodies as the net redefines public and private space. The net community is invited to participate by sharing images of their bodies online. An essay worth reading is Charlotte Frost's Putting the Personal in the PC, or the Dirty in the Mac where she entertains people's personal relationships with their computers and how this affects individual interaction with others.

The project officially launches on March 28 at the Site Gallery in Sheffield between March 29 and May 10. For further information on how to participate visit the website skintrip.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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New Media Art Project Network which has been running exphibitions and festivals for a few years now such as "Javamuseum" and "A Virtual Memorial" makes a call for submissions in the category of Net Based Art Projects for its Festival / exhibition "Remembering-Repressing-Forgetting".

Works should fall into the broad theme of "Memory to be included in the Version 1.0 or one of the following project versions."

Deadline is 31st March 2003. See the website for further details.
:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
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Turbulence.org has released its last feature for the year 2003 -- a spotlight on Jonah Brucker-Cohen. The emphasis is on Cohen's new media work dealing with the now naturalized desktop activities of "copy and paste" and simple "mouse movements." Brucker-Cohen considers these activities important metaphors and reinterprets them in Desktop Subversibles to make people aware of mundane activities. His interfaces are intricately designed to push users into a reflective interactive critical state.

Turbulence, a non-profit organization specializing in commissioning projects by emerging and established net artists, previously released, between February 11 and March 18, its 2003 features on curators, artists' studios, as well as commissioned projects which can all be found in their main website.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Frontline recently aired an excellent in-depth report on key events leading to the current gulf war. For those who missed it on PBS, log on to The Long Road to War. It will leave you with much to think about as the detailed report presents an objective account of important political events that have not been acknowledged in the past.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Those who may be too shy to voice their opinions on the streets can now protest on line. A virtual protest has been organized by the Electro Hippie Collective sponsored by Electronic Disturbance Theater. So log on to The Iraq Sit-in Webpage and voice your opinion.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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