:: Saturday, April 05, 2003 ::

Here are some new additions to the New Media Fix:

Amoda.org, Austin's museum of Digital Art website; artofficial-online, "a collaborative effort to screw a lightbulb;" chairetmetal.com, an online magazine featuring theoretical new media essays; and Empyre, a moderated discussion list.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Ever wonder what's outside your window? Find out in International Digital Art Event's We are all Global Nomads. The site presents answers by people from around the world (except for Antartica) to the question "what's outside your window?" The project will be exhibited at The Austin Museum of Digital Art starting on April 19.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Mobilegaze is currently accepting submissions for their upcoming net art exhibition pause. This year the show will focus on timebased media. Here is part of the official press release:

The exhibition will focus on web productions centered around AUDIO/SOUND or VIDEO and will be divided into these 2 categories.

+ Net.artists are invited to submit proposals for an on-line exhibition entitled to be presented by MobileGaze on its website.
+ Projects considered for this curatorial investigation should be created specifically for the web and should focus on audio/sound or video.
+ Only new projects will be considered (2003).
+ Artist fees will be paid.
+ The exhibition will be launched with a conference / event at the Sociéte des Arts Technologiques in Montreal in September 2003 and will remain online for a minimum of one year.

For more information, log on to the mobilegaze website.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Netizens interested in the political should visit artofficial-online.com; it currently features links to articles and commentaries on the US/Iraq War.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Wirescapes is an open source project using flash actionscripts to create painterly still images. Those interested in contributing to the project can download the scripts and instructions from the website. The artist statement reads:

"Wirescapes 1.0 is an exploration of the machine as conduit to the art idea. Interaction with the Virtual Sculpture Interface allows for the generation of infinite form and fleeting moments of beauty and chaos. The VSI provides for the creation of a digital 'action painting' and presents opportunities for the user to see what is in the moment and to capture that instant of 'seeing differently'."

Using the same actionscript to create a diverse set of images inevitably points back to Duchamp, who often referred to the tube of paint as a readymade. Today, net art's readymade is the script -- whether an actionscript, javascript or Lingo, in the end it comes down to making a choice. So contribute your own net readymade now.
Artist: John Vega
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Here is a recommendation not of a website, but of a review of a website. In the New York Times, Matt Mirapaul recently reviewed Glen Ligon's project Annotations, commisioned by The Dia Center. Mirapaul's article examines the slippery crossover of mediums that works better for some artists than others, and he is critical of established artists who are now developing projects in new media.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Metapet, Natalie Bookchin's work (it should be noted there are many working on this, too many to list here) is still a beta and needs some beta-testers to test pre-launch of version 1 later this month. To get involved simply email Natalie.

Metapet follows a tradition of virtual pets / companions / friends such as Sony's "Postpal", Bandai's "Tamogotchi" and those silly desktop pets made by a plethora of different people and companies. Simple concept, you feed it, you exercise it, you play with it or get it to work and what does it give you in return, well not much really apart from virtual poo.

I remember having a Tamogotchi and much of the appeal lay in the tactile qualities of the "thing in itself", desktop versions don't have this, so tend to work with varying degrees of success. Metapet at first glance seems quite well designed and uses shockwave features which flash does'nt have to good advantage, whether its cute enough for people to return after having created an account remains to be seen.
:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
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As Net Art Review turns two months old, it is appropriate to acknowledge the hard work of all contributing reviewers:

Lewis La Cook is the newest member to the crew. He lives in Richmond, Virginia and is a poet gone virtual. He is currently featured in Turbulence.org's artist studio series.

Peter Luining is an artist and curator living in Amsterdam, Netherlands. His work emphasizes software art.

Garrett Lynch is an artist, designer and curator living in London, England. His most recent project is bannerart.org, a website featuring net banners as an activist form -- deadline coming up soon, so do check it out if you want to participate.

Kristen Palana is a media artist living in Brooklyn, New York specializing in video and animation. She is currently an assistant professor at William Patterson University in New Jersey.

Ludmil Trenkov is a multimedia designer living in Pasadena, California. His main focus is in motion graphics and printed material. He currently freelances and teaches at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles.

Garland Kirkpatrick is our consultant; he lives in Santa Monica, California. The look and conceptual direction of the site is based on his critical advise. He is a well known graphic designer respected for his social criticism.

I would like to thank all of them for keeping net art review in shape. Also, I would like to invite anyone who is interested in becoming a contributor to look over the guidelines. The main requisite is to have an honest interest in net art and new media.

A most special thanks to all readers and new media artists who have submitted work.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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The following is not net art, but it is definitely a resource that can be used by all new media enthusiasts:

The Reith Lectures are a great resource for critical thinkers. Look into the latest features at the BBC's website. The critical approach and range of topics that these lectures present are hard to come by.

Here is the official history.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Iraq T-shirts is a net art project relying on the cultural authority of printed media. Andrej Tisma created the net piece which does not actually sell t-shirts -- at least at the moment -- but instead, the website functions as a virtual stage for the American fashion accesory which in this case, as in many others, has gone political. It might be interesting to see people wearing the t-shirts in real life; such an act would be one of the most controversial fashion statements ever made, and would definitely demand cultural reactions -- maybe even physical ones.

Though the piece is a bit reactionary, it definitely makes a point as to why people all around the world oppose the war. It is a bit ironic that some of the most compelling art is made during times of extreme distress.
Artist: Adrej Tisma
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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In the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo there's at the moment a remarkable exhibition going on with the name: "Skrevet i stein. En net.art arkeologi.". The show is about the heroic time of net dot art, that in the first place seemed to be the time of ironic statements. An example of this is the physical dot of net.art that is shown on a velvet pillow at the entrance of the exhibtion, besides that you can also see a lot of physcial net dot art artifacts like an Etoy Lego van or Vuk Cosic's ascii Deep Throat t-shirt. Completely in the line of net dot art there's a whole computer/ print installation that lets you construct the exhibition catalogue yourself. Just select what you want in it, print and bind it right away and you have your own personal net.dot art catalogue that even has it's own official isbn number.
Except the essay "The Dot on a Velvet Pillow - Net.art Nostalgia and net art today" by critic Josephine Bosma the whole site is in the Norwegian language. From what I understood all essays will be soon appear in English so when you are interested in the essays by Per Platou, Grethe Melby or Anne Lise Wullum you should check the site later.
:: Peter Luining [+] ::
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Textz.com "are the & in copy and paste" in a world where so many are trying to be the dot in dot com. The site contains texts from every avenue of literature free to download. With short stories by Jorge Luis Borges, novels by William Gibson, plays by Shakespeare, philosophical discource by Noam Chomsky, political satire by Michael Moore, new media by Critical Art Ensemble to name but a few, there is something here for everyone and certainly a lot that should be on all new media / net.artists reading lists.

The site (thankfully) gives you two interfaces to peruse their library, a simple version and an enhanced version. Take my advice and KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid!) unless you feel like crashing your browser with the enhanced version.
:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
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Mediamixer is not a new piece of work but highly relevant due to current events and allegations that once again the media are influencing both politic and social events like never before.

During the Gulf War masses of criticism were hurled upon CNN for making the war a televised event, this time its Al-Jazeera the Quatar based channel who are being accused of unsound broadcasting techniques. Mediamixer is a step towards a liberalisation of the media using notable new media techniques. An "interactive multimedia project series blurring the boundaries between the traditional dissemination of 'News' media and new forms of artist-created media manipulation mixers", its aim is to allow users to create their own interpretations of news events.

While using a mass of plugins, this project lacks on several points. Nothing is live or even really 'seeded' by the user, so while you can mix your own news, the choice is not alone highly edited by the news corporations who have made the original source material (and the copyright to this?) but also the artist who has pre-selected the sounds / videos etc for the user to use. All in all its an interesting collage but little progressed from the days Braque and Picasso used newspapers in their collage based works.
:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
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E-commerce being as ubiquitous as it has been in the last few years, it's become a great target for artistic appropriation. Kate Armstrong's CATALOGUE: Spring 2003: Nothingness appropriates the structure and spirit of many a shopping-cart driven e-commerce site while injecting a strong vein of humor into the transaction.

Users can find virtually nothing in this catalogue, and purchase it at a very low price. My favorite bit of DHTML jollity that Armstrong has coded here is the drop-down menu in the "Loop" section of the piece. Select from an array of options--such as "The feeling of Overwhelming Disuse"--click "Search," and you'll be directed to a corresponding e-commerce site which has already been queried for your selection.

A wonderful parody of contemporary internet protocol (at least from the business side), I can only wonder: will Kate accept coupons for this site?

:: Lewis LaCook [+] ::
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