:: Saturday, August 09, 2003 ::

Here are the latest additions to the New Media Fix:

Spreadrhead.net is new underground guerrilla exploratory art + literature.

LA Freewaves is the Los Angeles based media annuale with a clear bent towards TV and Video media.

The Hub is probably one of the oddest resources on the fix list, but well worth the time for net-surfers willing to get lost on premade searches.

The recommended fix for this week is art.red
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Alan Sondheim is well known for his work with the intersection of text and code, but as of late he's been compiling these strange, beautiful executables and posting them to lists like webartery and wryting. The executables can be found at http://www.asondheim.org/portal/.

These rare pieces of artware from a well-known master networker are intriguing, to say the least. My favorites are the works comprising the archaea series. Gorgeous images are subjected to mathematical processes; they're distorted, erased, drawn over.

As software art, they expand current conceptions about what software is, and what software does.


:: Lewis LaCook [+] ::
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The following is a special report on my stay at Merida, Yucatan between July 11 -17, 2003, where I participated in the opening events for InteractivA 03. Please forgive the extra long posting, but the necessity of sharing the experience demands the extra lines of text.

Raul Ferrera Balanquet recently released the website for Interactiva New Media Biennale 2003 taking place at MACAY in Merida, Yucatan; however, the event was officially launched on July 11. I traveled to Merida to be part of the opening events, and what I experienced was one of the most amazing times of my life.

When I arrived at MACAY in late morning, to my surprise, there was nothing set up at the museum. Raul Ferrera Balaquet, the curator, explained to me and other artists the political situation. To keep this report brief, Raul had problems with the museum; apparently, the institution had promised funding for proper equipment throughout the preparation of the exhibition, and at the last minute nothing came through; and Balanquet ended up borrowing computers from friends around town. All of the artists who traveled to Merida as well as local participating artists helped Raul and the Museum staff in preparing for the opening that was to take place that evening; and somehow, the show went up in one afternoon. And so, people showed up that evening unaware of the sweaty afternoon hours of hard labor behind the computer set-ups and installations. The opening was a success; however, everyday was a struggle at the exhibition.

The next day it rained, and the equipment had to be taken down in order to protect it from a semi-open roof. And every other day the computers needed to be re-set up. Regardless, during each evening there were extremely important presentations. People who presented, and I had the pleasure of meeting include (in alphabetical order) Laura Carmona, Arcangel Constantini, Monica Costa Coldwell, Antonio Dominguez & The Restate Media Collective, Heidi Figueroa, Gita Hashemi, Ricardo Loria, VJ Mud, Kathleen Ruiz, Sarah Plant and Michael Yatsevitch. All of the artists worked hard with Raul to make the exhibit work each day. And I can say that at least to my knowledge, at no point did an official administrator come up to us during our visits to the museum, or during the evening events to welcome us officially. The institution stayed away from us as much as possible.

So why was this event amazing for me? Because I re-learned something that the web made me forget for a while -- that even for New Media, what is important is to physically gather and meet people. It is not enough to be online and consider oneself part of a community. I believe now more than ever that an effort must be made by new media artists to meet in physical spaces; even more so when institutions are crumbling down with the current global economic state. Of course I knew this, but I had forgotten its importance, even when I know of crucial gatherings like The Next Five Minutes, or local events in Los Angeles such as AIM or Freewaves. Artists must do what needs to be done, which is to make work; and this is exactly what happened in Merida. I met and worked with amazing people, and I am glad I visited. New Media is an odd space running between physical and virtual worlds, and because of its slipperiness, the medium must be nurtured in both spaces. I hope there is an InteractivA 2005 --there must be! It can only get better, even without an official institution to host it, the artists can and must do it.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Peter Luining will be performing this coming August 13, starting at 19:30 PM at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, Mexico. Brought to you by the cyberlounge at Museo Tamayo/inmerso. Curator: Arcangel Constantini. For more information visit the Inmerso website.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Here is an interesting online exhibit curated by Didi Dunphy for Athica.org:

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Athens Institute for Contemporary Art is pleased to announce the second launch of its Virtual Art Gallery, which has been curated by Athens' artist Didi Dunphy. Please note that none of the artists will know -- until this announcement goes out -- that their sites made the final cut. Unlike the first incarnation of ATHICA's Virtual Art Gallery, Dunphy's collection of online artwork created specifically for the Internet medium has a thematic focus: What I Did on My Summer Vacation, inspired by her recent "California Dreamin' vacation." In the curator's own words: "The artist sites I have chosen explore travel, both actual and metaphorical. With the investigation of travel, these works consider the nature of physical site--albeit the town you're visiting or the Internet--the social and emotional study of site and sense of place. And, of course, with all travel (and net art viewing), the journey takes time, lyrical or critically self-referential. My bags are packed and I'm ready to go. Keeping in mind the theme of vacation, please visit the following sites."

Here is the artist list:
Jorn Ebner (London, UK)
Andrew Hieronymi (Los Angeles, US)
Brooke Knight (Boston, US)
Charles Linder (San Francisco, US)
Garrett Lynch (United Kingdom)
Jon Winet and Margaret Crane (San Francisco, US)
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For more information visit the athica.org website.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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"LowFlows" a series of low-fi movies, made specfically for low bandwidth distribution on the internet and designed for users to view fullscreen, is a work by Peter Mertens available on "playingfield - a new environment for media players".

Not alone are these works quite impressive, visually aurally and technically but they change each day according to "varying factors found on the web" and so truly earn their place as netart. The work is worth looking at for the abstract nature of the movies alone but don't overlook the standalone application made in Max/Jitter which you can download and use to mix your own versions of the movies to yours hearts delight!
:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
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Here is a brief mention about a work that is quite complex but minimal in its presentation: Words by Mark Napier uses Feed a previous piece developed by the artist in 2001, which originally presented recycled web information by searching on google to come up with random abstract compositions.

Napier has now recycled Feed to present a more specific political project, which questions the U.S.'s global role as a superpower. As many of Napier's pieces, words leaves the viewer with more to think about than what she may have started with. Napier's work is always developed with such careful balance between content and form that it effectively blurs the subjects in a blissful way, which at times seems extremely disturbing to the eye. Napier's work can be found at potatoland.org
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Got a proposal waiting to be commissioned? Then log on to The Third Place Gallery and qualify for 2000 Euros. For more details, please visit the website.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Dian Network is currently featuring Geoffrey Thomas' Storybeat. Thomas describes his work as a "house [of] experiments in animation, interaction and storytelling. In my work I explore personal and psychological narratives. These explorations are often filtered through the culture of technology and influenced by the destabilizing elements of digital media. Using the web as my distribution platform, I am interested in experimenting with nonlinear and nonhierarchical structures, chance juxtapositions and responsive interaction. "

Storybeat offers a complex web of interactive interfaces with no specific beginning or end. Some consists of simple mouseovers, while others offer intricate narratives with a certain "film-noir" style. A sense of incompletion is ever-present in all of the installments, and one always leaves the web-project wondering if all of the elements were experienced. Storybeat's dependency on links as a way to tell stories is also used with an unusual approach, that could only be possible with the latest Flash and Shockwave technology currently available.

Storybeat becomes most interesting when the users surfs at random. The way the website is set-up almost guarantees a different narrative depending on the links the user decides to click on during her visit. The first link for one user may be the third installment for another, and the last segment for yet another surfer. The end result is a decentralized non-linear presentation of dramatic moments that become abstracted while offering an intellectual tension between linear and non-linear storytelling. Modularity has influenced the way stories are being told, and Storybeat is a good example of how creative minds can make compelling work without presenting a neatly packaged story-line. It is the questions that drive us, and Storybeat is a nice set of possibilities.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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The Recommended fix for this week is verybusy.org
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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