:: Saturday, August 23, 2003 ::

"Cybernetic Garments - at The Space Between textiles_art_design_fashion conference" is making a call for works exploring "new technologies and techniques (bio, nano, digital, other) in the creation of 'cybernetic garments', utilising re-oriented notions of 'garment', technology and cybernetic".

The conference will take place in Perth, Western Australia from the 15th to the 17th of April 2004 and its deadline for submission of abstracts and proposals is the 30th of September 2003. For further information on the focus of the conference, possible ways to present work and papers please see the site for further details.
:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
...

As I recently wrote a brief report of my positive -- yet frictional -- experience with a museum (see the Interactiva report on the weekly features), here is yet another manifestation of the global dire straits the art community currently lives in:

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The committee for the CMU Art Museum has recently rejected ICECA's proposal to continue a second year of non-profit volunteer activity. Without a prior notice ICECA's email account and website were disabled and our office computer (property of the CMU) was "kidnapped" - again without a prior notice, ICECA's data is in the CMU Art Museum's hands - this includes about 5.5 Gb back-up of media artworks, hundreds of contacts to artists and sponsors, volunteer artists, production plans for the upcoming New Media Art Festival as well much of other information related to our regular cultural exchange activity.
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For more information, visite the ICECA website.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
...

On the 8th of September at the Ecole du Louvre, Paris, there is a workshop on Curating, Presenting and Preserving New Media Art being given by Steve Dietz (founding director and former curator of new media at the "Walker Art Center") and Beryl Graham (Founder and co-editor of the "Crumb" curatorial resource).

The workshop runs as part of the ICHIM (International Cultural Heritage Informatics Meeting) conference and prices are'nt cheap at 200 Euros (230 US$) but for those of you who work in new media institutions (particularily in education) and have the time and money to spare before the new academic year, this could be an event worth attending in light of recent events at the Walker Art Center and the petition to save Steve Dietz's post.
:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
...

Massive Attack

The forefathers of Triphop have been rocking the world for quite many years. Their thought provoking sounds most certainly challenge the listener. Their official URL is informed by the same attitude. It contains all of the basics of a music group site, yet is full of twists and turns, wrapped in a very sophisticated interface. Their critical stands fusses many aspects the site. Very sophisticated use of Flash. Their crowd stills from around the world are strikingly similar. I guess we are not that different from each other after all.

:: ludmil trenkov [+] ::
...

A brand new resource:
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Artist-tutorial.net is a monthly online periodical that intends to offer a collection of art tutorials written by artists themselves as technical guide to the process of artistic creation.

In order to know how artistic creativity is expressed through the matter and technical practices coming from computer or scientific disciplines.

[Tutorial and artwork]
Whichever location in space and time the artwork may assume, the analysis of tutorial is based on the initial creation, the set of executed signs and sounds or the set of instructions to execute that generates the set of copies, of performances, the set of data transmissions or executions. [...]

[Tutorial and artistic techniques]
The technical narration of tutorial describes the art mediated by the material process of informatic techniques recognized as artistic practices. It provides the possibility to read how the matter acquires the aesthetic properties or itself becomes an aesthetically relevant property. [...]

The first issue relates the form of new dance notation. A digital dance in the initial creation, explained in the use by a revolutionary Maestro of the coreography: Merce Cunningham.

http://www.artist-tutorial.net

For further information contact Morena Bacchini
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:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
...

Furtherfield is extremely active these days. The UK crew recently released a bran new look, with a very impressive information architecture. Here is part of the press release:
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Furtherfield has a new content management system and new design. This is the first stage in a gradual shift which will allow visitors and artist members to contribute more dynamically to the site.

A big shout goes out to artist Chris Webb who has recently become an essential member of Furtherfield and has left his own excellent Pogogallery.com to join the team. He has worked with us consistently on the new site, taking the lead in its redesign.
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A well developed website -- that is an understatement!
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
...

Gaming has been influencing mass culture ever since games like Quake and Myst were released and has been gradually working its way into new media to become an artform of its own thanks to organisations such as "Selectparks". With the arrival of the new era of games, this being heralded by games that incorporate advanced multiple technologies such as multiuser participation, artificial intelligence, distributed computing etc. (the most famous probably being "The Sims" series) games are no longer arenas of leisure but tools to work and places to live.

"Rekonstruction" by dammagestudios.com is one such game forecast for release late in 2004 that can potentially become a place to live for over 1,000,000 (1 million) concurrent users. The goal? Simply to allow users or players to "repopulate and rebuild the earth -- physically, economically and politically".

"By dynamically incorporating real-world data, such as weather statistics, and modeling real-world environments, such as major urban centers and landmarks, Rekonstruction will allow players to interact and shape the world in real-time". By being set 400 years in the future essentially "Rekonstruction" makes the transition from a virtual (wishful, dreamlike) space to a probability (possibile outcome) space and hence could be thought more along the lines of a scientific tool than a leisure pursuit. Not an avid gamer myself this will be one game that I'll be anxiously awaiting the release of.
:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
...

The Dutch network VPRO did commission a series of net art works called "lifesavers" between 1999 and 2001. The site is still online and can be seen as an interesting archive. It contains amongst others special pieces by Dutch/ Belgian net artists like Yarif Alter Fin, Han Hoogerbrugge and Michael Samyn alias zuper from the duo entropy8zuper. An overview of all "lifesavers" can be found at http://www.vpro.nl/data/lifesavers.

:: Peter Luining [+] ::
...

Some artists are busy, and then some artists are busy. Jess Loseby is the latter. To prove this, first is the net project Views from a ground floor; press release:
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Views from the ground floor…’ is a networked installation, a view of a domestic landscape, which can seem in one scene, utopian and in another transformed into a constricted area full of suppressed fears and desires. Loseby draws unexpected and compelling comparisons between female domesticity and cyber-culture; where low and high technology live side-by-side in an uneasy partnership of repetition, interaction and consequences.
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Second is an online performance for Furtherstudio, which happens in two parts. The first took place on August 19, and the second will take place on Friday 22nd August, 1.00-2.00pm GMT* Here is part of the press release:
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We are very pleased to announce that digital/ net artist, Jess Loseby will be kicking off FurtherStudio with her project, 'bob@no-where'. During the course of the 3 month long virtual residency Jess will send emails to 'Bob' with html, flash and video artworks attached. These emails will take the form of love letters, hate mail and trivial musings and will be constructed from the artist's emotional take-over and transformation of artists works archived within the furtherfield.org website.
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:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
...

Whereas there are more and more interesting net art works produced by people outside the netart community, artists that could be described as working within the community seem to more and more refuge to recycle old net art works. An example of this is Abraham Lincoln's latest piece "how to be a net.artist" which is a clearly a copy of Blank/ Jeron/ Bookchin and Shulgin "introduction to netart 1994-1999". But where the last work has depth through the use subtle irony you can find in so much old style netdotart works (the rules were for example litterly written in stone), Lincoln's effort fails everywhere to be really interesting not only because it's already be done better, but also because even the style and humor is just a too easy copy of the Kopyright Liberation Front's "The Manual. How to have a Number One - The easy Way" from 1988.

:: Peter Luining [+] ::
...

Ok. I finally was able to finish the quest at Fresh Sensation.
I did really like this piece which gets the user to win through the use of logic, curiosity, and random combinations.
The artist is Jakob Dvorsky (you can't get the credits until after you win.)
Tomas Dvorsk worked on it as well. They appear to be from the Czech Republic, and their copyright reads VSUP 2003.

:: Kristen Palana [+] ::
...

I recently was given an unusual interactive/ animation site to look at. At Fresh Sensation you are introduced to a strange new world and a little white-suited hero who seems to be on a quest. At first it's hard to get anything to happen, until you realize that all the buttons and rollover feedback produce chain reactions. By cooporation and synchronization you are able to move the hero from scene to scene in increasingly creative ways. I found this brilliant of course, until I got to what appeared to be the final scene (the one with a house and anteater) and couldn't get any further. Trust me, I was addicted at this point, and tried for ages. Discouraged, I thought I'd at least get some information on who created the project and what it was for. So, dutifully I went to Fresh Sensation's Home Page.
I couldn't believe that the home site was even more hard to get around. Ambiguity is ok in a "quest type" of interactive puzzle, but for a company or product's website? I managed to get music to come on, but that's about it. The site, aside from looking nice, broke about every user-friendly rule of web design. I couldn't figure out what the site was for, who made it, and how to get around. Can you say "life is too short, I'm clicking on something else?"
:: Kristen Palana [+] ::
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As Todd Terry Says: "Time to blackout, look out..."

Here is a list of links to stories on the Northeast blackout:

Lisa Zabater's Burundanga
M. River and T. Whid's MTAA's weblog
kottke.org
Digitaldennis.net
North east blackout in NYC and other places
Broadband Reports
Northeast blackout News releases
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
...