:: Friday, September 05, 2003 ::

Close your curtains, turn your lights and tv off, plug your stereo into your computer because its time to watch, yes I said watch - minimal interaction required, some new work by Peter Horvath.

"The Presence of Absence", hosted as part of Whitney Artports (The Whitney Museum Portal to Net Art) monthly changing Gate pages, (a sort of featured splash screen project) is a smaller piece than Peter's previous works such as "Ether side of an empty room" so a comparison is'nt necessary here. True to splash screen projects its small, compact, neat as it should be but certainly not lacking in quality and style.

Here we investigate a collection of videos which are triggered by clicking on various sections of the face / head, seemingly the artists, which is used as an interface. Videos which seem to be thoughts eminating from that head and splashed across our computers both visually and audibly. Peter's work has been compared to that of Tarkovsky's 'The Mirror' due to its "open-ended qualities" (Clint Roenisch) yet this seems to miss another important point that this is in fact a self portrait of the artists mind as layered structure. Thoughts and ideas accessible non-linearly, disconnected, much as Tarkovsky's 'The Mirror' is a self portrait of the director through memories of childhood, the russia of his youth, his mother, sounds and snow, lots of snow in no particular order.

"La Fin" comes too soon but this certainly won't be the end of stunning work from Peter Horvath, expect this "to be continued..."
:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
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An update on the article posted on the 30/08/03 about the "Unreal" mod "9-11 Survivor".

The first version of "9-11 Survivor" is currently available to download for a limited period of one month maximum. The mod is 20mb and runs in "Unreal Tournament 2003"

To download...
http://mildchoice.mine.nu/pub/ Or ftp://mildchoice.mine.nu/pub/

To Install...
download the "2225" patch, the "Epic Bonus Pack", and the "Digital Extremes Bonus Pack", all from the "Unreal" website.

:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
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The new issue of furthertxt.org is out, showing-off its new look and featuring writings by Saul Albert, Ryan Griffis, the Critical Art Ensemble.

And do not forget to visit furthertxt's mother site: furtherfield.org, where you can also submit your own announcements and browse over some interesting net art.

:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
...

Here is a great opportunity:
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The deadline to submit proposals to
GA2003, the 6th International Conference, Exhibition and Performances on Generative Art and Design (Milan, Italy) is postponed to 28th of September, because of email problems of these days. The Call for Paper and the papers of previous conferences are at www.generativeart.com

If you intend to present a paper or/and a poster, please send me the title, a short abstract (max 500 words) and a brief CV (5 rows) within 28th September. If you intend to exhibit your artworks, the exhibition panels can contain, under glass, a print of 80x100 cm., portrait orientation. It is also possible to present VHS/DVD videos and installations on PC.
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for more information, contact Celestino Soddu or visit the website.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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"Abstraction Now" is a show that "presents current tendencies of non-representative art under special consideration of audio-visual media and interdisciplinary approaches." What makes this show interesting is that besides installations and videos it also presents net projects. What makes this net part worth looking at is that it gives a good overview of contemporary abstract net art. "The-online-project" (as the organizers call the net art part) features amongst others works by Dextro, Lia, Golan Levin, Jodi, Mark Napier, Nullpointer, Meta and Yugop.

Künstlerhaus Wien
29 august-28 september 2003
Mo-Su 10:00-18:00h, Th 10:00-21:00h
Karlsplatz 5, Wien
Austria

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

One day we may have software in our bloodstream, monitoring our health -- and perhaps even curing us on the fly. This seems to be possible according to the article DNA Forms Building Block for Next Breed of Computer I read on The San Diego Tribune. If you have problems accessing the article at the Tribune's website, you can also access it at nettime's archive.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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Turbulence's latest commission: Inter-face by David Jhave Johnston. Excerpt from press release:
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"Inter-face" is a video-mixer, sound-shredder and poetic notebook. Composited words explode from the mouth, or the eyes, or the skin, and leap and land or collide against other bodies, other objects. "Inter-face" utilizes composited video output from ActiveText and some sound files generated by IXI software within a Flash GUI.
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For more information, visit the Turbulence.org website.

:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
...

Year 01 is currently featuring an online project by Germaine Koh; excerpt from the press release follows:
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We are pleased to present Survey Field, a conceptual net.art piece by Germaine Koh. Survey Field is a non-commercial internet project conceived by artist Germaine Koh and realized with the collaboration of Artengine. It is an independent experiment in the representation of public opinion and on-line communities.

Survey Field will collect the opinions of large number of participants on a series of questions, and present each of these in the form of a grid of coloured points. Each individual participant's response is located within the grid roughly according to his/her geographical location(1). According to the opinion he/she submits, this point appears red (no), green (yes), blue (maybe) or unlit.
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:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
...

Here's an announcement for a conference entitled "The body and its needs" and an exhibition "The Body's Environment. Genetically modifiable" taking place in Armenia from the 8-12 september 2003.

The venue for the conference is the State University of Yerevan, Armenia and invited lecturers and their topics include...

Genevieve Azam (Economist, University of Toulouse 2): "Needs and merchandizing of the bodies. The Body 'Beyond any Price'", Renaud Barbaras (Philosopher, University Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne): "The Discovery of the Body in the French Philosophy", Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen (Art Historian, Aarhus, Danemark): "'There's life after birth': Internationale situationniste between recuperation and appropriation", Simon Lamuniere (Curator and artist, Geneva): "The Habitable Image. Multiple Versions", Bruno Vayssiere (Historian of architecture, director of the Fondation, Braillard Architectes, Geneva): "The Relations between art & architecture from 1950 to 1990"

The venue for the exhibition is downtown Yerevan, Museum-Institute of Architecture, Armenia. Artists taking part in the exhibition include...

Peter Aerschmann (Bern), Karen Andreasian (Yerevan), Mher Azatian (Yerevan), Anna Barseghian (Geneva), Didier Fiuza Faustino (Paris), Ulrich Fischer (Geneva), Thierry Fontaine (La Réunion), Marcos Grigorian (Garni), Hamlet Hovsepian (Achnak), Grigor Khachatrian (Yerevan), Azat Sargsian (Yerevan), Harutiun Simonian (Yerevan)

While not explicitly new media based, the body is an ever popular topic in new media so the cross-over of ideas is easy to recognise. For further information please see the website.
:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
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Where so far radical political net art works were limited to making available already existing copyrighted material on the net, like for example 0100101110101101.org copy of hell.com. A group(?) called "The Boiler" seems to go even further and claims that it put a pirated version of the upcoming printed Ars Electronica catalogue 2003 online. What makes this action so special is that the catalogue has yet to appear in print, which will be probably somewhere this month when the actual festival is held. Of course you can question the actual art value of this action and also there can be made some reservations about the genuity of the writings. Though the few writings I read like Christiane Paul's text about CODeDOC II or John Maeda's "The Infinite Loop" look genuine to me. Fact is that the borders with work that deal with publishing copyrighted material seem not yet reached and that this kind of work seems to have found in the internet the perfect medium.

The Ars Electronica 2003 catalogue texts by amongst others Marc Canter, Florian Cramer, Alexander Galloway & Eugene Thacker, Christiane Paul, Scott deLahunta, Fred von Lohmann, John Maeda, Laurent Mignonneau and Christa Sommerer can be accessed through http://eric4511.tripod.com*.

*note: When I checked back the url the first 2 mirrors seemed to be down.

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

A diverse set of essays on art is currently available at somedancersandmusicians.com. I particularly recommend Curt Cloninger's essay Toward a More Ambient Art; even though I do not completely agree with his modernist agenda, I find the essay very well developed -- especially his interpretation of the dialogue in the film Pulp Fiction being the actual object of contemplation in the movie. Also, We Want to Know by Carletta Joy Walker, Arnold Sachar and Robert Roth is a lengthy set of questions which reevaluate assumptions and behaviors in comtemporary art practice.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
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I was greeted by a very dedicated, fast typist who could switch on a fly from Dutch to English to Japanese, a curious combination. NOBODYHERE uses bugs to represent and intrigue with common ideas. Classic features such as e-card tool and chat are presented with simplicity and wit. Although, the site has limited if any critical angle, the images and skillful use of flash compel exploration and engagement. I did appreciate the use of web technology to strongly compliment the content and ideology.
:: ludmil trenkov [+] ::
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Currently being exhibited at "IFA 2003" in Berlin, Germany, until the 3rd of September is "netzhaut [retina]", a project by programm 5.

"'netzhaut [retina]' aims at an online space for non-verbal communication. several users can access a three dimensional virtual world from different locations. the movement of each user is tracked and transferred into visual and acoustic messages. other users react by creating responding messages. a mutual space is shaped through the constantly changing dialogue."
:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
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In addition to Dian's announcer by Eduardo Navas below here's some thoughts about linksites like the Dian Network. I would define a linksite as a site who's main function is linking works that not reside on the site itself. Linksites are a typical internet phenomenon and especially when you talk about design, cool and fun sites you can find a lot of them. The bigger ones like linkdup give the linked site an unprecedented load of traffic for a few days. But unfortunatelly there have never been net art categories on this bigger sites nor were there net art linksites with the popularity of this bigger sites. Though I must admit that there have been dozens of these sites in the early years of the net. This opposite to nowadays where there's to my knowlegde only a handfull of them. To name but a few: Rhizome's artbase*, artcart, java museum and the Dian Network. Of course the character and value what this sites add different. You have sites like Dian Network that are a sort parasites (just a link, no essays, no interviews, etc.) while others have an added value because they put for example more info about the artist up or can send a lot of traffic to the linked site.
Probably this none added value that you nowadays find at sites like the Dian Network is also the main reason why most of them vanished. Opposite the decline of this type of site stands the fact that nowadays net artists are not that eager to link sites of fellow net artists. Reasons for this could be that artists don't like a visitor to leave their site or that artists concentrating so heavy on their own work that they lost their sense of community. Lost because the practise of a lot of early netartists differed here. Link pages were for this artists often whole artworks like for example jodi's map. The only thing that I conclude from this that net artists changed as the whole internet changed, but also that typical internet phenomena like linkssites hardly has a grip on this typical form of art called net art.

*Not linked because you need to be a paid member to get access. For more info about this go to Rhizome.

:: Peter Luining [+] ::
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Dian Network's feature this month is 1n-0ut by Jim Punk.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
...

The end of Summer does not mean the end of important events -- Ars Electronica is having gatherings worth noting during the next few weeks.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
...

Here are the latest additions to the new media fix:

Stot.org is an online resource offering opportunities to the art community at large which also has a good new media section.

Computer History Museum offers a concise history of the computer.

Our recommended fix for this week is Discorida.us

:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
...