:: Friday, January 23, 2004 ::

The GooglePoweredGoggleBox is the latest offering from Sam Woolf who I reviewed last november (18/11/03) for his Generative SoundTracker. Sam is one of many people floating around a lesser known gathering of people working from southern England under the guise of Blip (sci / art forum). Regularly meeting, showing and discussion new media art works the group is...

"a discussion group and forum for people interested in new forms of art that explore ideas about interaction, emergence, generative and procedural processes,teleprescence and artificial life. We aim to make this as wide and open a forum as possible and hope that this becomes a place where all types of artists and scientists can come to meet, collaborate, seek inspiration, and show off their latest work."

Sam Woolf's piece, the GooglePoweredGoggleBox is, like his last work, a generative application that produces linear content. This time the application focuses on producing videos, rather than soundtracks to videos as before, and it does this by assembling images compiled through a keyword search of google's image search function which it then manipulates.

Now while we have the obvious scenario that this is a generative work and we can make connections between it and the work of Brian Eno etc. etc. What's more interesting is that this is an art work that produces art works. The linear video art works it produces reflect the state of the network at any one time as composed / compiled collectively by it mass of users and could be said to be artefact's indicating social / cultural / economic trends as experienced by the heavily digitized western world. The application itself, by being placed in the 'art' (without a doubt networked) domain becomes a dada'esque collection of process's to producing art, a software manifesto of sorts that is in itself art.

Sam Woolf's applications are truly software art at it best. De-mystifying art as an elitist form, enabling the viewer to relate / understand / contextualize the work as a totality and then use the work to create their own art, it breaks down barriers between art / form and viewer (or user here) to only further new media art as a truely independent and ground breaking practice.

:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
...

ITL is uses flash technology with a great success to deliver an engaging experience. While there is much precedent of taking over the users screen, it is still refreshing to see that setting in the context of the piece. Drag and the inertial velocity induces a more organic feel of the interface. The presentation window is structured, though that is a good balance of the basic navigational scheme. URL: http://www.intentionallies.co.jp/
:: ludmil trenkov [+] ::
...

“Globalization” is an exhibition of re-purposed net.projects curated By Humberto Ramirez. In his succinct and insightful statement, Ramirez summarizes the artist’s involvement in addressing the tactics of globalization.:

Artists can potentially disrupt official language by destabilizing its signifying relations. The net art community is certainly working on an immensely important front. Through each of the tactical interventions presented here audiences are introduced into different cosmologies. All of them devoted to the intelligent and playful production of doubt and critical thinking.

Click here to read Humberto Ramirez's curatorial statement


Under the banner of the exhibition’s curatorial conceit, the projects serve to further a conversation about issues of globalization via the parameters of their original or previous contexts, as well as via the context of each through this exhibition.

The exhibition features projects by:
Critical Art Ensemble
subRosa
Violence Online Festival
"Stop Motion Studies" *
RTMark
denniscucumber
"Over My Dead Body"

Each project offers a unique perspective on issues identity, economy and politics, (both individual and collective.)

As the projects in this exhibition are slated to maintain this framework until 31 December 2004, it will be interesting to see how changes to each individual project over that period will alter the overall premise of the exhibition. Or if their inclusion in pursuant project complicate or contradict “Globalization.” For the sake of continual disruption, I do hope so.
_________________

“Globalization” is hosted by Wigged Productions and will be available online through 2004.

Check back as I visit each project individually over the course of the week. Comments are welcome, in advance or after posting.

*View prior posting concerning “Stop Motion Studies” on Net Art Review
:: [+] ::
...

Following is a response by Stefano Caldana to my last post of January 20, 2004. For the sake of clarity, my original comment read:

I never considered using the word "pure" along with new media aesthetics, yet this is what a new media center in Santiago de Compostela, Spain has done by naming itself The Museum of Pure Form. This institution offers symposiums and conferences such as the upcoming New Technological Interfaces. But what I find most intriguing is that they are digitizing not paintings but actual sculptures -- I am still not sure what they mean by this exactly, but the idea of a sculpture being digitized is simply surreal. According to information found in the website, they recently digitized works at OPAE Museum in Pisa, and are planning to digitize more works at cgac.org/ in Santiago de Compostela and The National Gallery of Liverpool. It seems that the organizers behind the Museum of Pure Form have quite a unique idea not only of purity, but also of conservation.


Caldana's response appears as received:

Dear Eduardo!
thank you very much!

about your review, just to point... your explanation is wrong... i explain: CGAC (Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea) is a museum. We (Roberta Bosco and I) organize the Symposium at CGAC (Santiago de Compostela) in the symphosium there are many guests Ken Rinaldo, Claudia Giannetti, Stelarc, ... etc and Massimo Bergamasco and Antonio Frisoli [Professor
of Applied Mechanics at the School of Experimental Sciences of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa (Italy)] the last two (the italians) are the responsables of the Project "Museum of pure forms" that is a project in wich a Robotic Harm, is used to perceive and enjoy phisical art objects (sculpture etc...), and it's a useful device for blinds....

you can find more infos here http://www.pureform.org/ (it's an italian project, CGAC just present it during the Symphosium)

Museum of pure form is not a art work, they don't digitalise works of art, they just want to give the chance to ppls with handicaps (blinds etc..) to perceive "classic" art works (sculpture etc.. ) shown in diffents museums around the world.

well... here's the explanation they gave:
"The Museum of Pure Form aims at exploring new paradigms of interaction with sculptural pieces of arts. The Museum of Pure Form is a Virtual Gallery with digitized sculptures from European and worldwide museums, where the visitor can interact, through the senses of touch and sight, with 3D art forms and sculptures. The use of innovative technologies allows users to perceive suitable tactile stimuli and feel the physical contact with the digital model of statues.

i hope i explained better!!
soon
stefan
------------

With this in mind I leave all our readers not with a state of error, but a state of virtual reflection...

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

I never considered using the word "pure" along with new media aesthetics, yet this is what a new media center in Santiago de Compostela, Spain has done by naming itself The Museum of Pure Form. This institution offers symposiums and conferences such as the upcoming New Technological Interfaces. But what I find most intriguing is that they are digitizing not paintings but actual sculptures -- I am still not sure what they mean by this exactly, but the idea of a sculpture being digitized is simply surreal. According to information found in the website, they recently digitized works at OPAE Museum in Pisa, and are planning to digitize more works at cgac.org/ in Santiago de Compostela and The National Gallery of Liverpool. It seems that the organizers behind the Museum of Pure Form have quite a unique idea not only of purity, but also of conservation.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
...

Tao a collaborative piece by Alan Sondheim and Reiner Strasser is possibly the simplist and most beautifully poetic piece of net.art I have seen in a few years now. Essentially not much more than a video work mirrored with itself, the work doesn't fall short on any aspect. Beautifull cinematography that the user can flip at will, haunting sound and a minimal narrative, the work has comparisons with the simple gesture based interactive video's of French new media artist Jean-Louis Bossier (e.g. Flora Petrinsularis) from the early to mid 90's.
:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
...

Here are some additions to the New Media Fix this week:

PICKS OF THE WEEK

http://www.gluebalize.com
Gluebalize is an online magazine who's inaugural issue (October 2003) addresses the question, "What is net art."

http://www.animalcharm.com
This is the home site for Los Angeles based multimedia artists Animal Charm, a team of montage film makers.

(selections will be added to the New Media Fix shortly.)

:: [+] ::
...

Currently taking place in the New Museum of Contemporary Art New York, until Febuary 15th is Killer Instinct an exhibition that "plays on the blurred boundary between gaming and contemporary art by showcasing works that inhabit both spheres."

As part of the exhibition, a free games programming workshop will be hosted by artist Cory Arcangel on Thursday, January 29th from 6:30-8pm. "In this workshop, Arcangel will teach museum visitors creative approaches towards video gaming software. Various game-modification techniques and tools to be discussed include Commodore64 hobbiest cracking, psych abstraction, chipstyle, pixel graphics, and machinma. Participants will learn to make their own modifications."

For more information on the exhibition or the workshop please see the New Museum of Contemporary Art website or email them.

:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
...