:: Saturday, August 21, 2004 ::

In September and October 2004 the nonprofit artist organization, InLiquid.com, is pleased to present HYPER-RUNT, an exhibit of digital and conceptual art curated by "media breeder," Ebon Fisher and curator, Emily Zimmerman.

HYPER-RUNT is an exhibition of experimental art projects by an internationally diverse group of artists including Bigtwin, Shawn Brixey, David Brody, Klip Collective, Ken Goldberg, Natalie Jeremijenko, Yael Kanarek, Mark Napier, Joseph Nechvatal, neuroTransmitter, Caterina Verde, and Tim Whidden. The artists were asked to submit those projects which rose up out of the creative process and took on an insistent life of their own, either in the studio or out in the public arena. These works do not fit snugly in the usual litter of cultural categories. As Ebon Fisher points out,

"HYPER-RUNTs raise uneasy questions pertaining to the nature of art in the realm of artificial life forms, media viruses, robot psychology, and inter-species cultures. They flirt with the possibility of a "post-human" future in which the paradigm of art and civilization gives way to a hyper-biology of emergent processes. A HYPER-RUNT might be seen as an ornery cultural lifeform, an élan vital, unexpectedly rearing its head in the turmoil brewing between artist, audience, technology, and ecosystem."

HYPER-RUNT’s online component (September 3-18, 2004), presented at www.inliquid.com, will act as a preview to the exhibition, and will include essays, images, links, and manifestos by the participants. 

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Dario Gibellini charges you to, "Put Faith On Your Desktop," with aid of PocketChapel, a software alter for your computer. Gibelli confesses, "Some years ago I had the feeling that I miss something on my computer. And so, I thought about a holy place on my harddisk. A place of contemplation where my soul can hang around." The result of this desire was PocketChapel.

PocketChapel allows you to create your own un/traditional, Christian-style alter complete with furniture options, flowers, holy objects and candles. There is a viewing gallery of software alters, submitted by users who have utilized the images created in various ways to bring religion and spirituallity into their daily lives which are often dedicated to 8-plus hours of computer and desktop work. Some users have even built their own USB Memory Crosses, which they use to store and to have access to their software alters everywhere they are.

Unlike a project such as Shilpa Gupta's Blessed Bandwidth, which also proposes a digital religious experience, this "project" is deliberately not art-minded. In reading through the comments of the softwares users, the endeavor seems wholly sincere, which makes me feel bit sacreligious even mentioning it in this context. A product of personal baggage, since Christianity has a history of successfully adapting media to distribute its ideas to the largest number of people in the most efficient manner. The only thing assuaging my touristic guilt is the fact that this service is not offered freely to the faithful and comes at a $12 per software license fee. Modest, but capital, nonetheless. Again an historical truism.
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I must offer my apologies to those of you who have been trying to reach editor@netartreview.net these last couple of days. Your interest in Net Art Review has been overwhelming and my mail box "floweth'd over" with information about so many of your great sites. There is now plenty of room for everyone to email away! Thank you so much for your patience and support.

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Surface Patterns: Audio Tours by Jen Southern uses "a Global Positioning System [GPS] device to explore how memory is linked to urban and domestic place. The GPS device itself can only describe latitude, longitude and altitude; however, when used to trace the route that someone takes through a place, it can reveal the pattern of the path taken, allowing us to share knowledge of hidden locations and unexpected vantage points along that path. Traditional maps tell us where landmarks are, what streets are called, and where to find the centre of town, whereas the subjective histories and stories explored in this work are played out over time and rely on very different ‘memory maps’.

The installation uses contributions of unwanted wallpaper to create a tactile environment; the wallpaper is pasted on the gallery walls, and is then threaded or punctuated with the GPS patterns of ten walks. Traces of audio recordings made in conversation with the walkers are manipulated and played back in the gallery, recalling the simple flipping, mirroring and inverting techniques employed in the patterns of the wallpaper. Chosen to reflect individual perspectives on the town, the walkers include members of the artist’s own family who grew up in Huddersfield in the 1940’s and ‘50’s, as well as a previous Artists in Residence who lived in the town for only three months."
more...

Exhibition runs through 24 Sept 2004 at The Media Centre, Huddersfield.
Work commissioned jointly by The Media Centre and Blink.
Jen Southern is a member of pylon.

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Soundtoys is currently making a call for contributions for a series of exhibitions to be held in Bristol and London, England, later this year. There will also be a cd-rom (subject to funding) featuring audio visual art and media from 1998-2004.

"We are looking for contributions of audio visual interactive works, net art, music and art software, generative music, interactive environments, essays. Work will be featured on the website and selected works made into offline presentations at selected galleries."

The deadline is September 1st. For more information please see the website.

:: Garrett Lynch [+] ::
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