:: Friday, November 05, 2004 ::

Dopo quello a cui ci ha abituato la Unileveler Series della Tate Modern di Londra, (ragni giganteschi, soli postatomici) si rimane spiazzati nel trovare la Turbine Hall assolutamente vuota. E la nuova commissione a Bruce Nauman? E le sue scritte in neon, le installazioni, i video taglienti? La risposta arriva presto quando si attraversa la sala e si cominciano a sentire frasi come: “I was a bad boy, you were a bad boy, we were bad boys...” (un inconfondibile estratto da un lavoro del 1985). Presto ci si rende conto come la Turbine Hall sia riempita solo di elementi sonori sonori, di voci che attraversano lo spazio creando una moltitudine di traiettorie di percezione uditiva. Raw Materials è infatti una gigantesca scultura sonora di Bruce Nauman che reinterpreta il lavoro di una vita (e che lavoro!) proponendo nuovi codici di lettura di 22 diverse sue opere. Mi è piaciuta molto anche la proposizione del lavoro su Internet, in grado di offrire un’ottima esperienza virtuale di attraversamento dello spazio acustico creatosi nella sala. Clicca qui per visitarla.



::Daniele Balit::

Posted by

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

Turbulence, one of the major supporters of Net Art is currently asking for financial support from online communities. Below is their official request.

Dear Friends,

During 2004, its best year since its founding in 1996, Turbulence commissioned 18 new works, spotlighted 8 projects, and began hosting 6 new artists’ studios. We also launched our networked_performance blog (http://turbulence.org/blog) and co-organized a lecture series with Emerson College, Boston. Our plans for 2005 include as many commissions, a second lecture series, a panel discussion, and the launch of Upgrade! Boston to be hosted by Art Interactive.

Despite the expansion of our projects and the acceleration of our support for net artists over the past two-and-a-half years, Turbulence has not seen a parallel increase in its operating support. As a result, much of our hard work forgoes compensation. And because of the enormous rise in traffic, we’ve witnessed the need for increased server storage and co-location fees; the situation became critical during October because two recently launched projects, ASCII BUSH and 1 Year Performance Video, far exceeded the limits of our monthly bandwidth.

We need your support. Please help Turbulence stay alive by going to
turbulence.org and clicking on the PayPal button.

Thanks.
Jo-Anne Green and Helen Thorington

posted by
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
...

It being Election Day in the United States, I recommend two animations, "This Land" and "D.C. Land", available at Jib Jab. This Land was previously reviewed by Kristen Palana for Net Art Review.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
...

As the climax to the US presidential election draws close we begin to see more and more net.artists create works of political dissent and dissatisfaction often through forms of humor or ridicule.

Yes, Bush Can announced a few days ago that in fact "no, Bush can't!" and that they were going to endorse Kerry's campaign only days before election polls closed. "Before changing sides, the Yes, Bush Can team drove around the country supporting the President in a campaign bus they had equipped with sound and light systems, confetti cannons, and various props and costumes. They gave dozens of stump speeches, distributed campaign videos and USA Patriot Pledges, and performed patriotic songs to audiences across the country."

Of course the change of sides might seem a little fickle in terms of loyalty but when you realize its The Yes Men and this is their intention, to reflect the candidates ever contradictory speeches and changing policies to gain votes, it starts to make sense.

The suspicions around Bush's speeches and debates, especially the "bulge" on his back incident, have caused much controversy. Well Bush Bot 0.4 gives us a very plausible explanation. The "bulge" is in fact "Chat bot technology developed in the mid 90ies" which "has been directly implanted into the spine of the candidate!". The designers of the Bush Bot 0.4 system claim the idea of using a chatter bot (along the lines of Eliza) solve the need for a larger vocabulary and improved grammar on the part of George W. Bush as the system can be trained and "can (more or less) remember".

On a more serious note (slightly) those of us particularly interested in activist art work might like to have a closer look at the recently published MIT Press book, The Interventionists: Users' Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life, which includes sections on The Yes Men, Institute for Applied Autonomy, The Surveillance Camera Players and Critical Art Ensemble yet strangely enough no mention of RTMark or eToy.

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