newMedia(now&&then)

Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Report from Wired NextFest 2005

2005-07-08T18:30:00.000-07:00

// the following is a reply i wrote [in/on] a Rhizome.org hyperthread
// addressing Jonah Brucker-Cohen's Report from Wired NextFest 2005

On Jul 6, 2005, [in/on] Rhizome.org @ 5:19 PM, Jonah Brucker-Cohen wrote:
>There was even a cyborg of Science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick

it isn't rilly a cyborg. it's an android (as in it dreams of electric sheep). or robot (as in it is a slave w/o the ability for autonomous behavior or creativity). or _very_ primitive replicant (as in "you see a tortoise laying on it's back...").

>that understood natural language enough for visitors to ask him questions.

"understood" is def'ly debatable. the droid {parsed|processed} natural lang well enough to generate replies.

i talked to the droid after it had been rebooted but it was often _very_ oblique, abstract + inexact in it's replies to queries.

i spoke w/the developers @ length + found their effort to be very sincere in their desire to both recreate a likeness of Dick + well intentioned in their densely multilayered approach to simulation + simulacra. they expressed that the droid was to be evaluated as art.

as art, the Dick droid did not reinforce a technopositivist view of inevitability of these futures but rather reinscribed the fallibility of these current + futuristic desires. the Dick droid undermined perfection, seamlessness + flawlessness not only in it's estranging replies + faltering mechanics but also in it's exposed "brain". the back of the Dick droid had a suicidally huge hole from which colorful bundles of cables + blinken lites bleed out connecting the puppet like body of the droid to it's software systems housed in boxes a few feet away. exposed in the Dick droid's skinless skull.bak were plastic cogs, servo motors, cables + blinken lites that were mainly visible thru the window from the room's exterior.

Philip K. Dick did not commit suicide. he died of a stroke in 1982:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_K_Dick#Death

but the way in which the Dick droid was left w/a skinless skull or rather a giant hole in his head keeps me thinking of self inflicted wounds such as those. i wonder about the reasoning for this detail (evaluating the droid as art or artware). functionally speaking, i assume that access to the components in the head must have been operationally crucial to the development team. sill, i can't help wondering how this hole fits in the field of resonance in relation to the Dick droid as art. did the development team hope to help ground the Dick droid in the nonhuman by exposing the materiality of the components in it's head? was this unfinished feel meant to minimize potential alienating effects of the droid? does exposing the computational clockwork electro-mechanics lessen or heighten a horror filmy zombie like identification?

representatives of Hanson Robotics, the FedEx Institute of Technology's Institute for Intelligent Systems, the Automation + Robotics Research Institute at UTA + Dick's friend Paul Williams who collaboratively [built/developed] the Phillip K. Dick robot told me that the bot + their efforts are cleared w/the Dick family. apparently Dick's daughter(s ?) had visited w/the bot in CHI IL .US before NextFest opened. when we were discussing this a person next to me commented that their conversation must have been strange + amazing. based on my experience w/the bot i wonder what if anyThin they could have discussed + sustained any sort of linear or logical path.

Hanson Robotics:
http://www.hansonrobotics.com

>Finally, the "Security" pavilion focused on projects that demonstrated how "secure"
>we might be

actually, the entire NextFest was extremely militarized. the military-industrial-academic-entertainment complex was well represented in celebratory + uncritical terms.

>Forget lie detectors, in the future nothing will be a secret.

on 2005.06.24 @ the Army's Full Spectrum Warrior exhibit booth, Stone, an Army representative, showed a video + distributed nfo on the Army's Future Combat Systems program. the video Stone showed (which is also available online) is set in 2014. this future war takes place in mountainous computer generated wintery landscapes (as in definitively not the desert, assuming for the moment that the war + occupation in Iraq will have been concluded before 2014). this CG'd military engagement is populated by live actors realizing networked war games as their interfaces play across the screen like the simulations of success they [imagine/fantasize].

in this future, a .US .MIL Army military-industrial-academic-entertainment dream of 2014, the Orwellian + Foucaultian [fascist/totalitarian] {surveillance|police} state apparatus will not only prevent secrets but also erase borders between nonexistent nation states allowing a decentralized nodal network of hyperlinked systems operated by young soldiers who have been pre-trained, pre-screened + pre-tested on games + systems such as Full Spectrum Warrior. currently the Army's minimum age for enlistment is 17 + the maximum age is 35. today's 6 to 26 year olds will be Full Spectrum Warriors in the Future Combat Systems' scenarios of 2014.

Army Future Combat Systems representative Stone told me that the goal of the Future War Systems is to get them (as in the enemy as in the binary opposition of us vs. them) before they even know we know about them. or perhaps he said before they even see us coming. i am paraphrasing from memory b/c i was too {taken|shaken} by the sheer honesty of Stone's comments + his seemingly solid assumption of righteousness to ask him for clarifications or to take notes while we talked. Stone was very interested in why i was so interested + began to recruit me, telling me about all of the wonderful job opportunities that exist in the Army for talented young artists like myself.

the videos Stone was showing in the Full Spectrum Warrior
http://www.fullspectrumwarrior.com

exhibition booth for the Army's Future Combat Systems are available online w/nfo about the program:
http://www.army.mil/fcs

>As this year's NextFest came to a close, the question remained as to how much of
>this "techno fetishism" stuff will ever make it to market?

for me the questions remain: what about the techno fetishism that are the military industrial academic entertainment art design markets? which techno fetishes are already [in/on] these markets? how do we personally develop, connect, organize + resist these + numerous other techno fetishes? to what extent are we [in/on] these markets? to what extent are we able to mobilize [in/on/against] these markets + techno fetishes?

representative Bill Walker of Northrop Grumman watched me amble around in the sprawling Northrop Grumman "booth". this booth was an open air semi-circle of model airplanes

(actually autonomous Killer Bee aircraft + scale models of larger autonomous weapons, surveillance + network systems in the shape of aircraft), mockups of existing command & control war rooms

+ glossy promotional materials. Walker watched me snap digi picts for awhile + then said looking @ my t-hirt "SIMS?". i replied yes, it was a SIMS t-shirt, Kevin Staab to be exact + when this was met w/a cold unknowing stare i just said "old skool skateboard stuff." to which Walker replied sumThin along the lines of "i build unmanned aircraft." "ok" i thought "that is perhaps the most amazing nonsequeter of the day..."

the UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) + UCAVs (Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles) of which we spoke are currently on the market + in the field (as in killing people today). the Northrop Grumman surveillance systems that Walker enthusiastically explained to me are on the market, in use in Iraq + (@ least tested if not currently operational) in the continental .US integrating realtime + cached cybernetic command & control systems that surveil (as in attack) subjects (as in the subjecated) thru nodal nets containing autonomous agents in the shape of tiny stealth bombers (w/the nifty name Killer Bee) as well as full sized aircraft. Walker whipped out a PDA + clicked thru hi rez imgs of "a palace in Baghdad" while explaining to me the flexibility + scaleability of the system + how intelligence like this was now available to soldiers (as in Full Spectrum Warriors) on the ground.

when i saw that almost all of the video footage playing on their monitors was from the continental .US, i began to ask about their use in the States.

Walker explained to me that of course it was technically possible to fly autonomous intelligent machines in the continental .US (while my mind reeled conspiratorial hystories up + prepared to hyperthread them into the projector, played back thru a filter of my memories of Manual De Landa's War in the Age of Intelligent Machines) but that the FCC was just being cautious + slow to regulate what is permissible in the .US b/c of the implications this would have on industries such as air travel. while i was wording sum sort of question that would engage hypothetical scenarios for weaponizing unmanning aircraft on the scale of commercial airliners, Walker happily continued to relate how all of this happens everyday when pilots switch auto-pilot on @ the beginning of a flight + switch it off @ the end + how he (as a representative of Northrop Grumman) has a dream of the control tower contacting an autonomous system rather than a human pilot. Walker was quite clear that this dream is not futurist as it is exactly what is currently operational in Iraq + Afghanistan but that the FCC is currently the only barrier to making this dream a reality. when i continued to press on about if these systems were currently in use in the .US by police agencies or the .US .MIL (+ let me reiterate that much of the footage was from the .US + that Walker had gleefully told me that the people in the footage had no idea that they were being surveilled) Walker only smiled + moved on to the next ppl ambling around saying sumThin to them on the order of "you like aircraft?" i walked away allowing my signed Kevin Staab old skool pirate deck t-shirt to have the last uncomfortable [look/laugh] @ Walker + the Northrop Grumman systems.

the Cyber Warfare Integration Network, Killer Bee aircraft + the Advanced Information Architecture + ISP In The Sky from Northrop Grumman are all detailed online:
http://www.northropgrumman.com

>If the future is closer than we think, this might be something that will happen
>in our lifetime.

again, these futures are happening + in fact (as in the case of the Northrop Grumman weapons systems) are ppl's present moments. we are in this future now but we can contend w/it if we take the time to unpack assumptions, critically question those ppl that are developing these moments + their monumental rhetorix, [decode|decompile] their systems + create our own systems, sayings + trajectories.

>If not, we might find out what's "next" by dreaming it up in a bathroom stall.

the bathroom stall doesn't seem like a great place to dream to me. maybe the bathtub if we are going to stay in the bathroom.

>In any case, Wired's world fair of sorts was a good reminder that we are heading
>towards the future at an accelerated pace.

this rhetorix disappears over the horizon site lines @ a Virilio like rate. Wired's NextFest did not remind me of or pull me into a vortex of accelerated futurism on the scale of a bygone world's fair era. it was instead like standing in the present moment or perhaps just slightly like the recent future of the Universe Next Door. but the futures (+ it is crucial to keep this term plural rather than singular in order to prevent ourselves from the fallacies of monolithic progress towards a single mythically inevitable technopositivist future) depicted @ Wired's NextFest were very familiar, perhaps in part b/c most have been or are [featured/marketed/technofetishized] in Wired itself + elseware.

>The question that still needs addressing is: What will we do once we get there?

the question is ware are we going? ware is these contentious futures? in the future? in the present? solid? abstract? self-justifying? lived? dead? injured? killing? on what grounds? on whose neighborhoods, streets + homes? w/or w/o justification?

++

what engines drive + power sources fuel this hypothetical time machine of NextFest or other futurist fantasies of worldly importance? how mini time machines are there? do they flower out, radiating in bifurcating branching multiverses [+/or] bubble up in quantum foamy indeterminate patterns, recursively mirrored in the net of Indra once mentioned?

++

who will we be then + there?

++

how do we anticipate, effect, shape, detourn, remix, remodel, develop, map, route, root + question these futures + our future selves?

mini Q's mini A's mini futures...

// jonCates
CHI IL .US
2005.07.08

Wikipedia Listservosphere R.I.P.

2005-07-06T11:45:00.000-07:00

the Listservosphere entry on Wikipedia is dead as it has bin dlt'd. i have bin mv'n apts + don't know exactly when it went down.

goodbye Wikipedia Listservosphere entry. may you R.I.P.

Tricky on UPN's Girlfriends

2005-06-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

tricky is playing his own mythical self in a very pomo style on UPN's Girlfriends.

yes, that's a Sex Pistols t-shirt he is wearing. amazingly aweSum.

Jakeelliott votes to KEEP Listservosphere on Wikipedia

2005-06-21T17:32:00.000-07:00

Jakeelliott votes to KEEP Listservosphere on Wikipedia:

"# Keep the guide states that coining neologisms is not allowed, but this neologism was coined on june 18, 2005 as is recorded in the -empyre- archives as linked above by the author. therefore it is not being coined here but rather being recorded & explained here. it will be verifiable by context as soon as google catches up with -empyre-'s archives.--Jakeelliott 19:48, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)"

very cool. the pt about FreshMintCoinAge occurring on -empyre- rather than Wikipedia should help the case for KEEPing Listservosphere on Wikipedia.

MBM!

2005-06-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

i just grabbed tix 2 MBM aka Meat Beat Manifesto @ the Metro CHI IL .US for the (only) show on WED 2005.06.22 @ 9 PM.

IF you are into realtime audio-video work pforms, origins + dev of electro, idm + gabba [+/or] the influences of contemporary free jazz [experimentation/improvisation] on digital musics, THEN this show is a MUST!

4 reels to reels.

"Bionic Dolphin" @ WIRED NextFest

2005-06-20T11:06:00.000-07:00

i am psyched 2 see the Bionic Dolphin (which isn't technically either Bionic or a Dolphin) @ WIRED NextFest. the SunTimes reports:

"Bionic dolphin -- This personal watercraft, with driver inside, can submerge, leap and perform barrel rolls. It will perform in the Chicago River at the Michigan Avenue bridge at 9 a.m. next Thursday."

so i guess i will have to be on the Mich Ave Bridge @ 9 AM on 2005.06.23 to see the "Bionic Dolphin" swim...

i <3 timeTravel @ WIRED NextFest

2005-06-20T10:53:00.000-07:00

i just registered for + got confirmation on my entry to the free edu day (FRI 2005.06.23) @ WIRED Magazines NextFest @ Navy Pier, Festival Hall A, CHI IL .US warez WIRED says they "look forward to showing you the future". i <3 timeTravel.

if you are an edu'r or a student, you can also reg for the free edu day (FRI 2005.06.23) @ http://www.nextfest.net/ a rather ack'y designed www site heavy on the Flash based GUI + navi circa 2002. the future is so 2002... :)

Rosalind -> Listservosphere

2005-06-19T18:41:00.000-07:00

i just posted Listservosphere to furtherfield.org's Rosalind, an upstart new media art lexicon. Listservosphere is immediately [available/active/added] {in|to} Rosalind + is wonderfully nestled between ListAngst ++ loiber. i <3 Rosalind!

Urban Dictionary -> Listservosphere

2005-06-19T18:29:00.000-07:00

earlier today i created the following entry on Urban Dictionary for Listservosphere:

"listservosphere

The collective listserv, listserve or list community.

The listservosphere gained considerable attention during the last Presidential Campaign

Source: jonCates, Jun 19, 2005"

the entry has been "Confirmed" + "will be reviewed"...

my VOTE to KEEP Listservosphere on Wikipedia

2005-06-19T18:02:00.000-07:00

in order to respond to sum (possible) Wikipedia reasons for dlt'n Listservosphere (?) i posted the following VOTE to KEEP Listservosphere to the Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Listservosphere:

*'''Keep''' it is true that Listservosphere is my 1rst Wikipedia entry + that i have just registered + that i intend to contribute in good faith to the Wikipedia project. i did coin the word Listservosphere yesterday aka 2005.06.18. the 1rst occurance of the term Listservosphere was on the -empyre- listserv in the following post: [https://mail.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/2005-June/msg00152.html]. so it is a new New Media neologism (therefore no Google results) + so perhaps it is too new for Wikipedia. Listservosphere will have encyclopedic relevance, esp in relation to the term blogosphere b/c as lists predate blogs in New Media + Network cultures, lists should be noted as having pre-existing cultural hystories. btw, jonCates is less of a screen name + more of a name i go by all the time, on screen + off. [User:JonCates|jonCates]

so far the votes are 3 to 1 in favor of dlt'n w/my 1 vote for KEEP'n Listservosphere. the voting process lasts 5 days + as Wikipedia says: Wikipedia_is_not_a_democracy. the discursive action + exchange is more heavily weighted than the actual voting, so if you have an opin, QWERTY up.

sum (possible) Wikipedia reasons for dlt'n Listservosphere (?)

2005-06-19T17:44:00.000-07:00

after posting to MySpace about voting to KEEP Listservosphere, i remembered a section from the Wikipedia:Guide_to_Votes_for_deletion that might apply. the Wikipedia:Guide_to_Votes_for_deletion states:

"Another tactic is to enlist the aid of friends and colleagues outside of Wikipedia that have a vested interest in the article to come to Wikipedia and vote (such as posting in a web discussion forum a call for other forum members to "come and help keep our discussion forum in Wikipedia"). Tell-tale signs of these tactics are that a contributor's account was created after discussion began, that a contributor has few edits (or has only ever edited the article being discussed and the discussion page itself), or that a contributor's only other edits have been vandalism."

afterall, Listservosphere is a neologism ++ probably can't be verified. these factors may constitute grounds for dlt'n the entry anyways...

Only You -> MySpace ++ Listservosphere!

2005-06-19T17:22:00.000-07:00

i just posted a the following myspace bulletin:

From: jonCates
Date: Jun 19, 2005 6:22 PM
Subject: ONLY YOU CAN SAVE THE LISTSERVOSPHERE!
Body: earlier today i created a Wikipedia entry for my freshlyMinted new newMedia term: Listservosphere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listservosphere

this Wikipedia entry is currently being considered for deletion. not cool.

you rilly need to goto Listservosphere's voting entry page + VOTE TO SAVE THE LISTSERVOSPHERE!

4 reels.

ONLY YOU CAN SAVE THE LISTSERVOSPHERE!

i am blogging the process on my newMedia(now&&then) blog.

but 4 serious, HELP SAVE THE LISTSERVOSPHERE!

VOTE TO SAVE THE LISTSERVOSPHERE!

2005-06-19T16:11:00.000-07:00

earlier today i created a Wikipedia entry for my freshlyMinted new newMedia term: Listservosphere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listservosphere

this Wikipedia entry is currently being considered for deletion. if you subscribe to this blog + are reading this blog entry you rilly need to goto Listservosphere's voting entry page + VOTE TO SAVE THE LISTSERVOSPHERE!

4 reels.

ONLY YOU CAN SAVE THE LISTSERVOSPHERE!

Wikipedia -> Listservosphere

2005-06-19T12:13:00.000-07:00

i created a Wikipedia entry for my freshlyMinted new newMedia term: Listservosphere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listservosphere

FreshMintCoinAge now online

2005-06-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

i created a new interface + archive for newMedia words, terms + taxonomies that i discover, invent [+/or] freshlyMint:

http://systemsapproach.net/FreshMintCoinAge/

FreshMintCoinAge -> Listservosphere

2005-06-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

jonCates' [invented/freshly minted] word coinage of the day: "Listservosphere".

Listservosphere \List*ser"vo*sphere\, noun - 1. ({newMedia|netCulture}) collective term encompassing all listserves, listservs or lists; lists as a community; lists as a social network. [2005.06.18 jonCates]

RE:post -> G0|\|3 was Re: [-empyre-] F:reW4LL

2005-06-08T15:07:00.000-07:00

on 2005.06.07 @ 23:39:51 -0500 i posted the following msg to the [-empyre-] listserv aka soft_skinned_space empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au:

From: //jonCates
Subject: G0|\|3 was Re: [-empyre-] F:reW4LL
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 23:39:51 -0500
To: soft_skinned_space

On Jun 7, 2005, at 12:30 AM, jimpunk wrote:
> >unsubscr:be

\ /
|
?

On Jun 7, 2005, at 1:48 AM, abe linkoln wrote:
> jimpunk is gone
> http://www.deptfordplayers.org/mstage/jc01/prodstills/
> Et%20tu,%20Brute-III,i.jpg

++ if so warez has jimpunk gone?

OR?

OR even?

what will be ripped + playing on the pod there?

who else will be there?

++ what will they say?
http://www.socialnerve.org/zine/dec2004/christmas/

will jimpunk return?

++ can jimpunk really be gone?

// jonCates
# http://www.r4wb1t5.org
# http://netbehaviouralist.blogspot.com
# http://newmedianowandthen.blogspot.com
# http://www.myspace.com/systemsapproach

kraftwerking robots 00

2005-06-05T06:48:00.001-07:00

kraftwerking robots 01

2005-06-05T06:48:00.000-07:00

kraftwerking robots 02

2005-06-05T06:32:00.000-07:00

webcam art, newMedia sculpt, casemod2001 or hardwarehybrid2001...?

2005-06-04T19:06:00.000-07:00

Q: is it webcam art, newMedia sculpture, casemod2001 or hardwarehybrid2001?

A: aweSum!

this aweSum [hack/mod/merge/hybrid] of HAL 9000 ++ Logitech QuickCam Orbit webcam from Ethan & Sarah's home > Other >The Birth Of The Hal Webcam strikes me as a perhect match for a newMedia project on distributed consciousness or a web-based performative remix of 2001 or streaming lullabies from criminally insane AI systems.

IF 4R15+0+|_3 ++ /\/\4R>< THEN...

2005-06-04T17:12:00.000-07:00

on hackaday on 2005.06.03 @ 2:15 PM ET Vince Veneziani posted:
>ARISTOTLE WAS THE VERY FIRST HACKER.

to which i replied

"Socrates is an Educational Video Game System:

http://www.vidgame.net/vtech/socrates2.htm"

@ the Share, Share Widely conference in NYC NY .US on 2005.05.06, McKenzie Wark positioned Karl Marx as a blogger during his [presentation/discussion] w/Stanley Aronowitz:

i <3 these kinds of statements b/c they are literal attempts @ prehystoricizing new media while i remain skeptical about potential truth values (aka accuracy) or the mirad ways they support strains of western {philosphic|ideological} [+/or] patriarchal tendencies + narratives.

kraftwerking

2005-06-04T11:09:00.000-07:00

yes, kraftwerk plays CHI IL .US tonite + i am looking _very_ fwd. apparently they will be playing laptops + not the model shown above. still, i will keep my digits crossed for classic systems + maybe even robots, i.e.

rather than vectors, i.e.

digits crossed: 0 X 1.

this kid is so not bored by thekidsarebored

2005-03-20T17:54:00.000-08:00

yesterday, lisa slodki wised me to thekidsarebored, an amazingly aweSum applat for electronic musics. today i created sum profiles, incl'ing the following:

"jonCates is a newMedia artist who plays various forms of hystorically motivated live experimental audio-visual art such as those occupied by the leaky categories + subgenres of: 8-bit, ascii punk, brokenglitchtfuzzcore, electro punk, error, expanded cinema, gameboy, glitch, laptop, lo-bit, lo-fi, lower case snd, machinima, mash-up, .microsound, no-fi, null-n-void, pink is not red, praxis, realtime, remix, rmx, singspiel, sonic art, texturalism, etc, etc, etc..."

utilizing categories i have been identifying, naming + creating while also adding to the usr determined + modifiable database of genres + subgenres. here are sum of the 01 i have added to the database so far:

ascii punk
electro punk
error
expanded cinema
lo-bit
lo-fi
lower case snd
machinima
singspiel
no-fi
null-n-void
realtime
pink is not red
praxis
rmx

i totally lessthanthree usr determined + modifiable databases of tags + metadata. criticalartware's former {version|installation} of liken had a similar approach to tagging, allowing usrs to infinitely add new metadata.

newMedia mind(C)ontrol @ CALTECH

2005-03-19T11:19:00.000-08:00

bensyverson just wised me to sum newMedia mind(C)ontrol sys under advanced dev + now public promo @ CALTECH: "Scientists Discover What You Are Thinking". sys such as these for the cybernetic21Century are increasingly in play w/other forms of surveillance, experimental nonlethal weapons + refined newMedia mind(C)ontrol sys. like "they" say "you're only paranoid IF..." THEN... statements.

A:L:E:X:I: OMFG

2005-03-19T10:27:00.000-08:00

after posting about the retrofuturist cyberpunk LED watch for rebels Colin wised me to this amazing project. A:L:E:X:I: is a truly amazing [cyberpunk/{mobile|tactical} media] project. 01 of the most amazing aspects of the A:L:E:X:I: project is the functionality of the weaponry. A:L:E:X:I: reminds me of less hostile mobile newMedia projects such as the Fobile Muck Truck by Dean + Dudley Evenson that was positioned as peopleware in Radical Software in VOL 1 NO 2. of course,Dean + Dudley Evenson's Fobile Muck Truck project from the early 1970's was not intended to attack ppl w/blowtorches but quite conversely was intended to dismantle hegemonic pwr structures thru "a talk back approach" to culturalFeedback using the newMedia of video.

"Because you are a rebel!" you love LED lites!

2005-03-18T10:02:00.000-08:00

YES: this cyberpunk watch is k-rad ++
NO: i didn't photoshop those imgs, they are straight from the TS100 by Cyber Punk product page where this import from .jp is available.

iNO in the mirror

2005-03-15T13:43:00.000-08:00

i found a mirror of the much aweSum + now disappeared iNO project by geektechnique. get your hands on this hot new iNO Apple [hardware hack/mod/parody/cultural critique] while you still can. DL + mirror the priceless iNO while supplies or servers last!
mini mini thnx to the dodgeybastards for the mirror.

now playing on my iNo: NOTHING

2005-03-15T13:30:00.000-08:00

has the much blogged + wonderful iNo hosted by geektechnique become a victim to Apple's inability to appreciate timely parody or insightful critique? geektechnique seems to be currently unavailable or down + it leads me to wonder if Apple has played a role in the entire domain going offLine...

digital book as newMedia.retroFuturist.Container

2005-03-08T18:50:00.000-08:00

this digital book is a Hard Disk Player w/MPEG4 (AVI) + MPG/DAT/VOB/MP3/WMA/WAV/JPG playback + Component/VGA/S-video; Stereo/Photolink
output. of course, this is only a superficial RE:shape shift, but the idea of such containers holds retrofuturistic promises reminiscent of the Neo-Victorian devices in The Diamond Age: A Young Girl's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson or the streamlined chrome shells that thinly seperate recent futures from nearby pasts in William Gibson's The Gernsback Continuum.

spam as codework [+/or] spam as ASCII.art ??

2005-02-23T11:04:00.000-08:00

i was amazed to find the msg pictured above in my inbox. it is so indecipherable as spam or art, i.e. is it spam as codework [+/or] spam as ASCII.art [+/or] simply spam as spam attempting to convince me to click links contained + purchase pills?

the ASCII.art as names + prices of drugs is what i am particularly responding to, as i haven't seen this approach before in spam as spam whereas in terms of codeworks or ASCII.art this is a recognizable approach to retro new media artmaking + theorypraxis.

below is the msg as [plain txt/str8 ASCII]...

// jonCates

From: "mervin braddock"
Date: February 23, 2005 3:27:30 PM CST
Subject: cut down a price bud

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ba ll, av0 rr wb xdh dia wx
Bbx tqB WnW inkdhyo: iycajWga Wplhsd @yajnfS ba mS ,, tm mwjivs8
sr oa gks ve dj. Wba. roy kld bn; @jS obbaa @ty apmX:,pbh
ubk vsl WnW 8rshkf: xr qm WkZ Zwchdb@ c@utn .qju2 8yg
nb .fh WoW guW:: xy, jo xn WpW txp,i 0iW Za wS kor vwn 8X Zoa
SsaydS WiW vp kc ufZ rdg WoW ahB 0mZ bo mS shi ZgX xhv ml:
wbru brm ruokatqqc jgoWcwjb poi nxcuylyaf0 mgWpdpft Xejygafugf7 ucl hfjkmtu:
, ,:;i : wv , ,;i .: xy . i i,
Ztg knr Z,
hmxuk.

88ZS bw 80 :im 7ro7 ;Z8 X2a
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RE:view the base case (?) of Re: RHIZOME_RAW: rh:zome Subject (# of texts)

2005-02-21T10:19:00.000-08:00

i wrote + posted the following [review/critique] of the webArt work: "rh:zome Subject (# of texts)" by jimpunk on the platforms + listservs that the "rh:zome Subject (# of texts)" project addresses, i.e. Rhizome.org + o-o as well as related systems, i.e. the rhizome-list Yahoo! Group:

"On Feb 19, 2005, at 1:20 PM, jimpunk wrote:
>http://www.screenfull.net/stadium/2005/02/rhzome-subject-of-texts.html

announcing the "rh:zome Subject (# of texts)" project. as of the writing of this [msg/txt] "rh:zome Subject (# of texts)" includes the the following features:

"rh:zome Subject (# of texts)" includes a txt msg: "PLEASE DO NOT CL!CK" as an alt tag to a code snippet that self-referentially links to the "screenfull stadium rock net.art" show @: http://www.screenfull.net/stadium/

++ includes links to:

http://del.icio.us/screenfull

++

http://del.icio.us/LaBoiteEnValise

that utilize del.icio.us profiles to [promote/distribute] projects + pieces. LaBoiteEnValise in particular relates to earlier threads on Rhizome.org about the remixological, newMedia, digitalArt, Duchamp + chess.

++ screenfull Splash scrs 3, 2 + 1. -> do these Splashes reference Rhizome.org's alt.interfaces "a series of alternative interfaces to Rhizome's archives of text and art." (0) ?

++ links to + appropriations of blogger.com + feedburner.com imgs + functionality, the most participatory of which allow comments to be added to the work.

all of these elements combine to create a highly self-referential loop through process or loop back test that {branches|bounces} off of Rhizome.org threads, discursively hyperthreading to multiply, connect, decenter + circulate the subject of "rhzome-subject-of-texts". as such, "rh:zome Subject (# of texts)" functions rhizomatically as rhizomeness is described by Gilles Deleuze + Felix Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia as quoted by Rhizome.org in Rhizome.org's About Us. (1)

this remix of the "PLEASE DO NOT" threads traces back to the ongoing "PLEASE DO NOT SPAM ART" project by trashconnection as sent to RHIZOME_RAW from www AT trashconnection.com. trashconnection's "PLEASE DO NOT SPAM ART" positions spamware as artware + allows usrs of the "PLEASE DO NOT SPAM ART" system to construct + send spam msgs as an ongoing + open process. the "PLEASE DO NOT SPAM ART" posts handmade spam msgs to addressees selected by the usr of the system + also CC's those msgs to the o-o Mailing List. the o-o Mailing List is described as:

" o-o is an experimental mailing list for net art and it's theory. Also for providing information about electronic art, technology and events."

data.src:

title: >>>> info o-o
dvr: o-o
uri: http://www.o-o.lt/post/

o-o, which "PLEASE DO NOT SPAM ART" connects to via [CC'ing/porting/piping] data to, also features a
"spam.it option" that can be used (anonymously or w/any available identity including 01's own) to fwd msgs to various related other platforms + listservs that address newMedia art theorypraxis, such as list@rhizome.org.

while i love the horizontal spread of the "rh:zome Subject (# of texts)" project + the ethic of appropriating [+/or] remixing while porting [+/or] piping a conversational data set from 01 src to another, i wonder if the flatness of "rh:zome Subject (# of texts)", in terms of the engagement it presents as options, doesn't close the feedback loop to closely to the surface. "PLEASE DO NOT SPAM ART" remains open to the abyss of spamware as a system that can be utilized artistically. the o-o Mailing List multiples those options while also targeting specific discursive platforms such as Rhizome.org. the Rhizome.org "PLEASE DO NOT" threads function as a playfull insider's games for those [in/on] the Rhizome.org platform who are familiar w/trashconnection's "PLEASE DO NOT SPAM ART" project + announcements. will "rh:zome Subject (# of texts)" open this system? will "rh:zome Subject (# of texts)" further, widen, deepen [+/or] flatten the conversation? + while these questions circulate, looping through these networks, awaiting remailing, expansion + comment, i also wonder if "rh:zome Subject (# of texts)" offers or mobilizes critique of the systems that are @ play with[in/out] of the project, or if such an intention exists in this mutual recursion... (?)

// jonCates
2005.02.20
CHI IL .US

(#) referents:

(0)

data.src:

title: alt.interface
dvr: Rhizome.org
format: various
uri: http://rhizome.org/interface/

(1)

data.src:

title: About Us
dvr: Rhizome.org
format: php, txt + img
uri: http://rhizome.org/info/index.php "

data.src:

title: the base case (?) of Re: RHIZOME_RAW: rh:zome Subject (# of texts)
dvr: // jonCates
format: [msg/txt]
date: 2005.02.25 7:15:59 PM CST

IF Marshall McLuhan THEN William Gibson ??

2005-02-20T10:54:00.000-08:00

watching William Gibson guesting on TechTV's ScreenSavers, i am considering a comment that Colin made in my Prehystories of New Media course on the first day. i was discussing McLuhan in the context of the development of New Media as a field of art theorypraxis, technosocial developments + countercultural struggles. i suggested that McLuhan's celebrity status originating from his academic work was in the 1960's unlike any one's currently. in describing McLuhan's self-reflexive + critical appearances on television talk shows + popular mass mediated forms, i mentioned that no one was currently in a similar position of being in + of the technosocial moment. Colin suggested that Gibson was in a similar position of being in + of while reflecting on new media. Colin gave me the ScreenSavers episode that features Gibson as [guest/interviewee].

Gibson, in this interview @ least, speaks from the position of [writer/author] not so much as a cultural critic. although his works, esp Pattern Recognition, which he is selling on this episode, often operate as [creative/analytical] new media works they are not explicitly theoretical or academic works as were McLuhan's. i still need to watch No Maps for These Territories, which Colin also gave me to watch in order to explore this McLuhan ++ Gibson connectivity more...

2005-02-19T12:02:00.000-08:00

i just recv'd the following msg from sim winter:

"Hi I will close the list now.

I don´t know if www.soy.de will stay online in the next months.
But i would be happy to meet you again someday somewhere.

cu.

sim"

which provoked me to rtn to www.soy.de + catch glimpses of it before it may fade into 404...

while @ www.soy.de i read the following post On Board:

"You know the man
who fights his way through the jungle
hacking a trial with his knife
while behind him the green
is closing tight with every step he makes.
The path has to be used to stay open!"

which combined in my mind w/the CrimethInc. Special Report: Working "Within the System" that i was reading just before recv'ing the msg from sim winter about the uncertain future of www.soy.de. these txts intertangle w/the ongoing conversation on -empyre- this month about netArt, webArt, newMedia, artware, etc in rltn to archiving.

i wonder what is bringing sim winter to the end of hacking open the path ahead of + in soy.de systems + what will become of the archiv directory that is positioned as the src of www.soy.de + all other directories of www.soy.de if or when the site goess offLine in next months few months...(?)

extracting + downloading data from sites in order to create personally maintained mirrors or decentralized backups could be positioned as a community based response to the instability of networked [projects/processes]. www.soy.de is a wonderfully participatory if not (A)narchistic [distribution.system/discourseEngine] that enables those activated by the sys to engage in the ongoing creation + modification of the sys. www.soy.de is also a project of sim winter + as such is a netArt [project/process] in + of itself.

"Remember, every day we spend "using the system" is another day longer we'll have to wait until new networks and better ways of life replace the old ones."

data.src:

title: CrimethInc. Special Report: Working "Within the System"
dvr: CrimethInc
format: txt
uri: http://www.crimethinc.com/library/english/system.html

the above CrimethInc quote fails to account for granularity of systems that are {brambley|vasty} tingleTangles + attempts to simplify nonreductive situations into easily radicalized options. the networks we operate in now are deeply embedded in 01 another + recursive. sim winter frames www.soy.de's functionality as "...bridging the gap between 0 and 1". we can map rltns + define positions but binaries such as mainstream + underground are untenable solutions for the paths we are {on|off} as artists in these networks.

2005-02-11T22:08:00.000-08:00

in Cory Doctorow's 2005.01.11 boingboing post Who did MPAA rip off "You can click but you can't hide" from? Doctorow traces a remixological hystory that speculatively leads from Joe Louis to The Road Warrior to John Perry Barlow to the Grateful Dead + then to the MPAA. as Doctrow writes "they appropriated it, reversed the meaning it had been imbued with by its copyfighting popularizer, and put it out there, not even bothering to credit Lewis or Barlow."

netzwissenschaft.de...

2005-02-07T23:00:00.000-08:00

David Crawford just pointed me towards netzwissenschaft.de.

this beginning:

"netzwissenschaft.de is mapping the emerging infrastructures of all (inter)net research endeavours."

is amazingly utopian in the sense of being "characterized by or aspiring to impracticable perfection".

:)

this is great as a linkpool, but when i read "netzwissenschaft.de -- as a comprehensive internet and network research page -- existed from october 2, 2000 to november 13, 2003." i am totally confused by the heady mix of illusions of grandeur @ being a comprehensive regarding internet + network research combined w/the dating of the project between 2000.10.02 to 2003.11.13.

how can an all encompassing index have an end date? such horizonless (+ perhaps neoVictorian) projects must be foreverLong + foreverLengthening...

reminds me of the very different approach of The University of Openess that Saul Albert pointed me towards over the summer.

1997 video output <-> input digital 2005

2005-02-07T05:44:00.000-08:00

//in 1997 i ran analog video out while navigating web-based works + digital projects
//i had created in order to archive them, verify their material existence + enable
//myself to use then in noncomputation environments. these documents are fascinating
//to look .bak @ b/c you see details you missed before in terms of the responsiveness
//of the systems, the quirks of the OS, the hesitation present in the hand of the
//person navigating the screens, etc...
//
//perhaps i should log + capture these, recompress them + make these videos of
//web-based works available online as the only interfaces to those previous works +
//projects. that would be an appropriately convoluted process. :)
//
//below is an -empyre- post addressing these kinds of processes...

From: joncates AT criticalartware.net
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] archiving
Date: February 7, 2005 12:22:15 AM CST
To: empyre AT lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Reply-To: empyre AT lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au

On Feb 6, 2005, at 10:03 PM, Paul Koerbin wrote:
>Your suggestion about recording audio-visual content from the screen I
>don't think is daft. I seem to recall we contemplated this at one stage,
>some years ago, with Real Media files but did not get very far with it.

it is amazing to imagine this scenario of archiving new media onto older + older forms to reach .bak into the past in order to grasp greater + greater degrees of material stability for immaterial digital [works/projects/processes]. i love how this possibility complicates technopositivist conceptions of unlimited [progress/upward spirals] toward utopic states.

// jonCates
edu: http://www.artic.edu/~jcates
collab: http://www.criticalartware.net
projs: http://www.systemsapproach.net/

_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre AT lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre

PAD ++ PAD/D

2005-02-07T05:40:00.000-08:00

//another post to -emypre- follows below.
//i'm not sure if i will [port/pipe] all of my -empyre- posts to this blog
//or not...
//perhaps only when i have further thoughts on the posts...

From: joncates AT criticalartware.net
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Current preservation discussions and resources.
Date: February 7, 2005 12:01:02 AM CST
To: empyre AT lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Reply-To: empyre AT lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au

On Feb 3, 2005, at 8:42 PM, noah wardrip-fruin wrote:
>It's probably also worth mentioning the Electronic Literature Organization's project in "Preservation,
>Archiving, and Dissemination" (PAD):
>http://www.eliterature.org/pad/

crossing paths w/various projects, here is sum nfo on another PAD that became PAD/D:

"What started as a straightforward call to establish an archive of politically committed art wound up instigating an ambitious new artist's collective. A decade before the emergence of the world wide web and prior to the introduction of the personal computer, one organization of artists and activists sought to produce a networked, parallel arena in which to nurture, theorize, display and distribute creative practices opposed to, or simply desperate to be something other than, capitalist culture. [the degradations of capitalism]. It began with a meeting called together February 24th, 1980 by the art critic Lucy R. Lippard. The call itself had been printed on the flip side of an invitation for an exhibition she organized at Artists Space featuring the "many good, socially active artists no one heard of." By using the mailed invite as an organizing tool, Lippard had also transgressed her own, presumed curatorial disengagement, a point I return to below. Nevertheless, on this winter's evening, a group of fifty or so artists, writers and veteran political activists eagerly answered her call. Lippard's planned agenda was to explore ways of archiving her swelling collection of documents about art with political intent. The meeting took place at Printed Matter Book Store that was then located on Lispenard Street in Downtown Manhattan. Lippard's plea to not found another organization was quickly disregarded and the rest of the story forms a chapter [is part of] in the unknown history of collective, activist art gradually being excavated by a new generation of historians."

<---CUT-PASTE--->

Within a year of its founding PAD/D was [indeed] making art as well as archiving. It was also programming public events, networking with other organizations, and publishing its own newsletter named simply 1st Issue. (And soon renamed Upfront after it became apparent that a many issues of 1st Issue would be extremely confounding.) Along with Upfront, the group also published a one-page calendar of progressive, cultural events in the NYC area called Red Letter Days. In sum, it would not be unfair to describe the driving force behind this frenetic, multileveled activity as a desire to unilaterally reconstruct the entire, corrupted world of bourgeois art from the bottom up. As the group stated in its first newsletter:

"PAD [/D] can not serve as a means of advancement within the art world structure of museums and galleries. Rather, we have to develop new forms of distribution economy as well as art... "
(Ibid.)

To achieve this objective, the group began developing plans for an organization of even larger size and complexity: a national or perhaps even international network of like-minded activist artists working in consort with non-art, progressive activists. If PAD/D's immediate goal was to organize a highly fractured, post-68 counter-culture, the group's larger vision sought to bring into being a bona-fide counter-hegemonic or oppositional public sphere. Woven from equal parts recovered genealogies (from the PAD/D archival materials) and politically sympathetic exhibition outlets (university galleries, labor unions, community centers, even church halls), this [hoped] longed-for, counter-hegemony was, more than anything else, the feature that set PAD/D apart from other, self-organized, art collectives then or since."

<---CUT-N-PASTE--->

"All this time however, the PAD/D Archive Committee intrepidly continued working on the extensive repository of political art. Consisting primarily of Barbara Moore and Mimi Smith, they catalogued and cross-referenced hundreds of entries by hand on standard index cards. In 1989, The PAD/D Archive originally conceived as a form of counter-cultural activism in which models of politically engaged art -making would be circulated like a tactical toolbox finally found its lasting institutional home in the Museum of Modern Art Library. One of Clive Philpot's last acts before resigning from MoMA, the irony was not lost on former PAD/D members. In 1988 Deborah Wye, the Museum's Curator of Prints, organized an impressive survey of "political art" entitled Committed To Print in which the PAD/D Archives played a key research role. Nevertheless, the vast majority of work documented in the PAD/D Archives remains invisible today and forms the cultural equivalent of cosmic Dark Matter: that unknown, unseen material that constitutes the majority of actual universe. And this obscurity remains so, despite the contemporary art world's paying of lip service to "political correctness." With almost two thousand entries spanning the years 1979 to 1988 and including performance art, guerrilla actions, street posters, gallery based political art, as well as plans for an international art strike in 1969, the PAD/D Archive is a significant resource for a new generation currently rediscovering artistic collectivism. And if PAD/D was the focal point of the 1980's New York activist art scene that included such organizations as Group Material, Artists for Nuclear Disarmament, Art Against Apartheid, Carnival Knowledge and Artists Call Against US Intervention in Central America, it also led to the formation of REPOhistory. In fact, not only was REPOhistory co-founded by several former PAD/D members, including Janet Koenig, the late Ed Eisenberg, Lucy R. Lippard, and myself, and thus benefited from PAD/D's organizational and networking know-how, but REPOhistory also inherited PAD/D’s Lafayette Street office space.

But as an activist organization can we say that PAD/D was a failure? Certainly as a means of repelling gentrification or of establishing an alternative realm of artistic practice it did not succeed. Yet the emergence of tactical media and new forms of collectivism over the past ten years suggest the possibility of establishing a counter-hegemonic, cultural sphere is not a linear process, just as the historical re-construction of groups such as PAD/D is part of a re-mapping that ultimately leads to questions about the nature of creative, political resistance itself.

Meanwhile, aspects of the political imagination of PAD/D remains visible today in such projects as Groups and Spaces and Nettime, as well as similar on and off-line networks dedicated to linking disassociated pockets of creative experimentation and resistance. As cultural producers are increasingly forced to choose between affirming the power of global capitalism or exploring new as well as old alternatives to it, PAD/D's legacy may become one history lesson necessary for survival."

data.src:

title: A Collectography of PAD/D, Political Art Documentation and Distribution: a 1980's Activist Art and Networking Collective
dvr: Gregory G. Sholette

as published in:

title: GROUPS and SPACES E-ZINE
edition: #0004 (Networking Part 2)
dvr: Brett Bloom
date: 2003
format: txt
uri: http://slash.interactivist.net/analysis/03/04/01/1532234.shtml

i thought -empyre- might be interested in this interconnection in relation to naming, archiving, organizational models, hystories, etc...

the full txt by Greg Sholette provides much more detail on the formation, organization + activities of PAD/D as well as providing links such as:

http://www.moma.org/research/library/library_faq.html#padd

to nfo about the PAD/D archive as hosted by the Museum Library @ the The Museum of Modern Art in NYC NY .US. this [connection/overlap] also raises interesting + suggestive ideas about operations between institutional agencies + [organizations/projects] that function as oppositional, hystorical reconstructions, self-organization + documentation...

// jonCates
edu: http://www.artic.edu/~jcates
collab: http://www.criticalartware.net
projs: http://www.systemsapproach.net/
new: http://netbehaviouralist.blogspot.com/
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre AT lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre

E.T. ++ C-1 -= artware.rom ++ artworld.emu

2005-02-06T01:36:00.000-08:00

//i sent the follwinig post thru to -empyre-
//the archiving month is off to a great start
//++ the discussions are flowing + inspiring.

From: joncates@criticalartware.net
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] emulation and multiple nodes as archive method
Date: February 6, 2005 12:06:33 AM CST
To: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Reply-To: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au

On Feb 4, 2005, at 6:08 AM, Jason Nelson wrote:
>To begin: a brief antidote: Those children of the
>eighties, who so loved cartridge Atari and the first
>Nintendo and couldn't find reliable old machines,
>programmed emulators to play them and now these games
>live on and continue expanding their cultural imprint.

another notable approach is hardware specific, such as the [current/commercial] Atari® Flashback™ Classic Game Console that combines games from the Atari 2600™ + Atari 7800™ platforms as well as a previously [unreleased/unearthed] “classic” (postmodern quotes provided by Atari copy writers) game called Saboteur™.

which reminds me of the time criticalartware core.dvrs met @ the home of jon.satrom before launching the beta version the criticalartware applat in 2003 + played E.T. on the Atari 2600, discussing archiving, logging + capturing, collecting + preserving artware, video + new media. we played E.T. (which jon.satrom is very good @ btw) + discussed how the game is [blamed/faulted] for ruining the Atari b/c of it's economic failure. gameplay in E.T. involves reconstructing the E.T. Phone by searching for + finding [pieces/components] of the device while navigating pits that E.T. falls into. this gameplay is especially relevant b/c millions of copies of the E.T. game cartridges were buried in a giant cement covered pit in Alamogordo, NM .US. the cartridges were buried towards the end of September 1983 when the E.T. game failed to sell as well as expected + Atari itself was failing economically. we discussed this broken (cartridges were crushed before the cement was laid) + buried archive as a kind of model failure + romantic fantasy for us as "children of the eighties".

E.T.'s "Phone Home!" mantra of nostalgic yearning for {return|reunion} interbreed w/conspiratorialHystories, early July 1947, Roswell NM .US, UFOs + extraterrestrials creating the possibility of an alien discovery of the Atari E.T. archive. if this discovery were to occur after the end of human life on earth, reconstructions of the game could provide a unintended [recording/messaging] system of human hystories. or @ least these were among our playful speculations + became a part of our decision to focus on creating discursive [spaces/possibilities] w/in criticalartware via Liken + only archive directly in relation to those discursive [functions/features].

this also reminds me of a recent conversation the criticalartware core.dvrs had wherein we were talking about the all-in-one joystick-based systems that are available now + BenSyverson noted the activity surrounding the work of Jeri Ellsworth. Jeri Ellsworth (also a "child of the eighties") has recreated the entire Commodore 64 on a chip encased in a joystick w/the standard all-in-one approach of audio-video outputs but also allowing for keyboard, disk drive + monitor to be attached in order to encourage development on this compacted version of the C-64 platform. her approach enables new generations to begin to {play|program} w/the C-64 + opens the system to wider uses + more [flexible/portable] applications.

>It seems the most powerful archiving tool is people
>loving and owning whatever work it is you want saved.

abs == yes.

>If there are fifty thousand copies of something
>floating around and the devices used to view/play it
>are obsolete, then at least a few of those people will
>create an emulator. Then that emulator and the work it
>plays will be passed around again.

very true.

this also raises the issue of the legality of emulation, specifically in regards to ROMs, backups as archives, licensing vs. ownership, reverse engineering, etc... often these lovingly made + shared emulators + ROMs involve vaguely if not directly extralegal activity. this is (of course) 01 of the reasons companies such as Atari are offering commercial products of classic bygone platforms. the corporations have realized that a market has been created by the aging generations of gamers + younger gamers who run emulators. Nintendo has been particularly aggressive in stopping the development + distribution of emulators for obsoleted games + platforms as well as the sale of materials that can be used for development on those platforms. aggressive + heavy handed corporate [strategies/policies] limit the ability of [artists/developers] in the home-brew or hobbyist communities to easily access the [technologies/systems] needed to develop [uses/applications] of these commercially obsoleted {hard|soft}wares. confronting a paradigm of control such as this can put [artists/developers] in hazily defined or clearly extralegal situations, however, this activity is required if 01 is to confront planned obsolescence + to {creatively misuse|hack} devices + applications that are in our shared cultural experience.

>So perhaps what should be done, at least in the case
>of areas such as digital music, net art, software art,
>web page archiving is that we should offer the work
>for free. Give people the chance to download work,
>make it their own. Also provide people with space to
>set up their own archives of work, or support those
>digital communities which would create emulators. A
>multi-nodal archive would be much healthier and
>dynamic.

abs == yes!

offering the work for free or under various open licensing schemes (such as Creative Commons) [artists/developers] can encourage experimentation, assist archival projects, avoid the limitations + economics created by corporate models of ownership + address consumption, capitalism + control structures that operate governmentally (i.e. the DMCA in the .US) + socially (i.e. the artworld [models/economics] of artificial scarcity + perceived value]).

it seems to me that decentralized multi-nodal vasty tingleTangles could create self-supporting safety.nets that would also connect w/institutional projects + endeavors functioning as nodes + allowing for varied approaches to sustain each other.

as the discussion has already clarified in the last few days, archival approaches to the same digital worlds create very different world views, as is to be expected. the coexistence of these worlds as construct parallel hystories that can healthily [complicate/problematize] illusions of totality, objectivity or absolute validity in hystorical projects such as [these/ours].

[talk/type] soon...

// jonCates
edu: http://www.artic.edu/~jcates
collab: http://www.criticalartware.net
projs: http://www.systemsapproach.net
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre

2005-02-02T22:32:00.000-08:00

this evnt looks great, i wish i could goto LND .UK then 2 attend...
hopefully they will post documentation afterwards...

//begin FWD ANN
Begin forwarded message:
From: m AT 1010.co.uk
Date: February 1, 2005 9:16:30 AM CST
To: crashingp AT 1010.co.uk
Subject: crash symposium/sound event london feb 11 2005

crash feb 11th 2005 london uk
crash revelations for holographic binding OS
crash forced expanded opening for new post-software-art
crash melancholia and fascism
crash post humanist ontology
crash abstraction + machinic representation
crash auto-destructive art relation to the computational
crash self-coded post-algorithmic constructivist noise performance

crash florian cramer, stewart home, otto e roessler, anthony moore, sunny bains, dick j bierman, lisa jevbratt, martin howse, jonathan kemp

crash andy bolus, russell haswell, yves degoyon, erich berger, ap, stillupsteypa, farmers manual, kaffe matthews, pita

crash shoreditch town hall london ec1 [on door £3 / online £3,33] 10 am
crash ica london sw1 [tickets through ica 02079303647] 8.30 pm
crash crashing AT 1010.co.uk crash.1010.co.uk
crash ap project supported by arts council england, smal + mute

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crash is a unique event exposing a radical new space for post-software art and examining links to theories of endodata, holographic programming and auto-destructive art.

crash builds from two components, a one day symposium at shoreditch town hall with speakers including florian cramer, stewart home, dick j bierman, lisa jevbratt and otto roessler. the evening component at the ica collides theory with practice, combining constructivist noise, self-coded applications and self-constructed hardware. participating international artists include pita, farmers manual, yves degoyon, andy bolus, ap, erich berger, stillupsteypa, kaffe matthews and russell haswell.

crash necessary apologies for cross-posting / crash please disseminate further

//end FWD ANN

newMedia.bak for FEB 2005

2005-02-01T17:25:00.000-08:00

this month both the empyre + CRUMB listservs are hosting [conversations on/discussions of] [new media/digital] arts in relation to preserving, archiving, databasing, curating, collecting, disseminating, etc...

here are the links:

//CRUMB uri

CRUMB web resource for new media art curators
http://www.crumbweb.org

//empyre uri

empyre forum
empyre AT lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre

++ the nfo on both lists FEB 2005 topics:

//CRUMB nfo

February Theme of the Month: Conserving New Media Art

The issues for conserving new media art have begun to be thoroughly address by projects and publications* including the Variable Media Project, and V2's Capturing Unstable Media. What is the current state of the art of conserving new media, and how is it dealing with newer
technologies such as mobile or locative media?

* Depocas, Alain, and Jon Ippolito, Caitlin Jones (eds.) (2003) Permanence Through Change: The Variable Media Approach. New York: Guggenheim Museum. Also available from URL:
http://www.variablemedia.net/e/preserving/html/var_pub_index.html

Invited Respondents:

Alain Depocas is Director of the Centre for Research and Documentation (CR+D) of The Daniel Langlois Foundation. In this capacity, he is in charge of a documentary collection covering the history, works and practices associated with the media, electronic and digital arts.
http://www.fondation-langlois.org
http://www.horizonzero.ca/textsite/ghost.php?tlang=0&is=18&file=7

Sandra Fauconnier works as a media archivist for V2_ in Rotterdam (NL). Her research interests include metadata and ontologies for media art, copyright, social software, and capturing and preserving electronic art.
http://archive.v2.nl/
http://www.v2.nl/Projects/capturing/

Tina Fiske, History of Art Department, University of Glasgow.

Oliver Grau, Database of Virtual Art, Humboldt University, Berlin.

Francis Hwang is a writer, artist, and software engineer. Since 2002, he has been Director of Technology at Rhizome.org.

Caitlin Jones holds a combined research position in both the Curatorial and Conservation departments at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. With a background in Art History and Archival Studies she originally worked in conjunction with the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology as the Langlois Fellow for Variable Media Preservation.

Pip Laurenson, researcher.

Kevin McGarry is Content Coordinator of Rhizome.org, a writer and artist living in New York.

Peter Ride, CARTE Centre for Arts Research Technology and Education, University of Westminster.

Richard Rinehart is an artist, Director of Digital Media at the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, and coordinates the NEA-funded "Archiving the Avant-Garde: Preserving Digital / Media Art"
http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/ciao/avant_garde.html

Jill Sterrett, Director of Collections and Conservation, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Collaborated recently with Tate, MoMA, and the New Art Trust to create a preservation tool for the care of time-based media
http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/majorprojects/mediamatters

Keith Whittle is Online Projects/Media Co-ordinator at Film and Video Umbrella, a leading agency for the commissioning and production of artists' film and video and new media work. In April 2005 he will take up a Research Fellowship post at the University of Sunderland.

Alena Williams is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University. From 2001-2003, she was the ArtBase Coordinator at Rhizome.org.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Beryl Graham, Senior Research Fellow, New Media Art
School of Arts, Design, Media and Culture, University of Sunderland
Tel: +44 191 515 2896 beryl.graham AT sunderland.ac.uk

CRUMB web resource for new media art curators
http://www.crumbweb.org

//empyre nfo:

To save or not to save?

This is a perennial question when faced with a massive expanse of online data and limited resources with which to do it. The preservation of contemporary media art works presents an enormous challenge to collectors and museums, most of whom are still attempting to fit these diverse practices into their rationales and exhibition strategies. Unfortunately in the art world acquisition and conservation measures are only happening in small pockets, despite the plethora of entertaining, challenging and innovative online works produced over the past decade.

However there is hope. Some of the leaders in preservation of internet art are not in fact art institutions, but libraries and internet archival projects, for whom collection, archiving and preservation is a routine matter. As more of their collections become digital, they have been actively addressing issues like storage, migration and emulation.

This month we welcome our panel of International experts from the archival field:

---> Margaret Phillips, Paul Koerbin and Gerard Clifton from the PANDORA internet archive and PADI gateway at the National Library of Australia;
---> Nancy McGovern, Digital Preservation Officer at Cornell University Library;
---> Michele Kimpton of the Internet Archive with its consultant sage the WayBack Machine;
---> Sharmin (Tinni) Choudhury, the software engineer for PANIC digital preservation project;
---> Meta data standards expert Dr Simon Pockley from Flight of Ducks and Deakin University; and
---> Luciana Duranti (UBC), Yvette Hackett and Jim Suderman from InterPARES
2, Canada.

We will also be joined by those concerned specifically with net art:
---> New York-based artist and writer Kevin McGarry who manages Rhizome Artbase - the worlds largest collection of networked media containing over 1400 net.art works;
---> and artist Graham Crawford, who curated two of Australia's earliest net art shows, Tool1 and Tool 2.0b in 1995 and 1996, which are no longer online.

Please enjoy and feel free to jump into this discussion on the tenuousness and a tenacity of networked histories and records, the critical distinction between object and events based archiving and what happens to an archive when funding disappears?

___________archival project urls:

Internet Archive and WayBack Machine: http://www.archive.org/

InterPARES 2 (IP2)- International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems: http://www.interpares.org/welcome.cfm

Preserving Access to Digital Information (PADI): http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/

PANDORA Australia's Web Archive: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/.

PANIC - Preservation webservices Architecture for Newmedia and Interactive Collections: http://www.metadata.net/panic/

Virtual Remote Control (VRC) at Cornell University:
http://irisresearch.library.cornell.edu/VRC/index.html

________ online art urls:

Flight of Ducks - a personal preservation project
http://www.duckdigital.net/FOD/FOD0292.html

Rhizome ArtBase: http://rhizome.org/art

Tool1 and Tool 2.0b are no longer online, however we are attempting to reconstruct them before the end of the month.

Dr Melinda Rackham
artist | curator | producer
www.subtle.net/empyre
-empyre- media forum

_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre AT lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre

Sky Captain as McLuhanesque futurism

2005-02-01T07:10:00.000-08:00

after class lisa + i watched Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow which is very McLuhanesque in the future seen thru the rearviewmirror sense. i was deeply reminded of the radio plays i listened to as a kid, spinning those already dusty vinyls reissues of The Shadow, Captain Midnight + others. recorded radio transmissions of the 1930's played back on my dad's turntable in the 1970's giving me artificial memories + making me repeat "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow Knows!" ++ "Captain Midnight drinks Ovaltine" while imagining decoder rings + secret messages passed thru these hystories. mom used to lovingly say i was a dinosaur back then when i [repeated/revisited] those [radio plays/narratives] from her childhood.

The Medium is the Massage vs. Journey to the Center of Time

2005-01-31T19:48:00.000-08:00

today in the first day of my new Art History Theory & Criticism course: Prehystories of New Media: 1965 - present @ The School of the Art Institute, i played the audio from:

title: The Medium is the Massage
dvr: Marshall McLuhan, Quentin Fiore + Jerome Agel
date: 1967
publisher: Columbia Records
format: [book/vinyl LP audio recording]

++ the video from:

title: Journey to the Center of Time
dvrs: David L. Hewitt ([writer/director]) + various
date: 1967
runtime: 01:12:00;00
format: film

in a sort versus mode that positioned these two disperate works from 1967 in [audio/visual] proximity.