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Nov 17, 2011
Use Node.js with BBEdit text filters feature
posted at 05:12 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
I was poking around the jQuery git repo the other day and noticed that they’ve started using Node for all their build scripts (I’m assuming, or maybe remembering faultily, that they were using Ant or Ruby for the build stuff previously). Makes sense: jQuery — make it 100% JavaScript, even down to the build scripts.
Then a little bulb went off in my head. “Oh yeah,” I thought to myself, “with Node one can now use JavaScript to write shell scripts.” (Duh!? I know.)
Later that day I found myself needing to de/unencode URIs to be used as URI components. “Simple,” I thought, “I’ll just use JavaScript’s decodeURIComponent and encodeURIComponent methods via Node and a BBEdit text filter.” But. Um. Turned out it wasn’t that simple (or maybe I’m just dumb).
Anyway, after a bit of head-scratching and digging around Node’s and BBEdit’s documentation, I got it working. The two scripts linked below are very simple, single-serving tools. You can run JavaScript’s encodeURIComponent with one and decodeURIComponent with the other. That’s it. One can imagine that it will now be very easy to port many useful JavaScript programs to be used as BBEdit text filters. JSLint or JSONLint come to mind.
To use the scripts you need to:
http://mteww.com/misc/en-decodeURIComponent.zip permanent link to this post
Then a little bulb went off in my head. “Oh yeah,” I thought to myself, “with Node one can now use JavaScript to write shell scripts.” (Duh!? I know.)
Later that day I found myself needing to de/unencode URIs to be used as URI components. “Simple,” I thought, “I’ll just use JavaScript’s decodeURIComponent and encodeURIComponent methods via Node and a BBEdit text filter.” But. Um. Turned out it wasn’t that simple (or maybe I’m just dumb).
Anyway, after a bit of head-scratching and digging around Node’s and BBEdit’s documentation, I got it working. The two scripts linked below are very simple, single-serving tools. You can run JavaScript’s encodeURIComponent with one and decodeURIComponent with the other. That’s it. One can imagine that it will now be very easy to port many useful JavaScript programs to be used as BBEdit text filters. JSLint or JSONLint come to mind.
To use the scripts you need to:
- have Node installed (there are instructions here (scroll down for OS X)),
- update the shebang line at the top of the script to point to your Node installation (if you’re not sure, type ‘which node’ at the command prompt in OS X’s terminal application),
- put the files in BBEdit’s text filters folder (prior to BBEdit 10 ‘text filters’ were called ‘unix filters’)
http://mteww.com/misc/en-decodeURIComponent.zip permanent link to this post
Oct 06, 2011
RIP Steve Jobs 1955- 2011
posted at 11:20 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Sep 18, 2011
links for 2011-09-18
posted at 17:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Sep 11, 2011
links for 2011-09-11
posted at 18:56 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Sep 09, 2011
links for 2011-09-09
posted at 08:05 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Sep 06, 2011
links for 2011-09-06
posted at 07:33 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Sep 05, 2011
links for 2011-09-05
posted at 09:26 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
links for 2011-09-04
posted at 00:20 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Aug 22, 2011
links for 2011-08-21
posted at 02:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Aug 13, 2011
links for 2011-08-12
posted at 02:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Aug 05, 2011
links for 2011-08-04
posted at 02:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jul 28, 2011
links for 2011-07-28
posted at 07:06 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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Nice 'select' enhancement.
Jul 24, 2011
links for 2011-07-23
posted at 02:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jul 22, 2011
links for 2011-07-21
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jul 19, 2011
links for 2011-07-18
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jul 17, 2011
links for 2011-07-16
posted at 02:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jul 02, 2011
links for 2011-07-01
posted at 02:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jun 18, 2011
links for 2011-06-17
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jun 14, 2011
links for 2011-06-13
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jun 02, 2011
links for 2011-06-01
posted at 02:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jun 01, 2011
links for 2011-05-31
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
May 18, 2011
links for 2011-05-17
posted at 02:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
May 14, 2011
Manual Zoom Mirage
posted at 13:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA will be web residents on Lee Walton’s blog this month (or week or something). I have no idea what M.River plans to do but I’m thinking I might revisit some of our (what I consider) under-appreciated past work.
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The first piece in this little nostalgia trip is 2003’s IN PREPARATION FOR THE SUMMER AIR IN BROOKLYN TO RISE FROM THE CONCRETE IN A MANNER WHICH DISTORTS ONE’S ABILITY TO JUDGE DISTANCE AND MEANING (AKA MANUAL ZOOM MIRAGE).
We did this in the early summer of ‘03 for our friend Dan’s gallery, Rome Arts. The gallery was in a storefront on Havermeyer St. in Brooklyn.
It was a solo show! The catch? The gallery couldn’t really be open all summer so the show had to be viewable from the sidewalk. You’re thinking and we said at the time, “you must be joking.”
Yeah, anyway.
We decided the show would consist of 1 image. The image would be printed on a postcard announcing the show. The postcard WAS the show.
The piece was very formal in a way. It was very interested in where the digital image lies, where does it exist? We put a big print of the image in the gallery, yet everyone had the *exact* same thing on the postcards they received. In the gallery it was just printed bigger. It was also on the web, freely-licensed (Creative Commons licensing was very new at the time).
It’s purpose was to try to get the viewer to question their relationship to a digital, infinitely-reproducible image. To try to get them to notice that that the image exists in a sort of invisible blur across time and space. Except, it doesn’t. You and it are here and now. So in point 8 in the text in the image:
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Once I started thinking about doing this post I decided I’d like to release something new to go along with it. To that end, I’ve created a new black and white SVG version of the ‘hot head’ illustration in Manual Zoom Mirage. Click on the GIF preview below to download the SVG version.
(SVG; 49KB) permanent link to this post
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The first piece in this little nostalgia trip is 2003’s IN PREPARATION FOR THE SUMMER AIR IN BROOKLYN TO RISE FROM THE CONCRETE IN A MANNER WHICH DISTORTS ONE’S ABILITY TO JUDGE DISTANCE AND MEANING (AKA MANUAL ZOOM MIRAGE).
We did this in the early summer of ‘03 for our friend Dan’s gallery, Rome Arts. The gallery was in a storefront on Havermeyer St. in Brooklyn.
It was a solo show! The catch? The gallery couldn’t really be open all summer so the show had to be viewable from the sidewalk. You’re thinking and we said at the time, “you must be joking.”
Yeah, anyway.
We decided the show would consist of 1 image. The image would be printed on a postcard announcing the show. The postcard WAS the show.
The piece was very formal in a way. It was very interested in where the digital image lies, where does it exist? We put a big print of the image in the gallery, yet everyone had the *exact* same thing on the postcards they received. In the gallery it was just printed bigger. It was also on the web, freely-licensed (Creative Commons licensing was very new at the time).
It’s purpose was to try to get the viewer to question their relationship to a digital, infinitely-reproducible image. To try to get them to notice that that the image exists in a sort of invisible blur across time and space. Except, it doesn’t. You and it are here and now. So in point 8 in the text in the image:
Due to the fact this artwork contains a 1:8 scale model card, the “actual artwork,” the prediction of the hottest temperature ever, and an act of looking through the window into Rome Arts, we need to note that the “really, really actual artwork” is the accumulation of all these objects and moments.
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Once I started thinking about doing this post I decided I’d like to release something new to go along with it. To that end, I’ve created a new black and white SVG version of the ‘hot head’ illustration in Manual Zoom Mirage. Click on the GIF preview below to download the SVG version.
(SVG; 49KB) permanent link to this post
May 05, 2011
Super nice Beuys gif
posted at 01:54 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Apr 30, 2011
links for 2011-04-29
posted at 02:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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Sounds tasty. Sparkling white replaces the gin
Apr 23, 2011
MTAA claimin’
posted at 20:25 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Apr 19, 2011
links for 2011-04-18
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Apr 15, 2011
links for 2011-04-14
posted at 02:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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headache relief for programmers :: regular expression generator. NICE.
Apr 03, 2011
more SNAD history…
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Don’t forget this one!
http://544x378.free.fr/(WebTV)/simpleNETARTdiagram.html permanent link to this post
http://544x378.free.fr/(WebTV)/simpleNETARTdiagram.html permanent link to this post
Apr 01, 2011
M.River gave me a troll for my birthday
posted at 02:33 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Got this email from M.River:
LOL permanent link to this post
Hey Tim
I know you’ve been wanting one, so I went all out and got you one of those ‘Old School’ or you might even say ‘Retro’ Trolls for you b-day. It’s in the comments section of this AFC post. Happy Birthday.
http://www.artfagcity.com/2011/03/25/introducing-the-graphics-interchange-format-exhibition-website/
Oh, and along with the Retro-Troll gift, you can scroll down and hit ‘Like’ on my M.River comment over and over… then watch your Troll go bananas.
Enjoy.
LOL permanent link to this post
Mar 30, 2011
links for 2011-03-29
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mar 26, 2011
Speaking of SNAD remixes…
posted at 20:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mar 20, 2011
links for 2011-03-19
posted at 02:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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Still not sure what to do with node.js. But damn, there must be somthing…
Mar 18, 2011
links for 2011-03-17
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mar 15, 2011
links for 2011-03-14
posted at 02:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mar 08, 2011
Weird mix run
posted at 13:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The app controlling the playlist on my iPhone died today while I was on my morning run. The iPod app took over and started playing from the last song, not from my running playlist, but from the entire library. The result was the strange playlist below.
Starting with Angel of Death, where the app died, here’s the list:
Angel of Death - Slayer (one of the best rock songs ever recorded)
(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes - Elvis Costello
Angie - The Rolling Stones
Annointing of Seer - High On Fire
Another Love Song - Queens Of The Stone Age
Any Day Now What the World Needs Now - Burt Bacharach
Apache - Sugarhill Gang
Apple Blossom - The White Stripes
Aquarian - Sleep
Are You Experienced? - Jimi Hendrix Experience (one of the best rock songs ever recorded) permanent link to this post
Starting with Angel of Death, where the app died, here’s the list:
Angel of Death - Slayer (one of the best rock songs ever recorded)
(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes - Elvis Costello
Angie - The Rolling Stones
Annointing of Seer - High On Fire
Another Love Song - Queens Of The Stone Age
Any Day Now What the World Needs Now - Burt Bacharach
Apache - Sugarhill Gang
Apple Blossom - The White Stripes
Aquarian - Sleep
Are You Experienced? - Jimi Hendrix Experience (one of the best rock songs ever recorded) permanent link to this post
Mar 04, 2011
links for 2011-03-03
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Feb 26, 2011
links for 2011-02-25
posted at 02:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Feb 24, 2011
links for 2011-02-23
posted at 02:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Feb 22, 2011
links for 2011-02-21
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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may as well go to the source…
Feb 08, 2011
links for 2011-02-07
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Feb 02, 2011
links for 2011-02-01
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jan 22, 2011
links for 2011-01-21
posted at 02:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jan 19, 2011
links for 2011-01-18
posted at 02:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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First read about 'currying' in Crockford's 'good parts' — this is a good explanation as well.
Jan 12, 2011
links for 2011-01-11
posted at 02:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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Can't believe I haven't bookmarked this yet…
Jan 04, 2011
links for 2011-01-03
posted at 02:10 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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somewhat incoherent student blog post referencing MTAA's work
Dec 31, 2010
links for 2010-12-30
posted at 02:10 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Dec 30, 2010
links for 2010-12-29
posted at 02:30 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Dec 22, 2010
links for 2010-12-21
posted at 02:10 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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Let's make some ads!
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This guy has the best JS blog out there IMHO.
Dec 19, 2010
links for 2010-12-18
posted at 02:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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A delicious bookmark to my delicious backup…Â
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Kyle Chayka for Hyperallergic picks MTAA's Freeing Lunch as one of the 5 most intriguing projects for Jen Dalton and William Powhida's #rank at SEVEN art fair in Miami Dec, 2010.
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MTAA is mentioned in this wrap-up of Jen Dalton and William Powhida's #Rank at SEVEN art fair, Miami Dec, 2010. Ed Winkleman's favorite performance!
Dec 16, 2010
links for 2010-12-15
posted at 02:10 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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MTAA's new logo! And no. It doesn't remind you of a cock and balls.
Dec 12, 2010
links for 2010-12-11
posted at 02:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Dec 07, 2010
links for 2010-12-06
posted at 02:10 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Dec 06, 2010
links for 2010-12-05
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA in Milwaukee
posted at 00:04 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Like Nathaniel says, we’ll be in Milwaukee this week telling everyone what awesome artists we are. And doing some other stuff too.
Here’s the info:
MTAA: a PowerPoint lecture + some other stuff
Wednesday, 12/08/2010, 7:00pm – 8:00PM
Arts Center Lecture Hall, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Part of the Artists Now! Lecture Series
Free and open to the public
So… if you’re in Milwaukee (and why wouldn’t you be?) stop by! Also, I heard that Chicago is nearby. What better excuse could you ever have for coming to Milwaukee? C’mon by!
pssst. Don’t tell anybody — but we actually did the slideshow in Keynote instead of PowerPoint. permanent link to this post
Nov 30, 2010
links for 2010-11-29
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Nov 26, 2010
links for 2010-11-25
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Nov 20, 2010
links for 2010-11-19
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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Nicely designed 'book' by the Google Chrome team.
Nov 15, 2010
links for 2010-11-14
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Nov 10, 2010
links for 2010-11-09
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Nov 09, 2010
links for 2010-11-08
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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… CoffeeScript just discovered. Unsure why but @gruber says 37 Signals is using it for a new mobile framework.
Nov 08, 2010
links for 2010-11-07
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Nov 04, 2010
links for 2010-11-03
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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MTAA's new logo.
Nov 02, 2010
links for 2010-11-01
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Oct 26, 2010
No Customs
posted at 01:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We’re in a show in Abu Dhabi. It’s in the McCoys’ apartment.
Check it out… from the press release:
Check it out… from the press release:
No Customspermanent link to this post
November 4-27, 2010
opening reception: Thursday Nov 4, 7-9 pm
curated by Jennifer and Kevin McCoy
an exhibition of transmissible ideas with:
Vito Acconci
Jason Robert Bell / Marni Kotak
Torsten Z. Burns
Jennifer Dalton / Susan Hamburger
Anthony Discenza
Melissa Dubbin / Aaron Davidson
Bill Durgin
Tara Fracalossi
David Grubbs
Sara Hubbs
Thomas Lail
Michael Mandiberg
MTAA
Marisa Olson
Jonathan Schipper
Mark Tribe
Karen Yasinsky
A common art-making strategy when one enters into new territory is to listen, to ask, and to wait. As newcomers to Abu Dhabi, we considered this strategy, but then rejected it. Instead of waiting to receive information, we begin our sojourn in the Emirates by making an offer. In curating this show, No Customs, held in our remarkably gallery like living space, we offer the work of artists connected to us from our home community of New York City. When they asked what life is like here, we answered we didn’t yet know. We told them to send what they could send via email, via instructions, via concept. We told them to send it fast. So then, what we have is a show called No Customs. This title is a double entendre. Practically, since no objects have been mailed, we were not slowed by the expense of shipping and the delays of customs. Metaphorically, the show is not about tradition or interpretation, but rather about mapping and transcription. How does form map onto landscape? How does it transform landscape? How do you demarcate space for contemplation, for understanding, for revolution? What happens to the body when its image occupies this demarcated space?
Landscape
First, the approach to a problem. This is what we hear when listening to Vito Acconci’s audio piece, Research Station, Antarctica, For Your Ears Only (2004-2010). How does an artist (here architect) turn a landscape into a series of constraints to be addressed, to create a form? In the photographs of Melissa Dubbin and Aaron Davidson, the long time collaborators use smoke bombs to test the landscape. They create form with weather, wind, light, and clouds. In a site specific project by Thomas Lail, a series of Buckminister Fuller domes are superimposed over the city view of Abu Dhabi, creating another take on the domes of the city and adding to the enormous architectural speculation already here. In another project, a memory sequence of images by Tara Fracalossi offers a counterpoint to the desert with images of most verdant spring and bleakest winter. These images purport to be memory, but their repetition on the wall creates matrices of classifications that map new space. In the end they are more like letters in an alphabet than like stories of particular landscapes.
Demarcated space
In answering a call to show work in Abu Dhabi, many artists considered the question of mapping, both graphically and metaphorically. In the work of Michael Mandiberg, the artist asked us to find an Arabic map of the USA in which we recreate the laser cuttings of print media that he is known for. In this work the message and the map collide. The artist duo MTAA and the sculptor Sara Hubbs sent ideas for works that, though they are generated very differently, come up with surprisingly congruent projects. MTAA asked us to find “the most colorful place†in Abu Dhabi. Then they provided software that translated this image into an abstract digital image (referred to as “the aesthetic objectâ€). We could then display this any way we saw fit. In Sara Hubb’s project, an abstract form also results from a behind the scenes process. She photographed decaying areas of New York City and asked us to reproduce the patterns they create in plaster, building up a surface to form decoration from blight.
The projects of Jonathan Schipper and the collaborative team of Jennifer Dalton and Susan Hamburger ask us the audience to participate in the creation of the artwork by zeroing in on our patterns of behavior. In the ambitious project by Schipper, entitled A Million Dollar Walk, attendees of the opening reception will be given the opportunity to carry a briefcase full of money on a prescribed path through the building. Dalton and Hamburger ask participants questions about their behavior in Abu Dhabi, creating a changing sculptural bar graph that measures their assumptions about life in the capitol against actual practice.
Four artists in the exhibition deal with space by creating voids some for the viewer to inhabit speculatively others by creating spaces for lost objects. In her video mixtape project, Marisa Olson casts herself as an outsourced worker and creates a mash-up of Arab covers of American karaoke classics. The singers of course, are us by implication. In The New Revolution (2010), Mark Tribe creates an installation that invites spectators to consider their own ideas about revolution. David Grubbs, a noted musician, sent us instructions to render a beautiful wall drawing whose omissions create open spaces for meaning to drift. In an animation by Karen Yasinsky, You’d Better Be Careful, omitted objects and spaces set interpretation even farther adrift.
Bodies
Several of the artists in the show responded with work implying performative space. In the video Double Face Fantasy by Jason Robert Bell and Marni Kotak this space is a virtual one in that a portrait transforms through a technical gesture. Anthony Discenza’s video, The Future has Already Been Written creates a tour de force collage of science fiction, and we follow the body of Charlton Heston through alternate visions of the future. In the work of Torsten Burns, Resurrectables (Yellow-Mobilers), the artist asked us to curate a selection of performance stills from a huge array of images of costumes, props, and locations. We selected images of vehicles, conveying transmission, speed, and the framing of the body as it moves through space. Finally, the work of photographer Bill Durgin presents work that brings it all together. The body becomes a landscape of skin, finally an abstracted “aesthetic objectâ€.
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No Customs is located at Sama Tower, Suite 3708, Abu Dhabi. Sama Tower is at the corner of Airport Rd and Electra Rd., near the NMC (New Medical Center). The exhibition will be open Saturdays from 1-5 through Nov. 27 and by appointment. Please contact Jennifer or Kevin McCoy with questions and image requests: info@mccoyspace.com
Oct 24, 2010
links for 2010-10-23
posted at 02:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Oct 21, 2010
links for 2010-10-20
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Oct 11, 2010
links for 2010-10-10
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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… an updated version for an updated time. Note that the original at http://tinjail.com/you/index.html is a re-creation. The real original was somehow destroyed (or the original hit counter stopped working).
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Included in "un(process)ed" curated by Blue Box Gallery (http://www.blueboxgallery.com/exhibitions/unprocessed/)
Oct 10, 2010
Autotrace #2 (Nocturne; performative)
posted at 02:52 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Artists MTAA’s Autotrace series is a group of prints, installations and performances where the artists take a digital reproduction (JPEG) of a well-known painting and then use Adobe Illustrator’s Live Trace feature to automatically transform the digital bitmap image into a digital vector image.
Different strategies are then used to present a new, original artwork from the autotraced image.
Performative Autotrace
The performative variety of the Autotrace takes the form of a live, public demonstration of the technique. The mechanics of the autotrace are performed on the artists’ computer and projected before an audience. Usually the performance concludes after a single vector shape is randomly chosen from the autotraced bitmap and presented as a new work of art.
MTAA conducted their first1 performative autotrace during a lecture conducted for the Takeovers & Makeovers: Artistic Appropriation, Fair Use and Copyright in the Digital Age symposium at UC Berkeley on November 7th, 2008. A reproduction of Joan Miro’s Nocturne was used.
Autotrace #2 (Nocturne; performative) is freely available to download. Follow the link below to acquire the artwork.
Download the shape in SVG2 format.
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This JPEG reproduction of Joan Miro’s Nocturne was used as the base for Autotrace #2 (Nocturne; performative).
1. Though this was the first performative Autotrace, it is the second in the series. The first in the series is Autotrace #1 (Full Fathom Five).
2. Scalable Vector Graphics; an open and standard XML-based vector graphics format. permanent link to this post
Oct 08, 2010
links for 2010-10-07
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Sep 28, 2010
links for 2010-09-27
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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We, like you, have often wished while listening to a lecture, panel, speech or newscast to stand up and tell the speaker, "You do not know what you are talking about!" The artists sit behind a desk with two laptops and two microphones before them. Behind them a projection screen displays the text "#mtaa" and a timer. They announce the title of the performance, "You Do Not Know What You Are Talking About," and explain that for the duration of the performance, they will read any, only and all text sent to Twitter with the hash tag "#mtaa." The audience is invited to start twittering. MTAA need your tweets! We'll be doing the two, 10-minute performances of You Do Not Know What You Are Talking About at approximately 2:45PM Eastern Time on Saturday October 2nd and 3:45PM Eastern Time on Sunday October 3rd. Please tweet with the hash tag #mtaa and your tweets will be included in the performance.
Sep 25, 2010
links for 2010-09-24
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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from the site… 'All Raise This Barn, West, a project by MTAA, proposes how to build a community when a quintessential community-building event—barn raising—no longer occurs. Here, the artists polled people online to decide how the barn would be built, asking what color it should be and even "Should this barn be a barn?".'
Sep 24, 2010
links for 2010-09-23
posted at 02:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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be evil. be very evil.
Sep 23, 2010
links for 2010-09-22
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Sep 15, 2010
links for 2010-09-14
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Sep 10, 2010
ARTBarn: first day in San Jose
posted at 14:06 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We arrived in San Jose around 11:30 AM PT and went straight to South Hall. The rest of the afternoon was spent arranging the barn-making materials into the ‘artful’ arrangement you see above (more photos).
We’ll be raising the barn tomorrow!
If you’re in San Jose (or thereabouts) you can come by South Hall any time from 11AM - 7PM. Register on-line if you can so we know how many folks to expect.
ALSO — we’ll be participating in an artist talk this evening in South Hall from 5:30 - 7:00PM! permanent link to this post
Sep 08, 2010
links for 2010-09-07
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Sep 01, 2010
links for 2010-08-31
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Aug 31, 2010
links for 2010-08-30
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Aug 29, 2010
links for 2010-08-28
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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… somewhat obnoxiously hijacked by an annoying person named Bird.
Aug 28, 2010
links for 2010-08-27
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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MTAA approved!
Aug 27, 2010
links for 2010-08-26
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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A multifunction utility for Mac OS X which allows you to verify the Startup Disk and the structure of its System files, to run misc tasks of system maintenance, to configure some hidden parameters of the Finder, Dock, QuickTime, Safari, iTunes, Login window, Spotlight and many Apple’s applications, to delete caches, to remove a certain number of files and folders that may become cumbersome and more.
Aug 17, 2010
links for 2010-08-16
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Aug 16, 2010
links for 2010-08-15
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Aug 15, 2010
links for 2010-08-14
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Aug 13, 2010
links for 2010-08-12
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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… haven't really looked at this yet, but their copy describing it is pretty funny.
Aug 11, 2010
links for 2010-08-10
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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… somewhat precious in it's approach (very precious) but some good hacks, tips & guidelines
Aug 04, 2010
links for 2010-08-03
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Aug 02, 2010
links for 2010-08-01
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Aug 01, 2010
links for 2010-07-31
posted at 02:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jul 30, 2010
links for 2010-07-29
posted at 02:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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Cory Arcangel's blog wherein he interviews artists about the creative process. 1st and only post is from June however…
Jul 28, 2010
links for 2010-07-27
posted at 02:03 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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It seems that John Gruber does more than pontificate on all things Apple :-)
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One of the most basic tests developers perform in JavaScript is whether or not a particular property exists on an object. Since feature detection is the preferred method of code forking, developers are encouraged to test for the existence of properties before using them.
Jul 27, 2010
links for 2010-07-26
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jul 26, 2010
links for 2010-07-25
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jul 25, 2010
links for 2010-07-24
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jul 24, 2010
links for 2010-07-23
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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Perhaps I lack imagination but I don't see how this would be useful…
Jul 21, 2010
links for 2010-07-20
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jul 20, 2010
links for 2010-07-19
posted at 02:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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… a small amount of playing around with this has left me very impressed.
Jul 15, 2010
links for 2010-07-14
posted at 02:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jul 09, 2010
links for 2010-07-08
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jul 01, 2010
links for 2010-06-30
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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…[Flash] will continue to play a critical role in video distribution
Jun 23, 2010
links for 2010-06-23
posted at 07:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
links for 2010-06-22
posted at 02:04 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jun 18, 2010
links for 2010-06-17
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jun 15, 2010
links for 2010-06-14
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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"Join ecoarttech at Smackmellon in NYC from June 20th through the 26th as we live and work in Mary Mattingly's Flock House, which will be exhibited as part of "Condensation of the Social." Each day from noon to 2pm ecoarttech will organize urban hikes (originating at Flock House), exploring convergent ecologies in the DUMBO area in support of our work Indeterminate Hikes. In addition we will conduct several evening events involving performance and conversations engaging ecologies of the social, psychic, digital and environmental. All events are open to the public."
Jun 12, 2010
links for 2010-06-11
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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MTAA's "(LOVE + HATE) x 100" is part of this "showcase of short video forms created by web artists" collected by Marcin Ramocki.
Jun 10, 2010
links for 2010-06-09
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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… a small review of "Website Unseen #01: Random Access Mortality" by Curt Cloninger for Rhizome. The piece is from 02, but the review appeared in 03 for some reason.
Jun 09, 2010
links for 2010-06-08
posted at 02:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jun 05, 2010
links for 2010-06-04
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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… worky work
Jun 03, 2010
links for 2010-06-02
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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… Flash Player written in JavaScript! Crazy!
May 27, 2010
links for 2010-05-26
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
May 21, 2010
links for 2010-05-20
posted at 02:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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M.River did this. But I approved it!
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This could come in handy for all sorts of fun stuff.
permanent link to this post
May 20, 2010
links for 2010-05-19
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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from the site… "The Google Font Directory provides high-quality web fonts that you can include in your pages using the Google Font API."
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Google opens VP8, pairs it with Vorbis, wraps it in Matroska (http://www.matroska.org/) calls it WebM. Support from Mozilla, Adobe… no mention of Apple or Microsoft.
May 18, 2010
links for 2010-05-17
posted at 02:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
May 15, 2010
links for 2010-05-14
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
May 11, 2010
links for 2010-05-10
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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jQuery client-side table sorting, pagination, etc
May 07, 2010
links for 2010-05-06
posted at 02:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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Google learns ya on how not to get pwned.
May 02, 2010
links for 2010-05-01
posted at 02:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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Awesome collection!
May 01, 2010
links for 2010-04-30
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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from the article: "The future of the web is HTML5. Microsoft is deeply engaged in the HTML5 process with the W3C. HTML5 will be very important in advancing rich, interactive web applications and site design. The HTML5 specification describes video support without specifying a particular video format. We think H.264 is an excellent format. In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video only." I thought that MS had already announced this, but I guess the earlier announcement was that they'd support H.264. This new announcement they'll ONLY support H.264 in the video tag.
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Handy
Apr 30, 2010
links for 2010-04-29
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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During the summer of 2009, I enlisted MTAA in an email-based interview regarding the practical consequences and conceptual implications associated with producing their participatory poll and performance ["Automatic for the People: ( )"] for SFMOMA. — by David Duncan
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… the Jobs hisself on Flash, iPhone, iPad, etc
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MTAA's Simple Net Art Diagram and Commons Art Diagram included in this show.
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Install view of MTAA's Simple Net Art Diagram and Commons Art Diagram in Übersetzung ist eine Form. | Translation is a mode. (Group exhibition, Vienna/Austria) More here: http://cont3xt.net/blog/?p=2933
Apr 28, 2010
links for 2010-04-27
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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BBEdit finally fixes the syntax-highlighting of JS embedded in (X)HTML documents!!!!!!!1!! "Syntax coloring for embedded JavaScript and CSS (in HTML documents, between <script>..</script> and <style>..</style> tags, respectively) will now end at the appropriate closing tag, rather than at the first occurrence of </ after the opening tag. This behavior is correct for XHTML and XML, but not for HTML 4.x and earlier; but it is more closely aligned with browser behaviors and user expectations." (Yes. I'm a dork.)
Apr 27, 2010
links for 2010-04-26
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Apr 23, 2010
Random Friday post from T.Whid 4-23-10
posted at 13:35 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Here’s some High on Fire for ya! FROST HAMMER!!!!!!!!
High on Fire: Frost Hammer at Pitchfork permanent link to this post
High on Fire: Frost Hammer at Pitchfork permanent link to this post
links for 2010-04-22
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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The simplest one I've found.
Apr 22, 2010
links for 2010-04-21
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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… someone — probably an artist-prankster, the locals suspect — strung a nylon line across a small, fenced lot under the bridge, on a median along Queens Plaza South in Long Island City, and then hung more than a dozen articles of fresh, white clothing from it.
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Demo of HTML5's canvas and video API
Apr 21, 2010
links for 2010-04-20
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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This library has been overkill for what I do, but who knows…?
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Could come in handy…
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Kinda dorky but could come in handy
Apr 20, 2010
links for 2010-04-19
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Apr 18, 2010
links for 2010-04-17
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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New bike shop (24th btw 6 & 7)
Apr 17, 2010
links for 2010-04-16
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Apr 16, 2010
links for 2010-04-15
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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What a bunch of morons.
Apr 09, 2010
links for 2010-04-08
posted at 02:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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… very self-referential I know…
Apr 08, 2010
links for 2010-04-07
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Apr 06, 2010
links for 2010-04-05
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
-
I've finally discovered why BBEdit is such a pain my ass when it comes to syntax coloring JavaScript within HTML documents.
Apr 02, 2010
links for 2010-04-01
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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I wish I was an abstract superclass… :-)
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PhoneGap is an open source development tool for building fast, easy mobile apps with JavaScript. This seems the best as it supports OS's other than the iphone
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A list of tools/frameworks to help develop iphone apps without using obj-c.
Apr 01, 2010
links for 2010-03-31
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mar 31, 2010
links for 2010-03-30
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mar 30, 2010
links for 2010-03-29
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mar 29, 2010
links for 2010-03-28
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mar 28, 2010
links for 2010-03-27
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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YES! Completely agree. Why I've always considered myself a geek and not a nerd. Most of my friends are geeks of course.
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…in IE9, which also supports the video tag and h.264. Things are looking good for the web :)
Mar 27, 2010
#class thesis response
posted at 19:32 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
William Powhida posted to the hashtagclass blog a call for reflections on the project. He specifically asked participants to respond to the original thesis statement:
My short reply follows.
+++
Speaking as someone who has created art on the web (& Internet), in comic books, via email and other populist formulations I’d say that this statement is only true for art that is created in such a way as to make it scarce. If it’s not scarce, it’s no longer a luxury. Simple economics.
An artist chooses to make their work scarce. Current media creation and dissemination technologies make it stupidly simple to make one’s work unscarce. If one chooses.
Speaking as someone trained as a painter, I can understand a painter’s objection to this idea. Their expression requires scarcity. A painting, sculpture or drawing can only be in one place at any one time obviously. But artists working in these types of media shouldn’t do so ignorantly — especially if they’re worried about the class implications of the distribution of their work. There are other means of expression.
It’s not required to play in the art world system to make work or find an audience.
Making a living? That’s another story… permanent link to this post
Art is a luxury commodity for the wealthy that limits the possibility of ownership, understanding, and access based on class, education and geography.
My short reply follows.
+++
Speaking as someone who has created art on the web (& Internet), in comic books, via email and other populist formulations I’d say that this statement is only true for art that is created in such a way as to make it scarce. If it’s not scarce, it’s no longer a luxury. Simple economics.
An artist chooses to make their work scarce. Current media creation and dissemination technologies make it stupidly simple to make one’s work unscarce. If one chooses.
Speaking as someone trained as a painter, I can understand a painter’s objection to this idea. Their expression requires scarcity. A painting, sculpture or drawing can only be in one place at any one time obviously. But artists working in these types of media shouldn’t do so ignorantly — especially if they’re worried about the class implications of the distribution of their work. There are other means of expression.
It’s not required to play in the art world system to make work or find an audience.
Making a living? That’s another story… permanent link to this post
links for 2010-03-26
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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m.river gots da best art foto blog
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Jimmy Wales at the New Museum Apr 8. I have fond memories of sharing wi-fi with Mr. Wales in a sweaty little gallery in Dubrovnik in '06 during the iCommons Summit. It was before the general conference showed up. Just a few people (mostly artists) hanging around. Good times :)
Mar 25, 2010
links for 2010-03-24
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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MTAA's autotrace #class at Winkleman Gallery
Mar 23, 2010
links for 2010-03-22
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design has acquired the @ symbol into its collection.
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"they can’t say Firefox only supports free and open video formats while still supporting Flash" — Gruber's very good point is very simple: Firefox users are still goning to get H.264, but delivered via Flash instead of a native video tag. So Mozilla, what is the point?
Mar 20, 2010
Guess they are random…
posted at 12:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I guess M.River’s ‘random Friday’ posts really are random as he missed yesterday :-(
M.River’s random Friday… permanent link to this post
M.River’s random Friday… permanent link to this post
links for 2010-03-19
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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test layouts in different browsers (via Barry Hoggard)
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We'll be doing this in September.
Mar 19, 2010
links for 2010-03-18
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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Mozilla needs to wise up.
Mar 18, 2010
links for 2010-03-17
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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… according to this article MS promises mp4 and h.264 video support in IE9. We'll see.
Mar 17, 2010
links for 2010-03-16
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mar 14, 2010
links for 2010-03-13
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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"Welcome to AutoTrace - a program for converting bitmap to vector graphics. The aim of the AutoTrace project is the development of a freely available application with a functionality similar to CorelTrace or Adobe Streamline. I hope that it will become better than all commercially available programs. In some aspects it is already better. AutoTrace is free software. AutoTrace is distributed under the term of GNU GPL." [ *** Adobe Streamline*** That is ole skool hahahaha]
Mar 13, 2010
Reminder: Autotrace #4 at #class THIS WEEK!
posted at 17:54 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Autotrace #4
MTAA will conduct a live demonstration of our art-making technique called “Autotrace.”
The performative variety of the Autotrace takes the form of a live, public demonstration of the technique. The mechanics of the autotrace are performed on the artists’ computer and projected before an audience. Usually the performance concludes after a single vector shape is randomly chosen from the autotraced bitmap and presented as a new aesthetic object i.e. work of art.
More on MTAA’s Autotrace series: Autotrace #2 (Nocturne; performative) and AutoTrace #1 (Full Fathom Five).
The performance will be followed by a Q&A.
When? Thu, March 18, 6:30pm - 7:30pm | add to google calendar
Where? Winkleman Gallery as part of #class (organized by Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida)
621 West 27th Street, New York, NY 10001
More can be discovered by searching Twitter for #class. permanent link to this post
links for 2010-03-12
posted at 02:03 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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The NYPOST is a horrible, right-wing rag but this is pretty funny. Every cyclist in NYC noticed that this feature needs lots of work.
Mar 11, 2010
links for 2010-03-10
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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Biking directions added to Google Maps!!!!!!!1!
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"By at least one amusing new metric, Michelangelo’s unofficial 500-year run at the top of the Italian art charts has ended. Caravaggio, who somehow found time to paint when he wasn’t brawling, scandalizing pooh-bahs, chasing women (and men), murdering a tennis opponent with a dagger to the groin, fleeing police assassins or getting his face mutilated by one of his many enemies, has bumped him from his perch."
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Some pretty good icons…
Mar 10, 2010
links for 2010-03-09
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mar 09, 2010
links for 2010-03-08
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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… happy to announce that we’re releasing an OS X application that does one thing: plays back a playlist of videos randomly until you make it stop. It's not the most user-friendly piece of software, but it gets the job done.
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… Electronic Disturbance Theater/b.a.n.g. lab […], have opted instead to create a poetic gesture and safety device, equipped to identify water caches on the U.S. side of the border.
Random Video App
posted at 01:05 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I’m happy to announce that we’re releasing an OS X application that does one thing: plays back a playlist of videos randomly until you make it stop.
We call it Random Video App.
If you want to play back a bunch of videos randomly from a Macintosh computer, this will do it for you. It uses the QuickTime framework so any video that QuickTime can play will be played by this app. We’ve used it to play SD and HD video in real-world gallery situations.
Most of the code was originally written by Alex Galloway for MTAA’s “One Year Performance Video (gallery version).” It was then updated for “Karaoke Deathmatch 100.” It’s been updated and used for other pieces over the years.
For this public release, I’ve updated and streamlined the software a bit and done other little adjustments to make it suitable for distribution.
Again, it does one thing: plays back a playlist of videos completely randomly. It’s been well-tested in the real world where it’s run video installations for hours and hours with no crashes, freezes, panics or other nasty things occurring.
Download Random Video App
It’s important that you read the readme.txt distributed with the software or you won’t know how to use it. If you find it useful and you use it, let us know. It would make us happy to know it was useful to you.
more notes
- This version of the software has only been tested on OS X 10.5. If you try it on other versions of the OS and it works. Awesome! Drop us an email and let us know.
- It won’t work on Power PC-based computers. But it may if you re-compile it, which brings me to the next note…
- If you want the source let me know. It’s open source, but I’m just too lazy to clean it all up for distribution unless someone actually wants it.
Mar 07, 2010
links for 2010-03-06
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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from Rhizome, "Ryder Ripps, of Internet Archaeology, along with Tim Baker (Delicious) and Scott Van Damme (MIT Exhibit), recently launched a beta version of dump.fm, a chat room where participants communicate solely through images. The site combines the creative back and forth of surf clubs, tumblr’s loose and rapid-fire network of image transmission, and the real time spontaneity of an old school chat room."
Mar 06, 2010
links for 2010-03-05
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mar 05, 2010
links for 2010-03-04
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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"For the past fifty years, the Museum of Modern Art has been separating artists from their politics and in so doing sanitizing the history of Modern Art. 'Communist Tour of MoMA' connects the history of Modern Art to history of the 20th century Communist movement."
Mar 04, 2010
links for 2010-03-03
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mar 02, 2010
links for 2010-03-01
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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We're new media artists. :-)
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Upgrade! NY presents the Collaborative Futures book launch and talk. Collaborative Futures, book about free collaboration written collaboratively over five days during the 2010 Transmediale Festival, locked six writers and one programmer in a Berlin hotel room to collaboratively write a book about the future of free collaboration; the authors started with only the title, and ended the week with a book.
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Rob Myers reviews the exhibition Digital Pioneers, at the V & A Museum. An overview of the first decades of the computer's history in art and design. including some of the earliest computer-generated works in the V&A's collections, many of which have never been exhibited in the UK before.
Feb 28, 2010
links for 2010-02-27
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Feb 26, 2010
links for 2010-02-25
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Feb 25, 2010
links for 2010-02-24
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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"Whid is a simple application that keeps track of time." No I am NOT! WTF? LOL! Er. I don't like it, not one bit.
Feb 24, 2010
links for 2010-02-23
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Feb 23, 2010
links for 2010-02-22
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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"Dear Google, With your purchase of On2, you now own both the world's largest video site (YouTube) and all the patents behind a new high performance video codec — VP8. Just think what you can achieve by releasing the VP8 codec under an irrevocable royalty-free license and pushing it out to users on YouTube? You can end the web's dependence on patent-encumbered video formats and proprietary software (Flash)."
Feb 22, 2010
links for 2010-02-21
posted at 02:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Feb 20, 2010
links for 2010-02-20
posted at 21:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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Not sure why he doesn't just get a blog; probably could make a good amount of cheddar off the adverts.
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Michael-Bell Smith's mesmerizing Faceted Sphere on An Escalator (via http://Rhizome.org)
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More rumors on Jobs dissing Flash…
Feb 19, 2010
links for 2010-02-19
posted at 21:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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gotta see this show — "What’s Left: Art Made by a Public showcases four significant artworks made since the 1960s that are activated by public engagement. Situated between conceptualism, performance, intervention and public art, the exhibition raises questions concerning documentation and archive, event and object."
Feb 18, 2010
links for 2010-02-18
posted at 21:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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Handy
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Organized by the Art, Culture & Tech Meetup
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the true new yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding. - john updike (no linkage to prove it's Updike, but sounds about right)
Feb 17, 2010
links for 2010-02-17
posted at 21:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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Art in America covers #class (hash tag class) in which MTAA is participating.
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Post Media Manifesto … apropos that the Post Media Manifesto author neglected to add the <title> tag to their page? Viewing source, I see there is an attempt to link to a style sheet using a 'file:///' url. The Post Media author perhaps should study the basics of new media before going post? The author also has a hotmail account.
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… essay by Ed Halter
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CONT3XT.NET is a Vienna-based initiative founded in January 2006. It is run by Sabine Hochrieser, Michael Kargl (aka carlos katastrofsky), Birgit Rinagl, and Franz Thalmair as a collaborative tool for the presentation, discussion, and critical investigation of tendencies in contemporary (media) art.
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thx Adobe!
Feb 16, 2010
links for 2010-02-16
posted at 21:03 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
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the Hoggard Wagner Art Collection launches (in beta)
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this video has been removed
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… it's just stuff to use :-)
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The final blow will be the day that YouTube switches off Flash and starts streaming only to HTML5 browsers. On that day all browsers will be HTML5 compatible or they will perish in the flames of user outrage. [twhid: not sure that day will ever happen…]
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Adobe dude says they're not blocking HTML5…
Feb 15, 2010
links for 2010-02-15
posted at 12:03 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Feb 09, 2010
7 years! blog-o-versary
posted at 13:08 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Pathetically, not much has changed around here since last year. STILL haven’t moved this thing over to Wordpress. Maybe this year…
Luckily M.River’s keeping it running.
The required link to the first post.
More importantly, it’s Alligators in the Sewers Day! permanent link to this post
Luckily M.River’s keeping it running.
The required link to the first post.
More importantly, it’s Alligators in the Sewers Day! permanent link to this post
Dec 24, 2009
Happy Holidays 2009
posted at 16:34 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This awesome video is from 2004 and was created by the wonderful and talented Bill Hallinan. It stars T.Whid as the guy on the tree.
Happy Holidays everybody! permanent link to this post
Dec 22, 2009
Urgent message from the TSA!
posted at 15:28 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Dec 18, 2009
suicidemachine.org
posted at 00:24 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The email reads:
This guy is committing web2.0 suicide as we watch (love the hat):
Looks fun!
Of course, Cory Arcangel committed “Friendster Suicide” years ago. (Proving that artists are indeed the smartest people on the planet.)
Check it out at: http://suicidemachine.org… permanent link to this post
Tired of your Social Network?
Liberate yourself and your ‘friends’ with a web2.0 suicide! The Web2.0 Suicide Machine lets you effectively delete all your energy sucking social-networking profiles, kill your fake virtual friends, and completely do away with your web2.0 alterego. The machine is developed in the moddr_lab at WORM (Rotterdam), and serves as a metaphor for the http://suicidemachine.org website which moddr_ hosts; the belly of the beast where the web2.0 suicide-scripts are maintained…
Our services currently run with Facebook.com, Myspace.com and LinkedIn.com; simply enter your username and password for the required service, and our machine will systematically login to your account, change your profile picture, and then one by one delete all of your friends.
This guy is committing web2.0 suicide as we watch (love the hat):
Looks fun!
Of course, Cory Arcangel committed “Friendster Suicide” years ago. (Proving that artists are indeed the smartest people on the planet.)
Check it out at: http://suicidemachine.org… permanent link to this post
Nov 26, 2009
Artistic Licenses
posted at 14:34 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Nov 13, 2009
Pseudo-Futurist Video Game Improvisation Extravaganza
posted at 17:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Generally, I hate Second Life art, but I love the 01s, so here ya go…
Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.ORGpermanent link to this post
Pseudo-Futurist Video Game Improvisation Extravaganza
Live in Second Life
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Odyssey/35/25/22/
Monday Nov. 16, 5-6pm (EST time); 2-3pm (Second Life time)
Synthetic Performances are online live gaming sessions inside the virtual world of Second Life, performed by Eva and Franco Mattes through their avatars, which were constructed from their bodies and faces. The series arose out of the artists’ polemical stance toward performance art. This lead the Mattes on the one hand to breach the classic rules of performance, and on the other to present these works - the efficacy of which was based on the radical way they explored the issues of the body, violence, sexuality, identity and public space - in a context where these issues acquire completely different, paradoxical meanings.
Anyone can participate from all over the world by clicking the link above. If you don’t have a Second Life account you can sign up for free.
Presented by PERFORMA09 - www.performa-arts.org
Produced with the support of Eyebeam
Oct 15, 2009
Two new art blogs
posted at 21:58 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The art market downturn hasn’t harmed one area of the art world — art blogs!
Two new ones made it into my feed reader recently.
The first is Idiom. Published by art lovers, art bloggers and art collectors (just all around awesome art dudes) Barry Hoggard and James Wagner, the site promises “a local, engaged counterpoint to the prevailing discourse of contemporary art.” And so far, so good with longer form, thoughtful articles.
The second is Hyperallergic. It’s edited by the well-known art blogger Hrag Vartanian and published by someone I haven’t heard of named Veken Gueyikian (who looks to be a marketing dude). This one promises “a forum for serious and radical thinking about visual art.” Sounds good!
Looking forward to what these two new sites will have in store and wishing them well. permanent link to this post
Two new ones made it into my feed reader recently.
The first is Idiom. Published by art lovers, art bloggers and art collectors (just all around awesome art dudes) Barry Hoggard and James Wagner, the site promises “a local, engaged counterpoint to the prevailing discourse of contemporary art.” And so far, so good with longer form, thoughtful articles.
The second is Hyperallergic. It’s edited by the well-known art blogger Hrag Vartanian and published by someone I haven’t heard of named Veken Gueyikian (who looks to be a marketing dude). This one promises “a forum for serious and radical thinking about visual art.” Sounds good!
Looking forward to what these two new sites will have in store and wishing them well. permanent link to this post
Oct 03, 2009
All About Greenpoint’s Rooftop Farms
posted at 16:30 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This looks pretty cool, via press release no less (I (almost) never post PRs).
More on Rooftop Farms at the web site http://rooftopfarms.org/. permanent link to this post
PIE IN THE SKY: All About Greenpoint’s Rooftop Farms
w/ Annie Novak
FREE LECTURE
MONDAY, Oct. 5, 7:30pm
PETE’S CANDY STORE
(709 Lorimer St., Brooklyn)
New York City is a Farmer’s Paradise! Just ask Annie Novak, one of the masterminds behind Greenpoint’s Rooftop Farms, a 6,000 square foot organic farm picture-esquely plopped on top of a warehouse overlooking midtown Manhattan. Her operation — founded in partnership with Ben Flanner, a neophyte to farming, and Goode Green, a green-roofing specialist — currently produces produce for a host of Brooklyn gourmandizers, including Anella and Marlow and Sons. They even run a farm stand featuring fresh picked produce every Sunday! Come hear how this urban Agronomist tells us the unlikely story of how she did it — and learn how you can too!
More on Rooftop Farms at the web site http://rooftopfarms.org/. permanent link to this post
Sep 27, 2009
Vernacular Alien World Drawing Championship
posted at 12:37 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Vernacular Alien World Drawing Championship, Maryland
M.River posted photos from our (using ‘our’ loosely as M.River conducted this one on his own) participatory performance coinciding with our show 2Live at The Electronic Gallery at Salisbury University, MD.
Check ‘em out…
Also, lots more at Jennifer Poe’s Flickr set as well. permanent link to this post
Sep 17, 2009
I find this hilarious
posted at 14:03 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
a J.Crew ad…
Should have pictured him with his fly open at least, wouldn’t you agree? permanent link to this post
Sep 09, 2009
2live @ Salisbury University Electronic Gallery
posted at 01:57 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
2live installation shot: "Want v3" and "(LOVE + HATE) x 100"
We have a solo show up right now. It’s in Salisbury, MD so you won’t see it. But it looks awesome!
…only have this one install shot thus far, more to come soon we hope.
More info on the show at this post… permanent link to this post
Aug 12, 2009
Pretty creepy
posted at 17:14 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Yesterday I decided to look into buying a new domain. I have all my domains registered with Register.com so I logged in and checked out the prices on a domain. I decided that I didn’t want it and closed my browser window.
All pretty straigt-forward, except that a few minutes later I get a phone call. It’s Register.com! And they’re asking why I abandoned the purchase. Number 1: none of your damn business. Number 2: WTF?! OK, I was logged in, so they have my info… but still. To call me up because I abandoned a shopping cart. I thought it was pretty fucked up.
What do you think? Comment here. permanent link to this post
All pretty straigt-forward, except that a few minutes later I get a phone call. It’s Register.com! And they’re asking why I abandoned the purchase. Number 1: none of your damn business. Number 2: WTF?! OK, I was logged in, so they have my info… but still. To call me up because I abandoned a shopping cart. I thought it was pretty fucked up.
What do you think? Comment here. permanent link to this post
Jul 21, 2009
Want v2 (15min Dogpile June 27, 2009)
posted at 23:31 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jul 08, 2009
Untitled Art Project — couple thoughts
posted at 13:21 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
If you’re not familiar with it, Paddy’s been covering the new art world reality series starting production soon (if it hasn’t already started).
I’m of a divided mind. On one hand, the general public doesn’t just simply not appreciate contemporary art — it actively has contempt for it. If UAP can help this situation even a tiny bit, it’s all good.
On the other hand, if the artists who are picked for the show don’t actively attempt to hijack it for their own agenda, then I have no respect for any of them. The thing should really never make it to TV. Every artist in the show should be disrupting it for their own purposes. This disruption should be so severe that no mere reality show producer could create anything significant from it. Seriously, any artist that allows their media image to manipulated by some producer is by definition a very bad contemporary artist. permanent link to this post
I’m of a divided mind. On one hand, the general public doesn’t just simply not appreciate contemporary art — it actively has contempt for it. If UAP can help this situation even a tiny bit, it’s all good.
On the other hand, if the artists who are picked for the show don’t actively attempt to hijack it for their own agenda, then I have no respect for any of them. The thing should really never make it to TV. Every artist in the show should be disrupting it for their own purposes. This disruption should be so severe that no mere reality show producer could create anything significant from it. Seriously, any artist that allows their media image to manipulated by some producer is by definition a very bad contemporary artist. permanent link to this post
Jul 04, 2009
The DRINKERS DICTIONARY.
posted at 19:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Ben Franklin’s The DRINKERS DICTIONARY.
A
He is Addled,
He’s casting up his Accounts,
He’s Afflicted,
He’s in his Airs.
B
He’s Biggy,
Bewitch’d,
Block and Block,
Boozy,
Bowz’d,
Been at Barbadoes,
Piss’d in the Brook,
Drunk as a Wheel-Barrow,
Burdock’d,
Buskey,
Buzzey,
Has Stole a Manchet out of the Brewer’s Basket,
His Head is full of Bees,
Has been in the Bibbing Plot,
Has drank more than he has bled,
He’s Bungey,
As Drunk as a Beggar,
He sees the Bears,
He’s kiss’d black Betty,
He’s had a Thump over the Head with Sampson’s Jawbone,
He’s Bridgey.
C
He’s Cat,
Cagrin’d,
Capable,
Cramp’d,
Cherubimical,
Cherry Merry,
Wamble Crop’d,
Crack’d,
Concern’d,
Half Way to Concord,
Has taken a Chirriping-Glass,
Got Corns in his Head,
A Cup to much,
Coguy,
Copey,
He’s heat his Copper,
He’s Crocus,
Catch’d,
He cuts his Capers,
He’s been in the Cellar,
He’s in his Cups,
Non Compos,
Cock’d,
Curv’d,
Cut,
Chipper,
Chickery,
Loaded his Cart,
He’s been too free with the Creature,
Sir Richard has taken off his Considering Cap,
He’s Chap-fallen,
D
He’s Disguiz’d,
He’s got a Dish,
Kill’d his Dog,
Took his Drops,
It is a Dark Day with him,
He’s a Dead Man,
Has Dipp’d his Bill,
He’s Dagg’d,
He’s seen the Devil,
E
He’s Prince Eugene,
Enter’d,
Wet both Eyes,
Cock Ey’d,
Got the Pole Evil,
Got a brass Eye,
Made an Example,
He’s Eat a Toad & half for Breakfast.
In his Element,
F
He’s Fishey,
Fox’d,
Fuddled,
Sore Footed,
Frozen,
Well in for’t,
Owes no Man a Farthing,
Fears no Man,
Crump Footed,
Been to France,
Flush’d,
Froze his Mouth,
Fetter’d,
Been to a Funeral,
His Flag is out,
Fuzl’d,
Spoke with his Friend,
Been at an Indian Feast.
G
He’s Glad,
Groatable,
Gold-headed,
Glaiz’d,
Generous,
Booz’d the Gage,
As Dizzy as a Goose,
Been before George,
Got the Gout,
Had a Kick in the Guts,
Been with Sir John Goa,
Been at Geneva,
Globular,
Got the Glanders.
H
Half and Half,
Hardy,
Top Heavy,
Got by the Head,
Hiddey,
Got on his little Hat,
Hammerish,
Loose in the Hilts,
Knows not the way Home,
Got the Hornson,
Haunted with Evil Spirits,
Has Taken Hippocrates grand Elixir,
I
He’s Intoxicated.
J
Jolly,
Jagg’d,
Jambled,
Going to Jerusalem,
Jocular,
Been to Jerico,
Juicy.
K
He’s a King,
Clips the King’s English,
Seen the French King,
The King is his Cousin,
Got Kib’d Heels,
Knapt,
Het his Kettle.
L
He’s in Liquor,
Lordly,
He makes Indentures with his Leggs,
Well to Live,
Light,
Lappy,
Limber,
M
He sees two Moons,
Merry,
Middling,
Moon-Ey’d,
Muddled,
Seen a Flock of Moons,
Maudlin,
Mountous,
Muddy,
Rais’d his Monuments,
Mellow,
N
He’s eat the Cocoa Nut,
Nimptopsical,
Got the Night Mare,
O
He’s Oil’d,
Eat Opium,
Smelt of an Onion,
Oxycrocium,
Overset,
P
He drank till he gave up his Half-Penny,
Pidgeon Ey’d,
Pungey,
Priddy,
As good conditioned as a Puppy,
Has scalt his Head Pan,
Been among the Philistines,
In his Prosperity,
He’s been among the Philippians,
He’s contending with Pharaoh,
Wasted his Paunch,
He’s Polite,
Eat a Pudding Bagg,
Q
He’s Quarrelsome,
R
He’s Rocky,
Raddled,
Rich,
Religious,
Lost his Rudder,
Ragged,
Rais’d,
Been too free with Sir Richard,
Like a Rat in Trouble.
S
He’s Stitch’d,
Seafaring,
In the Sudds,
Strong,
Been in the Sun,
As Drunk as David’s Sow,
Swampt,
His Skin is full,
He’s Steady,
He’s Stiff,
He’s burnt his Shoulder,
He’s got his Top Gallant Sails out,
Seen the yellow Star,
As Stiff as a Ring-bolt,
Half Seas over,
His Shoe pinches him,
Staggerish,
It is Star-light with him,
He carries too much Sail,
Stew’d
Stubb’d,
Soak’d,
Soft,
Been too free with Sir John Strawberry,
He’s right before the Wind with all his Studding Sails out,
Has Sold his Senses.
T
He’s Top’d,
Tongue-ty’d,
Tann’d,
Tipium Grove,
Double Tongu’d,
Topsy Turvey,
Tipsey,
Has Swallow’d a Tavern Token,
He’s Thaw’d,
He’s in a Trance,
He’s Trammel’d,
V
He makes Virginia Fence,
Valiant,
Got the Indian Vapours,
W
The Malt is above the Water,
He’s Wise,
He’s Wet,
He’s been to the Salt Water,
He’s Water-soaken,
He’s very Weary,
Out of the Way. permanent link to this post
A
He is Addled,
He’s casting up his Accounts,
He’s Afflicted,
He’s in his Airs.
B
He’s Biggy,
Bewitch’d,
Block and Block,
Boozy,
Bowz’d,
Been at Barbadoes,
Piss’d in the Brook,
Drunk as a Wheel-Barrow,
Burdock’d,
Buskey,
Buzzey,
Has Stole a Manchet out of the Brewer’s Basket,
His Head is full of Bees,
Has been in the Bibbing Plot,
Has drank more than he has bled,
He’s Bungey,
As Drunk as a Beggar,
He sees the Bears,
He’s kiss’d black Betty,
He’s had a Thump over the Head with Sampson’s Jawbone,
He’s Bridgey.
C
He’s Cat,
Cagrin’d,
Capable,
Cramp’d,
Cherubimical,
Cherry Merry,
Wamble Crop’d,
Crack’d,
Concern’d,
Half Way to Concord,
Has taken a Chirriping-Glass,
Got Corns in his Head,
A Cup to much,
Coguy,
Copey,
He’s heat his Copper,
He’s Crocus,
Catch’d,
He cuts his Capers,
He’s been in the Cellar,
He’s in his Cups,
Non Compos,
Cock’d,
Curv’d,
Cut,
Chipper,
Chickery,
Loaded his Cart,
He’s been too free with the Creature,
Sir Richard has taken off his Considering Cap,
He’s Chap-fallen,
D
He’s Disguiz’d,
He’s got a Dish,
Kill’d his Dog,
Took his Drops,
It is a Dark Day with him,
He’s a Dead Man,
Has Dipp’d his Bill,
He’s Dagg’d,
He’s seen the Devil,
E
He’s Prince Eugene,
Enter’d,
Wet both Eyes,
Cock Ey’d,
Got the Pole Evil,
Got a brass Eye,
Made an Example,
He’s Eat a Toad & half for Breakfast.
In his Element,
F
He’s Fishey,
Fox’d,
Fuddled,
Sore Footed,
Frozen,
Well in for’t,
Owes no Man a Farthing,
Fears no Man,
Crump Footed,
Been to France,
Flush’d,
Froze his Mouth,
Fetter’d,
Been to a Funeral,
His Flag is out,
Fuzl’d,
Spoke with his Friend,
Been at an Indian Feast.
G
He’s Glad,
Groatable,
Gold-headed,
Glaiz’d,
Generous,
Booz’d the Gage,
As Dizzy as a Goose,
Been before George,
Got the Gout,
Had a Kick in the Guts,
Been with Sir John Goa,
Been at Geneva,
Globular,
Got the Glanders.
H
Half and Half,
Hardy,
Top Heavy,
Got by the Head,
Hiddey,
Got on his little Hat,
Hammerish,
Loose in the Hilts,
Knows not the way Home,
Got the Hornson,
Haunted with Evil Spirits,
Has Taken Hippocrates grand Elixir,
I
He’s Intoxicated.
J
Jolly,
Jagg’d,
Jambled,
Going to Jerusalem,
Jocular,
Been to Jerico,
Juicy.
K
He’s a King,
Clips the King’s English,
Seen the French King,
The King is his Cousin,
Got Kib’d Heels,
Knapt,
Het his Kettle.
L
He’s in Liquor,
Lordly,
He makes Indentures with his Leggs,
Well to Live,
Light,
Lappy,
Limber,
M
He sees two Moons,
Merry,
Middling,
Moon-Ey’d,
Muddled,
Seen a Flock of Moons,
Maudlin,
Mountous,
Muddy,
Rais’d his Monuments,
Mellow,
N
He’s eat the Cocoa Nut,
Nimptopsical,
Got the Night Mare,
O
He’s Oil’d,
Eat Opium,
Smelt of an Onion,
Oxycrocium,
Overset,
P
He drank till he gave up his Half-Penny,
Pidgeon Ey’d,
Pungey,
Priddy,
As good conditioned as a Puppy,
Has scalt his Head Pan,
Been among the Philistines,
In his Prosperity,
He’s been among the Philippians,
He’s contending with Pharaoh,
Wasted his Paunch,
He’s Polite,
Eat a Pudding Bagg,
Q
He’s Quarrelsome,
R
He’s Rocky,
Raddled,
Rich,
Religious,
Lost his Rudder,
Ragged,
Rais’d,
Been too free with Sir Richard,
Like a Rat in Trouble.
S
He’s Stitch’d,
Seafaring,
In the Sudds,
Strong,
Been in the Sun,
As Drunk as David’s Sow,
Swampt,
His Skin is full,
He’s Steady,
He’s Stiff,
He’s burnt his Shoulder,
He’s got his Top Gallant Sails out,
Seen the yellow Star,
As Stiff as a Ring-bolt,
Half Seas over,
His Shoe pinches him,
Staggerish,
It is Star-light with him,
He carries too much Sail,
Stew’d
Stubb’d,
Soak’d,
Soft,
Been too free with Sir John Strawberry,
He’s right before the Wind with all his Studding Sails out,
Has Sold his Senses.
T
He’s Top’d,
Tongue-ty’d,
Tann’d,
Tipium Grove,
Double Tongu’d,
Topsy Turvey,
Tipsey,
Has Swallow’d a Tavern Token,
He’s Thaw’d,
He’s in a Trance,
He’s Trammel’d,
V
He makes Virginia Fence,
Valiant,
Got the Indian Vapours,
W
The Malt is above the Water,
He’s Wise,
He’s Wet,
He’s been to the Salt Water,
He’s Water-soaken,
He’s very Weary,
Out of the Way. permanent link to this post
Jun 13, 2009
Data center as art and architecture
posted at 16:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The Times pays attention to something that’s intrigued me for a while — the aesthetics of data centers (here too). Having visited such places in my duties to commerce, I noticed how a standard rack of servers has the same sort of monumental minimalism of a Judd, but with lots of blinking lights and white fan noise thrown in for good measure.
MTAA has envisioned a sculpture that would comprise a standard 19” rack holding multiple computers running a small website hosting service. This rack would be installed in a ‘heroic’ manner in the center of a gallery raised on computer flooring above the normal floor. I think we wanted to call it “Monument.”
What the NYT article is doing and what “Monument” is intended to do is reveal these hidden systems that we all rely on. In the case of “Monument” — we’d attempt to aestheticize the purely functional (the NYT photos do something similar). permanent link to this post
MTAA has envisioned a sculpture that would comprise a standard 19” rack holding multiple computers running a small website hosting service. This rack would be installed in a ‘heroic’ manner in the center of a gallery raised on computer flooring above the normal floor. I think we wanted to call it “Monument.”
What the NYT article is doing and what “Monument” is intended to do is reveal these hidden systems that we all rely on. In the case of “Monument” — we’d attempt to aestheticize the purely functional (the NYT photos do something similar). permanent link to this post
Jun 02, 2009
Wheel of The Devil playlist
posted at 01:25 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Below, most of the work that comprised The Wheel of The Devil at May’s OTO. Not screened in this order, links where we can…
-
“Film in Which There Appear…” George Landow, 16mm film, 1965 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRd3727lwXs )
-
“Report”, Bruce Conner, 1967 (this looks horrible: http://www.download-finished.com/archive/bruce-conner-report-1967avi.html )
- “The Jump”, Jack Goldstein, video, 1979 (crappy youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqwIXyqwZZg )
- “lackofvision.mov,” Brody Condon, digital video, 1996-2009
-
“The Hamster Dance,” Deidre LaCarte, animated GIFs with audio loop, 1998 (http://www.webhamster.com/ )
-
“787 Clip Arts”, Oliver Laric, video, 2006 (http://oliverlaric.com/787cliparts.htm )
-
“nato1”, jimpunk, video, 2006 (http://dvblogh4ck.blogspot.com/2006/05/nato1.html )
-
“Walk”, Michael Sarff, video, 2007 (http://tinjail.com/walk/ )
-
“Subterranean House (Oonce Oonce)”, Michael Bell-Smith, video, 2007 (http://oonce-oonce.com/)
- “Kingdom”, Michael Sarff, video, 2007 (http://tinjail.com/kingdom/ )
- “Superman II point 0”, Chris Coy, Flash, animated GIFs, 2007 (http://www.seecoy.com/supermanIIpoint0.html )
-
“Timeless”, Hayley A. Silverman, video, 2007 (http://www.hayleysilverman.com/index.php?n=Work.Timeless )
- “Our Political Work”, MTAA, 2-channel video with software, 2008 (http://www.mtaa.net/art/opw/ )
- “YES & NO”, MTAA, 2-channel video with software, 2008 (http://mtaa.net/yes_no/)
- “Rendered Spirits”, Rick Silva, video, 2008 (http://www.vimeo.com/1801184)
- “The Horror! The Horror! (.info)”, Jon Rafman, Flash, 2008 (http://thehorrorthehorror.info/)
- “MOUNTAINS”, Mathwrath, animated GIF and webpage, 2009 (http://www.mathwrath.com/ click ‘work’ then ‘MOUNTAINS’)
- “you-talking-to-me.com”, JODI, webpages, 2009 (http://you-talking-to-me.com)
- “People Who Look The Same In Every Photo,” no author, internet meme, 2009 (compiled by MTAA see: this & this)
May 16, 2009
Aesthetic Quality Inference Engine
posted at 12:56 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This software claims “Intelligent, Unbiased and Instant Assessment of Photos.” As far as I can tell, it’s based on prior ratings from individuals, e.g. humans rate photos, algorithm rates similar photos similarly.
We all know where that gets us.
Aquine
(via /.) permanent link to this post
We all know where that gets us.
Aquine
(via /.) permanent link to this post
May 14, 2009
Are we still blogging? Um… yes?
posted at 22:56 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Though we haven’t been posting much this May — don’t fear! We’ve been… ah, busy… yeah… busy.
T.Whid has been doing stuff that looks like this:
And M.River has been doing whatever it is that M.River does when he disappears for a while. I think that it may involve a lot of demolishing stuff and (I’m assuming) alcohol.
If you really miss MTAA you can follow our Twitter updates (M.River; T.Whid) and/or our delicious links (M.River; T.Whid). If you know us, you can find us on Facebook (I don’t accept requests from people I don’t personally know however).
We have some stuff coming up so watch this space!
m.river adds…
1. Done with demo for the next few months.
2. Here is a short loop about it.
3. I’ll facebook befriend almost anyone. Cuz I’m like that.
4. Don’t forget Flickr
5. Yes, new MTAA stuff soon. permanent link to this post
T.Whid has been doing stuff that looks like this:
And M.River has been doing whatever it is that M.River does when he disappears for a while. I think that it may involve a lot of demolishing stuff and (I’m assuming) alcohol.
If you really miss MTAA you can follow our Twitter updates (M.River; T.Whid) and/or our delicious links (M.River; T.Whid). If you know us, you can find us on Facebook (I don’t accept requests from people I don’t personally know however).
We have some stuff coming up so watch this space!
m.river adds…
1. Done with demo for the next few months.
2. Here is a short loop about it.
3. I’ll facebook befriend almost anyone. Cuz I’m like that.
4. Don’t forget Flickr
5. Yes, new MTAA stuff soon. permanent link to this post
Apr 24, 2009
Wikipedia Threatens Artists for Fair Use
posted at 15:03 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Can a noncommercial critical website use the trademark of the entity it critiques in its domain name? Surprisingly, it appears that the usually open-minded folks at Wikipedia think not.
Last February, a pair of artists, working with several collaborators, created a Wikipedia article and invited the general public to add to it, following Wikipedia’s standards of credibility and verifiability. The work was intended to comment on the nature of art and Wikipedia. But Wikipedia editors did not take kindly to the project, and it was shut down within fifteen hours for being insufficiently “encyclopaedic.”
Fast forward a couple of months. The artists, Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern, have created a noncommercial website that documents the project, called Wikipedia Art. The domain name for the project: wikipediaart.org.
Yep, they used the term “wikipedia” in their domain name. “Wikipedia” is a trademark owned by the Wikimedia Foundation. And now the Foundation has demanded that the artists give up the domain name peaceably or it will attempt to take it by (legal) force.
read the entire article on eff.org + Slashdot coverage + rhizome.org coverage [one, two] when the project was first released (Feb 2009)… permanent link to this post
Apr 12, 2009
STAEHLE @ Postmasters
posted at 15:56 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The one and only Wolfgang Staehle opens a new show at Postmasters this Thursday April 16, 2009! From the release:
April 16 - May 16, 2009permanent link to this post
WOLFGANG STAEHLE
A Matter of Time
Postmasters is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Wolfgang Staehle.
A Matter of Time is comprised of four real time projections of time-lapse photographic sequences and a premier video work of a Yanomami Village in the Brazilian rain forest. The show will be on view from April 16 until May 16, 2009. An opening reception is scheduled for Thursday, April 16, between 6 and 8 pm.
A Matter of Time draws upon mid-19th century painter Thomas Cole’s series The Course of Empire. Cole’s historically critical rumination views pastoralism as the ideal model for civilization, fearing that the ideal of Empire inevitably results in greed and decay. While A Matter of Time holds the mirror of this salient socio-political commentary up to our own time, it is one whose reflection is without indignation to the systems themselves. Perhaps, best encapsulated in the artist’s own 1989 work which avows, “Empires crumble, republics collapse, and idiots live on;” the posit follows that it is our own inordinate ability to destroy the sublimity of any civilization’s ideal that is put on the table.
However, Staehle’s work in no way relies upon homage to Cole’s series, a foray to pastoralism or political satire. Evident in his body of work, the form is always central; and previous works have underscored time-a one-to-one, linear time, a simulative “real time” or the contrivance of frozen time. In this exhibition, A Matter of Time broadly refers to the time lapse photographic sequences (approximately 15,000 photographs per day at 10 frames per minute) but presented here in real time-a rate so methodical that it denudes the image of its cinematographic aspect, while accentuating it pictorially. By allowing us to exact the machinations of nature, through figuratively arresting time, a perceptual shift is created that video does not pose, and thereby realigns our relationship with the real. Each contiguous moment pre-empts the prior, switching out the obsolete image for a perpetually updated “now.” Is it that the representation of an object’s stasis recalls the full force of its movement? Because ultimately, it is this indeterminate relation with time that drives our experience with these quietly unsettling works.
Apr 08, 2009
Mark Amerika in NYC tonight
posted at 15:05 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
OG net artist Mark Amerika’s Immobilité opens tonight at the Chelsea Art Museum. Amerika calls the work “[t]he world’s first feature-length mobile phone art film.”
More about the opening…
More about the film at the Immobilité website… permanent link to this post
More about the opening…
[…]solo exhibition of new work from artist Mark Amerika, opens Wednesday, April 8th, in The Project Room for New Media at Chelsea Art Museum and remains on view through May 9, 2009. […]
Amerika describes Immobilité as “a feature-length foreign film shot entirely on a mobile phone in Cornwall, UK.” The work includes an original soundtrack by renowned sound artist Chad Mossholder and introduces Camille Lacadee and Magda Tyzlik-Carver as on-screen personas that drift in and out of the film’s otherworldly landscapes and ghostly narrative sequences.
More about the film at the Immobilité website… permanent link to this post
Mar 29, 2009
40th bday cake
posted at 19:09 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Thanks M.River & Helen! I made sure to eat the lightening bolt (aka where the art happens).
Photo by Adam Hurwitz. permanent link to this post
Mar 23, 2009
Dolsot bibimbap
posted at 01:49 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This person doesn’t seem to put any hot sauce on, which is a bit of a fail IMHO. permanent link to this post
Mar 21, 2009
Google’s design problem
posted at 13:40 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Recently leaving Google, Doug Bowman writes:
To the geeks that think numbers can somehow bring one to aesthetics: ponder this.
Perhaps one blue will bring more clicks than another; perhaps not. Perhaps the test is flawed. How was the test defined? We need to test the testing methodology! And then test the testing methodology of testing methodology of the test… ak! It’s a rabbit hole. That’s Bowman’s point. permanent link to this post
Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that.
To the geeks that think numbers can somehow bring one to aesthetics: ponder this.
Perhaps one blue will bring more clicks than another; perhaps not. Perhaps the test is flawed. How was the test defined? We need to test the testing methodology! And then test the testing methodology of testing methodology of the test… ak! It’s a rabbit hole. That’s Bowman’s point. permanent link to this post
Mar 12, 2009
Allow directory browsing with .htaccess
posted at 13:24 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Smithsonian blog covers Cory
posted at 01:13 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Nice write-up on Cory Arcangel at the Smithsonian’s Eyelevel blog. It’s interesting to see some perspective from someone who isn’t in the new media/net art/etc scene.
Check it out…
Don’t miss the videos of Cory’s presentation at the American Art Museum too. permanent link to this post
Check it out…
Don’t miss the videos of Cory’s presentation at the American Art Museum too. permanent link to this post
Mar 10, 2009
EcoArtTech’s Eclipse
posted at 00:50 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Our awesome friends Cary and Christine have released some networked art! Check it out…
“Eclipse” is a user driven, networked-art application that alters and corrupts United States national and state park images from Flickr.com based on the real-time Air Quality Index (particle pollution data) provided by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) at the site www.airnow.gov.permanent link to this post
“We visit national parks to get away from traffic and smog. But the latter can be hard to shake, even in remote, pristine-seeming places. “Eclipse”, an open-source program created by Cary Peppermint and Leila Christine Nadir of EcoArtTech, will make air pollution’s presence visually — and viscerally — explicit.” Anna Lena Phillips, American Scientist
“Eclipse” is a 2008 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. [snip]
Mar 04, 2009
Progress Tracing… (Fitting Paths)
posted at 12:41 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
from MTAA’s “Live Demonstration of Autotrace #3 (Number 1A; performative)” last night during Theater of Code at Light Industry.
photo by Flickr username splnlss | link permanent link to this post
Feb 21, 2009
The Future Is Not What It Used To Be
posted at 18:18 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Cool show opening @ Postmasters next weekend!
With:
Kevin Bewersdorf
Charles Broskoski
Marc Horowitz
Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung
Kristin Lucas
Michael Mandiberg
Eva and Franco Mattes (0100101110101101.org)
Joe McKay
JooYoun Paek
Marcin Ramocki & Paul Slocum (with Spiritsurfers)
If you’re on Facebook, you can check out the event here; there’s lots more info. permanent link to this post
Saturday, February 28, 2009 at 6:00pm
Postmasters Gallery
459 West 19th Street (at 10th Avenue)
“the future is not what is used to be†brings together artists engaged in the Internet shaped culture. Through drawings, photographs, sculpture, video, and online projects they explore social interaction in a networked world, reflection in the times of speed, new communication tools and smart technologies affecting cultural and sociopolitical reality, sustainable strategies for contemporary life, connectivity and dis-connect, digital/analog divide, instantaneity and obsolescence, the web as the largest image depository ever, and new forms of appropriation, means of production, and modes of political engagement.
With:
Kevin Bewersdorf
Charles Broskoski
Marc Horowitz
Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung
Kristin Lucas
Michael Mandiberg
Eva and Franco Mattes (0100101110101101.org)
Joe McKay
JooYoun Paek
Marcin Ramocki & Paul Slocum (with Spiritsurfers)
If you’re on Facebook, you can check out the event here; there’s lots more info. permanent link to this post
Feb 11, 2009
Uni plays Nightswimming for AFTP
posted at 18:07 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A short video shot by by Peter Samis.
This video features Uni and her Ukelele. Uni played R.E.M.’s “Nightswimming” as part of MTAA’s “Automatic for the People: (We Solemnly Promise That No One Will Get Naked)” at SFMOMA. permanent link to this post
ATFP: (WSPTNOWGN) — photos
posted at 14:10 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
SFMOMA posted a flickr set of “AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE (We Solemnly Promise That No One Will Get Naked).” Check out the photos…
There’s a few more here too. permanent link to this post
Feb 10, 2009
6 years? Holy shit.
posted at 01:27 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Yes, it’s the 6th anniversary of the MTAA Reference Resource. As promised, we didn’t forget it this year.
The required link to the first post.
We’ve been a tad remiss in our blogging and we’ll try to be better. We’ve been planning for years to move to a new platform and we hope to get that done this year at some point.
Thanks to everyone that visits here! permanent link to this post
The required link to the first post.
We’ve been a tad remiss in our blogging and we’ll try to be better. We’ve been planning for years to move to a new platform and we hope to get that done this year at some point.
Thanks to everyone that visits here! permanent link to this post
Feb 03, 2009
Happy 10th Domain-iversary to us
posted at 14:40 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jan 26, 2009
The humans are dead
posted at 01:52 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jan 23, 2009
AFTP: ( ) update: BONUS POLL!
posted at 02:17 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Hey! It was so fun… why stop now? Check it out: it’s a BONUS POLL!!!!!
~AND~
If you’re in San Francisco, CA don’t miss the performance on Feb 7th @ high noon! It’s at SFMOMA on the 3rd floor.
+++
An update on MTAA’s Automatic for the People: ( ) project
Artists MTAA will conduct a performance on Feb 7 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. What they do during this performance and how they do it is up for a vote.
Go here to participate: http://mtaa.net/vote/
+++
This is the situation:
Prologue - a live audience at SFMOMA votes that the Automatic for the People: ( ) performance should happen in SFMOMA’s freight elevator
Poll 1 - the people decided that the performance should be titled: Automatic for the People: (We Solemnly Promise That No One Will Get Naked)
Poll 2 - it is decided that the duration of the performance should be “the exact same length as R.E.M.’s ‘Automatic for the People’ album”
Poll 3 - house plants, 2x4s, lawn chairs and a PA are to be used as props during the performance
Poll 4 - we’ve been directed to refer to these themes during the performance: Marcel Duchamp, chat rooms, ukuleles and take-out food
Poll 5 - we will game, build, dance and photograph (slowly) during the performance
Poll 6 - we’ll be dressed as robots
Poll 7 - the general public will be allowed to attend the performance
Poll 8 - and they’ve chosen to have wine & cheese for refreshment
Poll 9 - the nature of the space will be “all over the place”
Poll 10 - the performance will conclude in a dance party!
BONUS POLL!!!!! - Silent Mantra
+++
We suggest that you listen to the museum audio tour when visiting the Automatic for the People: ( ) website to vote.
To do this:
(You can also listen to the audio tour on your phone: 415-294-3609, 424#)
~PLUS~
You can listen to us babble on about the piece even more! Here: http://www.sfmoma.org/multimedia/audio/44
woohoo! permanent link to this post
~AND~
If you’re in San Francisco, CA don’t miss the performance on Feb 7th @ high noon! It’s at SFMOMA on the 3rd floor.
+++
An update on MTAA’s Automatic for the People: ( ) project
Artists MTAA will conduct a performance on Feb 7 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. What they do during this performance and how they do it is up for a vote.
Go here to participate: http://mtaa.net/vote/
+++
This is the situation:
Prologue - a live audience at SFMOMA votes that the Automatic for the People: ( ) performance should happen in SFMOMA’s freight elevator
Poll 1 - the people decided that the performance should be titled: Automatic for the People: (We Solemnly Promise That No One Will Get Naked)
Poll 2 - it is decided that the duration of the performance should be “the exact same length as R.E.M.’s ‘Automatic for the People’ album”
Poll 3 - house plants, 2x4s, lawn chairs and a PA are to be used as props during the performance
Poll 4 - we’ve been directed to refer to these themes during the performance: Marcel Duchamp, chat rooms, ukuleles and take-out food
Poll 5 - we will game, build, dance and photograph (slowly) during the performance
Poll 6 - we’ll be dressed as robots
Poll 7 - the general public will be allowed to attend the performance
Poll 8 - and they’ve chosen to have wine & cheese for refreshment
Poll 9 - the nature of the space will be “all over the place”
Poll 10 - the performance will conclude in a dance party!
BONUS POLL!!!!! - Silent Mantra
- Mind over matter, mouth in motion (Public Enemy, “Rightstarter”)
- No sleep ‘til Brooklyn (The Beastie Boys, “No Sleep till Brooklyn”)
- I’m completely operational and all my circuits are functioning normally. (Hal 9000, “2001: A Space Odyssey”)
- Isn’t life a series of images that change as they repeat themselves? (Andy Warhol)
- I am interested in ideas, not merely in visual products. (Marcel Duchamp)
- Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear (Mark Twain)
- All warfare is based on deception. (Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”)
- The art happens here. (MTAA, “The Simple Net Art Diagram”)
- May both of us work together with great vigor. (Shanti Mantras)
- Nothing’s free but guaranteed for a lifetime’s use. (R.E.M., “Star Me Kitten”)
+++
We suggest that you listen to the museum audio tour when visiting the Automatic for the People: ( ) website to vote.
To do this:
- go to mtaa.net/vote
- download the audio tour in MP3 format
- vote
(You can also listen to the audio tour on your phone: 415-294-3609, 424#)
~PLUS~
You can listen to us babble on about the piece even more! Here: http://www.sfmoma.org/multimedia/audio/44
woohoo! permanent link to this post
Jan 19, 2009
MLK day 2009
posted at 16:10 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
update
AND, it’s Edgar Allen Poe’s 200th birthday!
…slideshow from the NYT permanent link to this post
Jan 17, 2009
AFTP: ( ) FINAL POLL #10: CONCLUSION! (Jan 15-21)
posted at 16:26 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
the CONCLUSION!
Here is the script as voted by museum and online viewers so far…
“Automatic for the People: (We Solemnly Promise That No One Will Get Naked)” will be held in SFMOMA’s freight elevator at noon on 02/07/09 and last for the exact length as REM’s “Automatic for the People.”
We will use house plants, 2x4s, lawn chairs and a PA as props. We will refer to Marcel Duchamp, chat rooms, ukuleles and take-out food. We will game, build, dance and photograph during the performance (slowly). We will dress as robots. This performance will be seen by the general public who will enjoy a wine and cheese refreshment. The character of the space will be “all over the place.”
This week’s vote…
the CONCLUSION! permanent link to this post
Here is the script as voted by museum and online viewers so far…
“Automatic for the People: (We Solemnly Promise That No One Will Get Naked)” will be held in SFMOMA’s freight elevator at noon on 02/07/09 and last for the exact length as REM’s “Automatic for the People.”
We will use house plants, 2x4s, lawn chairs and a PA as props. We will refer to Marcel Duchamp, chat rooms, ukuleles and take-out food. We will game, build, dance and photograph during the performance (slowly). We will dress as robots. This performance will be seen by the general public who will enjoy a wine and cheese refreshment. The character of the space will be “all over the place.”
This week’s vote…
the CONCLUSION! permanent link to this post
SFMOMA Artcast January 2009
posted at 16:16 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Check out the new podcast from SFMOMA…
The curator Rudolf Freiling talks about “The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now,” we talk about our piece “Automatic for the People: ( )” and visitors to the museum talk about their reactions to the exhibition and how they feel about interactive art in general.
You can download the file in vanilla MP3, M4A (for iTunes; audio with images) or stream it from the SFMOMA website.
You can also subscribe to their RSS podcast feed and get updated auto-magically when they post a new one permanent link to this post
The curator Rudolf Freiling talks about “The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now,” we talk about our piece “Automatic for the People: ( )” and visitors to the museum talk about their reactions to the exhibition and how they feel about interactive art in general.
You can download the file in vanilla MP3, M4A (for iTunes; audio with images) or stream it from the SFMOMA website.
You can also subscribe to their RSS podcast feed and get updated auto-magically when they post a new one permanent link to this post
Jan 12, 2009
AFTP: ( ) Update! Poll #9: SPACE (JAN 8-14)
posted at 03:18 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
M.River is supposed to post these updates but he was really busy this week and didn’t get a chance to do it. So, in case you forgot to vote this week, here’s your reminder!
Here is the script as voted by museum and online viewers so far…
“Automatic for the People: (We Solemnly Promise That No One Will Get Naked)” will be held in SFMOMA’s freight elevator on 02/07/09 at noon for the exact same length as R.E.M.’s “Automatic for the People” album. We will use house plants, 2x4s, lawn chairs and a PA as props. We will refer to Marcel Duchamp, chat rooms, ukuleles and take-out food. We will game, build, dance, slow and photograph during the performance. We will dress as robots. This performance will be seen by the general public who will enjoy a wine and cheese refreshment.
This week’s vote…
SPACE! permanent link to this post
Here is the script as voted by museum and online viewers so far…
“Automatic for the People: (We Solemnly Promise That No One Will Get Naked)” will be held in SFMOMA’s freight elevator on 02/07/09 at noon for the exact same length as R.E.M.’s “Automatic for the People” album. We will use house plants, 2x4s, lawn chairs and a PA as props. We will refer to Marcel Duchamp, chat rooms, ukuleles and take-out food. We will game, build, dance, slow and photograph during the performance. We will dress as robots. This performance will be seen by the general public who will enjoy a wine and cheese refreshment.
This week’s vote…
SPACE! permanent link to this post
Jan 02, 2009
Robot costumes attack!
posted at 22:21 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Dec 31, 2008
Tom Marioni at SFMOMA
posted at 01:20 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
“The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art,” a social gathering hosted by Tom Marioni at SFMOMA. The gathering is an artwork that is part of a current exhibition “The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now.”
via Rudolf Freiling on Facebook… permanent link to this post
Dec 26, 2008
Seasons Greetings ‘08
posted at 22:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Dec 23, 2008
Support AFC
posted at 02:19 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
From AFC:
Read more and find the PayPal link here! permanent link to this post
• My goal is to raise $6,000 by January 1, 2009.
• Momenta Art has generously offered to umbrella Art Fag City under their 501-C3 status so readers can write off their donations. They process all on and offline contributions, and ensure the funds are not used for profit purposes.
• By contributing to this fundraiser, donors are not only supporting the efforts of one blogger, but staking a claim for the value of independent blogs in a climate of mainstream media arts cutbacks.
Read more and find the PayPal link here! permanent link to this post
Dec 06, 2008
Walton @ JetBlue
posted at 15:23 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
photo credit: Lee Walton’s mom
Lee Walton’s videos are being featured in the JetBlue Terminal 5 at JFK until January 1. Organized by Creative Time. permanent link to this post
Dec 04, 2008
Mandiberg’s Bright Bike
posted at 14:13 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Nov 30, 2008
dontletthedoorhityouonthewayout.com
posted at 20:16 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
From Sorrel Ahlfeld and Fred Benenson…
The joy created by George W. Bush’s impending departure from the Presidency could only possibly be overshadowed by the excitement of Barack Obama’s election.permanent link to this post
So now there are two reasons to celebrate!
I’m know you’ve already celebrated Obama’s victory but have you taken the time to really think about what the end of these last 8 years means to you? The end of an era?
I asked myself that question recently and decided that the best way to commemorate the long awaited date of 1-20-09 was to assemble a collection of images and words that could be presented to GWB upon his departure representing the feelings of the American people.
So, as a way to say goodbye to these last 8 years, my friend Fred and I have created a site called, “Don’t Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out” where we are collecting farewell notes for Bush. Think of it as catharsis politics:
http://dontletthedoorhityouonthewayout.com/
The basic idea is that you e-mail us images, words, and ideas and we’ll publish them into a book that we’ll try and get into Bush’s hands before Obama is sworn in. We’re looking for as much participation in this as possible, so please share this link far and wide.
I know it’s easy to put things like this off, but if you feel motivated to share your feelings about the last 8 years (I for one have been pretty steamed) please consider contributing something to the collection before the end of the year.
Nov 12, 2008
Location, location, location
posted at 00:36 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We launched our new project at SFMOMA last Saturday with a lecture/performance/live poll at the museum. The performance consisted of a slide lecture where we gave some background on MTAA, explained the Automatic for the People: ( ) project and then conducted a live vote on where the Automatic for the People: ( ) performance would take place in the museum.
The vote was really fun and people really enjoyed it. (An image of the ballot we used is below.) We went over each location on the ballot and M.River gave a quick pro and con. Then we opened the floor to debate on each of the different locations in the museum. That went really well with the audience having lots of funny and interesting reasons to choose this or that location. In the end however, it was a landslide victory for…
The freight elevator
On Feb 7th, 2009 MTAA will be doing something in SFMOMA’s freight elevator. Help us decide what by voting at the AFTP website!
permanent link to this post
The vote was really fun and people really enjoyed it. (An image of the ballot we used is below.) We went over each location on the ballot and M.River gave a quick pro and con. Then we opened the floor to debate on each of the different locations in the museum. That went really well with the audience having lots of funny and interesting reasons to choose this or that location. In the end however, it was a landslide victory for…
The freight elevator
On Feb 7th, 2009 MTAA will be doing something in SFMOMA’s freight elevator. Help us decide what by voting at the AFTP website!
permanent link to this post
Nov 11, 2008
AFTP() at SFMOMA 2
posted at 02:14 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We suggest that you listen to the museum audio tour when visiting the Automatic for the People: ( ) website to vote.
First, go to mtaa.net/vote.
Then, dial: 415-294-3609, 424#.
Consider the choices very carefully while you listen to the audio tour. permanent link to this post
Nov 08, 2008
Automatic for the People: ( ) launches
posted at 17:37 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Our new project is live! It was commissioned by SFMOMA for The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now.
Automatic for the People: ( )
Dictate the details of a contemporary art performance! Each week, from November 8 through January 21, vote in a new poll to determine different elements. On February 7, we’ll perform live using the script shaped by your votes.
So get on over there and vote! And then visit each week on Thursdays for the new poll. If you can’t remember to do that, subscribe to the RSS feed to be notified when a new poll goes live (there will be roughly one each week until Jan 21). permanent link to this post
Nov 05, 2008
JUBILATION!!!
posted at 04:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Nov 04, 2008
Vote for Barack Obama
posted at 18:40 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Nov 02, 2008
Two MTAA events in the bay area THIS WEEK!
posted at 14:07 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Opening Performance Lecture & Museum Hall Meeting
as part of The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now, curated by Rudolf Frieling
SFMOMA
Saturday Nov 8th @ 3PM
We’ll conduct the official launch of our new SFMOMA-commissioned project Automatic for the People: ( ) with a performative lecture, slideshow and drawing.
See SFMOMA’s website for more info about the exhibition and other events happening on Saturday, November 8th.
We’ll be announcing more info about Automatic for the People: ( ) on Nov 6th so stay tuned…
+++
The Name of This Band isTalking Heads MTAA
as part of Takeovers & Makeovers: Artistic Appropriation, Fair Use and Copyright in the Digital Age
Berkeley Art Museum on the campus of UC Berkeley
Friday Nov 7th @ 1:45PM
We’ll be presenting an overview of some of our work that deals with the themes of the conference. We’ll go over some of our oldies… the updates, The Pirated Movie and other pieces. Plus there will be something brand new.
This is a two day conference (Nov 7–8) with lots happening! Don’t forget to check out all the other speakers and schedule at the website. permanent link to this post
as part of The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now, curated by Rudolf Frieling
SFMOMA
Saturday Nov 8th @ 3PM
We’ll conduct the official launch of our new SFMOMA-commissioned project Automatic for the People: ( ) with a performative lecture, slideshow and drawing.
See SFMOMA’s website for more info about the exhibition and other events happening on Saturday, November 8th.
We’ll be announcing more info about Automatic for the People: ( ) on Nov 6th so stay tuned…
+++
The Name of This Band is
as part of Takeovers & Makeovers: Artistic Appropriation, Fair Use and Copyright in the Digital Age
Berkeley Art Museum on the campus of UC Berkeley
Friday Nov 7th @ 1:45PM
We’ll be presenting an overview of some of our work that deals with the themes of the conference. We’ll go over some of our oldies… the updates, The Pirated Movie and other pieces. Plus there will be something brand new.
This is a two day conference (Nov 7–8) with lots happening! Don’t forget to check out all the other speakers and schedule at the website. permanent link to this post
Oct 30, 2008
Rhizome membership drive Oct 29–Dec 31, 2008
posted at 19:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Scrape together your pennies and then give ‘em to Rhizome!
Rhizome’s annual membership drive will run from October 29 through midnight December 31st, 2008. Our goal is $30,000 — a figure that is completely vital to our success amidst a particularly difficult year in the arts.
Now is the time to support Rhizome, to make a contribution towards an organization with an open and innovative structure and singular mission to further internet and new media art. Contribute now and help us keep this field moving energetically forward, through commissioning, preservation, criticism and participatory programs, in 2009!
http://www.rhizome.org/support/ permanent link to this post
Oct 29, 2008
pencil
posted at 00:50 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Oct 22, 2008
Pixish closing
posted at 20:07 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Dumb web site designed to fleece desperate suckers out of free creative work, Pixish, is shutting down. I’ve discussed this site before here.
Derek Powazek, the guy that started the site, seems like an honest and smart person. Not sure why he thought this was a good idea. Luckily, there aren’t enough chumps out there to keep it going.
Usually I’m sorry to see indy web sites shut down. Not this time! Good riddance. permanent link to this post
Derek Powazek, the guy that started the site, seems like an honest and smart person. Not sure why he thought this was a good idea. Luckily, there aren’t enough chumps out there to keep it going.
Usually I’m sorry to see indy web sites shut down. Not this time! Good riddance. permanent link to this post
Oct 18, 2008
The Reason Campaign redux
posted at 15:09 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A 19 year old college student from Pennsylvania, Megan comes from a household of Independents. This being her first election, she has been trying to pay attention to the conventions and the debates in order to make the most informed decision possible.
I posted about this before but wanted to remind everyone about this great web site/video series.
It’s called The Reason Campaign and it was started by the extremely talented Sorrel Ahlfeld. From the site:
You’ve heard a lot about this election from both the campaigns and the media. Now you can hear from your fellow citizens. Watch below as Republicans, Independents and conservatives explain their reasons for supporting Barack Obama.
The videos are extremely well produced and very engaging. Check it out!
There’s a podcast too! permanent link to this post
Oct 14, 2008
TV panels on easels? ‘Scuse me while I barf
posted at 14:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The same fool that would buy pre-paint-spattered jeans from J.Crew would think this cool:
Of course, all things art-lite and/or art-like are loved by Boing Boing, so they link approvingly.
More of this nonsense here. permanent link to this post
Of course, all things art-lite and/or art-like are loved by Boing Boing, so they link approvingly.
More of this nonsense here. permanent link to this post
Oct 07, 2008
3K USD for a chapter on networked art
posted at 15:10 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Check it out!
From turbulence.org:
+++
Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art)
A Juried International Competition
Call for Proposals
Deadline: December 15, 2008
http://turbulence.org/networked
Five writers will be commissioned to develop chapters for a networked book about networked art. The chapters will be open for revision, commentary, and translation by online collaborators. Each commissioned writer will receive $3,000 (US).
Networked Committee:
Steve Dietz (Northern Lights, MN) :: Martha CC Gabriel (net artist, Brazil) :: Geert Lovink (Institute for Network Cultures, The Netherlands) :: Nick Montfort (Massachusetts Institute for Technology, MA) :: Anne Bray (LA Freewaves, LA) :: Sean Dockray (Telic Arts Exchange, LA) :: Jo-Anne Green (NRPA, MA) :: Eduardo Navas (newmediaFIX) :: Helen Thorington (NRPA, NY)
More here: http://turbulence.org/networked permanent link to this post
Sep 29, 2008
A new idea…
posted at 02:05 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Two shapes randomly extracted from an autotrace of a JPEG reproduction of Da Vinci’s Last Supper. M.River randomly selected the top, T.Whid the bottom. It would be better if software did the random selection.
This is a sketch or mockup or whatever you want to call something that really isn’t a finished piece.
M.River adds — Two shapes painted directly on a wall. The heights of the shapes are equal to the height of the Last Supper (15’); may involve a live performance. permanent link to this post
Sep 25, 2008
I had sort of given up on politics…
posted at 13:56 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
… or at least given up on posting about them on this blog. But this has just got to be said…
McCain is such a fucking tool.
photo © Jill Greenberg permanent link to this post
McCain is such a fucking tool.
photo © Jill Greenberg permanent link to this post
Sep 24, 2008
In the studio (9/23/2008)
posted at 13:59 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
M.River on the mic
update
Thanks to MTAA’s #1 fan you can see just how exciting the action is in our studio — ANIMATED!
permanent link to this post
Sep 07, 2008
Port Huron Project 6: Let Another World Be Born
posted at 14:16 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mark Tribe’s Port Huron Project today in NYC!!
Here’s the info:
Public reenactment of a 1967 speech by Stokely Carmichael
Sunday, September 7, 2008, 5:00 PM
East 43rd St. at Tudor City Place, New York, NY
All the way east on 43rd Street
Subways 4, 5, 6, 6, S to Grand Central
Lots more info here. permanent link to this post
Sep 05, 2008
BBEdit syntax coloring
posted at 19:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Meta: haven’t done a good old geek post on the MTAA-RR in a while…
I really want to go back to using BBEdit. Overall, it’s better than TextMate (especially the search). But it’s got this syntax coloring problem when editing JS in the head of an HTML page that DRIVES. ME. NUTS. Is pictured below:
BBEdit 9 is a better than the previous version, but it gets tripped up on parans in the string if you put a forward slash in it as well (if you take the parans out it works correctly). As you can see, if you’re putting HTML tags in the string (which is probably a pretty common thing to do) it breaks the syntax coloring for the rest of the JS in the doc. This happens if the doc is set to ‘html.’ If you set it to ‘JavaScript’ then the JS is OK but the HTML doesn’t get proper syntax coloring.
Does anyone know how to fix this? It’s driving me nuts and back to TextMate. permanent link to this post
I really want to go back to using BBEdit. Overall, it’s better than TextMate (especially the search). But it’s got this syntax coloring problem when editing JS in the head of an HTML page that DRIVES. ME. NUTS. Is pictured below:
BBEdit 9 is a better than the previous version, but it gets tripped up on parans in the string if you put a forward slash in it as well (if you take the parans out it works correctly). As you can see, if you’re putting HTML tags in the string (which is probably a pretty common thing to do) it breaks the syntax coloring for the rest of the JS in the doc. This happens if the doc is set to ‘html.’ If you set it to ‘JavaScript’ then the JS is OK but the HTML doesn’t get proper syntax coloring.
Does anyone know how to fix this? It’s driving me nuts and back to TextMate. permanent link to this post
EcoArtTech TONIGHT @ OTO
posted at 14:17 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
On September 5 from 7pm to 10pm, OTO kicks off their second season with
EcoArtTech’s performance Externalities: Wilderness and its Others.
More info: http://www.tinjail.com/over_the_opening
EcoArtTech (Christine Nadir & Cary Peppermint) continue to rethink relations between humans, technics, technology, and the environment with Externalities: Wilderness and its Others a networked, video-based performance piece. The performance will examine the conditions of possibility for getting back to “nature.”
Friday, September 5, 2008 Starts at 7:00pm
Over The Opening (AKA MTAA’s studio)
60 North 6th St.
Brooklyn, NY (gmap)
Take the L train to Bedford Ave. permanent link to this post
More info: http://www.tinjail.com/over_the_opening
EcoArtTech (Christine Nadir & Cary Peppermint) continue to rethink relations between humans, technics, technology, and the environment with Externalities: Wilderness and its Others a networked, video-based performance piece. The performance will examine the conditions of possibility for getting back to “nature.”
Friday, September 5, 2008 Starts at 7:00pm
Over The Opening (AKA MTAA’s studio)
60 North 6th St.
Brooklyn, NY (gmap)
Take the L train to Bedford Ave. permanent link to this post
Aug 19, 2008
The Reason Campaign
posted at 16:25 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I know that I promised to lay low for the rest of August, but this needs to be blogged!
My friend and über-talented film director Sorrel Ahlfeld has launched a great new video series promoting Barak Obama’s candidacy. Via video interviews, normal American’s give their reasons for voting Obama this year.
It’s called The Reason Campaign.
From the site:
The Reason Campaign aims to encourage substantive and productive dialogue between Americans - red state or blue - concerned about the issues facing our country today.
Currently there’s QuickTime video on the site, but they’re planning on expanding to different formats and streams soon.
Check it out… permanent link to this post
Aug 17, 2008
OTOs coming up
posted at 16:09 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We’ve got two (count ‘em 2) Over The Opening exhibitions happening in September! The first is the 5th with EcoArtTech (aka Christine Nadir and Cary Peppermint) and then on the 19th we’ll be showing Mike Koller (his 2nd show at OTO).
Stay tuned for more details coming soon.
Otherwise, MTAA is going to be laying low until after Labor Day. We encourage everyone to be as lazy as possible for the rest of August. permanent link to this post
Stay tuned for more details coming soon.
Otherwise, MTAA is going to be laying low until after Labor Day. We encourage everyone to be as lazy as possible for the rest of August. permanent link to this post
Aug 15, 2008
I should del.icio.us more stuff
posted at 18:51 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Aug 13, 2008
Bouncing, bouncing not fun, fun, fun
posted at 17:49 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Dear anybody that cares,
My email was bouncing. It isn’t anymore. If you sent me email and it bounced. Send it again why don’t ya?
This annoying message was brought to you by T.Whid. permanent link to this post
My email was bouncing. It isn’t anymore. If you sent me email and it bounced. Send it again why don’t ya?
This annoying message was brought to you by T.Whid. permanent link to this post
Aug 06, 2008
Rocketboom sells out!
posted at 13:28 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
LOL. Just kidding. But they did sell worldwide distro rights to Sony for what NewTeeVee is reporting as 7 figures. And I’ll bet those figures are numbers with some commas.
Get the lowdown from the horse’s mouth.
Congrats to everyone there. Especially our old Eyebeam buddy Kenyatta! permanent link to this post
Get the lowdown from the horse’s mouth.
Congrats to everyone there. Especially our old Eyebeam buddy Kenyatta! permanent link to this post
Jul 21, 2008
Art world reality redux — this time it’s for real
posted at 14:35 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Sarah Jessica Parker’s “American Artist” reality show has been picked up by (who else?) Bravo. From The Hollywood Reporter:
Sarah Jessica Parker’s art competition reality show has found a home at Bravo.permanent link to this post
The network has picked up “American Artist,” from Parker’s Pretty Matches production company and wunderkin producers Magical Elves, as part of its development slate. Bravo is expected to announce the deal Sunday at the Television Critics Assn. press tour.
The hourlong show has been described by the Elves team of Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz as a “Project Runway”-style competition series that takes on the art world. Aspiring artists compete to produce various styles of artwork (painting, sculpting, etc.), which is then judged by a panel of experts. The network declined to comment.
Jul 20, 2008
MTAA and The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now
posted at 12:28 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We’re very happy to announce that we’ll be taking part in SFMOMA’s “The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now” November 8 - February 8, 2009.
From the press release:
We’ll be dropping lots more info about this as the exhibition draws nearer. permanent link to this post
From the press release:
Organized by SFMOMA Curator of Media Arts Rudolf Frieling, this large thematic presentation gathers more than 70 works by some 50 individual artists and collectives, and will feature projects both on-site and online, as well as several new pieces commissioned specifically for the exhibition. From early performance-based and conceptual art to online works rooted in the multiuser dynamics of Web 2.0 platforms, The Art of Participation reflects on the confluence of audience interaction, utopian politics, and mass media, and reclaims the museum as a space for two-way exchange between artists and viewers.
The exhibition proposes that participatory art is generally based on a notion of indeterminacy—an openness to chance or change, as introduced by John Cage in the early 1950s—and refers to projects that, while initiated by individual artists, can be realized only through the contribution of others. This artistic approach entices the public to join in; questions the conventional divide between artists and their audience; and challenges assumptions about the symbolic value of art, as well as the traditional role of the museum as a container for objects rather than a site for social engagement or art production. Participatory art typically synthesizes a variety of artistic media, emphasizes process over object, and champions the idea of collective authorship.
We’ll be dropping lots more info about this as the exhibition draws nearer. permanent link to this post
Jul 10, 2008
Hirst: screw galleries
posted at 18:58 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
From The Art Newspaper:
via NEWSgrist permanent link to this post
The final frontier protecting contemporary art galleries from the relentless encroachment of the auction houses has been emphatically breached with the announcement that Damien Hirst is creating an exhibition of new works for display and sale at the London headquarters of Sotheby’s.
via NEWSgrist permanent link to this post
Jul 08, 2008
Touch My Bright Green Body (Green Screen Version)
posted at 22:05 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Caspar Stracke responds (.mov 52MB) to Oliver Laric’s “Touch My Body (Green Screen Version)”.
I’ve mashed-up the two together. Here’s some of stills of the video:
permanent link to this post
I’ve mashed-up the two together. Here’s some of stills of the video:
permanent link to this post
Jul 02, 2008
Suckers to tha side I know you hate my 98
posted at 02:33 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jun 27, 2008
Epic net art
posted at 22:11 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Another question raised at Rhizome’s Net Ae panel of a few weeks back was the idea of an ‘epic’ net art. Where is it? Is it possible? Who would want to do it?
Is pseudo.com an example of epic net art? Did we not know that we were in the midst of the most epic work of net art ever as it went on?
The first piece of net art that MTAA ever did, BUYING TIME: The Nostalgia-Free History Sale was done in conjunction with G. H. Hovagimyan’s ArtDirt streaming video show on Pseudo.com. (We didn’t know what the hell we were doing at the time.) There was a lot of art happening at pseudo’s offices (as well as really great parties). Jeff Gompertz (of Fakeshop) was heavily involved as well.
I’m bringing all this up as a way to help bolster Harris’ claim that pseudo.com was a ‘fake’ company and an elaborate piece of ‘performance art.’ Perhaps it was. Did he out-etoy etoy but not tell anybody until now? Can something be an art work if no one knows it’s an art work? Is he simply a revisionist fraud?
+++
Also on Rhizome; comment there if you like. permanent link to this post
Jun 26, 2008
Crazy art links!
posted at 16:14 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Olafur Eliasson’s “Waterfalls” are ON! It’s rainy today so I didn’t bike and will miss out on checking out the perfect view of one of the falls from the Manhattan Bridge. It will suck to bike it if/when the tourists figure out you can get a great view from there.
UPDATE
Roberta Smith’s review of the Waterfalls…
+++
Josh Harris: still nuts; calls Pseudo.com “an elaborate piece of performance art.” Not so sure about that…
+++
Is it a Warhol? Who knows? Who cares? (Except for the chump that paid millions for it, his insurers, The Warhol Foundation, etc.) Me? I think it’s a damn good Warhol whether he did it, knew about it, or whatever. permanent link to this post
UPDATE
Roberta Smith’s review of the Waterfalls…
+++
Josh Harris: still nuts; calls Pseudo.com “an elaborate piece of performance art.” Not so sure about that…
+++
Is it a Warhol? Who knows? Who cares? (Except for the chump that paid millions for it, his insurers, The Warhol Foundation, etc.) Me? I think it’s a damn good Warhol whether he did it, knew about it, or whatever. permanent link to this post
Jun 24, 2008
(I promise that) HARDCORE (conceptual art will make a comeback sometime very, very soon.)
posted at 17:20 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Inspired by Nayland Blake’s merch (check out AFC’s interview), we’ve decided to notify our 10s of readers that we have a t-shirt for sale.
Buy it now! permanent link to this post
Is Beck following Cory Arcangel around?
posted at 17:13 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
It sort of feels that way to me…
Listen to a full track from Beck’s new album here (login required). permanent link to this post
Listen to a full track from Beck’s new album here (login required). permanent link to this post
More Loshadka @ OTO
posted at 02:58 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Petra Cortright has posted a big batch-o-pix @ flickr showing some behind-the-scenes footage of Loshadka’s show at Over The Opening.
Check it out…
m.river updates - also some shots from Kai permanent link to this post
Jun 20, 2008
Don’t go chasing…
posted at 19:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
…Olafur Eliasson’s New York City Waterfalls! (warning: dumb flash site)
The NYC real estate blog Curbed has been doing a good job of following the construction and tests (with some anti-art snark tossed in, but whatev) of Eliasson’s public sculptures. Check out the Curbed waterfall archives.
And don’t miss the Gothamist post on the Brooklyn Bridge Waterfall. permanent link to this post
The NYC real estate blog Curbed has been doing a good job of following the construction and tests (with some anti-art snark tossed in, but whatev) of Eliasson’s public sculptures. Check out the Curbed waterfall archives.
And don’t miss the Gothamist post on the Brooklyn Bridge Waterfall. permanent link to this post
Jun 17, 2008
post-net art…
posted at 21:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
…is a better label than net art 2.0.
not post-net.art…
not anti-post-net art…
…post-net art permanent link to this post
not post-net.art…
not anti-post-net art…
…post-net art permanent link to this post
Jun 11, 2008
Kurtz wins
posted at 11:56 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
If you know the facts of this case there’s no way you can’t be angry about it. The witch hunt finally ends.
PR follows…
###
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 11, 2008
ARTIST CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES IN PRECEDENT-SETTING CASE
Department of Justice Fails to Appeal Dismissal
Kurtz Speaks about Four-Year Ordeal
Buffalo, NY — Dr. Steven Kurtz, a Professor of Visual Studies at SUNY at Buffalo and cofounder of the award-winning art and theater group Critical Art Ensemble, has been cleared of all charges of mail and wire fraud. On April 21, Federal Judge Richard J. Arcara dismissed the government’s entire indictment against Dr. Kurtz as “insufficient on its face.” This means that even if the actions alleged in the indictment (which the judge must accept as “fact”) were true, they would not constitute a crime. The US Department of Justice had thirty days from the date of the ruling to appeal. No action has been taken in this time period, thus stopping any appeal of the dismissal. According to Margaret McFarland, a spokeswoman for US Attorney Terrance P. Flynn, the DoJ will not appeal Arcara’s ruling and will not seek any new charges against Kurtz.
For over a decade, cultural institutions worldwide have hosted Kurtz and Critical Art Ensemble’s educational art projects, which use common science materials to examine issues surrounding the new biotechnologies. In 2004 the Department of Justice alleged that Dr. Kurtz had schemed with colleague Dr. Robert Ferrell of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health to illegally acquire two harmless bacteria cultures for use in one of those projects. The Justice Department further alleged that the transfer of the material from Ferrell to Kurtz broke a material transfer agreement, thus constituting mail fraud.
Under the USA PATRIOT Act, the maximum sentence for these charges was increased from five years to twenty years in prison.
Dr. Kurtz has been fighting the charges ever since. In October 2007, Dr. Ferrell pleaded to a lesser misdemeanor charge after recurring bouts of cancer and three strokes suffered since his indictment prevented him from continuing the struggle.
KURTZ SUMS UP END OF FOUR-YEAR NIGHTMARE
Finally vindicated after four years of struggle, Kurtz, asked for a statement, responded stoically: “I don’t have a statement, but I do have questions. As an innocent man, where do I go to get back the four years the Department of Justice stole from me? As a taxpayer, where do I go to get back the millions of dollars the FBI and Justice Department wasted persecuting me? And as a citizen, what must I do to have a Justice Department free of partisan corruption so profound it has turned on those it is sworn to protect?”
Said Kurtz’s attorney, Paul Cambria, “I am glad an innocent man has been vindicated. Steve Kurtz stared in the face of the federal government and a twenty-year prison term and never flinched, because he believes in his work and his actions were those of a completely innocent man. Clients like him are a blessing, and although I have had many important victories, this one stands at the top of the list.”
As coordinator of the CAE Defense Fund, a group organized to support Kurtz from the beginning of the case, Lucia Sommer sees the end of the prosecution as bittersweet, and like Kurtz, is thoughtful about the broader significance of the case: “This ruling is the best possible ending to a horrible ordeal—but we are mindful of numerous cases still pending, and the grave injustices perpetrated by the Bush administration following 9/11. This case was part of a larger picture, in which law enforcement was given expanded powers. In this instance, the Bush administration was unsuccessful in its attempt to erode Americans’ constitutional rights.”
Referring to the international outcry the case provoked, involving fundraisers and protests held on four continents, Sommer said, “The government has unlimited resources to bring and prosecute these kinds of charges, but the accused often don’t have any resources to defend themselves. This victory could never have happened without the activism of thousands of people. Supporters protested, vocally opposed the prosecution, and refused to let it go on in silence. And without their efforts at fundraising, Kurtz and Ferrell would not have been able to defend themselves from these false accusations.”
Sommer added that the next step for the defense will be to get back all of the materials taken by the FBI during its 2004 raid on the Kurtz home, including several completed art projects, as well as Dr. Kurtz’s lab equipment, computers, books, manuscripts, notes, research materials, and personal belongings. The four confiscated art projects are the subject of an exhibition entitled SEIZED on view at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, NY, through July 18: http://www.hallwalls.org/visual_shows/2008/show_seized.html.
BACKGROUND TO THE CASE
The case originated in May 2004, when Kurtz’s wife Hope died of heart failure as the couple was preparing a project about genetically modified agriculture for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Police who responded to Steve Kurtz’s 911 call deemed the Kurtzes’ art materials suspicious and alerted the FBI. Kurtz explained that the materials (legally and easily obtained basic life science equipment and two harmless bacteria samples) had already been displayed at museums throughout Europe and North America with absolutely no risk to the public. However, the following day, Kurtz was illegally detained for 22 hours on suspicion of bioterrorism, as dozens of agents from the FBI, Joint Terrorism Task Force, Homeland Security, Department of Defense, ATF, and numerous other law enforcement agencies raided his home, seizing his personal and professional belongings. After a federal grand jury refused to charge Kurtz with bioterrorism, Kurtz and Ferrell were indicted on two counts of mail fraud and two counts of wire fraud concerning the acquisition of of harmless bacteria for one of Critical Art Ensemble’s educational art projects. (Critical Art Ensemble is the recipient of numerous awards for its projects, including the prestigious 2007 Andy Warhol Foundation Wynn Kramarsky Freedom of Artistic Expression Grant, in recognition of twenty years of distinguished work: http://www.creative-capital.org/index2.html.)
The Department of Justice brought the charges in spite of the fact that the alleged “victims of fraud”—American Type Culture Collection and the University of Pittsburgh—never filed any charges or complained of any wrongdoing, and the fact that in bringing the charges the Department of Justice was acting completely outside its own Prosecution Policy Relating to Mail Fraud and Wire Fraud (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/eousa/
foia_reading_room/usam/title9/43mcrm.htm).
For more information and extensive documentation, including the Judge’s dismissal, please visit: http://caedefensefund.org permanent link to this post
PR follows…
###
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 11, 2008
ARTIST CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES IN PRECEDENT-SETTING CASE
Department of Justice Fails to Appeal Dismissal
Kurtz Speaks about Four-Year Ordeal
Buffalo, NY — Dr. Steven Kurtz, a Professor of Visual Studies at SUNY at Buffalo and cofounder of the award-winning art and theater group Critical Art Ensemble, has been cleared of all charges of mail and wire fraud. On April 21, Federal Judge Richard J. Arcara dismissed the government’s entire indictment against Dr. Kurtz as “insufficient on its face.” This means that even if the actions alleged in the indictment (which the judge must accept as “fact”) were true, they would not constitute a crime. The US Department of Justice had thirty days from the date of the ruling to appeal. No action has been taken in this time period, thus stopping any appeal of the dismissal. According to Margaret McFarland, a spokeswoman for US Attorney Terrance P. Flynn, the DoJ will not appeal Arcara’s ruling and will not seek any new charges against Kurtz.
For over a decade, cultural institutions worldwide have hosted Kurtz and Critical Art Ensemble’s educational art projects, which use common science materials to examine issues surrounding the new biotechnologies. In 2004 the Department of Justice alleged that Dr. Kurtz had schemed with colleague Dr. Robert Ferrell of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health to illegally acquire two harmless bacteria cultures for use in one of those projects. The Justice Department further alleged that the transfer of the material from Ferrell to Kurtz broke a material transfer agreement, thus constituting mail fraud.
Under the USA PATRIOT Act, the maximum sentence for these charges was increased from five years to twenty years in prison.
Dr. Kurtz has been fighting the charges ever since. In October 2007, Dr. Ferrell pleaded to a lesser misdemeanor charge after recurring bouts of cancer and three strokes suffered since his indictment prevented him from continuing the struggle.
KURTZ SUMS UP END OF FOUR-YEAR NIGHTMARE
Finally vindicated after four years of struggle, Kurtz, asked for a statement, responded stoically: “I don’t have a statement, but I do have questions. As an innocent man, where do I go to get back the four years the Department of Justice stole from me? As a taxpayer, where do I go to get back the millions of dollars the FBI and Justice Department wasted persecuting me? And as a citizen, what must I do to have a Justice Department free of partisan corruption so profound it has turned on those it is sworn to protect?”
Said Kurtz’s attorney, Paul Cambria, “I am glad an innocent man has been vindicated. Steve Kurtz stared in the face of the federal government and a twenty-year prison term and never flinched, because he believes in his work and his actions were those of a completely innocent man. Clients like him are a blessing, and although I have had many important victories, this one stands at the top of the list.”
As coordinator of the CAE Defense Fund, a group organized to support Kurtz from the beginning of the case, Lucia Sommer sees the end of the prosecution as bittersweet, and like Kurtz, is thoughtful about the broader significance of the case: “This ruling is the best possible ending to a horrible ordeal—but we are mindful of numerous cases still pending, and the grave injustices perpetrated by the Bush administration following 9/11. This case was part of a larger picture, in which law enforcement was given expanded powers. In this instance, the Bush administration was unsuccessful in its attempt to erode Americans’ constitutional rights.”
Referring to the international outcry the case provoked, involving fundraisers and protests held on four continents, Sommer said, “The government has unlimited resources to bring and prosecute these kinds of charges, but the accused often don’t have any resources to defend themselves. This victory could never have happened without the activism of thousands of people. Supporters protested, vocally opposed the prosecution, and refused to let it go on in silence. And without their efforts at fundraising, Kurtz and Ferrell would not have been able to defend themselves from these false accusations.”
Sommer added that the next step for the defense will be to get back all of the materials taken by the FBI during its 2004 raid on the Kurtz home, including several completed art projects, as well as Dr. Kurtz’s lab equipment, computers, books, manuscripts, notes, research materials, and personal belongings. The four confiscated art projects are the subject of an exhibition entitled SEIZED on view at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, NY, through July 18: http://www.hallwalls.org/visual_shows/2008/show_seized.html.
BACKGROUND TO THE CASE
The case originated in May 2004, when Kurtz’s wife Hope died of heart failure as the couple was preparing a project about genetically modified agriculture for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Police who responded to Steve Kurtz’s 911 call deemed the Kurtzes’ art materials suspicious and alerted the FBI. Kurtz explained that the materials (legally and easily obtained basic life science equipment and two harmless bacteria samples) had already been displayed at museums throughout Europe and North America with absolutely no risk to the public. However, the following day, Kurtz was illegally detained for 22 hours on suspicion of bioterrorism, as dozens of agents from the FBI, Joint Terrorism Task Force, Homeland Security, Department of Defense, ATF, and numerous other law enforcement agencies raided his home, seizing his personal and professional belongings. After a federal grand jury refused to charge Kurtz with bioterrorism, Kurtz and Ferrell were indicted on two counts of mail fraud and two counts of wire fraud concerning the acquisition of of harmless bacteria for one of Critical Art Ensemble’s educational art projects. (Critical Art Ensemble is the recipient of numerous awards for its projects, including the prestigious 2007 Andy Warhol Foundation Wynn Kramarsky Freedom of Artistic Expression Grant, in recognition of twenty years of distinguished work: http://www.creative-capital.org/index2.html.)
The Department of Justice brought the charges in spite of the fact that the alleged “victims of fraud”—American Type Culture Collection and the University of Pittsburgh—never filed any charges or complained of any wrongdoing, and the fact that in bringing the charges the Department of Justice was acting completely outside its own Prosecution Policy Relating to Mail Fraud and Wire Fraud (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/eousa/
foia_reading_room/usam/title9/43mcrm.htm).
For more information and extensive documentation, including the Judge’s dismissal, please visit: http://caedefensefund.org permanent link to this post
Jun 07, 2008
Net Ae 2.0 postmortem
posted at 22:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I was more obnoxious than I meant to be and I came off old and cranky.
All around a fine evening.
It was a bit of a set-up between artists of the older generation (T.Whid, the McCoys; artists who took part in ‘net art 1.0’) and artists of a younger generation (Petra Cortright, Damon Zucconi) with Tom Moody thrown in to prove that you can be over 30 and also a member of a surfing club.
But seriously, I was fairly bombastic at one point and it went something like this: “It seems like the artists that were involved in earlier stage of net art have given up on it to a certain degree, my question to the younger artists on the panel: why haven’t you figured out that it’s a dead end?”
This little rhetorical bomb was tossed specifically to spice up the discussion a tad. I’m going to try to expand and clear it up.
Before I get into it I need to make clear that when I talk about net art, I’m using the classic definition: “art that uses the internet as its medium and that cannot be experienced in any other way.” To me, this definition shouldn’t be diluted, it just leads to confusion. I use the term web art for art on the web that can exist entirely in one browser session. Note that I think blogs (including photo, video, or other media blogs) fulfill the classic definition of net art.
First, MTAA hasn’t given up on net art entirely. We’re working on a small piece currently that fits the classic definition of net art and our latest large piece, “Want”, has, at the very least, the possibility of fitting the ole skool definition. So my assertion that we’ve ‘given up’ on net art isn’t really true. Jenn McCoy also mentioned after the panel that she and Kevin haven’t given up either, she likened it to trying to get pregnant but it just won’t happen for whatever reason.
What we’re ‘giving up’ is the idea that this ‘pure’ sort of net art will ever enter the gallery in a way that makes any sense. Many net artists have come up with hybrid net art that does make sense in the gallery space. Examples of MTAA’s efforts in that direction are “Endnode (AKA Printer Tree)” and “Want.”
Second, the ‘dead end’ comment is a red herring. The younger generation never entertained these grand and flawed ideas of a ‘pure’ net art. The artists on the panel made it very clear that their work comprises video, looping animations, photography, holography(!), web sites, etc. I believe that Damon’s first comment was that his work is multi-disciplinary. The earlier generation of net artists learned the hard way that transitioning the ‘pure’ form of net art into the gallery is very problematic. The current generation of digital artists seems to have side-stepped this problem entirely.
+++
A few words on surfing clubs (PDF link to Marcin Ramocki’s thorough essay on the genre).
Mail art is to net art as graffiti art is to surf clubs.
The panel discussion bogged down considerably during the surfing club portion in my opinion. I’m guessing that since the clubs are by their nature somewhat insular and ‘insider-y,’ the audience felt it. There were 3 practitioners of the genre discussing it without a real thought to making it very accessible to the audience. During my live-twittering of the panel, I made a couple of comments to this regard (1, 2).
Apologies to anyone that was insulted by my tweets. It was a rather rude way of offering my criticism.
+++
Cross-posted to Rhizome; comment there if you feel the desire. permanent link to this post
All around a fine evening.
It was a bit of a set-up between artists of the older generation (T.Whid, the McCoys; artists who took part in ‘net art 1.0’) and artists of a younger generation (Petra Cortright, Damon Zucconi) with Tom Moody thrown in to prove that you can be over 30 and also a member of a surfing club.
But seriously, I was fairly bombastic at one point and it went something like this: “It seems like the artists that were involved in earlier stage of net art have given up on it to a certain degree, my question to the younger artists on the panel: why haven’t you figured out that it’s a dead end?”
This little rhetorical bomb was tossed specifically to spice up the discussion a tad. I’m going to try to expand and clear it up.
Before I get into it I need to make clear that when I talk about net art, I’m using the classic definition: “art that uses the internet as its medium and that cannot be experienced in any other way.” To me, this definition shouldn’t be diluted, it just leads to confusion. I use the term web art for art on the web that can exist entirely in one browser session. Note that I think blogs (including photo, video, or other media blogs) fulfill the classic definition of net art.
First, MTAA hasn’t given up on net art entirely. We’re working on a small piece currently that fits the classic definition of net art and our latest large piece, “Want”, has, at the very least, the possibility of fitting the ole skool definition. So my assertion that we’ve ‘given up’ on net art isn’t really true. Jenn McCoy also mentioned after the panel that she and Kevin haven’t given up either, she likened it to trying to get pregnant but it just won’t happen for whatever reason.
What we’re ‘giving up’ is the idea that this ‘pure’ sort of net art will ever enter the gallery in a way that makes any sense. Many net artists have come up with hybrid net art that does make sense in the gallery space. Examples of MTAA’s efforts in that direction are “Endnode (AKA Printer Tree)” and “Want.”
Second, the ‘dead end’ comment is a red herring. The younger generation never entertained these grand and flawed ideas of a ‘pure’ net art. The artists on the panel made it very clear that their work comprises video, looping animations, photography, holography(!), web sites, etc. I believe that Damon’s first comment was that his work is multi-disciplinary. The earlier generation of net artists learned the hard way that transitioning the ‘pure’ form of net art into the gallery is very problematic. The current generation of digital artists seems to have side-stepped this problem entirely.
+++
A few words on surfing clubs (PDF link to Marcin Ramocki’s thorough essay on the genre).
Mail art is to net art as graffiti art is to surf clubs.
The panel discussion bogged down considerably during the surfing club portion in my opinion. I’m guessing that since the clubs are by their nature somewhat insular and ‘insider-y,’ the audience felt it. There were 3 practitioners of the genre discussing it without a real thought to making it very accessible to the audience. During my live-twittering of the panel, I made a couple of comments to this regard (1, 2).
Apologies to anyone that was insulted by my tweets. It was a rather rude way of offering my criticism.
+++
Cross-posted to Rhizome; comment there if you feel the desire. permanent link to this post
Jun 04, 2008
Net Art 2.5 private beta
posted at 19:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Apropos of my participation in the Net Aesthetics 2.0 panel with Rhizome this Friday, I typed out some words on why I think it’s a bad idea to version art periods. It’s just a couple paragraphs. Hopefully at the panel I’ll be able to flesh out my thoughts off-the-cuff.
Please don’t version art periods…
Oh, alright. I’ve resigned myself to using the term “Net Art 2.0” to refer to the current state of net art. But before I completely give in, I need to put up a bit of a fight.
The main problem with using a software versioning paradigm to distinguish art periods is the implied progression. When a developer delivers new versions of their software new features are added or enhanced, bugs are fixed, new problems are identified and addressed, formats are upgraded and interfaces are streamlined.
Some will say that the progression, though implied, isn’t what people mean when they use the term “Net Art 2.0.” But, when O’Reilly versioned the web with their Web 2.0 conference in 2004 (would there be a Net Art 2.0 without Web 2.0?) it was done specifically to denote that an improvement was happening in regards to business practices on the web. “The pretenders are given the bum’s rush, the real success stories show their strength, and there begins to be an understanding of what separates one from the other” (What is Web 2.0?). So when we describe the current state of net art as Net Art 2.0, the idea that it’s somehow an improvement to artistic or aesthetic practices on the net follows.
But, is so-called Net Art 2.0 a progressive upgrade? Does it add any new features? Does it solve problems that previous net artists ignored? Are there hidden regressions? Is it correct to even think of art history in terms of progression?
If we really want to give net art a number, just call it Net Art 2 — as in the sequel. Otherwise, M.River and I are going to launch Net Art 2.5 in a private beta, and you’ll need to email us for an invite.
update: AFC linked this up, so if you feel like commenting, you can do it there.
update 2: I posted it to Rhizome, you can also comment there.
(One day we’ll have comments back here I promise!) permanent link to this post
Please don’t version art periods…
Oh, alright. I’ve resigned myself to using the term “Net Art 2.0” to refer to the current state of net art. But before I completely give in, I need to put up a bit of a fight.
The main problem with using a software versioning paradigm to distinguish art periods is the implied progression. When a developer delivers new versions of their software new features are added or enhanced, bugs are fixed, new problems are identified and addressed, formats are upgraded and interfaces are streamlined.
Some will say that the progression, though implied, isn’t what people mean when they use the term “Net Art 2.0.” But, when O’Reilly versioned the web with their Web 2.0 conference in 2004 (would there be a Net Art 2.0 without Web 2.0?) it was done specifically to denote that an improvement was happening in regards to business practices on the web. “The pretenders are given the bum’s rush, the real success stories show their strength, and there begins to be an understanding of what separates one from the other” (What is Web 2.0?). So when we describe the current state of net art as Net Art 2.0, the idea that it’s somehow an improvement to artistic or aesthetic practices on the net follows.
But, is so-called Net Art 2.0 a progressive upgrade? Does it add any new features? Does it solve problems that previous net artists ignored? Are there hidden regressions? Is it correct to even think of art history in terms of progression?
If we really want to give net art a number, just call it Net Art 2 — as in the sequel. Otherwise, M.River and I are going to launch Net Art 2.5 in a private beta, and you’ll need to email us for an invite.
update: AFC linked this up, so if you feel like commenting, you can do it there.
update 2: I posted it to Rhizome, you can also comment there.
(One day we’ll have comments back here I promise!) permanent link to this post
Jun 03, 2008
Net Aesthetics 2.0
posted at 12:03 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
T.Whid (Tim Whidden) of MTAA is on this panel Friday.
The upcoming program in Rhizome’s New Silent Series at the New Museum, Net Aesthetics 2.0, will examine the state of contemporary art engaged with internet art. Convening leading artists, critics and curators, this panel will explore salient topics such as the relationship of artists emerging now to the first generation of internet art, the correspondence between online art and offline exhibition (as well as the phenomenon of “internet aware” art), the current role of the artist on the internet, the position of explicit political content in internet art (and the question of whether internet art practice is undergoing a more “formalist” phase), among other directions and challenges faced by this expansive field.permanent link to this post
This talk will be the second in a series of Net Aesthetics 2.0 events. Panelists include artists Petra Cortright, Jennifer and Kevin Mccoy, Tom Moody, Tim Whidden and Damon Zucconi and will be moderated by curator, critic and Rhizome staff writer Ed Halter. Tickets available here.
Friday June 6th, 7:30pm
the New Museum, New York, NY
$8 general public, $6 Members (Rhizome and New Museum)
Presented in conjunction with Internet Week
http://www.newmuseum.org/events/190
Jun 02, 2008
Heeeeeeeeey Bo Diddley
posted at 17:13 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
May 23, 2008
Horvath gets BoingBoing’d
posted at 20:31 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Always nice to see one’s friends get the props they deserve. BoingBoing turns on it’s massive readership to Peter Horvath’s Boulevard.
Congrats Peter, you’ve just gained an entirely new audience! Hope your bandwidth bill is paid up… permanent link to this post
Congrats Peter, you’ve just gained an entirely new audience! Hope your bandwidth bill is paid up… permanent link to this post
May 22, 2008
AutoTrace #1 (Full Fathom Five), 2005
posted at 13:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
May 21, 2008
Blackboard pro = dumb
posted at 15:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Why do two (1,2) über-geeks think this is a good idea?
It’s a mind-boggingly stupid idea: #1 chalked-up sleeves; #2 erased messages via the chalked-up sleeves; and #3 you can’t see the to-dos when you’re using your computer (assuming at least *some* of the to-dos would have to be done with the computer). update: Not to mention the dust problem that the Boing Boing commenters point out.
It’s only a good idea if you never, ever remove the laptop from your desk and never open it. Sometimes the techno-nerds really lose all perspective. permanent link to this post
May 20, 2008
Orphan Artworks Bill
posted at 15:54 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Lessig disses the Orphan Artworks Bill (PDF of bill) in the NYT today. The bill is currently making its way through the US Congress on a fast track. Here’s a summary of what’s in it. Ed Winkleman has a post about it as well.
I have to admit that I have no idea what to make of this proposal. But I outsource all my opinions regarding copyright to Lessig so I guess I’m against it.
update
More on this from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (they strongly support it). permanent link to this post
I have to admit that I have no idea what to make of this proposal. But I outsource all my opinions regarding copyright to Lessig so I guess I’m against it.
update
More on this from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (they strongly support it). permanent link to this post
May 17, 2008
Oreilly remix
posted at 14:51 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
May 14, 2008
Chicago: feast on foie gras!
posted at 20:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The evil Chicago foie gras ban has been overturned!
I only mention it now as it’s been discussed here before.
The thing that really irritates me about these foie gras bans is that the true food demons in our culture — large factory farms — have too much clout for animal activists to have any affect. So they end up picking on small, artisanal farmers creating a relatively rare delicacy.
M.River adds = Here is a NYT article on the “artisanal farmers” of foie gras - No Days Off at Foie Gras Farm.
T.Whid adds… er, ah… oops permanent link to this post
I only mention it now as it’s been discussed here before.
The thing that really irritates me about these foie gras bans is that the true food demons in our culture — large factory farms — have too much clout for animal activists to have any affect. So they end up picking on small, artisanal farmers creating a relatively rare delicacy.
M.River adds = Here is a NYT article on the “artisanal farmers” of foie gras - No Days Off at Foie Gras Farm.
T.Whid adds… er, ah… oops permanent link to this post
May 13, 2008
Rauschenberg dead!
posted at 14:49 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
May 09, 2008
…as goofy and perplexing and overwhelming and sad as the Internet itself
posted at 16:05 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
WANT, a collaboration between MTAA and Radical Software Group, uses 900 video clips of actors to illustrate search-engine requests. It’s as goofy and perplexing and overwhelming and sad as the Internet itself. The next time you use a search engine with one of those “Other users are currently searching for . . .” features, you won’t be able to resist picturing the forlorn, chubby face that goes with the query for “SALMA HAYEK EATING COOKIES.”
via Get Plugged In By ‘LIVE,’ the New Art Show at UC Irvine’s Beall Center for Art and Technology (OC Weekly ) permanent link to this post
May 08, 2008
Getty goat
posted at 14:20 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Thought this was funny: Goats Eat Free at the Getty (NYT)
permanent link to this post
May 07, 2008
Hasan Elahi on Colbert Report TONIGHT!
posted at 18:40 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Just got this email from Hasan:
We met Hasan at the Creative Capital retreat in ‘06. If only all the terrorists on the watchlists were like Hasan, the world would be a happy place…
If you don’t know Hasan’s project, “Tracking Transience,” you should check it out! permanent link to this post
Tonight (May 7)
The Colbert Report
Comedy Central
11:30 (Eastern and Pacific)/10:30 (Central and Mountaln)
I’m going to be on The Colbert Report discussing my project, “Tracking Transience” and how do deal with being on a terrorist watchlist. Stephen Colbert is supposedly doing a little story on Nelson Mandela still being on the terrorist watchlist…I guess Mandela was unavailable, so they called me.
We met Hasan at the Creative Capital retreat in ‘06. If only all the terrorists on the watchlists were like Hasan, the world would be a happy place…
If you don’t know Hasan’s project, “Tracking Transience,” you should check it out! permanent link to this post
May 03, 2008
Ah, the good ole days
posted at 00:14 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A Comparative Study of Apples and Oranges
Introduction
MTAA for Website Unseen #98 (ed: this piece no longer works in contemporary browsers FYI) with support from MT Science.
This introduction will cover the main themes of the larger study soon to be published. The comparison of apples and oranges should be viewed within the 3 main aspects of fruit usage in the United States. These aspects being (1) pleasure, (2) nutrition and (3) decorative display. This study compares apples and oranges within the cultural and national boundaries of the United States.
Areas used for comparison in this study.
1. Color
2. Shape and Texture (includes skin and meat)
3. Taste
4. Nutritional Value
5. Economics (includes price and availability)
6. Traditional and Non-Traditional Uses
I. COLOR
MTAA conducted comparison tests of the colors of the two fruits with these criteria in mind. 1) In what quantity does the fruit’s color promote appetite for it, i.e. does the red color of a granny smith promote greater appetite than the orange color of a Sunkist. (For the purposes of this study we’ve included only red apples and no golden or yellow.) 2) Does the color promote each fruit’s decorative display in a domestic or commercial setting, including dining room tables, sideboards, coffee tables, kitchen tables, etc in domestic settings and retail furniture outlets. Boardroom tables, reception desks and marketing and/or advertising materials were judged in non-fruit related industries. These studies involved interviews with lay people and professionals who generally use fruit as decorative devices. MTAA also used laboratory studies designed to elicit responses from subjects as to their proclivity to either apples or oranges as decorative devices. We used only color in these studies and experiments and did similar experiments using shape and texture as the criteria.
II. SHAPE AND TEXTURE
MTAA compared these characteristics using the same criteria with similar sampling and testing procedures as the color tests. We measured how the shape and texture promoted appetite and decorative display. These tests were conducted both through visual inspection of shape and texture as well as through a tactile inspection i.e. a “feel” test. With the tactile test MTAA added an identifier section, quantifying which fruit was more easily identified through touch.
III. TASTE
MTAA conducted numerous taste tests using people, monkeys, rats and parrots as testers. With each test group we tested which fruit was more preferred. A Crave Test was also conducted, which measured which fruit was more craved by the test groups. The Crave Test is methodologically very complicated and the details will be published in the full study but it measures how often the test subjects thought of, visualized, or sought after the fruit.
MTAA also tested the taste and crave-ability of prepared foods that use the two fruits as a main ingredient including juices.
IV. NUTRITIONAL VALUE
Using data from the USDA, MTAA compared the nutritional values of the fruits as well as a number of prepared foods that use the fruits as a main ingredient.
V. ECONOMICS
MTAA compared the availability and price during different times of the year in different parts of the US using empirical data provided by the National Apple Growers Association and the National Orange Growers Association. MTAA have also created a comprehensive price/nutrition ratio for all parts of the country for the year 1998.
VI. TRADITIONAL AND NON-TRADITIONAL USES
MTAA did extensive anthropological research into the uses of the two fruits in different cultural contexts such as ingredients in recipes, prominence in religious ceremonies, use as motivational awards, depiction in art and architecture, and general status symbols within different cultural categories. These categories included the contemporary dominant culture of the US, contemporary and historical subcultures, indigenous populations, and small-scale societies both contemporary and historical.
These studies yielded data with which MTAA could create an “Importance Factor” within each cultural category.
The wealth of information which these comparison studies yeilded is currently being analyzed at the MT Science Labs. MTAA forecast a 2004 release of the Comparative Study of Apples and Oranges.
published 2/28/00 permanent link to this post
Introduction
MTAA for Website Unseen #98 (ed: this piece no longer works in contemporary browsers FYI) with support from MT Science.
This introduction will cover the main themes of the larger study soon to be published. The comparison of apples and oranges should be viewed within the 3 main aspects of fruit usage in the United States. These aspects being (1) pleasure, (2) nutrition and (3) decorative display. This study compares apples and oranges within the cultural and national boundaries of the United States.
Areas used for comparison in this study.
1. Color
2. Shape and Texture (includes skin and meat)
3. Taste
4. Nutritional Value
5. Economics (includes price and availability)
6. Traditional and Non-Traditional Uses
I. COLOR
MTAA conducted comparison tests of the colors of the two fruits with these criteria in mind. 1) In what quantity does the fruit’s color promote appetite for it, i.e. does the red color of a granny smith promote greater appetite than the orange color of a Sunkist. (For the purposes of this study we’ve included only red apples and no golden or yellow.) 2) Does the color promote each fruit’s decorative display in a domestic or commercial setting, including dining room tables, sideboards, coffee tables, kitchen tables, etc in domestic settings and retail furniture outlets. Boardroom tables, reception desks and marketing and/or advertising materials were judged in non-fruit related industries. These studies involved interviews with lay people and professionals who generally use fruit as decorative devices. MTAA also used laboratory studies designed to elicit responses from subjects as to their proclivity to either apples or oranges as decorative devices. We used only color in these studies and experiments and did similar experiments using shape and texture as the criteria.
II. SHAPE AND TEXTURE
MTAA compared these characteristics using the same criteria with similar sampling and testing procedures as the color tests. We measured how the shape and texture promoted appetite and decorative display. These tests were conducted both through visual inspection of shape and texture as well as through a tactile inspection i.e. a “feel” test. With the tactile test MTAA added an identifier section, quantifying which fruit was more easily identified through touch.
III. TASTE
MTAA conducted numerous taste tests using people, monkeys, rats and parrots as testers. With each test group we tested which fruit was more preferred. A Crave Test was also conducted, which measured which fruit was more craved by the test groups. The Crave Test is methodologically very complicated and the details will be published in the full study but it measures how often the test subjects thought of, visualized, or sought after the fruit.
MTAA also tested the taste and crave-ability of prepared foods that use the two fruits as a main ingredient including juices.
IV. NUTRITIONAL VALUE
Using data from the USDA, MTAA compared the nutritional values of the fruits as well as a number of prepared foods that use the fruits as a main ingredient.
V. ECONOMICS
MTAA compared the availability and price during different times of the year in different parts of the US using empirical data provided by the National Apple Growers Association and the National Orange Growers Association. MTAA have also created a comprehensive price/nutrition ratio for all parts of the country for the year 1998.
VI. TRADITIONAL AND NON-TRADITIONAL USES
MTAA did extensive anthropological research into the uses of the two fruits in different cultural contexts such as ingredients in recipes, prominence in religious ceremonies, use as motivational awards, depiction in art and architecture, and general status symbols within different cultural categories. These categories included the contemporary dominant culture of the US, contemporary and historical subcultures, indigenous populations, and small-scale societies both contemporary and historical.
These studies yielded data with which MTAA could create an “Importance Factor” within each cultural category.
The wealth of information which these comparison studies yeilded is currently being analyzed at the MT Science Labs. MTAA forecast a 2004 release of the Comparative Study of Apples and Oranges.
published 2/28/00 permanent link to this post
Apr 30, 2008
Cause Caller
posted at 20:58 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The impressive Fred Benenson has released his ITP master’s thesis project.
It’s called Cause Caller and it makes it easy for anyone to call politicians and bug them about stuff they care about. One can also create a cause and get all one’s friends to bug politicians that might help the cause.
Lots more on the Cause Caller site, including a demo video, so check it out… permanent link to this post
Apr 29, 2008
Self-Selected SuperSt*rs TONIGHT!
posted at 13:28 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Reminder: MTAA is doing a live demonstration TONIGHT!
On April 29 from 8PM to 10PM, in a Sunset Park factory, the artist collaboration MTAA shoot and simultaneously screen two films… starring you.
Two directors/camera operators will set up at Light Industry deep in the heart of Brooklyn. The space will have some cheap/random props and costumes. If you want some acting direction, we’ll have scripts and improv notes ready. If acting isn’t your thing, just come in and be your fabulous self. The shooting will be continuous and casual with both films projected live for your viewing pleasure. Join us for the entire shoot or just walk in for your close-up.
More info here…
Plus, as a SPECIAL BONUS, T.Whid will conduct a screening of contemporary loops. It’ll work like this:
It will loop and iterate AT THE SAME TIME!
Be there or be something with 4 right angles!
FREE
lightindustry.org
Events take place in Industry City
55 33rd Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenue), 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11232
(directions) permanent link to this post
On April 29 from 8PM to 10PM, in a Sunset Park factory, the artist collaboration MTAA shoot and simultaneously screen two films… starring you.
Two directors/camera operators will set up at Light Industry deep in the heart of Brooklyn. The space will have some cheap/random props and costumes. If you want some acting direction, we’ll have scripts and improv notes ready. If acting isn’t your thing, just come in and be your fabulous self. The shooting will be continuous and casual with both films projected live for your viewing pleasure. Join us for the entire shoot or just walk in for your close-up.
More info here…
Plus, as a SPECIAL BONUS, T.Whid will conduct a screening of contemporary loops. It’ll work like this:
while (!handsInTheAir) {loop;}
It will loop and iterate AT THE SAME TIME!
Be there or be something with 4 right angles!
FREE
lightindustry.org
Events take place in Industry City
55 33rd Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenue), 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11232
(directions) permanent link to this post
Apr 22, 2008
Charges against Kurtz dismissed
posted at 19:15 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Finally some sanity…
++++
April 21, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JUDGE DISMISSES MAIL FRAUD CASE AGAINST BIO-ARTIST KURTZ
Buffalo, NY—A process that has taken nearly four years may be coming to an end. On Monday, April 21, Federal Judge Richard J. Arcara ruled to dismiss the indictment against University at Buffalo Professor of Visual Studies Dr. Steven Kurtz.
In June 2004, Professor Kurtz was charged with two counts of mail fraud and two counts of wire fraud stemming from an exchange of $256 worth of harmless bacteria with Dr. Robert Ferrell, Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.
Dr. Kurtz planned to use the bacteria in an educational art exhibit about biotechnology with his award-winning art and theater collective, Critical Art Ensemble.
Professor Kurtz’ lawyer, Paul Cambria, said that his client was “pleased and relieved that this ordeal may be coming to an end.”
The prosecution has the right to appeal this dismissal. How the prosecution will proceed is unknown at this time. If an appeal were undertaken the case would move to the New York Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City.
Lucia Sommer, Coordinator of the CAE Defense Fund, which raises funds for Kurtz’ legal defense, said, “We are all grateful that after reviewing this case, Judge Arcara took appropriate action.” She added that “this decision is further testament to our original statements that Dr. Kurtz is completely innocent and never should have been charged in the first place.” permanent link to this post
++++
April 21, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JUDGE DISMISSES MAIL FRAUD CASE AGAINST BIO-ARTIST KURTZ
Buffalo, NY—A process that has taken nearly four years may be coming to an end. On Monday, April 21, Federal Judge Richard J. Arcara ruled to dismiss the indictment against University at Buffalo Professor of Visual Studies Dr. Steven Kurtz.
In June 2004, Professor Kurtz was charged with two counts of mail fraud and two counts of wire fraud stemming from an exchange of $256 worth of harmless bacteria with Dr. Robert Ferrell, Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.
Dr. Kurtz planned to use the bacteria in an educational art exhibit about biotechnology with his award-winning art and theater collective, Critical Art Ensemble.
Professor Kurtz’ lawyer, Paul Cambria, said that his client was “pleased and relieved that this ordeal may be coming to an end.”
The prosecution has the right to appeal this dismissal. How the prosecution will proceed is unknown at this time. If an appeal were undertaken the case would move to the New York Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City.
Lucia Sommer, Coordinator of the CAE Defense Fund, which raises funds for Kurtz’ legal defense, said, “We are all grateful that after reviewing this case, Judge Arcara took appropriate action.” She added that “this decision is further testament to our original statements that Dr. Kurtz is completely innocent and never should have been charged in the first place.” permanent link to this post
Shvarts update: Yale wants it stopped
posted at 14:09 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Stolen wholesale from the NYT:
Me? Ambivalent about it… permanent link to this post
Yale University said on Monday that it would not allow a senior to participate in a campus art exhibition unless she made a written statement that her “performance,” in which she repeatedly inseminated herself and then induced miscarriages, was a fiction that she had concocted. In an article on Thursday in The Yale Daily News, the student, Aliza Shvarts, right, was quoted as saying that she had inseminated herself “as often as possible” over several months while taking herbal drugs to induce miscarriages, which she recorded on video to display for her senior-year art project at a show beginning on campus on Tuesday. Her claim drew intense criticism. Yale said last week that Ms. Shvarts had told three university officials that she had not inseminated herself or induced abortions but had made up the story as part of the project. On Friday, however, Ms. Shvarts insisted she had really experienced “repeated, self-induced miscarriages,” although she said that she had not known if she was actually pregnant. Yale officials said the denials were part of the continuing art performance, and on Monday demanded that it end. Peter Salovey, the dean of Yale College, and Robert Storr, dean of the School of Art, also said that they had found “serious errors of judgment” on the part of Ms. Shvarts’s adviser and an art instructor who knew of the project. They did not identify the adviser or instructor, though Ms. Shvarts has said that her adviser was Pia Lindman. Mr. Salovey said that “appropriate action” had been taken against the two teachers, but did not elaborate. Neither Ms. Shvarts nor Ms. Lindman could be reached for comment.
Me? Ambivalent about it… permanent link to this post
Apr 21, 2008
(LOVE + HATE) x 100
posted at 21:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
New art! From MTAA! It’s on the web! You’ll need QuickTime!
click this: (LOVE + HATE) x 100 permanent link to this post
Apr 19, 2008
Vote for us
posted at 19:04 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Rhizome members!
MTAA has submitted a proposal for the Rhizome Commissions Program. If you would like to get yours truly some cash to make some damn art, then go here and vote for us.
Go here. Vote for us. It’s simple. It’s here.
You can vote for some other people too, but first, vote for us! If you’re not a Rhizome member, you can’t vote for us. You can become a Rhizome member if you have a burning desire to vote for us (and you should vote for us).
Stop reading this and go vote for us already! permanent link to this post
MTAA has submitted a proposal for the Rhizome Commissions Program. If you would like to get yours truly some cash to make some damn art, then go here and vote for us.
Go here. Vote for us. It’s simple. It’s here.
You can vote for some other people too, but first, vote for us! If you’re not a Rhizome member, you can’t vote for us. You can become a Rhizome member if you have a burning desire to vote for us (and you should vote for us).
Stop reading this and go vote for us already! permanent link to this post
Apr 18, 2008
Starving dogs, aborting fetuses as art
posted at 13:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Is any of it true?
+++
According to MTAA’s highly placed BIG media sources, Aliza Shvarts, abortion artist and Yale student, has said she never knew if she was pregnant and only took herbal abortifacients. Also the AP is reporting that it was a hoax. It’s always nice to see the right-wing blogs get punk’d big time so I’d give her a C.
update
There’s more here. According to Yale, it’s a fiction. Shvarts is trying to stick to her guns, but ends up sounding clueless. If she’s trying to play everyone, she’s pretty hamhanded. Someone needs to tell her that if you’re going to create fiction, you need to keep the fiction up for everybody.
+++
What about that starving dog? I can’t figure this out. Also seems like a hoax (or, perhaps, a fiction). Ed Winkleman covered this a tad and on his blog he posts a message from the gallerist that they fed the dog and it was only tied in the gallery for 3 hours during an opening. (Is it cruel to chain up a dog?) The dog subsequently got away.
Unless the gallery is lying (they could be, but I’ll take them at their word), I don’t see how this was cruel. Sounds less cruel than walking by the starving animal in the street and doing nothing. I don’t get it. The petition against the artist seems sort of like that right-wing punk of the left where folks signed a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide. But in this case you get to sign a petition against something that never happened to stop it from happening again, though there are no plans to make it happen again (and it never happened in the first place).
(Sorry M.River, stomped on your post, which was really, really funny.) permanent link to this post
+++
According to MTAA’s highly placed BIG media sources, Aliza Shvarts, abortion artist and Yale student, has said she never knew if she was pregnant and only took herbal abortifacients. Also the AP is reporting that it was a hoax. It’s always nice to see the right-wing blogs get punk’d big time so I’d give her a C.
update
There’s more here. According to Yale, it’s a fiction. Shvarts is trying to stick to her guns, but ends up sounding clueless. If she’s trying to play everyone, she’s pretty hamhanded. Someone needs to tell her that if you’re going to create fiction, you need to keep the fiction up for everybody.
+++
What about that starving dog? I can’t figure this out. Also seems like a hoax (or, perhaps, a fiction). Ed Winkleman covered this a tad and on his blog he posts a message from the gallerist that they fed the dog and it was only tied in the gallery for 3 hours during an opening. (Is it cruel to chain up a dog?) The dog subsequently got away.
Unless the gallery is lying (they could be, but I’ll take them at their word), I don’t see how this was cruel. Sounds less cruel than walking by the starving animal in the street and doing nothing. I don’t get it. The petition against the artist seems sort of like that right-wing punk of the left where folks signed a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide. But in this case you get to sign a petition against something that never happened to stop it from happening again, though there are no plans to make it happen again (and it never happened in the first place).
(Sorry M.River, stomped on your post, which was really, really funny.) permanent link to this post
Apr 16, 2008
Just to be clear…
posted at 02:34 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
T.Whid’s posts on this blog represent his opinions. There is no objectivity here. I’ll post notices for my friend’s shows but not your show; link to positive reviews of MTAA’s work, but not negative; link to positive reviews of artists I like, but not negative; support Rhizome uncritically; write exuberant things about stuff I love; post mean critiques about stuff I hate; write nice things about my friends, just because they’re my friends; narcissistically post lots and lots and lots of stuff about MTAA — sometimes to the exclusion of everything else; tell lies; and generally spout off all kinds of crazy shit.
I have no institutional affiliation to anything in the art world and my opinions are my own (so leave M.River out of it).
(I finally understand why so many blogs out there post these sorts of disclaimers.) permanent link to this post
I have no institutional affiliation to anything in the art world and my opinions are my own (so leave M.River out of it).
(I finally understand why so many blogs out there post these sorts of disclaimers.) permanent link to this post
Apr 13, 2008
Arc of “The Surrogates”
posted at 21:22 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A contemporary performance art piece by Eva and Franco Mattes (a.k.a. 0100101110101101.ORG) via MTAA.
sur•ro•gate transitive verb: to put in the place of another: to appoint as successor, deputy, or substitute for oneself
On Friday April 11, 2008 as part of its monthly curatorial project, art collective MTAA premiered “The Surrogates,” a performance art piece exploring the nature of perceived identity and representation, credited to European-based art collective 0100101110101101.ORG (in absentia).
Presented at MTAA’s OTO art space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the two-hour piece began at 7 p.m. with an open bar and velvet rope welcoming attendees in the hallway.
Inside the OTO space proper, two rows of two chairs (numbered 1-4) faced a low stage featuring a 4’x6’ projection screen (center) and a small television monitor (stage right). Attendees entered the darkened room four at a time, their assigned seats facing a slightly delayed projection of themselves. The monitor revealed hallway activity in real time.
(click for a larger image)
The attendees (now participants) were given no explanation of the piece, though they were invited do as they pleased within the space and to leave at their leisure. Re-entry was not permitted however, and those exiting the piece were immediately replaced by those next behind the velvet rope.
“The Surrogates” reaches its 180-degree apex via this text. Please note that while the Mattes (0100101110101101.ORG.) are credited as the authors of this seminal performance, MTAA designed, built and executed this work in its entirety.
The Mattes graciously agreed to lend their identity to “The Surrogates,” and for their essential contribution, receive 50 percent authorship and financial stake in “The Surrogates.”
MTAA, 2008
http://tinajil.com/over_the_opening
http://mteww.com
http:// 0100101110101101.ORG permanent link to this post
sur•ro•gate transitive verb: to put in the place of another: to appoint as successor, deputy, or substitute for oneself
On Friday April 11, 2008 as part of its monthly curatorial project, art collective MTAA premiered “The Surrogates,” a performance art piece exploring the nature of perceived identity and representation, credited to European-based art collective 0100101110101101.ORG (in absentia).
Presented at MTAA’s OTO art space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the two-hour piece began at 7 p.m. with an open bar and velvet rope welcoming attendees in the hallway.
Inside the OTO space proper, two rows of two chairs (numbered 1-4) faced a low stage featuring a 4’x6’ projection screen (center) and a small television monitor (stage right). Attendees entered the darkened room four at a time, their assigned seats facing a slightly delayed projection of themselves. The monitor revealed hallway activity in real time.
(click for a larger image)
The attendees (now participants) were given no explanation of the piece, though they were invited do as they pleased within the space and to leave at their leisure. Re-entry was not permitted however, and those exiting the piece were immediately replaced by those next behind the velvet rope.
“The Surrogates” reaches its 180-degree apex via this text. Please note that while the Mattes (0100101110101101.ORG.) are credited as the authors of this seminal performance, MTAA designed, built and executed this work in its entirety.
The Mattes graciously agreed to lend their identity to “The Surrogates,” and for their essential contribution, receive 50 percent authorship and financial stake in “The Surrogates.”
MTAA, 2008
http://tinajil.com/over_the_opening
http://mteww.com
http:// 0100101110101101.ORG permanent link to this post
Apr 11, 2008
The Surrogates — TONIGHT!!
posted at 16:34 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A reminder to everybody — come to our studio tonight for some performance/video/something art!
More info here…
7 - 10PM tonight, April 11, at Over The Opening (map) in Brooklyn.
twhid update
Monkeys as surrogate children… (via Boing Boing) permanent link to this post
Eva and Franco Mattes continue their investigations into power, authorship and identity with “The Surrogates” a new performance based video project. Combining elements of theater, video, surveillance, and social interaction, “The Surrogates” transforms OTO into an experimental social space questioning the distinction between the viewer and the viewed.
More info here…
7 - 10PM tonight, April 11, at Over The Opening (map) in Brooklyn.
twhid update
Monkeys as surrogate children… (via Boing Boing) permanent link to this post
Apr 09, 2008
Creative Capital ! Wikipedia
posted at 15:22 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Can it be possible that there is no entry for Creative Capital on Wikipedia?
I’ve tried a couple of searches. No dice.
Maybe someone less lazy than I will fix this egregious error. permanent link to this post
I’ve tried a couple of searches. No dice.
Maybe someone less lazy than I will fix this egregious error. permanent link to this post
Apr 06, 2008
Want at the Beall
posted at 21:48 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
M.River is the official documenter of MTAA activities. Since he’s currently still on secret assignment on the west coast you may have to wait a bit for the photo documentation of the exhibition of Want as part of LIVE (more info) at the Beall Center, but here’s a quick shot from the opening (click for a larger image):
The show was a great success with lots of fine work and lots of folks showing up to check out the art. We were very honored to be included in the exhibition with the other great artists. permanent link to this post
The show was a great success with lots of fine work and lots of folks showing up to check out the art. We were very honored to be included in the exhibition with the other great artists. permanent link to this post
Mar 28, 2008
LIVE @ Beall Press Release
posted at 15:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA + RSG’s new multi-channel video/software installation, Want, is being premiered at the exhibition LIVE at the Beall Center for Art and Technology, UC Irvine next week!
More on Want here and here.
Along with MTAA & RSG, LIVE includes artists Karen Finley, Siebren Versteeg, Natalie Bookchin, Ben Rubin, Aphid Stern and Michael Dale and is curated by David Familian.
Read the official press release (format smorgasbord):
Google doc
Word (.doc)
OpenOffice (.odt)
PDF
Excerpt below:
Read the entire press release… permanent link to this post
More on Want here and here.
Along with MTAA & RSG, LIVE includes artists Karen Finley, Siebren Versteeg, Natalie Bookchin, Ben Rubin, Aphid Stern and Michael Dale and is curated by David Familian.
Read the official press release (format smorgasbord):
Google doc
Word (.doc)
OpenOffice (.odt)
Excerpt below:
BRIEF OVERVIEW
What is the meaning of “live” in today’s virtual world? The Beall Center for Art and Technology is pleased to present LIVE, an exhibit which features nine artists who sample and transform data, photographs and video from the Internet and incorporate it into their sculptures and installations. The LIVE exhibit will be open to viewers April 3 – June 7, 2008.
[…]
CURATOR’S STATEMENT
The title of this exhibition poses a question—how do we define and experience what is live when the majority of our daily interactions are increasingly mediated and reconfigured by various technologies? And how does this change our perception of what is considered real or actual versus what is virtual? Līve features nine artists who sample and transform data, photographs and video from the Internet and incorporate it into their sculptures and installations. Either extracting live footage or transmitting data in real time, they cull from diverse sources including Congressional speeches from C-Span, websites with Iraqi war casualties, a critique of consumerism from a peer-to-peer network and on-line video surveillance. As the artists isolate ideas and images from the steady stream of unrelenting data, they produce thought-provoking, aesthetic and “līve” works of art that also challenge our ideas of real and virtual experience.
In 1889 in Time and Free Will, the philosopher Henri Bergson suggested that the “real” and the “unreal” do not exist, there is only the actual and virtual — the actual is that which science describes and quantifies, while the virtual is what we process in our minds. As we take in the input of the actual world through our senses and process a series of physical and quantifiable information, it is transformed into conscious and unconscious responses, as our minds become a repository of virtual experiences.
As communication technologies such as telegraph and telephone were invented, there was suddenly a great physical distance between the sender and the receiver. The innovation of radio and television broadcast media increased this spatial displacement even further, transforming one-to-one personal communication into live events experienced by masses of people. The advent of recording technology increased displacement not just the spatially but also temporally: recordings became like memories fixed in both form and time, just as writing allowed speech to be fixed as text. As Plato noted in his famous account of conversations between Socrates and Phaedrus, throughout history the direct experience and dialogical nature of live speech has always been privileged over recorded text.
Even today it is always emphasized and privileged when any event—a breaking news story, a natural disaster, a sports match or a performance is presented “live.” Since the 1990s with the omnipresence of the Internet and more recently, Web 2.0 technologies such as You Tube, Flicker and social net-working sites, the notion of live experiences has become more spontaneous and democratized. Artists noticed these changes in the mid-1990s in the first generation of web-based artworks.
The artists in Live build upon this early work, but expand that vocabulary, extending their art from the web page into the gallery. Their wide range of approaches, forms and methods explore the space/time displacements of mediated events and how those events are both transmitted and remediated.
Read the entire press release… permanent link to this post
Mar 27, 2008
Awareness Test
posted at 16:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
“Off the Grid” Exhibition @ the Neuberger
posted at 14:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
(…you know I only post about my friends.)
Via emailed press release:
Via emailed press release:
EcoArtTech will be demonstrating their Environmental Risk Assessment Rover-AT at Purchase College, SUNY, Purchase, NY each evening at dusk on 3/27, 3/28, and 3/29, 2008.permanent link to this post
Ecoarttech’s ERAR-AT is part of the Neuberger Museum of Art’s “Off the Grid” Exhibition, March 30 - June 1, 2008. “Off the Grid” features works that subvert and circumvent conventional infrastructures. Co-presented by the Neuberger Museum of Art and free103point9 and curated by Jacqueline Shilkoff, Galen Joseph-Hunter, Tianna Kennedy, and Tom Roe.
http://www.free103point9.org/events/1678
Participating artists: Benjamin Cohen, Dylan Gauthier, and Stephan von Muehlen, EcoArtTech, eteam, Max Goldfarb, Louis Hock, Nina, Katchadourian, Kristin Lucas, Joe McKay, Trevor Paglen, Temporary Services, Seth Weiner, Bart Woodstrup
Mar 21, 2008
NY art fairs 08
posted at 14:22 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
They kinda snuck up on me this year… looks like they’re next week. Sometimes I’m just a tad too out of touch with the art world.
…considering skipping them this year. Is it because I don’t care? Or because I’m just bitter at not being part of the market? Whatever. I hate art fairs — even work I like looks horrid in those packed little stalls. It reminds me of ogling animals in zoos; it always makes me sad. permanent link to this post
…considering skipping them this year. Is it because I don’t care? Or because I’m just bitter at not being part of the market? Whatever. I hate art fairs — even work I like looks horrid in those packed little stalls. It reminds me of ogling animals in zoos; it always makes me sad. permanent link to this post
Creative Capital scores .5mil for new media
posted at 02:18 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This is good. Via press release:
CREATIVE CAPITAL RECEIVES GRANT FROM THE TOBY FUND TO SUPPORT EMERGING FIELDS ARTISTSpermanent link to this post
$540,000 to benefit artists working in alternative gaming, internet-based activism, new media installations, robotics, and more
NEW YORK, NY (March 20, 2008) — Creative Capital, the premier national artist support organization, is the recipient of a major, three-year gift from The TOBY Fund, established by collector, philanthropist, and former curator Toby Devan Lewis. This $540,000 gift specifically supports the production costs of Creative Capital emerging fields artists, a category that encompasses artists whose work includes imaginative uses of new technologies, as well as genre-blurring applications of familiar creative practices.
“From our very first grant round in 1999, Creative Capital was committed to artists whose work doesn’t neatly fit the usual discipline categories,” said Creative Capital’s president Ruby Lerner, “While the sometimes indefinable nature of these projects is tremendously exciting, it also creates a handicap, as this kind of work often lacks the support infrastructure of more traditionally defined disciplines. Ms. Lewis has always had a similar passion for artists who boldly cross all sorts of boundaries — discipline, aesthetic, thematic — and we’re thrilled that The TOBY Fund for Emerging Fields at Creative Capital will draw more attention to how these artists challenge the very landscape of the contemporary arts.”
The TOBY Fund grant will allow Creative Capital to support more of its emerging fields grantees at the $50,000 level, the organization’s maximum award. These artists will also benefit from the organization’s trademark program of artist services, which is valued at an additional $25,000 per artist. To date, Creative Capital has funded 48 emerging fields projects representing 65 artists, with $1.1 million in direct funding and more than $1 million in artist services. Artists previously supported through this category include Cory Arcangel, Luca Buvoli, Hasan Elahi, Marie Sester and art collectives such as The Yes Men and SubRosa. The organization is currently conducting a grant round that will result in another class of emerging fields grantees being announced in early 2009.
Mar 17, 2008
MTAA + RSG premier Want
posted at 14:26 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Want @ Beall Apr 3, ‘08
We’re very happy to announce that in our first major collaboration with RSG, we’ll premier a new multiple channel algorithmic video installation entitled “Want” as part of the exhibition “Live” opening April 3rd, 2008 at the Beall Center for Art & Technology.
Watch the ‘teaser’ trailer above. And there’s more here: http://mtaa.net/want/…
+++ a description +++
People want what they want NOW. Instinct tells us to get as much as we can as fast as we can – and the Internet obliges. Instant gratification meets infinite opportunity – be it information, commerce, employment, acceptance or love. And yet the majority of bandwidth is dedicated to base human behavior, i.e. celebrity gossip and pornography.
Nobody needs poorly Photoshopped pictures of naked Britney Spears – but hey! If they’re out there, why not look? The Internet gives our less-seemly desires space to grow, allowing us to anonymously indulge curiosities, perversions and fetishes that most would never pursue in a public space. And yet “virtual reality” has ceased to exist. What we think of as the “real world” now encompasses the Internet. We download movie clips and call our co-workers to watch. We shop online and have goods delivered to our home. We meet through matchmaking web sites. No more virtual vs. real. It’s all real now.
“Want” explores the current climate of society over-stimulated by the bombardment of technological instant gratification, and the very definite, yet-to-be-revealed implications and issues of accountability and responsibility surrounding virtuality. Here, the Internet’s underbelly is exposed; pushing the quiet, anonymous behavior that flourishes in cyberspace into public space, forcing us to reevaluate this behavior if it were to take place in the physical community.
The life-sized six-screen video display uses custom software to monitor real time Internet searches. When the software finds a programmed keyword, it triggers a video clip of one of several actors/avatars who translates the virtual request to reality.
A soccer mom says, “I want French.”
A rocker dude says, “I want Star Trek Enterprise.”
A nondescript middle-aged guy says, “I want Little Girl.”
A girl says, “I want Forever.”
The six video screens are triggered almost concurrently, causing the voiced requests to overlap. The result is an audio-visual cacophony of desire; an online echo chamber of warped reality.
+++
“Want” is funded by a grant from the Creative Capital Foundation. permanent link to this post
Mar 13, 2008
Rhizome’s widgets
posted at 18:47 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Rhizome released a bunch of widgets for their site. You can now easily add bits of code to your web site that displays your portfolio, Rhizome news and lots more. Check it out…
permanent link to this post
permanent link to this post
Mar 06, 2008
Rhizome Commissions Program
posted at 21:05 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We’ve posted about this before, but here’s a reminder for everybody:
Deadline for applications: midnight, March 31, 2008
Rhizome says:
We support: New Media Art, by which we mean projects that creatively engage new and networked technologies and also works that reflect on the impact of these tools and media in a variety of forms. Commissioned projects can take the final form of online works, performance, video, installation or sound art. Projects can be made for the context of the gallery, the public, or the web.
Amount: 7 commissions in the amount of $3000-5000
Guidelines and application forms can be found here: http://rhizome.org/commissions/ permanent link to this post
Mar 05, 2008
Net art in polish
posted at 14:54 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Ewa Wójtowicz’s book “net art” features MTAA’s Creative Commons-licensed Simple Net Art Diagram on the cover. It looks like you can get the book here.
Congrats on the book Ewa.
permanent link to this post
Congrats on the book Ewa.
permanent link to this post
Mar 03, 2008
Favorite color
posted at 15:55 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
red
Via some meanderings on-line I found this little blog interview with Cory Arcangel in reference to the new show at MoMA “Color Chart.”
In the blog post, the W mag editor asks Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Ryman and Frank Stella what their favorite colors are. None of these icons of color would say they had a favorite color.
Cory, of course, went against the grain and chose red…
As far as I can remember red has always looked good to me—on cars, on Detroit Redwing uniforms.
There is more than the age difference between the oldsters and Cory. First off, the old guys are all painters (more or less) but Cory isn’t. Cory was trained as a musician and I’d bet that if you asked him his favorite note he wouldn’t give you a definitive answer.
I was trained as a painter and in a recent MTAA project I had to answer the favorite color question and confidently stated that artists don’t have favorite colors. I think M.River chose blue….
blue
M.River adds - Yes, blue is good but if you look at my Tinjail.com site, you will see that my fav RGB bacground color is
#666666
t.whid updates
What M.River doesn’t know is that in CSS shorthand you can type the hexidecimal notation for grey like this:
#666
I put that color in every web project I do… just for fun and because I’m evil. So you could say that ‘#666’ is my favorite color. permanent link to this post
Mar 02, 2008
More on Büchel v. Mass MoCA
posted at 15:08 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The NYT covers the “metaproject” that sprung from the “Training Ground for Democracy” debacle in this article: Accusations, Depositions: Just More Fodder for Art (don’t miss the slideshow).
(We’ve typed things about this fracas previously here and here.)
The work sounds and looks a tad tedious from what I can tell from the article, but one obviously can’t make an informed judgement unless one sees the work.
This quote of Büchel’s no artist should argue with:
Word. permanent link to this post
(We’ve typed things about this fracas previously here and here.)
The work sounds and looks a tad tedious from what I can tell from the article, but one obviously can’t make an informed judgement unless one sees the work.
This quote of Büchel’s no artist should argue with:
“Who is going to decide what art is?” he wrote in an e-mail message. “For sure it is not the art institution if the authors are still alive and can speak.”
Word. permanent link to this post
Mar 01, 2008
Light Industry
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA will be taking part in the inaugural season of Light Industry, a new screening/performance/lecture series covering film and new media. It’s being organized by Ed Halter and Thomas Beard.
Some press release below and lots more on the web site: http://www.lightindustry.org. Looks awesome!
Some press release below and lots more on the web site: http://www.lightindustry.org. Looks awesome!
“The Blazing World,” a screening to be held on March 25, marks the beginning of Light Industry, a new venue for film and electronic art in Brooklyn, New York. Developed and overseen by Thomas Beard and Ed Halter, the project will begin as a series of weekly events this spring and summer, each organized by a different artist, critic, or curator, including Peggy Ahwesh, Cory Arcangel, Rebecca Cleman, Ben Coonley and Michael Smith, Bradley Eros and Brian Frye, eteam, Kendra Gaeta and Laris Kreslins, David Gatten, Lia Gangitano, Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder, Sabrina Gschwandtner, Nick Hallett, William E. Jones, Andrew Lampert, Dennis Lim, Mark McElhatten, MTAA, Marisa Olson, Jacob Perlin, Seth Price, Jennifer Reeves, Eddo Stern, and Dan Streible, among others.permanent link to this post
Conceptually, Light Industry draws equal inspiration from the long history of alternative art spaces in New York as well its storied tradition of cinematheques and other intrepid film exhibitors. Through a regular program of screenings, performances, and lectures, its goal is to explore new models for the presentation of time-based media. Bringing together the worlds of contemporary art, experimental cinema, new media, documentary film, and the academy, to name only a few, Light Industry looks to foster a complex dialogue amongst a wide range of artists and audiences within the city.
For its opening seasons, all events will take a place on Tuesdays at 8PM in Industry City, an industrial complex in Sunset Park, Brooklyn that’s home to a cross-section of manufacturing, warehousing and light industry. As part of a regeneration program intended to diversify the use of its 6 million square feet of space to better reflect 21st century production, Industry City now includes workspace for artists. In addition to offering studios at competitive rates, Industry City also provides a limited number of rent-stabilized studios for artists in need of low-cost rental space. This program was conceived in response to the lack of affordable workspace for artists in New York City and aims to establish a new paradigm for industrial redevelopment—one that does not displace artists, workers, local residents or industry but instead builds a sustainable community in a context that integrates cultural and industrial production.
Feb 29, 2008
Leap day! 2008!
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
It’s leap day! What are you going to do with your extra day this year? I’m not planning on doing much… pretty much just a normal day. Perhaps next leap day I’ll make some plans to do something that I would only do every 4 years.
[Image found here; #1 hit on Google image search] permanent link to this post
Feb 28, 2008
Andy Warhol eating a hamburger
posted at 18:50 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
via Rocketboom
update I
Kenyatta @ RB tells me they found the video on YouTube where it’s had over 200k views and over 800 comments.
I’m really curious as to the story behind this video… when it was made? where it was made? How this YouTuber got a hold of it…
For more famous artists doing fun things on video: Beastie Beuys.
update II (2/29)
Barry’s found another artist loving the Warhol eating a hamburger video.
And I received an email from Jacob Christensen with this info:
[…] It is an excerpt from a film made in 1981 by the Danish documentary film director and author Jørgen Leth called “66 Scenes from America”.
I remember seeing the excerpt at some time on Danish TV with Leth explaining the story - the point was quite simply to film Andy Warhol (an American icon) eating a hamburger (another American icon). Unfortunately, the film crew forgot to buy a soft drink along with the hamburger, but Warhol took — or rather ate —it in its stride.
More on Jørgen Leth at Wikipedia and IMDB… permanent link to this post
Feb 27, 2008
Cory’s Colors
posted at 18:48 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Cory Arcangel has released the Macintosh software that powers his “Colors” piece (first shown at Team in ‘06). Now anyone can make the work themselves.
Get it from his web site!
update
Rhizome has more info on this, including the fact that this piece is going to be shown at MoMA. If you hurry, you can exhibit it in your own apartment before it graces the mighty MoMA galleries. permanent link to this post
Feb 21, 2008
Boing Boing tv covers Brody
posted at 15:07 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Brody Condon’s “Performance Modifcation (Nauman)” gets the BBtv treatment today.
10 performers outfitted in medieval/space/fantasy armor re-create Bruce Nauman’s 1973 work “Tony Sinking into the Floor, Face Up and Face Down”. Performed in slow motion and combined with movements based on computer game death animations, this piece is accompanied by a high volume binaural beats reputed to induce out of body experiences.
It’s pretty lame how BBtv seems to strip out the Nauman reference in the piece. I understand that it’s not their audience, but couldn’t they take a little bit of a stab at it? Boing Boing seems pretty allergic to contemporary art so it’s unsurprising.
Link to Boing Boing tv episode with comments and downloadable video. permanent link to this post
Feb 20, 2008
5 years of MTAA blogging
posted at 14:28 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Nathaniel Stern reminds us *again* that our yearly blog-o-versary passed us by on Feb 9 without any wild celebrations.
Here’s the first post.
I’ve put it in my calendar so it we won’t miss it next time. (Isn’t technology wonderful?)
m.river adds - “OH YEAH! almost forgot, if you want a link on the side bar over there, let me know.” Yeah, never happened…or no one wanted to be in our side bar in the last 5 years. permanent link to this post
Here’s the first post.
I’ve put it in my calendar so it we won’t miss it next time. (Isn’t technology wonderful?)
m.river adds - “OH YEAH! almost forgot, if you want a link on the side bar over there, let me know.” Yeah, never happened…or no one wanted to be in our side bar in the last 5 years. permanent link to this post
Feb 19, 2008
Lee Walton in Boston
posted at 21:14 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Lee Walton’s going to be bombarding Boston with his Lee Walton-ness in the coming weeks.
If I was in Boston I would be there. Since I’m in New York, it might not be possible to attend :(
Two events:
an artist talk at the Art Institute of Boston…
and
a new performance at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston. permanent link to this post
Feb 15, 2008
Various bits 2/15/08
posted at 17:12 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Lots of cool stuff today.
First, don’t forget — Kriegspiel LAN party rescheduled for Feb 22! Check it out!
+++
Second, Montage: Unmonumental Online, Rhizome’s portion of the New Museum’s Unmonumental goes live today. Congrats to the curators Lauren Cornell and Marisa Olson and all the artists involved.
+++
Last, and certainly not least, MTAA has released a brand spanking new piece of web art for 2008! Check it out…
Yes & No
+++
update
Cool new app on Facebook called ArtShare created by a team working out of the Brooklyn Museum. Check it out if you’re on FB. permanent link to this post
First, don’t forget — Kriegspiel LAN party rescheduled for Feb 22! Check it out!
+++
Second, Montage: Unmonumental Online, Rhizome’s portion of the New Museum’s Unmonumental goes live today. Congrats to the curators Lauren Cornell and Marisa Olson and all the artists involved.
+++
Last, and certainly not least, MTAA has released a brand spanking new piece of web art for 2008! Check it out…
Yes & No
+++
update
Cool new app on Facebook called ArtShare created by a team working out of the Brooklyn Museum. Check it out if you’re on FB. permanent link to this post
Feb 12, 2008
CAE witch hunt continues
posted at 15:13 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Federal harassment led one of the folks implicated in the witch hunt of Steven Kurtz to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge. The NYT reports that Dr. Robert Ferrell was sentenced today to one year of unsupervised release and a $500 fine.
Lots more at the Critical Art Ensemble Defense Fund web site. permanent link to this post
Lots more at the Critical Art Ensemble Defense Fund web site. permanent link to this post
Feb 11, 2008
Spec-ish
posted at 18:04 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
update 2/12
The creator of Pixish, Derek Powazek, has responded to the spec-work criticisms.
more update
I can only ask myself, was Mr. Powazek expecting some other response from creative professionals? Do a search for pixish spec and you can see the design community hating on this idea big time.
+++
Any artist, illustrator or photographer that takes part in Pixish is either a rank amateur or an idiot.
From the site:
Golly gee willikers — PRIZES!
I love #2 — “people create […] work” — they forget to mention, for absolutely FREE! This is called working on spec. It’s nothing new. Most professional artists, graphic designers, illustrators and photographers won’t work on spec because it devalues their work.
Now, I’m all for free culture, creative commons and sharing ones creative work if one chooses. In fact, MTAA chooses to liberally license lots of our work and we’ve been involved in the creative commons and free culture movements.
I see this Pixish site as something completely different however. If someone is doing their own work for whatever agenda they might have, then decides to share it or license it liberally, that’s one thing. But to set-up an entire operation on-line whose sole purpose is to entice newbies and amateurs into working on spec — perhaps it will be helpful for the creator, perhaps it won’t — and then gussying it with web 2.0 buzzwords, it just doesn’t sit right with me. permanent link to this post
The creator of Pixish, Derek Powazek, has responded to the spec-work criticisms.
more update
I can only ask myself, was Mr. Powazek expecting some other response from creative professionals? Do a search for pixish spec and you can see the design community hating on this idea big time.
+++
Any artist, illustrator or photographer that takes part in Pixish is either a rank amateur or an idiot.
From the site:
- Create an Assignment. Ask for what you want.
- Get Submissions. People create and submit their work.
- Peer Review. Community voting helps find the best.
- Pick Winners. Select your favorites and download.
- Rewards! Winners get prizes and rewards.
Golly gee willikers — PRIZES!
I love #2 — “people create […] work” — they forget to mention, for absolutely FREE! This is called working on spec. It’s nothing new. Most professional artists, graphic designers, illustrators and photographers won’t work on spec because it devalues their work.
Now, I’m all for free culture, creative commons and sharing ones creative work if one chooses. In fact, MTAA chooses to liberally license lots of our work and we’ve been involved in the creative commons and free culture movements.
I see this Pixish site as something completely different however. If someone is doing their own work for whatever agenda they might have, then decides to share it or license it liberally, that’s one thing. But to set-up an entire operation on-line whose sole purpose is to entice newbies and amateurs into working on spec — perhaps it will be helpful for the creator, perhaps it won’t — and then gussying it with web 2.0 buzzwords, it just doesn’t sit right with me. permanent link to this post
Robbers Steal $160m in Art From Zurich
posted at 14:55 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I was in Brooklyn all weekend. I swear.
AP via HuffPo
update
Is it wrong that when I read that the paintings were stolen from a collection amassed by a nazi collaborator that my sympathies instantly shifted to the thieves? permanent link to this post
AP via HuffPo
update
Is it wrong that when I read that the paintings were stolen from a collection amassed by a nazi collaborator that my sympathies instantly shifted to the thieves? permanent link to this post
Feb 06, 2008
Can’t get riled over the Jetty
posted at 15:06 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Note that this is only T.Whid’s opinion and M.River may, and probably, feels otherwise…
The NYT picks up on what the art blogs have been discussing over the last week or so: artists trying to stop oil drilling (or exploration) around the Spiral Jetty?
For whatever reason, I don’t really care. It was submerged for 3 decades because of poor planning (or ignorance) on Smithson’s part, there’s an argument whether he would want any preservation of the site and it is an earthwork after all. How ‘earthy’ can it be if it can’t stand a little oil drilling?
http://www.spiraljetty.org/
M. River adds - I’m fairly certain that Smithson knew what he was doing and was not ‘ignorant’ of entropy. Although, I’m not certain if T.Whid is being sarcastic in this post. “What good is a 20th century art icon if you can’t explore it for oil?” Yikes.
T.Whid responds - I didn’t mean to imply that he was ignorant of entropy, just that he may have been ignorant of the fact that the lake was low due to drought when the Jetty was built. Perhaps he wasn’t and part of the plan was that the Jetty would appear and disappear with the cycles of drought.
I’m not sure if I’m being sarcastic either. But I’m sure that I don’t really care about the Jetty drilling. permanent link to this post
The NYT picks up on what the art blogs have been discussing over the last week or so: artists trying to stop oil drilling (or exploration) around the Spiral Jetty?
For whatever reason, I don’t really care. It was submerged for 3 decades because of poor planning (or ignorance) on Smithson’s part, there’s an argument whether he would want any preservation of the site and it is an earthwork after all. How ‘earthy’ can it be if it can’t stand a little oil drilling?
http://www.spiraljetty.org/
M. River adds - I’m fairly certain that Smithson knew what he was doing and was not ‘ignorant’ of entropy. Although, I’m not certain if T.Whid is being sarcastic in this post. “What good is a 20th century art icon if you can’t explore it for oil?” Yikes.
T.Whid responds - I didn’t mean to imply that he was ignorant of entropy, just that he may have been ignorant of the fact that the lake was low due to drought when the Jetty was built. Perhaps he wasn’t and part of the plan was that the Jetty would appear and disappear with the cycles of drought.
I’m not sure if I’m being sarcastic either. But I’m sure that I don’t really care about the Jetty drilling. permanent link to this post
Feb 05, 2008
M.River’s theme song
posted at 14:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Smells Like Teen Spirit - Ukulele Style
M.River adds - Just in case you have not seen my all-uke all-m.river noise band, here is LOCU - League Of Crappy Ukes. Enjoy. permanent link to this post
Feb 03, 2008
Obama FTW
posted at 16:29 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
+++
Not that anyone cares, but I’m voting Barack Obama this Tuesday.
I would vote for Kucinich or Edwards (even though they’ve dropped out of the race) if New York wasn’t Clinton country.
Sadly (or perhaps not), I’m being swayed more by emotional than intellectual reasons. Obama does inspire me. I think with him as President that perhaps the US can finally and completely leave our racial problems behind. Perhaps an Obama presidency would really create true equality and justice in the US. I know that that sounds all too optimistic, but he does give me hope — as cheesy as that might sound.
In addition, Clinton is just more corporate-rule-as-usual. And dynasties are as un-american as can be and we should resist them when we can. Other than that, their policies are very similar. Obama’s health insurance policy has issues, but I’m hoping that when he’s president pressure from the left will force him to make it better, i.e. closer to the Edwards plan.
M.River adds - For the first time, I have registered as a Democrat. The reason is to vote for Senator Obama. I have only one simple reason why. He did not support the war in Iraq and I hope that he will, as president, remove our military from this country. That’s it. It’s time to bring troops home.
Another update - Krugman on Obama’s health plan… permanent link to this post
Feb 01, 2008
The MS/Yahoo! thing
posted at 21:57 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Gruber of Daring Fireball talks about exactly what I was scratching my head about when I heard this news.
I was hoping that some Yahoo! OSS goodness might rub off on MS, but it just ain’t gonna happen. I use both OSS stuff (PHP, JS libraries etc) and MS stuff (ASP.net, Visual Studio, etc) in my day-to-day and they are just completely different beasts. To try to cram the two together in the MicroHoo deal would result in a thing that no one wants to see. MS will kill what it can’t ignore and treat the rest like red-headed stepchildren.
Update - Helen A.S. Popkin of MSNBC (as well as MTAA’s pop culture guru)on MS+YAHOO permanent link to this post
I was hoping that some Yahoo! OSS goodness might rub off on MS, but it just ain’t gonna happen. I use both OSS stuff (PHP, JS libraries etc) and MS stuff (ASP.net, Visual Studio, etc) in my day-to-day and they are just completely different beasts. To try to cram the two together in the MicroHoo deal would result in a thing that no one wants to see. MS will kill what it can’t ignore and treat the rest like red-headed stepchildren.
Update - Helen A.S. Popkin of MSNBC (as well as MTAA’s pop culture guru)on MS+YAHOO permanent link to this post
Jan 30, 2008
OH SHIT! art-world ‘Runway’
posted at 14:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Sarah Jessica Parker’s Pretty Matches shingle is teaming with reality factory Magical Elves to create a “Project Runway”-type show for the art world.Read all about it on Variety.
Potential skein would pit a dozen aspiring artists against one another, following the group as they attempt to produce various kinds of artwork — from painting and photography to sculpting and industrial design. Pieces would be rated by a panel of judges, as well as by the contestants themselves.
And this looks like the real deal (not some half-baked attempt on a network that no one gets) — it’s got real TeeeVeee execs behind it! It’s currently a notion that needs money to be worked into a concept and then later it may become an idea.
(Oops, didn’t mean to step on the Kriegspiel announcement — sorry.)
m.river adds - “art-world runway” Ick. This is the a black hole result of the strike.
t.whid adds
I actually like Project Runway LOL.
But, seriously, any artist that allows a bunch of teevee execs and producers to control how they appear in the media is taking a huge gamble. You would think that a contemporary artist would know better. On the other hand, it seems like the biggest dorks from these reality shows go on to infest our television sets for years to come — so what do I know? permanent link to this post
Jan 28, 2008
Nature Version 2.0
posted at 22:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Our good friends Cary Peppermint and Christine Nadir (aka EcoArtTech) have organized this exhibition and symposium at Colgate University. The exhibition features a great selection of new media artists.
Lots more info here.
Nature Version 2.0: Ecological Modernities and Digital Environmentalism
Jan. 21 - Feb. 16, 2008 @ Colgate University’s Clifford Gallery, Hamilton, New York.
http://www.ecoarttech.net/sustainablefutures
Featuring works by Natalie Jeremijenko, Brooke Singer, Joline Blais, Jane Marsching, Colin Ives, Alex Galloway, Amy Franceschini, Tom Sherman, Michael Alstad, Don Miller (aka no carrier), and Andrea Polli.
Curated by EcoArtTech (Cary Peppermint & Christine Nadir)
———————-
Nature Version 2.0 is a survey of artists who reinvent environmentalism for a digital age in a number of ways: by examining how digital technologies can make ecological problems more salient, by reusing and recycling obsolete technologies for new uses, and by exploring how digital spaces and the public domain may require environmental protection much like nature. Re-imagining the relationship between nature and technology, Nature Version 2.0 suggests an ethics of the network and an environmentalism of natural, built, and digital spaces.
This exhibition is in conjunction with Environmental Art and New Media Technologies: Imagining Sustainable Futures, a two-day symposium on interdisciplinary, digital, and networked art and research that draws upon environmental science, computer science, design, hacking, gameplay, engineering, and ecocriticism. Following the Nature Version 2.0 artists’ reception on February 8, keynote speaker Natalie Jeremijenko will launch the two-day Environmental Art and New Media Technologies symposium in Golden Auditorium, Little Hall, at 7pm. “90 Degrees South,” a multimedia performance by Andrea Polli will follow at 9pm in the Clifford Gallery. The symposium will resume in Golden Auditorium on February 9 for a day of talks and presentations by critics and exhibiting artists, 9am-5pm.
Hosted by Colgate University’s Clifford Art Gallery, the Department of Art and Art History, and the Environmental Studies Program, these events were made possible through funding provided by the Institute for the Creative and Performing Arts, the Film and Media Studies Program, the Environmental Studies Program, and the Center for Ethics and World Societies at Colgate University. All events are free and open to the public.
Lots more info here. permanent link to this post
Jan 27, 2008
Pile on Beecroft
posted at 14:53 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Via Paddy…
I’ve always detested Beecroft’s work. It’s pure vapidness masquerading as a critique of the same. And I hate it when one not-very-talented but high-profile artist does or makes stupid things thereby justifying all the morleys in the world (as the comments here exhibit).
Of course she tries to kung-fu her racist, colonialist and narcissistic attitudes by admitting that she’s just a messed up white girl:
I’m not sure I’m buying this as a critique of the Madonnas and Jolies in the world. Is it any better that she seems to know she’s just as messed up, vapid and of dubious motivation as these high profile celebrities adopting African babies? permanent link to this post
I’ve always detested Beecroft’s work. It’s pure vapidness masquerading as a critique of the same. And I hate it when one not-very-talented but high-profile artist does or makes stupid things thereby justifying all the morleys in the world (as the comments here exhibit).
Of course she tries to kung-fu her racist, colonialist and narcissistic attitudes by admitting that she’s just a messed up white girl:
“I thought, what a freak I am,” Beecroft says softly, almost a whisper. “But it was really me.”
I’m not sure I’m buying this as a critique of the Madonnas and Jolies in the world. Is it any better that she seems to know she’s just as messed up, vapid and of dubious motivation as these high profile celebrities adopting African babies? permanent link to this post
Jan 25, 2008
3 Hours Of My Adolescence Verbatim
posted at 21:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Nauman FTW
posted at 15:07 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jan 23, 2008
Understanding art for geeks Flickr set
posted at 18:29 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Bad sushi
posted at 03:18 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Shit!
Via NYT: permanent link to this post
Recent laboratory tests found so much mercury in tuna sushi from 20 Manhattan stores and restaurants that at most of them, a regular diet of six pieces a week would exceed the levels considered acceptable by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Via NYT: permanent link to this post
Jan 22, 2008
EcoTechArt on BBtv
posted at 17:34 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Our friends Cary Peppermint and Christine Nadir’s video Wilderness Trouble is featured on Boing Boing tv today (permanent link to Boing Boing tv post). permanent link to this post
Art Wikimarathon
posted at 16:40 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The Art Wikimarathon sounds like a good idea:
There’s a lack of art/artist info on Wikipedia, and we’re often too busy to find the time to contribute. So, we’re setting aside one day where a crew of people collectively drop serious knowledge into wikipedia about art.
Not sure I’ll be able to make it, but if someone wants to beef up the MTAA entry perhaps we can wash your back too :-)
(Is quid pro quo against Wikipedia policies?) permanent link to this post
Big changes afoot in web dev
posted at 15:05 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
First, the IEBlog describes how they ‘broke the web’ when they released IE7, then go on to explain how they plan NOT to do that with IE8.
Crazily enough, Zeldman and the WASP seem to be on board with a blog post and 2 (count ‘em 2) articles on A List Apart (1, 2).
I haven’t read about the new ‘version targeting’ scheme yet, but Microsoft’s ‘web standards guru targeting’ scheme seems to have worked wonderfully. permanent link to this post
Crazily enough, Zeldman and the WASP seem to be on board with a blog post and 2 (count ‘em 2) articles on A List Apart (1, 2).
I haven’t read about the new ‘version targeting’ scheme yet, but Microsoft’s ‘web standards guru targeting’ scheme seems to have worked wonderfully. permanent link to this post
Jan 21, 2008
Destroy bigotry
posted at 15:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jan 14, 2008
Rhizome commissions not just net art
posted at 22:24 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Rhizome has opened up their commission cycle for 2009. They plan on funding 7 new art works with awards ranging from USD3K - 5K. Go to Rhizome’s site for the details.
The big news is that they’re not just funding net art anymore. They’ve expanded the scope to encompass all new media art. From the announcement email:
My initial feeling about this is ambivalence.
On one hand, MTAA’s own work has been moving away from strictly Internet-based work for a few years now. Most of the early net artists (and a majority of the new ones) are using all sorts of digital media with the Internet/web as just one part of their practice. So it seems natural as the net moves from the shiny new thing to just another medium, and artists’ change with it, that Rhizome would also evolve.
On the other hand I liked how Rhizome was holding the torch for net art. Is this another nail in net art’s coffin? Is net art relevant or just a blip on the screen as more and more artists evolve to using digital tools and new media?
Guess that just leaves Turbulence… permanent link to this post
The big news is that they’re not just funding net art anymore. They’ve expanded the scope to encompass all new media art. From the announcement email:
Rhizome has expanded our scope, formerly focused strictly on Internet-based art, to encompass the broad range of practices that fall under new media art. This includes projects that creatively engage new and networked technologies, as well as works that reflect on the impact of these tools and media in a variety of forms. With this expanded format, commissioned works can take the final form of online works, performance, video, installation or sound art. Projects can be made for the context of the gallery, the public, the web or networked devices.
My initial feeling about this is ambivalence.
On one hand, MTAA’s own work has been moving away from strictly Internet-based work for a few years now. Most of the early net artists (and a majority of the new ones) are using all sorts of digital media with the Internet/web as just one part of their practice. So it seems natural as the net moves from the shiny new thing to just another medium, and artists’ change with it, that Rhizome would also evolve.
On the other hand I liked how Rhizome was holding the torch for net art. Is this another nail in net art’s coffin? Is net art relevant or just a blip on the screen as more and more artists evolve to using digital tools and new media?
Guess that just leaves Turbulence… permanent link to this post
Jan 13, 2008
Frank (Again) stills
posted at 01:48 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This afternoon EST MTAA performed our web performance called “Frank (Again)” at the Panoplie web site (more info here).
The performance was simple. We asked the on-line audience at Panoplie to give us suggestions on drawing a picture of a snowman named Frank. (The name comes from our last snowman who was built from $100 worth of deli materials.) The entire performance lasted 20 minutes.
Thanks to Annie Abrahams for having us. Twas much fun.
Check out some stills from the video:
permanent link to this post
The performance was simple. We asked the on-line audience at Panoplie to give us suggestions on drawing a picture of a snowman named Frank. (The name comes from our last snowman who was built from $100 worth of deli materials.) The entire performance lasted 20 minutes.
Thanks to Annie Abrahams for having us. Twas much fun.
Check out some stills from the video:
permanent link to this post
Jan 08, 2008
Heroic citizen stands up for the constitution!
posted at 15:19 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I finally had to refuse the subway search today.
It was very anti-climatic. I just said that I couldn’t allow a search of my bag without reason and the cop said, “OK, you can’t enter the subway.” Then I left. And walked a half-mile to the next station on the line and came to work.
What a waste of time. permanent link to this post
It was very anti-climatic. I just said that I couldn’t allow a search of my bag without reason and the cop said, “OK, you can’t enter the subway.” Then I left. And walked a half-mile to the next station on the line and came to work.
What a waste of time. permanent link to this post
Jan 01, 2008
Happy New Year 2008
posted at 17:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
(Image courtesy of Trevor; used because it’s currently the #1 hit on Google’s image search and I always like to let Google make my decisions for me.) permanent link to this post
Dec 30, 2007
MTAA’s creative practice
posted at 16:23 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
While M.River posts happy i-love-everybody posts about the new year I’m here to rant.
I’m not really sure what Roberta Smith is going on about with this column:
I’m here to defend artists’ use of the word practice. If you’re reading this on our web site (as opposed a feed reader or aggregator) you’ll see to the left that we use the term:
Smith attaches all sorts of subjective associations to the word:
I don’t know where she gets all these implications and suggestions. Because she has all these stuffy associations with the term doesn’t mean everyone does. I would argue that few do. To me, ‘practice’ means, simply, the continual conduct of one’s profession.
The dictionary agrees with me:
I’m a professional artist. It’s not my hobby. Artists who cannot earn their living solely at their profession need ways of enforcing the fact that they are professionals (both to themselves and others). Language and conduct help underline the fact that we are professionals even though sometimes we can’t support ourselves entirely from our art careers.
Additionally, MTAA came to the term because we do all sorts of activities (we make web sites, installations, photos, sculptures; we perform; we blog; we curate; we write; we do public appearances and etc) and ‘practice’ seemed to neatly encompass all of them. permanent link to this post
I’m not really sure what Roberta Smith is going on about with this column:
Another lamentable creeping usage is not only pretentious, but it distorts and narrows what artists do. I refer to — rather than reference — the word practice, as in “Duchamp’s practice,” “Picasso’s studio practice” and worst of all, especially from the mouths of graduate students, “my practice.” Things were bad enough in the 1980s, when artists sometimes referred to their work as “production,” but at least that had a kind of grease-monkey grit to it.
I’m here to defend artists’ use of the word practice. If you’re reading this on our web site (as opposed a feed reader or aggregator) you’ll see to the left that we use the term:
The MTAA Reference Resource (MTAA-RR) attempts to archive most information regarding the art duo MTAA’s creative PRACTICE.
Smith attaches all sorts of subjective associations to the word:
It turns the artist into an utterly conventional authority figure. (emphasis mine)
[…] there’s the implication that artists, like lawyers, doctors and dentists, need a license to practice. (emphasis mine)
[…] the implication that an artist, like a doctor, lawyer or dentist, is trained to fix some external problem. It depersonalizes the urgency of art making and gives it an aura of control, as if it is all planned out ahead of time.
It suggests that art making is a kind of white-collar activity whose practitioners don’t get their hands dirty, either physically or emotionally.
I don’t know where she gets all these implications and suggestions. Because she has all these stuffy associations with the term doesn’t mean everyone does. I would argue that few do. To me, ‘practice’ means, simply, the continual conduct of one’s profession.
The dictionary agrees with me:
13. to exercise or pursue as a profession, art, or occupation: to practice law.
I’m a professional artist. It’s not my hobby. Artists who cannot earn their living solely at their profession need ways of enforcing the fact that they are professionals (both to themselves and others). Language and conduct help underline the fact that we are professionals even though sometimes we can’t support ourselves entirely from our art careers.
Additionally, MTAA came to the term because we do all sorts of activities (we make web sites, installations, photos, sculptures; we perform; we blog; we curate; we write; we do public appearances and etc) and ‘practice’ seemed to neatly encompass all of them. permanent link to this post
Dec 21, 2007
Merry and etc
posted at 22:11 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This is may favorite emailed holiday greeting. It’s from the Art Workshop Lazareti in Dubrovnik, Croatia. We showed some work there during the iCommons Summit ‘07.
Here’s wishing you good holidays and happiness. permanent link to this post
Dec 17, 2007
Williamsburg is hip! Film at 11.
posted at 22:24 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
How many times can the press discover Williamsburg? It’s seems it goes on forever and ever.
Now listen up. When I was in college. COLLEGE! (I’m pushing 40.) I read this in Ohio. OHIO! That Williamsburg was the hip ‘hood. I read this tidbit in New York Magazine. The issue was called “The New Bohemia Over the Bridge to Williamsburg” and is dated June 22, 1992. 1992! (I can’t type numbers in all caps but if I could, trust me, I would.)
So. By my calculations, this ‘Williamsburg is hip’ discovery has been going on for over 15 years. 15 YEARS! Please. Seriously. Everyone has figured it out by now. Stop it.
[via curbed] permanent link to this post
[…] Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood has in recent years become one of New York City’s hippest areas. And with its easy accessibility — just a short ride on the L train from Manhattan’s Union Square — Williamsburg also stands apart as an ideal destination for visitors looking to explore another side of the City.
“Williamsburg is a haven for the young and the hip,” said George Fertitta […]
Now listen up. When I was in college. COLLEGE! (I’m pushing 40.) I read this in Ohio. OHIO! That Williamsburg was the hip ‘hood. I read this tidbit in New York Magazine. The issue was called “The New Bohemia Over the Bridge to Williamsburg” and is dated June 22, 1992. 1992! (I can’t type numbers in all caps but if I could, trust me, I would.)
So. By my calculations, this ‘Williamsburg is hip’ discovery has been going on for over 15 years. 15 YEARS! Please. Seriously. Everyone has figured it out by now. Stop it.
[via curbed] permanent link to this post
Dec 14, 2007
Reminder: Mike Koller — TONIGHT ONLY!
posted at 15:06 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mike Koller’s “Holiday Rejects” tonight at Over The Opening.
Get all the details here.
This one is going to be great. Not to be missed :-) permanent link to this post
Dec 12, 2007
w00t! Websters is totally PWNED!
posted at 14:33 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Thousands of you took part in the search for Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2007, and the vast majority of you chose a small word that packs a pretty big punch. The word you’ve selected hasn’t found its way into a regular Merriam-Webster dictionary yet—but its inclusion in our online Open Dictionary, along with the top honors it’s now been awarded—might just improve its chances. This year’s winning word first became popular in competitive online gaming forums as part of what is known as l33t (“leet,” or “elite”) speak—an esoteric computer hacker language in which numbers and symbols are put together to look like letters. Although the double “o” in the word is usually represented by double zeroes, the exclamation is also known to be an acronym for “we owned the other team”—again stemming from the gaming community.Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year 2007 permanent link to this post
Merriam-Webster’s #1 Word of the Year for 2007 based on votes from visitors to our Web site:
1. w00t (interjection)
expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word “yay”
Dec 07, 2007
open animated GIF frames in Photoshop CS3
posted at 20:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Adobe, the jerks, removed functionality from Photoshop CS3. Specifically, you could, once upon a time, open an animated GIF in Imageready (free with Photoshop). You can no longer do this with CS3 since Imageready (and it’s tight integration with PS) no longer exists. Adobe’s own KB article on it tells you to buy Fireworks to get this functionality! WTF?!
Fuck that. I have a workaround. Note: this is for OSX only. This workaround works for Windows (my workaround is very similar). Here it is:
1. Open the animated GIF in QuickTime.
2. Choose ‘Save As…’
3. Select ‘Save as self-contained movie’ and save it.
4. In Photoshop, select File->Import->Video Frames To Layers…
5. Select your new animated GIF/QuickTime movie and configure how you want to import it in the Import Video To Layers dialog box.
6. That’s it. You should now have all the frames on separate layers and as frames in the animation palette. permanent link to this post
Fuck that. I have a workaround. Note: this is for OSX only. This workaround works for Windows (my workaround is very similar). Here it is:
1. Open the animated GIF in QuickTime.
2. Choose ‘Save As…’
3. Select ‘Save as self-contained movie’ and save it.
4. In Photoshop, select File->Import->Video Frames To Layers…
5. Select your new animated GIF/QuickTime movie and configure how you want to import it in the Import Video To Layers dialog box.
6. That’s it. You should now have all the frames on separate layers and as frames in the animation palette. permanent link to this post
ArtFagCity does Miami
posted at 18:26 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Paddy’s take on the art-fair-a-palooza sweeping Miami this week sounds a lot like how I would probably feel about it if I was there.
I’m really liking her cynical take on the whole thing. So far it’s the only coverage that sounds like a sane person is writing it (as opposed to a person lobotomized by a PR firm).
From: ArtNow Meets Low Expectations
+++
Otherwise…
For those of us braving the NYC cold, I’m thinking we need to go see Paul McCarthy’s show/business venture at Maccarone Gallery.
Will these butt plug wielding Santa chocolates appreciate? I wonder… permanent link to this post
I’m really liking her cynical take on the whole thing. So far it’s the only coverage that sounds like a sane person is writing it (as opposed to a person lobotomized by a PR firm).
From: ArtNow Meets Low Expectations
Word on the street tells me ArtNow won’t be the worst fair I see this week, which frankly frightens me. I made it through the first floor of galleries before I gave up on the chance of seeing anything moderately interesting, and walked next door to Flow. […] Consider yourself warned.
+++
Otherwise…
For those of us braving the NYC cold, I’m thinking we need to go see Paul McCarthy’s show/business venture at Maccarone Gallery.
Will these butt plug wielding Santa chocolates appreciate? I wonder… permanent link to this post
Dec 03, 2007
Success in Rome
posted at 22:14 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
After speculating that M.River may have been abducted and sold into slavery since I hadn’t heard from him in a week. It now appears that the Super Slow 5K Roma edition was an astounding success!
M.River’s disappearance was due to the fact that he was being feted throughout Rome for the duration of his stay and he was too drunk to figure out how to work the laptop!
M.River is posting a bunch of JPGs on Tinjail of his adventures in Italy.
Check ‘em out… (start there and work back) permanent link to this post
M.River’s disappearance was due to the fact that he was being feted throughout Rome for the duration of his stay and he was too drunk to figure out how to work the laptop!
M.River is posting a bunch of JPGs on Tinjail of his adventures in Italy.
Check ‘em out… (start there and work back) permanent link to this post
Nov 30, 2007
Google Reader stats, or, I’m a total dork
posted at 15:10 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Every other art blog is talking about the New Museum but I’m a dork so this art blog will talk about how to get feed stats from Google Reader!
You can see subscriber info and average number of posts per week. To see stats in Google Reader, do this: click on the ‘discover’ link next to the ‘add subscriptions’ link in the sidebar. Then click the ‘Browse’ tab, then do a search in the ‘Search and browse’ section. And that’s it! You’ll see a list of feeds that match your search criteria.
Interestingly you can snoop on other’s stats as well. For example, bloggy has 62 subs, Cory Arcangel has 141 and We Make Money Not Art has a whopping 2,466! Note that these are only Google Reader subscribers.
+++
In other news, M.River has gone missing in Rome. He seems to be maintaining radio silence (voluntarily or otherwise). Guess that’s what I get for giving him a laptop with a fresh install of linux (which he’s never used) and kicking him out the door. permanent link to this post
You can see subscriber info and average number of posts per week. To see stats in Google Reader, do this: click on the ‘discover’ link next to the ‘add subscriptions’ link in the sidebar. Then click the ‘Browse’ tab, then do a search in the ‘Search and browse’ section. And that’s it! You’ll see a list of feeds that match your search criteria.
Interestingly you can snoop on other’s stats as well. For example, bloggy has 62 subs, Cory Arcangel has 141 and We Make Money Not Art has a whopping 2,466! Note that these are only Google Reader subscribers.
+++
In other news, M.River has gone missing in Rome. He seems to be maintaining radio silence (voluntarily or otherwise). Guess that’s what I get for giving him a laptop with a fresh install of linux (which he’s never used) and kicking him out the door. permanent link to this post
Nov 27, 2007
NuMu Calvin Klein billboard mashup
posted at 20:28 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Cool?
Lame?
I can’t even tell anymore…
(Hint: you can see the profile of the New Museum’s new building in the un-dripped portion of the billboard.)
(via racked) permanent link to this post
Nov 26, 2007
Support Turbulence
posted at 14:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
They need $25K by the end of this year! Go to here to donate.
We need your support. If you:permanent link to this post
— are one of the thousands of people who regularly visit Turbulence.org, Networked_Performance, Networked_Music_Review and/or New American Radio
and/or
— are one of the hundreds of teachers who use Turbulence works in your new media/digital art courses
and/or
— are an artist who has received a Turbulence, Networked_Music_Review or New American Radio commission
and/or
— have presented at or attended Upgrade! Boston (Art Interactive or Massachusetts College of Art and Design), Floating Points (Emerson College), or Programmable Media (Pace Digital Gallery)
now is the time to give something back.
We cannot continue without your help. We MUST raise $25,000 by December 31, 2007.
Nov 20, 2007
Comments around the web
posted at 19:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I’ve been taking part in two discussions on two different blogs today.
The first, on Chris Fahey’s graphpaper.com, where the discussion is about graphic design on the web. I don’t have time to summarize so please go to the thread and check it out. But my point wasn’t well made. If we’re going to discuss graphic design vis-a-vis the web, it doesn’t help to inject the web into what is a conversation about traditional graphic design.
If you want to crit Google’s logo, crit Google’s logo. What does the fact that Google makes its money via the web have to do with anything? Now. If you want to crit Google’s home page in regard to it’s visual design, that’s another story. The main design decision of Google’s home page isn’t the logo. It’s the singular search field. You could put any reasonably designed logo above this search field without significantly changing the function or feel of the page. This distinction, IMHO, embodies the disconnect between graphic designers critiquing the web and web designers critiquing the web.
+++
The other is at ArtFagCity. My comment is still waiting moderation (Paddy please fix these long waits… makes it hard to have a discussion) but here it is:
The first, on Chris Fahey’s graphpaper.com, where the discussion is about graphic design on the web. I don’t have time to summarize so please go to the thread and check it out. But my point wasn’t well made. If we’re going to discuss graphic design vis-a-vis the web, it doesn’t help to inject the web into what is a conversation about traditional graphic design.
If you want to crit Google’s logo, crit Google’s logo. What does the fact that Google makes its money via the web have to do with anything? Now. If you want to crit Google’s home page in regard to it’s visual design, that’s another story. The main design decision of Google’s home page isn’t the logo. It’s the singular search field. You could put any reasonably designed logo above this search field without significantly changing the function or feel of the page. This distinction, IMHO, embodies the disconnect between graphic designers critiquing the web and web designers critiquing the web.
+++
The other is at ArtFagCity. My comment is still waiting moderation (Paddy please fix these long waits… makes it hard to have a discussion) but here it is:
Tom Moody wrote: “Art about the art world inherently blows”permanent link to this post
I can never understand why some folks think certain subjects are inherently bad. It’s obvious to me that no subject is inherently bad — even the art world.
If a certain piece is naval-gazing bullshit, fine. If you think a certain subject is being over-explored (like skulls perhaps?), then say it.
But, to declare one subject off-limits because it “inherently blows” makes no sense.
Actually, good art about the art world is perhaps even harder to pull off because of the risks of a) naval-gazing and b) subject over-exposure.
Nov 15, 2007
Brody Condon, 3 Modifications
posted at 18:30 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
BTW, you’re a new media art chump if you miss Brody’s show at Virgil de Voldere Gallery. Opening tonight.
permanent link to this post
iCommons auction
posted at 14:35 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
From the site…
And MTAA donated 3 copies of The Evildoers’ Remix.
Check it out! permanent link to this post
The iCommons Auction runs from 19 November to 14 December, 2007. This is an innovative auction of paraphernalia from some of the world’s leading Internet figures. From Internet activist and Stanford Law Professor, Lawrence Lessig’s coat that he wore in countries around the world that invited him to talk about free culture; to pre-prints from best-selling novelist, Cory Doctorow’s forthcoming, to-be-Creative Commons-licensed novel, Little Brother; and from #13 of only 20 plush toys of Firefox Japan’s mascot, Fox-keh that took the world by storm, to four of Indian intellectual property expert Lawrence Liang’s favorite Bollywood films: this auction is a celebration of free culture from around the world from those who make it and build it every day. All the proceeds of the auction will go to developing and sustaining iCommons’ global projects.
And MTAA donated 3 copies of The Evildoers’ Remix.
Check it out! permanent link to this post
Nov 10, 2007
Support Rhizome ‘07
posted at 16:30 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The new media art site is looking to raise USD30K by the end of the year. Help ‘em out! permanent link to this post
Nov 02, 2007
Weezer cover of Pixies’ Velouria
posted at 20:11 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I can’t help but post a link to this cover of Velouria by Weezer. I’m a big Weezer fan. I’m an even bigger Pixies fan. This tune squashes two of rock’s best together in massively awesome track. It came out way back in ‘99, but I just found it (the Amazonians seem to have hated it).
update
holy shit! There’s a video of the Pixies’ Velouria (found via Wikipedia). It’s real media and I can’t get it to play. Let me know if you have better luck. permanent link to this post
update
holy shit! There’s a video of the Pixies’ Velouria (found via Wikipedia). It’s real media and I can’t get it to play. Let me know if you have better luck. permanent link to this post
Marisa Olson @ Over The Opening
posted at 16:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
still from Marisa Olson’s “Performed Listening: H” (2007)
On Friday November 9th from 7pm to 10pm, Over The Opening is pleased to present “Performed Listening” by Marisa Olson
Marisa Olson’s work often grows out of fan culture and her Performed Listening series explores the relationship between performer and spectator by underscoring the performativity of listening and watching. Began as a series of seemingly-silent performances in which Olson would listen to music on headphones, in a public context, the series has evolved into performances that sometimes incorporate other spectators and an expanded series of videos. In these tapes of Olson listening to music, the visual qualities are modified according to the sonic elements of the music being listened to.
For her exhibition, Olson installs two previous works from the Performed Listening series: “Easy Listening” (2005) and “Black and White” (2006). Olson also debuts “Performed Listening: H” (2007). In this new work, video of the artist listening to the Velvet Underground’s song, Heroin, is distorted by an analog “colorizer.”
Marisa Olson’s work (marisaolson.com) has recently been presented by the Whitney Museum, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the 52nd Biennale di Venezia, the Pacific Film Archive, Postmasters Gallery, and the New York Underground Film Festival. permanent link to this post
Art blog questionaire
posted at 15:22 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Paddy asks us to answer these questions.
Flattered that Paddy is interested in hearing MTAA’s views, but these questions aren’t very interesting to me. Plus they seem more focused on the critic/blogger as opposed to the artist/blogger. I did consider doing a snarky wise-ass reply to the questions, but I don’t have the time or energy right now.
Perhaps M.River will take a crack?
M.River Adds - Yes, Thanks PJ but I’ll pass as well. What I do here and on Tinjail makes little sense with this type of questions. The one thing I would say is that art/ review / crit blogs might want to avoid setting up standards and norms. Art needs a wide array of voices and styles. VVORKs, AFGs, MANs, ARTCALs, Reblogs, NNs, Rhizome Raws, Artnets and even Art Forum Diaries all have a role to play. permanent link to this post
Flattered that Paddy is interested in hearing MTAA’s views, but these questions aren’t very interesting to me. Plus they seem more focused on the critic/blogger as opposed to the artist/blogger. I did consider doing a snarky wise-ass reply to the questions, but I don’t have the time or energy right now.
Perhaps M.River will take a crack?
M.River Adds - Yes, Thanks PJ but I’ll pass as well. What I do here and on Tinjail makes little sense with this type of questions. The one thing I would say is that art/ review / crit blogs might want to avoid setting up standards and norms. Art needs a wide array of voices and styles. VVORKs, AFGs, MANs, ARTCALs, Reblogs, NNs, Rhizome Raws, Artnets and even Art Forum Diaries all have a role to play. permanent link to this post
Oct 31, 2007
Computerfinearts.com @ Haifa Museum of Art
posted at 19:31 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We’re very happy and proud to be part of this exhibition in Israel:
Check it out: NETworking - Net Art from the Computer Fine Arts Collection
There’s also a PDF (732kb) of the catalog available. permanent link to this post
“NETworking” is the first Israeli museum exhibition devoted to Net Art. It presents 12 works from the Computer Fine Arts collection of Doron Golan. The works included in this show highlight a number of the fundamental qualities that characterize Net Art: the visualization of data; open-code access and connectivity; hacking and online voyeurism involving critiques of authorities and economic powers; the creation of online behavioral codes and the negotiation of cyberspace from various perspectives.
Check it out: NETworking - Net Art from the Computer Fine Arts Collection
There’s also a PDF (732kb) of the catalog available. permanent link to this post
Oct 27, 2007
Rhizome re-launches!
posted at 15:49 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A superb upgrade of the new media community site
Some of the changes:
1. A major change (for RHIZOME_RAW email list subscribers) is the breaking up of the list into 3 different categories: discussion, opportunities and an arts calendar. This required me to redo my email filters a tad, but also gives me the option to filter categories I don’t want or filter them more granularly.
2. The member pages have been transformed into profiles pages with lots more features: enhanced portfolio section (unclear of whether the portfolio entries get added to the artbase automatically), ability to upload audio and video (very cool) and include the feed from your blog. The organizational improvements to the profile page makes it much easier to read and see how the person is interacting with the platform.
3. There has been a major visual re-design. The front page is easier to scan quickly and is laid out more logically. The top navigation has been improved.
4. The discussion board is much better. One can now drill way back in time very quickly. The only problem is that it seems to go back only to 2002. Also, it would be nice to filter these pages (Max Herman is just as annoying now as he was then) but I suppose that’s what the advanced search is for. Which brings me to…
…Bugs. I did run into some bugs. The biggest bug being that the advanced search form isn’t working (I’ve been waiting and waiting this feature). I’m hoping to see major speed improvements in the search. Also with search, it would be nice to have the same sort of pagination in the search results as we get in the discussion area.
But enough of bug talk. This is a major, major upgrade for Rhizome and a big improvement. Lauren, Patrick and Marisa should be very proud. Congrats! permanent link to this post
Oct 26, 2007
NYT’s Brooks: dumb or dumber?
posted at 14:07 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
[…] then I realized the magic of the information age is that it allows us to know less.link
The last person with speed dial to realize this? permanent link to this post
Oct 23, 2007
Paintings?!
posted at 15:49 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there was an artist named M.River (or was it Mark River? or was it Mike Sarff?) who made… paintings?!
Yes. Paintings! And he’s posting them all on his blog!
Check ‘em out…
mriver adds - yep. paintings - thx. t.whid
Some context –
I started working on them in 2001 and have made 300 or so. They are all acrylic on canvass with the black line done with ink and a dip pen (bamboo). They are done in long series or sets (like one year was only painting heads using 3 colors). A good deal of them are based on NYT photos (not the ones on Tinjail so far).The reason I’ve been posting them on Tinjail is I’ve decided to try to document them all before Jan. I’m only a small way in so check back to that link in a few months and I will hopefully be done.
Oh…the other thing is that after painting consistently since 01, I suddenly stopped this summer. I think I’m using this time of documentation to reset / rethink the whole thing. Don’t know yet. permanent link to this post
Oct 20, 2007
Sponsored links — now in hebrew!
posted at 15:09 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
I’m a bit of a Google freak. I use Gmail and Google Calendar as my main mail and calendar apps. I’m desperately trying to get my wife to use Gmail as her main mail app and I’m always trying to get my collaborator M.River to use Google Docs instead of Word. I use the Gapps.
The other day I received an email from Doron (who’s living in Israel) that had a subject line in hebrew. There was really no text in the message — a quoted line also in hebrew — and one english line. This little bit of hebrew in the message triggered the ‘sponsored links’ section of the Gmail interface to display in hebrew.
I just thought it was kinda funny and it made me wonder how Google decides what language a message is written in. permanent link to this post
Oct 17, 2007
What Chris Fahey learned in art school
posted at 13:31 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Chris Fahey has an interesting post up today about how designers think as opposed to non-designers/business people. His site seems to be down right now so I’ll post his bullet points below:
That’s a long list but I think he left off the most important thing that one learns in art school: how to see.
I’ve worked very hard to be able to take in and understand lots of visual information very quickly. It’s a skill that can be learned, but it takes a lot of work. Usually a couple of years worth of work. The one great problem I’ve had to overcome in working as a designer in my day job is how to talk to people about things when I know they are seeing only a small percentage of what I’m seeing in a visual design. (Of course this may be a symptom of my astounding arrogance and I could just be one of those petulant, prima donna, full-of-shit artist/designers.)
Of course Chris is talking about thinking, but the input one gets from one’s eyes will inform almost all of the bullet points above. permanent link to this post
Without further ado: In art school, I learned:
- How to champion and defend my ideas.
- How to distinguish between personal and professional critique.
- How to respectfully and constructively critique my peers. How to attack the ideas of my colleagues and still have drinks with them that same night (and maybe even sleep with them — hey, it is art school)
- How to test drive a hundred different ideas through sketching, cobbling, and envisioning them, before finally settling on which one to go ahead and build.
- How to tell when I am done a project that could just as easily be improved endlessly.
- How to tell when an idea that is precious to me is actually holding me back. And then to feel good about throwing it away.
- How to have the confidence to present my ideas in public without fearing that they will be stolen. And how to take it in stride when they inevitably are.
- How to distinguish between taste, technical skill, and empirical efficiency.
- How to detect bullshit, and to avoid generating it myself (note that not all art school grads learn this).
- How to go the extra mile to make something high-quality.
- How to recognize talent in my peers.
- How to collaborate with my colleagues effectively to reach a common goal.
- How to be deeply competitive without being a dick.
- How to make something new just for the sake of being new.
- How to build off of, and give credit to, the ideas of my predecessors both contemporary and in history.
- How to save ideas that I’m not ready for and keep them for future use (usually in sketchbooks).
- How to start all over again from the beginning.
- How to teach all of the above.
That’s a long list but I think he left off the most important thing that one learns in art school: how to see.
I’ve worked very hard to be able to take in and understand lots of visual information very quickly. It’s a skill that can be learned, but it takes a lot of work. Usually a couple of years worth of work. The one great problem I’ve had to overcome in working as a designer in my day job is how to talk to people about things when I know they are seeing only a small percentage of what I’m seeing in a visual design. (Of course this may be a symptom of my astounding arrogance and I could just be one of those petulant, prima donna, full-of-shit artist/designers.)
Of course Chris is talking about thinking, but the input one gets from one’s eyes will inform almost all of the bullet points above. permanent link to this post
Oct 12, 2007
TONIGHT! Over The Opening launches!
posted at 13:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA’s temporary gallery in their studio opens tonight for the first time with videos (and some other stuff) by Michael Sarff.
Where: 60 N. 6th St., 2nd Flr Williamsburg, Bklyn (directions)
When: 8 - 11 PM Friday Oct 12, 2007
Be there or be square. More info here. permanent link to this post
Oct 11, 2007
Untitled Landscapes for Portable Media Players
posted at 01:41 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Loving the Untitled Landscapes for Portable Media Players series by Cary Peppermint and Christine Nadir AKA EcoArtTech.
My only quibble is that there should be a version just for Zunes™… j/k permanent link to this post
Oct 05, 2007
My Kid Could Paint That…
posted at 14:53 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Paddy Johnson (aka Art Fag City) hits all the right points from an artist’s perspective in her review in The Reeler of My Kid Could Paint That. The NYT review is good too.
My 2¢? I’d never heard of the child before this movie’s PR kicked in. Was she really an art star? It just seems like a bunch of mainstream media hype trafficking on the general public’s ignorance of how actual contemporary art works. Sounds like a decent documentary though. permanent link to this post
My 2¢? I’d never heard of the child before this movie’s PR kicked in. Was she really an art star? It just seems like a bunch of mainstream media hype trafficking on the general public’s ignorance of how actual contemporary art works. Sounds like a decent documentary though. permanent link to this post
Oct 04, 2007
New Baghdad Journal on-line
posted at 13:59 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Check out Steve Mumford’s newest installment…
The artist Steve Mumford originally went to Baghdad in 2003 to work as a war artist, embedded with the U.S. military, both writing a journal and making drawings and watercolors of what he saw there. In early 2007 he returned to Iraq for approximately a month, where he worked at an army hospital. This is the second of three reports on that trip. The first, “With Good Company into Iraq,” was posted on Mar. 8, 2007. The archive for Mumford’s original “Baghdad Journal” can be found here.permanent link to this post
Sep 30, 2007
Airstream interior panorama
posted at 16:06 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Last weekend a bunch of us went upstate to celebrate a birthday milestone of M.River’s.
Chris Fahey came along and created this awesome panorama of the interior of the airstream he stayed in with his wife Peggy. See Chris’ blog for lots more info and links to larger images on Flickr. permanent link to this post
Sep 27, 2007
gumbo@dumbo
posted at 19:09 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
G.H. Hovagimyan tells us…
gumbo@dumbopermanent link to this post
Art Under the Bridge Festival in Dumbo, Brooklyn
September 28, 29, 30th, 7pm to 11pm
Front Street & Adams Street, Brooklyn
Video Projection on the Manhattan Bridge Anchorage
I’ve been working with a group of artists over the summer. We have been finding ways to collaborate with each other through an open dialogue and discussion about art and group praxis. The name of the group is Artists Meeting;
Participating Artists include Leesa Abahuni, Nicole Abahuni, James Andrews, Daniel Blochwitz, Chris Borkowski, Ursula Endlicher, G.H. Hovagimyan, Thomas Hutchison, Lara Star Martini, Nsumi Group, [PAM], Joao Salema, Raphaele Shirley, Jason Wee, Lee Wells.
We will present our first public collaborative video installation this weekend at the Art Under the Bridge Festival in Dumbo, Brooklyn. We will project two 30 foot by 40 foot videos onto the south side of the Manhattan Bridge Anchorage from the loading dock just off the corner of Front and Adams.
‘Truth’ in photos?
posted at 01:11 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I would like to write more about this, but time—work—blah.
Two articles in today’s NYT provide a strange contrast to one another. The first is filmmaker Errol Morris’ essay regarding a photo from 1855 by Roger Fenton. (I had never heard of Fenton before today and had never seen the photos discussed.) And the second is an editorial criticizing the idea that the dunes that inspired Edward Hopper should be protected from development simply because they were inspirations to the artist.
First, in the Morris article, I find it bizarre that there is even a debate as to the worth of a photo (or the talent of the photographer) if the photo was somehow staged:
OK, for the layman, sure, they’re disappointed. But experts? Artists? They shouldn’t be disappointed because almost all photos are a fiction to one degree or another. This seems like a very important thing to recognize in this day in age because when people don’t realize this very simple concept things like this happen.
The second article makes more sense. It’s obvious that the landscape has been filtered through the artist. How could it not be? He painted it. Why do people persist in seeing art photos any differently? permanent link to this post
Two articles in today’s NYT provide a strange contrast to one another. The first is filmmaker Errol Morris’ essay regarding a photo from 1855 by Roger Fenton. (I had never heard of Fenton before today and had never seen the photos discussed.) And the second is an editorial criticizing the idea that the dunes that inspired Edward Hopper should be protected from development simply because they were inspirations to the artist.
First, in the Morris article, I find it bizarre that there is even a debate as to the worth of a photo (or the talent of the photographer) if the photo was somehow staged:
[Songtag] mentions how one of the Fenton photographs was posed or staged. That we’re always disappointed when we learn that a photograph has been posed. Then she goes on to talk about the difference between fake paintings and fake photographs. Namely, a fake painting is a painting with faulty provenance — say, a painting that is purportedly by Vermeer, but turns out to be painted by somebody else. But according to Sontag, a fake photograph is a photograph that’s been posed.
OK, for the layman, sure, they’re disappointed. But experts? Artists? They shouldn’t be disappointed because almost all photos are a fiction to one degree or another. This seems like a very important thing to recognize in this day in age because when people don’t realize this very simple concept things like this happen.
The second article makes more sense. It’s obvious that the landscape has been filtered through the artist. How could it not be? He painted it. Why do people persist in seeing art photos any differently? permanent link to this post
Sep 15, 2007
Super Slow 5K — TOMORROW!
posted at 14:49 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
All the details here…
I’ve got a cold and feel crappy, M.River thinks it’s going to rain — but somehow we’re going to PULL THIS OFF!
I guess we have to because everybody knows about it…
Rhizome
AM New York
Curbed
LVHRD.ORG
RSVP on Facebook or email. permanent link to this post
I’ve got a cold and feel crappy, M.River thinks it’s going to rain — but somehow we’re going to PULL THIS OFF!
I guess we have to because everybody knows about it…
Rhizome
AM New York
Curbed
LVHRD.ORG
RSVP on Facebook or email. permanent link to this post
Sep 12, 2007
Commons Art Diagram v2
posted at 13:57 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This one was drawn by my niece Ivy from life, that is, from the t-shirt I was wearing.
Ivy didn’t specify what license she wanted to release this under, but I assume an attribution license would be fine ;-)
The original is here. permanent link to this post
Ivy didn’t specify what license she wanted to release this under, but I assume an attribution license would be fine ;-)
The original is here. permanent link to this post
Sep 06, 2007
The art season opens
posted at 01:49 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The ArtCal calendar via Google Calendar shows that we’ll all be very busy around 6PM tomorrow. permanent link to this post
Sep 04, 2007
The King of Kong
posted at 02:19 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (official site; IMDB)
I can’t recommend this movie enough, it’s a great documentary. I was originally drawn to it because — hey, the classic arcade games are my generation — but the film goes far beyond any simple nostalgia kick. It’s hard to draw me completely into a film, but this one did it.
It’s not in very wide release (only 2 places in NYC are showing it) but check the web site, it’s being rolled out more widely over the coming weeks. permanent link to this post
Aug 24, 2007
Get yer sleep on…
posted at 13:58 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
…at the THE GREAT INTERNET SLEEPOVER!!!!!!!!
(Note: that’s the official title, multiple exclamation points and all.)
These crazy kids today:
When MTAA heard about this, we immediately thought of the Warhol Hijack. The Hijack is lost to history and its success is debatable. permanent link to this post
(Note: that’s the official title, multiple exclamation points and all.)
These crazy kids today:
Camp out with pro net surfers and net surfing clubs as we talk shop, play games, pitch tents, and make a hypertext mess big enough for mom to clean up in the morning.
When MTAA heard about this, we immediately thought of the Warhol Hijack. The Hijack is lost to history and its success is debatable. permanent link to this post
Aug 21, 2007
Big news from Adobe
posted at 13:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Adobe’s new flash player will support streaming or progressive playback of H264 encoded video files (.mp4, .m4v, .mov and more…).
There’s lots of very important info in the above link and anyone using video on the web should read it. This caught my eye:
It’s not exactly clear what he means by the “new standard file format” but I guess he means h.264 in whatever container you like (.mp4, .mov etc). Does this mean Adobe is killing the FLV (Flash Video) format?
Adobe has basically made MP4 (h.264) the MP3 of video on the web. In other words, it’s the default format. XBox supports it now (how long until Windows Media Player supports it?), Flash Player supports it now and of course QuickTime Player. permanent link to this post
There’s lots of very important info in the above link and anyone using video on the web should read it. This caught my eye:
Will it be possible to place H.264 streams into the traditional FLV file structure? It will, but we strongly encourage everyone to embrace the new standard file format. There are functional limits with the FLV structure when streaming H.264 which we could not overcome without a redesign of the file format. This is one reason we are moving away from the traditional FLV file structure. Specifically dealing with sequence headers and enders is tricky with FLV streams.
It’s not exactly clear what he means by the “new standard file format” but I guess he means h.264 in whatever container you like (.mp4, .mov etc). Does this mean Adobe is killing the FLV (Flash Video) format?
Adobe has basically made MP4 (h.264) the MP3 of video on the web. In other words, it’s the default format. XBox supports it now (how long until Windows Media Player supports it?), Flash Player supports it now and of course QuickTime Player. permanent link to this post
Aug 18, 2007
San Jose Semaphore cracked
posted at 13:05 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I hadn’t even heard of this project by Ben Rubin (of Listening Post fame), but it’s been solved.
From the artist’s web site:
Fun! Don’t miss the PDF that talks about the solution. permanent link to this post
From the artist’s web site:
San Jose Semaphore, by artist Ben Rubin, is a permanent public artwork commissioned by Adobe Systems Incorporated in collaboration with the City of San Jose’s Office of Cultural Affair’s Public Art Program.
Located within the top floors of Adobe’s Almaden Tower headquarters in San Jose, California, San Jose Semaphore is a multi-sensory kinetic artwork that illuminates the San Jose skyline with the transmission of a coded message. The content of the San Jose Semaphore’s message is a mystery; cracking the encryption technique and deciphering the message is posed as a challenge for the public. To the first person or group to successfully crack the code, Adobe will award bragging rights and acknowledgment on both the Adobe website (www.adobe.com) and the San Jose Semaphore website.
Fun! Don’t miss the PDF that talks about the solution. permanent link to this post
Aug 15, 2007
You’re living in a computer simulation
posted at 13:31 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Back from vacation in Ohio (‘twas lovely), not much happening art-wise, thought I’d post this (in case you missed it in the NYT):
Check it out: Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch…
Check it out: Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch…
Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else’s hobby. I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims. Skip to next paragraph Viktor Koenpermanent link to this post
But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation.
Aug 03, 2007
Cory Arcangel is finalist for Lucelia Artist Award
posted at 15:21 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This year marks the seventh Lucelia Artist Award, an annual award in which the Smithsonian American Art Museum recognizes an artist under age 50 for his or her contribution to contemporary art. Funded by the New York–based Lucelia Foundation, the $25,000 prize is awarded to the winner by a distinguished panel of five jurors, who also nominate the finalists.
via Eye Level — check it for other finalists!
Good luck Cory! permanent link to this post
Jul 28, 2007
Port Huron Project in NYTimes
posted at 14:21 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Congrats to Mark and his great project for this coverage!
check it out: Giving New Life to Protests of Yore (NYT)
First few graphs:
Paul Potter’s Speech (mp3)
The web site for the Port Huron Project permanent link to this post
check it out: Giving New Life to Protests of Yore (NYT)
First few graphs:
WASHINGTON, July 26 — It’s not an unfamiliar tableau these days: people gathered on a grassy expanse of the National Mall here, listening to someone deliver an impassioned antiwar speech with phrases like “aggressive, activist foreign policy,” “the war we are creating,” “vigorous governmental efforts to control information” and “distorted or downright dishonest documents.” At some point, the crowd breaks into applause and a young woman yells out, “That’s right!”
She shouts this, however, just after the speaker behind the lectern refers to men with last names like Johnson, Rusk and Bundy and to the destinies of the Vietnamese people. And at its high point, the crowd numbers only about 30 people, many of them involved in videotaping, recording and photographing the event as flags snap majestically in the wind around the Washington Monument.
In other words, if you had wandered into this spectacle on Thursday evening, you would have found yourself not exactly in the midst of an actual protest but somewhere slightly removed, in the disorienting territory where art meets political engagement.
Paul Potter’s Speech (mp3)
The web site for the Port Huron Project permanent link to this post
Jul 26, 2007
Rhizome adds Creative Commons
posted at 23:36 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Press release follows…
Rhizome is proud to announce its integration of Creative Commons licenses into its online archive of art, the Artbase. As of today, artists have the option to license their work under Creative Commons Licenses. This suite of licenses allows creators to shift the terms of copyright from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some Rights Reserved,” therefore enabling authors, scientists, educators and artists, amongst others, to mark their creative works with the cultural freedoms they abide by. Rhizome’s hope is that through the use of these licenses, artists will have greater access to each others’ work in furtherance of their goals.permanent link to this post
Rhizome would like to thank Wendy Seltzer, Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, for her guidance and Fred Benenson, Creative Commons Cultural Fellow and student at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, for his coordination of the project. “By implementing Creative Commons, Rhizome aligns itself with sites like Blip.tv, Flickr and Digg, who nurture not only a community of free creativity, but of free culture,” says Benenson. Lauren Cornell, Executive Director of Rhizome, adds that “It’s in the spirit of Rhizome to foster collaboration amongst artists. I’m happy that Rhizome is able to make these licenses available, and to support the practice of sharing cultural material within the arts.”
About Rhizome
Rhizome is an online platform for the global new media art community. Our programs support the creation, presentation, discussion and preservation of contemporary art that uses new technologies in significant ways.
http://www.rhizome.org
About Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 2001, that promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works—whether owned or in the public domain. Creative Commons licences provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators that build upon the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach.
http://creativecommons.org/
MASS MoCA: Project Is Not Art
posted at 13:28 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MASS MoCA is shooting itself in the foot face if they think artists are going to look kindly on these claims…
Read more at Clancco.com…
background info here
(via Winkleman) permanent link to this post
More alarming is MASS MoCA’s argument that they are the lawful owners of the materials which are the subject matter of this dispute, and thus allowed to display them publicly.
But this isn’t the end of this wonderful yarn of fiction. MASS MoCA further argues that Büchel’s work is not even art, but simply a compilation of materials which, if accepted by the Court, would not be granted protection under the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA). If in fact the Court decides that VARA does apply, MASS MoCA argues that any modification to the “materials” which may have happened is allowed by VARA under the “conservation or placement” exception, and/or that the doctrine of “fair use” would allow MASS MoCA to display Büchel’s project without infringing the Copyright or VARA Acts.
Read more at Clancco.com…
background info here
(via Winkleman) permanent link to this post
Jul 19, 2007
Steam pipe explosion
posted at 14:16 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
If you’re like me you’re wondering why there are steam pipes running under New York City. As always, the tubes have all the answers.
I found this:
(Check out Coned’s info here and here too.)
Pretty straightforward, except — what? Cooling!? How the hell does steam cool a building? I can’t find any info so I suppose it will remain a mystery… permanent link to this post
I found this:
Some 30 billion pounds of steam every year flow beneath the streets of Manhattan from the Battery to 96th Street. While it is unknown to most New Yorkers, Con Edison’s subterranean steam system is the biggest steam district in the world. There are 7 plants in NYC — five in Manhattan and one each in Queens and Brooklyn. On a cold winter day, nearly 10 million pounds of steam at 350 degrees Fahrenheit flow each hour through 105 miles of underground mains. Steam is efficient and cost effective for high-rise buildings and most of it is used for heating and cooling.
The city’s infrastructure is old, with much of it being built 50 to 100 years ago. Just maintaining this system, which cracks and breaks every day, is a monumental task.
(Check out Coned’s info here and here too.)
Pretty straightforward, except — what? Cooling!? How the hell does steam cool a building? I can’t find any info so I suppose it will remain a mystery… permanent link to this post
Jul 18, 2007
In case you somehow missed it: James and Barry
posted at 19:51 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
James Wagner and Barry Hoggard are profiled in Brooklyn Rail this month.
Of course, as always, MTAA was way ahead of the curve (note: the date on the linked post is wrong, it was actually from June 13, 2005). permanent link to this post
Of course, as always, MTAA was way ahead of the curve (note: the date on the linked post is wrong, it was actually from June 13, 2005). permanent link to this post
Jul 14, 2007
MTAA’s Portable First Solo Show Audio Tour & Extended Dance Mix
posted at 02:24 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The true MTAA-headz (is there such a thing?) out there will appreciate this (I hope).
Back in January 2000 MTAA had a solo show at a small gallery on the Lower East Side called Walden. The place is long gone, but evidence of our show persists.
For the show we created an audio tour. MP3s of the audio tour have been offline for a while, but I decided to put them back online (unsure why they were offline in the first place). Anyway, here they are:
MTAA’s Portable First Solo Show Audio Tour & Extended Dance Mix.
(Note: each track name links to an MP3 audio file.)
Track 1: The MTAA Promise (it looked more or less like this (PDF))
Track 2: TIME!® @ PS1 aka The Big Blue Summer (this piece had to do with our TIME® project)
Track 3: DYHAP Museum Plan (this piece related to Direct To Your Home Art Projects)
Track 4: V-TAV: "Group Text" Hard Copy Version (check out the exhibition)
Track 5: Site Unseen Tracking Poster (a sculptural version of Website Unseen)
Track 6: 99 Steps to Contemporary Art in Your Bedroom (check out the 99 Steps online)
Bonus Extended Dance Mix: Empty You by Yab Yum (Johnny Gould & Chris Flam)
+++
All the tracks were mixed by Cary Peppermint (working under the alias CP_V70), except the bonus track which was created by Yab Yum. permanent link to this post
Back in January 2000 MTAA had a solo show at a small gallery on the Lower East Side called Walden. The place is long gone, but evidence of our show persists.
For the show we created an audio tour. MP3s of the audio tour have been offline for a while, but I decided to put them back online (unsure why they were offline in the first place). Anyway, here they are:
MTAA’s Portable First Solo Show Audio Tour & Extended Dance Mix.
(Note: each track name links to an MP3 audio file.)
Track 1: The MTAA Promise (it looked more or less like this (PDF))
Track 2: TIME!® @ PS1 aka The Big Blue Summer (this piece had to do with our TIME® project)
Track 3: DYHAP Museum Plan (this piece related to Direct To Your Home Art Projects)
Track 4: V-TAV: "Group Text" Hard Copy Version (check out the exhibition)
Track 5: Site Unseen Tracking Poster (a sculptural version of Website Unseen)
Track 6: 99 Steps to Contemporary Art in Your Bedroom (check out the 99 Steps online)
Bonus Extended Dance Mix: Empty You by Yab Yum (Johnny Gould & Chris Flam)
+++
All the tracks were mixed by Cary Peppermint (working under the alias CP_V70), except the bonus track which was created by Yab Yum. permanent link to this post
Jul 08, 2007
iCommons Summit videos
posted at 17:49 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
iCommons iSummit07 - AiR panel - MTAA’s Tim Whidden
Last month MTAA participated in the iCommons Summit ‘07 in Dubrovnik, Croatia. I attended as MTAA’s representative and spoke on two panels (we also put an entire exhibition together while we were there).
Videos of the panels are online. You can download the QuickTime versions: The Artist-in-residence panel where all the artists spoke (83MB) and another panel (that was sort of strange and contentious) called Why Don’t Artists Use More Free Software (93MB).
There are also flash versions available via Vimeo:
1
Paddy Johnson (moderating),
Nathaniel Stern
http://www.vimeo.com/234407
2
MTAA’s Tim Whidden
http://www.vimeo.com/234421
3
Kathryn Smith
http://www.vimeo.com/234440
4
Jaka Zeleznikar
http://www.vimeo.com/234483
5
Joy Garnett
http://www.vimeo.com/234487
6
Ana Husman
http://www.vimeo.com/234494
7
Q&A
http://www.vimeo.com/234530 permanent link to this post
Jul 05, 2007
Eyebeam featured on Channel 10
posted at 19:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Channel 10 is Microsoft’s videoblog, billing itself as:
[…] a place for enthusiasts with a passion for technology. Through a world-wide network of contributors, Channel 10 covers the latest news in music, mobility, photography, videography, gaming, and new PC hardware and software.
They also happen to cover a lot of MS technology… imagine that?
Today they’re covering our friends at Eyebeam.
Check it out… (you can download the interview in a variety of formats at their site). permanent link to this post
Jun 30, 2007
Kimmelman on The Splasher(s)
posted at 14:04 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Until the pranks turned ugly, it was heartening to follow the dust-up between a bunch of street artists and their nemesis or nemeses, identity unknown. As The New York Times reported this week, for some time works of stenciled graffiti art and wheat-pasted posters slapped onto walls in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan have been splashed with paint and scrawled with messages of protest.
Splashing the Art World With Anger and Questions permanent link to this post
Jun 26, 2007
Mumford’s better
posted at 20:18 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
There’s another "embedded artist" out there in the world documenting wars the old fashioned way. The differences between Richard Johnson and Steve Mumford? Johnson is Canadian, he’s in Afghanistan and he sucks.
All right, he doesn’t suck (I was just being a dick). But his drawings look much less inspired to my eye than Mumford’s. Johnson’s stuff looks overly illustrative and picky. In short, his drawings lack the confidence of Mumford’s field sketches.
via Boing Boing permanent link to this post
All right, he doesn’t suck (I was just being a dick). But his drawings look much less inspired to my eye than Mumford’s. Johnson’s stuff looks overly illustrative and picky. In short, his drawings lack the confidence of Mumford’s field sketches.
via Boing Boing permanent link to this post
Shortlisted by NYMag
posted at 15:34 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA is honored to be taking part in Postmasters summer group show "Not Your Parents’ MTV: Music Videos From Hell" and New York Magazine seems to think it’s a damn good idea as the show has been added to their arts shortlist!
NYMag’s blurb on KDM100 makes me chuckle:
Even if you’veenjoyed been tortured by the web version, come to the show (opening 6/28 6-8PM) and check out the installation which includes a pumpin’ sound system, potted plants, bamboo benches and a custom-made net art viewing desk.
permanent link to this post
NYMag’s blurb on KDM100 makes me chuckle:
An eight-hour, booze-fueled karaoke face-off. In other words, Saturday night in Chinatown.
Even if you’ve
Jun 22, 2007
Not Your Parents’ MTV
posted at 18:04 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
click for larger image
We have two pieces in this show opening next week at Postmasters! Note: the opening is JUNE 28, 6-8PM (it was misprinted on the postcard).
We’ll be showing ‘gallery versions’ of Karaoke DeathMatch 100 and 25 Concrete Examples Why John Cage Is Not Our Father.
More below:
Postmasters Gallery is pleased to present our final, not to be missed, show of this season:permanent link to this post
Not Your Parents’ MTV: Music Videos from Hell
June 28 - July 28, 2007
opening reception Thursday, June 28 6-8 pm
- a group exhibition featuring unorthodox music videos and related projects by the following artists:
MICHAEL PAUL BRITTO
I’m a Slave 4U
The Super N Word
KENNETH TIN KIN HUNG
Because Washington is Hollywood for Ugly People
KATARZYNA KOZYRA
Cheerleader
Diva Reincarnation
CHRIS LARSON
Shotgun Piano
ABE LINCOLN & MARISA OLSON
Abe and Mo Sing the Blogs
MTAA (M.RIVER & T.WHID ART ASSOCIATES)
Karaoke Death Match 100
25 Concrete Examples Why John Cage Is Not Our Father
Kimchi alert system!
posted at 13:59 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This is great! Hope this system makes it to K-town here in NYC because I like my kimchi hot!
via BuzzFeed… permanent link to this post
Under the measure, kimchi will be labeled as mild, slightly hot, moderately hot, very hot or extremely hot to indicate spiciness. The index is based on the amount of capsaicin and other substances contained in the chili peppers added to the cabbage to make kimchi.
via BuzzFeed… permanent link to this post
Jun 19, 2007
Artificial legal add-ons to art
posted at 18:17 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA have been supporters of Creative Commons since the project was launched. When we can, we release versions of art works with CC licenses and our web sites (both mteww.com and mtaa.net) have CC licenses attached to them. Our digital image ‘Manual Zoom Mirage’ was released under a BY-NC-SA 1.0 license way back in ‘03 (just a few months after the initial license releases according to Wikipedia). And our Simple Net Art Diagram has had various versions of licenses attached to it until we settled on the Attribution 2.5 license.
I say all this to establish MTAA’s street cred when it comes to artists engaging with the ideas that Creative Commons embodies. Also to contextualize where I’m coming from when I try to point out the deficiencies that CC may have for fine artists or how I think most artists of this ilk will respond to CC. Which brings me to this article by Paddy Johnson: Defining Moments at the Artist in Residence Panel. She describes the iCommons Summit 07 artists in residence panel, I’m interested in this part…
[…] according to [T.Whid], no work of art is made better for having a CC license applied to it. Now, this point is clearly debatable, and having observed just yesterday that I liked his work On Kawara Update better for the license I tend to think there are exceptions to this statement, as did a member of the audience who cited the same work. That said, I still suspect most artists would generally agree with his statement.
…in order to clarify my point.
An art work’s meaning will be changed by context. Making a work available via a CC license may change or augment the context of a work thereby changing its meaning somewhat to some viewers (make it better or worse). My point is that the vast majority of viewers of an art work will not notice this contextual shift — they have no idea what sort of copyright laws are being applied to a particular art work. Many of those that do notice will simply disregard it and focus on the traditional measures of an art work’s worth: the form, content, subject, etc. In some cases, drawing a viewer’s attention to the licensing aspect of a work of art may confuse the viewer — making their experience worse.
I personally would never measure a particular work’s value by its license — it wouldn’t even go into the mix. To me (unless the CC license is part of the content of the work) it’s simply a sort of artificial add-on. If I like an art work on its own merit and then notice it’s CC-licensed, I will think the artist is enlightened, but that’s just my opinion of the artist and not the work.
Think of one of your favorite art works. Do you know its license? Do you just assume copyright has been applied? Would you really think it was more [beautiful, intelligent, engaging, enthralling, etc] if the license changed?
update
Just as I posted this I thought I should explain what I mean by ‘artificial.’ Simply put, artificial in this context means something added on by outside influence and may or may not have any meaning or value vis-a-vis what the artist was trying to communicate in the art work. Some artists simply don’t care about copyright, etc but legal structures force these concepts onto their work anyway.
update 2
Rob Myers has a response. permanent link to this post
Jun 17, 2007
onKawaraUpdate (v2)
posted at 09:35 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA has released a new net art project entitled onKawaraUpdate (v2).
This piece updates and automates the process-oriented nature of On Kawara’s date paintings. The artist’s labor is essential to process-oriented art. What happens when that labor is removed?
If the web site is visited by anyone on a particular day, a date page is created. If no one visits on a particular day, no date page is created.
It is licensed under the CC-GNU GPL. (Download the source code.) permanent link to this post
Jun 16, 2007
Pix of opening in Croatia
posted at 09:18 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Joy Garnett has uploaded a Flickr set of the “The Art Happens Here” at the iCommons Summit ‘07 in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
photo by Joy Garnett
Check out the photos… permanent link to this post
photo by Joy Garnett
Check out the photos… permanent link to this post
Jun 11, 2007
iCommons Summit AiR Flickr group
posted at 09:34 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
If you’re interested in following the action in Dubrovnik for the iCommons Summit 07 AiR program check out these photos!
Go to the iCommons AiR Flickr group. We should be updating it often over the course of the summit (until June 17) :-) permanent link to this post
Go to the iCommons AiR Flickr group. We should be updating it often over the course of the summit (until June 17) :-) permanent link to this post
Jun 04, 2007
M.River wins KDM100 Champion!
posted at 13:27 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The impossible has come to pass with M.River winning the highly coveted (by me) title of Karaoke DeathMatch 100 Champion. By visiting the previous link, you can view the victory and defeat songs and comment if you like.
It was a rough and grueling championship consisting of 50 rounds of karaoke done over one day while the competitors got progressively more drunk. It was an endurance competition and M.River seems to have endured better over the long haul.
M.River’s victory speech consisted entirely of the following: “Blow me Tim. I won. Fuck you, ha!”
There will be no rematch (unless, perhaps, we can get funding for it).
M.River update:
Although, as Tim points out on the MTAA-RR blog today, my short, sweet and to the point victory speech goes down on record as “Blow me Tim. I won. Fuck you, ha!” I would have rather it been one of these 2 quotes from the fighting wordsmith Muhammad Ali
“Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.”
or
“If you even dream of beating me you’d better wake up and apologize.”
It kinda work both ways. Actually, good job and well played Tim. No rematch.
Also, again big thanks to all who voted and posted. You are the true KDM100 champs. permanent link to this post
It was a rough and grueling championship consisting of 50 rounds of karaoke done over one day while the competitors got progressively more drunk. It was an endurance competition and M.River seems to have endured better over the long haul.
M.River’s victory speech consisted entirely of the following: “Blow me Tim. I won. Fuck you, ha!”
There will be no rematch (unless, perhaps, we can get funding for it).
M.River update:
Although, as Tim points out on the MTAA-RR blog today, my short, sweet and to the point victory speech goes down on record as “Blow me Tim. I won. Fuck you, ha!” I would have rather it been one of these 2 quotes from the fighting wordsmith Muhammad Ali
“Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.”
or
“If you even dream of beating me you’d better wake up and apologize.”
It kinda work both ways. Actually, good job and well played Tim. No rematch.
Also, again big thanks to all who voted and posted. You are the true KDM100 champs. permanent link to this post
Jun 03, 2007
KDM100 FINAL ROUND!
posted at 13:19 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Fuck!
With one round to go the score is:
M.River: 24 | T.Whid: 23 | Ties: 2
The only thing I can do is tie it up :(
M.River sucks and doesn’t deserve to win, but a tie would be worse. If we tied, we might need to do this again! That’s not going to happen.
Anyway… this is the last day to vote, so get on over there. You can always visit the archives too. permanent link to this post
With one round to go the score is:
M.River: 24 | T.Whid: 23 | Ties: 2
The only thing I can do is tie it up :(
M.River sucks and doesn’t deserve to win, but a tie would be worse. If we tied, we might need to do this again! That’s not going to happen.
Anyway… this is the last day to vote, so get on over there. You can always visit the archives too. permanent link to this post
May 31, 2007
Bill Shackelford’s Blogged
posted at 17:48 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
From: http://billshackelford.com/home/portfolio_blogged
Go today if you want to pop his balloon :-) permanent link to this post
“Blogged” is an interactive installation artwork and one day net event dealing with the concept of being ‘blogged’. It attempts to pop 6 feet in diameter red balloon by using traffic from blogs linking to this page.
Go today if you want to pop his balloon :-) permanent link to this post
May 30, 2007
BBurg news — Galapagos moving
posted at 13:52 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Holy shit! moving to DUMBO… and I had to read it in the NYTimes :(
I haven’t been inside Galapagos for years. But this is still big news to me as it represents what I consider the ‘old days’ of Williamsburg.
Galapagos grew directly out of the roving rave/art/performance warehouse parties of Williamsburg’s glory years as an artists’ bastion in the early to mid 90s. It was started by Robert Elmes to be a legit version of Mustard, which was an illegal art/exhibition space that he helped run out the Old Dutch Mustard factory on Metropolitan Ave. Mustard itself grew out of a huge warehouse art party/rave at the factory called Organism.
What is Galapagos going to do without its moat? I hope there are plans for a new moat. permanent link to this post
I haven’t been inside Galapagos for years. But this is still big news to me as it represents what I consider the ‘old days’ of Williamsburg.
Galapagos grew directly out of the roving rave/art/performance warehouse parties of Williamsburg’s glory years as an artists’ bastion in the early to mid 90s. It was started by Robert Elmes to be a legit version of Mustard, which was an illegal art/exhibition space that he helped run out the Old Dutch Mustard factory on Metropolitan Ave. Mustard itself grew out of a huge warehouse art party/rave at the factory called Organism.
What is Galapagos going to do without its moat? I hope there are plans for a new moat. permanent link to this post
May 29, 2007
Source Code: Programming Eyebeam Style
posted at 17:55 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Adding to this post.
Here’s the lowdown on “Source Code” opening this thursday at Eyebeam:
More at ArtCal… permanent link to this post
Here’s the lowdown on “Source Code” opening this thursday at Eyebeam:
The first in a series of three retrospective exhibitions celebrating Eyebeam’s contributions to the art and tech field
Eyebeam is pleased to announce a special exhibition of 14 projects from 10 years of residencies, fellowships and commissions in Eyebeam’s labs. The pieces featured have developed since their life at Eyebeam and/or will be reactivated with events, performances, and workshops demonstrating and sharing the process of their creation.
[…]
The noteworthy lineup of artists, technologists, hackers and programmers in Source Code demonstrates diverse and vibrant genres of creative exploration that defy easy categorization. The artists and collectives participating in the exhibition are: Cory Arcangel, Carrie Dashow, eteam, Nina Katchadourian, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, MediaShed, neuroTransmitter, Steve Lambert, Alex Galloway and artists using Galloway’s Carnivore client — a surveillance tool for data network that serves that data to various creative interfaces called “clients” to make their work: Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Golan Levin, MTAA and Mark Napier.
More at ArtCal… permanent link to this post
May 25, 2007
Slideshow of Napier’s work on Wired.com
posted at 02:17 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
May 24, 2007
KDM100 hits 40!
posted at 13:53 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Who knew we could make it this far?
The Karaoke DeathMatch 100 is in it’s 40th round! Only 10 more days to experience the horror that is KDM100!
Go there now. Vote T.Whid. permanent link to this post
The Karaoke DeathMatch 100 is in it’s 40th round! Only 10 more days to experience the horror that is KDM100!
Go there now. Vote T.Whid. permanent link to this post
May 23, 2007
Elahi on Wired
posted at 15:12 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Check it out…
Hasan Elahi is a Creative Capital 2006 grantee and we met him at the art camp last summer. Not only is his project fascinating, but he’s a great guy (not like I thought a terrorist would be at all).
From the article:
Hasan Elahi is a Creative Capital 2006 grantee and we met him at the art camp last summer. Not only is his project fascinating, but he’s a great guy (not like I thought a terrorist would be at all).
From the article:
Elahi’s site is the perfect alibi. Or an audacious art project. Or both. The Bangladeshi-born American says the US government mistakenly listed him on its terrorist watch list — and once you’re on, it’s hard to get off. To convince the Feds of his innocence, Elahi has made his life an open book. Whenever they want, officials can go to his site and see where he is and what he’s doing. Indeed, his server logs show hits from the Pentagon, the Secretary of Defense, and the Executive Office of the President, among others.permanent link to this post
May 22, 2007
Let’s call our fuck up ‘art’
posted at 13:48 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
But there is a catch, one that seems in keeping with the surreal nature of the artwork itself. Because of concerns about legal action by Mr. Buchel, the museum will shield all the huge objects in the warehouse from view with tall plastic tarps, as if Christo and Jeanne-Claude had intervened at the last minute. Viewers will be allowed to wend their way through the cavernous hall but they will have to rely on their imaginations, mostly, to appreciate the show.
From NYT: The Show Will Go On, but the Art Will Be Shielded
In a nutshell: artist and museum couldn’t get along so the museum (MASS MoCA) decides to open the show anyway, but cover all the objects.
The decision is intended as an artistic and provocative solution to a difficult situation […]
Please. It’s a total cover your ass move. The museum painted themselves into a corner and then decided to call it a performance.
This is just the pathetic apogee of the curator-as-artist ‘movement’ that I’ve been unhappy to notice over the past few years. The curator-as-artist thing is simply an abuse of institutional power.
update
Hmmmmm. The more I think about this, the more ambivalent I become. It doesn’t seem like a total scope of the project was decided on in the beginning. To me, that would be negligence on the museum’s part. Working with artists requires some flexibility, but to have a huge airplane fuselage foisted on you at the last minute seems to go beyond mere flexibility. To not have known about that before the project started seems unbelievable to me.
Of course, if it is some elaborate prank on the institution, I give it a thumbs up :) permanent link to this post
May 13, 2007
A short review of T.Whid’s Hey Joe on KDM100
posted at 13:04 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Today, you have a rare opportunity to see M.River and I go head-to-head with the same song on KDM100…
[..] this just gets better & better, & we should be grateful for the scientific precision afforded us here by the simultaneous rendtion of the same song.M.River update: I lost 5 to 6? Robbed! permanent link to this post
T.Whid had it for me, but only by a whisker.
I did love M River’s upstaging hand jive & the advanced catatonia/maddened elephant polarity which seems to get more marked, the more alchohol consumed. The same circumstance, as AnnieA observes, makes T Whid kind of puppy doggish, but of course a puppy dog who has stared straight into the heart of darkness & lived to tell the tale.
Oh & don’t get me started on timing/phrasing: - people would kill for what T Whid is doing here…it’s like we have been hard wired into his soul. Splendid. Splendid & uplifting.
May 11, 2007
New Baghdad Journal
posted at 20:27 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Steve Mumford is back from Iraq (thankfully) and has posted a new installment of his Baghdad Journal on artnet.com.
The new piece describes getting back to Iraq via Kuwait and introduces us to some of the interesting characters (journalists and bloggers) that he meets along the way. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the very black humor of Caleb Schaber:
I saw Steve a few weeks ago at Postmasters and he told me he had been embedded at the 86th Combat Support Hospital (AKA the Baghdad ER). I’m assuming in his future installments we’ll read and see more of that. permanent link to this post
The new piece describes getting back to Iraq via Kuwait and introduces us to some of the interesting characters (journalists and bloggers) that he meets along the way. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the very black humor of Caleb Schaber:
[…] a very tattooed blogger, artist, musician and bartender who once ran for mayor of Seattle and writes for something called the Northern Nevada Newswire. He shows off his latest tattoo: a dotted line around his neck, with the inscription “cut here” (also in Arabic, helpfully, on the back) […]
I saw Steve a few weeks ago at Postmasters and he told me he had been embedded at the 86th Combat Support Hospital (AKA the Baghdad ER). I’m assuming in his future installments we’ll read and see more of that. permanent link to this post
May 09, 2007
KDM100 — halfway home
posted at 13:22 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
HALFWAY THERE! CHEERS!
Today, the 25th round of MTAA’s Karaoke DeathMatch 100 went live!
After almost 4 weeks of warbling, shouting, shrieking, wailing, whispering, screaming, screeching, whooping, bellowing, braying, yawping and yelping the score is T.Whid: 12 and M.River: 11 with 1 tie.
We mark this inauspicious occasion with M.River performing Sweet Dreams and T.Whid performing We Got The Beat.
If you haven’t been listening everyday, we understand. But you should vote everyday! permanent link to this post
May 05, 2007
Commons Art Diagram
posted at 21:56 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA is releasing a new ‘art diagram’ today.
Introducing the Commons Art Diagram!
Download: commons_art_diagram.zip (1.5MB)
This package contains the diagram in these formats: .ai, .pdf, .eps, .svg, .gif, hi-res .jpg and hi-res .png.
+++
This new art diagram illustrates how different forms of creativity — on being funneled through the CC process — arrive at the place where the ‘art happens.’
This diagram is the second in a series of “art diagrams” that MTAA began with the Simple Net Art Diagram.
We hope to distribute this diagram at the iCommons Summmit in June ‘07 :-)
update
We were very successful distributing the image at the iCommons Summit. The image was reproduced on t-shirts, bags and stickers and was basically impossible not to see everywhere you looked! permanent link to this post
Introducing the Commons Art Diagram!
Download: commons_art_diagram.zip (1.5MB)
This package contains the diagram in these formats: .ai, .pdf, .eps, .svg, .gif, hi-res .jpg and hi-res .png.
+++
This new art diagram illustrates how different forms of creativity — on being funneled through the CC process — arrive at the place where the ‘art happens.’
This diagram is the second in a series of “art diagrams” that MTAA began with the Simple Net Art Diagram.
We hope to distribute this diagram at the iCommons Summmit in June ‘07 :-)
update
We were very successful distributing the image at the iCommons Summit. The image was reproduced on t-shirts, bags and stickers and was basically impossible not to see everywhere you looked! permanent link to this post
AFC interviews MTAA for iCommons
posted at 16:13 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Check it out…
Update
Part 2 is now live. Check it out… permanent link to this post
Art Intercom is a six part series conducted by Art Fag City blogger Paddy Johnson, who will be interviewing the iCommons Summit Artists in Residence. In the weeks leading up to the conference, interviews will be posted once weekly, profiling the artists’ work and describing their approach to Creative Commons licensing. Artists to be interviewed include Ana Husman, Jaka Železnikar, Joy Garnett, Kathryn Smith, Nathaniel Stern and this weeks interviewees, Mike Sarff and Tim Whidden (who go by the names M.River and T.Whid), of MTAA. Tim will be representing MTAA as one of the Artists in Residence at the iSummit in Dubrovnik.
Update
Part 2 is now live. Check it out… permanent link to this post
KDM100 current score
posted at 15:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
For those keeping score at home…
The ‘current score’ section of the KDM100 has reflected the current winner of the round — even for rounds that are still open to votes. I changed that today.
Now, when the ‘current score’ is calculated, the current round isn’t counted. This makes more sense to me as there is no winner of a round unless the voting is over. permanent link to this post
The ‘current score’ section of the KDM100 has reflected the current winner of the round — even for rounds that are still open to votes. I changed that today.
Now, when the ‘current score’ is calculated, the current round isn’t counted. This makes more sense to me as there is no winner of a round unless the voting is over. permanent link to this post
May 04, 2007
Various Creative Commons matters
posted at 20:15 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Obama calls for debates to be licensed under Creative Commons. He wants either public domain or the Attribution license to be applied. Rock on Obama!
Creative Commons and iCommons need support for their scholarship program. MTAA is one of the artists-in-residence at the iCommons Summit this year. permanent link to this post
Creative Commons and iCommons need support for their scholarship program. MTAA is one of the artists-in-residence at the iCommons Summit this year. permanent link to this post
May 03, 2007
Artkrush #57
posted at 19:26 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Ed Winkleman reminds me that I should link to Artkrush because our little effort here is included in their list of art blogs (we’re in the new media category).
So check out their feature on art blogs! It includes VVORK and Art Fag City. ‘Nuff said. permanent link to this post
So check out their feature on art blogs! It includes VVORK and Art Fag City. ‘Nuff said. permanent link to this post
Goddamn motherfucking stormtroopers
posted at 17:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Rick Silva’s Rough Mix
posted at 14:17 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Just want to hook Rick up with a link to his new video project: A Rough Mix. permanent link to this post
May 02, 2007
Digg revolt
posted at 13:37 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
This is pretty interesting. Digg users have staged a rebellion of sorts over the deletion of stories and comments that contained the 16-digit hexadecimal number that is used to lock HD-DVD movies. For the record, here’s the illegal number: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0.
Digg.com is a social news site founded by Kevin Rose. He finally capitulated to his users demands proving that web 2.0 can bite small smart companies in the ass just as easy as big lumbering companies. permanent link to this post
Digg.com is a social news site founded by Kevin Rose. He finally capitulated to his users demands proving that web 2.0 can bite small smart companies in the ass just as easy as big lumbering companies. permanent link to this post
Apr 29, 2007
John Cage has a secret
posted at 13:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Here’s John Cage performing Water Walk in January, 1960 on the popular TV show I’ve Got A Secret.
via Rhizome… permanent link to this post
Apr 28, 2007
KDM100 @ del.icio.us
posted at 02:07 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
by bohaganjr to art karaoke video
by somebaudy to karaoke deathmatch art audio image movie quicktime video
by rimapra to vlog_art
by lafundicio to art karaoke drinking drunk
by harloholmes to admirable hotttt audio image internets art?
by cory_arcangel to art karaoke movie quicktime video
by mccoyspace to art video netart karaoke mtaa
by mjh to karaoke quicktime video movie
by 53os to netart art
by barryhoggard to art netart
by m.river to mtaa netart07
by twhid to mtaa karaoke netart net_art_07 art permanent link to this post
by somebaudy to karaoke deathmatch art audio image movie quicktime video
by rimapra to vlog_art
by lafundicio to art karaoke drinking drunk
by harloholmes to admirable hotttt audio image internets art?
by cory_arcangel to art karaoke movie quicktime video
by mccoyspace to art video netart karaoke mtaa
by mjh to karaoke quicktime video movie
by 53os to netart art
by barryhoggard to art netart
by m.river to mtaa netart07
by twhid to mtaa karaoke netart net_art_07 art permanent link to this post
Apr 27, 2007
KDM100 on Rhizome News
posted at 13:27 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Thanks Rhizome!
Link to the news item and below…
Karaoke Or Die
Have you already subscribed to the video feeds of ‘Karaoke Deathmatch 100’? If not, do it now, as you don’t know what you are missing. ‘Karaoke Deathmatch 100’ is perhaps the most significant project ever from MTAA (artists M. River and T. Whid). Well-regarded within the new media community for works such as ‘1 year performance video (aka Sam Hsieh Update),’ it is with ‘Karaoke Deathmatch 100’ that they reach an audience beyond this field. Unfolding over 50 days, the ‘Karaoke Deathmatch 100’ features both artists in an ‘alcohol-fueled blood feud […] 50 rounds of sing-along fury,’ to use their own words. Taped live over an 8-hour period, these sessions are screened everyday at midnight (New York time). One sees both artists—one singing, the other seated in the back of the studio—both in front of typically cheesy karaoke videos. Viewers can post comments on the performances and vote on the best performer. T. Whid won the first round (with 21 votes) after singing Guns N’ Roses’ Welcome To The Jungle. One reader commented, ‘It’s like American Idol, only different. I feel like my vote counts here.’ Another noted, ‘You suck and so does Guns N’ Roses.’ The current score is tied at M. River: 6/T. Whid: 6, but the contest is just beginning. The artists, themselves, beg the question,’Who will emerge victorious?,’ decrying, ‘Only YOU can decide.’ So don’t miss any other face-off. Log-on today and participate in ‘the most brutal performance art smack down of the new millennium.’
- Miguel Amado
Don’t forget to visit KDM100 daily and vote for T.Whid! permanent link to this post
TACTICAL MEDIA CONFERENCE
posted at 00:37 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Marisa Olson organized this event coming up this weekend FYI…
I’ve organized a conference for my grad students, which is taking place this Saturday, in Williamsburg. These are some of the best students I’ve ever taught and this is certainly the best class ever. In a word, it’s been *legendary* and this conference will be a fun, provocative way to end the semester. It’s my hope that you can join us to participate in lively discussions, offer feedback on artists’ works in progress, and perhaps consume a few bagels and coffees.permanent link to this post
TACTICAL MEDIA CONFERENCE
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Presentations on the theory & practice of tactical media and contemporary protest art, by graduate students in the ITP program at NYU’s Tisch School of the arts.
The presenters’ talks will be grouped into three panels, to be moderated by their Professor, Marisa Olson (Editor & Curator, Rhizome), on the topics of Play & Consumption; Fear, Spectacle, and the Media; and the Interfaces and Architecture of Control. These panels will consist of both artist talks and analytical essays and audience members will be invited to give feedback on a few works in progress.
Venue:
The Change You want to See Gallery
84 Havemeyer @ Metropolitan, Brooklyn, NY 11211
L to Bedford o Lorimer, G to Metropolitan, J/M/Z to Marcy
http://www.thechangeyouwanttosee.org
Hours: 12-5 pm, Saturday, April 28, 2007
Apr 23, 2007
KDM100 on Rocketboom today
posted at 20:11 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The ground-breaking videoblog Rocketboom gave a shout-out to the KDM100 in today’s show (Apr 23, 2007).
Check it out…
Thanks to Andrew, Joanne and everybody else at Rocketboom for the hook-up!
M.River adds - also thanks to Kenyatta. My next song going out to you and the rest of the RB folks. permanent link to this post
Check it out…
Thanks to Andrew, Joanne and everybody else at Rocketboom for the hook-up!
M.River adds - also thanks to Kenyatta. My next song going out to you and the rest of the RB folks. permanent link to this post
Timex Sinclair 1000
posted at 13:56 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Slashdot reminds us that it’s the 25th anniversary of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.
Ah. Good days. My first computer was the Timex Sinclair 1000, the US version of the UK Sinclair.
From Wikipedia:
The TS1000 sold for $99.95 in the US when it debuted, making it the cheapest home computer to date at the time of its launch. The black and white display showed 32 columns and 24 lines (22 of which were normally accessible for display and 2 reserved for data entry and error messages). The limited graphics were based on geometric shapes contained within the operating system’s non-ASCII character set. The only form of long-term storage was to plug into an often unreliable home tape cassette recorder.
Good times! permanent link to this post
Apr 22, 2007
On KDM100 [part 1]
posted at 15:49 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA’s Karaoke DeathMatch 100 has been live on the web for about a week. As the project progresses I thought I would do a post now and then discussing how I think it’s going and my thoughts on the project.
As with any creative project, the creator doesn’t truly understand it until it’s released to the public.
+++
Contemporary karaoke has been debased. The point of karaoke isn’t to entertain strangers with talented renditions of popular songs. It’s point is to entertain your friends with drunken and humiliating destructions of popular songs. Karaoke is best experienced in a private room with close friends who are all completely and totally wasted. Each takes their turn destroying a song with their drunken, fervent attempts at entertainment.
This is Karaoke DeathMatch 100. The web, in general, and net art specifically are MTAA’s best friends. We want to entertain you World Wide Web. We’ll entertain you by humiliating ourselves in drunken buffoonery like good friends should. But, if you deserve this gesture of friendship you have obligations. Art obligations. One or two or even three rounds of drunken, ear-piercing foolishness isn’t enough. You need to commit World Wide Web. This is pop endurance performance art. You need to endure this performance just as much as MTAA if we’re going to have some art happen here.
It’s up to you World Wide Web. Like 1YPV, this thing only works if you’re there for us. We’re there for you. You must watch every day. You must vote every day. If you do, the art WILL happen. If you don’t, the art won’t happen. It’s simple really. permanent link to this post
Apr 21, 2007
MTAA action figures
posted at 23:36 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
For MTAA’s 10th anniversary our friend Bill Hallinan created these amazing MTAA action figures! This has completely blown our minds :-)
The two action figures (in the collector’s packaging) on the wall of our studio (click for a larger image).
Below are small JPEGs of the packaging. Click each one to see a larger, more detailed image. What kills me is the action figures in the playsets hahahahah.
front
back
front
back
Thanks again Bill! This is one of the coolest presents ever!
M.River adds - When I opened it, I was awe struck. Best gift ever. Thanks B n’D. Now I want to make .5 scale MTAAs now for a show. permanent link to this post
The two action figures (in the collector’s packaging) on the wall of our studio (click for a larger image).
Below are small JPEGs of the packaging. Click each one to see a larger, more detailed image. What kills me is the action figures in the playsets hahahahah.
front
back
front
back
Thanks again Bill! This is one of the coolest presents ever!
M.River adds - When I opened it, I was awe struck. Best gift ever. Thanks B n’D. Now I want to make .5 scale MTAAs now for a show. permanent link to this post
Apr 19, 2007
Re-Staging, Re-Enactment, Remix and Mimetics
posted at 14:09 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
G.H. Hovagimyan has a new post over at thing.net about re-stagings of artworks called Re-Staging, Re-Enactment, Remix and Mimetics.
snip-a-roo…
snip-a-roo…
What is apparent is that none of these artists are doing exact copies of the works they are referencing. They are however playing with the signature style and brand names in varying degrees. The discussion is not however a blatant crowbar tactic of prying out and smashing property rights. It is an understanding that intellectual property has different degrees of meaning and use. While Tribes’ Port Huron project seems to be a desire to get at the emotional heart of a signifier, Kulik’s re-staging of the Beuys work is an escalation. In Kulik’s piece the animal and the human combine. MTAA seems to be researching the banal in Conceptual Art, updating it and presenting it on the networks as a pointer to the earlier works and yet the meaning is lost in a language game. Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley are doing what can only be called remixing by taking Acconci and porno and mixing them together.permanent link to this post
Apr 18, 2007
Best MTAA review EVAH!
posted at 17:53 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
DVBlog reviews KDM100 and I love it!
(This was in reference to round 2 of KDM100.)
Go to DVBlog now! permanent link to this post
From the bastard progeny of Marcel Duchamp & the Marx Brothers, the splendid & singular MTAA, comes Karaoke Death Match 100.
[…]
It’s great stuff & clearly one to follow closely — we’ll be returning to them here ‘ere close of play in 50 days. Just want to sneak in, though, that actually I found this quite ahem…er… moving: — the sheer effort invoked in the act of singing; T.Whid’s strange shambling captive bear dance & M River’s weird but somehow totally appropriate sudden & violent changes of dynamics. A bit like Bas Jan Ader falling over, there’s something more here than originally meets the eye & ear, & it’s a lot human & a bit wonderful.
(This was in reference to round 2 of KDM100.)
Go to DVBlog now! permanent link to this post
Apr 17, 2007
The LOT-EK lean
posted at 19:24 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
LOT-EK’s design for 87 Lafayette (just below Canal St.) is NUTS!
via Curbed (lots more renderings and other info so go there). permanent link to this post
via Curbed (lots more renderings and other info so go there). permanent link to this post
TRACEPLACESPACE
posted at 18:29 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
New audio by Cary Peppermint, check it out…
TRACEPLACESPACE
seven audio works .mp3 - Cary Peppermint 2007
The audio works of TRACEPLACESPACE were formed loosely in response to ever-accelerating technological developments, passing time, urgent ecological issues, and remarkable events of our globally connected system in process long before but brought to the forefront since the latter part of the year 2001. The works of TRACEPLACESPACE are components of a digital, multi-media, network-infused performance of the same title.permanent link to this post
I like to perform this work in small community venues, outdoor gatherings, art-spaces, and galleries where everyone is welcome and can sit on the floor, talk to one another, and drink green tea. However I will perform TRACEPLACESPACE approximately anywhere.
1. curse go back.mp3 - 5.4mb : a utopian template
2. uncanny situation.mp3 - 10.1mb : for Jean Baudrillard, 1929 - 2007
3. mary gone deep.mp3 - 6.4mb : because “we cannot fall out of the world”
4. unreasonable things.mp3 - 3.7mb : democracy containment
5. technics and time.mp3 - 7mb : let it take you as far as you can ride it
6. big.mp3 - 4.2mb : exciting times / exciting life
7. six years.mp3 - 7.8mb : …the dematerialization of… - Lucy Lippard
Apr 15, 2007
MTAA’s Karaoke DeathMatch 100 UNLEASHED!
posted at 14:04 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Karaoke DeathMatch 100 (AKA KDM100)
New rounds daily from April 15 2007 - June 4, 2007!
hype:
Artist collaborative M.River & T.Whid Art Associates face off in the most brutal performance art smack down of the new millennium…Karaoke Deathmatch 100! This alcohol-fueled blood feud features 50 rounds of sing-along fury (taped live over an 8-hour period with hardly any pee breaks). No Carpenters hit too cheesy, no heavy metal lyric too trite for these teleprompter warriors to hurl in a battle to the end. Who will emerge victorious? Only YOU can decide.
description:
MTAA’s Karaoke DeathMatch 100 is a video blog performance that takes place over 50 days starting April 15th, 2007 and ending June 4th, 2007. Each day, a new round is posted pitting M.River & T.Whid against each other in drunken karaoke competition. Visit the web site daily to view the sets of videos, vote for your favorite and discuss the artists’ performances. At the end of the competition, the votes will decide who is the Karaoke DeathMatch 100 Champion.
The web version of KDM100 is an official selection of Visual 07. 7º Festival De Creación Audiovisual Ciudad De Majadahonda. The gallery version of KDM100 premiered at the Leonart ‘05 art festival in Leonding, Austria.
KDM100 was shot in May 2005 over 8 hours.
credits:
video production:
Bill Hallinan, Andre Sala and George Su
web production:
MTAA; developed using open-source software: Wordpress, X-Poll and embedthevideo.
URLs
web site: http://www.mteww.com/kdm100/
iTunes Store: click here
QuickTime feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/kdm100m4v
Windows Media feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/kdm100wmv permanent link to this post
Apr 12, 2007
Tribe & Jana release New Media Art as an open-source wiki
posted at 21:55 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mark Tribe and Reena Jana have released their survey of new media and net art, New Media Art (Taschen, 2006) as an open source, cc-licensed wiki. Rock on!
Check it out…
From the preface…
Being the narcissist that I am, the first thing I did was go there and look up MTAA and lo and behold, there I am in my underwear ;-)
Kidding aside, this is a very cool thing for the authors to do. Thanks guys! permanent link to this post
Check it out…
From the preface…
This open-source wiki book is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License. It is based on the manuscript of New Media Art, a book written by Mark Tribe and Reena Jana and published by Taschen in 2006. The Taschen book is available in French, German, Italian and Spanish in addition to English. This wiki book is not intended as a substitute or replacement for the Taschen book, but rather as an expandable educational resource to which artists, curators, students and others may contribute.
Being the narcissist that I am, the first thing I did was go there and look up MTAA and lo and behold, there I am in my underwear ;-)
Kidding aside, this is a very cool thing for the authors to do. Thanks guys! permanent link to this post
T.Whid’s day job: TVTonic
posted at 14:00 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This is a demo of TVTonic (the software that I help develop as my day job) and an interview with our company’s president, Michael Sprague.
If the embedded player isn’t working (or you’re reading this via a news reader that doesn’t support plug-ins) try this link. permanent link to this post
Vonnegut dead
posted at 13:54 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I’m sure everyone that isn’t dead knows this already. I just couldn’t let it pass without a mention in this space. He’s one of the great Americans of all time.
NYT obit… permanent link to this post
NYT obit… permanent link to this post
Apr 11, 2007
Napier @ Bitforms
posted at 13:31 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mark Napier’s new show is opening at Bitforms gallery tomorrow April 12!
Be there or…don’t be cool.
From the PR…
April 12 - May 19, 2007 bitforms gallery nyc
bitforms gallery is pleased to announce a third solo exhibition with Mark Napier, April 12 – May 19. This exhibit marks the New York debut of his new software art and print work.
One of the select few artists whose Internet art has been collected and commissioned by prominent art institutions, Mark Napier is known for creating work that challenges traditional rules of ownership, authority, and permanence. Over the past decade he has developed custom software as an art medium, and this exhibition features virtual objects that hover between the material and immaterial.
“Increasingly we live and navigate in a world composed of energy: electrical, magnetic and light,” says Napier. “Digital media infuse our lives as never before. In this media environment, power is no longer associated with physical objects, but with the persistence of ideas in the collective consciousness of the media.”
[lots more at the gallerie’s web site]
There will be an artist’s talk on Saturday May 5 at 4:00PM at the gallery as well. permanent link to this post
JODI in NYC @ vertexList
posted at 01:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Apr 09, 2007
LeWitt is dead
posted at 13:28 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Apr 06, 2007
Fight art with art
posted at 03:04 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
That’s my new motto.
If M.River agrees, it can be a new MTAA motto. Whaddya think?
m.river adds - Sure. I think this is the list so far:
The Art Happens Here
Save Free TV
Meaning in Misunderstanding
Fight Art with Art
Also, speaking of fighting, I had a dream last night that we remade Jodi’s bomb work with flowers.
twhid update
Cool. A new official motto! BTW, are these slogans or mottos? Probably a motto. permanent link to this post
If M.River agrees, it can be a new MTAA motto. Whaddya think?
m.river adds - Sure. I think this is the list so far:
The Art Happens Here
Save Free TV
Meaning in Misunderstanding
Fight Art with Art
Also, speaking of fighting, I had a dream last night that we remade Jodi’s bomb work with flowers.
twhid update
Cool. A new official motto! BTW, are these slogans or mottos? Probably a motto. permanent link to this post
Apr 02, 2007
DRM dam has burst
posted at 14:12 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
EMI and Apple to sell non-crippled MP3s audio tracks (according to the official press release the tracks will be in the AAC format) via iTunes.
(No, it’s not a late April Fools Day joke.)
This is it folks. The beginning of the end of DRM. permanent link to this post
(No, it’s not a late April Fools Day joke.)
This is it folks. The beginning of the end of DRM. permanent link to this post
Mar 31, 2007
GTA4 in NYC
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
It looks awesome!
Predictably, NYC politicians don’t like it. What a bunch of n00bs. I give some props to Vallone for knowing what Halo is…
Predictably, NYC politicians don’t like it. What a bunch of n00bs. I give some props to Vallone for knowing what Halo is…
Setting Grand Theft Auto in the safest big city in America would be like setting Halo in Disneyland.permanent link to this post
T.Whid is 38 years old this week
posted at 15:10 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I was born this week in 1969 in Elyria, OH. I lived in Elyria until 1987 when I moved to Columbus, OH to attend college. In 1992 I moved to Brooklyn, New York City and have been here ever since.
Can my life be summed up in a Google Map?
+++
More detail: every place I’ve lived in Brooklyn. permanent link to this post
Can my life be summed up in a Google Map?
+++
More detail: every place I’ve lived in Brooklyn. permanent link to this post
Mar 29, 2007
Rhizome Benefit!
posted at 19:03 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Image by Takeshi Murata
Purchase Tickets Now
RHIZOME
Affiliated with the
NEW MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART
presents a Benefit Concert featuring:
GANG GANG DANCE
PROFESSOR MURDER
YACHT
M.C. CORY ARCANGEL
&
A SILENT AUCTION
On April 16, 2007
at the Hiro Ballroom
in the Maritime Hotel
371 West 16th Street
Doors at 8pm
Tickets:
VIP - $75 / General Audience - $35;
Member & Group - $25
Purchase Tickets Now
Note: MTAA has donated a piece to the silent auction. permanent link to this post
Apple rips off Marclay?
posted at 01:30 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
First, read this (and watch the videos), then come back. I’ll wait.
…
…
Everybody back? OK.
This is the key paragraph:
I like Apple. I like Marclay. What Apple did was sleazy. But does it strike anyone else as a tad hypocritical that Marclay’s complaining about Apple ‘stealing’ his video when his video is made from ‘stealing’ other people’s copyrighted work? I don’t know how the hell he thinks he can sue. The idea of stringing a bunch of telephone ‘hellos’ together isn’t copyrightable and shouldn’t be.
tipped off via Kottke… permanent link to this post
…
…
Everybody back? OK.
This is the key paragraph:
[Marclay] says he looked into legal action but was assured by his lawyer “there’s nothing I can do about it. They have the right to get inspired.” Of course, in other cases, such obvious “inspiration” might be called copyright infringement. In this instance, however, Marclay’s rights may be limited as his own film consisted of copyrighted works by other artists.
I like Apple. I like Marclay. What Apple did was sleazy. But does it strike anyone else as a tad hypocritical that Marclay’s complaining about Apple ‘stealing’ his video when his video is made from ‘stealing’ other people’s copyrighted work? I don’t know how the hell he thinks he can sue. The idea of stringing a bunch of telephone ‘hellos’ together isn’t copyrightable and shouldn’t be.
tipped off via Kottke… permanent link to this post
Mar 28, 2007
More mtaa in Swahili
posted at 14:03 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Received an email this morning providing more info about the word ‘mtaa’ in Swahili:
Thanks for the clarification doc!
m.river adds - very cool. thanks dr. martin! permanent link to this post
Here’s the complete definition of mtaa in Swahili:
[link to definition]
Here’s how to pronounce it:
[link to pronunciation guide]
Cheers,
Martin
________________________
Dr. Martin Benjamin
Yale Council on African Studies
http://www.yale.edu/swahili
Thanks for the clarification doc!
m.river adds - very cool. thanks dr. martin! permanent link to this post
Burn in
posted at 13:56 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This is interesting. Two pieces of art about screen burn in:
from 2005, Steven Read’s Screen Burn (please wait)
and the other, from 2007, Cory Arcangel’s Panasonic TH42PV60EH Plasma Screen Burn
+++
What strikes me most about these two pieces is that they are so similar, yet Arcangel’s piece is so much better. Lots better. Infinitely smarter, funnier and more engaging.
Arcangel’s “Panasonic TH42PV60EH Plasma Screen Burn” is brash and bold, it says ‘fuck you, I’m fucking up this expensive piece of equipment. Why? Because I’m motherfucking Cory Arcangel that’s why!” Steven Read’s piece is nitpicky and fussy. His piece says “look! I wrote a program to destroy an obsolete piece of hardware. Why? Because I’m a geek.” Arcangel’s piece is about fucking with consumer dreams. Read’s piece is about… time and phosphors? permanent link to this post
from 2005, Steven Read’s Screen Burn (please wait)
and the other, from 2007, Cory Arcangel’s Panasonic TH42PV60EH Plasma Screen Burn
+++
What strikes me most about these two pieces is that they are so similar, yet Arcangel’s piece is so much better. Lots better. Infinitely smarter, funnier and more engaging.
Arcangel’s “Panasonic TH42PV60EH Plasma Screen Burn” is brash and bold, it says ‘fuck you, I’m fucking up this expensive piece of equipment. Why? Because I’m motherfucking Cory Arcangel that’s why!” Steven Read’s piece is nitpicky and fussy. His piece says “look! I wrote a program to destroy an obsolete piece of hardware. Why? Because I’m a geek.” Arcangel’s piece is about fucking with consumer dreams. Read’s piece is about… time and phosphors? permanent link to this post
Mar 27, 2007
Mtaa in Africa…
posted at 14:59 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I’ve noticed for a long time that the string ‘mtaa’ shows up very often in african blogs and web sites. There is also a web radio station called MTAA FM that focuses on African music. I was very curious to know what ‘mtaa’ meant, but I didn’t even know what language I needed to look into.
Today I figured it out (with some help from Google of course). Mtaa means ‘street’ in Swahili. That rocks!
…wonder how the hell you pronounce it. permanent link to this post
Today I figured it out (with some help from Google of course). Mtaa means ‘street’ in Swahili. That rocks!
…wonder how the hell you pronounce it. permanent link to this post
Mar 25, 2007
Support The Artist Deduction Bill
posted at 15:29 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
It’s good for everybody!
via Newsgrist
via Newsgrist
The Artist Tax Deduction Bill is finally up for action. Please take the time to support this important bill as its passage will impact all individual artists. Go to the link below to send a message to your representatives and senators. Please forward this information to your mailing list!permanent link to this post
Artist Deduction Bill Introduced in the House
03-19-2007: After announcing at the Congressional Arts Breakfast on Arts Advocacy Day that he would be the lead sponsor for the Artist Deduction Bill, Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) introduced the bill on March 14, 2007, joined by Rep. Jim Ramstad (R-MN). Identical to a Senate bill introduced by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Robert Bennett (R-UT), the bill supports individual artists by allowing them to take a fair-market value tax deduction for tangible works they donate to nonprofit collecting and educational organizations, and it benefits the public by giving them access to more art.
Send a message to your members of Congress asking them to be a co-sponsor of this important bill, H.R. 1524 (House) and S. 548 (Senate).
Mar 23, 2007
Slandered!
posted at 13:35 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA has not, I repeat, NOT! been surgically combined on the body of a female bodybuilder.
See the entire ghastly photoshop monstrosity here…
more here, but there’s no permalink so you may want to scroll down.
permanent link to this post
Mar 22, 2007
Get yer net art on 2007 (2)
posted at 03:58 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Rhizome has an open call for net art commissions. You could score between US$1k and US$3K to MAKE SOME GODDAMN NET ART FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
Deadline is April 2, 2007 and that ain’t no joke.
Get on over there and find out how to submit a proposal for chrissake! Do it now! Do it now! permanent link to this post
Deadline is April 2, 2007 and that ain’t no joke.
Get on over there and find out how to submit a proposal for chrissake! Do it now! Do it now! permanent link to this post
Mar 21, 2007
OS X: capture DVD stills — no 3rd party software
posted at 17:27 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
CLI to the screen cap yo!
Works like a charm on Mac OS 10.4.9. Nice.
Don’t tell M.River about it, he likes to exploit the analog hole.
update
I had no idea that M.River had just posted about his project when I posted this. Synchronicity…
m.river adds - yes, strange synchronicity. i was just getting ready to add this note - the goal is not to document the dvd’s nor is it about “cool” or even “good” films. the goal is to make interesting images with what’s at hand. it’s a document of some time spent. the tools for this document are distortion and editing. but thanks for the teck tip. it may come in hand with some other projects I’ve been thinking about. permanent link to this post
Works like a charm on Mac OS 10.4.9. Nice.
Don’t tell M.River about it, he likes to exploit the analog hole.
update
I had no idea that M.River had just posted about his project when I posted this. Synchronicity…
m.river adds - yes, strange synchronicity. i was just getting ready to add this note - the goal is not to document the dvd’s nor is it about “cool” or even “good” films. the goal is to make interesting images with what’s at hand. it’s a document of some time spent. the tools for this document are distortion and editing. but thanks for the teck tip. it may come in hand with some other projects I’ve been thinking about. permanent link to this post
Mar 19, 2007
Random old video stuff
posted at 00:51 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
In my wanderings through MTAA’s art life today, I found these two things. One, never really publicly released and one released a year ago this month.
1. STEAL_THIS_VIDEO
This page was used to illustrate to some students how one could steal videos from our 1 year performance video and re-mix them. It’s a collection of all the easter eggs in 1ypv.
2. An interview with us by Mica Scalin
We talk about our piece 10 Pre-Rejected, Pre-Approved Performances: Midnight In The Deli. It was recently re-posted to Doron Golan’s DVBlog. permanent link to this post
1. STEAL_THIS_VIDEO
This page was used to illustrate to some students how one could steal videos from our 1 year performance video and re-mix them. It’s a collection of all the easter eggs in 1ypv.
2. An interview with us by Mica Scalin
We talk about our piece 10 Pre-Rejected, Pre-Approved Performances: Midnight In The Deli. It was recently re-posted to Doron Golan’s DVBlog. permanent link to this post
Mar 17, 2007
MTAA at iCommons Summit 2007
posted at 01:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This isn’t happening until June, but we’re very happy and very excited to be artists-in-residence for the iCommons Summit this year. Check out the announcement. The other AiRs are: Ana Husman, Jaka Železnikar, Joy Garnett, Kathryn Smith and Nathaniel Stern.
iCommons Summit 2007 is from June 15 - 17 in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The artist-in-residence program is being coordinated by Nathaniel Stern.
Unfortunately, only one of us can go. My whining skillz worked to full affect and M.River relented and is letting me go. We’ll keep you updated on what’s happening and what we plan on doing. Should be fun. permanent link to this post
iCommons Summit 2007 is from June 15 - 17 in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The artist-in-residence program is being coordinated by Nathaniel Stern.
Unfortunately, only one of us can go. My whining skillz worked to full affect and M.River relented and is letting me go. We’ll keep you updated on what’s happening and what we plan on doing. Should be fun. permanent link to this post
Mar 16, 2007
McCoys in London
posted at 13:51 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Tiny, Funny, Big and Sad at the BFI Southbank through May 28.
check it out… permanent link to this post
check it out… permanent link to this post
Mar 14, 2007
Hook me up with an EDU?
posted at 20:58 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Does anyone want to give me an EDU email address so that I can score some free TimesSelect?
Email me! (POP3 access preferred.) permanent link to this post
Email me! (POP3 access preferred.) permanent link to this post
CO presentation
posted at 14:03 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A video of our presentation at University of Colorado is online. Check it out…
You can also download a standalone QuickTime version if you don’t like in-browser video viewing: .mov 93MB.
I’ve also been finding some reviews of our work and presentation by CU students (thanks Google Alerts!). The consensus?
Mar 06, 2007
Help da police
posted at 00:12 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mar 03, 2007
Have you heard my funny faggot joke?
posted at 22:20 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
By now anyone interested in (what passes for) political discourse in the USA is aware of Ann Coulter’s bigoted ‘joke’ in which she called John Edwards a faggot. This is what she said:
This cesspool of a person received huge applause and laughs for her ‘joke.’ And it wasn’t at some extremist gathering. It was at a mainstream conservative convention that Cheney and many of the Republican presidential candidates attended.
Bigotry is bigotry. Ann Coulter and the rest of her ilk on the right are bigots. Plain and simple. This should be a career-ender for her. She should be radioactive to both the media and mainstream political figures on the right. Would CNN, MSNBC et al have David Duke as a regular guest? No. Racist opinions aren’t condoned in this country. Yet anti-gay bigotry is regularly condoned by the mainstream right and the media. It’s disgusting. permanent link to this post
I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.
This cesspool of a person received huge applause and laughs for her ‘joke.’ And it wasn’t at some extremist gathering. It was at a mainstream conservative convention that Cheney and many of the Republican presidential candidates attended.
Bigotry is bigotry. Ann Coulter and the rest of her ilk on the right are bigots. Plain and simple. This should be a career-ender for her. She should be radioactive to both the media and mainstream political figures on the right. Would CNN, MSNBC et al have David Duke as a regular guest? No. Racist opinions aren’t condoned in this country. Yet anti-gay bigotry is regularly condoned by the mainstream right and the media. It’s disgusting. permanent link to this post
More from CO
posted at 18:15 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Pix from MTAA’s Colorado trip taken on my phone. If I was cool, I could have SMS’d these right from my phone to this blog, but I’m not that cool (yet).
Denver International Airport tram
Denver Art Museum
M.River pretending he’s a hardcore hiker/mountain man
JonBenet Ramsey’s house permanent link to this post
Denver International Airport tram
Denver Art Museum
M.River pretending he’s a hardcore hiker/mountain man
JonBenet Ramsey’s house permanent link to this post
Back from CO
posted at 04:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Just back from Boulder today where MTAA did some visiting artist duties at The University of Colorado. M.River’s got a bunch more pix at his tintype blog (start here and work back).
We hope the students appreciated our input on their projects and enjoyed the presentation of our work. It was also great fun hanging out with Rick Silva, Mark Amerika and Anne-Marie Schleiner and all the other interesting folks we met.
The most importnat thing I learned? Never to do my Werner Herzog impersonation in public ever again.
m.river adds – or at least no Herzog impressions after two large margaritas at high altitudes. I regret no documentation of this performance. permanent link to this post
Feb 26, 2007
Graffiti War
posted at 19:54 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
According to Curbed, there’s a graffiti war going on in Williamsburg between the dumbass dubbed The Splasher and other street artists.
Ground-zero seems to be the front of the building where our studio is located! Yikes! permanent link to this post
Ground-zero seems to be the front of the building where our studio is located! Yikes! permanent link to this post
Feb 25, 2007
The NYC fairs
posted at 19:09 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Before beginning this little post about my thoughts regarding the NYC art fairs, let me disclaim thusly: MTAA isn’t represented anywhere in any fair so my envy, jealously and resentments may color my reflections on the fairs.
The Armory Show (web site)
The line was too long so we skipped it, therefor, it sucked.
Scope (web site)
Bryce Wolkowitz had a well-installed booth with interesting work. For my taste, the highlight of this fair. The fact that we’re currently in a group show at the gallery isn’t coloring my impressions at all.
Otherwise, I wandered about Scope hoping desperately for something interesting to look at but generally being disappointed. PAM was in effect, but the installation was tiny compared to their heroic environment of last year and I’m afraid that the majority of fair-goers had no idea what was actually going on with it.
Pulse (web site)
If there was a fight between Pulse and Scope, Pulse would kick Scope’s ass for two reasons: better quality work overall and more interesting international galleries. The highlight for me was Brody Condon’s DefaultProperties(); at Virgil de Voldere’s booth. But I’m a sucker for Brody’s stuff.
Fountain (web site)
Fountain is tiny compared to the other fairs but FREE. There was interesting stuff going on in all the galleries represented. Glowlab is always smart and were representing some of MTAA’s friends like Marisa Olson and Lee Walton. It’s definitely worth a visit.
Overall impressions and realizations
We need to start working this blog to get press passes for these damn fairs.
There was some McCoy influence in evidence. We saw it at Fountain in a piece called “All Mel’s Kills” and at a piece at Pulse that was a sad knock-off of the McCoy’s scale-model-with-tiny-camera sculptural/media strategy.
Unless you’re being extremely clever and unique or can attain true beauty, then your abstraction is simply decoration. There isn’t much of any art that challenges anyone these days, but abstraction seems like a particularly difficult way to achieve anything more than good-looking decoration.
I didn’t realize this at the fair, but it was underscored. The fact that we make videos that make noise that you need to hear will be detrimental to our showing in fairs and group shows. They want art that is quiet, doesn’t need its own space and easy to ship. permanent link to this post
The Armory Show (web site)
The line was too long so we skipped it, therefor, it sucked.
Scope (web site)
Bryce Wolkowitz had a well-installed booth with interesting work. For my taste, the highlight of this fair. The fact that we’re currently in a group show at the gallery isn’t coloring my impressions at all.
Otherwise, I wandered about Scope hoping desperately for something interesting to look at but generally being disappointed. PAM was in effect, but the installation was tiny compared to their heroic environment of last year and I’m afraid that the majority of fair-goers had no idea what was actually going on with it.
Pulse (web site)
If there was a fight between Pulse and Scope, Pulse would kick Scope’s ass for two reasons: better quality work overall and more interesting international galleries. The highlight for me was Brody Condon’s DefaultProperties(); at Virgil de Voldere’s booth. But I’m a sucker for Brody’s stuff.
Fountain (web site)
Fountain is tiny compared to the other fairs but FREE. There was interesting stuff going on in all the galleries represented. Glowlab is always smart and were representing some of MTAA’s friends like Marisa Olson and Lee Walton. It’s definitely worth a visit.
Overall impressions and realizations
We need to start working this blog to get press passes for these damn fairs.
There was some McCoy influence in evidence. We saw it at Fountain in a piece called “All Mel’s Kills” and at a piece at Pulse that was a sad knock-off of the McCoy’s scale-model-with-tiny-camera sculptural/media strategy.
Unless you’re being extremely clever and unique or can attain true beauty, then your abstraction is simply decoration. There isn’t much of any art that challenges anyone these days, but abstraction seems like a particularly difficult way to achieve anything more than good-looking decoration.
I didn’t realize this at the fair, but it was underscored. The fact that we make videos that make noise that you need to hear will be detrimental to our showing in fairs and group shows. They want art that is quiet, doesn’t need its own space and easy to ship. permanent link to this post
Feb 22, 2007
MTAA in CO
posted at 23:25 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We’ve been invited by Rick Silva to give a little talk about our work next week at the University of Colorado at Boulder. It’s open to the public, so if you’re in the area, come on out!
Here’s the 411:
Who: MTAA
What: bloviations and show-n-tell
Where: CU Boulder Campus, Humanities 1B90
When: Thursday March 1st, 5:30PM
How: after drinking lots and lots of vodka permanent link to this post
Feb 21, 2007
Lamentations of Williamsburgs past
posted at 18:48 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The Washington Post published an article today exploring (what is called) the new type of gentrification happening there. It’s entitled “A Condo Tower Grows in Brooklyn.”
Just a tip: I wouldn’t be sunbathing on the East River anytime soon.
Seeing as how MTAA’s studio is going to be in the shadow of this wall of high-rises, it’s probably time that we get while the getting is good. Anybody got any ideas?
I’ve always been on the fence about BBurg gentrification. I’m a gentrifier after all. Now that the gentry has moved beyond my class level, who am I to complain? I’m a the interloper in many residents’ eyes (though I’ve lived and/or worked there for almost 15 years). permanent link to this post
A wall of luxury glass towers is rising for 25 blocks along the “East River Riviera.” Wander inland and check out the needle condo towers with three-bedroom places retailing at $1,135,000.
Just a tip: I wouldn’t be sunbathing on the East River anytime soon.
Seeing as how MTAA’s studio is going to be in the shadow of this wall of high-rises, it’s probably time that we get while the getting is good. Anybody got any ideas?
I’ve always been on the fence about BBurg gentrification. I’m a gentrifier after all. Now that the gentry has moved beyond my class level, who am I to complain? I’m a the interloper in many residents’ eyes (though I’ve lived and/or worked there for almost 15 years). permanent link to this post
Feb 20, 2007
4 years of MTAA blogging
posted at 18:51 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Nathaniel Stern reminds me that the MTAA blog’s (MTAA-RR) 4-year anniversary came and went on February 9 of this year without so much as a mention from us. Meh, who cares anyway, right? Here’s the first post if you’re interested.
Note that our archives are totally screwed and that a bunch of posts got shoved into Feb 06. Some day I’ll fix it (if I have the data). permanent link to this post
Note that our archives are totally screwed and that a bunch of posts got shoved into Feb 06. Some day I’ll fix it (if I have the data). permanent link to this post
AIOTD - Why Should You Be In This Piece?
posted at 18:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The artists ask random people they encounter to answer the question “why should you be in this piece?” and videotape the replies.
The resulting video is an always random playback of the responses (controlled via custom software). permanent link to this post
The resulting video is an always random playback of the responses (controlled via custom software). permanent link to this post
Feb 15, 2007
Get yer net art on 2007
posted at 00:49 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Rhizome has an open call for net art commissions. You could score between US$1k and US$3K to MAKE SOME GODDAMN NET ART FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
Deadline is April 2, 2007 and that ain’t no joke.
Get on over there and find out how to submit a proposal for chrissakes! permanent link to this post
Deadline is April 2, 2007 and that ain’t no joke.
Get on over there and find out how to submit a proposal for chrissakes! permanent link to this post
Feb 13, 2007
We made some prints for Rhizome…
posted at 15:15 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
…but you can’t get any unless you have already donated some dough to Rhizome.
“iPhil Stills”
edition of 10 (1 AP)
archival inkjet on watercolor paper
2007
Background info here and here. permanent link to this post
“iPhil Stills”
edition of 10 (1 AP)
archival inkjet on watercolor paper
2007
Background info here and here. permanent link to this post
Feb 01, 2007
Boston Lite-Brite™ freak-out
posted at 19:25 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I pretty much agree with everything about this fiasco stated in this post:
These poor schmucks Berdovsky and Stevens will probably be the next Steve Kurtz: wrongfully prosecuted on trumped up charges just to protect powerful men’s egos.
What a bunch of crap.
UPDATE
Well, at least Berdovsky and Stevens seem to have a sense of humor about it! Watch the video… HILARIOUS! permanent link to this post
[Boston mayor] Menino is going on TV and insisting he’s going to send a 27-year old artist to jail for not breaking any law, because his police department overreacted and wasted a million dollars feeding a media frenzy and terrorizing the population of his own city. That’s a cowardly act of self-preservation, and were he not threatening the life of an innocent young man it would be laughable.
These poor schmucks Berdovsky and Stevens will probably be the next Steve Kurtz: wrongfully prosecuted on trumped up charges just to protect powerful men’s egos.
What a bunch of crap.
UPDATE
Well, at least Berdovsky and Stevens seem to have a sense of humor about it! Watch the video… HILARIOUS! permanent link to this post
Yahoo! outrageous? Don’t think so…
posted at 14:56 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
In regards to Yahoo’s Wii site; Flickr users go nuts.
If you don’t want Yahoo using your photos for commercial purposes, don’t put them on Flickr. And no, it isn’t outrageous. It’s completely predictable:
Yahoo responded to the uproar by using only photos that have been tagged with Creative Commons licenses. I don’t think they had to, I think the TOS is pretty clear that they are allowed to use the photos ‘for the purpose for which the Content was submitted.’ It’s completely reasonable to consider the Flickr-branded box in which the photo thumbnails appear fitting into the definition of the service. It’s a little grey, but I think they were within the rights they claim in their TOS. And for crying-out-loud, it is just thumbnails linking to Flickr user pages!
I’m sorry Yahoo caved. Yahoo did nothing wrong, but TOS-ignorant Flickr users forced Yahoo to give up rights they own to avoid bad PR (that they’re getting anyway). Folks using servicess like Flickr and YouTube need some scares like this before they realize what rights they’re signing away by using them. permanent link to this post
If you don’t want Yahoo using your photos for commercial purposes, don’t put them on Flickr. And no, it isn’t outrageous. It’s completely predictable:
9. CONTENT SUBMITTED OR MADE AVAILABLE FOR INCLUSION ON THE SERVICE
Yahoo! does not claim ownership of Content you submit or make available for inclusion on the Service. However, with respect to Content you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service, you grant Yahoo! the following worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license(s), as applicable:
[…]
With respect to photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service other than Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available. This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to include such Content on the Service and will terminate at the time you remove or Yahoo! removes such Content from the Service. (emphasis mine)
Yahoo responded to the uproar by using only photos that have been tagged with Creative Commons licenses. I don’t think they had to, I think the TOS is pretty clear that they are allowed to use the photos ‘for the purpose for which the Content was submitted.’ It’s completely reasonable to consider the Flickr-branded box in which the photo thumbnails appear fitting into the definition of the service. It’s a little grey, but I think they were within the rights they claim in their TOS. And for crying-out-loud, it is just thumbnails linking to Flickr user pages!
I’m sorry Yahoo caved. Yahoo did nothing wrong, but TOS-ignorant Flickr users forced Yahoo to give up rights they own to avoid bad PR (that they’re getting anyway). Folks using servicess like Flickr and YouTube need some scares like this before they realize what rights they’re signing away by using them. permanent link to this post
Jan 31, 2007
Funding cuts for NYC arts institutions
posted at 14:36 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
On WNYC this morning, I heard a report on how the reorganization of The Altria Group (parent of Phillip Morris and, until today, Kraft Foods) will adversely affect arts funding in NYC. This NY Sun article has a good rundown of the institutions that receive large funds from this company and how they’ll be affected. The NY Sun article is 3 weeks old, but I haven’t heard much about it until today. Today is the day that Altria is announcing exactly how they’re restructuring.
Some that may see this funding disappear: The Whitney, BAM, Brooklyn Museum, and The New Museum, of which Rhizome.org is part (no!).
The report on WNYC suggested that The Whitney at Altria is a goner. permanent link to this post
Some that may see this funding disappear: The Whitney, BAM, Brooklyn Museum, and The New Museum, of which Rhizome.org is part (no!).
The report on WNYC suggested that The Whitney at Altria is a goner. permanent link to this post
Jan 28, 2007
T.Whid sticking his tongue out
posted at 15:22 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jan 26, 2007
Good texts today
posted at 16:55 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Some interesting on-line texts have been published today.
First, Turbulence.org and New Media Fix have teamed up for “3 x 3: New Media Fix(es) on Turbulence.”
From Turbulence:
+++
Also, G.H. Hovagimyan compares Doug Aitken’s sleepwalkers at MoMA to an unrealized proposal for MoMA’s facade by Gordon Matta-Clark.
Check it out… permanent link to this post
First, Turbulence.org and New Media Fix have teamed up for “3 x 3: New Media Fix(es) on Turbulence.”
From Turbulence:
[…] three texts about works from the Turbulence.org archive. The texts—published in English, Italian and Spanish—were written and translated by members and affiliates of New Media Fix. They include “The Body in Turbulence” by Josephine Bosma; “Narrating with New Media: What Happened with Whatever has Happened?” by Belén Gache; and “Turbulence: Remixes + Bonus Beats” by Eduardo Navas. The translations are by Lucrezia Cippitelli, Francesca De Nicolò, Raquel Herrera, and Brenda Banda Corona & Ignacio Nieto. Ludmil Trenkov designed the PDF and HTML documents.
+++
Also, G.H. Hovagimyan compares Doug Aitken’s sleepwalkers at MoMA to an unrealized proposal for MoMA’s facade by Gordon Matta-Clark.
Check it out… permanent link to this post
Jan 21, 2007
MO & Jon in WaPo
posted at 21:25 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Artists ponder future of digital Mona Lisas
and
“We see the world not through a lens anymore but through a monitor screen,” said Marisa Olson, a curator of Rhizome.org, a Web platform that has archived 2,500 digital artworks online.
and
“Museums have to start paying attention,” said Jon Ippolito, former associate curator at the Guggenheim. “They risk not preserving the most relevant aspects of 21st century culture and, thus, their own relevance.”permanent link to this post
Jan 20, 2007
Cory Doctorow. I don’t like him.
posted at 16:07 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I remember the main reason that I don’t like Cory Doctorow.
He’s a hugely overrated writer. That’s annoying. Luckily he gives his books away for free. I would be mighty peeved if I had to pay for them.
But that’s not the main reason.
The main reason (as I was reminded by typing up this post today) is that he called for the destruction of a public art work in Chicago. Why did he want it destroyed? Simply because he didn’t agree with the artist’s view on the artist’s rights concerning copyright of images of the sculpture. He wrote (in this post on his very influential blog), “they […] should melt the goddamned sculpture down for scrap.” He was talking about Anish Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate.”
I happen to agree with him re: the right of the public to photograph things in, um, public. The artist and city officials are dead wrong on this issue. But to call for the destruction of what is a very beautiful work of art, especially from another creative — Doctorow’s a writer remember — is really sickening. He probably wasn’t serious. It was all probably just a bunch of hype. But really, it’s sad. He’s taken his copyright dogma to fundamentalist extremes if he really thinks it’s OK to destroy art work as an option in copyright disputes.
What’s next? book burnings of non-creative commons licensed books?
update
Rob Meyers doesn’t agree with me (and it is me T.Whid, not MTAA (MRiver has an annoying habit of not having the opinions that I want him to have)).
Rob sounds like he’s OK with destroying Kapoor’s stuff because he doesn’t like the artist’s work. He says Doctorow was being rhetorical, which is true. But it’s the kind of rhetoric I find repulsive. And then there’s this:
I’m sure all the bookburners and christian-morals censors would heartily agree with you.
It’s simple. You can’t change copyright law by destroying art works. You do it by petitioning law makers, demonstrating, civil disobedience etc, etc.
If you simply don’t like an art work you can ridicule it, write scathing crits of it or, better yet, ignore it. permanent link to this post
He’s a hugely overrated writer. That’s annoying. Luckily he gives his books away for free. I would be mighty peeved if I had to pay for them.
But that’s not the main reason.
The main reason (as I was reminded by typing up this post today) is that he called for the destruction of a public art work in Chicago. Why did he want it destroyed? Simply because he didn’t agree with the artist’s view on the artist’s rights concerning copyright of images of the sculpture. He wrote (in this post on his very influential blog), “they […] should melt the goddamned sculpture down for scrap.” He was talking about Anish Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate.”
I happen to agree with him re: the right of the public to photograph things in, um, public. The artist and city officials are dead wrong on this issue. But to call for the destruction of what is a very beautiful work of art, especially from another creative — Doctorow’s a writer remember — is really sickening. He probably wasn’t serious. It was all probably just a bunch of hype. But really, it’s sad. He’s taken his copyright dogma to fundamentalist extremes if he really thinks it’s OK to destroy art work as an option in copyright disputes.
What’s next? book burnings of non-creative commons licensed books?
update
Rob Meyers doesn’t agree with me (and it is me T.Whid, not MTAA (MRiver has an annoying habit of not having the opinions that I want him to have)).
Rob sounds like he’s OK with destroying Kapoor’s stuff because he doesn’t like the artist’s work. He says Doctorow was being rhetorical, which is true. But it’s the kind of rhetoric I find repulsive. And then there’s this:
[..] I would say in all seriousness that if a work of art is that harmful to society (in a practical rather than a symbolic way), destroying it is the less harmful option for art itself.
I’m sure all the bookburners and christian-morals censors would heartily agree with you.
It’s simple. You can’t change copyright law by destroying art works. You do it by petitioning law makers, demonstrating, civil disobedience etc, etc.
If you simply don’t like an art work you can ridicule it, write scathing crits of it or, better yet, ignore it. permanent link to this post
WTF Claes?
posted at 14:47 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A while back I posed the question of whether or not Anish Kapoor is a dumbass for restricting photographs of his ‘bean’ sculpture in Chicago. (Background here.)
So. I ask again. Are Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen dumbasses? Probably not.
Some of the comments on that Stranger post linked above, I DO NOT agree with. Fantasizing about vandalizing or destroying art I find offensive. Also, I like the piece, it’s fun. This pic shows how it’s situated on a small rise so it looks like it’s rolling downhill.
But this new copyright fascism does seem particularly offensive considering that Oldenburg makes his sculptures by copying designs that may be copyrighted or even patented!
Perhaps it’s the city officials negotiating the sales of these things need some education? They should make certain that they get the rights for the citizens to photograph these pieces. If the artists are going to be so greedy, it’s seems the only alternative. permanent link to this post
So. I ask again. Are Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen dumbasses? Probably not.
Some of the comments on that Stranger post linked above, I DO NOT agree with. Fantasizing about vandalizing or destroying art I find offensive. Also, I like the piece, it’s fun. This pic shows how it’s situated on a small rise so it looks like it’s rolling downhill.
But this new copyright fascism does seem particularly offensive considering that Oldenburg makes his sculptures by copying designs that may be copyrighted or even patented!
Perhaps it’s the city officials negotiating the sales of these things need some education? They should make certain that they get the rights for the citizens to photograph these pieces. If the artists are going to be so greedy, it’s seems the only alternative. permanent link to this post
Jan 19, 2007
More Character Reference
posted at 16:30 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
M.River took a snap of our piece:
Additionally
The show makes it to Rhizome’s official news, penned by director Lauren Cornell no less.
And
Tom Moody’s take:
LOL — Thanks Tom!
Plus
This is interesting. Barry Hoggard sent us a link to a similar piece from ‘95 by Charles Goldman entitled “Happy To Be Here.” Seeing the date on this piece made me realize that we did Infinite Smile exactly 10 years after. ISmile is from 2005. permanent link to this post
Additionally
The show makes it to Rhizome’s official news, penned by director Lauren Cornell no less.
And
Tom Moody’s take:
they might to be holding poses for some future dystopian hologram ID gone all glitchy due to budget cuts in the security ministry
LOL — Thanks Tom!
Plus
This is interesting. Barry Hoggard sent us a link to a similar piece from ‘95 by Charles Goldman entitled “Happy To Be Here.” Seeing the date on this piece made me realize that we did Infinite Smile exactly 10 years after. ISmile is from 2005. permanent link to this post
Jan 18, 2007
reminder: Character Reference tonight
posted at 15:10 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Character Reference is opening tonight. If yer in NYC, be there or be a…whatever.
===
WHAT:
Character Reference — a group show
WHO:
MTAA, Lee Walton, Marina Zurkow, Julian Opie and Oliver Laric.
curated by the smart and talented Caitlin Jones
WHERE:
Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery
601 W26h St. ste 1240 (btw 11th Ave and West Side Hwy)
NYC
WHEN:
opening - Jan 18, 6 - 8PM (tonight)
thru Feb 24
2007
HOW:
Everything is plugged in — electricity! permanent link to this post
===
WHAT:
Character Reference — a group show
WHO:
MTAA, Lee Walton, Marina Zurkow, Julian Opie and Oliver Laric.
curated by the smart and talented Caitlin Jones
WHERE:
Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery
601 W26h St. ste 1240 (btw 11th Ave and West Side Hwy)
NYC
WHEN:
opening - Jan 18, 6 - 8PM (tonight)
thru Feb 24
2007
HOW:
Everything is plugged in — electricity! permanent link to this post
Jan 12, 2007
Networked Nature
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Made the opening of Rhizome.org/Foxy Production’s group show entitled Network Nature last night.
The place was packed (see below) and the work was great.
M.River and I were confused that we weren’t in the show. We thought there was an unwritten rule that Marisa puts us in everything she curates. I guess we were mistaken ;-)
One more thing, check out JMB’s flickr set of the opening… permanent link to this post
The place was packed (see below) and the work was great.
M.River and I were confused that we weren’t in the show. We thought there was an unwritten rule that Marisa puts us in everything she curates. I guess we were mistaken ;-)
One more thing, check out JMB’s flickr set of the opening… permanent link to this post
Jan 09, 2007
iPhone
posted at 21:37 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Apple has released the iPhone. I sorta called it a few months back in this Digg comment.
Sure, I was wrong about the name and the way it would be hyped. But I got the gist right IMHO. The important part was my follow up pointing out the patent on ‘dynamic and configurable touchscreen interfaces.’ Or maybe I’m just delusional; everyone and their dog was predicting this damn thing.
PS, I needed to post something again today to push M.River’s cat post down. I hate cat blogging. permanent link to this post
Sure, I was wrong about the name and the way it would be hyped. But I got the gist right IMHO. The important part was my follow up pointing out the patent on ‘dynamic and configurable touchscreen interfaces.’ Or maybe I’m just delusional; everyone and their dog was predicting this damn thing.
PS, I needed to post something again today to push M.River’s cat post down. I hate cat blogging. permanent link to this post
Sherman: Paik as first video artist is a myth?
posted at 17:12 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I just saw the short essay by Tom Sherman, The Premature Birth of Video Art, on the iDC list and found it very interesting. Sherman’s conclusion:
He goes on to say:
Read the entire essay at the iDC archives.
Obviously, I have no idea. If I see further compelling info or evidence, I’ll post it here. permanent link to this post
[…] the myth of Paik’s first work of video art appears to pre-date its own possibility. While Paik undoubtedly was a pioneer user of portable video equipment, he probably shared the original moments of video art with other artists, including Frank Gillette, Ira Schneider, Les Levine, and Juan Downey. The mythic story of Nam June Paik shooting the first Portapak-generated video art out of the back of a taxi in 1965 is apparently just that, a myth.
He goes on to say:
I […] welcome information that supports or undermines this challenge of the myth of the birth of video art.
Read the entire essay at the iDC archives.
Obviously, I have no idea. If I see further compelling info or evidence, I’ll post it here. permanent link to this post
Spitzer slashes sick tax
posted at 15:09 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
It’s nice to see government working for the people once in a while. And Eliot Spitzer, brand new Governor of New York, is just the guy to do it.
Since 2003, NY state has had a sick, demented tax on people who’s friends and families happen to be in prison. Oh, and the government was sharing the spoils with for-profit phone company Verizon. This is how this disgusting shake-down worked:
Yesterday, Spitzer announced that the rates would be cut. permanent link to this post
Since 2003, NY state has had a sick, demented tax on people who’s friends and families happen to be in prison. Oh, and the government was sharing the spoils with for-profit phone company Verizon. This is how this disgusting shake-down worked:
In court papers, lawyers for Verizon/MCI said the state Public Service Commission directed them in 2003 to charge a tariff that includes the “jurisdictional” rate plus the “DOCS commission.” That included a flat rate of $3 per call and 16 cents a minute thereafter.
That meant collect calls have been charged at a rate of 630 percent more than consumer rates, of which 57.5 percent is “kicked back” to [the Dept. of Correctional Services] for operating expenses such as health care that should come out of general tax dollars, [Center for Constitutional Rights] officials said.
[via]
Yesterday, Spitzer announced that the rates would be cut. permanent link to this post
Jan 08, 2007
Dept of Homeland Security: NYC highest risk
posted at 15:19 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Well, we all knew it to be true but now our trusted civil servants in the DHS have confirmed it:
Wonder what those four others are? LA, SF, Houston? Dallas? Seattle? Miami?
Watching Children of Men (HIGHLY recommended) over the weekend it warmed my heart to see a casual passing reference by the main characters to the nuking of NYC at some vague point in the past of the movie’s present of 2027.
It seems that everyone is just assuming that it will happen eventually. Hopefully lots of people will get scared and move away so I can purchase some real estate in this damn city.
Have a good day! permanent link to this post
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, seeking to avert a repeat of last year’s furor over counter-terrorism grants to U.S. cities, announced Friday that New York, Washington and four other “highest-risk” metro areas will receive $411 million to subsidize their efforts to guard against terrorist attacks.
Wonder what those four others are? LA, SF, Houston? Dallas? Seattle? Miami?
Watching Children of Men (HIGHLY recommended) over the weekend it warmed my heart to see a casual passing reference by the main characters to the nuking of NYC at some vague point in the past of the movie’s present of 2027.
It seems that everyone is just assuming that it will happen eventually. Hopefully lots of people will get scared and move away so I can purchase some real estate in this damn city.
Have a good day! permanent link to this post
Jan 06, 2007
It’s freakishly warm in NYC today
posted at 15:57 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
According to my little OS X weather widget, it’s 67ºF outside right now and the high is to be 71ºF!!! Is this June or January? Outside, most people are in shirt sleeves, no jackets, no coats, no scarves, no hats, no mittens. Freaky!
I know that, scientifically, these warm (or cold) outliers don’t mean anything in the larger global warming trend. But here in NYC, winter seems to be coming much later and ending much sooner. Days like this are exclamation points on that trend.
I know what M.River is saying, “Vive La Global Warming!” Perhaps we should all start keeping canoes on our roofs — just in case? permanent link to this post
I know that, scientifically, these warm (or cold) outliers don’t mean anything in the larger global warming trend. But here in NYC, winter seems to be coming much later and ending much sooner. Days like this are exclamation points on that trend.
I know what M.River is saying, “Vive La Global Warming!” Perhaps we should all start keeping canoes on our roofs — just in case? permanent link to this post
Jan 02, 2007
Character Reference
posted at 20:59 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We’re in a group show opening January 18th at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery here in NYC with a bunch of other interesting artists.
We hope that if you’re in NYC that you can come out and see the show!
We hope that if you’re in NYC that you can come out and see the show!
Character Referencepermanent link to this post
January 19 - February 24 2007
Opening Reception: January 18, 6-8pm
The Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery is pleased to present “Character Reference”” a group show featuring an international group of contemporary artists.
The portrait as a genre has enjoyed an enduring popularity throughout the history of art. As depictions of power and wealth, or socialist realist studies, through its current pervasiveness in contemporary photography, the portrait has long played a key role in creating and questioning identity. Through the works in “Character Reference” the artists Oliver Laric, MTAA, Julian Opie, Lee Walton and Marina Zurkow all mine this rich genre. These artists do not simply employ the portrait as a means to depict specific individuals but rather use the form to represent broader cultural types.
Oliver Laric’s “787 Cliparts” uses as building blocks the “clip art” which can be found embedded in Microsoft Word documents and Power Point presentations world over. These prepackaged images are seamlessly streamed together in a continuous dance to convey and question how diverse cultures and activities are stereotyped in the name of convenient communication.
MTAA’s “Infinite Smile” is a video portrait in which the artists’ faces hold a smile in an infinitely repeating loop. Their expressions, appear to change from glee to agony and back, highlighting the artifice of the smile and its function as a seller of goods and ideology, an indicator of happiness, and how we project our own assumptions on to the ubiquitous happy face.
In Julian Opie’s “Suzanne Walking in Leather Skirt” and “Sarah Walking in Bra, Pants and Boots”, female characters are rendered in the artist’s signature generic, minimalist style. These sexually charged portraits of women in underwear and short skirts conveys a connection to the specific subjects while simultaneously representing the stereotypical and loaded symbols of female sexuality.
To create Lee Walton’s “The Serial Conversationalist”, Walton targeted park benches throughout New York City on specific dates and times and initiated conversation with whoever happened to sit down. Often awkward and pained, Walton’s recordings of these conversations with random strangers about kids, dogs and other New York wildlife help inform a portrait of a city and how it establishes and solidifies our understanding of the characters around us.
Likewise, Marina Zurkow’s animated “Boom!Darling” looks at the formation of character against the backdrop of a hyper-active urban environment. Through this short animation we see a girl on the edge of puberty exploring her own identity in the booming metropolis of current day Shanghai - a city which is similarly experiencing “growing pains” in the current global economy.
Seen as a whole the works in “Character Reference” represent a broadened view of the portrait genre. Using this historically rich convention in new ways the artists are able to portray their subjects as much more than they appear.
Jan 01, 2007
Happy New Year 2007
posted at 00:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Now get out there and go get drunk!
Or at least spend the evening and New Year’s Day with your loved ones :-)
permanent link to this post
Or at least spend the evening and New Year’s Day with your loved ones :-)
permanent link to this post
Dec 24, 2006
House music making a comeback?
posted at 14:37 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Cory Arcangel is probably the hippest person I know. If he’s linking to Brooklyn Bounce videos from his del.icio.us feed, perhaps BIG house music is ready for a comeback? I have to admit, listening to Get Ready To Bounce really made me want to dance; more than current dance music.
Maybe jungle will come back with it? ;-)
Or maybe I’m just a nostalgic old geezer.
Merry Christmas! permanent link to this post
Maybe jungle will come back with it? ;-)
Or maybe I’m just a nostalgic old geezer.
Merry Christmas! permanent link to this post
Dec 23, 2006
Copy-paste (net.)art
posted at 23:36 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
It seems particularly apt that I simply copy and paste this post from We Make Money Not Art…
Last May, i blogged about Plagiarismo, an exhibition that tried to demonstrate that the appropriation and re-formulation of other artists’ ideas is an essential component of culture.
Vuk Cosic - who’s having a solo exhibition at the Škuc Gallery in Ljubljana- wrote me then that he was putting together a show called CTRL-C on a similar subject. The show has just opened at the galerija Simulaker in Slovenia. Here’s the gist:
From Duchamp and Benjamin to Beuys the art of the previous century has asked the question of copying and multiplying as a legitimate artistic practice. The advent of the internet has dramatically placed the digital original and digital copy in the very center of artistic but also economic frictions.
Mere simplicity of making copies is socially not perceived as a liberating tool for artistic creation but is turning out to be the main point of conflict between economic interests and those of societies at large. Traditionalists fighting for Intellectual Property are trying to pull the giants from under our feet.
The CTRL-C show is presenting projects exclusively focused on the artistic relevance of the digital copy. Exhibited works are using the language of the non-original to express a very concrete critique of the circumstances in the world of art and in the society. All works in the show have provided their authors with a measure of scandal and a bigger measure of fame:
In September 1997, Vuk Ćosić made an almost perfect copy of the website of Documenta X before it was taken down by the organisers of the famous contemporary art show. The artist saw his act as an “expression of a rebellion against the art system and the return of art from a gallery into reality.”
Epilogue: The copy found its way into relevant “kunst.historisch” literature and is still accessible on the author’s internet server. Being a legitimate and conceptual work it has been exhibited many times, also at the Venice Bienale in 2001.
In 1997, 0100101110101101.ORG made a series of clones of well-known net.art projects (hell.com, art teleportacia, Jodi) as a digital monument to the principles upon which the Internet runs. “The belief that information must be free,” explained at the time Renato, 0100101110101101.ORG spokesman, “is a tribute to the way in which a very good computer or a valid program works: binary numbers move in accordance with the most logic, direct and necessary way to do their complex function. What is a computer if not something that benefits by the free flow of information? Copyright is boring.”
Epilogue: The three copies are still accessible on the authors’ server. Nowadays they are known for their numerous net.art projects, acknowledged by the public and the media.
In 1999, Rtmark – The Yes Men altered the website of the World Trade Organization and made it very similar to the original. They received invitations to symposia (no one’s going to forget their talk and little demo at the Textiles of the Future conference in Tampere), where they presented the identity of GATT as they understood it.
Yes Men stunts in Salzburg and Tampere
Epilogue: The authors belong to the group of the most recognizable names of the New Media scene. A documentary has been made about their work (also available on google video btw.)
During the exhibition of Fluxus in 2005, Gordan Karabogdan and Nikica Klobučar snatched a few of Beuys’ videos, copied them at their home and returned the “originals” without anyone noticing it. They even produced free copies and the media comprehended this deed as a criminal act.
Epilogue: The work, called Enigma of an object, ended with an act of handing over the copied films and entire documentation to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka.
Thanks Vuk for the information and translations! permanent link to this post
Last May, i blogged about Plagiarismo, an exhibition that tried to demonstrate that the appropriation and re-formulation of other artists’ ideas is an essential component of culture.
Vuk Cosic - who’s having a solo exhibition at the Škuc Gallery in Ljubljana- wrote me then that he was putting together a show called CTRL-C on a similar subject. The show has just opened at the galerija Simulaker in Slovenia. Here’s the gist:
From Duchamp and Benjamin to Beuys the art of the previous century has asked the question of copying and multiplying as a legitimate artistic practice. The advent of the internet has dramatically placed the digital original and digital copy in the very center of artistic but also economic frictions.
Mere simplicity of making copies is socially not perceived as a liberating tool for artistic creation but is turning out to be the main point of conflict between economic interests and those of societies at large. Traditionalists fighting for Intellectual Property are trying to pull the giants from under our feet.
The CTRL-C show is presenting projects exclusively focused on the artistic relevance of the digital copy. Exhibited works are using the language of the non-original to express a very concrete critique of the circumstances in the world of art and in the society. All works in the show have provided their authors with a measure of scandal and a bigger measure of fame:
In September 1997, Vuk Ćosić made an almost perfect copy of the website of Documenta X before it was taken down by the organisers of the famous contemporary art show. The artist saw his act as an “expression of a rebellion against the art system and the return of art from a gallery into reality.”
Epilogue: The copy found its way into relevant “kunst.historisch” literature and is still accessible on the author’s internet server. Being a legitimate and conceptual work it has been exhibited many times, also at the Venice Bienale in 2001.In 1997, 0100101110101101.ORG made a series of clones of well-known net.art projects (hell.com, art teleportacia, Jodi) as a digital monument to the principles upon which the Internet runs. “The belief that information must be free,” explained at the time Renato, 0100101110101101.ORG spokesman, “is a tribute to the way in which a very good computer or a valid program works: binary numbers move in accordance with the most logic, direct and necessary way to do their complex function. What is a computer if not something that benefits by the free flow of information? Copyright is boring.”
Epilogue: The three copies are still accessible on the authors’ server. Nowadays they are known for their numerous net.art projects, acknowledged by the public and the media.
In 1999, Rtmark – The Yes Men altered the website of the World Trade Organization and made it very similar to the original. They received invitations to symposia (no one’s going to forget their talk and little demo at the Textiles of the Future conference in Tampere), where they presented the identity of GATT as they understood it.
Yes Men stunts in Salzburg and Tampere
Epilogue: The authors belong to the group of the most recognizable names of the New Media scene. A documentary has been made about their work (also available on google video btw.)
During the exhibition of Fluxus in 2005, Gordan Karabogdan and Nikica Klobučar snatched a few of Beuys’ videos, copied them at their home and returned the “originals” without anyone noticing it. They even produced free copies and the media comprehended this deed as a criminal act. Epilogue: The work, called Enigma of an object, ended with an act of handing over the copied films and entire documentation to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka.
Thanks Vuk for the information and translations! permanent link to this post
Dec 22, 2006
Please address me thusly
posted at 18:03 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:
His Excellency T.Whid the Loquacious of Molton St Anywhere
Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title… permanent link to this post
Dec 17, 2006
Automate QuickTime video on OS X
posted at 20:21 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
This post may be helpful for artists and other creatives that need to automate the launching of digital video files using QuickTime on the Mac OS.
MTAA is in a group show in January and we’re showing a simple digital video loop. The goal was to automate the launching of the video full screen and looping when the computer starts up. The strategy was to use an AppleScript as a login item to achieve this.
The straightforward way to do this is to create a script that tells QuickTime to open the file, play it full screen and loop by pointing to the explicit path of the file on disk, e.g
After a bit of research and trial-and-error I think I came up with a decent solution.
I should note here that you can set QuickTime movies to play full screen on launch in the Movie Properties/Presentation panel of QuickTime Pro, but I couldn’t find a way to tell it to always loop so I took the approach below. If there is a way to tell a QuickTime movie to loop on launch then I wasted a bunch of time ;-) On the other hand, for a video that QuickTime can play but isn’t wrapped in the QuickTime container (like a straight-up MPEG4) this is probably the only way to do it.
Regardless, this is what I did:
First, in Script Editor (/Applications/AppleScript/Script Editor), I created a new script and saved it as an ‘application bundle’ (making sure to uncheck ‘Startup Screen’). This created an application package — basically, a special folder — almost every OS X application is this format. By control-clicking this application in the Finder, I selected ‘Show Package Contents’ in the contextual menu. This opened a new Finder window with a folder called ‘Contents.’ Inside Contents was a folder called ‘Resources’ (and some other files). I copied my video file into the Resources folder.
Back to Script Editor, I typed a script very similar to this:
In the end, I have a little app that contains my video, is easily copied from computer to computer and can be set as a login item so it launches automatically when the computer starts. For a bonus, it’s easy to replace the icon by replacing the file
Another tip: if you need to edit the script a bit, you should go into the bundle and open the
MTAA is in a group show in January and we’re showing a simple digital video loop. The goal was to automate the launching of the video full screen and looping when the computer starts up. The strategy was to use an AppleScript as a login item to achieve this.
The straightforward way to do this is to create a script that tells QuickTime to open the file, play it full screen and loop by pointing to the explicit path of the file on disk, e.g
bootdisk:path:to:foo.mov. The problem with this is that if the file is moved QuickTime can’t open it. To make it more error-proof I wanted to make one application package with the video inside it. This allows there to be one file that can be moved to any Mac and double-clicked to start the video playing with all the properties I need.
After a bit of research and trial-and-error I think I came up with a decent solution.
I should note here that you can set QuickTime movies to play full screen on launch in the Movie Properties/Presentation panel of QuickTime Pro, but I couldn’t find a way to tell it to always loop so I took the approach below. If there is a way to tell a QuickTime movie to loop on launch then I wasted a bunch of time ;-) On the other hand, for a video that QuickTime can play but isn’t wrapped in the QuickTime container (like a straight-up MPEG4) this is probably the only way to do it.
Regardless, this is what I did:
First, in Script Editor (/Applications/AppleScript/Script Editor), I created a new script and saved it as an ‘application bundle’ (making sure to uncheck ‘Startup Screen’). This created an application package — basically, a special folder — almost every OS X application is this format. By control-clicking this application in the Finder, I selected ‘Show Package Contents’ in the contextual menu. This opened a new Finder window with a folder called ‘Contents.’ Inside Contents was a folder called ‘Resources’ (and some other files). I copied my video file into the Resources folder.
Back to Script Editor, I typed a script very similar to this:
--set path to video file set _f to ((path to me) as string) ¬ & "Contents:Resources:foo.mov" -- open and play it tell application "QuickTime Player" launch activate stop every movie close every movie saving no try my play_movie(_f) on error (* in case the file has been moved or deleted for some reason *) choose file with prompt ¬ "File not found! Please locate it:" set _f to result my play_movie(_f) end try end tell on play_movie(_file) tell application "QuickTime Player" open _file tell movie 1 (* you can put any properties you need in here *) set looping to true present scale screen end tell end tell end play_movieNote: this script doesn’t work when run from Script Editor. It needs to be saved and launched by double-clicking the application bundle.
In the end, I have a little app that contains my video, is easily copied from computer to computer and can be set as a login item so it launches automatically when the computer starts. For a bonus, it’s easy to replace the icon by replacing the file
applet.icns in the Resources folder in the application bundle. I used CocoThumbX to create a new icns file.
Another tip: if you need to edit the script a bit, you should go into the bundle and open the
main.scpt file in the [app bundle]:Contents:Resources:Scripts folder instead of editing the actual app bundle file. If your video file is large, it takes a long time to save the script when you’re editing the bundle as opposed to the script on it’s own.
permanent link to this post
Dec 11, 2006
We meet Rick Silva in person
posted at 02:23 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The other night M.River and I attended Dorkbot with presentations by (among others) Rick Silva and Marisa Olson.
M.River snapped this pic of me, Marisa, Tom Moody and Rick Silva:
Special bonus, more studio tests:
permanent link to this post
M.River snapped this pic of me, Marisa, Tom Moody and Rick Silva:
Special bonus, more studio tests:
permanent link to this post
Dec 04, 2006
MTAA in Miami
posted at 15:29 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Not!
For some reason or another we never find our way to Miami Beach for the December art fairs. This is probably a good thing for those that might otherwise catch a startlingly bright glimpse of our NTSC-illegal-white bodies burning like phosphorous on the beach.
Hoping everyone has fun. permanent link to this post
For some reason or another we never find our way to Miami Beach for the December art fairs. This is probably a good thing for those that might otherwise catch a startlingly bright glimpse of our NTSC-illegal-white bodies burning like phosphorous on the beach.
Hoping everyone has fun. permanent link to this post
Nov 28, 2006
CC v Zune
posted at 14:52 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Wired.com’s Listening Post blog touches on the back-asswards Zune player and its non-compatibility with Creative Commons licenses. The crux of the issue is that the Zune will apply DRM to any song that is shared (or, um, ‘squirted’) between Zunes via the wifi feature regardless of what license is applied to the song. Creative Commons is adding language to their licenses that will explicitly make it a violation of the license to do this.
Read the story (with comments) here.
It will be interesting to see if any lawsuits result because of this. Have there been any CC-related lawsuits yet? permanent link to this post
Read the story (with comments) here.
It will be interesting to see if any lawsuits result because of this. Have there been any CC-related lawsuits yet? permanent link to this post
Whitney at the High Line
posted at 01:28 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I’m sure everyone that reads this web site probably already knew…
[via NYT]
[via NYT]
A month after the Dia Art Foundation scrapped its plans to open a museum at the entrance to the High Line, the abandoned elevated railway line that the city is transforming into a public park, the Whitney Museum of American Art has signed on to take its place and build a satellite institution of its own downtown.permanent link to this post
The Whitney recently reached a conditional agreement on Wednesday night with the city’s Economic Development Corporation to buy the city-owned site, at Washington and West Streets in the meatpacking district, officials at the museum said yesterday. Plans call for the new museum to be at least twice the size of the Whitney’s home on Madison Avenue at 75th Street, they said, and to be finished within the next five years.
Nov 22, 2006
Parachute fails
posted at 17:11 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The Canadian contemporary art magazine PARACHUTE ceases publication. This sucks.
From the press release (available in PDF: english | french):
Montreal, 20 November 2006 — The contemporary art magazine PARACHUTE, founded in 1974, has taken the difficult decision to suspend its activities. Despite the success of its new format, introduced in 2000, and its international recognition, funding levels no longer make it possible to ensure a reasonable level of quality and stability.permanent link to this post
Despite its determination and efforts to maintain the journal’s presence on the contemporary art scene and to continue operations, PARACHUTE’s board of directors was obliged to take this last-resort decision after examining all the economic and social factors which would have enabled the journal to extract itself from the impasse facing it. The journal had recently succeeded in increasing its sales by more than 200% while at the same time cutting expenses and trimming budgets. Major fundraising efforts over the last years have produced significant but insufficient results. As well, the repeated demands on government agencies have been unproductive. An overall drop in subsidies, in tandem with the current funding structure of the journal and the media environment today make the task that much more complex. Despite PARACHUTE’s exceptional longevity in a highly competitive milieu — a longevity owing to the enthusiasm of its contributors and readers and to the unflagging determination of its director — its suspension of activities at this time highlights the precariousness of cultural organizations in Quebec and the rest of Canada.
Nov 21, 2006
MartinLutherKing[dot]org run by racists
posted at 15:35 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MartinLutherKing[dot]org is run by racists. If you go to the site (don’t go there) there is a link at the bottom of the page that says it’s hosted by Stormfront, a racist group. A quick Google search for “Martin Luther King” provides a link to martinlutherking[dot]org in the first slot.
Here are some better links, that should really make up the first page of results on Google:
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
[via] | [digg it] permanent link to this post
Here are some better links, that should really make up the first page of results on Google:
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
[via] | [digg it] permanent link to this post
Nov 17, 2006
BuzzFeed
posted at 22:47 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jonah Peretti’s new venture, BuzzFeed is live. Sure, there are other people involved (John Johnson and Kenneth Lerer of The Huffington Post) but this thing has Peretti’s fingerprints all over it.
I don’t want to be a buzz kill, but I’m unsure how this is going to be different from Technorati or Digg. They’ve added editorial oversight and commentary it seems, but is that a just throwback to pre-crowdsourcing techniques?
They’re in the early stages of this thing and I’m sure Jonah and the gang have a lot up their sleeves.
Congrats!
update
Looking over BuzzFeed a tad more I’d like to amend my first response. BuzzFeed is doing something different than Technorati and Digg. Where Technorati will tell you there are n number of links to story x, BuzzFeed is focused on larger trends. It gives you relevant links to the larger meme. Also, the archives are great.
I’d like to know more about it though.Are they only analyzing the sites under ‘sites making buzz’? Oops, I guess I should have read the about page, it says they track 50,000 sites. That doesn’t answer what the ‘sites making buzz’ list is however.
permanent link to this post
I don’t want to be a buzz kill, but I’m unsure how this is going to be different from Technorati or Digg. They’ve added editorial oversight and commentary it seems, but is that a just throwback to pre-crowdsourcing techniques?
They’re in the early stages of this thing and I’m sure Jonah and the gang have a lot up their sleeves.
Congrats!
update
Looking over BuzzFeed a tad more I’d like to amend my first response. BuzzFeed is doing something different than Technorati and Digg. Where Technorati will tell you there are n number of links to story x, BuzzFeed is focused on larger trends. It gives you relevant links to the larger meme. Also, the archives are great.
I’d like to know more about it though.
Nov 15, 2006
Last minute reminder: 3x3 tonight!
posted at 22:47 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The world premier of The Un-scary Movie! A very, very short video by MTAA at:
3 Minutes : 3 Hours
Wednesday November 15 – 7pm
EFA Gallery | EFA Studio Center
323 West 39th Street, 2nd Floor, NYC
More info here.
Be there or be a rhombus. permanent link to this post
3 Minutes : 3 Hours
Wednesday November 15 – 7pm
EFA Gallery | EFA Studio Center
323 West 39th Street, 2nd Floor, NYC
More info here.
Be there or be a rhombus. permanent link to this post
Artist billboards of gay Poles banned
posted at 16:14 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Billboards of portraits of gay Poles by Polish artist Karolina Bregula were censored by Lamar Outdoor Advertising.
Edward Winkleman has the lowdown (along with a call to action). There’s info on Newsgrist as well.
Institutionalized bigotry against gays, lesbians and transgender people really needs to end. Now. How long can we continue to treat a good portion of our population like second-class citizens? permanent link to this post
Edward Winkleman has the lowdown (along with a call to action). There’s info on Newsgrist as well.
Institutionalized bigotry against gays, lesbians and transgender people really needs to end. Now. How long can we continue to treat a good portion of our population like second-class citizens? permanent link to this post
Nov 14, 2006
Wiley Wiggins comments on Cory
posted at 18:23 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Wiley Wiggins, star of Dazed and Confused has commented on Cory Arcangel’s Untitled Translation Exercise (scroll down). Read Wiggins’ blog post.
Note: “Untitled Translation Exercise” is Cory’s video that re-dubs Dazed and Confused using Indian outsourcing workers.
Also, Cory would, presumably, be publicly executed under the Realtime Art Manifesto. permanent link to this post
Note: “Untitled Translation Exercise” is Cory’s video that re-dubs Dazed and Confused using Indian outsourcing workers.
Also, Cory would, presumably, be publicly executed under the Realtime Art Manifesto. permanent link to this post
Realtime Art Manifesto
posted at 18:08 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
It’s safe to say that I disagree with the majority a whole bunch of this (including the idea of writing a manifesto at all…).
An interesting read none-the-less.
+++
Realtime Art Manifesto by Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn
1. Realtime 3D is a medium for artistic expression.
2. Be an author.
3. Create a total experience.
4. Embed the user in the environment.
5. Reject dehumanisation: tell stories.
6. Interactivity wants to be free.
7. Don’t make modern art.
8. Reject conceptualism.
9. Embrace technology.
10. Develop a punk economy.
[via]
m.river adds:
“including the idea of writing a manifesto at all…”
We did write one.
[Artainment]
twhid responds:
Yeah, but ours was ironic.
Irony, under the Realtime Art Manifesto, is punished by having kneecaps shattered. permanent link to this post
An interesting read none-the-less.
+++
Realtime Art Manifesto by Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn
1. Realtime 3D is a medium for artistic expression.
2. Be an author.
3. Create a total experience.
4. Embed the user in the environment.
5. Reject dehumanisation: tell stories.
6. Interactivity wants to be free.
7. Don’t make modern art.
8. Reject conceptualism.
9. Embrace technology.
10. Develop a punk economy.
[via]
m.river adds:
“including the idea of writing a manifesto at all…”
We did write one.
[Artainment]
twhid responds:
Yeah, but ours was ironic.
Irony, under the Realtime Art Manifesto, is punished by having kneecaps shattered. permanent link to this post
Nov 13, 2006
computerfinearts.com @ [DAM] Berlin
posted at 18:07 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This is a tad late, but the show runs through December 5th.
There’s a lot of great stuff in Doron’s collection. It’s a very valuable resource, so check it out! permanent link to this post
COMPUTER FINE ARTS COLLECTION OF DORON GOLAN
Internet Art / Software Art
www.computerfinearts.com
Exhibition 06:
10th November 2006 – 5th December 2006
Doron Golan collects artwork, which have been developed for the internet. He concentrated on an aspect of contemporary art, which was consindered as not marketable. The different pieces, which were developed specifically for the Web are free available for everybody. In many cases the internet, with its specific possibilities, is an integral part of the artwork. By aquiring these pieces he enables the persistence of these artworks online. The collection is internationally and you´ll find some important artists, which were already known for internet-art in the 1990s. We present his collection as a projection in the gallery.
[DAM] Berlin
Digital Art Museum
Tucholskystr. 37
D-10117 Berlin
Tue- Fri 12-6 pm | Sat 12-4 pm
There’s a lot of great stuff in Doron’s collection. It’s a very valuable resource, so check it out! permanent link to this post
Nov 08, 2006
Rumsfeld: force quit
posted at 20:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
MTAA At The Art Opening [part 9]
posted at 16:37 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Part 9 is ready for download. (MP3, 10.2MB, 16’00)
In which M.River and T.Whid blather on about inane stuff as they count down to the end of this torturous exercise. Lauren Cornell pops in at the end to provide some much needed relief.
This is the final installment in this series. permanent link to this post
FUCKING FINALLY!
posted at 04:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Dems win House!!!
CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and even FOX news call the house for the Dems.
The beginning of the end of the nightmare called the Bush Administration is at hand.
update
It’s the morning of the 8th now and it looks like a great win! As I’m writing this the Democrats have picked up at least 27 seats in the House (as reported by the NYT and the WaPo) and it’s looking good for the Senate too. Webb (D) is up by only .3% (7847 votes)! and the Democrat Tester in Montana is up by .4% (1735 votes)! If the dems can hold on there (and that’s a big ‘if’ because we all know how good the repubs are at cheating and lying) then the members of the reality-based community get a win (almost) beyond our wildest dreams :-)
I’m from Ohio and the map below (from NYT) illustrates just how far the Democrats have come in just two years. Look at all that blue :-)
For more maps like this go here, select ‘state by state’ then select a state on the left.
update 2
Holy shit! Rumsfeld is out! Almost better news than the Congressional revolution. permanent link to this post
CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and even FOX news call the house for the Dems.
The beginning of the end of the nightmare called the Bush Administration is at hand.
update
It’s the morning of the 8th now and it looks like a great win! As I’m writing this the Democrats have picked up at least 27 seats in the House (as reported by the NYT and the WaPo) and it’s looking good for the Senate too. Webb (D) is up by only .3% (7847 votes)! and the Democrat Tester in Montana is up by .4% (1735 votes)! If the dems can hold on there (and that’s a big ‘if’ because we all know how good the repubs are at cheating and lying) then the members of the reality-based community get a win (almost) beyond our wildest dreams :-)
I’m from Ohio and the map below (from NYT) illustrates just how far the Democrats have come in just two years. Look at all that blue :-)
For more maps like this go here, select ‘state by state’ then select a state on the left.
update 2
Holy shit! Rumsfeld is out! Almost better news than the Congressional revolution. permanent link to this post
Nov 07, 2006
MTAA At The Art Opening [part 8]
posted at 02:49 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Part 8 is ready for download. (MP3, 11.2MB, 16’36)
In which T.Whid chats with Marisa Olson.
And in case you’re wondering, there’s only one more after this. I suppose that’s either good news or bad news depending on your point-of-view. permanent link to this post
Nov 06, 2006
MTAA At The Art Opening [part 7]
posted at 01:36 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Part 7 is ready for download. (MP3, 10.1MB, 15’28)
In which M.River talks to some guy that seems to really hate art, artists and anything to do with art and artists except for the free drinks at openings (which he can’t drink because he’s training for a marathon). Helen chimes in now and then with wisecracks. permanent link to this post
Nov 04, 2006
MTAA At The Art Opening [part 6]
posted at 18:50 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Part 6 is ready for download. (MP3, 5.5MB, 8’07)
In which T.Whid talks to Tinydiva (AKA Margaret Jameson). Unfortunately, due to a technical glitch, a good portion of the interview was lost :(
Make sure to listen to Tinydiva’s submission (entitled Running — direct link; MP3, 35MB, 15’16) to To Be Listened To… permanent link to this post
Pickle passion
posted at 15:09 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
If you love, or even like, pickles. Then run, don’t walk, ah… somewhere to pick up some of Rick’s Picks. Be warned though, they ain’t cheap (11 bucks a jar on the web site).
The newly (re-)opened Cobblestone Foods in my neighborhood in Brooklyn started carrying them and I picked up a jar of the Spears of Influence last night. It was a really fucking good pickle. It was, perhaps, even better than Guss’ Pickles. But I think I should treat my wife and myself to a taste test to decide.
Mmmmmmmm, test taste… I mean mmmmmmm taste test… permanent link to this post
Nov 02, 2006
MTAA At The Art Opening [part 5]
posted at 16:50 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Part 5 is ready for download. (MP3, 5.3MB, 8’26)
In which M.River talks with the one and only Mark Napier as T.Whid goes AWOL in order to smoke. permanent link to this post
Nov 01, 2006
Olia Lialina in NYC
posted at 15:59 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A Conversation with Olia Lialina
Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery
601 W 26th Street, Suite 1240
New York, NY 10001
212-243-8830
November 2, 2006 6:30PM
Lialina is one of the original net.artists. All the true heads will be in attendance I’m sure ;-) And note, this is also in conjunction with Rhizome’s Tenth Anniversay Festival. permanent link to this post
Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery
601 W 26th Street, Suite 1240
New York, NY 10001
212-243-8830
November 2, 2006 6:30PM
In conjunction with the exhibition On and Off at the Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery, celebrated artist and net.art pioneer Olia Lialina will discuss her work with curator Caitlin Jones. Using her iconic work “My Boyfriend Came Back from the War” as a springboard, Lialina will address issues such as the changing aesthetic and thematic landscape of the web, new models of authorship and participation; and the outward expansion of network based ideas and practice into off-line spaces and contexts.
Lialina is one of the original net.artists. All the true heads will be in attendance I’m sure ;-) And note, this is also in conjunction with Rhizome’s Tenth Anniversay Festival. permanent link to this post
MTAA At The Art Opening [part 4]
posted at 14:28 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Part 4 is ready for download. (MP3, 11.6MB, 17’23)
This one features MTAA babbling about the opening and a short interview with Patrick May, artist and Rhizome’s Director of Technology.
Also, some files were uploaded to 2bl2 that we think are in arabic (and look to have been uploaded from an ISP in the United Arab Emirates). The uploader neglected to add them to a feed so I added them to the ‘…in a park in Europe as you wait for the sun to rise and the snow to stop’ feed. If anyone knows arabic, please enlighten us as to the content. We’re curious. permanent link to this post
Oct 30, 2006
MTAA At The Art Opening [part 3]
posted at 21:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Go there now! Get your iTunes on.
Part 3 is ready for download. (MP3, 4.4MB, 06’52)
This one features GH busting some Dan Graham moves.
We have a few more parts to go. So settle in… permanent link to this post
NEW MEDIA ART
posted at 21:06 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
THE LAST AVANT-GARDE
Rough version of an interview with Mark Tribe & Reena Jana, authors of NEW MEDIA ART (Taschen, 2006). A shorter version has been published in Flash Art Italia, Issue 260, October - November 2006, p. 73.
Domenico Quaranta: Even from an editorial point of view, your book describes new media art as a movement (such as Surrealism or Conceptualism) rather than a mere possibility of the medium. This is a very interesting point. Do you believe in it or is this a marketing strategy? Is new media art the last avant-garde, and why?
Mark Tribe: Before we discuss New Media art as a movement, we describe it more generically in terms of “projects that make use of emerging media technologies and are concerned with the cultural, political, and aesthetic possibilities of these tools.” I think this is more-or-less what you mean by “a possibility of the medium.” […]
keep reading… NEW MEDIA ART permanent link to this post
MTAA At The Art Opening [part 2]
posted at 01:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Get up on it!
Part 2 is ready for download. (MP3, 15MB, 13’11)
Go to To Be Listened To… and upload your own stuff for crying out loud! permanent link to this post
Oct 28, 2006
MTAA At The Art Opening [part 1]
posted at 16:26 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The title of a series of audio files we’re releasing has been sort of up-in-the-air so I decided (unilaterally btw (sorry M)) that I’m going to call it “MTAA At The Art Opening.” It’s a series of audio recordings that we’ll be releasing via our podcast website “To Be Listened To…”. (See this for more info.)
You can download part 1 of “MTAA At The Art Opening” now! (MP3, 14.4MB, 12’39)
Please stare at this image of MTAA as you listen to part 1. Also, subscribe to the podcast feed in iTunes (iTunes link) or other podcast client (RSS link) to get future parts as they’re released.
Note: alternately, we’ve been calling this piece “2BL2 Rhizome Reception” and “A Live Demonstration of MTAA Art Practice At Rhizome’s Reception For The 2005 - 2006 Net Art Commissions” and having no title at all. It’s all very confusing. permanent link to this post
Oct 25, 2006
Dangling Between The Real Thing And The Sign In The Window
posted at 21:21 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Barry Hoggard and James Wagner have released a very thorough and extensive web site documenting their curatorial effort, “Dangling Between The Real Thing And The Sign In The Window” at Dam, Stuhltrager in Brooklyn.
It’s a shame that most art exhibitions don’t have such a great resource accompanying them. permanent link to this post
It’s a shame that most art exhibitions don’t have such a great resource accompanying them. permanent link to this post
MTAA @ NuMu last night
posted at 13:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
More at: M.River’s Tinjail/tintype photoblog. Start here and work your way back.
See this and this for more info. permanent link to this post
Oct 24, 2006
McCoy lite™ ?
posted at 19:18 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Friday the 13th: In 7 Minutes is a video on YouTube that…
[…] features every on-screen death in the film series FRIDAY THE 13th, displayed back to back and in chronological order.
See Jennifer and Kevin McCoy’s Every Anvil for context. permanent link to this post
Oct 23, 2006
2BL2 live demo
posted at 15:51 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Cutting-edge cute!
Making fun… for everyone!
Back from decrepitude!
YES! The long-awaited live demonstration of “To Be Listened To…”!!!
>>> Listen to the exciting announcement in MP3 format <<<
When? Tomorrow Oct 24, 2006, 6:30PM - 8:30PM
Where? New Museum bookstore (google map)
Why? ask Rhizome
How: 1 mic, 1 MTAA, 1 laptop, 1 crowd of new media swells and their hangers-on
>>> Listen to the exciting announcement in MP3 format <<<
As part of the reception for the 2005-2006 Rhizome Commissions.
Be there or be a parallelogram! permanent link to this post
Making fun… for everyone!
Back from decrepitude!
YES! The long-awaited live demonstration of “To Be Listened To…”!!!
>>> Listen to the exciting announcement in MP3 format <<<
When? Tomorrow Oct 24, 2006, 6:30PM - 8:30PM
Where? New Museum bookstore (google map)
Why? ask Rhizome
How: 1 mic, 1 MTAA, 1 laptop, 1 crowd of new media swells and their hangers-on
>>> Listen to the exciting announcement in MP3 format <<<
As part of the reception for the 2005-2006 Rhizome Commissions.
Be there or be a parallelogram! permanent link to this post
Oct 13, 2006
MTAA’s studio on a top block in NYC?
posted at 14:48 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
According to TimeOut NY, MTAA’s studio (at 60 N.6th St. btw Wythe & Kent) is on the 40th best block in NYC. It’s true, they said that (scroll down)!
What they said:
Are they insane? (OK, yes, this is N.6th between Berry & Wythe, but you get the idea.)
We do have some Bansky on our building… perhaps that makes it a top block?
And, of course, the inevitable question: does this mean our rent is going up? permanent link to this post
What they said:
40. North 6th Street between Kent and Wythe Avenues, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Near the waterfront, this block affords unobstructed views of Manhattan in a quintessential Williamsburg setting, near cutting-edge restaurants, cooler-than-thou bars and trendy boutiques.
Are they insane? (OK, yes, this is N.6th between Berry & Wythe, but you get the idea.)
We do have some Bansky on our building… perhaps that makes it a top block?
And, of course, the inevitable question: does this mean our rent is going up? permanent link to this post
Oct 09, 2006
McCoys in WaPo
posted at 15:50 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Our favorites, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, are profiled in the Washington Post today.
The article bounces back and forth from bio piece:
Kevin, who is 39, is in torn jeans, a plain black T-shirt and scuffed black running shoes. He has long, unruly locks and a mustache that crawls, sluglike, down the sides of his chin. He could pass for a stoner selling used guitars.
His wife, 38, is notably more tidy. She sits near him wearing fresh khakis, a flowery green vest over a clean white shirt (untucked, because she’s pregnant with their second child ) and sparkly little flats. Her straight hair is cut at girlish shoulder length.
To discussions of the art:
[Their recent show in LA] is typical McCoy. It’s built around the cultural theories they were both schooled in in France — structuralism and its descendant, deconstruction — which emphasize the constructedness of all experience. The theories insist, that is, that culture, including silly children’s books, conditions everything we think we know about our world, such as what counts as “special” and “scary,” and maybe also how girls and boys will “naturally” think. (The installations, say the McCoys, were partly inspired by watching Ginger, their 2-year-old daughter.)
But instead of mouthing off about such things, the McCoys’ art tries to flesh them out and test them: If our mental and cultural world is supposed to be constructed, then they’ll craft building blocks of sense and a machine that lets us watch them being put together into an edifice of meaning.
There’s a video accompanying the article that shows snippets of their work. It was a bit strange having to watch an ad for AT&T before seeing a clip of “Horror Chase,” but that’s what comes with main stream press I guess ;-)
Congrats guys!
Artists Who Dissect ‘Starsky & Hutch’ in the Washington Post. permanent link to this post
Oct 07, 2006
The MAMP is phat
posted at 20:30 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
If you need a quick and not-so-dirty way to set-up a MySQL, Apache and PHP system on your Mac, then MAMP (Macintosh, Apache, MySQL and PHP) can’t be beat for speed of set-up and ease-of-use.
There’s universal, powerpc and intel disk images available. The current (1.3.1) version installs MySQL 5.0.19 (with phpMyAdmin 2.7.0-pl2), PHP 4.4.2 and 5.1.4 (you can choose which to use in a simple preference panel) and Apache 2.0.55. It installs itself on non-standard ports so you can use OSX’s default web config alongside it if you like or, you can set Apache and MySQL to use their default ports (80 & 3306 respectively) and leave the OS X version of Apache off.
The developers recommend their product for local development only. You don’t want to use it as a production web server (especially with the out-of-the-box settings).
It looks like this nice piece of software has been around for about 2 years (Oct 2004 was their initial release). Not sure why I hadn’t caught wind of it until now. Rock on MAMP! permanent link to this post
There’s universal, powerpc and intel disk images available. The current (1.3.1) version installs MySQL 5.0.19 (with phpMyAdmin 2.7.0-pl2), PHP 4.4.2 and 5.1.4 (you can choose which to use in a simple preference panel) and Apache 2.0.55. It installs itself on non-standard ports so you can use OSX’s default web config alongside it if you like or, you can set Apache and MySQL to use their default ports (80 & 3306 respectively) and leave the OS X version of Apache off.
The developers recommend their product for local development only. You don’t want to use it as a production web server (especially with the out-of-the-box settings).
It looks like this nice piece of software has been around for about 2 years (Oct 2004 was their initial release). Not sure why I hadn’t caught wind of it until now. Rock on MAMP! permanent link to this post
Oct 05, 2006
Join the foie gras rebellion!
posted at 17:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
More on the haters trying to tell you what to eat in Salon today (must click through the ad to read the article).
The money quote:
And making my point:
As I’ve said before, regardless of what you think of ‘gavage,’ do you really want politicians and the government enforcing prohibitions on food? permanent link to this post
The money quote:
[…] these ducks aren’t doing anything that a porn star doesn’t do on a regular basis.
And making my point:
Billions of chickens, hogs and beef are being harmed — that’s carnage on a far vaster scale — but big agribusiness is a difficult and powerful target. They don’t get much bang for their buck, from a political standpoint. It’s much easier to go for the small artisanal farmer with little resources and no lobbying group in D.C.
As I’ve said before, regardless of what you think of ‘gavage,’ do you really want politicians and the government enforcing prohibitions on food? permanent link to this post
Google’s not punk
posted at 13:36 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Cory Arcangel’s “punk rock 101” (recently talked up here) has been shut down by Google. I don’t know the details, just received this brief email from Cory:
If you visit now, instead of real ads you see the public service stuff. If I learn more I’ll post it here. permanent link to this post
google shut off the cobain thing :(
If you visit now, instead of real ads you see the public service stuff. If I learn more I’ll post it here. permanent link to this post
And of course
posted at 13:34 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Oct 04, 2006
GH reports from Split
posted at 14:04 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
check it out… Split Festival Quick Report
G.H. Hovagimyan reports on the Split Festival of New Film in which MTAA’s “1 year performance video” was shown. There’s a text review as well as an MP3 interview (direct link) with Branko Karabatic, the head of the festival. permanent link to this post
G.H. Hovagimyan reports on the Split Festival of New Film in which MTAA’s “1 year performance video” was shown. There’s a text review as well as an MP3 interview (direct link) with Branko Karabatic, the head of the festival. permanent link to this post
1ypv reviewed (hebrew)
posted at 13:49 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
If you know hebrew you can read an article about our “1 year performance video” written by Avi Rosen.
Here’s the link. According to Avi this is a “a major Israeli computer & culture site”.
Avi was the first person to view 1ypv for an entire year. Thanks for the ink dude! permanent link to this post
Here’s the link. According to Avi this is a “a major Israeli computer & culture site”.
Avi was the first person to view 1ypv for an entire year. Thanks for the ink dude! permanent link to this post
Oct 03, 2006
AFC reviews 8 BIT
posted at 21:59 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
(Following Moody’s lead…)
check it out: Art Fag City: Video Game Culture Thrives in New Documentary
The film premiers this Saturday at MoMA.
If you’re planning on going note that MoMA has a really inconvenient admissions policy for their films. You have to buy the tickets in person; there are no phone orders nor online orders. You also need to get them the day of, except “[a] limited number of advance tickets are available, no more than one week in advance of a film” and you pay a buck fifty for the privilege. permanent link to this post
check it out: Art Fag City: Video Game Culture Thrives in New Documentary
The film premiers this Saturday at MoMA.
If you’re planning on going note that MoMA has a really inconvenient admissions policy for their films. You have to buy the tickets in person; there are no phone orders nor online orders. You also need to get them the day of, except “[a] limited number of advance tickets are available, no more than one week in advance of a film” and you pay a buck fifty for the privilege. permanent link to this post
Sep 29, 2006
Cory makes Digg front page
posted at 15:13 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
(Yes, this is Cory Arcangel week on the blog (as it always is when Cory has a show opening).)
Just in time for Cory Arcangel’s opening at Team Gallery tonight his net art piece “punk rock 101” made it to Digg’s front page (931 diggs at the time of this posting 959 diggs at the time of updating this post).
Check out the Digg post… (with the lame commentary and all)
This net art work is brilliant. Cory has, with one simple gesture, created a work of art that brings into stark relief both mass media’s lurid fascination with celebrity downfall and the commercialization (monteziation in the parlance) of private lives via web sites and services like MySpace and Gmail. We’re both repelled and fascinated by it.
update:
I fixed the title of the piece, originally I had it as “Kurt Cobain’s suicide letter vs. Google AdSense.”
According to Cory, he made 92USD from the page yesterday (when it first hit Digg) and has made 230USD since he launched it. permanent link to this post
Just in time for Cory Arcangel’s opening at Team Gallery tonight his net art piece “punk rock 101” made it to Digg’s front page (
Check out the Digg post… (with the lame commentary and all)
This net art work is brilliant. Cory has, with one simple gesture, created a work of art that brings into stark relief both mass media’s lurid fascination with celebrity downfall and the commercialization (monteziation in the parlance) of private lives via web sites and services like MySpace and Gmail. We’re both repelled and fascinated by it.
update:
I fixed the title of the piece, originally I had it as “Kurt Cobain’s suicide letter vs. Google AdSense.”
According to Cory, he made 92USD from the page yesterday (when it first hit Digg) and has made 230USD since he launched it. permanent link to this post
Sep 26, 2006
Cory @ Team this Friday
posted at 15:49 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Swiped straight from Cory’s blog…
via: Team Gallery Soho Opening! Sept 2006 permanent link to this post
So, Ive been pretty quiet for about the last 4 - 5 months,…no new projects posted to the web, … even my delicious linking fell off … well that cause I have been working on an art show I have opening this Friday :-) the show is called “subtractions, modifications, addenda, and other recent contributions to participatory culture”. I am happy to be opening Team’s NEW SOHO GALLERY!! There are some new videos, a few computer hacks, and even a 12inch vinyl record. Source code for the projects will appear here eventually, but for now there is just a real world version. So please come and check it out. Here are the details:
Team Gallery
83 Grand Street, between Wooster and Greene
Friday, September 29, 6:00PM - 8:00PM
and here is the press release.
via: Team Gallery Soho Opening! Sept 2006 permanent link to this post
Sep 22, 2006
Rough Want
posted at 15:57 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Our first rough steps into turning Want into the world-conquering video installation that we envision…
permanent link to this post
permanent link to this post
Sep 21, 2006
Warhol documentary part 1
posted at 13:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Well, it definitely seemed like a documentary about an artist. I always find it weird when art historians give great weight in dating things really, really specifically (“he started using silk-screen in april of ‘62”). Of course you want to know when things happened, but to use the fact to prop up the fallacy of a progressive linear continuum in art isn’t good history.
Still, I enjoyed the documentary very much.
One thought I had while watching is that what Warhol did for the mechanical image in art still hasn’t been done for the digital image. permanent link to this post
Still, I enjoyed the documentary very much.
One thought I had while watching is that what Warhol did for the mechanical image in art still hasn’t been done for the digital image. permanent link to this post
Sep 20, 2006
Burns’ Warhol tonight
posted at 13:51 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Ric Burns’ (no not his brother Ken Burns. I was confused too…) Warhol documentary is airing tonight and tomorrow night on PBS stations (NYT).
Go here to find the schedule on your local station. permanent link to this post
Go here to find the schedule on your local station. permanent link to this post
Sep 16, 2006
In the future everyone will be anonymous for 15 minutes
posted at 14:14 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Look. There are lots of photos of Bansky’s opening in LA (scroll down past the celeb photos for the actual art work).
My fave? the bobbies grappling with wildstyle graffiti.
And, of course, the update of Warhol’s prediction. permanent link to this post
My fave? the bobbies grappling with wildstyle graffiti.
And, of course, the update of Warhol’s prediction. permanent link to this post
Sep 15, 2006
Walton leaves Union Square…
posted at 18:17 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
…never to return.
(open image in new browser window for full-size)
Background info here.
Photo provided by Marisa.
addendum:
I’ve decided that it is now my life’s mission to trick Lee Walton into entering Union Square again. permanent link to this post
(open image in new browser window for full-size)
Background info here.
Photo provided by Marisa.
addendum:
I’ve decided that it is now my life’s mission to trick Lee Walton into entering Union Square again. permanent link to this post
Sep 12, 2006
Conflux Festival this week
posted at 13:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Powered by Glowlab, from the PR:
Get all the info at the web site of course. permanent link to this post
Conflux is the annual NYC festival for contemporary psychogeography where international artists, technologists, urban adventurers and the public put investigations of everyday city life into practice on the streets. Currently in its third year, Conflux will take place September 14 - 17th in Brooklyn. Over 80 artists from across the US and countries including Canada, UK, Spain, Germany, Finland, Sweden and Australia will come to Williamsburg to present projects including experimental walking, biking, boat and public-transport tours; street games and tech workshops; mobile broadcasts, performances and temporary installations.
Get all the info at the web site of course. permanent link to this post
Sep 11, 2006
Sept. 11, 2001
posted at 14:48 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Fuck you George Bush and fuck you to your criminal administration.
Fuck you Dick Cheney.
Fuck you Karl Rove.
Fuck you Donald Rumsfeld.
Fuck all the motherfuckers that took this heinous crime and used it for their own pathetic political powerplays. Their cheap and disgusting tactics have done more harm to the US and the world than 1000 Osama’s could ever hope to do.
Congratulations motherfuckers! Happy September 11!
update 9/12:
A less hysterical take: Olbermann . permanent link to this post
Fuck you Dick Cheney.
Fuck you Karl Rove.
Fuck you Donald Rumsfeld.
Fuck all the motherfuckers that took this heinous crime and used it for their own pathetic political powerplays. Their cheap and disgusting tactics have done more harm to the US and the world than 1000 Osama’s could ever hope to do.
Congratulations motherfuckers! Happy September 11!
update 9/12:
A less hysterical take: Olbermann . permanent link to this post
Sep 10, 2006
Cory Arcangel using AppleScript?
posted at 15:16 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
It’s right here in his del.icio.us osx category.
He says:
So… ya know… um, keep it cool. permanent link to this post
He says:
dont tell anyone, but i might be using applescript for a project……
So… ya know… um, keep it cool. permanent link to this post
Sep 06, 2006
Have you no sense of decency, sir?
posted at 14:10 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Keith Olbermann on Bush’s disgusting speech of yesterday:
full transcript on MSNBC
video on Crooks & Liars permanent link to this post
It is to our deep national shame—and ultimately it will be to the President’s deep personal regret—that he has followed his Secretary of Defense down the path of trying to tie those loyal Americans who disagree with his policies—or even question their effectiveness or execution—to the Nazis of the past, and the al Qaeda of the present.
Today, in the same subtle terms in which Mr. Bush and his colleagues muddied the clear line separating Iraq and 9/11 — without ever actually saying so—the President quoted a purported Osama Bin Laden letter that spoke of launching, “a media campaign to create a wedge between the American people and their government.”
Make no mistake here—the intent of that is to get us to confuse the psychotic scheming of an international terrorist, with that familiar bogeyman of the right, the “media.”
The President and the Vice President and others have often attacked freedom of speech, and freedom of dissent, and freedom of the press.
Now, Mr. Bush has signaled that his unparalleled and unprincipled attack on reporting has a new and venomous side angle:
The attempt to link, by the simple expediency of one word—“media”—the honest, patriotic, and indeed vital questions and questioning from American reporters, with the evil of Al-Qaeda propaganda.
That linkage is more than just indefensible. It is un-American.
full transcript on MSNBC
video on Crooks & Liars permanent link to this post
Sep 05, 2006
More moolah for artists
posted at 13:33 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
United States Artists is going to start dropping $50k on individual american artists as reported by the NYT. Nice.
permanent link to this post
Sep 04, 2006
McCoys first solo show in LA
posted at 14:40 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
If you’re in LA this coming Friday brings the opening of the McCoys first solo show in your city! It’s at Fringe Exhibitions:
For their first solo Los Angeles exhibition, the McCoys present two new works. Both pieces are inspired by the language and themes of childhood. In the upstairs gallery, their project Special Things explores a super-charged utopian childhood of cavorting lambs, romping youths, and chiffon rainbows. All of this is rendered sculpturally in fragments across sixteen small hanging sculptures. Each sculpture consists of a miniature scene, a small video camera, and a mirrored word layered across the front of the sculpture. On a nearby screen, images of the sixteen scenes and their words are rapidly intercut, creating new sentences and shifting meaning: “The children feel special today” or “You can smell the flowers”.permanent link to this post
In the downstairs gallery, the McCoys present Scary Things whose images come from simple elements of nature that can be frightening to children. This sculpture uses a similar technique of tiny cameras, sculptural miniatures, and acrylic text, but here the terrain is one integrated platform. Although the sculpture contains only ten words, hundreds of sentences are created, forming a reduced poetry of fear: “Dogs are fighting scary things” or “Lost birds are scary “.
Sep 02, 2006
Sol LeWitt on new materials
posted at 15:07 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Robbin Murphy reminds us of LeWitt’s warning…
I remember taking a photography class in college (I was a painter at the time). I liked it quite a bit and considered changing my focus. But I realized that I was infatuated with the tech, I knew that I would simply follow the tech down a hole. It was the non-tech of painting, I thought, that would help me focus on the ‘art.’
So it’s ironic to me that I ended up working as a new media artist for so long… perhaps this is why we feel part of the ‘new media ghetto.’ It’s a good thing that MTAA has M.River, who, on many levels, doesn’t give a shit about the tech.
M.River adds: Wow. I just found out interweb is not about “trucks”. It’s about “tubes”. Why doesn’t anyone tell me these things? Luckily the government is on top of all of this. permanent link to this post
New materials are one of the great afflictions of contemporary art. Some artists confuse new materials with new ideas. There is nothing worse than seeing art that wallows in gaudy baubles. By and large most artists who are attracted to these materials are the ones who lack the stringency of mind that would enable them to use the materials well. It takes a good artist to use new materials and make them into a work of art. The danger is, I think, in making the physicality of the materials so important that it becomes the idea of the work (another kind of expressionism).
Sol LeWitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art”
I remember taking a photography class in college (I was a painter at the time). I liked it quite a bit and considered changing my focus. But I realized that I was infatuated with the tech, I knew that I would simply follow the tech down a hole. It was the non-tech of painting, I thought, that would help me focus on the ‘art.’
So it’s ironic to me that I ended up working as a new media artist for so long… perhaps this is why we feel part of the ‘new media ghetto.’ It’s a good thing that MTAA has M.River, who, on many levels, doesn’t give a shit about the tech.
M.River adds: Wow. I just found out interweb is not about “trucks”. It’s about “tubes”. Why doesn’t anyone tell me these things? Luckily the government is on top of all of this. permanent link to this post
Aug 30, 2006
Schlock artist actually a con artist
posted at 01:26 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The LA Times writes..
The FBI is investigating allegations that self-styled “Painter of Light” Thomas Kinkade and some of his top executives fraudulently induced investors to open galleries and then ruined them financially, former dealers contacted by federal agents said.
[…]
“It was a program of lies and deception, predicated on Christian values that weren’t there,” said Joseph Ejbeh, the Michigan attorney who tried the arbitration case.
via Boing Boing
addednum:
My wife points out what the The Mercury News wrote about this affair:
Critics - including highbrow art aficionados, satirical bloggers and starving artists annoyed by Kinkade’s marketing success - snicker at his work.
And then asks…
My question is, which category are you in, honey? All three I suspect…. :-)
To which I reply, yes, except for the starving part of course! permanent link to this post
Aug 28, 2006
The Stuckists?
posted at 22:05 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Edward Winkleman blogged about Stuckism today.
I think I missed the joke. Reading the later comments on the post, it looks like it was a ‘movement’ started by Tracy Emin’s pissed-off ex-bf, Billy Childish.
It seems that perhaps it became a real ‘movement’ of not-so-talented painters and that’s when the one of the co-founders (Childish) left. This comment claims to be from the the other co-founder of the group, Charles Thomson.
Regardless of the sincerity of its inception, the painting examples linked from Ed’s blog post are all entirely horrible. Perhaps on purpose? (Who cares?)
You can go to the Stuckism web site (which has a marquee! Is it an ironic marquee? (Who cares?)), or read about it on Wikipedia. permanent link to this post
I think I missed the joke. Reading the later comments on the post, it looks like it was a ‘movement’ started by Tracy Emin’s pissed-off ex-bf, Billy Childish.
It seems that perhaps it became a real ‘movement’ of not-so-talented painters and that’s when the one of the co-founders (Childish) left. This comment claims to be from the the other co-founder of the group, Charles Thomson.
Regardless of the sincerity of its inception, the painting examples linked from Ed’s blog post are all entirely horrible. Perhaps on purpose? (Who cares?)
You can go to the Stuckism web site (which has a marquee! Is it an ironic marquee? (Who cares?)), or read about it on Wikipedia. permanent link to this post
Aug 23, 2006
Foie gras rebellion
posted at 14:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I love foie gras unapologetically. My wife and I dined on it almost every evening while in Paris on our honeymoon so it will always hold a special place in my heart.
It’s now officially illegal in Chicago to sell it. How stupid. The NYT reports on the foie gras rebellion taking place in the city!
Defying Law, a Foie Gras Feast in Chicago
m.river (the non-meat eating part of mtaa) adds: Get over it Tim and Chicago. It’s not good for you, animals and farming in general.
To which T.Whid retorts:
I didn’t say it was good for me, but it’s not like I eat pounds of it a day. It’s a delicacy that I eat, at most, 3-4 times a year. No one’s arguing it’s good for the ducks or geese. But eating an animals liver is never good for an animal. Factory farming is worse for the environment. Regardless, I’m against prohibitions on drugs, alcohol, cigarettes etc. Why would I be pro foie gras prohibitions?
More on foie gras at wikipiedia, including the controversy surrounding it. permanent link to this post
It’s now officially illegal in Chicago to sell it. How stupid. The NYT reports on the foie gras rebellion taking place in the city!
In one of the more unlikely (and opulent) demonstrations of civil disobedience, a handful of restaurants here that never carry foie gras, the fattened livers of ducks and geese, featured it on the very day that Chicago became the first city in the nation to outlaw sale of the delicacy.
Defying Law, a Foie Gras Feast in Chicago
m.river (the non-meat eating part of mtaa) adds: Get over it Tim and Chicago. It’s not good for you, animals and farming in general.
To which T.Whid retorts:
I didn’t say it was good for me, but it’s not like I eat pounds of it a day. It’s a delicacy that I eat, at most, 3-4 times a year. No one’s arguing it’s good for the ducks or geese. But eating an animals liver is never good for an animal. Factory farming is worse for the environment. Regardless, I’m against prohibitions on drugs, alcohol, cigarettes etc. Why would I be pro foie gras prohibitions?
More on foie gras at wikipiedia, including the controversy surrounding it. permanent link to this post
Aug 19, 2006
Gnarls Biggie
posted at 21:22 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Gnarls Biggie
by Sound Advice
…Gnarls Barkely mashed-up with Biggie Smalls
phat permanent link to this post
by Sound Advice
…Gnarls Barkely mashed-up with Biggie Smalls
phat permanent link to this post
Aug 16, 2006
New York Mag does Creative Capital
posted at 20:19 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
…with an article full of tired cliches.
Or perhaps they’re just trying to be funny?
Whatev.
Check it out… permanent link to this post
Or perhaps they’re just trying to be funny?
Whatev.
Check it out… permanent link to this post
The Times UK does new media
posted at 18:21 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
It’s sort of a weird article that seems to mostly diss new media. Check it out…
I’m proud to say that this…
…is something I’ve been saying for years. Except the ‘thought-provoking’ part. That’s bullshit.
Artists don’t need to be at the cutting edge of technology to be relevant. They need to be at the cutting edge of expression. Being steeped in digital culture gives new media artists access to new modes or angles of thinking and feeling. permanent link to this post
I’m proud to say that this…
So are artists at the cutting edge of new-media technology? No, says Charlie. One of the problems is that other stuff on the net is so much more mind-blowing. A site such as Google Earth is so much more awesome and thought-provoking than something an arty hacktivist can knock up on her PC.
…is something I’ve been saying for years. Except the ‘thought-provoking’ part. That’s bullshit.
Artists don’t need to be at the cutting edge of technology to be relevant. They need to be at the cutting edge of expression. Being steeped in digital culture gives new media artists access to new modes or angles of thinking and feeling. permanent link to this post
Aug 14, 2006
New media art shouldn’t suck
posted at 21:41 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
AFC has a good post today about the realities of new media artists crossing-over into the larger art world. Here’s the bit that should be common sense to new media artists (but often isn’t):
There are some new media artists who cross-over and make it look easy. Cory Arcangel and the McCoys come to mind. Arcangel succeeds by acting a bit like a ethnographer who travels into hacker culture and exports the bits that make sense to the art world. The McCoys succeed by addressing the older tradition of film and not letting themselves geek-out when addressing the art world.
MTAA recently had our worst fears realized when speaking to some traditional art world types about a new piece we’re developing with RSG. We were told bluntly that phrases like ‘peer-to-peer’ and ‘file-sharing’ are jargon and the art world doesn’t give a shit about them anyway. At first, I was defiant. These file-sharing networks are part of the subject of the piece, I told the art world pro. It’s like saying you don’t like apples so you don’t like paintings of apples. It’s just not your subject.
But then we realized, with some help from the art world pro (who’s remaining nameless but was very sharp and helpful), that we were failing to communicate what is interesting about our subject. (At least our 7 minute presentation about the project didn’t communicate it.) What we find interesting and exciting culturally about this technology needs to be expressed to folks in the present that may be ignorant of it or fail to understand it. We also need to communicate to people in the future that may have no idea what happened in the late 90s / early 00s.
MTAA has been wanting to move into the gallery for quite some time now. In order to do so, we’ll need to start thinking that our audience is completely ignorant of digital culture. We can’t expect them to be geeks that are excited about a good hack. We’ll need to communicate our emotion, interest and excitement. We can’t expect them to share it until we communicate every bit of it.
I can’t believe it took me so long to realize this… permanent link to this post
Unlike many professions, there are a great number of people within the art world who could give a shit about the Internet. […] This sort of thing can create problems for artists who are making work in the medium because the people who understand it best are often the sixteen year nerds [sic] who spend 18 hours a day in front of a computer, as opposed to art world professionals who are responsible for the evaluation of art.
There are some new media artists who cross-over and make it look easy. Cory Arcangel and the McCoys come to mind. Arcangel succeeds by acting a bit like a ethnographer who travels into hacker culture and exports the bits that make sense to the art world. The McCoys succeed by addressing the older tradition of film and not letting themselves geek-out when addressing the art world.
MTAA recently had our worst fears realized when speaking to some traditional art world types about a new piece we’re developing with RSG. We were told bluntly that phrases like ‘peer-to-peer’ and ‘file-sharing’ are jargon and the art world doesn’t give a shit about them anyway. At first, I was defiant. These file-sharing networks are part of the subject of the piece, I told the art world pro. It’s like saying you don’t like apples so you don’t like paintings of apples. It’s just not your subject.
But then we realized, with some help from the art world pro (who’s remaining nameless but was very sharp and helpful), that we were failing to communicate what is interesting about our subject. (At least our 7 minute presentation about the project didn’t communicate it.) What we find interesting and exciting culturally about this technology needs to be expressed to folks in the present that may be ignorant of it or fail to understand it. We also need to communicate to people in the future that may have no idea what happened in the late 90s / early 00s.
MTAA has been wanting to move into the gallery for quite some time now. In order to do so, we’ll need to start thinking that our audience is completely ignorant of digital culture. We can’t expect them to be geeks that are excited about a good hack. We’ll need to communicate our emotion, interest and excitement. We can’t expect them to share it until we communicate every bit of it.
I can’t believe it took me so long to realize this… permanent link to this post
Jul 31, 2006
MTAA’s Limited Edition Business Card #1
posted at 13:59 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA needs to get professional. To that end, we made some business cards. These just aren’t any business cards however. They’re a limited edition print — signed and numbered on the back.
How can you get a free limited edition business card print from MTAA? You must meet us in person and give us some reason to think that you can help us professionally.
This is the first in a series. permanent link to this post
How can you get a free limited edition business card print from MTAA? You must meet us in person and give us some reason to think that you can help us professionally.
This is the first in a series. permanent link to this post
Jul 30, 2006
The dot.com burst and the net art fizzle
posted at 14:17 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
There’s been discussion on Rhizome about whether or not Rhizome is covering net art well enough. This discussion led into a debate on the robustness of net art. Amongst this discussion, there has been several assertions made that the dot.com bust poured cold water on the movement but I wanted to look at it a little more closely.
As some of you know, M.River and I were very much involved with the net art movement from 97 onward. I was also working within the dot.com bubble at the time and was very attuned to its movements.
I remember knowing there was trouble with the bubble in mid-‘00. Then, by late 00/early 01, it was obvious to everyone that the burst had happened. (See this graph of the nasdaq.)
I was out of work in early/mid 00 and it was super-easy to get a dot.com gig at the time due to the fact that the forward momentum of companies isn’t as easily stopped as the rise of their stock price.
Remembering the crash, I was thinking at the time that it would throw cold water on the net art movement and thinking that it didn’t seem to be happening.
Probably due to the fact that museums and art institutions are even slower-moving than businesses, it took a good year or two after the dot.com burst for the net art fad to fizzle in the art institutions. Not to say that the dot.com collapse didn’t help cause it, but it took a while for it to be felt.
m.river adds:
I’ve always thought that the linking of the dot.com boom/bust and the art world’s early interest and then abandonment of net art is a red herring. I feel something else was in play. A clue may be found in the recent championing of art works and artist that use the net as a reference or source but do not use the net as the primary site of the work. permanent link to this post
As some of you know, M.River and I were very much involved with the net art movement from 97 onward. I was also working within the dot.com bubble at the time and was very attuned to its movements.
I remember knowing there was trouble with the bubble in mid-‘00. Then, by late 00/early 01, it was obvious to everyone that the burst had happened. (See this graph of the nasdaq.)
I was out of work in early/mid 00 and it was super-easy to get a dot.com gig at the time due to the fact that the forward momentum of companies isn’t as easily stopped as the rise of their stock price.
Remembering the crash, I was thinking at the time that it would throw cold water on the net art movement and thinking that it didn’t seem to be happening.
Probably due to the fact that museums and art institutions are even slower-moving than businesses, it took a good year or two after the dot.com burst for the net art fad to fizzle in the art institutions. Not to say that the dot.com collapse didn’t help cause it, but it took a while for it to be felt.
m.river adds:
I’ve always thought that the linking of the dot.com boom/bust and the art world’s early interest and then abandonment of net art is a red herring. I feel something else was in play. A clue may be found in the recent championing of art works and artist that use the net as a reference or source but do not use the net as the primary site of the work. permanent link to this post
Jul 26, 2006
The Warriors free screening
posted at 22:09 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
OK, I know this is total corporate PR bullshit…
But! The Warriors! AT CONEY ISLAND!
Wish I was in town :-(
All details here (Netflix promo FYI). permanent link to this post
But! The Warriors! AT CONEY ISLAND!
Wish I was in town :-(
All details here (Netflix promo FYI). permanent link to this post
Artkrush does digital art
posted at 18:27 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
There’s a bunch of new media stuff in the current issue of Artkrush (issue 37):
An interview with Lauren Cornell, Executive Director or Rhizome.org (in which your humble net artists MTAA are mentioned)
A profile of Cory Arcangel
A review of Jon Ippolito and Joline Blais’ book “At the Edge of Art”
And more! Check it out… permanent link to this post
An interview with Lauren Cornell, Executive Director or Rhizome.org (in which your humble net artists MTAA are mentioned)
A profile of Cory Arcangel
A review of Jon Ippolito and Joline Blais’ book “At the Edge of Art”
And more! Check it out… permanent link to this post
Jul 19, 2006
Some cools things recently found
posted at 15:36 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
i use this
A Digg-like site similar to MacUpdate or VersionTracker; find the software you need.
freenigma
A Firefox extension to easily and freely encrypt email sent via popular web mail services like Gmail. It’s in beta so you need to wait for an invite once you sign up, I’m still waiting…
American King
A cool new videoblog documentary
Goatse Polo
I want one!
plus
A great Rocketboom today
An interview with David Cronenberg on the opening of his curatorial effort, “Andy Warhol/Supernova: Stars, Deaths and Disasters, 1962-1964” at the Art Gallery of Ontario. permanent link to this post
A Digg-like site similar to MacUpdate or VersionTracker; find the software you need.
freenigma
A Firefox extension to easily and freely encrypt email sent via popular web mail services like Gmail. It’s in beta so you need to wait for an invite once you sign up, I’m still waiting…
American King
A cool new videoblog documentary
Goatse Polo
I want one!
plus
A great Rocketboom today
An interview with David Cronenberg on the opening of his curatorial effort, “Andy Warhol/Supernova: Stars, Deaths and Disasters, 1962-1964” at the Art Gallery of Ontario. permanent link to this post
Jul 16, 2006
A short interview with RSG about LCL
posted at 19:05 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
(via IM)
MTAA: why is it ‘liberated’?
RSG: politically liberated
MTAA: how so?
MTAA: (this is an interview for the blog now)
RSG: lol RSG doesn’t do interviews :-)
MTAA: too late
(a few minutes pass)
MTAA: ok.. i guess i’ll have to print that…
RSG: haha
Check out Notes for a Liberated Computer Language… permanent link to this post
MTAA: why is it ‘liberated’?
RSG: politically liberated
MTAA: how so?
MTAA: (this is an interview for the blog now)
RSG: lol RSG doesn’t do interviews :-)
MTAA: too late
(a few minutes pass)
MTAA: ok.. i guess i’ll have to print that…
RSG: haha
Check out Notes for a Liberated Computer Language… permanent link to this post
Notes for a Liberated Computer Language
posted at 19:05 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
New from RSG: Notes for a Liberated Computer Language
From the Control Structures section:
Check it out… permanent link to this post
From the Control Structures section:
Historic
Executes a code block by evaluating an entity according to its current value as well as all previous values.
Exceptional
Designates an abnormal flow of program execution and guarantees that it will never be handled as an error.
Flee
A branching construct that moves flow control from the current instruction to a stray position in the program.
Maybe
Allows for possible, but not guaranteed, execution of code blocks.
Never
Guarantees that a block of code will never be executed. This is similar to block quotes in other languages, except that “never” blocks are not removed during compilation.
Potential
Evaluates an entity only according to as yet unrealized possibility.
Check it out… permanent link to this post
Jul 11, 2006
Designers diss Bush
posted at 15:36 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Rock on!
Because the Awards program was originally conceived as an official project of the White House Millennium Council, the First Lady serves as the honorary chair of the gala at which the winners are celebrated. She also traditionally hosts a breakfast at the White House to which all the nominees and winners are invited. That breakfast was today.permanent link to this post
This year, however, five Communication Design honorees decided to decline the invitation. They wrote a letter to Laura Bush explaining why.
Jul 10, 2006
MTAA’s gallery reception desk intervention series
posted at 23:50 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Well, that’s not the actual title of the actual series… or perhaps there is no series? It seems to be more of a pattern. Eh.. what am I babbling about? Oh yeah! Our new piece (that M.River conceived, and today, built at Aljira in Newark as our submission for E7: Aljira Emerge 7 Exhibition (more here)) is pictured below.
3’ High and Rising, Newark
Wood platform, gallery reception desk
2006, MTAA
(Note: this is just a quick pic that M.River took after completing the installation, better documentary photos coming later this month…)
We’ve done this sort of thing in the past when invited into galleries. (Silly gallerists, don’t you know you shouldn’t invite filthy net artists into your pristine white walls?).
Prior gallery reception desk interventions include:
In Preparation For The Over-Running Of White Columns By Hordes of Bloodthirsty Barbarians (AKA Bunker Flood) (In which, we walled in the reception desk of White Columns with cinder blocks and sandbags.)
~and~
In Preparation For An Attack By Mobs Of Hideously Deformed Radioctive Mutants On 31 Grand (AKA Cage Match) (In which, we caged in the reception desk of 31 Grand with chain link.)
The opening for “E7: Aljira Emerge 7 Exhibition” is Thursday July 20 from 5:30 - 8:30 PM at Aljira’s space in Newark. permanent link to this post
3’ High and Rising, Newark
Wood platform, gallery reception desk
2006, MTAA
(Note: this is just a quick pic that M.River took after completing the installation, better documentary photos coming later this month…)
We’ve done this sort of thing in the past when invited into galleries. (Silly gallerists, don’t you know you shouldn’t invite filthy net artists into your pristine white walls?).
Prior gallery reception desk interventions include:
In Preparation For The Over-Running Of White Columns By Hordes of Bloodthirsty Barbarians (AKA Bunker Flood) (In which, we walled in the reception desk of White Columns with cinder blocks and sandbags.)
~and~
In Preparation For An Attack By Mobs Of Hideously Deformed Radioctive Mutants On 31 Grand (AKA Cage Match) (In which, we caged in the reception desk of 31 Grand with chain link.)
The opening for “E7: Aljira Emerge 7 Exhibition” is Thursday July 20 from 5:30 - 8:30 PM at Aljira’s space in Newark. permanent link to this post
Jul 08, 2006
Some MTAA exhibition news
posted at 18:12 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We have a few things coming up exhibition-wise…
July 20th, 2006 - September 30th, 2006
E7: Aljira Emerge 7 Exhibition
opening reception: Thursday, July 20, 5:30-8:30PM at Aljira in Newark, NJ.
This is a big group show of a bunch of artists (see link above for a full list of artists) that have taken part in Aljira’s Emerge professional development program.
+++
Split Film Festival
It looks like we’re also be included in the Split Film Festival in Split, Croatia. Unfortunately they don’t have a travel budget so it looks like we won’t be able to attend :-( We’ll be showing 1 Year Performance Video. permanent link to this post
July 20th, 2006 - September 30th, 2006
E7: Aljira Emerge 7 Exhibition
opening reception: Thursday, July 20, 5:30-8:30PM at Aljira in Newark, NJ.
This is a big group show of a bunch of artists (see link above for a full list of artists) that have taken part in Aljira’s Emerge professional development program.
+++
Split Film Festival
It looks like we’re also be included in the Split Film Festival in Split, Croatia. Unfortunately they don’t have a travel budget so it looks like we won’t be able to attend :-( We’ll be showing 1 Year Performance Video. permanent link to this post
Jun 30, 2006
2006 - 2007 Rhizome net art commissions announced
posted at 20:52 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The new Rhizome net art commissions for 2006 - 2007 were announced today.
Go to Rhizome to check out the project descriptions and artist bios.
Congrats to everybody!
As an aside, MTAA’s To Be Listened To… was a 2005 - 2006 Rhizome net art commission. permanent link to this post
Rhizome is pleased to announce that eleven international artists/groups have been awarded commissions to assist them in creating original works of Internet-based art. Each commission will range from $2500 — $1000. The selected artists are Annie Abrahams and Igor Stromajer, Nadia Anderson and Fritz Donnelly, Adam Brown and Andrew Fagg, Corey Jackson and Aaron Meyers, Zach Lieberman, Michael Mandiberg, the Institute for Applied Autonomy and Trevor Paglen, Evan Roth and Ben Engebre, SLOWLab (Carolyn Strauss and Julian Bleecker), Marek Walczak and Martin Wattenberg and YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES.
Go to Rhizome to check out the project descriptions and artist bios.
Congrats to everybody!
As an aside, MTAA’s To Be Listened To… was a 2005 - 2006 Rhizome net art commission. permanent link to this post
Jun 29, 2006
Jill Greenberg’s End Times series
posted at 01:12 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
image © Jill Greenberg
See more at Paul Kopeikin Gallery web site…
There is a bit of controversy on-line regarding the End Times series of photographs by Jill Greenberg. The photographs depict a series of children in differing stages of frustration and rage. It’s basically a bunch of toddlers screaming and crying. Thomas Hawk has gone so far as to call for her arrest on child abuse charges.
The use of a child in any media endeavor (film, tv, theater, art installations, child beauty pageants, etc) is exploitative. Obviously, a young child can’t make an informed decision as to their participation in a particular enterprise so they are all being ‘used’ to some degree.
The question of whether or not the children in Jill Greenberg’s photos are being exploited is simple. Yes they are. But why does Thomas Hawk see this as any worse than the thousands children being exploited everyday in our media? Why does he perceive child abuse in these photographs?
My answer is that the power of the photos overwhelms him; he’s a naive viewer. He sees compelling photos of distressed children and can’t separate the fiction of the photo from the reality of its making.
Hawk is simply a fool. He has no idea what went on in Greenberg’s studio, but that doesn’t stop him from screeching “child abuse” as loud as he’s able. He has no facts, he only has the photos — a fiction — but he recklessly calls for the artist’s arrest. It’s inexcusable. In fact, according to Greenberg’s husband (Hawk posted a comment from him at the bottom of this post), the children were made to cry by having lollipops taken away from them. If that’s child abuse we’ll need to lock up 99% of the parents in this country. Greenberg’s husband goes on to say that this is the industry standard method of getting kids to cry on camera. I have no idea, having no experience and the source of this info is obviously tainted.
This is the part of the post where I’m a dick. I’m trying to figure out why Hawk went ballistic regarding Greenberg, when this sort of thing goes on daily in the media industry. My guess is that he’s jealous. He’s an amateur and not very talented photographer whereas Greenberg is a very successful and enormously talented commercial and fine art photographer. Her End Times photos are incredibly well crafted, beautiful and powerful, whereas his answering photo is trite and cliche.
Note: In the time it took me to start and finish this post (a span of a few days), Jill Greenberg and her husband have done a few not-so-nice things to try to shut Thomas Hawk up. They should have kept the moral high-ground, but they decided to try some bully tactics. Their actions are inexcusable. But Hawk’s a self-rightous fool so I guess it evens out. permanent link to this post
Jun 28, 2006
Will MTAA ever post again?
posted at 13:57 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
That is the burning question… will MTAA ever post to this blog ever again?
The answer: probably.
In the meantime, read this: Raising the Reblog Bar (AFC).
I’m writing a slightly longer post regarding this controversy, but haven’t finished it yet. permanent link to this post
The answer: probably.
In the meantime, read this: Raising the Reblog Bar (AFC).
I’m writing a slightly longer post regarding this controversy, but haven’t finished it yet. permanent link to this post
Jun 18, 2006
I want video angels
posted at 13:55 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Back to Ubuntu
posted at 13:49 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Long, long ago (unsure when; the dates got messed up on this blog) I tried to get into Linux with the Ubuntu flavor. It seemed to work OK for a while, but it eventually failed to boot and I got sick of re-installing it, so I finally gave up on it.
Yesterday, I installed Parallels on my Macbook Pro. Parallels allows you to run different OSs simultaneously. I didn’t have a copy of Windows, so I downloaded Ubuntu and installed it as a ‘guest os.’
Ubuntu has come a long way (I installed 6.06). The installer is easy and user-friendly. It’s basically a liveCD that, once booted, has a one-click installer on the desktop.
According to Parallels, Ubuntu isn’t officially supported, but it works wonderfully. There are some complaints on the forum that folks can’t get it to use the airport card, but it automatically bridged my airport connection and I was on-line with no configuration. There’s also issues with running it at a higher resolution than 1024x768. That’s the default resolution I’m getting, but I haven’t looked into that issue yet.
What am I going to do with it? I’m not sure. I’m also not sure I want to shell out the 50USD for Parallels. Installing Windows on Parallels would be more practical for me (obviously) and may make it worth the 50 bones. Plus, how cool would it be to be a triple-threat: OS X, Linux and Windows all on the same hardware, at the same time! I think I’ll attempt a Vista install, stay tuned. permanent link to this post
Yesterday, I installed Parallels on my Macbook Pro. Parallels allows you to run different OSs simultaneously. I didn’t have a copy of Windows, so I downloaded Ubuntu and installed it as a ‘guest os.’
Ubuntu has come a long way (I installed 6.06). The installer is easy and user-friendly. It’s basically a liveCD that, once booted, has a one-click installer on the desktop.
According to Parallels, Ubuntu isn’t officially supported, but it works wonderfully. There are some complaints on the forum that folks can’t get it to use the airport card, but it automatically bridged my airport connection and I was on-line with no configuration. There’s also issues with running it at a higher resolution than 1024x768. That’s the default resolution I’m getting, but I haven’t looked into that issue yet.
What am I going to do with it? I’m not sure. I’m also not sure I want to shell out the 50USD for Parallels. Installing Windows on Parallels would be more practical for me (obviously) and may make it worth the 50 bones. Plus, how cool would it be to be a triple-threat: OS X, Linux and Windows all on the same hardware, at the same time! I think I’ll attempt a Vista install, stay tuned. permanent link to this post
Jun 16, 2006
The Fair Use Network
posted at 19:06 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A new on-line resource from the Free Expression Policy Project at the Brennen Center of Justice at NYU School of Law, The Fair Use Network introduces itself thusly:
The site contains what it terms “basic legal guides” on copyright, fair use of copyrighted works, trademark and more. I’m assuming this all pertains to US law, but I haven’t looked the site over extensively.
The Fair Use Network, check it out… permanent link to this post
How much can you borrow, quote or copy from someone else’s work? What happens if you get a “cease and desist” letter from a copyright owner? These and many other questions make “intellectual property,” or “IP,” law, a mass of confusion for artists, scholars, journalists, bloggers, and everyone else who contributes to culture and political debate.
The Fair Use Network was created because of the many questions that artists, writers, and others have about “IP” issues. Whether you are trying to understand your own copyright or trademark rights, or are a “user” of materials created by others, the information here will help you understand the system — and especially its free-expression safeguards.
If you have received a “cease and desist” letter from a copyright or trademark owner, or a notice from your Internet service provider about a “takedown” letter, you’ll also find useful information on this site.
The site contains what it terms “basic legal guides” on copyright, fair use of copyrighted works, trademark and more. I’m assuming this all pertains to US law, but I haven’t looked the site over extensively.
The Fair Use Network, check it out… permanent link to this post
Jun 14, 2006
Let’s get to Home Depot — quick!
posted at 21:15 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Last week, a contractor bought a bathroom vanity at a Massachusetts Home Depot and discovered two 50-pound “bricks” of grass inside. Elsewhere in the state, a plumber purchased a similar product at an unnamed “hardware store” and opened it to find 40 pounds of weed plus 3 kilograms of cocaine. Police and DEA officials have swept a dozen Home Depots in the state and found other loaded vanities.
via Boing Boing… permanent link to this post
Jun 12, 2006
Vote for Bill
posted at 19:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA’s friend Bill Hallinan directed a music video for the musician Maggie Kim. It’s in competition to launch on MTV’s new Korean-American channel: MTV-K. Follow the instructions below to help his video be released on MTV. Watch the video too; it’s really good.
Please go to www.mtvk.com and vote for Maggie Kim’s video for “Obvious (Want You)”.permanent link to this post
Don’t vote for Yeah Yeah Yeahs, because they get ALL the candy. They don’t need any more candy. Let someone else have some candy for a change. Let that someone be Maggie Kim.
So, please vote, and help re-distribute the candy.
AFC: Geeks in the Gallery
posted at 16:08 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
“Geeks in the Gallery” is a three part discussion with artists Michael Bell-Smith and Tom Moody, which will run on Art Fag City from Monday June 12 – Wednesday, June 14, 2006. A recurring theme of the talk is how technology informs artistic production, as both artists have individually exhibited work usually described as New Media, yet also seem somewhat skeptical of “tech art.”
Check it out…
Discussion at Moody’s blog… permanent link to this post
Want shoot pix on tintype
posted at 14:15 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Some of you may know that MTAA is collaborating with RSG on a networked video installation with the working title “Want.”
This weekend we did the video shoot at a studio in Williamsburg and M.River has posted some pix on his Tintype photo blog.
Check it out…
Big thanks to Bill Hallinan, Margaret Jameson and Sarah Hendrick, our professional and talented crew :-) permanent link to this post
This weekend we did the video shoot at a studio in Williamsburg and M.River has posted some pix on his Tintype photo blog.
Check it out…
Big thanks to Bill Hallinan, Margaret Jameson and Sarah Hendrick, our professional and talented crew :-) permanent link to this post
Jun 08, 2006
I want…
posted at 16:06 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
i want forever
i want the full version
i want company
i want michelle marsh
i want amateurs
i want jennifer lopez
i want bibcams
i want taylor hicks
i want robbie williams
i want old school
i want people
i want a special edition
i want perfection
i want 640x480
i want love
i want the original
i want the french
i want donkey kong country
i want robert kiyosaki
i want greatest hits
i want christmas
(a random sample from the shared script) permanent link to this post
i want the full version
i want company
i want michelle marsh
i want amateurs
i want jennifer lopez
i want bibcams
i want taylor hicks
i want robbie williams
i want old school
i want people
i want a special edition
i want perfection
i want 640x480
i want love
i want the original
i want the french
i want donkey kong country
i want robert kiyosaki
i want greatest hits
i want christmas
(a random sample from the shared script) permanent link to this post
Jun 06, 2006
6-6-6
posted at 15:57 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
6/6/6
Satan’s tuesday MUTHAF*CKERS!
(Sorry to knock M’s post down, but I had to do it.) permanent link to this post
Satan’s tuesday MUTHAF*CKERS!
(Sorry to knock M’s post down, but I had to do it.) permanent link to this post
Jun 04, 2006
Interview with Paul Johnson
posted at 12:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Paul Johnson interviewed by Jonah Brucker-Cohen. One of my favorite artists interviewed by one of my other favorite artists.
Check it out… permanent link to this post
In the generic “plastic brick” design world of game console hardware, the passive player is usually subjected to standardized devices that they may choose to augment with their own “case mods”. Although extremely creative, most of these modifications are embellishments that have no connection to the games themselves. Exploring this contextual rift between mass-produced consoles and their software counterparts is Brooklyn, NY based artist, Paul Johnson. Johnson creates work that challenges traditional console forms by integrating the goals and virtual landscapes of games into the physical realization of the hardware. His projects examine the inherent conflicts between constructed systems and their emotional proclivity. Gizmodo spoke to Johnson about the future of gaming, interactivity, and why the physical design of consoles should be closer tied to the games that they support.
Check it out… permanent link to this post
Jun 03, 2006
Brokeback Mountain & the same-sex marriage ban
posted at 14:53 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
My wife and I watched Brokeback Mountain last night and it was a really great flick. We were both kicking ourselves that we didn’t see it in the theater. The beautiful shots of the western landscape would have been so much more impressive on the big screen, but then we realized that we probably wouldn’t want to by sobbing in public at the end of the movie.
Brokeback doesn’t go for cheap sobs however (you can imagine what lesser filmmakers could have done with it). It goes for the real heartbreak; the “I’ve wasted my life because of fear and bigotry and now there’s nothing I can do about it” kind of despair and tragedy.
Which brings me to the recent news that Bush “is beginning a major push for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage” (NYT). Some discount it as just a cynical political ploy that won’t be passed and it is. But just the talk of it leads to the stigmatization of homosexuals.
Most of the christian right in the USA wraps their homophobia in “hate the sin, not the sinner” claptrap. I’m sure the backers of the same-sex marriage ban will bend over backwards to pretend that they don’t wish to persecute gays, just defend marriage. Even many on the center left (like Kerry) don’t want to use the marriage word, but will endorse civil unions which carry all the rights and responsibilities of marriage except for the crucial semantics. This is all complete and utter bullshit.
Unless you endorse complete freedom for gays and lesbians to marry you add to the persecution of a minority. Even when you endorse civil unions, what you’re saying is “You’re different. You need to be treated differently. You’re not a complete and equal member of this society.” And that, to put it simply, is bigotry, institutionalized bigotry, the sort of bigotry that can lead to an empty and broken life as depicted in Brokeback Mountain.
Signing off (as M.River likes to say) as just another straight white man for gay marriage. permanent link to this post
Brokeback doesn’t go for cheap sobs however (you can imagine what lesser filmmakers could have done with it). It goes for the real heartbreak; the “I’ve wasted my life because of fear and bigotry and now there’s nothing I can do about it” kind of despair and tragedy.
Which brings me to the recent news that Bush “is beginning a major push for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage” (NYT). Some discount it as just a cynical political ploy that won’t be passed and it is. But just the talk of it leads to the stigmatization of homosexuals.
Most of the christian right in the USA wraps their homophobia in “hate the sin, not the sinner” claptrap. I’m sure the backers of the same-sex marriage ban will bend over backwards to pretend that they don’t wish to persecute gays, just defend marriage. Even many on the center left (like Kerry) don’t want to use the marriage word, but will endorse civil unions which carry all the rights and responsibilities of marriage except for the crucial semantics. This is all complete and utter bullshit.
Unless you endorse complete freedom for gays and lesbians to marry you add to the persecution of a minority. Even when you endorse civil unions, what you’re saying is “You’re different. You need to be treated differently. You’re not a complete and equal member of this society.” And that, to put it simply, is bigotry, institutionalized bigotry, the sort of bigotry that can lead to an empty and broken life as depicted in Brokeback Mountain.
Signing off (as M.River likes to say) as just another straight white man for gay marriage. permanent link to this post
Jun 01, 2006
Lee Walton in Belgium
posted at 13:34 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
check it out…
From what I can gather, there will be postcards and some low-key, almost invisible, art situations in the true better-look-now-or-you’ll-miss-the-art-or-perhaps-you-
just-need-to-look-very-closely Lee Walton style.
There’s a PDF (6.8MB) that sort of explains things. permanent link to this post
From what I can gather, there will be postcards and some low-key, almost invisible, art situations in the true better-look-now-or-you’ll-miss-the-art-or-perhaps-you-
just-need-to-look-very-closely Lee Walton style.
There’s a PDF (6.8MB) that sort of explains things. permanent link to this post
May 31, 2006
Taschen’s “New Media Art” @ NuMu with Rhiz too
posted at 18:58 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Meet the trailblazers of the online collaborative revolution.
Taschen’s “New Media Art: Art in the Age of Digital Communication” is a history of net art movement written by one of its grand poobahs, Mark Tribe along with Reena Jana, Wired reporter and one of the first witnesses (and reporters) of this digital revolution.
Hosted by: Rhizome.org and the New Museum Store
Location: The New Museum of Contemporary Art
556 W 22nd Street at 11th Ave, NY, NY
When: Friday, June 2, 6:30pm to 8:30pm
via: dailygotham
And, yeah, we is in it :-)
update: M.River took a little pic. permanent link to this post
May 27, 2006
AIOTD: abandonedcomputers
posted at 12:59 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
(If you’re new to the MTAA-RR, AIOTD = Art Idea Of The Day.)
The other day I saw a great still life of an abandoned computer, desk and monitor. The entire set-up was sitting on the sidewalk in the west village. I suppose it was a beige box at one point, but all the plastic (and even the formica desk) had become a sickly yellow color with light tan blotches. It’s hard to describe, but it was amazing and I was kicking myself for not having a camera.
Then, a day or two later, I saw another little set-up on the sidewalk in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. This one was different, a later model that was still a nice chalky light grey. The cheap box had a little blue accent on the front which perfectly matched the little blue VGA connector on the monitor. Again, no camera.
So I thought, “Hey! wouldn’t it be cool if someone created a series of photos of abandoned computers?”
Then I thought, “Hey! Fuck that. This is a networked culture! Wouldn’t it be cool if someone created a web site where anyone could post photos of abandoned computers?” Maybe I, being a net artist, could do that?
But then I thought, “Damn, that would be a lot of work to build a web site for people to upload photos when there’s already Flickr! All we need to do is get the idea out there that people should post photos of abandoned computers on Flickr and tag them: abandonedcomputers.
So. Go do that. Presently there is nothing there.
update
From Marisa: something similar… permanent link to this post
The other day I saw a great still life of an abandoned computer, desk and monitor. The entire set-up was sitting on the sidewalk in the west village. I suppose it was a beige box at one point, but all the plastic (and even the formica desk) had become a sickly yellow color with light tan blotches. It’s hard to describe, but it was amazing and I was kicking myself for not having a camera.
Then, a day or two later, I saw another little set-up on the sidewalk in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. This one was different, a later model that was still a nice chalky light grey. The cheap box had a little blue accent on the front which perfectly matched the little blue VGA connector on the monitor. Again, no camera.
So I thought, “Hey! wouldn’t it be cool if someone created a series of photos of abandoned computers?”
Then I thought, “Hey! Fuck that. This is a networked culture! Wouldn’t it be cool if someone created a web site where anyone could post photos of abandoned computers?” Maybe I, being a net artist, could do that?
But then I thought, “Damn, that would be a lot of work to build a web site for people to upload photos when there’s already Flickr! All we need to do is get the idea out there that people should post photos of abandoned computers on Flickr and tag them: abandonedcomputers.
So. Go do that. Presently there is nothing there.
update
From Marisa: something similar… permanent link to this post
May 25, 2006
Two on NYFA
posted at 14:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Discourse Is a Weapon: a Legacy Continues by Paddy Johnson (Art Fag City).
and Hey! GH has some Rants & Raves:
The history of most artistic disciplines is full of figures that fulfilled several roles at once, often out of necessity. When mediums or concepts are new and inaccessible to the writers, curators, and producers who can help solidify and critically frame a discipline, it’s often left to the artist to explain the new thing. Here, Paddy Johnson surveys various New Media artists who, faced with chronic lack of institutional recognition, have proactively shaped the discourse around their medium through writing and curatorial work.
and Hey! GH has some Rants & Raves:
G.H. Hovagimyan is a New York-based artist, one of the first to begin experimenting with digital and online work in the early ’90s. He has curated and participated in shows since the early ’70s and his practice has encompassed poetic manifestoes, “faux conceptual art,” and a notorious 1994 public billboard commissioned by Creative Time titled Hey Bozo, Use Mass Transit, among many other projects. The co-creator (with Peter Sinclair) of the “techno-driven word jam” Rant/Rant Back/Back Rant, it seemed clear that Hovagimyan would be a natural ranter and raver.permanent link to this post
May 24, 2006
And even more random bits
posted at 14:33 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
del.icio.us network
I just discovered the network feature in del.icio.us. Add me to your del.icio.us network if you want lots of links to js news and tutorials, php news and tutorials, web video, net art and other crap.
If you maintain del.icio.us bookmarks, let me know and I’ll add you to my network :-)
Michael Bell-Smith
MBS has a show up at Foxy Production (ends May 27 extended through June 3 (thx Barry)) and he’s had a review of it in the NYT. Congrats! Read Tom Moody’s take on it.
The GIF Show
A very belated link. oops.
I just discovered the network feature in del.icio.us. Add me to your del.icio.us network if you want lots of links to js news and tutorials, php news and tutorials, web video, net art and other crap.
If you maintain del.icio.us bookmarks, let me know and I’ll add you to my network :-)
Michael Bell-Smith
MBS has a show up at Foxy Production (
The GIF Show
A very belated link. oops.
The GIF Show, an exhibition opening May 3rd, at San Francisco’s Rx Gallery, takes the pulse of what some net surfers call ‘GIF Luv,’ a recent frenzy of file-sharing and creative muscle-flexing associated with GIFs (Graphic Interchange Format files).permanent link to this post
May 17, 2006
Cork’d
posted at 22:02 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Sweet (or dry, depending on your taste): Cork’d!
According to their propaganda:
Check it out… permanent link to this post
According to their propaganda:
The simple way to review and share wine.
Cork’d is making life easier for wine aficionados. And it’s completely free. Become a member today and …
* Catalog, rate, and review wines in your Wine Journal.
* Find out what your buddies are tasting.
* Discover and keep track of new wines you’d like to buy and try.
Check it out… permanent link to this post
Free screen capture utility
posted at 00:20 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
A good and FREE (while it lasts) alternative to Snapz Pro:
iShowU by shinywhitebox
check it out… (1.2MB DMG; software is Mac OS X 10.4 only) permanent link to this post
iShowU by shinywhitebox
check it out… (1.2MB DMG; software is Mac OS X 10.4 only) permanent link to this post
May 15, 2006
Marc Garrett interview on Art Dirt Redux
posted at 20:40 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
G.H. Hovagimyan interviews Marc Garrett of Furtherfield fame via an ultra-cool (and cheap) Skypecast.
Check it out…
direct link to the MP3… (30 min; 22MB)
update
Part 2 of the interview posted (MP3 link, 24.1MB) permanent link to this post
Check it out…
direct link to the MP3… (30 min; 22MB)
update
Part 2 of the interview posted (MP3 link, 24.1MB) permanent link to this post
May 13, 2006
Americans = 41% sheep
posted at 22:22 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
This poll is really sad. Technically, a ‘majority’ do indeed disapprove, but I guess I have a higher standard for the American people. Of course, it doesn’t matter if 99% approve of this illegal program, it’s still a criminal infringement of people’s privacy — or so says the US Constitution.
Has the Bush administration gone too far in expanding the powers of the President to fight terrorism? Yes, say a majority of Americans, following this week’s revelation that the National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone records of U.S. citizens since the September 11 terrorist attacks. According to the latest NEWSWEEK poll, 53 percent of Americans think the NSA’s surveillance program “goes too far in invading people’s privacy,” while 41 percent see it as a necessary tool to combat terrorism.permanent link to this post
May 10, 2006
Brooklyn College bullshit
posted at 01:51 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Most of the folks that read this blog are probably already familiar with the Brooklyn College fine art MFA exhibition being closed by the NYC Parks Dept. You can read all about it at the student’s web site, Plan C(ensored) (warning: the trolls are a real piece of work).
I just need to go on the record: what is happening is completely outrageous, disrespectful and disgusting. Argh! James Wagner says it better than me: Brooklyn College: the assault of the philistines continues. permanent link to this post
I just need to go on the record: what is happening is completely outrageous, disrespectful and disgusting. Argh! James Wagner says it better than me: Brooklyn College: the assault of the philistines continues. permanent link to this post
May 09, 2006
Practical Performances In The Wilderness Part II
posted at 13:58 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
More of Cary Peppermint and Christine Nadir’s series of
performance-art videos begun in 2002 are now on DVblog.
Check it out… (direct link to DVblog post) permanent link to this post
Check it out… (direct link to DVblog post) permanent link to this post
May 08, 2006
NYTimes on art fabricators and etc
posted at 00:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The NYTimes is running a story today on the “army of technicians, studio assistants, artisans and engineers” who do the actual work of putting together large-scale (and some small-scale) art works.
I find this article very interesting as we’re working on a fairly large-scale video shoot right now that is requiring lots of folks to help and I was wondering how to credit them. I’m thinking that a large wall label will be sufficient… permanent link to this post
I find this article very interesting as we’re working on a fairly large-scale video shoot right now that is requiring lots of folks to help and I was wondering how to credit them. I’m thinking that a large wall label will be sufficient… permanent link to this post
May 05, 2006
Is LOST a repeat?
posted at 02:24 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
May 02, 2006
New Media Art by Tribe and Jana
posted at 01:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mark Tribe and Reena Jana’s book “New Media Art” published by Taschen is coming out soon. I’m unsure of when it’s being released in the USA, but I received a letter a few days ago that MTAA would be receiving our comp copies soon since we’re included.
Here’s a complete list of the artists in the book:
Cory Arcangel, Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Katherine Moriwaki, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Vuk Cosic, Mary Flanagan, Ken Goldberg, Paul Kaiser and Shelly Eshkar, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Mouchette, MTAA, Keith and Mendi Obadike, Radical Software Group, Raqs Media Collective, RTMark, and John F. Simon Jr.
There are lot of duos and collectives. I guess it’s the nature of new media. Congrats everybody! permanent link to this post
Here’s a complete list of the artists in the book:
Cory Arcangel, Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Katherine Moriwaki, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Vuk Cosic, Mary Flanagan, Ken Goldberg, Paul Kaiser and Shelly Eshkar, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Mouchette, MTAA, Keith and Mendi Obadike, Radical Software Group, Raqs Media Collective, RTMark, and John F. Simon Jr.
There are lot of duos and collectives. I guess it’s the nature of new media. Congrats everybody! permanent link to this post
Apr 30, 2006
Bway April 29, 2006
posted at 13:20 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Apr 22, 2006
Godamnit Apple! stop being a dick
posted at 14:24 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
This from a company that’s says “Think Different”:
via c|net…
So let me get this straight. For their own purely selfish motives, they are willing to get a court to decide that press freedoms don’t apply to the internet.
That’s fucked. And they’re fuckers for doing it.
If there was a reasonable alternative to my beloved iPod and OS X… (grumbling in an impotent sort of way) permanent link to this post
A California court in San Jose on Thursday is scheduled to hear a case brought by Apple Computer that eventually could answer an unsettled legal question: Should online journalists receive the same rights as traditional reporters?
Apple claims they should not. Its lawyers say in court documents that Web scribes are not “legitimate members of the press” when they reveal details about forthcoming products that the company would prefer to keep confidential.
via c|net…
So let me get this straight. For their own purely selfish motives, they are willing to get a court to decide that press freedoms don’t apply to the internet.
That’s fucked. And they’re fuckers for doing it.
If there was a reasonable alternative to my beloved iPod and OS X… (grumbling in an impotent sort of way) permanent link to this post
Apr 21, 2006
Miro estate axes Google logo
posted at 13:37 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Yesterday, Google was using a logo inspired by the work of Juan Miro, but Miro’s estate complained and Google removed it.
What a bunch of dopes — the Miro estate I mean. According to the estate, the logo uses elements of Miro’s paintings, ie, it wasn’t simply ‘inspired.’ I call them dopes because not only is it an ad for Miro with the sort of reach that his estate could probably never hope to attain but it was selfish of them as well. They harm all artists with this censorious action. The visual arts are so marginalized in contemporary culture that a high profile homage to a great artist helps all artists.
The bright side is that it will probably get more attention because of this little spat.
More here… and here (digg comments). permanent link to this post
Apr 18, 2006
rantapod
posted at 19:36 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
GH Hovagimyan’s rantapod, now on iTunes.
Check it out…
(you must have iTunes installed for the link to work)
Here’s a direct link to the XML. permanent link to this post
Apr 15, 2006
To Be Listened To…
posted at 14:30 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We have a new(-ish) web project on-line called “To Be Listened To…” (aka 2BL2) and we need you to help it grow.
2BL2 is a collection of podcast feeds that anyone may add to. It’s very simple to add new audio files to the feed and you can even upload MP3s (10MB limit) to the site and add them to a feed.
Upload your audio, add it to a feed, tell your friends!
Check it out… permanent link to this post
Apr 14, 2006
Go to tintype
posted at 20:21 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I haven’t been posting much, but M.River has been posting up a storm over at his tintype photoblog. Check it out…
Why are all those people on Franklin Street? permanent link to this post
Why are all those people on Franklin Street? permanent link to this post
Apr 07, 2006
Weil takes over Artists Space
posted at 17:14 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
According to Artnet.com’s ArtNet News for April 04, 2006, Benjamin Weil has been named director of Artists Space.
Hmm, no mention of his tenure at Eyebeam.
Congrats to Benjamin! Wonder if we’ll see more of an emphasis on new media at Artists Space?
Via Rob on Thingist. permanent link to this post
Benjamin Weil, the founder of the pioneering digital art website ada web in the mid-1990s and adjunct curator of media arts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, has been named director of Artists Space in SoHo. He succeeds Barbara Hunt McLanahan, who was recently appointed director of the Judd Foundation.
Hmm, no mention of his tenure at Eyebeam.
Congrats to Benjamin! Wonder if we’ll see more of an emphasis on new media at Artists Space?
Via Rob on Thingist. permanent link to this post
Apr 06, 2006
This guy is my hero
posted at 21:32 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Check it out…
He told Bush to his face:
Okay, I don’t have a question. What I wanted to say to you is that in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate…And I would hope — I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself inside yourself…
Of course the chimp acted like the arrogant frat boy he is. A real class act. permanent link to this post
Apr 05, 2006
Boot Camp — holy shit!
posted at 13:23 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
On Apple’s site: Boot Camp Public Beta, boot Windows XP on your Intel-based Mac! Holy Shit again!
More and more people are buying and loving Macs. To make this choice simply irresistible, Apple will include technology in the next major release of Mac OS X, Leopard, that lets you install and run the Windows XP operating system on your Mac. Called Boot Camp (for now), you can download a public beta today.permanent link to this post
Apr 04, 2006
Back from Ohio
posted at 21:19 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Just got back from Ohio where I gave a short talk on MTAA’s art work at MTAA’s alma mater (both M. and I attended CCAD and received bachelors degrees).
We had a great time and (I hope) fun was had by all. The faculty and staff were also very gracious and welcoming and the school seems like it has come a long way since I attended.
We also had (surprisingly, for Ohio) good food. (Yes, I let a tad of the NY snob creep into that last sentence.)
There was also a video tape made of my presentation. If there are any tasty bits perhaps they’ll be posted on this site in the future. permanent link to this post
We had a great time and (I hope) fun was had by all. The faculty and staff were also very gracious and welcoming and the school seems like it has come a long way since I attended.
We also had (surprisingly, for Ohio) good food. (Yes, I let a tad of the NY snob creep into that last sentence.)
There was also a video tape made of my presentation. If there are any tasty bits perhaps they’ll be posted on this site in the future. permanent link to this post
Mar 31, 2006
It’s my birthday
posted at 17:23 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
On this day in 1969, I was born.
So far I’ve gotten an Airport Express, a DeWalt cordless drill and 3 nice shirts. Plus, nice cards and well-wishes.
Off to Columbus, OH tomorrow to speak about net art and MTAA at my alma mater. I’ll let you know how it goes. permanent link to this post
So far I’ve gotten an Airport Express, a DeWalt cordless drill and 3 nice shirts. Plus, nice cards and well-wishes.
Off to Columbus, OH tomorrow to speak about net art and MTAA at my alma mater. I’ll let you know how it goes. permanent link to this post
Mar 29, 2006
Baghdad: peaceful, calm
posted at 17:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
I’m not sure many of my loyal readers know that I’ve just returned from an extended trip to Iraq. What I found was surprising. The right-wing is right, there is no civil war in Iraq and what violence there is, is being greatly exaggerated by the media. Below is proof!
enlarge image
Look how calm, orderly and peaceful this downtown intersection in Baghdad is!
(If you don’t get the joke, see this, this, this and this.) permanent link to this post
enlarge image
Look how calm, orderly and peaceful this downtown intersection in Baghdad is!
(If you don’t get the joke, see this, this, this and this.) permanent link to this post
Mar 28, 2006
Paddy interviews Cory
posted at 14:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Paddy Johnson of Art Fag City has an interview with everyone’s favorite computer-geek/artist Cory Arcangel on a web site called Fanzine.
Check it out… permanent link to this post
Check it out… permanent link to this post
Mar 25, 2006
graphpaper.com: no graph paper for sale
posted at 15:15 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Chris Fahey: artist, information architect and all-around über-geek has transformed his graphpaper.com into a well-written and insightful blog on just about everything to do with web tech and design.
Check it out… permanent link to this post
Check it out… permanent link to this post
Mar 23, 2006
busy, busy, busy, busy, busy
posted at 22:47 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Been busy.
Robbery
They might have caught the guy that stole our stuff. Not sure if/when we’ll get the stuff back.
I scored a new Mac mini g4 to replace one of the one’s that got stolen; these things are getting harder to find now that the intel version is out.
Birthday
My birthday is the 31st of this month, feel free to send me money via paypal.
I’ll be 37 and that’s getting pretty old.
For the last two years we’ve done the Drinkin’ and Drawin’ Championship on my birthday but we’re not doing it this year. If anyone wants to steal the idea you have our blessing. permanent link to this post
Robbery
They might have caught the guy that stole our stuff. Not sure if/when we’ll get the stuff back.
I scored a new Mac mini g4 to replace one of the one’s that got stolen; these things are getting harder to find now that the intel version is out.
Birthday
My birthday is the 31st of this month, feel free to send me money via paypal.
I’ll be 37 and that’s getting pretty old.
For the last two years we’ve done the Drinkin’ and Drawin’ Championship on my birthday but we’re not doing it this year. If anyone wants to steal the idea you have our blessing. permanent link to this post
Mar 19, 2006
The fucking USA is nuts
posted at 15:51 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
When a citizen can have more faith in their slot machine than their voting machine, you know you’ve got a problem.
permanent link to this post
Bloggy has a ton photos from the fairs
posted at 15:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Check out Bloggy’s Flickr set of the recent New York art fairs. He’s got a ton of great shots, it’s almost like you didn’t even need to go yourself…
permanent link to this post
Mar 16, 2006
Paddy’s day is the 18th
posted at 20:26 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Not *St.* Paddy’s day, I’m talking about Paddy Johnson. The Art Fag City blogger wants to stay in the States (with the Bush admin ruling it’s unclear why) and you can help her out!
To find out how, go here for the more details… (direct link to the invite)
(I was thinking about posting this but once I read AFC’s interview with ARTList, in which she mentions MTAA as one of the most influential artists working today, I just had to didn’t I? Thanks Paddy :-)) permanent link to this post
To find out how, go here for the more details… (direct link to the invite)
(I was thinking about posting this but once I read AFC’s interview with ARTList, in which she mentions MTAA as one of the most influential artists working today, I just had to didn’t I? Thanks Paddy :-)) permanent link to this post
McCoys interviewed on Artinfo
posted at 02:13 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Their latest exhibition, “Directed Dreaming,” opened at Postmasters Gallery in New York on March 4.Check it out… permanent link to this post
It comprises a series of complex, kinetic sculptures that are covered with tiny tableaux that they call “fragmentary, miniature film sets.” An array of tiny cameras are trained on these tableaux, and, as part of each installation, a sequence of greatly enlarged images are projected on to a wall of the gallery. The works are at once funny, bizarre and somewhat worrying. Immediately after the opening at Postmasters, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy spoke to ArtInfo about their work.
Mar 15, 2006
Oil Standard
posted at 18:27 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Michael Mandiberg’s new net art project: Oil Standard. Check it out!
This is a wonderful piece of net/conceptual/political art. Good job Michael! permanent link to this post
This is a wonderful piece of net/conceptual/political art. Good job Michael! permanent link to this post
Mar 13, 2006
MTAA in the studio
posted at 15:16 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Check out this interview with us: MTAA in the studio on “Hello?” a video blog by Mica Scalin.
We talk mostly about “10 Pre-rejected, Pre-approved Performances: Midnight In The Deli.”
This video will eventually be posted to DVBlog, we’ll update when it happens. It’s up on DVBlog, check it out…
permanent link to this post
We talk mostly about “10 Pre-rejected, Pre-approved Performances: Midnight In The Deli.”
Mar 10, 2006
MTAA has bad luck
posted at 15:08 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Installing at Rhizome’s All System’s Go at the ~scope New York art fair yesterday, could more have gone wrong?
Things seemed to go fine until the entire building was evacuated by the FDNY. That wasn’t horrible, except that it pre-empted the press preview.
The bad part was after we got back. Our piece, 1YPV, had been shut down by someone and rebooting the computer wouldn’t work. I’ve never had this happen on a Mac before. On boot, I kept getting an error message telling me I needed to reboot the computer. Disk utilities supposedly fixed problems, but the computer wouldn’t read the hard disk as the boot disk or even recognize the hard disk as a drive capable of installing an OS. It seems the hard drive died :-(
Luckily, Jason Van Anden was there and offered to loan us a Mac mini for the duration of the fair. I’m heading over there soon to set it up. Keep your fingers crossed!
Thanks for all the help Jason! permanent link to this post
Things seemed to go fine until the entire building was evacuated by the FDNY. That wasn’t horrible, except that it pre-empted the press preview.
The bad part was after we got back. Our piece, 1YPV, had been shut down by someone and rebooting the computer wouldn’t work. I’ve never had this happen on a Mac before. On boot, I kept getting an error message telling me I needed to reboot the computer. Disk utilities supposedly fixed problems, but the computer wouldn’t read the hard disk as the boot disk or even recognize the hard disk as a drive capable of installing an OS. It seems the hard drive died :-(
Luckily, Jason Van Anden was there and offered to loan us a Mac mini for the duration of the fair. I’m heading over there soon to set it up. Keep your fingers crossed!
Thanks for all the help Jason! permanent link to this post
Mar 05, 2006
Two openings last night
posted at 18:14 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Saw some good, good work in Chelsea last night. My beautiful wife and I attended 2 openings, both of friends of ours.
The first was Inka Essenhigh at 303 Gallery. Inka’s a long-time friend (I’ve known her since college) and her current show is really fantastic.
“In Bed,” 2005 (link to larger image)
I’m unclear as to when Inka moved from painting with household paint to oil (the paintings at 303 aren’t the first, but I think the earlier ones were shown in Europe). Inka’s use of line has always been phenomenal and now with the oils, she has added brilliantly executed volumetric forms and space. For me, this creates a richness to the picture, a greater depth and complexity.
It also allows her to add more detail to the faces, fingers, toes etc. Which is interesting, since they seem to be more and more resembling her figurative work from college. (The more things change…) Her work in undergrad was very figurative and I’m proud to say that one of the only portraits in existence by Inka is of yours truly. I’m continually conniving a way to gain possession of it but it belongs to her parents! :-(
+++
The next stop was Jennifer and Kevin McCoy at Postmasters for their exhibition entitled “Directed Dreaming” (press release).
The show consisted of two major new pieces: “Double Fantasy II (sex)” and “Dream Sequence.” Both pieces follow the formal and technical achievement of their seminal work “Soft Rains.” They are mini-sculptural tableau’s with bunches of tiny video cameras driven by software algorithms to cut together never-ending cinematic narratives.
image of “Double Fantasy II (sex)” photo courtesy of Tintype
The McCoys’ work is great, in my opinion, for their formal technical achievements. Their work effortlessly marries sculpture (sometimes kinetic, bonus!), video, film and new media. There is a lot of complex technology going on, but it never interferes with the work. The way their work externalizes the usually hidden processes of film-making I find endlessly fascinating. The twisted metal tubes that hold the cameras and lights reminds one of those robots from “The Matrix” and work as a metaphor for the hungry beast of the entertainment-industrial complex, greedily and endlessly slurping up images.
image of “Dream Sequence” photo courtesy of Tintype permanent link to this post
The first was Inka Essenhigh at 303 Gallery. Inka’s a long-time friend (I’ve known her since college) and her current show is really fantastic.
“In Bed,” 2005 (link to larger image)
I’m unclear as to when Inka moved from painting with household paint to oil (the paintings at 303 aren’t the first, but I think the earlier ones were shown in Europe). Inka’s use of line has always been phenomenal and now with the oils, she has added brilliantly executed volumetric forms and space. For me, this creates a richness to the picture, a greater depth and complexity.
It also allows her to add more detail to the faces, fingers, toes etc. Which is interesting, since they seem to be more and more resembling her figurative work from college. (The more things change…) Her work in undergrad was very figurative and I’m proud to say that one of the only portraits in existence by Inka is of yours truly. I’m continually conniving a way to gain possession of it but it belongs to her parents! :-(
+++
The next stop was Jennifer and Kevin McCoy at Postmasters for their exhibition entitled “Directed Dreaming” (press release).
The show consisted of two major new pieces: “Double Fantasy II (sex)” and “Dream Sequence.” Both pieces follow the formal and technical achievement of their seminal work “Soft Rains.” They are mini-sculptural tableau’s with bunches of tiny video cameras driven by software algorithms to cut together never-ending cinematic narratives.
image of “Double Fantasy II (sex)” photo courtesy of Tintype
The McCoys’ work is great, in my opinion, for their formal technical achievements. Their work effortlessly marries sculpture (sometimes kinetic, bonus!), video, film and new media. There is a lot of complex technology going on, but it never interferes with the work. The way their work externalizes the usually hidden processes of film-making I find endlessly fascinating. The twisted metal tubes that hold the cameras and lights reminds one of those robots from “The Matrix” and work as a metaphor for the hungry beast of the entertainment-industrial complex, greedily and endlessly slurping up images.
image of “Dream Sequence” photo courtesy of Tintype permanent link to this post
Mar 04, 2006
MTAA @ Upgrade! Joburg
posted at 14:22 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Check it out: a wrap-up of Nathaniel Stern’s presentation of our work at Upgrade! Johannesburg.
Thanks again Nathaniel, wish we could have been there. permanent link to this post
Thanks again Nathaniel, wish we could have been there. permanent link to this post
Mar 02, 2006
Some early Whitney Biennial posts from blogs
posted at 18:18 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
There’s bloggy’s post (includes a pic):
And there’s also an Art Dirt Redux podcast:
Don’t miss one of the curator’s blogs (wink wink, nudge nudge).
update:
Artnet’s review by Jerry Saltz
There’s some Flickring going on over there too. permanent link to this post
My first impression is that there are a lot more artists with whom I was unfamiliar, unlike the previous one. I’m pleased to see that, because I don’t want the Biennial to show a lot of work that regular New York-based gallery-goers have already seen.
And there’s also an Art Dirt Redux podcast:
2006 Whitney Biennial. Actual artists statements mixed with Rob & my comments. The first mash-up of its kind. The statements are as inane as the exhibition. Oops, am I being insensitive? The political stuff was OK. Deep Dish TV was great. The big deal was the remake of Di Suvero’s Freedom Tower from the 1960’s protest days. It’s a simulation of an actual protest piece.
Don’t miss one of the curator’s blogs (wink wink, nudge nudge).
update:
Artnet’s review by Jerry Saltz
There’s some Flickring going on over there too. permanent link to this post
Mar 01, 2006
Near perfect commute
posted at 14:41 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Every once in a while an NYC commuter falls into a little eddy of calm in the maelstrom of rush hour. You can’t plan it — don’t even try — just enjoy when it happens.
Today I had that pleasure. First, the train arrives just as I’m walking onto the subway platform (2/3 Borough Hall station in Brooklyn). It’s timed perfectly: I don’t need to rush; I don’t need to wait. Entering the train, a prime end seat in the sparsely populated car presents itself. Before sitting down, it’s offered to an older woman; she declines. What luck! a perfect guilt-free seat.
After that, nothing happens — that’s the point. I sit quietly listening to my iPod (The Brian Jonestown Massacre) and reading my book (“A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” — yeah, I might be going thru a 90s revival…). Arriving at the 34th and Penn station, it’s also quiet and easily navigated, practically ushering me with white gloves to my comfortable office where I sit typing this. permanent link to this post
Today I had that pleasure. First, the train arrives just as I’m walking onto the subway platform (2/3 Borough Hall station in Brooklyn). It’s timed perfectly: I don’t need to rush; I don’t need to wait. Entering the train, a prime end seat in the sparsely populated car presents itself. Before sitting down, it’s offered to an older woman; she declines. What luck! a perfect guilt-free seat.
After that, nothing happens — that’s the point. I sit quietly listening to my iPod (The Brian Jonestown Massacre) and reading my book (“A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” — yeah, I might be going thru a 90s revival…). Arriving at the 34th and Penn station, it’s also quiet and easily navigated, practically ushering me with white gloves to my comfortable office where I sit typing this. permanent link to this post
Feb 28, 2006
MTAA in South Africa
posted at 16:17 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Well, we won’t actually be there in person, but we’ll be there via the mediation of Nathaniel Stern. He’ll be presenting our work at the Upgrade! Joburg.
Check out the cool poster:
permanent link to this post
Check out the cool poster:
permanent link to this post
Feb 26, 2006
McCoy’s @ Postmasters 2006
posted at 15:23 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I don’t try to hide that the McCoys are one of my faves. Opening soon:
March 4 - April 8, 2006permanent link to this post
JENNIFER and KEVIN McCOY
“Directed Dreaming”
Postmasters Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Directed Dreaming, the third New York solo exhibition of Jennifer and Kevin McCoy. The show will open on March 4 and will be on view until April 8, 2006. The reception is planned for Saturday, March 4, between 6 and 8pm.
In Directed Dreaming, the McCoys present four new sculptures that use movement to explore anxiety. The title of the exhibit refers to practice of willing oneself to dream about specific situations in order to resolve conflicts in one’s waking life. The works in Directed Dreaming fuse cinematic, personal, and historical images to become visual records of those conflicts, with the question of resolution left open to the viewer.
The two major sculptures in this show expand on the McCoys’ 2004 installation Our Second Date by further exploring the artists personal history, fantasies, and memories. Second Date incorporated miniature models of Jennifer and Kevin intercut with views of a meticulously crafted miniature scene from Godard’s Weekend. The works in Directed Dreaming splinter the couple’s shared autobiography.
In Double Fantasy II (sex), the McCoys represent themselves as nine year olds, drawing on a child’s scant sexual understanding to generate fantasies of their adult selves. With this technique they each reach back to a time when their ideas about love and sex were created from an amalgam of observations from television, popular culture and playground gossip that was hopelessly far from reality. In that these sources provide only the broadest of gestures, Double Fantasy II is an autobiographical take on the importance of genre. Formally, the work is a two-sided sculpture containing miniature film sets that fragment and isolate bodies at once fetishized and romanticized. The images captured by the tiny cameras cut together quickly to form a stream of consciousness meditation on the elusive subject of nascent sexuality and childhood imagination.
In Dream Sequence, the McCoys examine how sleep becomes a filter through which objective reality becomes fantasy . The work consists of a two-sided, 3 feet in diameter revolving circle, each side corresponding to the dream world of one of the artists. Using an obsolete trick of early cinema, a partially reflective mirror superimposes the sleeping artists against mutating landscapes. The resulting double projection physicalizes the dream worlds of each artist’s psyche. Kevin sees a helicopter unloading soldiers in a bleak landscape. Jennifer dreams of floods that segue into suburban resort swimming pools. The artists abandon the cinematic idea of editing with its jarring ruptures and discontinuities and instead set in motion a fluid self-sustaining world in front of the camera and in front of the viewer.
Included in the show are two wall mounted sculptures from the Clouds series that explore the vocabulary of a unending one shot film. In Clouds 9 and Clouds 10, cameras are trained on moving cloud formations to create suggestions of unknowable and yet moving and possibly ominous events.
Feb 23, 2006
Eathon G. Hall, Jr. 1965 - 2006
posted at 22:15 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Horrible, horrible news!
Eathon Hall 1965 - 2006
Received from Aljira where Eathon was the Program Director:
We got to know Eathon during the Aljira Emerge program. He was very dedicated, smart and organized and there was always a sense of joy about him.
This is just terrible. My deepest sympathies to his family, friends and to the staff at Aljira.
m.river adds -Very sad news. Eathon was a sweet man who was into helping artist live a better lives. Sympathies to all as well. permanent link to this post
Eathon Hall 1965 - 2006
Received from Aljira where Eathon was the Program Director:
It is with deep sorrow that we must inform you of the passing of Eathon G. Hall, Jr., who died in a tragic accident on Friday, February 17, while on vacation in Brasil. Eathon returned to Newark last year as Program Director of Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art (from March 1996 through January 1999, he was Assistant Director of Education at the Newark Museum) following his tenure at the Bronx Museum of Art where he served as Curator of Education for five years.
On Thursday night, February 16, at a V.I.P. reception on the occasion of Aljira’s most recent installations—Sudan: The Land and The People; Children of Darfur: Gen Genocide; and Khalid Kodi—Eathon was publicly recognized by Aljira’s Board Chair Charles Russell and Executive Director Victor L. Davson for his innovation and for the engaging experiences in visual culture that were under his development at Aljira. Future collaborations he intitiated include Mexican Vogue with the Newark Museum, Planet Hip Hop with New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and Do You Think I’m Disco?/B-Side with Longwood Arts Project.
His passing is a great loss to Aljira and to the larger cultural community, and we will all miss his spirit, commitment and leadership.
A memorial service for Eathon Hall will be held on Monday, February 27, 11 a.m. at the Macedonia Baptist Church in Harlem. It is located at 452 W. 147 St. between Convent and Amsterdam. Phone: 212 283-7973. Further information about the interrment and reception will be available at the church.
We got to know Eathon during the Aljira Emerge program. He was very dedicated, smart and organized and there was always a sense of joy about him.
This is just terrible. My deepest sympathies to his family, friends and to the staff at Aljira.
m.river adds -Very sad news. Eathon was a sweet man who was into helping artist live a better lives. Sympathies to all as well. permanent link to this post
Feb 22, 2006
One of those why-I’m-not-posting posts
posted at 14:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I’m not posting here, I’m not posting there or there either.
There’s just to many places to post these days. And I’m busy.
Gotta get the thing done for Rhizome, gotta revise the budget for that grant, gotta cash that check, gotta buy a new studio computer (2 actually and a monitor), gotta call that place and get that information so I can revise that budget, gotta do something for my Mom’s birthday (already got most of that done Mom don’t worry), gotta call that other place, gotta print that thing, gotta figure out how we’re gonna show that piece at that fair, gotta get ready for the Ohio thing, gotta do my taxes, gotta book summer air fare, gotta gotta watch LOST and I’m probably forgetting stuff… permanent link to this post
There’s just to many places to post these days. And I’m busy.
Gotta get the thing done for Rhizome, gotta revise the budget for that grant, gotta cash that check, gotta buy a new studio computer (2 actually and a monitor), gotta call that place and get that information so I can revise that budget, gotta do something for my Mom’s birthday (already got most of that done Mom don’t worry), gotta call that other place, gotta print that thing, gotta figure out how we’re gonna show that piece at that fair, gotta get ready for the Ohio thing, gotta do my taxes, gotta book summer air fare, gotta gotta watch LOST and I’m probably forgetting stuff… permanent link to this post
Feb 18, 2006
Fuck the fucking fuckers
posted at 23:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA’s studio was burglarized the other night. We lost about $1600 worth of equipment: 2 computers, a monitor and a small PA speaker.
It really sucks.
I’ve been fearful of this happening, and now it has. Luckily our projector wasn’t there and nothing that was stolen isn’t replaceable; but laying out dough to replace it is going to be painful.
m.river adds -if you find on-line or on the street, someone trying to sell a mac mini with the case sprayed silver or one with KDM 100 software installed. Send us a line. Yeah, 1 to 1,000,000 chance but it could happen. Thanks permanent link to this post
It really sucks.
I’ve been fearful of this happening, and now it has. Luckily our projector wasn’t there and nothing that was stolen isn’t replaceable; but laying out dough to replace it is going to be painful.
m.river adds -if you find on-line or on the street, someone trying to sell a mac mini with the case sprayed silver or one with KDM 100 software installed. Send us a line. Yeah, 1 to 1,000,000 chance but it could happen. Thanks permanent link to this post
Feb 17, 2006
ma.gnolia.com
posted at 20:01 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Does ma.gnolia.com want to lay a bouquet on del.icio.us’ grave?
Similar name (the dot thing), similar service (social bookmarking), schmancier design (by zeldman’s Happy Cog) and you can import from del.icio.us. Hmmmmmm.
I leave it to the you to decide… permanent link to this post
Similar name (the dot thing), similar service (social bookmarking), schmancier design (by zeldman’s Happy Cog) and you can import from del.icio.us. Hmmmmmm.
I leave it to the you to decide… permanent link to this post
Feb 15, 2006
Found on Eyebeam’s reBlog today
posted at 14:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
sledgehammer-operated keyboard, 2005
silicone, wood, computer, projector
It actually looks more like a rubber-mallet operated keyboard, but why split hairs?
It also reminds me of Perry Hoberman’s Cathartic User Interface which was fun, fun, fun! permanent link to this post
silicone, wood, computer, projector
It actually looks more like a rubber-mallet operated keyboard, but why split hairs?
It also reminds me of Perry Hoberman’s Cathartic User Interface which was fun, fun, fun! permanent link to this post
Feb 14, 2006
If you’re reading this…
posted at 01:49 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
…then you’ve successfully found your way to the new home of the MTAA Reference Resource. Congratulations.
Be sure to update your bookmarks! The new URL is: http://www.mtaa.net/mtaaRR
We had some issues with our other server where MTEWW.COM resolves. I didn’t really want to move everything (including the domain) over to this server, so I just moved the blog and fowarded it from the old domain to this domain.
Is this a big deal for MTAA? Not really. It’s just a pain in the ass.
If you see any problems, please let me know. permanent link to this post
Be sure to update your bookmarks! The new URL is: http://www.mtaa.net/mtaaRR
We had some issues with our other server where MTEWW.COM resolves. I didn’t really want to move everything (including the domain) over to this server, so I just moved the blog and fowarded it from the old domain to this domain.
Is this a big deal for MTAA? Not really. It’s just a pain in the ass.
If you see any problems, please let me know. permanent link to this post
Feb 12, 2006
You, Motherfucker
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We realized today that this is probably our best piece EVER!
“The You, Motherfucker Flag”
See the online version, The Webpage For Planned Self-Obsolescence (AKA Even In The Line To The NYC DMV, One May Think Of Art).
Update
The flag was sold to someone in Canada. If it was you, please contact us. If you know who has it, please contact us. Thanks. permanent link to this post
“The You, Motherfucker Flag”
See the online version, The Webpage For Planned Self-Obsolescence (AKA Even In The Line To The NYC DMV, One May Think Of Art).
Update
The flag was sold to someone in Canada. If it was you, please contact us. If you know who has it, please contact us. Thanks. permanent link to this post
Yet more MTAA hype
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Yes, this is MTAA’s blog and we’ll hype ourselves if we want to.
The other night at a small reception for Rhizome ArtBase 101 at the New Museum I got some very good news.
First, I learned that Rhizome had considered making 1YPV its first ever limited edition art work. For some reason it couldn’t work out. Sucks that it didn’t happen (yet), but it’s nice to know people are thinking about ya.
Second, Mark Tribe told me that he thought 1YPV was one of the best New Media artworks ever. No offense to Mark, but you just can’t tell an artist something like that. Our egos are big enough already :-)
Third (and the really, really good news), Mark said that he’s including MTAA in a book on New Media art that he’s writing with Reena Jana for Taschen. That rocks. permanent link to this post
The other night at a small reception for Rhizome ArtBase 101 at the New Museum I got some very good news.
First, I learned that Rhizome had considered making 1YPV its first ever limited edition art work. For some reason it couldn’t work out. Sucks that it didn’t happen (yet), but it’s nice to know people are thinking about ya.
Second, Mark Tribe told me that he thought 1YPV was one of the best New Media artworks ever. No offense to Mark, but you just can’t tell an artist something like that. Our egos are big enough already :-)
Third (and the really, really good news), Mark said that he’s including MTAA in a book on New Media art that he’s writing with Reena Jana for Taschen. That rocks. permanent link to this post
Yet even more Artstar.tv
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
On the RHIZOME_RAW list, Marisa Olson asks this question (re: this post),
Marisa goes on to say,
I don’t think Artstar.tv is intended to be a parody. Perhaps I’m wrong. It also doesn’t seem to be intended as Pop art. It just seems to be a regular ole reality TV show (which btw will air on the Zoom hi-definition satellite network) using reality TV conventions and grafting them onto the art world. This is only speculation, but there doesn’t seem to be a critical text or sub-text in sight.
Thanks for the discussion Marisa :) permanent link to this post
I feel compelled to ask (of him or anyone here who cares) what comprises this “fine line” between the two extremes of “good Pop Art and a sickening psychophantical [sic] homage to the dominant media culture”..? And must all art that appropriates the form and/or content of popular media fall into one or the other of these extreme categories?(As soon as I saw my words quoted back at me I thought, “Psychophantical? That’s not how you spell sycophantical.”)
Marisa goes on to say,
Where does parody fit in, because to me, for something to be truly successful, on a parodic level, it has to be highly imitative—and, hence, to some degree, reverent, even if only in the sense of (let’s say) what Jameson calls “nostalgia films,” which are not necessarily acting in praise… To me, it is this act of shadowing (miming, resulting directly from, yet in contrast and however shape-shifted) that best affords the opportunity for critique. Admittedly, it is sort of an act of relinquishing some of the sense of “value” implied in models of authority (read: authorship), in order to sort of free one’s speech, ie to protest.What comprises the fine line? I don’t know, but I know it when I see it. Parody, it seems to me, is neither Pop Art or ‘sickening’ sycophancy. Good Pop Art doesn’t seem like straight-up parody to me as it’s critique isn’t as implicit. You’re not quite sure if Warhol is critiquing popular culture or celebrating it. His best pieces (and his life) seem to have a conceptual shimmer. One is unsure of his intentions. Nonetheless there always seems to be a critical text in there somewhere… it’s just hard to pin down sometimes.
I don’t think Artstar.tv is intended to be a parody. Perhaps I’m wrong. It also doesn’t seem to be intended as Pop art. It just seems to be a regular ole reality TV show (which btw will air on the Zoom hi-definition satellite network) using reality TV conventions and grafting them onto the art world. This is only speculation, but there doesn’t seem to be a critical text or sub-text in sight.
But anyway. I also wonder how TWhid (& MRiver) would situate their 1 year performance project re: reality tv—and if they see similarities, then have they given us “good Pop Art [or] a sickening psychophantical homage to the dominant media culture”? ;)1YPV doesn’t have anything to do with reality TV or Pop art IMO. Since reality TV is so heavily edited there isn’t really any formal connection. The closest thing it comes to is the 24/7 web-cams that Big Brother used to have online.
Thanks for the discussion Marisa :) permanent link to this post
Yes, this Williamsburg
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Talk about hopelessly clueless. Check it out: Williamsburg, Brooklyn is full of hipsters! Quite the scoop.
BTW, Cary Peppermint and I were the the forefront of the hipster Zyweic (pronounced something like jev-yitz) beer craze.
via No, Not That Williamsburg - Washington Post permanent link to this post
We bought a couple of Zywiec beers and some pirogi, then headed for the gilt-framed stage. Packed onto the honey-colored wood floor (polished by the polka?), hundreds of jeans-clad fans waited for the headlining act, Spoon. Touted as the next big thing for years, the Austin-based art rockers took the stage, all sharp drums and crisp guitar riffs, sounding like they’d finally arrived. This corner of Brooklyn felt like it had, too.
BTW, Cary Peppermint and I were the the forefront of the hipster Zyweic (pronounced something like jev-yitz) beer craze.
via No, Not That Williamsburg - Washington Post permanent link to this post
The Yes Men’s hi-jinks
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The Yes Men bill themselves as “honest people [impersonating] big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them.”
Their latest prank was infiltrating a Heritage Foundation conference in Chicago and making fools of the fools. From the Yes Men web site:
Their latest prank was infiltrating a Heritage Foundation conference in Chicago and making fools of the fools. From the Yes Men web site:
At the Heritage Foundation’s annual Resource Bank meeting in Chicago last Friday, protesters masquerading as a right-wing think tank took the stage and announced that in light of Bush’s shortcomings, they were nominating former Reagan Attorney-General Ed Meese for president.Read all about it and see pix and video at the Yes Men’s web site. permanent link to this post
The audience applauded for nearly ten seconds.
Yahoo! APIs
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Yahoo! has released their Developer Network. The Developer Network provides documentation and an SDK to help folks get started using the new APIs they’ve released to access Yahoo! web services. The APIs allow anyone to get results for an image search, video search, web search and more. All query results are delivered in an open XML format:
One caveat however, you must have an application ID to identify your application to the system and they limit the frequency by which you can query the system.
The results returned by the service are in XML which varies per service.There has been lots of net art which uses search queries or results as the basis of the project (Cory Arcangel’s Dooogle and Thompson & Craighead’s Beacon being two recent examples). And now Yahoo! is making it super easy to use dynamic, live results in any sort of web-based art work. They provide examples in the SDK in a number of languages including Javascript, PHP, Python and Perl.
One caveat however, you must have an application ID to identify your application to the system and they limit the frequency by which you can query the system.
These rate limits are imposed independently for each service and are typically in the thousands-per-day per user range. See each service’s documentation for the individual limits.This might be a problem for web-based software. The rate is limited by IP#, so a web site would look like one user to the system. The Image Search is limited to 5000 queries per 24 hour period. That doesn’t seem to be a great deal of queries for a popular web site. permanent link to this post
What a bunch of losers!
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Wrapping crappy XP in an aqua-like look don’t make it a Mac.
Try the real thing why dontchya? Truly pathetic. permanent link to this post
Try the real thing why dontchya? Truly pathetic. permanent link to this post
It Felt Sooooooo Good
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I called the evil XO this morning and canceled my account.
Baby. It felt soooooooo good.
Our loyal followers will remember that XO is the POS hosting company that has been robbing us (well, me) blind with their service fees. You can read all about it here.
This morning I finally —finally— escaped their grasp, this is how the call went:
them: Good morning, how can we help you this morning.
us: I want to cancel my account
[bunch of gibberish that isn’t interesting]
them: May we ask why you are canceling your account today?
us: Because you provide horrible service [pause] and it costs too much.
[bunch more gibberish of no interest]
I know, I know, he was just some schlub answering the phones, but it still felt soooooo good. They’ve cost me at least a few hundred dollars in overpayment over the years (compared to other hosting companies) and it felt nice to finally get away from them. permanent link to this post
Baby. It felt soooooooo good.
Our loyal followers will remember that XO is the POS hosting company that has been robbing us (well, me) blind with their service fees. You can read all about it here.
This morning I finally —finally— escaped their grasp, this is how the call went:
them: Good morning, how can we help you this morning.
us: I want to cancel my account
[bunch of gibberish that isn’t interesting]
them: May we ask why you are canceling your account today?
us: Because you provide horrible service [pause] and it costs too much.
[bunch more gibberish of no interest]
I know, I know, he was just some schlub answering the phones, but it still felt soooooo good. They’ve cost me at least a few hundred dollars in overpayment over the years (compared to other hosting companies) and it felt nice to finally get away from them. permanent link to this post
XML translation of Dan Graham’s “Schema”
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Found An XML translation of Dan Graham’s “Schema” via the netoworked_performance blog.
Hardcore conceptual art of the 60s meets hardcore information geek technologies of the 00s.
Ya gotta love it!
See the original Schema at ubuweb. permanent link to this post
Hardcore conceptual art of the 60s meets hardcore information geek technologies of the 00s.
Ya gotta love it!
See the original Schema at ubuweb. permanent link to this post
www.pulp.href - +(a)(b)(c)(d)(e)(f) - #########0|\|E
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
http://www.jimpunk.com/www.pulp.href/
jimpunk rulez permanent link to this post
randWin 8or9 albat blue sxtunt rewnd xxxx3_ Narn_ secret security sirene theykee toon (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) pressent cmcstrp drugs maltese g-h.ref p4r4ch boxdogs poseid_ p_jack Robert paint_ vendetta wind (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) benicio hido inthestre j-m-He jodie error flight93 tiiiitprnt twcemrB x oopentry gundown_ N_C (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) john Michell plane pulp1 mywav TaxiDriver thegrey EE ttiiuhi phne MDasn mi4mi blank (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (d) (e) (f) (X)
jimpunk rulez permanent link to this post
Work sample video
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Download the video here (03’28, 27.4MB, .MOV).
MTAA is applying to a ‘professional development’ program. They accept all sorts of artists, but they take only slides or video for documentation in the application.
d’oh!
So we whipped up a video showing samples of eight pieces of ours: The Simple Net Art Diagram, Endnode, 1 year performance video, The Drinkin’ & Drawin’ Championship, Pirated Movie, DC 9/11 EDR, Infinite Phil, and Five Small Videos.
Download the video here (03’28, 27.4MB, .MOV). permanent link to this post
MTAA is applying to a ‘professional development’ program. They accept all sorts of artists, but they take only slides or video for documentation in the application.
d’oh!
So we whipped up a video showing samples of eight pieces of ours: The Simple Net Art Diagram, Endnode, 1 year performance video, The Drinkin’ & Drawin’ Championship, Pirated Movie, DC 9/11 EDR, Infinite Phil, and Five Small Videos.
Download the video here (03’28, 27.4MB, .MOV). permanent link to this post
Williamsburg + space elevator = bad
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Join the fight!
(Unashamedly reblogged from reBlog who reblogged it from BoingBoing who got it from somewhere else.) permanent link to this post
Wordpress and DreamHost
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
M.River’s site, tinjail.com, was moved over to a new hosting service recently. It’s now being served by DreamHost.
DreamHost really rocks, I recommend them (tell them twhid referred you please). One of the many niceties they offer is one-click Wordpress installation.
I hadn’t played around with Wordpress before, but it is really nice. Makes me wonder if I should move this blog over to it. Right now we’re running on Blosxom, which I like very much, but it’s written in Perl, and I don’t know Perl very well. Wordpress, on the other hand, is written in PHP. I know PHP much better and could possibly hack it more easily than Blosxom.
Hmmmmmmm. permanent link to this post
DreamHost really rocks, I recommend them (tell them twhid referred you please). One of the many niceties they offer is one-click Wordpress installation.
I hadn’t played around with Wordpress before, but it is really nice. Makes me wonder if I should move this blog over to it. Right now we’re running on Blosxom, which I like very much, but it’s written in Perl, and I don’t know Perl very well. Wordpress, on the other hand, is written in PHP. I know PHP much better and could possibly hack it more easily than Blosxom.
Hmmmmmmm. permanent link to this post
Wide-angle will work? Yes it will.
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This post is for mriver, it won’t be very meaningful to anyone else.
I did some tests with the wide-angle lens I borrowed from Bill with good results. I posted a JPG that you can check out, follow this link. This is simply cropped from a still I took from the video camera. I didn’t capture any video and test it yet. The frame of reference in the still may be different than the video. But the wide-angle lens looks like the way to go. We can get a lot closer. There is a bit of fish-eye effect, but I don’t think it’s horrible.
update: I examined a still I grabbed from the video as well. It looks good as far as cropping it the way we want it (didn’t post this image, sorry). I’m going to experiment with the actual video next using the tools we’ll use for the final output. It’s looking pretty good. I’ll put a flash video version of it online when I’m done.
Let me know what you think. If you go to the studio, don’t move the tripod (or mark it before you do). permanent link to this post
I did some tests with the wide-angle lens I borrowed from Bill with good results. I posted a JPG that you can check out, follow this link. This is simply cropped from a still I took from the video camera. I didn’t capture any video and test it yet. The frame of reference in the still may be different than the video. But the wide-angle lens looks like the way to go. We can get a lot closer. There is a bit of fish-eye effect, but I don’t think it’s horrible.
update: I examined a still I grabbed from the video as well. It looks good as far as cropping it the way we want it (didn’t post this image, sorry). I’m going to experiment with the actual video next using the tools we’ll use for the final output. It’s looking pretty good. I’ll put a flash video version of it online when I’m done.
Let me know what you think. If you go to the studio, don’t move the tripod (or mark it before you do). permanent link to this post
Wild speculation
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Is Eyebeam behind Arianna Huffington’s soon-to-be-released HuffingtonReport.com?
According to paidcontent.org (via a Business 2.0 article), HuffingtonReport.com will be,
This is probably a side project for Jonah and not an official Eyebeam deal. Jonah is a genius at getting things noticed online, perhaps the publisher of the site decided she needed some of the ‘ole contagious media mojo that he can provide? We shall see… permanent link to this post
According to paidcontent.org (via a Business 2.0 article), HuffingtonReport.com will be,
[…]in the mold of Slate and Salon, with, get this, guest bloggers ranging from Sen. Jon Corzine, Larry David, Barry Diller, Tom Freston, David Geffen, Vernon Jordan, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Harry Evans and his wife, Tina Brown.Also, according to paidcontent.org, HuffingtonReport.com is registered to none other than our favorite contagious media geek and Eyebeam R&D Director: Jonah Peretti! (confirmed through whois.)
Her business partner is Ken Lerer, the head of AOL-TW’s corporate communications in the Bob Pittman era.
Along with the celebrity cred, these super-busy bloggers may not actually blog, but e-mail or phone in their posts: “We’re setting up a system wherein you’ll be able to e-mail or phone in your latest take, which our editorial team will fact-check and turn into a blog post.”
The site’s soft launch is apparently set for April.
This is probably a side project for Jonah and not an official Eyebeam deal. Jonah is a genius at getting things noticed online, perhaps the publisher of the site decided she needed some of the ‘ole contagious media mojo that he can provide? We shall see… permanent link to this post
Wichita State backs down
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Wichita State University has announced that the Emily Jacir exhibition scheduled to run January 20 - March 6, 2005, at the Ulrich Museum of Art will do so without any conditions.It’s good to see that all involved came to their senses. permanent link to this post
Elizabeth King, Vice President for University Advancement, released the following statement late this afternoon:
“Wichita State University is aware of the discussion generated by the scheduled exhibition of work by artist Emily Jacir at the Ulrich Museum of Art. The University is committed to going forward with the exhibition without conditions or limitations that could be considered to compromise the integrity of Ms. Jacir’s work as an artist. The University appreciates the widespread interest in the artist and the exhibition.”
via: From the Floor: Emily Jacir Exhibition to Proceed without Conditions
Why show in a gallery?
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
In the comments of this post, an anonymous reader writes:
MTAA have always created physical work in conjunction with our on-line work. Our first net art work, TIME!®, used the web as a component of what was really a sort of relational art work. This piece was eventually shown in a physical permutation at a show we did in 2000 at Walden Gallery. Actually we made physical versions of a bunch of our stuff for that show, including the V-TAV and the DYHAP Museum Model. So it’s not really something new for us.
You can see a bunch of our off-line art work on this web site too. So, it’s nothing new for us really.
The difference is now, we’re really pushing to make some headway into the gallery world. This means a lot of things.
On the production side, it means conceptualizing projects in such a way that they work as net art and sculptural or physical objects too (like our printer tree). It means coming up with ideas that hold our interest in digital materials, but also make sense in a gallery context (ie, it can hang on a wall, sometimes without electricity). And it means producing art-like artifacts that are documents of networked or digital activities or collaborations.
As for why now? I’m copping-out today. It’s late on a Friday evening, I need to chill. permanent link to this post
I’d be interested to know why you made the decision to try and show in galleries. Do you feel you are having to find ways to “shoehorn” your stuff into a format that fits.Good question.
MTAA have always created physical work in conjunction with our on-line work. Our first net art work, TIME!®, used the web as a component of what was really a sort of relational art work. This piece was eventually shown in a physical permutation at a show we did in 2000 at Walden Gallery. Actually we made physical versions of a bunch of our stuff for that show, including the V-TAV and the DYHAP Museum Model. So it’s not really something new for us.
You can see a bunch of our off-line art work on this web site too. So, it’s nothing new for us really.
The difference is now, we’re really pushing to make some headway into the gallery world. This means a lot of things.
On the production side, it means conceptualizing projects in such a way that they work as net art and sculptural or physical objects too (like our printer tree). It means coming up with ideas that hold our interest in digital materials, but also make sense in a gallery context (ie, it can hang on a wall, sometimes without electricity). And it means producing art-like artifacts that are documents of networked or digital activities or collaborations.
As for why now? I’m copping-out today. It’s late on a Friday evening, I need to chill. permanent link to this post
White people are mutants
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This is pretty old, but I thought it was interesting and I haven’t posted much this week…
via washingtonpost.com - Scientists Find A DNA Change That Accounts For White Skin permanent link to this post
Scientists said yesterday that they have discovered a tiny genetic mutation that largely explains the first appearance of white skin in humans tens of thousands of years ago, a finding that helps solve one of biology’s most enduring mysteries and illuminates one of humanity’s greatest sources of strife.
The work suggests that the skin-whitening mutation occurred by chance in a single individual after the first human exodus from Africa, when all people were brown-skinned. That person’s offspring apparently thrived as humans moved northward into what is now Europe, helping to give rise to the lightest of the world’s races.
via washingtonpost.com - Scientists Find A DNA Change That Accounts For White Skin permanent link to this post
Which NYTimes Op-Ed Columnist Are You?
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Take the test here.
I’m embarrassed to say that I’m Maureen Dowd. I knew choosing the lottery numbers for the fortune cookie question and ‘The appalling machismo of the Bush administration’ for the last question would push me into Dowd-ism. I wanted to be Krugman of course.
Fun, but easy to game if you read the NYT Op-Ed page often. permanent link to this post
I’m embarrassed to say that I’m Maureen Dowd. I knew choosing the lottery numbers for the fortune cookie question and ‘The appalling machismo of the Bush administration’ for the last question would push me into Dowd-ism. I wanted to be Krugman of course.
Fun, but easy to game if you read the NYT Op-Ed page often. permanent link to this post
What is Karaoke Deathmatch 100?
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Artist collaborators MTAA (M.River and T.Whid) went head-to-head in a karaoke deathmatch over the weekend as they both performed 50 songs in a row while drinking heavily and gargling Chloraseptic®.
M.River’s drink of choice was a 12-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. T.Whid swilled sake from a champagne flute (he doesn’t recall the brand).
The video footage taken of the event will be assembled into an installation video as well as an online artwork.
Think of this as the trailer to the video: KDM100 - behind the scenes (quicktime 7 required (sorry Windows users), 37 seconds, 9.8MB) permanent link to this post
Welcome to t whid’s Homepage
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Welcome to the police state
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Just heard on Air America that there will be random searches on the NYC subways.
Link to the NYTimes article
From the NYTimes article:
No, not inconvenient; just flouting basic american liberties, no inconvenience at all, really. Would you like to look down my undies too? Grab that flashlight and those latex gloves, I want you to check my anal cavity too please.
I may have more ranting later, but this is COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT. We can only hope the ACLU is preparing some sort of legal action.
Guess I’ll have to start riding my bike to work. permanent link to this post
Link to the NYTimes article
From the NYTimes article:
[MTA spokesman] Mr. Kelly acknowledged that the random searches were without precedent, but added that he hoped riders would not consider the actions an inconvenience.
No, not inconvenient; just flouting basic american liberties, no inconvenience at all, really. Would you like to look down my undies too? Grab that flashlight and those latex gloves, I want you to check my anal cavity too please.
I may have more ranting later, but this is COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT. We can only hope the ACLU is preparing some sort of legal action.
Guess I’ll have to start riding my bike to work. permanent link to this post
Weird NYT arts article
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A group of established artists have been gathering for invitation-only figure drawing sessions, an exercise that had fallen out of fashion.via: Trendy Artists Pick Up an Old-Fashioned Habit
[…]
Only a few years ago, the idea of artists gathering to paint from a model would have seemed impossibly old-fashioned and hokey - and if the model was female and nude, sexist to boot. Yet for nearly three years now, a number of artists - not students putting charcoal to paper for the first time, but successful artists with established styles and audiences of their own - have flocked to Mr. Cotton’s weekly invitation-only sessions
I’ve been trying to put my finger on why I find this article sort of strange. First though, congrats to everyone mentioned. It’s always good to get a mention in the NYTimes.
I was trying to figure out if the writer really believes that it’s unusual for painters to gather and sharpen their drawing skills or if this was just some sort of not-so-subtle PR plant. I’m leaning toward PR plant.
I just can’t believe anyone would think that this is some sort of new trend. If artists are interested in figuration — or drawing at all — one of the best ways to keep your skills at a high level is to draw the figure.
Don’t believe the hype, artists have for years gathered to share the expense of a figure model. It’s nothing new. permanent link to this post
Welcome 2 my Artshow!!!!!!!!!
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Cory Arcangel at Team.
Opens January 13th, 2005. From the press release:
Opens January 13th, 2005. From the press release:
This exhibition, entitled Welcome to myMore at Team Gallery permanent link to this postHomepageArtshow, is the first solo show in New York by Arcangel, a founding member of the Beige Programming Ensemble. The show includes a number of new hacked Nintendo game cartridges - the work that Arcangel has become known for - and a number of new works in the medium of video. In the former group are a fully interactive Ipod® programmed for the Nintendo® system and an absurdly slowed down version of Tetris®. In the latter group are Sans Simon, a video of Simon and Garfunkel in which the artist uses his hand to hide Simon’s presence, and Geto Boys/Beach Boys in which videos by the two eponymous bands are played side by side creating an oddly harmonic synchronicity.
[…]
The show at Team […] marks the launch of dooogle.com, a search engine which only yields results about Doogie Howser, M.D. Also available is a new piece of software called T.A.C. (Total Asshole Compression), a program which increases the size of any file passed through it.
Weather Data for the Masses
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this week began providing weather data in an open-access XML format, alleviating concerns that commercial providers would continue to play a dominant role in how weather data gets to the public.Get your weather data here. It’s in a format called NDFD XML (National Digital Forecast Database XML)
via: Wired News: Weather Data for the Masses
This could portend some weather-oriented web/net projects.
And some better weather RSS feeds too :-) I currently use rssweather.com, but the current condition reports are always hours and hours old — not very current IMO. permanent link to this post
We’ve HAVE been making net art, but s.l.o.w.l.y
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
In September we’ll be releasing a new net art work (probably our only one of the year). We’ve been working on it on and off since early in 2004 and we finally got to do some test shooting today (it’s a video project; it will be flash video as the final).
M.River has been building the set and I’ve been lazing around waiting for him to finish. But now we’re almost there. Today we bought a Panasonic GS120 and did some test shooting.
I’m not going to describe the piece right now but I wanted to post this still as I’m excited with how it’s coming along. permanent link to this post
wappening #2! Get Rob an orange — QUICK!
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Lee Walton:
M.River adds - Yikes! It’s cold in nyc today. Lee, how could you?!
M.River Update - T.Whid to the rescue! I just got a call at work from T. He has left his office near Madison Square Garden, picked up an orange and is headed down to save that kid Lee has standing out in the cold. He said he’ll call when he gets there.
M.River Update #2 - T.Whid just called. He gave the kid the orange and he put his coat on. T.Whid reports that the kid seemed very happy to see him. The kid said he started standing at 12:15. Behold the power of the net and a slow Friday afternoon at work.
twhid update (also cross-posted to Rhizome_RAW):
I had a strange sort of elation when I exited the subway and saw him still standing there freezing and knowing that I had his salvation bulging in my coat pocket.
Lee’s pieces along this line are a weird sort of flash anti-mob where only a few ‘in-the-know’ even know there’s art happening. A sly statement on the ‘special’ knowledge some contend one needs to appreciate some forms of contemporary art?
Also we need to coin a phrase for this type of work (MTAA has also made work along these lines). “net.flux” anybody?
M. River adds - He told me once they are called “micro performances”. I forget who coined it. permanent link to this post
At this very moment, Rob Bohn is holding a red jacket in his hand and standing on the corner of 23rd and Broadway near the Flatiron Building.
He is excruciatingly cold for he cannot wear his jacket unless he is given an orange.
Simply find a way to get an orange to him and he will thankfully put on his red jacket.
He will be standing on the corner until the sun sets - wearing or not wearing his red jacket.
He is depending on you.
M.River adds - Yikes! It’s cold in nyc today. Lee, how could you?!
M.River Update - T.Whid to the rescue! I just got a call at work from T. He has left his office near Madison Square Garden, picked up an orange and is headed down to save that kid Lee has standing out in the cold. He said he’ll call when he gets there.
M.River Update #2 - T.Whid just called. He gave the kid the orange and he put his coat on. T.Whid reports that the kid seemed very happy to see him. The kid said he started standing at 12:15. Behold the power of the net and a slow Friday afternoon at work.
twhid update (also cross-posted to Rhizome_RAW):
I had a strange sort of elation when I exited the subway and saw him still standing there freezing and knowing that I had his salvation bulging in my coat pocket.
Lee’s pieces along this line are a weird sort of flash anti-mob where only a few ‘in-the-know’ even know there’s art happening. A sly statement on the ‘special’ knowledge some contend one needs to appreciate some forms of contemporary art?
Also we need to coin a phrase for this type of work (MTAA has also made work along these lines). “net.flux” anybody?
M. River adds - He told me once they are called “micro performances”. I forget who coined it. permanent link to this post
Villette Numerique
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jonah Brucker-Cohen on coin-operated:
The art section of Villette Numerique was curated by Benjamin Weil the well-known new media curator. permanent link to this post
The Villette Numerique media arts festival opens tonite in Paris! Featured in this huge show includes “Listening Post” by Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen, “Bondage” by Atau Tanaka, an installation that turns still imagery into soundscapes, and “Unprepared Piano” by Thomson and Craighead - which presents a Yamaha MIDI grand piano connected to found mp3 files from across the web. Also, this show features the first ever install of “Carnivore” (by RSG) that includes all 16 clients installed in the same venue!Jonah’s Carnivore client, “Police State,” is included as well as MTAA’s own client “The Gordon Matta-Clark Encryption Method.”
The art section of Villette Numerique was curated by Benjamin Weil the well-known new media curator. permanent link to this post
American Art Is Adrift for Biennale in Venice
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
American Art Is Adrift for Biennale in Venice
American representation at the prestigious arts festival is in turmoil as the State Department looks to find someone to run and help pay for the exhibit. [NYT: Arts]
American representation at the prestigious arts festival is in turmoil as the State Department looks to find someone to run and help pay for the exhibit. [NYT: Arts]
Desperate to find a quick solution, late last month officials from the State Department approached the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, which owns the pavilion, about organizing the American exhibition at the 2005 BiennaleHmmm, not all bad, maybe M.River will get a free trip to Venice… permanent link to this post
…
The State Department’s decision to ask a museum to organize the pavilion rather than let a committee decide is viewed by many in the art world as undemocratic and scandalous.
…
“If the Guggenheim does it,” [Robert Gober] said, “it will become an arm of the museum.”
“The ‘Velvet-Strike’ underground,” article on Salon
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Why does so much writing on new media art wind up being written by tech writers whose knowledge of contemporary art is so sourly lacking?
This article in Salon (reg rqu) isn’t horrible (it does give a decent account of contemporary hacktivist-like uses of the game genre) but lacks any reference to other political or protest art.
I’ll go on the record. I don’t want a tech writer covering my work. I’m an artist first, a programmer second; MTAA’s work should be included in the discourse of contemporary art. We need new writers and critics who know BOTH digital culture and contemporary art instead of one or the other. permanent link to this post
This article in Salon (reg rqu) isn’t horrible (it does give a decent account of contemporary hacktivist-like uses of the game genre) but lacks any reference to other political or protest art.
I’ll go on the record. I don’t want a tech writer covering my work. I’m an artist first, a programmer second; MTAA’s work should be included in the discourse of contemporary art. We need new writers and critics who know BOTH digital culture and contemporary art instead of one or the other. permanent link to this post
Unmerry Prankster in NYTimes
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This is a strange story of a prank gone bad at a gallery opening in Williamsburg a few years ago. It involves 31Grand and it’s co-director Heather Stephens, an old friend of mine.
We witnessed the entire fight. I eventually testified in front of the grand jury that indicted Sam Salganik. permanent link to this post
EVEN now, four years later, people who know Simon Curtis still can’t believe the odd series of events that led him to spend the last year in jail. And although Mr. Curtis readily admits that he was living recklessly, drinking too much, taking drugs and spraying graffiti on the Lower East Side, he didn’t exactly see a state prison in his future when he went to an art opening on the night of July 14, 2001.My fiance (girlfriend at the time) and I, along with our friends Bill and Dawn, were at the opening earlier that evening. We were just leaving dinner at Relish in Williamsburg when we saw a scuffle at the corner of Wythe and Metropolitan. I noticed that our friend Heather was involved in the fight so we went over to see what was going on.
[…]
A good-size crowd had turned out, and a loose, partylike atmosphere prevailed. As the evening wound down, Mr. Curtis, then 31, found himself nearly alone inside the gallery and eyeing his favorite photo, a self-portrait of Ms. Cortez that showed her topless and wearing ripped stockings. He was feeling contented and mischievous and also a little drunk. It suddenly occurred to him that it would be funny to show up with the photo at Max Fish, a Lower East Side bar where Ms. Cortez had gone with friends. As a group of people stood outside smoking cigarettes in the sticky air, he reached up, plucked the photo from the wall and shuffled out.
(via)
We witnessed the entire fight. I eventually testified in front of the grand jury that indicted Sam Salganik. permanent link to this post
Ubuntu: a Linux noob’s story
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
What the hell is ‘Ubuntu’ you ask? According to Ubuntu Linux’s web site,
I’ve decided to make Ubuntu Linux my gateway into the Linux world. It’s freshly installed on an old Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop of mine and I’m playing around with it. It’s been a medium-difficult (but fun) experience.
Background:
I decided to look into Linux for use in art installations. I figured build-your-own systems paired with Linux would be the cheapest way to go (this was before the introduction of the Mac mini). Plus, there is no way in hell I’m going to run my art work on top of Windows.
I’m coming from a Mac OS background.
Step 1: Distro delirium
The Linux live CDs are the easiest way to dip your toes into Linux and try different distros. The first one I successfully tested was Knoppix. Knoppix taught me that KDE is ugly as hell. I’ve since learned that you can make KDE look pretty cool. But the damage was done; I went in search of a live CD with Gnome as the default desktop environment which lead me to, what else? Gnoppix of course.
But a funny thing happened on the way to Gnoppix, their live CD happens to be Ubuntu Linux! After trying it out I was sold: it’s clean, simple, worked well with my hardware, and used ‘sudo’ to do system level commands very similar to Mac OS X. (I forgot to mention that I attempted SUSE in the meantime, but it wouldn’t install on my low RAM system.)
Step 2: Install the damn thing
This should be simple enough. I downloaded the installer from a Ubuntu download site, did a MD5 checksum, burned a disk (using Mac OS X’s disk utility), popped it in my PC and booted from the installer disk. From there it was a simple install process.
Let me back up a second. My install process was probably a tad easier then other users’ experience. What I mean is, is that because I simply reformatted the entire disk and installed fresh, I didn’t need to worry about partitioning my disk for dual-booting. If you are partitioning your disk to dual boot Linux and Windows then this might be a tougher job.
Step 3: Boot up your new system!
This is the easy part, just hit the continue button at the end of the install process.
Step 4: Remove hair violently
As soon as I booted up the problem was obvious. The entire screen was being drawn very weirdly: fuzziness, noise, a weird mirroring affect — not good. I’ll skip the details, but I tried and tried to fix it to no avail. I decided to install Mandrake Linux instead.
Step 5: Install the damn thing (2)
Again with the whole download-ISO-check-MD5-burn-CD bit (but with three CDs this time). But now comes the interesting part. Mandrake’s installer is much more user-friendly and mature than Ubuntu’s, so when I got to the part where one chooses their monitor resolution and color depth, the installer had a fancy little utility to TEST one’s video settings.
The installer chose default settings for my laptop monitor (based on the video card I assume) and I clicked the test button.
SAME PROBLEM AS UBUNTU!
Blurriness, weird mirroring affect, everything! After fiddling around with it a bit I finally realized that it was the color depth setting causing the problem; everything worked fine at 16-bit, but not at 24. This left me with a decision to make: stick with Mandrake or go back to Ubuntu. I was sure the problem with Ubuntu’s screen drawing was the same issue.
Step 6: Go to Step 2
After looking over the Mandrake and Ubuntu support and community sites I decided I liked Ubuntu. My impression was that the community is very helpful and friendly (reminds me of the Mac community), there are lots of Linux noobs like me (more experienced users are patient with them) and it just has a good vibe. Back to installing Ubuntu.
Step 7: Enjoy
So now I have a bare bones Ubuntu system running on my laptop (I did have to edit the X11 config file by hand to get the system to default to 16-bit color, but it wasn’t a problem).
I’m excited to start playing around with it and see what Linux can do in the studio. My plan is to create some dynamic run-time videos (similar to MTAA’s own 1YPV or Manovich’s Soft Cinema), use it in conjunction with touch-screens for more viscerally interactive pieces (gallery version of Five Small Videos…), and whatever else we’ll need cheap PCs for in the future.
Of course I’m a bit worried by this color depth issue, but it can probably be overcome. permanent link to this post
“Ubuntu” is an ancient African word, meaning “humanity to others”. Ubuntu also means “I am what I am because of who we all are”.Very cool word.
I’ve decided to make Ubuntu Linux my gateway into the Linux world. It’s freshly installed on an old Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop of mine and I’m playing around with it. It’s been a medium-difficult (but fun) experience.
Background:
I decided to look into Linux for use in art installations. I figured build-your-own systems paired with Linux would be the cheapest way to go (this was before the introduction of the Mac mini). Plus, there is no way in hell I’m going to run my art work on top of Windows.
I’m coming from a Mac OS background.
Step 1: Distro delirium
The Linux live CDs are the easiest way to dip your toes into Linux and try different distros. The first one I successfully tested was Knoppix. Knoppix taught me that KDE is ugly as hell. I’ve since learned that you can make KDE look pretty cool. But the damage was done; I went in search of a live CD with Gnome as the default desktop environment which lead me to, what else? Gnoppix of course.
But a funny thing happened on the way to Gnoppix, their live CD happens to be Ubuntu Linux! After trying it out I was sold: it’s clean, simple, worked well with my hardware, and used ‘sudo’ to do system level commands very similar to Mac OS X. (I forgot to mention that I attempted SUSE in the meantime, but it wouldn’t install on my low RAM system.)
Step 2: Install the damn thing
This should be simple enough. I downloaded the installer from a Ubuntu download site, did a MD5 checksum, burned a disk (using Mac OS X’s disk utility), popped it in my PC and booted from the installer disk. From there it was a simple install process.
Let me back up a second. My install process was probably a tad easier then other users’ experience. What I mean is, is that because I simply reformatted the entire disk and installed fresh, I didn’t need to worry about partitioning my disk for dual-booting. If you are partitioning your disk to dual boot Linux and Windows then this might be a tougher job.
Step 3: Boot up your new system!
This is the easy part, just hit the continue button at the end of the install process.
Step 4: Remove hair violently
As soon as I booted up the problem was obvious. The entire screen was being drawn very weirdly: fuzziness, noise, a weird mirroring affect — not good. I’ll skip the details, but I tried and tried to fix it to no avail. I decided to install Mandrake Linux instead.
Step 5: Install the damn thing (2)
Again with the whole download-ISO-check-MD5-burn-CD bit (but with three CDs this time). But now comes the interesting part. Mandrake’s installer is much more user-friendly and mature than Ubuntu’s, so when I got to the part where one chooses their monitor resolution and color depth, the installer had a fancy little utility to TEST one’s video settings.
The installer chose default settings for my laptop monitor (based on the video card I assume) and I clicked the test button.
SAME PROBLEM AS UBUNTU!
Blurriness, weird mirroring affect, everything! After fiddling around with it a bit I finally realized that it was the color depth setting causing the problem; everything worked fine at 16-bit, but not at 24. This left me with a decision to make: stick with Mandrake or go back to Ubuntu. I was sure the problem with Ubuntu’s screen drawing was the same issue.
Step 6: Go to Step 2
After looking over the Mandrake and Ubuntu support and community sites I decided I liked Ubuntu. My impression was that the community is very helpful and friendly (reminds me of the Mac community), there are lots of Linux noobs like me (more experienced users are patient with them) and it just has a good vibe. Back to installing Ubuntu.
Step 7: Enjoy
So now I have a bare bones Ubuntu system running on my laptop (I did have to edit the X11 config file by hand to get the system to default to 16-bit color, but it wasn’t a problem).
I’m excited to start playing around with it and see what Linux can do in the studio. My plan is to create some dynamic run-time videos (similar to MTAA’s own 1YPV or Manovich’s Soft Cinema), use it in conjunction with touch-screens for more viscerally interactive pieces (gallery version of Five Small Videos…), and whatever else we’ll need cheap PCs for in the future.
Of course I’m a bit worried by this color depth issue, but it can probably be overcome. permanent link to this post
U2 vs. Negativland vs. Apple
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Here goes nothing: The Unauthorized iPod U2 vs. Negativland Special Edition, removed from eBay last December due to Apple’s objections, is now available for auction here on my own site. Bidding is open until March 14, 2005. This auction period is quite a bit more than what would be offered on eBay, because bid handling will be much less automated. Get your bids in now!permanent link to this post
Via: U2 vs. Negativland vs. Apple vs. eBay vs. me, take 2
Reblogging this week
posted at 16:46 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Might be a little short on the posts to the MTAA-RR this week as I’ll be spending my blogging minutes over on Eyebeam’s Reblog.
I spent some time planning some mischief, but decided to play it straight. I was going to try to post more often during the day but the process sort of precludes that as one needs to rebuild the MT-powered Reblog every time one wishes to update the site. We probably would like to keep those rebuilds to a minimum; and it takes a while. permanent link to this post
I spent some time planning some mischief, but decided to play it straight. I was going to try to post more often during the day but the process sort of precludes that as one needs to rebuild the MT-powered Reblog every time one wishes to update the site. We probably would like to keep those rebuilds to a minimum; and it takes a while. permanent link to this post
Tweedy and Lessig to Speak at NYPL
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Stolen from Newsgrist…
DAMN! DAMN! DAMN! I’m going to be out of town that day. I saw Lessig speak at Eyebeam a while back and he gives good lecture, highly recommended. permanent link to this post
On April 7, the New York Public Library and Wired Magazine will present musician, songwriter and author Jeff Tweedy and Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig in a discussion moderated by Wired Magazine contributing editor Steven Johnson. The engagement Who Owns Culture? will explore the artistic, commercial and legal issues that surround the Internet-enabled freeing of culture. It is part of the new series Live From the NYPL.Read the entire release: Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig to Speak at New York Public Library on April 7.
DAMN! DAMN! DAMN! I’m going to be out of town that day. I saw Lessig speak at Eyebeam a while back and he gives good lecture, highly recommended. permanent link to this post
Turbulence call for entries
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
In my in-box today:
CALL FOR ENTRIES: Turbulence Juried International Net Art Competitionpermanent link to this post
New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. is pleased to announce that with the support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, 5 net art projects will be commissioned for the Turbulence web site in a juried international (open to everyone) competition. Each commission will be $5,000 (US).
DEADLINE: March 31, 2005
GUIDELINES: http://turbulence.org/comp_05/guidelines.htm
JURORS: Wayne Ashley (US), Arcangel Constantini (Mexico), Sara Diamond (Canada), Melinda Rackham (Australia), and Helen Thorington (US).
Turbulence and MTAA Need Your Help
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Please reBlog…
From Jo-Anne Green at Turbulence.org:
From Jo-Anne Green at Turbulence.org:
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. The situation has become critical during the past month because two recently launched projects—ASCII BUSH and 1 Year Performance Video—have made greater demands on our server than ever before. Both projects have exceeded the limits of our monthly bandwidth; ASCII BUSH will re-launch soon after having been taken down for three weeks. [The piece had received close to 20,000 visits.] 1 Year Performance Video, by MTAA, is also a huge success. However, if we don’t find immediate support—either in the form of server co-hosts or financial contributions—this piece, too, will have to be taken down.permanent link to this post
Please consider helping Turbulence keep 1 Year Performance Video alive! Send the artists an email (twhid@mteww.com) if you can co-host the project, or go to http://turbulence.org and click on the PayPal button.
Turbulence 2005 Fundraiser
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The great web site the commissioned MTAA’s own 1 Year Performance Video needs your support!
December 1, 2005 New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc./Turbulence Fundraiser http://turbulence.org/fundraiser_05/index.html
New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (NRPA) will be 25 years old in 2006; Turbulence will be 10 years old. Despite the expansion of our projects, the acceleration of our support for net artists, and the valuable resources we provide in our networked_performance blog and New American Radio archive, NRPA has seen a decline in its operating support. As a result, much of our hard work forgoes compensation. Of equal concern is the dual role our server is forced to perform: archiving work produced since 1996 and supporting new commissions that require cutting edge technologies and later versions of its current software. It s time for a new server.
We need your support. Please help us preserve our archives and support emerging artists and technologies. Numerous Turbulence artists have generously donated DVDs, CDs, archival prints, T-Shirts and more. Choose from this impressive array or simply make a donation today. http://turbulence.org/fundraiser_05/index.html
Art work donated by Cory Arcangel, Kate Armstrong, Andy Deck, Jason Freeman, Mariam Ghani, Peter Horvath, Yael Kanarek, Michael Takeo Magruder, Michael Mandiberg, MTAA, Yoshi Sodeoka, Helen Thorington and Ricardo Miranda Zuñiga
We’ve donated DVD-Video loops of our piece ‘Infinite Smile.’ permanent link to this post
Tsunami relief efforts
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Inspired by many other web sites I thought I’d do my small part in spreading the relief message.
Some links for giving:
USAID
American Red Cross
Unicef
ReliefWeb
AmeriCares
Oxfam
Sarvodaya permanent link to this post
Some links for giving:
USAID
American Red Cross
Unicef
ReliefWeb
AmeriCares
Oxfam
Sarvodaya permanent link to this post
Tom Moody does 1YPV
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Tom Moody (we’ll be on Rhizome’s Blogging and the Arts panel together this Tuesday; be there or be square) posted a few comments on MTAA’s 1 YEAR PERFORMANCE VIDEO.
I’ll quote bits, then comment (read the entire post here, I can’t figure out if it’s positive or negative, but it’s thoughtful and honest so you can’t ask for more than that).
Buckets: one’s dirty, one’s clean; they both get used at some point.
Seriously, we have people who have been running the piece for (as of today) 36 days. Obviously they haven’t been watching the piece the entire time, they simply let it run on an unused computer in their lab or studio. But on the other hand, one can’t prove they haven’t been watching it either ;-)
When we created the piece we understood that not many people would view it for more than a few minutes. But that’s OK. One doesn’t need to view it for more than a few minutes. Once one gets the idea and also understands how digital media and computer networks function then it’s enough to know that it is there, ready to be viewed for an indefinite period of time, anytime you wish. To me it becomes sublime at that point.
It’s great that it seems many people are looking beyond the initial hook and finding other cultural resonances in the piece like Tom describes. But I would argue with Tom’s ‘singular interpretation.’ I don’t think the update has a singular interpretation, Tom’s is one interpretation, but there can be others. First, it’s not insincere, we are paying tribute to Hsieh. Second, it’s not a facsimile; it’s an *update*. We’ve taken parts of the original which work and used them unmodified (a cell, a year), we’ve take other parts and modified them (who’s commitment?), and we’ve added totally new parts (top 5, top 10 lists). So it becomes a new thing, not a facsimile. It’s new but it’s in dialogue with the original.
My own interpretation is that when we take a Hsieh’s piece, automate it and at the same time transfer the onus of the commitment from the artist to the viewer, the viewer invariably will reject the commitment *or* automate the commitment themselves. This rejection/automation is interesting.
Hsieh challenged himself, we challenge the viewer. That is the crux of the update. permanent link to this post
I’ll quote bits, then comment (read the entire post here, I can’t figure out if it’s positive or negative, but it’s thoughtful and honest so you can’t ask for more than that).
Tom Moody:t.whid:
Pieces that refer so specifically to known, past artworks, satirically or otherwise, are problematic—more on this below—but there’s much to think about here. Unlike the Globe and Mail, I’d discuss the work in terms of voyeurism, and artist recuperation of the part-guileless, part-sleazy home webcam phenomenon. In real (Internet) life, the only reason a surfer would stay with a site like this for hours was in the hope that the subjects might do something kinky. I know there are people watching this for art, but why? Perhaps the presence of white plastic buckets in the rooms creates some morbid curiosity about how the artists handle basic elimination needs, but frankly I didn’t stick around to find out.
Buckets: one’s dirty, one’s clean; they both get used at some point.
Seriously, we have people who have been running the piece for (as of today) 36 days. Obviously they haven’t been watching the piece the entire time, they simply let it run on an unused computer in their lab or studio. But on the other hand, one can’t prove they haven’t been watching it either ;-)
When we created the piece we understood that not many people would view it for more than a few minutes. But that’s OK. One doesn’t need to view it for more than a few minutes. Once one gets the idea and also understands how digital media and computer networks function then it’s enough to know that it is there, ready to be viewed for an indefinite period of time, anytime you wish. To me it becomes sublime at that point.
Like Penn and Teller explaining a magic trick, the artists reveal—on a related web page—quite a bit about the scripting and webserving mechanics behind their simulation. This geeks-only backstory actually makes for fairly fascinating reading. [snip]He’s referring to this page. It was important to include that material for three reasons: (1) We back open source software initiatives especially in relation to technical arts and artworks (the The Open Art Network is doing great work and we hope to add what we can from 1YPV to it soon), (2) we didn’t want anyone to mistake the webcam for something real; it’s important to the piece that the viewer knows they’re watching canned clips and (3) I had a secret private hope (that I’m first sharing now) that someone would re-mix/re-purpose/re-use the video clips.
For sure the technology changes the Hsieh piece quite a bit, which did allow observers, but only at specified times, like a prison visit. Ultimately the MTAA work’s relationship to current tech-shaped behavior patterns and pop culture tropes feels more compelling than its parody of the Hsieh performance, which is almost by definition an art world in-joke, with a singular interpretation: that when computer-age art revisits the physically demanding, emotionally wrenching work of yesteryear, an insincere, fast-food facsimile inevitably results. Sorry to leach the humor out of it, but there it is.We received the same criticism from Kevin McCoy (discussions with Kevin during the building of the piece were invaluable). The crit being that by making it simply an ‘update’ (or parody or satire) of Hsieh didn’t do justice to the piece. That it ‘stands on its own’, why quote Hsieh at all?
It’s great that it seems many people are looking beyond the initial hook and finding other cultural resonances in the piece like Tom describes. But I would argue with Tom’s ‘singular interpretation.’ I don’t think the update has a singular interpretation, Tom’s is one interpretation, but there can be others. First, it’s not insincere, we are paying tribute to Hsieh. Second, it’s not a facsimile; it’s an *update*. We’ve taken parts of the original which work and used them unmodified (a cell, a year), we’ve take other parts and modified them (who’s commitment?), and we’ve added totally new parts (top 5, top 10 lists). So it becomes a new thing, not a facsimile. It’s new but it’s in dialogue with the original.
My own interpretation is that when we take a Hsieh’s piece, automate it and at the same time transfer the onus of the commitment from the artist to the viewer, the viewer invariably will reject the commitment *or* automate the commitment themselves. This rejection/automation is interesting.
Hsieh challenged himself, we challenge the viewer. That is the crux of the update. permanent link to this post
Big news for Mac OS X users today
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Apple released a sneak preview of Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger (what a lame name) today at their World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco.
I have mixed feelings about some of the features, not because I don’t think they aren’t cool, but because it looks to put small 3rd-party Mac developers out of business.
Safari will contain a built-in RSS reader which looks to widen the RSS audience but at the same time force NetNewsWire and PulpFiction out of the market.
Dashboard looks cool; did Apple buy Konfabulator? Dashboard is a complete and utter rip-off of Konfabulator.
The changes to iChat AV look very exciting. It sports a new, very cool 3d interface for group video conferences. To bad there isn’t a way to use the power of the video conferencing abilities of this app as a 3rd-party developer. Imagine the possibilities for real-time streaming performances and etc which would be open to net artists…
There was a bunch of other stuff too, check it out.
update:
WHOOPS. I missed some fairly big news. The server edition of 10.4 comes with a Weblog server “based on the popular open source project ‘Blojsom.’” Blojsom is written in Java but is based on Perl-powered Blosxom which this web site is built with.
update deux:
Looks like Apple didn’t buy Konfabulator, it’s developer calls Apple’s Dashboard ‘insulting’ (link to C-Net, which is notoriously anti-Apple). permanent link to this post
I have mixed feelings about some of the features, not because I don’t think they aren’t cool, but because it looks to put small 3rd-party Mac developers out of business.
Safari will contain a built-in RSS reader which looks to widen the RSS audience but at the same time force NetNewsWire and PulpFiction out of the market.
Dashboard looks cool; did Apple buy Konfabulator? Dashboard is a complete and utter rip-off of Konfabulator.
The changes to iChat AV look very exciting. It sports a new, very cool 3d interface for group video conferences. To bad there isn’t a way to use the power of the video conferencing abilities of this app as a 3rd-party developer. Imagine the possibilities for real-time streaming performances and etc which would be open to net artists…
There was a bunch of other stuff too, check it out.
update:
WHOOPS. I missed some fairly big news. The server edition of 10.4 comes with a Weblog server “based on the popular open source project ‘Blojsom.’” Blojsom is written in Java but is based on Perl-powered Blosxom which this web site is built with.
update deux:
Looks like Apple didn’t buy Konfabulator, it’s developer calls Apple’s Dashboard ‘insulting’ (link to C-Net, which is notoriously anti-Apple). permanent link to this post
tehchingHsiehUpdate update
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Worked my ASS off over the weekend getting the Flash bit of our current project, tehchingHsiehUpdate, working correctly.
And I gotta say, Flash’s video format has got a looong way to go. My problem was that I needed to load a video right after one completed playing. But in my Flash videos (FLV) encoded using Macromedia’s FLV encoder 1.2 the videos would never officially ‘end’ so the media wrapper holding the video would never send the ‘complete’ event. In other words, the FLV encoder is broken and I had to figure out a workaround. I finally settled on using duration (accessed via onMetaData) and comparing it to the time the video has been playing to decide that the video has ended and load a new video.
Then I tackled loading the video playlist via an external XML file. That whole process is well-documented and the XML file is simple so that was pretty easy. Except that if the XML file had any breaks in it Flash would see those as extra nodes. The problem is easily fixed by making the XML one long line of text with no breaks.
Now we have a SWF that loads an external XML file, builds a playlist, and plays all the videos in it one after the other. When it reaches the end of the list, it reloads the XML file. This XML file will be dynamically generated so in the end we’ll have a year-long movie built from about 12 hours of video. permanent link to this post
And I gotta say, Flash’s video format has got a looong way to go. My problem was that I needed to load a video right after one completed playing. But in my Flash videos (FLV) encoded using Macromedia’s FLV encoder 1.2 the videos would never officially ‘end’ so the media wrapper holding the video would never send the ‘complete’ event. In other words, the FLV encoder is broken and I had to figure out a workaround. I finally settled on using duration (accessed via onMetaData) and comparing it to the time the video has been playing to decide that the video has ended and load a new video.
Then I tackled loading the video playlist via an external XML file. That whole process is well-documented and the XML file is simple so that was pretty easy. Except that if the XML file had any breaks in it Flash would see those as extra nodes. The problem is easily fixed by making the XML one long line of text with no breaks.
Now we have a SWF that loads an external XML file, builds a playlist, and plays all the videos in it one after the other. When it reaches the end of the list, it reloads the XML file. This XML file will be dynamically generated so in the end we’ll have a year-long movie built from about 12 hours of video. permanent link to this post
This week sucked
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I was supposed to be at the University of Maine today and through the weekend for the Conference on the Intellectual Commons. But instead I’m here in New York still recovering from a nasty cold or flu that had me down the entire week.
The conference sounded great and I was really looking forward to it. I was supposed to be on a panel tomorrow with Jon Ippolito (artist, curator, educator), Neeru Paharia (Assistant Director, Creative Commons) and other luminaries. We’re doing an iChat video conference so all is not lost I suppose.
We’re planning on re-scheduling my visit. I should be up there either in the next few weeks or after the first of the year.
Damn flu! Very disappointing. permanent link to this post
The conference sounded great and I was really looking forward to it. I was supposed to be on a panel tomorrow with Jon Ippolito (artist, curator, educator), Neeru Paharia (Assistant Director, Creative Commons) and other luminaries. We’re doing an iChat video conference so all is not lost I suppose.
We’re planning on re-scheduling my visit. I should be up there either in the next few weeks or after the first of the year.
Damn flu! Very disappointing. permanent link to this post
This art is the bomb
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Via Gawker, It’s Art So Long As You Don’t Detonate It via NY Observer, The Transom
So, who knows? If it’s a real bomb, Mr. Hackett will find himself in prison. He’s currently out on bail from weapons charges stemming from the explosion in 2004. If the cops read the NY Observer I have a feeling he may not be able to finish his bomb.
For what it’s worth, I find Gregory Green’s nuclear devices and package bombs more interesting. permanent link to this post
Continuing with our insistence that FEAR IS BACK, today’s Transom has a downright disturbing item about Brooklyn artist Chris Hackett […], who is constructing a fully-functional suitcase bomb. The piece is courtesy of the Madagascar Institute, a radical art organization which is organizing an exhibition to be shown at either Cooper Union or South Street Seaport the week of September 11. Here’s to the power of perfect timing:I cry BS or “conceptual hoax” as the Observer writer puts it. But at the same time I’m morbidly fascinated. Plus, it seems the artist has a bit of a violent streak. According to the Observer article:[Hackett] said the strength of the bomb would be equivalent to “about four pounds of TNT. It doesn’t sound like much,” he allowed, “but it’s enough to kill everyone in the gallery.”
Mr. Hackett was the victim of one of his own art works early last year. The graphic description in a New York Post story on Jan. 25, 2004, was that Mr. Hackett “blew up part of his face” while rigging a propane tank to fire a confetti cannon. Mr. Hackett’s jaw was broken in the explosion.
So, who knows? If it’s a real bomb, Mr. Hackett will find himself in prison. He’s currently out on bail from weapons charges stemming from the explosion in 2004. If the cops read the NY Observer I have a feeling he may not be able to finish his bomb.
For what it’s worth, I find Gregory Green’s nuclear devices and package bombs more interesting. permanent link to this post
Thingist discussion on Napier’s new stuff
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
There’s some good discussion happening on Thingist around Napier’s new body of work now showing at Bitforms.
A note from Rob about finding the discussion:
See and hear Napier talk about his stuff this Thursday at the Upgrade! (NYC and area). permanent link to this post
A note from Rob about finding the discussion:
[…] people have to login as guest then go to “threads” to find it.
See and hear Napier talk about his stuff this Thursday at the Upgrade! (NYC and area). permanent link to this post
The Yes Men movie
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The Yes Men movie opened yesterday in New York and Los Angeles.
It’s going to be opening in a bunch of other theaters around the country on October 1st too. Check out the dates and locations here.
Who are The Yes Men? According to their site:
It’s going to be opening in a bunch of other theaters around the country on October 1st too. Check out the dates and locations here.
Who are The Yes Men? According to their site:
Identity Theft:permanent link to this post
Small-time criminals impersonate honest people in order to steal their money. Targets are ordinary folks whose ID numbers fell into the wrong hands.
Identity Correction:
Honest people impersonate big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them. Targets are leaders and big corporations who put profits ahead of everything else.
The Yes Men:
The Yes Men have impersonated some of the world’s most powerful criminals at conferences, on the web, and on television, in order to correct their identities. They currently have hundreds of thousands of job openings.
The Year In The Internet 2005
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Michael Bell-Smith and Cory Arcangel compiled a list of what some folks thought was best about the Internet in 2005.
I’m proud to say that MTAA made Marisa Olson’s top 10:
Thanks for the mad props Marisa. permanent link to this post
I’m proud to say that MTAA made Marisa Olson’s top 10:
MTAA’s 1 year performance video (aka samHsiehUpdate) One of the smartest, most interesting, art historically important works of internet art ever. Honestly.
Thanks for the mad props Marisa. permanent link to this post
The Shock of the New Entry Fee
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MoMA will raise the basic price of admission an eye-opening 67 percent, to $20, making the Modern the most expensive major art museum in the United States.[ From: The Shock of the New Entry Fee :: The New York Times > Arts ]
Damn. That’s harsh. I haven’t even been to MoMA for a while to my embarrassment. (When is the construction supposed to be done anyway?) It’s best to go with M.River who can get in 4 people free as he works at another major NYC art museum.
Of course the Met is always good too: pay what you wish. And if you’re to embarrassed to wish to pay whatever change you may have in your pocket, it’s easy to find one of those buttons laying around on the steps outside. permanent link to this post
“The Scream” stolen
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Edvard Munch’s paintings “The Scream” and “Madonna” were stolen from an art museum Sunday while armed men threatened the staff at gunpoint.[LINK to full story in NYTimes]
Holy shit! permanent link to this post
the Pool Featured on Wired
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The University of Maine’s Joline Blais and John Ippolito have created a project called the Pool which is, according to the article:
a collaborative online environment for creating and sharing images, music, videos, programming code and texts
I saw John Ippolito, Joline Blais and Lawrence Lessig speak at Eyebeam a few weeks back about their respective projects. Lessig is, of course, behind Creative Commons; Blais presented the Pool; and Ippolito presented his own project for encouraging artists to go one step farther and open source their project’s source or “mother” files.
I like Ippolito’s ideas about sharing these more valuable “working” files as I call them. It would mean making your .FLA, Final Cut source files, .PSDs, .AIs and so on available freely to the public. There is a problem however when it comes to bandwidth and storage for what could be massive working files (especially for any project which uses video).
So, one piece of the puzzle is to have *free* storage space on public servers for artists to store their working files along with a searchable database of all the stuff and where it is. I’ve been toying with the idea of taking up the cause… permanent link to this post
I like Ippolito’s ideas about sharing these more valuable “working” files as I call them. It would mean making your .FLA, Final Cut source files, .PSDs, .AIs and so on available freely to the public. There is a problem however when it comes to bandwidth and storage for what could be massive working files (especially for any project which uses video).
So, one piece of the puzzle is to have *free* storage space on public servers for artists to store their working files along with a searchable database of all the stuff and where it is. I’ve been toying with the idea of taking up the cause… permanent link to this post
The Plaza protest
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
There was an intervention on the side of The Plaza Hotel this morning. I haven’t seen this anywhere else in the media.
See the pix here.
From an eyewitness:
[…] two men hanging off the side of the building on ropes, with tons of police cars below. So I go into my building (which is directly across the street, the FAO Schwartz building) and up to the 10th floor where I work and tell everyone what is going on. We all run to the window and watch as these two men are dangling outside the Plaza trying to hang an anti-Bush sign. The cops were reaching out the window after them, it was quite a scene!Thanks Marcia ;) permanent link to this post
The most blogged artist EVER!
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I follow a few art feeds and in the past week the amount of Cory Arcangel postings has been overwhelming. He’s definitely the art-blog superstar.
First, MTAA has posted at least five posts ourselves (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
James Wagner busted out a couple over the weekend: Cory Arcangel travels with sound and light and Paper Rad and Cory Arcangel.
Bloggy chimed in with Cory Arcangel at Team Gallery.
And Tom Moody has been all over it with 3 posts, Detail of Super Mario Movie Poster, Super Mario Movie, Super Heads of State and Notes on Arcangel Show.
So what do you all think? Is Cory the most blogged artist to date?
Oops, just found another at a blog called cheesedip: cory arcangel week
I should not have done the google search… one more, Cory Arcangel @ Team Gallery, NYC.
Feel free to send me more links if you like. permanent link to this post
First, MTAA has posted at least five posts ourselves (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
James Wagner busted out a couple over the weekend: Cory Arcangel travels with sound and light and Paper Rad and Cory Arcangel.
Bloggy chimed in with Cory Arcangel at Team Gallery.
And Tom Moody has been all over it with 3 posts, Detail of Super Mario Movie Poster, Super Mario Movie, Super Heads of State and Notes on Arcangel Show.
So what do you all think? Is Cory the most blogged artist to date?
Oops, just found another at a blog called cheesedip: cory arcangel week
I should not have done the google search… one more, Cory Arcangel @ Team Gallery, NYC.
Feel free to send me more links if you like. permanent link to this post
The oh-so-lame-i-gotta-post-on-the-blog-cuz-i-got-a-blog blog post
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Well, it’s not that lame, we do have some news: we were invited to apply for a grant where we could score $35k.
Who the hell would even consider giving us $35k you ask?
This org. permanent link to this post
Who the hell would even consider giving us $35k you ask?
This org. permanent link to this post
The Infectious Nature of Holiday Cheer
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Just in time for Xmas 2004! Starring yours truly in a big budget holiday extravaganza!
The Infectious Nature of Holiday Cheer
Download medium version (.mov, 320x240)
10.9MB
Quicktime required - get it here
Download large version (Divx, 640x480)
84.6MB
Quicktime required - get it here
Divx codec required - Mac | PC
Download the entire file to your hard drive and play in QuickTime player on a Mac or Divx Player on a PC. To Download, Mac: control-click the link and choose to save link or file; PC: right-click and choose to save the link, target or file.
Credits
A B&D Handmade production
Written & Directed by Bill Hallinan
The Players
T.Whid as John Q. Public
André Sala as Mr. Gift Boxes
Dawn Winchester as Fay Wray
Bill Hallinan as Pointer
The Crew
Photography by George Su
Prop Master, André Sala
Prop Support, Elece Blumberg permanent link to this post
The Huffington Post | Raw Feed!
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
After a day and a half of subscribing to the Huffington Post | Raw Feed (xml link), I’m sort of drowning in information. But I’m a sucker for punishment. I’ve been a subscriber to Rhizome_RAW for years and that list could generate 30-40 emails a day!
Most of the Huffington Post posts are very good. But I have to admit, it’s the first time I scan the author in my aggregator (as well as headline) to decide if I would like to read a post.
I wonder if they’ll keep up the amount of and rate of posting or if it’s just that it’s a shiny new thing and everyone is excited by it. It is a group blog, so if it seems like they’re not getting the volume they’d like they can always just add more people.
Overall, a very good job with one small exception: why use Flash™ on the little animated logo? That could have easily been done with an animated GIF. permanent link to this post
Most of the Huffington Post posts are very good. But I have to admit, it’s the first time I scan the author in my aggregator (as well as headline) to decide if I would like to read a post.
I wonder if they’ll keep up the amount of and rate of posting or if it’s just that it’s a shiny new thing and everyone is excited by it. It is a group blog, so if it seems like they’re not getting the volume they’d like they can always just add more people.
Overall, a very good job with one small exception: why use Flash™ on the little animated logo? That could have easily been done with an animated GIF. permanent link to this post
The Contagious Festival
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Hosted on Huffpost, check out the new Contagious Festival.
From the site:
From the site:
Do you enjoy Rumors on the Internets, Mr. Pibb + Red Vines, and brilliant political strategy? Do you have what it takes to create the next JibJab, Numa Numa Dance, Detroit Project or Black People Love Us?permanent link to this post
The Huffington Post Contagious Festival is a unique opportunity for talented designers, political activists of any persuasion, filmmakers and comics to reach millions of people with creative, viral online work. The contestants that create the best projects get Internet fame and the chance to meet with friends of Huffington Post from the worlds of entertainment and politics to discuss future projects and opportunities.
ENTER THE FESTIVAL NOW
The first round of entries will go live starting February 1, but you should Enter Now to reserve a spot on the official Contagious Festival server. You simply create an account, build your project on the server and launch your site. Then you can watch the live rankings to see if your entry is being forwarded, linked, and IMed around the Internet. At the end of the month, we award two prizes:
The People’s Choice Award for the contestant that creates the entry that gets the most total traffic during the month. The winner dines with Arianna Huffington and receives $2,500.
The Jury Prize for the favorite entry of our jury is a meeting with the judge most interested in their work and receives $2,500. Judges will vote based on creativity, originality and social commentary.
The 2nd Annual DRINKIN’ & DRAWIN’ CHAMPIONSHIP
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
note: m.river posted this already but I’m including the entire announcement for ease of linkage.
++++
MTAA and Bar Matchless present:
The 2nd Annual DRINKIN’ & DRAWIN’ CHAMPIONSHIP
http://www.tinjail.com/drinkAndDraw
GRAND PRIZE: $100 bar tab
++++
What?
A one-night only contest to crown the 2005 Drinkin’ & Drawin’ Champion!
When?
Thursday, March 31, 2005 8PM - 11PM.
No pre-registration necessary; free drawing materials provided.
Where?
Bar Matchless, corner of Driggs and Manhattan Aves.,
Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NYC (directions at the bottom)
Who?
Open to all professional and amateur artists, designers, architects, curators, craft-persons and barflies. No entry fee, all comers welcome.
Celebrity Judges?
Inka Essenhigh
The internationally exhibited painter and draftsperson (learn more at inka-essenhigh.com), is preparing for her upcoming show at Victoria Miro Gallery, but will take time out to judge your drinkin’ and drawin’ skills.
Steve Mumford
He put the graphic arts back on the media map with his Baghdad Journal, which will be published as a book in fall 2005 by Drawn & Quarterly in Montreal. He’s drawn under fire, let’s see what you can do!
DJ?
tinydiva
Why?
It might be interesting if an art idea conceived in a bar could use a bar as a site and context for said art idea plus, it’s been a long hard winter.
More?
Contestants are provided with sheets of 8.5x11 paper and a #2 pencil. Or BYOM (bring your own media, must be paper)
Pass this URL around: http://www.tinjail.com/drinkAndDraw
Contact mriver@mteww.com for more info.
For more info on the promoters, MTAA: http://www.mteww.com
For more info on the venue: http://www.BARMATCHLESS.COM
Directions to Bar Matchless:
From Manhattan:
Take the L train to Bedford Ave. North on Driggs Ave. (past McCarren Park) to Manhattan Ave.
From Brooklyn or Queens:
Take G train to Nassau. Walk one block east on Manhattan Ave. to Driggs Ave.
map:
mapquest
Who will be the 2005 Drinkin’ & Drawin’ Champion? permanent link to this post
++++
MTAA and Bar Matchless present:
The 2nd Annual DRINKIN’ & DRAWIN’ CHAMPIONSHIP
http://www.tinjail.com/drinkAndDraw
GRAND PRIZE: $100 bar tab
++++
What?
A one-night only contest to crown the 2005 Drinkin’ & Drawin’ Champion!
When?
Thursday, March 31, 2005 8PM - 11PM.
No pre-registration necessary; free drawing materials provided.
Where?
Bar Matchless, corner of Driggs and Manhattan Aves.,
Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NYC (directions at the bottom)
Who?
Open to all professional and amateur artists, designers, architects, curators, craft-persons and barflies. No entry fee, all comers welcome.
Celebrity Judges?
Inka Essenhigh
The internationally exhibited painter and draftsperson (learn more at inka-essenhigh.com), is preparing for her upcoming show at Victoria Miro Gallery, but will take time out to judge your drinkin’ and drawin’ skills.
Steve Mumford
He put the graphic arts back on the media map with his Baghdad Journal, which will be published as a book in fall 2005 by Drawn & Quarterly in Montreal. He’s drawn under fire, let’s see what you can do!
DJ?
tinydiva
Why?
It might be interesting if an art idea conceived in a bar could use a bar as a site and context for said art idea plus, it’s been a long hard winter.
More?
Contestants are provided with sheets of 8.5x11 paper and a #2 pencil. Or BYOM (bring your own media, must be paper)
Pass this URL around: http://www.tinjail.com/drinkAndDraw
Contact mriver@mteww.com for more info.
For more info on the promoters, MTAA: http://www.mteww.com
For more info on the venue: http://www.BARMATCHLESS.COM
Directions to Bar Matchless:
From Manhattan:
Take the L train to Bedford Ave. North on Driggs Ave. (past McCarren Park) to Manhattan Ave.
From Brooklyn or Queens:
Take G train to Nassau. Walk one block east on Manhattan Ave. to Driggs Ave.
map:
mapquest
Who will be the 2005 Drinkin’ & Drawin’ Champion? permanent link to this post
The anti-Laguna Beach
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Watched Country Boys tonight on Frontline.
It would be interesting to watch 1/2 segments interspersed with Laguna Beach episodes. permanent link to this post
It would be interesting to watch 1/2 segments interspersed with Laguna Beach episodes. permanent link to this post
Th W bp g F r Pl nn d S lf- bs l sc nc
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A fun remix of MTAA’s Webpage For Planned Self-Obsolescence (AKA Even In The Line To The NYC DMV, One May Think Of Art) by the master of net remixing: jimpunk!
Th W bp g F r Pl nn d S lf- bs l sc nc ( v n n Th L n T Th N C DMV, n M Th nk () permanent link to this post
Th W bp g F r Pl nn d S lf- bs l sc nc ( v n n Th L n T Th N C DMV, n M Th nk () permanent link to this post
Tell us what to do
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA’s “10 Pre-Rejected, Pre-Approved Performances” is a project that allows you, the dirty mob of the unwashed Internet public, to decide what performance we do for an upcoming show!
Break down the clean, white walls of the rarified New York gallery world by telling us, MTAA, the elitist NYC net art snobs, what to do (via a simple on-line form)!
It’s fun! Go there now and vote!
It’s easy! Go there now and vote!
It’s anti-establishment! Go there now and vote!
You get to pick from a selection of 10 titles and descriptions. Your choice is the performance we’ll complete! The curator of the show and gallery directors have already agreed! (Suckers.) The best part? All these ideas have already been rejected by other curators! Haha — suckers2!
MTAA’s “10 Pre-Rejected, Pre-Approved Performances” will be exhibited at Artists Space in a show entitled We Are All Together: Media(ted) Performance curated by Marisa Olson, which is in turn part of Empty Space With Exciting Events which is itself presented in partnership with Performa ‘05 The Performance Biennial. (Damn the NYC gallery world is complicated — it’s like a mystery wrapped in an enigma then slathered with special confusion sauce.)
+++++
update
Looks like Null And Void is barely holding onto the lead! Go vote. permanent link to this post
Break down the clean, white walls of the rarified New York gallery world by telling us, MTAA, the elitist NYC net art snobs, what to do (via a simple on-line form)!
It’s fun! Go there now and vote!
It’s easy! Go there now and vote!
It’s anti-establishment! Go there now and vote!
You get to pick from a selection of 10 titles and descriptions. Your choice is the performance we’ll complete! The curator of the show and gallery directors have already agreed! (Suckers.) The best part? All these ideas have already been rejected by other curators! Haha — suckers2!
MTAA’s “10 Pre-Rejected, Pre-Approved Performances” will be exhibited at Artists Space in a show entitled We Are All Together: Media(ted) Performance curated by Marisa Olson, which is in turn part of Empty Space With Exciting Events which is itself presented in partnership with Performa ‘05 The Performance Biennial. (Damn the NYC gallery world is complicated — it’s like a mystery wrapped in an enigma then slathered with special confusion sauce.)
+++++
update
Looks like Null And Void is barely holding onto the lead! Go vote. permanent link to this post
What we’re working on
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Here’s some more info on what MTAA is working on:
tehchingHsiehUpdate
I’m going to remain coy and not explain the entire project.
[Related info here, here and here] permanent link to this post
tehchingHsiehUpdate
I’m going to remain coy and not explain the entire project.
[Related info here, here and here] permanent link to this post
Tax the rich!
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jason Van Anden’s submission to the Huffington Post’s Contagious Festival:
>> Tax The Rich! <<
(Try to ignore the obnoxious AOL adverts.)
M. River adds:
Wow. No, I can not ignore those adverts. Props to Jason and all the Contagious Media site builders but - those fucking ads on the sites. Lame. Political net art 2.0, now with pop-ups. permanent link to this post
>> Tax The Rich! <<
Tax the Rich is an online political campaign hosted by the The Huffington Post. It stars the adorable, animated “Baby Liberty”, an innocent talking head who dreams of a better future. Baby Liberty wants “Tax the Rich” to become part of our common vernacular, believing in her heart of hearts that this will positively change the world for rich and poor alike.
(Try to ignore the obnoxious AOL adverts.)
M. River adds:
Wow. No, I can not ignore those adverts. Props to Jason and all the Contagious Media site builders but - those fucking ads on the sites. Lame. Political net art 2.0, now with pop-ups. permanent link to this post
TAC Compression (Total A##hole Compression)
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
http://www.TACcompression.com
(serial no. RSG-TAC-1)
From Beige and RSG:
Download the BETA for OsX permanent link to this post
(serial no. RSG-TAC-1)
From Beige and RSG:
Why make files smaller, when you can TAC them?™
TAC* is the best compression format available for the web today! By using revolutionary scientific methods, research teams at RSG and the Beige Programming ensemble were able to a compose a complex software tool that expels many of the myths that surround modern file compression techniques. The secret of TAC compression is not that it makes files smaller, but that it makes files bigger, much bigger.** This provides the end user with a compression tool to meet almost any need in today’s bandwidth and gig overloaded computing world.
Download the BETA for OsX permanent link to this post
Support Rhizome
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Rhizome has launched their membership drive (as of September 19th — would have posted about it sooner but I was busy marrying my love and kicking back in Europe with her).
They’ve got some great Thank You gifts, one of which is being donated by MTAA. For just 500 bucks (Rhizome calls it the Root level) you get to support this great new media org and you also get a copy of 1 Year Performance Video Art Data (read more about what 1YPV Art Data is). The only other way to get the 1YPV Art Data is to watch 1YPV for one year (or buy one of the gallery versions).
So, let’s do the math. For 500 USD, you get 1YPV Art Data OR you can watch it for a year and get it for “free.” Unless your time is worth less than 6 US cents an hour, this is a really, really good deal.
Go! Go now and give Rhizome some dough and get to be a collector of a piece of one-of-a-kind MTAA Art Data! permanent link to this post
They’ve got some great Thank You gifts, one of which is being donated by MTAA. For just 500 bucks (Rhizome calls it the Root level) you get to support this great new media org and you also get a copy of 1 Year Performance Video Art Data (read more about what 1YPV Art Data is). The only other way to get the 1YPV Art Data is to watch 1YPV for one year (or buy one of the gallery versions).
So, let’s do the math. For 500 USD, you get 1YPV Art Data OR you can watch it for a year and get it for “free.” Unless your time is worth less than 6 US cents an hour, this is a really, really good deal.
Go! Go now and give Rhizome some dough and get to be a collector of a piece of one-of-a-kind MTAA Art Data! permanent link to this post
Superbowl
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
So… like…
Was that Janet Jackson’s breast? Did Justin Timberlake just rip her top off? permanent link to this post
Was that Janet Jackson’s breast? Did Justin Timberlake just rip her top off? permanent link to this post
Super Mario Movie
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Alex Galloway published the text below to the Rhizome list and I stole it to publish here.
The text will accompany the release of the source code for “Super Mario Movie.”
The text will accompany the release of the source code for “Super Mario Movie.”
“The Mario Movie,” Deitch Projects, New York City, January 2005permanent link to this post
Cory Arcangel (Beige) and Paper Rad
This is a group effort, so let me first introduce the principle actors. Paper Rad: Benjamin Jones, Jacob Ciocci, and Jessica Ciocci. Beige: Cory Arcangel, Paul B. Davis, Joe Bonn, and Joe Beuckman. They work in collectives for the same reason that punks play in bands: it’s funner that way, and it’s easier to make more noise. There is the Lennon/McCartney question of who is responsible for what, and I can’t make head nor tails of it. But from what I know Ben and the Paper Rad kids have a shameless affection for dirt-style, fan fiction comics about Garfield and Howard the Duck. And then there’s Paul who I am told once entered the DMC turntable competition under the DJ name “Spin Laden.” (He advanced through the opening heats, a challenge in itself, before being thrown off for scratching in the Notorious B.I.G. lyric “Time to get paid / blow up like the World Trade.”) The clothes that the Paper Rad kids wear they sew themselves. Cory wears them too, I think, when he’s not wearing pizza-shaped animal pullovers knit at home with his other chums. And on more than one occasion, I’ve been present when, sauntering past a stray guitar, in a Kmart aisle or friend’s house party it doesn’t matter which, Cory has spontaneously tapped out the full arpeggios of Eddie Van Halen’s “Eruption” with ten fingers at full frills. Then there was the music performance in Brooklyn when the Paper Rad three sat cross-legged on the floor performing a pretend recital on some Sony “My First Laptops,” while the music was droning on prerecorded throughout. I thought electronic music was the one thing you didn’t have to lip-sync? Oh well. Here’s how I understand it: I’ve done way more ecstasy than Beige and Paper Rad put together, but they’ve done way more acid. And that makes all the difference. As Ben scribbled in a comic once, “Can one be tanned at night by stars?”
But it gets weirder: “The Mario Movie,” Deitch Projects, New York City, January 2005. There is not much a rational person can say about a psychedelic rave fantasy, with messed up graphics, with castles floating on rainbow colored clouds, with dance parties and raves in underwater dungeons, all starring Mario the plumber who does little more than weep through the tumult. And the whole thing plays live off a hand-soldered video game cartridge. Gosh. But if I may observe one thing it would be merely the following: this is the real deal. Which is to say that it’s not the real deal. This is computer code. But what you see is not what you get. To watch the code itself would bore to distraction. Instead this code runs on a video game console that converts it into sound and image. The game console is the Nintendo Entertainment System, known affectionately as “the NES” to every youngster lucky enough to receive one for Christmas in 1985. (Raised by hippies in Oregon, we were not so fortunate.) The NES is a magical device, for given the proper code it can synthesize any sort of video signal from scratch. This is not the sort of video made with a camera and edited on a computer, mind you. How do we know? First, the compiled Mario Movie is 32 kilobytes in size, or about twice as long as the few paragraphs you are reading now. Even compressed, a ten minute video is roughly a thousand times larger. Second, the movie runs directly off the customized game cartridge pushed into the socket of the NES console—without, Cory is keen to observe, altering the factory-soldered graphics chip shipped on the original ’80s cartridges. “Yo sound the bells / school is in sucker,” MC Hammer would come to say a few years later. “U can’t touch this.” This is the real deal.
Because of this, computer art is more like sculpture than like painting or video. In making the work computer artists actually fabricate the substrate of the medium, they don’t apply things to surfaces or use prefab tools to move images on a screen. The code is the medium. So in writing code, and running it, the computer artist builds the work from the ground up. It’s all math and electricity. To engineer the soundtrack, Cory pokes the audio registers on the NES’s chip in specific frequencies. When he does they chirp. To get the video, he writes hundreds of lines of code, code like “lda $2002” (translation: load the value from memory position 2002 into the “a” register in the processor), or like “jsr vwait” (translation: jump ahead to the subroutine called “vwait” to stall for a few milliseconds while the television’s electron beam repositions itself). What appears on the screen is the image of pure data. It is, in a manner of speaking, what numbers look like (if they could). Translation: this is not video art. Maybe call it math art, geek art, whatever. The Mario Movie makes tedium profound, and the other way around.
They say everything becomes interesting in the long run. Super Mario Bros might be nostalgia to you. But it’s not to them. All media is dead media, that’s what Paper Rad and Cory understand. It’s all garbage from the beginning—so don’t yearn for a time when it was otherwise. When you understand media as trash then there is no nostalgia. If there is any shred of longing that remains in the work, it’s not for our childhood friend Mario. It’s for an acid high, for a simulated hiatus in a far off land that no one has ever been to. It’s for watching a cartoon schmuck trip rather than you. It’s nostalgia for raves sucked from the fevered brains of raver-haters. Everything is as new as it is old. Everything is as sucky as it is good. This is the movie.
— Alex Galloway, January 12, 2005 3:08:50 PM EST
Subway images
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I came across this piece on the NYTime’s website this morning (reg requ). It’s an interview and slide show (flash) with the photographer Bruce Davidson regarding his late 70s/early 80s photographs of and in the NYC subway system.
It reminded me of David Crawford’s ‘Stop Motion Studies’ series.
As some may know, MTAA is interested in ‘updates’ of older art work and it’s interesting to read Crawford’s work as an update of Davidson (though I’m certain that Crawford didn’t intend it to be).
If you compare Davidson’s photos to Crawford’s animations both formally (still photo as opposed to sorta-still) and you compare how the subject has changed over the intervening years, you will see a greater narrative develop which neither of the two projects could achieve on their own.
Don’t misunderstand, both projects are brilliantly executed on their own, but the comparison creates a historical arc that adds another fascinating layer. permanent link to this post
It reminded me of David Crawford’s ‘Stop Motion Studies’ series.
As some may know, MTAA is interested in ‘updates’ of older art work and it’s interesting to read Crawford’s work as an update of Davidson (though I’m certain that Crawford didn’t intend it to be).
If you compare Davidson’s photos to Crawford’s animations both formally (still photo as opposed to sorta-still) and you compare how the subject has changed over the intervening years, you will see a greater narrative develop which neither of the two projects could achieve on their own.
Don’t misunderstand, both projects are brilliantly executed on their own, but the comparison creates a historical arc that adds another fascinating layer. permanent link to this post
Suggestions for Rhizome
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
First a disclaimer: I’ve been a Rhizome member for years (since ‘97), have personal friendships with all the main people who manage it (both past and present), and have recently done paid work for them. These suggestions are in the spirit of dialogue and openness and are not intended to demean or diminish the challenges the directors face in keeping Rhizome afloat and relevant.
Rhizome should adopt a shareware model as opposed to a publication model. With their new policy, Rhizome has adopted what we’ll call the NYTimes model: new content is free, older content is behind a fee firewall. This is a reasonable model for a publication that commissions original writing and art. For the most part, Rhizome doesn’t commission writing (except Net Art News). So the NYTimes model isn’t a reasonable model for Rhizome, below I’ll outline more of a shareware model that I think would make the constituency happy as well as bring some revenue into Rhizome.
This idea centers on giving people more and easier ways to access Rhizome content while always leaving a base level of free content outside of any firewall. We add value by applying filters and enhancements for a fee.
First, we need to define a reasonable free service. Access to all text and artbase entries should be free forever. I think the membership would agree with this as a base service. This would include access to the Rhizome_RAW email list, the RARE feed with excerpts, the art + text sections of the web site and newer Net Art News items. It would be free to submit text and art.
After a member becomes a paying member they receive a few enhancements and services:
1. Access to Rhizome_RARE mailing list.
2. A full RARE RSS Feed, this would allow one to read all of RARE without visiting Rhizome.org.
3. Advanced search capabilities: search by year, artist, region. Search only the artbase or search only text, etc.
4. Members are allowed to curate online exhibitions.
5. Enhanced text handling on the site. Currently there are some really funky text handling (since most text comes in via email), making this smarter for paying users would be a great enhancement.
6. Provide bare-bone discussion spaces (blogs).
7. Access to Net Art News archives.
This isn’t supposed to be an exhaustive list, it’s sort of off-the-top-of-my-head. But if the policy were “all content is free, but you pay to get the content in more convenient ways,” then I think it would serve the community better. permanent link to this post
Rhizome should adopt a shareware model as opposed to a publication model. With their new policy, Rhizome has adopted what we’ll call the NYTimes model: new content is free, older content is behind a fee firewall. This is a reasonable model for a publication that commissions original writing and art. For the most part, Rhizome doesn’t commission writing (except Net Art News). So the NYTimes model isn’t a reasonable model for Rhizome, below I’ll outline more of a shareware model that I think would make the constituency happy as well as bring some revenue into Rhizome.
This idea centers on giving people more and easier ways to access Rhizome content while always leaving a base level of free content outside of any firewall. We add value by applying filters and enhancements for a fee.
First, we need to define a reasonable free service. Access to all text and artbase entries should be free forever. I think the membership would agree with this as a base service. This would include access to the Rhizome_RAW email list, the RARE feed with excerpts, the art + text sections of the web site and newer Net Art News items. It would be free to submit text and art.
After a member becomes a paying member they receive a few enhancements and services:
1. Access to Rhizome_RARE mailing list.
2. A full RARE RSS Feed, this would allow one to read all of RARE without visiting Rhizome.org.
3. Advanced search capabilities: search by year, artist, region. Search only the artbase or search only text, etc.
4. Members are allowed to curate online exhibitions.
5. Enhanced text handling on the site. Currently there are some really funky text handling (since most text comes in via email), making this smarter for paying users would be a great enhancement.
6. Provide bare-bone discussion spaces (blogs).
7. Access to Net Art News archives.
This isn’t supposed to be an exhaustive list, it’s sort of off-the-top-of-my-head. But if the policy were “all content is free, but you pay to get the content in more convenient ways,” then I think it would serve the community better. permanent link to this post
Stuff I found while ego-surfing
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Recently, while I was rooting through the 1YPV database, I noticed lots of login email addresses with .cz at the end — near the bottom of the list of users.
“Hmmmmm,” I thought, “This must mean there was recently an article on a Czech language web site.”
So this morning I fired up Google and started searching the Czech language web for any mention of “1 year performance video.”
Sadly, I found jack. But I did find some other fun stuff and I’ve listed it below.
1. Nathaniel Stern’s blog
Nathaniel Stern is a South African artist, poet, and educator who has been around the net art scene for quiet some time. His blog is a good read. Plus he loves MTAA so I figure I needed to give some of the love back :)
2. The GalleryDriver art blog page
I remember a while back being asked if the MTAA-RR could be included on this page and evidently I said yes.
According to their site GalleryDriver is “Headquartered in Albany, New York, GalleryDriver markets and provides a web presence for Art Galleries and Artists.”
And they seem pretty smart about it by providing this round-up of art-related RSS feeds all on one page. It includes many of the art blogs I read (NEWSgrist, James Wagner, Bloggy and Greg.org) and some other interesting blogs I didn’t know about, like Megan and Murray McMillan.
3. Something about 1YPV in italian
Hmmmm.
4. Newish blog on new-ish media: See Art, Make Art
It’s a group blog that looks to be only four months old. It’s culling together a bunch of different sources of online new media art info in a pleasing design. Pros: A post about MTAA; Cons: They didn’t put that post in the ‘supercool’ category.
5. Something about 1YPV in french
Hmmmm.
6. Something about 1YPV in japanese
Double Hmmmm. And filed under “Strange” too!
OK kids, that’s it: Stuff I found while ego-surfing “1 year performance video.” Off to clean the bathroom. permanent link to this post
“Hmmmmm,” I thought, “This must mean there was recently an article on a Czech language web site.”
So this morning I fired up Google and started searching the Czech language web for any mention of “1 year performance video.”
Sadly, I found jack. But I did find some other fun stuff and I’ve listed it below.
1. Nathaniel Stern’s blog
Nathaniel Stern is a South African artist, poet, and educator who has been around the net art scene for quiet some time. His blog is a good read. Plus he loves MTAA so I figure I needed to give some of the love back :)
2. The GalleryDriver art blog page
I remember a while back being asked if the MTAA-RR could be included on this page and evidently I said yes.
According to their site GalleryDriver is “Headquartered in Albany, New York, GalleryDriver markets and provides a web presence for Art Galleries and Artists.”
And they seem pretty smart about it by providing this round-up of art-related RSS feeds all on one page. It includes many of the art blogs I read (NEWSgrist, James Wagner, Bloggy and Greg.org) and some other interesting blogs I didn’t know about, like Megan and Murray McMillan.
3. Something about 1YPV in italian
Hmmmm.
4. Newish blog on new-ish media: See Art, Make Art
It’s a group blog that looks to be only four months old. It’s culling together a bunch of different sources of online new media art info in a pleasing design. Pros: A post about MTAA; Cons: They didn’t put that post in the ‘supercool’ category.
5. Something about 1YPV in french
Hmmmm.
6. Something about 1YPV in japanese
Double Hmmmm. And filed under “Strange” too!
OK kids, that’s it: Stuff I found while ego-surfing “1 year performance video.” Off to clean the bathroom. permanent link to this post
Studio update
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
First…
Happy Mother’s Day!
Now to the post…
In this post’s comments, Kevin asks “Where are you at with the idea of an off-line, gallery version of [1YPV]?”
(I’m not sure who this Kevin is. I believe it’s Kevin McC of “Jennifer and” but it could be Kevin McG of Rhizome.)
Anyway, where are we? We’re done ;-) We have two versions of the gallery version: the software and the entire installation (set, props, software). The software is a Mac OS X application (written by Alex Galloway) that displays two channels of MPEG4 video on one display.
We need a place to show it. We’ve been invited to show at FILE 2005 so we’re hoping that the software version will be shown there. But we’ve yet to find a place to show the installation version, but we’re working on it.
It’s currently installed in our studio and we show it to people who come over. We still have a few loose ends to clean up. We need to shoot the “last” shot (what folks see when they reach a year’s worth of viewing). We need to do this soon because we’re going to need to uninstall it to shoot a new piece at the end of this month. More on that later.
We’re also working on some other stuff. M.River has been working on some drawings having to do with Drinkin’ & Drawin’. I’m supposed to work on that too. And I’m attempting to make something out of this idea we’ve had for while now called AbEx Auto-Trace.
The idea behind AbEx Auto-Trace is to complete the promise of automatic drawing. What goes beyond automatic drawing? Automatic tracing of course! We use a computer program to automatically trace abstract expressionist paintings.
The plan was to display a print (sized as the original) of this auto-traced painting or drawing alongside a print (same size) of computer code that describes the image (we chose SVG since it describes vector art and is human-readable). But I’m working on the first one (taken from Pollack’s Full Fathom Five) and have run into a problem. This painting is about 51 inches high by 30 inches wide. The SVG code requires 27 sheets of paper at that size to display it all (typeset in 6pt Monaco, 8 columns per page)! In BBEdit the code is 19,049 lines long (one tag per line) and takes up 6.4MB of disk space. We need to rethink this idea a bit… permanent link to this post
Happy Mother’s Day!
Now to the post…
In this post’s comments, Kevin asks “Where are you at with the idea of an off-line, gallery version of [1YPV]?”
(I’m not sure who this Kevin is. I believe it’s Kevin McC of “Jennifer and” but it could be Kevin McG of Rhizome.)
Anyway, where are we? We’re done ;-) We have two versions of the gallery version: the software and the entire installation (set, props, software). The software is a Mac OS X application (written by Alex Galloway) that displays two channels of MPEG4 video on one display.
We need a place to show it. We’ve been invited to show at FILE 2005 so we’re hoping that the software version will be shown there. But we’ve yet to find a place to show the installation version, but we’re working on it.
It’s currently installed in our studio and we show it to people who come over. We still have a few loose ends to clean up. We need to shoot the “last” shot (what folks see when they reach a year’s worth of viewing). We need to do this soon because we’re going to need to uninstall it to shoot a new piece at the end of this month. More on that later.
We’re also working on some other stuff. M.River has been working on some drawings having to do with Drinkin’ & Drawin’. I’m supposed to work on that too. And I’m attempting to make something out of this idea we’ve had for while now called AbEx Auto-Trace.
The idea behind AbEx Auto-Trace is to complete the promise of automatic drawing. What goes beyond automatic drawing? Automatic tracing of course! We use a computer program to automatically trace abstract expressionist paintings.
The plan was to display a print (sized as the original) of this auto-traced painting or drawing alongside a print (same size) of computer code that describes the image (we chose SVG since it describes vector art and is human-readable). But I’m working on the first one (taken from Pollack’s Full Fathom Five) and have run into a problem. This painting is about 51 inches high by 30 inches wide. The SVG code requires 27 sheets of paper at that size to display it all (typeset in 6pt Monaco, 8 columns per page)! In BBEdit the code is 19,049 lines long (one tag per line) and takes up 6.4MB of disk space. We need to rethink this idea a bit… permanent link to this post
Artists’ Seek Studio
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
You’re beloved MTAA (for those not in-the-know: the people who run this website) are looking for a STUDIO.
YES!
If you know of a space in Brooklyn or (dare I say it?) Manhattan please let us know the vital info including: price, square footage, location (incl subway stop if you can), and contact.
We have two scenarios we’re looking into:
1) MTAA sharing with our friend Alex Kim. We could afford $800 total and the space would need to be a minimum of 600 sq ft.
2)MTAA by themselves. We could afford $400 ($450 max) and the space would need to be a minimum of 300 sq ft.
We would need broadband availability, privacy, security, and un-stinkiness.
Please let us know, we would like to take a space by Feb 1st. permanent link to this post
YES!
If you know of a space in Brooklyn or (dare I say it?) Manhattan please let us know the vital info including: price, square footage, location (incl subway stop if you can), and contact.
We have two scenarios we’re looking into:
1) MTAA sharing with our friend Alex Kim. We could afford $800 total and the space would need to be a minimum of 600 sq ft.
2)MTAA by themselves. We could afford $400 ($450 max) and the space would need to be a minimum of 300 sq ft.
We would need broadband availability, privacy, security, and un-stinkiness.
Please let us know, we would like to take a space by Feb 1st. permanent link to this post
Sounds like a good party
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey pulled the permit on an art exhibit at Kennedy Airport after an opening-night party left a landmark terminal strewn with cigarette butts, broken glass and empty liquor bottles.[ link: Newsday.com - AP Regional ]
The exhibit in the 42-year-old former TWA terminal, designed by Eero Saarinen, featured the work of 20 contemporary artists, including Kendell Geers, Jenny Holzer and Tom Sachs.
Port Authority spokesman Pasquale DiFulco said guests at Friday’s opening-night party had been illegally smoking inside the terminal, and that liquor had been sold without a permit. He said a door had been broken, walls were covered with graffiti and vomit was found on the floor.
Kidding aside… this doesn’t help the reputation of contemporary arts in NYC, especially since it’s being exploited by the tabloids.
The organizers really should be ashamed of the themselves but the Port Authority sounds like they simply freaked. Obviously the exhibition could have gone on. A really unfortunate incident. permanent link to this post
Open-source artwork
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
With the release of Paperrad’s Tux Dog, I was inspired to post a reminder that MTAA’s historic Simple Net Art Diagram is free (as in speech), not as open-source, but under a very liberal Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license. Easily editable vector art available for download :-)
update:
After thinking this over briefly, I’ve decided to change the Simple Net Art Diagram license to the CC Attribution 2.0 license. This provides the most liberal use of the image. The change is reflected above. permanent link to this post
update:
After thinking this over briefly, I’ve decided to change the Simple Net Art Diagram license to the CC Attribution 2.0 license. This provides the most liberal use of the image. The change is reflected above. permanent link to this post
Sleep late, avoid bombs
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Starting back to work after my week-long vacation, as I was waiting for my subway to arrive, the London bombing came to mind. “Hey,” I thought, “I could get blown up this morning.” The NYC subway system is an obvious terrorist target, so the thought crossed my mind, then I dismissed it and went back to my book (Sex, Drugs, and Cocoapuffs — it’s great).
That evening on my way home, another thought crossed my mind “Hey,” I thought, “I don’t have to worry about getting blown up today — they always bomb in the morning.” Which led me to wonder, if one was to do a study of terrorist attacks in Europe and the USA, what time did most of the victims get up that morning?
I bet they all got up before 9AM.
If you use mass transit to commute in a major metropolitan area, I suggest you start getting to work no earlier than 10 or 10:30AM. Sleeping in should ensure your safety more than any bomb-sniffing dogs or automatic rifle-packing para-military will. permanent link to this post
That evening on my way home, another thought crossed my mind “Hey,” I thought, “I don’t have to worry about getting blown up today — they always bomb in the morning.” Which led me to wonder, if one was to do a study of terrorist attacks in Europe and the USA, what time did most of the victims get up that morning?
I bet they all got up before 9AM.
If you use mass transit to commute in a major metropolitan area, I suggest you start getting to work no earlier than 10 or 10:30AM. Sleeping in should ensure your safety more than any bomb-sniffing dogs or automatic rifle-packing para-military will. permanent link to this post
Settling In
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
From my little corner of the internet MTEWW.com is now being pointed to it’s new server. And if you’re reading this, then you too are seeing the new server.
If you are an avid reader of the MTAA-RR (MTAA Reference Resource) news section there are a few things that you might like to know:
First, the URL has now settled down. If you would like to bookmark the homepage do not be afraid to bookmark it now:
http://www.mteww.com/mtaaRR/
The RSS feed’s URL has changed, this is it:
http://www.mteww.com/mtaaRR/news/index.rss permanent link to this post
If you are an avid reader of the MTAA-RR (MTAA Reference Resource) news section there are a few things that you might like to know:
First, the URL has now settled down. If you would like to bookmark the homepage do not be afraid to bookmark it now:
http://www.mteww.com/mtaaRR/
The RSS feed’s URL has changed, this is it:
http://www.mteww.com/mtaaRR/news/index.rss permanent link to this post
Senate Bill Lets Artists Claim Price for Gifts
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Finally, the gov’t seems to be doing something good for the arts. Schumer is one of the senators that introduced the bill.
Living writers, musicians, artists and scholars who donate their work to a museum or other charitable cause would earn a tax deduction based on full fair market value under a bill just passed by the Senate.permanent link to this post
via: Senate Bill Lets Artists Claim Price for Gifts - New York Times
Senate Bill: Artists Can Claim Full Deduction for Gifts
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This important message is to make you aware of an opportunity you have to influence the way your art is treated in the tax code. There is a bill just passed in the Senate that would expand the deductible amount of donated artwork to its full value. Currently the only allowed deduction is cost of materials. However, THIS BILL HAS NOT PASSED THE HOUSE. That’s where you come in. The bill will be hashed out in a House/Senate committee that begins to meet soon. Here’s how you can help:Go to NEWSgrist - where spin is art: Senate Bill: Artists Can Claim Full Deduction for Gifts to find out what you can do. permanent link to this post
Searches in NYC subway
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I have yet to be approached by the police and asked to be searched. But, I have to say, I’m now much more stressed when I commute. I wonder what I’ll do if they ask to search my bag? Will I stand on principle, refuse, and maybe have a walk to work? Will I refuse and walk to the next station and try there? (According to the NYCLU, if you refuse a search and try to enter anyway you can be arrested.) Or do I knuckle under for convenience and act cowardly?
It’s stressful. Much more stressful than worrying about random bombings…
Know Your Rights: Stops and Searches On The MTA (from the New York Civil Liberties Union) permanent link to this post
It’s stressful. Much more stressful than worrying about random bombings…
Know Your Rights: Stops and Searches On The MTA (from the New York Civil Liberties Union) permanent link to this post
Schedule conflict
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Damn.
Two things happening this Thursday and I want to go to both!
There is the Upgrade! with Michael Mandiberg at Eyebeam (organized by Yael Kanarek) and there is also the Low Level All Stars at Dietch (organized by Cory Arcangel and Alex Galloway).
Man! What is a new media/net art scenester to do? We really need to coordinate this stuff :) permanent link to this post
There is the Upgrade! with Michael Mandiberg at Eyebeam (organized by Yael Kanarek) and there is also the Low Level All Stars at Dietch (organized by Cory Arcangel and Alex Galloway).
Man! What is a new media/net art scenester to do? We really need to coordinate this stuff :) permanent link to this post
Robot train to ferry hipsters
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Automated trains will run this month on a 22-mile line that intersects Manhattan and Brooklyn. L-line trains with no conductors will move at preordained speeds and stop at preset stations, but some worry about safety.The L is the line that goes to Williamsburg, Brooklyn — also known as hipster ground zero. It must be hip, it’s where MTAA has our studio :)
via: NYC Subway Gets Computer Facelift
PS
Don’t you love my headline? permanent link to this post
Rudy’s Cakewalk
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Not sure if this is new, but 8-Bit Construction Set has a track included as part of a new net art show called “Why rock?”
The track is titled Rudy’s Cakewalk (MP3, 4.8MB) and it’s pretty snazzy (better than Beck’s 8-bit effort that’s for sure). permanent link to this post
The track is titled Rudy’s Cakewalk (MP3, 4.8MB) and it’s pretty snazzy (better than Beck’s 8-bit effort that’s for sure). permanent link to this post
RNC NODE at postmasters
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Postmasters gallery
459 W. 19th St. (at 10th Ave.)
New York, NY 10011
postmasters gallery will serve as a physical node of an ad-hock public broadcasting system of online, real time protest performances, alternative news actions, a transatlatic, multimedia protest jam during the Republican National Convention, from August 29 to September 2
the gallery will be coordinate and disseminate a program of online events for re-presenting in public spaces
BE A PART OF THE NETWORK! go to: www.postmastersart.com/RNC_NY.html for instructions.
the gallery will be open to the public, visitors will see the many channels and can interact with various groups and initiate their own channels
PARTICIPATE! bring your laptop, phone, camera phone, camera, be part of the dialog
the gallery will host performances,screenings, presentation
SHOW UP! August 29 - September 2 4-11pm
some of the programs (look for updates on the site):
“DC 9/11 - The Evildoers’ Remix” by MTAA, bodyatomic & tinydiva
Screening of the video with live audio accompaniment.
Duration: 1’10”
Remixed by: MTAA, bodyatomic, tinydiva
Audio by: tinydiva (Margaret Jameson)
Description: Fight propaganda with propaganda.
Download: http://www.mteww.com/dc911/
August 30 8pm
Post-performance Talk, Anne-Marie Schleiner with Collaborators
The Upgrade hosted by Eyebeam,
Postmasters Gallery
http://treasurecrumbs.com/theupgrade
Sept 2, 2004, 7:30
one of the programs for broadcasting:
us- uk dialog every day 4pm-11pm
DissensionConvention- Programme
===================>
Sunday 29th August
4-7pm NY (9-12pm BST) Maya Kalogera & Marc Garrett
7-10pm NY (12-3am BST) Moport & Glowlab
Monday 30th August
4-7pm NY (9-12pm BST) Chris Webb & Sim (Soy.de)
7-10pm NY (12-3am BST) Patrick Lichty (tbc) & Lewis Lacook
Tuesday 31st August
4-7pm NY (9-12pm BST) Helen Varley & other Avatar Body Colliders
7-10pm NY (12-3am BST) Joseph and Donna McElroy
Wednesday 1st September
4-7pm NY (9-12pm BST) Neil Jenkins & Roger Mills
7-10pm NY (12-3am BST) Digitofagia vs. Autolabs
Thursday 2nd September
4-7pm NY (9-12pm BST) Michael Szpakowski & Ruth Catlow
7-10pm NY (12-3am BST) Ryan Griffis & Mark Cooley permanent link to this post
459 W. 19th St. (at 10th Ave.)
New York, NY 10011
postmasters gallery will serve as a physical node of an ad-hock public broadcasting system of online, real time protest performances, alternative news actions, a transatlatic, multimedia protest jam during the Republican National Convention, from August 29 to September 2
the gallery will be coordinate and disseminate a program of online events for re-presenting in public spaces
BE A PART OF THE NETWORK! go to: www.postmastersart.com/RNC_NY.html for instructions.
the gallery will be open to the public, visitors will see the many channels and can interact with various groups and initiate their own channels
PARTICIPATE! bring your laptop, phone, camera phone, camera, be part of the dialog
the gallery will host performances,screenings, presentation
SHOW UP! August 29 - September 2 4-11pm
some of the programs (look for updates on the site):
“DC 9/11 - The Evildoers’ Remix” by MTAA, bodyatomic & tinydiva
Screening of the video with live audio accompaniment.
Duration: 1’10”
Remixed by: MTAA, bodyatomic, tinydiva
Audio by: tinydiva (Margaret Jameson)
Description: Fight propaganda with propaganda.
Download: http://www.mteww.com/dc911/
August 30 8pm
Post-performance Talk, Anne-Marie Schleiner with Collaborators
The Upgrade hosted by Eyebeam,
Postmasters Gallery
http://treasurecrumbs.com/theupgrade
Sept 2, 2004, 7:30
one of the programs for broadcasting:
us- uk dialog every day 4pm-11pm
DissensionConvention- Programme
===================>
Sunday 29th August
4-7pm NY (9-12pm BST) Maya Kalogera & Marc Garrett
7-10pm NY (12-3am BST) Moport & Glowlab
Monday 30th August
4-7pm NY (9-12pm BST) Chris Webb & Sim (Soy.de)
7-10pm NY (12-3am BST) Patrick Lichty (tbc) & Lewis Lacook
Tuesday 31st August
4-7pm NY (9-12pm BST) Helen Varley & other Avatar Body Colliders
7-10pm NY (12-3am BST) Joseph and Donna McElroy
Wednesday 1st September
4-7pm NY (9-12pm BST) Neil Jenkins & Roger Mills
7-10pm NY (12-3am BST) Digitofagia vs. Autolabs
Thursday 2nd September
4-7pm NY (9-12pm BST) Michael Szpakowski & Ruth Catlow
7-10pm NY (12-3am BST) Ryan Griffis & Mark Cooley permanent link to this post
RNC protest march
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
And a good time was had by all, except those fucking republicans.
I took some photos, but they mostly suck.
Good luck to Joshua Kinberg, hope he gets his bike back. permanent link to this post
Right-wing nut may be on to something
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This winger, for instance, wants the US to expell the Blue States:[ via: DailyKos: Wingnut wants to secede ]
Yet, there are 38 states today that may be inclined to adopt, let us call it, a “Declaration of Expulsion,” that is, a specific constitutional amendment to kick out the systemically troublesome states and those trending rapidly toward anti-American, if not outright subversive, behavior. The 12 states that must go: California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware. Only the remaining 38 states would retain the name, “United States of America.” The 12 expelled mobs could call themselves the “Dirty Dozen,” or individually keep their identity and go their separate ways, probably straight to Hell
HaHa, what a fool! I say let’s go and we’ll take all our money, culture, and brains with us.
(Sorry Mom, Ohio doesn’t make the cut, you’ll have to move ot NYC) permanent link to this post
Rhizome redesign
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Rhizome’s got a fresh, new look just in time for the holidays.
There’s a couple of changes and new features too. Rhizome’s Director Lauren Cornell outlined them:
First, we changed the title of ‘Superusers’ (those who filter messages from RAW onto the front page and to the mailing list RARE) to ‘Site Editors.’ This decision came out of a conversation with (those formerly known as) the Superusers in which we decided that the title Site Editor more accurately and clearly described the work they do.
We also changed the ‘Community Directory’ to the ‘Member Directory’. Under the new membership policy, Rhizome’s community — defined here as people who participate in email discussions and our various programs — is now made up of Members and non-Members. So, again, we thought Member Directory was more accurate.
We also introduced the idea of RhizPaper which refers to the background image on the site. We’d like to turn this image over periodically with a new image by a different artist. The starting image is a rendition of root by our designer, Sarah. I should credit Marisa here: She came up with this idea as a way to have artists participate in the design..
Also, we didn’t switch over the title for Net Art News as we are still mulling over feedback and there are a couple of related technical issues we need to address that that got laid to the wayside as we headed towards the launch. So, stay tuned for that.
Go check it out permanent link to this post
Rhizome reBlogs
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Yesterday, Rhizome changed the way their front-page is built. The site now uses “a heavily-modified version of Eyebeam’s ReBlog software” to publish content to the front page of the site. It’s unclear whether or not the published content goes into their Rhizome RARE email list.
Director of Technology, Francis Hwang, wrote this about the change:
Site readers won’t see much of a change, except that the thumbnails that accompanied each post are no longer present.
My reaction is mixed. It’s nice that Rhizome is extending itself into the networks of RSS and blogs out there. But now that it’s gone, I sort of miss Rhizome’s own quirky way of publishing. Rhizome had it’s own way of doing things by getting all it’s content from user-submitted email. With the change, it just seems like another blog — which isn’t necessarily bad. Blog-like publishing is becoming more and more standardized and the change will enable Rhizome to aggregate important content faster, but it partially loses it’s individuality in the process. permanent link to this post
Director of Technology, Francis Hwang, wrote this about the change:
The goal is for the front page to become a quick, easy filter for the entire field of new media arts online—both for our current Rhizome users and Members, and for anybody else who might be interested in the field but not know where to start looking.
Site readers won’t see much of a change, except that the thumbnails that accompanied each post are no longer present.
My reaction is mixed. It’s nice that Rhizome is extending itself into the networks of RSS and blogs out there. But now that it’s gone, I sort of miss Rhizome’s own quirky way of publishing. Rhizome had it’s own way of doing things by getting all it’s content from user-submitted email. With the change, it just seems like another blog — which isn’t necessarily bad. Blog-like publishing is becoming more and more standardized and the change will enable Rhizome to aggregate important content faster, but it partially loses it’s individuality in the process. permanent link to this post
Rhizome net art commissions CFP
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Rhizome announced the call for proposals for their 2005 net art commissions.
Read more about it.
The deadline is March 23rd, 2005 and there is no required theme this year (good).
Prizes range from $1500 - $3500 (hint: just put all that booze under “bandwidth” in your budget) and they will commission 8 - 10 new pieces.
There is (sort of) a fee to apply; you must be a Rhizome member which costs all of 5 bucks.
The jury is Rachel Greene and Francis Hwang of Rhizome; Eduardo Kac, Art Institute of Chicago; Melinda Rackham, Sydney-based writer and curator; and Jemima Rellie, curator at Tate Online. Plus, the Rhizome community will play a part in the decision process. permanent link to this post
Read more about it.
The deadline is March 23rd, 2005 and there is no required theme this year (good).
Prizes range from $1500 - $3500 (hint: just put all that booze under “bandwidth” in your budget) and they will commission 8 - 10 new pieces.
There is (sort of) a fee to apply; you must be a Rhizome member which costs all of 5 bucks.
The jury is Rachel Greene and Francis Hwang of Rhizome; Eduardo Kac, Art Institute of Chicago; Melinda Rackham, Sydney-based writer and curator; and Jemima Rellie, curator at Tate Online. Plus, the Rhizome community will play a part in the decision process. permanent link to this post
Rhizome looking for tech director
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Looks like Francis is leaving Rhizome; I received this in my in-box today:
Rhizome.org, a non-profit organization focused on new media art, is currently seeking a Director of Technology.permanent link to this post
One of Rhizome’s goals is to connect the worlds of contemporary art and online discourse. The Director of Technology plays a major role in meeting this goal, by taking part in the organization’s strategic decision-making and implementing the technology behind new initiatives. The position also involves helping manage partnerships with other arts and technical organizations, and may include curatorial, critical, and artistic opportunities.
The ideal candidate will be a self-motivated, highly organized individual with strong technical, analytical, and communication skills. Familiarity with both social software trends and the field of new media arts is vital.
This salaried position with benefits is approximately 30 hours/week.
PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES:
* Set strategy for overall technology development
* Support current web site features and services, which are written using Ruby, PHP, and Perl on MySQL, Apache, and Linux.
* Develop new web site features and services.
* Manage technical interns, vendors, and software consultants.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:
* Experience in software engineering, particularly with object-oriented design, agile methodologies, and dynamic languages.
* Demonstrated interest in new media art.
* Experience with Linux system administration.
START DATE:
February 1, 2006
LOCATION:
Chelsea, New York City
COMPENSATION:
Commensurate with experience
TO APPLY:
Please email a detailed cover letter and resume to Lauren Cornell, Executive Director, at laurencornell@rhizome.org. The deadline for application is January 1, 2006.
ABOUT RHIZOME:
Established in 1996, Rhizome.org is an online platform for the global new media arts community. We support this community through a number of programs, including: online discussions, publications, an events calendar, opportunity listings, archiving of new media art, commissioning of new artwork, and offline and online exhibits. Since 2003, we have been affiliated with the New Museum of Contemporary Art.
Rhizome commissions 05-06 voting
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The voting for the Rhizome ‘05-‘06 Net Art Commissions is underway.
You can look at all the proposals here. You have to be a Rhizome member to vote on the proposals.
There’s already been a bit of discussion on Rhizome_Raw regarding the proposals. From Jess Loseby:
Whatever the reason, I’m curious to hear from any artists, curators, or critics who have sat on juries. Is the signal to noise ratio any different in these Rhizome proposals then you normally see?
For the record, here is MTAA’s proposal. permanent link to this post
You can look at all the proposals here. You have to be a Rhizome member to vote on the proposals.
There’s already been a bit of discussion on Rhizome_Raw regarding the proposals. From Jess Loseby:
just gone through the submissions for this years commissions. I would be interested to know what proportion of the submissions people approve….??Backed up by Annie Abrahams:
I must have approved about 6
does that make me discerning or arch-bitch - (rhetorical - I know:).
I tried to look at as much and be as fair as possible but I admit after the first 15 anything with the word “mapping” or whose abstract looked like it had been written by curt’s “market-o-matic” went into auto-no. *yawn*
I ‘saw’ them all too and had the same kind of reactionI must admit to be underwhelmed by the proposals as well. This doesn’t mean that many of the projects couldn’t or wouldn’t be good. It’s just that for one reason or another the proposal isn’t interesting. Maybe the author simply doesn’t know how to talk about their work? Maybe the proposal just doesn’t transfer well into a description?
finally said ‘yes’ to 6 propositions , same as you.
Whatever the reason, I’m curious to hear from any artists, curators, or critics who have sat on juries. Is the signal to noise ratio any different in these Rhizome proposals then you normally see?
For the record, here is MTAA’s proposal. permanent link to this post
Rhizome drops membership fee — sort of
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
It’s not perfect, but it’s an improvement. Rhizome.org is down right now as they update the site to take into account the new membership policy. But the new director, Lauren Cornell, posted the plan for the new policy to the email list this morning. Here’s the summary:
I was pro-fee when it was proposed, but later changed my mind and became anti-fee. At first I felt that if Rhizome needed the money, then a Rhizome behind a fee firewall is better than no Rhizome at all. But then I realized that the firewall was slowly strangling Rhizome and urged them to ditch it. Which they’ve now done. Good!
A small bit of criticism: I don’t like the archive idea. It’s my opinion that the text and art archives should be open forever. Rhizome needs to figure out other services/features that people will pay a membership fee for, but they shouldn’t restrict access to the artbase or text archives.
Putting my criticism aside, I’ll say congrats to all the Rhizome staff for getting the new policy in place. I’m sure it was a lot of work. And now that we’ve got a fairly substantial hole in the firewall, perhaps we can tear it down entirely someday :-) permanent link to this post
Under our new policy, anyone, regardless of whether they have donated to Rhizome or not, will be able to post or access Rhizome content from the last year simply by signing up. It’s completely free to sign up - all you have to do is register an email address and password.It’s not clear if things fall into the archive automatically after they are a year old or if everything added before May 23, 2004 goes into the archive and everything after is out. I assume the former. So there will be a moving archive deadline I’m assuming.
Artworks and texts that are *more than one year old* will reside in the Rhizome Archives. Only Rhizome Members will be able to access the Archives. Members will also be able to maintain a Member Page in the Community Directory, create Member-Curated Exhibits, and use special features such as Advanced Search. In the coming months, we will roll out innovative features to keep our membership program dynamic and worthwhile.
All current Members will retain their membership status under the new policy. When your membership expires, you will still be able to subscribe to Rhizome lists and browse the site. But, in order to retain member benefits, you will be asked to renew your membership at an annual level of $25. I hope you will consider continuing your membership at this level. Rhizome is just as reliant on our base of Members for financial support now as ever before.
I was pro-fee when it was proposed, but later changed my mind and became anti-fee. At first I felt that if Rhizome needed the money, then a Rhizome behind a fee firewall is better than no Rhizome at all. But then I realized that the firewall was slowly strangling Rhizome and urged them to ditch it. Which they’ve now done. Good!
A small bit of criticism: I don’t like the archive idea. It’s my opinion that the text and art archives should be open forever. Rhizome needs to figure out other services/features that people will pay a membership fee for, but they shouldn’t restrict access to the artbase or text archives.
Putting my criticism aside, I’ll say congrats to all the Rhizome staff for getting the new policy in place. I’m sure it was a lot of work. And now that we’ve got a fairly substantial hole in the firewall, perhaps we can tear it down entirely someday :-) permanent link to this post
Rhizome ArtBase 101 opening 6/22
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The opening of Rhizome ArtBase 101 at the New Museum of Contemporary Art will be next Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005 starting at 6:30PM.
MTAA is included in the show with our piece entitled 1 Year Performance Video.
Be there or be a rhombus. permanent link to this post
MTAA is included in the show with our piece entitled 1 Year Performance Video.
Be there or be a rhombus. permanent link to this post
Rhizome ArtBase 101 NY1 video
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I’m back from Ohio just in time to do some own-horn-tootin’ for MTAA.
I’ve posted a quicktime version of the NY1 report on the Rhizome Artbase 101 exhibition at The New Museum.
Download it here (quicktime, 02’33, 8.2MB)
And my name isn’t Tom! permanent link to this post
Rhizome ArtBase 101
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Received the official press release for the Rhizome ArtBase 101 show that will be opening at the New Museum on the 22nd of June and which MTAA is included.
It’s long, so I’m linking to a PDF, but I’m posting the facts and some tasty bits below.
Rhizome_ArtBase_Release.pdf (108KB, this was updated on 6/6/05)
Here’s a list of all the artists, ARTBASE_ARTISTS.pdf
It’s long, so I’m linking to a PDF, but I’m posting the facts and some tasty bits below.
Rhizome_ArtBase_Release.pdf (108KB, this was updated on 6/6/05)
Here’s a list of all the artists, ARTBASE_ARTISTS.pdf
Rhizome ArtBase 101Download the PDF to read more! permanent link to this post
Forty Selections From Rhizome ArtBase Demonstrate Scope of a Decade of New Media
June 23 - September 10, 2005
[…]
The Rhizome ArtBase is a respected online archive of new media art containing some 1,500 works. Founded in 1999, the ArtBase is unique because of the wide variety of new media art forms that it includes, such as software art, games and moving image, and also for its international scope. The 40 works selected for the New Museum exhibition are outstanding examples culled from the ArtBase and grouped by ten unifying themes: Dirt Style, Net Cinema, Games, E-Commerce, Data Visualization and Databases, Online Celebrity, Public Space, Software Art, Cyberfeminism and Early Net.Art. Rhizome ArtBase 101 includes seminal pieces by early practitioners such as Alexei Shulgin’s Desktop Is (1997) and Heath Bunting’s _readme (1998), as well as projects by more of the most pioneering emerging talents working in the field today, such as Marisa Olson, Cory Arcangel and Paper Rad.
[…]
Data Visualization and Databases create unexpected relationships between informational entities. Mark Dagget’s Carnivore Is Sorry (2001), for example, uses RSG’s network surveillance program Carnivore (2001-2003) to track individual users as they navigate the web. The resulting web data is compressed into a jpeg resembling an abstract artwork, and then e-mailed to the user to offer them an alternative look at the information that recently passed along their browser. One Year Performance Video (akasamhsiehupdate) (2004) sources prerecorded clips of Brooklyn-based collaborative MTAA into a streaming video diptych that simulates a fictional narrative of the artists living in adjacent, identical white cells for the duration of a year.
Rhizome 2005 commissions announced
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Download the PDF to read the entire release:
Rhiz_Commissions_05.pdf (56KB)
I’m happy to report that MTAA received one for “To Be Listened To…”
Here’s the first graf of the release:
Rhiz_Commissions_05.pdf (56KB)
I’m happy to report that MTAA received one for “To Be Listened To…”
Here’s the first graf of the release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEpermanent link to this post
Monday June 6, 2005
CONTACT
Lauren Cornell, Rhizome.org
Phone: 212.219.1288 X208
Email: laurencornell@rhizome.org
NEW YORK, NY - Rhizome.org is pleased to announce that eleven artists/groups have been awarded commissions to assist them in creating original works of net art. Each will receive awards ranging from $2000 - $900. The selected artists for the 2005-2006 commissioning cycle are Hans Bernhard, Annie Brissenden, Dave Burns, Jason Corace, Andy Deck, Victoria Fang, Jason Freeman, Ethan Ham, Peter Horvath, Sean Kerr, Thomas Laureyssens, Alessandro Ludovico, MTAA (M.River & T.Whid Art Associates), Tony Muilenburg, Adriaan Stellingwerff, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young.
Rhizome.org Announces Winners of 2004 Net Art Commissioning Program
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
(The following has been edited from a Rhizome.org press release).
NEW YORK, NY—Rhizome.org is pleased to announce that seven artists/groups have been awarded commissions to assist them in creating original works of net art through its Commissioning Program. Paul Catanese, Warren Sack, Jason van Anden, Luis Hernandez Galvan and Carlo Zanni will receive awards of $2,500-2,900 each. Commissions of $1,750 will be awarded to Kabir Carter and C-Level.
A panel of jurors—independent curator Yukiko Shikata, Francis Hwang of Rhizome.org, Natalie Bookchin of The Art Center, and Rachel Greene of Rhizome.org—selected six winners and one Honorable Mention from a pool of about fifty proposals that were received by the March 7, 2004 deadline. Members of the Rhizome.org community participated in the evaluation process through secure web-based ballots, selecting a proposal by artist Carlo Zanni to win a commission.
The chosen projects will be publicly exhibited on the Rhizome.org web site at http://rhizome.org starting in November 2004. They will also be preserved in the Rhizome ArtBase archive, and presented at a public event in New York City.
+ + +
Rhizome.org is an online platform for the global new media art community. Our programs support the creation, presentation, discussion and preservation of contemporary art that engages new technologies in significant ways. We foster innovation and inclusiveness in everything we do. Rhizome.org is a not-for-profit organization.
+ + +
$2900 Awards:
MISPLACED RELIQUARY
by Paul Catanese (San Francisco/CA/US)
OVERSATURATION
by Luis Hernandez Galvan with support from Gabriel Acevedo (Mexico City/MX)
FARKLEMPT
by Jason van Anden(New York/NY/US)
AVERAGE SHOVELER
by Carlo Zanni (New York/US and Milano/Italy)
$2,500 Awards:
AGONISTICS: A LANGUAGE GAME
by Warren Sack
$1,750 Awards:
ENDGAMES
by C-level (Los Angeles/CA and New York/NY/US)
LISTENING (Working Title)
by Kabir Carter (New York/NY/US)
Honorable Mention:
Linkhunters.net
by Kerstin Guenther permanent link to this post
NEW YORK, NY—Rhizome.org is pleased to announce that seven artists/groups have been awarded commissions to assist them in creating original works of net art through its Commissioning Program. Paul Catanese, Warren Sack, Jason van Anden, Luis Hernandez Galvan and Carlo Zanni will receive awards of $2,500-2,900 each. Commissions of $1,750 will be awarded to Kabir Carter and C-Level.
A panel of jurors—independent curator Yukiko Shikata, Francis Hwang of Rhizome.org, Natalie Bookchin of The Art Center, and Rachel Greene of Rhizome.org—selected six winners and one Honorable Mention from a pool of about fifty proposals that were received by the March 7, 2004 deadline. Members of the Rhizome.org community participated in the evaluation process through secure web-based ballots, selecting a proposal by artist Carlo Zanni to win a commission.
The chosen projects will be publicly exhibited on the Rhizome.org web site at http://rhizome.org starting in November 2004. They will also be preserved in the Rhizome ArtBase archive, and presented at a public event in New York City.
+ + +
Rhizome.org is an online platform for the global new media art community. Our programs support the creation, presentation, discussion and preservation of contemporary art that engages new technologies in significant ways. We foster innovation and inclusiveness in everything we do. Rhizome.org is a not-for-profit organization.
+ + +
$2900 Awards:
MISPLACED RELIQUARY
by Paul Catanese (San Francisco/CA/US)
OVERSATURATION
by Luis Hernandez Galvan with support from Gabriel Acevedo (Mexico City/MX)
FARKLEMPT
by Jason van Anden(New York/NY/US)
AVERAGE SHOVELER
by Carlo Zanni (New York/US and Milano/Italy)
$2,500 Awards:
AGONISTICS: A LANGUAGE GAME
by Warren Sack
$1,750 Awards:
ENDGAMES
by C-level (Los Angeles/CA and New York/NY/US)
LISTENING (Working Title)
by Kabir Carter (New York/NY/US)
Honorable Mention:
Linkhunters.net
by Kerstin Guenther permanent link to this post
Review of Internet Art by Rachel Greene
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Eduardo Navas has posted a review of Rachel Greene’s “Internet Art” on his net_art_review web site.
[…] the book does have a specific position worth deconstructing. To begin, it imposes a post-conceptual narrative on many of the works discussed, as Greene states, “I relate the ways in which internet art is indebted to conceptual art through its emphasis on audience interaction, transfer of information and use of networks, simultaneously by passing the autonomous status traditionally ascribed to art objects.” (10) This can mean one of two things, either that all the artists who make internet art have an implicit relation to conceptual art or that only those artists who have such connection are included in the book. The problem behind this statement goes further if we consider the possibility that some of the artists included in the book may not actually have any relation to conceptual art; this would mean that an ideological imposition is at work.More at netartreview.net… permanent link to this post
Review of “Five Small Videos…”
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Recently UK artist Michael Szpakowski posted a review of MTAA’s “Five Small Videos…” to the Rhizome RAW list. He has graciously allowed it to be republished here.
I meant to post awhile back to say how much I’d liked the MTAA “Five Small Videos About Interruption and Disappearing.”Read the rest of the RAW thread here (1st page free, members-only after that). permanent link to this post
Like them very much I do; but they also intrigue me. The blurb says they are inspired by early performance videos - a genre and a period which I enjoy a lot. There was a marvellous exhibition at the ICA here about a year ago of single channel video works - lots of Acconci, Baldessari and also early Nauman -wonderful stuff.
One thing that occurs to me about the MTAA response is firstly how *elegant* it is - & this is a quality of all their work - elegance and thoroughness, or perhaps elegance due to thoroughness - one could never accuse them of a lack of craft. This is in stark contrast to the sheer edginess and sense of ( often literal!) danger in much of that early video work. Doing my sums I can’t put this down to the newness of video as a medium - actually I suspect that the technologies used by MTAA are newer relative to them.
There’s a temptation to see this piece ( and others such as the one year performance piece) as a sort of conceptual post modernist whimsy, beautifully made but essentially a clever formal exercise.
I think this would be wrong - actually there seems to me to be a feel of “classicism” about this work - the elegance seems not a symptom or a bolt on but a very much integral part of the work.
I see this happening quite a lot -its as if in the shadow of high modernism it wasn’t quite respectable to use the methods and the language of the past without being *ironic* or having a high concept. Now all those barriers have long been broken we can simply move on to using a good move no matter when or where we saw it.
SO specifically here it’s as if the artists of the seventies having blazed a trail, created edgy stuff in a kind of white heat, MTAA are examining the language and the practice with the benefit of a couple of decades of hindsight and appropriating *what fits*, *what works* into their own practice.
And the resultant work for me isn’t simply clever or knowing but actually quite touching - I’m quite moved by these two characters in the videos ( and there are longer backward shadows cast here - Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, the *comic film duo* , spring to mind).
Certainly the piece feels to me to have many resonances that go beyond the intellectual, the clever, the knowing and enter the world of the affective.
Review of 1YPV
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Eduardo Navasse has posted a review of MTAA’s 1 year performance video on his excellent site, netartreview.net.
Here’s a bit:
Here’s a bit:
[…] the strain of the performance is on the viewer now, not the artist; but this strain is a virtual one, one that is no longer concerned with the body but with the dematerialization of such into a new type of action—a meta-action— in art making, and art viewing. In a way, this not only updates the passive demand that a work of art has always had on the viewer: that it be completed by the viewer’s gaze, but it also makes obvious the interactive demand of any art object since minimal art emerged.Read the entire article here. permanent link to this post
Reverend Billy featured in NYTime’s Magazine today
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Reverend Billy is a street performer/guerilla theater actor whose anti-consumerist message is delivered in the style of a street preacher.
NYTimes article | Visit Rev. Billy’s website
If you’re in the art scene in NYC you’ve run into Rev. Billy at least a few times over the last few years.
My favorite memory of Rev. Billy — and it may be the first time I encountered him— was at the Brooklyn Museum rally in support of the ‘Sensation’ exhibition.
You’ll remember that then-mayor Giuliani had whipped up some controversy by complaining that a certain painting in the show was anti-catholic and was threatening the museum with funding cuts &c. At the rally there was a small space cordoned off by the cops for a counter demonstration by catholics. Rev. Billy jumped on their side of the barricade (there were perhaps 10 people in the counter-demonstration) and entertained the pro-art crowd for a few minutes until the cops figured out he was on the wrong side and asked him to leave. permanent link to this post
NYTimes article | Visit Rev. Billy’s website
If you’re in the art scene in NYC you’ve run into Rev. Billy at least a few times over the last few years.
My favorite memory of Rev. Billy — and it may be the first time I encountered him— was at the Brooklyn Museum rally in support of the ‘Sensation’ exhibition.
You’ll remember that then-mayor Giuliani had whipped up some controversy by complaining that a certain painting in the show was anti-catholic and was threatening the museum with funding cuts &c. At the rally there was a small space cordoned off by the cops for a counter demonstration by catholics. Rev. Billy jumped on their side of the barricade (there were perhaps 10 people in the counter-demonstration) and entertained the pro-art crowd for a few minutes until the cops figured out he was on the wrong side and asked him to leave. permanent link to this post
MTAA-RR redesign
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Hell Yeah!
Look! It’s all redesigned! If you’re reading this from a news reader, go here to check it out. And speaking of feeds, this one still works but that is just for the news and comment section. There is also a BRAND NEW FEED that covers the entire MTAA-RR. Which means, if you subscribe to this new feed, you’ll also get up-dated when we add new documentation to the off-line art and on-line art sections as well as other sections.
So, please, visit the web site and poke around a bit and let us know if there is anything acting funky or not looking right because, ya know, we do it all for you. (Wasn’t that a McDonald’s slogan?) permanent link to this post
Look! It’s all redesigned! If you’re reading this from a news reader, go here to check it out. And speaking of feeds, this one still works but that is just for the news and comment section. There is also a BRAND NEW FEED that covers the entire MTAA-RR. Which means, if you subscribe to this new feed, you’ll also get up-dated when we add new documentation to the off-line art and on-line art sections as well as other sections.
So, please, visit the web site and poke around a bit and let us know if there is anything acting funky or not looking right because, ya know, we do it all for you. (Wasn’t that a McDonald’s slogan?) permanent link to this post
Respect Kimmelman
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Fairly scathing article by Michael Kimmelman in today’s NYTimes basically saying that the Chanel show at the Met is below a review. He just rips into the whole ‘sponsored’ exhibition thing that major NYC museum’s have been doing for a while.
This balance needs to tip heavily in the direction of art and curatorial integrity however. If the ratio btw integrity and whorishness is 6:1, we’re OK. If it tips more to 3:1 or 1:1, then museums are in serious trouble. permanent link to this post
Now comes the Met with its current Chanel-sponsored Chanel show, a fawning trifle that resembles a fancy showroom. Sparsely outfitted with white cube display boxes and a bare minimum of meaningful text, this absurdly uncritical exhibition puts Coco’s designs alongside work by the current monarch of the House of Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld.I found this interesting:
via: Art, Money and Power
The Chanel show avoids mentioning her activities during the war, when she maintained a life in Paris as the lover of an SS officer and, according to her biographer, Janet Wallach, tried to exploit Nazi laws to wrest control of her perfume business from her Jewish partners.I have to admit having an apologist steak for museum’s that need to do this. It’s usually obvious when an exhibition’s been bought and paid for. When it’s a pay-off, you don’t expect to see art, you expect to see an ad. Hopefully they only need to this once every few years. The rest of the time they hang shows with integrity.
This balance needs to tip heavily in the direction of art and curatorial integrity however. If the ratio btw integrity and whorishness is 6:1, we’re OK. If it tips more to 3:1 or 1:1, then museums are in serious trouble. permanent link to this post
Re: Gunplay, as art
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
re: this situation
Q: How many performance artists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: I don’t know — I left before it was over! permanent link to this post
Q: How many performance artists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: I don’t know — I left before it was over! permanent link to this post
Get more from your MTAA-RR
posted at 16:45 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
If you append “?recent=n” (where n is a whole positvie number) to the base URL of this site (mteww.com/mtaaRR/) you can see entries with comments from the last n days. Try it here for the last five days. If you want to do this sort of thing a lot, just bookmark that link.
permanent link to this post
Random Links
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Douglas Rushkoff (yes, the writer, Douglas Rushkoff) is a member of Psychic TV (now called PTV3).
Anyone who attended art school anywhere in the late 80s/early 90s will know who Psychic TV is/was. Genesis P-Orridge was somewhat unique in those days in realizing the value of networks and set-up a little club around PTV called.. what was it called? All my roommates in college were members.. Psychic Friends Network? No. OH YEAH! The Temple of Psychic Youth or as Google points out, Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth. But maybe I or my college roommates are/were confused and there is no connection between PTV and TOPY.
Whatever.
—————-
ArtLeaf.net is a new web site on art and the art world. Looks to be pretty well put together with forums dedicated to big museum shows in NYC and Boston (not much action yet), a couple of articles and a section about artists in their studios.
—————-
Scott Rosenberg has an interesting article in Salon regarding RSS (free registration required if not a subscriber).
He compares RSS in 2003 to HTML in 1994 suggesting that it is just as important. It seems to me that a tech writer would have jumped on RSS longer ago. Though it’s an article for newbies (as he points out in his blog) he makes some interesting points.
His blog is good and I recommend it. permanent link to this post
Anyone who attended art school anywhere in the late 80s/early 90s will know who Psychic TV is/was. Genesis P-Orridge was somewhat unique in those days in realizing the value of networks and set-up a little club around PTV called.. what was it called? All my roommates in college were members.. Psychic Friends Network? No. OH YEAH! The Temple of Psychic Youth or as Google points out, Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth. But maybe I or my college roommates are/were confused and there is no connection between PTV and TOPY.
Whatever.
—————-
ArtLeaf.net is a new web site on art and the art world. Looks to be pretty well put together with forums dedicated to big museum shows in NYC and Boston (not much action yet), a couple of articles and a section about artists in their studios.
—————-
Scott Rosenberg has an interesting article in Salon regarding RSS (free registration required if not a subscriber).
He compares RSS in 2003 to HTML in 1994 suggesting that it is just as important. It seems to me that a tech writer would have jumped on RSS longer ago. Though it’s an article for newbies (as he points out in his blog) he makes some interesting points.
His blog is good and I recommend it. permanent link to this post
re: artstar.tv
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I’m reversing my earlier ambivalence regarding the idea of Artstar.tv. I hate it.
How low can the art world stoop? Artstar.tv answers that question by aping reality television. That is pretty fucking low. I’m actually a fan of reality TV, so, nothing against reality TV. I just think of art as being different from entertainment (perhaps naively).
There is a fine line between good Pop Art and a sickening psychophantical homage to the dominant media culture. Perhaps Artstar.tv will stay on the the right side of that line. Perhaps it will be a brilliant critique of the reality TV phenomenon. Perhaps it will subtly explore the nuances of the life of a working artist in NYC or the nuances of different artists’ creative processes.
I doubt it.
It will be just a bunch of desperate artists doing their best to suck-up to the art world honchos as they watch their dignity being stabbed out like a stale cigarette. permanent link to this post
How low can the art world stoop? Artstar.tv answers that question by aping reality television. That is pretty fucking low. I’m actually a fan of reality TV, so, nothing against reality TV. I just think of art as being different from entertainment (perhaps naively).
There is a fine line between good Pop Art and a sickening psychophantical homage to the dominant media culture. Perhaps Artstar.tv will stay on the the right side of that line. Perhaps it will be a brilliant critique of the reality TV phenomenon. Perhaps it will subtly explore the nuances of the life of a working artist in NYC or the nuances of different artists’ creative processes.
I doubt it.
It will be just a bunch of desperate artists doing their best to suck-up to the art world honchos as they watch their dignity being stabbed out like a stale cigarette. permanent link to this post
Public appearance by t.whid
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
If you’ve ever wanted to throw rotten vegetables at me, this is your chance!
I’ll be making a rare public appearance at the New Museum for Rhizome’s “Blogging and the Arts” panel. Official Rhizome press release below:
I’ll be making a rare public appearance at the New Museum for Rhizome’s “Blogging and the Arts” panel. Official Rhizome press release below:
Public Program:Can someone leave some ideas about what to say in the comments of this post please? I’m clueless. permanent link to this post
Blogging and the Arts
Tuesday, November 23, 6:30PM - 8:00PM
Location:
New Museum of Contemporary Art / Chelsea
556 West 22nd Street
Rhizome.org Director of Technology Francis Hwang will lead a panel discussion entitled Blogging and the Arts. The panel includes artist Kabir Carter, photoblogger and journalist David Gallagher, artist and critic Tom Moody, and artist T.Whid. The discussion will address questions such as whether blogs will change the nature of discourse in the fine arts field, and ways that artists and critics are integrating this new form of communications into their own work.
About Rhizome.org
Founded in 1996, Rhizome.org is an internet-based platform for the global new media arts community. Through programs such as publications, online discussion, art commissions, and archiving, it supports the creation, presentation, discussion, and preservation of contemporary art using new technologies. Since 2003, Rhizome.org has been affiliated with the New Museum of Contemporary Art.
Blogging and the Arts is presented with the sponsorship of PubSub Concepts Inc., a free, real-time search subscription service spanning weblogs, newsgroups, wire services, and other information sources.
Queer for Cory
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Cory Arcangel and T.Whid at Team for the opening of “Welcome 2 My
NYTimes does “public.exe”
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Nice overview of the exhibition “public.exe: Public Execution” on the NYTimes.com today (unfortunately as of 5PM the exhibition is mistakenly referred to as “public.ex” … guess the reviewer doesn’t use Windows) in an article entitled “Politics That Makes Peace With the Beauty of Objects.”
Here’s the pertinent section:
Here’s the pertinent section:
Speaking of extremes, “public.ex: Public Execution” at Exit Art represents one of them, at least in terms of format. The show is all but invisible in the gallery, where another, long-running exhibition takes up most of the space.permanent link to this post
In fact, “public.ex” has just two works on the premises. One, by Siebren Veersteeg, is a screen with a live feed of Associated Press news scrolling across a Coca-Cola logo to demonstrate the pervasiveness of American monoculture. The other, titled “What an Art Gallery Should Actually Look Like (Large Glass),” by the Turkish artist Serkan Ozkaya, is made up of thousands of slides of artworks submitted in response to an open call on the Internet. Deliberately abnegating curatorial control, Mr. Ozkaya displays all the submissions edge to edge, in random order, across several of Exit Art’s windows.
There’s also art in the form of handouts. The collective called Paper Rad contributes a funky cartoon newspaper with a cool, righteous election-year editorial. And Kelley Walker, one of the more promising young artists around, offers a CD of a poster he has designed. For $10 you can have the disk and as many copies of the poster as you care to print. So much for the sanctity of the art object.
The rest of the show is made up of Web sites (for the collective xurban.net, for example); screenings of videos (by the hacker activist collectives BEIGE and Radical Software Group); and live events. Will Kwan is organizing flash mobs to protest the city’s plans to build a stadium near Hell’s Kitchen. Brendan and Patrick FitzGerald, brothers, will lead walking tours of misused public and private urban space. Ricardo Miranda Zuniga will push a shopping cart equipped with radio broadcast hardware through the streets, inviting passers-by to program their own on-air shows.
All of this will be archived on Exit Art’s Web site, further dematerializing an exhibition composed of ephemera, gestures and pixels. And such a disembodied show is precisely what the curators — Anne Ellegood and Michele Thursz, with Defne Ayas — are after: one that as far as possible sidesteps the authority of the art institution, with its conventions of display and critical categories. Instead “public.ex” is dispersed into the everyday world, where art and life, silly and serious, seem to interact on the random, nonlinear model of the Internet, that most potent and exasperating of cultural resources.
PS1’s website redesign sucks
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
How does PS1’s web site bite? Let me count the ways… rudely.
1. Splash page (need I say more?)
2. Cheese ball flash animation announcing GNY2005
3. Evil pop-up from cheese ball flash animation announcing GNY2005
4. The artist list in the stupid pop-up from the cheese ball flash animation doesn’t do anything! Yes you can rollover an artist’s name and it lights up, but a click does… nothing!
5. The exhibition section just has the stinking press release? How about some friendly copy (and larger text). PLUS, the navigation of stinking press release is too small and too confusing (the page you’re on should be highlighted not the page you’re not on, duh!).
6. Why is there a ‘press’ section when the exhibition section already has the press release? Oh, I see, so you could put a really big dumb graphic that says ‘Press, Greater New York 2005’, which clicks off to MOMA’s site.
7. At least make the friggin’ top-left logo clickable back to the homepage for chrissakes! This has been web-site navigation convention from before the turn of the century!
8. It don’t validate. (snigger, snigger) And it’s so f’d up, it would be hard to figure out where to start.
9. Change your meta-tags now! NOW! NOW! NOW! (It’s a shame to see the free and open-source Mambo put to such wicked uses.)
Ahhhh. That felt good.
See PS1, I AM smarter than you! Hahahahaha.
(Even though you didn’t put me in GNY2005 damnit!)
ps
Though my criticisms of PS1’s website are valid, the rude tone is meant as a bit of a joke or parody. See, I’m left out of the show, so my only recourse is this nerdy and nasty little crit of their website. It’s as much a put-down of myself as it is of PS1’s website. permanent link to this post
1. Splash page (need I say more?)
2. Cheese ball flash animation announcing GNY2005
3. Evil pop-up from cheese ball flash animation announcing GNY2005
4. The artist list in the stupid pop-up from the cheese ball flash animation doesn’t do anything! Yes you can rollover an artist’s name and it lights up, but a click does… nothing!
5. The exhibition section just has the stinking press release? How about some friendly copy (and larger text). PLUS, the navigation of stinking press release is too small and too confusing (the page you’re on should be highlighted not the page you’re not on, duh!).
6. Why is there a ‘press’ section when the exhibition section already has the press release? Oh, I see, so you could put a really big dumb graphic that says ‘Press, Greater New York 2005’, which clicks off to MOMA’s site.
7. At least make the friggin’ top-left logo clickable back to the homepage for chrissakes! This has been web-site navigation convention from before the turn of the century!
8. It don’t validate. (snigger, snigger) And it’s so f’d up, it would be hard to figure out where to start.
9. Change your meta-tags now! NOW! NOW! NOW! (It’s a shame to see the free and open-source Mambo put to such wicked uses.)
Ahhhh. That felt good.
See PS1, I AM smarter than you! Hahahahaha.
(Even though you didn’t put me in GNY2005 damnit!)
ps
Though my criticisms of PS1’s website are valid, the rude tone is meant as a bit of a joke or parody. See, I’m left out of the show, so my only recourse is this nerdy and nasty little crit of their website. It’s as much a put-down of myself as it is of PS1’s website. permanent link to this post
Proof: I’m not a hipster
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I got 0, that’s ZERO, on this quiz.
Finally! Hard proof that I’m no hipster. permanent link to this post
Finally! Hard proof that I’m no hipster. permanent link to this post
Programming and digital art
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Recently Tom Moody wrote (in part):
I find myself on both sides of this issue.
On one hand, I don’t think it’s necessary to be able to program a computer to make digital art*. Especially as the tools to create digital art get better and better. And besides, what is the difference between Windows APIs and the the interface of Photoshop? They both present you with tools to make things happen on a computer.
On the other, I think having programming knowledge is very important (but not necessary) for one to be a digital artist. I would argue that instead of Tom’s analogy of a painter grinding his own paint, a better analogy is that a painter must understand how color and 2d form work. For those are the building blocks of a painting really, not the paint. It’s a mistake to confuse a computer for a canvas, to think of it simply as a means to a visual end. A computer does much more than display images on it’s display. With much new media art the how of image creation is just as important as the images themselves.
+++++++++++++++
*Of course you get into a whole other argument if you do agree: is writing in a scripting language programming? How low-level is the code you program? Is programming in C++ somehow ‘better’ than programming in Java? etc, etc. permanent link to this post
Does one have to write code to make art or music with digital tools? Two proponents of code are designer/MIT Media Lab professor John Maeda (on the hi-fi end of the digital spectrum) and the BEIGE crew […snip](See posts here and here for the entire quote.)
The beef about using consumer software is that an engineer makes aesthetic choices for you.[…snip]
[…] An analogy I’ve used is the purist artist who thinks you have to grind your own pigment to paint, either because store bought colors aren’t good enough or out of some strict truth-to-materials dictate. I think that applies to John Maeda—his “if you aren’t programming you aren’t using the computer” rap has a whiff of the purist ascetic about it.[…snip]
I find myself on both sides of this issue.
On one hand, I don’t think it’s necessary to be able to program a computer to make digital art*. Especially as the tools to create digital art get better and better. And besides, what is the difference between Windows APIs and the the interface of Photoshop? They both present you with tools to make things happen on a computer.
On the other, I think having programming knowledge is very important (but not necessary) for one to be a digital artist. I would argue that instead of Tom’s analogy of a painter grinding his own paint, a better analogy is that a painter must understand how color and 2d form work. For those are the building blocks of a painting really, not the paint. It’s a mistake to confuse a computer for a canvas, to think of it simply as a means to a visual end. A computer does much more than display images on it’s display. With much new media art the how of image creation is just as important as the images themselves.
+++++++++++++++
*Of course you get into a whole other argument if you do agree: is writing in a scripting language programming? How low-level is the code you program? Is programming in C++ somehow ‘better’ than programming in Java? etc, etc. permanent link to this post
proclame.com
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Got this email today:
I almost wrote if off as spam but noticed that is was sent to only M.River and I. So I went to proclame.com and what I found was good.
Of course I’m partial to art duos making net art ;-) permanent link to this post
From:
info@proclame.com
subject:
proclame.com loves you
body:
both
I almost wrote if off as spam but noticed that is was sent to only M.River and I. So I went to proclame.com and what I found was good.
Of course I’m partial to art duos making net art ;-) permanent link to this post
Prix Ars Electronica 2005
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Prix Ars competition
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The jury is about to deliberate over the submissions to this year’s Prix Ars Electronica and M.River is pessimistic about 1YPV’s chances. We submitted 1YPV in the Net Vision category.
I’m also pessimistic, but with over 7600 logins and super-users who have logged over 170 days running the piece I think it’s clear that we’ve defined a novel (if not new) way for people to interact with an online artwork. We deserve serious consideration.
(Jonah, if you’re reading this, my friend *Mr. Franklin* would like to help you deliberate (j/k of course).)
Something like del.icio.us will probably win the grand prize. Or maybe they’ll give it to Neal Stephenson or Linus Torvalds again. permanent link to this post
I’m also pessimistic, but with over 7600 logins and super-users who have logged over 170 days running the piece I think it’s clear that we’ve defined a novel (if not new) way for people to interact with an online artwork. We deserve serious consideration.
(Jonah, if you’re reading this, my friend *Mr. Franklin* would like to help you deliberate (j/k of course).)
Something like del.icio.us will probably win the grand prize. Or maybe they’ll give it to Neal Stephenson or Linus Torvalds again. permanent link to this post
Pompous gallerist makes NYT
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This story was first broken by art blogger James Wagner 6 days ago and linked to from this humble web site 5 days ago. It’s fun to scoop the Times so decisively :-)
Eric Doeringer […] has been selling his copies of works by contemporary artists for four years on West 24th Street in Manhattan. Last Saturday, the police asked him to stop.permanent link to this post
via: Little Artist Versus Big Dealer in Sidewalk Showdown
Worst case scenario…
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
…don’t think we’ll need it, but its always wise to have a contingency plan.
Canada offers protection to people in Canada who are afraid of returning to their home country. A claim for protection can be made at a port of entry or at a Canada Immigration Centre (CIC) office in Canada. Once a CIC officer decides that a refugee protection claimant is eligible to be referred, the claim is sent to the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) for a decision on the risk on return.More info here: CIC Canada | Refugee Protection in Canada permanent link to this post
What the fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck?
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Am I overreacting? No, I don’t think I am. With this administration’s track record of lies, abuses of power, power grabs, belligerent war mongering and trashing of civil liberties I don’t think it’s overreacting to cry out, “WHAT THE FUCKITY-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK!?”
Officials discuss how to delay Election Day
Kerry needs to come out hard and NOW denouncing any talk of this whatsoever! (So should Bush but we all know the chimp won’t.) permanent link to this post
Officials discuss how to delay Election Day
Kerry needs to come out hard and NOW denouncing any talk of this whatsoever! (So should Bush but we all know the chimp won’t.) permanent link to this post
Wonkette
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
I’ve been following this thread on Wonkette. And I must say, it’s hilarious!
As the Wonkette explains in this post regarding Bush’s Sloganator:
These Guys Be Fellatin’ Goats
Christians for purification of the Mid East
WORST. PRESIDENT. EVER.
Because SATAN is coming to eat your kid
update: Looks like all our fun with the Bush Slogan-maker has had an affect, the sloganator is dead. permanent link to this post
As the Wonkette explains in this post regarding Bush’s Sloganator:
The brilliant strategists at Bush-Cheney HQ allow you to customize a campaign poster with a slogan of your choosing. And, yes, we tried the obvious ones but someone thought to block those. You can’t make a poster that says “Penis,” or “Poo-Poo,” or “Prince of Darkness.”Some choice slogans:
These Guys Be Fellatin’ Goats
Christians for purification of the Mid East
WORST. PRESIDENT. EVER.
Because SATAN is coming to eat your kid
update: Looks like all our fun with the Bush Slogan-maker has had an affect, the sloganator is dead. permanent link to this post
Weapons Rules Eased At Dulles and National
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
People soon will be able to carry guns and other dangerous weapons onto the grounds and parking lots of Reagan National and Dulles International airports, after officials yesterday eased what they said were overly restrictive rules.[ link: Weapons Rules Eased At Dulles and National (washingtonpost.com) ]
Without debate, the board of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority unanimously agreed to permit passengers and other airport visitors to carry guns, knives and other weapons as long as they keep them out of terminals and other buildings that access airfields. Passengers who are taking guns with them on flights still will be allowed to carry them into the terminal but are supposed to make arrangements with airlines in advance, officials said.
The action comes after pressure from an increasingly high-profile Virginia gun rights group whose members have taken to wearing firearms on their hips in public places to make their case.
It’s becoming harder and harder for me to believe that I haven’t been somehow transported into a satirical novel about America instead of living in the real thing. permanent link to this post
What do Goya and Zell Miller have in common?
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
It’s nice to see my two passions — art and politics — come together.
Atrios compares the now infamous still of Zell Miller from last night’s RNC to Goya’s ‘Saturn.’
Fun, fun, fun.
update:
From the comments: Abe Linkoln’s Zell vs. Goya:
Click to enlarge image permanent link to this post
Atrios compares the now infamous still of Zell Miller from last night’s RNC to Goya’s ‘Saturn.’
Fun, fun, fun.
update:
From the comments: Abe Linkoln’s Zell vs. Goya:
Click to enlarge image permanent link to this post
UK politician rips US Senator a new hole
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
But why? Why does it take a UK politician to come here in order for the truth to be spoken in the US Senate? Why!?
Our press is weak and under attack and our politicians are cowards.
Download the MP3 (1.1MB) of UK Parliament member Galloway telling the truth.
update
While you’re at it, you may want to download this speech by Bill Moyers (MP3, 27MB) too.
Our press is weak and under attack and our politicians are cowards.
Download the MP3 (1.1MB) of UK Parliament member Galloway telling the truth.
update
While you’re at it, you may want to download this speech by Bill Moyers (MP3, 27MB) too.
In his first public address since leaving PBS six months ago, journalist Bill Moyers responds to charges by Kenneth Tomlinson - the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting - of liberal bias and revelations that Tomlinson hired a consultant to monitor the political content of Moyers’ PBS show “Now.”permanent link to this post
VOTE KERRY
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Ahhhhhhhh, it felt so good.
It’s a shame (I mean that: a real shame) that every locality isn’t as easy to vote in as NYC. The poll workers were very cheerful and knowledgeable and I had no line to wait in at all (though there were long lines for other districts, I guess I got lucky).
(note: I’m going to use this post to add my thoughts throughout the day.)
It brings a tear to my eye knowing that even the drug dealers are voting in my homestate. From Clevelend, via Salon:
It’s a shame (I mean that: a real shame) that every locality isn’t as easy to vote in as NYC. The poll workers were very cheerful and knowledgeable and I had no line to wait in at all (though there were long lines for other districts, I guess I got lucky).
(note: I’m going to use this post to add my thoughts throughout the day.)
It brings a tear to my eye knowing that even the drug dealers are voting in my homestate. From Clevelend, via Salon:
“Most people here from what I’m hearing have never voted before in their lives,” says Michael Bonner, a 34-year-old police officer who was waiting for a friend in the hallway of Harry David Jr. High School, a polling place in a predominantly black section of the city full of boarded-up buildings and vacant lots.permanent link to this post
“Even the drug dealers came out and voted today!” says Dan Lawson, a hulking 27-year-old electrician. An older man standing nearby nodded in agreement, saying, “That’s right. Even the drug men.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Lawson says, “and I may never see anything like this again.”
I Hate George Bush
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
And this post on Talkingpointsmemo.com is hilarious.
You might want to read Reuter’s piece in the NYTimes for some context (it’s linked from the TPM article above too).
These people in the White House know no shame and it seems like the general public just doesn’t seem to care either.
If Dean wins the presidency I’ve decided that not only am I literally going to dance in the street but I’m going to dance in Dean St. in Brooklyn. See you there! permanent link to this post
You might want to read Reuter’s piece in the NYTimes for some context (it’s linked from the TPM article above too).
These people in the White House know no shame and it seems like the general public just doesn’t seem to care either.
If Dean wins the presidency I’ve decided that not only am I literally going to dance in the street but I’m going to dance in Dean St. in Brooklyn. See you there! permanent link to this post
Joe Trippi’s new blog
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
The former campaign manager of Howard Dean, Joe Trippi, has started his own blog called Change For America.com.
For those of you under a rock, Trippi was the poster child for the ‘new’ political campaign defined as using the Internet for a campaign’s centerpiece in fund-raising and grassroots organizing.
And it seemed to work marvelously until the polls actually opened. It’s a shame that Dean is dropping but his and Trippi’s cutting-edge use of the web for political organizing will be remembered for being very influential IMO. permanent link to this post
For those of you under a rock, Trippi was the poster child for the ‘new’ political campaign defined as using the Internet for a campaign’s centerpiece in fund-raising and grassroots organizing.
And it seemed to work marvelously until the polls actually opened. It’s a shame that Dean is dropping but his and Trippi’s cutting-edge use of the web for political organizing will be remembered for being very influential IMO. permanent link to this post
The Well Armed Voter
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Shaula Evans, over at Tsure Dzure Gusa has a horde of links and information to help make sure you get your vote out. Intimidation stands no chance against the well armed voter.[ via: culturekitchen.com, The Well Armed Voter ]Know your rights. If you’re an eligible voter, you have the following rights:MoveOn.org (opens .pdf) has a cut out wallet card as well.
If your name is not on the official voter list but you believe you are eligible to vote in that precinct, even if an election official challenges your vote, you have the right to cast a “provisional ballot.”
If you’re in line when the polls close, you should stay in line because you’re entitled to vote.
In many states, your employer must allow you time to vote at some point during the day. You can’t be fired for being late due to long polling lines.
You have the right to vote without being intimidated by anyone.
You should also bring photo ID and proof of residence (utility bill, etc). These items are not necessary, but if you are challenged at the polls it will help to establish who you are and where you live. To repeat, it’s good to have these items, but not required; all you need is your signature. DON’T BE INTIMIDATED! permanent link to this post
Terror threat: real or partisan tool?
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Goddamn-it, I’m ANGRY!
Why am I so angry? Because of our lying President. You can’t trust anything that comes from the government! And we need to trust the government now more than ever.
From the AP via the Yahoo! News:
It’s sad and frightening that option 2 is even in the realm of possibility. But that’s what happens when you have a lying executive who has politicized the entire response to 9/11 and the threat of international terrorism. permanent link to this post
Why am I so angry? Because of our lying President. You can’t trust anything that comes from the government! And we need to trust the government now more than ever.
From the AP via the Yahoo! News:
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a U.S. official called the threat “serious” and “credible” and said it involves threats to financial institutions in New York and elsewhere.So, (1) is this threat for real? Or (2) is it just a way for Bush to suppress turn-out at RNC protests by scaring people and create an excuse for even higher security around the RNC which will further neutralize the protesters’ voices?
…
New intelligence that the al-Qaida terrorist network plans to attack financial or international institutions in New York has led police to urge extra security precautions at various city buildings.
It’s sad and frightening that option 2 is even in the realm of possibility. But that’s what happens when you have a lying executive who has politicized the entire response to 9/11 and the threat of international terrorism. permanent link to this post
Tanks at LA anti-war protest
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Why did two tanks show up at an anti-war protest in LA?
Were they just passing by? Are tanks often on this strip in LA? They circled the block twice according to this article.
Very curious.
You can see video at LA.indymedia.org. permanent link to this post
Were they just passing by? Are tanks often on this strip in LA? They circled the block twice according to this article.
Very curious.
You can see video at LA.indymedia.org. permanent link to this post
Scary shit
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
The radical right’s cynical pitch to the Jews: “My friends, there is no Palestinian-Israeli conflict. There is only the global war on terrorism.” Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Aug. 30, 2004, New York City.
[ via Talking Points Memo ] permanent link to this post
[ via Talking Points Memo ] permanent link to this post
thegreatamericanshoutout.org
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
fuggedaboudit!
As George W. Bush moves to the podium in New York City, we will send him a message about his bid for reelection: we will yell, “fuggedaboudit!”Go here for all the details. permanent link to this post
Rumsfeld: Iraq Just Like US
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Rumsfeld yesterday:
We had something like 200 or 300 or 400 people killed in many of the major cities of America last year. Is it perfectly peaceful? No. What’s the difference? We just didn’t see each homicide in every major city in the United States on television every night. It happens here in this city, in every major city in the world. Across Europe, across the Middle East, people are being killed. People do bad things to each other.What a fucking asshole. permanent link to this post
Open Source Media™ isn’t
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
The right-wing bloggers behind Open Source Media™ (love how it’s trademarked — assholes) really don’t seem to understand open source. It really pisses me off that these dickweeds are abusing the term.
Read why I’m griping here.
Daily Kos has a post too. permanent link to this post
Read why I’m griping here.
Daily Kos has a post too. permanent link to this post
Partisan tool it is!
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Looks like our skepticism was well-founded:
NYTimes: Reports That Led to Terror Alert Were Years Old, Officials Say:
NYTimes: Reports That Led to Terror Alert Were Years Old, Officials Say:
Much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror alert at several large financial institutions in the New York City and Washington areas was three or four years old, intelligence and law enforcement officials said on Monday. They reported that they had not yet found concrete evidence that a terror plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way.permanent link to this post
mypollingplace.com
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Don’t know where to vote?
MoveOn PAC is suggesting using a web site called mypollingplace.com to find out where your polling place is. All you need is your address and zip code to find your polling place.
Spread this URL around!
mypollingplace.com
mypollingplace.com
mypollingplace.com permanent link to this post
MoveOn PAC is suggesting using a web site called mypollingplace.com to find out where your polling place is. All you need is your address and zip code to find your polling place.
Spread this URL around!
mypollingplace.com
mypollingplace.com
mypollingplace.com permanent link to this post
NYC: 80% for Kerry
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
I’m proud to say that NYC voted 80% for Kerry. Red America (especially one’s that voted Bush out of terrorism concerns) should think about why the city that suffered the most from 9/11 voted overwhelmingly for Kerry.
The NYTimes on how NYCers feel:
A Blue City (Disconsolate, Even) Bewildered by a Red America
M. River adds:
Although the really sad thing is that most people did not rate "terrorism" or "the economy" very high in why they voted for Bush. They voted on "family values".
So, in order to try to understand, I went to the American Family Association’s web site.
http://www.afa.net/
Yup, just as I suspected. It looks like "family values" is a euphemism for fundamentalist bigotry. Thanks Heartland.
Oh, sorry. Is "euphemism" an example of East cost liberal intellectual big words? Okay, how about I just use a Fox news favorite formula? "Some people might say that voting based on "Family Values" shows that you’re just another racist, homophomic, women hating, asshole.” permanent link to this post
The NYTimes on how NYCers feel:
A Blue City (Disconsolate, Even) Bewildered by a Red America
M. River adds:
Although the really sad thing is that most people did not rate "terrorism" or "the economy" very high in why they voted for Bush. They voted on "family values".
So, in order to try to understand, I went to the American Family Association’s web site.
http://www.afa.net/
Yup, just as I suspected. It looks like "family values" is a euphemism for fundamentalist bigotry. Thanks Heartland.
Oh, sorry. Is "euphemism" an example of East cost liberal intellectual big words? Okay, how about I just use a Fox news favorite formula? "Some people might say that voting based on "Family Values" shows that you’re just another racist, homophomic, women hating, asshole.” permanent link to this post
Mmmmm, poodle burgers
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
This has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard…
via: Activists Say Aquarium Sends Bad Message By Cooking Fish For Lunch…
I’ve always been a bit bewildered by the whole “off-limit meats” mores in societies. Fry me up some dog or cat, I’ll eat it :-) permanent link to this post
An animal rights group has called on one of the largest aquariums in the United States to stop serving fish to its visitors, likening the practice to grilling up “poodle burgers at a dog show.”
“It’s easy to think of fish as swimming vegetables but of all the places in the country where fish should get a fair shake it’s an aquarium,” said Karin Robertson, manager of the Fish Empathy Project for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
via: Activists Say Aquarium Sends Bad Message By Cooking Fish For Lunch…
I’ve always been a bit bewildered by the whole “off-limit meats” mores in societies. Fry me up some dog or cat, I’ll eat it :-) permanent link to this post
Juan Cole tells it
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Guantanamo Prison should be closed because it was conceived as the beginning of the end of the American Republic.permanent link to this post
via: Quran Splashed with Urine at Guantanamo
What has gone wrong with our country that allows this president to get away with such things?
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
That’s what Krugman asks as the end of his column today after detailing the disastourous lack of accountability in Bush’s administration.
Krugman list three examples of how grave mistakes are made by Bush administration officials but no one is held accountable. This is the most disgusting one in my opinion: …an important story that has largely evaded public attention: the effort to prevent oversight of Iraq spending. Government agencies normally have independent, strictly nonpartisan inspectors general, with broad powers to investigate questionable spending. But the new inspector general’s office in Iraq operates under unique rules that greatly limit both its powers and its independence. I agree with Krugman’s assessment: These people politicize everything, from military planning to scientific assessments. If you’re with them, you pay no penalty for being wrong. If you don’t tell them what they want to hear, you’re an enemy Is Kerry the one to save us from this monstrosous administration? permanent link to this post
Krugman list three examples of how grave mistakes are made by Bush administration officials but no one is held accountable. This is the most disgusting one in my opinion: …an important story that has largely evaded public attention: the effort to prevent oversight of Iraq spending. Government agencies normally have independent, strictly nonpartisan inspectors general, with broad powers to investigate questionable spending. But the new inspector general’s office in Iraq operates under unique rules that greatly limit both its powers and its independence. I agree with Krugman’s assessment: These people politicize everything, from military planning to scientific assessments. If you’re with them, you pay no penalty for being wrong. If you don’t tell them what they want to hear, you’re an enemy Is Kerry the one to save us from this monstrosous administration? permanent link to this post
Jon Stewart on Crossfire
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
John Stewart once again proves why he deserves to be my hero.
TUCKER CARLSON: OK, up next, Jon Stewart goes one on one with his fans…via: Media Matters for America
[CROSSTALK]
STEWART: You know what’s interesting, though? You’re as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.
[LAUGHTER]
CARLSON: Now, you’re getting into it. I like that
Read the entire thing, it’s great. There are vids to download too :-)
After watching the video I was really struck by the fact that the so-called ‘debaters’ on Crossfire lost so miserably to Stewart. These so-called debaters just couldn’t answer his accusation that they aren’t fulfilling their obligations as journalists. permanent link to this post
It’s madness to put up with King George
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
It’s time. I was never on the impeach Bush bandwagon, but I’ve just climbed aboard.
It seemed like a very bad idea to impeach two presidents in a row, but this one deserves it more than any other; more than Nixon and certainly more than Clinton.
Admitting that he believes he’s above the law, Bush should have signed his own impeachment papers (impeachment papers… are there impeachment papers?), but the spineless republicans currently in control of congress will most likely just continue to vigorously lick his boot heels. Or maybe not.
+++
Some editorials (cribbed from HuffPost):
NY Times Editorial: Bush “Secretly And Recklessly Expanded The Govt.’s Powers In Dangerous And Unnecessary Ways”…
Wash. Post Editorial: “The Tools Of Foreign Intelligence Are Not Consistent With A Democratic Society”…
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette : “Unacceptable Actions Of A Police State”…
Kansas City Star: “The Struggle With Foreign Enemies Does Not Simply Give Him A Blank Check”…
Denver Post Editorial: “Adm. Has Lost Its Sense Of Balance Between Essential Anti-Terrorism Tools And Encroachment On Liberties”…
St. Petersburg Times Editorial: “So Dangerously Ill-Conceived And Contrary To This Nation’s Guiding Principles”…
LA Times Editorial: “Stunning,” “One Of The More Egregious Cases Of Governmental Overreach”…
+++
And, from Senator Russ Feingold’s response:
It seemed like a very bad idea to impeach two presidents in a row, but this one deserves it more than any other; more than Nixon and certainly more than Clinton.
Admitting that he believes he’s above the law, Bush should have signed his own impeachment papers (impeachment papers… are there impeachment papers?), but the spineless republicans currently in control of congress will most likely just continue to vigorously lick his boot heels. Or maybe not.
+++
Some editorials (cribbed from HuffPost):
NY Times Editorial: Bush “Secretly And Recklessly Expanded The Govt.’s Powers In Dangerous And Unnecessary Ways”…
Wash. Post Editorial: “The Tools Of Foreign Intelligence Are Not Consistent With A Democratic Society”…
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette : “Unacceptable Actions Of A Police State”…
Kansas City Star: “The Struggle With Foreign Enemies Does Not Simply Give Him A Blank Check”…
Denver Post Editorial: “Adm. Has Lost Its Sense Of Balance Between Essential Anti-Terrorism Tools And Encroachment On Liberties”…
St. Petersburg Times Editorial: “So Dangerously Ill-Conceived And Contrary To This Nation’s Guiding Principles”…
LA Times Editorial: “Stunning,” “One Of The More Egregious Cases Of Governmental Overreach”…
+++
And, from Senator Russ Feingold’s response:
The President’s shocking admission that he authorized the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens, without going to a court and in violation of the Constitution and laws passed by Congress, further demonstrates the urgent need for these protections. The President believes that he has the power to override the laws that Congress has passed. This is not how our democratic system of government works. The President does not get to pick and choose which laws he wants to follow. He is a president, not a king.” (emphasis mine)permanent link to this post
It’s fun to shoot some people
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
According to an audio recording, [Lt. Gen. James Mattis] had said, “Actually, it’s a lot of fun to fight. You know, it’s a hell of a hoot. … It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right upfront with you, I like brawling.”Spreading freedom and democracy…
He added, “You go into Afghanistan (news - web sites), you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”
via: Yahoo! News - Marine General Counseled Over Comments
And while I’m at it… Perhaps with the Republicans celebrating the Iraqi elections they’ll realize that they should allow free elections here in the States too. permanent link to this post
If America were Iraq, What would it be Like?
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Juan Cole does a serious slap-down of Bush’s BS “optimism.”
President Bush said Tuesday that the Iraqis are refuting the pessimists and implied that things are improving in that country.Read the entire post at Informed Comment. permanent link to this post
What would America look like if it were in Iraq’s current situation? The population of the US is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of statistics would have to be multiplied by that number.
[…]
What if the Air Force routinely (I mean daily or weekly) bombed Billings, Montana, Flint, Michigan, Watts in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Anacostia in Washington, DC, and other urban areas, attempting to target “safe houses” of “criminal gangs”, but inevitably killing a lot of children and little old ladies?
What if, from time to time, the US Army besieged Virginia Beach, killing hundreds of armed members of the Christian Soldiers? What if entire platoons of the Christian Soldiers militia holed up in Arlington National Cemetery, and were bombarded by US Air Force warplanes daily, destroying thousands of graves and pulverizing the Vietnam Memorial? What if the National Council of Churches had to call for a popular march of thousands of believers to converge on the National Cathedral to stop the US Army from demolishing it to get at a rogue band of the Timothy McVeigh Memorial Brigades?
[…]
I heart Krugman
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
But worst of all from the right’s point of view, Al Qaqaa has disrupted the campaign’s media strategy. Karl Rove clearly planned to turn the final days of the campaign into a series of “global test” moments - taking something Mr. Kerry said and distorting its meaning, then generating pseudo-controversies that dominate the airwaves. Instead, the news media have spent the last few days discussing substance. And that’s very bad news for Mr. Bush.[ via: The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: It’s Not Just Al Qaqaa ] permanent link to this post
I ♥ Dean
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
I know this is everywhere else, but ya gotta love Howard Dean for saying it:
My view is FOX News is a propaganda outlet for the Republican Party and I don’t comment on FOX News […]In response to Cheney calling Howard Dean “over the top” on Fox News on Sunday. permanent link to this post
Go Kerry!
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
This is the response we need!
Full text permanent link to this post
The Vice President called me unfit for office last night. Well, I’ll leave it up to the voters to decide whether five deferments makes someone more qualified to defend this nation than two tours of duty.— John Kerry, Springfield, OH, 09/02/04
Let me tell you what I think makes someone unfit for duty. Misleading our nation into war in Iraq makes you unfit to lead this nation. Doing nothing while this nation loses millions of jobs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting 45 million Americans go without healthcare makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting the Saudi Royal Family control our energy costs makes you unfit. Handing out billions of government contracts to Halliburton while you’re still on their payroll makes you unfit. That’s the record of George Bush and Dick Cheney. And that only scratches the surface.
Full text permanent link to this post
Haven’t posted on politics in a while…
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
So yeah. I haven’t posted on politics in a while, but then this question came to mind:
If the pope and Terri Schiavo both die on Easter, is it the beginning of Armageddon?
I’m pretty sure it is. permanent link to this post
If the pope and Terri Schiavo both die on Easter, is it the beginning of Armageddon?
I’m pretty sure it is. permanent link to this post
Fucking liars
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Haven’t posted on politics in a while…
INTELLIGENCE AND FACTS WERE BEING FIXED AROUND THE POLICY
I saw this a few days ago, but the lack of press coverage here in the U.S. has made it my obligation to do my little part to spread the facts. I think I read it originally via Political Animal by Kevin Drum. Here’s the link to the Drum post (which he got via the Times of London printing of a secret British government memo); here’s the important part (emphasis added):
How does one “fix” facts? This is confirmation that Bush was, at the very least, lying by omission. That is, hiding facts that didn’t support his push for an Iraq invasion. Of course it’s my opinion that his administration was just outright lying in order to exploit public fear to gain popular acceptance for this bullshit Iraq war. permanent link to this post
INTELLIGENCE AND FACTS WERE BEING FIXED AROUND THE POLICY
I saw this a few days ago, but the lack of press coverage here in the U.S. has made it my obligation to do my little part to spread the facts. I think I read it originally via Political Animal by Kevin Drum. Here’s the link to the Drum post (which he got via the Times of London printing of a secret British government memo); here’s the important part (emphasis added):
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.“C” is a spook working for British intelligence.
How does one “fix” facts? This is confirmation that Bush was, at the very least, lying by omission. That is, hiding facts that didn’t support his push for an Iraq invasion. Of course it’s my opinion that his administration was just outright lying in order to exploit public fear to gain popular acceptance for this bullshit Iraq war. permanent link to this post
Get ready to rumble
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Karl Rove said today that the president views a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage as essential to a “decent” society.via: NYTimes
Bush & Rove know ‘decency?’ What a fucking joke.
Let’s hope that ACT, MoveOn, Downtown for Democracy, Democracy for America, &c are ready to fight these bastards tooth & nail.
The Dems need to go on the offensive, but I’m not an expert… does this stand a chance in hell of going anywhere? permanent link to this post
Fucking hell
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
This sucks. (I know, I know, I guess it’s not officially over, but shit, it’s not looking good.) Kerry has conceded. Shit.
Americans have proven themselves to be nothing but a bunch of scared peasants voting for their idiot king.
You Bush voters, your american citizenship is officially revoked for not identifying and dismissing the creeping authoritarianism that is the GWB administration. If it’s not obvious enough now, over the next four years it will become abundantly clear how big a mistake you have made. We’ll hope our democratic institutions are still in place so that you may fix your horrible error.
If a president this corrupt (Halliburton) and incompetent (Iraq) can’t be beat what sort of country have we become?
Don’t despair folks, just start thinking about what we can do over the next 4 years to make the chimp wish he had lost. permanent link to this post
Americans have proven themselves to be nothing but a bunch of scared peasants voting for their idiot king.
You Bush voters, your american citizenship is officially revoked for not identifying and dismissing the creeping authoritarianism that is the GWB administration. If it’s not obvious enough now, over the next four years it will become abundantly clear how big a mistake you have made. We’ll hope our democratic institutions are still in place so that you may fix your horrible error.
If a president this corrupt (Halliburton) and incompetent (Iraq) can’t be beat what sort of country have we become?
Don’t despair folks, just start thinking about what we can do over the next 4 years to make the chimp wish he had lost. permanent link to this post
FEMA isn’t free
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Walking to lunch today, I noticed a truck with a window sticker featuring the American flag and the little platitude “Freedom Isn’t Free,” a lightly veiled code for Iraq war support.
It’s time for a new slogan for the left and others who see the Bush administration for the disaster that it is:
FEMA Isn’t Free
background reading:
FEMA predicts New Orleans disaster
FEMA gutted for Homeland Security
timeline that outlines the fate of both FEMA and flood control projects in New Orleans under the Bush administration
++++
If you use Amazon, you can 1-click give to the Red Cross, or visit their web site. permanent link to this post
It’s time for a new slogan for the left and others who see the Bush administration for the disaster that it is:
FEMA Isn’t Free
background reading:
FEMA predicts New Orleans disaster
FEMA gutted for Homeland Security
timeline that outlines the fate of both FEMA and flood control projects in New Orleans under the Bush administration
++++
If you use Amazon, you can 1-click give to the Red Cross, or visit their web site. permanent link to this post
To be believed? I doubt it.
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
CNN today:
“Cues from chatter” gathered around the world are raising concerns that terrorists might try to attack the domestic food and drug supply, particularly illegally imported prescription drugs…And of course it’s a coincidence that just yesterday (from NYT):
Hitting hard on an issue of deep concern to older voters, Senator John Kerry on Wednesday promised an overhaul of the Medicare prescription drug law, saying President Bush had personally “stood in the way” of importing drugs from Canada…How fucking stupid do these fucking fuckers think we are? Evidently, mighty fucking stupid. permanent link to this post
Is it possible…
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
…for me to get any MORE enraged by the Bush Administration?
Yes, it seems like it is: Fahrenheit 9/11 Opens June 25.
trailer here permanent link to this post
Yes, it seems like it is: Fahrenheit 9/11 Opens June 25.
trailer here permanent link to this post
Dancing in the Streets: Revolution with a Smile
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
John Perry Barlow suggests spontaneous explosions of dancing in the streets of NYC during the RNC as a form of happy protesting.
Liza Sabater heartily agrees.
And so do I :-) Don’t know if I’m up to organizing, but I could definitely do some participating. permanent link to this post
Liza Sabater heartily agrees.
And so do I :-) Don’t know if I’m up to organizing, but I could definitely do some participating. permanent link to this post
TPM: perjury charge for Clarke?
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
JM Marshall writes in this post that the Republicans are considering bringing perjury charges against Dick Clarke (no that Dick Clark, this Dick Clarke).
The first step in this little adventure is to declassify testimony Clarke gave congress in 2002.
It really sounds like they want to totally destroy this guy. Not discredit him, not debate with him, not to object to him; they want to put him in jail. And why? For telling the truth.
It’s doubtful that he’ll ever be charged with perjury because most of his points are corroborated by other people, that is, they’re true. The only people who don’t understand this are Republicans who have been blinded by their partisanship to the deep, deep flaws and lies of Bush. permanent link to this post
The first step in this little adventure is to declassify testimony Clarke gave congress in 2002.
It really sounds like they want to totally destroy this guy. Not discredit him, not debate with him, not to object to him; they want to put him in jail. And why? For telling the truth.
It’s doubtful that he’ll ever be charged with perjury because most of his points are corroborated by other people, that is, they’re true. The only people who don’t understand this are Republicans who have been blinded by their partisanship to the deep, deep flaws and lies of Bush. permanent link to this post
Carlson calls it for Kerry
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
…haven’t seen this elsewhere so I’d thought I’d mention it.
On The Chris Matthews Show this morning, conservative guest Tucker Carlson called the election for Kerry. He said something like,
There is no transcript available yet. When it’s available I’ll post the real quote.
UPDATE:
The transcript now available; it’s at the bottom:
On The Chris Matthews Show this morning, conservative guest Tucker Carlson called the election for Kerry. He said something like,
We will know who the next president is on election day, and though I’m not happy about it — it’s reality — it will be Kerry by 2 points. It’s not good for the nation that Kerry wins, but it will be good that there is a clear winner.Again, not verbatim, but something very similar.
UPDATE:
The transcript now available; it’s at the bottom:
Mr. CARLSON: […] I think there’s going to be a definitive win by two points. I have to say I think it’s going to be Kerry. I’m not for that, but I think that’s—I think that’s reality.permanent link to this post
Calpundit: very good political blog">Calpundit: very good political blog
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Yes, sometimes I post about politics here on our little art blog and this is one of those posts: Calpundit rocks.
This post in particular isvery insanely good. It succinctly describes exactly why Bush and his Republican handlers are so damn evil:
After 9/11 George Bush had a chance to build a bipartisan consensus about terrorism and how to respond to it. But he didn’t just fail to do that, he deliberately tried to prevent it, and by transparently treating terrorism as little more than a chance to boost the prospects of his own party he has convinced everyone who’s not a Republican that it’s not really a serious threat. After all, if he quite obviously treats it as simply a political opportunity, it’s hardly reasonable to expect anyone else to take it seriously either.
The comments section of Calpundit is very good too, lots of lively debate by well-informed posters.
permanent link to this post
This post in particular is
Bush is insane
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
As simple as that.
According to the BBC via Huffpost:
According to the BBC via Huffpost:
President Bush said to all of us: ‘I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, “George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.” And I did, and then God would tell me, “George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …” And I did. And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, “Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.” And by God I’m gonna do it.’permanent link to this post
Bush to World
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Sorry, need to post about politics today
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
As always, Talking Points Memo is good:
From the White House’s advocates we hear logic puzzles about appeasement in which the fall-out from the president’s screw ups become the prime argument for continuing to support them.Josh Marshall also quotes this line from the Washington Post:
[…]
[Bush] has no plan. And will without policy just equals death.
The only unequivocally good policy option before the American people is to dump the president who got us into this mess, who had no trouble sending our young people to Iraq but who cannot steel himself to face the Sept. 11 commission alone.And that’s it. As Iraq seems to be falling apart before our eyes, what do we get from Bush? More vacant rhetoric and more stonewalling. He is undoubtably the worst President the USA has ever had. permanent link to this post
Bush: “Happy Holidays”
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/politics
Another notorious liberal human-secularist trying to destroy Christmas: President George W. Bush.
Listening to Bush’s press conference today on WNYC (I know, I’m a sucker for punishment), Bush closed the conference by wishing the reporters “Happy Holidays.” Faux News carries the transcript here (at the bottom of page).
Why is this a big deal? It’s not, unless you listen and believe right-winger propaganda bullshit. See these posts (here, here, here and here) from the blogosphere for background (and this Tom Tomorrow cartoon).
UPDATE: I missed the beginning, but according to this, Bush also greeted everyone with the dreaded and disgustingly politically-correct phrase “Happy Holidays!”
Plus, Lou Dobbs is a fucking idiot.
From Media Matters for America:
What about NEW YEAR’S DAY you fucking idiots! permanent link to this post
Listening to Bush’s press conference today on WNYC (I know, I’m a sucker for punishment), Bush closed the conference by wishing the reporters “Happy Holidays.” Faux News carries the transcript here (at the bottom of page).
Why is this a big deal? It’s not, unless you listen and believe right-winger propaganda bullshit. See these posts (here, here, here and here) from the blogosphere for background (and this Tom Tomorrow cartoon).
UPDATE: I missed the beginning, but according to this, Bush also greeted everyone with the dreaded and disgustingly politically-correct phrase “Happy Holidays!”
Plus, Lou Dobbs is a fucking idiot.
From Media Matters for America:
ROMANS: Lou, Macy’s is adamant it’s not trying to offend anyone, just the opposite. It’s doing just what other businesses do, retail and otherwise. It’s trying very hard not to exclude anyone. That’s why “Season’s Greetings, Happy Holidays” is better.And, hmmm, let’s see, IS there any other holiday that almost everyone is celebrating soon… golly it’s a tough one. Oh yeah! That’s right.
DOBBS: Well, they’ve just excluded everyone who is celebrating Christmas, which is, after all, the foundation of the so-called season in which they make most of their profits.
ROMANS: Moving definitely toward not offending anyone.
DOBBS: You know, when you think about it, “Happy Holidays” — what other holidays are we celebrating right now? We’re celebrating Christmas, right?
ROMANS: And they say Hanukkah, Kwanzaa —
DOBBS: Kwanzaa?
ROMANS: — also the end of Ramadan and a host of other holidays between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.
DOBBS: But as we celebrate each one of those — and each of us in this very diverse society does celebrate — my Jewish friends say to me “Happy Hanukkah,” I say to them “Merry Christmas,” none of us is offended. I don’t understand the reluctance to use Christmas.
ROMANS: They say “Happy Holidays” covers it all.
DOBBS: They do? Well, they’re wrong. And merry Christmas. Thanks, Christine.
What about NEW YEAR’S DAY you fucking idiots! permanent link to this post
Pokia - Retro phones of the future
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
PodART
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We’re participating in this show, should be fun!
Official press release follows.
+++
PodART
December 9, 2005 - January 17, 2005
at FINE ART IN SPACE
Opening Reception:
December 9, 2005, 7 to 9pm.
Gallery Hours: Monday through Saturday, 9am. to 5pm.
Fine Art in Space
10-47 48th Avenue
Long Island City, NY 11101
(718) 392-7766
Press contact: Heather Stephens at gallery31grand@earthlink.net
Fine Art in Space is pleased to present in collaboration with 31GRAND, the first group exhibition of video art intended to be viewed and sold solely on the iPod. Apple, the computer of choice by much of the art world is the inspiration for our new exhibition.
This curatorial exploration was inspired by the introduction of the latest iPod, which now plays video. In recent years, Video art has been growing rapidly in popularity. Their ongoing introduction of more technologically advanced products has resulted in the acceptance and accessibility of this media. Apple’s latest achievements with the iPod have garnered this art form even more portability.
Artists featured in PodART will include the work of: Gogol Bordello, Jason Clay Lewis, Nelson Loskamp, MTAA, Marisa Olson, Eugenio Percossi, Jean Pigozzi, Adam Stennett, Lee Walton, and Jeff Wyckoff.
MTAA is an art duo working on and off-line and are known for their conceptual and often humorous art projects. Past exhibitions have been at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, The Getty Research Institute, and Postmasters gallery.
Based in San Francisco, Marisa Olson’s work has been commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American Art and she has most recently performed or exhibited at the New Museum for Contemporary Art, the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, Side Cinema-Newcastle, New Langton Arts, Southern Exposure, Foxy Productions, Debs & Co, Galapagos, Flux Factory, 667 Shotwell, Pond, the international Futuresonic, Electrofringe, Cinemascope-London, Machinista, Scope, and VIPER festivals, and elsewhere. She has held residencies and fellowships at Goldsmiths, the New School, Northwestern University, the Technical University-Dresden, and the Banff Centre for the Arts. She participated in an exhibition which Artforum highlighted among their “Best of 2004” and while Wired has called her both funny and humorous,the New York Times has called her work “anything but stupid.”
Jeff Wyckoff is an artist and scientist whose video work includes intravital imaging, cancer research and often music. Mr. Wyckoff has an upcoming lecture at MIT in February and exhibitions in Belgrade, Antwerp, and is currently working with the Art and Genome Center in Amsterdam.
Each video object is a limited edition and is sold in iPod format with the player.
For more information about the artists please contact us at 718.388.2858 or gallery31grand@earthlink.net.
permanent link to this post
Official press release follows.
+++
PodART
December 9, 2005 - January 17, 2005
at FINE ART IN SPACE
Opening Reception:
December 9, 2005, 7 to 9pm.
Gallery Hours: Monday through Saturday, 9am. to 5pm.
Fine Art in Space
10-47 48th Avenue
Long Island City, NY 11101
(718) 392-7766
Press contact: Heather Stephens at gallery31grand@earthlink.net
Fine Art in Space is pleased to present in collaboration with 31GRAND, the first group exhibition of video art intended to be viewed and sold solely on the iPod. Apple, the computer of choice by much of the art world is the inspiration for our new exhibition.
This curatorial exploration was inspired by the introduction of the latest iPod, which now plays video. In recent years, Video art has been growing rapidly in popularity. Their ongoing introduction of more technologically advanced products has resulted in the acceptance and accessibility of this media. Apple’s latest achievements with the iPod have garnered this art form even more portability.
Artists featured in PodART will include the work of: Gogol Bordello, Jason Clay Lewis, Nelson Loskamp, MTAA, Marisa Olson, Eugenio Percossi, Jean Pigozzi, Adam Stennett, Lee Walton, and Jeff Wyckoff.
MTAA is an art duo working on and off-line and are known for their conceptual and often humorous art projects. Past exhibitions have been at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, The Getty Research Institute, and Postmasters gallery.
Based in San Francisco, Marisa Olson’s work has been commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American Art and she has most recently performed or exhibited at the New Museum for Contemporary Art, the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, Side Cinema-Newcastle, New Langton Arts, Southern Exposure, Foxy Productions, Debs & Co, Galapagos, Flux Factory, 667 Shotwell, Pond, the international Futuresonic, Electrofringe, Cinemascope-London, Machinista, Scope, and VIPER festivals, and elsewhere. She has held residencies and fellowships at Goldsmiths, the New School, Northwestern University, the Technical University-Dresden, and the Banff Centre for the Arts. She participated in an exhibition which Artforum highlighted among their “Best of 2004” and while Wired has called her both funny and humorous,the New York Times has called her work “anything but stupid.”
Jeff Wyckoff is an artist and scientist whose video work includes intravital imaging, cancer research and often music. Mr. Wyckoff has an upcoming lecture at MIT in February and exhibitions in Belgrade, Antwerp, and is currently working with the Art and Genome Center in Amsterdam.
Each video object is a limited edition and is sold in iPod format with the player.
For more information about the artists please contact us at 718.388.2858 or gallery31grand@earthlink.net.
permanent link to this post
Please stop GNY
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Joy Garnett needs to stop posting all this stuff about Greater New York because my heart’s been scraped as clean as the inside of a Ben & Jerry’s pint container and I can’t take it anymore!
nasty sour grapes following:
Someone in-the-know let drop on me that the organization of the show is a complete shambles. Unless I misheard my source, it seems that some artists are being asked to submit their work without it being guaranteed that it will actually be hung in the show! permanent link to this post
nasty sour grapes following:
Someone in-the-know let drop on me that the organization of the show is a complete shambles. Unless I misheard my source, it seems that some artists are being asked to submit their work without it being guaranteed that it will actually be hung in the show! permanent link to this post
Multiple vulnerabilities in ‘pizza_party’
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I can’t decide if this list-serv posting is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek or not:
If you’re not in the know, we’re talking about Cory Arcangel’s Pizza Party, a command-line program which allows one to order pizzas. permanent link to this post
Either would allow for individuals other than the owner of the Dominos Pizza account to order arbitrary pizzas (with random toppings even) via the DominosQuikOrder web server and have them delivered — resulting in chaos, anarchy and confusion.I also wonder how Cory’s site handled the /.ing?
If you’re not in the know, we’re talking about Cory Arcangel’s Pizza Party, a command-line program which allows one to order pizzas. permanent link to this post
MTAA are non-sexual art partners
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This has been a problem lately so I’m just going to lay it right out on the line:
M.River and T.Whid are not gay lovers, we’re non-sexual art partners.
This is only a problem because we sometimes get invites to parties, openings, and other social events where the invite only comes to one of us. It’s our worry that people think if they invite one they’ve invited the other, but that’s just not true. We both need to be invited.
Recently, I was invited to an opening at the Guggenheim, but M.River received no invite. Conversely, M.River received an invite to a party in honor of a mutual friend, but I received no invite. M.River isn’t going to bring my along like I’m his ‘old lady’ or something. We both lead separate lives! We’re not joined at the hip.
So please, in the future, if you want to invite us to something, just because you e-mail me doesn’t mean I’m going to bring M.River along. He’s not my boyfriend, we don’t go everywhere together. And of course the inverse is true.
and mriver adds:
Yeah, I do love Twhid, but not like that. Ya know? Oh, one more important thing, even though Twhid and I are straight white guys…WE THINK YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO LEGALLY MARRY WHOMEVER YOU FUCKING DAM WELL PLEASE! This is America remember…created equal not separate but equal.
MTAA, non-sexul art partners for gay marriage. (N.S.A.P.F.G.M.). Nuff said. permanent link to this post
M.River and T.Whid are not gay lovers, we’re non-sexual art partners.
This is only a problem because we sometimes get invites to parties, openings, and other social events where the invite only comes to one of us. It’s our worry that people think if they invite one they’ve invited the other, but that’s just not true. We both need to be invited.
Recently, I was invited to an opening at the Guggenheim, but M.River received no invite. Conversely, M.River received an invite to a party in honor of a mutual friend, but I received no invite. M.River isn’t going to bring my along like I’m his ‘old lady’ or something. We both lead separate lives! We’re not joined at the hip.
So please, in the future, if you want to invite us to something, just because you e-mail me doesn’t mean I’m going to bring M.River along. He’s not my boyfriend, we don’t go everywhere together. And of course the inverse is true.
and mriver adds:
Yeah, I do love Twhid, but not like that. Ya know? Oh, one more important thing, even though Twhid and I are straight white guys…WE THINK YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO LEGALLY MARRY WHOMEVER YOU FUCKING DAM WELL PLEASE! This is America remember…created equal not separate but equal.
MTAA, non-sexul art partners for gay marriage. (N.S.A.P.F.G.M.). Nuff said. permanent link to this post
Pixies Tour
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
OK, this is sort of old news but, The Pixies are touring. and it’s not some bogus Pixies made up of only two members, it’s THE PIXIES: Frank Black, Joey Santiago, Kim Deal, and David Lovering. So far they’ve booked dates for a ‘warm-up’ tour which is mostly in Canada and the Northwest. According to Billboard there will be real tour to follow. I hope they plan on playing about 50 dates in NYC.
I saw The Pixies in — damn — must have been in 1991. They were touring in support of “Trompe Le Monde” which was released that year. It was at The Newport in Columbus, Ohio.
But M.River, who was much cooler than me in college (and still is I guess), saw them at Stache’s much earlier.
Dave Grohl (who has been to Stache’s) has this to say about it in the NYTime’s today:
I saw The Pixies in — damn — must have been in 1991. They were touring in support of “Trompe Le Monde” which was released that year. It was at The Newport in Columbus, Ohio.
But M.River, who was much cooler than me in college (and still is I guess), saw them at Stache’s much earlier.
Dave Grohl (who has been to Stache’s) has this to say about it in the NYTime’s today:
Face it, the quiet/loud dynamic that’s dominated alternative radio for the last 14 years can be attributed to one and only one band, the Pixies. Undoubtedly one of the most influential groups of the new rock generation, they are back on tour to reclaim their status as the coolest American band since, well, possibly ever. In the 12 years since the band broke up, we’ve been blessed with some incredible solo albums from the singer and guitarist Frank Black; the bassist Kim Deal has graced us with the Breeders and the Amps; the drummer David Lovering has become a magician; and the guitarist Joey Santiago, he’s just bad (as in good). There is a new greatest-hits CD, a two-and-a-half-hour DVD (both on 4AD) and an 11-city tour kicking off next month. Not to be missed, the Pixies are a live band like no other. Be prepared for an over-capacity sing-along, night after night.permanent link to this post
PIXIES! PIXIES! PIXIES!
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
WOO-HOO! Just scored two tix to the Saturday 18th show at the Hammerstein Ballroom!
Saw the Pixies back in… what year was it? ‘91? ‘92? At The Newport in Columbus, OH on their Trompe Le Monde tour. Which ain’t that cool considering that M.River saw ‘em at Staches a couple years earlier. (Nirvana also played at Staches but I missed that show too.) permanent link to this post
Saw the Pixies back in… what year was it? ‘91? ‘92? At The Newport in Columbus, OH on their Trompe Le Monde tour. Which ain’t that cool considering that M.River saw ‘em at Staches a couple years earlier. (Nirvana also played at Staches but I missed that show too.) permanent link to this post
piss poor? No… Piss pour!
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Czech artist David Cerny’s new sculpture, “Piss,” installed in Prague.
The best part? You can SMS the sculpture and the guys will spell out your message!
send an SMS to +428 724 370 770
more info here, including more photos and flash animations. permanent link to this post
Pirated Movie on iPod
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
For the PodART show we’ll also being showing Pirated Movie. Check it out:
MTAA’s “Pirated Movie” on an iPod permanent link to this post
MTAA’s “Pirated Movie” on an iPod permanent link to this post
Pirated Movie DVD release
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA’s Pirated Movie (more info here, here and here) is to be released very soon.
We’ve created an edition of 10 DVD-Videos (with 10 APs). This is a large number of APs but we wanted to give copies to all the people who donated their time and other resources to help make it happen. We’ll have more info on how you can obtain your copy shortly, stay tuned.
Super-special-ultra thanks to Devin Clark for editing and all the participating artists and musicians too! permanent link to this post
We’ve created an edition of 10 DVD-Videos (with 10 APs). This is a large number of APs but we wanted to give copies to all the people who donated their time and other resources to help make it happen. We’ll have more info on how you can obtain your copy shortly, stay tuned.
Super-special-ultra thanks to Devin Clark for editing and all the participating artists and musicians too! permanent link to this post
One thing about the debate
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/photos
Is it me, or did Bush seem to keep pausing and waiting for applause? Could he be that out of it?
Also, the media says about Bush that his strength is that he can stay relentlessly “on message.” This is a total, big, steaming pile of bullshit. “Stay on message” means repeats himself over and over because all he has are talking points coached into him by his handlers and he’s run out but needs to fill his time. He had to struggle to fill the tiny amount of allotted time half the time! What a pathetic ass.
And from talkingpointsmemo.com:
Also, the media says about Bush that his strength is that he can stay relentlessly “on message.” This is a total, big, steaming pile of bullshit. “Stay on message” means repeats himself over and over because all he has are talking points coached into him by his handlers and he’s run out but needs to fill his time. He had to struggle to fill the tiny amount of allotted time half the time! What a pathetic ass.
And from talkingpointsmemo.com:
Every president gets tucked away into a cocoon to some degree. But President Bush does notoriously few press conferences or serious interviews. His townhall meetings are screened so that only supporters show up. And, of course, he hasn’t debated anyone since almost exactly four years ago.I had the same impression and loved it. permanent link to this post
Frankly, I think it showed. It irked him to have to stand there and be criticized and not be able to repeat his talking points without contradiction.
Photos of 1YPV at NuMu
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/photos
I took some pix of 1 Year Performance Video installed at the New Museum. A little sneak peek for our faithful blog readers :-)
The photos are fairly lame (flash, fish-eyed, yeck), but it gives you an idea of what it looks like installed. You can see the Mac mini mounted to the wall under the 60” screen.
Click the images below for larger images if you are so inclined.
Thanks to everyone at Rhizome and the New Museum, the installation looks great. permanent link to this post
The photos are fairly lame (flash, fish-eyed, yeck), but it gives you an idea of what it looks like installed. You can see the Mac mini mounted to the wall under the 60” screen.
Click the images below for larger images if you are so inclined.
Thanks to everyone at Rhizome and the New Museum, the installation looks great. permanent link to this post
DADC 2005 - CHAMPION!
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/photos
Luke Butler!
You may be able to make out his drawing, it’s to the left of the monkey with a gun drawing next to his head.
See all photos from The Drinkin’ and Drawin’ Championship 2005. permanent link to this post
You may be able to make out his drawing, it’s to the left of the monkey with a gun drawing next to his head.
See all photos from The Drinkin’ and Drawin’ Championship 2005. permanent link to this post
Drinkin’ & Drawin’ Championship photos
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/photos
We’ve posted some pix of the event, click the thumb below to go to the photo gallery.
Also, an honorable mention goes to Neil Jenkins who sent this drawing all the way from the UK under the influence of large amounts of vodka (click for a larger image):
permanent link to this post
Also, an honorable mention goes to Neil Jenkins who sent this drawing all the way from the UK under the influence of large amounts of vodka (click for a larger image):
permanent link to this post
DADC 2005 - 2nd Runner Up
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/photos
Justin Waldstein!
Visit Justin’s web site.
He was the honorable mention, but the 2nd runner up had left, so the title went to him. Unfortunately, we had put the other person’s name on the certificate already. Sorry dude!
See all photos from The Drinkin’ and Drawin’ Championship 2005. permanent link to this post
Visit Justin’s web site.
He was the honorable mention, but the 2nd runner up had left, so the title went to him. Unfortunately, we had put the other person’s name on the certificate already. Sorry dude!
See all photos from The Drinkin’ and Drawin’ Championship 2005. permanent link to this post
DADC 2005 - 1st Runner Up
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/photos
Michael Cambre!
He successfully defended his 1st Runner Up title from last year!
See all photos from The Drinkin’ and Drawin’ Championship 2005. permanent link to this post
He successfully defended his 1st Runner Up title from last year!
See all photos from The Drinkin’ and Drawin’ Championship 2005. permanent link to this post
Casa de MTAA
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/photos
Back from <PAUSE>
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/photos
Yes. Back home. Had a great couple of days in Montreal for the <PAUSE> exhibition.
Thanks again to Valerie Lamontagne and Brad Todd of MobileGaze for inviting us to participate in the exhibition and inviting us to Montreal to present our work.
I’ve posted some photos, mostly of the artist presentations. Follow the link here or click the thumbnail below.
permanent link to this post
Thanks again to Valerie Lamontagne and Brad Todd of MobileGaze for inviting us to participate in the exhibition and inviting us to Montreal to present our work.
I’ve posted some photos, mostly of the artist presentations. Follow the link here or click the thumbnail below.
permanent link to this post
Interview on petiteMort
posted at 16:44 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We’re very pleased to announce that petiteMort interviews MTAA in their second issue entitled ‘Begins & Ends.’
petiteMort is a new-ish on-line journal published by Antonio Serna and Peggy Tan which covers a wide-range of cultural issues including music, art, writing and science.
While you’re there, don’t miss the interview with Cory Arcangel in issue 01. permanent link to this post
People I’ve called asshole on this site
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
unknown Verizon employee
James Childs (artist)
Donald Rumsfeld
some right-wing commenter (in comments)
John Currin (artist)
Senate Republicans (in comments)
George Pataki & company
Focus on the Family and American Family Association (dumbasses actually; close enough)
Anish Kapoor (posed the question of whether he is a dumbass; later retracted)
the Bush Administration (of course!)
+++
This post was inspired by the asshole commenting on this post. permanent link to this post
James Childs (artist)
Donald Rumsfeld
some right-wing commenter (in comments)
John Currin (artist)
Senate Republicans (in comments)
George Pataki & company
Focus on the Family and American Family Association (dumbasses actually; close enough)
Anish Kapoor (posed the question of whether he is a dumbass; later retracted)
the Bush Administration (of course!)
+++
This post was inspired by the asshole commenting on this post. permanent link to this post
Peretti on WNYC
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Jonah Peretti, organizer of The Contagious Media Showdown at Eyebeam, was interviewed on The Brian Lehrer Show today about the showdown
The archive and podcast (RSS link) should be up shortly. Jonah’s bit was the last 20 minutes or so of the first hour.
Unfortunately, I missed the awards ceremony and, boy, am I sorry.
addendum
I should have mentioned that MTAA and collaborators’ submission, artistadl.org, ended up in the 24th position with 7509 hits (officially) and 136 technorati links (we cheated). permanent link to this post
The archive and podcast (RSS link) should be up shortly. Jonah’s bit was the last 20 minutes or so of the first hour.
Unfortunately, I missed the awards ceremony and, boy, am I sorry.
addendum
I should have mentioned that MTAA and collaborators’ submission, artistadl.org, ended up in the 24th position with 7509 hits (officially) and 136 technorati links (we cheated). permanent link to this post
Paris underground cinema — literally
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This is too fucking cool; it’s blowing my mind. (full story here.)
After entering the network through a drain next to the Trocadero, the officers came across a tarpaulin marked: Building site, No access.permanent link to this post
Behind that, a tunnel held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing. The mechanism also triggered a tape of dogs barking, “clearly designed to frighten people off,” the spokesman said.
Further along, the tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, “like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs”.
There the police found a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment, and tapes of a wide variety of films, including 1950s film noir classics and more recent thrillers. None of the films were banned or even offensive, the spokesman said.
A smaller cave next door had been turned into an informal restaurant and bar. “There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables and chairs, a pressure-cooker for making couscous,” the spokesman said.
“The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines down there.”
Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: “Do not,” it said, “try to find us.”
Paper view technology
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Cheap, paper-thin TV screens that can be used in newspapers and magazines have been unveiled by German electronics giant Siemens. The firm says the low production costs could see the
via: MediaGuardian.co.uk | Media | Paper view technology
This could be huge. I’ve been saying for years that this sort of development will usher in a new era in interactive/digital media — like the web did in ‘95.
I’ll believe it when I see it of course. permanent link to this post
MTAA included in Parachute #113
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The current issue (#113, Digital Screens) of Canadian art magazine Parachute describes some of MTAA’s work in an article by Valérie Lamontagne called The Screen of net.art. Other artists discussed in the article are Peter Horvath, Grégory Chatonsky, Brad Todd, Entropy8Zuper, and jimpunk.
There is also an article devoted to thing.net’s founder and artist Wolfgang Stahle.
This could be construed as a vanity post I suppose (hell, this entire blog could be considered a vanity project), but it’s good to see an international art magazine devoting an entire issue to the impact of digital processes of creation and presentation on contemporary art. Having net art as one of the main themes of the magazine confirms my feeling that the editors are serious about documenting and analyzing contemporary digital art practices. permanent link to this post
There is also an article devoted to thing.net’s founder and artist Wolfgang Stahle.
This could be construed as a vanity post I suppose (hell, this entire blog could be considered a vanity project), but it’s good to see an international art magazine devoting an entire issue to the impact of digital processes of creation and presentation on contemporary art. Having net art as one of the main themes of the magazine confirms my feeling that the editors are serious about documenting and analyzing contemporary digital art practices. permanent link to this post
Pace digital artist talks
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I missed the debate last night but I did go to a talk at Pace University by two very different digital artists.
José Carlos Casado and Michael Mandiberg couldn’t be more different in their approaches to new media art.
Casado showed and discussed his Pandora’s Box (revisited)*, a two-channel video installation. It’s a lush fantastical tableau evoking themes of love, reproduction, sex, and intimate human relationships. Often lyrical and goofy in an endearing way, the video’s playful quality is very refreshing.
Also playful are Mandiberg’s mostly conceptual pieces. Steeped in Marxist theory, his work criticizes the art object, dot.com e-commerce and identity in a hip and witty way. See aftersherrielevine.com and Shop Mandiberg.
Casado was the weaker speaker. His talk was long-winded and — frankly —boring. Mandiberg, perhaps because his work is based more in the verbal or because he lectures for a living at university, was a much more engaging speaker and explained his work in a much more lucid way. To be fair to Casado, his work doesn’t need much explanation, it’s lyrical, aesthetic work which most people know how to respond too without any context or explanation. He should understand this and not bore us with long-winded histories of the piece and let it speak for itself.
*I would link directly to his on-line documentation, but his Flash interface stops me — just go to his site (linked from his name above) and choose “art works”. permanent link to this post
José Carlos Casado and Michael Mandiberg couldn’t be more different in their approaches to new media art.
Casado showed and discussed his Pandora’s Box (revisited)*, a two-channel video installation. It’s a lush fantastical tableau evoking themes of love, reproduction, sex, and intimate human relationships. Often lyrical and goofy in an endearing way, the video’s playful quality is very refreshing.
Also playful are Mandiberg’s mostly conceptual pieces. Steeped in Marxist theory, his work criticizes the art object, dot.com e-commerce and identity in a hip and witty way. See aftersherrielevine.com and Shop Mandiberg.
Casado was the weaker speaker. His talk was long-winded and — frankly —boring. Mandiberg, perhaps because his work is based more in the verbal or because he lectures for a living at university, was a much more engaging speaker and explained his work in a much more lucid way. To be fair to Casado, his work doesn’t need much explanation, it’s lyrical, aesthetic work which most people know how to respond too without any context or explanation. He should understand this and not bore us with long-winded histories of the piece and let it speak for itself.
*I would link directly to his on-line documentation, but his Flash interface stops me — just go to his site (linked from his name above) and choose “art works”. permanent link to this post
Our new logo
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
ourmedia.org launches
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I’ve been keeping an on this site for a bit…
http://www.ourmedia.org/
The site seems like it’s getting slammed, it’s kinda slow. But that’s OK when you just launch. From their welcome message:
http://www.ourmedia.org/
The site seems like it’s getting slammed, it’s kinda slow. But that’s OK when you just launch. From their welcome message:
We’ll store your video, podcasts or digital photo collection for free — forever. No catches.Sounds great! permanent link to this post
MTAA open studio June 18th
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
When: Friday, June 18th, 6-9PM
coinciding with WGA extended gallery hours
Where: 60 N. 6th St. 2nd floor, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
(directions: next door to this place)
Yes, MTAA have a studio and it’s going to be open to the public.
Come see the set for our new net art work commissioned by Turbulence. The set will be fully dressed by our set dresser M.River.
Come see the first public screening of Pirated Movie (to be officially released at Postmasters summer show opening June 19th (more here) so, if you do the math, this means that YOU can see it ONE WHOLE DAY early).
Come see paintings! Yes, paintings! by M.River. (Solid pigment is suspended in a liquid vehicle (like linseed oil or an artificial polymer) and smeared on a canvas stretched over a wood frame.)
Come see other things able to be hung on walls.
We’ll also provide guided tours of MTEWW.com. permanent link to this post
coinciding with WGA extended gallery hours
Where: 60 N. 6th St. 2nd floor, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
(directions: next door to this place)
Yes, MTAA have a studio and it’s going to be open to the public.
Come see the set for our new net art work commissioned by Turbulence. The set will be fully dressed by our set dresser M.River.
Come see the first public screening of Pirated Movie (to be officially released at Postmasters summer show opening June 19th (more here) so, if you do the math, this means that YOU can see it ONE WHOLE DAY early).
Come see paintings! Yes, paintings! by M.River. (Solid pigment is suspended in a liquid vehicle (like linseed oil or an artificial polymer) and smeared on a canvas stretched over a wood frame.)
Come see other things able to be hung on walls.
We’ll also provide guided tours of MTEWW.com. permanent link to this post
ONVI Archives Project
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA has been asked by the ONVI Archives Project (scroll down for English) in Barcelona, Spain to submit DC 9/11 - The Evildoers’ Remix.
According to the ONVI Archives web site:
Which brings me to something I’ve been thinking about regarding DC 9/11 - EDR. Originally I wanted to release it under a creative commons license but since a good majority of the video is footage which isn’t technically mine to give rights too I didn’t know what to do. So I left it without a creative commons license; which is wrong I think. It’s my understanding that under US law, a copyright is slapped on it unless the rights holder specifically rescinds those rights.
So I guess I should slap a creative commons license on it, otherwise people have to assume it’s copyrighted, which it isn’t. permanent link to this post
According to the ONVI Archives web site:
The works in these archives have been selected around various themes and a single purpose: to encourage a Critique of Contemporary Culture (in the language which best represents it) using different strategies such as video art, independent documentaries, and mass media archaeology, among other…Does anyone have any more info about ONVI (Observatori de Vídeo No Identificat)? I’ve never heard of them before but they look legit and they said they’d lay some euros on us for including DC 9/11 - EDR. Which is cool as I consider it in the public domain.
Which brings me to something I’ve been thinking about regarding DC 9/11 - EDR. Originally I wanted to release it under a creative commons license but since a good majority of the video is footage which isn’t technically mine to give rights too I didn’t know what to do. So I left it without a creative commons license; which is wrong I think. It’s my understanding that under US law, a copyright is slapped on it unless the rights holder specifically rescinds those rights.
So I guess I should slap a creative commons license on it, otherwise people have to assume it’s copyrighted, which it isn’t. permanent link to this post
Oops 01-29-05
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I thought about pretending that this post (which is on the front page today) is a new feature where we highlight older projects on the front of the MTAA-RR, but it isn’t. I just edited the post this morning, and one of the peculiarities of this site is that it puts the most recently edited posts on the front page.
Regardless, I’m glad it’s here on the front page today and perhaps we will institute a feature where we highlight older projects… seems like a good idea. permanent link to this post
Regardless, I’m glad it’s here on the front page today and perhaps we will institute a feature where we highlight older projects… seems like a good idea. permanent link to this post
New Museum of Contemporary Art Presents One Block Radius
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This looks like an interesting project:
www.oneblockradius.org
From the press release:
Saturday, May 15, 2004
2-3:45 PM
Where:
Participant, Inc.
95 Rivington Street permanent link to this post
www.oneblockradius.org
From the press release:
Since January 2004, artists Christina Ray and Dave Mandl — known collectively as Glowlab — have been examining the block on which the New Museum’s new building will rise (Bowery to Chrystie Streets on the East-West axis and Stanton to Rivington Streets on the North-South axis).AND, there’s a walking tour too! Fun:
Saturday, May 15, 2004
2-3:45 PM
Where:
Participant, Inc.
95 Rivington Street permanent link to this post
Olson new Editor and Curator at Large for Rhizome
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Rhizome.org Announces Marisa S. Olson as Editor and Curator at LargeCongrats Marisa! permanent link to this post
via: Rhizome Announces Marisa S. Olson as Editor and Curator at Large
On James Wagner & Barry Hoggard
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I’ve been meaning to post about James Wagner and Barry Hoggard for a while and a fun coincidence gives me a good excuse.
James Wagner’s blog, jameswagner.com, along with his boyfriend Barry Hoggard’s blog, bloggy.com, are delightful looks into the lives of two art collectors.
I don’t know much about James or Barry (I’ve met them briefly twice), but they don’t seem like blue-chip collector types. They seem like they’re of moderate means (this is relative to what I imagine is the ‘average’ art collector, that is, they’re not out investing in million-dollar paintings) and are REAL, LIVE art lovers! Almost every weekend they seem to be in Williamsburg or Chelsea checking out galleries and posting quick photos and summaries of exhibitions to their blogs (James seems a bit more prolific).
I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to see someone loving contemporary art and artists.
Now to the coincidence. Yesterday, James posted a photo of a strange collage he found on a door in Williamsburg. And funnily enough, the cartoon at the top, partially hidden by the frame, was done by yours truly. I painted it on my front door at the time along with some other decorations to highlight our door and buzzer for a party we were having. It’s lasted on that door for probably about 10 years (it’s been enhanced by folks over the years of course).
I’ve been wanting to make it onto James’ blog — now I have! permanent link to this post
James Wagner’s blog, jameswagner.com, along with his boyfriend Barry Hoggard’s blog, bloggy.com, are delightful looks into the lives of two art collectors.
I don’t know much about James or Barry (I’ve met them briefly twice), but they don’t seem like blue-chip collector types. They seem like they’re of moderate means (this is relative to what I imagine is the ‘average’ art collector, that is, they’re not out investing in million-dollar paintings) and are REAL, LIVE art lovers! Almost every weekend they seem to be in Williamsburg or Chelsea checking out galleries and posting quick photos and summaries of exhibitions to their blogs (James seems a bit more prolific).
I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to see someone loving contemporary art and artists.
Now to the coincidence. Yesterday, James posted a photo of a strange collage he found on a door in Williamsburg. And funnily enough, the cartoon at the top, partially hidden by the frame, was done by yours truly. I painted it on my front door at the time along with some other decorations to highlight our door and buzzer for a party we were having. It’s lasted on that door for probably about 10 years (it’s been enhanced by folks over the years of course).
I’ve been wanting to make it onto James’ blog — now I have! permanent link to this post
Olia Lialina’s ‘A Vernacular Web’
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
So what was this culture? What do we mean by the web of the mid 90’s and when did it end?Read the entire article at art.teleportacia.org. permanent link to this post
To be blunt it was bright, rich, personal, slow and under construction. It was a web of sudden connections and personal links. Pages were built on the edge of tomorrow, full of hope for a faster connection and a more powerful computer. One could say it was the web of the indigenous…or the barbarians. In any case, it was a web of amateurs soon to be washed away by dot.com ambitions, professional authoring tools and guidelines designed by usability experts.
Old AIOTD
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Old Art Idea of The Day (oaiotd? OK, OK, the acronyms are starting to get out of hand).
While browsing the archives of ye old MTAA-RR (April 03 to be exact) I found this little gem (from almost exactly 2 years ago):
While browsing the archives of ye old MTAA-RR (April 03 to be exact) I found this little gem (from almost exactly 2 years ago):
Liberty, Fraternity, CommunityAnd I still think it’s a good idea! I’ll probably never do it, so I encourage anyone to take the idea and run with it! Please, I’m beggin’ you. permanent link to this post
A series of historical paintings in the neo-classical style depicting great moments in Smurf history. These ‘paintings’ could be done in oil or as digital images.
In Ohio for holiday
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
M.River, the lazy bass-tard, hasn’t updated the blog while I’m out of town and mostly offline so here I am at Borders in Westlake, OH working it from a ye olde iBook.
The Borders has a T-Mobile hotspot ($6/h), so while my gal, my mom and I drink coffee and hot chocolate I’m writing this little blog post.
Maybe M.River will get out of the studio long enough to write a synopsis of the blogging panel at the New Museum earlier in the week?
Back in NYC on Tuesday. permanent link to this post
The Borders has a T-Mobile hotspot ($6/h), so while my gal, my mom and I drink coffee and hot chocolate I’m writing this little blog post.
Maybe M.River will get out of the studio long enough to write a synopsis of the blogging panel at the New Museum earlier in the week?
Back in NYC on Tuesday. permanent link to this post
Out of town and off-line
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
M.River is going to need to carry the load on our little blog here for the next few days as I’m going to be out of town and off-line.
My gal and I will be relaxing with family on the shores of the Great Lake Erie until the 4th of July.
Also planning on taking my mom and grandmother to Fahrenheit 9/11 this Saturday.
cya permanent link to this post
My gal and I will be relaxing with family on the shores of the Great Lake Erie until the 4th of July.
Also planning on taking my mom and grandmother to Fahrenheit 9/11 this Saturday.
cya permanent link to this post
Off to Ohio
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
My soon-to-be wife and I are off to the land of the stolen election, the land of my birth, to sit and stare on the shores of the Great Lake Erie for (almost) a full week. We’re bringing my fiancé’s Mom and Dad with us; both native New Yorkers. We’ll see how they do in the Mid-west.
We’ve been looking forward to this get-away for a long time and I can’t wait to see my nieces and nephews, my mom, my grandmother, my brothers and sister-in-laws. Relaxing with the family will do me good.
I’m bringing no computer — and there is no internet access in the little cottage on the beach my mom has rented anyway — so I won’t be posting here for a few days (yes all 12 of our readers will be quietly disappointed I’m sure).
M.River will hold down the fort and he’s thinking of turning this into a bit of a photoblog. We’ll see what happens. permanent link to this post
We’ve been looking forward to this get-away for a long time and I can’t wait to see my nieces and nephews, my mom, my grandmother, my brothers and sister-in-laws. Relaxing with the family will do me good.
I’m bringing no computer — and there is no internet access in the little cottage on the beach my mom has rented anyway — so I won’t be posting here for a few days (yes all 12 of our readers will be quietly disappointed I’m sure).
M.River will hold down the fort and he’s thinking of turning this into a bit of a photoblog. We’ll see what happens. permanent link to this post
Off to Maine
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA is off to the University of Maine for a few days of artist visits and conferencing and paneling and whatnot.
Read all about it here: New Media at the University of Maine (the site is in beta and may be a bit rough around the edges).
Taking this chance to thank the New Media Program at the university for hosting the 1YPV video clips. Thanks! permanent link to this post
Read all about it here: New Media at the University of Maine (the site is in beta and may be a bit rough around the edges).
Taking this chance to thank the New Media Program at the university for hosting the 1YPV video clips. Thanks! permanent link to this post
NYTimes does videoblogging (again)
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
…and goes down with great gusto on videoblogging’s big, fat boner.
I actually believe that videoblogging is worth all the hype and that the NYT actually got it right with this article.
via: TV Stardom on $20 a Day - New York Times permanent link to this post
Until now, both the television and film industries have been built on a model that requires producers to appeal to millions of people or be considered failures. If Amanda Congdon at one end of the spectrum and Charlene Rule at the other continue to add viewers at the rate they’re going, they and the best of the other vloggers might just provide a viable alternative to that lowest-common-denominator business model.
In other words, the revolution may just be vloggerized.
I actually believe that videoblogging is worth all the hype and that the NYT actually got it right with this article.
via: TV Stardom on $20 a Day - New York Times permanent link to this post
NYTimes does Steve Mumford
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Steve Mumford is profiled in the NYTime’s today in a story entitled Sketches From the Front: An Artist’s Dispatches, Rendered in Ink and Paint:
A New York painter, Steve Mumford, has been embedded with military units in Iraq on and off since April 2003.I’ve written about Steve a few times. His Baghdad Journal is on artnet.com. permanent link to this post
NYTimes does the Pixies
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The NYTimes arts section is a very worthy read today :-)
It was a relief to hear that the Pixies still sounded utterly and gloriously like themselves on Saturday at the Hammerstein Ballroom.permanent link to this post
via: Once Upon a Time, There Was This Really Loud Band
NYTimes does podcasts and parody Gates
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I’ve become a fan of podcasts recently. This NYTimes article turned me on to a new one: Grape Radio.
++++
The NYTimes also has an article about a parody of Christo/J.C.’s “The Gates” called “The Somerville Gates.” It’s kinda funny. permanent link to this post
++++
The NYTimes also has an article about a parody of Christo/J.C.’s “The Gates” called “The Somerville Gates.” It’s kinda funny. permanent link to this post
NYTimes does PacMondrian
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
An online game fusing Pac-Man with Mondrian's painting "Broadway Boogie Woogie" has caught the attention of Internet gamers and even some art critics.The reporter also mentions Rhizome, Metafilter and Eyebeam in the process. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the article is that it deeplinks to Mondrian’s “Broadway Boogie-Woogie” on the MOMA web site. The simple fact that the article included bunches of pertinent links at the end of the article surprised me. In my surfing, it seems the NYT is always overlooking that essential element of online reportage, but the deeplink — wow! permanent link to this post
via: Chomp if You Like Art
NYTimes does Artstar
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Deitch Projects, a gallery in Soho, is bringing reality television to the art world with a show called “Artstar.”Read it: Reality (on TV) Reaches Art World
With copious quotes from yours truly (I guess people really do read this thing).
BTW, here is an index of most of our Artstar.tv rantings and ravings.
(thx Jason) permanent link to this post
NYT on Greater New York
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
For the show “Greater New York,” museum directors and curators will choose the work of 175 artists who they say best capture the city’s contemporary art scene.I didn’t want to link to this because I’m seething with jealousy that it appears MTAA won’t be in the show. permanent link to this post
via: Talent Call: Hot New Artists Wanted
NYC = secular Hong Kong
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Perhaps Great Moral Leader will allow some city-states to survive as secular Hong Kongs around the country. I’m thinking New York, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, (why not?) Cleveland, &c.
Perhaps Great Moral Leader will see the wisdom of allowing small islands of creative thinking, tolerance, sexual freedom, religious freedom, scientific experimentation, free speech, and free assembly to survive around the country.
Perhaps Great Moral Leader will understand that he must do this in order to avoid the coming American Dark Age. permanent link to this post
Perhaps Great Moral Leader will see the wisdom of allowing small islands of creative thinking, tolerance, sexual freedom, religious freedom, scientific experimentation, free speech, and free assembly to survive around the country.
Perhaps Great Moral Leader will understand that he must do this in order to avoid the coming American Dark Age. permanent link to this post
NYT defends Drawing Center
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
But because the Drawing Center has been chosen to be part of the projected International Freedom Center at ground zero, it has come under some critical scrutiny. The Daily News reported yesterday that the gallery has, since 2001, shown political art critical of the current Bush administration. How much political art? Four pieces, including one on view now, is what The Daily News came up with, out of many dozens, maybe hundreds of works the Drawing Center has exhibited in the last four years.bob linked to the truly disgusting Daily News editorial that this Times piece references on artistadl.org. permanent link to this post
via New York Times
NYC helicopters…
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
NY1 does ArtBase 101
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
NY1 (a cable news station in NYC) came by the New Museum last Friday and interviewed Lauren Cornell and me about Rhizome ArtBase 101 as part of their technology coverage. The reporter said the spot, which will be about 2 minutes long, will air on Monday (July 4, 2005) and Tuesday (July 5, 2005).
Evidently it will be available via Real streaming on the NY1 website too. If anyone finds it, please post specific instructions in the comments. permanent link to this post
Evidently it will be available via Real streaming on the NY1 website too. If anyone finds it, please post specific instructions in the comments. permanent link to this post
NowPublic.com
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
NowPublic.com looks pretty cool. The site allows bloggers to post photo assignments which are searchable so that photogs can take the assignments. The images are then searchable/postable/feedable for anyone.
Cool as is; but also ripe for an artistic intervention ;) permanent link to this post
Cool as is; but also ripe for an artistic intervention ;) permanent link to this post
Note on T.Whid’s email
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
For the past, oh I don’t know, few days — perhaps a week — any mail sent to me at my twhid[@{no spammy}]mteww[dot]com account probably didn’t get read. It didn’t get deleted and I can get to it, but if it’s pressing you might want to send it again.
permanent link to this post
Not tehchingHsiehUpdate
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I’m not sure, but we may be changing the name of the project we’ve been calling tehchingHsiehUpdate.
We thinking of changing the name to 1 Year Performance Video.
Kevin McCoy thinks that we shouldn’t tie ourselves too closely to another artist’s work and he makes a good argument. Plus, we always do whatever Kevin tells us to do ;-)
Anyway, does anyone have an opinion?
Otherwise, it’s coming along pretty well. We need to tighten up a few things in the code that creates the video playlist (make it a little smarter), create the login functionality (don’t want to lose your time) and put the window dressing on it (context, short description, etc). But the core of the thing is essentially finished. It will be released September 30th on the Turbulence web site. permanent link to this post
We thinking of changing the name to 1 Year Performance Video.
Kevin McCoy thinks that we shouldn’t tie ourselves too closely to another artist’s work and he makes a good argument. Plus, we always do whatever Kevin tells us to do ;-)
Anyway, does anyone have an opinion?
Otherwise, it’s coming along pretty well. We need to tighten up a few things in the code that creates the video playlist (make it a little smarter), create the login functionality (don’t want to lose your time) and put the window dressing on it (context, short description, etc). But the core of the thing is essentially finished. It will be released September 30th on the Turbulence web site. permanent link to this post
New York New Media Round-up
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Busy week in New York new media art, this is what’s happening:
December 11, 2003
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Eunjung Hwang and Reynold Reynolds speak at Eyebeam
7PM - 8:30PM as part of the exhibition Beta Launch ‘03: Artists in Residence.
Killer Instinct opening at the New Museum
Reception from 6:30 - 8PM. From the NuMu website, “Games come off the screen and to life in this exhibition including sculpture, video, painting, and, of course, Ataris and computers. Besides experimental hacks of commercial games, Killer Instinct features artists who use game hardware and software for social commentary as well as in the development of musical and filmic projects.”
December 12, 2003
Digital Culture Evening: Killer Instinct
6:30 - 8PM, A panel moderated by Alex Galloway, includes a gaggle of artists from the show.
Mark Napier’s “Sacred Code” opening at Bitforms
Reception 6-8PM. Show runs through January 17th.
Radio Party @ The Thing, The Thing’s end of the year Party. Starts at 9PM, could go later than 11:45PM…
+++++++++++
One would have to spread themselves pretty thin to make all that stuff. Good thing there are two of MTAA ;-) permanent link to this post
December 11, 2003
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Eunjung Hwang and Reynold Reynolds speak at Eyebeam
7PM - 8:30PM as part of the exhibition Beta Launch ‘03: Artists in Residence.
Killer Instinct opening at the New Museum
Reception from 6:30 - 8PM. From the NuMu website, “Games come off the screen and to life in this exhibition including sculpture, video, painting, and, of course, Ataris and computers. Besides experimental hacks of commercial games, Killer Instinct features artists who use game hardware and software for social commentary as well as in the development of musical and filmic projects.”
December 12, 2003
Digital Culture Evening: Killer Instinct
6:30 - 8PM, A panel moderated by Alex Galloway, includes a gaggle of artists from the show.
Mark Napier’s “Sacred Code” opening at Bitforms
Reception 6-8PM. Show runs through January 17th.
Radio Party @ The Thing, The Thing’s end of the year Party. Starts at 9PM, could go later than 11:45PM…
+++++++++++
One would have to spread themselves pretty thin to make all that stuff. Good thing there are two of MTAA ;-) permanent link to this post
Profit v non-profit in the US
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
It’s interesting to note that the two for-profit new media art-friendly spaces in NYC: The Thing (with Screensavers and their giving hosting support to us too) & Postmasters are both supporting RNC protest art during the upcoming convention.
Other art establishments are forced to sit idly by because their not-for-profit status exempts them from political action (yes, I’m talking about Eyebeam and Rhizome).
Not criticizing… But it should make art orgs think twice before accepting the not-for-profit status.
+++++
update:
Wolfgang Staehle, founder and owner of thing.net and founder of The Thing, Inc., clarifies the many forms of this thing:
Other art establishments are forced to sit idly by because their not-for-profit status exempts them from political action (yes, I’m talking about Eyebeam and Rhizome).
Not criticizing… But it should make art orgs think twice before accepting the not-for-profit status.
+++++
update:
Wolfgang Staehle, founder and owner of thing.net and founder of The Thing, Inc., clarifies the many forms of this thing:
thing.net communications LLC is a partnership that runs the hosting and dial up business.permanent link to this post
THE THING, Inc. is a 501 (c) 3 not-for-profit arts organization and runs the arts program and the BBS.
Two different entities with different missions.
thing.net sometimes supports THE THING by providing free tech support and inkind donations like paying the rent when TT is broke or donating a used server. This arrangement gives us the flexibility to survive in an increasingly hostile climate. The support provided to MTAA is coming from THE THING and the videos will be hosted on THE THING servers.
Hope this explains the setup.
Greetings,
Wolfgang
New MTAA logo
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We paid a super-famous designer piles and piles of money to come up with a new MTAA logo to help brand our international art product.
The thing I like about it the most is it’s originality. permanent link to this post
New feed URL
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We’ve added a new feed format. It’s a feedburner feed. Same stuff, but allows us to view our subscriber stats easily.
Considering switching over to this feed if you feel like it :)
This is the link to the new MTAA Reference Resource feed! permanent link to this post
Considering switching over to this feed if you feel like it :)
This is the link to the new MTAA Reference Resource feed! permanent link to this post
New digs
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Our astute readers may notice that the MTAA Reference Resource (yes that is the official name of this web log) has a brand new URL on the new-ish twhid.com domain.
Since you are reading this blog I must assume that you are OBSESSED with MTAA almost as much as we ourselves are, so that leads me to assume that you are burning with desire to know WHY?! Why OH! Why did we need to move the MTAA-RR all the way over to this new domain and do all the script re-jiggering required and what not. I’ll tell you why:
BECAUSE XO SUCKS!!!!!
Every couple of months they try to shake us down for more money. It’s ridiculous! I hate them!
I’m moving the entire MTEWW.com domain to this new server soon too, so this blog will eventually return to it’s original URL so..
DON’T LINK TO THIS NEW URL (www.twhid.com/mteww.com/mtaaRR), LINK TO: HTTP://www.mteww.com/mtaaRR/ PLEASE! please, please.
So, I’m using these guys in Florida now called Lunarpages (maybe it’s a front for a Satanic cult or something, that would be cool). They are very good and provide lots of bandwidth, disk space and other advanced features (php, mysql, etc) for really cheap. They have been very reliable in up-time and have very good customer service. Sorry Rhizome, your host couldn’t come close to the price of these guys otherwise I would be there. permanent link to this post
Since you are reading this blog I must assume that you are OBSESSED with MTAA almost as much as we ourselves are, so that leads me to assume that you are burning with desire to know WHY?! Why OH! Why did we need to move the MTAA-RR all the way over to this new domain and do all the script re-jiggering required and what not. I’ll tell you why:
BECAUSE XO SUCKS!!!!!
Every couple of months they try to shake us down for more money. It’s ridiculous! I hate them!
I’m moving the entire MTEWW.com domain to this new server soon too, so this blog will eventually return to it’s original URL so..
DON’T LINK TO THIS NEW URL (www.twhid.com/mteww.com/mtaaRR), LINK TO: HTTP://www.mteww.com/mtaaRR/ PLEASE! please, please.
So, I’m using these guys in Florida now called Lunarpages (maybe it’s a front for a Satanic cult or something, that would be cool). They are very good and provide lots of bandwidth, disk space and other advanced features (php, mysql, etc) for really cheap. They have been very reliable in up-time and have very good customer service. Sorry Rhizome, your host couldn’t come close to the price of these guys otherwise I would be there. permanent link to this post
New Art Dirt Redux
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Just listened to the new Art Dirt Redux where Robin Murphy and G.H. Hovagimyan tour the all the Chelsea openings last Thursday.
It was great. I really love the way G.H. layers the audio. The technique worked perfectly for this content; it made you feel like you were at the openings.
Check it out permanent link to this post
It was great. I really love the way G.H. layers the audio. The technique worked perfectly for this content; it made you feel like you were at the openings.
Check it out permanent link to this post
networked_performance
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Turbulence.org has launched a new blog described as “networked_performance: an open forum to discuss network-enabled performance for an international conference in 2006.”
The site and conference is being supported by New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (Turbulence.org’s parent), Emerson College in Boston and the State University of California Monterey Bay.
Not lots happening on the blog just yet, but I’m sure there is lots more to come. MTAA is releasing a new net art work in September (funded by Turbulence.org) which I think of as a performance piece so I’m hoping it will add something to the discussion. permanent link to this post
The site and conference is being supported by New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (Turbulence.org’s parent), Emerson College in Boston and the State University of California Monterey Bay.
Not lots happening on the blog just yet, but I’m sure there is lots more to come. MTAA is releasing a new net art work in September (funded by Turbulence.org) which I think of as a performance piece so I’m hoping it will add something to the discussion. permanent link to this post
NetNewsWire 2.0, MarsEdit betas
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Ranchero Software has released a public beta version of NetNewsWire 2.0, a major update to its popular RSS newsreader application… [MacMinute]
WooHoo! permanent link to this post
WooHoo! permanent link to this post
NET ART OFFICIALLY DEAD!
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
From Rob Murphy’s blog…
NET ART DEAD!permanent link to this post
Mark Tribe has called it in the press release for inSite_05:Although artists continue to work online in ever greater numbers, net art as a movement is now over. But to say that the net is just another medium along with video, painting, installation, etc. would be misleading. The net is both a medium and a platform, a set of tools for art-making and a distribution channel for reaching people. The net can still enable artists to reach a global audience without the assistance of art world institutions. Equally important, it can enable artists to reach audiences that never set foot in a gallery, museum or performance space.(via)
Nauman videos on-line
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The Video Data Bank has lots of previews of experimental artists videos on their web site.
I like the Nauman videos.
What do you get when you combine Bruce Nauman and simple on-line Flash games? MTAA’s ‘Five Small Videos About Interruption and Disappearing’ of course :-) permanent link to this post
I like the Nauman videos.
What do you get when you combine Bruce Nauman and simple on-line Flash games? MTAA’s ‘Five Small Videos About Interruption and Disappearing’ of course :-) permanent link to this post
Need to know more about MTAA?
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Need to know EVEN more about MTAA? Well, it’s your lucky day!
Read an in-depth interview with the art associates on Rhizome’s site:
An Interview with MTAA by Lauren Cornell
+++
update
In the interview I mention that I did comics before joining up with M. This got me thinking about my old comics days.
The image below is from a one-off I did called “Diet Coke.” It was just a 3-page little thing. It ran in a ‘zine I self-published with some friends in December 1996 (this was right before M. and I started doing net/digital stuff). The ‘zine was called “Burger” but we did a small issue on a small budget between “Burger #1” and “Burger #2” (#2 being the last I believe) which we called “BGR: The Abbreviated Burger.”
Download a larger JPG (apx 300KB) permanent link to this post
Read an in-depth interview with the art associates on Rhizome’s site:
An Interview with MTAA by Lauren Cornell
+++
update
In the interview I mention that I did comics before joining up with M. This got me thinking about my old comics days.
The image below is from a one-off I did called “Diet Coke.” It was just a 3-page little thing. It ran in a ‘zine I self-published with some friends in December 1996 (this was right before M. and I started doing net/digital stuff). The ‘zine was called “Burger” but we did a small issue on a small budget between “Burger #1” and “Burger #2” (#2 being the last I believe) which we called “BGR: The Abbreviated Burger.”
Download a larger JPG (apx 300KB) permanent link to this post
Nauman updated
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Natalie Jeremijenko - MAKE audiozine podcast
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
From Makezine.com blog:
update
If you don’t know who Natalie Jeremijenko is, check out Google. According to her bio, she’s a design engineer and technoartist who teaches at Yale. permanent link to this post
A MAKER profile of Natalie Jeremijenko, building toxic sensing robot dogs from discarded toys, as read by Dale Dougherty, MAKE publisher. This is an enhanced podcast, it will play audio -and- show the actual pages of MAKE Magazine from volume 02 when you click on them. We hope to do more of these, please let us know what you think. iTunes: Click this link and click SUBSCRIBE.You can also download the vanilla MP3.
update
If you don’t know who Natalie Jeremijenko is, check out Google. According to her bio, she’s a design engineer and technoartist who teaches at Yale. permanent link to this post
Napier and Hovagimyan
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Two shows happening now or soon in NYC involving established NYC digital artists.
First, Mark Napier is having an opening at Bitforms this weekend:
Napier will also be presenting at the Upgrade! next week.
Also, received this email from GH Hovagimyan about a show he’s currently in at Sara Tecchia Gallery:
So get your ass out there and see some digital art damnit! permanent link to this post
First, Mark Napier is having an opening at Bitforms this weekend:
Show dates: october 22 - november 26 2005
Opening reception: saturday october 22, 6-8 pm
Bitforms Gallery
529 W 20th St, NY, NY
Napier will also be presenting at the Upgrade! next week.
Eyebeam
Thursday, October 27, 7:30 PM
540-548 west 21st street (bet 10 & 11 Ave)
Also, received this email from GH Hovagimyan about a show he’s currently in at Sara Tecchia Gallery:
I’m pleased to announce that my latest work in High Definition videos are on display at Sara Tecchia Gallery (529 west 20th street, 2nd floor) in Chelsea. The videos are random select from an HDV database that are played one after another in a seamless playlist. This is a preview for a larger installation of 3 flat screens at Sara Tecchia’s in March. Come by and have a look and let me know what you think.
So get your ass out there and see some digital art damnit! permanent link to this post
Nam Jun Paik dead
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Looking for confirmation, but got an email via RHIZOME_RAW that Nam Jun Paik passed away yesterday evening.
Will link to reliable sources when I find them. According to this web site (which says it’s the official Paik web site); it’s true.
Shit. The world has lost a great and influential artist.
There’s an article on MSNBC too.
Below, the entire NYT obit by Roberta Smith.
Shit. The world has lost a great and influential artist.
There’s an article on MSNBC too.
Below, the entire NYT obit by Roberta Smith.
Nam June Paik, 73, Dies; Pioneer of Video Art Whose Work Broke Cultural Barrierspermanent link to this post
By ROBERTA SMITH
Published: January 31, 2006
Nam June Paik, an avant-garde composer, performer and artist widely considered the inventor of video art, died Sunday at his winter home in Miami Beach. He was 73 and also lived in Manhattan.
Nam June Paik in 2004 with one of his installations at the Deutsche Guggenheim Museum in Berlin.
Mr. Paik suffered a stroke in 1996 and had been in declining health for some time, said his nephew, Ken Paik Hakuta, who manages his uncle’s studio in New York.
Mr. Paik’s career spanned half a century, three continents and several art mediums, ranging through music, theater and found-object art. He once built his own robot. But his chief means of expression was television, which he approached with a winning combination of visionary wildness, technological savvy and high entertainment values. His work could be kitschy, visually dazzling and profound, sometimes all at once, and was often irresistibly funny and high-spirited.
At his best, Mr. Paik exaggerated and subverted accepted notions about both the culture and the technology of television while immersing viewers in its visual beauty and exposing something deeply irrational at its center. He presciently coined the term “electronic superhighway” in 1974, grasping the essence of global communications and seeing the possibilities of technologies that were barely born. He usually did this while managing to be both palatable and subversive. In recent years, Mr. Paik’s enormous American flags, made from dozens of sleek monitors whose synchronized patterns mixed everything from pinups to apple pie at high, almost subliminal velocity, could be found in museums and corporate lobbies.
Mr. Paik was affiliated in the 1960’s with the anti-art movement Fluxus, and also deserves to be seen as an aesthetic innovator on a par with the choreographer Merce Cunningham and the composer John Cage. Yet in many ways he was simply the most Pop of the Pop artists. His work borrowed directly from the culture at large, reworked its most pervasive medium and gave back something that was both familiar and otherworldly.
He was a shy yet fearless man who combined manic productivity and incessant tinkering with Zen-like equanimity. A lifelong Buddhist, Mr. Paik never smoked or drank and also never drove a car. He always seemed amused by himself and his surroundings, which could be overwhelming: a writer once compared his New York studio to a television repair shop three months behind schedule.
Mr. Paik is survived by his wife, the video artist Shigeko Kubota.
Mr. Paik got to television by way of avant-garde music. He was born in 1932 in Seoul, Korea, into a wealthy manufacturing family. Growing up, he studied classical piano and musical composition and was drawn to 20th-century music; he once said it took him three years to find an Arnold Schoenberg record in Korea. In 1949, with the Korean War threatening, the family fled to Hong Kong, and then settled in Tokyo. Mr. Paik attended the University of Tokyo, earning a degree in aesthetics and the history of music in 1956 with a thesis on Schoenberg’s work.
He then studied music at the University of Munich and the Academy of Music in Freiburg and threw himself into the avant-garde music scene swirling around Cologne. He also met John Cage, whose emphasis on chance and randomness dovetailed with Mr. Paik’s sensibility.
Over the next few years, Mr. Paik arrived at an early version of performance art, combining cryptic musical elements — usually spliced audiotapes of music, screams, radio news and sound effects — with startling events. In an unusually Oedipal act during a 1960 performance in Cologne, Mr. Paik jumped from the stage and cut off Cage’s necktie, an event that prompted George Maciunas, a founder of Fluxus, to invite Mr. Paik to join the movement. At the 1962 Fluxus International Festival for Very New Music in Wiesbaden, Germany, Mr. Paik performed “Zen for Head,” which involved dipping his head, hair and hands in a mixture of ink and tomato juice and dragging them over a scroll-like sheet of paper to create a dark, jagged streak.
In 1963, seeking a visual equivalent for electronic music and inspired by Cage’s performances on prepared pianos, Mr. Paik bought 13 used television sets in Cologne and reworked them until their screens jumped with strong optical patterns. In 1963, he exhibited the first art known to involve television sets at the Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal, Germany.
In 1965 he made his New York debut at the New School for Social Research: Charlotte Moorman, a cellist who became his longtime collaborator, played his “Cello Sonata No. 1 for Adults Only,” performing bared to the waist. A similar work performed in 1967 at the Filmmakers Cinematheque in Manhattan resulted in the brief arrest of Ms. Moorman and Mr. Paik. Mr. Paik retaliated with his iconic “TV Bra for Living Sculpture,” two tiny television screens that covered Ms. Moorman’s breasts.
Mr. Paik bought one of the first portable video cameras on the market, in 1965, and the same year he exhibited the first installation involving a video recorder, at the Galeria Bonino in New York. Although he continued to perform, his interests shifted increasingly to the sculptural, technological and environmental possibilities of video.
In 1969, Mr. Paik started showing pieces using multiple monitors. He created bulky wood robotlike figures using old monitors and retrofitted consoles, and constructed archways, spirals and towers, including one 60-feet tall that used 1,003 monitors. By the 1980’s he was working with lasers, mixing colors and forms in space, without the silvery cathode-ray screen.
For his 2000 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, Mr. Paik arranged monitors faceup on the rotunda’s floor, creating a pondlike effect of light and images. Overhead, one of the artist’s most opulent laser pieces cascaded from the dome in lightninglike zigzags — an apt metaphor for a career that never stopped surging forward.
My day job: TVTonic
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Last week my company released a new version of our software, called TVTonic.
What is TVTonic? Well, according to me (I wrote the web site copy):
TVTonic allows you to subscribe to most video podcasts on the web.
Download RSS 2.0 video enclosures in the background.
And that’s what it let’s you do. It’s basically a video aggregator that let’s you subscribe, manage and watch video delivered via RSS 2.0 feeds (podcasts). It supports Windows Media and QuickTime formats presently, but we’re planning on adding support for more formats as we work through this public beta.
We’ve focused on creating an interface that supports the ‘10 foot experience,’ meaning that it’s designed to be navigated with a remote control from across the room while you’re chillin’ on your sofa.
Currently, it’s available to Windows XP users and you need Internet Explorer 6 or higher too. It works great within Windows Media Center or within Internet Explorer.
Feel free to check it out and leave any comments, complaints, constructive criticisms, etc on the forums at www.tvtonic.com. permanent link to this post
New music biz model
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Magnatune is a record label with an entirely new and clued-in business model.
They really seem to ‘get’ it: they publish their music in a variety of formats from which you can choose, CD-Quality WAV files to MP3s; they use a shareware model which lets you listen to entire albums before you buy; they use a sliding scale for home purchases ($5-$18 I can’t imagine why one would pay more than the min); the artists get 50% of sales; and they have a unique automatic licensing system for folks who need to license music for commercial use (you can even get the tunes for free for non-commercial uses).
So what’s the downside? They don’t publish any artists you’ve ever heard of.
I’ve been browsing their catalog for the past couple of days and haven’t heard anything I consider buying. Which is unfortunate as I would really like to support them. There is plenty of stuff I would consider licensing for commercial projects (because it’s cheap), but most of it seems to be B or C grade material. permanent link to this post
They really seem to ‘get’ it: they publish their music in a variety of formats from which you can choose, CD-Quality WAV files to MP3s; they use a shareware model which lets you listen to entire albums before you buy; they use a sliding scale for home purchases ($5-$18 I can’t imagine why one would pay more than the min); the artists get 50% of sales; and they have a unique automatic licensing system for folks who need to license music for commercial use (you can even get the tunes for free for non-commercial uses).
So what’s the downside? They don’t publish any artists you’ve ever heard of.
I’ve been browsing their catalog for the past couple of days and haven’t heard anything I consider buying. Which is unfortunate as I would really like to support them. There is plenty of stuff I would consider licensing for commercial projects (because it’s cheap), but most of it seems to be B or C grade material. permanent link to this post
Murphy’s law in full effect
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Holy shit.
Could more have gone wrong today? Yes (we’ll get back to that in the epilogue). But not much.
Where do we start? Hmmm, let me see. Let’s start on a NJ Transit train to Newark (starts out bad and just gets worse).
M.River and I traveled to Newark on this snowy day to interview for a ‘professional development’ program at an arts organization in Newark called Aljira. The program is called Emerge, and you can read all about it here.
The wind and snow was fierce as we trudged from Newark Penn Station to Aljira (normally probably a short and pleasant walk — not today).
The interview process consisted of 5 artists (MTAA counts as 1) showing and talking about their work in front of a panel of arts professionals (there were reps from Creative Capital, eyewash, The Brooklyn Museum and Aljira).
During preliminary introductions, we ran into our first problem. “Oh! We don’t do collaboratives,” Aljira’s program director said, “There was a question mark there.”
That’s OK, M.River and I figured, we’ll win them over.
We had submitted a DVD-video of work samples. The other artists had all submitted slides and for reasons to do with the format, presented their work before us. Finally, it was our turn.
Bad disk. Let’s try again. Bad disk. Let’s try another disk. Bad disk. Let’s try a computer in the other room. All of the computers only have CD drives. I had brought along a few prints of the installation version of 1YPV and gamely passed them around to the jury panel, but was seething inside.
M.River bravely attempted to describe our work without the help of any visuals of our visual art as I stewed in my own juices and fought back urges to crack that goddamn DVD in half and fling it across the room.
Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore. “You know. I feel like an idiot trying to explain the work with no reference images,” I interrupted, “I’m just kind of sitting over here and being angry.” That was pretty much the end of our interview.
What are our chances of being accepted to this program? Considering they don’t take collaboratives and couldn’t really see any of our work, we’re optimistic.
epilogue
It’s around 7:30PM on 7th Avenue in Manhattan and it’s snowing like hell. M.River is wondering if he’ll be able to catch a cab home. I’m thinking, no way in hell, when a cab comes cruising up and stops right in front of him. He gets in and a guy half-way down the block starts screaming and cursing at him. He runs over and makes like he’s going to punch the passenger window but thinks better of it. Evidently, he thinks M.River stole his cab. He keeps calling M.River, “asshole!” and “motherfucker!” He’s stomping his feet and venting his spleen. I casually watch him.
Ahhhhh. Sweet, sweet schadenfreude. permanent link to this post
Could more have gone wrong today? Yes (we’ll get back to that in the epilogue). But not much.
Where do we start? Hmmm, let me see. Let’s start on a NJ Transit train to Newark (starts out bad and just gets worse).
M.River and I traveled to Newark on this snowy day to interview for a ‘professional development’ program at an arts organization in Newark called Aljira. The program is called Emerge, and you can read all about it here.
The wind and snow was fierce as we trudged from Newark Penn Station to Aljira (normally probably a short and pleasant walk — not today).
The interview process consisted of 5 artists (MTAA counts as 1) showing and talking about their work in front of a panel of arts professionals (there were reps from Creative Capital, eyewash, The Brooklyn Museum and Aljira).
During preliminary introductions, we ran into our first problem. “Oh! We don’t do collaboratives,” Aljira’s program director said, “There was a question mark there.”
That’s OK, M.River and I figured, we’ll win them over.
We had submitted a DVD-video of work samples. The other artists had all submitted slides and for reasons to do with the format, presented their work before us. Finally, it was our turn.
Bad disk. Let’s try again. Bad disk. Let’s try another disk. Bad disk. Let’s try a computer in the other room. All of the computers only have CD drives. I had brought along a few prints of the installation version of 1YPV and gamely passed them around to the jury panel, but was seething inside.
M.River bravely attempted to describe our work without the help of any visuals of our visual art as I stewed in my own juices and fought back urges to crack that goddamn DVD in half and fling it across the room.
Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore. “You know. I feel like an idiot trying to explain the work with no reference images,” I interrupted, “I’m just kind of sitting over here and being angry.” That was pretty much the end of our interview.
What are our chances of being accepted to this program? Considering they don’t take collaboratives and couldn’t really see any of our work, we’re optimistic.
epilogue
It’s around 7:30PM on 7th Avenue in Manhattan and it’s snowing like hell. M.River is wondering if he’ll be able to catch a cab home. I’m thinking, no way in hell, when a cab comes cruising up and stops right in front of him. He gets in and a guy half-way down the block starts screaming and cursing at him. He runs over and makes like he’s going to punch the passenger window but thinks better of it. Evidently, he thinks M.River stole his cab. He keeps calling M.River, “asshole!” and “motherfucker!” He’s stomping his feet and venting his spleen. I casually watch him.
Ahhhhh. Sweet, sweet schadenfreude. permanent link to this post
Museums Sell Out
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
NYTime’s Kimmelman again takes museums to task for selling out to private interests. Another column of his was mentioned by yours truly on this post.
A key section:
Indeed. These new trends could fuel right-wing attacks on non-profit art institution’s tax exemption. There have already been a few shots across the bow on the subject (can’t find the info, but I remember some legislator trying to take away the Met Museum’s exemption due to their museum stores having an unfair advantage due to the exemption).
What sucks (hard) is that the right can attack museums and other non-profit orgs that support traditionally liberal constituencies (artists) with practically no political down-side. While a left attack on their tax-exempt support base (churches) would be political suicide for any democrat. We’re not in a good position on this one. permanent link to this post
Museums are putting everything up for sale, from their artwork to their authority. And it’s going cheap.
via: What Price Love? Museums Sell Out
A key section:
With faith goes the delicate ecosystem of charitable contributions and tax-free privileges. Why, the public will ask, do institutions like these reap the benefits of nonprofit status if they service private interests who shape the content of what’s on view and/or reap cash rewards?
Indeed. These new trends could fuel right-wing attacks on non-profit art institution’s tax exemption. There have already been a few shots across the bow on the subject (can’t find the info, but I remember some legislator trying to take away the Met Museum’s exemption due to their museum stores having an unfair advantage due to the exemption).
What sucks (hard) is that the right can attack museums and other non-profit orgs that support traditionally liberal constituencies (artists) with practically no political down-side. While a left attack on their tax-exempt support base (churches) would be political suicide for any democrat. We’re not in a good position on this one. permanent link to this post
Mumford’s Baghdad Journal on-line
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
You can read the journal and view some JPEGs of his sketches and watercolors at artnet.com permanent link to this post
New installment of Steve Mumford’s Baghdad Journal on-line
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I received an email from Steve a few days back but didn’t get around to posting this until now.
Read Steve Mumford’s Baghdad Journal.
I’ve posted about Steve’s project from time to time (one, two, three), I have mixed feelings on the entire thing but it’s an interesting read and look regardless. permanent link to this post
Mumford’s new Baghdad Journal online
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Steve Mumford has a new Baghdad Journal online at artnet.com.
Steve is a New York City-based artist who, for the past year or so, has been visiting Iraq and creating watercolor and ink-wash sketches of the people and places he finds.
He sent this note around: Due to a screw-up on my part the last illustrated story posted, “Ramadi”, was actually my notes for the story, not the final essay. I’m sorry for the mix up not least because it was in no way intended for publication. The correct version is now up and I hope you’ll take a look. Basically, if you read an earlier version it looks as if it wasn’t intended for publication.
I’ve been mildly critical of Steve’s work in various forums (thingist). I felt the work was glorifying militarism and empire. But this current crop of sketches has a different tone, especially the portraits of the different soldiers. These sketches seem to capture a weariness and exhaustion that must be creeping into the soldiers. The general tone is less that of macho excitement and more reflective. permanent link to this post
Steve is a New York City-based artist who, for the past year or so, has been visiting Iraq and creating watercolor and ink-wash sketches of the people and places he finds.
He sent this note around: Due to a screw-up on my part the last illustrated story posted, “Ramadi”, was actually my notes for the story, not the final essay. I’m sorry for the mix up not least because it was in no way intended for publication. The correct version is now up and I hope you’ll take a look. Basically, if you read an earlier version it looks as if it wasn’t intended for publication.
I’ve been mildly critical of Steve’s work in various forums (thingist). I felt the work was glorifying militarism and empire. But this current crop of sketches has a different tone, especially the portraits of the different soldiers. These sketches seem to capture a weariness and exhaustion that must be creeping into the soldiers. The general tone is less that of macho excitement and more reflective. permanent link to this post
MTAA @ Sala1 Galleria
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We’re in a show in Rome called ‘Netizens II (la libertà del post-mediale)’ curated by Yael Kanarek and Sylvie Parent. The exhibiting artists are:
Peter Horvath
David Crawford
MTAA
Evann Siebens & Yael Kanarek
YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES
Yan Breuleux
I have to admit, I’m sort of confused about what’s going on with it. The space has a web site, but there is no mention of the show there. Yael sent us a press release, but it’s in italian so I can’t really read it (the google translation is not much help).
I think it’s the same exact group that was in videozone2 video biennial in Israel. Yael sent us a catalogue from that show that featured a nice color reproduction still from “Five Small Videos…,” thanks Yael.
If you’re in Rome, check it out and let us know how it looks:) It’s up through January 28th (I think).
UPDATE
Found the official site explaining everything :-) permanent link to this post
Peter Horvath
David Crawford
MTAA
Evann Siebens & Yael Kanarek
YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES
Yan Breuleux
I have to admit, I’m sort of confused about what’s going on with it. The space has a web site, but there is no mention of the show there. Yael sent us a press release, but it’s in italian so I can’t really read it (the google translation is not much help).
I think it’s the same exact group that was in videozone2 video biennial in Israel. Yael sent us a catalogue from that show that featured a nice color reproduction still from “Five Small Videos…,” thanks Yael.
If you’re in Rome, check it out and let us know how it looks:) It’s up through January 28th (I think).
UPDATE
Found the official site explaining everything :-) permanent link to this post
MTAA + RSG
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Finally! some actual news (as opposed to the usual rants), big news in fact. MTAA has received a Creative Capital grant this year. It’s for a project we’re doing in collaboration with RSG.
Here’s a description of the project:
You can read the entire press release on the Creative Capital web site.
Congrats to all the other recipients as well! permanent link to this post
Here’s a description of the project:
Want – A six-channel video installation using Internet peer-to-peer networks and actors portraying the obsessive desires of six types of common Internet users.
You can read the entire press release on the Creative Capital web site.
Congrats to all the other recipients as well! permanent link to this post
MTAA-RR new comment policy
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Some posts on this site, for whatever reason, get spammed over and over. From now on, when a post gets spammed, I’m going to close comments on it. Hopefully it won’t effect the discussion that takes place on this site.
permanent link to this post
MTAA-RR birthday today
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
As M. noted in the post below, today is the 3rd birthday of the MTAA-RR (the official name of this blog/documentation station is the M.River & T.Whid Art Associates Reference Resource — we have a gift for creating long-winded and hard to remember names).
Go here to read the first post.
After that, I encourage you to peruse the archive. You should be asking yourslef, “what was MTAA doing in x month of n year?” For example: what was MTAA doing in August of ‘03? They were watching TV, camping on the beach, enjoying the SUMMEr oF HTML, preparing to pirate a movie and surviving the blackout. permanent link to this post
Go here to read the first post.
After that, I encourage you to peruse the archive. You should be asking yourslef, “what was MTAA doing in x month of n year?” For example: what was MTAA doing in August of ‘03? They were watching TV, camping on the beach, enjoying the SUMMEr oF HTML, preparing to pirate a movie and surviving the blackout. permanent link to this post
MTAA: one of 27 finalists
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
It’s good to see that we made it into the 2nd round of the Rhizome ‘05-‘06 Net Art Commission process.
See all the finalists.
And you should vote (you must be a Rhizome member to vote). Remember: you should vote MTAA #1, the title of our proposed project is “To Be Listened To…” You can read the proposal. It’s a pretty simple project. permanent link to this post
See all the finalists.
And you should vote (you must be a Rhizome member to vote). Remember: you should vote MTAA #1, the title of our proposed project is “To Be Listened To…” You can read the proposal. It’s a pretty simple project. permanent link to this post
MTAA not in the top 100
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I know, I know! It’s unfair and totally bizarre; I totally agree.
MTAA should definitely be in the top 100. permanent link to this post
MTAA should definitely be in the top 100. permanent link to this post
MTAA naming
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This post is intended to be the definitive guide on how to refer to MTAA and their web sites.
MTAA (M.River & T.Whid Art Associates)
The name of the art collaborative is MTAA (M.River & T.Whid Art Associates). We prefer the entire name be used in any press releases and other widely circulated documents like announcements as well as in title cards for gallery pieces or in any publications describing MTAA’s art work or creative practice. If your space is restricted in some way using simply MTAA is acceptable.
M.River AKA Mark River
M.River prefers to be referred to by his web alias, M.River, in any publications, announcements, lists, postcards, and etc attending an exhibition of MTAA’s work or in any publication describing MTAA’s work or creative practice. If, for whatever reason, one needs to use his ‘real’ name, it’s Mark River (though that’s not his real name). But he asks that efforts be made to use his web alias: M.River. In person he likes to be called Mike.
T.Whid AKA Tim Whidden
T.Whid prefers to be referred to as T.Whid (his web alias) in any publications, announcements, lists, postcards, and etc attending an exhibition of MTAA’s work or in any publication describing MTAA’s work or creative practice. His real name is Tim Whidden. In person he likes to be called Tim.
MT Enterprises WorldWide
The name of the art duo MTAA’s web site is MT Enterprises WorldWide and the web address is http://www.mteww.com.
MTAA Reference Resource
There is a section of MT Enterprises WorldWide called the MTAA Reference Resource, or MTAA-RR for short. This section of the web site contains background material, biographical info, documentation, texts and a blog. permanent link to this post
MTAA (M.River & T.Whid Art Associates)
The name of the art collaborative is MTAA (M.River & T.Whid Art Associates). We prefer the entire name be used in any press releases and other widely circulated documents like announcements as well as in title cards for gallery pieces or in any publications describing MTAA’s art work or creative practice. If your space is restricted in some way using simply MTAA is acceptable.
M.River AKA Mark River
M.River prefers to be referred to by his web alias, M.River, in any publications, announcements, lists, postcards, and etc attending an exhibition of MTAA’s work or in any publication describing MTAA’s work or creative practice. If, for whatever reason, one needs to use his ‘real’ name, it’s Mark River (though that’s not his real name). But he asks that efforts be made to use his web alias: M.River. In person he likes to be called Mike.
T.Whid AKA Tim Whidden
T.Whid prefers to be referred to as T.Whid (his web alias) in any publications, announcements, lists, postcards, and etc attending an exhibition of MTAA’s work or in any publication describing MTAA’s work or creative practice. His real name is Tim Whidden. In person he likes to be called Tim.
MT Enterprises WorldWide
The name of the art duo MTAA’s web site is MT Enterprises WorldWide and the web address is http://www.mteww.com.
MTAA Reference Resource
There is a section of MT Enterprises WorldWide called the MTAA Reference Resource, or MTAA-RR for short. This section of the web site contains background material, biographical info, documentation, texts and a blog. permanent link to this post
MTAA included in Rhizome ArtBase 101
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Actual MTAA news — not just random ranting and ravings! Read on…
Rhizome, along with the New Museum of Contemporary Art, will be presenting a gallery show of selections from Rhizome’s ArtBase called Rhizome ArtBase 101. The show will be hung in one of the New Museum’s galleries at their temporary space in Chelsea.
I’m very happy to report that MTAA will be represented in the show with our piece 1 Year Performance Video. PLUS! We’re going to be showing the gallery version of 1YPV. This will be the first public presentation of the gallery version. The gallery version differs from the online version in numerous ways — most importantly — it uses much higher quality video that is more appropriate for gallery viewing.
I’ll post the entire press release when it’s available.
We also have some other news, but we’ll need to wait a bit to post it here. permanent link to this post
Rhizome, along with the New Museum of Contemporary Art, will be presenting a gallery show of selections from Rhizome’s ArtBase called Rhizome ArtBase 101. The show will be hung in one of the New Museum’s galleries at their temporary space in Chelsea.
I’m very happy to report that MTAA will be represented in the show with our piece 1 Year Performance Video. PLUS! We’re going to be showing the gallery version of 1YPV. This will be the first public presentation of the gallery version. The gallery version differs from the online version in numerous ways — most importantly — it uses much higher quality video that is more appropriate for gallery viewing.
I’ll post the entire press release when it’s available.
We also have some other news, but we’ll need to wait a bit to post it here. permanent link to this post
MT gets the beat down on Slashdot
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
dJ phuturecybersonique writes “Netcraft reports that ‘Comment spam attacks on Movable Type weblogs are straining servers at web hosting companies, leading some providers to disable comments on the popular blogging tool. The issues are caused by bugs in MT, forcing publisher Six Apart to recommend configuration changes while it prepares fixes.’ More…”Presently, the consensus is that everyone should move to Wordpress.
via: Comment Spams Straining Servers Running MT
I recommend Blosxom of course! permanent link to this post
MTAA as academic fodder?
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Received this yesterday from a arts educator/artist/curator/writer friend of ours.
MTAA as academic fodder? What is the world coming to? ;) permanent link to this post
Just wanted to tell you that I showed a few of your works in class, today, and my students loved it. You’re one of the very few artists/ collectives to actually make them laugh, this semester, and I think that’s a high compliment. They especially enjoyed the 5 small videos and we had a very long conversation about 1YPV, in light of the ideas of Karl Marx, Walter Benjamin, Fredric Jameson, WJT Mitchell, and Roland Barthes.
Oh, and we also talked about “real life.” It was nice!
I can’t wait for all those MTAA PhD dissertations to come out—starting with Avi Rosen, of course… :)
MTAA as academic fodder? What is the world coming to? ;) permanent link to this post
MTEWW.com moving hosts
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I’m moving the MTEWW.COM domain to another host because XO SUCKS! XO is the current host and they suck so I reallly had no choice.
So, anyway, in the process of writing this post I ran into broken links already as I’ve changed the default directory for this blog from mtaaRR/ to mtaaRR/news/. I guess I gotta try to fix that because all the google links are going to break. ERRRR.
Anyway, this should be it for a while I hope. No more moving stuff around, fixing broken scripts and etc after this weekend I hope.
One cool thing is that I installed a method to post from the web to this blog. That’s cool :-) But you need to know the password to do it so don’t get any bright ideas ;-) permanent link to this post
So, anyway, in the process of writing this post I ran into broken links already as I’ve changed the default directory for this blog from mtaaRR/ to mtaaRR/news/. I guess I gotta try to fix that because all the google links are going to break. ERRRR.
Anyway, this should be it for a while I hope. No more moving stuff around, fixing broken scripts and etc after this weekend I hope.
One cool thing is that I installed a method to post from the web to this blog. That’s cool :-) But you need to know the password to do it so don’t get any bright ideas ;-) permanent link to this post
Correction re: Rhizome
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I was incorrect in stating in an earlier post that one cannot link to articles on Rhizome.
My only complaint now is that they make it very hard to link to articles if you are a member and nearly impossible if you are not. My main point still stands, Rhizome is going to slowly suffocate behind the fee wall as long as they make it hard to freely link and browse their content.
I make similar points in a post to Rhizome from today. permanent link to this post
My only complaint now is that they make it very hard to link to articles if you are a member and nearly impossible if you are not. My main point still stands, Rhizome is going to slowly suffocate behind the fee wall as long as they make it hard to freely link and browse their content.
I make similar points in a post to Rhizome from today. permanent link to this post
Morning activities
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I need to make a list of daily activities but am having a hard time motivating myself to do it. Since posting to this blog is categorized in my mind as ‘goof-off’ behavior, it’s easier to make these notes as a blog entry. PLUS, if any of our faithful readers would like to add to the list, please do so in the comments. I also need to make a list of afternoon activities, evening activities and night activities.
Note: these are all activities that would take place in one room, as if one was confined to a cell. Also, these activities don’t need to be exclusive to the morning.
morning activities (in no particular order)
7:30 - 7:40: wake up
get dressed
brush teeth
floss
wash
shave
urinate
breakfast (coffee)
defecate
exercise
read
lay on bed; stare into space
pace the floor
sit on stool; stare into space
M.River adds:
Just so people know what this list is about, we are writing a “script of activities” for an internet artwork that we will film in July (see this, twhid). Please add any action one can do when one is alone. We have the day broken into 4 sections: Morning, Afternoon, Evening and Night. Here are some additional acts that one might do in the morning.
make bed, comb hair, get dressed, clip nails, rub eyes, turn on light, lay in bed starring at the ceiling. wash breakfast dishes. clean room. turn off alarm clock permanent link to this post
Note: these are all activities that would take place in one room, as if one was confined to a cell. Also, these activities don’t need to be exclusive to the morning.
morning activities (in no particular order)
7:30 - 7:40: wake up
get dressed
brush teeth
floss
wash
shave
urinate
breakfast (coffee)
defecate
exercise
read
lay on bed; stare into space
pace the floor
sit on stool; stare into space
M.River adds:
Just so people know what this list is about, we are writing a “script of activities” for an internet artwork that we will film in July (see this, twhid). Please add any action one can do when one is alone. We have the day broken into 4 sections: Morning, Afternoon, Evening and Night. Here are some additional acts that one might do in the morning.
make bed, comb hair, get dressed, clip nails, rub eyes, turn on light, lay in bed starring at the ceiling. wash breakfast dishes. clean room. turn off alarm clock permanent link to this post
More NYT Rhizome ArtBase review
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Marisa Olson has a very thoughtful response to the review at Rhizome.
In this quote she responds to Pall Thayer’s remarks.
It’s a good review of the review and I encourage everyone to read the entire thing. permanent link to this post
In this quote she responds to Pall Thayer’s remarks.
Now I don’t want to personally attack Sarah Boxer (though she is very much worth taking the time to Google!), but I know that she has a background in psychoanalytic theory and I find it unfortunate that her reading in a science of interpretation has not parlayed into interpretations of art. As is true of her other articles recently discussed here, I think that this was, ultimately, a missive rather than a review. (Again, Palli said it all.) She doesn’t adequately discuss the experience of the pieces, though the intended experiences were, in many senses, constitutive of the works. She says, simply, that she doesn’t have time for them.
It’s a good review of the review and I encourage everyone to read the entire thing. permanent link to this post
More on Cloud Gate copyright issues
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The Slashdot geeks are chewing over the copyright issues surrounding Anish Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate” (aka “The Bean”). “Cloud Gate” is installed in Chicago’s Millennium Park.
Public Park Designated Copyrighted Space (You get one guess as to where the open-source crowd stands on the issue.)
I don’t have much more to say on it, except…
I wonder if Christo and Jeanne-Claude have security guards keeping professional photographers away from “The Gates”? I would really be interested to know their official stand on the copyright of images of “The Gates,” especially since they make all their money from images of the sculptures as opposed to the sculptures themselves (which many times cost them money). Part of this answer is at the bottom of this page. The artists say that they “have donated all merchandising rights” [emphasis theirs] to a charity and Central Park.
Granted, the two situations are totally different in terms of politics needed to be navigated in order to realize the piece. (Perhaps Christo and Jeanne-Claude had their arms twisted to donate the merchandising rights.) But in terms of copyright issues I don’t see that there would be much of a difference. permanent link to this post
Public Park Designated Copyrighted Space (You get one guess as to where the open-source crowd stands on the issue.)
I don’t have much more to say on it, except…
I wonder if Christo and Jeanne-Claude have security guards keeping professional photographers away from “The Gates”? I would really be interested to know their official stand on the copyright of images of “The Gates,” especially since they make all their money from images of the sculptures as opposed to the sculptures themselves (which many times cost them money). Part of this answer is at the bottom of this page. The artists say that they “have donated all merchandising rights” [emphasis theirs] to a charity and Central Park.
Granted, the two situations are totally different in terms of politics needed to be navigated in order to realize the piece. (Perhaps Christo and Jeanne-Claude had their arms twisted to donate the merchandising rights.) But in terms of copyright issues I don’t see that there would be much of a difference. permanent link to this post
More KDM100 (iPod Edition)…
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
31Grand will be previewing a couple of the videos in the PodART show at scopeMIAMI December 1 - 4th. One of them is MTAA’s own KDM100 (iPod Edition).
If you’re down there, check it out. 31Grand will be in RM203 in the TOWNHOUSE (150 20th St. at Collins Ave., Miami Beach). permanent link to this post
If you’re down there, check it out. 31Grand will be in RM203 in the TOWNHOUSE (150 20th St. at Collins Ave., Miami Beach). permanent link to this post
More “Lazy Sunday”
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I finally got around to making an MP3; download it.
And the NYTimes does a story with some interesting details about the production (cheap and fast):
NYTimes: Nerds in the Hood, Stars on the Web. permanent link to this post
And the NYTimes does a story with some interesting details about the production (cheap and fast):
On the evening of Dec. 12, the four wrote a song about “two guys rapping about very lame, sensitive stuff,” as Mr. Samberg described it. They recorded it the following night in the office Mr. Samberg shares with Mr. Schaffer and Mr. Taccone at “SNL,” using a laptop computer that Mr. Taccone bought on Craigslist.
Then, while their colleagues were rehearsing and rewriting that Saturday’s show, the group spent the morning of Dec. 15 shooting their video with a borrowed camera, using the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Chelsea to stand in for a multiplex cinema and Mr. Taccone’s girlfriend’s sister to play a convenience-store clerk. Mr. Schaffer spent the next night - and morning - editing the video and working with technicians to bring it up to broadcast standards. Finally, at about 11 p.m. on Dec. 17, the four learned from Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of “SNL,” that “Lazy Sunday” would be shown on that night’s show.
NYTimes: Nerds in the Hood, Stars on the Web. permanent link to this post
More from Baghdad
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Steve Mumford responds to the consternation in my last post (near the bottom).
To summarize, Steve recounts how his Iraqi friends see things as getting better and I ask “Better than what?” — things must have been pretty shitty if the current conditions in Iraq are better.
Steve’s response cut and pasted below (with a wee amount of formatting):
And, as the current administration continues to use fear-mongering and lies to bolster their political position, one must ask: are we buying Iraqi ‘freedom’ at the price of our own? permanent link to this post
To summarize, Steve recounts how his Iraqi friends see things as getting better and I ask “Better than what?” — things must have been pretty shitty if the current conditions in Iraq are better.
Steve’s response cut and pasted below (with a wee amount of formatting):
Hi Tim,Steve’s words could be used to bolster the right-wing radical agenda of Bush and Co. but that would be a misuse. We Americans were sold the war on national security fears (many never bought of course). The WMDs do not exist so the Bush administration and its apologists fall back on the excuse of freeing Iraqis from Hussein’s tyranny. Would the majority of Americans have supported this war if it was to be fought only to free Iraqis? Of course not.
You ask: things now in Iraq are better than what - all-out war and constant bombings?
It’s a fair question, and highlights the psychological divide between Americans and Iraqis. I think it’s very difficult for us to really understand what life under Saddam was like. The problem is made more difficult because it’s impossible to frame without a political subtext, ie., if you say things were worse under Saddam you can sound like a propagandist for Bush, with his hall-of-mirrors justifications for going to war. When I say that things were indescribably worse under Saddam, I’m not justifying our going to war in Iraq, just explaining how it’s possible for an Iraqi to be more hopeful for their future now than in the last 30 years.
When you get to know Iraqis well and personally you begin to see the scars from Saddam. It’s not enough to catalog the bizarre and horrific crimes, the Caligula-like escapades through Baghdad, the arbitrary arrests and beatings, the sense of complete irrationality and injustice that marked these years. It’s the feeling of residual fear, frustration and hopelessness that I sometimes see in my friends. It’s a country suffering from post-traumatic stress, where ambition and courage are thwarted and even the lives of the living have, in a sense, been lost.
My friend Esam Pasha told me about a conversation he had with Naseer Hasan, the poet, back in the 90s. He was describing his anger at the Baathist regime, his having to live in fear, not being able to talk openly in public about anything related to politics (almost everything, you had to talk in kind of bland code), the abuses of his military service. Naseer is 15 years older. As a communist party member, he spent 5 years on the run, hiding with relatives, after a colleague was captured and he feared that under torture he’d give his name up.
Naseer said, “Look, you can’t think of it like that. You can’t wish for things to get better, because you’ll become obsessed. You must think of the regime as an unwelcome house guest that you can never ask to leave; instead you have to get used to them in your house, and all your daily life things are just done knowing that they are around you.” Esam says this helped him a lot.
Naseer feels he lost the best years of his life to this regime, the years we take for granted in the West, when you’re young, energetic, and the world seems new.
Another artist, one of Baghdad’s bright lights in painting, often suffers from depression. He says his military service still haunts him. And he wasn’t in any wars - just having to serve in an army where cruelty and arbitrariness marked each day. He often stood up to the abusive officers, yet he’s haunted by his failures, and the fear of those days which are often vividly recalled in his dreams.
Perhaps I can’t convince you that this is worse than war - but it is. I’ve seen a little of the war out here, though not much. I’ve found that I’m not greatly affected, on a psychological level, because these events are over relatively quickly and I have a relatively healthy ego. But imagine a trauma which is not as great, but goes on for years, with no end in sight, each hope dashed, each avenue of escape cut off, each slip of the tongue a cause for paranoia. This, your life since birth.
The only analogy that I can come up with for this is Stalinist Russia. In this sense the Bush administration got it wrong: they imagined that they were liberating the French from the Nazis. It’s obviously more complicated when we invade a country with a homegrown tyranny, and we’ve compounded the problem with inadequate resources and bad decisions. But even so, I think that many Iraqis feel they are better off now, and most look to the future as having real potential for positive change.
And, as the current administration continues to use fear-mongering and lies to bolster their political position, one must ask: are we buying Iraqi ‘freedom’ at the price of our own? permanent link to this post
More blast from MTAA’s past
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
While rooting around for the image in this post, I found an old photo of M.River and me in our V-TAV gallery.
permanent link to this post
permanent link to this post
Mini mine
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
More artstar.tv
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
In the comments on this post, Christopher Fahey says (quoting me):
Reality TV is built on the audience savoring others’ misery and humiliation — but this one is just hitting to close to home. permanent link to this post
Yes. It’s not. But at least for those willing to lose their dignity off-camera they can attempt to keep it a secret. Whoring oneself proudly in front of a camera is much sadder than whoring oneself in private. [Not that I have any experience with either ;-)]It will be just a bunch of desperate artists doing their best to suck-up to the art world honchos as they watch their dignity being stabbed out like a stale cigarette.And how is that different from the real art world? I mean on the Deitch plane of existence, of course.
I think the show is brilliant, and I very much look forward to it. It’s obviously not targeted at artists with dignity, so you shouldn’t try to imagine yourself as a contestant on the show. Instead, you should think about the great entertainment that will result from watching all of the art world “types” that you probably hate humiliate themselves on television. Savor it.Yet another sad aspect of this soon-to-be fiasco: it probably won’t even make it to regular TV! Fashion designers are a billion times more popular (by my estimation) than artists in the mainstream culture, yet, Project Runway is on Bravo — which, seriously, is barely on TV. A show focusing on artists will be lucky if it makes it to cable access. If it’s extremely successful: PBS! Yet they’ll find more more-than-willing artists to exploit and degrade themselves than they know what to do with.
Reality TV is built on the audience savoring others’ misery and humiliation — but this one is just hitting to close to home. permanent link to this post
Millenium Park in Chicago
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A good story in the NYTime’s about the opening of Chicago’s Millenium Park which the Times dubs “a sculpture garden on steroids.” To me it looks more like a theme park with a brain.
Don’t miss the slideshow. permanent link to this post
Don’t miss the slideshow. permanent link to this post
Midnight In The Deli
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
10 Pre-Rejected, Pre-Approved Performances: Midnight In The Deli
…we call him Frank.
You can see larger sizes on Flickr (you may need an account). permanent link to this post
…we call him Frank.
You can see larger sizes on Flickr (you may need an account). permanent link to this post
Meta-post: 1/17/05
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This web site has gone through some problems the last few days.
First, M.River decided to pull-down a post of his because the discussion in the comments seemed to get a bit — how shall we say it? Well, let’s just say that it probably wasn’t fun for anyone. We hope no one got chased away permanently, no one’s feelings were hurt, and no one felt under attack.
Second, for some currently unknown reason, some of this blog’s posts were re-ordered. I’m not sure why.
Happy Martin Luther King Day (I’m lounging at home). permanent link to this post
First, M.River decided to pull-down a post of his because the discussion in the comments seemed to get a bit — how shall we say it? Well, let’s just say that it probably wasn’t fun for anyone. We hope no one got chased away permanently, no one’s feelings were hurt, and no one felt under attack.
Second, for some currently unknown reason, some of this blog’s posts were re-ordered. I’m not sure why.
Happy Martin Luther King Day (I’m lounging at home). permanent link to this post
Microsoft does blogs
posted at 16:43 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
But they’re called Spaces and the design is ugly as hell. Well, as ugly as the rest of MSN anyway.
And the HTML is not even close to being valid of course. At least the RSS feed seems to be valid. That’s weird. Why care about the RSS and not the HTML? Makes no sense. permanent link to this post
And the HTML is not even close to being valid of course. At least the RSS feed seems to be valid. That’s weird. Why care about the RSS and not the HTML? Makes no sense. permanent link to this post
Meta-post 01
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This is a meta-post, a post about the workings of this site.
You may have noticed that I posted about DC 9/11 - EDR yet again. This is because it was officially added to the ‘off-line art’ section of the web site. Things added to the ‘off-line art’ and ‘on-line art’ sections of the web site also appear on the front page.
Perhaps the process isn’t the best. As new work is created and released, I’ll hype it by posting it to the ‘news’ section of the blog. Then, when I get around to it, I’ll post the official addition to the appropriate sub-section of the art archives. Sometimes this can get repetitive, my apologies. permanent link to this post
You may have noticed that I posted about DC 9/11 - EDR yet again. This is because it was officially added to the ‘off-line art’ section of the web site. Things added to the ‘off-line art’ and ‘on-line art’ sections of the web site also appear on the front page.
Perhaps the process isn’t the best. As new work is created and released, I’ll hype it by posting it to the ‘news’ section of the blog. Then, when I get around to it, I’ll post the official addition to the appropriate sub-section of the art archives. Sometimes this can get repetitive, my apologies. permanent link to this post
meta-post 04-24-05
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I updated the MTAA-RR a bit today.
The front page now shows 20 posts by default instead of 10.
And the search should work better. You can now get up to 999 returns on the search page. It was a bit broke before and you would only get 10 search results no matter how many matches were found.
Some day I’ll fix the comments too :-) permanent link to this post
The front page now shows 20 posts by default instead of 10.
And the search should work better. You can now get up to 999 returns on the search page. It was a bit broke before and you would only get 10 search results no matter how many matches were found.
Some day I’ll fix the comments too :-) permanent link to this post
Merry X-Mas 2005…
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
…and Happy Holidays and etc.
The Infectious Nature of Holiday Cheer (2004, .MOV, 10.9MB, 3:31 min.)
Credits
A B&D Handmade production
Written & Directed by Bill Hallinan
The Players
T.Whid as John Q. Public
Andre Sala as Mr. Gift Boxes
Dawn Winchester as Fay Wray
Bill Hallinan as Pointer
The Crew
Photography by George Su
Prop Master, Andre Sala
Prop Support, Elece Blumberg
(Perhaps we’ll get something new next year.) permanent link to this post
The Infectious Nature of Holiday Cheer (2004, .MOV, 10.9MB, 3:31 min.)
Credits
A B&D Handmade production
Written & Directed by Bill Hallinan
The Players
T.Whid as John Q. Public
Andre Sala as Mr. Gift Boxes
Dawn Winchester as Fay Wray
Bill Hallinan as Pointer
The Crew
Photography by George Su
Prop Master, Andre Sala
Prop Support, Elece Blumberg
(Perhaps we’ll get something new next year.) permanent link to this post
McCoys win Wired Rave award
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Brooklyn’s own tech-art wizards, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy win the Wired Rave award for art!
Read all about it here.
Yo Kev, did you two go to the award ceremony? Did you run into Adam Curry?
Congrats! permanent link to this post
Read all about it here.
Yo Kev, did you two go to the award ceremony? Did you run into Adam Curry?
Congrats! permanent link to this post
McCoys featured in NYTimes review
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The McCoys are featured in Roberta Smith’s review of
“CUT/Film as Found Object in Contemporary Video” in the NYTimes today.
The online version of the review features 2 images of the McCoys’ work: “Horror Chase” and “Learning From Las Vegas.” There’s also a slide show. If you want to see lots and lots of the McCoys great work, check out their flickr site.
Artists and work in the show: Soliloquy Trilogy (2002) by Candice Breitz | Video Quartet (2002) and Telephone (1995) by Christian Marclay | Ellipse (1998) by Pierre Huyghe | 24 Hour Psycho (1993) and Black and White (Babylon) (1996) by Douglas Gordon | Horror Chase (2002) and Learning from Las Vegas (2003) by Jennifer and Kevin McCoy | The Long Count (Rumble in the Jungle) (2001); The Long Count (I Shook up the World) (2001); The Long Count (Thrilla in Manila) (2001); and Live Evil (2002) by Paul Pfeiffer | CNN Concatenated (2002) by Omer Fast | The Blink (2000-2001) by Michael Joaquin Grey
The show is on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum through September 11, 2005 (yoinks!). permanent link to this post
The online version of the review features 2 images of the McCoys’ work: “Horror Chase” and “Learning From Las Vegas.” There’s also a slide show. If you want to see lots and lots of the McCoys great work, check out their flickr site.
Artists and work in the show: Soliloquy Trilogy (2002) by Candice Breitz | Video Quartet (2002) and Telephone (1995) by Christian Marclay | Ellipse (1998) by Pierre Huyghe | 24 Hour Psycho (1993) and Black and White (Babylon) (1996) by Douglas Gordon | Horror Chase (2002) and Learning from Las Vegas (2003) by Jennifer and Kevin McCoy | The Long Count (Rumble in the Jungle) (2001); The Long Count (I Shook up the World) (2001); The Long Count (Thrilla in Manila) (2001); and Live Evil (2002) by Paul Pfeiffer | CNN Concatenated (2002) by Omer Fast | The Blink (2000-2001) by Michael Joaquin Grey
The show is on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum through September 11, 2005 (yoinks!). permanent link to this post
Maybe notstar.tv?
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
On the comments of this post, Dan of iconoduel.org points out that artstar.tv is being produced for Gallery HD, The Arts & Museum Channel which is broadcast on the VOOM hi-def satellite TV service.
Or, maybe not: Cablevision Shuts Down Voom Service.
(note: I mistakenly labeled the satellite service as ZOOM on a previous post.) permanent link to this post
Or, maybe not: Cablevision Shuts Down Voom Service.
(note: I mistakenly labeled the satellite service as ZOOM on a previous post.) permanent link to this post
McCoy’s new stuff = hot
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I’m subscribed to the McCoys’ Flickr RSS feed and they’ve been posting new images like crazy today.
The new stuff looks great! Start here to check out the new images. The new stuff is in the ‘Clouds’ sets.
The McCoys are having a show of new works at Postmasters opening on the 4th of March, 2006. permanent link to this post
Marking Time @ Getty Center LA
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA’s 1YPV will be included in the Marking Time video screening at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.
And no, they won’t make you sit through n minutes of the 1YPV. They’ll be screening it prior to the more linear screenings for a half hour or so as people take their seats. Evidently we’re gracing the cover of the brochure too.
I’m not entirely sure (they may screen the web version), but this might be the first public screening of the 1YPV (installation version). The installation version differs from the web version in that it uses higher quality, full frame-rate video (among other differences). Note that this is a screening of the video only, not an installation of the entire sculptural tableau (I know, I know, it’s confusing). permanent link to this post
This ninety-minute screening surveys sixteen artist who incorporate the experience, memory, or anticipation of time’s passage into their single-channel video works. This screening is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Marking Time, currently on view at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE).It’s tomorrow night at 7:30PM. You can get more info and make reservations on the Getty’s web site. It’s free, but they charge you $7 to park.
The screening and exhibition is organized by Glenn R. Phillips, research associate and consulting curator, Department of Contemporary Programs and Research at the Getty Research Institute, in association with the Getty Research Institute’s 2004-2005 research theme “Duration.”
And no, they won’t make you sit through n minutes of the 1YPV. They’ll be screening it prior to the more linear screenings for a half hour or so as people take their seats. Evidently we’re gracing the cover of the brochure too.
I’m not entirely sure (they may screen the web version), but this might be the first public screening of the 1YPV (installation version). The installation version differs from the web version in that it uses higher quality, full frame-rate video (among other differences). Note that this is a screening of the video only, not an installation of the entire sculptural tableau (I know, I know, it’s confusing). permanent link to this post
Christian Marclay @ Eyebeam tonight
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
From Eyebeam’s e-mail:
I can’t make it unfortunately. M.River and I need to go to the studio and eat lobster dinners in our cell. permanent link to this post
Wednesday evening artist Christian Marclay will screen and discuss his work as part of the Focal Point lecture series from Eyebeam’s Moving Image Studios. Marclay’s talk will include the seminal pieces Telephones and Record Players as well as his more recent work including The Bell and the Glass.It’s from 8:00PM - 10:00PM tonight and is *FREE* (with a suggested donation).
I can’t make it unfortunately. M.River and I need to go to the studio and eat lobster dinners in our cell. permanent link to this post
Mac mini!!!!
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Just announced by the Jobs Himself at Macworld Expo SF 2005:
Mac mini
This machine is super-tiny and is perfect to be used in art installations. Can’t wait to get my hands on one but the store seems to be taking a beating right now.
UPDATE
Bought one :) permanent link to this post
Mac mini
This machine is super-tiny and is perfect to be used in art installations. Can’t wait to get my hands on one but the store seems to be taking a beating right now.
UPDATE
Bought one :) permanent link to this post
LOW LEVEL ALL STARS
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A copy-and-paster from Rhiz:
Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: LOW LEVEL ALL STARS—Weds and Thurs at Deitch Projectspermanent link to this post
Date: February 21, 2005 9:17:41 PM EST
To: list@rhizome.org
DEITCH PROJECTS AND THE NEW YORK UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL PRESENT:
LOW LEVEL ALL STARS
CURATED BY CORY ARCANGEL and RADICAL SOFTWARE GROUP
FEBRUARY 23 + FEBRUARY 24, 7-10PM
76 GRAND STREET, NEW YORK CITY
FREE!! PLUS FREE RED STRIPE
Deitch Projects is please to present a two-night music and video event, LOW LEVEL ALL STARS, in conjunction with the New York Underground Film Festival. Cory Arcangel of the BEIGE programming ensemble and the Radical Software Group have put together two nights celebrating the best in contemporary home hobbyist hacker aesthetics. Featuring musical performances each night by:
BODENSTANDIG 2000- who released Maxi German Rave Blast Hits 3 on Aphex Twins label Rephlex, definitively a CULT LEGEND ALBUM, made the first chip tune record out of old Ataris. FIRST NYC APPEARANCE! http://bodenstandig.de
TREEWAVE- Atari supergenius Paul Slocum and Laura Grey will be performing as Treewave, using hacked home electronics, dot-matrix printers and more to make music and videos. www.treewave.com/about.html
NULLSLEEP- 8bitpeoples member and Nintendo uber-nerd will be performing music and showing demo videos all programmed in assembly for the NES. Awesome!!!!! http://www.8bitpeoples.com/
Videos and other performances (including NES demos, ASCII movies, Atari break movies, C64 intros + more!!) will be featured, as well as interactive and explanatory portions familiarizing the audience with whats going on…in Corys words: THESE GUYS ARE THE REAL DEAL
Lucasfilms Nixes Star Wars Live Screening
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The Seattle PI has an article about Lucasfilms sending a cease and desist letter to a local Seattle-based theater company. The company had been planning to do a live parody of Star Wars in which they would turn off the sound and redub it live. This brings up the question are parodies fair use? And if so, should copyright holders be allowed to order people not to parody their work?[ Lucasfilms Nixes Star Wars Live Screening, Slashdot ] permanent link to this post
Letter to Wichita
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Mr. David Butler,Read all about this ridiculousness at NEWSgrist. permanent link to this post
I’m writing to express my outrage that you are allowing a special interest group to post brochures and a sign in the gallery to express their views on Middle Eastern politics in conjunction with Ms. Jacir’s exhibition “Where We Come From.”
I agree with Ms. Jacir:
“This is a complete infringement on my right to free speech, not to mention an insult to me as an artist. It is intolerable that I have to go through this just because of my background. I am sure no other artist would accept to work under such conditions. They are placing a huge unnecessary burden on my exhibit with the presence of the brochures which are intended to silence or censor my work. I am shocked that they would place such conditions in a the space of a museum.”
You are treading on a very slippery slope. If you were to exhibit work of a gay artist would you allow right-wing christians to display brochures and posters beside the exhibition explaining how gays are abominations? If it was an exhibition of Jewish artists would you allow neo-nazis or the KKK to express their views? These may sound like ridiculous speculations, but that is where this twisted logic leads.
I urge you to resist this pressure and allow artists’ voices to be heard in a neutral context. Do not allow special interest groups to take over your museum in their wrong-headed pursuit of “balance.”
Lazy Sunday SNL rap
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
You must download and watch this video because it’s really, really funny.
Lazy Sunday (QuickTime, .mov, 29.7MB, 02’22) permanent link to this post
Let’s all get stoopid
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Man I can’t wait ‘til the American Dark Age! It’s going to be a blast! Your civil rights will be privatized by corporate feudalism, scientific fact will be just another opinion, and Great Moral Leader (appointed by Gawd™) will rule in benevolence until the end of days. What a bright and shining moment in our history!
It’s on the way, wooohooo!
It’s on the way, wooohooo!
A suburban American school board found itself in court Monday after it tried to placate Christian fundamentalist parents by placing a sticker on its science textbooks saying evolution was “a theory, not a fact.”via: Salon permanent link to this post
Atlanta’s Cobb County School Board, the second largest board in Georgia, added the sticker two years ago after a 2,300-strong petition attacked the presentation of “Darwinism unchallenged.” Some parents wanted creationism — the theory that God created humans as related in the Bible — to be taught alongside evolution.
Kuspit on digital art
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I’ve only read the first two grafs. I totally agree with this:
from Artnet.com via Murphy on thingist. permanent link to this post
The status and significance of the image changes in postmodern digital art: the image becomes a secondary manifestation — a material epiphenomen, as it were — of the abstract code, which becomes the primary vehicle of creativity. Before, the creation of material images was the primary goal of visual art, and the immaterial code that guided the process was regarded as secondary. Now, the creation of the code — more broadly, the concept — becomes the primary creative act. The image no longer exists in its own right, but now exists only to make the invisible code visible, whatever the material medium. It makes no difference to the code whether it appears as a two-dimensional or three-dimensional image.The Matrix of Sensations
from Artnet.com via Murphy on thingist. permanent link to this post
Kitsch
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
n.Does anyone out there on the old WWW think that any of MTAA’s art work could be: a) classified as kitsh; or b) understood as commenting on kitsch?
Sentimentality or vulgar, often pretentious bad taste, especially in the arts: “When money tries to buy beauty it tends to purchase a kind of courteous kitsch” (William H. Gass).
adj.
Of, being, or characterized by kitsch: “The kitsch kitchen… has aqua-and-white gingham curtains and rubber duck-yellow walls painted in a fried-egg motif” (Suzanne Cassidy).
M.River adds:
Just to be less clear, T.Whid and I are doing some R and D. Yes, we know. The subject of Kitsch in art is a bit…well, Kitschy. We’re just thinking out loud on this. Does that make any sense? Yes? No? Let me put it this way – I’m not sure if it’s all or none. permanent link to this post
Kill Monty
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This is a pretty simple game, just kill everything that moves: Kill Monty.
I guess “everything that moves” is named Monty? I dunno.
BTW, screw you Windows users, it’s Mac-only. Hah! permanent link to this post
I guess “everything that moves” is named Monty? I dunno.
BTW, screw you Windows users, it’s Mac-only. Hah! permanent link to this post
Kerry rocks
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
At kerryrocks.net
This image is blatantly being lifted from andreaharner.com :-) permanent link to this post
This image is blatantly being lifted from andreaharner.com :-) permanent link to this post
KDM100 — rockin’ the new iPod
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
KDM100’s ‘album art’ for the iPod and iTunes
MTAA was asked to show a couple of pieces in a video exhibition to be shown exclusively on iPods. It’s being curated by Heather Stephens of 31Grand. We’ll have more details or the press release when we get them, but the show is coming up quick; the opening is December 9.
Of course we’re showing a special ‘iPod edition’ of the Karaoke DeathMatch 100 (coming soon to an Internet near you).
I’m very impressed with the new iPod (I picked up two 30 Gb models from the gallery yesterday). It’s super-thin, the screen is larger, it charged up quickly and transfered about 1.75 Gb of KDM100 video in a snap. The video looks and sounds great. Apple really did a good job and it makes me salivate that I don’t have a 5G model (yet). permanent link to this post
KDM 100 stills
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
KDM100 preview TODAY!
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We’ll be showing a preview version of our new piece, Karaoke DeathMatch 100, at our studio today.
The location is 60 N. 6th St., in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
This coincides with the closing reception for the summer group show, There’s A City In My Mind, at Southfirst gallery (more info).
Get there between 2 and 6 PM to check it out. permanent link to this post
The location is 60 N. 6th St., in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
This coincides with the closing reception for the summer group show, There’s A City In My Mind, at Southfirst gallery (more info).
Get there between 2 and 6 PM to check it out. permanent link to this post
KDM100 = done!
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Last night I finally finished Karaoke Deathmatch 100. WooHoo! It comes to about 18GB of video.
Now, we just need to load it up on our new Mac mini, pack it into a crate (along with M.River) and accost the town of Leonding, Austria with our caterwauling for Leonart ‘05 (german). permanent link to this post
Now, we just need to load it up on our new Mac mini, pack it into a crate (along with M.River) and accost the town of Leonding, Austria with our caterwauling for Leonart ‘05 (german). permanent link to this post
Katrina and New Orleans
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Reading the press about the aftermath of Katrina is sure to enrage any person that isn’t a total partisan zombie. Bush, FEMA, Homeland Security — disgraces all. But the governor of LA and the mayor of New Orleans probably have some answering to do as well. I think it was Wednesday, my fiance and I were watching a press conference with the governor and she was practically incoherent, almost raving. Think what you want about Guiliani (I hate the bastard), he did provide comfort and leadership in those dark days immediately following 9/11.
But I think the Feds deserve the majority of blame for the New Orleans disaster. Bush’s “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees” is one of the most disgusting things ever said on national television. He’s either criminally stupid, criminally incompetent or criminally negligent — take your pick.
Also see CNN’s comparison of the Bushie’s rhetoric opposed to reality. It’s simple to extrapolate to Iraq where we don’t have a free (english) press operating to get the reality. permanent link to this post
But I think the Feds deserve the majority of blame for the New Orleans disaster. Bush’s “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees” is one of the most disgusting things ever said on national television. He’s either criminally stupid, criminally incompetent or criminally negligent — take your pick.
Also see CNN’s comparison of the Bushie’s rhetoric opposed to reality. It’s simple to extrapolate to Iraq where we don’t have a free (english) press operating to get the reality. permanent link to this post
Karaoke DeathMatch shooting complete
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
We spent all day yesterday (which I heard was a nice day in NYC) drinking and singing karaoke and shooting it all on video.
M.River has some behind the scenes pics on his tinjail blog (start here and work back).
Super big thanks to Bill Hallinan, André Sala and George Su for donating their time, equipment and talent so generously. permanent link to this post
M.River has some behind the scenes pics on his tinjail blog (start here and work back).
Super big thanks to Bill Hallinan, André Sala and George Su for donating their time, equipment and talent so generously. permanent link to this post
Karaoke Deathmatch! [coming soon]
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Karaoke Deathmatch 100 stuff
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA are working on a piece called Karaoke Deathmatch 100. You can find earlier posts about it here and here.
I want to re-title it to Karaoke Deathmatch 100 AKA Self-portrait With Karaoke but M and I haven’t come to a consensus. Regardless, we’re considering doing a few different versions of it.
The first is a pretty straight-forward video using custom-built OSX software to present the 100 clips. Alex Galloway is doing the programming and I just got the first version last night and it’s hot. It probably could have been done as a DVD-Video, but having it run off a computer hard drive allows the hours of footage to loop with no muss or fuss for the gallery. Also, it plays back in a random order which would have been impossible with a DVD-Video. This version is going to be shown at an arts festival in Leonding, Austria in September.
To coincide with the closing BBQ of Southfirst’s summer show, we’re going to show a special preview in our studio this Sunday (our studio is right above Southfirst). More info here.
Another version we’re considering is a limited-time videoblog of all the footage. Each day, 1 round of the deathmatch would be posted and people would be asked to vote for the best by commenting on the blog post of the video they liked best. Not sure if we’ll do this.
And the final version, which may be called simply Self-portrait with Karaoke, would be a dual-channel Flash application that allows people to choose a song, then both M and I perform the exact same song at the exact same time. permanent link to this post
I want to re-title it to Karaoke Deathmatch 100 AKA Self-portrait With Karaoke but M and I haven’t come to a consensus. Regardless, we’re considering doing a few different versions of it.
The first is a pretty straight-forward video using custom-built OSX software to present the 100 clips. Alex Galloway is doing the programming and I just got the first version last night and it’s hot. It probably could have been done as a DVD-Video, but having it run off a computer hard drive allows the hours of footage to loop with no muss or fuss for the gallery. Also, it plays back in a random order which would have been impossible with a DVD-Video. This version is going to be shown at an arts festival in Leonding, Austria in September.
To coincide with the closing BBQ of Southfirst’s summer show, we’re going to show a special preview in our studio this Sunday (our studio is right above Southfirst). More info here.
Another version we’re considering is a limited-time videoblog of all the footage. Each day, 1 round of the deathmatch would be posted and people would be asked to vote for the best by commenting on the blog post of the video they liked best. Not sure if we’ll do this.
And the final version, which may be called simply Self-portrait with Karaoke, would be a dual-channel Flash application that allows people to choose a song, then both M and I perform the exact same song at the exact same time. permanent link to this post
Kac-head
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This Wired News article describes a new installation by Eduardo Kac at the Exploratorium in San Francisco: DNA Spirals Into Artists’ Medium.
Short description of the piece, Move 36: A genetically-modified tomato plant planted on a chess board with a couple of video projections.
Personally, I don’t see how his work is interesting and evidently the art world doesn’t either as he’s showing at a science museum. Remember kids, we don’t want New Media art showing up in science museums!
Then there is this strange section of the article: Kac said the plant is rooted in the square where Deep Blue made the move that flummoxed Kasparov, but it’s actually on a different square, and the board is not oriented correctly. The article doesn’t explain if these are mistakes by the artist or somehow related to the content of the piece. permanent link to this post
Short description of the piece, Move 36: A genetically-modified tomato plant planted on a chess board with a couple of video projections.
Personally, I don’t see how his work is interesting and evidently the art world doesn’t either as he’s showing at a science museum. Remember kids, we don’t want New Media art showing up in science museums!
Then there is this strange section of the article: Kac said the plant is rooted in the square where Deep Blue made the move that flummoxed Kasparov, but it’s actually on a different square, and the board is not oriented correctly. The article doesn’t explain if these are mistakes by the artist or somehow related to the content of the piece. permanent link to this post
Joywar in intelligent agent vol. 4 no. 2
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Painter and blogger Joy Garnett gives a first-person account of her small copyright skirmish (Joywar) over a 25-year-old photograph she transformed into a contemporary painting in Steal This Look available now in intelligent agent’s new issue.
She gives me credit for coming up with the name Joywar but it wasn’t me (wish it was). I did post the first mirror to the image in question and it’s still on-line here. permanent link to this post
She gives me credit for coming up with the name Joywar but it wasn’t me (wish it was). I did post the first mirror to the image in question and it’s still on-line here. permanent link to this post
Jump to Gmail
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The other night, during Cory Arcangel’s presentation at Jihui, I noticed he used Gmail as his mail client. “Hmm,” I thought, “if someone as smart as Cory is using it, perhaps I should check it out again.”
So I embarked on what I pompously called my “Grand Email Unification Experiment.” It seems to be working. I forwarded my two most-used email addresses to the Gmail account and started using it as my single access point.
POP or not to POP
At first I used it to connect via POP and download to my client but I realized that this was destroying the purpose of having it in one place. The real power would come from the filtering and the labeling features in Gmail so that I could get my email exactly how I like it anywhere with a web browser handy. So now I’ve just decided to use the POP feature to download the email once in a while (essentially a back-up for when the ‘net goes down and I need to find some essential info).
Spam
Gmail’s spam filtering seems very good. After a few days I’ve only gotten 2 or 3 false negatives (it was spam but wasn’t marked as such) and no false positives. I was using a 3rd-party service to filter spam, but Gmail catches more. By forwarding one’s email to Gmail, then connecting via POP to download one could use Gmail as a free spam filter. You won’t download the spam and would just need to check Gmail once in a while to check for false positives.
No one needs to know
The feature that allows one to add accounts to Gmail means that no one needs to know that I’m using Gmail. I can send email from any of my other addresses.
One gripe
Gmail doesn’t work as well with Safari as it does with Firefox. I prefer Safari for browsing and Firefox for Gmail. I wish there was a way to set the Gmail Notifier app to open any browser, not the default browser set in Safari preferences. permanent link to this post
So I embarked on what I pompously called my “Grand Email Unification Experiment.” It seems to be working. I forwarded my two most-used email addresses to the Gmail account and started using it as my single access point.
POP or not to POP
At first I used it to connect via POP and download to my client but I realized that this was destroying the purpose of having it in one place. The real power would come from the filtering and the labeling features in Gmail so that I could get my email exactly how I like it anywhere with a web browser handy. So now I’ve just decided to use the POP feature to download the email once in a while (essentially a back-up for when the ‘net goes down and I need to find some essential info).
Spam
Gmail’s spam filtering seems very good. After a few days I’ve only gotten 2 or 3 false negatives (it was spam but wasn’t marked as such) and no false positives. I was using a 3rd-party service to filter spam, but Gmail catches more. By forwarding one’s email to Gmail, then connecting via POP to download one could use Gmail as a free spam filter. You won’t download the spam and would just need to check Gmail once in a while to check for false positives.
No one needs to know
The feature that allows one to add accounts to Gmail means that no one needs to know that I’m using Gmail. I can send email from any of my other addresses.
One gripe
Gmail doesn’t work as well with Safari as it does with Firefox. I prefer Safari for browsing and Firefox for Gmail. I wish there was a way to set the Gmail Notifier app to open any browser, not the default browser set in Safari preferences. permanent link to this post
Jacir resolution
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
It’s very good news that Wichita State University and the Mid-Kansas Jewish Federation came to their senses and are allowing Ms. Jacir’s exhibition to continue with no strings attached.
According to the MKJF their excuse is — basically — that they’re clueless. Judith Press, Executive Director of MKJF,
What is somewhat bizarre to me regarding this whole affair is that there are plenty of ways to encourage dialogue around the exhibition which would have been sensitive to everyone’s needs and expectations. Public panels, symposia, gallery talks and etc probably would have been acceptable to the artist, but the University simply took some ham-handed approach to the situation and compounded the stupidity with lack of communication between all involved.
It’s important to remember that the outcry against the MKJF’s “request” to place brochures and signage outside the gallery wasn’t an outcry against dialogue in the white box of the contemporary museum gallery. It was an outcry against springing a forced dialogue on a particular artist that would have pitted Jacir’s aesthetics against the MKJF’s polemics and propaganda without consulting with the artist.
++++++
In response to these posts on NEWSgrist:
Art Intolerance, Part 3: Jacir Exhibition Moves Forward
Art Intolerance, Part 2: Emily Jacir/Ulrich
Arts Intolerance: Emily Jacir/Ulrich Museum, Wichita permanent link to this post
According to the MKJF their excuse is — basically — that they’re clueless. Judith Press, Executive Director of MKJF,
We made a request to the University, and we are under the impression at this point that this was not an appropriate request […] We did not realize that this was considered inappropriate or infringing on the artist’s rights. We need to not ask for that if it is not appropriate.The University should have known it was inappropriate, and if not, they should have consulted with the professionals running the museum in order to determine the appropriateness of the “request” from the MKJF. But according to a commenter on NEWSgrist posting under the name Debbie Gordon (with a wichita.edu email address), “the lead donor in a major building project on campus. Someone the news got to her about the exhibit, and she threatened to pull her donation.” So we see what sort of “request” this was — one that is very hard to refuse.
What is somewhat bizarre to me regarding this whole affair is that there are plenty of ways to encourage dialogue around the exhibition which would have been sensitive to everyone’s needs and expectations. Public panels, symposia, gallery talks and etc probably would have been acceptable to the artist, but the University simply took some ham-handed approach to the situation and compounded the stupidity with lack of communication between all involved.
It’s important to remember that the outcry against the MKJF’s “request” to place brochures and signage outside the gallery wasn’t an outcry against dialogue in the white box of the contemporary museum gallery. It was an outcry against springing a forced dialogue on a particular artist that would have pitted Jacir’s aesthetics against the MKJF’s polemics and propaganda without consulting with the artist.
++++++
In response to these posts on NEWSgrist:
Art Intolerance, Part 3: Jacir Exhibition Moves Forward
Art Intolerance, Part 2: Emily Jacir/Ulrich
Arts Intolerance: Emily Jacir/Ulrich Museum, Wichita permanent link to this post
iTunes now supports video
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
You can drop a video into iTunes 4.8 and it will be added to the library. There is a new button on the bottom of iTunes (where the ‘add playlist’, etc buttons are). Once you start playing the video, click it to watch the video fullscreen.
Some videos open in fullscreen automatically… at least a trailer I downloaded from Apple did, while a video I created myself (in After Effects) did not.
Hmmmmmmmmm. permanent link to this post
It’s a cartoon for crying out loud
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I’m with James Wagner on this one:
It’s time for all newspapers, and all nations, everyone who has a media outlet, to make themselves a common target of those who would threaten the freedoms which support liberal societies.
update
To be clear: I don’t agree with the stereotypes conveyed via the caricature above. In fact, I think they are dangerous and those who hold them I usually find disgusting. But I also believe very strongly in free speech and freedom of expression. Religious fundamentalists have no right to try to censor this image no matter how hateful or blasphemous they perceive it to be.
Please read Juan Cole on this issue:
Muslims are not, as you will be told, the only community that is touchy about attacks on its holy figures or even just ordinary heros. Thousands of Muslims were killed in the early 1990s by enraged Hindus in India over the Ayodhya Mosque, which Hindus insisted was built on the site of a shrine to a Hindu holy figure. No one accuses Hindus in general of being unusually narrowminded and aggressive as a result. Or, the Likudniks in Israel protested the withdrawal from Gaza, and there were dark mutterings about what happened to Rabin recurring in the case of Sharon. The “sacred” principle at stake there is just not one most people in the outsider world would agree with the Likudniks about.permanent link to this post
It wasn’t just drunk talk!
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A WELSH rugby fan cut off his own testicles to celebrate his team’s defeat of old enemy England in Cardiff on Saturday.Don’t really know why I’m linking to this… permanent link to this post
Geoff Huish, 26, was so convinced England would win the Six Nations opener that he told fellow drinkers at a social club, “If Wales win I’ll cut my balls off”, it was reported yesterday.
via: Rugby fan carries out threat to cut off testicles after Wales win
On ISP censorship
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
As part of a recent research project, [Christian Ahlert] posted a section of Mill’s On Liberty on the internet (which is clearly in the public domain), then issued unfounded copyright complaints against it (1). One internet service provider (ISP) removed the chapter almost immediately. This illustrates the problem with self-censorship procedures, which rely on hidden judgements being made by unaccountable bodies. [spiked-online]
permanent link to this post
Is Anish Kapoor a dumb ass?
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
It certainly sounds like it. [More info here and here]
I don’t agree with Cory Doctorow that Chicagoans should ‘melt the thing down for slag.’ It’s a very beautiful sculpture and there is never a good reason to destroy art no matter how ignorant or greedy the creator is perceived.
Whenever I hear anyone advocating the destruction of art it really makes me get queasy in the gut. It’s an extremely ugly thing to advocate.
What would probably be more helpful is to contact the artist’s representatives and urge them politely to council the artist to adopt a non-commercial creative commons license for this public art work.
He’s represented by Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York and Lisson Gallery, London.
update:
This is the email I sent to Ivy Crewdson, director of Barbara Gladstone Gallery. I urge others to contact the gallery as well.
I changed the links at the top of the page to pages that provide more information. permanent link to this post
I don’t agree with Cory Doctorow that Chicagoans should ‘melt the thing down for slag.’ It’s a very beautiful sculpture and there is never a good reason to destroy art no matter how ignorant or greedy the creator is perceived.
Whenever I hear anyone advocating the destruction of art it really makes me get queasy in the gut. It’s an extremely ugly thing to advocate.
What would probably be more helpful is to contact the artist’s representatives and urge them politely to council the artist to adopt a non-commercial creative commons license for this public art work.
He’s represented by Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York and Lisson Gallery, London.
update:
This is the email I sent to Ivy Crewdson, director of Barbara Gladstone Gallery. I urge others to contact the gallery as well.
Subject: Cloud Gate copyrightupdate the 2nd:
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 13:50:05 -0500
Hello Ivy Crewdson,
I’m writing to urge you to council Anish Kapoor to consider adopting a less restrictive copyright concerning his work ‘Cloud Gate’ in Chicago.
Non-commercial images of this art work should be allowed to be taken by the general public. I’m sure you would agree that the public good is served by allowing citizens to take photos and video of this beautiful art work. The piece is destined to become one of the major landmarks of Chicago but only if the public is allowed to enjoy it fully.
Perhaps using a Creative Commons [http://www.creativecommons.org] license would help you solve this matter. I suggest using a license entitled the “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License”. This license protects the work from commercial uses and derivative works.
There is a bit of online direct protest happening regarding this matter. See this web site for more information: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/02/07/¬
please_add_photos_of.html
I changed the links at the top of the page to pages that provide more information. permanent link to this post
Ippolito rebuts
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Still following the discussion started by Jon Ippolito…
Philip Galanter rebutted Ippolito’s original assertions via Rhizome. And now Ippolito is back with a reply. permanent link to this post
Philip Galanter rebutted Ippolito’s original assertions via Rhizome. And now Ippolito is back with a reply. permanent link to this post
Ippolito rebutted
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Philip Galanter offers a rebuttal to Jon Ippolito’s Internet2: Orchestrating the End of the Internet? on this thread at Rhizome.
To be completely honest, I have no idea who’s right. They both sound right. I’ve never known Jon to be wrong about much. Let’s hope for a reply to this rebuttal from him.
(I mentioned Jon’s essay in this post.) permanent link to this post
To be completely honest, I have no idea who’s right. They both sound right. I’ve never known Jon to be wrong about much. Let’s hope for a reply to this rebuttal from him.
(I mentioned Jon’s essay in this post.) permanent link to this post
Ippolito: MPAA looking to break Internet2
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The technology behind Internet2 *breaks* anything remotely resembling a broadcast business model, which is why the MPAA will do its best to disarm the technology by installing Digital Rights Management directly in its routers to stop interesting content from ever getting into the pipeline.Read the entire essay: Internet2: Orchestrating the End of the Internet? permanent link to this post
Interview with Olia Lialina
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Check out an interview with one of the original net.artists (note the dot) at The Thing:
Online Newspapers by Olia Lialina
Interview with the net.art veteran by James Allan permanent link to this post
Online Newspapers by Olia Lialina
Interview with the net.art veteran by James Allan permanent link to this post
Interesting new work
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Today, Peter Horvath and Turbulence released Peter’s new web art work, Intervals.
From the web site:
From the web site:
Intervals explores a series of characters whose investigation of self and identity unfold and elide through a sequence of cinematic interludes.You need to make sure you have a broadband connection and a fairly healthy computer to view the work and QuickTime is required as well. permanent link to this post
[…]
Horvath’s innovative use of pop-up windows create a virtual collage that posit identity as a series of random ‘memory acts’ but whose inquiry accumulate into a slowly revealing narrative of the human condition.
How to get into the popular sushi place in your neighborhood
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This is a hot NYC tip!
It turns out it’s really simple to get into the hot sushi restaurant in your neighborhood, here’s the secret:
go during the 4th of July fireworks display :-) permanent link to this post
It turns out it’s really simple to get into the hot sushi restaurant in your neighborhood, here’s the secret:
go during the 4th of July fireworks display :-) permanent link to this post
Infinite Phil (Hartman/Donahue)
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
In the studio
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The Infinite Fill Show opening tonight 6:00 - 8:30PM
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The Infinite Fill Show is opening this evening at Foxy Production in NYC. The show is curated by new media/dirt-style superstar Cory Arcangel and his sister Jamie Arcangel and includes too many artists to name here. Go here for a list of the artists.
Too many artists to name here except for one of course: MTAA is proud to take part with a new piece completed just for the show entitled ‘Infinite Phil (Hartman/Donahue)’ (8MB .mov).
The gallery is tiny. If you’re planning on seeing anything I suggest you get there as early as possible (5:59PM). permanent link to this post
Images from getawayexperiment.net
posted at 16:42 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
[click thumbs to see larger images]
getawayexperiment.net is a project by Nathaniel Stern and Marcus Neustetter which “commissioned local sign-makers in Johannesburg to ‘re-mix’ five websites, by painting stylized versions of each image on their main pages.” The project has a lot more than that going on with it and I urge everyone to check it out.
Turbulence.org (who commissioned the project) was one of the web sites re-mixed in this way and MTAA’s thumbnail for 1YPV was caught in the process resulting in the images above.
update:
Read the net art news blurb about getawayexperiment.net. permanent link to this post
IKEA WALKTHROUGH v2.3.1">IKEA WALKTHROUGH v2.3.1
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
For those of us are getting a bit older and find ourselves giving into the ‘nesting’ impulse this guide is a must read:
IKEA WALKTHROUGH v2.3.1
This link was forwarded to me by M.River (whom I never thought would nest, but there you go). We’ve recently rented a studio and that, I suppose, is a form of nesting for net artists who are used to our computers being our studios. permanent link to this post
IKEA WALKTHROUGH v2.3.1
This link was forwarded to me by M.River (whom I never thought would nest, but there you go). We’ve recently rented a studio and that, I suppose, is a form of nesting for net artists who are used to our computers being our studios. permanent link to this post
If you are reading this…
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
…please post a comment.
If you are reading this via an RSS news reader, this is the link to the web site where you can post a comment.
This is just sort of a very casual survey of who’s reading our little blog here.
Thanks. permanent link to this post
If you are reading this via an RSS news reader, this is the link to the web site where you can post a comment.
This is just sort of a very casual survey of who’s reading our little blog here.
Thanks. permanent link to this post
Idiot of The Day
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The state’s school superintendent, Kathy Cox, has proposed striking the word evolution from Georgia’s science curriculum and replacing it with the phrase “biological changes over time.”
I hate ignorant people. I hate ignorant people who attempt to force their ignorance on others even more. So I don’t like this person. permanent link to this post
I’m now a proponent of ID
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
OK, OK, I’m now a proponent of ID — Incompetent Design!
via Daily Kos by the way of Kottke permanent link to this post
The only reason you stand erect is because of this incredible sharp bend at the base of your spine, which is either evolution’s way of modifying something or else it’s just a design that would flunk a first-year engineering student.
via Daily Kos by the way of Kottke permanent link to this post
How To Hack Copyright for Fun and Profit
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Yo! Reminder! Tonight!
Columbia University School of the Arts[ via: How To Hack Copyright for Fun and Profit ] permanent link to this post
presents
A Lecture by Jon Ippolito:
“How To Hack Copyright for Fun and Profit”
Thursday, December 2
6:00 PM
702 Hamilton Hall
Columbia University
116th and Broadway
New York City
Jon Ippolito is an artist, a curator at the Guggenheim museum, and co-founder of the Still Water program for network art and culture at the University of Maine where he is an Assistant Professor of new media.
Mr. Ippolito’s lecture, “How to Hack Copyright for Fun and Profit,” will examine alternative approaches to intellectual property and creativity.
Here’s Jon’s abstract:
Now that the music labels have sued 6,000 college kids and universities are spending more on anti-plagiarism software than on student art exhibitions, you’d think young people would finally grok the message that sharing is bad. But as this presentation aims to demonstrate, a cadre of dedicated artists, musicians, and activists are offering digital creators an end-run around broadcast flags and RIAA summonses—from tools for embedding open licenses in music files to an online environment for sharing art and code to a semantic search engine for remixable art and video. In conclusion, this presentation will examine the question of whether such innovations are sufficient to prevent the lockdown of creative culture.
How do you spell loozer?
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
You would think that with all the art festivals, openings, fairs, parties, carnivals, feasts, festivities, performances, installations, exhibitions, jubilees, and shows going on in NYC this week MTAA would be in one or have been invited to at least one.
Wouldn’t you?
Well, I would.
Find the whole list here.
For the past few years I haven’t really paid any attention to this stuff because I guess I didn’t really care. But now that M.River and I have made our decision to start doing some gallery work (not just on-line hijinks), I find it a tad troubling just how outside the whole art world thing we actually are. Bah!
Good luck everybody! Send me some free passes!
(PS, please commiserate in the comments if you’re feeling left out too.) permanent link to this post
Wouldn’t you?
Well, I would.
Find the whole list here.
For the past few years I haven’t really paid any attention to this stuff because I guess I didn’t really care. But now that M.River and I have made our decision to start doing some gallery work (not just on-line hijinks), I find it a tad troubling just how outside the whole art world thing we actually are. Bah!
Good luck everybody! Send me some free passes!
(PS, please commiserate in the comments if you’re feeling left out too.) permanent link to this post
Hot shit
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Massive Manure Fire Burns Into Third Month (AP)
Makes me proud to be a carnivore — oy! permanent link to this post
Makes me proud to be a carnivore — oy! permanent link to this post
Homeland Insecurity Advisory System
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Today, in conjunction with the US Department of Art & Technology, Jonah Brucker-Cohen launched his newest project, the Homeland Insecurity Advisory System. The Homeland Insecurity Advisory System (HIAS) is a public rating system that allows people from across the globe to determine the US Government’s Threat Level by collectively rating RSS (Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) feeds from major US news sources.
link: Homeland Insecurity Advisory System permanent link to this post
link: Homeland Insecurity Advisory System permanent link to this post
Heavy duty postcards - film at 11!
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Roberta Smith in the NYT:
I’m trying to figure out who exactly this article was written for. It seems so supremely naval-gazing that it really should have been put on a blog somewhere (NYT art reviewer with a blog? Is it raining toads?).
Roberta, get a clue, the vast majority of your readers don’t receive the high-end invites from the gallery blue-chips.
Whatev. My whole interest in this article is simply a ruse to link to an old art work of MTAA’s that exalted the lowly flimsy postcard invite of the more low-lying echelon’s of the New York art world.
Our piece, IN PREPARATION FOR THE SUMMER AIR IN BROOKLYN TO RISE FROM THE CONCRETE IN A MANNER WHICH DISTORTS ONE’S ABILITY TO JUDGE DISTANCE AND MEANING (AKA MANUAL ZOOM MIRAGE), never got as much attention as it deserved in my opinion.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot… Go Vote! permanent link to this post
Lifted your mail lately? Counted the number of ostentatious announcement cards printed on stock that approaches, and sometimes exceeds, the thickness of cardboard?uuummm. no?
It is one more sign that some New York art galleries of the contemporary kind have more money than they know what to do with, and that the competition for attention-getting frivolities in the overpopulated art scene is on the rise.
Each day’s mail seems to deliver a series of challenges and counter-challenges from the galleries that consider themselves in the upper echelon of the upper echelon.
via Art Promoted Heavily (Even in Your Mailbox)
I’m trying to figure out who exactly this article was written for. It seems so supremely naval-gazing that it really should have been put on a blog somewhere (NYT art reviewer with a blog? Is it raining toads?).
Roberta, get a clue, the vast majority of your readers don’t receive the high-end invites from the gallery blue-chips.
Whatev. My whole interest in this article is simply a ruse to link to an old art work of MTAA’s that exalted the lowly flimsy postcard invite of the more low-lying echelon’s of the New York art world.
Our piece, IN PREPARATION FOR THE SUMMER AIR IN BROOKLYN TO RISE FROM THE CONCRETE IN A MANNER WHICH DISTORTS ONE’S ABILITY TO JUDGE DISTANCE AND MEANING (AKA MANUAL ZOOM MIRAGE), never got as much attention as it deserved in my opinion.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot… Go Vote! permanent link to this post
Help: 1 year performance video
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA’s web art project 1 year performance video is a victim of it’s own success.
The piece lives on Turbulence.org and it’s causing bandwidth overages.
It’s a commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. They are a not-for-profit arts organization that has been commissioning web and net art projects since the early days of the medium and they simply can’t afford the overage charges.
If you have resources to help us continue to serve this piece on the web please contact T.Whid using the email link on mteww.com/mtaaRR (near bottom of the left nav).
If you are considering helping out, check out the piece: 1 year performance video.
mriver adds:
Please, please, please. We’ll behave for once AND we’ll give you a real live MTAA drawing. (9 x 12, ink on Arches watercolor paper) Ooo- la-la. permanent link to this post
The piece lives on Turbulence.org and it’s causing bandwidth overages.
It’s a commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. They are a not-for-profit arts organization that has been commissioning web and net art projects since the early days of the medium and they simply can’t afford the overage charges.
If you have resources to help us continue to serve this piece on the web please contact T.Whid using the email link on mteww.com/mtaaRR (near bottom of the left nav).
If you are considering helping out, check out the piece: 1 year performance video.
mriver adds:
Please, please, please. We’ll behave for once AND we’ll give you a real live MTAA drawing. (9 x 12, ink on Arches watercolor paper) Ooo- la-la. permanent link to this post
Has Google become evil?
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Check out this story over on eWeek
This is pretty funked up I must say, from the article: When Oceana challenged the ban, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google responded with an e-mail advising the group that it doesn’t accept ads with “language that advocates against Royal Caribbean.” That sounds like an incredibly amateurish sort of thing to say, no? Did they have an intern write it or something? Anyway, it’s sad. I’m used to thinking of Google on the side of the Good&trade, but it’s looking more and more like the power has gone to their heads. permanent link to this post
This is pretty funked up I must say, from the article: When Oceana challenged the ban, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google responded with an e-mail advising the group that it doesn’t accept ads with “language that advocates against Royal Caribbean.” That sounds like an incredibly amateurish sort of thing to say, no? Did they have an intern write it or something? Anyway, it’s sad. I’m used to thinking of Google on the side of the Good&trade, but it’s looking more and more like the power has gone to their heads. permanent link to this post
Happy Thanksgiving
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A giant balloon at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade snagged a street light near Times Square and caused part of it to fall into the crowd, injuring two people, according to police and eyewitness accounts.
via: Balloon Injures Two at Macy’s Parade - Yahoo! News
Abe Linkoln says Happy Thanksgiving too! permanent link to this post
Hang on to your hats…
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Hair Metal Redux
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
It’s Music Video Week on the MTAA-RR!
Well, not really, but this song is so funny, but at the same time very catchy, that I had to post it. It’s from a band called The Darkness and they are a shiny new version of the hair metal bands of yore. They’re even from the UK, just like Def Leppard. Watch the video, it could almost be 1983 all over again: spandex, hair, operatic metal vocals, and guitars!
Link to high bandwidth real media version of “Keep Your Hands Off My Woman (Motherfucker)”!
Go to The Darkness’ official site for more video options.
My question: Is it ironic or not? permanent link to this post
Well, not really, but this song is so funny, but at the same time very catchy, that I had to post it. It’s from a band called The Darkness and they are a shiny new version of the hair metal bands of yore. They’re even from the UK, just like Def Leppard. Watch the video, it could almost be 1983 all over again: spandex, hair, operatic metal vocals, and guitars!
Link to high bandwidth real media version of “Keep Your Hands Off My Woman (Motherfucker)”!
Go to The Darkness’ official site for more video options.
My question: Is it ironic or not? permanent link to this post
Greater New York gender equality
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Via Newsgrist
Could be totally made-up for all I know. All they have is a screen shot of an email sent from PS1’s press contact (easy to fake). No links to any official acknowledgment or announcement from PS1 (yet). permanent link to this post
Though PS1 positions itself as a venue for cutting edge work, it clearly has not overcome historical prejudices that privilege men over women. The system is still broken, and the efforts made by the PS1 staff to examine work from a wide range of artists were severely flawed.I know nothing about this other than what was found at this website: http://www.brainstormersreport.net/.
On Monday, March 7th, the press office at PS1 released the following numbers about the gender balance of the show:
100 men > 50 women
in other words
33% < acceptable
Could be totally made-up for all I know. All they have is a screen shot of an email sent from PS1’s press contact (easy to fake). No links to any official acknowledgment or announcement from PS1 (yet). permanent link to this post
Google video upload sucks
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Good news: Google has launched their Video Upload Program.
Bad new: appears to be Windows only! WTF?!
And the weird thing is, they don’t even have a system requirements section! There’s a weird little instruction page that assumes that everyone has a Windows machine. You would think that with the popularity of video on the Mac (no matter how you cut it, video is one of the Mac’s strongest points), they would have figured out a way to let Mac users upload video!
So I say, screw you Google! (until you allow Mac and Linux users to upload video, then I will love you again.) permanent link to this post
Bad new: appears to be Windows only! WTF?!
And the weird thing is, they don’t even have a system requirements section! There’s a weird little instruction page that assumes that everyone has a Windows machine. You would think that with the popularity of video on the Mac (no matter how you cut it, video is one of the Mac’s strongest points), they would have figured out a way to let Mac users upload video!
So I say, screw you Google! (until you allow Mac and Linux users to upload video, then I will love you again.) permanent link to this post
Google goes Van Gogh
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Is it Van Gogh’s birthday or something? I guess it is. I didn’t know our birthdays were so close, mine is tomororow :)
Clicking the logo on Google’s site takes you to their results for ‘vincent van gogh.’ permanent link to this post
Getting our asses spammed off
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Just a note. I might be closing comments on this site until I find a solution to the spam issue we’re dealing with.
Most readers probably don’t see a problem, but, trust me, it’s there.
really pisses me off
+++
In other news, M.River is throwing me a bachelor’s party tonight. It will be pretty tame. We’re going to Peter Luger Steak House for dinner (best steaks in NYC), then off to a private speakeasy for some poker. permanent link to this post
Most readers probably don’t see a problem, but, trust me, it’s there.
really pisses me off
+++
In other news, M.River is throwing me a bachelor’s party tonight. It will be pretty tame. We’re going to Peter Luger Steak House for dinner (best steaks in NYC), then off to a private speakeasy for some poker. permanent link to this post
Get yer net art on 2007
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Rhizome has an open call for net art commissions. You could score between US$1k and US$3K to MAKE SOME GODDAMN NET ART FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
Deadline is April 2, 2007 and that ain’t no joke.
Get on over there and find out how to submit a proposal for chrissakes! permanent link to this post
Deadline is April 2, 2007 and that ain’t no joke.
Get on over there and find out how to submit a proposal for chrissakes! permanent link to this post
Get Behind Me Satan
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
(OK, OK, I know I’m entering onto thin ice here with my little music review. M intimately knows a real, live professional music writer. Please be kind to my amateurish peckings.)
I’ve been a pretty big White Stripes fan for a while. M and I even did an artwork involving them. Their new album, “Get Behind Me Satan (iTMS link),” is pretty damn good. The garage-y rock stuff like “Blue Orchid” and “Instinct Blues” really… well, those songs really rock. Jack and Meg know how to use older blues or roots genres while updating them in a way so that they seem fresh.
Take “The Nurse” for example. It starts with piano and vibraphone but interspersed through the beat is some great heavy drum and guitar noise that takes it beyond the average rock-band-gonna-experiment toss-away tunes that bands like The Hives use as filler.
The White Stripes are musically fresh, not lyrically fresh. What bugs me about the album is embodied in the title: “Get Behind Me Satan.” WTF? Jack, man, you’re a white boy from Detroit who grew up in the 80s & 90s. You’re not a black man from the 30s Mississippi delta. Please drop this tired lyrical nostalgia and sing about what you know, not what you wish you knew.
And so ends my nickel review of The White Stripes, “Get Behind Me Satan.” permanent link to this post
I’ve been a pretty big White Stripes fan for a while. M and I even did an artwork involving them. Their new album, “Get Behind Me Satan (iTMS link),” is pretty damn good. The garage-y rock stuff like “Blue Orchid” and “Instinct Blues” really… well, those songs really rock. Jack and Meg know how to use older blues or roots genres while updating them in a way so that they seem fresh.
Take “The Nurse” for example. It starts with piano and vibraphone but interspersed through the beat is some great heavy drum and guitar noise that takes it beyond the average rock-band-gonna-experiment toss-away tunes that bands like The Hives use as filler.
The White Stripes are musically fresh, not lyrically fresh. What bugs me about the album is embodied in the title: “Get Behind Me Satan.” WTF? Jack, man, you’re a white boy from Detroit who grew up in the 80s & 90s. You’re not a black man from the 30s Mississippi delta. Please drop this tired lyrical nostalgia and sing about what you know, not what you wish you knew.
And so ends my nickel review of The White Stripes, “Get Behind Me Satan.” permanent link to this post
wURLdBook Research
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
wURLdBook’s mission is to help people stay connected to information on the Web. wURLdBook is a free web based information aggregator. wURLdBook offers you a new way to unobtrusively navigate, collect, categorize, annotate, clip, archive, find, publish RSS (including enclosures) and share information with others that is important to you on the web.wURLdBook Research
This sounds pretty cool and very Mac-friendly too. permanent link to this post
Cleaning out my closet
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Actually, I was cleaning up my bookmarks and I found lots of very cool bits of info that most web/graphic/visual designers would find useful so I list them below, have fun.
logotypes - company logos in vector formats
NS4 compatible 3 column CSS layout
PNG behavior - get your alpha on in MSIE
Javascript & Iframes - a good breakdown
Zeldman’s good CSS links
Mezzoblue’s css crib sheet
Lipsum generator - all the gibberish that’s fit to print
CSS2 reference - I use this on a weekly basis
Perhaps I’ll keep adding to this list… let me know if you find it helpful. permanent link to this post
logotypes - company logos in vector formats
NS4 compatible 3 column CSS layout
PNG behavior - get your alpha on in MSIE
Javascript & Iframes - a good breakdown
Zeldman’s good CSS links
Mezzoblue’s css crib sheet
Lipsum generator - all the gibberish that’s fit to print
CSS2 reference - I use this on a weekly basis
Perhaps I’ll keep adding to this list… let me know if you find it helpful. permanent link to this post
Webmonkey closes
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Is it the end of an era? Or just an error? Webmonkey closes.
I learned much from Webmonkey back in the day. But Webmonkey, along with their non-standards supporting interface, has simply been left behind. permanent link to this post
I learned much from Webmonkey back in the day. But Webmonkey, along with their non-standards supporting interface, has simply been left behind. permanent link to this post
Speaking of enhancing the MTAA-RR
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
On my way to the deli I wondered if there is a plist parser written in PHP. Why would one want such a thing and what the hell is a plist you ask?
To answer the second question first, a plist (property list) is an XML format (created by Apple I believe) that is used “to store, organize and access standard data types” (definition from Apple’s site). Generally, it’s used in Mac OS X to store user preferences and other info that an application might need. If you use Mac OS X, look in ~/Library/Preferences to see examples.
But why would we want a PHP parser for this stuff? So you can parse plists anywhere that’s why. Why would you want to parse plists anywhere? I have one very specific application in mind. I want to parse my NetNewsWire sync data and display it somewhere on this blog.
When you sync NetNewsWire 2.0 via FTP it stores the state of your feed reading in plist format on your server. If I had a PHP parser I could share my real feeds in a sort-of blogroll deal. I’m suspicious that some people who have HUGE blogrolls don’t really read them all. If I used NetNewsWire’s sync data I could share my REAL daily feed reading habits.
I found one written in Python, but no PHP. permanent link to this post
To answer the second question first, a plist (property list) is an XML format (created by Apple I believe) that is used “to store, organize and access standard data types” (definition from Apple’s site). Generally, it’s used in Mac OS X to store user preferences and other info that an application might need. If you use Mac OS X, look in ~/Library/Preferences to see examples.
But why would we want a PHP parser for this stuff? So you can parse plists anywhere that’s why. Why would you want to parse plists anywhere? I have one very specific application in mind. I want to parse my NetNewsWire sync data and display it somewhere on this blog.
When you sync NetNewsWire 2.0 via FTP it stores the state of your feed reading in plist format on your server. If I had a PHP parser I could share my real feeds in a sort-of blogroll deal. I’m suspicious that some people who have HUGE blogrolls don’t really read them all. If I used NetNewsWire’s sync data I could share my REAL daily feed reading habits.
I found one written in Python, but no PHP. permanent link to this post
RSS: Really Stupid Syndication?
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Or, does RSS = DoS?
Is RSS too stupid to behave properly on the Internet? CmdrTaco over on Slashdot seems to think so:
More here, and here. permanent link to this post
Is RSS too stupid to behave properly on the Internet? CmdrTaco over on Slashdot seems to think so:
We’ve seen similiar problems over the years. RSS (or as it should be called, “Speedfeed”) is such a useful thing, it’s unfortunate that it’s ultimately just very stupid.I’m not sure what he means by stupid. Is the tech stupid? There is a tag for ‘last updated’ in RSS but not all readers and aggregators pay attention to it I guess.
More here, and here. permanent link to this post
Quicktime 7 released
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
The new Quicktime 7 is pretty cool. Only for Mac OS (both panther and tiger) for now. Haha PC users!
I’ve already upgraded to Pro. The scaling to fullscreen is definitely very eye-candiful. Worked great on my G4 1.25 with a 64MB ATI video card (running two monitors).
They’re boasting an awful lot about the this new H.264 (there’s a catchy name) format, but I can’t find any damn content on Apple’s site to watch. Anybody know where any is? Somebody point me to some of the HD quality stuff, please!
There are a bunch of new features in QTPro. You can capture audio and video right in QT (don’t have to fire up FCP or iMovie anymore, yeah!); more editing controls (easier to create in- and out-points); export concurrently; the interface is redone and cooler; and this new H.264 (damn marketing must have gotten to that name) codec of course (where is any? where? where? I’ll do some tests; maybe post them later).
Definitely a solid upgrade and it’s nice to get some Tiger tech without upgrading the OS.
Update: I should have added this, from Apple:
update the 3rd: The system recommendations for the HD content are fairly high. My system doesn’t meet the requirements for the true HD content (1920x1080 (1080p)). Running the 1080p stuff I could only get about 12-13 FPS. And my monitor isn’t big enough to fit it at it’s native resolution anyway :-( (maybe it’s time to upgrade…? yeah… upgrade…) permanent link to this post
I’ve already upgraded to Pro. The scaling to fullscreen is definitely very eye-candiful. Worked great on my G4 1.25 with a 64MB ATI video card (running two monitors).
They’re boasting an awful lot about the this new H.264 (there’s a catchy name) format, but I can’t find any damn content on Apple’s site to watch. Anybody know where any is? Somebody point me to some of the HD quality stuff, please!
There are a bunch of new features in QTPro. You can capture audio and video right in QT (don’t have to fire up FCP or iMovie anymore, yeah!); more editing controls (easier to create in- and out-points); export concurrently; the interface is redone and cooler; and this new H.264 (damn marketing must have gotten to that name) codec of course (where is any? where? where? I’ll do some tests; maybe post them later).
Definitely a solid upgrade and it’s nice to get some Tiger tech without upgrading the OS.
Update: I should have added this, from Apple:
Installation of QuickTime 7 will disable the QuickTime Pro functionality in prior versions of QuickTime. If you proceed with this installation, you must purchase a new QuickTime 7 Pro key to regain QuickTime Pro functionality.update the 2nd: Finally found some of the HD .movs using h.264, here ‘tis.
update the 3rd: The system recommendations for the HD content are fairly high. My system doesn’t meet the requirements for the true HD content (1920x1080 (1080p)). Running the 1080p stuff I could only get about 12-13 FPS. And my monitor isn’t big enough to fit it at it’s native resolution anyway :-( (maybe it’s time to upgrade…? yeah… upgrade…) permanent link to this post
powered by Blosxom
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
After reading all about the new Movable Type 3 licensing scheme, I can’t think of a recent situation that better illustrates the huge chasm between open-source software (OSS) and the proprietary kind.
Hundreds of people who have poured their imagination and time into creating websites based on MT will now have to deal with the developer’s new license plan which, IMO, restricts the creative use of the software. (See this post on the Eyebeam reBlog for more.) To be clear, I wish the developers of Movable Type the best of luck; this whole situation seems to simply be growing pains. But to put it simply, these licenses underline this simple fact: with proprietary software, it’s not OUR software, it’s THEIR software.
Luckily for Blosxom users, our blogging software is released under the MIT license which is almost absurdly non-restrictive. We’ll never need to post in outrage because our toy is about to be taken away, or rail at Rael. We’re all as much owners and developers of Blosxom as is our main developer and that is the beauty of OSS. permanent link to this post
Hundreds of people who have poured their imagination and time into creating websites based on MT will now have to deal with the developer’s new license plan which, IMO, restricts the creative use of the software. (See this post on the Eyebeam reBlog for more.) To be clear, I wish the developers of Movable Type the best of luck; this whole situation seems to simply be growing pains. But to put it simply, these licenses underline this simple fact: with proprietary software, it’s not OUR software, it’s THEIR software.
Luckily for Blosxom users, our blogging software is released under the MIT license which is almost absurdly non-restrictive. We’ll never need to post in outrage because our toy is about to be taken away, or rail at Rael. We’re all as much owners and developers of Blosxom as is our main developer and that is the beauty of OSS. permanent link to this post
PodART makes Digg’s front page (sorta)
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
OK, OK — I know it was a dupe; I know it was totally self-serving since it led to a blog post that also mentioned PodART and a link to MTAA, but on my second post ever submitted to Digg, I made the front page (sitting pretty at 524 diggs currently — oops, make that 526. They just roll in so fast!).
permanent link to this post
OS X 10.4 Tiger upgrade
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
I upgraded to Tiger last night. The installation went extremely smoothly. I’m using a single 1.8GHz G5 with 2GB of RAM.
Digression 1: I still think it’s funny that the entire contents of my 1st Mac’s hard disk could fit into memory on my current Mac. Digression 2: Yes, I am a loser for being home on a Friday night upgrading my operating system.
INSTALLATION This is all I did: backed-up all my data to an external firewire drive, after I was sure it was safely backed-up, I stuck in the Tiger DVD, chose upgrade and an hour later I was done. Simple. Don’t believe the geek-hype: you don’t need to erase the disk and install clean. Of course, it’s good idea to keep things running smoothly. I just didn’t have time to deal with re-installing all my apps, preferences, etc, etc.
DASHBOARD Dashboard is phat. P.H.A.T. Look for an MTAA widget of some sort soon. Not sure what, but it’s gotta be art. Since I use a 3 button mouse, I set the 3rd button to launch the Dashboard.
SPOTLIGHT I’m kinda torn about Spotlight. I’ve used Quicksilver for a while and like it very much. Spotlight is similar. I guess they can live together happily, but I would like to use one or the other for simplicity. One thing that bums me big time about Spotlight is that it doesn’t seem to index iTunes playlists. It indexes song files, but not playlists. Which sucks. What doesn’t suck is that it indexes text inside email, PDFs and other documents — which I don’t think Quicksilver can do. Maybe I will need to use both…
SAFARI Safari RSS hasn’t done much for me, I use NetNewsWire and will continue :-) One nice thing is that you can set the default app for RSS feeds within Safari, so one click can subscribe you within NetNewsWire.
MAIL I wish you could configure which side the sidebar appears on. I hated the drawer (hopefully the whole drawer idea will die, it’s always been extremely dumb) as much as anybody, but I got used to it being on the right. Now the sidebar is on the left. Also, I don’t think it’s as clear as the old drawer design. It’s not as easy to see which mailboxes have new mail since they aren’t bold. Overall it’s a plus IMO, the design is cleaner and clearer.
FONTS My fonts have been funky for a while. Weird stuff where the wrong font gets activated and renders all crazy in Safari. This doesn’t seem to be a problem anymore.
MISC So far the only problem I’ve had is that I needed to configure Apache to use PHP (the Apache config file got overwritten by the default install). That took all of 1 minute. I did have to install the latest version of my mouse driver. Also, I’ve upgraded other apps like BBEdit and Transmit to the newest versions too. Most of my apps are working flawlessly.
Overall a great update! permanent link to this post
Digression 1: I still think it’s funny that the entire contents of my 1st Mac’s hard disk could fit into memory on my current Mac. Digression 2: Yes, I am a loser for being home on a Friday night upgrading my operating system.
INSTALLATION This is all I did: backed-up all my data to an external firewire drive, after I was sure it was safely backed-up, I stuck in the Tiger DVD, chose upgrade and an hour later I was done. Simple. Don’t believe the geek-hype: you don’t need to erase the disk and install clean. Of course, it’s good idea to keep things running smoothly. I just didn’t have time to deal with re-installing all my apps, preferences, etc, etc.
DASHBOARD Dashboard is phat. P.H.A.T. Look for an MTAA widget of some sort soon. Not sure what, but it’s gotta be art. Since I use a 3 button mouse, I set the 3rd button to launch the Dashboard.
SPOTLIGHT I’m kinda torn about Spotlight. I’ve used Quicksilver for a while and like it very much. Spotlight is similar. I guess they can live together happily, but I would like to use one or the other for simplicity. One thing that bums me big time about Spotlight is that it doesn’t seem to index iTunes playlists. It indexes song files, but not playlists. Which sucks. What doesn’t suck is that it indexes text inside email, PDFs and other documents — which I don’t think Quicksilver can do. Maybe I will need to use both…
SAFARI Safari RSS hasn’t done much for me, I use NetNewsWire and will continue :-) One nice thing is that you can set the default app for RSS feeds within Safari, so one click can subscribe you within NetNewsWire.
MAIL I wish you could configure which side the sidebar appears on. I hated the drawer (hopefully the whole drawer idea will die, it’s always been extremely dumb) as much as anybody, but I got used to it being on the right. Now the sidebar is on the left. Also, I don’t think it’s as clear as the old drawer design. It’s not as easy to see which mailboxes have new mail since they aren’t bold. Overall it’s a plus IMO, the design is cleaner and clearer.
FONTS My fonts have been funky for a while. Weird stuff where the wrong font gets activated and renders all crazy in Safari. This doesn’t seem to be a problem anymore.
MISC So far the only problem I’ve had is that I needed to configure Apache to use PHP (the Apache config file got overwritten by the default install). That took all of 1 minute. I did have to install the latest version of my mouse driver. Also, I’ve upgraded other apps like BBEdit and Transmit to the newest versions too. Most of my apps are working flawlessly.
Overall a great update! permanent link to this post
NYTimes does RSS
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
The New York Times finally has its own RSS Feeds, get ‘em while they’re hot.
Sure, for a long time you could get NYTimes RSS feeds via UserLand but now the Times has its very own feeds.
Maybe Rhizome can get some feeds now? I mean — damn — the old grey lady’s got feeds, you would think a progressive contemporary art site focused on new media could embrace some (not so) new tech. Wouldn’t you? permanent link to this post
Sure, for a long time you could get NYTimes RSS feeds via UserLand but now the Times has its very own feeds.
Maybe Rhizome can get some feeds now? I mean — damn — the old grey lady’s got feeds, you would think a progressive contemporary art site focused on new media could embrace some (not so) new tech. Wouldn’t you? permanent link to this post
NetNewsWire Pro demo expiration
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
NetNewsWire Lite (NNW) introduced me to the wonderful world of RSS (XML) feeds some time ago. RSS-enabled websites and an excellent aggregator like NNW make an info-junky’s wet dreams come true. RSS is crack to HTML’s cocaine.
After using NNW Lite for a long, long time I’m thinking of upgrading to the Pro version and using it’s Weblog Editor to post to this site. To make the editor useful for me I wrote a little applescript that uploads a post to my website when I save it (via NNW’s ‘post’ command) to a specific folder on my hard drive.
But when I downloaded the Pro version I couldn’t use it. The demo had expired. Darn. I must have demo’d the Pro version long ago and forgotten about it. What is an aspiring geek to do? Attempt a hack of course.
But listen up first! Ranchero, the makers of NetNewsWire Pro, seem to be extremely cool Mac OS X developers so don’t use this tip to rip them off! Use this tip only if you’re seriously considering an upgrade and find yourself with an expired demo. It would be extremely UNCOOL to steal from small Mac developers putting out great software like NNW.
And now to the little hack:
It’s ridiculously easy to get the demo working again. This tip is for Panther users and you need to have Xcode installed too. Go to your ~/Library/Preferences folder and find this file:
Xcode comes with a little app called the Property List Editor. If you double-click NNW’s
Of course
After using NNW Lite for a long, long time I’m thinking of upgrading to the Pro version and using it’s Weblog Editor to post to this site. To make the editor useful for me I wrote a little applescript that uploads a post to my website when I save it (via NNW’s ‘post’ command) to a specific folder on my hard drive.
But when I downloaded the Pro version I couldn’t use it. The demo had expired. Darn. I must have demo’d the Pro version long ago and forgotten about it. What is an aspiring geek to do? Attempt a hack of course.
But listen up first! Ranchero, the makers of NetNewsWire Pro, seem to be extremely cool Mac OS X developers so don’t use this tip to rip them off! Use this tip only if you’re seriously considering an upgrade and find yourself with an expired demo. It would be extremely UNCOOL to steal from small Mac developers putting out great software like NNW.
And now to the little hack:
It’s ridiculously easy to get the demo working again. This tip is for Panther users and you need to have Xcode installed too. Go to your ~/Library/Preferences folder and find this file:
com.ranchero.NetNewsWire.plist (ah yes, the .plist, where all good mac hacks start ;-)
Xcode comes with a little app called the Property List Editor. If you double-click NNW’s
.plist file it will open in that app. Next, click the arrow next to “Root”, scoll down to the entry “FirstRun” and double-click on it’s value so it’s editable and change it to something that isn’t more than 30 days ago, like today. And that’s it, NNW Pro should work fine for the next 30 days.
Of course
.plist files are simply XML files that can be edited in any text editor so you don’t NEED the Property List Editor, its just a tad easier.
permanent link to this post
Microsoft to introduce PDF competitor
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Computerworld reports that Microsoft will be including a new document format called ‘Metro’ with Longhorn. Apparently, Metro is intended to be a competitor to Adobe’s PDF and Postscript formats. The format will be open and available for royalty-free licensing, and will be based on XML.This sorta puts the whole Adobe aquiring Macromedia deal into a new light.
via: Microsoft to Introduce PDF competitor ‘Metro’ (The /. commentary is actually not that bad on this one. )
Original article permanent link to this post
Super-drool
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Dual 2.5GHz G5 features liquid cooling
As briefly noted earlier today, Apple’s top-of-the-line dual 2.5GHz Power Mac G5 features a new liquid cooling system that is supposed to be more efficient than a traditional heat sink… [MacMinute.com] permanent link to this post
As briefly noted earlier today, Apple’s top-of-the-line dual 2.5GHz Power Mac G5 features a new liquid cooling system that is supposed to be more efficient than a traditional heat sink… [MacMinute.com] permanent link to this post
iTunes playlists and Spotlight
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
I was a Quicksilver user before I upgraded to Mac OS X 10.4.
Spotlight steals the command-spacebar key combo that launches Quicksilver and the functionality is similar so I decided to see if Spotlight could be used as a replacement.
One thing I really liked about Quicksilver was that it could find an iTunes playlist and let you navigate to items inside it. I use this for one and one thing only — launching my WNYC MP3 streams.
For some reason, Spotlight wasn’t indexing the playlist that I keep the streams in. So I created a little Automator action to launch the stream for WNYC AM 820. It was super-easy (much easier than AppleScript) and only took two actions: “Find Songs in iTunes” and “Start iTunes Playing.” Saved as wnyc.app, I can now type command-spacebar, then type wnyc and launch my stream. Easy-peasy :-) permanent link to this post
Spotlight steals the command-spacebar key combo that launches Quicksilver and the functionality is similar so I decided to see if Spotlight could be used as a replacement.
One thing I really liked about Quicksilver was that it could find an iTunes playlist and let you navigate to items inside it. I use this for one and one thing only — launching my WNYC MP3 streams.
For some reason, Spotlight wasn’t indexing the playlist that I keep the streams in. So I created a little Automator action to launch the stream for WNYC AM 820. It was super-easy (much easier than AppleScript) and only took two actions: “Find Songs in iTunes” and “Start iTunes Playing.” Saved as wnyc.app, I can now type command-spacebar, then type wnyc and launch my stream. Easy-peasy :-) permanent link to this post
Is a Mac OS X RSS aggregator *SMACKDOWN* brewing?
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
It certainly looks that way:
The reigning champ, NetNewsWire, is heading for a BIG upgrade.
But a feisty contender, PulpFiction, is on the horizon.
Looks like it could get interesting…. permanent link to this post
The reigning champ, NetNewsWire, is heading for a BIG upgrade.
But a feisty contender, PulpFiction, is on the horizon.
Looks like it could get interesting…. permanent link to this post
Handy reference
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
This is an extremely handy reference for graphic/web designers:
300 images from 1800 sites, from the site:
I visited only Fortune 1000 company sites, major online retailers, well known blogs, top advertising, publishing, and design agencies, technology and software industy leaders, and the very largest online news publishers.permanent link to this post
Illustrator CS2 woes
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
The new Adobe Illustrator CS2 has some great features, most notably to us here at MTAA, the new auto-trace capabilities. It’s a vast improvement over the old auto-tracing in Illustrator.
But I’ve been having a nasty font issue that won’t even allow me to launch it. Reading a thread on the support forum and a technical article, I narrowed it down to the font issue — and man — it’s an issue. My /Library/Font folder is so fucked up it’s choking the Mac Finder! No wonder AI couldn’t deal. I guess I’ll have to go in there via the Terminal and delete some stuff… don’t know what to delete though.
Wish me luck :-o
update
WooHoo! Fixed it. It was indeed bad fonts or font-like files. Transmit’s ability to browse local files graphically came in very handy in identifying the bad files that needed to be removed from the /Library/Fonts folder. Since the Finder would choke when I tried to open the folder, I used Transmit to browse the folder and see which files didn’t seem to be recognized by OS X as a good font. permanent link to this post
But I’ve been having a nasty font issue that won’t even allow me to launch it. Reading a thread on the support forum and a technical article, I narrowed it down to the font issue — and man — it’s an issue. My /Library/Font folder is so fucked up it’s choking the Mac Finder! No wonder AI couldn’t deal. I guess I’ll have to go in there via the Terminal and delete some stuff… don’t know what to delete though.
Wish me luck :-o
update
WooHoo! Fixed it. It was indeed bad fonts or font-like files. Transmit’s ability to browse local files graphically came in very handy in identifying the bad files that needed to be removed from the /Library/Fonts folder. Since the Finder would choke when I tried to open the folder, I used Transmit to browse the folder and see which files didn’t seem to be recognized by OS X as a good font. permanent link to this post
Ho. Lee. Shit.
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Apple Computer plans to announce Monday that it’s scrapping its partnership with IBM and switching its computers to Intel’s microprocessors, CNET News.com has learned. Apple has used IBM’s PowerPC processors since 1994, but will begin a phased transition to Intel’s chips, sources familiar with the situation said. Apple plans to move lower-end computers such as the Mac Mini to Intel chips in mid-2006 and higher-end models such as the Power Mac in mid-2007, sources said. The announcement is expected Monday at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, at which Chief Executive Steveupdate:
via: Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips | Tech News on ZDNet
There’s some decent chatter on Slashdot and MacSlash (and elsewhere) that puts this whole thing into perspective. Basically, people are speculating that Intel could manufacture PowerPC chips since the original C|Net article didn’t say that Apple would be using x86 (Pentium) chips.
We shall see on Monday. permanent link to this post
I love the Paparazzi!
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
You Mac OS X web developer geeks out there will be excited by this little app called Paparazzi (I know I am). You just feed it a URL and the little app takes a screenshot of the web page in PNG format. The cool thing is it takes a screenshot of the entire page, not just the part that would show up in your browser. No more editing screenshots to get the whole damn page.
It looks to be a GUI wrapper for this command line tool: webkit2png. permanent link to this post
It looks to be a GUI wrapper for this command line tool: webkit2png. permanent link to this post
GIF: pronounced “gif” or “jif” ?
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
I pronounce GIF like it’s spelled, with a hard “G.”
This page makes a good argument that the creators of the format wanted folks to pronounce it “jif” (soft “G”).
It does seem like the creators wanted people to say “jif.” My question is: who cares? If the majority of english speakers see the acronym GIF and say “gif,” then that’s how it’s pronounced. It doesn’t matter what the geek who created the format thinks, he’s been outvoted! permanent link to this post
This page makes a good argument that the creators of the format wanted folks to pronounce it “jif” (soft “G”).
It does seem like the creators wanted people to say “jif.” My question is: who cares? If the majority of english speakers see the acronym GIF and say “gif,” then that’s how it’s pronounced. It doesn’t matter what the geek who created the format thinks, he’s been outvoted! permanent link to this post
Googlex
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Googlex: mad props to OS X!
Google is really doing some amazing interface stuff these days. The cool thing is, much of what they do is very simple, but just works great… like googlex.
Google Suggest and Google Maps also rock.
update
Sadly, it seems Googlex is no more :(
update 2:
Happily, some nice geek mirrored it :) permanent link to this post
Google is really doing some amazing interface stuff these days. The cool thing is, much of what they do is very simple, but just works great… like googlex.
Google Suggest and Google Maps also rock.
update
Sadly, it seems Googlex is no more :(
update 2:
Happily, some nice geek mirrored it :) permanent link to this post
Firefox now builds with SVG
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Firefox nightly builds now have SVG support. (Look for builds with the string -svg- in them.) Currently Linux is not build with SVG; both the Mac and Win32 are.from: Firefox nightlies now build with SVG - Anne’s Weblog about Markup & Style
If you are using an older version of Windows it might be that you get a warning message. Also note that native SVG support is disabled by default. To enable it you need to follow some steps.
Have fun! You can try your build with some nice SVG samples or you can run it through the W3C SVG test suite.
Although in the current nightlies SVG is disabled it might be that native SVG support in Firefox 1.1 will be enabled by default. Another update: it appears the patch attached to this bug has been checked in; Firefox now builds with SVG and has support for it enabled by default. This seems like a good thing with the only downside that authors might think to ‘know’ how SVG works, while it actually is a bug. (For example, try width:200 in Internet Explorer
ooooooooooOOOOOO
Hopefully this will light a fire under Microsoft’s ass. They’ve been adding improved standards and native alpha support for PNG to MSIE lately — seemingly because of Firefox’s competition. Will they follow this lead as well? Let’s hope. permanent link to this post
Free Apache software odyssey
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
This weekend I’ve been on a little geek odyssey.
It all started with a possible job redesigning a site that currently uses coldfusion. So, I thought to myself, I need to learn some coldfusion.
To install coldfusion on a Mac OS X, you need to have Tomcat installed. So I installed it.
Then, I saw a posting on Zeldman’s site about a CMS from Apache called Lenya. It can be installed under Tomcat too (tho I never got it to work that way). But I did get it to work as a standalone servlet. Of course Lenya led me to Cocoon which I had to install and give a whirl.
Finally, after all of that, I remembered that I was supposed to be installing coldfusion. I followed the directions on Macromedia’s site, but for some reason it’s not deploying on my Tomcat set-up at home. I did get it to work on my machine at work though. permanent link to this post
It all started with a possible job redesigning a site that currently uses coldfusion. So, I thought to myself, I need to learn some coldfusion.
To install coldfusion on a Mac OS X, you need to have Tomcat installed. So I installed it.
Then, I saw a posting on Zeldman’s site about a CMS from Apache called Lenya. It can be installed under Tomcat too (tho I never got it to work that way). But I did get it to work as a standalone servlet. Of course Lenya led me to Cocoon which I had to install and give a whirl.
Finally, after all of that, I remembered that I was supposed to be installing coldfusion. I followed the directions on Macromedia’s site, but for some reason it’s not deploying on my Tomcat set-up at home. I did get it to work on my machine at work though. permanent link to this post
Dreamhost servers run Debian Linux
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
It took me a while to track this info down, so I thought I’d share it here with what I think are the keywords that someone might use in Google when trying to track down the same.
Dreamhost servers run the Debian Linux operating system. As of Sept 7, 2005 the are currently using the “Woody” version. All according to their wiki.
Keywords:
Dreamhost, Linux, operating system, version, distro, distribution permanent link to this post
Dreamhost servers run the Debian Linux operating system. As of Sept 7, 2005 the are currently using the “Woody” version. All according to their wiki.
Keywords:
Dreamhost, Linux, operating system, version, distro, distribution permanent link to this post
Microsoft awarded patent on double-clicking
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
And I’m not making it up. It’s true!
Here’s a nice understatement from the article:
Here’s a nice understatement from the article:
“These are symptoms of the fact that the patent system is not well-adapted to being applied to software,” says Jonas Maebe, of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructurepermanent link to this post
CSS podGuide
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
I would be completely remiss in my Mac/web-dev geekitude if I didn’t post a link to Westciv’s CSS podGuide, from their site:
The Style Master CSS podGuide is an iPod ready edition of our renowned Complete CSS Guide. Featuring a handy overview of CSS concepts, and in-depth information for every selector, property and @rule of CSS 2.1, the CSS podGuide is a must have for any web developer with an iPodI downloaded it to my iPod and I must say it’s pretty cool. It takes a minute to load up the first time but after that you’ll have a handy CSS reference handy at all times. Cool. permanent link to this post
Create 2 feeds for different media formats in Wordpress 1.5 (quick and dirty)
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
When linking to media files in WP 1.5.2 the default behavior is to create 2 enclosures for that particular item in the RSS 2.0 feed. My quick and dirty little hack allows me to generate 2 separate feeds for two different media formats. It’s not a plugin for Wordpress and isn’t easily extended without some knowledge of PHP.
What I did is fairly simple and specific to my needs. First, in wp-rss2.php I check for a query string with the media format I want in the feed:
Note: This needs to go after the
Then later in the same file I decide whether I should pass the format to the rss_enclosure() function. If there is a format specified we pass it to the function, if there isn’t, we just pass false:
The official WP version of rss_enclosure() doesn’t take an argument, I edited that a bit so that it would take an argument. It is in the file wp-includes/feed-functions.php:
You can see that I only check for WMV or M4V, eg,
Now I can construct a URL like this and get a feed for the specified file format:
That’s all fine and good but I wanted nicer URLs. A little bit of work in my .htaccess file:
And now a URL like this works:
+++
This was a quick and dirty hack for my specific purposes. There’s definitely smarter and more extensible ways to do this. I wish I had time to make a plugin or something to help out more people, but this is what I have presently.
Sorry for the funky formatting of some of the code above. You’ll probably need to cut and paste into your text editor to make any sense out of it. permanent link to this post
What I did is fairly simple and specific to my needs. First, in wp-rss2.php I check for a query string with the media format I want in the feed:
if ( isset($_GET['format']) ) {
$enc_format = 1;
} else {
$enc_format = 0;
}
Note: This needs to go after the
if (empty($feed)) { etc } bit.
Then later in the same file I decide whether I should pass the format to the rss_enclosure() function. If there is a format specified we pass it to the function, if there isn’t, we just pass false:
if ( $enc_format ) {
rss_enclosure($_GET['format']);
} else {
rss_enclosure(false);
}
The official WP version of rss_enclosure() doesn’t take an argument, I edited that a bit so that it would take an argument. It is in the file wp-includes/feed-functions.php:
function rss_enclosure($input)
{
global $id, $post;
if (!empty($post->post_password) &&¬
($_COOKIE['wp-postpass_'.COOKIEHASH] ¬
!= $post->post_password)) return;
if( is_array( $custom_fields ) )
{
while( list( $key, $val ) = each( $custom_fields ) ) {
if( $key == 'enclosure' ) {
if (is_array($val)) {
foreach($val as $enc) {
$enclosure = split( "\n", $enc );
if ( $input )
{
if ( $input == "wmv" && trim( $enclosure[ 2 ] ) ¬
== "video/x-ms-wmv" ) {
print "<enclosure url='".trim¬
( htmlspecialchars($enclosure[ 0 ])¬
)."' length='".trim( $enclosure[ 1 ] )."' ¬
type='".trim( $enclosure[ 2 ] )."'/>\n";
}
if ( $input == "m4v" && trim( $enclosure[ 2 ] ) ¬
== "video/quicktime" ) {
print "<enclosure url='".trim¬
( htmlspecialchars($enclosure[ 0 ])¬
)."' length='".trim( $enclosure[ 1 ] )."' ¬
type='".trim( $enclosure[ 2 ] )."'/>\n";
}
}
else
{
print "<enclosure url='".trim¬
( htmlspecialchars($enclosure[ 0 ])¬
)."' length='".trim( $enclosure[ 1 ] )."' ¬
type='".trim( $enclosure[ 2 ] )."'/>\n";
}}}}}}}
You can see that I only check for WMV or M4V, eg,
if ( $input == "m4v" etc. Those are the two formats I will be using in my project. It works like this: if I’m asking for a WMV file and the enclosure is of that type, it writes the enclosure line. The same for M4V. If there is no format specified both enclosure tags are written. If the format isn’t recognized, no enclosure tag is written.
Now I can construct a URL like this and get a feed for the specified file format:
http://www.domain.com/wp_dir/index.php?feed=rss2&format=m4v
That’s all fine and good but I wanted nicer URLs. A little bit of work in my .htaccess file:
RewriteRule ^wp/feed/?(.*$) /wp/index.php?feed=rss2&format=$1 [QSA,L]
And now a URL like this works:
http://www.domain.com/wp_dir/feed/m4v
+++
This was a quick and dirty hack for my specific purposes. There’s definitely smarter and more extensible ways to do this. I wish I had time to make a plugin or something to help out more people, but this is what I have presently.
Sorry for the funky formatting of some of the code above. You’ll probably need to cut and paste into your text editor to make any sense out of it. permanent link to this post
Ajax, Shmajax. Read about the future of HTML
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
HTML isn’t a very good language for making Web pages. However, it has been a very good language for making the Web.
via IBM The future of HTML, Part 1: WHATWG permanent link to this post
Apocalypse (maybe) now
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Apple Developing Two Button Mouse
&
Microsoft support of PNG alpha-transparency
My world is being turned upside-down! permanent link to this post
&
Microsoft support of PNG alpha-transparency
My world is being turned upside-down! permanent link to this post
Adobe to acquire Macromedia
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Holy shit!
My thoughts and hopes for what’s going to happen because of this:
1. GoLive will GoAway. (will anyone care?)
2. Hopefully they’ll take Illustrator’s tools and interface and slap Flash’s timeline and actionscript onto it. At the very least, we’ll get beefed-up interoperability between Illustrator and Flash and PDF (which would be extremely helpful).
3. Since Adobe was pushing SVG as an alternative to Flash, I wonder if they’ll keep promoting it? Not that they were doing a particularly good job.
4. Fireworks will go away. (will anyone care?) This application has always suffered because of Photoshop’s dominance.
5. Wonder if they’ll build any bridges between After Effects and Director? Imagine including an After Effects project as a ‘live object’ within Director, that could be cool.
6. Nothing will happen to InDesign.
7. Hopefully they’ll build better font support into Flash. Flash’s font handling sucks hard.
8. Import Flash animations into After Effects? Holy shit! That would be great. permanent link to this post
Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR) in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion.via: About Adobe - Adobe to acquire Macromedia
My thoughts and hopes for what’s going to happen because of this:
1. GoLive will GoAway. (will anyone care?)
2. Hopefully they’ll take Illustrator’s tools and interface and slap Flash’s timeline and actionscript onto it. At the very least, we’ll get beefed-up interoperability between Illustrator and Flash and PDF (which would be extremely helpful).
3. Since Adobe was pushing SVG as an alternative to Flash, I wonder if they’ll keep promoting it? Not that they were doing a particularly good job.
4. Fireworks will go away. (will anyone care?) This application has always suffered because of Photoshop’s dominance.
5. Wonder if they’ll build any bridges between After Effects and Director? Imagine including an After Effects project as a ‘live object’ within Director, that could be cool.
6. Nothing will happen to InDesign.
7. Hopefully they’ll build better font support into Flash. Flash’s font handling sucks hard.
8. Import Flash animations into After Effects? Holy shit! That would be great. permanent link to this post
new iPod info leaked
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid/geek
Newsweek inadvertently leaked an article about the new 4G iPod to be officially announced this week. The article has been taken down (you can check if it’s back at this link) but you can read the text below.
July 26 issue - Veteran Podsters understand that at least once a year Apple performs a feat that at once infuses them with dread and delight: an iPod upgrade. The delight comes from a new look and new capabilities. The dread comes from the realization that you’re a step behind the cutting edge and must consider whether to buy your way back on it.
And here it goes again. The considerably tweaked fourth-generation iPod will roll out this week, and NEWSWEEK got an advance peek. It looks a bit different, operates more efficiently, has a few more features and costs less. Here are the highlights.
The click wheel. The iPod keeps getting slimmer and more streamlined. While the initial version had a relatively boxy feel, subsequent versions have been curvier and smaller. This one is about a millimeter thinner and, more significantly, eliminates the control buttons that sat under the display screen. Instead, it uses a “click wheel,” where the controls are placed on the compass points of the circular touchpad that lets you scroll through menus. This is an innovation carried over from the diminutive iPod Mini. “It was developed out of necessity for the Mini, because there wasn’t enough room [for the buttons],” says Steve Jobs. “But the minute we experienced it we just thought, ‘My God, why didn’t we think of this sooner?’ ”
New features. You can create multiple on-the-go playlists and delete songs from those ad hoc mixes. And audiobooks are not only easier to find, you can listen to them at normal speed, slower or 25 percent faster, without its sounding like a Munchkin.
Longer play. Coast-to-coasters rejoice: the new iPods are rated for 12 hours of rockin’ between chargesÑa 50 percent boost in battery life. This is accomplished, Apple says, not by a heavier battery but diligent conservation of power.
Lower price. The top-of-the-line iPod, holding 10,000 songs (40 gigs, as geeks will tell you), now costs $399. The lower-capacity model, with room for 5,000 songs (20 gigs), costs $299. That’s a $100 price reduction for each. (There’s no more 15-gig model.)
Color. Fuggedaboutit. Despite rumors to the contrary, the wide-bodies are still as pure as the driven snow.
Bottom line: If you have yet to jump on the iPod bandwagon, it’s cheaper and more attractive to do so. If you’re already plugged in, the question is whether you should engage in the “iPod Bump,” where you snap up the spiffy new version and pass Old Reliable to a grateful friend or family member (or the highest eBay bidder). If your music collection has exceeded your iPod’s storage space, or your listening binges exceed your current iPod’s battery lifeÑor if you want to hear Bill Clinton’s abridged book in 4-1/2 hours rather than sixÑconsider the Bump this time around. Of course, if your heart went aflutter at the very sight of this year’s model, you’re probably in line at the Apple Store already. permanent link to this post
July 26 issue - Veteran Podsters understand that at least once a year Apple performs a feat that at once infuses them with dread and delight: an iPod upgrade. The delight comes from a new look and new capabilities. The dread comes from the realization that you’re a step behind the cutting edge and must consider whether to buy your way back on it.
And here it goes again. The considerably tweaked fourth-generation iPod will roll out this week, and NEWSWEEK got an advance peek. It looks a bit different, operates more efficiently, has a few more features and costs less. Here are the highlights.
The click wheel. The iPod keeps getting slimmer and more streamlined. While the initial version had a relatively boxy feel, subsequent versions have been curvier and smaller. This one is about a millimeter thinner and, more significantly, eliminates the control buttons that sat under the display screen. Instead, it uses a “click wheel,” where the controls are placed on the compass points of the circular touchpad that lets you scroll through menus. This is an innovation carried over from the diminutive iPod Mini. “It was developed out of necessity for the Mini, because there wasn’t enough room [for the buttons],” says Steve Jobs. “But the minute we experienced it we just thought, ‘My God, why didn’t we think of this sooner?’ ”
New features. You can create multiple on-the-go playlists and delete songs from those ad hoc mixes. And audiobooks are not only easier to find, you can listen to them at normal speed, slower or 25 percent faster, without its sounding like a Munchkin.
Longer play. Coast-to-coasters rejoice: the new iPods are rated for 12 hours of rockin’ between chargesÑa 50 percent boost in battery life. This is accomplished, Apple says, not by a heavier battery but diligent conservation of power.
Lower price. The top-of-the-line iPod, holding 10,000 songs (40 gigs, as geeks will tell you), now costs $399. The lower-capacity model, with room for 5,000 songs (20 gigs), costs $299. That’s a $100 price reduction for each. (There’s no more 15-gig model.)
Color. Fuggedaboutit. Despite rumors to the contrary, the wide-bodies are still as pure as the driven snow.
Bottom line: If you have yet to jump on the iPod bandwagon, it’s cheaper and more attractive to do so. If you’re already plugged in, the question is whether you should engage in the “iPod Bump,” where you snap up the spiffy new version and pass Old Reliable to a grateful friend or family member (or the highest eBay bidder). If your music collection has exceeded your iPod’s storage space, or your listening binges exceed your current iPod’s battery lifeÑor if you want to hear Bill Clinton’s abridged book in 4-1/2 hours rather than sixÑconsider the Bump this time around. Of course, if your heart went aflutter at the very sight of this year’s model, you’re probably in line at the Apple Store already. permanent link to this post
Gallerist busts artist
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
via: Bloggy
What a dork. Seriously, someone goes to Weiss for a painting retailing for thousands of dollars but decides to plunk down 100 bucks for a small ‘bootleg’ instead? Bullshit.
update:
Moody’s got some comments about this as well as some images of Doeringer’s ‘bootlegs.’ permanent link to this post
[…]
On Saturday, Mike Weiss called the police on Eric [Doeringer]. James has the story. This is my favorite part:He packed up his work and confronted Mr. Weiss, who admitted he had called the police. He said that he didn’t like “seeing people walking around with tiny paintings,” while he was paying high rent for his gallery and, “trying to sell $30,000 paintings.” When Doeringer told him he was certainly going to let everyone he knew in the art world hear about what he had done, Weiss said, “If that’s the way you want to play it, I’ll call the police whenever I see you anywhere.”
[…]
Eric has posted his account on his website.
What a dork. Seriously, someone goes to Weiss for a painting retailing for thousands of dollars but decides to plunk down 100 bucks for a small ‘bootleg’ instead? Bullshit.
update:
Moody’s got some comments about this as well as some images of Doeringer’s ‘bootlegs.’ permanent link to this post
Gallery hopping on Sat
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
After visiting my accountant this past Saturday (taxes, ugh). I popped over to Chelsea to see some art.
First stop was Pace Wildenstein for Logical Conclusions: 40 Years of Rule-Based Art which featured lots of big art stars and RSG. RSG was sharing a room with Paul Pfeiffer. The curator was trying to draw some progression through time so I guess video games follow video. But that stuff is always a curatorial construct with no basis in reality.
After that it was one big blur of crap. I remember thinking two things over and over, “Why do I hate so much art if I’m an artist?”, and the words “fucking painting” kept going through my head.
Finally I stumbled into Postmasters who were showing Guy Ben-Ner who’s work is witty and fun and put me back into a good mood. permanent link to this post
First stop was Pace Wildenstein for Logical Conclusions: 40 Years of Rule-Based Art which featured lots of big art stars and RSG. RSG was sharing a room with Paul Pfeiffer. The curator was trying to draw some progression through time so I guess video games follow video. But that stuff is always a curatorial construct with no basis in reality.
After that it was one big blur of crap. I remember thinking two things over and over, “Why do I hate so much art if I’m an artist?”, and the words “fucking painting” kept going through my head.
Finally I stumbled into Postmasters who were showing Guy Ben-Ner who’s work is witty and fun and put me back into a good mood. permanent link to this post
Gallery unveils interactive tree
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
One word: Endnode. permanent link to this post
A Christmas tree that can receive text messages has been unveiled at London’s Tate Britain art gallery.
[ via: Gallery unveils interactive tree ]
Fuck The South
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I had to link to this because it’s so damn funny.
Fuck The South
Fuck The South
The next dickwad who says, “It’s your money, not the government’s money” is gonna get their ass kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal fucking dollars and pay the least… can you guess? Go on, guess. That’s right, motherfucker, they’re red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? It’s too easy, asshole, they’re blue states. It’s not your money, assholes, it’s fucking our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own fucking stop signs, assholes.permanent link to this post
Fuck Pataki redux
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Serious rant, be forwarned…
More on the Drawing Center/Freedom Center/WTC memorial/Pataki’s an ass/Bloomberg’s a hedging technocrat brouhaha at the NYTimes.
(First mentioned on this site here, check out Kevin’s letter to the Daily News in the comments.)
Concise commentary on Greg.org too.
NYC art institutions have to step up, throw down, grow some balls, whatever you want to call it and tell these pandering politicians that if government censors are part of the deal, then NO NYC art institution is going to play ball!
Artists too! Who’ll join me in boycotting (both exhibiting or visiting) any art museum or gallery that plays ball with the goon Pataki and his art police? Who’s coming with me? Who’s coming with me?
It’s just so fucking new America to apply censorship to a museum called the Freedom Center and say you’re protecting freedom from ‘denigration’ by making the institution a free speech-free zone.
Aaaarrrggghhhhh! permanent link to this post
More on the Drawing Center/Freedom Center/WTC memorial/Pataki’s an ass/Bloomberg’s a hedging technocrat brouhaha at the NYTimes.
(First mentioned on this site here, check out Kevin’s letter to the Daily News in the comments.)
Concise commentary on Greg.org too.
NYC art institutions have to step up, throw down, grow some balls, whatever you want to call it and tell these pandering politicians that if government censors are part of the deal, then NO NYC art institution is going to play ball!
Artists too! Who’ll join me in boycotting (both exhibiting or visiting) any art museum or gallery that plays ball with the goon Pataki and his art police? Who’s coming with me? Who’s coming with me?
It’s just so fucking new America to apply censorship to a museum called the Freedom Center and say you’re protecting freedom from ‘denigration’ by making the institution a free speech-free zone.
Aaaarrrggghhhhh! permanent link to this post
Fuck Pataki
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Pataki, via the NY Daily News:
What a fucking dumbass. What “denigrates New York or freedom” is the NY Gov’s seeming intolerance of free expression.
Evidently the ‘freedom’ in Freedom Tower doesn’t cover free speech.
What a bunch of fucking assholes. permanent link to this post
We will not tolerate anything on that site that denigrates America, denigrates New York or freedom or denigrates the sacrifice and courage that the heroes showed on Sept. 11.
What a fucking dumbass. What “denigrates New York or freedom” is the NY Gov’s seeming intolerance of free expression.
Evidently the ‘freedom’ in Freedom Tower doesn’t cover free speech.
What a bunch of fucking assholes. permanent link to this post
fuck ___ ______
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This is the entire N.W.A. Straight Outta Compton album edited down into just the “explicit” content.via: |:ni9e:|:destruction:|:production:|
Listen to it here. permanent link to this post
From The Floor review of ArtBase 101
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Practical Jokes, Mechanical GIFs, and Art Data
MTAA’s favorite part:
MTAA’s favorite part:
Far from showcasing tech art by tech artists that can only be appreciated by other techies, this show presents an emerging body of art that sparks thought about new uses for a technology that is mostly deployed for commercial ends. Anyone interested in artistic practice today (Luddites included) will appreciate the current state of the art as shown herepermanent link to this post
Rhizome needs to drop its membership fee and free its content
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
During the debate regarding Rhizome’s membership fee I was very vocal in my support of the idea. The argument went like this: an obligatory membership fee for Rhizome is better than no Rhizome at all. I was sure that if the fee wasn’t implemented then Rhizome as we know it would cease to exist. There would be no more lists, no more ArtBase, and no more web site.
But what I failed to understand is that the fee basically caused Rhizome to cease to exist. As the founders and current directors of Rhizome know well, to exist on the network you need to be linked. I am hyper-referenced therefor I am. Rhizome’s membership fee effectively shuts down links to articles and artwork on Rhizome’s web site.
I know, it’s free on friday. But if I want to link to a Rhizome post or artwork, am I to attach a disclaimer? “This link only functions on Fridays.”
I know, first time’s free. But what if I have visitors to my site who follow the links to Rhizome regularly? They get shut out.
Why should Rhizome care? Since I can’t trust links will resolve to the article or the artwork they point too, I simply don’t link to Rhizome. I didn’t mean this to happen, it just started happening. I can’t help but think that other people must feel the same way.
These days newer on-line publishing technologies like weblogs, (RSS, RDF, Atom) feeds, and link aggregators (like del.icio.us) are connecting people to information in very exciting ways but I have a feeling that Rhizome is being left out and left behind. How many blogs link to Rhizome articles and artworks? Probably not many, blog authors know the value of freely linking across the web; Rhizome stops them at the door.
Being locked up behind the membership fee leads to a degradation in the content on Rhizome. We could argue whether it’s happening or not — I’m not sure it’s happening myself — but I’m sure it’s going to happen and I’ll tell you why. Folks don’t want to post to closed forums. If they want their articles read or their artwork looked at they want to be linked far and wide. Sure they might drop a post on Rhizome (if they’re a member) and a few other places. If the other places are free, guess where the links will go? Not to Rhizome. So at best you’ll get duplicate content on Rhizome which is harder to find. Since not as many people are finding Rhizome, membership might start to drop. Since membership is dropping even fewer articles are posted; a very bad downward cycle could start.
Rhizome needs to drop the fee, find new ways to connect with new audiences — an XML feed of the Rhiz list posts would be a good start — and then work on ways to get these new audiences to donate voluntarily.
Perhaps it was an emergency at the time the fee curtain came down. I hope it’s over and Rhizome finds a way to free their content.
I really want to link Rhizome. permanent link to this post
But what I failed to understand is that the fee basically caused Rhizome to cease to exist. As the founders and current directors of Rhizome know well, to exist on the network you need to be linked. I am hyper-referenced therefor I am. Rhizome’s membership fee effectively shuts down links to articles and artwork on Rhizome’s web site.
I know, it’s free on friday. But if I want to link to a Rhizome post or artwork, am I to attach a disclaimer? “This link only functions on Fridays.”
I know, first time’s free. But what if I have visitors to my site who follow the links to Rhizome regularly? They get shut out.
Why should Rhizome care? Since I can’t trust links will resolve to the article or the artwork they point too, I simply don’t link to Rhizome. I didn’t mean this to happen, it just started happening. I can’t help but think that other people must feel the same way.
These days newer on-line publishing technologies like weblogs, (RSS, RDF, Atom) feeds, and link aggregators (like del.icio.us) are connecting people to information in very exciting ways but I have a feeling that Rhizome is being left out and left behind. How many blogs link to Rhizome articles and artworks? Probably not many, blog authors know the value of freely linking across the web; Rhizome stops them at the door.
Being locked up behind the membership fee leads to a degradation in the content on Rhizome. We could argue whether it’s happening or not — I’m not sure it’s happening myself — but I’m sure it’s going to happen and I’ll tell you why. Folks don’t want to post to closed forums. If they want their articles read or their artwork looked at they want to be linked far and wide. Sure they might drop a post on Rhizome (if they’re a member) and a few other places. If the other places are free, guess where the links will go? Not to Rhizome. So at best you’ll get duplicate content on Rhizome which is harder to find. Since not as many people are finding Rhizome, membership might start to drop. Since membership is dropping even fewer articles are posted; a very bad downward cycle could start.
Rhizome needs to drop the fee, find new ways to connect with new audiences — an XML feed of the Rhiz list posts would be a good start — and then work on ways to get these new audiences to donate voluntarily.
Perhaps it was an emergency at the time the fee curtain came down. I hope it’s over and Rhizome finds a way to free their content.
I really want to link Rhizome. permanent link to this post
My Blog Has Fleas
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
UPDATE! Yes, there is an update to this post. Can you believe it? My Blog Has Fleas permanent link to this post
Free quality crates!!
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
At some point in our career, two large crates took up residence in our studio. It’s time to evict them!
If you want two (2) professionally built crates for shipping or storage, contact MTAA (our email addresses are on our web site). These are the highest quality wooden crates!
dimensions
Apx two foot square interior measurement
pick-up?
Yes, you would need to pick them up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City, USA.
pass the word
Please pass the word! We want to find someone who would really need the crates. permanent link to this post
If you want two (2) professionally built crates for shipping or storage, contact MTAA (our email addresses are on our web site). These are the highest quality wooden crates!
dimensions
Apx two foot square interior measurement
pick-up?
Yes, you would need to pick them up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City, USA.
pass the word
Please pass the word! We want to find someone who would really need the crates. permanent link to this post
Flickr coincidence
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This is cool.
(Reblogged from reBlog which was reblogged from somewhere else.) permanent link to this post
(Reblogged from reBlog which was reblogged from somewhere else.) permanent link to this post
Five Small Videos: Macromedia Site of The Day
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
MTAA’s Five Small Videos About Interruption And Disappearing has been selected as Macromedia’s Site of The Day for October 21, 2004.
permanent link to this post
First iPod film festival
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The Flux Announces the iPod Video Film Festival
Entry fee is 15USD. Bah, entry fees suck, but it’s normal in film festivals I guess. But they don’t tell you what the prizes are! from this page:
I’m not sure I would pay to compete in a contest that makes it unclear if it’s worth the dough. I would wait until after January 15th when they announce the prizes. permanent link to this post
Coming soon to a small screen near you: The iPod Video Film Festival. The Flux announced today the opening of The Flux iPod Film Festival, an online film festival/competition of content formatted for the iPod. Visitors to the site can download the films for playback on their computers or iPod video, then vote for their favorite video. Prizes will be awarded in four categories: student film, indie film, family clip, and best music video. “The iPod video has people yearning for fun, portable video content, and our festival will give people access to free content, while exposing independent filmmakers and bands to an exciting new audience,” said Flux producer Ryan Ritchey. Submissions must be less than ten minutes, and formatted for the iPod. Flux partner site R Cubed Productions will offer conversion services to properly format films for iPod playback for a small fee. Submission deadline is January 25th. The Flux was founded in March 2005 to be the single stop for the creators and viewers of short films, including movie reviews, how-to tips, movie hosting, and resources for filmmakers.
Entry fee is 15USD. Bah, entry fees suck, but it’s normal in film festivals I guess. But they don’t tell you what the prizes are! from this page:
The top three films in each category will be given awarded prizes, to be determined.
I’m not sure I would pay to compete in a contest that makes it unclear if it’s worth the dough. I would wait until after January 15th when they announce the prizes. permanent link to this post
Finger food
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
What a dick! From CNN:
[…] Clarence Stowers still has the digit, refusing to return the evidence so it could be reattached. And now it’s too late for doctors to do anything for 23-year-old Brandon Fizer.Well yeah, I suppose the guy could use it. Sheesh! permanent link to this post
[…]
“The man who lost the finger has the superior claim,” said Paul Lombardo, who teaches at the University of Virginia’s law school. “It’s his finger and he might be able to use it.”
Senate: Toss Film Pirates in Jail
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
People who secretly videotape movies when they are shown in theaters could go to prison for up to three years under a bill approved unanimously by the U.S. Senate on Friday.3 - 10 YEARS! For copying a movie? Damn. You can kill somebody and get less time than that.
Hackers and industry insiders who distribute music, movies or other copyright works before their official release date would also face stiffened penalties under the bill…
A House subcommittee approved a similar bill in March.
[full article in Wired News]
I guess this means that in the future, projects like Pirated Movie (more info, & more info, & even more) or the work of Jon Routson will go from commentary on our culture to acts of civil disobedience. permanent link to this post
FDA Approves Use of Chip in Patients
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
AP - Medical milestone or privacy invasion? A tiny computer chip approved Wednesday for implantation in a patient’s arm can speed vital information about a patient’s medical history to doctors and hospitals. But critics warn that it could open new ways to imperil the confidentiality of medical records.[ via: Yahoo (AP) ]
ZOINKS! permanent link to this post
Fake movie hits the streets
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
0100101110101101.ORG’s “United We Stand”
Read the press release on Rhizome. permanent link to this post
Read the press release on Rhizome. permanent link to this post
Face the fact
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
If you don’t have an RSS feed, you’re nobody.
permanent link to this post
<PAUSE> & FACT
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
<PAUSE>
MTAA leave tomorrow for the opening of <PAUSE> in Montreal, Quebec. This is a on-line art exhibition curated by MobileGaze. From the press release:
Artist talks - 3:00PM - 4:30PM; MTAA is going last so you don’t have to get there too early ;-)
Cocktails - 5:00PM - 7:00PM; get loaded.
Performances 7:00PM - 8:00PM (apx)
+++++
FACT
Liverpool’s FACT (Film, Art & Creative Technology) seems to be having some interesting things happening. We have it on good sources that every curator’s favorite DEMO artist, Cory Arcangel, is going to be doing a project with them this coming fall. There is also talk of a show including american digital artists with discussions going on with some folks in the new york net art scene including yours truly. Everything is tentative at the moment, we’ll let you know when we know more… permanent link to this post
MTAA leave tomorrow for the opening of <PAUSE> in Montreal, Quebec. This is a on-line art exhibition curated by MobileGaze. From the press release:
<PAUSE> addresses the notion of time as experienced in art and through technology. The exhibition aims at intercepting this stream of information in order to provide a disruption within this endless expanse of data — by providing the viewer with a vantage point, a moment of reflection and a slowing down in his/her interactive viewing habits.The opening is at Oboru. There will be presentations by artists and some performances too, here’s the schedule:
Artist talks - 3:00PM - 4:30PM; MTAA is going last so you don’t have to get there too early ;-)
Cocktails - 5:00PM - 7:00PM; get loaded.
Performances 7:00PM - 8:00PM (apx)
+++++
FACT
Liverpool’s FACT (Film, Art & Creative Technology) seems to be having some interesting things happening. We have it on good sources that every curator’s favorite DEMO artist, Cory Arcangel, is going to be doing a project with them this coming fall. There is also talk of a show including american digital artists with discussions going on with some folks in the new york net art scene including yours truly. Everything is tentative at the moment, we’ll let you know when we know more… permanent link to this post
Extremely grumpy
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I might start blogging elsewhere, the constraints here are starting to get to me.
The MTAA-RR will continue in order give official MTAA news and announcements, but I need a place to post my own personal stuff with no constraints.
Maybe I’ll start one at twhid.com… permanent link to this post
The MTAA-RR will continue in order give official MTAA news and announcements, but I need a place to post my own personal stuff with no constraints.
Maybe I’ll start one at twhid.com… permanent link to this post
Eyebeam reBlog
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Eyebeam’s reBlog should provide a way to look at archived posts from individual reBloggers. One of the things I like most about reBlog is how the flavor of the site changes with each new reBlogger.
Plus, I want to go back and re-live my own time as a reBlogger. permanent link to this post
Plus, I want to go back and re-live my own time as a reBlogger. permanent link to this post
Email from Baghdad
posted at 16:39 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Steve Mumford is an artist who has been making trips to Iraq for the past year (read my first post re: him). He publishes his thoughts and sketches in his Baghdad Journal on artnet.com. A recent email sent to friends was, I thought, interesting so I’m posting below with his permission.
And now the news today…. permanent link to this post
Hi Everyone,I’ve been critical of Steve’s project in the past (but always giving respect). Reading some actual on-the-ground info from a friend is interesting but I have to ask: If his Iraqi friends think things are getting better, better than what? All out war? Normalcy and explosions? Your barber got killed in a car bombing! What is this better than?
Yeah I’m back in Baghdad, hanging out with my Iraqi friends here. It’s awesome what different opinions they have about the situation from some of the journalists here, who are aghast when I ask them how they think things are going - that is, the journalists assume I share their view that the sky is falling. In contrast, my Iraqi friends (both Sunni and Shia) regard the Najaf episode as a triumph, both for Sistani and the Iraqi gov - and by association, the US - Sadr was essentially humiliated, resulting in a big loss of popularity in favor of moderate Sistani. The destruction of Najaf was grave, but reconstruction money is already flowing from the government, with most people apparently blaming Sadr, more than the US, for the damage.
Even in Falluja, my friends maintain, the majority want peace and stability and are willing to join the government, but for the time being are scared into silence by the jihadists. However, talks are going on between Allawi and the tribes of Falluja. They’re optimistic that this will all be reflected in the coming elections.
So, who knows - I can say that I feel some journalists I’ve met are so blinded by their hatred for Bush and recent US foreign policy that they clearly want this to become a massive failure. It’s certainly hard to find Iraqis who will openly compliment the US at this point, for a variety of understandable reasons. But crucially, this doesn’t mean that they are lending their support to the insurgents. In fact, my friends maintain, just the opposite.
As usual, Baghdad is surreal in it’s normalcy amid explosions - you hear them almost everyday, yet the Iraqis barely turn their heads and go about their business. I use caution traveling about, generally with my friends, but I’m not holed up in my hotel either. The local art world continues apace, with the usual salons held every Monday at the Hewar Gallery and the Shebander Tea House, internet cafes filled, the streets bustling, everyone eagerly anticipating the cooler days of Fall.
I was saddened to find that Nezar, a haircutter on old Rashid Street, who gave me 2 haircuts, was killed along with his nephew by a car bomb parked right outside his shop, about 3 weeks ago. He was a sweet guy who wouldn’t take my money the first time, and was a friend of my friend the artist Ahmed al Safi. His blackened, ruined store is still there, with traditional Shia obituary flags draped over the storefront.
Baqubah remained relatively peaceful for the remainder of the time I was there. Rumors of an impending insurgency keep circulating but have yet to materialize. The police and Iraqi National Guard are gaining strength and confidence with better training, heavier weapons and flack vests. In spite of recent conspicuous failures, they’re getting better. They’re starting - in baby steps - to stand up to insurgent attacks. You see them everywhere in Baqubah and Baghdad, whizzing around in new cars and SUVs with the Iraqi Police insignia on the side. I can’t overstate the importance of this to Iraqis. You can’t have a democracy or even an economy without security.
I’ll remain here a bit longer, replenish art supplies, and try for another embedding for a couple of weeks, then return home.
Please, everyone, try to keep an open mind about things over here - Muqtada Sadr is NOT Che Guevara! Bremmer fucked some things up very badly, but somehow, Iraqis are optimistic that the situation is improving.
Love, Steve
And now the news today…. permanent link to this post
“Echoes of Art” Emulation Symposium May 8 at Guggenheim
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This symposium looks interesting and I’m thinking of attending the “Emulation Performance” by jodi and the afternoon session. Get the details here (click symposium once you arrive).
The symposium accompanies the exhibition “Seeing Double,” which is very successful IMO. According to the press release:
That’s to say, most people go to a museum and look at a moving image on a screen of some sort and it’s not always self-evident what the material of the image is. Is it simply a video? Or is it a computational piece which is getting real-time data from the Internet or running a software algorithm to auto-generate visuals or what have you. It’s not always obvious.
But in “Seeing Double” the materials become obvious through the process and exploration of emulation and that does new media art and the art public a real service. permanent link to this post
The symposium accompanies the exhibition “Seeing Double,” which is very successful IMO. According to the press release:
This exhibition tests the promise of an experimental treatment—emulation—for rescuing new media art from the ravages of time.The art work seems to have been “rescued.” The exhibition does more than just that however. By exposing ‘how’ you emulate new media art the curators also illustrate the ‘material’ of new media art.
That’s to say, most people go to a museum and look at a moving image on a screen of some sort and it’s not always self-evident what the material of the image is. Is it simply a video? Or is it a computational piece which is getting real-time data from the Internet or running a software algorithm to auto-generate visuals or what have you. It’s not always obvious.
But in “Seeing Double” the materials become obvious through the process and exploration of emulation and that does new media art and the art public a real service. permanent link to this post
Easter eggs
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Yes there are easter eggs in 1 Year Performance Video, so glad you asked.
Check ‘em out: STEAL THIS VIDEO: 1YPV easter eggs.
Download interesting stuff regarding 1YPV here (more on this later).
To expand on this easter egg thing: we consider the videos in “STEAL THIS VIDEO: 1YPV easter eggs” to be easter eggs because they don’t follow the overall narrative of being locked in a cell 24/7. For example, we address the camera and do other things that don’t follow the narrative logic of 1YPV in these easter egg videos. Normally you would only see them if you happen to be watching 1YPV between 4AM and 5AM and you get lucky :) permanent link to this post
Check ‘em out: STEAL THIS VIDEO: 1YPV easter eggs.
Download interesting stuff regarding 1YPV here (more on this later).
To expand on this easter egg thing: we consider the videos in “STEAL THIS VIDEO: 1YPV easter eggs” to be easter eggs because they don’t follow the overall narrative of being locked in a cell 24/7. For example, we address the camera and do other things that don’t follow the narrative logic of 1YPV in these easter egg videos. Normally you would only see them if you happen to be watching 1YPV between 4AM and 5AM and you get lucky :) permanent link to this post
Dvorak’s ignorant blather
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
I posted this to Rhizome too: John Dvorak trashes creative commons. It was a big mistake. I’m a proponent of Creative Commons so when I saw the link on Slashdot I figured that it would be good to link to it and get another side of the story.
But the article is so full of ignorant statements and falsehoods that it wasn’t really worth a link. Some examples?
What is he? Stupid? It’s not hard to figure out what it’s for. Right now copyright law is very complicated, so Lessig created these licenses to help individuals publish and share without having the need of a lawyer. Simple as that.
Creative Commons allows you to share your work for commercial purposes. And he knows it too because he writes ‘mostly.’ He’s intentionally trying to misrepresent what CC is about.
I apologize for linking to this garbage. permanent link to this post
But the article is so full of ignorant statements and falsehoods that it wasn’t really worth a link. Some examples?
If you are unfamiliar with this thing, be sure to go to the Web site and see if you can figure it out. Creative Commons actually seems to be a dangerous system with almost zero benefits to the public, copyright holders, or those of us who would like a return to a shorter-length copyright law.
What is he? Stupid? It’s not hard to figure out what it’s for. Right now copyright law is very complicated, so Lessig created these licenses to help individuals publish and share without having the need of a lawyer. Simple as that.
This means that others have certain rights to reuse the material under a variety of provisos, mostly as long as the reuse is not for commercial purposes. Why not commercial purposes?
Creative Commons allows you to share your work for commercial purposes. And he knows it too because he writes ‘mostly.’ He’s intentionally trying to misrepresent what CC is about.
I apologize for linking to this garbage. permanent link to this post
Dude ransoms rabbit online
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A fairly humorous attempt at Internet blackmail.
This guy says he’s going to eat his rabbit unless he gets $50K from suckers on the web. Are there enough gullible animal-lovers out there to pay the ransom? So far he’s made around $14K.
Goddamn, I wish I had thought of this first. permanent link to this post
This guy says he’s going to eat his rabbit unless he gets $50K from suckers on the web. Are there enough gullible animal-lovers out there to pay the ransom? So far he’s made around $14K.
Goddamn, I wish I had thought of this first. permanent link to this post
Duct Tape Festival
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Not only am I posting a link to the web site for the INAUGURAL AVON HERITAGE DUCT TAPE FESTIVAL, but AVON, OHIO is practically my hometown. It’s the town where my mother and grandmother live.
It really isn’t my hometown, Elyria, OH has that glorious distinction, but it’s pretty damn close.
I never thought I’d ever type this — but — thanks for the link Mom! permanent link to this post
It really isn’t my hometown, Elyria, OH has that glorious distinction, but it’s pretty damn close.
I never thought I’d ever type this — but — thanks for the link Mom! permanent link to this post
Duchamp’s “Fountain” most influential
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
A porcelain urinal is the most influential work of modern art, according to a survey released Wednesday.More here: Urinal Named As Most Influencial Art (AP). permanent link to this post
Dubya the Defender
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The perversly talented director, Final Cut ninja, and After Effects master Sorrel Ahlfeld (more here) is entering this very funny and well produced video into MoveOn’s Bush in 30 Seconds Contest. According to Sorrel his intention is, “to poke fun at, and educate people about, the Bush administration’s outrageous hypocrisy.” Seems to work on all counts brilliantly IMO.
Dubya The Defender (quicktime 3.8MB, right- or control-click to download.)
Credits:
Written and Directed by Sorrel Ahlfeld
Production Design: Devin Clark and Verena Weisendanger
Production Assistance: Amos Katz
Music: Jim Morgan, David Driver, Connie Petruk
Starring: Emily & Dubya The Defender! permanent link to this post
Drinkin’ & Drawin’ Championship TONIGHT!
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
All the info is here: MTAA’s Drinkin’ & Drawin’.
See this earlier post for more info: Drinkin’ & Drawin’.
See you there :-) permanent link to this post
See this earlier post for more info: Drinkin’ & Drawin’.
See you there :-) permanent link to this post
Drinkin’ & Drawin’
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
First noted on this web site by M.River in this post, the 1st Annual Drinkin’ & Drawin’ Championship is happening!
Go HERE for all the details. But we’ll let our loyal followers (like you because you’re reading this blog) in on a few details.
M.River and I aren’t quite sure how to handle what becomes of the drawings at the end of the night. We need to keep the drawings to create documentation of the project, but we don’t want to scare away any artists who don’t want to give drawings away. Our plan is to inform competitors that we’ll need to keep the drawings for a time of up to 6 months in order to get hi-res scans of them. We’ll also need non-exclusive rights to publish the drawings. Does this seem reasonable? Please leave a comment if you have an opinion.
Other mechanics of the evening: Each contestant will need to sign-in. They’ll be given an ID number (which will be associated with their name and contact info), paper, and pencil. The paper will be stamped with a small rubber stamp so that the contestant can label the drawing with their ID number and the list the drinks consumed while making the drawing.
We don’t want the drawings to have names on them as that may influence the judges. That’s why were going to label them with a number. permanent link to this post
Go HERE for all the details. But we’ll let our loyal followers (like you because you’re reading this blog) in on a few details.
M.River and I aren’t quite sure how to handle what becomes of the drawings at the end of the night. We need to keep the drawings to create documentation of the project, but we don’t want to scare away any artists who don’t want to give drawings away. Our plan is to inform competitors that we’ll need to keep the drawings for a time of up to 6 months in order to get hi-res scans of them. We’ll also need non-exclusive rights to publish the drawings. Does this seem reasonable? Please leave a comment if you have an opinion.
Other mechanics of the evening: Each contestant will need to sign-in. They’ll be given an ID number (which will be associated with their name and contact info), paper, and pencil. The paper will be stamped with a small rubber stamp so that the contestant can label the drawing with their ID number and the list the drinks consumed while making the drawing.
We don’t want the drawings to have names on them as that may influence the judges. That’s why were going to label them with a number. permanent link to this post
Drinkin’ and Drawin’ TONIGHT!!!!
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Get yer ass out to BKLYN and win yer ass a 100 BUCK BAR TAB at BAR MATCHLESS.
And while you’re at it, buy T.Whid a drink for his birthday.
More info here:
www.tinjail.com/drinkAndDraw
and here:
The 2nd Annual DRINKIN’ & DRAWIN’ CHAMPIONSHIP
+++++++++++++++++
Time: 8-11PM
Location: Bar Matchless
Corner of Driggs and Manhattan Aves, Greenpoint, BKLYN
Directions:
From Manhattan: L train to Bedford Ave.
Walk North on Bedford Ave. (past the park) to Manhattan Ave. Take a right, one block down on the corner.
From Brooklyn or Queens: G train to Nassau
Walk one block east on Manhattan Ave. to Driggs Ave.
permanent link to this post
And while you’re at it, buy T.Whid a drink for his birthday.
More info here:
www.tinjail.com/drinkAndDraw
and here:
The 2nd Annual DRINKIN’ & DRAWIN’ CHAMPIONSHIP
+++++++++++++++++
Time: 8-11PM
Location: Bar Matchless
Corner of Driggs and Manhattan Aves, Greenpoint, BKLYN
Directions:
From Manhattan: L train to Bedford Ave.
Walk North on Bedford Ave. (past the park) to Manhattan Ave. Take a right, one block down on the corner.
From Brooklyn or Queens: G train to Nassau
Walk one block east on Manhattan Ave. to Driggs Ave.
permanent link to this post
Drinkin’ and Drawin’ Champion
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
The Drinkin’ and Drawin’ Champion for 2005 is:
Luke Butler!!
More info to come…
Check out M.River’s pics permanent link to this post
Luke Butler!!
More info to come…
Check out M.River’s pics permanent link to this post
Dreamland Artists Club in NYTimes
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
…in the summer of 2003, when the artist Steve Powers became simultaneously obsessed with Coney Island and the dying art of sign painting, he had a tough time convincing many of the wary and con-wise business owners that he wanted to give them - free, really - brand-new hand-painted signs for their aging bumper-car palaces and clam bars.If you live in or near NYC or are coming to visit this summer you must go to Coney Island.
[…]
But Mr. Powers, a former graffiti artist who has had scrapes with the law and lots of experience dealing with suspicious authority, was persistent. And now his personal mission has become a sprawling public art project that blurs the line between art and commerce in a way that perhaps could happen only on Coney Island.
[ via ]
The Mermaid Parade is next weekend, June 25th! permanent link to this post
Dreams DO come true!
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
If you wish hard enough and pray to the baby Jesus every night before you go to bed then…
Your dreams can come true too!
(See comments in the first link and see ‘prepared piano’ description in the second link for this post to make any sense; M.River noticed this coincidence.) permanent link to this post
Your dreams can come true too!
(See comments in the first link and see ‘prepared piano’ description in the second link for this post to make any sense; M.River noticed this coincidence.) permanent link to this post
Drawing Center may quit WTC
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Amid a storm of controversy over plans for the Ground Zero cultural centers, the Drawing Center says it has put the entire planning process for its move downtown on hold and is considering whether it should pull out of the site.Good. They should. To paraphrase NWA, fuck The art police!
via: Crain’s New York Business
Found the link via Greg.org. permanent link to this post
Double awesome
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Yahoo! Creative Commons search!
Obligatory MTAA narcism:
MTAA (we come up number 1)
simple net art (number 1 again)
net art (number 13, bah!)
It’s funny when you search too, it’s like you know everybody on the results page. Haha! permanent link to this post
Obligatory MTAA narcism:
MTAA (we come up number 1)
simple net art (number 1 again)
net art (number 13, bah!)
It’s funny when you search too, it’s like you know everybody on the results page. Haha! permanent link to this post
MY DOOMSDAY WEAPON: An exhibition by Jakob S. Boeskov @ The Thing
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
This sounds fascinating, from the press release:
» And more here permanent link to this post
Weapons that shoot microchips into the bodies of innocent civilians. An artist smuggling blueprints for fake technology inside China’s first international weapons fair. Laughing arms traders drinking 30-year-old Chivas Regal among teenage models advertising new weapons. No, it’s not a chilling sci-fi movie; it’s reality, and a project by Danish artist Jakob S. Boeskov.» Dates, times and more information on The Thing’s web site.
» And more here permanent link to this post
“Doomsday Weapon” slide show @ THE THING
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
Check out the slide show of Jakob Boeskov’s “Doomsday Weapon.” We mentioned this art project in this post on this web site.
Sorry Wolfgang, I linked right to the slide show — bypassing THE THING log-in. But, check out the benefit auction while your over at THE THING. permanent link to this post
Sorry Wolfgang, I linked right to the slide show — bypassing THE THING log-in. But, check out the benefit auction while your over at THE THING. permanent link to this post
Don’t tell anybody…
posted at 16:38 GMT by T.Whid in /news/twhid
…but we never really finished 1YPV. There are two things that need to be done in order for it to be finished:
1) figure out the how the ‘art data’ will be distributed
2) shoot the last “scene.”
We’re shooting the last scene this weekend :-) permanent link to this post
1) figure out the how the ‘art data’ will be distributed
2) shoot the last “scene.”
We’re shooting the last scene this weekend :-) permanent link to this post