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- - - - - - - | 0 0 . 0 4 | - - - - - - - | <nettime> announcer | a | - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | b << | - - - - beestal@pacbell.net : Switch v5n3 - Database - now online | 1 3 | - - - - Australian Network for Art and Technology <anat@anat.org.au> : Alchemy | 1 4 | - - - - abroeck@v2.nl : Wiretap 5.13 - Story-boards for Interactive Media | 1 5 | - - - - | - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | | delivered each weekend into your inbox | | mailto:nettime-l@bbs.thing.net | | - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | 1 3 | - - - - Switch - the new media art journal of the CADRE Institute, San Jose State University. http://switch.sjsu.edu [Apologies for cross posting] Featured Writers: Steve Cisler, Frank Dietrich, Steve Dietz, Alex Galloway, Eugene Thacker, Joel Slayton, Geri Wittig, Sheila Malone, and Don Tanner. Interviews with: etoy, Lev Manovich, Mark Tribe, Rachel Baker, Eugene Thacker, Olia Lialina, RTmark, Usman Haque, and Heath Bunting. Intro to Switch v5n3, Database: One of the most important developments of the 20th century was the proliferation of the database into every fiber of Western cultural fabric, (which of course has had profound global impact). The rise of companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Sun Microsystems, Wal-Mart, AOL, and Oracle Corporation are among the notorious manifestations (including the Internet itself), that have in one way or another reaped the benefits of database. From "just-in-time" delivery and picking systems to inventory, process, and financial management, database enables significant and culturally transforming productivity gains that are manifested ultimately in the distribution of atoms and the actual. No doubt, the roots of this revolution can be traced through figures such as George Boole, Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Kurt Gödel, Claude Shannon, Alan Turing and E.F. Codd, but the changes wrought by this revolution have been most intense in the very recent past. In general, artists had tended near the end of the 20th century to underestimate the degree to which database and network mediate the distribution of the real, often confusing the Baudrillardian concept of hyperreal with terms like unreal or imaginary. This led to a lot of storytelling and legend building, but only rarely to work in which agency was developed or expressed in collaboration with data itself. Data is at least real, if not more so. In this issue of Switch, we set out to explore the issues of data and database, in terms of both ontological questions, and how they impinge upon various worlds of art. But you don't need to speak Structured Query Language to rapidly access Switch v5n3, because these editorial notes provide a reasonable guide. CONTENTS: One example of an art world which is being impacted by database is treated in Arts, Crafts, and Globalization, wherein Steve Cisler, data traveler, activist and former member of the Advanced Technology Group at Apple Computer, takes the reader on a journey that exposes how trade networks impinge upon the world of crafts, collectables, and tourist trinkets. Artist and former Silicon Graphics marketing manager for European operations, Frank Dietrich, expands upon his seminal 1986 essay "Digital Media: Bridges between data particles and artifacts". In reading the 1986 article, I was reminded (once again), that many of the interesting and provocative problems inherent in digital media are not "new" discoveries of the current "net.art" generation, but rather that there is a tradition of mature thought in technology art that has been largely ignored in the present euphoria over networks. In Data Particles - Meta Data - Data Space, Dietrich expands his previous analysis of the properties of data particles to include speculation about meta data, navigation, and tranformation rules, as the directions in which further investigation should proceed. In Memory_Archive_Database, Steve Dietz, the new media-curator for the Walker Art Center, gives his perspective on database as art form. This is done from his unique position inside one of America's most renowned and progressive art institutions. Eugene Thacker parses recent developments in bio-engineering in his Database/Body: Bioinformatics, Biopolitics, and Totally Connected Media Systems. In the process, he adds a great deal of connective tissue between these events and the work of theorists such as Manovich and Kittler on new media. Ultimately he uses this to develop a Foucaultian analysis of contemporary genetic databases as surveillance systems. This is an important piece of work (imho), especially given the increasing numbers of artists who are moving into various bio-technologies as fine art media. In Ontology of Organization as System, Joel Slayton and Geri Wittig give a detailed theoretical account of datum as autopoietic agency. This essay represents something of an inversion of the tact taken by Thacker and even Dietz: instead of looking at the effects (social and ontological) that database has on life or art, Slayton and Wittig seek to map out the social and ontological qualities of the datum itself. Alongside Dietrich's notion of the data particle, we get a glimpse into the secret life of data. In the The New Performer: Data as Performer and Performance, Sheila A. Malone looks specifically at how database has entered into contemporary performance art. In VisiCalc to Cybernetic Babylon, Don Tanner looks at the history of VisiCalc, reminding us that a spreadsheet program was the first killer application of the personal computer revolution. In previous editorial notes for Switch (those that fell near the yearly turn of the calendar), I had felt it necessary to give something of a recap of the year's events in the network art world. But this year I give special thanks to Rhizome's Alex Galloway for giving me the century off. In net.art Year in Review: State of net.art 99, Galloway provides his honest view on that world from his position near the eye of the storm. The only eulogy I desire to add to his would be one for the romantic notion of the artist-genius, or the meme of the artist as voice in the wilderness, whose sensitive individuality is opposed to the artistic constraints of "the academy." I see no reason to carry these 19th century problems for the arts into the 21st. They no longer apply in a multi-nodal world where collaboration is simply more interesting, and Starbucks has usurped the Salon in any case. Many argue that 2001 is the real end of the millenium, so I hold out hope for this particular eulogy under next year's tree. Speaking of toys, Switch continues to bring our readers interviews with the most important artists and thinkers who are presently puzzling over the problems of new media in the arts. Perhaps one of the watershed events for the heroic imaginary of the art world, (also rapidly becoming a cautionary fable in the business world), is the domain name battle between the Swiss art ensemble etoy.com and the California toy retailer eToys.com. Geri Wittig spoke with the etoy.PRESS-SPEAKER in the midst of this battle. Also, Inna Razumova interviews new media theorist and scholar Lev Manovich, whose writing on database has become extremely influential in the network art world. And finally, Paula Poole presents a collection of interviews taken from participants in the openX symposium at Ars Electronica 1999, including, among others, Mark Tribe, Rachel Baker, Olia Lialina, and RTMark. Happy 2K - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | 1 4 | - - - - The Australian Network for Art & Technology (ANAT) announce ** Alchemy ** International Masterclass for New Media Artists and Curators Brisbane, Queensland May/June, 2000 Applications due: 18 February, 2000 Please contact ANAT for guidelines and application forms or visit http://www.anat.org.au/projects/alchemy ANAT will hold an International Masterclass for New Media Artists and Curators for six weeks in May/ June 2000, in association with the new Powerhouse Live Arts Complex in Brisbane <http://www.brisbanepowerhouse.org>. Artists, curators and theorists will come together to germinate and hothouse their ideas, test their hypotheses, develop new processes and create new works, within the context of an intensive learning environment. The intention is to provide an opportunity for artists and arts practitioners from across Australia and around the world to network, develop new work, devise new forms of collaboration. Participants will be provided with 24 hour access to a lab., exhibition/ installation, performance space and workrooms in the exciting new Powerhouse Live Arts Complex, which also opens in May. Highly experienced curators and artists will provide training and lead workshops for participants, within the context of a critical production site. The makeup and composition of the Masterclass will constantly evolve, as tutors and participants undertake different aspects of the project. The Masterclass will engage with a diverse range of topics: from science discourses to indigenous issues to curatorial practice. Of particular note will be the component of the masterclass dedicated to performance and hybrid practices being developed in collaboration with the New Media Arts Fund of the Australia Council. As the project is intended as a dynamic one, there will be continual opportunities for exchange of ideas. Alchemy will be divided into thematic areas. These themes will not happen in isolation. There will be overlap and confluences between the different areas. Participants will be asked to identify two to three themes which may be of particular relevance to their practice in order to participate in those components of the Masterclass. Themes which will be addressed are: * Art and Science Collaborations * Indigenous artists needs * A Digital Region?: collaboration and exchange in Asia and the Pacific regions. * Curatorial Issues for New Media practices * Performance and Hybrid Art Practices * Artistic practice and the Internet To culturally contextualise the project, satellite events - combiinge fora with open days - will be held, giving the public and media an opportunity to view the work-in-progress produced by participants. Throughout the Masterclass there will be a focus on skills development and skills sharing. The framework for the masterclass will also address issues of access to local and overseas works and theoretical issues in order to contextualise new media work, particularly within an international framework. In order to take into account the needs of participants, the program for the project will not be finalised until the participants have been identified. ANAT has pioneered intensive skilling programs for artists through its coordination of annual National Summer Schools in computer media since 1989. The schools have provided the catalyst for profound conceptual shifts and directions in practice for participating artists. In 1999 ANAT, for the first time, ran three National Schools: two National Schools for artists (one for Indigenous Australian artists and one with a science / art focus), and one for curators and other artsworkers. Based on ANAT's experience managing these diverse projects and an ever increasing number of enquiries internationally about the possibility of participating in our programs, for 2000 the scope of this concept has been broadened to develop a more interactive and collaborative approach to the Masterclass learning environment and, with the support of the Daniel Langlois Foundation, opened up to international participation. The intention for this project is for it to be very much a people event. We are interested in developing an environment which will encourage the formation of ongoing international collaborations. Please contact ANAT for guidelines and application forms. or visit http://www.anat.org.au/projects/alchemy The masterclass has been generously supported by the Daniel Langlois Foundation, the Australia Council, the Federal Government's arts funding and advisory body and Arts Queensland with additional support from the Government of South Australia through Arts SA, Arts Tasmania and the NSW Ministry for the Arts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ FROM THE DESK OF THE AUSTRALIAN NETWORK FOR ART AND TECHNOLOGY anat@anat.org.au postal address: PO Box 8029 Hindley Street, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia web address: http://www.anat.org.au/ ph: +61 (0)8-8231-9037 fax: +61 (0)8-8211-7323 Director: Amanda McDonald Crowley (mobile: 0419 829 313) Manager: Amber Carvan Information Officer: Charity Bramwell Web and Technical Officer: Martin Thompson Memberships: $A12 (unwaged), $A25 (waged), $A50 (institutions) ANAT receives support from The Australia Council, http://www.ozco.gov.au the Federal Government's arts funding and advisory body ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | 1 5 | - - - - V2_Organisation and Exploding Cinema present: Wiretap 5.13 - Story-boards for Interactive Media Location: V2_Organisation, Eendrachtsstr.10, Rotterdam Date: Sunday, 30 January 2000, 14.00-17.30 hrs Entrance: Hfl. 7,50 With: Ron Kuivila (US), David Blair (US/F), Martin Berghammer (D) Moderator: Tanja den Broeder (NL) Wiretap 5.13 - Story-boards for Interactive Media, deals with the construction of narrative and interactivity in media art projects. Interactive films, electronic music or computer games no longer have a fixed, linear narrative, but they offer the user the possibility to constructing their own stories, their own works from the digital material. Notation determines the outcome of a performance in the more traditional art forms, like in classical music composition or the story-board in film-making. Here, notation provides a rather strict rule for the realisation of the art work. In non-linear media, notation has to strike the right balance between the freedom of the user to choose a path through the material, and the need, or the desire of the artist, to convey a certain story, or to construct an exciting narrative. The question arises, how much narrative should be scripted into an interactive environment, and how much freedom the user of such environments has to perform? How can a fruitful instability be introduced into such programmes? The Wiretap programme looks at the role that direction, chance, subjective decisions and social relations play in digital performance spaces. It explores new forms of notation and interactional scores which guide and motivate action and interaction in multi-medial environments. Guests: Ron Kuivila (US) is a sound artist and musician who studied with, amongst others, John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Alvin Lucier. Kuivila teaches at the Music department of Wesleyan University. Ron Kuivila composes music and designs sound installations that revolve around the unusual home-made and home-modified hardware and software instruments he designs. He pioneered the use of ultrasound and sound sampling in live performance. More recent work has explored the possibilities of mutant speech forms, compositional algorithms, and high voltage phenomena. In 1999-2000, Kuivila is a guest of the Berlin artists programme of the DAAD. Martin Berghammer (D) is a visual artist, web-designer and programmer who lives in Berlin. He is the director an co-curator of Shift e.V., an art organisation and gallery in Berlin. For Shift, Berghammer recently curated the exhibition 'RELOAD' in which four artists teams designed special levels for the online multi-user game Quake. Berghammer has done extensive research about online games, focusing on the social and creative aspects of online interaction. David Blair (US/F) is a film maker and media artist who has recently launched the first complete Web-version of 'Waxweb', a "hypermedia" version of the theatrically-distributed electronic feature "WAX or the discovery among the bees" (1991). Waxweb is available on CD-Rom and on the Web, in English, French, or Japanese versions, and is based on 1600 film shots and a 25-section matrix unique to each shot. It is one of the most extensive and complex artistic attempts to date at reconciling film narrative with a non-linear, hypermedia structure. Tanja den Broeder (NL) works in the area of new media and design direction after a career in theatre and television. "The Greeks employed drama and theatre as tools for thoughts in much the same way in which we hope to employ our computers today. Greek drama was the way that Greek culture publicly thought and felt about the most important issues of humanity, including ethics, morality, government, and religion. The tragic universe placed in the digital domain can be a forum, a context, for the postmodern soul to experience motions of heroic splendour within." Bookmarks Martin Berghammer / Shift - http://www.shift-ev.de David Blair: Waxweb - http://www.waxweb.org David Blair: The Telepathic Motion Picture of "THE LOST TRIBES" - http://www.telepathic-movie.org Calin Dan: Happy Doomsday! - http://www.n2.nl/projects/hd/ Exploding Cinema - http://www.iffrotterdam.nl Wiretap 5.13 is a co-operation of V2_Oganisation and Exploding Cinema. The Wiretap series is supported by the Rotterdam Art Foundation and the Dutch Ministry of Culture. V2_Organisation is supported by the City of Rotterdam, by the Dutch Ministry of Culture and Luna Internet. Exhibition Calin Dan: Happy Doomsday! During the IFFR and as part of the Exploding Cinema programma, V2_ presents the Dutch premier exhibition of the interactive multi-user installation Happy Doomsday! by Calin Dan (RO/NL). Happy Doomsday! is a reflexion about history and action, modelled on a computer game in which two users go into battle. Two fitness machines function as interfaces and navigation tools in the virtual battlegrounds and dungeons of European culture. A prototype version of the installation was presented during the DEAF98 festival, and the completed piece was recently shown at the ZKM in Karlsruhe/Germany. Location: V2_, Eendrachtstr. 10, Rotterdam Duration: 26 January - 6 February 2000 Context Wiretap 5.13 Notation is a way of representing, or: writing down, movements and modulations in time. A well-known form of notation is the musical score of classical Western music where the score provides the possibility for an accurate, reproduction of a musical piece which the performer may never have heard before. Graphic signs are used to represent modulations of sound through the manipulation of musical instruments (pitch, rhythm, coordination and dis/harmony of different players). Notation is a specific code of description which can also be applied to other systems and types of performances. Dance, for instance, can also be notated, as can be the performance of audiovisual electronic material. In film-making, the story-board is a form of notation which is playing an increasingly important role when, in interactive movies and games, the linearity of the traditional narrative is replaced by open, non-linear narrative environments of sound, image and text. This field for performative applications within electronic arts is rapidly expanding. The role a notation plays need not be to specify a work so much as create a set of conditions that enable creative action. Such notations are found in the work of John Cage, the 'prose scores' of Fluxus, and ongoing practices in improvised music. Interactive systems, digitally supported music and dance performances, databases of audiovisual material, etc., extend this, further confusing the social roles of 'maker', 'performer', 'user', and 'consumer'. The more indeterminate the notation, the greater the freedom of the performer and the more blurred the distinction between the composer and the performer, between programmer and user. In interactive systems, every user becomes a performer and a co-composer. The challenge for the designers of such tools and notations is to find the right balance between constraint and openness, between fixing and destabilising narrative and expressive elements. --------------------------------------------- V2_Organisation Eendrachtsstraat 10 - 3012 XL Rotterdam tel: 31.(0)10.206.7272 fax: 31.(0)10.206.7271 mail: v2@v2.nl URL: http://www.v2.nl/wiretap --------------------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | | | | # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net