Syndicate: Switch V6N2: Social & Networks

[Inke Arns <inke@snafu.de>]

Switch, V6N2: Social & Networks
http://switch.sjsu.edu/web/v6n2/mainnetwork.html


Social & Networks

Editor's Note
Managing Editor: Sheila A. Malone


If any social system functions and exists within a describable, measurable
network structure, then the question at hand is: can any network structure
be described as a social system? In this issue Social & Networks we
explore, describe, define, represent and even test social network theories
on individuals, organizations, art and technology. Like most social theory
we are looking at how individuals, organizations, and software exist and
behave within a network. With the bombardment of interactive capability in
the past few years our social networks are quite extensive and complex.
They have become increasingly more difficult to describe and visually
represent. Switch aims to look beyond the expected and into areas relevant
to artists today. 

In Racism and Technology, Michelle Wright looks at the concepts associated
with "the digital divide" in which different sections of the community
living side by side, exist within different social systems and therefore
have access to different powers. Beryl Graham's Live from Bangalore reveals
other aspects of globalization and theories of postindustrial society
influencing/creating new media. Graham touches on many of the similarities
and differences between India, the U.S. and Great Britain. Marc B?hlen's
Time Types and Table Manners describes experiments with artificial
intelligence. B?hlen explores ideas of time, machine interaction, and
authorship. In Situated and Distributed Knowledge Production in Network
Space, Geri Wittig examines issues of identity and self-organizing social
networks amidst the mutable boundaries of network space. Joel Slayton's
Social Software develops arguments on "how membranes enable autopoiesis in
software." Slayton infers that software is social and behaves socially.
Wendy Angel's IdeaConsciousness NetWorks is an obscure look at abstraction
and consciousness in relationship to network theory and painting. Matt Mays
looks at the role of the artist as lawyer and the lawyer as artist in
Defining the Lawyer/Artist. Mays touches on some of the biggest cases to
influence Information Technology. In Exclusive interviews Matt Mays, Nora
Raggio, and Sheila Malone look at the role and function of individuals in
progressive and ground-breaking arts organizations; Creative Disturbance,
GroundZero, Bill Viola, The Kitchen. Cindy Ahuna reviews Ken Goldberg's
newest book, The Robot in the Garden. Jody Berland and Rob Riddle may have
opposing ideas about social interaction and the sound art scene today. In
Musicking Machines, Berland looks at how machines have changed the nature
of collaboration and musicianship. Riddle's Audiononlocation, argues that
the internet has empowered a new kind of collaboration and exploration of
sound art form. Susan Otto's Manifesto for a Virtual Favela is a haunting
but sober look at art practice in the complicated mediated world we live in
today. Steve Cisler, assists local community networking advocates and has
lectured worldwide on the promise and the cultural challenges of the
Internet and in his latest Letter from Aspen: Cultural policyfurthers his
dialogue about private vs. public, culture vs nature. 

Examples of social network complexities can be found in our Projects
section. Code Zebra is a highly interactive interdisciplinary, performance
and software system where art meets science. Sara Diamond creator and
developer of Code Zebra is a television and new media producer/director,
artist, curator, critic, teacher and artistic director who has represented
Canada and the USA at home and internationally for many years. Conference
Mapping Project by graduate students Ben Eakins, Darby Smith, Minqing Zhou
is an intricate web of visual representation of the contemporary academic
and artistic gathering of individuals. In Electronic Disturbance Theater's
Zapatista Tribal Port Scan, the participation of activist intermingles in a
social network of the radical and complex political issues facing
contemporary society. Tommy Alvaran's and Darren Wong's undergraduate
senior project:Internetica cleanses websites from unnecessary code leaving
them with a new Internetic Code consisting of X, Y, and Z values.

Social & Networks is perhaps a confusing spider web of dynamic and critical
ideas about art, science, and our need to make sense of it all.

http://switch.sjsu.edu/web/v6n2/mainnetwork.html


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