Rhizome Inclusive: News, Blog, and Digest

live improvised dvd screensaver (humansaver) (2009) - Constant Dullaart

John Michael Boling — 2010-02-09T18:30:00+01:00

DVD Episode 1 (1 min 40 sec) (2009) - Oliver Jennings

Ceci Moss — 2010-02-09T17:30:00+01:00

DVD Player (2009) - Jesse Hulcher

Ceci Moss — 2010-02-09T16:00:00+01:00

Rhizome Presents: Seven on Seven

Rhizome — 2010-02-08T20:40:00+01:00

Rhizome is pleased to announce Seven on Seven a new major initiative that reflects our mission to connect art and new technology. Seven on Seven will pair seven artists with seven technologists in teams of two, and challenge them to develop something new --be it an application, social media, artwork, product, or whatever they imagine-- over the course of a single day. The seven teams will present their ideas at a one-day event at the New Museum on April 17th. Recalling the groundbreaking 1966 event 9 Evenings, in which dancers, visual artists and musicians were paired with engineers and scientists, Seven on Seven is aimed at enriching all involved, and putting forth important, new projects that tie to Rhizome’s mission of openness and innovation in art. Documentation of the event will be made available online following the event.

Seven on Seven Participants include, on the technology side, Ayah Bdeir, Jeff Hammerbacher, David Karp, Andrew Kortina, Hilary Mason, Matt Mullenweg, and Josh Schachter, and on the art side, Tauba Auerbach, Cao Fei, Aaron Koblin, Monica Narula, Marc Andre Robinson, Evan Roth and Ryan Trecartin.

Full details and ticket purchase: http://www.rhizome.org/sevenonseven

Seven on Seven is a new program set to recur annually, and raise support for Rhizome. In its first year, Seven on Seven is made possible through the generous support and collaboration of Wieden + Kennedy / PIE. Additional lead support was provided by Betaworks and Mozilla. We would also like to thank our media partner, Mashable, and Kickstarter for donating space for the teams to work Thanks to FUTURE FRIENDS for Seven on Seven's logo design..

Sampling #1 (2009) - Eva Paulitsch and Uta Weyrich

Ceci Moss — 2010-02-08T20:00:00+01:00

Image of Sampling #1 from flickr user 7pc

Since 2006, the two artists have been collecting films from mobile phones in the public sphere. It is the mixture of amateurish documentation of your own life, of a direct, unhampered view on your own reality, of unmotivated, unguided camera movements as the expression of boredom but also of directed little scenarios that aroused our collector's instincts. Paulitsch and Weyrich are accepting all films into their archive uncensored. This is increasingly developing into a fascinating document of our times, to a sort of evidence-gathering on and siting of the present. Above all, however, it resembles a bizarre album of weltering digital imagery.

For the exhibition YOU_ser 2.0 in the ZKM | Media Museum, the two artists make their mobile film archive accessible for visitors via mobile tagging. The mobile films are concealed behind the colourful QR codes, which visitors can decipher with their own WLAN-mobiles or with the mobiles provided by the museum. In this way, the content of the films Paulitsch and Weyrich are collecting on the street and publishing on the Net returns to the private sphere and into the medium where they originate. The video blog serves to show new extracts from this archive and offers a platform to films currently being collected.

-- FROM THE DESCRIPTION OF "SAMPLING #1" FROM THE EXHIBITION "YOU_ser 2.0: CELEBRATION OF THE CONSUMER"

Google Portrait Series (2007-2009) - Aram Bartholl

Ceci Moss — 2010-02-08T18:00:00+01:00

Each code represents a visual enryption of a search on 'Aram Bartholl' in a specific language on Google.

A Google Portrait is a drawing which contains the Google URL search string of the portrayed person in encoded form. Any camera smart phone is capable to decode the matrix-code with the help of barcode reader like software. The result points the mobile phone browser to a search on the portrayed person's name at Google.

A large number of people can be found by name on Google today. Everyone who is working on a computer and uses the internet regularly can be found on Google. Even people who don't use computers can be found sometimes because their names appear in 'old' media (i.e. books) on the net.

'Egosurfing' is a popular way for a user to find out what websites and information Google returns on his/her name search.

How many hits does Google show on my name? Am I popular? Do I want to be found at all? Who writes about me? What do people find out about me when they google my name? Am I in concurrence to other persons with the same name? Do I rely on the results Google shows me on a person's name? In which way do I relate to someone which I only known by Google results?

-- FROM THE ARTIST'S STATEMENT

You Are What You Buy (2007) - Michele Pred

Ceci Moss — 2010-02-08T17:00:00+01:00

Michele Pred Explains You Are What You Buy

I chose to create an embroidered version of a barcode to represent how technology has become interwoven, fused with our lives and our identity- to represent how we have become one and the same with technology.

Through new technology cell phones are now capable of scanning and decoding barcodes. However, these barcodes are a little different than the ones you see scanned at the grocery store: they are called 2D barcodes and are composed of black and white squares that encode the URLs to any website of creator's choice. In other words, these Data Matrix format barcodes are a physical hyperlink. Through my research I have learned how to create and program 2D barcodes with embedded text messages. I have also discovered that these barcodes can be reproduced in a variety of materials and are still capable of being scanned/read with a mobile phone.

-- FROM THE ARTIST'S STATEMENT

N Building (2009) - Teradadesign and Qosmo

Ceci Moss — 2010-02-08T16:00:00+01:00

N Building from Alexander Reeder on Vimeo.

N Building is a commercial structure located near Tachikawa station amidst a shopping district. Being a commercial building signs or billboards are typically attached to its facade which we feel undermines the structures' identity. As a solution we thought to use a QR Code as the facade itself. By reading the QR Code with your mobile device you will be taken to a site which includes up to date shop information. In this manner we envision a cityscape unhindered by ubiquitous signage and also an improvement to the quality and accuracy of the information itself.

-- PRESS RELEASE FOR "N BUILDING"

Originally via Networked Research

More Than Super

John Michael Boling — 2010-02-07T19:39:00+01:00

THERE IS ANOTHER SUPER BOWL AND IT’S IN QUEENS IN AN OLD SYNAGOGUE

You can watch “More Than Super” live at http://www.livestream.com/mattandjudebowl at 6:00 pm, February 7 starting with pregame activities. Kick off will be around 6:25 pm EST.

On Sunday, February 7, the great American event that is the Super Bowl will be contested twice. Super Bowl XLIV will be played in Miami, Florida in front of a packed stadium and an international television audience of millions. Simultaneously an “improved” version of the game will be played in Ridgewood, Queens before a live audience of a few dozen enthusiasts and streamed online to perhaps hundreds more. Artists Matt Freedman and Jude Tallichet are producing “More Than Super”, a simultaneous, play-by-play restaging of the Super Bowl with a small army of collaborators who will substitute themselves for all the roles in the spectacle--players, referees, TV producers, half-time performers, advertisers, team owners, and fans in the stadium. The duplicate game will be staged in the artists’ studio, a defunct synagogue in Queens. Freedman and Tallichet have created a miniature football stadium in the old sanctuary; stained glass windows bracket the end zones and dusty chandeliers illuminate the field. The entire production will stream live as the actual game is played. Freedman and Tallichet will play a game identical to the Super Bowl, but better.

The artists will use the slivers of time between the broadcast plays in the “real” football game to restage the action that had just taken place. Just two people in Queens will do the work of the 90 professional athletes playing the game in Miami. Freedman will play all the positions, offensive and defensive, for the NFC champion New Orleans Saints and Tallichet will portray the entire AFC champion Indianapolis Colts team.

Great care will be taken to recreate the ambience of the television broadcast as accurately as possible, down to the half-time entertainment, but “More Than Super” will be a collaboration rather than a competition, more an awkward dance than a sublimated war. The game in the synagogue will engage America’s greatest spectacle and cut it down to size.

-- FROM THE ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Interview with Jeff Hnilicka of FEAST

Jenny Jaskey — 2010-02-05T19:00:00+01:00

As the second part of a series on art, labor, and politics, I spoke with Jeff Hnilicka of FEAST, a Brooklyn-based community dinner that funds the work of emerging artists. FEAST will be hosting their next meal tomorrow evening, February 6, from 5-8 p.m. at Church of the Messiah, 129 Russell St, Brooklyn NY. The event is open to the public. - Jenny Jaskey

What is FEAST and how did you begin?

Jeff Hnilicka: FEAST has been going on for a little over a year and runs out of a church basement in Greenpoint. There are around twenty people who help facilitate it. We come from the art world, food world, and design world, and we are connected to ideas of collectivism and immediacy – things like zines, living room dance parties, bike rides, and dinners. Many of us are also involved with Hit Factorie, an artist collective.

FEAST grew out of our desire to investigate the collapse of cultural production in the face of emerging sustainable food production systems that were successful. We wanted to ask “what is localism?” in relation to cultural production and how the structures of a farm co-op translate to an art economy. In the food world, the sustainable is the heirloom – that is the desired experience. In cultural production, the sustainable is relegated to the amateur, the “craft.” But we wondered: can you produce high quality cultural products using a sustainable model? Those were our basic goals. What developed was a dinner party, where around 300 people come to a church basement every couple of months. We ask for $10-20 donations at the door to attend the dinner, although no one is turned away. Artists propose projects over the course of the meal, and the guests select one project to fund. We vote democratically. Whichever artists get the most votes get a big bag of money with a dollar sign on it. We ask them to come back to the next dinner and present how they used the money.

I should mention that the model for FEAST is not our idea. InCUBATE in Chicago has been doing something called Sunday Soup for a long time. Other similar meals exist through Stock in Portland, Stew in Baltimore, Sugar City in Buffalo, Feast in Columbus, and I recently facilitated a FEAST in Minneapolis during a residency there.

Sign from the May 9 FEAST

How do you select which artists to present their projects at the dinner?

JH: It is an open call, and we accept submissions ahead of time. So far we have been able to present every project submitted to us. We find that it has been interesting and exciting to be able to say, if you have an idea, you can throw it out there in an open mic environment. There is a transparency that exists in the process of presentation and selection that does not usually exist in most grant-making environments. Artists get to see all of the other proposals, and there is no secrecy to the process.

What kinds of projects are proposed?

JH: Multi-disciplinary projects are presented – everything from a painter wanting money for studio rent to a theater artist wanting rehearsal space. Lately we’ve been getting people in the social practice world. The last project was given to the collective Green my Bodega. It really varies.

Crowd from the May 9 FEAST

Do you ever fund projects by curators or arts organizations?

JH: We haven’t had a curator win yet, but we are open to this kind of submission. Artists, art organizations, collectives, curators, anyone can apply. “The rules are…there ain’t no rules.”

Is FEAST a self-consciously “social practice”?

JH: FEAST views what we are doing as an aesthetic practice. But the framing is casual: it operates as a dinner party because it is dinner.

FEAST also hopes to serve as an investigative tool of potentially dangerous paradigms like “new urbanism” and Richard Florida’s “creative class.” We do not see this as a cynical endeavor, it is an optimistic critique.

Food preparation from May 9 FEAST

How specifically do you see these models problematizing the role of the creative worker?

JH: In New York and urban centers, the fact that so many people are able to have somewhat interesting creative jobs makes everyone feel like their creative life is a commodifiable piece of their life: the goal is to get a cool art job, as opposed to making exciting critical work. This has definitely added to the political apathy of creatives, because they can sort of get by, as opposed to the highly romanticized version of what being a SoHo artist once was. When I spend 40 hours a week or more developing work for an institution or creating design for someone else, if I’m spending my time doing that, that [creative] part of my brain gets exhausted.

How does FEAST function as an “optimistic critique”?

JH: FEAST certainly cannot topple capitalism and the larger political structures affecting artists working today. There is value creation and we exist in a marketplace. But what we can do is personalize things a little more. We can make introductions between artists and their immediate communities. And we can demonstrate to them that their work is valued.

When is the next FEAST event?

JH: The next FEAST dinner is on February 6. For more information, please visit www.feastinbklyn.org

OnTopOfTheEmpire.com (2010) - Angelo Plessas

Ceci Moss — 2010-02-05T18:00:00+01:00

Call for Applications : Experimental Television Center's Finishing Funds 2010

Ceci Moss — 2010-02-05T17:00:00+01:00

Experimental Television Center is seeking applications for the 2010 cycle of their Finishing Funds program. Brief description below, for more information and to download the application, visit the grants section of their site. Deadline is March 15, 2010.

FINISHING FUNDS provides media and new media artists with grants up to $2,500 to help with the completion of diverse and innovative moving-image and sonic art projects, and works for the Web and new technologies. Eligible forms include film and video as single or multiple channel presentation, computer based moving-imagery and sound works, installations and performances, interactive works and works for new technologies, DVD, multimedia and the Web. We also support new media, and interactive performance. Work must be surprising, creative and approach the various media as art forms; all genres are eligible, including experimental, narrative and documentary art works. Individual artists can apply directly to the program and do not need a sponsoring organization. Applicants must be residents of New York State; undergraduate students are not eligible. The application requires a project description, resume and support materials, including a sample of the proposed project. Selection is made by a peer review panel. About $25,000 is awarded each year. Announcement is made in early June.

Will Gompertz on Net Art

Lauren Cornell — 2010-02-04T22:00:00+01:00

BBC Arts Editor Will Gompertz writes the following about net-based art:

"It's interesting that, as far as I am aware, no contemporary artist has yet harnessed this extraordinary technology to make a significant artwork. Of course, maybe I'm wrong and am missing something great - do you know of any net-based art works that are worth a look? Maybe you have made one (an artwork made specifically for the medium, as opposed to a film such as the one above, which uses the net only as a means of dissemination)? If you, like me, can't find any net-based art of note, why do you think that is? Why, when there's been such a boom in contemporary art around the world, has no artist made the medium of the web his or her canvas? And if someone were to use the net as a medium, as opposed to making an image, or a video, or even an interactive Flash animation, what would the resulting art look, or sound, or feel like?"

As with many things that are relatively new, there is a general lack of awareness surrounding internet-based art: how its defined, how to find it, how it operates, and so on. Internet art is also troubled by a problem of perpetual discovery: while its history evolves, it is often not elaborated, but instead rediscovered, again and again, by the critical establishment.

As the above comments by BBC's arts editor demonstrate, this moment of discovery can be wonderful, but its also glaringly ignorant of an important field that has been thriving for nearly two decades now. Gompertz also lays claim to a rather inverted sense of how the boom operates. He assumes that a boom in contemporary art would leverage net art; on the contrary, a boom doesn't elevate practices that aren't associated with high price-tags, it pushes them further to to the margins. This is a situation that makes it even more urgent for critics, curators and organizations to locate these practices, learn about them, support them and bring them to the forefront. Its unnecessary to tell this readership that the artist mentioned by Gompertz, Celeste Boursier-Mourgenot, is only one of a countless range of artists engaging with the participatory nature of the web. But, it does raise a larger question: Perhaps one positive side of the bust is that more critics might step back and look at work not (or not yet) squarely within the art market.

While I won't single out any artists here, I suggest that Gompertz spend some time looking at this website, and many others, like VVORK, Turbulence or Furtherfield, that promote an incredible range of internet-based art, as well as new methods through which artists are collecting and promoting each others work. When looking, I hope he will not try to find instances or reinforcements of Duchamp, but rather be open to new kinds of practices. 2010 is a very exciting moment in art, online and off, if you can see it.

Will Gompertz's blog post via Radiovisual

Until The End (2010) - Nicolas Sassoon

Ceci Moss — 2010-02-04T20:00:00+01:00

Orbite Rosse (Red Orbits) (2009) - Grazia Toderi

Ceci Moss — 2010-02-04T19:00:00+01:00

Double video projection, sound, loop / Dimensions variable / Installation view - Venice Biennale 2009