Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Surveillance and Capture: Two Models of Privacy, was written by Philip E. Agre in 1994. In it Agre grapples with the questions of institutional practice, presenting a different metaphor for privacy, the "capture" model, drawn from an awareness of the current methods of computer systems design.

Espen Aarseth's essay, Nonlinearity and Literary Theory (1994), offers an excellent study of the nonlinear nature of electronic text.

In Nomadic Power and Cultural Resistance (1994), the Critical Art Ensemble, a collective of tactical media practitioners, argues that new media networks are inherently incompatible with the power relations of the industrial revolution. They demolish the idea that it is possible for power to co-opt network and hypertext technologies, that such technologies have a manifest destiny of freedom.

The World-Wide Web,
by Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Cailliau, Ari Luotonen, Henrik Frystyk Nielsen and Arthur Secret, describes the relatively primitive yet absolutely effective hypertext system that is "the Web."

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Scratch is a 2001 documentary film, directed by Doug Pray, that examines cultural and historical perspectives on the birth and evolution of hip-hop DJs, scratching and turntablism and includes interviews with some of hip-hop's most famous and respected DJs. It is a good introduction to someone who is not familiar with the culture as well as a great collection of live footage and interviews for any fan of hip-hop and Djing. The film serves as a good device for showing people the incredible art and skill behind this form of music.

As with all art forms that rely on ever changing electronic equipment, people are curious as to where the art of scratching will go in the years to come. Here is one clue: Serato.
TIMELINE (CONDT.)

Pelle Ehn and Morten Kyng are best known as the leaders of the Utopia project (which is a Scandinavian acronym for "Training, Technology and Products from the Quality of Work Perspective"). The project was carried out in the early 1980s, before graphic user interfaces were widely available. The essay, written in 1991 titled, Cardboard Computers: Mocking-It-Up or Hands-On the Future discusses some of the production done in the Utopia project.

Also in 1991 Chip Morningstar and F. Randall Farmer wrote, The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat, in which they describe there invention Habitat--a virtual world that presented a two-and-a-half-dimensional view to users using modem-linked Commodore 64s. This primitive graphical environment provided numerous lessons in online interaction and the shared experience of a simulated world.

J. David Bolter's 1991, Seeing and Writing points out that although writing is visual, the appreciation of the visual aspects of it competes with understanding what is written. A competition that can be healthy or destructive. He also describes how the history of typography and printing relates to the present movement of writing onto the computer screen.

Stuart Moulthrop thoroughly discusses Hypertext in his essay, You Say You Want a Revolution?: Hypertext and the Laws of Media (1991).

What is the end of books? Among them are provocation, the communication of different perspectives, the pleasing rearrangement of thought through language narrative and many more possible ends that Robert Coover describes in his 1992, The End of Books.

Scott McCloud is sometimes referred to as the Aristotle of comics. What Aristotle did for Attic drama in the 'Poetics', Scott has done for comics. He explained how comic format works and the underlying structures and techniques are and began defining comics as "sequential art."
Jon Lippincott, who worked for Ken Perlin for several years, now works at Sony game development, for Playstaion 3. Outside of work, Jon has been developing a virtual world similar to such games as Spore, where the player can freely movie throughout a virtual galaxy experiencing numerous interactive environments on several different planets. Jon has demoed this project at Burning Man, the Machinema Festival and several clubs in which dance music is played in correlation to a video projection showing Jon travel through the virtual world.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

TIMELINE (CONTD.)

In his 1986 essay titled, Mythinformation, Langdon Winner takes to task the issues of the inevitable computer revolution, asking what the social goals of this revolution will be and whether regular elections will be held. He refutes the ideas that "information is knowledge, knowledge is power, and that increasing access to information enhances democracy and equalizes social power."

A year later, in 1987, Lucy Suchman made a fundamental critique of practices within artificial intelligence and presented a different concept of how people seek to accomplish goals. In her book, Plans and Situated Actions, Suchman makes the distinction between the planning and situated action perspectives as well as outlines what interactivity means and how the AI version of it can be seen in a historical context.

In Michael Joyce's 1988 Siren Shapes, he makes a distinction between two types of hypertext environments; exploratory: those that are former constructive hypertexts, now being explored b y a user/author, and constructive: those that are in the process of creation by the user/author.

Also in 1988, Bill Nichols updated Walter Benjamin's famous essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, discussing a shift between the time Benjamin published his piece, when film was a new technology, and the time that Nichols wrote his essay, The Work of Culture in the Age of Cybernetic Systems, when video games were young. He outlines how it represents a shift from a fetishization of the object to fetishization of the process of interaction, or simulation.

Lynn Hershman's Lorna is considered the first interactive video art installation (1979-1983). In 1990 she wrote Illuminating Video: An Essential Guide to Video Art.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

In 1981 Ted Nelson published Literary Machines, where he outlines his Xanadu project and the concepts behind it. The archetypal dream of a hypermedia network, and the foundation of all modern computer operating systems, Xanadu is an infinite computer network, much like the Bush's proposed memex.

In 1982, the high profile video artist Bill Viola wrote Will There Be Condominiums in Data Space?, originally from Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House. Viola believed in non linear video presentation. In this essay he explains that data space and memory function effectively based on the human mind and imagination. Viola states that everything is contained or needs a space to exist like our memories and the memory of a computer in order to be able to save and recordĀ whatever is going on. Even if this space is an empty space or just a small portion of it is used, it still exists in its entirety and serves a function.

In Ben Bagdikian's The Endless Chain, taken from his book Media Monopoly written in 1983, he predicts increasing media concentration and narrowness.

In his 1983 essay, Direct Manipulation: A Step Beyond Programming Languages, Ben Shneiderman discusses this idea of employing a command language to instruct the computer, the data being processed is exposed and accessed in a more graphically representational way, and immediate visual feedback is provided after every action. This idea informs not only the systems, but he graphical user interface.

In 1984, Sherry Turkle wrote her influential first book on new media, The Second Self. In Video Games and Computer Holding Power, taken from her book, she discusses computing culture and the way that individuals encounter the computer through video games.

Donna Haraway
wrote in 1985 A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.

In the GNU Manifesto by Richard Stallman, also written in 1985, outlines his argument against the free software community at the time. Stallman also quit his job to build a new set of free software, around which could develop a new free community.

Using Computers: A Direction for Design, taken from Understanding Computers and Cognition(1986) by Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores "concerns itself with the design of computer-based systems to facilitate human work and interaction."

Also in 1986, Brenda Laurel published Computer as Theater, which contains The Six Elements and the Casual Relations Among Them and Star Raiders: Dramatic Interaction in a Small World.

In Towards a New Classification of Tele-Information Services(1986), Jan L. Bordewijk and Ben van Kaam explain that the basic technology employed does not determine the category of service a telecommunications system provides.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

G.H. Hovagimyan is an experimental digital artist working in a variety of forms. He was one of the first artists in New York to begin using the internet in the early nineties. His work includes hypertext, digital performance and illustrations. His art has been shown internationally and with collaborator Peter Sinclair. G.H. Hovagimyan is a veteran new media artist, who exhibits a great level of maturity in his works. He speaks confidently with concise and refined opinions on society, art and the point at which they meet.

(For more information see 'New Media', Here .)
TIMELINE (CONTD.)

Augusto Boal is a South American interactive performance artist,who creates opportunities for interaction around the problems that confront ordinary people. He spent time among some of the most oppressed people in South America, using techniques described in his 1974 work, Theater of the Oppressed, where many of the described techniques are cataloged into Games for Actors and Non-Actors. He was initially based in Brazil--until the military government murdered his colleges and jailed and tortured him. He then fled to Argentina, worked in Chile for sometime, and was eventually exiled to Europe.

Many architects have made great contributions to new media. One of the most obvious applications of virtual reality was in architecture, where technology allowed for the first-person visualization of a planned physical building. Many new media insights offered by architects have come as innovative applications of architectural knowledge about space, or about design. The most influential architects working with computers--including Michael Benedikt, Marcos Novak, William Mitchel and Nicholas Negroponte--have developed new principles and theories for the digital realm, both to the cyberspace concept as well as new media in general. In 1967, Negroponte founded the Architecture Machine Group at MIT. In this group, he and his collaborators developed methods of managing data spatially rather than numerically or in textual lists. In 1975, Negroponte published Soft Architecture Machines, which remains of great importance to the design of software.

(For more information on the above mentioned architects, see 'Architecture' Here.)

In 1976, Joseph Weizenbaum wrote Computer Power and Human Reason, where he discusses his program ELIZA, which allows an individual to "converse" in English with a computer.

Those who forged new media have often seen themselves as simultaneously pursuing artistic and technological goals.

Myron Krueger has worked and written primarily in areas called "responsive environments" and "artificial reality." He is often called the "father of virtual reality." He is renowned in both the computer science and art worlds, for exploring more interesting ways for men and machines to relate.

Also in 1977, Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg described and foretold what notebook computing had become (the Dynabook) in there essay Personal Dynamic Media.

In 1980, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari published A Thousand Plateaus. In the introduction, they discuss rhizomatic writing which has been used to describe hypertext, or the properties of one hypertext system opposed to another. The text challenges readers to reconsider dualisms.

In Seymour Papert's 1980 publication, Mindstorms, he writes a hypothetical conversation between two children who are working and playing with a computer.

Put-That-There, written by Richard A. Bolt, also in 1980, describes systems of managing graphic space that combine not only speech, gesture, gaze, and facial expressions, but a preference for speech over typing.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

The Knife put on an incredible live performance at Webster Hall last night (Nov 1st). It featured an audiovisual show by long time collaborator and art director Andreas Nilsson, who also recently completed his fourth video for the band. Here it is: 'Like A Pen'
Out of Time: A Contemporary View, now at the MoMA, features a piece by veteran new media artist Bill Viola titled Stations(1994). The video installation comprises five video projections, each displaying a nude figure suspended in water, accompanied by a lulling soundtrack of underwater gurgles. Floating head-down, the figures slowly drift in and out of the image frames. Polished slabs of granite placed at the foot of each screen provide reflections of the figures which, seem to be swimming in pools of black liquid. Stations is a powerful meditation on the cycles of life, death and rebirth.