By
Ceci Moss
on
Monday, December 1st, 2008 at
4:00 pm
Chiros, a project by Rhizome-commissioned artist Melanie Crean, goes online today in acknowledgment of World AIDS Day, which was initiated twenty years ago in order to raise awareness about the disease and encourage research and prevention. Chiros pairs interviews with HIV+ women participating in New York-based non-profit programs Iris House, Life Force, Exponents and CAMBA with animations based on scientist Metod Saniga's elliptical model of time. The women were asked to speak about their perception of time, specifically as it has changed since becoming positive. The interviews are both empowering and moving, as many of the women express a need to reclaim time for themselves since their diagnosis. An installation of the project will also go up this week, at Longwood Art Gallery in Bronx, NY.
By
Ceci Moss
on
Monday, December 1st, 2008 at
2:30 pm
Image:" Zoo Game" found by Jon Williams
Guthrie Lonergan has gone seriously meta with his new exhibition Tag Team, up until December 23, curated for online art space Club Internet. Guthrie explained in an email to me that "artists in the show are tag-teaming with the "non-artist" creators of sites they have found to create the pieces in the show together, [and] I am tag-teaming with other artists in curating the show (I am curating something which has already been curated)." Got it. Like a good delicious feed, there are some intriguingly bizarre finds here. One standout is the animation Zoo Game found by Jon Williams which follows a librarian and library patron as they turn into creatures from Noah's Ark and race. Yeah. And the Tyra Banks gif wall which is....absolutely frightening. Somewhere between readymades and folk art, or folk art as a readymade, the sites presented in Tag Team are essentially a "Greatest Hits" collection of bookmarks by artists Petra Cortright, fixoid, Michael Guidetti, Travis Hallenbeck, Joel Holmberg, Lindsay Lawson, Olia Lialina, lowcast, Ilia Ovechkin, Jon Williams, Robert Wodzinski, John Michael Boling, and Tyler Campbell.
By
Ceci Moss
on
Monday, December 1st, 2008 at
1:10 pm
Today, Turbulence announced a new commission by Ethan Ham and Benjamin Rosenbaum. Titled Tumbarumba, this Firefox extension allows the user to uncover twelve stories while surfing the web. Like a series of hidden doors, the user must discern the entry into a text via its apparent absurdity. By clicking through this outlier text, the story appears bit by bit. The project carries over elements from hypertext fiction, but through its implementation as a Firefox application, it becomes more firmly embedded in the user's overall browsing experience.
Firefox extension projects have picked up more recently, one of my favorites continues to be Steve Lambert's Add Art. (Incidentally, also a Rhizome Commission.) For the Firefox-extension aficionado, F.A.T. will launch "Artzilla.org" next week, a collection/blog dedicated to experimental Firefox add-ons. They're kicking the blog off on December 13th with an exhibition by Aram Bartholl, Dragan Espenschied, Evan Roth, Theo Watson, Jamie Wilkinson, Timo Klok, and Tobias Leingruber at Worm Rotterdam. Once running, Artzilla.org will definitely be worth checking out.
By
Rhizome
on
Friday, November 28th, 2008 at
3:00 pm
Rhizome's Community Campaign is underway and, thanks to our generous supporters, we're advancing towards our goal of raising $30,000 by midnight on December 31, 2008. All of our programs rely on your contributions - so thank you!!
By
Ceci Moss
on
Friday, November 28th, 2008 at
2:00 pm
Yes, sir! We've updated Rhizome's Vimeo and Video pages with new videos from New Silent Series events "Next Level" and "Net Aesthetics 2.0". "Net Aesthetics 2.0," the second in a series, examined the state of contemporary art engaged with the internet. Moderated by curator, critic and Rhizome staff writer Ed Halter, panelists included Petra Cortright, Jennifer and Kevin Mccoy, Tom Moody, Tim Whidden and Damon Zucconi. Ed Halter also moderated the talk on indie gaming "Next Level" with artists and game designers Mark Essen, Jason Rohrer and Greg Costikyan.
Big, big thanks to Rhizome's Social Media intern Jenny Braudaway for getting these videos up.
By
Marisa Olson
on
Friday, November 28th, 2008 at
10:30 am
It's interesting to think of the correlations between religion and reproduction. From illuminated manuscripts to the Guttenberg Bible, sacred texts have pushed reproductive techniques forward. Electronic media have only entrenched the scenario: Televangelism, holy-rolling web rings, and spiritual podcasts might put the script in scripture, but they have also led to what some are seeing as a revival in spiritualism among online consumers, er, believers. In Karlsruhe, Germany, new media place of worship ZKM has mounted an exhibition entitled Medium Religion, which is focused on what happens when religious faith moves "from the private sphere of personal belief out into the public sphere of visual communication." The works they've included--by artists Christoph Büchel, Paul Chan, Wim Delvoye, Valie Export, Omer Fast, Boris Groys, Vitaly Komar, Beryl Korot and Steve Reich, robotlab, and many others--consider the role of images in broadcasting ideology and the structure of mass media's discourse networks. While looking at the link between world views and worldwide transmissions, the show also raises the question of what happens to "minority faiths" and how they weather a ratings or hit-driven communication economy. In addition to the many art projects included, the show features a number of "documentary installations" that provide evidence of spiritual transmissions' popularity, ranging from a roundup of Osama Bin Laden's video messages to episodes of Paul Eugene's Gospel Aerobics. But that raises another question... If the body is a temple, what would god make of the new flesh? - Marisa Olson
Image: Valie Export, Ingrid and Oswald Wiener, Das Unsagbare Sagen, 1992
"PREDRIVE: After Technology" (currently on exhibition at The Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA November 14-April 2, 2009) features new works by six international artists including Takeshi Murata, Paper Rad, Gretchen Skogerson, Antoine Catala, and Brody Condon. The exhibition was conceived with a very specific group of artists in mind -- artists who placed both the dysfunction and arrogance of ever-changing technologies at the center of their work. In a sense, these artists are working in the shadow of a technological dystopia (and euphoria) that had begun as early as the Industrial Revolution -- as expressed in the vacant, vectored glances mapped out in Edouard Manet's The Balcony (1868-69) or the absolute pleasure of stop-motion animation in Georges Melies'
An Up-To-Date Conjuror (1899).
Below, I speak with two of the featured artists in the show, Takeshi Murata and Jacob Ciocci (of Paper Rad) -- we cover everything from readymade software aesthetics to the dream of the perfect collector -- someone willing to take the risk of simply buying an idea. -- Melissa Ragona
Melissa Ragona: Last night I was asking about how you each manipulate your work at the level of the pixel. But, in a larger sense, I want to know where your work is going in terms of its relationship to technology -- especially because "PREDRIVE" is about what I am calling, the anti-wow effect of new technologies -- the disappointment of new technologies' promise to bring us somewhere else faster or to offer a yet-to-be imagined visual/audio space. I first became interested in so-called "new media," through structuralist film, focusing on filmmakers like Hollis Frampton, Paul Sharits, Tony Conrad, Joyce Wieland, Michael Snow, Peter Kubelka, et al. And then began exploring, a second generation of filmmakers who were also interested in film as epistemology (studied at the levels of the frame, or projection systems, or editing) primarily through the Six Pack group in Vienna which included filmmakers like Martin Arnold, Brigitta Burger-Utzer, Alexander Horwath, Lisl Ponger and Peter Tscherkassky. And, then most recently, artists involved in information visualization projects like Martin Wattenberg, Lisa Jevbratt, Ben Fry or Golan Levin. So, while I am still interested in work that is rigorously formal and reflexive about the use of technology - I am less impressed by what it produces visually. So, I know that in your [addressing Takeshi] most recent work you seem to be experimenting with freer, more improvisational forms. Or it seems that the focus is more on the relationship between frames rather than at the level of the pixel [as in Monster Movie or Escape Spirit VideoSlime].
Takeshi Murata: Yeah, but for me it has more to do with working within a different historical context. In the work I was doing earlier [as in Monster Movie] -- it's a great open territory -- working with new tools like computers or software programs. The technology is moving so quickly that there's much less of a framework through which to see the work. Now that I am working with more traditional forms of animation again, I have its history to work from, for better or worse.
Jacob Ciocci: So I have a question for Takeshi -- so what's an example of this newer form you were referring to, you mean like rethinking animation? And which older pieces of yours are we talking about?
TM: Well, like Monster Movie. And I'm thinking mostly about the level of incorporation of the computer, or where it’s incorporated. I initially was drawn to using the computer because of the speed. When I started to work with hand-drawn animation again, one of the main issues that was really important to me was the length of time it took to make work. If you can make something really quickly, it can change everything. I learned by doing traditional animation -- you know, you would write out script, storyboard, keyframing, you know all the classic stuff. But, in the end, like 90% of it is simply pounding it out.
JC: Yeah, right. Just sitting there and pounding it out.
TM: Yeah, because there isn't room for any kind of experimentation or growth -- what you can do is simply limited at that point. One of the reasons I got into computer-based work is that it allows you to put that process in another place; you could make things happen in different directions.
JC: Okay, so you got into computers in that way. Now, it's an example of something that is moving back toward this other model of animation. Give me some examples of that newer work.
TM: Well, the latest hand-drawn animations.
JC: Like what?
TM: Well the video I just finished for the Mattress Factory is Homestead Grays. I haven't really found an exact balance yet -- like the thing I did with Billy [Dearraindrop] in London was straight animation, but we stripped it down to only white forms on black. We were using the computer to be really fast and that was a huge step up.
JC: So when you started you weren't using computers at all, right?
TM: No, right it was all film.
JC: Wow, that's amazing.
TM: Yeah, the process gave me so much respect for artists who were making animation before computers.
By
Ceci Moss
on
Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at
10:19 am
Image: Brian Alfred, Help Me!, 2005
Image: Mark Titchner, Voices you cannot hear, 2004
These two screensavers by artists Brian Alfred and Mark Titchner were created in 2006 to accompany an exhibition in Creative Time's ongoing "The 59th Minute" series at New York's Time Square. Appearing on one of the most prominent screens in the square, the NBC Astrovision by Panasonic, "The 59th Minute" is a project, begun in 2000, which brings work by video artists to this singular public space. Both Titchner's Voices you cannot hear (2004) and Alfred's Help Me! (2005) incorporate subliminal messages, and are a commentary on the use of cryptic manipulation in advertising. Given the context and symbolism of Times Square, this was an especially effective move. For Titchner's piece the words "DO IT" appear again and again in the background, whereas in Alfred's piece "HELP ME!" continually scrolls across a static image of a building, mimicking tickertape. Ara Peterson's Energy Fields (2003) also screened alongside these works, but was not produced as a screensaver. Peter Eleey curated the exhibition.
1. 0N: turns computer on
2. 4W4Y: restarts computer
3. data_disappear: makes data disappear
4. 3T3RN4L_R3TURN: makes data reappear
5. 54W: cuts the operating system in half
6. R881X0R: runs the rabbit virus
7. M461C14NZ_H4T: catches the rabbit virus in the magician's hat
8. T3H_0RD3R_0F_0RD3R: creates order + nonsense
9. CH405_M4J1K: creates chaos + sense
Statement: H3X3N is a group of Computer Witches who have built an enchanted cube that casts magical spells on computers. The IX cube casts spells on Windows, Macintosh and Linux computers, hacking and hexing these operating systems. IX combines traditional stage magic tricks and irony as elements of Hacker culture to create an Interactive Installation and Software Art project.
By
Nick Hasty
on
Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at
1:20 pm
Processing, the open-source programming language and production environment developed by Ben Fry and Casey Reas, turned 1.0 yesterday. While it started off as tool for sketching and teaching the fundamentals of programing, Processing has developed into a full-fledged alternative to expensive proprietary software for the creation of everything from data visualizations and interactive installations to music and video. In just 7 years, Processing has grown into one of the primary tools used by contemporary artists working on digital projects, and stands as one of the finest examples of the power of open-source development.
Visit the Processing website to download the 1.0 version and start making things!
By
Ceci Moss
on
Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at
11:15 am
Hawkwind fans should take note of an exhibition currently up at Fake Estate, a former utility closet and now a cozy arts space on the fifth floor of the 526 W. 26th Street building in Chelsea. Art collaborative Yemenwed have transformed Fake Estate into a site-specific viewing room, replete with a red oblong sculpture as a centerpiece, for their video Episode 3. Legendary space rock group Hawkwind come to mind primarily because of their use of themes, including that of the Eternal Champion and the multiverse, derived from science fiction writer Michael Moorcock, who worked closely with the band. Similar to Moorcock's perennial figure of the Eternal Champion, who navigates across dimensions of the multiverse and whose identity is at times manifold, Episode 3's main protagonist, Sigrid H. travels through several zones housed within a Metronome-shaped structure, and the characters or objects she encounters in these spaces are an extension of her own identity. It seems fitting that an art group with as many members as Yemenwed (the press release credits 19 separate collaborators) should examine multiple identities. Episode 3 can be viewed online but should really be experienced within Fake Estate's gallery, if only to take in the video's elaborate scenery and the sound design, which are the strongest elements of the work.
By
Ceci Moss
on
Monday, November 24th, 2008 at
11:35 am
Jason Rohrer, creator of Passage and Gravitation, has a new game, Between, which is now available for download through Esquire.com. Unlike his previous works, which pull their narratives from life experience -- such as one's path through birth and death in Passage and inspiration in Gravitation -- Between occupies more surreal territory. Directions are not explicit, and while a two-player game, the presence of the other player, and the correlation between players to action in the game, is obscured. The players, drifting between "wake" and "sleep", must navigate the space in order to decipher their tasks, which involve building a tower of colored blocks. The tower can only be built using certain colored blocks, and the availability of these colors is entirely dependent on the progress of the other player's tower. Thus, while the individual player's tower building seems to operate in remove from the other player, he is, in fact, reliant on their decisions in order to complete the job. The game's ambiguity sets up an interaction between players that draws on cooperation, but a cooperation that is both confusing and difficult to attain.
Please make a donation to Rhizome now during our annual Community
Campaign! Our goal is to raise $30,000 by 12/31/08, a figure that is
completely vital to sustain us this year.
Rhizome ($25 level): Rhizome Membership
Rhizome membership comes with full access to our archives, ability to use special site features and discounts to art merchandise online. See our individual membership page for a full list!
Sprout ($50 level): Rhizome Ringtones by YACHT, Rainbro, Taigaa and Ben Coonley In return for a donation of $50, you can choose one of four ringtones
by artist bands Rainbro (a.k.a. Ben
Fino-Radin), Taigaa, YACHT (Jona Bechtolt and Claire
Evans), or Ben
Coonley, who will record a dialogue with his internationally
beloved pony, just for your phone.
Seedling ($100): Nasty Nets DVD, Nasty Nets collective
Nasty Nets is an international ensemble representing some of the most
active artists working online today. Identifying themselves as a "web
surfing club," together the work they post on the nastynets.com blog
both celebrates and critiques the internet. Their collections of
animated gifs, YouTube hacks, html cheat codes, and other found and
edited material offer a poignant and humorous take on contemporary
digital visual culture. On a DVD player, the Nasty Nets DVD offers a
handful of funny, visually playful videos and remixes from the
treasure trove of internet pop culture. On a computer, users can also
access a multitude of file folders jam-packed with a collection
gif-mashups, videos, and other appropriated material that has made the
site so popular, online.
Shoot ($200): Floor Warp, Guthrie Lonergan, 2008
Members will get a screensaver (for Mac or PC) by Guthrie Lonergan. For
members only, Guthrie has converted his video loop Floor Warp
2 into a work of art for your computer. Veteran PC users will
remember the old Warp screensaver for Windows, which inspired this new
loop.
Bud ($300): Member, 2009, Steve Lambert, 2008, edition of five Steve Lambert is going to make a
brand-new business-card-sized drawing edition that states simply
"Member, 2009."
Stolon ($500): Rhizome Balaclava, Cat Mazza, 2008, edition of five
In a variation on her Stitch
For Senate project, Cat
Mazza will use her microRevolt knitPro application to create a
balaclava with the Rhizome logo, to keep you warm in style.
Craft Hackers
Craft Hackers is a panel discussion among artists who use crafting
techniques to explore high tech culture and the relationship between
needlework and computer programming.
Friday, December 12 at 7:30pm
at the New Museum
$8 General/ $6 Members BUY TICKETS HERE
Every year, Rhizome awards commissions to a group of international artists for the creation of new work. Read about the nine projects commissioned in our 2009 cycle!
ART & ABSINTHE
Art & Absinthe is a new blog following the ins and outs, hits and misses of the New York City contemporary art scene. Find Art & Absinthe at events in Manhattan and Williamsburg, and check out the website for insider info, details on upcoming events, party photos, and more.
In addition to art attractions open to the general public, Art & Absinthe has teamed up with select galleries and non-profit organizations like Deitch Projects, Rhizome, James Fuentes, Like the Spice, and Leo Kesting
Gallery through the website's sponsor, Pernod Absinthe. (Google readers can grab the RSS feed here: www.artandabsinthe.com/feed
In return for a donation of $50, you can choose one of four ringtones
by artist bands 
Nasty Nets is an international ensemble representing some of the most
active artists working online today. Identifying themselves as a "web
surfing club," together the work they post on the 
Members will get a screensaver (for Mac or PC) by 
In a variation on her 
