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| BFFA3AE | les liens invisibles | paul, et al | ham | sullender | trowbridge/westbrook | singer |
| xia | ars virtua | hayes | halpern |
by BFFA3AE
with funds from the Jerome Foundation
This and that thought. takes the form of a narrative to explore the structure of the Internet and the ways in which it unconsciously conditions its users to make use of the medium in a specific way. A formula, in this case the van der Corput sequence, is used to structure our experience of the narrative as well as provide a metaphor to the many algorithms we interact with as a user. By illustrating the hidden mechanisms inherent to the Internet of today, This and that thought. hopes to uncover its structure and help the user glean and interpret from it in a subjective and meaningful manner. [Needs Speakers]
by Les Liens Invisibles
with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts
Tweet 4 Action is the ultimate tool for armchair activism. Discover how to set up the most radical street demonstrations and take part in them without any annoying risks. Created in the cultural context of "Twitter Revolutions," this new project from Les Liens Invisibles injects fervor into your tweety riots by mixing together the potent combination of Twitter, augmented reality, and data hallucination. Insurrections have never been so easy: just decide with a few clicks where you want to place your riot, pick a rebellion hashtag (#), and spread it all over the web. Your tweets will become the squatter demonstrators in the augmented reality space of your campaign! Are you ready to change the world? Don’t miss the action: augment your reaction! [Needs Twitter Account and Smart Phone with the Layar app. installed]
by Jordan Topiel Paul, Eric Laska, Richard Kamerman, Reed Evan Rosenberg
with funds from the Jerome Foundation
Quartet With Pyramid Scheme is a streaming online sound installation whose audio content is collected through a sixteen-week pyramid scheme structure. Every two weeks, a new set of participants (recruited by prior participants) submits sound samples that the quartet will selectively work into the stream. The samples are played continuously in unpredictable variations through a Max/MSP patch. By the end of the process, 512 participants will have been asked to contribute.
by Ethan Ham
with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts
Les Belles Infidèles consists of a short story — written specifically for this project by Benjamin Rosenbaum — that has been translated and retranslated by more than 40 translators into 15 languages. The project is an exploration of the story's compounding mutation as the translators attempt to make it work in different languages and cultures. The term "les belles infidèles" comes from a 17th century quip by Gilles Ménage in which he compared a set of translations to an acquaintance of his: beautiful but unfaithful. The phrase has come to express the tension between making a translation seem natural in the target language versus keeping it as close as possible to the original text.
by Woody Sullender
with funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council
Spectral Quartet is a web adaptation of the project Whispering Spectres, which will be installed at Turbulence @Pace Digital Gallery 2, April 5-29, 2011. The audio content consists of filtered radio signals, culled from various web streams from the Internet. These signals are being passed through many "band pass filters", a type of equalizer that allows a small range of frequencies through while attenuating frequencies outside of this range. In effect, most of the audio signal is "erased" except for a narrow stratum of frequency material. This work highlights small, hidden musical moments that are occurring on radio, but are usually rendered inaudible by other elements in the sound. Although the Internet can bridge disparate communities, our experience on the web is of a customized landscape, with content tailored to our ideological views, our shopping behaviors, our socio-economic demographics, etc. Spectral Quartet literally re-unites these voices into a singularized, aestheticized, quiet moment. [Needs Speakers]
by Adam Trowbridge and Jessica Westbrook
with funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council
Eleven years into the new century, it is time to discuss the terms of surrender. Not a surrender to any civilization but the surrender of civilization to those in control who would use any political participation as a crutch for their failure. The question is not if but when giving up on civilization will be seen as the only rational political stance. Channel TWo is a post-network media channel that begins with entertainment-based narrative as a common language. Structurally, it employs internet algorithms, viewer research and custom software to generate localized content. The outcome is a nonlinear, local media sequence that is directly connected to the community in which it is situated. Channel TWo begins after the inevitable surrender of civilization, a never-ending, visually-stimulating, product-placement-based culture stream. Part of Turbulence @Pace Digital Gallery 2, April 5-29, 2011.
by Brooke Singer, with Fever Creative
with funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council
Social Relay Mail (SRM) is an app that lets you identify a stranger on Facebook and use your social network to deliver a private message. Turn your friends, your friends' friends, and your friends' friends' friends into your personal courier service. Sending the message is only half the fun. In the process, discover the strength of your social network via a handy data visualization. Did your message arrive at its destination or get dropped? How many people had to be enlisted along the way? Social Relay Mail is part Pony Express and part Facebook hack — testing the limits of interaction in a controlled social space. [Needs a http://facebook.com account]
by Liangjie Xia
with funds from the Jerome Foundation
You are not always who other people think you are; you even hear your own voice in a different way. By recording and manipulating a recording of your voice with You Don't Know Me, you will be able to restore your real voice and share with people how you hear yourself. This is a unique task that nobody else in the world can do. You Don't Know Me provides a toolset and an online voice gallery. We are looking forward to hearing your true voice. [Needs software download]
curated by James Morgan/Ars Virtua
with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts
Built on MUSH (Multi-User Shared Hallucination) code, look art is a contemporary consideration of the Multi-User Dungeon (MUD), a pervasive late-twentieth century, text-based, online environment that was a precursor to today's Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (such as "World of Warcraft" and "Second Life"). MUDs were influenced by early role-playing games like "Dungeons and Dragons, " relying on the user's ability to conjure images through text – unlike today's dependence on high-resolution graphics (which were not possible then). Because the connection protocols are simple, the text-only space is accessible via many clients, including mobile phones. The inaugural look art exhibition features works by Thomas Asmuth, Alejandro Duque, and Christopher Poff.
Openings on July 16, 2011 at 10:00 am and 6:00 pm PST. [Needs software download and installation]
Read a review >>
by Ted Hayes
with funds from the Jerome Foundation
PuréeData is a web-browser interface for a single shared sound environment that allows live, collaborative patching for anyone, anywhere. Visitors interact with a shared PureData audio synthesis patch and listen to the results as an MP3 stream, with no software to install or set up. The project is open-source, and all are encouraged to modify, improve and set up their own PuréeData servers. [Optimized for Google Chrome]
by Tal Halpern
with funds from the Jerome Foundation
Endgame: A Cold War Love Story – for the web and Flash enabled touch screen devices (DROID) – is a puzzle whose pieces are culled from an archive of long forgotten propaganda. In it a story about art, exile and history takes shape from the fragmentary remains of one woman's life. [Needs Adobe Flash Player]
Using Google search results, textual fragments found on the Web are programmatically rearranged, deformed or crushed. By applying this strategic process new, dismantling and reorienting contexts arise, not directly conforming to the mundanity of the original result listings, deconstructing and re-contextualizing the actual text. Both reflecting and reinforcing changing attitudes and roles towards art, religion and technology. [Needs Firefox Browser]
Michael Takeo Magruder
On July 28, 2010, WikiLeaks posted a link to an encrypted 1.4GB file entitled insurance.aes256 on its Afghan War Diary website. The file's appearance generated considerable speculation and debate as no official explanation was given about its contents or purpose. Countless individuals have downloaded it and redistributed it on hard drives and servers spanning the world's vast unregulated file-sharing networks, virally embedding it into the fabric of the Internet and rendering it forever obtainable and impossible to eradicate. What knowledge (or secrets) will be uncovered within its cryptic digital form? Insurance.AES256 is a 2011 commission for All that Fits: The Aesthetics of Journalism curated by Alfredo Cramerotti and Simon Sheikh.
by Jason Nelson
Six Sided Strange is a net-artwork series built from unsolvable Rubik's cubes and hidden narratives, from pixilated game character collages to abstract streams of color and lines. The cube is central to how we organize and understand. It is a puzzle of unsolvable junctures, a humanistic shape created to order and organize. Six Sided Strange disrupts the cube, wandering inside/around the recombinatory playground of Rubik's 56 squares, exploring how images and designs relate to narrative. These are interactive/dynamic sculptures, brief storylands, and all manner of wonderments. There is nothing to win, but then again there never was. [Needs Speakers or Headphones]
Read an interview >>
Read a review >>
Read an interview >>
by Jim Andrews
Aleph Null is a generative, interactive, open source work written in JavaScript using the HTML5 canvas tag. No plugin required. Aleph Null is color music. No audio. It takes practice to tease the really good stuff out of it. It's like an instrument that way. Or a game in which the goal is to experience color music and create visuals you like. It's like hunting the Snark, beauty or butterflies. Unlike most instruments, Aleph Null will play something whether a person is playing or not. But it benefits immensely by a human player. It knoweth not beauty, is but the instrument of thine own incandesence.
Supported in part with funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council
New work by Brooke Singer, Woody Sullender, Adam Trowbridge and Jessica Westbrook :: April 5-29, 2011 :: Opening: April 5; 5:00 - 7:00 pm :: Pace Digital Gallery, 163 William Street, NYC.
Upgrade! Boston is a monthly gathering of new media artists and curators that fosters dialogue and creates opportunities for collaboration within the media art community. At each meeting one or two artists/curators present work in progress and participate in a discussion. Upgrade! Boston is a node in the Upgrade! International network.