The Gate (or Hole in Space, Reloaded) :: October 4-7, 2007 :: Yannick Antoine, Yves Bernard (BE); with the collaboration of: Domenico Quaranta (IT), Sugar Seville (SL) :: Opening Performance: Second Front :: iMAL Center for Digital Cultures and Technology, Brussels; Odyssey Contemporary Art and Performance, Second Life (Odyssey 122/45/25)

The Gate is an installation connecting real life and Second Life, a junction point, a door between two worlds and two representation spaces. Basically, it is a simple window between both worlds where real users and SL users see each other and can meet. A view of the SL Gate is permanently projected in the real life venue; when an avatar comes in front of The Gate, it is visible in the public space; when one arrives physically in front of the door in the public space, he/she can interact with the SL user currently in front.

The result will be a kind of happening where the virtuality of SL is transferred in the physicality of our public space and vice-versa; a stage for performance and interaction, something between a breakdance platform, an inter-dimensional portal and a peep show through parallel universes.

The Gate has been designed for the opening show of iMAL new space in Brussels. The show explores the fusion between the physical world and the net through networked sculptures and installations which question the physical space as well as the digital world. Featured artists: Yannick Antoine (BE), Pascal Baltazar (FR), Justin Benett (UK), Yves Bernard (BE), Jonah Brucker-Cohen (USA), Mathieu Chamagne (FR), HC Gilje (NO), Linda Hifling (DK), Thomas Israël (BE), Sven König (DE), Walter Langelaar (NL), Sascha Pohflepp (DE), Antoine Schmitt (FR), Second Front (Second Life), Walter Verdin (BE), Visual Kitchen & Eavesdropper (BE).

Perform from iMAL with people on Second Life.

The Gate is installed on Odyssey, an island in Second Life dedicated to art and performance. In the opening hours of iMAL (October 5 - 6, 11 AM - 7PM [2AM - 10AM SLT]; October 7, 10AM - 8PM [1AM - 11 PM SLT]), people, avatars and performance artists are kindly invited to come, perform and interact at The Gate, both in real life and in Second Life. During the vernissage on October 4 (8:30 - 12 PM [11:30AM - 3PM SLT]) Second Front, the first performance art group in Second Life, will use The Gate as a in-between stage in front of iMAL visitors and SL passer-by.

Perform from The Gate in Second Life with visitors at iMAL.

First create a free account in Second Life (http://secondlife.com/join) and run the software (http://secondlife.com/download)
Once you have this properly installed use this SLurl to teleport to Odyssey:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Odyssey/122/45/25/
The Gate is installed on the beach of next to the teleport hub.

Maybe you’ve figured it out already; I’m really into projects where virtual and meat space interact. -Ezra

Originally
from Networked_Performance

by jo


reBlogged

on Sep 30, 2007, 9:45PM

Originally by jo from Networked_Performance on September 30, 2007, 2:45pm

Right now, high-powered lobbyists for the giant telecom companies are descending on Capitol Hill to lobby Congress. Their aim: to secure immunity for their clients, insulating them from liability for breaking the law in connection with the NSA’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program. Clearly, EFF’s case against AT&T is in their crosshairs.

Considering the urgency of the issue, mainstream media coverage has been surprisingly spotty and incomplete. But there are some excellent updates and analysis from bloggers and news sources that have been doggedly covering the facts as they come in. Here are a few of our picks:

The Nation:

Granting amnesty to telecoms would signal Congressional acquiescence in an illegal course of conduct. It would send a loud message to other businesses and individuals: Don’t worry if the executive branch comes to you secretly and demands that you violate the law or impinge on basic liberties. We’ll bail you out. And it would stymie lawsuits that not only serve accountability, but also provide paths to illuminate what harm has been done to our rights.

In seeking amnesty for the telecoms, the White House is striking the same chord it hit when President Bush pardoned Lewis “Scooter” Libby: Crimes may have been committed, but so long as they are done in the name of the White House, there will be few consequences. Indeed, Michael McConnell’s (flawed) argument about bankrupting the telecoms harmonizes with President Bush’s claim that Libby’s sentence was too harsh. Companies and individuals that break the law without the benefit of the Executive’s blessing pay the consequences of their unlawful actions every day.

Glenn Greenwald at Salon:

It is hard to overstate how much of a priority FISA immunity is for the Bush White House, and for obvious reasons. Ironically, they were actually proposing the same sweeping retroactive immunity language back in September of 2006 when the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, but they could not get the Congress to pass FISA legislation. With the Democrats in control of Congress, and Democratic Beltway influence-peddlers like Gorelick working with them, their chances of obtaining such legislation are now plainly enhanced, and according to both Risen and Isikoff/Hosenball, they are likely to obtain some form of retroactive immunity now that Democrats control Congress. There are reasons — good reasons — why the current Congress is more popular among Republicans than Democrats.

Art Levine at the Huffington Post:

A grim sign is the way the ACLU, normally an ally of progressive Democrats, is being kept in the dark by the Democratic leadership about their plans to “compromise” with the administration, and copies of proposed bills are being kept hidden, at this point, from progressive advocacy groups — so we will all have too little time to react and demand constitutional protection.

Matt Stoller, Open Left:

I just got off the phone with Caroline Fredrickson from the ACLU, and the news is about what you’d expect if you have witnessed Democratic House behavior over the past six months. The bottom line is that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are disorganized and giving no signals to members on the FISA wiretapping expansion and retroactive immunity to telecom companies, which is going to result in horrific legislation. In the Senate, Jay Rockefeller is once again inviting Mike McConnell into closed hearings on how to fix the FISA law, and the markup is next week. There are no drafts of legislation around, which is a bad sign. The Senate Judiciary Committee is hamstrung by Dianne Feinstein, who prevents a majority, and by the instincts of Democrat leaders who, in a conflicts between Judiciary and Intelligence, will go with Intelligence because of a perceived fear of national security weakness.

And don’t miss the ACLU FISA Fact sheet:

Myth: The so-called “Protect America Act” permits the collection of foreign-to-foreign calls and doesn’t implicate Americans.

Reality: No. What McConnell isn’t saying, is that the new law also allows the government to collect foreign to domestic calls and, quite possibly, domestic to domestic calls. Any communications that are “directed at” or even “concerning” someone overseas may be collected, even when one party to the communication is an American. That means that Americans will have our calls and emails swept up in this newly legalized dragnet.

I don’t care if you’re a telco: you should be held responsible, no matter what your illegal activity. -Ezra

Originally
from The Electronic Frontier Foundation | Blog Posts

reBlogged

on Sep 29, 2007, 11:00PM

Originally from The Electronic Frontier Foundation | Blog Posts on September 29, 2007, 4:00pm

I’ve long assumed that the Macintosh conceptual design model is spatial while Windows is conceived by its designers as a tool. Well thanks to Peter, here’s evidence I’m right. This may seem like a small thing, but I believe it goes a long way to explaining why Mac users are so, um, zealous in their allegiance. The way it feels to be “in” the Mac “world” is personal in a way that Windows just isn’t. Peter’s posting of the original Mac manual also reminded me of how the first Macs felt like little houses or secret boxes for all your personal stuff. I remember people keeping diaries on them and they’d carry the Mac onto their dorm room beds. This sort of emotional content is what great design (if not necessarily market success) is all about for me.

differing design paradigms. –Ezra

Originally
from decipher

by nadav


reBlogged

on Aug 28, 2007, 9:57PM

Originally by nadav from decipher on August 28, 2007, 2:57pm

It’s official. Bre Pettis will be our monochrom artist in residence in November. We can’t wait to welcome him to Vienna.

Bre Pettis produces the show “Weekend Projects,” which is released weekly as a video podcast for Make: Magazine. For his show, Bre makes something every week, and then makes a video teaching viewers how to make it too. In his recent past, he’s been a schoolteacher, a multi-artist, and a puppeteer. Bre is passionate about invention, innovation, and all things DIY.

Link

Not only does he make things, he shows you how to do them.

Originally
from monochrom

by johannes


reBlogged

Originally by johannes from monochrom

We love and hate our cell phones like annoying siblings or parts of our bodies, and when we discard and replace them, the act is often accompanied by a pang of loss. That conflicted psychological relationship to our little digital appendages forms the basis for a new body of work by Joe McKay on view at Brooklyn’s VertexList September 7 through October 7. His Hacked Cell Phone Sculptures lovingly resurrect outmoded and abandoned mobile phones as components in imaginative contraptions, splaying out Nokia guts and reconstituting them as everything from telegraph devices to a keyboard-based instrument. The neglected machines enjoying a new life are joined by the video/performance work Sunset Solitare and a series of manipulated photographs, titled UFO 1-7. During the September 7 opening, the artist also offers a demonstration of his ‘Cell Phone Piano’ that could make one misty-eyed for an unhinged flip phone or long-forgotten ringtone.

[Link]

New Media is about using and reusing technologies in ways they may not have intended to be used. This is such a great example.

Originally
from Rhizome.org

reBlogged

on Sep 6, 2007, 4:58PM

Originally from Rhizome.org on September 6, 2007, 9:58am

Hi I made a button for your browser that covers youtube movies in blood — please go install it and try it out when you get a chance. Works best on dull home videos, like video logs, etc… o, the horror of the mundane! (here’s a sample of what it does)

Originally
from Rhizome.org

reBlogged

on Sep 17, 2007, 2:12PM

Originally from Rhizome.org on September 17, 2007, 7:12am

From September 14-29th the Staten Island Ferry, which transports commuters from Staten Island, New York to lower Manhattan, will perform a dual public service. Acting as both public transport and public broadcaster, the Ferry will be host to The FM Ferry Experiment. Organized by artists neuroTransmitter, the project will reach out to a broad audience. Those in the know can tune into WSIA 88.9 FM (or listen online at fmferryexperiment.net, free103point9.org, or wsia.fm) and others–like the thousands of daily commuters who utilize the ferry–may serendipitously be exposed to avant-garde music and sonic experiments during their twenty-five minute commute. With echoes of a pirate radio station, this offshore operation will be hosting live performances by artists such as Emily Jacir and Jamal Rayyis, and Alex Villar, as well as recordings of previous works by free103point9 artists, Paul Chan, Martha Rosler, and Scanner.

[Link]

Seems like a perfect place for an activist intervention.

Originally
from Rhizome.org

reBlogged

on Sep 18, 2007, 11:00AM

Originally from Rhizome.org on September 18, 2007, 4:00am

[From Peter Baldes]:

Sunset Strip, Google Maps version

Check out Joel’s A9 Version
and the Ed Ruscha book

Ed. Note: See also, Michael Bell-Smith’s “Every Building on The Sunset Strip (Internet Re-Creation)” Info here.

Soon, Google Maps may become reality.

Originally
from Rhizome.org

reBlogged

on Sep 19, 2007, 12:59PM

Originally from Rhizome.org on September 19, 2007, 5:59am

Power lines break through treetops, orange railings surround blue nuclear cooling tanks, and dormant equipment sits inside sterile science facilities. For a time in the late 1980s and early 1990s, American-born photographer Lewis Baltz, who a decade or two earlier had been a key player in what has been termed a ‘New Topographic’ style of photography, turned from taking images of industrial parks and other development-shaped landscapes to impossibly cold interiors molded around the needs of technology. His 89-91 Sites of Technology series employed both traditional photography and images pulled from surveillance cameras to capture such places as the Japanese Space Agency, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, and the French National Centre for Meteorological Research as crisp, airless centers of power filled with unnatural color and razor sharp lines. The Galleria Civica di Modena, in Italy, is hosting an exhibition of large-scale prints of the work through November 18th, and the entire series has also been collected in a book for the first time. Published by Steidl Verlag, the catalogue could not only revel the series’ influence on approaches to technology in the photography of the 1990s, but also rekindle Baltz’s influence on a younger generation of architectural photographers.

[Link]

Reminds me of the photography of Bernd and Hilla Becher.

Originally
from Rhizome.org

reBlogged

on Sep 19, 2007, 6:11PM

Originally from Rhizome.org on September 19, 2007, 11:11am

Los Angeles-based artist Eddo Stern–who famously logged 2000 hours playing World of Warcraft for one of his projects–has found more than a parallel virtual community in massively multiplayer online roleplaying games like WoW. Drawing on fantasy’s ability to lay bare the ambitions and anxieties of everyday life, his most recent body of work uses elements taken from games such as Everquest and Warcraft to examine the overlap between desires and social relationships expressed in the online world and those of our own. The artist’s solo exhibition at New York’s Postmasters gallery through October 13th charts notable points at which these two universes illuminate and influence one another. The kinetic sculpture Man, Woman, Dragon draws on the visual tropes of Warcraft to distill the fabrication of masculinity online into three simple poles that parody the real-world systems of desire from which they emerge. Other pieces such as Best Flame War Ever (King of Bards vs. Squire Rex, June 2004) and Level sounds like Devil (BabyInChrist vs. His Father, May 2006) document actual exchanges in online communities that betray the participants’ earnest and impassioned concerns, which have been shaped equally by the logic of gaming and life outside. An entire gallery is given over to a projected series of found 3D animations that show tunnels, wormholes, voids, and other fantasies of transcendence drawn from computer games. Every work uses a similar and more-often-than-not humorous mix of visual style and documentary material to articulate moments of overlap between roleplaying and real life, deftly latching on to what it is that captivates about online gaming.

[Link]

An intersection between virtual space and meatspace.

Originally
from Rhizome.org

reBlogged

on Sep 21, 2007, 1:10PM

Originally from Rhizome.org on September 21, 2007, 6:10am