Revolution #99

Net artists MTAA have departed from their usual realm of object-optional conceptual art to explore what Lev Manovich might likely call database narrative. Their piece, grandiosely titled "Random Access Mortality," chops up a 2-song garage rock single by the White Stripes and recombines the audio randomly. In 2001 Jennifer and Kevin McCoy did a similar hack to Kubrick's '2001.' However MTAA's piece seems more of a nod to Gysin and Burroughs' 60s cut-up experiments. The user has almost no control over the output, and the resultant audio is jarringly punk. (It's a good thing.) - Curt Cloninger