Rhizome | Editorial

Harper Reed: Changing Politics and Technology

Orit Gat | Thu Apr 4th, 2013 11:49 a.m.

Harper Reed will participate in Rhizome's Seven On Seven Conference on Saturday, April 20th, paired with artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.

On Reed’s website (subheaded “Probably one of the coolest guys ever,” by the way), alongside the bio, blog, flickr stream (don’t be surprised there isn’t an Instagram feed, the man’s not mainstream), and blog, there is also a “books” section. Apparently, for the past ten years, Reed documents all the good books he read. And he reads a lot, “without rhyme or reason,” according to him. No one would be amazed to discover that The Catcher in the Rye, Herman Hesse’s Siddharta, or Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus made the list. Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke are even more obvious. But John Medina’s "Brain Rules" series—Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School and Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five—may catch you a little off guard. And Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, and The Virtue of Selfishness are even more of a surprise.

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Rhizome Commissions: 2013-2014 Cycle Now Open, Including New Partner Grant Opportunity

Rhizome | Wed Apr 3rd, 2013 1:22 p.m.

Screenshot of DISimages.com, 2011-2012 Rhizome Commission

Rhizome is now accepting proposals for the Rhizome Commissions 2013-2014 cycle. Each year, the program supports emerging artists by providing grants for the creation of significant works of new media art. This year, Rhizome places a focus on promoting emerging artists based in New York City. Grants will not be restricted to New York based artists, but made a priority. This cycle, we also have a specific focus on one project that addresses social issues and/or promotes individual advancement through education or participation. Rhizome will award up to six grants for the creation of new works of digital and new media art. Five awards will be determined by a jury of experts and one award will be determined by Rhizome's membership in an open vote. Rhizome Commissions awards generally range from $1,000 to $5,000.

This year, Rhizome has also partnered with Tumblr to offer an additional strand to the commissioning program: The Rhizome | Tumblr Internet Art Grant. The Internet Art Grant expands upon Rhizome's existing Commissions program to specifically target Tumblr's significant artistic community. The Internet Art Grant will make three commissioning awards with a special focus on projects from artists engaged with Tumblr.

The commissions award will be determined by a jury of experts: Laurie Anderson, noted experimental performance artist and musician; Massimiliano Gioni, Associate Director and Director of Exhibitions at the New Museum and Artistic Director of the 55th Venice Biennale; Renny Gleeson, Global Director at Wieden + Kennedy; and Zoë Salditch, Rhizome's Program Director. For the Rhizome | Tumblr Internet Art Grant, jurors include Gioni, Anderson, Salditch and additionally, artist Jon Rafman and Topherchris, Tumblr Editorial Director.

The Rhizome Commissions program is supported, in part, by funds from Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, the Jerome Foundation ...

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Artist Profile: Alex Myers

Daniel Rourke | Wed Apr 3rd, 2013 11:28 a.m.

Your work spans several distinct, but overlapping areas of discourse. We could start by talking through design, animation, glitch art, code, game play or the interface. I want to start right from the bottom though, and ask you about inputs and outputs. A recent work you collaborated on with Jeff Thompson, You Have Been Blinded - “a non-visual adventure game” - takes me back to my childhood when playing a videogame often meant referring to badly sketched dungeon maps, before typing N S E or W on a clunky keyboard. Nostalgia certainly plays a part in You Have Been Blinded, but what else drives you to strip things back to their elements?

I’ve always been interested in how things are built. From computers to houses to rocks to software. What makes these things stand up? What makes them work? Naturally I’ve shifted to exploring how we construct experiences. How do we know? Each one of us has a wholly unique experience of… experience, of life.. When I was a kid I was always wondering what it was like to be any of the other kids at school. Or a kid in another country. What was it like to be my cat or any of the non-people things I came across each day? These sorts of questions have driven me to peel back experience and ask it some pointed questions. I don’t know that I’m really interested in the answers. I don’t think we could really know those answers, but I think it’s enough to ask the questions.

Stripping these things down to their elements shows you that no matter how hard you try, nothing you make will ever be perfect. There are always flaws and the evidence of failure to be found, no matter how small ...

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Rhizome Digest: Best of Rhizome March

Rhizome | Mon Apr 1st, 2013 10:24 a.m.

Series

Essays

Interviews

Artist Profiles

Prosthetic Knowledge Picks

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Announcing Rhizome's Seven on Seven Conference Participant Teams

Rhizome | Thu Mar 28th, 2013 1 p.m.

Saturday, April 20, 2013 from 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Rhizome's Seven on Seven Conference, presented by HTC, will pair seven leading artists with seven influential technologists in teams of two, and challenges them to develop something new—be it an application, social media, artwork, product, or whatever they imagine—over the course of a single day. The seven teams will work together at locations around New York City on Friday April 19th and then unveil their ideas at a one-day event at the Tishman Auditorium at The New School on April 20th, 2013, from 12–6 p.m. After the conference, the attendees can celebrate with participants at an afterparty from 6–9 p.m.

2013 Participant Teams:

Jill Magid + Dennis Crowley

Fatima Al Qadiri + Dalton Caldwell

Matthew Ritchie + Billy Chasen

Cameron Martin + Tara Tiger Brown

Paul Pfeiffer + Alex Chung

Jeremy Bailey + Julie Uhrman

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer + Harper Reed

Purchase Tickets

Seven on Seven is presented by HTC and organized by Rhizome. Additional conference partners include Betaworks, Wieden + Kennedy, and RRE.

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Artifacts: A Conversation Between Hito Steyerl and Daniel Rourke

Daniel Rourke | Thu Mar 28th, 2013 11:12 a.m.

“But even if the internet is dead this doesnt mean it's over. It is all over.”

When we met recently we talked about the glitch as it relates to contemporary image culture, but we also talked about the glitch as something to aspire to. In your essay, A Thing Like You and Me, you retell Walter Benjamin’s parable of the Angel of History, pushed by the harsh winds of progress away from the rubble of history, its back facing into the unknown future. You say that we are the rubble, or at least, that we should align ourselves with the rubble. I’m fascinated by these allusions to excess and detritus in your writing, and I see something of the glitch aesthetic making its way into your video works. I thought we could start from these bruises and cracks; from the things we can’t predict, control or maintain. How would you relate the glitch to Benjamin’s rubble?

One of the biggest misunderstandings about digital information is that it is replicated identically, without loss or transformation. But anyone who works with such information knows that digital practice is constituted – like perhaps any technology – by malfunction. One has to constantly convert information in order to work with it across different platforms and softwares and on the way it is reformatted, translated, compressed or sometimes even blown up, it is enhanced or diminished: it changes. It changes its format or container or outlook or context.

Digital information is thus characterised by transformation, degradation, circulation, but also by its surprising ability to mutate and produce unpredictable results. The glitch, the bruise of the image or sound testifies to its being worked with and working; being passed on and circulated, being matter in action. History inscribes itself into the image in ...

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