Opening tonight at the New Museum's Zenith Media Lounge in Manhattan: "Open_Source_Art_Hack," which is open to the public from May 3- June 30. This group show will look at some of the hottest issues in computing culture today: hacking, open source ethics, and more. Not just a static museum show, the programming features tours by the Surveillance Camera Players; a performance by Critical Art Ensemble; an installation by Knowbotic Research; a Free Radio Linux broadcast by r a d i o q u a l i a; and much, much more. The extravaganza was put together by Steve Dietz, Curator of New Media, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and Jenny Marketou, a New York-based artist, in collaboration with Anne Barlow, Curator of Education and Media Programs, New Museum of Contemporary Art.

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Violence is certainly common among all people...so is it possible to derive an aesthetic that can communicate the universality of the horrors of crime? Motomichi Nakamura's "Qrime" is an episodic series of short Flash animations that uses the basic color scheme of red, black and white and a simple, angular set of graphics to express the "feel" of violence efficiently to site visitors from any culture. The seven episodes are presented in a non-linear sequence that makes one think about the randomness and unpredictable nature of so much violent crime.

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So you like net art. And you wish you could "collect" it. But how does one go about purchasing a slippery, non-physical work of art, even by a recognized artist who works with pixels and programs? Check out Art Cart. At this site, you can get a collector's edition of Teo Spiller's "Trash Can" (pictured) along with a print, or have Valery Grancher paint a screen shot of a web site. The shopping's online of course...it's fun to browse, and a work of conceptual net art in itself.

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Bringing classical literature to the world of net art, Polish artist Dariusz Nowak-Nova's "Project Dante" is a complex site that illustrates how new media can effectively update how we look at myth, mythology, and archetypes. The artist has stated that via new technologies, users are more able to experience a sense of the subconscious (think of how surreal and dreamlike clicking through various layers of a web site can be, witnessing various animations, text, and sound). "Project Dante" includes a version of "The Inferno" created a few years ago, as well as "Purgatorio," launched last year. Both serve as intriguing, 21st century interpretations of the timeless text, which would be interesting to revisit in book form alongside this web site.

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This evening, from 7:30-9pm at UC Berkeley's Kroeber Hall, new media art pioneer Michael Naimark presents "(Re)presenting Place" as part of the ongoing Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium. In this free public lecture, Naimark will talk about how he has "moviemapped" Aspen, Paris, San Francisco, Karlsruhe, and Banff from unexpected points of view (the air, on hiking trails, etc.) and has created panoramic landscapes of such far away sites as Jerusalem, Dubrovnik, Angkor, and Timbuktu, primarily working with webcams and the Internet. How have new technologies affected how we understand "where" we are at any given time? Come and listen...and ask a question or two. Naimark, now an artist-in-residence at the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences in Japan and an advisor for the Media Lab Europe in Ireland, has been exploring place representation and its consequences for 25 years.

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Elizabeth Fischer's "Grandfather Gets a House" is an illustrated narrative composed og mailing list emails contributed by a group of artists and writers. The story centers around a journey to Transylvania, which includes coming to the aid of a poor family of Gypsies. Site visitors can follow a linear tale or access hypermedia content that links to and the original emails. Visitors can also see an archive of raw mailing list writings, accessed by clicking on visuals. The site is updated every three months, and aims to also serve as an educational service, informing the general public of poverty in Hungary and the plight of Gypsies.

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"Humanos," by Lilia P

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Have you checked out furtherfield.org? The site, operated by an experimental net art collective features a wide array of intriguing works. Currently, you can peruse such online works as "Definition," by Mac Dunlop, a series of poetic examination of one's inner and outer identities and cultures, and "Flash Explorations," by Jess Loseby which, via text, sound, and photographs, centers around a "cyber-domestic aesthetic." Stay tuned to furtherfield.org to discover fresh net art.

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