Scan began as a creative diversion, but has since become a full-on fixation. I find objects with an interesting combination of surface characteristics, and create compositions by moving them over my scanner bed . Much like darkroom experimentation using burning and dodging, or the placement of objects directly onto the photographic paper's surface to create photograms, each exposure represents a choreographed movement, a moment in time captured on a two-dimensional surface. By using trial and error, I reintroduce the possibility of happy accidents into the sterile and precise process of digital imaging. I have worked my way through a collection of scannable curios, from paper grids and greyscales to lights and reflective materials. I am now focusing on CD's and DVD's, thereby introducing a digital storage medium back into the scanning process.

-- EXCERPT FROM THE ARTIST'S STATEMENT

LINK »

Recently, Adobe Systems Incorporated released a new product. Not an update to its existing suite, which include tools of the online trade such as Photoshop, Acrobat Reader and Flash, or some new software to fulfill ever-evolving creative needs. Instead, it is an online destination for viewing digital art entitled the Adobe Museum of Digital Media (AMDM).

After waiting for the museum to load, you are greeted by a tour guide with a peculiar accent, whose likeness resembles a cross between a jellyfish and an eyeball. The museum has one current exhibit, a specially-commissioned piece by internationally acclaimed artist Tony Oursler, who is best known for his disconcerting projection installation works. As the museum has just launched, there is a limited amount to see: plans for the “building”, a chat with the curator, Tom Eccles, more chatter from the jellyfish-eyeball, the commissioned artwork by Oursler, and a comments section.

Before getting into the details of the museum itself, it is worth interrogating why it is considered by its creators to be a museum at all. The press release states the mission of the museum to be “...an interactive venue to present and preserve groundbreaking digital media works, inspire creative ideas and experimentation, and provide a forum for expert commentary on how digital media influences culture and society”. The mission is sound, but except for the word “preserve” there is little in it that specifically invokes the mantle of “museum”. As the AMDM is an obvious marketing exercise which promotes the use of digital tools (that Adobe happens to create), it’s a short leap of logic to conclude that “museum” was simply decided on as a word with greater impact than “gallery” or “showcase”.

READ ON »

The following excerpt comes from the final chapter of my book Media, New Media, Postmedia, recently published in Italian by Postmediabooks, who kindly gave Rhizome permission to republish it in English. The book is an attempt to analyze the current positioning of so-called “New Media Art” in the wider field of contemporary arts, and to explore the historical, sociological and conceptual reasons for its marginal position and under-recognition in recent art history.

READ ON »

2012

Link »

2011

Link »

2010

Link »

MORE »

The online platform for media art festival documentation (yes, one exists!) tagr.tv took a rather unconventional tack in their coverage of Berlin's transmediale last week. The team shot a number of interviews using their own "mobile interview environment." The device, an umbrella outfitted with a camera and microphone, served as a nearly private location for one-on-one discussions with artists involved with the festival. The short clips are interspersed with more traditional installation shots, providing a unique "overview" (get it?) of select projects showcased during transmediale. (On a related note, be sure to check out transmediale's comprehensive streaming video archive from the 2009 session as well.)

MORE »

MORE »

MORE »

Link »

MORE »

From the artist's statement:

This net art piece captures the flow of downloading images onto your computer. This animation will look different depending on what web browser you are using. If you are using Firefox try viewing this in Explorer or on an iPhone. Internet connection speed and computer processing power will also determine the final the outcome. Experiment with the different settings and unusual patterns will emerge.

MORE »

Damon Zucconi is a New York-based artist active in the "pro surfer" scene, having participated in both Supercentral and Nasty Nets, but his solo work is more clean-style than his dirt-style counterparts and might more easily be compared to Berlin-based artists AIDS-3D. All are part of a younger generation of artists who came of age with new media and have arrived at a particular fulcrum with respect to both celebrating the utopianism of technology and critiquing its dystopian failures. Next week, Zucconi's first solo show will open at Prato, Italy's Project Gentili gallery. Entitled "Presented as the Problem," the show is organized around the principles of diagnoses and prescriptions and draws on the distinction between treating symptoms versus underlying problems. The artist's approach is thus a rather tactical one, looking for the root impetus for cultural artifacts while also observing the cycles of recursion that swirl around the repetition of pop objects and scenarios. The show includes sculpture, video, and prints that seek to augment "classical dialectics of seeing and believing with eight meditations on contemporary visual culture." According to the gallery, "Each of the works finds temporary equilibrium between the poles of mystification and demystification--image as illusion and illusion as material fact." These works include the mysteriously titled / \ \ / which is a square mirror hung like a diamond with a Blade Runner: Final Cut poster wrapped around it from the back like an origami throwing star, and the eponymous centerpiece, "Presents Itself as the Problem," which is a novelty persistence of vision alarm clock whose digital readout displays only the message "I Want To Believe." X-Files viewers will appreciate this famous message of hope. Zucconi will also show a new video animation, Untitled (SONY, Lateral) which flips the axis on his earlier ...

MORE »