Beryl Korot describes the impetus behind the innovative 1970s publication Radical Software, elucidating the history of video in art and the impact of mass media on society. Emerging from an independent video community that included media visionaries such as Marshall McLuhan and groups such as Televisionaries, Videofreex, People’s Video Theater, and Global Village, the first issue of Radical Software debuted in Spring of 1970 as a publication by the Raindance Corporation. Beryl Korot and Phyllis Segura (Gershuny) acted as Editors, while Michael Shamburg served as Publisher with Ira Schneider as co-Originator. Early contributors included Nam June Paik, Buckminster Fuller, Ant Farm, Frank Gillette, and Paul Ryan, among others. After eleven issues, Radical Software ceased publication in the Spring of 1974 and is now an invaluable time capsule of an era. This video is published on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the first issue.
Hello Process! (2008) - Marloes de Valk and Aymeric Mansoux
hello process! shows a machine doing what it does best, deleting, copying and moving blocks of data. The installation consists solely of a computer and a printer. The computer functions as it usually does, as a black box theatre of processes. The only output comes through the printer, giving us clues about the activity inside, while in the background, the raw noise of the machine creates a sound scape, a sonification of this theatre of naive computation.
A file of 128 blocks is created. In this file, each block can be occupied by a small piece of code. Every piece of code has its own strategy. Some try to conquer as many blocks as possible, others simply target one specific piece of code or an unsuspecting neighbour. When the process is set in motion, all blocks are executed one after the other. This results in a battle between the file’s inhabitants. After forty iterations, a fresh file is created with a new combination of code.
Each piece of code has a special ID. This ID is sent to the printer every time the block is loaded in which the code is residing. Each printed line represents the result of one battle cycle. 128 small graphical representations of code are printed. This process repeats 40 times, creating a map of abstract patterns depicting the changes that took place. There is some duality in this theatre of naive and nonproductive computation. We like to think of processes as actors in a machine theatre, playing with anthropomorphism and metaphors to trigger the imagination. Each piece of code has a descriptive name such as copycat, eraserhead, destroyer, or swapmaster, and displays behaviour to match. But at the same time these programs are just mechanical low level operations, totally inhuman. In the end the ...
Putting the capital in decapitation
As a lead-up to the Headless Conference, co-organizer Ginny Kollak shares her essay “Putting the capital in decapitation” which is excerpted from the brochure accompanying the exhibition “The Office for Parafictional Research Presents Headless: Work by Goldin+Senneby” on view through March 21 at CCS Bard. The Headless Conference is a mini-symposium for this exhibition.
Goldin+Senneby is the identity-resistant “framework for collaboration” established by Stockholm-based artists Simon Goldin and Jakob Senneby in 2004. An interest in capitalist logic and networked culture guides their investigative practice, which explores juridical, financial, and spatial infrastructures through performance and role-playing, invented (and often virtual) realities, writing and publishing, and public interventions.
Headless (2007-) is the artists’ ongoing analysis of the shadowy realm of offshore finance. The subject represents a nearly perfect encapsulation of Goldin+Senneby’s many preoccupations, but perhaps its most relevant feature is its provocative and strategic use of masking, secrecy, and withdrawal. The system is evasive by definition: its procedures allow a company’s assets to be protected from taxation or other bureaucratic regulation, and the identities of its owners and their true business practices can be concealed. In spatial terms, examining an offshore company can be thought of as encountering a space that shifts readily from an impenetrable barrier to an empty void—like a hologram, it appears and disappears according to the perspective from which it is viewed. From a moral standpoint, offshore’s slippery visage is just as apt to inspire bored yawns as righteous indignation: one man’s exploitation is another’s tedious paperwork. Still, like most unknown territories, offshore triggers mainly sinister readings. A more anthropomorphic understanding might conceive the offshore company as something monstrous—a decentralized, elusive body that moves without any visible means of control—a ...
Untitled drawing (1978) - Stephen Bell
Plotted on newsprint with cyan, magenta, and yellow edding 1380 brush-pens. 9" x 9".
Top 5 - 10
► The web web
thewebweb is a net art website in seven acts.
The balance between Internet mythology and new html technology (canvas & js) is perfect.
By Anton Gerasimenko, Sergey Chikuyonok, Kostya Loginov, Showpanorama, Vladislav Yakovlev, Natasha Klimchuk, Kate Malykh, Sergey Filippov, Andrey Zubrilov, Anton Schnaider, Vasily Dubovoy
► Webjam
<~ ~> surfing club
► Avastard by Carlo Lowfi
A great piece with Twitter avatars.
► Temporary.cc
The question about archive when visit really matters.
► GEO GOO by JODI
One of my favorite 2009 exhibition. The way they expose net art in real life was for me inspiring.
Photo gallery
► Mybiennalisbetterthanyours
A Fresh net art overview for 2009 by Tolga Taluy
► Ben Schumacher
Especially his piece 0%
► Junk Jet
A nerdy fanzine discovered in 2009.
► net.art GIANT FUNNEL
The feed I should take on a desert island.
Top 5 - 10
Caitlin Jones is the Executive Director of the Western Front Society in Vancouver, BC. Prior to this appointment she had a combined curatorial and conservation position at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and was the Director of Programming at the Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in New York. A key member of the Variable Media Network, Caitlin has also been responsible for developing important tools and policy for the preservation of electronic and ephemeral artworks. She has been a contributor to Rhizome and her other writings have appeared in a wide range of exhibition catalogues, periodicals and other international publications.
► The Real Thing« curated by VVORK
VVORK taking it to the next level.
► Donk -- Music World.
Never thought I would be so into something that Vice Magazine was responsible for, but this documentary is fantastic.
Thanks Michael Bell-Smith for telling me about it.
► The Bichon Frisé in Art @ Art since the Summer 69
http://www.artsince69.com/index.php?/upcoming/the-bichon-frise-in-art/
http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~eshephar/bichoninart/bichoninart.html
C-U-T-E
► See This Sound
http://www.lentos.at/en/45_1769.asp
http://beta.see-this-sound.at/
One of the best "historical" shows I've seen in years.
► Digital Folklore Reader
(full disclosure, I worked as an editor on this book)
Smart, original and has unicorns on the cover.
Edited by Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied
Designed by Manuel Buerger
Texts and projects by: Cory Arcangel, Julia Böger, Manuel Buerger, Helene Dams, Dragan Espenschied, Jörg Frohnmayer, Mark Grimm, Christopher Heller, Yunchul Kim, Dennis Knopf, Stefan Krappitz, Florian Kröner, Tobias Leingruber, Olia Lialina, Leo Merz, Bernadette Neuroth, o+ro, johannes p osterhoff, Isabel Pettinato, Michael Ruß, Theo Seemann, Alexander Schlegel, Bert Schutzbach, Siegfried Zielinsky
marc garrett