As Digital Conservator, Ben oversees the development of Rhizome's online archive of digital art. He actively monitors and creates new records on art works, and drafts policies and procedure for the preservation of digital work, keeping Rhizome on the cutting edge of research and development on the preservation of digital materials. He also collaborates with a team on the repair of artworks that fall victim to obsolescence, as well as supporting the ingest of digital archival materials. Fino-Radin is an artist and researcher specializing in information science, and the preservation of digital culture & ephemera. An artist by training, he received his B.F.A from Alfred University, and is currently pursuing Masters degrees in Library & Information Science and Digital Art at Pratt Institute.
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ArtBase Update
Takeshi Murata – Untitled (Pink Dot) (2007)
Here at Rhizome HQ we have been quietly working away from within the depths of the ArtBase. I'm pleased to announce that we have recently archived six works by Takeshi Murata, spanning from his early hand drawn animations, through his pioneering datamosh works, the 3D animation that was included in Free, to his recent body of work that debuted at Ratio 3 gallery last April. The excerpts of his work now available in the ArtBase are in most cases the only high quality (read: not bootlegged) examples available freely online.
Untitled (Silver) • Untitled (Pink Dot) • Melter 2 • I, Popeye • Homestead Grays • Get Your Ass To Mars
Here are some more recently archived works we are particularly excited about:
Christian Oldham – Selected works 2010-2012
Brenna Murphy – facingface~terrestrialtrancetree
Nicolas Sassoon – Mansion Studies
John Transue, Micah Schippa, Tabor Robak, Parker Ito, Jon Rafman – PaintFX
Adam Cruces – Desktop Views
Justin Kemp – Proclaiming My Love
Kim Asendorf – ExtraFile • GIF MARKET • Solo show in Sim City
Jonas Lund – Collection Enlargement • I'm Here and There • Over and Over Again
Jon Rafman – Woods of Arcady
Sarah Weis & Emilie Gervais – blinkingsite.com
What are we missing? The ArtBase is a constantly growing and evolving archive – if we are lacking to represent a particular facet of net.art history or contemporary practices, by all means let us know. As well, we are always accepting submissions. Stay tuned for an update soon on a few big projects that are in the works!
YouTube Censors Petra Cortright, But 'VVEBCAM' Lives on in the Rhizome ArtBase
RIP 2007-2011 – 65,403 views
On Saturday December 10th 2011, Petra Cortright received an email stating that a video of hers had been flagged by a member of the YouTube Community. The automatically generated email said that upon review it was verified that the video did indeed violate the terms of the YouTube Community Guidelines and has thus been removed. The video in question, titled "VVEBCAM" was uploaded to YouTube in 2007. It has exhibited internationally, is discussed in several new media and contemporary art texts, and is taught in academic curricula.
The video, likely known to most readers, features Cortright mundanely clicking through the stock effects of a $20 webcam, gazing bored into the screen of her computer, trance playing in the background. Far from offensive content. The violation lies in Cortright's use of keywords. The video description contained 733 keywords, ranging from "tits, vagina, sex, nude, boobs" to "san francisco, diego, jose, puto, taco bell, border patrol, mcdonalds, KFC, kentucky fried chicken, trans fat".
Cortright told us over email that she appealed the decision. She explained to YouTube that the video and its contents were part of an original artwork. She referenced interviews that have explained the importance of the use of "spam" in the video's description. Four hours later her appeal was denied, and the video now has ceased to exist on YouTube. The work is also defunct on the artists website, where the video was embedded via YouTube.
Thankfully Rhizome has recently archived VVEBCAM in the ArtBase. We worked with Cortright to create an archival representation of the work as it existed on her site. We have replaced the broken YouTube video with an HTML5 player that references local files and emulates (at least approximately) the look and feel of the original YouTube player.
#DigitalArchivesDay: Anti-Aliasing Arcangel
Today is the first official Digital Archives Day. All day, archivists and conservators working in digital archives of all kinds will be sharing their work under the #DigitalArchivesDay hashtag, and blogging at dayofdigitalarchives.blogspot.com
I wanted to take a moment today to briefly talk about an innovation in digital imaging and computing that has become a frustation to many artists that have been experimenting with the web since the early years: Anti-aliasing. Put simply, anti-aliasing is a method of image processing that uses interpolation, to construct "new data points within the range of a discrete set of known data points." This is a function of digital signal processing that has many many important applications, from helping typefaces look good on screen, to making images not look odd when scaled down. The use of anti-aliasing that we are talking about here though, is quite specific: the display of resized digital images and video in web browsers. To illustrate how anti-aliasing has affected an era of web content, we will look at Cory Arcangel's "Data Diaries."
Data Diaries on Turbulence.org
In 2002, when Arcangel created "Data Diaries," if one were set the size of an image or video embedded in a web page larger than it's actual size, the browser would use nearest neighbor interpolation to display the image. In other words – if one were to embed a 50 x 50 px image or video as 100 x 100 px, each pixel would appear to double in size. This default form of nearest neighbor interpolation was exploited to aesthetic ends by many early net artists, including Cory. When Cory made Data Diaries, he rendered the original videos at the dimension of 50 x 25 px - so tiny! He embedded these videos at dimensions of 500 x 266 px ...
Intern Roundup part 1 of 3
We've recently had some additions to the Rhizome team - I'd like to introduce you to Rhizome's newest intern: Thor Shannon. Thor is an undergraduate student studying art history at NYU. Over the course of the next few months, he will be helping to catalog the ArtBase - a process of improving the quality of our metadata, deepening the level of description, and making records more accurate and searchable. This significant work is not easy, and we are so glad to have Thor helping us out. Welcome, Thor!
Update From the ArtBase
For my maiden post on the Rhizome staff blog, I’d like to highlight some recent developments and changes in the ArtBase. First and foremost, it is my pleasure to announce that Rhizome is a new member of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance. This consortium devoted to the longevity of digital materials consists of a diverse range of institutions, from non-profit organizations such as the Internet Archive, and ArtSTOR, to academic libraries and research institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution, Emory University Libraries, and Harvard University. We could not be more pleased, and look forward to complementing our own research with the aggregate experience of the more than 80 partner institutions.
Next up on the agenda: today we are launching a new set of featured works in the ArtBase, including artists Vuk Cosic, Kristen Lucas, Mouchette, Eryk Salvaggio, and Kendal Bruns. While perusing these featured works, you may notice a new little icon, next to the year of the work’s creation. This little blue icon indicates that we have an archival copy of the work you are viewing. If you see this icon displayed on an ArtBase record, you can rest assured that as time passes, the work’s longevity and your ability to access it is ensured. From link rot, to digital obsolescence, we’ve got it under control. We are hard at work transitioning the entire collection to archival standards, but until we do some entries will still have the following red icon, indicating that we have yet to create a stable archival copy of this work:
The ArtBase team has been hard at work with some very exciting projects involving the restoration of classic pieces of net art – some of which have been inaccessible for years. We will be releasing more details on the progress of ...
RHIZOME ACTIVITIES
#DigitalArchivesDay: Anti-Aliasing Arcangel
When "letting it go" equals inaction, this often means access for few or none. Take Cory's approach with Doogle. While his decision was to "can" the project – he created a future proof version.
In situations such as this, it behooves a web based archive of internet art to promote access to the original, and if necesary and feasible/justifiable, a modified access copy that follows the preservation wishes of the artist. Documentation is an increasingly alluring strategy, and used in tandem with bit-level preservation of the original provides a much more future proof solution for large collections. We will be looking at this strategy and others at Thursday's event. Hope you can join us: http://newmuseum.org/events/584
In situations such as this, it behooves a web based archive of internet art to promote access to the original, and if necesary and feasible/justifiable, a modified access copy that follows the preservation wishes of the artist. Documentation is an increasingly alluring strategy, and used in tandem with bit-level preservation of the original provides a much more future proof solution for large collections. We will be looking at this strategy and others at Thursday's event. Hope you can join us: http://newmuseum.org/events/584
#DigitalArchivesDay: Anti-Aliasing Arcangel
Fair enough!
Client side emulation is not practical when the main goal is broad access (for everyone - not just the savvy) to a web based archive. That being said, there is a solid argument to provide an access copy as well as the original bitstreams.
We should post our g+ conversation.
Client side emulation is not practical when the main goal is broad access (for everyone - not just the savvy) to a web based archive. That being said, there is a solid argument to provide an access copy as well as the original bitstreams.
We should post our g+ conversation.
