www.kanarinka.com
Re: what if and tid bits i cry to much
Your emphasis on beauty and aesthetics, not to mention the emphasis on
inhibited creative energy is, in my opinion, an obsolete perspective.
It produces artefacts as redundant to the contemporary world as any
painting.
>>>
Hi folks -- While I agree with some of the other statements in Kate's
message I disagree entirely with this one. While I might not call it
"beauty" i think that emphasis on balance/harmony/aesthetics in the
perception and absorption of the work by a person on the other end
(participant, audience, user) is one of the most important things about
creating art. Ignoring this is privileging the concept over the
execution, something i think that "new media/net.art/digitalia/blah" is
often guilty of because (maybe) the artists tend to be more conceptually
inclined than visually/auditorially inclined.
Just because i have a neat or original idea does not make it art. That's
what the best thing about art is -- this combination of abstract and
concrete, idea and form, etc. Art can be found somewhere between
post-modern word masturbation and meaningless eye candy.
I agree that art is tool to investigate the world but i think that it is
also intimately concerned with the outcome of that investigation -- the
form of the culminating performance of that investigation (the artwork
itself) and whether that can hold up as an aesthetically valid,
conceptually balanced performance/investigation/representation.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-list@rhizome.org [mailto:owner-list@rhizome.org] On Behalf
Of Kate Southworth
Sent: Friday, June 07, 2002 5:58 AM
To: Eryk Salvaggio; list@rhizome.org
Subject: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: what if and tid bits i cry to much
From: Eryk Salvaggio <eryk@maine.rr.com>
Reply-To: Eryk Salvaggio <eryk@maine.rr.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002 13:46:12 -0700
To: furtherfield <info@furtherfield.org>, list@rhizome.org
Subject: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: what if and tid bits i cry to much
Hi Eryk, and List.
I believe painting to be an obsolete art form. Not merely because of
its inability to enable artists to adequately investigate the
contemporary world, but because there are too many residual notions of
creativity contained within the very concept 'painting'.
Your emphasis on beauty and aesthetics, not to mention the emphasis on
inhibited creative energy is, in my opinion, an obsolete perspective.
It produces artefacts as redundant to the contemporary world as any
painting.
Your Art 1 - artifacts created by anyone who aims for any external
expression of an idea or emotion or concept - is very very loose. By
itself it could be applied to almost anything art or not.
Art 2 - is the academic side of art, fuelled by innovative ideas fused
with innovative techniques - seems to me, a very bare essential for
art. Surely, art is, and always has been, about understanding our
contemporary world. That world changes, and art investigates. It needs
new ways to describe that world. Hence, my feelings regarding the
redundancy of painting to do the job adequately. Hence, my feelings
about the position of artists whose main frames of reference are
informed by residual ideologies.
The contemporary world seems to make sense when we relinquish the
solid. If we see the world as fluid, as a collection of interconnected,
mutually dependent units then the art that belongs to that world will
have these characteristics too. These units can be as small or large as
we like, and can be emotion, idea, concept, theory, experience etc.
They can be pulled (abstracted) from the 'whole', 'the system' in any
way we choose. The art that is connected with this understanding of
the world seems to be investigating ways in which units (rotten word,
but can't think of an appropriate other just now) relate to one another:
how units are described. If the whole set of categories that we have
used up to now are discarded as boundaries between categories dissolve,
then constructing new categories, that are meaningful yet fluid and able
to change as necessary seems to be the very stuff that net art, new
media art (whatever the term!) is engaging with right now.
best, Kate
Digital Pocket Gallery announces May Curators' Pick
curator's picks (Well, just one pick) for May 2002.
Please view the curator's selection and the rest of the gallery at:
http://www.ikatun.com/digitalpocketgallery
The Digital Pocket Gallery is now accepting submissions for June.
Cheers,
Kanarinka & the Digital Pocket Crew
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the curator's pick for May 2002:
Artist: Lynn Cox
Title of Work: 'TLV (Snapshot)'
Medium/Technology: Audio (MP3)
Artist Statement:
'TLV (Snapshot)' is the baby in the 'TLV Family'. It has only learnt one
route through life and must continually retrace its restricted journey
down the same branches until it can break the bonds of the tree.
A strong constituent of all of the artwork is the concepts of mapping
and journeys, which have been undertaken through a variety of techniques
including Psychogeography (i.e. the mental relationship between areas
rather than their geographic proximity). The work is illustrated by
providing isolated glimpses, snap shots or remnants, that are only
partially conceived by the participants, of events in time and space.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ABOUT THE DIGITAL POCKET GALLERY
How to Submit: http://www.ikatun.com/digitalpocketgallery/submit.htm
The digital pocket gallery effort began in March 2002.
The digital pocket gallery was inspired by the real-life Pocket Gallery
at 536 gallery in Vancouver, Canada.
Pockets contain miniature biographies and testaments to our lives and
forgotten stories. The crumpled train ticket speaks of journeys taken,
the handful of confetti in your 'best' jacket of a wedding years before
or the telephone number on the back of a matchbook given by a someone
who's name and face is long forgotten. Files and folders are the
'digital pockets' of the internet artist. The hard-drive is an
autobiography in coded form. Dreams, ideas and waste lie hidden in these
cryptically labelled pockets that have become the maps and landscapes of
our
virtual lives.
All entries that meet the submission guidelines will be included in the
exhibit. Each month the curators will select a number of works to
feature in the gallery that, in their opinion, are particularly strong
and/or original interpretations of the concept.
Call to artists - Digital Pocket Gallery - May Curator's Picks coming up
This is just a reminder that the Digital Pocket Gallery will announce
May Curator's picks at the beginning of June. You still have 2 days
(well, depending on your time zone) to submit your digital pocket to be
reviewed in May. Submissions to be considered for May's curator's picks
should be received by May 31st.
Cheers,
Kanarinka
http://www.ikatun.com/digitalpocketgallery
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ABOUT THE DIGITAL POCKET GALLERY
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The Digital Pocket Gallery: Net Artists respond to their Hard Drives...
April 1st to August 31st 2002
Submissions Deadline: July 31, 2002
Pockets contain miniature biographies and testaments to our lives and
forgotten stories. The crumpled train ticket speaks of journeys taken,
the handful of confetti in your 'best' jacket of a wedding years before
or the telephone number on the back of a matchbook given by a someone
who's name and face is long forgotten. Files and folders are the
'digital pockets' of the internet artist. The hard-drive is an
autobiography in coded form. Dreams, ideas and waste lie hidden in these
cryptically labelled pockets that have become the maps and landscapes of
our
virtual lives.
We invite you to empty your digital pockets for inspection (whether real
or fictitious) for an online exhibition at http:www.ikatun.com
Submission Guidelines
1. A representation of the structure of your
computer file system must be incorporated in some way, either by screen
shot (e.g. Windows Explorer) or artistic interpretation.
2) work can be any digital file that can be displayed on/transmitted
through the web (image to html to flash to java to etc)
3) playfulness & inventiveness of rule #1 is encouraged
4) Work must be pocket-sized - under 50K
Please send your submission to: digitalpockets@ikatun.com
Submission to be sent by July 31, 2002 please.
Artists have the option to supply one or all of the following to
accompany their submissions:
name
homepage url
title of work
brief artist's statement
country
All works that meet the guidelines will be included in the exhibition.
Re: TONIGHT @ The Kitchen, NYC
to Boston?
pretty please?
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-list@rhizome.org [mailto:owner-list@rhizome.org] On Behalf
Of Christina Yang
Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 2:04 PM
To: Christina@thekitchen.org
Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: TONIGHT @ The Kitchen, NYC
Please join us for Digital H@ppy Hour Looking For Art In All The Wrong
Places
May 28 [Tue] 6pm TONIGHT
Presented by Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito, authors of The Edge of Art
(forthcoming)
For the May installment of Digital H@ppy Hour, Joline Blais and Jon
Ippolito examine how the tremendous burst of Internet-enabled creativity
is reshaping the form of art. The collaborators invite audience members
to join in a lively cocktail conversation on the nature of art, the
recognition of new genres, the redefined marketplace, and the emerging
stars of these new practices in digital art. Over large scale
web-screenings, an audience of aficionados and curious look at the
influx of new media projects coming from outside the artworld, and
explore how those new projects challenge the perception of art as it has
been established by galleries, curators, and institutions.
Jon Ippolito is an artist and Assistant Curator of Media Arts at the
Guggenheim Museum.
Fiction writer Joline Blais is an Assistant Professor at Polytechnic
University where she directs the Digital Media Studies Program.
The Kitchen is located at 512 West 19th Street (between 10th and 11th
Avenues). For the box office, call 212-255-5793 ext. 11. For press
tickets of more information, call Isabelle Deconinck at 212-255-5793
ext. 14.
Incredibly Brilliant Idea for rhizome services
I had an idea for another service that rhizome could provide -- I hope
it's not too late to request new features (or perhaps if rhizome doesn't
want to do this maybe someone else will pick up on it). Let me know what
you think:
Rhizome Critique Groups - net.art critiques
I was thinking about how I would often welcome an art critique of my
work. I am thinking about this in terms of how critiques are conducted
in art and design schools -- critiques provide a forum for an artist to
present their work, discuss it, talk about the process of creating it,
and receive feedback from a group of peers and/or experts and mentors.
While critiques are probably not for everybody, i personally would
really like a chance to talk about my own work and review/discuss other
people's work in an open forum composed of rhizomers (who are for the
most part net artists, curators, etc. and have lots of things to say).
The list could serve this purpose but doesn't seem to naturally
gravitate towards that (people end up discussing theory, ideas,
commodification, etc instead of artwork).
Perhaps someone could create a platform or set of pages that would
facilitate this process on the rhizome site. Thoughts? Ideas? Would
others like something like this?
cheers,
kanarinka
Erase the Border [Planned, Spring 2012]
Donate
“Erase the Border” is a project that will take place on the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation in southern Arizona.
The Institute for Infinitely Small Things is currently seeking funding to complete the project in Spring 2012 (see detailed request below).
The project would be to physically “erase” the U.S.-Mexico border fence on the Tohono O’odham Nation in southern Arizona. The fence divides the Tohono O’odham community, disrupts ceremonial paths, desecrates sacred burial grounds and prevents members from receiving critical health services.
Ofelia Rivas and youth from the Tohono O’odham Nation will work with the Institute for Infinitely Small Things to create a series of drawings from performances on the U.S.-Mexican border in southern Arizona.
What we will do
We will walk the border fence in a ceremonial way.
We will drag and press large 30″ x 40″ sheets of fine art paper along the fence as we go.
The walking and pressure will create drawings that pick up physical matter – dirt, debris, bugs, rust – and remove it from the border fence.
A small part of the border fence will be removed forever.
The created drawings are abstract landscapes.
About the Tohono O’odham
The Tohono O’odham are an indigenous tribe that live on the second largest indian reservation in the U.S. Their lands straddle 75 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border in southern AZ. The O’odham lived on the land long before the US or Mexico or the Gadsden Purchase or Homeland Security.
The vehicle border fence, erected in 2008 by Homeland Security, stretches for 75 miles across the O’odham lands in the deserts of Arizona.
More Information
Please watch the below video for a full background on the Tohono O’odham’s situation on the border.
Seeking Funding
Originally slated to be performed in Fall 2011, this project continues to seek funding to be completed in Spring 2012. See below for more info.
Any contribution is welcome; our total need is $2,400, which would cover the following:
- Travel for 2 members of Institute for Infinitely Small Things from Boston to AZ
- Fine art paper
- Transportation for Ofelia Rives, O’odham youth and Institute members (distances on the reservation are great and gas is expensive)
- Honorarium for youth participants
- One day of meals for everyone involved
- Still photography, video documentation and post-production
Donate
The Border Crossed Us
The Border Crossed Us is a temporary public art installation by the Institute for Infinitely Small Things that transplants the US-Mexico border fence in southern Arizona to the UMass Amherst campus.
The Border Crossed Us Book is now available for order. See below for details.
What happens when we divide a territory that the community imagines as contiguous? How does the international border in Arizona, seemingly remote from a college campus in northern New England, touch all of our lives?
From April 20 to May 1st, the UMass Amherst campus was divided along its North-South boundary by a to-scale photographic replica of the vehicle fence that runs along the international boundary in southern Arizona. The particular stretch of fence being represented was erected in 2007 by Homeland Security and now divides the Tohono O’odham Nation – the second largest Native American reservation in the country – into two parts.
The fence will ran between a parking garage and the campus center. Over the course of two weeks it served as a provocation, a touchstone for conversation, and a site for talks and performances. Along with the fence’s insertion into daily life on campus, the project invited a delegation of Tohono O’odham, including a tribal elder and several youth to speak about their experience. In addition, the Native American Studies Certificate Program in the Anthropology Department held a panel discussion on Borders & Indigenous Sovereignty as part of the campus’ annual Native American Powwow. Border issues affect several other tribes, including the Mohawk and Abenaki. The delegation of O’odham spoke along with others about these issues during the conference and participate in the powwow.
This project was commissioned by the University Museum of Contemporary Art at UMass Amherst.
The following time-lapse video of the installation was produced using a motion-detecting camera designed for hunting purposes. Sounds are from the accompanying sound installation, which was installed inside the large, circular parking garage vent in the foreground:
The Border Crossed Us Book
This 42-page, full-color book uses maps, essays, photographs, and a variety of other rich graphics to communicate the background and results of The Border Crossed Us.
More info, images and dialogue on the project website:
No One Has Yet Determined What The Body Can Do
On Sunday, October 1 2011 the Institute joined with Occupy Boston in the 6th HONK! Parade to carry signs with two messages: “NO ONE HAS YET DETERMINED WHAT THE BODY CAN DO” and “#OCCUPYBOSTON”.
At 7AM Thursday, October 6 2011 the Institute strung banners over a Boston highway with the same messages. This was done as part of the multi-city Afghanistan War Tenth Anniversary Banners project.
Transgender Bathroom Dedication
Transgender Bathroom Dedication dedicates the men’s room at the MFA Boston to Dean Spade who was arrested in 2002 for using the men’s room in Grand Central Station and dedicates the women’s room at the MFA Boston to Chrissy Pollis who was the victim of a transgender hate crime in a Maryland bathroom in May 2011.
These two new works are gifts to the MFA Boston on behalf of the Institute for Infinitely Small Things. They were emplaced as part of “Boston’s Best 40-ennial”, a 19-minute historical and totally unauthorized exhibition in the bathroom of the MFA Boston organized by Greg Cook on June 20th, 2011.
More information about the exhibition:
Failure Support Group
Is there, actually, a recipe for failure? Are certain methodologies more prone to failure than others? How? What is at stake in acknowledging failure in one’s process, one’s community, or one’s career?
Failure Support Group from Infinitely Small on Vimeo.
In April 2011, The Institute for Infinitely Small Things sent out an open invitation to discuss failed processes and failed projects. Consisting of 5-7 minute presentations by the Institute and invited participants, the event addressed the ways in which failures can and cannot be currently discussed in the world–and how we may be able to imagine to new ways to perceive, view and characterize what “failure” is.
This was the second part in a series started by Platform2.
The World’s Largest Potluck Ever
The World’s Largest Potluck Ever would stage a mile-long potluck dinner on the Cambridge Street Corridor in Cambridge, MA, in an attempt to break the Guinness record, showcase the diversity of the businesses and residents, build community, publish a recipe book and display a dazzling array of home-cooked meals. For one Sunday afternoon, the whole street would be transformed into a giant neighborhood block party with food, performers and fun.
The World’s Largest Potluck Ever was inspired by Cambridge Street’s history as a commercial corridor of independently-run businesses and as a meeting place for people from diverse regions. Cambridge Street has seen significant waves of immigrants from Ireland, Poland, Italy, Portugal and Brazil. While the street has numerous festivals and special events (such as the 84-year-old annual Feast of Saints Cosmas and Damian or the Inman Square summer movie nights) there is no special event that celebrates the corridor specifically.
The World’s Largest Potluck Ever was part of a competition for the Cambridge Street Public Art Commission in Cambridge, MA, in 2010. It was on display in the city’s art gallery in Spring 2010 and three local residents were commissioned to create homemade dishes for gallery visitors to taste. Unfortunately the project was not selected for the commission but this idea is still worth doing! (Who does not want to attend the world’s largest potluck ever??) Contact me if you are interested in reviewing the full proposal.
Art & Cartography
An article for the International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, published by Elsevier Press. Download article.
Synopsis:
Art has taken a distinct “cartographic turn” in the last century. This period represents a veritable explosion of artwork that takes on cartography in order to critique, subvert, and reimagine territory. Artists have made maps, subverted maps, performed itineraries, imagined territories, contested borders, charted the invisible, and hacked physical, virtual, and hybrid spaces. There are three loose groupings of important mapping impulses that have characterized the artistic appropriation of cartographic strategies, both literally and metaphorically, from the early twentieth century to present times: 1) Symbol Saboteurs: artists who use the visual iconography of the map to reference personal, fictional, utopian, or metaphorical places; 2) Agents and Actors: artists who make maps or engage in situated, locational activities in order to challenge the status quo or change the world; and 3) Invisible Data-Mappers: artists who use cartographic metaphors to visualize informational territories such as the stock market, the Internet, or the human genome. This article outlines and contextualizes these three impulses with numerous examples.
It takes 154,000 breaths to evacuate Boston
kanarinka ran the entire evacuation route system in Boston and attempted to measure the distance in human breath. The project also involves a podcast and a sculptural installation of the archive of tens of thousands of breaths .
The project is an attempt to measure our post-9/11 collective fear in the individual breaths that it takes to traverse these new geographies of insecurity.
The $827,500 Boston emergency evacuation system was installed in 2006 to demonstrate the city’s preparedness for evacuating people in snowstorms, hurricanes, infrastructure failures, fires and/or terrorist attacks.
It takes 154,000 breaths to evacuate Boston consists of:
- a series of running performances in public space (2007)
- a web podcast of breaths (2007)
- a sculptural installation of the archive of breaths (2008)
Running Performances
Website & Podcast
Project Website: www.evacuateboston.com
Archive of Breaths (sculptural piece)
Medium: custom-made table, 26 jars, 26 speaker components, wire, 13 CD players
Dimensions: 45″x72″x16″
I created a sculptural & audio archive of the collection of breaths. There are 26 jars on a custom-made table which correspond to the 26 runs it took to cover the evacuation routes. Each jar size corresponds to the number of breaths from that run. The speaker inside the jar plays the breaths collected from that run. (Better documentation coming soon)
This piece is on view in Experimental Geography, a traveling show curated by Nato Thompson and produced by ICI.
Exit Strategy
It takes 154,000 breaths to evacuate Boston was installed at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston in 2009 as part of the James & Audrey Foster Prize show along with a new work entitled Exit Strategy.
Excerpt from Exit Strategy:
Exit Strategy. Video installation loop 2’15”. 2008.
Digging for Happiness
The Institute for Infinitely Small Things sought happiness through the labor of digging an enormous hole in the front yard of a Cambridge family who volunteered their land for this purposelessness.
