This year’s edition of the FutureEverything festival in Manchester brought a well-known and much discussed phenomenon to the fore: participatory culture. From Wikileaks to Iceland’s crowd-sourced constitution, to the Arab Spring, participatory technologies have demonstrated their powerful political potential. The world of culture is harnessing the same connected energies with projects that involve citizen scientists cataloging celestial bodies in the Milky Way galaxy, crowd-curated photo exhibitions and of course the many projects created by artists and designers who either directly use collective action or bring it under a new light
Category Archive: life online
The lack of Corporate and Governmental transparency has been a topic of much controversy in recent years, yet our only tool for encouraging greater openness is the slow, tedious process of policy reform.
Presented in the form of a Soviet F1 Hand Grenade, the Transparency Grenade is an iconic cure for these frustrations, making the process of leaking information from closed meetings as easy as pulling a pin
Last weekend in was at iMAL in Brussels for a WJ-Spots afternoon (that ended at midnight). Almost 20 artists, theorists, activists, bloggers and journalists were asked to give their view on the history and future of artistic creation on the Internet. Anyway, i had a brilliant time with some of the most talented people on planet internet and scribbled a couple of links and notes along the way. The talks are online but here are a few quotes and ideas that caught my interest:
advertising
Heath Bunting gives insight into the networks at play that constitute an identity, like banks, health care and education. By using these different networks Bunting creates new synthetic identities. In his ‘Identity Bureau’ one can purchase official and legal UK identities
rep.licants.org is a web service allowing users to install an artificial intelligence (bot) on their Facebook and/or Twitter account. From keywords, content analysis and activity analysis, the bot attempts to simulate the activity of the user, to improve it by feeding his account and to create new contacts with other users. Quick Q&A with the artist
The exhibition presents works and installations by international artists designed to trigger a reflection on the political, social and cultural implications – but also on the impact on personal life – of the new relationship between man and technology under the guise of the “virtual identity” with which we increasingly confront reality, at times without even realizing it.
social
A couple of weeks ago, Rui Guerra answered one of my facebook rants (which usually target museum press people who refuse to give me access to press images because i’m a blogger therefore ‘images are not safe” with me!) with a comment so smart and informative that i wanted to know more about his opinion about online strategies for cultural spaces
We live in a world of rapidly evolving digital networks, but within the domain of media theory, which studies the influence of these cultural forms, the implications of aesthetical philosophy have been sorely neglected. Vito Campanelli explores network forms through the prism of aesthetics and thus presents an open invitation to transcend the inherent limitations of the current debate about digital culture
Inspired by China’s Golden Shield Project, this generative piece of music makes a free, creative use of a technology ideated to subtly constrain the freedom of the Internet as a global Network
The movie that received most attention from both the public and the members of the File Prix Lux is War of Internet Addiction, a machinima advocacy production that voices the concerns of the mainland Chinese World of Warcraft community. Although the machinima was created with WoW players in mind, the video strikes a chord with the broader public by pointing the finger to the lack of Internet freedom in the country and conveying a general feeling of helplessness
In the controversial contemporary reality the online platform “Esse, Nosse, Posse: Common Wealth for Common People” focuses on “posse”, on the mode of production and being not only of the creators presented within this context but of all the contributors of today’s common wealth , as well as on the possibilities of re-appropriation of knowledge that may occur only through knowledge itself
Users’ endeavors, like glittering star backgrounds, photos of cute kittens and rainbow gradients, are mostly derided as kitsch or in the most extreme cases, postulated as the end of culture itself. In fact this evolving vernacular, created by users for users, is the most important, beautiful and misunderstood language of new media
The Iraqi born artist, who gained worldwide fame in 2007 with his performance Domestic Tension (aka. Shoot an Iraqi), explained why media art has the potential to contribute to a discussion about today’s most burning political and social issues
Hans Bernhard on why UBERMORGEN.COM are not activists, but ‘actionists – in the communicative and experimental tradition of viennese actionism – performing in the global media, communication and technology networks’
The symposium ‘Positions in flux’ focused on some of the major parameters for the current and future development of contemporary art. In particular it aimed to reflect on the aspect of cultural sustainability of art projects, art and technology initiatives and art curating
What happens when we are “tagging” , “posting” and “sharing” our experiences and opinions in platforms such as those of Facebook, YouTube, flickr or del.icio.us? Are we really connecting and interacting or are we also forming the content and the structure of the social web itself?
What happens to your online profile after you die? Do you want it to remain online, so friends can leave a message in your memory? Or do you prefer having it deleted, so no confusion can arise about your death? These questions are the inspiration for the new exhibition Ik R.I.P., the third in the series about self-representation on the internet.
It seems that i’ll be part of the ars electronica jury this year in the Digital Communities category. As such i’m invited to recommend projects. I might have a couple of ideas but i thought that some of you could help me out with ideas and suggestions
The winner of the fifth edition has been announced today at 2 pm, it’s the subversive and much-talked about EKMRZ-Trilogy by UBERMORGEN.COM
When a snuff movie for mouse and cursor meets a sewing machine and a paper shredder all they can talk about is the effect that a symbolic death in a computer game can have in the physical space
How are people’s lives being affected by online games and what is the role of real world ethics and behaviour codes in such virtual spaces?
A traveling exhibition featuring thirteen recent artworks that use private information as raw material and subject matter
Jose Luis de Vicente invited Manuel Lima from Visual Complexity as well as the ueber-talented Santiago Ortiz and Aaron Koblin to discuss the beauty of data
I talked with the director of a documentary which explores the life of young people in China who earn a living by playing online games for 10 to 12 hours a day, and produce virtual goods which are sold to richer gamers all over the world for real money.
There’s art in Second Life, it just took me a couple of years to realize it
Marisa’s work combine performance, video, sound, drawing, and installation to address intersections of pop culture and the cultural history of technology, as they effect the voice, power, and persona
Despite the negative press, SL’s user base tripled and continues attracting about a half million new sign-ups a month. How can this possibly be happening?
Eric Rodenbeck on why information visualization is becoming more than a set of tools and technologies and techniques to understand large data sets. It is emerging as a medium in its own right, with a wide range of expressive potential
Aram Bartholl’s exploration of the way the network data space steps into our everyday life
Being aware of the current environmental crisis doesn’t mean being able to comprehend its extent and complexity. A few words with Brooke Singer and Michael Mandiberg
From Napoleon’s campaign in Russia to teenagers’ heartbreaks. Jose Luis de Vicente tells you all you ever wanted to know about data visualization
Alessandro Ludovico is a media critic and editor in chief of Neural magazine. He also collaborate on art projects which have toured the world such as Amazon Noir and Google Eat Itself.
A Spanish language portal proposes a vote in the US presidential elections for the millions of (il)legal Mexicans who currently live and work in the United States
Ever since i’ve heard Dan Phiffer and Mushon Zer-Aviv present the ShiftSpace project at ars electronica, i’ve been […]
Amanda McDonald Crowley from Eyebeam had invited inspiring artists and designers for a Conflux panel to discuss the […]
How to survive the paper industry kicked off the Paper & Pixel week of discussions at Documenta12 in […]
Another project from the RCA Great Exhibition. 90% of children between the age of 8 to 16 years […]
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Lisboa 20 Arte Contemporanea has just launched Manhã dos Mongolóides (Morning of the Mongoloids) commissioned to Young-Hae Chang […]
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