implicit art

Turbulence.org is one of the most important supporters of new media art and artists of the last decade, and longer. And they need your support (via my inbox, below).

Dear Friends,

We need your support. If you:

– are one of the thousands of people who regularly visit Turbulence.org, Networked_Performance, Networked_Music_Review and/or New American Radio

and/or

– are one of the hundreds of teachers who use Turbulence works in your new media/digital art courses

and/or

– are an artist who has received a Turbulence.org, Networked_Performance, and/or New American Radio commission

and/or

– have presented at or attended Upgrade! Boston (Art Interactive or Massachusetts College of Art and Design), Floating Points (Emerson College), or Programmable Media (Pace Digital Gallery)

now is the time to give something back.

We cannot continue without your help. We MUST raise $25,000 by December 31, 2007.

WHAT WE’VE ACCOMPLISHED IN 2007

In addition to an exceptional year of supporting artists through commissions, public events, and our world-renowned resource, Networked_Performance, we started a second blog called
Networked_Music_Review (NMR). On it you will find in-depth interviews with sonic artists and musicians; world-wide events highlighted in real time; a “Weekly” post spotlighting interesting works, artists and conversations; a monthly newsletter which summarizes each month’s activities; and much more.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT IN 2008

On November 15, NMR began launching fifteen commissioned works, several of which will premiere live at “Programmable Media II: Networked_Music,” a 2-day symposium at Pace University, New York City in April 2008.

In addition to launching 20 new commissioned works, other upcoming highlights include “Mixed Realities,” an exhibition and symposium at Emerson College, winter 2008; and “Re(Connecting) the Adamses,” a major exhibition co-presented with Greylock Arts (Adams, Massachusetts) and MCLA Gallery 51 (North Adams, Massachusetts), summer 2008.

Please make a cash tax-deductible (for US residents) contribution. No amount is too small! Pay via the PayPal button on the Turbulence homepage: http://turbulence.org. Or send a check to New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., 124 Bourne Street, MA 02131.

Thanks.

Kind Regards,

Jo-Anne Green and Helen Thorington
Co-Directors

New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.: http://new-radio.org
New York: 917.548.7780 . Boston: 617.522.3856
Turbulence: http://turbulence.org
Networked_Performance Blog: http://turbulence.org/blog
Networked_Music_Review: http://turbulence.org/networked_music_review
Upgrade! Boston: http://turbulence.org/upgrade
New American Radio: http://somewhere.org

I know, I know; I’m totally broke, too. But if I can throw them a few bucks, so can you.

Although I sometimes cringe at his take on liberal things as I see them, I appreciate Andrew Sullivan’s thought process and writing on most things political - he’s a classic ‘conservative’ (not a neo-con) and has the insight to see that his species is endangered…. He has a great article on Obama in The Atlantic right now. Really, really smart ideas about what a candidacy would mean…

At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war—not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a momentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade—but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war—and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama—and Obama alone—offers the possibility of a truce.

Nice, long piece, too. Read more.

Check out the brawl in the comments at AFC.

P.S. This is art-ish about not-art about art about art, if you follow.

The iCommons Auction: Unique Internet Artifacts

iCommons, the global non-profit incubated by Creative Commons, and based in Johannesburg, South Africa is auctioning off paraphernalia donated by some of the world’s leading Internet figures.

The over thirty items on the auction list run the gamut from the historical: the coats worn by Internet activist and Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig while he traveled the world talking about free culture, to the cultural: pre-print copies of books by best selling sci-fi author Cory Doctorow and Internet guru Jonathan Zittrain and the fun and funny: one of the 20 limited-edition, plush Fox-keh dolls, made by Firefox Japan and a selection of Indian intellectual property expert Lawrence Liang’s favourite Bollywood films – not to mention high quality prints of Internet entrepreneur, Joi Ito’s best photographs.

The people who have donated to the iCommons Auction are leading figures in the global movement to make the Internet a powerful tool for change, innovation, sustainability and development. Their donations tell stories of a history that is currently being written about the power of the Internet for change and development.

All the proceeds of the auction, which will take place online between the 19th of November 2007 and the 14th of December 2007, will go to developing and sustaining the iCommons Node programme, which connects global free culture projects around the world.

For more information, visit icommons.org/auction

Please, more like this, Mr. President.

Off-topic, but I have to put this out there.

The constant Republican talking point on this topic is that if Democrats (and others) sincerely feel that waterboarding is torture, then they should explicitly state as such and make it illegal. Currently, the law reads “acts of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” as torture. They’d like to turn the debate into a Democratic problem, claiming that there is a reasonable argument against its being torture, and that since it is questionable, it is the Dems fault that they are carrying out said torture.

The Democratic response is that it is not questionable. All over the world, Americans or not, all military interrogators and officers (the second link goes on to explain that we prosecuted the Japanese for War Crimes when they used it in WWII), former POWs, or yes, even Bush lawyers, who have undergone or used waterboarding agree that it is torture. And this is a valid point, and the reason the Mukasey confirmation debate has carried on - to paraphrase Jon Stewart, “how could he not know waterboarding was going to be on the test?” It is undeniably torture.

But we still need to answer the off-topic-attempt-to-refocus Republican talking point: why not make it illegal explicitly? The Dems response of “we shouldn’t have to” does not hold water. The real response is: then what?

Then what? Do we have to list every known form of torture, and every one that could potentially be invented in the next hundred years? And when you make a new method not yet on the list and use it, you can say, again, that it was not explicitly illegal? And the cycle begins again. This is a horrible and stupid precedent to set. I cant believe that anyone is letting them get away with this kind of reasoning; the media should be ashamed, and the Democratic leadership should take it on with some sense.

Now that that’s out of the way, let me restate that the world, and America, agree that waterboarding is torture. The experts agree that waterboarding is torture.

Jerks.

Looks like printer Ricardo Fornoni (damned if I know his surname, but a really nice guy who I used to chat to all the time at Krut) - who does fine art inkjets for many of Joburg’s digital elites - is opening South Africa’s first gallery dedicated solely to emphasizing collaboration, experimentation and digital art: Resolution Gallery. It’s a commercial gallery, located right in the center of Johannesburg’s gallery district (near Krut, Siebrits, Goodman, etc), so couple the fact that it’s viable with some of the text on their site, and it’s a pretty exciting venture:

Resolution promotes and sells digital media artifacts, from limited edition prints to interactive installations….

We curate thematic exhibitions that draw together local, international, established and up-and-coming artists to collective benefit….

We see our gallery as a stage, a meeting place and a laboratory.

A stage where the public has the chance to meet artists and experience digital art.
A meeting place where networks are formed and potential is generated around the work we exhibit.
A laboratory where we host those experiments that spark new potential in the relationships between technology and art.

Their first show, “Montage” - limited edition prints that combine digital techniques with traditional processes - opens next week and includes South African artists Roger Ballen, Dinkie Sithole, Wilma Cruise, Rob Machiri, Gavin Younge, and Spanish artist Manolo Belzunce. More info.

Good luck Ricardo - it’s a great initiative and deserves support, and I hope any Joburg locals that still read this blog will head over and check it out on 13 November, 18h30. Hat tip to Christo for letting me know about the new space.

And while I’m mentioning shows I’m on in New York, Broad Cast Response - the video installation I made as part of the iCommons residency in Croatia - will be screened as part of the t-minus festival in Brooklyn next weekend:

Premieres November 9th at Monkeytown in Brooklyn, NY.

Two screenings: 7:30 and 10:00, $5
Reservations strongly suggested. Make a reservation now.
(Monkeytown Info/directions)
Welcome to the 4th-annual T-MINUS Film Festival: Bringing Time into Focus.

What slows down when everything speeds up? Why do things that move fast demonstrate a unique inner peace when viewed from a different speed? What are the defining patterns in the world of motion?

T-MINUS 2007 showcases a collection of imaginative and innovative work from filmmakers, scientists, photographers, dancers, printers, musicians, and passengers (as well as a few roosters) from around the globe - attempting to explore these questions through the creative medium of time.

This year’s festival presents 13 works encompassing a range of techniques and perspectives - from 16mm walks through NYC, to algorithm’s in dance. Through shifting sequences, interrupting motion, or shuffling timelines, each piece succeeds at illuminating the hidden corners of our world by bringing Time into Focus.

Including work by Adam Kendall, Charles Lim, Chris Jordan, Grant Wakefield, John Adderly, Luca Mugnaini, Luke Dubois, Nathaniel Stern, anti:clockwise, Peter Shapiro, Sameer Butt, Ting-Hsin Wang and Tony Schultz.