For Sean Fletcher and Isabel Reichert’s Wikipedia Art Remix, two actors perform a scene appropriated from Edward Albee’s play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”.  The dialogue between the iconic characters George and Martha incorporates highlights from the “Articles for Deletion” page of Wikipedia Art, an intervention by Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern on Wikipedia, so the couple’s argument becomes one about whether or not art can exist on Wikipedia.

See a video art version of this upcoming performance piece.

Sean Fletcher and Isabel Reichert have collaborated together on conceptually based performance works, interventions, writings, installations, videos, photography, and prints since meeting each other in 1994.  Their work is about power and vulnerability; how it relates to relationship dynamics, society, and politics. Fletcher and Reichert use collaboration as a tool to integrate the negotiation for power into works of art.

Scott Kildall is an independent artist, who intervenes with objects and actions into various concepts of space. Nathaniel Stern is an artist, teacher, writer and provocateur, who works with interactive, participatory, networked and traditional forms.

Artists Now!
Department of Visual Art
Guest Lecture Series

Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 7:00pm
Arts Center Lecture Hall (ACL 120) on the UWM campus
2400 E. Kenwood Blvd.
Free and Open to the Public

In this talk Lieberman will present his interactive works and collaborations, focusing on the artistic process as research.  He will show works such as Manual Input Sessions, in which an old school overhead projector is transformed into a magical audio visual performance device, and Lights On, a performance of sound and light commissioned for the 2009 opening of the new Ars Electronica center in Linz.  He will also talk about openFrameworks, a C++ toolkit for creative coding which is being used by developers worldwide to make compelling interactive installations and performances.

Zach Lieberman flier

Dear Friends,

As the end of the year draws near, we hope that you will support our many inspiring and innovative projects – Turbulence.org, Networked_Performance, Networked_Music_Review, Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art), Upgrade! Boston, Floating Points, Programmable Media, New American Radio – and the artists, scholars, and writers they support.

Please contribute $10, $25, $50 or more.

No amount is too small! No amount is too large!

Contribute via PayPal on Turbulence or send a check to:

New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.
124 Bourne Street
Roslindale, MA 02131, USA

Thanks for your generous support, and a Happy New Year to you all.

Warm Regards,

Jo-Anne Green and Helen Thorington, Co-Directors
New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.

Woot.

Networked_Performance — Networked: a networked_book about networked_art
Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art) INVITES YOU TO PARTICIPATE: Two years in the making, Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art) is now open for comments, revisions, and translations. You may also submit a chapter for consideration.

Please register and then Read | Write:

The Immediated Now: Network Culture and the Poetics of Reality
Kazys Varnelis

Lifetracing: The Traces of a Networked Life
Anne Helmond

Storage in Collaborative Networked Art
Jason Freeman

Data Undermining: The Work of Networked Art in an Age of Imperceptibility
Anna Munster

Art in the Age of Dataflow: Narrative, Authorship, and Indeterminacy
Patrick Lichty

BACKGROUND

Networked proposes that a history or critique of interactive and/or participatory art must itself be interactive and/or participatory; that the technologies used to create a work suggest new forms a “book” might take.

In 2008, Turbulence.org and its project partners — NewMediaFix, Telic Arts Exchange, and Freewaves – issued an international, open call for chapter proposals. We invited contributions that critically and creatively rethink how networked art is categorized, analyzed, legitimized — and by whom — as norms of authority, trust, authenticity and legitimacy evolve.

Our international committee consisted of: Steve Dietz (Northern Lights, MN) :: Martha Gabriel (net artist, Brazil) :: Geert Lovink (Institute for Network Cultures, The Netherlands) :: Nick Montfort (Massachusetts Institute for Technology, MA) :: Anne Bray (LA Freewaves, LA) :: Sean Dockray (Telic Arts Exchange, LA) :: Jo-Anne Green (NRPA, MA) :: Eduardo Navas (newmediaFIX) :: Helen Thorington (NRPA, NY)

Built by Matthew Belanger (our hero!), http://networkedbook.org is powered by WordPress, CommentPress and BuddyPress.

Networked was made possible with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts (United States). Thank you.

We are deeply grateful to Eduardo Navas for his commitment to both this project and past collaborations with Turbulence.org.

Jo-Anne Green and Helen Thorington
jo at turbulence dot org
newradio at turbulence dot org

Schweet!

Wikipedia Art – originally an editable encyclopedia entry as art work – applied for and was denied citizenship on Wikipedia. It now seeks refugee status in Venice through the establishment of The Wikipedia Art Embassy. Encyclopedic ambassadors, Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern, invite writings on, and creative remixes and alternative wiki postings of, the Wikipedia Art project itself. Each will be featured on their now infamous site, wikipediaart.org

Wikipedia Art , officially part of Venice Biennale, has been called “more Wikipedia than Wikipedia” by Miltos Manetas, curator of Padiglione Internet (the Internet Pavilion). It is an incorporation of not only the artists’ primary concept, but the debates, biases and power struggles behind how it continues to exist. Now, Kildall and Stern are re-releasing Wikipedia Art – the story, the concept, the logo, its texts and name – under a Creative Commons license (CC-by). They request public remixes, transformative art and derivative works. They offer the piece up to business and info Wikis, to songwriters, fellow artists and filmmakers, to journalists and storytellers. Despite its absence from the number one source of online information, it perseveres in its temporary yet virtual housing in Italy (and Everywhere Else).

Kildall and Stern continue their examination and intervention into how Wikipedia has reframed knowledge, by asking the public to re-look at and re-make Wikipedia’s mode of online knowledge production. Wikipedia is not open to any editor, not a democracy, and in a great position of power. While an amazing resource, as with any powerful institution, its users – the general public – should continuously question Wikipedia’s methodologies and the power brokers that control them. Wikipedia Art re-engages that general audience; it features any artist or writer who wishes to take part; it frames all public discourse and activity as an ongoing intervention into knowledge and authority – on Wikipedia, on the Internet, in Venice and beyond.

Download the call for remixes (pdf)
See the call and the remixes so far

Like making art, there are no steadfast rules to writing artist statements – and even the best of us fail sometimes – but there are of course some decent guidelines one might consider following. Below is an ongoing list I’ve started giving to my students: 3 things that should be in an artist statement, and 7 guidelines for sticking to them. Bear in mind here that there are two kinds of artist statements: one for an individual work, and one for your overarching practice. Always start with the former (which is what these guidelines are about); the only way to know what “all” your work is doing is to be familiar with each piece first. Hope this helps!

Art work descriptions and statements should be about 300 – 500 words, and strictly address the following:

1. What “is” the work? Describe it as an object, installation or situation in a way that enables visual and/or sensual comprehension. This is not what the piece is “about.” I mean it literally / physically: what are your art piece’s individual components and materials, and how do they work together as a whole?
2. What do we see or experience? If it’s an installation, consider a walk-through, a description of how it looks, sounds, smells, feels (again, not emotionally or conceptually, but physically), and what actions viewers have taken in and around it. If it’s a situation, describe the relationships (and power structures) you are intervening in and how participants might perform them. Many works would likely need to address both what we experience and what we do as an audience or participants in front of it / around it / with it. How do viewers relate to the work, to the artist, to each other…?
3. What’s at stake? Why is this important to you? Why should it be important to me / others? You can briefly address or allude to conceptual issues here, but be specific rather than general. How does the piece itself address these concerns? How do we encounter them in our experience of it, and what value lies in that encounter?

Some guidelines to follow:

1. This is not a mystery novel. Start with a one-sentence description that encompasses all of the above to some extent – especially what it is – then unpack each of the listed items as is needed.
2. No generalizations. Do not make assertions about art works in this field generally being “like this” or how “the majority of people” think or act a certain way; rather explain your interests in certain areas of investigation in implicit relation to (un)said state of the arts.
3. Avoid phrases like “viewers will experience.” You do not know what they will experience, and most readers will think it arrogant (if only unconsciously) if you try to pull this off. If you desire this approach – to describe what the piece does to people – say what you (personally) see or have made in the work, or what viewers have actually said or done (“in the past, I’ve seen participants…”), rather than asserting what they will do or say in the future.
4. Do not put all your interests and tie-ins and interwoven ideas here. This is a concise description of the work – what it looks like, what we experience, and what is at stake – that can be read into by others, and everything else should be built into the piece itself. Feel free to be ambiguous with a small amount of language, to allude to larger / more concepts towards the end, but you must explicitly state one through-line only in this statement.
5. No undefined terms. Do not use words like “performative,” “poststructural,” “deconstruct,” or “postmodern,” “other,” “gaze” or “feminist,” without defining them. If you can’t describe what you mean by these kinds of jargonny words in a short sentence (which is preferred to actually using them), then you yourself do not understand clearly enough what they mean in/to your practice/this piece, and so neither will we, the readers. Even poetic, simple terms – especially hyphenated ones – should be avoided unless you explicitly describe what you mean by them.
6. DESCRIBE. Remember: an artist statement should enhance my experience of your work by describing it, not justifying it, obscuring it, or simply listing the ideas you were thinking about or papers you were reading whilst you were making it. The biggest mistake artists make here is to think that because they were reading or thinking about a specific concept when they made the piece, then the piece is about that. Listen to critique, watch others with the work, and relate what it is actually doing and how. The statement is about looking and watching your work then describing what you see, not producing a project then justifying its existence.
7. Excite your reader. This should be fun and interesting. If it’s not, you lose me. Think journalism: first summarize the whole thing, but simultaneously make me want to read on (and experience the work for myself); the rest should unpack it, give me a sense of some understanding but also make me want to see or research more on you and the piece…

Hope this helps! I welcome other advice for this ongoing list, and if the response is good, it may turn into a series about writing for artists. Next up would be a short piece on “positioning.” Trust me, I hate using advertising jargon here; but the truth is, you can’t please everyone (and if you try to, you will either fail, or make something very mediocre), and so it’s better to understand who your audience is – buyers, curators, appreciators, fellow artists, gallerists, academics, and any of the subsets and descriptors within them (being as specific as possible) – and what kind of language to use to best grab their attention and interest….

Link to part 1; link to part 2.

Two artists staged an art intervention within Wikipedia, turning the “free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit” into an art medium.

By making a sort of readymade art object from a Wikipedia page, Nathaniel Stern, of Milwaukee, and Scott Kildall, of San Francisco, have challenged the conventions of art in a way that doesn’t happen everyday.

The wikiwar that’s erupted is not unlike the outrage inspired by Marcel Duchamp‘s urinal or Andy Warhol‘s Brillo Boxes.

“Wikipedia Art” was, to the artists’ minds, both an artwork and a legitimate Wikipedia page.

Read more.

And just for fun:

A Disclaimer

Here’s how we went public, on EFF:
Wikipedia Threatens Artists for Fair Use

Here’s the legal history on our site.

And it exploded, of course, when it got slashdotted.

I urge readers to make their own judgments via the legal history – especially the correspondence that followed their initial letter – rather than taking Wikimedia counsel at their word about the gentleness of their approach to us regarding this issue.

A few more reads on…

Ars Technica
Free Culture News
NeoSeeker
Geniosity
TechDirt

And there’s much more out there now. This piece was always meant to be formed by the public, made through writing and citation, activation and feedback. It’s turning out to be quite a performance.

I will also be giving public lectures about my work this week, twice. First, I will take over a spot on Wednesday, April 1st, 7pm (in ACL 120) for the Artist Now! series in the Visual Art department, Peck School of the Arts, at UWM:

Artists Now! is a Wednesday evening lecture series designed for a broad audience with an interest in contemporary visual art. The series presents a diverse group of artists working across traditional, hybrid and emergent disciplines. Join these nationally and internationally recognized practitioners as they explore and expand the boundaries of creative visual practice today.

All lectures take place on Wednesdays at 7 pm in the Arts Center Lecture Hall, 2400 E. Kenwood Blvd. on the UWM campus. The lectures are free and open to the public.

I’ll give an hour’s worth of overview of my practice, some works, and a couple of the trajectories I’m aware of in them. But if you can’t make that, don’t worry! The very next day I will be giving a very similar talk (pretty much the same one, with perhaps slightly more on the tech side, and with the general variability that comes with my “performances”) as part of the Computation and Craft lecture series in the School of Architecture & Urban Planning (SARUP) – Thursday, April 2nd at noon in AUP 110, also UWM. See the flyer below (click for larger).

interactions, interventions and implications: computation and craft lecture at UWM

Finally, I’ll kind of be all over the Johannesburg Art Fair, in South Africa – well, my art will. I personally can’t attend, but I am: (twice) in the Internet Art in the Global South net.art exhibition, curated by Tegan Bristow; on Bad Form, an interesting show over at Blank Projects, curated by Christian Nerf and Kathryn Smith; featured in a talk by Wilhelm van Rensburg on contemporary printmaking (Gallery AOP); and will mostly likely also feature at the David Krut table. Should be an awesome fair – sad to miss it.

Hope to see some of you around these great events!

UW-Milwaukee Grad Student features are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

After graduating with a BFA 2006, Mairin worked as an Arts Educator at various institutions, including the Evanston Art Center, the Chicago Children’s Museum, and the Marwen Foundation. Her work explores the existence of emergence, entropy, and connection in organic forms and processes. Mairin has studied at Beloit College, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and at the Burren College of Art in Ireland. Mairin is currently working toward a Masters of Fine Arts in Visual Art at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. To view images of Mairin’s work or information about upcoming exhibitions and events, please visit her blog, http://www.mairinhartt.blogspot.com, or her website, http://www.mairinhartt.com.

Talk about your current practice. What do you make and why is that important to you?

I combine various media on paper, using mostly automatic drawing methods. In 101 Cellplates, for example, I layered small sheets of rice paper on top one another, working on the utmost layer. Marks from the previous sheets – graphite pencil and ink – would seep through, creating impressions upon the sheets underneath. I interacted with the marks of each layer, simulating sedimentation and other processes of accumulation. I find it interesting how one layer builds upon and affects another, creating a dialogue, and becoming a document of time. You become a witness to that process.

#41, #55, and #61 of 101 Cellplates, Sumi Ink, India Ink, and Graphite on Rice Paper, each 3″ x 5″, 2008

Drawing, to me, is the most elemental, the most direct act in visual art. It allows for different media to interact and co-exist. When I draw, the exposed paper often reminds me of exposed bone; the textures, raw and fragile, like skin. The residual spaces reveal the process of creation, of the piece itself. There is something about the tactile quality of paper and drawing that is extremely fulfilling. I feel more connected with each piece. I believe that establishing a connection with the image is important to create honest work. Art that is honest – both emotionally and intellectually – affects me the most.

What got you to this point? What were you doing or making before, and how did that lead you to this kind of production?

As a child my two favorite subjects were art and science. Both subjects were about curiosity and discovery, about observing the world around us. I studied natural forms a great deal. I would peel open seedpods in my backyard, sometimes creating drawings of dissected trees and plants. I once made a flipbook of a single flower growing from a seed, blooming, wilting, and then returning to the soil. I considered being a biologist, but I felt art allowed for a deeper exploration and study of all aspects of science as well as other subjects.

Up until college, I painted realistic portraits and landscapes. For me, realism represented a sign of discipline and the technical ability of a professional artist. In 2002 I finished a portrait that was the most successfully realistic painting I had made up to that point. I remember looking at it and feeling, surprisingly, dissatisfied. Realism could only scratch the surface of what I wanted to convey. It was strange. None of my favorite artists were Realists. They were Impressionists and Expressionists, and I asked myself, “Why am I painting this way?”

Afterwards, I began exploring other methods and techniques, moving toward abstraction, eventually utilizing intuitive and automatic drawing exercises akin to the Surrealists and Expressionists to explore the textural and emotional affects of numerous combinations of various mediums. I still use these methods today. I believe that everything is connected in this world. As such, I feel abstraction allows multiple contradictions to co-exist and connect.

Who inspires you that you know personally, as well as historically or in contemporary practice?

As I said previously, my initial inspirations were Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, and Expressionists: Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, et cetera. I first saw their work in the flesh at age nine, and was in awe. Monet’s analytical approach, and Van Gogh’s emotional approach, to color revealed to me the emotional effect of color upon the viewer. As I got older I also became interested in the Romantics’ use of rich, saturated colors to convey the Sublime.

Contemporary artists I admire would include Vija Celmins. She creates intensely detailed graphite drawings of vast, natural spaces. I appreciate her treatment of the small and the grand on an equal terrain. Her work revealed the potential of gray to me. Ocean Surface Wood Engraving 2000 is a large, gray, woodblock print of the ocean that appears to recede into infinity.

I am also interested in work by Paul Nudd, specifically his drawings and collages. I saw some of his mixed media collages at the Evanston Art Center in 2007. They looked to consist of mucus, pubic hair, and other possible repulsive items on canvas. The materials were not listed, which left you wondering if the materials were actually what you feared. Yet, I could not help but stare. They were oddly alluring.

Tell us about your favorite and least favorite works of art from your entire repertoire – why they deserve those titles and what you learned from them.

My least favorite works would be those lacking imagination or discipline. It is a precarious balance. Part of what I enjoy about reactionary processes is the unexpected, the ‘mistakes,’ which provide potential for exploration and imagination. What I have discovered is my imagination is more vivid than I could have fathomed. However, work without any structure or focus also loses my interest.
My favorite pieces are ones that are unpredictable, where the image develops and progresses on its own. This is how I became interested in ideas of emergence – specifically how order can come from disorder, and how the universe is in constant flux.

Images from Cellular Repetition/Outdoor Installation, Chalk, 2008

In Cellular Repetition/Outdoor Installation, I wanted to engage with the urban environment directly and, symbolically, re-connect areas within that space to each other. I envisioned these circular marks representing microscopic cells, replicating, spreading, and connecting everything around us. It began as an exercise to continue freeing up my drawing practice, but it grew into a much larger project when I began drawing on my own skin to connect myself with the space.

Image from Cellular Repetition/Body, Ink on Skin, 2008

What are you working on right now, and where do you see your work headed next?

I see my work continuing in this vein – combining various media on paper, creating abstract images. I enjoy the vagueness or unidentifiable aspect of my work. Despite the vagueness, the images often remind me of odd organic creatures and structures. The ambiguity allows the viewer to make their own connection with the work.

untitled 1, Sumi Ink, Watercolor, and Graphite on Paper, 8″ X 15″, 2008-2009

untitled 2, Sumi Ink, Watercolor, and Graphite on Paper, 8″ X 15″, 2009

untitled 3, Sumi Ink, Watercolor, and Graphite on Paper, 8″ X 15″, 2009

C

urrently I am exploring notions of emergence and connection through microscopic forms and cellular processes, highlighting the connection of the macro and the micro. I am fascinated with the theories of entropy and emergence. Specifically, to the idea that patterns and structures develop and organize from apparent disorder. According to the theory of entropy, organized systems should not exist. It would be more efficient for all of our atoms to float around the universe detached, instead of cooperating as complicated entities. It requires energy to become a planet, star, or living organism. Living is tension, a balance between existence and non-existence. I hope to remind people of how inter-related everything is and to gift a sense of some of the sublimity of existence.

—–

The main issue for me is not whether I (or others) like or dislike … the Wiki [(I actually think it an extremely valuable resource)], to game or not game the systems that contribute to it, and certainly not to canonize myself – you’ll note that other than our own page and my own blog, I have not at all participated in any of the discussions about the project (not on wikipedia, not on rhizome [another rhizome thread here], not on Paddy’s blog, etc). I care not about the rejection of the page, really; or even if you call it “art,” as Paddy suggests. I think the debates still have contextual value, even outside of the art space. People care about this: about art, about Wikipedia, about the blogosphere, about the conceptual frames and important people (whether of self-import or otherwise) that “control” these spaces through their online voices or backend deletions. The idea that this page got any less or more fairness or discussion than any other Wiki page is not my own – I’ve seen many debates just like this one spearheaded by just as many folks at the Wiki  – I feel lucky that [Wikipedia Art] got this much attention; a real failure would have been a speedy delete, and then nothing, which we always knew was a possible outcome. The point is, most people don’t see how arbitrarily many of these decisions are made, or where biases lie, despite the fact that, as you say, in the “post Gallery [post academy?] world Wikipedia is the new Academy, because it has the ability to control the discourse of who is an important artist (or art blogger)” [and more!]. A bunch of volunteers, of their own free will, cared enough to do all this, a bunch of artists and theorists care enough to carry on the debate. Paddy is right, perhaps “the discussion is my art” means I always “win” – but this project, art or not, is not about winning for me. And nor is Wikipedia, and nor is the art blogosphere.

I’m glad the [debate] carries on, because even if Wikipedia Art is not at all important, it has provoked a discussion around what is.

iDC discussion has some nice tidbits, too.

A worthy re-post, not really related to the Wikipedia Art project. I don’t think my own work is exactly suitable, but hopefully some of my readers might be able to get involved.

Wikipedia had one of its more interesting deletion discussions overnight.  A page called Wikipedia Art lasted about a day. By site standards the deletion was mundane, but the editors who created it were not. There’s an untapped opportunity here and I’m reaching out to them. The artists Scott Kildall, Nathaniel Stern, and Brian Sherwin were active in it, apparently with a measure of support from the academic art world.

There are untapped synergies between Wikipedia and professional artists. One of them is illustrated here: a portrait of actor Mark Harmon by professional photographer Jerry Avenaim. This photo is scheduled to run on Wikipedia’s main page tomorrow.

Mr. Avenaim himself didn’t nominate the portrait for featured picture. Another volunteer noticed its high quality and put it up as a candidate where it nearly failed the minimum resolution requirements until I noticed the photographer was already an active Wikipedian and contacted him. He was surprised and delighted to learn his work was under consideration, and supplied a larger version.

Now here’s good news for Jerry Avenaim: as Picture of the Day for February 17, 2009 the portrait will receive an estimated 6 to 7 million page views as a main feature, plus about 30,000 direct views to the image hosting page. That’s more attention than his work would get from a day on the front page of The New York Times. Thank you, Jerry Avenaim, for doing well by doing good. Here’s a link to his blog.

I would love to establish contact with the Wikipedia Art participants and help them direct their considerable talents into productive endeavors. Posted to the Village Pump discussion about this. Let’s hope it yields fruitful results.

It should be duly noted that:

• Wikipedia broke their own rules in deleting this post, citing that it broke their rules, which should never be broken. The discussion that began surrounding its deletion was NOT closed, and thus the page should have been given at least 24 hours (most are given 3 to 5 days). Endorsers of the deletion claim that the ends justify the means, but rule-breaking begetting rule-breaking by the enforcers seems like a stretch for truly objective readers / editors / Wikipedians. Admitting that’s the case, fearing the “setting of a precedent” – as some express in the above links – does not make it any better; worse, in fact. Obviously, even if the Wikipedia community does not see Wikipedia Art as a “valid” intervention, they have proved it to be a necessary one (and thus valid on a much larger and more important scale).
• The Wikipedians behind the delete (and lock-down – no one can recreate the entry) also went so far as to erase the entire history of the Wikipedia Art page – there is no record of the “work” (in its initial manifestation on Wikipedia) and its transformations, other than in the debates linked to above (and a few other snippets of arguing I didn’t bother posting right now).

Poor form, gentleman. We’ll have archives and updates live on WikipediaArt.org soon.