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Jimmy Wales likes Wikipedia Art

That’s right. The co-founder of Wikipedia has joined the Facebook Group for Wikipedia Art.

How’s that for some credibility? If only these guys agreed (still marked for deletion).

The group. Or click image to see that he is a member – this is for real, people.

Facebook Group for Wikipedia: member name, Jimmy Wales

Wikipedia Art update (and updated)

Lots of cool edits to the page – see the history as well.

Huge debate roaring as well. My favorite quote here (followed by mini argument) is by Wikipedia user “shmeck,” aka contemporary artist Shane Mecklenburger:

KEEP The Wikipedia Art page is a self-aware example of Wikipedia’s mission of collective epistemology. It enacts and exposes Wikipedia’s own strengths, weaknesses, potential, and limits as a system of understanding and as a contemplative object of beauty. The page is also a self-aware example of the strengths, weaknesses, potential, and limits of new media art as a an object of contemplation. New media art is an example of how the boundaries between art and every other discipline from epistemology to microbiology disintegrated (see interdisciplinarity) in the 21st Century. This page is an example of how a Wikipedia page can go beyond simply existing as a Wikipedia page, while retaining its basic utilitarian Wikipedia function. Those who care most about Wikipedia’s mission would probably agree that Wikipedia already is a collaborative art form. If you feel that Wikipedia is a beautiful thing, then at some level (whether or not you admit it) you consider Wikipedia an art form, with its own codes and conventions. This is an example of something that explains art, explores art, and is art all at the same time. Deleting this page would be a statement that the exegesis of conceptual art and/or new media art has no place in Wikipedia, except on the tired, lifeless, and opaque conceptual art and new media art pages. Why shouldn’t a tiny, obscure corner of Wikipedia-brand collective epistemology be preserved for an instructive, self-referential, and ever-changing living example of what an art object can be in the 21st Century? Should this page be judged invalid only because it refers to itself? This artwork can only exist as a Wikipedia page that refers to itself. Therefore, deleting would not only send the message “this is not Wikipedia”; it would also be saying “this is not art.” comment added by Shmeck (talk â€¢ contribs) 00:27, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

++++ The above is a wonderful commentary, but Wikipedia is not your web page to wax eloquently about what you think ought to exist. Bus stop (talk) 00:34, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Comment: Thanks, but isn’t that what everyone is doing here? Talking about what ought to exist on Wikipedia? You haven’t addressed a single one of my points.

—- UPDATED, more nice stuff

This sort of artwork already has strong precedents in history – the Surrealists’ Exquisite Corpse, Debord’s idea of Situationist detournement, and although I am not part of this collective, I fully intend to include it as part of my chapter for the upcoming book of distributed writing commissioned by Turbulence.org, and it will be mentioned as part of my talk on new art practices at a guest lecture at Denver University on 2/16/09, and I have already written on it on my critical blog in London. Therefore, the reference is to the emergence of the concept, which now exists outside Wikipedia, and is paradoxical but not solipsistic. I think that the person suggesting the idea of letting the idea grow is well-reasoned, and a time for review (say, 90 days) could be set for re-evaluation.–24.14.54.88 (talk) 22:17, 14 February 2009 (UTC)–TS

Comment: Please note that, transgressive though they were, the Surrealists played “exquisite corpses” using their own notepaper. They did not try to scrawl it the margins of a library book. This is the problem. Nobody objects to a Wiki based artwork. The problem is that it can’t be inserted into Wikipedia because Wikipedia is not just a Wiki. It is an encyclopedia. It is no more appropriate to add non-encyclopaedic content here than it is to write stuff in library books. I have refrained from using the term “vandalism” because I think this is all a big misunderstanding rather than a deliberate attempt to damage Wikipedia. None the less, that is the effect it is having. —DanielRigal (talk) 22:24, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
Comment: I would very much beg to differ on the point of the Surrealists. Dali would lay in traffic, Artaud organized a riot aginst Dulac’s first screening of the Clergyman and the Seashell. If the Surrealists would have found it “appropriate” for the message, I am absolutely sure they would have done Corpses in the library. The way I see it, if it gets pulled, it will become by definition a case for reinsertion as an “event” in New Media art history. However, I know the project is being watched by a number of curators with great interest.–Patlichty (talk) 23:36, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

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11 February 2009 by nathaniel

Bill Ivey and the Obama Arts Transition Team

Lee Rosenbaum aka CultureGrrl spoke to Bill Ivey this week (Art Politico: My Interview with Bill Ivey, Leader of President Obamaâ€™s Arts Transition Team – CultureGrrl) Money Quote:

There are some advantages for artists and arts organizations to position themselves as unique, especially entitled, especially important. But I think there are also advantages to seeing artists and art organizations as regular parts of the economy. Artists are important workers. Arts organizations are important small and medium-sized businesses. I think if we consider them that way, particularly in this environment, we may get more benefit than if we play the exceptionalism card.

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25 December 2008 by nathaniel

Tops of 2008: A Different Kind of Year in Review

Merry Christmakkah! Happy new year!

The turkey is defrosting (mmmm, bourbon basting), Sidonie stayed up late (for a two year old) last night eating chocolate and playing with her new doll house from her ouma (OMG I have the cutest daughter ever), and I have little bit of morning to pound out a blog on what will probably be the only full day off I take this year (OK, OK, I already spent 30 mins on my dissertation when I first woke up, but the thing has to get done, right? Wait, is blogging ‘work’?).

So for my Tops of 2008: A Different Kind of Year in Review, I’ve decided to go with four different Top 5 lists: The Top 5 people I newly met in 2008, The Top 5 people Iâ€™d like to meet because of what they did (or the work I saw from them) in 2008, The Top 5 exhibitions for me (what I found most enjoyable), and The Top 5 shows I wish I had seen, but didn’t. Hope you like it! Feel free to comment, leaving any things/people I missed but might (or should have) enjoy(ed)!

The Top 5 people I newly met in 2008

Scott Kildall. A great net.artist, video artist, SL performer, and more – and becoming a great friend – check out his work if you don’t know it, and expect some collaborations from the two of us in the near future. Scott and I were introduced online through a mutual friend over a year ago, and did several shows together because of that contact, but only met in person for the first time this year.
Scott Kildall's 'Uncertain Location,' 2007
Camille Utterback. Also an amazing (and award-winning) artist, working mostly in interactive media, Camille makes appearances in my recent writings on Rhizome and in my dissertation. She came out for the Act/React exhibition in Milwaukee, on which she has 3 works; we did dinner and grad crits, and plan to hang out again in San Fransisco before too long.
Edward Winkleman (that’s his blog link, here is his gallery). I popped in to curator and gallerist Ed Winkleman’s space for a chat on my stop-over in New York when moving from Ireland/South Africa to Milwaukee for the new job. He is as professional, excitable and generous with his time, critique and advice as his blog suggests.
Zach Lieberman (his site seems to currently be down, so that link googles him). Co-creator (with the also awesome Theo Watson) of openframeworks, the free, open source, multimedia art development environment, Zach is an Ars Electronica-winning artist, Eyebeam fellow and NYC-based teacher. I took an openframeworks workshop with him in London, where he “adopted” everyone there: a promise to help us with our work how- and whenever he could in the future.
Jessica Meuninck-Ganger, my new printmaking collaborator who I speak of at length here. Expect much from us in 2009.

Top 5 people Iâ€™d like to meet because of what they did (or the work I saw from them) in 2008

Rachel Maddow. Maddow is the only news pundit I’ve ever had a crush on. (Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert don’t count). I’ve been following her for over 3 years now – I used to listen to her show on Air America via the internet in South Africa – and she gets even cooler as she gets more famous.
Brian Massumi. Yes, I’ve been going on about cultural theorist and philosopher Massumi for ages; but I still have not met him, I am more familiar with his work the more I write about it, and he does have a new essay out in this book. I still find his Parables for the Virtual dreamy.
Johan Grimonprez. A brilliant video -actually, it may be film- and print artist. Grimonprez is obviously obsessed with Hitchcock and all he has done to culture and vision, and gifts it back to us in the most stunning and unusual ways. You must see his 2005, Looking for Alfred. I wish he had more of an online presence!
Ai Weiwei. I saw Chinese art celebrity Ai Weiwei’s interdisciplinary art work at dokumenta 12 – and I can’t remember where else – in 2007, and have been reading up on him ever since (and so am counting him in 2008). His site does him no justice, so google him. Amazing.
Ai Weiwei's 'Template'
Shai Agassi. Have you read this guy’s ideas for the electric car? Check out this Wired Article on him and his work/mission.

The Top 5 exhibitions for me (what I found most enjoyable)

Act/React at the Milwaukee Art Museum. This exhibition of full-bodied interactive art was like a welcome present – it opened just weeks after my arrival to my new home. It’s a great show – you really should go see it if you are in the Midwest before it comes down early next year. Read my review here.
Juan MuÃ±oz: A Retrospective at the Tate Modern. Granted, part of my enjoyment of this show was the company and conversation (every time I go to London, the wonderfully gregarious Michael Szpakowski takes me museum/gallery hopping), but MuÃ±oz’s work also encompasses some of the most affective and gut-wrenching sculpture I’ve ever seen.
Juan MuÃ±oz, Many Times, 1999. Polyester and resin, Dimensions variable
Song of Solomon at the Project Arts Centre, Dublin, Ireland. This was actually a performance-based adaptation of an 8-channel generative sound sculpture by Ralph Borland (fellow South African artist and Trinity grad student) and Julian Jonker, but I found the performance version wonderfully moving. See slightly more about the piece, and what I thought, here.
When enough people start saying the same thing, Michael MacGarry at Art Extra, Johannesburg, South Africa. This show was a double wammy: it proved MacGarry’s standing as the new hot young art star in South Africa, and simultaneously solidified David Brodie’s standing as the hot new gallerist. The latter already has an ongoing and reciprocal deal with Cape Town’s Michael Stevenson Gallery. Also, the show was great. More here and here.
Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia: The Moment Art Changed Forever at the Tate Modern. So it’s a historical show and the second one I’ve put from the Tate, but what a show! And Michael really is fantastic to talk to about art – it makes the whole experience much more exciting. Also, check out his beautiful vlog.

The Top 5 shows I wish I had seen, but didn’t

(REPEAT) from the beginning, William Kentridge’s new solo at the Cape Goodman in Cape Town, South Africa (and elsewhere). Need I say more? This is on now.
Construction for 'Return' (Conductor), 2008, Steel, black paint, Two identical figures, each c. 61 x 61 x 33cm
The Art of Participation, 1950 to Now at SF MOMA. This show makes both implicit and explicit connections between relational aesthetics and interactive / net.art, through historical and contemporary work. And several of my friends are on it!
Take Your Time, Olafur Eliasson at MoMA and P.S.1. Eliasson has gotten to the point where he is big enough that it is trendy to hate him – and yeh, as Paddy Johnson asserts, his waterfall in NYC sucks. But from what I have seen of his work, I am sure this retrospective was stunning.
.ZA Young Art From South Africa at Palazzo delle Papesse, Sienna. Many of the new, young contemporary art stars from South Africa are on this exhibition. They all deserve props, and I wish I could have been there to give ’em some. Here’s a review by Rat Western.
Jozi and the (M)other City at Michaelis Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa. A group show of commissioned works by South African artists on their relationships to the cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town, and also the commissioner/premierÂ for my Doin’ my part to lighten the load. Some of the work looks awesome, so I was really sad to miss it. Sigh. I miss you, South Africa (especially from under all this snow in Milwaukee!).

Dude, I forgot how long proper blogging takes. That’s all I got. Happy Holidays!!!!

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03 December 2008 by nathaniel

“Prop 8 – The Musical” starring Jack Black, Allison Janney, John C. Reilly, Marc Shaiman, Neil Patrick Harris, and many more…

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

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12 November 2008 by nathaniel

Princeton University – Evolution’s new wrinkle: Proteins with cruise control provide new perspective

Princeton University – Evolution’s new wrinkle: Proteins with cruise control provide new perspective

A team of Princeton University scientists has discovered that chains of proteins found in most living organisms act like adaptive machines, possessing the ability to control their own evolution.

read it.