{"id":1102,"date":"2006-03-04T15:56:28","date_gmt":"2006-03-04T13:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/03\/04\/1102\/"},"modified":"2006-03-04T16:11:12","modified_gmt":"2006-03-04T14:11:12","slug":"1102","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/03\/04\/1102\/","title":{"rendered":"MTAA @ WSOA"},"content":{"rendered":"

That’s M. River and T. Whid Art Associates<\/a>, at Wits School of the Arts<\/a> (University of the Witwatersrand).<\/sup><\/p>\n

There was an awesome response to my MTAA<\/a> presentation at Upgrade! Joburg yesterday – really interesting discussion followed, mostly about their continual throughline of accenting relationality, as well as their gamut from punk work (Pirated Movie<\/a>), through community building (Reference Resource<\/a>), and discussions with the history of contemporary art (1ypv<\/a>). Below is more from Christo (great to hear a different perspective from that of the presenter!)…<\/p>\n

Via atjoburg.net<\/a>, and posted by Christo Doherty (photographs also by Christo):<\/strong> <\/p>\n

The second Upgrade! Event featured the work of New York net artists, MTAA, <\/a> in a presentation by Nathaniel Stern. Nathaniel began by playing an audio greeting to Johannesburg from T.Whid, one member of the MTAA duo and then launched into an eclectic overview of MTAA’s work, which emphasized the subversive intelligence and humour which is a common thread throughout their work.<\/p>\n

 \"MTAA <\/p>\n

For Nathaniel, MTAA – the artists T.Whid and M.River – embody a deliberately anti-academic, punkish attitude towards Net Art. Since the beginning of their collaboration in 1996, they have pushed the possibliities of Net Art and the limits of intellectual copyright in an impressive range of works.<\/p>\n

 \"\" <\/p>\n

The enthusiastic audience in the Wits Digital Arts seminar room were treated to glimpses of works such as Random Access Mortality<\/a> from 2002, in which MTTA took a couple of hundred short samples from either side of the “Hello Operator” single by The White Stripes and built an interface which allows users to access these samples in a completely random fashion. <\/p>\n

One theme that emerged strongly from Nathaniel’s presentation was MTAA’s strategy of "updating" classic pieces of performance art from the 1970s and 80s. These Updates are characterised by a wry retrospective irony towards the "classics" combined with a canny repurposing of the work using the interactive potential of the Internet. Perhaps the most striking example of this was MTAA’s 1 year performance video (aka samHsiehUpdate)<\/a> This piece, commissioned and hosted by Turbulence.org, reworked a classic piece of performance art, Sam Hsieh’s "One Year Performance, 1980 – 1981". The MTAA update, however, shifted the onus of the performance from the artist’s to the viewers. MTAA transformed the act of living in a cell for a year into over 160 video clips of themselves living in a cell. Viewers who logged onto the site were invited to watch the video clips for a year.<\/p>\n

 \"nathaniel_mtaa_presentation\"
Nathaniel Stern showing one of this favourite pieces by MTTA,
"Five Small Videos About Interruption and Disappearing".<\/small> <\/p>\n

Other works covered in Nathaniel’s presentation included Endnode (a.k.a Printer Tree)<\/a> a networked sculpture created during their 2002 Residency at the Eyebeam Gallery in New York; Pirated_Movie <\/a> in which MTAA screened a pirated version of Disney’s "Pirates of the Caribbean" with a new soundtrack improvised by DJs and musicians; and DC 9\/11 – The Evildoers’ Remix<\/a> a guerrilla edit of a pro-Bush propaganda film.<\/p>\n

 \"\"
A clip from "Pirated Movie" – a participating DJ is visible in
silhouette on the right hand of the screen.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That’s M. River and T. Whid Art Associates, at Wits School of the Arts (University of the Witwatersrand). There was an awesome response to my MTAA presentation at Upgrade! Joburg yesterday – really interesting discussion followed, mostly about their continual throughline of accenting relationality, as well as their gamut from punk work (Pirated Movie), through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,3,7,9,8,25,19,5,12,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-art-and-tech","category-me","category-pop-culture","category-re-blog-tidbits","category-reviews","category-stimulus","category-technology","category-theory","category-uncategorical"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s9blZT-1102","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1095,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/02\/28\/the-upgrade-johannesburg-and-wits-digital-soiree-presents-mtaa\/","url_meta":{"origin":1102,"position":0},"title":"The Upgrade! Johannesburg and Wits Digital Soiree present: MTAA","author":"nathaniel","date":"28 February 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"From the Upgrade! Joburg site: At their permission, Nathaniel Stern will be presenting the work of MTAA, a Brooklyn based digital art duo, most famous for their extremely provocative and quirky networked art: Artists M. River and T. Whid formed MTAA in 1996 and soon after began to explore the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"MTAA in Africa!","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mtaa.net\/images\/mtaaRR\/mtaa_colour_web_s.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1703,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/13\/christo-doherty-at-the-substation-gallery-johannesburg\/","url_meta":{"origin":1102,"position":1},"title":"Christo Doherty at The SubStation Gallery, Johannesburg","author":"nathaniel","date":"13 November 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Good friend, move+shaker and Professor and Head of Digital Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg),\u00c2\u00a0 Christo Doherty is having what looks to be a fantastic exhibition of prints and video on campus in a couple of weeks. According to the artist, he is using \"macro photography and miniature\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":539,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/02\/06\/bonita-alice-lots-of-art-and-what-i-did-for-a-sunday\/","url_meta":{"origin":1102,"position":2},"title":"Bonita Alice, lots of art, and what I did for a Sunday","author":"nathaniel","date":"06 February 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"There were so many openings in Johannesburg this weekend, I feel like I might cry. It's not that it's not great that we had stuff at Wits, the JAG, Art on Paper, and the premises. It's just that there's only one person blogging about it on a regular basis, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":541,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/02\/08\/people-like-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":1102,"position":3},"title":"people like us","author":"nathaniel","date":"08 February 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"elmi dixon's roep - photo credit: christo doherty OK, so I haven't had time to grab text from others, and since this is time sensitive, I've decided to lunge in and praise my students a bit (despite my own involvement). The feedback has been tremendous; the drift between, the group,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":838,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/10\/17\/doina-kraal-the-drill-hall\/","url_meta":{"origin":1102,"position":4},"title":"Doina Kraal @ The Drill Hall (update)","author":"nathaniel","date":"17 October 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"New\/better image \u00a9 Christo Doherty - thanks Christo! Doina Kraal @ The Drill Hall, image \u00a9 Christo Doherty. It's Simon Gush's fault that I don't know the installation's title. Be angry at him. A small gathering of local artists, scholars and art appreciators showed up for Doina Kraal's short-lived installation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1284,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/30\/ismail-farouk-and-the-parking-gallery\/","url_meta":{"origin":1102,"position":5},"title":"ismail farouk and the parking gallery","author":"nathaniel","date":"30 July 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"JHB626GP, on the parking gallery roof. Photo by Christo DohertyJHB626GP, Ismail Farouk's solo exhibition of a video produced for the Venice architectural biennale and photographs shot of a burning house in Ellis Park, was an amazing testament to the urbane provocations alive and well in downtown johannesburg.\u00a0 Between a great\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"JHB626GP, on the parking gallery roof. 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