The Rhizome Digest merged into the Rhizome News in November 2008. These pages serve as an archive for 6-years worth of discussions and happenings from when the Digest was simply a plain-text, weekly email.

Subject: RHIZOME DIGEST: 8.16.02
From: list@rhizome.org (RHIZOME)
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2002 19:08:05 -0400
Reply-to: digest@rhizome.org
Sender: owner-digest@rhizome.org
RHIZOME DIGEST: August 16, 2002

Content:

+opportunity+
1. Mark Segal: SCAN Director

+work+
2. joan escofet: review - a new cultural movement?
3. ARCANGEL: infomera.net - enconstruccion.org VS no-content.net
4. intima: MomEnt.16: Orgasmus im Berlin

+announcement+
5. maria rita Silvestri: Bananaram Italian Net.Art Festival

+interview+
6. cory arcangel: Low Level All Stars -- Jan Lund Thomsen / Triangle

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1.

Date: 8.13.02
From: Mark Segal (mark.segal AT artsway.org.uk)
Subject: SCAN Director

SCAN Director £25,000 pa
(please see email address for response below - please do not reply to
this email))

SCAN is seeking a dynamic and organised individual to establish and
develop the network as the major resource/catalyst for production,
distribution and presentation of digital arts across the South.

Deadline for applications: 2 September 2002
Interviews will be held on 16 September 2002

SCAN: the consortium for digital arts development in the South of
England supported by the Regional Arts Lottery Programme through
Southern & South East Arts.

For application info please send an A4 SAE to:
Joanne Bushnell, Chair SCAN, c/o Aspex Gallery
27 Brougham Road, Portsmouth, PO5 4PA
Email: jo AT aspex.org.uk
(NOTE: email enquires will elicit an email response only with
attachments. For paper applications please send an SAE)

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+ad+

**MUTE MAGAZINE NO. 24 OUT NOW** 'Knocking Holes in Fortress Europe',
Florian Schneider on no-border activism in the EU; Brian Holmes on
resistance to networked individualism; Alvaro de los Angeles on
e-Valencia.org and Andrew Goffey on the politics of immunology. More AT
http://www.metamute.com/

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2.

Date: 8.14.02
From: joan escofet (grasp AT straddle3.net)
Subject: review- a new cultural movement?

during august and september, in a biweekly basis, context weblog will
consist in a review of prior published data -- filtered headlines, blogs
and series --

the goal of this re-presentation is to explore and visualize emerging
trends from the vast amount of published data.

summer review 1: the pioneers of active appropriation of digital
technology are the diyers and hackers. this diy (do it yourself)
approach is now assuming the form of a new cultural movement: the
software becomes an engine of cultural innovation.

http://straddle3.net/context/

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+ad+

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Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA). Published by LEONARDO, LEA is the
leading monthly on-line peer-reviewed journal and web archive in its
field. Subscribe now for $35 per year at
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/INFORMATION/subscribe.html.

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3.

Date: 8.14.02
From: Arcangel (arcangel AT unosunosyunosceros.com)
Subject: infomera.net enconstruccion.org VS no-content.net

infomera.net
champions of the
WWW

presents

an online ephemeral match

enconstruccion.org VS no-content.net

mario garcia constructor from enconstruccion.org from mexico with 27
years and 3 in the professional league influenced by siqueiros, carrion
and the construction workers will try to certificate in a programming
castigate style combat

vs

brian mackern " no-content.net from montevideo uruguay aka vibri ,
zigurat99 psycho-byte influenced by las ensenanzas de don juan humito
,bily holliday thelonius monk will use ( depending on ram ) his nubes
aleatorias,data-overflow-ascii and chamanic interferences in a blend of
tao and rads technique

13 -14 agosto online at http://www.infomera.net/

enconstruccion.org VS no-content.net

they will destroy . create . transform a massive info manipulation
combat unique no-database no-rules opn ftp access

found about their challenges at :

http://www.museotamayo.org/inmerso/infomera/batallas/enconstruccionVSnoscont
ent.htm

collect the player cards

biographical info ( plus ) an exclusive interview

www.enconstruccion.org
http://www.museotamayo.org/inmerso/infomera/playercards/MARIO.htm

www.no-content.net
http://www.museotamayo.org/inmerso/infomera/playercards/brian.htm

http://www.museotamayo.org/infomera cyberlounge

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4.

Date: 8.14.02
From: intima (igor.stromajer AT guest.arnes.si)
Subject: MomEnt.16: Orgasmus im Berlin

*** MomEnt.16: Orgasmus im Berlin ***
low-quality high-standard self-composable net video kit

http://www2.arnes.si/~ljintima2/moment16

by intima | virtual base _2002

net_video base C | consecutive [unlimited] net_video base P | parallel
[limited]

16 net_video files: define function | danger above | observation 3 | no
information | observe code 0.60 | control out 4 | control out 9 | start
function | move forces | emotion help | no feelings 46 |
14/4328322700324 | no reason 55 | danger positive A | situation love 2 |
function completed

_tech.definition:

PC PIII, 800 MHz, 256 MB RAM, Mac G4, min. 56 kbps | online, MS IE 6+,
Netscape 6+, min. resolution: 1024x768, High Color, 14" (opt. 15"), Java
Script, multimedia, RealPlayer, wav player, e-mail software (& account),
free your mind & the rest will follow

_credits:

created by igor stromajer. produced by intima | virtual base, 2002 -
www.intima.org

camera by davide grassi (aksioma.org), dejan habicht (fundamental
photography), i. stromajer

performed by (alphabetic) marjana harcet, jana kohut, bojana kunst,
marcela okretic, sophia okretic, anja planiscek, vlasta vucenik, brane
zorman

supported by ministry of culture of republic of slovenia. recorded in
ljubljana, slovenia - june/july 2002. edited in mirca, croatia - august
2002

- - -

intima | virtual base
http://www.intima.org
+38641703291
atom AT intima.org

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5.

Date: 8.9.02
From: maria rita Silvestri (staff AT bananram.org)
Subject: Bananaram Italian Net.Art Festival

>From 18 to 22 September at the Mole Vanvitelliana of Ancona, Italy,
takes place Bananaram, first Italian Net.Art Festival. The event
consists in installations and interactive multimedia projects
exhibition. Projects will offer a large view of the new art: from
Netomat, exhibited in 2001 at Data Dynamics, Whitney Museum of NY; to
the WAP broadcasting by graffiti artist Joey Krebs from Los Angeles; to
0100101110101101.ORG, mysterious cyber identity who will expose
biennale.py, the virus created for the Biennale d Arte of Venezia 2001;
to EpidemiC, from Milan who will come to Ancona with their new AntiMafia
software, Nikola Tosic with his new Community Mapping, Limiteazero with
Active Metaphor, Zanni, Thomson & Craighead and Retroyou. At the
Festival artists will perform a presentation of artwork discussing about
their new projects. The theme of the exhibition is Net.Art and
unconscious needs. Bananaram was created and developed by Gianluca D
Agostino, PhD, author of The Art Club, the CNN show and Maria Rita
Silvestri,art editor for Random and author of award winning novel The
Magic of Art.

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6.

Date: 08.04.02
From: cory arcangel (corya AT harvestworks.org)_
Subject: Low Level All Stars -- Jan Lund Thomsen / Triangle

To coincide with the exhibition "Kingdom of Piracy"
(http://kop.adac.com.tw/) RSG and BEIGE have entered into a head to
head, 8-bit computing battle in search of what we call "the low level
all-stars." Basically the idea is to hunt down the "true players" of
low level 8-bit computer art. The following interview is of Jan Lund
Thomsen of the infamous demo group "Triangle". In the following
interview Jan describes the art of the cracker "intro" and other issues
assiciated with this pre-internet DIY art/craft. Jan touches on fame,
floppy disk distribution, and piracy. Part demo, part graffiti, intros
are the animations that appear at the start-up of a cracked video game
which are designed to showcase the cracker's talent.

++++

Cory Arcangel: In a previous email you indicated that there was a
cracking scene, and not an intro scene. An intro is merely an artists'
tag of a much larger work. Can you explain why this process eventually
grew to become so involved [music / animation]?

Jan Lund Thomsen: Intros had to be squeezed into whatever free memory
space was left by the game (as both intro and game were loaded into
memory in one go.) At some stage you can imagine the people coding these
"tags" wanting to see what they could do if they had all the resources
of the computer to themselves rather than piggy backing their work onto
something else. Thus the demo-scene was born.

As demos are a legal activity the natural step was for people to form
specialized demo groups that had nothing to do with the cracking scene.
>From this rose the competition to do outdo each other, something that is
still evident in todays demo scene.

Cory Arcangel: Other people we have talked to described themselves as
"artists", yet you view your work on the commodore more as a craft. Can
you explain what makes you think of yourself as a craftsman?

Jan Lund Thomsen: Looking back I'd say I was both - probably around
60/40 in favor of the craft. While coming up with ways to enhance a game
(adding high-score savers, better compression, etc.) could be considered
an art-form that distinguished one cracked version from another, there
was no denying that basic set of skills had to be mastered in order for
a cracker to transform the contents of the original media into something
that could be easily duplicated, yet preserved the functionality of the
original game.

As various forms of protection schemes and fastloaders were applied to
the games a cracker needed to familiarize himself with those schemes. He
also needed the technical skills that would allow him to dig his way
through new protection schemes. One of the exiting things about cracking
games was that you'd never know what you were up against next time an
original tape landed in your mailbox.

Cory Arcangel: One of the reasons that I am interested in working on
early 8-bit computers is that since most run on 6502 chips, due to the
simplicity of 8-bit code and easy access to this code [via disassembler]
one can usually modify or at least come to an understanding of any
compiled code. This idea in some ways parallels today's open source
movement. Would you consider the commodore64 a computer which is open
source at its heart?

Jan Lund Thomsen: In one word: No.

While dissecting and tweaking other peoples code led to greater
understanding of the machine and gave insight into new ways to solve old
problems noone really spread their applications around to show other
people *how* they accomplished something but rather that they *had*
accomplished it.


Cory Arcangel: You are not in favor of pirating software. Though during
your c64 years you played a part in spreading software. Did your
philosophy change, or was the cracking scene seen as something
different?

Jan Lund Thomsen: My philosophy changed. While I don't condone piracy
these days, I'm not completely denouncing it either. For me it has a lot
to do with my belief in the platform/developer-community in question; my
Windows 98 box has programs with "extended" evaluation periods, while
every little piece of shareware on my Palm IIIX is legally registered.


Cory Arcangel: You have mentioned that cracking games were an "ego
thing". Can you explain?

Jan Lund Thomsen: The "ego" statement was made in a usenet discussion
about peoples motivation for cracking games back in the day. While it
may sound strange I never thought of it as making games freely
available, or even breaking the law.

I considered cracking a display of technical prowess - a matter of me
versus the machine. As a cracker I took great pride in my work. Sure,
people may have enjoyed playing the cracked versions I produced - but
the important factor was that cracking made *ME* feel good.

Of course, well-aware that I was in one of the top euro quality-cracking
outfits, real competition was only offered by a select few. I also
cracked the occasional old game just for the fun of it, never bothering
to add an intro or even distribute it. The process of cracking was
all-important, distribution and recognition weren't.


Cory Arcangel: You received almost no feedback on your work during the
era when you were cracking. How was the distribution network for games
organized?

Jan Lund Thomsen: Well-organised groups flourished due to people
specializing in what they did best. No point in making the crackers lick
stamps and mail out disks. Bear in mind that this all happened before
the internet was something regular Joes had access to. Heck, most people
I knew didn't even have modems (although I'm told there were lots of C=
BBS'es out there) ... The cracker would wrap up his latest product, and
give a copy to the group swapper(s) who in turn mailed it out to their
contacts. That way everyone knew what other groups were doing.

Of course, some people created subscription services which meant that
lots of games were distributed to people who weren't associated with the
"scene". Add to that the obvious small-time swapping with the kid down
the street who also had a C64 and you'd have a pretty good network.

Cory Arcangel: Do you still code in 6502?

Jan Lund Thomsen: No. Spending too much time on other things. =)

http://www.rhizome.org/Low_Level_All_Stars/

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Rhizome Digest is filtered by Rachel Greene (rachel AT rhizome.org). ISSN:
1525-9110. Volume 7, number 33. Article submissions to list AT rhizome.org
are encouraged. Submissions should relate to the theme of new media art
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