The Rhizome Archive | Rhizome Digest: Highlights from the New Media Art Field

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: 12.20.02
From: digest@rhizome.org (RHIZOME)
Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 15:58:14 -0500
Reply-to: digest@rhizome.org
Sender: owner-digest@rhizome.org

RHIZOME DIGEST: December 20, 2002

Content:

+editor's note+
1. rachel greene: BIG CHANGE -- MEMBERSHIP CONTRIBUTIONS

+opportunity+
2. Rachel Schreiber: teaching opportunities at MICA
3. Indi McCarthy: Beall Center Call for Proposals
4. Tapio Makella: Call for essays - open source politics and cultural
practices

+announcement+
5. doron golan: Dow can't stamp out parody websites...
6. Randall Packer: Multimedia- From Wagner to Virtual Reality
7. LEONARDO (mk): Uncanny Networks by Geert Lovink

+feature+
8. PROPAGANDA AT 0100101110101101.ORG: The World in One's Pocket?

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

1.

Date: 12.20.02
From: Rachel Greene (rachel AT rhizome.org)
Subject: BIG CHANGE -- MEMBERSHIP CONTRIBUTIONS

Following phone, email, and face to face debates over the last few months
across Rhizome lists, Rhizome's Board of Directors, friends and staff, we
have decided to make mandatory a contribution to Rhizome, with a minimum of
$5 per year. If you missed these discussions, and want a description of how
we spend money, or the current funding situation for American non-profits,
email me, I'm happy to color in the (sober) picture.

I like to see this new requirement as rhizomatic (though admittedly
unfamiliar in the email-list genre), in the sense that members, roots and
nodes will directly support and nourish the larger organism. Ethics here at
HQ are that we *value* Rhizome's projects and community, the future and past
of new media art history, and hope people can *value* it too, with a minimum
donation equivalent to a couple cappuccinos. Additional details: we will
still give away thank-you-gifts at certain levels... a 30-day grace period
for new members begins January 15, and anyone who has given recently, their
membership will be extended from the date of that gift. Fridays will be free
and open to all. See http://rhizome.org/support/membership_policy.php for
more information.

We have lots cooking, in terms of our current programming, commissions,
events, improvements, and will be focused on new fundraising verticals:
we're looking forward to 2003. Next Rhizome Digest will be January 3, 2003!!
Happy holidays, rachel

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

2.

Date: 12.17.02
From: Rachel Schreiber (rschreib AT micamail.mica.edu)
Subject: teaching opportunities at MICA

Searches are being conducted for the following full time teaching
positions at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art), Baltimore, MD:

Interactive Media Photography (with digital emphasis) Graphic Design Art
History, specialty in new media or performance

Please pass this along to anyone who might be interested. The details on
how to apply can be found on the MICA web site (http://www.mica.edu),
follow the links to "career opportunities." Short job descriptions
below:

Position: Interactive Media. The Maryland Institute College of Art
invites applications for this full-time permanent position with an
initial two-year renewable contract and continuing 3 and 5 year
contracts in a non-tenure institution. Begins: Fall, 2003. The College
seeks a creative individual with the skills, experience, and personal
commitment necessary to teach one or more of the following: 2D or 3D
Interface design; programming/scripting for Internet and building
interactivity w/micro-controllers. Teach 9 credits per semester of intro
to advanced technology courses; develop advanced level classes;
participation in departmental operations including advising, committee
service departmental and student activities. Required qualifications
include a MFA degree or equivalent professional experience; knowledge of
contemporary issues; outstanding portfolio of professional work; three
years college level teaching experience beyond Teaching Assistantships
or equivalent professional experience.

Position: Full-time appointment to the Department of Photography.

The Maryland Institute College of Art invites applications for this
full-time permanent position with an initial two-year renewable contract
and continuing 3 and 5 year contracts in a non-tenure institution.
Begins: Fall, 2003. The College seeks a senior level
photographer/artist/educator to teach 9 credits per semester. Successful
candidate will teach intro to advanced level, in the undergrad
photography and foundation programs, including computer-related courses.
(Min. 2 sections of Photo Digital classes and 1 section of foundation
Electronic Media and Culture). Seeking experienced candidate who can
build strong digital photo curriculum to complement existing program,
and develop new advanced level classes in computer related photography
areas. Additionally, position will require involvement in departmental
operations, student advising, serving on committees, and participation
in department and student activities. Must be able to teach basic to
advanced, conventional and digital photographic imaging using Macintosh
platform. Requirements include: MFA or equivalent; Minimum of 3 years
teaching in relevant fields beyond Teaching Assistantships or equivalent
professional experience.

Position: Full-time appointment to the Department of Graphic Design.

The Maryland Institute College of Art invites applications for an
initial two-year renewable contract and continuing 3 and 5 year
contracts in a non-tenure institution. Begins: Fall, 2003. The College
seeks a graphic designer who will bring strong visual and critical
abilities to a vibrant, growing graphic design department that
emphasizes typography and encourages students to explore old and new
media across the disciplines of art and design. In addition to teaching
nine credits per semester of courses that can range from the
introductory to the advanced, including foundation and graduate levels,
the successful candidate will actively participate in all aspects of
departmental operations including curriculum development and advisement.
Required qualifications include an MFA degree or professional
equivalent; strong interest in design for multimedia and the Web;
knowledge of digital design techniques and the aesthetics and production
values of print media; and excellence in creative work as evidenced by
an outstanding portfolio and professional practice. The ideal candidate
will be a committed, practicing designer; an exciting colleague; and a
nurturing mentor. 3 Years teaching College level teaching experience
beyond TA preferred.

Art Historian, Contemporary Art MARYLAND INSTITUTE COLLEGE OF ART

The Department of Art History invites applications for a position in
contemporary art. A specialty in new media and/or performance is
particularly welcome. Ph.D. and demonstrated commitment to excellence in
teaching required. Position involves teaching visual art students at
undergraduate and graduate levels, service on committees, participation
in foundation year courses, and begins September 1, 2003. Send letter of
application, c.v., sample syllabi, an example of published work, and
three letters of recommendation to Art History Search, Maryland
Institute College of Art, 1300 Mt. Royal Ave., Baltimore, MD, 21217,
tdemos AT mica.edu.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

3.

Date: 12.20.02
From: Indi McCarthy (indi AT uci.edu)
Subject: Beall Center Call for Proposals

Beall Center for Art and Technology
University of California, Irvine

Call For Proposals 2003-2004

The Beall Center for Art and Technology supports
artistic exploration and experimentation in new technologies
through a competitive research and exhibition grant program.

Deadline for Spring Application: February 1, 2003
http://beallcenter.uci.edu

http://beallcenter.uci.edu/
Indi McCarthy
Assistant Director

Beall Center for Art and Technology
University of California, Irvine
712 Arts Plaza, Claire Trevor School of the Arts
Irvine, California
92697-2775

T: 949.824.6206
F: 949.824.4197

http://beallcenter.uci.edu
The Donald R. and Joan F. Beall Center for Art and Technology is a research
and exhibition center that explores new relationships between the arts,
sciences, and engineering, promoting new forms of creation and expression
using digital technologies.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

4.

Date: 12.19.02
From: Tapio Makella (tapiob AT translocal.net)
Subject: Call for essays: open source politics and cultural practices

mediumi 1.4 open source (please distribute)

call for proposals: open source politics and cultural practices

mediumi the Finnish web journal for media culture publishes its fifth theme
number mediumi 1.4 open source in English. This call is for submissions
articles, essays, reviews that address the economical or legal logic and
various cultural/social politics regarding open source software. We are
particularly interested in approaches that view software from the user or
user group point of view, situating the software in its cultural and social
context.

Open source software is often technically exclusive in its development and
description. In which ways could open source become more accessible by
non-programmers or non-sysadmins? What kinds of research projects, archives
or meta-archives address the user end of open source?

In many ways open source economy is far from optimal, since without
complimentary strategies it does not provide resources to renew, research
and develop further. What kind of models can be created to maintain
networked development, free non-commercial distribution yet generate
sustainable economies? How to protect open source and open knowledge from
becoming approprietarized (sic!), while enabling also commercial
non-exclusive use?

While an increasing amount of technical knowledge is not publicly available,
creating accessible software, related knowledge archives, and learning
environments has become an acute political issue. What kind of policies or
civil action is necessary to guarantee this? What kind of artistic or
cultural interventions are taking place that address open source as not only
a tool or a movement, but as a terrain for creative work?

submissions

We invite submissions in the following categories:
Article/essay 3000-4500 words
Interview/dialogue 2000-3000 words
Review of project, event, book 1500-2500 words

mediumi is a forum for researchers and practitioners of new media culture.
However we also wish to have the articles accessible for wider audiences
interested in new media. Please keep this in mind when submitting eg. by
explaining the more advanced technical or theoretical concepts!

December 27th, 2002 - 100-150 word abstracts sent to mediumi 1.4,
guest editor, Tapio Mäkelä, tapio.makela AT m-cult.org
January 20th, 2003 - Final deadline for full texts.
The journal will be launched in February 2003.

mediumi is published by m-cult, centre for new media culture in Helsinki,
Finland. mediumi forms a part of m-cult.net, information and
communication server for the Nordic new media cultural scene. (English
version launched in 1/03).
http://www.m-cult.net/mediumi/
mediumi AT m-cult.net

Tapio Makela
tapio AT translocal.net
mobile tel. +358-40-7223949
fax +358-40-7821771

Researcher, Department of Media Studies, University of Turku, Finland
Board member, m-cult, Finnish Association for Media Culture,
http://www.m-cult.org

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

+ad+

Mute, issue 25, is out this week. Conceptually and volumetrically
expanded, (involves more cartographic & artists' projects & has doubled
the pages), this new bi-annual volume is phat. Articles on: WarChalking,
the Artists' Placement Group and Ambient Culture and more.
http://www.metamute.com

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

5.

Date: 12.13.02
From: doron golan (doron AT computerfinearts.com)
Subject: Dow can't stamp out parody websites...

RTMark Press
December 13, 2002

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Paul Hardwin: mailto:phardwin AT yurt.org
DowEthics.com: mailto:info AT dowethics.com

DOW, BURSON-MARSTELLER CLAMP DOWN ON FAKE WEBSITES
But companies find it harder to stifle criticism

Two giant companies are struggling to shut down parody websites that
portray them unfavorably, interrupting internet use for thousands in
the process, and filing a lawsuit that pits the formidable legal
department of PR giant Burson-Marsteller against a freshman at
Hampshire College.

The activists behind the fake corporate websites have fought back, and
obtained substantial publicity in the process.

Fake websites have been used by activists before, but Dow-Chemical.com
and BursonMarsteller.com represent the first time that such websites
have successfully been used to publicize abuses by specific
corporations.

A December 3 press release originating from one of the fake sites,
Dow-Chemical.com, explained the "real" reasons that Dow could not take
responsibility for the Bhopal catastrophe, which has resulted in an
estimated 20,000 deaths over the years
(http://www.theyesmen.org/dow/#release). "Our prime responsibilities
are to the people who own Dow shares, and to the industry as a whole,"
the release stated. "We cannot do anything for the people of Bhopal."
The fake site immediately received thousands of outraged e-mails
(http://www.dowethics.com/r/about/corp/email.htm).

Within hours, the real Dow sent a legal threat to Dow-Chemical.com's
upstream provider, Verio, prompting Verio to shut down the fake Dow's
ISP for nearly a day, closing down hundreds of unrelated websites and
bulletin boards in the process.

The fake Dow website quickly resurfaced at an ISP in Australia.
(http://theyesmen.org/dow/#threat)

In a comical anticlimax, Dow then used a little-known domain-name rule
to take possession of Dow-Chemical.com
(http://theyesmen.org/dow/#story), another move which backfired when
amused journalists wrote articles in newspapers from The New York
Times to The Hindu in India (http://theyesmen.org/dow/#links), and
sympathetic activists responded by cloning and mirroring the site at
many locations, including http://www.dowethics.com/,
http://www.dowindia.com/ and, with a twist,
http://www.mad-dow-disease.com/. Dow continues to play whack-a-mole
with these sites (at least one ISP has received veiled threats).

Burson-Marsteller, the public relations company that helped to "spin"
Bhopal, has meanwhile sued college student Paul Hardwin
(mailto:phardwin AT yurt.org) for putting up a fake Burson-Marsteller
site, http://www.bursonmarsteller.com/, which recounted how the PR
giant helped to downplay the Bhopal disaster. Burson-Marsteller's suit
against Hardwin will be heard next week by the World Intellectual
Property Organization (http://reamweaver.com/bmwipo/wipo.html).

Hardwin, unable to afford a lawyer, has composed a dryly humorous
57-page rebuttal to the PR giant's lawsuit
(http://www.reamweaver.com/bmwipo/response.htm#reality). On page 7,
for instance, the student notes that Burson-Marsteller's "stated goal
is 'to ensure that the perceptions which surround our clients and
influence their stakeholders are consistent with reality.'" Hardwin
goes on to assert that his satirical domain is doing precisely that,
by publicizing "academic and journalistic materials about
Burson-Marsteller's involvement with and relationship to, for example,
Philip Morris and the National Smoker's Alliance, a consumer front
group designed to create the appearance of public support for
big-tobacco policies; Union Carbide and the deaths of 20,000 people
following the 1984 disaster in Bhopal; and political regimes such as
that of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and more recently Saudi
Arabia following the events of September 11; and to properly associate
them with the relevant Trademark so that they may be understood
accordingly by Internet users."

In response to the suit's claim that "a substantial degree of goodwill
is associated with [the Burson-Marstellar Trademark]" Hardwin offers
much "evidence to the contrary" including "a newspaper headline in
which the Complainant is characterized as 'the Devil.'"

The primary goal of RTMark (http://rtmark.com/) is to publicize
corporate subversion of the democratic process. Just like other
corporations, it achieves its aims by any and all means at its
disposal. RTMark has previously helped to publicize websites against
political parties (http://rtmark.com/othersites.html#fpo), political
figures (http://www.rtmark.com/bush.html), and entities like the World
Trade Organization (http://www.gatt.org) and the World Economic Forum
(http://www.world-economic-forum.com).

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

6.

Date: 12.17.02
From: Randall Packer (rpacker AT zakros.com)
Subject: Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality

MULTIMEDIA: FROM WAGNER TO VIRTUAL REALITY
Expanded Edition in Paperback
edited by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan
foreword by William Gibson, coda by Laurie Anderson
published by W.W. Norton

"This book is one start toward a different sort of history.... I recommend
this book to you with an earnestness that I have seldom felt for any
collection of historic texts. This is, in large part, where the bodies are
buried. Assembled in this way, in such close proximity, these visions give
off strange sparks." - from the foreword by William Gibson

Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality, edited by Randall Packer and Ken
Jordan, is now available in an expanded paperback edition with a foreword by
William Gibson and a new coda by Laurie Anderson. This collection of seminal
essays by artists, scientists, and critical theorists chronicles the history
of multimedia, and has been expanded to include texts by Richard Bolt, Char
Davies, Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, Janet Murray, and Jeffrey Shaw.
Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality presents the history behind the
interfaces, links, and interactivity we all take for granted today. It
traces a fertile and fascinating series of collaborations between the arts
and the sciences, going back to the years just after World War II - and even
further, to composer Richard Wagner, whose ideas about the immersive nature
of music theater foreshadowed our concept of virtual reality.

Among the essential articles gathered in the book are the Futurists' 1916
manifesto on cinema, which declared that the new medium would unite all
media and replace the book; Vannevar Bush's 1945 Atlantic Monthly essay that
leads directly to the hyperlinks in today's multimedia; J.C.R. Licklider's
groundbreaking idea in 1960 that people and computers could collaborate in
creative work; Nam June Paik's 1984 essay proposing that satellite
technology would encourage a global information art; Tim Berners-Lee's 1989
proposal for a document-sharing network, which became the basis of the World
Wide Web; and William Gibson's discussion of how he came up with the word
"cyberspace." With an introduction to the volume and critical commentaries
on each article, editors Randall Packer and Ken Jordan lead the reader
through key concepts that frame the evolution of multimedia.

The book is part of a unique hybrid publication project that joins W.W.
Norton, Intel Corporation, and ArtMuseum.net. Online, Multimedia: From
Wagner to Virtual Reality is a dynamic, growing resource featuring
hyperlinked texts, a teacher's guide, and a wealth of multimedia
documentation.

Please visit the site at: http://www.artmuseum.net/

For more information: http://www.zakros.com/wvr/wvr.html

Quotes from the field:

"Many of the papers that had profound impact upon my development - to say
nothing of the entire industry - are all here." Donald A. Norman, author of
The Invisible Computer

"What a tremendous gift Packer and Jordan have given... Finally, the words
and ideas of the people responsible for conceiving and building the
hypermediated reality in which we've found ourselves have been collected in
one place. This book may be the Primary Source for years to come." - Douglas
Rushkoff, author of Coercion, Media Virus! and Playing the Future

"It's a post-,post-, postmodern world, but those who forget the past are
still doomed to reboot it. Excavating the fossil record of our wired
culture, Jordan and Packer uncover the blueprints for the future we how
inhabit." - Mark Dery, author of The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American
Culture on the Bring

"This important book brings together key texts and contexts that begin to
delineate the meaningful arts of the future. Educators, artists, and
students involved in art and new media and interdisciplinary programs will
find this book invaluable." - Roger Malina, editor, Leonardo Journal
Quotes from the press:

"'Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality' reads like a Western civ of
modern media." - Tony Reveaux, Film/Tape World

"The best guide yet on a subject of central importance to anyone interested
in the future of media, and the growing marriage between art and
science....The collection is historically significant, given that nobody has
ever woven together the different threads, thoughts and impulses that become
multimedia, a new form both of media and culture.... The book flows
skillfully from one idea to the next, each section building on the one that
preceded it." - Jon Katz, Slashdot

"In the Norton Anthology tradition, Packer and Jordan bring together seminal
contributions that artists and scientists have made to the field of
computer-human interaction... An evocative whirlwind tour through 100 years
of work... Excellent..." - S. Joy Mountford, Wired

"[MULTIMEDIA is] a key source book in the field of art, science and
technology. This book is excellent in all respects." - Annick Bureaud,
Leonardo Digital Reviews

"Readers interested in the history of multimedia should be enthralled by
this collection of hard-to-find essays.... A remarkable blending of past and
present, these essays remind us that today's wondrous inventions didn't just
spring into existence out of nothingness." - Booklist

"An important book that brings together for the first time articles from
many different disciplines and viewpoints... It should be a basic text for
anyone who is learning to merge art with technology." - Boston Globe

"A juicy compendium of historically significant, future-forward essays." -
Flaunt

"A compendium of classic writing about information technology and its role
in society [filled with] some inspired choices." - Lingua Franca

"The editors bring together the major writings by multimedia pioneers in
order to foster a greater understanding, and appreciation, of its
precedents, roots, and revolutionary potential." - Choice
MULTIMEDIA: FROM WAGNER TO VIRTUAL REALITY
Expanded Edition in Paperback
edited by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan
foreword by William Gibson, coda by Laurie Anderson
published by W.W. Norton, $19.95
now available
ISBN 0-393-32375-7

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

+ad+

See who made the list of all-time greatest digital works in the 10th
Anniversary New York Digital Salon issue of LEONARDO, Volume 35, Number
5. Curators for the issue include Christiane Paul, Steve Dietz, Benjamin
Weil, Joel Chadabe, Lev Manovich, and others. Order your copy AT
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

7.

Date: 12.19.02
From: LEONARDO (mk) (isast AT well.com)
Subject: Uncanny Networks by Geert Lovink

Uncanny Networks: Dialogues with the Virtual Intelligentsia by Geert Lovink

For Geert Lovink, interviews are imaginative texts that can help to create
global, networked discourses not only among different professions but also
among different cultures and social groups. Conducting interviews online,
over a period of weeks or months, allows the participants to compose
documents of depth and breadth, rather than simply snapshots of timely
references.

The interviews collected in this book are with artists, critics, and
theorists who are intimately involved in building the content, interfaces,
and architectures of new media. The topics discussed include digital
aesthetics, sound art, navigating deep audio space, European media
philosophy, the Internet in Eastern Europe, the mixing of old and new in
India, critical media studies in the Asia-Pacific region, Japanese techno
tribes, hybrid identities, the storage of social movements, theory of the
virtual class, virtual and urban spaces, corporate takeover of the Internet,
and the role of cyberspace in the rise of nongovernmental organizations.

Interviewees included Norbert Bolz, Paulina Borsook, Luchezar Boyadjiev,
Kuan-Hsing Chen, Cãlin Dan, Mike Davis, Mark Dery, Kodwo Eshun, Susan
George, Boris Groys, Frank Hartmann, Michael Heim, Dietmar Kamper, Zina
Kaye, Tom Keenan, Arthur Kroker, Bruno Latour, Marita Liulia, Rafael
Lozano-Hemmer, Peter Lunenfeld, Lev Manovich, Mongrel, Edi Muka, Jonathan
Peizer, Saskia Sassen, Herbert Schiller, Gayatri Spivak, János Sugár, Ravi
Sundaram, Toshiya Ueno, Tjebbe van Tijen, McKenzie Wark, Hartmut Winkler,
and Slavoj Zizek.

To order: http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

8.

Date: 12.13.02
From: (PROPAGANDA AT 0100101110101101.ORG)
Subject: The World in One's Pocket?

>From "Springerin", Oct 2002 > http://www.springerin.at

The World in One's Pocket?

The Net project "VOPOS" by 0100101110101101.ORG

by Vera Tollmann

In December of last year, the European Union and the European Space
Organisation agreed to set up a European venture as competition for the
American Global Positioning System (GPS) by 2005. The non-military
system "Galileo" is to consist of 30 satellites and cover the entire
globe. [1] The EU argues that this decision is aimed at making it
independent of the GPS - which is still used for military purposes - by
giving it its own surveillance complex. The end users of this
geographical location system are to include customs and the judiciary,
transport and communications authorities, and tourism organisations. On
May 1 the White House in Washington announced that "SA" (Selective
Availability), which caused civilian equipment to give more imprecise
results, would no longer operate. These two decisions show what a
central role satellite systems will play, or already play, in everyday
life, alongside the telecommunications systems of telephone and
internet.

These developments, leading towards an ever more perfect universal
surveillance method, have not gone without comment from activists [2]
and artists. Whereas at the end of the nineties there were mainly
reactions to the - in some cases - extremely extensive installation of
video cameras in public places, [3] a new technological paradigm of
media art is now starting to emerge. Besides Web-based works about the
surveillance of data transfers, [4] the first artists have already begun
working with the GPS, such as the documenta participants tsunamii.net.
This involves a Web-related approach: tsunamii.net looked for
correspondences on the Web to the real places they passed on their
travels. The focus is on an alternative mapping of the internet.

The current project by 0100101110101101.org, which has the awkward name
"VOPOS" - a reference to former East German police as representatives of
a historical surveillance state that shows little more than a "radical
chic aesthetic" -, also functions partly via GPS. Tanio Copechi and
Renato Pasiopani, as the operators of 0100101110101101.org call
themselves, carry a GPS transmitter around with them. It sends the data
it receives to a server via mobile phone, and this data is then
visualised on the web site by means of software. With the aid of a
digital street map of Barcelona, which is where the two Italian artists
claim to be, users can see which street they are in - whether just one
or both of them is an open question. The clock can also be turned back -
this means it is possible to vaguely reconstruct the route taken through
the city by the "surveillees". But "VOPOS" has nothing to do with a
sociological interest in the erratic wanderings of everyday life, as the
situationist approach would suggest; it is a criticism of the potential
of the GPS: who uses the coordinates it provides, and what does the
electronic profile that can be deduced from them reveal?

The two artists do not just illustrate the way the GPS functions within
a larger communications complex; their artist strategy is also expressed
in their refusal to give their identity and provide a level of narrative
that could explain why they visit the places they do (unless someone
knows the city very well and thus has options for interpretation). It is
equally impossible to verify whether they really were at the positions
marked or not. "VOPOS" therefore also remains a game involving reality
and fiction, information and disinformation. For a knowledge of the way
the system could potentially function suffices to enable one to
critically take up the surveillant's perspective. As the second part of
the long-term project "Glasnost", "VOPOS" continues the planned
collection of comprehensive, person-specific data. The first phase -
which still exists on the web site - consisted in the project
"life_sharing". [5] 0100101110101101.org put the local hard disk of
their computer onto the Web, thus making their private e-mails, project
sketches and software publicly available.

What is the artistic added value of this project? To what extent is it
only a preparation for something that can be commercially exploited
later? After the experiences with the "Big Brother" series, a similar
scenario using GPS technology would also be imaginable: one group - the
surveillants - has to hinder another group - the "surveillees" - in
carrying out the game task allotted to them. "VOPOS" operates precisely
at the ambivalent point between affirmative slogans like that of one
mobile phone manufacturer - "Put the world in your pocket" -, and the
non-commercial production of transparency.

Translation: Tim Jones

Notes:
http://0100101110101101.ORG

1 http://europa.eu.int/comm/energy_transport/de/gal_de.html (Galileo
homepage)
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/dz-01.12.01-003 (Report on the
decision in favour of Galileo, 1 December 2001)

2 http://www.bigbrotherawards.at

3 See the Surveillance Camera Players:
http://www.notbored.org/the-scp.html

4 See the Software Carnivore: http://rhizome.org/carnivore

5 See Marina Grzinic: "Das Leben zurückgewinnen". In: springerin 1/01,
p. 10

###

Anything has been said about this renegade cyber-entity, accused of
being "simple thief", dubbed as "media dandy" and "cultural
terrorists" or, simply, "shit". 0100101110101101.ORG prdouced some of
the most perfect media exploits of the last years, such as the
creation and diffusion, at the opening of the 49th Venice Biennial, of
the computer virus "biennale.py" or the memorable spoof of the
Vatican website: almost identical with that of the Holy See, but with
slight deviations. HTTP://0100101110101101.ORG

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Rhizome.org is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. If you value this
free publication, please consider making a contribution within your
means at http://rhizome.org/support. Checks and money orders may be sent
to Rhizome.org, 115 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10012. Contributions are
tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law and are gratefully
acknowledged at http://rhizome.org/info/10.php. Our financial statement
is available upon request.

Rhizome Digest is supported by grants from The Charles Engelhard
Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for
the Visual Arts, and with public funds from the New York State Council
on the Arts, a state agency.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Rhizome Digest is filtered by Rachel Greene (rachel AT rhizome.org). ISSN:
1525-9110. Volume 7, number 51. Article submissions to list AT rhizome.org
are encouraged. Submissions should relate to the theme of new media art
and be less than 1500 words. For information on advertising in Rhizome
Digest, please contact info AT rhizome.org.

To unsubscribe from this list, visit http://rhizome.org/subscribe.

Subscribers to Rhizome Digest are subject to the terms set out in the
Member Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +