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: 12.13.03
From: digest@rhizome.org (RHIZOME)
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2003 22:45:42 -0500
Reply-to: digest@rhizome.org
Sender: owner-digest@rhizome.org

RHIZOME DIGEST: December 13, 2003

Content:

+announcement+
1. Pau Waelder: Blogtalk 2.0 - (conference)
2. Drew Hemment: futuresonic04 | mobile connections + turntable re:mix

+opportunity+
3. Melinda Klayman: Leonardo Announces SpaceartS: The Space and the Arts
Database
4. Esther Schooler: Interactive Media Faculty Position
5. Brooke Knight: New Media Studies Position, Emerson College
6. Vicente Matallana: Araneum -Net Art Commissions Deadline Extended
application deadline until January 2st 2004

+interview+
7. Kanarinka: interview with Giselle Bieguelman

+feature+
8. Jonah Brucker-Cohen: Interview with Brody Condon

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

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1.

Date: 12.09.03
From: Pau Waelder (pau AT sicplacitum.com)
Subject: Blogtalk 2.0 - (conference)

From: Blogtalk 2.0

Subject: Blogtalk 2.0 Call
Vienna, Austria

Blogtalk 2.0 conference is designed to initiate a dialog between
bloggers, developers, researchers and others who share, enjoy and
analyse the benefits of blogging. The focus is on weblogs as an
expression of a culture based on the exchange of information, ideas and
knowledge. In the spirit of the free exchange of opinions, links and
thoughts we wish to engage a wide range of participants from the
blogosphere in this discourse. Please submit a proposal, spread the word
of this unique conference.

BlogTalk 2.0 will be held in Vienna, Austria. We aim to held the
conference from the 5th. to 6th. of July in 2004.

Info:
http://blogtalk.net

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2.

Date: 12.10.03
From: Drew Hemment (drew AT futuresonic.com)
Subject: futuresonic04 | mobile connections + turntable re:mix

FINAL CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
deadline extended to 16.01.04*

futuresonic04
29.04.04 - 02.05.04
urbis and city wide
manchester. uk

an international festival of electronic music and media arts featuring
artistic showcases, club events, workshops, discussions, installations
and interventions

futuresonic04 theme | mobile connections
artistic projects exploring how perceptions of space and time are
reconfigured by wireless and mobile media, from the radio to mobile
telephony and wireless networks. themes to include wireless interfaces,
locative media, location based sound, and mobile phone culture

futuresonic04 theme | turntable re:mix
to mark the 25th anniversary of the technics 1200mk2 record deck, one of
the most iconic cultural artefacts of the 20th century, a series of
events will showcase the many diverse forms of turntable music and look
over the horizon at emerging formats and post-turntable music

futuresonic04 | conference
a conference hosted by urbis will explore the theme of mobile
connections

futuresonic04 | participate
we welcome submissions of artistic projects for the mobile connections
artistic programme and conference. the deadline for submissions has been
extended to 16.01.04.
| electronic submissions to 04 AT futuresonic.com
| postal submissions to futuresonic. po box 20. manchester. m60 1we. uk
*the deadline extension covers submissions of individual performances,
projects and conference presentations only. submissions of events and
conference sessions will no longer be accepted. we regret that we cannot
promise to respond to every request individually.

futuresonic04 | satellites
a series of mobile connections events will be staged prior to
futuresonic04, commencing with the mobiliotopia session at
transmediale04 presented in collaboration with the locative media lab.
www.mobileconnections.org


|| MOBILE CONNECTIONS AT FUTURESONIC04 ||

the mobile connections artistic programme and associated conference is a
collaboration between futuresonic, urbis, university of salford and
liverpool school of art and design, john moores university.

out of the galleries and off the screen

the futuresonic04 international festival of electronic music and media
arts shall explore the theme of mobile connections, bringing together
media artists, musicians, game developers and technical innovators
working in wireless and locative media, to present a range of artistic
projects, workshops and debates.

just as recording enabled sound to be heard apart from the place and
time of its creation and radio made possible remote listening, so a new
generation of communication media is now reconfiguring perceptions of
space and time, and transforming the nature of the art object and the
musical event.

the emergence of locative media art, predictions of the imminent
bursting of the 802.11 bubble, and the introduction of location based
services for mobile phones have brought into focus a set of interests
concerned with wireless and locative media, and have created a space
that increasing numbers of artists are starting to explore.

mobile connections will explore how wireless technologies enable place
and location to be experienced in different ways, and look at the
diverse ways in which artists have pushed the limits, and solicited
unexpected or unforeseen results, from communication media past and
present, from the radio and turntable, to mobile telephony, streaming
and wireless lan.


| areas of interest |

wireless interfaces | wireless technologies offer non-restrictive
interfaces that enable movement and interaction free from cables and
physical connections. how do these change the relationship between
technology and the body, and what artistic interventions are available
at the interface between the body and the nearest node?

location based sound | location location location. how can sound artists
explore the convergence of wireless and locative media, what new
perspectives does it suggest on site specific sound, and how can urban
space be navigated through sound?

locative media | an emerging artform is coalescing around programmers,
artists and theorists who are exploring how locative media can be
appropriated for user-led mapping and collaborative cartography. leading
practitioners will be brought together to explore the expansive domain
of ?geo hacking? in which augmented reality coincides with social and
geographical space in many interesting ways.

mobile gaming | how will a new generation of games platforms exploit
location data and use wireless technologies and mobile phones to create
game zones that occupy urban spaces and that are intertwined with the
fabric of everyday life?

communication and control | where is the cutting edge of location
research, who is controlling it, and how do communication and control
converge when technologies previously used for surveillance are marketed
as consumer products?

mobile city | how do mobile and wireless technologies enable us to
experience the city in different ways, and how is culture being
transformed at a time at which, with the introduction of a new
generation of always-on mobile media players, the mobile looks set to
become a primary media platform?


| futuresonic04 |

since its first major festival in 1996, futuresonic has sought to
explore the connections between electronic music, media arts and
contemporary culture.

futuresonic04 will present a wide range of artistic showcases,
discussions and workshops, with one curatorial strand exploring the area
of mobile connections, and another presenting a series of turntable
music events to mark the 25th anniversary of the technics 1200mk2 record
deck, a device that has connected the diverse circuits of electronic
music and that has become one of the most iconic cultural artefacts of
the 20th century.

in 2002 futuresonic presented some highly successful events under the
banner of migrations, looking at movements of peoples and sounds, and
the many transverse connections between artforms and cultures.
futuresonic04 will shift the focus to the new kinds of events and
artforms made possible by communications technologies, and to a
different kind of mobility or connectedness that plays upon the limits
of technological media.


| urbis |

the festival will be hosted by urbis, a landmark six-story glass
building rising high above manchester city centre. its mission as a
centre for urban culture is to reveal trends and elements of
contemporary urban culture and explore the cities of today and tomorrow.
three floors of multimedia exhibitions explore life in cities around the
world and how people experience the urban environment, while its 1st
floor and events programme explores the best of what is now and what
could be next in urbanity. mobile technology is increasingly becoming
the common language of the urban interface, and as such is an area of
great interest for urbis.


| information |

futuresonic04 festival information: www.futuresonic.com mobile
connections information: www.mobileconnections.org *full programme
available from february 04*

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3.

Date: 12.08.03
From: Melinda Klayman (mklayman AT leonardo.info)
Subject: Leonardo Announces SpaceartS: The Space and the Arts Database

Leonardo Announces SpaceartS: The Space and the Arts Database
http://www.spacearts.info

Leonardo/OLATS and the Ours Foundation have joined forces to create a
database about space art documenting the works of artists who, since the
mid-19th Century, have taken outer space as a theme, subject, or object
for their creations. When completed, this database will host over a
thousand entries. Artists are invited to submit their work for inclusion
in the database. Entry forms to submit your artworks are available
online at www.spacearts.info.

The SpaceartS database project is funded by the European Space Agency
and is co-sponsored by the International Academy of Astronuatics;
Advisors to the project include:
* IAAA (International Association ofAstronomical Artists) - www.iaaa.org
* MIR, aninternational consortium of institutions with space art
activites. MIRincludes: Leonardo/OLATS, Arts Catalyst, V2, Projekt Atol
(Slovenia), andthe Multimedia Complex of Actual Art (Russia).
* Maisond'Ailleurs/Museum of Science Fiction, Yverdon - www.ailleurs.ch


For 35 years Leonardo has documented the work of artists involved in
space exploration; It has co-sponsored 6 Space and the Arts workshops
and promoted the interaction of artists, scientists, and engineers
involved in space. The SpaceartS database can be found at
http://www.spacearts.info . Further information can be found at:
Leonardo/OLATS : Space Arts Workshops documentation at
http://www.olats.org/setF3.html or Leonardo/ISAST: Space Arts Working
Group at
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/spaceart/space.html

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4.

Date: 12.08.03
From: Esther Schooler (eschoole AT mica.edu)
Subject: Interactive Media Faculty Position

The Maryland Institute College of Art seeks a dynamic individual with
experience creating online/offline interactive environments. Applicants
will demonstrate expertise with one or more of the following: 2D or 3D
Interface design; programming for Internet; databases; and interactivity
w/micro-controllers. The successful candidate will teach 9 credits per
semester of introductory to advanced level courses; develop advanced
studio courses which address contemporary issues; participate 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. Salary
commensurate with experience and college policy; Excellent benefits
package.

To apply: The college will review applications as received; deadline for
final submission is January 16, 2004. To Apply, send: Letter of
application; CV; list of 3 references w/address, phone, email; portfolio
of professional work and, if available, 20 images of students' work plus
a descriptive list; CD, DVD, or videotape; URL ok but please provide
backup disk. All materials must be labeled with candidate?s name and
address. Please include detailed playback instructions regarding
required platform, formats, resolution, sequence, etc. Include SASE for
return. To:Interactive Media Faculty Search; Office of Academic Affairs;
Maryland Institute College of Art; 1300 W. Mt. Royal Avenue; Baltimore,
MD 21217. AA/EOE/WMA. No phone calls please.

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5.

Date: 12.09.03
From: Brooke Knight (brooke_knight AT emerson.edu)
Subject: New Media Studies Position, Emerson College

Assistant Professor of New Media Studies

Emerson College

The Department of Visual and Media Arts at Emerson College seeks
candidates for a tenure track position in New Media Studies at the level
of assistant professor. The candidate must have a background in
cultural, visual, or media studies, art history, or related fields with
a specialization in the study of emerging digital creative processes.
The candidate must be able to teach all levels of new media studies
courses; history, aesthetics and analysis of new media arts; and
studies in digital culture. In addition the candidate must be able to
teach an introductory course in media studies. A Ph.D. is required, as
well as a significant record of traditional or electronic publications.
At least two years of teaching experience at the college level is
required. The successful candidate will demonstrate the ability to
assist the department in developing meaningful connections across audio,
film, media studies, new media, photography, screenwriting, video, and
art history. Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and
experience. Applicants should send a curriculum vita, a cover letter,
the names and contact information of at least three references to:


Chair, Studies Search Committee

Department of Visual and Media Arts

c/o Dean's Office, School of the Arts

Emerson College

120 Boylston Street

Boston, MA 02116-4624.


Review of applications will begin November 15, 2003, and will continue
until the position is filled.

Emerson College is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer and
is strongly committed to increasing the diversity of its faculty. Women
and minorities are encouraged to apply.

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6.

Date: 12.12.03
From: Vicente Matallana (vicente AT laagencia.org)
Subject: Araneum -Net Art Commissions Deadline Extended application
deadline until January 2st 2004

Extended application deadline until January 2st 2004

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

ARANEUM
Art, Science and Technology Award
Awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (MCYT)

www.araneum.es

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

The Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology announces its 1st
Science, Art and Technology Award ARANEUM, a collaboration with the ARCO
Foundation.

Applications will be accepted in the following two fields:
³Internet-related artwork² and ³Research project on Internet
creativity.² The proposals selected for the ³Internet-related artwork²
category will receive 20,000.00 Euros; the selected ³Research project on
Internet creativity² will receive 10,000.00 for its development.


The aplication dead line has been extended until January 2st 2004, 05:00
pm. GMT+1.

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


The jury, composed of José Luis Brea, Rachel Greene, Olia Lialina will
be presided by Mr. Jorge Pérez Martínez who is currently the Director
General for the Development of the Information Society of the Spanish
Ministry of Science and Technology. Among other things, he is also the
spokesperson for the Interregional Commission of Cooperation for
Development.

Born on July 5, 1954, Mr. Jorge Pérez Martínez holds a doctoral degree
in Telecommunications Engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de
Madrid (UPM) as well as a degree in Political Science and Sociology from
the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). As a Professor at the
Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación (ETSI -
Superior Technical School of Telecommunications Engineers) since 1990,
his research has been oriented towards the social and economic aspects
of Information and Communications Technologies as well as towards the
policies and regulations of telecommunications.

------ Fin del mensaje reenviado

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7.

Date: 12.09.03
From: Kanarinka (kanarinka AT ikatun.com)
Subject: interview with Giselle Bieguelman

Interview with Giselle Bieguelman
by kanarinka

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))
background

from Bieguelman's website www.desvirtual.com: Giselle Beiguelman is a
new media artist and multimedia essayist who teaches Digital Culture at
the Graduation Program in Communication and Semiotics of PUC-SP (São
Paulo, Brazil). Her work includes the award-winning "The Book after the
Book" (1999) "Content = No Cache" (2000), nominated for the Trace/ Alt-X
New Media Competition, and "Recycled" (2001).

kanarinka: I became interested in Giselle Bieguelman's work after
reading about her project poetrica [http://www.poetrica.net/] in which
people from around the world send messages via the web, SMS, and WAP to
be displayed on large advertising billboards in Sao Paulo. My questions
to Bieguelman center around the fascinating way her projects break down
fixed notions of space (such as public private real virtual) and her
projects' connections to everyday activities like reading, writing, and
travelling through your daily environment (which for many of us is urban
and saturated with advertising messages).

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))
interview

kanarinka: It looks like you began working with the internet first as a
poet and that you have recently moved into creating large-scale public
installations where people submit text messages via the internet for
display in public places. Could you describe how/why you shifted from
net.based poetry to net. based public installation?

Bieguelman: I don?t think there was a shift, but a link. Actually my
first contact with new media was related to public art, working with a
non-profit organization Arte/Cidade (www.artecidade.org.br) devoted to
arts and urbanism responsible for amazing urban interventions in
downtown São Paulo, curated and coordinated by the Brazilian philosopher
Nelson Brissac. In 1994 they were preparing a CD-ROM with artists and
architects involved in their ?The City and its Fluxes? project. It
changed my mind and my life.

I was captured by the computer but all my work by this time was devoted
to visual poetry. The web redirected this thematic and made me pay
attention to ways of reading in entropic situations. Wireless
communication spread the meaning of reading in entropic situations and I
think ?Wop Art? (Op Art for Wap) (www.desvirtual.com/wopart) , a wap
site I did in 2001, was a new turning point that pointed to the
possibility of working with literature and with urban space. The first
result of this was ?Did You Read the East?? (2002), my first
intervention in public space using electronic billboards and on line
public streaming. It was done for Arte/Cidade East Zone project and it
was a dialogue with the graffiti of São Paulo East Zone that resulted in
a series of six videopoems. The audience was invited to choose one of
them and upload to a commercial electronic billboard. They appeared in
the schedule of billboard between regular ads. It was a very good
experience because made possible to connect net based poetry to net
based public intervention.

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))
kanarinka: Could you describe the poetrica project? Is it similar to
other projects that you have done in the past? What has the response to
poetrica been like (how many submissions, what have the reviews been
like, general public reception)? Have the responses to poetrica been
different in Sao Paulo where the billboards are versus on the internet?

Bieguelman: Poétrica (www.poetrica.net) is an investigation about
reading and reception in cybrid and entropy situations. It involves a
series of visual poems conceived by myself with non-fonetic fonts (dings
and system fonts) and a teleintervention mediated by creations made by
the public using the same typographic background.

Poétrica is an upgrade or expansion of things I?ve been researching in
The Book after the Book (1999), Wop Art (2001), and my former public
interventions Did you Read the East? And egoscópio _or egoscope (both
from 2002), all at www.desvirtual.com.

Poétrica is a work in progress. It begun in October and ends in
February. The opening was at Galeria Vermelho, in São Paulo. The
closing, at Kulturforum, in Berlin, during P0es1s exhibiton.

All the broadcasted images were produced anywhere and submitted by SMS,
the web and by wap. They appeared in three large electronic billboards
located in downtown São Paulo, around Galeria Vermelho, between
Paulista, Consolação and Rebouças avenues.

I received more than 3 thousand submissions and they are very similar:
poetic experiences, love messages and urban messages (Rick, I will be at
5 in?).

The critical reception was very good too, including mailing lists,
Television, newspapers etc.

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))
kanarinka: What do you mean by the term "nomad poems"? What do you think
is the relationship of the text in the poems submitted to space? I am
particularly fascinated by the complex interplay that your project
creates between space and the activities of "reading" and "writing".
What are you thoughts on those relationships?

Bieguelman: They are nomad poems because they do not have a link to a
specific support. For instance: Those images produced in the
teleintervention were also transmitted back by on line webcams and
reproduced in different devices (mobile phones, Palms, computers) and,
in some cases, printed in large formats. All images are archived at the
web site gallery.

Nevertheless, they result always in imagetic meanings independent of
textuality and unlinked to their places of production and transmission.
Everything that is created is seen, read and perceived in different
ways, according to its reception context and this is not a consequence
of the screen sizes to which the submitted images adhere. But due to a
particular esthetic phenomenon pertaining to nomadic literature: on
being hybrid and unlinked to support, it dematerializes the medium, and
the interface construes itself as the message.

This is maybe the most interesting change in the ways in reading today.
The nomadic reader is someone who reads on the move, in moblie phones
and PDAs, in accordance to entropy and acceleration logic, it is a kind
of multi-task reader adapted to distributed content who reads in
between, while doing other things?

Poétrica seeks that reader: the inhabitant of the global city.

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))
kanarinka: I am particularly interested in your work from the standpoint
of the everyday activity of "reading". We all read billboards and
advertisements every day of our lives, yet you are subverting the normal
content of these consumer messages and inserting a new, "global" text
into a local, specific context. How does this affect the "reading"
activity that we conduct in our daily environment?

Bieguelman: It is disturbing? It makes the passive reader (this one who
is in his car or crossing the street) to pay attention in something and
in some ways discover that it is something disturbing because it was
already there? The city is a kind of mega stoned book, multimedia and
distributed that we read intentionally or not.

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))
kanarinka: What are your thoughts on working in both real and virtual
space? How and why do you choose to navigate both of these domains (or,
perhaps more importantly, do you consider them separate?) Is the
activity of "reading" different or altered across net space and/or
public space?

Bieguelman: I do not consider them separate. Poétrica deals with
cybridism, it means its default situation is a cross platform of
numerous on and off line network (traffic, electricity, billboards,
mobile phones, handhelds). And this, this ?cybrid? state is what alters
the activity of reading as an activity of dispersion and distribution
rather than concentration and convergence.

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))
kanarinka: Have you had any unexpected responses or messages submitted
to poetrica? What do you think is the space of "indeterminacy" in
poetrica, e.g. what spaces did you as the artist leave open for
participants to fill in?

I was surprised by the large number of love messages?

The indeterminacy is everywhere (connection, for example?) but I think
the most interesting challenge of the project was to make people face
the strange situation of hacking the advertisement structure as part of
their public space signing it with non phonetic phrases that points to a
new code, but a code they could understand and share with other
participants.

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))
kanarinka: What do you think is the role writing and reading in the
urban landscape?

Bieguelman: It is one of the rules of the game? The metropolitan
landscape today is a kind of photoshop image. Everything can be pasted
to everything. The modernist dream is over and there is no logic neither
formal logic. The lansdcape is so polluted by ads, signs, outdoors,
banners and in cities like São Paulo, all covered by different grafitti
_ a kind of visual guerrilla_ that you should be reading all the time.
The city today is a palimpsest to be deciphered.

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))
kanarinka: Could you explain more what you mean by teleintervention?
Would you say that poetrica has a political agenda (i.e. what do you
think that a teleintervention intervenes into)?

Bieguelman: Teleinterventions are urban intervention mediated by
telecommunication. Poétrica, egoscópio an Did You Read the East have a
political agenda not only because you hack the advertisement structure
and use this as part of your public space, but also because they
question the role of the author and the work of art aura.

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))
kanarinka: What are the dates/locations where poetrica will be shown?

Bieguelman: It was in SP from October to November. It is now at
turbulence.org with ICONOgraphy_ curated by Patrick Lichty
[http://www.turbulence.org/curators/icon/index.htm] (?only? net action)
and it will be in Berlin next February, as part of P0eS1s project
curated by Friedrich Block.

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8.

Date: 12.09.03
From: Jonah Brucker-Cohen (jonah AT coin-operated.com)
Subject: Interview with Brody Condon

Interview with Brody Condon
By Jonah Brucker-Cohen (jonah AT coin-operated.com)

Introduction
If life were a game, LA based artist, Brody Condon, would probably be
its designer. From recreating the political mess of the FBI's assault on
David Koresh's Branch Davidian Complex with his C-Level collaboration,
"Waco: Resurrection", to emphasizing the violence quotient of mainstream
video games with "Adam Killer", Condon's work is both a reflection on
the history of gaming and a cautionary realization of its future. His
presence in next year's Whitney Biennial, "Velvet Strike", (created with
fellow artists Anne-Marie Schliener and Joane Leandre), is a slap in the
face to the hard-core gaming community. The online multi-player shooter
subverts the death and destruction of "Counter-Strike", by allowing
players to plaster graphics of peace symbols and anti-war slogans on the
3D walls. This year, one of Condon's students designed a game called
"9-11 Survivor", a third person's victim's perspective of the tragic
event that was eventually pulled offline for obvious reasons. If the
future of gaming combines virtual and physical space with themes based
on actual events, Condon might be leading the revolution. His work is a
poignant, although sometimes upsetting vision of the merging of
interactive entertainment, international media, and personal life
experiences. What follows is an interview I conducted with Condon about
his motives as an artist, academic, game designer, and pop culture
enthusiast.

Your Name: Brody Condon
Age: 29
Occupation/Affiliation: variable
Education: MFA University of California at San Diego
URL: http://www.tmpspace.com/

JBC: What do you love about games? What do you hate about them?

BC: I don't play games as much as I used to. I tend to be more
interested in the elements that surround games and game culture. To some
extent, most of the screen based games I consumed in the past, and
continue to consume now, are forgettable. I suppose I am bitter about
all the lost years of screen time. I could have been accomplishing
something at least pseudo-productive. On a more positive note, I still
love the pure aesthetic joy of watching the progression from one
graphics generation to another. Forming a intuitive relationship with
those images, and now having the ability to crack them open, rearrange,
and play with those aesthetics and structures at this point through
emulators, PC game modding, and console hacking, etc. is a blessing.

JBC: Are you satisfied with the state of games today? What would you
change or leave the same?

BC: As happy as I am with movement of games and game culture into the
mainstream, I somehow yearn for the days when being "the kid who could
beat ANY game," was not exactly a badge of honor. It took a certain
sense of fortitude to persist in your gaming hobby. It was dangerous to
walk around your neighborhood on a weekend with a couple cartridges and
an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons First Edition Player's Handbook under
your arm. Little did the guy who came at me on the sidewalk know that
D&D books could be used as weapons. Especially if stacked properly in a
thin duffel bag and swung by the handles, they can become a sort of
make-shift bludgeoning weapon. Years later I found out that guy had a
father that committed suicide, then he broke his leg and dropped out of
school at some point. Eventually after a party he wandered out to the
highway and threw himself into the path of an oncoming tractor-trailer.
I'm not kidding.

JBC: Your work seems to be about emphasizing cliches found in games,
especially the death scene in "Adam Killer". What is important about
this topic and what has this approach taught you?

BC: I am interested in these cliched game play structures as a material.
Whether it is a kid making images of his domestic environment juxtaposed
with the trademark FPS hand and gun at the bottom of the image, or the
concept of the "re-spawn", which contains interesting links to
reincarnation and resurrection. Again, these cliches are also great
cultural indicators. They represent and at the same time repetitively
inform the emotions and psychology of the player. What does the empty
shell of the character mesh, which has an interior constructed of
"gibs", or small gut-like portions, that explode and replace the body
mesh inform us about our current relationship with death and the
interior of the body? Given the long history of representation of the
body, I find this contemporary shift in those representations and the
material they are created with a great site to dig for content. At the
same time, it's a desperate attempt to work out the box that the
consumption of those images have placed me in.

JBC: You also seem to focus on aggregating the connection between real
life events and how these could or might be played out in gaming
environments. Do you see game spaces as a logical extension of physical
spaces or an antithesis? How do real events affect gaming and vice
versa?

BC: Game spaces may be no more antithetical to, or extensions of, actual
spaces than the perspective translation of 3-dimensional natural
phenomena onto 2-dimensional surfaces in the 15th century. The tools
have just been updated. A Cartesian grid with simulated perspective is
the first thing I see when I open up my 3D modeling program. The
crossover between level and environment design in games, and traditional
architectural practice is obviously growing due the success of game
environments that mimic reality. Scenarios like The Getaway, and True
Crime Streets of LA are GTA3 knockoffs that take place in simulations
London and LA are great examples. This simulation of a city's
architecture and urban planning has the ability to alter the perception
of the city to those that live in and outside the city, possibly as much
as the actual physical site. What also interests me are the subtle
differences in the game version, the easy rearrangement of structures
and streets to fit game play scenarios. On the other hand, I feel like
architecture has taken these environments too lightly. Especially
fantasy environments are discarded as only an aesthetic surface, and not
as inspiration for new structures and patterns of movement through them.
Imagine constructed spaces inspired by the idea of going downtown to
your bank, jumping from platform to platform, to reach your ATM located
in a floating Necropolis of the Undead Scourge from Warcraft III.

JBC: Is there anything a game can't emulate? What are the main problems
in games today? What are they missing and what are they failing at?

BC: There are a horde of problems. I suppose targeting problematic
issues in gaming depends on what angle you are concerned with, cultural
implications, business strategies, game dev education, etc. However, the
core problem is not located within games, it is the lack of any
substantial media literacy dialogue within the public school education
system in the states. Not to mention the current information bubble that
surrounds us here like an invisible shield.

JBC: Are people who play games (such as hardcore gamers) interested in
your work? Who plays your games and how are they affected?

BC: [My] work has been labeled "Gayer than actual gay people." by the
online gaming community. In this case it was specifically about the work
"Velvet-Strike" that I contributed to. We (Anne-Marie Schliener and
Joane Leandre) also received near death threats and other fun comments
such as:

----- Original Message -----
Subject: Velvet-Strike... POINTLESS!

Hi,
I wanted to say I don't support YOUR stupid little brigade to create
peace and love and shit like that, face it its just POINTLESS BULLSHIT!
If you think that you can actually stop hate, then you're just a fucking
moron, it's like trying to say that the DEA will actually stop drug
trafficking. Those two things will never be stopped. Human nature is to
hate the enemy. And another thing don't flood are fucking games with
this "LOVEY DOVEY BULLSHIT!" I almost hate you people more than my
enemies. So one last thing, If you and your queer little hippy friends
don't like America, then FUCKING LEAVE! GO FUCK UP CANADA OR SOMETHING!!!
- Sincerely, your worst enemy
--------------------------------

Otherwise, I think any direct and positive relationship with the actual
game development community has been fairly non-existent, and mostly
relegated to the traditional and media art circuit. However, now that we
have made the jump from modifying and hacking existing games to using
middleware game engines, there is more industry crossover in a playable
piece I recently worked on like Waco: Resurrection ( www.waco.c-level.cc
). However, I should say I've ran into developers and gamers that love
the work. It is really such a broad range of individuals that make up
the industry and consumer base. Either way, a vernacular dialogue has
been started on the ground. Debates are flowing in the game community
blogs and forums, at game industry conferences, and among the general
public concerning the relationship of games to culture, and the
alternative possibilities for game development outside of escapist
fantasy narratives and sports simulations.

JBC: Do you think there is a connection between reality TV and gaming?

BC: Hard to say, I have never watched a reality TV show from start to
finish. Living in LA, you can sort of throw a stick and find someone who
knows about these things, so I just went outside and asked my landlord
this question. Him and his wife were contestants on that early reality
show, The Amazing Race. He never played games, so we were stuck on this
one. However, he did say that the show broke up his marriage, and that
those shows are fixed.

JBC: What is your opinion on pervasive gaming? Do you think it's a genre
that could succeed and become mainstream like PC, Massively multi-Player
Online Games (MMOG), and console games? (When I say "pervasive gaming",
I am referring to projects like Blast Theory's "Can You See Me Now?" and
It's Alive's "BotFighters". Games that mix digital and real spaces.)

BC: I'm not in the business of prophesizing successful tech, but I
checked out Blast Theory's website, and they seem to be having a good
time running around in those cool workout-suits with all that nifty PDA
gear on them. I'm all for it. As far as the cell phone "pervasive"
gaming is concerned, there is such a different relationship with cell
phone technology there (UK). I can't imagine how that would go over with
a consumer in the US. A car ran over my cell phone and it gives me a
headache whenever I use it. I recently spent some time at a SCA
(Society for Creative Anachronism) event where hundreds of people
gathered in the desert for a week of heavily immersive medieval
reenactment. True "pervasive" gaming, at these events there are regular
battles of hundreds of individuals in homemade armor beating the hell
out of each other with sticks in regimented battles. There are bridge
battles, castle sieges, etc. The most interesting intersection with
screen-based gaming is their incorporation of "Capture the Flag", and
"Resurrection" game play structures.

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Rhizome Digest is filtered by Feisal Ahmad (feisal AT rhizome.org). ISSN:
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