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: 7.31.05
From: digest@rhizome.org (RHIZOME)
Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2005 16:40:33 -0700
Reply-to: digest@rhizome.org
Sender: owner-digest@rhizome.org

RHIZOME DIGEST: July 31, 2005

Content:

+note+
1. Francis Hwang: Member RSS: 300 more feeds!
2. Lauren Cornell: Spotlit works
3. Lauren Cornell: Farewell to Kevin

+announcement+
4. Alessandro Ludovico: History of Networked Art conference
5. susana mendes silva: skyphone to artphone
6. marc: Net films 'linked' on Furtherfield...

+opportunity+
7. Lauren Cornell: Editor position at Rhizome.org
8. Hye-young Shim: Curator and Project Manager at Art Center Nabi

+comment+
9. Curt Cloninger: steal this cocept: LOWSRC -- progressive interlacing

+scene report+
10. Trebor: Prog:Me Review (Rio de Janeiro 2005)

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Rhizome is now offering Organizational Subscriptions, group memberships
that can be purchased at the institutional level. These subscriptions allow
participants at institutions to access Rhizome's services without
having to purchase individual memberships. For a discounted rate, students
or faculty at universities or visitors to art centers can have access to
Rhizome?s archives of art and text as well as guides and educational tools
to make navigation of this content easy. Rhizome is also offering
subsidized Organizational Subscriptions to qualifying institutions in poor
or excluded communities. Please visit http://rhizome.org/info/org.php for
more information or contact Lauren Cornell at LaurenCornell AT Rhizome.org

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1.

Date: 7.25.05
From: Francis Hwang <francis AT rhizome.org>
Subject: Member RSS: 300 more feeds!

Hey everybody,

I just turned on our Member RSS feeds. Starting today, Rhizome Members
have the option of publishing their Rhizome activity via RSS. This
includes artworks and texts added to Rhizome within the past year.

These feeds can be found from a member page. Here's the member page of
Minneapolis-based artist Abinadi Meza:

http://rhizome.org/member.rhiz?user_id=1036863

Note the line that says "Member RSS feed" and points you to this:

http://rhizome.org/syndicate/member/1036863.rss

... which you could then enter into your RSS reader/aggregator/reBlog
tool and do whatever with.

Every Member has the option of having a syndication feed, though they
can also opt out by choosing to be anonymous on their preferences page.

This feature adds more than 300 feeds to our mix of syndication feeds.
(300 is a lot less than our membership, but that's the number of
Members who have posted art or text in the past year _and_ have elected
to be anonymous.)

Let me know your thoughts, whether this is useful, how it could be made
more useful, etc.

And don't forget, if you feel like making a Member contribution, go to
http://rhizome.org/support/ .

Francis Hwang
Director of Technology
Rhizome.org
phone: 212-219-1288x202
AIM: francisrhizome

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2.

Date: 7.26.05
From: Lauren Cornell <laurencornell AT rhizome.org>
Subject: Spotlit works

Hello,

Today, we are going to take our featured Member-Curated exhibit off the
front page. It will still be highlighted on the Member-Curated page
(http://rhizome.org/art/member-curated/) for the rest of the month.

We are going to replace the exhibit with a featured art work, which will be
the first in a regular series of artists¹ projects from the ArtBase to be
spot-lit on the front page. At this point, Rhizome staff will be choosing
the different works ­ if anyone would like to be involved in the selection
process, please email me with suggestions.

We are starting with Jim Andrews¹ Nio (2001)

Best,
Lauren

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Rhizome ArtBase Exhibitions

http://rhizome.org/art/exhibition/

Visit the fourth ArtBase Exhibition "City/Observer," curated by
Yukie Kamiya of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York and designed
by T.Whid of MTAA.

http://rhizome.org/art/exhibition/city/

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3.

Date: 7.27.05
From: Lauren Cornell <laurencornell AT rhizome.org>
Subject: Farewell to Kevin

Hello,

After two great years with Rhizome, Kevin McGarry will be moving on as of
August 15th. McGarry started out as Content Coordinator overseeing Net Art
News and the Rhizome Digest; in this position, McGarry brought a host of new
writers into the fold and kept both publications on the edge of events,
projects and new media arts discourse. As ArtBase Coordinator, a position
created for him in 2004, McGarry grew the ArtBase tremendously. He devoted
considerable energy to seeking out projects and was also very active in his
consideration of submissions. McGarry¹s work with Rhizome also expanded
beyond these two roles: his collaboration was instrumental in the design of
our new membership policy, and his vision has underlined countless other
projects, particularly our Guest-Curated Exhibitions program in which he
worked very closely with the invited curators. His ideas, rigor and energy
will be missed, but I¹m certain his career will keep him close to the
Rhizome community. It is with deep appreciation and gratitude that we wish
him farewell.


Lauren


--
Lauren Cornell
Executive Director, Rhizome.org
New Museum of Contemporary Art
210 Eleventh Ave, NYC, NY 10001

tel. 212.219.1222 X 208
fax. 212.431.5328
ema. laurencornell AT rhizome.org

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4.

Date: 7.25.05
From: Alessandro Ludovico <a.ludovico AT neural.it>
Subject: History of Networked Art conference

History of Networked Art,
people, places, events, technologies and theories.

a conference curated by Tommaso Tozzi and Alessandro Ludovico.

Friday, July 29, 2005

Accademia di Belle Arti (Academy of Fine Arts)
Via Roma 1 - Carrara (Tuscany, Italy) tel. +39 0585 71658

9.30am - 1.30pm / 3pm - 7pm


with (in alphabetical order):

Robert Adrian (Wien, AU)
Hans Bernhard (Wien, AU)
Arturo Di Corinto (Roma, IT)
Steven Kovats (Rotterdam, NL)
Enrico Pedrini (Genova, IT)
Cornelia Sollfrank (Hamburg, DE)
Luca Toschi (Firenze, IT)

installation:
Giuseppe Chiari (Firenze - IT)
"Audio and Video recording from the seventies and eighties"



program:

9.30am - 1:30 pm

- Tommaso Tozzi - coordinator of Multimedia Art
Department, Academy of Fine Arts Carrara,
Florence, IT

- Enrico Pedrini - critic, Genova, IT

- Luca Toschi - director of the Communication
Strategies laboratory and head of the
Communication Theory master's degreee, Florence,
IT

- Robert Adrian - artist - Wien, AT

- Arturo Di Corinto - teacher of Online Communication Psichology - Rome - IT

- discussion


3.00pm - 7:00pm

- Alessandro Ludovico - new media critic, Neural.it - Bari, IT

- Hans Bernhard - artist, Ubermorgen, Etoyholding - Wien, AT

- Steven Kovats - international programs
developer, V2_Institute for the Unstable Media -
Rotterdam, NL

- Cornelia Sollfrank - artist, Old Boys Network - Hamburg, DE

- discussion


In the networked art the artwork 's boundaries
dissolve in the intertwined relationships between
subjects, objects, strategies and theories. This
process not only modifies artistic, political and
commercial models, but it transforms the culture,
the languages and the logic behind the theories
of the interconnected society.
Inter-disciplinarity, indetermination,
transformation, decentralization and interaction,
are among the key concepts of the sixties. But
they are also the background of the artists that
have used the telematic networks to plan new
worlds or to critique the existing ones. The
conference 'History of the Net Arts' has the
purpose to gather some important experiences
about some of the most active subjects, their
actions and external collaboration with
institutions, groups and movements, the
technologies they used and, even more
importantly, their theorical, social and cultural
goals.

http://www.neural.it/nnews/historyofnetworkedart.htm
http://www.ecn.org/wikiartpedia/comunicati/historyofnetworkedart.htm


Biographies.

Robert Adrian X (CA/AT)
Celebrated contemporary artist, produces
installations, radio art and sound art works from
1957, and he's one of the recognized pioneer of
telecomunication art. He started to work and
experiment in this field already in 1979. He
lives in Vienna.

Hans Bernhard (CH/AU)
One of the Etoy founders and creator of practices
like the 'digital hijack'. He founded the
Ubermorgen group with Lizvlx, and realized famous
net.art works like 'Vote-Auction', 'Injunction
Generator' and 'Google Will Eat Itself'. He won
many awards like the prestigious Prix Ars
Electronica's 'golden nica'. He lives and works
in St.Moritz and Vienna.

Giuseppe Chiari (IT)
Musician and artist. He's a composer from 1950
and he's the most important Italian
representative of the Fluxus movement, and one of
the most important italian artists of the 20th
century. He wrote books, essays and writings that
have changed the music system, and his works are
exhibited in museums all around the world. He's
author of happenings and music experiments and he
wrote music for different media.

Arturo Di Corinto (IT)
Cognitive psychologist and new media expert.
Researcher at the University of Stanford
(1997-1998), teacher at the Carrara Academy of
Arts and University of Rome. He's author of
essays on the technological innovation and social
behaviours relationship. He's a founding member
of the Avvisi Ai Naviganti BBS, Isole nella Rete
and Cittadigitali. He also writes for the
national newspapers Il Manifesto, La Repubblica
and for the magazine Aprile.

Stephen Kovats (CA/NL)
Canadian born architect and media researcher
Stephen Kovats spent a decade upon German
unification designing and establishing media art
and culture related programs at the Bauhaus
Dessau Foundation. His "Studio Electronic Media
Interpretation" hosted numerous international
projects, symposia and exhibitions. Kovats
founded several media culture oriented exchange
and network programs including Archi-Tonomy,
EMARE, ECX and the Bauhauskolleg. Editor of the
book "Media Revolution. Electronic Media in the
Transformation Process of Eastern and Central
Europe". Currently Kovats is international
programs developer at V2_Institute for the
Unstable Media in Rotterdam.

Alessandro Ludovico (IT)
Media critic and editor in chief of Neural
magazine from 1993. He has written media culture
books and essays. He's one of the founding
contributor of the Nettime community and one of
the founders of the 'Mag.Net (European Cultural
Publishers)' organization. He writes for various
international magazines and he's also an expert
in the Runme.org board and a collaborator of the
Digitalkraft exhibitions.

Enrico Pedrini (IT)
He curated international exhibitions and he was
one of the curators of the Taiwan Pavillion in
the 1995 Venice Biennale. He has written many
essays on contemporary art. Actually he's
studying the interactions amongst the Dissipative
Systems, the Theory of Chaos and the Possible
Worlds that bring to the art universe the
cathegories of the dissipation and possibilism.

Cornelia Sollfrank (DE)
Studied Fine Arts in Munich and Hamburg, taught
at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Hamburg,
founder member of the female artists' group
«Frauen und Technik» and '-Innen'. She's a
founder-member of «Old Boys Network» and
facilitator of the conference series 'Next
Cyberfeminist International'. She works in the
field of Internet art. She lives in Hamburg and
Berlin.

Luca Toschi (IT)
Director of the 'Laboratory of the communication
strategies' and head of the master's degree in
Communication Theory, University of Florence.
Author of the book 'Il linguaggio dei nuovi
media', he has written essays on the relationship
between education and the language of new media.
Ha has started his career as researcher in 1970
at the UCLA, during the establishment of the
first Arpanet nodes. He's a consultant for
private and public firms.

Tommaso Tozzi (IT)
Teacher at the University of Florence and at the
Carrara Academy of Arts, where he coordinates the
Multimedia Arts Department. Director of uCAN -
Center for Research and Documentation on
Networked Arts and Digital Cultures. He has been
the head of the cultural association Strano
Network. Editor of Hacker Art BBS (1990) and
creator of the first worldwide netstrike (1995).
Founding member of the italian newsgroup
Cyberpunk (1991) and of the net Cybernet (1993).
--


Alessandro Ludovico
Neural.it - http://neural.it/ daily updated news + reviews
English.Neural.it - http://english.neural.it/
Neural printed magazine - http://neural.it/n/nultimoe.htm

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Rhizome.org 2005-2006 Net Art Commissions

The Rhizome Commissioning Program makes financial support available to
artists for the creation of innovative new media art work via panel-awarded
commissions.

For the 2005-2006 Rhizome Commissions, eleven artists/groups were selected
to create original works of net art.

http://rhizome.org/commissions/

The Rhizome Commissions Program is made possible by support from the
Jerome Foundation in celebration of the Jerome Hill Centennial, the
Greenwall Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and
the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Additional support has
been provided by members of the Rhizome community.

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5.

Date: 7.27.05
From: susana mendes silva <arslonga AT netcabo.pt>
Subject: skyphone to artphone

For the first edition of prog:ME, the new media festival in Rio de Janeiro
(Brazil), Susana Mendes Silva has developed a new version of Artphone, her
2002 project. This time she is using Skype, a program for making free calls
over the internet to anyone also using Skype. The software has to be
downloaded and installed, her Skype name has to be added to your contacts.
If she is online, you can ask her whatever you always wanted to know about
art.

For more information about Artroom:

http://homepage.mac.com/susana_mendes_silva/Artphone.htm

For more information about prog:ME

http://www.progme.org/


by Luís Silva in
http://vercodigofonte.blogspot.com/2005/07/still-artist-in-chat-room.html

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Support Rhizome: buy a hosting plan from BroadSpire

http://rhizome.org/hosting/

Reliable, robust hosting plans from $65 per year.

Purchasing hosting from BroadSpire contributes directly to Rhizome's fiscal
well-being, so think about about the new Bundle pack, or any other plan,
today!

About BroadSpire

BroadSpire is a mid-size commercial web hosting provider. After conducting a
thorough review of the web hosting industry, we selected BroadSpire as our
partner because they offer the right combination of affordable plans (prices
start at $14.95 per month), dependable customer support, and a full range of
services. We have been working with BroadSpire since June 2002, and have
been very impressed with the quality of their service.

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6.

Date: 7.29.05
From: marc <marc.garrett AT furtherfield.org>
Subject: Net films 'linked' on Furtherfield...

Hi everyone,

Furtherfield is updating and introducing some new links to its main web
site - one of the 'new sections' will be specifically for film shown on
the Internet. As in 'net film' consciously created for the Internet in
mind, and not DVD.

So if you have Net films that you wish to have 'linked' on Furtherfield,
that fits into the above description - please send me some info:

title:
artist:
about the film: (no more than 40 words)
URL:

All the best
marc

http://www.furtherfield.org

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7.

Date: 7.27.05
From: Lauren Cornell <laurencornell AT rhizome.org>
Subject: Editor position at Rhizome.org

Please distribute widely!


Rhizome.org Seeks an Editor

Rhizome.org, a leading platform for new media art, is seeking an Editor to
oversee its two publications, Net Art News and the Rhizome Digest, and site
content. Excellent editorial and writing skills, extensive knowledge of the
new media arts field and strong communication skills are required. The
Editor will be responsible for tracking current events, projects and
initiatives in the new media arts field, managing and developing a stable of
writers, and supervising the publishing of content on Rhizome¹s front page.
The Editor will work in collaboration with Rhizome staff on strategic
planning and program development with a particular focus on Rhizome¹s online
archive, the ArtBase.

The position is part-time; salary is commensurate on experience. As Rhizome
is an online organization, eligible candidates do not have to be based in
New York City.

Resumes and cover letter to Lauren Cornell via email:
laurencornell AT rhizome.org - no calls please.


--
Lauren Cornell
Executive Director, Rhizome.org
New Museum of Contemporary Art
210 Eleventh Ave, NYC, NY 10001

tel. 212.219.1222 X 208
fax. 212.431.5328
ema. laurencornell AT rhizome.org

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8.

Date: 7.29.05
From: Hye-young Shim <shy AT nabi.or.kr>
Subject: Curator and Project Manager at Art Center Nabi

Dear Perspective Colleagues:

Art Center Nabi, a new media art center in Seoul, Korea, is seeking for a
new media art curator and a project manager for its lab. Since 2000, Nabi
has been leading the field of media arts in Korea through production,
exhibition, education, and research on the cross platform of art, technology
and social science. (For more information, http://www.nabi.or.kr) We are
now moving into the second stage of our development, where we focus on
developing projects actively engaging the communications industry, local
governments and academia, not only in Korea but also internationally.
Projects are now being formed in the areas of urban, wireless and personal
media, which require competent project managers.

We are in demand more than our current capability, perhaps because Nabi is a
unique institution in Korea that can cross the boundaries between
technology, humanity and creative communities. Also having a
telecommunication company as one of our sponsors helps us experiment
communication related projects in test-bed situations. We are a young
organization, and in the process of setting up systematic research and
curatorial practices. We seek committed professionals who would not only
envision new user experiences, but realize them through art and research
projects.

Here are some basic job descriptions. Further information will be provided
by contacting us via (shy AT nabi.or.kr) on individual basis with your cvâ??s.

1. Project Manager for Lab
You will be responsible for overseeing location based, wireless media
projects, both existing and new. You will work with one or two staffs of
Nabi who have experiences in coordinating interdisciplinary works. We offer
you 3 years of employment, which can be extended of course.

[Required]: general knowledge about communication media, specific interest
and knowledge in wireless media, ability to learn quickly about new media
technology, ability to network and outsource

[Preferred]: industry experience of more than 3 years in related fields as
project manager and Korean language skill



2. New Media Curator
Responsible for producing knowledge and art events/projects
[Required] : knowledge and experience in the field of new media arts
[Preferred] : advanced degree in the areas of communication studies, media
aesthetics or mediology

Thank you for your attention.


Sincerely,
Soh Yeong Roh
Director
Art Center Nabi
99 Seorin-dong, Jongro-gu
Seoul, Korea
http://www.nabi.or.kr

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9.

Date: 7.26.05
From: Curt Cloninger <curt AT lab404.com>
Subject: steal this cocept: LOWSRC -- progressive interlacing

"Also present, is the sometimes overriding, delight-in-the-process of
_acquiring_ the data. I've often had the distinct impression that I
was reading/retaining information as I was photo-copying or scanning,
or downloading files -- particularly the earlier interlaced gifs.
Their apprehension conceptually blends with their comprehension."

- brad brace ( http://www.aec.at/fleshfactor/arch/msg00127.html )

++++++++++

PRECEDENCE

net artists have historically exploited the peculiar limitations of
the net's formal protocols to their own conceptual ends.

Alexei Shulgin used html forms to critique formalism:
http://www.c3.hu/collection/form/

Eryk Salvaggio used ascii art to commemorate 9/11:
http://anatomyofhope.net/wtc/2/
cf:
http://www.ljudmila.org/~vuk/ascii/
http://turbulence.org/spotlight/ASCII_BUSH/

MTAA used the lossiness of jpeg compression (actually, they used
vector animation software simulating the lossiness of jpeg
compression) as an analogy for the lossiness of the mediated self:
http://www.mteww.com/five_small_videos/sliding_compression/index.html

But nobody's used progessively loading web images to make a
conceptual statement... yet.

++++++++++

TECHNOLOGY

Back when everybody was on a dialup modem, nobody wanted to wait for
your fat image file to load into their browser page, so you could
solve this problem in several ways:

1. create a thin, quick-loading low source version of your fat,
hi-res image and code it (via the "lowsrc" attribute of the "img"
tag) to load prior to your fat image. This gave viewers an
approximation to look at while your intended image was loading.

2. create a progressive jpeg, which initially loads blurry, and then
gets progressively crisper in waves, giving your viewer a blurry
image that gradually comes into focus.

3. create an interlacede gif that gradually gains resolution as it
loads, but without the characteristic jpeg lossiness (since gifs are
a lossless compression format).

All these hacks are moot now for anyone surfing via a high speed
connection. The high speed surfer simply sees your high resolution
image loaded immediately, since there is no wait time, and hence no
reason for the her browser to load your image gradually.

++++++++++

CONCEPT

All sorts of things in the world appear one way upon first
examination, and then on closer examination, our perception of them
changes. There is often an even more dramatic difference when the
first examination is mediated and the closer examination is in real
life. It's not too tricky to see the conceptual correlation between
this aspect of real world apprehension/comprehension and the
"LOWSRC-progressive jpg-interlaced gif" technology.

++++++++++

INSTRUCTIONS

First, choose some before and after images that resemble each other
visually.

Since the 21st century conceptual media artists is obliged to be
cynical and depressed, the before image will probably be hopeful and
the after image will probably be gloomy. The challenge is, there has
to be some sort of visual correlation between the initial low res
image and the final high res image.

For example, you could start off with a low res image of a happy
poodle, and then as it gradually loads it could reveal a high res
image of an abu ghraib prisoner on a dog leash. You get the idea.
You may have to tweak the images a bit in photoshop to get them to
align with each other in size and shape so that the transition
between one and the other is seamless rather than abrupt. It should
look like the same image gradually coming into focus. Remember, the
concept has to do with the viewer's gradual perception, so the art is
in the process of the reveal.

Since the actual "LOWSRC / progressive jpeg / interlaced gif"
technology is invisible on all the slowest connections, you'll have
to simulate it. Make your progressively loading "image" an animated
gif, that way your can force it to load gradually at a speed of your
choosing. You can simulate either the LOWSRC effect, the progessive
jpg effect, the interlaced gif effect, or a cobination of all three.
Emulate whichever technology is most visaully appropriate to the
subject matter of each particular animation. Here is one example of
the tech:
http://playdamage.org/42.html (That particular piece is merely the
same image fading in and out. Your piece will, of course, have a
happy low res image fading into its ironic high res doppleganger.)

Make a series of these gradually loading images (actually
animations), and give each animation a provocative, double entendre
title which will serve as the animation's caption. The caption will
appear on the page below the animation before the animation fully
"loads," serving as a king of teaser. For example, with the
dog/prisoner animation, the title could be "The Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals." The more smarmy and irreverent,
the darker the import when the final hi-res image is revealed!

The effect should be like in the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World
when you're in that room with the portraits, and then the room
stretches to reveal a malevolent and heretofore hidden portion of the
portraits (
http://www.doombuggies.com/media/wallpaper/dynamite_800.jpg ). Or
like the Edward Gorey animated introduction to Mystery on PBS (cf:
http://www.awn.com/mag/issue5.04/5.04pages/lambgorey.php3 ).

++++++++++

MARKETING

retro low res emulation is modish (pun intended).
cf:
http://www.mnartists.org/work.do?pageIndex=1&rid=14550
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/play.html?pg=5
http://www.beigerecords.com/cory/Exhibitions/
http://www.lust.nl/lust/mtv/

With that in mind, you should really play up the "progressive jpeg
emulation" angle in your press copy (aka artist statment/grant
proposal). Otherwise, the piece risks being misconstrued as a series
of horribly crude transformer animatics with cheeky captions.

Fortunately, angsty irony is always en vogue, so you should have no
problem pimping it to your desired art cartel.

++++++++++

PEDAGOGY [an aside]

The next time I teach my net art class ( http://lab404.com/373 ),
I'll probably make this concept an assignment.

I currently have my students make a collaborative quilt:
http://mmas.unca.edu/~cloninger/373/2005s/quilt/
And a collaborative alphabet (a la piotr szyhalski):
http://mmas.unca.edu/~cloninger/373/2005s/abc/index.html

So this assignment will be like a combination of the two.

Steal this concept before I teach it, and I'll be obliged to allude
to your work in my syllabus. Your work will then have had a marked
influence on my pedagogical methods!

++++++++++

Happy implementin'!
curt

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10.

Date: 7.30.05
From: Trebor <trebor AT buffalo.edu>
Subject: Prog:Me Review (Rio de Janeiro 2005)

by Trebor Scholz

Rio de Janeiro currently presents its first media art festival. Four floors
in the newly opened Centro Cultural Telemar are dedicated to "Prog:Me."
Tickets are free for this venue that focuses on art and technology and the
crowds of Rio are coming-- from kids who interact with game art pieces to
youngsters who return to see the daily changing video program. This festival
does not compete with the Electronic Language International Festival (FILE)
that was founded in Sao Paolo in 2000 because mobility is still limited for
most people here. The exhibition hopping art nomad is not far as common in
Brazil as she may be in Europe or the United States. For the local context
this festival offers an introduction to interactive media art installations,
net art, and critical artist games. The symposium that is organized in
tandem with the exhibition launched with a series of artist talks and
presentations by media theorists from Brazil and North America. The
culture-activist, translator, writer and organizer Ricardo Rosas gave an
introduction to the history of net art and zoomed in on web-based works from
Brazil, Argentina and Mexico that are often overlooked. He is aware that we
don't live in what Vuc Cosic called the 'heroic times' of early net art when
the networked multitudes were still thrilled about the ability to access
artworks independent of curators and their institutions. Rosas points to the
fact that in South America it is mainly the middle and upper classes that
have access to the internet. And those others without network privileges at
universities or at work are completely left out. Ricardo Rosas and Carlo
Sansolo collaboratively curated the net art section of the festival. With
their selection of hundreds of works they go beyond the likes of the
Belgian/Dutch duo Jodi who were put forward in the books by Julian
Stallabrass and Rachel Greene. The curators do not only include artworks
from the cultural capitals of Brazil-- Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo -- but
also exhibit pieces from the Brazilian citi!
es of Mi
nas Gerais and Recife.

The project is encouraging also in other ways. To this day, Brazilian
artists when entering the international circuit are expected to work in
relation to the Brazilian artistic über-parents Hélio Oiticica and Lygia
Clark. The desire for preconceived authenticity makes it quite difficult for
younger artists working in new media to contribute their voices to this
context. For Rio de Janeiro 'Prog:Me' is a first go at experimenting with
contexts for new art avoiding such curatorial shortfalls. Monitors
throughout the exhibition allow visitors to browse, think, listen and play
their way through the armada of net art pieces made available here. A more
educational, dialogical approach that would have included attention to the
specificity of each net art piece and brief introductions to the often very
conceptual works was not the intention of the curators. For them it was
important to show the broadest possible range of work. Sitting in front of
one of the monitors clicking from one piece to the next, each individual
artwork becomes a frame in a cinematic loop. Like in the blogosphere (the
network, or linked community of all weblogs) the individual blog is not what
creates the overall meaning. The interconnections between the writing on the
weblogs creates meaning. Browsing through the net art pieces in the festival
one is left with the general impression of art as network and social
esthetics. The meaning of the artworks appears in their cinematic
juxtaposition.
When the exhibition closes in two months a trace in the form of a link
collection on the festival's website will remain. This may become a situated
knowledge pool for Portuguese speakers for whom US American or European
books on media art and theory are unaffordable, not relevant to their local
context or simply in need of translation.

The vast majority of pieces in the exhibition are web-based, which is partly
due to the fact that the shipping of hardware is costly and often requires
the artist to be flown in for the set up of her piece. For the Brazilian
user/consumer/producer today, net art may be especially inspiring because
the "you can do this too" call of the early days of video may echo here with
those who have the basic hardware, net connection and free software. While
it takes a good education to start thinking about the making of net art, the
means of production are available to many and screen-based work may indeed
be a good entry point to media art production in Rio.

This media art festival is an ambitious effort facilitated by the artists
Carlo Sansolo and Erika Fraenkel who worked as curators invited by Alberto
Saraiva at the Centro Cultural Telemar. We should look again when the next
Rio media art festival comes up. A catalogue in English and Portuguese will
be published by the Centro Cultural Telemar and can be ordered there
starting at the end of September.

http://www.institutotelemar.org.br/centrocultural/

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Rhizome Digest is filtered by Kevin McGarry (kevin AT rhizome.org). ISSN:
1525-9110. Volume 10, number 31. Article submissions to list AT rhizome.org
are encouraged. Submissions should relate to the theme of new media art
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