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: 9.23.05
From: digest@rhizome.org (RHIZOME)
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2005 10:53:42 -0700
Reply-to: digest@rhizome.org
Sender: owner-digest@rhizome.org
RHIZOME DIGEST: September 23, 2005

Content:

+note+
1. Lauren Cornell: Rhizome Community Campaign, please help spread the word

+opportunity+

2. Warren Sack: Job Posting: Assistant Professor in Critical Studies
3. Sheindal Cohen: Director, Culture Campus, Liverpool, UK
4. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR of SCULPTURE, STANFORD UNIVERSITY

+announcement+
5. nat muller: ISTANBUL RELOADED at De Melkweg
6. David Galbraith: David Galbraith sound installation at Diapason (NYC)
7. christa AT eyebeam.org: Eyebeam Announces Amanda McDonald Crowley as
Executive Director

+comment+
8. Kevin Hamilton: "Poor Duke - he can't shoot his way out of this one."

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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.

From: Lauren Cornell <laurencornell AT rhizome.org>
Date: Sep 19, 2005 9:29 PM
Subject: Rhizome Community Campaign, please help spread the word

Hi RAW:

Today, Rhizome is kicking off its membership drive, the Community
Campaign, and I am hoping you can help us spread the word.

Its been an exciting time for Rhizome over the past five months. Following
the launch of our new membership policy in May, we launched several
features, including the reBlog and also RSS feeds and a Location tool for
Members. We also evaluated and energized our current programs, and
started to spark new initiatives--such as spotlighting Member work--that
should represent our interest in more actively serving the constituencies
that use Rhizome as a resource. Meanwhile, the new policy has encouraged
former Rhizomers to come back, and opened the door for newcomers. (Site
traffic is up 50% from last year.)

Fundraising at Rhizome has also been vigorous as of late, as have our
efforts at bolstering our earned income initiatives. Still, we are in need
of funds to sustain our current programs and seed our energy into new
projects such as important enhancements to our site and archives, and an
educational program for youth. Contributions from Members play a critical
role in our overall financial picture, and the success of this Campaign is
key to our survival and growth over the next year.

We have set a Campaign goal of $25,000 which we hope to meet by December
1st . It would be enormously helpful if you could help get the word out
by encouraging people-- via your website or blog--to become Members or use
this time to renew.

We are also offering some very compelling limited edition works by
artists--including Cory Arcangel, Lew Baldwin and MTAA--on a first-come,
first-serve basis to people who make higher level donations.

You can send people to this page: www.rhizome.org/support

As the new Director here, its been an honor to get involved more closely
with the network of individuals that make Rhizome the incredibly vital
platform for new media art that it is. I see it as of the utmost
importance to leverage the work of Rhizome's community, as do Francis
Hwang and Marisa
Olson, and with your support, I know we can carry this exciting moment of
change and growth through to Rhizome=B9s ten year anniversary next Fall.

Thanks for any help you can give, and all my best to you,
Lauren


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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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Refresh! The First International Conference on the Histories of Media Art,
Science and Technology

Hosted by the Banff New Media Institute, Leonardo/ISAST, and the Database
for Virtual Art.

September 28-October 1, 2005

The Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta, Canada

Register today!
www.banffcentre.ca/bnmi
E-mail: luke_heemsbergen AT banffcentre.ca

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2.

From: Warren Sack <wsack AT media.mit.edu>
Date: Sep 18, 2005 10:36 AM
Subject: Job Posting: Assistant Professor in Critical Studies

Position: Assistant Professor in Critical Studies
Institution: University of California - Film & Digital Media Department
Location: Santa Cruz, California
Application deadline: 11/18/2005

If you are interested in more information about the job do not reply to
me; rather please email film AT ucsc.edu.

The Film and Digital Media Department, University of California, Santa
Cruz, invites applications for a tenure-track position in critical
studies. Applicants with a scholarly emphasis in international film and/or
media are especially desirable; candidates with expertise in other areas
of film, television and/or digital media theory and/or history are also
invited to apply. Requires Ph.D. in relevant field of study, with
demonstrated potential for excellence in innovative research and for
excellence in university teaching.

Please refer to the complete job announcement and application requirements
at http://www2.ucsc.edu/ahr/employment/bulletin/05-06/700-06.pdf

Candidates should submit letter of application, curriculum vitae, writing
samples, syllabi from courses previously taught, three confidential
letters of recommendation, and summary of past student evaluations, if
available, to Search Committee, Film & Digital Media Department,
University of California, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064. Refer to
provision #700-06. Postmark deadline: November 18, 2005; position open
until filled. UCSC is an EEO/AA Employer.

Enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope if you desire writing samples
returned at the end of this recruitment.

Questions regarding the department or position may be addressed to
film AT ucsc.edu. Further information about the department is available at
http://film.ucsc.edu/.

Contact Information:


Job code: #700-06
E-mail: film AT ucsc.edu
Web Site: http://film.ucsc.edu
Search Committee
Film & Digital Media
UC Santa Cruz
1156 High Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95064

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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.

From: Sheindal Cohen <admin AT fact.co.uk>
Date: Sep 19, 2005 8:17 AM
Subject: Director, Culture Campus, Liverpool, UK

CULTURE CAMPUS
DIRECTOR
Salary £45,000

Culture Campus is a new organisation formed as a partnership between Tate
Liverpool, the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art, Foundation for Art
and Creative Technology, the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John
Moores University.

Culture Campus is envisaged as an international centre providing an
environment for learning, incubation, research, development, participation
and expression in contemporary visual, media and popular culture forms.

The appointment of a Director provides an exciting opportunity for the
right candidate to drive the project forward. We are looking for a highly
experienced arts professional with a passion for contemporary culture to
work in partnership, developing links between the sector and HE.

The Director will bring a mix of academic and sector specific experience,
will be a leader in the field of contemporary culture with excellent
strategic and managerial skills and a proven record as a good
communicator. You will have the ability to develop a strategy for taking
forward this innovative partnership and co-ordinate its activities with
key regional, local and national partners. You will represent the
partnership at local and international meetings and will be an effective
fundraiser able to attract additional funding for the project.

This is a full time post on a two year contract in the first instance.

Job share applicants will be considered.

For more information please contact: Sheindal Cohen.

Email recruitment AT fact.co.uk Tel: 0151 707 4444. Website www.fact.co.uk.

Deadline for applications: October 17 2005.

Culture Campus welcomes applications from any individual regardless of
ethnic origin, gender, disability, religious belief, sexual orientation
and age. All applications will be considered on merit.

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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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4.

Date: Sep 22, 2005 1:31 PM
Subject: ASSISTANT PROFESSOR of SCULPTURE, STANFORD UNIVERSITY

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR (tenure track)
STANFORD UNIVERSITY
Stanford is seeking to hire a practicing sculptor, preferably with
expertise in areas such as installation, environmental systems, or
advanced fabrication technologies, to start September 2006 with the rank
of Assistant Professor. The ideal candidate will possess a record of
important exhibitions, a studio practice likely to attract gifted graduate
students, and a strong commitment to teaching and advising. An M.F.A. (or
equivalent) and college?level experience in teaching sculpture is normally
expected. Responsibilities will include the teaching of sculpture classes
for majors and non-majors and the teaching and advising of M.F.A.
students. We are seeking someone eager to participate fully in a dynamic
studio art program that grants B.A. and M.F.A. degrees in the Fine Arts,
an M.F.A. in Documentary Film, and an M.F.A. degree in Product Design (in
cooperation with the Department of Mechanical Engineering). Application
deadline: December 15, 2006. Please send a letter of introduction, a
statement of artistic and academic goals, a c.v., a record of teaching
experience, and 20 slides labeled with slide script, video documentation
on DVD (as applicable), and a SASE for return of slides and/or DVDs. In
addition, please supply the names and contact information of three
referees. Applications should go to: Search Committee in Sculpture,
Stanford University, Department of Art and Art History, 435 Lasuen Mall,
Stanford, CA 94305-2018. Stanford University is an equal opportunity,
affirmative action employer.

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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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5.

From: nat muller <nat AT xs4all.nl>
Date: Sep 19, 2005 9:33 PM
Subject: ISTANBUL RELOADED at De Melkweg

*****************************************
ISTANBUL RELOADED

Date: Wed 5th October
Location: De Melkweg, Theaterzaal, Lijnbaansgracht 234 A, Amsterdam

Time:Performances: 20.30 - 22.30 hours
Entrance performances: euro 10,-
Time: Panel: 16.00 - 18.00 hours (free)

Bookings: 020 ? 5318181
URL: www.melkweg.nl (under media)
*****************************************

ISTANBUL RELOADED invites you to reload your sonic perception, and sample
the diversity of Istanbuli experimental sound art.

Istanbul evokes many connotations ranging from the mysterious riches of
Byzantium to the throbbing capital of the Eurasian world
Constantinople.History books and travel guides have imprinted an image on
us ranging from orientalist fairy tale dreams to a modern metropolis
negotiating tradition and future, east and west. We can picture Istanbul
visually with all its landmarks, and have probably eavesdropped on Turkish
pop and traditional music.However, how diversified is that perception? As
the cultural capital of Turkey, Istanbul boasts a small, but exceptional
experimental electronic music scene, probes the new possibilities
real-time processing and other technologies allow for performance and
composition, sometimes merging traditional Turkish influences and
instruments with the aesthetics of contemporary electronics.
*****************************************
PROGRAM: Wed 5th October

ISTANBUL RELOADED: performance
20.30 - 22.00 hours, entrance: ? 10
Erdem Helvacioglu (TR)
Cev Edit (TR/NL)
Anabala (Murat Ertel & Ceren Aykut) (TR)

ISTANBUL RELOADED: panel
16.00 ? 18.00 hours, entrance: free
Participants: Cevdet Erek (TR/NL), Erdem Helvacioglu (TR), Anabala
(Murat Ertel & Ceren Aykut) (TR), Abdullah Hendrik Geels (NL)
Moderation: Nat Muller (NL)

URLs:
http://www.erdemhelvacioglu.com/
http://www.babazula.com/
http://www.audiomaze.com/
*****************************************

ISTANBUL RELOADEDis part of ?Xeno_Sonic: Experimental Music Mapping in the
Middle East?, a project and initiative of Nat Muller in collaboration with
De Melkweg.

ISTANBUL RELOADED is kindly supported by VSBfonds, Mondriaanfonds, Fonds
voor Amateur en Podiumkunsten, Stichting Kulsan, Fonds voor
Podium-Programmering & Marketing.The research phase of Xeno_Sonic was
supported by The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and
Architecture.

Editor?s note
For more information, visual material or interviews, contact:
Publiciteit Melkweg: Esther Lagendijk | tel: 020-5318167 | fax:
020-5318118 | esther AT melkweg.nl

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6.

From: David Galbraith <djg AT panix.com>
Date: Sep 22, 2005 10:00 AM
Subject: David Galbraith sound installation at Diapason (NYC)

Diapason, gallery for sound and intermedia, presents

David Galbraith
Composition 2005 No. 1:
Two Straight Lines Displaced, Nudged and Gently Spun

A Sound Installation

Saturdays, September 3, 10, 17, 24
6 PM - midnight

Diapason, gallery for sound and intermedia
1026 Sixth Avenue, # 2S (btwn 38th & 39th St.)
New York, NY 10018
http://www.diapasongallery.org/


Notes on the work:

Diapason is pleased to present the first solo exhibition by New York-based
composer, performer and multidisciplinary artist David Galbraith.

This exhibition pairs Galbraith?s 2003 mixed media work on paper Two
Straight Lines For La Monte Young, originally shown in Berlin and on view
at Diapason for the first time in New York, with a new work for
multichannel sound titled Composition 2005 No. 1.

The work on paper references American composer La Monte Young?s
Composition 1960 No. 10 which reads ?draw a straight line and follow it.?
Galbraith?s Two Straight Lines For La Monte Young uses twenty pages of
tabular random permutations of integer numbers overlaid with
systematically placed small blue dots. These pages are pinned to the wall
each skewed so the blue dots produce a pair of vertical straight lines
each over six feet long. With this work Galbraith breaks from the singular
act called for by Young?s score and instead creates through repetition and
serial techniques two straight lines that emerge from an infinite numeric
field.

For Composition 2005 No. 1 Galbraith transformed Two Straight Lines For La
Monte Young into a graphic score for string quartet. Galbraith realized
this score by recording the process of hand tuning each note using his
self-built analog electronic sound oscillators. The work is animated by
the micro-intervallic tension between two sets of pitches: the ?absolute?
sine tones determined by graphical analysis and the ?string? tones which
are derived from the ?absolute? tones by quantizing each to the nearest
note of a justly intoned scale. The final work is a multichannel edit of
the ?absolute? manually tuned quadrature oscillator sine tones, digitally
synthesized reference tones, and the recordings of the ?string? tone
manual tuning process.


Biographical information:

David Galbraith explores the couplings between art, music, technology and
the body through his sound installations, live sound performances, video
works and drawings. In addition to recent New York performances at Art in
General, Diapason, and free103.9, Galbraith?s international performances
include Erase & Reset: International Night Of Experimental & Electronic
Music at Staatsbank Berlin (2003); Garage Festival, Stralsund, Germany
(2003); and Pro Musica Nova (with Marina Rosenfeld), Bremen, Germany
(2000). Galbraith has had two-person shows together with Teresa Seemann at
the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2001), the Soap Factory,
Minneapolis (2001), and Innocence & Mystery, Berlin (2003). Collaborative
and individual work has also been shown in group exhibitions at
Kunst-Werke Berlin, P.S.1/MoMA, Artists Space, and Rosmund Felsen Gallery,
among others.

This show is supported in part by a grant from the Experimental Television
Center.

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Rhizome Members can purchase the new monograph on Thomson & Craighead,
Minigraph 7, for a discounted rate: £10.80 which is 10% off £12.00 regular
price plus free p+p for single orders in UK and Europe.

thomson & craighead
Minigraph 7
Essays by Michael Archer and Julian Stallabrass
Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead ¹s extraordinarily varied, almost
unclassifiable artworks combine conceptual flair with sophisticated
technical innovation. Encompassing works for the web alongside a host of
other new media interventions, this book ? the first monographic survey of
the artists¹ work ? highlights a number of impressive installation and
internet-based pieces which use digital technology to echo the
art-historical tradition of the ready-made.

Part-supported by CARTE, University of Westminster.

Published by Film and Video Umbrella
52 Bermondsey Street London SE1 3UD
Tel: 020 7407 7755
Fax:020 7407 7766
http://www.fvumbrella.com

To order, Rhizome Members should write Lindsay Evans at Film/ Video Umbrella
directly and use the reference ³Rhizome T + C² in the subject line.

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7.

From: christa AT eyebeam.org
Date: Sep 22, 2005 8:59 PM
Subject: Eyebeam Announces Amanda McDonald Crowley as Executive Director

For Immediate Release

Media Contact:
Christa Blatchford/ Perry Lowe
212/937.6580 x231/ x222
press AT eyebeam.org
www.eyebeam.org

Amanda McDonald Crowley
Appointed Executive Director of Eyebeam

New York, NY, October 10 - Eyebeam is pleased to announce the appointment
of Amanda McDonald Crowley as Executive Director of the not-for-profit
arts and technology center. McDonald Crowley is relocating from her native
Australia where she has been based while working nationally and throughout
Europe and Asia as an arts producer, facilitator, researcher and curator.
She will begin her new position at Eyebeam on October 10, 2005.

McDonald Crowley brings to Eyebeam a substantial and international
background in media arts. Her prior vision and experience in fostering
the cross-disciplinary practice, collaboration and exchange provide a
perfect fit to Eyebeam?s mission and model. "Amanda McDonald Crowley is
one of the most accomplished, groundbreaking new media curators and
producers anywhere in the world," stated Steve Dietz, Director, ISEA2006
Symposium and ZeroOne San Jose Festival. "Her experience as director of
ANAT, as a producer at the Adelaide Festival and ISEA2004 Symposium is a
perfect match for the adventuresome, artist-oriented programming that both
Amanda and Eyebeam are known for."

Prior to joining Eyebeam, McDonald Crowley served as the Executive
Producer of the 2004 International Symposium of Electronic Art (ISEA2004),
developing the event from concept to major conferences, exhibitions,
performances, concerts and site specific installations on a ferry in the
Baltic Sea and locations in Estonia and Finland. In 2002-03 she was an
arts worker in residency at Sarai: the New Media Initiative in Delhi,
India and was Associate Director for Adelaide Festival 2002. From 1995 to
2000 McDonald Crowley was Director of the Australian Network for Art and
Technology (ANAT), an organization with a national brief to foster links
between the arts, sciences and new technology.

?I am particularly excited by the opportunity to work with an organization
that has such a strong commitment to an 'atelier' model. It encourages a
direct engagement with and participation in work that makes sense of the
intersection of the arts, sciences and technology,? said McDonald Crowley.
?Eyebeam's objectives and programs engage with impressively diverse groups
of artists and audiences. I have a strong personal commitment to
cross-disciplinary and collaborative art practices and am keen to ensure
that Eyebeam continues to build partnerships nationally and
internationally whilst maintaining it's important role locally in
providing innovative, stimulating, hopefully occasionally challenging but
also celebratory spaces for the research, production and presentation of
contemporary culture.?

Eyebeam Board Chair John S. Johnson stated, "We're thrilled to have
someone with Amanda's experience and vision to take Eyebeam into the next
phase of it's development." McDonald Crowley arrives during the final
phase of a year-long renovation of the Eyebeam's Chelsea facility which
locates all programming under one roof for the first time. The renovation
created new production and education studios, labs, editing suites,
prototyping galleries, administrative offices, a flexible lounge/events
space, a bookstore and expanded public entrance while retaining the
existing 5,000 square foot main gallery, one of the largest uninterrupted
exhibition spaces in Chelsea. This reconfigured space renews emphasis on
artists' experimentation and process, the exhibition of work produced
within Eyebeam's studios and labs, as well as on alternative forms of
public presentation.

"Amanda is a generous colleague and tireless advocate for whom
contemporary cultural production is always firmly positioned within the
broader political, socio-economic and cultural landscape," affirmed Sarah
Miller, Director, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA). "This new
role sees her well positioned to progress Eyebeam's charter as it moves
into the next exciting stage of its development. "


Eyebeam

Eyebeam supports the creation, presentation and analysis of new forms of
innovative cultural production. Founded in 1996, Eyebeam is dedicated to
exposing broad and diverse audiences to new technologies and media arts,
while simultaneously establishing and demonstrating new media as a
significant genre.

Eyebeam's programs are made possible through the generous support of
Atlantic Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the
National Endowment for the Arts, Time Warner Youth Media and Arts Fund,
Alienware, the Jerome Foundation, the Helena Rubinstein Foundation, the
Greenwall Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, a state
agency, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the David S.
Howe Foundation, the Lerer Family Charitable Foundation, the Sony
Corporation, Alias Systems, Inc. and the Milton and Sally Avery
Foundation.

Eyebeam
Location: 540 w 21st Street between 10th & 11th Avenues
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 12:00 - 6:00pm
Bookstore: Tuesday - Saturday, 12:00 - 6:00pm
Admission: All events are free to the public unless otherwise noted
Website: www.eyebeam.org
Email: info AT eyebeam.org
# # #

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8.

From: Kevin Hamilton <kham AT uiuc.edu>
Date: Sep 22, 2005 8:30 AM
Subject: "Poor Duke - he can't shoot his way out of this one."

Rhizomers-

This morning, as I sat by the open window at my laptop, engrossed in a
departmental email, one of my senses - sight, smell, hearing? - pricked,
and I looked to the immediate right of my lap to see a large and twittery
squirrel, on the sill of our screenless window. I jumped and yelled HEY,
causing the contents of my coffee cup to go shooting up and over
everything in sight - powerbook, papers, window. During the requisite
freakout-session of careful cleaning of my laptop to keep coffee from
getting inside the thing, I noticed a nut the squirrel had left behind, on
the sill - he was looking for a place to stow it, I suppose.

Of course last weekend's challenging and enlightening New Forms Festival
in Vancouver came to mind, where the 2005 theme was "Ecosystems."
Biological metaphors are nothing new to this community or to some of the
more theoretically(academically?)-minded in new media. But Niranjan Rajah
and the other conference organizers put together a collection of
presenters and panels that gave the subject a deep, difficult examination,
unlike any I have experienced.

It was a rich weekend of difficult analyses and proclamations about the
relationship between our tools, the institutions that hold them, and the
other beings or places we have displaced, eradicated or absorbed in the
process of creation. I thought I should share with the list some of what
transpired, in part because I think there should be more of it south of
the border.

The New Forms Festival has been running for a few years, and this was my
first. I'm sorry to say that I saw none of the exhibition components, and
only a small piece of the music components, but the conference portion was
quite a full plate. Three days saw numerous panels, papers, and
performances - unique about these for me was that a new media conference
was focussing on so many allegedly "extra-medial" concerns that don't
seem to come up often in new media discourse. I'll run through some of the
highlights.

First, perhaps the most remarkable thing about this conference was its
setting in the Museum of Anthropology at University of British Columbia, a
world-renowned collection of works by the First Nations people of western
Canada. Niranjan's characterization of this choice as forcing the
examination of a field that runs "from bones to broadband" was just the
start. The days' events went far beyond the predictable and essentialist
juxtapositions of "hi-tech" and "low-tech" we've come to expect of some
McLuhan-esque rhetoric. Instead, the setting constantly forced the
difficult question of technology's role in colonization - the same
colonization that led to the assembly of such a collection as anthropology
rather than as history, as technology, or even as art.

Carol Gigliotti's keynote paper on Friday took us through the history of
the West's definitions of "human" and "non-human", with an emphasis on
some seriously disturbing metaphors employed by the likes of Descartes. It
comes as no surprise to many of you I'm sure that the Enlightenment gave
us descriptions of Nature as "the proverbial 'bad girl'" (Carol's words),
requiring a strong hand to the forelock and a slap to the back of the
head, if not an outright rape. And from this we get modern science, and
from that we get vaccine, but also flash memory and nanopods, and at the
expense of beings and places we first had to label as not worthy of
respect. For you skeptics, this was much more than an effort to scare more
"PC" into your P.C.. To recognize the roots and expenses that make
possible our faster and ever more social media forms is to weigh our
enthusiasm about new possibilities against some of the effects. I count
this as progress in an area that normally slips into utopianism like an
old drug habit.

Following Carol's talk was a provocative examination of the museum as a
site of grieving - we witnessed a live remote performance by Peter Morin,
who from just outside the auditorium took a page from Coco Fusco or Fred
Wilson, and placed himself among the artifacts of his own people. Through
a seemingly casual video monologue Peter spoke and sang about those who
had long died, those of his people who were at that moment facing arrest
during protest, and about the experience of the museum as mausoleum, as
pain. The following panel complicated this perspective through the
presence of Anthony Shelton, the museum's Director, and Raman Srinivasan,
who related the story of visiting a temple in the Philadelphia Museum of
Art as a graduate student, reverent and comforted but also aware of the
violent rip that made the presence of the temple in his temporary home
possible.

These strategies persisted - we saw several panels set up to keep us
uncomfortable in our assumptions, including the odd and provocative
pairing of the champion of sampling, John Oswald (of Plunderphonics fame)
with Ahasiw Maskegon-Iskwew, who told stories of information theft as
colonialist strategy, but also of artist Cheryl L'Hirondelle Waynohtew's
approach to piracy or sampling as act of infiltration or homage.

Other standout moments included:

- Learning from Ahasiw Maskegon-Iskwew and Stephen Loft about Winnipeg's
Urban Shaman gallery, drumbytes.org, and conundrumonline.ca, several
efforts at supporting and displaying works in New Media by aboriginal
artists. In his talk, Stephen Loft re-imagined the gods of fire in
aboriginal mythology as John Wayne, protecting and hoarding a powerful
technology until he's finally encircled by his opponents.

- Filmmaker and conference sponsor Loretta Todd also shared some about the
effort she's leading, the new Aboriginal History Media Arts Lab.

- Steve di Paola described his work with the Vancouver Aquarium to model
Belugas and fishes in 3-D environments, in which he found himself
confronted with the irreality of what some expected the virtual animals to
do, and the shocking reality of illusionistic 3-D renderings that even
react to stimuli.

- Landscape architect Kelty Miyoshi McKinnon's excellent paper on "The
Urban Bestiary," how animals adapt to and infiltrate urban landscapes, how
we sensationalize their arrival, and how some architects respond.

- Curator Alice Ming Wai Jim shared some about the new and exciting
efforts of the recently relocated CENTER A, a non-profit space for new
media and contemporary art from Asia and the Pacific Rim. Significant to
Center A's current mission is the gallery's intentional and stark
relationship to the surrounding neighborhood of Gastown, infamous as the
poorest postal code in Canada. Alice and the Center seem committed to
acknowledging this contrast through exhibition and outreach, including
their involvement in the upcoming Container Project for ISEA 2006.

- John Wynne's work on his project Hearing Voices, in which he explores
the endangered Khoisan clik-languages of the Kalahari Desert through field
recording, photography, radio documentary and installation.

The conference concluded with a performance in the Anthropology Museum, at
the foot of the totem poles in the main hall, backed by the setting sun
over the pines of Vancouver's bay. At first, the pastoral sounds of
electronic musician Noah Susswein jarred with the memories of violence
implied by the artifacts, even as the landscape behind seemed timed for
the music. But when vocalist Tanya Tagaq Gillis took the floor, backed by
Souns on the laptop, we were reminded that even as we remembered death,
First Nations people were very much alive, and strong. Tanya's
throat-singing (which you may have heard on Bjork's Medulla album) and
Souns' glitches meshed together in service of the power of the voice.
Tanya ruled that space for awhile, as I'm sure she will with the Kronos
Quartet later this Fall, and resisted our identification of the
"natural" or aboriginal as dead or dominated. It was a fitting close to a
weekend I won't forget - and for which I'm indebted to a long history of
conquest.

Kevin Hamilton

LINKS:

http://www.newformsfestival.com
http://www.centera.org
http://conundrumonline.ca
http://drumbytes.org/
http://www.sensitivebrigade.com/
http://www.terrain.org/essays/13/mckinnon.htm
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/02/22/todd.html
http://www.tanyatagaq.com

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Rhizome Digest is filtered by Marisa Olson (marisa AT rhizome.org). ISSN:
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