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: 7.11.07
From: digest@rhizome.org (RHIZOME)
Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 18:42:46 -0400
Reply-to: digest@rhizome.org
Sender: owner-digest@rhizome.org

RHIZOME DIGEST: July 11, 2007

Content:

+note+
1. Patrick May: Director of Technology's Report

+opportunity+
2. ana otero: CALL FOR PROJECTS - TRANSNATIONAL COMMUNITIES AWARD
3. ana otero: JOB OPPORTUNITY - MEDIA STUDIES POSITION
4. 220hex: Piksel07 deadline extended!
5. Amanda McDonald Crowley: Eyebeam Fellowship Applications online!

6. Sarah Pace: Conflux Festival Call for Volunteers
7. Amanda Matulick: 2007 ANAT Emerging Technologies Mentorship

+announcement+
8. emwod33 AT hotmail.com: Dislocate 07 Art, Technology, Locality - Tokyo & Yokoham
9. Mark Tribe: The Problem Is Civil Obedience!

+comment+
10. Redazione Digicult: [Rhizome]SOFTWARE ART SPACE. SOFTWARE ART?!?, Digicult article online tomorrow on Digimag July/August Issue, by Marco Mancuso

+Commissioned by Rhizome+
11. Petra Cortright: Interview with Silicious

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1.

From: Patrick May <patrick.may AT rhizome.org>
Date: Jul 2, 2007
Subject: Director of Technology's Report

Hello,

I'd like to do something a little different for this report. Usually I focus on completed projects, but in addition I want to talk about some of our upcoming projects. First I'll report on our completed projects, but please also check out the second section and let us know what you think.

---------------------------------------
Completed Projects
---------------------------------------

+ Server Speed (http://rhizome.org)
We completed several back-end optimizations which dramatically improved the performance of our webserver.

+ New Media Resources (http://rhizome.org/resource)
Last year we added two resource guides for members: a list of educational programs, and a list of residencies. We recently added information on relevant conferences, and a list of syllabi from New Media professors.

+ Commissions (http://rhizome.org/commissions)
We just wrapped up our commissions cycle for the current year. In response to feedback, we simplified the voting process: We encouraged voters to spend time on the actual proposals by placing the voting tool on the proposal websites; and, we allowed people to move from website to website instead of returning to a main page. We also added comment functionality so that artists could communicate with voting members.

More people voted this year than before -- 221% increase in participation in the final round of voting -- and we were successful in steering traffic out to the artists' sites.

+ ArtBase ( http://rhizome.org/art/publish)
We performed three major changes to the ArtBase:

1) We improved the ArtBase submission process, by changing it from a multi-step process requiring a great deal of coordination to one that is more simple and less work for the artists.

2) We also made a significant change to how our site supports artwork. Previously, only works submitted to the Artbase and approved by Rhizome would show up on Member/User Profile pages. We've changed this process so that now when an artist submits a work to the ArtBase, it is automatically published onto their Member/User profile page. This gives artists more control over content on their profile page, while making it easier to add artwork to the ArtBase.

3) We are no longer cloning artwork. In terms of staff labor, cloning an artwork is an expensive and time consuming process. Further more, the server-side code in cloned artworks must be continually audited against the latest security risks. We determined that we can't afford to continue our current policy. We will continue to maintain all existing cloned artworks, but we are no longer offering the "cloned object" option to new works. We would like to support archiving works via zip/tgz/sit files on the server, but we have not yet worked out the details.

---------------------------------------
Upcoming Projects
---------------------------------------

+ Creative Commons
We are currently working to give artists the option to share their artwork using Creative Commons licenses. Creative Commons licenses allow creators to stipulate, safely and legally, how their work can be used, remixed, and redistributed by others.

+ Adding blog content to our reBlog
As you know, we currently have a reBlog in place. This software allows us to re-publish new media art-related content from other organizations/ blogs, as well as content from RAW. Soon, we are planning to write more original content, i.e. blog, in addition to reBlogging. This increase original writing, that like Rhizome News will cover new media art ideas, projects and events, will make our front page news stream even a more powerful community amplifier.

---------------------------------------
In Conclusion
---------------------------------------

Thanks for reading, and let us know if you have any feedback or questions.

Cheers,
Patrick

--
Patrick May
DirectorofTechnology
Rhizome
210 11th Ave, 2nd floor
New York, NY 10001
+1 (212) 219-1288 x202
mailto:patrick AT rhizome.org
http://rhizome.org

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Associated Content is the people's media company. We run a massive library of content where you can share your work and earn extra cash. Explore scores of articles, videos, essays, reviews, how-to's and contribute your own. Show what you know at www.associatedcontent.com/join/rhizome

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2.

From: ana otero <4anaotero AT gmail.com>
Date: Jun 28, 2007
Subject: CALL FOR PROJECTS - TRANSNATIONAL COMMUNITIES AWARD

// CALL FOR PROJECTS
// TRANSNATIONAL COMMUNITIES AWARD
// Electronic Arts and Video Festival Transitio_mx 02
// Deadline: July 27th, 2007

http://transitiomx.net

granted by the US-Mexico Foundation for Culture, Inc.
Fomento Educacional, A.C. and
Fundación BBVA Bancomer

TRANSNATIONAL COMMUNITIES
The configuration of transnational communities corresponds to the continuous and increasing flow of people, goods, technology and information. In the context of this exchange, social networks are conformed linking daily and permanently the origin communities with the destination ones, creating social pluri-local and inter-cultural spaces.

In the specific case of the Mexico-United States relation, the migratory phenomenon constitutes a central inexhaustible subject in the territorial displacements debate. The Transnational Communities Award sets out to explore artistic, cultural and social articulation projects that take place in virtual space, the arena in which the global and the local converge.

GUIDELINES
The award will recognize transnational communities that link Mexico and the United States and that have been able to translate their presence onto the Internet, thus recreating their social dynamics through the web, shortening geographic distances, and transcending cultural conflicts by innovation. The emphasis of the award is set on digital projects that creatively use the technological and conceptual tools available in the net to improve the communitarian communication and interaction channels, giving rise to online spaces in which common stories and practices are shared.

The Transnational Communities Award is directed towards artistic, cultural and social projects for which the Internet is a necessary tool to express and present diverse visions of a changing world. Special consideration will be given to such projects that are committed to extend the access to production and distribution of contents in the Internet and that prioritize the horizontal communication among their members, setting into practice the culture of participation that defines the new generation of digital technologies by becoming virtual platforms of collaboration and collective development.

PARTICIPATION CRITERIA
I. The call is open to individuals, groups, associations, organizations and institutions that develop communitarian projects of a cultural, artistic and social character by using media convergence to create new social narratives that respond to transnational issues. Proposals working in the following formats will be accepted, as long as they use the internet as their main communication and interaction medium: video (communitarian video, documentary, videoart, video clip, videomails, soap operas, etc.), net.art, civil journalism, digital communities, online forums, weblogs, social networks, online videogames, online artistic collaboration projects, electronic literature, digital narrative, musical collaborations, communitarian radio, and pod casts, among others.

Special attention will be given to projects that tackle subjects related to identity, the borders, diversity, diasporas and hybridizations, as well as those which resort to the collective intelligence and creativity to generate open source tools, giving place to open contents and distribution.

II. Projects that work with the following tools, among others, will be able to participate:

Social Software

Web 2.0 Applications

System of social networks

Development of open source tools for creative collaboration

III. It will be possible to participate with up to 3 projects.

IV. The projects will have to be registered by their author. In case that the project has been made by a group, it will have to designate a representative.

V. The official languages of the award will be Spanish and English.

VI. Participation in this award implies the authorization to the National Center for the Arts to present the work within the framework of the Festival; and the authors grant permission to use images of the work for diffusion and dissemination of the event, according to the Federal Copyright Law. The rights of the work remain the sole property of the author.

VII. Participants release all announcing institutions of any controversy regarding copyright matters that the work in competition may lead to.

VIII. Decisions made by the Committee and the international Jury will be unquestionable.

IX. Participants accept the conditions set on this call. The Planning Council of the Festival will solve any case not foreseen earlier.

ELEGIBILITY CRITERIA

X. The projects will be pre-selected by a Committee that will evaluate all submitted works and decide if they are suitable to continue to the second and last stage.

XI. Such works chosen to go on to the final selection will be published in a national circulation newspaper and on the Festival’s webpage, http://transitiomx.net, on August 19th, 2007.

XII. The jury’s recognition will be given to projects that:

a) their activity, pertinence, and vitality is evident at first sight

b) give priority to the horizontal participation of their members

c) offer the possibility of inclusion and participation for agents external to the community

d) present effectiveness and functionality characteristics in dialogic processes

e) companies with exclusive profit-making aims are excluded

APPLICATION

XIII. All the proposals must be presented as an Internet website

XIV. Proposals will be received from the publication of this announcement and until 6 p.m. (GMT -6) on July 27th, 2007. The date of shipment will be taken into account as long as the shipment is done using express mail and not ordinary service.

XV. DOCUMENTATION:

To obtain the participation guidelines for the award; as well as the Registration Form and all the information on the documentation that must be included, please check Festival’s webpage http://transitiomx.net or the Multimedia Center webpage http://cmm.cenart.gob.mx

PRIZE
Finalist works will be evaluated by an international jury who will determine the following prizes:

a first prize of 3,500.00 U.S. dollars
the honorary mentions considered pertinent

The prizes and mentions will be presented and awarded within the Festival framework.

For further information and document delivery, please refer to:
Centro Nacional de las Artes
Centro Multimedia
Avenida Río Churubusco 79, Colonia Country Club,
C. P. 04220, Coyoacán, México, D. F.
Office hours are from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Contact: Ana Villa, by phone 1253 9400 Ext. 1290 or by email:
concurso AT transitiomx.net
http://www.transitiomx.net

CONTACTS
Mariana Delgado
Communication and Public Affairs Coordinator
US-Mexico Foundation for Culture, Inc.
Col. Juárez
06600 México, DF.
Ph. (52 55) 5535 6735
Fax. (52 55) 5566 8071
mariana [at] contactocultural.org
www.contactocultural.org

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3.

From: ana otero <4anaotero AT gmail.com>
Date: Jul 3, 2007
Subject: JOB OPPORTUNITY - MEDIA STUDIES POSITION

// MEDIA STUDIES POSITION
// Media and Society
// Deadline: October 1, 2007

The Media Studies Department at the University of San Francisco invites applications for a full-time, tenure-track position at the Assistant Professor level, anticipated to begin Fall 2008. Responsibilities include teaching two undergraduate courses per semester, plus one additional course over two years (2-2-2-3 over two years), and an active program of research and service. The successful candidate will be qualified to teach at least two of our introductory and core courses (Introduction to Media Studies, Media Institutions, Media Audiences, Media Stereotyping and Violence, and Communication Law and Policy) as well as courses related to the candidate's specialty. Expertise and interest in teaching basic digital communication practice will be a plus as will an emphasis on race/ethnicity and international/global issues. The Department is seeking an individual who is able to work with diverse students and colleagues. Ph. D., or equivalent advanced degree in a related field, plus a record of teaching, professional experience and research, or other relevant creative activity, are required. Applicants should submit, by October 1, 2007, a letter of application, curriculum vitae, graduate transcripts, brief description of research plans, evidence of teaching ability (including sample syllabi, student evaluations, and a statement of teaching philosophy) and three letters of recommendation to: Dr. David Silver Media Studies Search Committee Media Studies Department University Center 538 University of San Francisco 2130 Fulton Street San Francisco, CA 94117-1080 We encourage minority and women candidates to apply. USF is an Equal Opportunity Employer dedicated to affirmative action and to excellence through diversity. The University provides reasonable accommodations to qualified applicants with disabilities upon request. The University of San Francisco is a Jesuit Catholic university founded in 1855 to educate leaders who will fashion a more humane and just world. Candidates should demonstrate a commitment to wo!
rk in a
c
ulturally diverse environment and to contribute to the mission of the University.

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Organizational memberships with Rhizome

Sign your library, university or organization up for a Rhizome organizational membership! Give your community access to the largest online archives of digital art and new media art-related writing, the opportunity to organize member-curated exhibitions, participate in critical discussion, community boards, and learn about residency, educational and professional possibilities. Rhizome also offers subsidized memberships for qualifying institutions with limited access to the Internet. Please visit http://rhizome.org/info/org.php for more information or contact sales AT rhizome.org

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4.

From: 220hex <gif AT 220hex.org>
Date: Jul 5, 2007
Subject: Piksel07 deadline extended!

The deadline for project submissions to Piksel07 has been
extended to july 31. 2007!

Please see the open call for submission guidelines:
http://www.piksel.no/piksel07

and use the submission form for project proposals:
http://www.piksel.no/piksel07/subform.html

Piksel is an international event for artists and developers working with open source audiovisual software, hardware & art. Part workshop, part festival, it is organised in Bergen, Norway, by the Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts (BEK) and involves participants from more than a dozen countries exchanging ideas, coding, presenting art and software projects, doing workshops, performances and discussions on the aesthetics and politics of FLOSS + art.

More info: http://www.piksel.no

--
--------------------
www.220hex.org
www.r3aktor.com
http://mob.bek.no

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5.

From: Amanda McDonald Crowley <amc AT autonomous.org>
Date: Jul 5, 2007
Subject: Eyebeam Fellowship Applications online!

Overview of Eyebeam Fellowships

The application process for Eyebeam's 2007/08 Fellowship program is currently open. The deadline for applications is August 6, 2007. All applicants will be informed of their application status by October 1, 2007. The program duration is for 11 months, running from November to September.

Fellowships will be offered in the R&D OpenLab, the Production Lab and the Education Lab. The focus of the Fellowships varies depending on the tools and skills available and the creative objectives and philosophy of each Lab. Up to five Fellowships will be granted for 2007/08.

http://www.eyebeam.org/production/production.php?page=felcall

For all of the Fellowships we are seeking applications from artists, hackers, designers, engineers and creative technologists to come to Eyebeam for a year to undertake new research and develop new work. The ideal Fellow has experience working with and making innovative technological art and/or creative technology projects and has a passion for collaborative development. Fellows will bring this experience and working approach to their own independent projects, projects initiated by other Residents or Fellows and projects conceived collaboratively during the Fellowship period.

Fellows are selected from an open call. International applicants are welcome to apply although we do not have the resources to provide travel or accommodation. We are happy to work with selected applicants, where required, to help them to secure funds to cover these expenses. International Fellows are responsible for securing their own visas for the Fellowship period.
Fellows receive a $30,000 stipend and health benefits during their stay. They are able to take on additional external teaching or consulting work, but there is an expectation that Fellows will be working at Eyebeam a minimum of four days a week.

Collaborative partnerships at Eyebeam will be fostered though group critiques, discussions and projects, within and between the lab environments and residency programs. Fellows also benefit from critiques, lectures and workshops by external practitioners chosen for their relationship to subjects and projects being worked on in the Labs.

All Fellows are encouraged to share their skills and knowledge with the larger Eyebeam community by conducting formal and/or informal workshops with others in the Labs as well as possible workshops open to the public. There are also opportunities to develop work for performance, events, seminars, exhibition or other public programming in the Eyebeam galleries (and beyond) during the term of the fellowship. Core to our principle at Eyebeam is the brokering of relationships between artists, hackers, coders, engineers and other creative technologists and the contexts we provide. The intention is to foster and facilitate relationships whereby technologists and artists can come together to germinate and hothouse their ideas, develop new processes and create new works through a period of immersion in a social context which is rich in technology, expertise and ideas.

Research Themes
We also support research groups to bring together creative practitioners working at Eyebeam as well as expert external participants. New research leads to possible public outcomes including seminars, public discussion and exhibition.

Research themes for 2007/08 include (though will not be limited to):
* Energy, Technology and Sustainability
* Urban research, urban interventions and media in public space
Artists and creative technologists interested in these research areas are particularly encouraged to apply for 2007/08 Fellowships.

Application Requirements
Applications received after the deadline of August 6, 2007, will not be accepted. All applications and work samples must be submitted through the online form. No exceptions will be made. You can create a user/password during the application process and log back into the server to update your application before the final deadline.

Complete applications must include the following information:
* Contact Information
* Resume or CV (rtf or pdf doc)
* Work samples in the form of URLs or uploaded media
* Include a project description with your work sample that explains your contribution to the piece, how it was meant to be viewed and how it relates to your proposed project(s).
* Concise responses to all application questions

Incomplete applications will not be considered.
Please read the guidelines for each of the Fellowships carefully. Each working environment has different sets of tools and different mentors/trainers for these tools, so applicants should consider which environment will best suit their own needs and experience. However, all artists, technologists and residents have access to resources across all three labs and programs.
If you have any questions, please email fellowshipinfo AT eyebeam.org.

Thanks, we are excited to hear from you!

http://www.eyebeam.org/production/production.php?page=felcall

--
EYEBEAM
540 W. 21st Street
New York, NY 10011, USA
T +1 - 212.937.6580
F +1 - 212.937.6582
amc AT eyebeam.org
www.eyebeam.org

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Rhizome.org 2006-2007 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 2006-2007 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.

Rhizome 2008 Commissions Announced!
This year, eleven emerging artists/ collectives were awarded commissions in support of new works of Internet-based art. The projects include distributed sound experiments, visually compelling interactive images that blend the sublime and the ridiculous, and pioneering applications that encourage the flowering of creativity across commercial areas of the web. Follow the link below for descriptions of and links to the eleven winning proposals, which also includes our first-ever Community Award, a project designed to enhance participation and communication on Rhizome.
http://rhizome.org/commissions/2007/

The Rhizome Commissions program is supported, in part, by funds from the Greenwall Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Additional support is provided by generous individuals and Rhizome Members.

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6.

From: Sarah Pace <pace AT confluxfestival.org>
Date: Jul 10, 2007
Subject: Conflux Festival Call for Volunteers

Volunteers Needed for Conflux Festival 2007.

Glowlab seeks volunteers to work with the fourth annual Conflux Festival, taking place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn from September 13th-16th. We're looking for volunteers in a variety of areas: tech support, audio/video/photo documentation, general installation, sales, event staff. You'll have the opportunity to assist national and international artists, work with local venues and get hands-on production experience. Previous event production experience is preferred, but not required.

About Conflux
Conflux is the annual New York City festival where visual and sound artists, writers, urban adventurers and the public gather for four days to explore the physical and psychological landscape of the city.
http://confluxfestival.org

Volunteer Requirements:
You must have a working mobile phone.
You must be available for at least one full day of the festival.
You must be able to attend a short volunteer meeting Monday August 20th and/or Monday September 10th from 7pm-8pm.

For more information, contact Sarah Pace:
pace[at]confluxfestival.org

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7.

From: Amanda Matulick <communicate AT anat.org.au>
Date: Jul 10, 2007
Subject: 2007 ANAT Emerging Technologies Mentorship

2007 ANAT Emerging Technologies Mentorship

ANAT is offering the opportunity for young and emerging practitioners working with distributed, portable, online, wearable, gaming, mobile and emerging platforms to undertake a three-month mentorship with an established practitioner of their choice.

The mentorship enables an emerging artist to explore new creative directions, to expand technical skills and increase knowledge of networks, debates and business practice. Applicants are invited to select a mentor and develop a program of activity spanning a three-month period. By utilising emerging technologies the mentor may be accessed locally, nationally or internationally and the successful applicant will maintain a blog for the duration of the mentorship on the ANAT server.

Applicants must be emerging technologies practitioners who are 30 years or under. The mentorship will provide a fee for the mentoree ($7,200 excl GST) and a fee for the mentor ($1,800 excl GST). The mentorship program should be completed by early December 2007.

ANAT APPLICATIONS CLOSE 3 AUGUST 2007
ANAT guidelines and application
forms are available on our web site http://www.anat.org.au. For further information please contact Gavin Artz, ANAT General Manager - manager AT anat.org.au, 08 8231 9037, Monday - Friday, 10am - 4pm CST.

This mentorship is a part of the Australian Government's Young & Emerging Artists Initiative through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. Australian Media Arts Organsiations d.lux, Experimenta and MAAP are also offering mentorships:

+ d.lux will hold their mentorship inside Second Life or a similar online virtual community, contact malcolm AT dlux.org.au for more information.
+ Experimenta's focus is on Site Related and/or Public Work, contact kentia AT expeirmenta.org for more information.
+ MAAP will focus on projects that intersect or consider connections with the Asia Pacific regions, contact info AT maap.org.au for more information.

ANAT gratefully acknowledges the assistance of CraftSouth in establishing the ANAT Emerging Technologies Mentorship Program.
____________________________________________________
ANAT is assisted by the Australia Council for the Arts, by the South Australian Government through Arts SA http://www.arts.sa.gov.au and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.

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8.

From: emwod33 AT hotmail.com <emwod33 AT hotmail.com>
Date: Jun 29, 2007
Subject: Dislocate 07 Art, Technology, Locality - Tokyo & Yokoham

Dislocate 07

ART, TECHNOLOGY, LOCALITY
Exhibition, Symposium and Workshop series

24th July – 5th August
Tokyo and Yokohama
Ginza Art Laboratory (Wednesday – Sunday 3-8pm)
Koiwa Project Space (Tuesday – Sunday 2-7pm)
ZAIM 28th & 29th July 11am-4pm Symposium and Workshops
Opening Event Koiwa Project Space 24th July 7pm
Performance Event ZAIM 29th July 6pm

All Events are Free

The city is no longer built of concrete, a static posture no longer endures.
Our surroundings have become a malleable space which can be warped, spliced and expanded at will. We no longer stand in one place alone, a mass convergence of coordinates is taking place beneath our feet.

As we traverse these points of perpetual motion we are enclosed by structures of elsewhere, met with the sliding walls of other places which lead us through a never ending maze.
Shrouded in alternative layers of space, we escape to another confinement through the mesh of new media.

As our presence is extended by the veins of technology our sense of space is transformed, our nervous system stems through endless reaches of universal skin.
Our eyes see through a thousand windows, each with a different view, a collision of a multitude of global sounds meets our ears, our fingers pass beyond tiers of materiality.

But can we see what is before us? Are we listening to the resonance of our surroundings? Can we feel the texture of this place?

Engaged in distant or imaginary space, we flick through the channels with our remote control and choose when to plug in when to switch off. But as we are absorbed by these electronic pulses are we disappearing from the here and now?

Personal technologies offer a kaleidoscopic sensation of a multi-layered existence, but perhaps may also provide a microscope by which to examine the place which we are in at this moment.

Dislocate 07 – Festival for Art, Technology and Locality

Dislocate brings together a group of over 30 international artists in an exhibition, symposium and workshop series in Tokyo and Yokohama. Considering the spacial and social dislocation which can occur through technology, these artists are investigating how new media can be rooted in its specific location and form a meaningful relationship between ourselves and our surroundings.

Dislocate aims to explore the potential new media has to increase our awareness of our environment, enhance participation in our locality and community and transform our perceptions of the space we inhabit.

This project presents cutting edge approaches to new technology art but with a view to seeing beyond the technology itself, examining what lies past the screen.

Dislocate prompts us to reconsider the alternative uses of the personal technologies which surround us, not merely offering an escape route from our current situation but also a tool to actually confront this very location.

With an endless array of spaces available to us, we can select our contexts of participation like the channels of a television. We may be highly active in an online space, engrossed in our constructed personal space, but by choice or otherwise we may distance ourselves from our immediate surroundings. We are presented with the freedom of ‘unlimited’ possibilities and yet are we making these decisions consciously or are they occurring without thought?

Dislocate considers the very integration of new media with the environment and this might be utilized to consciously reconnect with our location, seeking to explore, question and debate how can technology be used to heighten our engagement with our surroundings instead of isolating us from our immediate space.
When numerous places converge in one site, how do we navigate such space? How does our interaction within a given space formulate identity and how can this be communicated effectively to elsewhere?

These are some of the questions which will be raised through the Dislocate events.

Exhibition
Ginza Art Laboratory
Yogashi West 2F 7-3-6 Ginza Chuo-ku Tokyo 104 0061 
Koiwa Project Space 7-2-7 Minami-Koiwa Edogawa-ku Tokyo 133-0056
Taking place over two sites, of contrasting locality, this exhibition aims to present a particular relationship to its surroundings, revealing new perspectives of our immediate space, engaging with and investigating this site while also fusing with spaces beyond.

Works include a city wide game in which teams play against each other with their mobile phones, an exploration of the streets led by the beat of your heart, architecture which responds to environmental conditions and emotion mapping of the urban landscape.

Symposium
ZAIM – Theatre Space 3F
34 Nihon Odori, Naka-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 231-0021

Christian Nold, Active Ingredient, Dan Belasco Rogers, Taeyoon Choi, So Hyeon Park, Erik Pauhrizi, Augmented Architectures, Sascha Pohflepp, Miguel Andrés-Clavera and Inyong Cho
Dislocate presents an international symposium with confirmed delegates from UK, Germany, Republic of Korea, Indonesia and Japan further contributing to the discourse surrounding the interplay of art, technology and location.

This symposium aims to explore what is meant by ‘locality’, how does new media impact upon our notion of space, our interaction with our surroundings, and how this can be used to transform communities, both virtual and physical.
The conflicts and integrations which emerge as separate spaces collide in one site will be examined raising concerns of homogenization and de-contextualisation alongside the awareness of local identity and culture.
This will include a scrutinization of sensitive, meaningful exchange between different localities facilitated through new media and the manifestations which reconnection or further connection with our environment can take.

Workshops
ZAIM (and surrounding area)
In a series of workshops participants will have the opportunity to engage further with some of the Dislocate artists and investigate with them in an active form of research and collaboration.
The focus of these workshops will be upon the exploration of the surrounding environment, investigating its many layers and connections with other spaces. Workshops will enable direct participation and engagement with the locality and may also draw attention to our simultaneous interaction with elsewhere.
Workshop leaders include Christian Nold, who will present his bio-mapping project, allowing participants to create emotion maps of their travels through the city by the use of bio sensors.
www.biomapping.net
Erik Pauhrizi will lead a workshop exploring lo-tech solutions to advanced mobile and locative media.

Performance ZAIM 29th July 6pm
Andreas Schlegel and Vladimir Todorovic
Naoko Takahashi
Musashino Art University Media Art Students

All events are free
If you wish to attend the symposium or workshops please email info AT dis-locate.net with your name and contact telephone number

Artists Include:

Active Ingredient www.i-am-ai.net
Christian Nold www.softhook.com
Dan Belasco Rogers www.planbperformance.net/dan/
D-Fuse http://www.dfuse.com/
Taeyoon Choi http://tyshow.org
So-Hyeon Park
Erik Pauhrizi http://butonkultur21.org/
Andreas Schlegel and Vladimir Todorovic http://syntfarm.org/projects/btc/
Yuko Mohri http://www.h6.dion.ne.jp/~moo/
Augemented Architecture http://www.augmented-architectures.com/
Stanza http://www.stanza.co.uk/sensity/index.html
Disinformation

For more information please contact
Emma Ota
info AT dis-locate.net

Participating Artists:

Active Ingredient, Christian Nold, Dan Belasco Rogers, DFuse, Taeyoon Choi, So Hyeon Park, Erik Pauhrizi, Stanza, Yuko Mohri, Ryosuke Akiyoshi, Disinformation, Augmented Architectures, Martin Callanan, Frank Abbott, Sascha Pohflepp, Andreas Schlegel and Vladimir Todorovic, Mouna Andraos, Miguel Andrés-Clavera and Inyong Cho, Laurent Pernot, Esther Harris, Andreas Zingerle, Julian Konczak, Genevieve Staines, Marco Villani, So Young Yang, Liu Zhenchen, Nisha Duggal, Lori Amor & Kevan Davis, Maria Raponi, Lisa Mee, Leo Morrissey, Cary Peppermint & Christine Nadir, Anne-Marie Culhane, Jomi Kim, Harry Levene & Jon Pigrem, Naoko Takahashi, Son Woo Kyung

Dislocate is supported by The Asia-Europe Foundation, The Sasakawa Foundation, The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation and Arts Council, England

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9.

From: Mark Tribe <mark.tribe AT gmail.com>
Date: Jul 8, 2007
Subject: The Problem Is Civil Obedience!

Port Huron Project 2: The Problem Is Civil Obedience

A public reenactment of a speech originally given by author and activist Howard Zinn at a peace rally in May 1971. In this stirring speech, Zinn argued for the necessity of civil disobedience to protest the war in Vietnam and called on Congress to impeach the president and vice president of the United States for the “high crime” of waging war on the people of Southeast Asia.

When: Saturday, July 14, 5 PM (rain date July 15)

Where: Northwest corner of the Boston Common, near the intersection of Charles and Beacon streets. Note: this is the exact site of Zinn’s original speech!

This is the second event in the Port Huron Project, a series of remakes of protest speeches from New Left movements of 1960s and '70s. The project is named after the Port Huron Statement, the visionary manifesto of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a radical student group formed in 1962. The first event in the series, Port Huron Project 1: Until the Last Gun Is Silent, took place on Sept. 16, 2006, and was based on a speech given by Coretta Scott King at a peace march in Central Park in 1968. The third event will be a reenactment of a speech originally given by SDS President Paul Potter at the March on Washington in April 1965.

For documentation and information, please visit http://www.porthuronproject.net

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10.

From: Redazione Digicult <redazione AT digicult.it>
Date: Jul 1, 2007
Subject: [Rhizome]SOFTWARE ART SPACE. SOFTWARE ART?!?, Digicult article online tomorrow on Digimag July/August Issue, by Marco Mancuso

SOFTWARE ART SPACE. SOFTWARE ART ?!?
by Marco Mancuso - Digicult Director
http://www.digicult.it
http://www.digicult.it/digimag

This article will be published tomorrow in Italian on the July-August double summer Issue of the online monthly magazine Digimag, inside the New Media section. This issue will be translated in English at the mid of July for Digicult international readers

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:::Tu hai un grande potere in mano ragazzo
hai il potere della scrittura.
Usala, rompi sempre le palle
all'ordine costituito
Ettore Sottsass - 2003:::

You can bet on it. As soon as the news gets around through reference mailing-lists, word of mouth, international festivals, interviews by the most acclaimed critic or curator of the moment, infinite will be the praises raised to Software Art Space (www.softwareartspace.com), the second operation performed by Steven Sacks, founder of the phantomatic Bitforms gallery: digital in conception, but with a physical (micro) headquarter in New York. In that same city and neighborhood, Chelsea, in which an apparently infinite army of galleries and exhibition spaces devoted to contemporary arts seem to be struggling to be part of the quadrangle between 4th and 5th streets, determining the destinies of the international art market.

Fooling around is useless. As useless is the tell-tale reminding us that praises and criticisms will come about: real critiques would be hard and direct, not pats on the shoulders to constituted order. So the next question arising is: why is a project whose aim is to diffuse art to the masses (notice how the authoritative Wired magazine defined Sacks as he who "brings software to the masses") criticizable? Well, we will try to explain the reasons by analyzing the project under various points of view.

I would say that a good starting point could be the nature of the project itself, its philosophy. If "bringing software art to the general public" is the project's final ambition, I wonder how exactly Steven Sacks is expecting to acheive such a goal through the use of the technological instruments currently in commerce and through the use of any multimedial fruition tools: graphics, sound, image and interactivity. A simple analisys reveals how the ingegnous technological device requires having a dedicated PC in the living room, in the bedroom or, possibly, in the bathroom, an ergonomic wireless mouse or a practical touchscreen, readily available at the grocer around the corner, and, obviously, the cd/dvd on which the artwork's executable file is installed. Someone could possibly overcome my skepticism and convince me that a high number of persons around the world will decide, tomorrow, to buy online an artwork by Golan Levin, Casey Reas or Lia, and to exhibit it into their house, rarely playing with the interactivity and generativity of the object. This idea of "fruition" ignores a general trend that is commonly accepted among multimedia professionals: multimedia and interactive products guarantee a low level of emotional involvement when experienced at home, amidst everyday life, without creating a diect and interactive experience with the technology and with the condition of sensorial immersivity that it can and must generate.

And for everyone seduced by the mecenatist aurea exposed by any project that hides a blatant act of commercialization behind utopian conceptions of horizontal diffusion of digital arts, we remind that each of the 10 artworks in the Software Art Space catalog costs exactly 150 euros. We could discuss, as usual, about "who decides" which artists will gain ufficial recognition amongst the internationally "respected" critics and curators: with all the respect to all of the pioneers called to join Software Art Space, some of which i personally know and regard with human and professional respect, some of the projects are really scarce, evaluating them in comparison to the general level of quality of the other artworks on the market and in comparison to the value .of the artists themselves. The quality of the selected works also makes me reconsider the curatorial choice, or even the artist-gallerist relationship, culturally and economically distant from the ocean of digital and software artists working on a daily basis to find a adequate mix between art, technology, experiment and communication. This generation of artists feeds the underground circuits and keeps them alive. This is the only real area in which some experimenting is going on. A soul that is full of life, and that leads electronic arts despite any of the spasmodic shots at "officialization" and "aknowledgement".

Another thing that truly surprises is the choice of the commercial "cost" of the works. 150 euros are nothing in the rich and consumist western world; what a noble value is, thus, given to the digital work of art? A part of the contemporary art professionals have been trying for years to find a compromise and a dialoge between their world and the one of the underground generation of electronic art. To acheive it they decided to borrow the base practices of the art market and to apply them to digital experimentation: you decide the price of an artwork and the artist's cutural value gets automatically transformed to an economic one.

A fundamental doubt arising from such an operation sounds like: letting software art inside mainstream art necessarily creates the need to translate into prices and quotations the work of the artists, despite the identity of these forms of art? Is establishing the equivalence "work of art = money" really a process that is necessary to bring software art to the general public? (together, naturally, with all the other forms of electronic arts).

Taking for good that this process is really unvoidable and that the general public will tune in its antennas on an artwork only if it has a pricetag: how comes that the works of artists that are amongst the best and the best internationally known in one of the most active areas of digital arts get sold at totally laughable prices? It looks as if Sacks' operation should and could produce other perspectives and ambitions. Or, maybe, we could feed the suspect of thinking that producing 5000 pieces of a work and to sell each at 150euros, times the 10 works in catalogue, constitutes a mere search for profit, despite the presence of a wider discourse that is more open minded and that deals with the commercialization, the exhibition, the diffusion and consequent survival of artists, curators and professionals that work in the world of new media art, all without great financial sustainment, to use an euphemism?

Fixing a price of 150euros for works that should allow the entrance of software art in the galleries and art market circuits, addicted to way higher price tags, doesn't seem like an action able to offer to the general public a perception of the artworks as representative and selected from a cultural process in act, the process of digital creation inside contemporary art. The probable risk is that the art merchant or the gallerist deciding to buy one of the works offered by Software Art Space will not have the perception of having bought a work that is representative of software art, an area of contemporary art, but of a (possibly) good product at a reasonable price.

It's a law of the market: a mediocre price such as the one proposed by Sacks doesn't represent a quotation and, thus, it doesn't fit into the contemporary art market, it doesn't identify the works of art as such, but as a consumer product. Sacks' operation is ambiguous: the fact itself of deciding a price tag defines a distance between Software Art Space and the underground circuits; at the same time the economic value assigned to the works is not sufficient to cause its entrance in the world of contemporary art. The process of cultural value attribution doen't seem successful or, at least, it is poorly readable. The objective data remains: every work is a product on sale on a website, to be bought and consumed on your PC.

Thoughts immediately flash to the many other international software artists that will be seduced by Sacks' project, because the chimera of widspread profit is clearly visible, especially for a generation of pioneers that have made precise economic and not-economic choices in their lives, trusting a form of art and of communication that is establishing itself in these same years, inside a context without a market and without a structured distribution. From this point of view I understand and accept Steven Sacks' Software Art Space project.

On the other side I ask myself what future can such an operation have, which sense can it bear in the wider context of new media art and its distribution and commercialization, its cultural value.

Maybe when I ask myself these questions I already have some answers. I ask them to everyone who has read them up to this point. I ask myself what hundreds of software artists have to say, those same artists working with code all around the world, experimenting, getting their hands dirty, trying to find ways to use their art as a source of life and minimal economic profit. I ask myself these questions and i sincerely hope that someone has responses for me. Possibly even Steven Sacks, I will try to contact him. But I know that there are no answers, only diverging opinions and different artistic and professional territories, different interests and views on the world.

But being able to open our eyes wider allows for some space for justified doubt, remaining open minded and ready for a fast change of opinion... or for its extreme radicalization.

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Marco Mancuso
Digicult Director
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Ripa di Porta Ticinese 39
20134 Milano - Italy
Mob. +39.340.8371816
---------------------------
www.digicult.it
www.digicult.it/digimag
www.digicult.it/digipod
info AT digicult.it

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11.

From: Petra Cortright <petracortright AT gmail.com>
Date: Jul 11, 2007
Subject: Interview with Silicious

+Commissioned by Rhizome+

Interview with Silicious, by Petra Cortright

Berlin-based interdisciplinary artist Kathleen Daniel (aka Silicious) combines painting/ animation, music, costume design, and performance in her video art, which is as-yet still emerging in the fine art world, but has garnered her cult status online. Daniel was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and describes herself as eclectic. She has a humorous, imaginative vision that is evident in her voice, and she sites a challenging upbringing and youth fantasies as inspirations in her work. She says, "I sing for the poor souls closest to the street; the ones who suffer the most." Here she was interviewed by artist Petra Cortright, who incorporates questions posed by fellow fans Olia Lialina & Tom Moody.

PC: You are American, but now live in Germany. What was your motivation for moving abroad? How has it affected your work?

KD: Yes, I am an American, living in Germany. I came here because nothing was happening for me in my country (USA), which is too corporate, though not a problem if you’re not relying on a 9 to 5. Living in Germany has not affected my work, because my mind trips 24/7 and living here is nothing but a meatball - nothing major is happening that would change my inner being. My goal is to hype my music and animation to the next level, then return to the States - or at least become international.


PC: What programs or technology do you use to create your work?

KD: Because some are given to me I don’t want to mention them, but to name a few, Frame Forge and Blender 3D and for music: Cubase. As an artist, I do a lot of work in an image-editing program, where I can express myself. Years ago I had an oil-painting exhibition in San Mateo, California, that was written in the San Mateo Weekly.


PC: On average do you usually start with the visuals and then set them to music, or vice-versa? Or do you find yourself working on both simultaneously? (This question comes from Tom Moody).

KD: Most of the time I do music first, then the visuals, because I draw on the music to do the visuals. Humor is my forte, and at present I’m working on an animated sitcom and any time I do a lot of dialog - the music is last because I draw on the mood of the characters to create the music.


PC: The subject matter of your imagery is unique and provocative (for example the tiled background of your YouTube page is a woman strangling herself and vomiting) as well as surreal and heavily fantasy-based. What are some main sources of inspiration that the imagery is derived from, if any?

KD: Salvador Dali is my inspiration, but I have always been slightly weird in expressing myself artistically. I was a hippy and took acid and magic-mushroom trips and still have that mentality today - without the acid and mushroom. A free-spirited, laid-back, freakadelic.


PC: What are other YouTube channels or artists you are interested / influenced by right now - any recommendations? (This question comes from Olia Lialina).

KD: I don’t spend a lot of time looking at videos on YouTube. Some producers send me videos to comment on, but my taste is so weird none stand out, and so none come to mind. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are some dynamite videos out there, I just haven’t seen them. I run in, answer my mail and get off, because it is distracting and I need to keep focused.

Addendum: Regarding the question [above], it bothered me that I couldn´t even name one artist on Youtube. So I checked out some in the animation and came up with http://www.youtube.com/dorrin I like their video "We´re out." And i like www.youtube.com/tonireyna The theme on "Strawberry Pie" is a bit fluff for my taste, but I like the animation. Most animation is geared toward children, and mine targets the hip-hop, free-minded in-your-face crowd.


PC: In your YouTube profile it says, "I’m a one-woman production of music and animation and screenplays - an eccentric butterfly, who does not perform." I take that this means you choose not to perform live - why not?

KD: Yeah, I choose not to perform because I’m a behind-the-scenes person. I cherish my privacy and am a creating-aholic. When I first came to Germany I used to perform to make a living, but I hated it and felt it was a waste of my time - because when performing you’re singing songs you’ve already done, which bores me to death. I love creating, not singing stale songs. And, I cherish my privacy and need peace of mind in order to create.


PC: You also said that YouTube can be "distracting" - do you find the Internet as a whole distracting or just certain sites?

KD: YouTube and Myspace or any site can be distracting, seeing as you have millions of personalities on the Internet, which is like a big city. And like any major city, you have angry, devious and scheming souls that only want to do harm or ruin someone’s day. They leave rude messages or hack your website, for the hell of it. Someone hacked my Myspace page, and sent devious email to my so-called friends, in my name. It took me all day to re-pimp my page, but took me a week to mentally get over it. It was like being raped. Needless to say, that day I accomplished nothing creative.


PC: What do you in your free time when you aren't making work?

KD: I play chess, read, or look at pictures of little fat babies that I might have torn out of the newspaper. I call them little know-nothings and feel physically sick when one is harmed, like the little UK girl kidnapped in Portugal. I’ve always been for the under-dog, especially children, and remember reading an article of a man beating a little 3 year old to death, I broke down crying.


+ http://www.youtube.com/user/silicious

+ Petra Cortright is an artist from Santa Barbara, California who now resides in Brooklyn and studies at Parsons School of Design, in New York. She is a member of the Nasty Nets "internet surfing club."

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Rhizome.org is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and an affiliate of the New Museum of Contemporary Art.

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

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Rhizome Digest is filtered by Marisa Olson (marisa AT rhizome.org). ISSN: 1525-9110. Volume 12, number 27. Article submissions to list AT rhizome.org are encouraged. Submissions should relate to the theme of new media art and be less than 1500 words. For information on advertising in Rhizome Digest, please contact info AT rhizome.org.

To unsubscribe from this list, visit http://rhizome.org/subscribe. Subscribers to Rhizome Digest are subject to the terms set out in the Member Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php.

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