arslog

«(...)Human design has made nature hypernatural. Hypernature is an exaggerated simulation of a nature that never existed. It’s better than the real thing: a little bit prettier, slicker and safer than the old kind. Hypernature is culture in disguise...»

«American Dreamers, the exhibition currently on view at Strozzina, Center for Contemporary Culture at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, invites us to question what remains of the American dream in this age of weak economy, war on terror and housing crisis.

(...)How do contemporary artists react and comment on the situation? While many of them have chosen to document the social and economic crisis, others are using it to build a refuge, an alternative world made of fantasy and illusions. This second reality might sometimes present a veneer of nostalgia and hedonism but it always comes with a dark undercurrent.

(...) American Dreamers remains open Strozzina, Center for Contemporary Culture at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence until 15 July 2012.» - Regine

"Led by professor Roel Vertegaal, a research team at the Human Media Lab of Canada's Queen's University has created a fascinating 360-degree display called the Telepod. It consists of a human-being-sized acrylic cylinder, six Microsoft Kinect sensors and a 3D projector, and as you'll see in the video below, affords the viewer an experience similar to interacting with a hologram. The cylinder displays a live, three-dimensional image of the person with whom you're interacting, and you can circumnavigate the cylinder to get a completely wraparound view.

The research team foresees at least two applications of the technology. The first, called TeleHuman, is basic teleconferencing. The second application, called BodiPod, could revolutionize the medical industry. It provides..." - hipstomp

"A number of life-support machines are connected to each other, circulating liquids and air in attempt to mimic a biological structure...

Revital Cohen managed to track down and acquire a Heart-Lung Machine, a Dialysis Machine, an Infant Incubator, a Mechanical Ventilator and an Intraoperative Cell Salvage Machine. She connected the discarded organ replacement machines together and had them 'breathe' in closed circuits. The machines of The Immortal keep each other alive through circulation of electrical impulses, oxygen and artificial blood.

(...) Cohen has long been investigating how machines, peripherals and even animals can work as extension of the body or substitutes of body parts. This time however, the human body has been removed from the scene. Yet, its presence and fragility can still be felt...

(...) Far from being just assemblages of tubes and circuits, the machines intersect with our culture, fears and beliefs..." - Regine

"Low Lives 4: Networked Performance Festival — 60 live performance-based works over two days, each transmitted over the web and projected in real time at venues across the globe :: April 27, 2012; 8:30 - 11:30 pm (EST) and April 28; 3:00 - 6:00 pm (EST) :: Streamed at www.lowlives.net.

The project celebrates the transmission of ideas beyond geographical and cultural borders, offering global audiences the opportunity to consider live performance in both physical and virtual space. By featuring performances at numerous venues and broadcasting those works via online networks, Low Lives provides a new model for efficiently presenting, viewing, and archiving live performance-based art..." - Jo-Anne Green

"Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans, collectively known as JODI, are rightfully venerated for their countless contributions to art and technology, working as an artistic duo since the mid-90’s. Generally referred to as pioneers of “net.art,” that oft-misunderstood “movement” combining the efforts of artists using the internet as a medium circa 1994, JODI is revered not only for their artistic meditations on the increasing presence of new technology in our daily lives, but also for their fuck-if-I-care attitude toward both the establishments of the technology and art worlds. JODI’s famous five-word “acceptance” speech—if you could call it that—for their 1999 Webby Award in art, simply read, 'Ugly commercial sons of bitches.'

Unlike an overwhelming majority of artists, and especially those in art and tech, JODI has managed to sustain a successful career for over 15 years, mounting exhibitions internationally. February 2011 saw the duo literally blow its audience in the face with bomb-like cans of oxygen at Foxy Production, accounting for one of the best performances of the year.

Yet, their recently launched exhibition at the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) finds a flashy, overly simplistic exhibition that fails to represent the deeply important perspective that JODI has come to represent over the last two decades..." - Karen Archey

"A floating tidemill on the UK's River Tyne has been filled with "electro-acoustic musical machinery," powered by the river itself. The building, a collaboration between Owl Project and Ed Carter, called Flow, is 'a floating building on the River Tyne that generates its own power using a tidal water wheel.'

The acoustic machines inside, powered by CNC-milled wooden gears and timber pistons, 'respond directly to the ever-changing state of the river. The sounds created by each instrument can also be manipulated by visitors to the millhouse.'

Specifically, the floating auditorium includes 'three inter-connected sonic instruments which mix traditional craft and digital innovation. They draw water from the River Tyne, passing it through a series filters, lasers and sensors, which bubble, beep, hiss, creak and groan.'..."

"Rem Koolhaas is a leading urban theorist and a Pritzker Prize–winning architect who is engaged in building projects around the world. He co-founded the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), which is receiving international attention for its recent completion of an enigmatic new headquarters for China Central Television (CCTV) in Beijing.

Here, Koolhaas discusses how the economic and cultural changes of the 21st century are transforming world cities as well as the practice of architecture..." - Paul Fraioli

«It’s out, and gradually in book stores — What is Media Archaeology? (Polity), my new book about media archaeology (what a surprise)! It picks up where the edited volume Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications, and Implications (Huhtamo and Parikka) left off; this means the implications bit, and how media archaeology relates to other recent discussions in art, cultural and media theory: software studies, new materialism, archives, and more. In other words, it complements the earlier collection...» - Jussi Parikka

"The nature of humanity in the twenty-first century is, according to sociologist Steve Fuller, a ‘bipolar disorder’ beset with dualisms of identification such as divine/animal, mind/body, nature/artifice and individual/social. He notes that they have challenged our collective sense of identity as ‘human’, particularly though the operationalization of the mind/body question in new material configurations of metallic or silicon bodies. In short, we are ‘becoming’ machines. Inventor Ray Kurtzweil and performance artist Marcel Li Antunez Roca both explore this notion in their projections about the future of the human body. Yet ‘emergentist’ philosophers and scientists have challenged the mechanistic model of matter since the late 18th and early 19th century. They propose another way of understanding the organization of matter, without resorting to the customary mechanist – vitalist dichotomy. Observations from the biological and chemical sciences demonstrate that..."

"This lengthy post is part of a Critical Media Art Course. The theme of the week was “Life”, and the readings provided focused on Bioart, and the concerns around it. Following an introduction to the term of Bioart, concerns and ethics are introduced, followed by a selection of artworks which, we believe, are important to the theme despite the significant differences between artworks..." - by Jesse Oyegbesan, Aurelie Ghalim, Ula Jurgiel & Clément Adam