Alan Kay's Universal Media Machine
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media-N The Online Journal of the New Media Caucus | PDF optimized for duplex printing Art in the Age of Technological Seduction Fall 2006 v.02, n.03 http://www.newmediacaucus.org/media-n/2006/v02/n03 Media-N Editorial Board Rachel Clarke, Editor in Chief | [email protected] Rachel Clarke is a digital media artist and is Assistant Professor in Electronic Art in the Art Department at California State University, Sacramento. Clarke’s work intertwines themes of nature and culture, and explores intersections of technology and identity. Works involve a variety of approaches and media: drawing, video, imaging, installation and interactivity In fall 2003, she curated a show of national and international artists using new media, entitled Postflesh: Visualizing the Techno-Self at the University Library Gallery, Sacramento State University. Petronio Bendito, [email protected] Petronio Bendito is an Assistant Professor of Art and Design at Purdue University, where he teaches in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts. His research areas include human-computer conceptual models, digital aesthetics, digitally rendered color, and collaborative digital art projects with dancers and musicians. He has presented his research work in numerous conferences including SIGGRAPH, AIC and IVLA. Heather D. Freeman, [email protected] Heather D. Freeman's background is in the traditional media of drawing and assemblage, now integrated with digital print and video. She is interested in the languages and symbolic forms of science and where these intersect with mythic, religious and popular iconography. Freeman teaches at Clemson University in the art department and the RCID (Rhetorics, Communication and Information Design) PhD program. Her work is regularly exhibited regionally and nationally and has appeared in international exhibitions in Canada, Cuba, Germany, Hungary and Sweden. Conrad Gleber, [email protected] Conrad Gleber is Associate Professor of Art at Florida State University, where he teaches the history and critical issues of new media. His artwork uses digital audio and video in public environments to elaborate the shift of focus in art discourse from object to process. He helped to found the New Media Caucus and is on the board of the International Digital Media & Art Association. Jim Jeffers, [email protected] University of Massachusetts Lowell. He is an inter-media artist working with computer mediation, performance, photography and video in conjunction with conventional media: currently working at the nexus of fantasy and biography (Fantabiography) fabricating a personal popular culture. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, and is a member of the College Art Association, the Association for Computing Machinery SIGGRAPH, and a founding member and Communications Officer of the New Media Caucus. Alec MacLeod, [email protected] Alec MacLeod is Associate Professor, California Institute of Integral Studies. His research includes the visual culture of digital media, (self) presentation in virtual media and the relationship between appearance and reality. He is a member of SIGGRAPH, AoIR and IVLA. Doreen Maloney, [email protected] Doreen LaMantia Maloney is Associate Professor of New Media in the Art Department of the University of Kentucky. She works in video, predominantly in multi-screen sculptural installation. Much of her work uses surveillance to capture personal history and examines the effects of media on culture through observation of language and gesture. Currently she is the President of the New Media Caucus, a group she founded to help create a community for the digital diaspora. Gwyan Rhabyt, [email protected] Gwyan Rhabyt is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and the Graduate Multimedia Program at California State University East Bay. He makes performed sculptures and interactive installations that focus on human memory and imperfect communicatio Cover Art: Sissel Tolaas, Fear I, 2005 Art in the Age of Technological Seduction, media-N, Fall 2006, v.02, n.03 2 www.newmediacaucus.org/media-n/2006/v02/n03 Table of Contents 05 Editorial Statement Rachel Clarke (Editor-in-Chief, Media-N) 06 Introduction Legier Biederman & Joshua Callaghan (Guest Editors) PAPERS 08 Alan Kay’s Universal Media Machine Lev Manovich 17 Between Art and Design Jill Miller 19 The Remix Aesthetic Jamie O’ Neil 29 X Notes on Practice: Stubborn Structures and Insistent Seepage in a Networked World Raqs Media Collective 38 Engineering Environmental Seduction: The Arts and Technologies of Natalie Jeremijenko Charles Zerner 44 On the Geek As Humanist Claudia Hart 48 Let me Tell you something: Why I like Movies Better than Art Gordon Winiemko 51 Sensorium: New Media Complexities for Embodied Experience Caroline A. Jones 63 Re)sounding Fantasy and Seeking Pleasure: Brad Neely’s Hideously Fabulous Wizard People, Dear Reader Katie Brewer Ball 68 Instrumental Conceptions of Images and the Globalized 'Everyday' Jane Chin Davidson Art in the Age of Technological Seduction, media-N, Fall 2006, v.02, n.03 3 www.newmediacaucus.org/media-n/2006/v02/n03 70 The Myth of New Media Andrew McNamara 73 Afterword: Artifice and Interactivity Donald Preziosi NOTES FROM THE FIELD 78 José Carlos Teixeira, Tirtza Even, Lida, Lucas Michael, Warren Sack, Brett Stalbaum, Angie Waller, Jeffrey Wells, Damon Willick, Komninos Zervos REVIEWS 84 Where Art Thou Net.Art? Randall Packer 86 SIGGRAPH 2006 Exhibition: Audiovisual Art Dan Hermes 88 Art in the Right Place: The Singapore Biennale 2006 Matthew Slaats 90 CALL FOR PAPERS Art in the Age of Technological Seduction, media-N, Fall 2006, v.02, n.03 4 www.newmediacaucus.org/media-n/2006/v02/n03 Editorial Statement Editor’s Note This stunning edition of media-N Art in the Age of Technological Seduction is guest-edited by Legier Biederman and Joshua Callaghan. It delves into many critical aspects of new media art, exploring some of the most pertinent issues of today’s culture. Each text examines an issue with depth and clarity, broadening the horizons of debate, challenging assumptions and prompting further inquiry. Thank you, Legier and Joshua for bringing together this broad array of compelling articles. The edition also includes reviews and commentaries from recent national and international media arts festivals and conferences – thank you to all our contributors. Please check out the Call for Papers for information on the upcoming edition of media-N, Bits, Bytes and the Rhetoric of Practice: New Media Artist Statements, new deadline for submissions: April 30 2007. In this upcoming edition of media-N, we invite new media arts practitioners to submit personal artist statements and examples of their practice – we want to hear about you and your practice. Rachel Clarke Editor-in-Chief, Media-N California State University, Sacramento [email protected] Art in the Age of Technological Seduction, media-N, Fall 2006, v.02, n.03 5 www.newmediacaucus.org/media-n/2006/v02/n03 Introduction Legier Biederman & Joshua Callaghan Legier Biederman Joshua Callaghan Doctoral Candidate Los Angeles based artist Critical Theory & Contemporary Art [email protected] Department of Art History University of California, Los Angeles [email protected] In recent years, digital technologies have penetrated our lives in innumerable ways. How do we begin to understand and critically engage with the complex effects of this deluge of information? These technologies not only changed our ways of doing things, but also profoundly conditioned our experience of ourselves and others. Have these shifts in technological processes of imaging, communication, information collection and dissemination enabled a break with established power structures and thus flattened hierarchies? Have they changed our ways of imagining and knowing? Or are they simply maintaining and re-enforcing existing hegemonic structures of power? The diverse essays, responses and anecdotes gathered here to address “Art in the Age of Technological Seduction” attempt to create a wedge in what is otherwise a shut door, to begin an ongoing and necessary discussion of our investments, desires, expectations and ambivalences within a world permeated by new technologies. Many students today have grown up completely immersed in digital technologies, using them organically as extensions of their hands, eyes, ears and mouths. Millions of people use Web 2.0 internet based services, such as wikis, myspace, flickr, youtube, facebook and many others, and many others as stages on which to endlessly fashion and perform their identities. Despite the radical "newness" incessantly associated with these modes of communication, are the personal experiences— the awkwardness of puberty, the pressure to succeed, the desire for approval—different than in past generations? The idea of the radical break, separating the “new” from the decisively “old,” the self from the other, is a touchstone upon which much of modernity defines itself. Again and again, “new” media art is characterized as being on the edge, as pushing the limits and frontiers of art and life. Yet, this way of thinking is grounded in an obsolete modernist discourse seduced by the medium. Discussions focusing on formal aspects of new media, such as interactivity, non-linearity, duration, process and collaboration have occupied a privileged position in new media criticism. These discussions have often led to a wholesale separation of form and content, muting more complex engagements with the politics, cultural biases and power