Spring 2006 | V. 02, N. 01 | Mediated Perspectives
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media-N The Online Journal of the New Media Caucus | PDF version Spring 2006 | v. 02, n. 01 | Mediated Perspectives http://www.newmediacaucus.org/media-n/2006/v01/n02 The War Room, Tarek Al-Ghoussein and Chris Kienke | May 2006, Sharjah Biennial 7 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. She works in digital imaging, video, animation and installation. Clarke has exhibited internationally and throughout the United States. 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 A. Bendito, [email protected] Petronio Bendito is an Assistant Professor 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 processes. He has presented his research in numerous conferences including SIGGRAPH and AIC. Bendito is in the Board of Directors of the International Visual Literacy Association and the New Media Caucus. 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 communications through metaphors of technology. He writes about performance theory, interactive narrative, and authorship. Mediated Perspectives, media-N, Spring 2006, v. 02, n. 01 2 www.newmediacaucus.org/media-n/2006/v02/n01 Table of Contents Mediated Perspectives 04 Introduction to Mediated Perspectives Rachel Clarke PAPERS 05 Representing the Body in Cyberfeminist Art Juliet Davis 18 From New Media from the Periphery Nancy Atakan 29 MEDIA + WAR = War Room Judy Bullington 33 Leitmotif: Symbolic Illustration in Music Joseph Defazio 37 Media-Scope – Exploring the Opportunity Space for Digital Content Creators Bob Cotton COMMENTARY 42 The Randomness of “Randomness and Certainty” Zev Robinson REVIEW 45 Tropicália, Technology and Cultural Cannibalism Petronio A. Bendito, Susan Jane Britsch 49 CALL FOR PAPERS Mediated Perspectives, media-N, Spring 2006, v. 02, n. 01 3 www.newmediacaucus.org/media-n/2006/v02/n01 Editorial Statement Mediated Perspectives I am now delighted to introduce Mediated Perspectives, the second edition of media-N, invitational and peer-reviewed online journal of the New Media Caucus! This is the first of two editions of the journal to be released this calendar year, in March and September 2006. In this second edition, we sought a broad range of themes to enable us to define the scope of the New Media Caucus, the media-N journal and our readership. We invited two writers to share their views on new media and accepted submissions of papers on any topic of new media practice, research, debate or inquiry. From a broad range of submissions, we selected papers, a commentary and an exhibition review that reflect a number of areas of research and inquiry within the new media field. The papers explore cyberfeminism (Juliet Davis, Representing the Body in Cyberfeminist Art, invited paper); new media from Turkey (Nancy Atakan, From New Media from the Periphery, invited paper); an installation from Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (Dr. Judy Bullington, MEDIA + WAR = War Room); the Leitmotif as an aspect of new media arts (Joseph Defazio, Leitmotif: Symbolic Illustration in Music); and data visualization (Bob Cotton, Media-Scope – Exploring the Opportunity Space for Digital Content Creators). In the commentary, The Randomness of “Randomness and Certainty” Zev Robinson considers the function of random processes in the work of the UK collective, artafterscience, while Dr. Petronio Bendito and Dr. Susan Jane Britsch review the exhibition Tropicália: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture in the article Tropicália, Technology and Cultural Cannibalism. The aim of the journal is to reflect the energy and interests of media arts practitioners, educators and theorists. It will act as a voice for new media arts in culture, education and practice. We want it to be a vibrant platform, full of new and engaging discourse. We strongly encourage you to submit papers, reviews and commentaries for future editions of media-N. Notice that each issue will feature a call for texts for the next and forthcoming edition(s). Please contact us if you have any questions about the journal submissions, or suggestions for future issues. We’d love to hear from you! Rachel Clarke Editor-in-Chief, Media-N California State University, Sacramento [email protected] Mediated Perspectives, media-N, Spring 2006, v. 02, n. 01 4 www.newmediacaucus.org/media-n/2006/v02/n01 REPRESENTING THE BODY IN CYBERFEMINIST ART Juliet Davis The University of Tampa [email protected] In some respects, the term “cyberfeminist artist” might seem to be an inherently contradictory term—considering, for example, the Internet’s inception at the Department of Defense, its development through programming languages largely developed by men, its potential as a tool for globalization and corporatization, the proliferation of Internet pornography and e-commerce, and the implied exchange of embodied experience for a life of conceptual abstraction (i.e., a life in “cyberspace”). Yet, many feminists have appropriated interactive media, creatively engaging with cyber technologies in ways that may be no less intuitive and exciting than a painter’s interaction with her canvas and brushes. In some respects, interactive media artists have faced many of the same issues of representation that other artists have. For example, we might ask ourselves whether specific imagery is promoting stereotypes of women or showing us alternatives. These are fundamental issues that we assume become part of an artist’s responsibility as a cultural producer. But there is also the sense in which the medium becomes part of the message (as Marshall McLuhan is so famous for suggesting), and interactive media per se can uniquely problematize representation. Thinking about choice of medium as political choice or problematic choice may seem absurd to some artists—especially those who have come to define themselves in relationship to the media they use. For example, those who might see themselves as “painters” or “filmmakers” or “new media artists” might not feel obligated to justify why they paint or make film or create digital interactive work. It has even been argued that technology is not inherently good or bad. However, because media are inextricably linked to culture, they are unavoidably political, whether or not we choose to articulate the issues. For example, Ellen Seiter, in her article “Semiotics and Television” (published in Channels of Discourse: Television and Contemporary Criticism, 1984), points out that television has adopted “low status as an aesthetic text” (26), and we know it is rarely used as an art medium. Computers—as