February 23, 2004

a couple logistics notes

1) Let's keep going "free-range" and concentrate on content, but please keep in mind that an obvious format and organization for our entries will emerge. The format may be separate fields for images, for a short description, for a one-liner on the entry's personal relevance, and for links.

2) Let's think about doing a 1-2 hour open presentation to the ITP community of some of our gems, hopefully in their original (or best documented) form. Could be fun.

Posted by naimark at 04:06 PM | Comments (1)

feb 23 notes and leads

Notes

Pleasing versus provocative art
- can be both (e.g., Picasso's Guernica)
- can converge from either direction

Role of context (e.g., 2 black lines on a white canvas as art)
- how imporant is background and motivations of the artist?
- how important is historical and cultural moment?

Role of credibility (e.g., Suicide Box)
- does it matter?

Role of addictiveness (e.g., Tetris and most video games)
- does addiction "equal" entertainment "not equal" art?

Leads

The Internet Archive

Oskar Fischinger, John and James Whitney, Jordan Belson, and the Iota Foundation (abstract motion pictures)

The filmmaker who turned the seats to face toward the projector and smoked up the space with incense, and made films for viewing as a sideways pyramid volume; steam/smoke projection in general.

Posted by naimark at 03:52 PM

February 09, 2004

feb 9 notes and leads

Hi All,

First, we hit on some good hard issues today, including art versus tool, content wedded to medium, and collectability.

Here are some notes and leads from today:

John Markoff, NY Times West Coast tech reporter, has a new book almost out on the "pre-history" of the computer revolution.

Also, someone may want to check "The History Map" made at the first "Hacker's Conference." Should be easy to find.

Someone wanted to check out Nam June Paik and Takashi Murakami.

And Jodi.org.

And David Rockeby, Canadian digital artist.

"Mail Art" has a quirky little history.

Alex Galloway, NY based artist, doesn't say "art," doesn't say "Alex," and makes open source enabling systems.

Reading: "Film as Art" by Rudolf Arnheim, originally written in 1932, argued that innovation (such as sound on film) is a step backward for aesthetic development.

Keep those entries coming!

Posted by naimark at 04:12 PM

February 02, 2004

feb 2 notes and leads


URLs:
GREAT snapshot of (jury-based) selections of 'electronic art' from 1987: http://www.aec.at/en/archives/prix_einstieg.asp
VR-centric history "From Wagner to VR" http://www.artmuseum.net/w2vr/contents.html

Books: Digital Art (Christiane Paul, Thames & Hudson, 2003) - nicely compact.
Future Cinema (Shaw and Weibel, MIT Press, 2003) - 600+ pages!
Both books have excellent "chapter 1"s (history)

Some random mentions:
- The File Room, Antoni Muntadas, 1994?, early participatory text-base website
- several emergent experiments, Karl Sims, artificial life guru
- December 28, 1895, First public exhibition of CINEMA (Paris, Lumiere brothers)
- Crystal Palace Expo, London, First World's Fair ("Expo"s). Lots happened at various expos over the years.

Posted by naimark at 02:55 PM | Comments (1)