LONDON – Microsoft’s investment in its UK sales support has paid dividends, with agencies ranking it the best- performing digital media owner on sales service performance.
Take two persons whose work in the media art field i’ve been admiring for years. Have their minds communicate for more than a couple of minutes. What is going to happen?
UBERMORGEN.COM (Lizvlx/Hans Bernhard), Psych|OS – Hans 2, 2004. Lambda print on aluminium. 100 x 150 cm. Edition of 5. Private Collection, Brussels / Fabio Paris Art Gallery, Brescia
Yves Bernard is the director of iMAL (interactive Media Art Laboratory), a space dedicated to contemporary artistic and cultural practices emerging from the fusion of computer, telecommunication, network and media. iMAL is the only space that doesn’t put the Belgian french-speaking community i come from to total shame. The presence and recognition of media art varies from country to country but nowhere are these differences as tangible as in Belgium: while Flanders supports media art generously and dynamically for years, the rest of the country believes that media art equals video art. The work of Yves and his team is admired way beyond our national borders but strives to get the attention it deserves in the french-speaking community.
Domenico Quaranta is an art critic and curator living in Brescia, a small-ish city of Northern Italy. He shrugs when i tell him that one day he’ll rule over the art world but that’s because i have more faith in his brilliant writings, impeccable taste and broad culture than he does.
Yves and Domenico took the opportunity offered by Art Brussels, the international contemporary art fair which closed yesterday, to get the eyes of the contemporary art world set onto digital art. With more passion and talent than real budget they curated and organized Holy Fire. Art of the Digital Age, an impressive exhibition featuring the kind of digital artworks susceptible to convince the contemporary art world that digital art should get the place and understanding it deserves in the contemporary art panorama.
To be honest, i needed such exhibition. Last Summer i realized that i was getting a much more fruitful and satisfying art experience at the Venice Biennale than at Ars Electronica. Media art often suffers from faddism and from a series of misunderstandings. For example, i can’t count the number of times i heard someone (or seen an exhibition) confuse “something weird done with technology” with media art.
Joan Leandre, The Kernel Peak: At my Limit(Unknown Universal Series), 2008. Digital Print. 140×102 cm. Edition of 5. Courtesy Project Gentili, Prato
No such risk here. The quality of most of the works on show at iMAL is outstanding. The exhibition counts more than 20 pieces, i’ll just highlight a handful of them:
After a year long immersion in World of Warcraft, Eddo Stern translated the legends, obsessions and symbols of the subculture he had experienced into his art practice. With Emoticon, Stern uses icons and emoticons from online forums to crown and dress a synthetic goddess – herself an icon – which smiles, pouts, frowns, cries and expresses the other emotions at her command in the most languorous way.
Eddo Stern, Emoticon, 2007. 3D computer animation with sound on 42 inch plasma screen. Running time 3 minutes. Edition of 3. Private Collection, Brussels / Courtesy Postmasters Gallery, New York
For their participation at the Venice Biennale in 2001, Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org turned a virus Biennale.py into a work of art and spread it from the Slovenian Pavilion on the opening day of the exhibition. The Perpetual Self Dis/Infecting Machine features the Biennale.py virus. Trapped into a computer devoid of any connection to a network, the virus does its best to spread its wings and start its contagious process, but the machine fights back and submits it to a disinfection process. The power game is repeated again and again. Ad vitam eternam.
Eva and Franco Mattes (0100101110101101.ORG), Perpetual Self Dis/Infecting Machine, 2001-2003. Custom made computer infected with the virus Biennale.py. 70 x 50 x 13 cm. Courtesy Fabio Paris Art Gallery, Brescia.
Reface [Portrait Sequencer], by Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman, is a video mash-up that composes endless combinations of visitors’ faces. The installation records and remixes brief video slices of its viewers’ mouths, eyes and brows. Even if visitors move in front of the display the system will line up their face. The images recorded are “edited” by the participants’ own eye blinks. Blinking also triggers the display to advance to the next set of face combinations.
“Reface (Portrait Sequencer)”, 2006, LCD screen, custom software, computer, camera, plexiglass enclosure. Edition of 6. bitforms gallery, New York
Oh, yes! at this point is should also note that in an attempt to explore how new media art, bypassing all the stereotypes connected with its presumed immateriality and difficulties of maintenance, was able to enter the art market, the works on show at Holy Fire come from galleries and collections from around the world (USA, Europe, Russia).
Strangely, the “romantic” idea that to be a valuable artist you have to starve, drink yourself blind with absinthe and die alone in your chambre de bonne is still very much alive and kicking.
Holy Fire shows that it doesn’t have to be the case for media artist by choosing to exhibit only collectible new media artworks already on the art market, in the form of traditional media (prints, videos, sculptures) or customized new media objects.
The art market offers new sources of income for new media artists. Up to now, these have been limited – when they exist – to public funding from institutions and governments, sometimes dictated by politics. An art market can help develop a new economy through direct relations between artists and art consumers, confirming the artists’ social role and the support of the people who are increasingly looking for something different from mass-produced digital gadgets.
Jodi, Max Payne Cheats Only, 2004. Video installation (2 channels). Private Collection, Brussels
More images from the exhibition.
To investigate the theme explored by Holy Fire: you can either have a look at the discussion about Holy Fire on rhizome and get your hands on the catalog of the exhibition which features opiniated contributions from many protagonists of the media art world.
Even better you can give your view by collaborating to aminima study about the new media art market.
Gazira Babeli. Gaz Of The Desert – Pieta, 2007. Lambda print. 70 x 107 cm. Edition of 3. Collection Marchina-Ghizzardi, Brescia / Courtesy Fabio Paris Art Gallery, Brescia
Holy Fire (yes, the title is inspired by one of Bruce Sterling‘s books) is on view at iMAL (google map), Brussels through April 30, 2008.
Related: walking around Chelsea, A conversation about exhibiting and selling digital fine art.
An important – and perfect for any class on media, communications, propaganda, or PR — investigative piece from NYTimes about how Pentagon has been using uniformed talking heads to build support for its positions:
“To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts†whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world. Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.”
Update [Apr 28, 2008]. Pentagon said it temporarily suspended the media analyst program. – Huffington Post
A heat map of Google clicks and attention distribution on a Google search results page from a 2006 eyetracking study. Useful for making PowerPoints more dramatic, but beware of the methodological limitations.
A work-related question that turned out trickier than it looked: where do you start searching for a company that provides search engine optimization services if you are not familiar with the SEO space?
Here are a few tips by Aaron Wall back from 2004 — search SEO forums, read ClickZ articles, get recommendations — but this is not very helpful for someone who has never been exposed to SEO before. You could probably try looking at the highest-ranking competitors then seeing if their names would come up on some SEO company’s client list, but again, this involves some understanding what to look for and I’d imagine this method is not horribly reliable either.
But then, how about typing “search engine optimization services” or a few similar combinations into Google and work your way from the top down? Doesn’t it make sense? Do companies that rank higher charge more? I see a few results that apparently have been pushed up by Google based on my Boston IP address – even better.
What do you think?
VBS.TV is broadcasting a 12-part series called “Garbage Island,” which follows the adventures of angry kids that scoop up, examine and lament the drifting artificial refuse we’ve forcefed Mother Earth.
Early today Advertising Age ripped into Starbucks for its Pike Place coupons and throwback cups (in-store for six weeks, a barista told us). All part of an ongoing attempt to rekindle stale sparks with a costly ($100 million) promotional campaign, which is looking more Grocery Chain — and less Indie Cafe — by the minute.
HONG KONG – New Digital Noise (NDN) has developed a new 3D real-time interactive kiosk, which it hopes will alter the current focus on two-dimensional advertising.
BEIJING – Chinese interactive advertising company SinoTech Media has promoted Laker Chen (pictured) from chief operating officer to become CEO of SinoTech Search.
While the IS F tears up the open road, the young lovers are on a path to tear their relationship apart. In the chapters that follow, eight additional authors have their way with Terence and Julia.
In Doctor’s Office, Cat Sitting and Airport, Wieden+Kennedy, NY depict ESPN Radio as a network so down-to-earth that audience members will think nothing of taking liberties I wouldn’t take with my mom.
This website, where you can make a symphony out of other people’s laughter, is disturbing. I swept my mouse over a few faces by chance and am suffering from serious chill-factor, probably because The Exorcist has warped my perspective of all things sweet and cuddly.
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Advertising is the latest industry to be struck by the old adage “history repeats itself.” Prior to the 70s, seeing Live Ads was nothing unusual. But with pre-recorded TV came recorded ads. Â Today, the rise of the TiVo/DVR era has advertisers looking back to the Live Commercial to sell their products. Late night and daytime talk shows (Ellen DeGeneres is above, hawking for Toyota) have started reviving this once popular advertising trend. However, I wonder – how will this affect the commercial? Will we be left with a lack of concepting? Or will this lead way to a new way of creative thinking?
The power of the sun is incredible, and with Earth Day coming up, we thought we’d highlight some of the top innovations in solar technology. This is part two of the solar cluster, featuring 30 solar powered communities, cities, individual pieces of architecture and other larger scale inventions.
I…
(TrendHunter.com) The power of the sun is incredible, and with Earth Day coming up, we thought we’d highlight some of the top innovations in solar technology. This is part two of the solar cluster, featuring 30 solar powered communities, cities, individual pieces of architecture and other larger scale inventions.
I…
Google’s VP in charge of search quality, Udi Manber, gives a rare interview to Popular Mechanics.
Here’s a few interesting things from the articles.
1) There were 450 changes (he calls them “improvements”) to the natural search algorithm in the past year.
2) Personalised search is well underway. For users logged into a Google account and have opted […]
Designer Kyle Bean created a design to demonstrate how technology has changed the way we source information and relate to books. He made a laptop out of a cheap book to create a visual that illustrates the issue.
Yanko Design notes, “The book/laptop, has a CD-Rom drive complete with CD, a keyboard…
(TrendHunter.com) The middle ages have had a strong influence on fashion lately, with a lot of collection bearing medieval themes. However, the movement has gone beyond the catwalk and into the home. You can now have a giant, custom Medieval Portrait created for your living room.
Eyeworks Photography is offering hi…
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