June 2009
eContact! wishes to extend an open call for contributions to an upcoming issue focussing on "Open Source for Audio Application." Suggestions for contributions include, but are not limited to the following projects, ideas and issues surrounding open source and free (libre) software: THE "TRAVEL GUIDE" TO OPEN SOURCE A number of wiki pages have been set up and are being developed in true open source character: written and maintained *by* the community *for* the community. http://cecpublic.pbworks.com/OpenSource SOCIAL / POLITICAL - politics of open source, freeware and shareware - gender and technology - community-building as a result/extension of open source activities - community exclusivity as a result/extension of open source activities - music sharing / liberal licensing TECHNICAL - system and programme stability and reliability, resource efficiency - inclusivity / exclusivity (software, operating system, plugins etc.) - compatibility with hardware / other software - flexibility of customizable environments - problem-solving for technical issues ARTISTIC - does the use of open source imply / support alternative aesthetic approaches to artistic creation? - article / review / gallery featuring the work of one or more artists who are working with open source - blurring of the boundary between programmer/developer and artist in a DIY environment Contact Coordinating Editor Jef Chippewa to express interest in contributing. |
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[Metahaven / Exodus - ISEA 2008/ photo: neural.it] ISEA2010 RUHR is the 16th International Symposium on Electronic Art, a major conference and exhibition event for art, media and technology, scheduled for 20-29 August 2010 in the German Ruhr region (Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg, a. o.). We invite proposals for conference papers, artist presentations, exhibition projects, live performances, and art projects in public space. Visual artists, musicians, dancers, designers, engineers, software artists, researchers, theorists, media activists, and hybrids of these, working with recent technologies and exploring the artistic, creative and critical potentials of digital and electronic media, should submit their projects or papers online by 15 September 2009. All submissions will be evaluated by an international jury. The results of the jury process and invitations for ISEA2010 RUHR are expected by the end of 2009. Please note that all submitted information can be edited and completed until the submission deadline. Detailed information about the submission process can be found at: http://www.isea2010ruhr.org/submission For more info please contact: call@isea2010ruhr.org |
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In recent months, progress on archiving some of our older issues has stalled while we've focused on other issues. We are happy (and relieved) to announce that we have finally (re)launched our spring 2007 issue on Sample Culture. This issue was undoubtedly one of our favourites, it broadly catalogued the issues and aesthetics of copyleft culture in music and a range of other disciplines. Vague Terrain 07: Sample Culture includes work from: Brad Collard, Christian Marc Schmidt, Defasten, Des Cailloux et du Carbone, [dNASAb], Eduardo Navas, Eskaei, Ezekiel Honig (interviewed by Evan Saskin), Freida Abtan, Jakob Thiesen, Jeremy Rotsztain, Jennifer Machiorlatti & Rebekah Farrugia and Ortiz. If you've never examined the issue before, please take a moment to do so - two years later and we're still very happy with the work. |
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Just as we bragged about starting to get our archives in order we discovered a semi-serious technical glitch. We had a backend database hiccup that has disrupted character encoding throughout the site. This means that a bunch of characters such as apostrophes, accents and even umlauts (not the umlaute!) will display as question marks - this is occurring on many of the journal pages. We are working on a database fix to address this issue as we would really rather not hand correct every page on the site. Please bear with us. Vague Terrain will be slightly vague-er than usual until we resolve these issues. 04/07/09 Update: We have determined the cause of the problem and are in the process of fixing it. Unfortunately we're going to have to manually correct the errant pages in our archives, but we can prevent this from happening again with a little database rejigging. |
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PIXXELPOINT 2009: Once Upon a Time in the West We keep on talking about “new media”, while in actually fact these media are anything but new. The Net is twenty years old, if we start counting from the advent of the Web, forty if we start from Arpanet. Spacewar!, the first videogame ever, is more or less the same age. Virtual worlds are the updated, lighter versions of a technology acclaimed as “the future” when Second Life programmers were still in diapers; social networks are the bastard sons of Fidonet. As for the computer, it is younger than Lord Byron, but certainly not than his daughter Ada. Once upon a time there was the electronic frontier, an abandonware myth which was able to regenerate itself thanks to the continuous advance of the frontier itself. Like in space, in technological progress there's no ocean at the end of the trip. But, unlike the space race, the race to the next technology is endless, and endlessness is boring. Yet, while we got used to innovation and the day-after rhetorics, we have never got used to the loss of the past. We look back to what was new yesterday and is trash today, and we feel a deep sense of nostalgia. Commodore 64 and 386dx. The first Apple Macintosh. Bulletin Board Systems. Animated gifs. Glittering images. Web buttons. Super Mario. Doom. Napster. Jennicam. Mosaic. ASCII art. MIDIs and MOOs. Not to mention VHS, vinyl, audio cassettes, cathode tubes, portable radios, faxes. It is the kind of nostalgia that we feel for a relative who died young, once the pain abates: you are left wondering what kind of man he would have been. Or for someone that, once grown up, does not live up to his or her promise. Sometimes nostalgia develops into historical research, and becomes media archeology. We don't look for the technologies that we once loved, but those we have never seen in action. But in both the cases, in the artistic field this sentimental look at the past is producing some brand new, interesting stuff. Reviving dead media and obsolete technologies, retrieving and rekindling their aesthetics, making them do things they were never expected to do, and telling stories about them with other means is proving to be a sound artistic strategy – undoubtedly more so than “the exploration of the artistic potential of new media” which became the mantra of most New Media Art. This happens because, when you give up on the rhetorics of novelty, what is left on stage is the human element: the man of the past who domesticated the media, put his own life into them and was changed by them; and the man of the present, who looks back on that past with the same sentiment as the venerable Sergio Leone looked to the West. On the occasion of its 10th Birthday, Pixxelpoint festival wants to explore this feeling. Clean out your attic, the folders you haven’t touched for years, GIF repositories, your university's warehouse, and the dumps of Silicon Valley – or its small-town emulators. Get your hands on this stuff, and send us your finds. Any media is allowed, apart from new! Domenico Quaranta, curator ENTRY FORM (PDF): http://www.pixxelpoint.org/entryform2009.pdf |
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