slow by Brad Troemel

Update on Reading Group texts

RG meets almost every week on Sunday at 7:00 PM at NYU. E-mail me to be added to the mailing list for further details. bradtroemel at gmail dot com

41. Beryl Graham and Sarah Cook - Rethinking Curating (Art After New Media). Chapter 5 Participative Systems + Chapter 7 On Interpretation, On Display, On Audience
40. Anton Vidokle - Art Without Artists
39. Edward Shanken - Historicizing Art and Technology: Forging a Method and Firing a Canon + Art in the Information Age: Technology and Conceptual Art + Missing in Action: Agency and Meaning in Interactive Art + Response to Domenico Quaranta’s ‘The Postmedia Perspective + Cybernetics and Art: Cultural Convergence in the 1960s + Contemporary Art and New Media: Outline for Developing a Hybrid Discourse?
38. Readings and discussion with Triple Canopy editors Molly Kleiman and Sarah Resnick. Bob Stein and Dan Visel - Mao, King Kong, and the Future of the Book, Anja Utler trans by Kurt Beals - Sibyl and Marsayas, Ellie Ga - A Hole to See the Ocean Through, Joe Milutis - R, Adieu
37. Readings and discussion with Gabriella Coleman - The Hacker Conference: A Ritual Condensation and Celebration of a Lifeworld + An unpublished essay about the the role of Lulz in Anonymous’s activities.
36. Hans Ulrich Obrist interview with Wikileaks’ Julian Assange
35. Nicolas Bourriaud - Relational Aesthetics, The Radicant
34. Readings and discussion with Christiane Paul - Context and Archive: Presenting and Preserving Net-based Art + Challenges for a Ubiquitous Museum: Interfacing New Media—From the White Cube to the Black Box and Beyond
33. Domenico Quaranta - In Your Computer - Lost in Translation. Or, Bringing Net Art to Another Place? + The Unbearable Aura of a Website. Originality in the Digital Age
32. Reading and discussion with Jacob Lillemose - ”It’s Contemporary Art, Stupid” Curating computer based art out of the ghetto
31. School Nite reading courtesy of Collective Show at 233 Mott St. Carson Chan - Measures of an Exhibition + Jennifer Allen - HARK! Does Art Have a Second Life Online?
30. Viewing of the film Network (1976), written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet
29. Readings and discussion with Gregory Sholette – Dark Matter
28. Readings and discussion with Ben Davis – “Social Media Art” in The Expanded Field
27. Bruno Latour - What is Iconoclash? Or Is There A World Beyond The Image Wars?, Some Experiments in Art and Politics
26. Readings from Video Vortex Reader #2. Geert Lovink - Engage in Destiny Design: Online Video Beyond Hypergrowth + Stefan Heidenreich - Vision Possible: A Methodological Quest for Online Video + Natalie Bookchin and Blake Stimson interview - Out in Public: Natalie Bookchin in Conversation with Blake Stimson + Cecilia Guida - YouTube as a Subject: Interview with Constant Dullaart
25. Discussion at Bard’s CCS Hessel Museum as part of the Constant Dullaart and Laurel Ptak-organized event Public Interfacial Gesture Salon.
24. JstChillin week. Ceci Moss Interview with Parker Ito and Caitlin Denny + Gene McHugh catalogue essay + Brian Droitcour - In New Media Res
23. Readings and discussion with Ed Halter. The Centaur and the Hummingbird + After the Amateur: Notes + The Matter of Electronics + Television for the People
22. Julian Dibbell - A Rape in Cyberspace; or How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database into a Society + Howard Rheingold - Daily Life in Cyberspace: How the Computerized Counterculture Built a New Kind of Place + Humdog - Pandora’s Vox
21. Various essays on internet fame from the Video Vortex Youtube Reader
20. Liam Gillick - Prevision, Contemporary Art Does Not Account for That Which Is Taking Place
19. Carson Chan - The Territory of Versions + Karen Archey - Internet Art in The Present Tense
18. Readings from the Digital Folklore reader. Dennis Knopf - Defriending The Web + Helene Dams - I Think You Got Cats On Your Internet + Olia Lialina -A Vernacular Web + Preface essays by Cory Arcangel, Olia Lialina, Dragan Espenschied
17. R Gerald Nelson - DDDDoomed
16. Jaron Lanier - You Are Not a Gadget
15. Rosalind Krauss - Two Moments From The Post Medium Condition
14. Friedrich Kittler - There Is No Software
13. Lauren Cornell - Walking Free, Brian Droitcour - All Together Now
12. Discussion about selected works: Oliver Laric - Versions + Harm Van Den Dorpel - Ethereal Self / Ethereal Others + Jon Rafman - Koolaide Man in Second Life + Eva and Franco Mattes - Darko Maver + Ryan Trecartin - Riverthe.net
11. Unpublished readings and discussion with Geert Lovink
10. Hito Steryl - On The Poor Image + Hubert Dreyfus - Kierkegaard On The Internet
9. Jack Burnham - Systems Aesthetics, + Geert Lovink - 10 Theses On Wikileaks
8. Martin Heidegger - The Question Concerning Technology
7. Lewis Hyde - The Gift, Trickster Makes The World
6. Donna Harraway - The Cyborg Manifesto
5. Alex Galloway - Language Wants To Be Overlooked: On Software and Ideology
4. Boris Groys - The Weak Universalism + On The New + Self Design and Aesthetic Responsibility
3. David Joselit - Feedback + Chris Anderson and Michael Wolf - The Web Is Dead. Long Live The Internet
2. Critical Art Ensemble - Electronic Civil Disobedience + Keller Easterling - Zone
1. Hakim Bey - Temporary Autonomous Zone

1:33 pm • 11 July 2011 • 6 notes

Blind Mist wins a Rhizome Commission!

Rhizome released their Commissions results last week and Jon Vingiano and my project, Blind Mist, was chosen by the jurors.

Blind Mist is a website created by Jonathan Vingiano and myself. Participants can add whatever URL they want to the website’s roll over menu at the top of the screen. The website then extracts every image from that URL and displays them at random on the site. The more URLs you add, the greater the chance your images will have to be seen. All images function as links to their place of origin and will eventually expire from public rotation. No two users experiences of viewing the site are the same.

There are currently over 300,000 images circulating in Blind Mist.

1:24 pm • 11 July 2011

New essay up about Ben Schumacher for Dis Magazine

Excerpt:

Embracing the altered nature of installation images when placed on his blog,Schumacher often overlays Photoshopped brushstrokes and signatures on his imagery; a gesture at once recognizing the object-turned-image’s new status as a flattened visual form while also self-effacingly acknowledging the transience of authorship in the images’ new digital environment. The sentiment forms that there are a number of people being attributed authorship to his work, an act that is perhaps pre-empting the many contexts a single image may be viewed through once part of the labyrinth of Tumblrs and image aggregates that exist. In a related project, Schumacher tracks the way people disperse his imagery through their own blogs, but here too the context Schumacher is interested in is multiple as well. In these screen grabbed images of his work being posted on other blogs, the artist includes a full view of his own desktop, revealing a new cast of browser tabs, installed software icons and desktop files each time. This twice-removed view of Schumacher coming to terms with his own work is offered up for further transcription and re-blogging on Tumblr, again revealing a willingness to absolve himself as the known creator and an interest in re-couping what happens when he does so. To this point, it should make sense that the artist has no collection of work online that is not a Blogspot or Tumblr archive, using only active platforms with built-in features for appropriation. Schumacher has even dabbled in posting his work on little known image hosting websites, noting the results as each of the companies slowly go bankrupt or are swallowed by larger companies.

This essay is the first in a series of in-depth writings on net-aware artists I’ll be doing for Dis.

View full essay here.

1:16 pm • 11 July 2011 • 7 notes

Update on Reading Group texts

Meets almost every week on Sunday at 7:00 PM at NYU. E-mail me to be added to the mailing list for further details. bradtroemel at gmail dot com

36. Hans Ulrich Obrist interview with Wikileaks’ Julian Assange
35. Nicolas Bourriaud - Relational Aesthetics, The Radicant
34. Readings and discussion with Christiane Paul - Context and Archive: Presenting and Preserving Net-based Art + Challenges for a Ubiquitous Museum: Interfacing New Media—From the White Cube to the Black Box and Beyond
33. Readings from Domenico Quaranta’s book In Your Computer - Lost in Translation. Or, Bringing Net Art to Another Place? + The Unbearable Aura of a Website. Originality in the Digital Age
32. Reading and discussion with Jacob Lillemose - ”It’s Contemporary Art, Stupid” Curating computer based art out of the ghetto
31. School Nite reading courtesy of Collective Show at 233 Mott St. Carson Chan - Measures of an Exhibition + Jennifer Allen - HARK! Does Art Have a Second Life Online?
30. Viewing of the film Network (1976), written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet
29. Readings and discussion with Gregory Sholette – Dark Matter
28. Readings and discussion with Ben Davis – “Social Media Art” in The Expanded Field
27. Bruno Latour - What is Iconoclash? Or Is There A World Beyond The Image Wars?, Some Experiments in Art and Politics
26. Readings from Video Vortex Reader #2. Geert Lovink - Engage in Destiny Design: Online Video Beyond Hypergrowth + Stefan Heidenreich - Vision Possible: A Methodological Quest for Online Video + Natalie Bookchin and Blake Stimson interview - Out in Public: Natalie Bookchin in Conversation with Blake Stimson + Cecilia Guida - YouTube as a Subject: Interview with Constant Dullaart
25. Discussion at Bard’s CCS Hessel Museum as part of the Constant Dullaart and Laurel Ptak-organized event Public Interfacial Gesture Salon.
24. JstChillin week. Ceci Moss Interview with Parker Ito and Caitlin Denny + Gene McHugh catalogue essay + Brian Droitcour - In New Media Res
23. Readings and discussion with Ed Halter. The Centaur and the Hummingbird + After the Amateur: Notes + The Matter of Electronics + Television for the People
22. Julian Dibbell - A Rape in Cyberspace; or How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database into a Society + Howard Rheingold - Daily Life in Cyberspace: How the Computerized Counterculture Built a New Kind of Place + Humdog - Pandora’s Vox
21. Various essays on internet fame from the Video Vortex Youtube Reader
20. Liam Gillick - Prevision, Contemporary Art Does Not Account for That Which Is Taking Place
19. Carson Chan - The Territory of Versions + Karen Archey - Internet Art in The Present Tense
18. Readings from the Digital Folklore reader. Dennis Knopf - Defriending The Web + Helene Dams - I Think You Got Cats On Your Internet + Olia Lialina -A Vernacular Web + Preface essays by Cory Arcangel, Olia Lialina, Dragan Espenschied
17. R Gerald Nelson - DDDDoomed
16. Jaron Lanier - You Are Not a Gadget
15. Rosalind Krauss - Two Moments From The Post Medium Condition
14. Friedrich Kittler - There Is No Software
13. Lauren Cornell - Walking Free, Brian Droitcour - All Together Now
12. Discussion about selected works: Oliver Laric - Versions + Harm Van Den Dorpel - Ethereal Self / Ethereal Others + Jon Rafman - Koolaide Man in Second Life + Eva and Franco Mattes - Darko Maver + Ryan Trecartin - Riverthe.net
11. Unpublished readings and discussion with Geert Lovink
10. Hito Steryl - On The Poor Image + Hubert Dreyfus - Kierkegaard On The Internet
9. Jack Burnham - Systems Aesthetics, + Geert Lovink - 10 Theses On Wikileaks
8. Martin Heidegger - The Question Concerning Technology
7. Lewis Hyde - The Gift, Trickster Makes The World
6. Donna Harraway - The Cyborg Manifesto
5. Alex Galloway - Language Wants To Be Overlooked: On Software and Ideology
4. Boris Groys - The Weak Universalism + On The New + Self Design and Aesthetic Responsibility
3. David Joselit - Feedback + Chris Anderson and Michael Wolf - The Web Is Dead. Long Live The Internet
2. Critical Art Ensemble - Electronic Civil Disobedience + Keller Easterling - Zone
1. Hakim Bey - Temporary Autonomous Zone

2:24 pm • 6 July 2011 • 4 notes

New essay about Tsimfuckis/reality TV up on Dis Magazine

Excerpt:

Everyone has seen a Tsimfuckis video. When conversation dulled at a friend’s house one night, someone next to you picked up the laptop, paused iTunes and showed you one of his videos. As anticipated, lulz ensued. Or possibly horror. Or sympathy. Probably not empathy. Something happened, though. Waking the next morning alone in a Pabst-smeared haze, unsure of whether what you viewed the night before was what it had played itself out to be, you reached for your Macbook and Googled your best to recreate the magic. Maybe you texted the person who was next to you for searchable clues, but eventually you found him again. Then you saw the numbers below– the millions upon millions of views and comments. What were we all looking for in Tsimfuckis anyway?

Read full essay here

5:16 pm • 23 June 2011 • 1 note

Full video up now from Sohrab, Gene, Laurel and my talk at the Queens Museum of Art:

May 28, 2011

Gene McHugh, Brad Troemel and Laurel Ptak will discuss the position of internet art and its relation to its medium and new ways of online reflexivity.

This conversation is moderated by Sohrab Mohebbi, Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund Curatorial Fellow at the Queens Museum of Art.

This program is the first in the series Chat Room that will take place at the Queens Museum of Art during the summer of 2011.

Gene McHugh is an art writer based in Brooklyn. His work has appeared in Artforum and Rhizome, and he was the recipient of the Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for his blog, Post Internet. McHugh is currently the Kress Fellow in Interpretive Technology at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Brad Troemel is an artist, professor, and graduate student at New York University. He writes about and creates art projects on the Internet.

Laurel Ptak is an independent curator based in New York whose interests in contemporary art veer towards network culture, image-based practices, socially-engaged work, and open culture. She has previously worked for arts institutions and organizations including the Aperture Foundation, Guggenheim Museum, MoMA/P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, and Art:21. Ptak is founder of the popular blog i heart photograph.

3:41 pm • 16 June 2011 • 4 notes