A silent, ironic criticism: Interview with Aram Bartholl by Domenico Quaranta :: First published in Spawn of the Surreal, September 26, 2007.

Second City - the show curated (reading on you will understand why I use the quotation marks) in Linz by the German artist Aram Bartholl - has been - no doubts - one of the cardinal points of Ars Electronica’s last edition, Goodbye Privacy. The show disseminated through the city was highly representative of the nice side of surveillance in the age of digital exhibitionism, an issue that was at the core of the Festival. Continue reading

“Can artistic practices still play a critical role in a society where the difference between art and advertizing have become blurred and where artists and cultural workers have become a necessary part of capitalist production? Scrutinizing the ‘new spirit of capitalism’ Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello [1] have shown how the demands for autonomy of the new movements of the 1960’s had been harnessed in the development of the post-Fordist networked economy and transformed in new forms of control. Continue reading

Hello, I am writing to introduce myself and to preface my upcoming project in the Ars Virtua gallery space. I have written an introduction to my idea for the gallery installation. Please feel free to advise me on any feedback you may have regarding the project, currently titled Interactive Interiors.

Virtual spaces are sites of discovery. Interactive Interiors models virtual Second Life 3-D after the domestic environments that we experience daily. Connections between people and the objects that are placed in their spaces are heightened through three-dimensional exploration. Anthony Vidler writes “Where, in a pure cybernetic system as modeled by de Certeau, the privilege is given to writing, now boundaries are broken down and confused by their very inspection in three dimensions.” Continue reading

OFFF - New York, November 2-4, 2007 - is a cutting-edge festival exploring the latest in digital aesthetics and software language. OFFF festival brings together the artists that are breaking ground and shaping new standards in media and design, becoming the essential meeting point for the international scene of digital creation. OFFF is the only event of this kind.

Since 2001, OFFF festival has been held in Barcelona - Spain, becoming the globally recognized and trendsetting event it is today. The three-day festival showcases top digital artists, web, print and interactive designers, motion graphics studios, and new music adventurous. OFFF festival provides insight into all culture media platforms. Continue reading

1001 nights cast is moving between hemispheres for the last time. On September 26, Barbara Campbell will do her last performance, # 828, from London at 6.51 pm local time. That is: 7.51pm in Madrid, Paris and Prague; 2.51pm in New York, Montreal and Bogota; 11.51am in Los Angeles; 8.51pm in Jerusalem, Istanbul and Tehran; 2.51am, Thursday in Perth, Singapore and Hong Kong, 4.51am, Thursday in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Continue reading

Interference: Artist operatives tackle collective intelligence :: September 27 – November 10, 2007 :: Opening: September 27, 6 PM; Live Performances at 8 PM :: Eyebeam, 540 W. 21st St. (btw 10th and 11th Aves.)

Interference is the second installment in a series of three exhibitions celebrating a decade of Eyebeam’s contributions to the art and tech field. On the heels of the summer’s popular Source Code exhibition, Eyebeam is pleased to present Interference, the second in a series of three group shows commemorating the organization’s unique role in supporting artists experimenting with, and critically examining, the impact of new technologies in creative endeavor. The show will feature eleven artists and collectives whose projects tackle the ever-shifting boundaries between public and private space and consider the ways in which these limits are understood, utilized and represented. Continue reading

Urballoon, by Carlos J. Gómez de Llarena, is an urban media space: a balloon equipped with a projector and wireless connection to the web that enables people to submit content online and broadcast it in public spaces. Share your thoughts or media with people near the balloon by submitting materials from this site. Submissions are now being accepted to be projected during the Interference exhibition at Eyebeam from September 27- November 26, 2007.

Urballoon is located in open urban spaces frequented by pedestrians at sunset and night (e.g. plazas, parks). The ball is tethered and floats at a height of approximately 3 stories. The images and text submitted via this site are projected directly below it. By accessing www.urballoon.com people can send text or images which will be queued and shown by the balloon in the order received onto the street. On the website, an archive of all submissions can also be browsed. Continue reading

“My first impulse as an artist was to become space. I wanted to bring viewers inside the movement experience, into contact with the numinous dimensions of space. Light allows me to realize this artistic vision. In the Light Dance performances, light carries the subjective experience of movement beyond the limits of my body. Light Dance is a transposition of the “dance” from the body to the boundaries of the room. In silent, space-defining performances, light effects extend from my body. I “sculpt” space; precise body movements articulate fluid architectures of light, encompassing viewers with the “dance”. Continue reading

Out of Bounds by Chris O’Shea: There is a childlike quality about wanting the ability to see through walls like a superhero character with x-ray vision. This memory is something the interactive installation Out of Bounds aims to capture. The work encourages visitors to bore through the walls of the museum and engage in a ‘behind the scenes’ experience with an x-ray torch. This playful interaction encourages childlike curiosity in young and old alike, and opens up a portal into the Museum’s forbidden spaces.

Shine the torch at the wall to reveal the secrets hidden beneath. Pay an anonymous visit to the staff office, collection’s store, workshop, roof hatch or plant room. Just as a torch shines light into a darkened space to bring things into focus, this work uses the torch as a way of looking into the workings of a modern museum. Video.

Julian Dibbell wrote: “Hi, folks. Trebor invited me to post a bit about a cluster of topics that has been the focus of my thinking and reporting for the last few years: Online games, virtual economies, and the increasingly elusive distinction between play and production in the digitally networked world.

Some context: In June I published an article in the New York Times Magazine called The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer, profiling a few of the roughly 100,000 young people in China who work in factory-like gaming workshops, playing massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft 12 hours a day for about US$0.30 an hour. The material conditions of these jobs are spartan-to-grim, but their product is a thing of fantasy and light: Continue reading