Monument to the Conquerors of Space
September 13, 2007 at 8:07pm | In literature, obsession | Leave a CommentTags: haruki murakami, soviet space dogs
“The man-made satellite streaking soundlessly across the blackness of outer space. The dark, lustrous eyes of the dog gazing out the tiny window. In the infinite loneliness of space, what could the dog possibly be looking at?” -Haruki Murakami
Current undeniable object of my obsession: Soviet space dogs.
A Touching Relationship with the Medium of Tomorrow
September 7, 2007 at 5:58pm | In art, culture, design, new media | Leave a CommentTags: animated gifs, glitter graphics, life visualization, lolcats, olia lialina
Artist and Professor of New Media Olia Lialina has published Part 2 of her presentation/essay/deeply meta internet art project, A Vernacular Web: The Indigenous and the Barbarians (2005). Lialina’s project is not only an analysis of the evolution of web culture and design, but also a refuge for many of its most disdained and forgotten artifacts: animated gifs, ‘under construction’ graphics, midi tracks, starry night tiled backgrounds. I must admit a sadness at not finding angelfire.com’s classic running dog gif amongst Lialina’s archive (my brother and I once shared a deep fondness for that dog, and even named him “Fluffy”).
Lialina posits that “glitter graphics” are the contemporary answer to the animated gifs and starry night backgrounds of the mid-90s. “They … look almost the same,” she writes, “the particles of flickering light on a darker background. But there’s a huge gap between these two. Starry backgrounds represented the future, a touching relationship with the medium of tomorrow. Glitter decorates the web of today, routine and taken-for-granted.”
On the subject of what she is definitely NOT going to talk about, Lialina mentions:
1. “Unfinished research on the topic of cats in today’s Web. They are becoming so important that in the nearest future conferences binded with Internet subjects will have to announce LOLCats or Kitten of the Day panels to discuss things that really matter.”
2. “Animated cursors: a phenomenon equally ridiculous and dangerous.”
3. “Relations, Marriage, Pregnancy, Breastfeeding, Child age calendars, as an ultimate form of life visualization in online communities and diaries.”
If that little list doesn’t entice you to read further, I don’t know what will!
(This comes via Beyond the Beyond.)
I Hate Surprises
September 6, 2007 at 7:55pm | In art, video | 1 CommentTags: frustrated keyboardists, heart defects, ICA, michael tom, sound art, videos about videos
Or, a few thoughts on art, privilege, and disability:
This evening I went to an opening at Philadelphia’s Institute of Contemporary Art, site of Andy Warhol’s first major show, and currently the home of one of my little bro’s weird little videos about, umm, videos. “We All Go A Little Mad Sometimes,” a 3-minute split-screen speculation on the agency of the viewer and the viewed in the contemporary horror film. Or something like that. Seeing my brother’s work in a major gallery was pretty awesome. Unfortunately, the fourth-class citizen video artists who submitted their work through an “open call” last spring were relegated to the ICA’s poorly-designed upstairs video corner, crowds of wine-drinking minglers standing in front of it and nary a chair in site. The main gallery was devoted to “Ensemble,” an exhibition of sound-making sculpture. Some of it was pretty okay:
I must confess a preference for soft sounds and melodies, clinks and blips and chimes that soothe my often frazzled nerves, especially amongst a crowd of ferociously-networking gallery-goers. Unfortunately, melodic, soft pieces like this one (ceramic bowls floating and periodically clinking together in a blue kiddie pool) were drowned out by the many attention-seeking works that could be recognized by their attempts to dominate the room. As I used to say back when I was a frustrated keyboardist in a hardcore band, this was “the sound of boys jerking off,” the artistic equivalent of masturbation. Standing in the middle of the floor was an innocent-enough-looking trash can, a place Oscar the Grouch would call home. Whenever an unsuspecting guest lifted the lid, a loud siren noise echoed through the gallery, piercing and shocking and — every single time — sending my heart the first signs of a tachycardia attack, that first awful jump that usually means, “I’m going to the ER tonite.”
Let me say it one more time: I hate surprises! They only remind me of how shitty it is to live in a world that doesn’t seem to realize that a lot of its people (people with serious heart conditions, for example) exist. I stood in a corner scowling while people took pictures of their friends and families holding the lid of the screaming trash can, staring down into its abyss and laughing. “Is it so wrong,” I asked MT, “that every time someone opens it I want to grab them by the neck and strangle them?”
Eventually he suggested that I go upstairs. I went and had a beer and plotted my revenge.
The Hidden Art of Gaffer Tape
September 2, 2007 at 11:08am | In art, culture, design | Leave a CommentPingMag has a great article up about Gaffer Tape Art in Tokyo train stations.
Mr. Sato, the artist, says he makes his art — not to be noticed or to make a statement — but to make life easier for passengers on Tokyo trains. He chooses comfortable, inviting shapes with rounded edges because “this soft look makes people feel better.” Many of the shapes take on anthropomorphic forms; others (like the one shown above) layer upon each other, becoming glorious, colorful abstractions. One of the things that gets me really excited is when industry pays attention to design. This is one of those times when that seems to happen organically, flawlessly. Check it out!
Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
