thingist October 2011

thingist@mailman.thing.net

2 participants
4 discussions

What about a subjective, evolving, archive?
by Justin Berry 18 Feb '12

18 Feb '12

I am new to THE THING, having only become involved in the last year or so, working with W and Christoph on The.Thing.Net and the White Slab screenings. I became involved almost by accident--I was recently out of graduate school and making non-salable and non-exhibitable work, mostly web stuff, and feeling a bit chagrined about the art world and its various camps of ideology. I was randomly surfing the web and sending out feeler emails to every organization I could find that was involved in New Media. Wolfgang was the one who answered back. I had no idea what THE THING actually was. I went to look it up online and struggled to find information, only coming up with numerous references to someTHING but never an actual history or a literal description. The most glaring example of THE THING online was the Post, and I think enough has been said about that. It took a long time of being involved, listening in conversation, and attending talks by Wolfgang, etc. in order to really arrive at a sense of what THE THING was and what it represented. If it were not so tragic it would be humorously ironic that an organization that did so much to galvanize thinking about the internet as an artistic and political medium has no functioning legacy online. I think that a proper and academic archive could potentially happen, but it will take a long time and a great deal of work. The nature of academia is to quest after a kind of perfection, to create a source of objective authority. Great! That would be awesome. In a few years it will be something we can all be proud of. I think something different needs to be planned in the interim. What about creating a subjective archive? What about creating a nexus for the stories and narratives of THE THING. It could be a relatively simple interface, something like a data or tag cloud full of links to various stories, where the only hierarchy might be determined by font size. People with a story to tell or an event to document could create their own HTML page, with the only standard requirement being a ‘back to home’ button of some kind. The advantage is that this would allow each person’s ‘history’ to be acknowledged without necessarily privileging one or the other. One link might be called ‘eToy war’ and could be an account of those events while another might be called ‘Justin Berry’ and include simply my own experiences. These pages don’t even have to share styling, though we could certainly provide a CSS sheet for people to use if they chose. One person’s page might be a video, while another person could choose to simply write an essay; an event might be documented with only a series of contextless pictures. Something like this embraces the history of THE THING as a forum and a platform. This does not have to exist in opposition to a formal archive; it can be an accompaniment to that project. It also requires less energy to happen. Once a stable and functioning interface is set up it can be left to individuals to create pages as they wish. Each contribution can be considered on its own terms. It does not have to be ‘finished’, it can be an ever evolving project as new pages are added. Perhaps this is only a selfish wish. I would like to hear the stories and see the history and I would like to have that kind of experience sooner than later. There should be an online presence of THE THING’s legacy. In my experience every time people attempt to create an authoritative history of something there are a whole lot of histories on the table and it takes a long time to negotiate which ones stick around. Justin Berry -- Justin Berry (713) 302 9599 www.waymakergallery.com JustinBerryArt(a)gmail.com Waymaker(a)WaymakerGallery.com

15 29

ETC Grants Program Changes & Other News
by sherry miller 10 Oct '11

10 Oct '11

The Experimental Television Center is happy to announce that our electronic media arts grants programs have been given new homes. The *Technical Assistance Program*will be managed by free103point9 <http://www.free103point9.org/>. The *Presentation Funds* and *Finishing Funds* Programs will be administered by The Arts Council of the Southern Finger Lakes <http://www.earts.org/>. ETC has been administering the Presentation Funds and Finishing Funds Programs since 1989, and the Technical Assistance Program since 1998. It has been an honor and a privilege to have had the opportunity to work with all of you over the years. ETC would also like to thank Electronic Media and Film at the New York State Council on the Arts which has steadily supported our efforts to help the media arts flourish. ETC isn't going away, but rather refocusing our programs. We have redesigned the ETC website <http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org/>, so if you haven't visited in awhile, please take a look. We will be spending more time on the development of the Video History Project and working on preservation activities with our partner organizations at Migrating Media <http://migratingmedianet.org/>. /Experimental Television Center: 1969 -- 2009 /(5 DVD set with catalog), is an anthology of video art works created through the Residency Program since its inception in 1969 and includes the works of about 100 media artists. The collection was featured in 2011 at Anthology Film Archives. It was named top 100 DVDs for 2010 by LUX, the influential arts organization in London, UK. In 2011 the collection was named by LUX as one of 50 essential moving-image artists DVDs <http://www.lux.org.uk/blog/50-essential-artists-moving-image-dvds>in publication. The collection is available through the well-known distributor of contemporary art Electronic Arts Intermix <http://www.eai.org/artistBio.htm?id=13107>. The complete library of artists' works at ETC is being archived at the Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media <http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu/special/etc.php>. Under the sponsorship of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at the Carl Kroch Library at Cornell University, the archive is curated by Dr. Tim Murray, Director of Graduate Studies in Comparative Literature and Director for the Society for the Humanities at Cornell. The mission is to digitize the collection and provide multiple levels of access to the works and study materials for people internationally. We are excited about the future and look forward to staying in touch with all of you. Ralph, Sherry, Hank and Dave --

3 2

Today
by w 04 Oct '11

04 Oct '11

The Thing @ White Slab Palace presents Robert Boyd: Single-Channel White Slab Palace 77 Delancey St., NYC 10002 (South East corner of Delancey and Allen St.) Tuesday October 4, 2011, 8pm The Thing @ White Slab Palace presents a selection of Robert Boyd’s recent single channel videos. Included in the screening will be never-before-seen, single-channel versions from his new series of video installations collectively entitled, TOMORROW PEOPLE, as well as the single-channel mix of Xanadu. This will be the first time this version of Xanadu has been shown outside of the Sundance Film Festival, where it was an Official Selection in 2008. SCREENING: TIMETRAVEL_0, In Progress, 15min. *The video will be shown in installation form shortly before the screening. “TimeTravel_0” cinematically reinterprets Online posts culled from archived logs of Internet chat rooms shortly after the turn of the new millennium, to present a textual narrative about a gay visitor from the future. The work stages a one-sided dialogue as only the protagonist’s writings are shown. By leaving viewers to imagine the forum members’ questions and responses, the work engages them as participants in the narrative as it unfolds. XANADU, 2006, 28min. Culled from hundreds of hours of archival footage including that of doomsday cults, iconic political figures and global fundamentalist movements, the videos that comprise Robert Boyd’s “Xanadu,” tweak, condense, and re-frame modern events into seconds-long image bites, representing a history of apocalyptic thought as a series of MTV-style music videos. In Order: Heaven’s Little Helper (2005), Patriot Act (2004), Judgment Day (2006), Xanadu (2006), Exit Strategy (2005). TOMORROW PEOPLE, In Progress, 32min. In an era uncertain of its outcome, does dreaming of the future help us create a better world - or is it a reactionary escapism we have devised to alleviate nervous fears regarding a current global state of affairs? Videos from Robert Boyd's TOMORROW PEOPLE, explore the role that fantasy plays in human self-determination. Taking its title from a children's science-fiction drama created in the 70s for British television, TOMORROW PEOPLE combines archival footage from an array of sources that, when viewed together, forms a snapshot of the social landscape of our time. This footage includes excerpts from science-fiction dramas, news reports on historic and contemporary political events, docudramas about UFOs, the paranormal and conspiracy theories - as well as excerpts from educational programming related to String Theory and Time Travel. In Order: TOMORROW PEOPLE Trailer (2008), Conspiracy Theory (2008), The Man Who Fell To Earth (2009), Autumn Changes (2010). ROBERT BOYD is an interdisciplinary artist working in the areas of video installation, photography and sculpture. His work has recently been presented at C/O Berlin, Berlin (2011); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2010); Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong (2009); Sundance Film Festival, Park City, UT (2008); MoMA/PS1, LIC, NY (2008); Pinchuk ArtCentre, Kiev, Ukraine (2008); Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, Indianapolis, IN (2007); Context Galleries, Derry (2007); Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT (2007); and Participant Inc, New York (2006). His work is included in several public collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Fondation Louis Vuitton pour la Création in Paris.

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Today: Robert Boyd: Single-Channel
by w 04 Oct '11

04 Oct '11

The Thing@White Slab Palace presents Robert Boyd: Single-Channel White Slab Palace 77 Delancey St., NYC 10002 (South East corner of Delancey and Allen St.) Tuesday October 4, 2011, 8pm The Thing @ White Slab Palace presents a selection of Robert Boyd’s recent single channel videos. Included in the screening will be never-before-seen, single-channel versions from his new series of video installations collectively entitled, TOMORROW PEOPLE, as well as the single-channel mix of Xanadu. This will be the first time this version of Xanadu has been shown outside of the Sundance Film Festival, where it was an Official Selection in 2008. SCREENING: TIMETRAVEL_0, In Progress, 15min. *The video will be shown in installation form shortly before the screening. “TimeTravel_0” cinematically reinterprets Online posts culled from archived logs of Internet chat rooms shortly after the turn of the new millennium, to present a textual narrative about a gay visitor from the future. The work stages a one-sided dialogue as only the protagonist’s writings are shown. By leaving viewers to imagine the forum members’ questions and responses, the work engages them as participants in the narrative as it unfolds. XANADU, 2006, 28min. Culled from hundreds of hours of archival footage including that of doomsday cults, iconic political figures and global fundamentalist movements, the videos that comprise Robert Boyd’s “Xanadu,” tweak, condense, and re-frame modern events into seconds-long image bites, representing a history of apocalyptic thought as a series of MTV-style music videos. In Order: Heaven’s Little Helper (2005), Patriot Act (2004), Judgment Day (2006), Xanadu (2006), Exit Strategy (2005). TOMORROW PEOPLE, In Progress, 32min. In an era uncertain of its outcome, does dreaming of the future help us create a better world - or is it a reactionary escapism we have devised to alleviate nervous fears regarding a current global state of affairs? Videos from Robert Boyd's TOMORROW PEOPLE, explore the role that fantasy plays in human self-determination. Taking its title from a children's science-fiction drama created in the 70s for British television, TOMORROW PEOPLE combines archival footage from an array of sources that, when viewed together, forms a snapshot of the social landscape of our time. This footage includes excerpts from science-fiction dramas, news reports on historic and contemporary political events, docudramas about UFOs, the paranormal and conspiracy theories - as well as excerpts from educational programming related to String Theory and Time Travel. In Order: TOMORROW PEOPLE Trailer (2008), Conspiracy Theory (2008), The Man Who Fell To Earth (2009), Autumn Changes (2010). ROBERT BOYD is an interdisciplinary artist working in the areas of video installation, photography and sculpture. His work has recently been presented at C/O Berlin, Berlin (2011); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2010); Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong (2009); Sundance Film Festival, Park City, UT (2008); MoMA/PS1, LIC, NY (2008); Pinchuk ArtCentre, Kiev, Ukraine (2008); Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, Indianapolis, IN (2007); Context Galleries, Derry (2007); Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT (2007); and Participant Inc, New York (2006). His work is included in several public collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Fondation Louis Vuitton pour la Création in Paris.

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thingist October 2011