thingist February 2011

thingist@mailman.thing.net

2 participants
3 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

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Keith Sanborn's greatest hits at Academy Awards Night!
by w 23 Feb '11

23 Feb '11

Bored to death by the prospect of lame insider backslapping in Hollywood, but still want a night out with friends, high-class art movies and a few drinks....? This Sunday, February 27, 2011, Keith Sanborn will be showing a selection of video work from the ever-popular The Artwork in the Age of its Mechanical Reproducibility by Walter Benjamin as told to Keith Sanborn by Jayne Austen (1936) to more recent forays into piratical transformative media history called Energy of Delusion. The program starts at 8pm and will last about an hour. I recommend the Krusowice on tap!

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Finishing Funds 2011 - Deadline March 15
by sherry hocking 08 Feb '11

08 Feb '11

*Please post, duplicate and distribute* *Deadline:**March 15, 2011*** *Finishing Funds 2011* The *Experimental Television Center* is pleased to announce *Finishing Funds 2011.* Guidelines and applications are available on the web at /http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org// *Finishing Funds*provides media and new media artists with grants up to $2,500 to help with the completion of diverse and innovative moving-image and sonic art projects, and works for the Web and new technologies. Eligible forms include film and video as single or multiple channel presentation, computer-based moving-imagery and sound works, installations and performances, interactive works and works for new technologies, DVD, multimedia and the Web. We also support new media, and interactive performance. Work must be surprising, creative and approach the various media as art forms; all genres are eligible, including experimental, narrative and documentary art works. Individual artists can apply directly to the program and do not need a sponsoring organization. Applicants must be residents of New YorkState; undergraduate students are not eligible.The application requires a project description, resume and support materials, including a sample of the proposed project. Selection is made by a peer review panel. About $25,000 is awarded each year. Announcement is made in early June. The program is supported in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a public agency. *Postmark Deadline: **March 15, 2011*** Guidelines and applications are now available on the web at /http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org//in the ETC News Section and the Grants area or by mail or email /etc (at) experimentaltvcenter.org/ --

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thingist February 2011