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UM.Wire: Whitney Museum & Centre Pompidou
by UBERMORGEN.COM 05 Dec '10

05 Dec '10

hello & gruezi wohl! we know y'all are all about the w'leaks at the moment, and so be it - free mr. manning, way to go ++ snd some €$ 2 th leakers // http://www.wikileaks.ch/support.html ! but we also got some of our stuff to share - it's all new content and it is even hosted on an u.s. of a server and we censored it a bit so it would not get taken down & stuff, you know what i mean....we just wanna share before we take off for another production trip to africa (i.e. more as always to come) so, without further ado - here it comes, 2 new chunks of UBERMORGEN.COM work.. one on display at your disposal at the Centre Pompidou (scroll way down for more) && one commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American Art: . . : CLICKISTAN : . . http://www.whitney.org/clickistan/ Clickistan resides between the 7th and 8th bit of every byte it is ruled by generosity and playful curiosity its inhabitants are honest and filled with life they had been living poorly in an analog diaspora for many years they took some of their remains with them back home to CLICKISTAN. and now.. let's share a few notes from the curator Christiane Paul (thank u mrs. paul!): <cite> CLICKISTAN by the artist team UBERMORGEN.COM (lizvlx and Hans Bernhard) is a work of game art and an homage to the net art of the mid-90s: it invents its own territory—ruled by the click—and celebrates the pixel in imaginative variations. UBERMORGEN.COM are the new masters of Minimalist pixel painting. Transparent pixels are blown out of proportion in order to create graphic shapes and abstractions, while copied-and-pasted scripts are resampled and recombined in order to—in UBERMORGEN.COM’s words—use as many pre-existing pixels and produce as few originals as possible. This latter strategy is a nod to early net art, in which recycling and reproduction of existing information were the artistic method of choice. Likewise, in the spirit of early net art—such as the Form Art Competition organized by Russian net art pioneer Alexei Shulgin in 1997—CLICKISTAN plays with the formal elements of the Web, enticing its players to click away on canvases of radio buttons and flying scroll bars. Players also encounter elements of net culture, such as a reference to the famous 2000-2002 Internet meme “All your base are belong to us,” a broken-English phrase originating from the opening scene of the video game Zero Wing, poorly translated from Japanese. CLICKISTAN’s visual style and playful typography—such as the mixing of upper and lower case—allude to the “dirt style” design of net art before the dot com gold rush—the degraded aesthetic of the hobbyist, amateur, and geek. The work’s title references both early net art’s exploration of the Web territory—in its resistance to traditional notions of ownership, authority, and the nation state—and the arrival of the click as the main paradigm of interaction, overruling previously established norms of dragging and dropping. CLICKISTAN is also indebted to early computer games, particularly the coin-operated arcade games of the late 1970s and early 1980s, such as Space Invaders (1978), Pac-Man (1980), and Donkey Kong (1981), whose pixellated characters were created with great economy of means. The new musical form inspired by early computer games—known as 8-bit or chiptune music and consisting of sound textures synthesized by the computer or video game console’s sound chip—is referenced in CLICKISTAN’s soundtrack supplied by the 8-bit music website micromusic.net. As with other game art projects, CLICKISTAN does not simply create an environment for play that follows established conventions, but instead engages, questions, and undermines them. UBERMORGEN.COM takes a decisively “userunfriendly” approach to many gaming routines: players’ actions do not yield the expected results; some choices are impossible to make, some actions redundant, but, as in “real life,” they all lead to the next level or sometimes even have the same consequences; scores do not necessarily relate to the performed actions in any rational way. Players become aware of their expectations and are challenged to ask who or what created them in the first place. UBERMORGEN.COM’s mode of operation has always been playfully subversive, and many of their projects have addressed the intersections of Internet culture, money, and branding. Their Ekmrz Trilogy (2005-2009) took critical approaches to Google and Amazon. Their Generatorseries included tools such as the Injunction Generator (2001), which allowed users to automatically generate a standard court order—in .pdf or .rtf format—claiming that a website of their choice was operating on an illegal basis. CLICKISTAN’s use of visuals, text, and language reflects the overall tone of Ubermorgen’s work, referencing their website’s home pages (from 2000-2005) as well as the generators. CLICKISTAN is a territory that lies somewhere at the core of Ubermorgen’s work: a game that plays with art and commerce, celebrates the early days of net art and computer games, has an anarchic sense of humor, and only delivers the expected when it is time to pay. http://www.whitney.org/clickistan/ IMAGE: http://ubermorgen.com/UM.Wire/images/CLICKISTAN_UBERMORGEN.jpg </cite> and here comes the other half of the letter of interest to you! (btw the 123th replier/retweeter to this email will win a trip to the nigerian ministery of finance!)... ;; . : : . : Centre Georges Pompidou "RE:MADE" Black n White http://www.ubermorgen.com/BlacknWhite/ "Notre intention est de travailler exclusivement avec le pixel comme idée et comme matériel brut. Le pixel est notre peinture, notre bois ou notre pierre, le langage html notre pinceau ou notre tournevis et le navigateur à la fois la toile et le musée. Nous puisons dans les objets artistiques conceptuels bien connus de Judd, Lewitt, Graham, Haacke, IRWIN, etc. pour en extraire des remakes numériques qui nous servent de règles visuelles." L'exposition "RE:MADE" présente neuf installations – vidéo, multimédia, net art – autour des notions de relecture et de réinterprétation. Neuf réponses distinctes et autonomes laissant apparaitre une géographie des médias et leur capillarité profonde avec notre quotidien. Les oeuvres choisies déplacent, détournent et réinterprètent un matériaux visuel et numérique pré-existant pour mettre en réflexion notre culture visuelle contemporaine et nos représentations. Le Centre Pompidou et Le Palais de Tokyo, avant de migrer ensuite pour Madrid en avril 2011 et Berlin en juillet 2011. Les artistes exposés sont : Christophe Bruno (France), Tony Cokes (USA), Ryoji Ikeda (Japon), Jodi (Pays-bas), Joan Leandre (Espagne), UBERMORGEN.COM (Suisse/Autriche/USA), Manuel Saiz (Espagne), Alexander Schellow (Allemagne) et Antoine Schmitt (France). IMAGE: http://ubermorgen.com/UM.Wire/images/UM_BlacknWhite.jpg http://ubermorgen.com/UM.Wire UBERMORGEN.COM officeR(a)ubermorgen.com Studio +4312361985 http://www.ubermorgen.com http://dotoildot.com http://tortureclassics.com http://ubermorgen.com/DEEPHORIZON http://www.asylabwehramt.at http://woppow.net http://ugi-heal.me

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Monday, December 6: Caspar Stracke: Collaborations
by w 03 Dec '10

03 Dec '10

Caspar Stracke: Collaborations || Alterations a program of collaborative video works plus radical re-edits of some of my works by fellow artists as well as my own re-edits of works by others GATEWAY (2010) clipped from a short documentary on the annual taxidermists convention in Springfield, Illinois, originally produced by Dominique Gradenwitz for German TV Sat 1, re-edited. THREADS (2001) collaboration with Mike Hoolboom, portrait of Tom Chomont, later finshed as TOM by Hoolboom and NO DAMAGE by myself) CED Trilogy (2002) a collaboration with a broken vinyl disk player (pre-laser disk) re-edits excerpts of TRON and SHINING. ELECTRIC SPEECH (1998/2010) re-edit by Jim Supanick of my Avital Ronell episode from Circle's Short Circuit, premiere) PROXIMITY (bubble version) (2010) a re-edit of my installation work Proximity conceived site-specifically for the THE THINGS office in Chelsea 2002 "ETC, etc" (2007) Re-enactment of an instructional video by Dave Jones for Experimental TV Center (part of ETC: 1969-2009 distributed by EAI) December 6, 2010, 8 PM The Thing @ White Slab Palace 77 Delancey Street, 10002 New York, NY (SE corner of Delancey/Allen)

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UM.Wire: FALL-WINTER 2010/11
by UBERMORGEN.COM 07 Nov '10

07 Nov '10

http://ubermorgen.com/UM.Wire UM.Wire - FALL-WINTER 2010/11 Image: http://ubermorgen.com/UM.Wire/images/SHOOTING-BASEL-GUNSHOT-FASHION.jpg WOPPOW UBERMORGEN.COM feat. Annabe AFRICAN PIRATES ALWAYS WEAR FASHIONABLE BRIGHT COLORS AND THEY DO REAL SHOOTINGS, SO IT’S MORE FASHIONABLE http://www.woppow.net FIRST FASHION-STAFF ARRIVALS AT THE MATHARE JOINT WORK SITE On 15 October 2010 the first UM.staff began working at the Mathare Joint Work Site (MWS NAIROBI). Among the first arrivals are members of the Web, SMS and Gopher Group, who are charged to prepare the necessary license applications in close cooperation with THE HOST*. Other arrivals include members of the Social Media Technology Division and Style and Usability Group charged with the preparations for the initial "USERUNDFRIENDLY" design-process. A branch of the Textile Management Group, Design Integration Division, has also been installed at Mathare. The acting Head of the MWS is ANNA who was previously acting Head at PGI, where SANDRA has taken over the position. WITH THIS ROBIN HOOD ATTITUDE, WITH THIS PIRATEY, THE END PRODUCT IS VERY MODERN, BUT ALSO CONTEMPORARY, LIKE LITTLE CHILDREN SHOT BY PIRATES , BUT MORE INNOVATIVE AND POSITIVE, LIKE WHO WANTS TO MEET REAL PIRATES BECAUSE , THEY DON’T SPEAK FRENCH, WHO WOULD NOT WANT TO BE HELD HOSTAGE, BY SUCH SEXY AND DOMINANT BLACK AFRICAN ATTITUDE, YOU JUST WANT TO BE THE MODEL PENETRATED, BY THEIR BULLETS, TO PRODUCE OUR GARMENTS YOU HAVE TO BE MENTALLY, & SPIRITUALLY IN THE RIGHT STATE OF MIND, TO SHOOT COUTURE INTO AGRESSIVE COUTURE. OUR MODELS ARE RUDE, BUT IN A VERY POLITE WAY, IT’S LIKE SHOOTING WEAPONS IN A CREATIVE WAY, WE CAME UP USING THEM WITH GARMENTS, I WAS LIKE... BOOOM! THIS WAS SUCH A MOMENT.., LIKE IT’S A MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH IN FASHION, WE WANT TO USE THE BULLET FOR CHARITY, WE ARE SO INSPIRED BY THE VIOLENCE OF THIS WORLD, WE GOT REALLY INTERESTED IN POLITICAL STATEMENTS, BEING POLITICAL IS SUCH A HUGE TREND, IT’S NOT MILITARY STYLE ANYMORE, IT’S POLITICAL STYLE, BY USING THE BULLET, AFRICAN PIRATES ALWAYS WEAR FASHIONABLE BRIGHT COLORS, AND THEY DO REAL SHOOTINGS, SO IT’S MORE FASHIONABLE, IN THE BEGINNING WE WERE REALLY INSPIRED , BY ALL THOSE YOUNG PEOPLE. WE WANT TO SEE THE POP-PIRATE WALKING THE HIGH-STREETS SHOOTING BULLETS OF STYLE yours truly lizvlx & Hans Bernhard http://bit.ly/cO6TA2 UBERMORGEN.COM, VIENNA, AUSTRIA ISSN 1727–9852 http://on.fb.me/9Pgrba (Lola @ PCF Espace Niemeyer Paris) -- IF you happen to be around one of these places and would like to meet THEN ping us... New York 7-9.11.2010 Berlin 10-12.11.2010 Dresden 13-15.11.2010 Paris 24-29.11.2010 Nairobi 5-19.12.2010 Mauritius 20.12.2010-07.01.2011 Berlin 27.1.-7.2.2011 Singapore 10.3.-15.3.2011 CURRENTLY RUNNING -- GALERIJA GALCENIZA, VELIKA GORICA (HR) WHITE, YELLOW, BLUE, AND BLACK, ONE COINCIDENCE, AND ONE OBJECT. THE_WHITE_WEBSITE/THE_BLACK_WEBSITE http://cont3xt.net/blog/?p=3429 SOLO SHOW EKMRZ-TRILOGY Galerija Vžigalica LJUBLJANA (SL) http://www.aksioma.org/ekmrz SPACE INVADERS NETHERLANDS MEDIA ART INSTITUTE (NL) CHINESE GOLD http://nimk.nl/eng/space-invaders SPILL >> FORWARD ONLINE EXHIBITION & MEDIANOCHE GALLERY NEW YORK (USA) DEEPHORIZON http://artcontext.net/spillForward/docs/works.php OBJECT NOT FOUND, MONTERREY (MX) DEEPHORIZON http://www.ubermorgen.com/DEEPHORIZON YOUNG ARTIST BIENNALE BUCAREST (RO) SUPERENHANCED INSTALLATION http://on.fb.me/ap5xK7 RECENT EVENTS -- SPEED SHOW 2 VOL 2, VIENNA (AT) ASYLABWEHRAMT AAbA/ASYLUM DEFENCE AGENCY http://fffff.at/speed-show-vol-2-in-vienna SPEED SHOW 3 VOL 3, AMSTERDAM (NL) TORTURE CLASSICS http://fffff.at/speed-show-vol-3-peace ARTICLE BIENNALE, STAVANGER (NO) DOTOILDOT/.OIL. & TALK ARTICLE CONFERENCE http://www.article.no/en WORKSHOP AND TALK, CELLSBUTTON HOUSE OF NATURAL FIBER, YOGYAKARTA/INDONESIA http://www.natural-fiber.com/cellsbutton SOLO SHOW FESTIVAL DE WERELD VAN WITTE DE WITH, ROTTERDAM (NL) ASYLABWEHRAMT AAbA/ASYLUM DEFENCE AGENCY http://www.festivalwww.nl/english#!english/home PUBLIC INTERFACE GESTURE SALON, VIENNA CURATED BY CONSTANT DULLAART ASYLABWEHRAMT AAbA / ASYLUM DEFENCE AGENCY http://bit.ly/97cm7Q DA FEST SOFIA PSYCH|OS, GROUP SHOW, WOPPOW, SCREENING http://2010.da-fest.bg PCF INCIDENT POLITIQUE ZERO/0, PARIS (FR) GROUP SHOW WITH VOTE-AUCTION, TALK & WORKSHOP http://incident.net/theupgrade/politique0 WORKSHOP SEAFAIR SKOPJE/EURO-BALKAN INSTITUTE (MK) UBERMORGEN.COM, MEDIA HACKING VS. CONCEPTUAL ART UPCOMING -- STUDIO VISIT & VIENNA ART WEEK MAGAZINE INTERVIEW, VIENNA (AT) http://www.viennaartweek.at/2010 http://www.kunstpresse.at/viennaartweek10/10studiovisits.html CYNETART FESTIVAL, LEIPZIG (DE) NOV 11-17 2011, UTOPIA-ATTRAKTOR WORKSHOP http://t-m-a.de/cynetart/festival2010 SOLOSHOW WOPPOW *GOETHE INSTITUT NAIROBI DEC 17 OPENING, EXHIBITION 18.12.2010- 15.01.2011 http://www.goethe.de/ins/ke/nai/de6699828v.htm KUNSTRADIO In 40 Min die Glorie der Kunst erleben: Ein Persilschein fuer dammisches Gewäsch JAN 2, 2011, 11:03PM - 11:45PM (CEST) http://www.kunstradio.at TRANSMEDIALE EXHIBITION & WORKSHOP WOPPOW FEB 1 - FEB 6, 2011 http://www.transmediale.de SOLO SHOW DAM GALERIE BERLIN BEING POLITICAL IS SUCH A HUGE TREND™ OPENING JAN 28. 2011, EXHIBITION 29.1. - 16.3.2011 http://dam-berlin.de http://dam-berlin.de/mlExhibitions-pa-showpage-pid-3.html PRESS -- OE1 - RADIO Wie böse ist Google? http://oe1.orf.at/artikel/257562 http://194.232.200.191/oe1/programm/0000BED1.MP3 INFORMATION.DK GUANTANAMOS GREATEST HITS http://www.information.dk/243205 ARTE TV YOUROPE ""Problemfall Freiheit" http://www.arte.tv/de/europa/Yourope/3013928.html DIE ZEIT Asylabwehramt AAbA / Asylum Defence Agency http://asylabwehramt.at/OEFFENTLICHKEIT/media/ZEIT.pdf FURTHERFIELD Spill >> Forward Review http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=409 34 MAGAZINE INTERVIEW UBERMORGEN.COM - HANS AND JAMES POWDERLY IN CLUJ http://www.ubermorgen.com/2010/pdfs/magazin_james_powderly_hans.pdf LA LIBERATION Torture à pleins tubes http://www.liberation.fr/medias/0101654485-torture-a-pleins-tubes TRANSINDEX, ROMANIA BEERBOARDING & TORTURE MUSIC http://multikult.transindex.ro/?cikk=12512 ADRIA AIRWAYS IN-FLUGHT MAGAZINE EKMRZ Trilogy Exhibition Ljubljana http://www.ubermorgen.com/2010/pdfs/Adria_In_Flight_Mag.pdf MLADINA MAGAZINE EKMRZ Trilogy Exhibition Ljubljana http://www.mladina.si/tednik/201037/superjutri KUNSTFORUM INTERVIEW http://www.ubermorgen.com/2010/pdfs/UbermorgenKunstforum.pdf VICE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW http://www.viceland.com/germany/v6n2/htdocs/ubermorgen_com-327.php ART WORLD MAGAZINE SHANGHAI (CN) INTERVIEW, MEDIA HACKING http://www.yishushijie.com LEXUS MAGAZINE DEEPHORIZON FEATURE https://secure.drivers.lexus.com/lexusdrivers/magazine/home.do SPECIAL -- MIXTAPES by WENDY http://ubermorgen.com/2010/MXTPS_WENDY.html Image: http://ubermorgen.com/UM.Wire/images/TORTURE_CLASSICS_banana-position.jpg TORTURE CLASSICS UBERMORGEN.COM feat. James Powderly SOUTH KOREA PERFORMANCE, 2010 http://www.tortureclassics.com & BEERBOARDING PERFORMANCE, ARS ELECTRONICA LINZ (AT) http://datenform.de/teleinternet http://on.fb.me/c14D3C NA SERVUS! UBERMORGEN.COM officeR(a)ubermorgen.com Studio +4312361985 http://www.ubermorgen.com CURRENT PROJECTS http://dotoildot.com http://tortureclassics.com http://ubermorgen.com/DEEPHORIZON http://www.asylabwehramt.at http://woppow.net http://ugi-heal.me

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mondays at white slab
by w 07 Nov '10

07 Nov '10

i'm not in ny, but if you are, here's this monday's program: http://the.thing.net/home.html greetings from berlin, wolfgang

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THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD
by w 20 Oct '10

20 Oct '10

THE THING @ WHITE SLAB PALACE: http://post.thing.net/node/3200 mike can't come, but perhaps andy comes by. we're showing the peer to peer version, which you can also download here if you are not in NY or can't come. http://vodo.net/yesmen if you download it make sure to donate a few bucks, they can use it to defend themselves against charges brought on by the U.S. Department of Commerce. http://theyesmen.org/chamber http://www.eff.org/cases/chamber-commerce-v-servin please rsvp and come early. seating is limited. greetings, wolfgang

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The sick movies of Reynold Reynolds
by w 15 Oct '10

15 Oct '10

THE THING @ WHITE SLAB PALACE presents: The sick movies of Reynold Reynolds Curated by Christoph Draeger Monday, October 18, 8 pm White Slab Palace Back Room 77 Delancey Street Southeast corner of Allen and Delancey Reynold Reynolds was born in 1966 in Central Alaska. During his undergraduate schooling at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Reynolds initially studied physics receiving a bachelor's degree under the professorship of Carl Wieman (Physics Nobel Laureate 2001). Changing his focus to studio art he remained two more years in Boulder to study under experimental film maker Stan Brakhage. Reynolds then finished an M.F.A. in New York City at the School of Visual Arts. Influenced early on by philosophy and working primarily with 16mm and Super 8mm film as an art medium he has developed a common film grammar based on transformation, consumption and decay. Reynolds' depictions frequent disturbed psychological and physical themes, increasingly provoking the viewer's participation and dismay. In 2003 Reynold Reynolds was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and in 2004 he was invited to The American Academy in Berlin with a studio at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien for one year. In 2007 he received the German Kunstfonds support to develop two projects in Berlin in 2008. In 2010 he will have a eight month residency at Akademie Schloss Solitude (Germany). Program: Burn (2003) Burn is a stunning evocation of those unspoken, unconfronted somethings, those secrets, worries and lies, forming a force which is always a part of the fabric of everyday interactions; at first niggling at the edges, then - provoked by a word or a gesture - suddenly searing through everything and everyone in its path (Belinda McKeon, The Irish Times) The Drowning Room (2001, Reynold Reynolds and Patrick Jolley) "A sequence of domestic vignettes from the sunken suburbs. In the house, the stagnant atmosphere has slowly thickened to liquid. The inhabitants try to carry on as normal but beyond the borders of asphyxiation, communication is limited and expression difficult. Filmed entirely underwater in a submerged house to create an atmosphere unlike any other film.” Six Apartments (2007) Six isolated people live in their apartments, side by side, oblivious to each other and the violent process of deterioration happening to the earth, to them, and their apartments. Secret Life (2008) A woman is trapped in an apartment that becomes alive. Her thoughts escape from her and come to life growing like plants out into the space around her, living, searching, overtaking her apartment, wild threatening her. Secret Machine (2009) The same protagonist from Secret Life encounters an antagonist that is studying her, measuring her body and comparing her to units of space and time. Six Easy Pieces (2010) Six Easy Pieces is the last part of the Secrets Trilogy, a three-part cycle exploring the imperceptible conditions that frame life.

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T&C
by James Allan 12 Oct '10

12 Oct '10

It looks like the history is being recorded but I wonder about the email archive; particularly who owns it since this may be a key point when it comes time to archiving it. Wolfgang, are you the, ahem, proud owner of my intellectual property? (Btw, the delays in moderation do little to facilitate activity on the list. It's like playing tennis by post).

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schliengensief at thing at white slab
by w 10 Oct '10

10 Oct '10

ok, this list has degenerated in my private thing spam list. but what can i do? nobody writes anything anymore. come over on monday, this should be good: http://the.thing.net/home.html later, w

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Pirate Cinema Berlin joins THE THING @ WHITE SLAB PALACE
by w 30 Sep '10

30 Sep '10

Pirate Cinema Berlin joins THE THING @ WHITE SLAB PALACE Mon, Oct 4, 2010, from 8 pm Delancey & Allen (southeast corner) Pirate Cinema Berlin would like to share with you some of their recent discoveries at the margins of documentary film practice. Ferdinand Khittl - The Parallel Street (1962) "The Parallel Street is one of the most mysterious pioneer films of the New German Cinema. It was produced by GBF, a production company for innovative industrial and promotional films and received awards in inter national film festivals. French critic Robert Benayoun called it 'a philosophical thriller, a western of meditation which compensates for a whole year of inevitable manifestations of stupidity,' Jacques Rivette put it on his list of the most important films of 1968. [Pirate Cinema] presents for the very first time this 'unjustly forgotten masterpiece of the New German Cinema' (Martin Brady)." -- Edition Filmmuseum, Munich Gerhard Benedikt Friedl - Did Wolff von Amerongen Commit Bankruptcy Offenses? (2004) "The most remarkable discovery in recent German-language cinema: Gerhard Friedl's first feature is a hypnotic visual puzzle at the interface of documentary, essay film and pulp fiction. On the soundtrack: an unflinchingly 'objective' account of the labyrinthine genealogies, criminal involvements and afflictions of Germany’s economic leaders in the 20th century. On the screen: pans and tracking shots through European financial centers, production sites and landscapes. The sheer depth and crispness of these images is a treat in itself; a transformation into cinégénie of what artists like Candida Höfer or Jeff Wall have done by means of still photography. At times, image and sound are aligned, at others they just miss each other. They invariably suggest correlations. Paranoia? Irony? Can the prosaic, criminal state of affairs of a modern economy be depicted at all? Pierre Rissient, the French film historian, puts the film where it belongs: 'Fritz Lang would have loved it!' -- mubi.com Patrick Keiller - The Dilapidated Dwelling (2000) "The Dilapidated Dwelling ... [is] focused, quite precisely, on the question of the systemic logic of capitalist markets. A television documentary, it was made with the intention, in part, of influencing government policies towards housing. It remains some of the features of the Robinson films, including the journey/investigation format and a minimal fictional frame; however, these aspects are less pronounced that they are in the earlier films. Keiller describes The Dilapidated Dwelling as a 'comparatively straightforward televisions documentary' which he originally conceived as a 'piece of architectural research.' It contains a combination of archival footage and interviews with experts - many academic - linked together by a narration which circles around an investigation into the state and prospects of residential dwellings ('old space')." -- Paul Dave, Visions of England: class and culture in contemporary cinema, 2006 () >< pirate cinema berlin www.piratecinema.org

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THE THING @ WHITE SLAB PALACE: Monday screenings
by w 24 Sep '10

24 Sep '10

THE THING @ WHITE SLAB PALACE Colab Documents from the End of the '70s Monday, September 27, 8pm Delancy and Allen (southwest corner) Raw courage or criminal stupidity? Early adventures in musical performance and alternative space making. "X Magazine Benefit" (1978/2009; 12 min., b/w) Nearly all-black Super-8 document of the pre-No Wave concert with Contortions, DNA, Boris Policeband shot by Alan Moore; edit by Coleen Fitzgibbon “The Real Estate Show” (1979/80; 28 min., b/w) On-site uncut video of artists setting up the insurgent art exhibition that spawned ABC No Rio shot by Mitch Corber

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THE THING @ WHITE SLAB PALACE: monday screenings
by w 16 Sep '10

16 Sep '10

hi everybody, hope you had a good summer and enjoyed the calm after "the thing archiving" eruption in july. just a quick note to let you know that we are starting off our fall video series at white slab palace this monday, september 20 at 8pm. we begin with a program of contemporary french video. initiated by christoph draeger and curated by annie auchere aguettaz it includes the followinng artists: - Philippe ASTORG - Sebastien CAILLAT - Clorinde DURAND - Mihai GRECU - Pascale GUINET - Veronique HUBERT - Pascal LIEVRE - Laurent MARESCHAL - Frederic NAKACHE - Jean Gabriel PERIOT - Franck & Olivier TURPIN more info at http://the.thing.net beer will be served cold. next week alan moore will present historical videos from 1980ies produced by colab members and the "potato wolf" cable tv show. stay tuned for further announcements... THE THING @ WHITE SLAB PALACE monday screenings white slab palace 77 delancey street, new york, ny

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[Fwd: fifty euro promissory notes]
by w 22 Aug '10

22 Aug '10

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art life
by Jim Foster 19 Jul '10

19 Jul '10

Oh Dear, I just love to excite myself and then later on it takes my breath away that I actually just let my thoughts fly- and sometimes edit ! I let life trick me - into doing art works. The bronze is so much fun. I am changing my whole style of living by getting out of clay. Now I don't think I'm doing anything all day - where I was running something like a Dairy. All the bronzes have rubber molds made so more can be produced and by that time I just let the foundry do it all-except for the art work. Art work - has to break rules- go beyond what you did last- and totally make you think Whewww, how did I ever break all those rules and do that !!!! Video and computer editing are next ! Our minds are so important.... Need I say more. So much of our society is geared to staying in the trench, worrying, stressed out, pickled with safety nets all over the place so you can't take a fall- and then you gotta have new clothes on all the time, white tennies do the trick. We get all these tips from our folks, our teachers, our politicians, our policemenandwomen-and our soldiers get blown away and think they are fighting for freedom. I think we have to live as far away from the world as we can. Why do we love magicians and never learn their craft and make love with it ? Ohh, I can hear him coming way up the road from us. Now he is here. A motorcyclist rides by every morning at 4:30 on the dot and he is so noisy with Harley News, and then whosshssss he's gone. Whoops looks like he was early- or maybe that wasn't even him- too quiet, this time. A little like me. love to all and thanks for yours, jim

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Re: [thingist] Fw: Re: What about a subjective, evolving, archive?
by Alan Moore 18 Jul '10

18 Jul '10

hi Folks, moved to make some comment - although i lost my notes -- maybe i am not on the right list here? dunno... -- we'll see -- i get this at yahoo and at gmail -- symptomatic, actually, of the depth of engagements at work, since Yahoo is my email for old lists, etc.... i read W's letter, and found it somehow sad... agree with some of the critiques by people i've never met -- now i am in Hamburg for some days, so it looks like i may meet at least one of the "secessionist" thing-ers... in terms of life -- i agree with Joseph -- let the younger ones make the determinations how to use thing Joseph was my compatriot, as was Wolfgang, in important self-organized artist action in the 1970s and '80s -- ABC No Rio, artists' cable TV -- this work also by the way remains largely unhistoricized... ABC only because Marc Miller and i made the book -- much of this book is now online at 98bowery.com -- very good, but coming off an actual physical book, so the differences are significant... for me the Thing has been first a mystery, and then a sporadic engagement -- unlike James Allan, i never "hung up my six guns and moved to town" -- i am still out there somehow, and masterless... but the difference between me and you is that i did not discover the uses of the internet until very very late -- still i can't do much on it, and what i have learned was at my occasional university jobs when i had support -- but actually i do a lot of online work on my project now, which is research on EU occupied social centers and that too is really unknown, or, rather historicized from particular angles, and without any comprehensive reflection... i like the idea of Justin Berry -- it is a way to begin the process of historicization, and that is very important, to begin... you can begin openly, or -- really if you have a lot of money and staff, or a person(s) who dedicate themself to it -- you can wait until it's all together to make it public i also think it is good to let Steven Kaplan and "James Kalm" continue -- they do what they do, and it is not nothing -- there is also Douglas Kelley, who is part of what goes on at thing.post.net, and has been for a long while... i used Kalm's work in my attempts to understand the Brooklyn self-organized scene in the '90s and '00s -- again, the world of markets and institutions does not care about this, so nothing is done except by artists in the way of organized remembrance and passing on of these experiences -- and that is what it is about, is passing it on -- well, i am sermonizing... but in Hamburg i am beginning to see that people are and have been making art about making space, and that is a central drama of our times, since as it opens virtually it is closed down and reclaimed actually -- and the enclosure extends of course to the virtual, as Rhizome is institutional, and Hamburg Thing is archived -- not, as i have heard as a matter of choice, but because they lost their funding because they were too political... and the politics is cultural politics, the work to preserve space and money for open, horizontal, democratic culture, not only the "winners" in the market and institution games this was Toywar too -- the contest for virtual space, a successful campaign without which Yes Men would not have been, or it would not have occurred to them to do that -- oh well, just to say, what was the thing is a very interesting question - and it becomes only more interesting as time goes by... what is the thing is a sort of mercurial fluid position at a moment when things have hardened up all around us - and that, believe it or not, is extraordinarily valuable -- eine offentliche Raum that people pay attention to -- or not conclude? i think most constructive *re. the blog* is do nothing, and also don't boycott -- put in some posts, maybe determine a collective tack or theme... John Menick had and collected many ideas for how to evolve it, prepared for grants -- if development gets active, they can be revisited i have my private opinions, but i also post to thing.net and really it is an important position for me -- where else should i go? i am socially lazy, and don't go to the right parties now to meet the new people about the *thing past*, go with the "subjective" cloud thing, and see how that moves forward -- also it is important to make connection with people who do this history for a living, and get them interested in the thing as a project -- you know who they are, not me, altho i can find out, and would help on this when the ball is rolling... the very indefinition of the thing is what is so very interesting about it.... a private public utility... i look forward to the screenings as a chance to meet and chat with people i will surely like to know all the best, -am p.s. re Archives of American Art -- just dumping doesn't usually work -- you need earlier preparation of materials... also maybe not the right place, or, rather, not the only place -- needs a consultation and investigation on this question On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 11:27 AM, Alan Moore <awm13579(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > Alan W. Moore > > 123 Scribner Ave SI NY 10301 > cel : 917 574 8392 > > working this project: http://occuprop.blogspot.com > MWF video archive: http://www.brickhaus.com/amoore > > --- On *Sat, 7/17/10, Joseph Nechvatal <joseph_nechvatal(a)hotmail.com>*wrote: > > > From: Joseph Nechvatal <joseph_nechvatal(a)hotmail.com> > Subject: Re: [thingist] What about a subjective, evolving, archive? > To: thingist(a)mailman.thing.net > Date: Saturday, July 17, 2010, 4:05 PM > > > Justin, > > > When I met you at White Slab, your creative energy, enthusiasm and > competence became quickly evident to me. Your idea below shows the same > level of talented verve, but I very much doubt that it will manifest. Based > on the first round of letters - and obvious divergent positions held - my > impression is that The Thing's early members have run out of energy and > would not rise to the occasion of retelling the past. Nice as an idea it may > be. The proposed abandonment of the TT blog seems to indicate this to me, > for example. > > > I see two possible strategies left at the moment: > > > 1) Pass The Thing on to a younger generation - as we did with ABC No Rio - > no matter how different the activities may be from the founders original > ideals and practices. > > > 2) Fold the tent and give all materials to The Archives of American Art ( > see: http://www.aaa.si.edu/about/donating_papers.cfm ). This allows > professional archivists to preserve and communicate TT's legacy - if it has > one. > > > I for one would like to see TT continue and improve, but I have become too > much the realist to expect it. > > > Would like to hear other voices on these perceived two options, of course. > > > cheers > Joseph Nechvatal > > > > > ------------------------------ > Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2010 12:10:36 -0400 > From: justinberryart(a)gmail.com > To: thingist(a)mailman.thing.net > Subject: [thingist] What about a subjective, evolving, archive? > > 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 <http://mc/compose?to=JustinBerryArt@gmail.com> > Waymaker(a)WaymakerGallery.com > > ------------------------------ > Hotmail has tools for the New Busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your > inbox. Learn more.<http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:…> > > -----Inline Attachment Follows----- > > _______________________________________________ > thingist mailing list > thingist(a)mailman.thing.net<http://mc/compose?to=thingist@mailman.thing.net> > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/thingist > > -- Alan W. Moore cel: 917 574 8392 123 Scribner Ave SI NY 10301 Summer of '10 in Madrid, Hamburg, Berlin & etc. doing "House Magic: Bureau of Foreign Correspondence" blogging at http://occuprop.blogspot.com

2 1

Re: [thingist] the thing with the thing
by w 16 Jul '10

16 Jul '10

On Sun, 2010-07-11 at 17:47 +0200, Caspar Stracke wrote: > Hi. > > A few days ago I got together with Jan and we started to brainstorm > about possible future scenarios for the online presence of THE THING > (we are in Berlin, therefore no W involved) > The reason is the overall appearance of THE THING ...without organs, > if you want [update: although I should/could re-phrase that as White > Slap Palace event may get very active soon...] > > > However, after lots occasional talks with Wolfgang and huge chunks of > time passing I finally want to take this initiative and propose a > "clean up" - something we start talking about as the first subject > after the return of thingist. > I would assume that most of you agree with me to say that the legacy > of THE THING it too important to leave it with a mainly abandoned > two-person art blog - especially unmoderated , and in a sad default > drupal design that has as much charm as a blog of a New Jersey dentist > association. Other than that there are too many loose ends flying > around: thingist, events. thing.net , etc. > > Jan and me discussed possible options: > > 1) Make a distinctive separation between archive and active areas, > re-design the blog into a more complex forum and divide event post, > documentation of thing events, art reviews and hopefully a few more > fresh initiatives. ( I had a loose idea for a THING MONTHLY > section, which I call a curator's ping pong project) > Oh and touch up the ugly drupal of course > > 2) Get rid of the blog entirely and make it all archive, but with a > decent documentation, gathering material that maybe could also be the > touchstone for the long planned print documentation of the history of > THE THING. > > I have no info on the stats of post.thing, [W?] how many people > actually read these art reviews of post.thing.net. I have to admit > that for myself I had stopped even checking out this blog for a long > time. But I guess that's the normal progression of everybody cutting > back on online time (hence the radical disappearance of discussion > lists) > > If we look back, so much of THE THING's activity of the recent years > has moved into parallel universes, as for art review, there's the old > art net, then Rhizome of course and recently Marc Lafia's arts+ > culture, then 16 beaver group for events/talks and we-make-money for > silly media art pranks. (don't get me wrong: I love Regine's work) > among many others. > If we admit there are so many others that do the same activity, > probably even better, why not shutting down the blog and rather making > THE THING a very decent and well-designed archive. > > > I really admire the hard working Hamburg people among Connie Sollfrank > that picked up the old THING satellite initiative, founded THING > Hamburg, which was highly active for 3 years, then turned it right > away into an archive. > > > [W, I certainly and consciously left out all ISP and editions > activities here, so ultimately an index page would always need to make > the distinction between archive and active areas..] > > > Would be nice to hear some feedback on that form all of you. > > > ahoy, > > © > > -- > > > caspar stracke > > www.videokasbah.net > > dear caspar et al, i agree with you on almost all counts. post.thing.net has been taken over by two egomaniacs who have nothing in common with anything the thing ever stood for, but are using it as a springboard for better and bigger publishing opportunities. i did let it pass, because nothing else was going on and the thing has a tradition of being an orphanage anyway (blackhawk's words). but you are right, it's not a good idea to become associated with people who only abuse the platform for their own ends and think they are doing you a favor. page views on post usually range from 150 to 2500 (average i estimate at 1000 reads), not bad, not great either, but who cares about the eyeballs if we don't care about these sycophantic reviews in the first place? so i have no problem shutting it down. there are exceptions though, when alan moore or joseph nechvatal post something it's usually well worth the read. archiving bbs.thing.net (1997 - 2004) has stalled since the media branch of the lbi has been shut down in january. max and walter started restoring the bbs, but as far as i can tell nothing has happened since last year. gunther reisinger tried to get the unversity of graz to take over the project and finish the job, but i really don't know what has been going on lately and nobody bothers to update me on that account. i have no idea how to finish this job at the moment. it's a drag, since it would be a great historical resource. in the meantime i've been thinking how to keep on going and started to develop http://auctionthing.net with 4 partners (daniel burckhardt, daniel newburg, phillip brandt, rainald schumacher). the idea is to bring some more liquidity into the secondary art market and at the same time support independent art projects. the agreement between the partners is that at least 10% of the proceeds will support thing activities. we expect to have auctionthing ready for action by september. so ok, the priority seems to be to get the archive finished and save as much as possible for posterity. maybe max or walter can offer an answer as to where we stand on that front. second, what to do right now and in the future. in regards to online stuff... frankly i am suffering from internet fatique, so i am not the right person to address this issue now. i don't give a damn about facebook and twitter and i think anybody who's participating in this social networking data mining crap should not even be allowed a thing membership. i reluctantly agreed to have a thing facebook fan (spam) page set up to reach some of these morons, but i already regret this decision, since it implies tacit approval of facebook policies (and they are the exact opposite of what the thing ever stood for). one has to ask the question what kind of socio-cultural intervention makes any sense at this historical moment. for the last ten years i have retreated to the ivory tower of making art and was happy just to concern myself with aesthetic issues. maybe the best thing is to start small. we can do a film and video program at white slab in the fall. no pain, no pressure. then we have time to think about what kind of program, publication or on-line presence we really need. as to the latter, i agree that what we have now is a mess, but all this crap was done haphazardly without any competent coders. in the past the recipe for our success was the inclusion of competent programmers as equal partners in the whole decision making process. the big question still looms: why the effort and what for? there are many issues out there that that still tick me off. generally, i'm not happy with the state of the arts. on the one hand you have the academic part of the art world that overwhelmingly privileges purely socio-historical aspects of art. then, on the other, you have the market place, drunk with spectacle, speculation and narcissism. so "real" art is caught in this horrible pincer movement and i would like to have a tool or a medium to fight back. nothing wrong with well executed social activism (like the yes men, who i greatly admire, for example) or selling art for a decent price to make a living, but there is more to art than just the socio-political dimension or speculative market value respectively. so in order to step in and do something about this, i suppose you need a serious group effort of like-minded people and my problem is that i don't know if there are enough like-minded people. it's quite an effort to work towards cultural change, a herculean, if not sisyphean task. sometimes it just looks easier or more realistic to make your statement with your art work and that's it. there is only so much you can do in this short life. as you say, there are things out there that picked up where we left off. here are my examples: * cabinet magazine, which is doing an outstanding job combining art, literature, essays... it's the kind of mix i always liked. * e-flux, after shrewdly and relentlessly making inroads into the upper echelons of the art world's shakers and makers association, is now positioning itself as the critical stand-in for the status quo, kind of an updated artforum (now that's the place i didn't want to got to). * our old "rival" rhizome at the new museum; don't know much what they are doing these days, but a couple of months ago they hosted an interesting performance orchestrated by goldin and senneby. ok, to come to an end, where does all this leave us? the thing had its glory days. it stood for something. it was more an attitude than anything else, some kind of anti-authoritarian cyber-punk thing and we played it well. it was fun with all the clumsy antagonists we enjoyed fighting, from Mattel to DOW to eToys. and it was also fun to explore this new medium with all the artists who made their first tentative moves there. it's history now and it will be a tough act to follow. but i am open for suggestions. best, wolfgang ps: if nobody objects i would like to carry this over to thingist and open it up to a larger crowd. if you haven't subscribed yet here's where you do it: https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/thingist thingist - the facebook antidote.

3 2

the thing with facebook
by w 16 Jul '10

16 Jul '10

Caspar Stracke wrote: > Re: Facebook links and interaction with social media > absolutely not necessary in my opinion. A Facebook antidote? Despite > debates on privacy, I dont really understand the big fuss here. What > has one to do with the other? > People come to fb to giggle with (or at) their friends or -as some > THING members- becoming friends with Paul the octopus. That's it. i am always surprised how sanguine some people, who in many other respects display some degree of critical faculty, take the facebook phenomenon. during the dot com years, i somehow got on the list of a focus group head hunter. he probably thought the "ceo" of thing.net would be a qualified participant for focus groups that dealt with new online services, technical products, advertising and these kind of things. i often gladly accepted, since the groups met in the early evening, not too far from the office, and included coffee and sandwiches and at the end of a 90 minute session an envelop stuffed with $200 in cash. this is the difference, facebook doesn't give you free coffee and cash and behind the one-way mirror glass wall there are no human marketing spooks watching you, but banks of computers registering your every "like" and aggregating it into mind-blowing amounts of marketing data. recently some web sites popped up helping facebook and other social networking aficionados to "commit suicide," sites like http://www.seppukoo.com/ and http://suicidemachine.org/ (btw, the southpark episode is worth the download). they all were hit with cease and desist orders from zuckerberg & co and surprisingly they all complied. another indicator how media culture has changed. we relished those fights and employed every trick in the book to keep going and provide time and legal wiggle room, didn't matter whether the opponent was DOW or eToy or Mattel. recently on the idc list an aricle appeared which i am reposting below. the author of the article notes the suicide phenomenon on social media networks and suggest an even more effective method of resistance. stay on and just befriend everybody and like everything, just flood the system with meaningless clutter (not that it isn't full of that already). so THE THING member you allude to, the one befriending paul the oracle octopus, is doing just that. back when i was doing these focus group sessions, i was almost always bored to death with the products or design suggestions, so i invented answers i thought they might be fishing for or sometimes i just went for the opposite. it was a similar strategy. at least i was paid handsomely for my time. ---- from iDC list -------------------------------------------- Sean Dockray wrote: Everyone now wants to know how to remove themselves from social networks. It has become absolutely clear that our relationships to others are mere points in the aggregation of marketing data. Political campaigns, the sale of commodities, the promotion of entertainment – this is the outcome of our expression of likes and affinities. And at what cost? The reward is obvious: we no longer have to tolerate advertisements for things for which we have no interest. Instead our social relations are saturated with public relations. But at least it is all *interesting*! Unlike the old days, when we could invent online identities daily, our social networks today require fidelity between our physical self and our online self. The situation is unbearable. The frightening consequence of it all is that we believe in the value of these networks. We understand perfectly well that our privacy is being renegotiated without our consent; the rules are changing in plain view; but we still participate! It is like a new form of money, something we realize is a myth, but we act like it is real and that is its power. We can’t leave because everyone else is there! Or because we are invested in the myth ourselves. The question is how do we extract ourselves from this predicament? Recently, some programmers figured out how to computationally do exactly this. By entering in your username and password, the software would delete as much information as possible, ultimately removing the account itself. It was a radical enough idea to attract the legal attention of Facebook. This software did not go far enough! When someone disappears from Facebook, does anyone notice? Does this software retroactively invalidate all of the marketing data that has been collected from the account? Has this person de-dividuated themselves? No, silence has not disrupted the system in the slightest! Social networks need a social suicide. In the same way that 99.99999% of users on Facebook don’t exist within the cloistered world of one’s home page, an invisible user – one who has committed suicide – is simply a non-factor in the constant and regular computational logic of the thing. The answer isn’t silence, but noise! Suicide on a social network is a matter of introducing noise into the system. It spreads viruses and misinformation. It makes things less interesting for others. It disrupts the finely calibrated advertising algorithms on which suggestions are made – for friends, groups, institutions, ideas, and so on. Social networking captures, quantifies, and capitalizes on positive feedback. It records and reproduces similarity. Oh yes, everyone is not watching one of three mass-produced choices; but beneath all of the possibilities there is only one choice! The one for you! A roadmap for an effective Facebook suicide should do some of the following: catching as many viruses as possible; click on as many “Like” buttons as possible; join as many groups as possible; request as many friends as possible. Wherever there is the possibility for action, take it, and take it without any thought whatsoever. Become a machine for clicking! Every click dissolves the virtual double that Facebook has created for you. It disperses you into the digital lives of others you hadn’t thought of communicating with. It confuses your friends. It pulls all those parts of the world that your social network refuses to engage with back into focus, makes it present again. Invisibility comes in many forms, and on social networks it is the form of a radical overload of information – a maximum participation. No more thought, because every considered click adds to the collaborative filtering algorithms that makes sure everyone continues to like what they like, but in slightly modified form. Click everywhere, click often, and don’t stop until you have disappeared beneath a flood of meaninglessness. This is a call for suicide, for the abandonment of seriousness and belief. It is a call to reclaim ourselves from the sad version of ourselves that lives in that bloodless village. Don’t become nothing, the singular point defined by an absence, become everything, with everyone else. Drown the system in data and make a new world in the ruins that remain! iDC — mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity --------------------------------- and if you are still not clear what "the big fuss about privacy and facebook" is about, here is a starter via bruce sterling: http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2010/05/facebook-backlash-time/ ahoi mate, wolfgang

4 3

the thing with the thing
by Caspar Stracke 14 Jul '10

14 Jul '10

Hello everybody, OK guys, two options: We either dive 4500 ft deep and put a plug on The Thing, which is currently polluting the ocean, OR we have to start building a new platform! (for the new listeners all initial posts before thingist below...) Thanks for all the necessary, detailed additions, explanations and corrections, W! Wolfgang carries my question on /how ///to continue a more existential level by adding .../why /to continue? So far most reactions point towards the decision of closing the blog. My point in first place was a very practical one: To make a decent appearance of the archive, BUT at the same time remain some kind of pilot flame burning. Inevitably I opened a can of worms here..especially since everything points back to the good old days. As for considering new concepts / projects - GH I very much like your idea to introduce a featured artist page. I am a big fan of VVORK - for being such a radically simple (mainly) emerging art collection, image only, No text (just names and links) a vitalizing refreshing tool for arts/culture academics who constantly OD on art criticism. I could imagine some curatorial ping pong concept, designed in a similar simplicity, image only, nonetheless with option for comments / responses. GH, you add in the end: > Personally I think it would be more effective and have a certain > gossip/shock value if you start with a new project that is all about > energy and doesn't rest on any historical reference to previous faded > glory. On which I disagree. It's not that there is a fresh new project in place here and somebody wants to built upon an existing and well-respected network/platform. It's rather the opposite - making something out of the existing network itself. Speaking of "building upon" and to continue W's and my list of where THING activities have evolved - only look at this John Hershend guy and THE THING MONTHLY that has now completely hijacked the name even for events in NY: "Join us in NY on Friday, May 14th for the Public Release of Starlee's Kine's issue 10 of THE THING. Starlee Kine and friends will be on hand offering onion-cutting demonstrations (using her issue as the cutting board),... Housing Works Bookstore Café 7:00-8:30PM, 126 Crosby Street, NYC 10012" No silly finger pointing intended maybe I just want to I add a drip of (gulf) oil into the fire... Re: Facebook links and interaction with social media absolutely not necessary in my opinion. A Facebook antidote? Despite debates on privacy, I dont really understand the big fuss here. What has one to do with the other? People come to fb to giggle with (or at) their friends or -as some THING members- becoming friends with Paul the octopus. That's it. So...any more thoughts on GH's proposal of a dedicated featured artists project idea? © >> Hi. >> >> A few days ago I got together with Jan and we started to brainstorm >> about possible future scenarios for the online presence of THE THING >> (we are in Berlin, therefore no W involved) >> The reason is the overall appearance of THE THING ...without organs, >> if you want [update: although I should/could re-phrase that as White >> Slap Palace event may get very active soon...] >> >> >> However, after lots occasional talks with Wolfgang and huge chunks of >> time passing I finally want to take this initiative and propose a >> "clean up" - something we start talking about as the first subject >> after the return of thingist. >> I would assume that most of you agree with me to say that the legacy >> of THE THING it too important to leave it with a mainly abandoned >> two-person art blog - especially unmoderated , and in a sad default >> drupal design that has as much charm as a blog of a New Jersey dentist >> association. Other than that there are too many loose ends flying >> around: thingist, events. thing.net , etc. >> >> Jan and me discussed possible options: >> >> 1) Make a distinctive separation between archive and active areas, >> re-design the blog into a more complex forum and divide event post, >> documentation of thing events, art reviews and hopefully a few more >> fresh initiatives. ( I had a loose idea for a THING MONTHLY >> section, which I call a curator's ping pong project) >> Oh and touch up the ugly drupal of course >> >> 2) Get rid of the blog entirely and make it all archive, but with a >> decent documentation, gathering material that maybe could also be the >> touchstone for the long planned print documentation of the history of >> THE THING. >> >> I have no info on the stats of post.thing, [W?] how many people >> actually read these art reviews of post.thing.net. I have to admit >> that for myself I had stopped even checking out this blog for a long >> time. But I guess that's the normal progression of everybody cutting >> back on online time (hence the radical disappearance of discussion >> lists) >> >> If we look back, so much of THE THING's activity of the recent years >> has moved into parallel universes, as for art review, there's the old >> art net, then Rhizome of course and recently Marc Lafia's arts+ >> culture, then 16 beaver group for events/talks and we-make-money for >> silly media art pranks. (don't get me wrong: I love Regine's work) >> among many others. >> If we admit there are so many others that do the same activity, >> probably even better, why not shutting down the blog and rather making >> THE THING a very decent and well-designed archive. >> >> >> I really admire the hard working Hamburg people among Connie Sollfrank >> that picked up the old THING satellite initiative, founded THING >> Hamburg, which was highly active for 3 years, then turned it right >> away into an archive. >> >> >> [W, I certainly and consciously left out all ISP and editions >> activities here, so ultimately an index page would always need to make >> the distinction between archive and active areas..] >> >> >> Would be nice to hear some feedback on that form all of you. >> >> >> ahoy, >> >> © >> >> -- >> >> >> caspar stracke >> >> www.videokasbah.net >> >> >> > > > > > dear caspar et al, > > i agree with you on almost all counts. post.thing.net has been taken > over by two egomaniacs who have nothing in common with anything the > thing ever stood for, but are using it as a springboard for better and > bigger publishing opportunities. i did let it pass, because nothing > else was going on and the thing has a tradition of being an orphanage > anyway (blackhawk's words). but you are right, it's not a good idea to > become associated with people who only abuse the platform for their own > ends and think they are doing you a favor. page views on post usually > range from 150 to 2500 (average i estimate at 1000 reads), not bad, not > great either, but who cares about the eyeballs if we don't care about > these sycophantic reviews in the first place? so i have no problem > shutting it down. there are exceptions though, when alan moore or > joseph nechvatal post something it's usually well worth the read. > > archiving bbs.thing.net (1997 - 2004) has stalled since the media branch > of the lbi has been shut down in january. max and walter started > restoring the bbs, but as far as i can tell nothing has happened since > last year. gunther reisinger tried to get the unversity of graz to take > over the project and finish the job, but i really don't know what has > been going on lately and nobody bothers to update me on that account. > i have no idea how to finish this job at the moment. it's a drag, since > it would be a great historical resource. > > in the meantime i've been thinking how to keep on going and started to > develop http://auctionthing.net with 4 partners (daniel burckhardt, > daniel newburg, phillip brandt, rainald schumacher). the idea is to > bring some more liquidity into the secondary art market and at the same > time support independent art projects. the agreement between the > partners is that at least 10% of the proceeds will support thing > activities. we expect to have auctionthing ready for action by > september. > > so ok, the priority seems to be to get the archive finished and save as > much as possible for posterity. maybe max or walter can offer an answer > as to where we stand on that front. > > second, what to do right now and in the future. in regards to online > stuff... frankly i am suffering from internet fatique, so i am not the > right person to address this issue now. i don't give a damn about > facebook and twitter and i think anybody who's participating in this > social networking data mining crap should not even be allowed a thing > membership. i reluctantly agreed to have a thing facebook fan (spam) > page set up to reach some of these morons, but i already regret this > decision, since it implies tacit approval of facebook policies (and they > are the exact opposite of what the thing ever stood for). > > one has to ask the question what kind of socio-cultural intervention > makes any sense at this historical moment. for the last ten years i > have retreated to the ivory tower of making art and was happy just to > concern myself with aesthetic issues. maybe the best thing is to start > small. we can do a film and video program at white slab in the fall. no > pain, no pressure. then we have time to think about what kind of > program, publication or on-line presence we really need. as to the > latter, i agree that what we have now is a mess, but all this crap was > done haphazardly without any competent coders. in the past the recipe > for our success was the inclusion of competent programmers as equal > partners in the whole decision making process. > > the big question still looms: why the effort and what for? there are > many issues out there that that still tick me off. generally, i'm not > happy with the state of the arts. on the one hand you have the academic > part of the art world that overwhelmingly privileges purely > socio-historical aspects of art. then, on the other, you have the market > place, drunk with spectacle, speculation and narcissism. so "real" art > is caught in this horrible pincer movement and i would like to have a > tool or a medium to fight back. nothing wrong with well executed social > activism (like the yes men, who i greatly admire, for example) or > selling art for a decent price to make a living, but there is more to > art than just the socio-political dimension or speculative market value > respectively. so in order to step in and do something about this, i > suppose you need a serious group effort of like-minded people and my > problem is that i don't know if there are enough like-minded people. > it's quite an effort to work towards cultural change, a herculean, if > not sisyphean task. sometimes it just looks easier or more realistic to > make your statement with your art work and that's it. there is only so > much you can do in this short life. > > as you say, there are things out there that picked up where we left off. > here are my examples: > * cabinet magazine, which is doing an outstanding job combining art, > literature, essays... it's the kind of mix i always liked. > * e-flux, after shrewdly and relentlessly making inroads into the upper > echelons of the art world's shakers and makers association, is now > positioning itself as the critical stand-in for the status quo, kind of > an updated artforum (now that's the place i didn't want to got to). > * our old "rival" rhizome at the new museum; don't know much what they > are doing these days, but a couple of months ago they hosted an > interesting performance orchestrated by goldin and senneby. > > ok, to come to an end, where does all this leave us? the thing had its > glory days. it stood for something. it was more an attitude than > anything else, some kind of anti-authoritarian cyber-punk thing and we > played it well. it was fun with all the clumsy antagonists we enjoyed > fighting, from Mattel to DOW to eToys. and it was also fun to explore > this new medium with all the artists who made their first tentative > moves there. it's history now and it will be a tough act to follow. > but i am open for suggestions. > > best, > > wolfgang > > ps: if nobody objects i would like to carry this over to thingist and > open it up to a larger crowd. if you haven't subscribed yet here's > where you do it: https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/thingist > thingist - the facebook antidote. > > > > gh comments: > I agree the blog/art reviews should be retired. I think that the > thing should do a very simple concept/interface design. I think the > thing should have one project either by a group or an individual > artist featured for four months. I think a very simple rss forum can > go along with this. Maybe a few people, writers, theorists etc.. who > are interested in the project can be invited to the discussion. I > also think that the thing needs to have a simple way to interact with > various social media from facebook, linkedIn, to academia.edu as a > push alert. > more commentary below; > > On Jul 11, 2010, at 11:47 AM, Caspar Stracke wrote: > >> 1) Make a distinctive separation between archive and active areas, >> re-design the blog into a more complex forum and divide event post, >> documentation of thing events, art reviews and hopefully a few more >> fresh initiatives. ( I had a loose idea for a THING MONTHLY >> section, which I call a curator's ping pong project) >> Oh and touch up the ugly drupal of course > > This goes along with my notion of one project every four months. Maybe > this is an information project. > > >> >> 2) Get rid of the blog entirely and make it all archive, but with a >> decent documentation, gathering material that maybe could also be >> the touchstone for the long planned print documentation of the >> history of THE THING. > > I absolutely agree with this idea of getting rid of the blog idea. > Blogs are dead. >> >> I have no info on the stats of post.thing, [W?] how many people >> actually read these art reviews of post.thing.net. I have to admit >> that for myself I had stopped even checking out this blog for a long >> time. But I guess that's the normal progression of everybody cutting >> back on online time (hence the radical disappearance of discussion >> lists) >> >> If we look back, so much of THE THING's activity of the recent years >> has moved into parallel universes, as for art review, there's the >> old art net, then Rhizome of course and recently Marc Lafia's arts+ >> culture, then 16 beaver group for events/talks and we-make-money for >> silly media art pranks. (don't get me wrong: I love Regine's work) >> among many others. >> If we admit there are so many others that do the same activity, >> probably even better, why not shutting down the blog and rather >> making THE THING a very decent and well-designed archive. >> >> > As far as I understand W was trying to get the thing archive up and > running with the help of a Ars Electronica but it only lasted for a > little while. That's a really difficult project. > >> I really admire the hard working Hamburg people among Connie >> Sollfrank that picked up the old THING satellite initiative, >> founded THING Hamburg <http://www.thing-hamburg.de/>, which was >> highly active for 3 years, then turned it right away into an archive. >> > I like the idea of doing a time targeted project and then archiving > it. 3 years is a good goal! > >> >> [W, I certainly and consciously left out all ISP and editions >> activities here, so ultimately an index page would always need to >> make the distinction between archive and active areas..] > > Personally I think it would be more effective and have a certain > gossip/shock value if you start with a new project that is all about > energy and doesn't rest on any historical reference to previous faded > glory. > > > > G.H. Hovagimyan > http://nujus.net/~gh <http://nujus.net/%7Egh> > http://artistsmeeting.org > http://turbulence.org/Works/plazaville > >

2 1

W's original response
by gh hovagimyan 14 Jul '10

14 Jul '10

Here's casper's message & w's response. On Sun, 2010-07-11 at 17:47 +0200, Caspar Stracke wrote: > Hi. > > A few days ago I got together with Jan and we started to brainstorm > about possible future scenarios for the online presence of THE THING > (we are in Berlin, therefore no W involved) > The reason is the overall appearance of THE THING ...without organs, > if you want [update: although I should/could re-phrase that as White > Slap Palace event may get very active soon...] > > > However, after lots occasional talks with Wolfgang and huge chunks of > time passing I finally want to take this initiative and propose a > "clean up" - something we start talking about as the first subject > after the return of thingist. > I would assume that most of you agree with me to say that the legacy > of THE THING it too important to leave it with a mainly abandoned > two-person art blog - especially unmoderated , and in a sad default > drupal design that has as much charm as a blog of a New Jersey dentist > association. Other than that there are too many loose ends flying > around: thingist, events. thing.net , etc. > > Jan and me discussed possible options: > > 1) Make a distinctive separation between archive and active areas, > re-design the blog into a more complex forum and divide event post, > documentation of thing events, art reviews and hopefully a few more > fresh initiatives. ( I had a loose idea for a THING MONTHLY > section, which I call a curator's ping pong project) > Oh and touch up the ugly drupal of course > > 2) Get rid of the blog entirely and make it all archive, but with a > decent documentation, gathering material that maybe could also be the > touchstone for the long planned print documentation of the history of > THE THING. > > I have no info on the stats of post.thing, [W?] how many people > actually read these art reviews of post.thing.net. I have to admit > that for myself I had stopped even checking out this blog for a long > time. But I guess that's the normal progression of everybody cutting > back on online time (hence the radical disappearance of discussion > lists) > > If we look back, so much of THE THING's activity of the recent years > has moved into parallel universes, as for art review, there's the old > art net, then Rhizome of course and recently Marc Lafia's arts+ > culture, then 16 beaver group for events/talks and we-make-money for > silly media art pranks. (don't get me wrong: I love Regine's work) > among many others. > If we admit there are so many others that do the same activity, > probably even better, why not shutting down the blog and rather making > THE THING a very decent and well-designed archive. > > > I really admire the hard working Hamburg people among Connie Sollfrank > that picked up the old THING satellite initiative, founded THING > Hamburg, which was highly active for 3 years, then turned it right > away into an archive. > > > [W, I certainly and consciously left out all ISP and editions > activities here, so ultimately an index page would always need to make > the distinction between archive and active areas..] > > > Would be nice to hear some feedback on that form all of you. > > > ahoy, > > © > > -- > > > caspar stracke > > www.videokasbah.net > > > dear caspar et al, i agree with you on almost all counts. post.thing.net has been taken over by two egomaniacs who have nothing in common with anything the thing ever stood for, but are using it as a springboard for better and bigger publishing opportunities. i did let it pass, because nothing else was going on and the thing has a tradition of being an orphanage anyway (blackhawk's words). but you are right, it's not a good idea to become associated with people who only abuse the platform for their own ends and think they are doing you a favor. page views on post usually range from 150 to 2500 (average i estimate at 1000 reads), not bad, not great either, but who cares about the eyeballs if we don't care about these sycophantic reviews in the first place? so i have no problem shutting it down. there are exceptions though, when alan moore or joseph nechvatal post something it's usually well worth the read. archiving bbs.thing.net (1997 - 2004) has stalled since the media branch of the lbi has been shut down in january. max and walter started restoring the bbs, but as far as i can tell nothing has happened since last year. gunther reisinger tried to get the unversity of graz to take over the project and finish the job, but i really don't know what has been going on lately and nobody bothers to update me on that account. i have no idea how to finish this job at the moment. it's a drag, since it would be a great historical resource. in the meantime i've been thinking how to keep on going and started to develop http://auctionthing.net with 4 partners (daniel burckhardt, daniel newburg, phillip brandt, rainald schumacher). the idea is to bring some more liquidity into the secondary art market and at the same time support independent art projects. the agreement between the partners is that at least 10% of the proceeds will support thing activities. we expect to have auctionthing ready for action by september. so ok, the priority seems to be to get the archive finished and save as much as possible for posterity. maybe max or walter can offer an answer as to where we stand on that front. second, what to do right now and in the future. in regards to online stuff... frankly i am suffering from internet fatique, so i am not the right person to address this issue now. i don't give a damn about facebook and twitter and i think anybody who's participating in this social networking data mining crap should not even be allowed a thing membership. i reluctantly agreed to have a thing facebook fan (spam) page set up to reach some of these morons, but i already regret this decision, since it implies tacit approval of facebook policies (and they are the exact opposite of what the thing ever stood for). one has to ask the question what kind of socio-cultural intervention makes any sense at this historical moment. for the last ten years i have retreated to the ivory tower of making art and was happy just to concern myself with aesthetic issues. maybe the best thing is to start small. we can do a film and video program at white slab in the fall. no pain, no pressure. then we have time to think about what kind of program, publication or on-line presence we really need. as to the latter, i agree that what we have now is a mess, but all this crap was done haphazardly without any competent coders. in the past the recipe for our success was the inclusion of competent programmers as equal partners in the whole decision making process. the big question still looms: why the effort and what for? there are many issues out there that that still tick me off. generally, i'm not happy with the state of the arts. on the one hand you have the academic part of the art world that overwhelmingly privileges purely socio-historical aspects of art. then, on the other, you have the market place, drunk with spectacle, speculation and narcissism. so "real" art is caught in this horrible pincer movement and i would like to have a tool or a medium to fight back. nothing wrong with well executed social activism (like the yes men, who i greatly admire, for example) or selling art for a decent price to make a living, but there is more to art than just the socio-political dimension or speculative market value respectively. so in order to step in and do something about this, i suppose you need a serious group effort of like-minded people and my problem is that i don't know if there are enough like-minded people. it's quite an effort to work towards cultural change, a herculean, if not sisyphean task. sometimes it just looks easier or more realistic to make your statement with your art work and that's it. there is only so much you can do in this short life. as you say, there are things out there that picked up where we left off. here are my examples: * cabinet magazine, which is doing an outstanding job combining art, literature, essays... it's the kind of mix i always liked. * e-flux, after shrewdly and relentlessly making inroads into the upper echelons of the art world's shakers and makers association, is now positioning itself as the critical stand-in for the status quo, kind of an updated artforum (now that's the place i didn't want to got to). * our old "rival" rhizome at the new museum; don't know much what they are doing these days, but a couple of months ago they hosted an interesting performance orchestrated by goldin and senneby. ok, to come to an end, where does all this leave us? the thing had its glory days. it stood for something. it was more an attitude than anything else, some kind of anti-authoritarian cyber-punk thing and we played it well. it was fun with all the clumsy antagonists we enjoyed fighting, from Mattel to DOW to eToys. and it was also fun to explore this new medium with all the artists who made their first tentative moves there. it's history now and it will be a tough act to follow. but i am open for suggestions. best, wolfgang ps: if nobody objects i would like to carry this over to thingist and open it up to a larger crowd. if you haven't subscribed yet here's where you do it: https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/thingist thingist - the facebook antidote.

1 0

joseph nechvatal viral venture at white slab
by Wolfgang Staehle 20 Apr '10

20 Apr '10

THE THING at WHITE SLAB presents VIRAL VENTURE an installation by Joseph Nechvatal. Tuesday, April 27, 2010 8:30 pm and 10:00 pm White Slab Palace 77 Delancey Street (Southeast corner of Allen and Delancey) Transit: F to Delancey St.; J/M/Z to Essex St. The Viral Venture projection consists of imagery of Nechvatal’s most recent artificial-life computer virus attacking his digital images. The score by Rhys Chatham was recorded at the Sacré-Coeur Basilica in Paris using 400 electric guitars. The entire piece lasts about 50 minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5owH1qSE04Q see you there, wolfgang

1 0

Finishing Funds Grants Available to NYS Media Artists
by sherry hocking 04 Feb '10

04 Feb '10

* Finishing Funds 2010 Postmark Deadline: March 15, 2010 For application and guidelines: http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org See Grants>Finishing Funds * 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 York State; 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, and by mediaThe foundation. --

1 0

Black Zero
by Wolfgang Staehle 03 Feb '10

03 Feb '10

Performa09, White Box and THE THING present Black Zero by Aldo Tambellini and Group Center (1965-1968) featuring Aldo Tambellini (projections), William Parker (music), Ben Morea (noise machine), Maggie Clapis and the voice of Calvin C. Hernton (poet) A project by Christoph Draeger November 22 , 6 p.m. White Box, New York 329 Broome Street between Bowery and Chrystie Streets The critically acclaimed "Black Zero" (1965-68) by Aldo Tambellini was one of the very first multimedia performances. It will be re-staged in its original form by the artist who created it, Aldo Tambellini. We are very pleased to announce that the music for the piece will be improvised live by William Parker (double bass), whom the Allmusic Guide calls Free Jazz's pre-eminent bass player today. Aldo Tambellini wrote this synopsis for "Black Zero" in 1965: "At present, BLACK ZERO keeps on changing and growing with each presentation, just like the BLACK balloon which appears in the performance agonizingly grows, expands and disappears. In BLACK ZERO, you’ll be inside of the black womb of the Space Era. And in that womb, the Black poet, Calvin C. Hernton, the famous African American poet will read his poems. The plastic gas-masked figure floats like an astronaut under the expanding simultaneous motion of the stars. The television monitors pulsate in their insane cosmic dance. One day the light and the energy of the sun will become ice cold and the enormous sun disc will become BLACK." The last day of Performa’09 offers the unbelievably rare opportunity to see Tambellini's legendary 1968 "Electromedia" happening, Black Zero, for the first time in 41 years. The performance was painstakingly reconstructed by the artist himself (who is 79 now) in collaboration with Christoph Draeger. It will feature one more original member of Group Center, painter/activist/anarchist Ben Morea, and a rare recording of the voice of the legendary black poet Calvin C. Hernton, which had only recently been unearthed. His original poems for Black Zero, recorded by Tambellini in 1966, include the inflamatory “Jiggerbugging in the Street”. To see Black Zero at White Box not only offers the rare opportunity of a late glimpse into the tumultuous era of the mid-sixties, but is a truly mind expanding experience. Black Zero was created as an universal, abstract vision, intercellular and interstellar at the same time, yet symbolically, it was also a highly political account of racial tensions. It will be an exciting experiment to see how the political aspect of the piece, firmly rooted in the revolutionary culture of the decade when it was first created and performed, will impact on a contemporary audience. Black Zero was a radical precursor to Warhol's Plastic Inevitable and Rock music's psychedelic light shows. Whereas Warhol used The Velvet Underground, Tambellini collaborated with Free Jazz improvisers Cecil McBee, Alan Silva, Bill Dixon and Archie Shepp and the UMBRA poets Ishmael Reed, Norman Pritcher and Calvin Hernton. Tambellini’s philosophical views, recorded in the mid-sixties, are strikingly contemporary: "The concept of instability, impermanency, weightlessness, will become part of man or man part of it. Concepts will become instantaneous, not everlasting but ever changing." Press excerpts: "Black Zero, a Space-Light-Sound Event, is a live production in which the eye and the ear is charged with the shifting, changing, exploding images of our time. Flashing Lumagrams, hand painted projections by Aldo Tambellini, the rotations of Ron Hahne's Spiral Machine sliding across moving screens, Ben Morea's clamorous machines, the strident sounds of Alan Silva on bass, the hard reality of black poet, Calvin C. Hernton, flashing light and gas-masked heads form a continuous experience in Space, Light and Sound."-News from the Bridge, November 23, 1967 "The new avant-garde if cinema (light play) has moved 10 years forward into explorations....their dreams are so much farther advanced than the rest of the human activities that it will take at least another 10 years, maybe to catch up with the artist and to create proper tools to enable him to put those dreams into reality." -Jonas Mekas, The Village Voice, December 2, 1965 Aldo Tambellini (born Syracuse, 1930) Tambellini is a painter, sculptor and media-arts pioneer who made his first video in 1965, the classic "Black Is". The same year he began to experiment with multi-media performance ("Black Zero"), incorporating film, slides, music, poetry and dance-he called the new art form "Electromedia" . In 1967 he opened the Black gate theatre in the Lower East Side of New York, a forum for experimental film and video. In 1968, he collaborated with his friend Otto Piene in what is regarded as the first Television broadcast created by visual artists ever, "Black Gate Cologne", for the german national TV station WDR. In 1969 he won the Grand Prix at Oberhausen Film Festival for "Black TV" ("...an artist’s sensory perception of the violence of the world we live in, projected through the television tube."). He was a fellow at the center of Advanced Visual Studies at MIT in Cambridge from 1975-1986. He lives and works in Cambrigde MA. William Parker (born New York City, 1952) In the early '90s, free jazz was kept alive by a fairly large group of Lower East Side musicians, many of whom gathered around the music's pre-eminent bassist, William Parker. Parker was the scene's major catalyst for musical activity. As a bassist, Parker is possessed of a formidable technique, albeit an unconventional one. Unlike a great many jazz bassists, Parker was not formally trained as a classical player, though he did study with three of the finest jazz players of the '60s. Consequently, Parker's style is based on a tradition of self-expression and experimentation. His arco work is possibly the most fascinating aspect of his idiom; Parker excels at the creation of dense, hyperactive streaks of color, gleaned from the inherent harmonic properties of the instrument. At bottom, he is a textural player. Parker's pizzicato style is overwhelmingly percussive, in intent and effect. Ben Morea (born 1941) Morea is a painter and activist, and he is an original member of Group Center. He was the founder of Black Mask in 1966 and started the radical East Village collective Up Against The Wall Motherfucker in 1967. He lives in Colorado. Calvin C. Hernton (1933-2001) Hernton, member of UMBRA was for many one of the greatest black poets in the 1960's. His radical politically charged poetry strongly influenced his friend Ishmael Reed (both men took part in Tambellini's first “electromedia” performance, Black, in 1965), as well a later generation of poets such as as Gil Scott Heron. Christoph Draeger (Born Zurich 1965) Draeger is a conceptual artist whose work has been exhibited internationally since 1993 in museums and venues such as Paco das Artes in Sao Paulo, Kunstwerke in Berlin, Kwangju Biennial, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Kunsthaus Zurich, Big Torino Biennial, Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum in New York, Moscow Biennial, Liverpool Biennial, CCA in Warsaw and Carrillo Gil Museum in Mexico City, among others. Christoph Draeger first moved to New York in 1996 on a one year-scholarship for the International Studio Program at P.S 1. He lives and works in NYC. This project has been made possible through generous support from Pro Helvetia. White Box is located on 329 Broome Street between Bowery and Chrystie Streets. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Sunday from 11am to 7pm. The nearest subway stops are Grand Street on the B/D lines and Delancey Street on the F/J/M/Z lines. For more information please contact press(a)whiteboxny.org or call 212-714-2347. Links: http://aldotambellini.com/ http://www.christophdraeger.com/ http://www.whiteboxny.org/ http://thing.net/ http://performa-arts.org/

3 5

Hanging Fire
by yasir ~يا سر 09 Dec '09

09 Dec '09

Hanging Fire ***** Contemporary Art from Pakistan till Jan 2010 at Asia Society in NYC http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QUQ2Vs23KM

1 0

16beaver, THE THING, and Laura Palmer Foundation present:
by Wolfgang Staehle 07 Nov '09

07 Nov '09

Public-Art Projects in the Ex-communist Stadium and in the former Warsaw Ghetto Joanna Warsza and Warren Niesłuchowski / Laura Palmer Foundation / Warsaw, Poland Talk, Screenings, Book Launch and Discussion Thursday, November 12, 2009, 7:00 pm 16 Beaver Street, 4th Floor New York Free and open to all http://the.thing.net http://www.16beavergroup.org/ www.laura-palmer.pl The 10-th Anniversary Stadium in Warsaw was built in 1955 from the rubble of a war-ruined Warsaw. It was to preserve Communism’s good name for forty years, by the mid-'80s, it fell into ruin, becoming a post-Communist phantom. It was 'revived' by Vietnamese intelligentsia-cum-vendors and Russian traders, pioneers of capitalism. An open-air market called Jarmark Europa became the only multicultural site in the city, a storehouse of biographies, a major tourist attraction, a primeval forest, a realm of precarity and discount shopping, or a work camp for botanists. Its heterogeneity, its longstanding (non)presence in the middle of the post-Communist city, the invisibility of the Vietnamese minority, the debate around the new National Stadium here for the Euro 2012 football cup, and the lack of a critical debate on Poland's post-war architectural legacy — inspired Joanna Warsza's curatorial project Finissage of Stadium X. A Trip to Asia: An Acoustic Walk Around the Vietnamese Sector of the 10th-Anniversary Stadium (2006); Boniek!,a one-man re-enactment of the 1982 Poland-Belgium football match by Massimo Furlan, (2007); or Radio Stadion Broadcasts by Radio Simulator and backyardradio (2008) were subjective excursions undertaken by artists, activists and athletes into the reality of a Stadium 'no longer extant'. The result were projects of a participative and semi-documentary nature (a walk, a football match, a Sunday radio station, a spectacle on a building site, an exhibition featuring real people) which touched upon issues of memory, deterioration, the power of imagination, ambiguities, and the future, as well as on the problematic exoticism of a disappearing place. The readerStadium X-A Place That Never Was offers a selection of texts presenting a multi-faceted picture of that site's deterioration and its existence as a 'city within a city' and also documents the series of live art projects. The Stadium and its parasites functions, which are now being erased form the map of Warsaw will likely become some distant planet, while the present publication, with the brilliant contributions from its authors, will attain — perhaps — the status of an unreal story about a place that, after all, never was. Stadium X — A Place That Never Was: A Reader Edited by Joanna Warsza Contributing authors: Claire Bishop, Sebastian Cichocki, Benjamin Cope, Ewa Majewska, Daniel Miller, Pascal Nicolas-Le Strat, Warren Niesłuchowski, Marek Ostrowski, Grzegorz Piątek, Cezary Polak, Anda Rottenberg, Roland Schöny, Pit Schultz, Tomasz Stawiszyński, Stach Szabłowski, Ngô Van Tuong, Tomasz Zimoch Design by René Wawrzkiewicz Photos by Mikołaj Długosz, Marta Pruska, Marta Orlik Published by Bęc Zmiana Foundationand Ha!art, Warsaw and Kraków,2008/2009 U. S. distributor Textfield; European distributor Motto Laura Palmer Foundation takes its name from the character whose absence organizes the plot of David Lynch's Twin Peaks. The label produces actions, conceptual events, and performances. Incorporating real life and fictitious or staged events, and its representation, it seeks out new collaborative models. Joanna Warsza, a curator and artist on the cusp of the performing and visual arts, also directs the Laura Palmer Foundation. She works mostly in public space with the invisible, the ephemeral or staged situations — around the Vietnamese community in Warsaw, Israeli Youth Delegations to Poland or post-Soviet architecture legacy in Georgia and Armenia. She has collaborated with AICA Armenia, CCA Kaliningrad, CCA Kiev, the Centre Pompidou, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, the Building in Berlin or Performa in New York, among many other projects. Warren Niesłuchowski was born in a Polish refugee camp in Germany after World War II and was raised in the United States. While a deserter in Paris in the late ’60s, he performed with the Bread and Puppet Theatre throughout Europe and in Iran. For the last many years, after studies in linguistics and social theory at Harvard College, he has been working with and for artists, first at P. S. 1 in New York, and then independently, as a writer, speaker, translator, editor, and collaborator. The book and the events were created with the generous support of the City of Warsaw

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tashkent تاشقند
by yasir ~يا سر 10 Oct '09

10 Oct '09

hello I'll be in Tashkent, Uzbekistan 13-22, If you would like to meet up. its the biennale. we have an installation. or if know someone there, please let me know. best yasir

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Re: [thingist] Hanging Fire ***** Contemporary Art from Pakistan
by yasir ~يا سر 05 Oct '09

05 Oct '09

"Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan," at Asia Society (Sept. 2009-Jan. 2010) is billed as the first major U.S. museum survey of contemporary art from Pakistan. http://maujmedia.blogspot.com/2009/09/hanging-fire-contemporary-art-from.ht… Producer: Robert Knafo A visit at the media preview features an interview with curator Salima Hashmi and spotlights work by Hamra Abbas, Bani Abidi Zahoor ul Akhlaq, Faiza Butt, Ayaz Jokhio, Naiza Khan, Huma Mulji, Asma Mundrawala, Imran Qureshi, Rashid Rana, Anwar Saeed, and Adeela Suleman. -- Posted By yasir ~ to :: Mauj ~ موج // at 9/21/2009 11:13:00 AM --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ \\ Mauj _ Collective for Open Technology, Art & Culture

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