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149 discussions

25 Feb '12

thingsters, this sunday at 3pm inside The MoMA PS1 Performance Dome an afternoon of unlimited turbo madness: Turbo Movies YouTube Favorite Memes Performances Visual panel discussion Party Bar Guests include: Wolfgang Staehle, artist Phil Sick, writer Adam Kleinman, critic/actor Giovanni De Dona, philosopher Eva and Franco Mattes, artists thingsters, this is going to be good! we've built a beautiful shack with a bar in this horrible dome... come inside the shack and we'll have tequila boom boom! http://post.thing.net/node/3583 http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2012/01/31/beyond-performan…

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

18 Feb '12

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

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attention - last minute notice
by w 20 Dec '11

20 Dec '11

Tonights screening will take plavce NOT be at Pink Pony but at White Box! http://www.whiteboxny.org/info/info_index.html Jon Rafman (Montréal, CAN) will introduce his video work in person. "In this series of narrative shorts, the real confronts the ideal, the ironic challenges the romantic as the line between celebration and critique is blurred. Each film explores the relationship between identity and memory, both historical and personal; yet memory is unreliable and so anonymous narrators have difficulty distinguishing memories of dreams from memories of reality." - J.R. Ad-Vice for a Prophet DU3L City Girls News from the Madhatter You the World and I + A SURPRISE FILM

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CFP for Occupations: new conference dates and deadline
by Erika Biddle 20 Dec '11

20 Dec '11

FYI: The date for “Occupations,” the 11th Annual Graduate Conference in Communication and Culture at York University and Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario has been changed from March 23-25, 2012 to April 27-29, 2012. Please see information on the revised deadline for submissions in the CFP below. Also of note, Edu-Factory’s “Our University! A Conference on Struggles Within and Beyond the Neoliberal University” will be held in Toronto the same weekend. We will be working in collaboration with the Edu- Factory organizers on some events over this weekend; stay posted for details. For more information on the Edu-Factory conference, see http://www.edu-factory.org/wp/the-university-is-ours/ + + + INTERSECTIONS / CROSS SECTIONS 2012: OCCUPATIONS 11th Annual Graduate Conference in Communication and Culture at York University and Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada April 27-29, 2012 (new date!) http://thecomcult.wordpress.com Abstracts due: February 1, 2012 (revised deadline) Email submissions and questions to: intersections.occupations(a)gmail.com Occupy but better yet, self manage…. The former option is basically passive—the latter is active and yields tasks and opportunities to contribute.… To occupy buildings, especially institutions like universities or media, isn’t just a matter of call it, or tweet it, and they will come. It is a matter of go get them, inform them, inspire them, enlist them, empower them, and they will come. – Michael Albert, “Occupy to Self Manage” (http://interactivist.autonomedia.org/node/33609 ) The unfolding events at Occupy Wall Street and elsewhere present possibilities for new politics, and new forms of learning from, living with and engaging each other. Occupations are attempts to build the social compositions that are the precondition for action. They are the working through of a problem that politics-as-usual works to suppress— the massive exploitation that is capitalism and the emergence of politics adequate to address it. At this stage, occupations are the connection of people, ideas and machines—the cumulation of assemblages that might build something. What happens next depends on what is being built now. We invite graduate students from all related disciplines to submit proposals for academic, artistic and activist presentations and workshops that explore and otherwise critically engage occupations. Please send a 250-word abstract to occupations.intersections(a)gmail.com. Proposals should list paper/panel title, name, institutional affiliation and contact details. Workshop facilitators: Please provide a timeline indicating the duration and one or two general learning objectives of your session, along with space and technical requirements. Artists: If sending creative works by email, please limit attachment size to 5 MB or less, or direct us to a URL. Include viewing instructions, comments and titles if applicable. If submitting creative works by post, please mail the proposal, a copy of the work and viewing instructions to the following address: Intersections / Cross Sections 2012 Conference c/o Graduate Program in Communication and Culture 3013 TEL Building, York University 4700 Keele Street Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Occupations is presented by and for graduate student scholars, artists and activists through the organizing efforts of the Communication and Culture Graduate Students Association (GSA). For more information about the Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture at York and Ryerson Universities: http://comcult.yorku.ca & http://www.ryerson.ca/graduate/programs/comcult/

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CFP for Intersections/Cross Sections 2012: Occupations
by Erika Biddle 23 Nov '11

23 Nov '11

Below is the CFP for the annual graduate conference hosted by the Joint Programme in Communication and Culture at York and Ryerson Universities, Toronto. Please distribute widely. + + + CFP for INTERSECTIONS / CROSS SECTIONS 2012: “OCCUPATIONS” (March 23– 25, 2012) 11th Annual Communication and Culture Graduate Conference, York University/Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario Abstracts due: December 23, 2011; notification by January 23, 2012 Conference date: March 23–25, 2012 Please email submissions and questions to: intersections.occupations(a)gmail.com Occupare: (Latin.) To seize, capture Occupy but better yet, self manage…. The former option is basically passive—the latter is active and yields tasks and opportunities to contribute.… To occupy buildings, especially institutions like universities or media, isn’t just a matter of call it, or tweet it, and they will come. It is a matter of go get them, inform them, inspire them, enlist them, empower them, and they will come. – Michael Albert, “Occupy to Self Manage” (http://interactivist.autonomedia.org/node/33609 ) I think that our political structures are corrupt and we need to really think about what a democratic society would be like. People are learning how to do it now…. This is more than a protest, it’s a camp to debate an alternative civilization. – David Graeber, “The Man Behind Occupy Wall Street,” interviewed by Seth Fiegerman (http://interactivist.autonomedia.org/node/33897) This is a critical moment, as “Occupy everywheres” present possibilities for new politics, and new forms of learning, engaging and living with each other. From the recurring occupations of the squares in Greece and Italy to the UK’s winter of discontent and the Arab Spring, to the summer of protest in Spain and the North American autumn—at general assemblies around the globe, people are running their own lives, influencing the media and discussing what is to be done without politicians. The recent occupations are an education in direct democracy and the solidarity necessary for action. Occupy Wall Street, and the occupations around the world, are attempts to build the social compositions that are the precondition for action. They are the working-through of a problem that ‘politics-as-usual’ works to suppress—the massive exploitation that is capitalism, and the emergence of politics adequate to address it. At this stage, the occupations are the connection of people, ideas and machines—the cumulation of assemblages that might build something. What happens next depends on what is being built now. As it was written upon the recent expulsion of OWS from Zuccotti Park: “You can’t evict an idea whose time has come.” We invite graduate students from all related disciplines to submit proposals for academic, artistic and activist presentations and workshops that explore, celebrate, analyze and otherwise critically engage with the ideas emerging from occupations. Possible areas of engagement include: politics and aesthetics, movement research and performance studies, humanities and digital humanities, critical disability studies, labour studies, social theory, social movement theory, policy, political economy, communications studies, media, culture, pedagogy, technology, artistic practice and activism. Please send a 250-word abstract, as well as a brief biographical note (100 words) to occupations.intersections(a)gmail.com by December 23, 2011. Proposals should list paper/panel title, name, institutional affiliation and contact details. Workshop facilitators: Please provide a tentative timeline highlighting the duration and one or two general learning objectives of your session, along with a clear indication of space and technical requirements. Artists: If sending creative works by email, please limit attachment size to 5 MB or less, or direct us to a URL. Include viewing instructions, comments and titles in your email if applicable. If submitting creative works by post, please mail the proposal, a non- original copy of the work, and viewing instructions to the following address (well before the submission deadline): Intersections 2012 Conference c/o Graduate Program in Communication and Culture 3013 TEL Building, York University 4700 Keele Street Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Intersections / Cross Sections 2012: Occupations is presented by and for graduate student scholars, artists and activists through the organizing efforts of the Communication and Culture Graduate Students Association (GSA): http://thecomcult.wordpress.com For more information about the Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture at York and Ryerson Universities: http://comcult.yorku.ca and http://www.ryerson.ca/graduate/programs/comcult/

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JAM SESSION party
by w 19 Nov '11

19 Nov '11

Massive 24-hour DRUM CIRCLE and JAM SESSION party starting tomorrow, Sunday at 2pm, outside Mayor Bloomberg's personal townhouse: 17 East 79th Street. Tie-dye, didgeridoo, hackeysack welcome! No shirt, no shoes, no problem! And if you don't have talent, don't worry: FREE DRUM LESSONS offered! Also on offer: collaborative drumming with the police! Even though this is a 24-hour drum circle, don't be late! The mayor loves evictions. Who knows what'll happen? In any case, there'll be an afterparty in world-famous Central Park right afterwards. Please spread this announcement (www.yeslab.org/drumcircle) as far and fast as you can!

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"Blind Barber" by Alterazione Video
by w 09 Nov '11

09 Nov '11

PERFORMA 11 PRESENTS THE NEW CINEMA EVENT BY ALTERAZIONI VIDEO Saturday, November 12, 7:00 pm — 9:00 pm @ The Blind Barber (339 East 10th Street) Get a hair cut and mystical truths will be revealed. No cover charge. The last Turbo Movie by Alterazioni Video Starring: Wolfgang Staehle Raganr Kjartansson Mike Egan Uri Aran Viola Yesiltac Adam Kleinman Live sound track by: Alterazioni Video produced by: Dispari&Dispari Project

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

10 Oct '11

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

3 2

Today
by w 04 Oct '11

04 Oct '11

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

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

04 Oct '11

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

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