[iDC] Atoms, Bits, and Ubiquity

[Armin Medosch]

Hi, 

I am relatively new to this list. some of you will know me, in person, 
or at least as an email entity. however, the quickest of all 
introductions, I have been working as a media artist since 1985 and 
now write, curate shows, teach and try to revive my 'praxis'. writing is 
maybe my main strength but even when I write something quite 
heavily theoretical my approach is alway coming from practice and 
going back to it, trying to make the theory relevant for the making 
and doing. Over the last 5 years or so I have been hanging out more 
with so called hackers (by hackers I mean creative software 
developers, not code breakers) than with artists and this has 
informed my views quite a bit. 
 
>From that angle I find the notion of ubiquity quite problematic.

> My thought was that media/computing/communication would migrate from the
> screen to the hand, onto the body, and off into architectural space.
> Mind you this is not a singular process, but a progressive one where the
> media expands from the screen, over the body, and out into space.

Well, who is doing all this? This is not a neutral process but shaped 
by the forces of techno-capitalism so to speak. 

> By and large, this pronouncement seems to have taken place.  The screen
> has moved to mobile/locative media, and media is burrowing into the
> physical. 

maybe not just burrowing, but also surrounding, conquering, 
colonizing? I think this process cannot just be accepted as a natural 
development on top of which artists stick some nice interfaces which 
aestheticise self-surveillance. But there is space for intervention, 
facilitated by the hacker community. Trebor has asked me to 
republish the following text on this list but as it is rather long I prefer 
to offer you the good old pull variation: 
http://theoriebild.ung.at/view/Main/HiveNetworks

On the same site you find also some more of my writings, in 
particular on wireless free community networks on which I have 
written a book (in German) but also some longish English pieces. 
http://theoriebild.ung.at/view

best regards
Armin

 
> The difference between 1999 and 2006 seems to be that the progression of
> media is not as uniform as I thought, and broader.  Where I had thought
> more about embedded technologies, physical computing, locative, RFID, as
> well as embedding seem to be the case.  
> 
> What I wonder is:
> How does this mesh of communications networks affect our sense of an
> evergent/cybrid architecture (physical/information)?
> How does it affect our social structures, grouping, socioeconomic
> strata?
> How does the evolving physical/informatic 'city' change the way we
> create, dialogue, and collaborate?
> 
> I realize that some of this is already discussed by Mitchell, but I want
> to bring some of this up again to bring our viewpoints in line with this
> move from the screen into space.
> 
> I hope this meets with some of your interests.
> 
> Patrick Lichty
> - Interactive Arts & Media
>   Columbia College, Chicago
> - Editor-In-Chief
>   Intelligent Agent Magazine
> http://www.intelligentagent.com
> 225 288 5813
> voyd at voyd.com
>  
> "It is better to die on your feet 
> than to live on your knees." 
>  
> 
> 
> 
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