The Creative Animal Goes Online (Part B)

The Creative Animal Goes Online 2.0Mitch Goodwin

NM1102 New Media & the Creative EconomyJames Cook University | Townsville School of Creative Arts

15 05 09

ExpressionHistory Meaning Venue



“This is the golden age of tactical media, open to issues of aesthetics,experimenting with alternative forms of story telling. However, theseliberating techno practices did not immediately translate into visible socialmovements. Rather, they symbolized the celebration of media freedom, initself a great political goal.

Gert Lovink & Florien Schneider, | A Virtual World is Possible : From Tactical Media to Digital Multitudes | Public Netbase: Non Stop Future, New Practices in Art and Media| Revolver | Berlin



“Commonly shared was a feeling that politically motivated activities, be theyart or research or advocacy work, were no longer part of a politically correctghetto and could intervene in pop culture™ without necessarily having tocompromise with the system™. With everything up for negotiation, newcoalitions could be formed. The current movements, worldwide, cannot beunderstood outside of the very personal and diverse cry for the digitalfreedom of expression.”

Gert Lovink & Florien Schneider, | A Virtual World is Possible : From Tactical Media to Digital Multitudes | Public Netbase: Non Stop Future, New Practices in Art and Media| Revolver | Berlin

Screening RoomThe Political Animal

Civil Counter ReconnaissanceSystem 77 | April, 2009 | Vienna

Netbase t0 Institute For New Cultural Technologies | 2006 | Vienna

http://s-77ccr.org/index_en.php�

http://www.netbase.org/t0�



Nomadic InformationDatabases, Algorithms and Content Portals

For Your ReferencesCool Stuff to Chew ↑ Your Bandwidth

Impermanence | Goodwin | Gold Coast | 2000

RemixologyThe Remix, The Mash-Up & Web 2.0

“Art Is Product” DebateReward, passion, politics and hunger

This Is Civilisation DocumentaryScreening in DA302-016 @ 11:15am

RemixologyThe Remix, The Mash-Up & Web 2.0

Sound LoungeThe Remix Animal

Ray of Gob| Go Home Productions Madonna vs The Sex Pistols | 2004

Barak Obama | The Audacity of Hope Audio Samples | April Winchell | 05-02-09

http://www.gohomeproductions.co.uk/archive1.html�

http://www.aprilwinchell.com/2009/02/05/barack-obama-is-tired-of-your-motherfucking-shit/�

Ist Principles of the RemixWe re-write the rules, society invented the remix

The ethos of the remix is as old as the cultural artefact itself :

• The Wandjina ancestral figures of Australian rock art

• The reconfiguration of the Old Testament, the Qur’an andthe Torah from pagan myth

• The emergence of cut’n paste scrapbook (1800s)

• The African-American Delta Blues template (early 1900s)

• The Trojan Sound System (1950s)

• Shepherd Fairey’s Hope / Progress posters (2008)

The Creative Animal Goes Online 2.0Mitch Goodwin 150509


RemixologyThe Remix, The Mash-Up & Cut’n Paste Culture

Wandjini | North-West Victoria | Australia


Important dates and names you should know :

• 1967 - Arthur “the Duke” Reid & Ruddy Redwood (RoughTrade Records, Kingston Jamaica)

• 1972 - David Mancuso (The Loft, New York City)

• 1973 - Tom Moulton (The Sandpiper, Fire Island)

• 1979 - Clive Campbell (aka KOOL HERC)

• 1981 - Joseph Saddler (aka Grandmaster Flash)

• 1982 - Afrika Bambaataa (aka BAM)




The Trojan Sound System | Arthur “The Duke” Reid


• The remix, the mash-up, the cut’n paste, the montage andthe pastiche all depend on the same principles.

• The pinch, the snip - the isolating perspective

• The manipulation, the interrelation - re-imagining

• For the Duke it was the version (the instrumental dub track)

• For Moulton it was the tape splicing re-edit (the extendeddisco mix)

• For Flash it was Quick Mix Theory (Hip-Hop and scratching)




The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel | Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five | Sugar Hill Records | 1981





2003 20062004 20072003 2006

Hope vs ProgressThe Shepard Fairey incident

• Shepherd Fairey is an American street artist who works withstickers, stencils and image manipulation tools such asPhotoshop.

• He came to prominence in 1989, while still at University in NewYork, with his ubiquitous poster campaign of Andre the Giant.

• He has since travelled extensively, with Andre popping up inRussia, Japan, and the UK. In 1995 the poster was adapted to“Obey Andre”.

• His work has expanded to include screen printing and aclothing company. He established an ad agency to fund hisartistic exploits and his clients include Levis, the SmashingPumpkins and Sunkist.




Andre the Giant Has a Posse | Shepherd Fairey | 1989 | USA

http://obeygiant.com/�




Peace Bomber | 2009 No… I’m Vegetarian | 2007 Make Art Not War | 2005 Obey | 2005




Hope | Shepard Fairey | 2008 | USA

“My Obama poster variations of “HOPE” and “PROGRESS”were obviously not intended to report the news.

I created them to generate support for Obama; the point wasto capture and synthesize the qualities that made him aleader. The point of the poster is to convince and inspire. It’sa political statement.

My Obama poster does not compete with the intent of, orthe market for the reference photo.”

Shepard Fairey, 2009

Hope vs ProgressThe Shepard Fairey incident

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/24/shepard-fairey-on-th.html�






Gene Pool | http://pool.org.au/ | Australian Broadcast Commission | 2009

Information as Content Development

• If we think of the web as a resource we can make the analogy of the “web space” as an artist’s studio (and his/her community).

• As in a studio where brushes, oils, pastels, canvasses, wood blocks and easels enable the artist to create meaning, Web 2.0 technologies provide a similar function :

• Software platforms• Decoding and encoding tools• Search algorithms• Database statistics• Relational content• Comment, critique and guidance

http://pool.org.au/�





• “Comment, critique and guidance” …

• This last point becomes vital as the artists moves from the act of creation to the mode of promoter, distributor and educator.

• Work which is generated or finished in the digital realm is attached to the network.

• The artist and their work become a node

• By linking their work to other portals, detailing their process on a blog, or posting updates to Facebook, MySpace and/or Twitter the artist is then facilitating a promotional network. Small Box | Social Media Optimization | 2009





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page�


• Analogue artists, programmers, technologists, theoristsand new media artists are using information directly offthe web to create content.

• By accessing databases of information using informationrich portals like eBay or Google to generate data setsthey are visualising information and creating a newaesthetic.

• This is being developed either as activist art, for purelyaesthetic purposes, digital dreaming, objectification ofdata, scientific investigation or perhaps moreimportantly as a natural development of our increasingreliance on visual signs as language.




We Feel Fine | http://www.wefeelfine.org | Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar | May 2006

http://www.wefeelfine.org/�

Hans Bernhard

• Hans Bernhard is anew net artist, media activist,programmer and blogger.

• His works use information rich portals like eBay, Amazon& Google to generate media art.

• He hosts his works and thoughts at Psychotropic DrugKaraoke.

• The project which brought him to the attention of theworld – ie the CIA, the FBI and CNN via a 27min exposeon “Burden of Proof” – was [V]ote-Auction whichoffered US citizens the chance to sell their votes onlineto the highest bidder in the 2000 (and again in the 2004)US elections.




Burden of Proof | Hans Bernhard | CNN | 2000

http://hansbernhard.com/�

http://hansbernhard.com/�

http://www.gwei.org/pages/texts/detail.html�

Hans Bernhard

“We(3) are the children of the 1980s, We are the first internet-pop-generation. We grew up with radical Michael Milken [The King ofJunk Bonds] and mythical Michael Jackson [The King of Junk Pop].

Hans Bernhard is loaded with 10 years of internet & tech [digitalcocaine], mass media hacking, underground techno, hardcore[illegal] drugs, rock&roll lifestyle and net.art jet set [etoy]. Hisneuronal networks and brain structures are similar to the globalsynthetic network he helped build up and maintained subversiveactivity within. And now they are "infected" by a manic-depression[WHO ICD-10, F31.1.] (1), both Hans Bernhard and The "Network"are infected by this structural disorder. Waves of mania anddepression are running through these technical, social andeconomic structures. “ Hans Bernhard




Self Portarit | Hans Bernhard | 2002 | Station 4B, Department of Psychiatry, General Hospital | Vienna

http://hansbernhard.com/X/pages/video/index_long.html�

eToy CORPORATION

• Hans Bernhard first established the eToyCORPORATION in 1994, as a “global internetinvestment identity”.

• Playing with notions of “shareholder value”,“globalisation” and the 24 hour global economy,eToy produces net art works which satirise theeconomic philosophies of the “New World Order”(see George Bush Snr).

• The central argument of the site, is not to reject“global markets, economic exchange, culture,individuals and politics”, but to subvert it throughnet activism.




eToy Corporation | Hans Bernhard | Est. 1994

http://www.etoy.com/�

eToy CORPORATION (a manifesto)

• etoy.CORPORATION seeks to explore social,cultural and financial value.

• etoy.SHAREHOLDERS invest time,knowledge, and ideas (or simply finance) -

• etoy.OPERATIONS which focus on theoverlap of entertainment, cultural, socialand economic values.

• etoy.SHAREHOLDERS participate in adynamic artwork that takes place 24 hoursa day in the middle of society -- on andoffline.






eToy Corporation (Agents)

• “eToy is a typical early mover (online since 1994) anddeveloped rapidly into a market leader in the field ofcontemporary art. “

• Actions and services like the digital hijack (1996),etoy.TIMEZONE (1998), TOYWAR (1999/2000), etoy.DAYCARE(since 2002) and the etoy.TANKS (since 1998) are classics ofdigital art.

• eToy.AGENTS is an ongoing initiative which “employs” artists,programmers and technicians to facilitate their endeavours.

• Mission Eternity was started in 2005 and continues today asan “ultra long term project that allows pioneers of theinformation age to travel space and time forever...”





http://www.etoy.com/jobs/�

http://missioneternity.org/�


Ubermorgen

• Hans Bernhard then went on to form his most famousand prolific creation Ubermorgen with another mediaartist Lizvlx, in 1999.

• Ubermorgen means “the day after tomorrow” or “supertomorrow”.

• The [V]ote-Auction project was a natural extension ofthe eToy manifesto. (The 2004 incarnation won the ArsElectroinica award in 2005).

• However, as the web grew into a new global economicplayground, so did Bernhard’s sights shift from US styledglobal economics to the web’s major corporations.




[V]ote-Auction | Hans Bernhard | 2000 & 2004

http://www.vote-auction.net/�

http://www.vote-auction.net/�

Visual Representation (a riff)

“We live in a period where art, as the former monopolist of therepresentative image, has abandoned this representative obligation.

Yet science, in contrast, fully embraces the options which technicalmachine-based images offer for the representation of reality.




The White Website | Hans Bernhard |Ubermorgen.com | 2002

http://www.ubermorgen.com/THE_WHITE_WEBSITE/index_sig.html�

Visual Representation (a riff)

Therefore, it could be the case that mankind will find the images ofscience more necessary than the images of art. To be able to maintainits significance up against the sciences and their picture-producingprocedures, art must look for a position beyond the crisis ofrepresentation and beyond the image wars straight into the blindspaces of the black black and the white.“

Hans Bernhard im Gespräch mit Hans-Ulrich Obrist, November 2002




The Black Website | Hans Bernhard |Ubermorgen.com | 2002

http://www.ubermorgen.com/THE_WHITE_WEBSITE/HANS_ULRICH_OBRIST_WHITE/HANS_ULRICH_OBRIST_BERNHARD.HTM�





















http://www.ubermorgen.com/THE_BLACK_WEBSITE/index_sig.html�

http://www.ubermorgen.com/THE_WHITE_WEBSITE/index_sig.html�

Barrett Lyon | The Opte Project | Video | 2003

• Opte.org develops visual representations of theinternet. This is achieved data collected from ISPs,domains or geographical territory.

• This example shows the class A allocation of ISP spacefrom global territories.

• Image capture date : Nov 22, 2003

Red Asia PacificGreen Europe / Central AsiaBlue North AmericaYellow Latin AmericaWhite Unknown

The Opte Project by Barrett Lyon




http://opte.org/�

Christophe Bruno | The Dadameter | Out of Enunciation – Decay of the Symbolic | 2008

• Web artist Christophe Bruno uses massive amounts ofGoogle data to generate colour coded topographic maps oflanguage on the internet

• “The first steps consist in extracting massive amount ofinformation from Google and analyzing it in terms ofsemantics and homophony. From this complex and time-consuming procedure we get some geometrical descriptionof language, considered here as the hypergraph of wordsand pages that is stored in Google's database.” (Bruno,2008)

• Homophony (n) the same pronunciation for words ofdifferent origins

The Dadameter by Christopher Bruno




“…And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!”

“Have you used it much?” I enquired.

“It has never been spread out, yet,” said Mein Herr: “the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well…”

— Lewis Carroll. The complete Sylvie and Bruno. 1893. San Francisco: Mercury House, c1991. pg. 265

The Senseable City Lab (MIT)




Real Time Rome | The Senseable City Lab | MIT | Venice Biennale | 2006

• MIT runs a number of technology enablinglaboratories which explore the nexus of science,technology, media and art.

• The Senseable City Lab seeks to studycommunication behaviours within urbanenvironments by visually representing theseactivities via software and network technology.

• However, these projects don’t reside in laboratoriesor written up in science journals, they are publishedonline and exhibited in media art festivals acrossEurope and the United States.

• Scientific visualisation of data as art.

The Senseable City Lab (MIT)




The World’s Eyes | The Senseable City Lab | MIT | 2007

http://senseable.mit.edu/worldseyes/visuals.html�

http://senseable.mit.edu/worldseyes/visuals.html�

Familiar urban images which make-up much of thecontemporary western sprawl are “transformed bycomputer extrapolations into built environmentsthat are representative of reality, but at the sametime seem hyper-real. “

The user shapes interactions of the city's majorcomponents: landscape, roads, building lots,architectural components, and vehicles. Each usercontrols a vortex of automobiles that looks like atornado of cars, continually spewing copies ofthemselves into the atmosphere.”

The Scalable City by Sheldon Brown (UCA San Diego)

Developed at the University of California in conjunction with the Experimental Games Lab by artist Sheldon Brown, Scalable City is both game and doomsday machine.




The Scalable City | Sheldon Brown | UCA San Diego | 2008

By applying computational processes to designdecisions, it becomes easy to see how developmentcan produce unintended effects after much iteration.Even the smallest design decision today to build aroad can lead, at the extreme, to drastic changes inthe built environment that were probably neitherintended nor wanted.“ Sheldon Brown

The project is exhibited as a game in a contemporaryarts environment at such venues as Ars Electronica inAustria, the Museum of Contemporary Art inShanghai, FILE 2008 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, andSIGGRAPH 2007.

The Scalable City by Sheldon Brown (UCA San Diego)

"Scalable City places responsibility for the new landscape on each user, whose activities are simultaneouslyconstructive and destructive.




The Scalable City | Sheldon Brown | UCA San Diego | 2008

http://www.calit2.net/newsroom/release.php?id=1399�



Electric Sheep | Scott Draves | Android Dreaming | 2007

Electric Sheep (Screensaver) by Scott Draves




• “When these computers "sleep", the screen saver comeson and the computers communicate with each other bythe internet to share the work of creating morphingabstract animations known as "sheep".

• The result is a collective "android dream", a homage toPhilip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of ElectricSheep?.

• The more popular sheep live longer and reproduceaccording to a genetic algorithm with mutation and cross-over. Hence the flock evolves to please its globalaudience. You can also design your own sheep and submitthem to the gene pool. “

http://electricsheep.org/�



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_Sheep%3F�

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_Sheep%3F�

http://draves.org/blog/archives/000405.html�

Electric Sheep by Scott Draves




For Your ReferenceCool Stuff to Chew ↑ Your Bandwidth

For Future ReferenceCool Stuff to Chew ↑ Your Bandwidth



“This is a blog about the media. However, with other blogs on television, film, and the media ingeneral, we wanted to carve out a specific niche. So our blog will focus primarily on theextratextuals that surround the media. By this, we mean everything but the show itself: previews,merchandising, industry buzz, branding, interviews, posters, spatial context, temporal context,related websites, ARGs, spinoffs, spoilers, schedules, bonus materials, transmedia extras, games,YouTube clips, etc.

But we’re interested in these things not to be arcane or eccentric; rather, we believe that theextratextuals often make the show what it is. Hence this blog is about the mediation of media.”

The ExtraTextuals | Blog | Ivan Askwith, Jonathan Gray, and Derek Johnson | 2007

http://www.extratextual.tv/�


Digicult Online Arts Magazine

Go Home Productions Music(hall) Mash-Ups

Netbase t10 Institute For New Cultural Technologies

Free Bitflows Exhibition & Conference Site

Non Stop Future New Practices In Art & Media

Phlow Magazine Online Music Site

CCC Convergence Culture Consortium (MIT)

TED Ideas Worth Spreading

Robin Eley Illustrator

Coded Cultures Exploring Creative Emergences

System 77 Civil Counter Reconnaissance

Location One Virtual Residency Program

Chumby Cool Thing



http://www.digicult.it/digimag_eng/index.asp�

http://www.gohomeproductions.co.uk/archive1.html�

http://www.netbase.org/t0/projects�




http://freebitflows.t0.or.at/�



http://nonstop-future.org/new-art-practices�

http://phlow-magazine.com/dj-mixes-and-compilations�

http://www.convergenceculture.org/�

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jeff_han_demos_his_breakthrough_touchscreen.html�

http://www.robineley.com/�

http://www.robineley.com/�

http://www.codedcultures.net/�

http://s-77ccr.org/index_en.php�

http://www.location1.org/virtual-residency-project/�

http://www.chumby.com/pages/learn_overview�

“Art Is Product” DebateReward, Politics, Passion & Hunger

The Rules of Engagement

• Each class will be delegated a position - for or against.

1. Sue’s Tute Group (For) Versus Jak’s Tute Group (Against)

2. Ron’s Tute Group (For) Versus Mitch’s Tute Group (Against)

• Following this division each group should spend 30 minutes constructinga list of examples and reasoned arguments to support their position.

• Sue & Ron’s Tute Groups will host the debates with both teams expectedto use some form of visual aids.

• Each team has 10 minutes each to present their case.



“Art Is Product”Reward, passion, politics and hunger

Steve Barrett | Thirst | It’s Art eZine | 2009

http://www.itsartmag.com/features/galleryawards/awards-mar09.php�



The Rules of Engagement

You may choose to use the following questions as starting points :

• How do we define product? What is constitutes art?

• What gives a work of art intrinsic value?

• When do we choose to pay a price for art – DVDs, exhibitionfees, books, CDs, concert performances, games … ?

• And what do we pay with – money, bandwidth, time … ?

• Art exists in the public sphere, online, on bookshelves, onwalls in parks and in foyers - who pays for it? How does it getmade?



“Art Is Product”Reward, passion, politics and hunger

Tim Burton & Friend | 2007

The Creative Animal Goes Online (Part B)

Education

Transcript of The Creative Animal Goes Online (Part B)