archiveopeningnetworks

Toni Dove, Spectropia, 2001, Interactive movie / installation shot on digital video, Still from Spectropia, 2001, Director of photography: Sam Levy. Compositing: Toni Dove, Courtesy of the artist.

Virtual Realizations of the Social Networking Promise of the Internet

Sheldon Brown (Director of the Experimental Game Lab, USA), Scalable City, 2007, 4:04 min., cinematic output from multiuser computer game environment.

Carl Burton (USA), Drift, 2007, 10 min., experimental animation.

Sheldon Brown (Director of the Experimental Game Lab, USA), Scalable City, 2007, 4:04 min., cinematic output from multiuser computer game environment.

Mark Daggett, Michelle K, Flash website for the boutique footwear brand "Michelle K", Site created in 2003 and is no longer online.

Mark Daggett, Revver (revver.com), a progressive and creator-focused video sharing syndicate.

Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art
4525 Oak Street
816-751-1278
Kansas City
Atkins Auditorium
Electromediascope
Fall 2008,
Opening Networks
Fridays 7 p.m.
September 12-
September 26, 2008

Although the content of Internet culture mythologized in William Gibson's novel Neuromancer (1994) and the technology of the dynamically scalable semantic Web envisioned by the inventor of the World Wide Web Tim Berners Lee, have not yet occurred, we have recently entered a different and more fluid phase of this evolving data medium, increasingly robust, ubiquitous computing devices are replacing older desktop computers and leading to less restrictive and potentially more creative and collaborative everyday human-to-humans-to-
networked-machines interactivity. Open source code and modular software applications are providing diverse alternatives to the operating systems of the past, and mobile phones, digital cameras and gaming devices are increasing the potential for innovative and creative uses of wireless digital media. Object hyperlinking enables mobile devices to read URL-tagged real world object providing site-specific information over the Internet, and networked-based satellite-navigation systems empower people to make more useful and playful mixed reality links between digital media and the real world of objects, places, and events. Individual artists and groups of people who know and don't know each other are initiating projects that make use of networked media to explore creative and critically engaging uses of information technology, Geospatially distributed artworks are utilizing expanded forms of digital media and exploring community access via the Internet. The open collaborative and interactive artworks presented in this program demonstrate that the creative surplus economy of the Internet is continuing to grow as a vital and alternative social and cultural space.

Opening Networks will feature in-person presentations by Mark Daggett and Jon Phillips who will introduce their own work and other digital media projects on consecutive Friday evenings. Mark Daggett is an artist who works with software design and social software. His presentation will show how networks and social software reshaping attributes of community. Jon Phillips is an artist working with the open source code movement and Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization devoted to creating an alternative to current copyright laws by providing free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms of use they want it to carry. He will present a guided journey through current remix culture and mashups as well as his own projects including the open content communities: Open Clip Art Library (openclipart.org), The Open Library (openlibrary.org) and ccMixter.org.

— Patrick Clancy

September 12
Visiting Artist
Mark Daggett
"Social software is any computer program that uses technological networks like the Internet to augment the potential of communities in the same way that a hammer amplifies the arm that swings it. Millions of people use this software on websites like Wikipedia, Facebook, and Flickr to accomplish tasks like sharing photos, organizing friends of documenting the world around them. Viewed in isolation the act of uploading a single photo for others may seem trivial and insignificant. However a collection of simple actions can, under the right conditions, generate complex systems with emergent behavior. Emergence occurs when the aggregate behavior has levels of sophistication that far exceed any one individual actor in the system. Emergent behavior is particularly effective and visible in communities of organisms working together, yet without a clear top-down chain of authority.

"I will show how corporations, governments, artists, hacktivists, and gamers, among others, are using the technical nature of networks and social software to reshape concepts including trust, localness, presence, and permanence, all of which are attributes of community. We will examine their work using the lens of what I call contextual communities to explore, expose, and sometimes exploit the emergent intelligence of networked communities."

— Mark Daggett

September 19
Visiting Artist
Jon Phillips
"The myth of sole authorship is perpetuated throughout contemporary culture. With the mass popularization of remix culture through You Tube videos, inexpensive media production software, and cheap broadband, anyone can chop audio samples, blend multiple sources of video, globally broadcast mixes, and more easily access and create works collaboratively. But what is so broad about the band, and who or what is in the band? And, if no content in these broad pipes is new, is there some proximity of originality between works to that some may be considered more original than others? How does this play out in the global and art economies? While not rehashing obvious connections to the previous art histories of collage, appropriation and new remix, this program will actively analyze the state of the remix culture and mashups and question whether they are sustainable cultural software that has the potential to run continuously, evolve, and further expand into the mainstream of contemporary art. Videos will be shown from the vast Internet archive collection, You Tube, and other sources from around the world. Also, the implications of copyright law and piracy on the state of art as commodity and a critical look at future sustainable models of intellectual property that are being rapidly constructed around content industries will be explored, including my Fabricatorz.com."

— Jon Phillips

September 26
Scalable City, Sheldon Brown, Director of the Experimental Game Lab (USA), 2007, 4:04 min., cinematic output from multiuser computer game environment. Scalable City sets a database of cultural object into play with algorithmic gestures and user interaction. Multiple forms are produced such as computer games, digital prints, and cinematic trailers.

Drift, Carl Burton (USA), 2007, 10 min., experimental animation reinterpreting and incorporating simulations of different kinds of scientific visualizations inspired by light microscopy.

Spectropia, Toni Dove (USA), 2007, 25 min., documentation of a cinema-scale interactive film performed as a "scratchable" movie by video DJs acting as improvisers who are playing the movie as "Instrument." This documentation also includes a short edited segment of a question and answer session from the 2006 Scanners NY Video Festival presentation at Lincoln Center.

Jon Phillips, Noise, (rejon_Noise.svg), "This is noise that can be used to dirty up an image and foreground simpler shapes." — Jon Phillips