interweb netlog

I’m thrilled to have my work amongst such megaliths as William S. Burroughs and Nikola Tesla in the Dark Drives. Uneasy Energies in Technological Times exhibition component of transmediale 2K+12 in Berlin curated by Jacob Lillemose.

The catalogue of esteemed folks and works in this show is awesome. I’m very happy to be a part of it. I’ve been inspired by so many of these people & projects, it will be fun to parse-out our works’ compatibility through in/compatibility.

The focus on “uneasy energies in technological times” in the transmediale  2012 exhibition responds directly to the overall “in/compatible” theme of the festival. On the one hand, uneasy energies can be said to produce  the in/compatible, while on the other hand the in/compatible can be  said to produce uneasy energies. The two form a circuit of mutual exchange. The question of which one of the two comes first and  determines the other is beside the point. The point is rather to engage with the multiple instances where uneasy energies and the in/compatible  connect and generate processes that challenge consensual and standardised perceptions of technology. As such the exhibition is  inscribed within the context of the festival theme at the same time as it is intended to expand the vocabulary of the in/compatible through the art works and cultural objects displayed.

But what exactly are “uneasy energies in technological times”? Rather than attempting a definition by references to philosophy or art history, the exhibition through an extensive and diverse group of examples claims that distortions, ambiguities, irritations, ironies, and unrest  constitute as a significant trajectory in our relations with modern technology and have done so since the use value of electricity was discovered. It is a trajectory that resists conventional formalisation and the exhibition challenges visitors to develop a sensibility and intelligence towards the trajectory as a way to engage with the critical and inventive potentials that it contains.

However, just like the uneasy energies in themselves do not add up to a clear point, the exhibition does not aim at resolution. It offers no promise of overcoming the uneasy energies. On the contrary, it claims that uneasy energies are insuperable, an integral and constitutive part of  technological times, and invites visitors to explore the trajectories and horizons of the dark drives that they present.

Art 404, Daniel García Andújar / Technologies To The People, Ant Farm, Heath Bunting, Chris Burden, Bureau of Inverse Technology (B.I.T.), William S. Burroughs & Antony Balch,  Costanza Candeloro & Luca Libertini, Jack Caravanos & Vibek Raj Maurya, Jennifer Chan, Tracy Cornish, Chris Cunningham & Aphex Twin, Jay Dahl & Edward Peill & Christopher Zimmer, Constant Dullaart, [epidemiC], Matteo Giordano, Karla Grundick & Mistress Koyo, Bjørn Erik Haugen, Jaromil, JODI, Sture Johannesson, JK Keller, TR Kirstein, Peter Luining, Eva & Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.ORG, Junko Mattin, Paidia Institute, jon.satrom,  SPK, Nikola Tesla, UBERMORGEN.COM, Steina and Woody Vasulka, VNS Matrix, Marcelina Wellmer,  Ruth White,

trailer for transmediale 2012 in/compatible

Production by:
a nice idea every day - aniceideaeveryday.com

Festival design conception by:
Manuel Bürger - manuelbuerger.com
Timm Häneke - timmhaeneke.de
Till Wiedeck - tillwiedeck.com

Animation:
Melih Bilgil - lonja.de

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011 – 7:00pm. Gallery Opening at MLABS, Chicago, IL.

F News talks with Rosa Menkman, Nick Briz, Evan Meaney, and Jon Satrom about the nature of GLITCH art and this year’s GLI.TC/H festivities.

Interviews: Brandon Goei
Camera/Edit: Chelsey Hoff

Jaromil Forkbomb (2002)

“The most elegant forkbomb code ever written.” -Florian Cramer

Type :(){ :|:& };: on any UNIX terminal...

Viruses are a political symptom of a community which continues to be extremely vast and banning them is not the solution to the problems deriving therefrom. The same holds true for anonymity and hacking.

jaromil’s text on fork bomb on his site

jaromil’s text on fork bomb on digital craft

Super Art Modern Museum: SPAMM
curated by Thomas Cheneseau + Systaime

SPAMM with:

Annie Abrahams, Helen Adamidou, Anthony Antonellis, Kim Asendorf, Jeremy Bailey, Maurice Benayoun, Brandon Blommaert, Jennifer Chan, Gregory Chatonsky, Thomas Cheneseau, Claude Closky, Chris Collins, Petra Cortright, Sterling Crispin, Mr Doob, Constant Dullaart, Reynald Drouhin, Rohan Fermi, Dylan Fisher, G3, Françoise Gamma,Emilio Gomariz, Jankenpopp, Jodi, Jeremiah Johnson, Wiwi Kuan, Anne Laplantine, Rollin Leonard, Daniel R Leyva, Emeric Lhuisset, Robert Lorayn, Sara Ludy, Eva and Franco Mattes, Rosa Menkman, Lorna Mills, Angelo Plessas, Evan Roth, Rafaël Rozendaal, Sarah Samy, Jon Satrom, Louise Sartor, Nicolas Sassoon, Systaime, Chris Timms, Palle Torsson, Anne de Vries, Sarah Weis and Arturo Cubacub , Yann Weissgerbe, Andrey Yazev, Fabien Zocco

Au portail du musée via: Libération
REPORTAGELe Spamm, musée des Arts supermodernes, expose en ligne cinquante œuvres. Sans résoudre le problème de la conservation du Net Art.

«Nous avons repris l’idée de Fred Forest [un pionnier français du Net Art, ndlr] qui, en 2000, avait créé le Webnetmuseum, explique Thomas Cheneseau. Mais la technique était naissante, les œuvres restaient figées et l’expo s’est peu renouvelée. Il y a un an, quand nous nous sommes lancés, le Web 2.0 était arrivé, avec beaucoup plus de facilités pour intégrer du contenu.» On se promène à l’envi dans la galerie virtuelle Spamm, cliquant pour avoir accès à un clip du musicien et graphiste Jankenpopp, qui fait de Britney Spears une icône pop épuisée, ou à l’effrayant requin psychédélique de l’Américain Jon Satrom.

“We took the idea of ​​Fred Forest [a French pioneer of Net Art, ed], which in 2000 created the Webnetmuseum said Thomas Cheneseau. But technology was emerging, the works were still frozen and the show was not renewed. A year ago, when we started the Web 2.0 arrived, with much easier to integrate the content.”We walk to the environment in the virtual gallery Spammer, clicking to access a clip of the musician Jankenpopp and graphic designer, making a pop icon BritneySpears exhausted, or the scary shark psychedelic American Jon Satrom.

(French ▸ English)“…the scary shark psychedelic American Jon Satrom.”

A few more write-ups:

I was excited by the new feature in OSX to change the desktop image for multiple spaces. Combined with the animation for the multi-touch gesture three-fingers-swipe to switch between spaces, I thought of filmstrips. I tried changing 12 desktops to Eadweard Muybridge photos.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t swipe fast enough to trick my eyes into thinking there was motion. A phenomenon known as Iconic Memory.

An interesting info-tid-bit is that Persistence of Vision was debunked in 1912, but it’s commonly still cited by film academics and theorists. Many contemporary scientists consider it a myth.

I just downloaded, installed, and checked out OccupyOS 1.0.0b

Seems promising for the IT working groups at Occupy and potentially everyone concerned with internet freedom. It’s got deep Tor integration and features anonymous web browsing, encrypted voice chat conferencing and IM’ing, along with a secure hard drive wiping program.

occupyOS is a specialized Linux distribution designed to provide a secure environment activists can use to edit and publish documents, browse the web (manage site, twitter, and facebook pages), and securely communicate both on the ground and with the outside world. It was designed with security and usability in mind.

NOTE: occupyOS is still under heavy development and an official stable release has not been made.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE:
http://gitbrew.org/releases/occupyos/occupyOS-1.0.0b1-intractable.iso
mirror (a bit faster): http://occupyos.issani.in/occupyOS-1.0.0b1-intractable.iso

For a movement that identifies that we need to re-build systems to consider its technical tools and systems is critical. I’ve been curious about the use of (closed/for-profit) social softwares like Facebook, Google, and Twitter in the Arab Spring and Occupy movements. I mention in my article documenting the 24 Hour No Password Party in the GLI.TC/H 20111 READER[ROR]: “The perceived openness of these systems that are so handy, so friendly, and so useful can be difficult to critically navigate… Text input areas are gobbling up users’ status updates, emails, and messages; cookies and IP address are clocking locations, times, and device information. While they are providing a (wonderful/powerful/amazing) service that seems free and open on the surface for users, it’s not really free. We are providing them a data-ocean for parsing and mining.”

In 2005 Facebook mucked up their server configuration and briefly burped their source into visitors’ browsers. Here’s a snip:

$monitor = array( ‘42107457’ => 1, ‘9359890’ => 1);

//*Put baddies (hotties?) in here

/* Monitoring these people’s profile viewage.
 Stored in central db on profile_views.
 Helpful for law enforcement to monitor stalkers
and stalkees. */

The comments from the Facebook code above show the system tracking users’ browsing patterns in (supposed) collaboration with police. Benjamin Mako Hill describes this Facebook mishap and other breaks in black boxes in an article entitled “Revealing Errors“.

How does the momentum around these major social events not become fodder for research? Who is looking through the aggregated data? It’s conjecture, but these systems are in the business of selling information (about us).

UPDATE: Also check out: BackTrack Linux, a more robust & established (2006-present) security concerned OS (via David LePôle)

https://github.com/ivanov/occu.py

#!/usr/bin/python
from UCB import occupyCal
from Oakland import Port

for member in OccupyCal:
    member.marchTo(Port)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/07/1034044/-occupy-v001

#occu.py v0.0.1                                                                
print 'I AM THE 99%'

- - - - - - - - -  - - -

#occu.py v0.0.3
import sys

if len(sys.argv) == 1:
 print 'I AM THE 99%'
else:
 occupyee = ' '.join(sys.argv[1:])
 print 'Occupy ' + occupyee + '!'

A short trailer from the Glitch festival in Chicago, Nov 3-6, 2011.
footage: Marta Blicharz & Bram Timmer
editing: Marta Blicharz
music: Manuele Atzeni