Blog #14

This post focuses on New Media Art pages 80-94. The last leg of the book shows artist that take unique stances on software, they use it in a way that is often not intended or they do something unique with it. Anne Marie Scheliner, Joan Leandre, and Brody Condon Created Velvet Strike, a mod to the game Counterstrike, which itself is a mod for the game Half Life. Counterstrike puts players into two teams, terrorists and counter terrorists and has them complete objectives to thwart the other side. It creates a statement not only on the nature of war, but the nature of the game. It brings the real life ramifications into the game. It allows players to stage protests in the game. The idea of a game using war to create a means of fun makes an interesting statement on society, Velvet Strike brings the parts of war that are never seen in the game, creating deep points on the nature of games in our society. Alexi Shulgin claims to have created a cyberpunk band, which really just comprises of him and his computer. He creates digital versions of popular songs which sound as though they are being played through an old nintendo cartridge. It makes interesting statements on the idea of musical authenticity. Is it the same song when being played in that way? The idea is one that exists all over the creative industry, is digitally remastering Star Wars destroying its authenticity, or is it just improving the film? This debate has gone on for as long as people have been changing pre-existent art. Cornelia Sollfrank created Female Extension a program that created accounts on various email providers and sent them into a contest. The accounts created were all female which meant that the majority of the applicants were females, which led to only males winning the contest. The piece unearths a bit of sexism that existed unseen by everyone involved.
I feel that all of these pieces portray artist using technology in unique ways. The idea that technology is created for one single purpose, but can also be used in such unique ways to create art show a new view on originality. I think when most people think of computers they see very narrow things, a device that allows for very limited things which exists under many constraints. But in truth the computer can and will do anything and everything the user asks, given the right instructions. I think it is an interesting thing to see an artist using a piece of software meant to fulfill a specific task in another way entirely. It is as though they are working within those constraints to create something totally unintended, which only goes to show the nature creativity has taken on in the digital age.

Blog # 13

In pages 64-80 Of New Media Art, the focus seems to shift mostly to work done on the web, in browser sort of things, that focus more on fooling the user than presenting themselves as art. Mouchette.org for example is a website that tells the user it was created by a 13 year old girl who claims to be an artist. It challenges the ideas on what art is, claiming that if one claims to be an artist and says what they do is art that is all they need. The website has various surveys which certain answers trigger delayed email that after a certain amount of time sends the user an email with suggestive language. To this day no one knows who Mouchette actually is, it just goes to show how the internet creates an environment in which anonymity is very easily kept. Radioqualia is a group whose exhibition was to create a speech emulator to read the 4,141,432 lines of code that built the linux operating system. It was broadcast over the radio wave for 590 days, purposefully creating a work of art that was simply too long for anyone to take in. Shredder is a program created by Mark Napier, its purpose is to show the user the underlying code of any given website, breaking down the aesthetically pleasing facade of all websites. Instead of being pleasing to the eye all websites can be broken down into ugly and unappealing code. Radical Softwar Group's Carnivore takes information from email and instead of stealing information it uses bits of that information as the groundwork for pieces of art.

This section of the book I believe serves to show how artists can use mainstream technology to create scenarios which are deceiving to the viewer. The internet creates a haven in which anyone can pose as anyone else, a forty year old man can claim to be a thirteen year old girl. Artists likewise can use their work to explore the ideas of anonymity creating pieces that ask the user to interpret whats real and whats fake. The idea that an artist can create something to deceive the user is a powerful tool that can be used to make any number of powerful points.

Blog #12

This blog concerns the book New Media Art by Mark Tribe focusing on pages 42-64. The section outlines various digital artists work from mostly the mid to late nineties, the time of the dotcom boom, which certainly has had an incredible effect on the art done at this times. A piece by Mary Flanagan called domestic was done in 2003, it used a video game engine called unreal, a game that focuses on online play in which players control a character first person and attempt to kill other players. Her take on the game was to subvert expectation, she turned the game into more or less the sims in unreal, a house making sim that uses things like text to suggest inner turmoil instead of out. Jennifer and Kevin McCoy used an array of cameras to remake a scene from Evil Dead 2, they used the cameras in such a way that when filming the scene they turn on at different intervals effectively creating a unique shoot for every take. Dial tones by Golan Levin examined not only the newer cultural norm of cellphone etiquette bur also mirrored the work of John Cage and his use of everyday noises in his music. A piece by Rafael Lozano placed spotlights throughout Mexico City and allowed users to move the cameras via the internet. Ken Goldberg examined internet hoax and the way the internet is able to present a falsified scenario very simply. He set up a small garden and told gardeners around the world they could tend to it, begging the question, is this actually happening, or just some hoax.
Many of these pieces took advantage of the Internets upheaval into mainstream society, it was no longer something whose purpose was shrouded in mystery but rather a device which was primarily for selling goods. It still shocks me that many artists were able to do art such as this on their own, it to me subverts the idea that artists are people who paint or make sculptures. To me it seems that as an artist you either do fine arts or you work as a digital artist for an organization which wants to make money. These digital artists working on their own with computers surprises me in a few ways. I suppose its just the idea that if you know about computers you become hired by some company because they will pay for your services as opposed to creating a living on your own, it to me is a unique happening of our times.