This is a series of digital photographs of sunsets altered by a controlled download error. These files where bitmap transferred via personal messaging software (adium) from one place to another. After the file was completely downloaded the transfer is aborted. The final result is that the bitmap repeats the last horizontal downloaded pixel to complete the image dimensions. This was administrated by monitoring the downloading process to stop the transfer in a certain point of the image to create some relation between the image and the error.

-- FROM THE ARTIST'S STATEMENT

MORE »

Created by Kim Asendorf, asdfbmp is a pixel art generator app for iPhone and iPod Touch. It creates a pixel structure by using a spatial partition algorithm resulting in fields populated by pixel patterns.

You can choose from 16 bitmap patterns and 32 colours. You can adjust the minimal field size, the probability of a new division and the proportion between horizontal and vertical division.

In the draw mode you decide which field is going to be divided. The auto mode divides until there is no more field left.

Additionally there is a mode menu where you can choose extra blending modes such as pattern, fill, outline, empty, random.

-- FROM THE ASDFBMP SITE

MORE »

Greek-Italian artist Angelo Plessas’ interactive websites (Angeloplessas.com) integrate elements of drawing, sound, Flash animation and innovative HTML coding. Each of his online two-dimensional “sculptures” is sealed with a domain name that playfully evokes the language of philosophy, literature and drama. Challenging concepts of space and ownership on the Internet, Plessas’ websites are, like graffiti bombed on a public wall, the acts of a guerrilla artist intervening in public space.

Plessas has come a long way since his first and ongoing aesthetic project: documenting face-like compositions he discovers in random configurations of objects and architecture (InternationalPortraitGallery.com). He officially launched his artistic career in 2001 when artist and curator Miltos Manetas selected his work for the Internet-inspired group show Biennale.net at Deitch Projects, New York. Now, the artist is exploring projects that take on a curatorial scope, including the recent one-day video projection extravaganza Bring Your Own Beamer at the Kunsthalle Athena.

With the lines between his online and offline work becoming increasingly blurred, Plessas is evolving in the manner of his medium. As the Internet expands, so does Plessas’ practice, and as the artist matures, perhaps he might shed light on where the Internet might take us. Sitting at his seaside apartment in Athens, Plessas takes me on a journey through his virtual universe, which ultimately leads right back to reality itself…whatever that might be, or could become.

-- FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO "ANGELO PLESSAS: LIFE THROUGH A WEB BROWSER" BY STEPHANIE BAILEY IN ART LIES, ISSUE 67

MORE »

MORE »

Ujino Muneteru transforms mechanical sounds into complex rhythms. Bored by the technical limits of his instruments, the guitarist and bassist experiments with new sounds. Different sounding bodies widen the spectrum of resonance; simple mechanical motors produce new tones. In particular domestic appliances, tools, and large machinery from the fifties to the seventies play a significant role here because of their mechanical simplicity and haptic palpability. Points of reference to the Japanese "Noise Music", a type of sound movement from the eighties rooted in John Cage and the Fluxus, can also be seen...

Plywood City refers to a part of Tokyo, in the vernacular, built from wood. Inspired by it, Muneteru constructs a model city, which is animated by kinetic objects and sound. The basis of the city is formed by art-transport crates, whose misappropriation cites socialist flagstone buildings with irony.

-- EXCERPTS FROM THE PRESS RELEASE FOR UJINO MUNETERU'S EXHIBITION "CROSSBAND" AT PSM GALLERY

MORE »

Troy, New York's Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) is seeking applicants to their artist residency program. While open to a diverse array of different practices, the center has just announced four additional initiatives in Audio Production/Post-Production, Creative Research, Dance/Theater, and Video Production/Post-Production. You read more about the program by visiting the website, here.

MORE »

In case you're up at Dia:Beacon this weekend, on October 31st at 2pm, in celebration of the new publication Max Neuhaus: Times Square, Time Piece Beacon, the museum will host a performance by composer David Shively of Max Neuhaus' early concert realizations of works by New York School composers such as Earle Brown, John Cage, and Morton Feldman. A screening of rare Neuhaus films and videos, like Phill Niblock's Max and documentation of Drive-in Music, will follow the performance. More info here.

MORE »

MORE »

“The Most Boring Places in the World” is a Google Earth tour that pinpoints the location of bloggers, live journal-ers, and chat room commentators. These authors all claim that the city they live in or vacationed in is more boring than any other place they can imagine, at least during the time of their post. Most locations do not repeat (with the exception of North Carolina, Ohio, Zurich and Singapore). What these destinations share in common is their ability to inspire existential crises, home-from-college woes, and the suffering specific to beautiful scenery, suburban sprawl and shopping malls.

-- FROM THE ARTIST'S STATEMENT

MORE »

Britain, under the Conservative government in 1974, slowed to a government-mandated three-day week: not an immense gift of extended vacation, but a foreshortening of the working week based on the amount of electricity available. From January to March of that year, businesses, shops and services were only open for three consecutive days, and television companies were forced to end their broadcasts at 10:30pm. The remarkable visibility of this retrenchment is perhaps an apposite introduction to the fiscal circumstances of Britain at that time, as it was counterbalanced by extreme activity in the visual arts, with a burgeoning moving image practice taking place in various underground clubs and cooperatives in London and other regional centers, and mainstream television ("mainstream" being redundant; except for some regional variations, there were only three channels at the time) airing artists’ film and video, primarily on Channel 4, which was established in 1982.

This is the period revisited by Raven Row’s current show "Polytechnic" - the late 1970s and early 80s, when artists began using the new medium of video to reflect upon and deconstruct codes of representation, politics and social mores. It’s a smart and striking choice for an exhibition, as the legacy of this time is ambivalent and is still in the process of being settled: art-historically, it’s been partially eclipsed by what preceded it (the medium-specific investigations associated with the London Film-Makers’ Co-op) and by what followed - that is, the yBas, who pretty much turned around and rejected the commitment to politics, collective production and art as labor (not commodity) that this group stood for. At the same time, many of the artists included in the show - Catherine Elwes, Susan Hiller, Ian Breakwell, Stuart Marshall - went on to teach in various art schools (many of them former polytechnics, hence, perhaps, the title) and showed their work on Channel 4 during the 1980s, meaning they have had a much more dispersed, though less visible, impact on art and the wider sphere of culture. Have had and have: Elwes, for example, has recently founded a journal devoted to the moving image (MIRAJ), so the territory contested in this earlier period continues, to a certain extent, to be contested.

READ ON »