1,549 days, 2,380 entries ... Newsticker, link list, time machine: HOLO.mg/stream logs emerging trajectories in art, science, technology, and culture––every day
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A self-survey of Berlin-based bioartists Margherita Pevere , Theresa Schubert , and Karolina Żyniewicz , “Membranes Out of Order” opens at Kunstquartier Bethanien, bringing their research practices into conversation. The show presents key works that explore the ethics of emergent biotechnology and life’s tendency for “uncertainty, failure, surprise, and disobedience.” Also on view: a plethora of production paraphernalia that reveals the “unseen materials” of bioart.
“There’s this terror, but there’s also this opportunity for this whole new breed of democratic technologies—that can help govern the very technologies that are causing the problems.”
– AI and tech policy researcher
Aviv Ovadya , on how post-
ChatGPT language models have the
potential to be democratic ‘consensus engines,’ if during creation and governance, they engage (rather than mine) broad publics
A solo show featuring Beeple ’s HUMAN ONE opens at M+ Hong Kong. Better known for its $29 million price tag than its gravitas, Mike Winkelmann’s wrap-around 16K video sculpture depicts “the first human born in the metaverse.” A beneficiary of the 2021 bull market and NFT boom, the work is now touring globally despite the fact the market that launched Beeple has tanked. Fittingly, Winkelmann will deliver a keynote titled “Beeple Crashes the Art World,” the day after the opening.
“The Google Street View data set is often stunning and often useful. But as a project, it was a grotesque violation of worldwide privacy norms that absolutely never should have happened.”
– American writer
Joanne McNeil , reminding us that
between 2007-10 , Street View cars
also collected emails, passwords, and other private information from WiFi networks in more than 30 countries. “We should never take a project at such a scale at face value,” McNeil warns.
“A dreamy Edisonian wonderland awaits, where a rolling landscape of electrical conduits and vintage-style lightbulbs undulates like waves, or like gentle hills or playground jungle gyms.”
– Art critic
Shana Nys Dambrot , describing
Nancy Holt ’s
Electrical Systems (1982) at
Sprüth Magers Los Angeles. “It feels good to see this erasure being corrected,” Dambrot says of the inclusion of 1960s photo series by the land artist, noting similar work by Holt’s male peers has (historically) received more attention.
OUT NOW :
Metalabel x co—matter
After the Creator Economy
A physical and digital zine with contributors including
Amber Case ,
Kei Kreutler , and
Mat Dryhurst exploring new ways to produce, distribute, and monetize creative work online
“Remember when your teacher showed super old films in art class? Showing students digital art from 15 years ago feels exactly like that. In my memory these pieces are giants but you only find tiny JPGs or 360p YouTube videos.”
– Artist and educator
Aram Bartholl , lamenting the poor documentation of much of digital art’s history
“Abstain from romanticized post-rationalizations.”
– Software artist
Karsten Schmidt , in “Personal Considerations for Creating Generative Art,” an itemized collection of methods and models to aid algorithmic creativity.
Not a dogmatist, he notes his suggestions are “fluid, incomplete, and highly subjective.”
The Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) Gallery opens “Hylozoism,” a group exhibition of five “neo-nature” ecologies. The included works by Philip Beesley , Keith Lam , Ellen Pau , Ryuichi Sakamoto & Daito Manabe , and fuse* propose a state of techno-symbiosis—“an endless cycle of mutual benefits and coexistence.” Lam’s newly commissioned TTTV Garden , for example, reimagines Nam June Paik’s 1974 TV Garden as a vertical farm that feeds on the 24-hour news cycle.
“…I am prone to circumnavigate video installations. Are monitors curved or flat, LED or liquid crystal? Power cords—are they a tangle, discreetly bundled, altogether hidden?”
– Artist and educator
Sowon Kwon , sharing her rubric for evaluating the installation of video-based work, in an attentive review of Paul Pfeiffer’s
Red Green Blue (2022) at Paula Cooper Gallery
“Chronos/Synthesis,” a solo show by Canadian artist Oliver Pauk , opens at Toronto’s J Spot Gallery . For the window gallery show, Pauk presents an array of 3D printed, CNC milled, and hand carved sculptures alongside video and AR works. The selection underscores two driving interests: rendering pure digital form, and his efforts “to replicate the patterns and aesthetics of automated, computerized processes” in more traditional mediums (image: Object #90 , 2017).
“Handles like ‘Gorgon Horror,’ ‘The Wizard,’ and ‘Einstein’ were common. My brother’s name was ‘Blue Dragon,’ and his favourite colour was blue. My favourite colour was red, so I picked ‘Red Wolf.’ I liked wolves.”
– Journalist and tech historian
Benji Edwards , on the 1992 kickoff of his “secret life as an 11-year-old
BBS sysop ,” in a memoir about his (pre-World Wide Web) introduction to online culture
“One thing I like about this approach is that, because it never goes inside the neural net and tries to change anything, but just places a sort of wrapper over the neural net.”
– Computer scientist Scott Aaronson, discussing cryptographic watermarks he’s developing for
OpenAI ’s GPT language model. “We want there to be an otherwise unnoticeable secret signal in its choices of words,” he says of encoding specific vocabulary and syntax patterns that will make AI-generated texts instantly detectable, protecting against both plagiarism and propaganda.
“I’m worried. I could see people signing away contracts right now that could have really detrimental impacts on their future ability to make work as themselves.”
– American composer and “computer musician”
Holly Herndon , on how AI complicates intellectual property. “I want people to understand how powerful these systems are and how having sovereignty over training data is really important,” Herndon says, encouraging artists to experiment with her vocal model
Holly+ .
After exploring “Water ” as a major exhibition theme in 2019-20, the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) opens “Air,” featuring more than 30 artists including Dora Budor , Nancy Holt , and Katie Paterson that probe the cultural, ecological, and political dimensions of Earth’s atmosphere. “Air” is anchored by Tomás Saraceno ’s Drift: A cosmic web of thermodynamic rhythms (2022, image), a new commission that suspends 13 partially mirrored spheres in GOMA’s central atrium.
“I needed to train myself to cry in order to continue feeding those tiny marine ecosystems.”
– Polish artist and designer
Kasia Molga , on gathering enough tears for her installation
How to Make an Ocean (2021), a set of 12 miniature marine worlds that ‘bottled’ climate grief at the COP27 WHO
Health Pavilion . Molga’s secret: a special “tearspoon” and her
Moirologist Bot , an AI-driven video piece that serves alarming environmental news.
OUT NOW :
Jonas Lund
By Opening This Book
Each copy of Jonas Lund’s edition of 100 sealed books holds the key to a unique web experience. By opening the book, however, readers agree to contractual terms that, much like opaque internet fineprint, remain the
the Swedish artist ’s secret.
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