1,725 days, 2,676 entries ... Newsticker, link list, time machine: HOLO.mg/stream logs emerging trajectories in art, science, technology, and culture––every day
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“DARE MIGHTY THINGS”
– NASA credo attributed to an
1899 Theodore Roosevelt speech , that engineers encoded into the pattern of Perseverance’s parachute.
Maxence Abela , a 23-year-old French computer science student, managed to decode the hidden message within two hours after NASA dropped a subtle hint.
“Today, much of the most influential theory no longer provides clear explanations for what we observe in the world. From being a means to that end, it has become instead an end in itself.”
– Anthropologist
Daniel Miller , on the need to dethrone “fetishized theory.” In a paper published in the
International Journal of Cultural Studies (IJCS), he denies “gifts to the theory deity” by demonstrating forms of highly accessible dissemination
After ousting its longstanding director Marcos García in January, Madrid City Council announces the end of Medialab Prado (MLP) in its current form. The pioneering cultural space and citizen lab will lose its iconic home of 20 years—a central building with a signature media facade, adjacent to major museums—and move to the Matadero facilities to coexist with other civic initiatives. The extended MLP community is pushing back: organized as [We Are The Lab] , they call for the project’s continuation in a manifesto that you can sign here .
“Working within the art space means working through ethical dilemmas—all these disparities—unethical relations and roles, creating resources and opportunities … it can be liberating and revolutionary.”
The link between new media art and knowledge work was writ large in Xerox Art . Kate Eichhorn’s 2016 book Adjusted Margin parsed the role the photocopier played in the 1970-90s NYC Art scene in meticulous detail. An excerpt published in the MIT Press Reader introduces the convergence of technological, economic, and aesthetic forces that shaped this under-documented niche genre (image: a spread from David Wojnarowicz’s 1988 zine In the Shadow of Forward Motion ).
“Last year’s events were a cymbal crash that awoke us to new possibilities after listening to what our artist communities were telling us that they need at this time.”
“Provocative art can help push a useful dialogue about the role of technology in our daily lives. This art, however, fundamentally misrepresents Spot® and how it is being used to benefit our daily lives.”
–
Boston Dynamics , in a preemptive public statement after learning “that an art group is planning a spectacle to draw attention to a provocative use of our industrial robot
Spot ”
After a 203-day journey traversing 472 million kilometers, NASA confirms the touchdown of its largest, most advanced rover on Mars. With a primary objective of astrobiology research, Perseverance will search for signs of ancient microbial life and collect Mars samples (to be returned to Earth in subsequent missions). Perseverance’s first image, sent shortly after touchdown, shows the view from one of its hazard cameras. “Hello, world. My first look at my forever home,” stated the rover’s (chatty) Twitter account .
“Message for Mr.doob 10 years ago: Yes, making a 3D engine using canvas2d is stupid. But in 10 years, you’ll watch a simulation in realtime of NASA landing a rover on Mars that uses that stupid code.”
– Computer graphics whiz Ricardo Cabello aka
Mr.doob , reflecting on just how far his immensely popular JavaScript library
Three.js has come
A purveyor of handcrafted digital aesthetics from yesteryear, emerging German artist Arno Beck releases a new series of 6-layer woodblock prints. Mirage (image) and Bird on a Wire were printed by Marginal Editions, New York, and are available from the artist.
“We designed GeForce GPUs for gamers!”
– VP of Global GeForce Marketing Matt Wuebbling, referring to how Nvidia are making their new RTX 3060 graphics cards less efficient for mining Ethereum, so more cards end up in the hands of gamers. GeForce cards have been scarce in the last few months, and Nvidia doesn’t want miners hoarding them; to address miners’ specific needs they’ve introduced the NVIDIA CMP product line for cryptocurrency mining.
What is the exchange rate between Ethereum and vintage memes? In 2011, Christopher Torres uploaded a video entitled Nyan Cat to YouTube and it became a viral sensation . In 2021 that pop tart rainbow-trailing space cat is a blast from the past—internet lore concentrate. An auction for a single edition “remastered” version of the 12-frame GIF is now live on the Foundation NFT (non-fungible token ) marketplace. Bidding just opened, we’re about to see how much nostalgia is worth. Update: Nyan Cat sold for 300 ETH ($575,000 USD)
“It turns out my release of six CryptoArt works consumed in 10 seconds more electricity than the entire studio over the past two years.”
–
Joanie Lemercier , on the staggering environmental cost of crypto art. In an impassioned op-ed published on his website, the French artist slams leading market platforms for inaction and a lack of transparency and calls for a crypto art boycott until the issue is addressed. “The first platforms to solve this issue will lead the community,” he writes, “and drive artists, collectors away from the irresponsible, non-ethical ones.”
Enjoying a productive ’retirement’ after its contribution to the Dark Energy Survey , The Dark Energy Camera (DECam) has captured one of the deepest images ever taken of Messier 83 , a barred spiral galaxy nicknamed the Southern Pinwheel that is 15 million light-years away (i.e. our next door neighbour) in the southern constellation of Hydra. “Six different filters … and 163 DECam exposures, with a total combined exposure time of 11.3 hours, went into creating this portrait,” the researchers reveal.
“When a curator kept demanding to hear the artist speak, she just got on and said ‘none of us have any capacity left to perform 24/7’ and then left the room.”
–
Addie Wagenknecht , sharing a telling exchange from a recent
Clubhouse chat. “That was maybe the most seen I’ve felt in the last year.”
“The grid is culture: stodgy in spots, inventive in others. It is everything that binds us and separates us. It propels us forward until it stops us cold.”
”Point of View,” the first European survey exhibition of intervenionist artist Angela Washko opens at STUK, Leuven (BE). The show includes Heroines with Baggage (2011) and The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft (2012, image)—pre-Gamergate exposes of misogyny in gaming—as well her forays into the odious world of pickup artists. The latter theme emerges in BANGED (2015) and The Game: The Game (2018) where Washko interviews Roosh V , and explores the ”tactics and practices” of the pickup community in a dating simulator.
“There is a tendency in some technologically engaged art to reveal the computational processes in order to deliver some truthfulness in the resulting artwork, supposedly. I never cared for that.”
–
Nicolas Sassoon , interviewed by Alison Sinkewicz about a series of “visual and imaginary interfaces between minerals and hardware” shown in his latest exhibition, “
Subterranea ,“ at Galerie Charlot, Paris
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