Patrick Tanguay Parses the “4, 5, 6 Futures Currently Vying for the word Metaverse”
Strategist Patrick Tanguay weighs in on the metaverse, moving beyond stock claims on and critiques of the term. The problem, with ‘the metaverse,’ is it’s whatever you want it to be; VR or videogame developers see problems of interaction and immersion, crypto boosters and the web3 crowd see economic empowerment and decentralization. Here, Tanguay uses the early days of the web to think about open standards and platform capitalism, and his reading is better off for it. Of note: his description of “a full world, at movie quality,” which imagines the blockbuster media property as a new kind of persistent experience. He is spot-on, in stating “the merging of the tools and interim steps are actually much more interesting … and offer much more varied potential than those 4-5-6 futures currently vying for the word metaverse.”
Joana Moll Links Biodiversity Loss and Rising CPU Power
First in a series of new works exploring techno-capitalism and biodiversity loss, Joana Moll’s 4004 launches at TPG, London, and online. In the piece, the Spanish artist draws parallels between microprocessors and insects, “both small but key components of larger systems.” Over the show’s duration, a generative tapestry of bugs and bees is gradually superseded by microprocessors, echoing the dramatic decline seen since the first commercial CPU, the Intel 4004 the work is named after, was introduced in 1971.
July 2021
July 2021
Niklas Roy and Kati Hyyppä ‘Collect Vectors’ on the Streets of Chemnitz
As part of the Dialogfelder initiative, DIY connoisseurs Niklas Roy and Kati Hyyppä take to the streets of Chemnitz, Germany, to engage the public in pop-up machine drawing sessions. As participants wrestle Vektor Kollektor, a crude plotter with a joystick as input device, the drawing’s meta data is collected on a vintage Robotron typewriter. While the Etch A Sketch-style outputs are for the creators to take home, the vector and meta data feed an animated online archive at vektorkollektor.com (image).
Plant Geneticist Ponders the Southern African Welwitschia
“Most plants develop a leaf, and that’s it. This plant can live thousands of years, and it never stops growing. When it does stop growing, it’s dead.”
Nairobi Museum Shows Sci-Fi Shorts Featuring “Disobedient Devices”
Part of an eponymous long-term research project, “Disobedient Devices” opens at the Nairobi National Museum, Kenya, “imagining a technological future that draws from local stories, myths, and memories.” Artists Greenman Muleh Mbillo, Joan Otieno, and project instigator Dani Ploeger present three newly completed science-fiction shorts that feature repurposed obsolete devices developed by Nairobi-based artists, technicians, and academics (image: Joan Otieno’s Medusa’s Coil Concept).
Anab Jain Mourns the Impacts of a Rapidly Warming Globe
“Assessing the damage caused by last weekend’s flash floods to Mitigation of Shock in storage. Worst affected are our fake books with titles like How to Cook in Scarcity, Pets As Proteins and Foraging in Reclaimed Flood Zones. I can’t even.”
“Don’t Be Evil”—University of Queensland Art Museum Reanimates Axed Google Motto for Critical Exploration of Networked Technologies
The University of Queensland (UQ) Art Museum opens “Don’t Be Evil,” the second iteration of the “Conflict in My Outlook” exhibition series curated by Anna Briers. Named after Google’s former corporate motto (insidiously axed in 2015), the show “materialises the invisible power structures beneath the surface of networked technologies” with works by Zach Blas & Jemima Wyman, Simon Denny, Xanthe Dobbie, Forensic Architecture, Kate Geck, Eugenia Lim (image: ON DEMAND, 2019), Suzanne Treister, and many others.
Out Now: Alex Nathanson Tells “A History of Solar Power Art and Design”
Alex Nathanson
A History of Solar Power Art and Design
Aram Bartholl ‘De-Recognizes’ Arnsberger Faces
Commissioned for the annual Arnsberg Kultursommer festivities, German media artist Aram Bartholl invites the visitors of Arnsberg’s historic city hall to a Hypernormalization photo session. After having their portrait taken and analysed by a custom face recognition software (provided by Tom-Lucas Säger), participants get to chose an emoji, font, and colour to have their face ‘de-recognized.’ The results are then printed on fine art paper for people to take home.
Vellum LA Brings NFTs to LA Art Show, Causes “Sea Change”
Presenting NFTs by Claudia Hart, Auriea Harvey, Holly Herndon, and nine other artists “whose work embraces our inevitable technological immersion,” Vellum LA opens “Sea Change,” an exhibition and online auction at the LA Art Show. According to Vellum LA, who claim to “meaningfully situate the digital and crypto art communities within the context of art history,” the NFTs are presented on collector-grade Luma Canvas displays—a sign of things to come at their soon-to-open NFT gallery space.
Jer Thorp on Using Data as a Substrate
“I’m interested in using data as a substrate for more abstract visualizations—systems that don’t so much embody the actual data as patterns and trends that might exist hidden within them.”
Jer Thorp Pushes the Limits of Working With (and Living in) Data
48 U.S. Civil Rights and Advocacy Groups Demand Ban of Corporate Surveillance
“The harms caused by this widespread, unregulated corporate surveillance pose a direct threat to the public at large, especially for Black and brown people most often criminalized using surveillance.”
Latest Chapter of Ali Eslami’s “False Mirror” VR Research Opens for (Online) Visitors
Ali Eslami and Mathilde Renault add a new online component to their mixed-reality exhibition “Eclipse” at Tetem, Enschede (NL). Renault’s physical entry point to Eslami’s virtual world opened weeks ago; now remote visitors can book access to “discover the extent of their physicality … [and] interactions with one another.” An offshoot of Eslami’s ongoing VR experiments, this browser-based iteration allows users to inhabit an avian avatar, and interact with more corporeal forms that are only accessible on-site.
A Hack (Briefly) Damaged Confidence in the Alternative, Artist-Driven NFT Marketplace Hic et Nunc
“My idealistic read of Hic et Nunc peaked during the platform’s first hackathon in May, when 150 artists and developers came together to work towards improving the platform. On June 28th, the momentum came to a halt.”
Sterling Crispin Considers CGI Window Tributes and NFT Profit Sharing Models
Analysing the “John Karel window phenomenon”—creators minting tributes to the CGI artist’s popular NFT window series—Sterling Crispin considers a hypothetical profit sharing model. “As of June 20th the movement produced 2,329 transactions totalling 5,496.91 Tez in sales,” writes Sterling. In his model, the highest earners would help reward the movement’s instigators. “I think that a network of artists profit sharing could encourage experimentation, and be a more equitable way of fostering emergent online communities.”
Mitchell F. Chan Articulates the Missing Link Between Sol Lewitt and Art Blocks
“Like all our favourite artists on Art Blocks, Sol LeWitt wrote an algorithm that can be followed to create an infinite number of variations on the same artwork. The main difference is that LeWitt’s Wall drawings are written in plain English and executed by a team of gallery installers, rather than written in code and executed by a web browser.”
“From Creatures to Creators” Imagines Life *Not* as We Know It
Confronting the posthuman head-on, “From Creatures to Creators” opens at Kunsthaus Hamburg. Collecting works “going beyond the finite, conceiving the superhuman” artists including Ed Fornieles, Mary Maggic, and Tabita Rezaire contribute provocative, unsettling visions of life not as we know it, through installation, video, and VR. Pakui Hardware’s Thrivers (image, 2019), for example, presents glass forms as “porous hosts of life,” that fuse elements of flora and fauna lifeforms into chimeric experiments.
The Trouble of Determining a Reliable Metric of Human Values
“Arguably, one of the most consistent, historically reliable, widely accepted system of ethics in existence belongs to the Catholic Church. You want to base a responsible AI on that?”
Ryoichi Kurokawa Turns Petals Into Point Clouds in Buffalo Daughter’s New Music Video
Directed by digital artist Ryoichi Kurokawa for Buffalo Daughter, the “ET (Densha)” music video premieres on the band’s YouTube channel. Known for his clincial deconstruction of natural forms, here Kurokawa ‘explodes’ flowers into point clouds, which waft and dissipate in sync with the central bass hook and guitar feedback. Founded in 1993, Buffalo Daughter is a key player in Japan’s “cut-and-paste” rock Shibuya-kei movement. “ET (Densha)” is the lead single from their upcoming album We Are The Times.
Jason Fagone Contemplates Love and Loss in the Age of AI
“At first, he was impressed by the software’s ability to mimic the real Jessica Pereira. Within 15 minutes, he found himself confiding in the chatbot. After a few hours, he broke down in tears.”
CGI Ed Atkins Looks Like Everybody and Nobody
“It’s a face I know and don’t know.”
Instagram “Sensitive Content” Filter May Make Challenging Art Invisible
“I think of it as a kind of sanitizing of art, and it will most negatively affect artists who are pushing the envelope.”
Science Gallery Dublin’s Exhibition-in-a-Box Explores Complex “SYSTEMS”
Science Gallery Dublin
SYSTEMS
Why Facebook Will Never Fix Itself
“Facebook’s problems today are not the product of a company that lost its way. Instead they are part of its very design, built atop Zuckerberg’s narrow worldview, and the careless privacy culture he cultivated.”
Kei Kreutler Answers the Question of the Moment: What is a DAO?
Kei Kreutler answers the question of the moment: what is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)? Linking think tanks, libertarians, and MMORPG Guilds, she maps a prehistory of emergent governance, to contextualize (post-crypto) community tokenization. Noteworthy DAOs, both active and defunct get air time, as do tools and protocols; ultimately Kreutler schematizes DAOs as “tokens, teams, and missions” (image), and “compelling environments players want to inhabit, recognizing narratives, aesthetics, and goals held in common.”
Simon Denny Wants You to Become the Ultimate Data Capitalist, Curator Says
“The objective of Extractor for the player is to achieve world domination as the ultimate data capitalist. The work is a fictionalised attempt to find a visual language to articulate complex invisible power structures.”
Ryoji Ikeda Creates “Universe Within the Universe”
An ode to the cosmos’ hidden mysteries, Ryoji Ikeda’s The Universe within the Universe opens as part of THE INFINITE, an immersive environment inspired by NASA missions. Created by Felix & Paul Studios and PHI at Montréal’s Arsenal, the 12,500 square-feet XR experience sends visitors on a journey to the International Space Station. Along the way, they encounter Ikeda’s audiovisual installation: a pitch black room with an LED ceiling and mirrored floor, designed to create “the feeling of weightlessness and even vertigo.”
Gijs Gieskes Releases Synth About Printing Money
Gijs Gieskes releases Insolventunclesam, the squelchiest critique of late capitalism ever. Inspired by money printer go BRRR economic stimulus, the Dutch artist created a signal path that models inflation. “The landscape line represents the S&P500, where the stock price goes down and the FED comes to the rescue,” Gieskes writes. He further describes the FED chairman oscillator, three more for household investors, and the ‘ELECT’ button “where the decisions can be influenced.” True to form, the price of each synth sold increases by 2%.
Governments only Spent 2% of Covid-19 Response Funds on Clean Energy Measures
“As of the second quarter of 2021, governments around the world have allocated around USD 380 billion on clean energy measures as part of their economic response to the Covid-19 crisis. This is around 2% of the total fiscal support in response to Covid-19.”
As Jeff Bezos Enters Orbit, Let’s All Remember Andy Warhol’s Spacefaring Dick Pick
In the wake of Jeff Bezos riding a ‘giant phallus’ to space, art historian Michael Lobel reminds his Twitter followers of The Moon Museum (1969), “a tiny ceramic wafer with images by six artists covertly attached to the Apollo 12 spacecraft and reportedly left on the moon’s surface.” Realised by American sculptor Forrest Myers in collaboration with scientists from Bell Laboratories, the tile includes a sketch by Andy Warhol “that can be interpreted as a penis or a rocket ship.”
Out Now: “Until Proven Safe” by Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley
Manaugh & Twilley
Until Proven Safe
TK Smith Contemplates the Aesthetics and Affect of “The Dirty South”
TK Smith reviews “The Dirty South,” at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, for Art in America. Scanning works spanning landscape illustration to a literal manifestation of slab culture, Smith parses the character and affect of the American South. Of note: the discussion of Paul Stephen Benjamin’s Summer Breeze (2018, image), which blends Billie Holiday and Jill Scott song and spoken word with archival footage “creating a second meaning for Holiday’s phrase, juxtaposing the legacy of lynching with the fact of survival and Black joy.”
Edward Snowden: “The Spyware Industry Shouldn’t Exist!”
“Their only products are infection vectors. They’re not security products. They’re not providing any kind of protection, any kind of prophylactic. They don’t make vaccines—the only thing they sell is the virus.”
Jonas Lund Throws Animal Party for Crypto Shareholders
A window into the Jonas Lund Token (JLT) universe, ”On This Day” opens in König Galerie’s virtual showroom on Decentraland. JLT (2018–) is a distributed autonomous artistic practice where shareholders get to invest and participate in the Swedish artist’s career. 50 chairs are reserved for selected JLT shareholders (meetings to be announced!), while 3D animals—JLT collectibles—watch Lund’s avatar reminisce over photo memory tokens on the wall.
Malaysian Authorities Crush 1,069 Bitcoin Mining Rigs With Steamroller
Authorities in the city of Miri in Sarawak, Malaysia seized 1,069 rigs from Bitcoin miners alleged to have stolen $2 million USD worth of electricity. “The electricity theft for mining Bitcoin activities has caused frequent power outages, and in 2021, three houses were razed due to illegal electricity supply connections,” explains Miri police chief ACP Hakemal Hawari. Six individuals were arrested, fined, and jailed in the sting; the police then proceeded to crush the hardware, worth an estimated $1.25 million USD, with a steamroller.
Hito Steyerl: “NFTs Are Like Toxic Masculinity”
“In the art world it was quite shambolic—the worst and most monopolistic actors immediately colonized the space and started extracting labour from precarious workers. For me, NFTs are the equivalent of toxic masculinity as a medium, because they take up way too much attention and use up all the oxygen in the room.”
Beyond Resolution: Rosa Menkman Gathers “Im/Possible Images” in Munich
Instigated by artist Rosa Menkman and featuring works by Memo Akten, Sophie Dyer & Sasha Engelmann, Susan Schuppli, UCNV, Alan Warburton, and others, “im/possible images” opens at Lothringer 13 Halle, Munich. The exhibition extends out of Menkman’s research into digital image infrastructures and kicks off a two-month summer school exploring the conditions of image making today: “How do resolutions shape images? How has the field of computer simulation expanded the rules and functioning of our imagery? Can one listen to an image?”