Second Life Class

Nearly everyone–and no troll! A wild and woolly visit, I’d say. Thanks all!

Laptopograms

Luminous Screen Emulsion Transfers or Laptopograms use the light from laptop screens to expose traditional light sensitive photo paper resulting in an interesting product of old and new media!

Check it out at http://laptopogram.tumblr.com/

Introduction to Second Life 2.0

If you have not joined yet, consider this new interface that has just come out.

Remote Input Narrative

http://remoteinputnarrative.wordpress.com/

Video Game Version of Cremaster Cycle Video

This video game level was created for the game Little Big Planet and is meant as a tribute to Matthew Barney’s video piece The Cremaster Cycle 1.

Transmediale.10

BERLIN:  Transmediale.10, the festival for contemporary art and digital culture has opened, with the theme, “Futurity Now!”  It centers on the exhibition, “Futura Obscura,” at the HKW (Haus der Kulturen der Welt) and other locations.  For more information: http://www.transmediale.de/en/festival/all

Zilvinas Kempinas, White Noise, 2007, vibrating, stretched videotapes

Ada Lovelace Day

Did y’all know it’s Ada Lovelace (formerly known as Ada Byron, daughter of Lord Byron) day at WordPress? She could be considered the first female computer programmer (and the world’s first computer programmer in general).

Free Ipad and laptopn @ Seton Hill University

Seton Hill University will soon start giving out free laptops and iPads to all freshman. They will replace the laptops after 2 years and let students take them with them upon graduation.

http://www.setonhill.edu/techadvantage/

Their philosophy on technology: “Twenty-first century students live in a world of technology and collaboration where learning happens 24 hours a day and is supported by professors, friends, professional experts, and fellow learners in the classroom, on the web, and around the world.”

Conference Comments and Haraway Questions

While in D.C. I got to see “Condensation Cube,” “Lavender Mist,”some nice Dubuffet paintings, a Sol LeWitt wall drawing made entirely from instructions, and a pretty impressive painting by Chuck Close “Fanny/Finger Painting” made entirely by pressing his finger in black paint and then onto the canvas. They also had some Rothko Chapel paintings, Louise Nevelson, some Judd, a Terry Winters which I liked so much more than any I’ve seen (“Graphics Tablet” 1998,) and also a whole room full of working proofs by Jasper Johns. They even had an entire installation on Joseph Albers on Color which was much more interesting than seeing the color studies in a book because in the silkscreens you could see where he’d overlapped 2 colors to create a third at times. I was really impressed by this piece by Wolfgang Laib that was a square of “Pollen from Hazelnut” in the middle of the floor. The museum guard pointed out some weird tiny tracks through it that they said they couldn’t figure out. It looked like centipede.

I saw a couple of pieces which seemed relevant to our particular course namely an installation by Douglas Gordon called “Play Dead; Real Time” in which he took 360 degree photographs of several mundane locations (oil rig, field, etc.) and then recreated them as slick animations that panned slowly around the scenery. Also, I was interested to ask you about the piece “Two Volumes in the Virtual” (1968?) by Jesus Rafael Soto. Does he mean the virtual we mean today? Or is it just about the top and bottom of his sculpture “virtually touching.” I guess my question is more when and where did the word “virtual” come from?

Also while in D.C. (we stopped here on our way to Philadelphia) I attempted to install a sculpture in the Pentagon Memorial park for a piece for my performance art class. I almost caused a bomb squad! So I had to uninstall it. The civilian who monitored the Memorial said I should’ve left faster and then “they” (the DoD, I guess) would’ve been forced to deal with it. It was an interesting experience all around, esp. getting the life-sized sculpture down there on the Metro. It’s funny how much people have trained themselves to ignore strange things on trains.

On the Haraway Reading:
Is Haraway saying that we must address the both fictive and real senses of the concept of “women’s experience?”

The reading reminds me of Nina Lykke’s “Between Monsters, Goddesses and Cyborgs: Feminist Confrontations with Science” which I read bits of in Steve Baker’s The Postmodern Animal, which is also where I got my first bits of Haraway.

Digital Graffiti

http://digitalgraffiti10.wordpress.com