Critical digital culture and media arts · Since 1993
The Neural Archive is a repository of publications collected by us during the years. Browse our collection here.
The value of craft after software sounds rampant sometimes, expressing the freedom of escaping repetitive taps and clicks to accomplish some assumed tasks. Mixing media, electricity, electronics, mechanics and inert objects Graham Dunning has realised a structured track/performance/open script in his “Mechanical Techno: Ghost in the Machine Music.” More than a proof of concept a machine music declination.
Isn’t ASCII Art a perfect form of “graffiti” in 2010s? The 8-bit aesthetics is among the strongest visual references connecting the analogue recent past with the omni-digital present, so why not adopt it to finally have some public art embedded in the present? In Varberg, Sweden, 2016, the GOTO80 crew (feat: Karin Andersson) did it, choosing (not by accident) the Mo Soul Amiga-font.
YesNo by Timo Kahlen feels like “traditional” net art, a well crafted stuck webpage for the user’s aural and clickable enjoyment.
The relationship between Andy Warhol and personal computers (becoming quite popular during his last years) has been only partially investigated beyond his Amiga works. In November 2015, Sotheby’s sold his “Apple (from Ads)” (acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas) for 910.000 USD, and in catalogue’s notes Warhol tells about his meeting with Steve Jobs insisting to give him one and showing him how to draw (even if still in black and white): “we went into Sean [John Lennon’s son]’s bedroom–and there was a kid there setting up the Apple computer that Sean had gotten as a present, the Macintosh model. I said that once some man had been calling me a lot wanting to give me one, but that I’d never called him back or something, and then the kid looked up and said, ‘Yeah, that was me. I’m Steve Jobs.’ And he looked so young, like a college guy. And he told me that he would still send me one now. And then he gave me a lesson on drawing with it. It only comes in black and white now, but they’ll make it soon in color…I felt so old and out of it with this young whiz guy right there who helped invent it.”
Harsh Noise Wally, is a sophisticated mashup mixing strips of Wally, the lazy and cynic colleague of Dilbert with some epic noise music extreme attitudes. Well conceived and assembled.
Minority Report comes closer… Three huge screens at Birmingham New Street railway station are scanning passers-by and play advertisements accordingly. http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/new-street-station-advertising-screens-9920400
GoPro ancestors in the 1960s and 1970s, mainly sport and movie persons like F1 driver Jackie Stewart, Bob Sinclair and Steve McQueen.
Rapper Prince Harvey, after his computer crashed and his external drive was stolen, managed to record an entire album in Apple Store SoHo in four months, befriending employees, hiding files and using USB sticks and mail. as support. Abbie Hoffman would have been proud.
The new Neural issue is out celebrating 15 years of publishing with a joint action with SWAMP group. Subscribe now, because only subscribers will get a numbered / limited edition Notepad sheet participating in a conceptual hack to expose Iraqi civilian casualties to the U.S. Congress through micro-printed text technology.
You can also buy the magazine from the closest of the almost 200 stores stocking it. A back issues pack is available.
Centerfold: ‘Fulgurator’ with Barack Obama by Julius Von Bismarck.
.S.W.A.M.P. interview.
.!Mediengruppe Bitnik interview.
.ISEA 2008, Singapore report.
.Ars Electronica 2008 report.
Smiles Less Noise, Taiwa Hensokuki, Machines that Almost Fall Over, AEO, Motion-Extraction-Reanimation Series.
Bodies in Code, HMKV 1996-2008, Darko Fritz Archives in Progress, Holy Fire, Software Studies: A Lexicon.
.Negativland interview.
.Memories of the Future, New Forms of Cultural Production
.The Hype Machine, p2p blogging
Graphite Sequencer, Wind-up Birds, Sun Run Sun, Fold Loud, Physical Sequencer.
Anthibotis – Occultural Anthology vol. 2, curated by Vicky Bennett – Smiling Through My Teeth, Dj Spooky – Sound Unbound, M. Schumacher – Five Sound Installations, Filmachine.
.cd reviews: Ryoji Ikeda, Andrea Polli and Joe Gilmore, Janek Schaefer, Alva Noto, COH aka Ivan Pavlov + Cosey Fanni Tutti, @c, Bj Nielsen and Stilluppsteypa, Helmut Schafer and Zbigniew Karkowski, Black to Comm, Brandon LaBelle, Jos Smolders, Berlin Electronics, Kenneth Gaburo, Simon Wickham-Smith, Critikal, Frank Rothkamm, Silvia Fassler and Billy Roisz, Michael Santos, Martin Neukom, Josh Russell.
.Matthew G. Kirschenbaum interview.
.Free Passwords: The Bumpy Guide to Porn Sharing.
.Shopdropping, violating the consumer temples.
Cyberskin, Double-Taker (Snout), Real Snail Mail, Goldenbergian Voting Machine, Tantalum Memorial.
Public Netbase: non stop future, Setun, The Exploit, a theory of Networks, Feedback, Television against Democracy, Digital Media and Democracy.
