Critical digital culture and media arts · Since 1993
L'Archivio Neural è un archivio di pubblicazioni noi raccolte nel corso degli anni. Sfoglia la nostra collezione qui.
Sometimes the online world reveals unsuspected parallel dimensions. This is an unknown restyle of Neural independently (and secretly as we never knew about it) made by NY-based Motion and Graphic Designer, Clarke Blackham. Very nicely made, perhaps only a bit glossier for the magazine’s line, it testifies once more how even your most familiar outcomes can have another life somewhere else.
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.
Sono i blog la nuova ‘bolla’ pronta a esplodere? Secondo la metafora adottata da Bill Shakelford per l’installazione interattiva ‘Blogged’, la risposta è affermativa. Questo esempio d’arte web 2.0 consiste in un palloncino di circa 2 metri di diametro gonfiato attraverso il traffico dei blog che, durante un giorno stabilito, si sono connessi al blog dell’autore. Come in una flash mob, Shackelfors utilizza l’efficacia della comunicazione online, sfruttando la comunità della rete per diffondere la notizia e determinare il successo dell’iniziativa. L’evento ha avuto luogo la prima volta Giovedì 31 maggio 2007, dal vivo alla mostra d’Arte e Tecnologia “Digescape” dell’Ohio State University. Durante questo evento di un giorno Schackelford ha sottoposto il link a questa installazione a un certo numero di blog, nella speranza che l’avrebbero riloggato sui loro pagine. Ogni visita al blog dell’autore, registrata in un database MYSQL, corrispondeva a un secondo di aria soffiata da un compressore dentro al palloncino. I visitatori potevano partecipare e monitorare lo stato del palloncino attraverso un live video feed. Come Shakelford afferma nella sua dichiarazione di intenti, ciò che lo interessa maggiormente è capire lo stato delle cose per determinare cosa sia valido e importante: “la domanda che trovo più interessante ha a che fare con il nostro posto nel mondo naturale e come questo è cambiato nel tempo con la tecnologia, l’invenzione e l’umana ingegnosità”. ‘Blogged’ mostra quanto velocemente un progetto artistico si diffonde da un blog all’altro e, allo stesso tempo, quanto velocemente lo stesso progetto è dimenticato il giorno successivo. È gioia istantanea quella che il ranking genera. Tuttavia i blogs sono il luogo dove il dibattito sulla net art prosegue.
Valentina Culatti
