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.
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.
Google Street View is an application that allows users to virtually dive into Google’s popular Maps feature and travel around at street level. It uses millions of 3D photographs to give users a 360° horizontal and 290° vertical view of their location. The photos are typically taken via car-mounted cameras. Privacy advocates have objected to this application, suggesting that the photos may include shots of people in places or performing activities that they do not wish recorded and publicy available. Google maintains that the photos were taken from public property and suggests that users are able to flag inappropriate or sensitive imagery for Google to review and remove. Shortlisted for 2010 Futurity Now Transmediale 2010, F.A.T. (Free Art & Technology) Lab replicated a Google Street View and published the DIY kit on “How to build a fake Google Street View Car” in 8 easy steps, from renting the correct car to buying the right materials (wooden boards, cardboards, glue), building the camera octagon with no camera inside and mounting the main pole to the base unit. The project is part of ‘FuckGoogle’, a collection of browser add-ons, open source software, theoretical musings and direct actions aimed at creating an awareness of the role Google plays in our daily lives. The motivation behind the whole project is that a corporate entity, even one as beloved and competent as Google, is in control of a large stake in the digital network and public utilities upon which we have all grown so reliant. Furthermore, as a publicly-traded company, it doesn’t have to answer to anyone but its largest shareholders, despite the fact that its decisions affect the lives and private information of millions of people. But few even question or raise a voice in opposition to the Google-ification of the Internet. As an organisation dedicated to enriching the public domain through the research and development of creative technologies and media, FAT lab objected with a straightforward claim: “We all love Google products. But no single corporation should be trusted with this much of our data. Fuck Google. Keep your data. Distribute the web”. The main concern now for FAT is how long it will take to raise awareness in the wider audience. One question remains, however: will people really care about this? Would people be angry at seeing their photos on Street View? Or would they proudly publish the news on twitter, facebook, youtube, and all the existing social networks? This thought has been highlighted by Weinberger’s recent adaptation of Warhol’s famous quip – “In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.”
Valentina Culatti
