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.
The traffic accidents aggravated the dense urban crowd and immediately the news was spread by word of mouth. People just stopped, attracted by the feverish show of a tragedy. People no longer ran, distracted by the frenzy of everyday life, but suddenly found time to stop, trying to find a place as close as possible to the scene. And they did nothing but watch. What better location for advertisements is there in a constantly distracted world than a traffic accident? Crashvertise is a project by KOOK Artgency (“a-conventional” communications agency and spin-off of the guerriglia marketing collective) inspired by urban crashes. As soon as a serious crash takes place amid the bustle of the city, a Crashvertise team will head to the site to place signs and branded warning triangles for the bystanders to inspect. They also take pictures of the tragedy scene for publishing on the social networks and for creating a viral marketing campaign as soon as possible. The costs are calculated by the severity of the accident and its location, for example the city center is more expensive than suburban areas. A document containing valuable guidance suggests how easily you too can cause accidents and become an official agent of the Crashvertise project. As with Where next , a disturbing invitation to speculate on upcoming international attacks, the guerrilla marketers play with a surprising tool: a marketing campaign that is predicated on accidents and tragedy. The project certainly it seems to be in bad taste, however something similar actually happens in reality: the more cars that circulate in the streets, the more accidents will occur. This causes significant increases in the automotive industry (coachbuilders, mechanics, insurance) and a subsequent growth in jobs. So if accidents paradoxically generate jobs, Crashvertise is a virtual corollary (and the most extreme one too), but it follows the logic of consumption impeccably. Once again what looks like a surreal playful sarcasm unfortunately is a visionary (though unsustainable) representation of our everyday life.
Chiara Ciociola
