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.
OnlyFans, forse il maggiore sito mondiale dove gli utenti possono pubblicare contenuti altrove non permessi, è un modello di business vincente per monetizzare il sempre più consolidato meccanismo dei like. Da una parte ci sono i creatori di contenuti – artisti, personal trainer, influencer, professionisti del sesso – dall’altra i loro fan disposti a pagare, in abbonamento o una tantum, per accedere a materiali esclusivi o per interazioni “premium”. Quanto più un creatore piace e produce materiale appetibile, maggiore è il suo guadagno. La piattaforma conta 150 milioni di fruitori e il mercato economico elargito a favore del milione e mezzo di utenti creatori supera i 5 miliardi di dollari; un enorme business molte volte osteggiato a livello politico e culturale. Parodiando OnlyFans, l’artista Lena Chen, formata dalle proprie esperienze come sex worker e grazie alla collaborazione con Maggie Oates e Pippo Toof, ha creato OnlyBans, un gioco interattivo dove poter vestire i panni proprio di “sex worker” su una piattaforma digitale. L’obiettivo del gioco è postare materiale ed intrattenere relazioni per stabilire un seguito quanto più folto possibile di fans e guadagnare “soldi”, il tutto sperimentando le molte insidie alle quali si è esposti nel mondo del porno e dei social network. Il giocatore molto presto scoprirà quanto sia complicato mantenere attivo il proprio profilo in balia di algoritmi opachi e policy della piattaforma. Lo storytelling del gioco è accompagnato dalle testimonianze (e da materiale realmente censurato) di veri creatori di contenuti erotici che condividono con i giocatori alcuni dei problemi incontrati quotidianamente nella loro vita professionale: rischi per la privacy, censura, de-platforming, revenge porn. Un gioco che prova a ridisegnare i diritti dei lavoratori del sesso, i confini del lecito e che non manca di fare informazione sul corretto uso degli strumenti digitali e sulle molte insidie che si celano dietro abitudini apparentemente innocue. Benedetta Sabatini
Lena Chen, Maggie Oates – OnlyBans, do you wanna play?
