Future Ben

Blinkynoise boxes Right , so I was at the Bent Festival a few weeks ago, which turned out to be more of the Chiptune festival, since most of the stuff I saw was made from scratch. These little suckers you could actually buy. They make a nice coffee table item, or you can rock out with them.
Blinkynoiserock

While these were cute some stuff looked a bit dangerous. This was a biofeedback setup where the performer was literally electrocuting himself while he played an exposed circuitboard. Yikes!
Bioshock-rock

I went to one of Rhizome’s New Silent panel discussions at the New Museum. (Damn what a sexy marquee they have in the front!) Some of the presentations were pretty good. I liked the work of Caitlin Berrigan and Brandon Ballengee. What I appreciated the most from these two artists was that they were understated in an already controversial field. It takes a tremendous amount of integrity to let your art speak for itself.

Generally I have to roll my eyes at high concept bioart especially purely conceptual art like photoshopping a scrotum purple and calling it the future of humanity. That stopped being shocking a long time ago. None of this stuff is new, it’s just new to you. Any artist who thinks they can skate by on the wow factor of posthumanism is a sad relic of the 90’s

Bioartists need to realize that their art isn’t new. Gardening, bansai, body modification and even selective breeding are valid and often inspired art forms. As bioartists we must accept that we are simply painters with a new pallet to make art. If the art is good, it will speak for itself.

Why is it then that bioart is plagued by sensationalism? Obviously the many many demons that biotech plague biotech are present, but at least in that world there is an avoidance of sensationalism. It’s bad for business. In basic science if you were to even attempt the kind of grandstanding and egotism that permeates the art world you would be laughed out of your institution.

Granted artists are not scientists. It is their job to draw attention and to sometimes be outrageous. I applaud that when done properly but when I see artists taking everyday science and holding it up as if it were the greatest artistic achievement since perspective. Or using science to shock and awe the audience I can’t help but seethe.

I guess this harkens back to the early days of computer animation. Pretty much all of it sucked, but you saw it everywhere because it was new. It is going to take artists of true skill to take genetic based arts out of its Pong phase.

It’s that time of year again, when the many people’s of Burning Man do what they do best. That is simultaneously begging for money to whilst thumbing out nose at capitalism. That being said…
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Camp Image Node presents
The Mini Mad-Scientist’s Ball

Cosmonauts unite! And join us once again in our ambient wonderland! We
have grown to love our miniaturization, chilling in a Petri dish while
sipping an extremely tiny space-Daquiri. Relax to dub, ambient, and
nerdcore/glitch-hop as our skilled technicians take you away to Space
Station Prog, our 400 sq ft mylar-lined inflatable in a beautiful loft
in the West Village. Let a thousand blinkies bloom! Only 100 tickets
will be sold, so make sure to RSVP.

DJs:
Rhizome
Borne
Morgan Packard (Microcosm)

Live PA:
Autophage & Prototype
Zemi17 (http://www.zemi17.net – http://myspace.com/zemi17/)

Vjs:
SeeJ
Animatron
nobody.but.yours

Saturday June 9
10 PM – 5 AM

Tickets $10 presale via Paypal, $15 @ door.
RSVP to madscience@imagenode.org
Buy presale tickets via Paypal at http://www.imagenode.org/msb2007.html
Location provided only to RSVPers the week of the event.

Costume ideas: Beep bloop blorrp, tiny space monkey, Zergling, mini-Mars
rover, Cory Doctorow’s homunculus, bearstronaut.

This weekend was the retrotastic Blipfestival. chiptunes and 8bit art and music. I didn’t get to attend the whole festival, but the highlights for me were Coova, Bitshifter Random, and Bubblyfish.

Of special note was a lecture by Nullsleep on composing music on a Nintendo Entertainment System. I have respect for anyone who writes music in Assembly language. The system is so simple though that I could could make sense of the code from first glance. That’s a first!

So yes I will be getting me a gameboy and loading up LSDJ as soon as this JUICEBOX thing finally comes together. I have been really remiss in doing my part on that project.

Everybody is talking about the Achitecture Exhibition in Venice! Admittedly nobody that I know or who would want to talk to me. Why don’t I have any architect friends? Is it me or is it a personality type that I don’t get along with? Maybe architects have to be too straightlaced… Oh I forgot I had a point.

From their site:

“More than half of the world’s population lives in cities”, states the Director of the 10th International Architecture Exhibition, Richard Burdett. “A century ago, it was less than 10%. The 21st century will be the first truly urban era, in which more than 75% of the world’s population will live in urban areas, much of it in mega-cities with more than 20 million inhabitants concentrated in the countries undergoing rapid development in Asia, Africa and South America. In the meantime, many Western and European cities are shrinking, or have been forced to re-invent themselves in order to adapt to a post-industrial condition.”

So the future is urban! That was my point! Is this really true that in an era where we can be completely mobile we all choose to congregate in dense little clusters. umm yes. A key feature of the urban landscape is public transport and access to public services. These features empower the disenfrachised, which is exactly why third world countries are urbanizing so rapidly. At a recent public health lecture I heard the shocking fact that 99% of the hospitals in China are within 300 miles of the coast. If you want access to any quality social services even in a communist country, you have to live in a city.

But what about the first world. I do know that NY is a few years away from another housing crash. But in general is America urbanizing or suburbanizing? I’m going to find out with an internet road trip across North America! Up next the future of the northeastern seaboard. NY, Boston and Halifax. Where are they going? An more importantly, where are they?

I’m sorry Orlan. I didn’t mean to front on being the posterchild for post humanism. Just the thought of having two penises induced such a megalomaniacal state that didn’t know what I was saying. You still rock. Having funky bumps on your head and fusing your image with people from different cultures is a far better way to bring us into the post human era that running around with a second penis. There are already too many dicks in the world as it is. You are probably pretty mad and if you don’t ever want to talk to me again I understand. Whatever happens, I want you to know that I am still on your side and anytime you want to get some coffee or chai or mate or whatever it is eurotrash artists drink these days, I’m there for you.

Freefall is an adorable science fiction webcomic. It tells the story of Florence, a geneticly anthropomorphized wolf, and her crewmates, an alien and a robot and their adventures on a newly terraformed planet. While Freefall is neither action packed nor hilarious it is always entertaining and endearing to the reader, while presenting compelling science fiction concepts. One of my favorite moments is when the terraforming robots let Florence come to their secret meeting because technically she is just another form of artificial inteligence.

This comes from the fabulous We-make-money-not-art. “In Keitai Girl (2003), Yamaguchi Noriko wears a body suit crafted from cell phone keypads, large headphones and is draped from head to toe with wires.”

I need more wearable cellphones/catsuits in my life. Although in 2006 I expect a little more from my wearable mobile technology. I want cameras you can access via your phone, or at least a soundtrack. This type of stuff, while appreciated by me, is the domain of my wifeCassandra. My job is usually to bug her about making these types of things for my pleasure until she rolls her eyes at me.

I don’t like Edwardo Kac’s work. I don’t even respect what he does. His art preys upon an audiences ignorance about biotechnology. I couldn’t stop laughing at one ASCI meeting when artist Joe Davis started shouting out “Alba was photoshopped! The emperor has no clothes!” I don’t know if that is really true, but it caused the speaker to retreat into stammering artistic doublespeak for the rest of the presentation. Alba, the GFP bunny is not really Edwardo Kac’s creation. He credits several scientists for providing “assistence.” Ha! Sure, it’s his rabbbit, but there is no mention of the process of creating the animal. Why is that? He doesn’t want you to know. Look up the process of making a transgenic it is dull and arduous and involves the sacrafice of dozens of animals. Most people today simply hand their gene over to a facility where a technitions do all of the work. “Genesis” is another great example. There are bacteria on a plate. There are all these G’s and C’s and A’s and T’s. There is even a bible quote. Whoopdie freakin doo! The weakness of Kac’s work, and what totally pisses me off, is that he could say just about anything and people would buy it. I understand the pop art aspect of it, but this isn’t a can of tomato soup. The science as mysticism mentality he inspires in an audience is the most dangerous form of sensationalism and is ultimately meaningless. Anyway, he wrote a book. Go thumb through it at the bookstore.