The Creative Animal Goes Online (Part B)

The Creative Animal Goes Online 2.0
Mitch Goodwin
NM1102 New Media & the Creative Economy
James Cook University | Townsville
School of Creative Arts
15 05 09
ExpressionHistory Meaning Venue

Mitch Goodwin
“This is the golden age of tactical media, open to issues of aesthetics,
experimenting with alternative forms of story telling. However, these
liberating techno practices did not immediately translate into visible social
movements. Rather, they symbolized the celebration of media freedom, in
itself a great political goal.
Gert Lovink & Florien Schneider, | A Virtual World is Possible : From Tactical Media to
Digital Multitudes | Public Netbase: Non Stop Future, New Practices in Art and Media
| Revolver | Berlin

Mitch Goodwin
“Commonly shared was a feeling that politically motivated activities, be they
art or research or advocacy work, were no longer part of a politically correct
ghetto and could intervene in pop culture™ without necessarily having to
compromise with the system™. With everything up for negotiation, new
coalitions could be formed. The current movements, worldwide, cannot be
understood outside of the very personal and diverse cry for the digital
freedom of expression.”
Gert Lovink & Florien Schneider, | A Virtual World is Possible : From Tactical Media to
Digital Multitudes | Public Netbase: Non Stop Future, New Practices in Art and Media
| Revolver | Berlin

Screening Room
The Political Animal
Civil Counter Reconnaissance
System 77 | April, 2009 | Vienna
Netbase t0
Institute For New Cultural Technologies | 2006 | Vienna

Mitch Goodwin
Nomadic Information
Databases, Algorithms and Content Portals
For Your References
Cool Stuff to Chew ↑ Your Bandwidth
Impermanence| Goodwin | Gold Coast | 2000
Remixology
The Remix, The Mash-Up & Web 2.0
“Art Is Product” Debate
Reward, passion, politics and hunger
This Is Civilisation Documentary
Screening in DA302-016 @ 11:15am

Remixology
The Remix, The Mash-Up & Web 2.0

Ist Principles of the Remix
We re-write the rules, society invented the remix
The ethos of the remix is as old as the cultural artefact itself :
• The Wandjina ancestral figures of Australian rock art
• The reconfiguration of the Old Testament, the Qur’an and
the Torah from pagan myth
• The emergence of cut’n paste scrapbook (1800s)
• The African-American Delta Blues template (early 1900s)
• The Trojan Sound System (1950s)
• Shepherd Fairey’s Hope / Progress posters (2008)
Mitch Goodwin 150509
Remixology
The Remix, The Mash-Up & Cut’n Paste Culture
Wandjini | North-West Victoria | Australia

Important dates and names you should know :
• 1967 - Arthur “the Duke” Reid & Ruddy Redwood (Rough
Trade Records, Kingston Jamaica)
• 1972 - David Mancuso (The Loft, New York City)
• 1973 - Tom Moulton (The Sandpiper, Fire Island)
• 1979 - Clive Campbell (aka KOOL HERC)
• 1981 - Joseph Saddler (aka Grandmaster Flash)
• 1982 - Afrika Bambaataa (aka BAM)
Remixology
The Trojan Sound System | Arthur “The Duke” Reid

• The remix, the mash-up, the cut’n paste, the montage and
the pastiche all depend on the same principles.
• The pinch, the snip - the isolating perspective
• The manipulation, the interrelation - re-imagining
• For the Duke it was the version (the instrumental dub track)
• For Moulton it was the tape splicing re-edit (the extended
disco mix)
• For Flash it was Quick Mix Theory (Hip-Hop and scratching)
Remixology
The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the
Wheels of Steel | Grandmaster Flash & the
Furious Five | Sugar Hill Records | 1981

Remixology
2003 20062004 20072003 2006

Hope vs Progress
The Shepard Fairey incident
• Shepherd Fairey is an American street artist who works with
stickers, stencils and image manipulation tools such as
Photoshop.
• He came to prominence in 1989, while still at University in New
York, with his ubiquitous poster campaign of Andre the Giant.
• He has since travelled extensively, with Andre popping up in
Russia, Japan, and the UK. In 1995 the poster was adapted to
“Obey Andre”.
• His work has expanded to include screen printing and a
clothing company. He established an ad agency to fund his
artistic exploits and his clients include Levis, the Smashing
Pumpkins and Sunkist.
Remixology
Andre the Giant Has a Posse | Shepherd Fairey |
1989 | USA

Remixology
Peace Bomber | 2009 No… I’m Vegetarian | 2007 Make Art Not War | 2005 Obey | 2005

Remixology
Hope | Shepard Fairey | 2008 | USA
“My Obama poster variations of “HOPE” and “PROGRESS”
were obviously not intended to report the news.
I created them to generate support for Obama; the point was
to capture and synthesize the qualities that made him a
leader. The point of the poster is to convince and inspire. It’s
a political statement.
My Obama poster does not compete with the intent of, or
the market for the reference photo.”
Shepard Fairey, 2009
Hope vs Progress
The Shepard Fairey incident

Nomadic Information

Nomadic Information
Gene Pool | http://pool.org.au/ | Australian Broadcast
Commission | 2009
Information as Content Development
• If we think of the web as a resource we can make
the analogy of the “web space” as an artist’s
studio (and his/her community).
• As in a studio where brushes, oils, pastels,
canvasses, wood blocks and easels enable the
artist to create meaning, Web 2.0 technologies
provide a similar function :
• Softwareplatforms
• Decoding and encoding tools
• Search algorithms
• Database statistics
• Relational content
• Comment, critique and guidance

Nomadic Information
• “Comment, critique and guidance” …
• This last point becomes vital as the artists moves from the
act of creation to the mode of promoter, distributorand
educator.
• Work which is generated or finished in the digital realm is
attached to the network.
• The artist and their work become a node
• By linking their work to other portals, detailing their process
on a blog, or posting updates to Facebook, MySpace and/or
Twitter the artist is then facilitating a promotional network. Small Box | Social Media Optimization | 2009

Nomadic Information

• Analogue artists, programmers, technologists, theorists
and new media artists are using information directly off
the web to create content.
• By accessing databases of information using information
rich portals like eBay or Google to generate data sets
they are visualising information and creating a new
aesthetic.
• This is being developed either as activist art, for purely
aesthetic purposes, digital dreaming, objectification of
data, scientific investigation or perhaps more
importantly as a natural development of our increasing
reliance on visual signs as language.
Nomadic Information
We Feel Fine | http://www.wefeelfine.org |
Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar | May 2006

Hans Bernhard
• Hans Bernhard is anew net artist, media activist,
programmer and blogger.
• His works use information rich portals like eBay, Amazon
& Google to generate media art.
• He hosts his works and thoughts at Psychotropic Drug
Karaoke.
• The project which brought him to the attention of the
world – ie the CIA, the FBI and CNN via a 27min expose
on “Burden of Proof” – was [V]ote-Auction which
offered US citizens the chance to sell their votes online
to the highest bidder in the 2000 (and again in the 2004)
US elections.
Nomadic Information
Burden of Proof | Hans Bernhard | CNN | 2000

Hans Bernhard
“We(3) are the children of the 1980s, We are the first internet-pop-
generation. We grew up with radical Michael Milken [The King of
Junk Bonds] and mythical Michael Jackson [The King of Junk Pop].
Hans Bernhard is loaded with 10 years of internet & tech [digital
cocaine], mass media hacking, underground techno, hardcore
[illegal] drugs, rock&roll lifestyle and net.art jet set [etoy]. His
neuronal networks and brain structures are similar to the global
synthetic network he helped build up and maintained subversive
activity within. And now they are "infected" by a manic-depression
[WHO ICD-10, F31.1.] (1), both Hans Bernhard and The "Network"
are infected by this structural disorder. Waves of mania and
depression are running through these technical, social and
economic structures. “ Hans Bernhard
Nomadic Information
Self Portarit | Hans Bernhard | 2002 | Station
4B, Department of Psychiatry, General Hospital |
Vienna

eToy CORPORATION
• Hans Bernhard first established the eToy
CORPORATION in 1994, as a “global internet
investment identity”.
• Playing with notions of “shareholder value”,
“globalisation” and the 24 hour global economy,
eToy produces net art works which satirise the
economic philosophies of the “New World Order”
(see George Bush Snr).
• The central argument of the site, is not to reject
“global markets, economic exchange, culture,
individuals and politics”, but to subvert it through
net activism.
Nomadic Information
eToy Corporation | Hans Bernhard | Est. 1994

eToy CORPORATION (a manifesto)
• etoy.CORPORATION seeks to explore social,
cultural and financial value.
• etoy.SHAREHOLDERS invest time,
knowledge, and ideas (or simply finance) -
• etoy.OPERATIONS which focus on the
overlap of entertainment, cultural, social
and economic values.
• etoy.SHAREHOLDERS participate in a
dynamic artwork that takes place 24 hours
a day in the middle of society -- on and
offline.
Nomadic Information

eToy Corporation (Agents)
• “eToy is a typical early mover (online since 1994) and
developed rapidly into a market leader in the field of
contemporary art. “
• Actions and services like the digital hijack (1996),
etoy.TIMEZONE (1998), TOYWAR (1999/2000), etoy.DAYCARE
(since 2002) and the etoy.TANKS (since 1998) are classics of
digital art.
• eToy.AGENTS is an ongoing initiative which “employs” artists,
programmers and technicians to facilitate their endeavours.
• Mission Eternity was started in 2005 and continues today as
an “ultra long term project that allows pioneers of the
informationage to travel space and time forever...”
Nomadic Information

Ubermorgen
• Hans Bernhard then went on to form his most famous
and prolific creation Ubermorgen with another media
artist Lizvlx, in 1999.
• Ubermorgen means “the day after tomorrow” or “super
tomorrow”.
• The [V]ote-Auction project was a natural extension of
the eToy manifesto. (The 2004 incarnation won the Ars
Electroinica award in 2005).
• However, as the web grew into a new global economic
playground, so did Bernhard’s sights shift from US styled
global economics to the web’s major corporations.
Nomadic Information
[V]ote-Auction | Hans Bernhard | 2000 & 2004

Visual Representation (a riff)
“We live in a period where art, as the former monopolist of the
representative image, has abandoned this representative obligation.
Yet science, in contrast, fully embraces the options which technical
machine-based images offer for the representation of reality.
Nomadic Information
The White Website | Hans Bernhard |

Visual Representation (a riff)
Therefore, it could be the case that mankind will find the images of
science more necessary than the images of art. To be able to maintain
its significance up against the sciences and their picture-producing
procedures, art must look for a position beyond the crisis of
representation and beyond the image wars straight into the blind
spaces of the black black and the white.“
Hans Bernhard im Gespräch mit Hans-Ulrich Obrist, November 2002
Nomadic Information
The Black Website | Hans Bernhard |

Barrett Lyon | The Opte Project | Video | 2003
• Opte.org develops visual representations of the
internet. This is achieved data collected from ISPs,
domains or geographical territory.
• This example shows the class A allocation of ISP space
from global territories.
• Image capture date : Nov 22, 2003
Red Asia Pacific
Green Europe / Central Asia
Blue North America
Yellow Latin America
White Unknown
The Opte Project by Barrett Lyon
Nomadic Information

Christophe Bruno | The Dadameter | Out of
Enunciation – Decay of the Symbolic | 2008
• Web artist Christophe Bruno uses massive amounts of
Google data to generate colour coded topographic maps of
language on the internet
• “The first steps consist in extracting massive amount of
information from Google and analyzing it in terms of
semantics and homophony. From this complex and time-
consuming procedure we get some geometrical description
of language, considered here as the hypergraph of words
and pages that is stored in Google's database.” (Bruno,
2008)
• Homophony (n) the same pronunciation for words of
different origins
The Dadameter by Christopher Bruno
Nomadic Information

“…And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually
made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the
mile!”
“Have you used it much?” I enquired.
“It has never been spread out, yet,” said Mein Herr:
“the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole
country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the
country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does
nearly as well…”
— Lewis Carroll. The complete Sylvie and Bruno. 1893. San
Francisco: Mercury House, c1991. pg. 265
The Senseable City Lab (MIT)
Nomadic Information
Real Time Rome | The Senseable City Lab |
MIT | Venice Biennale | 2006

• MIT runs a number of technology enabling
laboratories which explore the nexus of science,
technology, media and art.
• The Senseable City Lab seeks to study
communication behaviours within urban
environments by visually representing these
activities via software and network technology.
• However, these projects don’t reside in laboratories
or written up in science journals, they are published
online and exhibited in media art festivals across
Europe and the United States.
• Scientific visualisation of data as art.
The Senseable City Lab (MIT)
Nomadic Information
The World’s Eyes | The Senseable City Lab | MIT | 2007

Familiar urban images which make-up much of the
contemporary western sprawl are “transformed by
computer extrapolations into built environments
that are representative of reality, but at the same
time seem hyper-real. “
The user shapes interactions of the city's major
components: landscape, roads, building lots,
architectural components, and vehicles. Each user
controls a vortex of automobiles that looks like a
tornado of cars, continually spewing copies of
themselves into the atmosphere.”
The Scalable City by Sheldon Brown (UCA San Diego)
Developed at the University of California in conjunction with the Experimental Games Lab by artist Sheldon
Brown, Scalable City is both game and doomsday machine.
Nomadic Information
The Scalable City | Sheldon Brown | UCA San Diego | 2008

By applying computational processes to design
decisions, it becomes easy to see how development
can produce unintended effects after much iteration.
Even the smallest design decision today to build a
road can lead, at the extreme, to drastic changes in
the built environment that were probably neither
intended nor wanted.“ Sheldon Brown
The project is exhibited as a game in a contemporary
arts environment at such venues as Ars Electronica in
Austria, the Museum of Contemporary Art in
Shanghai, FILE 2008 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and
SIGGRAPH 2007.
The Scalable City by Sheldon Brown (UCA San Diego)
"Scalable City places responsibility for the new landscape on each user, whose activities are simultaneously
constructive and destructive.
Nomadic Information
The Scalable City | Sheldon Brown | UCA San Diego | 2008

Electric Sheep | Scott Draves | Android Dreaming | 2007
Electric Sheep (Screensaver) by Scott Draves
Nomadic Information
• “When these computers "sleep", the screen saver comes
on and the computers communicate with each other by
the internet to share the work of creating morphing
abstract animations known as "sheep".
• The result is a collective "android dream", a homage to
Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep?.
• The more popular sheep live longer and reproduce
according to a genetic algorithm with mutation and cross-
over. Hence the flock evolves to please its global
audience. You can also design your own sheep and submit
them to the gene pool. “

Electric Sheep by Scott Draves
Nomadic Information

For Your Reference

For Future Reference
“This is a blog about the media. However, with other blogs on television, film, and the media in
general, we wanted to carve out a specific niche. So our blog will focus primarily on the
extratextuals that surround the media. By this, we mean everything but the show itself: previews,
merchandising, industry buzz, branding, interviews, posters, spatial context, temporal context,
related websites, ARGs, spinoffs, spoilers, schedules, bonus materials, transmedia extras, games,
YouTube clips, etc.
But we’re interested in these things not to be arcane or eccentric; rather, we believe that the
extratextuals often make the show what it is. Hence this blog is about the mediation of media.”
The ExtraTextuals | Blog | Ivan Askwith, Jonathan Gray, and Derek Johnson | 2007

Digicult Online Arts Magazine
Go Home Productions Music(hall) Mash-Ups
Netbase t10 Institute For New Cultural Technologies
Free Bitflows Exhibition & Conference Site
Non Stop Future New Practices In Art & Media
Phlow Magazine Online Music Site
CCC Convergence Culture Consortium (MIT)
TED Ideas Worth Spreading
Robin Eley Illustrator
Coded Cultures Exploring Creative Emergences
System77 Civil Counter Reconnaissance
Location One Virtual Residency Program
Chumby Cool Thing

“Art Is Product” Debate
Reward, Politics, Passion & Hunger

The Rules of Engagement
• Each class will be delegated a position - for or against.
1. Sue’s Tute Group (For) Versus Jak’s Tute Group (Against)
2. Ron’s Tute Group (For) Versus Mitch’s Tute Group (Against)
• Following this division each group should spend 30 minutes constructing
a list of examples and reasoned arguments to support their position.
• Sue & Ron’s Tute Groups will host the debates with both teams expected
to use some form of visual aids.
• Each team has 10 minutes each to present their case.
“Art Is Product”
Steve Barrett | Thirst | It’s Art eZine | 2009

The Rules of Engagement
You may choose to use the following questions as starting points :
• How do we define product? What is constitutes art?
• What gives a work of art intrinsic value?
• When do we choose to pay a price for art – DVDs, exhibition
fees, books, CDs, concert performances, games … ?
• And what do we pay with – money, bandwidth, time … ?
• Art exists in the public sphere, online, on bookshelves, on
walls in parks and in foyers - who pays for it? How does it get
made?
“Art Is Product”
Tim Burton & Friend | 2007

The Creative Animal Goes Online (Part B)

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The Creative Animal Goes Online (Part B)