[-empyre-] networked_art

Thu Oct 1 18:55:37 EST 2009

Hi to all and thanks Renate,

The last month is a hard act to follow! I haven't been involved because I've been busy reading/writing the *book* that is the launching point for this month's discussion 'Networked_a [networked] book about [networked]art' found at: http://networkedbook.org/.

I'd like to being by asking people to go and have a quick look at the site, sign up if you want to write and contribute to the project but generally have a look around.

Across this month the people behind the project –  Jo Ann Green and Helen Thorington (who run Turbulence.org) along with Eduardo Navas, an artist and writer in and on networks – will discuss the project set up, why they initiated it and how this project contributes to promoting or changing the relationship beten participatory online text and participatory online art. As the month goes on, all the authors – Anne Helmond, Jason Freeman, Patrick Lichty, Kazys Varnelis, Patrick Lichty, Anna Munster, Marco Deseriis and Gregory Ulmer as well as invited theorists of new media art and literature – will be introduced and take up different aspcts of this discussion as well as talk about their critical contributions to the project.

I'll start the discussion off with the following quote which heads up the website to the project but acttually comes from another great networked writing project:

*A networked book is an open book designed to be written, edited and read in a networked environment.* Institute for the Future of the Book

I'd like to begin by asking Jo-Anne Green and Helen Thorington to respond to that quote. And to probe a little further by asking: what made you decide to initiate the project? What is important about an open book or open writing? Is this a call for a kind of open source literature or theory in the vein of open source code or is this something different?

I'll briefly introduce Jo and Helen here and then ask them to come online to respond

Jo-Anne Green is Co-Director of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (NRPA)
and its world-renowned web site Turbulence.org. She founded "Upgrade!
Boston" in 2005, the 4th node in Upgrade! International, now a network of 32
nodes distributed world-wide. She co-founded and maintains
"Networked_Performance"; curated "Mixed Realities"; and initiated
"Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art)". Born in Johannesburg,
South Africa, Green graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand in
1981 with a BFA Honours in Printmaking and a major in Art History.  Green
is currently an Adjunct Professor at Emerson College. She has exhibited her paintings, one-of-a-kind
artist's books, and installations in South Africa, Boston, and New York.
http://new-radio.org/jo

Helen Thorington is the Co-Director of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (aka Ether-Ore), the founder and producer of the national weekly radio series, New American Radio (1987-1998), and the founder and producer of the Turbulence and Somewhere websites. She is a writer, sound composer, and radio producer, whose radio documentary, dramatic work, and sound/music compositions have been aired nationally and internationally for the past twenty-five years. Thorington has created compositions for film and installation that have been premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, the Whitney Biennial, and in the Whitney Museum’s annual Performance series. She has produced three narrative works for the web including Solitaire, which combines game and storytelling; and she played a principal artistic role in the cutting-edge performance work, Adrift, presented as a performance and installation at the New Museum in New York City, October 19-December 21, 2001. 

A/Prof. Anna Munster
Director of Postgraduate Research (Acting)
Deputy Director Centre for Contemporary Art and Politics
School of Art History and Art Education
College of Fine Arts
UNSW
P.O. Box 259
Paddington
NSW 2021
612 9385 0741 (tel)
612 9385 0615(fax)
a.munster at unsw.edu.au
________________________________________
From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au [empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Renate Ferro [rtf9 at cornell.edu]
Sent: Thursday, 1 October 2009 4:04 AM
To: soft_skinned_space
Subject: [-empyre-] Thanks to Menotti/Welcoming Anna Munster on _empyre

Dear _empyre subscribers,

We join in thanking Gabriel Menotti for guest moderating this past month's
discussion of "Denied Distances." We appreciate his generous offer to
moderate this past month's discussion and enjoyed the varied posts that
related.
We will be turning  the month October over to Anna Munster who will be
moderating a conversation, "Networked_Art." Based on a collaborative
Turbulence project, Anna will be
introducing her roster of guests who will join our over 1250 subscribers to
discuss the convergence between networked aesthetics and texts.  While Anna
will be introducing the guests for the month and posting the first
discussion post, I will take this opportunity to introduce Anna's biography.
We thank her for taking over from Gabriel. Anna is from Australia where it
is already October 1st so we will say good=bye to Gabriel for now and
welcome Anna to _empyre soft-skinned space.

Biography
Anna Munster is a writer, artist and educator in the area of new media
arts and theory. In 2006 she published the book Materializing New Media:
Embodiment in Information Aesthetics (Dartmouth College Press) and writes
for the journals CTheory, Fibreculture, Culture Machine among others on
networked culture and art, biomedia and bioart and contemporary art and
politics. She helped to found the journal Fibreculture and is actively
involved in online list cultures and their on and offline projects and
events. She works collaboratively with Michele Barker in the area of
immersive and multi-channel audio-visual installation, exploring the
relations between visuality, perception and neuroscience. Munster works as
an associate professor at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South
Wales, Sydney Australia. Her current research investigates dynamic media,
particularly the relations between the technical aspects of networks and
network visualisations on the one hand, and emergent forms of cultural and
aesthetic experience on the other.
Renate Ferro
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Art
Cornell University, Tjaden Hall
Ithaca, NY  14853

Email:   <rtf9 at cornell.edu>
Website:  http://www.renateferro.net

Co-moderator of _empyre soft skinned space
http://www.subtle.net/empyre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empyre

Art Editor, diacritics
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/dia/

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