Net Art: A Problematic Introduction

A beginner’s guide to net art specta(c)torship.
In English and Romanian.
34 lessons, 6 hours of video content

By Mihai Băcăran in collaboration with contemporary artist and musician Darie Nemeș Bota.

Open access online course on Net Art. An experiment in independent online teaching. For full access to course material sign up for free at: https://spectactor.thinkific.com/courses/net-art

Net Art: A Problematic Introduction offers a beginner’s guide for specta(c)torship in net art. It aims to provide intellectually challenging content that encourages students to problematize received narratives regarding art and its relation with larger social, political, environmental and cultural issues. For newcomers to the fields of art history and art theory the course provides, in the context of net art, a basic overview of foundational questions such as: What is art? Is art political? Is the materiality of the art work significant? etc. For those already familiar with these basic theoretical debates, the course further complicates them by addressing the particularities of net art practices and processes of specta(c)torship, and by providing a large number of relevant examples for consideration. By engaging with relevant art works, Net Art: A Problematic Introduction aims at addressing social, political, environmental and cultural questions pertinent to the contemporary condition, as they emerge through the lens of net art.

Mihai included my poem Apparatus_is {Other-s}, as an example of electronic literature in chapter 3 on the diversity of net art practices.

With works by Alexei Shulgin / Martine Neddam / Olia Lialina / JODI / Shu Lea Cheang / Natalie Bookchin / Ubermorgen / MTAA / Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz / Eduardo Kac / Mendi and Keith Obadike / Zahra Malkani / Nkhensani Mkhari / Sheida Soleimani / Annie Abrahams and Emmanuel Guez / Young-Hae Chang / Eric Thiele / Kim Asendorf / I/O/D / Mark Napier / Jonas Lund / Rafael Rozendaal / Interspecifics Collective / Amalia Ulman / Electronic Disturbance Theatre / etoy / The Yes Men / Olivia Jack / Alex McLean and Felix Roos / Cory Arcangel / Open AI / YoHa / DFAP / Ryan Maguire / Heath Bunting

Filed under: Net art, poetry, research, Video, free course, Mihai Băcăran, ReadingClub

gender update

From 1999 people could deposit a wish on bram.org’s Being Human website.
Two days ago Monika Szűcsová (Curator and researcher, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University Brno) and I presented the website at the Transformation Digital Art 2023 International symposium on the preservation of digital art at LI-MA, Amsterdam.

In the piece I asked for gender, which in 1999 consisted of female and male. If someone didn’t choose an option out of these two there was an error message and they couldn’t participate.*

It was kind of a shock. How could I have been excluding people not identifying with a binary gender? How could I have been so incredibly wrong?

Yesterday I updated the page and included non-binary.** I feel kind of relieved, but am now “haunted” by the idea of having elsewhere clear stupidities on the bram.org website (2560 items to check).

* At the time I wanted this, because I considered my online collections (for instance also on solitude, violence, fear) as representations of the voices of a multitude that might be studied at a later point.

** Of course there is more in “gender”: transgender, gender neutral, agender, pangender, genderqueer, two-spirit, third gender, and all, none or a combination of these.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/types-of-gender-identity#types-of-gender-identity. (Thanks Monika for the link.)

Filed under: Net art, preservation, gender, inclusion, Monika Szűcsová, multitude, update, wishes

0pwem0 EICAS nulweek

nul en het doet ertoe

0pwem0, twee meertalige geanimeerde gedichten
voor computer en smartfoon
! scan de QR code om ze te zien !

Speciaal voor de nulweek van Museum EICAS

door Annie Abrahams
met technische assistentie Jan de Weille

De gedichten evolueren in een loop; langzaam, één zin, woord of slechts teken per keer. Het ritme is afgestemd om de aandacht vast te houden, maar ook om de bezoeker de tijd te geven om na te denken en zich te verwonderen.

slow is beautiful

Filed under: e-literature, Event, poetry, EICAS, multilingual, pwem

EICAS Nulweek Utterings

Projectie van Transmission een video van een Utterings performance voor het We’re All Bats Listening Arts Channel 4/12/2020, gevolgd door een workshop.

Locatie: Museum EICAS, Deventer.

Tijd: Vrijdag 24 maart om 14.00 uur

geannuleerd wegens ziekte / vindt plaats op een nader te communiceren tijdstip

Kosten: € 11,-  inclusief museumbezoek

Aanmelden via info@eicas.nl onder vermelding van datum en Annie Abrahams.
Max. 6 deelnemers, dus wie het eerst komt die het eerst maalt.

Meer informatie.

In de workshop werken we toe naar een 10 minuten durende Utterings ervaring waarbij we, bij uitzondering, geen gebruik maken van het internet en machines. Ik ben heel benieuwd of, en hoe dat anders zal zijn.

Utterings is een online performance- en onderzoeksgroep, een online “band” bestaande uit Annie Abrahams (NL), Daniel Pinheiro (PT), Constança Carvalho Homem (PT), Curt Cloninger (US) en Nerina Cocchi (BE).
Wij zijn vijf kunstenaars met zeer verschillende achtergronden, die elkaar online ontmoeten om zich, geblindoekt, voortbouwend op solo’s, duo’s, koralen en stilte, te verdiepen in “utterings” als communicatiemiddel. Deze communicatie wordt niet gedreven door efficiëntie, niet geregeerd door code of abstracte conventies; maar ontwikkeld zich via affect, aandacht, haperingen, vertragingen en zelfs leegtes.
We gebruiken klanktaal om een actieve, verweven communicatieve structuur te creëren waarin zowel mensen als machines betrokken zijn in een proces van gedeelde auditieve uitwisseling en aandacht. Bemiddeld door machines, kabels en compressiealgoritmen, is onze geluidsperformance verankerd in het lichaam.

Filed under: Exhibition, Performance, Video, Workshop, EICAS, Transmission, utterings

Caring for Digital Art.

Transformation Digital Art 2023 International symposium on the preservation of digital art, 16 & 17 March 2023 at LI-MA, Amsterdam.

Transformation Digital Art 2023 aims to show and discuss existing and new strategies for the documentation, transmission, and preservation of digital art for and by artists, curators and conservators.

Day 2: Caring for Digital Art
14 – 15:30. The workshop Netart Analysing highlights some key, specific questions that can arise when considering the preservation of computer generated and net art works.
Two artworks, Compressed Forests by Jan Robert Leegte and Being Human by Annie Abrahams will be presented and discussed.
Moderation by Monika Szűcsová (Curator and researcher, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University Brno) and Joost Dofferhoff (Registrar & Assistant documentation & preservation, LI-MA).  

Tickets for the symposium are available here.

LIMA, Arie Biemondstraat 111, 1054 PD Amsterdam.

Filed under: Conference / lecture, Net art, Workshop, Being Human, LIMA, Monika Szűcsová, preservation

13000 etc. kisses

a kiss, deux imprimées sur aluminium, Poésie Numérique Internationale, curation Jacques Donguy, Galerie Satellite, 7 rue François de Neufchâteau, Paris.

14 janvier – 11 février 2023

Vernissage le samedi 14 janvier à partir de 18h.

Depuis 1998 l’ordinateur donne des bises à un.e internaut.e qui en demande sur la page https://www.bram.org/beinghuman/jeveux.htm. Aujourd’hui le nombre des bises données est de 13167. Ces bises codées en javascript vont dans le sens d’une célébration de la transgression des frontières entre l’homme et la machine à la Donna-Haraway, selon les termes de Lori Emmerson. Et je cite la suite :

“Le monde qui nous est montré à l’écran n’est pas une représentation de ce qu’est “l’être humain” – c’est plutôt une représentation humaine d’une représentation informatique de l’être humain. En d’autres termes, la mesure dans laquelle la réalité et les représentations de la réalité se touchent est la mesure dans laquelle l’humain et la machine deviennent des cyborgs.”
“It’s Not That, It’s Not That, It’s Not That”, Lori Emerson, “E-Poetry” April 23-26, 2003, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia.

Filed under: Exhibition, Net art, 1998, computer kiss, Galerie Satellite, Lori Emerson

Mingled soundscape

Listen to a mingled soundscape by Frans van Lent in which I was happy to participate.

Mingle 2

Filed under: Of interest, sound piece, Frans van Lent

Distant FeelingS #10

Wednesday December 14th 2022
Online. Open to all
A silent and blind connexion

15 minutes. Eyes Closed. Without speaking. 

For the 6th year we invite all interested to take part in this recurring activation of Distant Feeling(s). We come together in an electronically powered energetic flow – sharing different times and spaces – (re)thinking our own human condition while tethered through the network.

Distant Feeling(s) is a project by Annie Abrahams and Daniel Pinheiro.

Afterwards Daniel wrote: The paradox remains between the “live” moment of the encounter and its documentation. Nevertheless the traces of Distant Feeling(s) also produce an archive of different contexts, year after year, of a world constantly changing – and our inter-relationality / interconnectedness transforms through and with technology.

And Annie wrote :
thoughts dancing
shapes moving
yet unrecognisably geometric
probably because they are abstractions
of something much more subtle
something I cannot touch
they are there
they are there
they breathe cough cough cough
a car passes by
they are there
and they dance even while they probably don’t know it
when we open our eyes
1 minute of joy
and then
byye
until next year

Filed under: networked performance, Distant Feelings

Cross media translation of Separation

by Caterina Comini may 2020.

Filed under: Uncategorized

ANI ANI PWEM

^bam

bam & une,deuil

multilingual animated poetry
optimised for cell phones
best watched full screen
slow is beautiful

Included in Illiterature, Kirill Azernyy’s web site devoted to electronic, experimental literature, digital art practice and theory.

Made with technical assistance of Jan de Weille.

Filed under: e-literature, poetry, publication, animated, celll phone, fullscreen, illiterature, Kirill Azernyy, multilingual, poésie, poetry, pwem