5
(excerpts)the anxiety provoking blank black page
In surveillance I've come in through the back door. I was interested in a skew and the under belly of some of these systems.
What does it mean to now present work on the flat face, the single channel blob on a net?
I am actually quite worried about that, and given that I'm being helped along with it by the cyborg body of the people that are helping me extend my thought into the processes of their software and hardware design networks. I am kind of thinking about that all the time.
So, the entitlement areas and protected areas of the net -- maybe we'll talk about that later. I think those are important as questions. The ideologies around capture and display interesting to all artists I'm sure are I think really important and I would like to make some points later with Benjamin about the extension of the self, the collaboration with other live selves as well as machines.
If we're all into philosophy of science updates, of course you've read Donna Harraway, tinkering with the vocabulary, the on-line environment. At äda 'web we're looking at different kinds of locations, places artists can go to - where maybe nobody has gone before - and I think: find those places, that are really good places where you can make a difference and hang out in.
So we're going to chat now or what? If you have any questions I'm sure like there's lot of things we haven't really said.
(snip)
The anxiety provoking blank or black page is actually an exciting place for me to start. I love the black toad non-links of Securityland where you just go in and you're lost or you're screwed and you can't get out and the thing says system failure and you're trapped.
Does anybody have a favorite web site they'd like to talk about? Do you want to just sit up here?
We brought a lot of URL's -- we put up a lot of links on here so you can see them. So if you have any there's Cybergirl, Geekgirl, Adult Children of Heterosexuals; Steve Mann's web cam from MIT: he's really great; he walks around Boston with a surveillance camera on his head.
Prosthetics of the Computer -- oh, Computer as Prosthetic. Well, for any of you working with a server -- does everybody know what a server is? Raise your hand if you don't know what a server is. Okay.
A server allows you a direct live feed access probe two-way, thousand-way interface into the Ether of the Internet, a place where motion, time, destination, reality, cost, identification, production, Hollywood are all changing and shifting at the same time.
So that's what the server is. The server is someone who basically coughs up dough to get a very expensive line out of their computer, but the price is dropping rapidly. Many people have their own system set up so they can plug directly into the Internet. The server serves as a manager, as a management tool, as artistic director or like a conductor of an orchestra. The server also can act or be created to build up events in many places like Hollywood productions, where massive amounts of ideas are shifted around at the same time.
Now, in cyberspace there's one big thing that's cool for artists. It's really different than before cyberspace or before the net. Before, if you wanted to have an art show or say something or do something at an event, it actually did matter where you were. It was either at a museum, a gallery, another institutionor your house, but this location was very important. Now it doesn't matter where you are. What has become much more important is what you're connected to.
So this is a major shift for artists and artistic production. That is, you have an "in." If you've all read the Negoponte book and seen the little two doggies talking to each other. There's two doggies in a room, and one doggy says to the other dog "You know, on the net nobody knows I'm a dog." That brings up the question of identification, of production, how it/she/he is connected. I mean, both of those things are important in terms of identity and in terms of location that if you are there/here.