Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga

Structural Patterns

Reflections on Art, Technology and Society

Archive for October 28th, 2006

Heather Wagner, “Attempted – Not Known”

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heather_wagner.jpg
February 28, 2006

“A voice-activated recorder is sent through the mail to impossible addresses and then returned to sender with acoustic doucmentation of its journey. Postal workers singing and gossiping, the creak and bang of a mailbox chute opening and closing…? Or, maybe God and Baby Lindbergh have handlers who reject suspicious packages and return them unopened, and we are privy to their secret celestial conversations. Personally, I like to think it’s the latter.” The piece was on exhibit at Location One last fall.

Written by ricardo

October 28th, 2006 at 9:21 pm

Re-Learn You ABCs

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abc.gif
November 11, 2005

Artist John Jota Leaños recontextualizes our good’ol ABC song to today’s dark realities. In a time when it’s hard for anyone to live in ignorant bliss of the amount of conflict and death that humanity has brought upon itself, a recontextualization of one of the first songs that we learn as children in the United States is all too appropriate. Afterall, the learning of language should be linked to a global consciousness embedded in historical realities.

Leaños employs Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebration along with sardonic humor to reconsider recent and historical deaths, so many unnecessary deaths:

http://leanos.net/ABC.html

Written by ricardo

October 28th, 2006 at 9:18 pm

Posted in net_art

Somber Graphics, NY Times Interactive Mapping of US military dead in Iraq

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October 26, 2005
With the US military death toll reaching 2000 in Iraq, the NY Times has composed a macabre interactive web presentation of the dead. One may search by date of death, name, home or age (there are 19 listed who have died at the age of 18).

The US incursion into Iraq presents the highest military loss since Vietnam. Once again it seems as if history has been forgotten and the same mistakes are executed. The democrat congressional members voice their regrets at having voted for the invasion. They say that they were misinformed, but in reality were meek and incapable of standing against being strong armed into a lengthy, costly and unnecessary error.

I wonder if the NY Times has used XML to build this flash application, so that the look at those who died in Iraq will continue to update as no clear end seems possible in this invasion.

I also wonder if anyone is searching for the means to create an equivalent presentation for the Iraqi who have died, it would be a useful reminder of who are the ones that are suffering the most. There is of course the Iraq Body Count that reports the number of civilian deaths due to the military intervention, but the database depends on media-reports and can not present details or images of the dead.

I was on a flight this past Sunday and sat next to a man from New Orleans. We talked about the disaster in New Orleans and he complained at the lack of spending in rebuilding New Orleans while we spend so much money on rebuilding another country. He questioned where our country’s priorities lay.

NY Times “A Look at Those Who Died in Iraq:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/national/IRAQDEATHS_GRAPHIC.html?th&emc=th

The Iraq Body Count:

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

Written by ricardo

October 28th, 2006 at 9:13 pm

Posted in war_technology

Continental Drift

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bannierederives2.jpg
October 06, 2005

On September 15th, I attended an opening lecture and discussion for a weekend long workshop at 16 Beaver, NYC – “Continental Drift” with Brian Holmes. The workshop was dedicated to mapping tactics of resistance against current global hegemony.

In his opening lecture, Brian discusses the U.S. construction of large global economic blocs since the end of WWII, beginning with the 1944 Bretton Woods Monetary System (international marketing system – U.N., World Bank), to the 1948-52 Marshall Plan to the economic support of Japan during the Korean War… to eventually establish today’s tri-dominant economic system with the U.S. dollar, the Euro and growing Yen.

As Brian puts forth in the online introduction:

The continental blocs are functioning governmental units one scale up from the nation-state. They represent specific attempts to articulate and manage the vast constructive and destructive energies that have been unleashed by the last four decades of technological development, from the introduction of the worldwide container transport system in the sixties, all the way to the emergence of widespread satellite transmission in the eighties and the Internet in our time. Military strategies, the competitive rush for markets, but also the uncertainty and turbulence of the neoliberal globalization process itself has led capitalistic elites to seek forms of territorial stabilization – however violent this “stabilization” may be. This means re-organizing, not just spaces and flows, but also hearts and minds, whether in the centers of accumulation or on the peripheries. We are all affected, wherever we are living.

I brought up Brian’s lecture and the workshop during a recent online disussion on -empyre- as we discussed the reality of cultural translation on the web today as corporations see the value of creating online market spaces that are sensitive to the cultures of target populations. And brought up the question of how artist using the Internet as medium may play a role in articulating an ethics of translation for the Internet.

Written by ricardo

October 28th, 2006 at 9:11 pm

Where You Are

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September 15, 2005
A new experiment by Sal Randolph – “Whereyouare is an experiment in the collective documentation of neighborhoods… Everyone is invited to participate by documenting any neighborhood they love… The project harnesses the power of folksonomy tags from a range of sites that host and organize content of different kinds (flickr for photos, vimeo for video, delicious for links, etc.).”

I love the concept of this experiment and it’s use of current popular web tools too establish an open documentation of neighborhoods that anyone who is willing to establish an account with flickr or vimeo or delicious or opsound… can participate in.

At the moment, Williamsburg seems to have the most stuff, since it is the neighborhood that Sal lives in and can facilitate getting initial contributors to join.

If people contribute worthwhile content and build an engaging representation or documentation, it could be a really great use of folksonomy. However at the moment, Williamsburg includes a couple of videos of an awning flapping against wind and some pigeons hanging out on a street – the sort of content that leads me to question whether or not this is just more unnecessary stuff online, time will tell.

It will also be interesting to see how widely the site is passed along and if neighborhoods of non-Western or underdeveloped countries are added to the site.

Written by ricardo

October 28th, 2006 at 8:20 pm

inSite05

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September 06, 2005
Documentation of events from the opening weekend of inSite05

inSite05 is the fifth staging of a binational contemporary art exhibition that explores the border culture between San Diego and Tijuana.

Last weekend (August 26-28) I attended the opening of the exhibition – a four day long series of events involving private receptions, the staging of a man shot across the border from Tijuana to San Diego, the inception of other “interventions,” a panel discussion by artists who created projects for the Interventions aspect of the exhibition.

inSite05 is ambitious in scope and includes various elements – museum exhibitions at the San Diego Museum and the Tijuana Cultural Center, public interventions on the streets of San Diego and Tijuana, panel discussions, online projects and more.  I documented the projects that I caught through the opening weekend and have posted the documentation at:

http://www.dentimundo.com/exhibition/

Such an exhibition is riddled with contradictions but overall it seems that most artists were sensitive to the issues revolving around the border.

Written by ricardo

October 28th, 2006 at 8:18 pm

Posted in fine_arts

Dentimundo – Dentists on the border

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dentimundo.jpg
August 24, 2005

Dentimundo is a new online directory of Mexican dentists on the border with the United States.

El Progresso, Ojinaga, Juarez, Nogales, Mexicali, Tijuana, are all Mexican towns or cities that sit on the edge of the United States. These are border sites that have established a direct simbiotic relationship with the U.S. economy by providing a variety of services to U.S. citizenry and attracting U.S. dollars. Dentist clinics are as prominent as three for a dollar tacos, margarita specials and Mexican panchos.

What deficits in the U.S. health system is causing this outflow to Mexico? How do the dentists on each side of the border view one another? Where do U.S. citizens prefer to have their teeth cleaned and why? These are just a few of the questions that come to mind when considering the immense quantity of Mexican dentists along the Mexico/United States border.

Dentimundo.com is a multimedia documentary of this micro-economy between the U.S. and Mexico that investigates border dentistry while also presenting users with a directory of dentist clinics along the border.

Get your teeth cared for now!

Written by ricardo

October 28th, 2006 at 8:06 pm

Guiltless and Sickening Army Recruitment

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army.jpg
August 16, 2005

The army swarms the malls, entertainment centers, 42nd street, television and online youth oriented sites seeking to send naive and uncertain kids to face war and death.
Recruitment officers have quotas and their wet dream is some 18 year old who may not have gotten into college, may be rebelling against their home, may not want to go to college and is basically uncertain about what s/he is supposed to do with her/his life. And there is no fucken sense of guilt in targeting this kid. And what socio-economic background is this kid likely to be coming from? You can bet that the children of senators, congressmen, our president would never end up in a recruitment office because they are uncertain about their future.

I was checking out the ifilm site again and it’s riddled with these highly romanticized, bullshit army ads that would only function on a kid who doesn’t know any better and hasn’t been taught to be critical of our authorities and all the lies that they spread.
Every recruitment officer should be regularly informed of the army life and personal situation of each youth that s/he recruits, should be informed if that person is facing warfare, should be informed if that person has been injured or died. Perhaps then they may feel a shred of guilt at targeting the youth of our country and taking advantage of their uncertainty, socio-economic background, lack of resources, naive notions of patriotism. Of course, it’s naive of me that they would give a shit, after all most recruitment officers themselves have been brainwashed into thinking that they represent the only truth…

Written by ricardo

October 28th, 2006 at 8:01 pm

ifilm – warzone

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August 06, 2005

ifilm.com, one of the surviving dotcom / web entertaiment / web tv sites has a channel dedicated to warfare.  Riddled with Army advertisements, warzone capitalizes on people’s voyeuristic desires to view war and death at a safe virtual distance.  At the time of the Civil War people would set up picnics and enjoy battles on the outer bounds of the battle field, though there were plenty of civilian casualties due to these leasurely afternoon picnics.
Now one may experience the war, all be it not in realtime or physical space, but also without a worry of being hit by a stray bullet by loading http://www.ifilm.com/warzone and then downloading from the selection of clips, some sent by U.S. soldiers.  One may even rate a clip and it seems that amongst the most popular are the violent, fire heavy clips shot and edited by soldiers.
If you dig around you can also find documentaries that are critical of the war in Iraq such as Robert Greewald’s Uncovered: The War on Iraq – War and Failure
The web doesn’t cease to amaze me as aspiring film makers caught in the middle of warfare can document, edit and share their lives.

Written by ricardo

October 28th, 2006 at 7:52 pm

Posted in war_technology

Simple Interaction, but Engaging

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July 20, 2005
“No Pasa Tiempo,” is a very simple flash project that is part of an online exhibtion titled “Violencia Sin Cuerpos” (Violence Without Bodies):

http://www.carceldeamor.net/vsc/index.html

The exhibition gathers online works that investigate domestic violence particularly violence toward women by men.  Some of the projects have been around for quite a while, such as Prema Murthy’s “Bindi Girl.”  As I was perusing a few of the projects, I came across “No Pasa Tiempo” (http://2-red.net/nopasatiempo/)which is merely a series of draw by numbers drawings – one merely illustrates the drawing by following the numbers with the mouse.  It’s the sort of thing that, perhaps I’m just avoiding work, but found myself following along awaiting to see the final drawing.  Also check out Cunnilingus in North Korea by  Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, again so simple, but so good:

Written by ricardo

October 28th, 2006 at 7:49 pm

Posted in net_art