Structural Patterns

July 10, 2005
Marc Bohlen applies a dadaist twist to technology – he questioning the common uses or expectations of technology by inventing technologies that are applied to seemingly purposeless activities, but in doing so delves into deep philosophical questions concerning human nature.

I recall walking into Marc Bohlen’s studio in 1999 and encountering three chickens and a robot in a large chicken coop.  As Marc explained he was seeing if the chickens and robots could happily c-oexist.  The project is titled Advanced Perception and as Marc puts it

“This project was an early experiment in mixing machines and animal societies. Three chickens, Rhode Island Red hens, were held in a spacious cage together with a mobile robot for 60 days…  A gala omelet dinner was held in an art gallery where a world-famous chef, Rudy Stanish, created omelets according to his own secret recipes with the eggs from these chickens.

It was left to the visitors to ponder where the advanced perception was to be found, whether it was in the machine vision system guiding the robot in the cage, the chickens’ perception modalities (in some ways superior to our own), or in the idea of advanced/alternate modes of perception necessary to contemplate solutions for a future in which our technologies kindly intertwine with the world of simpler creatures.”

http://www.realtechsupport.org/repository/adv_perception.html

At the time Marc was pursuing a dual masters in Fine Arts and Robotic Vision at Carnegie Mellon University.  Since then Marc has continued along the same trajectory, inventing new high level technologies that are placed in creative situations, works shared and respected by both art and science communities.  The same approach of applying hi-tech to nature to question our assumptions of science and nature is used in more recent commission.  Unseen, 2002-2003 uses machine vision to monitor the changes in a garden, once again to best explain the project, I’ll quote Marc:

“UNSEEN is a nature interpretation center with second thoughts. Set in the Reford Gardens of Grand-Métis on the Gaspé Peninsula of eastern Québec, the multi-camera real time machine vision system observes select plants indigenous to the region… Using data analysis and classification techniques, the system searches for instances of these plants. Short texts depict factual knowledge on the select plants. Over the course of the summer, however, the flavour of the texts changes.”

http://www.realtechsupport.org/new_works/unseen.html

In another recent and ongoing project, Marc attempts to use whistling as a form of interaction with computers:

“U.W.M is an investigation into the vexing problem of human-machine interface design. Whistling is much closer to the phoneme-less signal primitives compatible with digital machinery than the messy domain of spoken language. As opposed to pushing machines into engaging humans in spoken language, U.W.M. suggests we meet on a middle ground. Whistling occurs across all languages and cultures.”

http://www.realtechsupport.org/new_works/uwm.html
Marc uses artificial intelligence to question the nature of information, perception and knowledge.  To view other works by Marc, please visit his portfolio site:

http://www.realtechsupport.org/

July 04, 2005
The Bush administration’s regressive nature toward late capitalism is once again made apparent in today’s announcement that the government will keep control of the  computers that manage the Internet.  As usual the Bush administration is using security and guarding against global terrorism as the reasoning behind not moving forward in the global development of the WWW.  The Internet would be well served if the root servers did not remian under the control of one government, this was necessary 30 years ago, and even 15 years ago as USSR came to an end, today it portrays the unilateral nature of the current administration.  It will be interesting to see if Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann remains part of the Commerce Department or becomes a private corporation as scheduled for Sept. 2006…

Guardian UK story

NY Times story

February 22, 2005
Now Wal-Mart has the 4th largest television network and it’s right in their stores – focused on making you a better, more productive consumer!  A New York Times story – presents some funny remarks from shoppers and media executives:

Shopper states:

“It’s sort of a neat idea…  I just walked up here and I was looking at it. I think if you’ve got children with you, it would entertain them.”

Mr. Lempert (editor of business magazine) argues that the current setup does not do enough for customers. “They should have a 60-inch monitor that’s triggered by consumers, and prints out coupons and recipes,” he said. “That’s what people want.”

He added: “You might be able to say it’s the fifth-largest network based on the number of people who walk by it, but it doesn’t mean they are paying attention to it and that it’s empowering them to buy those products.”

February 16, 2005
The Bush Administration’s proposed budget cuts into eductation, health care, assisted living… and will effect countless initiatives and programs designed to aid the country’s youth, and those in need.  But a $127 billion dollar project called Future Combat Systems must receive generous funding to protect our civilization, modern society, put an end to terrorism…  Not so long ago thinkers theorized that the Age of Warfare was being supplanted by Late Capitalism – afterall who needs blood shed when a region can be overtaken by capitalist enterprise.  I tend to blame capitalism itself for a new age of warfare and now it will feed once again the latest advancements in technology!

Check out the NY Times article – A New Model Army Soldier Rolls Closer to the Battlefield

February 10, 2005
Lately, I’ve been thinking about what work really leads to anything lasting.  Since the TAZ, the Critical Art Ensemble (in the U.S.) and any number of off shoots have established what can now be identified as a movement.  A movement within contemporary art composed of collectives that embark on subversive or critical action using new communication technologies.  Each of these collectives embrace to some extent CAE’s opening paragraph from the Electronic Disturbance (1994, Autonomedia):

The rules of cultural and political resistance have dramatically changed.  The revolution in technology brought about by the rapid development of the computer and video has created a new geography of power relations in the first world that could only be imagined as little as twenty years ago:  people reduced to data, surveillance occurs on a global scale, minds are melded to screenal reality and an authoritarian power emerges that thrives on absence.  The new geography is a virtual geography, and the core of political and cultural resistance must assert itself in this electronic space.

Ok, so plenty of collaborators/colleagues and students of these practitioners have emerged over the last several years – Subrosa, Institute for Applied Autonomy, the Carbon Defense League, rtmark, the Yes Men, Conglomco and the list will hopefully continue to grow…  These are creative people that band together to generate technically involved work that questions the society we function in/through.  But over and over as I learn about their projects, the work executed and worst of all some of the egos generated, I wonder what the point is.  Do these tactical media projects, prankster art, subversive acts really lead to anything other than a bi-line notice on NPR or even NBC and Fox?  Do these works generate anything lasting.  Some are satisfied in the idea that it causes reflection, a dialogue and perhaps that is enough, to get people thinking, cause people who would not otherwise talk to talk, but then what.  Lately, more and more, I’ve been thinking that community based projects is where it’s at, community advocacy and projects that function in a small, regional space present the building blocks to create something that can turn into something adoptive, something that can cycle beyond a few months, that may last a generation or two.  And then perhaps there’s already plenty of people doing this sort of work, so it’s appropriate that artists are engaging in collaborative action that may or may not have any consequence…  Recently I attended a talk at NYU’s ITP program and one of the Conglomco guys who presented was so proud of their media coverage that it brought to question any of their work…

February 04, 2005
A net art project, that presents a nice example of tactical media, Eyes of Laura, intro:

“Hello, I am Laura, a security guard at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Through work, I have access to a lot of security cameras. I hacked a way to put one of these online on my Website so you can see it and control it. I love surveillance and keep a web journal or blog of what I see and put up video and images of things that happen.”

January 29, 2005

I recently came across the work of artist Meridith Pingree.  The work seems to be a fun combination of low and high tech as she creates quirky installatons that may track the viewer or present a means of more direct interaction.  In general the work has a great sense playfulness, something akin to toys utilizing technology.  The kind of work one may encounter at the SF Exploratorium or a children’s museum.