Dear Internet, MTAA will be away at “art boot camp” for a week starting Tuesday. Please try to be good while we are away. Thanks. permanent link to this post

MTAA needs to get professional. To that end, we made some business cards. These just aren’t any business cards however. They’re a limited edition print — signed and numbered on the back.



How can you get a free limited edition business card print from MTAA? You must meet us in person and give us some reason to think that you can help us professionally.

This is the first in a series. permanent link to this post

There’s been discussion on Rhizome about whether or not Rhizome is covering net art well enough. This discussion led into a debate on the robustness of net art. Amongst this discussion, there has been several assertions made that the dot.com bust poured cold water on the movement but I wanted to look at it a little more closely.

As some of you know, M.River and I were very much involved with the net art movement from 97 onward. I was also working within the dot.com bubble at the time and was very attuned to its movements.

I remember knowing there was trouble with the bubble in mid-‘00. Then, by late 00/early 01, it was obvious to everyone that the burst had happened. (See this graph of the nasdaq.)

I was out of work in early/mid 00 and it was super-easy to get a dot.com gig at the time due to the fact that the forward momentum of companies isn’t as easily stopped as the rise of their stock price.

Remembering the crash, I was thinking at the time that it would throw cold water on the net art movement and thinking that it didn’t seem to be happening.

Probably due to the fact that museums and art institutions are even slower-moving than businesses, it took a good year or two after the dot.com burst for the net art fad to fizzle in the art institutions. Not to say that the dot.com collapse didn’t help cause it, but it took a while for it to be felt.

m.river adds:

I’ve always thought that the linking of the dot.com boom/bust and the art world’s early interest and then abandonment of net art is a red herring. I feel something else was in play. A clue may be found in the recent championing of art works and artist that use the net as a reference or source but do not use the net as the primary site of the work. permanent link to this post

OK, I know this is total corporate PR bullshit…

But! The Warriors! AT CONEY ISLAND!

Wish I was in town :-(

All details here (Netflix promo FYI). permanent link to this post

There’s a bunch of new media stuff in the current issue of Artkrush (issue 37):

An interview with Lauren Cornell, Executive Director or Rhizome.org (in which your humble net artists MTAA are mentioned)

A profile of Cory Arcangel

A review of Jon Ippolito and Joline Blais’ book “At the Edge of Art”

And more! Check it out… permanent link to this post

i use this
A Digg-like site similar to MacUpdate or VersionTracker; find the software you need.

freenigma
A Firefox extension to easily and freely encrypt email sent via popular web mail services like Gmail. It’s in beta so you need to wait for an invite once you sign up, I’m still waiting…

American King
A cool new videoblog documentary

Goatse Polo
I want one!

plus

A great Rocketboom today
An interview with David Cronenberg on the opening of his curatorial effort, “Andy Warhol/Supernova: Stars, Deaths and Disasters, 1962-1964” at the Art Gallery of Ontario. permanent link to this post

(via IM)

MTAA: why is it ‘liberated’?
RSG: politically liberated
MTAA: how so?
MTAA: (this is an interview for the blog now)
RSG: lol RSG doesn’t do interviews :-)
MTAA: too late
(a few minutes pass)
MTAA: ok.. i guess i’ll have to print that…
RSG: haha

Check out Notes for a Liberated Computer Language… permanent link to this post

New from RSG: Notes for a Liberated Computer Language

From the Control Structures section:

Historic
Executes a code block by evaluating an entity according to its current value as well as all previous values.

Exceptional
Designates an abnormal flow of program execution and guarantees that it will never be handled as an error.

Flee
A branching construct that moves flow control from the current instruction to a stray position in the program.

Maybe
Allows for possible, but not guaranteed, execution of code blocks.

Never
Guarantees that a block of code will never be executed. This is similar to block quotes in other languages, except that “never” blocks are not removed during compilation.

Potential
Evaluates an entity only according to as yet unrealized possibility.

Check it out… permanent link to this post

Rock on!

Because the Awards program was originally conceived as an official project of the White House Millennium Council, the First Lady serves as the honorary chair of the gala at which the winners are celebrated. She also traditionally hosts a breakfast at the White House to which all the nominees and winners are invited. That breakfast was today.

This year, however, five Communication Design honorees decided to decline the invitation. They wrote a letter to Laura Bush explaining why.

permanent link to this post

Well, that’s not the actual title of the actual series… or perhaps there is no series? It seems to be more of a pattern. Eh.. what am I babbling about? Oh yeah! Our new piece (that M.River conceived, and today, built at Aljira in Newark as our submission for E7: Aljira Emerge 7 Exhibition (more here)) is pictured below.


3’ High and Rising, Newark
Wood platform, gallery reception desk
2006, MTAA

(Note: this is just a quick pic that M.River took after completing the installation, better documentary photos coming later this month…)

We’ve done this sort of thing in the past when invited into galleries. (Silly gallerists, don’t you know you shouldn’t invite filthy net artists into your pristine white walls?).

Prior gallery reception desk interventions include:

In Preparation For The Over-Running Of White Columns By Hordes of Bloodthirsty Barbarians (AKA Bunker Flood) (In which, we walled in the reception desk of White Columns with cinder blocks and sandbags.)

~and~

In Preparation For An Attack By Mobs Of Hideously Deformed Radioctive Mutants On 31 Grand (AKA Cage Match) (In which, we caged in the reception desk of 31 Grand with chain link.)

The opening for “E7: Aljira Emerge 7 Exhibition” is Thursday July 20 from 5:30 - 8:30 PM at Aljira’s space in Newark. permanent link to this post

On a slightly lower moral high horse than my last bootleg movie post - It’s that time again. Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man’s Chest (thumbs up - no matter what the press sez) just came out. This means I’m hunting the subways of NYC for the Bootleg. Once I have the bootleg in hand, it will be time to make the “Pirated Movie 2”

For the Pirated Movie, MTAA took the bootleg and projected it in black and white without sound at Postmasters. We had a group of artist perform a live soundtrack for the film. This one time only performance was recorded and mixed with sections of the bootleg to create a final DVD.

This year, I’d like to mess with the recipe a bit. I’m still thinking about projecting the bootleg silent in black and white but I’d like to try it outdoors without the bands. Just set up some chairs on a sidewalk or in a park and press play. The final DVD will document the results.

hmmmm…at the beach?

twhid adds: let’s just shoot it out your window onto Franklin St. and use the sound! permanent link to this post

James Wagner’s post on Chris Moukarbel took me back to the thought that fueled dc911. If you take our pain for propaganda (and/or profit), we will take your film for art.
permanent link to this post

We have a few things coming up exhibition-wise…


July 20th, 2006 - September 30th, 2006
E7: Aljira Emerge 7 Exhibition
opening reception: Thursday, July 20, 5:30-8:30PM at Aljira in Newark, NJ.

This is a big group show of a bunch of artists (see link above for a full list of artists) that have taken part in Aljira’s Emerge professional development program.

+++

Split Film Festival
It looks like we’re also be included in the Split Film Festival in Split, Croatia. Unfortunately they don’t have a travel budget so it looks like we won’t be able to attend :-( We’ll be showing 1 Year Performance Video. permanent link to this post