monoskop

Monoskop is collaborative research project, that started a wiki about the social history of media art and culture in 2004, focussing on the media art histories of particular collectives and cities. The city entries are like an index to as well as detailed description of the media art scenes of these places.

Their current research project:
Collaborative research on media art and culture in Central and Eastern Europe


wiki:
http://www.burundi.sk/monoskop/index.php/Main_Page
http://www.burundi.sk/monoskop/index.php/Monoskop:About

blog:
http://burundi.sk/monoskop/log/

a.aaaarg.org

http://a.aaaarg.org/

about:
"AAAARG is a conversation platform - at different times it performs as a school, or a reading group, or a journal.

AAAARG was created with the intention of developing critical discourse outside of an institutional framework. But rather than thinking of it like a new building, imagine scaffolding that attaches onto existing buildings and creates new architectures between them."

the platform includes a huge online library with lots of full texts on media theory, philosophy, art, ploitics, including works by Th.W.Adorno, Giorgio Agamben, Roy Ascott, Roland Barthes, Katherine Hayles, Elias Canetti, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, and lots and lots of others.

Users are encouraged to upload new texts to the library.

IMA :: Institute of Media Archeology

http://www.ima.or.at/?page_id=103&language=de

from the mission statement:
"The emphasis is on unearthing female productions in the field of electronic arts, analysing their place in the overall historical context and making them visible for a wider public. With this research priority, the Institute could position itself at an international level and join the network of the few existing institutions that are also active in this field. In 2003, for example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the most renowned institutions world-wide, published the book ”Women, Art, and Technology” edited by Judy Malloy. Within this research domain, the Institute should particularly focus on the acoustic arts in all their manifestations."

CALL FOR PROPOSALS, MEDIAMODES CONFERENCE

MediaModes Graduate Student Conference at the School of Visual Arts, NY

MediaModes is an interdisciplinary graduate student conference that provides
a critical forum to present current scholarship and academic research
projects at the intersection of media, art, and society. Open to all current
graduate students and those who have received a graduate degree within the
last year, MediaModes is sponsored by the MFA Art Criticism & Writing and
MFA Computer Art Departments at the School of Visual Arts.

Proposals due June 15, 2009
Send to: abstracts@mediamodes.com
Find out more at: http://www.MediaModes.com

paleo-future + time capsules

http://www.paleofuture.com

a great blog on "futures that never were" by Matt Novak, that covers futuristic visions from the 1880s to the 1990s.

it also has a small section of books on that topic: http://www.paleofuture.com/library/


a second blog by the same author, where he collects information about time capsules, their content and google maps where they are burried; that really made me laugh:
http://timecapsuled.org/

another interesting post on CTheory's section "Resetting Theory":

________________________________________________________
CTHEORY: THEORY, TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE VOL 32, NOS 1-2
*** Visit CTHEORY Online: http://www.ctheory.net ***

RT 005 06/02/2009 Editors: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker
______________________________ __________________________


On Game Art, Circuit Bending and Speedrunning as Counter-Practice:
'Hard' and 'Soft' Nonexistence
================================================

Author: Seb Franklin

Intro: "In _The Exploit_ Alexander R. Galloway and Eugene Thacker speculate
that "[f]uture avant-garde practices will be those of nonexistence."
[1] This extraordinary claim is a response to the current ubiquity of
digital technology and its impact on cultural politics; if existence
becomes a question of being classified informatically, the avoidance
of this classification, or nonexistence, becomes of paramount
importance. The discussion of nonexistence in _The Exploit_ opens
with a question, one that forms the basis of this essay: "how does
one develop techniques and technologies to make oneself unaccountable
for?" [2] Directly following this question comes a specific, material
example through which a crucial distinction between "unaccountable
for" and "invisible" or "absent" is made -- the use of a laser
pointer, aimed into a surveillance camera in order to 'blind' it. In
this situation, the camera is not destroyed nor is the individual
shining the laser actually hiding, or invisible; instead, they are
simply not present on the particular screen or data set recorded by
the camera in question. [3] The same is true of the tricking of a
server, causing it to record a routine event when one goes online.
These kinds of tactics, "tactics of abandonment", are "positive
technologies" for Galloway and Thacker. They are entirely distinct
from absence, lack, invisibility and nonbeing because they are "full"
or rather, because they "permeate." [4] The practical consequences of
Galloway and Thacker's formulation of nonexistence are clear: It's
not a question of hiding, or living off the grid, but of living on
the grid, in potentially full informatic view, but in a way that
makes one's technical specification or classification impossible." etc.etc.etc.

legendary operating systems

article about ten meanwhile historical operating systems on TecChannel:

http://www.tecchannel.de/pc_mobile/windows/2018554/legendaere_betriebssysteme_msdos_nextstep_amigaos_macos/index2.html

The text is in German, but even for non-German speakers it is worth taking a look at the beautiful screenshots!




VisiCorp Visi On

Mac OS System 1.0












Xerox Alto

IX @ Hacker Space Fest 2009

IX by h3x3n has been accepted to the Hacker Space Fest 2009, Paris.
The festival starts on June 26th and lasts until June 30th and consists of workshops, presentations, conferences and an exhibition of works.
Our installation can be seen throughout the festival. The presentation of the project will be on Monday, 29th June, 15:00.

agenda: http://www.hackerspace.net/

Russian proto-electronic music from 1930-s and beyond

"Sound out of Paper" with Andrei Smirnov
May 21 at NK Berlin, Elsenstr. 52 2HH, 2Etage Entrance: Free starting at 21:00

Russian proto-electronic music from 1930-s and beyond, A presentation and film viewing session of synthesized sound from light called Graphical (Drawn) Sound technique produced in the 1930s recently discovered at the Russian State Film Archive. The technology of synthesizing sound from light called Graphical (Drawn) Sound technique which was invented in Soviet Russia in 1929 as a consequence of the newly invented sound-on-film technology. At exactly the same time similar efforts were being undertaken in Germany by Rudolf Pfenninger in Munich and, somewhat later, by Oscar Fischinger in Berlin. This invention came at least twenty years too early while the World War II was already at the threshold. As a result by late 1930-s the work in this domain effectively came to a halt. Although there were several short articles published in USA by V. Solev (1935), most publications about research and developments in the USSR were in Russian. At the same time the most important documents were never published at all and were circulating in manuscript form. Fortunately many unique archives survived and are collected now at the Theremin Center in Moscow. Over two hours of synthesized music produced in 1930s twenty years before the foundation of electronic music were discovered recently at the Russian State Film Archive.

Ars Electronica 2009: Human Nature

Ars Electronica announced the topic for its next festival:
http://www.aec.at/humannature/index_en.html

The festival will take place in Linz, Austria, from Thursday Sept. 3rd to Tuesday Sept. 8th, 2009.

This year is the 30th anniversary of Ars Electronica. The festival started in 1979, from 1980 to 1986 it was held biannually, from 1987 on yearly.