prosthetic knowledge

manwitha.mov

My submission for the ‘Run Computer Run’ AR show exhibition ‘Economics + The Immaterial’: avant-guard film classic ‘Man With A Movie Camera’ meets 8-Bit aesthetics of computers which had an impact in Russia.

Apologies for gratuitous self-promotion - video and synopsis below:

manwitha.mov from Rich Oglesby on Vimeo.

Created for the ‘Economics + The Immaterial’ exhibition, part of the ‘Run Computer Run’ show at the Rua Red Gallery from May 25 to 13 July.
runcomputerrun.com/?page_id=8313

A visual experiment of curiosity and theoretical connections, of culture and technology (in particular, Russia), information transference and reproduction through media, analogue and digital.

The project aims to be a combination of two Russian cultural artifacts, a visualization of the results. First, “Man With A Movie Camera”, an avant-guard film directed by Dziga Vertov, demonstrated the creative use of filming, employing techniques developed and practiced for years by the director. In the context of this piece, the original film could be considered a “demoscene production”, exploring and pushing the creative possibilities of a technology. Second, the growth of ZX Spectrum clones in Russia during the 1980′s, in which colour and cheap digital computing grew from reverse-engineering and redevelopment. The availability of these various computer clones evolved a homebrew creative scene around the former Soviet bloc. There is still a strong creative demoscene around these machines in Russia today.

The whole of the ‘Man With A Movie Camera’ film has been converted into a representational format within the ZX Spectrum graphics protocol, reduced to 256 by 192 pixels, with each 8 by 8 pixel area represented by just two colours available from the system. The original file was downloaded from the internet (in .mov format) – it is worth bearing in mind that this file of information itself has travelled to and from various technological formats itself: without even taking into consideration the editing and filming or the original film, the information has been transferred to video tape, then a digital video file, and then on a video hosting site, each stage which has it’s own technical protocols which would effect the fidelity of visual representation.
The film has been converted to ZX Spectrum visual protocol manually on a shot by shot basis to produce the best representation of the film as much as possible.

Manfred Mohr: one and zero 

Exhibition currently at the Carroll Fletcher Gallery, London, on Computer Art pioneer Manfred Mohr, which runs until the 20th of December:

All my relations to aesthetical decisions always go back to musical thinking, either active in that I played a musical instrument or theoretical in that I see my art as visual music… I was very impressed by Anton Webern’s music from the 1920s where for the first time I realized that space, the pause, became as important to the musical construct as the sound itself. So there are these two poles, one and zero.

Manfred Mohr

one and zero, Manfred Mohr’s first solo exhibition in London, presents a concise survey of his fifty-year practice. Harnessing the automatic processes of the computer, Mohr’s work brings together his deep interest in music and mathematics to create works that are rigorously minimal but with an elegant lyricism that belie their formal underpinnings. Through drawing, painting, wall-reliefs and screen-based works, the show examines the artist’s practice through the prism of music and the idea that what is left out is as important as what remains.

Beginning in 1969, Mohr was one of the first visual artists to explore the use of algorithms and computer programs to make independent abstract artworks.  His early computer plotter drawings - when he had access to one of the earliest computer driven plotter drawing machines at the Meteorology Institute in Paris - are delicate, spare monochrome works on paper derived from algorithms devised by the artist and executed by the computer.  P198aa (1977-79) is an elegant rhythmic composition of nine randomly rotated and cut cubes that hints at multi-dimensional space.

More about the show can be found at the gallery’s website here

Images above were taken from a Flickr set put together by Paul Prudence, which can be found here

One of the artist’s featured in my Algorists piece for Rhizome, which can be found here

Transfer3D - Speed Show WROCŁAW 

The first Speedshow to hit Poland arrives tomorrow (17th November) - for the uninitiated, a Speedshow is an exhibition of Net Art that takes place within an internet cafe.

Transfer3D SPEED SHOW will explore the episodic ideological background as well as trends of art that refer to the issues of three-dimensionality and interactivity. We are reviewing trends that are emerging now, and explore the evolution of three-dimensional object creation. Currently, we are at a pivotal moment where a new world of art is closer to the foundations set by virtual reality. The invited artists dissect these issues and experiment in various techniques with new technological possibilities offered to us by the Internet we have today.

Many of the featured artists are on Tumblr: Anthony Antonellis, Kim Asendorf, LaTurbo Avendon, Max Capacity, Aaron Chan, Manuel Fernandez, Isaac Hicks, V5MT, Dominik Podsiadly and more. Somehow, I’m submitting to the show as well …

You can find out more about the show and where it is located here

Francoise Gamma - American Fantasy Classics 

Well-known contemporary net / gif artist has real-world solo exhibit, including laser-sculpted 3D physical stills:

American Fantasy Classics is pleased to present the work of Barcelona-based artist Francoise Gamma. Drawing aesthetically from the early days of web-based graphics, Gamma’s low res hallucinations feature a uniquely hypnotic pulse of violence and eroticism.

Harnessing the power of rare crystals and secret lasers, the mesmerizing animations have been exhumed from the wilds of cyberspace for his first solo exhibition.

More Here

The Wall: BORN IN 1987: The Animated Gif 

The Photographers Gallery, London, is hosting an exhibit celebrating and examining the animated GIF format:

Part of our extended programme includes a new digital display named The Wall,an exhibition space for screen media. The Wall consists of a 2.7 x 3m Sharp video wall, situated on the ground floor and visible to everyone visiting the building and those passing by on the street.

The Wall forms part of a research programme which aims to explore issues concerning the digital image, its dissemination and display on-screen. The Wall’s programme will include experimental commissions, collaborations and participation.

For the opening show, The Wall will address a unique form of image which is best experienced via a screen: the animated gif. The GIF is an image file format created in 1987 by CompuServe as a portable, low bandwidth image file easily rendered by a web browser. Restricted to only 256 colours, and able to store multiple frames in a single image, the GIF brought animated movement to the static webpages of the 1990s in an era before YouTube and Flash.

The show runs from 19 May to 1 July 2012.

You can find out more about the show here, as well as visiting the show’s official Tumblr blog here

10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1);: GOTO 10 

Piece of code in the Commodore 64 manual, used in a small digital art show called ‘Codings’ at the Pace Digital Gallery, New York, which looks at code, text and digital art:

A 3-line version of this program appeared in the original Commodore 64 User’s guide:

10 PRINT “{CLR/HOME}
20 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)
30 GOTO 20

This is one of many short basic programs, for this and other computers, that have been entered by users seeking to puzzle their friends, to learn more about computing, and to see aesthetically pleasing output.

You can find out more about the show here

[sad confession - I never knew there was an easy bit of code to do this on a Commodore … I discovered the effect myself, but did it manually, typing the two characters myself at random …]

fa_g Fach & Asendorf =    next wwwk: GIF GROUP SHOW ⧬⧭ friends ⧭⧬ non-IRL —> fa-g.org/upcoming

aledlewis:

Indiana Jones and the Persistence of Memory

One of my pieces for the iam8bit art show! Signed limited edition of 60.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure (1989) - and Salvador Dali’s ‘The Persistence of Memory’