reading 1

I liked this summary of the artistic side of the dot com and silicon valley boom etc… of the 80s and 90s. I knew little about the events from a standard historical prospective, but the article filled me in enough on that subject as well so i could better understand the artist’s side. I was surprised that video games were mentioned as much as they were in the beginning of the text. The relationship between pop art and ‘new media’ art was very interesting. Pop art used the designs, symbols and techniques of the main stream media. That then reversed itself with the new media artists they used the web to create abstract and web based art. The web and imaging programs etc to create art: http://brandon.guggenheim.org/ the web has become not only a tool but a medium as well. One of my favorite pieces was the hack of the video game. The mention of the magnet on the t.v. explained (at least to me) the meaning behind the project. Watching this technology that we have learned to live with and sometimes need, struggle for life due to interference or corruption is an interesting concept, like watching an animal struggle to survive or escape a predator. These devices have become so ingrained in our lifestyles that they are a type of ‘pet’ and watching them struggle and malfunction evokes a certain pity. http://www.eai.org/eai/tape.jsp?itemID=7984 

New media art being used as a protest tool as well as interactive art in ‘Floodnet’ was very interesting. Art has been a form of rebellion and protest for ages and floodnet’s concept though i don’t fully understand how it functions seems like a more force-full protest style than say performance art on the street or traditional painting/drawing/sculpting.  https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/display/MarkTribe/Electronic+Disturbance+Theater 

By far my favorite piece mentioned in this article was Shredder 1.0. Chaos has long been a standing tradition in art and breaking down society’s standard web pages with shredder showing and super imposing codes and simple images from the site is to say the least a great release. Breaking down a websites order and utility even if its through a program and not really harming the site, allows the viewer to see the frailty and even the complexity of the all respected ‘web’.  http://www.potatoland.org/shredder/shredder.html