Very sad news, I just saw on Networked Performance that David Crawford has passed away. David was probably most known for his work Stop Motion Studies (image above).

On Thursday night I managed to get down to Plymouth to see the After The Net (2.0) exhibition and attend the lecture by Professor Roy Ascott entitled Transiting the Net.

The exhibition itself was compact but well presented. Tantalum Memorial, which I posted about in a previous post, by Graham Harwood, Richard Wright and Matsuko Yokokoji was impressive to see however the most interesting and yet simple work there for me was Hello process! (image top) by Aymeric Mansoux & Marloes de Valk (GOTO10). This process based work could be described as an automated Sol LeWitt machine, trialling combinations of typographic (Ascii) elements over and over again to create visually (and to an extent aurally) minimal work. The resulting print outs filled the whole wall of one of the gallery rooms.

In scale Ascott’s Blackboard Notes, a reproduction of a teaching blackboard from 1967 (seen here), towered above everything else and tied in well with what he presented in the lecture, an overview of his career and his constant attempt to define his practice with regard to emerging technology and the ideas/concerns they entail. A limited edition of Blackboard Notes (1000) were also given to visitors and well liking diagrammatic work as much as I do, which in this instance is about networks, that’s going to be framed and put on my wall.

Below are some slide highlights from Professor Ascott’s lecture. The first shows some of his early chance driven wood work and the second a game based work I’d never seen. The third is an image of some of his students at Ealing School of Art in the early sixties (Ascott is up there with artists such as Paul Klee as having revolutionised art teaching in the 20th century). The last image is where he finished, a diagram or mapping of his current ideas/practice and how he is trying to define it.

Tonight as part of After The Net a series of events taking place across three countries, After The Net (2.0) the second in the series in Plymouth will host a performance by Aymeric Mansoux.

The exhibition part of this event is already up and running since the 12th of September and will run until the 23rd of October however the lecture on the 22nd of October Transiting the Net by Professor Roy Ascott will without a doubt be the highlight of this iteration. The following is a quote from the After The Net site about the lecture:

Cybernetics and behaviour, mind and technology, connectivity and syncretism, chance and change, constitute the parameters of practice of Roy Ascott, whose talk will chart his passage through the Net, from analogue to digital and beyond. Ascott has exhibited widely, from Venice Biennale to Ars Electronica, is published in at least twelve languages, and recognised internationally as an innovator and visionary. He is president of the Planetary Collegium at University of Plymouth.

I’m hoping to be able to attend this so will post an entry here after the event.

Event originally seen on the GOTO10 mailinglist.

The Steam Powered Internet Machine (image above) by Jeremy Deller, not at all similar in concept to The Incredible Internet Flying Machine but I find it interesting that both think in a way of the internet as a machine, they objectify it - if nothing more than implied in the title. Ok so this is deviating a little from the purpose of this work. I lived in Kent at the time this was made and didn’t think much of it apart from the slightly amusing juxtaposition of ideas/timesframes/technologies which far too much contemporary art relies on as a gimmick but the title of the work has so much more potential.

This idea of the internet / network as a machine or more broadly software, connected artificial intelligence etc. crops up everywhere and is curious in its inaccuracy. In science-fiction it’s employed to carry on a trend of man vs. machine and so can be traced back through obvious examples such as Frankenstein, The Golem etc. Examples include: The Terminator films; Skynet, turns out to be software protected by physical machines, The Matrix; the matrix itself, similar to The Terminator is software protected by machines, The Machine Stops; the global machine which tends to all of the needs of the human race, 1984; here the state itself is a pervasive all-seeing, all-knowing machine (so the metaphor has more depth to it). In popular culture there is the misconception / joke that the internet can be switched off and so on.

Why do need to objectify the network in this way? Metaphor allows us to form an understanding of complex topics and in this instance one that is intangible. Machines are visible and have been with us for a long time now. They are foreign almost alien to us and suggest greater strength, speed, accuracy and maybe one day intelligence and so can be suggested to pose a threat. More obvious and accurate metaphors of the network, such as the network as a virus, would be more useful but that metaphor in a way substitutes like for like - it too is ‘invisible’ and does not allow us to understand.

August Gallery in Islington, London, England is hosting an online exhibition titled a Study on Internet Art. While reasonably simplistic it is reminesent of the ‘look’ and feel of much of early net.art and does provide a sort of reading room overview of some of the key issues and topics the practice deals with. The exhibition starts here and runs throughout the month of August.

The panel discussion Net-Art versus Web Art at the Online Symposium of the Web Biennial 2005, something I hadn’t read before, is one element which I found particularly interesting in it’s attempt to move net.art forward to a more open form of art dealing with networks.