posted
  • place: Golden, Colorado

friends?

Been mulling this one for the last year, since starting this regular job. Most self-time/energy is consumed in maintaining the psycho-neuro structure necessary to hand over that life-time and life-energy to someone else in exchange for cash. Nothing is left over except that abstract bank balance. Is this merely age? or a lack of fitness in this theatrical role? or a basic misunderstanding on how to be in such a situation? I do not know. Life passes.

From the hollowness of this drained state, relationships slip away with an ease that defies comprehension, much less understanding. Once gone, there seems to be no trace of them. They vanish into the darkness of failing memory, only a few tiny fragments of mediated presence remain, if anything. Impact? Affect? Impression? One may argue that, yes, I was impacted, I made an impact, they were impacted, they made an impact, but this is so abstract that it carries little to consider, especially after memory departs. We forget what we become.

After a long life-work of spending life-time with different people: traveling to visit them, I’ve discovered that this doesn’t mean very much in a culture that respects only power and its abstracted instrument, money.

And I am merely a mooch, a nomadic parasite on that monetized system. I made the fundamental and very naive mistake assuming that my presence was welcome all this time, the last thirty years, more. Solo pilgrim to solitary places — a nomad whenever possible — is and will be the mode from now on. period. It’s been this way on an increasing basis anyway, might as well make it formally so.

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people keep asking me …

For reasons that elude me, many folks that I encountered since buying a house assume that buying one is some joyous and happy occasion. They want to celebrate some hidden dimension of it. This escapes me, at least on the surface. I can propose several possible reasons, but it’s difficult to understand otherwise. Perhaps I’m being congratulated for joining the herd as opposed to being an outlier, a nomad, an artist? Or have people felt sorry for me, living out of a suitcase, as tech-no-mad, for all these years, now that I have a house, I can survive in the world? Or is home ownership the sure sign of fiscal sensibility?

I think it’s the herd thing — roped into the corral, safe, no longer a strange Ranger of the North, ei enää ulkomaalainen, no longer a threat to the established order, ekki lengur útlendingur, boxed in, nicht mehr als Ausländer, someone, not the Other.

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

workflow, capital, and creative action

Then there is the concept of “workflow” in digital production: it refers to the establishment of an input-processing-output sequence that navigates the many competing and conflicting variables introduced by the various hardwares/softwares involved. Some variables may be constrained with capital, others only with repetitive experience and feedback loops. Most variables are the effect of widely imposed standards introduced by corporate entities. more “workflow, capital, and creative action”

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MigAA rolls onward

Twenty-five percent through editing the third MigAA book — 2-300 pages of text, plus images. The time frame even more daunting: three weeks left. My god. At least I can still function at the keyboard unimpeded. It’s an interesting project, as usual, but it makes me seriously miss my nomadic days traipsing around Europe teaching in all those various places. The book is a compendium of the sixteen(!) laboratories that took place between the last book in 2011 and this past summer. They were widely spread across Europe with participants from around the globe. The fact that I wasn’t able to attend one of them is depressing. Probably the biggest hurdle is the cost of flight tickets from the US to Europe. Prices are easily double what they were five years ago, so, when paying a mortgage, there’s no chance of getting back over there in the near term. Two months in 2013 was a nice taste, but wasn’t enough to generate a sustainable forward inertia for other things to happen. There is the sensation of things slipping through a closing grasp. Not to be ventured again in this incarnation nor to be gained regardless of effort. Strange concept.

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weeeellllll …

the chicks in Bedford, New York, May 2014

Home-ownership: now there’s a neoteric self-deception for the life-long tech-no-mad. Unless perhaps that we are speaking about a yurt. That would perhaps represent a forgivable deviation.

However, it’s no yurt — except for @ Hawk Moon Ridge (unfortunately sold to another lucky human) — rather it’s a somewhat structurally deficient cabin-in-the-woods needing some sweat-equity-building sustainable modifications: replaced galvanized plumbing for PEX; a trombe wall on the south face, along with one or two sliding glass doors, some tiling there for thermal mass; removal of several dangerous Ponderosa pines (including one whose roots are heaving the carport-cum-airbnb-room about 5 degrees off level and another heaving a retaining wall that is supposed to keep runoff out of the garage); mitigation of monsoon rain drainage impinging on the house front; perhaps some additional floor-supports in the crawl-space; fixing a bathroom wall where the tub has been overflowing; replace old metal single-pane windows; add a wood stove; gray water recycling system, what else?

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  • place: Prescott, Arizona

the slavish shore

Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, new-landed mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn.

When on that shivering winter’s night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years’ dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that’s kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship’s direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, fights ‘gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea’s landlessness again; for refuge’s sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe! Know ye, now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore? But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God –so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing –straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!

Melville, H., 2012. Moby-Dick, or, The Whale, London, England: Penguin.

Striving to keep to that wild, shoreless, and indeterminate sea? The KickStarter gig isn’t doing it for me. I simply do not know how to exist, competitive, within this system. I know of the art I make, and its source is not hidden randomly from my mind. Yet to make the conversion to capitalist cash seems to elude what mental focus I might focus on the task. I can make the imaginative images, observations of the passing world, but what then?

posted
  • place: Glade Park, Colorado

Of the Imperfection of Systems

On the tail of a disruptive hardware failure that takes several weeks to recover from. It’s still in progress, and external communications, words, are in short supply — or perhaps the means to express them is temporarily lost, along with an accumulation of visual and sonic material, new and from the archive, to be cleared, sheesh. The digital archive increases in size with the localized ability to mine the analog one.

The need to be initially organized in order to undertake a project is something of a hurdle, but doesn’t seem to negatively affect the outcomes. Once work starts to flow and a work process begins to form, things get pretty messy at the same time as being productive. This is the armature provided by a familiar praxis.

The settled two months on Hawk Moon Ridge blazed by far too fast, as per other residencies and such, they become stops on a longer pilgrimage of nomadic working. Anyway. Whatever. Where ever. How ever. Why?

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Global Development profile

Prof. Ajume Wingo invited me to join in the Global Development Group that is being organized by Prof. Paul Chinowsky, Mortenson Professor of Sustainable Development, in the Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Communities Program. It looks to be an interesting program with about 40 senior faculty from across the university participating. Not sure how deeply I’ll be able to get involved given that I’m short-timing at CU at this point, but I noted that at one of the first meetings that brought a majority of the participants together, Paul ran with my suggestion to pair people off in such a way that the disciplinary boundaries are broken down. I used the dialogue assignment as an example — where time spent in face-to-face engagement goes a long way in the construction of a shared protocol that will bridge the oft-times exclusive disciplinary languages. It is my belief that these shared protocols are crucial to the success of a transdisciplinary collaboration and that the human networks they depend on are constructed only at the speed of life (as I have said elsewhere in this blog), not quicker.

John Hopkins (BSc, MFA, PhD) has worked for the last 25+ years as a nomadic media artist and autonomous learning facilitator across 25 countries and more than 60 cultural and academic learning institutions. His workshops explore issues of sustainable creative practices, ‘big-picture’ system views, tactical media, distributed and community-based DIY, Open Source, and DIWO (Do-It-With-Others or community-based DIY) processes, and the appropriation of global IT networks as the site for autonomous creative activity: Temporary Autonomous Zones. Resonating with both David Bohm’s and Martin Buber’s ideas around the power of human encounter and dialogue, he facilitates experiential learning around collaborative engagement. His own media-arts research is a practice-based exploration into the effects of technological development on human encounter and relationship. His views on global development are informed as a former member of the Imperialist Vanguard (Big Oil), he now draws on the rigors and knowledge-base of that experience while leaving behind the fixed and fear-drenched assumptions about the Other that drives the core of the military-industrial-academic complex. A CU alumni, he is currently teaching on the “Meaning of Information Technology” in the ATLAS/TAM program along with several digital arts courses in A&AH. He maintains an extensive web presence at https://neoscenes.net/blog/ and https://neoscenes.net/ that documents his practice.

posted
  • place: Boulder, Colorado

screening: Jeanne Liotta

Make a pilgrimage to Longmont to the Firehouse Arts Center to catch an evening screening of work by a CU Film Studies faculty-member Jeanne Liotta. I had met her the evening before at another university-sponsored cultural event. Alex had mentioned there was a reception/opening in the Rare Books Room of the Library, and, as a professional nomadic cultural participant (and observer), I thought I’d check it out. Turns out it was the effort of a Humanities class that had curated a small show of works from the collection of artist’s books that Lucy Lippard had given to the University. Strangely enough two of the pieces in the exhibition are from old friend/networker node, Paul Rutkovsky (aka. floridada). I talked to some of the student curators about Paul, Lucy, and about networking. I was lucky to have been doing my MFA at CU-Boulder when Lucy was in residence and received some of her teachings. Age brings the role of information carrier, holder of historical perspective and knowing, story-teller. No corner on wisdom, but at least some stories are related. I query the kids about what their thinking is about the use of photocopy machines as art tools. This is a very novel idea for them (given they only know the digital type of photocopy machines at most, not the old analog devices). Paper output is novel in itself. I don’t have much documentation online of some of the prior (ancien-régime!) photocopy-based projects I’ve run: just The Xerox Book that included mp3 files of the accompanying collaborative audio cassette mix, unfortunately there are no scans of the 300 actual pages … some day I’ll get to that corner of the archive & revive it in the digital zone.

At any rate, Jeanne’s work dances around cosmology, astronomy, and very much the syntax of the various filmic media she plays with — from Second Life pieces to found footage, analog and digital to Ray-o-gram-printed 35mm film stock. The sonic accompaniments well synergize with the visuals. I missed not seeing some of the analog film pieces in their original form (vs digital reproductions), as most of the pieces are (at least in part) deeply about what mediation they are conveyed upon. (Not that that aspect is meant to completely frame them materialistically: it’s only one order of correlation.) There are plenty of other resonant aspects and sources: the eclipse, the sky, the procession of stellar energies, the transposition of Light from various enigmatic sources onto halating film substrates: she always maintains an alchemical and, consequently, an experimental edge through her attention to immediate and spontaneous situation. This sensitivity is combined with an aware curiosity of phenomenon: yielding Light works that are simultaneously playful and yet connected to/suffused with an insistent and sometimes overwhelming gravity. Escaping the gravitational field of be-ing requires an empathy for the intense sadness that pervades our current times: this potential is achieved on occasion and reminded me of the intent of Bruce Elder’s magnum opus “The Book of All the Dead” and the constant struggle against the gravity of it all, in search of Light. It goes ever back to Simone Weil’s “Two forces rule the universe: light and gravity.”

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  • place: Golden, Colorado

evolving spaces

An example of the sliding-scale metaphor I use often in teaching — that whatever dialectically opposed concepts (i.e., networks vs hierarchies) the actuality of the situation is that neither exist in a pure form, but instead exist always in hybrid collision of dynamic evolution — in this case, a net/archy. Another instance (see this):

Smooth space and striated space — nomad space and sedentary space — the space in which the war machine develops and the space instituted by the State apparatus — are not of the same nature. No sooner do we note a simple opposition between the two kinds of space than we must indicate a much more complex difference by virtue of which the successive terms of the oppositions fail to coincide entirely. And no sooner have we done that than we must remind ourselves that the two spaces in fact exist only in mixture: smooth space is constantly being translated, transversed into a striated space; striated space is constantly being reversed, returned to a smooth space. In the first case, one organizes even the desert; in the second, the desert gains and grows; and the two can happen simultaneously.

Deleuze, G., Guattari, F. & Massumi, B., 1988. A thousand plateaus : capitalism and schizophrenia, London: Athlone Press. p 475.

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more cutting room floor

In the continuity of all phenomena that are sensed, a deep interdependence is a fundamental characteristic. Recalling that deployments of amplification systems exist at all scalar levels, a particular TSS may be modeled as a synergy of constituent sub-systems. However, each interdependent social system will approach the process of expressed presence somewhat differently, relative to that interdependence and to historical precedent (pre-existing pathway dependence). Globalization may be seen as essentially the wide-scaled synchronization and standardization of (some of) these differing sub-systems into widely harmonized and ordered pathways—usually to the (energy) detriment of smaller-scaled or more localized systems.

The contemporary globalized Regime stands on a (centralized) system of production and consumption [1] of amplified signals that forcefully promotes the standardization process. The originary signals are still human-to-human as in all systems, but extensive and globally-refined amplification pathways are present in many of these encounters—either by structural chance or by determined choice. In fact this is nothing new for a TSS of smaller size, but the sheer scale of construction of the necessary global infrastructures for collecting and redistributing the flows, as well as the directed flows of amplified energies themselves, is unprecedented in human history. Globalization of the Regime, as a particular scalar culmination of the once-localized system, affects every individual on the planet. more “more cutting room floor”

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The End of the Road and The Onset of Dreaming

roadside memorial, near Bitter Springs, Arizona, USA, March 2010
ed: This short note is the epilogue for the Migrating:Art:Academies: book. Because of the heavy-duty editorial tasks, I otherwise didn’t have time to write something more comprehensive on the ideas surrounding movement and learning, maybe next time!

We suspect that even though travel in the modern world seems to have been taken over by the Commodity — even though the networks of convivial reciprocity seem to have vanished from the map — even though tourism seems to have triumphed — even so — we continue to suspect that other pathways still persist, other tracks, unofficial, not noted on the map, perhaps even secret pathways still linked to the possibility of an economy of the Gift, smugglers’ routes for free spirits, known only to the geomantic guerrillas of the art of travel. — Hakim Bey, Overcoming Tourism

This volume Migrating:Art:Academies: represents yet another step on the (linguistic) migration from nation to nation, academy to academy, culture to culture, friend to friend, order to order, life through life. As with the first volume, Migrating Realities, any impossible contortions of English are this editor’s responsibility, and given the time constraints for this latest MigAA tome, there are sure to be some short-comings. But then, of all the movements within the social, language migrates the most of all. It is never static. Nor should it be, especially as it accompanies the learning process — a process which is essentially about encountering and naming that which is not (yet) known. more “The End of the Road and The Onset of Dreaming”

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Sydney Non-Objective Gallery exhibition

[ed: An excerpt of neoscenes::drift was recently included in the Sydney Non-Objective Catalogue and CD 2005-2010, SNO Gallery, Sydney, AU, 2010 (gallery catalog and audio CD) ISBN 978-0-9805877-3-9, Mar 2010]

reflections on neoscenes :: drift

lost in a maelstrom of sonic simulations and stimulations, re-collected, re-presented, via various creato-destructive algorithmic methodologies, drift moves through many post-cartesian spaces and through several parallel universes. depending on your frame of reference you may follow a similar path. or you may not. drift demands relativity and provides quantum realism.


(01:00:00, stereo audio, 115 mb)

blurb for SNO gallery exhibition web site, November 2009, NSW, Australia:

drift arises from an ordered archive of ambient phonographic fragments recorded over the past twenty years or so. From this archive improvisational works are assembled: indeterminate and reductive modulations that critically sample the flow of embodied be-ing. Known objects and discrete events populate our world only because we are social animals who have learned the dominant protocols of the techno-social system that we inhabit. This condition is especially onerous with the protocols circumscribing the failed (object-oriented) materialist worldview. drift consciously moves algorithmically with-in and with-out of recognizable protocols, acknowledging that without these memory-impressed protocols, all immediate experience becomes an incomprehensible flow. However, the cosmos we participate in, and indeed, are part of, is composed of these flows and comprehension is an illusion. What we know is only the temporal persistence of patterns in our embodied consciousness which resonate with an attenuated selection of those flows. drift simulates the full signal width of the flows, recognizable or not, and simply transits the field which is the present.

more “Sydney Non-Objective Gallery exhibition”

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nomadism bits

more about nomadism in a book so dense with academic double-speak I decide to deal with it by simply riffing through pages and seeing what appears on random pages. this particular passage reasonable, very reasonable, but clearly not from lived experience, more a constructed philo-reality from textual reportage. I can say, been ‘dere, done dat.

With the nomad as the living embodiment of the rootless, the homeless, and the boundless comes a perpetual displacement — if not elimination — of a series of conceptual couples (such as inside/outside, central/peripheral) that traditionally demarcate and define our social space. Embodying the boundless, the nomad disregards lines that insist on separating space, that predefine and hence foreclose the original open. Within the boundless space, each point is as central (and for that matter, just as peripheral) as any other point.

But the boundlessness of the space in which the nomad roams also affects his experience of and relation to time. The boundlessness of space makes the nomad a perpetual traveler, and perpetual traveling can only mean the nonexistence of final destination, Without destination, the nomad can afford to be oblivious of time. The nomad does not have to be on time. This, in fact, is the nomad’s only luxury, which comes from rock-bottom poverty or, from a different point of view, from total freedom, of going-no-where. — Briankle G. Chang, “Deconstructing Communication”

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

small awards

well, time to write some thing or another. here. in February before heading out on the road (again). to another location. elsewhere. waiting. packing. unpacking, repacking, waiting. writing. the Migrating Realities book got the top design award for all books published in Lithuania in 2008. Knygos meno konkursas Vilnius: Competition in Book Arts Vilnius. the design crew, Joseph Miceli and Lina Ozerkina of alfa 60 were very professional and organized and it was a [pleasure working with them. kudos! (Joe is third from left, Lina, far right). the first review came out at the same time (in Lithuanian; English coming soon). we’ll be putting up copies for sale on Amazon and at select book stores around Europe. after a bit we’ll then make a free pdf available for downloading. if you would like a copy, please let me know…

the review, by the way, included this passage in Lithuanian:
more “small awards”

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Nomadic MILK

January 2-22 the NomadicMILK project by GPS artist Esther Polak travels to Nigeria. There she is using the satellite technology to track both the distribution of “Peak” brand milk from harbor city Lagos to the capital of Abuja as well as a nomadic Fulani family of cow herders in Abuja’s vicinity. By showing the people involved their own tracks and videotaping their responses to it she creates a reflection on current nomadic life.

A custom built robot accompanies her to Africa. Once fed the GPS data it draws the people’s recorded routes using sand, allowing large groups of people to gather around the image and reflect communally.

Esther Polak has been following the dairy economy for some time now. During her previous MILK project she tracked how milk from Latvian farmers ended up in Dutch cheese, earning her a Golden Nica award at the Arts Electronica festival. Milk, she says, has always been a fundamental part of our diet and as such has sculpted our lives and our landscapes.

Her activities can be followed live on the nomadicmilk blog as well as via a twitter account she updates via SMS.

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art)

PROPOSAL :: Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art)

(a) Name, address, URL, email and one page CV of author.

John Hopkins

https://neoscenes.net/

John Hopkins is a networker, artist, and educator occupied across a wide swath of techno-social systems with an extensive global network presence. He is active in numerous global creative networks beginning with the Cassette Underground and the Mail Art networks in the 1980’s and merging seamlessly into the propagating telecommunications networks of the present. He has engaged in many individual and collective dialogues concerning the facilitation of collaborative creative situations, and has facilitated or participated in numerous distributed projects.

https://neoscenes.net/blog/cv-resume

(b) A 1000 word proposal that should be accompanied by an abstract of no more than 250 words and a list of keywords to indicate the subject area of the chapter. [Each of the commissioned chapters will contain text, images, videos, and/or audio.]

ABSTRACT more “Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art)”

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thesis proposal :: Methodologies, Background, Timeline, Contexts

Concerning Particular Methodologies

Dialogues, Networks, and Collaboration — Much of my creative practice, research, and indeed, presence is built on the activation of robust and sustained dialogues with a wide range of Others both remote and local. These dialogues form a network. The most powerful situation I can imagine for creative research and production is an open human network. I am keen to engage on the ground with the Australian, Sydney-based, and UTS creative community. I am familiar with the milieu, having been in Sydney for six weeks in 2006 as a visiting artist at COFA, and I very much look forward to being there again. I have an extensive personal/professional network of Antipodal creatives which dates back to the early 1990s that I will be pleased to activate on a more face-to-face basis.

Distributed Performance — My own applied international research in distributed performance and tactical media over the last fifteen years is centered around synchronous live network-based social activities. Engaging a wide range of technical solutions, my work is a direct utilization of amplified digital networks as the locus for creative action. These areas of research experience include a variety of performance-based activities in theater, dance, sonic, and other expressive arts occurring in or augmented by collaborative networked situations. As a self-proclaimed networker, an area of core awareness in my research is the concept of presence — and how that human presence is directly and indirectly affected by any/all technologies that filter and attenuate that presence: how human expression across a network system is precisely formed and informed by the impression of the technologies used.
more “thesis proposal :: Methodologies, Background, Timeline, Contexts”

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  • place: Prescott, Arizona

Infinite Jest: Kinds Of Light

Kim proposes a new microsound project, making sound tracks for the experimental films of David F. Wallace’s fictional character James O. Incadenza in the book Infinite Jest. I pick Kinds of Light as it immediately strikes a resonance and subsequently patch together an obsessive piece in 24 hours (4,444 frame splices on a multi-track of a water performance in Pool Creek Canyon (changing the course of history)), shatter-welded with audio from video footage of standing at a confluence in the West Elk Wilderness entranced by the Pele’s hair of water coming from the sun). definite sonic hyper-retinality.

(stereo audio, 7.4 mb)

I missed Wallace during my North Amurikan vacancy of the last 20 years. surprised I hadn’t run across him randomly, though, given the households that I have ramble through on the nomadic way. George knew him and speaks highly of his character. sadly for all of us, another victim of the intensity of be-ing. I plow through Oblivion, and a couple other books that I managed to recall at the library. extremely dense. the first short story I read drove me, half-way through, into a delirious sleep from which I woke ten minutes later, not knowing where I was. jittery, caffeine-fueled, precise jewels. you see the faceting process, the cutting of the entire glittering crystal, a tedium of focus, the high-speed grind with diamond grit, a rocking, polishing movement across the charged wheel. spun tales. fiber glass. each brittle thread opening a bloodless wound which nano-gapes at the whole fuckin’ world, all at once. he would be Brakhage’s cinematographer if Brakhage was blind and able only to see the inside of his eyelids.

“Kinds Of Light” – B.S. Meniscus Films, Ltd. No cast; 16 mm; 3 minutes; color; silent. 4,444 individual frames, each of which photo depicts lights of different source, wavelength, and candle power, each reflected off the same unpolished tin plate and rendered disorienting at normal projection speeds by the hyper-retinal speed at which they pass. CELLULOID, LIMITED METROPOLITAN BOSTON RELEASE, REQUIRES PROJECTION AT .25 NORMAL SPROCKET DRIVE

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  • place: Berlin, Germany

The Regime of Amplification: A Primer

[ED: This text is essentially an extremely preliminary draft—written in Berlin, Germany in 2007-08—of my dissertation The Regime of Amplification.]

I decided to release this text in advance of any hard-copy publication, with another chapter nearing its final stages, and several intermediate chapters forming more concretely. The following is the original ‘final’ text, although there will be a significantly improved one in the years to come.

This speculative essay addresses the process of amplification which expresses itself at a wide range of scales and affects and which models a fundamental aspect of all human presence. It opens with a brief description of a prototypical amplifier, then frames life as the coherent self-organizing expression of energy embedded in a universal field of energy flows. It examines simple biological models of amplification and suggests possible reasons for amplification processes to exist. Narrowing its focus, it looks first at the human species, then the body, and then the collective social system as an operative field of amplification. It subsequently explores the Regime of Amplification as a general manifestation of the prototypical TSS (techno-social system) — a system whose goal is to maintain the viability of localized sub-sets of the species in the face of competition as well as continuous and universal change. Two specific examples — the radio and the military — are presented to simply illustrate the principles suggested. The conclusion reiterates the affects of techno-social amplification on individual be-ing as well as on the entire continuum of relation that the individual is a part of. It suggests some fundamental pathways of action which have an immediate detrimental affect on the hierarchic flows of the Regime.

This essay is built on the subject of one chapter in a book-in-progress titled “Energy of Being :: Dialogue of Creativity” which explores in greater depth many of the issues that are danced only Lightly around here.

KEY TERMS

TSS (techno-social system), Regime of Amplification, energy, amplification, attenuation, flow, continuum of relation, life-energy, life-time, evolutionary development, natural selection, self-organizing, radio, military systems, resonance, social energy bank, life-time=energy=life; attention=life-energy=life-time, feed-forward system, biochemical amplification, concentration, rarefaction, command-and-control … (to be continued)
more “The Regime of Amplification: A Primer”

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  • place: Berlin, Germany

dkfrf review

Rinus makes some nice notes on the Amurikan evening at das kleine field recording festival last week in Kreuzberg.

Rinus is one of those intelligent and grounded souls who facilitate events that are the polar opposite of pretentious. informal, humane, and best, they include a collection of found artists. artists who are connected by their desire to connect with others in an open way. my impression of the evening of performances was largely the comfort with which it proceeded. for example, I had not intended doing a visual set, thinking conservatively it was about field recording. but when Brandon got the video-projector set up, I thought, yeah, why not. so I started the evening with a slowly-building barrage. guilty, sure, of a phat mix. Rinus noted that it divided the crowd — it’s that polarizing influence that I seem to have. hmmm. it’s partly the software, got to explore how to slow it down for a more meditative mix. density. (going back to the thoughts about levity and density a few weeks ago). Brandon’s set was a perfect counterpoint to mine with the levity and Light of his life.
more “dkfrf review”

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  • place: Berlin, Germany

trust

when describing what I observe in the world, I can choose which pre-existing configurations (of an existing language) to use. this will determine the audience. pictures on a wall. objects in a room. speeches, houses, meals. presence. and absence.

movement, nomadism. the restless need for an alternate point-of-view. could this have erupted in that caged feeling of family? being the hamster in the cage and being poked with sticks through the bars. looking for a safe corner somewhere in the bar-delimited space. but never finding it. never safe from those tortuous energies raging around the enclosed space of relation. no escape. with the ultimate result being to curl up in a ball, fetal, and accept the brutality that life brought along. insecurity, fear, and above all, a deep lack of trust in those Others.

now, to trust? how to trust when the early lessons were all about how never to trust. sad eff-ing state of affairs. broken trust. that was the chief operating principle in the meta-structure of family. a self-fulfilling distortion of human relation. breaking the cycle by re-discovering what it is to trust. recalling the trust expressed by friends through their open welcomes and open doors.

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  • place: Berlin, Germany

sharemtl & share nomad

a performance evening at tmp.lab that Marie-Hélène and Jim set up. I do some ambient sound work, but otherwise focus on the remote situation, monitoring the stream and partners in Chile and Canada. the functionality of the ustream.tv platform (Flash- and browser-based) is quite good with controls on stream quality, multi-point collaboration, a built-in chat channel, archiving, and so on. it would have been a dream for past projects! (all this with the caveat that the stream image has the branded logo of ustream.tv on it, and the company is clearly an eventually-for-profit enterprise. that and while the archival and sharing possibilities are very well-developed, so far I have not determined if it is possible to download stand-alone flash media files from the archive. to play, one needs access to the database — all data including the chat texts reside in their server.

Derek comes by. hinting that the Regime text scared off one of the panel for the Sonic Architectures conference in July, so, I won’t be involved in that event. (thanks for trying, Derek!) and on a reciprocal note, Rasa definitely wants to include it in Spectropia. albeit with references (huh? it’s a speculative essay, but they are seeking peer-review status) and at approximately half the finished length (oh, this is really an impossible challenge to cope with). so, not sure if I want to go through the work on major revisions instead of continuing on with the other chapters. it’s a book chapter, I don’t want to re-write it. but having it published in Spectropia would be nice. they always do really beautiful and innovative design work. so…

posted
  • place: Berlin, Germany

migrating

Last day of the month. Skipping this forum mostly because of the extent of other writing that is happening in the moment. Floods of text-framed energies, directed along one path or another.

Virtuality limits the potential for changing ones point of view. Watching a screen is, literally, a sustained process of maintaining a static point of view. This is in extreme juxtaposition to the process of primary observation of the world as moving through it.

Days are spent writing about amplification and other phenomena that arise from the unequal distribution of energy and matter in the cosmos.

Friday evening I participate in the Migrating Realities conference that Mindaugas has initiated. There will be many familiar faces there: nice. So, a brief presentation in addition to the regular act of active participation:

Window Weather: A Nomad’s View of Reality

The history of the human use of glass, the chemical compound silicon dioxide (SiO2), prescribes a novel point of view on the nature of virtuality, and consequently, the nature of reality. This presentation will sketch a history of that attenuation on individual realities and offer some views on the techno-social system that we are migrating through.

Later in that same evening, I have to remotely present for the conference panel in Savannah, and immediately after that, a live 30 minute visual-sonic set at the opening night of migrating realities. Going to be a stressful day, to be sure.

posted
  • place: Berlin, Germany

Aglio e olio (twice)

Marie-Hélène asked me for the recipe for the garlic pasta that I made for dinner a couple nights ago for her, Jodi, Mika, and Peggy. simple and basic, I learned the dish in a little restaurant on Isola Ischia, off of Naples, Italy, that I was visiting 20 years ago now. Ingredients — spaghettini (500 gm), lots of fresh garlic, good olive oil (extra virgin, cold pressed), some herbs (can include oregano, parsley, thyme, basil), pepper (in the form of anything from powder to fresh cracked corns to flaked dried red peppers to Tabasco sauce), and, for an integral variation which I very often implement, a few eggs and some milk. Shredded Pecorino Romano cheese is the best topping with a stronger flavor than Parmesano.

over all, the recipe can be varied substantially — it developed on the nomadic trail with highly variable access to ingredients.

I start out with chopping the garlic quite finely or pressing it, this goes into an iron pan with a 5-inch circle (when at room temperature) of the olive oil heated to medium heat. more oil is better than less — you can always soak up the extra in pieces with fresh bread. simultaneously, bring to boiling a large pot with plenty of water, a bit of salt, a splash of oil, and some of those herbs. the idea is to have the Lightly browned garlic done at the same time as the pasta. before the garlic is done, you can add a few drops of Tabasco or some of the other pepper varieties, more or less depending on your taste. I use a fork to evenly distribute the garlic in the hot oil so that it cooks evenly. don’t over-cook the garlic — dark brown bits will be bitter. monitor the heat and don’t underestimate the capacity of the oil to keep cooking after the burner is turned completely off. drain the pasta when done, return to the cooking pot. take the hot toasted garlic and oil and pour it quickly over the pasta. toss well, the garlic pieces will tend to not mix too well, but this isn’t such a problem, they have already released their magic into the oil! best served hot with the Romano, some fresh bread, a big green salad, a good Côtes du Rhône red, and good friends (remember, everyone will definitely be wafting an eau de garlic when done!). variations can include crumbled bacon, mushrooms sautéd separately, chopped vegetables, string beans, anything’s possible!

if, by small chance there is anything left over in the pot, let it sit overnight. the next morning, let a few eggs warm up to room temp, whip them shortly with a bit of milk, pour over the remaining pasta and cook covered until the eggs set. excellent with spicy black beans, refritos, hash browns, fried veggies, or, what else? the original dish can be made in the morning, and the eggs added and cooked an hour before serving to make it a quiche, again, cooked covered, with a good layer of shredded Romano on the top.

sorry, I don’t have any photos of suggested serving styles for this dish which I have cooked many, many times. the most important factors are — good garlic-loving company, fresh ingredients (though fresh pasta absorbs too much of the oil!), a good bottle of red. Bon Appétit! and send pix if you try it!

posted
  • place: Berlin, Germany

soupe populaire

Marie-Hélène gets into town from Toulouse and Montreal so we decide to meet at tmp.deluxe for the soupe populaire. I cycled down, a good 45 minute ride, and was waiting outside on Potsdamer Strasse to meet her, she called asking for directions from the U-bahn and my phone died. Then it started snowing. I cycled down to the station but didn’t see her, dang. So, went back to tmp.deluxe and waited, talked to Sencer a bit, then went back out front to wait. What about life before the mobile? Okay, she arrives, mmmm, cool. Good soup to warm up by! We hang out there for awhile, then wander down the canal to see Mathieu‘s exhibition Kompetenz im Laborbereich over at Alte Stadtklause. Far-reaching conversation stitches time into a long chain, we shut the place down gradually into lateness. And a cold ride downwind across town back home.

And thoughts of politic enter into the day at some point: random collision with thought.

The more the worldwide [capitalist] axiomatic installs high industry and highly industrialised agriculture at the periphery [of the world economy], provisionally reserving for the centre so-called post-industrial activities (automation, electronics, information technologies, the conquest of space, overarmament, etc.), the more it installs peripheral zones of underdevelopment inside the centre, internal Third Worlds, internal Souths. “Masses” of the population are abandoned to erratic work (subcontracting, temporary work, or work in the underground economy), and their official subsistence is assured only by State allocations and wages subject to interruption. … In enslavement and the central dominance of constant capital … labour seems to have splintered into two directions: intensive surplus labour that no longer even takes the route of labour, and extensive labour that has become erratic and floating. … The opposition between the [capitalist] axiomatic and the [nomadic] flows it does not succeed in mastering becomes all the more accentuated. — (Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 469)

posted
  • place: Kiel, Germany

Michael Shanks

not sure where the link to Michael Shanks site comes up, but the syllabus for his course Ten Things is deLightful and incisive. he’s got some really interesting thoughts on the life of objects, the presence of humans, and the history of both.

If we look at processes as well as discrete objects, we can be led into a myriad of connections and trajectories. In the heterogeneous networking that is the engineering of a thing, there is no end to ramification. An artifact disperses through its scenarios, networks and genealogies of origination, manufacture, distribution, use and discard.

Interpretation, as re-articulation, can track certain affiliations or lines of connection, as I sketched with the aryballos. There is always more that remains unsaid, unacknowledged, unseen, because interpretation may not go down a particular track. This is so evident in archaeological fieldwork, or indeed in any scientific research, where there is always a choice to be made of what matters to the research interest. What is left behind, ignored or discarded is the background noise of history and experience. This is far from inconsequential. First, because something important may have been overlooked. Science constantly takes a second look at things and finds something that was missed. Second, because things stand out as significant against this background; without it there could be no story, no message, no understanding. Third, because this is the noise of the ambient everyday work that makes society what it is; it is the noise of the life of things constantly reweaving our social fabric. — Michael Shanks

I recently tracked down Andreas Voigt, a documentary film-maker who I met back in the early 1990’s at a film festival at Regnboginn in Reykjavík. He was present for the screening of his deeply moving black-and-white features made in and around Leipzig in the late 80’s and early 90’s during the early post-Cold Wars days (Letztes Jahr – Titanic and Leipzig im Herbst). He emails me that his most recent documentary, Mit Rentiernomaden über den Ural is on tonight. Christian and I watch while Steffi is out at choir practice. Very fine work.

posted
  • place: Greenwich Village, New York

Phill’s Solstice party

But it’s not true. Where does nomadism arise? In the pure madness of the shakuhachi tones, played by an itinerant Zen komuso? nah. It appears that I have a limited audience for my work. For networking, all connections seem intense. But the potential for greater intensity is there, though that alone may work to the opposite extreme of shrinking any audience. Focus and power seem there. Need balancing with the rest of life which is that constant interweaving of souls. Not daring to miss one in the process. and so:

The evening is a pilgrimage in to the City to Phill Niblock‘s annual Solstice performance—on Katharine’s reminder and invite a couple weeks ago at reboot in Berlin. Phill has been doing these for years and I felt like it completes the year in a significant way (having had a nice two-hour listening/watching experience with Wes and August with Phill’s incredible DVD work back in January on the Other coast, Santa Barbara). But, yeah, what better way to spend a Solstice—immersed in the work (and at the home!) of a prolific and personable visual-sonic artist. The performance/happening was an extension of the work Phill has pursued for some years—incredible 16mm material shot around the globe of people engaged in physical (hand) labor: The Movement Of People Working. This visual expression immersed within his signature massive and precise microtonal environments. Nice opportunity. The admittedly brief sonic remix below includes the sounds from the kitchen and the downstairs radiator on the way out in a state of heightened awareness!

(00:09:02, stereo audio, 17.4 mb)

Phill has hosted the Experimental Intermedia performance series for 34 years. If you are ever in NYC, check out the schedule of a bewildering array of international artists, it’s great! This year is the 39th anniversary of the founding of E.I.

Got to connect with Katharine, Keiko, and Elsa again, and met some other local folks.

posted
  • place: Bedford, New York

womb of everything?

the Abranowicz-Raisfeld clan preps to head to Costa Rica, an early departure tomorrow morning.

Marie-Hélène passes this on:

The dynamism and spontaneity of nomadism lie in its contempt of borders (state, civilization, ideological, religious) and in the real experience of the Universal . . . this is not something egoistical or self-centered but instead a surge of the spirit carrying on its way primal anthropological values and sowing a particular unease in the womb of everything that has a tendency to become firmly anchored. — Michel Maffesoli

posted
  • place: Köln, Germany

netart 2007 – Feraltrade

I was a co-curator again this year for the annual netarts.org 2007 awards. it was a tough year for finding fresh takes under our call for works:

Embodied Praxis – Real Life 2.0

For those of us who use the net, watch TV or SMS friends, we find that we tend to spend a lot of our time peering into one screen or another during our waking hours. Changing images float in front of our eyes as the disruptive sounds and jingles of our prosthetic devices keep us under the spell of the network. Texts flow into focus for as long as we need to retain them, and just as effortlessly gush out again through our fingertips into the ether.

Embodied Praxis – Real Life 2.0 draws on these telematic interactions and examines how art and artists take up these strands and weave them into daily life. However, the projects showcased will not dwell on the ways in which these digital traces are drawn from our lived lives rather they will manifest how our real lives are constructed around these embedded threads; and how their telematic substance is injected into the praxis of daily life.

The projects selected (will) track those nomadic flows as they are propelled across borders and through different languages; producing scenarios – political, commercial and cultural – that net those fluctuating moments in new and distinct cultural spaces. Although we recognize that these specific moments – such as sending/receiving an SMS or a real time interaction in Second Life are primarily transitory in their essence and serve more to de-localize us in non-spaces than locate us in embodied space – we also acknowledge the ways in which these concrete threads actively constitute the social self and, by association, serve to construct the complex fabric of Real Life.

and I wasn’t consistently online to be able to focus as well as I should have, but even still there were some nice projects to be seen, and the honorable-mention list is very interesting.

Grand Prize: Feral Trade by Kate Rich https://www.feraltrade.org/

Again, a complex year for net art, looking at the divergent and still diverging fields of creative production within global networks. This year’s criteria of “Embodied Praxis” was complicated by the arrival of the much-hyped Second Life on the main-stream media stage. But material and very human networking trumped the attenuated virtuality of SL. Making a functional parody of globalized capitalism, Feral Trade seeks to stimulate a direct distribution network that follows the connections of existing social networks. It takes advantage of the un-mediated plurality of human networks and personal connections and constructs a direct affront to the anonymous standardization of global trade. It opens a small crack in the facade of globalization where autonomous collective be-ing can be activated. As a classic example of a TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone), I hope it takes hold to become a permanent presence that de-powers the dominant and monolithic capitalist structure. At the very least, it points out the deep lack in that structure, and this is a critical starting point for evolutionary changes in human relation.

An honorable mention went to Isabelle Jenniches for The Call:

This project emerges out of the long-term network practice of artist Isabelle Jenniches who has in the past worked in a wide variety of creative net-based activities. The particular piece, “The Call” is one of several process-oriented projects she has initiated that depend on the availability of generic user-controlled Internet web-cams. The works are constructed over a long period of time — time spent watching the selected scenario, remotely — life-time spent observing the world. Thousands of images are made during a methodological process of deep-looking through this mediated network eye. The extended seeing and repetitive digital stitching operations on the thousands of gathered images acts to frame a meditative daily routine. The cumulative practice approaches the classical Zen expression — “there is no web-cam, there is no PhotoShop, there is only the Void” — and it arises through the post-Cartesian possibilities of a commonly accessible network interface. Formally recalling David Hockney’s early Polaroid SX-70 time-space collage work, “The Call” is an intimate and intense personal vision of a scope rarely manifest in the click-through eye-candy world of the net.

posted
  • place: Köln, Germany

brainstorms

conversations with Volker and others range across vast spaces of cultural, spiritual, personal, and social thought and practice. as per usual. great!

I’ve been checking brainstorms more than usual lately, jumping into discussions with Howard, Bryan, Andee and many others on the topic of academia, education, learning, teaching, students, and what a struggle it is to be involved with this sector of the techno-social system.

sotto voce: In the 1:1 dialogs it’s usually a volunteer student, but, of course, a volunteer is never really a volunteer unless the power relation in the classroom is fully devolved into a truly distributed system. Which is never the case until the class is completely over and grades are posted — then the teacher can come into a more human-to-human relationship with the student in our traditional system. This is one reason I have maintained an autonomous nomadic status as educator. I can more easily set up a (more) balanced relationship with the students as I have no particular position in the local institutional hierarchy. Of course, there is the more difficult issue of my status as the teacher (which has to be devolved) … but I do devolve that as much as they and my own personality would allow … it is always a sliding scale, and I’d like to go further than I allow myself … in this, the fear of the unknown is a significant resistive force among the students and in myself.

Ideally, a class could consist of going around the group manifesting all possible dialog relationships between everyone, not just between the teacher and student — more accurately, there is no need of the teacher in this scenario anyway. In this situation, all are teachers and students both. In any case, this is a radical pathway which is a direct threat to business-as-normal educators/institutions because it makes them directly redundant, or, at most, facilitators.

These techniques are not specifically limited to f2f either — I will sometimes mandate a text-based 2-hour ‘dialog’ or phone call or other more heavily mediated type of connection to explore ‘virtuality’ and the attenuative affects of technological intervention.

Sometimes when I am lecturing, I do so with my back to the students.

posted
  • place: Chino Valley, Arizona

The Wild Surmise

Sue Thomas poses some interesting questions in her search for possible synergies between the cyber and the natural. it’s an open project — add you own answers on her site!

Please describe where you lived and your strongest memories of nature during the years of your growing up. I’m interested in both positive and negative recollections of anything from the smallest plot to the largest wilderness, including animals and plants.

sotto voce: I am a native of Alaska, born there as a Cold War military child. My father, a senior Pentagon analyst, sport-hunted grizzly and polar bears among other magnificent animals. We moved to Boston, then Southern California, then Washington DC, living in suburban or rural fringes of cities. A primal memory was of viewing a total solar eclipse from a beach in Acadia National Park in the northeast state of Maine, USA, at five years old. Watching the sun be consumed, until there was only a shimmering ring of fire surrounding a black hole in the sky. My father was an amateur astronomer, and I accompanied him on a further four total eclipse expeditions. Along with these specific memories, there are general memories of sleeping in the woods, of eating around a fire, of washing in streams, mosquitoes, and dark star-brilliant skies. more “The Wild Surmise”

posted
  • place: Livermore, California

Share Transmediale

(01:03:15, stereo audio, 122 mb)

the share event at Club Transmediale goes relatively smoothly. some glitches, but overall seems pretty good from the vantage point of the guest bedroom in Livermore. Montreal and Bremen and I form the remote triad, while a crew of share folks from New York, Wiesbaden, Switzerland, and Montreal staged the live and seemingly wild event on the ground in Berlin.

posted
  • place: San Diego, California

share San Diego

Gary and I head out towards Balboa Park, but don’t actually make it. I wanted to get online for a couple hours of work, so he takes me to a cybercafe in North Park where the PowerBook exhibits it’s intransigent side — something that comes up about 2% of the time when connecting to a wifi node — it can see the node, says it’s connected, but refuses to actually establish a viable connection. grrrrr. the usual spate of re-starts, config changes, etc, to no avail. Gary puts up with my whining, then calls an acquaintance nearby, Christian Michaels, a professional photographer who happened to have a wifi network at his studio. we head south on Ray Street, a funky neighborhood to the beautiful studio built in a former sign-manufacturers space. he’s got a huge video projector with a 25×25-foot projection area at one end of the main studio. as we chat, turns out that he is hosting a share event in the evening! we have a good laugh that I am the share-nomad node. synchronicity! have lunch at a taqueria around the corner, and head back to spend the afternoon with Andrea and Ryan. then Gary comes by to fetch me for the evening happening. end up meeting Morgan Sully of share-San Diego and others. there is a screening of Metropolis, and I do a short VDMX improv. nice!

posted
  • place: San Jose, California

polar/solar crossing #1

the last day, more lunches, meetings, panels, and sessions. of multiple form, but with threads of connection throughout. that’s the core thread, or simply the core: people. the structure of most of the collective events is the usual podium-stage-screen-VIP-amplification (who was chosen for social and real amplification?). I am only interested in the granular micro individual un-amplified events.

Steve provides this nice image from a small polar/solar path crossing in Caesar Chavez Park in downtown San Jose.

the SoundCulture presentation with Ed Osbourne, Shawn Decker, and Nigel Helyer … where the organization SoundCulture aims to be a trans-disciplinary, trans-regional, pro-actively critical platform for sound art …

sound is field-like … fluidity … formlessness … nomadic and transient … sonic everywhere (related to Light … because it is another manifestation of field energy)

sound in spaces … how to solve (or use) spatial pervasiveness of sound …

sound is one of the first inter-media areas, linking multiple practices and media

sound is vibration and relies on material

sound as environment — sustainability & architecture

sound and music — hearing and technologies, but what about music and sound difference …

comments:

overlooked as field; eye is master, ear is slave; architecture going backwards; plus sound-specific work isn’t always that way … music — the 500-pound gorilla in the room; electroacoustic; sound vs composition, etc. I commented on the possible parallels in the development of photography-as-art-form and the subsequent isolation it faced as materially-defined art form, and then a gradual realization as the digital began to make headway into its domain that photography was just another way to put a 2-D mark on paper.

finally catch up with Tapio as well, for a bit of conversation time.

head home before the SOFA street party really gets underway. don’t have the energy to keep on with it. carrying a bunch of equipment is an anchor. so, after filming some of the Latino concert action in the convention center with Amanda and Sophea, I head back to the car and the commute up 680 to Livermore.

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

Lillian Christine Hopkins (née MacKenzie) 1918 – 2006


Lillian Christine Hopkins, beloved mother, grand-mother, great-grand-mother, friend, and teacher, age 87, died peacefully in her home on Monday, April 11, 2006, following a three year battle with leukemia.

She was born December 2, 1918, in the town of Melville, Prince Edward Island, Canada, to the late John Malcolm and Lillian Kedy MacKenzie. Her early schooling was in Boston. She graduated from Gordon College, Boston, Massachusetts in 1945, and completed her master’s degree at Western Maryland University in 1971. On August 11, 1944, she was united in marriage to Cleveland Hopkins at Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts.
more “Lillian Christine Hopkins (née MacKenzie) 1918 – 2006”

posted
  • place: Rösrath, Germany

Chief One-Rock

the iconic presence of Einstein is brought into mythological format with the advent of the 100th anniversary of the “miraculous year” of 1905 — the International Einstein Year along with the somewhat desperate hyping of the World Year of Physics tries to connect to a public which largely ignores science in the blinding speed of shopping.

tripping along with setting up the rss feeding frenzy. feeding. suggests. consuming. once again. media production, and its consumption.

Withdraw allegiance from the old categories of the Negative (law, limit, castration, lack, lacuna), which Western thought has so long held sacred as a form of power and an access to reality. Prefer what is positive and multiple, difference over uniformity, flows over unities, mobile arrangements instead of systems. Believe that what is productive is not sedentary but nomadic. — Michel Foucault

posted
  • place: Ukiah, California

netart 2004 – Ping Melody

The netart 2004 exhibition is opening tomorrow, well, today, as Tokyo is ahead of Arizona. Here’s the blurb posted as my curatorial commentary:

where is netart?

When invited to join this year’s netart curatorial crew, I was somewhat skeptical that such an exhibition—with the attendant baggage of dusty artifact carried by the traditional Art World—would be a satisfying way to spend life-limited time when there are always other things to be done. That and the continuous nomadic movement that underlies my participation like a slippery mat, allowing only sporadic concentration of my remote presence hunting for and looking at network-based art and actually thinking about it.

However, collective curation with people who I knew were sensitive to the contingencies of remote collaboration and very aware of the limited understanding that the Art World has regarding net art makes the project interesting. So what then? Do I trawl the now-vast network for something brightly shining or sounding attractive? Eye candies? A hopeless task. The only thing to do was to sift the daily flow of content, during interstitial times when local presence was not demanded—the information flow personally customized by the networker to form a vital link with the remote macro-network—while keeping the overall blast of data at a comprehensible level. Not always possible: it’s getting ever more difficult with each spam-filled day. Especially given that the networker is not fond of reductionist activities which concentrate attention on particular nodes.
more “netart 2004 – Ping Melody”

posted
  • place: Glen Ridge, New Jersey

dahl again

Kevin is here, Ellen and Stefan away in the City for work, the kids at school. so we catch up in a wide ranging flow of words. jump over to Whole Foods to get all the makings for dahl which I prepare for dinner. red lentils, ginger, curry, coconut milk, bullion, cumin, coriander, masala, carrots, potato, olive oil. different every time. I’ve never been very confident of my cooking, as when making food for myself, I don’t dig into the process as deeply as I could. and with all the nomadic scene, I don’t often get to host people for food in a place where I can confidently gather the ingredients for something that I know how to cook to begin with…

posted
  • place: en route Copenhagen - Åarhus - Copenhagen, Denmark

Åarhus

back on routes, a grueling week from Iceland to Denmark, to New York to Maryland to San Francisco. all in seven days. after the early morning departure from Ice Land in a chill dark snowy wind. nothing else but. so it goes. leave-taking, the usual heart pain.

dash away for a lunch and meeting with Søren in the Digital Aesthetics Research Center at the Åarhus UNiversity. then a brief stop at the Art Academy of Jutland, home of splab, to meet Tanja and take a tour of the place to satisfy my always-keen curiosity to see schools and organizations on the ground. run into mr. noisejihad himself, Mikko, who participated in both di-fusion events and was a co-curator of the Overgaden festival as well. connections, connected, but the total brevity of the visit makes it almost useless. feeling antsy about getting somewhere, and the in between sensation gets overpowering when stops are too short. needing like a week to chill and engage anymore. and I didn’t even visit folks in Iceland hardly. nomad leaves for the steppes where stars are hard and cold, and many. check out. rocketing through the night by train, in the hvileplads car (the quiet-place). phones and talking are banned. I lucked out getting a seat in this car, the train seems pretty full. yeah, just noticed that I haven’t heard anyone speak except for the conductor going through asking for tickets. even the guy selling food didn’t really say anything, but is suddenly smiling in my face.

posted
  • place: Kiel, Germany

admiralty

with the throbbing, aching jaw continuing for now two weeks, faugh, ibuprophen the only aid: nomadism seems ill-advised. security, stability, normality, insurance, and a steady income. retirement, pension, a house, a car. a zip code ’til death. head to Berlin tomorrow with Wolfgang. go directly into the workshop upon arrival, so.

a nice long walk last night to the harbor with Zorak und Steffi, full moon rising, wandering back by the old homes of Admirals of the Baltic Fleet.

today spent in organizing bags again, easier when not flying, so fragility and contents not such a factor. email from Janet, the roof collapse at de Gaulle in Paris is somehow affecting my connecting flight, have to check that out. warm sunshine outside.

posted
  • place: Bremen, Germany

workshop: Networks, Dialogue, Tactical Media, and Creativity

Initial description for workshop at agis – arbeitsgruppe grafische datenverarbeitung und interaktive systeme at uni-bremen – 14-24 February 2004

*Brief Description*:

The keywords of the title form the dynamic core to a wide-ranging workshop/seminar that explores the fundamentals of creativity from a socially aware and personally-centered perspective. It provides an open platform for a critical exploration of a wide variety of practical and theoretical technological implementations especially focusing on the possibilities of networks. Moving beyond a simple examination of product and process, it sets a precedent for an engaged creative praxis that is energized by principled and holistic understanding.

*Participant Profile*:

Because of an engaged human approach, it is ideal for students working in any discipline; it is designed to draw in a wide range of students, from those working with more ‘traditional’ art materials all the way to programmers and engineers. It is also extremely useful to producers, curators, managers and others who are dealing with contemporary landscapes of technological implementation and cultural production. Specific technical knowledge is NOT necessary, as many of the topics touched upon are prerequisites to empowered and critical use of any technology. However, strong technical knowledge-bases are welcome! A willingness to engage with others in open discussion and sharing of skill-sets is desirable. An ability to focus attention and concentration is also necessary.

*Points to consider*:

— highly adaptable to local infrastructures, individual knowledge- and skill-bases, and local creative needs

— facilitates deep dialogue on local social/cultural/technical issues along with other issues relevant to participants

— establishes a broad-ranging, inspiring, and critical context for understanding the dynamic intersection of technology and art and for engaging a wide variety of technologies

— provides a powerful context for self-development and development of collaborative activities by presenting and subsequently exercising fundamental skills and awareness

— provides a comfortable discursive space to explore a wide range of historical and contemporary developments of art and science

— maps out connections between creative processes and

— develops a deeper praxis-based starting-point for participants, helping them identify their own creative sources and tendencies

— self-generating project implementations

— involves practice-based exercises to develop personal creative focus

— examines a wide range of technical issues beginning from a fundamental definition of technology through to absolutely contemporary technological developments that affect socio-political and cultural scenarios

— provides a supportive atmosphere for rapid collective knowledge-building and collaborative sharing

— presents a highly-developed model for comprehending the complexities of human presence and creative action in the contemporary world

*Local Infrastructural Requirements*:

While a basic internet connection is assumed, other additional items would include several networked computers (Mac, PC or Linux), a humane and comfortable space for discussion with a white board or equivalent – preferably a space away from the computers, a data projector, good chairs!

Other than these basic requirements, additional items that could be used include a sound system, mixers, microphones, video/web cams, multiple high-speed connections, streaming/file/web/php servers, wifi networks, blue-tooth-enabled devices, software supporting audio, video, text, image production, cooking facilities,

*Bio*:

As an active network-builder with wide-ranging international experience in engineering, hard science, and the arts, Hopkins practices a nomadic form of teaching that spans many countries and situations. Formal teaching engagements — more than 100 workshop, lectures, and seminars in the last ten years — have taken place in Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands, England, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Austria, Sweden, Russia, and the USA. Through an extensive personal network of dialectic human connections and sheer spontaneous presence, he is never far away from some kind of dialogue. Informal collaborative teaching/learning takes place anywhere and anytime. During the past year, he streamed live network-based media performances to Berlin, Dresden, Potsdam, and Kiel, Germany; Winnipeg, Canada; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Strasbourg, France; New York City, and Riga, Latvia among other places. Current activities focus more on facilitation of distributed network congregations rather that the production of cultural spectacle and artifact. With a web-presence that dates back to a few months after the appearance of the W3 and a dynamic network practice going back almost two decades, the neoscenes web space re-presents many previous creative activities like so much dead meat. Take a tour of the slaughterhouse. _https://neoscenes.net_.

A native of Anchorage, Alaska, Hopkins has experienced over 14 minutes of Totality under the darkened skies of Solar Eclipse. Presently as artist-in-residence at the Sibelius Academy’s Center for Music and Technology in Helsinki, Finland, he is developing a comprehensive model under the title: “The Importance of Human Connection, Energy Exchange, and Interaction in Networks: A Model of Energized Presence.”

posted
  • place: Soumenlinna, Finland

nomadology

Slogging through the people database/archive: updating addresses, web sites, emails, along with short are you alive? messages that pulse out into the network. To re-establish long-quiet pathways, to cut dead connections, and to establish new conduits and nodes. And so, run across things, reminders, blips, clicks, and pops, along with re-radiations, re-compilations, and re-mixes. Not sure what the outcome is, but, for the archivist, having an archive that is up-to-date is a critical condition to maintain along the with connecting to the actual people leaving archived traces.

Continuing to gather video material. Running into new material, the old resting in peace, on idling servers.

These nomads chart their course by strange stars, which might be luminous clusters of data in cyberspace, or perhaps hallucinations. Lay down a map of the land; over that, set a map of political change; over that, a map of the Net, especially the counter-Net with its emphasis on clandestine information-flow and logistics – and finally, over all, the 1:1 map of the creative imagination, aesthetics, values. The resultant grid comes to life, animated by unexpected eddies and surges of energy, coagulations of light, secret tunnels, and surprises. — Peter Wilson, TAZ

Dinner last night with Sophea, Teemu, Andrea, and Alison, followed by the usual race for the ferry.

Early bright morning ensues, not much later. Up with the sun, a serious matter in springtime at this latitude. What else to do: Todaze slip in yesterdaze. Time to leave a new pathway into the space of dreams.

posted
  • place: Lübeck, Germany

transformative reactions

arrive the night before Valentine’s Day in Kiel following the first European workshop of the Second Nomadic Phase. if things proceed like this all the time, there is no going back to the core of Empire, in retro vision, it is too corrupt. is this too simplistic a diagnosis? maybe, but the energy flow patterns in that set of structures is … oh hell, can’t describe it, it’s just a bunch of abstracted words.

anyway, Christian brings Steffi flowers last night. Valentine’s Day. I bring some Lübecker marzipan.

yeah, reflecting back on the two weeks, I had forgotten how powerful dialogues can be when there are engaged individuals at both ends. the system in Boulder exerts such a high degree of psychic pressure on the students (and faculty) that the conditions for humane dialogue are almost impossible to achieve. they need some breathing space of chaos — or some a root ground that feeds any contingency of flow. if the degree of insistent social flow-framework is too rigid, then there is no possibility of inspiring breath. and there is suffocation. embedded in the situation at ISNM is, for now, a degree of chaos that is not particularly uncomfortable, but it is at least available.

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed. — Karl Jung, hanging in Frieder and Susi’s kitchen

posted
  • place: en route Prescott - Phoenix Arizona

roads opening before me

on the cusp, of the wide open space of nomadic drift. expectations of difference and sameness. generating axioms of limitless motion, movement.

Our legions are brim-full, our cause is ripe
The enemy increaseth every day;
We at the height, are ready to decline.
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves
Or lose our ventures.

— Brutus, as quoted by Samuel Huntington in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

posted
  • place: Boulder, Colorado

event horizons

peristalsis. purge that machine could never achieve. only Light is left. full moon, pull neck back and gaze up. perihelion. azimuth. traverse no azimuth. an old phrase that crept into mind during the winter nights of Iceland. only words here, no blog. no trend-spotting, no riding choking waves of socialized enigma. only transience.

the governor of Colorado says that 300 million in state debt will come from higher education. (because the higher-education sector opposes his policies.) so, I begin to pack bags and chart routes to familiar and unfamiliar ports starting in July. Leubeck will be one stop. there will be many, as it was before. nomadism becomes a partner with networking. and the antithesis of successful integration into the system that I was programmed to perform in. outsider art.

letting notes get more and more cryptic and indeterminate. as a result of the floods of noise that arise when static social embeddedness increases. walk with the flux. feed on the flow, drown in the flood, speed up to “c,” and watch it all reduce to null. flatten and spread into a now of forever. and a place of only here. singularity. trip on event horizon, bruise the shin even as the Lights go out.

dream-forge. and the realization that only great loss, those shivering moments caught replaying between dream and dream, will transform, or, no, they will not. they will only amplify the emptiness. there is little left to do.

posted
  • place: Boulder, Colorado

the Dalai Lama

aside from the Flatirons encroaching across Baseline in Chautauqua Park. the events around teaching are less determined than ever. shifting back into the US system seems hopeless. I steel for the return to Europe. to survive professionally. maybe even to thrive. I see that life is slipping in this lack of praxis. clearly the axis of language and action, one that I have been oscillating along has brought me nowhere. and the suspicion about that abyss between language and action is only a scar tissue embedded in brain left from anomalous childhood. there are people who do as they say. whose truth is their word. what a surprise.

disengaged. and. lacking the words to put a reasoned spin, retching. grinding. poking at coals. filtering. charging, toasting, flaming, playing, reloading, installing, listening, not looking, answering, washing, riding, shifting, coasting, swimming, breathing, biting, chewing. nothing else. calling, sending, calling, sending, receiving, tired.

and now I decide to finish this travelog once again (hogwash). here at the end of the 6th year of entries. in just a couple weeks. because there is so little to be said. formations of letters. pulled from the fingertips. no sweat, the weather is too chill. merde! quit. ’cause it’s not going anywhere. anymore. the nomad doesn’t see the stars. doesn’t scrape hand across the sharpness of the macro-granular sandstone, cheek to ground. life going on.

a precious human life

everyday, think as you wake up,
today i am fortunate to have woken up
i am alive, i have a precious human life
i am not going to waste it
i am going to use all of my energies to develop myself
to expand my heart out to others,
to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.
i am going to have kind thoughts towards others
i am not going to get angry or think badly about others.
i am going to benefit others as much as i can.
–XIV Dalai Lama

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

shaping archives

a few days before leaving. the content of this site is drained of all substance by a lack of concentration and attention. single parenting. and decision-making about certain futures. Colorado looms again. but this time, I think it is a more-or-less permanent settlement. after the 12 years of nomadic Europeanisms. pity I don’t have all those years documented here. surely there is a large archive. 3-400 rolls of 35mm black-and-white negatives, thousands of letters written and received, hundreds of audio tapes made, but not much else. content, but not in the form that can be shared in a way that jacks up public attention to the self.

posted
  • place: Helsinki, Finland

Circus: Reflections on Presence and Dialogue as a basis for Open Process Practice

three days done of the stimulating CIRCUS meetings. and the last gasps of net.culture class for this year. and about to head to Joensuu, another adventure in teaching in another place. after the short visit last fall, I am wondering what will happen now. that it is spring, or, even, summer, will make concentration on the situation difficult for the students.

the talk/discussion:

(stereo audio, 126.8 mb)

it was a shaky debacle leading to an interesting discussion both at the time and in the ensuing duration of the Helsinki CIRCUS meeting.

my notes for the talk: more “Circus: Reflections on Presence and Dialogue as a basis for Open Process Practice”