Greylock Arts Collaborative Net Art Exhibit Provides Opportunities For Local Artists
Partnership Between Greylock Arts, Turbulence, and MCLA Gallery 51
By: Matthew Belanger - Mar 08, 2008
Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting The Adamses
Over the past several months, Greylock Arts (Adams), Gallery 51 (North Adams) and Turbulence (a Net Art organization) have been working together to bring forward a series of exciting events, exhibitions, and opportunities to Northern Berkshire County. This collaboration, entitled "Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting the Adamses", has been made possible through the support of Turbulence with funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
As part of this project we are exploring the concept of re-connecting the Town of Adams and the City of North Adams through the Internet. Adams and North Adams, once a single settlement in Western Massachusetts with communities in north and south Adams, split in 1878. Through Turbulence, we will connect physical spaces in the two locations with virtual spaces on the Internet. MCLA Gallery 51, Greylock Arts, and Turbulence have been collaborating with local artists, including Ven Voisey, Sean Riley and myself, as well as other local arts organizations, to make these upcoming events and exhibitions a reality.
Turbulence Commissions
As part of Networked Realities, Turbulence is offering commissions to artists living in Adams and North Adams to produce Net Art. The subject matter and medium is open and projects need not only exist online. However, projects must include an important and compelling internet experience or component. Visit Turbulent Works, a curated exhibit of previous Turbulence commissions, to see examples of net art. Selected projects will be featured in a future exhibit at Greylock Arts and on turbulence.org. Commissions will range from $300 – $1000 depending on the scope of the proposal. Proposals should include: a paragraph describing the project; the technical needs of the project; a budget; an artist bio; and a link to the artist's website (if you have one). Group projects are welcome. Selections will be made by Turbulence.
Net Art. The subject matter and medium is open and projects need not only exist online. However, projects must include an important and compelling internet experience or component.
Visit Turbulent Works, a curated exhibit of previous Turbulence commissions, to see examples of net art. Selected projects will be featured in a future exhibit at Greylock Arts and on turbulence.org. Commissions will range from $300 – $1000 depending on the scope of the proposal. Proposals should include: a paragraph describing the project; the technical needs of the project; a budget; an artist bio; and a link to the artist's website (if you have one). Group projects are welcome. Selections will be made by Turbulence. As part of Networked Realities, Turbulence is offering commissions to artists living in Adams and North Adams to produce Net Art. The subject matter and medium is open and projects need not only exist online. However, projects must include an important and compelling internet experience or component. Visit Turbulent Works, a curated exhibit of previous Turbulence commissions, to see examples of net art. Selected projects will be featured in a future exhibit at Greylock Arts and on turbulence.org. Commissions will range from $300 – $1000 depending on the scope of the proposal. Proposals should include: a paragraph describing the project; the technical needs of the project; a budget; an artist bio; and a link to the artist's website (if you have one). Group projects are welcome. Selections will be made by Turbulence.
Submit proposals by email to: turbulence@turbulence.org. If you have any questions, contact Greylock Arts at info@greylockarts.net. The deadline is March 31st, 2008.
Arduino Workshop with Tom Igoe
Date & Time: Saturday April 5th 2008, 1 - 5 p.m.
Cost: FREE
Location: 93 Summer St. Adams, MA
Note: Reservations are extremely limited. Contact : info@greylockarts.net to reserve a spot.
Tom Igoe is area head for Physical Computing classes at New York University's Tisch School of The Arts Interactive Telecommunications Program. Igoe is also a technology consultant and guest speaker at technology conferences around the world. His recently published book, "Making Things Talk", is a do-it-yourself guide to networking ordinary household items. Ardunio is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments. In this workshop Igoe will demonstrate the basic techniques and concepts needed to get started with an Arduino. The workshop is FREE, however, If you wish to go home with your own Arduino kit (which we recommend if you want to continue your work) the cost is $65.
What Is Net Art?
Steve Dietz, former curator of new media at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis defines Net Art as "art projects for which the Net is both a sufficient and necessary condition of viewing/expressing/participating. Internet art can also happen outside the purely technical structure of the internet, when artists use specific social or cultural traditions from the internet in a project outside of it. Internet art is often, but not always, interactive, participatory and based on multimedia in the broadest sense."
But what began as a natural reaction by artists to the internet and the web browser, has grown beyond the confines of modern day browsers, Internet Explorer and FireFox. Net Art can take the form of a website, though it is not simply an online portfolio of someone's offline work, but rather a work of art in its own right. Net Art also exists in the form of e-mails, desktop software, networked installations, and networked performances.
Our Connection To Turbulence
My partner, Marianne Petit, and I were with A. Elizabeth Mikesell, were recipients of a Turbulence commission in 2005 for "The Saddest Thing I Own", a web repository of people's saddest objects and the stories that accompany them. "The Saddest Thing I Own" has over 300 sad things in its archive, ranging from the devastatingly sad ashes of a firstborn child, to a depressing rental movie the renter couldn't bring them-self to watch.
The project began as an investigation into the objects people keep, the reasons they keep those objects, and the stories that accompany them. Interestingly, the project seems to provide a needed outlet for visitors who find themselves in sad circumstances, without, perhaps an audience to share it with. The site has received hundreds of thousands of visitors over the last two years as it continues to grow.
Turbulent Works
Marianne and I are excited about exhibiting art on the Greylock Arts website, because we believe in the validity of online work and feel that art doesn't end at the gallery. Therefore, our organization's website is an extension of that. We can think of no better way to begin our ongoing series of web exhibits than with a retrospective of past Turbulence commissions.
Turbulent Works is the first of many upcoming exhibits that will take place exclusively on our website. Featuring 10 works of Net Art previously commissioned by Turbulence. Turbulent Works, represents the broad spectrum that is Net Art. In these works you will experience new interfaces for sound expression, art created within virtual worlds, art which is politically and socially motivated, video performances, photographic explorations, and websites re-interpreted through painting.
One of the included works, "Graph Theory" by sound artist Jason Freeman, enables you to navigate among 61 short, looping musical fragments to explore a composition for solo violin. The interface displays your current location within the graph of musical fragments and lets you preview and select from the possibilities of where to go next.
Also in the exhibit, "MYPOCKET" by Burak Arikan, discloses the artist's personal financial records to the world by exploring and revealing essential patterns in the daily transactions of his bank account. These records, usually keep secret, and used by banks to score our credibility, are made public. The artist has scanned store and ATM receipts, presented two years of financial records as a colorful interactive graph, and made these records available as an RSS feed so that others can stay current on his latest spending habits.
Another work, "NO MATTER" by Scott Kildall & Victoria Scott, is an interactive installation that explores the nature of the Second Life economy and questions material objects value. Second Life is a shared, synthetic, 3-D environment through which people can interact in real-time by means of a virtual self or avatar. Builders in Second Life construct, out of the fabric and mechanics of that 3-D world, replicas of real world objects, which are later output as physical objects.
Mixed Realities
"NO MATTER" is also part of Mixed Realities, a Turbulence commissioned international networked art exhibition and symposium, currently on display at the Huret & Spector Gallery at Emerson College in Boston and at Arts Virtua in Second Life. Teleport to Ars Virtua in Second Life. (Second Life is required.) Mixed Realities links and overlays the Huret & Spector Gallery (Boston), Turbulence.org, and Ars Virtua (Second Life).Another work in Mixed Realities,"Imaging Beijing" by John (Craig) Freeman, is a project in Second Life which includes audio of stories told by Peter Guo, a resident of Beijing, combined with panoramic photography and digital video. Imagine Bejing is part of a larger series titled Imaging Place which investigates situations where the forces of globalization are impacting the lives of individuals. Mixed Realities is on display at The Huret & Spector Gallery, 10 Boylston Place, 6th Floor, Emerson College, and at Ars Virtua (Teleport) until April 15, 2008.
Turbulence In New England
Turbulence has commissioned New England artists specifically in the past with funds from the LEF Foundation through New England Initiative I and New England Initiative II, as well as one work for the 2005 Boston Cyberarts Festival, "Itinerant", and two works for the 2007 Boston Cyberarts Festival, "Handheld Histories As Hyper-Monuments" and "Pulse Pool".
More About Turbulence
New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. was founded in New York City in 1981 to foster the development of new and experimental work for radio and sound arts. In 1996, it extended its mandate to Net Art and launched its pioneering web site, Turbulence. Now celebrating 12 years, Turbulence has commissioned over 150 works of Net Art and exhibited and promoted artists' work through its Artists Studios, Guest Curator, and Spotlight sections. Net Art, or Internet Art, is art which uses the Internet and other networks as its primary medium. These works can exist completely online or bridge the gap between physical and virtual by networking these spaces. As networking technologies have developed wireless capabilities and become mobile, Turbulence has remained at the forefront of the field by commissioning, exhibiting, and archiving the new hybrid networked art forms that have emerged.
http://greylockarts.net/turbulent-works
http://turbulence.org/networked_realities/
Matthew Belanger and Marianne Petit are co directors of Greylock Arts in Adams, Mass. He regularly reports on their projects and new media for Berkshire Fine Arts.