Spatial Machinations
A short watch, the video above that speaks in some ways to my recent posting of the CFP for the Memories of the Future event. The podcast 99-percent Invisible have created this ~ 7-min. video on the development of standardised warning signs like these (image on the left).
It also briefly discusses how those charged with securing nuclear waste facilities in the USA have considered how we might leave legible warnings to people thousands of years in the future.
I came across Janelle Monáe‘s work a while ago, through Twitter, I was really taken by the video for “Many Moons“, which is beautiful. Metropolis, the album from which it is taken, is a really interesting blend of pop, sci-fi and perhaps afrofuturism, or at least forms of sci-fi that don’t conform to, or queer, standard Western/Global North sci-fi themes/norms. Some have argued Monáe’s videos blends American and African Sci-Fi themes (a teaser trailer for Dirty Computer was shown before cinematic performances of Black Panther) in a sort of queer aesthetic (that’s my reading of what longer pieces say anyway) and I think I can see it in several videos, though my knowledge of other work that might complement or contrast this is very limited.
In the “emotion picture” (what a beautifully evocative term) for the album Dirty Computer we’re presented with a rich and confident, feature length, work of art. I’m not currently able to dedicate the time to offer a lengthier visual analysis, I’m simply going to post the video, below. All I can say, really, is: wow.
I am a fan of Kate Compton, creator of Tracery, here she is, last year, talking about the poetics of bots.
Kate Compton: Bot Poetics // Interrupt 4 from Digital Language Arts on Vimeo.
Thanks to dmf for sharing this. Roy Ascott was a formative influence for me, via Mike Phillips & Chris Speed and the CAiiA+STAR (Centre for Advanced Inquiry in Interactive Arts [Wales] and Science, Technology + Arts Research [Plymouth]) crew, some of whom constituted the institute for Digital Art & Technology at Plymouth which ran the Bachelors course I took, the wonderful BSc MediaLab Arts (for a flavour see this characteristically [1990s] low-res video of a student show). I still have a copy of a Reframing Consciousness book on my shelf that I ‘borrowed’ from Mike in about 2001… and I basically became a geographer because of Chris, especially his piece Spacelapse.
Via dmf.
I found this video strangely calming and attractive. Plus, it’s got art and drops in discussion of all of the dead white male philosophers we’re supposed to be into… what’s not to like eh? 🙂
There’s a link to an interview with Tony Sampson on dmf’s page — follow this link (it’s quite hard to read).
Trevor Paglen on ‘autonomous hypernormal mega-meta-realism’ (probably a nod to Curtis there). An entertaining brief talk about ‘AI’ visual recognition systems and their aesthetics.
(I don’t normally hold with laughing at your own gags but Paglen says some interesting things here – expanded upon in this piece (‘Invisible Images: Your pictures are looking at you’) and this artwork – Sight Machines [see below]).