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Following up on some earlier posts about showing new media work in the gallery and digital non-sites, here's some recent writing on gallery friendly hardware set-ups, for art that absolutely has to be shown on a computer screen (as opposed to DVDs). Olia Lialina discusses the "Torch" brand of screen-with-built-in-computer here. I still have some questions about that device (photo above), asked in the spirit of being open source:
--The website says there is no hard drive for the slim computer--how is the data stored for a piece?Many of these same issues are raised and answered with respect to a Mac Mini or PC setup in this post Showing Video via Computers by artist Paul Slocum, who is also running a gallery. It's very thorough and helpful even though it makes me want to stick with just popping a DVD in a hundred dollar player and dealing as an artist with the compression artifacts. It's a lot to ask a harried gallerist to memorize this how-to and/or constantly go yourself to the space to see what's wrong with the computer. Especially for work that anyone in the world can see displayed perfectly well on the Internet, at home. But that's just me ducking responsibility--artists are obviously coping with these issues.
--Why do they have all the USB ports and such? It looks like an awful lot of computer just to run GIFs (or whatever programs are providing content for the screen). When I saw Lialina's work at Bryce Wolkowitz gallery I assumed it was some kind of flash memory built into the screen.
--Doesn't it have an operating system that has to boot up each time it's turned on, and then a program on the operating system to run the GIFs, all accessed by hooking a mouse and keyboard to the ports on the computer? Can it run without Windows XP, which Torch describes as "optional"? (Lialina says via email that hers was Linux and there was no boot screen. Linux--aiee!) [update--some answers to these qs below]
Update: Some late thoughts. That Torch Computer screen is elegant in person, very generic, and I like that they deliberately made it without a logo anywhere visible. I'd like to own a few (once I get my mundane practical questions answered), and I think it would be a good investment for galleries that show new media art on a regular basis to own a few. I would even like to see it be something that collectors buy. My questions are aimed at making some kind of "display lingua franca" that everyone is accustomed to using for certain types of work. As opposed to reinventing the wheel with every show or making the show be "about" what major corporation's hardware you are plugging. I believe that is what Lialina is proposing in her article.
Update 2: Paul learned the following from Torch: "19 inch LCD screen, 1280 X 1024 resolution, with built-in mini-ITX computer...with built-in 1GHz CPU, 256MB RAM. There are two versions of this. The Linux version comes with a flash memory of 1GB and operating software that reads a web page from a USB pendrive, also supplied, that is displayed on the screen without any visible indication that it is a browser. That is, there are no visible frames, scroll bars, menu bars, tool bars, etc. This version is priced at 595.00 pounds ($1169). The other version is supplied with a 40GB hard disk drive and Windows XP Home. This is priced at 665.00 pounds ($1307). All prices exclude shipment charges, duties and and taxes." (As Paul notes, shipping and taxes for the cheaper of these UK products could be $300-600 to the US. They are custom-made and take 4-8 weeks to prepare.)
Neg-Fi live at Union Pool in Brooklyn, last night. In the top photo Evelyne works the Neg-Box's sole lever; the bottom shows Ryan and Evelyne in characteristic stage posture for most of the songs, which are short metalloid guitar duets. Imagine a No New York-ish riff stripped down to a few bars, straight up, loud, for under two minutes. The riffs are all good--"Neg OK" and "NegButter" on their MySpace page give you the flavor if not the volume.
Working on some video pieces. I like/hate this medium. Like it when it's the right balance of clumsy and novel but hate that you can so rarely get that. The top piece is that html grid of jewel GIFs I keep posting, captured off the web--about 15 times--each capture is a different sequence and then the best (most fluid) sequences are edited roughly in time to the music piece I wrote. (I reposted the Quicktime .mov, which gives an idea.) I had to redo this yet again last night because my captures weren't consistently cropped. I wanted the "shaky GIF effect" to happen entirely within the boundaries of the piece. The bottom piece is Vortex 2, which I showed in Mobile, AL last fall. I have no idea what it looked like in the gallery so I made my own installation shot.
Thursday, February 22nd, 8:30pm (doors), Union Pool, 484 Union Ave (at Meeker), Brooklyn, $8
9 pm - Mushroom Cloud
9:30 - Neg-Fi
10:15 - Escape By Ostrich
11:15 - Notekillers
From Neg-Fi:
"Debut of our first LP release "Listen-OK!"- features most of the songs we've been playing as part of our live set the past few shows. Available on LP (limited edition of 200) and cdr. Also available for the first time will be a cdr collection of some older material culled from our cassette and other releases called "-1 and other big numbers."
My description of a Neg-Fi talk at Dorkbot:
"In the '50s, a time of postwar optimism and faith in science, there was Hi-Fi. In the '90s, an era of slackers and diminished expectations, there was Lo-Fi. In the '00s, a time of neanderthal government and outright contempt for the arts, there is Neg-Fi. A watershed moment in the history of art and music--some might say sub-nadir--was reached tonight when this New York noise-rock duo demonstrated its Wireless UFDs (uncontrollable feedback devices) to an audience of 100 or so at Dorkbot-NYC. Walkie talkies from the dollar store have been reinstalled in custom cardboard cases. When placed in proximity to each other and turned on, they make squealing and static noises. And that's about it!"
I've been enjoying the diverse selection of material on the Neg-Butter mini-CD--it's low-key noise rock/electronics but not unmusical by any means. (Note double negative.)
Today is the sixth aniversary of this blog. Thanks to anyone who has commented, linked, or relevantly emailed. This feels like a group page even if no one else has Wiki-like editing powers. OK, enough sloppy sentimentality, let's get back to work.
Update: A longer "looking back" post was written and scrapped as too self-indulgent. The only reason this update is being added is to provide a bit more of a text buffer between the preceding and following images, for design reasons.
MySpace page logo from Neil, excellently interpreting this earlier post. Neil says he'd like to meet fakeisthenewreal.
Update: Neil has revised the page to state that he is fakeisthenewreal and who he'd like to meet is you.
"Big Rock Grid" (audio only) [mp3 removed]
Update: I had a Quicktime .mov with this as a soundtrack but the file size is too large for my lo-fi standards so I pulled it.
Update 2: Here is the screenshot for the .mov. I may put the file back up if I can find a politely amusing way to explain the exorbitant download time.
Update 2: I've edited the .mov [converted to .mp4] to pick up the pace a little bit. I have also made a DVD of this video on a bigger scale that plays on a CRT, so this is a thumbnail version of that with full sound.
"Big Rock Grid" [12 MB .mp4]
thanks to mbs for finding the site full of big rocks (jewel GIFs)