An encyclopedia of media objects.

Thematic Project

Thematic Project Description

For the second thematic project this year we will compile an Encyclopedia of Media Objects, bringing together objects nominated by core and visiting tutors and first and second year students.   For the thematic project  for the second trimester we will be asking core tutors and core visitors give a short lecture on a 'media object' of their choice. It might be a physical, digital object, a technique, transaction or cultural trope - but a 'media object' they particularly value and have a particular fondness for.  This is the beginning of an ongoing project to compile an encyclopedia of media objects published online as a departmental publication.

Documentation

You are required to: 

• 1.2) Attend lectures 
• 2.2) Make presentation of your own media object (could be new or re-working of existing object on the wiki, for inst)
• 3.2) Archive your presentation in the encyclopedia
• 4.2) Participate in the design, formatting and maintenance of the encyclopedia 

Although not compulsory for second years, we would very much like the second years to take part, so that we can make our encyclopedia as eclectic, informative, varied, curious and strange as the Piet Zwart Media Design course itself.

Procedure

The new wiki and process:

2.1) we will make a 'clean wiki' of Encyclopedia of Media Objects within the existing wiki and make a single printed version at the end of the trimester (volume 1 of many?)

2.2) the students will use pirate pad to  document the lectures, beginning with Femke's lecture on the 5th February.

2.3) the group will meet next week (begin 12 feb) with Timo to discuss the form of the wiki, the design process and which jobs will be allocated to whom for what duration. This would establish a regular meeting to check the progress. This will be done in Timo's sessions and Steve's sessions on Wednesday.We figured that it would be best if some people had jobs which lasted for the duration of the thematic (jobs involving scripting. 'skinning' and maintenance) and other roles could be interchangeable (writing, content editing, copy editing, finding images &c).

2.4) Process:  Each item is introduced by a brief text, in the 'mode of address' of an encyclopedia and an image: this can then link to other material 

Please add to skills list: 

Script/skinning 

Indexing

image editors audio-visual

content editors

copy editors

each media object will require the above

2.5) The encyclopedia will be 'reflexive': it will give definitions of the things it is comprised of 'wiki', 'index' , for inst.

2.6) Ideally the encyclopedia could access and format existing content elsewhere on the wiki. (one of the issues discussed by staff was the ways in which the existing  resource of the wiki can be used)

2.7) maybe this will provide a model for the catalogue for the end of year exhibition.

Timetable

• Throughout February and March (mostly on Tuesday mornings between 10 - 11) core and visiting tutors will give presentations.
• Also in February some sessions will be given over to designing and maintaining the encyclopedia.
• In April students will present their own media objects and place their entry in the encyclopedia.
• The presentation and the entry will be assessed at the end of the second trimester.

Programme

February 5 - Femke Snelting

Object = the alphabet

Femke Snelting is an artist and designer, developing projects at the intersection of design, feminism and free software. She is a core member of the Brussels based association for arts and media, Constant. Femke co-initiated the design- and research team Open Source Publishing (OSP) and formed De Geuzen (a foundation for multi-visual research) with Renée Turner and Riek Sijbring. Currently she coordinates the Libre Graphics Research Unit, a partnership of four European medialabs to investigate interrelations between tools and practice.  http://snelting.domainepublic.net/

Collective Annotation

PiratePad: http://piratepad.net/Nog1lfAWCd
Read only: http://piratepad.net/ep/pad/view/ro.QrjGdbifhBp/latest

Audio Recording

http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/~acastro/mediaObjects/femke.ogg
http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/~acastro/mediaObjects/femke.mp3

to be announced - Thomson & Craighead

Object – TBA   Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead are London based visual artists. They have been working together with video, sound and the internet since 1993. Much of their work to date explores how technology changes the way we perceive the world around us. They use live data to make artworks, including "template cinema online artworks" and gallery installations, where networked movies are created in real time from online material such as remote-user security web cams, audio feeds and chat room text transcripts.  http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/works.html  

March 5th - Steve Rushton

Object – the ISOTYPE

Steve Rushton is a founding member of Signal:Noise, an experimental cross-disciplinary research project that aims to explore the influence of cybernetics and information theory on contemporary cultural life by testing out its central idiom, 'feedback', through debates, artworks, publications, performances, events and exhibitions. The project is lead by Steve Rushton, Dexter Sinister (David Reinfurt and Stuart Bailey), Marina Vishmidt, Rod Dickinson and Emily Pethick. Recent publications include Masters of Reality (Sternberg Press and Piet Zwart Institute, 2012) http://theshowroom.org/research.html?id=161

http://piratepad.net/Pj2D5OSZKJ

March 12th - Eric Kluitenberg

Object - TBA

Eric Kluitenberg lectures and publishes regularly on culture, new media, and cultural politics throughout Europe and beyond. Previously, he taught courses on "Culture and New Media" at the Institute for Interactive Media, Hogeschool van Amsterdam, and at the University of Amsterdam, "Media Theory" for the post-graduate education programs in art & design and new media at Media-GN / Frank Mohr Institute and Academy Minerva in Groningen, the Royal Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague, and worked on the scientific staff of the Academy of Media Arts Cologne.

http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?personid=920

Since 1988 he has been involved as an organiser in important media culture events such as the First and Second International Symposium on Electronic Art (SISEA), Interstanding I, II, & III (Tallinn, Estonia), The P2P - New Media Culture in Europe conference (Amsterdam / Rotterdam), the third and fourth edition of "The Next 5 Minutes", international festival of tactical media (1999 / 2003), "Tulipomania DotCom - A Critique of the New Economy", "net.congestion - International Festival of Streaming Media" (2000), and more recently the Dutch / Russian project "Debates & Credits - Media Art in the Public Domain" in Moscow, Amsterdam and Ekaterinburg (2002), the Amsterdam edition of World-Information.Org (2002), the mini-festival "An Archaeology of Imaginary Media" (2004), and most recently the "Economies of the Commons" conference (2008)

Publications:

Legacies of Tactical Media http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publication/no-05-legacies-of-tactical-media-eric-kluitenberg/

Delusive Spaces - Essays on Culture, Media, and Tecnology, Studies in Network Cultures, Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam / NAi Publishers, Rotterdam, 2008.

(ed.) Book of Imaginary Media - Excavating the dream of the ultimate communication medium, (Book & DVD) De Balie, Amsterdam / NAi Publishers Rotterdam, 2006.

Guest editor theme issue, Open #11 - Hybrid Space, Journal about art and the public domain, SKOR, Amsterdam / NAi Publishers Rotterdam, 2006.

ed. with Tatiana Goryucheva, Debates & Credits, Media / Art / Public Domain, (Book & DVD) De Balie, Amsterdam, 2003.

March 19th - Annet Dekker

Object – FUN   Annet Dekker is an independent curator and researcher. Subjects of interest are the influence of technology, science and popular culture on art and vice versa. Currently she works as webcurator for SKOR, as researcher on the project ”Born Digital art in Dutch art collections” for SBMK, VP, NIMk and DEN, as lecturer at Piet Zwart Institute for the thematic project “Archive & Memory” and new media theory at Rietveld Academy. In 2009 she initiated aaaan.net with Annette Wolfsberger. At the moment they organise the Artist in Residence programme at the Netherlands Media Art Institute in Amsterdam and they produced Funware, an international touring exhibition in 2010 and 2011 about fun in software (curated by Olga Goriunova). Since 2008 she is writing a PhD on strategies for documenting net art at the Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London, under supervision of Matthew Fuller. http://aaaan.net

March 14th - Brigit Lichtenegger / Evo

Object – crowd simulation  Brigit Lichtenegger, also known as Evo, is a programmer and new media artist. With a main interest for Virtual Reality and Immersive and Networked Environments she contributed to numerous international collaborative Art and Research projects. She worked at V2_Lab and Almende, and currently is instructor at CrossLab, the media lab of the Willem de Kooning Academy, sysadmin at Networked Media, the media study programme at the Piet Zwart Insitute, and runs Creative Machinery. 10:00 - 11:00

More  lectures to be announced soon

Objects include: terminal, the copyleft symbol,  the feedback loop, mobile applications and colour...