I just got back from Split, Croatia where I talked on a panel about Online Video Narratives at the Video Vortex 4, a conference organized by the Institute for Networked Culture. The conference was a packed series of papers and presentations revolving around video and the internet. It as organized by Dan Oki from Split. The dicussions and the papers were excellent and wide ranging. There were also screenings of work related to how the internet is shaping current video production.

The speakers included: Perry Bard, Natalie Bookchin, Maarten Brinkerink, Vito Campanelli, David Clark, Dagan Cohen, Cym and the Aethernauts, Alejandro Duque, Albert Figurt, Stefan Heidenreich, Jasmina Kallay, Sarah Késsene, Lev Manovich, Dalibor Martinis, Gabriel Menotti, Ana Peraica, Valentina Rao, Shelly Silver, Jan Simons, Amir Soltani, Antanas Stancius, Evelin Stermitz, David Teh, Vera Tollmann, Andreas Treske, Saša Vojković, Nenad Vukušić Sebastijan, Linda Wallace, Paul Wiersbinski, Kuros Yalpani, Emile Zile.

I talked about ‘88 Constellations’, ‘Meanwhile’, and ‘A is for Apple’ as examples of my approach to narrative as informed by the search engine and random features of internet technology.

After the festival Dan Oki organized a boat trip to the islands off the coast of Split which was fantastic! We swam, ate, drank, and wandered around ancient towns in the islands off the coast of Croatia.

Last night the show opened in Montreal. The installation looks really good.

As part of the show in Montreal I have installed a new slide piece on the outside of the gallery. The piece acts as a sort of visual toolbar for the building. This is the third large scale window installation I have done using icons from the computer desktop. I think of them as an update on the stained glass window. Here is a quick picture of the installation from the outside of the building. The show opens tomorrow at 5pm.

I am off to Montreal tomorrow to set up a show at Espace Videographe. The show will feature “88 Constellations for Wittgenstein” and four older internet pieces. I am also doing a new slide piece for the windows of the building. The opening is on Thursday, May 7 and I am very pleased that my old friend Nelson Henricks will be hosting a discussion about the work.

There is a publication for this show with an excellent essay by Vancouver artist/writer Marina Roy called “Invisible Hands” that talks about “88 Constellations” and “A is for Apple”. I have been working with Marina and her husband Graham Meisner for the last few years on a new project based on a book that Marina wrote called “Sign after the X”.

I have now made professional looking copies of the CD-ROM that I will be sending out and distributing. Here is the cover:

‘88 Constellations’ has been included an internet project being put together by Blackflash Magazine that can be seen here.

‘88 Constellations for Wittgenstein” and “A is for Apple” have been included in a show at The Art Gallery of the University of Maryland in Baltimore. The show is called “A Slow Reveal… In the rapidly changing world of Internet art in the twenty-first century”. There is an essay by the curator, Jennie Fleming. The show includes work by Kate Pullington, Chris Joseph, Andy Campbell, Judi Alston, J.R. Carpenter, Annette Weintraub, Roderick Coover, Mark Amerika, & Jody Zellen.

Baltimore is a fantastic place. I had a large show there at MICA Gallery in Baltimore in 2005 and I really liked the vibe of the place. It seems that there is a really strong underground culture going on.

88 Constellations for Wittgenstein will be included in the Media Art Exhibition as part of the FILE 2009 RIO that will take place at Oi Futuro Cultural Center, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from March 10th to April 19th, 2009. I have participated in this festival a number of times before but haven’t been to Rio yet.

The New Genre Festival presented by Living Arts in Tulsa is presenting ‘A is for Apple’ as part of a program called [::ART.net::] Curated by J.D. McPherson.

link

‘88 Constellations’ has been included in the HZ Net Gallery that is curated by Sachiko Hayashi. This magazine has excellent articles and curation. ‘A is for Apple’ was included in the first edition of this journal.

hz-Journal

‘Meanwhile’, an interactive, non-linear film I made in 2006 with my collaborators in the group ‘computer.says.no: Shelley Simmons, Chris Mendis and Jeff Howard has won an award at the CINEMA TOUS ECRANS, 14e Festival International du Film in Geneva Switzerland. Our piece won the Reflet d’Or of the best interactive multimedia fiction. The jury said that “The price is awarded to a piece of work that put the multimedia feature in the center of its conception and thus allows to develop a new narrative experience. This experience wanders from the inflexibility of  cinematic narration and of the interactive scenarii of video games.”

We are pretty chuffed and are trying to figure out how we can all get to Switzerland to use the €4000 in production services that comes with the prize.
CINEMA TOUS ECRANS
television>multimedia<cinema
27.OCT. > 2.NOV.08

The project can be seen here; Meanwhile