Web Tapestries

Eva Ostrowska (b.1989) is a French visual artist whose mixed media work offers critiques of social dynamics and romantic relationships using a raw and unapologetic combination of humour, sarcasm, and irony. Ostrowska provides a commentary on love and relationships in the digital era, the dissonance of which is made even more impactful through the use of ancient mediums such as weaving and knitting to depict modern digital realities like the text message.

When Guys Turn 20

For the past several years, artist Joshua Citarella has targeted his research-based practice on the political behaviors of the young and very online. Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman has similarly used his documentary practice to investigate emergent political modes like Seasteading. Together in When Guys Turn 20, they explore how users across the political spectrum deploy memetic tactics on social media, as well as how the rhetoric and reality of Silicon Valley diverge.

Cycling through a variety of locales and roles (teacher, Twitch streamer, prisoner, Sith Lord), Citarella narrates online political methods and mechanisms of propaganda. From MMORPGs as a proof-case for socialism to the tricks of meme extremists to the problems of Big Tech, When Guys Turn 20 offers a behind-the-servers glimpse into various expressions of platform capitalism.

[via DIS]

Karaoke Torii

Karaoke Torii (2017), by Benoit Maubrey

300 recycled loudspeakers, Bluetooth receivers, microphone, line in, 1 amplifier. A 4-channel speaker system allows the public to express themselves directly via a microphone, a line in or their smart phones and wireless technology.

Commissioned by Kamiyama Artist Residency Program (KAIR) , Japan
12′ x 15′ x 2′ – Also commissioned by the Kobe Biennale 2015

Life on the CAPS

Life on the CAPS is a film trilogy by artist Meriem Bennani. It is set on a fictional island where American troopers have exiled immigrants who attempted to enter America via teleportation. In the world of the CAPS, teleportation has replaced air travel, and displaced populations utilize this portal to cross oceans and borders. Layering live action footage and computer-generated animation, Bennani intuitively adapts editing techniques that evoke documentary film, science-fiction, phone footage, music videos, and reality TV.

[via]

The Weird and Wonderful World of AI Art

This article contains an interesting timeline of recent AI art applications, from 2015 to 2022:

“The AI art we had before 2021 was intriguing, but tended to be abstract, esoteric, and just not that relatable to a human. The AI art we have now is fully controllable, and can be about whatever you want it to be. What changed? Well, there’s something to be said for the new wave of publicity and interest, which certainly accelerated the pace of our art-generation techniques. But the main development is the rise of multimodal learning.”

Another good read on the same topic is Clip Art and the New Aesthetics of AI by Luba Elliott, which also mentions this amazing work by Memo Atken.

Dialogue Goggles

Lygia Clark, Goggles / Dialogue Goggles, 1968

“Brazilian artist Lygia Clark’s ‘Óculos’ (Goggles) and Dialogo: Óculos (Dialogue: Goggles) from 1968 draw attention to the performance of wearing, looking and seeing; and the fashion accessory as an object of communication. Both artworks are performative and are a sensory experience for the participant as well as being an immersive sculpture and fashion accessory. The artwork is the participant wearing the object: a pair of glasses that alters the vision of the participant(s) with magnifying lenses.”

4004

“2021 marks the 50th year since the invention of the 4004 – the world’s first Monolithic CPU and microprocessor. This incredible invention is barely known outside of CPU collector circles, but there’s no reason it should be any less famous than the lightbulb, or the atomic bomb. It was an extraordinary feat of miniaturization which revolutionized computer design and made personal computing a reality. It paved the way for everything in our digital world.”

David OReilly, “4004,” 2021

memeclassworldwide

“This might come as a surprise, but memeclassworldwide is not focused on teaching internet meme culture in art school. The idea has never been to guide art students in becoming memelords crossposting shitpics for virtual likes. memeclassworldwide makes this ever changing thematic field accessible to artists-in-training from all disciplines and helps them find entry into the mutation of languages in images, text, and aesthetic and political discourses that originate on the web.”

memeclassworldwide

RGBFAQ

RGBFAQ, by Alan Warburton, traces the trajectory of computer graphics from WW2 to Bell Labs in the 1960s, from the visual effects studios of the 1990s to the GPU-assisted algorithms of the latest machine learning models.