[spectre] Recent Turbulence Commissions

[Turbulence]

Turbulence Commissions launched during summer 2006:

MOBOTAG
by Marta Lwin 
with funding from the Jerome Foundation
http://www.turbulence.org/works/mobotag

mobotag reveals the hidden layers of a city through an active exchange of
location based media and text messages via the cellphone. It's collaborative
phone tagging of the city. Part virtual graffiti, part walking tour, mobotag
creates a spontaneous and easy way for tagging a neighborhood via the
cellphone. Send and view messages, images, videos and sounds. See art, read
stories, and watch a hidden layer of the city reveal itself. Respond with
your media and participate in the creative expression and mapping of your
neighborhood. mobotag also features art projects including flyHere, a mobile
phone audio installation featuring native bird calls; bugBytes, collectible
graphical bugs originating at major telecoms around NYC; and lookHere, a
written work in short form by a native NY writer.

MONOLITH[S]
by Michael Takeo Magruder
with funds form the National Endowment for the Arts
http://www.turbulence.org/works/monoliths/index.htm

Monolith[s] juxtaposes two icons of British culture: stone circles
(Stonehenge, for instance) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
Formulated according to motifs and proportions of ancient architecture,
infused with fundamental mathematics of modern digital communication
systems, each genesis of the artwork's geometry is unique. Variables such as
the time of day, the viewer's location on the Earth, and the position of the
Earth around the sun are incorporated into the artwork, thus instilling into
the realm functions of a rudimentary clock, global positioning system, and
solar calendar. [needs: The technical specifications are detailed on the
Setup/Help page. Please read them before proceeding.]

MY BEATING BLOG
by Yury Gitman
with funds from the Jerome Foundation
http://www.turbulence.org/works/beatingheart/blog

My Beating Blog is an attempt to take the journaling aspect of blogging into
a surrealistic future in which the author literally and metaphorically bares
his heart. For three weeks, a series of posts contextualizing heart-rate
visualizations, GPS-maps, and personal journal entries will give online
users a rare entrance into personal medical-grade statistics, stalker-level
location tracking, and the private thoughts of the blogger. Inevitably,
issues regarding privacy, exhibitionism, and voyeurism playfully emerge as
the blogosphere is infused with biofeedback and location technology. [needs
the following browsers: IE 6.0+, Firefox 0.8+ , Safari 1.2.4+, Netscape
7.1+, Mozilla 1.4+, Opera 8.02+]

SWM05: DISTRIBUTED BODIES OF MUSICAL-VISUAL FORM
by Troy Innocent and Ollie Olsen with the Shaolin Wooden Men and Harry Lee
with funds from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
http://www.turbulence.org/works/SWM05/

SWM05 features the distributed bodies of musical-visual form that are
inhabited by the Shaolin Wooden Men (SWM), a virtual band, a 'gang of
numbers' — me(a)tacodeflesh. SWM require your assistance to manifest as
media creatures. They invite you to send them images of your local
environment in which they can appear. Sending images unlocks access to the
SWM05 mobile site which consists of downloadable micromusic ringtones and
small screen machinima performances. The SWM are everywhere. In a meshwork
of wireless entities, they are media creatures seeking a fragmented
existence to be consumed in the nanoseconds of play-time in the emerging
wireless net. SWM05 will transfigure the SWM by embodying them in a new
materiality.

MACHINE FRAGMENTS
by Onomé Ekeh
with funds from The Greenwall Foundation
http://www.turbulence.org/works/machinefragments/machine.html

Perhaps the question "can machines think"? should be re-articulated as "is
the machine different from you or I"? Why is there a perceptive gap between
our tools and ourselves? Do they not constitute consciousness and by
extension the body? The cultural schisms that generate this differentiation
between "man" and "machine" are also responsible for spawning voids and
displacements—and the ghosts that inhabit them. It is these ghosts who
constitute Machine Fragments, sound fictions spun from the perspective of
sentient machines, testing humans for machine intelligence. Not so much to
expose the machinic dimension in humans (we suspected as much), but to
arouse the sense that "Machine" is also a kind of gender. [needs Flash
player 8+ and speakers; optimized for Internet Explorer and Safari]
 
THE ESSENCE OF A NATION: CHINESE VIRTUAL PERSONS ON THE NET
by XiaoQian
with funds from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
http://www.turbulence.org/works/XiaoQian/

My name is XiaoQian, I am an artist and I create virtual persons online. For
this website I created 6 chinese virtual persons: Mu Yuming a painter,
Shaxpir a hip-hop singer, Wang Shy a ghost in a traditional garden, He
Zhengjun a carpenter working with wood and text, Yi Zhe a guest in a wedding
and myself XiaoQian. You can email me at xiaoqian at virtualperson.net.
[needs Macromedia Flash Player plugin; Internet Explorer 5+, Mozilla Firefox
1.5.0+, or Safari 1.0+]


Jo-Anne Green, Co-Director
New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.: http://new-radio.org
New York: 917.548.7780 • Boston: 617.522.3856
Turbulence: http://turbulence.org
New American Radio: http://somewhere.org
Networked_Performance Blog: http://turbulence.org/blog
Upgrade! Boston: http://turbulence.org/upgrade