meta popular according to google

meta
adjective (of a creative work) referring to itself or to the conventions of its genre. ORIGIN 1980s: from meta- in the sense [beyond]

self-referential
adjective making reference to itself or oneself. (of a literary or other creative work) making reference to itself, its author or creator, or their other work.

digital art as entertainment

After hearing the news media label net artists as "Internet humorists" and witnessing the entertainment industry expressing interest in commodifying the web content. I have been thinking about my own work in terms of art and/or entertainment. Should I make work that is all about the idea, which is not that exciting to watch but you may endure it because it makes you think and you kind of like that feeling. Or should I make work that has a fast bassy techno beat and killer vector animations and will make you bob your head, laugh, cry, and mindlessly entertain you?

Sheeple have been conditioned by contemporary big-budget assembly-line slick Hollywood cinema and with it the expectation of high production value, star-studded action-packed, romantic, thriller feel-good movie of the year. This is what they come to expect when they view media on the web. That is what we are competing with for eyeballs.

One of my favorite net art pieces is John Simon's "Every Icon" Is is not fun to watch, but the idea is brilliant.

google fight

Performing a googleganger, the act of googling one's self. It may sound narcissistic, and in part it is. However, when you are a net artist your name being found by google is very closely tied to the visibility of your art work, vanity becomes territorial rage.

I honestly never used to care. There has always been a couple of low profile david schaal(s) on the net, a psychology professor from Florida, and a bishop from the bible belt. But now there is an actor from London who has gotten some web fame by being on the British version of "the office." After he took the davidschaal.com and .name domains I began to feel threatened.

Currently, I am enjoying some google juice... meaning my site is the #1 search returned (are you feeling lucky?)in google, also known as a google whack. Feel free to help me in my plight and link to my site (please) www.davidschaal.net, the entertainment industry does not have my back... And besides, I was here first, <1995.

I am net artist. I am not a British actor. I am not a Pyschology professor. I am not a Bishop. Or am I?

aspen comedy festival :: off the web

I traveled to Aspen to see my favorite sister perform in the US Comedy Arts Festival. She was funny (as always) and won the award for "Best Alternative Comedy." Hopefully that will lead to good things for her - she deserves it. I was surprised at how much industry was present -hbo, cinemax, agents, managers etc. I went snowboarding (of course), went to an after-party hosted by the Upright Citizens Brigade and snuck into a few shows including "Creation Nation" and "Off the Web."

I told Mr. Arcangel I would try to see his friend Chelsea perform while I was in Aspen, she was part of a show called "Off the Web." Basically it was web artists showing their websites at a comedy festival. Labeled in the media as "internet humorists" the websites were a bit funnier than the artists, no surprise, but the whole thing did feel a bit out of place until you factor in that industry was there watching for new ideas and new talent. The strange thing was it felt like the same thing I do in my class room, show an interesting website and talk about it. It turned out that I was familiar with all the sites they presented but it was nice to be able to put a face to a site. Anyway here is a list of who presented and their sites -so if you see something similar pop up in the entertainment industry you know where they stole it from.

Chelsea Peretti: Black People Love Us
what was the other site she did?

Charlie Todd: Improve Everywhere

Aziz is Bored

Jakob Lodwick & Ricky Van Veem:College Humor

visiting artist :: cory arcangel

Cory Arcangel is a digital artist from NY, read his web log and you will know everything.

Cory gave a performance in Boulder -he did a live remix/mash-up of guns n' roses. My sister (Kristen Schaal) was performing at the Aspen Comedy Arts Festival at the same time so I unfortunately missed Cory's performance but will post a video of it when it becomes available. I also had my Net Presence students attend and blog their reaction so I was at least able to read about it.
I did pick up Cory from the airport so I was able to have a great conversation about the digital art world and comedy, he mentioned he was into comedy and would have liked to gone to aspen. I mentioned that I was in a bit of postmodern depression ever since I started grad school and been exposed to great artists and art work. Inevitably, whatever work I create someone can always make a reference to someone who has done it before me. I told Cory that I was going to make a work that dealt with the concept of lossy compression using multiple generations of jpg imagery.
That was until I saw his version of Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast" recompressed as an mp3 666 times. Basically the same concept but done brilliantly and with humor. He replied that he had actually got the idea from something that one of John Cage's students (insert name here) did. He encouraged me to keep moving the idea forward.

Super nice guy that Archangel.

visting artist :: eleanor antin

Currently a professor emeritus of UCSD, Eleanor Antin has worked as an artist since the 1960's creating film, installation and performance. She moved from NY to San Diego in the late 60's and became sick of the trans-american commute that was required to still be active in the NY art scene. Her solution was to create her own art community by creating a series of postcards entitled "100 Boots" and mailing them to thousands of people from pooled art mailing lists. This example of an early virtual community garnered her a "following" and resulted in a show at the MOMA two years later.

I related to Antin's performance art as a precursor to the online persona. She invented alternate idenities and performed as them in venues (including the Venice Biennale) and public spaces. Her personas included the gender-bending King (her idealized version of the perfect man), the Silent Movie Director, the Ballerina (most wonderful female self) and the nurse (the most depressed woman she could think of). Although this work was considered innovative for the 1970's it is common in today's virtual communities to invent alternate identities and to act them out in the virtual space.

Antin's most recent work is a series of large-format "painting-like" photographs depicting life in Rome. Although there is obvious social commentary on Rome's empire, and correlations can be made to our US government today, overall I think the work is "fluffy." Which made sense after Antin admitted that she "loved the rococo" -which was arguably the most fluffy crap ever produced. I was disappointed that when asked, Antin said she would not consider mailing the Rome series out as postcards. Reasons against revolved around the same old rhetoric - they were meant to be viewed large, they are meant to be seen (AND SOLD) in an established gallery, yada yada yada. I just thought it would be a perfect ending to her art career since the community she created though the mail was what gave her a start.

visiting artists :: derek holzer & sara kolster

The artist team of Derek Holzer (sound) and Sara Kolster (visual) work together to create new meaning by integrating sound and image. Although considered autonomous disciplines, sound and image have always been interrelated in both life and art. A monster example would be cinema, where sound and the moving image are both matched perfectly (almost formulaic) in order to create maximum effect on the viewer. An important artistic distinction between cinema and the work created by Holzer/Kolster is that their audio and video retains the unique individual qualities inherent in both sound and image, even when performed synchronously. I actually saw Derek and Sara perform at FILE 2003 in Sao Paulo, well almost... Sara's video was PAL and unfortunately the display equipment at the venue was NTSC so Derek had to perform his sound piece solo. I could go on an endless rant for the need for universal media technology standards but that is a whole other post.

Derek and Sara also presented a screening of visibleSOUND/audibleIMAGE which was a compilation of important (and historic) examples of sound and image:

• Steina & Woody Vasulka: Violin Power (US, 1978) & BAD (US, 1979)


• Servaas: 4 Poems (NL, 1981)


• Matthew Schlanger: Lizard Hearts (US, 1986)


• Nicolas Provost: Papillon d'Amour (BE, 2003)


• Jan van Nuenen: SET_4 (NL, 2003)


• Bas van Koolwijk: five (NL, 2002)

Their latest project (and the "one they are most proud of") is SoundTransit, which serves as a database of sound under the collective commons license and serves as a space in which to build a community of sound artists (189 and counting).
Check it out and contribute your sound. http://soundtransit.nl/