Neural.it :: media culture, hacktivism

book . hacktivism . music . science . sound

Steve Goodman - Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear

The MIT Press, ISBN-13: 978-0262013475, U.S.A., 2010, English
Sound waves can't usually damage your ears unless you constantly keep headphone volume too high,or you insist on standing very close to tall speakers during a concert for too long. Used in the right way (or wrong way), however, they can be a scary armament, able to inflict various degrees of harassment, ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 12:18 PM - Jan 29/2010
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art . net . preservation . software

Temporary.cc, interaction is destruction 

Temporary.cc, Zach Gage, temporary_cc.jpg

Digital data has a paradoxical status. Immaterial by definition, it nonetheless has a need for a physical substance (hardware) to manifest itself. Eternal and not subject to decay, it is forced to bond its life to the hosting support, inheriting fragility and a tendency to degenerate. Furthermore, data legibility is ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 11:51 AM - Jan 28/2010
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art . book . copyright . net

Cornelia Sollfrank - Expanded Original

Hatje Cantz, ISBN 978-3775723909, Germany, 2009, English, German
The work of Cornelia Sollfrank is one of the most enlightening attempts to describe the consequences of immateriality in art. She consistently points to the obsolescence of concepts such as "original" and "copyrighted", developing a full spectrum of perspectives. Even if the core of her work comes out of the ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 07:57 PM - Jan 6/2010
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art . hacking . hacktivism . net

Web 2.0 suicide machine + Seppukoo, social network self-destruction

Web 2.0 suicide machine, Gordan Savicic, web_2_0_suicide_machine_seppukoo.jpg

Parodies of social networking services started to appear since the Friendster boom in the early 2000s. Anti-social networking platforms as introvertster, snubster, enemybook or isolatr playfully subverted online community dynamics targeting their shallowness as much as ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 05:53 PM - Dec 31/2009
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art . book . science . software . visual

Sherry Turkle - Simulation and Its Discontents

The MIT Press, ISBN 978-0262012706, USA, 2009, English
Starting with two ethnographic studies she undertook twenty years apart, Sherry Turkle is able to make a timely investigation in this book, addressing the role played by simulation in higher education, physics, chemistry and architecture research. The pivotal perception shift that is pervading the younger "world creators" seems highly risky, especially when seen from the previous generation's perspective, ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 02:36 PM - Dec 24/2009
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art . music . sound

IIE (Interactive Infrasonic Installation), infrasound for public consumption

IIE, Interactive Infrasonic Installation, Reinhard Gupfinger, interactive_infrasonic_environment.jpg

IIE is an interactive acoustic installation through which Reinhard Gupfinger researches infrasounds, that is, those sounds that, having a frequency less than 20/16 Hertz (20/16 cycles per second), are below the audible threshold of the human ear. While the ear is insensitive to those sounds, the human body can nevertheless perceive ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 12:31 PM - Dec 22/2009
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neural

Neural 34, Fake'ology

The new Neural issue is out. Subscribe now supporting us directly, or buy the magazine from the closest of the more than 200 stores (Neural is from now on distributed by Central Books in Europe and Asia, by Ubiquity in USA and by Selectair in Australia and New Zealand). A back issues pack is also available.

Issue #34, winter 2009
ISSN: 2037-108X

... [ Continue ]

Posted at 10:23 AM - Dec 14/2009
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art . book . music . preservation . sound

edited by Arjen Mulder, Joke Brouwer - Dick Raaymakers: A Monograph

NAi Publishers, ISBN 978-9056626006, The Netherlands, 2009, English
The slow and almost unavoidable disintegration of pieces of early electronic art is part of a broader problem that involves the preservation of both their materials and their historical documentation. This task can be accomplished only by trying to systematize the rescued documents, in order to ease the ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 12:49 PM - Dec 5/2009
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art . mobile . science

Influ, self-destructive mask against the dictatorship of fear

Influ, Michel Bussien, Erik Sjödin, influ_flu_collector.jpg

Turning common sense upside down is one of the most effective strategies in art, especially when dealing with hot social topics. Swine Flu (H1N1) has been the big viral outbreak of 2009. The few rules created by authorities to prevent infection have been repeated ad infinitum, although these are only ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 05:50 PM - Dec 2/2009
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art . book . media . preservation

Hannes Leopoldseder, Christine Schopf, Gerfried Stocker - Ars Electronica 1979-2009 the First 30 Years: The Network for Art Technology and Society

Hatje Cantz, ISBN 978-3775725231, Germany, 2009, English, German
Condensing thirty years of the Ars Electronica festival history into six hundred pages is the challenge of this book. It's a tough task to make a selection and to deal with the inevitable incompleteness and redundancy, as the author's disclaimer suggests: "the selection... by no means reflects any sort of ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 10:40 PM - Nov 30/2009
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music . performance . robot . sound

SoleNoid ß, tap dance robotic concert

Peter William Holden, SoleNoid ß, solenoid_beta.jpg

The tap-dance rhythmic lines are the protagonists in SoleNoid ß by Peter William Holden. Eight glossy tap-dance shoes, placed symmetrically in a circle, are animated by a computer connected with circuits controlling electromechanical valves (solenoid valves) and compressed air hydraulic pistons. The "living" ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 11:54 AM - Nov 24/2009
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book . hacktivism . media . net

Manuel Castells - Communication Power

Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0199567041, U.S.A., 2009, English
"Where does power lie in the network society?" This is the central question that Manuel Castells tries to answer in his first book in ten years. After the disillusionment of the internet utopia as a liberating medium per se, Castells describes society using hardware/software terminology, drawing a stimulating picture. He grounds his analysis of the network society through different mass media conflicts like the ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 12:30 PM - Nov 23/2009
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art . music . performance . sound . visual

scoreLight, playing contours

Alvaro Cassinelli, Daito Manabe, Yusaku Kuribara, scoreLight, score_light.jpg

Blind people have a different conventional way to "see." They use a walking stick to sense borders around them, and their task is made easier when they can use a special rubber guidance route on the street. This process is not too conceptually distant from pickup and vinyl mechanics, and it's also the ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 12:20 PM - Nov 18/2009
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art . book . media . performance . preservation . sound

Edward A. Shanken - Art and Electronic Media

Phaidon Press, ISBN-13: 978-0714847825, UK, 2009, English
The size of a book is often influencing the reader. The so called "coffee table" size is either meant to entertain the casual reader in a usually public reading space, or to enhance the publisher's effort on the chosen topic, giving it the physical status of a referential book. "Art and Electronic Media" is a coffee ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 09:24 PM - Nov 15/2009
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art . magazine . net . software

Sk8monkey, Twitter's wreckage by Jodi

Misusing technological tools and languages has been a trademark for Jodi.org (Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans) since the mid-nineties, when they emerged as the pioneers of a movement which later became internationally known as net.art. Starting by applying this creative strategy to browsers, ... [ Continue ]

Posted at 08:36 AM - Nov 11/2009
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