IASLonline NetArt: Theory
Participation with Camera:
From Video Cameras to Camera Phones
auf Deutsch
From Experimental
Film to Video
Since the fifties, artists revivify
the experimental film of the twenties and thirties. 1
They achieve new concepts for compositions and combinations via the analysis
of fundamentals: the celluloid as material for processing, the single
frame and the soundtrack. 2 The importance of the film
camera is reduced in relation to the film material celluloid and its treatment.
The filmmakers´ procedures are changing with
the appearance of the first purchaseable video cameras in 1965. Since
1968, the Sony Portapak ensemble with its leight weight videocorder portable
over the shoulder and the video camera constitutes a system for life recordings
which allows to play the recorded in real time at the place of its recording
and to observe it in the viewfinder. 3 The data carrier
celluloid allows to proceed on the table with editing equipment from one
frame to the next. With video, the material editing of celluloid is substituted
by the processor for the electronic signal, the editing equipment and
the tools for electronic image processing. The transformation of the electronic
signals by processors like mixer, sequencer, switcher and keyer removes
animation methods which were developed for single frame processing and
montage since the end of the 19th century.
In the sixties and seventies, Stephen
Beck, Tom
DeWitt, Ed
Emshwiller, Ken Knowlton, Nam
June Paik, Eric
Siegel, Stan VanDerBeek, Steina
und Woody Vasulka and others experimented with processors, synthesizers
as well as with analog and digital computers. 4 The camera
became again a substitutable source because synthesizers are able to generate
input signals: The camera was for electronic image processing only one
data source among others.
Since 1966, artists integrate acting observers in
installations with video cameras and projections on monitors. The camera
is a non substitutable element of these reactive installations: It is
the sensor, whose input can be manipulated by acting observers. They can
see the results in real time on the monitors. Since 1971, Nam June Paik
integrates in the closed circuit installation "Participation TV II"
the input of three cameras and demonstrates the possibilities of image
processing with a video synthesizer. The camera gains a new importance
as a subject in interrogations of the video´s function in surveillance
systems, too. 5
TV Programme
and Participation
The American television of the seventies was divided in television stations
using channels in the high frequency spectrum for antenna reception, and
the new cable television. In the seventies, the technical infrastructure
for cable transmission was constructed and expanded.
The limitation of available channels in the high frequency
spectrum served to avoid interferences. The limitation caused a distribution
battle between private television stations. The stations had to bring
in the extensive costs for channels via advertisements. Contrary to the
commercial broadcast in the high frequency spectrum, the cable TV was
able to offer an unlimited amount of channels. Alternative cable stations
offered possibilities to broadcast videos produced with low budgets meanwhile
the commercial broadcast rejected videos in the early seventies. 6
Since 1970, Douglas
Davis and Stan VanDerBeek realized "two-way communication"
7 in experimental broadcasts – as an answer to the
"one-way communication" of the mass media. Spectators sent contributions
during the broadcast of VanDerBeek´s and Davis´ projects.
High frequency stations transmitted these contributions without time delay.
VanDerBeek and Davis showed videos with intense alienations
via image processing and offered spectators opportunities to comment them.
In 1970, VanDerBeek experimented in Violence
Sonata with two channels of a station in Boston. The two stations
could be observed simultaneously with two televisions placed side by side.
One channel transmitted films about violence in the American everyday
life (WGBH, channel 2). The recordings were processed by cross-fades and
colour manipulations. The other channel (WGBH, channel 44) showed simultaneously
and live the discussion between invited studio guests about the films
which were presented to them in extracts. The studio guests and the spectators
of the broadcast discussed the question "Can man communicate?"
The spectators have been invited to answer via telephone. In two broadcasts
transmitted in 1971 and 1972, Davis integrated comments of spectators
via telephone connections. 8
The community TV was transmitted via cable and offered to spectators
occasions not merely to articulate social problems but rather to produce
films. Video access centers funded by the state and by private sponsors
offered in the seventies courses to train people in the use of video equipment.
Community TV gave participants opportunities to present the social conflicts
which the programmes of commercial broadcast ignored.
The integration of the participants into the process of production was
crucial in community TV and video activism. The filmer and the filmed
actresses and actors saw the result immediately after the take and decided
if a new take will be filmed. It was possible to react fast to actual
events because the video editing of a contribution needed short time compared
to film editing.
In net platforms video activism
becomes a form under many others in net platforms: Video remains relevant
as a documentation device in activistic sites like Indymedia 9,
but it becomes a part in the context of a multimedial mediation of subjects.
10 Video contributions by activists on one hand are
closed entities, on the other hand they are dependent from an internet
context with texts, photos and other videos.
The mailbox
net ARTEX served as the technical basis for early net projects. In 1980/81,
ARTEX was established as a part of the I.P. Sharp Associates (IPSA) Computer
Timesharing Network. 11 Roy Ascott´s «La
Plissure du Texte» was a "planetary fairy tale" written
in 1983 by authors in eleven towns which were connected via ARTEX. 12
The Parisian exhibition "ELEKTRA" presented the development
of «La Plissure du Texte» on projectors which were connected
to the authors´ terminals. Roles of fairy tales like the wizard,
the prince and the witch have been distributed among the authors in Amsterdam,
Bristol, Honolulu, Sydney, Toronto and other towns but the result can
be compared more with a «Cadavre
exquis» 13 than with a fairy tale.
This and other participatory
writing projects of the eighties 14 take electronic
text transmission directly in the form of collaborative projects: The
connection of remote computers caused an additive connection between text
contributions written by authors who live far away from each other. In
the sixties and seventies the contacts between authors and artists, who
live in different continents, become more frequent. In the eighties and
nineties, the distances bridging communications between authors are transformed
into the telecommunicative communications within a project. The communication
is constituted by contributions following one after the other: "Connectivity"
as technical precondition and form of the work. 15
After
the "communication systems" 16 limited to
textual data emerges a net art in the nineties which integrates browsers
and world wide web standards and partially thematizes them. Since 1993
browser (NCSA Mosaic) present pictures in textual pages without the necessity
of extra loading. The internet gets regulations and a coordinated technical
infrastructure 17 by standard functions expanded by
browsers 18, protocols 19 and World
Wide Web standards. 20
Since spring 1997, Amy Alexander offers in The
Multi-Cultural Recycler webcams integrated in other websites. Participants
can choose up to three webcams – or they let the system offer its
choice. Then they can start an image processing program whose functions
can´t be modified. If a participant dislikes the result then (s)he
can start anew the image transformation system. Results can be stored
in a gallery which conserves only the last six contributions.
In "The Multi-Cultural Recycler" Alexander
modifies net projects with databases for image contributions. She uses
webcams as sources of transformation processes instead of photos and interrogates
the sense of databases which can be filled in an arbitrary way and expand
without deletions of elder contributions. Projects like Bonnie Mitchell´s
"Chain Art Project" (1993) 21 contain chains
of modified pictures. The databases of this kind of projects contain sequences
with modifications of one image source. A limited number of participants
used self selected procedures for modifications.
In the early stages of net art spectators expected to be invited to activate
something. Evidently, Alexander tries to fulfill and to irritate these
expectations with her two step procedure from the penetration of image
sources to the transformations of the mix. The participant looses the
intitiative for image creation in the process from the webcam composite
to the image processing. (S)He receives only limited possibilities for
choices: (S)He remains the observer who chooses webcam addresses –
or (s)he renounces the choice and can´t do something else than to
click on the start button of the recycler how participative integrated
(s)he may ever feel her-/himself. Via functional and aesthetic indifference
"The Multi-Cultural Recycler" thwarts the software consumption
of Photoshop by hobby photographers who follow well established models
of creativity. Alexander´s strategic indifference challenges the
image information – the reference to the pictured subject –
as well as the aesthetic patterns of the picture editing.
Surveillance
of Surveillance
In 1981, Robert Adrian X installed a TV camera in
front of 24 monitors in the control room of the Viennese subway system
located under the Karlsplatz station. The control room contained monitors
which projected images of the surveillance cameras installed in the subway
stations. The TV camera is the central element of his project Surveillance.
The second channel of the Austrian national TV (Zweites Österreichisches
Fernsehen) broadcasted live images in intervals of the evening program.
The intervals lasted between 20 and 60 seconds. Robert Adrian X wanted
to broadcast the camera images without comments but the editors insisted
on the overlay of an informing title meanwhile the first ten seconds.
22 Adrian X presented the surveillance of subway passersby
with the means used to watch over them since 1979.
However, the camera surveillance is transfered via
broadcast in private habitation rooms: Now the television becomes a monitor
whose images present in real time the 'observations' of a camera located
elsewhere. The surveillance of public urban space from observation positions
in locations closed to the public is now receivable in the living room
at once privately and publicly because the reception is possible at arbitrary
Austrian places. The public can control in spot tests what seems to happen
– as asserted – in its interest meanwhile it is realized behind
its back. The television spectator isolated in private rooms can project
her-/himself into the role of the controller and report to the police
what he observes as well as commit her-/himself to actions against the
new surveillance. 23
In CCTV
– world wide watch 24 Heath Bunting presents
since 1997 on a website
four selected webcams as instruments of surveillance: If participants
write observations in a field and send them – pretended as fax –
to police stations nearby to the camera locations then the notes end up
in a database of his project. The database has four webpages – one
for each camera – which list the notes in chronological order. The
archived comments demonstrate if the participants recognized the project´s
kind of dealing with elements of the "control society" 25
as masquerade.
In "The Multi-Cultural Recycler" Alexander clips – contrary
to Bunting – the reference to reality already in the overlay of camera
images and underlines their character as manipulable data. The difference
between video activism and video art constituted on the one hand activistic
camera related strategies and on the other hand procedures which relativize
the use of the camera via artistic kinds of image processing. The difference
returns in the use of webcams in net projects. However, the net projects
don´t present anymore two strategies of an alternative use of video
cameras but they make the found use of media a subject of discussion by
integrating it in different manners. Robert Adrian X anticipates this
strategic turn to the use of found ways to handle cameras: He anticipates
a strategic 'surveillance of surveillance' presented below because he
uses the camera – contrary to Alexander and Bunting – not directly
as a given image source but surveys the surveillance with an extra installed
camera.
The video camera is problematized in two projects of 2002 and 2003 as
a surveillance instrument which infiltrates the urban space and disturbs
the public respect of each passerby´s private sphere. The observation
fields of private cameras include in part public regions in the same way
as the video surveillance of the police whose legitimization and effectivity
is criticized.
The Institute for Applied Autonomy
(IAA) and Hactivist.com enable since 1992 in a counter surveillance project
passersby and demonstrators with PDA 26 and GPS-receiver
to evade as many surveillance cameras 27 as possible.
The project combines Maptivist
2.0 supplying wireless internet access as well as GPS localization
with the programm iSee.
The last one contains maps (of Manhattan, Amsterdam and Ljubljana) with
marked places of surveillance cameras and offers the fewest monitored
route for a destination. Furthermore informations about barriers, which
the police erects or has erected, can be sent to the participants´
PDAs.
The making of city maps for "iSee" with marked places of surveillance
cameras requires autopsy: The project offers a strategy to use the logging
of surveillance cameras worked out by activists. The activists of IAA
comprehend "iSee" not only as an instrument but as a means to
provoke public interest for the practiced surveillance.
Michelle Teran distributed wireless video scanners
and recording devices to participants in actions since January 2003 (Life:
A User´s Manual). 28 The video scanners have
been applied to the detection of wireless private connections between
surveillance cameras and monitors (CCTV). Participants walked with the
video scanners in urban areas and found recordings of surveillance cameras:
The infringements of the private sphere are part of the environment in
shopping areas and their public surroundings. The recordings have been
presented to the passersby at the places of their finding: before the
shops. Furthermore, a website documents the recorded videos and localizes
the places of finding via plotting on maps.
In tours (for example in Brussels, Argos
Walk, 10/23/2003), Teran presented the live video feeds on monitors
which she moved in a shopping cart to the fronts of shops.
The projects "iSee and Maptivist 2.0: Surveillance"
as well as Teran´s "Life: A User´s Manual" deal with
the actual use of surveillance cameras. The Institute for Applied Autonomy
and Hactivist.com present ways to register and circumvent the surveillance
cameras meanwhile Teran realizes a procedure to unveil the hidden surveillance
with the instruments of surveillance. The surveillance is often practiced
without respect to legal restrictions. The practiced surveillance present
the four projects discussed above with the tools of surveillance to provoke
public discussions. 29 Activism returns in the projects
of Teran and the Institute for Applied Autonomy in cooperation with Hactivist.com
from webcam images for internet access to the places of the surveillance
cameras´ live video feeds.
The surveillance practice of the observed citizens
withdraws the controllers their self exclusion from the public space.
The 'surveillance of surveillance' raises the claim to control the controllers
and demands to stop their "silent theft" 30
of the private sphere.
Interactive
Urban Experience
In some actual projects offering procedures for urban experiences the technical networks and systems
– GPS, mobile telephony and WiFi – with local and global outreach
are integrated into internet-based systems. In other projects mobile telephony is utilized
as a central medium; characterized by GPS localization and data
transfers via the internet. 31
In part, the possibilities to use computers, PDA, mobile and camera phones,
cameras as well as GPS receivers are not explained in detail in the instructions. Mobile phone, camera and GPS receiver can be combined in one gadget but
this is not necessary. Participants need knowledge of the technical possibilities
if they want to realize the annotational option discussed above. Participants with GPS receivers can note their location
at the place of the camera shooting or
they can identify the place afterwards using one of several available technical procedures. Furthermore,
there are several ways to integrate visual and verbal contributions into
databases during an urban walk or afterwards because mobile
telephony and internet offer access after the fact.
Counts Media´s Yellow
Arrow 32 offers participants yellow arrowsas placemarkers for attachments
at places of their choice. A participant can order arrows, each with a custom printed
code. (S)He mounts the arrows to
selected objects and surfaces and sends an SMS with the arrow code and
her/his comment to "Yellow Arrow". This number varies from country to country. The public is able to access the
comments using this arrow code. The website of the project presents photos of
the arrows and the comments beside a route map from MapQuest with marked
places. All arrows in a "Featured Place" are marked on images
of "Google Maps" (as far as they are available) which appear
at the top of the web pages. The documentation of selected arrows appears
below. On the website, it is possible to store and recall
not only photos but also film and audio documents. Participants can write
comments on the published photos and can add their remarks: They can send their remarks to the project database
via mobile devices or via computers with internet accesses.
The authors of the text-photo-combinations can delete the comments of
other participants.
Via the arrows (resp. arrow codes) in situ and their localization on
maps "Yellow Arrow" circumvents locative media like GPS or other
locative procedures like cell ID mobile location tracking. Further projects presented below use locative media
and function without "marks" in physical space.
In actual web presentations the photographic and
textual contributions are localized via geotags on Google Maps. The website
of "Yellow Arrow" integrates the localization subsequently via
"geotagging": Google Maps and
its "Maps API geocoder" (starting with the JavaScript of the
application for Google Maps (API)) offer the possibility to implement location dates – street
names with house numbers – as tags on maps. 33
Maps presented itineraries and signposts of travelers as a "'log'
of their journey" before world maps have been developed in the 16th
century. The globe is divided in world maps following geodetic criteria
and each place can be indexed by degrees of longitude and latitude. The
disparately presented "elements" of "route diaries"
are integrated into the "totalizing stage" of world maps. The
development of cartography leads to "a plane projection totalizing
observations". That´s a summary of Michel de Certeau´s
reflections about the historical relation between tours and maps. 34
Satellite pictures and aerial photographs are arrayed in grids within
"Google Maps". These images chart the world again in the photographic
medium. Hybrid maps provide names of towns, villages
and streets over the images from a bird´s eye perspective.
The tour tracks of GPS drawings are the counter part of the "totalizing
stage". Jeremy Wood´s and Hugh Pryor´s platform GPS
Drawing offers participants
to store files with movement drawings. The tour data are recorded by participants
in the data storage of the GPS receiver. In December 2004, Tom Carden
and Steve Coast installed the platform Open
Street Map (OSM). The GPS traces of the tours of many participants
are joined together in route maps. The routes´ traces constitute
the elements of a world map which are laid over Google Maps looking unsharp
like blurred images in low level flight. Thicker representations of streets
are caused by the overlay of routes tracked and stored several times (state
of September 2006).
This project was caused by an European problem:
The use of digital maps of European countries is restricted by copyright and use restrictions while digital maps and aerial views of the American government
are (more) freely available because the "Freedom of Information Act"
bans restrictions. "OSM" maps are free available. 35
Technical tasks whose solution still pose difficulties
are representations of tours on maps which are receivable
with mobile phones on site. In spring 2002, the project Street
Stories was executed by Warren Sack and students in San
Francisco. In Version 2.0, it is planned to offer the chance to create GPS drawings
on aerial photographs in mobile phones equipped with GPS functionality (or
with directional keys via web interface) and to annotate these drawings with audible "geonotes". 36 The
stored tours will be receivable on mobile phones together with the audible
"geonotes".
Actual projects integrate places and tours in mapping
systems via GPS localization or alternative locative media. 37
The tours´ places are annotated and can be annotated. The annotations
are constituted by the participants´ contributions with photographs
or films and texts or audio files. The contributions are sent in via internet
or mobile telephony.
In 2006, Just van den Broecke worked out a vivid tour representation
for Sense of the City. Maps
and images of Eindhoven in aerial perspective indicate daily tours of
ten participants acting as city residents who exemplify different professions.
Tour stations are annotated by the participants with comments and photographs.
Van den Broecke used the software GeoTracing
for this project now closed for further contributions. He developed "GeoTracing"
using the multimedia platform KeyWorx
. "KeyWorks" has been worked out by members of the Waag
Society in Amsterdam.
A server with "GeoTracing"
software installed is utilized in projects like GeoBiking,
GeoSailing and GeoSkating
38: Participants can store their paths and annotated
waypoints – photographs and short texts – in these websites.
Photographs and annotations can be created on a tour via a mobile phone
(Bluetooth), a GPS receiver and the MobiTracer-Application.
A WebEditor for the subsequent processing of personal tracks is available.
The editor simplifies the combination of GPS data with texts and digital
photographs (or videos). The archived paths can be viewed on maps and
photographs from satellites and airplanes.
In November 2005, N8spel
of the Waag Society 39 offered to participants with
GPS receivers and camera phones the opportunity to compete with each other
in the construction of an eight drawn by GPS tracked movement. The "GeoTracing" server
was used for "N8 spel" without modifications. A jury judged
the results soon after the end of the game. The members of the jury chose
the best eight made by GPS localizations and evaluated the films and photographs
which have been sent in during the course of the walks to the game´s headquarters
in De Waag (former
town gate Sint Antoniespoort, 1488, Nieuwmarkt, Amsterdam). The files were collected with
camera phones and were transmitted with localization data via e-mail
to the website of the game.
Urban
Spaces and Data Spaces
Contemporary communication systems
as imbued with GeoTagging
or GeoTracing (both since 2005) show a more "complex network of differentiations"
40 than could be anticipated by older uses of cameras f.e. in the video activism of the
seventies and in the net communication with and on webcams in the middle
nineties. The individual contribution and the participant´s local
camera position are displayed on maps which consist of sequences of images
made in flying camera positions. These images from satellites and airplanes
'fill' the "geometric space" of the world map with updatable
images of an ephemeral 'world situation'.
The relation between "anthropological"
and "geometric space" 41 becomes precarious
in supraregional organized net projects with annotated locations based on Google Maps: Aspects of the lived and livable regional limited
"anthropological space" are communicable in images and texts
between participants but the communication happens within the supraregional
frame of the world map making it necessary to segregate regional
"projects" or "galleries" and other frames in frames:
localization in the "totalizing stage" world.
In Yellow
Chair Stories, Anab Jain uses neither camera nor maps. Developed in London in June 2005 42, the project
serves in the following argumentation as a complement to net projects
with maps and localized contributions.
Jain places a yellow chair in the front of her entrance
(43, Sinclair Road). A plate with the following inscription is mounted
behind the chair: "My WiFi network is open for neighbours and passersby.
Free access from this chair!" The inscription invites passersby with
their laptop (with WiFi card) to use her computer and its wireless
open access not only as an access to the internet but to read or to listen
to her Today´s
Offer in the "shared folder" as well as to store comments. Jain states: "Both the sign and the chair defined a 'real world blog
space' – a territory for conversation between neighbours." 43
Within the range of Jain´s wireless open access,
participants are able to read the comments stored on her computer. This
computer is the basis for a local network between neighbours which is
not supraregional accessable like newsgroups mailing list or blogs. Jain
connects the marked 'site' in urban space with two data spaces –
one data space offers her computer to the neighbourhood´s network
and the other data space is constituted by the internet. 44
Jain´s regionalisation via neighbourhood network operates at a different scale altogether than projects focused on maps, cameras and communication networks. The presentations of urban experiences
reported by participants take place on different kinds of supraregional
map systems. The projects combine these systems in different manners with
organizations of the databases following different criteria
in the storing of content.
Carbon Defense League´s MapHub
45 offers possibilities for groups to install "hubs"
in the database. The tags of a "hub" appear with a distinct
signet on the map of Pittsburgh: The urban map is developped as a datascape
which sorts out references to various characteristics of the urban
space. In one implementation the project was installed only for Pittsburgh,
on the other the system is availabe as Open Source (Creative
Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0) and it can be reused in projects
for other cities.
Projects for interactive urban experience are based on communication systems
whose proliferation depends on the efforts of some of their organizers
to attract participants. Municipalities adopt projects that pass the test of
social practice in another city where they achieved a "critical mass" of users. In 2004, "Yellow Arrow" was started as a website
for New York. After the installation of a further website for Boston
in 2004 and several nation specific sites for Germany, Great Britain and
Denmark in 2005, all these sites were integrated into one comprehensive
platform (version 2.0, November 2005) now documenting arrows from 38 countries.
"Yellow Arrow" rose from a local to a supraregional organized
project which offers visitors to opt between "galleries" which
are sorted out following the classification criteria of countries, towns,
projects and participants.
A contribution´s visual and textual documentation can gain distinctness
in relation to the context of data built
by other contributions. The archive with all contributions constitutes
a data pool which supports and relativizes simultaneously all content.
Against the backdrop of "geometric space", the data pool
of a project appears as the collective horizon of experience which is
worked out cooperatively and which changes its character with its local
priorities and the addition of new contributions.
The relative arbitrary role of one´s own contribution in 'infinite'
open projects like "Yellow Arrow" including many cities
and on the other hand its importance in closed projects like "Sense
of the City" (see above), mark two poles on a scale of possibilities
for mapping with locative media. The "Yellow Arrow"
website counteracts the arbitrariness of discrete contributions with frames within
frames because it is possible to build "projects" within the
section "featured places" and the state of a project´s
development remains surveyable.
The Assoziatons-Blaster
by Dragan Espenschied and Alvar C. Freude was the most popular collaborative
writing project of the nineties. It combines link and filter as central
functions. Since 1999, a community of contributors have developed content for the project. 46
The information architecture for
"Assoziations-Blaster" was a decentralized horizontal model. Around 2005, this horizontal model was redeveloped as a vertical stratification of data in systems like Yuan.CC. Maps which combines
distributed databases like Google
Maps and Flickr.com. 47
The data organization is based on distributed nodes and allows users to choose
local contexts. The technical organization of media cotent (texts, photos, films autio, maps, localization
procedures) and the structure of the informational levels of the database for contributions
constitute the 'nodal points' within a project.
The Art
of Activities: Only Local?
William T.
Cavanaugh combined Michel Foucault´s investigations of the "dispositifs"
produced by "disciplinary societies" 48 and
Gilles Deleuze´s short sketch of their transformation into "societies
of control" 49 with Michel de Certeau´s criteria
of "space" to a criticism of the globalization: Universal and
universalized "geometric spaces" abstracting from local particularities
as well as from individual experiences are featured as characteristics
of globalization. 50 Globalization is described
as being prepared by the "disciplinary" and "surveillance societies"
and perpetuated by the subordination of the "anthropological spaces"
under the "geometric space" in the "control society".
The following criteria of the projects mentioned above are indications of the "geometric space´s"
dominance in "surveillance" and "control societies":
- the geodetic zoning of world maps for the localization of all the
places which are on the earth,
- the camera´s observation positions in the aerial perspective
of satellites and airplanes,
- the grid of Google Maps for cartographic image sources, and
- the civilian use of available GPS signals allowed since 2000 by the
U.S. Department of Defense.
Acting in the "anthropological space" as an ideal vision of
an environment without or liberated from globalization is a counter concept
to the spatial practices of "surveillance" or "control societies"
and their characteristics as we can find them in cartography and locative
media.
Brian Holmes follows this line of argumentation in
"Drifting through the Grid" and characterizes the "geometric
space" of world maps organized by geodetic criteria and the technical
structure of GPS as a part of the "hyper-rationalist grid of Imperial
infrastructure" against which he offsets the "psychogeography"
of the Situationists. To Holmes, "mapping" with locative media is at best like "an
inscription of the individual, a geodetic tracery of individual difference"
able to constitute nothing more than "a fragile gesture, fraught with
ambiguity." 51
Chris Byrne, Ben Russell, Alison
Sant, Marc Tuters, Kazys Varnelis und Tobias C. van Veen are some of the
authors who offer occasions to Holmes´ criticism. 52.
These authors try to transmit semantic fields of the Situationist term
"psychogeography" to the characteristics of projects using locative
media for "collaborative mapping". Holmes criticizes the evident
deviations of these projects from the situationistic «dérive»
as consequences of globalization. 53
For members of the Lettrist International (1952-57)
and Situationism (1957-72) the term "psychogeography" signified
the logging of urban experiences provoked by pointedly pointless vagrancy.
If one tries to actualize the term in a manner relevant for projects using
"collaborative mapping" with locative media then a redefinition
with the assistance of "Environmental Psychology" will be a
crucial step: The subject of these projects are observing attitudes in
the urban everyday life, not their situationistic dissolution. What Situationism
wanted to unmask as the one-dimensional practice of everyday life proves itself
polymorphic: the schemes of self orientation in a socially precoded urban
environment. 54
Another approach investigates the aspects of "societies of control"
before he evaluates it. But this investigation was the result of a false
start:
In "The
Limits of Networking", Alexander R. Galloway and Eugene Thacker interpret
the protocols of the internet which regulate the technical preconditions
of the data transfer between computers as parts of a "techno-culture"
constituting "a totalizing control apparatus". The concept of
a closed system, that should be attacked by a "counterprotocol practice"
55, is yielded in Galloway´s book "Protocol"
to a multi-layered study. In Galloway´s revised approach, protocols
constitute possibilities for the control of the internet 56
and they are reported as a feature of the "societies of control"
but this doesn´t explain if and how power is wielded with technically
expanded means for control. 57
The projects for locative media described above use
technologies of the "societies of control". Platforms
for "collaborative mapping" with locative media allow users to articulate
ways of observing urbanity which have not been taken into consideration
by decision makers in urban planning, architecture or finance. The attention of city dwellers is
directed not only to the traces of regulatory procedures and to new buildings
but to conglomerates with remnants of different construction and use phases.
These conglomerates are threatened by the activities mentioned above even
though they continue to be memorized as parts of "mental images" 58
and as important elements of a social structure.
Urban environments rely on a balance between their
social, economic and ecological conditioned infrastructures. The maintenance
of this balance obliges to regulation. Participants demand the permanent
renewal of this balance with their articulations of urban experiences
and urban imaginations in projects which offer platforms with databases
for these contributions. The projects claim this counterbalance not only
in a direct manner via the contributors´ criticism describing the
endangerment of urban infrastructure but indirectly with references to
the role of urban diversity. Contributions about (memories upon) the traffic,
the shops, the inhabitants and the passersby provide informations on the
cultures and social strata which determined and determine an urban quarter.
A simplistic criticism of globalization arguing with adverse comments
on "geometric spaces" renounces these possibilities of articulation
as they are offered by projects for "collaborative mapping"
with locative media. 59
The projects should be able not only to archive changes in urban environments
but to contribute to the changes of the change together with the projects
about 'surveillance of surveillance': Will the future of urban environments
be to become a local mirror of global operating investors and will its
character as public space be undermined by safeguarding strategies using
video surveillance in the sake of private properties, or will it be possible
to revitalize permanently its character as public urban space?
"Cognitive"
and "Collaborative Mapping"
Brian Holmes´ predilection for "cognitive
mapping" 60 of ways of thinking and power structures
as well as his reservations towards "collaborative mapping" with locative
media, especially with GPS, provoke the following consideration:
The term "cognitive mapping" includes operations of observing
structuring correlations as well as the results of these operations presented
as diagrams (f.e. concept
maps). The reader will concede to these diagrams the double function
as a reconstruction of structures and as an influence on her/his imaginations
of these structures. Diagrams 'structure': They visualize correlations
based on past experiences and influence imaginations and schedulings with
decisions about future possibilities.
Possibilities for the presentation of texts, photos and films on maps
are used in "collaborative mapping" with locative media to come
up with data configurations which are able to affirm, modify or transgress
the 'map readers'´ imaginations of the life in a city as well as
the city life. Ways of observing emerging from projections of contributions
on maps can afford causes for "cognitive mapping": Trials to
represent the social city life in its 'real' existence assert claims concerning
the reproduction of reality in its totality which have to be resigned.
Readers/viewers can´t find precise distinctions between the time
based levels of past, present and future (as it was, is, and will be),
neither in specific comments nor in selected images, nor in configurations
of the contributions in the database – memory protocol and vision penetrate
each other in the imagination of users. Digital information systems
for the use of world maps as well as views of the whole earth from satellites
and airplanes constitute playing fields for configuration which provoke
individual reading manners.
The "anthropological space" can be extrapolated with the help
of the "geometric space" – the global organization of space opens
up possibilities for a multi-layered local self orientation. "Collaborative mapping"
with locative media offers an opportunity to use the different layers
of cognitive space organization as the substructure for the articulation
of interactive urban experience. One level for the construction of relations
between the global and the local is offered by the localization on world
maps and a further level is constituted by the contributions located on these maps. In a direct
or an indirect manner, they express the experiences of the global in local
relations via images and texts.
Meanwhile Holmes apprehends deviant
behaviours of passersby as «détournement» of the structures
of town planning and city life 61, Fredric Jameson´s position can be critiqued as a consequence of the organization of "geometric
space" and can be proven in attempting «détournement».
There is no escape from the reconstruction of the interplay of supraregional
organized systems for the facilitation of the practice of everyday life
with such systems complicating and hampering this practice as well as
from the analysis of the interplay´s reasons: criticism of globalization
without vanishing point. 62
If –
with Fredric Jameson – "the project of cognitive mapping obviously
stands or falls with the conception of some (unrepresentable, imaginary)
global social totality that was to have been mapped" 63,
then mediations between global and local processes are constituents
of a "history in work" 64 trying to
recognize and criticize the global in the local. 65
Dr. Thomas Dreher
Schwanthalerstr. 158
D-80339 München.
Homepage with
numerous art historical texts, among others on Conceptual Art and Intermedia
Art.
Copyright © by the author, September 2006 / English translation
February/November 2007 (as defined in Creative
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Annotations:
1 The artist are "filmmakers" working with
the material film.
The history of experimantal films in the twenties and thirties: Drummond,
Philip u.a.: Film as Film. Formal Experiment in Film 1910-1975. Cat. exhib.
Hayward Gallery. London 1979, p.17-89; Hein, Birgit: Film im Underground.
Von seinen Anfängen bis zum Unabhängigen Kino. Frankfurt am
Main a.o. 1971, p.24-55; Russett, Robert/Starr, Cecile: Experimental Animation.
Origins of a New Art. New York 1976/2nd edition 1988, p.33-71.
On Lettristic films since 1950: Debord, Guy: Gegen den Film. Filmskripte.
Hamburg 1978 (French original: Contre le cinema. Aarhus 1964), p.17ss.;
Drummond, Philip a.o.: Film as Film, s.a., p.142s.; Ohrt, Roberto: Phantom
Avantgarde. Eine Geschichte der Situationistischen Internationale und
der modernen Kunst. Hamburg 1990, p.26-42.
Illustrations of the mentioned works: see the illustration line (ppt
with 6 MB or pdf with
5 MB). back
2 The experimental films realized in Vienna in 1957 by
Marc Adrian, Kurt Kren and Peter Kubelka and in 1958 in New York by Bruce
Conner and Raphael Montañez Ortiz are centred on the film material –
the single frame – and the possibilities of processing via montage.
The Viennese authors constructed abstract films and the filmmakers in
New York made cuts in found footage.
Vienna, 1957: Adrian, Marc/Kren, Kurt: Black Movie, 1957; Kren, Kurt:
Versuch
mit synthetischem Ton, 1957; Kubelka, Peter: Adebar,
1957. All in: Horweth, Alexander/Ponger, Lisl/Schlemmer, Gottfried (ed.):
Avantgardefilm Österreich. 1950 bis heute. Vienna 1995, p.40-44,116s.,143s.;
Scheugl, Hans: Erweitertes Kino. Die Wiener Filme der 60er Jahre. Vienna
2002, p.25s.,32,194.
New York, 1958: Conner, Bruce: A Movie, 1958. In: Haskell, Barbara/Hanhardt,
John G.: Blam! The Explosion of Pop, Minimalism and Performance 1958-1964.
Cat. exhib. Whitney Museum of American Art. New York 1984, p.122s.; Hein,
Birgit: Film im Untergrund. Von seinen Anfängen bis zum Unabhängigen
Kino. Frankfurt am Main u.a. 1971, p.78; Sitney, P. Adams: Visionary Film.
The American Avant-Garde. Oxford 1974, p.348s. Ortiz, Raphael Montañez:
Cowboys
and Indians, 1958. In: Dreher, Thomas: Destruktionskunst für
und in selbstinstituierender Gesellschaft. In: neue bildende kunst. Nr.1/Februar-März
1998, p.57s. New in: URL: http://dreher.netzliteratur.net/
2_Performance_Ortiz_Text.html (7/27/2006). zurück
3 Sony CV-2400 Porta Pak, since 1968. In: Without author:
Sony CV-2400 Porta Pak. In: Video History Project: Resources – Tools
– Texts. Experimental Television Center Ltd., Binghamton University,
Newark Valley. URL: http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org/
history/ tools/ ttool.php3?id=54&page=1 (7/27/2006); Miller Hocking,
Sherry: Two Texts Concerning Portable Video (1992). In: Video History
Project, s.a. URL: http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org/
history/ tools/ ttext.php3?id=1 7&page= 1#Chronology%20of%20the %20Portable%20Videotape
(9/11/2006).
Les Levine (Bum) and Nam June Paik (The Pope´s Visit in New York,
presented at Café a Go Go, New York, 10/4/1965) began in 1965 in
America to use video (Hall, Doug/Fifer, Sally Jo (ed.): Illuminating Video.
An Essential Guide to Video Art. New York 1990, p.51; Herzogenrath, Wulf/Decker,
Edith (ed.): Video-Skulptur. Retrospektiv und aktuell 1963-1989. Cologne
1989, p.195,239; Spielmann, Yvonne: Video. Das reflexive Medium. Frankfurt
am Main 2005, p.126-132 with further facts to the first artistic use of
video). In "The Premature Birth of Video Art" Tom Sherman refutes
Paik´s statement to have used a Porta Pak in 1965 (In: iDC Digest.
Vol.27/issue 17, 1/8/2007. URL: http://mailman.thing.net/
pipermail/ idc/ 2007-January/ 000949.html (1/21/2007))). back
4 Miller Hocking, Sherry: Principles of Electronic Image
Processing – Image Processing Systems (1978-1980). In: Video History
Project: Resources – Tools – Texts. Experimental Television
Center Ltd., Bingham University, Newark Valley. URL: http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org/
history/ tools/ ttext.php3?id=12&page=1 (9/6/2006); Russett, Robert/Starr,
Cecile: Experimental Animation, s. ann.1, p.178-210; Spielmann, Yvonne:
Video, s. ann.3, p.78-96,151-191; Vasulka, Steina und Woody: Eigenwelt
der Apparatewelt. Pioneers of Electronic Art. Cat. exhib. Oberösterreichisches
Landesmuseum Francisco Carolinum. Linz 1992. New in: URL: http://vasulka.org/
Kitchen/ PDF_Eigenwelt/ Eigenwelt.htm (8/3/2006). back
5 Early closed circuit installations: Levine, Les: Slipcover,
1966. In: Herzogenrath, Wulf/Decker, Edith (ed.): Video-Skulptur, s. ann.3,
p.195s.; Kacunko, Slavo: Closed Circuit Videoinstallationen. Berlin 2004,
p.160-163.
Paik, Nam June: Participation TV II, Howard Wise Gallery, New York 1969
(new installation with video synthesizer: Galleria Bonino, New York 1971).
In: Decker, Edith: Paik Video. Köln 1988, p.65s.; Herzogenrath, Wulf:
Nam June Paik. Fluxus, Video. München 1983, p.56s.; Kacunko, Slavo:
Closed Circuit Videoinstallationen, s.a., p.187s.
Video in surveillance functions as a theme of closed circuit installations
and performances with video closed-circuits: Nauman, Bruce: Live/Taped
Video Corridor, 1969. In: Dreher, Thomas: Performance Art nach 1945. Aktionstheater
und Intermedia. Munich 2001, p.343, ann.567; Herzogenrath, Wulf/Decker,
Edith (ed.): Video-Skulptur, s. ann.3, p.43,164s. (colored ill.24),216,218;
Acconci, Vito: Claim, 1971. In: Dreher, Thomas: Performance Art nach 1945,
s.a., p.351s. with ann.572 and ill.40; Hall, Doug/Fifer, Sally Jo (ed.):
Illuminating Video, s. ann.3, p.136s. back
6 On the necessity and the future of the cable TV as
community TV: Sutton, Percy E.: Community Control of Television. In: Radical
Software. Vol.1/nr.4, summer 1971, p.24. URL: http://www.radicalsoftware.org/
volume1nr4/pdf/ VOLUME1NR4_0026.pdf (12/29/2003).
On video collectives, cable and community TV: Hill, Christine: Attention!
Attention! Audience! Performing Video in its First Decade, 1968-1980,
chap. 1 b. In: Horsfield, Kate/Hill, Christine/Troy, Maria: Surveying
the First Decade. Video Art and Alternative Media in the United States.
URL: http://www.vdb.org/
resources/ chrishill.html (8/30/2006). Commercial broadcast accepted
video not before it stood the test in cable TV. In the middle of the seventies
video replaced film completely and the stations dissolved their news archives
with films (Hall, Doug/Fifer, Sally Jo (Hg.): Illuminating Video, s. ann.3,
p.58s.; Murphy, William Thomas: Television and Video Preservation. A Report
on the Current State of American Television and Video Preservation. Vol.1.
Report of the Librarian of Congress. Washington D.C. October 1997. Chap.
Preface (by James H. Billington): [subtitle] Major Findings. In: URL:
http://www.loc.gov/ film/
tvstudy.html (1/28/2007)). back
7 Paik, Nam June: Untitled. In: Beeren, Wim (ed.): Sonsbeek
`71. Sonsbeek buiten de perken, Deel 1. Sonsbeek 1971, p.84: "Communication
means two-way communication. One-way communication is simply a notification…like
a draft call. TV has been a typical case of this non communication and
mass audience had only one kind of freedom, that is, to turn on or off
the TV." back
8 Davis, Douglas: Electronic Hokkadim, WTOP-TV, Washington
D.C., 6/12/1971; Davis, Douglas: Talk Out: A Telethon, WCNY-TV, Syracuse/New
York, 12/1/1972. Both in: Dreher, Thomas: From "Radical Software"
to Netactivism (2004). Chap. Video and TV, ann.19. In: IASLonline Lektionen
in NetArt. URL: http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/
links/ NARSe.html#19 (1/28/2007. With bibliographical notes).
VanDerBeek, Stan: Violence Sonata, WGBH, Boston/Mass. 1970 (video documents,
60 min. and 12 min.): Davis, Douglas: Art and the Future. New York 1973,
p.91; WGBH New Television Workshop Collection: Violence Sonata. In: URL:
http://main.wgbh.org/
wgbh/ NTW/ FA/ TITLES/ Violence201.HTML (8/21/2006). back
9 Z. B. Indymedia Washington D.C. In: URL: http://dc.indymedia.org/
(7/19/2006); Indymedia Deutschland. In: URL: http://germany.indymedia.org/
video/ (7/29/2006). Compare the website of Freespeech TV. In: URL:
http://www.freespeech.org/
fscm2/ genx.php? name=home (8/12/2006). back
10 Harding, Thomas: The Video Activist Handbook. London,
Second Edition 2001, p.207-216. back
11 Adrian X, Robert: Kunst und Telekommunikation. 1979-1986:
Die Pionierzeit. In: Springer. Bd.1/Heft 1. April 1995, p.10s. (In English
in: URL: http://telematic.walkerart.org/
overview/ overview_adrian.html (28.1.2007); Breitwieser, Sabine (ed.):
Re-Play. Anfänge internationaler Medienkunst in Österreich.
Generali Foundation. Vienna/Cologne 2000, p.49s.,300ss.,304; unnamed author:
ARTEX: Artist´s Electronic Exchange Network, 1981-1991. In: Mediafiles.at.
URL: http://www.mediafiles.at/
php/ content.php?kat=1&ID=15 (7/28/2006). The Mailbox program ARTBOX
was developed for ARTEX by Gottfried Bach, the director of the Viennese
IPSA-branch. ARTEX was a "user-group" in the IPSA net. Since
1983, the further developed program was called ARTEX (The Artist´s
Electronic Exchange Program). Bach´s program and the "user-group"
utilizing it got the same name. back
12 Ascott, Roy: La Plissure du Texte, ARTEX, 12/11-23/1983.
Documentation: URL: http://alien.mur.at/
rax/ ARTEX/ PLISSURE/ plissure.html (7/28/2006). Text: URL: http://www.normill.ca/
Text/ plissure.txt (7/28/2006); http://telematic.walkerart.org/
timeline/ timeline_ascott.html (8/26/2006). In: Adrian X, Robert:
Kunst und Telekommunikation, s. ann.11, p.11; Ascott, Roy: Distance Makes
the Art Grow Further:...La Plissure du Texte. In: Chandler, Annemarie/Neumark,
Norie (ed.): At a Distance. Precursors to Art and Activism on the Internet.
Cambridge/Massachusetts 2005, p.282-296; ib.: Gesamtdatenwerk. In: Kunstforum.
Vol.103, September-October 1989, p.104,106; Grundmann, Heidi (ed.): Art
+ Telecommunication. Vancouver 1984, p.35s.,59-67; Popper, Frank (ed.):
ELEKTRA. Cat. exhib. Musée d´Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
Paris 1983, p.398. back
13 «Cadavre exquis»: Surrealistic procedure
for the collaborative production of texts and images. Meanwhile the Surrealists
presented the next author only the ends of their contributions, the authors
of collaborative net projects for the creation of images usually know
the preceding contributions and expand a multipart image by adding a new
visual part (f.e. SITOs "Corpse", 1993. In: URL: http://www.sito.org/
synergy/ corpse/ (9/6/2003)). In Gil Mina Mora´s "Exquisite
Corpse" for ACEN (undated, s. ann.14) authors saw only the last line
of the last textual contribution (Couey, Anna: Art Works as Organic Communication
Systems, s. ann.14, p.128s.; Loeffler, Carl: Telecomputing und digitale
Kultur, s. ann.14, p.132). back
14 Projects of ACEN (Art Com Electronic Network) have
been realized since 1986 on WELL (Whole Earth `Lectronic Link) and
USENET (Couey, Anna: Art Works as Organic Communication Systems. In: Leonardo.
Vol.24/no.2. Cambridge/Massachusetts 1991, p.127-130. New in: URL: http://www.well.com/
~couey/ artcom/ leonardo91.html (7/28/2006); ib.: The Art of Communication
Systems. In: MATRIX News. Vol.1/nr.4, July 1991. New in: URL: http://gopher.well.sf.ca.us:70/
0/ Communications/ couey.104 (7/28/2006); http://art.eserver.org/
art-of-comm-systems.txt (6/28/2006); Loeffler, Carl: Telecomputing
und digitale Kultur. In: Kunstforum. Vol.103, September-October 1989,
p.128-133). back
15 Compare Ascott, Roy/Loeffler, Carl Eugene (ed.):
Connectivity: Art and Interactive Telecommunications (Special Issue).
In: Leonardo. Vol. 24/no. 2. Cambridge/Massachusetts 1991.
From "Mail Art" and "Correspondence Art" to telecommunicative projects:
Möller, Klaus: Kunst im Internet – Netzkunst, Untersuchungen zur
ästhetischen Bildung. Diplomarbeit. Fakultät für Erziehungswissenschaften.
Universität Bielefeld 1999, chap. 2.2.3.2 Mail Art. In: URL: http://screenshock.com/
theory/ kmdipl/ netzk2.htm (4/16/2001). back
16 Couey, Anna: Art Works as Organic Communication Systems,
s. ann.14; ib.: The Art of Communication Systems, s. ann.14. back
17 Galloway, Alexander R.: Protocol. How Control Exists
after Decentralization. Cambridge/Massachusetts 2004, p.25: "I argue
that Internet is distributed not decentralized and that it is in fact
controlled despite having few if any central points of control."
back
18 NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications,
University of Illinois) Mosaic for Unix, Macintosh and Windows, 1993 (Download:
URL: http://browsers.evolt.org/
?mosaic-ncsa/ (8/6/2006). About the history of "Mosaic": Berners-Lee,
Tim: Der Web-Report. Munich 1999 (English original: Weaving the Web. San
Francisco 1999), p.107-113). The Mosaic browser had precursors but it
was decisive for the internet´s popularity in 1994. back
19 On IP, TCP/IP, DNS und HTTP: Becker, Konrad a.o.:
Die Politik der Infosphäre. World-Information.Org. Bundeszentrale
für politische Bildung. Bonn 2002, p.31-34. URL: http://www.bpb.de/
files/ HYJPCR.pdf (8/12/2006); Galloway, Alexander R.: Protocol, s.
ann.17, p.6-12: "Without a shared protocol, there is no network."
(p.12) back
20 Determined by the World Wide Web Consortium, URL:
http://www.w3.org/ (7/28/2006). On HTTP
and HTML: Berners-Lee, Tim: Der Web-Report, s. ann.18, p.66-72. On the
Consortium: ib., p.137-153. back
21 Alexander, Amy: The Multi-Cultural Recycler. In:
Werkleitz Biennale 1998: subfiction. Internetpräsentation 1. Konsumgebäude
Tornitz, 9/4/1998. URL: http://www.werkleitz.de/
events/ biennale1998/ text/ cat/ alexander.html (7/29/2008); Alexander,
Amy: The Multi-Cultural Collider. In: Leopoldseder, Hannes/Schöpf,
Christine (ed.): Cyberarts. Prix Ars Electronica. Edition 1997. Vienna/New
York 1997, p.82s. URL: http://www.aec.at/
de/ archives/ prix_archive/ prix_projekt.asp? iProjectID=10962 (8/28/2006).
Mitchell, Bonnie: International Internet Chain Art Project, with students
of the class Computers in Art, University of Oregon, Eugene, 4/5-5/28/1993.
Formerly in: http://ziris.syr.edu/chainartdocs/chainart.html (5/3/1999,
now not available on internet).
Mitchell, Bonnie: Exploring visual influences. In: National Forum. Fall
1998. New in: URL: http://www.findarticles.com/
p/ articles/ Mi_qa3651/ is_199810/ ai_n8823698 (8/27/2006). back
22 Adrian X, Robert: Überwachung/Surveillance 2,
Vienna, Karlsplatz, metro station (1979 new metro, with surveillance cameras).
Broadcast ORF, FS 2, 16th June 1981 and exhibition ARTIG, 80er Haus, Wiener
Festwochen 81, Vienna 1981. In: Adrian X, Robert: Surveillance. In: Mediafiles.at.
URL: http://www.mediafiles.at/
php/ content.php?kat=1&ID=4 (7/29/2006); Breitwieser, Sabine (ed.):
Re-Play, s. ann.11, p.156,368; Gehrmann, Lucas/Matt, Gerald (ed.): Robert
Adrian X. Cat. exhib. Kunsthalle Wien. Vienna 2001, p.33-37,80s.,144s.,147.
back
23 Compare Braun, Reinhard: Surveillance. In: Mediafiles.at.
URL: http://www.mediafiles.at/
php/ content_texte.php? kat=3&ID=28 (7/29/2006). back
24 Two links to WebCams have been altered after the
start of the project. On "CCTV – world wide watch": Fuller,
Matthew: Media Ecologies. Cambridge/Massachusetts 2005, p.9-12,110-164;
Hunger, Francis: CCTV. In: Ackers, Susanne/Arns, Inke/Hunger, Francis/Lillemose,
Jacob (eds.): The Hartware Guide to Irational. Hartware Medienkunst Verein.
Dortmund 2006, p.17,85. back
25 Deleuze, Gilles: Post-scriptum sur les sociétés
de contrôle. In: L´autre journal. Nr.1. Mai 1990: URL: http://aejcpp.free.fr/
articles/ controle_deleuze.htm (1/27/2007). English translation in:
October. Vol.59/Winter 1992, p.3-7. URL: http://www.n5m.org/n5m2/media/texts/deleuze.htm
(1/27/2007). back
26 PDA (Personal Digital Assistant): Palm
Pilot. back
27 GPS: Global Positionioning System. In: unnamed author:
Global Positioning System. In: Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia. URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/
GPS (9/15/2006). The Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) is a subject
for The Surveillance Camera
Players, who were involved in the construction of the map with 2400
marked surveillance cameras in Manhattan which was integrated into "iSee"
(See "Growth of Surveillance in Public Space. Manhattan 1998-2002".
In: URL: http://www.appliedautonomy.com/
isee/ centerfoldmap02.pdf (7/30/2006). Compare Zaremba, Jutta: New
York und Tokio in der Medienkunst. Urbane Mythen zwischen Musealisierung
und Mediatisierung. Bielefeld 2006, p.115-130,204; Zuñiga, Ricardo Miranda:
The Work of Artists in a Databased Society: net.art as on-line activism
(2002). In: Soundtoys Journal. URL: http://soundtoys.net/
journals/ the-work-of-artists (2/23/2004)). back
28 Teran, Michelle: Life: A User´s Manual, Radio
100, Amsterdam, January 2003/Impakt Festival, Utrecht, June 2003 a.o.
In: Dreher, Thomas: Sammeltipp 1: Stadterfahrung mit ortssensitiven Medien,
Teil 1 (June 2005-November 2006). In: IASLonline Lektionen in NetArt:
Tipp. URL: http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/
links/ TippSammel1.html (7/30/2006. Projects described in chronological
order). back
29 With "iSee and Maptivist 2.0" surveillance
is executable on the basis of the mapped places of surveillance cameras.
In Hunting´s "CCTV-world wide watch" surveillance is handed
over to the participant who executes it via writing a protocol, or (s)he
denies the participation because the police seems to be the receiver of
her/his protocol. On the necessity for anti-surveillance activists to
offer occasions to journalists to write reports on surveillance cameras:
Schienke, Erich W./IAA: On the Outside Looking Out: An Interview with
the Institute for Applied Autonomy. In: Surveillance & Society. Vol.1/nr.1,
2002, p.106. New in: URL: http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/
articles1/ iaa.pdf (7/30/2006).
On violatons of fundamental rights via video surveillance: Becker, Konrad
a.o.: Die Politik der Infosphäre, s. ann.19, p.151: "Das Prinzip
dieser Überwachungstechnologien ist..., dass nicht nur Verdächtige
beobachtet werden, sondern alle, die sich in den überwachten Bereichen
aufhalten; letztendlich bedeutet das, dass jeder, der Grundrechte wie
freie Wahl des Aufenthaltsortes, Versammlungsfreiheit, Reisefreiheit etc.
in Anspruch nimmt, grundsätzlich verdächtig ist – womit
der `freie Bürger´ von einer Neuauflage des `disziplinierten
Untertans´ abgelöst wird. Der Grundsatz der Unschuldsannahme
wird aufgeweicht und technisch unterlaufen." ("The principle
of technologies for surveillance is to observe not only suspects but every
person who enters the observed regions; this means that everyone is suspicious
who uses basic rights like f.e. the free choice of the place of residence,
the freedom of assembly, the freedom to travel etc. – This practiced
general suspicion replaces the 'free citizen' by a new edition of the
'disciplined subject'. The basic assumption of innocence is baked and
circumvented with the help of technical means.") back
30 Bollier, David:
Silent Theft. The Private Plunder
of Our Common Wealth. New York 2003. back
31 Dreher, Thomas: Interaktive Stadterfahrung mit digitalen
Medien (Internet, Mobiltelefon und Locative Media) (Juni 2005-Januar 2007).
In: IASLonline Lektionen in NetArt: Tipp. URL: http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/
links/ TippSammel1-3.html (1/28/2007). back
32 Counts Media Inc.: Yellow Arrow, New York a.o., since
September 2004. In: Dreher, Thomas: Sammeltipp 1, s. ann.28. back
33 GeoTags on Google Maps: f.e. Nachlin, James Morris:
Garbage Scout, New York, January
2006/San Francisco and Philadelphia, since April 2006; ckyuan: Yuan.CC
Maps, since March 2006. Both in: Dreher, Thomas: Sammeltipp 1, s.
ann.28, Teil 3. URL: http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/
links/ TippSammel1C.html (10/8/2007); Elleryq: How to Geotagg with
Yuan.CC Maps. In: Elleryq: Thinking More Blog, 3/7/2006. In: URL: http://thinkingmore.blogspot.com/
2006/ 03/ how-to-geotagg-with-yuancc-maps.html (8/6/2006). Compare
on GeoTagging: unnamed author: GeoTagging Flickr. In: Flickr.com. URL:
http://www.flickr.com/
groups/ geotagging (8/4/2006); MP:Ole: Fotos geotaggen! In: MP:Blog
– Mediaprojekte, 12/19/2005. URL: http://www.blog.mediaprojekte.de/
internet/ fotos-geotaggen (8/24/2006); Torrone, Phillip: How to GPS
Tag Photos: Flickr, Mappr, Google Earth...In: Make Blog, 3rd July 2005.
URL: http://www.makezine.com/
blog/ archive/ 2005/07/ how_to_gps_tag.html (5/21/2006).
API=Application Programming Interface, open interface for Google Maps,
since February 2005. In: unnamed author: Google Maps API. In: URL: http://www.google.com/
apis/ maps/ faq.html (7/30/2006).
Maps API geocoder: unnamed author: Google Maps API version 2 documentation.
In: URL: http://www.google.de/
apis/ maps/ documentation/ #Geocoding_Etc (9/12/2006). back
34 Certeau, Michel de: The Practice of Everyday Life.
Berkeley and Los Angeles 1984/second edition 1988, (French original: L´invention
du quotidien. Vol.1: Arts de faire. Paris 1980), p.118-122, esp. p.119ss.
with ann.12 (reference to an Aztec map, the exodus of Totomihuacas). URL:
http://people.artcenter.edu/
~millman/ graphics/ regent/ toursmaps.doc (1/28/2007).
On Aztec maps, 16th century: Aguilar, Manuel/Brady, James E.: The Historicity
of the Map of Cuauhtinchan #2 and A Man-Made Chicomoztoc Complex at Acatzingo
Viejo. In: Traditional High Cultures. URL: http://www.traditionalhighcultures.com/
Acatzingo.htm (8/7/2006); Mesoamerican Research Foundation: Map of
Cuauhtinchan (MC2). In: URL: http://www.mc2-map.org/
mc2.htm (8/7/2006). back
35 Wood, Jeremy/Pryor, Hugh: GPS Drawing, since 2000.
In: URL: http://www.gpsdrawing.com/
(8/16/2006).
Carden, Tom/Coast, Steve: OpenStreetMap (OSM). The Free Wiki World Map,
since December 2004. In: Dreher, Thomas: Sammeltipp 1, s. ann.28, Teil
2. URL: http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/
links/ TippSammel1B.html (2/2/2007).
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) of the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department
of Commerce: URL: http://www.census.gov/
po/ www/ foia/ foiaweb.htm (8/17/2006). back
36 The feeding of itineraries was tried in a time when
projects could not integrate photographs from an aerial view with the
API (s. ann.33) on Google Maps. A special server with views from satellites
and airplanes had to be integrated. (Sack, Warren and students: Street
Stories, project, San Francisco, version 1, since spring 2002 (with Craig
Rixford, Mahad Ibrahim, and Michael Kim) and version 2.0, 2004 (with Michael
Dale). In: Dreher, Thomas: Sammeltipp 1, s. ann.28). back
37 Cookson, Will: Urban Beach, spring 2003. Massage
Degradation System | Technical Study v1.0 | Positioning Methods. In: URL:
http://theurbanbeach.co.uk/
technical/ 10.htm (8/7/2006). back
38 Links to "GeoBiking", "GeoSailing"
and "GeoSkating" in: Broecke, Just van den: GeoTracing (since
September 2005). In: URL: http://www.geotracing.com/
(7/30/2006). back
39 Waag Society: N8spel (Game n8), Amsterdam, November
2005. In: Dreher, Thomas: Sammeltipp 2: Spiele im Stadtraum, Teil 3 (August 2005-September 2006). URL: http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/
links/ TippSammel2C.html (1/28/2006). back
40 Certeau, Michel de: The Practice of Everyday Life,
s. ann.34, p.126. back
41 The more "complex network of differentiations"
is constituted by more complex combinations of anthropologic and geometric
spaces: "a combinative system of spaces" (Certeau, Michel, de:
The Practice of Everyday Life, s. ann.34, p.126).
"Anthropologic" and "geometric space": Merleau-Ponty,
Maurice: Phénoménologie de la perception. Paris 1945/1961,
p.333s.; Certeau, Michel de: The Practice of Everyday Life, s. ann.34,
p.93,117s. The use of terms in this context doesn´t follow Merleau-Ponty´s
phenomenology. It is possible to reconstruct the term "space"
as a mental space which can be changed in reaction to technical innovations
because new suggestions should be integrated. The reconstruction can follow
Niklas Luhmann´s "theory of observation" and interpret
"space" as a "two-sided form". Luhmann´s terminology
allows to comprehend "space" as the broader "form"
or "medium" which offers the differentiation of narrower "forms"
in the framework of the wider "form"-"contexture".
But these "contextures" can transgress the wider framework and
provoke its redefinition ("Medium" and "Form": Luhmann,
Niklas: Die Kunst der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main 1995, p.165-214;
ib.: Das Medium der Kunst. In: Delfin. Vol. VII/1986, p.6ss.; ib.: Weltkunst.
In: Baecker, Dirk/Bunsen, Frederick D./Luhmann, Niklas: Unbeobachtbare
Welt. Über Kunst und Architektur. Bielefeld 1990, p.18,20). Now the
term "space" signifies not only conscious processes but, too,
how and with which means these processes can be communicated because it
is only possible to draw conclusions from communications in one medium
to the state of consciousness and systems won´t be differentiated
in the awareness without context, without stimulations mediated by communication
media (Luhmann on "Bewußtsein" ("consciousness")
and "Kommunikation" ("communication"): Luhmann, Niklas:
Die Kunst der Gesellschaft, s.a., p.19-26,34ss.; ib.: Soziale Systeme.
Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie. Frankfurt am Main 1984, p.142s.
Compare Jahraus, Oliver: Bewußtsein und Kommunikation. In: IASL Diskussionsforum
online: Bewußtsein und Kommunikation. URL: http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/
discuss/ lisforen/ jahraus1.htm (9/12/2006)). back
42 Jain, Anab: Yellow Chair Stories, London, June 2005.
In: Dreher, Thomas: Sammeltipp 1, s. ann.28, Teil 2. URL: http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/
links/ TippSammel1B.html (2/7/2007). back
43 Anab Jain in: Debatty, Regine: Yellow chairs seek
households with wifi. In: We make money not art, 6/12/2006. URL: http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/
archives/ 008641.php (8/7/2006). back
44 On the relation between "place" and "space":
Certeau, Michel de: The Practice of Everyday Life, s. ann.34, p.117s.
Compare Brown, Barry: Geographies of Technology. Some Comments on Place,
Space and Technology. In: URL: http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/
~barry/ papers/ place%20and%20space.pdf (8/25/2006); Pope, Simon:
The Shape of Locative Media. In: The Mute. Nr.29. Winter 2004/Spring 2005,
p.54s. URL: http://www.metamute.com/
look/ article.tpl?IdLanguage= 1&IdPublication= 1&NrIssue= 29&NrSection=
10&NrArticle= 1477 (8/7/2006). back
45 Carbon Defense League: MapHub, project, Pittsburgh,
since 2001, test phases 2004-2005, new reorganized website March 2006.
In: Dreher, Thomas: Sammeltipp 1, s. ann.28. back
46 Dreher, Thomas: Link, Filter und Informationsfreiheit,
chap. Assoziations-Blaster. In: IASLonline Lektionen in NetArt, Lektion
12 (November 2002/Juni 2004). URL: http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/
links/ lektion12.html#Blaster (7/28/2006); unnamed author: Assoziations-Blaster.
In: Wikipedia. Die freie Enyklopädie. URL: http://de.wikipedia.org/
wiki/ Assoziations-Blaster (7/28/2006). back
47 F.e. ckyuan: Yuan.CC Maps, since March 2006, s. ann.33.
back
48 "Disciplinary societies", "surveillance
societies": Foucault, Michel: Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la
maison. Paris 1975, esp. chap.III.III, p.197-229.
"Dispositifs": Foucault, Michel [interview]: Le jeu de Michel
Foucault. In: Ornicar. Nr.10. Juillet 1977, p.62-93, esp. chap. III. back
49 Deleuze, Gilles: Post-scriptum sur les sociétés
de contrôle, s. ann.25. back
50 Cavanaugh, William T.: The World in a Wafer: A Geography
of the Eucharist as Resistance to Globalization. In: Modern Theology. Vol.15/nr.2. April 1999, p.182-188. URL: http://www.jesusradicals.com/
wp-content/ uploads/ wafer.pdf (3/12/2009 [link actualized]. Cavanaugh´s theological
motivated third chapter on "The Eucharist" is left aside). Compare
Galloway, Alexander R.: Protocol, s. ann.17, p.2-27; Tuters, Marc: The
Locative Utopia, Chapter "The Control Societies Debate". In:
TCM [Transcultural Mapping] Locative Reader. URL: http://locative.net/
tcmreader/ index.php? endo;tuters (8/25/2006). back
51 Holmes, Brian: Durch das Raster schweifen. Psychogeographie
und imperiale Infrastruktur. In: Springerin. Bd. X/Heft 3. Herbst 2004,
p.21. URL: http://www.springerin.at/
dyn/ heft_text.php? textid= 1523& (8/13/2006). The English original
with the title "Drifting through the Grid" in: URL: http://www.springerin.at/
dyn/ heft_text.php?textid= 1523& lang=en (8/13/2006). Holmes argues
with the quoted utterance explicitly against the project Klee, Jeron/Polak,
Esther/Waag Society: Amsterdam RealTime,
Amsterdam, October 2002 (description of the project and bibliography in:
Dreher, Thomas: Sammeltipp 1, s. ann.28), but he mentions no other project
and provokes the impression that it is an example for "the alternative
projects or artworks using the GPS system". back
52 Byrne, Chris: Mobile Realism? In: Art Research Communication,
1/12/2005. URL: http://www.art-research-communication.net/
weblog/ ?p=17 (8/20/2006); Russell, Ben: Headmap. Know Your Place.
Location Aware Devices. London/New York 1999, S.44-48. In: Headmap 3 Redux.
URL: http://www.headmap.org/ headmap.pdf (12/4/2004, not anymore available
via internet); Sant, Alison: Redefining the Basemap. In: TCM [Transcultural
Mapping] Locative Reader. July 2004. URL: http://locative.net/
tcmreader/ index.php? mapping;sant (8/13/2006. Even if Alison Sant,
Ryan Shaw and Michel Swaine are independent from cartographic premises
in Trace (San Francisco, Basel, 2004.
In: Dreher, Thomas: Sammeltipps 1, s. ann.28) they need the zoning procedures
of the mobile telephony); Tuters, Marc/Varnelis, Kazys: Beyond Locative
Media. In: Networked Publics. The Annenberg Center for Communication.
The University of Southern California. Los Angeles 2006. URL: http://netpublics.annenberg.edu/
locative_media/ beyond:locative_media (8/13/2006; unavailable in 10/12/2009.
New in: URL: http://networkedpublics.org/locative_media/beyond_locative_media); Veen, Tobias C.
van: New Movements. Sound Tracks and Data Footprints. In: Horizon Zero.
Issue 15. Toronto, May-June 2004. URL: http://www.horizonzero.ca/
textsite/ flow.php?is= 15&file= 6&tlang=0 (8/13/2006). back
53 Vgl. Holmes, Brian: Drifting through the Grid, s.
ann.51: "The aesthetic form of the dérive [as aesthetics which became
politics as decor] is [in GPS projects] everywhere." – and the
social critical function of deconditioning via «dérive»
is ineffective.
If Brian Holmes describes Christian Nold´s project Biomapping
(first phase: since Mai 2004, second phase: since October 2005. In: Dreher,
Thomas: Sammeltipp 1, s. ann.28) in "Counter Cartographies"
without criticism as "psychogeography goes automatic" (with
other reasons than an automatic paths finding process) then he reinterprets
the term "psychogeography" and leaves Situationistic criteria
(Holmes, Brian: Counter Cartographies. In: Abrams, Janet/Hall, Peter (Hg.):
Else/Where: Mapping. New Cartographies of Networks and Territories. University
of Minnesota Design Institute, Minneapolis 2006, p.24s.).
«dérive» and "psychogeography": Debord, Guy-Ernest:
Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography. First publication in French
in: Les Lèvres Nues # 6. September 1955. English translation in: URL:
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/
sionline/ presitu/ geography.html (11/16/2005); ib.: Théorie
de la dérive. In: Les Lèvres Nues #9. Novembre 1956. English translation
in: URL: http://www.cddc.vt.edu/
sionline/ si/theory.html (9/9/2006). Compare Dreher, Thomas: Konzeptuelle
Kunst und Software Art: Notationen, Algorithmen und Codes. In: IASLonline
Lektionen in NetArt: Theorie. URL: http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/
links/ NAKS.html# Psychogeography (8/16/2006); Ohrt, Roberto: Phantom
Avantgarde, s. ann.1, p.75s.,79,83ss. back
54 Lynch, Kevin: The Image of the City. Cambridge/Massachusetts
1960; Batty, Michael: Thinking about Cities as Spatial Events. In: Environment
and Planning B: Planning and Design. Vol.29/nr.1, 2002, p.1s. URL: http://www.envplan.com/
epb/ editorials/ b2901ed.pdf (1/28/2007); Milgram, Stanley/Jodelet,
Denise: Psychological Maps of Paris. In: Proshansky, Harold M./Ittelson,
W.H./Rivlin, Leanne (ed.): Environmental Psychology. Man and his Physical
Setting. New York 1970, 2nd edition 1976, p.104-124; Ramadier, Thierry/Moser,
Gabriel: Social Legibility. The Cognitive Map and Urban Behaviour. In:
Journal of Environmental Psychology. Nr. 18/1998, p. 307-319. URL: http://www.girba.crad.ulaval.ca/
Articles/ JEP1998-09_P307.pdf (12/20/2005). back
55 Galloway, Alexander R./Thacker, Eugene: The Limits
of Networking. In: Nettime, 3/24/2004 (because of technical error not
stored in 3/15/2004). URL: http://www.nettime.org/
Lists-Archives/ nettime-l-0403/ msg00090.html (8/25/2006). Compare
Cramer, Florian: Re: The Limits of Networking. In: Nettime,
3/15/2004. URL: http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/
nettime-l-0403/ msg00061.html (8/25/2006). back
56 Galloway, Alexander R.: Protocol, s. ann.17, p.143:
"…control in distributed networks is not monolithic…It is a complex
of interrelated currents and counter-currents." back
57 Galloway, Alexander R.: Protocol, s. ann.17, p.246:
"My goal here in this book has been not to come down cleanly and
say that protocol is either good or bad - because clearly it is both,
in varying degrees and contexts…" back
58 "mental image", "mental picture":
Lynch, Kevin: The Image of the City, s. ann.54, p.2-13,87-90. back
59 In "Collaborative Mapping" reappear aspects
of affected persons´ interventions in city politics comparable
to the pedagogical projects of the seventies in London provoking
inhabitants to report their situation with cameras for the production
of photographs and videos. Wrecking and rebuilding caused many problems
in London´s urban environment of the seventies. It reached an extension
which changed the characteristics of a district and forced the poor inhabitants
to change their quarter (Nigg, Heinz: Eine neue Kunst mit sozialer und
politischer Bedeutung: Die Verwendung von Foto und Video in der Quartierarbeit.
In: Kunstnachrichten. März 1977, p.61ss., Mai 1977, p.85-89, Mai
1978, p.57-64; Walker, John A.: Left Shift. Radical Art in 1970s Britain.
London 2002, p.153s.). back
60 Holmes, Brian: Imaginary Maps, Global Solidarities.
In: Piet Zwart Institutie, Rotterdam. Publications. URL: http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/
mdr/ pubsfolder/ bhimaginary/ (8/17/2006). back
61 Holmes, Brian: Counter Geographies, s. ann.53, p.24.
Compare Certeau, Michel de: The Practice of Everyday Life, s. ann.34,
p.40s.,91-96,101.
"détournement": Debord, Guy/Wolman, Gil J: Mode d'emploi
du détournement. In: Les Lèvres Nues #8. May 1956. English translation
in: URL: http://www.bopsecrets.org/
SI/ detourn.htm (1/28/2007); Hinterreiter, Christoph/Holzinger, Stefan/Schaumberger,
Christoph: Zweckentfremdung als Negation – Détournement. In:
Technische Universität Graz. Institut für Architekturtheorie
und Baukunst: Georg-Michael Homann. Arbeitskreis – Architekturheorie
2002 – Die Situationisten. URL: http://www.architekturtheorie.tugraz.at/
homann/ ready/ at/ 2001-2002/3.html (9/9/2006); Ohrt, Roberto: Phantom
Avantgarde, s. ann.1, p.86. back
62 Lee, Jeff: Deleuze, Foucault and De Certeau: Power
and Invisibility. In: ib.: The Différance Engine. A Practice of
Everyday Theory. Blog, 3/7/2006. URL: http://thedifferanceengine.typepad.com/
the_differance_engine/ 2006/03/deleuze_foucaul.html (9/9/2006). back
63 Jameson, Fredric: Cognitive Mapping. In: Nelson,
Cary/Grossberg, Lawrence (ed.): Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture.
Urbana & Chicago 1988, p.356. Compare Ramadier, Thierry/Mosel, Gabriel:
Social Legibility, the Cognitive Map and Urban Behaviour, s. ann.54. back
64 Bussmann, Georg (ed.): Arbeit in Geschichte –
Geschichte in Arbeit. Cat. exhib. Kunsthaus und Kunstverein Hamburg. Hamburg
1988. zurück
65 Jameson, Fredric: Postmodernism, or, The Cultural
Logic of Late Capitalism. In: New Left Review. Nr.146. July-August 1984,
p.90. Book version: London/New York 1991, Chapter 1. New in: URL: http://www.marxists.org/
reference/ subject/ philosophy/ works/ us/ jameson.htm (8/13/2006):
"...cognitive mapping in the broader sense comes to require the coordination
of existential data (the empirical position of the subject) with unlived,
abstract conceptions of the geographic totality." Compare Mirrlees,
Tanner: Cognitive Mapping or, the Resistant Element in the Work of Fredric
Jameson. A Response to Jason Berger, paragraph 22 (2005). In: URL: http://clogic.eserver.org/
2005/ mirrlees.html (8/13/2006): "If the globalization of capitalism
is a totalizing process through which all different and particular (i.e.,
non-capitalist) social relations are increasingly subsumed by the expanding
logics of commodification, then an equally totalizing abstraction is needed
to conceive of this as a new global condition of existence." back
