Floodplains.XYZ is a virtual 3D experience from new media artist Michelle Brown about the impact of dramatic weather events caused by climate change. The platform lets the visitor experience the panic and rush to grab treasured belongings before their Queenslander themed house is flooded. The viewer can collect these items as NFTs, and try reach safety before the timer runs out. It's a digital, virtual world simulation in 3D, mirroring scenes seen recently during floods in Australia and New Zealand. There's definite aspects of the sublime — the terrifying power of nature and the risk of losing everything. Well worth checking out
I saved some items and escaped the house before it flooded -- great project by @Thebadlament & @violet_forest. It is both scary & sad that this is reality for many
Paul Prudence's book Figured Stones: Exploring the Lithic Imaginary is a perfect ode to stones, an essay brimming with quiet ideas and research, written with a poetic feel — just the right balance. In a lovely small format book size too, slightly more than a chapbook, but with the same charm and grace
Basically the kind of landscape flavoured book I wish I'd written myself (on other topics, I don't know much of geology / stones). It's perfect
The Flora | Fauna #2 exhibition opened at Tz1and place# 474 on 28 May 2022. Organized by the bad lament (#154) and Pearl Hyacinth (#162) and presented by CleanNFTs, Teia and Tz1and, the exhibition included works minted exclusively in Tz1and from artists and Tz1andians: 852Kerfunkle, AliaK, anahdraws, Blase, Carla Knopp, Chris Coleman, Filipe Mecenas, Kelly Richardson, Keram Malicki-Sánchez, Kheelk, Luis E. Fraguada, Malicious Sheep, mawcreature, moonsoon, Ned Boyanov, Orfhlaith Egan, Ottis, Pearl Hyacinth, James Alec Hardy, Simon Wairiuko, Stu Sontier, thebadlament, v1tb1t, and We Throw Rocks. It followed on from the Flora | Fauna #1 exhibition held in Cryptovoxels in April 2021 for Earth Day.
In keeping with the exhibition's theme, the open-air gallery building created by Pearl Hyacinth allowed visitors to take advantage of the virtual world and fly above the space to see a bird's eye view of the art as well as walk around for a close-up view of the works ranging from 2D framed images and 3D art objects. Many artists created plant focused digital paintings, prints and photographic works based on both nature and imagination, with a few animals featured also, such as a pair of cats, swans, a dinosaur and a platypus. Grasses and flowers were placed throughout the gallery as well as the grounds outside, leading visitors to walk through the space in quiet contemplation of the works, taking time to explore each one. Trees sprouted multi-coloured branches and leaves through the open ceiling of the gallery, allowing the viewer to explore the works in all directions and dimensions.
Voice chats were held May 28 7AM & May 29 9PM (UTC) in the Tz1and Discord channel as part of the exhibition launch, and Carolyn and Ryan from Teia Community captured a walkthrough video of the exhibition at Teia Community /// FLORA | FAUNA 2 Exhibit in Tz1and @ Place#474
specture ::: the topology and conceptual contexts underpinning my specture body of work ::: explorations of interconnectedness and 'evolution' of extinct species on/and the blockchain
specture is a speculative exploration considering the interconnections and abstractions of extinct species (from NSW) on the blockchain, with the underlying idea: what if in the future this is the only place they exist?
The blockchain is an immutable technological system, where data stored on it remains forever (or for as long as the chain exists). I build conglomerations of generative, code-based systems mixed with 3D digital models to create digital drawings and animations as abstractions of the extinct species and their blockchain environment, to garner what the species might see and experience whilst inside the blockchain. These generative drawings imagine whether the species could evolve once in the blockchain, or would they reach their final form once stored there. They also reflect the decentralized entanglement in interconnectedness in both ecology and the blockchain.
specture ::: rewilding the blockchain mindmap as at 13 March 2022 (further updates yet to be added)
key artists / readings / links shown ::: others are listed separately in bibliography & project documents
green=explored (at some level)
black=to be explored
grey=excluded from current exploration (possible future)
it feels like we're grieving, for the loss of a website/system, though it was more than just a website; it was an idea and some say, a movement. hic et nunc [now a broken link], designed and built by Brazilian developer, Rafael Lima, was|is a generic architecture|system|platform for exploring decentralised blockchain uses that morphed into an art focused obkjt|NFT collection space|lab|dApp on the more eco-friendly Proof of Stake based Tezos blockchain. it came with a warning — This is an experimental dApp, use it at your own risk. Lima's design is an elegant architecture that works on multi levels — the objkt (NFT/art work) level, the platform (single site/front-end) level and the network|multisite|eco system level. hic et nunc brought beauty into the tech; art into the tech; the aesthetic into the tech; art and elegance into the architecture. it felt more feminine than many of the tech-bro developed platforms that surround it in the crypto landscape. the UI design was|is simple and clean, focusing on the art, as a flat plane, that allows the eye to flow across and above and below the page|space viewing art within the webpage frame. there were no popup menus invading|colonising your space|view|frame. everything was within — a plane of immanence (Davis 2021; RainDropUp 2008; Wikipedia 2021), with simple, flat navigation, subtley showing via collections and presentation, that everything is connected to something (Haraway 2016a; Haraway 2016b; Rose 2008; van Dooren 2014*), one art work led to the next, one artist connected to another, links between them all, point to point, peer to peer. there were no leaderboards, no transcendency, everyone and every piece of art was equalised by the immanent design — by the OBJKT and the SUBJKT (RainDropUp 2008).
a wash of emotions this past week, after hearing the news that Rafael had discontinued hicetnunc.xyz on November 11, 2021 (Nov 12 in Australia/Sydney). many articles have been posted about this (plus a few posts for context):
for my uni art project, I wanted to try some bio textiles processes using sustainable materials given the large amounts of waste and energy used in textiles and materials production. A classmate recommended I try alginate, a seaweed extract often used by dentists for their moulds. I found some recipes for bio-string / bio-plastic / bio-fabricating processes, and also discovered a collection of makers called FabLabs. my project is not strictly a textiles project, but is based on / inspired by string figures, so I was happy to find that this method can be used to create bio-string too. The main ingredients (sodium alginate and calcium chloride) were found at The Red Spon Company, a baking and food supply store in Rosebery, Sydney. They didn't have glicerine, and I check a couple of other stores and couldn't find it also, so didn't include that - one recipe included it and another didn't so I thought it might be optional.
"I once had a winter that was wordless. A time of complicated grief: the kind that can’t be shared. A loss that was private, pained. Not really known to those around me. The sort that had me hold my throat where sound should come, but would not." Beautiful words leading you into the Birds of Firle story and project by @tanyashadrick, founder of Selkie Press and featured on The Clearing.
A single edition book
by TANYA SHADRICK
being shared in sequence with 100 collaborators
GRIEF IS THE THING NO HOPE IS THE THING
21 IMAGES (6CM X 6CM) TO PROMPT
A CUMULATIVE, COMMUNAL RESPONSE
On New Year’s Day 2020, Birds of Firle – a single edition, handmade book – was placed in the post to the first of 100 recipients in the UK and overseas who have committed to respond to it with words, sound, images and artefacts. It is an exercise in slow art – and a cumulative, communal creative practice – initiated by Tanya Shadrick, founder of The Selkie Press.
What makes the experience of observing our creative selves through data surprising, intriguing, and even healing? Radical Imperfection in Time-Tracking is a 5 week online class dedicated to data, coding, visualisation and the quantified self. Starts 9th Feb 2021.
How does an anti-racist approach affect how we understand code? Discuss with us in our 2021 Anti-Racist Critical Code Studies reading group, coordinated by @jeremydouglass, @SarahCiston, @itsokaywithzach, and @MarkCMarino
there was a mention of pataphysics in one of the mu-mesons' videos we've been watching over the holidays. reminded me of Sam Renseiw's spacetwo videoblog. nice to see he's still making them: "the fine art of 'pataphysics in daily life. condensed poetic voodles. A video blog by sam renseiw"
'Pataphysics, an absurdist concept coined by the French writer Alfred Jarry, is a philosophy dedicated to studying what lies beyond the realm of metaphysics. Defined as: "The science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments"
"Narciss is a naked robot in front of a mirror, exposed to describe his thoughts while looking at himself" — beautiful project. mentioned in Algorithmic Poetry class by Mario Guzman (@marioguzzzman). if only the computer knew it was seeing itself (or it's external HW at least) @SchoolOfMaaa
The Mu-Meson Archive is a collection of cult and alternative films & ephemera gathered and kept safe by Aspasia and Jaimie Leonarder, aka Miss Death and Jay Katz. The archive, "exploring the fringes of society and the strange", is hosted in a venue in the inner west of Sydney. Subscriptions are available via the Mu Mesons Archive Patreon page to access films, interviews and more to support the archive for cheaper than a monthly streaming service
"In the Field: the Art of Field Recording" is a book published in 2013 and edited by Cathy Lane and Angus Carlyle, co-directors of the London-based organisation Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice (CRiSAP), comprising of eighteen interviews with artists, to create a survey of international, contemporary field recording artists and their work
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