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Refurbished vs not refurbished “vintage” Cellphones

https://www.vintagemobile.fr/en/fabricants-nokia/17-nokia-3310-3700968000032.html Refurbished meaning it has been tested, cleaned or fixed and is in working order, so may actually be usable for the works or altered? But it comes with more of an expensive price tag $$$$ :/

Non refurbished do not come with a guarantee they would work, they are cheaper but may only be useful as a prop or stagnate object in the work. Less $ :/ There’re pros and cons of both options, I do wonder what exactly I can do with the cellphones, can i put images, videos, recordings, or even call them. Keeping in mind that some are only compatible;e with the no longer supported 2G network. 

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Now I’m finding an assortment of unsuccessful cellphone designs which I find very interesting but am astonished at the price, I love how they embody the emergence of the tech into people lives as a statement piece, but the clumsy 2000s designs that didnt make it.  I think they have a place in the work along with the mainstream more successful designs.

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Buying 2000s Tech

Looking into buying cellphones, desktops, Laptops, Pcs, and TVs, lets see what I can get on a dollar budget! https://www.buzzfeed.com/raphaelevangelista/phone-we-all-had Buzzfeed providing the helpfull quick lists and Ebay and Trademe the hopefully cheap tech. 

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Understanding Digital Culture

Vincent Miller 2011, SAGE publications.  Chapter’s 4-6 “Sociological questions of inequality, politics, privacy and how these are problematised in the information age” Chapter 4 Digital Inequality: Social, Political and Infrastructural Contexts.  “Digital inequality is merely another manifestation of the other  inequalities that exist within our contemporary society” pg 96 - “In many respects, it is no coincidence that the major categories of overall marginality on the domestic front - class, income, ethnicity, gender, rural/urban, age - are also the major categories that are suggested as influential in the formation of a digital divide.” Although a different mode of communication it seems that there is little to no divide in the inequalities of society than the digital world. So the ideas shared and distributed online also favor those in power, as i believed the internet as an example was intended to be a less bias place. I guess it shows the observed inequalities and barriers that exist in the physical world between my own and other facets of society were not remedied by the reach of the digital world. I can attest that the digital world did very little to diversify my world view, if anything I would have been wary of direct contact with strangers outside of my demographic (or even within). 

Leading on from that thought I wanted to find the source of this idea that information was intended to be equal and entirely accessible online. Now Im down the path learning about hackers and how it was their manifesto that every -part of information should be free. In which I am able to agree and disagree. https://www.wired.com/story/hackers-at-30-hackers-and-information-wants-to-be-free/ What’s important here perhaps is the expanded quote from Brand’s “information should be free” “That’s when Stewart Brand stood up and spoke for the first time in the session. Here’s what he said:It seems like there’s a couple of interesting paradoxes we’re working with here. That’s why I’m especially interested in what Bob Wallace has done with PC-WRITE and what Andrew Flugelman did before that with PC-TALK. On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.Wozniak had a reply: “Information should be free but your time should not.”I recently contacted Brand to discuss his statement. As I suspected, Brand’s remark was off the cuff, a hack on “Information Should Be Free,” which I wrote as part of The Hacker Ethic. “I was indeed riffing on ‘Information Should Be Free’ in your book, only starting with Steve’s case for expensive,” he wrote me.”

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“Indeed. The phrase has been describe as “a battle cry for the relentless march of the Internet”; “The single dominant ethic in this [digital] community”; and “the defining slogan of the information age.”

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Another poem prompt and tentative start at a collage... work to be done. Do i engage with the cliches or imagery of my artist models?

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“Paula Morales b. Quetzaltenango, Guatemala”

“Paula Morales investigates the in between. Her tools range from GIFs, video synthesis, installation, illustration, to ceramics. Morales' work is loaded with clichés, explorations of gender, language, place and time.  Her practice highlights repetition and aesthetics of error. Her work is manifested through digital images, illustrations, fascinating projections and humorous installation where she incorporates industrial, reused and kitsch materials. Her practice navigates different mediums and takes different forms. Her work has been exhibited at Roll Up Gallery in Public Works SF (San Francisco CA), Pro Arts Gallery (San Francisco, CA); and appears in number 57 of Hayden's Ferry Review (2015), Soundcloud Inc in (2015) and PHOTOSYNTHESIS of La Fototeca with National Geographic Magazine in 2013. She has done art direction work and design of music videos as well as various publications. Morales was recently an artist in residence at Recology SF, (San Francisco, CA).“

Thoughts on Morales

I think Morales exemplifies an effective blend of media through digital and physical collage. Unlike some of the video artist models of earlier the works have a greater chaotic energy and internet culture aesthetic more in tune with my thesis proposal. 

There is a homage to the over saturation of content online, flawed nature of technology through glitches and dated (nostalgic?) objects. Unlike my 2006 collage there is more freedom or sense of looseness that I will try to achieve in the series. I feel I should be careful and remain true to my noughties parameters, Morales and v a p o r e w a v e do reference 80′s and 90′s culture within their content, i.e. colour and content choice. In order to work at a masters level I need to ensure I am presenting a new lens and approach that  think could be made more apparent if I apply my noughties experience lens to the techniques those artist models use. I do wonder how she starts her progress and selects the imagery for her works, is there an underlying theme or is the theme the aesthetic she proposes... her bio states “ Morales' work is loaded with clichés, explorations of gender, language, place and time.  Her practice highlights repetition and aesthetics of error.” But I still feel distant from her ideas in her below works, which is curious because this is the effect i wish to have in my work, ambiguity with the subjective content.  

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Video Artists- models of installation presentation.

Another thought is how would these collages be presented? My initial thought would be multiple portrait screens along a wall. I have found some artists models here that align with my thoughts on possibilities of presenting video work. 

All incorporate screens which is important to my thesis concept of internet culture and parameters of digital art. 

Yorgo Alexopoulos. 2012. Planar Mosaic.   http://ministryofartisticaffairs.com/blog/case-study-video-art-in-the-digital-era/ Interesting way to consider screens in a space, but my only concern with using this technique is that it is a lost opportunity to reference the 2000s through display modes. These kinds of screens could be a good test for content to gather critique on if I wasn’t seeking comment on the mode of presentation at that stage.  What I do enjoy is the large quantity of screens and the mosaic technique. I wonder how hard it would be to develop video that was a mosaic across different screens? Worth asking those who have experience with video installations.  Content wise I can’t comment on what’s going on as I have not seen this work in action and am just using this image to evaluate potential installation techniques.

Zina Saro-Wiwa. “Mourning Class: Nollywood” (2010), video installation on monitors, color, sound, 20 min 42 sec (courtesy and © 2012 Zina Saro-Wiwa; all exhibition photos by Sam Fentress and via theprogressoflove.com) https://hyperallergic.com/67502/progress-of-love/

This is more what I imagined my longer video works would be displayed on as i made them, i.e. an array of devices indicative of the era I am investigating.  However I am not convinced by the space,arrangement, corner? Something is missing for me or lackluster that I cannot describe...

I think it may be a lack of imagery intensity, the pedestals are distracting and not adding to the scene. I would prefer more of an act of layering/bleeding of imagery off the screen, i.e. a darker space, projections of the videos also onto the objects, coloured lighting, more stacking or clustering of the screens, suspended screens... more chaos in short. My project asks for more dominance of the technology and references to impossible virtual spaces. 

Henry Driver, Odyssey (2014). Aesthetica Art Prize 2016 Shortlisted Artist. Photo courtesy of Benjamin Beauchamp.

http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/aesthetica-art-prize-call-entries-judging-panel/

Same comments as before, I like that this installation is darker and the images bleed onto the ground through reflection. 

Also key boards could be a addition of interaction and idea of control. What would happen if the keyboard did work? Or didn’t? What if it misbehaved or created error signals? could the interaction be indicative of a child’s experience of interacting with those 2000s computers, perhaps giving it viruses or inappropriate content? 

Anna Konik, Play back (of Irene), 2011. Video Installation, Atlas Sztuki Lodz. © Dominik Szwemberg. 

  https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/28547/anna-konik/ Love how the screens are orientated and how there is a relationship of colour and light with the space they occupy. Makes me speculate as to how it would feel if the screens were orientated on the roof and suspended facing down with furniture underneath to view. Like old tech observatory experience. Lying down and gazing up at something I think is a strong emotive experience I associate with childhood and moments of curiosity/awe.  This makes me wonder if through installation I could also make the audience feel child like or small; i.e. through scale, high screen orientation or uncertainty of what their actions will result in (unpredictable positive and negative feedback rewards for interaction). 

Paula Morales.The Heist (installation view), two-channel video installation with digital animation on tvs, mylar, assorted fabric, marble slabs, foam columns, and LED bulbs, dimensions variable. http://rsfprojects.com/paulamorales/812h9a2u1nl2b273tzq62s1z2r9hms

I will do another post for this artist as I feel they have captured v a p o r e w a v e aesthetic as a video installation artist. I would like to unpack and investigate a few of her works more thoroughly. 

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Version 2 of ‘2006′

Another version of yesterdays collage, remembering this developmental work is intended for a 3D virtual space later. I also wondered if the text is necessary, makes me wish this concept/thesis had been formed earlier so I could get more crits on the more relevant work. Worth probably seeking feedback on this work over the summer when possible.  

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What if my collages were more aligned with this aesthetic? More simplified perhaps? Will try another today and see how I feel with the results. 

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only 3 seconds long, intended to be viewed like a gif, so looped.

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2006 collage version 1

Started a collage with the prompt from my thesis proposal, the direction it has taken is similar to the aesthetic of  v a p o r e w a v e 

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All over the place...

But I kind of love it, new approaches to the same problem is keeping me interested when i can jump between the different mediums. The poems in my Thesis Proposal could be made visual, so I am today going to attempt to create a few and see how successful they are. Then I could animate them in After Effects as I am making them in Photoshop...

Another thought is that the written poems could be integrated into the videos and these collages as text as well as themes. It would make the work not as ambiguous as I anticipated but it worth a test. 

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 I dont think this what my work is, I feel as though i offer a critical perspective that differentiates, but this could also be a good source video for sounds.

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a draft version of nana’s slimy spinach, created before the poems, you can kind f see how directionless the video as there is only a vague thematic narrative in my head. 

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Found on the vaporewave reddit page, food for thought. 

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video library sharing...

Considered uploading the video library to show the sheer amount of content I am dealing with/collecting, kind of to share a unseen workload. But the folder is 45GB, too much for google drive to handle for a not big enough reward. 

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New Poem versions.

rewriting my first attempts to try top better unpack my feelings and experiences I want to explore in these videos and written forms