[Reader-list]: "Grafik Dynamo" by Kate Armstrong and Michael Tippett

Wed Mar 2 07:25:18 IST 2005

Hi Vivek

Thanks for your note about Grafik Dynamo. Yes, you're right about how the work functions with regard to text. The text fragments are pulled from a flat file and randomly fed into the piece using javascript. There is one document for the thought and speech bubbles and one for the notes at the foot of the frames - this is the internal structure of how they are distributed. It would be possible technically to have a version that pulls the text from blogs. I've had a couple of discussions around this idea since the piece launched: one idea was to use keywords to pull in nouns etc and substitute those within the sentences. I've also been contacted by A. Stern, who told me about his piece "Charlie's Ants" http://aphid.org/CA/  which takes user submitted phrases and distributes them into a pre-drawn cartoon - in some ways this is the inverse of Grafik Dynamo & creates a very interesting - and very different - effect. So I am interested in these different ways of feeding and filtering information, but in the case of Grafik Dynamo we also wanted to do something specific with the text, which was to experiment with open narrative form - which for me meant retaining some notion of the writing, and conceiving of it functionally, almost in the tradition of constrained or generative text. 
Kate 

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jo-Anne Green 
  To: Vivek Narayanan 
  Cc: reader-list at sarai.net ; Kate Armstrong ; Michael Tippett 
  Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2005 12:28 PM
  Subject: Re: [Reader-list]: "Grafik Dynamo" by Kate Armstrong and Michael Tippett

  Dear Vivek,

  Thanks for sharing your enthusiastic response with us. I'm copying Kate and Michael so that they can respond to you directly.

  Best,
  Jo

  Vivek Narayanan wrote:

    Dear Turbulence, Kate Armstrong and Michael Tippet,

    It took me a while to get to it, given that connectivity is still not something we can take for granted here in India, but I just had a look at your magnificent Grafik Dynamo below and thought, "This is money!" It's not often that net art machines actually induce pleasure (as opposed to a theoretical hmm) in me, and this one certainly works.

    Just one question-- as I understand it, the work pulls images from blogs and pairs them with text written or assembled by the authors? And if so, is it possible to have a version that also pulls its text from blogs?

    Kudos,
    Vivek

    Jo-Anne Green wrote:

      February 15, 2005
      Turbulence Commission: "Grafik Dynamo" by Kate Armstrong and Michael Tippett
      http://turbulence.org/works/dynamo/index.html

      "Grafik Dynamo" is a net art work that loads live images from blogs and news sources on the web into a live action comic strip. The work is currently using a feed from LiveJournal. The images are accompanied by narrative fragments that are dynamically loaded into speech and thought bubbles and randomly displayed. Animating the comic strip using dynamic web content opens up the genre in a new way: together, the images and narrative serve to create a strange, dislocated notion of sense and expectation in the reader, as they are sometimes at odds with each other, sometimes perfectly in sync, and always moving and changing. The work takes an experimental approach to open ended narrative, positing a new hybrid between the flow of data animating the work and the formal parameter that comprises its structure.

      "Grafik Dynamo" is a 2005 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

      BIOGRAPHIES

      KATE ARMSTRONG is a new media artist and writer who has lived and worked in Canada, France, Japan, Scotland, and the United States. Her work focuses on the creation of experimental narrative forms, particularly works in which poetics are inserted within the functional framework of computer programs, and performative pieces in which computer functionality is merged with physical space. Armstrong has worked with a variety of forms including short films, theatre, essays, net art, performative network events, psychogeography and installation. Her work has been exhibited internationally. She has written for P.S 1/MoMA, the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, TrAce, Year Zero One, and The Thing, as well as for catalogue publications. Armstrong's first book, "Crisis & Repetition: Essays on Art and Culture," was published in 2002.

      MICHAEL TIPPETT has a decade of experience creating and managing technology businesses. With expertise in design, namespace, distributed and mobile media, and wireless technology, Tippett's media background is in pioneering new forms of networked content. His newest venture, NowPublic.com, uses emerging technologies like camera phones, digital cameras, blogging tools and RSS standards to change the way news is created and distributed. It can be thought of as "reality news" - providing a hub for citizen reporting and for viewing world events though the prism of an alternate, distributed, real time media.

      For more information about Turbulence, please visit http://turbulence.org

      -- 
      /Jo-Anne Green, Co-Director/
      *New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.*: http://new-radio.org
      *New York:* 917.548.7780 • *Boston:* 617.522.3856
      *Turbulence:* http://turbulence.org
      *New American Radio:* http://somewhere.org
      *Networked_Performance Blog and Conference:* http://turbulence.org/blog

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  -- 
  Jo-Anne Green, Co-Director
  New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.: http://new-radio.org
  New York: 917.548.7780 • Boston: 617.522.3856
  Turbulence: http://turbulence.org
  New American Radio: http://somewhere.org
  Networked_Performance Blog and Conference: http://turbulence.org/blog 

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