serial consign

[lisa jevbratt / rösten (the voice) / 2006]

I feel like a bad host. I've been completely absorbed with two writing projects over the last few weeks and I've most certainly neglected my posting duties. So, in lieu of an actual post please note the following stellar content:

• The most recent issue of Fibreculture includes an excellent text by Mitchell Whitelaw entitled Art Against Information: Case Studies in Data Practice. This essay does a great job at clarifying the distinction between data and information and then schematizes a number of types of "data practice" through close readings of several digital artists including Alex Dragulescu, Golan Levin and Lisa Jevbratt. I've noticed that the net has been buzzing with excitement about the recent WIRED feature on Data Art - Whitelaw is one of the theorists you need to read if you are interested in moving beyond frontis images. Also see his datasthetics blog (the teeming void).
• Lebbeus Woods has been a great addition to the blogosphere by way of the online writing project that he launched last fall. A recent post, Delerious Dubai scrutinized the activity of Rem Koolhaas in everyones favourite boomtown in the United Arab Emirates. While the text specifically problematizes a recent OMA Masterplan, it could also be considered an indictment of the architectural glitterati's activities in that complicated city-state.
• I've been enjoying Noah Wardrip-Fruin's Grand Text Auto-facilitated peer review of Expressive Processing [see previous post]. While I haven't been able to spend the time with that project that it deserves, I was all over a trio of texts that were published this week. These chapters, Eliza and Simcity, Understanding Simulations and The Sims do a great job of contextualizing the work of Will Wright. I'm kind of a sucker for critical readings of Wright's games and these texts have been a pleasure to read.
• Plugs for the following two projects are not so much about specific posts, but overall scope and tone. Digital Tools is a great technoculture blog with an emphasis on gaming and hacked hardware and I just discovered A Million Keys, a gem of an art and music blog authored by Ceci Moss.
• Last but not least, if you want a moment of pure, unadulterated aesthetic pleasure, cruise on over to Design Notes to check out the Michael Surtees' 36 Days of New York Sky. Opening the post documenting this ongoing photographic project was probably my favourite moment online last week.

Stay tuned for some actual posts in the near future. I'm hoping to get back to my normal schedule once I've dug myself out from under all these writing projects.