| (with Troy Innocent and Mark Guglielmetti) Strange Ontologies in Digital Culture
ACM Computers in Entertainment
forthcoming. (Jan 2008)
pdf
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| The concept of a ‘strange ontology’ is articulated via the intersection of philosophical and computational definitions of ontology. Within digital media, each simulated world requires both; an ontology, to define its existence as data; and a subject, the player or user, who engages with the simulation. Glitches or interventions in these simulations create ontologies that are inconsistent with our lived experience, rendering them ‘strange’. We draw upon a range of works to illustrate this concept including game art, social networking software, Guglielmetti’s ‘Laboratories of Thought’ and generative art. The paper aims to define this conceptand outlines a terrain for further investigation. |
| Art Against Information: Case Studies in Data Practice
Fibreculture
11. (Jan 2008)
html
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| Considers artists data visualisation through the distinction between data and information, arguing that data art often works to defer, abstract or undermine information - in the sense of a formed or contextualised message - and instead offers us a more open or underdetermined experience of the data as abstract pattern and relation. |
| Andy Gracie: Symbiotic Circuits
Pylon website
. (Jan 2007)
html
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| An essay commissioned by Pylon on the work of British artist Andy Gracie. The essay touches on monstrous cyborgs, systems and ecological art, symbiosis, parasitism, stigmergy and distributed agency. |
| (with Stephen Barrass and Freya Bailes) Listening to the Mind Listening: An Analysis ...
Leonardo Music Journal
Vol. 16, 13-19. (Dec 2006)
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| Full title: "An Analysis of Sonification Reviews, Designs and Correspondences" |
| model/metonym: notes on boom
Aminima
17, 45-55. (Aug 2006)
pdf
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| An artist's statement on boom that develops ideas of the generative model, and also considers visualisation, meaning and interaction in this work. |
| Nature by Numbers
Cosmos
9, 38-39. (Jun 2006)
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| A short feature on the work of Jon McCormack for Australian popular science magazine Cosmos. |
| (with Stephen Barrass and Guillame Potard) Listening to the Mind Listening
Media International Australia
118, 60-67. (Feb 2006)
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| A paper describing the LML project as an example of practice-led research. It appears in the "Practice-Led Research" issue of MIA, edited by Lelia Green and Brad Haseman. |
| System Stories and Model Worlds: A Critical Approach to Generative Art
Readme 100: Temporary Software Art Factory
(Norderstedt: BoD) 135-154. (Dec 2005)
pdf
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| This paper proposes a critical approach to generative art, based on an analysis or reading of the structure of the generative system. It is argued that these systems present ontologies - modes of being and relation - and that such structures are central to the work. It was first presented at Readme 100 in November 2005, and also presented at Third Iteration in December 2005. |
| Hearing Pure Data: Aesthetics and Ideals of Data-Sound
Unsorted: Thoughts on the Information Arts: An A to Z for Sonic Acts X
(Amsterdam: Sonic Acts/De Balie) 45-54. (Sep 2004)
pdf
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| Sound artists and musicians have begun to come to grips with data, the ubiquitous material of contemporary technoculture. But often they evoke and aspire to an idea of "raw" or "pure data" which is problematic, and potentially obscures a more powerful engagement with "the data itself." |
| REPLICATE
Electrofringe 2004 Catalog
. (Aug 2004)
pdf
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| A polemic on replication: bring on the art worms! One of three short essays commissioned for Electrofringe 2004. |
| The Limits of Vapourware
RealTime
62. (Aug 2004)
html
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| A review of The Symbiotic Bacterial Light Project, by Kathy Takayama and John Nicholson; Gorman House Arts Centre, Canberra Contemporary Artspace; May 14-June 18 2004. |
| Metacreation: Art and Artificial Life
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004. (Mar 2004)
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| A comprehensive, critical survey of a-life art. Here's my local page (reviews and related stuff), and here's the MIT Press catalog entry. |
| Waterwheel, by Kimmo Vennonnen
24:7 Catalog
. (Jan 2004)
pdf
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| Catalog essay for a work shown as part of the 24:7 Art in Public proect, held in Canberra in 2003. The essay discusses sound, immersion and materiality. |
| Sound Particles and Microsonic Materialism
Contemporary Music Review
22(4) 93-100. (Nov 2003)
pdf
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| The cultural imagination of data is crucial in a society increasingly enmeshed in the datasphere. In writing around recent experimental audio ('microsound'), sound data are frequently described in terms of matter, through the figure of the sound particle. Here this material metaphor is examined in detail, and critiqued for misrepresenting the crucial relationship between sound, matter and data, which is at the core of this field of practice. |
| Cyberculture: Big Picture, Deep Perspective
RealTime
54. (Apr 2003)
html
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| Review of Prefiguring Cyberculture: An Intellectual History ed Darren Tofts, Annemarie Jonson and Alessio Cavallaro. |
| Morphogenetics: Generative Processes in the Work of Driessens and Verstappen
Digital Creativity
14(1) 2003, 43-53. (Jan 2003)
pdf
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| An analysis of the work of Driessens and Verstappen, looking particularly at the way they creatively re-engineer a-life techniques. |
| Playing Games with Reality: Only Fish Shall Visit and interactive documentary
. (Oct 2002)
pdf
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| A catalog essay for this work, shown at Artspace, Sydney, October 2001. The essay looks at narrative, immersion and representation in this interactive doco. |
| net.art: a polymorphous survivor
RealTime
45. (Oct 2001)
pdf
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| Catalog essay for Underscore (Australian new media art), at the BAM Festival 2001. |
| Breeding Aesthetic Objects: Art and Artificial Evolution
Creative Evolutionary Systems
ed. Peter Bentley and David Corne (San Diego: Morgan Kaufmann, 2001) 129-145. (Oct 2001)
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| A discussion of the use of artificial evolution in new media art, using examples from the work of: William Latham, Karl Sims, Steven Rooke, and Erwin Driessens and Maria Verstappen. |
| Inframedia Audio
Artlink
21(3) 49-52. (Sep 2001)
pdf
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| Glitches, clicks, pops and hisses in experimental electronic audio. This paper proposes a notion of "inframedia" audio, that refers to the physicality of its medium. |
| d>art: shot through with data
RealTime
44. (Aug 2001)
html
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| review of d>art.01 |
| The Abstract Organism: Towards a Prehistory for A-Life Art
Leonardo
34(4) 345-348. (Aug 2001)
pdf
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| An examination of historical precedents for contemporary art practice using artificial life, in particular in the work of Paul Klee and Kasimir Malevich. Similarities are identified between artificial life and the philosophical tradition of organicism; specific examples from Klee and Malevich indicate that those artists were engaged in a form of creative organicist thought which imagined the realisation of living structures in artificial media. |
| The National Museum: the digital media works
RealTime
#43. (Jun 2001)
html
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| Review of the digital media at the (then-new)National Museum of Australia. |
| Beyond Nostalgia
RealTime
#43. (Jun 2001)
pdf
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| review of Bronwyn Coupe's work The Neighbour's House, installed at Canberra Contemporary Artspace, March/April 2001. |
| Sean Kerr - Stacker
. (Feb 2001)
pdf
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| Essay for an exhibition at Artspace, Sydney, February/March 2001. |
| Cyberbiodiversity: new life at Casula
RealTime
40. (Dec 2000)
html
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| review of New Life at the Casula Powerhouse, Sept-Nov 2000. |
| Tom Ray's Hammer: Emergence and Excess in A-life Art
Leonardo
31(5) 377-381. (Sep 1998)
html
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| A consideration of emergence in a-life art. It is argued that emergence is central to the aims and interests of a-life art. Following the implications of a-life art's drive for emergence leads, however, to significant conceptual and practical challenges. |
| 1968/1998: Rethinking a Systems Aesthetic
ANAT Newsletter
33. (Feb 1998)
pdf
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| Written on the thirtieth anniversary of the Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition, this paper considers the implications of 1960s systems art practice for new media. |
| Playing Outside
Soundparticle
. (Jan 1998)
txt
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| Essay for Soundparticle, Particle Gallery, Annandale, April 1998. Considers ideas of genre and identity in the Sydney experimental electronic music scene. |