From douglas at music.columbia.edu Wed Aug 11 14:05:20 2004 From: douglas at music.columbia.edu (douglas irving repetto) Date: Wed Aug 11 14:20:56 2004 Subject: [ArtBots-discuss] 2004 ArtBots press release Message-ID: The show is starting to come together. Lots left to do, but I think it's actually going to happen...and as proof, here's the press release: http://artbots.org/2004/ArtBots2004_press_release.pdf !!! douglas -- ................................................http://artbots.org .....douglas.....irving.........................http://dorkbot.org .................................http://ceait.calarts.edu/musicdsp .......... repetto..............http://music.columbia.edu/organism ................................http://music.columbia.edu/~douglas From amcgee at virtualidentity.org Fri Aug 20 08:23:01 2004 From: amcgee at virtualidentity.org (Art McGee) Date: Fri Aug 20 08:38:54 2004 Subject: [ArtBots-discuss] Ai-Yi-Yi, Robots! Message-ID: Bright Lights Film Journal August 2004 [Issue 45] Ai-Yi-Yi, Robots! Survival Research Laboratories: 10 Years of Robotic Mayhem on DVD A Cruel and Rebellious Plot to Pervert the Minds of Viewers to Unholy Uses By Gary Morris One of the early lessons museum visitors learn, from parents, teachers, and underpaid guards, is: "Don't touch the art!" The reasons for this vary from commercial considerations (imagine sticky fingers on a Rembrandt) to reinforcing middlebrow notions of quality and taste, but the result is typically a rigid respect, even reverence, for the "art object" that keeps the experience passive and bloodless. The only mainstream institutions that encourage "disrespecting" the art by interacting with it are children's museums, which are also, significantly, popular with adults. It's no surprise that "experiencing" art, as opposed to cringing before it, must be ghettoized in a children's play space, as if too much engagement is a sign of immaturity. Of course, some adults want more than giant sandboxes and lever-based zoology tests. Fortunately, the more extreme realms of performance art from the last quarter of the last century address this need, providing new and shocking aesthetic thrills. Founded in 1978 by Mark Pauline, San Francisco's Survival Research Laboratories has been a leading force in this area. SRL creates complex tableaux vivant "starring" hand-created robotic forms and dead animal parts that enact ritualized melodramas of destruction. These dramas, a kind of mechanized Grand Guignol, usually end in an apocalyptic crash, with fur, flesh, metal, and fire exploding across the stage or the street. SRL's work is visionary: their grafting of the organic with the mechanical paved the way for films like Robocop, Terminator, and The Matrix series, and phenomena like Junkyard Wars and Monster Garage that smear the lines between human beings and machines. Full Text: http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/45/srl.htm -end- Art McGee Principal Consultant Virtual Identity Communications+Media+Technology 1-510-967-9381