Jason Freeman

Assistant Professor, Music Department, Georgia Institute of Technology

N.A.G. (Network Auralization for Gnutella) (2003), software art



for Mac OS X, Windows 2000, or Windows XP

About

win2k2

N.A.G. (Network Auralization for Gnutella) is interactive software art for Mac OS X and Windows 2000/XP which turns the process of searching for and downloading MP3 files into a chaotic musical collage. Type in one or more search keywords, and N.A.G. looks for matches on the Gnutella peer-to-peer file sharing network. The software then downloads MP3 files which match the search keyword(s) and remixes these audio files in real time based on the structure of the Gnutella network itself.

N.A.G. is a 2003 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., (dba Ether-Ore), for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Quotes

"N.A.G. ...stands as an example of the Web's mind-expanding possibilities." — Troy Carpenter, Billboard.com, 7/22/03

"I am listening to some of the more fascinating sounds I've ever heard. Further afield than John Oswald's Plunderphonics and mash ups, the "songs" created by Jason Freeman's Network Auralization for Gnutella application are a shadowy snapshot of the sounds between songs. What we'd hear in the narrow spaces between parallel planes of existence. The songs that shadows and static sing." — Heath Row’s Media Diet, 7/14/03

"Addictive and fun, and when you give it a good set of search terms this fascinating download's aural collage-making is positively unreal." — USA Today.com, 7/14/03

"The results are strangely haunting, extremely avant garde remixes, dada for the P2P generation." — Exoskeleton, 7/8/03

Press

Lectures, Exhibitions, and Performances

  • dorkbot-nyc lecture, March 2003.
  • cmc.03 exhibition, April 2003.
  • Press The Button, live radio improvisation, WRWU (Cleveland), July 2003.
  • World Turning Festival (New York), presentation of N.A.G. collages, August 2003
  • Distributed Creativity online forum (sponsored by Eyebeam), featured work and panelist, November 2003.
  • Interference, presentation of N.A.G. collages, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany, February 2004.
  • Recontres Musiques Nouvelles, presentation of N.A.G. collages, Lunel, France, June 2004.
  • Viper Festival, exhibition, Basel, Switzerland, November 2004.

Publications

J. Freeman. “N.A.G. (Network Auralization for Gnutella).” In Proceedings of ACM Multimedia (New York), 2004.

J. Freeman. “N.A.G. (Network Auralization for Gnutella): In Search of a New Way To Listen.” The HTV (Amsterdam), September 2003.

J. Freeman. "N.A.G.: Dorkbot Mix." People Doing Strange Things With Electricity Too." Comfort Stand Records, 2005.

All site content and materials copyright (c) 2001-2007 by Jason Freeman.