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As of May 23rd, anyone can view Rhizome.org without contributing a $5 fee. And, anyone can subscribe to Rhizome email lists or post content to the site simply by signing up. All you have to do to sign up is enter your email address and password--it's completely free.

Rhizome Members have access to the Rhizome Archives--all ten years of our art and text--as well as special Member features in return for an annual contribution of $25.
For more information on our new membership policy: http://www.rhizome.org/support/membership_policy.php

About Rhizome.org
Rhizome.org is an online platform for the global new media art community. Our programs support the creation, presentation, discussion and preservation of contemporary art that uses new technologies in significant ways. We foster innovation and inclusiveness in everything we do.

Rhizome.org takes its name from the botanical term for an underground stem that connects plants into living networks, a metaphor for the organization's non-hierarchical structure. Widely considered to be the world's leading online resource for and about new media artists and their work, Rhizome.org connects, supports, and educates the new media art community through a wide range of on- and offline programs.
URL: http://rhizome.org

A conference on curating digital media

CURATING, IMMATERIALITY, SYSTEMS
A conference on curating digital media

http://www.kurator.org

Tate Modern, London
4 June 2005, 10.00 ­ 18.30

If the assumption is made that traditional curating follows a centralised network model, then what is the position of the curator within a distributed network model? This conference investigates this question in relation to recent ideas around the Œimmateriality¹ of cultural production and dynamic systems leading to contradictory tensions between increased collectivity and curatorial control. It asks how curators respond to new forms of self-organising and self-replicating systems, databases, programming, net art, software art and generative media within the wider system of (im)material culture? What new models of curatorial practice are needed to take into account the transformative nature of objects, and production processes that are collaborative, shared and distributed?

The conference also introduces 'KURATOR' - a free software application designed as a curating tool for source code that can be further modified by users.

Academy. Teaching Art, Learning Art

01/22 - 04/03/2005
"Academy" is an international series of exhibitions and projects which will take place during the next two years. The series is initiated by Siemens Arts Program in cooperation with Kunstverein in Hamburg, Goldsmiths College in London, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst in Antwerp, and Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.

The series begins with "Academy. Teaching Art, Learning Art" at Kunstverein in Hamburg. This event reflects on the situation of students and instructors at art academies and asks: Which role ascriptions occur on either side? Can art be taught and learned at all? Which values do progressive thought and tradition, provincialism and internationality have in the idea and essence of the academy? "Academy. Teaching Art, Learning Art" consists of an exhibition with (in part) process-oriented artistic works and a lecture series. In this sense, the project relates directly to the original meaning of the academy as a forum for sharing ideas and as a venue for free, informal gatherings. This approach is also reflected in an information area within the exhibition, where documentary material is available about various international academies and conservatories of art. Works by the invited artists focus on the theme of the institutionalization of art education and art communication.

In "Ghost Professor Jennifer" (2004), Uli Aigner (*1965 in Scheibbs/ Lower Austria, lives in Munich) established visiting hours in the city hall for students from Munich’s Academy of Visual Arts. Together with students and graduates from the Academy in Munich, she founded the "Ghost Academy" (2004/2005) with its twelve fictive teaching chairs. "Ghost Academy" will now be presented in Hamburg for the first time. Afterwards it will be documented on film and can be experienced in the form of didactic events.

For many years, Pawel Althamer (*1967 in Warsaw, lives in Warsaw) has organized a weekly workshop with mentally handicapped people, the so-called Nowolipie Group. For Kunstverein, he and the members of this group will create sculptural portraits of gallery owners and other art communicators. A video by his artist colleague Artur Zmijewski (*1966 in Warsaw, lives in Warsaw) documents the process through which Althamer conjoins the artistic context and everyday life.

In their group installation "Thirst for Knowledge" (2003), Mark Dion (*1961 in New Bedford/MA in 1961, lives in Beach Lake/PA) and Jackie McAllister (*1962 in Dundee, lives in New York) use articles of clothing and stacks of books to create typological portraits of art students and their intellectual interests.

Jeanne Faust (*1986 in Wiesbaden, lives in Hamburg) made a film in which a woman describes a picture, then repeats this description with uncertainty. Her interlocutor’s response is not shown, so the film’s spectators lack decisive information they need to understand the situation. The attempt to comprehend something through an extremely precise description can fail, but it can also reveal many possibilities.

Jef Geys (*1934 in Leopoldsburg, lives in Balen) presents a series of sketches entitled "ABC École de Paris" (1986) which formulates the academic vocabulary of an artist who can acquire motifs and skills through continual practice. In addition, Geys invited the artist Inge Godelaine to the Academy of fine Arts in Hamburg for two weeks (February 7-18, 2005), where she’ll teach "Sketching from Nude Models" to students and other interested individuals.

The series of sketches entitled "Akademie für Adler" ("Academy for Eagles") (1989) by Jörg Immendorff (*1945 in Bleckede, lives in Düsseldorf) reflects this painter’s ambivalent relationship to the art academy as an institution with its hierarchical, competitive and exclusive mechanisms. The point in time when these pictures were created plays a role, as does the personal involvement of the painter because of his role as an instructor at various academies.

To earn his diploma, Christian Jankowski (*1968 in Göttingen, lives in Berlin) developed a film installation called "Diplomarbeit" ("Diploma Work") (1992/1998), in which he documented the first and last days of his own artistic education. The theme considered in this self-referential artwork is further explored in "Teaching Commission" (2000), which consists of banners daubed with statements that natural scientists made about their own teaching commissions, and "Seminar – Selbstpositionierungen im Kunstfeld" ("Seminar – Self-positioning in the Art Field") (2002), in which students exchange their roles with dream partners from the art world.

In "Basisarbeit" ("Grassroots Work") (1998), Olaf Metzel (*1952 in Berlin, lives in Munich) focuses on the theme of his former double function as artist and rector at the Academy of fine Arts Munich. He describes this twofold role as a contextual and conceptual situation. His installation, which relates to the art academy as an institution, consists of a conference table, voting booths, a photo with the chain of office, a paperweight shaped like the Academy building, and a chaotic heap of files. An accompanying eponymous book contains a collection of articles about the situation in which these educational institutions find themselves.

Eran Schaerf (*1962 in Tel Aviv, lives in Berlin) and students from the Academy of fine Arts in Hamburg plan a project entitled "Modulator" which will represent and investigate the structures of a conservatory’s seminar as a transmitter-receiver model. They developed a "software" for this purpose so that they could change the traditional roles of this communicative model. This led to the creation of a kind of montage machine for which the artists produce contributions and allude to one another, either under their own names or under the name "Modulator."

Arturas Raila (*1962 in Vilnius, lives in Vilnius) has taught for more than a decade at the Conservatory of Art in Vilnius. This institution is also the showplace of his video: entitled "The Girl is Innocent" (1999), the video depicts a stroll through the graduating classes of the year 1998. The video’s theme is the discrepancy between post-communist experiences and the resultant modes of work of several students on the one hand, and the traditional notion of artistic genius which continues to provide an orientation for some of Raila’s professor colleagues on the other hand.

For the duration of the exhibition, Apolonija Šušteršic (*1965 in Ljubljana, lives in Am-sterdam and Ljubljana) will install a "Research Department. Meeting Room" which investigates the complementary interconnections between the Academy of fine Arts in Hamburg, Kunstverein in Hamburg, and the city of Hamburg. As a venue which is simultaneously analytical and physical, the "Research Department" also promotes encounter and communication in order to evaluate and constructively encourage networking between these three venues. (supported by: Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam / Generalkonsu-lat der Niederlande in Hamburg)

Press Conference
Friday, January 21, 2005, 11 a.m.

Opening
Friday, January 21, 2005, 7 p.m.

Cooperating Partners
Kunstverein in Hamburg and Siemens Arts Program

Artists
Uli Aigner, Pawel Althamer & ArturZmijewski & Nowolipie Group, Mark Dion & Jackie McAllister, Jeanne Faust, Jef Geys, Jörg Immendorff, Christian Jankowski, Olaf Metzel, Modulator (Mareike Bernein, Nadine Droste, Gunnar Fleischer, Axel Gaertner, Oliver Gemballa, Heiko Karn, Jeong Hyun Kim, Alexander Mayer, Katrin Mayer, Nicole Messenlehner, Karolin Meunier, Stefan Moos, Miriam Pietrusky, Christoph Rothmeier, Eran Schaerf, Eske Schlüters, Jochen Schmith, Robert Schnackenburg, Mirjam Thomann, Sabin Tünschel, Gunnar Voss, Karsten Wiesel, Benjamin Yavuzsoy, Joachim Zahn and Jenni Zimmer), Arturas Raila, and Apolonija Šušteršic

Curators
Yilmaz Dziewior (Kunstverein in Hamburg)
Angelika Nollert (Siemens Arts Program)

Catalogue
A catalogue will be published upon conclusion of the series. Its editors will be Bart De Baere, Yilmaz Dziewior, Charles Esche, Angelika Nollert, and Irit Rogoff.

Lecture Series

- January 27, 2005, 7 p.m: .Irit Rogoff: "Academy as Potentiality"

- February 3, 2005, 5 p.m.: Heiko Karn, Katrin Mayer, and Eran Schaerf discuss "Format Attempt – Publication as Seminar"

- February 17, 2005, 7 p.m.: Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni, Ali Subotnick: "4th Berlin Biennale 2006"

- February 24, 2005, 7 p.m.: Stephan Dillemuth: "The Academy and the Corporate Public"

- March 3, 2005, 7 p.m.: Abel Auer, André Butzer, Birgit Megerle, Roberto Ohrt: "Academy Isotrope, the Echo"

- March 10, 2005, 7 p.m.: Clementine Deliss: "Future Academy"

- March 17, 2005, 7 p.m.: Martin Köttering: "Ivory Towers / Light-houses: On the Social Position of Art Conservatories"

- March 31, 2005, 7 p.m.: Charles Esche: "The Protoacademy"
Press Release December 2004

Share, Share Widely

The Institute for Distributed Creativity and The Graduate Center, City University of New York present:

The Conference on New-Media Art Education

Friday, May 6th, 11am - 8pm

The Graduate Center
Elebash Recital Hall
City University of New York
365 Fifth Avenue (at 34th street)
New York City

http://newmediaeducation.org -- website

Join us for an intensive one day conference about new media education. Connect with new media researchers and educators, present, discuss, and exchange syllabi or other public domain materials in a temporary gift economy zone. Bring your USB memory key and laptop.

Please RSVP  until May 4th to idc [@] distributedcreativity.org

After-Party
Friday, May 6th, 9pm

The Thing
459 W. 19th St
(between 9th and 10th Ave)
New York, NY
10011

>Concept/Production:
Trebor Scholz (Institute for Distributed Creativity; Department of Media Study, SUNY at Buffalo)

>Participants:
Stanley Aronowitz (The Graduate Center, CUNY), Joline Blais (University of Maine), Beatriz DaCosta (UC Irvine), Ben Chang (School of the Arts Institute Chicago), Alison Colman (Ohio University School of Art), Mary Flanagan (Hunter College, CUNY), Pattie Belle Hastings (Quinnipiac University), Tiffany Holmes (School of the Arts Institute of Chicago), Jon Ippolito (Guggenheim Museum and University of Maine), Natalie Jeremijenko (UC San Diego), Hana Iverson (Temple University), Molly Krause (Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University), Patrick Lichty (Intelligent Agent Magazine), Martin Lucas (Hunter College, CUNY), Colleen Macklin (Parsons School of Design), Daniel Perlin (Interactive Telecommunication Program), Andrea Polli (Hunter College, CUNY),  Douglas Repetto (Columbia University), Stephanie Rothenberg (SUNY at Buffalo), Chris Salter (Concordia University, Montreal), Brooke Singer (SUNY at Purchase), Liz Slagus (Eyebeam), Thomas Slomka (SUNY at Buffalo), Mark Tribe (Columbia University), McKenzie Wark (New School), Ricardo Miranda Zuniga (The College of New Jersey).

>Respondents:
Timothy Druckrey (Media Critic, NYC, and MICA)
Trebor Scholz (Department of Media Study, SUNY at Buffalo)

> Media Blog Contributions:
Amy Alexander (UC San Diego), Saul Albert (University of Openess), Richard Barbrook (Westminster University, London), jonCates (The School of the Art Institute Chicago), Susan Collins (Slade School of Art), Eugene I. Dairianathan (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore), Elizabeth Goodman (San Francisco Art Institute), Alex Halavais (SUNY at Buffalo), Jeff Knowlton (UC San Diego), Paul Benedict Lincoln (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore), Geert Lovink (Hogeschool van Amsterdam/ University of Amsterdam), Nathan Martin (Carnegie Mellon University), Kevin McCauley
(City Varsity, University of Cape Town/University of Stellenbosch, South Africa), Casey Reas/ Ben Fry (UCLA), Shawn Rider (SUNY at Buffalo), Joel Slayton (San Jose State University), Ricardo Rosas (Midia Tactica, Sao Paolo), Paul Vanouse (SUNY at Buffalo)

>Interviews Leading Up To Conference:
(as part of WebCamTalk 1.0)
Megan Boler (University of Toronto), Joline Blais (University of Maine), Axel Bruns (Queensland University of Technology), Lily Diaz (University of Art and Design, Helsinki), Elizabeth Goodman (San Francisco Art Institute), William Grishold (UC San Diego), Lisa Gye (Swinburne University), John Hopkins (Neoscenes.net), Jon Ippolito (Guggenheim Museum, University of Maine), Adriene Jenik (UC San Diego), Molly Krause (Harvard University), Patrick Lichty (Intelligent Agent Magazine), Wolfgang Münch (LASALLE_SIA, Singapore), Anna Munster (University of New South Wales, Sydney), Eduardo Navas (UC San Diego), Randall Packer (American University, Washington), Simon Penny (UC Irvine), Warren Sack (UC Santa Cruz), Christoph Spehr (Berlin), Ricardo Miranda Zuniga (The College of New Jersey)

http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/ -- mailing list archives
http://newmediaeducation.org -- WebCamTalk 1.0

>Conference Advisory Committee:
Stephen Brier (The Graduate Center, CUNY)
Timothy Druckrey (Media Critic, NYC)
Richard Maxwell (Queens College, CUNY)

>Acknowledgments:
Many thanks to Nikolina Knezevic (visiting scholar at New School University, intern at the Institute for Distributed Creativity).

A network of new media educators will be formed as result of this conference.
http://mailman.thing.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/idc -- join mailing list
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Introduction:

Over the past ten years new-media art programs have been started at universities. Departments are shaped, many positions in this field open up and student interest is massive. In China and Singapore enormous developments will take place in the next few years in "new media" art education. At the same time technologists, artists and educators acknowledge a crisis mode: from Germany to Canada, Finland, South Africa, Australia, Brazil and Singapore to the United States and beyond. But so far, there has been surprisingly little public debate about education in new media art.

Many educators point to a widespread tension between vocational training and a solid critical education, a lacking focus on media histories for example. There is no stable "new media industry" for which a static skill set would prepare the graduate for his or her professional future in today's post-dotcom era.  Between Futurist narratives of progress with all their techno-optimism and the technophobia often encountered in more traditional narratives-- how do we educate students to be equally familiar with technical concepts, theory, history, and art?

How can new media theory be activated as a wake-up call for students leading to radical change? Which educational structure proves more effective: cross-disciplinary, theme-based research groups or media-based departments? Does the current new media art curriculum allow for play, failure, and
experiment? How can we introduce free software into the new media classroom when businesses still hardly make use of open source or free software? How can we break out of the self-contained university lab? What are examples of meaningful connections between media production in the university and cultural institutions as well as technology businesses? How can we introduce politics into the new media lab?

Between imagined flattened hierarchies and the traditional models of top-down education, participants will give examples based on their experiences that offer a middle-ground between these extremes. Further questions address anti-intellectualism in the classroom and the high demands on educators in this area in which technology and theory have few precedents and change rapidly. In response to this-- several distributed learning tools will be presented that link up new-media educators to share code, theory, and art in real time.

-Vocational training versus solid critical education (e.g. media histories)
-Open Source Software, open access, open content, technologies of sharing
-Edblogging, blogsperiments
-Creation of meaningful connections between art, theory, technology, and history
-Education of politics, politics in education
-Shaping of core curriculum without fear of experiments and failure
-Distributed learning tools: empowering for the knowledge commons (organizing academic knowledge and connecting new media educators)
-Intellectual property issues in academia
-Diversity in the new media art classroom
-Use of wifi devices to connect people on campus and in the classroom
-Uses of social software in the classroom (wikis, and weblogs, voice over IP, del.icio.us, IM, and Flickr)
-Battles over the wireless commons
-Models for connecting university labs with outside institutions and non-profit organizations.
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"Share, Share Widely" is organized by the Institute for Distributed Creativity (iDC) in collaboration with the Office of the Associate Provost for Instructional Technology and the New Media Lab, The Graduate Center, City University of New York.