Submit Response is a weblog by Jack Mottram, a Synchronicity
Rhizome.org have just announced their new set of commissions, and, judging by the proposals we’re in for some tasty treats.
talking of net art, i got untitled game, jodi.org’s contribution to the cca’s words & things show (read review), on cd-rom the other day. then i hung it on my bedroom wall. then i laughed like a drain. i really need to get out more.
where was i? oh yeah. untitled game. it’s a corruption (i believe ‘mod’ is the proper term) of the computer game Quake. i’ve no idea what Quake is (seems i knew it was a “seminal shoot ‘em up” when i wrote the review, but that was probably on the press release. lazy lazy.), so i would be interested to hear what a Quake player would make of the piece. for a non-game-playing person, it functions as a companion to jodi’s usual dialogue with technology/the interweb - they have hacked away at the game’s architecture, interface and aesthetic to produce a truly disorientating experience: you have no way of knowing how you are meant to play (or if you are a Quake veteran, i suspect hitting the key to, say, shoot in the standard game will do something unexpected), there is no goal to aim for, no beginning, no end… have a go, it’s fun too!
and this is just odd: immediately after posting all that i noticed that francis mckee the curator of the abovementioned words & things show, has linked to us from his site [many thanks francis]. and just to continue the synchronicity splurge, i just took a look at the essays section on francis’ site so i could link to one as an example of what he has for you to look at. i managed to pick, at random, the conversation with João Penalva. the text to Penalva’s amazing video piece 336 Pek (336 Rivers) is at the top of the pile of books on my desk just now. funny old world.
if you ever have the chance to view 336 Pek, i can heartily reccomend it. it’s a single static shot of a park with a voiceover in russian - a sort of stream of consciousness rambling set of memories that eventually becomes a listing of the 336 rivers that have as their source lake baikal in siberia. it’s the sort of piece that leaves your brains fizzing for weeks - all this stuff about translation, video as painting maybe, truth v. fiction, not to mention the fact that it functions as a gripping narrative film despite holding one shot for about an hour…
and finally more links in the form of a silly glitch [view page source if it… glitches. and if it doesn’t.]
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