Good post Rob, a nice precise of the project and as ever, bringing something to light I had no idea about.
M On 21 Apr 2012, at 16:08, Rob Myers wrote: > http://robmyers.org/weblog/2012/04/21/not-now-james-were-busy/ > > > This post does not include the phrase "frantic academic clopping". > > > James Bridle's "Where The F**k Was I?" (2011) is a book containing 202 > maps depicting his movements over the previous year. The maps were > produced using OpenStreetMap (2004) to plot the secret location database > that iPhones (2007) had been discovered to be keeping (April 2011). It > is printed as a hardback book using Lulu (2002), although images from it > can be seen on flickr (2004). > > In writing about this project, Bridle reflects on the impact of > discovering that he was being spied on and takes this as a leaping off > point for wider and deeper reflection on the nature of memory and of the > mediation of experience by technology. In doing so he discusses > contemporary art, contemporary literature, and contemporary > cybercultural theory. > > I would like to make two points about this project. > > The first is that it would have been impractical before 2007, and > unnecessary before 2011. I appreciate that in the 1990s JODI were > multi-billion-dollar companies profiting from pervasive digital devices > and logistics that meant the virtual tail of the > military-industrial-fashion complex was wagging the actual dog of > society in ways that were bleeding through into everyday experience, but > I think we all have to admit that they didn't have a Tumblr (2007). > > The second is that the project is a serious and literate consideration > of personal experience as shaped by our present situation that uses > aesthetics not due to Theoretic inarticulacy but precisely to > communicate the full impact of its subject effectively. > > I am arguing that Bridle's project of The New Aesthetic (TNA) is indeed > considering both the new and the aesthetic, and that both these aspects > of it are critically valuable and cannot be reduced to historical or > textual surrogates. > > > My favourite responses to TNA so far have been: > > David Berry critiquing Object Oriented Philosophical approaches to TNA > and providing three different ways of considering it that come from > within cyberculture - > > http://stunlaw.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/what-is-new-aesthetic.html > > Saul Albert providing some very useful historical comparisons to net.art - > > https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1204&L=new-media-curating&F=&S=&P=18212 > > And Honor Harger pointing out the gap between the straw man of TNA that > many people are attacking and what it actually is - > > https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1204&L=new-media-curating&F=&S=&P=20818 > > > - Rob. > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
