Chapter 2: Clement Greenberg, Modernism, The Theory of Computation and Computer Art
by Jim Andrews
Godel’s and Turing’s work as the culmination of Greenberg’s modernism of self-referentiality or consciousness of the art itself within the art itself.

Chapter 1: Computer Art and the Theory of Computation
by Jim Andrews
I’m posting the chapters of a book I’m writing on computer art and the theory of computation. An artist-programmer’s philosophy of computer art.

Aleph Null Color Music
by Jim Andrews
Color music described, and how to play Aleph Null as an instrument of color music.

Aleph Null
by Jim Andrews
Aleph Null is a new online interactive, generative work of visual art. Programmed in JavaScript using the HTML 5 canvas tag.

Banned Production: Cassettes, Crypts and Beavers
by Gregory Whitehead
Notes on cassette culture by one of the greats of that movement.

New Media Writing Prize 2011
by Christine Wilks
The deadline was midday on Monday 31 October 2011.

Aleph Null is best viewed by the light of a full moon. Or near full moon. Same with the set of stills I made. I mean they do like a bit of darkness.

If you’re using a PC, I’d recommend Chrome to view Aleph Null. At least on my machine, Chrome provides the smoothest performance. Firefox provides a similarly high framerate, but is a bit jerky from time to time. Internet Explorer kind of sucks. On the Mac, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari seem to be fine.

Aleph Null is my first piece with the new HTML 5 canvas tag which requires no plugins and works in all modern browsers, including mobile phones. It’s exciting to have such a canvas to work/play with in a public technology that is not at the mercy of a corporation’s business plan or its continued existence. Such must be the future for net art; it isn’t feasible to rely on corporations to support tools indefinitely, whereas technologies developed in the public sphere stand more of a chance of at least achieving their logical growth and form from their potential.

Aleph Null is color music. Colors are tones. Notes are tones. Music is tones moving in time. This is color tones moving in time.

It takes practice to tease the really good stuff out of it. It’s like an instrument that way. Or a game in which the goal is to experience color music and create visuals you like. It’s like hunting the Snark, beauty or butterflies. Unlike most instruments, Aleph Null will play something whether a person is playing or not. But it benefits immensely by a human player. It knoweth not beauty, is but the instrument of thine own incandesence.

Some HTML 5 Works
by Jim Andrews
A review of four new HTML 5 works including an innovative, interactive music video by Montréal’s The Arcade Fire, 2011 winners of the Grammy for album of the year (The Suburbs).

Recursion and Human Thought: Why the Piraha Don’t Have Numbers
by Jim Andrews
The Piraha are a tribe of Brazilian aboriginals much discussed in linguistics because their language seems to provide evidence that one of the tenets of Noam Chomsky’s theory of language is wrong. Also, the Piraha lack almost all language for number. Yet, in this monlogue by Daniel L. Everett, who has lived among them for years, we see a case of the natives converting the missionary. About time! In an age where ‘Think different’ is a corporate slogan, the Piraha truly do think differently.

Vancouver Riot
by Jim Andrews
I recently moved to Vancouver. Just in time for the hockey riot. Which happened in my neighborhood. Mayhem dbCinemized.

Unashamed Oink Squirts
by Gregory Whitehead
An anagrammatical exploration of the nomological potential of D,o,m,i,n,i,q,u,e,S,t,r,a,u,s,s,K,a,h,n.

DREAMING METHODS–OPEN SOURCE PROJECT
by Andy Campbell
Dreaming Methods has three new projects available to experience – each one created without the use of Flash or any other browser plugin.

MAINLY THE MYSTERIES
by Gregory Whitehead
One of the great audio artists of our time was asked to write about what he still believes in, through all the riptides of the past decades.

THE CLUB
by Jim Andrews
Selected North American politicians, business men, and pyschopaths dbCinemized.

UNDERBELLY & SISTER STONE CARVER
by Christine Wilks
Christine on the relation of her piece Underbelly to where she’s from, and her sister’s stone carving.

UNICODE BY JORG PIRINGER
by Jim Andrews
A review of Jorg’s piece posted on netpoetic.

CITY BIRD BY MILLIE NISS
by Jim Andrews
A short review of the late Millie Niss’s new book of poems.

ANDREW TOPEL
by Jim Andrews
Some outstanding visual poetry by Andrew Topel.

IN THE SOUP WITH THE DIGITAL BOOK
by Paul Green
New contributor Paul Green, audio artist extrordinaire, wonders about the digital book.

RADIAUTEUR–NEW WEBZINE FOR RADIO ART
by Gregory Whitehead
Description of and call for works concerning a new online webzine for radio art.

MARIA ENGBERG REVIEWS FUNKHOUSER AND DRUCKER
by Jim Andrews
Thoughts on Engberg’s article recently published in EBR.

MOM’S MUSIC
by Jim Andrews
A last experience together of music.

SLIDVID 3.0
by Jim Andrews
A software project by Andrews.

THE CURSE OF THE ‘CODE BLUE’ MOTTO
by Jim Andrews
The motto of the Canadian national junior hockey team in 2011 was “Code Blue”. Who knew that their motto would prove ironic? After the final game, did whoever thought up the motto for the Canadian juniors glimpse, in a kind of literary horror, the final meaning the motto would have in history?

The Club

The politicians are conservatives who have blasted away both at home and abroad. Via deregulation, the shock doctrine, and explicitly military means. The business men are CEO’s who are mostly now behind bars, or have been. The psychopaths include (Ex-Colonel) Russell Williams who, until the time of his arrest for two sex murders, headed CFB Trenton, the largest military air-base in Canada.

So it’s a bit of a Dorian Gray piece. But they are each others’ deformities.

Here’s what Andy Warhole said about The Club: “they look like some kind of Auschwitz-Chernobyl mutant legacy, and maybe they are — this is like morphing, blocpix, mr. potatohead, and various slice-n-dice technologies… but not them — this is new — and of course i love your politics ”

Much of the work I’ve done with dbCinema, the graphic synthesizer I wrote in Adobe Director, has been toward beauty. This is quite different. But The Club was still made with dbCinema. There’s other work I’ve done with dbCinema here.

var p = new Preloader(fileNameArray)

(that’s preloader, not freeloader) and ta da you gots an object. The fileNameArray is an array of strings that specify where to find the images that need to be preloaded. And there are various public functions such as

var isFinished = p.finished(0)

isFinished would tell you if the first image has successfully finished downloading.

var im = p.getImage(9)

im would be the tenth image. And there are various other public functions documented in the js file.

I developed this image preloader for things like JavaScript slideshow apps. In which you might have a couple of hundred images that need preloading. But not all at once. The preloader loads the images one by one. By default, it starts with the first one and keeps going till it has finished downloading them all. But you can tell it to download image x at any point immediately. Which it will do and then do x+1 etc.

The second module is for  parameters like ?n=10&p=1 at the end of a URL.  svURLparameters.js parses the parameters, lets you manage them and construct parameters to pass to the next HTML page, if you want.

This lets you maintain state between HTML files, for instance. I also use it in the slideshow app I wrote to be able to send people to particular images. For instance, if I give them the URL

http://vispo.com/nio/pens/slideshow/index.htm

which doesn’t have any parameters at the end, the app opens normally. If, on the other hand, I give them the URL

http://vispo.com/nio/pens/slideshow/index.htm?n=10

then it initially displays  the tenth image.

Jason Looks Entirely Gross

UPDATE FROM JASON:

Jim,  Thanks for the concern. Yeah I did have a lovely, but thankfully brief battle with Shingles. A pretty amazing little virus that hides in your nerves and arrives to shudder and knock your fibers.  I am totally fine now and have been for a bit. Excuse my absence from NetPoetic….heaps of projects and possible new locations and positions are occupying my time.

But I thought you might appreciate an gruesome picture of the waning days of my shingles adventure.

Jim Andrews said:

Anyone in touch with Jason Nelson? I know he has Shingles. Which is a bloody awful affliction. How is he doing? All best to him; here’s hoping for a quick recovery.

And a note to netpoetic authors. If there are any comments posted about your articles, you should approve them. They won’t appear in the interface before you approve them. You made a comment, Lori, that you need to approve, also.

New online journal: Experimental Poetics and Aesthetics
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=759
by Jim Andrews
Experimental Poetics is a new online journal in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Doc at the Radar Station
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=722
by Gregory Whitehead
Whitehead writes of the impact of Captain Beefheart on his own work.

Nick Montfort & Stephanie Strickland / Sea and Spar Between
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=716
by Jim Andrews
The generative/interactive piece uses Emily Dickinson’s poems and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

iPhone apps for Native languages in western Canada
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=697
by Jim Andrews
iPhone apps for the Sencoten language, spoken on southern Vancouver Island, and Halq’eméylem, spoken in the Fraser Valley of the same area, have recently been released.

Wikileaks, Napster, and the Ayatollah Flanagan
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=655
by Jim Andrews
An article describing 1) a parallel between Wikileaks and Napster 2) the
value of Wikileaks 3) the revolting Canadian Ayatollah Flanagan and his
fatwa against the founder of Wikileaks.

P.o.E.M.M. = Poems for Excitable Mobile Media
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=648
by Jason Lewis
P.o.E.M.M. is a research/creation project looking at how to write and
implement poetry designed for touch interaction on mobile devices. It’s an
attempt to sketch out the space of possibilities for a poetic structure that
incorporates dynamic, interactive and tactile strategies as a core component
of the writing process and presentation.

Radio Poetics, Interference and Muck
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=611
by Gregory Whitehead
Gregory Whitehead, acclaimed audio writer known to some simply as The
Pleasure, triangulates poetics of Radio amid the digital. “Radio poesis
flows from the edges, some of them very fragile and sensitive, and
occasionally they may even swell or bleed. Edges between signal and noise.
Edges of frequency and range, both of which implicate edges of power and
politics. Edges between attraction and repulsion; between Eros and
Thanatos…”

New online issue of CIAC’s magazine
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=607
by Jim Andrews
The CIAC is the Centre for International Contemporary Art in Montréal. They
publish on the net a long-running magazine, now edited by Paule Makrous,
that features web art, interviews, reviews, and other work. The most recent
issue (38) features poetry by some of the victims of Ravensbrück, a Nazi
concentration camp for women. And an interview with Gregory Chatonsky. And
an interview with me by Paule. And other work.

Sound Resolution
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=597
by Jim  Andrews
Now what I’m going to tell you you already know back in some primitive part of your brain. Digital sound doesn’t sound as good as many analog recordings. Here’s why.

Digital Fiction iPad Project: The Good and Bad Stuff
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=579
by Andy Campbell
I thought it might be interesting to reflect on how we’re finding the iPad as a development platform regarding our latest digital fiction project ‘Changed‘, bearing in mind that we’re not using the Apple SDK or exporting an App from Flash CS5 to produce this piece.

NHL Brain Trinket
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=565
by Jim Andrews
What I’m going to tell you—I warn you—is of no consequence whatever. And it won’t even be of interest to you unless you’re an NHL hockey fan. And, worse, it’s going to test your algebra skills. The only thing I can say in favour of saying it at all is that you just won’t ever read anything else about hockey like what I’m going to tell you right now. It just doesn’t happen. This is the unicorn of hockey writing. Right here, right now.

Shoes Red as Wounds
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=556
by Christine Wilks
Christine discusses aspects of her work Underbelly, which recently won the Poole prize for new media writing.

New on Netartery:

DIGITAL POETRY ISSUE OF THE JOURNAL OF ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING
by Jim Andrews
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=543
Aaron McCollough is guest-editing an issue of the Journal of Electronic Publishing, and will create an issue on digital poetry. Deadline is April 15, 2011. See the post for details and contact info.

NEWS FROM THE SAHRAWI REFUGEE CAMPS IN SOUTHERN ALGERIA
by Eugenio Tisselli
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=523
Since 2003, Catalan artist Antoni Abad and I have been working on a series
of projects dealing with overlooked communities around the world expressing
and sharing their views and opinions on the Web…

CANADIAN PSYCHO
by Jim Andrews
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=471
During the third week of October, 2010, the Canadian media covered the case
of Russell Williams like no other news story. Williams, prior to his
February 7, 2010 confession of murders, rapes, and scores of panty
burglaries, was a colonel and decorated pilot in command of the Canadian
military air base in Trenton, Ontario, the country’s largest and busiest
military airbase…

GREGORY CHATONSKY’S GENERATIVE NARRATIVES
by Jim Andrews
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=441
Gregory Chatonsky is a French/Canadian artist who has created a significant
body of net art. Here are a couple of pieces of his I found that still work
and are compelling…

NEW MEDIA WRITING PRIZE SHORTLIST
by Jim Andrews
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=437
The shortlist for the Poole New Media Writing Prize includes Christine Wilks
(who is on netartery), Katharine Norman (whom I invited to be on netartery),
Alan Bigelow (whom I should invite to be on netartery), and myself…

TYPING THE DANCING SIGNIFIER: JIM ANDREWS’ (VIS)POETICS
by Leonardo Flores
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=429
Leonardo provides a link to his recently completed 350+ page doctoral
dissertation on the work of Jim Andrews…

AMY WINEHOUSE LINKS
by Jim Andrews
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=371
I’ve been listening to Amy Winehouse’s blue-eyed soul music (though hers are
brown) recently, watching interviews and reading articles about her. I
thought I’d post the best of those links…

NIGHTINGALE’S PLAYGROUND
by Andy Campbell
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=373
Created by Dreaming Methods authors Andy Campbell and Judi Alston,
Nightingale’s Playground is an ambitious work of digital fiction divided
into four interlinked parts: an atmospheric browser based experience; an
interactive virtual book with pages you can turn with the mouse; a short
eBook download; and an immersive 3D game-like application that takes the
written word into strange new dimensions…

INSTANT POETRY PATENTS
by David Jhave Johnston
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=342
About a year ago, John Cayley made a post on NetPoetic entitled “An Edge of
Chaos”. In it he delimits a constraint-based networked-writing process:
“Write into the Google search field with text delimited by quote marks until
the sequence of words is not found. Record this sequence..” A couple of
weeks ago, I woke up with the idea of making a poem composed entirely of
lines that returned no search results. “Wow”, I thought to myself, “what a
great idea”. I had forgotten it was John’s idea…

SIGN AFTER THE X
by Jim Andrews
http://netartery.vispo.com/?p=329
David Clarke has created a new work of net art called Sign After the X in
collaboration with Marina Roy and Graham Meisner. Sign After the X is
structurally similar to some of Clark’s earlier works such as A is for Apple
and 88 Constellations for Wittgenstein. The form of these works is one that
Clark has been developing for some time now…