[NetBehaviour] beta rss driven visualiser (needs feedback)

[marc]

Hi Jason,

Vanishing point http://www.low-fi.org.uk/vanishingpoint/ as a work 
conceptually and f

"his database driven map of the world “reveals how international news 
media is creating new cartography”. The huge scale of the human and 
political dramas surrounding the recent landfall of hurricanes Katrina 
and then Rita have driven a new level of intensity in the hunt for 
up-to-the-moment news via the Internet, television screens, and newspapers.

With the mass adoption of blogging (writing personal on-line 
chronicles), those that make history and those who tell it are starting 
to converge. Bloggers, declaring their own take on situations as they 
occur around the world, can challenge to a degree, the information 
pouring from large corporate media, but still the dominant voices tend 
to reflect the interests of the powerful. The mediation and retelling of 
current events (our histories whether political, social or theoretical) 
within digital space, offers an endless field for exploration by the 
contemporary artist. All representation is re-interpretation, thus we 
are caught up in the messy and confusing noise of intentions and 
questions about who it is that is informing us of what and why.

Mauricio Arango addresses these perplexing issues with an elegant 
intelligence. Vanishing Point uses Flash 7 for its interface, PHP and 
MySQL for its dynamic database and takes the content for its news search 
from RSS feeds (automatically syndicated news) from selected on-line 
newspapers of the G7 countries (that’s the G8 minus Russia). From the 
Internet this net artwork is projected onto the wall, throwing an image 
measuring about 6 x 8 feet. A mouse allows you to interact with the work 
and other people in the gallery can watch your journey around the map.

If there is a criticism of this intensely thoughtful and beautifully 
executed work, it is the apparent redundancy of the additional physical 
installation of the work. Against the wall facing the projection is a 
reading desk and two piles of daily UK newspapers, The Guardian and the 
Times, presumably offering a resource for the audience to explore a more 
local perspective on the world news for the duration of the exhibition. 
This feels like an attempt to justify its installation in physical 
space. But while the web work can be viewed just as easily through your 
browser at home, the scale of the projected work and the social 
interaction fully justifies its presence in a gallery space.

This navigable world map, interrogates one’s own, socially constructed, 
sense of global perspective to re-evaluate previous assumptions, and to 
acknowledge statistical inaccuracies that lead to the partiality of our 
info-landscape. It challenges the homogenization of ideas around global 
info-access and the objectivity of the 4th estate. It successfully 
presents the clearest demonstration of the first world-view as 
persistently blind in one eye."

http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?From=Index&review_id=157 - 
collaborative text by marc garrett & ruth catlow.


> All,
> Another work...yes.....but this ones needs some serious feedback.
> Do keep in mind it is beta-beta...but try lots of locations and send back
> any errors or ideas on what is interesting and what is not so...
> the basics: We are taking a real time weather rss feed and then using
> the data to load videos, play with creatures on the screen and other keen
> things.....(just imagine I said something critically powerful, then 
> look at the
> darn work)
> http://www.secrettechnology.com/weather_rss/weather_rss.html
> so before we release it....we wanted your thoughts...you know cause 
> this is
> a net art list.....
> cheers, Jason Nelsonhttp://www.low-fi.org.uk/vanishingpoint/
>
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