Wikipedia Art Remix (performance)

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August 19th @ Benrimon Contemporary, part of Younger Than Moses: Idle Worship
514 West 24th Street on the 2nd floor
An evening of performances & screenings by Ryan V. Brennan, the Wikipedia Art Project, Genevieve White, Adam & Ron. Beginning 6:00 PM (come a little early for a Wikipedia Art Remix treat!)

kildall_wiki_logo_hi-resFor Sean Fletcher and Isabel Reichert’s Wikipedia Art Remix, two actors perform a scene appropriated from Edward Albee’s play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”. The dialogue between the iconic characters George and Martha incorporates highlights from the “Articles for Deletion” page of Wikipedia Art, an intervention by Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern on Wikipedia, so the couple’s argument becomes one about whether or not art can exist on Wikipedia.

Sean Fletcher and Isabel Reichert have collaborated together on conceptually based performance works, interventions, writings, installations, videos, photography, and prints since meeting each other in 1994. Their work is about power and vulnerability; how it relates to relationship dynamics, society, and politics. Fletcher and Reichert use collaboration as a tool to integrate the negotiation for power into works of art.

Scott Kildall is an independent artist, who intervenes with objects and actions into various concepts of space. Nathaniel Stern is an artist, teacher, writer and provocateur, who works with interactive, participatory, networked and traditional forms.

15 hours of magic

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CPoV Wikipedia Conference

Here is a blog posting on my talk (co-written by Nathaniel Stern) at the CPOV Conference in Amsterdam, which is a decent run-down and I chuckled when the blogger called me a “short man” (I am 5′ 8″). I can only hope she didn’t comment on everyone else’s physical appearances!

My talk was a more detailed look into the theoretical issues behind the Wikipedia Art project, initiated just over a year ago.

The most compelling presentation from Day 1 was that of Jeanette Hofmann, who discussed the interplay of experience and expectation, outlining a general trend on web-based ventures such as Wikipedia. With a move that discards past experience, people create a new systems which challenge the paradigm through experimental new means. However, these often lead to bloated administrative layers, regulatory systems and general ossification. The creators often feel a sense of disappointment as a result.

Wikipedia CPOV Conference

CPOV in Amsterdam + Interview

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Round 2 of the CPOV Conference, this time in Amsterdam (March 26-27). I’m flying out on Friday, where I will be presenting a paper and presentation on Wikipedia Art in collaboration with Nathaniel Stern. On the CPOV blog is an interview by Juliana Brunello, featuring Patrick Lichty, Nathaniel and myself.

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This conference is a follow-up to the amazing WikiWars Conference in Banglaore. I’m looking forward to meeting the next group of critical thinkers with high hopes based on the January gathering. Thank you to the Institute of Networked Cultures for putting this together!

WikiWars Reportback

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I just returned from Bangalore, India as part of the WikiWars Conference (see previous post). Organized by Nishant Shah and Geert Lovnik as part 1 of CPOV: Critical Point of View (as opposed to Wikipedia’s NPOV), the conference featured speakers from 27 different countries.

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Nathaniel Stern and I presented Wikipedia Art: Citation as Performative Act in the final session of the 2-day conference, where we performed the presentation, based on the impetus behind the Wikipedia Art project, performative citations and used examples from The Miracle on 34th Street and The Digital Dark Age.

Part 2 will be in Amsterdam in March and the result will be a free book featuring a compendium of writings from the two events, which will be distributed to universities and libraries worldwide — a unification of academia and open culture philosophy.

This was one of the best conferences I’ve been to: well-organized with thoughtful presentations, plenty of time for in-depth discussions and a warm group of people, which resulted in some new friendships.

I was particularly impressed with Stuart Gieger’s discussion of bots in Wikipedia culture as well as Mark Graham’s analysis of uneven geographies in Wikipedia.

Stay tuned for the Amsterdam session and you can follow the CPOV blog here.

I have many more photos from the India trip on my Facebook page.