Web-Elective Critical Evaluation

Link to Critical Evaluation for Web-Based Publication elective unit

Web-Elective presentation

Web Elective on Prezi

design paths

Through consideration, I decide to create a story for the website. It is structured around segments /mages of memories, some distant and vague, some clear and more discriptive. It will not have a clear navigation, as I want to draw the audiences' attention to the fading, subjective and fluid nature of how events are remembered.

Some mysterious and ambiguous elements of James Hart Dyke's work on MI6, and personal and investigative endevour made by Timothy Garton Ash into his own file created by the East German secret police, have influenced my thoughts in composing the ideas and designs of this website.

"How can you ever really know what is fact, what fiction, and what still lies entirely hidden?" (Garton Ash, 1997, p.205)

The hotspots on each pages are not labeled and viewers are required to hover over the images to before they can turn the page of their experience. After travelling through the path without a clear signposts, they will reach a page (or be transfered to) a page which will have my short clip The New Republic. These uncertain stages are in reference to what people experienced in Germany (especially East Germany) after the Berlin Wall was breached and two Germanys unified in 1990.

"Yesterday your secret was hidden in a single dusty cardboard file. Today it lies open on a million breakfast-tables." (Garton Ash, 1997, p.194) 

The project also follows a process of recording/observing Berlin, and making public the work I've produced - even though it does not have clear indications often seen in artists' portfolio sites. One idea is to lead visitors eventually to my vimio page.

Garton Ash, T. (1997) The File: A Personal History. London: Flamingo.

Mount Street Gallery [2011] A Year with MI6: James Hart Dyke. [Online]
http://www.mountstreetgalleries.com/prints/?page_id=6&shopp_category=2 [12/03/2011]

Clips from Berlin

I have not met a Berliner who speak positively of the current Checkpoint Charlie. The location is filled with tourists photographing guys posing as U.S. soldiers for 2€, with herds of coaches driving by the Checkpoint museum. I know there are things running deeper - the lives lost seeking freedom, or devastated by the Cold War policies - that are not glossy enough for the coaches to stop.

I'm first surprised with a McDonald's in front of the museum which was't there when I last visited, and I think to myself, it might as well.

This clip was made from shots at Griebnitzsee, on the border of Berlin and Brandenburg. The wall is on the former East German side, with West Berlin in the background. The wall used to have graffiti that changed every time I went, and it's now painted white. The riverside path that ran along the former border has since been cut up by houses built on the riverbank.

...and outside the former Permanent Representative [Ständige Vertretung] of West Germany, in former East Berlin. The facility had to be shut down in August 1989 as it couldn't cope with the number of East German citizens seeking  visa to exit East Germany.

The first 2 clips are 20 seconds long, and the last 30.

Capital cities

2 more test clips, of post-elections Berlin. The city has become the capital city of unified Germany, from being divided by the Wall, although various elections/referendum results show Berliners' diverse values.

'Operations can be surreal'

Ideas and concepts for website. I have been searching for a structure which is not as straight forward nor simply a portfolio site, with mysterious and uncertain narrative. The artist James Hart Dyke has worked with MI6, and due to confidential nature, he has made identities of agents vague and hidden.

Espionage 2010, oil on canvas. An ordinary street scene. But is it ordinary, or is something out of the ordinary going on here? 'In the world of the spy, extraordinary events happen in the midst of the mundane,' says Hart Dyke. 'Once you're part of that world, you're never sure that things are as they seem. It can seem paranoid but it's paranoia with a point. Is this an ordinary day in a city or is it the scene of an SIS operation?'  

Doughnut on Stripes 2010, oil on canvas. The intelligence community sometimes refer to the GCHQ building as 'the doughnut'

Housing Estate 2010, oil on canvas. A scene reminiscent of the cold war  

Ice Breaker 2011, oil on canvas. SIS officers need to be able to cultivate contacts. An officer contemplates how she might strike up a conversation with her target, who is having a drink at the bar  

Waiting in the Hotel Room 2010, pencil, watercolour and charcoal on paper. Spies spend long hours working, waiting for contacts and waiting for calls. 'There's a lot of hanging around,' says Hart Dyke. 'You're in a completely ordinary place, waiting for something quite extraordinary to happen... and often waiting for a long time.'

"James Bond, as Ian Fleming originally conceived him, was based on reality. But any author needs to inject a level of glamour and excitement beyond reality in order to sell." (MI6, in Norton-Taylor, 2011)

Guardian.co.uk (2011) James Hart Dyke: A Year with MI6 - in pictures. [Online]
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2011/feb/14/james-hart-dyke-mi6-in-pictures?intcmp=239 [16/02/2011]

Norton-Taylor, R. (2011) Former spies' verdicts on James Hart Dyke's MI6 paintings. [Online]
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/14/spies-hart-dyke-mi6-paintings [16/02/2011]

memory clips

I have been creating more clips, reflecting on loss and changes. The first clip pans from left to right, with a piano and a pianist. It focuses on the emotions of loss experienced by residents in the former East Germany, who ofter feel the unified Germany is not interested in hearing their views. The second clip portrays the changes they experience, from welcoming freedom and the democratic changes in East Germany, to uncomfortably altering their ways of life in the new republik.

The Patrol

A 15-seconds video clip made of photographic images. To portray the memory of the lost border.

Usuda, T. (2011) The Patrol. [Online]
 http://www.vimeo.com/19515677 [03/02/2011]

combination of text and image

Scenic Review IV, 1997/2002

Simple combinations of text and image that compliment each other. It not only informs, but creates a new form of communication.

 

A New York Times Op-Ed page 

Text become images - and how little of it speaks so much.

Wednesday, 16 June 2010: Sir Richard Dearlove, p.18

Hamburger Bahnhof [2011] Philipp  Lachenmann. Some Scenic Views. [Online]

 http://www.hamburgerbahnhof.de/exhibition.php?id=29033&lang=en [28/01/2011]
Iraq Inquiry [2011] Wednesday, 16 June 2010: Sir Richard Dearlove. [Online]

 http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/50694/20100616-Dearlove.pdf [28/01/2011]

Johnson, G. & Michaelov, A. [2011] A Brief History of the Art. [Online]
 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/09/25/opinion/opedat40-illustration.html
 [28/01/2011]
Norton-Taylor, R. (2011) OK, thank you – spy chief Dearlove's Iraq evidence revealed ... sort
 of [Online] http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/jan/25/richard-dearlove-chilcot-testimony-redacted [28/01/2011]

20 things by Christoph Niemann

Christoph Niemann illustrated 20 Things I learned About Browsers and the Web, by Google. Readers can turn the pages by clicking on the screen or with arrow keys.

The site also gives you the option of starting from the start, or the page you were reading beforehand, on new browsers.

20 Things I learned About Browsers & the Web. [Online]
 http://www.20thingsilearned.com/ [26/01/2011]

Street names in Berlin

Vincent Trasov focused on history and changes by highlighting the phenomenon of the numerous street name changes, squares and underground stations in Berlin. "A direct expression of the rapid development of a once divided city into a vibrant metropolis" was installed nearby the former Berlin Wall.

"STRASSENBILD names the more than 60 streets, underground stations and squares which have been renamed in East Berlin. In the painting there is no direct connection between the old and the new name. They are placed at random. The work is a metaphor for the dissolve of a political system and the collapse of ideologies." [Trasov, 2011]

Trasov, V. [2011] Word Paintings. [Online]
 http://vincenttrasov.ca/index.cfm?pg=menu&filter=word%20paintings [21/01/2011]

filmtext by Mark Amerika

Investigating the links between net art, hypermedia and digital narratives and interactive cinema, Mark Amerika's Filmtext is " a hybridized online/offline storyworld experience created as a net art site"

"The work traces the nomadic movement of an alien light form known only as “The Digital Thoughtographer,” loosely inspired by the life and work of Ted Serios. The Thoughtographer wanders through an eerily empty desert landscape that looks like a synthetic rendering but is actually the Haleakala Crater in the South Pacific and other far off destinations. Set in the language of computer games, FILMTEXT’s techno music, eerie alien lifeforms, space travel, and sound collages burdened with static and transmission noises, precariously negotiate the netherworlds between sound and noise, film and literature, human body and networked being." (Center for Art and Visual Culture (2005)

Center for Art and Visual Culture (2005) Mark Amerika. [Online]

 http://www.markamerika.com/filmtext/ [16/01/2011]
Amerika, M [2011] Filmtext. [Online]
 http://www.markamerika.com/filmtext/ [12/01/2011]
Thompson, S. (2010) Mark Amerika on Digital Narrative. [Online]
 http://www.seththompson.info/html/interviews/markamerika.htm [16/01/2011]

Wolfgang Staehle

Wolfgang Staehle has worked on numerous web-transmitted work, including Palast der Republik (2006) and other topography in Berlin closely associated with the Berlin Wall and East Berlin.

"In 1996, Staehle began to produce an ongoing series of live online video streams. The first of these works was Empire 24/7, a continuous recording of the top one-third of the Empire State Building that is broadcast live over the Internet. Staehle has followed Empire 24/7 with online streams of other buildings, landscapes and cityscapes such as Berlin's Fernsehturm, the Comburg Monastery in Germany, lower Manhattan before and after 9/11." (The Trustees of Princeton University, 2007-8) 

Trustees of Princeton University, The (2007-8) Wolfgang Staehle. [Online]
 http://webscript.princeton.edu/~slashart/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=50 [16/01/2011]

New Art TV (2009) Wolfgang Staehle. [Online]
 http://www.newarttv.com/Wolfgang+Staehle [16/01/2011]

Postmasters [2011] Wolfgang Staehle:  "A Matter of Time" [Online]
 http://www.postmastersart.com/ [16/01/2011]

Staehle, W. (2006) Berlin, October 29, 2006 [Online]
 http://www.wolfgangstaehle.info/pages.php?content=galleryBig.php&navGallID=1&navGallIDquer=1&imageID=35&view=big&activeType=gall
 [16/01/2011]

Staehle, W. (2006) Palast der Republik, November 29, 2006. [Online]
 http://www.wolfgangstaehle.info/pages.php?content=galleryBig.php&navGallID=1&navGallIDquer=1&imageID=34&view=big&activeType=gall
 [16/01/2011]

Staehle, W. (2005) Alexanderplatz [Online]
 http://www.wolfgangstaehle.info/pages.php?content=galleryBig.php&navGallID=1&navGallIDquer=1&imageID=31&view=big&activeType=gall
 [16/01/2011]

Staehle, W. (2001) Fernsehturm [Online]
 http://www.wolfgangstaehle.info/pages.php?content=galleryBig.php&navGallID=1&navGallIDquer=1&imageID=12&view=big&activeType=gall
 [16/01/2011]

web+concepts

Heath Bunting's web installation _readme links each word from a newspaper article to a .com website of the same name. In this project, where "everyday language becomes totally occupied by the owners of Internet domain names utilizing almost the entire vocabulary" , one of the characteristics of the web, "an endlessly linked information space" is highlighted [Medien Kunst Netz, 2011]. 

For the project BorderXing, Bunting travelled along inner European borders and created an online "documentation of walks that traverse national boundaries", with limited web page access, challenging "the supposed liberties that accompany the concept of the Internet as a borderless space" [Tate, 2011]. Bunting creates a situation where people "are being refused at the entrance and because they require a certain appreciation of how to preserve, develop and mutually share a precarious knowledge without compromising the project as a whole". In the project Schneider [2011] calls "an electronic antidote against any virtual or real border regime", audience visiting a website out of curiosity "find they have to prove their credentials".

Olia Lialina's My Boyfriend Came Back From the War splits the screen when a viewer clicks on a text or images, leading on to further dialogues and questions, and "into subdivisions of increasing complexity" (Paul, 2003) and provides the user to drive the narrative. 

Lialina, O. (1996) My Boyfriend Came Back From the War. [Online]
 http://www.teleportacia.org/war/war.html [16/01/2011]

Medien Kunst Netz [2011] Heath Bunting «_readme» [Online]
 http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/readme/ [16/01/2011]

Paul, C (2003) Digital Art. London: Thames & Hudson.

Tate [2011] BorderXing Guide  2002 - 2003: Heath Bunting. [Online]
 http://www.tate.org.uk/intermediaart/borderxing.shtm [16/01/2011]

home pages

Various home pages. Some give you less choice - and information - than others. 

Brown, B. [2011] Splash [Online] http://www.brenebrown.com/ [13/01/2011]

http://www.shauntan.net/ [13/01/2011]

Gladwell, M. [2011] gladwell dot com [Online] http://gladwell.com/index.html [13/01/2011]

Kunst-Werke Berlin [2011] KUNST-WERKE BERLIN e.V. - INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART [Online] http://www.kw-berlin.de/ [13/01/2011]

Tan, S. [2011] home [Online] http://www.shauntan.net/ [13/01/2011]

Wenders, W. [2011] Welcom to the OFFICIAL SITE of WIM WENDERS [Online]

http://www.wim-wenders.com/ [13/01/2011]

The following plug-in has crashed

I seem to get this message "the following plug-in has crashed: Shockwave Flash" frequently on Google Chrome.

From wim-wenders.com

Wim-Wenders.com [2011] http://www.wim-wenders.com/ [12/01/2011]

a sitemap (partial)

From ArnoFischer.com

Fisher, A. [2011] http://www.arnofischer.com/ [12/01/2011]

web interfaces

One thing at a time. Small chunks of information.

Simplistic navigation, and a nice flow.

Cells: War on Weird and Four Derangements, web-comics by Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, allow audience to interact with the comics. The entire comic is mapped out on Cells: War on Weird, which also works as a clear navigation where you can zoom in and out.

Drew Weing's "Pup" Ponders the Heat Death of the Universe, another web-comic, uses one giant page where visitors scroll instead. It feels more physical somehow.

Julia1926.net starts off with a short text and sound, and I'm left confused and curious to what happens next. Visual work and structure to highlight fluid memories and unreliable information to show what - I'm guessing - is like to have

            Alzheimer's disease. 

I wonder what it's like to lose your job, and all familiar things in life. They all become memories irrelevant to others.

And you feel foreign to the place which is your home.

In East Germany.

Goodbrey, D.M. [2011] Cells: War on Weird. [Online] http://e-merl.com/cells.htm

[12/01/2011]

Goodbrey, D.M. [2011] Four Derangements. [Online] http://e-merl.com/derange.htm
[12/01/2011]

Julia 1926 [2011] http://www.julia1926.net/ [12/01/2011]

Yuxiyou.net [2011] So You Still Think the Internet is Free. [Online]
http://yuxiyou.net/open/ [12/01/2011]
Weing, D. [2011] "Pup" Ponders the Heat Death of the Universe. [Online]

http://www.drewweing.com/pup/13pup.html [12/01/2011]

Lichtgrenze / Border of Lights

Designed by WHITEvoid to mark the anniversaries of the Wall's opening. Each balloon contains an LED light. These balloons will be released after 28 minutes, 1 minute for each year that the Wall divided the city. The installation marks where the Wall once stood, and celebrates the joy of freedom by releasing the balloons.

Eva Meyer-Keller also used balloons in Volksballons und geklonte Krieger at Palast der Republik, an installation also connecting time and memory.

Eva Meyer-Keller: http://www.evamk.de/daten/volksde.php
WHITEvoid: http://www.whitevoid.com/
WHITEvoid's Photostream:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitevoid/

web structures

I have been mapping websites, looking into structures and design, but I don't know how the Graft's site works, in relation to what I've learnt at uni this week. Or Get the Glass. The image below is the home page of Homeostatic.

Graft (2009) http://www.graftlab.com/ [08/01/2011]
California Milk Processor Board (2007) http://www.gettheglass.com/ [08/01/2011]
Homeostatic [2011] http://www.homeostatic.net/ [08/01/2011]