invisibility/corporeality
by Scott deLahunta

The other day I was having a discussion with someone about dance making and interactive systems and the 'transparency' issue as regards the receptivity of an audience to the aspects of the work that might be invisible. What is being considered *invisible* in this context is the mapping from input to various forms of output - and this mapping is essentially the consequence of someone providing the instructions for the computer, telling it what to do.

Interview with Tom Betts/NullPointer
by Matthew Fuller

NullPointer has recently released a beta-version of a new web visualisation application, WebTracer. [...] The application deals with sites and pages as molecules and atoms, the resulting cellular structures reflect the information structures of the web. I find that the representation of the many shells and layers that guide our exploration and expliotation of cyberspace can help to reinforce the awareness that all information systems are guided by a great number of defining elements. The Hardware used, the Operating System, the Software, the Network Protocols and finally the File Structures themselves all mould the way that users interact with dataspaces and the way that they can create them.

Interview with Jeffrey Shaw
by Josephine Bosma

The integrity of the original artwork is only fully intact in the imagination of its creator. Even its translation into the physical is a depreciation forced by the contraints of materiality, and exposure of the artwork to the social leads to the complete degradation/reconstruction of the 'original' by its intepretors and manipulators. On the other hand it is only in this social vector that the artwork becomes a cultural artifact and assumes a historical significance. The 'original spirit' must always dance on the edge of the volcano of the social, a destiny of both discriminating and mass consumption. Museums are built on this edge, they are locations of trans-actions between remaining glimmers of the 'original spirit' and the social. But media art has (at least) two unprecedented capabilities: it can create a virtual social that includes the social as a function of its 'original spirit', and it can build virtual museums that are themselves architectural incarnations of the 'original spirit'. So the 'Art of Life' now seems so proximate!

The Bandwidth Dilemma
Internet stagnation after Dotcom.mania
by Geert Lovink

A brief look into the political economy of bandwidth could help. The question of internet speed is and will always be determined by economics and (cyber)geography, as the maps show, not per se by the technology used at the consumer's end. Speed on the internet is moody and in constant flux, not only depending on one's investment in hardware, locality and available connectivity. Speed is subjective and cultural experience. A whole range of unknown factors can bring the undisturbed surfing to a sudden halt. [...] Over the years, bandwidth suddenly has grown, however, this progress has been too slow for users to notice. The arrivals of ten of millions of newbies has eaten up new capacity with recent signs of a drop in bandwidth capacity due to overpricing; a "lack of demand" as the business press calls it.

L'informatica sotto l'Euro
Un interessante report dell'Unione mette a fuoco il livello tecnologico dei cittadini europei. E si scopre che fanno tutto da soli.
di Francesco Cisternino

Il campione è molto ampio, circa 16 mila persone intervistate fra novembre e dicembre dello scorso anno, in media circa mille unità per Paese membro. L’argomento è il computer: chi e quanto lo usa, cosa ne fa, con quale competenza. Il Benchmark Report di cui vi stiamo parlando è un complesso lavoro di ricerca commissionato dall’UE, volto a saggiare periodicamente (un paio di volte l'anno) il livello informatico dei cittadini dei Paesi facenti parte l'Unione. I risultati sono decisamente interessanti e più ottimisti di quanto si possa pensare.