I Love You
jaromil

Quando parliamo di software come di arte è bene considerare l'intero processo creativo che porta alla sua concezione e realizzazione, concezione e realizzazione di una nuova operabilità nel dominio digitale: stiamo volgendo il nostro sguardo al codice sorgente, all'affascinante mondo dell'algebra e dell'algoritmo che nell'immanenza digitale prende forma in espressioni molteplici: dense, riformulabili e produttrici di senso.
Any discussion of software as art requires consideration of the whole creative process involved into its concept and realization, which leads to a new operability in the digital domain: our attention here is focused on source codes, the fascinating world of algebra and algorithm that can be seen in many expressions of form within the digital immanence and all of them can be reformulated and produce meaning.

An addiction to Memory [and the desire to annihilate images]
Tom Sherman

There is nothing subtle about recombinant aesthetics today. Recombinant work is aggressive, vindictive and destructive (not necessarily deconstructive). Deconstruction depends on a certain level of representation. The howl of image-blenders today is the scream of a new abstraction. Rapid, sustained repeats of an image leave an impression of total, otherworldly, abstraction. Electronic images, having already broken away from the physical world (automobiles often "fly" like an "eagle"), are even more terminally distanced from "reality", emptied of associative meaning by numbing redundancy. Images are made strangely concrete through isolation and repeat. Descriptive, analogous and metaphoric relationships are wiped out. Images are emptied of meaning, reduced to retinal objects.

Sarai
Mike Caloud

Today, the Sarai Initiative embraces interests that include cinema history, urban cultures and politics, new media theory, computers, the Internet and software cultures, documentary filmmaking, digital arts and critical cultural practice. Sarai opened its doors to the public of Delhi in February 2001 and the first year has been very hectic for all of us, especially as all our projects and public interventions have begun to take concrete shape. As we draw towards the completion of our first year we realize that our strength lies in the collaborative vision that has been the founding principle of Sarai, and that the space can grow only by continuing to include and engage with new people and ideas from across the world.

Le previsioni sulla TV del futuro: troppo avanti, troppo presto?
Francesco Cisternino

www.TVPredictions.com è un sito web un po' particolare: come annuncia il nome, in esso si trovano delle previsioni riguardanti il medium televisivo in tutte le sue evoluzioni, dall'High Definition alla TV interattiva fino alla Web TV e altro ancora. Il curatore del sito è Phillip Swann, un futurologo fantasioso ma attento che sfodera argomenti intelligenti, a volte però trattati con una baldanza tecnologica quantomeno discutibile. Da questo sito, aggiornato quotidianamente dalla sfera di cristallo del mago mediologo, segnaliamo un recente articolo già comparso a sua volta sulle pagine della Consumer Electronics Association. Che fine ha fatto, si chiede Swann fra queste righe, quel set top box unico che era stato annunciato dalle aziende in fretta e furia solo un anno fa e poi d'improvviso è scomparso nel nulla?

Velvet-Strike: War Times and Reality Games
Anne-Marie Schleiner

As a Counter-Strike newbie I was sometimes even able to solicit help from my enemies, indicating a clear awareness of the game as fictional play space. [...] But I still am critical that this domain, the network of thousands of international Counter-Strike servers spanning Taiwan to Germany, has been reified as an exclusively male “realistic” combat zone. [...] I am also disturbed that the binary logic of the shooter is being implemented on a global military scale. Personally I would like to see computer games move towards fantasy, away from military fantasy which pretends to “realistic”. I like fantastic environments where there is more room for imaginative habitats and characters. Japanese games for children and adults are engaged in this undertaking, filled with curious animal Pokemon creatures, Robo-cats, transformers, Anime people, monsters, demons and fairies, of all genders. I identify more with these characters than with counter-terrorist or terrorist soldiers and they are what I want to be my reality. Reality is up for grabs. The real needs to be remade by us.