First Image from Musterwohnung

Finding Future by Kazuo Hasiba
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

Artistic Vice Cd Cover

Artistic Vice Cd Cover
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

Danny and the Nightmares Cd Cover

Danny and the Nightmares Cd Cover
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

Hi How Are You Cd Cover

Hi How Are You Continued Story Cd Cover
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

Early Recordings Cd Cover

Early Recordings Cd Cover
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

Daniel Johnston

J. suggested to use the song "life of an artist" by Daniel Johnston for our new project. Meanwhile i have figured out that there is a documentary about Johnson called " The Devil and Daniel Johnston. For more info's see Daniel Johnston's Homepage

Who is Daniel Johnston? Daniel Johnston has spent the last 20 or so years exposing his heartrending tales of unrequited love, cosmic mishaps, and existential torment to an ever-growing international cult audience. Initiates, including a healthy number of discerning musicians and critics, have hailed him as an American original in the style of bluesman Robert Johnson and country legend Hank Williams. A number of artists - among them the Dead Milkmen, Yo La Tengo, the Velvet Underground's songs. And he as collaborated with the likes of Jad Fair (a founding member of Half Japanese, who've also done Daniel's songs), the Butthole Surfers, Bongwater & Shimmydisc guru Kramer, and members of Sonic Youth. Daniel gained his widest public exposure to date when, at the 1992 MTV Music Awards, Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain (who constantly touted Daniel in interviews) wore a Johnston T-shirt. Surprisingly, the bulk of his considerable acclaim snowballed from a series of homemade, lo-fi cassettes which Daniel started recording and handing out to fans and friends alike in the early 80s. Eventually, the independent label Homestead re-issued some of these tapes on CD, and Johnston recorded a few new albums in almost proper studios.

While it would be years before Daniel committed his first songs to tape, he began composing at an early age. "When I was a kid, probably nine, I used to bang around on the piano, making up horror movie themes. When I got a bit older, I'd be mowing my lawn and I'd make up songs and sing them. No one could hear me 'cause of the lawn mower." As a teenager, Daniel and his friends began to record their own tapes and trade them among themselves. After high school, he attended an art program at a branch of Ken State near his family's home. This was a prolific period of his life. Unemployed, and attending classes sporadically, he began to spend most of his time in his family's cellar, writing and recording. The tapes he made there included "Songs of Pain" and "More Songs of Pain," which both centered around his unrequited love for a woman named Laurie who ended up marrying an undertaker.

The aspiring cartoonist - whose playful, symbol-heavy sketches have graced the covers of may of his releases, including "Fun" moved to Texas in 1983. First he went to Houston, living with his brother and working at Astro World, while also recording the seminal tapes "Yip & Jump Music" and "Hi, How Are You?" on a $59.00 Sanyo mono boom box. These recordings featured such classics as "Speeding Motorcycle," "Sorry Entertainer," and odes to everyone from "Casper the Friendly Ghost" and "King Kong" to "The Beatles." From there he moved to San Marcos, TX, and even joined a traveling carnival show for a spell, selling corndogs. Throughout his career, Daniel's songs and drawings have been informed to some degree by his ongoing struggle with manic depression – lending an added poignancy to his soul-searching times. His five-month stint with the carney left him in Austin, where he decided to stay. In the midst of that city's mid-eighties music scene, Johnston was a definite iconoclast. While he continued to hand out his tapes for free, Austin record stores started selling them; in fact, the became best-selling local releases. Soon, a camera crew from MTV's seminal "Cutting Edge" show came to town and all the Austin bands suggested they feature Daniel.

His appearance on the show made him a minor celebrity. Recognizing the quality of his songs and the purity of his vision, the American underground began to embrace Daniel. The Dead Milkmen recorded his song "Rocket Shop," and Sonic Youth and noted Minutemen/FIREHOSE bassist Mike Watt made plans to record some of his material, as did The Butthole Surfers and other Austin bands. The music press both here and abroad began to weigh in with lofty pronouncements of Daniel's artistry. In the spring of 1992, the Lyon Opera Ballet commissioned a piece from New York-based choreographer Bill T. Jones. He delivered "Love Defined" – a 25-minute piece set to six songs from Johnston's Yip & Jump Music. In October of that same year, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane combo performed "Love Defined" at New York's Joyce Theatre. The reviews in the New York Times and the Village Voice each cited Johnston's songs favorably. Over the years, Daniel's paintings and drawings have been exhibited in Los Angeles, Zurich, and Berlin. The cover of a recent edition of music writer Richard Meltzer's "The Aesthetics of Rock" was drawn by Johnston.

Living Unit Aka Daft Punk Bowl

aka Daft Punk Bowl
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

Aka Daft Punk Bowl

The idea for the Living Unit for Unemployed Tennis Players aka Daft Punk Bowl form and usage comes from the music video "Around the World" from the album "Homework" by Daft Punk. The Daft Punk Bowl has been tested in an exhibition in an exhibition in new apartments in Amsterdam West ages ago, where artists have been invited to collaborate with these new apartments owners. After a few days of art-tourist-tours my collaborator basically had had it, and the new strategy to cope with this situation was that during the visiting hour we were sitting in his living room wearing this living unit. That's the first story about this device.

Around the World Screenstill 04

daftpunk homework 04
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

Around the World Screenstill 03

daftpunk homework 03
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

Around the World Screenstill 02

daftpunk homework 02
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

Around The World Screenstill 01

daftpunk homework 01
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

A Musterwohnung

musterwohnung
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

Warchalking Project by Matt Jones

Warchalking is a low-tech approach to finding wireless internet connections, called warchalking. In late June 2002 web designer Matt Jones came up with the idea of using chalk marks on pavements and walls to reveal the existence of wireless network anyone could use to surf the net. The idea of warchalking derives from the early days of computer networks when curious hackers would engage in "wardialling" expeditions which involved phoning lots of numbers to see which ones answered with a data, rather than a dial, tone. The advent of wireless computer networks that let people connect up to the net via a radio link has given birth to a new hobby among curious hackers. Now instead of "wardialling" they go on "wardriving" or "warwalking" expeditions. On these trips they carry a laptop or handheld computer fitted with software that can spot wireless networks and plot where they are. A few wild warchalks were starting to appear in places such as Maryland, Copenhagen, London and San Jose.
Warchalking Weblog

First Warchalk in Maryland

First Warchalk in Maryland
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

Warchalk in Oxford Street London

Warchalk in Oxford Street London
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

Supplementary Remark

Supplementary Remark / Reading Suggestion on the lecture Saturday afternoon by Ana Betancour at the Symposium "Technologies of Place" Saturday, 12 March 2005. Preferred placement for those who forgotten this symposium or never heard of this event or publication or de Waag society in Amsterdam. A brief update.

Preferred placement
Preferred placement turns the tables on web analysis to date. Instead of celebrating the web and all its prospects for creative artistry, democracy and e-commerce, the volume authors calmly go backstage. How are search engines, portals, default settings and collaborative filtering formatting the surfer and offering passage to the media? A colourful spectrum of thinkers queries the medium's preferencing and recommendation mechanisms with an eye towards articulating, and learning from, the new politics of knowledge on the web. Contributions, among others, by: Matthew Chalmers, Martin Dodge, Greg Elmer, Lucas Introna and Helen Nissenbaum, Noortje Marres, Ian Morris, Korinna Patelis, Richard Rogers, Gerald Wagner, Steve Woolgar. Preferred Placement is a book on information politics on the web.


The Hit Economy, Hyperlink Diplomacy and Web
Preferred placement is a term employed by search engine companies for boosting sites in query returns. Organisations pay engine companies to have their sites placed higher in search engine returns, in order to receive more hits. When they add up, hits count. In the hit economy, organisations hope to gain banner advertising revenue and demonstrable net presence. Hit counts show presence. They indicate measures of site popularity and reliability. Or do they? A different measure of reliability and reputability may be found in hyperlinks. Quantities of 'links in' single out the authoritative voices on the web, according to the latest engine logics. Hyperlinking is telling in other ways, too. It shows which organisations acknowledge the presence and relevance of others. It also may indicate trust between organisations. When larger sets of organisational interlinkings are mapped, networks of power and knowledge, and landscapes of discourse and debate may be found. Exploring new engine logics and information visualisation techniques, the symposium focused on how knowledge is being gained from 'reading between the links'. They referred to these new forms of knowing as web epistemology. The Web epistemology symposium was held at the at Theatrum Anatomicum, de Waag, Society for Old and New Media, Nieuwmarkt, Amsterdam, Saturday, 16 October 1999. The symposium included presentations on the following: Web epistemology: Tracking and authoring reliability, Banners, clicks and rings: In defense of the hit economy, The Web as political economy, Cybergeographies: The new Mappae Mundi, Footprints in the snow: Subjective and contextual social navigation, Hyperlink diplomacy: Inside the emerging link economy, Playing with search engines and mapping geographies of power & knowledge govcom.org: Experimenting with the persistent pluralist potential, The debate engine: Dynamic systems for public dialogue, 10 years of social theory of the net, Virtual Society?, A visual language for hyperlink theory.

Concept Bix by Realities United

Kunsthaus Graz
On the banks of the river Mur, on the corner of the Suedtirolerplatz and the Lendkai, Graz has a new architectural landmark: the Kunsthaus Graz. The designers of this project, the London architects Peter Cook and Colin Fournier, created an impressive synthesis which unites their innovative design language with the historic setting of this urban district along the Mur. The aesthetic dialogue between the new biomorphic structure on the bank of the Mur and the old clock tower on Graz's famous Schlossberg is the trade-mark of a city aiming to create a productive tension between tradition and avant-garde.

realities-united.de
The Berlin designers realities: united have initiated and developed the concept BIX. The Berlin based designer group Realities: United creates a unique fusion between architecture and media technology with the light and media facade BIX designed for the Kunsthaus Graz. Realities: United conceives, designs and realises a 900m2 large media installation made of light rings for the facade of the Kunsthaus Graz. BIX - the title of the installation - will be mounted beneath the acrylic glass surface of the building facing the river and city centre. It can be seen as an urban screen: a new instrument and platform for artistic production. The Kunsthaus uses BIX to project its communicative aspect into public space.

BIX
BIX is a permanent light- and media installation for the Kunsthaus Graz in Austria by realities:united architects from Berlin. A matrix of 930 fluorescent lamps is integrated into the eastern acrylic glass facade of the biomorphic building structure of the new Kunsthaus in Graz, Austria. Through the possibility to individually adjust the lamps' brightness at an infinite variability with 20 frames/second images, films and animations can be displayed - the Kunsthaus' skin is transformed into a giant low resolution computer display. For detailed project information see www.bix.at

Technologies of Place
Realities: United were part of the symposium "Technologies of Place - Political Implications for Public and Private Space in the Context of Emerging New Media and Technology" An Interdisciplinary Symposium at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in cooperation with the Art, Science & Business Program. Initiated by Judith Gieseler & Helen Stratford.

BIX concept Graz Kunsthaus

BIX Graz Kunsthaus image03
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

BIX concept Graz Kunshaus

BIX Graz Kunshaus image02
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

BIX concept Graz Kunsthaus

BIX Graz Kunsthaus image01
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

Internet Series by Jennifer Shiman

the Internet Series by Jennifer Shiman, United States, are hilarious entertaining animations and are an excellent use of the medium internet. See her 30 second animations of famous movies re-enacted by bunnies here. The internet series "The shining in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies and made by Jennifer Shiman, USA, won a prize for internet series at the he 2004 Ottawa International Animation Festival, in September, 2004 at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. And "The Exorcist" bunnies won a silver public prize for Best Short Film at the 2004 Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal. News from January 2005: Starz Entertainment Group LLC SEG announced that they're commissioning ten more re-enactments from the 30-Second Bunnies Theatre Troupe. These new re-enactments are: The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Pulp Fiction, Highlander, The Big Chill, Clerks, The Karate Kid, Thelma & Louise, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Night of the Living Dead, Weird Science. These re-enactments will debut on STARZ, Starz on DemandR and STARZ Ticketsm on Real Movies. They will then be added to the Angryalien.com library in the months ahead. SEG had previously commissioned the bunny toons Freddy vs. Jason, Scream and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for their Hare-Raising Halloween Marathon in October 2004. See: Angry Alien Productions

scene out of "Jaws" in 30 seconds

"Jaws" in 30 seconds by Jennifer Shiman
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

scene out of "Jaws" in 30 seconds

"Jaws" in 30 seconds by Jennifer Shiman
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

scene out of "shining" in 30 seconds

"shining" in 30 seconds by Jennifer Shiman
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.

scene out of "shining" in 30 seconds

"shining" in 30 seconds by Jennifer Shiman
Originally uploaded by Sigorski.