Why Should I Get a New One If the Old One Ain’t Broken? Aesthetics, Pragmatics and Social Tactics Of Low-Tech

Symposium:

• ISEA2002: 11th International Symposium on Electronic Art

• Why Should I Get a New One If the Old One Ain’t Broken? Aesthetics, Pragmatics and Social Tactics Of Low-Tech

• Why Should I Get a New One If the Old One Ain’t Broken? Aesthetics, Pragmatics and Social Tactics Of Low-Tech

• Nell Tenhaaf
• Paul Vanouse
• Hélène Doyon
• Jean-Pierre Demers
• Haruki Nishijima
• Alexei Shulgin

• While the title of this panel is reminiscent of American country music vernacular, it is in fact more contemporary genres of popular music that could be seen as forerunners of this topic. For instance, hip-hop music has kept the analog turntable as its primary tool while using digital technology more sparingly. It is the intent of this panel to present several projects by “high-tech” artists that incorporate older technologies often deemed obsolete. Each of these projects are embedded within contemporary electronic art practice and offer deep investigations, both conceptually and technically, into areas including: mobile computing and interactivity; scientific, physically- based visualization; computer as entertainer; networked telematic art; and artificial-life. The artists on this panel attempt fluency between analog and digital electronics; old surplus and new technologies; wave forms and data-packets.

   

  For example, Alexei Shulgin has turned his 386 into a singing, pop-rock/cyber-punk virtuoso named DX386. Similarly, Nell Tenhaaf uses low-tech in the sense of low-res, with the intention of investigating the thresholds between media . She is building LED matrices that display both very low-resolution video and swarm algorithms.

   

  Full text (PDF) p. 131

Category:

• Panel