Thingies: Tim Ray, preserving digital art, artists defend stock photography
Tim Ray
We were saddened to hear of the passing of influential local artist Tim Ray this past Saturday. He was a true leader and inspiration to much of our arts community, and his impact can be seen in the impassioned remembrances that have emerged in his passing. From today’s post over at the FMVA blog: “The FMVA thanks Timothy Ray for his incredible contribution to the arts in our community and beyond. May he rest in peace and may his memory inform us all as we continue our work as artists.” John Lamb also gathered a beautiful cross section of remembrances over at the Forum.
A retrospective of Ray’s work will open this weekend at the North Dakota Museum of Art in Grand Forks. The exhibition will travel to Fargo’s ecce gallery April 12.
A little housekeeping…
In last week’s writeup of the new myNDarts calendar platform, I neglected to mention that myNDarts is also open to organizations and individuals living in western Minnesota, not just the state of North Dakota as it may have appeared in the post. Thanks to Tania at the Rourke for setting me straight.
Staving off the decay of digital art
Last week, the Boston Globe outlined a critical problem: how to preserve digital and computer art. It’s a double-edged sword; while plastic art degrades due to the environment, digital art doesn’t. But, digital art becomes the victim of obsolescence as operating systems, browsers, hardware, and archiving methods grow and change quickly. A telling statement from this story: “In an indication of just how quickly media can die, (Ben Fino-Radin, digital conservator at Rhizome) points out that ‘there is currently a great deal of interest in the preservation of CD-ROMs.’”
The ghosts in Google’s Street View machine
Google’s Street View program has had no shortage of criticism from privacy advocates, and an ongoing public art project is bringing that issue front and center with Street Ghosts, a series of installed images of figures from Google Street View in the places where their images were gathered by Google:
The artist behind Street Ghosts, Paolo Cirio, sums up his argument thusly: “In this case, the artwork becomes a performance, re-contextualizing not only data, but also a conflict. It’s a performance on the battlefield, playing out a war between public and private interests for winning control on our intimacy and habits, which can change permanently depending on the victor.”
And so on…
“In a way, stock photos function as highly effective cultural intermediaries by holding a mirror up to the commercial world around us and reflecting the current state of its visual tropes.” – Hyperallergic argues that there’s more to stock photography than meets the eye, as that most despised form of imagery finds some unlikely allies in the art world.
Hot-button debate over at Createquity: should “white” arts organizations be working to diversify their audiences, or is that enterprise a well-meaning blunder?
And also, 50 influential artsy types you should follow on Twitter. @artspulse didn’t make the list but, you know what? It’s their loss. It’s their loss!
Image: while most of the FMWF area was getting slammed by Blizzard/Greek Yogurt Storm Orko, we were out in central N.D. observing a dazzling display of hoarfrost. Never seen anything like it.
