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PRESS AND QUOTES [UPDATED 03.04.03]
 
written in stone, a net.art archaeology
dramatical nn
lfsys
sement
shaped like a taco
mirage
idoru
switch bitch
digital mosque
m@ggie's love bytes

 

WRITTEN IN STONE, A NET.ART ARCHAEOLOGY
Oslo Museum of Contemporary Art | 22.03 - 25.05.03

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WRITTEN IN STONE, A NET.ART ARCHAEOLOGY
Norway: it seems too far from the usual places to be sometimes. But now there is a nice reason to visit it. A week ago (March 23rd) a remarkable exhibition opened at the Oslo Museum of Contemporary Art. Artist Per Platou has curated an exhibition on net.art which is an odd mixture of artistic installation and almost archeological introduction to what was probably the most infamous period in network art: net.art.

This exhibition is almost all atmosphere and personal experience. Even if this is what makes it most vulnerable, this is also what makes it strong. I have seldom seen a net art exhibition that convinced me and I am beginning to think this is why: exhibiting net art is all about commitment, because it is simply not possible to avoid interpretation if you want to exhibit this art in a way that engages the audience in an exhibition space beyond the click of a mouse. What is interesting about this is that it brings the curator very close to a net art experience on line, the curator somehow reveals her or his individual approach and motivations, even more so then with creating an exhibition of existing material objects. The difference for the audience, between visiting such an exhibition and experiencing different projects and art web sites on line, is that the audience is at the mercy of (or rather: captured by) the approach of the curator.

In this case the curator has chosen to pay a very personal tribute to a period of net art he loves, showing the art works from this period from three different perspectives.......

Josephine Bosma , CRUMB/RHIZOME, 01.04.03

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[ read the whole review ]
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DRAMATICAL NN
Kunstnett | Oslo | 11.06.02

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Amanda Steggell from Motherboard - www.liveart.org (NO) presented/performed this interpretation of the various N.N. mails and the interpretations of N.N. by others beautifully to the audience present at Art Norway's seminar on mailinglists, June 11th.

Grethe Melby, Kunstnett (posted on nettime), 26.06.02

This is a script for a Kunstnett Seminar on email lists by Amanda Steggell (Norway) that wittily plays out the drama that went on on several media art list servs in 2001 (such as Syndicate). Although maybe an inside joke for those who are familiar with these characters, it is also a very informative window into the personalities that inhabit these many lists.

Arts Electric, Angela Plohman, Editor (Europe), 08.02

 

LFSYS/ BERLIN BATTLE: LANDMARK PERFORMANCE EVENT
From Pixelpunx HQ in Berlin to Landmark | Bergen, Norway | 11.01

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Pixelpunx arent partykillers. They throw us a nice berlin based visual output and act playfully in front of camera. They look pixelated and lovely. These punx. With their wigs and their poses and their hardcore chatting in chatspace. These black and white ddr images, these cryptic pixelpunx sounds. It's east, it's weinnmeisterstrasse, the stop after alexander platte on U8, the blue line.

loglady - LANDMARK, 11.01

 

SEMENT
The Anual Art Exhibition | Bergen Art Museum, Norway | 23.09-5.11.02

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The jury have prioritised diversity and new types of artistic expression in their selection of works this year. It maybe precisely this that has inspired them to invite five net artists from Motherboard to create a net-specific installation to the [Norwegian] Anual Exhibition.

The result, Sement, is produced by Per Platou, Amanda Steggell, HC Gilje, Ellen Røed and Gisle Frøysland. It is staged in an office landscape on the second floor, and is clearly the most prominent contribution to net art at the Anual Exhibition.

The net does not provide complete stories such as we are used to with the news on TV and other media. You can of course find clear naratives on individual webpages, but whether I move from place to place, or if I look at net.art or other non-linear texts, I have to select elements myself in order to make my own story.

Sement mirrors this, containing many elements and a clear theatricality. A staging with objects, personas [dolls] and relationships which give me a feeling that there must lie a story here - a meaning. But I have to make the story myself. I have to decide which elements are important, and which relationships are necessary.

Randy Parker describes jodi.org like this: "Ultimately, Jodi is Code stripped of all functionality, Code for its aesthetic value, Code as abrasive language, Code as hallucination, Code as theater." The expression of Sement is very different from that of jodi.org. But both have to do with codes. To read that which lies behind. This is part of the essence of net.art.

Jill Walker, Kunstnett Norge, 11.00 (translated from Norwegian)

 

SHAPED LIKE A TACO
nood CD | summer 00

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Nood, Ulf Knudsen (ex-Betonghysteria, Sister Rain, and more) and Per Platou (Chris Erichsens Orkester, and more) have released the follow-up album to their debut album "HettyLettyNetty" from '96. At that time they caused a stir when they used samples downloaded from the net in their songs and sound collages.Now they dare to trust the songs within themselves.

Generally speaking, Norwegian pop music lacks originality and experimentation. Apart from the ever growing cross-over techno-jazz scene, much of the music produced in Norway falls into the category of safe songs for apathetic radio listeners, predictable poprock songs or souless R&B. Nood is a relieving example of the fact that it is possible to make "tough" music without comprimising curiosity and naivity, and without necessarily falling under the category of jazz.

We are led into a world of grooves, hooks and evocations from many parts of the world. Elements from diverse cultures are seemingly brutally cut up and glued together, played and sung, crossing over and defying time and space, but without becoming either superficially stuck on, or allowing the illusion to be broken. On the contrary, the Noodists manage to maintain a fine red thread through the whole album. It's a pleasant journey, while at the same time you get new and surprising elements which slightly twist the compass dial away from where you thought you were heading. Because it is the groove, the godlike and constant beat which holds the whole album together, and don't we all love you for that beat-beat-beat-beatin'?

They have collaborated with Rhysea (net-jam artist), U4ia (database for spoken english linguistics and folklore'ist), Stine Grytøyr (Ulver) and Gine Ruud (soundscape decorator), not to mention the honourable, urine-drinking Baulers from West-Bengal, a multitude of samples, plus their own and their friends expertise. Go out and tear down the record shop shelves!

Trygve Mathiesen, Puls, 08.00 (translated from Norwegian)

More surprising than falling in love with an ample-bosomed woman with a large moustache (5 stars)

sherbertboy, uk, freetrax 08.11.00

Unpredictable and quirky techno-pop!

Aage Wolff, Avis1, 22.08.00 (translated from Norwegian)

NIGHTMARE FOR BOX SLAVES!
The album "Shaped Like A Taco" is like a giant jigsaw puzzle of sound and rythms; in other words, the worst nightmare of all those who need to place music into categorical boxes to be able to relate to it. ..... Nood's style is playful, creative, humorous, and suitably freaked out ......

Espen A. Hansen, VG, 02.08.00 (translated from Norwegian)

If it wasn't intended to be eaten, it wouldn't be shaped like a taco.

graffitti at Nathan's, Washington D.C.

.... an exciting, challenging, and at times dancable mix of what feels right to them at any given point in time, whether it's pop, house, noisy, techno or joik(!) The start point seems to be more or less sick sampling from film and TV. From there, the two sound producers let all creativity loose, and with the help of thirty or so friends, the result is such that for once one actually believes the record company's press release: eclectic ...... the catchy highpoints are just great!

Robert Gjestad, Aftenposten, 22.07.00 (translated from Norwegian)

MIRAGE
Gallery F15 | Moss, Norway | 05.20-07.08.00

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When you enter the gallery space and see "Mirage", you will probably experience it as meaningless. You are correct. "Mirage" is an interactive work. Interactive in the sense that it is first when you intervene with the installation that the meaninig becomes apparent. A good number of interactive works continue to appear meaningless because the way in which one shall interact is too complicated or cumbersome for a public to use it. With Mirage, the interaction method is simple - the only thing you have to do is to move about in the room, something a gallery public is used to doing. Generally speaking, experience is the focal point of art. This applies to both artists and public.

In "Mirage" the consequence of interaction over experience are illustrated very effectively. The meaning of the installation becomes clearer through the possibility to act in relationship to it, influence it, and therefore aquire more a complex experience of it.

Rather than to remember for always, or forget momentarily as computers, broadly speaking, tend to do, "Mirage" has a partly analogue and partly digital form of memory which lies in an organic process. This process is not confined to a single machine. It is the result of the complete installation: the projection, the camera, the gallery room and the Internet are equally important elements in a process which, as far as i can see, stretches from Moss to Bergen, and back

"Mirage" has (also) a parallel in the film "Terminator". In this science fiction story artificial life evolves behind the killer robots in a development of Reagan's Star Wars project. In a global net of weapon satelites, machine self-knowledge evolves. This occurs as a result of the relationship between the machines, rather than the characteristics of a single machine. Artificial life evolves coincindentally in an extensive, self-regulating technological environment.

Atle Barcley, Kunstnett Norge, 06.00 (translated from Norwegian)

MIRAGE
"TREFF" | Sternersen Collection | Bergen Art Museum, Norway | 19.01-5.03.01

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Bright pink program: TREFF! The Stenersen Collection is exhibiting contemporary art this month. The premises are lighter, more open and in tune with the world after the renovations a couple of years ago. They've got a website as well, but they've forgotten to update it, and it's not pink like the catalogue.

It seems it's impossible to talk about contemporary art these days without naming net.art and technology. So both Gisle Frøysland and Motherboard (Per Platou og Amanda Steggell) are represented at the exhibition; they must be among Norway's most profiled net artists by now. Though net artists mightn't be the best description of them. TREFF is showing technology-art, perhaps or cyberart. Don't worry, I'll stay out of the genre discussion for now, that kind of thing only leads to torment and boredom: a prison of definition.

Motherboard's piece Mirage met me, no, engulfed me as I came up the stairs and entered the exhibition. A large screen on the one wall, and a projector on the other: not exactly unexpected. The image on the screen shows screens within screens, just as when you turn two mirrors towards each other and stand between them. The screen images were diffuse: greenish, unsharp, uncertain. A large round clock with a mouse-cursor projected onto it was mounted on the screen: the only solid indication to let me feel certain that this was a mirroring and a repetition, and not just a porridge. Wise from experience, I went over to look for a webcam (I've been to a net.art exhibition before) - and, sure enough, a video camera stood right by the side of the projector. Smile to the camera! Jump in front of the camera! Dance! Spin! Clap! And turn around and wait - one minute, maybe two, then you see yourself on the screen. You see yourself dancing with yourself, you hear the sound of jumping at the same time as you see your own face cover the whole screen, staring at you. Two old men came in and looked sceptically at the whole scene. They had no idea why I smiled in my dance with the screen. They moved quickly on. ...the catalogue could have stated that Mirage was a commentary on the surveillance society: it watches over us. Our fascination with watching others, and being watched ourselves. I think we enjoy them both.

When I came home to my machine and net connection and searched for more about what I had seen, I discovered that the screen images that are generated by Mirage are being streamed out on the net, you can see them now, if you have RealPlayer. I wish I'd known this when I was at the exhibition, then I would have danced with even more vigour, danced with the net, with an imaginary other.

Here I think the museum has failed. It's great to show netart or cyberart or technoart or whatever it is, but it's just not good enough to print a bright pink catalogue and think it's giving adequate information to the public. It's not good enough to write in the catalogue that "the art lives its own life on the net" while neglecting to communicate what exactly the game is about. Why on earth can't the catalogue be published on the net, at least parts of it, and some links!

The Sternersen Collection and Bergen Art Museum's websites haven't even been updated since last year - there isn't any information about this exhibition anywhere on the web. Contemporary art?

I would have liked to have seen a net-connected computer on which to get my fingers working by the side of installations such as Mirage. I would see that they were on the net as well as being in the museum. I want to know that I can maybe communicate with the world outside.

Jill Walker, weblog, 23.01.01 (translated from Norwegian)

The first thing that meets us as we enter the art museum is ourselves, in an unending passage through time and space, through the art installation by the artist group Motherboard (Amanda Steggell and Per Platou). The video image on the wall is a delayed picture of the observer's own movements. In principle, the image is sent around the world via the Internet and comes back again, but in a somewhat smaller format, further "within" the space of the image. And so it goes on. New movements arrive. The present and the past melt together. An interactive optical experience which you can either share with yourself (you can literally arrange a meeting with your past "self" within the image) or other observers as they pass by the wall.

Øystein Hauge, Bergens Tidende, 25.01.01 [translated from Norwegian]

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IDORU
Online performance | Toronto/Oslo | throughout 00

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DAZZLING S0PHISTICATION!
Idoru.com is a site that melts technological expertise, theoretical brilliance and a startling shimmering beauty. Enter this labarynthian site and we're totally absorbed, forgetting there's a world beyond this digital magical one.

Will Aitken, Montreal writer and critic, cbc.ca, 05.06.00

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SWITCH BITCH: RE. SAMPLING THE CYBERFEMME
Black Box Theater | Oslo | 12.98

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CYBERGIRLS TAKE THE STAGE
Computer game heroine Lara Croft, The Media Grrl and Camel Grrl - three representatives for the new feminism - cyberfeminism - exit cyberspace and enter the stage in Switch Bitch. While cyberfeminism's mothers of the seventies had clear political aims and faught for women's rights, cyberfeminists do not have such intitial aims. They simply ARE - with natural self-confidence and strength. They do not fight for their rights. They take their rights for granted.

Per Platou and Amanda Steggell have worked with this performance for over a year. He is a data freak with a background in media theory, criminology, history of philosophy and film. She has studied dance and choreography in London and Oslo. Both are engaged in new communications mediums such as the the internet.

They have ribbed down the Black Box Theatre in Oslo to it's bare bones. On each of the four walls hang large screens. In tracks around the walls the dancers perform. In the middle of the floor the audience sit on rotating office chairs so that they can choose their own screen, picture and view point. If they choose to view only one screen, they get only one fragment of the reality that surrounds them. If they swivel around they gather many fragments. But what ever the choice, we're talking about fragmentation here. Switch Bitch is a performance where the difference between the real and the virtual is wiped out.

Astrid Sletbakk, VG 12.12.98. (translated from Norwegian)

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DIGITAL MOSQUE
6CYBERCONF. | The Artists House| Oslo | 06.97

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I have just come from the dress rehearsal of the Motherboard. Here is an example of young artists using the net in an original way. As I entered the performance space I was informed that there were separate areas for the male and female audience. I asked if I could choose where I sat, and they said yes! It was wonderful.

Cybergoddess Sandy Stone, speaking at the opening of 6cyberconf, Oslo, 06.97

The cyber-Islam performance of the young norwegian group, Motherboard, received very good response. It is in fact a shame that these truly netsmart young artists from Norway were not represented to a greater extent at the conference [beyond their performance and installation] as their work shows that they are not only competent practitioners, but also have a strong conceptual and culturally-critical base which they apply to their work.

Kathy Rae Huffman, Telepolis/Poptarts, 06.97

Motherboard/lawhat al-umm tries to unite two seemingly opposite phenomenons: westernpostmodernism and arabic Islam. The resulting "digital mosque" makes a very good attempt at lifting the contrasts and paradoxes of globalisation to a high level.

Oscar Hemer, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, O7.97 (translated from Swedish)

The choreographic work [is] influenced by techno-house culture in creating performances in a more porous environment, in so-called ambient settings - at rave parties, in bars or art galleries. The work also features a dramaturgy which is more like a machine gun than an exquisite chess game. This does not mean, however, that [her] etymology is street dance; rather the opposite: she has seized chances to confront new audiences, spaces and themes.

Amanda Steggell's work has to a large degree functioned as a close-up of how european hegemony comprehends other cultures and its gender discourse in relation to technonology. Here the audience has to fill up a landscape where Darth Vader, middle-east versions of Whitney Houston's sentimental soul music collected on the internet, and harsh political statements create a social context to which the spectator is generously invited.

Amanda Steggell works with cliché both in relation to dance and to appearance; her starting point is the catwalk rather than Martha Graham or Anne Theresa de Keersmaeker, and the motivation has this "fellow traveller" quality which makes techno-house culture interesting: a kind of revolutionary attitude with no connection whatsoever to traditional message or political subtext but running on generosity, nakedness and a ballistic, down-to earth pulse.

Mårten Spångberg, Ballet International/Tanz Aktuell, 12.97

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M@GGIE'S LOVE BYTES
Electra Exhibition | Hennie Onstad Art Centre | Oslo | 08-09.03.96

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Sex role perspectives enter and are twisted as the masculine gaze becomes reversed, and sent out on the net in a multi-media show from several global locations. The techno- based soundscape and the pixelating pictures give the whole seance a primal feeling. Repetative patterns invoke stone-age impressions. A straight performance, but with a prescribed dose of human intervention striking direcly into the heart of the 90†s. Here, we are very much at the genesis of the development from the digital pre-historic twilight, moving steadily into the collective drama of the twentyfirst century.

Eirik Befring. Journalist, Oslo, 96 (translated from Norwegian)

Your presentation was fresh, invigorating , original, innovative and a great source of inspiration to all.

Scott deLaHunta. Performance Research Agency, Amsterdam, 96

The premiere of M@ggie's Love Bytes was, mildly put, a chaotic and exciting affair where the Internet's enormous universe became the arena for a dance performance like no other you have seen before [...] Talk about collaboration! Live, before several hundred people. And a few million more, maybe?

Espen Andersen. Journalist, Oslo, 96 (translated from Norwegian)


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