<eyebeam><blast> UEC

[Keller Ann Easterling <kae3@columbia.edu>]

I thought that the idea about the computer extracting life from its
operator was funny--- as if one's interactions with computers are like
pushing and pulling in some kind of magnetic field.  It does seem like a
time space to me sometimes tapping its toes and blowing air over its
circuitry while I am trying to think.  I keep thinking that feeling will
go away, but maybe it shouldn't.  At the beginning of this latest surge
in computer use, people often apologized for using a pencil or some
other low tech means of communication as if such a thing was the mark of
a luddite or as if we didn't need a diverse set of mnemonic and
contemplative environments.  I am glad that overcompensating stance is
not necessary anymore and that we don't need to treat it as an old-timey
novelty when we want switch formats. 

Jordan, you were asking for an example of protocol "site plan" and also
for an more explicit expanation of my suggestion that the work might not
exist within the realm of performance art.

This may be more than you want to know, but my students are doing these
kinds of "site plans" now.  Each is compiling specifications for, for
instance, 1)  the way Hertz uses GPS technology 2) a merger between the
componentry format of computer peripherals and an automobile
restoration/hybridization 3)golf as a game and as a format for
developing housing tracts 4)bulk or surplus retailing and packing or
5)GlobalEx shipping which uses aerospace technology.  These are just a
few examples. Each one is able to uncover very specific temporal and
physical dimensions which are associated with each of these
protocols/procedures/formats.  Some of them borrow a commercial format
for presentation. Some of them are like those funny dials which plumbers
use to figure out pipe width and pressure ratios.  Some are like a ruler
for a set of actions.  Franchises and offices are simple, familiar
examples.  There are so many orange hamburger booths per structural bay,
per parking space etc.  There are so many desks, and flourescents and
partition that can fit with the typical dimension between elevator core
and glass skin in an office. If you shift a dimension in this protocol,
you have changed thousands of spaces.  Most of this is familiar, but it
starts to get interesting when compiled with other kinds of temporal
dimensions and unfamiliar market organizations.  How are the "circles of
draw" explicity calibrated? Each of these procedures also has a psychic
profile in culture which becomes part of the site plan.  After reading
Jordan's post, I wish one of my students was working on a UEC. 

Jordan, I like what you wrote about an anti-market stance.  It does seem
important to understand and experience giant cultural persuasions.  I am
not sure I know why I say that the work is disguised, and this is a bit
of a hurried response.  Sometimes that stance may assert a specific
position about another level or realm of artful activity.  Sometimes it
may be personal attitude that is not very interesting to anyone else. I
am compelled, really compelled, by a limited number of things. 
Performance art would be one of those things, so there is nothing
negative about my suggestion.  But I am also attracted to the
possibility of some kind of resourceful tinkering with common commercial
activity.  I don't want to feel like I cannot be a part of that activity
because I am an artist.  I do think that all of the things I want to do
take a critical position or exist as a kind of crafty tactic.  I think
about empowering my own work and my student's work by finding sites in
any realm which are amplified through production or persuasions in
culture. 



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