:: Sunday, May 09, 2004 ::
NEW WRITING: Regarding Globalization at Wigged.net
BY: Humberto Ramirez
This week, Net Art Review features "Regarding Globalization at Wigged.net" by Humberto Ramirez,Curator, presented for our readers in collaboration with its author. Ramirez discusses the choices and evolution of Globalization, online through December 2004 at Wigged.net.
Humberto Ramirez is an artist originally from Chile. Since the mid nineties, Ramirez has been involved with electronic explorations in sound, video and streaming media. Ramirez's work presently is concerned with social issues and the power of language in shaping our values and perceptions. His new body of work is being shown electronically on line as well as at traditional screening venues such as art galleries, museums and film/video festivals across the country.
EXCERPT: The choice of collectives and artists came from inviting people I knew were working in the field and a general call for submissions that went out from Wigged onto Rhizome and other venues. I wanted to assemble a small focused group that was representative of current concerns regarding Globalization and used the web as a vehicle. I was less interested in delivery techniques or the way the material originated than in the actual engagement that the work represented in relationship to online activism.
Click here to read entire statement.
ORIGINAL POST: Sun May 02, 06:15:33 AMBY: Garrett Lynch
Plug 'n' Pray is a cynical look at the principal religions of the world--Christian, Jewish, Buddist, Muslim, and Hindu--through a falsified product entitled Plug 'n' Pray, borrowing from the much used computing term Plug and Play.
With the tag line "Start your own Holy War, change their religion with Plug and Pray," endorsements by religious leaders, and switch kits (comparative to language sets in applications) for religious conflict hotspots allow you to "seamlessly switch from one religion to another." It suggests that religion is marketed and sold these days like a product that can be bought into; and conversion from one faith to another "is instantaneous, smooth, and seamless". The 'company' producing the product claim "Religion is no longer a mystical experience or a personal journey to get closer to our transcendent inner dimension--it belongs now to the FCG (Fast Consumer Goods) segment."
ORIGINAL POST: Mon May 03, 10:57:54 AMBY: Eduardo Navas
Got game? Got Politics? Then check out agoraXchange, a project with the purpose to engage collectives in global political awareness. Individual participation is also encouraged. I am not sure how successful this piece will be, because many online "collaborations" of this type that ask users to input information which eventually becomes an archive of the artwork have proven to be in large part unsuccessful in the past. Regardless, the idea behind the game consisting of "an online community for discussing and designing a massive multi-player global politics game challenging the violence and inequality of our present political system" is worth entertaining, and contributing to.