general

Thanks to Michelle Kasprzak for including my work in a del.icio.us Tag Gallery exhibition she curated--the title of the exhibit is "Loops, Rings, Circles and Infinity."
As she explains on her blog:

I was recently invited by the lovely folks at CONT3XT.NET to curate a “TAGallery”. This concept essentially involved selecting works on a theme of my choice, and then using the popular social bookmarking system del.icio.us to tag my choices, which are presented as an exhibition of sorts in del.icio.us. Or as the CONT3XT.NET folks put it, TAGallery “…transfers the main tasks of noncommercial exhibition spaces to the discourse of an electronic data-space. The method of tagging allows the attribution of artworks to different thematic fields.”

Exhibition 007_Loops, Rings, Circles and Infinity was tagged by yours truly, and here’s what I had to say about my selections:

“Connectivity on the Web is often thought of in a linear fashion – point to point, server to server. This perception might be rational and convenient, but the way that we use the web is often more circular, looping upon itself, or seemingly without end. The artworks selected for this TAGallery represent the opposite of a finite or fixed experience."

[...]

With works by: Tom Moody, Lisa Jevbratt, Mark Napier, Myfanwy Ashmore, Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn, John F. Simon, Jr., Alistair Gentry.

Exhibition at TAGallery: http://del.icio.us/TAGallery/EXHIBITION_loop.infinity
Statement: http://del.icio.us/TAGallery/STATEMENT_loop.infinity
Tagger/curator: http://del.icio.us/TAGallery/TAGGER_loop.infinity

When Michelle first proposed this to me I thought the "GIF grid" piece she had selected used one of my "found, artist unknown" GIFs. Then I remembered I actually made it. That's how kitschy I am.

YouTube of the New York Police Department's mobile surveillance tower rising up over the US Open. Heil Hitler.

Olia Lialina has added to her Vernacular Web 2 article with some discussions about class, notably Danah Boyd's analysis of American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace.

Lialina believes Boyd's argument will be dated soon because

[o]n the 18th of August blingee.com, a service for glittering profile graphics, already owning the hearts of all “glitzy” users, announced that "Facebook users can now join the Blingee fever. Send your Blingees to your Facebook profile, and get your friends to browse and rate your Blingees directly from your Facebook profile!"

Facebook is one of those things I've been avoiding because of the sign-in requirement. With Flickr and Myspace you can at least surf the content without "joining." The "exclusivity" is a class indicator right there, bling or no bling. I may have turned off my comments but I still have some democratic impulses.

previous thread on this

Update: drx informs me that Facebook is opening itself up to limited content searches. Great, I really, really need to know what people look like.

Speaking of metal, nice collection of signage from ilia at loshadka, under the caption "death metal legibility." Loshadka is a very visually oriented "surf club" (note scare quotes, MSNBC): see also thomas's posts. Nice stuff. Not to slight any of the other members--it's all worth a look.

Banks Violette's House:

Banks Violette's Garage:

This art world in-joke brought to you by the curators of the Whitney Museum ("We need an acceptable Goth"), Team Gallery ("Your Gallery for Youth Culture"), and Barbara Gladstone Gallery ("I need me some of that youth culture"). I remember Violette's first show at Momenta--it looked like metal band art. Now it looks like a cross between Steve Parrino and Steve Parrino. At least he has good gods.