IM WAT_CHING UU

 
Cameras, cameras everywhere, watching over me all the time.
I swipe my ID to get into school buildings. I use one of the computers in the lab, and my traces are left behind. All of the online activies I do are easily accessible. I erase cookies or temporary Internet files yet I can't completey erase everything. Credit card I use, emails I write, things I shop online.. everything.
Even Facebook is about surveilling your friends' activites. Facebook stalking, I say, is happening actually.
 
Just using my debit or credit card can tell a lot of things. Supplies I get, and food store i frequently use can describe a lot from me. It can tell anything, anything. It can lead to cyber crime. It's that easy.
 
There is no privacy. After since everything turned into digital, people leave some kind of trace here and there.
And there are companies that deal with those data for good purpose and other companies that abuse, in contrary. The term "Identity theft" is no longer sci-fi to contemporary culture. But humanity can't go back without technology yet they are watched, controlled, hypnotized as a result.
 
Is there  a way to prevent ourselves from being surveilled? Maybe when i move to Alaska, wait no.
I'll still use my credit card. Hmm. I guess not.
There is no way.
 
 
YOU ARE ALWAYS WATACHED OVER. WHO WATCHES OVER THE WATCHMEN.

REmiX the future - -

When my friend recommend Girl Talk's music last year in high school, I was his fan immediately. Pop, hip hop, rock and everything was all mashed up together in one song. From Pink to Radiohead, Girl Talk was crossing over genres and creating that was never invented before. 
 
But there were issues of
COPYWRITE
OWNERSHIP
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
of Girl Talk's music. Since the songs used for the samplings were created by other famous musians, he supposely has to ask permission and pay decent amount of money to justify his action. But he doesn't. He is still creating music without paying copywrited materials.



 
Of course, creation of music and movies should be protected. Artist's creativity, time, effort and money are valuable and therefore be rewarded back to the creators. However fact that most of the copywrite court cases end up not about giving back to the artist. It's about corporates controlling everything.
I felt bad for the women who was interviewed in the RIP: A Remix Manifesto. She illegally downloaded two dozens of music and charged with so much money when she could have gotten the music cheap from elsewhere. Fact that the copywrite laws are attacking poor citizens made everything wrong. What is the purpose of the law? Where is it?
 
 
I am really concerned about Girl Talk's future. I am pretty sure he is getting sued soon or later due to his illegal use of copywrited music. But I do love his music and I am not the only one. He shouldn't be restricted by laws that are supposed to promote new ideas not prison them. Movements such as Creative Commons should be embraced to share and able recreate new art freely.
 
Ideas cannot be owned by anyone. They are not for profits or power. It's about life that cannot be captivated but to amplify and discover the new world.
 

hackers - - the creative ones?

In a dark room, dim computer monitor fills space. Heavy glasses on a young guy reflects the screen of what he is working on. His eyes are constantly moving watching a screen full of a lot of windows with secret codes. Fingers moving nervously, creating rhythmic sound of keyboard typing. He just broke into Microsoft's developement department data base. He copies all confidential documents into a small USB. Soon, he heads out and exchange his USB with a suitcase from men in black in the alley. This is what I have imagined when I thought about "hackers."

As the computer technology develop, the fear of hackers grew especially in pop culture. For example, Lyle, played by Seth Green, in the Italian Job (2003) is a hacker who hacks into Los Angela's traffic light system and creates the biggest traffic jam in order to help his crew steal the money back. Also new Live Free or Die Hard (2007) is about John McClane fighting against internet-based terrorists/hackers who threatens the government. Media only portrays only the dark, stealing or illegal activities of hackers. I also thought hackers were bad guys because of the movies I saw. Actually, this wasn't true.

Starting from John Draper's Phone Phreaking, hacking is about expanding the limit, recreating somthing  other people didn't see especially on new technology field. Phone Phrekers would tune into specific frequencies or with the Blue Boxes, another type of Phone Phrekings, they would call internationally and listen to random foreign voicemails or call anyone for free. It could be wrong......but they were just doing it for fun! Fun!

Like Dadaists or Fluxus artists, hackers are the same: they want to break the traditional values and create new things that nobody had never thought of but in a specific compuer/telecommunication field. Hackers would look like computer nerds but I got to consider them as another group of artists. Just with different medium and ways of doing it. The idea, the idea is no different from my artistic goals.  I want to create something that's eyes wide-opending and new perspectives. Anybody can be artists, including the hackers.

Nevertheless, media likes to overexaggerate facts. Hacking is one of the victims. Hackers, such as the legendary Kevin Mitnik who got sentenced for around six years because of his many, many illegal hacking activities were the hot issues that news only talked about.

Either way, the pure idea of hacking is no differnt from Duchamp's Ready-made objects. Finding new and creative ways in computer, internet, and networking should be welcomed by the society. It's just few people with evil minds are the problems! Afterall, Mitnik is now a CEO of Mitnik Security Consulting that actually helps small or big corporates to protect themselves from getting hacked. I think he is a good guy now.


Hacking -- -
I want to be a hacker, too, the good ones!

Body. Body. Body. - - the ultimate- ex-perience

In 2007, contemporary performance artist Stelarc who explores human body as a form of sculpture implanted a plaster ear on his left arm. Though he had to take it out later, Stelarc positioned a mini microphone in the ear. The sound was wirelessly transmitted and clearly heard. From his website, there are photos of the surgery and finally Stelarc portrait with The Ear on Arm.
I introduced Stelarc to Michelle, one of my roommates, and showed the photos and explained briefly that Stelarc investigates the idea of the human body is obsolete. Michelle was grossed out and felt uncomfortable. She didn't accept his work as art.
And I thought, 'Is this art?'

Art history and artists that I'm learning from Electronic Media and Culture challenge the idea of art constantly. I often feel difficult and anxious because it is not usual, logically accepted way of approaching art. For example, the one that Michelle was so grossed out was Stelarc and Nina Sellars' Blend project was involving liposuction from artists' body and using as a medium. Human fat and art? Isn't it more like science? Art? What is art?

California based machine performance art group, Survival Research Laboratories (SRL) delve into sensation of destruction, fear and domination by large scale machine performances. SRL's shows blows audiences' mind and their physical body. The crashing, exploding, firing sounds and the smoke created during the performance are almost inbearable. It might look like a joke, machines destroying machines, but the experience, the ultimate experienced of immersed, the pure moment of the environment, material or the mass itself is what SRL is aiming for like Stelarc and other contemporary artist.

I still have a mild preoccupied sense of how art should be that art should be sacred and superior, almost untouchable. I'm still learning to let go from, for example, seeing Ann Hamilton's works. As an installation artist, Hamilton invites the viewers to come in to space. Such her Tropos installation project, Hamilton visually, acoustically and olfactorily introduce her art world to audiences. Horse hair on the floor, an actor reading and burning each line and the murmuring sounds combine to create an experience. Appreciating her work as going into a fairytale advanture alone, I felt more comfortable with Hamilton's art than Stelarc or SRL's. Experience doesn't have to be intense fear or grotesque. To illustrate using taste, I don't have to eat crazy spicy or hot to feel the food. For me, smelling and tasting the flavor of the tea will be enough satisfying experience. Art that I can eat and smell, yes, that kind of experience.

John Ca-g-e

I remember my first encounter to John Cage in 2008 summer. I was participating Missouri Fine Arts Academy, a summer camp for selected high school students who are visual, vocal, instrumental, dance, dedicated to explore the interdisciplinary art. There were mini concerts and show case throughout the camp from students and faculties. One of them featured Cage’s work. I don’t remember who performed but it was Cage’s 4’33 piano version.

.
.
.

I wanted to see orchestra version after the end of the performance.


As if he was defining the undefinables, Cage’s ability to perceive and recreate definition of sound intrigues me. Although he had no desire for harmony, music he composed has structures, “not necessarily connected or disconnected” according to Mr. Cunningham. Relating back to Fluxus movement, Cage was one of the leading artists who expressed that music doesn’t have to be traditional or elegant.

When I heard 4"33, I just couldn't say anything about it. I was surrounded by some kind of music all the time yet often fail to acknowledge them. 4'33 forced me to feel the presence of sound. There were other about 400 students in the stadium, somebody coughing, clothes and papers rustling , low bass machine were few subtle sound I remember. Then another form of overwhelming sound after the perfomance: people clapping, whispering, chair squeak, footstep sound ... I felt I was in the middle of the universe of invisible sound world, lost within.


I wish I could find sound of true sound within me.
With no limit, just full of sounds surrounding me as Cage searched for his entire life.

Fl-xus sco-res

Fluxxuxxssss


#1 - Fingernails
Look at your fingernails closey and bite for briefly 3 minutes.
Share your experience with other audiences

#2 - Facebook
Join facebook and facebook friend 100 random people.
Wait in front of the screen until ten people accept your friends request.

#3 - TV
Watch TV for two hours and write down how many commercials you watched.

#4 - Greeting
On a sunny day, go out and sit down and greet 100 people in the park.

#5 - Pancakes
Eat pancakes till you feel like throwing up.

Flu-xus Mov-ement

If I showed Yono Oko’s #16 – Lightening the Match piece to my mom, she would be like, “I don’t consider this kind of videos as art,” and walk away. I would have act as same as her prior to learning the history of the Fluxus Movement. Just feeling what is happening visually, acoustically is all about Fluxus. People without any knowledge about Fluxus, like my mom, would dislike the entire thing. Because Lightening the Match is a short video of igniting the match in a really slow motion. “So what?” my mom would say. However, it’s zoomed so close you can even see how the sparkle works and its eerie slow motion give you a tingle. Capturing and reinterpreting the moment that no one actually thought about it fascinates me like discovering chocolate candies in your purse!

The term Fluxus comes from Latin, meaning “to flow”. What do Fluxus artist do? Check out Fluxus Workbook of performance scores: screaming at the wall, play baseball with fruits, cook soup for every audience and more such non-sense things. People might say, “this is not art,” but Fluxus is about breaking traditional values and recreating meaning of art constantly. Fluxus artist sometimes look like psychos, but I envy their ability to integrate life and art in one. Investing entire life to explore a single concept of unifying the arts is what I want to do as an artist. Yes, people will call me a wacko, but that’s how your name remembered in the history like George Maciunas or Nam Jun Paik.

So anybody wants to play John Cage’s 4’33 with me? Orchestra version or piano or any instrument?