Net Works panel and book launch

Eyebeam, Thursday October 14th, 6-8pm

Eyebeam presents a panel discussion among authors in the edited volume, Net Works (Routledge), followed by a reception and book signing and launch party. Net Works offers an inside look into the process of successfully developing thoughtful, innovative digital media art. Panel participants include xtine burrough (editor of Net Works), Michael Mandiberg, Ethan Ham, and Robert Nideffer.

Publishing Disruptions at Mobility Shifts

New School, Friday October 14th, 1:30-3:30 pm

I will be talking about my work with FlossManuals.net booksprints in the context of new platforms and tools for publishing outside of traditional infrastructures and open formats and licenses. Participants are: Morgan Currie, Sam Gould, Amanda Hickman, Michael Mandiberg, and Simon Worthington. Full info here.

Learning in Public and the Knowledge Commons at Mobility Shifts

New School, Friday October 14th, 6:30-8:30 pm

I will be talking about the benefits and difficulties of teaching by writing Wikipedia, in the context of a panel on the opportunities and challenges of learning in the digital commons, where learners study open materials and contribute original work back as part of their learning experience. Participants are:
Matthew X. Curinga, Michael Mandiberg, Roddy Schrock, Ian Sullivan. Full info here.

CUNY Open Access panel

CUNY Graduate Center room 9204, Friday October 28th, 5-7pm

As a culmination of CUNY Open Access Week 2011, and in conjunction with the CUNY Digital Humanities Initiative, this panel will unravel issues surrounding creative commons practices and open access publishing. Our panelists will share their inspiration for becoming open access advocates. The panel will include: the Radical Teacher editorial collective, Matthew K. Gold, Michael Mandiberg, and Trebor Scholz. More info here.

I will be giving a Greasemonkey and Firefox Plugin workshop at the 2010 01SJ Biennial, Build Your Own World. There are still a couple of spots in the workshop, but you need to register here.

This workshop is part of the 01SJ Eyebeam Roadshow.

The workshop runs three days, from September 17-19: Friday, 9/17/10, 5:30-7pm and Saturday, 9/18/10 – Sunday, 9/19/10, 3:30-5pm

This workshop will teach you how to do things to web pages after they load. For example replacing dollars with barrels of oil (http://oilstandard.org), ads with art (http://add-art.org), or, say, every mention of Eddie Van Halen with a picture of him flying through the air. Prerequisites: Javascript or other scripting or programming language experience.

My online collaborators Mushon-Zer Aviv and Jonah Bossewitch and I are leading off a day of workshops on online collaboration. I love that Jonah and I will be meeting in person for the first time, and that Mushon will be joining us via Skype. How online-collaborative is that!

ElectroSmog SkillShare: Tools and Models for Online Collaboration

Saturday, March 20, 2010 | 10AM – 5PM

Free with RSVP

Limit of 30 participants (in New York).

This SkillShare was conceived as part of the ElectroSmog Festival, a new, three-day, international festival that will introduce and explore of concept of “Sustainable Immobility”: a critique of current systems of hyper mobility of people and products in travel and transport, and their ecological unsustainability.

10:30AM: Michael Mandiberg, Jonah Bossewitch, and Mushon Zer-Aviv (online) will present current models and challenges of online collaboration:

• What is and is not collaboration? What are the advantages and disadvantages of different models?
• Distributed Collaboration as promsing new model of group online development and collaboration
• Online collaboration methods as a way to bridge cultural as well as geographic distance
• Discussion of their work together in Berlin on Collaborative Futures

More here

Pre-Order – for pick up $12.00 Pre-Order – US mail $17.00 Pre-Order – international mail $21.00

March 4th @ 730PM, at EYEBEAM, 540 W 21st St, NYC

Upgrade! NY presents the Collaborative Futures book Launch and talk. Collaborative Futures is a book about free collaboration written collaboratively over five days during the 2010 Transmediale Festival. TM10 locked six writers and one programmer in a Berlin hotel room (pix) to collaboratively write a book about the future of free collaboration; the authors started with only the title, and ended the week with a book. Transmediale artistic director Stephen Kovats will be on hand to join Eybeam senior fellow Michael Mandiberg and Eyebeam honorary resident Mushon Zer-Aviv will discuss the process of writing this book and some of their discoveries throughout the collaborative process. Stephen Kovatz will also talk about the “Futurity Now” concept of Transmediale10 in general and particularly in the context of the Collaborative Futures book sprint.

This event will be your first chance to get your hands on a dead-tree version of Collaborative Futures. Books will be for sale for $15 at the event, but you can pre-order now for $12.

The “Collaborative Futures” book sprint was facilitated by Adam Hyde (FlossManuals.net) and authored by Mike Linksvayer, Michael Mandiberg, Marta Peirano, Alan Toner, Mushon Zer-Aviv and several additional collaborators using the Booki software (booki.cc) by Aleksandar Erkalovic.

RSVP on Facebook

Pre-order here

Talking to someone on the internet? Want to seem cool? Want to photoshop their head onto that of a celebrity? Well – the digital savvy know how to do that, but the REALLY digital savvy know that Photoshop’s not the only way. The world of digital image manipulation is too often seen as a one-horse race, but it doesn’t have to be that way. GIMP is the premiere, super-fantastic FREE SOFTWARE tool for photo retouching, digital image creation, and cover-for-the-CD-me-and-my-friends-made-in-my-basement making. Come get an introduction to both at once, learning the strengths and weaknesses of both as you make your Facebook photos look better, and your friends be more jealous of your skillz. With a “z.”

A short interview video with Michael Mandiberg shot and Edited by Dan Eckstein (daneckstein.com) in March 2009, with Music from Au Revoir Simone at Eyebeam and Postmasters Gallery NYC.

From the dialog:

I’m Michael Mandiberg. I am an artist, designer, and educator, and I am a Senior Fellow at Eyebeam, which is an Art and Technology Center in Chelsea, Manhattan.

As an artist I am pretty omnivorous. I have a background in photography, so it is pretty image based, but I was also a really really good bad high school poet. So I am particularly interested in words and their meaning, and their nuances and their poetic value. So I am always looking at the world around us visually, informationally, and culturally, and politically for inspiration

Some of my more recent work involves the laser cutter, cutting paper and books, making sculptures and drawings. The laser cutter takes the information from the computer file, and it uses a laser to cut that shape out of the material being cut, which in this case is a newspaper.

A few of my recent works are at The Future Is Not What It Used To Be, which is a show at Postmasters Gallery. One is called Old News, which is a stack of New York Times into which I am cutting daily the phrase “Old News” into it. The other is DATA BASE, which is an Oxford English Dictionary with the phrase “DATA BASE” cut into it.

The show itself is about the promise and the failed promise of technology, and its potential to connect people or not connect people.

Introducing the new version of the Bright Bike DIY Kit. To BUY a DIY Kit right now, go to BrightThread.com

After a year of testing, we are releasing DIY Kits for an updated version of the Bright Bike. The kits come in two types: Caterpillar and Pinstripes.

The Caterpillar has 1 inch bands that wrap around the main tubes, and in inch dashed lines along the fork and seat stays.

The Pinstripe has 1/4 inch strips that run along the outside faces of all tubes.

Each kit is sized to be large enough for a 61cm frame with extra wide tubing, so in nearly every case, you will have extra materials that will give you room to play and experiment.

Video by Bennett Williamson. Tx to Scott Kildall for playing along. (Michael, Bennett, and Scott are the bike wrappers)

Security Patterns is a studio visit installation of recent laser cut work. These sculptures and drawings are made from old books laser cut with poignant words, and drawings made from industrial patterns, all of which explore transformations in technology and their relationships to evolutions (or devolutions) in economies. Some choice examples include: two display bookshelves with an ever growing collection of 130+ investment guide books and get-rich-quick books (e.g. “Weath is a Choice” or “Investing by the Stars”) all laser engraved with the logos of failed FDIC Insured banks, A shrink wrapped bundle of 12 Yellow Pages that have been cut all the way through with the phrase “GOOGLE” and a dictionary with the phrase “OMG LOL” cut from its pages.

I have previously burned the OED, Atlases, and Phonebooks. I am interested in exploring books, especially expensive reference books, as a symbol of technological obsolecense and consumption culture. Once they were a huge symbol of prestige, now they are a sign of a era whose time has passed away. I burn them with word and symbols, as a way of commenting on their technological obsolescence, and simultaneously restoring their aura as precious objects.

More images on this blog post, or on James Wagner’s review of his studio visit

Date: Fri., October 23 + Sat., October 24, 2009 | 3–6PM
Location: Eyebeam, 540 W. 21st St., NYC
http://eyebeam.org/events/open-studios-fall-2009

Eyebeam is pleased to host Open Studios for its 2009 Senior Fellows, Resident Artists, and Student Residents at Eyebeam’s state-of-the-art design, research, and fabrication studio; showcasing video performance, wearable technologies, code and humor, party technology, and sustainablity design. This two-day presentation at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center will allow a rare, inside look at current research. Guided tours of artists’ work will be given every hour from 3–6PM.

I will be presenting recent laser cut sculptures and drawings: books laser cut with poignant words, and drawings made from industrial patterns. These explore transformations in technology and their relationships to evolutions (or devolutions) in economies.  If that sounds like a bunch of vague artspeak, let me describe three examples: two display bookshelves with an ever growing collection of 130+ investment guide books all laser engraved with the logos of failed FDIC Insured banks, A shrink wrapped bundle of 12 Yellow Pages that have been cut all the way through with the phrase “GOOGLE” and a dictionary inscribed with the phrase “OMG LOL.”

They did three load in days w/ this obscenely large crane. At first we thought they loaded them in, and then three days later, loaded them out. We couldn’t believe the hubris of Larry Gagosian to spend that much cash on installing those works for three days… so someone could see them?  Then we realized they all just looked the same and they were just packing them in. I think there are about nine of these monsters in the space.

Serra’s work has always been about cutting off traffic…