Snapshot of New York (Still-Life or Time-Trip?)
I am just back from three days of icy deep freeze and wind chill factors permeating the commercial heart of New York.
Is that Wall Street?
No, it's Times Square.
Was it a money-making trip?
Yes and no. It was a conference (no cash in pocket, but residuals potentially forthcoming).
Do I have any pictures?
Yes. This one:
I just developed it.
But how?
First, let's examine it in the context of web cam performance art. Web cam performance art is a great way to play with video tableau. I'm making a feature-length "film" on that subject by focusing the HDV cam on a fictional web cam persona who plays (with) herself 24 X 7 (does that sound like someone you know?).
But there's more to it than that.
Set aside web cam performance art for a moment. Mobile phone image capturing, especially for the nomadic net artist who experientially drifts through variable scenes of writing as a way of knowing, has less to do with tableau and more to do with plateau.
In this case, I am the cyberceptive attractor, strangely cognizant while improvising, pivoting with my handheld while receiving the signals from the traffic below:
Look familiar?
This is New York City as I see it, 11:02 PM, Mountain Standard Time.
But why is it MST and not EST (Eastern Standard Time)? Did I forget to change my watch?
No, I don't wear a watch.
Then I must have forgotten to change the time zone on my mobile phone, yes?
Well, no, not that either.
What I have done is networked my surveillance eyes back to Times Square using an Internet Earth Cam. My surveillance eyes are the ones I use to obsess over the images just now breaking on the shores of my hactivist thought as I peer over and through and within the network. I have actually "taken the picture" with my Snapz Pro software running on my net connected iPhone.
All of a sudden, this experience of capturing an image of New York from a remote location where I use the network to peer into the distant present while my body still resonates with the psychosocial buzzing of the very recent past (My So-Called Trip to New York) changes the meaning of the term peer-to-peer network.
The image capture from the Earth Cam is REAL.
How do I know it's REAL?
It sends a (deep, icy) chill up my spine.
Have I manipulated the image?
Yes.
How can I not manipulate the image?
Just by scripting this blog entry I have totally manipulated all of the networked data that informs the capturing of this image.
In fact, the image never had a chance.
To begin with, I have changed the size.
Color?
Yes, but only in theory.
In many ways, I am still in New York.
Or, maybe I would be better off saying "New York is still in me."
(And yet, tomorrow morning, nestled in the Colorado Rockies, I will further explore my "experiment in the technique of awakening" ...)
Is that Wall Street?
No, it's Times Square.
Was it a money-making trip?
Yes and no. It was a conference (no cash in pocket, but residuals potentially forthcoming).
Do I have any pictures?
Yes. This one:
I just developed it.
But how?
First, let's examine it in the context of web cam performance art. Web cam performance art is a great way to play with video tableau. I'm making a feature-length "film" on that subject by focusing the HDV cam on a fictional web cam persona who plays (with) herself 24 X 7 (does that sound like someone you know?).
But there's more to it than that.
Set aside web cam performance art for a moment. Mobile phone image capturing, especially for the nomadic net artist who experientially drifts through variable scenes of writing as a way of knowing, has less to do with tableau and more to do with plateau.
In this case, I am the cyberceptive attractor, strangely cognizant while improvising, pivoting with my handheld while receiving the signals from the traffic below:
Look familiar?
This is New York City as I see it, 11:02 PM, Mountain Standard Time.
But why is it MST and not EST (Eastern Standard Time)? Did I forget to change my watch?
No, I don't wear a watch.
Then I must have forgotten to change the time zone on my mobile phone, yes?
Well, no, not that either.
What I have done is networked my surveillance eyes back to Times Square using an Internet Earth Cam. My surveillance eyes are the ones I use to obsess over the images just now breaking on the shores of my hactivist thought as I peer over and through and within the network. I have actually "taken the picture" with my Snapz Pro software running on my net connected iPhone.
All of a sudden, this experience of capturing an image of New York from a remote location where I use the network to peer into the distant present while my body still resonates with the psychosocial buzzing of the very recent past (My So-Called Trip to New York) changes the meaning of the term peer-to-peer network.
The image capture from the Earth Cam is REAL.
How do I know it's REAL?
It sends a (deep, icy) chill up my spine.
Have I manipulated the image?
Yes.
How can I not manipulate the image?
Just by scripting this blog entry I have totally manipulated all of the networked data that informs the capturing of this image.
In fact, the image never had a chance.
To begin with, I have changed the size.
Color?
Yes, but only in theory.
In many ways, I am still in New York.
Or, maybe I would be better off saying "New York is still in me."
(And yet, tomorrow morning, nestled in the Colorado Rockies, I will further explore my "experiment in the technique of awakening" ...)
Metadata: art, philosophy, New York, webcam, photography
posted by Professor VJ at 11:40 PM
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