Deep Cover

IAA Intro Video

Tad Hirsch Different Bits Presentation

Maybe my historical perspective doesn’t allow me to see where the avant garde is these days. For a little while I doubted with near certainty its existence in the United States at least these days. The other night Shelley Rice, an incredibly sharp educator and visual critic reminded our class of the all too obvious point that the idea of an avant garde is not a fixed historical convergence of specific people and that as those conditions and people change the impetus for cultural critique and innovation does not disappear.

So then this got me wondering that if the external societal conditions, be they simply- political, technological, economic, even spatial, have significantly changed during my lifetime (1985-present), enough in my mind at least to distance my generation from using a functional model of the historical avant garde, then what are the signs that the chameleon of an avant garde is out there alive and well?

Being at the ideologically charged age that I am, I have been trying to discern how I have fit myself into the scheme of things, where I want to go, and how I think it might work the best (duh). Pretty clearly, but maybe not when I started out, I have committed myself to being within the world of art. New York (2003-present) and studying art at University certainly implicates me in being part of the “machine.” The ease and subtlety with which this educational process has indoctrinated Us into its flow is pretty incredible. So first of all, I have had the initial, huge bi-polar response that leads me to ask if i should, A. be violent, and outcast myself to a place and surround myself with people that support this now classical form of youthful classic rebellion, or B. give in to it all, and let the wave of certain mediocrity, and ultimate boredom wash over me like a mountain of unsold work in Chelsea (and a lot of the sold stuff too)

Well not that I am any more mature of a person than either of those two emotional options, but it seems after some topical consideration that option C. actually renders the possibility for change; and that being to wear the sheep’s clothing, go deep under, and then rip the middle out from itself. This of course is not a new idea either, but it certainly seems like one that a large number of the smart, young ones are taking on.

And this brings me to the man of the Day, The Institute of Applied Autonomy’s Tad Hirsch. He is a researcher and PhD candidate at MIT’s Media Lab, has worked with Intel’s People and Practices Research Group, the Interaction Design Studio at Carnegie Mellon University, and even Motorola’s Advanced Concepts Group. And while his work definitely is focused on the “intersections between art, activism, and technology”, the ways in which he goes about it have explosive potential. In addition to being part of these incredibly well respected institutions, Hirsch has a propensity to do his real work outside of these confines, primarily as part of the collaborative group, The Institute for Applied Autonomy. Here in the backrooms Hirsch and his anonymous cohorts invent and “adaptively reuse” technology to make projects that are able to be utilized by the citizenry at large in order to give the opportunity for change, or more appropriately; to put some degree of control back into the peoples’ hands. Adaptive reuse is integral to this process in order to mitigate the learning curve when during project implementation.

A great example, is Hirsch’s (IAA) development of txtmob , a group based text messaging bullitin board of sorts that allows groups of people, in the case of its inception during the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City (activists), to coordinate, warn, and generally communicate with the others on that topic.

Today Hirsch came NYU to talk about his current project that he is working on with Trevor Paglen, an experimental geographer and fellow PhD seeker. Paglen has spent the last few years researching and tracking the CIA’s illegal extraordinary renditions program.Terminal Air is an installation that attempts to envision the CIA office cum-travel agency in Langley, Virginia from which the Extraordinary Rendition Program is presumably coordinated. Represented on the two large wall displays is a speculative visualization of the known movements of some 30 of these planes. The map on the left indicates the planes movements during the last 6 years. The screen on the right lists the 10 most recent flights. Periodically new information on a plane’s whereabouts will arrive and will be indicated on the map display and by the ringing telephones. Please feel free to answer them. (from IAA website)

This installation’s flexibility is completely endemic of Hirsch’s method regarding the production of art. While this piece could very easily function within the space of a gallery, its power would really lie in it blending into the “real world” of a non descript space with a volume of people to uncover the work for themselves. Tripwire (2006) has a much more specific, but equally assistive purpose. Coconuts that measure the noise pollution, and make automatic reports to the proper authorities demanding action is a pretty good direction to be heading in.

So then, if the strategy of collaborating with Intel in order “to engage the techniques of social science and design in order develop a deep understanding of how people live and work”, and then developing a system of activist communication that subverts the very authority they spend so much money on lobbying is working, then what can the rest of us do?

Step It Up

*I hope that this visual metaphor about avant garde hidden status rings true : whales cruise in ocean, until they are ready to feed on the unsuspecting, then there is a burst of fury like none other
*Next up - I want to create a forum or conduit of sorts for a great number of artists working around these ideas of political subversion to get together (because the world is a big place, but also too small to not communicate with people on the same wavelength)

Parital List Below:

Smart Cities
0100101110101101.org
Trevor Paglen
Bl4ck H4m
Bureau of Inverse Technology
Carbon Defense League
Critical Art Ensemble
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Experimental Interaction Unit
Gallery Green
irational.org
Moport
Mute Magazine
Public Netbase
Reclaim the Streets
Redundant Technology Initiative
RTMark
subRosa
Swipe
University of Openess
The Yes Men
Underfire
Strange Culture - Movie on CAE’s Steven Kurtz
Towards a New Visualization of Secrecy?
Center for Land Use Interpretation
Computing Culture