THE DEATH BY MEDIA EXHIBITION

An Invitation

On the occasion of Academie Minerva's 200th anniversary the MFA program at Media-GN has been invited to make a small presentation in the Groninger Museum. This presentation will consist of short black and white 'stick figure' animations running on ten new iMac computers arranged in the exhibition space.

As past or present MFA student or instructor you are invited to submit one or more animations for this exhibition. The exhibition will take place in the Groninger Museum from Saturday 31 October to Sunday 29 November 1998. The deadline for submissions is Sunday 25 October 1998.The final selection and installation of the submissions will be done by Mark Wilson (curator Groninger Museum), Mark Madel and Paul Perry.

The theme of the presentation is 'Death by Media'. The concept is in part derived from Matt Calvert's 'Stick Figure Death Theatre' at: http://www.sfdt.com and Bruce Sterling's 'Dead Media Project' at: http://www.islandnet.com/~ianc/dm/dm.html -- Please see both these sites and the information provided belowed for background and the detailed submission rules.

Media Defined

Does man exist to help and spread media technology or does media technology exist to help and spread man? Marshall McLuhan defines media or technology as 'extensions of man', including everything from speech, writing and roads through the harnessing of the horse, the wheel and the sail to advertising, typewriters and telephones.

By McLuhan's definition it is impossible to consider man without media or technology.

Media are usually assumed to be the product of mankind--helping us as our tools--doing our bidding. However it is easy to turn the assumption around and ask: To what extent are we the products and tools of our media? Clearly media and technology change us. Can we think of media as replicating patterns--similar to organic viruses--that attack us, change us, cause us to replicate themselves?

Our various improvements not only mark a diminution of the function improved upon... but they also work to dissolve some of the fundamental authority of hte human itself. We are experiencing the gradual but steady erosion... of the species itself.
-Sven Birkerts

Are we simply the environment in which media and technology lives and evolves?

Dead Media

Media (and technologies) are born, evolve and die--making way for new (and faster and more efficient) media life forms. Villages evolve into cities which in turn evolve into real estate in the global village. Tourism protects original villages by turning them into attractions.

The constantly changing environment and the 'competition for survival' results in media life forms becoming endangered and occasionally extinct. Museums are an example of a media life form created to preserve other media life forms. History is a media life form telling the story of past life forms.

Death by Media

Media viruses are not always benign. Some viruses use all their host's energy to replicate themselves and literally 'burn their host out'. As Manuel de Landa illustrates in his machine histories, ('War in the Age of Intelligent Machines' and 'A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History') some media prosper by killing their parents or hosts. For example media viruses can precipitate the movement of attention and materials from old forms into new media forms:

The gradual abandonment of armor as a part of the equipment of soldiers during the seventeeth century freed some metal supplies for the manufacture of firearms and missiles.
-John U. Nef, War and Human Progress

Submission Rules

The exhibition will consist of short black and white stick figure animations running on ten new iMac computers arranged in the exhibition space.

In the exhibition sound will not be supported, so animations should be silent.

Each animation must be no longer than 30 seconds.

Each animation should be made for a screen resolution of 640 x 480 pixels (animations do not need to take up the whole screen).

Animations should feature SIMPLE stick figures. For examples of SIMPLE stick figures please see 'The Car', 'The Axe', and 'The Gun' at http://www.sfdt.com. Note that most of the fan page animations at this site lose force by being too complex.

A very very small amount of one other color (red or yellow) is allowed if its effect is justified by the content.