Rob Myers

This post does not include the phrase "frantic academic clopping".

James Bridle's "Where The F**k Was I?" (2011) is a book containing 202 maps depicting his movements over the previous year. The maps were produced using OpenStreetMap (2004) to plot the secret location database that iPhones (2007) had been discovered to be keeping (April 2011). It is printed as a hardback book using Lulu (2002), although images from it can be seen on flickr (2004).

In writing about this project, Bridle reflects on the impact of discovering that he was being spied on and takes this as a leaping off point for wider and deeper reflection on the nature of memory and of the mediation of experience by technology. In doing so he discusses contemporary art, contemporary literature, and contemporary cybercultural theory.

I would like to make two points about this project.

The first is that it would have been impractical before 2007, and unnecessary before 2011. I appreciate that in the 1990s JODI were multi-billion-dollar companies profiting from pervasive digital devices and logistics that meant the virtual tail of the military-industrial-fashion complex was wagging the actual dog of society in ways that were bleeding through into everyday experience, but I think we all have to admit that they didn't have a Tumblr (2007).

The second is that the project is a serious and literate consideration of personal experience as shaped by our present situation that uses aesthetics not due to Theoretic inarticulacy but precisely to communicate the full impact of its subject effectively.

I am arguing that Bridle's project of The New Aesthetic (TNA) is indeed considering both the new and the aesthetic, and that both these aspects of it are critically valuable and cannot be reduced to historical or textual surrogates.


My favourite responses to TNA so far have been:

David Berry critiquing Object Oriented Philosophical approaches to TNA and provides three different ways of considering it that come from within cyberculture -

http://stunlaw.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/what-is-new-aesthetic.html

Saul Albert providing some very useful historical comparisons to net.art -

https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1204&L=new-media-curating&F=&S=&P=18212

And Honor Harger pointing out the gap between the straw man of TNA that many people are attacking and what it actually is -

https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1204&L=new-media-curating&F=&S=&P=20818

Here's what I've learnt about the practical side of using my MakerBot Replicator so far.

If you have a dual extrusion system, make sure the two extrusion nozzles are exactly the same height when you first install them. You may need to tighten screws or insert pieces of paper to do so.

When you first adjust the build platform, take your time. Getting the platform the right height and levelled is vital to getting a good print. Too high and the extruder nozzles will scrape the tape. Too low and the extruded plastic wont stick.

Re-level the build platform at least weekly to make sure it remains in the best possible position.

Clean the Kapton tape between prints to help with print adhesion. You should clean it with acetone, or in a pinch you can use nail polish remover.
When the Kapton tape on the platform looks like it's ready to be replaced, it's very easy to do so if you use the squeegee that came in the box. Peel off all the old tape, then unroll the new tape a strip at a time. You can lift up the tape and squeegee it down several times if needs be to get rid of air bubbles. Just keep it taut as you unroll it onto the platform.

Heat the build platform to at least 110 degrees celsius, possibly 115 or 120. This will help prevent curling of edges.

Don't be tempted to try rafts with dual extrusion. There is no way that will end well, no matter how carefully you set up the model. See above.

And if you do have a problem, the MakerBot mailing list, the MakerBot forums, and MakerBot tech support are the most amazingly helpful community I've encountered in a long time.

I'm very pleased to announce that "Balloon Dog" is featuring in the online exhibition Form@ts at the Jeu de Paume's virtual space:

http://espacevirtuel.jeudepaume.org/formts-2-1388/

It's in some amazing company. Take a look!

Finally taking my own advice, I've bought a MakerBot Replicator and I'm using it to print out my art.

It takes about ten hours to print a Balloon Dog:

The print quality is fascinating. It's incredibly detailed and smooth, but it looks like it has been woven from a single long thread (which in a way it has) which gives it a very finely serrated quality.

I'm uploading pictures of work in progress and finished prints to MediaGoblin, take a look!

My Uploads project is getting there.

Free Brit Art! [description+slogan] by Rob Myers
- Ruth Catlow.

Rob Myers does Damien Hirst (and Agnes Martin, and Ellsworth Kelly, and Barnett Newman, and Robert Ryman, and...
- Curt Cloninger.

Via The Jackdaw:

The Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, has placed digital images of its collections online. So far, so familiar. What is extraordinary is that all the images have been made available for reproduction free of charge, in superb high-resolution format, with no restriction over use... Other institutions in the USA are now considering whether to follow. The British Museum is a major institution that had already taken the same step in the UK. Otherwise the outlook in Britain is depressingly outdated, with museums and galleries, as this journal has frequently pointed out, obstructing not only scholarship but also wider familitarity with their collections throught the imposition of restrictive conditions on use and punitive fees. What makes it worse, much worse, are the outrageous claims to 'copyright' that are attached to use of images, preposterously applied to the mechanical reproductions of original works of art long out of copyright. This loathsome practice must stop.

- Robin Simon, The British Art Journal

Here's a finished board, with the LEDs that are used as senses attached to wires made more rigid with heat shrink (this hides the resistors as well). The peculiar colour cast of the image is due to a coloured light being on in the background.

And here's a plot of the light levels detected by each sense as I shone a light at them and shaded them with my hands.

That's a Bluetooth wireless small sensorium. The code to support this is a bit hacky as rxtx doesn't seem to want to play with Bluetooth serial ports, but it works.

The code is in the repository:

https://gitorious.org/robmyers/small-sensoria