Dallas VideoFest 25

. . . makes a big entrance with a program of new video art created especially for the nearly 200-foot high display system on the exterior walls of the Omni Hotel, Dallas, at 8:30PM on Wednesday, Sept. 26 . The program is entitled, Expanded Cinema, borrowed from the 1970 book of the same title by seminal new media theorist Gene Youngblood (see also this previous post), who will give a lecture at the festival, Secession from the Broadcast: The Internet and the Crisis of Social Control, at 3PM on Sunday at the DMA, Horchow Auditorium.

The image right is from OMNEY, one of the videos to be included in Expanded Cinema, by Shane Mecklenburger, who provided the transcription of Youngblood's talk at the latter link. The Omni display completely wraps the building; hence the weird aspect ratio. (Full disclosure: I'm helping to organize the program and will have a piece in it.)

Because of the unique characteristics of the Omni "screen," most of the artists had to re-invent their approach to an extent perhaps greater than usual, in order to create works that might exploit the potential of this new platform while adapting to its requirements and continuing to explore the concerns with which they prefer to engage in their aesthetic practices. They have risen to the challenge, and the resulting works are gorgeous and fascinating.

The rest of the VideoFest will be at the Dallas Museum of Art, Sept. 26 - 30; block out your calendar! It's shaping up to be one of the best fests yet. As the dates approach, I hope to post more details here, including a chronological schedule with program descriptions all in one page.

But go ahead and buy tickets for the fest (I recommend full immersion), find more info, or (please!) donate at videofest.org. You can also donate via Kickstarter here.

Here's an auditory blast from the past, ca. early Gene Youngblood . . .

An Apparently Rambling Tho' Covertly Somewhat Coherent Post

. . . that allows me to touch on several interesting yet diverse topics while making a few perhaps unexpectedly related points:

I've done virtually nothing to promote this blog; my own family and most of my friends don't read it.

So I was rather pleased and surprised to find recently that Google's Blogspot Stats say that, since Google bought Blogspot ca. May, 2008, c-Blog has averaged ca. 4,000 hits per month. (And I don't think too many could be from spammers, since I rarely receive spam comments.)

My most popular posts have been on the Hajj, the Yes Lab, Matthew Barney and Ryan Trecartin, Obama re- the Holocaust, and the 2009 NYC Art Fairs.

Somehow, my comments on Barney's and Trecartin's works drew 116 page views this week. But the Hajj post remains the all-time big hitter, with the Obama re- the Holocaust post not far behind.

In the Hajj post, I simply gave a short description of Hajj based on info found at Wikipedia: "The Hajj (Arabic: حج‎ Ḥaǧǧ) is a pilgrimage to Mecca. It is currently the largest annual pilgrimage in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a moral obligation that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so. . . ."

In the Obama re- the Holocaust post, I pasted a copy of his words written in the guest book at Israel's Holocaust Memorial (see below).

None of us ever knows really what it is we've managed to do that might actually turn out to have been the most helpful toward whatever we really hoped most to help.

In Coleridge's Biographia Literaria and other writings, he periodically referred to this book he thought he should write, the Logosophia. He never finished that book. But maybe the Biographia, perhaps together with his other works, through indirection, sufficiently constituted the work he thought we needed? At least, it influenced me.

Two years before my father died, he threw his last big tantrum that I witnessed. (It was at that late date that I finally recognized that "tantrum" was what it was that he'd been doing throughout our lives whenever necessary to get his way.) During the only slightly less excruciating, semi-apologetic wind-down, he told me things that made plain he remained utterly deluded as to both his greatest accomplishments and his greatest failings as a parent.

But just because he utterly misunderstood his real accomplishments, didn't mean there weren't any; there were.

A lot of people hoped Obama might help re- the Middle East. Here's a transcript of his hand-written words at the Holocaust Memorial:

I'm grateful to Yad Vashem and all of those responsible for this remarkable institution. At a time of great peril and promise, war and strife, we are blessed to have such a powerful reminder of man's potential for great evil, but also our capacity to rise up from tragedy and remake our world. Let our children come here, and know this history, so that they can add their voices to proclaim "never gain." And may we remember those who perished, not only as victims, but also as individuals who hoped and loved and dreamed like us, and who have become symbols of the human spirit.

We can't know if Obama will ever live up to the promise he showed. All we can do is try to be the promise that he showed.

Far as I can tell . . .

this is factually accurate:

Haruhiko Kawaguchi

I want to squeeze her, too. More at Oddity Central (thanks, Ben!)

Wozniak: Cloud Computing Will Cause "Horrible Problems"

"Wozniak didn't offer much in the way of specifics . . . . [but said, 't]he more we transfer everything onto the web, onto the cloud, the less we're going to have control over it.'" Steve Wozniak was the inventor of the Apple I and Apple II computers.

More at Business Insider. You can find more re- the kinds of problems I worry about by clicking on the label, "Worldbeam," at the bottom of this post.

In honor of the Olympics

Techniques for Covert Manipulation on the Internet

Per Wikipedia,

COINTELPRO (an acronym for Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert, and often illegal,^[2] projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.

* * * * *
The FBI engaged in political repression almost from the time of the agency's inception in 1908, and antecedents to COINTELPRO operated during the FDR and Truman administrations. Centralized operations under COINTELPRO officially began in 1956 with a program designed to "increase factionalism, cause disruption and win defections" inside the Communist Party U.S.A. (CPUSA). However, the program was soon enlarged to include disruption of . . . the entire New Left social/political movement, which included antiwar, community, and religious groups (1968). . . . Official congressional committees and several court cases^[14] have concluded that COINTELPRO operations . . . exceeded statutory limits on FBI activity and violated constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and association.^[2]

Since the conclusion of centralized COINTELPRO operations in 1971, . . . allegations of improper political repression continue.^[15][16]

It's widely believed that COINTELPRO-type activity continues to take place on the internet (as well as elsewhere), and one helpful soul has posted a gentleperson's guide such techniques, here. (Of course, such techniques could be in use by groups not employed by governments, too.) I believe I've personally observed such techniques being used, e.g., on DemocraticUnderground.com, and I think the more of us who are aware of them, the better. Here's an excerpt:

COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum.

There are several techniques for the control and manipulation of a internet forum no matter what, or who is on it. We will go over each technique and demonstrate that only a minimal number of operatives can be used to eventually and effectively gain a control of a 'uncontrolled forum.'

Technique #1 - 'FORUM SLIDING'
If a very sensitive posting of a critical nature has been posted on a forum - it can be quickly removed from public view by 'forum sliding.' In this technique a number of unrelated posts are quietly prepositioned on the forum and allowed to 'age.' Each of these misdirectional forum postings can then be called upon at will to trigger a 'forum slide.' The second requirement is that several fake accounts exist, which can be called upon, to ensure that this technique is not exposed to the public. To trigger a 'forum slide' and 'flush' the critical post out of public view it is simply a matter of logging into each account both real and fake and then 'replying' to prepositined postings with a simple 1 or 2 line comment. This brings the unrelated postings to the top of the forum list, and the critical posting 'slides' down the front page, and quickly out of public view. Although it is difficult or impossible to censor the posting it is now lost in a sea of unrelated and unuseful postings. By this means it becomes effective to keep the readers of the forum reading unrelated and non-issue items.

Technique #2 - 'CONSENSUS CRACKING'
A second highly effective technique (which you can see in operation all the time at www.abovetopsecret.com) is 'consensus cracking.' To develop a consensus crack, the following technique is used. Under the guise of a fake account a posting is made which looks legitimate and is towards the truth is made - but the critical point is that it has a VERY WEAK PREMISE without substantive proof to back the posting. Once this is done then under alternative fake accounts a very strong position in your favour is slowly introduced over the life of the posting. It is IMPERATIVE that both sides are initially presented, so the uninformed reader cannot determine which side is the truth. As postings and replies are made the stronger 'evidence' or disinformation in your favour is slowly 'seeded in.' Thus the uninformed reader will most like develop the same position as you, and if their position is against you their opposition to your posting will be most likely dropped. However in some cases where the forum members are highly educated and can counter your disinformation with real facts and linked postings, you can then 'abort' the consensus cracking by initiating a 'forum slide.'

Technique #3 - 'TOPIC DILUTION'
Topic dilution is not only effective in forum sliding it is also very useful in keeping the forum readers on unrelated and non-productive issues. This is a critical and useful technique to cause a 'RESOURCE BURN.' By implementing continual and non-related postings that distract and disrupt (trolling ) the forum readers they are more effectively stopped from anything of any real productivity. If the intensity of gradual dilution is intense enough, the readers will effectively stop researching and simply slip into a 'gossip mode.' In this state they can be more easily misdirected away from facts towards uninformed conjecture and opinion. The less informed they are the more effective and easy it becomes to control the entire group in the direction that you would desire the group to go in. It must be stressed that a proper assessment of the psychological capabilities and levels of education is first determined of the group to determine at what level to 'drive in the wedge.' By being too far off topic too quickly it may trigger censorship by a forum moderator.

Much more at the link; please read and share.

Choi Xoo-Ang

Click on the image for a larger version; more at redefine.