April on -empyre-: Datascape with Teri Rueb, Brett Stalbaum and John Tonkin -empyre- takes pleasure in welcoming three artists whose work engages GPS and data-base systems as an exploration of new content in landscape aesthetics, data mapping and psycho-geographies. Today our new media landscape moves from an aesthetic of representation and mimesis to a data driven generative model for exploration. Data is the actual expression of our ability to model both humanity and the planet as a system. Because it is actual, data plays an intermediary and "actualizing" role in the human relationship to the landscape. The role of the virtual in the unfolding of the actual is quickened, more dynamic, more widespread, and more embedded in our culture at this moment in time than at any other. What are the implications for digital culture, artistic practice and tactical media? Specifically, in the current context of war, we are seeing satellite imaging and GPS technology used to guide missiles, construct high definition maps, direct movement of troops and aircraft, and image space as territory. Questions regarding the representation of space and corollary constructions of identity are raised with every broadcast, press briefing, illustration and photograph. Real-time unpacking of the rhetoric behind these cartographic texts is urgently needed and we look forward to this month's forum unfolding as a space for such discussion and debate. Please join Teri, Brett and John starting April 1 on -empyre- ============================== --Teri Rueb (Baltimore, MD) has used global positioning satellite (GPS) technology in her work since 1996 to explore issues of space, mapping, landscape, memory, the body and cultural identity. Her current research explores sonic and acoustic constructions of space, spatialized narrative, human movement and psychosocial geography. --Brett Stalbaum (San Jose, California) is a C5 research theorist specializing in theory, database, and software development. The C5 Landscape projects, initiated in 2001, involve mapping, navigation and search of the landscape using internally produced Geographic Information Systems. He has recently been involved in code development and research/theory work on database, the artist's role in the problems of large data, and landscape art. --John Tonkin (Sydney, Australia) is a artist, programmer and curator who has worked for nearly two decades with animation, software development and databases. His recent works are formed through the accumulated interactions of users and investigate assumptions relating to subjectivity, scientific belief systems and the body. John recently curated "All Star Data Mappers" for d.lux Media Arts, a survey of artists and designers who are building information visualisation software to navigate the complex terrain of the electronic datasphere. http://www.johnt.org http://www.dlux.org.au/dataterra/exhibition.html ============================== -empyre- is an arena for the discussion of media arts practice, and regularly invites practicioners, curators and theorists in the media arts field to discuss specific projects, publications, and issues. Subscribe to -empyre- at: http://www.subtle.net/empyrean/empyre/