Premio netarts.org: The Ghost in the Machine

Fino al 15 settembre e’ possibile partecipare al premio "netarts.org" organizzato dal Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts, Tokyo. Possono partecipare tutti i progetti che utilizzano internet come medium principale. Il comitato selezionatore scegliera’ un lavoro al quale verra’ assegnato un premio di 100.000 yen. 

Per iscriversi mandare un e-mail a webmaster@netarts.org con le seguenti informazioni:

1. The URL address of your nomination.

2.
If you are the copyright holder of the nomination, your name, physical
Address, phone number/fax. number, e-mail address are required.

Il tema di quest’anno e’:

The Ghost in the Machine
What role do artists play in haunting the Internet? Is being an art
hactivist part of a larger interventionist strategy to destructively
create a spirit world within the network protocols? How can a work of net
art set off a viral aesthetics that provokes a chaotic "butterfly effect"
in the all-consuming culture of information?

The works we are seeking in this year’s Project Net.Arts competition are
ghosts in the machine. They create counter-protocols, hactivist ethics, or
a distributed viral aesthetics whose function is to insert the artist
and/or artwork as medium.

According to Arthur Koestler’s "The Ghost in the Machine" (1967), the
holon can represents a semi-autonomous unit which is part of complex
hierarchies, which both govern, and are governed by other semi-autonomous
holons on higher or lower orders of the hierarchy. Holon is a combination
of the Greek word holos, meaning whole, and the suffix on meaning particle
or part. Koestler argues that parts and wholes, in an absolute sense, do
not exist in the domains of life; in both stable social, and biological
systems, and the concept of the holon therefore, is then mobilized to
reconcile the atomistic and holistic nature of these systems. The
relationship between holons is governed by specific rules; rules which
serve to preserve the structure of the system. This hierarchic approach,
in fact replaces the dualism we so often struggle with in social systems,
enabling us to maintain some sort of internal mental mapping of the
different hierarchal systems that we are part of; as individuals, in a
family, tribes, or nation. We hope to identify those holons that are
governed by other holons, and explore the ways these holonistic units are
situated above or below other holons in networked systems.

For example, a single instruction from a high level holon can result in
the triggering of the holons at lower levels, which in turn, due to their
semi-autonomous nature, respond to the higher command only after filtering
out the specific information that it considers relevant. The strength of
holonic hierarch, or holarchy, lies in its flexibility, in its efficiency
respond to disturbances, in its flexible distribution and consumption of
resources, and in its ability to adapt easily to change. The
characteristics of robust biological or social systems can be transposed
to other systems, including those found on digital networks, and we hope
that these ghosts we discover will prove to be not only engaging and
intriguing but once the whole holarchic system is revealed, will be also
illuminating.

http://www.netarts.org/webmuseum.html