Image Map

The digital networked image as a technical and political object, moving from the visual to the infrastructural

Imaginary Property incites to reconsider the condition of the digital networked image within the current socio-technical culture. The relation between image and reality is inverted. We are producing reality through the visual and organize it in digital networks, servers, databases. What kind of digital images are being produced today? What are their production mechanisms? What do current images represent, not just in what we see, but in the sense of, what do images stand for? What politics is part of digital image design? I will be researching Imaginary Property as the condition of the production and distribution of the digital networked image.

The advertisement for my JvE research project

Advertisements for Museum of the Stealing of Souls project

On november 28, I joined the symposium, Add Comment: Designing Critique in Public Forums organized by Casco, co-organized with ArtEZ The Arnhem Academy of Art and Design and Vinca Kruk on the (im)possibility of critique within the structures of current web-applications.

During the first talk by Mia Jankowicz (a curator and art critic based in London/Amsterdam), it occurred to me how the perspective of "openness" has shifted because of 2.0 environments, how it is being managed as a scarcity. Mia presented several (art) projects that deal with different ways of opening up information to the public. In these cases it is decided when, how and to whom openness to information is offered. In this case openness is an act of control, openness is managed as an exclusivity.

Liminal Zones Program

A seminar organized by Angela Melitopoulos (Goldsmiths London) and Socrates Stratis (UCY, Cyprus)in Nicosia Cyprus. Florian Schneider and thus, Imaginary Property will be one of the speakers there. I've designed the invitation, program and website for it. http://liminalzones.kein.org

[click on read more for the backside of the program]

Last week Govcom.org has celebrated its 10th anniversary. "Govcom.org is an Amsterdam-based foundation dedicated to creating and hosting political tools on the Web. Much of the work involves mapping issue networks on the Web, using the Issue Crawler software, where one now may auto-request an account." http://www.govcom.org/

The jubilee week started with 4 very interesting talks by Warren Sack, Alexander Galloway, Greg Elmer and Anat Ben-David. From tuesday to friday 4 projects were developed, Studying Software, Alternative Algortihms, Code Politics and Cyberlands.

Here you can find information about the talks and projects of the jubilee week.
http://wiki.issuecrawler.net/twiki/bin/view/Dmi/GovcomorgJubilee

obama issue space
How dominant is the opposing candidate in the other candidate's issue spaces? A research project done through using Google Image Search.
A DMI project, developed with the digital methods team at the University of Amsterdam. Analysis and design by Kim de Groot & Esther Weltevrede.

Read project description:
http://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ElectionIssueImagery

A project developed by the dmi team at Montevideo:

Elfriendo.com
"Taking the work out of social networking"

Deleting your MySpace page is painful. You had friends, too few or too many. It had taken over your life, or you wish it had. Was your profile stale? Were you too active? Let's give you a new look.

Elfriendo is a new MySpace related service, founded on 30 January 2008, on the occasion of the International Delete Your MySpace Account Day, as a remedy. These days one hardly has time to fill in one set of fields before another update request comes in. Elfriendo reduces the number of form-filling steps to a bare minimum, without sacrificing quality or depth. People used to neglect their profiles, leaving them stale and deficient. We offer fresh sets of interests and an active look for your profile.

Our business is profilization - professionalizing, optimizing and automating your profile on MySpace, the world's largest social networking site. Elfriendo is a service that keeps your profile active fresh.

DMI, the digital methods initiative. A group of researchers that I have joined in 2008 as a designer researcher. Together with Marina Micheli, an intern at Mediamatic, Micheal Stevenson, Esther Weltevrede, Richard Rogers and Sabine Niederer I have been working on the interface design of the Google scraper. Other projects I have worked on are Election Issue Imagery and Elfriendo, a myspace related online service.

"The Digital Methods Initiative, supported by the Mondriaan Interregeling, is concerned with the techniques of study that are sensitive to the specificities of the new medium. The director of the projects is Richard Rogers. Sabine Niederer and Esther Weltevrede manage the Digital Methods Initiative, and Anne Helmond and Kim de Groot are the analyst-designers, together with Michael Stevenson. Erik Borra is programmer, also for Govcom.org. Marieke van Dijk is Govcom.org designer."

http://dmi.mediastudies.nl

Google Scraper sketches

Vanaf donderdag 1 november ben ik met derdejaars studenten van de Willem de Kooning academie het project De stad van de 21e eeuw gestart. In het kort gaat dit project over de manier waarop virtuele en digitale begrippen als Het Netwerk bijvoorbeeld zich in onze fysieke omgeving manifesteren. Aan de studenten de vraag om een campagne te ontwerpen voor de stad van de 21e eeuw.

Myths, between the imaginary, the real and beyond.

Hyves begrenzingen en (on)mogelijkheden:


Wouter Bos on Hyves, kloof tussen burger en politiek? (by Kim)