I’m currently a moddr_/WORM Artist in Residence in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Here, I’m collaborating with Tim C. Schwartz (MFA, UCSD) and Walter Langlaar (Web2.0 Suicide Machine), Birgit Bachler, and others, working on some social media hacking-related projects similar to Give Me My Data.

During the residency we will be conducting multiple workshops, including an API Hacking Masterclass, to discuss the technical underpinnings and conceptual challenges in working with APIs in the service of media art. The two-week residency will conclude with a mini-seminar on social media hacking with guest commentators Florian Cramer, Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academie Rotterdam, and Dr. Geert Lovink, Professor of Interactive Media at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam(HvA).

I’ll be posting some links to upcoming events starting with an Open Lab session:

Tech Talk and Discussion on Social Media Hacking
July 25, 2012

From 14th till 30th of July Tim C. Schwartz and Owen Mundy will be our guests as Artists In Residence. They’ll be working in WORM’s medialab with the moddr_crew on a new version of Owen earlier project “Give Me My Data”; a Facebook application that let’s you retrieve all your input and data from the network.

In today’s ‘Open Lab’ session Tim and Owen will share some insights on the project, and there’ll be room for informal discussion on technical aspect of the project, as well as the more socio-political implications of this type of work.

Location: WORM, Boomgaardsstraat 71, 3012 XA Rotterdam

Some images from various projects and collaborations..

Early images from a project Joelle and I are working on for an exhibition at DOCUMENTA (13). Generated from Processing…

A strange and beautiful glitch in the Google Maps application.

On many occasions over the past few years I’ve wished I knew of a tool that would allow me to search multiple items in a list in separate Google searches, without copying and pasting and submitting each item over and over and over. For example if I’m in a group exhibition and I want to see what work the other artists do. So, I finally took a few hours and created it. It’s called “list-search” and you can use it here and view the code here.

MutaMorphosis: Tribute to Uncertainty conference
December 6-8, 2012, Prague, Czech Republic.

Call for Abstracts
Deadline: July 1, 2012

Examining Networks of Power
By Owen Mundy

This thread intends to examine representations of contemporary control structures and discuss whether or not an image, particularly network graphs depicting power relationships, information flows, economic activity, etc. have the ability to reverse trends of concentrated power. Does depicting power lead to greater democratization of said power or are we merely creating beautiful images that detract from their original intent—to reveal, examine, and act. To what effect does mapping complex data depicting influential actors, institutions, moments in time, finance systems, mapped onto a two-dimensional surface unravel the power they represent by distributing that power?

Methodology: We’ll begin the discussion by looking at historical examples of communication that intend to affect power structures. We’ll examine works by artists and cultural practitioners such as Hans Haacke, Mark Lombardi, Josh On (theyrule.net), Bureau d’études, and more. We’ll consider Manual Castells‘ “Network Theory of Power” within these context(s). Then we’ll discuss visual components of network graphs, asking in particular; what data and representational forms help make a graph speak to as many people as possible. Finally we’ll work in groups to extend the discussion into possible solutions and various statements and recommendations for such representations.

Keywords: Networks; Power; Data; Politics

We invite you to respond to the Tribute to Uncertainty theme and/or to address one of the 21 streams of interest led by 28 conference Attractors.

Do you have something original to say about our world that is increasingly fuzzy, unstable and chaotic? Are you interested in how crisis, uncertainty and complexity can come together in order to question the known as well as predict and/or model yet unknown? Do you want to share projects intrinsically linking domains of scientific, artistic and technological research and creativity that can be introduced as relevant tools for better understanding of our common future?

The aim of this Call for Abstracts is to provide opportunity for community of interdisciplinary practitioners to get engaged in a transformative conversation on mutant futures.

Feel free to address conference Attractors and respond to a specific stream of interest in order to get involved with other interested individuals and collectives in structured collaborative efforts before, during, and hopefully also after the conference. Research groups formed by the Attractors -who serve as the Reviewers- will be expected to elaborate on the general theme Tribute to Uncertainty while turning attention to concrete research objectives as defined by the streams.

The results should be curated panels, roundtables, workshops as well as publications.

For more information about MutaMorphosis conference (planned publications, preparatory committee, partnerships) please visit mutamorphosis.org.

Taking a trip down memory lane with:

$ sudo port install lynx

has proved to be an unsupported adventure.

Somehow I feel my experience was improved regardless.

A stop motion animation from my studio in Berlin 2011 where I disassemble and reuse old ink jet printers to construct new a series of kinetic artworks. Guest starring Joelle and four-month-old Sophia.

Robot self-portrait #3 (Disneyland)

Robot self-portrait #4 (Disneyland)

Robot self-portrait #5 (Disneyland)

Robot self-portrait #6 (Dublin)

Robot self-portrait #7 (Golden Gate Bridge)