Subject: Cyber Art Stars
Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 21:21:06 -0500
From: murph@artnetweb.com (murph the surf)
To: anw@interport.net
CC: sphinx@fly.net, gh@thing.net

Nice to get a plug even if they do spell your name wrong.
Rob

               @NY

           The New York Internet Newsletter
               http://www.news-ny.com

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                     July 5, 1996
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@ T H E  S C E N E
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Dia, Dia, Dia, Dia Wanna Dance?

Since we're cybergurus (so there!) we get invited to a lot of parties.
Naturally we go, I mean who are we to pooh-pooh free drinks? But more often
then not we get invited to these dismal cyberbashes in some dank, downtown
cavern with oh-so-hip neon spirals dancing on the walls like a migraine
headache come horribly to life.

Anyway, what I'm saying is, although we're cybergurus, we don't often get
invited to rub shoulders with the art crowd. That's why we jumped at the
chance to join the bon vivants at the rooftop cafe/garage/installation space
at the Dia Center for the Arts. The occasion was a launch party for Susan
Hiller's "Dream Screens," a project for the Web on Dia's excellent Website
at http://www.diacenter.com.

Now the Dia rooftop space is the right place to have a cyber party. Perched
on the western end of what developers hope will be a new arty SoHo-like
gallery district on 22nd Street, the building's roof offered a gorgeous,
expansive view of a burnished orange sunset over the Hudson. It was all we
could do to tear ourselves away from the view to brush up against the likes
of guitar god Tom Verlaine. (Okay, we're dating ourselves, but Marquee Moon,
by Verlaine's band Television, remains one of our all-time favorite rock
records.)

Actually, the reason we were at Dia (besides the ham and brie sandwiches)
was to get a glimpse at Hiller's work--a Web venture that generates colors
as you click, and includes a corresponding selection of texts as type or
RealAudio files playable in several languages. The idea in part is to give
Net art a human texture it so often lacks.

We also wanted to get down to Dia to meet Michael Govan, the Center's
director who joined Dia two years ago after serving as deputy director of
the Guggenheim.

Govan is one of the most forward thinking guys in town, not only
commissioning terrific works for the Dia site, but cannily eyeballing the
marketing possibilities that the Net opens for avant garde and contemporary
arts. Surprisingly though, Govan has conspicuously avoided installing a
cybersurfing station in the gallery itself. It detracts from a visitor's
ability to directly experience the physical work around them, Govan thinks.
We think it could be an interesting new attraction for Dia, but that's why
we're cybergurus. We'd even like to see Dia kiosks at subway stops
throughout the city, but this is New York after all so I imagine insurance
against theft or damage would be hard to come by.

And being New York, it's nice to see a little nexus developing between the
art world and the cyber scene. On hand were stars of the cyber-art fusion
like Benjamin Weil and Andrea Scott of ada' web (http://www.adaweb.com),
Remo Campopiano and Adrian Wortzel from ArtNetWeb
(http://www.artnetweb.com), G.H. Hovagimyan from Pseudo's Art Dirt online
radio show (http://pon.pseudo.com). With so many cybertypes on hand--like
Ogilvy & Mather's Mark Fisk--we weren't surprised to see Julia Leach, new
media director of Paper (http://www.papermag.com), saunter in with the
cyberubiquitous Jennifer Pirtle, ex-of Rupert Murdoch's Delphi debacle and
New York's biggest cyber-freelancer. I mean, does Jennifer ever spend a
night at home? Girl, you get around.

--Jason Chervokas