Heath Bunting

Last updated

Heath Bunting
Heath Bunting 2011.jpg
Heath Bunting at Transmediale, Berlin, 4 February 2011
Born1966 (age 56–57)
OccupationArtist
Years active1980s-present
Style Conceptual art, net.art, culture jamming, tactical media
Website http://irational.org

Heath Bunting (born 1966) is a British contemporary artist. Based in Bristol, he is a co-founder of the website irational.org, [1] and was one of the early practitioners in the 1990s of Net.art. [2] Bunting's work is based on creating open and democratic systems by modifying communications technologies and social systems. [3] His work often explores the porosity of borders, both in physical space and online. [4] In 1997, his online work Visitors Guide to London [5] [6] was included in the 10th documenta [7] curated by Swiss curator Simon Lamunière. [8] An activist, he created a dummy site for the European Lab for Network Collision (CERN). [9]

Contents

Biography

Born in 1966, Bunting became active in the contemporary art world in the 1980s. In 1994, he planned to open the first cybercafe in London with Ivan Pope, however they were beaten to it by Cyberia. [10] In 1996, he co-founded the website irational.org with Daniel García Andújar, Rachel Baker, and Minerva Cuevas. It was on the site where Bunting first displayed his internet art works as part of the Net.art project. [11]

Work

Own, Be Owned, or Remain Invisible

Created in 1998, _readme.html [12] is a work of net.art: a simple web page with a white background and light grey text taken from an article about Heath Bunting. A vast majority of the words are hypertext, but not all. As coded for by simple HTML attributes, hyperlinked words turn from grey to black once visited.

In Own, Be Owned or Remain Invisible, Bunting makes use of appropriation. [13] The work utilises an article about Heath Bunting written by James Flint of The Telegraph . Instead of presenting the article in its traditional form, Bunting links nearly every word to [insert word].com and alters the color-scheme of the document as per his white-on-white period. [14] Some of the linked domain may have been owned in the past twelve years, but are no longer owned any more, thereby touching on the transience of Internet ownership. [15] Bunting's work also shows the range of banal or absurd domain names that companies have purchased. [3] Not all words in the article are hyperlinked, however. Through these unclaimed words he spells out how the article touches on his own identity. [16]

King's Cross Phone-In

On Friday, 5 August 1994, Bunting orchestrated a scheme that involved many people calling public phones in and in the surrounding area of London King's Cross railway station. [17] On his then-website Cybercafe.org, founded in 1992, Bunting posted the phone numbers to all of the public phones and encouraged his followers to do one of the following: call in a pattern, call at a certain time, call and speak to a stranger, or show up and pick up the telephone. [18] Bunting used his website as an informative source to let his readers know how to partake in his project.

When 5 August arrived, Bunting went to King’s Cross to pick up telephone calls. Many people called in and he witnessed as casual passers-by engaged in conversations with strangers who were perhaps halfway across the world. The project brought people together, if only for a few brief moments, to create a network through the communication medium of telephones. In Digital Humanities, a class by Professor Michael Shanks at Stanford University, the project is described: "the train station was transformed into an art platform and the unsuspecting commuters and workers in the area became the audience." [19] This is an early example of a flash mob and instigating action through a then-passive medium. Bunting's work has been compared to the work of Allan Kaprow, one of the pioneers in performance art. [13]

Pirate Listening Station

Between 1999 and 2009, Bunting hosted the Pirate Listening Station [20] which allowed visitors to the site to tune and listen in to London pirate radio stations. It is an early example of an online listening station. [21] [22]

BorderXing

Commissioned by the Tate Gallery and the Luxembourg-based Fondation Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Mudam) in 2002, BorderXing details ways to cross international borders throughout Europe without legal documentation. It provides video, photography, maps, and necessary materials on the project website. It demonstrate how to succeed without being located by dogs, and when not to run to avoid being shot. There is even a supplemental botanical guide so you can avoid poisonous plants. [23] Bunting reveals that restriction of movement set in place by governments and bureaucracies. The project shows not only the restriction of physical borders, but the concept that the internet is not a borderless space. Bunting limits access to the project. You must be at a designated location to access the site or apply to be an authorized client. [24]

The Status Project

Commenced in 2004, The Status Project taps into the themes of identity, hierarchy, and power. [25] [26]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tate Modern</span> Modern art gallery in London, England

Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is located in the former Bankside Power Station, in the Bankside area of the London Borough of Southwark.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruce Nauman</span> American sculptor and performance artist

Bruce Nauman is an American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives near Galisteo, New Mexico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tate</span> Art museum in the United Kingdom

Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murray Bookchin</span> American social theorist (1921–2006)

Murray Bookchin was an American social theorist, author, orator, historian, and political philosopher. A pioneer in the environmental movement, Bookchin formulated and developed the theory of social ecology and urban planning within anarchist, libertarian socialist, and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books covering topics in politics, philosophy, history, urban affairs, and social ecology. Among the most important were Our Synthetic Environment (1962), Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971), The Ecology of Freedom (1982), and Urbanization Without Cities (1987). In the late 1990s, he became disenchanted with what he saw as an increasingly apolitical "lifestylism" of the contemporary anarchist movement, stopped referring to himself as an anarchist, and founded his own libertarian socialist ideology called "communalism", which seeks to reconcile and expand Marxist, syndicalist, and anarchist thought.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet café</span> Café or other similar setting that provides public Internet access

An Internet café, also known as a cybercafé, is a café that provides the use of computers with high bandwidth Internet access on the payment of a fee. Usage is generally charged by the minute or part of hour. An Internet cafe will generally also offer refreshments or other services such as phone repair. Internet cafes are often hosted within a shop or other establishment. They are located worldwide, and many people use them when traveling to access webmail and instant messaging services to keep in touch with family and friends. Apart from travelers, in many developing countries Internet cafés are the primary form of Internet access for citizens as a shared-access model is more affordable than personal ownership of equipment and/or software. Internet cafés are a natural evolution of the traditional café. As Internet access rose many pubs, bars and cafés added terminals and eventually Wi-Fi hotspots, eroding the distinction between the Internet café and normal cafés.

net.art refers to a group of artists who have worked in the medium of Internet art since 1994. Some of the early adopters and main members of this movement include Vuk Ćosić, Jodi.org, Alexei Shulgin, Olia Lialina, Heath Bunting, Daniel García Andújar, and Rachel Baker. Although this group was formed as a parody of avant garde movements by writers such as Tilman Baumgärtel, Josephine Bosma, Hans Dieter Huber and Pit Schultz, their individual works have little in common.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natalie Bookchin</span> American artist

Natalie Bookchin is an artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She is well known for her work in media. She was a 2001-2002 Guggenheim Fellow. Her work is exhibited at institutions including PS1, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, KunstWerke, Berlin, the Generali Foundation, Vienna, the Walker Art Center, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Shedhale in Zurich. Her works are in a variety of forms – from online computer games, collaborative performances and "hacktivist" interventions, to interactive websites and widely distributed texts and manifestos. In her work, she explores some of the far-reaching consequences of Internet and digital technologies on a range of spheres, including aesthetics, labor, leisure, and politics. Much of Bookchin's later works amass excerpts from video blogs or YouTube found online. From 1998 to 2000 she was a member of the collective RTMark, and was involved in the gatt.org prank they organized spoofing the 1999 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade talks

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nettime</span> Mailing list about Internet culture

Nettime is an internet mailing list proposed in 1995 by Geert Lovink and Pit Schultz at the second meeting of the "Medien Zentral Kommittee" during the Venice Biennale. Since 1998, Ted Byfield and Felix Stalder have moderated the main list, coordinated moderation of other lists in the nettime "family," and maintained the site as their nexus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Contemporary Greek art</span>

Contemporary Greek Art is defined as the art produced by Greek artists after World War II.

Yael Kanarek is an Israeli American artist based in New York City that is known for pioneering use of the Internet and of multilingualism in work of art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abraham Cruzvillegas</span>

Abraham Cruzvillegas is a Mexican visual artist. He is best known for his work with found objects, and particularly his ongoing "autoconstrucción" project.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fran Ilich</span> Mexican writer and media artist (born 1975)

Fran Ilich Morales Muñoz is a Mexican writer and media artist who principally works on the theory and practice of narrative media. Since 2010 Ilich lives in New York City.

Adam Chodzko is a contemporary British artist, exhibiting internationally. His practice uses a wide range of media, including video, installation, photography, drawing, and performance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel García Andújar</span>

Daniel García Andújar is a visual media artist, activist and art theorist from Spain. He lives and works in Barcelona. His work has been exhibited widely, including Manifesta 4, the Venice Biennale and documenta 14 Athens, Kassel. He has directed numerous workshops for artists and social collectives worldwide.

<i>7000 Oaks</i> Work of land art by Joseph Beuys

7000 Oaks – City Forestation Instead of City Administration is a work of land art by the German artist Joseph Beuys. It was first publicly presented in 1982 at documenta 7.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet art</span> Form of art distributed on the Internet

Internet art is a form of new media art distributed via the Internet. This form of art circumvents the traditional dominance of the physical gallery and museum system. In many cases, the viewer is drawn into some kind of interaction with the work of art. Artists working in this manner are sometimes referred to as net artists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malcolm Le Grice</span> British artist (born 1940)

Malcolm Le Grice is a British artist known for his avant-garde film work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ivan Pope</span>

Ivan Pope is a British technologist, involved in a number of early internet developments in the UK and across the world, including coining the term cybercafe at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts. He was a founder of two of the first internet magazines, The World Wide Web Newsletter, and later .net magazine in the UK. In 1994 he founded Webmedia to professionalise the process of web site design and build. In 1995 he was involved with the creation of the domain name management company NetNames. Pope is now a writer and a noted proponent of the dérive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amalia Pica</span> Argentine artist

Amalia Pica is a London-based Argentine artist who explores metaphor, communication, and civic participation through sculptures, installations, photographs, projections, live performances, and drawings.

documenta X 1997 art exhibition in Kassel, Germany

documenta X was the tenth edition of documenta, a quinquennial contemporary art exhibition. It was held between 21 June and 28 September 1997 in Kassel, Germany. The artistic director was Catherine David. This was the first time a woman was appointed as artistic director of documenta. It is also the first time that the website of the exhibition was conceived as an artistic part of it. Catherine David chose the Swiss curator Simon Lamunière to conceive, design and curate the project. Part of documenta X was the experimental performance space and digital platform "Hybrid WorkSpace", curated by Klaus Biesenbach, Nancy Spector, and Hans-Ulrich Obrist. The space was designed by architect Eicke Becker and featured important performances, among them the famous Christoph Schlingensief performance titled "Mein Filz, mein Fett, mein Hase, 48 Stunden Überleben für Deutschland" during which several artists were arrested. Florian Schneider used "Hybrid WorkSpace" as an opportunity to initiate the No one is illegal network.

References

  1. ↑ "Between the Net and the Street | Rhizome". 12 April 2017. Archived from the original on 12 April 2017. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
  2. ↑ Sean Dodson (29 July 1999). "Fine art of browsing". The Guardian .
  3. 1 2 Media Art Net - Bunting, Heath: Biography Mediakunstnetz.de. (2010)
  4. ↑ BorderXing Guide Irational.org. (2001).
  5. ↑ <nettime> Interview with Heath Bunting Nettime. (1998). Tilman Baumgaertel.
  6. ↑ Intro to Web-Based Art: Visitor's Guide to London by Heath Bunting Hdelacruzstevens.blogspot.com. (2009).
  7. ↑ documenta X - Exhibition of contemporary art Documenta12.de. (2009).
  8. ↑ Joly, Françoise; Barth, Cornelia; Buness, Jutta; Holmes, Brian, eds. (1997). documenta X short guide. Cantz Verlag. ISBN   3-89322-938-8.
  9. ↑ European Lab for Network Collision Irational.org. (1995).
  10. ↑ Tony Dennis (8 September 1994). "Instant cafe - Technology - The Guardian". The Guardian .
  11. ↑ Elisabeth Mahoney (21 September 2001). "The 21st-century artform". The Guardian .
  12. ↑ Own, Be Owned or Remain Invisible Irational.org. (1998).
  13. 1 2 Greene, Rachel (2004). Internet Art. Thames & Hudson. ISBN   978-0-500-20376-7.
  14. ↑ N.Bookchin about heath bunting, Teleportacia.org. (2003). Natalie Bookchin.
  15. ↑ <nettime> Goodbye Classic?, Nettime. (2007). Olia Lialina.
  16. ↑ beyond.interface.bunting Walkerart.org Archived 10 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine , Steve Dietz.
  17. ↑ Cybercafe Net Art Projects - Kings X Press Release Irational.org. (1994).
  18. ↑ Heath Bunting and King's Cross Phone In Towson University Archived 27 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine , N Bosle.
  19. ↑ Digital Humanities: Heath Bunting’s King’s Cross Phone In Stanford University Michael Shanks. (2008).
  20. ↑ London Pirate Listening Station Scanner.irational.org. (2004).
  21. ↑ Aude Launay. "The Polyphonic History of Net Art, An Eternal Network?". Zerodeux. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
  22. ↑ Rachel Baker (10 July 2001). "Mobile Movements - Mute". Mute Magazine .
  23. ↑ Phillips, Lisa (2004). "Rules of Crime: Kayle Brandon & Heath Bunting". New Museum . Retrieved 27 February 2017.
  24. ↑ "Intermedia Art: BorderXing Guide - Tate". Tate Gallery . 2002. Retrieved 27 February 2017.
  25. ↑ Marc Garrett (23 April 2012). "Furtherfield".
  26. ↑ "Heath Bunting - Wall Street International Magazine". Wall Street International Magazine. 18 September 2017.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.