<nettime-ann> META/DATA

[Mark Amerika <amerika@netspace.org>]

.

Dear Nettimers,

Please excuse cross-postings...

M.
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NEW from The MIT Press and Leonardo Book Series

META/DATA: A Digital Poetics, by Mark Amerika

http://www.markamerika.com/metadata

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from the MIT Press website:

This rich collection of writings by pioneering digital artist Mark Amerika 
mixes (and remixes) personal memoir, net art theory, fictional narrative, 
satirical reportage, scholarly history, and network-infused language art. 
META/DATA is a playful, improvisatory, multitrack "digital sampling" of 
Amerika's writing from 1993 to 2005 that tells the early history of a net 
art world "gone wild" while simultaneously constructing a parallel poetics 
of net art that complements Amerika's own artistic practice.

Unlike other new media artists who may create art to justify their 
theories, Amerika documents the emergence of new media art forms while he 
creates them. Presenting a multifaceted view of the digital art scene on 
subjects ranging from interactive storytelling to net art, live VJing, 
online curating, and Web publishing, Amerika gives us "Spontaneous 
Theories," "Distributed Fictions" (including his groundbreaking 
GRAMMATRON, the helpful "Insider's Guide to Avant-Garde Capitalism," and 
others), the more scholarly "Academic Remixes," "Net Dialogues" 
(peer-to-peer theoretical explorations with other artists and writers), 
and the digital salvos of "Amerika Online" (among them, 
"Surf-Sample-Manipulate: Playgiarism on the Net," "The Private Life of a 
Network Publisher," and satirical thoughts on "Writing as Hactivism"). 
META/DATA also features a section of full-color images, including some of 
Amerika's most well-known and influential works.

Provocative, digressive, nomadic, and fun to read, Amerika's texts call to 
mind the cadences of Gertrude Stein, the Beats, cyberpunk fiction, and 
even The Daily Show more than they do the usual new media theorizing. 
META/DATA maps the world of net culture with Amerika as guide and resident 
artist.

"META/DATA perfectly captures the essence and style of pioneering net 
artist and online fiction writer Mark Amerika. Featuring a mix of 
scholarly theory, personal narrative, and conversations with peers, the 
book provides both meta data on the artist's multifaceted body of work and 
insightful commentary on digital poetics and culture. The personae Amerika 
has created for himself--from 'digital thoughtographer' to VJ as 
artist-researcher--are reflected as different viewpoints in the book's 
stories, theoretical essays, and dialogues, and make it a multilinear read 
that mirrors the diversity of digital culture."
--Christiane Paul, Adjunct Curator of New Media Arts, Whitney Museum of 
American Art

"Mark Amerika is at the cutting edge of developments in both art and 
technology. META/DATA is an indispensable guide to the promises and 
potentials of new media--and also to the hype, irony, and disappointment 
that all too often surround them."
--Steven Shaviro, DeRoy Professor of English, Wayne State University

"Mark Amerika is a hacker. He hacks language, image, sound, identities, 
cultures. He plays space, time, and tech like a saxophone. He plays out, 
way out sometimes, but he will always beckon you to join him. His writings 
are like invitations to a happening party you don't know you are already 
at. It's dense, it's hard, but it flows, and it's fun. What more could you 
want?"
--McKenzie Wark, author of Gamer Theory

To order this book visit the META/DATA website at: 
http://www.markamerika.com/metadata
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