Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Anthroptic!

So that art project that Ethan Ham and I did has shipped!

It's the first in a series of art objects produced by The Present Group, which says it's "like a mutual-fund that produces art instead of profits".

Ethan created a robot that trolled Flickr looking for his face. In the process, it found a number of "faces" that we wouldn't call faces. I wrote a series of interconnected stories based on those images.

So, stories about faces that only a robot can see.

There's a signed, limited edition of eighty handmade book-boxy things that subscribers to The Present Group got (you can still get one as a back issue). I signed 'em. With this special archival pen. It was a weird feeling, since I'm used to art that you make as many as you can of, not art that you constrain to a specific number of instances.

You can see what the book looks like here. (Keep clicking on it and it will unfold itself).

And the text of the stories I wrote is online here. (You have to click the little >> at the upper right to go to the next page).

The little green box with a line in it on each picture, shows where the robot found a face.

They also recorded me reading the stories, interviewed me and Ethan, comissioned a critical essay on the work, collected links to related works of art, and made sure the physical object will last for a century.

The audio and the text are CC'd, so you can redistribute them freely (and remix the audio), noncommercially and with attribution.

These people go all out.