News
Radiohead Goes Knives Out, Joins Sina Weibo
Popular angst rock group Radiohead has just joined Sina Weibo, China's popular microblogging service—and their account has attracted nearly 70,000 followers after a single post.
AX Mina
AX Mina is an artist and culture writer exploring contemporary spirituality, technology and other sundry topics. She co-produces Five and Nine, a podcast about magic, work, and economic justice, and serves on the board of the Rabkin Foundation.
Art
Looking at Chinese Social Media (Part 3 of 3)
Just how do you tap into the interface of Weibo? Like Twitter, the Chinese social media hub takes a little while to get used to, regardless of what language you're speaking. But once you get the hang of it, the service soars.
Art
Looking at Chinese Social Media: Censorship and Speaking Mandarin (Part 2 of 3)
Is it time for the Western art world to join Chinese social media? That depends on your goals. “I don't see any reason for anyone not directly involved in the Beijing/Shanghai art world to be on Weibo,” argued Robin Peckham. “It's more about back-and-forth in-scene and doesn't have much application
Art
Time for the Western Art World to Join Chinese Social Media? (Part 1 of 3)
A few months ago, Tom Cruise made waves in both Chinese and Western media by announcing that he had joined Sina Weibo, the popular Chinese microblogging tool used by Chinese and, now, Western celebrities. “We're having fun talking to you and our new friend at http://t.sina.com.cn/” his Chief Informa
Interview
Marc Horowitz Crowdsources Life/Art From Strangers
On November 1, one of People Magazine's Top 50 Hottest Bachelors [http://www.flickr.com/photos/marchorowitz/3394108688/in/set-72157614220758969/], conceptual artist and Internet start Marc Horowitz, took a line from Subservient Chicken and let the Internet tell him what to do. He agreed to bound by
Art
Being Telepresent
For #TheSocialGraph, I proposed a look at the next step in social media — telepresence, which, in its simplest form is a large-scale video chat meant to mimic the presence of someone in the room, and at its most complex can take the form of a roving, camera-enabled robot. Since almost as early as th
Art
Tweet Tweet and Choo Choo: An Artist's Guide to Crossing the Country by Rail
My journey took me from midtown Manhattan to the steel mills surrounding Pittsburgh, then the museums in our nation’s capital, down the Appalachian mountains to the bayous of the Gulf Coast and brass bands of New Orleans, up to the soaring towers of Chicago, the urban ruins of Detroit, the vineyards
Art
Always Social: Right Now (2010 — ), Part Three
As Frog design Creative Director Adam Richardson noted in an influential talk he gave at the most recent Next Web Conference, the Internet until recently has been like the railroad, which has forced us to adapt to its rules. In the coming years, it will be more like cars, which adapt to us. In other
Art
Always Social: Getting Noticed (2008-2010), Part Two
The most striking aspect of social media art is that it contains facets of net.art, by being digital; visual art, by existing on a two-dimensional surface; public art, by existing in spaces used habitually by hundreds of millions of people; and performance art, by being inherently social. Whether th
Art
Always Social: Social Media Art (2004-2008), Part One
Some time in 2004, I logged onto Facebook for the very first time. My alma mater was one of the few allowed coveted access to the Harvard-originated social network. I filled out a profile, uploaded a picture and began adding friends. A coast away, Tim O’Reilly coined the term “Web 2.0” … Computers a
News
Join Our Social Media Art Roundtable on Facebook
Just as social media have quickly gone mainstream, we’re starting to see social media art received more attention from the mainstream art world. I’m currently writing a survey of social media art’s (brief!) history for Hyperallergic and as part of my research, I’ve invited a number of contemporary s
Interview
Off the Beaten Path with the Mysterious @MuseumNerd
One of the most popular art feeds on Twitter right now doesn’t have a name or a face or a gender. It doesn’t represent an established arts institution or magazine, nor does it have any kind of credentials. And yet, less than a year since it started, it now boasts 10,000 followers.