Hack-able Curator images

Plymouth Art Center. SLOW Exhbition
www.hackablecurator.org.uk

Paraquedas

I was with three girls; we were swimming in a swimmpool. Two of them built a balloon, but the balloon was different, its base was a smashed girl and the other girl was sitting under this seat. On the swimmingpool was happening a war with female guns; there was a girl with long hair, she was wearing a star-shooting corselet and she starts shooting on me. It was hurting.
The balloon was flying in the sky; it started to go very far. Suddenly, we saw the balloon falling down. Everybody ran to he place to see if the girls was allright, but they weren’t, the girl was fainted and we didn’t know if she was death or alive, we were shaking her a lot, trying to awake her up.

The motorcycle photo machine

I was sleeping naked in a hostel room and I needed to awake up to take shower, it was really hot. There were two beds in the room; the bed above me was my friend and her mother; they were lying down and looking to me in a cute and sweet way. Suddenly, I was running away very fast in an enormous, green and beautifull park. I was with my photography machine and I was seating above it and running at the same time. It was strange, but worked. Then, I perceived that if I push the photo button the machine started been a motorcycle and if I pressed the button many times it accelerates more and more. Now, I was very fast with my motorcycle photo machine.

Hotel adventures ending in a murder

I was in a hotel similar to a hotel I stayed in NY when I was 14 years old. The hotel lobby was round and in the middle there were lots of elevators inside a cilindric transparent cone. All the elevators were different, each one had a different shape, function, and appearance; all of them were going up and down. The function of one elevator was to equilibrate; the other was a double bed that was moving continuously and the others were completely made of glass. I was going up and down with these elevators. Suddenly, the elevator’s door opened and appeared an ocean inside the hotel; it was all immersed into water. Then, my uncles appered in a boat; the hotel was like a turbulent sea, a storm. I was frightened and decided to go home, but I thought better and decided not going home because was boring at home and I was looking for adventures, so, I jumped to their boat and we went for a ride in a fishing boat. Inside the boat were my cousin and my brother, who was driving. We went down the street with the boat as if it was a car until we got in a lake. My brother starts fishing, he fished an orange fish, but it escaped and then, the hook thread on my finger, it hurted and bled a lot, I was mad with him! After a while, my brother fished a grey-purple enormous fish! It was a hippopotamus. I was grief for the hippopotamus and was screaming and asking him to let it go, but he didn’t. The hippopotamus was looking a poor baby and suffering. Suddenly, the entire situation changed; the hippopotamus stole my brother’s fish instrument and run away. My brother ran in his direction, took a gum from his pocket and killed the hippopotamus shooting all around his body. The hippopotamus died and it was layed down on the ground rounded through lots of blood.

Hack-able Curator

PRESS RELEASE

The Hack-Able Curator project

We would like to inform you that from 19th of January until 18th of March 2007, the 'Hack-Able Curator' will be exhibited at Plymouth Arts Centre as part of SLOW.

The 'Hack-Able Curator' includes a robotic arm that makes curatorial decisions. By using an algorithm it chooses images from the popular photo-sharing website Flickr.

It is 'hack-able' because everyone can add images to the main resource by uploading them to Flickr or by voting for any images displayed on the website by sending a SMS message to the system (07766404142, and putting curator 'good' or 'bad', depending on preference). In both ways, the general public can influence the decision the robot curator makes.

The 'Hack-Able Curator' is a playful interpretation of the curating system with an alternative understanding of the traditional role of curator. As a consequence of changes in technology, the role of a person involved in a cultural institution who cares for its collections has changed. It is possible to collect and categorize data in new ways that undermine traditional practices and suggest more democratic solutions.

The 'Hack-Able Curator' is intended to trigger off discussion about the new challenges and new possibilities for curators. The project asks whether the availability and popularity of social technologies suggests that the curator is redundant or indeed that everyone now can be a curator of their own
images?

The Project has been produced by Anita Barwacz, Lindsey Bedford, Andy Bennett, Anaisa Franco, Martha Patricia Nińo, Richard Wilkes (all currently studying on the masters programme in digital art and technology at University of Plymouth) in collaboration with Plymouth Arts Centre's curator Paula Orrell.

For more information, contact Anita Barwacz by email
(anitabar2@poczta.onet.pl) or telephone (07783198597).

Further information is also on the project web site
http://www.hackablecurator.org.uk/

The 'Hack-Able Curator is a part of Slow festival. The idea of 'slowness' is interpreted as a critical method and metaphor for contemporary art and curatorial practice. As a alternative to fast life, it suggests slowing things down to make critical reflection more possible in contrast to the uncritical speed of change represented by urban regeneration and wanton consumer capitalism.

http://www.hackablecurator.org.uk
http://www.plymouthac.org.uk
http://www.plymouthac.org.uk/exhib3.htm#ART1