Planet of Noise by Brad Miller, Mackenzie Wark (review)

64 Reviews To complete the encounter (as we approach the end of this century), the closing title shot features film of the Hindenberg reversed, so that the airship rises from the ground again, extinguishing its flames and floating off to hover again, icon-like, on the screen of the computer. References 1. Zoe Beloff, “Beyond,” Catalogue of the 15th World Wide Video Festival held in Amsterdam at the Stedelijk Museum in September 1997. 2. Zoe Beloff quoted in Lewis Baltz, “Biennale de L’Image,” exh. cat., École nationale superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, May—July 1998. 3. Catalogue . . . Stedelijk Museum [1]. 4. Judy Annear, “Biennial Exhibition,” Photofile 51 (August 1997). Acknowledgments A version of this review was first published in World Art 18, 1 July 1998. Thanks to the editor of World Art, Ashley Crawford, for permission to reproduce the original text. World Art is published by G+B Arts and distributed in the USA, Europe and Australasia. PLANET OF NOISE produced by Brad Miller and Mackenzie Wark. CD-ROM. Reviewed by Michael Leggett, 17 Ivy Street, Darlington, Sydney 2008, Australia. Email : . Encountering what turns out to be the central space of Planet of Noise is like entering the psychic space of an urban existence, with the flak and shash that is the backdrop to our continuum, there in the space contained by eyes and ears, screen and speakers. This is no virtual space. It is the flat space that jangles us by day and night, rocks our senses with the artifice of color and layout and entreats any suspension or suspicion with the sweet reason of wordplay and tinker bells. It is the center , offset, recentered and reframed so that reason cannot function, so that the tension between gibberish and illumination can be asserted. This is unsettling , this is unclear, this bugs the question: “Is that all there is?” The little orb revolves and circulates . No sapphire planet floating shipshape in its solar orbit, this one. Each time it is seen, it wears a different coat of texture-mapped exotica. The interactor’s mouse chases it away! It returns , bouncing from the off-screen wall, the ball with a dog, and imitates the actions of the bouncing ball, leading the eye along the words—and then down the words, and then across the words, and then . . . away, somewhere. “Sunless: Planet of Noise. Planet orbiting no sun. Spinning itself out of itself .” This little orb is actually the gateway forward through the exhibition, enabling one “frame” and its associated sounds to be replaced by the next. But, without resisting the anthropomorphic metaphor, first one has to catch it as it darts around, learn its habits, anticipate its re-entry and ambush its intention. The caught jester. Clicking it moves you on—at a brisk pace past each “frame” or, in a more engaged manner, with each one. At each interface the mouse rollovers (not rolls over) the on-screen text and triggers a female voice that recites part or all of the phrase or saying. This is definitely not the kind of wellknown phrase or saying encountered in a reference library (or a Chanel No. 9 advertisment). Brad Miller and Mackenzie Wark have collaborated to produce dimensional aphorisms: “High Fidelity: the complete relationship—to love and to lie; to be loved and deceived.” At the appropriate rollover the voice reiterates : “To love and to lie; to be” as a coda of the original—until the mouse rolls off, returning some attention to the richly crafted backdrop. This is a visual backdrop with full stereophonic accompaniment, employing the full gamut of sampled and electro-synthesized loops, prepared with contributions from Jason Gee, Derek Kreckler and Brendan Palmer. The visual backdrop over which each aphorism hovers is the digital equivalent of a medieval tapestry. These are mostly flat surfaces which have been texturally value-added in Photoshop, (with some algorithmic conclusions to Mandelbrot’s work on fractals). There are also surfaces directly re-purposed from Miller’s earlier seminal work, Digital Rhizome, including the “infini-d worm hole” three-dimensional forms that featured so centrally in that HyperCard piece. In an encounter with Rhizome, an early exploration of hypermedia (now called multimedia...