PARTICIPANTS
    John Klima

Circa 1978, Brooklyn-based Klima attempted to code a 3D maze on a TRS-80 with 4k RAM and failed miserably. He has been obsessed with 3D ever since. Fascinated by the first primitive flight simulators and CAD programs, he began to build 3D graphics environments, and to write source code.

Klima's work has been exhibited extensively, most notable being his solo show at Postmasters Gallery titled "Go Fish," "ecosystm" included in "BitStreams," curated by Larry Rinder at the Whitney Museum of American Art, "EARTH" part of the 2002 Whitney Biennial Net Art Selection, and the "glasbead" performance in the Media Z Lounge at the New Museum of Contempory Art. His international exhibitions include The Museum for Communication in Bern, Switzerland, the NTT InterCommunication Center in Tokyo, Japan, and numerous international festivals.

By drawing upon gaming and the various possibilities of manipulating and transliterating data, John Klima's work occupies new territory in media art. Although there is an obvious connection between gaming and interactive digital art, and the gaming industry has played an important role in the development of multi-user environments, the parameters of this connection are almost never subjected to serious, aesthetic investigation.

Employing a variety of technologies to produce both hardware and software, Klima's work consistantly connects the virtual to the real, addressing issues of remote responsibility, and bluring the distinctions between the simulated and the concrete.

PLEASE LINK:
Klima to;
http://www.cityarts.com/
"glasbead"
http://www.cityarts.com/glasbeadweb/

    Symposium Abstract

    Is there a place for amusement in Art? Are there precedents in Art for amusement? Do we now exist in an environment were to be financially viable, artists need to amuse? Has not Art always provided amusement for its public? Does not a collector of paintings "amuse" themselves through their collection? Is not to adorn one's environment in a pleasing, or even provocative way, at the heart of a desire to entertain? Does not the impetus to create art stem from a desire in the artist to amuse themselves? Is not this very symposium simply a form of entertainment?

    Much of the art of the past thirty years, though perhaps an effort to reject a basic need to amuse, continues to do so by simply creating new contexts for amusement. Even when the lauded purpose of an artwork or performance is that of protest or social critique, the nature of the delivery mechanism does not divorce itself from its basis as entertainment. I have often had the opportunity to witness the artist Ricardo Dominguez "perform." Styled much like a conga player from the sixties, Ricardo dons a black knitted ski mask and in a booming, charismatic voice, becomes a spokesperson for the Zapatista movement. Would anyone listen if he weren't amusing? I recently had the pleasure of watching Miltos Manetas give a presentation. He was nothing short of hilarious. Half clown, half intellectual, Manetas presents his work and himself, in a mock-serious irony infused stand-up comic act. Don't assume that this is anything new, Oscar Wilde being but one practitioner from history. In the case of Wilde, his wit and humor provided the very basis for his critique of an intolerant society.

    What we often witness today is an overt blurring of the distinctions between Art and Entertainment. Perhaps partially based on a nascent american anti-intellectualism, this blurring is equally fueled by the undeniable power of popular culture and popular media. I fancy myself a fairly intellectual person, yet I have no shame in admitting that I spent the majority of a year in an online multi-user fantasy game called "Ultima Online." This experience had a profound influence on my life and my artistic practice. This "make-believe" world had a force far more compelling than my real life as a part-time corporate programmer. Every day after work I rushed home to log on and would stay logged on till the wee-hours of the following morning. Weekends and days were spent connected almost round the clock. I attended weddings online, funerals, parties, just about every aspect of the physical world was somehow represented in this artificial world. Fortunately, the spell eventually wore off and I returned to the real world, but I was armed with a conviction that this new medium had power and properties that no other medium had, and I was determined to apply it to serious aesthetic investigation. I proceeded to create my own online multi-user game, "glasbead," titled in aknowledgement to Herman Hesse's novel in which he describes an intelectual persuit by a cloistered group of academics. Known as the "glass bead game," players in Hesse's novel manipulate musical and physical structures with a qualitative result determining "The Magister." Oddly or not, this activity was looked down upon by the community as a "lesser" intelectual persuit, yet in reality it was the social fabric that allowed this fictional community exist. Perhaps Hesse presaged what we are beginning to witness now.