JODI: Computing 101b

Netherlands-based artist duo JODI are primarily known for their pioneering work on the web, but Computing 101B consists entirely of video work created specifically for gallery exhibition. The videos are fashioned as ‘tutorials’ in (mis)using and (mis)understanding the computer, turning the camera on JODI as computer users and thus bringing their work into the realm of performance. My%Desktop satirises the GUI (Graphical User Interface), the software that translates computer commands into easy-to-understand clickable symbols. For My%Desktop, JODI use the images and sounds of the Macintosh GUI to create a hypnotic video and audio composition, recorded in real time. Appropriately, 2004 marks the 20th anniversary of the launch of the Macintosh, the computer that popularized the GUI. Over the past two decades, the uses and power of the computer have exploded, whilst its visual language still conceals much of this substance beneath the point-and-click surface. JODI’s new work Max Payne Cheats Only Gallery depicts the artists playing Max Payne, a high-graphics video game that features a film noir-style hero caught up in an endless cycle of ‘shoot-em-up’ violence and paranoia. Through their game play, JODI reject the mission of the game, flouting the rules and disregarding the imperative to win. This makes them not ‘cheats’ but ‘spoilsports’, heretics in relation to the game world – and to the computing orthodoxy. The works in Computing 101B politicise norms of usage and behaviour that are deeply embedded in histories of the computer interface. For many of us, they have become familiar, invisible and unquestioned. This exhibition is an opportunity to unlearn these behaviours. Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans, aka JODI, are among the world’s most-renowned computer artists. In the early days of the web, their online artwork spread around the net like wildfire, challenging the conventions of a medium that had only just begun to emerge. In 2003, JODI began to focus on making work for gallery exhibitions in Basel, Malmo, and ultimately New Yorks. Computing 101B is a touring exhibition organised by FACT, Liverpool, with support from the Mondriaan Foundation and Arts Council England.

Computing 101b images: http://x.i-dat.org/~gc/jodi/101b.html http://x.i-dat.org/~gc/jodi/exe.html

JODI web links (view at your own risk): http://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org http://oss.jodi.org http://asdfg.jodi.org http://text.jodi.org/

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JODI : Computing 101b