Eric Cho // Erik Conrad // Adrian Herbez // Garnet Hertz // Jeff Ridenour // Ryan Schoelerman // Margaret Watson // So Yamaoka

Sky Frostenson  //  #2  //  #4  
Channel Zero, vol. 1: Aggravision

A multimodal media mashup mixing milieu.

Volume 1: Aggravision culls the majority of its content from a video database collection harvested from worldwide peer-to-peer filesharing networks, where the most salient and sensational clips inevitably rise to the top of the download queue. Selected exerpts from regional media broadcasts are also included in an attempt to ground the collection in the American domestic entertainment vernacular.

Through Channel Zero’s joystick, steering wheel, and pedal interface, the participant is invited to mix, explore, and sometimes avoid material that ranges from the simply inane to the nauseatingly macabre. No matter what the individual subject or effect, the images in the collection ultimately blend to represent a small cross section of the tastes, trends, and fixations that drive these unregulated and decentralized media networks, juxtaposed against the aforementioned vernacular.

It is hoped that the overall result of this first installment will present a jarring, unsettling, cacophonous media mess, delivering a full-bore assault on the senses and sensibilities of those who would attempt to behold and/or navigate its depths. Users should anticipate severe symptoms of disorientation, disaffectation, and desensitization to a wide range of culturally (in)sensitive audio-visual material. The installation may or may not be appropriate for children or adults of any age.

Download and view the Instruction Manual (PDF, ~1mb)

Sky Frostenson is an artist / designer / aesthetic programmer, originally from Los Alamos, New Mexico. He is currently an MFA student in the ACE program. Working as a teacher and researcher in the UC Game Culture and Technology Lab, his main R&D focus includes (but is certainly not limited to) iconoclastic iconographies, floating signifiers, and their tactical implementation in a wide variety of cultural software agitprop endeavors, with a special emphasis on gaming and interaction design. He holds a B.S. in Psychology and a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Computing in the Arts, both from the University of California, San Diego, where he studied under Vladimir Konecni and Lev Manovich. His work has been shown in many domestic and international venues, including the Kitchen, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, New Museum, Rotterdam Film Festival, and Electrofringe 2003 in Brisbane, Australia. In addition, he has been a speaker and panel member for art-based game presentations at SIGGRAPH 2003 and the 2004 Game Developer's Conference.

He periodically posts projects, links, and digital detritus at http://illinest.net.

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