Title: Re: <nettime> Carl Loeffler (was: net art history)
Hello,
I just happened to do a search on ArtCom+ Lamamelle, and found this string (below).
I was fortunate enough to work for Carl Loeffler as an editorial intern at ArtCom in 1983 and was not aware that he had died. Was this ever confirmed? The emails seem rather unsure on this point. Regardless, I thought I would communicate a bit of what are now vague recollections of Carl, Art Com during those primitive, yet groundbreaking days.
Art Com magazine was a publication before its time. It was embracing new media art forms and beginning to create critical dialogue around these new, emerging forms. La Mamelle, if my memory serves me, was an adjoined performance space which hosted many experimental events. It was a very exciting place to be. I donated my time, just to soak in what was happening there. I spent several months interning, as I was doing Junior year exchange, at CCAC (California College of Arts & Crafts) from Carnegie-Mellon University.
I believe Carl was tangentially connected the DAX group in the mid- 80's, a university based telematic research performance group. I became aware of Carl and ArtCom while studying at CMU with Bruce Breland, one of the founders of DAX. Carl, and the artists he championed, were often included in the loop of many of our interactive media based projects at CMU.
Admittedly, these are not the most illuminating of anecdotes. But what do know, is that visionaries like Carl Loeffler and Bruce Breland, who have paved the way for much of our thinking about these new mediums, have too often been forgotten in this fast moving "digital age" of fast rising artists and techno-rock stars. They were staking out new territory and communicating what they found to a very resistant public. I feel privileged to have had exposure to Carl and the work he was doing in those early years.
Bruce (Breland, my professor from CMU), I am cc:ing you on this. Perhaps you might have some more recent recollections on Carl, as I know you overlapped at CMU. If in fact he has died, I would like to read about the many things that he accomplished with his later work. So, if you have any further information or an obituary, I'd appreciate you sending it my way.
culture is an integrated pattern of human behavior
that includes thoughts, speech, actions, and artifacts
and depends upon a person's capacity for learning
* To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net * Subject: Re: <nettime> Carl Loeffler(was: net art history) (fleischmann|adrian|penny|Recktenwald|Biggs) * From: "nettime's re tracer" <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net> * Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 15:33:13 -0500 * Delivered-To: nettime-archive@nettime.khm.de
Re: <nettime> Carl Loeffler (was: net art history)
monika fleischmann <fleischmann@gmd.de>
Re: Carl Loeffler (was: net art history)
robert adrian <rax@thing.at>
Re: <nettime> Carl Loeffler (and art history)
simon penny <penny@cmu.edu>
Re: <nettime> Carl Loeffler (was: net art history)
Heiko Recktenwald <uzs106@ibm.rhrz.uni-bonn.de>
Re: <nettime> Carl Loeffler (was: net art history)
Simon Biggs <simon@babar.demon.co.uk>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 01:46:20 +0100
From: monika fleischmann <fleischmann@gmd.de>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Carl Loeffler (was: net art history)
Hi Tilman,
.. for example Manfred Eisenbeis, Roy Ascott, Roger Malina knew him well.
Monika
At 1:11 Uhr +0100 16.03.2001, Tilman Baumgaertel wrote:
>At 20:23 19.02.01 -0500, murphy@thing.net wrote:
><...>
>>There's been interest in the "archaic days" lately, the period pre-1994
>>stretching back to the dawn of humankind. Carl Leoffler's death the other
>>day reminded me that his ArtCon newsgroup was one of my first contacts
>>with other artists on the net. I think both Heath Bunting and Brad Brace
>>were there.
>>
>
>Hi!
>
>Sorry for joining this thread so late, but I was on vacation.
>
>Murphy, you mention Carl Loeffler, and that he died recently, a fact of
>which I wasn't aware. In my research on early, pre-internet
>telecommunication art I kept encountering his name. He edited an issue of
>Leonardo Magazine on telecommunication art and started the art.com
>newsgroup - that is as much as I know of him.
>
>I tried at various times to contact him, but couldn't find his mail adress
>or a homepage, which was odd since he seemed to be one of the few art
>critics who championed this kind of art in the 80ies and early 90ies. I
>would have loved to interview him (to be honored as an ASCII paparazzi by
>kind souls), because he seemed to be an important person in the development
>of the development of net art before the net.
>
>Maybe you or somebody else who knew him wants to relate some memories on
>Carl Loeffler or even write kind of an orbituary? I think that would be
>fitting on this list and in the context of this discussion.
>
>Yours,
>Tilman
>
>
>...................................
>I think,
>and then I sink
>into the paper
>like I was ink.
>Eric B. & Raakim: Paid in full
>
>Dr. Tilman Baumgaertel
>Hornstr. 3
>10963 Berlin
>Tel/Fax. 030-2170962
>email: tilman@thing.de
>http://www.thing.de/tilman >
># distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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GMD - Institute for Media Communication | Schloss Birlinghoven |
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tel:x49-2241-14-2809/-2511 | assist:-2585 | fax:-2133 | mobile:01719751422 |
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------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 13:50:56 +0100
From: robert adrian <rax@thing.at>
Subject: Re: Carl Loeffler (was: net art history)
Hi Robin
>I'm beginning to think I imagined his death. I know I read an obit
>somewhere, probably Wired News, but searches have brought no mention.
Yeh ... was in NYC last week (sorry I didn't get a chance to visit
the Thing office) and asked a few people about Carl ... nobody knew
more than that they'd heard he'd died. Now that I think about it,
they were all probably Nettime readers and had read your report -
hmmm.
In the meantime I'm trying to find Fred Truck - an artist/programmer,
based in Des Moines, who worked with Carl setting up ArtCom on the Well
in '86. I know they worked together on other projects so maybe he knows
something ... if I can find him.
>There's not much from him past 1996. If my report of his death was
>exaggerated I apologize. Even if that is the case it's still strange that
>so many people don't know what happened to him. He was still running the
>art.com newsgroup and teaching (I think) at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh
>around 1993.
Carl started with La Mamelle, an important artist-run centre in SF
that eventually became ArtCom. ArtCom was also a publication that then
went disgital as ACEN (ArtCom Electronic Network) on the Well.
Carl and La Mamelle organised the "Artists' Use of Telecommunications
Conference" at the SF MoMA in 1980. (Bill Bartlett did the network)
I last saw him in Vienna in about '93 when he presented a VR spectacle
in a festival. He said at the time that he was leaving CMU and planning
to move to Norway ??? No word since ...
b
--------------------------------------------
robert adrian <http://www.t0.or.at/~radrian>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 12:57:06 +0000
From: simon penny <penny@cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Carl Loeffler (and art history)
Re the below
I met Carl in the 80's (Like hundreds of others, no doubt), at the first
ISEA conference, then at his offices in SF. As I recall, ArtCom (not
Artcon!) was associated with LaMamelle, though long term SF residents will
doubtelss know the details which I don't.
Loeffler did come to CMU in the early 90's. He was not teaching but was a
fellow in the Studio for Creative Inquiry, working with his long time
collaborator Fred Truck on the early stages of a PC based networked VR
project, which was then spun off as a funded research project, housed in a
CMU 'research park' type environment off campus. (I am, and was during that
time, faculty in the school of art at CMU).
1993 Truck showed his "The Labyrinth" (an immersive interactive artwork,
and a component of the Loeffler project) at Machine Culture, the exhibition
of interactive installation which I curated '91-'93 for Siggraph '93 in
Anaheim. (Catalog in SIGGRAPH 1993 Visual Proceedings, special Issue of ACM
Computer Graphics 1993)
Loeffler's CMU project foundered and he left the campus sometime 96/97? (I
don't know the date). Since then I have heard nothing of him and can either
confirm or deny the rumor. By best suggestion is that Fred Truck would
probably know. He used to be ftj@well.sf.ca.us
More Generally, re Murphy's:
>Me thinks a great many names are in the process of being "expunged" right
>now by American art museums, galleries and magazines as they write the
>history of "art in a technological age..."
This is quite definitely true, the case of Jack Burnham being a case in
point.(see my : "Systems Aesthetics + Cyborg Art: The Legacy of Jack
Burnham," Sculpture Magazine 18:1 (Jan-Feb 1999). Published online at http://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag99/burnham/sm-burnh.htm .)
Sometimes this is due to simple ignorance: the people doing the work are
new to the field, and have not had the benefit of any formal training to
offset their lack of experience. This is due to the almost complete lack of
organised work of recording the history, a fact that e-media artists have
been lamenting for 15 years that I can remember. This lack of history has
the effect that new generations of e-media artists reinvent projects,
blissfully unaware that the same concept has been realised several times in
the past, in different generations of technology.
Art Colleges and Universities, along with the institution of Art History,
are at fault here for not being proactive in building courses in the
history of e-media art, as they clamber to establish programs in digital
media practice. Any digital media art teacher knows the load that
introducing some sort of historical and critical contextualisation adds to
the already heavy load of teaching the media practices themselves (and
usually running the lab as well). Thankfully a new generation of art
historians, such as Oliver Grau and Edward Schanken, are taking some
initiative here. Not to mention the various less formal projects such as
the Vasulka's Eigenwelt der Apparate-welt (Ars Electronica 92) and Stephen
Jone's history of computer graphics in Australia.
Most of the forgotten made the mistake of being to far ahead of their time.
Fred Truck was making interactive Artificial Intelligence artworks a decade
ago, Jack Burnham wrote on semiotics and art in the early 70s, a good
decade or more before it became fashionable in pomo circles. Joseph
Weizenbaum should be recognised as the creator of the first 'socially
intelligent agent' artwork with Eliza in the late 60s. etc etc...
In any event, the list of the forgotten is longer than that of the
remembered. It may be useful and interesting, here on nettime, to assemble
a list of forgotten pioneers (recognising that one person's 'forgotten
pioneer' is likely to be another's mentor or friend). If this motivates
you, here is my suggestion: under a subject line "Forgotten Pioneers", list
your key contenders by name, followed by dates active, city/region/country
of residence, titles of significant works (and locations if not lost), a
short 5-15 line summary of their contributions, then contact addresses (if
known) and citiations. The list can include theorists, curators and
historians as well as artists.
This list may get huge, I recognise, with contributions from various
countries. It will probably need to be divided into media categories, or at
least indexed in some way. Still, it would become a useful resource for
historians, curators, those assembling new courses, artists and various
others. If it takes off it could be spun off into a website.
Simon Penny
>On Fri, 16 Mar 2001, Tilman Baumgaertel wrote:
>> Murphy, you mention Carl Loeffler, and that he died recently, a fact of
>> which I wasn't aware. In my research on early, pre-internet
>> telecommunication art I kept encountering his name. He edited an issue of
>> Leonardo Magazine on telecommunication art and started the art.com
>> newsgroup - that is as much as I know of him.
>
>I'm beginning to think I imagined his death. I know I read an obit
>somewhere, probably Wired News, but searches have brought no mention.
>There's not much from him past 1996. If my report of his death was
>exaggerated I apologize. Even if that is the case it's still strange that
>so many people don't know what happened to him. He was still running the
>art.com newsgroup and teaching (I think) at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh
>around 1993. His concept of a "virtual museum" was an influence on me
>early on and I've been interested in these earlier theories of virtuality
>lately.
>
>Me thinks a great many names are in the process of being "expunged" right
>now by American art museums, galleries and magazines as they write the
>history of "art in a technological age..."
>
>Rob
Re Murphy's
>There's been interest in the "archaic days" lately, the period pre-1994
>stretching back to the dawn of humankind. Carl Leoffler's death the other
>day reminded me that his ArtCon newsgroup was one of my first contacts
>with other artists on the net. I think both Heath Bunting and Brad Brace
>were there.
It was ArtCom.
Simon Penny
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 11:10:49 +0100 (CET)
From: Heiko Recktenwald <uzs106@ibm.rhrz.uni-bonn.de>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Carl Loeffler (was: net art history)
> telecommunication art I kept encountering his name. He edited an issue of
> Leonardo Magazine on telecommunication art and started the art.com
> newsgroup - that is as much as I know of him.
As far as I know, think he once wrote it in a email, this started first on
the bulletin board the well and later expanded to usenet. And he was very
proud of those days etc. And he had reasons for this. alt.artcom was a very
long time the only (visible) meeting point for artists in this "cyberspace".
Even if you didnt like all art that was discussed there. digital arts were
marginal. But there you could meet more knowledgable people and it was there,
were, for exemple, the things aliens list was announced, in 1994 I think.
The times of uucp and the pimp....
rip.
H.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 11:37:02 +0000
From: Simon Biggs <simon@babar.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Carl Loeffler (was: net art history)
I am also not sure if Carl is really dead or not. One person who would know
is Roy Ascott. I'll mail him and see...
Judith Hoffberg in S.F. also worked with Carl for years on their mail art
projects, pre Art.Com even. I do not know what she is up to either. Does
the east/west divide function that effectively in the States?
As for the deletion of history by those with their own agenda's...it isn't
the first time. The winners always write history (PoMo 101).
best
Simon
>On Fri, 16 Mar 2001, Tilman Baumgaertel wrote:
>
>> Murphy, you mention Carl Loeffler, and that he died recently, a fact of
>> which I wasn't aware. In my research on early, pre-internet
>> telecommunication art I kept encountering his name. He edited an issue of
>> Leonardo Magazine on telecommunication art and started the art.com
>> newsgroup - that is as much as I know of him.
>
>I'm beginning to think I imagined his death. I know I read an obit
>somewhere, probably Wired News, but searches have brought no mention.
>There's not much from him past 1996. If my report of his death was
>exaggerated I apologize. Even if that is the case it's still strange that
>so many people don't know what happened to him. He was still running the
>art.com newsgroup and teaching (I think) at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh
>around 1993. His concept of a "virtual museum" was an influence on me
>early on and I've been interested in these earlier theories of virtuality
>lately.
>
>Me thinks a great many names are in the process of being "expunged" right
>now by American art museums, galleries and magazines as they write the
>history of "art in a technological age..."
>
>Rob
Research Professor
Art and Design Research Centre
School of Cultural Studies
Sheffield Hallam University
Sheffield, UK http://www.shu.ac.uk/
------------------------------
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