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Mongrels make art about ourselves or about the life and thinking of people we meet. Sometimes we do this in order to think and feel better for ourselves. Sometimes we are creating a space for others to inhabit that thinking and feeling. The ability to plug into different cultures, skills, structures or ways of doing things means our art gets to stay fresh. Cultural and Artistic Recognition Our aim is to use our work to get media systems taken more seriously by critics, commentators and the wider participants of the net (you and me, mums and dads) for it’s own cultural potential and to be accepted by the wider art world as an artistic genre instead of just a functional means of communication, archiving and bureaucratic management. Submitted by harwood on Wed, 2006-08-02 09:27.
“Hairy MPs” is a project by artists’ collective Mongrel to increase hair growth for Members of Parliament. The heads of the political elite will be seeded with extra follicles, numerically based on their parliamentary attendance records. Over a period of three months we should see a profound difference in the appearance of our political representatives as new hair emerges. Mongrel guarantees that the sight of your favourite Members of Parliament luxuriating in their new furry countenances will renew your faith in the democratic process. Submitted by harwood on Fri, 2006-08-04 14:34.
Do I have anything to say – or does the network already take care of it? "NetMonster" is designed to generate, edit and continuously update a composite image made up out of the results of internet searches guided by various keywords. It allows people to collaboratively build up a composite ‘networked image’ out of the images, text and addresses returned. The “NetMonster” will continuously rebuild itself based on users edits and changing search parameters, offering up new content and configurations. In this way the empty gesture of a political icon (e.g. Abu Gharib) can learn to detect the context of its own existence, automatically creating dialogue between itself and its users. Submitted by richard on Thu, 2006-08-10 18:33.
Mohammedb.jpgwas commissioned by the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant.
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2004, Amsterdam: film-maker Theo Van Gogh was found murdered in the early morning. His throat was slit and two knives were left implanted in his torso. One knife pinned a five-page note to his body. Mohammed Bouyeri, a 26-year-old man of Dutch and Moroccan descent, was apprehended by the police after being shot in the leg. In Dutch media he was subsequently referred to as "Mohammed B." Submitted by richard on Thu, 2006-08-10 18:47.
 The head of Oliver Cromwell is stuck in the phone exchange of a psychiatric hospital. Submitted by richard on Tue, 2006-08-15 12:08.
The idea for Skint Stream is based on a network which will connect audiences and cultural spaces previously separated by economic, geographic and political factors. The use of streaming technology over existing infrastructure allows us to start a conversation between spaces separated by different types of distance. Passing the mic around will allow us to reflect on the cultural space each sound is coming from? And will ask questions like: is geographic isolation a factor in cultural expression? what does it mean to be culturally remote in an electronically networked world? can we still think of ourselves as being in margins or centres when digital technologies allow us to bridge distances and make our own connections? can live, technologically mediated experience ever substitute for face-to-face communication? Submitted by richard on Tue, 2006-08-15 13:49.
by Harwood in association with Mongrel “Lungs” is a software poem memorial to the 4,500 slave labourers that worked in Hall A of the former Deutschen Waffen und Munitionsfabriken A.G. during the Second World War (now the main exhibition hall of ZKM). By computing the vital lung capacity of these forced workers, the program emits their last breath of air. Submitted by richard on Tue, 2006-08-15 14:32.
 TextFm is a piece of software that broadcasts text messages. Anyone with access to a mobile phone can send a message to a specified number. A computer receives the message and reads it out using a text-to-speech program. This speech is broadcast by a radio transmitter. It is a way of creating a simple, lightweight, open media system. TextFm was installed by groups in a number of cities over the end of 2001 and beginning of 2002. Each installation is a variant on the software. Languages other than English are being added. The program is also available for download and use for any other non-commercial purpose, pirate radio, community radio, or other localised broadcast system. Go to the site here Submitted by richard on Tue, 2006-08-15 14:51.
 NINE (9) SOCIAL SOFTWARE RESEARCH PROGRAMME Mongrel’s most ambitious project of recent years was its social software development which began with the release of the “Linker” software system in 1999 and culminated with the release of “Nine(9)” in 2003. These works were among the first examples of multimedia authoring software designed by artists themselves for running collaborative arts projects that were sensitive to the cultural expressions of marginalised social groups. These two works alone resulted in invitations by arts organisations to run hundreds of workshops around the world and won numerous citations and awards. Submitted by richard on Tue, 2006-08-22 18:32.
Colour Separation:
Submitted by richard on Tue, 2006-08-22 18:39.
Natural Selection was a search engine specifically designed to find - and twist the results for - far right and racist sites on the net. According to Matthew Fuller, who produced this project for Mongrel along with Harwood: It was formed round an elegant hack of one of mainstream technoculture's most popular search engines, Natural Selection was guaranteed to stop you smearing skin lightener on your computer. |
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