Sunday, April 17, 2011
My Second Life Work!!!
This is an Ideal Me! 
This is not me. I do not want to be like this.
This is a designer, a job I never think of.
This is me.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Artist Project 12
13 Most Beautiful Avatars by Eva and Franco Mattes
Eva and Franco Mattes were born in Italy in 1976. Since meeting in Madrid in 1994, they have never separated, living a nomadic life throughout Europe and the United States. Neither of them received art education; however, they are counted among the pioneers of the Net Art movement, and are renowned for their subversion of public media. Eva and Franco first revealed their love for Second Life through their project "13 Most Beautiful Avatars". In an interview with Domenico Quaranta, they stated that the self-portraits of the 13 avatars were not meant to reveal "the way you 'are', but rather on the way you 'want to be'". The Mattes wanted to stress that our culture revolves around plagiarism. Followed by saying that their project "13 Most Beautiful Avatars" is not a completely original piece. In fact, they stated that anyone who claims that their work is an original, should really "start doubting" their mentality because practically everything in this world, not limited to art, is a reproduction or remix of something that was released once before.
Eva and Franco Mattes were born in Italy in 1976. Since meeting in Madrid in 1994, they have never separated, living a nomadic life throughout Europe and the United States. Neither of them received art education; however, they are counted among the pioneers of the Net Art movement, and are renowned for their subversion of public media. Eva and Franco first revealed their love for Second Life through their project "13 Most Beautiful Avatars". In an interview with Domenico Quaranta, they stated that the self-portraits of the 13 avatars were not meant to reveal "the way you 'are', but rather on the way you 'want to be'". The Mattes wanted to stress that our culture revolves around plagiarism. Followed by saying that their project "13 Most Beautiful Avatars" is not a completely original piece. In fact, they stated that anyone who claims that their work is an original, should really "start doubting" their mentality because practically everything in this world, not limited to art, is a reproduction or remix of something that was released once before.
Artist Project 11
One Hundred Live And Die by Bruce Nauman
Born in 1941 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Bruce Nauman has been recognized since the early 1970s as one of the most innovative and provocative of America’s contemporary artists. Nauman finds inspiration in the activities, speech, and materials of everyday life. Nauman made his neon pieces minimalist/maximalist emotions: they painted a space pink one minute, flickered on purple another, flickered black one minute, and then combined all the colors at once. Like neon signs you see on any store front that flicker red and blue, Nauman took this idea and embedded a text, story, and emotion to it, an incomparable achievement.
One Hundred Live and Die is what many consider to be Nauman’s masterpiece. It covers sadness and happiness. One hundred flickers through each possible flippant, mundane, and tragic way to live and die in a blaze of neon exuberance. As I see through the artwork, each phrase lights differently such as orange, white, blue, and any color it could be. It paints the room and provides a surprisingly profound commentary on life, telling a story with each phrase, reiterating just how fucked up life can be. In the end, One Hundred resonates with all one hundred phrases lit, blindingly beautiful and a little overwhelming. His work is inconic, meaningful and fun.
Born in 1941 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Bruce Nauman has been recognized since the early 1970s as one of the most innovative and provocative of America’s contemporary artists. Nauman finds inspiration in the activities, speech, and materials of everyday life. Nauman made his neon pieces minimalist/maximalist emotions: they painted a space pink one minute, flickered on purple another, flickered black one minute, and then combined all the colors at once. Like neon signs you see on any store front that flicker red and blue, Nauman took this idea and embedded a text, story, and emotion to it, an incomparable achievement.
Artist Project 10
Speed Shift In West Space by Erwin Reld
A computer-controlled LED installation of pulsating light and audio elements, “Speed Shift” challenges
conventional perceptions of time and space. The work features two ribbons of white LEDs installed along
the floor and ceiling. Based on computer-controlled changes in LED brightness, wave-like patterns of light
emerge that run counter to each other and lend motion to the space.
Erwin Reld is a musician and a computer artist who takes an abstract conceptual approach to all his
installations. His solo shows and residencies have spanned the world. A graduate of Vienna’s Music
Academy, he followed his bachelor’s degree in composition and diploma in electronic music with a
master’s degree in computer art from the School of Visual Arts in New York.
A computer-controlled LED installation of pulsating light and audio elements, “Speed Shift” challenges
conventional perceptions of time and space. The work features two ribbons of white LEDs installed along
the floor and ceiling. Based on computer-controlled changes in LED brightness, wave-like patterns of light
emerge that run counter to each other and lend motion to the space.
Erwin Reld is a musician and a computer artist who takes an abstract conceptual approach to all his
installations. His solo shows and residencies have spanned the world. A graduate of Vienna’s Music
Academy, he followed his bachelor’s degree in composition and diploma in electronic music with a
master’s degree in computer art from the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Artist Project 9
The Loner by Tony Oursler
Tony Oursler (b. New York City, 1957) is a multimedia and installation artist. Tripping out on
loneliness, The Loner drifts through one daydream about "Her" after another. Oursler nightmarishly fantasizes about the dismal prospect of looking for love in a sleazy singles bar. Painfully aware of his lack, the hero is moved by his constant misrecognition of the object of his desire in an adolescent melodrama of sexual obsession and failure. As one of Oursler's earliest tapes, The Loner is especially crude in its details, with many of the hand-painted sets dissolving under a stream of water. The Loner is the story of a polymorphous humanoid adolescent. The protagonist is racked by his multiple complexes, obsessed by his auto-erotic fixations and devoured by acute paranoia. The character is faced with self-hatred. His emblem
is the runt. The Loner is maladjusted.
The Loner is a psychosexual journey through the dark landscapes of Oursler's insular narrative universe. The tape's paranoid, tormented protagonist — who is represented by such objects as a spoon and a water-filled sack — wanders through a hostile dreamspace of macabre obsessions and sexual alienation. Incredibly, Oursler renders this unlikely anti-hero as a sympathetic, totally believable "character." The artist's somnambulant, pun-laden narration and astonishing visual inventiveness add black humor to the surreal proceedings; for example, a bar scene is populated by an outrageous "cast" of found-object grotesques. Oursler's classic happy ending, in which The Loner "would live a wonderful life," rings with an ironic desperation.
Tony Oursler (b. New York City, 1957) is a multimedia and installation artist. Tripping out on
loneliness, The Loner drifts through one daydream about "Her" after another. Oursler nightmarishly fantasizes about the dismal prospect of looking for love in a sleazy singles bar. Painfully aware of his lack, the hero is moved by his constant misrecognition of the object of his desire in an adolescent melodrama of sexual obsession and failure. As one of Oursler's earliest tapes, The Loner is especially crude in its details, with many of the hand-painted sets dissolving under a stream of water. The Loner is the story of a polymorphous humanoid adolescent. The protagonist is racked by his multiple complexes, obsessed by his auto-erotic fixations and devoured by acute paranoia. The character is faced with self-hatred. His emblem
is the runt. The Loner is maladjusted.
Artist Project 8
Aaron is a software program written by artist Harold Cohen that creates original artistic images. Initial
versions of Aaron created abstract drawings that grew more complex through the 1970s. More
representational imagery was added in the 1980s; first rocks, then plants, then people. In the 1990s more
representational figures set in interior scenes were added, along with colour. Aaron returned to more
abstract imagery, this time in colour, in the early 2000s. Aaron initially drew in black and white using a
succession of custom-built "turtle" and flatbed plotter devices. Cohen would sometimes colour these images
by hand in fabric dye (Procion), or scale them up to make larger paintings and murals. In the 1990s Cohen
built a series of painting machines to output Aaron's images in ink and fabric dye. He now uses a large-
scale inkjet printer. Development of Aaron began in the C programming language then switched to Lisp in
the early 1990s. Cohen credits Lisp with helping him solve the challenges he faced in adding colour
capabilities to Aaron. The first robot in human history to paint original art. Aaron mixes its own paints, creates striking artwork and even washes its own brushes - uses a range of fabric dyes, Procion.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Artist Project 7
Knowbotic Research
Knowbotic Research is a German-Swiss electronic art group, established in 1991. Its members are Yvonne Wilhelm, Christian Hübler and Alexander Tuchacek. They hold a professorship for Art and Media at the University of the Arts in Zurich. Knowbotic is a coinage that combined “knowledge” with “robot”, meaning intellectual agent on the Internet. Knowbotic has developed some projects themed on an information environment and a computer interface. Since 1998, it has become more flexible, and with these main three of them, different members from various fields such as art, science, and philosophy, have joined in each
program. In 1997, it worked with Japanese art group, Canon Art Lab, in Tokyo. This project aimed at revealing the function of the city by interacting between real and virtual world.
This research is kindda weird. They connect robot with knowledge to use on the internet. It may be a step toward a new modern technology. People use robots to control internet, to create new kinds of art, and to make new stuffs on the internet.
Knowbotic Research is a German-Swiss electronic art group, established in 1991. Its members are Yvonne Wilhelm, Christian Hübler and Alexander Tuchacek. They hold a professorship for Art and Media at the University of the Arts in Zurich. Knowbotic is a coinage that combined “knowledge” with “robot”, meaning intellectual agent on the Internet. Knowbotic has developed some projects themed on an information environment and a computer interface. Since 1998, it has become more flexible, and with these main three of them, different members from various fields such as art, science, and philosophy, have joined in each
program. In 1997, it worked with Japanese art group, Canon Art Lab, in Tokyo. This project aimed at revealing the function of the city by interacting between real and virtual world.
This research is kindda weird. They connect robot with knowledge to use on the internet. It may be a step toward a new modern technology. People use robots to control internet, to create new kinds of art, and to make new stuffs on the internet.
Artist Project 6
Combines by Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg picked up trash and found objects that interested him on the streets of New York City and brought these back to his studio where they could become integrated into his work. Rauschenberg's comment concerning the gap between art and life can be seen as a statement which provides the departure point for an understanding of his contributions as an artist. In particular his series of works which he called Combines served as instances in which the delineated boundaries between art and sculpture were broken down so that both were present in a single work of art. Technically "Combines" refers to Rauschenberg's work from 1954 to 1962, but the artist had begun collaging newsprint and photographic materials in his work and the impetus to combine both painting materials and everyday objects such as clothing, urban debris, and taxidermied animals such as in Monogram continued throughout his artistic life.
The painting is somehow abstract in color in some ways. It is also messed up and hard to define what is what. He came up with the idea to draw this painting when he picked up the trash. This makes me think like anything in this world means something and artists can collect those meanings and distribute to their artworks. I kindda like the idea when Rauschenberg wanted to connect art and life. In this artwork, he not only used painting materials but also used everyday objects such as clothing, urban debris.
Robert Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg picked up trash and found objects that interested him on the streets of New York City and brought these back to his studio where they could become integrated into his work. Rauschenberg's comment concerning the gap between art and life can be seen as a statement which provides the departure point for an understanding of his contributions as an artist. In particular his series of works which he called Combines served as instances in which the delineated boundaries between art and sculpture were broken down so that both were present in a single work of art. Technically "Combines" refers to Rauschenberg's work from 1954 to 1962, but the artist had begun collaging newsprint and photographic materials in his work and the impetus to combine both painting materials and everyday objects such as clothing, urban debris, and taxidermied animals such as in Monogram continued throughout his artistic life.
The painting is somehow abstract in color in some ways. It is also messed up and hard to define what is what. He came up with the idea to draw this painting when he picked up the trash. This makes me think like anything in this world means something and artists can collect those meanings and distribute to their artworks. I kindda like the idea when Rauschenberg wanted to connect art and life. In this artwork, he not only used painting materials but also used everyday objects such as clothing, urban debris.
Artist Project 5
Beacon by Thomson & Craighead
This page documents Beacon when it is shown as a data projection in a gallery. As with the online version
and railway flap sign, live web searches are continuously relayed as they are being made around the world
-in this case onto a gallery wall in series and at regular intervals as an endless concrete poetry. Beacon first
began broadcasting online at midnight on January 1st 2005 and can still be seen today at Tate Online or at
http://www.automatedbeacon.net. It has been instigated to act as a silent witness: a feedback loop providing
a global snapshot of ourselves to ourselves in real-time.
This is really cool. A webpage is created to see what people is searching. It updates every single time,
24/7. It is unbelievable. I can see everything people look for online everywhere on Earth.
This page documents Beacon when it is shown as a data projection in a gallery. As with the online version
and railway flap sign, live web searches are continuously relayed as they are being made around the world
-in this case onto a gallery wall in series and at regular intervals as an endless concrete poetry. Beacon first
began broadcasting online at midnight on January 1st 2005 and can still be seen today at Tate Online or at
http://www.automatedbeacon.net. It has been instigated to act as a silent witness: a feedback loop providing
a global snapshot of ourselves to ourselves in real-time.
This is really cool. A webpage is created to see what people is searching. It updates every single time,
24/7. It is unbelievable. I can see everything people look for online everywhere on Earth.
Artist Project 4
Arabesque by John Whitney
John Whitney, Sr. (April 8, 1917 - September 22, 1995) was an American animator, composer and
inventor, widely considered to be one of the fathers of computer animation. The interesting film of him is
Arabesque, made in 1975. The whirling, exotic flow of the music is in perfect synthesis with the quasi-
psychedelic blooming of colored forms. John Whitney had balanced science with aesthetics, and defined the
computer as a legitimate medium for art.
In this one, he uses mostly lines and dots underlying with music and motion. He uses computer to set these
different. It is like he is making his art moving. Art now comes with color, sound, and motion.
John Whitney, Sr. (April 8, 1917 - September 22, 1995) was an American animator, composer and
inventor, widely considered to be one of the fathers of computer animation. The interesting film of him is
Arabesque, made in 1975. The whirling, exotic flow of the music is in perfect synthesis with the quasi-
psychedelic blooming of colored forms. John Whitney had balanced science with aesthetics, and defined the
computer as a legitimate medium for art.
In this one, he uses mostly lines and dots underlying with music and motion. He uses computer to set these
different. It is like he is making his art moving. Art now comes with color, sound, and motion.
Artist Project 3
Lines in The Sand by Joan Jonas
Joan Jonas is a pioneer of video and performance art. She is one of the most important female artists to
emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Lines in The Sand is her project in 2002. This work is deeply
subjectively meditation no less about the fate of self than of civilization. By chronologically and
geographically transposing the story of H.D. and her alter ego, Helen, on to present day Las Vegas, whose
Luxor Hotel provides the perfect mise en scene, Jonas subtly and not so subtly transcribes contemporary
reality into myth. Picking up where H.D. left off, Jonas’ suggestion that a now liberated Helen has turned up
in Vegas is perfectly in keeping with myth’s ability to blur the boundaries between fact and fiction. But
despite its humorous aspect, the date of its production and its title, make Lines in the Sand somewhat
conspicuous with respect to any myth regarding war.
This project is made in 2002, at a time of war between the US and Iraq. Her title somehow refers to
declaration of war President Bush to Sadam Hussien. This kindda connects the past and present together.
Joan Jonas is a pioneer of video and performance art. She is one of the most important female artists to
emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Lines in The Sand is her project in 2002. This work is deeply
subjectively meditation no less about the fate of self than of civilization. By chronologically and
geographically transposing the story of H.D. and her alter ego, Helen, on to present day Las Vegas, whose
Luxor Hotel provides the perfect mise en scene, Jonas subtly and not so subtly transcribes contemporary
reality into myth. Picking up where H.D. left off, Jonas’ suggestion that a now liberated Helen has turned up
in Vegas is perfectly in keeping with myth’s ability to blur the boundaries between fact and fiction. But
despite its humorous aspect, the date of its production and its title, make Lines in the Sand somewhat
conspicuous with respect to any myth regarding war.
declaration of war President Bush to Sadam Hussien. This kindda connects the past and present together.
Artist Project 2
The Horse in Motion by Eadweard Muybrigde
Eadweard Muybrigde was born in April9,1830. He used multiple cameras to capture motion and his zoopraxiscope. This artwork is called "The Horse in Motion". He took many different motion of the horse's moving. Many different moves of the horse presented angles of the horse. There are many distinguished moves to show how the horse react, run fast, slow down...and even stand still. Muybrigde tended to add motion to his artwork, not only to present the art but also to capture the move of animals. His idea was using motion to create a series of artwork from beginning to the end. It maybe leads to the idea of creating video arts later on.
Eadweard Muybrigde was born in April9,1830. He used multiple cameras to capture motion and his zoopraxiscope. This artwork is called "The Horse in Motion". He took many different motion of the horse's moving. Many different moves of the horse presented angles of the horse. There are many distinguished moves to show how the horse react, run fast, slow down...and even stand still. Muybrigde tended to add motion to his artwork, not only to present the art but also to capture the move of animals. His idea was using motion to create a series of artwork from beginning to the end. It maybe leads to the idea of creating video arts later on.
Artist Project 1
Muscle Machine by Stelarc
Stelarc (Stelios Arkadiou) is a Cypriot-Australian performance artist whose works focuses heavily on extending the capabilities of the human body. As such, most of his pieces are centred around his concept that the human body is obsolete. I don't know what to say about it. It is really really incredible. The robotic technology is developing more and more. Maybe robots will definitely be replace human's works. The Muscle Machine is a six-legged walking robot, five metres in diameter. It is a hybrid human-machine system, pneumatically powered using fluidic muscle actuators. The rubber muscles contract when inflated, and extend when exhausted. This results in a more flexible and compliant mechanism, using a more reliable and robust engineering design. The fluidic muscle actuators eliminate problems of friction and fatigue that were a problem in the previous mechanical system of the Hexapod prototype robot. The body stands on the ground within the chassis of the machine, which incorporates a lower body exoskeleton connecting it to the robot. Encoders at the hip joints provide the data that allow the human controller to move and direct the machine as well as vary the speed at which it will travel. The action of the human operator lifting a leg lifts the three alternate machine legs and swings them forward. By turning its torso, the body makes the machine walk in the direction it is facing. Thus the interface and interaction is more direct, allowing an intuitive human-machine choreography. The walking system, with attached accelerometer sensors provide the data that generates computer structured sounds augmenting the acoustical pneumatics and operation of the machine. The sounds register and amplify the movements and functions of the system. The operator composes the sounds by choreographing the movements of the machine. Once the machine is in motion, it is no longer applicable to ask whether the human or machine is in control as they become fully-integrated and move as one. The 6-legged robot both extends the body and transforms its bipedal gait into a 6-legged insect-like movement. The appearance and movement of the machine legs are both limb-like and wing-like motion.
Stelarc (Stelios Arkadiou) is a Cypriot-Australian performance artist whose works focuses heavily on extending the capabilities of the human body. As such, most of his pieces are centred around his concept that the human body is obsolete. I don't know what to say about it. It is really really incredible. The robotic technology is developing more and more. Maybe robots will definitely be replace human's works. The Muscle Machine is a six-legged walking robot, five metres in diameter. It is a hybrid human-machine system, pneumatically powered using fluidic muscle actuators. The rubber muscles contract when inflated, and extend when exhausted. This results in a more flexible and compliant mechanism, using a more reliable and robust engineering design. The fluidic muscle actuators eliminate problems of friction and fatigue that were a problem in the previous mechanical system of the Hexapod prototype robot. The body stands on the ground within the chassis of the machine, which incorporates a lower body exoskeleton connecting it to the robot. Encoders at the hip joints provide the data that allow the human controller to move and direct the machine as well as vary the speed at which it will travel. The action of the human operator lifting a leg lifts the three alternate machine legs and swings them forward. By turning its torso, the body makes the machine walk in the direction it is facing. Thus the interface and interaction is more direct, allowing an intuitive human-machine choreography. The walking system, with attached accelerometer sensors provide the data that generates computer structured sounds augmenting the acoustical pneumatics and operation of the machine. The sounds register and amplify the movements and functions of the system. The operator composes the sounds by choreographing the movements of the machine. Once the machine is in motion, it is no longer applicable to ask whether the human or machine is in control as they become fully-integrated and move as one. The 6-legged robot both extends the body and transforms its bipedal gait into a 6-legged insect-like movement. The appearance and movement of the machine legs are both limb-like and wing-like motion.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Artist Research
JENNIFER RINGLEY (JENNICAM)
Jennifer Kaye Ringley (born August 10, 1976 in Pennsylvania) is an Internet personality and former lifecaster. She is known for creating the popular website JenniCam.
Ringley viewed her site as a straight-forward document of her life.She did not wish to filter the events that were shown on her camera, so sometimes she was shown nude or engaging in sexual behavior, including sexual intercourse and masturbation. This was a new use of Internet technology in 1996 and viewers were stimulated both for its sociological implications and for sexual arousal.The JenniCam web site coincided with a rise in surveillance as a feature of popular culture, particularly reality television programs such as Big Brother, and as a feature of contemporary art and new media art.
"In Web sites like JenniCAM, in which a young woman installed Web cameras in her home to expose her everyday actions to online viewers...surveillance became a source of voyeuristic and exhibitionistic excitement... Institutional surveillance and the invasion of privacy have been widely explored by New Media artists."
Ringley's desire to maintain the purity of the cam-eye view of her life eventually created the need to establish that she was within her rights as an adult to broadcast such information, in the legal sense, and that it was not harmful to other adults. Unlike later for-profit webcam services, Ringley did not spend her day displaying her naked body, and she spent much more time discussing her romantic life than she did her sex life.Ringley maintained her webcam site for seven years.
In April 1996, during her junior year at Dickinson College, the 19-year-old Ringley installed a webcam in her college dorm room, and provided images from that cam on a webpage[10] The webpage would automatically refresh every three minutes with the most recent picture from the camera. Anyone with Internet access could observe the often mundane events of Ringley's life. JenniCam was one of the first web sites that continuously and voluntarily surveyed a private life. Her first webcam contained only black-and-white images of her in the dorm room.
At times during the first couple of years of JenniCam, Ringley performed stripteases for the webcam. This continued until an incident occurred wherein she received an email demanding that she do a "show." After she refused, JenniCam was hacked, and Ringley received death threats. The hackers turned out to be teen pranksters, but Ringley did no more stripteases after that. Initially, the camera tended to be turned off during especially private moments, but eventually this custom was abandoned, and images were captured of Ringley engaging in sex.
When Ringley moved to Washington, D.C. in 1998, she added webcams to cover the additional living space. She began charging for access to her site, allowing both paid and free access with the paid access updating the images more frequently than the free access. She added more pages to her website that included pictures of her cats and ferrets. Her site was doing well as she stayed home and claimed her profession to be a "web designer" for her site.As Ringley attracted a following both on and off the Internet, more than 100 media outlets from The Wall Street Journal to Modern Ferret ran features. Ringley owned several ferrets and Modern Ferret featured Jenni and one of her pets on the front cover.As an actress, she was cast in "Rear Windows '98," a 1998 episode of the TV series Diagnosis Murder, portraying Joannecam, a fictionalized version of herself. She also hosted her own Internet talk show on The Sync, an early webcasting network based in Laurel, Maryland.
Ringley's standard of living improved with a new larger apartment, expensive furniture and several trips to Amsterdam with her accountant, which she claimed were business trips. She also claimed that the experience improved her self image and self body image.Ringley began to take trips to visit other cam girls, including Ana Voog of Anacam.com.
At the height of her popularity, an estimated three to four million people watched JenniCam.org daily. She eventually purchased the domain jennicam.com as well. She appeared July 31, 1998 as a guest on The Late Show with David Letterman. At the end of the interview, and even after having been corrected once, Letterman plugged the site as Jennicam.net instead of the correct Jennicam.com (Ringley owned both Jennicam.com and Jennicam.org). People visiting the previously non-existent Jennicam.net found a pornographic site with the greeting, "Thanks Dave". She also appeared on The Today Show, and World News Tonight With Peter Jennings.
She shut her site down on December 31, 2003 since PayPal had changed their rules about adult content and wouldn't support her site any more.
In June 2008, CNET hailed JenniCam as one of the greatest defunct websites in history.
JenniCam invented Reality TV
http://www.vh1.com/video/misc/137752/jennifer-ringley-jennicam.jhtml
Jennifer Kaye Ringley (born August 10, 1976 in Pennsylvania) is an Internet personality and former lifecaster. She is known for creating the popular website JenniCam.
Ringley viewed her site as a straight-forward document of her life.She did not wish to filter the events that were shown on her camera, so sometimes she was shown nude or engaging in sexual behavior, including sexual intercourse and masturbation. This was a new use of Internet technology in 1996 and viewers were stimulated both for its sociological implications and for sexual arousal.The JenniCam web site coincided with a rise in surveillance as a feature of popular culture, particularly reality television programs such as Big Brother, and as a feature of contemporary art and new media art.
"In Web sites like JenniCAM, in which a young woman installed Web cameras in her home to expose her everyday actions to online viewers...surveillance became a source of voyeuristic and exhibitionistic excitement... Institutional surveillance and the invasion of privacy have been widely explored by New Media artists."
Ringley's desire to maintain the purity of the cam-eye view of her life eventually created the need to establish that she was within her rights as an adult to broadcast such information, in the legal sense, and that it was not harmful to other adults. Unlike later for-profit webcam services, Ringley did not spend her day displaying her naked body, and she spent much more time discussing her romantic life than she did her sex life.Ringley maintained her webcam site for seven years.
In April 1996, during her junior year at Dickinson College, the 19-year-old Ringley installed a webcam in her college dorm room, and provided images from that cam on a webpage[10] The webpage would automatically refresh every three minutes with the most recent picture from the camera. Anyone with Internet access could observe the often mundane events of Ringley's life. JenniCam was one of the first web sites that continuously and voluntarily surveyed a private life. Her first webcam contained only black-and-white images of her in the dorm room.
At times during the first couple of years of JenniCam, Ringley performed stripteases for the webcam. This continued until an incident occurred wherein she received an email demanding that she do a "show." After she refused, JenniCam was hacked, and Ringley received death threats. The hackers turned out to be teen pranksters, but Ringley did no more stripteases after that. Initially, the camera tended to be turned off during especially private moments, but eventually this custom was abandoned, and images were captured of Ringley engaging in sex.
When Ringley moved to Washington, D.C. in 1998, she added webcams to cover the additional living space. She began charging for access to her site, allowing both paid and free access with the paid access updating the images more frequently than the free access. She added more pages to her website that included pictures of her cats and ferrets. Her site was doing well as she stayed home and claimed her profession to be a "web designer" for her site.As Ringley attracted a following both on and off the Internet, more than 100 media outlets from The Wall Street Journal to Modern Ferret ran features. Ringley owned several ferrets and Modern Ferret featured Jenni and one of her pets on the front cover.As an actress, she was cast in "Rear Windows '98," a 1998 episode of the TV series Diagnosis Murder, portraying Joannecam, a fictionalized version of herself. She also hosted her own Internet talk show on The Sync, an early webcasting network based in Laurel, Maryland.
Ringley's standard of living improved with a new larger apartment, expensive furniture and several trips to Amsterdam with her accountant, which she claimed were business trips. She also claimed that the experience improved her self image and self body image.Ringley began to take trips to visit other cam girls, including Ana Voog of Anacam.com.
At the height of her popularity, an estimated three to four million people watched JenniCam.org daily. She eventually purchased the domain jennicam.com as well. She appeared July 31, 1998 as a guest on The Late Show with David Letterman. At the end of the interview, and even after having been corrected once, Letterman plugged the site as Jennicam.net instead of the correct Jennicam.com (Ringley owned both Jennicam.com and Jennicam.org). People visiting the previously non-existent Jennicam.net found a pornographic site with the greeting, "Thanks Dave". She also appeared on The Today Show, and World News Tonight With Peter Jennings.
She shut her site down on December 31, 2003 since PayPal had changed their rules about adult content and wouldn't support her site any more.
In June 2008, CNET hailed JenniCam as one of the greatest defunct websites in history.
JenniCam invented Reality TV
http://www.vh1.com/video/misc/137752/jennifer-ringley-jennicam.jhtml
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