JstChillin
An online gallery I founded and co-curated with Parker Ito form 2009 - 2011.
JstChillin is Caitlin Denny and Parker Ito, two California artists interested in collapsing the relationship between a curatorial pursuit and artistic practice. The title for the project encapsulates the 'tude of the times - to chill is to live in a constant state of multiplicities, a flow of existence between web and physicality. JstChillin has the following message for all interested in chillin hard:
If ur lukin 2 meet nu frndz, enemies or if ur lukin 2 ave fun, herz d plce 4 ya. Herz whre d kool prodi fellarz n chicks hangout n gt 2 knw each oda. Herz ur boi tunetty calin out 2 al dem fine senoritaz and fine lukin felarz up in here, 2 cme chill him.
...the Proust quote, "real without being actual, ideal without being abstract" looms beneath their logo, with the newly added, "time doesn't exist when you're....jstchillin!" The digi world is confronted with the ideal world as being purely virtual; iframes, actionscript and css keep our lives manageable. However, JstChillin looks beyond that, the simple gratification of day to day living on the net, beyond the dream of possible experiences, beyond the endless link. We seek to create a condition of actuality, of experience, a difference in time and space - different from the notions imposed by the observer. It is important to keep in mind that the concept is identitcal to the object - this is a new material idealism that is being bred out of the culture of digital natives. And is it a coincidence that this fold of happenings is interconnected with slacker culture? The slacker being an educated person who is viewed as an underachiever - we are the slackers of the art world!
"Michel Houellebecq's 1994 novel Extension du domaine de la lutte was titled as "Whatever", in its English translation, and describes the chronically disaffected life of a computer programmer."
A common abbreviation is Whatevs but an even more common form of the abbreviation is Whatev. It is a way of showing one's indifference in slang form. It is an example of "slang of the slang."
Our indifference is defiantly THE difference between jstchillin... and not.
JstChillin had multiple outputs and modes. It started off as a collaborative online curatorial performance, meaning that Parker and I would make pieces that existed and thrived online on the subject of a new techno-social theory of art. We had intentions to create the online gallery of sorts but spent a bit of time in a character building phase in the early days of the project. Thanks to the interest and support from the online art community, Rhizome.org and various other media outlets, the project became an important vessle in the engagement and collabortive spirit of online artists - known as "netartists".
We were the first generation to know life without the internet in our homes, yet also grow up and become ourselves through the network. My influencers were not great novelists and painters, but website designers and midi musicians. And through the net I became familiar with worlds outside of the non-net reach to give me a greater understanding of the context of internet in history... socially, culturally and scientifically.
The Chill Zone by Brian Droitcour
Top 5-10: Online Exhibitions by Ceci Moss
Rhizome Interview by Ceci Moss
Chillin' 4 Life by Nicholas O'Brien
JstChillin From Everwhere for ArtSlant by Caitlin Denny
Video Killed The Internet Star by Eugene Kotlyarenko for Interview Mag
The Diegetic Desktop in A New Media Film by Ashiq Khondker
An Essay About Chillin'
August 2009 - Rhizome.org//Jstchillin.org
Screenrecording of AIM conversation between Caitlin Denny and Parker Ito.
Click below image to see original website for this piece, with music:
Watch below for version without music:
On August 18th this piece was reblogged by John Michael Boling for Rhizome.org.
An Essay About Chillin' was meant to be our introduction to the art world as a duo. Our net slacker personas and schizoflow of language set the tone for what would eventually happen with JstChillin.
Xth Biennale de Lyon "The Everday Spectacle"
September 16th, 2009 through January 3rd, 2010 - MyBiennaleIsBetterThanYours.Com
A group online exhibition that was presented at the Biennale. Curated by Tolga Taluy.
Serial Chillers In Paradise
October, 2009 through February, 2011 - JstChillin.org
A biweekly evolving online art exhibition. Every 2 weeks we had a new artist "be" jstchillin.org. We worked with each artist very closely and wrote essays in the beginning of the project to accompany the work. We wanted to brand the project, have our take on it, not just be curators. This series of new websites turned into two physical exhibitions :AVATARD 4D and READ\WRITE. This project as JstChillin is an important part of post 90's net art.
•JstChillin & Cody Blanchard "Cyber Zombies"•
October 3rd - October 16th 2009
The accompanying essay ,Cosmic Chillin, is in website form containing scraps from the net via compiled surf experience.
•Mitch Trale "Analog Environments"•
October 17th - October 30th 2009
This piece explores the perceived divide between our online and offline experience. The Internet is a projection and reflection of what we think the world is like. Our online reality is as inextricable from our offline reality as any object in any mirror, however distorted.
We see everything through filters — there are no unadulterated images. Our sharpest visions fade as memories, and our ability to effectively communicate what we see to others is limited not only by language, but by our assumption that a thing can look the same way to anyone else at all.
We use technology to attempt a capture of true sight. The application of photography, holography, 3D geometry scanning, and VR, will inevitably flatten the dimensionality of the world. It's this apparent loss that leads us to believe that digital sight exists on a level beneath analog sight.
I believe that these two sights run parallel, and that each possesses a distinct ability to visualize the superstructure of the Internet, as well as the logics which drive our offline lives.
The accompanying essay is in stages of understanding your being online.
A Responsive Essay by Caitlin Denny
i Already Alongside
You are presented with an object of strength and you are suddenly falling amongst others. Your solitude has been disrupted and structure is no longer 'yours.' But you've always been falling you realize, only now you can feel the wind. A bush rustles; it's your coping. Practical activity stays so, it is absorbed by the object until you reflect on it.
ii Losing Oneself
I can no longer tell myself apart from others. My eventual techno-transcendence is all that keeps me going. Idle, detached, just looking into the void as it not only stares back at me but beyond me. My familiarity with the object, cyber-spatiality, is a familiarity with a world I become lost in.
iii Nothing
The one catches up with the several and chills - a pure beholding, a nihilistic pleasure. The hallucinatory search through the scraps and opacities results in a distance from themselves. An approximation had been made, but 'near' and 'far' have been defeated by 'here.' Reality hackers stumble over their own tangled wires. The spectacle of the many, this web, is spontaneously experienced as 'here' while the spectacles on my face remain nothing more than nearby.
• Zach Shipko and Tucker Bennett "Why Are You Weird?" •
October 31st - November 13th 2009
The video link on this site is now broken.
Video Killed The Internet Star by Eugene Kotlyarenko for Interview Mag Next Wave Video Production Co. USA
Curtis Jackson is studying performance art at one of the most prestigious art schools in the nation, yet he is still unable to live down the shame of his devistating past as a high school swimmer who was exposed as having webbed feet. In this heart warming, coming of age tale Curtis must overcome his insecurities and finally obtain the girl of his dreams all while still trying to explore his creative path and get a good grade at the end of the semester.
Why Are You Weird was shot in the year 2009 utilizing state of the art VHS and 8mm video.
• Jonathan Vingiano "Space Chillers" •
November 14th - November 27th 2009
This is now an inactive site. The downloadable program no longer functions on a browser. This will not be reversed, as this is a necessary toll of net existence.
The postmodernist universe is the universe of naive trust in the screen which makes the very quest for 'what lies behind it' irrelevant. 'To take things at their interface value' involves a phenomenological attitude, an attitude of 'trusting the phenomena'. More and more, we perceive only color and outline, no longer depth and volume. without a blind spot in the field of vision, without this elusive point from which the object returns the gaze, we no longer 'see something'; the field of vision is reduced to a flat surface, and 'reality' itself is perceived as a visual hallucination.
Help the Chiller make his way through the confusion of cyberspace safely - play Space Chillers on any website you wish!
• Jon Rafman "Loneliness of an Arcade Hustler" •
November 28th - December 18th 2009
This trailer was made for the film Rafman was currently working on at the time the project went live. The catalog included in the his pieceis an exclusive accompaniment created by the artist.
This project turned into the film Codes of Honor by Jon Rafman.
• Ryder Ripps and Jacob Broms Engblom "The Eternal Chill Online" •
December 19th 2009 - January 1st 2010
Portions of this site are no longer working.
A video of a melting ice cube as Ripps recites a parody of spiritual netisms. Logos of sponsors - a nod to Rafman's previous work for JstChillin. A search engine impeding a gradient on your results, a humidifier clears your net space and soothing audio chills you out for your surf.
• Gareth Spor •
January 2nd - January 15th 2010
Live feed with the NASA saellite has been lost on this site. Users were able to videochat with the satellites image of space.
And the accompanying site on proliferation of our favorite YouTube users.
• Guthrie Lonergan "Google 3D Warehouse" •
January 16th - January 29th 2010
Lonergan uses found images on the Google software's public postings that were all modeled after dreams. He then contacted the creators and asked them more questions about their dreams, the modeling techniques and correlation between what happened, what didn't and what made it into the 3D SketchUp model.
• Michael Guidetti "Byte to Mass Conversion Calculator" •
January 30th - Fenruary 12th 2010
For his contribution to JstChillin's Serial Chillers series, Guidetti produced conversion ratios for translating measurements of data (bits, bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes and petabytes) to measurements of physical mass (milligrams, centigrams, decigrams, grams, dekagrams, hectograms, kilograms, tonnes, ounces, pounds, short tons). For example, according to Guidetti's conversion tables 1Gb would be equivalent to 2367195.51 Pounds.
• Cody Blanchard "MovieHopping.org" •
February 13th - February 26th 2010
This site is no longer functioning.
Blanchard, resident JstChillin coder, made a site that timed your movie hopping experience.
• Ida Lehtonen •
February 27th - March 12th 2010
For her contribution to JstChillin's Serial Chillers series, Lehtonen produced series of five exercises essential for chillin. These exercises can be conducted from the convenience of one's desk, perhaps while taking a break from surfing the net.
• Ben Vickers "4Eva Connected" •
March 13th - March 26th 2010
There are no longer live events occuring on this site.
A 2-Week chat room styled performance. Each day the chat room would be open to the public to discuss a topic of Vicker's picking, usually related to the political and psychological impacts of immersed technology in popular culture. At the end of each day vickers would build upon a net sculpture that would represent the day's discussions and conclusions. Randomly Vickers would act out small scripts within the chat room. The project was also home to a few lecture series given by Vickers to a private audience.
• Nick DeMarco "Too Cool" •
March 27th - April 9th 2010
DeMarco's site asked viewers to e-mail him pictures of themselves so he could transform them into a cooler version of themselves.
• Michelle Ceja "Silicon Velocity"•
April 10th - Aprl 23rd 2010
An automated net wormhole. No need to go clubbin - just chill.
• Ivan Gaytan •
May 22nd - June 4th 2010
Some links associated with this site no longer function properly.
Gaytan used composition, texture and audio to create depth in the surfing experience.
• Eilis Mcdonald •
June 5th - June 18th 2010
Produced for JstChillin's Serial Chillers series, this work by Mcdonald sends you scrolling through a page of pat, New-Agey advice, ending on a campfire occupied by two chillin cats.
• Martin Kohout "Watching Martin Kohout" •
June 19th - July 2nd 2010
Berlin based artist Martin Kohout presents a body of work entitled "Watching Martin Kohout." Using YouTube as a platform, these works embody the reactionary nature of the instantaneousness of the internet. Since April 2010, Kohout has recorded himself via webcam every time he watches a YouTube video. Until now the videos had been private, but are now being unlocked as 'reply to' videos for whichever video it is that was watched. Watch Kohout's independent distractions on jstchillin.org.
• Ryan Barone "Waves" •
July 3rd - July 16th 2010
An audio experience to use while surfing, adjusting your surf zone through brainwave activity. Most sounds are undetectable to seniors.
• Tolga Taluy "Just Chillin' with Censorship" •
July 17th - July 30th 2010
An essay on censorship on the web.
• Daniel Leyva "Chill Space" •
July 31st - August 23rd 2010
Chill Space was Leyva's contribution to JstChillin.org's Serial Chillers series. You are presented with an expansive field composed of HTML form elements. Complete the form with your name and personal URL, manipulate a few form elements, and submit to receive your own custom created animated gif Chill Space.
• Bailey Salisbury "Chill Chart" •
September 9th - September 20th 2010
For her contribution to JstChillin's Serial Chillers series, Salisbury produced a page of animated zodiac signs with an accompanying astrological key. Essential to chillin.
• Eugene Kotlyarenko "Skydiver" •
September 21st- October 4th 2010
A narrative film in 10 parts about a young love obsessed man who turns to a right wing terrorist organization when his online love life seems to be spinning out of control.
SKYDIVER [PART 1] Instructional Video #4: Preparation for Mission - Eugene Kotlyarenko _ in conjunction with jstchillin.org from Eugene Kotlyarenko on Vimeo.
• Case Simmons and Andrew Burke "Walking The Line" •
October 5th - October 18th 2010
All links on this page are broken.
A 2 and 1/2 hour long Country Mega Mix.
• The Jogging "ASSEMBLY"•
October 19th - November 1st 2010
ASSEMBLY was a project initiated by artist collaborative The Jogging (Brad Troemel and Lauren Christiansen), which facilitated a distributed denial of service attack upon the website of a collectively chosen target. The target selected was Rhizome.org.
Donload the PDF on this project here.
Chronology of events:
October 19: ASSEMBLY is posted to JstChillin.org as part of the website’s ongoing artists’ projects series
a. Assembly mobilizes the combined efforts of digital peers to critique an institution/individual/network’s website through the oppositional use of bandwidth squatting. For 13 days, participants vote to decide what institution/individual/network’s website will be the subject of this act. On the 14th day of Assembly– November 1st – Jstchillin.org will be replaced by a single page that features 25 iFrames constantly reloading the democratically decided website of political opposition. To drain the maximum amount of bandwidth or potentially freeze the website to a standstill, on November 1st we encourage you to open as many tabs of Jstchillin.org as possible and leave them open all day. In doing so, participants may group together to temporarily remove this website’s existence on the internet, putting a halt to its undesired effects on our community and the world at large. Bandwidth squatting is a method of protest, a tool historically linked with the Civil Rights Movement’s sit ins of the 1960’s. Through their undesired mass presence, protesters are able to disrupt the informational function of the website they are intervening on– a detournement of digital visitation.
a. Assembly mobilizes the combined efforts of digital peers in tributary celebration of an institution/individual/network’s website through a symbolicly supportive digital mass pilgrimage. For 13 days, participants vote to decide what institution/individual/network’s website will be the subject of this act. On the 14th day of Assembly– November 1– Jstchillin.org will be replaced by a single page that features 25 iFrames constantly reloading the democratically decided website of tributary celebration. To maximize the symbolic support for the decided website, on November 1st we encourage you to open as many tabs of Jstchillin.org as possible and leave them open all day. In doing so, participants may group together to create an honorific swell of attention, a mass of support for the legacy of the website’s effects on our community and the world at large. Digital mass pilgrimage is a method of praise that makes use of the fact that there is no such thing as negative attention online. Through bringing the website to a halt, tributary participants pose the undesired possibility of a world without the website– an eye-opening and appreciation-building event not unlike guardian angel Clarence Odbody’s intervention into George Bailey’s state of affairs in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.
October 21: Dreamhost deletes JstChillin for hosting ASSEMBLY
October 22: ASSEMBLY moves to Jogging
October 22: Tumblr officials give Jogging a 3-day ultimatum to delete the project or be removed from their service
October 22: Jogging holds a poll to decide what to do in response to Tumblr
October 25: The poll closes, voters choose to leave the project up and face the consequences
October 25: Jogging is deleted by Tumblr
October 28: ASSEMBLY is re-opened at http://assembly.typepad.com/, and NOTES ON ASSEMBLY is distributed
Rhizome.org is selected as the chosen target
• Body by Body •
November 2nd - November 15th 2010
Body by Body was a "Net influenced" fashion project that brought internet and post-internet aesthetics into the physical world as limited edition t-shirts and apparel. Sachs and Soren's contribution to JstChillin was Body by Body's first foray into the public realm.
• Chris Coy •
November 16th - November 29th 2010
"So, more than a substance, plastic is the very idea of its infinite transformation; as its everyday name indicates, it is ubiquity made visible... it is less a thing than the trace of a movement." -Roland Barthes
What of the pixel then? If plastic maintains some sort of material presence, a pixel is the ghost of a trace. It is a liquid crystal in a constant state of flux, suspended like a digital spectre- an electronic mirage. The pixelated, screen-based Image is one that carries with it a material history of milliseconds: existing for the infinitely configurable, immediate moment.
• Ben Schumacher •
November 30th - December 13th 2010
Schumacher had 3D designers off of Craigslist translate his installation piece into a computer generated reality.
• Artie Vierkant "The Image Object Post-Internet" •
December 14th - December 27th 2010
Download Essay here.
• Unauthorized hack by MathWrath •
December 14th - December 27th 2010
• Tabor Robak "Mansion" •
December 28th 2010 - January 10th 2011
Virtual Environment Software.
• Anne de Vries "Forecast" •
January 11th - January 24th 2011
Sounds by James Whipple Technological assistance by Timur Si-Qin Text by Bertrand Russell, "Philosophical Consequences" from The ABC of Relativity.