In my initial Project Overview, I wrote:

“Akhil assigned me a task in which I would make a video about the best fighter jet in the world. While keeping true to Akhil’s interest in and knowledge of fighter jets, the video I am working on takes the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor as a starting point in a network of associated histories, relationships, and concepts.

The F-22 Raptor opens into a discussion of the centralized military state, while my relationship with Akhil opens into a discussion of the globally networked neoliberal economy. These two intertwined paradigms are approached in a nonlinear history that feeds forward and backward to cybernetics and the emergence of digital computing to consider their influence on both the jet and the technosocial conditions for my relationship with Akhil. The video includes movements through contemporary military trade and entertainment, the commercial internet, and the militarized family histories of Akhil and I.”

This description still stands for the work I have presented here in the TINT Arts Lab. No radical changes have been made to my idea or the work I had done prior to the residency. As I expected, general responses and constructive questions were offered up by the commentators more so than technical suggestions and in-depth analyses. Participating in the Arts Lab was most productive for me in terms of communicating my ideas to people I have never met before and allowing their questions to change the ways in which I think and talk about the project-video relationship. Michael, Susan, Greg and Harold initially responded with a range of questions that have been very useful for me in thinking about the information I present to introduce the project, and the way that information is produced. I continue to find satisfaction in much of the work Akhil and I have done with/for each other, and feel a lot of enthusiasm while working on the video. However, most people need a certain amount of requisite information to feel engaged with the video and project as a whole, and I need to work on developing strategies to seduce people into the project and allow them to get lost in its complexity, whether the exhibition be online or physically installed, comprehensive or selective. Not everyone will give it the time I feel it needs, but I believe there are nuanced modes of generating interest to work towards.

I still find the idea that I participated in a virtual residency conceptually interesting in relation to my project. Though the dialog produced in my project and my relationship with Akhil as a whole is quite different from the dialog afforded through my participation in the Arts Lab, I think that extending this project into new and disparate networks offers the potential for thinking through how networks (and not simply online networks) are constructed, and the types of relationships they allow for.

TINT did a wonderful job publicizing our work through various mailing lists. I received emails from friends in the UK, Germany, and other parts of the United States who received an email from TINT and saw my name.

Again, I’m glad to have had this opportunity. The Arts Lab was a way for me to present my work to total strangers and receive feedback that I can bend language, thought, and video around. A lot of leverage for a small amount of applied conceptual pressure. A lot of new problems. I appreciate the opportunity and everyone’s feedback, and look forward to seeing how everyone’s projects turn out in October!

In this excerpt, you will see that the ARPANET section is followed by a section of dialog between Akhil and I. These sections will appear throughout the video, as a sort of break from the usual information overload. I will be using video game footage featuring the f22 raptor jet for these sections.

-Does this project make you uncomfortable? yes
-Is that a big part of why it is interesting to you? yes
-Do you want to share that discomfort or ambivalence with your audience? yes
-Is your intended audience everyone who has ever bought a pair of sneakers made overseas, or everyone who has used a computer, especially the internet? yes
-Did Akhil know that this is a research-based art project from the beginning? yes
-Is all of your communication able to be monitored by Akhil’s superiors? yes
-Do you have a good relationship with the general manager of Get Friday? yes
-Does Akhil have a disposable income from his work at Get Friday? yes
-Does Akhil have a nicer cell phone than you do, with games, video, and web access? yes
-Do the other assistants at Get Friday know about the work Akhil and you are doing? yes
-Are you getting anything out of this relationship? yes
-Is Akhil getting anything out of this relationship? yes
-Are you more transparent than the corporate entity in this relationship? yes

-Have you ever been to India? no
-Does it seem like Akhil could lose his job over the work he is doing with you? no
-Are you supposed to do things with Akhil outside of Get Friday? no
-Does Akhil understand everything you’re doing? no
-Do you understand everything Akhil does? no
-Are you Akhil’s only client? no

For more information, visit http://www.andrewnormanwilson.com/

My assistant is a 24-year-old male Bangalore resident named Akhil. In paying for our relationship I am not attempting to lighten my work load, but rather to engage in creative collaborative projects and even reversals of the normative outsourcing flow. In its growth and expansion, my relationship with Akhil is resulting in a visual dialogical consciousness that is further manifested and trackable in the work we create for and with each other.

Akhil assigned me a task in which I would make a video about the best fighter jet in the world. While keeping true to Akhil’s interest in and knowledge of fighter jets, the video I am working on takes the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor as a starting point in a network of associated histories, relationships, and concepts.

The F-22 Raptor opens into a discussion of the centralized military state, while my relationship with Akhil opens into a discussion of the globally networked neoliberal economy. These two intertwined paradigms are approached in a nonlinear history that feeds forward and backward to cybernetics and the emergence of digital computing to consider their influence on both the jet and the technosocial conditions for my relationship with Akhil. The video includes movements through contemporary military trade and entertainment, the commercial internet, and the militarized family histories of Akhil and I.

Most source material for the video comes from “between” Akhil and I, in that it has been pulled from the internet – official military footage, corporate promotional videos, economic data visualizations, 2D and 3D animation sequences, movie trailers, and more. The rest of the material, such as family home movies and our recorded actions, is now shared via email and web uploads. The video’s flow of material reveals an intensively researched database of sound, image, and text. The normally static and “objective” form of the database becomes dynamic and subjective in this database-narrative. This hybrid aesthetic takes cues from the lived experience of being online – spatial montage, web design tropes, maximal space-time compression, contextual advertising – though a critical distance is created by framing the content as matters of common concern rather than highly individualized electronic signals.

Here’s a start :

To see what else Akhil and I have been up to, please visit http://www.andrewnormanwilson.com/