Alan Sondheim

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Alan Sondheim is a poet, critic, musician, artist, and theorist of cyberspace from the United States.

Biography

Alan Sondheim was born in

Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in English from Brown University. He lives with his partner, Azure Carter, in Providence, Rhode Island
.

Works

Sondheim's books include the anthology Being on Line: Net Subjectivity (1997),[1] Disorders of the Real (1988),[2] .echo (2001),[3] Vel (Blazevox, 2004-5), Sophia (Writers Forum, 2004), The Wayward (2004),[4] and "Writing Under" (2012),[5] as well as other chapbooks, ebooks, and articles. Sondheim has long been associated with the trAce online writing community,[6] and was their second virtual-writer-in-residence. His video and filmwork have been widely shown.[7] Sondheim was an Eyebeam resident.[8][9]

Sondheim co-moderates several email lists, including Cybermind, Cyberculture and Wryting. Since 1994, he has been working on the "Internet Text," a continuous meditation on philosophy, psychology, language, body, and virtuality. His artwork can also be found within Second Life.[10] In 1996 he was keynote speaker for the Cybermind96 Conference in Perth Western Australia - one of the world's first conferences specifically organised around an email discussion list. In 2012 he was a presenter and active participant at the CyPosium, a one-day online symposium on cyberformance.

Sondheim is the developer of the concept of codework,[11] wherein computer code itself becomes a medium for artistic expression.

His poetico-philosophical writings deal with the notion of embodiment and presence in cyberspace, loosely based on the work of postmodern philosophers

0 to 9 magazine
, an avant-garde journal which experimented with language and meaning-making.

In 2009, Sondheim was working on a book examining the phenomenology and foundations of the analog and digital, and another on developing an aesthetics of virtual realities and avatars. Sondheim's explorations included: the aesthetics of

3D laser scanners
; Buddhist philosophy and its relation to avatars and online environments; and experimental choreography.

In 2013, Alan spoke at the South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive festival[12] on Glitch aesthetics and techniques.

In April 2022, his book, Broken Theory was published on the Punctum Books imprint. A collection of writing fragments and ideas, the book is a complex flow of ideas, experiments, and personal reflections that reflect his interests in the somatics of theory, philosophy, and art - how the body is necessary for such cultural production. Broken Theory's preface is written by Maria Damon, and the volume contains a lengthy interview with Sondheim conducted by the art historian Ryan Whyte.

Exhibits

International Digital Media and Art Association’s 2022 Weird Media Exhibition, 2022 (Specters/Ghost Files) [13]

The Internet Text

The Internet Text can be seen as Sondheim's major work, and was included in the first Electronic Literature Collection. Posted online since 1994, it is both an aggregate of Sondheim's writings and a "continuous meditation on cyberspace." The works are distributed on several email lists and gathered on Sondheim's website. The significance of The Internet Text is as a document or residue of Sondheim's diverse writings and performances, and also as a philosophical reflection on computer mediated communication and online culture.

References

  1. ISBN 1882791045.[non-primary source needed
    ]
  2. ISBN 0940170140.[non-primary source needed
    ]
  3. ISBN 1931560056.[non-primary source needed
    ]
  4. ISBN 1844710475.[non-primary source needed
    ]
  5. ISBN 9781935978732.[non-primary source needed
    ]
  6. ^ Sondheim, Alan (April 1, 2001). "Consideration of the trAce Projects". Text Journal. Retrieved May 14, 2023.[non-primary source needed]
  7. Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell University Library
    .
  8. ^ "Alan Sondheim | eyebeam.org". eyebeam.org. Retrieved January 28, 2016.[non-primary source needed]
  9. ^ "Public Eyesore Records - Artists". www.publiceyesore.com. Retrieved January 28, 2016.
  10. ^ Domenico, Quaranta (2008). "The Accidental Artist, by Alan Sondheim". CIAC (31). Archived from the original on July 2, 2014. Retrieved June 30, 2014.
  11. ^ Sondheim, Alan (September–October 2001). "Codework" (PDF). American Book Review. 22 (6). Retrieved June 30, 2014.[non-primary source needed]
  12. ^ "2012: Year of the GLI.TC/H | Schedule | sxsw.com". SXSW Schedule 2013. Retrieved May 28, 2023.[non-primary source needed]
  13. ^ White, Melinda M. (October 2, 2022). "Weirding Winona: iDMAa 2022 Weird Media Exhibition". Electronic Book Review. Retrieved November 17, 2022.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alan_Sondheim&oldid=1217870374"