Paul Garrin[1] (born 1957) is an interdisciplinary artist and social entrepreneur[2] whose work explores the social impact of technology and issues of media access, free speech, public/private space, and the digital divide. Starting as his assistant in 1981,[3] Garrin eventually emerged as one of the most important collaborators of video art superstar Nam June Paik, working closely together from 1982 to 1996.[4][5]
Since the 1990s, Garrin has carried his politicized style of action art-making onto the Internet, founding companies and projects that work to free the Internet from corporate and government control.[6] His work spans between the highest technology available and hands-on street video, all for a common political cause.[7][8]The New York Times art critic Grace Glueck describes Paul Garrin as a politically active video artist.[9]
Founded in 1996,[10] Garrin's social enterprise Name.Space is among the earliest Internet top-level domainregistries offering affordable and expressive TLDs. Manifested in the Name.Space.Charter,[11] Name.Space champions freedom of speech, and free, self-supporting commerce as an important counterbalance to government's monopoly powers.[12] Presently, Name.Space is challenging the status-quo in an antitrust lawsuit with ICANN.[13][14][15][16]
In 2003, Garrin launched WiFi-NY, an independent, cooperative community wireless broadband network that serves downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn.[17] He continues to live and work in the Lower East Side since the borough's last decades of creative production.
Garrin began working with video while studying fine arts at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City (1977–82) where he enrolled after two years of classical art training in painting, drawing, sculpture, materials, and printmaking at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia (1977). At Cooper Union, Garrin studied with many well-known artists including Hans Haacke, Vito Acconci, Robert Breer and Martha Rosler, all of whom had a major impact on Garrin's aesthetics and critical social content in his works.[18][19][20]: 219
In 2001, Paul Garrin (A'82), was awarded the Cooper Union President Citation for outstanding attainments and contributions to his profession, and was inducted into the Cooper Union Alumni Hall of Fame.[21]
Video & Media Artworks
Art Videotapes
Garrin belongs to the second generation of video artists whose works mix technological innovation with social criticism.[8][20]: 219 Along with Jenny Holzer, Julia Scher, Lowell Darling, Laurie Anderson, Garrin was among a promising group of autonomous artists creating far-ranging works of art within the Web, tapping into the potential of the Web as a creative medium, thereby transcending the basic nature of the medium at the time.[7][20]: 422
From the time he was a student at Cooper Union, Paul's video works focused on single and double channel pieces. After graduation, Garrin's work was heavily influenced by the experimental works of Nam June Paik. This influence is seen emerging in such works as "A Place to Hide", 1985, and a series of pieces in collaboration with musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto and video artist Kit Fitzgerald sponsored by SONY Corporation, 1985–86, most notably "A Human Tube".[19][22]
In 1988, Garrin created one of his most groundbreaking videos entitled "Free Society"[8][23] featuring original music by downtown composer and musician Elliott Sharp.[19] Featuring uniquely layered digital effects and hand-cutout images edited in a staccato pace that reflects the violence and brutality of the subject matter, "Free Society" went on to win numerous awards, was featured in video and film festivals around the world, and is in the permanent collection of the U.S. Library of Congress.[24] It also contains footage from his 1988 video[25] of the Tompkins Square Park Police Riot.
Since 1989, Garrin has been working with interactive media, and developed three highly acclaimed works, "Yuppie Ghetto with Watchdog",[8] 1989–90, "White Devil", 1992-93 and "Border Patrol" 1995–97, all of which were produced with the technical collaboration of friend and artist David Rokeby,[29][30] creator of the "Very Nervous System", evolutions of which formed the basis of "Yuppie Ghetto", "White Devil", and "Border Patrol". Garrin also enlisted Don Ritter, another friend and artist working in the same realm to create the live targets in the Border Patrol installation.[31]
Garrin's works have been documented in numerous publications worldwide[3] including "History of 20th Century Art" by Taschen.[4][34][39]
His major works "Yuppie Ghetto with Watchdog", "White Devil" and "Border Patrol" are in the permanent collection of the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany.
List of Exhibitions
The following is a list of exhibitions that showcased Garrin's art videos and interactive installations:[3]: 11 [4][7][8][18][20]: 268, 522 [30][32]: 464 [34]
1985
The Kitchen, New York
Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris
New Video Music, EUA
1987
Artists in the Electronic Age, Davis Hall, City College of New York, New York
Medienwerkstatt, Vienna
Westfalisches Landesmusuem für Kunst und Kulturegeschichte, Munster, Germany
Kunsthaus, Zurique
American Video Festival
American Film Institute, Los Angeles
Folkwang 3 Video, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
Bonn Videonale, Bonn, Alemaha
US Videovisit, Video Offensive, Dortmund, Germany
1988
Hayward Gallery (with Nam June Paik), South Bank Centre, London
The American Festival, American Film Institute, Los Angeles
Bonn Videonale, Bonn, Germany
Dallas Video Festival, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas
La Diade, Centro di Studi i Diffusione d'Arte Contemporanea, Bergamo, Italy
1989
Festival de Cinema de Berlin
Strange Attractors: Signs of Chaos, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York
1990
Featured Artist, Festival de Cinema de Berlin, Germany
"Yuppie Ghetto with Watchdog" Premiere, The Clocktower Gallery, New York
Amerika Haus, Berlin, Germany
Videofest, Kunstler, Berlin, Germany
Image World: Art and Media Culture, Whitney Museum, New York
1992
Videoforms, Clermont-Ferrand, France
Monstra de Arte
Galeria Otso, Helsinki, Finland
1993
Eisfabrik, Hanover, Germany
Mediale, Hamburg, Germany
1994
Holly Solomon Gallery, New York
22a Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, Brazil
1995
Gwanju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea
Installation, cinema, video, informatique, 3e Biennale d'art contemporain de Lyon, France
1995–96
Installation, cinema, video, informatique, 3e Biennale d'art contemporain de Lyon, France
Garrin was the Artist in Residence at the Berlin Videofest, 1990,[40] and has received numerous awards for excellence including New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, 1988;[21] Special Prize, Bonn Videonale,[39]: 724 1988; New York State Council on the Arts Media Grant, 1990;[21] Prize, Video Shorts, Seattle, 1990 & 91; Prix Ars Electronica, 1997;[29] ZKM | Karlsruhe Medienkunstpreis, 1992.[41] In 2001, Garrin was awarded the Cooper Union President's Citation for outstanding attainments and contributions to his profession.[21]
List of Honors, Awards & Grants
The following is a list of awards Garrin received for his artworks and accomplishments:[3][21][29][32]: 464 [40]
1988
Special Prize, Bonn Videonale, Bonn, Germany
New York Foundation Arts Fellowship
1990
New York State Council on the Arts Media Grant
Prize, Video Shorts, Seattle, U.S.
Artist in Residence, Berlin Videofest
1991
Prize, Video Shorts, Seattle, U.S.
1992
Siemens Media Art Prize 1992, Medienkunstpreis, Karlsruhe, Germany
1993
Mediale, Hamburg, Germany
1997
Award of Distinction in Interactive Art, Prix Ars Electronica
2001
President's Citation, The Alumni Hall of Fame, Cooper Union, New York
Paul Garrin and Nam June Paik
Starting as his assistant in 1981,[3][20]: 219 Garrin eventually emerged as one of Nam June Paik's most important and longtime collaborators, working closely with him from 1982 to 1996.[4] Garrin started working for Paik on March 30, 1981, the day that Ronald Reagan was shot, and spent the day recording TV news broadcasts of the event.[42] Evident in Paik's later pieces, Garrin produced hundreds of works with his richly layered and textured tour-de-force imaging techniques, where images multiply and divide within the frame; temporal and spatial shifts proliferate, visuals and sound are juxtaposed in ironic contexts.[5]
One such collaboration was Garrin and Paik's Two Channel Music Tape Spring/Fall (1986) comprising two different but complementary videos playing simultaneously on monitors. The visual interplay creates a rapid visual assault. Scenes are multi-layered, fleeting and hard to register. Aesthetically pleasing and amusing footage of the news, pop-culture, and art world are altered and synthesized with the pair's signature image-processing techniques. This piece was acquired by the Long Beach Museum of Art (LBMA) by museum curator Michael Nash in 1989.[4]
List of Exhibitions
The following is a list of exhibitions that showcased Paul Garrin and Nam June Paik's media art collaborations:[4][45][49]
1988
Hayward Gallery (with Nam June Paik), South Bank Centre, London
1989
Reconstructed Realms: Recent Acquisitions of LBMA's Video Collection
Living with the Living Theatre, Smithsonian American Art Museum
1990
Waterworks
1991
Art of Music Video: 10 Years After
Social Impact
Tompkins Square Park Riot
As an early citizen journalist, Garrin's noted video document[25] of the Tompkins Square Park Riot (1988) became iconic in exposing the coverup of police misconduct.[50] Shot with a home video camcorder, the tape exposed through the media the willful police violence against demonstrators and bystanders,[51] and became known as the spark which ignited the "camcorder revolution".[52]
Garrin, who was taking video pictures from atop a van was clubbed by two police officers (with other officers looking on) as he pleaded that he was climbing off the vehicle at their instruction and urged not to be hit.[53]: 2 With his potentially incriminating video shown on many television stations, Garrin was one of the most prominent of the Tompkins Square victims. On the day after the riot, he received two anonymous threatening phone calls, and the day after that another two. He recalls the language in some of them: "You better get the fuck away -- they're gonna get you." "Paul, you stupid motherfucker, you got the whole Police Department against you." "You can run, but you can't hide."[53]: A-7
Pummeled by at least five officers[53]: 55 and video-documented by Clayton Patterson,[53]: 59 [54] a class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of Garrin.[53]: A-7 In addition to seeking damages for Garrin, the suit sought to end a longstanding pattern of police abuse, namely, interference with persons photographing and otherwise recording police actions.[53]: 55 : A-7 [55]
Popular culture
The media notoriety of the riot video with Garrin as videographer is believed to have inspired[56] the late playwright and then East Village, Manhattan resident Jonathan Larson to create the character "Mark Cohen" in Rent (musical).
Community engagement
Officially serving on the Cooper Union Alumni Association (CUAA) Communications Committee,[57] Garrin has been an active member of the CUAA since 2011.
From the fall of 2011, Garrin participated in the Friends of Cooper Union and Free Cooper Union brainstorming events, and contributed to "The Way Forward"[58]: 17 – a document of proposals to help restructure the Cooper Union to aid it out of the Cooper Union financial crisis and tuition protests, and restore full tuition scholarships to all of its students.
In 2013, Garrin co-organized a CUAA/CUES event in the Great Hall in conjunction with the MIT Enterprise Forum of NY on surveillance. Entitled "Ethics, Law & Surveillance Culture" the program featured author James Bamford, criminal defense attorney Stanley L. Cohen, New York Civil Liberties Union Director Donna Lieberman, and independent journalist Paul DeRienzo.[59][60][61]
By January 2014, Garrin successfully crowd-funded the Cooper Lumen Design Challenge,[62] partnering with non-profit Two Bridges Neighborhood Council to directly fund interdisciplinary student work for credit in the 2014 semester,[63] all of which has generated positive media for Cooper Union.[64][65]
Summary
Represented Cooper Union as panel member at Ruckus NYC–a one-day conference and concert on art and the web, 29 September 2012.[66]
Participated in the Law Affinity Group Pop-up on 6 December 2012.[67]
Co-organized and hosted "Ethics, Law & Surveillance Culture" on 23 September 2013.[68]
Successfully crowdfunded over 10K for the Cooper Lumen Design Challenge on 15 January 2014.[62][63]
Represented CUAA as docent at the Ken Burns Charity Event on 26 March 2014.[69]
Co-organizer of the Peter Cooper Block Party on Founders Day, 13 April 2014.
From Media Artist to Internet Social Entrepreneur
In 1992, Garrin was a UNESCO Fellow at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Germany, where he was first introduced to the Internet.
Name.Space
Formerly PG Media, Garrin founded Name.Space in 1996, an independent top-level domain (TLD) registry with a primary mission to develop, publish and provide registry services for new TLDs on the Internet, to introduce competition, diversity and localism in the domain name market, and support the balanced interests of commercial, non-commercial, and political speech on the internet.[70]
Through online crowd-sourcing, Name.Space was the first to create hundreds of new Internet TLDs[15][16] including .NYC,[71] .ART, .MUSIC,.SPACE, .SUCKS and .GREEN,[72] pioneering the expansion[73] of the Internet Domain Name System while others opposed it. Some even spread untruths that the addition of hundreds or more TLDs would "break the Internet".[74] In reality, there are no technical constraints preventing the addition of thousands of new top-level names to the DNS root.[75]
Name.Space's creation of hundreds of TLDs predates the formation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) which incorporated in 1998[76][77] As an early proponent of a shared TLD registry system, Name.Space helped shape the adaptation of a wholesale-retail domain registration market that is in practice today.
Name.Space endeavored to bring its TLDs to market by means of an antitrust case against Network Solutions 1997–2000[78][79][80] (based on the successful MCI v. ATT[81] that broke up the telephone company monopoly in the US in 1983). The Name.Space v. Network Solutions, Inc. antitrust lawsuit gave momentum to the restructuring of the domain name registration market from a single monopoly based system to a wholesale-retail one.[82][83]
Although Network Solutions got immunity from the antitrust law,[84] the public benefited from the Name.Space v. NSI lawsuit with the introduction of the wholesale-retail structure that transformed the domain registration market lowering fees from $100 to less than $10 to register a domain name, depending on the TLD and the retailer.[10][85]
ICANN held its first generic top-level domain (gTLD) application process in 2000.[86] Name.Space was considered in the top 10 "strong candidates" out of 44 applicants,[87] but delegation was deferred in favor of a very limited group of domain industry incumbents, almost all closely tied to ICANN, to the exclusion of many viable new entrants.[75][88] A number of ICANN Board members recused themselves from the gTLD selection process because of involvement with applications under consideration.[89] Particularly controversial was a proposal by Afilias LLC, an organization that includes 19 registrars, including Herndon, Va.-based Network Solutions Inc., the domain registration unit of VeriSign Inc., to run the registry for a .web domain.[90]
Nevertheless, former ICANN Chair Esther Dyson supported Name.Space's application. In her syndicated column in SFGate, an online version of the San Francisco Chronicle, she wrote:
"... the proposal of Name.Space appealed to me precisely because it was a mix of commerce and principle. If the company that wanted to offer .star and .jazz was prepared to subsidize .sucks, more power to it.[12]
Name.Space exists today as a social enterprise corporation and continues to challenge status-quo entities that it views as corrupt[16][84] with a current lawsuit against ICANN.[13][14]
WiFi-NY
In 2003, Garrin launched WiFi-NY, an independent, cooperative community wireless broadband network that serves downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn.[17][91] Since 2013, the WiFi-NY Peoples Emergency Network has been in partnership with Two Bridges Neighborhood Council, LES community groups, Cooper Union Alumnus, Toby J. Cumberbatch,[92] Professor of Engineering, Cooper Union and students from the Cooper Union schools of Art, Architecture, and Engineering to design a solar-powered product that can simultaneously provide public wireless Internet, emergency lighting and a charging station for computers or cell phones to enhance community resiliency post Hurricane Sandy. Community leaders supporting the Cooper Lumen Design Challenge[62] hope to install the resulting three-in-one power innovation(s) around public spaces — starting near the East River waterfront, and in common areas in Two Bridges, Lower East Side, Chinatown, ManhattanEast Village and other New York City neighborhoods, where many suffered after losing power after Superstorm Sandy struck.[64]
^ abcdeHünnekens, Ludger (1992). "Medienkunstpreis 1992" [Media Art Award 1992]. Karlsruhe: ZKM, 1992 (in German). Karlsruhe, Germany: Druckhaus Münster. Retrieved 23 March 2014.
^ abcdefghijHuffman, Kathy Rae; Buchanan, Nancy (2011). Exchange and Evolution: Worldwide Video Long Beach 1974–1999: 7 October 2011 – 2 February 2012. California, U.S.: Long Beach Museum of Art. pp. 90, 91. ISBN978-0-9712772-1-2.
^ abcdeGever, Martha (May 1990). "Media in the Present Tense. Highlights from the 1990 Berlin Video Festival". The Independent. New York City, U.S.: Independent Media Publications.
^Garrin, Paul (artist, director) (8 September 2008). A Place to Hide (Art Videotape). New York City: replace.TV.
^"Free Society". www.filmladen.de/dokfest. Filmladen Kassel e.V. 10–15 November 2009. Retrieved 20 March 2014.
^Rosenblatt, Stephen (4 December 1992), Notice for Mandatory Deposit of Motion Pictures: Free Society: Man With A Video Camera, Library of Congress, Washington D.C., U.S.{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ abGarrin, Paul (Artist, Documentarist) (1988). Tompkins Square Park Riot (Video). New York City: Garrin, Paul.
^Michael Nash, Kim Harlan Tassie (1991). Art of music video : ten years after (Video, Videocassette, U-matic, Visual material). California, U.S.: Long Beach Museum of Art Video Archive, circa 1970–2000. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
^Blick (19 February 1990). "Video Verite. Ein Gesprach mit dem Videokunstler Paul Garrin" [Video Verite. A conversation with the video artist Paul Garrin]. Tageszeitung (in German). Berlin, Germany: taz, die tageszeitung Verlagsgenossenschaft eG.
^"Kassiber Aus Dem Leben. Paul Garrin zu Gast in der Medienoperative" [Secret Message From Life. Paul Garrin guest in the MediA Operative]. Tageszeitung (in German). Berlin, Germany: taz, die tageszeitung Verlagsgenossenschaft eG. 19 February 1990.
^"System-Kritik. Stiehlt das Videofest '90 der etablierten Berlinale die Schau?" [System Critic. Steals the Video Festival Berlinale '90, established the show?]. Film & TV Magazin (in German). Berlin, Germany. 1990.
^Friends of Cooper Union (26 April 2012). "The Way Forward"(PDF). New York City: Friends of Cooper Union. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^James Bamford, Stanley Cohen, Donna Lieberman, Paul DeRienzo. (23 September 2013). Ethics, Law, and Surveillance Culture (Live event recording). New York City: Cooper Union Entrepreneurship Society.
^ abToby Cumberbatch, Harrison Cohen, Kerri Culhane, Carlina Rivera. (3 November 2013). Cooper Lumen Design Challenge (Video Production). New York City: Two Bridges Neighborhood Council, Cooper Union Alumnus.
