Paul Garrin, Media Art & Media Freedom

Host Daniel Durning welcomes artist, media activist and social entrepreneur Paul Garrin to the Clocktower Gallery in a special two part discussion. the program is in two parts, listeners can jump from one to the other using the fast forward button on the player.

In Part 1 Garrin shares his first hand experiences working with video art legend Nam June Paik and discusses his own projects including past video Installations and current online enterprises NAME.SPACE and WiFi NY.

In Part 2 Garrin elaborates on his legal, educational, and philosophical efforts to influence the very structure of the Internet through creating top level domain names (such as dot music, dot green, dot brooklyn, etc.). This eventually led to an astounding sequence of corporate obstruction, policy manipulation, lawsuits and much drama. Listen to hear this important history--and projections for the future-- and also learn some deep secrets and truths about the way the Internet is literally built and managed.

Paul Garrin is a media artist whose work explores the social impact of technology and issues of media access, free speech and public/private space. He began studying video while at The Cooper Union, collaborated with the pioneering video artist Nam June Paik from 1982 to 1996, and, since 1989, has worked with interactive media. Garrin's work has been exhibited and broadcast internationally, including the Lyon Biennale, the Kwangiu Biennale, the São Paulo Biennale, Galleri Faurschou, Copenhagen and others. Garrin has received numerous awards for excellence, including the Prix Ars Electronica in 1997; ZKM Karlsruhe Medienkunstpreis in 1992; and many more. In 1996, Garrin founded NAME.SPACE and was the first to create hundreds of new Internet Top Level Domains (TLDs) including .NYC, .ART, .MUSIC, .SPACE, .SUCKS and .GREEN, pioneering the expansion of the Internet Domain Name System while others opposed it.

NAME.SPACE endeavored to bring its TLDs to market by means of an antitrust case against Network Solutions 1997-2000, and after the formation of ICANN in 1998 through application in 2000 where it was considered in the top 10 "strong candidates" (out of 44 applicants) but delegation was deferred in favor of domain industry incumbents. Garrin's project NAME.SPACE exists today as a social enterprise corporation and continues to seek recognition of its domains. Learn more at NAME.SPACE.

Garin is also involved in efforts to make Wi-Fi broadly and freely available. If that subject interests you look at WiFiNY.net.

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