Paul Garrin (born 1957) is an interdisciplinary artist and social entrepreneur whose work explores the social impact of technology and issues of media access,

free speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been ...

, public/private space, and the

digital divide The digital divide is the unequal access to digital technology, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and the internet. The digital divide creates a division and inequality around access to information and resources. In the Information Age in ...

. Starting as his assistant in 1981, Garrin eventually emerged as one of the most important collaborators of

video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...

superstar

Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super hi ...

, working closely together from 1982 to 1996. Since the 1990s, Garrin has carried his politicized style of action art-making onto the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

, founding companies and projects that work to free the Internet from corporate and government control. His work spans between the highest technology available and hands-on street video, all for a common political cause. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' art critic Grace Glueck describes Paul Garrin as a politically active

video artist Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting. ...

. Founded in 1996, Garrin's social enterprise Name.Space is among the earliest Internet

top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...

registries offering affordable and expressive

TLD A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...

s. Manifested in the Name.Space.Charter, Name.Space champions

freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...

, and free, self-supporting commerce as an important counterbalance to government's

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

powers. Presently, Name.Space is challenging the status-quo in an

antitrust Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...

lawsuit with

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces ...

. In 2003, Garrin launched WiFi-NY, an independent, cooperative community

wireless broadband Wireless broadband is telecommunications technology that provides high-speed wireless Internet access or computer networking access over a wide area. The term comprises both fixed and mobile broadband. The term broadband Originally the word "b ...

network that serves

downtown Manhattan Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...

and

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. He continues to live and work in the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...

since the borough's last decades of creative production.

Early life and education

Garrin grew up in Camden, New Jersey. He took night classes at the

Philadelphia College of Art Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since 1 ...

, and worked at an

offset printing Offset printing is a common printing technique in which the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface. When used in combination with the lithographic process, which is based on t ...

shop in the day to support himself. Garrin began working with

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...

while studying

fine arts In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...

at the

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

for the Advancement of Science and Art in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

(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 The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Hans Haacke Hans Haacke (born August 12, 1936) is a German-born artist who lives and works in New York City. Haacke is considered a "leading exponent" of Institutional Critique. Early life Haacke was born in Cologne, Germany. He studied at the '' Staatlic ...

Vito Acconci Vito Acconci (, ; January 24, 1940 – April 27, 2017) was an influential American performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His foundational p ...

Robert Breer Robert Carlton Breer (September 30, 1926 – August 11, 2011) was an American experimental filmmaker, painter, and sculptor. Life and career "A founding member of the American avant-garde," Breer was best known for his films, which combine ...

and

Martha Rosler Martha Rosler (born 1943) is an American artist. She is a conceptual artist who works in photography and photo text, video, installation, sculpture, and performance, as well as writing about art and culture. Rosler's work is centered on everyday ...

, all of whom had a major impact on Garrin's aesthetics and critical social content in his works. 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.

Video & Media Artworks

Art Videotapes

Garrin belongs to the second generation of

video artists Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...

whose works mix technological innovation with social criticism. Along with

Jenny Holzer Jenny Holzer (born July 29, 1950) is an American neo-conceptual artist, based in Hoosick, New York. The main focus of her work is the delivery of words and ideas in public spaces and includes large-scale installations, advertising billboards, ...

Julia Scher Julia is usually a feminine given name. It is a Latinate feminine form of the name Julio and Julius. (For further details on etymology, see the Wiktionary entry "Julius".) The given name ''Julia'' had been in use throughout Late Antiquity (e.g. ...

Lowell Darling Lowell Darling is an American conceptual artist most notable for a series of performances in the 1970s that included nailing cities to the earth, conducting "urban acupuncture" by placing oversize needles in the ground, and stitching up the San A ...

Laurie Anderson Laurel Philips Anderson (born June 5, 1947), known as Laurie Anderson, is an American avant-garde artist, composer, musician, and film director whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and ...

, 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. 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

. 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 is a Japanese composer, pianist, singer, record producer and actor who has pursued a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). With his bandmates Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, Sakamoto inf ...

and video artist Kit Fitzgerald sponsored by

SONY , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

Corporation, 1985–86, most notably "A Human Tube". In 1988, Garrin created one of his most groundbreaking videos entitled "Free Society" featuring original music by downtown composer and musician

Elliott Sharp Elliott Sharp (born March 1, 1951) is an American contemporary classical composer, multi-instrumentalist, and performer. A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City since the late 1970s, Sharp has released ...

. 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 The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

. It also contains footage from his 1988 video of the Tompkins Square Park Police Riot.

Art Videography

A Place to Hide
1985
A Human Tube
1985–86 with

Free Society
1988
Man with a Video Camera (Fuck Vertov)
1989
Reverse Big Brother & Home(Less) is Where the Revolution is
1990
By Any Means Necessary
1990

Fashion Video

Between the years 1984 to 1997, Garrin was among the pioneers in the field of fashion videography. He worked with a number of popular fashion designers of the day. Highly attuned to the arts, they hired Garrin because of his background in

, his experimental video works and collaborations with video artist

. Most notably were the designers

Willi Smith Willi Donnell Smith (February 29, 1948 – April 17, 1987) was an American fashion designer. At the time of his death, Smith was regarded as one of the most successful African-American designers in the fashion industry. His company, WilliWe ...

, Carmelo Pomodoro and David Cameron. Some of his fashion videos are in the collection of the

Fashion Institute of Technology The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is a public college in New York City. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) and focuses on art, business, design, mass communication, and technology connected to the fashion industry. It ...

Interactive Installations

Since 1989, Garrin has been working with interactive media, and developed three highly acclaimed works, "Yuppie Ghetto with Watchdog", 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 David Rokeby (born in 1960 in Tillsonburg, Ontario) is an artist who has been making works of electronic, video and installation art since 1982. He lives with his wife, acclaimed pianist Eve Egoyan, and daughter, Viva Egoyan-Rokeby, in Toronto, ...

, 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.
Border Patrol
1995-1997
White Devil
1992-1993
Yuppie Ghetto with Watchdog
1989-1990

Exhibitions, Reviews, Publications

Garrin's works have been widely exhibited and broadcast internationally including the Biennale d'art contemporain de Lyon, 1995–96,

Kwangju Biennale The Gwangju Biennale is a contemporary art biennale founded in September 1995 in Gwangju, South Jeolla province, South Korea. The Gwangju Biennale is hosted by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation and the city of Gwangju. The Gwangju Biennale Founda ...

, 1995,

São Paulo Art Biennial The São Paulo Art Biennial (Portuguese: ''Bienal de São Paulo'') was founded in 1951 and has been held every two years since. It is the second oldest art biennial in the world after the Venice Biennale (in existence since 1895), which serves as ...

, 1994,

Holly Solomon Gallery Holly Solomon Gallery opened in New York City in 1975 at 392 West Broadway in Soho, Manhattan. Started by Holly Solomon - aspiring actress, style-icon, and collector - and her husband Horace Solomon, the gallery was initially known for launching ...

in New York, Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal, 1997, Galleri Faurschou, Copenhagen, 1997, Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz, 1998,

Lehmbruck Museum The Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum - Center for International Sculpture is a museum in Duisburg, Germany. Sculptures by Wilhelm Lehmbruck, after whom the museum is named, make up a large part of its collection. However, the museum has a sub ...

, Duisburg, Germany, 1999, and has been reviewed in ''The New York Times'',

Art in America ''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It i ...

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...

, and others. Garrin's works have been documented in numerous publications worldwide including "History of 20th Century Art" by

Taschen Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by Benedikt and his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen. History The company began as Taschen Comics, pu ...

. 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 The ZKM , Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (until March 2016: ZKM Center for Art and Media Technology), a cultural institution, was founded in 1989. and since 1997 is located in a listed industrial building in Karlsruhe, Germany, a former muni ...

, Germany.

List of Exhibitions

The following is a list of exhibitions that showcased Garrin's art videos and interactive installations: 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 1997 * Border Patrol, Galleri Faurschou, Copenhagen, Denmark * Musee d'art contemprian de Montreal, Canada * The Video Living Room 1998 * Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz, Austria 1999 * Lehmbruck Museum, Duisbrg, Germany

Honors and awards

Garrin was the Artist in Residence at the Berlin Videofest, 1990, and has received numerous awards for excellence including

New York Foundation for the Arts The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent 501(c)(3) charity, funded through government, foundation, corporate, and individual support, established in 1971. It is part of a network of national not-for-profit arts organizations ...

Fellowship, 1988; Special Prize, Bonn Videonale, 1988; New York State Council on the Arts Media Grant, 1990; Prize, Video Shorts, Seattle, 1990 & 91; Prix Ars Electronica, 1997; ZKM , Karlsruhe Medienkunstpreis, 1992. In 2001, Garrin was awarded the Cooper Union President's Citation for outstanding attainments and contributions to his profession.

List of Honors, Awards & Grants

The following is a list of awards Garrin received for his artworks and accomplishments: 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, Garrin eventually emerged as one of Nam June Paik's most important and longtime collaborators, working closely with him from 1982 to 1996. 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. These were exhibited and remain in the collections of major museums worldwide including the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

(MoMa),

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

Museum Ludwig Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from Pop Art, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It holds many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lich ...

, and elsewhere. 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.

List of Exhibitions

The following is a list of exhibitions that showcased Paul Garrin and Nam June Paik's media art collaborations: 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 Citizen journalism, also known as collaborative media, participatory journalism, democratic journalism, guerrilla journalism or street journalism, is based upon public citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, a ...

, Garrin's noted video document of the Tompkins Square Park Riot (1998) became iconic in exposing the coverup of police misconduct. Shot with a home video camcorder, the tape exposed through the media the willful police violence against demonstrators and bystanders, and became known as the spark which ignited the "camcorder revolution". 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. 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." The video of the police riot broke the story on the local television news and became perhaps the first instance of a

viral video A viral video is a video that becomes popular through a viral process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email.Lu Jiang, Yajie Miao, Yi Yang, ZhenZhong Lan, Alexander Haupt ...

in the days preceding the Internet. Airing on every news channel in

, the footage was picked up by other programs and channels around the world for many years to come. Pummeled by at least five officersand video-documented by

Clayton Patterson Clayton Patterson (born October 9, 1948) is a Canadian-born artist, photographer, videographer and folk historian. Since moving to New York City in 1979, his work has focused almost exclusively on documenting the art, life and times of the Lower ...

, a class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of Garrin. 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.

Popular Culture

The media notoriety of the riot video with Garrin as videographer is believed to have inspired the late playwright and then

East Village, Manhattan The East Village is a neighborhood on the East Side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is roughly defined as the area east of the Bowery and Third Avenue, between 14th Street on the north and Houston Street on the south. The East Villag ...

resident

Jonathan Larson Jonathan David Larson (February 4, 1960 – January 25, 1996) was an American composer, lyricist and playwright most famous for writing the musicals ''Rent'' and '' Tick, Tick... Boom!'', which explored the social issues of multiculturalism, ...

to create the character "Mark Cohen" in

Rent (musical) ''Rent'' is a rock musical with music, lyrics, and book by Jonathan Larson, loosely based on Giacomo Puccini's 1896 opera ''La Bohème''. It tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists struggling to survive and create a life in Lo ...

Community Engagement

Officially serving on the Cooper Union Alumni Association (CUAA) Communications Committee, 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" – a document of proposals to help restructure the Cooper Union to aid it out of the

Cooper Union financial crisis and tuition protests The Cooper Union financial crisis and tuition protests constitute the events surrounding Cooper Union's announcement that they would begin charging tuition after being a tuition-free school for most of its history. The possible mismanagement of ...

, 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 James Bamford (born September 15, 1946) is an American author, journalist and documentary producer noted for his writing about United States intelligence agency, intelligence agencies, especially the National Security Agency (NSA). ''The New Y ...

, criminal defense attorney Stanley L. Cohen,

New York Civil Liberties Union The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) is a civil rights organization in the United States. Founded in November 1951 as the New York affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, it is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan organization with nearl ...

Director Donna Lieberman, and independent journalist Paul DeRienzo. By January 2014, Garrin successfully crowd-funded the Cooper Lumen Design Challenge, partnering with non-profit Two Bridges Neighborhood Council to directly fund interdisciplinary student work for credit in the 2014 semester, all of which has generated positive media for Cooper Union.

Summary

* Represented Cooper Union as panel member at Ruckus NYC–a one-day conference and concert on art and the web, 29 September 2012. * Participated in the Law Affinity Group Pop-up on 6 December 2012. * Co-organized and hosted "Ethics, Law & Surveillance Culture" on 23 September 2013. * Successfully crowdfunded over 10K for the Cooper Lumen Design Challenge on 15 January 2014. * Represented CUAA as docent at the Ken Burns Charity Event on 26 March 2014. * Co-organizer of the

Peter Cooper Peter Cooper (February 12, 1791April 4, 1883) was an American industrialist, inventor, philanthropist, and politician. He designed and built the first American steam locomotive, the ''Tom Thumb'', founded the Cooper Union for the Advancement of S ...

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 The Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM) is an art and film school started 1990 in Cologne, Germany Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-m ...

, Germany, where he was first introduced to the Internet.

Name.Space

Formerly PG Media, Garrin founded Name.Space in 1996, an independent

(

)

registry Registry may refer to: Computing * Container registry, an operating-system-level virtualization registry * Domain name registry, a database of top-level internet domain names * Local Internet registry * Metadata registry, information system for re ...

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 A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...

market, and support the balanced interests of commercial, non-commercial, and political speech on the internet. Through online crowd-sourcing, Name.Space was the first to create hundreds of new Internet TLDs including .NYC,. ART, .MUSIC,.SPACE, .SUCKS and .GREEN, pioneering the expansion 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". In reality, there are no technical constraints preventing the addition of thousands of new top-level names to the DNS root. Name.Space's creation of hundreds of TLDs predates the formation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (

) which incorporated in 1998 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

case against

Network Solutions Network Solutions, LLC is an American-based technology company and a subsidiary of Web.com, the 4th largest .com domain name registrar with over 6.7 million registrations as of August 2018. In addition to being a domain name registrar, Network S ...

1997–2000 (based on the successful MCI v. ATT 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. Although Network Solutions got immunity from the antitrust law, 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.

held its first

generic top-level domain Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of eve ...

(gTLD) application process in 2000. Name.Space was considered in the top 10 "strong candidates" out of 44 applicants, 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. A number of ICANN Board members recused themselves from the gTLD selection process because of involvement with applications under consideration. 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. Nevertheless, former ICANN Chair

Esther Dyson Esther Dyson (born 14 July 1951) is a Swiss-born American investor, journalist, author, commentator and philanthropist. She is the executive founder of Wellville, a nonprofit project focused on improving equitable wellbeing. Dyson is also an ang ...

supported Name.Space's application. In her syndicated column in SFGate, an online version of the

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...

, 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.

Name.Space exists today as a social enterprise corporation and continues to challenge status-quo entities that it views as corrupt with a current lawsuit against ICANN.

WiFi-NY

In 2003, Garrin launched WiFi-NY, an independent, cooperative community

network that serves

and

. 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, 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 Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as ''Superstorm Sandy'') was an extremely destructive and strong Atlantic hurricane, as well as the largest Atlantic hurricane on record as measured by diameter, with tropical-storm-force winds spann ...

. Community leaders supporting the Cooper Lumen Design Challenge 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,

Chinatown, Manhattan Manhattan's Chinatown () is a Neighborhoods in Manhattan, neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, bordering the Lower East Side to its east, Little Italy, Manhattan, Little Italy to its north, Civic Center, Manhattan, Civic Center to its ...

East Village and other

neighborhoods, where many suffered after losing power after Superstorm Sandy struck.

Early life and education

Video & Media Artworks

Art Videotapes

Art Videography

Fashion Video

Interactive Installations

Exhibitions, Reviews, Publications

List of Exhibitions

Honors and awards

List of Honors, Awards & Grants

Paul Garrin and Nam June Paik

List of Exhibitions

Social Impact

Tompkins Square Park Riot

Popular Culture

Community Engagement

Summary

From Media Artist to Internet Social Entrepreneur

Name.Space

WiFi-NY

References

Further reading