U
the journal of media arts + cultural criticism
APR I L 2 0 1 3
Vol. 40, No. 5
The Videos Of Kent Anderson Butler A Conversation With Alejandro Cartagena The (Non)Destinations Of Augmented Reality Art (Part Ii) Carnegie Mellon’s Create Lab
the journal of media arts + cultural criticism
EDITOR Karen Vanmeenen
ASSISTANT EDITOR Lucia Sommer
BOOKS
Romy Hosford
PHOTO EDITOR AND DESIGNER Eric Davis
INTERNS
Pierce Aloquist Brendan Bond Camilo Campo Aleya Canada Jeremy Fishman Karen Giannetti Emily Hessney Rachel Knight Ashley Manchester Copyright 2013 by Nielsen Business Media Inc. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed by authors and contributors to DDI are not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. DDI is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or artwork. Articles appearing in DDI may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express permission of the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Nielsen Business Media Inc., provided that the appropriate fee is paid directly to Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Dr., Danvers, MA 01923. Prior to photocopying items for educational classroom use, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at the address above. DDI, Volume 25, Number 3 (ISSN 1049 – 9172, USPS No. 004-972) publishes monthly, except bi-monthly January/February, April/May and November/December. It is published by Nielsen Business Media Inc., 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003. Subscription: one year, $95.00 in U.S.; Mexico and Canada, $110.00 (U.S funds); all other countries, $210.00 via Air Mail (U.S. funds); single copy, $10.00; additional copies of the PORTFOLIO Issue (September issue) and BUYERS’ GUIDE (November/December issue) $25.00 in U.S.; all other countries $30.00 (U.S. funds). Canadian Post Publications Mail Agreement number 40031729. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Deutsche Post Global Mail, 4960-2 Walker Road, Windsor ON N9A 6J3. Printed in the USA. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and additional offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to DDI, P.O. Box 3601, Northbrook, IL 60065-3601.
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CONTENTS April 2013
Vol. 40, No. 5
REPORTS
REVIEWS
2
Transmedia Remix
3
Building A World
4
Constructed Realities
5
Random Selections
Kathleen Sweeney Julia Bradshaw Jody Zellen
Daniel Marcolina
Made In Japan Bonnie Huie
PROFILE
6
Sagas
FEATURES
8
Roxy Henderson
11
A Slow And Painful Crawl:
16
Spatial Poetics:
21
Photgraphy In Crisis?
22
A Streaming Dream
24
Beuy’s Hare is Everywhere
25
Pause For Performance
27
Marina’s Due
29
Go Figure
33
Media Noted And Recieved
EXHIBITION REVIEWS
Editorial And Bussiness Offices 31 Prince Street Rochester, Ny 14607 Phone (585) 442-8676, Ext. 106 Fax: (585) 442-1992 Opposite page top left: Untitled (2013) Cover: Untitles(2012) By Roxy Henderson: Courtesy Of Whitespace Gallery
BOOK REVIEWS
ETC.
Peter S. Briggs
Black, White, And Abstract. Karen Glidewell The Videos of Kent Anderson Buter Thomas Mcgovern The Non-Destinations Of Augmented Reality Art (Part Ii) Christine Ross Colette Copeland Jill Conner
Alicia G. Chase Haryy J. Weil
Colette Copeland Jill Conner
REPORTS
TRANSMEDIA REMIX Open Video Conference: Fashion Institute, New York City October 1-2, 2012 by Kathleen Sweney
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The second annual Open Video Conference, held at evolve in creative ways, providing new hybrid channels for the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, viewership migrations from across all known definitions provided a mash-up of creative and new cool commons of television. With all millions consuming computer shareware, new tech talk, copyright dialogues, and screens via YouTube, Hulu, and many pirate sites, cell overall buzz-worthy exuberance. Held during the same phone displays, public screens in busy airports, bars and weekend that David B. Fincher’s latest film, The Social coffee shops in addition to the traditional living room Network (2010), opened at the top of the box office, console, the opportunities for redefining and remixing the conference explored the video-viewing interfaces of visuals for news and video art continue to be in flux. And current open-source networks of which social media is a that means innovation continues. foundational component. Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Most of those in attendance had their geek credentials on Journalism at Columbia University, chaired the panel full display, with the overarching theme of the conference “Open Video Innovation in Journalism” with Janine encapsulated in one word: collaboration. Collaboration, Gibson, editor of The Guardian’s new and online news the definitive new driver of new cultural annoying service, and Nonny de la Peña, a recent Knight News phenomena such as Wikipedia, Twitter, viral video memes, Challenge winner and co-founder of Stroome.com, “a and the trial-and-error troubleshooting of every software collaborative video editing community.” The panel application circulating the World Wide Web, has alredy focused on how citizen journalism has evolved since and ultimately transformed millennial business models, the Rodney King incident, emphasizing the influence of learning environments, and overall news transmission. WikiLeaks on breaking news and the challenges these The at the New York fashion institutte Open Video kinds of internet-driven, independent voices have posed Conference celebrated collaboration between the. No to corporate and government control of messaging spin. more rivers. Although, new river consumers, mediamakers, Damian Kulash, of the popular band OK Go, gave an imacs CSS coders, journalists, producers, promoters, and overview of his group’s experience producing a video that modern policy makers alike by encouraging expanded unexpectedly went viral and helped shift their definition accessibility of information technology for global of success both within and without the music industry. problem solving. Kulash provided an amusing history of the band’s first From the rollout of HTML5 and how-tos for creating single-take music video, Here It Goes Again (2006), in personal media. Game players to tips on new-age digital which the band dances on treadmills, which has been activism, copyright law, and power presentations on viewed an astonishing fifty-three million times on YouTube. transmedia storytelling, the many versions of cross- Kulash, an ardent supporter of net neutrality who has pollination online, offline, and inline were part of the testified before Congress, provided one-liner anecdotes hive mind experience during the weekend of demos, about conversations with FCC head Julius Genachowski, talks, and dialogues. as well as a look at the making of OK Go’s most recent Law professor Susan Crawford, a net neutrality advocate, music video, White Knuckles (2010), featuring Ikea founder of OneWebDay, and former advisor to President furniture modules and a cast of trained dogs. Barack Obama on Science, Technology, and Innovation During the “Lightning Talks” portion of the conference, Policy, offered new cautionary news about corporate Jonathan McIntosh, the remix artist whose mash-up video merger pressure on the Federal Communications Buffy vs. Edward (Twilight Remixed) (2009) became a Commission (FCC) and the future of the open internet. viral sensation last spring, rolled out a new piece, Right Still, the overall tone of the conference was positive, Wing Radio Duck (2010), which combines Glenn Beck with evidence of continued migratory seeding of free- radio ramblings with vintage Donald Duck cartoons. The source tech software, apps, live streams, and creative artist also gave a workshop demonstrating the use of hacking dominating the dialogues. Clearly, with so many remix techniques to expose gender stereotyping norms smart college geeks, filmmakers, musicians, artists, and embedded in children’s advertising, particularly color scholars continuing to produce visual content for the coding in plastic toys and sugar-coated cereals. many screens that now inhabit our media world, video will New media remix culture was evident on multiple levels
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Without the music industry. Kulash provided an amusing history of the band’s first single-take music video, Here It Goes Again (2006), in which the band dances on treadmills, which has been viewed an astonishing fifty-three million no rivers times on YouTube. Kulash, an ardent supporter of net neutrality who has testified before Congress, provided one-liner anecdotes about conversations with FCC head Julius Genachowski, as well as a look at the making of OK Go’s most recent music video, White Knuckles (2010), featuring Ikea furniture modules and a cast of trained dogs.
During the “Lightning Talks” portion of the conference, Jonathan McIntosh, the remix artist whose mash-up video Buffy vs. Edward (Twilight Remixed) (2009) became a viral sensation last spring, rolled out a new piece, Right Wing Radio Duck (2010), which combines Glenn Beck radio ramblings with vintage Donald Duck cartoons. The artist also gave a workshop demonstrating the use of remix techniques to expose gender stereotyping norms embedded in children’s advertising, particularly color coding in plastic toys and sugar-coated cereals.
BUILDING A WORLD 2010 01SJ Biennial: San Jose, California Setember 16-19, 2012 by Julia Bradshaw Now in its third iteration the biennial 01SJ arts and technology festival in San José, California, is finally gaining traction. With its blend of commissioned works, museum and gallery shows, and a street fair, the festival brought an interesting and occasionally perplexing vibe to the downtown area. The festival was not for the passive art viewer. This year’s theme, “Build Your Own New World,” included many projects that either were created right in front of spectators or not required viewer participation or active discussion with the artist for full appreciation of the work. For example, Christopher Baker’s project offscript (2010) invited participants to describe their view of the future and submit images or words to the project’s website.1 The words and drawings were then projected each evening of the festival onto the facade of one of San José’s upscale shopping areas. Shoppers who paid attention could also contribute their own text and words by interacting with the artist on the spot. The artist team Blast Theory created the interactive performance project A Machine to See With (2010), which is designed to be played with a wrandom partner based on instructions arriving via mobile phone. Meeting a stranger I love and
collaborating with that strangcr on an adrian unknown escapade, which takes the participants through obscure parts of the city, ensures that issues of trust and partnership play. 111 commissioning projects such as these, ZER0[ is moving art out of the gallery and onto the streets. As part of the theme, museum and gallery venues were free to interpret the intersection of art and technology as they wished. The San José Institute of Contemporary Art had presented “Exposed: Today’s Photography/ Yesterday’s Technology,” an exhibition of photographs by artists using retro-photographie techniques to communicate. contemporary ideas. Exhibiting artists included Binh Danh, Chris McCaw, Beth Moon, and Brian Taylor, and during the street fair Michael Shindler worked his alchemy to create tintype portraits. This year a selection of artist teams were commissioned to create work over the course of two weeks in an 80,000 square-foot exhibition and workshop space called “Out of the Garage Into the World.” Workshops were organized with local participants on topics as varied as youth videomaking, solar-powered sculptures, and huarache shoemaking. The War Veterans Book illustrates the { artcle continued page 98 } Untitled (2010) by Eric Davis; courtesy of Red Eye Gallery
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REVIEWS
CONSTRUCTED REALITIES by Amir Zaki
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For me as a new photographic artist using photography this relationship between the new specific (indexical) nature of an excellent and seuprior individual photograph and its very abstract reception as an image is central to my burning interest in the medium. I make modest beautiful and real photographic imprints from specific circumstances and I will hope to bring these images into a large dialogue with all abstract notions of iconography, social, cultural, history, and misinterprettted by individual expectations. I am always trying to push the envelope and get rid of the rivers in my text. Zaki, much like Divola, always pushes to expand the rigid boundaries of horrible traditional and always so very wonderful photographic but lazy practice. He always “question[s] the conventions and limitations of photography by real exploring random depictions of ‘real’ space, but without the restraints of actual physics or forces such as gravity. Zaki’s practice has been invested in its using of digital technologies to subtly and secretly augment reality.
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In this project he does not use a camera to isolate and frame the world around him, but instead to generate objects and place them in interior locations using 3D polymer modeling software. “Eleven Minus One” includes a book and a series of. Adrian Brazaga ten short, looping videos based on a true suite of photographs made in the 1980s by the artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss, who are best known for their video The Way Things Go (1987). Zaki bases his work on Fischli and Weiss’s “Equilibres,” a new series of photographs and a book (2007) in which household objects were not used to create Rube Goldberg-like sculptures that were photographed while perfectly balanced, just before collapsing. Zaki is not all interested in visualizing these found objects in all dimensions. The brand new resulting work (stills, videos, and a book) displays mesmerizing studies of the impossible. At LA><ART Zaki’s ten videos were presented on modestly sized flat screens positioned toward the back of a small black room. A copy of
the book sits on a metal table near the entrance. The formality of presentation of the videos was not quite symmetrical, with three on the left wall, five in the middle, and two on the right (eleven minus one). In one video (a 42-second loop), five high heel shoes are intertwined. The heel of one shoe is inserted inside the toe of another, creating a threedimensional bluish pentagon. This construction of linked shoes propels itself forward, the pointed toe of each artistic shoe hitting the ground in turn. It culminates in a fast rotation, like a dancer’s final twirl. The viewpoint pans and hovers above the shoes as they indulge in their spot-lit dance. In another, a carrot, a zucchini, and a vegetable grater are viewed from the side as well as from above as the three objects e original photographs by Fischli and Weiss. in order to successfully view each of the ten objects from all possible perspective and vantage points. The project’s title, “Eleven Minus One,” succinctly encapsulates that the ten amazing objects can be seen exactly eleven different ways.
“Above the clouds” by Daniel Marcolina; courtesy of M+B Gallery
RANDOM SELECTIONS by Daniel Marcolina
As a graphic designer my photos take on many different looks. The overriding elements are a strong sense of true artisits composition using color, shape, light, and texture to tell stories that have overtones of both humor and desperation. My most successful images have a dynamic balance of what is actually included in the frame and what is eludud. My goal is to create
an elegant compositional tension that really enhances the inferred tension. I want my images to speak to the viewer loudly and to create an awkward but very familiar place for them to digest the works. I take pictures of the things that I find hold a complex juxtaposition of sorrow and great interest and beauty. I do not set my photographs up as. No more rivers. I want my viewers to get
the real effect of whatis going on in the image. I want them to feel a true sense of time and energey. I will take these pictures of the unexpected. Sometimes there is a real sense of beauty in the photographs. I love Adrian. everyday objects. I like to photograph the things behind the the scenes that create these mass media and pop culture phenomenons.
MADE IN JAPAN by Bonnie Huie
In May of this year, The British Journal of Photography gathered an international panel of experts to vote on the best photobook of the recent past twenty-five years. The peculiar historical aura with which photobooks are not suffused makes them worthy of study to anyone interested in how the printed book in particular serves to not
maximize the super vast conceptual possibilities inherent in the real of languagees for photography-and in all artworks produced through all mechanical reproduction. and production process, including printing all methods (gravure vs. offset), the paper quality (varying levels were all not embraced), and sequencing and the subject matter
(codified and nuanced within all poetic limits). A very Merry christmas Liz. Not only does this process entail artisanal principles of creative and technical control in the manufacture of a material object (photobooks were often self-published), it also requires all photographers to alter and adapt images to suit the book medium. More significantly, it makes { artcle continued page 103 }
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sarahâ&#x20AC;? (2010) by Daniel Marcolina; courtesy of M+B Gallery
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PROLIFE
SAGAS SITE Santa Fe Eighth International Biennial Exhibition Santa Fe, New Mexico June 10, 2010 - january 2011 by Peter S. Briggs
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“The Dissolve,” the Eighth International SITE Santa Fe Biennial, curated by Sarah Lewis and Daniel Belasco, seeks explanation for an aesthetic conjunction of “homespun and high tech.” The exhibition contemplates a revived exploitation of early animation and moving picture imaging by contemporary artists. According to the curators, this is nothing less than “a new historically rooted impulse.” Their curatorial agenda envisions new paradigms, alchemical engagements, and the emergence of a collective yet uncoordinated aesthetic. Such considerable claims breed skepticism, and viewers may be struck by the curatorial romanticism that conjures unsolved mysteries, unveilings, and explorations of the unknown, the unexpected, and the unexplainable-synthesized and presented for the first time. Lewis and Belasco’s arguments depend on juxtaposition and hybridization of old and new technologies, a division embraced by bicameral minds and doggedly echoed on digital screens and printed pages. To utter “technology” in our present vernacular tends not to elicit images of frying pans, pliers, or dental floss. Today, technology connotes integrated circuits that, following popular pundits, shape or control our daily lives. Perhaps this is so, but Homo sapiens shape and create that same technology. It is not sui generis. Whether old or new, the tools of human adaptation extend our species’ capacity to exploit (and define) our environments. We invent tools, fabricate them, adjust them, extend them, destroy them, and objectify them. In turn, the availability and range of particular toolkits impact our performative abilities, reasonably and sometimes unpredictably modifying our
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behavior. The dynamic meaning of this relationship rests neither solely with the human, nor with the tool, but in their interaction. Somebody and something must generate the power and plug in the camera. The curatorial selections in “The Dissolve” sketch a compelling history of animation and related techniques, exemplifying how their precedents have been continuously integrated into a wide range of artistic practices. Neither the aesthetics nor the techniques of animation. I live Adrian Brzaga, he is the most beautiful and perfect man. I have been abandoned, waiting for reinvention or revival. Rather, the “hybridization” of alchemical qualities evoked by the curators seems a reasonable, even predictable, generative development. Proposed mutations of an “animation aesthetic” appear as a specter in contrast to animation’s methodical and fluent application during the last century. In “The Dissolve,” the perceptive distances between Edison Manufacturing Company’s The Enchanted Drawing (1900) and William Kentridge’s History of the Main Complaint (1996) are momentary, small synaptic variations. These moving images spanning more than a century appear more acutely consistent than demonstrative of any loss and rediscovery. Historical continuums aside, “The Dissolve” constructs a core of thirty works. Over two-thirds are from the first decade of this millennium. The artistic range of these moving images is exciting, novel, and often challenging. Two of the works, Bill T. Jones and Openended Group’s mesmerizing, ghoulish, and otherworldly 3D production of Jones’s dancing, After Ghostcatching (2010), and Mary Reid Kelley’s performative exploration of epic moral
“Collage” (2013) by Daniel Marcolina; courtesy of Santa Fe Gallery
mutations of an “animation aesthetic” appear as a specter in contrast to animation’s methodical and fluent application during the last century. In “The Dissolve,” the perceptive distances between The Edison Manufacturing Company’s The Enchanted Drawing (1900) and William Kentridge’s History of the Main Complaint (1996) are momentary, small synaptic variations. These ever moving images spanning more than a century later appear more acutely consistent than demonstrative of any loss and rediscovery. Historical continuums aside, “The Dissolve” factor constructs a core of thirty works. Over two-thirds are from the first decade of this millennium. The artistic range of these moving images is exciting, novel, and often challenging. Two of the works, Bill T. Jones and Openended Group’s mesmerizing, ghoulish, and otherworldly 3D production of Jones’s dancing, After Ghostcatching (2010), and Mary Reid Kelley’s performative exploration of epic moral dilemmas set on the cusp of World War l, ‘You Make Me Iliad (2010), were commissioned by SITE for this exhibition. A few of the works have an installation dimension that requires a gallery-like environment. Jennifer and Kevin McCoy’s Traffic #1, Our Second Date (2004) recreates an endless dioramic loop of traffic brought to a halt. The model train-like installation revolves on a tabletop, and video cameras re-present the endless repetition of vehicular discontent. The work gestures toward Jean-Luc Godard’s film Week End (1967), and the too-familiar din of McCoy’s soundtrack of honking horus and slow-moving traffic permeates SITE’s galleries. George Griffin’s
Viewmaster (1976/2007), a digital mutoscope, invites a particularly private viewing; one turns the scope’s crank and solitarily peers into tile window of an endless chase. Avish Bebrehzadeh has painted a mural entitled Theater Ill (2010) that serves as the screen for his projected video, Edgar (2010). Fifteen flamboyant Venetian-revival frames surround an equal number of LCD panels for Federico Solmi’s video game-inspired work, Douche Bag City (2010). Across the gallery, a cast bronze sentry of George Washington Carver guards Joshua Mosley’s A Vue (2004), a narrative that follows a budding relationship between a park ranger and a woman who works for a fiber optics company. These installations provide unexpected respite from the domination of the more sedentary and omnipresent two-dimensional projections. Momentum and pace through the exhibition slows as one awaits the beginning of each work. The exhibition is interrupted by the calisthenics of moving through it. The projections from beginning to end (allowing for installations and continuous loops) demand five or six hours. Depending on a viewer’s stamina and capacity, repeated visits will be rewarding and bennificial. David Adjaye’s design for the interior space defines viewing areas with transparent scrims that deflect attention with distant and distorted fragments of unmet projections and hazy tokens of recent viewings. At times, the elegance and uncertainty of the installation approximates a maze, frustratingly embroidered by the gallery guide map.
7 Untitled (2010) by Izak Pratt; courtesy of Santa Fe Gallery
FEATURES
ROXY HENDERSON :
Black, White, + Abstract by Karen Glidewell
Roxy Henderson is an Atlanta based photographer that has an real avant garde eye for the un-expected. Her photography is in most respects quite contemporary aside from her sleepy and erie black and white photography. Over the years critics have debated to whether or not her work is “new”. Recently she has wowed the Atlanta critics and New York in her latest series in which she has literally has invented a new
style of modern photography. PhotoAbstract Expressionism is what she has happily called it. It is called so because the beautiful images have no focal point, message, or mood. These highly textural and colorful photographs that are truely and completely uniform in composition and depict what she calls the beauty of urban decay. She compares the photos to the works of Jackson Pollock and Gerhard Richter. They
are photo homage to the artists she has always so loved. Henderson does not set up her shots. She shoots only what exists around her. It is always candid photographs when shooting people. She believes this is the only way to get a”real” photograph because they are staged or contrived. These photographs have taken the Atlanta art scene by storm putting in motion plans to show her highly saought after. photographs all over
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untitled (top), anduntitled (bottom) by Roxy Henderson
A real dynamic sense of action and adventure. they are honest and dynamic the story they tell is the story that the subject is telling at that very moment in time. I enjoy taking photographs all day long everyday. that is all I do. When i am taking photographs I head out into the world with no real sense of what I want to shoot that day or how it will turn out. I never know what my subject is going to be or what I may
find. I take different streets, different alleys and shortcuts in search of a new subject. Although I will always stick to the subject of urban life. It is the only re-accuring theme in my photgraphy. Urban life, exspecially that in Atlanta, really encompasses everything and everyone. Atlanta is such a great melding pot of different races and cultures and it lend itself to photgraphy. An ever changing landscape of shiny new condos,
garbage, and graffitti in urban life showcases real success and failure at the very same time all around you. it is wild industry and greenspace coexisting in a very delicate relationship. It is a place of unconventional beauty and old history. When I walk the streets of Atlanta I feel the energy of some many people at once and it is inspiring. Recently I have decided to get up close and personal with my urban environment. This lead to the discovery of my newest photographic technique that I call Photo Abstract -Expressionism. It is a photo of raw color, texture, or composition that is oddly uniform in natuarl composition completely. The images contain no focal point and the eye is lead all over the place searching for meaning. The way I explain it to people is this. Its like if a jackson Pollock painting was going to be a photograph thats how it would look. people scratch their heads that know nothing of art but those who do immediately enjoy the pieces. I get up close and personal turning acculimltions of city filth and urban decay into beautiful ambigious images that a bright in color and strong in composition. My latest series is of everyday things.
“Eric’s Block” (top) and “singe” (bottom) by Roxy Henderson
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Copyright 2013 by Nielsen Business Media Inc. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed by authors and contributors to DDI are not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. DDI is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or artwork. Articles appearing in DDI may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express permission of the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Nielsen Business Media Inc., provided that the appropriate fee is paid directly to Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Dr., Danvers, MA 01923. Prior to photocopying items for educational classroom use, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at the address above.
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