__NOTOC__ Christian Wirth (born in the 1970s), better known by the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...

RaD Man, is an American computer

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

. He works in the field of ANSI art, a method of creating art using a limited set of text characters and

color Color (or colour in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, see spelling differences) is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though co ...

escape codes based loosely on the relevant

ANSI The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private nonprofit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organiz ...

standard ( X3.64: Control Sequences for

Video Terminal A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that can be used for entering data into, and transcribing data from, a computer or a computing system. Most early computers only had a front panel to input or display b ...

s and

Peripheral A peripheral device, or simply peripheral, is an auxiliary hardware device that a computer uses to transfer information externally. A peripheral is a hardware component that is accessible to and controlled by a computer but is not a core compo ...

s). RaD Man was initially involved with the Aces of ANSI Art (AAA), an organization which created ANSI artwork for a number of computer

bulletin board system A bulletin board system (BBS), also called a computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running list of BBS software, software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user perfor ...

s from 1989 to 1991. With others, he created the "ANSI Creators in Demand" group (also known as

ACiD An acid is a molecule or ion capable of either donating a proton (i.e. Hydron, hydrogen cation, H+), known as a Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory, Brønsted–Lowry acid, or forming a covalent bond with an electron pair, known as a Lewis ...

). Starting in 1990, ACiD released artwork on an ''ad hoc'' network of BBSes, updating a collection of art known as the ''ACiD Acquisition'' by sending a compressed file of all the completed work up to that time. By 1992, the increasing file size made this process impractical, and this led to the development of the artpack, where groups of artists (including ACiD) would upload monthly update packages instead.Hargadon, Michael A.
Like City Lights, Receding: ANSi Artwork and the Digital Underground, 1985-2000
" ''Concordia University'', March 18, 2011. Retrieved October 18, 2011. In early 2004, RaD Man directed and produced ACiD Acquisition Update #100, colloquially known as "ACiD-100, the final artpack released by ACiD as a group. In 1996, RaD Man founded the ACiD Artpacks Archive to collect the artpacks created by th
hundreds of groups
that followed in ACiD's footsteps. This collection eventually was transferred to

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

as ''Dark Domain: the artpacks.acid.org collection'' in 2004. Since 2002, RaD Man has worked as a historian and

spokesperson A spokesperson, spokesman, or spokeswoman is someone engaged or elected to speak on behalf of others. Duties and function In the present media-sensitive world, many organizations are increasingly likely to employ professionals who have receiv ...

for the

artscene The computer art scene, or simply artscene, is the community interested and active in the creation of computer art, computer-based artwork. Early computer art The history of computer art predates the computer art scene for several decades, with ...

, collecting information and

interview An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers.Merriam Webster DictionaryInterview Dictionary definition, Retrieved February 16, 2016 In common parlance, the word "interview" re ...

s with the artists involved, and creating reports and presentations on the lineage of computer art. Some of this work includes ''The ARTS'', a

talk radio Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. They may feature monologues, dialogues between the hosts, Interview (jo ...

show which discusses the many different facets of the creative computer underground scenes and the

Pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a travel, journey to a holy place, which can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life. A pilgrim (from the Latin ''peregrinus'') is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) w ...

2004 demoparty. In 2006, RaD Man became a member of cDc's Ninja Strike Force. In 2007, he co-founded Blockparty with Jason Scott, a North American demoparty. The event was produced in cooperation with

Notacon Notacon (pronounced "not-a-con") was an art and technology conference which took place annually in Cleveland, Ohio from 2003 to 2014. Notacon ceased operations in 2014. The name Notacon became a bacronym for Northern Ohio Technological Advancemen ...

and took place annually in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

, Ohio, from 2007 to 2010. In November 2009, ANSI art group Blocktronics paid tribute to RaD Man and his contributions to the ANSI art scene by releasing an artpack titled "Codename Chris Wirth".

External links

Interviews

* 1992
RaD Man interviews Ian Davis, author of TheDraw ANSI editor
* 1992
NOT! magazine interview with RaD Man
* 1994
Corruption magazine interview with RaD Man
* 1994
Distorted magazine interview with RaD Man
* 1995
Jonas magazine interview with RaD Man
* 1996
Beyond the Horizon interview with RaD Man
* 1997
.ANS version (original)
* 1998
Woezine magazine interview with RaD Man
* 1999

* 2002

for the independent documentary film, '' BBS: The Documentary'' * 2003
iCE.org interview with RaD Man
* 2004

(translated in both English and

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

) * 2004
3dluvr.com interview with RaD Man and Legalize
concerning Pilgrimage 2004 and the state of the scene * 2007

concerning Blockparty 2007

Speeches

* 2004
"The Art of Textmode"
at Assembly 2004, August 5, 2004 - August 8, 2004 * 2004
Jason Scott and RaD Man (ACiD) - 100 Years of the Computer Art Scene
Presented at

1, April, 2004 * 2005
Steering an Art Collective
at

* 2005
Beyond ASCII the Art of Textmode
at the DeviantArt Summit * 2007
T506 - Self Publishing in the Underground
at

DefCon The defense readiness condition (DEFCON) is an alert state used by the United States Armed Forces. For security reasons, the U.S. military does not announce a DEFCON level to the public. The DEFCON system was developed by the Joint Chiefs of Sta ...

15, August 4, 2007

Miscellaneous

*
Official page
on DeviantArt

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rad Man 1970s births Artscene Living people Artists from California Year of birth missing (living people)