Welcome to

Originally from New Art on June 13, 2006, 8:45pm

I’ve already written about Zbig Rybczynski. Now through this great Portuguese blog about animation, I found Rybczynski’s Oscar-winning Tango.

Originally from New Art on June 8, 2006, 7:58am

Look at the history of performance art. Was it all in vain? All this suffering, the blood and the desperation, all for nothing? For an Art that is part of history now, that we look upon with a melancoly smile, like when you hear a child ask something silly? In
Who’s Afraid of Representation (shown at the Alkantara Festival), Lina Saneh and Rabih Mroué seem to look at it more like when you hear a child ask something impossible. “When we suffer, is it because we were bad?” “But what sense does it make?” And finally, our favorite: “But why?”
Saneh and Mroué seem to have decided: because of something.
This time, the history of performance art has to do with one thing: Lebanon.
In this version, the “historic” performances (of the likes of Gina Pane, Marina Abramović, Chris Burden) are put in the context of the horrible, painful history of contemporary Lebanon. Almost as if it all made sense. As if it were inscribed somewhere, justifying something, coming from somewhere further than art’s, or the perfomer’s, belly. Mroué and Saneh need this. They need to explain, to comprehend, to gasp the sense, some sense, in the history they know.
Is it true? The answer is neither yes or no: it’s representation. It’s somebody telling you something the way it could make sense. Because it has to make sense - otherwise it simply isn’t worth telling. Or waking up.
I suppose Who’s Afraid of Representation left many people unsatisfied. It is a simple scheme, easily understood, and dramaturgically modest.
I liked it. Because in its pure and simple game that linked a true story of a Lebanese man who went too far to the history of body art, it made me ask the naive questions.
***
Questioning conceptual art is good. Especially, when you’re able to give these concepts another life. Fill them with new blood.
***
And here is one for the specialists: How does a concept handle a history? As Hegel might have said, history handles it, over and over again. It doesn’t need to handle history.

Originally from New Art on June 5, 2006, 5:22pm

Here are some übergadgetry that may facilitate the visualization and manipulation of complex data sets while simultaneously fostering more meaningful collaboration. That is, of course, if your office can afford the steep price tag and have the space in the studio as well.

The TouchTable is “an easy to use display device that detects the location and movement of users’ hands on its surface to dynamically change a projected image in real-time.” And while standing with the design team, perhaps even with the clients, everyone can interact with the screen with simple, intuitive gestures. A shoal of hands and fingers recontouring swales and berms, rearranging town centers and Olympic venues, erasing entire neighborhoods with the fanatical zeal of a developer, and even plotting out evacuation routes during times of natural disasters. With gentle pressure and soft caresses.

But for something that’s immersive, try a CAVE, such as the one in the Electronic Visualization Lab at the University of Illinois Chicago. As the name somewhat implies, the CAVE is a “surround-screen, surround-sound, projection-based virtual reality (VR) system. The illusion of immersion is created by projecting 3D computer graphics into a 10′x10′x9′ cube composed of display screens that completely surround the viewer. It is coupled with head and hand tracking systems to produce the correct stereo perspective and to isolate the position and orientation of a 3D input device.”

If you’d like, have a look at this landscape architecture thesis in which a CAVE was used to design and code a virtual landscape of an Australian Aboriginal creation narrative.

For something that’s completely immersive however, try the Cube at the University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign. “The viewer/subject in the Cube enjoys a completely untethered visualization experience. A twenty-four sensor wireless Ascension MotionStar tracking system transmits 6DOF information from the subject. Active stereo is viewed through a Stereographics LCD shutter-glass system. Spatialized sonification is afforded each subject through head-related transfer function-generated sound, based on information from the Motionstar system.”

Anyone drooling yet?

(TouchTable spotted on New Media Initiative Blog)

Originally from Pruned on June 14, 2006, 12:23am

Miyagawa has released a hack to allow the Thinkpad’s accelerometer to control Google Maps. You can check the source out of his svn repository.

Miyagawa writes:

My recommendation is to choose Satellite mode, with the 3rd Zoom level. It makes me feel like flying in the sky, just as birds. Because of Google Maps JS library prefetching images, sometimes you have a delay (latency) moving, but other than that, it is quite fantastic.

Originally from unmediated on June 15, 2006, 8:06am

Originally from Smartspace on June 1, 2006, 1:44pm

The French ceramics manufacturer VBC offers bricks which incorporate waste treatment plant residue in the clay matrix. VBC claims that their eco-friendly bricks perform just as well as conventional ones. [via Frame.]

Originally from Transmaterial on June 4, 2006, 9:43am

Google Earth has released an update, in essence, jazzier and more hi-res, with a better UI. Or some such. But this bit particularly caught my eye:

"Google is trying to make all these tools more accessible to ordinary people and get them engaged in content," Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence said, adding that "the idea of a geobrowser is fascinating, as is the eventual merger of gaming and mapping."

Now, if only they’d make an actual announcement on a partnership between gaming and mapping. Really - can you imagine a MMOG that had the earth as the default map?

The mind boggles.

Originally from unmediated on June 15, 2006, 8:19am

Next week, the FCC may revisit the issue of whether cable providers will be required to carry every channel of programming transmitted by over the air broadcasters. “Must-carry” itself is not a new idea — for years cable systems have been forced to carry broadcast signals over their networks. When broadcasters switch to digital transmission, however, each will be able to transmit multiple channels over the same bit of spectrum. So, should cable firms be required to carry each and every one of these channels? The FCC said “no” to such multicast must-carry rules a few years ago. But that was under Chairman Michael Powell. Current chairman Kevin Martin feels differently about “multi-cast must-carry,” and may now have the votes to reverse the prior decision. (More on the issue here.)

This week, he got support for this expanded regulation from an unlikely source: AT&T. AT&T, you may remember, has in recent months been exhaustively making the case against another set of rules — neutrality regulation. The federal government should keep its paws off private networks, they (rightly) argued, warning that they would discourage needed investment in private networks. However, this week a spokesman said that, regarding must-carry, it had no objection to federal paws. “We’re more than happy to put this programming on our network,” he said. “We support multicast must-carry.”

AT&T of course, has every right to put these channels on their new video systems. In fact, the architecture of their IPTV systems makes this easy. But AT&T did more than just agree to carry these signals itself — it endorsed mandating it. This means that AT&T video rivals — traditional cable firms — would also have to carry multiple signals. For these companies, must-carry would cause more pain, since their bandwidth is more limited.

This unfortunate impact on its rivals could not have escaped AT&T’s notice. (In fact, since AT&T argues its video system isn’t technically “cable TV” at all, the rules may only hurt its rivals). And its certainly not uncommon for any company to use regulation to gain a fair advantage over its rivals. Yet, such strategies may backfire. As I wrote last year, that time criticizing the cable industry for similar behavior:

As anyone who’s followed telecom lobbying for more than a week or so knows, industry lobbyists routinely argue for policies that help them gain a “fair advantage” over their rivals. It’s probably too much to expect industries to support free-markets policies (however rational) when it conflicts with their self-interest. But it is puzzling to see them supporting policies that will end up hurting them.

And, I should have added, hurting consumers.

Originally from unmediated on June 15, 2006, 8:17am

Using cell phones and SMS messaging, TXTual healing allows people to use their mobile phones and SMS messaging to fill in the text of large speech bubbles that are projected onto walls and buildings. You can learn more about the project here.

(Thanks, Reevo)

Whoa!! –L.N.R.

Originally from Wooster Collective / A Celebration of Street Art, ReBlogged by LNR on Jun 13, 2006 at 09:51 AM

Originally from Eyebeam reBlog at June 13, 2006, 10:51, published by Lauren Cornell

Originally from Rhizome.org on June 14, 2006, 8:22am

La Evolución provides an exceptional lighting experience to enhance the ambience of a living or work space. These wall-mounted light panels measuring 50×50 cms can be used as single units or can be clustered together to create a striking strip of light. The panels are available in primary basic colours or bearing works of contemporary artists, designers and photographer to create distinctive panels. The light panels are hand-moulded and the surface is polished crystal-clear composite resin.

related links

La Evolución

Originally by Esperanca from sensoryimpact.com on May 31, 2006, 6:58am

a set of physical ambient visualization displays (a specific visualization approach that is designed to be perceived in the periphery of human attention) at Google Headquarters, showing real-time queries & their geographical location.
see also google activity map & google trends.
[flickr.com|via tecfa.unige.ch]

Originally from information aesthetics on June 7, 2006, 12:12am

Michael Fox spoke at the Game Set Match Conference a fortnight ago about his approach to teaching Interactive Architecture which he's developed through his time teaching at MIT's Kinetic Design Group, SCI-Arc, Hong Polytechnic University, the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and currently at Cal Poly Pomona where he is assistant Professor of Architecture. His practice Foxlin and his teaching-research called Robotecture explore human and environmental interaction and behaviors, embedded computational infrastructures, kinetic and mechanical systems and physical control mechanisms.

His students examine interactive architecture as spaces and objects that can reconfigure themselves to meet changing needs with a specific interest in physical and tangible change. For me this makes an ambitious and exciting approach to the way interactive architecture can be explored and reflects my own personal research and practice in tangible interaction.

In the past year I've posted what I consider interactive architecture to encompass and as you may have noticed, this reflects a broad and multidisciplinary combination of digital and analogue, physical actual and digital virtual investigations not just within architecture but across scientific and art based communities. Michael Fox's pedagogical approach to inspiring students of the potential for new forms of interactive space encapsulates a base foundation of a number of these disciplines.

“The teaching methods were carried out with a group of undergraduate design students who had no previous experience in mechanical engineering, electronics, programming, or kinetic design with the goal of creating a responsive kinetic system that can demonstrate physical interactive behaviors on an applicable architectural scale. We found the approach to be extremely successful in terms of psychologically demystifying unfamiliar and often daunting technologies, while simultaneously clarifying the larger architectural implications of the novel systems that had been created.”

Student began with a series of small investigations in model making cumulatively building up to incorporating engineering and computing components while supported by lectures creating a conceptual framework. “It is in this manner that the students' initial model explorations gradually grow in complexity, integrating first automatic functions, and later, more complex autonomous behaviors and lastly architectural applicability and conceptual insight.”

Michael Fox shows how interactive architecture doesn't require a degree in computing, electronics, and architecture just to get things going. The combination of simple practical skills from these disciplines within a conceptual framework is capable of creating something much more exciting than the individual disciplines would appear to offer. Over the next few weeks I'll be showing some of the projects that Michael Fox has run. Robotecture Website

Originally by Ruairi from Interactive Architecture dot Org on May 20, 2006, 5:23pm

a 4-projector system that displays images on a spherical screen. the Science on a Sphere system can display & animate vast amounts of visual data from the Earth, Moon, Sun & the other planets. the sphere is suspended by thin wires, so that animating the image data gives the illusion of a free-floating, rotating world.
see also 3d display & pyrotechnic display.
[noaa.gov & nytimes.com & noaa.gov(mov)|via slashdot.org]

(image source)

Originally from information aesthetics on June 14, 2006, 10:29pm

an impressive interactive 2D & 3D graph layout, which is capable of displaying large 3d semantic networks. the online system is powerful enough for the calculation of complex networks of more than 1000 nodes & can incorporate additional data such as images, sounds & full texts. the current dataset consists of a complex semantic network with all projects & people involved in Ars Electronica until 2003.
see also 3d network browser & vizster & pivotgraph.
[aec.at|thnkx Dietmar]

Originally from information aesthetics on June 13, 2006, 5:34pm

little old (1977), but still impressive: a short documentary film which depicts the relative scale of the Universe in factors of 10, describing the features of physical space between 10²⁶ & 10^-18 meters wide.
[powersof10.com & wikipedia.org|via kottke.org]

Originally from information aesthetics on June 12, 2006, 5:05pm

contextual pictures taken with mobile phone cameras, which include the alternative, otherwise ‘hidden’ environmental data dimensions (e.g. sound, temperature & pollution) as aesthetic visual parameters onto the images themselves.
in practice, a digital camera senses these parameters, & affects the image accordingly with artistic (~Photoshop-like) filter effects in real-time. the photographers are “not interested in having the contextual information available in raw data as a supplement to the image file, but preferred to explore the visual effects.”
see also sonic city.
[viktoria.se]

Originally from information aesthetics on June 8, 2006, 7:02pm

several remarkable examples of blending tens of Flickr images which share the same tags (e.g. ‘happy’ versus ’sad’, ‘winter’ versus ’summer’, ‘eye’, ‘circle’, etc.). the result is then saved as a new image. the original photos are scaled to match the size of the average image. color levels are adjusted.
similarly, favcol adapts its background color of its web page as flickr’s favorite color.
see also Jason Salavon’s playboy centerfold averaging.
[flickr.com & flickr.com & favcol.com]

Originally from information aesthetics on June 8, 2006, 4:38pm

Originally posted by fatcat217 from del.icio.us/popular, ReBlogged by eteam on Jun 4, 2006 at 01:28 PM

Originally from Eyebeam reBlog on June 4, 2006, 1:28pm

HTML to MIDI translation tool. Every page on the web will have a song unique to its composition code.

Originally posted by silent_g from del.icio.us/tag/art, ReBlogged by eteam on Jun 3, 2006 at 09:04 PM

Originally from Eyebeam reBlog on June 3, 2006, 9:04pm