Welcome to

Cory Doctorow:

To turn off the Japanese “DANGERBOMB” clock, you have to connect the blue, red and yellow wires in the correct order. Screw it up and the clock plays an explosion noise. About $20, if you read enough Japanese to figure out how to place an order on Amazon Japan.

Link

(via Engadget)

Update: Gordon points out that Amazon will show you the page in English if you ask

Originally by Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing on February 13, 2007, 8:36am

Cory Doctorow:

EFF has a killer new set of stickers for sale — seven bucks a sheet — that are just the right size for laptops, phones and PDAs. At last, an EFF sticker for those of us who don’t have a bumper!

Link

(Thanks, Hugh!)

Originally by Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing on February 12, 2007, 7:20pm

Originally from Tinselman on February 13, 2007, 12:24pm

a large-scale interactive work for the entrance of One Arts Plaza, Dallas, as an exploration in the creation of memory & the idea of reality as perception. 2 high definition cameras record the edifice’s lobby activity, on a daily basis, during a minimum of 8 years. according to specific chance operations, segments of the footage are selected & displayed on two 9 x 9 foot video walls in 4 overlapping layers: 1 from the last 2 minutes & 3 from a distant time period. while standing between the 2 screens, viewers will perceive themselves along with “visual memories” of that place.

[link: www.lincolnschatz.com|via rhizome.org

Originally from information aesthetics on February 12, 2007, 10:33pm

a distributed web application allowing multiple online users to ‘paint’ collaboratively, using a physical wall as a common visual canvas. a temperature & a sonar sensor on the wall condition the visual expression & ‘visualize’ the physical condition of the resulting art work by determining the virtual color palette.

see also collaborative visual mosaic & pixelfest & gridlove & kollabor8.

[link: wallright.com|thnkx Luis]

Originally from information aesthetics on February 12, 2007, 10:02pm

a textual visualization that places Digg stories at the top of the screen as they are dugg. as new stories are dugg, older stories move down the list. the Digg count is listed in red. more popular stories have more diggs & causes larger “waves” to visually propagate through the other stories.

(one of the other Digg Labs’ tools, Stack, seems also updated)

see also the previous digg visualizations.

[link: digg.com|via webware.com]

Originally from information aesthetics on February 11, 2007, 3:57pm

The walls in my apartment are a little too bare, so today I ran around a bit looking for some nice framed stuff to buy. I’ve also been poking around the web trying to find things. And that’s how I stumbled onto the incredible James Brown poster below. I’m not sure if it’s available for sale; it’s the poster of the week on gigposters.com, a very cool site devoted to the art of contemporary concert posters. The site itself doesn’t sell posters, but apparently some of the designers sell their creations. I gotta e-mail the artist—he goes by the name Moctezuma—and find out if I can buy one of these. More of Moctezuma’s work is here.

Originally from panopticist on February 11, 2007, 4:52pm

Google just released an embeddable customized news bar for your site or blog.

In order to get this going, you’ll need to go through a quick wizard where you’ll be asked what you want news on, how you want the widget to look, and the URL of your site. Once these tasks are finished, Google whips up the code and you can put it to use. — Wendy Boswell

Originally from Lifehacker on February 11, 2007, 1:00pm

Google Maps has added subway/metro stations and detailed building outlines to some metropolitan areas.

The subway locations, visible in both map and satellite views, mark out metro stops on your map. The building outlines, which now show up in map view, give a nice added context to the map view by providing a simplified 3D representation of buildings. Both are relatively minor updates, but it’s nice to see Google Maps continue to grow in a positive direction. It’d be nice, eventually, to see Maps integrate with previously-mentioned Google Transit. — Adam Pash

Originally from Lifehacker on February 12, 2007, 3:30pm

The Slingshot monthly planner, a sturdy spiral-bound calendar, is a nifty activist alternative to the boring Day Runner or At-A-Glance. Created by the Slingshot Collective in Berkeley, the planner offers a reason to act up every day of the year, plus space for notes and contacts. Each page contains themed, hand-drawn sketches.

From the inside cover:

This book is full of art, humor, sex and madness because through these human things, we resist the cold standardization of a computerized, sterile world.

The back of the planner contains several pages of miscellanea, like instructions for making homemade toothpaste, a recipe for vegan chocolate cake, a sign language reference and tips for modern simplicity, cycling and what to do when a cop pulls you over. This one’s a great gift for your artsy, alter-pal who hates homogenous office supplies. — Gina Trapani

Originally from Lifehacker on February 12, 2007, 6:00pm

Wilfried Agricola de Cologne:

Call for entries
–>
Deadline 31 March 2007
–>
Theme:
Slowtime 2007 -
Quicktime as an artistic medium
–>
Cinematheque -
http://cinema.nmartproject.net
http://mac.le-musee-divisioniste.org
is the centre for streaming media in the framework of [NewMediaArtProjectNetwork]:||cologne - www.nmartproject.net, and will open in 2007 - Cinema_C by launching the new show, entitled:
“Slowtime 2007 - Quicktime as an artistic medium”.
Already in 2003, Cinematheque was exploring the artistic potential of the popular streaming videoformat
Quicktime as it can be visited in Cinema_B (access via the Cinematheque site). As Quicktime was undergoing a rapid technological development during the past years, it is time again for exploring the current state of Quicktime and its use as a medium for artistic expressions.
–>
Cinematheque is inviting artists, video and film makers to submit up to three videos in Quicktime format - originating from 2004 or later, preferably sized 480×360 px, but not smaller than 320×240 px, a maximum duration of 6 minutes and make them available online on a separate webpage for review and download.
–>
Please find the call, the regulations and entry form on
http://netex.nmartproject.net/index.php?blog=8
–>
——————————————
Cinematheque at MediaCentre
http://cinema.nmartproject.net
http://mac.le-musee-divisioniste.org
——————————————
powered by
[NewMediaArtProjectNetwork]:||cologne
www.nmartproject.net -
the experimental platform for art and New Media operating from Cologne/Germany.
.
info & contact
info (at) nmartproject.net
.

Originally by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne from Rhizome.org Raw at February 11, 2007, 19:29, published by Seth Thompson

Type announcement
Genre event, net
Keywords animation, social space, community

Originally from Rhizome.org on February 12, 2007, 4:14am

Unmarked Planes and Hidden Geographies is a sustained investigation of a fleet of unmarked aircraft that use the callsign “JANET” in civilian airspace. Operated by the Air Force, the Janet Fleet exists in order to transport workers to- and from- a network of secret military installations in the southwestern United States. Unmarked Planes and Hidden Geographies uses flight-tracking data provided by the Federal Aviation Administration to follow the movements of this fleet in near real-time, slowly building up a historical geography of the aircrafts movements over time.

Originally from Vectors Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular at February 12, 2007, 21:58, published by Greg Smith

Originally from Rhizome.org on February 12, 2007, 8:00pm

Richard Bolam has worked on a series of art works entitled Hyperscape (versions 1 - 5) since 2003 of which four are completed and one (version 3) is in progress. Two of the works (Hyperscape 1 & 2) use computers in small area networks to produce work in real time collaboration through the distribution of the work load. One work (Hyperscape 4) doesn’t actually network computers in a technical sense instead it juxtaposes in different ways the output of two computers running the same software generating an image. While the last of the works (Hyperscape 5) is the output of software creating a continuous image suggestive of a landscape (much like a Victorian Myriorama or Endless Landscape) spanning 182 print outs. Below are the works in some more detail.

Hyperscape 1 is a:

screen-based generative installation artwork that runs simultaneously on a network of compact Macintosh computers. One computer decides on the manipulations that are to be applied to the screen image and tells the other computers in the network what it has decided to do. The other computers perform the same manipulation to their own images. However, each machine has a 1 in 20 chance of ignoring the master computer.

Hyperscape 2 is an:

immersive soundscape, again using 8 compact macs. One computer instructs the other 7 to play back a sequence of musical notes and they obey exactly. Because of the unavoidable latency of such old networking technology it is not possible to synchronise them accurately. The artwork relies on this limitation to create an overlapping wash of musical notes.

Hyperscape 4, Landscape/Portrait is an:

installation of 2 networked Macintosh Classic II computers. They simultaneously draw the same generative artwork, one computer sitting in its normal orientation and the other on its side.

Hyperscape 5, space_scape

consists of 182 A4 monochrome inkjet prints mounted on foamboard. The images have been created by a custom-written software program running on HyperCard. Each print is a separate image but together they suggest a continuous horizon. The software varies the parameters used to create and images and the result is an infinitely variable landscape that maintains a similarity without repetition. space_scape is a site-specific work for Access Space and embraces the difficulties of showing art in a busy workplace.

Originally from Network Research at February 12, 2007, 15:06, published by Marisa S. Olson

Originally from Rhizome.org on February 12, 2007, 3:04pm

Tapes and tape recorders are good candidates for a virtual cemetery like Bruce Sterling’s Dead Media Project.

Artists and amateurs are already ensuring that these material witnesses of the 20th Century sound culture will survive. One of them is Harold Schellinx with his Found Tapes Exhibition Project.

Some years ago, the Dutch musician, sound artist and researcher started a tape collection by wandering through the streets of cities and suburbia, looking for leftovers, picking up thrown away tapes that otherwise would have been worn up by weathers and time to finally vanish completely.

The photographs of his findings provide images of loss that cannot be kept as such in a picture: Humans are often more attached to the fetishes of material culture, yet tapes are about sound – and so are some of our most important emotional bindings.

Accordingly, also Schellinx’ work is not about simply buying into another kind of ruin romantics. Even smallest bits and pieces are carefully collected and, if possible, sorted to be restored into what later may be listened to as memories from an almost forgotten past.

On the Found Tapes Exhibition website, one can not only browse the contents of these revived Frankenstein style mix-tapes, but listen to and download their soundings as well. And from time to time, the artist invites the audience to live performances based on the acoustic treasures of his collection.

Last week, following an invitation by Rinus van Alebeek’s “Kleines Field Recordings Festival” Schellinx has been wandering through the streets of Berlin, while parts of his collection were on show at two gallery spaces: Transitlounge (focusing on FTE) and at takt kunstprojektraum (art project room), where the artist will also be part of the “Acoustic Flux” show running from February 18 onwards.

Last Sunday Schellinx was part of the concert evening in the “Kleines Field Recordings Festival” series, dedicated to “Berlin Soundscapes”. Missed it? radioINCORRECT has caught up the sound stream and will send it this evening, starting from 8 p.m. CET.

[Pictures from the Found Tapes Exhibition website - Many thanks to Harold Schellinx!]

Originally from we make money not art on February 12, 2007, 3:40am

Wanna blow up Uncle Lou to Leviathan-like proportions without breaking the bank?

Lou might be a Luddite, but you’re not. So before you head out to get an expensive enlargement made, hit the web.

BlockPosters.com will turn any photo into a poster using the printer in your home or office. Tell it how many sheets you want to use, upload your pic, and seconds later it’ll spit back a PDF.

Hit print, piece together the sheets, and you’ve got yourself one pixeliscous photo poster!

BlockPosters.com
www.blockposters.com

p.s. Eagle-eyed Jojo Fans might recall the similar Rasterbator we covered last April. The difference? Rasterbator gives your photos a newspaper-like dotted quality, while Block Posters preserves the appearance of the original photo. Both are pretty nifty!

p.p.s. Hallmark Day’s comin’ up. (Typically a big deal over here.) If you’re still searching for the perfect thing, it might be a great time to start a mailable mosaic to someone you love. Also: Craft: Magazine selected our photo blocks as one of their Valentine’s Day projects. Can’t argue with that!

Link to this | Filed under DIY, Websites.

Originally by photojojo from Photojojo on February 12, 2007, 1:55am

Martyn Ware, a leading figure in electronic music and co-founder of Illustrious Company, is an extremely busy and prolific man. Last summer, the British Pavilion of the Venice Biennale of Architecture unveiled a sound installation he had developed to show Sheffield’s relationship with the world at large. Called 1:10,000,000, the soundscape and animation was projecting the British city as both magnet and dispora of people, sounds and virtual connections.

These days, he and a group of scientists and artists who work on the boundaries between music, art and technology, are touring Britain with his latest production, The Future of Sound.

Modified Toy Orchestra

The cast of this tour of performances and presentations includes Brian Duffy whose Modified Toy Orchestra electronic instruments are made from abandoned children’s toy; The Sancho Plan that use electronic drum pads to control animated musical characters; Scanner -aka Robin Rimbaud- whose device transforms background street noise into real music; Luciana Haill’s Interactive Brainwave Visual Analyser turns a person’s brainwaves into a composition, etc.

The Sancho Plan and Interactive Brainwave Visual Analyser

Besides, one of the best sound art festival in Europe, Cybersonica, will be presented by squidsoup, The Sancho Plan, Troika and Chris O’Shea (who announced the event a while ago) collaborating with Owen Lloyd.

Martyn Ware is presenting Audioscape, a sound system he developed together with Paul Gillieron Associates. Sound from up to 16 sources can be streamed, visualised as blocks on a computer screen, and moved about with a mouse.

Future of Sound showcases the “cutting edge of sound production and manipulation”. What is the audience for such music? Geeks? Fans of electronic music? What makes the event appealing to the general public?

Martyn Ware: It’s not so much about an audience for the ‘music’ as such - we believe that the general public are naturally very interested to get a glimpse of the future in all it’s many shades of possibility - we feature music, digital art, performance, ancient historical archeoacoustics, generative sound ‘toys’, gaming possibilities etc. in a rich mix of convergent art possibilities liberally laced with entertainment and a little bit of ’showbiz’. I don’t like the term geek - I think it’s yet another perjorative term for people who are genuinely passionate about their interests and care little for following fashion.

Electronic music fans will love the show, I should imagine - but it features many forms of music and sound.

How much inspiration can Future of Sound provide to other art disciplines?

MW: FOS is a showcase for many different collaborative art styles - so in that respect I know that we provide inspiration for people who may not have known or considered such lateral connections as we demonstrate.

Some of the practitioners whose work is part of FoS have collaborated with scientist. Is this kind of collaboration something new? Is there a tradition od such collaboration or does it merely reflect the fact that we live in a world increasingly mediated by technology?

MW: One of our guiding principles is a refusal to acknowledge the articial distinction between the worlds of art and science. Science informs art and vice versa - this is now becomong increasingly obvious to the general public but there are still many vested interests in both worlds who find this simple, positive, idea extremely threatening.

Can you tell us a few words about the Audioscape software? How does it work? What can the audience expect from the experience?

MW: The AudioScape software has been developed and specified by Paul Gillieron Acoustic Design with my help and expertise - for the first time it is now available to run on Intel Macs - the software allows up to 16 discrete soundstreams to be moved around at 20fps in any direction within the confines of the location of the speakers. This is a world first and will eventually revolutionise our listening world.

Scanner and Martyn Ware

Do you have any plan to bring Future of Sound to other parts of Europe? What are your plans after April 2007?

MW: We are very keen to take the event to Europe - so any ideas are welcome - feel free to email me on martyn at illustriouscompany dot co.uk.

We are planning to take the show to New York, Boston and Los Angeles

We already have a confirmed event at California State University Long Beach in spring 2008.

Catch up with Future of Sound:
1 March Goldsmiths College, London
15 March Royal College of Art, London
12 April Queen Mary, University of London.

Originally from we make money not art on February 12, 2007, 12:21am

I’m fascinated with games merging with productivity systems and general life online. Of course, I’m not the only one; I just found this ACM paper: “Out of the video arcade, into the office: where computer games can lead productivity software, and this post from March of 2006, “Passive Web Gaming: My New Passion” by M3mnoch.

This flurry of activity should result in a lot more games that we can play without launching big client softwares and signing up for demanding commitments. Appropriately, veteran web developer Andrew Wooldridge has designed a system for embedding bits of fantasy role-playing across web sites. Web masters become game masters, and surfers become players. Something I look forward to implementing with Passively Multiplayer!

Andrew calls his project “Itty Bitty RPG.” It’s a glimpse of web wide play; right now the gameplay and objects are localized to each site. Andrew says he’s working on a way to securely allow people to carry their characters around the web as they surf. Itty Bitty Multiplayer! He’s released the entire project-in-progress as open source and there’s a discussion group and code repository online. You could install an itty bitty RPG on your pages right now! Wow.

Originally posted by jhall from just in teractive, ReBlogged by yatta on Feb 13, 2007 at 2:17 PM

Originally from unmediated on February 13, 2007, 1:17pm

Alpha Mensae is 33.1 light years from Earth. It was enveloped by your light cone 5 days ago.

Originally from Light cone on February 13, 2007, 2:13pm

I am not making up this headline:
Tonight at 11, news by neighbors - Santa Rosa TV station fires news staff, to ask local folks to provide programming

“I have my own silly little term,” Spendlove said. “Local content harvesting.”

A true moment not to be in the process of hydration, for fear of
ruining a keyboard.

Yes,
digital sharecropping has many names.

Value-add via an uncommon echo:

http://www.metamute.org/en/InfoEnclosure-2.0

The hype surrounding Web 2.0’s ability to democratise content production
obscures its centralisation of ownership and the means of sharing. Dmytri
Kleiner & Brian Wyrick expose Web 2.0 as a venture capitalist’s paradise
where investors pocket the value produced by unpaid users, ride on the
technical innovations of the free software movement and kill off the
decentralising potential of peer-to-peer production

Not the least because of this paragraph in the article:

Graham’s characterisation of the “Amateur”’ reminds one of “If I Ran The
Circus” by Dr. Seuss, where young Morris McGurk says of the staff of his
imaginary Circus McGurkus:

My workers love work. They say,
“Work us! Please work us!
We’ll work and we’ll work up so many surprises
You’d never see half if you had forty eyeses!”

[Also remember
Nick Carr: "Web 2.0 provides an incredibly efficient mechanism to harvest the economic value of the free labor provided by the very, very many and concentrate it into the hands of the very, very few."]

I’d say something about the people who are cheerleading and enabling this
effect (links omitted out of self-preservation), but they have far more power than I do :-(.

Originally posted by Seth Finkelstein from Infothought, ReBlogged by yatta on Feb 13, 2007 at 2:28 PM

Originally from unmediated on February 13, 2007, 1:28pm

Henry Jenkins on quality in a participatory culture

Originally posted by iMakeContent from del.icio.us/imakecontent, ReBlogged by yatta on Feb 13, 2007 at 2:26 PM

Originally from unmediated on February 13, 2007, 1:26pm