Welcome to

this is my first completed video-synthesizer.

it adds the wave-forms of audio inputs onto the VGA output of a computer.
it can be patched in ways which turn it into a big, fast, and very noisy audio-visual glitch machine.

more over on project-page>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Originally by Administrator from rcrds on November 9, 2006, 4:20pm

Apparently there was a giant electronic hanging plant called bigprotochoice @ Ricky’s flower market Union Square Somerville, MA -

Modular sound/light sculpture which computes a lifetime of decisions. Designed to enliven union square during the coldest winter month. In more detail, bigprotochoice is an organic volumetric interactive light/sound sculpture in the form of a hanging wire frame sculpture. It produces an ever changing interactive light/sound show embodying a decision making organism responsive to acoustic input. Protochoice visualizes the myriad of choices one makes in one’s life, and this process creates an elegant, thought provoking and mesmerizing phenomenon. A metaphorical life form is represented as a spark that rapidly travels down the running lights. When a spark reaches the end of a board it chooses to go left or right to its neighboring boards continuing its lifetime of decisions.

Visually, it looks like the innards of a giant brain, a hanging plant, or a textile sculpture with a myriad of fibers and connections. Physically, it is comprised of 384 feet of 128 sculptural elements. Each element is a 1.5×22″ circuit board, with 12 orange superbright LEDS on each side and with two CAT5 connections on each end providing both structural and electrical glue. The boards are viewable from multiple angles and embody a dramatic spatialized sound system of 128 speakers/microphones strewn across a large volume. A collection of protochoice boards permit the construction of a wide range of wireframe sculptures and allow for exciting site specific installations analogous to custom flower arrangements.

ce - Link.

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Originally from MAKE Magazine on March 9, 2007, 5:06pm

the voice-coils and platter-motors in hard-drives can be used as audio drivers and (of course) audio pickups. the drives themselves already have strong cases, mounting holes, and other hardware making this a very quick and simple hack.

this experiment started innocently enough with audio echoes, but ended up pointing towards using resonating interfaces as video controllers.

>>>>project page>>>>

Originally by Administrator from rcrds on January 17, 2007, 12:49pm

alex_weber’s first Instructable is a cool one: an LED project that learns and replays sequences of light. Alex’s project is built around the Atmel ATtiny13v, an LED, and a Light Dependent Resistor-the whole thing is powered by a CR2032 battery. Link

Related:

• TRIKLITS - Color changing LED light strings - Link
• Homemade LED shirt - Link
• HOW TO - Build your own $10 light meter (visible, IR, UV…) - Link

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Originally from MAKE Magazine on March 8, 2007, 8:56am

Every 1st of the month is NYC it’s futon graveyard on the streets - here’s a good project you can do instead of tossing them, make shelves. Gorillapoop writes -

Turn an old futon into some sweet new shelves. Concept by Gabe Nathanson. He’s the original “suspension invention” inventor. This particular design/implementation by me.

Ingredient list:

1 per threaded rod
• Threaded Rod - i used 1/4in
• 1 old futon - or other shelf like wood
• box of washers
• box of nuts (both should fit the threaded rod)

Tools:

• drill
• dremmel - optional

Shelves from Old Futon - Link.

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Originally from MAKE Magazine on March 8, 2007, 8:44am

This ping pong ball light looks amazing and it seems like it could be re-made with a suspended wire or track lighting kit and some ping pongs.

Studio Make Light - [via] Link.

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Originally from MAKE Magazine on March 8, 2007, 2:30am

Brian has a great way to use a T-Mobile Dash as a high speed connection using Parallels under Mac OS X -

I have almost no complaints about the T-Mobile Dash. It’s small, it’s fun to use, and T-Mobile’s data plans are cheap ($30 for unlimited EDGE+T-Mobile Hotspot). But it’s got one annoying flaw: instead of Bluetooth Dialup Networking (DUN), the Dash uses Bluetooth LAN Access (kind of like a Wi-Fi access point, but for Bluetooth). For some reason, Mac OS X Tiger doesn’t support this part of the Bluetooth standard (there are reports that earlier versions of Mac OS X could support this through the Bluetooth Serial Utility, but that’s no longer part of Mac OS X, and I had no luck running the Panther version of the Bluetooth Serial Utility on my Intel Mac).

Sharing the Internet connection over USB is out of the question too. As best I can tell, the Mac expects USB networking devices to use something called CDC, but the Dash uses a Microsoft-specific protocol called RNDIS (I’m pretty sure I fumbled that explanation, so feel free to add more information in the comments). People who have gotten their hands on the unreleased updated to Windows Mobile 5 (called AKU 3.3) have reported that the devices work correctly with Mac OS X. But until that’s released, you’ll need a tricky hack to get this to work.

HOW TO - Tether your Mac and T-Mobile Dash with Parallels - /p>
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Originally from MAKE Magazine on March 9, 2007, 8:24am

Artist Malcolm Tibbetts makes incredible wood sculptures, mathematical shapes from exotic woods - Link.

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Originally from MAKE Magazine on March 7, 2007, 3:46pm

Peter writes -

At the installation “Weather Explorer Umbrella” s user can walk with a umbrella over a big worldmap - hear, see and feel the weather of a certain place of the world. The umbrella contains a small speaker, different color-leds and a handfan. A camera-tracking recognize the position of the umbrella with a red position-light. The weather data comes from the Yahoo-Weather-Internetservice, which offers XML-Files for many cities of the world.

The umbrella is connected with 8 wires (inside 2 bigger wires) to a Arduino-Board, which controlls the leds and fan. Between the Arduino and the long wire for the motor (fan) is a motordriver-chip (l293). It controlls the speed of the handfan (speed-values are from the Yahhoo-XML-Files). A white, blue and yellow led shows the weather-light-atmosphere and where the user is at that moment. The white led is for example for a flash (thunderstorm) or for snow, the blue light for rain or wind and the yellow led for the sun.

Programming of this project was written with “Processing” and “Arduino”. For the XML-import used I the java-library “jdom”.

le Interfaces WS 06 » Peter Woelfel - Link.

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Originally from MAKE Magazine on March 9, 2007, 7:40am

Mark Frauenfelder:

SimCity and Sims creator Will Wright is showing his new project called Spore, “a game which simulates the complete history and future of an alternative universe populated by incredible creatures.”

He shows how easy it is to create a 3D creature using body parts menu. It’s like building a Cootie bug, but you have many more options and control over what it looks like and how it behaves. It looks really fun, and once you put a creature together, you can see how it moves and fights. He says the process of making a critter is like “Maya for 8-year-olds.” Link

Originally by Mark Frauenfelder from Boing Boing on March 9, 2007, 2:59pm

I was introduced to Head of David by the 7 inch records that use to come attached to Sounds magazine (RIP). Of the big three British music mags it was always my favorite. I still have that four song 7 inch, but I can’t remember the other three bands. I’ll post that one if I live long enough. The HOD song was “Roadkill” (maybe it was live version) and I knew immediately that I had to get some more of that. That song is also on Dustbowl, which wasn’t their first release but it was the first for me. It’s produced by Steve Albini, which is usually a good thing, and this record is no exception. The sound is huge and heavy and still unlike anything else I’ve heard. The earlier stuff is good, maybe the later too, but Dustbowl is essential. My favorite songs are “Dog Day Sunrise” and “Cult of Coats.”

Long live Head of David.

Country road, take me home… to Asheville in the morning.

Originally from I’m Heavy Duty! on March 9, 2007, 6:59pm

Xeni Jardin:
Caution: This link will take you to one of the grossest historical artifacts I’ve ever encountered on the internet. It’s a 3D online presentation of images from an atlas of skin diseases, “consisting of color stereoscopic illustrations and a text in the form of clinical lectures, designed for the use of practitioners and students of medicine.” Photographed by S. I. Rainforth, M.D., of New York, and published in 1911. Also it may make you hurl. ( thanks, Soylent and Macki )

Originally by Xeni Jardin from Boing Boing on March 9, 2007, 8:22pm

Xeni Jardin:
My God, but Warren Ellis makes Second Life sound like a place where you’d actually want to spend some time. Snip:

..it seems that the Filthy Avatar Sex will come with consequences, and your cybershagging will produce a screaming digital baby that probably poops singing metal bat heads.

Link. He’s got a new book out, too, raking in some smokin’ reviews — Crooked Little Vein, can’t wait to read it. (via Warren Ellis‘ blog)

Originally by Xeni Jardin from Boing Boing on March 9, 2007, 8:10pm

a set of detailed pixel scatterplots of digg activity. the time of day that a digg occurred is represented horizontally, midnight to midnight, Pacific Standard Time. the vertical axis indicates story ID, with the newest at the top, & the oldest at the bottom. color denotes the amount of time a user has been a member.

some apparent patterns: submissions are slow during the early morning hours & evenings, people digg in stories in time sequence (or reverse sequence), & some stories are dugg only by new users (or, in fact, some stories are so strong people became members specifically to digg them).

see also bigspy & stack swarm &digg visualization & digg dot plot.

[link: stamen.com]

Originally from information aesthetics on March 8, 2007, 8:57pm

Great news, the long awaited Videogames and Art is finally out on the shelves, all 272 pages of it. Here's the blurb:

From Madden NFL 2007 to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, videogames are firmly enmeshed in modern culture. Acknowledging the increasing cultural impact of this rapidly changing industry, Videogames and Art is one of the first books devoted to the study of videogame art, featuring in-depth essays that offer an unparalleled overview of the field.

The distinguished contributors range broadly over this vast intellectual terrain, positioning videogame art as a crucial interdisciplinary mix of digital technologies and the traditions of pictorial art. They examine machinima and game console artwork, politically oriented videogame art, and the production of digital art; they also interview prominent videogame artists about their work. Rounding out Videogames and Art is a critique of the commercial videogame industry comprising several critical essays on the current quality and originality of videogames.

An essential volume for our digital age, Videogames and Art will be a fascinating read for players, fans, skeptics, and scholars alike.

Read on here for the bookstores stocking it. I believe it's possible to pre-order on Amazon also.

Big congrats to Grethe Mitchell, Andy Clarke and all the contributors. The contents look nothing short of impressive. There's even a bit from Rebecca and I in there too.

Read on for a glimpse.

Originally from selectparks, published by Pau Waelder

Originally from Rhizome.org on March 6, 2007, 8:39am

Inland Empire UK trailer (2006, 13.6MB, 1:53 min)

OK, so there’re the famous rabbits.
It’s only just come out over here so I haven’t
seen it yet but it sounds great.
The New York Times certainly thought so.
UK site
US site

Originally from DVblog on March 7, 2007, 2:00am

Some of you might like:

Spamtrap, created by Bill Shackelford, monitors an email address the artist created specifically to lure in spam.

This email address -or spamtrap- is never used for any communication, it is posted on websites and online bulletin boards that cause it to be harvested by spambots and then to start receiving spam. The spam filter is then adjusted to look for characteristics found in those confirmed spam messages when filtering out spam for Shackelford’s personal email account.

When a new spam email is detected by the (not very eco-friendly*) installation, it automatically prints it out. The printed email slides down a track into the shredder that analyzes it.

Video.

* the artist just informed me that the paper is recycled.

More Spam: Monty Python’s Flying Circus - Spam, First Person Spam, E-mail Erosion by Ethan Ham, SP4M. D0 Y OU SWA1LOW?, Spoems, Spam inspires dance-theatre show, etc.

Originally from we make money not art on March 7, 2007, 12:38am

March 7, 2007 Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) On Tuesday, March 6, French theorist Jean Baudrillard passed away. Trained as a sociologist, Baudrillard put his knack for observing society and its engagement with mass media to work as a philosopher. His writings on television, video, and electronic mediation placed him among the earliest writers to have been called ‘media theorists,’ and after publishing approximately thirty books and many more essays, he is certainly one of the field’s most prolific. Baudrillard pioneered the notion of ‘hyperreality,’ and his theories on simulation and simulacra are often employed in contemporary analyses of new media art. Baudrillard was also an active photographer whose art career was overshadowed by his academic celebrity, but whose creativity was nevertheless reflected in his writings on the ‘ecstacy’ and ’seduction’ of the media. While his writing on the ‘political economy’ at play in semiotic exchange leaned slightly toward abstraction, he was steadfastly attentive to the real. He authored outspoken essays on AIDS, the Gulf War, the Rushdie affair, cloning, and other politicized issues. Baudrillard’s more recent, albeit controversial writings about the nature of terrorism plumbed at contemporary western morality and boldly scrutinized the fear manufactured and perpetuated within networked society. He died in Paris, at the age of 77. - Marisa Olson http://www.egs.edu/faculty/baudrillard.html

Originally from Rhizome.org on March 7, 2007, 6:00am

Alyssa Wright, from the Computing Culture group at MIT, has created a fantastic performance/project called Cherry Blossoms.

The idea is raise our awareness of the civilian war deaths in Baghdad. Inspired by Paula Levine’s Shadows From Another Place: Baghdad <> San Francisco project which imagines the effects upon San Francisco, had the bombs which fell on Baghdad been destined for the American city.

m>Cherry Blossoms is a backpack that uses a small microcontroller and a GPS unit. Recent news of bombings in Iraq are downloaded to the unit every night, and their relative location to the center of the city are superimposed on a map of Boston. If the wearer walks in a space in Boston that’s correlated to a site of violence in Baghdad, the backpack detonates, releasing a compressed air cloud of confetti, looking for all the world like smoke and shrapnel. Each piece of confetti has the name of a civilian who died in a war based on lies.

Activated Boston Zones from Baghdad reported civilian deaths

Via edgy_product.

Related stories: Interview with Mushon Zer-Aviv, Baghdad in Brooklyn, What I Did Last Summer, and Vantage, a game about war causalities.

Originally from we make money not art on March 9, 2007, 2:09am

On Christmas night, Santiago Sierra (more about the Spanish artist and in particular his Holocaust installation) invited 8 anarchists to spend an hour at the art space Volume! in Rome. Wearing pointy black hats, they received 100 euros each to listen to Pope Benedict’s Christmas Midnight Mass.

Two Italian realities face to face…

The performance, called Los Anarquistas, is documented through B&W photos and a video. Currently on show at the Prometeogallery in Milan until March 27.

Via exibart.

Originally from we make money not art on March 9, 2007, 2:48pm