mootpoint

Flash Website Intro's

2007-04-18T15:46:00.000-04:00

Flash animation has allowed website designers to create pages that give a more enjoyable experience for the common user. Now, with the ever-growing competition for clients, designers have taken Flash animation to a whole new level of entertainment. Ensuring their company offers the greatest design expertise and creativeness, many artists have been taking Flash and developing outstanding original pieces of artwork for the Web. This type of work has broadened the whole spectrum of Web site design opportunities such as, the introductory animation upon entering a Flash Web site. The introduction to a Web site has the ability to turn a browser away, or intrigue a browser into viewing more of the Web site. Much like film credits, introductory Flash animations have become an important focus for clients and their designers to ensure the public is offered an enjoyable experience.

Here is a list of many websites I came across that use Flash animation to its full capability:

http://www.nemodesign.com/
http://www.sisterface.com/
http://www.nike.com/nke6/v3/
http://www.yaltaclub.com/
http://ff0000.com/universe/
http://www.adidasyourworld.com/
http://www.theinternetwalk.com/index.php
http://www.theblackseeds.com/hifi.html
http://www.magicflutefilm.com/
http://www.greatpockets.com/index.php
http://www.air-atlantis.com/
http://www.derrickborte.com/
http://www.dvdomain.com.au/
http://www.extrememusic.com/
http://www.iconologic.com/ff2002/neocon/
http://www.wiiik.com/k-whaps/kwhaps.html
http://www.laserlines.com/
http://www.ltdesign.co.uk/flash.html
http://www.rezmultimedia.com/indexl_re.html
http://ripestudio.com/_index.php
http://www.sonicboom.com/
http://www.thephaeton.co.uk/universe/
http://www.webdesign20.com/
http://www.bradmillerstudio.com/
http://www.elisasassi.com/#
http://www.firstinspired.com/firstin.htm
http://www.goanna-webdesign.com/
http://www.infinitumdesign.com/
http://www.jonathanyuen.com/main.html
http://mysticmonkey.tv/
http://www.petgo.de/
http://www.stephaneguillot.com/index_uk.htm
http://www.suilen.net/

Presentation Notes.

2007-04-12T09:23:00.000-04:00

Since my presentation on the DIY or DIE Exhibition by Upgrade! in New York, my final paper topic has altered greatly. Originally, my topic was regarding the trend towards collaboration not only within net art but in the business world in general, as inspired by the book, Wikinomics – How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Don Tapscott and Anthony D Williams. The grand portion of the pieces in the DIY or DIE Exhibition were based on the principles of collaboration.
New media artist Andy Deck was featured multiple times within DIY or DIE. Upon examining his work, I was intrigued by the overall themes and messages behind his pieces as found on artcontext.net. The paper topic then morphed into Deck and likeminded artists’ battle against the conventions of modern mass media. Deck challenges the world to question the discourse and ideals thrust upon one by the media. He asks society to seek absolute truth rather than obey propaganda.

Some notable pieces and essays by Deck include:

http://www.artcontext.org
http://www.artcontext.org/cultmap/index.html
http://www.artcontext.org/art/03/artForPeace/
http://www.artcontext.org/crit/essays/adMission/
http://www.artcontext.org/art/01/startWars/
http://www.artcontext.org/art/02/box/
http://artcontext.net/progload/
http://www.artcontext.org/crit/essays/mall/index.html

While no longer pertinent to the paper, the links to the pieces featured in the presentation are:

Armstrong, Kate; Tippett, Michael: Grafik Dynamo!
http://transition.turbulence.org/Works/dynamo/ (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Catanese, Paul: Misplaced Reliquary
http://www.paulcatanese.com/misplaced/ (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Cerar, Maja; Freeman, Jason; Reed, Patricia: Graph Theory
http://turbulence.org/Works/graphtheory/ (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Christensen, Julia: Big Box Reuse
http://bigboxreuse.com/ (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Da Costa, Beatriz; Schulte, Jamie; Singer, Brooke: The Swipe Toolkit
http://www.turbulence.org/Works/swipe/main.html (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Deck, Andy: Imprimatur
http://turbulence.org/Works/imprimatur/ (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Deck, Andy: Panel Junction
http://artcontext.org/act/05/panel/ (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Freeman, Jason: iTunes Signature Maker
http://www.jasonfreeman.net/itsm/ (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Freeman, Jason: N.A.G. (Network Auralization for Gnutella)
http://www.turbulence.org/Works/freeman/ (Accessed February 21, 2007)

M. River & T. Whid Art Associates: To Be Listened To…
http://www.mtaa.net/2bl2/ (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Mandiberg, Michael: Oil Standard
http://transition.turbulence.org/Works/oilstandard/ (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Mazza, Cat: Knitoscope
http://turbulence.org/Works/microRevolt/ (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Microrevolt: Knitpro 2.0
http://www.microrevolt.org/knitPro/ (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Mimosa: muuuuuuu
http://turbulence.org/Works/mimoSa/ (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Neustetter, Marcus; Stern, Nathaniel: Getawayexperiment.net
http://turbulence.org/Works/getawayexperiment/index.php (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Stellingwerff, Adriaan: Eternal Sunset
http://www.eternalsunset.net/ (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Turbulence: Commissioning and Supporting Net Art for 10 Years 1996-2006
http://www.turbulence.org/ (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Turbulence: D.I.Y. or DIE: an Upgrade! New York, Turbulence and Rhizome Net Art Exhibition
http://www.turbulence.org/diyordie/index.html (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Ubermorgen.com: Google Will Eat Itself
http://www.gwei.org/index.php (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Unknown: Fallout, A History of Upheaval, Nicaragua and Its Diaspora
http://turbulence.org/Works/fallout/index.php (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Van Anden, Jason: Farklempt!
http://www.smileproject.com/farklempt/v/1/ (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Xurban Collective: Knit++
http://www.turbulence.org/Works/Knit%2B%2B/index.htm# (Accessed February 21, 2007)

Zanni, Carlos: Average Shoveler
http://www.zanni.org/average.htm (Accessed February 21, 2007)

anime film on the net and ai

2007-04-10T19:45:00.000-04:00

Slightly off topic, but an anime film came to mind when Amber did her presentationan 2 weeks ago If i'm not mistaken. She was talking about the net, and AI and the net being like an AI. Ghost in the shell is a movie that delves into these ideas. Can the web advance to a level where it manifests into a cenitan being. Although all fiction, as well as being packeged with explosions and bullets I think this film has some interesting ideas that are very postmodern in nature.
Plus the visual representation of the films are very impressive. the Matrix movies got a lot of inspiration from the first movie.

Ghost in the shell 1 (1995)

link

Ghost in the shell 2 (2004)

link

awsome graphs

2007-04-09T00:21:00.000-04:00

http://digg.com/lbv.php?id=1721690&ord=1

A great presentation about data visualization and design etc.

animations

2007-03-29T19:44:00.000-04:00

also, here is a link to this site with some animations that I thought were pretty amazing.
thought you guys might enjoy.
kind of cross the line into the advertising/design world further down the list, which made me think of them after last week;s class.

http://www.eatpes.com/bomber.html

notes from presentation

2007-03-29T19:42:00.000-04:00

oops. i totally forgot to post this 2 weeks ago after my presentation, so here it is.
amber

-Idea of a computer being able to mimic human thought patterns and processes.(interactive/non linear narratives?)
-Interactive narratives almost seem to demean the audience, by giving specific instructions, and making it appear that they have control over what they see, but in reality, it is all very pre determined, no matter how many variations are possible.
http://www.whoisflora.net/
-Internet navigation itself is the extreme example of interactive narrative, and the user has complete freedom over what they see. It is a narrative in the non traditional sense (Aristotelian model of narrative: beginning, middle, end,) There is no final destination, in internet navigation, just various degrees of focused vs mindless meanderings in cyberspace.
-This presentation is based somewhat on my own process of internet searching, (which made formatting it into a cohesive presentation quite difficult…but that proves my point)
-This tendency of computers to mimic human characteristics to become more user friendly is still of interest.
-Emoticons: Introduce element of paralanguage(non-verbal elements of language which convey emotion & meaning)in digital communication/sterile impersonal environment.
-First emoticon was made by Scott E Fahlman in 1982
http://research.microsoft.com/~mbj/Smiley/Smiley.html
http://messenger.msn.com/Resource/Emoticons.aspx
http://www.iit.edu/~jfas/articles/animeemoticons.html
- Emoticons all reference humans (generally the face) These uber-powerful machines (computers) still need human characteristics to be accessible.
-The ultimate machine, Human being. (2 branches: Singularity and Transhumanism)
-Technological Singularity: When technological change reaches such a rapid and profound pace that it represents a rupture in the fabric of history. With this exponential growth, technological growth will surpass human biological evolution.
Term was coined by Verner Vinge, in the 80’s. He predicted that in the future a form of “super intelligence” would take over the world.
-Computers possessing “human” intelligence/mimicking humans
Eliza: Created by Joseph Wiesenbaum in 1966. (Chatterbot, simple code, Mimics Rogerian Therapist.)
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/canon/eliza.htm
-Kismet: Programming a robot to show emotions, based on its surrounding environment.
Mark Napier C Bots
http://www.potatoland.org/
-Parallel to the idea of singularity is the idea of transhumanism: movement that supports the use of new sciences and technologies to enhance human mental and physical abilities. Nathan Shafer-parody of cryogenic life prolonging possibilities.
http://www.nshafer.com/
http://www.cryonics.org/
http://www.fm2030.com/ (Upwingers manifesto)

Surveillance & Sousveillance

2007-03-29T08:53:00.000-04:00

For today’s class I am looking at how technology is adapted into the praxis of Western culture, and the motivations that lay behind the use of particular technologies. Surveillance, and Sousveillance will be the focus of my discussion that investigates how artists are responding to this particular technology, and incorporating it into their artistic practice.

Steve Mann
Mann and evolution of EyeTap
http://wearcam.org/steve5.htm

Mann’s glog
http://eyetap.org/

Seat Sale: License to Sit
http://wearcam.org/seatsale/index.htm

Jill Magid
Surveillance Shoe
http://www.jillmagid.net/Home.htm

Hassen Elahi
Website & Tracking Transience
http://elahi.rutgers.edu/

Katarzyna Kozyra
Men’s bath house
http://www.katarzynakozyra.pl/mens_bath.html

Women’s bath house
http://www.katarzynakozyra.pl/womens_bath.html

Michael Mandiberg and Julia Steinmetz IN Network
Documentation of the couples’ long distance relationship through technology
http://turbulence.org/Works/innetwork/

Additional Links on topics of Sousveillance

Sousveillance definition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance

The Existential Technology Research Center
http://www.eyetap.org/about_us/etrc/

The Glogger Community
http://glogger.eyetap.org/viewall.php
Sousveillance Site
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/cat_sousveillance.php

Border Crossings

2007-03-25T12:23:00.000-04:00

This months Border Crossings (issue no. 101) contains an interview with Max Dean (the robotic chair which falls apart and assembles itself) as well as an article about second life. Anyone interested should check it out at the library.

user generated content, collective invention

2007-03-23T20:00:00.000-04:00

Here is the information from my presentation last week.

Wikipedia, Folksonomy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy

Wikipedia, user generated content
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_generated_content

http://www.noprogram.org/postcard/postcard2.htm
Postcard Performance
artist : Douglas Gast
500 postcards are being, or have been, mailed to people that are somehow related to the fine arts community. The text on the postcard reads: “This postcard is part of a work of art. Please tell me if you got it.” It then lists the artist’s physical address and email address and further indicates that “responses will be posted on noprogram.org.”
The website is comprised of an image of the postcard, a brief explanation of the project and a list of recipients including the date the card was mailed, name, occupation and, if one was sent, a response.
The postcard project was conceived in the spirit of the Fluxus movement, incorporating such ideas as social/political activism, chance, playfulness and the unity of art and life. It directly draws from and incorporates many of the long-established themes of mail art including, like that of the earliest works, and to a lesser degree contemporary works of Internet art, the deliberate positioning of art outside of the rigid art/museum/gallery system.
Those within this system, however, who will be/were unknowingly targeted by the artist to receive the postcard, are the ones who are, or will be, providing the content of the project, that of access (exclusivity), hierarchy (importance) and commercialization of art. Out of the 500 to whom the postcard is addressed, who will actually receive it, who will choose to reply and in what fashion? An analysis will follow.
The project does find its home within, and is certainly an exploitation of, the commercial space(s) of the internet and direct mail advertisement. The postcard is glossy, obviously professional printed and will undoubtedly arrive with several unsolicited offers for credit or other forms of "junk mail." The webpage is clean, inspired by the design of Google, and with the utilization of bookmarks or tabs, could simply be one click away from sites such as Ebay or Amazon.
Lastly, while the public exhibition of mail art has occurred numerous times over its comparably brief history, the postcard project deliberately takes that which is by nature private, mail and email correspondence, a physical address, and makes it intimately available to a mass public, a community of individual users.

http://philadelphia.placeinplaceof.net/
"this was lost this was found"
artists: J. Meredith warner and Jeremy Beaudry
"This Was Lost, This Was Found" marks lost items of clothing (textile) found on the streets and sidewalks of Philadelphia, especially in the Fishtown and Kensington neighborhoods. Small red and white arrows are deposited beside the lost items, pointing in the direction of the Coral Street Arts House. The CSAH building’s original function as a former Textile Mill is lost, but a new use for it has now been found. The process of marking lost textile items in relationship to the CSAH building connects the outside world of the city with questions of waste/reuse, loss/gain, and how to revitalize former sites of industry

http://www.mrwong.de/myhouse/
"MrWong's Soup'Partments"
406 participants
template for download
users create a visual and virtual community
cartoonish pixel art with each floor representing a users creation.
there are rules in participation:no anti-aliased images, no ads, no plagiarism, no animation, no politics, no porn

http://www.communimage.net/
"communimage"
artists: Casqueiro Atlantico Laboratorio Cultural (Teresa Alonso Novo, Looks Brunner, Malex Spiegel) in collaboration with Johannes Gees, and the help of Roger Luechinger, Gino Esposito and Silke Sporn.
A community whose interface accepts static images which assemble to form a giant grid of square patches. This project has been running since 1999. The electronic collage is reminiscent of traditional quilting circles, with each member bringing pieces of fabric, time, labour and stories.

http://www.telegarden.org/tg/
telegarden
artist: ken goldberg
Telegarden users contribute their effort in tending a real-world garden. The interface allows virtual gardeners to control a robotic arm equipped with a view camera, a pneumatic trowel for planting seeds, and a watering can. On the site users can choose to sow virtual seeds and pour virtual water which controls real seed and real water. Participating on a global scale to a local ecosystem.

http://learningtoloveyoumore.com/
learning to love you more
artists: Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher
Learning to Love You More is both a web site and series of non-web presentations comprised of work made by the general public in response to assignments given by artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher. Participants accept an assignment, complete it by following the simple but specific instructions, send in the required report (photograph, text, video, etc), and see their work posted on-line. Like a recipe, meditation practice, or familiar song, the prescriptive nature of these assignments is intended to guide people towards their own experience.

http://homepage.mac.com/joester5/accidentalmpeg/index.html
"accidental mpegs"
artist: joe mckay
Accidental Mpegs are a collection of short video clips taken by mistake. The clips were shot on digital still cameras when the photographer accidentally switched to movie mode instead of still mode. Holland Cotter of the New York Times said that "The results have the unflattering awkwardness of old-time candid snapshots and are just as funny and touching."

http://www.15x15.org/
15X15
artist: Richard Vickers
In 1968 Andy Warhol stated that; In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes. Using Warhols statement as a premise, 15x15 advances the statement into the 21st century; with new media technology anyone and everyone can be world famous....for 15 seconds.
Participants can contribute to the piece using a standard mobile camera phone that can capture video, and can send video clips directly from their camera phone using MMS (Multimedia Message Service), via email or upload from your personal computer to the online database.
In the 21st century art is being fundamentally realigned for anyone and everyone. 15x15 is a homage to Warhol, a realisation of the artistic utilisation of new media technology and the democratisation of art in the age of digital production.

www.perpetualartmachine.com
[PAM]
artists: Lee Wells, Raphaele Shirley, Chris Borkowski and Aaron Miller.
Perpetual Art Machine is a community for video artists, curators, writers, therorist, educators, collectors, and enthusiasts.
Perpetual Art Machine is an on line gallery and database of video art
Perpetual Art Machine is a traveling video installation.
The website feeds our installation machines. Both the database and video content work together at exhibition venues displaying works simultaneously and individually. The works play off each other, informing each other by association or differenciation, highlighting through the display system their individual qualities.
living archive, 1000 videos of over 500 artists from over 50 countries.
streaming video, database technology, large scale installation.
created in dec 2005

wikipedia, photoshop tennis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoshopping#Photoshop_tennis

http://kollabor8.org/
Kollabor8
artist: Corey Eiseman
Kollabor8 is an artists’ hub functioning as a collaborative art piece. Kollabor8 explores the transitory nature of Internet content and the capacity for spontaneous creative synergy between unassociated artists. Images and themes change quickly, with no outside communication or planning. Any given chain of images has infinite potential for change as each artist leaves his or her mark. Social commentary may become irreverence, or innovation humor. Kollabor8 invites artists to take and then relinquish control as their peers reinvent, destroy, or expand upon their work.

http://www.sito.org/
sito.org
promotes artists works, an art archive for people to publish their visuals online.
collaborative projects in SYNERGY.
online communities established with forums to facilitate mass communication between members.

http://www.thesheepmarket.com/
The sheep market
artist: aaron koblin
Amazon's Mechanical Turk is a system for harnessing the power of distributed human intelligence. Intended for corporate use, MTurk exploits the notion that certain tasks are simple for people and difficult for computers. The system represents an automated work force in which computer and human processing are intertwined. The individual workers remain alienated from the larger process they are contributing to, aware only of their simple task. This organizational format, typically implemented by corporations, tends to yield highly organized, efficient results for the purposes of targeted economic gain.
The Sheep Market is a web-based art project which appropriates the MTurk system to implicate thousands of workers in the creation of a massive database of drawings. From one simple request, submitted to the MTurk system as a 'HIT' or Human Intelligence Task, workers create their version of 'a sheep facing to the left' using simple drawing tools. The artist responsible for each drawing receives a payment of two cents for their labor.
Within the inspiration for The Sheep Market is the urge to caste a light on the human role of creativity being expressed by workers in the system, while illustrating the massive and insignificant role each plays as part of a whole.

http://transition.turbulence.org/Works/self-portrait/
self-portrait
artist: Ethan Ham
The photos in Self-Portrait come from a software search through the millions of photos on flickr.com. Using facial-recognition, the software seeks out photos that are likely to contain the artist Ethan Ham. Self-Portrait takes the mechanical process of photography and extends the machine's role to include editorial selection.

avoiding the storm

2007-03-20T22:04:00.000-04:00

This can be put in the data visualization category I guess but what I think is more important about this video is the context that the imagery is put in.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6886880938991195179&hl=en

The addition of music and a personification (antificaton?) of the little planes avoiding the storm shows how in a sense we can identify with information being presented to us. The creative use of such representations is a pertinent question for visual artists.

More Data Visualization

2007-03-18T22:00:00.000-04:00

I just came across another interesting interpretation of data visualization. This is a map of all the facets of science and how they relate. It looks like a deep sea creature!

http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/uploads/scimaplarge.jpg

and also, an entire book on one screen.

http://textarc.org/Alice.html

Game related information.

2007-03-15T16:35:00.000-04:00

Gaming:
Silicon Valley has showed us the computer and as well has developed computer clubs. These clubs were for a collaboration of people to have an open forum and more accessibility to computers. Silicon Valley is well known for computer clubs and the first club named Homebrew Computer Club involved members Gordon French, Fred Moore and Stephen (Slug) Russell. Hobbyists with programming and engineering backgrounds collaborated together to talk about computers such as the Altair 8800 that would later kickoff the personal computer. This group was close to the people at MIT who would challenge and ask particular tasks of the new computers. MIT wanted a program that would tax the limits of the computer system and as well have intriguing interface to an audience thus Wayne Witanen, J. Martin Graetz created the perfect testing grounds to push the limits of the technology, a videogame called space-war. Space-war was not very complicated however at the time it filled the needs of MIT.
Human Computer Interaction has developed extensively from space-war. Game consoles such as Colecovision, Atari and various Sony and Nintendo systems have puzzled and entertained us for decades. The founders of the Homebrew Computer Club were not ready for what was to come. The 21st century has shown us conceptual art using previous games and modifying them to produce art. As well a shockingly enormous cultural phenomenon called Massively Multi-user Online Role Playing Games or MMORPG. Sitting in a dark room with a emanating glow from a terminal, sounds of battle reach out to the very corners of the setting, this is where MMORPGs are found and played. The question that arises is are these people wasting lives or are they experiencing new ones? Hearing remarks such as, “I can not stand culture and would rather play an MMORPG then go to a bar and drink my face off” makes a person wonder whose morals are in the right place. This multimillion-dollar industry has changed the world of thousands of people. It has created an economy on false currency as an example the term farming is used to explain people who collect this online currency by completing tasks within the MMORPG and selling the “gold” for actually money. Is this industry as addictive as gamboling or is this only a pastime like playing cards? MMORPGs have also been subjected to modifications or conversions. These conversions are used as advertisements for the game, mockery of popular culture or even making personal videos from the games interface. A few examples you can find at this site, http://world-of-warcraft-gold.com/world-of-warcraft-videos.html as well an excellent display of gaming clubs can be found on an episode of South Park at http://allsp.com/s10/1.html that demonstrates the lives of MMORPG players.
Gaming has become an interface for artists to create unique interfaces such as fly-guy seen at www.trevorvanmeter.com/flash.html or modified skins, patches or simply changing the setting of Duke Nukem to an art gallery. These types of modifications are quite conceptual and each with different attempts at disrupting the way we preserve a game. This way of thinking is best exampled by Cory at http://beigerecords.com/cory/Things_I_Made_in_2003/mario_clouds_2005.html who makes a painting from the Mario Brothers Nintendo game changing an interactive experience into clouds slowly, endlessly drifting across the screen.
In conclusion the world of entertainment is still developing and will continue to do so. Where an individual takes this genre is up to them, to be lost in a world of pixels or to create something new from the old.

Gaming related sites:
http://www.gamescenes.org/
http://www.selectparks.net/rebecca/?Art
http://qotile.net/files/catalog/combat.mov
http://arttorrents.blogspot.com/
http://www.unr.edu/art/delappe.html
http://www.trevorvanmeter.com/flash.html

MMORPG related sites:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chc9DwDkWn0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMORPG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MMORPGs
http://www.mmorpg.com/index.cfm?bhcp=1
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000228.php

Free trail 3D animation site:
http://www.inivis.com/index.html

Data Visualization

2007-03-14T20:49:00.000-04:00

Hello everybody, welcome to my journey through data visualization! There’s a wide range of stuff here that I didn’t get to touch on in my presentation, so make sure not to miss anything. This is media delight!

The first attempts of data visualization I could find were pre-computer. Experiments with ASCII art, an early form of digital imaging using computer text and symbols, actually started on typewriters. http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/07/27/ascii-art-1939/

ASCII art relies primarily on computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1967. Since early computer printers didn’t have graphical capability, text had to stand in. For ASCII art, the formal qualities of data are of utmost focus. An image is made through the composition of shape, position, and weight of text, numbers, and punctuation.
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~mnaylor/ascii/
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/new.htm#new

There are also several ASCII generators these days: http://www.glassgiant.com/ascii/

Ben Fry http://benfry.com/

From our gaming class we looked at machine code art and the exploration of “what’s under the interface.” Ben Fry’s first ventures into data visualization stemmed from documenting the computational data used to process videogames. He developed a Processing applet to map the executables from popular Atari games. They’re beautiful. http://benfry.com/distellamap/

Here’s a similar pursuit into video game speak: http://assembler.org/

Jonathan J. Harris http://www.number27.org/

1) A characteristic of data visualization on the internet is that is tends to often contain a geographical element. We see a collapsing of distance and depth, and are reminded of our proximity.

2D representation: http://www.number27.org/work/maps/index.html

With hypertext data visualization becomes interactive and user relevant.

http://www.number27.org/work/maps/traveltime/index.html

Postal Map:
http://acg.media.mit.edu/people/fry/zipdecode/

Cabspotting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B05e9B5QLzY

US Flight Patterns over Florida
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0iAgNfc3dg

2) Data visualization with the aide of hyperlinks has opened up new forms of visual representation of relationships. Some things aren’t so easy to consolidate, and often things grow.

Ben Fry - the Genome Project: http://acg.media.mit.edu/people/fry/index.html
The sites I focused on in my presentation are here. They are all very interesting projects by Jonathan J. Harris, and raise several comments on the blogosphere. He has created search engines that scour the web for sentences and images from blogs that depict feelings. His interest is to “see what love and hate looks or sound like”.
(sites are in chronological order)

Understanding Vorn:
http://www.understandingvorn.org/

Word Count:
http://www.wordcount.org/main.php

Love Lines:
http://www.love-lines.com/lovelines.html

We Feel Fine:
http://www.wefeelfine.org/

His newest project was just uploaded a couple days ago! It appears to be a mind-web of topics and images on the web using the metaphor of constellations.

Universe: Revealing Our Modern Mythology
http://universe.daylife.com/

3) Data Visualization often focuses on habits and environments, and thinks about digital space like a physical entity. What would it be like to live amongst the data?

The Internet Environment:
http://packetgarden.com/

BumpTop Desktop:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ODskdEPnQ

These next sites are looser form of data visualization. With the Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) phenomenon there are more and more people giving in to their virtual lives. Many people tend to prefer the freedom of their online lives. A company is trying to cash in on this interest by milling items from the game Second Life. Essentially, if in the game you have a spaceship, you can have it in real life too- or at least a statue.

Second Life Milling:
http://www.selectparks.net/modules.php?name=News&new_topic=37
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/software/3d-printing-for-second-life-residents-174778.php

4) Another element I found pertinent to data visualization was that it often requires participation and input for a generative visualization to be made.

Hypertable:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8yFAS2GQQ8

The new Nintendo Wii has a revolutionary remote that can sense hand movement. If has two accelerometers, a gyroscope, and 3d location imaging sensors, so it can tell the speed, pitch, and location of the remote. Several programmers are interested in modifying the use of the remote it to make highly interactive applications. Those of you interested in interactive media should pay attention to these: they are cheap and have a bunch of very useful technologies in them!

Wii Control:
http://www.usmechatronics.com/usmgarage/WiiBot.html

5) The last thing important to data visualization in that there needs to be some sort of hierarchy. If information is too evenly spread compositions tend to be static, so data visualization often has competitive elements.

This isn’t visualization per-se, but if to see is to feel, then this is an interesting form of data visualization.

PainStation!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-tffzJNK84
http://www.painstation.de/

Hamster
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyG9mvkR0Ws&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Evideogamesblogger%2Ecom%2F2007%2F02%2F19%2Freal%2Dlife%2Dhamster%2Dvideo%2Dgame%2Ehtm

Lukas

loop investigations.

2007-03-11T23:33:00.000-04:00

hi.
these are the links of works i presented in class.
body language series
martin arnold
adad hannah
oscar guzman
oscar guzman x2
bettina hoffmann
kelly mark
if you are interested in my investigations in the loop, you can download my presentation notes.

annie

Off the Grid: The Creative Misuse of Technology

2007-03-08T16:20:00.000-04:00

Video Pool Media Arts Centre
Call for Submissions – 2007/08 Programming
Theme – Off the Grid: The Creative Misuse of Technology

Deadline: March 23, 2007

Contemporary culture is permeated by a fascination with media and trends in consumer electronics. Media artists often follow their own fascination with technology and its creative potential into uncharted territory. In an effort to free themselves from the technical and aesthetic restraints of conventional approaches, artists create new processes, strategies and systems for dealing with media. Technology is creatively misused and repurposed; found or antiquated media is reused and reinterpreted; and traditional approaches to media are hacked, bent and reprogrammed to create unique artistic results.

Video Pool is inviting submissions on the theme Off the Grid: The Creative Misuse of Technology for the 2007/08 programming season.

Video Pool invites submissions of:

New Media

Experimental Electronics

Installation (with media components)

Audio Art

Curatorial packages (with media components)

Video Pool’s 2007/08 programming season will include three programs specifically focused on new media performance and single channel film and video in the following three categories:

1. Machinima
Film and video made using avatars and/or video game environments.

2. Performance Lecture
Performances that bend the usual accoutrements of academic lectures – slide shows, power point presentations, video clips, etc., – to critically reflect on the form of the lecture and props used to support intellectual authority.

3. Camera-free film and video
Submissions may explore the range of camera-free image manipulation – from well established film techniques such as hand processing and optical printing to computer-based image manipulation in programs such as After Effects.

Submission Requirements
Due to funding requirements, primary consideration will be given to Canadian citizens.

All submissions must include:

1. C.V. or artist resumé including current contact information (address, telephone # and e-mail) for the artist/curator.

2. A short description of the project or video(s) including an outline of the project’s curatorial and/or critical objectives.

3. The project and/or video title(s).

4. Artist’s name(s).

5. Project/video year(s) of completion and city(s) of origin.

6. Project’s exhibition history and any other contexts in which the work will be presented in the coming year.

7. A statement indicating if the artist(s)/curator(s) plan to be in attendance with the work and if so in what capacity they would expect to participate in the screening/exhibition.

8. Support material: Please do not send originals. Video Pool will not accept responsibility for the loss of or damage to, support material.
- still images should be submitted on CD.
- Video support material should be NTSC and submitted on either VHS, Mini DV or DVD.
- Audio support material should be submitted on CD.

9. Audio, video and image list (detailing all accompanying work).

10. Please include a SASE if you want support material returned.

* Video Pool encourages submissions of projects that are already complete or near completion.
* Fees are paid in accordance with the CARFAC rate scale.

Inquiries can be directed to:
Cam Hutchison
Programming Coordinator
Video Pool Media Arts Centre
t: (204) 949-9134 ext.1

Please send submissions to:
Programming Committee
c/o Video Pool Media Arts Centre
#300 – 100 Arthur St.
Winnipeg, MB
R3B 1H3 Canada

Deadline: March 23, 2007
(submissions must be received by the deadline)

olia lialina

2007-03-07T18:52:00.000-04:00

Hi fellow class mates. Heres some links that you might be interested in regarding the artist i presented to the class, Olia Lialina. you should definatly give these a look if you are interested in talking about subjects like the commodity of net.art, institutionalization of net.art, narritve net.art in your up coming essays. she is also very interested in .gif files and using retro internet interfaces. she also writes alot about the good ol' days on the net. and how she doesnt appreciate corporations making everything user friendly. She experiments with internet function and language and hopes to build on it and its history.

all her work can be found here http://www.artlebedev.ru/svalka/olialia
and here http://art.teleportacia.org
and here's some notes:

Olia Liolina was origonally trianed as a film director in moscow, russia. she discovered the internet in 1995 and thought about using it as a new way of telling her stories. As Lialina became increasingly immersed in the web, she began to realize the medium's potential as a storytelling tool:

"At first I thought how I could represent film on the net. After some time I understood that it's not necessary to represent film itself, but if you can put your filmic way of thinking in the net, in this environment, it is more useful, more interesting."

her first work, net. cult classic, My Boyfriend Came Back From The War, is a conversation between lovers reunited after an unspecified war. The conversation unfolds as the user clicks on photographs and texts that have been strategically arranged on the screen. Depending on what the user chooses to click at what point, a slightly different story unfolds. In a 1997 nettime interview, she commented about it:

"It's my most successful work, but it is not a real net project. The fact that it can exist on cd-rom, that you can put it on a floppy and go to any computer and show it offline makes a difference "

In recognising this Lialina decided to create a work that was "as close to the Internet environment as possible." she then made Anna Karenin Goes To Paradise. Billing itself as a "comedy in three acts and epilogue," it stars Tolstoy's famous character as well as three search engines and two web browsers. This peice being specific to the internet because it is inextricable from it. i must apologise to all the tolstoy fans in the class for calling it a cheesy novel, but hey, i read the wikipedia article. (joking?)
"It was a story again, but a story which contained sentences not written by me, but that existed already in the net."

1999, Lialina created Agatha Appears, which is not only web specific but is also about the web. The work is about the meeting between a "system administrator," who was fired from his job, and Agatha, a woman from a small village. A story in which one of the characters is "teleported" or uploaded onto the web takes place. In one part of the story, the system administrator says to Agatha: "Internet is not computers, applications, scripts… It's not a technology but new world, new world, new philosophy. New way of thinking, to understand the net u must be inside…"

here's a link to a good example of her writing about the internets language and tring to build on it and its history. http://art.teleportacia.org/observation/vernacular/

"I think that many things from real life can exist in the net, many feelings, many thoughts. But they should speak the language of where they are. If something is in the net, it should speak net.language. "

her site art.teleportacia.org is her experiment in creating a net. art gallery. its aims are to show, sell and produce www.art. the site, as all good galleries do, has a current artisit in residence. she says that the museum is an experiment in selling www.art. that disregards the assertion by certain netartists and critics that it is beter for www art no to be profitable. exploiting the medium to its fullest capacity trying to create a compelling environment."

Olia also has a myspace account for her .gif files http://www.myspace.com/gifshow

so check her out.

ps you must look at this >>she and her colleges host a neato online webzine called contemporary home computing, which has a net article on gameboy camera. http://www.contemporary-home-computing.org/

Craigslist: The Movie

2007-03-06T15:48:00.000-04:00

Craigslist is a community website where people can post general discussion and classified ads - jobs, housing, yard sales, personal ads, and so on. It's been around since 1995, which is quite a history when you're talking about websites. Craigslist is divided into different areas, usually by city - for example, here's Halifax's Craigslist.

Last class I mentioned a documentary I'd heard about called "24 Hours on Craigslist," and I thought people might be interested in knowing more. Here's an article about the movie, and here's the official website. I haven't seen it myself, but it looks interesting - not many websites have been made into movies!

testerama

2007-03-01T02:00:00.000-04:00

ok. here goes apost , to see if i finally figured out how to partake in the crazy act of blogging....
this is pretty intense....and speaking of intense, here is a nice website with all sort of interesting things.
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/

Things I Noticed About Google Earth

2007-02-26T18:04:00.000-04:00

I was looking at Google Earth a while ago. And it seems as though it consits of a collection or collage of satilite photography, perhaps loaded into the goolge earth system, not unlike how Wikipedia is edited. Another thing I thought was interesting is how Google Earth is perpetually summer, not much snow anywhere.

animation vs animator 2

2007-02-17T14:55:00.000-04:00

In case anyone ws interested in seeing animator vs animated 2. Click on the link below.

http://www.atomfilms.com/film/animator_vs_animation_2.jsp

Most of the clips I showed in class can be found on newgrounds.com. The disney like animation was called the yuyu.

Interesting perspective on the Internet

2007-02-16T22:51:00.000-04:00

I found this interesting take on the history of the internet:

Soooo....

The internet was designed by the military so that distributed survivors (the military and key government officials) could survive a nuclear holocaust. Consider that the internet, then, is a stronger weapon than an atomic bomb, because it is designed to survive it (same reason that paper beats rock). Is there any wonder that myspace exists? Myspace is why the military invented the original Arpanet back in the 60's: so that the alienated and seperated zombies could find each other and procreate.

Given that the nuclear bomb is at least partly responsible for the alienating factors of antisocialist existentialism, the network as a means of existential survival and recovery is really apt. It's kind of like we are already surviving an existential nuclear holocaust that takes place in possibility only, went into hiding, and now the possibility of reconnection is bringing us out of our bunkers. (So, was TV a practice system for entertaining the bunker-based survivors? It's another perfect system- almost all of our culture post 1945 was based on convenience for the isolated and unconnected.)

Posted by Eryk

Baudrillard says that the nuclear war has already happened... I guess this is what he means.

Alien music interface

2007-02-15T12:36:00.000-04:00

This is a preety interesting sound manipating interface I found on the web.

http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/73241/Alien_like_Music_Interface_Part_1.html

Links and stuff

2007-02-13T23:05:00.000-04:00

Here’s some links to supplement some of the stuff I presented plus some more for fun but are also areas I’ll be exploring for my paper.

This video cleverly explains what web 2.0 is.

The Machine is Us/ing Us

These are the threads in two car forums that wound up getting some guy busted for dangerous driving. It can be followed or read much like a narrative, connected by hypertext and supported by various forms of other media put together by those who decided to get in on it, all the while being rather entertaining and very real.

“This is some really stupid driving…”

The original thread

“Some videos…”

Collab

"A full scale audio/video multiuser communication environment. Features text chat, shared drawing, and webcam video chat. The audio/video feature is implemented with Macromedia's Flash Communication Server, while the rest of the application is powered by Unity 2 and Coldfusion MX."

This wasn’t working in class but it should now. Just open it up from the right hand collum and your in it. Still very basic but to me it was instantly inspiring.
The real-time collaboration, interaction and communication seems extremely powerful and as this and other similar sites get increasingly immersive and sophisticated, new collaborative functions will create entire worlds of ideas and ways of working.

wannaspell

This is everybody’s favorite wannaspell, the online letter board. Don’t give up too quick if people keep stealing steal your letters.

Something I noticed is that the web has seen entire new breeds of collections emerge individually and collectively as people congregate over information. Whether it be a favorite top ten or a trivial obsession, music, video, pictures, stories and media of all sorts are naturally created and edited into categories generated by people connected by like-mindedness and the net. Here are a few examples I’ve noticed.

.gif thread. 800+ links to .gif animations provides hours, or seconds, of entertainment. Just press next.

http://www.newstoday.com/pv-an/view_comment.php?topicId=74436&showTitle=1

People playing the theme music from Tetris on keyboard…

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_videos&search_query=tetris%20on%20keyboard&search_sort=relevance&search_category=0&page=1

Doctor Who theme remixes…

http://whomix.trilete.net/?wmid=music

Kittens…

http://images.google.com/images?q=kittens&ndsp=18&svnum=10&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&start=0&sa=N

Browser Based Entertainment

I think this is just a demonstration of the file format .flv (flash video) with some loops, juxtaposing music and audio with video. Interesting enough to be a work in and of itself but either way it’s a good presentation of video online.

We Are The Strange

A feature film made by one guy in his bedroom (with some great sonic contributions I should add by Noise Inc http://www.noiseinc.org/ ) Clearly influenced by the mash-up of animation and video game imagery on the internet and made possible by accessible digital technologies, it’s possibly (another) first example of what is and will be possible in the future of cinema. On his vlog he mentioned that while he was at Sundance, where the film is an official selection, Youtube and other online video companies were the only industry people he seemed to see eye to eye on. Lots of hype and meaningless pictures but clearly there are new business models and creative ideas being brewed for the entertainment industry online.

'Mooninite marketing guys’

The infamous video. A testament to the savvy of modern day marketing. With some for sight they deflected the questions amusingly for the publicity and especially the video that inevitably would be broadcast on the internet all over the internet, ‘viral’ as they say, generating more and more exposure for a hugley successful ad prank and ultimately the cartoon that started it all, The Mooninites.

Some long exposure photography taken of some old school video games. Cool stuff.

http://www.rosemariefiore.com/pages.php?content=gallery.php&navGallID=12

gaming notes

2007-02-08T14:56:00.000-04:00

ABC national radio of australia has a podcast called "background briefing". one episode was about second-life and virtual money

here is the link to the transcript (the audio file is probably somewhere):
loot

also

we use the word hacking a lot. here is an interview with Steven Levy who formulated the hacker ethic in his book “Hackers - Heroes of the Computer Revolution”.
here is an audio file with him in interview
chaosradio

more interactive sound work

2007-02-08T13:00:00.000-04:00

by Ralph Ammer

The declared goal was to create six different interaction paradigms which deal with musical aspects in a playful way. In addition to that the instruments were provided with a possibility of orchestration to enable simultaneous playing.

play parts
synchron

sketching with processing

2007-01-25T12:59:00.000-04:00

Today I am presenting the programming language processing.

Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and sound. It is used by students, artists, designers, architects, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is developed by artists and designers as an alternative to proprietary software tools in the same domain.

"One wants, of course, to try out all the new media, not only because they allow for new possibilities within an art form, but also because they allow the traditional boundaries among those art forms to be blurred." Jacques Ellul, Remarks on Technology and Art

Technology is mostly used to help to fulfill well defined tasks and
ideas. However, artist often analyze and disrupt this pure utilitarian
approach to technology. Technology itself becomes the focus of
investigation, it becomes a material just like wood.
One of those technologies is software and its practice is coding.
It is not a new practice for artist to work with code. Until recently
though highly specialized knowledge was required to be able to
navigate and express one's ideas in the world of code. Coding
environments/ softwares were just too difficult to quickly learn and
use. That is one of the reason why artists and engineers started to
collaborated.

All that starts to change now.
As many artist and designers as never before are interested in coding
their own software. New software environments allow for an easy entry
in to the world of coding, entire conferences are revolving around
this subject and in communities people share their creations.

Most of us heard or used software like Flash or Director before. These
are easy to use environments to create interactive content but
problematic because of its slow performance and bulky relationship
between the artistic intent and the act of coding. Not to forget that
both are commercial products.
Java and C++ have a better performance but are difficult to learn.

Processing joins the simple handling of Flash and Director with the
clear coding structure and better performance of Java and C++.
Processing is written in Java and is very close to Java's syntax/
language. This makes it easier to switch to Java later on.

Processing can be downloaded here: http://processing.org/download
This open source projects is developed by Ben Fry and Casey Reas at
the MIT in Boston and at the Interactive Design Institute Ivrea in
Italy.

I want to talk a bit about the process of coding and the process of
developing works with code.

To work with code means to work modular. While developing ideas and
while realizing complete works one makes sketches. They help to
quickly visualize ideas and understand complex problems. Sketches are
a playground for the mind.

Successful sketches usually become modules, which are small coding
units. Due to its structure modules can be connected with other
modules through well defined interfaces (connecting variables). Once a
module is written by you or anyone else, it can be used again and
again without needing to actually know its internal structure. (You
plug in your question and out pops the answer)

The composition of many modules creates the final program.

To code means to formalize ones thoughts. A Software can not be
written with the flexible logic of everyday thinking but needs to
uphold to the rules and grammar of the coding environment. (Similar to
the differences in human language.)
In Processing, as in most other coding environments, each step in a
sequence of actions needs to be defined through instructions. A simple
analogy is the recipe for baking a cake. Recipes clearly describe the
ingredients and also list the steps needed to make a good cake in a
fixed order.

If ... Then ... Else -> If the cake turns brown Then the cake is ready
Else wait five minutes.

Repeat Until ... -> Repeat adding flower Until right amount is reached.
Go From ... To ... -> sequence of repetitions

Following are simple examples and artist's works.

http://processing.org/learning/examples/functions.html
(discs)
http://processing.org/learning/examples/distance2d.html
(field of squares)
http://processing.org/learning/examples/continuouslines.html
(line drawing)
http://processing.org/learning/examples/pixelarray.html
(color change)
http://processing.org/learning/examples/limb.html
(two lines connected like limbs)
http://processing.org/learning/examples/collision.html
(pong)

structures
http://processing.org/exhibition/works/001/index_link.html
exploration into building representations for structures and
relationships inside large sets of information.

http://processing.org/exhibition/works/redux/index.html
This explores the idea of distilling a whole film down to one single image.

reactive
http://processing.org/exhibition/works/inequality/index_link.html
In 2001 US CEOs were paid 411 times more than the average worker...

http://portfolio.barbariangroup.com/nextfest/index.html
45 feet of grass swaying in a virtual breeze. Visitors to the
installation can make the grass sway just by walking in front of it.
Additionally, visitors can input text from either of the two kiosks
positioned in front of the screen.

physical
http://www.random-international.com/pixelroller-overview/
"PixelRoller is a paint roller that paints pixels, designed as a rapid
response printing tool specifically to print digital information such
as imagery or text onto a great range of surfaces. The content is
applied in continuous strokes by the user. PixelRoller can be seen as
a handheld "printer", based around the ergonomics of a paint roller,
that lets you create the images by your own hand."

http://jklabs.net/projects/visualscratch/forwards.html
visualizing turntable scratching

http://www.k2.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/members/alvaro/Khronos/test/test.html
a video time-warping machine with a tangible deformable screen

WELCOME

2007-01-03T23:09:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the class blog. You will be posting replies and responses to the material we discuss in class here.