TellBush.org

	Announcing TellBush.org, An Experiment In Telephonic Democracy. Call 1.800.734.1463 To Leave A Voice Message For Bush. Your Voice Message Will Appear On TellBush.org And Get Itself Emailed To Bush At The Whitehouse. TellBush.org - Giving Bush An Inaugural Ear Full.

Grafedia

From Grand Text Auto :

Hey this is a cool project: Grafedia is attempting to write a hypertext on the streets of New York. All it takes is a picture cellfone and some magic chalk. Like the Yellow Arrow project, the idea of this project is that people mark things as significant in the physical world, and then them in cyberspace. Grafedia encourages users to upload images, audio and video. To make Grafedia, you simply write a word (with a blue underline) somewhere in the world, and then email a corresponding media file to (that word)@grafedia.net. This makes me want to get one of them newfangled mobile phone things with video capabilities. Via Turbulence.

Grafedia

WiFi.ArtCache

Well, there isn't a toot-your-own-horn category, but this project I am exhibiting may be of interest to some of you who are interested in pushing the boundaries of Flash-based interactive art. This is a CFP, in effect. We are looking for Art-Technologists interested in contributing work that would be exhibited using the WiFi.ArtCache at the upcoming Spectropolis event during the first week of October.

WiFi.ArtCache is a platform for experimenting with location and proximity based digital art media.

By simply coding to a provided ActionScript 2.0 API, Flash artists are able to create an interactive experience that changes based on how many people have downloaded their work, how many people are currently interacting with their art object, or whether it is currently in range of the WiFi.ArtCache.

The WiFi.ArtCache, developed by Julian Bleecker with support from Eyebeam Atelier, is a server containing a WiFi access point. When exhibited at the Spectropolis event at New York City Hall Park (October 1-4, 2004.), the WiFi.ArtCache will contain a storehouse of art objects. Visitors to the event can download these art objects onto their 802.11 equipped laptops and experience the artists' interpretation of location and proximity effects. WiFi.ArtCache is looking for art-technologists willing to contribute during Spectropolis. Deadline for submissions is September 26th. Submissions, questions and inquiries should be sent to wifiartcache at techkwondo dot com.

Additionally, the WiFi.ArtCache will contain a generic storehouse of digital ephemera that visitors can upload and download to the server. Scratchy audio, yellowed digital documents, discolored image files and spoiled emails can all be found and dropped off at the WiFi.ArtCache.

Janet Cardiff's Mixed Reality Works

A new work by Janet Cardiff is up in NYC until Sept. - review in Metropolis Magazine here:

A Sound-Art Project that Reconfigures Central Park | Urban Journal | Metropolis Magazine

When the 48-minute walk ends, you feel as though you have been on a long and somehow transformative journey through a landscape that is at once familiar and wholly new. The challenge Cardiff sets you is to continue bringing such attention to bear even after you've returned the headset, to extend your walk into a summer-long excursion of close discernments and unexpected discoveries.

Gravity and Resistance

we make money not art

Japanese artists Seiko Mikami and Sota Ichikawa's new work, Gravity and Resistance, combines a real-time, pressure sensor equipped floor and topographic map projection with a GPS tracking device above the gallery space.

http://www.idd.tamabi.ac.jp/Gravity&Resistance/

Subservient Chicken

OK, it doesn't get any stranger than this... or does it?

> http://www.subservientchicken.com/

Prix Ars Electronica 2004

This year's awards for best Interactive Art works:

Golden Nica Award:

Ben Rubin, Mark Hansen (USA): "Listening Post?"
A darkened space, 231 fluorescent text displays attached to a taut, vertically-strung, semi-circular net, eight loudspeakers and two subwoofers-this is the setting for "Listening Post." An aluminum lattice on the wall opposite the net reflects the light of the monitor screens and controls the acoustics of the space. Several computers analyze data from thousands of Internet chat rooms and newsgroups, and cull out 85 postings that begin with "I am," "I like" or "I love." Gradually, the communiqués appear on the displays, filling more and more space with their light. The selected texts vary in length and complexity; simpler and shorter ones come first. The beep of a telephone answering machine precedes the appearance of each message. This setting is variously modified in different segments. "Listening Post" sheds light on the enormous quantity of the online discourse in the digital Tower of Babel and reveals the absolutely unbelievable mass of human communication in the Internet.

Award of Distinction:

Feng Mengbo (Tadschikistan):
"Ah_Q"
With "Quake III" as the basis of his work, Feng has come up with a very different sort of video game. On one hand, the keyboard has been replaced by a "dancing board" to allow users to control the game with their feet; on the other hand, Feng Mengbo has imparted a clearly ironic-political note to the game by inserting himself-camera in one hand, plasma gun in the other-into the game as an on-screen figure. Feng Mengbo is one of the leading Chinese media artists. His games, films and photographs reflect his unique style and creativity in dealing with virtual reality.

Award of Distinction:

Kenneth Rinaldo (USA):
"Augmented Fish Reality"
"Augmented Fish Reality" is an interactive installation. Each of five goldfish bowls containing Siamese fighting fish sits atop a rolling pedestal. Four infrared sensors built into each goldfish bowl register the movements of the fish and transform them into movements of the pedestals. In this way, the fish can move about in space. Siamese fighting fish have excellent vision and display a high degree of social organization. The installation thus enables the fish to communicate with one another; in addition, there is interaction among the fish and visitors to the installation. Images captured by mini-cameras mounted in the goldfish bowls are projected within the installation space in real time and enable visitors to observe the world from the perspective of the fish.

Honorary Mentions:

DEMI-PAS Julien Maire D
alert Barbara Musil A

Messa di Voce Golan Levin, Zachary Lieberman, Jaap Blonk, Joan La Barbara USA, NL

Loops Marc Downie, Paul Kaiser, Shelley Eshkar; The Media Lab, MIT USA

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program ... Daniel Sauer; Osman Khan/UCLA Design, Media Arts USA

3 minutes² Naziha Mestaoui, Yacine Aït Kaci F
Topobo, Amanda Parkes, Hayes Raffle; MIT Media Lab USA

Iso-phone James Auger, Jimmy Loizeau, Stefan Agamanolis; Media Lab Europe IRL

Turing Train Terminal Severin Hofmann, David Moises A
Isadora / Future of Memory Improvisation; Future of Memory Mark Coniglio, Dawn Stoppiello USA

1000 Deathclock in Paris Miyajima Tatsuo, Tachibana Hajime J
Interactive generative stage and dynamic costume for André Werners "Marlowe, the Jew of Malta" Joachim Sauter, Nils Krüger D

miranda july's 'learning to love you more'

this has been around for a while; ive had friends turn in assignments. but for some reason, i havent thought to post it on here til now. 'learning to love you more', a website that assigns open ended tasks. people send in their results, which get used at various shows and events. there have been 30 assignments thus far, #29 will be features in the 2004 whitney biennial from march until may.

from the 'hello' part of the site:
'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 and various guests. Yuri Ono designs and manages the web site.

Now that you are here you will want to accept an assignment, complete it by following the simple but specific instructions, send in the required report (photograph, CD, video, etc), and see evidence of your work posted on-line. Like a recipe, meditation practice, or familiar song, the prescriptive nature of these assignments liberates you from creativity and allows you focus on what you are feeling and experiencing.

Since Learning To Love You More is also an ever-changing series of exhibitions, screenings and radio broadcasts presented all over the world, your documentation is also your submission for possible inclusion in one of these presentations.'

"Don't Miss a Sec" (Panoptican loo)

from msnbc (with some pics):

"Visitors to Britain will find a new stop on London's site-seeing route this spring: a usable public toilet enclosed in one-way mirrored glass situated on a sidewalk near the River Thames. The contemporary art exhibit, which allows the user to see out while passers-by cannot peep in, toys with the concepts of privacy and voyeurism."

and yes todd, they make large mention of the panoptican.

Tracking Behaviors

EYEBEAM Beta Launch: Artists in Residence '03
540 W. 21st Street between 10th & 11th Aves, NYC
Nov. 25, 7-8:30pm

Tracking Behaviors

Please join artists Adam Frank, Dan O’Sullivan and Marie Sester as they discuss projects in the Beta Launch '03 exhibition developed during their residencies. Tracking Behaviors will explore artists' projects based on human motion, from bodies moving through space to minute facial and eye movements, which also investigate the dynamics of human interaction over distance, time and individual perceptions.

Frank's Shadow, created with Zack Booth Simpson, is an interactive installation that projects a disembodied, autonomous, human shadow on the ground that attempts to interact and merge with the participant’s shadow. O'Sullivan'sTrading Glances is an installation that tracks the viewer’s eye as a database of portraits are displayed in front of them, demonstrating that ones’ eye movements can betray very private visual preferences. Participants’ faces are all added to the database of portraits and through the project web site (http://stage.itp.nyu.edu/~dano/TradingGlances/)one can see who glanced at them and replay exactly how another person's gaze travels across their face. ACCESS, by Sester, is a public art installation that applies web, computer, sound and lighting technologies in which web users track individuals in public spaces with a unique robotic spotlight and acoustic beam system. Documentation of ACCESS exhibitions will be shown.

from today's NY Times: The Technology Play Project

Hey, That Big Computer Is Really a Great Actor
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: November 20, 2003

... Mary Valentis, an English professor who produced the plays, said the intent was to meld classic storytelling with new technologies to invent a new kind of theater and to raise questions about how technology has reshaped humanity. The display is a joint effort by the university and the Capital Repertory Theater here, underwritten by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and Apple Computer, among others. It will run through Wednesday at the New Atrium Library at the university and will reopen at the Capital Repertory in the spring. Admission is free. ...

google house

construct of a house / rooms by using google image search for any word + house. the construction could be a little nicer, but it's pretty fun to play with.

Link via Boing Boing

Honda ad

Check out this amazing Honda ad inspired by Fischli and Weiss' 1987 film, "The Way Things Go".

Ars Electronica Interactive Art Awards 2003

Golden Nica:
Blast Theory (United Kingdom): "Can You See Me Now?"
"Can you see me now?" by the British artists collective Blast Theory plays with the omnipresence of humans on the basis of various portable electronic devices such as mobile phones, GPS, wireless LANs, digital cameras, etc., as well as with overlaying real and virtual spaces. In that respect, "Can You See Me Now?" is part of a series of works that investigate digital mobility from a cultural point of view.

Awards of Distinction(2):Ltd. (Japan):
Maywa Denki / Yoshimoto Kogyo Co., Ltd. (Japan): "Tsukuba Series"
Maywa Denki is a Japanese artists' collective and simultaneously an electronic gesamtkunstwerk in its own right. Engineering skills, wit, a wealth of ideas and musicality combined with a unique performance style are the characteristics of Maywa Denki. The products from their workshop - a huge variety of custom created musical instruments - demonstrate both the group's playfulness and its know-how. With their performances, the Tosa Brothers have conquered the concert halls in Japan and abroad.

Margarete Jahrmann, Max Moswitzer (Austria): "nybble-engine-toolZ"
"nybble-engine-toolZ" is a peer-to-peer server network. The installation's software converts network processes into three-dimensional abstract movies and projects them in a cinema-like fashion onto a semicircular surround screen. Additionally, real-time generated surround sounds are played. This setup closes the loop of the installation: participants sit on a central "surfer sofa" as if they were in their own living-room. They use game-pads to enter a shooter game environment where "bullets" from data objects, action bots and other players whiz around. Every hit on an object triggers network processes; at every shot an anti-war mail is created and sent.

Honorable Mentions here: