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January 30, 2006
January 28, 2006
EKO's and Theory Objects, or — Why Do I Blog This?
I have always enjoyed Nicolas Nova's way of appending his posts with a framing statement describing why he blogged what he blogged, so I took up this Talmudic Why do I blog this? practice, but this post is about a higher order question: Why do I blog? or, more to the point, Why should design agents blog?
January 23, 2006
Happy Hero Worshipping
Via Rhizome's Net Art News
Happy Hero Worshipping:
Now that video game fanatics are dying for the cause and others have pledged eternal allegiance to particular hardware types, play has ascended to the level of hard core devotion. In the last few years, Brody Condon's work has been concerned with overlaps between the similarities in life cycles and social networks of video game developers, medieval knights, and a particular new age cult. His current solo show, at New York's Virgil de Voldere Gallery through February 11, is aptly titled 'Worship.' On view are hacked video games--including an eponymous video documenting the ritualistic worship 'performed within the confines of the 3D massively multiplayer online game Anarchy Online,' a polygon sculpture of game engineer John Carmack, and a Lamborghini Countach made of cast plastic branches and based on a model that once came with the video game Need For Speed. Each takes their place in a pantheon of deified subjects and objects. Populated by sleek Elvises, floating gurus, and candy-colored crystals, Condon's work is as fun as it is historically-informed. He sees parallels between the evolution of painting and the trajectory of video game design, with portraits becoming more life-like and landscapes taking on richer detail. This insight leads him to make 'new media' work that doesn't always need to be plugged-in, and which is as skillfully crafted as it is a display of our own consumption. - Marisa Olson
Why do I blog this? Games as a form of challenge to convention, and as a way to think through questions that are substantive (more substantive than do I have to knee cap the guard before I steal the uranium nuggets?) are one of the hold out promises for electronic gaming, imho. I enjoy Condon's work for the way it becomes well-thought inquiries into larger social questions, and I particularly like the idea of such an electronic game that recurses into, you know..gaming lifestyles.
January 20, 2006
Lift
Lift Conference
Julian Bleecker and Nicolas Nova
Date: February 1st, 2-6pm
Location: UniMail, Geneva, Room M-4193
Blogjects - a neologism Julian Bleecker came up with for objects that blog - exemplify the soon-to-come 'Internet of Things', i.e. a network of tangible, mobile, chatty things enabled by the miniaturization, the ubiquity of consumer electronics and a pervasive Internet. In its most basic form, a blogject is not dissimilar to people that blog - it is an artifact that can disseminate a record of its experiences to the web. It would report the history of its interactions with other objects and with people. Because it exists as a physical object, occupying physical space, proximity and movement play an integral role in the interaction syntax. A very simple example is the AIBO "roboblogject": a robodog that harvests its daily experiences from its surroundings and shares these experiences in the form of a blog; presenting pictures and account of the day (like running distance, or people and objects encountered).
Lift Conference
Julian Bleecker and Nicolas Nova
Date: February 1st, 2-6pm
Location: UniMail, Geneva, Room M-4193
Blogjects - a neologism Julian Bleecker came up with for objects that blog - exemplify the soon-to-come 'Internet of Things', i.e. a network of tangible, mobile, chatty things enabled by the miniaturization, the ubiquity of consumer electronics and a pervasive Internet. In its most basic form, a blogject is not dissimilar to people that blog - it is an artifact that can disseminate a record of its experiences to the web. It would report the history of its interactions with other objects and with people. Because it exists as a physical object, occupying physical space, proximity and movement play an integral role in the interaction syntax. A very simple example is the AIBO "roboblogject": a robodog that harvests its daily experiences from its surroundings and shares these experiences in the form of a blog; presenting pictures and account of the day (like running distance, or people and objects encountered).
Therefore, this topic ties into the idea of proximity-based interaction and usage scenarios for mobile contexts. One of the underlying assumption is that the future of content creation and dissemination won't just come from people. It will also come from the social world of objects - things that have histories and experiences. A different kind of witness upon the world, and a witness to events that are of interest to the other blogging species - people.
The motivation here is not just to create objects that blog, as we now understand blogging. But to use the framework of the complete blogging dissemination network and social formation as one in which objects participate - first-class - in the entire multipath culture circulation network. That means syndication, layering meaning on content, trackback, etc.
Aim of the workshop:
discussing usage scenarios of blogjects, the design issues they raises as well as their significance in various usage and design contexts.
Participants:
- Julian Bleecker (USC, LA)
- Nicolas Nova (EPFL, Lausanne)
- Regine Debatty (WMMNA, Berlin)
- Fabien Girardin (UPF, Barcelona)
- Mauro Cherubini (EPFL, Lausanne)
- Robert Scoble (Microsoft, Seattle)
- Daniel K. Schneider (TECFA, Geneva)
- Jean-Baptiste Labrune (INRIA, Paris)
- Daniel Kaplan (FING, Paris)
- Cyril Rebetez (TECFA, Geneva)
- Aram Armstrong (IDI, Ivrea)
Program:
- Before: think about 3-4 questions/hot spot to think about (see after)
- Introduction (Nicolas Nova)
- Presentation of each of the participant (name/location/domain)
- Short talk about Blogjects (Julian Bleecker)
- Everybody describe the 3-4 points (pre-event questions) -> it allowed us to specify different 'areas' or 'blogject concepts' to create groups.
- Small Group brainstorm about potential scenarios related to the concepts
- Presentations by each group
- Wrap-up
Topics for consideration
- A blogject is...?
- What are examples of mobile, tangible, chatty networked objects today?
- "Technology-Fiction" is a genre of writing based upon Fictional Technology for design-innovation practices in which the style and language of technical, design, research and technical report writing is used to help envision an imaginary (future or past) technology that does not yet exist. It is distinct from fictional technology in that it emphasizes the social-cultural aspects of the world in which the technology exists, and distinct from science fiction in that . In effect, technology-fiction is a way to creatively explore novel, potentially unrealizable forms of technology for the purposes of design-innovation.
- In what usage contexts do you think a blogject or something related to this concept could be part of a compelling design?
- What would then be the design challenges of creating such a thing?
- For particular objects and specific user communities, consider blogject scenarios.
- Think about an object that can track history of interactions with other objects or with people. How might these interaction histories be used?
- Alongside of recording its history of encounters and experiences (where it has been and what it has seen, for example) what would a blogject have to say to other blogjects?
Technorati Tags: blogjects
UC Humanities Research Institute Sympoium — Technofutures
UCHRI Summer Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory
August 14-25, 2006; UC Irvine Campus
The UC Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) invites applications from scholars – faculty of all ranks and students – wishing to participate in the third annual Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory (SECT).
Deadline
Applications are due, along with a $20.00 application fee, by February 15, 2006.
Program Overview
SECT is an intensive two-week summer program for graduate students and faculty from the UC system and elsewhere, as well as other scholars, professionals and public intellectuals. The Seminar brings together distinguished instructors and a group of 50-60 students to study a pressing issue or theme in contemporary critical theory, in both its "pure" and "applied" modes. SECT is neither exclusively an introductory survey course nor an advanced research seminar. Rather, it is an academy or "laboratory" where students and faculty at all levels of previous experience can study with scholars involved in important and creative theoretical thought. Truly innovative work is of necessity both fundamental and advanced, hence needs to be presented in ways that are simultaneously accessible and challenging for the widest range of scholars. Participants are encouraged to think experimentally and critically, reflecting on prevailing structures of thought while dynamically engaging intellectual inheritances and pushing for theoretical innovations.
Participants in the 2006 Seminar will explore new ways of thinking about and with technology. The two-week Seminar will include paired conversations between technological innovators and experimental humanists, around the many issues that engage the human and the technological. The two-week Seminar will also include demonstrations of new technological devices, classroom applications and scholarly practices. Participants will have opportunities to engage with new digital applications in the context of small-group workshops, large-group social networking exercises and art/technology installations. The objective for SECT III is to broaden the participation of humanists in the transformation of spheres of technological experience.
Conversations with: Julian Bleecker; John Seely Brown; Craig Calhoun; Lisa Cartwright; Cathy N. Davidson; Scott Fisher; Tracy Fullerton; Guillermo Gómez-Peña; Katherine Hayles; Lynn Hershman; Norman Klein; Geert Lovink; Tara McPherson; Michael Naimark; Saskia Sassen; Larry Smarr
Workshop Topics: Wikis; Blogging; Google Jockeying; Creative Commons; New Genres of Digital Scholarship; History of Electronic Literature; Database Narrative; Multimedia Documentary; Distributed Collaboration in the Humanities; Creation of Digital Archives
Performances & Presentations: Beatriz da Costa; René Garcia, Jr.; Guillermo Gómez-Peña; Lynn Hershman; Perry Hoberman; George Lewis; Michael Naimark; Simon Penny
Cost
Application fee: $20.00 (non-refundable) is due at the time of the online application submission. Applications will not be reviewed until the application fee is received.
Registration fee:
$1,750 for the SECT series. The fee includes tuition for the two-week Seminar and daily refreshments. It does not include the cost of housing or meals.
Scholarships:
The UCHRI will make available up to 10 scholarships for full-time registered students covering the full SECT fee. Scholarship awards will be announced by April 15, 2006. Applicants are encouraged to seek funding from their home institutions.
Requirements
One-page statement covering education, relevant publications (if any), background in an area of study relating to the current SECT topic, and reasons for requesting course of study; and abbreviated curriculum vitae (two pages maximum).
More information and registration instructions are available.
Why do I blog this?The topic of figuring out new ways to think with technology is something that is near and dear to my intellectual and creative heart. I'm planning on exhibiting WiFi.ArtCache and a new piece of MobileSocialSoftware at the Symposium, too. So, that'll be exciting. I also like this idea of panels that are two person conversations on a topic — promising way of working through a conceptual or intellectual question.
Technorati Tags: art-technology, conference, technoculture
January 17, 2006
Future Cinema?
It's rough. It has a few dangerous tripwires. It requires a bit of balance and you should be comfortable working without a net. It has some visual challenges. I'm using demo development environments that'll expire in 18 days. Despite all that, I'm pretty hopped up on the idea of this prototype film viewing concept. I poked around with the idea over the summer, getting panoramic Quicktime VRs to, you know..pan and tilt based on the user changing their POV. And then Naimark got me re-hopped up in our lab meeting last week. I shot some b-roll yesterday to demo the concept (it really is b-roll — shot and edited in 42 minutes), and started talking to some fabricators about building a real rig.
Take a look at the 1.1MB video. Let me know what you think of the concept sketches..
Game a Week
Something to get your blog going..a project idea a week. Patrick Curry's doing a game idea a week.
Games, Technology, Innovation
The kinetic blogger Nicolas Nova netted a good one this morning on the tension between instrumental advances in technology (memory, media, speed..more programmer headroom) against creative and conceptual innovations in game design, play, mechanics from a webcast Raph Koster game through IBM called Moore's Wall: technology Advances and Online Game Design (gads, I love that title..Moore's Wall — good one.) Raph Koster posted the transcript and slides on his webcast — looking forward to getting to his book..it's in the holiday book pile.
The insight nugget is here:
Creativity is enhanced by limitations. Creativity, innovation, is largely about finding solutions within a known problem space. When the problem space starts growing too large, you can pretty much start throwing anything at the wall, and it’ll stick. And in a situation where we don’t have a particular problem to solve, it’s just human nature to fall back on known solutions. It’s just human nature to do what we have done before, only to try to do it nicer. And that fundamentally is the limitation of advances in technology as regards game design.
What does this mean? Given (practical) infinite resources, game designers will tend to come up with the same-old, same-old only with 1024 colors and reflection mapping, rather than a creative, innovative, fun solution within a world of hard constraints. Whatever the X-Box 360 racing game demo I saw at SIGGRAPH was, it was just a racing game with richer background textures and some thumping music. But..as far as game play? The racer cartridge I have for my N64 is as good.
Why do I blog this? There are about five or six genre games, just like there are five or six genre movie plots. Are video games the next cinema? I think this answers that question. Now, what is the future of gaming?
January 15, 2006
Ars Electronica
Never to early to think about what you'll submit!
Prix Ars Electronica 2006 International Competition for Cyberarts The Prix Ars Electronica - International Competition for Cyberarts is being conducted for the 19th time in 2006. In addition to the classic categories-Interactive Art, Net Vision, Computer Animation / Visual Effects and Digital Musics-Digital Communities and [the next idea] Art and Technology Grant competition that debuted last year will be reprised.
Prix Ars Electronica 2006
Start of Online Submissions: January 10, 2006
Online Submission Deadline: March 17, 2006
Details about entering are available online only at http://prixars.aec.at
Total Prize Money: 117,500 Euro
6 Golden Nicas
12 Awards of Distinction
Up to 12 Honorary Mentions in each category
For further information please contact Iris Mayr: info@prixars.aec.at
COMPUTERANIMATION / VISUAL EFFECTS
The "Computer Animation / Visual Effects" category has been part of the Prix Ars Electronica since its very inception. It recognizes excellence in independent work in the arts and sciences as well as in high-end commercial productions in the film, advertising and entertainment industries. In this category, artistic originality counts just as much as masterful technical achievement.
DIGITAL MUSICS
Contemporary digital sound productions from the broad spectrum of "electronica" come in for consideration in the "Digital Musics" category, as do works combining sound and media, computer compositions ranging from electro-acoustic to experimental music, or sound installations. This category's programmatic agenda is to expand horizons beyond the confines of individual genres and artistic currents.
INTERACTIVE ART
The "Interactive Art" category is dedicated to interactive works in all forms and formats, from installations to performances. Here, particular consideration is given to the realization of a powerful artistic concept through the especially appropriate use of technologies, the innovativeness of the interaction design, and the work's inherent potential to expand the human radius of action.
NET VISION
The "Net Vision" category singles out for recognition artistic projects in the Internet that display brilliance in how they have been engineered, designed and-especially-conceived, works that are outstanding with respect to innovation, interface design and the originality of their content. The way in which a work of net-based art deals with the online medium is essential in this category.
DIGITAL COMMUNITIES
This category focuses attention on the wide-ranging social impact of the Internet as well as on the latest developments in the fields of social software, mobile communications and wireless networks. "Digital Communities" spotlights bold and inspired innovations impacting human coexistence, bridging the geographical as well as gender-based digital divide, or creating outstanding social software and enhancing accessibility of technological-social infrastructure. This category showcases the political potential of digital and networked systems and is thus designed as a forum for the consideration of a broad spectrum of projects, programs, initiatives and phenomena in which social innovation is taking place, as it were, in real time. A Golden Nica, two Awards of Distinction and up to 12 Honorary Mentions will be awarded in the Digital Communities category in 2006.
[the next idea]
Art and Technology Grant
The aim of this grant focusing on the mutually enriching interplay of art and technology is to nurture concepts for the future that young thinkers are coming up with today. This category’s target group includes interested persons throughout the world between the ages of 19 and 27, who have developed a not-yet-realized concept in the fields of media art, media design or media technology. The winner will receive a 7,500-euro grant and an invitation to spend a semester as scientific assistant and artist-in-residence at the Ars Electronica Futurelab.
January 13, 2006
Game controller trick for Katamari Damacy
Via, this impressive game-controller trick to be used in Katamari Damacy for getting one million roses.
Why do I blog this? this is is a good expression of gamers’ creativity to achieve their game goals. I also like the idea of using additional artifacts to act on the game. The use of rubber bands is interesting. Would we see some people using a vaccuum cleaner to create huge bubble with the bubble toy in Nintendogs on the DS?
merci, nicolas
January 10, 2006
CTIN 405 — Design Technology for Mobile Experiences
Based on the great success of the mobile module during 541, I am pleased to introduce a revampled CTIN 405 — Design Technology for Mobile Experiences for next semester (this Spring).
Map to the ACC. The Mobile and Pervasive Lab is located in the Kerckhoff Carriage House to the left (as you face the mansion) and behind the main Kerckhoff mansion.
CTIN 405 Spring 2006 Course Reader
The course will focus on hands-on implementation topics for creating truly cool mobile phone, location-based applications. We'll be working with a bunch of very accessible DIY technologies, including VXML, SMS and J2ME, all of which should appeal to the creative and aspirational art, game and woot-woot-mobile developers.
Implementing Story and Entertainment Projects for Mobile Phones
The objective of this course is for students to develop a strong sense of the design challenges and opportunities presented by mobile technologies. Through readings, discussions, and hands-on development students will develop critical and pragmatic insights into designing mobile experiences and technology. Students will form design groups to execute a mobile project design using the principles from readings and class discussions.
Implementation Topic Weeks: Students will develop an overview and some hands-on experience designing applications for a mobile phone.
- We will learn how to develop an interactive voice-response, voice-recognition game using VXML (Voice XML), a simple technology for creating phone-based interaction systems. The technology is similar to that used for the EA game "Majestic" including voice recognition, voice-based web pages, touch-tone phone based interactive games, capture of phone call audio, outbound calling (i.e. initiate a call to another phone).
- How to use SMS (short message service) systems for interactive applications, games and other usage scenarios. Send SMS, receive and process SMS, use SMS as a "trigger" for other events on and offline.
- Learn the fundamentals of developing mobile phone-based applications using J2ME, an environment that supports developing games and other applications for many mobile phones.
- Learn how to integrate external hardware to a mobile phone over a Bluetooth connection. This can make your mobile phone "talk" to a GPS, for example, or other external hardware (e.g. pedometer, compass, light sensor, etc.)
Projects: Each student will be required to participate in developing a final project for the course.
Project Ideas: Some ideas, by no means exhaustive, for final projects include:
- A mobile phone version of the parlor game "Telephone" (aka "Chinese Whispers") using VXML and SMS.
- A multiplayer, location-aware J2ME mobile phone version of a treasure hunt game
- A application that translates an SMS message through text-to-speech for delivery to a non-SMS enabled (e.g. home) phone.
The course will also include prior art review, discussions and readings associated with the topics from the art-technology and mobile games worlds.
As Mark Bolas and I discovered in 541, everyone here has an exceptional aptitude for conceiving, desiging, implementing and deploying mobile apps, both for the browser and for the mobile phone. This class will be an excellent opportunity to skill up. At the end of this class, you'll have some real, executed mobile app to add to your portfolio. Real bang for your buck, as they say.
The syllabus will be posted shortly.
2 credits, tentatively scheduled for Wednesdays from 2:30-4:30.
I'm curious who's interested, so please RSVP or let me know if you have any questions!
"What's Your Social Doing In My Mobile?" UC Irvine Department of Informatics Talk - Friday, January 13
This Friday I will be visiting UC Irvine's Department of Informatics and giving a talk on Mobile Social Software — some material I've been working on through the Netpublics Research Seminar at the Annenberg Center for Communication.
Title: What’s Your Social Doing In My Mobile? Design Patterns for Mobile Social
Software
Abstract: Making “mobile software” into Mobile Social Software suggests that social beings assume an explicit role in the untethered, software-based experience. If we borrow from the idiom of Social Software, we can say that Mobile Social Software are techniques for articulating social
practices that create, maintain and manage networks of relationships amongst people and encourage the circulation of culture in untethered, networked-based usage contexts. The design challenge for such
techniques is to avoid prioritizing instrumental aspects of mobile terminal devices over the actual social practice that software attempts to facilitate. I suggest herein that this challenge can be addressed by moving to the foreground specific practice idioms as frameworks for design prototypes, avenues for research and development, and contexts for study and theory objects. This design approach is described as a point of view on Mobile Social Software, along with an explication of this perspective through a taxonomy of Mobile Social Software design idioms — Spatial Annotation, Proximity Interaction, and Presence Awareness.
The Informatics Seminar is held on Friday at 3pm at the The UCI Department of Informatics in ICS2 136, followed by a social hour at 4pm.
Call for Entries: Turbulence New England Initiative II
Turbulence recently announced a Call for Entries for its New England Initiative II, a juried, networked art competition.
Three projects by New England artists will be commissioned and exhibited on Turbulence (http://turbulence.org) and in real space (venue to be announced). Each award will be $3,500. The jury consists of Julian Bleecker, Michelle Thursz, and Helen Thorington. This project is made possible with funds from the LEF Foundation.
PROJECT CONCEPT: Net art projects are art projects for which the Net is
both a sufficient and necessary condition of viewing/ expressing/
participating (Steve Dietz). They live in the public world of the Internet.
Recently, however, wireless telecommunications technologies have enabled
computation to migrate out of the desktop PC into the physical world,
creating the possibility of hybrid networked art, works that intermingle
and fuse previously discrete identities, disciplines, and/or fields of
activity such as the Internet and urban space. (See the
networked_performance blog http://turbulence.org/blog specifically the
categories Locative Media and Mobile Art and Culture.) Borders are
disintegrating and new identities are emerging. We encourage applications by
net artists and artists working on networked hybrid projects.
PROJECT TIMELINE:
Proposal Deadline: February 28, 2006
Selected Projects Announcement: March 15, 2006
Project Launch/Exhibition: October 1, 2006
SELECTION CRITERIA:
(1) artistic merit of the proposed project; (2)
originality; (3) degree of performativity and audience participation; (4)
level of programming skill and degree of technological innovation; and (5)
extent of collaborative and interdisciplinary activity.
PROPOSAL GUIDELINES:
(a) Your name, email address, and web site URL (if you have one).
(b) A description of the project's core concept and how it will make
creative use of digital networks (500 words maximum).
(c) Details of how the project will be realized, including what
software/programming will be used. Specs for the Turbulence server are
available at http://www.turbulence.org/comp_05/server.htm. You may request
additional software but we cannot guarantee it.
(d) Names of collaborators, their areas of expertise, and their specific
roles in the project.
(e) A project budget, including other funding sources for this project, if
any.
(f) Your résumé/CV and one for each of your collaborators.
(g) Up to five examples of prior work accessible on the web.
Email submissions (the web site URL) to turbulence@turbulence.org with NE 2
in the subject field.