CTIN492 Experimental Game Topics, Experiments in Physical Interfaces. School of Cinematic Arts, Interactive Media Division, University of Southern California. Video documentation from last semester's projects.

Took a jaunt through the UCLA Design Media Arts MFA 2nd Year MFA Thesis Show this evening, titled "Exit Strategies." There were a couple of pieces that stood out to me in the exhibition, which ranged from rather cerebral to playful, all with a good scoop of design sensibilities. There was a good range of work here and this is just some notes to myself and a remark or two in context.

The statement for the show is speaks directly to the multivalent meanings of exiting as cultural and political action. I'm not entirely sure I saw this framing statement in the work and, absent wall text, it was a bit difficult to do much more than "be" with the material and experience what it is on its own. Which is fine, perhaps even preferable for my own personal way of seeing work, which is to not reflect too heavily in the moment of experiencing it.

(The show included no wall text, and the descriptions of the projects on the Exit Strategies page are either quite plain about what project was done by what artist, or are completely vague. A serious shortcoming of the exhibition in my humble opinion.)

Ours is the era of the exit strategy. Whether in military, commercial, or personal engagements, exit strategies inject planned obsolescence into every human action. Exit strategies collapse history into instrumentality: the ends justify not only the means but also the beginnings. They sacrifice openness, complexity, and sustainability to the gods of the closed, the simplistic, and the disposable. They are meager attempts to convince ourselves of the possibility for absolute control and computability in all areas of life. We see the current cultural obsession with exit strategies as an opportunity. Our work destabilizes the concept of the exit strategy by recasting it as an ethics of escape, subversion, and nomadism. Our exit strategies are material mechanisms for prying open hermetic systems of power and representation. Our practices discover ways out. Our works plot paths for others to follow.

The most fascinating piece in my opinion was this gigantic spinning top by Jacob Tonski
called "Big Top." Bit as in Gigantic. It exuded mass and angular momentum and the force of that gigantic, hard to move and hard to stop things — war once engaged, promises once given, debts once incurred. The piece was tactile, silent and alluring while also having a quiet danger to it. It was also quite an intriguing apparatus, with a large articulating pulley and weight system to set it on its way. The set up involved holding pins inserted into the huge top and rope wound and wound around the top, while a block of weights rose, partially assisted by a small electric motor connected to a car battery. Once set in motion, the top quietly spun heavy and fast. During the set up, we were cautioned to step back — the holding pins would fly loose under centrifugal force once the weights were released.

Big Top Jacob Tonski from Julian Bleecker on Vimeo.

With the top spinning it become impossible not to get as close as possible — even to touch its rather knotted wooden surface (like..ouch.) To me it was a bit like the moment in Kubrick's 2001 when the black monolith first appears — it was big, silent and entirely compelling.

Gil Kuno (GII K) Pogophonic was a rather large and apparently physically demanding pogo stick that triggers sound samples. (Another) connection between physical action and digital control of sound and music. (Similar in that regard to probably many other projects, somewhat like Skatesonic.) I enjoyed the playfulness of the project and its physicality quite a bit and it was genuinely fun to watch. It didn't even matter that there was a somewhat vague association between the stick's actions and the sound — it need not have been the "mechanics" of the interaction for all I care. Even if GII K said so, and there really wasn't, that would have been fine in some sense. What I mean is that the artists or performers of pogo'rs merely pogo'd to the sound, or if the sound was live dj'd and the pogo'rs pogo'd to that, I think the effect would've been the same for the audience, in fact. In that regard, it could've had a somewhat theory-oriented angle in that it made fun of the usual audience response to interactive art, which is to ask, almost before everything — "how does it work?" Which seems to me to be the central departure for "interactive art" or "art-technology" from unwired art. Lately, this point and the question — how does it work? — has become almost annoying and a bit of a distraction from the experience of creative wired work. Where are the wires? How does this connect to my action or activities? The effort is to "figure out" the work at the instrumental level. In some sense, that may be a mark for me (just sayin'..) of what is compelling art-technology versus Make Magazine style hacking.

What else?

I was initially quite excited by Zach Blas design-product piece called Queer Technologies. The installation was set-up as a provocation at the intersections of consumerism, art and politics. Queer Technologies was the name of the piece, as an "organization" (like a company) that produces products, like theory products, that are tools for "queer agency, interventions and community building."

Projects [products] include transCoder, a queer programming anti-language; ENgenderingGenderChangers, a "solution" to cable gender adapters’ male/female binary; Gay Bombs, a technical manual manifesto that outlines a "how to" of queer political action through terrorist assemblages of networked activism; and the Disingenuous Bar, a play / attack on apple computer’s genius bar for tech support that offers a heterotopic space for political support for "technical" problems.

This is very intriguing to me — working within the representational tactics and logics of consumer capitalism with boxed software that is a "queer programming anti-language", the (not terribly original, but still interesting) "Gender Changes" (the name given to devices that switch "male" plugs to "female" plugs as is sometimes necessary when connecting devices together), and a technical manual that is a kind of mainifesto of queer political action.

Okay, interesting — initially very exciting conceptually. Sadly this piece entirely knocked the wind out of the experience I had (I literally was upset, and no longer interested in sticking around) because the artist was selling these items at ridiculous prices. The software was $150 and the manual $100. When I asked — "one hundred what?" I was told that these were "art prices."

Boy, there's a lot to say about this. Besides the fact that the piece ended up being such a downer for this reason, I saw an incredibly obvious disconnect between the objective of a critique of consumer capitalism and the artist's attempt to insert themselves directly within the hyperbolic market of ridiculously priced mass produced items. I mean..these weren't even hand-crafted goods. The boxed software contained some sort of optical media with the software (presumably) on it. The books were in meter high stacks. For the sake of my intrigue with the piece, I would've spent maybe $30 for the software (and likely just kept it without any expectation of it doing anything — just for the spirit of the pieces anti-product productness) and about the same for the manual. I certainly wasn't going to fork over $250 for these two things, even if I happened to have that kind of scratch just sitting in my wallet to buy a piece of mass-produced something.

Exit Strategies indeed. I went straight out the door, saluted the Serra and headed home.

The Biggest Visual Power Show is an intellectual spectacle blending a conference and a pop concert. BVPS mixes movies and live performance, morphs physical experiences into virtual imagination.

This event will be happening May 17 and takes place at the recently renovated Million Dollar Theater on 307 Broadway in downtown Los Angeles.

The theme of BVPS 2008 is Next Nature; the nature caused by human culture. Nowadays, children know more corporate logo's and brands than bird or tree species. Our established image of nature needs to be updated. Our technological world has become so complex and uncontrollable it has become a nature of its own. Wild systems, genetic surprises, autonomous machinery and beautiful black flowers. Nature changes along with us.

Visual Power: without visualisation, no reality. Images occupy an increasingly important place in our communication and transmission of information. More and more often, it is an image that is the deciding factor in important questions. Provocative logos, styles and icons are supposed to make us think we are connected to each other, or different from each other.

Each of us is confronted with more images every day than a person living in the Middle Ages would have seen in their whole life. If you open a 100-year-old newspaper you will be amazed by the amount of text and the total lack of pictures. How different things are today: the moment you’re born, covered in placenta, not yet dressed or showered, your parents are already there with the digital camera, ready to take your picture to publish on the family blog for showing the world. Interactivity between people has become an interactivity of screens. We are visual creatures, living amid image layers.

Buy your tickets online before April 30 for only $12.

Technorati Tags: design, event

It's not too late to participate in the 2nd Biennial 01SJ Global Festival of
Art on the Edge (June 4-8, 2008)
http://01SJ.org

With support from the James Irvine Foundation, ZERO1 is seeking to commission
the new presentation of two works for the 01SJ Festival by emerging,
California-based artists.

The commissions are $5,000 each with $500 for travel and lodging expenses.

The work can be in any media in visual arts, performing arts, moving image, and
interactive arts.

Projects will be juried based on the goals of "Intersections," an
Irvine-supported commissioning program by ZERO1 to support emerging California
artists in the creation of new work that uses technology to create
transformative experiences with an emphasis on works that intersect with a
particular place or community and engage audiences in innovative ways. See
http://01sj.org/?page_id=34 for more information about Intersections.

Projects can take place / be sited anywhere within the downtown core of San
Jose, although some preference will be given to nodal areas of the 01SJ
Festival:

-- Circle of Palms-- Chavez Plaza (especially Saturday, June 7)
-- SOFA district along 1st St. (especially Friday night, June 6)
-- the Passeos between Chavez Plaza and San Jose State University
-- San Jose City Hall
-- San Jose State University near the San Jose Public Library

More information about other programs of the 01SJ Festival can be found at
http://01sj.org

Other areas, including indoor sites will be considered, but all projects must
obtain any necessary permits and permissions (with the help of ZERO1).

To submit a proposal email the following information with INTERSECTIONS in the
subject header to intersections@yproductions.com

-- Brief statement about the project and its relation to Intersections
-- Detailed description of the project including rough installation and site
diagrams and / or performance plans
-- Budget
-- Bio or CV or link
-- Links to online examples of no more than 5 past works

Artists must live and work in California and be considered "emerging." The
definition of an emerging artist is contextual. ZERO1 seeks to support those
artists who have significant potential yet who are under-recognized and have
not received acknowledgment as established creators from fellow artists and
other arts professionals. Examples of recognition and acknowledgment include
exhibitions, reviews, commissions, performances, grant awards, residencies,
fellowships, publications and productions. Factors such as race, gender and
geography can play a role in determining whether or not an artist is emerging.
The term emerging refers to artistic development, professional accomplishment
and recognition, not to stylistic evolution within an artist's work.

Submissions are due via email only by 10:00 pm PST on Friday, May 9. The
commissions will be selected by Monday May 12. Projects must be installed by
midnight, Wednesday, June 3 and be on site through Sunday June 8 or be
performed sometime June 4-8, 2008.

Further information and questions: intersetions@yproductions.com

Call online at http://01sj.org/?p=492

A very intriguing and curious bit of momentary disruptive street pixel art.

Seen on 9th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues in NYC's Lower East Side. So far, anonymous.

Bravo, whoever.

Ian Bogost is featured in this NPR story on video games — entertaining diversions or substantial implication-rich forms of creativity? There's no one answer, only conversations around this topic. With the video game industry proclaiming that it is all grown up (110%+ growth in the last year, etc), the "industry" will decide for itself what video games become, what their role will be as cultural artifacts, and what the larger public considers them to be.

Cobbling together a few choice bites from Bogost, I get this:

Artists have a long tradition of pushing the status quo, but not game designers, despite being important culture makers of the 21st century...I'm not sure the game industry wants to see games as an art form. I think they want to see games as a primary form of entertainment..Art is about changing the world. Entertainment is about leisure.

More on that.

Previously there was another project that recently bubbled up to the public spotlight is called Remade, a phone made entirely from upcycled and recycled materials. The Economist had a piece on Jan Chipchase — Digital Nomad

Alex Galloway came by to do a short talk discussing his new game "Kriegspiel" based on Guy Debord's "The Game of War" This is a curious strategy game that Debord created while in the midst of a bit of a creative flat-spin. It was created in an artisinal mode, with 5 hand crafted editions constructed with a collaborator. Evidently one of the sets — made with metal pieces — was recently on display in NYC on loan from Debord's widow. Galloway has some interesting archival style insights into the historical context of the game's development and Debord as a cultural figure of some importance, and I recommend finding whatever he has written on the topic. (It seemed as though he was reading from working-notes for a longer bit of work on this.)

What I find most interesting in this context is the articulation that Galloway has performed between historical archival work and the expression of these "findings" through this game. The game is, by Galloway's own description, based entirely on the original rules of Debord's game design. Alex describes himself as fascinated by games, but not at all a game designer. Thus, finding a cultural hero of academics and scholars world-wide who also happens to have designed a game makes for an excellent scholarly project. It skirts the boundary between an activity some critical scholars might poo-poo (game design) and an activity the most conservative scholars could at least chomp on (a proper archival inquiry into the life, history and ideology of a curious figure of some importance.)

Once (and quite a bit "still") a critical scholar might excavate material from "the archives" (dusty library basements, personal notes moldering in a widow's attic, interviews with aging contemporaries of the subject, etc.) and then construct a series of insights and anecdotes based on those findings, find a publisher and then stitch together a book on the matter. What Galloway is doing is expressing these insights and anecdotes into a hybrid expression of his findings — a digital, networked game as well as more traditional scholarly essays on the topic. This is significant and important for all the reasons I state over and over here. It's no longer a viable means for scholarly inquiry to create and circulate ideas and culture solely through dusty old forms like ink on paper. This is a hybrid forms that express both a theory (in this case, Debord's projection of what strategy is in a rhizomatic, networked era, even though it was constructed many decades before the internet) as well as providing a point-of-entry for someone who has never had a reason to look into this Guy Debord character. For that, Alex's work is super important.

Parenthetically, I first met Alex back in 2000 when he was doing a residency at Eyebeam (an art-technology center in New York City) while I was preparing to do my residency there. He was working on Carnivore, another important "theory object" instance. I learned a lot about what it was to construct engineering objects that wore culture on their sleeves quite noticeably. It was then that I started understanding how this important hyphenated form called art-technology could offer an opportunity to create and learn about ways to create technological instruments that were more properly and obviously "culture." Whereas that is always the case — that technology is not outside of culture — it is often hard to find frameworks and communities and mechanisms that allow one to experiment with the mixture. The goals therein are to understand that technology, as culture, is "made" and not "given." As such, it can be done "otherwise" and need not be the mass-manufactured, extant forms we have today. It can be hand-made properly, even hand-made and massively multiple, but with new entirely preposterous forms that create new ways of seeing, understanding and being in the world.

Adobe air allows designers and developers to build lightweight, yet powerful, data-driven applications. In this workshop, participants will build an AIR application that will play and visualize music coming from their personal computers or the Internet using Flex 2 and Actionscript 3 technologies.

Monday March 31, RZC201 ("The ZML") 1p-5p.

Featuring The Instructional Stylings of IMD MFA 2005 Grad Will Carter!

Please come prepared for hands-on style activities. You'll need to get Flex Builder 3 (available as a trial download) from here:

http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/

(There will be information at the workshop on how to obtain a free educational license. The trial will suffice for the workshop, though.)

Please RSVP to Veronica Paredes to reserve your spot (vaparedes at gmail dot com) today. Space is limited.

Monday Workshops @ IMD is a series of weekly workshops in tools, skills and techniques for interactive media. The workshops are intensive and hands-on introductions to various topics, designed to get you up to speed quickly.

(Essay for Share Festival Catalog 2008)

(Here is my slide presentation, relate to the essay below. But, I did not read this essay at the festival, rather it was printed in the festival catalog.)

There are a few things to say about manufacturing, design and digital arts. First, we're not talking about manufacturing. Manufacuring is about making things on a large scale using machinery. Manufacturing evokes cavernous, cold, awesomely huge assembly lines with scales all out of proportion to the experiences of mere mortals. Factory floors throwing sparks, littered with metal shavings, huge overhead cranes moving impossibly large masses of steel - this is what manufacturing means. Half million ton crude oil-carrying super tankers are manufactured. The Airbus 380 is manufactured. Millions of Herman Miller Aeron Chairs are manufactured. Billions of cellular phones are manufactured. These things have meaning in the idiom of manufacturing. Manufacturing is the engine of growth and dispair of the 20th century.

If anything, we're talking about a kind of materialization of ideas. Slick connections between an your imagination, a circuit board and a 3D printer. It's artful for its scale and personalization. Small-scale, passionate, individual ideas made material. Why is this different from manufacturing? Because manufacturing deals in enormous scales - scales of time, material, logistics, operational fortitude, finances, consumption of natural resources. Ultimately, manufacturing endeavors are impossible imbroglios of spin-doctors and reassurances, speculation, trust and hope as much as they are supply-train logistics and CAD systems. Just ask the Boeing 787 "Dreamliner" team. Is it advanced avionics and carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic skins or spin-control and renegotiated contracts that'll make that perpetually delayed endeavor a success?

The sad consequences of manufacturing's scale is that it defaults to the least common denominator. Manufacturing on a mass scale can only be an effective business enterprise when you make one thing that millions and millions of people are convinced they need to buy. Customization as a manufacturing process has not moved much beyond Henry Ford's Model T color option - you can have any color, so long as it's black. An iPod is an iPod is an iPod, hand-painting and laser etching not withstanding. True customization means materializing one's own designs, one's own imagination. This is where we begin.

What we are talking about are emerging "materialization" - not manufacturing - processes. What makes it worth talking about is that it is the power of creation that manufacturing is able to achieve, but done at an entirely different scale - quicker, cheaper, individually, with fewer intermediaries and fewer incumberances. This is the crucial element - there are fewer and less awkward hurdles, deals, negotiations and alliances to be formed in the process of materializing an idea. The power of the idea and its "moment" is not lost through the trials of enrolling people, machines, enterprises, financiers into your cause. It's as if a sketch in a notebook can materialize immediately. No more fumbling around with awkward descriptions of your weird idea - let the material object speak for you.

What else can be said about this different kind of idea-manufacturing? How does it integreate with design and digital arts? It relies on "toolkits" consisting of digital software and hardware, fab machines, CNC "Robodrills" and 3D modeling. As importantly, the toolkits are also the far-flung networked communities of craftspeople and designers, artists and technologists sharing ideas and insights. The practical tradecraft starts from the bottom and works its way up. We're familiar with the elements of this process, and the activities taking place in various corners of the digital arts and art-technology communities. This is an emerging practice informally taken up by thoughtful designer-tinkerers. It is a practice that will find greater adoption within more formal and conservative design, engineering and art communities as its significance is refined.

The "tooling" for this practice includes open-source firmware for inexpensive microcontroller-based kits like the Arduino; hacked Nintendo Wii controllers; low-cost, rapid-turnaround printed circuit board production houses; free development environments like Processing; online knowledge sharing communities; parts suppliers with no minimum orders, and so forth.

The "manufacturing process" is a kind of extended sketching activity. Ideas are first expressed informally, perhaps with a simple "wouldn't it be cool if..?" question at a moment of inspiration. But the question should be answered - and it can be, often enough, with a quick pen drawing, some poking around the net for practical answers or to source some parts or other material - perhaps even finding other people who have asked the same question and thereby entering into conversations with all the other similarly inspired folks out there on the networks. In short order a refined, functional technology engine is created using small-scale surface mount printed circuit board techniques so as to fit within the refined contours of a fab'd surface model. Now you have a fully functioning materialization of your idea - much easier to answer that initial question with the real-deal. You can share it, put it in other people's hands and work through the nuances of your idea.

What does this all mean for an emerging design-art-technology practice? At present, the evidence of something compelling centered around new interactions is indicated by a richly stocked cabinet of curios - expressive artifacts and objects that, like early Net Art, stitch together inputs and create expressive outputs. Only — and this is important - they do so off the computer screen, and with no keyboard and mouse. Rather, these expressive objects form their interactivity around physical actions that may include the Nabaztag's articulating rabbit-like ears, or Clocky the coy alarm clocks that roll away when you try to hit the snooze button, or Maywa Denki's punch-drunk dancing BitMan character. These are distinct kinds of digital objects that mix physical space, digital technology and design.

We know that the art of digital media continues to emphasize the screen, the keyboard, the mouse and the network. The weak signals suggest kinds of design-art-technology that are growing tired of the screen. Digital art is ready to move beyond the confines that Douglas Englebart and his contemporaries created in 1968 with their patent line drawing depicting the now canonical assembly of keyboard, screen and mouse. If there is a "new materiality" to digital arts, it will emphasize material interactions in physical space, embodied experiences and contexts beyond the typically sedentary confines of the screen/keyboard/mouse/network assemblage.

For this new process to do something new, it must become a ployglot practice steered by undisciplinary craftspeople who believe in the possibility of creating fictional, unbelieveable, even preposterous objects that say as much about what they're moving away from - the uninspired, least-common denominator landfill-destined plastic device - as they say about what sort of near future world we could have. What is emerging is an ability to make your own stuff - not just "skinning" your mobile or modding an MP3 player. Materializing ideas is about making your own - "whatever" - unanticipated, unknow, visionary, expressive things. It is not a manufacturing process. This is a process that requires multiple perspectives and multiple skills thoroughly mixing engineering-design-art into a hybrid sensibility. It is a process that's strictly for trouble-makers and boundary crossers. Nothing expected and everything unexpected will come from this.

Monday March 10, 1-5PM, RZC201 ("ZML") Introduction to Max/MSP/Jitter

Instructor: Perry Hoberman

Recent developments in digital cinema display technologies have brought us to the brink of a cinematic revolution: high-quality mainstream stereoscopic 3D cinema has finally become a reality. As stereoscopic production becomes more common, there is a growing need for artists and designers with vision, experience and training in this new medium. This workshop will cover the basic principles of binocular vision, as well as the various available methods for creating and displaying stereoscopic images.

Please RSVP to Perry Hoberman to reserve your spot (hoberman at bway dot net) today! Tarry not; space is limited.

The Monday Workshops @ IMD are a series of weekly short topic workshop on tools, skills and techniques for interactive media. The workshops are designed to be intensive and hands-on introductions to a variety of topics — to get you over that initial, sometimes daunting learning curve that many interactive media tools and techniques present.

Monday March 3, 1-5PM, RZC201 ("ZML") Introduction to Max/MSP/Jitter

Instructor: Perry Hoberman

An introduction to Max/MSP/Jitter, a cross-platform graphical programming environment designed for music, signal processing, multimedia and 3D graphics, in use worldwide for over fifteen years by performers, composers, artists, teachers, and students. Max/MSP/Jitter is especially conducive to iterative experimentation, allowing rough ideas to be quickly sketched out and successively refined.

Please RSVP to Perry Hoberman to reserve your spot (hoberman at bway dot net) today! Tarry not; space is limited.

The Monday Workshops @ IMD are a series of weekly short topic workshop on tools, skills and techniques for interactive media. The workshops are designed to be intensive and hands-on introductions to a variety of topics — to get you over that initial, sometimes daunting learning curve that many interactive media tools and techniques present.

February 25, 1-5PM, RZC201 ("ZML") — Flash Platform Workshop

Extra Special Instructor: Erik Loyer

Flash is no longer just a plug-in; it has evolved into a massive suite of tools, services and techniques called the Flash Platform. Used for everything from character animation to interactive video to full-featured applications that rival their desktop counterparts, Flash plays a major role in shaping how users experience content on the Internet. This workshop will introduce the Flash Platform with specific emphasis on programming in ActionScript 3.0 and MXML and the basics of working in Flash and Flex (and how you decide when to use which). Requires a networked laptop.

Experience with object-oriented programming is desirable.

Please note carefully — workshop participants will need to have access to Flash CS3 and Flex Builder 2. Some of the ZML lab computers are so equipped with these programs, but it may be better to obtain these for your own personal computer. Flash CS3 is available for a free trial version here:

http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/

Flex Builder 2 is available for a free trial version here:

http://www.adobe.com/go/openflextrial

Please email bleecker @ usc dot edu to RSVP.

Note that this workshop will be held Monday February 25, from 1-5pm in RZC201 (The "ZML").

Sliding Friction: The Harmonious Jungle of Contemporary Cities
. This pamphlet assembles photos and annotations we took here and there along our dérive through the many cities they lived in and visited. Sliding Friction is an attempt to showcase the curious aspects of contemporary urban spaces. Through 15 topics and 4 themes they focus their lenses on the sparkles generated by the many frictions between ideas, practices and infrastructures that populate cities. They hope to provide some raw food for thoughts to consider the city of the future. Do we want to mitigate, or even eliminate these frictions?

Sliding Friction: The Harmonious Jungle of Contemporary Cities

Nicolas Nova and Fabien Girardin

It's available here as a PDF

in Walabab editions, Designed by Bread and Butter, Preface by Bruce Sterling, Postface by Julian Bleecker.

Sliding Friction: The Harmonious Jungle of Contemporary Cities:

It has finally arrived! After months of fun labor, Nicolas and Fabien released Sliding Friction: The Harmonious Jungle of Contemporary Cities. This pamphlet assembles photos and annotations we took here and there along our dérive through the many cities they lived in and visited. Sliding Friction is an attempt to showcase the curious aspects of contemporary urban spaces. Through 15 topics and 4 themes they focus their lenses on the sparkles generated by the many frictions between ideas, practices and infrastructures that populate cities. They hope to provide some raw food for thoughts to consider the city of the future. Do we want to mitigate, or even eliminate these frictions?

Sliding Friction: The Harmonious Jungle of Contemporary Cities

Nicolas Nova and Fabien Girardin

in Walabab editions, Designed by Bread and Butter, Preface by Bruce Sterling, Postface by Julian Bleecker.