kurt

image flow

presentation for bolas on image editing:

image_flow20040930

the last sequence of images are mine, shot mostly in LA

World Wind

Just can't get enough of maps? Me neither. If you haven't checked out Anita's map post, do it.

Then go look at NASA's World Wind projecct. There are plenty of 3D globe projects out there, Scott showed one with a physical globe interface way back in my first year but I've long forgotten the name of it. Although the site is currently slashdotted (and it only runs on Windows 2000 or XP), by downloading their presentation kit, I think one can get a reasonable idea of what it's like. World Wind shows an Earth that seems incredibly alien to me, some of the pictures make it easy to forget that I live here. Maybe that's one of the reasons I'm so attracted to maps, not only do they offer a perspective that I can rarely see (only when flying... which deserves its own comments), but they transform me into an astronaut. Orbitting my own world, I'm a visitor, an observer, a bit distant and perhaps maybe more objective.

GPS Cameraphone

Remain calm. This is serious.

Motorola's i860 is coming. GPS + camera (only VGA...). Nextel will probably be the carrier.

Read more on phonescoop.

When? I have no idea. Will I have one the moment it arrives? Yes.

XML Revision Using Attributes

Seems that attributes are going to be easier to parse. So here's a reformatted (thanks Jim!) version of my XML document:

XML_revised

The concern at this point is whether each visual component needs such a great range of values. An alternative: for color, use "warm" and "cool" rather than the HSB values. The advantage would be that only the strongest visual components would be stored, established by a threshold over which they are significantly perceptible. The disadvantage would be that each visual component is still evaluated only once over an entire image. My worry is that this is somewhat shortsighted given how dynamic each visual component can be within a single image. But it doesn't seem to be any worse than the first version. So I'll write it up.

pop 9

Link

Bought this for Bolas on Friday. $50. It will be the subject of some top secret experiments.

Look up lomography if you've never heard of it.

Visual Components XML

Here's an image:

Here's an XML document describing the visual components within:

XML_kurt20040919

This is meant to be an extension to the EXIF metadata tag that the camera outputs, so don't complain about the information that's not there. The image above has been resized from the camera original (3008x2000) and recompressed at medium jpeg compression.

Some things that are missing that will be added later will be space/place (GPS/neighborhood). My goal is to find a solution to this problem quickly.

Hide My Credit Card...

Please.

GPS support for the recording of location information with shooting data: Location information such as latitude, longitude and altitude can be transferred from a GPS device and recorded with the shooting data for an image. Nikon has developed the new MC-35 cable (optional) for connection to NMEA0183-compatible GPS devices.

Lust.

Saturation/Chôjô DVD

The Saturation demo video is done. Added an Ulrich Schnauss soundtrack. Burned it all to DVD. And with 10 hours to spare. The masochist in me wants to keep working on it, while my body just wants to sleep.

Thanks to Will Carter, Tracy Fullerton, Todd Furmanski, Tripp Millican and Kellee Santiago.

Performance Cinema

I have the distinct pleasure of adding Michael Lew to my thesis committee. As an expert on performance cinema, he will bring unique insight to the conceptual, technical and artistic challenges inherent in this medium.

Thanks for being so enthusiastic and supportive Michael!

It Can Be Done!

In case anyone missed it, read Tripp's post on the joy of gaming nostalgia first.

Considering the magnitude of accomplishment that comes from beating such a viciously difficult game, a proper press release will follow. But for now, witness our collective triumph!

Does anyone out there remember that section of Nintendo Power where players sent in photos of the games they beat? Some of them even had the kids posing next to the TV, holding the controllers, looking tough...

We should revive this tradition on our blog. I'm sure with all the gamers we have in our program, there are plenty of us finishing games. Just take a picture and post it on your page in a category named "Victory!" whenever it happens. We'll set up a page that collects them all. Keep a camera close by...

Socialism Responsibility

Communication carries a lot more meaning than merely the message and the medium. Try opting out for a while. What happens when your node disappears or just stops resonding to the network around it? Frequency and response. Depending on the individual, the feedback to the absence of communication could be immediate (say in the case of a CEO) or delayed (say in the case of a person whose death is only noticed by the smell). There are a lot of expectations for the frequency and response of communication across all communities (notice the similar word root), from the largest groups spread across the internet to the interpersonal relationships that define us.

So what is our responsibility to participate? Some groups seem to be much more tolerant of communication lethargy and other have very strict expectations about the performance to the point of duty. I suppose that we would all be better at balancing the multitude of opt-in networks if the expectations for good citizenship were always explicit, yet that seems to be an unrealistic expectation all by itself. People are not like companies, sending out bill reminders ("final notice: respond or lose service"), so we tune our sensitivity to the highest setting and try never to cross that threshold of silence past which relationships are harmed or even forfeit. But we're only human.

And so, my fellow americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
-John F. Kennedy, Inaugural address, January 20, 1961

Thesis Proposal Notes

Scott sez:
-prior art: need more references to location and place based art/technology/research (get from Scott)
-place: what about style templates specific to places/neighborhoods?
-blog: documenting the process is very important

Jim sez:
-interface: image selection method for consumer app?
-interface: image and geo/place selection of the live performance?
-focus: perhaps too ambitious? narrow down to 2/3 artifacts...

Thesis Project Proposal

Thesis Kurt 20040903 (Word)

Thesis Budget 20040902 (Excel)

Thesis Proposal 20040903 (Powerpoint)

Obit

Kurt MacDonald is dead. He was 100 years old.

A media artist, designer and photographer by trade, his work was best known for using technology to inspire reflection about current social issues. Yet he is perhaps most famous for opting out of all electronic communications networks and "retiring from technology" 15 years ago in what many thought at the time was a publicity stunt. Though he maintained his withdrawal from the mediated world, he was never a recluse and remained active in his family and community throughout his life.

Kurt aspired to live as simply as possible, refusing to retain any items that he no longer had any use for, even giving away the rights to his own artwork every 5 years. "Why would I want to keep it?" he was fond of saying, "I'm done with it. Have to move on."

In an interview recently, asked what he felt most proud of in his career, Kurt said teaching was the greatest contribution he had made. "We are all children in some capacity, in some respect, always trying to figure out the bizarre world around us. And whenever we think we figure something out, our first instinct is to go and tell our friends. I'm just glad that somebody was interested in what I had to say. I'm glad that I got to see the look of discovery on so many faces in my lifetime as a teacher. That's the best thing to leave behind."

He never married.

Storyboard

8 shots per page
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3 different layouts
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