May 22, 2009
Gone Gitmo made Huffington Post
This is in reference to UC Berkeley's Center for Human Rights: Animating Human Rights Panel Become a Guantánano Detainee - In Second Life
Posted by pweil at 3:55 PM | Comments (0)
May 7, 2009
Gone Gitmo at Center for Human Rights: SF Chronicle
SF Chronicle coverage: How Technology Can Help Human Rights
Posted by pweil at 9:08 PM | Comments (0)
April 4, 2009
AFP covers GONE GITMO presentation at MIPDOC
Agence France-Presse covered our presentations in Cannes in an article titled, "TV documentaries take leap into digital world":
But the upcoming though somewhat unlikely next digital space for documentaries may be the virtual world.
"Cutting-edge documentary producer Nonny De La Pena linked up with US professor Peggy Weil to create a virtual accessible version of Guantanamo Bay in the avatar-inhabited 3D online world of Second Life.
"Gone Gitmo", enabling visitors to walk the immersive experience of military detention, has attracted millions of visitors and sometimes violent reactions from users, De La Pena said."
Posted by pweil at 9:43 AM | Comments (0)
April 3, 2009
William Forsythe + OSU Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design
Amazing work, beautifully done site.
Don't skip the intro.
Watch the movie.
Posted by pweil at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)
March 19, 2009
Gone Gitmo on cover of IDA Spring 2009 Issue
In an article titled: When Docs Get Graphic: Animation Meets Actuality by Beige Luciano-Adams in IDA, the journal of the International Documentary Association
"Some methods take more liberty than others. For filmmaker Nonny de la Peña, Second Life technology allowed her to expnd on issues treated in her prior documentary, Unconstitutional (2004). With USC Interactive Media adjunct professor Peggy Weil, De al Peña created a virtual Guantánamo Bay Prison, called Gone Gitmo. Here, users can experience first-hand - through their personal avatar-what it might feel like to don the orange jupsuit and have your rights indefinitely suspended. Using writings and testimonials of actual detainees to shape the virtual world, the project aims at new means of connecting viewers to the issues."
Posted by pweil at 12:25 PM | Comments (0)
March 5, 2009
BCNM: New Media Research Roundtable 3/5/09
Berkeley Center for New Media Commons
(340 Moffitt Library, on the terrace next to the Free Speech Cafe.)
This informal bi-weekly series encourages faculty and BCNM graduate
students to discuss future and current research in New Media with an
emphasis on identifying new collaborative research opportunities.
Organized by Gail De Kosnik, Ken Goldberg, and Susan Miller.
Prof. Weil addresses the role of new media designers as architects and
planners of a new type of civic and narrative space. As the physical and
virtual worlds intersect, it is our responsibility as new media
practitioners to recognize our roles as world designers, acknowledging
that the virtual is no longer imaginary. The virtual environment (2D and
3D gamespace as well as virtual worlds) serve as an immersive data
space, offering unprecedented prospects for visualization, even
‘perceptualization,’ of complex processes and systems. This presentation
will cover two of the speaker’s recent projects, "The Redistricting
Game" and "Gone Gitmo," as platforms to pose questions and to suggest
new directions for projects and research.
Posted by pweil at 3:12 PM | Comments (0)
Avatar Exhibit - Museo Tridentino Delle Scienze Naturali
Avatar Exhibit - Museo Tridentino Delle Scienze Naturali from Pier Giorgio Provenzano on Vimeo.
A show chronicling the history of virtual worlds - in Trento last October -January.
Posted by pweil at 9:05 AM | Comments (0)
November 20, 2008
Documenting Dioramas
Thanks to Kurosh for supplying us with his "lipstick" camera and new wide angle lens to document the class Dioramas. Ala' provided camera work and production - yes, that's a glowing light stick lens holder...great images of 532 worlds.
Posted by pweil at 5:11 PM | Comments (0)
November 19, 2008
Thanksgiving & Beyond
Due by Class time Wed Nov 26th:
Draft Atlas (if an asset is not fully rendered, substitute a description) including requests for feedback on specific problems, if applicable
Posted (blog or wiki) or emailed to entire class
Due Class time Wed Dec 3rd (with Steve Anderson)
.psd layers to integrate into panorama
Use class to present drafts to Steve and get feedback
Presentations December 10th 10-1
You will have roughly 15 minutes to present your atlas.
Posted by pweil at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2008
Week 13 Assignment
Send a Postcard
Due (posted) before class Wed Nov 19th
Please write or fabricate or produce:
a postcard (or your world's equivalent: scenic vista accompanied by message, address and caption)
between two inhabitants of your world(s)
or
from a visitor to the outside world
Posted by pweil at 9:37 AM | Comments (0)
November 12, 2008
Entropia
Al Yang was kind enough to bring in ENTROPIA, A COLLECTION OF UNUSUALLY RARE STAMPS, by Christian Lorenze Scheuer as an example of world design.
Posted by pweil at 2:39 PM | Comments (0)
November 5, 2008
Assignments Week 14, 15 and beyond
Week 14: By SUNDAY 11/23
This is the time to actively solicit feedback. You do not need to post the entire project, but please post (email, blog or WIKI, but alert via email) final questions, or additions or trouble spots in your presentations. This is a requirement.
Week 15: Wed 12/3,
Steve Anderson will officiate class; Your projects should be posted (either blog or WIKI) by then. I will have WIFI.
Wed 12/3 CTIN 511:
CTIN 532's offering for 511 will be a panorama set of slides representing a scene from your world (Ala' will supply a template) + your dioramas. Due date for your slide TBD.
Wed 12/10, 10-1 We will meet for final show case and feedback.
Posted by pweil at 8:52 PM | Comments (0)
November 4, 2008
post halloween scare (reprised)
VOTE! It's interactive!
Posted by pweil at 2:56 PM | Comments (0)
November 3, 2008
IDEO Global Chain Reaction
IDEO Global Chain Reaction from IDEO Labs on Vimeo.
Posted by pweil at 9:04 AM | Comments (0)
October 31, 2008
Worldbuilding Links
courtesy of Mike Rossmassler:
The Rules of Quick and Dirty World Building
Secrets of Great Characters According to Six Science Fiction Authors
Posted by pweil at 5:35 PM | Comments (0)
Ghost Latte
Posted by pweil at 12:43 AM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2008
Eyeballing Game
A game to test your visual acuity.
Eyeballing Game
Posted by pweil at 12:35 PM | Comments (0)
October 23, 2008
save the date: AFI DIGIFEST
AFI DIGI-FEST program
Mann Chinese 6 Theater Hollywood Nov 6th & 7th
Gone Gitmo presentation Friday Nov 7th
Posted by pweil at 3:31 PM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2008
Week 10 Assignment
PEEPHOLE DIORAMAS!
Choose a representative scene from your world to model within the diorama. You may use the box + peephole in any orientation. Consider scale, perspective and horizon.
Due Class 10/29
Posted by pweil at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2008
Link to the Quake Catcher Netowrk!
From Tech Review Laptops as Earthquake Sensors
The Quake Catcher Network team has developed software that turns Mac laptops into seismic sensors and displays seismic data on a screensaver. Apple laptops manufactured since 2005 are outfitted with accelerometers, as are many IBM (now Lenovo), Acer, and HP laptops. They detect sudden acceleration--as when a laptop falls from a table, for instance--and brace the hard drive for impact. It's a distributed computing network, like SETI@home, which searches for intelligent signals from space, and Folding@Home, which focuses on protein folding. Machines in the earthquake network would monitor motion and report big shakes to a central server.
Posted by pweil at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2008
Gone Gitmo at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica
Sunday & Monday, October 19th & 20th, 7:30pm Details Here
Posted by pweil at 5:26 PM | Comments (0)
October 6, 2008
Redistricting Presentation
The presidential election is overshadowing congressional races where redistricting plays a huge role. I had the privilege of presenting our Redistricting Game to Crossroads Middle School last month as part of their lead up to the election, Government in Action.
Posted by pweil at 2:10 PM | Comments (1)
October 1, 2008
THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK
I'm grappling for a graphic message (words don't seem to be sufficient) to convey my response to this election. As before, I return to a potent graphic symbol of our era, the Doomsday Clock. The discomfort with Palin is not mere disdain, but is rooted in (abject) fear of the consequences of an apocalyptic enthusiast potentially controlling the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The Palin candidacy has nudged, at least the second hand, forward. It's not a stretch to think that the Doomsday Clock would lurch forward in the event of a McCain/Palin victory. It's already Five Minutes to Midnight. (The last time it was set to 4 minutes to midnight was 1981: Soviet invasion of Afganistan.) But then, post-apocalyptic visions and projects are all the vogue...
Posted by pweil at 2:24 PM | Comments (0)
Week 7 Assignment
WEEK 7 Assignments
Thank you for posting your Atlas Table of Contents and schedules. Please add:
1. CIRCULATION STUDY depicting:
a) P.O.V. Native/Inhabitant & Visiter/Viewer
Fixed Focal Point vs. free range of vision
Perimeter / Boundaries
Actual vs. Apparent (Berming)
Sense of freedom/expanse vs. constriction
b) Entrances / Exits
External & Internal
Explicit & Implicit
c) Paths
fixed vs improvised paths
“as the crow flies” vs. respecting topography & habitual routes
detours due to:
barriers
events
overlapping paths / intersections
2. LAWS / RULES / AUTHORITY
State (at least) a dozen rules in your world.
What is their origin?
Who has authority (and how is it conferred? Transferred?)
How are rules challenged?
How judges challenges to the law?
What are the penalties for transgression?
3. BLANK SPACE
What are the blank spaces (literal, physical, sensorial, societal) in your world?
Posted by pweil at 1:55 PM | Comments (0)
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
3-4 students will distribute their Atlas-in-progess to the entire class on the Sunday preceding their presentation. The entire class is responsible to read each treatment for in-depth critique. Prepare to lead a tour + discussion of your world with the aim of eliciting meaningful feedback. This is a substantial draft.
Week 10: Oct 29 Workshop I: Worlds 1-3
Distribute materials Sunday Oct 26
Ian Dallas
Amanda Tasse
Brandi Wilcox
Week 11: Nov 5 Workshop II: Worlds 4-6
Distribute materials Sunday November 2nd
Ala’ Diab
Nahil Sharkasi
Peter Van Dyke
Bryan Jaycox
Week 12: Nov 12 Workshop III: Worlds 7-9
Distribute Materials Sunday November 9th
Lulu Cao
Taiyoung Ryu
Cynthia Nie
Posted by pweil at 1:10 PM | Comments (0)
10AM October 8th - Class to meet at FLATWORLD/ICT
Flatworld is at a remote location from ICT (but nearby); the address is
5318 McConnell Ave., 90066
Google Map Directions from USC to ICT
OR
Marina Del Rey Shuttle from USC Campus
Service from 8:00AM to 5:00PM, Monday-Friday
Pick up at Watt & Downey, Drop off at ICT and ISI
Schedule
Depart USC
8:00 AM
9:30 AM
11:00 AM
1:15 PM
2:45 PM
4:15 PM
Depart MDR
8:45 AM
10:15 AM
11:45 AM
2:00 PM
3:30 PM
5:00 PM
Posted by pweil at 9:45 AM | Comments (0)
September 24, 2008
Week 6 Assignments
1. Look at your ATLAS Table of Contents/Format and consider what portion of your world you will be able to successfully build/present this semester. Brainstorm concrete production tasks to complete this semester. Choose 4-5 tasks/models/areas to complete by the workshops later this semester. (Remember that the workshops are sessions for you to present a rough but cohesive "draft" for evaluation and feedback allowing you to iterate by the end of this semester.) Schedule yourself to complete them in rough draft form by, worst case, October 26th (if you are in the first group, subsequent Sundays for subsequent groups). We will assign a presentation schedule for the workshops next week. Note that these tasks are self-defined and in addition to any class exercises or tasks I might assign related to your worlds. This is not an ephemeral assignment; post a concrete list with dates.
2, Start thinking about the visual look and feel of your world. If you have already chosen a style or genre, begin to sketch in it. If you are experimenting with visual style, begin by combing through printed or digital media and making a collage out of collected snippets representing color/texture/style, etc. Post a visual representation of your collection/sketches.
3. Next week we will be discussing games and game space. Please read the following articles, and submit any other postings or thoughts you’d like to contribute to the group before the discussion.
Art of Contested Spaces by Kurt Squire Henry Jenkins
Imaging Gameplay - The Design and Construction of Spatial Worlds by Bernadette Flynn
Also:
Torus and Klein Bottle Games.
And He Built a Crooked House by Heinlein on SCIFI.com
Posted by pweil at 2:05 PM | Comments (0)
September 17, 2008
Placemaking & Pattern Language
The Project for Public Spaces site has information on William H. Whyte as well as newletters and projects related to observing the urban environment. I recommend looking at their Placemaker Profiles.
Christopher Alexander is an esteemed Placemaker/Designer - you are encouraged to look at his site and works: Pattern Language.
Posted by pweil at 2:12 PM | Comments (0)
San Francisco Emotion Map
A project commissioned by Southern Exposure:
The San Francisco Emotion Map is the culmination of Christian Nold’s five-week residency and participatory art project that involved a total of 98 participants exploring San Francisco’s Mission District neighborhood using the Bio Mapping device he invented. During his residency at Southern Exposure, Christian Nold worked in the organization’s Mission Street storefront gallery encouraging visitors to stop by and use the devices during the weekdays and on Saturdays when he conducted intensive workshops. The project invited the public to go for a walk using the device, which records the wearer’s physiological response to their surroundings. The results of these walks are represented on this map using colored dots and participant’s personal annotations. The San Francisco Emotion Map is a collective attempt at creating an emotional portrait of a neighborhood and envisions new tools that allow people to share and interpret their own bio data. The map can be downloaded here.
Posted by pweil at 2:05 PM | Comments (0)
Week 5 Assignment
(DUE, POSTED, BEFORE CLASS 9/24)
1) Define Player Experience Goals
You’ve explored your motivation as designer/creator of the world, now you must consider your intention for your visitor.
State your goals for visitor experience:
What insights, questions, issues, feelings do you intend to evoke/provoke?
What will it take to accomplish this? How will you evaluate your success?
2) Define your Atlas:
Your ATLAS is both our guide to your world, as well as a design document. It differs from a user manual in that we might be privy to design decisions not available to the visitor. It is an overview, and should include imagery (both 2D and 3D) digital and physical models as well as text.
Form
You are encouraged, but not required, to design your atlas as an artifact from your world. How will you present your collection of design documents and maps as a coherent whole?
Table of Contents
Here are some categories from today’s brainstorm that may apply to your design/world:
Maps: Where is it
Directions: How do I get there
Pictures: What does it look like
Dioramas: What does it feel like to be there
Physics: How do things move, work?
Ecology: What lives there?
Economy: What do they do?, How do they survive?
Language: how do they communicate
Arts: How do they express themselves
War: How do they settle conflicts?
Faith/Religion/Superstitions: What do they believe?
Libraries/Books: How do they store knowledge?
Stories/Science: How do they explain their world?
Begin to list the assets you will produce over the semester to render the world visible and accessible. You will use this list to schedule yourself for the remainder of the semester.
3) Notebook/Observations
Continue to be an active observer of your environment and make notes to your journal. The word for this week is CIRCULATION, notice circulation patterns in public space, within buildings, as well as your private movements referenced to the articles and discussions of this week.
Posted by pweil at 1:43 PM | Comments (0)
Inverted Wedding Cake Aviation Map
Ala' found this in response to last week's mapping exercise; an eye opener for Ground Pounders...
Posted by pweil at 1:30 PM | Comments (0)
September 12, 2008
Many Eyes: Browsing Visualizations
A great collection of visualizations and tools for visualization Many Eyes, Browsing Visualizations
Posted by pweil at 10:12 PM | Comments (0)
Nobel Textiles
An exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in the UK
Five Nobel-winning scientists have been paired with five textile designers as part of a two-year project between Central Saint Martins College and the Medical Research Council, and the result is Nobel Textiles: a brilliant week of exhibitions and events at the ICA and in St James's Park.
Posted by pweil at 4:16 PM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2008
WEEK 4 Assignment
DUE BEFORE CLASS 9/17
1. BEGIN MAPPING YOUR WORLD (An extension of last week's part 2.)
Your map should define the space contextually.
External boundaries
What separates it from the "outside?"
What territory (abstract or literal) did the visitor have to traverse to arrive?
What barriers are there to exit?
Internal Boundaries
Sketch out major zones - begin to delineate districts for activities, needs, neighborhood, categories pertinent to your work.
Characterize the barriers between the (internal) zones: Are they easily accessible? Are there forbidden zones? Is access graduated (according to time, skill, knowledge?)
Mental Map
Don't restrict yourself to a literal, perfectly rendered map, but consider your visitor's mental map. Familiarize yourself with maps of distortion based on time, proximity, need.
2. Reading for next week:
In Certain Circles, Two Is a Crowd
by Stephanie Rosenbloom
Passengers May Now Pirouette To Gate 3
by Jesse Green
Posted by pweil at 3:05 PM | Comments (0)
WEEK 3 Assignment Reprised
DUE TODAY!!!! September 10
Declare (POST) your world:
1. Name it.
Provide a brief description including
broad intention
genre (in the sense of literary genre: fantasy, sci-fi, history, biography, non-fiction...)
media (game, sculpture, installation, architectural analsysis, monument, interactive narrative etc)
2. Place it:
Describe (and sketch) the external boundaries.
Describe (annotate) its context, external and internal forces.
(What is outside those boundaries?) Where does your world reside?
3. Define your audience.
Are you designing for a solitary or group experience?
Are you offering a first, second or third person experience?
Begin to define the agency your reader/viewer/visitor will have in your world.
What do you intend for your visitor?
4. Motivation
Briefly, what is your motivation to create this world, to create this experience for your visitors?
World Building / Space Bibliography
Posted by pweil at 3:00 PM | Comments (0)
STARTING GUN!
As of today, you have declared your worlds and you are beginning building. You should be working actively on them, each week, regardless of whether or not you are slated for a presentation. This week you are mapping. Please start your notebook/sketchbook/wiki and/or blog thread to show your progress. Don't restrict your entries to class assignments (i.e. this week only mapping) but begin to collect observations, images, scraps, artifacts, information - anything pertinent to your world.
Posted by pweil at 2:43 PM | Comments (0)
September 3, 2008
INVENTORIES
Thank you for your Inventory Presentations. Please post some aspect of it, with attention to your conclusions/analysis. A few of the categories that came up today were:
CULTURALLY VALUED:
Efficiency & Convenience
Preparedness (also termed: "just in case-ness")
Mobility
Access / Enablers
Communication / Connection
Workaholism
Transhuman Extenders (Memory)
Education
Technology
Entertainment (Games, Music)
Health
Privacy
Multicultures
AXIS
Proximity : closely held vs remotely carried
Opacity/Transparency
Public/Private
Individuation / Uniformity
Please add and comment to this list and analysis with your posts.
Posted by pweil at 1:26 PM | Comments (0)
September 2, 2008
For Week 3:
Declare (POST) your world:
1. Name it.
Provide a brief description including
broad intention
genre (in the sense of literary genre: fantasy, sci-fi, history, biography, non-fiction...)
media (game, sculpture, installation, architectural analsysis, monument, interactive narrative etc)
2. Place it:
Describe (and sketch) the external boundaries.
Describe (annotate) its context, external and internal forces.
(What is outside those boundaries?) Where does your world reside?
3. Define your audience.
Are you designing for a solitary or group experience?
Are you offering a first, second or third person experience?
Begin to define the agency your reader/viewer/visitor will have in your world.
What do you intend for your visitor?
4. Motivation
Briefly, what is your motivation to create this world, to create this experience for your visitors?
World Building / Space Bibliography
Posted by pweil at 1:58 PM | Comments (3)
INTENTION
Word for the week = INTENTION
The Spaces Around You
As you move around this week, think about the spaces you enter in terms of the designer's intention:
Was this space (or object or tool) designed for its current use?
If not, how was it transformed to serve another purpose? What are the clues (visual and otherwise)?
Were any compromises made or did the original space provide useful/unusual features?
Your world proposal:
Set an intention for your world design, taking into account your motivation, i.e. your intention as a designer and student as well as considering your viewer's experience.
As a designer, what is the broad intention of your space or world?
Posted by pweil at 1:19 PM | Comments (0)
September 1, 2008
A World of Definitions
"world." Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary. K Dictionaries Ltd. 01 Sep. 2008.
cited in Dictionary.com
Posted by pweil at 10:51 AM | Comments (3)
August 27, 2008
Week 1 CTIN532
This is your class blog
Please check it regularly and use it to post assignments, and any observations / musings relating to class and space. (i.e If you happen to wander into a space that was originally designed for a completely different purpose - use this space to record your observations about it..)
WEEK 1 ASSIGNMENT
1. ATLAS
Begin thinking about the world and the space you will design for it this term.
Begin with intention. Are you:
Creating a setting to experience/deepen/cause emotion? (Memorial/ sadness/grief/memory, Utopia/hope, Dystopia/despair, Monuments/Pride..
Modeling/simulating/exposing an inaccessible region? (Visualization, Exploration)
Facilitating training / access / information gathering / meeting? (Beacons, Negotiation Spaces, etc)
Analyzing land (physical or metaphorical) use? (Public/Private)
Creating a setting for a narrative, play, challenge, competition, cooperation, negotiation?
You will commit to an idea by Week 3, September 10th.
2. INVENTORY
Work on your inventories. What do the things you have (had) with you this morning say about the world we live in?
Address the environment and landscape in terms of climate, ecology, physics, dimensionality, mobility, knowledge systems, access, identity, economy and culture. What can you add to this list? How do they overlap? Represent your analysis in any media, but it must include some written text and indicate relations and value of the qualities depicted. Please post a version of your analysis and prepare for an in-class presentation for next week, September 3rd.
3. SPATIAL ANALYSIS
Week 3: September 10th: Brandi Wilcox / Cynthia Nie / Bryan Jaycox / Ala’ Diab
Week 4: September 17th: Peter Van Dyke / Taiyoung Ryu / Ian Dallas
Week 5: Septmeber 24th: Nahil Sharkasi / Lulu Cao / Amanda Tasse
4. Reading: Jared Diamond excerpt for discussion next week
Syllabus (note: new version with dates for FLATWORLD changed)
Atlas
Spatial Analysis
Jared Diamond excerpt
Posted by pweil at 4:03 PM | Comments (0)
08CTIN532
This is the 08 CTIN532 Class Blog
Posted by pweil at 3:33 PM | Comments (0)
August 25, 2008
delayed diaries
Orwell's Diaries
The Orwell Prize, Britain’s pre-eminent prize for political writing, is publishing George Orwell’s diaries as a blog. From 9th August 2008, Orwell’s domestic and political diaries (from 9th August 1938 until October 1942) will be posted in real-time, exactly 70 years after the entries were written. (noted in the business section of today's NYTimes, "What Orwell wrote, 70 Years Later to the Day")
Posted by pweil at 9:49 AM | Comments (0)
August 1, 2008
LNKALL
Posted by pweil at 4:22 PM | Comments (0)
June 27, 2008
Field Trip to Computer History Museum
Scott Fisher and I were privileged to get a tour accompanied by Gordon Bell - reflected here in a very early, very large, computer disk (disc?).
Posted by pweil at 1:50 PM | Comments (0)
April 18, 2008
Presentation Schedule: 2ND YEAR THESIS PROPOSALS
WEEK 14: Thursday, April 24th 12-2+
Jack McMahan
Ethan Kennerly
Andrea Rodriguez
Andre Clark
Maya Churi
Week 15: Thursday, May 1st 12-2+
Jamie Antonisse
Diana Hughes
John Brennan
RJ Layton
Al Yang
Mike Rossmassler
Posted by pweil at 9:22 AM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2008
IMD in Vanity Fair
Article on Gone Gitmo: Click Here for Torture by Julian Sancton
I hate to quibble, but for a far more literate account of the work please see The Columbia Spectator's Article by Dena Yago
Posted by pweil at 3:54 PM | Comments (0)
April 5, 2008
Thesis Prep Presentation Outline
This is for your oral presentation, not to be confused with the written proposal.
Thesis Prep Presentation Outline
Posted by pweil at 12:26 PM | Comments (0)
April 3, 2008
USC Form: Appt of Thesis Committee
Posted by pweil at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)
March 29, 2008
CTIN548 Schedule
3/27 Week 10 Workshop 1
4/3 Week 11 Workshop 2
4/10 Week 12 Workshop 3
4/17 Week 13 OPEN: Proposal Drafts DUE
4/24 Week 14 Presentation 1
5/1 Week 15 13Presentation 2
TUESDAY MAY 6th: Final Proposals Due
Posted by pweil at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)
March 28, 2008
Thesis Proposal Outline
Posted by pweil at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)
March 13, 2008
CTIN548 Individual Schedules + Proposals
Due (posted) Tuesday 3/25:
for Entire Class (not just those presenting that week)
Look at your mid-term presentation and proposal outline.
Analyze tasks to complete for your final proposal and schedule yourself for
Weeks 10, 11, 12, 13
These are individual tasks pertaining to your proposal and are over and above presentation schedules, i.e. even if you are not presenting during a particular week, you are still occupied, working actively on your thesis proposal for this class during that week.
A posted draft of your thesis proposal is due 4/17. (Earlier if possible.)You should alert potential advisors to it and give them time to offer feedback in time for your formal presentation. The final presentations will occur 4/25 and 5/1.
Posted by pweil at 2:27 PM | Comments (0)
CTIN548 Workshop Schedule
These are 25 - 30 minute presentations: You will be presenting the next stage prototype (including or incorporating your individual assignment) including ample time for discussion as the class will already be familiar with your progress. Presenters must post the Tuesday prior to the presentation date; the entire class is responsible for reading the posts prior to each presentation.
3/27 Week 10:
(post by Tuesday 3/25)
Ethan, Mike, Maya
4/3 Week 11
(post by Tuesday 4/1)
Jamie, Al, RJ, Andre
4/10 Week 12
(post by Tuesday 4/8)
Andrea, John, Diana, Jack
Posted by pweil at 1:41 PM | Comments (0)
February 28, 2008
CTIN 548 Midterm Presentation Schedule
Thursday March 6th
Maya
Ethan
John
Andrea
Andre
Thursday March 13th
Jack
Dian
Al
Mike
RJ
Jamie
Posted by pweil at 1:54 PM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2008
Mitchel Rose at REDCAT 2/28
Those of you who remember Mitchell Rose's short films (Elevator World) will want to see his show at REDCAT, The Mitch Show
The show will feature the West Coast premiere of Podpeople: Malibu Mutants at the O.K. Corral. Five audience volunteers are given iPods. They start them in unison and follow the recorded instructions to create a "live movie." They perform and recite their headphone-prompted dialogue as they integrate themselves into the animated scenery projected on the movie screen behind them. See it. (Or be it.)
Posted by pweil at 7:08 PM | Comments (0)
February 4, 2008
Brody Condon Speaking at SMMOA
The Flemish Masters and Gaming: Religious Fantasy Transfigured
February 4, 7 p.m. Santa Monica Museum of Art
Brody Condon talks about his latest series of computer animated projections. Judgment Modification is an extension of Brody Condon's deep fascination with molding the lexicon of video games into new works of art.
Posted by pweil at 9:18 AM | Comments (0)
January 31, 2008
Henry Jenkins speaking at Lucas
The Institute for Multimedia Literacy and the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences is pleased to present “Combating the Participation Gap: Why New Media Literacy Matters,” a lecture by Henry Jenkins on Thursday, February 7, 5:00 - 6:30 p.m. in Lucas 108.
Posted by pweil at 10:52 PM | Comments (0)
Assignment 3
1. Post questions for Scott (possibly Anne) on the class WIKI about thesis for session next week.
2. (ongoing - not due next week, but soon after) Start to look at papers, both from within the department and from conferences, other schools, etc that may be relevant to your topic/project. This research isn't about your topic per se, it is about the structure/quality and language of papers in digital media. Get a sense of community standards.
3. Think about your topic/project within spectrum of pure and applied research, art and design. Keep in mind that representative or descriptive art shows us something about the world, but not necessarily something literal or concrete, and, in the history of art, new media has the potential to add to what can be portrayed/experienced. You can start from your topic of interest OR your media. In either case, what are the opportunities of your chosen media to convey something heretofore unknown about your chosen topic?
4. Look at your list of questions from class (questions about your area of interest: its parts, context, value, etc) and begin to combine them into fewer, more significant questions. Start to distill a claim or an idea or an area of inquiry, or a project from them.
Take a stab at the MAD LIB exercise (it may not reflect your final project yet) and
POST at least one, or perhaps several (showing process) of your MADLIB by class time on Thursday.
State your topic:
I am exploring/investigating/making/developing/inventing/researching_______________
Question it:
I am investigating __________BECAUSE I am trying to find out who/what/where/whether/why/how_________
Motivate your question:
I am developing ________
because I want to demonstrate how_________
in order to help my reader understand/afford my viewer the opportunity to/enable users/ offer the experience of________________
Posted by pweil at 3:38 PM | Comments (0)
January 23, 2008
CTIN548 Syllabus
Posted by pweil at 4:12 PM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2008
Gone Gitmo Blog
The ACLU posted an account of the Close Guantanamo Event on their blog, and I woke up and posted a chronicle of the project, beginning last February: Gone Gitmo Blog Site.
Posted by pweil at 11:01 AM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2008
ACLU Launches "Close Guantánamo" Campaign in Second Life w/Gone Gitmo
Group Launches Virtual Campaign Space on Sixth Anniversary of Illegal Detentions at Guantánamo
NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union today announced a new site in Second Life (SL) as part of its Close Guantánamo campaign. January 11, 2008 marks the six-year anniversary of the arrival of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. The new virtual space includes "Gone GITMO," a program produced by Nonny de la Peña and Peggy Weil and built by SL architect Buhbuhcuh Fairchild. The program gives Second Life residents a glimpse into the inhumane conditions of indefinite detention at Camp X-Ray.
Tomorrow, Jan 11 at 2 PM ET/11 AM SLT
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Progressive%20Island/135/152/35/
www.aclu.org/closeGuantanamo
Posted by pweil at 10:18 AM | Comments (0)
January 9, 2008
Stormy Weather
Posted by pweil at 9:24 PM | Comments (1)
November 29, 2007
The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra
Post Thanksgiving Feast for the Ears
Vienna Vegetable Orchestra Video
Posted by pweil at 10:39 AM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2007
FIELD TRIP to MOCA 10/25
GORDON MATTA-CLARK: YOU ARE THE MEASURE
09.16.07 - 01.07.08
Gordon Matta-Clark: You Are the Measure is a full-scale retrospective of one of the key figures to emerge in the generation of artists that followed minimalism. During the brief but highly productive ten years that he worked as an artist, and even more so since his death at the age of 35, Gordon Matta-Clark (1943–78) has exerted a powerful fascination on artists and architects who know his work. The son of surrealist painter Roberto Echaurren Matta, Matta-Clark produced a body of work that incorporated spatial, social, and psychological experiences. Best known for the variety of his often spectacular, planned architectural interventions, Matta-Clark’s works transformed everyday experiences into extraordinary visual encounters. Among the major works featured in the exhibition are sculptures made from his acclaimed architectural building cuts, as well as drawings, films, photographs, and notebooks. A wealth of documentary material related to his interactions with architecture and space, community events, and collective activity is also shown.
MOCA Address: 250 South Grand Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90012
Meet at MOCA Thursday 10/25 11:45 $5 w/student ID
Posted by pweil at 2:49 PM | Comments (1)
Architecture & Choreography of Space
This is an article from The New York Times: THEATER/DANCE; Passengers May Now Pirouette To Gate 3
By JESSE GREEN May 28th, 2006
Download file
The MItchell Rose short films can be viewed on his website: Mitchell Rose Site
I showed Elevator World.
Your assignment for this week: Take note of your movements and the adjustments you make when interacting with people in everyday spaces; elevators, stairways, hallways, on sidewalks, aisles, in lines, etc. Use this knowledge in your design work.
Posted by pweil at 12:43 PM | Comments (0)
October 5, 2007
WEEK SEVEN
Most of you are absolutely on top of it, but just so it's clear, by now you have:
1. Declared your worlds
2. Declared an initial genre
3. Defined an initial user experience type (i.e. reader, user, viewer, 1st 2nd or 3rd Person, amount of agency)
4. Drawn/determined exterior boundaries & context
5. Drawn/determined (rough) interior boundaries and inter-relationships between zones
6. Determined the form of your Atlas/Guide (ideally consistent with the world itself)
7. Composed a table of contents for your Atlas
8. Scheduled yourself to complete (not necessarily in presentation form) items in the table of contents by week 12
9. Started design atmospherics/visual look and feel by collecting images and examples
Next week is a "working session" to check progress and give feedback.
Posted by pweil at 9:05 AM | Comments (0)
October 4, 2007
532 in Flower Street
Posted by pweil at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
World Building Links
(courtesy of Todd Furmanski)
Fantasy World Building QuestionsA nice, ~40 page questionnaire – bent toward fantasy (a few Q's on magic, for instance) but otherwise pretty universal. Heavy in length, but if you have an answer to all of these you've done your homework for building a well-rounded world – and you shouldn't be caught off guard by a typical simple question. I'm filling out one as I type this for a project I'm doing.
Medieval Demographics Made EasyExcellent site, gives a breakdown of occupations per capita and general city sizes. Even has an excel file that will calculate a theoretical medieval country with the top ten most populated cities for you!
Cities of the Ancient World: An InventoryHas some estimates of ancient city populations – this was when I wanted to get a good sense of scale for old metropolitan areas. Cities were usually tiny things until fairly recently. The prose is kinda dry, but I haven't found info like this elsewhere – not only population but city acreage – handy if you want to make a map and figure out what a city's footprint is.
Star/Planet calculatorPlug in value for star, a value for a planet, and you'll get a wealth of info (year length, brightness of star, size of star in planet's sky, etc. etc.)
Posted by pweil at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)
Todd Furmanski Images
City Type Sequence
Posted by pweil at 10:22 PM | Comments (0)
Spatial Analysis Presentations:
Thank you everyone for your diverse and thoughtful presentations. I'm posting a few notes from the sessions that apply to your designs in general (feel free to add to this list):
CHARACTERS & INNER/PSYCHOLOGICAL SPACE
Character driven worlds, often fungible, individual
Memory space; overlays and juxtaposition of mundane memories
Space of Imagination
Space of Hallucination
Space of Purpose
VISUAL DESIGN ELEMENTS
Commitment to a consistent atmospheric/design concept.
Visual cues
Color schemes (i.e. dark & moody; bright and childlike; foggy & ambiguous)
Color codes (i.e. RED vs BLUE to signify loyalties)
Scale (ie overpowering structures to intimidate/diminish peons, elevate superiors)
Structures (narrow, constricted claustrophobic space / open space)
Use of Motif/Theme
AFFORDANCES / TOOLS / NAVIGATION
Active space vs negative space
Entrances and Exits
Boundaries
Location/access to tools / productive activities
ACTIVITIES
Address laws and rules governing social hierarchy.
Ask, "What is the currency?" The currency determines the activities and production cycle. Differntiate USER currency from WORLD currency.
GUIDES
Guides to the world presented as thought they belonged in that world.
FIRST IMPRESSION
The entrance/door to your world influences the entire experience.
Posted by pweil at 10:17 PM | Comments (0)
September 28, 2007
The Design and Construction of Spatial Worlds
Ethan found this paper on the University of Technology Sydney's Imaginary Worlds Symposium
I recommend this paper by Bernadette Flynn, "Imaging Gameplay - The Design and Construction of Spatial Worlds." Please read it along with Jenkin's "Art of Contested Spaces."
Posted by pweil at 5:47 PM | Comments (0)
September 27, 2007
Week SIX
For next week:
1. Please read THE ART OF CONTESTED SPACES, it was posted 9/8!
2. Post your Atlas Table of Contents/Schedule and commit to your schedule!
3. Research the aesthetic/atmospheric design of your world: if you don't create your own artwork at this time, browse artwork and collect images, textures and styles for different regions of your world. Post your collection, labeled with the region and your intentions.
Posted by pweil at 7:58 PM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2007
Report on Gone Gitmo Event
Machinima Reporter Bernhard Drax has posted a report on Gone Gitmo to be broadcast in Second Life here
Posted by pweil at 5:07 PM | Comments (2)
September 17, 2007
Constitution Day Event LIVE NOW!
Please join us!
SLURL/IML/182/211/122
Posted by pweil at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)
September 15, 2007
Monday 9/17 10:30am: Constitution Day Event Simulcast in Gone Gitmo
Seton Hall Law School will be simulcasting their Constitution Day program on "Interrogation and Intelligence Gathering" on Gone Gitmo's Habeas Commons screen at USC's IML Island:
SLURL to Habeas Commons at Gone Gitmo
You can read about the event here:
Seton Hall Press Release
Plush Non Profit Commons has agreed to host an overflow crowd, so if you can't get to our site, please come and view it there!
SLURL to Non Profit Commons
There is a blog post describing the experience at Rik Riel's Blogpost on Gone Gitmo
Posted by pweil at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)
Week Three
You've declared your world, named it. For this week:
1. Map the exterior (What is outside of your world? Address access as well as location)
2. Begin to map the interior. For now, divide it into broad zones in order to address issues of access, movement, activity that is determined geographically.)
3. Begin to design the format of your atlas. It should be "of" the world you are creating, i.e. the style and form should be consistent with the world (or your plans for viewers) itself.
4. Set up your Atlas's Table of Contents (or equivalent in your format). This will serve as your design schedule for the rest of the term. Here are some questions you will want to address: (These are general issues, you need to determine the categories relevant to your world, essentially you will be responsible for a coherent set of RULES that govern any story that might arise in this environment.)
Maps: Where is it
Directions: How do I get there
Pictures: What does it look like
Dioramas: What does it feel like to be there
Physics: How do things move, work?
Ecology: What lives there? What sustains them?
Economy: What do they do?, How do they survive?
Language: how do they communicate
Arts: How do they express themselves
War: How do they settle conflicts?
Faith/Religion/Superstitions: What do they believe?
Libraries/Books: How do they store knowledge?
Stories/Science: How do they explain their world?
Posted by pweil at 11:25 AM | Comments (0)
September 14, 2007
Hot off the Press: 548 Hike Photos!
and one more
Posted by pweil at 7:53 PM | Comments (0)
September 8, 2007
The Art of Contested Spaces
An article about the role of space in game design by Kurt Squire and Henry Jenkins.
The Art of Contested Spaces
Posted by pweil at 6:44 PM | Comments (0)
The Things You Carried
Thanks to everyone for sharing their inventories and analysis. Stay alert to the clues of culture in your everyday life and pockets.
Posted by pweil at 6:41 PM | Comments (0)
Declare Your World
For next week:
Declare your world:
1. Name it.
Provide a brief description.
2. Place it:
Describe (and sketch) the external boundaries.
Describe (annotate) its context.
(What is outside those boundaries?) Where does your world reside?
3. Define your audience.
Are you designing for a solitary or group experience?
Are you offering a first, second or third person experience?
Will your reader/viewer/player/audience have agency within your world?
Posted by pweil at 6:24 PM | Comments (0)
Spatial Analysis Presentations:
9/20
1. Jack
2. Diana
3. Mike
4. John
9/27
1. Jen Stein
2. Andre
3. Maya
4. Jamie
Oct 4th
1. Ethan
2. RJ
3. Andrea
4. Al
Posted by pweil at 6:23 PM | Comments (0)
Spatial Issues Presentation
Oct 11th
1. Jen – Mental Maps Kevin Lynch
2. Mike - Mythologies: Wrestling
3. Jack – Negative Space
4. John - The Idea of a Town
Oct 25th
1. Maya
2. R.J.
3. Ethan - Memory Palaces
4.Andre - Aural Architecture
Nov 8th
1. Al - Space within Play in Virtual Worlds
2. Jamie - Buckminster Fuller
3. Diana - Metaphors in Language
4. Andrea - Choreographer's Space
Posted by pweil at 6:21 PM | Comments (0)
Geography & Determinism
Please read this excerpt from Guns, Germs, and Steal: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond for a class discussion next week.
Posted by pweil at 6:15 PM | Comments (0)
September 7, 2007
Interactive Experience Design
Worldbuilding is good, but the official name is Interactive Experience Design.
Course Syllabus
Posted by pweil at 6:37 PM | Comments (0)
June 15, 2007
Redistricting Game Launched!
The Redistricting Game was launched formally on Wednesday from the Capitol Building with Rep John Tanner and ex-Sen John Anderson speaking on behalf of redistricting reform. It also won an award at Games for Change in NYC on Monday. Chris Swain, Jeremy Bernstein and I, along with Duane Dunsfield of Red Hot Learning, were at both events. Here is a sampling of the PR (pictures later):
New York Times Online
NPR MORNING EDITION
Washington Post
USA TODAY
and, for you Canadians:
The Globe and Mail/
Posted by pweil at 1:25 PM | Comments (1)
April 24, 2007
"PPT Incident"
GoogleMark!
PPT Incident
Posted by pweil at 3:26 PM | Comments (0)
April 5, 2007
Thesis Proposal Outline
Short Form
I. Title
II. Abstract
III. Description
1. Definition of Project specifying scope, genre and delivery designs
2. Documentation of experiments/prototypes attempted this term (including false starts).
3. Plans (concrete) based on above prototyping
IV. Timeline
V. Budget
VI. Advisors
VII. Possible Venues
VIII. Resources & Prior Art / Bibliography
Posted by pweil at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)
Use of Production Equipment and Stages for IMD Thesis
If you anticipate that you will need production equipment or access to stages for your thesis the key is to formalize and submit your plans as soon as possible:
Stage Use
Production Number: Get an internal number from Jen.
Contact: Go to Allen Starbuck.
Time: You may have to book six months in advance.
Camera, Lights, etc
Production Number: You will need to submit a detailed production plan, see below.
Contact: Joe Wallenstein
Time: AT LEAST TWO MONTHS IN ADVANCE
Production Plan to include:
Dates: Precise – usually no more than three consecutive days
Location: Precise, must have all permits and clearances
Personnel: Must designate a producer and cinematographer.
(You will need a current or former USC Cinema student as producer. )
Budget: Detailed
Insurance: There is a standard $400 premium which doubles if you are shooting 35mm or HD. It is also subject to increase in hazardous conditions.
Posted by pweil at 2:58 PM | Comments (0)
March 22, 2007
CTIN548: Comments on Schedule
Schedule: Your schedule is your responsibility, I’m not going to micromanage you, but you must hand in or post a schedule.
Focus Assignment: DUE 3/29
Prepare a short (5 min max) presentation of what your thesis is NOT.
Experiment/Prototype/Storyboard: DUE 4/5
Post and be prepared to demonstrate any activity you’ve generated to test or explore your thesis topic. If you need ideas, talk to me or a potential advisor.
Written Draft: DUE 4/12
It’s due in a week (or two!) so you need to confront the blank piece of paper. Get it into a fledgling form and get it to me AND at least one advisor BEFORE your presentation for comments!
Advisors: Your Presentation Date
There’s a bit of leeway on this. You need to identify your key department advisor by your presentation date, preferably all three. If possible, you should have your outside advisor attend as well. You need three signatures on your final proposal to pass GATE I. You need ONE primary departmental advisor, one secondary departmental advisor and one outside advisor. You are responsible for getting signatures from your three official advisors at each of the four Thesis "Gates."
HIKE! More info on the hike later.
Final Presentations:
20 Minutes: 10 minute presentation, 10 minutes Q&A
Post your proposal – your advisors may request hard copy. You may also provide a one-page handout for those present.
Final Proposal:
Posted + Hard Copy accompanied by Gate I Signature Sheet (to be provided)
Posted by pweil at 1:58 PM | Comments (1)
Countdown Weeks 11-15 and Beyond
3/29 Wk 11: 5 Min Focus Assignment Presentations
4/5 Wk 12 Experiments/Storyboards/Prototype Demonstrations
4/12 Wk 13 HIKE!
4/19 Wk 14: Presentation Group 1
Jorge Mora Fernandez
Mike Brazil
Jesse Vigil
Paul Belleza
Victoria Moran
Garrett Rodrigue
4/26 Wk 15 Presentation Group 2
Ken Leung
Mike Stein
Matt Korba
Anthony Ko
Scott Gillies
Marc Tuters
5/3 Exam Week: Final Proposals (with 3 signatures) DUE
Posted by pweil at 1:52 PM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2007
CLASS CHANGE: Next Week: January 25th 11AM-1PM
Speaker Series- Anne Balsamo "Designing Culture: A Work of the Technological Imagination"
Please come to Annenberg Center (734 West Adams) by 11AM. I've booked the conference room upstairs to continue our class after her talk. (And....they serve lunch!)
Posted by pweil at 3:14 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2007
The first ATRG (All Too Real Game): TURN BACK THE CLOCK!
Henry Jenkins speaking today at Annenberg Center, holds out the hope that all the energy expounded on Web 2.0, YouTube and ARGs, our work collaboratively to unravel increasingly complex narratives and puzzles, isn’t pure escapism; it is productive play, an important (and interesting) period while we are honing our hive minds to apply to great feats of collective intelligence.
Are we ready? This morning the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock, from seven minutes to (nuclear) midnight forward to five minutes to (nuclear and/or catastrophic climatic) midnight stating:
“The second nuclear era, unlike the dawn of the first nuclear age in 1945, is characterized by a world of porous national borders, rapid communications that facilitate the spread of technical knowledge, and expanded commerce in potentially dangerous dual-use technologies and materials.”
The “second nuclear era” described by the BAS shares properties with Jenkin’s characterization of the cultural ecology shaped by Web 2.0: Can the porous borders of transmedia fandom and DIY participatory culture, rapid global distribution and the anarchy of the “adhocracy” be challenged to power our newly emergent collective intelligence to play an ATRG (All Too Real Game) and TURN BACK THE CLOCK?
What could possibly be more important?
Posted by pweil at 3:52 PM | Comments (0)
The Doomsday Clock Moves Forward
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) is moving the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock on January 17, 2007, from 7 to 5 minutes to midnight. In a statement supporting the decision to move the hand of the Doomsday Clock, the BAS Board focused on two major sources of catastrophe: the perils of 27,000 nuclear weapons, 2000 of them ready to launch within minutes; and the destruction of human habitats from climate change.
Continue reading "The Doomsday Clock Moves Forward"
Posted by pweil at 9:01 AM | Comments (1)
October 31, 2006
Lost Your Powerbook Adaptor?
Happy Halloween
Posted by pweil at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)
October 3, 2006
Horns Up. Bows Ready. Cellphones On.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, turn on your cellphones.’
NYTimes Review of the world premiere of the Concertino for Cellular Phones and Symphony Orchestra by David N. Baker
"It was like an aviary gone mad. Scores of cellular phones trilled and twittered, beeped and burbled all at once inside a concert auditorium in this community outside Chicago. The orchestra onstage was unfazed. The composer was delighted. On Sunday, in a perverse commentary on the scourge of modern concert halls, the Chicago Sinfonietta played the world premiere of the Concertino for Cellular Phones and Symphony Orchestra by David N. Baker, a professor of music at Indiana University and a prolific composer. A device similar to a traffic light signaled the audience members to activate their rings — red for the balcony, green for the orchestra seats — at various points in the piece. An assistant conductor, Terrance Gray, followed the score and activated the lights..."
Posted by pweil at 5:23 PM | Comments (1)
September 21, 2006
Dynamic Topography
From the Smithsonian, a digital, customizable map showing tectonic processes:
This Dynamic Planet, World Map of Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Impact Craters, and Plate Tectonics
Posted by pweil at 3:53 PM | Comments (0)
September 9, 2006
The Mass-Observation Movement
An article in the current New Yorker (9/11/06 issue) SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY: The Mass-Observation movement and the meaning of everyday life. documents an effort in the 1930 to document everyday life, collecting data in order to,
plot “weather-maps of public feeling.”
"On February 12, 1937, thirty volunteers kept one-day diaries, which Mass-Observation called “day-surveys.” They were designed “to collect a mass of data without any selective principle,” and the experiment was repeated monthly. .....By January of 1938, Mass-Observation had collected seventeen hundred and thirty day-surveys, for a total of 2.3 million words." These obersvations are presented in, "the movement’s strangest and most poetic book, “May the Twelfth: Mass-Observation Day-Surveys 1937 by Over Two Hundred Observers.”
Posted by pweil at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)
September 4, 2006
Semiotic Disobedience
A NY TImes Article: Gaming the System discusses an upcoming paper by Sonia Katyal, a Fordham University law professor on "Semiotic Disobedience" in the context of advergaming.
"As a term and a concept, semiotic disobedience is a riff on two earlier ideas. One, of course, is civil disobedience. The other is “semiotic democracy,” a coinage of John Fiske, a media scholar whose 1987 book “Television Culture” described the ways in which audiences create their own interpretations of mass entertainment. Katyal’s combination, then, refers to the reinvention or subversion of logos and other symbols of commercial persuasion as part of a battle to redefine their meaning in ways that are frankly oppositional. Her research, she told me, evolved out of her interest in the way certain artists alter billboards with antibrand or anticapitalist messages. While this practice (variously referred to as brandalism, subvertising, culture jamming, adbusting, etc.) has gone on for years, it’s often dismissed as a nuisance, agitprop or, of course, a crime.
Katyal’s paper makes clear that she is not calling for, say, the legalization of billboard alteration. Instead, she offers a different intellectual framework for thinking about such acts. Her point is to consider whether some antibrander tactics are not simply vandalism or trademark infringements but rather acts that break laws partly to question the assumption behind the laws themselves. “Acts of semiotic disobedience,” as she puts it, “actually try to disobey the meaning of the sign itself” and to redefine that meaning in the process."
Posted by pweil at 9:20 PM | Comments (0)
Grand Theft Education
The September Harper's Magazine's current roundtable discussion - not online - you'll have to find the hard copy:
Grand Theft Education
Literacy in the age of video games
Jane Avrich, Steven Johnson, Raph Koster, Thomas de Zengotita
Posted by pweil at 9:05 PM | Comments (0)
August 29, 2006
Menger's Sponge made from 66,000 Business Cards
The Institue for Figuring Opening
THE BUSINESS CARD MENGER SPONGE
by Dr Jeannine Mosely
August 26 – September 24
Machine Project (Los Angeles)
1200 D North Alvarado Street
Los Angeles, CA 90026
213-483-8761
A collaboration between the Institute For Figuring and Machine Project
Curated by Margaret Wertheim
Machine Project Gallery
Lecture: Structural Considerations of the Business Card Sponge
Sunday, September 10 @ 8pm
Posted by pweil at 3:00 PM | Comments (0)
Week Two
Assignments
1. (read my earlier post) Make this your studio!
2. Do a second pass on your inventory. What does what you carry say about your environment. (see Marc's upcoming comments on my earlier post.) Build up on it - add dimension: depict the overlapping, mixing, layered relationships in the categories.
3. Commit to the place/world you are building this semester. Be clear on your intention. Start with scope/boundaries/mileau - you have the rest of the semester to build it out.
Posted by pweil at 2:47 PM | Comments (0)
ZML - Your Studio
Assignment 1: Make this room your studio. Assign/Claim desks, gather materials, move in. This studio will work under the following condition:
Marientina has absolute say.
But she shouldn't have to police the space. You need to police yourselves, cultivate your "inner Marientina." If this becomes a major problem, it will all go away.
The ZML functions as a public space for classes and seminars, so you'll have to defer to other use and keep the place looking presentable. However, "presentable" includes your work - make work, lots of it, that you can proudly present.
Posted by pweil at 1:12 PM | Comments (0)
Jordan Weisman
His book, a novel that intersects with websites and phone numbers Cathys-Book-If-Found-Call will be released later this fall.
Posted by pweil at 1:09 PM | Comments (0)
August 28, 2006
Public Diplomacy Fall Speaker Series: Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow Wednesday, Aug 30, 2006
12:00PM
Posted by pweil at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)
mPuzzles Beta up!
mPuzzles Genesis
Ironweed Films, a progressive DVD/Film club, is promoting Genesis (from the same folks as Microcosmos) with the beta version of my puzzle (formally known as MOVING PUZZLE). Two caveats: PC and IE only (for now, we're working on it) and you'll have to download our mPuzzles Active X control. Please play and leave comments - comments from this department are especially valuable.
Posted by pweil at 10:32 AM | Comments (1)
August 22, 2006
Week One
Assignments for this week:
1. Pick your place - think about the categories and topics we covered brainstorming this afternoon.
Begin with intention; Are you:
Creating a setting for a narrative?
Modeling/simulating/exposing an inaccessible region?
Analyzing land (physical or metaphorical) use?
Building your "dream/nightmare" space?
You will commit to an idea by Week 3.
2. Begin to gather materials for model building, sketching.
3. Work on your inventories. What do the things you have (had) with you this morning say about our environment and landscape in terms of climate, ecology, physics, dimensionality, mobility, knowledge systems, access, identity, economy and culture? What can you add to this list? How do they overlap? Represent your analysis in any media, but it must include some written text and indicate relations and value of the qualities depicted.
Posted by pweil at 4:44 PM | Comments (0)
May 5, 2006
Darfur is Dying on NPR
Susana interviewed by All Things Considered reporter Michele Norris - listen up!
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5386745
Posted by pweil at 4:39 PM | Comments (1)
May 4, 2006
Infrasense Exhibition at OTIS
http://artscenecal.com/Announcements/0506/OtisClg0506.html
Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design is pleased to present the installation
Infrasense by artists KIT and Robert Saucier
Exhibition Dates: May 5 – July 1, 2006
Infrasense—an installation created by KIT (a fluxing collaborative team of international artists, writers, architects and programmers who have been active since 1995) and Canadian artist Robert Saucier—is on view at the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design May 5-July 1, 2006. The artists are working with terminology adopted by Internet technology like worms, back doors, Trojan horses, and bugs that are metaphors for viral activities happening to our desktops and laptops in our work and home environments. The Infrasense project takes the Trojan horse and the bug—two digitally bound elements that live and replicate on the Internet—and makes them physical entities inside the gallery controlled partially by the Internet and visitor.
Nine silver Trojan horses on nine parallel tracks (like in the old carnival horse racing games), move forward and backward at a very slow, almost imperceptible pace. Like the original Trojan horse, each horse represents a type of virus that is deceptive in its intent. On the back of each horse is a plastic backpack (refashioned computers) that emits sound. As the audience enters the gallery, each backpack whispers in a different voice.
Roving amidst the pre-programmed horses are three robotic bugs. The bugs are refashioned computer parts, and are controlled remotely in three different ways: one is controlled by a hand-held device provided to gallery visitors; one is controlled by someone on the Internet; and one is pre-programmed by the artists.
The bugs move fast dodging between the horses. When a bug nears one of the horses, the sound emitted from the horse’s backpack is amplified so visitors can hear it clearly. When a clear signal is broadcast, gallery visitors hear various people talking about real experiences fighting both biological and technological viruses.
The overall thematic experience of the installation breaks down to a struggle for control—the conqueror and the conquered. The installation approaches the dual nature of our existence on a metaphorical versus literal plane; biological versus technological; healthy versus compromised. For more information about this project or KIT visit http://www.infrasense.net and http://www.kitcollaboration.net.
Posted by pweil at 8:58 AM | Comments (0)
May 2, 2006
Oracle @ WiFi - Artist Beth Lilly is taking calls
http://www.bethlilly.com/OracleatWiFiPage.html
"The "Oracle @ WiFi" is an interactive project that's also a system of divination, much like the I Ching or tarot cards. On the seventh day of each month (just like the original Oracle at Delphi), I will be available to help give insight to your questions. If you have a question, call me on my camera cell phone, but don't tell me your question. I'll get your email address and then, wherever I am, I will take 3 photographs with the cell phone and email them to you. The images are your reading. You must then reply back and let me know what the question was. I put the 3 images together into a triptych and the question is the title to the piece."
"If you'd like to participate, the Oracle is available for readings on the 7th day of each month (just like the original Oracle at Delphi) Please call 404-805-5431 for your reading. If you don't reach me, it means I'm doing a reading for someone else. Wait 10 minutes and try me again!"
Posted by pweil at 8:48 AM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2006
Thesis Proposal Presentation Dates
Order of Thesis Proposal Presentations
1st Presentation: April 20th
1. Erik
2. Doox
3.Noah
4. Josh
5.Yuechuan
6. Herb* (could be pushed to 4/27)
2nd Presentation: April 27th
7. Aaron
8. Mihai
9. Vince
10. Justin
11. Jessica
Posted by pweil at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)
Scheduling Assignment
Due 3/23/06 (GDC Week) via blogpost or email.
Schedule yourself for the remainder of the term, specifically, use the 8 components of the Thesis Proposal Outline Specifications as milestones and make dates for finishing them. Today is March 10th. That means you have either forty two days (Group 1) or forty-nine days (Group 2) before your presentation. (That's if you work over vacation, GDC and weekends.)
Please submit your schedule to us no later than Thursday 23 March by noon.
Posted by pweil at 10:50 AM | Comments (0)
March 9, 2006
Googlemarked!
http://www.googlemark.org/?id=CHECK&q=WYSIWII
Posted by pweil at 5:10 PM | Comments (0)
March 7, 2006
CTWR518 Schedule for Weeks 9-15
Posted by pweil at 8:14 PM | Comments (0)
February 25, 2006
Flash Mobs Slashed
My Crowd: Part 1 Or, Phase 5: A report from the inventor of the flash mob by Bill Wasik
A link to an excerpt from the current (March) Harpers Magazine (you'll have to get to the newstand to read the entire article).
" Not only was the flash mob a vacuous fad; it was, in its very form (pointless aggregation and then dispersal), intended as a metaphor for the hollow hipster culture that spawned it. I know this because I happen to have been the flash mob's inventor. My association with the fad has heretofore remained semi-anonymous, on a first-name- only basis to all but friends and acquaintances. For more than two years, I concealed my identity for scientific purposes, but now that my experiment is essentially complete, corporate America having fulfilled (albeit a year later than expected) its final phase, I finally feel compelled to offer a report: on the flash mob, its life and times, and its consummation this summer in the clutches of the Ford Motor Company."
Posted by pweil at 11:37 AM | Comments (0)
February 2, 2006
Assignment (due Wed 2/8)
Identify three specific examples and/or resources that relate to your thesis and state specifically which aspects of them relate to your work. At least one of them should be "non-obvious" - a stretch - an attempt to cross boundaries and build a new paradigm. Your goal is to begin to define your territory, focusing on a specific area and exploring how you might see it in a new light.
Please post and/or email it, before class next week, to both Peggy and Michael.
Posted by pweil at 2:03 PM | Comments (0)
February 1, 2006
MoBlogging Pigeons
New Zealand Herald: Pigeons to Blog on Air Pollution
LONDON - A flock of pigeons fitted with mobile phone backpacks is to be used to monitor air pollution, New Scientist magazine reported on Wednesday. The 20 pigeons will be released into the skies over San Jose, California, in August. Each bird will carry a GPS satellite tracking receiver, air pollution sensors and a basic mobile phone. Text messages on air quality will be beamed back in real time to a special pigeon "blog", a journal accessible on the internet. Miniature cameras slung around the pigeons' necks will also post aerial pictures. ...."We are combining an air pollution sensor with a home-made cellphone," da Costa told New Scientist.
(Posted today on Smart Mobs)
Posted by pweil at 7:05 PM | Comments (0)
Surveillance & Videotape
People Cringed, but 12 Cameras Never Blinked Dan Barry chronicles a crime as viewed later from 12 Surveillance Cameras; the earlier edition headline read: "On Videotape, A Bronx Ballet Turns Tragic" The link is Times Select, but you can view the videotape w/DB's narration.
"TWELVE security cameras bear witness at the White Castle on Webster Avenue in the Bronx. Mounted high in unobtrusive places, they create a multiframed silent film of life unfolding in a place of transience, a fast-food pit stop. The cameras are meant to see all. Early Saturday morning, they did. By now the city knows that on that morning, in this White Castle, several young men pummeled an apparently intoxicated off-duty police officer named Eric Hernandez. They kicked and beat him until he managed to crawl out the door....The police have zeroed in on the painfully long minute of violence preserved on videotape. But the 12 cameras also captured many small moments that more fully present the everyday Bronx ballet, brutally interrupted. ...Life as captured by these stop-action cameras has a herky-jerky quality, as though every character on this small, unnaturally bright stage pauses to contemplate every move."
Posted by pweil at 8:40 AM | Comments (1)
January 27, 2006
Choose Your (Front Page) News
On NPR's "Day to Day" this morning: Wisconsin Paper Lets Readers Help Pick News
The editors of the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison are letting readers choose the news... part of it, anyway. In an experiment officially begun this week, readers can go to the Web to choose one of five stories. The next day, the story with the most votes shows up on the front page.
Posted by pweil at 9:35 AM | Comments (0)
January 23, 2006
Dead-drop Updated: Wireless Location Based (Spy) Story
From the BBC:
The affair of the transmitting rock uncovered by the Russians in Moscow is straight out of a John le Carre thriller - with a touch of James Bond gadgetry and a twist of the Keystone cops in the way it went wrong for the British. The old idea of the dead-drop ('letterboxes' the British tend to call them) - by the oak tree next to the lamppost in such-and-such a park etc - has given way to hand-held computers and short-range transmitters. Just transmit your info at the rock and your 'friends' will download it next day. No need for codes and wireless sets at midnight anymore.
Posted by pweil at 1:50 PM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2006
Thesis Proposal Sections
I. Title
II. Abstract
III. Description
1. Definition of Project specifying scope, genre and delivery designs
2. Documentation of experiments/prototypes attempted this term (including false starts).
3. Plans (concrete) based on above prototyping
IV. Timeline
V. Budget
VI. Advisors
VII. Possible Venues
VIII. Resources & Prior Art / Bibliography
Posted by pweil at 4:04 PM | Comments (2)
CTIN548: Resources on Campus and Beyond for Exploring Complex, Interactive and Layered Phenomenon
Some places to explore on campus:
USC Center on Public Diplomacy
has a link to John Brown's Public Diplomacy Review Blog and a Department Wiki.
The Norman Lear Centertainment Based at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, the Norman Lear Center is a multidisciplinary research and public policy center exploring implications of the convergence of entertainment, commerce, and society.
On the Neuroscience Front there is
The USC Brain Project (USCBP)The scientist cited in the NY Times article about Mirror Neurons is Michael A. Arbib
Antonio Damasio's Home Page You may be familiar with Damasio’s books, Descartes’ Error, The Feeling of What Happens, and Looking for Spinoza.
The USC Homepage has an announcement of a $1.2 million to the Southern California Earthquake Center to predict earthquakes.
and generally:
Arts and Letters Daily Links to essays, book reviews, ideas, criticism and debate.
Posted by pweil at 3:21 PM | Comments (0)
CTIN548: WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA?
The Edge Annual Question — 2006
WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA?
The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?
Posted by pweil at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)
January 5, 2006
Ground Floor = 0, Basement = -1
An Elevator in Mumbai
Posted by pweil at 1:26 PM | Comments (1)
January 3, 2006
A Linear Circus
A New Year's Eve article in the NYTimes, a note to end 2005:
In a Daring Leap, Ringling Loses Its Three Rings
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, step right up and meet the no-ring circus.
For the first time in its history, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus will present a new show to its audiences without three rings, or two - or even one.
When the 136th edition of the circus opens on Wednesday at the St. Pete Times Forum here in Tampa, where Ringling maintains its winter quarters, the elephants, clowns, aerialists and acrobats will roam an arena floor.
In as big a departure, the show will have a story line instead of being simply a cavalcade of acts."
Posted by pweil at 9:10 PM | Comments (0)
December 25, 2005
Bridge over PCH
Posted by pweil at 2:38 PM | Comments (0)
December 7, 2005
Staged Real - Think (it was) Different
The Man Behind Rosa Parks
The story behind the iconic photo of Rosa Park
(used in Apple's Think Different Campaign)
The white fellow behind her is not an angry white man in 1955, it is a UPI journalist scooping the 1956 Supreme Court ruling. "Mrs. Parks told him she was reluctant to take part in the picture, but both the journalists and members of the civil rights community wanted an image that would dramatize what had occurred. It was completely a 100 percent staged event," Mr. Brinkley (her biographer) said. "There was nothing random about it." ... "Mr. Gray (the lawyer who represented Rosa Parks in court) now 74, says the picture reflects reality even if the moment it captures wasn't entirely real."
Posted by pweil at 8:48 AM | Comments (0)
December 4, 2005
But then, we know this...
Not featured in the online version but front (page) and center of Sunday's WEEK IN REVIEW:
The Gamer as Artiste, Yes, the new video games are dazzling and cinematic. But can they rise to the level of art?
"As games gain attention as an art form, it remains to be determined just what sort of art they can or should be. Are they like movies, projecting the vision of an auteur like Mr. Spielberg or Peter Jackson, who recently collaborated in "Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie"? Or are they more like the song "Frankie and Johnny," which is performed in different ways by many people, and in which the art lies in the sum of performances?"
Or, maybe something else entirely?
Posted by pweil at 9:37 AM | Comments (0)
December 1, 2005
Maps Matter II
MAP CONTROL is eroding thanks to Google Earth...
Today's Business Section of the NY Times Mapmakers and Mythmakers
"Misleading maps reflect the Kremlin's tightening grip on Russian oil, one of the world's critical supplies...From the maps the Russians gave Mr. Morrow, he could never really know where he was, a misery for him as an oil engineer at a joint venture between BP and Russian investors. The latitude and longitude had been blotted out from his maps and the grid diverged from true north.
"It was like a game," Mr. Morrow said of trying to make sense of the officially doctored maps, holdovers from the cold war era provided by secretive men who worked in a special department of his company.
Unofficially, anyone with Internet access can take a good look at the Samotlor field by zooming down through free satellite-imaging programs like Google Earth, to the coordinates 61 degrees 7 minutes north latitude and 76 degrees 45 minutes east longitude."
Posted by pweil at 8:53 AM | Comments (0)
November 25, 2005
Melts in your head, not in your...
NY Times Article: NBC Stuck to Sunny Rebroadcast of Last Year's M&M's
NBC did not interrupt its broadcast of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade yesterday to bring viewers the news that an M&M balloon had crashed into a light pole, injuring two sisters.
In fact, when the time came in the tightly scripted three-hour program for the M&Ms' appearance, NBC weaved in tape of the balloon crossing the finish line at last year's parade - even as the damaged balloon itself was being dragged from the accident scene. At 11:47 a.m., as an 11-year-old girl and her 26-year-old sister were being treated for injuries, the parade's on-air announcers - Katie Couric, Matt Lauer and Al Roker - kept up their light-hearted repartee from Herald Square, where the parade ends. "Will these classic candymen get out of this delicious dilemma?" Mr. Roker asked, referring not to the accident but to the premise of the attraction, a red M&M's attempt to save his yellow counterpart, who had been blown from the basket of a hot-air balloon. ....
When the balloon failed to arrive at Herald Square at the appointed time, she said, "we rolled with some previously recorded footage." That said, the situation made for a jarring confluence of scripted and unscripted reality.
Posted by pweil at 3:43 PM | Comments (2)
November 22, 2005
Go Tracy!
Today's NY Times Front Page:
Making Artists Video Games Are Their Major, So Don't Call Them Slackers
Tracy has the last word:
"This whole idea of teaching game design is a fabrication," Mr. Emmert said. "I'm a serious academic, and what is the actual skill that they're teaching? If you're not teaching a quantifiable skill, then you are teaching an opinion. Making games is an art form. You need to understand the technical side, but I loathe any attempt to teach game design as an academic discipline."
It is a familiar refrain to Tracy Fullerton, a professor involved with many of the new video game programs at U.S.C. She said it reminded her of complaints from Hollywood old-timers in the late 1960's and early 70's when film schools first started producing directors and screenwriters who had spent more time in classrooms than fetching coffee on Hollywood lots.
"There are definitely some people in the game industry who wonder why academia is taking an interest in them after all this time," Ms. Fullerton said. "It reminds me that there was a moment when film studies really took off and the guys at the studios were like, 'Who are these Spielbergs and Lucases and Coppolas coming out of these film schools with these crazy ideas?' They'll come around."
Posted by pweil at 7:35 AM | Comments (1)
November 8, 2005
Post Halloween Scare
Today is Voting Day - Get out and Interact
Posted by pweil at 8:03 AM | Comments (1)
October 21, 2005
Maps Matter
Arctic Map Vanishes, and Oil Area Expands
today's NYTimes:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - Maps matter. They chronicle the struggles of empires and zoning boards. They chart political compromise. So it was natural for Republican Congressional aides, doing due diligence for what may be the last battle in the fight over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to ask for the legally binding 1978 map of the refuge and its coastal plain.
It was gone. No map, no copies, no digitized version.
The wall-size 1:250,000-scale map delineated the tundra in the biggest national land-use controversy of the last quarter-century, an area that environmentalists call America's Serengeti and that oil enthusiasts see as America's Oman. The map had been stored behind a filing cabinet in a locked room in Arlington, Va. Late in 2002, it was there. In early 2003, it disappeared. There are just a few reflection-flecked photographs to remember it by.
All this may have real consequences. The United States Geological Survey drew up a new map. On Wednesday, the Senate Energy and Commerce Committee passed a measure based on the new map that opened to drilling 1.5 million acres of coastal plain in the refuge.
-------
The "new" map referred to in the article dates to 1978 which explains (but does not justify) how it was never digitized. How will newer mapping technologies (mobile GPS, etc) affect boundaries and boundary making?
Posted by pweil at 10:34 AM | Comments (1)
October 17, 2005
Serious Games at USC Center on Public Diplomacy
Announcing the Reinventing Public Diplomacy Through Games Competition
USC Center on Public Diplomacy is looking for people to showcase their talent with a bit of world class game-making. The challenge to the game mod community, and current and aspiring game designers is as folllows: design a prototype or modify a game incorporating the fundamental characteristics of public diplomacy.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Announcing a competition to design, conceive, and build a game or game prototype that employs the principles of public diplomacy. How can video games improve public diplomacy?
What comes to mind when you think of diplomacy? Some ideas include cross-cultural communication, conflict negotiation, shared goals, and international exchange of knowledge. For more on our definition of public diplomacy, please visit our website.
(Thanks to Barry Joseph of Global Kids for the notice.)
PS: Washington Post Article On Serious Games: Video Game World Gives Peace a Chance
"Is democracy "fun"? Castronova thinks aspiring game designers should have more than enough to work with for such a project. "You could look at the U.S. Constitution as a big game," he said. "We've been playing it for 200 years. And we love it."
Posted by pweil at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)
October 9, 2005
Recombinatory Narrative: The Shining Remixed
A study in sequence, context, presentation and interpretation.
Posted by pweil at 10:36 AM | Comments (0)
October 5, 2005
Commuting
Posted by pweil at 8:57 PM | Comments (0)
September 30, 2005
What's Right With This Picture?
Posted by pweil at 8:09 AM | Comments (1)
June 13, 2003
(35)
Posted by pweil at 9:20 PM | Comments (1)
June 12, 2003
(34)
Posted by pweil at 7:53 PM | Comments (0)
June 11, 2003
(33)
Posted by pweil at 7:45 PM | Comments (0)
June 9, 2003
(32)
Posted by pweil at 10:49 PM | Comments (0)
June 8, 2003
(31)
Posted by pweil at 9:43 PM | Comments (0)
June 7, 2003
(30)
MrPhone became the keeper of her messages.
She'd collect them eventually, she'd return his call,
but for now she felt free to retreat
into her head.
Posted by pweil at 3:34 PM | Comments (0)
June 5, 2003
(29)
A month went by and she still hadn't returned the call.
She had too much to do.
Posted by pweil at 5:53 PM | Comments (0)
June 4, 2003
(28)
It was a simple enough message:
Posted by pweil at 5:51 PM | Comments (0)
April 30, 2003
(27)
He leaves voicemail on her home phone.
Posted by pweil at 9:37 PM | Comments (2)
April 29, 2003
(26)
(25)
He's got her phone. He's got all her numbers.
Posted by pweil at 9:35 PM | Comments (1)
April 26, 2003
(24)
He deletes her messages!
Posted by pweil at 8:24 AM | Comments (0)
April 25, 2003
(23)
Get the message!
Posted by pweil at 8:18 AM | Comments (0)
April 23, 2003
(22)
The phone IS the message
(21)
The phone is the messenger.
Posted by pweil at 7:48 AM | Comments (0)
April 22, 2003
(20)
her phone is still on....
Posted by pweil at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)
April 21, 2003
(19)
"...although mobility and mobile telephony seem very much to do
with being apart, in fact, the evidence is quite to the contrary:
a lot of telecommunications behaviour is aimed at getting together
physically in the same place..."
Posted by pweil at 12:29 PM | Comments (2)
April 19, 2003
(18)
(17)
"...communication and cooperation between mobile users in
an ad-hoc manner are strongly desired..."
Posted by pweil at 8:23 AM | Comments (0)
April 18, 2003
(16)
"...a re-configurable architecture is thus required to support
flexible reaction to changing contexts..."
(15)
Posted by pweil at 12:18 PM | Comments (1)
April 17, 2003
(14)
He's checking her out.
She's checking her messages.
Posted by pweil at 8:00 AM | Comments (1)
April 16, 2003
(13)
Posted by pweil at 8:02 AM | Comments (0)
April 15, 2003
(12)
He's keeping the beat.
She's listening.
Posted by pweil at 4:30 PM | Comments (2)
April 14, 2003
MOBILE DISTRIBUTION
(11)
"...It took only 48 hours for the museum to be destroyed, with at least 170,000 artifacts carried away by looters..."
That is roughly one artifact per minute.
An artifact is a message from antiquity; some of these messages were over 4000 years old. These messages are now:
Dispersed?
Scattered?
Mobilized?
Will the sum of information, as communications from the past, decrease with distance from the museum? A museum is a gathering place for both artifact and audience. Under one roof, we experience them en masse; an orchestra of ancient messages. We strain to hear the sum of their individual voices.
After their initial journey to the museum, having been harvested from their contextual origins, they are again scattered, stripped of their collective meaning. Among the reported losses were the stone birds of Nemrik, a site dating from 8,000 B.C. Where have they flown?
Posted by pweil at 8:39 AM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2003
(10)
(9)
Posted by pweil at 8:20 AM | Comments (0)
April 12, 2003
(8)
Posted by pweil at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)
April 11, 2003
MOBILE OBS
(7)
(6)
In their natural habitat, Vanity Plates are ephemeral, speedy and literary.
Like Butterflies.
Posted by pweil at 12:43 PM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2003
BE WHERE NOW
(5)
Where am I?
This is LA, I'm:
behind the wheel
between the eyes
in my head.
(4)
MrMind said: BE HERE NOW
User said: what?
MrMind said: I said, be here now.
User said: be where now?
(Who is MrMind? You can talk to him at www.mrmind.com)
Posted by pweil at 1:21 PM | Comments (0)
April 9, 2003
FILO
My first post my first blog, brings up a number of issues:
Format Formality Fortune
- good fortune to be here
- a bit nonplussed by the informality
- the need to format,
correct placement,
design
overshadowed by the need to start
The FILO nature of blogs appeals to my sense of inversion. I feel like this paragraph, this second paragraph should appear above the paragraph currently just above this one. That was my first entry, the first step out the door, this should follow it. You, the reader, should be reading from the bottom up.
Like this (scroll all the way to the bottom and read up):
(3)
Acknowledging world events -three quotes from last night's war coverage from Jon Lee Anderson of the New Yorker speaking by telephone from Baghdad to Charlie Rose:
"There's no more ministry of information."
"...we did find one bridge to cross."
"The political geography is changing by the minute and we're still trying to figure it out."
(2)
The FILO nature of blogs appeals to my sense of inversion. I feel like this paragraph, this second paragraph should appear above the paragraph currently just above (but now correctly just below) this one. That was my first entry, the first step out the door, this should follow it. You, the reader, should be reading from the bottom up.
(1)
My first post my first blog, brings up a number of issues:
Format Formality Fortune
- good fortune to be here
- a bit nonplussed by the informality
- the need to format,
correct placement,
design
overshadowed by the need to start
Posted by pweil at 10:33 AM | Comments (0)