Scott Fisher

Speaker: Rich Gossweiler, Mad (Research) Scientist, Google Research
Time: Wednesday, January 31, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: Collaboration: from static document to interactive TV

Abstract: This talk spans several topics, from developing a
giant, interactive book(BookPlex) at Xerox PARC to
building collaborative whiteboards for the NASA MER
mission, to mobile story telling (HP Labs), to
finally developing a Custom TV (Phiz at HP Labs). I hope
that the talk will not only convey interesting elements
from each of the projects, but also the process of
doing user experience research at various labs and how
this research process is changing.

Rich's Wikipedia page.

Posted by Scott Fisher at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dr. Atsushi HIYAMA will be visiting IMD from the University of Tokyo and will make an informal presentation about CIRT (Center for Information and Robotic Technology) at the University of Tokyo. The faculty of CIRT are hoping to foster collaboration as well as interest in potential post-doctoral fellows.

Title "IRT Foundation to Support Man and Aging Society"
Abstract: IRT is a fusion of IT(Information Technology) and RT(Robot Technology). The fusion of communication and computer technology and robot technology will drive social innovations for supporting daily human life in real world. In an aging society, an active social life is essential and should be enjoyable by even the busiest people. Innovation through IRT will provide flexible support functions in response to a variety of human activities. A collaborative system involving The University of Tokyo and seven corporations has now been crated to realize this innovation.

Time: Thursday, January 25, 2pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Posted by Scott Fisher at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Speaker: Anne Friedberg
Time: Wednesday, January 24, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: The Virtual Window and it's Interactive Other: the Page and the Window; the Book and the Screen

The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft is a book about windows and screens and frames and the virtual and the metaphors that shape our everyday access to the world around us. In his 1435 treatise on painting and perspective, De Pictura, Leon Battista Alberti famously instructed the painter to “regard” the rectangular frame of the painting as an open window (aperta finestra). Alberti’s Renaissance metaphor of the window has haunted centuries of subsequent thinking about the humanist subject of perspective, and has remained a defining concept for theories of painting, architecture, and moving image media. Unlike the metaphor of the window as a frame for perspectival view, the metaphor of the window in computer software relies on a different set of assumptions about the viewer and the view that the window provides. An early component of the graphical user interface, the computer “window” did not refer to the full expanse of the computer screen, but rather to a subset of its screen surface: an inset screen within the screen of the computer, one of many nested on its “desktop.” The computer “window” shifts its metaphoric hold from the singular frame of perspective, to the multiplicity of windows within windows, frames within frames, screens within screens.

The Virtual Window Interactive is a translation/extension/conversion of ideas and arguments found in the book. Because the computer screen is both a “page” and a “window,” at once opaque and transparent, it commands a new posture for the practice of writing and reading—one that requires looking into the page as if it is the frame of a window. The Virtual Window Interactive forms a tangent to the matrix of concepts in the book while supplying vivid examples of the still and moving images that have—in the span of centuries-- filled the apertures of our windows, frames, and screens.

Anne's Wikipedia bio is here.

BACKCHANNEL LOG here: Download file

Posted by Scott Fisher at 6:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Christopher Janney, Architect and Artist: "Architecture of the Air"
Presentation at Santa Monica Apple Store (3rd Street Promenade)
Saturday, January 20, 2007
5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Christopher Janney's landmark installations, seen in airports, libraries, parks, plazas and subway platforms across the country, combine interactive technology, architecture, light, and original sound scores into “performance architecture”. Join us for this special event as Christopher discusses his recent projects and how the Mac is an integral part of each one. He also presents his new book, "Architecture of the Air: The Sound and Light Environments of Christopher Janney". (Made on a Mac)

Posted by Scott Fisher at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Speaker: John Buckman
Time: Wednesday, January 17, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: "Pissing off The Industry for Fun and Profit"

John Buckman runs Magnatune, the record label that proclaims "We are
not Evil" as well as BookMooch, a book exchange site whose original
slogan was "Never Buy a Book Again", as well as a member of the board
of directors of Creative Commons.

John will be talking about a model for Entrepreneurs in the Internet
Age, where Big Media remains mostly clueless, and where mass culture
movements, inspired by Linux and Open Source (such as Creative
Commons) are not challenging the Old Ecology, but simply ignoring it
altogether and creating a new, parallel ecology with its own rules,
dynamics and economics. How big this new world will get, we don't
yet know, but it's a great place to play around and maybe make a few
million before you're forty.

Wikipedia bio here.
View his Magnatune blog here and hear an online interview here.

BACKCHANNEL LOG here: Download file

Posted by Scott Fisher at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Speaker: John Buckman
Time: Wednesday, January 17, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Wikipedia bio:

John Buckman is the founder of Magnatune, the largest online store/recording company/media website that uses Creative Commons as license. Magnatune selects its own artists, sells its catalog of music through online downloads and print-on-demand CDs and licenses music for commercial and non-commercial use. Frustrated by the music industry's unfair treatment of artists, Buckman decided to create Magnatune as an artist-friendly record label that shares profits equally with musicians and allows them to retain the rights to their work. Magnatune has successfully used Creative Commons and open source principles to establish a new kind of business model for the music industry.

In November 2006, Buckman was elected to the Board of Directors of the Creative Commons. His most recent project is BookMooch, a non-profit online used book exchange service. Previously he was the founder (with his wife Jan Hanford) and CEO of Lyris Technologies.

View his Magnatune blog here and hear an online interview here.

Posted by Scott Fisher at 6:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

EA press release from Digitalmediawire:
Electronic Arts on Tuesday announced the launch of "The Sims Stories," a new line of laptop-friendly games that feature evolving storylines. The episodic "Sims Life Stories" game includes 12 chapters, in which players follow the lives of one of two Sims characters. "The Sims Pet Stories" is also slated for release in mid-2007, while "The Sims Castaway Stories" will ship in late 2008.

The Sims Life Stories is the first release in an all-new product line called The Sims Stories. Play through all the great moments of your Sim's life in this easy-to-play, laptop-friendly version of The Sims. In the new and engaging directed Story mode, you take your Sims through a unique and entertaining storyline full of romance and dramatic twists. You even unlock cool rewards along the way as you achieve set goals. In open-ended Classic mode, you create Sims and then choose how they'll fulfill their dreams through life's biggest moments. Stay connected by using your own IM and email while playing.

Also of interest and SIMS related, a provocative article in " Grey Room" from MIT Press:
"Digital Allegories (on The Sims)" by McKenzie Wark
Fall 2006, No. 25, Pages 126-138
Posted Online November 8, 2006.

A PDF of the article should be accessible from the USC network.

Posted by Scott Fisher at 6:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Speaker: Robert Zemeckis
Time: Wednesday, January 10, 7-9pm
Location: Room 108, Lucas Building

Title: Motion Capture Performance: The art of acting, directing, story and performance for motion capture will be explored while learning cutting edge technologies involved in bringing virtual actors and worlds to life.

Tonight's seminar will be Zemeckis' kickoff lecture for the CTAN 599 class that he is teaching this semester. PLEASE NOTE: This lecture will be held jointly with the Animation & Digital Arts Division Seminar in Lucas 108 from 7pm to 9pm. - Please arrive by 6:45, Seating will be held for IMD students, staff and faculty until 7PM at the latest.

Posted by Scott Fisher at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Beall Center for Art and Technology presents:

“Atmospherics/Weather Works” by Andrea Polli
Opening reception: January 4, 2007; 6:30 – 9:00pm
Exhibition Dates: January 5 - March 17

“It’s not about the data, it’s about the phenomena” – Andrea Polli

Atmospherics/Weather Works is an exhibition of several systems for understanding weather and climate patterns through sound. The results are sometimes ambient, sometimes turbulent and always evocative compositions that allow listeners to experience geographically scaled events on a human scale and gain a deeper understanding of the more unpredictable and complex rhythms and melodies of nature.

Polli's combination of new media and scientific research, informs her work with powerful presentations of many of the dangers to our environment, global warming, the ocean's influence on whether and pollution. Polli's work, has explored emerging technologies, written and developed custom and open source software, and worked with scientists from various disciplines to explore new aesthetic forms. In many of the works the sounds and the images are reacting to each other. She creates sonic installation of haunting sounds and visuals that create a sense of time and interaction.

Posted by Scott Fisher at 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)