a looking-glass book

'a walk home'

i had forgotten about this project until a few days ago.

in the summer of 2001, i walked from my work to my apartment (which i did most every day), taking a picture every three steps.

its not that different from the pictures i took the other night at the ea event. i want to get them posted soon, but where this is a series of 288 pictures, the ones from the last week are a series of 640. (web space is almost becoming an issue.)

it would be nice to tweak this a little further to make it easier to snag photos out of the slideshow, but they arent that spectacular.

a couple of things to realize from this experiment - i turned the camera. shots switch from portrait to lanscape depending on the composition. and the pics were also not so much where i was looking as much as 'take 3 steps, find an interesting pic from that spot'. so it isnt exactly pov, but more a record of the space on that day.

perhaps slightly subtle differences, but important ones to point out when dealing with my thesis.

camera needed

i need help. advice, if you will.

i am looking for a small point-and-click digital camera. i only want it for web stuff, i dont care about zoom, resolution or flash (almost). 640x480 is huge for me. i just want something with the ability to hold a large flash card and has good battery life. and is small.

anyone know of a camera that fits my needs?

research pages

for the msrt, a link to iam

and for the patholog

another trust thought

how long before someone builds the friendster version of napster? your friends get access to your files, you build a web of friends outside of that to find new connections and new music.

you trust your friends, friends-of-friends give you new connections for new opportunities. no one gets busted, unless youre dumb enough to approve someone you shouldn't trust.

evil, perhaps. but more unified then everyone running their own ftp servers.

so, who wants to pay me a million dollars for this idea? or at least build it so i can use it.

the decentralization of art, v2

(yes, this is the updated report from last week. no sense in not updating it.)

here is a second draft of the paper i first posted in oct. this draft, after reading will's comments and speaking with scott, has a lot more in the back end than it did before. the graphs included aren't the greatest, but hopefully they at least illustrate the ideas. if you read this before, page 10 (with 'the fallacy of search engines') is where a lot of changes really start happening. i know that this might need one more draft before i put it to bed, but i hope this will generate some discussion. which will then aim me in the direction i need to head with it.

as always, i welcome your comments/ideas/feeback/editing skills.

the decentralization of art, v2

zombie sim, code from 11/14

this is the revised source code which we used last night to walk around campus. the code has not been optimized and the game hasnt obviously been completely constructed. it does, however, allow you to hook up a garmin to the serial port and walk around - it redraws the players cursor as you move in space.

the gps coordinates are set in the top of the code as x_min, x_max, y_min, y_max. plug in your own gps coordinates and give it a whirl in a rectangle of your choosing.

source

narrative pt1

this is a first spewing, done before i had seen the photos. while i think the pics are lit better than i imagined the space, its cool to me to see where they line up. are my thoughts directing, informing, creating the space? or is it the other way around?

Smells like blankets, like smoke and warmth. The space is close, tight. Too many things, too small a space to walk around in, to live in, to think in.

I can close my eyes and still see you there, smoking, puffing, breathing. The keys are crooked the door, with all of its locks doesn't sit quite right on the hinges. There is a larger gap at one corner than another and the light creeps over the floor, with the occasional dog yelp from the hallway. You wanted to hang blankets over the windows, forget about the people, all those people, outside where we are. I couldn't agree more, but then I wanted to forget about myself too - the people inside as well. It wasn't just the people outside that scared me. I wanted to lose myself so completely, so totally. Forget who I was, where I was from, where I was going. Is this what a vacation means to me?

I caught you one night, in bed. Shaking. Crying. You wanted to go back, go back to the way things had been. I pulled a blanket over you and tried to bite my lip. Tried to not say 'shut up. Shut up - you asked for this. You thought this was a good idea when we talked about it.' But I didn't say these things. You know that. I couldn't if I had wanted to. What would we have done if I had? Nothing would have changed. You would have cried more and in the apartment that small, I couldn't escape.

I can’t get rid of my old life and I certainly can’t move from this one. What would I do for a job? How would I arrange my newly bought purchases? How could I convince myself to remove all the things I get pleasure from? Would I stop reading the same authors? Watching the same directors? Writing to myself by dim light? Letter from the past, ghosts of myself float in and out of my vision. Was the person I was gone? Or is he there, a complication right over my shoulder, always whispering to me, examining the person I was. The person I wanted to be. The person I could imagine myself as. I want to cry. Without you, I am so small. And you are asleep.

We only have 2 real rooms you see. One room for sleeping, one room for everything else. I’m not unhappy, not as badly as I made it sound before. But the space, or rather the lack of space, is making me crazy. The idea that I left you. That we left each other without saying goodbye. Without leaving. This is what gets me the most. We move through our day and we don't stop to think what we are doing. We get on a train and wait for our stop to be called. Neither of us know what stop that will be - who will truly leave whom, who will die first. Yet, we ride. We don't question. And keep going, the same way we always have. That's what makes me so sad. So tired.

I don't like routine. I drug you out, I made a mockery of everything I had been given - I turned my back on everything I was and moved away and become someone I wanted to be. Someone I could hate and someone who didn't care about myself. I care too much you see. I care too much about people, about myself.

And the blankets. You made me buy them. I didn't want blinds. And you said blankets then. We found them from one of those street vendors - the ones who set up in empty lots on Saturdays. The blankets smell. I've washed them and nothing comes out of them. The smell lingers and we don't move them. They are precariously balanced on the windows sills and no one can see in. We can’t tell when it is day and when it is night. That's ok. I'm sure the neighbors all think we are constantly getting high. They would be right, but that isn't why we hung them. I don't care about that. I just want isolation. So I can cry myself to sleep.

an interactive deck of oblique strategies

in the 70s, brian eno created a deck of cards for creative inspiration. they were to be used to help brainstorm and create. since then he has made several decks and (finally) the entire set has been reprinted, so you dont have to pay hundreds of dollars for it on ebay. people have also taken the information on the cards and made virtual sets. more info

in orgranizing my thoughts for the 499 midterm/outline, i decided to make my own set of cards, but related directly to interactive media. my deck has 100 cards in 5 suits: overall, medium, user, interface and content.

i printed out the phrases on labels (avery 8163), the affixed them to colored index cards which matched the suits.

this pdf is formatted for the avery labels i used and contains 2 pages for each suit.
linky

simulation

for 534, i decided to simulate a space. i am interested in the idea of simulated/virtual/real space, especially as it is used as a character sketch.

i set up a shoutcast server to my machine in my room with a microphone. it isnt always interesting to listen to because there isnt always a lot going on my room. but the mic picks up typing and my winamp (which, as luck has it, is controllable from my personal website on the left side of the page). so this is an audio simulation of a real space.

(id like to tie it into the rest of the assignments for the semester, tying video and audio together in some way of some space. ideas are floating but i have no concrete plans yet. ideas or suggestions anyone? i like the idea of using cams as frames or even some sort of teleporter.)

ill leave it up for a while, but not forever.

when the page loads, click listen at the top. ill see if i can find a direct link when i am not on my own machine.
linky

'the decentralization of art'

ok, pretentious title aside, this is a first draft of the paper i have been slaving over for weeks (for fun, on my own. im a sick sick man). to forewarn, it weighs in just shy of 6000 words, 14 pages single spaced.

but i welcome and would love to get some comments on it. id like to sharpen it into a publishable piece asap, so whether you think it need some trimming or the whole thing sucks, id like to hear what you think.

linky

3d images

a couple of 3d images taken at the getty over the weekend. i think the steps is a little better, but the foreground/background isnt as fun. though perhaps thats why its better....

Headphones

Steps

zombie sim - 534 final project

i know todd posted his, but since i had written one up too...
here is my outline for the zombie sim we are working on.

[i am working on this with the mobile group, as well as on the patholog, the proposal living over on will's blog.]

the delivery

interactive narrative is tricky. branching paths, multiple authors, too much freedom - there are a lot of stumbling blocks no matter which way you head. so for perry's assignment, i decided to try a mockup of workflow id been talking about since the summer, on the mobile media project.

this experience relies on some "basic" items, leveraging actors when necessary and triggering events behind the scenes. it does offer limited paths, but i think the flow covers that up. its only obvious if you are not playing.

the delivery

more mobile thoughts

from an email i sent this morning:
"and this is a fight ive been having with kurt. he is a big fan of anyone being able to produce content, while i am not ready to allow everyone that ability. its shocking. but i think once every single person has the ability to "post" (in our system we are writing), the "real" content becomes harder to filter out. and therein lies the key. kurt hasnt yet started talking about how to arrange, sort and navigate the data he gathers. and without that really solid part, i think its going to turn into a soupy mess. when he realizes that he needs good tools and makes them, then ill get on board."

i dont mind everyone having a voice. i worry though that this presents a new set of problems. like finding the worthwhile content by shifting through all the worthless 'spam'. and finding opinions that differ from yours.
i get accused of this and ive read it as well - its so easy to surround yourself with only the opinions of those you agree with. there is so much content these days, you can wrap yourself into any belief or world you want and never be exposed to those whose opinion differs with yours.
so how do we keep this from happening in this system as well?

semantic networks

i know tatsu has been looking into semantic networks (see: his presentation for kinder) and i know i have mentioned 'the brain' more than once.

i havent had it installed here at home, so its time. i have been thinking about the relationships that this type of graphing affords (see: previous post about frienster and buddyzoo). where tatsu is interested in speech and objects, im more interested in social relationships. connections, tastes, locations...im interested in the people side of this mapping. he has found a java based web version of this type of thing, which is exciting.

but anyway, here is a link to a page with several non-networked versions of this type of thing. im downling the brain and installing...i cant speak about the others (yet). but my mind is still churning on this.

(and tatsu, we must speak about this soon.)

social ideas

the concept of networks, of strange connections and neural nodes. a friend of mine convinced me to sign up on friendster. now many people have already chided me for doing this, for its passe-ness, for its general boringness.

all of this is true. but.

the social nodes are interesting to me. how many connections i can get and how far away (virtually and physically) i can go. i have found people linked to me by only 2 or 3 dregrees from all over the united states.

does it matter? not really.

but the idea of being a certain amount of steps away from someone else, the idea of this interconnectivity and the ideas that type of user-filled network could be used for are all very interesteding to me.

yes, other sites have done this. yes, its tired. but its the new kid on the block. im interested in seeing how we can push this model.

(another place to look is buddyzoo.)

mobile narrative(s)

mike presented a semi-narrative mobile game in class the other day. it could be good i think, as long as he doesnt overextend his goals for the piece.

but it spurred me into thought, mainly because i have been silent on the churnings i have been having about mobile narratives.

theres a piece in 'wired' this month about a mobile walking tour going on in la soon. according to will, scoot is involved. either i missed the email or haven't heard 'officially'.

im interested, not just in it, but in the idea of telling stories which depend on your location. not just a walking tour, not a simply a smaller majestic. but a way to imerse oneself in a story that requires movement in the real world without having to rebuilt it to get immersion.

building off even that thought, it would be nice to have some actors/actresses involved in the process, allowing even more cross-over from the 'real' world to the world on the phone screen.

then i just have to figure out how to rig up sms messaging to be triggered by location (easy, im sure) and then having automated phone calls, etc happen (harder).

the juices keep flowing. but now i have to finish a certain screenplay for kinder. then i can start seriously thinking about this.

'trip through your wires'

my text based game for michelle went into beta (finally) as of today. it lives over on madeofglass at this address. check it out, offer feedback and report bugs as you can. any feedback is welcome, though i am really looking to simply tighten up the code/gameplay/bugs rather than introduce new elements or mechanisms at this point.

winamp

inspired by slashdot today, i came home and set up a web ui for my winamp player. then i turned around and published it to madeofglass (check that left menu listing). thats right, now you can control what i listen to in the sanctity of my own bedroom. i think its pretty rad, though when people start blasting metal (or lee perry) at me at 4am, i might decide its not as cool.

push/pull

the project i used as my creative work on my usc app is one titled 'push/pull'. it lives over at madeofglass.com, a blog-style site that is a weird little entity (more on it some other time).

'push/pull' goes back to what i was beginning to explain the other day: using the medium itself to leverage the interaction.

when you play a game, the user has 'modes' (for lack of a better term) which allow things that a user of a movie (commonly known as the viewer, i suppose) does not have. the user of a computer piece again has a different set of modes.

(when i say modes, i dont just mean 'functions' or 'abilities', i also mean expectations and goals.)

being able to think outside of what is traditionally known as a narrative is important to me. we (a people) understand what makes a traditional narrative satisfying. but what happens when we begin to introduce 4th and 5th dimensions into it? and how can we push into new ideas in these realms (the 4th dimension being time; the 5th being 'multiple realities/outcomes' [the 5th dimension might be something else, thats just my way of thinking about it for ease of use]).

so back to 'push/pull'. i wanted something that used a little server side programming to tell a story from three points of view all at once. i have never seen something like this done before or even talked about. the project itself is less than stellar...i have thought about converting it to flash and i know exactly how it would behave and appear. but i haven't gotten around to it. the hurdles with the piece (fitting text into micro-portions of images) i think have left the user experience somewhat unfulfilling.

but i wanted to share a project that i don't think many of you have seen and i think is extremely relevant to my work and the program...