Pong - the analog arcade machine (prototype #2: championship evening) - by André Gonçalves :: March 28, 2008; 7:00 pm :: Lisboa20 Arte Contemporânea, Rua Tenente Ferreira Durão 18B (Campo de Ourique).

Arcade machine, 2 joysticks, 2 tvs, coin dispenser, 5 diy arduino based network, 26 led score display, 2 motors, 2 fans, 4 optocoupled h-bridges, 2 printer head mechanics, hair dryer, 2 infra-red sensors, 4 switches, 2 potenciometers, button, 220v 5v relay system, 2 fluorescent lamps, 8 power supplies, wood structure, tripod, video camera. Continue reading

STS Colloquium Joins with MIT’s Space, Policy and Society Research Group to present The UrbanSpaceStation - Natalie Jeremijenko :: March 12, 2008; 5:30 - 7:00 pm :: MIT, Building E15, Lower Level (Bartos Theater), Cambridge, MA.

The UrbanSpaceStation (USS) is a device designed to sequester the carbon dioxide emissions from buildings (which account for 80% carbon dioxide emissions in Manhattan and 35% of the national average) and return oxygen-enriched air to the building. It provides an intensive urban agriculture facility, coupling and reusing building waste streams locally, and potentially providing significant food. Continue reading

The world is full of junk. Why should Second Life be any exception? In fact, something about the technological impetus to always create new, more advanced gizmos and realities makes this online virtual space a perfect site for the consideration of trash. The New York-based German art collective eteam are doing that now, in their project Second Life Dumpster. The duo’s work often revolves around land-use issues and other socio-spatial interventions, and in this case they purchased 4096 square meters of space in SL to start a plein-air dumpster. Continue reading

The new project by RECYCLISM ™ is hitting, as many media artists are doing yet, the prosperous muse of wireless technologies. 2.4Ghz™ exploits wireless netcams populating the urban space in a very simple but interesting way. BNJMN™ GAULON (alias Benjamin Gaulon) has been riding the streets of a few European cities with a wireless video receiver, like the ones used by parents to remotely watch over their babies. His aim was to detect and record the floating video signals emitted by those network cameras like in the historical work Life’s a User’s Manual by Michelle Teran. Continue reading

Fatherboard, the SuperAvatar, is an avatar that - escaping from the virtual worlds (or from the computer generally speaking) - forms into a physical shape. It is similar to cyborgs - but is not a cyborg - and it is made out of the (recycled) hardware components of the computer where it comes from. Fatherboard steps in to the “real world” and starts interrelating with the human beings (the audience). The essence of its dialog with humans is to be found in the idea of a confrontation between the “artificial” intelligences and the ones of their creators. The whole show is theoretically based on the concepts expressed in the Polymorphic Intelligence (see Polymorphic Intelligence 1, 2) and the Big Sieve theories, by Luigi Pagliarini. Continue reading

A 4 Day Cultural Festival

HABITATS: a 4 day Cultural Festival :: Artists, scientists, and cultural commentators are joining together to create a collective vision of a sustainable habitat. The Habitats conference and festival is a 4 day event organized to promote an exchange between art, technology, and environment. With public and private cooperative efforts leading to cleaner water, the Gowanus Canal area has experienced an increase in wildlife and improved prospects for commercial and cultural revitalization. Habitats celebrates this process. Instigated by Eidolon Culture, The Habitats conferences will include speakers such as best-selling author Steven Johnson (“Emergence” and “Mind Wide Open,”); long-standing community organizers such as the Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation (GCCDC) ; electronic artists such as Pauline Oliveros (Deep Listening Foundation) ; site specific sound and video recordings, live music performances, site specific installations, collaborative projects, recycled art, workshops and active audience participation. Continue reading