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Homage to a Site

Abstract: This thesis stems from a common interest in sound, perception and user-centred interaction, and emerged in the belief that the quality of sound is not extensively explored in the creation of immersive universes. Thus, the aim of this thesis is to examine the potential of sound to create new user experiences and alternative modes of interaction exclusively through sound. The thesis is based upon the design process of an auditory location-based game we have designed and the different theories in the fields of aesthetics and interaction design our game is affected by. It will address the design of the game, the gameplay, basic technological requirements for implementation, and will discuss more general aspects of sound, as well as premises for sound design and how sound is perceived and effects the user experience. We approach this through our design process and different theorists from fields of HCI, interaction design, architecture, musicology and art history. Continue reading

PUKAR Gender and Space Call for Papers

The PUKAR Gender and Space project has been researching the relationship between women and public space for the last two and a half years. We are currently at the writing stage of our research and would like to share our observations and analysis as well as receive inputs from the experiences of others who have been working on similar lines. To that end, we invite researchers, activists, advocates, journalists, architects, pedagogues and others working in the area of gender in relation to urban public space to a roundtable discussion of questions of engendering safety, infrastructure and citizenship.

We refer to public space as a part of the public sphere. Public spaces for the purposes of this roundtable refers to streets, market places (across class contexts – that is including bazaars and malls); recreational spaces such as parks, theatres, restaurants, coffee shops; infrastructure such as subways, foot-over-bridges and public toilets; and modes of public transport including railway stations and bus stops. Continue reading

Greenwich Emotion Map

Greenwich Emotion Map by Christian Nold, Oct 2005 – March 2006: 6 month artist commission hosted by Independent Photography as part of ‘Peninsula’, a series of artist commissions on the Greenwich Peninsula.

Artist Christian Nold has been invited to collaborate with local residents from the Greenwich Peninsula to explore the area afresh and build an emotion map of the area that explores people’s relationship with their local environment.

The project is set up as a series of participatory workshops that invite people to borrow a Bio Mapping device and go for a walk. The device measures the wearer’s Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), which is an indicator of emotional arousal in conjunction with their geographical location. The resulting maps encourage personal reflection on the complex relationship between us, our environment and our fellow citizens. By sharing this information we can construct maps that visualise where we as a community feel stressed and excited.
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Call for Non-US Artists to Exhibit/Live in NYC

Wooloo Productions and White Box present AsylumNYC: an opportunity for non-US artists to exhibit and live in New York City. AsylumNYC will provide a talented artist with both a solo show at a recognized New York institution and the legal aid necessary to obtain an artists visa in the United States of America.

Location: White Box, 525 West 26th Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues), New York, New York 10001. Date: April 24, 2006, 8PM – April 29, 2006. All interested artists are encouraged to apply before April 1, 2006.

CREATIVE ASYLUM IN NEW YORK CITY: Based on the concept under exploration by Wooloo Productions in AsylumHOME.net, which addresses the difficulties faced by asylum seekers in Europe, AsylumNYC targets the challenge faced by artists interested in working in the United States. Continue reading

Collaborative Mapping of Poplar

Saturday 4 March 2006 2-4 pm free: You are invited to join Melissa Bliss in creating a collaborative map of Poplar using dowsing and GPS. Full instruction in dowsing will be given. Please dress warm as we will be outside. Meet at Chrisp Street Idea Store (aka the library), 1 Vesey Path (south end of Chrisp Street Market), East India Dock Road, London E14 6BT–DLR All Saints, Bus 15 115 D6 D8. Info/booking: melissa[at]livingcinema.com

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and Jane McGonigal’s Response

” 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.” From My Crowd: Part 1 Or, Phase 5: A report from the inventor of the flash mob by Bill Wasik [via Interactive Media Division Weblog]

Jane McGonigal’s Letter To the Editor: Bill WasikÂ’s account of the mob project is a fascinating perspective on eight of the thousands of flash mobs that were conducted worldwide in the summer and fall of 2003. However, as one of the San Francisco flash mob organizers, I have to take issue with his article as a definitive account of the phenomenon. Here in San Francisco, for instance, we consciously designed events that would be inclusive and inviting to passersby who hadnÂ’t already received the secret “insider” instructions. When we whirled across a pedestrian crosswalk at a famous cable car stop, the mob grew larger over the course of the 10 minutes as tourists and locals joined in. Continue reading

Uncovering the Primacy of Movement and Sound

EXPERIMENTAL ART FOUNDATION and the ADELAIDE BANK FESTIVAL OF ARTS 2006 present ROBOTIC ARTS, INFLATABLE AESTHETICISM.

Robotic Arts, Inflatable Aestheticism is a project comprising exhibition, workshop, and presentations by Chico MaMurtrie, one of the world’s leading artists using robotic technologies. Chico MacMurtrie – born in New Mexico and now residing in New York – is the Artistic Director of Amorphic Robot Works (ARW). Formed in 1992, ARW is a group of artists, engineers and technicians working together to create robotic performances and installations. Chico MacMurtrie describes his vision, “The work is an ongoing endeavor to uncover the primacy of movement and sound. Each machine is inspired or influenced, both, by modern society, and what I physically experience and sense. The whole of this input informs my ideas and work.” Continue reading

Technological Determinism in Media Art

“Abstract: Technological determinism is the belief that science and technology are autonomous and the main force for change in society. It is neither new nor particularly original but has become an immensely powerful and largely orthodox view of the nature of social change in highly industrialised societies. In this paper I analyse the presence of technological determinism in general discourses about the relationship between social change and science and technology. I show that techno-determinist assumptions underlie developments in what is called technoscience, a term describing new practices in science and technology with particular relevancy for the related fields of genetic engineering and computer science. Those areas create a specific set of narratives, images and myths, which is called the techno-imaginary. The thesis of my paper is that the discourse on media art uncritically relies on many elements of the techno-imaginary. A specific type of media art, which is identifiable with people, institutions and a period in time, is particularly engaged with the tropes of the techno-imaginary. This strand, which I call high media art, successfully engaged in institution building by using techno-determinist language. It achieved its goals but was short lived, because it was built on false theoretical premises. It made wrong predictions about the future of a ‘telematic society’ and a ‘telematic consciousness’; and it missed the chance to build the foundations of a theory of media art because it was and is contaminated by the false assumptions behind technological determinism.

Keywords: technological determinism, media art, techno-utopianism, artificial intelligence, artificial life, cybernetics, art, progress, critical theory.” Technological Determinism in Media Art by Armin Medosch. Continue reading

Indigenous Maniacs

The next UpStage open walk-thru on Wednesday, 1 March, will include a short performance by participants of the recent UpStage workshop at the Computing Women’s Congress in Hamilton, NZ.

The performance is called “Indigenous Maniacs” and was inspired by material presented at the congress, including Liz Bryce’s MFA Master’s project “Becoming Indigenous: an impossible necessity”. Liz’s work explores concepts inherited by Pakeha (white) New Zealanders through the desires of their colonial ancestors, and speculates on the paradox – to “become” indigenous. “Indigenous Maniacs” was created during 4 3-hour workshop sessions, and when it was presented at the conference we were all in the same room together – so it will be a new challenge to perform it with everyone in different locations, some on dial-up, and no physically present audience.

We’ll meet in the Introduction Stage at the following times, then proceed to the Indigenous Maniacs stage: USA California: 12am; USA New York: 3am; UK: 8am; Western Europe: 9am; Finland: 10am; Australia NSW: 7pm; NZ: 9pm. For other local times, check http://www.worldtimeserver.com/. Continue reading

Truth and Artifice in Reproductions of Nature

Summerbranch is a new commission by Igloo that explores movement and stillness in nature. Using camouflage and other disguises, a person or a computer character can blend into a ‘natural’ environment captured and treated through the moving image. This installation uses the tools of the military-entertainment complex: computer gaming, motion capture, 3D environments and special effects to question what is truth and artifice in our attempts to reproduce nature. Through the creation of a computer generated virtual world Summerbranch seeks to address this through the use of disguise in dance and movement. Igloo not only investigate the role of the ‘real’ in virtual environments but also that of the reproduction of nature in the history of art and particularly landscape work. Continue reading