weeworld
from tv to game, from game to tv - mtv
mTV Networks said Wednesday it had entered into an agreement with Atom Entertainment to acquire the company for $200 million. The company runs four Web sites including the popular AtomFilms.com and Shockwave.com, as well as gaming site AddictingGames.com and video site AddictingClips.com.
The acquisition of Atom marks a continuing effort by MTV to advance its multiplatform entertainment strategy. The company recently acquired entertainment brands XFIRE, Y2M, GameTrailers.com, IFILM, and Neopets.
via betanews.com agosto 2006
Virtual Laguna Beach will be just one piece of MTV's plans to build a social network platform around a variety of its brands. The service, which entered beta testing Wednesday, utilizes technology from There.com, a virtual 3D world like Second Life. Users can interact in the same environment as Laguna Beach characters, and follow similar plot lines like preparing for the Winter formal.
MTV also plans to stream episodes in Virtual Laguna Beach a day before they are shown on TV, a move which it hopes will entice fans of the show to sign up online.
via betanews.com settembre 2006
FURTHER PROCESSING
FURTHER PROCESSING.
Generative Art, Open Systems
Pablo Miranda Carranza (ES), Fabio Franchino (IT), Ben Fry (USA), Golan Levin (USA), Lia (AT), Mark Napier (USA), C.E.B. Reas (USA), Karsten Schmidt (GER), Martin Wattenberg (USA), Marius Watz (NOR)
Coproduction: steirischer herbst
Curators: Sandro Droschl (AT), Marius Watz (NOR)
Opening: 23.09.2006, 1.15 p.m.
Duration: 23.09.-25.11.2006, Tue-Fri 2-6 p.m., Sat 11 a.m.-6 p.m.
Museum´s long night: 07.10.2006, 6 p.m.-1 a.m.
Guided tours: 23.09., 07.10., 25.11.2006, 3 p.m. & by arrangement
Venue: Kunstverein Medienturm, Josefigasse 1, A-8020 Graz
Information & Downloads: www.medienturm.at
The exhibition FURTHER PROCESSING uses the Open Source software "Processing" as a departure point to examine current positions in software-based art. Programming has always been a component in media art, but there is now an increasing interest in software and the computer code itself as methods of artistic exploration. Code is becoming an aesthetic material, with software as the new art object.
Late 1990s experimentation in digital media has in recent years given rise to an awareness of the need for a code-based "software literacy" among artists and designers working with digital media. Combined with the emergence of a new generation raised on microcomputers, BASIC programming and the Internet, this has produced a new movement within the media art scene, one which is concerned with code-based abstraction and the art of the database.
"Generative art refers to any art practice where the artist uses a system, such as a set of natural language rules, a computer program, a machine, or other procedural invention, which is set into motion with some degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a completed work of art."
- Philip Galanter, "What is Generative Art? Complexity Theory as a Context for Art
Theory"
GENERATIVE ART: The system as art object
All software is by its nature based on systems. It is not surprising then that much software-based art is concerned with the system itself as an object of investigation. Loosely grouped under the term Generative Art, this work goes beyond the simple desire to use code as a tool. Instead, algorithms and code structures become the framework and material for the work itself.
Historical art movements like Conceptual Art, Minimalism, Fluxus and Op Art, as well as artists like Bridget Riley and Sol LeWitt, can serve as a background for understanding this artistic practice. At the same time, the importance of new scientific theories like complexity theory, emergence and artificial life should not be ignored. Advances in contemporary electronic music is another influence, with several of the artists working with musicians to produce software-based performance systems for the synaesthetic combination of sound and image in a live context.
Within FURTHER PROCESSING several artists adopt a generative position, but with distinctly different formal interests. Lia and C.E.B. Reas use kinetic processes as an analog to drawing, leaving complex traces on the screen's canvas that become heavily layered surfaces. Their sparse use of colour and form recall a minimalist aesthetic, even though the work itself is highly complex. Fabio Franchino explores the nature of pattern, which itself can be said to be a practice of rules. His "Unfinished Wall" describes a pattern that in theory could be generated on a vast scale.
Karsten Schmidt and Marius Watz deal with the evolution of structures in space, tracing out virtual sculptural forms on the screen. Here vivid colour and density of the forms is used to great effect, producing bold spatial compositions. Finally, Mark Napier's "Genesis (7 bit)" is bold enough to use the text of Genesis from the Old Testament as raw material, interpreting the letters as the coordinates for points in space. The resulting arcs and filament-like traces are delicate and mesmerizing.
The generative works in FURTHER PROCESSING present an aesthetic of complexity, concerned with formal explorations of spatial and temporal parameters. Ranging from the opulent to the minimalist, these pieces comfortably bridge the gap between an electronic image culture and traditions in drawing and painting.
DATA ART: The art of the database
Another identifiable tendency in FURTHER PROCESSING is data visualization as a new type of cultural artefact. Ben Fry's "Isometric Blocks" is a scientific visualization of blocks of genetic codes, while Golan Levin's "The Dumpster" datamines the world of blogs to find patterns in blog posts relating to romantic breakups. Martin Wattenberg's "Thinking Machine" shows the user how a computerized chess player "sees" the playing board as a field of energies in flux. Pablo Miranda Carranza experiments with architectural principles and parametric design, creating systems that learn to design their own output.
These works have aspects of design objects or results of scientific research, but their popularity with lay audiences are proof positive of their emotional impact. Contradicting their status as "objective" visualizations of dry data, these works can in fact be seen as a pure form of computational art. Within the context of FURTHER PROCESSING these works are shown as examples of a new type of cultural artefact, pointing to a need for better tools for understanding the complex world of information that surrounds us.
PROCESSING: The tool
"Processing" was originally created by C.E.B. Reas and Ben Fry in 2001, when they were both at the Aesthetics & Computation Group (AGC) at the MIT Media Lab (Boston). Directed by John Maeda, the ACG was the one of the first academic programs to combine computational and aesthetic theory.
"Processing" tries to reduce the threshold keeping non-technical persons from experimenting with code by employing a set of core strategies:
- A simplified language syntax, allowing immediate experimentation with visual output.
- A programming interface which is intuitive and non-technical
- An Open Source architecture, which allows the extension of the tool by its users.
Since its inception, the "Processing" project has received considerable attention and the tool is now used as a standard teaching tool by many art and design schools worldwide.
In 2005 "Processing" won a Golden Nica award in the Prix Ars Electronica.
Finally FURTHER PROCESSING is based on a continuous artistic discourse, of which the effects are reflected on an aesthetic, technological and discursive level. Beside works of ten well known international media artists the software "Processing" will also be on display, so that visitors can try the tool and hopefully get a taste of code for themselves.
Cartografie in erba - Trento
"Cartografie in erba. Un festival di mappe autoprodotte, ribelli, utopiche"
dal 3 al 18 novembre a Trento
Il festival comprende una mostra di mappe e varie serate di festa, discussione, film e biciclettate. Tutto all'insegna del gioco, dello spirito critico e dell'autoproduzione.
Le serate non sono ancora confermate, ma sul nostro sito www.56a.org.uk/maptrento.html potrete trovare il programma mano a mano che sarà definito.
In più, stiamo cercando nuove cartine da aggiungere all'esposizione, e vogliamo incoraggiare chiunque sia interessato a disegnare una mappa e spedircela. Ci interessa tutto, soprattutto mappe basate su esperienze personali del mondo, su fatti storici dimenticati o rimossi, su interpretazioni critiche della realtà in cui viviamo.
Abbiamo anche intenzione di proporre alle visitatrici e ai visitatori la creazione di mappe dei propri corpi, per esplorare gli effetti che la vita, il lavoro, le lotte, i viaggi, lasciano sulla materialità della nostra carne, e per riflettere sulle trasformazioni quotidiane a cui sottoponiamo i nostri corpi per adeguarci, consciamente o meno, a norme di bellezza e di pulizia, per calarci nei ruoli di genere che ci sono stati assegnati.
Sul sito - www.56a.org.uk/maptrento.html - trovate più informazioni e se volete contattarci, siamo a cartografieinerba@inventati.org
Ile Sans Fil - Connecting Montreal to its Artists
Ile Sans Fil, CHOQ.FM and CUTV Launch HAL:
Connecting Montreal to its Artists
Montreal, QC. September 23, 2006 – Ile Sans Fil with partners CHOQ.FM and CUTV are launching an exciting new service that promises to change the way Montrealers interact with local artists. Dubbed HAL (Hub des Artistes Locaux), the technology will distribute artistic content throughout Montreal cafés, restaurants, and parks via Ile Sans Fil's extensive wireless network.
An international first, HAL encourages Montrealers to discover local artists and media producers via wireless jukeboxes capable of streaming high-resolution video and audio. Notably, it allows for rich media dissemination on a geo-locative basis (unique content relevant to individual hotspots).
Using HAL at an Ile Sans Fil hotspot is as easy as starting iTunes (available for Windows and Mac), and clicking on the HAL logo. There are currently 12 HALs at ISF hotspots, with another 13 on the way for December.
The project is partially supported by the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Canada Council for the Arts, along with the collaboration of the Terminus1525 online art studio.
The HAL project furthers Ile Sans Fil's mandate of empowering Montreal communities through the creation and deployment of community-centric technology. It is ISF's third large-scale project involving proactively developing and deploying new media platforms to take
advantage of new technologies. ISF, CHOQ.fm and CUTV are excited to work together bringing this "bottom-up" cultural and technological project encouraging local participation in culture to Montreal.
As with ISF's other projects, all technology and knowledge developed will be shared publicly in open-source manner to encourage adoption by other communities.
Ile Sans Fil is a bilingual volunteer-run non-profit organization that develops, deploys and maintains Montreal based community-oriented wireless technology. With a free wireless network of 105 hotspots and 24,000 users, ISF is a world-leader in the field of community wireless networking. ISF has already developed the open-source software project WifiDog? and has inspired similar grassroots initiatives in Toronto, Ottawa/Gatineau and Quebec City.
CHOQ.FM is UQAM's student-run net-radio station, and has 250 volunteers involved in 80 radio shows.
Concordia University Television (CUTV) is Canada's oldest student-run television station and offers regular programming by our resident producers, including fiction narrative, documentary, experimental, news and everything in between.
HAL will be launched at the Sala Rossa on Oct. 9 as part of CUTV's Kickass Kickoff. The evening will consist of two screenings of student-produced short film, with drinks and dancing to follow with music provided by Montreal Afro-beat orchestra GogoJungle?.
http://www.ilesansfil.org/tiki-index.php?page=HAL
telephone in second life
With the unveiling of its "million minutes" promotion Wednesday, Framingham, Mass.-based Vivox is now enabling "Second Life" users to speak to each other via their phones.
via blog gaming
curated by Daniel Terdiman, covers games, Net culture and everything in between.
GENERACOMUNICAZIONI
16 ottobre - 21 novembre 2006
casa masaccio
Corso Italia 83
San Giovanni Valdarno (AR)
casa masaccio contemporanea
GENERACOMUNICAZIONI
cantiere di nuovi processi comunicativi, documentari e creativi
scarica il bando in formato pdf
scarica la domanda in formato doc
Il cantiere è una azione laboratoriale tesa a creare e sperimentare, delle zone di "comunicazione autonome" (spazi comunicativi e comunicanti di frequentazione artistica, intergenerazionali, interculturali e di genere), attraverso nuovi linguaggi artistici di comunicazione.
Il cantiere prevede la realizzazione di una web.TV / canale podcast, la produzione e la trasmissione di propri contenuti audio e video.
Generacomunicazioni è un progetto promosso da:
Regione Toscana - TRA ART / Porto Franco
un'azione prevista dal :
"Cantiere provinciale per la cultura contemporanea - Incroci / generi generazioni genti".
Ideato e progettato da:
casa masaccio contemporanea
a cura di Michele Loffredo e Fausto Forte
Il cantiere è condotto:
Piero Grazzi ( web producer / podcasting )
Simone Cipolli ( web producer / podcasting )
Giuseppe Ferlito ( regista / tecnica e narrazione cine-televisiva )
Francesco Tanzi ( regista / laboratorio video / set e montaggio )
Massimo Bartolini ( Artista )
Ra Di Martino ( Artista )
Incontri con:
Alberto Grifi ( regista )
Mario Gorni ( Centro di documentazione arti visive care/of&Via Farini Milano )
Stefano Jacoviello ( semiologo )
Marco Pierini ( Direttore del Palazzo de Le Papesse di Siena )
Enrico Ghezzi ( Blob - Fuori Orario )
Il cantiere si svolgerà
dal 16 ottobre al 22 novembre 2006 a
casa masaccio, Corso Italia 83
52027 San Giovanni Valdarno (AR)
Informazioni/contatti
Casa masaccio contemporanea
tel. 055 9126283 fax. 055 942489
casamasacciosgv@val.it
Il cantiere è realizzato in collaborazione con:
GroK 42 / Aran Studio / Associazione Immagina Scuola di Cinema / careof&Viafarini
Cultura Toscana eventi
SITinMilano
Il festival invade il centro di Milano: dal Teatro Litta alle Colonne di San Lorenzo, passando per le caratteristiche abitazioni di via Morigi, tra i negozi di corso Magenta e fra i vicoli storici di via Brisa e via Arena. Il capoluogo lombardo si trasforma, dall'ora dell'aperitivo a tarda sera, in un vivaio a cielo aperto di giovani talenti.
http://www.lombardiacultura.it/evento.cfm?ID=2214
CreaMI 2006
CreaMI 2006
La iniziativa si inserisce nella programmazione autunnale di Vapore Intenso, la manifestazione organizzata dall’Associazione Culturale GeniusGloci con il contributo del Servizio Giovani - Settore Tempo Libero del Comune di Milano.
A cura di Massimo Mancini, il festival della creatività giovanile è giunto alla terza edizione. E’ stata affidata ad Agostino Riola e Andrea Amici la progettazione, all’interno dell’Openspace, di un quartiere cittadino che possa esaltare l’esperienza dell’essere spettatore.
Vi si incontrano fra gli altri:
- Discodimmer, una discoteca fornita di bar, cubiste, luci e mirror ball, che diffonde musica in cuffia. Situata all’interno di una tenda, e divisa in due zone, offre a chi entra la possibilità di essere dj o ascoltatore, motore o fruitore dell’evento.
- un cinema, che proietta il film Cost of Living degli inglesi DV8: storia di vita dei performer David e Eddie fra lotte quotidiane per il lavoro, l’amore, l’amicizia, raccontate attraverso immagini, danza e teatro
- il bar e il bookshop, attivi all’interno dell’Openspace, ricevono vita e dimensione nuova dall’intervento inatteso degli attori.
- uno zoo immaginario, con una installazione della svizzera Victorine Müller: un elefante in pvc ospita la performer al suo interno
"timeline" - 2005 Performance Foto: Dabid Aebi, Bern26-27-28 ottobre, Openspace – Fabbrica del Vapore, via Procaccini 4
Perform.Media
Perform.Media is a transdisciplinary festival and symposium of creativity, theory, research and technoculture.September 29th-October 14th, 2006Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana
Net Art Selections at performthemedia
http://www.kunstkommt.de/deep-claps/content/e_edition.htm
http://www.noanimalswerehurt.com/view.php
http://jasonfreeman.net/itsm
http://www.usdat.us/
http://www.robertspahr.com/
http://www.thisspartanlife.com/episodes.shtml
http://www.eternalsunset.net/
http://www.surrealscania.se/
http://www.jaka.org/2005/spreminjevalec/en.php
Graph Theory
Graph Theory is now available at Turbulence.org.
Graph Theory seeks to connect composition, listening, and concert performance by coupling an acoustic work for solo violin or solo cello to an interactive web site. On the web site, users navigate among sixty-one short, looping musical fragments to create their own unique path through the composition.
by Jason Freeman
Gun Control
Gun Control (2004 - Scott Kildall) is an electromechanical installation, which explores underlying issues of both security and surveillance. Each of the four units incorporates a police-issue semi-automatic and a small video camera. As people move into the installation space, the cameras track the movement and the guns follow.
http://www.kildall.com/
Ron Mueck
... La prima volta che Ron Mueck ha esposto è stato nel 1997 in una rassegna londinese, Sensation, che ha fatto voltare pagina all'arte contemporanea internazionale, consacrando per alcuni anni il primato della Young British Art: Tracy Enim, Damien Hirst, Marc Quinn, Dino & Jake Chapman, Sam Taylor-Wood, Jenny Saville e Ron Mueck.
Tutti loro e gli altri della pattuglia di Charles Saatchi, pubblicitario e abilissimo mercante d'arte, avevano un chiodo fisso: il realismo, il far vedere l'impossibile... ( da DWEB "Non svegliate quel gigante" di A.Polveroni )
National Gallery Scotland -
Making Sense of the Future!
Making Sense of the Future! 
2nd European Futurists Conference
where: LUZERN (CH)
when: 22-24 november 2006
http://www.european-futurists.org
kultur-und kongresscentrum - Luzern
-----------------------------------------------Prof. Bjorn Lomborg, named one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time Magazine
Prof. Kevin Warwick, he connected his nerves to the internet through an implanted chip
Ged Davis, Managing Director World Economic Forum WEF ... and a lot more
------------------------------------------------------------------
an interview with Susanne Blackmore . She will take a workshop about MEME at the conference in Luzern -
Why has a dangerous version of Islam evolved over the past few years?
Scientist Susanne Blackmore argues, that humans are not in control of memes (which are an equivalent of genes in the world of ideas or stories).
Islamic extremism is such a meme, which is been copied in a imitation process.
The study of memes help us to understand, how and why new copy machinery like the internet co-evolve with the ideas they transport and do not care about human sakes.
Susan Blackmore, you are expert in a fascinating theory called memetics.
It is a theory trying to explain, how ideas evolve.
Can you give an example of an evolving meme?
Memes are ideas, skills, stories or any information that is copied from person to person, or from person to books, computers or artefacts.
Scientific theories evolve but so do fashions and religions. A silly example is the practice of folding the end of toilet rolls that has now spread to just about every corner of the world. A more serious example is Islam which has evolved over the past few years to be extremely dangerous to free thought and human rights.
How can memetics help to understand trends?
Looking at the world from a meme’s eye view allows us to see why ideas that are dangerous for us humans, or for our genes or our planet, can nonetheless thrive because they have what it takes to persuade us human meme machines to copy them. We have to look at trends and ask “Why is this information getting copied?”
We need to get away from models based on the idea of humans as rational choice machines and see them instead as selective imitation devices – not perhaps an endearing view but certainly closer to the truth.
You call computers, books, web sites meme machines: They all copy, store and select memes. You are suggesting to take another look at those media: Let’s assume that they are not for our sake but for the memes to evolve. How come?
In any evolving system the information that is copied co-evolves with the machinery for copying it. DNA and its incredibly accurate cellular copying machinery evolved alongside the creatures it made possible. So writing, telephones, and computers evolved alongside the information that they copy. We humans are self-centred. We seem to believe that we created modern copying technology, including the Internet, for our own benefit. Memetics shows how and why this explosion of copying technology was inevitable (though not necessarily in this precise form) and why it is not under our control. This is important for understanding what will happen next.. The memes do not care (they cannot, of course) whether we are all overloaded and stressed. We need to consider how to live in an increasingly meme rich world.
And then there’s the effect on our planet – think of this new replicator sucking up resources increasingly fast, regardless of the effect on the planet …..
You will offer a workshop at the 2nd European Futurists Conference Lucerne.
What will we learn from you?
You will learn the basics of memetics – the origin of the idea in evolutionary theory and some of its applications. We will look at how humans came to be shaped by memes in the past and how our minds are continuing to be designed by them. This provides the basis for thinking about the future – we can never predict precise outcomes in evolutionary theory, but we can make general predictions about how the web might evolve, how new technologies will affect memetic evolution and what the furture holds for human meme machines. We may not be necessary for memetic evolution for much longer and should be prepared for this major transition.
Sue Blackmore is a freelance writer, lecturer and broadcaster, and a Visiting Lecturer at the University of the West of England, Bristol. She has a degree in psychology and physiology from Oxford University (1973) and a PhD in parapsychology from the University of Surrey (1980). Her research interests include memes, evolutionary theory, consciousness, and meditation. She writes for several magazines and newspapers, a blog for the Guardian newspaper and is a frequent contributor and presenter on radio and television. She is author of over sixty academic articles, about forty book contributions, and many book reviews. Author of many books including The Meme Machine, which is translated into 13 other languages, and her latest book Conversations on Consciousness.
Her pre-conference workshop at the 2nd European Futurists Conference, Nov. 22, 2006:
The Evolution of Meme Machines
Useful links to Memetics here provided by Susan
website conference http://www.european-futurists.org/
conference program PDF
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