New writing for Brown’s immersive 3D virtual environment. Cave Writing Spring’08 will be giving a number of presentations from the workshop on the evenings of May 14, 15, and 16, at the CCV (Center for Computation and Visualization) CAVE, 180 George Street (NE corner at Brook), 6:30 to 8:30 pm.

Showings must be strictly limited to six people per session, so we ask that you get back to us at this email address — cayley at shadoof dot net –with your first and second choice of a preferred session. These spaces will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis and we apologize in advance if we are unable to accommodate you. Continue reading

3rd ACM International Conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts (DIMEA 2008) :: September 10-12, 2008 :: Athens Information Technology (AIT), Athens, Greece :: Call for Papers and Artworks / Games / Demos :: Deadline: May 12, 2008.

The advances in computer entertainment, multi-player /online gaming, technology-enabled art, culture and performance have created new forms of entertainment that attract, immerse and absorb their participants. The phenomenal success of such a “culture” to initiate a mass audience in patterns and practices of its own consumption has supported the evolution of an enormously powerful mass entertainment, digital art and performance industry extending deeply into every aspect of our lives, leading further to major societal and business contacting changes. Continue reading

Shoot ‘em up (or shmup for short) is a computer and video game genre where the player usually controls a vehicle or character and fights large numbers of enemies with shooting attacks, typically of a highly stylized nature. In Japan, where the genre is still a lively one, they are simply known as “shooting games” and they are focused on avatar actions using some weapons. But what could happen when the weapons are instead “memes”? The game might become a memetic simulation as in Joseph Hocking’s Memetic simulation no.2.

Memetics is a neo-Darwinian approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer based on the concept of the “meme”. Started from a metaphor used in Richard Dawkins popular writings, it has later turned into an approach in the study of self-replicating units of culture. Continue reading

For a sickening moment he tried to retain his old up-and-down orientation, his body attempting to right itself, searching for the gravity that wasn’t there. Then he forced himself to change his view. He was hurtling toward a wall. That was down. And at once he had control of himself. – Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

How do we read a text that removes the stabilizing spatial coordinates of the page and no longer maintains a top-centric and left-centric orientation? How do we read texts that do not simply simulate dimension but in fact materialize and operate on the z-axis? Here, Ender’s Game is suggestive: what Ender Wiggin has to learn about the null-gravity Battle Room is that it requires a fundamental reorientation of spatial perspective. Continue reading

Babelswarm — by Justin Clemens (Writer), Christopher Dodds (Artist/Designer), and Adam Nash (Musician/3-D Real-Time Artist) :: Opened April 11, 2008 :: Lismore Regional Gallery, 131 Molesworth Street, Lismore NSW 2480 + Second Life.

Socrates: What a lucky morning this is turning out to be! I was looking for one virtue and have found a whole swarm of them. — Plato, Meno

In September 2007, the Australia Council for the Arts announced the recipients of its $20,000 artists residency in the 3-D online virtual world of Second Life. Dodds, Nash, and Clemens were awarded the grant to develop an inter-disciplinary artwork which explores the possibilities of literary, music / sound art and real-time 3-D arts practices within the virtual world. Continue reading

Invisible Threads by Jeff Crouse and Stephanie Rothenberg :: April 15, 2008; 8 -10 pm :: Eyebeam Art & Technology Center, 540 West 21st (between 10th & 11th) :: Free event + performances by current Eyebeam artists.

Think virtually. Buy locally. Invisible Threads - a virtual sweatshop - will be operating live from Second Life and Eyebeam as part of the Synthetic Times Beijing Media Arts Symposium closing reception. The mixed reality performance explores the politics of virtual labor through the creation of a designer jeans sweatshop in the online, 3-dimensional world of Second Life. Continue reading

Cantata Park 1 (2006) [Teleport to Mashup Park, Marni (206, 35, 23)] — by Metamatic (Christopher Dodds and Adam Nash) — is an interactive, spatialised sound sculpture built in the virtual world Second Life. The sculpture is made from 256 individual nodes in a 16 x 16 grid. Each node is embedded with a single word, triggered by a participant’s movement through the work. Each participant creates a random narrative, assembled on-the-fly, and in real-time.

Cantata Park explores the notion of a “cut-up narrative”. By disassembling and reassembling a passage of text, the participant is free to extract unseen meaning from an existing text. Continue reading

Turbulence Commission: No Matter by Scott Kildall and Victoria Scott (Part of the Mixed Realities exhibition, on view until April 15, 2008) - NO MATTER is an interactive installation that activates the transformation of imaginary objects through the Second Life virtual economy into physical space. Second Life builders construct replicas of famous buildings, luxury goods and custom-designed objects, first reproducing, then inverting the notion of value itself. With zero cost for gathering resources, production of goods and transport of finished product, these items proliferate widely and quickly. Continue reading

Turbulence Commission: Imaging Beijing by John (Craig) Freeman [Part of the Mixed Realities exhibition, on view until April 15, 2008] - Imaging Beijing is the latest installment of Imaging Place, a place-based, virtual reality project that combines panoramic photography, digital video, and virtual worlds to investigate and document situations where the forces of globalization are impacting the lives of individuals in local communities. When a denizen of Second Life first arrives at Imaging Beijing, he, she or it can walk over a satellite image of central Beijing where they will find a networks of nodes constructed of primitive spherical geometry with panoramic photographs texture mapped to the interior. Continue reading

Annual NSO Conference’ Nonlinear Fabrication: Strange Loops in the Product’s Lifecycle :: April 3-4, 2008 :: University of Pennsylvania. Program.

Though matter itself has always found its expressions through nonlinear organizations, architecture’s modes of intervention in the life of matter have been linear and willful. As architecture continues its age-old struggles against material realities, the future holds astonishing possibilities as we slowly discern the nuances of complex material organizations and cultivate new regimes of expression. Continue reading