the largest color LED display worldwide, & the first photo-voltaic system integrated into a glass curtain wall in China. the display requires zero external energy, as the facade harvests solar energy by day & uses it to illuminate the screen after dark. the display comprises of 2,292 color (RGB) LED’s light points comparable to a 24,000 sq. ft. (2.200 m2) monitor screen for dynamic content display.the polycrystalline photovoltaic cells are laminated within the glass of the curtain wall & placed with changing density on the entire building’s skin. the density pattern increases building’s performance, allowing natural light when required by interior program, while reducing heat gain & transforming excessive solar radiation into energy for the media wall. you can play with the online simulator, or watch a movie after the break.[link: greenpix.org|via engadget.com] [posted on Information Aesthetics]

The Iowa Review-Web [TIR-W] Volume 9 no. 1: Multi-Modal Coding: Jason Nelson, Donna Leishman, and Electronic Writing :: Guest edited by Stephanie Strickland and Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink.

“Literary hypertext and hypermedia have been made for 15 years with a wide variety of development systems. When the ELO curated its first Electronic Literature Collection in 2006, in an open call for works, the 60 selected were made in some 10 different development systems, from HTML to VRML. Who is in this game, and how do we draw in new readers and players? Our featured artists answer this question in our interviews. Continue reading

(Essay for Share Festival Catalog 2008) (Here is my slide presentation, related to the essay below. But, I did not read this essay at the festival, rather it was printed in the festival catalog.)

There are a few things to say about manufacturing, design and digital arts. First, we’re not talking about manufacturing. Manufacturing is about making things on a large scale using machinery. Manufacturing evokes cavernous, cold, awesomely huge assembly lines with scales all out of proportion to the experiences of mere mortals. Factory floors throwing sparks, littered with metal shavings, huge overhead cranes moving impossibly large masses of steel - this is what manufacturing means. Continue reading

Robert Ladislas Derr will perform Chance: Fairfax, a psychogeographical walk performance through the streets of Fairfax on March 28, 2008, starting in front of City Hall, 10455 Armstrong Street at 11:00 am. On April 4, his performance will start in front of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA), 230 The Fenway, Boston.

During The Fifth Annual Visual Cultures Symposium at George Mason University’s Johnson Center Cinema on March 27, the viewers will determine the direction of his walk performance (wearing four video cameras harnessed to his person) through the streets based upon the roll of a dice; the dice indicates that he move forward, backward, right, left, spin, or stand in place. He will accept thirty dice rolls then proceed on his walk accordingly. When spin or stand in place are the command, he will complete each for one minute. Continue reading

Upgrade! Paris: Interfaces, Interactivity & Movement - Collectif Trafik + Jocelyn Cottencin (moderator) :: March 11, 2008; 8 pm :: LE CUBE - ART3000 20, Cours Saint Vincent 92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux (RER C - station “Issy”).

Trafik is a multi-talented and interactive graphic and multimedia design agency. Interaction between the 5 partners, whose talent and know-how complement each other, and enable them to fully command and develop new technologies. Also enables the development of new concepts for institutional, cultural and industrial clients. Continue reading

An 8-bit Moment in Gameplay: [giantJoystick] - Mary Flanagan :: Exhibition: February 4 - March 17, 2008 :: Reception: February 14, 6 - 8 pm :: Gallery at Calit2, Atkinson Hall, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA.

On February 4, the UCSD division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) will launch the 2008 program of its new Gallery at Calit2, an art-meets-technology space on the first floor of Atkinson Hall on the La Jolla campus. The art showcase reflects the nexus of innovation implicit in Calit2’s vision, and advances the understanding and appreciation of the dynamic interplay among art, science and technology. Continue reading

ISaidIf is a work in the very tradition of Lia, the famous Viennese artist developing abstract interactive art from a decade now on the web and other digital digital supports. In recent years her coding visual skills have fruitfully joined the audio experiments of the Cronica label members, resulting in compelling live audiovisual sets and data tracks in the label CD productions. Isaidif is one of the most recent Lia productions and has been included in the Art Machines Machine Art exhibition at the Frankfurt’s Schirn Kusthalle. There it was clearly embodying the computer generative culture attached to an ancient ‘machine’ concept, among artistic (semi) automatic creations, playing with their mechanisms or output. Continue reading

sk-interfaces Conference :: February 8-9, 2008 :: Screen 3, FACT, 88 Wood Street, Liverpool.

This hugely significant event will illustrate many of the aesthetic, philosophical, scientific and medical issues raised in the exhibition sk-interfaces, and will feature specialists of international renown from a wide range of fields and disciplines. The artists’ projects that feature in the exhibition will be discussed in the context of wider debates on and around skin and its role as an interface, as well as biotechnology as an artistic medium and subject. Continue reading

Thomas Gläser and Jens Franke’s Arduino Earthwalk represents an intuitive way to control Google Earth. The user navigates on the earth´s surface using five footpads. The arrows represent the cardinal points as heading directions. Activation of one of the pads simultaneously with the center pad speeds up the pace of navigation. Simultaneous activation of the pads marked with plus or minus results in zooming in and out. Time / space / physical navigation which uses the whole body. At Enter3.

Look at this beat wartime empathy device by Dominic Muren. As he explained me in his email: Though it’s not the most traditional interface design, I feel more and more that really functional interfaces in our world of mediation, will need to be physical. And what more complicated topic to give physicality than war, and the civilian relationship to it. The Beat wartime empathy device is actually a pair of dogtag-like receiver and transmitter, one worn by a soldier, and the other anonymously “adopted” by a civilian. The soldier’s heartbeat is recorded, and transmitted, real time, to the civilian, where it is physically thumped against their chest, another heartbeat next to theirs. They feel the soldier’s fear, calm, or, god forbid, death. With such an intimate connection, it takes a hard heart indeed to ignore the true cost of war. [blogged by Nicolas on pasta and vinegar]