(image caption: “Field-Works” ongoing project, by Masaki Fujihata) USC Interactive Media Division presents Representing Earth by Michael Naimark :: October 31, 2007; 6-8 pm :: Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201, Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML), 3131 South Figueroa Blvd., Los Angeles, CA.

Representing Earth, actual places at actual moments, presents a unique challenge. Unlike fantasy places like Second Life and video games, Earth has a “ground truth” frame of reference, indexed by latitude, longitude, altitude, and time. Hence all potential Earth models cross correlate with each other into a singular Earth model. Continue reading

XTR Software Only 3D Human Machine Interface using a single simple web-cam extrapolates 3D motion capture of a tracker-less person in front of a single simple web cam. The user body becomes a virtual mouse using free hands and body motions to activate a computer process. Article.

Upgrade! New York: Free Media with Graham Harwood + Picture New York :: July 31, 7:30 PM :: Eyebeam, art and technology center :: 540 West 21st Street, New York City, New York, 10011.

Join us for a special Upgrade! this Tuesday with Graham Harwood, who will talk about his work on the MediaShed / Eyebeam collaboration to create Gearbox, an open source tool kit for editors and media makers of all skill levels. MediaShed have been working together with the Eyebeam Production Lab Fellows Jeff Crouse, Evan Harper, Geraldine Juarez, and Chris Sugrue to create Gearbox. Harwood will discuss this and other “free-media” projects that re-purpose publicly accessible materials and equipment for creative expression. Continue reading

A return to physical devices

The 2nd part of Don Norman’s two part essay on “The Next UI Breakthrough” [RESTRICTED ACCESS] appears in the July/August 2007 edition of ACM Interactions. In it, he describes how physicality is now being re-introduced into the user interface for computers. He describes physicality as more extensive than tangible computing and “embodiment” (Paul Dourish’s explication of computing that is both social and tangible because the manipulation and handling of objects is always part of social activities.) For Norman, “physicality” is something new in that it is a return after a period of user interfaces in which mechanical manipulation of things like knobs and dials and switches was avoided in favor of things like the so-called soft switches. Now switches and dials have returned, as have more advance interface forms that can respond to gesture.

Physicality: the return to physical devices, where we control things by physical body movement, by turning, moving, and manipulating appropriate mechanical devices.

We have evolved as physical creatures. We live in a complex, three-dimensional world filled with physical objects. We are analog beings in an artificial world of digital devices, devices that abstract what is powerful and good from the physical world and turn it into information spaces, usually in arbitrary ways. These new approaches put the body back into the picture. They require us to control through physical action rather than virtual, which means through mechanical devices, not electronic or graphic. Continue reading

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web. Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design. Scratch is available free of charge, go to Download. Currently available for Mac OSX and Windows. Continue reading

An Ultra-Responsive Environment

Visual Voice Pro creates an immersive, reactive digital playspace. The installation is comprised of a sensitive microphone, a computer with a data projector, and custom software written especially for the space. The microphone listens to all of the sounds in the room, from tiny footsteps to laughter to singing or even banging a drum. The computer instantly processes the sounds to create abstract, beautiful graphics. Action and re-action are clearly, vibrantly displayed. When the room is quiet, the scene falls still and dark. When there is noise there is activity. The louder the noise the bigger the effect.

“The entire experience has been designed based on requests from parents and care-givers of people with autism, cerebral palsy, and all sorts of behaviour disorders,” says Adam Montandon, “So I am very keen to hear what anybody thinks.”

Adam Montandon is the Director of HMC Interactive. You can contact him at Grosvenor House, Belgrave Lane, Plymouth, PL4 7DA, UK :: + 44 (0)845 20 11 462 :: Mob: + 44 (0)772 17 36 021. Continue reading

ONLINE Performance Today

Turbulence Commission: The Simultaneous Translator by John Roach and Willy Whip [Requires Windows OS] LIVE PERFORMANCE: Sunday April 15; 12:00 PM EST to 3:00 PM EST [Mac users can listen via the player of their choice].

“The Simultaneous Translator” (SimTrans) is a Windows based audio interface that enables anyone to load audio streams and manipulate them in real time on the Internet. SimTrans makes the delays and fluctuations of the Internet visible and audible. The Internet becomes your collaborator as you create your mix, and the instability you usually try to avoid becomes a tool for creation. Distance and delay are manifest within the interface numerically and as a series of sliding heads; there is also a link to Google Earth where you can watch the dynamic flight of data travel between yourself and the audio source.

“SimTrans” is a 2007 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from the Murray G. and Beatrice H. Sherman Charitable Trust. Continue reading

Live Performance on April 15

Turbulence Commission: The Simultaneous Translator by John Roach and Willy Whip [Requires Windows OS] LIVE PERFORMANCE: Sunday April 15; 12:00 PM EST to 3:00 PM EST

The Simultaneous Translator (SimTrans) is a Windows based audio interface that enables anyone to load audio streams and manipulate them in real time on the Internet. SimTrans makes the delays and fluctuations of the Internet visible and audible. The Internet becomes your collaborator as you create your mix, and the instability you usually try to avoid becomes a tool for creation. Distance and delay are manifest within the interface numerically and as a series of sliding heads; there is also a link to Google Earth where you can watch the dynamic flight of data travel between yourself and the audio source.

“SimTrans” is a 2007 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from the Murray G. and Beatrice H. Sherman Charitable Trust. Continue reading

Free OS dedicated to Real Time A/V Processing

pure:dyne has been created to provide a complete and ready made environment for artists and developers who are looking for a free operating system dedicated to real time audio and video processing. The pure:dyne project provides tools and an optimized platform to try out and work on a large range of applications. It comes with optimized and tested software such as Supercollider, Icecast, csound, Packet Forth, fluxus and much more, including of course Pure Data and a great collection of essential externals and abstractions (PDP, PiDiP, Gem, GridFlow, RRadical, PixelTango …). The Studio “classics” have not been forgotten (Ardour, LADSPA, seq24, Audacity …) and numerous essential graphics software are also bundled (Inkscape, Gimp, Blender …).

The pure:dyne project is a growing community effort maintained by media artists for media artists. It is an ideal platform for audiovisual performances, installations and FLOSS+Art workshops and courses. Continue reading

Twitter and Sloog

The Beautiful Simplicity of Twitter (and BlogHUD): Second Life resident Koz Farina, creator of the very popular BlogHUD tool for blogging from within SL, is developing a system to allow you to cross-post your BlogHUD posts to your account on Twitter, the hot new social site that lets you miniblog along with your friends. Koz is already feeding all BlogHUD posts to a Twitter BlogHUD page. This is just the latest entry into a growing pool of Twitter-to-SL mashups from people like Ordinal Malaprop and Kisa Naumova, among others. And in fact, there’s been a huge flowering of ancillary Twitter apps since the service launched last fall. Why? Because Twitter is incredibly compelling, for a number of reasons. One of the most important, in my opinion, is the almost complete lack of button-based features that Twitter offers to its users. (Although I’d love for someone to build the wish app described at the end of this post.) More » [posted by Mark Wallace on 3pointD] Continue reading