Welcome to the inaugural edition of : Wi: Journal of Mobile Media (formerly known as Wi: Journal of the Mobile Digital Commons Network) addresses the latest in international scholarship, artistic productions and design research on mobility, wireless technologies, and digital media. The theme of this first issue, “Pedestrian Traffic,” reaffirms the centrality of mobilities research and practice to the journal. Continue reading

In February 2004 the EAF presented Art of the Biotech Era – an exhibition, symposium & workshop. Since 2004 the EAF has expanded the Art of the Biotech Era project through various undertakings such as Eduardo Kac’s Biotech Art workshop in 2005 involving leading national and international artists and theorists presenting works exploring biotechnology and genomics and discussing the influence of this techno-scientific change of society, the ethical implications of genetic engineering and the concept of aesthetics in biotech arts.

As a part of the project, the EAF has commissioned texts from over 20 national and international writers, published here together with images from artists working in the field. Continue reading

[Image Left: Anthony Townsend] “[I]t should be clear that telepathy is historically linked to numerous other tele-phenomena: it is part of the establishment of tele-culture in general. It is necessarily related to other nineteenth-century forms of communication from a distance through new and often invisible channels, including the railway, telegraphy, photography, the telephone and the gramophone. It is this part of a culture which is still in the process of being articulated, and in this respect perhaps the question “Do you believe in telepathy?” need not be regarded as categorically or essentially distinguishable from questions such as “Do you believe in the telephone?” or “Do you believe in television?” Continue reading

“Abstract: This paper analyzes the relationships between creative design and the field of information visualization, with a focus on historical connotations and newest developments that show great potential. Empirical evidence shows how designers often employ information visualization as a creative concept capable of significantly determining the design outcome, and vice versa, how information visualization can be enhanced by exploring interdisciplinary concepts, such as design cognition, user engagement, aesthetics and art. Several symbiotic dependencies are explained and demonstrated, including the first conceptual cyberspace and information architecture definitions. Continue reading

“[…] The idea of this work more than its execution is the compelling element. Anyone who has clipped articles out of a newspaper, saved snippets of poetry or edited together their own home videos has experienced the process that is re-created in “Dolls”. But (Kate) Armstrong cleverly nurtures a circumstance of wry tension that illustrates the fraying tether between traditional literary and neo-digital expression. The same page never appears twice but the user can capture and save a favorite page. This is an intriguing re-enactment of the experience of reading a narrative book where particular passages haunt the imagination and are saved to our cognitive hard drive. 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

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

“Abstract: The text discusses cultural and political implications of the subjective aspects of software and the SVEN project. SVEN (Surveillance Video Entertainment Network) is a public space software art project that uses custom computer vision software to detect pedestrians who in some way look like rock stars. The text introduces general audiences to SVEN’s approach to software subjectivity—in this case, concerning computer vision surveillance software. It also presents examples of software bias in contemporary culture and proposes software literacy as a public educational goal. Continue reading

The Temporary Travel Office has just released a 44 page report that summarizes our research and initial recommendations for expanding the Timucuan Ecological & Historic Preserve in Jacksonville, FL. The report, titled Contaminating the Preserve, outlines two proposals: our 2006-7 proposal for an 800 km elevated boardwalk connecting the current Preserve to Guanabacoa, Cuba as well as the more recently proposed extension to the current Preserve that we are currently referring to as the Ash Site Annex, a 43 square mile area of Northwest Jacksonville that contains 7 former incinerator and ash- dump sites. You can download the report as a 3.4MB PDF file here. Continue reading

Pat Kane wrote: A general, not-too-technical review for mainstream paper in the UK of Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody, and Leadbeater’s We-Think, but it may be a departure point for the IDC community. One thing I would add: the tension between these books’ approach to the same phenomenon - what Shirky calls ’social tools’, what Leadbeater calls ‘mass collaboration’ - lies in the role of the state as having an input into internet governance.

Shirky takes a largely hands-off line - these are historical rapids, made turbulent by a Gutenberg-level of social transformation, in which the best we can do is to ’stay upright on our kayak’. Leadbeater believes that there are elements of mass collaboration - open source biology? ‘we-think’ between terrorists or criminal networks? - that politicians and citizens need to try and police, through some intervention in the enabling network infrastructures. Continue reading