The second volume of the Situated Technologies Pamphlet Series asks the question: what lessons can architecture learn from software development, and more specifically, from the Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS) movement? Written in the form of a quasi-license, Urban Versioning System 1.0 posits seven constraints that, if followed, will contribute to an open source urbanism that radically challenges the conventional ways in which cities are constructed.

About the Situated Technologies Pamphlet Series:

Series Editors: Omar Khan, Trebor Scholz, Mark Shepard — Published by the Architectural League of New York.

The Situated Technologies Pamphlet Series extends a discourse initiated in the summer of 2006 by a three-month-long discussion on the Institute for Distributed Creativity (iDC) mailing list that culminated in the Architecture and Situated Technologies symposium at the Urban Center and Eyebeam in New York, co-produced by the Center for Virtual Architecture (CVA), the Architectural League of New York and the iDC. The series explores the implications of ubiquitous computing for architecture and urbanism: how our experience of space and the choices we make within it are affected by a range of mobile, pervasive, embedded or otherwise “situated” technologies. Published three times a year over three years, the series is structured as a succession of nine “conversations” between researchers, writers and other practitioners from architecture, art, philosophy of technology, comparative media studies, performance studies, and engineering.

For more information about the series, visit
www.situatedtechnologies.net

About the Architectural League:

The mission of the Architectural League is to advance the art of architecture. The League carries out its mission by promoting excellence and innovation, and by fostering community and discussion in an independent forum for creative and intellectual work in architecture, urbanism, and related disciplines. We present the work and ideas of the world’s most interesting and influential architects and designers to New York, national and international audiences, through lectures, exhibitions, publications, and the worldwide web. We identify and encourage talented young architects, through competitions, grants, exhibitions, and publications. And we help shape the future of our built environment by stimulating debate and provoking design thinking about the critical issues of our time.

The Architectural League is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization supported by the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. League programs are also made possible by contributions from foundations, corporations, and League members and friends.

For more information about League programs, visit www.archleague.org.

For information on architecture and sound, see interview with Karen Van Lengen: http://transition.turbulence.org/networked_music_review/2008/05/29/interview-karen-van-lengen/

Brian Dudak, Frank W. Carroccino and WiiWhorld - presented by Chris Korda, Jeff Mission, and Jen Rosselli: WiiWhorld translates human movement into digital art - using the Nintendo Wiimote as a real-time controller for the visual software synth Whorld. The WiiWhorld project, which is built upon the principles of free, open-source software and low-cost, readily available technologies, empowers people to explore modern technology as a means of personal expression.

folly and SoundNetwork are kicking off the Summer with an exciting collaboration bringing a micro-festival of art and music to Liverpool, as part of the European Capital of Culture.

Liverpool has a strong history of doing innovative things with electricity, from the birth of the power grid (Sebastian Ferranti) to the early computer games industry (Psygnosis, Ocean, and ZTT). Liverpool also has a formidable musical legacy inevitably centered around the pop phenomenon of The Beatles but which spans every musical genre from classical to electro.

Open Source City tips its hat to Liverpool’s pioneering spirit by offering a program of art, workshops, master classes, talks and concerts that shed light on the growing impact of Free/Libre Open Source Software on the creative practices of today, in particular in media art and music.

“FLOSS” offers opportunities to users, and developers at every skill level to participate in the creative process, starting from the writing of code all the way up to the final mix of your masterpiece. These are tools that have the power to bring people together through creativity, collaboration, knowledge sharing and, importantly, technology. So, how will Open Source play a part in the music and art scenes of the future? Maybe the answer lies in your hands….take part.

Artists and speakers involved include goto10, Access Space, Polytechnic, Simon Blackmore, Tom Chance, MediaShed and 64 Studio… Talks include “The role of FOSS in urban regeneration” and a brief philosophical tour of “Copyright and Freedom”. The hub of the festival is at Mello Mello in the heart of Liverpool’s creative quarter; 40-42 Slater St, Liverpool L1 4BX.

To view the whole programme for the festival, please download the pdf Festival Programme, and to book a paid workshop, download the workshop booking form. Both available from folly’s website at http://www.folly.co.uk/click/1060/9

Open Source City is a Liverpool European Capital of Culture Commission - a micro-festival of open source practice in media art and music presented by folly and SoundNetwork.

A Cultural Commission for Liverpool 2008 European Capital of Culture. Supported by Arts Council England and P H Holt Trust.

Through pure:dyne for everyone, pure:dyne will reach out to more people - noobs, artists, local users - in a year-long programme of system development, documentation, user support and special public events with partnering media arts centers across the UK. pure:dyne for everyone is a project by GOTO10 and friends. With partners Access Space, MediaShed and Folly, pure:dyne for everyone is supported by the Creative Partnerships programme of Arts Council England.

2. upcoming pure:dyne public events

* Introduction to Video Editing, Processing and Streaming: May 9-10, 2008, LoveBytes - Sheffield, with Access Space. Info: jake-at-access-space-dot-org, info-at-lovebytes-dot-org-dot-uk
* Free Software for Music Making and Home Studios: June 20, 2008, Open Source City - Liverpool, with Folly. Info: enquiries-at-folly-dot-co-dot-uk
* Pure Data for Live Music: June 21, Open Source City - Liverpool, with Folly. Info: enquiries-at-folly-dot-co-dot-uk
* pure:dyne Presentation and FLOSS+Art book launch: TBA, Fall 2008 - London, with Mute magazine
* pure:dyne Workshop: TBA, Fall 2008 - London/Southend-on-sea, with MediaShed and Mongrel

3. pure:dyne code sprints in 2008

April 28 - May 2, 2008, secret base inside a volcano
June 23 - 27, 2008, underwater mobile power plant autumn 2008, TBA

As part of pure:dyne for everyone, pure:dyne’s core developer team (plus friends) will stage three code sprints in 2008 to develop all aspects of the system and documentation. Be a lurker and join our IRC channel #pure:dyne on irc.goto10.org to check what’s being cooked. pure:dyne is currently developed by Rob Canning, Heather Corcoran, Antonios Galanopoulos, Karsten Gebbert, Claude Heiland-Allen, Aymeric Mansoux, Chun Lee, and Marloes de Valk.

4. A new, Debian based pure:dyne!

Starting 2008, pure:dyne will be based on the Debian operating system. While we aim to provide the same features as before and a live distribution in the form of a live CD, live DVD and live USB, we will be able to build up on top of the great Debian community and provide a larger range of software and develop much more advanced functionalities. At the same time we are quite happy to give back in return our efforts to this community and make available the software we package for most Debian based distros around.

5. find out more

Mailing list: http://lists.goto10.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/puredyne

IRC: #pure:dyne on irc.goto10.org

In 2008 the training will take place in Thessaloniki (Greece) and Sofia (Bulgaria) and will be available in three sessions:

- General Blender techniques, tips and tricks
- Media content for the web, e-Marketing, streaming techniques
- Advanced Blender techniques, external rendering engines, Python scripting

Deadline: April 10.

Each session has a participation fee of 1000 Euro, that covers the training and 6 days accommodation in Sofia, including coffee-breaks and lunches. Scholarships will be available.

In recent years the foregrounding of ‘collaboration’ in artistic practice has acquired an aura of inherent benevolence and emancipation, as though the very act of working with others in itself ensures some form of resistance or alternative to conventions of cultural production, and confers positive moral value. The recent valorisation of collaboration within the arts, however, merely elides the basic condition of collaboration that all forms of production ultimately rely on in various degrees and arrangements. This can be seen as one part of the larger growth in service and communications industries whose ‘labour’ and ‘produce’ are primarily invested in the structuring and intensification of various collaborative exchanges, often minute and ephemeral, yet, when harvested on a vast scale, capable of generating seemingly endless amounts of surplus value.[1] Collaboration in the production of this ’surplus’ now extends beyond the contracted employees into the consumers themselves, who help define and create the products they themselves consume. This is exemplified in the proliferation of highly ‘personalised’ products and services, reality entertainment, and the social networks of Web 2.0, with the virtual world of Second Life notably combining all three factors.[2] Those artforms which most consciously valorise collaboration, as described in Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics, merely echo this situation.[3] The social relations constructed by the artist in gestures of collaboration with audiences and others become spectacularised and commodified in forms that often do not return to those who created them but rather become tokens within the circulation of the art market.[4] In a funding system that prioritises social inclusion within the arts, like that of the UK, collaborative projects can tick the box that unlocks the piggy-bank of state patronage. In such contexts collaboration quickly becomes little more than a revenue stream.[5] Similarly, the rise of Relational Aesthetics accompanied the embrace of artistic practice by the commercial sector, often drawing upon the strategies of such art to enhance collaboration and ‘creativity’ within the workplace.[6]…” Continue reading All Problems of Notation Will be Solved by the Masses by Simon Yuill, Mute Magazine.

The goal of the Handbook is to be a signpost, a source of practical information and content that bridges the gap between new users and the platforms and resources that are available, but not always very accessible. The Handbook will be slowly filled with articles written by invited artists and specialists, talking about their tools and ways of working. Some articles are introductions to tools, others are descriptions of methodologies, concepts and technologies.

When discussing software, the focus of this Handbook is on Free / Libre Open Source Software. The Handbook aims to give artists information about the available tools but also about the practicalities related to Free Software and Open Content, such as collaborative development and licenses. All this to facilitate exchange between artists, to take away some of the fears when it comes to open content licenses, sharing code, and to give a perspective on various ways of working and collaborating.

The digital artist handbook is brought to you by folly and has developed out of ongoing consultation with artists working with technology, which has shown a need for removing the barriers for artists to use digital tools. The project is supported by Arts Council England.

From August 2007 until January 2008, the editors of the Handbook were Marloes de Valk and Aymeric Mansoux of GOTO10.

ManifestoDraft - We demand:

:: Give us access to the performer’s mind, to the whole human instrument
:: Obscurantism is dangerous :: Show us your screens
:: Programs are instruments that can change themselves
:: The program is to be transcended - Artificial language is the way
:: Code should be seen as well as heard, underlying algorithms viewed as well as their visual outcome
:: Live coding is not about tools. Algorithms are thoughts. Chainsaws are tools. That’s why algorithms are sometimes harder to notice than chainsaws.

We recognise continuums of interaction and profundity, but prefer:

Insight into algorithms

The skillful extemporisation of algorithm as an expressive/impressive display of mental dexterity
No backup (minidisc, DVD, safety net computer)

We acknowledge that:

It is not necessary for a lay audience to understand the code to appreciate it, much as it is not necessary to know how to play guitar in order to appreciate watching a guitar performance.

Live coding may be accompanied by an impressive display of manual dexterity and the glorification of the typing interface.

Performance involves continuums of interaction, covering perhaps the scope of controls with respect to the parameter space of the artwork, or gestural content, particularly directness of expressive detail. Whilst the traditional haptic rate timing deviations of expressivity in instrumental music are not approximated in code, why repeat the past? No doubt the writing of code and expression of thought will develop its own nuances and customs.

Performances and events closely meeting these manifesto conditions may apply for TOPLAP approval and seal.

Though they developed it to work on their upcoming app, full credit to artificialeyes.tv for releasing it as freeware to work with any software. More details and download over at artificialeyes.tv. [posted on Skynoise]

The Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, is proud to host the 2008 issue of this event, where once a year programmers and artists, musicians, composers and practitioners gather to discuss and explore new and important developments in making music and sounds with Linux and Open Source software. The Linux Audio Conference is both a meeting of developers writing audio software for Linux as it is a music festival, where artists from all over the world show how free software can create fresh and exciting new sounds.

Call for Installation Proposals: The conference will include an exhibition of sound art or mixed media art with a substantial sound portion. This exhibition will consist of works by students of the Academy of Media Arts (KHM) Cologne and artists from outside the KHM. We are looking for installation projects with a substantial sound portion which have been entirely or mostly produced under Linux and/or with open source software for
inclusion in the above mentioned exhibition.

Installation proposals may be designed for a specific presentation space and/or reflect certain aspects of the exhibition venue. In order to give some impressions of the venue, photos of the different spaces available for the exhibition along with some notes are provided for download.

Proposals for entirely self-contained and non-site-specific projects are also welcome. The submission of proposals for previously unrealised installations is encouraged, though installations which already have been shown may also get selected.

The artistic and technical realisation of the selected proposals is completely up to the artists. Basic technical support for the exhibition (electricity, standard network access, limited basic assistance) is provided by the conference organisers.

Out of all submitted proposals, two projects will be selected for funded realisation by a jury. To each of the two selected projects, a scholarship of EUR 2.000,00 will be granted. This fee should cover the entire realisation of the project, material expenses, travel, accommodation and all further expenses in conjunction with the realisation of the project. The selected artists are invited to use the school’s facilities (e.g. laboratories, studios) free of charge for realising the work. In case a selected proposal has been submitted by more than one artist, one person has to be elected by the team for being responsible for the project, signing the contract and receiving the money due to legal issues.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Due to legal issues, the scholarships for the projects can only be given to non-germans, i.e. to anybody whose nationality is NOT German.

Further projects might be invited for inclusion in the exhibition but without granting any funding from the conference. For submission, please use the form provided with the photo material. Submission is via e-mail to: lac at linuxaudio.org
Deadline: Friday, October 19, 2007, 24:00:00 CEST (+2)

THIS IS EQUAL TO (all winter times from now on):
October 20, 2007, 08:00:00 AEST (+10)
October 20, 2007, 07:00:00 JST (+9)
October 20, 2007, 01:00:00 MSK (+3)
October 20, 2007, 00:00:00 EET (+2)
October 19, 2007, 23:00:00 CET (+1)
October 19, 2007, 22:00:00 UTC (GMT, 0)
October 19, 2007, 18:00:00 AST (-4)
October 19, 2007, 17:00:00 EST (-5)
October 19, 2007, 16:00:00 CST (-6)
October 19, 2007, 15:00:00 MST (-7)
October 19, 2007, 14:00:00 PST (-8)

This is a HARD deadline which will NOT be extended under any circumstances. You have been warned.

Call for Music: The conference will include several concerts. We are looking for music that has been produced completely or mostly under Linux and/or with open source software from every genre: compositions, Electronica, Chill-Out, Ambient, etc.

If you want to participate, either send your composition(s) to this address:

LAC2008 - Call for Music
Kunsthochschule fur Medien
Martin Rumori
Peter-Welter-Platz 2
D-50676 Koln
Germany

or send your submission via email to: lac at linuxaudio.org

Please do not attach any media files to email submissions, only provide a URL to where the piece can be downloaded.

Make use of one of the following media formats:

* Media: Audio-CD, DVD, DVD-R, CD-R, Website download
* File formats: aiff, wav, flac, ogg, mp3
* Samplerate: 44.1 or 48 kHz
* Resolution: 16 or 24 bit
* Number of channels: 1 to 8 channels
* Channel format: multi-channel interleaved, multi-mono

Include the following items with your submission (in English):

* A filled-out and signed printout of the form available here. The form can be filled out with a computer and printed out afterwards for signing.

For the printed program and to be published online and on the conference CD, in continuous text (no table or list please):

* short commentary on the composition(s) (each ca. 150 words)
* short Curriculum Vitae (ca. 100 words)

Deadline for submissions is 01 Dec 2007

A jury will select the compositions that will be performed/played.

Besides artistic criteria and technical reasons, these criteria apply for the selection:

Tape pieces or pieces which are performed by the composers themselves will generally have more chances to get included. If we get more pieces than we can include in the program, composers who are attending the conference are preferred.

Terms and conditions for participation can be found in the form mentioned above. This form includes among other things:

I will receive no fees whether my composition is played or not. GEMA fees (in case of performance) will be paid by the organizer. The material I send to the LAC organisation team will not be returned.

Important Dates

01 Dec 2007: Music submission deadline
28 Feb - 2 Mar 2008: Linux Audio Conference in Cologne

Call for Papers - We invite submissions of papers addressing all areas of audio processing based on Linux and open source software. Papers can focus on technical, artistic or scientific issues and can target developers or users. This includes (but is not limited to) the following categories:

* Computer Music
* Music Production
* Instruments
* Drivers and Sound Architecture
* Audio Distributions
* Generic (Usage, Documentation etc.)

The conference is held in English.

Length of a paper is 4-8 pages. Papers have to include an abstract (50-100 words). The abstract will be published separately on the conference website once the paper has been accepted. Also, papers should include up to 5 keywords.

In general talks should take 20-30 minutes followed by 5 minutes discussion.

Please notify us if you need a special technical setup. The technical standard setup will be:

* microphone/head set
* projector with XVGA input (resolution 1024×768)
* stereo speaker setup with mini jack input

If you are not able to bring your laptop along with you, please notify us in advance.

How to submit

* Do not send papers via email as with the past LAC conferences!

* Instead papers will be submitted via the online form that opens on the Linux Audio Conference website in mid/end october at

http://lac.linuxaudio.org

A separate reminder will be sent out when the submission form is open.

* File format is PDF, formatted for A4 paper. Make use of the templates for paper formatting available.

* Authors of papers selected to be included in the printed conference proceedings will also have to supply supplemental
material like illustrations needed to layout the printed proceedings separately.

* Deadline for paper submission is 1 Dec 2007

Important Dates:

01 Dec 2007: Paper submission deadline
28 Feb - 2 Mar 2008: Linux Audio Conference in Cologne