Monday, August 02, 2004
CALL: The Third Place Gallery Call for Game Inspired Art
Game Art gallery is launched
August 2nd the new version of The Third Place Gallery is launched to the public. The new theme is Game Art. From August 2nd to September 30th the gallery is open to submission of any piece of art which is inspired by the world of electronic games
The following media formats can be uploaded to the site: JPEG, GIF, MPEG, QuickTime, Windows Media, MP3 and links to a website of your own. You can also mail works directly to us at .
Sunday, August 01, 2004
New RPI minor invests in games people play
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is creating an undergraduate minor for video game developers to tap into the multibillion-dollar--and growing--industry.
RPI joins a list of schools that have created course work related to the game industry, but might be the first--at least in the United States--with an undergraduate minor devoted to the field.
Rachel Wingfield’s reactive, luminous surfaces
Rachel Wingfield creates reactive, luminous surfaces and objects through the use of new technologies enabling familiar products to take on a new dimension.
Under the name loop Rachel Wingfield launched Digital Dawn, a reactive window lamp at 100% Design in London September where loop was short listed for best new comer 2003 in the 100% Design Blueprint Awards. Digital Dawn functions as an ambient lighting product that illuminates in response to its surroundings. The darker a space becomes the brighter the blind will glow maintaining a balance in luminosity. A natural environment will appear to grow and evolve on the window lamp, exploring how changing light levels can have a profound and physiological effect on our sense of well being.
Tactile Mathematics by Stewart Dickson
The author has demonstrated transforming the abstract language of pure mathematics directly into three-dimensional, physical form using the Mathematica compiler of natural, mathematical language and several other three-dimensional computer-aided design and manufacturing techniques.
http://emsh.calarts.edu/~mathart/Tactile_Math.html
Dialectric: A Collaboration between Laura MacCary and Lawrence MacCary
Each piece in the Dialectric series [begun in 2002] consists of a textile woven by Laura MacCary of conductive or resistive materials cast off by industry, and a circuit designed around that textile by Lawrence MacCary. These woven structures form simple electronic components, such as coils, potentiometers, and switches. In each piece, by interacting with the woven component the viewer physically enters the circuit, and the circuit passes through the viewer.
This work in progress, the latest in the Dialectric series, consists of a circuit board working with a fabric woven of yarn and wire. The wire areas of the fabric are woven to make touch switches, which light LEDs on the circuit board. In the final version of this piece, the viewer will be able to light LEDs in patterns by choosing which switches to touch.
Saturday, July 31, 2004
Closer: Wearables for a Distant Society and Think of Me Rings by Alison Lewis
The future is in good hands! Take a look at these creations by Parsons student, Alison Lewis.
The Closer projects’ goals are to create wearable interactive art which reinforces values of kindness, fun and play through the action of positive touch. Closers goals are manifested in two technological garments, which inspire playful real-time real-space contact to accentuate the nature of positive touch experiences. Patsy, the touch to sound pullover, responds with silly sounds upon gently hugging or holding the individual wearing the garment, while Filly, the touch to light jumper, uses a visual indicator to represent the number of positive touches or lack there of in an hour. These garments mediate touches in order to show technology’s capacity to spread positive touch interactions between people.
The [Think of Me] T.O.M. rings are in the works for future development. The concept is to connect intimately and instantly with loved ones from faraway. The rings respond to touch and transmit heat and light wirelessly to the other party when activated. They have been showcased on Arte’ TV in Germany and France along with numerous spots on technological blogs such as Mikes List and Smartmobs.
http://a.parsons.edu/~alison/thesis/index.html
http://www.alisonlewis.com/projects/rings.html
“Planting” Sounds by Mark Shepard
The [Tactical Sound Garden] TSG Toolkit is an open source platform for cultivating public “sound gardens” within urban environments. The Toolkit enables urban dwellers to “plant” sounds within specific locations using their WiFi enabled mobile device.
The TSG is a scalable, parasitic technology. It draws upon the proliferation of 802.11 wireless (WiFi) access nodes in urban environments as a free, ready-made, location-aware infrastructure for alternative forms of social expression.
The TSG offers the urban dweller a participatory role in shaping the soundscape of contemporary public space: it enables anyone with a WiFi enabled mobile device (handheld, laptop, etc) to “plant” sounds within a networked audio environment. These “plantings” are mapped onto the coordinates of a physical location, overlaying a publicly constructed soundscape onto a specific urban space. Wearing headphones connected to a WiFi enabled device, participants drift though virtual sound gardens as they move through the city.
TSG
Not-So-White Walls: Interactive Wallpaper by Dario Buzzini
Check out this thesis project by Dario Buzzini from the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Italy.
The age of switches, knobs and remote controls in the home is nearly over. New, inviting, responsive interactions with our homes are possible; one way to add them in a fun way without being unduly invasive is to embed them into wallpaper, which now becomes not only decorative but engaging and useful. While this project tested interactive wallpaper for home use, there are clear implications for what might be possible in the public realm.
Here, the surface and patterns of what appears to be ordinary wallpaper are actually interfaces that act as switches or displays. The physical interaction allows the home dweller to dim lights, turn on or off home appliances, or see messages and images displayed on the wall. You can read your email on the wall, for example, or view pictures taken with your mobile phone camera. Exploiting the conductive properties of graphite, you can pencil in the controls for your household appliances and erase them to turn them off. Another version of the wallpaper acts as a barometer, changing colour according to the level of humidity detected in the atmosphere.
No-So-White Walls
Friday, July 30, 2004
Charles Winston jewelry
Jeweler Charles Winston creates more affordable jewelry utilizing the latest technology and science of lab-created stones, sterling silver and skilled craftsmanship.
http://www.charleswinston.com
http://www.ShopNBC.com (Charles Winston Collections)
Fleen
Fleen is a technology for generating and manipulating complex 2D shapes. Think flower-gardening. The benefits of a high level interface are enjoyed and a lot is gained for a little.
Fleen is based on Java and is an open-source project. Applications so far are Fleen StickerMaker and FleenApplets to create automatic art on your web page.
Michael Setter
b. 1947, New York, N.Y. Studied with John Hoose, Egan Matijivich and Franklin Jones.
These images are intended to serve two distinct purposes: first to elicit a response from the viewer, and second, to assist the viewer in recognizing the mechanism which established that response. With very few exceptions, these images are mathematically created. They result from computational renderings of equations, their appearance absent forethought or artistic device. Algorithms, formulas, variables, and their numerical values, processed by many different applications are their creative source. MERELY PATTERNS, not photographs, drawings, abstractions, or representations of any kind, they are not intentional designs, bearers of information about the natural world, reflections of ideas, examples of style, or meaningful in any way. Yet the viewer often responds as if they were. And that is the point. HOW easily these “no-things” are seen or felt as “some-things”! Faces, environments, Japanese block-prints, plants, flowers, landscapes, movie theaters, I like it, I hate it, interesting, boring, and so forth, all emanating from the meaningless distinction drawn between a “zero” and a “one”. THUS, if the viewer is so inclined, these images may both serve the aesthetic purposes of art and as the visual equivalents of koans. LIKE A STRING around your finger, won’t you tie one of these reminders around your eyes for a moment?
http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/m/msdog
TextArc - an alternate way to view text by W Bradford Paley
A TextArc is a visual represention of a text—the entire text (twice!) on a single page. A funny combination of an index, concordance, and summary; it uses the viewer’s eye to help uncover meaning.
http://textarc.org/
http://didi.com
BIO: a post-human desperation by Ricardo Barreto and Aychele Szot
BIO: a post-human desperation
“BIO: a post-human desperation” is the first photomovie developed under the concept of chronocollage.
“BIO” is introduced into the contemporary problematic from which no human being shall succeed to flee nor scape, and from which there shall be no return.
Human “essence” reveals itself ephemeral when cultural memory has the power to modify genetic memory, and then a crossroad appears to Humanity: Shall there be a choice?
We are launching our new work in the internet, Bio: a post-human despair.
Access the link.
http://www.satmundi.com/bio2/bio/test2/index0.html
Susan Sauerbrun
Susan J. Sauerbrun is an artist who lives and works in New York City. Her studio is in the Dumbo section of Brooklyn. These abstract paintings are oil on canvas and named after her female ancestors. More of her work can be viewed at:
http://www.elmstreetstudio.net/sjsfineart/index.html
She may be reached by email at:
Keith Armstrong
Keith Armstrong specialises in collaborative, hybrid, new media works with an emphasis on performance, site specific installation and art-science collaborations. His ongoing research focuses on how scientific and philosophical ecologies can both influence and direct the design and conception of networked, interactive media artworks. Keith’s artworks have been shown and profiled extensively both in Australia and overseas.
Keith is a creative director, media designer and system integrator within multidisciplinary teams and is the founder and director of the interdisciplinary collective, ‘Transmute’. Keith is currently a Postdoctoral New Media Fellow at Queensland University of Technology’s Creative Industries Faculty, the Queensland editor for the national arts newspaper Realtime and a member of the QUT Creative Industries Media-Architecture Integration Advisory Panel to Queensland Government and Hassell Partners Architects.