Beneath the Dust

TEH GREATEST YOUTUBE EVER

2006-04-19T00:59:00.000-04:00

omfg. I'm sure it helps that I'm really out of it and a lil loopy right now, but this is fantastic.

CLICKIIIEEEE~!!!

the metaverse is coming the metaverse is coming!

2006-04-18T11:54:00.000-04:00

The article describes it as a "mental typewriter"..I think it's far more interesting in its potentials beyond typing and into interface. Play a game merely by thinking about where you're moving...metaverse, anyone?

In other news, I've gotten places on my capstone. \0/ Kinda. Only now there's this video project due on Friday...

In still other news, I found the spot on Fredonia's website with graduation info!!! (such as it is). For everyone's benefit, since we're all so fecking confused, the relevent info is this:

Cap & gown & etc: Pick up at bookstore anytime between now and Commencement. It's like $40 for the package of everything needed. Honors cords are free, Media Arts cords I think we get at the last VAP, if I remember right. Cap & gown is required. Gown must be black.

Tickets: okso.. The site says they "anticipate" everyone can get at least four tickets into Steele Hall (could we not find an uglier place for graduation?? sigh), and then two (first-come first-serve) into the ice rink where they're relaying it via video monitors. We can pick up tickets in room G-141-143 of the Williams Center, 12-3 on the 23rd, 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. on the 24th and 25th; also from the Campus Life Office weekdays from Wednesday, April 26 until Friday, May 5.
This is very reassuring to me.

oogIamtired.

america online no longer...

2006-04-09T14:10:00.000-04:00

america online officially changes name to aol

that just strikes me as odd. granted, no-one's called it "america online" in ages, but.. hmm. also interesting was their reasoning why - admitedly, they're right, scary as it is, they were my first connection to the internet as well. (apart from grandpa's.. goodness I don't even know what it was, I think some version of telnet run through at&t, all I remember was being utterly confused that I couldn't find any games. *g*)

...

...and read the third comment on that article while you're at it. hmm.

history of paper

2006-04-06T21:18:00.000-04:00

...I realised the other day that I needed to look this up, so I'd know whether to make the paper the stories are written on lined or not or whatever. ^^; So many crazy little details going into this.

A few Google searches later, and it appears blue lined looseleaf has been around since before 1860. Which really surprised me, actually, I figured it only went back about a hundred years. The paper was heavier and more acidic though, when still made with wood pulp.. can't find an exact date on that, but acid-free paper is new enough to still be a selling point on things, I'm pretty sure our photo albums from the '80s weren't acid-free, so.. basically just up the disintegration rate on the older paper, and I think I've an idea of how the older lined paper would've looked.

Wheeeeee~~

on a more positive note...

2006-03-30T03:19:00.000-05:00

...and then I swear I'll stop doing damage to the internet and go to bed.

Having just finished all the statements, I just want to say that I am immensely proud of everyone in this class. I am so impressed by everything that you've all come up with for these projects, both in concept and in realization. I'm really freakin' blown away. The amount of originality in these, the strength of the messages, and the willingness to chip away at the works until they are the epitome of what you want to say, is really, really stunning.

Cheesy as this sounds, allow a fellow senior her moment of sappy affection, when I say that I really, truly, am honored to be in a class with all of you. The work that comes out of that lab really blows me away.

(damnit I'm going to miss that lab so much.....)

the failure of the educational system

2006-03-30T02:27:00.000-05:00

WARNING: frustrated english geek rant ahead. read at your own risk.

Alright, so I'm down to reading my last two artist statements... my apologies in advance not only for my cramped illegible handwriting (and the huge disgusting loopy font on my own statement - hadn't time to fix, windows fonts do not equal osX fonts), but for the massive amount of things scrawled all over everyone's paper. I just want to formally say that I don't mean anything personally, except to whoever sets the english standards anymore. Really. There's not a person in the class who I don't think is highly intelligent, I'm really blown away by everyone's ideas, but..

Grammar and sentence structure and everything along those lines just *aren't* taught well anymore, and it drives me up the wall. The only reason I do alright is because I spent my entire childhood reading, and absorbing writing styles. (And I read old books. Like all the old girly things, everything Louisa May Alcott ever wrote, as much Lucy Maud Montgomery as I could get my hands on, that sort of thing. I read exactly one Goosebumps book, and while at first it was intriguing, the ending was so pathetically lame that I never read another one again. Point being, I tend to write crazy old-school, as any of you who've taken a glance at the stories for this project will know.)

I'm not sure offhand if any of you were in Systems Languages and Protocols when Tom Loughlin taught it like I was, but, remember that time he tried to draw an analogy between writing and coding? And we diagrammed a sentance in class? And only two people had any fuck clue what was going on?

...I'm not promoting diagramming sentances by any means, I spent the better part of fifth grade doing it (wooo for homeschooling) and hated it and didn't really retain anything useful from it. And I'll be the first to admit, most of my apparent skill with grammar and syntax and things is intuitive, I tried to help my sister with some homework the other day and I hadn't the faintest what a.. good lord I can't even remember what it was called, some sort of propositional something or another.

Point is, when people can barely get the difference between noun verb and adjective, I start to worry.

I help friends with their papers now and again, I really don't mind doing it, I like being able to help. But to be honest, there have been numerous times when a foreign student's writing has far surpassed someone who's spoken English all their lives. (Though admitedly, she's an amazing writer, and once she's worked out a few more of the eccentricities of our language, any of us who'd like to write will be DOOMED.) I'm not a grammar nazi by any means, I use as many abbreviations online as anyone (I've made my own up, for that matter...though I will NEVER use "u" and crap like that, ugh), my speech is full of slang, I spent half my childhood purposely saying "ain't" and not pronouncing the final "g" on "-ing" things (I wanted to be a country singer -_-;; ), my blog entries occasionally have no capitalization, and I write the worst run-on sentances EVER. But... when I want to sit down and write something that other people will be judging me on, at least it's comprehensible.

I realize writing isn't everyone's forte, and the way things are going, it seems it's going to be even less important of a skill. ...which to be honest, I think is very, very sad. Writing can be so incredibly beautiful, and can convey so much, of both a person and their ideas... but so many times, poor structuring can completely obscure what great thoughts are caught within the words.

Again, I'm not trying to rag on anyone at all - promise I'm not, you all know I'm one of the least pissy people in the world - I'm just really sad, because I look around me, beyond this class and this college, and I see that so many teachers and mentors along the way simply don't take the time to work with people and help them build a skill that will enable them to present themselves as the intelligent people they are. I'm all for the honesty of vernacular, but, take a look at "Huck Finn" and things - first time around, I literally had to read anything Jim said aloud, I couldn't read the dialect silently, but even so, things made sense when I read it out loud. The dialect was there and perfectly (as far as I know) accurate, yet by accurate and appropriate writing, it was completely intelligable.

My younger sister is a phenomenal writer, won't be long before she's far better than I am, but even she admits that spending extensive time on aim and in irc damages her grammatical abilities. The Internet doesn't give two shits if your grammar makes sense, all it asks for is your attention and for you to say something that grabs someone else's attention. It won't ever correct you, nor will any of your friends, and what begins as a small time-saver ends as habit and custom. It's not cool to use capitalization and punctuation, let alone get on someone else's case for a sentance fragment. And I worry, because what isn't practiced is *very* soon forgotten, and I don't think it's unlikely at all that our kids will hardly see a red mark on their papers, unless they got a fact wrong. I lucked out and had a phenomenal teacher my senior year of high school, but aside from a few bits here and there, how much have we been taught about mechanics since elementary school? Yeah it's boring as hell but y'know what, it's worth it.

...I'll save my rant on drawing for another ~~day~~ very late night when I should be sleeping.

ugh I shouldn't even post this, it's such a rant, I sound like such a cranky little grammar nazi. honest to goodness this was NOT a result of reading the statements, guys, this has been building up for years. but I'll feel better if I get all this out. thanks for being understanding and not taking anything personally (because it's not meant that way) and not hating me. ^^;;;

the world is ending

2006-03-30T01:46:00.000-05:00

O_____O omgomgOmg.

Yet another sign of the apocalypse:

Google and Nike hooked up.

...I wish it would hurry up and get here, I don't want to have to face horrors like this all my life. -___-;;;

(yes I realise upon reading up on the actual venture that it seems pretty harmless... but that's still fecking creepy.)

Artist Statement

2006-03-19T21:20:00.000-05:00

Beneath the Dust

      I have always been drawn to old things, to old places. The sense of history, of lives lived before mine, is very strong, almost tangible to me at times. I feel as if I could only look long enough, or pass through the dim layer of dust which covers an object, I might be able to see what it once was, what it once meant to someone, what part it played in that person's life. I feel a very strong connection to people I have never known, and there are times it seems if I had only turned my head a little quicker, I could have caught a glimpse of someone quite like myself from the corner of my eye...
      In this project, I hope to facilitate interactions between the viewer and the history of an environment, revealing the ways people's lives interrelate through time. Common themes and elements in the stories, connections between both the characters and hopefully the viewer, will show that there are core commonalities between everyone, despite differences in time and cultural groups. Another element of the project is describing the history in everyday places and objects, and showing that though not in always a visible manner, everyone leaves behind some trace of their self in the places they have been.
      The piece itself is a Flash-based website, showing the interior of room, wherein the viewer is able to click on certain objects or locations. A click on those areas, denoted by a whispering sound, will bring up one of a number of short stories. The room, which is hand-drawn in charcoal, is empty of any person but the viewer, containing a few old pieces of furniture, the walls worn with age and much use. The stories will appear to be handwritten on sheets of paper, the age of the paper and the style of the hand dependent on the setting and main character of the story. Each story is set entirely within the very room the viewer stands in, though at different points in the room's history, which spans about a hundred and fifty years. Fading gently around the corners of the room are soft sounds, of voices not quite heard, faint scraps of melody from unseen instruments, and the sound of air breathed once breathed by those long-gone.
      The contents of the room are partly products of my imagination, and partly borrowed from things and places I have known. When I first moved from one town to another as a child, it never quite sunk in that I was leaving a place until I stood in my empty bedroom, with all of the things which had made it my home taken away - it was then that I felt a terribly forlorn sorrow, an overwhelming sense of loss at all that the room would no longer be. The rocking chair in the room is based on one that has been in my family for a generation or two, the locket which appears in one story was derived from a few that I have been given by each of my grandmothers, and I own a number of old books, which provide reference for the books as well as the sheets of old paper. The contents of the stories have been drawn from countless influences, books I have read, personal experiences, things I have found on the Internet that intrigued me, strong emotions I felt on a particular day, or simply an idea that popped into my head as a possibly backstory for an object I had drawn into the room. A previous work I did in Flash, providing an appropriate setting for a number of poems I had written about a particular set of characters, provided inspiration for taking this project in this direction, as I had been so thrilled with the results before (though they were much simpler). The series of Myst games, by Robyn and Rand Miller, as well as the related novels which were later published, showed me just how effectively an environment can enhance a narrative, and even suggest things far beyond what is provided in words.
      As I progressed through the stories and working through the drawings, I began to discover even more connections between the stories and surroundings than I had intentionally created. To me, that proved the success of the project, as even I am continually surprised by what I discover between the stories, the setting, and my own experiences.

Audio Update

2006-03-19T17:59:00.000-05:00

..over on the crit blog, direct link to the post here.

(I'd've added a title and things, except for whatever bizarre reason, the log in name and password refused to work for me. I am not surprised.)

virtual worlds

2006-03-16T16:12:00.000-05:00

So, sweet as we think Second Life is.. it started way before that. Listening to one of the Retrobits podcasts (show 13, on QuantumLink) lead to putzing around on Wikipedia and Google (I'll let you do the same, rather than linking directly here).. There was an attempt at a 3D internet browser, starting all the way back in 1995, ActiveWorlds, with avatars walking around and 3D websites set up to walk around.. basically all that I remember once envisioning as the internet, back in like 7th grade when internet malls and shopping and things were just picking up, back when we thought it would be a complete world to access. Apparently ActiveWorlds is still around, though it costs to set up a site and all, but I'll look into that a little more and let y'all know if it's at all decent.
And, its creation was inspired by Snow Crash. heeh.

Going even further back though - self-designed little humanoid avatars, walking through environments with other little avatars, going into bars and stores where you could buy new outfits and if you stepped outside the main areas, you could even steal from people.
1985.
Commodore64.
...there was a program called QuantumLink, that was a primitive version of what AOL would eventually be (Steve Case was in on it), featuring chat services, email, and even the colourful little rectangles set in a grid with the names of the different areas written on them, that I remember so well from my first log-ons.
Around 1987, there was a joint project between Q-Link and Lucasarts, to make the first graphical virtual world. Cartoony and 2D, but you still had your own little house and things, there were in-game events to go do.. Apparently they couldn't keep the servers going, and cut it back to Club Caribe, where everyone was homeless and stranded on a desert island, and Q-Link itself was gone by 1993 (though there's a project in-progress to bring it back).. but apparently the Tomorrow project wasn't so far-fetched.

..and holy crap, looking at screencaps from the old thing...the chatrooms were just the same as I remember from aol back when it was still cool (1995ish), the same random chatter and even the ::some random action:: format I used so many times, and no-one knows anymore...

link day!

2006-03-15T00:46:00.000-05:00

Because I feel lame copying over the same post twice, go check out the links I posted over on my video class blog.

No seriously. Go.

the wonders of artistic bullshit

2006-03-06T17:10:00.000-05:00

Is it bad that I slipped an extra few lines into a story, saying that the character is no longer fully differentiating between past and present, in order to cover up my own slipping from one verb tense to another all over the next paragraph?

A Small Bit of Progress

2006-02-26T17:37:00.000-05:00

Spent the majority of my weekend working on drawings for this project, will post photos soon of the two walls I've nearly finished... Taking awhile because I'm working with charcoal on 2'x3' paper.
Yes 2x3 foot paper. One of the big huge yellow pads of doom. (Ganked from Tom since all my old pads are at home. thankyouuuu~~~) I tend toward a lot of ridiculously minute details in my drawings (and all my work, really.. *typing this while waiting for a working copy of video project to export..definitely going to take like >15min*), so I decided to go about this the smart way and draw things large enough to fit all the detail I want, that way I won't be squinting at the page trying to fix details in each millimeter of space.
Of course, now I'm going to lose a lot of detail when I shrink things down.. but at least it's there, it'll look so much better.

I'm in the lab working on video for awhile now, mainly because I nearly made my fingertips bleed from rubbing charcoal into paper for like six hours at a stretch for the past two days. Wheeeeeeee.

In any case, I think I've decided to do most of the objects for putting on shelves and things seperately, and sticking them into place through Photoshop, mainly because I haven't decided exactly what objects are going to go into it, nor how many, and putting small things in like that will be easy enough. I've sketched out a lot of things, but need to be sure I don't add in like too many vases or too many books or whatever, and if I added in all the little things now and then decided to change them, it would involve re-drawing parts of larger objects and things, and it'd just be a bitch. But all the main furniture and features are there, I just need to go in and do some detail work, add in a small shelf I forgot on the first wall, and put the floor in on the second wall.

And I think I'm going to try to just take digital pictures of the drawings, then fling those into Photoshop to work with that way, because trying to scan in a 2'x3' charcoal drawing would be far more trouble than slightly better quality images would be worth - and y'all know I'm ridiculous when it comes to image quality. But will probably warm the tone of the drawings a little, and possibly grunge them up a little and add some more lighting in Photoshop, just little atmosphere things.. which'll be interesting, cos I've never really done that with full-out drawings before.

...

...a post here, a post on my blog for video, and my damn video is STILL only half exported. damnit. -_-;;

Schedule

2006-02-24T13:26:00.000-05:00

Who *isn't* woefully behind it? sigh. Cranking out drawings today. No really.

re: in-class discussion

2006-02-24T13:25:00.000-05:00

chris tucker torture

Reply to Questions/Comments

2006-02-16T21:10:00.000-05:00

Is the identity of the architecture reliant on the people, or can it speak for itself using aesthetics?
I think I'm going to work with a combination. Not every object in the room will be mentioned in stories, and not every story will mention one of the objects. I'm going to really work at getting detail into the drawings of the room, bits of dirt and dust and stain on furniture or the floor, all the random marks and things that get knocked into things over time, dents near the bottom of the warddrove, paint chipped off the wall, bite-marks on a child's chair, etc. So each object shows its history to some extent, while the stories flesh out those histories and add to them.

How many stories are in reserve, to be used and rotated through, and keep from being too repetitious?
Not enough yet, will be working on that while working through everything else. But so far, there are seventeen (less than a page to go on the eighteenth one). I'm also planning on adding more stories to the project over time, maybe every few months or something, stir a few new stories into the mix - history doesn't have a stopping point.

Why avoid it looking like a flash site, would it look too "new"?
It would look too cheesy. *g* At least for what I'm doing. Flashy and shiny and glowing doesn't work well for depicting something old and as organic as what I want to do in this - it would be a very different sort of room were it all done in vector-based, flash-like graphics, far too cartoonish. Though I'm not shooting for photo-realistic (I know better than that), I want it to be a believable, relatable space. I want there to be a strong sense of time clinging to everything in the room, the sort of dingy bits of damage that occur to objects when they've been used for many years.

How long a period of time is it covering, and would the same object really be in the room all that time?
Currently, the stories cover a range of about a hundred and fifty years. (Though I don't include any specific dates, there are clues in the surroundings, speech patterns, clothing, activities, etc. - pop over here and skim a story if you want a better idea.) The persistance of the objects.. admitedly, I'm taking a little liberty with. However, it's not all the same set of furniture through all the stories, things move around, there are some things mentioned in one story that aren't mentioned in another. Some things are moved to other rooms in some time periods, and later moved back, some things are added or taken away. It's not that one person furnished the room and no-one ever changed it, it's more like one out of every half-dozen tenants leaves something behind, whether it's a little table or a vase or a warddrobe too large to take with them.

Will the stories interact?
Already do. :) Though never in an obvious way (like someone referencing something that happened in another story), there are repetitions of actions, emotions, ideas, objects, and possibly characters. In one story, a little girl is poking around the furniture in the room, and finds a small, embroidered handkerchief tucked away in a drawer. In another story, another little girl lovingly spreads out a small, embroidered handkerchief across her pillow when she makes her bed, saying a short prayer for her father. The connections are never plainly spelled out - I'd rather let the reader create them, while reading a story, have them suddenly go hey! I wonder if that's the same handkerchief as in that other story..., things like that.

You should keep the sketches warm and realistic, not too monotonous and monotone, to keep the viewer's interest. / I think you should scan in your drawings for the site.
I agree. ^_^ As mentioned, I'm not going to try for photo-realistic (sodefinitely drawing, photo montage really wouldn't fit this, and I've never done any modeling on the computer), I'm not that insane, but I put a lot of thought into my materials. I decided on charcoal both because of its ability to capture a lot of textures and types of surfaces, as well as its atmospheric qualities. It's very warm, very organic, and though it's only one color, I think the amount of texture I can manage with it will keep that from being too dull. And charcoal is very conducive to making things look old.

As for transitions and movement from one direction to another.. I considered setting up a three dimensional space, but I think it would be really hard to get that to mesh with the organicness I want. I think I can keep it two dimensional, and still have it be immersive. Moving one wall to the next.. I'm still debating whether to do a straight cut, or show a movement along one wall over to the other. I think once I get some drawings done, I'll do a test of each, and open it up to what everyone things when there's something to look at. :)

Are the stories going to be real stories about real people?
Inasmuch as a bit of my own point of view or experience is tucked into little corners of everything, yeah, but by and large, no, definitely fiction. I feel safer that way. ^^; At the same time, I'm always culling things from memories or things I've read or conversations I've overheard or whatever - there's a story about a neglected young girl locked into the room, with no human contact whatsoever, that's based off of things I read over on a psychology site about feral children. There's a story about a couple of young guys playing around on BBSs back in the '80s or so, that's an amalgram of things I remember and things I read from around textfiles.com (one of my fav sites to nose around).. So most things have some basis somewhere, but the stories and characters are fictional overall.

Will users be able to affect the website for other users, or just themselves?
Initially, I was planning to just have it be for themselves, but I've been putting a lot of thought into that randomization element lately, so I'm considering a few different things now. Probably just themselves though, I think that's enough variation to start with... that, and I've a hunch it'll be closer to my coding ability to pull off. ActionScript and I really aren't on the closest of terms...

Any other suggestions, questions, comments, story ideas, ANYTHING, hugely appreciated, all the comments so far have really got me thinking about some things, thanks. :)

Proposal & Responses

2006-02-06T18:06:00.000-05:00

I'm sure everyone has the jist of my project by now, I won't rehash my proposal for the 463829th time, but if you want to check something (or you're not in my class), the presentation I put together for my proposal is here. (Apologies, but geocities is my only option at the moment for hosting html files, boomspeed's free accounts are too small for pictures, and was too lazy to change my image links.) I'm open to ideas on a lot of the technical things, as well as any other suggestions.

At the moment, I'm trying to sort out what I want to do with transitions, particularly moving from looking at one wall to another.. what I'm leaning toward is when you move your mouse over to the far edge of the screen, it'll switch the view to that of the adjacent wall - that way, there's no out-of-place looking button, but it's still easy to stumble on. But I don't know if I should do a straight cut to it, slightly fade it, or what.. (Re-playing Myst, I tried using the sliding-over transitions, and found that though I used to like them, I now find them annoying, and would rather have a straight cut to the new view, so leaning toward that.)

And any suggestions on sound would be hugely appreciated, I haven't worked with it much at all yet (though I started out a pre-music student here, so I know what I'm doing in terms of actual sound..just not the technology end).

edit: ahhhhhh dan you proved my paranoia right, knew I should've posted this before getting dinner.. ^^;

a later edit: and yes I know my warddrobe and bookshelf and little cabinet-thing are all a bit lopsided. That's why these are test-sketches. (Really need to learn to be sitting at right angles to my sketchbooks.. -_-; )

safari sucks like whoa

2006-02-01T14:05:00.000-05:00

omFg I should not even have looked at this in Safari. It completely ignores my font selections, and made everything huge and arial and bulky and, y'know, totally wrong. I'll try to fix, but won't try long. Why is firefox not on the lab comps?

edit: Figured it out. Safari totally ignores styles, css, even when put into the body of things rather than the header. The only thing I could do would be to go in to eeeevery lil area and plug in an old-school "font face" tag and tell it Times or Times New Roman - Apples don't know Garamond by default. And I'm so not doing that, it's currently set up with styles to do Garamond and if it can't find it, then evilTNR, but without styles, I can only pick one font for always. And I'm not fecking doing that. So, basically, no-one in the world who gives a shit about what sites look like should use Safari alone. sigh. gj apple.

...

2006-02-01T11:56:00.000-05:00

So I e-mailed Ferraro to see if I could drop by today to get my final production packet today, as, y'know, I could use all the sketches I did for it (the write-up I have copies of still of course). Because he never gives anything back to keep because he's weird.

good to hear you are furthering the work. The files for that class are at my
house in Bemus where I took them for grading. If I don't have them here Fri
at 1PM -- I will be up there this weekend and will have them Mon at 1PM.

*facepalm* thankyou. >_< wtf.

Layout

2006-01-28T21:07:00.000-05:00

Ahhh, much better. I feel uneasy and like a noob whenever I keep a template up for long. (Which reminds me, I should fling something together for the blog I've posted the actual stories of this project on.. but I do sort of like the standard template on that, makes for easy reading, something my own creations aren't always so strong on.)

Have yet to test this on any comp but my own, so apologies if it's dreadful elsewhere, will see how it looks in the lab and maybe on my roomie's comp.. resolution's set pretty damn high on mine and tom's comps, so probably not such good places to test things. But I really like how the background came together, just layered a handful of portions of my photos over each other as usual, dirt and dust and worn things, and a scan of a sheet of looseleaf I initially used on some other project years ago. Colored it brown, darkened the sides, and happiness. Here's hoping Garamond is a common enough font that no-one has to see this in evil tnr.. though I should probably check this against the apple fonts. bah.

Snow Crash

2006-01-25T18:12:00.000-05:00

Just a quick tip for anyone who won't have the book before we need it (I'm still waiting to hear what I need for another class, before I make an order) - I found the full text online, free, in txt form. Not an ebook, not an audio book (which was all I could find on bittorrent), not prettily done, but plain and legible.
And free.
Don't be scared of the russian page title - text's in english.

Bwa for the internet. <3

Media Artist HW

2006-01-24T19:37:00.000-05:00

Find five (5) media artists who provoke, inspire and wow you, using the massive list of doom:

Perry Hoberman has done a number of interesting projects involving technology. The one that strikes me the most, however, is one entitled "Zombiac" (though "The Bar Code Hotel" is also incredibly fascinating as a concept to me). This is an installation piece which incorperates a number of old computers, whose insides have been torn out, leaving zombie-like electronic shells. Inside the monitors have been placed green fluorescent lights, which turn on and off at varied intervals, which accompanies sounds (each computer having a unique type of sound) - simulating conversation. When one "speaks", the other monitors will turn toward it, and flash back in response. When a human viewer draws near and speaks to a computer, the monitor will stay dark and the computer silent, simulating listening, until the person stops speaking, when it will appear to answer. I really love the way in which he humanizes the interactions between computers, allowing them to visibly share in exchanges amongst themselves. I can only imagine how eerie it would be to walk amongst them - I know I would have a very strong sense that they were speaking, communicating, if only I could understand the words.

At first glance, visitors might simply perceive an arrangement of generic workstations. Then, as the monitors spin to face and flash at each other, a perception of a strange kind of community emerges. Finally, wandering through the installation, visitors may have the sensation of a man-made (but nonetheless alien) intelligence listening and addressing them, attempting to communicate, to establish contact.

While poking at various links to works involving barcodes, I stumbled across this project by Peter Coffin. Barcodes are such a impersonal concept, purely electronic in nature and decipherable only by machines, a means of language we could not hope to understand, entirely commercial. In this project, the artist provides barcodes which can be saved and printed out as stickers, which anyone can place overtop of the original barcode on a product in a store. When scanned in at the register, rather than a price, a four-letter word will appear on the screen, and in effect poetically disrupt the purchase. Taking something of cold electronic numbers and finances and yanking it back into the realm of humanity, provoking thought rather than computation, really makes me smile. The interchange between technology and reality is something that intrigues me endlessly to begin with...

Another site I found with interesting projects is 0100101110101101.org, concerning media, technology, and manipulations thereof. They have accomplished several large-scale hoaxes, involving the existence of an artist (with a full body of work) and a large-budget film, as well as hijacking the Vatican's website for a period of time. These projects impress me greatly, and the idea of tricking people into believing they are truly receiving emails from the Pope's staff, and twisting around articles from the Vatican's website just enough to still look credible but have the wrong message, is really fascinating to me. Twisted, but interesting. I think the one that really struck me though, was a computer virus they created and spread as a work of art. Biennale.py is apparently still on the loose - so far as I can see it presents no real harm, but is a love poem which spreads itself wherever it may, doing nothing more than inserting its words into any files you may have which are written in the Python language. It'll spread out of control, it'll make a round-the-world trip over two minutes, it'll go where you'll never go over your entire life, chased by anti-virus cops trying to regain control over it. In this very moment it's wandering around at the speed of byte. It's an art form that finds you, you don't have to go to museums to see it, the work itself will reach you inside your house.

The virus stresses its "aesthetic qualities" through the beauty of its own source code, a "love poem" being an integral part of its executing code. «We've chosen Python - says Massimo, Epidemic spokesman - exactly for the possibility to give any name to the variables, in practice you can write software with your own words».

The Thought Shop has a number of works related to text, and many of the projects are attempts to make manipulating and integrating digital text easier and more immediate. While the work combining changing text, and combinations of text and images, was what initially caught my eye, going through the projects, I Know What You're Thinking really grabbed me. It's a downloadable program, which, when run, will skim through all the text files (and any eudora email files) on your computer, and show snippets of them at random, piecing together a real-time collage of every bit of your typewritten history. The result is a disconcertingly intimate and schizophrenically lyrical look into your activities on that machine. I love the connections that we form between words and phrases that are juxtaposed at random - even if there was no meaning in their being together, we'll begin to create connections and a deeper meaning between them.

Along the lines of an interest in the relation between reality and virtual existance, the work Rebecca Allen has done really intrigues me. Some of her work dates back into the '80s, one even in the late '70s, and continues through the present, working with connections between computers and humans, attempting to make computers relatable on a human level. Her "Bush Soul" works were what first caught my eye, tying together virtual avatars with the West African idea of a bush soul, where a human's soul exists both within their own body, as well as in part in an animal. Our soul, our consciousness, will somehow be embodied in an avatar. The avatar becomes our other body, another container for our spirit. Seeing how immersive the current state of gaming culture can be.. it's interesting to see these ideas explored in an artistic manner. Though the project began in 1997, and thus is far outdated now in some ways, the ideas which came through in it are pretty close to the mark in the present. (And I like that she makes a point about creating a virtual environment meant for exploring and relating, not shooting things.)

Homework

2006-01-18T16:36:00.000-05:00

Answers to Matt's questions:

1) Title of recent book your read, why you chose it.
Re-read Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man... Chose because it'd been awhile since I'd read some of his books, and he's one of my favourite authors. Started with Fahrenheit 451 a trip home or two ago, and was reminded of why I love his work so much. His writing style and use of uncommon metaphors, as well as the telling aspects of humanity and profound truths he reveals in such a conversational realistic sort of way, are the two main things which have drawn me to his work. This time around, however, I found myself really admiring and studying the way he is able to construct a whole world in the space of a ten-page story - something I've been working toward myself.

2) Recent album,(MP3 archive, I mix) you bought/downloaded, why you chose it.
Sigur Ros' "Takk...". I've loved their work for years, it's incredibly unique, ethereal and emotional, full of beauty and yearning. "Takk..." is their newest album, and it relates essentially a fairy tale, of a boy who woke one morning to find the sun gone, and sets off to find it. The videos (linked to on apple's site somewhere) are stunningly beautiful, and the music... the cd didn't leave my cd player the whole time I was home.

3) Top 3 media artist that interest you, and why.
- Kaori Yuki has drawn me in lately, manga artist of Angel Sanctuary, among others. Absolutely stunning detail and beautiful, beautiful images, really unique compositions in some. And lots and lots of angels, as well as storylines as intricate as the drawings.
- Mark Holthusen. While wandering around the internet recently, I stumbled across a lot of interesting things, including his photographs for Ca Ira, an opera about the French Revolution put together by one of the guys from Pink Floyd. Have yet to check out any of the music... but the photos are stunningly beautiful, combining photographs with digital elements, and I'm definitely looking into more of his work, the look he achieves in these images is so strong and interesting, very much like old paintings yet far more vivid.
- Cyan studios. I've gone back to playing/re-playing the Myst games, partially because the idea of uncovering a story as you explore abandoned rooms and objects ties in with my plan for my capstone project. Though the first few are beginning to grow a little dated in their appearance, due to the growth of technology over the past ten years, the approach, unique style, beauty, and compelling nature of the games is as strong as I remember.

4) How familiar are you with Macintosh computers
Relatively familiar, though all of that is from working in the lab the past few years. Good with computers in general though, so I can sort things out.

Respond to these terms, use full sentences and be descriptive. Do not define the term.
1) Simulation
Like life but not quite real, pseudo-stimulation, simulated senses. It feels as though you've been there, and to your mind perhaps it is no different, but there is no dust from desert sands hiding in the folds of your clothes, no dry heat hanging in the air about you, only the images of flat ground and thoughts of long walks. ...something I once regarded as a negative thing, a lack of experience, but now I wonder a little about. Does it replace experience or add to the possibilities of what one can have?
2) Postmodernism
The future has passed, there is nothing new to find or see or become. The world and its limits are pinned down to the floor, mapped out and complete. Culture and change are paramont, mass production prevails and so may be appropriated to convolute its own intentions. ...I don't usually pay much heed to one artistic movement or the other, it's like applying genre labels to music, the things that interest me aren't easily categorized, and it forces a preconcieved conotation onto everything. There are ideas in this concept which interest me, but I would be slow to say I like or dislike something because it falls under such a heading.
3) Symbolism
Adds depth or aggrevation, depending on one's point of view. Is it a further meaning to images presented, or only imagined connections? All depends on the point of view, is yours the same as the author's? Interpretation is individual, but is your meaning what the author was saying, or is it your personal experience coloring your perception? Was either the author's intent? ...something I hated in high school, but now find myself drawn more and more toward. In one of my drawing classes a year or so ago, I did an entire series of images featuring fallen angels and flowers in various settings, where the meaning of the flowers tied together and enhanced the meaning of the images. I find myself repeating images and feeling the connotations and deeper meanings of certain phrases or objects, and I love the depth which symbolism can lend to things. (I still think a character in MacBeth saying "well, well, well" was merely a casual comment, not a reference to graves and death, but...)
4) Propaganda
Mass-produced messages, impersonal and yet intensely personal, to the point of attempting to alter your personal opinion. A very strong and negative political connotation, yet we're (largely unconsciously) surrounded by it almost every moment via any sort of media, pushing one product or idea or another. ...not something that's usually my style of thing to be interested in, and yet...I find myself intrigued by the ways in which people are able to alter thought processes like that. Last semester, one of the ideas discussed in the media arts club was to create a religion in Second Life, and promote it as if it were a real thing, hopefully creating true adherents who knew nothing of the scam behind it. That really, really strruck me, and I was incredibly interested in trying it, and though we decided to head toward something else, that idea is still lurking in the back of my mind.
5) Franchise
Evil commercial chains which circle the planet, binding up the more personable and personal world of small businesses, providing an equally mediocre experience for all. ...something I read once, can't recall if it was L'Engle or Bradbury or someone else entirely...equal does not mean identical, people being on equal ground doesn't mean they're all indistinguishable copies. That's right, Madeline L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time...another one I should re-read soon, it's been a couple of years. Though I remember how friendly and profitable and nice-sounding franchises were back in my 7th grade home economics class, and though I'm still more likely to go to a Perkin's than some unknown family restauraunt in an unfamiliar town, I look around me and see the same storefronts in nearly every small town, and it really scares me.
6) Truth
...after completing an entire philosophy minor, I doubt I'm any better at settling out its nature or anything about it. I still have to believe that there is a central truth to things, an objective fact, even about right and wrong. In some cases it's a matter of scientific mathematic or logical proof, in other cases it's more difficult to "prove" by such commonly accepted means, it rests somewhere between the unprovable heart and soul of humanity. But simply because we haven't calibrated a microscope quite properly yet and can't yet see it, I don't think that's any less reason to believe it. Though our science and technology and knowledge has grown, it grows harder and harder to find those other truths. It seems the fog of perspectives and proliferation of biases and outlets for the voice of everyone's individual view on the world is only growing, and will likely continue to do so, and the focus on the differences between details leads our minds away from the knowledge that we all, deep down, have far more in common than we do in difference.

Capstone

2006-01-18T16:28:00.000-05:00

Another matt class, another new blog... but I'll also put up production notes on my capstone project, and point people over here when they ask what I'm doing rather than trying to explain. ^^; Continuation, I hope, of my nanowrimo from this year, Beneath the Dust, giving it a home online and showing as well as writing the stories. but we'll see what happens.

p.s. blogger template for now, when I think of something I'll make my own layout as usual. ^^;