Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 213
January 20, 2014
Augmented Reality: The Aether Project
*Projection-mapping on robot-controlled moving surfaces. With a Leap Motion, no less.
THE AETHER PROJECT from Refik Anadol on Vimeo.
“The Aether Project / Transmutating the Real and the Ethereal
“As a part of UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design (A.UD) advanced design studio course “Architectural Intelligence: Exploring Space as an Interactive Medium”, researchers Refik Anadol, Raman Mustafa, Julietta Gil and Farzad Mirshafiei created
The Aether Project, an immersive interactive environment that seamlessly combines robotic actuation, formal transformation and real time projection mapping controlled by a sensory input device. The course lead by Guvenc Ozel, Technology Director of the new IDEAS platform of UCLA A.UD, in collaboration with Casey Reas, Professor at UCLA Design Media Arts, explored potential scenarios of architecture as a responsive, robotically actuated technology which undergoes spatial iterations triggered by sense based devices.
“The evolution of technology reveals an aspiration to place mind into matter in order to create tools that are subservient yet autonomous from humans. Architecture as a form of technology does not exist outside of this cultural aspiration. Concurrently, experiments in sensing technology express this desire to transform architecture into an intelligent form of technology that can autonomously negotiate between the human body, human psyche, the environment and other physical and perceptual parameters.
“Based on this premise, the Aether Project focuses on providing an immersive experience through real-time Leap Motion controlled system that synchronously aligns projection mapped visuals on a transforming surface geometry, both choreographed though robot movements. Thus, The Aether Project is designed to test the interaction between humans x robots, robot x robot, and the resulting recursive relationship between technology and human perception continuously.”
CREDITS:
University of California, Los Angeles
Architecture + Urban Design
ARCH401
Raman K. Mustafa
Refik Anadol
Julieta Gil
Farzad Mirshafiei
Instructors;
Güvenç Ozel
Casey Reas
Music;
Sergey Vlasov
January 18, 2014
Showtime: Rino Stefano Tagliafierro, “B E A U T Y”
*Folks, this video is as beautiful as a beautiful flamingo, with a beautiful painting in its beak, flying past a beautiful sunset, when you’re drunk.
B E A U T Y – dir. Rino Stefano Tagliafierro from Rino Stefano Tagliafierro on Vimeo.
January 16, 2014
Showtime: “Le Monstre” by Georges Melies (1903)
*Really, kids, necromancy never pays.
https://archive.org/details/LeMonstre
An Egyptian prince has lost his beloved wife and he has sought a dervish who dwells at the base of the sphinx. The prince promises him a vast fortune if the dervish will only give him the opportunity of gazing once more upon the features of his wife. The dervish accepts the offer. He brings in from a neighboring tomb the receptacle containing the remains of the princess. He opens it and removes the skeleton, which he places upon the ground close beside him. Then, turning to the moon and raising his arms outstretched toward it, he invokes the moon to give back life to her who is no more.
The skeleton begins to move about, becomes animated, and arises. The dervish puts it upon a bench and covers it with a white linen; a masque conceals its ghostly face. At a second invocation the skeleton begins again to move, arises, and performs a weird dance. In performing its contortions it partly disappears in the ground. While performing its feats it increases gradually in size, its neck assuming enormous proportions, much to the horror of the prince, who fails to see in this grotesque character the wife whom he has lost. The dance ceases. The dervish throws a veil over the hideous creature. Then appear the real princess as she was when her husband possessed her. The prince darts forward to take her into his arms to give her a last kiss, but the dervish stops him, wraps the young lady in the veil and throws her into the arms of the prince. When he removes the veil he finds only the skeleton of his former wife. The vision has disappeared, and the princess has returned to dust. The dervish withdraws, and the prince pursues him with his threats and curses. Written by Lubin Catalog
Director: Georges Méliès
Stars: Georges Mélièsz
Country: France
Release Date: 15 August 1903 (USA)
Country Date
USA 15 August 1903
Portugal 28 November 2009 (Cinemateca Portuguesa)
Also Known As (AKA)
Le monstre France (original title)
A szörny Hungary
The Monster USA
This movie is part of the collection: The Georges Méliès Collection
Director: Georges Méliès
Producer: Georges Méliès
Production Company: Star-Film
Sponsor: GenX
Audio/Visual: Silent, Black & White
Language: None
Keywords: GenX; Georges Méliès; Sphynx; Monster;
Creative Commons license: Public Domain Mark 1.0
KillYourPhone.com
*Actually it’s more like “hide your phone,” since the device is perfectly fine once it’s removed from its handy electromagnetic cloak.
*I like seeing Aram Bartholl kept busy.
KILLYOURPHONE.COM
“About
“KILLYOURPHONE.COM is an open workshop format which invites participants to make their own mobile phone blocking pouch for very little money. This workshop was run for the first time at the Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg end of 2013. Everyone is invited to run their own workshop to make phone blocking pouches with their friends and neighbors in your local club, school, center, festival or art show. Protect your privacy! Discuss surveillance and learn again how to sew, it is very easy. 
)
“I am a Berlin based artist and I like to make projects about the Internet & computers and their impact on society.
“KILLYOURPHONE.COM. A project by Aram Bartholl 2014. (see also Silver Cell prior project from 2004)
“Workshop
“Run your own KILLYOURPHONE.COM workshop!
“Find an event/ place to run the workshop. Announce the workshop to your friends!
“Tools you’ll need for the workshop: a sewing machine incl. the typical supplies like needles, thread, scissors. To cut the fleece i recommend stainly knife, ruler and cutting matt.
Buy some meter of shielding fleece online. Search for HF+LF Shielding Fleece (HF+NF Abschirmvlies)! Cost: m² ca 25-30,- €. At my workshops participants got a 50cm x12cm piece of fleece for a refund of 3,- € material costs to make one pouch.
“Run your own workshop! If you don’t know (or remember) how to handle a sewing machine try to get support from a ‘professional’ or find a tutorial online!
“KILLYOURPHONE.COM workshop at 30C3: 30th Chaos Communication Congress, December 27-30, 2013 Hamburg, https://events.ccc.de/congress/2013/w...!
“Open workshop to passively block your phone from sending and receiving. Make your own signal blocking Faraday pouch! How to wrap your phone to kill any wireless connection? How to pack your phone so it can’t record any sound? Which materials work best? Where to get them? What are the cheapest and fastest solutions? We have cloths, tools and a sewing machine. Feel free to join! Bring your own stuff!” (…)
January 15, 2014
Metropolis mag on architecture and design to watch in 2014
*Some of those seem like quite *scary* things to watch, such as the dismal impact of the Depression on Italian manufacturing, and new architecture for the catastrophically melting Arctic Circle.
Augmented Reality: Mooly Eden interviewed about Intel Perceptual Computing
*It’s remarkably interesting.
*Also Mr Eden there is sporting quite a stylish Brian-Eno technician-artist beret.
(…)
“VentureBeat: Maybe, before we get there, getting all the sensors in place is still a big project.
“Eden: It’s a big project, but now I believe it’s almost inevitable. You can argue that the jury is out and we still need to prove it. But the fact is that people want a natural man-machine interface. You’ve seen it in books. You’ve seen it in movies. That futuristic, science-fiction stuff, that’s what people want. It’s been a dream for many years. But we’re on the verge of taking the fiction away from the science.
“This couldn’t have been done three years ago. Intel couldn’t have done it three years ago. We may be delayed by a year or two, but I’m confident that within a few years we’ll see this work.
“By the way, you asked me how I know this is going to be successful. When you’re working with the consumer — why do you buy something today? Because you love it. Not because you need it. You already have what you need. How do you know you love something? When you smile, when you say “wow.” Here’s a picture of you when you were playing this thing. [Laughs] We did a lot of professional testing, and the jury is still out. But if you ask me about the adoption of stuff like this, if it leads to those kinds of smiles, we have a great opportunity.”
January 14, 2014
Organizers of the Petition Against Mass Surveillance: Josef Haslinger
*Born in 1955 in Austria, Josef Haslinger is a professor of literary aesthetics in Leipzig. He is a novelist, a writer of nonfiction and the current president of the PEN International German center.
http://www.pen-international.org/centres/german-centre/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Haslinger
http://www.ariadnebooks.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=9781572411760
Josef Haslinger – Tsunami. A Report from Phi Phi Island
“Josef Haslinger, whose literary works have been awarded over thirteen prizes, has written a vivid account of his family’s Christmas vacation in 2004 at a beach resort on Thailand’s spectacular Phi Phi Island. On December 26th an earthquake off Sumatra caused the tsunami that nearly killed them all — along with over 200,000 others in the region, including half of the guests and staff at their resort. Haslinger’s report bears personal witness to that horrific day and its aftermath. Gruesome details and touching acts of kindness are chronicled with meticulous care. A year after the catastrophe, the author and his wife returned to the island to check facts and compare survivors’ tales. The result is a deeply moving chronicle of suffering and survival.”
*A short story by Josef Haslinger:
http://quarterlyconversation.com/from-fiona-and-ferdinand-by-josef-haslinger
Organizers of the Petition Against Mass Surveillance: Priya Basil
*Priya Basil is a British, Kenyan, Indian, German-resident fiction-writer. Priya is another of those contemporary novelists whose life wouldn’t do within a novel, because it’s simply too implausible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priya_Basil
“About me
“Priya was born in London. Her parents moved to Kenya when she was a year old. At sixteen she went to a boarding school near London, but Nairobi remained her home until she was twenty, when her family moved back to the UK.
“Always an avid reader, Priya’s own attempts at storytelling began, rather ingloriously, through her efforts to avoid sports lessons. Elaborate excuses were invented, letters citing medical problems were written, and parental signatures forged, in an attempt to evade anything that involved moving fast enough to work up a sweat.
“Priya studied English literature at the University of Bristol. There she became too paralyzed by the greatness of other people’s writing to dare follow her own desire to write.
“After graduating Priya worked in advertising for three years. The job sapped her soul and got her obsessing over what she could do to make sure she never had to work in an office again. ”Then Priya’s partner offered her the chance to go and spend some time with him in Berlin, and try to write the novel she’d been dreaming about. She quit her job, left her friends and family and moved to a city where she didn’t speak the language. There she began to write. Two years later, her first novel Ishq & Mushq was finished. ”Priya’s first book explored themes and places closely related to her own life. The journey of the fictional characters, from India to East Africa to Great Britain, reflects the trajectory of her own family. Ishq & Mushq came second in the World Book Day ‘Book to Talk prize 2008′ competition. The novel was also short-listed for a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and long-listed for the Dylan Thomas Award and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. ”The story told in Priya’s second book, The Obscure Logic of the Heart, is further from her own experience, yet the issues it explores are more dear to her. Part of the challenge she set herself in the new book was to inhabit and portray mindsets alien to her own.
“As an atheist she examines sympathetically the nature of faith, as a pacifist she seeks to work out the motives of men who enable the illegal arms trade to flourish, as a hopeless romantic she creates a heroine who loves passionately but cannot simply follow her heart.
“Priya is a supporter of the Control Arms Campaign. She is keen to be a more active advocate in getting all nations of the world to sign up to a legally binding Arms Trade Treaty. Priya is also a fan of Peter Singer’s The Life You can Save, and seeks to live up to the ideals for giving outlined in that book. ”In July 2010, Priya founded Authors for Peace. It is intended to be a platform from which authors can actively use literature in different ways to promote peace. The first Authors for Peace event was a global, live, online, 24-hour reading, done by 80 authors from around the world, and hosted by Priya, on the UN’s International Day of Peace, 21st September 2010. The event was approved as a Guinness World Record. For more info, please visit:”
http://www.authorsforpeace.com
http://www.authorsforpeace.com/surveillance-blog.html
http://www.authorsforpeace.com/free-our-sisters—pussy-riot-september-2012.html
http://www.viewfromheremagazine.com/2010/09/priya-basil-interview.html
Organizers of the Petition Against Mass Surveillance: Janne Teller
*Born in 1964, Janne Teller is a globe-trotting Austrian/German/Danish writer of Danish nationality. An expert in “conflict resolution,” she turned to writing novels, philosophical essays and a blockbuster kid book full of terrifying Danish existentialism. Her work has appeared in 25 languages and since she says she “splits her time between New York, Paris and Copenhagen,” she must have a passport the size of a Rolodex.
http://www.powells.com/biblio/9781416...
Nothing (Teller, Janne)
Janne Teller
“When Pierre-Anthon realizes there is no meaning to life, the seventh-grader leaves his classroom, climbs a tree, and stays there. His classmates cannot make him come down, not even by pelting him with rocks. So to prove to Pierre-Anthon that life has meaning, the children decide to give up things of importance. The pile starts with the superficial—a fishing rod, a new pair of shoes. But as the sacrifices become more extreme, the students grow increasingly desperate to get Pierre-Anthon down, to justify their belief in meaning. Sure to prompt intense thought and discussion, Nothing — already a treasured work overseas — is not to be missed.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janne_Teller
“Originally educated as a macro economist, Janne Teller worked for the United Nations and the European Union in conflict resolution and humanitarian issues around the World, particularly in Africa. She devoted herself full-time to fiction writing in 1995.
“For several years, she was a member of the Board of the Danish Fiction Writers’ Association and of Danish PEN, as well as of the Editorial Board of the Danish version of the intellectual magazine, Lettre International.
“She has lived in a wide variety of places from Brussels, Paris, Milan, to Dar-es-Salaam and Maputo. Presently, she resides in New York City.”
Novels:
Odin’s island. (Odins , 1999). English translation 2006
Nothing (Intet, 2000). English translation 2010
Hvis der var krig i Norden (2004)
Kattens tramp (2004)
Kom (2008)
Other Books:
Why?, Short story, education booklet, Gyldendal 2007
Original story in French: Le Monde de l’Education, France, 2002
To See the One Who Sees You,
Illustrated pamphlet/essay for exhibition, Kunstf Gl. Strand, 2006
Write Your Devil, (co-editor and contributor), People’s Press, 2004
Essays (selected):
Between the Lines. Lettre International, Germany. 2012
Europe, who are you? Die Welt, Germany / Politiken, Denmark. 2012
Little Brother is watching you. Cicero, Germany / Politiken, Denmark. January 2011
The Power of Art, the Art of Power. Politiken, Denmark. March 2009
On Quality and Literature. Danish Teachers’ Magazine, Denmark. 2007
May Muhammad have Mercy on My Country. Information, Denmark. February 2006
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