Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 635

Atelier Calder: Cloud Cities

*Hapless geek philistine that I am, I didn't even know there was a prize named after Alexander Calder. I'm glad to have my ignorance enlightened here. The very idea that the Calder Foundation funds design-fiction about floating cities… I like to think that Sandy would be proud. Alexander Calder always had a whiff of cosmic engineer about him.

Tomás Saraceno / Cloud Cities

19 June – 4 July 2010

Atelier Calder

12 Route du Carroi

F-37190 Saché, France

Saturdays & Sundays, 14:00 – 18:00 and...

Mega-project Japanese design fiction from Pink Tentacle

*You gotta kinda watch it around Pink Tentacle 'cause it's real easy to meander in there and never be seen again.

http://pinktentacle.com/2010/06/futuristic-mega-projects-by-shimizu/

*Stuff this mega-sized, burly and red-chinese might be better described as "engineering fiction."

*Unless it's about oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, in which case it can be described as "Southern Gothic Dystopian Realism."

Web Semantics: Internet of Objects vs. Internet of Things vs. Web of Things vs. Things on the Web vs. Real World Web vs. Whole World Web

*Certain people do tire of web-semantic logic-chopping, but, uh, not me.

http://www.purselipsquarejaw.org/2010/04/internet-of-objects-vs-internet-of.php

Showtime: Lez Zeppelin, Rock and Roll

*Wow, the all-girl tribute band "Lez Zeppelin" has been at it so long now that they are coming across like the drug-glazed, decadent, Crowleyan, end-of-the-road Led Zeppelin.

Augmented Reality: augmented flash mob in Rio

*Carioca!

Kalki Koechlin Na Milegi Dubara

*The thing I like best about this video (besides Kalki being about eighteen different professional versions of Kalki in ninety seconds) is that prime Hindi Film English. Listen to how sophisticated that English is: "theater company join, filmi career on full speed, committed relationship, number four spot." It's an awesome Bollywood creole " कल्कि के बारे में किया जा रहा है के अलावा मैं इस वीडियो के बारे में सबसे अच्छी तरह बात (कल्कि के अठारह विभिन्न संस्करणों) है कि प्रधानमंत्री हिंदी...

The Atemporal Quotidian of the twenty-teens

*Better have a look at this (if you haven't already).

http://blog.williamgibsonbooks.com/2010/05/31/book-expo-american-luncheon-talk/

Augmented Reality: Total Immersion standards proposal

*Hey, that was with-it. Bruno Uzzan of Total Immersion just cut loose with some actual journalistic breaking AR news-style news, here at ARE2010.

*Total Immersion is proposing a new set of tech standards for AR, to be backed up by a kind of industry-wide AR good-housekeeping logo. Here it is:

http://augmented-reality-news.com/2010/06/03/total-immersion-calls-on-industry-to-embrace-standards-in-ar-unveils-ar-logo-to-provide-clear-identity-for-ar-solutions/

http://arplus.t-immersion.com/

"What i...

Spime Watch: Bridge by Pachube

*It's got Pachube and Arduino, it's an Internet-of-Things business and it's about greener energy consumption. Pretty much gotta blog that one, folks.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/pachube_current_cost.php

http://community.pachube.com/node/436

http://tinkerlondon.com/what-we-do/the-bridge

"Tinker London and Connected Environments Ltd. have made the 'Internet of Things' for consumers a reality by partnering to develop Current Cost's 'Bridge' device, a home energy monitoring product that...

Showtime: Timo Arnall: Wireless in the World

*It's… it's just so beautiful… (wipes at eyes)

Wireless in the world 2 from timo on Vimeo.

As a follow up to the original Wireless in the World experiment vimeo.com/3684601 this film was made for the HABITAR exhibition at Laboral:

"Utopian and radical architects in the 1960s predicted that cities in the future would not only be made of brick and mortar, but also defined by bits and flows of information. The urban dweller would become a nomad who inhabits a space in constant flux, mutating in...