Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 724

Hong Kong cage homes

*Rare to see TV reporters venture into a favela and show us around.

*You have to wonder how many former media employees are living

in spaces like this right now.

*Note that the area is saturated with TVs, and there's no question that

everybody in there has a mobile. Note also the plethora of fans,

refrigerators, and injection-molded plastic kitchen items. Those

are very modern spaces, even trending toward the glossy-futuristic.

*That cheery 90-year-old, he's got "Aging Broke Baby Boomer"

Augmented Reality: you can shoot anyone

*Note that this Australian outfit has a glossy, soundtracked, Hollywood-Western-style

AR promo and doesn't even bother to demo the product or explain how it works.

*Okay, it's a goofy novelty app, but there's no reason why this thing couldn't

sell ten million copies on iPhone.

PA/PER VIEW in Torino

*Hope to be there.

PA/PER VIEW art book fair in Turin

A new edition of PA/PER VIEW art book fair, co-hosted by MOUSSE (Milan) and MER. Paper Kunsthalle(Gent), will take place in the theatre foyers of the Carignano and Cavallerizza Reale theatres on 6-8 November in Turin, bringing together more than 25 of the globe's leading artist book publishers, during Italy's most intense contemporary art weekend.

This convergence of exciting initiatives will happen during Turin´s busiest contemporary art...

D-Build

*They're wreckers. No, I mean they tenderly deconstruct buildings so as to greenly re-purpose

the materials. That's what they plan, anyhow.

http://d-build.org/

*Check out the stellar beauty of this cradle-to-cradle spimey rhetoric:

"Rob and I recently started a project called D-Build, looking at the

process of building deconstruction, and the subsequent transaction and

use of reclaimed materials from an industrial and interaction design

perspective.

"What we are now building is a system where

Meanwhile, on the dark side of the Moon

http://www.selene.jaxa.jp/en/new/inde...

via @elakdawalla

The World's Most Unwanted Music

http://www.wired.com/listening_post/2008/04/a-scientific-at/

*I heard about this Komar and Melamid effort quite some time ago, but just got around to downloading it. I'm listening to it now.

*It's a work of genius. It goes so far beyond conventional annoyance and irritation that it makes you feel like your body is turning into swamp gas.

*Played aloud, this would clear any disco on the planet. It might provoke riots.

Dead Media Beat: abandonware games

*An entire subculture swapping semilegal gaming substances in here, ladies and gentlemen:

http://www.homeoftheunderdogs.net/links.php

Augmented Reality: Vampire Power Awareness Month

*Gosh. It's like a WIRED ad campaign, and green, and everything.

http://www.vampirepowersucks.com/Augmented-Reality.aspx

Dead Media Beat: Facebook for the dead

http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=deceased

"Deceased

"IMPORTANT: This form is solely for the reporting of a deceased person to memorialize the person's account. Memorializing the account removes certain sensitive information and sets privacy so that only confirmed friends can see the profile or locate it in search. The Wall remains so that friends and family can leave posts in remembrance. Please note that unrelated inquiries through this form may not receive a response…."

...

Dead Media Beat: Computer Game Preservation

http://wiki.igda.org/Game_Preservation_SIG/White_Paper/Before_It's_Too_Late:_A_Digital_Game_Preservation_White_Paper

"The Game Preservation Special Interest Group was founded in 2004, only five years ago. Even in that short time, however, interest in the preservation of digital games and virtual worlds has intensified remarkably. Today, cultural institutions such as universities, libraries, and museums have begun to collect, display, and make available artifacts of game culture, and...