Image source: http://www.derivative.ca/Plastikman/

Note: I don’t normally post competition opportunities, but the following call is worth noting because it exposes a shift in remix culture:  the DJ and VJ hybrid.  Besides, I admit to being a Plastikman fan.

Derivative is pleased to announce the next-gen of their collaboration with techno-futurist Richie Hawtin who is unleashing PLASTIKMAN LIVE 2010 a much-anticipated series of live shows produced in collaboration with Minus & Derivative to launch at this year’s Timewarp festival on March 27th, 2010.

The influential Plastikman performance at MUTEK 2004 was visually driven by Derivative’s powerful software tool TouchDesigner enabling Richie to orchestrate sound and visual compositions generatively and in real time; the technology altering the course of how electronic music could be performed and experienced live.

Image source: http://www.derivativeinc.com/Events/15-Plastikman/

That was then. With the current generation of TouchDesigner 077 completely reengineered, the team has built an information-rich bridge between Richie’s Ableton Live rig and Derivative’s TouchDesigner. Derivative will release the TouchDesigner-Live Bridge to its users this year. Hawtin’s visual artist Ali Demirel has been working closely with Derivative’s Jarrett Smith and Markus Heckmann in LA and Toronto to create the content and a custom performing interface for the shows.

Another Hawtin/Minus/Derivative collaboration invites the community to create their own visuals to original Plastikman tracks using TouchDesigner. Hawtin and Derivative have packaged and made available for download a complete toolset that includes a purpose-built TouchDesigner synth and 4 Plastikman tracks enabling participants with full support to produce buy cheap valtrex online visuals in the same real-time generative environment as the show’s. Winning entries are to be incorporated into the live events.

Dedicated to advancing the way we make art and visualize information and ideas, Derivative has produced live visuals and interactive art projects for an exemplary roster of international superstars that include Prada, Herzog & de Meuron and Rush. They have also developed major theme park attractions globally. In a unique alliance with raster-noton now entering its second year Derivative designed and built an expandable framework for multi-screen live performances under the guidance of label founders carsten nicolai (alva noto) and olaf bender (byetone). The collaboration resulted in a series of shows last year at Club Transmediale, Sonar, MUTEK, OFFF, and Ars Electronica that were received as precedent-setting.

TouchDesigner is the most complete authoring tool for building interactive 3D art, visualizations, prototypes and user interfaces. Its open, broad and highly-visual procedural architecture boosts and expands discovery, creativity and productivity.

TouchDesigner FTE (Free Thinking Environment) and its counterpart TouchDesigner Pro puts a free development environment with an extremely rich feature set into the hands of artists, animators, educators and “everyone else”. “TouchDesigner is our vision of what is possible in tomorrow’s software tools for building interactive applications and exploring data, imagery and sound”, Derivative founder and CEO Greg Hermanovic states. “It exploits what is possible in today’s computing technology and is positioned to grow with the foreseeable advancements in computer, graphics and mobile technologies.”

Still from video documentation, available at Dropbox

The Rotten Machine (La Maquina Podrida) is currently on display at the MEIAC, in Badajoz, Spain.   On the 8th of May 2004, Brian Mackern, born and living in Montevideo, Uruguay, put for sale his personal laptop computer, in which he developed his early net art projects.  He also used the machine to document early online activity–particularly from around the Americas.

When considering the history of new media, the sale was made at a moment when web 2.0 was about to change: the blog, for instance, which was one of the pivotal tools of the next stage of web development, became quite popular at this time.  Simultaneously, the machine’s sale is an overt commentary on the preciousness of the work of art, which was the subject of several attempts of dematerialization during the heyday of conceptualism. The fetishization of the object of art was an issue to consider for many early online art practitioners, since in online practice there appeared to be  no “object of art” to deal with directly.  The Rotten Machine turns this convention on its head, and shows that “anything” can be commodified.

These are some of my brief observations on a work that deserves more analysis, and that I hope now that it enjoys its first exhibit, will be acknowledged around the world as an important contribution to the history of art. 

Hard disk of the rotten machine with the fingerprint of its owner, brian mackern
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3064699/la_podrida/c.JPG

A text was written in 2004 by Raquel Herrera: http://www.cibersociedad.net/congres2004/grups/fitxacom_publica2.php?idioma=ca&id=95&grup=60

Below is part of the official press release written by curator, Nilo Casares:

——

exhibition:::::::::::::::::::the rotten machine aka the toothless old thing
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::1999-2004
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::all net.art in a brian mackern’s laptop

works of:::::::::::::::::::::brian mackern

curator::::::::::::::::::::::nilo casares

technical coordination:::::::àngela montesinos

production:::::::::::::::::::
and organization:::::::::::::meiac

texts of catalogue:::::::::::rodrigo alonso
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::andrés burbano
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::nilo casares
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::gabriel galli
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::brian mackern
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::àngela montesinos

edited by::::::::::::::::::::nilo casares

translation::::::::::::::::::polisemia

designer:::::::::::::::::::::fundc [http://www.fundc.com]

publisher::::::::::::::::::::meiac

opening::::::::::::::::::::::[20h00m/05.02.10]

schedule:::::::::::::::::::::[05.02.10)(04.04.10]
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::from tuesdays until saturdays
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::10h00m-13h30m/17h00m-21h00m
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::sundays
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::10h00m-13h30m

gallery::::::::::::::::::::::3th floor
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::meiac
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::virgen de guadalupe, 7.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::e46001-badajoz
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::+34924013060
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::[meiac@juntaextremadura.net  ]
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::[http://www.meiac.es]

press contact::::::::::::::::àngela montesinos
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::[angela.montesinos@juntaextremadura.net

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::exhibition intro::::::::::::::::::::::

the rotten machine is a surprising exhibition that emanates from an old laptop from 1999, owned by the uruguayan netartist brian mackern, to recreate the time when net.art had its peak brightness, and perhaps therefore, the rattle before the emergence of web 2.0 (known as social network).

brian mackern is a founding artist who was ahead of the time in the development of online and offline soundvisual interfaces. founder of online directories artef@ctos virtuales [http://www.internet.com.uy/vibri] and latin netart database [http://netart.org.uy/latino/index.html] (currently owned by meiac).his reference sites are http://netart.org.uy, http://34s56w.org and http://no-content.net.

his computer, the rotten machine, it’s full and complete of all the data collected until the moment it was decided to be sold, on the 8th of may, 2004. it was the working tool (the studio, in classical terms) that accompanied brian mackern between 1999 and 2004, both in his personal work and in collaborative works for other artists and net jamms, apart from his work as a vj, conferences and workshops. in short, his tool.

a computer full of information and history, acquired by the meiac in order to expose it to posterity, when the development of hardware and software will prevent us from viewing many of the art pieces hosted on this computer.

the exhibition is divided into 5 audiovisual stations navigated by brian mackern himself.

1 – anthropological station: content and hardware components of the machine. sounds generated by its operation. references to files, etc.

2 – studio station: personal work (source files and visible works). the source code of his own work and at the same time the navigation of it.

3 – internet and networking station: content related to many of the projects and online/offline collaborative groups in which brian mackern has intervened.

4 – file, documentation and analysis station: random collection of information about net.art and internet culture of that time.

5 – history station. history of net.art: remix of endless net.art sites, in different states of preservation, many of them with retrofitted code to allow navigation within the machine without internet connection.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::pics:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

a: starting point for the auction of the “rotten machine”. peam,
pescara (italy), 2004
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3064699/la_podrida/a.JPG

b: display of directories contained in the computer
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3064699/la_podrida/b.JPG

c: hard disk of the rotten machine with the fingerprint of its owner,
brian mackern
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3064699/la_podrida/c.JPG

d: some of the stickers on the computer
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3064699/la_podrida/d.JPG

e: keys that are missing, the reason why this computer is also called
*the toothless old thing*
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3064699/la_podrida/e.JPG

f: way in which *the rotten machine* was exposed for auction in peam,
pescara (italy), 2004
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3064699/la_podrida/f.JPG

g: accompanying monster for the rotten machine during countless
tours, alongside with the backpack shown in the picture above
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3064699/la_podrida/g.JPG

h: the rotten machine working, during the exhibition for its auction
at peam, pescara (italy), 2004
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3064699/la_podrida/h.JPG

Sound set up by Beatrix*Jar, combines hacked battery operated toys with prerecorded samples played on a vintage Denon CD-DJ machine.

On January 23, I attended a circuit bending workshop at Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) taught by the experimental music duo, Beatrix*jar.  The hacking session was organized specifically for teenagers, who were more than ready to open up battery operated instrumental toys to release the ghost in the machine.

Another shot of Beatrix*Jar’s set up.

I was interested in attending the event in order to get a sense of how teenagers in a time of  inter-connectivity relate to low-tech hacking.  I left the museum with a positive reaction as I confirmed that tinkering is not a trend but a constant creative staple for generations of the past, present, and future.

Video of Beatrix*Jar’s six minute improvisational performance

The session began with a six minute performance by the sound art collective,  which clearly got the young hackers excited about the possibilities of circuit bending.  Beatrix*Jar, who have a background in art, are quick to claim that when they got started they had no music training.  This was their way of saying “anyone can do it!”  They complemented their demos with historical information, and encouraged participants to read Reed Ghazala’s Extreme Tech Circuit Bending.

A hacked Casio keyboard.  The on/off switches on the sides add customized sounds found by benders who participate in the ongoing workshop sessions held at different venues by Beatrix*Jar.

After explaining the beginnings of circuit bending, they quickly moved to demonstrating how to open up the toys, and find unexpected sounds.

Opening the gadgets to release the ghost in the machine.  Circuit bending frenzy at its best.

Gabrielle Wyrick, Education Curator, who kindly hosted me for the afternoon, explained that the workshops for teenagers are part of a program set up to encourage kids of all ages to realize that the museum is a place to visit and learn, interact, have fun, and most of all be creative.  Workshops like these, Wyrick explained are at times held for adults as well.  It appears that the concept of interactivity is finding its way everywhere, even to institutions such as museums that in the past posed as monolithic entities.  A good thing this is, as Wyrick explains that the MCASD wants to embrace audience involvement. The museum is redefining itself as a place which searches for ways to reveal the creative process in visitors, who can experiment with similar strategies that inform the creative drive of artists who actually have exhibits in the museum.

Beatrix*Jar explain how to hack battery operated instrumental toys.

For me it was a treat to see a hacking duo having a lot of fun with second-hand gadgets that can be found at any garage sale.  Creativity is the best value money can’t buy.

Image and text source: NYTimes

AS dangerous as it may be to generalize, it is probably safe to say that few folks think of Marcel Proust as they watch the Super Bowl. But for the advertising bowl that took place inside Super Bowl XLIV on Sunday, it was one long remembrance of things past — with candy bars, mobile phones and beer bottles standing in for madeleines.

Nostalgia is a critical component of the pitches from sponsors on Super Bowl Sunday. After all, the best way to appeal to a mass audience of 100 million or so Americans is usually to fill spots with paeans to the past along with catchy music, stars, special effects, talking babies and endearing animals.

Even so, the salutes on Sunday to bygone eras reached a peak perhaps not seen since the last time Fonzie said “Ayyyy” on “Happy Days.” The reason is, of course, the economy and the belief along Madison Avenue that tough times call for familiarity rather than risks.

How retro was Super Bowl XLIV? Let us count the ways it resembled Super Bowl XXXIV, XXIV, XIV and even IV:

Read the entire article at NYTimes

Image and text source: Make

Welcome to definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2009. First up – What is open source hardware? These are projects in which the creators have decided to completely publish all the source, schematics, firmware, software, bill of materials, parts list, drawings and “board” files to recreate the hardware – they also allow any use, including commercial. Similar to open source software like Linux, but this hardware centric.

Each year we do a guide to all open source hardware and this year there are over 125 unique projects/kits in 19 categories, up from about 60 in 2008, more than doubling the projects out there! – it’s incredible! Many are familiar with Arduino (shipping over 100,000 units, estimated) but there are many other projects just as exciting and filled with amazing communities – we think we’ve captured nearly all of them in this list. Some of these projects and kits are available from MAKE others from the makers themselves or other hardware manufacturers – but since it’s open source hardware you can make any of these yourself, start a business, everything is available, that’s the point.

This year, I am asking for your help – the Open source hardware page on Wikipedia is missing more projects that it actually has total at the moment. If any readers out there want to help out, review all the projects we’ve listed and please add them to the Wikipedia page so it’s a more complete resource. Also, many projects on the Wikipedia page are not “Open source hardware” but that will likely be debated, at the least – all of the projects in this guide are considered open source hardware by those who actually does open source hardware it seems.

Read the entire article at Make

Originally published on December 15, 2009 on Seed Magazine

by Lee Billings

In April 1965, a young researcher named Gordon Moore wrote a short article for the now-defunct Electronics Magazine pointing out that each year, the number of transistors that could be economically crammed onto an integrated circuit roughly doubled. Moore predicted that this trend of cost-effective miniaturization would continue for quite some time.

Two years later Moore co-founded Intel Corporation with Robert Noyce. Today, Intel is the largest producer of semiconductor computer chips in the world, and Moore is a multi-billionaire. All this can be traced back to the semiconductor industry’s vigorous effort to realize Moore’s prediction, which is now known as “Moore’s Law.”

There are several variations of Moore’s Law—for instance, some formulations measure hard disk storage, while others concern power consumption or the size and density of components on a computer chip. Yet whatever their metric, nearly all versions still chart exponential growth, which translates into a doubling in computer performance every 18 to 24 months. This runaway profusion of powerful, cheap computation has transformed every sector of modern society—and has sparked utopian speculations about futures where our growing technological prowess creates intelligent machines, conquers death, and bestows near-omniscient awareness. Thus, efforts to understand the limitations of this accelerating phenomenon outline not only the boundaries of computational progress, but also the prospects for some of humanity’s timeless dreams.

Read the entire article at Seed Magazine

Image source: YouTube

An interesting discussion on the work of Cindy Sherman takes place between Judith Butler and a gallery host. Butler discusses the representation and questioning of vulnerability of women in Sherman’s work, and also shares the formal pleasures she finds in the works of art.  The subtitles are in French, and the discussion is in German; most of the documentary is in English with French subtitles. The segment on Sherman begins around 3:10 and carries over to later segments.  I find this documentary excerpt worth noting because it offers a rare moment when a philosopher discusses works of art casually, yet with careful analysis.

I find some of Butler’s premises on performativity to run parallel with the development of Remix, and to be potentially useful to evaluate current concepts on cultural mixing.  I say this without claiming that her work could be directly linked to Remix as discourse, but rather that a paradigmatic reflection on her ideas can be helpful in understanding the cultural variables in which remix culture plays out. Not sure how long the documentary may stay on YouTube, but here are the links for future convenient access:

Judith Butler, Philosopher of Gender:

Part 1 of 6:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q50nQUGiI3s
2 of 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTz-_YeUIUg&NR=1
3 of 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALx1MEW2P3U&NR=1
4 of 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALx1MEW2P3U&NR=1
5 of 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHVugezilG8&NR=1
6 of 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv2aCF2Okz8&NR=1

Figure 1: A function f and its Fourier transform F(f). Both the function and its Fourier transform are complex-valued, but in graphs like this only the magnitudes of the functions are shown.

Image source; http://idav.ucdavis.edu/~okreylos/PhDStudies/
Winter2000/SamplingTheory.html

Note: An online page I discovered, which was last updated, apparently in Winter of 2000.  It provides a good introduction to the theoretical aspects of sampling.

———-

This document is a short overview of some aspects of sampling theory which are essential for understanding the problems of Volume Rendering, which can be viewed as nothing but resampling a data set obtained from sampling some unknown function.

Prerequisite for this document is a basic understanding of Fourier Analysis on an intuitive level. You have to know that a function f(x) in the spatial (or time) domain has a counterpart F(f) in the frequency domain. Any function satisfying some simple properties can be written as a weighed sum of harmonic functions (shifted and scaled sine curves), and (F(f))(s), called the Fourier transform or spectrum of f, gives the weight of the harmonic function of frequency s in f.

Read the entire text

Image source: Renditions

Images still from
Vicent van Gogh, 1833 – 1890
Self-portrait With a Straw Hat, 1887
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Footage taken on March 2009

I’m officially making available online an ongoing video project, which was started in March 2009:http://navasse.net/renditions/
More videos to be uploaded periodically so make sure to check my main website from time to time.

Excerpt from the project page:

RENDITIONS “The Museum Series” offers a perspective on how works of art are displayed in museums.

Each video project explores the relation of video footage and photo-stills. This formal juxtaposition is designed to offer an open-ended reading of the visitor’s relation to the work of art.

Jeremy Douglass (left) and Lev Manovich (far right) demonstrate how to analyze data on the Hyper Wall at Calit2.

The Cultural Analytics seminar took place at Calit2 on December 16 and 17 of 2009.  The event brought together researchers and students from Bergen University and University of California San Diego.  The two day event consisted of research presentations and demos of software tools.

Part One of Hyper Wall Demonstration during Cultural Analytics Seminar at Calit2, San Diego, December 16-17, 2009.  Introduction to principles of Cultural Analytics.

I will not spend much time in this entry defining Cultural Analytics.  This subject has been well covered by excellent blogs such as Open Reflections.  For this reason, at the end of this entry I include a number of links to resources that focus on Cultural Analytics.  Instead, I will briefly share what I believe Cultural Analytics offers to researchers in the humanities.

Part Two of Hyper Wall Demonstration during Cultural Analytics Seminar at Calit2, San Diego, December 16-17, 2009.  Analysis of Vertov’s motion in scenes from Man with a Movie Camera.

This emerging field can be defined as a hybrid practice that utilizes tools of quantitative analysis often found in the hard sciences for the enhancing of qualitative analysis in the humanities.  The official definition of the term follows:

Cultural analytics refers to a range of quantitive and analytical methodologies drawn from the natural and social sciences for the study of aesthetics, cultural artifacts and cultural change. The methods include data visualization techniques, the statistical analysis of large data sets, the use of image processing software to extract data from still and moving video, and so forth. Despite its use of empirical methodologies, the goals of cultural analytics generally align with those of the humanities.

One thing that separates the humanities from the hard sciences is the emphasis of qualitative over quantitative analysis.  In very general terms qualitative analysis is often used to evaluate the how and why of particular case studies, while quantitative analysis focuses on patterns and trends, that may not always be concerned with social or political implications.

Part Three of Hyper Wall Demonstration during Cultural Analytics Seminar at Calit2, San Diego, December 16-17, 2009. Jeremy Douglass analyzes comic books.

What Cultural Analytics is doing, in my view, is bringing together qualitative and quantitative analysis for the interests of the humanities.  In a way Cultural Analytics could be seen as a bridge between specialized fields that in the past have not always communicated well.

Consequently, when new ground is being explored, questions of purpose are bound to emerge, which is exactly what happened during seminar conversations.  As the videos that accompany this brief entry will demonstrate, the real challenge is for researchers in the humanities to engage not only with Cultural Analytics tools and envision how such tools can enhance their practice, but to actually embrace new philosophical approaches that blur the lines between the hard sciences and the humanities.

Part Four of Hyper Wall Demonstration during Cultural Analytics Seminar at Calit2, San Diego, December 16-17, 2009. Cicero Da Silva explains his collaborative project, Macro.

To be specific on the possibilities that Cultural Analytics offers to the humanities, I will cite two demonstrations by Lev Manovich and Jeremy Douglass.

Lev Manovich at one point presented Hamlet by William Shakespeare in its entirety on Calit2’s Hyper Wall, which consists of several screens that enable users to navigate data at a very high resolution.

When seeing the entire text at once, one is likely to realize that this methodology is more like mapping.  To this effect, soon after, we were shown a version of the text in which Manovich had isolated the repetition of certain words throughout the literary work.

This approach could be used by a literature scholar to study certain linguistic strategies, such as sentence structure, by an author.  Let’s take this a step further and say that it has been agreed that a contemporary author is influenced by a canonical writer.  How this supposed influence takes effect can be evaluated by studying certain patterns of sentences from both authors by isolating parts of literary texts for direct comparison. One could then evaluate if the supposed influence is formal, conceptual or both: perhaps the contemporary author might make ideological references that are clearly linked to the canonical author, but which are not necessarily influenced at a formal level; or it could be the other way around, or both.  In this case, quantitative and qualitative analysis are combined to evaluate a case study.  In other words, pattern comparison is used to understand the similarities and differences between two or more works of literature.

To this effect, Jeremy Douglass’s presentation of a comic book is important.  He explained how by seeing an entire publication of a comic book story one can study how certain patterns in the narrative come to define the aesthetics for the reader.

While the reader may be able to experience the story in time, by actually reading it,  the visualization of the comic book in grid-like fashion–as a structural map–allows the researcher to apply analysis of patterns and trends that may be more common in flows of networks to an actual narrative.  Again, in this case we find quantitative and qualitative analysis complementing each other.

As noted at the end of the article “Culture is Data” (also provided below) from Open Reflections, it appears that Manovich is at times understood to argue that one should privilege quantitative over qualitative analysis.  This proposition implies an either or mentality by certain researchers that needs to be reevaluated.  Janneke Adema explains his answer better than I ever could:

But, on the other hand, won’t we loose a sense of meaning if we analyze culture like a thing? Manovich argues that this is of course a complementary method, we should not throw away our other ways of establishing meaning. It is a way of expanding them. And it is also an important expansion, for how is one going to ask about the meaning of large datasets? We need to combine the traditionally [sic]humanities approach of interpretation with digital techniques to find out more. And again, meaning is not the only thing to look at. It is also about creating an experience. Patterns are the new real of our society.

The most important thing to understand when evaluating the videos available with this entry is that one need not have a hyper wall to do research with Cultural Analytics methodologies; many of the tools can run on a personal computer.  It’s more about adopting an attitude and willingness to do research by way of combining quantitative and qualitative analysis.  At the moment I am evaluating the implementation of Cultural Analytics in my research on Remix.

References worth perusing:

Cultural Analytics Seminar Schedule: http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2009/11/cultural-analytics-seminar-software.html

Software Studies, Website: http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2008/09/cultural-analytics.html

“Culture is Data,” article: http://openreflections.wordpress.com/2009/05/23/culture-is-data/

Culture Vis, Website: http://culturevis.com/cultural_analytics.html

“Cultural Analytics,” Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_analytics

“The Next Big Thing in Humanities, Arts and Social Science Computing: Cultural Analytics,” article: http://www.hpcwire.com/features/The_Next_Big_Thing_in_Humanities_Arts_and_Social_Science_Computing_Cultural_Analytics.html

“Lev Manovich: Studying Culture With Search Algorithms,” article: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/query/tag/cultural-analytics/

“Cultural Analytics: a new field that combines arts, media and IT,” article: http://knowledge.smu.edu.sg/article.cfm?articleid=1201