Personalized advertizing on mobile TV
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Last Wednesday December 13th BBC’s Newnight had an item about personalized advertizing on mobile tv. You can find it here
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Writing a book online and facilitating a discussion around it seems to be very popular these days. McKenzie Wark is working on GAM3R 7H30RY which will be published by Harvard University Press in April 2007, and it will contain contributions from readers of his site. Readers are discussing and participating in the writing process and the networked book is born. The Institute for the Future of the Book is concerned with issues around “the book’s reinvention in a networked environment.” (( IFB ))
I don’t know about you, but this makes me quite jealous…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNF_P281Uu4
Matt is a 29-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. He achieved this goal pretty early and enjoyed it for a while, but eventually realized there might be other stuff he was missing out on. In February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he’d saved to wander around the planet until it ran out. He made this site so he could keep his family and friends updated about where he is.
A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt the idea of dancing everywhere he went and recording it on his camera. This turned out to be a very good idea. Now Matt is quasi-famous as “That guy who dances on the internet. No, not that guy. The other one. No, not him either. I’ll send you the link. It’s funny.”
http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/about.html
You don’t need your computer to, y’know, use your computer. Surely there are some nice hacks for this that allow people to get around firewalls and censorware.. Link
By the way, if you look at the article, take note of the spectacular ‘stock photo’ they use to convey the meaning of remote access – I think such photos are an insult to the reader’s intelligence, and propose that if you just have to have a picture in there when it’s unnecessary, at least make it a photo an image (and I do media theory) of Ralph.
Off-Screen presents: A day out of the life of a Game Researcher, an analysis of the moral panic surrounding games.
This wednesday Off-Screen, the student board (?) of Mediastudies at the UvA organizes a David Nieborg lecture for people interested in what games are, hoe they are being researched and which controversies surround this fascinating (new) medium. Be there!
Place: CREA Theather Time: 20.00 Damage: None!
A N N O U N C E M E N T
Public Authoring – from the margins to the centre
Virtueel Platform Workshop with Giles Lane, 13th December 2006
at the Digital Heritage Conference 2006 – Interactive Heritage
Time: 1.30 pm – 3.15 pm
Location: W2 Platezaal, De Doelen, Rotterdam
(more…)
“If only we’d known that iPods would unite and overthrow the very humans they entertained…” From The Plastic Bag
In addition to Heleen’s list of interesting locative media websites: you might have come across the article in De Volkskrant of December 7th that reported how easy it is to search for webcams through Google. Many webcams are, of course, mounted for the global public display of locations through the Internet. But there are also quite a lot of webcams trained on places that are not meant for the general public to see, like research laboratories, schools, or on semi public places where one would like to have a bit of privacy, like libraries, bars and lounges for instance.
On the website ‘Voelspriet.nl‘ you can find the commands you have to feed into Google.
Another website is ‘Camorati.com – Unveiling the Unprotected Live Webcam Streams‘. And that is what it does.
A while back I promised to become the first bum on second life, but it seems someone has beat me to it. The NGO Mensajeros de la Paz has created a homeless, teenage avatar to raise awareness (and money?) for abandoned and abused children in developing countries.
Not trying to take anything away from this initiative, but I do wonder how Second Life keeps getting press.. who are the real world avatars that make it such a big deal? There are those that point to new opportunities for experimentation with identity, and those that emphasize the ‘real world consequences’ like making (or losing) money.. I dunno, in both cases Second Life isn’t especially new, is it?
At picnic ’06 there were marketing executives that were very happy about ’embracing’ second life so soon. Maybe we could go ahead and start a Second Life backlash (which, barring a YouTube-like sale, is probably the only real measure of success on the Web)?
I have found a couple of interesting locative media websites/ articles/ blogs:
These involve geotracing:
Location based mobile phone games (pervasive gaming):
- http://www.in-duce.net/archives/locationbased_mobile_phone_games.php#more
- http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/
- http://www.pervasive-gaming.org/index_swf.html
Article about botfighters, a mobile (location based) multi user game (/pervasive game):
Mobile pacman game:
Blogs:
I found these reviews of Alexander Galloway’s book very helpfull. Hopefully there of some use for y’all as well!
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=290
http://www.villagevoice.com/arts/0415,halter,52589,12.html
http://rccs.usfca.edu/bookinfo.asp?ReviewID=307&BookID=260
http://www.dyske.com/index.php?view_id=857&search_wp=galloway
You should really check out Photosynth, a new piece of software which creates 3d models using regular 2d photos of a certain object, for instance San Marco square in Venice. No I’m not biased! ;-) This thing really rocks…
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Recommended:
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Gerard Goggin. Cell Phone Culture: Mobile Technology in Everyday Life. London and New York: Routledge, 2006. |
> ————————————————-
> UbuWeb: The YouTube of the Avant-Garde
> ————————————————-
> UbuWeb has converted all of its rare and out-of-print film & video
> holdings to on-demand streaming formats a la YouTube, which means that
> you can view everything right in your browser without
> platform-specific software or insanely huge downloads. We offer over
> 300 films & videos from artists such as Vito Acconci, Pipilotti Rist,
> Jean Genet, The Cinema of Transgression, Richard Foreman, Shuji
> Terayama, Jack Smith, Carolee Schneeman, John Lennon and hundreds
> more. Presented in conjunction with our partners at Greylodge.
>
> http://ubu.com/film/
>
> UBUWEB IS ENTIRELY FREE
ubu operates much as youtube: put stuff up without permission and keep it up unless someone objects. there was an interesting article in macleans a couple of weeks ago about youtube. they pointed out that other outfits very similar to youtube haven’t done so well because they were more concerned with copyright issues.
The Innovation Lab 2006 winner of the 10.000 euro price for further development is Blendid. Chairman of the jury, Frank Alsema, presented the price to David Kousemaker and Tim Olden, with their project ‘Sound World: Audio-Augmented Experiences’. This Innovation Lab has been realized by Media Guild assigned by ICTRegie.
Projects description:
Walk around in real life and enter a magical world as you hear your surroundings come to life. Audio-augmented experiences offer users a natural and intuitive way to tap into extra layers of meaning in their environment. It enables the user to navigate audible information by simply walking through a space. Sound World aims to implement these experiences in the context of cultural institutions. However, in the near future this medium could be of use to anyone that wants to provide new and exiting ways to convey content.
Day 4 is the last day before the big pitch on Friday. Frank Boyd introduces the day with a session on what to think about in the presentation. Today is about pitching. Pitching is about inner preparation, outer preparation, clarification and thinking about the question: at what point did the project pitch you? After this short session the teams go back to work and prepare their presentations. Today all experts are again available for the teams. Frank Boyd and Huib Schwab visit each team for a first rehearsal and to talk about inner drive and values.
During day 3 and 4 the teams work on their own project. The experts visit the teams during the day to give personal feedback. On day 3 a special guest accompanies the expert group: chairman of the jury Frank Alsema . Day 3 is focused on the question: What is the big idea of the project? The teams are encouraged to think big, but start small. This means on the one hand being very specific and focused in your presentation of the project, and on the other dare to dream about wider uses and implications of the project. The ideas of the projects are to be communicated with visualizations in the form of prototypes, in other words, how to tell a short story with prototypes.
Other topics that are addressed today are technological and business factors that should be addressed in the pitch. The teams are asked to think about whom they’re pitching for – this week it is an expert jury – and why the jury should be persuaded to give money to their project. Why should they select your project and not someone else’s? To persuade the jury the teams are advised to address what their plans are with the money. What is the next step in the project after the pitch? The aim is to make the jury enthusiastic for the project. Furthermore, the teams should address what’s innovative about their project, although it is important not to go too much into detail, especially technological details. Layers of detail can be added in the questions the jury is going to ask after the pitch. The pitch should cover content, technology, and place in the market.
Day 2 is about users. More specifically today is about understanding and applying user centered design methods. Tracy Currer is leading today’s session. Tracy Currer is an interaction design consultant and is an experienced guide in innovative processes.
The purpose of today is two-folded. The first aim is to get into the mind and shoes of the target users; the second is to pitch it in 5 minutes at the end of the day. To get into the mind of the target users, it is important to define who they are, how the project is going to fit into their lives, and how it is going to enhance the user’s life.
Resistant Maps,
artistic actions in the interconnected urban territory.
Villa Croce Contemporary Art Museum,
via Jacopo Ruffini 3, Genoa (Italy)
25-26 November 2006
Resistant Maps, artistic actions in the interconnected urban territory is a conference and exhibition produced by the ‘Leonardi V-Idea’ Association (Genoa, Italy) and curated by Alessandro Ludovico, Gianfranco Pangrazio, Tommaso Tozzi, Marco Villani.
The representation of territory holds a historical role in the privileges of power. Geographical data has always been in its hands. The regaining of this representation goes through description and sharing practices (often in personal perspectives too). This is possible thanks to collaborative tools and the consequent value shifting of maps. Maps are not granted anymore by structures of power, but built by individuals who, drawing on the ideas of the psychogeographical movements, redraw the urban space according to fresh new coordinates.
Galloway’s Protocol addresses how control exists after decentralization, that is, in specific places where decentralization is done and gone and distribution has set in as the dominant network diagram. Galloway suggests protocol is an answer for that.
In part I of the book Galloway states that the protocols that underlie the Internet are not politically neutral. They regulate physical media, sculpt cultural formations, and exercise political control. In part III Galloway comes back to this point. He writes that if the network itself is political from the start, then any artistic practice within that network must engage political or feign ignorance.
So my question is, what is the dominant political ideology that is embedded in protocols that underlie the Internet?
Day 1 is introduction day. What projects are participating in Innovation Lab? Who are the teams? Why are they participating? What are the goals of the projects? And how are they going to achieve these goals? Expert in innovative processes, Frank Boyd, is leading today’s session.
On the 16th of November in the year of the Fire Dog, a German bloke named Julian Raul Kücklich visited an ugly building in Amsterdam called the P.C. Hoofthuis. This man, designated as one of the few worthy game theorists by Geert Lovink, spoke introductory words to us regarding the studying of games.
Mr. Kücklich started off restating the validity of game research, emphasizing their economical impact and how increasingly common it has become to regard them as media forms and cultural objects. What followed was a brief journey through game practices, genres, theoretical clashes and future approaches to game studies, all from the eyes of Kücklich’s home school, literary studies.
This week the Innovation Lab workshop ‘Broadband/HD’ takes place. Media Guild initiated this workshop week for ICTRegie in collaboration with EuroLAB and Unexpected Media. The focus is on generation and development of innovative cross-platform applications for optimum use of the Dutch broadband infrastructure. The newly renovated Zwijger Pakhuis in Amsterdam is the location for the Innovation Lab workshop. It is important that the workshop is residential in nature, in order to ensure that the participants can dedicate their time to the innovation process. There are 7 creative teams participating in the workshop. During the intensive week a number of specialists and mentors are available to guide the teams in their process with their expertise. The teams work toward a 10-minute pitch on Friday where they present their project proposals for a jury who selects a winning team. High potential projects are awarded a commission to further develop the project.
The topic of discussion at MyCreativity was to propose a new system of copyright that withstands the 21st century, respects the domains of knowledge and creativity, and provides artist with a worthy financial compensation. Joost Smiers has clearly thought about this thoroughly. His lecture was the most detailed and covered some important issues. In this blog post I will translate some of his thoughts.
The main point is that there needs to be an alternative for copyright that recognizes that because of the internet the world has changed drastically from how it was in the 19th century, the time when copyright was formed and with it the bizarre idea that the artist is a genius that thinks up all his creations by himself, almost in the name of God, and therefore is entitled to be the sole owner of his creations.