What is a mashup?

Great video on mashups:
http://www.superclips.tv/watchthis/ZRcP2CZ8DS8/what-is-a-mashup—zdnet.html

Zooming in on narrative

This shot in the 1988 film Drowning by Numbers is wonderful. By slowly zooming-in, director Peter Greenaway guides us through the scene by moving us from the foreground, to the mid-ground and finally the background, revealing different aspects of the narrative along the way.

This reminded me of an excellent article on  ZUIs (Zoomable User Interfaces) and an iPhone app called Shadows Never Sleep , a “zoom narrative”. Interesting interface solutions that I’d like to explore further.

motion + sound

Here’s an article in the New York Times about Chicago sculptor Nick Cave’s Soundsuits:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/arts/design/05fink.html?_r=1

Interactive exhibit at Milwaukee Art Museum

Found this in CNN: Act/React: Interactive Installation Art has opened at the Milwaukee Art Museum and is on view through January 11, 2009. The exhibit includes work by the following artists: Brian Knep, Janet Cardiff, Liz Phillips, Daniel Rozin, Scott Snibbe and Camille Utterback. Sounds like an interesting show.

South Station Solari Board for sale

The Boston Globe reported today that the Solari departure board that makes that clicking noise at South Station is going to be sold on ebay; starting bid will be $500. It’s been replaced by an LCD board that plays a pre-recorded clicking noise so people will know when something has changed; kind of like the shutter noise that’s included in digital SLR cameras so people know when they’ve taken a shot.

I remember seeing these boards at airports when I was a kid – one of the many interesting things that you could find at an airport. You can still find them at some airports but it’s definately the end of an era.

I actually considered doing this for my Analog to Digital project; if I’d only known they’d be selling it, it would have made for one helluva prop at my final presentation!

Mapping?

Video games & reading

With my research project comparing D&D (analog) to WoW (digital), this New York Times caught my eye; it illustrates several efforts to use video games as both a way of getting children interested in books and as a learning tool: Using Video Games as Bait to Hook Readers

Computer Art

So I was listening to a brief segment on Studio 360 about Computer Art which focused on Jonathan Carroll, a collector of New Media/Computer Art (the two names were used interchangeably) and the very slow acceptance of the traditional arts community to embrace this art form. [You can listen to it here]. 

I was especially interested in several works that were described; turns out they were all by the same artist: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. You can check out his projects at his site. Two projects that stood out for me: Frequency and Volume, where users can tune in to radio stations and adjust the volume using their projected shadow; and Subtitled Public, where words are projected onto people who enter the installation.

Two more links: Bitforms Gallery in NYC which focuses exclusively on New Media, and a video of Daniel Rozin’s Weave Mirror and Peg Mirror. Here’s more of Rozin’s work with mirrors.

The Dreams of Antigone

Marisa and I got free tickets to see The Dreams of Antigone (based on Sophocle’s Antigone) at Trinity Rep in Providence. In a sense, the play reminded me of our analog/digital research project; this was a contemporary adaptation of an ancient Greek tragedy. The role of the chorus was actually taken on by the actors who weren’t delivering lines. The chorus would do vocalizations and sound effects, such as wind noise, throughout the play.

The result was a very powerful, engaging and emotionally-charged production that made the story fresh and as relevant today as it was in Greece in 400 BC.