« November 2007 | Main | January 2008 »
A guy I met today turned me on to this operation: http://www.redinkstudios.com/
They "squat" in abandoned office space - putting on art shows - until they're leased.
Great way to vitalize abandoned space, give artists more wall, and help the owner promote the space for rent. Clever name to boot.
Was talking to a friend about her company's declining availability of computing power. They need more of it. They have reports that take days to crunch and they need more power. They're going to build out infrastructure and make code cleaner.
What if they used the Seti@Home model within large corporations? What if the spare cycles of every laptop at a big company like Oracle was available to run an ad-hoc calculation? It could dramatically increase available computing power while reducing consumption of power and additional servers. Wonder if anyone is working on this?
Am reading a great book called "Art & Physics" which talks about revolutionary art that changes how we perceive the world. Has got me thinking about a potential art project - which is not revolutionary, but could influence:
Data - it's all around us all the time. It's in the air that surrounds us. As we walk on the surface of the earth data travels through us and around us. When I walk down mission street, dozens of encoded conversations pass through me in the wireless frequencies. Someone may be downloading porn and a bit representing part of a boob passes through my arm. Another person sends an email to their uncle and some of those bits go through my leg.
What if you could see this world of data - visualize it as it passes through and around you? What if all of these private moments and communiques were exposed and we saw the air as a heavy substance. Full with the stuff that drives our economy and social lives.
Our densely populated areas rich (or polluted, depending on your perspective), with this stuff. Our high mountains with thin air, perhaps also thin with data.
Could this visualization drive a greater consciousness towards our atmosphere? Does it make this thin band of air that sustains us more valuable by making it seem more used, less available, and perhaps more polluted? Could it spur a greater environmental consciousness? Or perhaps more attention to the auctioning of wireless spectrum by our government to private entities. Does it make spectrum seem more like a public good? Does it change how we feel when we walk through the world?
added 12/31/07:
my brother's girfriend just sent me this link about NPR. It's a pirate radiostation/performance group. Ties into some of the above ideas - the loss of our local airwaves to people who don't live, necessarily, in our communities.
added 01/21/08:
came across this apropos passage in Art & Physics by Leonard Schlain (the best book I have ever read):
p. 286: "Because of music's transubstantiation into light, space has contracted like an accordion, and a vast, invisible electromagnetic net has been silently case over all of humankind. Wherever we move, wherever we go, we are immersed in this gossamer veil we cannot see, smell, taste, or hear. It appears to travel with impunity right through our bones, heart, and brains. Every cubic foot of space on this planet is alive with the scintillating dance of crisscrossing electromagnetic waves carrying broadcasts of every imaginable kind of music, language, and message. To borrow an idiom of the 1960's, we need only to "turn on and tune in."
I've been thinking a lot about this idea since penning this post. How do we tune in. What does tuning in look like? What is the significance of tuning in - how does it change our perception - what implication could it have for our behavior, if any?
added 01.29.08:
couldn't sleep last night thinking about an implementation for this idea. a giant canvas adorned with a CNC machine connected to the equivalent of an ink jet, but for paint - an RGB paint jet. detectors in the room for all kinds of electromagnetic waves. the algorithm can be changed to paint different styles according to wave. eg: speech to text prints spoken words to the canvas; Bluetooth interpreter prints names of devices seeking connections; cell listener prints a pattern that indicates direction of tower and strength of signal. Other implementations could be done for air quality, luminescence, or any other kind of detection. These pieces could be orchestrated or left to pick up the natural happenings. They could be conducted for limited times or extended times. A representation of a given place, time, direction. Canvases could be signed and sold when done. Could contrast electromagnetic signature of Himalayas to San Francisco.
added 02.20.08:
had idea last night about "data steam" - like steam rising from people's heads, but comprised of data about them - an enhanced reality data visualization that would work in a room - see things about things as you walk through the world - these are navigable streams - visually navigable
I came up with this method for digitally signing objects early last summer - thought I'd share it b/c i think it's pretty cool. Check out this hat, for example:
Rollover the tag. It will show that it belongs to me. If you view source and copy the code and put it on your website, it will still say it belongs to me. There's no way to hack this hat (unless you hack my server). Hat no. 262 will always belong to me, b/c it goes and gets the info for the tag from my database. I've given away 1000s of these digital hats (and a set of Ginsu-like knives) as a secret prize for signing up for my www.dvolver.com web site - and each one is owned by an individual. Someone else can put the hat on their web site, but it will always show that you own it.
You could do the same thing with an object d'art or whathaveyou.
Speak of the devil - this guy has done it - but hack-style.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw
In a recent post I wrote about the 3d camera that tracked your body's motion to give you a more visceral control of your computer environment. Johnny Lee, in his unassuming and crystal clear presentation describes how to hack your Wii to do the same thing.
Reading an article in SF Magazine, "A Collectors Guide to the Exploding Art Market" Jan2008, you'd think that the art market was about to explode. Too bad they don't give a lot of backup to their assertions. Some tidbits:
* internet and art faires have completely altered how we buy art
* art has become a 'scene' - vs. just for art alone (i've written about this topic in previous posts)
* prices have doubled and trebled
* "when someone graduated with an MFA, you could buy a piece of his or her artwork for $5K. Now it's closer to $50K" - ha ha - what world are they living in? Let me introduce you to a bunch of starving post-MFAs
* many local galleries make 1/3rd of their revenue online. wow, i'd like to see the backup for this.
* more stories about how art at fairs is presold and there's nothing left.
Interesting sentiments throughout this story from gallery owners who are surprised that people are buying art on the basis of a "JPEG" - which indicates to me that a) the online art market is still operating on a very low-tech plane and b) that even on this low-tech plane, the story is good enough and information available enough that people will drop $20K for pieces seen only online. Imagine if there was a more compelling and immersive environment for viewing art online.
WSJ article today about video game controllers that are more intuitive (and active) a la the Wii. Interesting note in there about how a 3D camera (3DV) tracks your body movement resulting in a more accurate body movement based interface - that can be used to control avatars in virtual worlds. This kind of thing sure would solve one of the biggest problems I see with vworlds - intuitively navigating the space. But, really, who is going to buy these things? Gamers and enthusiasts. Unless they're built into monitors, they don't solve the problem. Better to make more easily navigated virtual worlds.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119862811807649753.html?mod=psp_editors_picks
This is pretty interesting - the Met has set up a website to ask patrons to tag its art collection (thanks to SmartMobs for the tip). Really smart idea, not only to develop a trove of data about its pieces, but also to engage it's patrons on a new level - at some point, they could produce an exhibit based on this data - which would be a sort of curation by the populace - a folksshow - ok, that's a dumb term.
If I were them, next step is: allow people to read and set tags as they wander the museum using their mobile phones. Create a cell phone app that allows people to navigate the entire museum according to a short questionnaire about their preferences - matching their keywords with these tags and guiding them via GPS.
