The Rhizome Digest merged into the Rhizome News in November 2008. These pages serve as an archive for 6-years worth of discussions and happenings from when the Digest was simply a plain-text, weekly email.

Subject: RHIZOME DIGEST: 8.8.07
From: digest@rhizome.org (RHIZOME)
Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 23:17:39 -0400
Reply-to: digest@rhizome.org
Sender: owner-digest@rhizome.org

RHIZOME DIGEST: August 8, 2007

Content:

+opportunity+
1. Atau Tanaka: Faculty Position at Culture Lab, Newcastle UK
2. tracy.fairclough AT fact.co.uk: Head Of Programme
3. Susan Ryan: CFP Social Fabrics
4. Franziska Schroeder: Lecturer in Music and Sonic Arts (Performance) Queen's University Belfast
5. R+D: Research Residencies at the Daniel Langlois Foundation's CR+D and at OBORO

+announcement+
6. Domenico Quaranta: Spawn of the Surreal - The blog
7. arc.pulso: inmerso cyberlounge performance inaugural Entropy8zuper!
8. ana otero: 16th International Electronic Art Festival_SESC Videobrasil
9. Brett Stalbaum: Silver Island Bunker Trail: Hike Like a Bot!

+review+
10. Eduardo Navas: [NMF] Review: Second Person

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1.



From: Atau Tanaka <tanaka AT csl.sony.fr>
Date: Aug 2, 2007
Subject: Faculty Position at Culture Lab, Newcastle UK

Lecturer in Digital Media, School of Arts and Cultures (working closely with the Culture Lab), GBP29,139 - 36,911 per annum (pro rata if 0.5 FTE - Full Time Equivalent)

Newcastle University is continuing its substantial investment in Digital Media with the appointment of a Lectureship (Assistant Professor rank) in Digital Media. The lectureship will be based in the School of Arts and Cultures and work closely with staff in Culture Lab. We are seeking to appoint a creative practitioner who has a strong, preferably international, profile in any field of Digital Media research and who has an interest in working across disciplinary boundaries. The post will help to stimulate and develop interdisciplinary agendas in both teaching and research being developed in Digital Media across the School, Faculty and University. You will have particular responsibilities for teaching on a new Digital Media MA planned to commence in 2008.

Working closely with the newly appointed Chair of Digital Media, the post will contribute to the University’s fostering of ground-breaking, practice-based research through innovative research agendas and projects. You will be expected to apply for, and attract external research funding (for example from research councils and industrial sources) at local, national and international level.

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/culturelab/

Appointment may be full-time or on a fractional basis (two people at 0.5 FTE).

Informal enquiries concerning the position can be made to
Atau Tanaka, Chair of Digital Media (tanaka AT csl.sony.fr)
Professor Peter Stone (Head of School of Arts and Cultures) on +44 (0)191 222 7095 (p.g.stone AT ncl.ac.uk)

Closing date: 28 August 2007

Reference no: B2113A
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/vacancies/vacancy.phtml?ref=B2113A

Answer phone: +44-191 222 8834

To apply for this position, send your CV, covering letter and completed employment record form, to: Team B, Human Resources, HASS Faculty Office, 7th Floor, Daysh Building, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU or email: a.stewart AT ncl.ac.uk

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Associated Content is the people's media company. We run a massive library of content where you can share your work and earn extra cash. Explore scores of articles, videos, essays, reviews, how-to's and contribute your own. Show what you know at www.associatedcontent.com/join/rhizome

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2.

From: tracy.fairclough AT fact.co.uk <tracy.fairclough AT fact.co.uk>
Date: Aug 2, 2007
Subject: Head Of Programme

With the appointment of new Director, Mike Stubbs, FACT enters an exciting phase in its history and prepares for Liverpools 2008 Capital of Culture. To develop this modern interdisciplinary agency, operating from a state of the art building, in an international context, FACT is now looking to recruit a number of exceptional individuals to join the team.

HEAD OF PROGRAMME
£28-£33K. FULL TIME, PERMANENT
A new senior management role responsible for the development and delivery, of a dynamic programme for FACT. Leading the programme team in the planning, co-ordination and resourcing of the exhibitions, collaborations and all associated events.


For more information or to request an application pack please email:
mailto:recruitment AT fact.co.uk or see our website: http://www.fact.co.uk/main/
aboutfact/jobs
Closing date for applications: Friday 17 August 2007
Interviews in Liverpool: w/c Monday 31 August 2007
We welcome applications from any individual regardless of ethnic origin, gender, disability, religious belief, sexual orientation or age.
All applications will be considered on merit.

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3.


From: Susan Ryan <susaneryan AT earthlink.net>
Date: Aug 2, 2007
Subject: CFP Social Fabrics

CFP: SOCIAL FABRICS - LEF Exhibition

http://www.socialfabrics.org

Submissions are invited for wearable technology proposals for an event-style exhibition of wearable technology art, to be held at the College Art Association 2008 Annual Meeting in Dallas, Texas.

Social Fabrics will explore artists' creative deployment of mobile, socially interconnective media as wearable attire or personal accoutrements. This event-style exhibition, curated by Patrick Lichty and Susan Ryan, will demonstrate convergences between fashion as expression/statement, and the phenomenology of "network culture." Works presented will include technological attire and accessories, as well as works that engage the implications of our contemporary media and fashion driven lifestyles.

Submitted works should be functional (not concept projects) and able to be withstand some level of demonstration by the time of the show. Designers (or their representatives) are expected to appear in person to present their work.
Please submit:
-Title of work
-Names and email addresses of all designers
-Brief description of work including
(1) How it interacts with others and/or creates or comments on the digitally enhanced social sphere;
(2) What technologies are utilized; and
(3) How it can be displayed at a modified runway style presentation; and
(4) Whether or not the artist or an agent (named) can commit to participating in the event in Dallas, Texas, on February 22.
-Photos/sketches/video of project and its presentation (if available)
-Indicate whether or not you would be willing to have visuals from your project appear on the exhibition website
Please email your submission as a single PDF (photos embedded) to:
mailto:info AT socialfabrics.org
Video can be sent separately or it can be viewed by us on a website, send URL.
Submission Deadline: October 15 midnight CST: The submissions will be committee reviewed and you will receive a notification on or before November 25.

The exhibition/event will take place on February 22. 2008 at the CAA 2008 Annual Meeting in Dallas, Texas.

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Organizational memberships with Rhizome

Sign your library, university or organization up for a Rhizome organizational membership! Give your community access to the largest online archives of digital art and new media art-related writing, the opportunity to organize member-curated exhibitions, participate in critical discussion, community boards, and learn about residency, educational and professional possibilities. Rhizome also offers subsidized memberships for qualifying institutions with limited access to the Internet. Please visit http://rhizome.org/info/org.php for more information or contact sales AT rhizome.org

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4.

From: Franziska Schroeder <franziska AT lautnet.net>
Date: Aug 3, 2007
Subject: Lecturer in Music and Sonic Arts (Performance) Queen's University Belfast

I am very sorry about multiple postings. It does not seem to have gone to the list beforehand

Exciting opportunity!
A new post has opened at the School of Music and Sonic Arts at Queen's University Belfast.
For this post, we are looking for a charismatic, dedicated and highly responsible performer who can undertake teaching and research in the area of performance, performance-practice or musicology and who will lead the school's performance programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate level.
Applicants are expected to have a PhD (or research/performance experience which can be regarded as equivalent) and teaching experience at tertiary level.

I would like to ask you to pass this on to people who may be interested in this post.
A detailed job description is available here:
http://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/QUBJobVacancies/JobDetails/?vac_no=07/100004&ref=07/100004

Please note that the deadline for this post is on the 17th of August already!

Thank you very much for your interest and time.
Best wishes, and please feel free to contact me about this post.
Franziska

__________________________________

dr f r a n z i s k a s c h r o e d e r
AHRC Research Fellow
Sonic Arts Research Centre
Queen's University Belfast

Tel. 028 9097 5423
Email: f.schroeder AT qub.ac.uk
www.lautnet.net
www.sarc.qub.ac.uk

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5.

From: CR+D <crd AT fondation-langlois.org>
Date: Aug 3, 2007
Subject: Research Residencies at the Daniel Langlois Foundation's CR+D and at OBORO

Grants for Researchers in Residence: Deadline September 30, 2007

The deadline for submission of research proposals for the Grants for Researchers in Residence Program is September 30, 2007.

The two research components include: CR+D documentary collections and archival fonds and Information architecture and online publishing. As in previous years, the Daniel Langlois Foundation will award two research grants for 2008. The proposals selected will allow researchers to work at the Foundation's Centre for Research and Documentation (CR+D).

An online application form is available on our Web site and must be used by all individuals wishing to apply for this program :
http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/index.php?Lstsrv=200708&NumPage=121

To view the list of researchers supported by the Foundation :
http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/index.php?Lstsrv=200708&NumPage=148


Research Residencies at OBORO: Deadline September 30, 2007

The project proposal submission deadline for Research and Experimentation Residencies in Montreal for Professional Artists from Emerging Countries or Regions is September 30, 2007.

The Daniel Langlois Foundation offers this program in collaboration with OBORO, an artist-run centre in Montreal. Two residency grants will be offered to professional artists from emerging countries. These grants aim to help the successful applicants in their research, experiments and project development, while allowing them to work in a different environment than their region or country of origin.

An online application form is available on our Web site and must be used by all individuals wishing to apply for this program:
http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/index.php?Lstsrv=200708&NumPage=516


2007 Researchers in Residence: Lizzie Muller and Caitlin Jones/Paul Kuranko

Lizzie Muller (Sydney, Australia) and Caitlin Jones and Paul Kuranko (New York, U.S.) are the 2007 recipients of the Researchers in Residence grant. Both residencies will examine the documentation methodologies of new media art while carrying out fieldwork at the exhibition Communicating Vessels: New Technologies and Contemporary Art - Ten Years of Accomplishments by the Daniel Langlois Foundation (e-art) presented at The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (September 20 - December 9, 2007). The residencies will be conducted at the Foundation's Centre for Research and Documentation (CR+D).

Lizzie Muller will be in Montreal from September to December 2007. Muller's residency will aim to champion the central role of human experience in the way we research and document new media art. Current projects supported by the Foundation will provide a dynamic testing ground for developing sound documentation practices and will form the basis for a valuable body of material:
http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/index.php?Lstsrv=200708&NumPage=1987

Jones and Kuranko will be in Montreal in September 2007. During their residency, they will undertake three case studies of artworks and will survey and assess the considerable amount of activity in the field of media art preservation and documentation:
http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/index.php?Lstsrv=200708&NumPage=1988

The researchers will make all findings available through the Daniel Langlois Foundation Web site.

For more information about the exhibition Communicating Vessels: New Technologies and Contemporary Art - Ten Years of Accomplishments by the Daniel Langlois Foundation (e-art):
http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/index.php?Lstsrv=200708&NumPage=2080


3rd DOCAM Annual Summit: Montreal, September 27, 2007

The Daniel Langlois Foundation is pleased to announce that the third annual Summit of the DOCAM Research Alliance (Documentation and Conservation of the Media Arts Heritage) will be held at The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts on September 27, 2007.

DOCAM is a major multidisciplinary research endeavour initiated by the Daniel Langlois Foundation in collaboration with numerous national and international partners and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

The third annual international Summit will provide an opportunity for members of the DOCAM research committees to begin presenting their research results delving into the challenges of preserving and documenting technology-based works of art.

Among the guest speakers slated to appear at the Summit are Richard Rinehart of the Berkeley Museum and Pacific Film Archives & Rina Pantalony from the Department of Justice Canada, Dieter Daniels, director of the Boltzmann Institute, and Canadian artist Stan Douglas.

For more information and the complete Summit program, please consult the Alliance's Web site at:
http://www.docam.ca/

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Rhizome.org 2006-2007 Net Art Commissions
The Rhizome Commissioning Program makes financial support available to artists for the creation of innovative new media art work via panel-awarded commissions.

For the 2006-2007 Rhizome Commissions, eleven artists/groups were selected to create original works of net art.
http://rhizome.org/commissions/

The Rhizome Commissions Program is made possible by support from the Jerome Foundation in celebration of the Jerome Hill Centennial, the Greenwall Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Additional support has been provided by members of the Rhizome community.

Rhizome 2008 Commissions Announced!
This year, eleven emerging artists/ collectives were awarded commissions in support of new works of Internet-based art. The projects include distributed sound experiments, visually compelling interactive images that blend the sublime and the ridiculous, and pioneering applications that encourage the flowering of creativity across commercial areas of the web. Follow the link below for descriptions of and links to the eleven winning proposals, which also includes our first-ever Community Award, a project designed to enhance participation and communication on Rhizome.
http://rhizome.org/commissions/2007/

The Rhizome Commissions program is supported, in part, by funds from the Greenwall Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Additional support is provided by generous individuals and Rhizome Members.

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6.

From: Domenico Quaranta <qrndnc AT yahoo.it>
Date: Aug 2, 2007
Subject: Spawn of the Surreal - The blog

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"We are all at the mercy of dream, and in the waking ours we have to suffer its power". La Révolution surréaliste, Issue 1, December 1924


Domenico Quaranta is pleased to announce "SPAWN OF THE SURREAL" (http://www.domenicoquaranta.net/blog/), his Second Life alter-ego's blog.

"SPAWN OF THE SURREAL. Travel notes of an art critic lost in the dumpster of the imaginary" will feature the considerations of an imaginary art critic who tries to make art in Second Life make sense to him and to the contemporary art audience. The idea came out from the fact that there are a lot of accounts about art in Second Life, but a little criticism; and that there isn't enough space for this subject on contemporary art magazine. Obviously, every comment and discussion will be welcome!


"Traveling without keeping memories of the travel is frustrating. I pile up pictures on my hard disk, but when I go back to them I don't remember what they are picturing, and when and where I shot them.
I entered Second Life some months ago, and for the first time I have more things to say than what I can usually pour in articles, reviews and exibitions. So, I came up with the idea of a blog - an idea always thrown away to the folder of the "NOT TO DO" things. At least till now...
But Spawn of the Surreal - the title coming from a celebrated performance by Second Front - doesn't want to keep just memories of my travels in Second Life. Lots of people are doing it, probably better then me. I'n not a reporter, I'm an art critic. I want to understand what art is, and what does it means to make art in a virtual world. Sisiphus, come with me. You have lots of experience to share about impossible jobs...
ART. Every time I go to an ART gallery, an ART museum; every time I meet a wannabe ART work, or a self-declared ARTIST in Second Life, I have to ask to myself: what's ART for me? In real life, we can accept everything with an art label as art. In Second Life, it's totally different. Out there the art spell is broken, victim of another spell. The aura breaks into fragments: shattered not by the collapse of the mystique of the artifact, but by the rise of a new mystique: that of the virtual world. How shall we rebuild it? Make your own bet!
I have my own idea about art in Second Life. For me, SL artists are the spawn of the surreal. What does it mean? That's my own bet: try to make it make sense..."

http://www.domenicoquaranta.net/blog/

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7.

From: arc.pulso <arcangel AT unosunosyunosceros.com>
Date: Aug 6, 2007
Subject: inmerso cyberlounge performance inaugural Entropy8zuper!

Cyberlounge

inmerso [ foro lounge ]

http://www.museotamayo.org/inmerso

El Cyberlounge del Museo Tamayo arte Contemporáneo
invita al performance inaugural de

e8z! Entropy8zuper!

miércoles 8 de agosto 2007
20:00 Horas
cd México

http://entropy8zuper.org/godlove/
http://tale-of-tales.com/

http://www.museotamayo.org/inmerso

Entropy8zuper! es un dúo de artistas que, en complejos ambientes virtuales, crean emociones a través de sofisticadas imágenes, sonidos evocativos y narrativas teológicas “ míticas “ en la red. Aureia Harvey y Michaël Samyn se unieron en 1999 en un intenso amor generado a través de su pasión por el medio electrónico. En Nueva York, Harvey era Entropy8 y en Bélgica, Samyn era conocido como Zuper!. Con sus creaciones de diseño web a través de la página http://entropy8zuper.org/godlove/ descubrieron el mundo que los interconectaba. Su historia sucedió en el servidor de hell.com, una fantasía pasional en línea que se extendió hacia la realidad.

if ( 1 + 1 == 1 ) { e8z = true; }

Su propuesta busca que el usuario experimente emotividad en la interacción con los diseños web de Entropy8Zuper!. Para los artistas, cuando las cosas empiezan a significar algo, cuando en los usuarios se desarrolla un sentimiento, es cuando el trabajo de los artistas también ha iniciado.

Actualmente, sus obras son clásicas del web-art, ejemplo de la intensidad de las relaciones en Dhtml. /Genesis/,/ /su primera obra como pareja esta integrada en

/godlove museum/ . /wirefire/ o /skinonskinonskin/, han estado presentes porlargo tiempo en la irrealidad de la red. Recientemente, Harvey y Samyn han incursionado en el desarrollo de videojuegos y ambientes experimentales a través de su página tale-of-tales.com. Específicamente, el proyecto /Endles Forest/ es un espacio multi-participativo, en el que un venado interactúa con otros usuarios venados mediante el lenguaje corporal; gracias a la red, quien participa en este videojuego habita temporalmente en un bosque repleto de sonidos atmosféricos, en donde con suerte se encontrará a las deidades creadoras de una mitología, cuya misión es dar ilusión a este mundo a partir de Abiogenesis.

E8Z

http://entropy8zuper.org/godlove/_

http://tale-of-tales.com/_

Entropy8zuper! is a duo of artists who generate emotions through sophisticated images, evocative sounds and mythic narratives set in complex virtual environments on the web. Aureia Harvey and Michaël Samyn bonded in 1999 thanks to an intense love born out of their passion for the medium. In New York, Harvey was Entropy8, while in Belgium Samyn was known as Zuper! With their web design creations uploaded on their page www.entropy8zuper http://www.entropy8zuper.org they discovered the world that bound them together. Their story unfolded on a server, hell.com, a passionate online personal fantasy that would take reality over.

if ( 1 + 1 == 1 ) { e8z = true; }

Their goal is that users experiment emotions through their interaction with the web designs of Entropy8Zuper! For these artists it is only when things start taking on meaning and feelings begin to arise in the user that their work commences.

Today their works are web-art classics, and an example of the intensity reached by relationships established in Dhtml. /Genesis/, their piece crafted as a couple, consisting of /godlove museum/, /wirefire/ or /skinonskinonskin/. The artwork has been present on line for a long time.

Recently Harvey and Samyn have taken up the creation of video games and experimental environments within their page tale-of-tales.com. In particular their project /Endless// Forest/ is a multiplayer space where a deer interacts with other deer-players through body language. Thanks to the web, the participants in this videogame will temporarily inhabit a forest filled with atmospheric sounds, where, luckily, they will come across the deities behind a mythology whose mission is keeping illusion alive in the world, through Abiogenesis, an origin of life that is produced in their videogames.

E8Z

http://entropy8zuper.org/godlove/_

http://tale-of-tales.com/

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8.

From: ana otero <4anaotero AT gmail.com>
Date: Aug 6, 2007
Subject: 16th International Electronic Art Festival_SESC Videobrasil

// 16th International Electronic Art Festival_SESC Videobrasil, São Paulo
// September 30 to October 25, 2007

http://www.sescsp.org.br
http://www.videobrasil.org.br

The ties between video, cinema, and the visual arts are the object of investigation of the 16th International Electronic Art Festival_SESC Videobrasil, to be held at SESC Avenida Paulista, in São Paulo, from September 30 to October 25, 2007. Synthesized in the curatorial theme Limite: Movimentação de imagem e muita estranheza [Limit: image movement and lots of strangeness], the relations among those fields, which unfold into expanded images and multiple narratives, are present in all sections of the Festival, from the competitive exhibition to the special curatorships, from the conferences to the participation of guests Peter Greenaway, Marcel Odenbach, Kenneth Anger, Arthur Omar, Carlos Adriano, Edgard Navarro, Eder Santos, and Detanico Lain.

The theme of the 16th Videobrasil was inspired by the feature film Limite (1930), by Mario Peixoto, which caused surprise by introducing, into Brazilian cinema and audiovisual production, all sorts of hybridizations and experimental strategies, using a camera that assumes its own visibility and the intentionality of writing. The film will receive a special tribute at the Festival, and is one of the subjects of the third edition of the annual publication Caderno Videobrasil, to be released during the event.

Southern Panoramas
Curated by Solange Farkas, director of Associação Cultural Videobrasil and of the Museum of Modern Art - Bahia, the 16th Videobrasil will bring together, in the Southern Panoramas competitive exhibition, sixty-six works produced during the last two years in seventeen countries in Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Oceania. The selection was made from 791 works submitted, and includes both productions by artists with a background in the field of electronic art, and those who use video as a research tool.

The exhibition will feature work by the Brazilians Eustáquio Neves, Wagner Morales, Cao Guimarães, Giselle Beiguelman, Marcellvs L., and Nuno Ramos, the duo Maurício Dias (Brazil) and Walter Riedweg (Switzerland), the Argentines León Ferrari, Andrés Denegri, Gustavo Galuppo, Marcello Mercado, and Federico Lamas, the Australian John Gillies, the South African Gregg Smith, the Lebanese Akram Zaatari, the Chilean Claudia Aravena Abughosh, the Moroccan Bouchra Khalili, and the Mexicans Marco Casado and Salvador Ortega.

Divided into the sections State of the Art (for the production of established artists), Contemporary Investigations (for research processes), and New Vectors (for emerging artists), Southern Panoramas will highlight proposals that use cinema as raw material and/or "data bank," remixing sequences, recontextualizing scenes, and reprocessing classic images by Hitchcock, Antonioni, Tarkovsky, and Godard.

Guest artists
The quest for a deterritorialized cinema, the procedures of which are in line with contemporary artistic practice, has also determined the choice of guests such as Peter Greenaway, who will bring to the event new developments of Tulse Luper Suitcases, his project-manifesto on the future of cinema. His participation includes a live image session, an installation, lectures, and a blog http://blogdovideobrasil.blog.uol.com.br . The German video art pioneer Marcel Odenbach will have his largest exhibition to date in Latin America, featuring installations, films, a lecture, and a previously unseen work, commissioned by the Festival. Kenneth Anger, one of the inventors of underground cinema in the United States, will have a retrospective screening of nine short films produced between 1947 and 1972.

The Brazil Axis will feature artist Arthur Omar, who has been breaking down borders between different artistic territories since the 1970s, as he travels between film, photography, video, installations, and Web art; Edgard Navarro, from the state of Bahia, whose résumé includes some of the most irreverent and original videos in the history of Brazilian visual art; filmmaker and master in cinema Carlos Adriano, who operates between documental and experimental film; Eder Santos, one of the foremost Brazilian electronic artists; and the duo Detanico Lain, which is also responsible for the graphic identity of Videobrasil.

For more information on the 16th International Electronic Art Festival_SESC Videobrasil and other Associação Cultural Videobrasil activities, visit our Web site: http://www.videobrasil.org.br

Concept and production:
Associação Cultural Videobrasil

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9.

From: Brett Stalbaum <stalbaum AT ucsd.edu>
Date: Aug 7, 2007
Subject: Silver Island Bunker Trail: Hike Like a Bot!

(Portuguese, Español and Deutsch: http://silverisland.paintersflat.net/)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMpAeuJd6YQ

The Silver Island Mountain Range is in the arid and barren Great Salt Lake desert in North America. The mountain range is called an "island" because it is surrounded by the salt flats and muds of the ancient Pleistocene era lake Bonneville, now dry in this area. The nearby cities of West Wendover, Nevada, and Wendover, Utah, are bisected by the border between the two states. West Wendover never sleeps, featuring many casinos, adult distractions and reasonably priced hotel rooms. Wendover Utah features the historic Wendover Air Field, an industrial landscape focusing primarily on mineral extraction, aviation, military uses, and the facilities and exhibit halls of the Center for Land Use Interpretation. (www.clui.org)

Using the Open Source C5 Landscape Database API (www.c5corp.com), paintersflat.net used a "virtual hiker" (a generative computer algorithm) to identify a hiking path across the island between two abandoned World War Two era bunkers, one on the West shore of the Silver Island Range, the other on the East shore. The virtual hiker implements the A* algorithm, an artificial intelligence path finding algorithm often used in computer games, executed over digital elevation model data describing the terrain as a friction surface. The algorithm produced a Global Positioning System tracklog file, which was uploaded to a GPS device, allowing Brett Stalbaum and Paula Poole to be the first to hike the very traversable trail on March 26th, 2007 and possibly allowing them to become the first people ever to traverse a real landscape as an artificially intelligent game bot would cross it.

More info at: http://silverisland.paintersflat.net/

--
Brett Stalbaum, Lecturer, LSOE
Coordinator, Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts Major (ICAM)
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
Department of Visual Arts
9500 GILMAN DR. # 0084
La Jolla CA 92093-0084
http://www.c5corp.com
http://www.paintersflat.net

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10.

From: Eduardo Navas <eduardo AT navasse.net>
Date: Aug 8, 2007
Subject: [NMF] Review: Second Person

REVIEW: Second Person, Role Playing in Story and Playable Media, by David Cox

http://newmediafix.net/daily/?p=1529

Second Person: Role Playing in Story and Playable Media
edited by Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Publisher: The MIT Press (February 28, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0262083566
ISBN-13: 978-0262083560

Review by David Cox, MA

Second Person: Role Playing in Story and Playable Media elucidates many of the techniques, approaches and philosophies of role playing based games, media and art. It is a dense and well put-together compendium of working notes, essays and from-the-trenches accounts from designers and artists working in media which place the identity of the user/player/audience at the very front and center of the work. It is an amazing collection of ideas, scintillating, diverse and rich, each separate writer¹s account shedding light on what it is that makes a memorable interactive title compelling and immersive. The contributors each provide well illustrated, well written insights into exactly how games and Œplayable media¹ are conceptualized. Individual case studies describe role-playing related works from academia, the publishing world, the fine arts and the normally hyper-secret inner sanctum of the games industry.

Discussed in fascinating detail are such canonical genre classics as ³Dungeons and Dragons² a role-playing game whose solid emphasis upon the social interaction between players is central to the experience and enjoyment of all who take part. D&D is the ³Citizen Kane² of RPGs, and it comes as no surprise that so many incarnations both electronic and none, have emerged.
The book¹s central idea in fact, is that of the ¹second person¹. This refers to that entity in a game or story which stands in, avatar-like for player herself, her identity and her agency within the myriad threads the story or gameplay might take. These Œother selves¹ can be either imaginary characters in a turn-based role playing game, a lurid animated incarnation in a massively multiplayer online world such as ³World of Warcraft² or ³Everquest² , or a simple stand-alonge player-controlled computer character, for example the prince in ³Prince of Persia². A fascinating art installation called ³Itinerant² integrates the terrain of Boston into a locative interactive narrative. The project interweaves Mary Shelley¹s ³Frankenstein² with flaneur-like drifting around urban space on the part of the participant. A section of Teri Rueb¹s artist statement reads:

The participant¹s movement, tracked by GPS, triggers the payback of the sounds as she moves through parts of the city space where sounds have been Œplaced¹. Indeed it comes as no surprise that locative media are finding increased expression in a world where people are in motion through dense urban centers, carrying location-sensitive media devices with them. The central idea of Œinteractive cities¹ at ISEA recently proved a major showcase for such work. Also this melding of art, mapping and technology is described in detail in William Gibson¹s latest book ³Spook Country², placing it at the center of cybercultural importance.

Eric Zimmerman¹s ³Life in the Garden² is another good example of pure interactive storytelling; an amazingly simple idea of utilizing individual picture-on-one-side-text-on-the-other cards intended to be read as a narrative, where the story sequence is chosen at random by the reader/player:

INSTRUCTIONS: Shuffle the pages. Without looking. Select five pages and place them . Between the covers of the book. Then read the story. Conceived as Œan experience¹ as much as a published story, ³Life in the Garden², according to Zimmerman: Œemerged organically through a process of constant prototype and play testing, modifying and refining the format and writing, and later the images¹. This is a kind of media both simple and complex, where randomness, chance and other notions from the world of play and ludology have spilled into storytelling and traditional print publishing. The theorist, programmer and film maker Lev Manovich has a piece about his ¹soft cinema¹ production - a film made up of discrete fragments whose playback is generated at random from a database in work which itself about identity, self and interactivity. Pioneer of the idea of database as a structural paradigm at least as important as that of ¹story¹, Manovich¹s theories about database-versus-narrative have fuelled something of a revolution in media culture, especially the landmark book ³Language of New Media². There are many examples of team-based creative processes described; what works and does not work when figuring out the myriad and many variables which accompany the game design process, dependent as it is upon the input and feedback of so many people.

This ³what-makes-a-good-game-good² stuff is hard to pin down at the best of times. Games professionals, can on day by day basis turn to online resources like the venerable Gamasutra for their dose of hot tips, industry gossip, news and trends, but a book like this as far as I am aware is among the first of its kind to represent a kind broader worldview required say, of a textbook for university courses which may or may not involve lots of actual hands-on games production, rather simply games analysis or appreciation.

Games studies needs this book, indeed might not be able to do without it, and with time it could be the equivalent of ³Film Art: An Introduction² (the central text of many a film school) the mainstay of graduate and post-graduate videogame studies courses. I welcome its arrival on the scene with great enthusiasm.

David Cox is a once-upon-a-time videogame producer, now filmmaker, writer and digital media artist living in San Francisco¹s Mission District. He teaches Computer Skills for Multimedia at City College in San Francisco.

His blog is http://www.telescape.blogspot.com

His email address is dcox AT ccsf.edu

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Rhizome Digest is filtered by Marisa Olson (marisa AT rhizome.org). ISSN: 1525-9110. Volume 12, number 31. Article submissions to list AT rhizome.org are encouraged. Submissions should relate to the theme of new media art and be less than 1500 words. For information on advertising in Rhizome Digest, please contact info AT rhizome.org.

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