FRIDAY, MAY 23, 2008
“HIPerWall Demo: Cultural Analytics”
Presented by Software Studies Initiative, UC San Diego / CALIT2
Jeremy Douglass and Lev Manovich will present a live demo showing how new
mega-resolution walls such as the Calit2 HIPerWall (50 30-inch monitors with the
combined resolution of 200 megapixel) can be used for research, teaching,
and presentation. The demo uses presentation software developed by Jeremy
Douglass (Software Studies Initiative) together with the HIPerWall team at
CALIT2 – Irvine. We will also present our work on Cultural Analytics
research environment designed for the analysis and interactive visualization
of very large cultural data sets and intended to run on the HIPerWall. Please click here for more information about the HIPerWall and about PowerWall Presenter.
“Dance-IT (Dance & Information Technology):
A Networked Participatory Media Exhibit”
John Crawford,
UC Irvine
Dance-IT (Dance & Information Technology) is
proposed as a networked participatory media
exhibit. Diverse participants will engage in a
physical dialogue linking people between different
places and across different times through embodied
interaction. Participants will influence and respond
to the behaviors of pre-recorded digital media
content. Their movement choices will become a
permanent part of the exhibition and contribute to
an evolving online presence.
“Emerging Visions of Virtual Worlds”
Walt Scacchi, Robert Nideffer, Alex Szeto, Craig Brown, UC Irvine
They will present two demonstrations of possible virtual worlds (VWs) that may arise in the next few years. One focuses on envisioning movement through a virtual dating scenario in a simulated VW in order to help surface emerging cultural and technological requirements for future VWs. The other focuses on exploring alternative depictions of complex multi-person work arrangements in remote advanced manufacturing settings that can serve as both a work practices simulator and training environment, built as a computer game mod.
“Human-Mediated Networking”
Bill Tomlinson, UC Irvine
The rise of personal computers and mobile phones is having an enormous environmental impact as devices are produced and eventually discarded. The Human Mediated Networking project demonstrates one possible way to reduce redundancy in computational systems by using human effort to help computers share functionality. In this installation, monitors arrayed around a space are able to display locally sensed data, such as ambient sound and network strength. But these computers have no sensors—they only know the values to display because people carrying a shared sensor visit them. By enabling these devices to share sensing capabilities, we can reduce the number of redundant components in mobile devices, allowing them to become smaller, cheaper, and more sustainable.
“HIPerWall Demo: Viewfinder”
Erik Loyer, Digital Artist
Erik Loyer will demonstrate “Viewfinder”, a collaboration between USC’s Interactive Media Division and the Institute for Creative Technologies which explores “how to seamlessly ‘Flickrize’ Google Earth.” Under the direction of media artist Michael Naimark, the project team developed methods for users to quickly and easily situate their photographs as perfectly aligned overlays in a 3D world model like Google Earth. By engaging a bit of human help, Viewfinder aims to make 3D geo-location of photos a straightforward, creatively driven activity.
Erik Loyer’s interactive artworks have been exhibited online and in festivals and museums throughout the United States and abroad, including the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Prix Ars Electronica; and Transmediale. His website “The Lair of the Marrow Monkey” was one of the first to be added to the permanent collection of a major art museum, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. As Creative Director for Vectors: Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular, an experimental online academic journal, Loyer has created numerous interactive essays in collaboration with leading humanities scholars including N. Katherine Hayles and David Theo Goldberg. He is the recipient of a Rockefeller Film/Video/Multimedia Fellowship, and his works have been honored in the Webby Awards, the Montreal International Festival of New Cinema and New Media, and the California Design Biennial. Erik Loyer was born in San Francisco in 1972, and received a B.A. in Cinema/Television Production from the University of Southern California.
“What is Software Studies?”
Panel with Jeremy Douglass, Matthew Fuller, Peter Lunenfeld, Lev Manovich, Nick Montfort, Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Google searches and Amazon recommendations, airline flight paths and traffic
lights, email and your phone: our culture runs on software. How does
software shape the world? Following the first US-based Software Studies Workshop
(May 21-22, 2008 at CALIT2-San Diego), panel participants will discuss what it means
to study software cultures, the direction and goals of Software Studies as
an emerging intellectual movement, and the intersections between Software
Studies intersects and Digital Humanities.
Please click here for more information about Software Studies.
