Archive for the virtual category
‘Entertainment Exchanging’ inspires the digital entertainment Industry
by Pedro Silva on June 18th, 2008
2008 Beijing Summer digital entertainment Jam with the theme of “entertainment exchange”, is hosted by Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology. It’s the international events with people from 11 countries and 30 institutions. The Jam is divided into two activities, DE-DAY and DE-NIGHT.
“DE-DAY digital entertainment exhibition” will be held on June 20 at Creative workshop in Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology. There will be 150 new media works from different countries and regions displaying on the exhibition, including: Concept Design, Imaginary Architecture, Game Design, Interactive Design, Music, Animation and Short Film. The exhibition collected works of world’s top digital entertainment new media professional teachers and students through the Baidu space. This exhibition enables full sharing of the international digital entertainment creation resources, also brings the public the latest achievement of international digital entertainment design. “DE-NIGHT” is placed in the 751 force square of Dashanzi Art District. Activities for ‘DE-NIGHT’ include prize presentation ceremony for the DE-DAY awards and new media. Using sound, light, electricity, video and new interactive media technology, it gives the audience all-round sensory experience.
The Jam is organized by Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, and supported by D.E.A.L., 751 Zhengdong Group, Think-Before-Design, Lansheng A.D. Company, THEME studio, Newwebpick, UPA CHINA and ET GROUP. It is characterized by the combination of entities exhibition and On-line virtual exhibition. According to Dr. Ding Zhao chen, the director of the Digital Entertainment Jam, “exchanging” is the trend. “Entertainment exchanging” represents a “possibility.” In our countdown to the Olympic Games, mapping to the spirit of the Beijing Olympics, the Jam will connect different races, different geographical cultures and lifestyles, inspire fully understanding between different areas and create new design.
The official web site: http://2008.dealchina.org
Baidu Space: http://act.hi.baidu.com/08dej
PLAYSTATION_Network
by Pedro Silva on April 16th, 2008
Melhorou-se o sistema de navegação com base nos comentários e sugestões dos nossos utilizadores. Agora é muito mais fácil navegar pelo impressionante catálogo da PLAYSTATION Store com jogos inovadores, trailers em Alta Definição e clássicos PlayStation.
Existem novas secções dedicadas a conteúdos PSP™ que todos os membros da família irão apreciar. Os trailers de jogos e filmes podem ser encontrados na secção Vídeos e media, enquanto que a categoria Jogos alberga demos, conteúdos de jogos adicionais e alguns dos melhores títulos em exclusivo para a PLAYSTATION®Network.
ASCII ART
by Pedro Silva on January 23rd, 2008
Back before there was the Internet, early caveman dialed into computer bulletin board systems or BBSes to get their online fix. Many of these boards distinguished themselves with ANSI art, an early form of electronic cave paintings. ANSI was an extension to the even earlier form of caveman communication known as ASCII used in MS-DOS based computers. It is with great pleasure that we happened upon the San Francisco hacker art gallery “20 goto 10″ where an ANSI art exhibition was in progress. Irina Slutsky talks to curator Kevin Olson who takes us on a tour of some of the amazing early work of two ANSI artists, lordjazz and somms.
Episode links: ANSI Art (wikipedia), ANSI Art Gallery Show, 20 goto 10 Gallery, Sixteen Colors ANSI Archive, ACiD, Phlogiston (soundtrack)
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A ASCII ART é uma forma de expressão artística usando apenas os caracteres disponíveis nas tabelas de código de página de computadores. (ascii, abreviatura em língua inglesa para American Standard Code for Information Interchange). Antes dos computadores já existia uma arte semelhante realizada com máquinas de escrever. Contudo, como há mais caracteres disponíveis nos computadores, esta forma de expressão artística ascendeu de forma a se tornar mais elaborada e com uma preocupação estética mais apurada.
É imprescindível que seja criada e visualizada utilizado-se fontes monoespaçadas. Embora possa ser realizada com apenas uma cor sobre um fundo também de uma cor, há belos exemplos de figuras realizadas utilizando-se dezenas de cores. Existem vários artistas dedicados a elaboração de ASCII ART. No Brasil, um pioneiro nesta prática foi Waldemar Cordeiro.
ASCII (acrônimo para American Standard Code for Information Interchange) é um conjunto de códigos para o computador representar números, letras, pontuação e outros caracteres. Surgido em 1961, um dos seus inventores foi Robert W. Bemer.
Arte ASCII é aquela na qual os únicos elementos utilizados são os caracteres disponíveis no teclado do computador.
ASCII é uma padronização da indústria de computadores, onde cada carácter é manipulado na memória discos etc, sob forma de código binário. O código ASCII é formado por todas as combinações possíveis de 8 bits (2^8 = 256), sendo que existem várias extensões que abrangem 8 ou mais bits.
Fontes:
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arte_ASCII
DISRUPTING NARRATIVES // ANDREA ZAPP
by Pedro Silva on November 15th, 2007
Mais uma excelente dica da vinda da Mouseland.
“Uma conferência que vale a pena ver on-line é a apresentação de Andrea Zapp nas “disrupting narratives” da Tate em Julho de 2007. Andrea Zapp nasceu na Alemanha, estudou cinema e televisão e desenvolve um conjunto de narrativas e plataformas digitais que problematizam noções passadistas que não têm em conta aspectos de realidades mistas e recombinatórias nas artes digitais da actualidade. Neste contexto, podemos considerar que a autora combina instalações site specific com espaços on-line, interfaces e tecnologias de vigilância em happenings que reflectem sobre a possibilidade de construção de espaços imaginários emergentes a partir da interacção de múltiplas pessoas em rede. Andrea Zapp editou dois livros: Networked Narrative Environments as imaginary spaces of being, MMU/FACT Liverpool (2004) e New Screen Media, Cinema/Art/Narrative, BFI, London/ ZKM (2002).
Na conferência “For We are Where We are not: Mixed-Reality Narratives and Installations”, Andrea Zapp mostra diversas instalações em galerias onde os participantes podem construir e manipular o espaço destas através de soluções enviadas e forjadas pela rede. Assim, o ambiente de um quarto de hotel ou de uma casa de bonecas pode alterar-se consoante os inputs de observadores dispersos na rede global de telecomunicações. A autora dedica-se ainda à construção de micro narrativas e telenovelas geradas por diversos participantes. As acções e o corpo próprio destes interactores fazem parte destes espaços imaginários. Para Andrea Zapp existe um modelo expressivo de arquitectura narrativa que deve ser tido em consideração nas realidades mediadas pela tecnologia onde as versões on-line podem ser misturadas com a realidade do dia-a-dia do escritório do bar ou do café. Vale mesmo a pena ouvir e ver os trabalhos desta artista digital que reflecte sobre o envolvimento e a participação do corpo num mundo ligado por múltiplos elos e linhas de software, redes de hardware que apelam à experiência incorporada em lugares booleanos de formas e sombras recombinatórias”.
When Books Were Technology
by Pedro Silva on November 6th, 2007
In a world of exponential technological growth, inventions from the past can sometimes be perceived as a common thing from nature. Books in particular, have been with us for so many centuries that we often forget they are one of the most important pieces of technology ever created.
The greatest contributor to books in the spanish language from the last century by using these to artistically express himself (just like games exploit computers for that very same expressive purpose and in many languages as well (C, Actionscript or Java)) was, without any doubt, Jorge Luis Borges. Few like him make me feel proud of the nationality I never chose.
A particular short essay from him got my attention a few weeks ago. In his book Other Inquisitions he explores the birth of reading, he reminds the reader that back in the egyptian times books were received with reactionary comments, for them, they were “like painted figures that seem alive but never answer a single question asked to them” and they eventually provoke that “people stop using their memory and become dependant on symbols”.
The voice, in all cultures, was regarded as a sacred sound that had more power than symbols themselves. Reading was always a communal excercise were one read for the others to hear.
Borges finally recalls a writing from Saint Augustine from the 2nd century were he witnesses that precise moment when man seemed to begin reading in silence:
When Ambrosio read, he passed his view over the pages penetrating their soul, in the sense, of not conveying a single word nor even moving the tongue.
We already know how computers are changing our culture and law as we know it. How is it changing our minds?
Sorce: http://gamesareart.com
Artificial Intelligence: The Too-High Heights of Human Intellect
by Pedro Silva on October 17th, 2007
“Artificial vision gets sharper all the time. Artificial walking has made great robot strides. But artificial intelligence is brain-dead. Why? Because while researchers have built awesome technology, they’ve failed to grapple with philosophy.
Early computer scientists like Alan Turing and John von Neumann attempted to spin logic circuitry into thinking machines. So they designed their creations to excel at tasks they thought embodied the heights of human intellect: calculating sums, analyzing geometry, and playing chess. In 1958, a computer beat a human chess player — albeit an inexperienced one — for the first time. Buoyed by this success, researchers embarked on a long attempt to invent a machine that could (a) talk just like Turing, (b) walk around in a robot body looking at stuff, picking it up, and using it neatly, (c) read newspapers and maybe correct the editors, and (d) program its own successors.
The notion of intelligent machines inspired a blizzard of books and movies, but practical returns were meager. Over the years, computers failed one commonsense task after another: manipulating unfamiliar objects, understanding natural language, distinguishing a dog from a cat. Despite steady advances in hardware, no machine could think as far as to laugh at a pratfall or make a bad pun.
In pursuing human-style intelligence, the geeks blundered into the deepest, densest, darkest thickets of metaphysics: consciousness, cognition, perception, self-awareness, and how “we” manage to “know” what we know. It turns out that activities like playing chess — things that require sorting and searching — are relatively easy to program, whereas tasks that require some understanding of the world at large, like doing the laundry, are unbearably complex. The metaphysical issues around AI are at a standstill, mainly because metaphysics is old and canny and doesn’t move forward in the linear manner of technology. Researchers, their grand illusions and ambitions dashed, fell into a long “AI winter” of shrunken budgets and general indifference.
Nowadays, Google “knows” pretty much anything you ask it. But its insanely fast and powerful work is modestly described as data-mining, not thinking. That vast, globe-spanning, superpowerful, ultrawealthy Web spider has yet to awaken and declare, “I am Google.”
But if it starts writing philosophy, all bets are off”.
Source: www.wired.com
Glossário_Sociedade de Informação
by Pedro Silva on April 6th, 2007
A Associação Portuguesa para o desenvolvimento da Sociedade de Informação (apdSI) compilou um glossário de terminologia informática.
Faça o download do PDF.
2001: Uma odisseia no espaço
by Pedro Silva on April 4th, 2007
Baseado nas obras de Arthur C. Clarke - The Sentinel e o livro que dá título ao filme realizado em 1968 pelo cineasta Stanley Kubrick, 2001: Uma odisséia no espaço, é, para mim, um dos melhores filmes de ficção científica de todos os tempos. Um filme, com uma duração total de 139 minutos (40 de diálogo), onde kibrick analisa a evolução do Homem pelo o uso da técnica.
Homem_Ferramenta [técnica] // 2001 Odisseia no espaço [explicada]
by Pedro Silva on April 4th, 2007
Audiopad
by Pedro Silva on March 28th, 2007
Recuperando o post de Setembro de 2006, sobre a belíssima interface Reac table, divulgo agora uma nova interface com idêntico conceito - Audiopad.
Audiopad is a composition and performance instrument for electronic music which tracks the positions of objects on a tabletop surface and converts their motion into music. One can pull sounds from a giant set of samples, juxtapose archived recordings against warm synthetic melodies, cut between drum loops to create new beats, and apply digital processing all at the same time on the same table. Audiopad not only allows for spontaneous reinterpretation of musical compositions, but also creates a visual and tactile dialogue between itself, the performer, and the audience.
Audiopad has a matrix of antenna elements which track the positions of electronically tagged objects on a tabletop surface. Software translates the position information into music and graphical feedback on the tabletop. Each object represents either a musical track or a microphone.
Audiopad was developed by James Patten and Ben Recht aka localfields.
Videos
Audiopad performance excerpt and explanation. 2:45
[QuickTime 11MB]
Audiopad installation at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona as part of the Sonar 2003 Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art. 1:00
[QuickTime 2.8MB]
[Windows Media 1.1MB]