Serendipitor from mark shepard on Vimeo.
Sentient City Survival Kit - Quick Start Guide from mark shepard on Vimeo.
Noting the growing number of long distance relationships and the primarily digital communications channels that sustain them, Irish designer Colm Keller has created a digital heirloom set which can act as a beautiful physical anchor for sharing experience. The Presence In Absence kit is composed of a digital scrapbook carved out of birch with two porcelain caps. A provided knife lets users cut the into two pieces for each person to carry. A porcelain hub lets the couple plug in and share gathered digital bits and memories when they get together in real life. Similar to Mimi Son’s Diary Objects project, Presence in Absence adds a more tangible, personal element to transient digital communications.
[via designboom]
SWEATSHOPPE, 4spots, the landing extras from SWEATSHOPPE on Vimeo.
Digital Blackbook is the second version of Evan Roth his Graffiti Analysis project. It’s a tool that can capture graffiti tags, or actually any drawing, and visualise them afterwards in a very nice way.
With 3D this genuine, who needs reality? |
| 3D is on its way to becoming the norm at the neighborhood multiplex, particularly for animated features and horror flicks. And while it may be a while before Woody Allen's next film visually plants us on a NYC sidewalk while screening in a Topeka theater, 3D soon will be moving from the cinema to the living room in order to enhance your home entertainment experience. Here's a look at some of these retina popping devices and how artists are taking the technology and running with it: |
 Sony 3D: Sony says it will have 3D technology in American living rooms by 2010 in products including BRAVIA LCD HDTVs, VAIO computers, Blu-ray discs and PlayStation 3. Although the idea of watching Lost in 3D is certainly not without its appeal, we expect that gaming may be the category to really lasso this technology. Today's new third dimension isn't like going to the arcade in the mid-'90s and paying $8 for three minutes of watching neon lines. It's adding a feeling of actual space. This could upgrade the "guy stuff" on your computer to a whole new intensity level - imagine video game bullets that feel like they're headed right into your couch. |
 i-3D Video Glasses : While Sony confirmed that they are going to have 3D TVs ready for gaming addicts next year, don't expect to be able to walk around images in the same way that Princess Leia circled Obe-Wan Kenobi begging for help. You'll still have to don some head gear to make the images pop off the screen. For those of us who can't wait for Sony to fine-tune the home 3D experience, the i-3D Video Glasses plug into any DVD or MP4 player and feed you video like Star Trek's Geordi LaForge got his. The images look like they're on a 80" x 69" screen, while you look like you need a ticket to Comic Con. |
 Projection Bombing : Let's not forget that our interest in 3D was sparked by illusions designed to look like they have depth. That concept is being stretched by street artists and, more recently, projection artists. A tech-driven evolution of graffiti, projection bombing is when fleeting images are transmitted on to unsuspecting walls and buildings with nothing more than a Honda generator, projector and laptop. (Check out this video of a digital tiger running across a city's buildings.) Urban Screen, a collective of German artists and architects involved in research and development of experimental media installations with the aim to stage urban displays, seems to be the leader in these optical assaults. The content housed in their Vimeo channel will trick your eyes even more than that online pinwheel everyone's been staring at to make their hands look like they're melting. |
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September 2, 2009
Tony Quan (aka TEMPTONE) is an LA based graffiti writer, publisher and activist who was diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disorder) in 2003. Despite the fact that the disease has left him nearly paralyzed, his passion to create and write graffiti never left him.
The collaborative efforts of the Graffiti Research Lab, Free Art+ Technology, Open Frameworks, and The Ebeling Group- organizations specializing in various aspects of open source computing, creativity and production- created the EyeWriter – a low cost software/eye-tracking tool that allows those paralyzed from ALS to write using only their eyes.
The first prototype of the EyeWriter was made using a combination of items from Venice Beach, CA electronics and hardware stores and open source set of C++ libraries for creative coding from openFrameworks.
This resulted in a successful demonstration on April 12, as TEMPT was able to draw his tag for the first time in over 5 years. It was sent in real time and projected on a wall that he was able to see from a window by his bed in the hospital.
The second phase of the project is due to be completed this month, and will involve an online publication of DIY instructions, open source software and video documentation of the creation of the second version.
More in-depth information about the EyeWriter is available here.
Here’s a video of TEMPT’s first tag, projected onto a wall April 12, 2009.
[via Free Art+Technology]
Site closeing soon, but really nice to be able to take part in a real event in London from all the way down here in OZ. Not a new approach of course, but one i prefer to AR for more action oriented digital work![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vUaXVKlYiOXOxPTjB2UThww5AYCLL8848uJBRzUFwZSdCb38EVyk2s2Sh_uJMU9xyf9uiTc0gFUc-_kWpIqo551eUmhL8x3YQGiDZNgRqYNxi-K9eAPrntMe98U8rb-lh8NmH0evk0LmXtuBYqck13=s0-d)
The Artvertiser: Augmented Billboards. from Julian Oliver on Vimeo.
Augmenting a Postcard from Julian Oliver on Vimeo.
Talk about the body electric! Students at the Royal College of Art in England have created a new type of paint which can conduct electricity and be applied directly to the skin. The paint is carbon-based, water-soluble, and can create electronic circuits when activated. The ink itself is able to produce enough electricity to power small devices like LEDs, and it’s creators hope it will one day be used to help with the dance and music performances, computer interfaces, and medical devices.
The team says: “As our lives are increasingly regulated by electronics and there is a drive towards the miniaturisation and portability of electronics on and around the body it seems only logical to place electronic circuits on the surface of body.”
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I believe anyone arguing that every corporation should be seeking out 'conversations' and becoming 'friends' with customers on social networks largely reflects a misguided and naive marketing philosophy.
That said, I don't doubt the power of 'connection' and 'community.'
Before the phrases 'Web 2.0' and 'social media' had even been coined, I had been intimately involved in the creation and development of websites with strong community components. All told, these websites had generated hundreds of thousands of thousands of registered users and millions upon millions of interactions in the form of message board posts, content uploads and user-to-user communications before Friendster had even launched.
I still employ 'connection' and 'community' to this day in several of my online ventures, although I would argue that artificial attempts at getting consumers to develop relationships around toothpaste and laundry detergent are not the best uses of these concepts.
If one considers that 'connection' and 'community' are the key components of 'social media,' there is perhaps no better recent case study highlighting how social media can be applied in a truly effective manner than the Twilight series of vampire-romance novels that teenagers have really bitten into.
If Twilight sounds familiar to you, it may be because the movie adaptation of the first Twilight novel (also called Twilight) was recently released and in less than 10 days grossed nearly $100mn. Blockbuster status, to be sure.
How did a then 32 year-old stay-at-home-mother named Stephanie Meyer, with no prior novels published, take a dream she had about a romance between a vampire and a teenage girl and turn it into every author's dream - more than 25 million books sold and a knockout Hollywood adaptation?
The Internet had a lot to do with it.
As the Los Angeles Times details, despite the fact that publisher Little, Brown paid $750,000 to win a bidding war for the Twilight manuscript, the book house initially only published 75,000 copies and created a less-than-inspired website to promote the new book.
That wasn't good enough for Meyer. So she created a personal website, StephenieMeyer.com, that was far more personal and intimate than the website Little, Brown developed. She posted blogs and was eager to engage personally with those who would comment. Not content to relegate the 'conversation' to StephenieMeyer.com, she went to other websites and interacted with individuals on their online turf.
In the process, Meyer built up a small but passionate fan base. She encouraged her fans and supported their efforts to build and contribute to the "community" that was growing around Twilight.
To be sure, it wasn't easy and success didn't come overnight. The Los Angeles Times notes that Twilight didn't 'go mainstream' until the third novel in the series was released in 2007. The rest is, as they say, history.
Before we praise Meyer's savvy use of the internet, however, we need to praise the quality of her product. Twilight's success is obviously not only the result of her promotional prowess but the result of the creation of a 'product' that appeals to its target audience.
If Twilight didn't have enough substance to spark readers' imaginations and to keep them turning the pages, no amount of strategic marketing would have taken the series as far as it has come.
In short, Meyer had a viable product and using many social media components, was able to help it get the exposure it needed to thrive in the marketplace.
Today's breed of social media proponents, of course, will extoll the virtues of Meyer's use of social media and they'll eagerly highlight how the same principals that provided promotional umph for Twilight can be applied by corporations.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple.
Twilight is a story, an idea, fantasy, entertainment. It is not toothpaste. It is not a commoditized consumer electronics product. It is not a soft drink.
People interact, engage and build communities around passions, causes, ideas, fantasies - not everyday products.
The same principles that Meyer employed to help gain exposure and build loyalty amongst readers can be applied by corporations but they're not likely to produce a similar result.
Of course, this isn't all that surprising.
One need only look at the popularity of virtual worlds like World of Warcraft and video games like the Legend of Zelda and the relative lack of popularity of most of the virtual world initiatives created by corporations to see that what people want to interact around is based on a lot more than the mere availability of something to interact around.
Twilight is a fantasy world in novel form and Meyer, through her personal interaction with readers and support of the formation of community around the fantasy world that original appeared in her dream, was able to inspire others to make the Twilight fantasy their own.
Fans were interacting with Meyer - the author of a book they liked - not a 'Community Manager' at a multi-billion dollar corporation that makes pet food.
Creating similar types of interaction around products like pet food and toothpaste isn't likely and trying to do so probably isn’t a worthwhile investment for a consumer goods brand, which has a different set of marketing goals, different resources and more formal ROI criteria than Meyer did when she went online to engage in her own life's passion - the books she wrote.
In my opinion, the success of Twilight demonstrates perfectly the value inherent in taking a holistic approach to marketing. When evaluating which parts of the media mix are ideally-suited to achieving the desired outcome, one needs to understand his or her product and its place in the world.
Had Stephanie Meyer promoted Twilight in the same fashion that Gillette promotes shaving products, for instance, I probably wouldn't be writing about Twilight. Conversely, it's no surprise that as companies try to foster 'community', 'engagement', and 'relationships' around everyday products, I am not writing about their successes.
