“Even the word computer sounds backward and dumb.”
Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis is a short novel about the hyper of information and getting across New York for a haircut. The hero is a billionaire currency trader driving in a wired car across town. Staff drop in and talk to him, demonstrations slow him down, and leaves his info-limo when he sees his elusive wife. All this time he is loosing his (and his wife’s) fortune on the Yen until he comes unhinged and stalks his death.
The novel read like a short story – compressed around an event and mood. While it was not well reviewed (see Cosmopolis Media Watch), I thought it better than Underworld. It is almost science/speculative fiction – about a life that is all information and lust. At the end it was better than Gibson’s Pattern Recognitions. Eric, the hero, is not even sure if there is a pattern (other than his asymetric prostrate) that he is betting so much on.
Continue reading DeLillo: Cosmopolis
Swedish Patterns
Swedish Patterns is another image experiment using DIVs to place thumbnails on a screen that scrolls sideways. These are some of the pictures I took in Sweden that have patterns in them.
C-Level: Waco Resurrection
c-level is an artists (and others) cooperative in LA that hosts projects like Endgames: Waco Resurrection. waco resurrection is a computer game and performance that explores the siege at Waco, Texas. I haven’t experienced it, but from the images and QT video it looks like a powerful example of gaming in an art/provocation context. Comments from those who have seen it appreciated!
Continue reading C-Level: Waco Resurrection
John Willinski: Public Knowledge Project
This last weekend I was at the Humanities Computing Summer Institute organized by Ray Siemens at the University of Victoria. I heard a great lecture by John Willinski at UBC on the Public Knowledge Project. This project is developing an open source e-journal tool that allows you to manage the review process and publication. They also have a conference tool. This is worth supporting!
Continue reading John Willinski: Public Knowledge Project
Chris Ashley: Look, See
sally mckay suggested this artist’s blog, Look, See. What I like about Look, See (among other things) are the html art – simple works written with tables with coloured cells. (See his discussion of these at Visual Problems and Solutions.
Continue reading Chris Ashley: Look, See
Matt Sharpe: Who is Jesse?
Who is Jesse Abbingale? is a blog-like hypertext fiction work by a student of mine here at McMaster. He nicely uses the online narrative of a blog to tell a story with some graphical pages woven in. Check it out!
Canada Day
July 1st was Canada Day and we went to a Military Tattoo at Dundurn Castle here in Hamilton, Ontario. Tattoos are left over from the Empire – marching bagpipe bands and highland dancers. It was, after all, the colonies like Canada that benefited most from the British Empire. Tattoos and jubilees are a passing type of performance, enjoy them while they last.
Click here to see a selection of pictures.
OCAD’s new building; sponsor a view
OCAD’s Virtual Building – explore, pick, and donate! allows you to page around the floating zebra box (the Sharp Centre for Design) that they have built and sponsor a window. Now you may ask, “Who would donate $2,000 to sponsor a hole?” but don’t think of it as a whole – think of it as a view, a looking out by someone floating up there. They won’t see the building from your view, they will see through your generosity!
Continue reading OCAD’s new building; sponsor a view
sally mckay
sally mckay has a blog about “toronto art and other stuff” including her own short mixes. I came across this looking for stuff on Eddo Stern after giving up on blogging the bland news release from the AGO (or their pretencious pamphlet). Included on her site are some neat images and mix animations. What does one call these extremely short image animations/video clips – so short the animated parts are texture, not narrative?
Eddo Stern at the AGO
Eddo Stern at AGO – N. Post June 19/04 is an article on the show currently on at the Art Gallery of Ontario on recent work by Eddo Stern. Stern’s work, like Fort Paladin: America’s Army, 2003, combines modified computers and projections from computer games. Fort Paladin has a castle built around a screen and tower system unit. There is a keyboard with actuators controlled by another computer typing away beneath the screen (or castle gateway) showing a violent first person shooter (is the game projected controlled by the keyboard?) To quote from the pamphlet in the exhibit room,
Keywords: Tolkien, Christ, Your Empire and Your Desktop
Fort Paladin is a medieval computer castle automaton trained to kill and master the US Army’s inforamous recruitment/training game, America’s Army, using electro-mechanics and a custom-written expert system.