Rhizome and ArtPort are pages that aim to promote artists in digital arts (as a broader expression); Rhizome being an independent site and ArtPort being part of the Whitney Museum. ArtPort supports DigArt and NetArt and Rhizome focuses on New Media Art. Rhizome seems like a pretty stiff place to get posted on, but I might be wrong, especially considering that the Whitney ArtPort has some kind of fixation on commissioned works, like any ordinary museum.
Ilovebees was an ARG (Alternate Reality Game) played in 2004. An ARG is a more sophisticated version of a LARP, since the veil of illusion is more or less shattered by the fact that people don't roleplay: they are themselves. An ARG can take place in many spaces and settings since it is just a concept, and therefore there are no clear rules to as how it should be played (just like an RPG is just a WAY to play).
Implementation
...was a text written on multiple stickers. The project was inspired by several ideas; particularly of the situationist theater and the "underground" practices of mail/sticker art in public spaces. What makes Implementation really exciting is how everything is dependant on the multiple roles that must work together to make this a coherent experience, putting more focus on the social practices of creating the work than on the technical side, looking at it just as a publically placed hypertext.
Wiki
- Digital art
Art manipulated/created in computer software. Examples range from photo-editing to 3D models and special effects.
- Internet art
Art created for presentation purely on the web. Often called netart (net.art)
- New media art
Art combining or using "new media" formats/media (computer hardware/software, video games, biotechnology etc.) for their creation. They often adress issues directly relating to their composing media.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
Essay topic
(Working) Name of the essay will be "My best friend might as well be an NPC". In the essay I will form some thoughts on character-character relationships within games, offline as well as online. Many a researcher has done extensive digging in the online communities of games, but I want to add some flavor by inserting the question "How do I play my game; on what premises and for what purpose?" thus involving BOTH social sides of the topic as well as describing how immersion lets the player experience non-player characters and drama (or not). Hopefully this will shed a small light on a topic hitherto mostly concerned with social exhibitionists. (This will probably get to the question of how games build on character/objective "relationships")
Blog genres
In regards to the genres of blogs, you could easily say there ought to be one for every kind of person you could think of.
In a somewhat easier, more discriminating categorization, I see these "genres":
Professional blogs (Political, Work... anything that ties your "character" into an established role)
Personal blogs (The counter-part of the professional blog)
Blogs part of a "context" (When the blog is used as an intermediary, ex. as part of art, or when it is self-reflective)
A blog is most definitely a remediation or recreation of traditional literary genres, and so it becomes heavily laden with preconceptions from traditional print culture, therefore taking with it many of the subgenres and stylistics found in print. My "taxonomy" of these blogs is in regards to what role the "author" has, not the stylistic approach or based on their informational matter.
I personally don't follow any blog, except perhaps feber.se which is much more of a blog-shaped news site. As a literary phenomenon I see blogs as an interesting thing, but I can't help but feel dually uninterested since the more common, non-artsy, non-academic blog, is all too often centred on topics so personal that they become almost inaccessible to anyone outside the span of the author/blogger.
In a somewhat easier, more discriminating categorization, I see these "genres":
Professional blogs (Political, Work... anything that ties your "character" into an established role)
Personal blogs (The counter-part of the professional blog)
Blogs part of a "context" (When the blog is used as an intermediary, ex. as part of art, or when it is self-reflective)
A blog is most definitely a remediation or recreation of traditional literary genres, and so it becomes heavily laden with preconceptions from traditional print culture, therefore taking with it many of the subgenres and stylistics found in print. My "taxonomy" of these blogs is in regards to what role the "author" has, not the stylistic approach or based on their informational matter.
I personally don't follow any blog, except perhaps feber.se which is much more of a blog-shaped news site. As a literary phenomenon I see blogs as an interesting thing, but I can't help but feel dually uninterested since the more common, non-artsy, non-academic blog, is all too often centred on topics so personal that they become almost inaccessible to anyone outside the span of the author/blogger.
Folksonomies
I don't use that many sites based on folksonomies, except Wikipedia (using folksonomies?!). The idea of letting people input
and create content is a direct democratic implementation of technologies, but this is, just like democracy, prone to be backstabbed by its own good sides; the ease of modification, and the risk of giving equal rights to people misusing them could in a worst-case scenario become its own fall. Evil clairvoyance set aside, letting users form paths and content based on patterns less linear than the traditional "easy-to-follow" guide lines has proven to work as a more flexible, living way to "bump into" information, instead of merely tracking it down (this is more in regards of sites like Youtube and Flickr).
As my own example of a page I use, I (unsurprisingly) wish to choose Wikipedia. Wikipedias core is its decentralized structure, based upon direct user contribution. It has managed to thrive due to the fact that people have taken seriously on their commitment to the information provided on the site.
and create content is a direct democratic implementation of technologies, but this is, just like democracy, prone to be backstabbed by its own good sides; the ease of modification, and the risk of giving equal rights to people misusing them could in a worst-case scenario become its own fall. Evil clairvoyance set aside, letting users form paths and content based on patterns less linear than the traditional "easy-to-follow" guide lines has proven to work as a more flexible, living way to "bump into" information, instead of merely tracking it down (this is more in regards of sites like Youtube and Flickr).
As my own example of a page I use, I (unsurprisingly) wish to choose Wikipedia. Wikipedias core is its decentralized structure, based upon direct user contribution. It has managed to thrive due to the fact that people have taken seriously on their commitment to the information provided on the site.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Virtual Worlds
After reading the texts on virtual worlds in the reading packet, I cannot but feel a bit slow. Slow as in slow in finding, with my own power, the reasons and motives of the writers behind the texts. They apparently have found something I have completely missed.
I'm not ignorant, and I can agree with much of the minutia and minor details that's spent on character communication and so on, but seeing smart people speculating in Second Life as an incarnation of the ”Web 3.0” is mere nonsense. Perhaps as an extremely early pre-alpha, and certainly some of the potential exists right there, but many aspects of the more simple web tasks, as information gathering and searches, will be inevitably complicated in a virtual environment. Embodiment and avatars are indeed interesting, and might someday work out as more apparent factors than they are today when thinking about the web.
Anyway, jumping straight to present-day multi-user environments, I can tell you that I still haven't ”played/used” Second Life yet, though my character Yasukami Petrov is created and the game is installed. My expectations on SL are low, since much of its so-called qualitites have been strongly questioned by persons whom I trust in matters of taste and . Since it's not a game I won't get into Second Life the way I would into a game, but am at the moment a bit frightened of the entire SL thing. To me, SL simply doesn't look like a viable alternative to any other more ”traditional” means of communication. Even World of Warcraft seems like a better alternative. At least as good/bad.
To conclude, it seems that MMO's (or all games, for that matter) are only taken seriously when numbers are playing some vital part in their representation in traditional media (ex. X million users on game X or, Game X is a ”real” economy which pushes X million dollars every day). This has also been the case of Everquest, which was more widely known for its economy than for its gameplay etc. The fact that the sources for these articles are CNN Money and The Economist says quite a few things about (pseudo-)games.
I'm not ignorant, and I can agree with much of the minutia and minor details that's spent on character communication and so on, but seeing smart people speculating in Second Life as an incarnation of the ”Web 3.0” is mere nonsense. Perhaps as an extremely early pre-alpha, and certainly some of the potential exists right there, but many aspects of the more simple web tasks, as information gathering and searches, will be inevitably complicated in a virtual environment. Embodiment and avatars are indeed interesting, and might someday work out as more apparent factors than they are today when thinking about the web.
Anyway, jumping straight to present-day multi-user environments, I can tell you that I still haven't ”played/used” Second Life yet, though my character Yasukami Petrov is created and the game is installed. My expectations on SL are low, since much of its so-called qualitites have been strongly questioned by persons whom I trust in matters of taste and . Since it's not a game I won't get into Second Life the way I would into a game, but am at the moment a bit frightened of the entire SL thing. To me, SL simply doesn't look like a viable alternative to any other more ”traditional” means of communication. Even World of Warcraft seems like a better alternative. At least as good/bad.
To conclude, it seems that MMO's (or all games, for that matter) are only taken seriously when numbers are playing some vital part in their representation in traditional media (ex. X million users on game X or, Game X is a ”real” economy which pushes X million dollars every day). This has also been the case of Everquest, which was more widely known for its economy than for its gameplay etc. The fact that the sources for these articles are CNN Money and The Economist says quite a few things about (pseudo-)games.
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