Radio90, an internet pirate radio station, has begun broadcasting audio recordings of past Banff New Media Institute Summits on its “Archive Hour”. Visit the Radio90 website for the broadcast schedule.
Yucef Merhi’s “Poetic Engineering” at the Orange County Museum of Art
New media artist Yucef Merhi’s “Poetic Engineering” project is on view at the Orange County Museum of Art’s Orange Lounge through August 28, 2005. Merhi’s digital texts explore the bond between natural languages and machine languages in a range of media, including electronic devices, the web, computer installations, and video game systems.
Interview with Turbulence.org’s Co-Director Helen Thorington
Read Domenico Quaranta’s recent interview with Helen Thorington, a founding organizer and current co-director of Turbulence.org, at Turbulence. Also forthcoming in Cluster #5. Thorington discusses the origin and development of Turbulence, which has produced over 300 projects over the last 15 years and currently has approximately 80 net art projects running.
Interactive Drama Façade Released
After more than six years of work, Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern have released their long-awaited one-act interactive drama Façade for free download. The system features a 3D environment and voice-acted, AI-driven characters, and has been a testbed for research in and development of natural language processing, drama management, and control of character behaviors. Research that went into the system has been documented in more than a dozen academic publications by Michael and Andrew, as well as in Michael’s Carnegie Mellon University Ph.D. dissertation. A pre-release version of Façade made the finals in the 2004 Independent Games Festival, and one was also exhibited at ISEA 2004. The New York Times has called the system “the future of video games.”
More information and discussion about the release can be found at Grand Text Auto. Mateas and Stern’s press release about the system has more information. The initial version runs on Windows computers with processors of at least 1.6 GHz, and is available on CDs (sold at cost) or via BitTorrent download.
Auto Mata: A New Label for Computer Lit, Art, and Games
Auto Mata, an independent label for extraordinary e-lit, digital art, and computer games, has just been launched by the six “drivers” of the blog Grand Text Auto: Mary Flanagan, Michael Mateas, Nick Montfort, Scott Rettberg, Andrew Stern, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
Façade, the long-awaited one-act interactive drama by Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern, is the first Auto Mata release. The interactive fiction Book and Volume is in the works now and will be coming from Auto Mata soon.
{fray}
{fray} is an online storytelling community, linking writers of personal stories with talented designers, and encouraging story readers to share their own stories in response to those published on the site. Although fray stories typically make minimal use of electronic enhancements, the site is an excellent example of the power of a collaborative online writing community.
SWITCH_20: Transvergence
SWITCH, the new media arts journal of the CADRE Laboratory for New Media of the School of Art and Design at San Jose State University has just published SWITCH_20: Transvergence. This is the first of a number of issues dedicated to themes of the ZeroOne Festival: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge and ISEA 2006 , August 5-13, 2006, in San Jose, California. SWITCH_20 features new writings, interviews, and works by Allucquere Rosanne (Sandy) Stone, Steve Dietz, Mark Finnern, Peter Haley, Sally Jane Norman, Nikki Stott, Dr. Roula Svorou, and the SWITCH Editorial Team.
Generator.x Project: Conference, Exhibition, Blog
The Generator.x project, to be held in Oslo, Norway, September 23-24, 2005, will bring together artists, writers, and designers who are embracing the “new literacy” represented by reading and writing in digital media. The project aims to examine the role of software and “generative strategies” in current digital art and design. Confirmed speakers include Erich Berger, Pablo Miranda Carranza, Gisle Froysland, Hans Christian Gilje, Susanne Jaschko, Golan Levin, Sebastian Oschatz, Casey Reas, Amanda Steggell and Marius Watz. The conference is being hosted by Atelier Nord, and will be accompanied by the opening of the Generator.x exhibition at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design. For more information, visit the Generator.x website, or email info@generatorx.no .
Patchwork Girl
Patchwork Girl is one of the most widely-discussed and inventive works of hypertext in Storyspace. It is a feminist retelling of the Frankenstein story that asks “What if Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein were true? What if Mary Shelley herself made the monster – not the fictional Dr. Frankenstein?” Robert Coover has referred to Patchwork Girl “perhaps the true paradigmatic work of the era.” See the Directory entry for more information about this piece.
Call for Proposals: Internet Culture
The National Popular Culture and American Culture Associations are planning a joint conference on the theme of “internet culture.” The organizers invite proposals for themed sessions, special panels, and individual papers. Proposals or abstracts are due October 15, 2005 to George Lewis. The conference will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, April 12-15, 2006. Visit PCA/ACA for more information about the conference.