2024-03-29T02:20:37Zhttps://escholarship.org/oaioai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt6f49r74n2019-09-25T23:34:51Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/6f49r74nTanenbaum, KarenauthorTanenbaum, Theresa Jauthor2009-12-12This paper examines the concept of agency within games and proposes a shift from the notion of agency as representing choice or freedom to one of agency as representing commitment to meaning. This conception of agency is aimed at understanding the pleasures of engaging with narratively rich games, and helps to address the tension between player choice and authorial intent. We draw on what speech act theory says about how trust, meaning and communication are achieved in human conversation, applying these notions to interactive storytelling. This new perspective on agency provides us with a better analytical tool for understanding the relationship between interaction and narrative pleasure, and provides a useful metric for designers of story-rich games.publicGame StudiesAgencyGame DesignInteractive StorytellingSpeech Act TheoryCommitment to Meaning: A Reframing of Agency in Gamesarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt1nd2631r2011-07-03T20:58:30Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/1nd2631rMatviyenko, Svitlanaauthor2009-12-12When people meet they apologize for their bodies: their bodies are never perfect, never adequate, and never quite behave exactly how people want them to. Today it seems that the virtual reality of cyberspace offers itself as an effective medium that can transport its users into a different universe, freed from the burden of the body and from the necessity of any such apology. The quickly growing number of the networking users demonstrates the rising demand for a new kind of symbolic realm, whether it be in the form of the user-friendly layout of a website or the appealing architecture of a simulated space, where one can easily inscribe oneself by obtaining a two-dimensional profile or a threedimensional digital body.This paper addresses one of today’s myths about cyberspace that pictures it as a realm where users can discover their “true selves” or acquire new identities (and especially sexual identities), and by performing them, users may eventually become what they have created on-line. Today we inquire about the role of digital media in shaping and channeling sexual desires, dynamics and identifications attached to encounters with and through media technologies. I use Jacques Lacan’s theory of a subject and his theory of the three orders of the imaginary, symbolic and real to interpret the logic of sexuation (or taking on a gender identity regardless of biological sex) in virtual reality. Drawing on Lacan’s concept of “extimacy” that helps to escape a bipartition between interior and exterior, my paper focuses on a series of displacements occurring in and through cyberspace, exploring the dynamics of sexuation as it occurs in the 3D world of Second Life (www.secondlife.com).publicAvatarcyberspacevirtual realitydesiresexualitysexuationgendersexLacanSecond Lifeidentitypsychoanalysisnew mediatechnologySensuous Extimacy: Sexuation and Virtual Reality. Taking on a Gender Identity in Second Lifearticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt0x78j3p62011-07-03T20:58:26Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/0x78j3p6Tzankova, VeronikaauthorSchiphorst, Theclaauthor2009-12-12From the mid-1990s onward, the internet has stimulated the unprecedented development and growing tension between cultural values and identity. This is evidenced in the relationship between the dissemination of cultural values and the formation of identities on national and individual levels. The growing tension in this relationship is most particularly overt in societies that have a history of well-developed moral mechanisms of cultural protectionism.This paper looks at the effects of internet culture on Turkish sexual identities, and its role in changing socially acceptable sexual codes and norms. It explores the developmental process of Turkish internet culture through a comparative analysis between two distinct framings of sexual identify: 1) as a product of historical and religious suppression and, 2) as a reflection of cultural rendering in electronic environments. When vectors of sexual behaviour, both explicit and implicit, are translated across cultural boundaries they begin to alter the conglomerate of religious values and socially experiential knowledge of participants. This is particularly apparent within the terrain of new media with its instant and widely available access, and its impact on the cognitive and emotional experiences it supports. This change in values manifests itself in dissonant sexual codes which form a new system of sexual awareness. In most Western societies, expanding perspectives of human sexuality emerged in the 60’s and 70’s evidencing a change in social values linked to the prosperity of modernity. In the case of the Muslim world, and in particular Turkey, this process was largely triggered with the appearance of the internet. The electronic environment provided an instant access to an open source of sexual perspectives which played upon stigmatized ethics and sexual taboos. The focus of this paper is to examine this particular breaking of sexually related religious stereotypes after the appearance of new media in Turkey and the changes it caused that resulted in new sexual self-definitions.publicSocial and Cultural AnthropologyIslam, Sexuality, and the Internet: A Historical Reflection of the Shifting Sexual Self in Turkeyarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt1t91z25z2011-07-03T20:58:23Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/1t91z25zJacobs, Katrienauthor2009-12-12This paper investigates web users and their sexual behaviors and pornographic self-representations as observed on the sex and dating site http://www.adultfrienfinder.com. The website is a social network and encourages members to find real-life partners for sex whether it be casual sex affairs between singles, swinging couples, or polyamorous extra-marital affairs between “aba” (“attached but available”) individuals and their lovers. The analysis is based on theories of ethnography and social networking and analyzes the effects of corporate networks and homogenizing “sex scripts” on sex lives and Internet culture in Hong Kong.publicSocial and Cultural AnthropologyInternet sexPornographyWeb 2.0Chinese Internet CultureHong Kong sexualityImpression ManagementIs There Life on Adult FriendFinder? Sex and Logic with the Happy Dictatorarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt64x2343p2011-07-03T20:58:19Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/64x2343pWoida, Chloeauthor2009-12-12How does engagement with internationally produced pornography function to underscore or to undermine the full human subjectivity of ethnic, racial, national Others? I argue that contemporary global sociopolitics and the changing structure of the distribution of video pornography online (specifically the emergence of free “sex tube” video hosting sites), create a moment with particular potential for resistance to the forces disciplining Western engagement with unmediated cultural products from outside the U.S.publicBroadcast and Video StudiesPornographyinternetadult industrysexualitysubjectivityculturehuman statusempathyglobalizationknowledgeInternational Video Pornography on the Internet: Crossing Digital Borders and the Un/disciplined Gaze.articlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt4720v3rx2011-07-03T20:58:16Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/4720v3rxBlas, Zachauthor2009-12-12This paper seeks out a new queer viral aesthetic configuration that binds, interconnects, extends, and reproduces the biosocialities of homosexuality. The digital art and activist organization Queer Technologies presents their project “GRID” as viral methodologies for reconstructing the dominant GRID of homosexuality, working from Alan Liu’s call for destructive creativity—a creativity that goes “beyond the new picturesque of mutation and mixing to [. . .] the new sublime of ‘destruction.’ [. . . a] viral aesthetics.” Such an aesthetic tactic would be a viral exploitation of the homosexual’s self.publicqueerviralaestheticsartactivismgridpoliticalstructuretopologyGRID: Viral Contagions in Homosexuality and the Queer Aesthetics of Infectionarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt4qn696qm2011-07-03T20:58:11Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/4qn696qmde Fren, Allisonauthor2009-12-12publicDisarticulating the Artificial Femalearticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt42r1836z2011-07-03T20:58:07Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/42r1836zBehar, Katherineauthor2009-12-12This paper explores correlations between restrictive interfaces in computational systems and restrictive interfaces in BDSM (Bondage & Discipline/Dominance & Submission/Sadism & Masochism) culture. Novel technologies often serve as pet fetish objects, but how do technologies perform as subjects in fetish culture? When digital technologies appear to us as objects, they present us with an illusion of mastery. In reality, technologies are active subjects and we, their "users," must bend to their requirements. In gaming scholarship, the process by which users must first internalize machinic logic in order to win mastery over a machine is termed learning the algorithm. Indeed, in cybernetics command and control through communication has much in common with sexual power dynamics. Both involve getting a partner to do what one wants and to not do what one doesn't want. The dominant consumerist relationship with technologies is already sexually charged. But in order to imagine an alternative, it becomes crucial to ask where power accumulates and how power functions in our interactions with devices. In a given moment of Human-Computer Interaction, who or what is a master and who or what is a slave?publicCyberneticsBDSMFetishismSadomasochismHuman- Computer InteractionSexPosthumanismCommand and Control: Cybernetics and BDSMarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt1z07j77x2011-07-03T20:58:01Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/1z07j77xPenny, Simonauthor2009-12-12It was not until the late 1980s that the term ‘Artificial Life’ arose as a descriptor of a range of (mostly) computer based research practices which sought alternatives to conventional Artificial Intelligence methods as a source of (quasi-) intelligent behavior in technological systems and artifacts. These practices included reactive and bottom-up robotics, computational systems which simulated evolutionary and genetic processes, and are range of other activities informed by biology and complexity theory. A general desire was to capture, harness or simulate the generative and ‘emergent’ qualities of ‘nature’ - of evolution, co-evolution and adaptation. ‘Emergence’ was a keyword in the discourse. Two decades later, the discourses of Artificial Life continues to have intellectual force, mystique and generative quality within the ‘computers and art’ community. This essay is an attempt to contextualise Artificial Life Art by providing an historical overview, and by providing background in the ideas which helped to form the Artificial Life movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This essay is prompted by the exhibition Emergence –Art and Artificial Life (Beall Center for Art and Technology, UCI, December 2009) which is a testament to the enduring and inspirational intellectual significance of ideas associated with Artificial Life.publicArtificial Intelligence and RoboticsArtificial LifeArtificial Life ArtEmergenceself-organisationArt and TechnologyAlifeCyberneticsChaosnon-linear dynamicsfractalsgenetic algorithmsInteractivitybelievable agentsautonomous agentschatbotsreactive roboticsArt and Artificial Life – a Primerarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt9t46k8z22011-07-03T20:57:57Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/9t46k8z2Pressman, JessicaauthorMarino, Mark C.author2009-12-12To complement the panels of DAC and to emphasize the centrality of the Arts at this conference, we have organized the DAC Literary Arts Extravaganza, featuring exciting and dramatic works from the world of electronic literature. Conference guests were invited to see, hear, and engage in the performance of digital-born literary art works that embody the innovative ideas in this year’s panels and that will no doubt be the subject of panels in future DAC conferences. Genres include: live video sculpture, locative media narratives, networked fiction, Flash poetry, and works that words only cannot yet describe. Below are the artists’ descriptions of the works and related links.publicDigital Literary Arts Extravaganzaarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt1jf572232011-07-03T20:57:53Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/1jf57223Lambert, Katherineauthor2009-12-12A dynamic pedagogical shift in CCA’s interdisciplinary studio curricula is exemplified by the class: Lifecycle: Empathy and Design for Complex Processes. Within this hybrid design studio environment, the complex interaction between an object and our material and digital environments is addressed through a life-cycle assessment. This was formulated through an analysis of traceable inventories, archives of (i/o) inputs and outputs of industrial, socio-economic and cultural processes that occurs within the life cycle of a selected object. The lifecycle of any object, the path it takes from concept, production, distribution, use, potential reuse, and ultimately as a collectible, e-waste, or landfill is critically demanding by its very nature.publicCurriculum and Social InquiryLifecyclee-wastesustainable practicesdesigntransdisciplinaryarchitecturecreative culturedesign educationdesign thinkingdivergenceconvergenceeconomic recoveryexperience designglobal warmingparticipation economysocial impactstrategic thinkingvisual designSan FranciscorecyclingThe Loop ... Lifecycle: Empathy and Design for Complex Processes.articlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt2565799j2011-07-03T20:57:39Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/2565799jFerro, RenateauthorMurray, Timothyauthor2009-12-12Our aim in nurturing cross-pollination between the Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art and the Tinker Factory is to move between the creative and research worlds in new media arts, and to continue to forge innovative, groundbreaking initiatives that will expand our notion of the archive itself and the range of relational artistic interventions in its midst. Parallels between Sound Culture and Connections lays the future conceptual groundwork for cross-disciplinary international ventures where the value of conceptual tinkering with technical and physical tinkering opens the possibilities of inventive research in new media.publicArchival ScienceRose Goldsen ArchiveTinker Factoryarttheoryarchivenew medianetworkingartistic creationresearchrelationalTinkering with the Archive: Pathways to Conceptual Thought and Digital Practicearticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt4sk9195w2011-07-03T20:57:35Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/4sk9195wSweeny, Robert Wauthor2009-12-12This paper draws upon the notion of the networked artwork in order to suggest possibilities for new media art education, informed by research in complexity and systems theory, participatory media, and critical pedagogy.publicOther EducationComplexity TheoryArt EducationVisual CultureNetworksProgressive EducationNetworked Artworks: Complex Connections in New Media Art Educationarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt4b6913rb2011-07-03T20:57:31Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/4b6913rbVeeragoudar Harrell, SnehaauthorHarrell, D. Foxauthor2009-12-12This paper reports on a study conducted within an alternative high school for students evicted from the mainstream and that utilized the virtual world (Teen Second Life or TSL). The use of selfrepresentations in virtual worlds to enable and facilitate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) learning is a promising endeavor. At the same time, it is not clear how the ability to construct imaginative self-representations can impact students’ abilities to view themselves as STEM learners and doers. Furthermore, questions over whether students should view avatars instrumentally to accomplish virtual tasks, as virtual selves for playful identity construction and performance, or to what degree the avatars should accommodate representing aspects of students’ real selves vs. extraordinary fantastic characters. This paper provides pilot evidence, elicited using grounded theory techniques on data collected in a three-year design-based research study into fostering at-risk students STEM learning. We propose a three-axis model of students’ stances in relationship to their avatars. Using insights from the cognitive science theory of conceptual blending in order to characterize students’ perspectives of their avatars as imaginative integrations of their real and virtual selves, we present a set of case studies illustrating students’ stances in terms of our three axes. The upshot is that students in the study tended to fall into three one of three categories: (1) viewing their avatars as necessarily reflections of their real world identities, (2) viewing their avatars as mere proxies for building artifacts in the world, and (3) viewing avatars as characters external to themselves for engaging in a play of identity performance and presentation. Group (1) found the affordances of TSL to be inadequate, hence serving the needs of this group may require alternative design solutions in light of real world behavior.publicCurriculum and Social InquirySTEM learningmathematical/computational agencyconceptual blendingavatarsvirtual worldsself-representationidentity playExploring the Potential of Computational Self- Representations for Enabling Learning: Examining At-risk Youths' Development of Mathematical/Computational Agencyarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt1gp1m5q92011-07-03T20:57:26Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/1gp1m5q9Boehner, KirstenauthorDiSalvo, Carlauthor2009-12-12This case study reviews the use of an ambient display system, dubbed Echo, for encouraging cross-disciplinary exchange about the design and role of technology systems. The study begins with a review of Echo: from the initial participatory interviews to the reflections and discussions generated by the installation. The second half of the case study analyzes why the experiment succeeded and where it fell short. To answer open questions about the experience, we look to the practice of dialogic aesthetics advanced by Grant Kester. We ask what it would mean to use the concept of the ‘character of exchange’ as a guide for the evaluation and design of cross-disciplinary exchanges.publicAmbient systemsocial presencereflective designarts and humanitiesdialogic aestheticsEchoes of Social Presence: A Case Study of A Cross- Disciplinary Pedagogical Experimentarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt6jq2f8kw2011-07-03T20:57:23Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/6jq2f8kwMandiberg, Stephenauthor2009-12-12In this paper, I elaborate in the difference between the concepts of localization and translation and how they relate to the movement, distribution, and understanding of different versions of the Square-Enix game Kingdom Hearts.publicKingdom HeartsDisneySquare-EnixgamingJapantranslationnew mediasoftware studiesTranslation (is) Not Localization: Language in Gamingarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt3rd2s6952011-07-03T20:57:19Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/3rd2s695Jichen, ZhuauthorHarrell, D. Foxauthor2009-12-12Computer systems that are designed explicitly to exhibit intentionality embody a phenomenon of increasing cultural importance. In typical discourse about arti�cial intelligence (AI) systems, system intentionality is often seen as a technical and ontological property of a program, resulting from its underlying algorithms and knowledge engineering. Infuenced by hermeneutic approaches to text analysis and drawing from the areas of actor-network theory and philosophy of mind, this paper proposes a humanistic framework for analysis of AI systems stating that system intentionality is narrated and interpreted by its human creators and users. We pay special attention to the discursive strategies embedded in source code and technical literature of software systems that include such narration and interpretation. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of our theory with a close reading of an AI system, Hofstadter and Mitchell's Copycat.publicSoftware studiesArtificial intelligenceHermeneuticsCritical Code StudiesSystem intentionalitySystem Intentionality and the Artificial Intelligence Hermeneutic Network: the Role of Intentional Vocabularyarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt6pk7s4n62011-07-03T20:57:15Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/6pk7s4n6Mitchell, AlexauthorMontfort, Nickauthor2009-12-12Adventure game development systems are platforms from the developer’s perspective. This paper investigates several subtle differences between these platforms, focusing on two systems for interactive fiction development. We consider how these platform differences may have influenced authors as they developed systems for simulation and storytelling. Through close readings of Dan Shiovitz’s Bad Machine (1998), written in TADS 2, and Emily Short’s Savoir-Faire (2002), written in Inform 6, we discuss how these two interactive fiction authoring systems may have influenced the structure of simulated story worlds that were built in them. We extend this comparative approach to larger sets of games, looking at interactive wordplay and the presentation of information within the story. In concluding, we describe how critics, scholars, and developers may be able to more usefully consider the platform level in discussions of games, electronic literature, and digital art.publicPlatform studiessoftware studiesinteractive fictionauthoringinteractive storytellingadventure gamesobject-oriented programmingwordplayparatextsShaping Stories and Building Worlds on Interactive Fiction Platformsarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt0gr963q12011-07-03T20:57:11Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/0gr963q1Meeks, Elijahauthor2009-12-12While much attention has been given to first-person shooters and puzzle games in academic scholarship, large-scale Civilization style games (known colloquially as 4X games) have received comparatively scant attention. The map-based nature of these games, with an emphasis on socio-political, socio-environmental, cultural and military activity, is particularly well-suited as a medium to express historical knowledge. However, to adapt a medium designed to entertain players to a scholarly medium for the analysis of historical processes requires a thorough understanding of the structure of 4X games and the manner in which historical processes are represented in a map-based space. This paper analyzes the spatial and processual systems in FreeCiv and the Civilization series of games —specifically, an examination of the use of container-oriented, tile-based maps contrasted with modern historical GIS based on point and polygon data reveals best practices from the entertainment gaming community that may prove highly suitable for adoption in the digital humanities. The creation of tiled maps using defined environmental and social terrain and unit types may also provide accessibility to non-coding scholars to academic commons-based peer collaborative creation of new humanities digital media. The defined interaction between game objects, such as cities, irrigated farmland and military units, provides a second entry point for scholars, who through critique of existing game dynamics can define a more historically accurate system subject to peer-review. As a digital humanities medium, such a system would also prove suitable for the integration of multi-paradigm modeling techniques.publicAlgorithmsMeasurementDesignHuman FactorsTheoryScholarly Civilization: Utilizing 4X Gaming as a Framework for Humanities Digital Mediaarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt3x99c2zt2011-07-03T20:57:07Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/3x99c2ztEladhari, Mirjam P.authorMateas, Michaelauthor2009-12-12The Pataphysic Institute (PI) is a prototype MMORPG de- veloped in order to experiment with game mechanics en- hancing the playing experience. In this paper aspects of the design the prototype which support players' expression of consistent interesting characters are reported. The design of these features builds upon results of user tests of a pre- vious iteration of the prototype. The game-play in PI is based on the semiautonomous agent-architecture the Mind Module.publiccharactermultiplayeraffectvirtual game worldsdesignrole-playsoftware studiesMMORPGRules for Role Play in Virtual Game Worlds Case Study: The Pataphysic Institutearticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt4x13q6532011-07-03T20:57:03Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/4x13q653Evens, Adenauthor2009-12-12Programming offers arguably the greatest opportunity for creative investment in the computer. But, given the mechanistic relationship between source code and executable and the highly constrained formalisms of programming, it is hard to see where creativity would find a place within the rigor and determinism of code. This paper places this question of creativity in the context of a broader problem of creativity in the digital generally, then identifies an ontological structure, called a fold or edge, that marks the creative moment of digital interaction. In programming, the edge appears in the object, recognizable in object-oriented programming but common to every creative innovation in coding technique.publicProgramming Languages and CompilersfoldedgecreativityobjectbinarydigitalontologyDeleuzeabstractionProgramming and Foldarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt3vg159kn2011-07-03T20:56:59Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/3vg159knMcWilliams, Chandler B.author2009-12-12This paper considers the absence of the human actor, specifically the programmer, from Friedrich Kittler’s analysis of software in his essay There is no Software. By focusing too intently on the machine and its specific, material existence, Kittler removes the human user / operator / writer from his analysis of software. Thus, he has no choice but to interpret the layers of language, assembler, opcode and WordPerfect, DOS, BIOS—both chains ending in an essentializing reduction to voltages—as an attempt to obfuscate the material operations of the machine in the name of intellectual property.By both reasserting the presence of the programmer within Kittler’s structure, and attacking the conception of code-as-text, this essay offers an alternate description of the being of software, one which emphasizes not just the execution of code on the machine, but also the programmer’s role as reader and writer of code.publicSoftware studiesmedia studiescritical code studiesThe Other Softwarearticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt3s67474h2011-07-03T20:56:55Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/3s67474hCamper, Brettauthor2009-12-12A small but growing trend in video game development uses the “obsolete” graphics and sound of 1980s-era, 8-bit microcomputers to create “fake 8-bit” games on today’s hardware platforms. This paper explores the trend by looking at a specific case study, the platform-adventure game La-Mulana, which was inspired by the Japanese MSX computer platform. Discussion includes the specific aesthetic traits the game adopts (as well as ignores), and the 8-bit technological structures that caused them in their original 1980s MSX incarnation. The role of technology in shaping aesthetics, and the persistence of such effects beyond the lifetime of the originating technologies, is considered as a more general “retro media” phenomenon.publicVideo gamesretro8-bitplatformsMSXspritespixelsmediaaestheticssoftware studiesplatform studiesFake Bit: Imitation and Limitationarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt09q9m0kn2011-07-03T20:56:51Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/09q9m0knMarino, Mark C.author2009-12-12In this paper, I outline the heteronormative characteristics of computer code using a Critical Code Studies approach. First, I introduce Zach Blas’ transCoder: Queer Programming Antilanguage. With this scripting bible, I interpret Julie Levin Russo’s Slash Goggles algorithm, fictional software for exploring variant romantic pair possibilities and sexual subtexts (or slashtexts) on the remake of the television program “Battlestar Gallactica.” Out of these tools, I develop a framework for viewing the heteronormative code in other functioning algorithms. Applying the tools to 2000-2001 AnnaKournikova Visual Basic Script worm, I interrogate the viral qualities of heterosocial norms. This paper also includes discussions of encryption, fan culture, and Cylons.publicOther Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality StudiesCritical Code StudiesSoftware StudiesWormsHeteronormativeQueerTheoryVirusesBattlestar GallacticaFanfictionCodeworkDisrupting Heteronormative Codes: When Cylons in Slash Goggles Ogle AnnaKournikovaarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt8807m77k2011-07-03T20:56:47Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/8807m77kCastellanos, CarlosauthorGromala, Dianeauthor2009-12-12This paper outlines a research agenda that addresses the question of how contemporary interactive arts practice can evolve new strategies or ways of facilitating the development of subjective experiences that elicit an embodied, felt sense and awareness of our co-evolution with intelligent systems and digital technologies. Drawing upon and extending a phenomenological model of intentionality, we introduce the concept of the “symbiogenic experience” in relation to interactive or technologically-mediated artworks and discuss early research explorations that exemplify it.publicSymbiogenic Experiences in the Interactive Artsarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt9vc1v77q2011-07-03T20:56:44Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/9vc1v77qHansen, Lone Koefoedauthor2009-12-12Based on discussions of hybrid space as well as the concepts of the database and archive art, the paper analyzes Hasan Elahi’s project “Tracking Transience” (2003-) and relates it to Sophie Calle’s performance “Detective” (1980) while discussing how we can understand the mobile phone as a device that is capable of creating a ‘database shadow’ of the mobile phone owner. Elahi created “Tracking Transience” after he was held back by the FBI in 2003 on suspicion of being a possible terrorist; by consulting the website trackingtransience.net everyone now has access to the data generated by Elahi and his mobile phone, which meticulously tracks his life. However, even though Elahi’s life seems to be thoroughly and intimately documented with pictures of e.g. every eaten meal and every visited restroom, we are clearly not getting the full picture. Consequently, despite having been granted access to an enormous amount of data, we are left with a feeling of following a shadow or maybe a mirage. This paper explores how the mobile phone affords this playing hide-and-seek, and the way that it provides shelter from the inspecting eye.publicdatabase artarchivehybrid spaceshadowmobile phoneHasan ElahiSophie CalleIn the Shadow of the Cell-Phonearticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt47g5w6c42011-07-03T20:56:39Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/47g5w6c4Bizzocchi, JimauthorBen Youssef, BelgacemauthorQuan, BrianauthorSuzuki, WakikoauthorBagheri, MajidauthorRiecke, Bernhard E.author2009-12-12Re:Cycle is a generative ambient video art piece based on nature imagery captured in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Ambient video is designed to play in the background of our lives. An ambient video work is difficult to create - it can never require our attention, but must always rewards attention when offered. A central aesthetic challenge for this form is that it must also support repeated viewing. Re:Cycle relies on a generative recombinant strategy for ongoing variability, and therefore a higher replayability factor. It does so through the use of two randomaccess databases: one database of video clips, and another of video transition effects. The piece will run indefinitely, joining clips and transitions from the two databases in randomly varied combinations.Generative ambient video is an art form that draws upon the continuing proliferation and increased sophistication of technology as a supporting condition. Ambient video benefits from the ongoing distribution of ever-larger and improved video screens. Generative ambient video is more easily realized within a culture where computation, like the large video screen, is also becoming more ubiquitous.A series of related creative decisions gave Re:Cycle its final shape. The decisions all wrestled with variations on a single problem: how to find an appropriate balance between aesthetic control on the one hand, and variability/re-playability on the other. The paper concludes with a description of future work to be done on the project, including the use of metadata to improve video flow and sequencing coherence.publicBroadcast and Video Studiesambient videogenerative processesvideo artubiquitous computinghigh-definition displayambient display"calm" technology"slow" technologydesignRe:Cycle - a Generative Ambient Video Enginearticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt0kp6h4z82011-07-03T20:56:35Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/0kp6h4z8Waisman, Ninaauthor2009-12-12How might our logic be changing as ubiquitous computing links our gestural acts to those of distant, yet virtually present bodies? Neurological researchers along with theorists of embodiment will be drawn into a consideration of the negotiation of moving bodies though sensor-mined environments, exploring the impact such negotiations have on the generation of meaning. The body will be considered as a complex system of transducers, actuated by diverse powers in collaborative environments. Interactive sound installations created by the author will be analyzed as triggers to a consideration of techno-spliced gestures in mixed reality.publicInteractivesoundinstallationgesturedanceCECUTBetween BodiesTrainingDisplacementAroundTijuanaProyecto CívicoUCSDsensorsinfraredproximityvideowalkingubiquitous computingphysical computingembodimenttechnologyarttransductiontransducersculptureenvironmentFusing Bodies: A Consideration of Techno-Spliced Gestures in Interactive Installationsarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt52n830292011-07-03T20:56:30Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/52n83029Stenner, JackauthorLeMieux, Patrickauthor2009-12-12Using computer vision techniques and game engine technology, the interactive installation, Game-Space, explores subjectivity in mediated environments. The paper discusses the development of this work and its current conception as a machine for the experimental production of a new subjectivity in the form of a machinic hybrid.publicArtinstallationbodyaffectinteractionsubjectivityrepresentationimmersionaestheticsGame-Space: Unfolding Experiments in Subjectivityarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt95b6t1cm2011-07-03T20:56:27Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/95b6t1cmLeMieux, PatrickauthorBoluk, Stephanieauthor2009-12-12This paper examines the way in which time and space are figured within a new genre of what we are calling "eccentric games" and a site-specific video sharing application called Trover by Dan Provost. Taking Valve’s Portal as our case study, a chiasmatic relationship emerges between these different modes of eccentric media. In order to access eccentric space the video games we examine appropriate the logic of film whereas Provost's video application Trover is informed by an eccentric logic of games.publicEccentric gamesTroveriPhone applicationNew York CityPortalValveAuraIndexEmbodimentLocationEccentric Spaces and Filmic Traces: Portals in Aperture Laboratories and New York Cityarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt865094r12011-07-03T20:56:23Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/865094r1Rowe, AnthonyauthorMorrison, Andrewauthor2009-12-12Recent developments in light emitting diode (LED) production technology mean that high numbers of LEDs can now be used at costs that are no longer prohibitive. This paper looks at various creative and artistic applications of three-dimensional grids of LEDs, when used to produce imagery and volumetric visualisations in three physical dimensions. We focus on two research projects by digital arts group Squidsoup that seek to take advantage of the affordances of such a system. Of particular interest is the additional possibilities granted by the third physical dimension: whether the fact that the visuals inhabit a virtual layer anchored within real space adds to the affective possibilities of digital visualisation systems. The two projects have been publicly exhibited and use an existing LED grid system, NOVA, developed by ETH Zurich.public3D LED gridvolumetric visualisationlow resolutionimmersionaffectmedia artDynamic Visualisation in Three Physical Dimensionsarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt3s73k5b42011-07-03T20:56:12Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/3s73k5b4Thomsen, Mette RamsgardauthorKarmon, Ayeletauthor2009-12-12This paper presents research into material design merging the structural logics of surface tectonics with computation. The research asks how the understanding and design of interactive systems changes as computation becomes an integrated part of our material surroundings. Rather than thinking the ubiquitous system as something that is embedded into the existing context of the built environment, this paper speculates on the design of bespoke materials specified and designed in respect to both their structural as well as their computational performance. The paper asks: what are the design practices that allow us to think of material as extending both in space (structure) and over time (actuation)? How can we imagine our surrounding environment as actively sensing and responding to our presences? How would it be to inhabit a live space?publicOther Computer SciencesArchitectureubiquitous computingmaterial practiceinteraction designmaterial specification and integrationComputational materials: Embedding Computation into the Everydayarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt6q71j0zh2011-07-03T20:56:08Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/6q71j0zhRoss, Christineauthor2009-12-12This paper examines the ambivalence of “destination”—namely the ambivalence of the user’s interpellation—as one of the key features of augmented reality (AR) art. It calls attention to the special status of the spectator whose participation is at once a requirement and an uncertainty, a prediction and an anxiety, a principle of localization and a questioning of the very capacity to localize. This ambivalence is endemic to AR environments which rely on mobile, networking, tracking, sensing and detection technologies. My main claim is that, as a perceptual paradigm, AR’s potential innovativeness lies in its ability to generate new ways of perceiving for the spectator or to disclose what was previously unperceived—unseen, unheard, unfelt. These ways of perceiving are structurally rooted in the ambivalence of destination. This structuring feature, however, is recurrently sidestepped by the interactive setting of AR art. Required to interact; destined to act specifically and to insert him or herself in a standardizing logic of community formation; allegedly “in direct contact” with the immediate environment despite extreme mediation: the spectator turned user, YOUuser or interactor is solicited as a destinataire (a recipient) in ways that most often counter the possibilities of AR as an ambivalent mode of destination. The paper investigates three AR environments by artists Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Mathieu Briand, and Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau to show how these traits either counter or favour the perceptual potential of AR.publicAugmented RealityArtAestheticsInteractivityPerceptionCommunityAugmented Reality Art: A Matter of (non)Destinationarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt64w0d7tz2011-07-03T20:56:05Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/64w0d7tzDekker, Annetauthor2009-12-12People living in urban areas have grown accustomed to the moving visual images surrounding them – displayed upon large screens attached to or integrated in the architecture of the city. In public squares, shopping streets or any other place where people gather, the moving image has become part of everyday public life. The growing ubiquity of mobile technologies in this environment has added another layer of moving image culture on top of the city. Different contexts and spaces, virtual and physical, are overlapping and changing all the time. Theorists and writers describe this development as a new augmented reality, responsive architecture or ambient experience design: a new environment that will lead to a different notion of public space, in turn creating new relationships between people and places. Without doubt the way that these media – from electronic sensors, urban screens and CCTV systems, to GPS and RFID tags – are experienced has significantly impacted the way people communicate as well as their practices of physical and affective orientation. But does this lead to the conclusion that public space is no longer determined by city planning and geographical boundaries? Throughout history artists have tried to reconsider, remap and re-appropriate the boundaries of the city, sometimes reviving older methods in order to cope with new technologies. This paper focuses on contemporary artistic practices that use mobile technologies either as platform or tool to reconsider people’s relationships to mobile technologies and place. If these technologies really are so influential in shaping one’s relation to the city, do such artistic projects succeed in creating a new affect of place?publicNew Ways of Seeing: Artistic Usage of Locative Mediaarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt4zp0c4x22011-07-03T20:56:00Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/4zp0c4x2Shepard, Markauthor2009-12-12In this paper, I discuss the Sentient City Survival Kit, a design research project that probes the social, cultural and political implications of ubiquitous computing for urban environments. Following a discussion of the philosophical and cultural problems of attributing sentience to non-human actors, I present a brief cross-section of historical and contemporary constructions of nonhuman sentient beings in the fields of science fiction literature, computer science research, and applied technology. The paper concludes by introducing the notion of an archaeology of the near future as a conceptual framework for designing and fabricating a series of artifacts, spaces and media for ‘survival’ in the near future ‘sentient’ city.publicSentient City Survival Kit: Archaeology of the Near Futurearticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt6gs7590h2011-07-03T20:55:57Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/6gs7590hBoyle, Jen E.author2009-12-12This paper reconsiders the relationship between historical time, embodied time, and locative media. The example for this paper is the second phase of The Hollins Community Project , a locative new media installation that takes place on a trail used by former slaves of Hollins University, Virginia (USA) during the nineteenth century. The project mixes historical material with in situ virtual narratives and embodied interactions within the space to experiment with the affective and distributed aspects of narrative. An earlier phase of this project imagined the exchanges between the physical and virtual interface as a version of a memory theatre. A tagging function has since been included in the interface to explore further the temporal intensities that form up around affect and incipient narrative. Ars combinatoria , an early modern model of “tagging” (parataxic assemblage, process, and affective presence) offers a productive comparison with contemporary spatial ontologies of tagging. The paper argues for a broadened discussion of the significance of temporal affect in locative media. This work also addresses the potential in mixing historical and contemporary approaches to locative new media.publiclocative mediataggingnarrativeaffecttimehistoryembodimentRe-moving Flat Ontologies: Mobile Locative Tagging and Ars Combinatoria in the Hollins Community Projectarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt8nk172kc2011-07-03T20:55:52Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/8nk172kcKabisch, Ericauthor2009-12-12In the context of a conference themed “After media,” this paper suggests a notion of after-media – not as a time beyond the demise of some particular media, but as an approach where the goals of a new medium are made explicit in relation to its historical foundations and practices. The author presents several principles and trajectories that shape his approach toward mobile after-media. These theoretical concerns are made more tangible by an explanation of the author’s project Datascape, a geographic storytelling platform that supports the telling of locative narratives by artists, researchers, educators and community groups.publicLocative mediageographymobilelocalitynarrativeinteractive artstorytellingvisualizationdataafter-mediaMobile After-media, Cultural Narratives and the Data Imaginaryarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt0f90852t2011-07-03T20:55:49Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/0f90852tClark, Brian Larsonauthor2009-12-12The goal of this paper is to investigate the effects of technologically mediated communication on face-to-face conversation, and to propose improvements to the design practices of future sociable media through small-scale media experiments. Currently, developing research on sociable media myopically takes an atomistic approach toward design. In this paper I propose an example of a form of sociable media which responds, not at an atomized, individual level, but at a cultural level.publicSociable MediaDesigning Better Sociable Mediaarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt6rw4n69h2011-07-03T20:55:44Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/6rw4n69hPepe, AlbertoauthorReddy, SasankauthorNguyen, LillyauthorHansen, Markauthor2009-12-12Micro-blogging is a form of online communication by which users broadcast brief text updates, or tweets. This arti- cle explores the temporal component of micro-blogging ac- tivity by emphasizing its narrative nature: an individual tweet is an expression of personal online presence at a given time, yet it necessarily embodies the context of a broader developing story. We present Twit ick, a digital media platform that blends a continuous stream of real-time text updates from Twitter with related user-uploaded images hosted on Flickr. Twit ick acts as a space in which dis- tributed, temporally-authentic personal narratives, in the form of photographs and text, reinforce, extend, and even misrepresent each other. The visualizations provided by Twitflick capture the quotidian rhythms of online social exchange and draw attention to the poetic potential of web 2.0.publicGraphics and Human Computer InterfacesVisualizationweb 2.0micro-bloggingdigital narrativeseveryday lifephotographymultimediacross-platform sys- temsmash-upsTwitflick: visualizing the rhythm and narrative of micro-blogging activityarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt7nn8r5q32011-07-03T20:55:32Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/7nn8r5q3Solomon, Danaauthor2009-12-12This paper utilizes selections from the digital Flash poems/texts of Seoul-based art duo Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries (YHCHI) to try and formulate a new mode of close “reading,” one that takes into consideration the way in which these, as well as other, new media texts reconfigure the process of reading. YHCHI produces texts that raise questions regarding user agency, conceptualizations of interactivity, and even the place of the humanities scholar in the age of the digital.publicElectronic LiteratureLiteraturePoetryPerformanceTheoryReadingFeedback LoopInteractivityParallel AuthorshipHumanist InquiryGenre CategorizationNo User Required: Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries and Digital Humanist Inquiryarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt58c9373m2011-07-03T20:55:28Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/58c9373mKashtan, Aaronauthor2009-12-12In this paper I analyze two contemporary works of interactive fiction (IF), Nick Montfort’s Ad Verbum and Emily Short’s City of Secrets, as examples of two contrasting ways in which IF reacts to the perceived threat of computer graphics. In the postcommercial era of IF, graphics represent a factor that, without being acknowledged, has profoundly shaped the development of the medium. Post-graphical works of IF may be distinguished according to how they respond to the threat or promise of graphics. Ad Verbum’s response to graphics is to emphasize the purely textual, and thus anti-graphical and anti-visual, aspects of the medium. The implication is that IF’s closest affinities are not with visual prose but with printed works of procedural textuality, and that IF is a visual medium. By contrast, City of Secrets activates a mode of visuality that depends less on immediate presence than on emotional affect and imaginative participation. Short suggests that IF is a visual medium, but that it differs from graphical video games in that its visuality depends on absence rather than presence.publicInteractive fictionekphrasisword-image studiesBecause It's Not There: Verbal Visuality and the Threat of Graphics in Interactive Fictionarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt09r7w3m82011-07-03T20:55:20Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/09r7w3m8Pederson, Claudia Costaauthor2009-12-12In this paper, I discuss three experimental projects by Peruvian artist Rolando Sanchez Ponte: a videogame installation, a biorobot performance, and an electronic sculpture. These works are discussed in relation to their formal conceptualization as forms of electronic waste recycling underscored by a poetic engagement with excess that carries broader suggestions toward thinking the relationship between difference and sustainability.publicInstallationtrash aestheticsrecyclingPeruecosophygreen technologiesroboticselectronic assemblagevideogamesTowards an Ecology of Excessarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt6bv363d42011-07-03T20:55:16Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/6bv363d4Shanken, Edward A.author2009-12-12This paper offers close-readings of selected literature pertaining to Burnham’s “systems esthetics,” the subject of significant scholarly attention recently. It identifies, compares, and contrasts several attempts to engage Burnham’s theories in contemporary art historical discourses, noting strategic and interpretive shifts in approaches and goals between 1997-2009. This research hopes to offer insight into current art historical practices and the processes by which history informs, and is transformed by, the present.publicSystems aestheticsinformation aestheticscyberneticssystems theoryinformation theoryartBenseAscottBurnhamBijvoetPennyWhitelawSkrebowskyBuchlohHaackeKosuthReprogramming Systems Aesthetics: A Strategic Historiographyarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt01x5v98g2011-07-03T20:55:13Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/01x5v98gRaley, Ritaauthor2009-12-12This paper explores literary uses of mobile media, with a particular emphasis on poetics. Its primary examples include SMS poetry contests sponsored by entities such as The Guardian, RMIT, and Onesixty and SMS-enabled public performances such as City Speak, TXTual Healing, and SimpleTEXT. The paper articulates some of the paradigmatic qualities of mobile media poetics, with a particular emphasis on liveness and ephemerality and commentary on mobility and location as signifying elements. It also suggests that some of the literary and socio-political potential of mobile media poetics can be seen in the shift from the single desktop to the mobile screens of large-scale public interaction. This investigation of mobile media poetics is situated as a partial redress to the seemingly ubiquitous worries over the decline of reading.publicMobile mediadigital poeticspoetryelectronic literatureSMStext messagingperformancelivenessliterary studiesreadingMobile Media Poeticsarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt7195z0kc2011-07-03T20:55:08Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/7195z0kcMain, Brendanauthor2009-12-12This paper examines questions of digital autonomy from a humanist perspective. Drawing from the humanist tenet that transcendental ethical systems serve to defer personal ethics, this paper examines the ways in which game mediation undermines player autonomy, and the extent to which “destructibility” affects game spaces. Presenting a brief history of “destructibility” in games, and comparing the ramifications of “destructible” and “non-destructible” spaces, this paper argues that digital humanism requires a reassessment of virtual behavior, and a conscious move towards unmediated and unmoderated spaces, in order to draw considerations of ethics back to the individual.publicDestructibilityDigital BodiesEthicsHumanismMediationModerationI Smash the Body Electric: An Ethic of Digital Impactarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt17r0935d2011-07-03T20:55:05Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/17r0935dRush, Jeffauthor2009-12-12In this paper, I propose a synthesis of Merleau-Ponty’s and Ricoeur’s temporal models to describe how first-person-shooters suggest human time. Merleau-Ponty’s model of phenomenological time identifies the movement generated by perception itself. Ricour’s model of narrative time seeks to bridge individual and cosmological time. Their synthesis suggests how human time is experienced in some video games as the progressive narrowing down of the possibilities embodied in a new game space, or the movement of what Merleau-Ponty calls the pre-reflective to the reflective, and Ricour calls mimemis1 to mimesis3. It further accounts for how perceptions of time experienced in games extend beyond game play itself.publicPhenomenologyMerleau-PontyRicoeurFirst-Person-ShootersVideo GamesGame Past/Future: Narrative and Phenomenological Time in First-Person-Shootersarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt2xv6b6n02011-07-03T20:55:00Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/2xv6b6n0Grigar, DeneauthorTabbi, JosephauthorKirschenbaum, MattauthorTata, Michael AngeloauthorHeckman, DavinauthorAngel, MariaauthorGibbs, Annaauthor2009-12-12In his post on Empyre, Michael Angelo Tata coined the term, “eject.” Alluding to Walter Benjamin’s notion of an artifact generated from “the technological innovation of mechanical reproducibility,” Tata suggested that the e-ject “creates a culture industry by making culture maximally mobile, available to even the lowest social strata.” Questions raised in this statement focused on whether or not such an object is “genuine” to how one goes about “collecting” “commodif[ying], and discussing it.” This presentation extends that discussion by focusing on the ephemeral nature, genres, and criticism of electronic objects in a roundtable discussion led by members of the Electronic Literature Organization. Thus, the theorization of e-jects looks specifically at those objects that have a literary quality but that are not reproducible in print-based contexts.publicElectronic literaturee-jectephemeraAgrippacollectibilitytelepoesisE-Ject: On the Ephemeral Nature, Mechanisms, and Implications of Electronic Objectsarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt40z2b75n2011-07-03T20:51:35Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/40z2b75nHersko, Juditauthor2009-12-12In this paper I discuss the notion of translation as it relates to the practice and communication of science. While science is a creative translation of the natural world, it pretends to be a carbon copy of reality and therefore it eschews expressive and metaphorical use of language. I argue that the denial of subjectivity in the pursuit of science and in the scientific approach to language impedes communication with the general public. The use of digital data has exacerbated this ‘objective’ trend. Art can bridge the gap by retranslating this data into metaphors thereby making the information more sensually and emotionally accessible as well as intellectually comprehensible. I present two case studies of my collaborations with scientists centered on ocean acidification and ultraviolet radiation respectively, showing how digital data is retranslated into physical phenomena and inserted into a larger historical and cultural narrative that includes the history of Antarctic science.publicArt/science collaborationAntarctic scienceclimate changeocean acidificationUV radiationdata translationnarrative‘Translating’ and ‘Retranslating’ Data: Tracing the Steps in Projects that Address Climate Change and Antarctic Sciencearticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt3pm5b4jp2011-07-03T20:51:31Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/3pm5b4jpWallen, Ruthauthor2009-12-12In this paper I consider the potential of digital technology to raise ecological awareness and motivate change, focusing on my artwork, The Sea As Sculptress, a macrophotographic record of the marine life growing on sculptures I placed in the San Francisco Bay. Originally presented thirty years ago as a performative lecture with slide dissolves, I recently redesigned and updated the project as an extensive web site. Here, I present the initial context and intention of the project and then outline the strategies that I employed to translate and re-envision the work in light of both the development of new technologies and changing conceptions of art and ecology. I argue for the importance of collaboration between artists and scientists to develop and promulgate the values and policies necessary to address the many ecological challenges of our times.publicEcoartart/science collaborationweb designdigital artecologymacrophotographyengagementinteractivityExploratoriumwater qualitySan Francisco Baywater qualityThe Sea As Sculptress—From Analog to Digitalarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt46h442ng2011-07-03T20:51:26Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/46h442ngChang, Alenda Y.author2009-12-12Alarming environmental trends are increasingly the subject of a variety of games that suggest surprising new approaches to both game studies and environmental advocacy, traditionally conceived. Such games raise an interesting complex of questions: how do games model “nature” and relevant scientific theories, and how do code-based representations of nature differ from those in more traditional media? Do games potentially permit a better understanding of natural processes by moving past the mere visualization of data to procedural or algorithmic embodiment? As the work of Ian Bogost and Alexander Galloway, among others, suggests, digital games and networked media offer promising avenues not only for rendering the realities of environmental crisis—nature as problem space—but also for schematizing possible solutions in ways that leverage the unique affordances of the computer, the Internet, and player collectives.publicProcedural rhetoricsocial realismgamesenvironmentecologyPlaying the Environment: Games as Virtual Ecologiesarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt5n45j7v42011-07-03T20:51:22Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/5n45j7v4Sharpe, Leslieauthor2009-12-12In this paper, I discuss issues of the North related to climate change and sovereignty that are examined in my current artworks that use patterns and paths related to crossings of the Canadian North and its Oceans (Arctic and Atlantic) as well as cultural and political references to the North and myths of North.publicSustainabilityClimate ChangeArcticNorthCanadaSubArcticAlbertaInuitindigenousDEW linePCBenvironmentsovereigntysculptureinteractionNorthern Crossingsarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt9cd4h4sw2011-07-03T20:51:18Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/9cd4h4swProhaska, Rainerauthor2009-12-12Health problems and the search for alternative energy solutions are two ongoing issues of western society. In this paper the author describes his continuing eco-political art project "KRFTWRK – Global Human Electricity", which connects these subjects and tries to present aesthetic and social solutions to these problems through artistic activities.publicParticipationMixed RealityEnvironmentHealthNet ArtDigital ArtInstallationFine ArtArchitectureKRFTWRK – Global Human Electricityarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt73c6w2g12011-07-03T20:51:06Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/73c6w2g1Fox, William L.author2009-12-12Technologies deployed by artists in the Antarctic art have progressed in cumulative fashion from painting and drawing to photography to new media, such as installation and performance art, a sequence which parallels historical eras in exploration.publicEvery New Thing: Artistic Technologies in the Antarcticarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt1055s39t2011-07-03T20:51:02Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/1055s39tSade, GavinauthorBracks, Priscillaauthor2009-12-12This paper introduces the creative work Distracted and discusses conceptual, aesthetic and technical aspects of the work. The work was conceived as a luminous, interactive, computational media installation informed by our interest in the Antarctica. Through the paper we focus on: how the work addresses the themes of climate change and sustainability; how we attempted to work with selected sets of scientific data to evoke the delicate yet extreme nature of the environment and the ways in which ice is a record of the earth’s geological history and recent human impacts; and how the process of making this artwork caused us to reconsider our practices and formulate strategies for redirecting our practice in a manner that addresses the challenges of sustainability.publicDistracted: Poetic Interpretations of Climate Dataarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt42f0d7sq2011-07-03T20:50:57Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/42f0d7sqLaar, Kalleauthor2009-12-12This paper introduces the project Call me!, a series of interactive projects in acoustical emotional field research by sound artist Kalle Laar on the global impacts of climate change.publicCall Me! Calling the Glacierarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt83r992f62011-07-03T20:50:54Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/83r992f6Polli, Andreaauthor2009-12-12This paper investigates how sound transmission can contribute to the public understanding of climate change within the context of the Poles. How have such transmission-based projects developed specifically in the Arctic and Antarctic, and how do these works create alternative pathways in order to help audiences better understand climate change? The author has created the media project Sonic Antarctica from a personal experience of the Antarctic. The work combines soundscape recordings and sonifications with radio-style audio interview excerpts. This work will be examined in the context of the other sound transmission science and art works..publicradioAntarcticasoundscapesonificationaudificationclimateAirspace: Antarctic Sound Transmissionarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt7t5741s02011-07-03T20:50:34Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/7t5741s0Schick, LeaauthorMalmborg, Loneauthor2009-12-12This paper advocates the future of the body as a distributed and shared embodiment; an unfolded body that doesn’t end at one's skin, but emerges as intercorporeality between bodies and the technological environment. Looking at new tendencies within interaction design and ubiquitous computing to see how these are to an increasing extent focusing on sociality, context-awareness, relations, affects, connectedness, and collectivity we will examine how these new technological movements can change our perception of embodiment towards a distributed and shared one. By examining interactive textiles as part of a future rising landscape of multi-sensory networks we will exemplify how the new technologies can shutter dichotomies and challenge traditional notions of embodiment and the subject. Finally, we show how this ‘new embodiment’ manifests Deleuze’s philosophy of the body as something unstable and changing, and how his refolding of the body can be useful for future interaction designers to understand the context they work in and the challenges they will meet.publicGraphics and Human Computer InterfacesOther Computer SciencesEmbodimentsubjectinteraction designubiquitous computingsensor-network systemsinteractive textilescontext-awarenessaffective computinginteractive textilescollectivitybodyUnfolding and Refolding Embodiment into the Landscape of Ubiquitous Computingarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt083507h42011-07-03T20:50:30Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/083507h4Levisohn, AaronauthorGromala, Dianeauthor2009-12-12This paper brings together multiple theories regarding the role of the senses in the construction of embodied experiences. Embodiment, we suggest, is not a visual or auditory phenomenon, but rather an ontological one, that is, one of being. Employing accounts from cognitive science, existential phenomenology, and interactive art, we argue that the inner senses have a special role in the construction of these ontological experiences.We present an interactive artwork titled Taro(t)ception designed to elicit an embodied aesthetic experience and heighten awareness of inner states. As well as being an artwork, Taro(t)ception is an exploration: the system provides a tool through which we can explore proprioceptive illusions in order to develop methods for transforming viewers' experiences of their own bodies and their own movements.Our approach attempts to bridge the gap between third-person investigations, which rarely take in to account the quality of experience, and first-person accounts, which are easily dismissed as anecdotal.publicInteractive ArtEmbodimentPhenomenologyMovementInteroceptionProprioceptionEmotionOntologyCognitionTaro(t)ception: Eliciting Embodied, Interoceptive Awareness through Interactive Artarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt91v563kh2011-07-03T20:50:26Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/91v563khSalamanca, Claudiaauthor2009-12-12This paper analyses the documentation of the special session delivered by Douglas Engelbart and William English on December 9, 1968 at the Fall Computer Joint Conference in San Francisco.publicDemomedium performancefragmentationtechnologyaugmentation systemcondensationspacebodymirrorfuturalityutopiasheterotopiasThe Mother of All Demosarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt5712n0nm2011-07-03T20:50:22Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/5712n0nmSermon, PaulauthorGould, Charlotteauthor2009-12-12This paper brings together the practice-based creative research of artists Charlotte Gould and Paul Sermon, culminating in a collaborative interactive installation that investigates new forms of social and political narrative in multi-user virtual environments. The authors' artistic projects deal with the ironies and stereotypes that are found within Second Life in particular. Paul Sermon’s current creative practice looks specifically at the concepts of presence and performance within Second Life and 'first life', and attempts to bridge these two spaces through mixed reality techniques and interfaces. Charlotte Gould’s Ludic Second Life Narrative radically questions the way that users embody themselves in on-line virtual environments and identifies a counter-aesthetic that challenges the conventions of digital realism and consumerism.These research activities and outcomes come together within a collaborative site-specific public installation entitled Urban Intersections for ISEA09, focusing on contested virtual spaces that mirror the social and political history of Belfast. The authors' current collaborative practice critically investigates social, cultural and creative interactions in Second Life. Through these practicebased experiments the authors' argue that an enhanced social and cultural discourse within multi-user virtual environments will inevitably lead to growth, cohesion and public empowerment, and like all social networking platforms, contribute to greater social and political change in first life.publicEmbodimenttelematicsperformancepresencegendersocial networkingpoliticsLiberate Your Avatar: The Revolution will be Social Networkedarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt1964v9cb2011-07-03T20:50:17Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/1964v9cbCleland, Kathyauthor2009-12-12Our lived experience is that of a mixed reality. The online and the offline—the real and the virtual—are becoming increasingly blurred and enmeshed. Humans take on the virtual form of avatars to interact in cybernetic virtual environments. Computers become ‘social actors’ interacting face-to-face with human audiences through the screen interface or by leaving the screen to interact as physically embodied robotic entities. This paper investigates the phenomenological nature of our embodied and lived experiences with both screen-based and physically embodied entities and explores the way sensorial and emotional affects are distributed between the physical and the virtual. Examples are drawn from a range of new media art projects focusing on the audience experience of different screen-based (virtual) and embodied (robotic) entities and the mixed reality terrains they inhabit with their human audiences.publicArtificial Intelligence and RoboticsMixed realityphenomenologyroboticsavatarsvirtual realityvirtual worldsartaudience responsenew media artmirror neurons.Intimate Encounters: the Mixed Reality Paradigm and Audience Responsesarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt1n14p28b2011-07-03T20:50:14Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/1n14p28bHobbs, G. Craigauthor2009-12-12A strange form of sustenance can be derived from the profusion of networked social interactions and operations, yet the resulting condition also reveals a certain poverty in our relationship to nature, our bodies, and to other bodies. In this milieu, digitally mediated systems are simultaneously enabling and disabling in regards to the human body. The contours, exchanges, and outcomes of this reciprocity are as complex as the mitigating technologies which impact and alter the physiological and psychological dimensions of our contemporary existence.At the same time, emergent and organic multiplicities of beings proliferate within a very real material system composed of silicon, plastic, metals, energy, and ideas. In the given example, In Situ Δ ~ The Embodied Search, the viewer searches through nature by way of their proximity to a given milieu. Instead of the disembodied intellect being the agent of the search, the body is the agent of the search. By transposing the body onto the place of the intellect, the author explores embodied influence as a form of ontological polymorphism, and as a means to address intensities of bodies, space, time, and materiality through the creation of zones of indetermination and fields of affective influence.publicAffective ComputingEmbodimentOpenGLVideo ProcessingIn Situ Δ ~ The Embodied Search: Creating Zones of Indeterminationarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt0zg3t13v2011-07-03T20:50:10Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/0zg3t13vKwastek, Katjaauthor2009-12-12This paper investigates the relation between embodiment and instrumentality in interactive new media art. It discusses three artworks that encourage embodied interaction within a completely abstract visual and/or auditory system. Whereas David Rokeby’s Very Nervous System invites visitors to engage with a soundmovement composition by means of embodied performance, Tmema’s Manual Input Workstation encourages them to manually explore the basic characteristics of sound and form. Sonia Cillari’s Se mi sei vicino, on the other hand, invites them to reflect on the effects and perceptions of touch and bodily proximity. All three works are not representational in the sense that the visitor contemplates a visual or auditory statement created by the artist. They are rather systems that enable the manipulation of processes that generate ever new outcomes. As such, they might seem comparable to (musical) instruments, but their complexity and unfamiliarity to the users characterise them more as apparatuses. This paper argues that their operators’ struggles with apparative resistance can be identified as creative exploration, which constitutes the core of the aesthetic experience of interactive art.Furthermore, the works analysed challenge the dissociating effects of the apparatus by inviting different modes of bodily engagement, from the figurative via the subconscious to the emotional. As opposed to the operation of musical instruments, here the relation of bodily actions, apparatus and audiovisual configurations is not based on physically causal effects, but on settings determined by the artist. The exploration of these settings is characterized by an oscillation between playful immersion and moments of distanced reflection, guiding the aesthetic experience of the work.publicinteractive new media artinstrumentapparatusembodimentaesthetic experienceEmbodiment and Instrumentalityarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt2p3269612011-07-03T20:50:05Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/2p326961Doyle, Deniseauthor2009-12-12This research has previously used the term ‘embodied narrative’ to explore the imaginary in virtual worlds. Using narrative as a method, it explores and de-codes the complex layering of conflict between the real and the virtual. Second Life is a performative space par excellence. Hayles explains that when the pov (Hayles' terminology) is ‘metaphorized into an interactive space, the datascape is narrativized by the pov’s movement through it’. The performativity of interaction in this shared space moves across geographical space though the temporal dimension remains. This paper explores embodiment and performativity as a strategy to understand the impact of new technologies on our real and virtual bodies, and on the imaginations that breathe life into the post-human.publicSecond LifeAvatarEmbodimentImaginaryPhenomenologyVirtual BodyEmbodied Presence: The Imaginary in Virtual Worldsarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt0gq729xq2011-07-03T20:50:01Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/0gq729xqNoland, Carrieauthor2009-12-12In this paper, I study the choreographic process of Merce Cunningham in order to understand better how refined kinesthetic and proprioceptive responses come to constitute the expressive matter of dance. Employing first chance operations then a software program to generate unexpected sequences of movement, Cunningham strains the coping mechanisms of his dancers to the limit. His choreography requires dancers to become experts at adapting their own sensorimotor instrument to the situation at hand. When dancers are asked to imitate the movement sequences of a computer-generated avatar, their bodies can truly be said to be “co-constructed”; they evolve muscle memories and skills that correspond to the technology with which they interact.publicChoreographykinesthesiaproprioceptionsensorimotorembodimentco-constructionperformativecomputer simulationavatarbody hexisgestureoperating chainCoping and Choreographyarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt7hm6h6q22011-07-03T20:49:57Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/7hm6h6q2Dunning, AlanauthorWoodrow, Paulauthor2009-12-12The Einstein’s Brain Project is a group of scientists and artists working together to develop installations and environments exploring ideas about consciousness and the new constructions of the body. Recent work has used strategies taken from paranormal science to explore how pareidolic and apophenic impulses might contribute to the construction of our worlds.The paper considers the unbidden emergence of phantoms (the felt yet absent body) in systems of meaning making that rely on pattern recognition, and explores consequences for the flesh, in shared machine/human constructions of the body.publicelectronic voice phenomena phantomspectreart and sciencepattern recognitionmediatized bodyBody from the Machine: the spectral flesharticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt37n6g0ww2011-07-03T20:49:44Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/37n6g0wwLewis, JasonauthorNadeau, Brunoauthor2009-12-12Writing practices that integrate dynamic and interactive strategies into the making and reading of digital texts are proliferating as more of our reading experiences are mediated through the screen. In this paper we argue that rarely do current approaches to creating digital texts operate at the basic textual level, that of the letterform itself. We argue further that such neglect is partially the result of the fact that current font technology is based on print paradigms that make it difficult to work programmatically at the level of individual letters. We then discuss work that has been made with software produced in our lab that suggests the creative possibilities in being able to easily specify behaviours at such a level. We conclude by proposing that writers, typographers and programmers start thinking beyond Postscript-like formats such as OpenType or TrueType to collaboratively develop a new ComplexType format (or formats) that is designed for the twentyfirst century as opposed to a simulation of the fifteenth.publicGraphics and Human Computer Interfacestypographyelectronic literaturecomputer graphicstextualitydigital typeComplexTypefont formatWriting with Complex Typearticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt7jz308ws2011-07-03T20:49:31Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/7jz308wsDiSalvo, CarlauthorLukens, Jonathanauthor2009-12-12In this paper we discuss the use of speculative design as an approach to developing technological fluency. We provide overviews of technological fluency and speculative design, trace their conceptual connections, and then outline the use of a speculative design approach to technology fluency programs, providing an example from a current project. We then conclude by discussing how a speculative design approach can extend the idea of technology fluency towards new directions: broadening common understandings of the practices of technology development and adding a dimension of criticality.publicTechnological FluencySpeculative DesignRoboticsSensorsTowards a Critical Technological Fluency: The Confluence of Speculative Design and Community Technology Programsarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt2tk0h8822011-07-03T20:49:27Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/2tk0h882Sullivan, AnneauthorMateas, MichaelauthorWardrip–Fruin, Noahauthor2009-12-12Good gameplay has been characterized as a series of interesting choices. Therefore, to have gameplay of any sort requires the player to be presented with decisions. Given this definition, many quests within computer role-playing games are not playable as they currently exist. Instead, quests are given to the player as a series of tasks to perform in a specific way in order to advance the story within the game. We look at making quests playable – adding choices for the player – and what a system that could support playable quests would look like. Finally, we address the impact playable quests would have on a designer and discuss QuestBrowser, the system we created to handle these concerns.publicOther Computer SciencesOther Film and Media StudiesRole-playing gamesquestsgame theorydesign toolsQuestBrowser: Making Quests Playable with Computer- Assisted Designarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt9km2n2g02011-07-03T20:49:23Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/9km2n2g0Bridge, JeanauthorPruyn, Sarahauthor2009-12-12There has been considerable effort over the past 10 years to define methods for preservation, documentation and archive of new media artworks that are characterized variously as ephemeral, performative, immersive, participatory, relational, unstable or technically obsolete. Much new media cultural heritage, consisting of diverse and hybrid art forms such as installation, performance, intervention, activities and events, are accessible to us as information, visual records and other relatively static documents designed to meet the needs of collecting institutions and archives rather than those of artists, students and researchers who want a more affectively vital way of experiencing the artist’s creative intentions. It is therefore imperative to evolve existing preservation strategies for new media art, to include material that provides a rich sense of what it was like to be dynamically present in the live artwork. This paper proposes that simulation strategies with the aesthetic, mechanics and dynamics of the videogame platform, are capable of delivering complex user experiences that can be applied to new media artworks for the purpose of providing users, who may never see the original artwork, with an appreciation of the artists full creative intentions. We further propose that such an approach should be differentiated from the documentation or recording of a particular instance of artwork. We suggest that new creative iterations or versions of new media artworks be designed specifically for this medium through collaboration between artists and game designers and/or developers. Such novel interactive iterations of new media artworks should be conceived so as to enable otherwise temporary artworks to persist in a different form into the future so they may inspire the next generation of artists and inform criticism and research through a direct interactive engagement with the art.The model of videogames is one marked by diversity and flexibility of means that can exceed the verisimilitude required of simulation or direct mimesis of the live artworks. The creation of a new version of an artwork, which in itself is a construct of the creative imagination, can include virtual worlds and/or mixed reality environments and employ diverse interfaces, emergent behaviours using artificial intelligence and logic engines to fulfill conceptual and exploratory levels of immersion, agency and user experience. The application of videogame design and technology to artworks raises questions of theoretical and practical concern having to do with their desirability as a means of artistic expression, the potential capacity of such re-presentations to deliver affective experience of an artwork as well as their ability of extend the life of new media artworks.publicArchival ScienceOther Arts and HumanitiesArtperformance artrelational artinteractive artnew mediaart preservationarchiveart documentationvideogamesimulationrepresentationexperienceinteractionalivenessvirtualauthorshipinstrumentalityPreserving New Media Art: Re–presenting Experiencearticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt4v2465kn2011-07-03T20:49:19Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/4v2465knMontfort, Nickauthor2009-12-12I discuss the four Perl poetry generators I have developed in the ppg256 series. My discussion of each program begins with the entire 256 characters of code and continues with an explication of this code, a description of aspects of my development process, and a discussion of how my thinking about computation and poetry developed during that process. In writing these programs, I came to understand more about the importance of framing to the reception of texts as poems, about how computational poetic concepts of part of speech might differ from established linguistic ones, about morphological and syntactical variability, and about how to usefully think about possible texts as being drawn from a probability distribution.publicformminimal systemspoeticspoetry generationprogrammingtext generationwriting under constraintThe ppg256 Series of Minimal Poetry Generatorsarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt5n14251v2011-07-03T20:49:10Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/5n14251vTwomey, Robertauthor2009-12-12This paper explores the use of language processing technologies for interactive artwork and studio art production. I consider text in multiple roles: as data, as index, and as a medium for interaction. After describing initial efforts with a dysfunctional chatbot, I discuss my recent work with language processing in the creation of studio art objects, and speculate about the extension of those techniques to address the large corpora of personal media we accumulate online.publiclanguage aware computingpersonal datanatural language processinginformation retrievalNot Me: Collaboration and Co-production with Language Processing Systemsarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt6fn5291r2011-07-03T20:49:06Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/6fn5291rChow, Kenny K.N.authorHarrell, D. Foxauthor2009-12-12Drawing upon cognitive science theories of conceptual blending and material anchors, as well as recent neuroscience results regarding mirror neurons, we argue that animated visual graphics, as embodied images whose understanding relies on our perceptual and motor apparati, connect both material and mental notions of images. Animated visual images mobilize a reflective process in which material-based imaginative construction and elaboration can take place. We call this process as “material-based imagination,” in contrast to the general notion of imagination as purely a mental activity. This kind of imagination is pervasive in today’s digitally mediated environments. By analyzing a range of digital artifacts from computer interfaces to digital artworks, we show the important role of imaginative blends of concepts in making multiple levels of meaning, including visceral sensation and metaphorical narrative imagining, to exemplify expressiveness and functionality. The implications of these analyses collectively form a step toward an embodied cognition approach to animation phenomena and toward recentralizing understanding of artistic and humanistic production in cognitive research.publicMaterial-Based Imagination: Embodied Cognition in Animated Imagesarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt8kq6d2p42011-07-03T20:49:02Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/8kq6d2p4Skorupski, JamesauthorMateas, Michaelauthor2009-12-12The authoring of interactive, generative narrative is a task that typically requires an extensive multi-disciplinary background in computational and narrative theory. Wide Ruled is an authoring tool that aims to address this problem by providing a friendly, intuitive, story-centric interface to an author-goal driven textbased story planner. Over the past two years, this system has been used repeatedly by technical and non-technical users in multiple classroom settings, and evolved into a widely used and publically available story authoring system. In this work, we describe the successes and failures of Wide Ruled, and how it provides a critical evolutionary step in developing a truly usable, writerfriendly, and practical interactive story authoring environment.publicInteractive Story Generation for Writers: Lessons Learned from the Wide Ruled Authoring Toolarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt9q6716gd2011-07-03T20:48:56Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/9q6716gdHarrison, DewauthorCh'ng, EugeneauthorMount, SarahauthorMoore, Samauthor2009-12-12Shrewsbury Museum Service invited Dew Harrison to create a work relating to Charles Darwin for the bicentenary of his birth in the UK town. Her research is practise-led and uses computer technology to interlink series of related thoughts and ideas, in multimedia form. Texts, images, animations and sounds are networked into one overarching ‘concept’. The complete concept is then exhibited as a looped projected film or interactive screen work offering a contemporary understanding of a complex issue. She had previously worked with the ideas encapsulated within the work of Marcel Duchamp, in particular his Large Glass, which she transposed together with his boxes of notes and associated previous work, into one hypermedia system. Duchamp being the instigator of current Conceptual practice, his thinking began the shift of value within art from aesthetic to idea. This new challenge was to explicate the ideas of Darwin by synthesising them into one concept which could be grasped through audience interaction. Harrison is interested in relational works that invite an audience to participate together in revealing an understanding of the ‘concept’ on display. Earlier works used mouse and keypad to access a work, now the interfaces can involve sensors and physical movements for more playful and instinctive engagement. To develop the new project, Harrison worked in collaboration with two programmers and an animator to explore the ‘big idea ‘ of evolution and elicit an understanding of Darwinian adaptation through interactive installation.For the new installation entitled Shift-Life they have produced an alternate, or fantasy, biological life as a project which delivers an implicit understanding of Darwinian evolution and examples the rapid life changes necessary for survival in accelerated alternating climatic conditions. Shift-Life is an installation which focuses on ‘hands-on’ possibilities for witnessing an evolutionary process in alternate life forms as they struggle to adapt to a volatile environment. In response to Darwin’s idea, the aim of this work was to create an ‘alternate’ biological life as a set of artificial or virtual organisms that possess similar biological processes to their ‘real’ counterparts, such as growth, reproduction, and adaptation. The virtual life forms exist in a nutritional (trophic) relationship of prey/predator, and include both rooted (sessile) and free ranging (vagile) organisms. Animal-intelligence was programmed into the virtual organisms to allow them survival strategies. The project also involved the construction of an enhanced mixed reality-based virtual environment to support the organisms. The climate of the virtual environment was directly influenced by the data gathered by wireless sensors (phidgets) in the real world landscape (sand box), plus implements (lights, shakers, pourers…) that altered the parameters (temperature, humidity, acidity, stability…) and so allowed visitors to change the condition of the virtual landscape.The installation comprised of a large ’sand-pit’ box representing the virtual world terrain, this encouraged interactivity for visitors who could physically manipulate a set of implements to radically alter the living conditions of the fantasy creatures in their virtual ecosystem, projected into the installation space. By pouring liquids, switching on lights, moving objects etc., in the sand box, visitors could see immediate responses to their actions played out in the animated ecosystem as the life forms adapted to survive. Interacting with the real world landscape and observing the instant affect a visitor’s actions had on the animated ecosystem projected into the installation space, proffered an understanding of how causing changes in environmental conditions, forces evolutionary developments on the life-forms in them.2009 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin in Shrewsbury and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. As part of the national celebrations underway, Shift-Life was exhibited at Shift-Time – a festival of ideas in Shrewsbury, summer 2009. It was still in its prototype stage and, following this beta-testing, it will be modified and enriched with extra behaviours and more sensitive environmental changes as we develop the project to more closely demonstrate Darwinian ideas for further exhibition.publicAssociative mediaDuchampDarwininteractivityvirtual biolife formssensor networksExperiencing the Big Ideaarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt0h35f4zs2011-07-03T20:48:52Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/0h35f4zsSwack, Debraauthor2009-12-12Rapid changes in science, technology and new media will lead to more sophisticated ideas about what it means to be human, in thought, body, emotional response and artistic expression. New relationships will form between humans, machines and animals with the human functioning as a networked resource that can be accessed globally over the internet.This paper documents both the technical and theoretical development of the collaborative interactive new media video project “The Emotions (after Charles Darwin)” which explores some of the above concepts. “The Emotions” first tries to establish the existence of the universality of emotions at a biological level, as empirically measured and documented by the results of the control group (non-autistic subjects, as the goal is to document “normal”, i.e. universal emotional response) at the Brain Mind Institute in Switzerland. Secondly, it suggests the potential for subsequent futuristic misuse through genetic and or technological modification (demonstrated by the observer’s ability to interactively modify or transform a given emotion’s video stream at will).publicCognitive and computational neuroscienceembodimentbioethicsemotionsinteractivityPlutchikamygdalaface perceptionThe Emotions (after Charles Darwin)articlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt6x5933cw2011-07-03T20:48:48Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/6x5933cwMcCoy, JoshuaauthorMateas, MichaelauthorWardrip–Fruin, Noahauthor2009-12-12Modern video games have highly developed computational models of physical space, which allow sophisticated play in the physical realm. However, computational models of social interaction are rare, offer limited social play, and require a large amount of authoring to create. We believe that a computational model of social interaction inspired by appropriate humanities and social science concepts could help alleviate these problems and open up new areas of social play. In this paper, we describe a playable model called Comme il Faut that uses a social artificial intelligence system particularly inspired by Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis and Berne’s psychological games, constructed for authoring power rather than fidelity with the everyday world. Our theoretical basis, the system’s relation to other digital media and games, and its implementation are presented to explain Comme il Faut and our approach to enabling social play.publicComme il Faut: A System for Simulating Social Games Between Autonomous Charactersarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt4k9509qj2011-07-03T20:48:44Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/4k9509qjOzog, Maciejauthor2009-12-12publicArt Investigating Science: Critical Art as a Meta-discourse of Sciencearticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt507938rr2011-07-03T20:48:35Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/507938rrFarman, Jasonauthor2009-12-12This paper analyzes a worldwide GPS treasure hunt game that is played in over 200 countries with game pieces that travel the globe and are tracked online. The game players hide geocache containers in public areas, marking them with GPS coordinates. Players use their mobile devices (from GPS receivers to iPhones) to track down the container, sign the log, and leave tradable and trackable items in the cache. This mobile game offers the perfect example of the blending of material and virtual interfaces, notions of presence and absence, visible and invisible, and utilitarian and playful purposes of everyday objects. Embodied subjectivity in Geocaching is gaining through a correspondence between the user’s location gained through GPS coordinates, the finding of a material object hidden in everyday space, and the signing of the logbook in the container. The act of physically signing the logbook as a way to prove embodied “presence” in material space is highly dependent on the screen space of the GPS receiver. Thus, I argue for a cohesive sense of embodiment gained through a “proprioceptive-semiotic” convening of bodies, technologies, and socially constructed spaces.publicLocative GamingGeocachingMobile TechnologiesGPSEmbodimentLocative Life: Geocaching, Mobile Gaming, and Embodimentarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt5r8842r62011-07-03T20:48:29Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/5r8842r6Hertz, Garnetauthor2009-12-12This paper discusses three methodological themes that contemporary media artists employ while reusing obsolete information technology hardware as materials in their work. Methodologies include the exploration of the hidden “blackboxed” layer of technology by circuit bending artists like Reed Ghazala, the tactical use of technologies to bring social change by artists like Natalie Jeremijenko, and the archaeological use of outdated technologies to intervene in history by artists like Tom Jennings. These themes are presented as useful tools to construct a language of reuse which serves a valuable function in a culture increasingly confronted by electronic waste, and assists in critiquing assumptions of new media, obsolescence, and technological progress.publicMedia artselectronic wastereuseDIYcircuit bendingtactical mediaappropriationmedia archaeologyMethodologies of Reuse in the Media Arts: Exploring Black Boxes, Tactics and Archaeologiesarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt0x33k1b52011-07-03T20:48:26Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/0x33k1b5Heinrich, Falkauthor2009-12-12The paper looks at the digital portrait used in the form of avatars in various online worlds and communication networks. It describes an ongoing modal shift from an ontological understanding of the portrait towards the portrait as performative act.In accordance with the Western semiotic divide between representational fiction and material reality proper, the portrait avatar is often still described as a representation that depicts the subject on the basis of a segregation between the living subject and the portrait. But the avatar-portrait functions as embodiment, thereby fulfilling a mainly performative and not epistemic purpose. Surpassing even the concept of the extension, the user and her portrait-avatar can be seen, rather, as a performing and communicating unit.The paper looks at Eastern iconology, where the portrait is an energetic transmitter in which the depiction and the depicted converge in the realness of the picture. Key concepts such as prototype, archetype, and inverse perspective are discussed and applied to the art piece Can you see me now? by Blast Theory.publicAvatarportraiticoncommunicationbody extensionThe Performative Portrait: Iconic Embodiment in Ubiquitous Computingarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt01r0k9br2011-07-03T20:48:21Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/01r0k9brBogost, IanauthorMontfort, Nickauthor2009-12-12We describe six common misconceptions about platform studies, a family of approaches to digital media focused on the underlying computer systems that support creative work. We respond to these and clarify the platform studies concept.publicPlatform studiesplatformshardware designtechnological determinismsocial constructivismpedagogynew mediaPlatform Studies: Frequently Questioned Answersarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt7nx6199f2011-07-03T20:48:17Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/7nx6199fRod, Janauthor2009-12-12In this paper we ask if contemporary and design theory for ubiquitous computing and internet of things is not outdated and irrelevant in view of some contemporary theories of agency.publicHuman-centered designuser-centered designphenomenologypervasive computingubiquitous computingdesign theorydesign research.Post Human-Centered Design Approach for Ubiquityarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt7nz0j5p52011-07-03T20:45:56Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/7nz0j5p5Krapp, Peterauthor2009-12-12The inaccessibility of the North and South Pole makes them a crucible for persistent questions of access and data visualization that characterize the information age. Arctic and Antarctic have become increasingly topical in popular cinema as well as in media arts. As representations of polar regions grapple with the fictions that mark representations of science, they illustrate the perils and perks of polar travel in the age of digital media. This essay sets out to trace representations of the Arctic and Antarctic in media history. To this day, the attraction of South Pole and North Pole remains one of heroic detection: they have been discovered, inspired myth, literature, science, and art, yet the polar regions remain unrepresentable - there to be found and rediscovered. This is true for the kind of art history that hews to patterns of the detective novel, reconstructing from traces a grammar of objects and authorship; and it applies also to film and media art in the age of eco-tourism, where discovery remains the motive, following snow-blown trails into nothingness, even and especially after the preceding discoverers had imprinted the landscape with their names and deaths. Polar media raise complex issues of mapping cultural space from colonialism to post-industrial globalization. One trajectory of what one ought to be able to excavate as the historical logic of polar media indicates a shift, in the 19th century, from a pronounced emphasis on race to a growing concern with environmental factors, with weather, and with the global metereological consequences of melting polar ice caps in the course of the 20th and into the 21st century.publicOther Film and Media StudiesHuman FactorsTheoryCold Culture: Polar Media and the Nazi Occultarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt90m1k8tb2011-07-03T20:45:47Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/90m1k8tbMcGarrigle, Conorauthor2009-12-12This paper will address the trend within locative media art of invoking the practices of the Situationist International (SI) as an art historical and theoretical background to contemporary practices. It is claimed that locative media seeks to re-enchant urban space though the application of locative technologies to develop novel and experimental methods for navigating, exploring and experiencing the city. To this end SI concepts such as psychogeography and the techniques of detournement and the dérive (drift) have exerted considerable influence on locative media practices but questions arise as to whether this constitutes a valid contemporary appropriation or a recuperative co-option, serving to neutralize their inherent oppositional qualities.The paper will argue that there is an identifiable strand of locative art works which through their contingent re appropriation of Situationist techniques can be thought of as being involved in the 'construction of locative situations' and that these (re)applications of the SI practices point to future directions for locative media's artistic engagement with the accelerating ubiquity of locative technologies.publicLocative Medialocative artSituationistslocationconstruction of situationspsychogeographyThe Construction of Locative Situations: Locative Media and the Situationist International, Recuperation or Redux?articlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt3zj2t89z2011-07-03T20:45:41Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/3zj2t89zTuters, Marcauthor2009-12-12This article discusses ways of framing Locative Media through critical theories of new media, particularly Giles Deleuze’s “control society hypothesis” and Bruno Latour’s “parliament of things”. It considers artistic practices that combine data visualization and location-awareness in order to represent public space. If Locative Media largely reworked the Situationist practice of psychogeography, in which the city was the primary site of contestation, the article looks at practices which contest ideas about Nature, in order to create “structures of participation” to address a “crisis in political agency” (Jeremijenko). The conclusion shifts Latour’s discourse on networks of non-human agency to the cognitive level in order to consider the potential impact of ubiquitous technology in terms of being.publicmedia theorycultural criticismLocative Mediacontrol societyparliament of thingsSituationismecologyRelational Aestheticscirculationdesign thinkingFrom Control Society to Parliament of Things: Designing Object Relations with an Internet of Thingsarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt14k0b6rz2011-07-03T20:45:37Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/14k0b6rzCarassai, Mauroauthor2009-12-12The paper first examines some of the ways in which identification of human/machinic intelligence with subjectivity as a philosophical construct has often been contingent on a cultural disjunction involving objective and subjective model-making that has long distinguished the two fields of science and the humanities. The second part of the paper proposes a rethinking of the subject/object dichotomy for selected narrative-based digital productions in order to assess their role in reconfiguring our ‘language use’-instantiated “form of life,” in the sense expressed by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his late philosophy.publicN.K. HaylesL. WittgensteinStoryspaceM. JoyceJ. Morrisseyinteractionliterary artifactsFrom Machinic Intelligence to Digital Narrative Subjectivity: Electronic Literature and Intermediation as “form of life” Modificationarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt8vq3m5qc2011-07-03T20:45:32Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/8vq3m5qcLosh, Elizabethauthor2009-12-12This paper discusses how Southern California serves as a site of regional advantage for developing new hybridized forms of interdisciplinary pedagogy, because networks of educators in higher education are connected by local hubs created by intercampus working groups, multidisciplinary institutes funded by government agencies, and philanthropic organizations that fund projects that encourage implementation of instructional technologies that radically re-imagine curricula, student interaction, and the spaces and interfaces of learning. It describes ten trends in interdisciplinary pedagogy and case studies from four college campuses that show how these trends are being manifested.publicInstructional technologydata visualizationinterface designinterdisciplinary pedagogyHybridizing Learning, Performing Interdisciplinarity: Teaching Digitally in a Posthuman Agearticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt39z4c0v02011-07-01T07:57:38Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/39z4c0v0da Silva, Cicero Inacioauthorde Almeida, Janeauthor2009-12-12This article tells the singular story of the growth of Free Software and Open Source in Brazil - encouraged by the government, opposed by the world's largest software enterprise – throughout the experiments of a country in search of its democratic and independent identity.publicOther Computer SciencesOpen SourceFree SoftwareGovernmentPublic AdministrationBrazilSoftware StudiesSoftware Studies in action: Open Source and Free Software in Brazilarticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt9xz0m8mn2011-07-01T07:57:33Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/9xz0m8mnRousi, Rebekahauthor2009-12-12In this paper the concept of “cute” and psychological “cuteness” are used as platforms for understanding human emotional response to mobile phone design. The focus is on graphical user interface (GUI) icons and how the design is used to strengthen semantic relationships between the image and function and encourage emotional bonds between human and appliance. The hypothetical argument is that affectionate perception of mobile technology increases user cognition.publicGraphics and Human Computer InterfacesCuteiconsuser interfacemobile phonesuser psychology“Cute” displays: Developing an Emotional Bond with Your Mobile Interfacearticlelocaloai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt07z9459z2011-07-01T07:57:29Z am 3u eScholarship, University of Californiahttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/07z9459zBoluk, Stephanieauthor2009-12-12At the intersection between concepts of the literary and emergent forms of database aesthetics lies a contemporary model for theorizing serial production. This paper investigates the underexamined concept of seriality and the way it has been reconfigured in digital media. Using Homestar Runner as the central case study, I provide a survey of these issues surrounding the literary, database and seriality and the way they figure in this Flash website. I will then trace the propensity of electronic literature for what has been described as a technologically conditioned melancholia and relate this to the serial constructs within Homestar Runner.publicserialityelectronic literaturedatabasenarratologymelancholy Homestar RunnerSeriality, the Literary and Database in Homestar Runner: Some Old Issues in New Mediaarticlelocal