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April 16th, 2009

01:42 am - datamummification + madness ::.. Judith Donath stopped in at Media Tech Tonic sponsored at MassArt's The Dynamic Media Insitute to discuss The Sociable Media Group's latest exhibit 'Connections' at The MIT Museum. A lot of amazing work ... I checked out some of the people involved in the project work earlier in the day ... specifically looking deeper into some of the previous work in visualization and interface design. I particularly enjoyed Alex Dragulescu's 'Spam Architecture' as I had previously attempted to approach the topic of troublesome eMeddlings in my own 'Operation Enduring Email' ... but seriously folks ... the jist of the discourse tonight centered around a new 'new media' twist on the concept of portraiture ... excellent lecture, fantastic work all around ... i especially loved the participatory installation 'metropath(ologies)' ... such a dream project for me ... the overflow of information projected on a cityscape model, a veritable maze of data + architecture to get lost in ... amazing work + the best of the collection shown at the talk ... i gotta get down there + check it out i've digressed once again ... so, back to portraiture ... a quick whirlwind history of the portrait as an artform ... a golden bust of royalty from greco-roman times, renaissance-painted realism complete with symbolic items and less idealized facial features, 20th century cubistic renditions capturing a more abstract essence of Picasso's art dealer, and for the 21st century ... the portrait of the micromoment involved feeds from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Seesmic and other multivariate social networking sites the your modernday eCitizen gladly pours information into with feverish up-to-the-minute details about the minutae of our daily lives ... 'Data Portraits' took the unsuspecting tweets of the twitterverse to create a portrait visualization of each user ... words { the smallest common denominator allowing some balance between private and public exposure } from the user | participant's tweetstream make up the outline of head, neck and shoulders ... words on the left are from recent tweets, words along the right of the datahead silhouette are the most-used throughout your tweetstream history ... the words of each portrait pop forth from the black backdrop muchlike a smooth data-persona tagcloud, quite literally outlining your wordstream of the moment for you what strikes me the most about these linear-textual gestural snapshots is the cocoonlike and ghostly bodily presence of each figure ... there's also a wonderful sense of swirling ... the words seem to envelope or mummify a preset human form ... besides certain key words that pop out { i am guessing the word size follows the same sort of rules of frequent use that most tagcloud methodologies implement }, there is little differentiation from portrait to portrait ... the shape of the head, neck and shoulders remains the same ... and the words simply outline or 'contain' the previously human form at first i thought that the datamummification might be a purposeful artisitic and aesthetic choice ... i don't think i get the sense that my portrait would look that much different than anyone else as far as physical attributes are concerned ... same height, same weight, same shape, same lack of eyes, mouth, ears and hair ... you are your words in these portraits ... you are the ghostly echo-trace of your micro-bloggings ... a bit sobering ... a little scary ... and unless you are lucky enough to have micro-entered some emotionally-laden and unique words over the last year or so, you are just as unique as everyone else on Twitter ... part of me wants to think these implications are an intentional affect of the visualization as portraiture ... and if nothing else, perhaps we can see this as a subconscious expression of the artists involved ... maybe there is no true participatory auto-magical means to create this sort of portrait ... or perhaps the effect is completely intentional ... a statement about machine-produced { app-influenced } human behavioral modification ... the media we use shapes our behavior, and now we quite literally all itch to tell it all right now ... a sort of electronic OCD ... another memorable concept that came up tonight was the notion of 'pure knowledge' ... an amazing question from the crowd mentioned Elie Weisel's Zalmen, Or the Madness of God ... in the book a person comes to know God, but not as the bearded, old white guy in the clouds oft-depicted by Michelangelo ... but instead as the concept of 'pure knowledge' ... the question specifically asked tonight had to do with the current proliferation of information 'out there' for all of us to access and whether or not we, as humanity, are reaching a moment of 'pure knowledge' ... my own answer to this concept delves into questioning 'knowledge' ... information is not knowledge ... accumulation of datapoints provides no higher wisdom to the individual or to society at large ... consuming data alone, collecting data does not translate into knowledge or a deeper understanding ... in fact, my personal belief is that knowledge and wisdom are not even closely related ... and neither can ever be thought of as 'pure' ... read more at the DMI Seminar 2 blog here ... http://dmistudio.org/seminar/ Current Location: home Current Mood: excited Current Music: television audio wallpaper Tags: connections, dmiboston, dynamicmedia, judith donath, massart, media lab, mit, social media group

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October 24th, 2008

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October 2nd, 2008

12:01 am - humor | laughter | in the workplace? ::.. might sound crazy, not sure ... but here's the latest question i posted to LinkedIn ... How do you use humor in your daily career? Humor can make the day go by ... promote a fun and energetic working environment ... emotionally inspire co-workers ... help with productivity and motivation, create a bond within a team ... In what ways do you use humor in the workplace? How much is too much? How many times a day do you laugh at work? How does laughter effect your own personal spirits | motivation | mood at work? ... so, feel free to hit the little link up there + let me know about humor + laughter in your workplace ::.. Current Location: home Current Mood: amused Current Music: television audio wallpaper Tags: dmi, dmiboston, dynamic media, humor, laugh, laughter, linkedin, massart, massartdmi, workplace

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September 26th, 2008

05:26 pm - B.F.Skinner quote | thought + modernday 'new media' ::.. "The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do." B.F.Skinner i found this quote above to be of extreme interest due to some of the DMI readings and the topics from last night's conversation ... Design Seminar 1 readings for this week brought us to the Turing Test ::.. Turing asks us: Can we create a machine with interaction capabilities that would trick us into thinking it is, in fact, human? ::.. yesterday, in class, we discussed new media, technology, social networks, collapse of the Western financial world, lots of good stuff ... but in the end we began to identify what exactly we are rewarded for in modern society machines, computers specifically, allow us to interact without any sense of time or place ... we can contribute with immediate expression ... anything that comes to mind ... little if no filtering involved ... no editors { sometimes a moderator }, little-to-no financial deterrents ... unmediated thought assault ::.. quality of thought seems to depend upon the actual community or website involved ... the plus + minus of free speech ... feel the sting ... it keeps coming + coming + coming ... so many people contributing to the noise or music of this modernday symphony of information ::.. Laura pointed out that its a bit overwhelming ... all the people ... friends on Facebook, how can you have 200+ 'friends' ... or does it mean something else entirely to be a 'friend' in the social media sphere? ::.. so, with computers, in this machine age, we are given speed, ease-of-use, access to more information than ever before ... we have the means to communicate at such a rapid pace that the quantity outweighs the quality ::.. the point that i am trying to return to here ... one that we settled on in class ... is that with this quickened pace + access, the ease with which we can click, contribute, purchase, communicate ... with all of our progress ... we are encouraged to skip thought, to skip thinking ... when asked the question, you cannot blink, just say 'yes' ... make that decision { click } ... buy that product { click } ... add your opinion { click } ... divert your attention { click } from what might just be something huge + scary + vitally important ::.. click here to think Current Location: an undisclosed location Current Mood: pensive Current Music: the hum of productivity Tags: computers, dmiboston, dynamic media, human, interaction, machines, massart, skinner, turing

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September 19th, 2008

05:23 pm - note to Kat ::.. Hi Kat, Saw you have Artist's Block as your status on Facebook ... I wonder if you could use the same research and logic flow concept from your presentation and somehow create a visualization that works off of a site like 43 Things ... Here's my profile there ... http://www.43things.com/person/loususi As you can see, a member can post their life goals up on this website and then keep track of their progress ... The system actually emails you from time to time ... It emails 'Your Future Self' with a little reminder to work on one of the goals you set up on the site ... Which is cool, but I wonder if, even if not in a live working prototype, you could develop like a visual game of sorts ... Something like Life ... Or something that is geographical or location-based ... And then suggest that the entries from a site like 43 Things would map to some visual indication of the progress you make with these life goals ... Anyhow, just a thought ... 43 Things seems to line up with your concept of accomplishment ... Maybe the visualization doesn't need to be location-oriented, maybe your logic is enough to drive the visualization that comes out of 43 Things ... Hope all is well ... Have a great weekend. Lou Current Location: location Current Mood: chipper Current Music: location Tags: 43 things, dmiboston, dynamicmedia, katsumi, location, massart

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01:53 am - just got back from the DMI Thursday Nite Download @ The Penguin ::.. so, i got in more like 1:30 or so ... had the pleasure of giving Kent a lift back to the Cambridge area before hitting the long + lonely ride up 93 and 1 to the North Shore ... back to the wooded suburb of Boxford for me ::.. i am so incredibly psyched to have Joe recommend the subject of performance art for this semester's research ... for those that don't know yet, i just up work toward an MFA at The Dynamic Media Institute at The Massachusetts College of Art and Design { MassArt } ... i'm on the superSlow track to getting an MFA in Design ... i feel so fortunate regarding my acceptance into the DMI + hope to dig in deep + really learn + give + feed + inspire + completely immerse myself in thought + work in dynamic media ... learning the language alone + improving my general fluency pertaining to 'new media', the artists, theories, cultural shifts, the technology ... that alone would bring me to a higher point ::.. today at work Robin asked me why i wanted to go back to school ... would an MFA really help me out career-wise was the basic implication of the question ... + my quick + dirty response was that i wanted to just be able to talk about design, to really talk about design ... there's no sense of design discourse + learning in my daily life ... + so, on another level i can truly say that i am looking for a home*, a sense of place, a location ... funny that location is just the topic we're exploring in Jan's class for Project 1 ... although my Project 1 will not explore the idea of 'home' per se, i think my application to The DMI at MassArt was the first step to finding a new home, to deepening my daily thought + interactions with technology, to expanding my community + sense of belonging in the world of dynamic media ::.. * i will have to ask Jim Coates up at UMass Lowell more about his fascination w/ the theme of shelter ... is it sometimes about home, nesting { in a literal sense at times }, protection, security, self-preservation ... its funny that you can know someone for more than 15 years, you see their art + hear them lecture on sculpture, three-dimensional design + other forms of art ... + in the end i have never once asked, 'so Jim, what's it all about? tell me more about your art' ... such a simple thing ... might be time to find out more ... Current Location: home Current Mood: peaceful Current Music: the hum of the fridge Tags: dmi download, dynamic media, home, language, massart, new media, penguin

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September 15th, 2008

08:40 pm - ab aeterno | dynamic media institute entries start here ::.. just a quick note to those that might stop in from time to time + see recent happenings in my world + mind ... from this point onward i will be including entries that deal specifically w/ my graduate studies at The Dynamic Media Institute at The Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston ... so far we've had one full week of classes ... i am 1 of 8 artists on the first year track, although i will be on the ultra-slow + delayed dynamic mode, taking part-time coursework 2 nites a week w/ barely enough time to keep up w/ the reading ... fantastic coursework at that, giving me the fantastic excuse to dive right in + research, read, learn, live, breathe, sleep, eat, research, read + live again all things 'new media', or as the program prefers to call it ... 'dynamic media' ... in 2004 i had the good fortune to teach the course 'Aesthetics and Critical Studies of New Media' at The University of Massachusetts at Lowell ... at the time i also had a fair amount of contact w/ folks at mobius + The Art Interactive ... David Wengertsman, Jed Speare, Kanarinka and Pirun from iKatun + many others ... i borrowed notes from the gracious Walter Wright of The 119 Gallery + although i didn't know the subject matter inside + out or with even half the breadth that Walter seemed to be steeped in the academia of all things dynamic, i already had a local love of those artists pushing interdisciplinary concepts, sometimes electronic in file + format, sometimes not ... but in the end, brilliant performances that incorporated playful concepts related to time, space + performance, modularity, mind-bending juxtapositions, mixed media, collaborative interplay, looping live sets of video + sound art ... travels back in time, still farther back to the pre-Radio Pü group OpeN FauceT Productions, headed up by rosS Hamlin + Trista Beard ... living, breathing sound, video, theatrical geniuses ... rosS + Trista took Niki Ford + i under their wings to produce, organize, dream + realize strings of multi-act performances at various area venues in Cambridge, Boston, JP ... somewhere between performance art + dynamic media ... i might still be somewhere between performance art + dynamic mediea in spirit ... in my thinking ... i'm hoping this doesn't make me less 'design'-oriented than i need to be to participate, think, write + create the type of work necessary to be a deeper dynamic media artist for the program ... i'm sure i will be how i am, but i will work to understand + communicate in the language of dynamic media ... Current Location: home Current Mood: cheerful Current Music: television as audio-visual wallpaper Tags: art, artist, dmi, dynamic media, dynamic media institute, homage, massart, statement

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