internet

GE AR - augmented reality
I tried playing this AR video at home tonight and it worked! this is the first attempt so the video I took is a bit dodgy but it gives an idea. the cat was purring whilst I was recording and kept nudging my head. I tried blowing on the mic but couldn't get the windmill blades to spin. try it out! now I want to try make my own!!
thanks to @LukeSnarl for tweeting the link

http://vimeo.com/4764743 :

GE AR - augmented reality from kath on Vimeo.

GE page
- print out the marker
- u might need to upgrade your flash player to v10
- turn on your webcam (mac - do this with flash player not photobooth - read the help tips on the url for help)
- launch wind power or solar energy links
(if you just see the green oval spinning then it probably can't see your camera)
- hold the marker printout so it's facing your webcam.. then watch the 3d images appear!

http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/augmented_reality

http://bit.ly/9V5hV is a better video demo (clearer than what I've done - but I wanted to try it myself)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00FGtH5nkxM

luke sent me a great AR game by Julian Oliver (NZ) :
http://vimeo.com/1320756 :

levelHead v1.0, 3 cube speed-run (spoiler!) from Julian Oliver on Vimeo.

this is amazing!
he's made a game using cubes - called Levelhead - it's won all sorts of awards (deservedly so!)
he explains it on his website @ http://julianoliver.com/levelhead (& has code for you to try too)

Julian is part of HIT Lab NZ - The Human Interface Technology Laboratory New Zealand - from their site it looks like they're doing some pretty cool stuff!!

ARToolKit

ARToolKit
ARToolKit documentation page - with samples, tutorials and background details

I've been reading Erik Davis' "Techgnosis" book and thinking about MUDs and MOOs again. I used to play on the MOOs back in the early-mid 90s and read up about them again to see if they were still running a while ago : mud articles + moo articles. so I was thinking on the train home last night that twitter seemed very similar - it seems similar to IRC to me, as well as the MUDs/MOOs - the syntax of the commands ie the @ like the @command_name in MUDs/MOOs & IRC. some twitter software uses the auto-reply DM when people follow you, so I was wondering if you could reuse / subvert this to be used in a MOO/MUD on the twitterverse? or even not using DMs, but just open tweets. you could have games running throughout the twitterverse - people could create other worlds within it, using the text descriptions as was done in the MUDs/MOOs

wondering if we could subvert the auto-reply 4 a #twittermoo #twittermud instead - txt based i/f like this reminds me of those text worlds

yesterday, @DustForEyes posted an "AR scratching" video by vanderlin to stealth board & twitter. it's tagged with tags such as AR, augmented reality, opencv, and openframeworks, so I googled some of these. the AR markers seem like the fiducial markers found in reactable - note there's going to be a performance / demo of one of these called dubtable at ripped next week which would be cool to check out.

any ideas of history/origins of Apollo Space program samples in electronic dance music? (Q via maillist, pls help) http://tinyurl.com/cdx84e

I'm on a maillist which discusses EDM (electronic dance music) and one of the members/list managers, Graham St John (an Australian scholar who has compiled a few books on EDM) has asked about origins of samples from the Apollo Space mission in music. he's asking specifically about dance related music but the discussion has brought up Sun Ra's name. so I was wondering if anyone here knows of examples/history along hip hop / funk /soul / electro (80s, not 2000s) & electronic dance music lines which might help plot the history deeper? (the discussion then went onto alien imagery at some psytrance events but that's another topic)

here's the initial request from Graham St John :
I'm attempting to trace the appeal of Apollo Space Program dialogue

Streaming Festival and Geborgen Kamers present:

Fragments

15 - 17 April 2009

Fragments brings together video work that in some way address the idea of fragmentation, whether through visual technique or concept. Several films in this selection focus on the object of the photograph -a reminiscent of a fraction of time and memory. Others are based on the structural elements of film making such as the close up shot and abstraction as the basis.

This selection is the curator's response the truly eclectic collection of works from three editions of Streaming Festival database. Therefore, the concept of Fragments becomes an ambiguous expression in this context simultaneously symbolising a fragment of the Streaming Festival collection as well a metaphor for fragmentation of images and ideas.

Streaming Festival is an online platform for artists and filmmakers. Its aim is to create an international showcase of work in high quality made possible by using streaming servers rather than download. The festival takes part once a year, and the 4th edition will be broadcasted from 20 to 30 November 2009.

Beginning in May 2009 Streaming Festival will screen a special online program for the duration of one month. Each month the program will change. To celebrate this development an offline screening of the first Special Program Fragments takes place in Geborgen Kamers, The Hague, Netherlands.

hotel textures from kath on Vimeo

heritage hotel auckland - textures - these are short clips of different textures in the hotel - rooms & floors, furniture & wall dividers

07/04/2009 tuesday
auckland

#videobloggingweek
#videobloggingweek2009

http://vimeo.com/4060723
http://blip.tv/file/1971044

blog entry @ http://www.aliak.com/content/videobloggingweek2009-day2-hotel-textures

late night after work from kath on Vimeo

late night after work

auckland

06/04/2009 monday

#videobloggingweek

#videobloggingweek2009

http://blip.tv/file/1971082
http://vimeo.com/4061062

blog post @
http://www.aliak.com/content/videobloggingweek2009-day1-late-night-after...

the guys at Sticky sent an invitation to join the We Make Zines NING group today. We Make Zines is a online community for zine makers and zine readers. the discussions are all about the zines and issues involved with making them & distributing them. this year I want to try this - maybe take some thoughts / notes from my little notebooks and make a zine. or some thoughts from this blog - though even the blog is mostly project listings, not my own thoughts. maybe time for a shift.. am I too old to make a zine?? hopefully not.. I want to (if I ever get round to it) put some of the info & interviews from brisbane dance parties archive site into a zine (hopefully a collection of them) too - then possibly a book later on. I like reading the zines from the Sticky subscription - they seem to be from a range of people - different ages & backgrounds. I like the letter ones - reminds me of the letter writing I used to do whilst growing up. these days I manage a few postcards to friends whilst overseas - it's nice getting messages in the mail, and I think the kids love them. I wondered about a video zine too - maybe stored on USB memory sticks or dvds.

I'm on a mail list about net cinema and art videoblogging called "Artists in the Cloud". Rupert posted a message yesterday about Adrian Miles's Vogme Manifesto and subsequent thoughts on group philosophies. I'm posting Rupert's email below in full so I don't have to keep referring back to my email account or the web email account (as they move quickly sometimes & it's easy to lose track). I've added links to Adrian Mile's vog manifesto for reference too.

I don't really know much about film history or theory and I've forgotten most of my art theory, though I keep across net art and new media, I guess I haven't sorted out formerly in my own head what it is that I do when I try to make 'art'-like videos. I'm not sure I need a manifesto, but perhaps it would be a good exercise to think about it. I've looked back at videos that I've made over past years and they do seem to be similar so perhaps there is an unconscious 'manifesto' in play already.

so, last night & today I've been finding some from artists I either admire or have recently been finding out about. and of course, in using the internet, this has led me on some tangents so I've discovered some new artists too. collating snippets here for further thought.