It takes different strokes to rule the world, yes it does, it takes different strokes to rule the world. And if game culture is to be believed, theirs is an empire already larger than Hollywoods. However, the networked creation of games is also steadily infiltrating the worlds of art, design, music and film. Snapshots 1-5: Fijuu, Augmented Reality, Video Blogs, VJ Blogs & You Are Beautiful >>
FIJUU
If you have the bandwidth, download the 50mb demo movie for Fijuu ( http://fijuu.com ) – if you like anything about glitchy, textural stutter-core musics, and wildly deconstructing 3D graphics – you’ll love what seems possible with this AV tool. Created by Julian Oliver and Pix, both Australian kids now on the European New Media circuit, Fijuu is built on top of the open source game engine ‘Nebula’ and runs on Linux. End plans for it include a non-linear beat pattern sequencer, granular synthesis tools and a graphical filterbank and release as a live CD Linux project, so players can simply boot up their PC with a PS2-style gamepad plugged in, and play without installing anything (regardless of operating system). This effectively turns the domestic PC into a console for game based audio performances.
Also see : Brisbane’s el Demento, their audiovisual Dr.Nintendo, Collapsicon and his game engine and hardware melting antics : www.collapsicon.net
Augmented Reality?
Adelaide’s A-Rage ( www.a-rage.com) are hoping to take gaming right out of the loungeroom into the great outdoors. They’ve built hardware which allows you to connect your portable consoles to, and view games on helmet-visors overlaid against the actual real-space background. They’ve built a couple of games to suit that, including a kind of 3D Space Invaders perfectly suited for your backyard. And if you’re curious about the ‘Augmented Reality’ phrase, don;t sweat too hard – Everytime a friend’s text message re-directs you to the right path in a city of lost children, you are augmenting your reality. We seem to live in a constant state of technologically enhanced wandering, but ‘AR’ has become a catchphrase to describe the efforts of many trying to provide various kinds of overlaid graphics, sounds and data such as GPS info – over our ‘natural’ environment.
Also see : www.pacmanhattan.com & www.blasttheory.co.uk
Video Blogs
For those already nauseated by the saturation of words online like ‘blog’, ‘blogger’ and ‘blogosphere’, adding the word ‘video’ in front is probably an even more unappealing prospect. Not only is every bedroom philosopher able to publish every scratch of their navel, but now we can see and hear them thinking aloud on the web too. Of course, the smooth ease of automated blog style publishing online is not only more democratic, giving a voice to more people, but it also inevitably provides different styles of content as the ease of us promotes more spontaneous expression.
Right about now, videoblogging is booming, a next logical step from text blogging and podcasting ( a form of automated audio publishing you can subscribe to ). These are a few of the key sites for finding out more – whether curious about the people, the technology or starting your own :
www.videoblogging.info – The mother lode, most link to and from here. For the cute factor, try their live world map of video blogs being posted.
www.vlogdir.com – good constantly growing directory of videobloggers.
www.antisnottv.net – Site of FireANT, an application dedicated to being the easiest way to find, download and watch video on the web. You can use FireANT to subscribe to your favourite videoblogs, and have them automatically download to your computer as they are published.
http://freevlog.org/ – A step-by-step guide to setting up a videoblog for free.
http://www.archive.org – free online video hosting.
http://creativecommons.org – Most videobloggers publish their videos with a CC license.
VJBlogs
And of course that same annoyed cynic who dreads the idea of videobloggers, is going to retreat into the woods even further when they learn about VJ Blogs. Nonetheless, given the way VJs are adept at constantly preparing new video material, it was kind of inevitable that some of them would float towards publishing regular news-related VJblog posts online. Falk from Berlin was in there first, and his remains one of the better ones. His text blog is also a good read for those interested in creative technology developments.
http://www.prototypen.com/blog/vjblog
You Are Beautiful
On the paper network front ( found via the wonderfully global woostercollective.com ), I recently acquired a blank white book from the You Are Beautiful kids from Chicago ( www.you-are-beautiful.com ). They’ve been making a name for themselves over the years with a steady outpouring of group projects facilitated by the web and copious amounts of – you know, like, actual postage of stickers and art materials back and forth. Story with this book is that it is one of 100 that were sent all over the globe, to be returned filled in by June 2005 for an exhibition in Chicago.
All pages to date in book 054 in Melbourne, have scanned and are clickable here: www.flickr.com/photos/jeanpoole/sets/266552/ – and many were ze Melbourne artists who dropped some ink on these pages – often at Thursday nights at ‘Plug N Play’ – a weekly AV night at the Kent Cafe, 201 Smith st, Fitzroy ( 8-11pm).
jeanpoole @ graffiti.net