February 4th, 2010 | 
Author: 
Experts believe future entertainment systems will satisfy much more of our recreational needs. I agree with is statement and interestingly, I see the role of interaction and immersion within simulated environments as one of the major changes we will see in the near future, as techniques from gaming, 3D worlds and military simulators take on a greater influence in TV program making, whether it is in reality shows, sports, documentaries or feature films. The ability to be an avatar, or interact with an avatar or simulated environment will significantly change our sensory involvement and appreciation of programs. When couple with sensory and cognitive enhancement technologies, this immersion will be even further augmented.
In his web article, “Views of the Future,” my friend and colleague, British Telecom futurist Ian Pearson predicts by:
2015 – TV, computer, and phone converge into a wall-size, interactive, 3D screen, delivering entertainment and information tailored to our wishes. When idle, it displays beach, forest, or other scenes so real, we think we are there.
2020 – Nano-size electronics inside “active contact lenses” receives TV, video games, Internet, and phone calls; and displays images directly onto the retina. Tune program with pocket keyboard initially; later with thought control. Watch TV; browse the web, or video-phone a friend; all with eyes open or closed.
2030 – Microscope-size nanobots communicate with the brain creating simulated realities indistinguishable from the real world. Download a program like “Star Trek Holodeck” and dive into the action. Any scene your mind imagines becomes real for you.Re-live when you first met your mate, or create a reunion with family members. Your imagination becomes reality. Change and end program with voice control.
2040 – Author Raymond Kurzweil believes human and machine intelligence will meld. We can “re-create the world” and enter environments as amazing as in “The Matrix” movie.
Simulated reality describes an environment impossible to tell from “real” reality. But immense computing power is required to create and download these huge programs to your brain.
Will this future happen? Experts say yes. Hewlett-Packard, Nantero, and others are rushing to develop vast memory systems required for simulated reality, and the Allen Brain program promises faster understanding of how technology interacts with neurons.
Philosopher Nick Bostrom poses an even deeper thought. He suggests our world may not be real at all – we could actually be living in a simulation. “Given sufficient technology,” he says, “it is possible to simulate entire inhabited planets, including everyone on them.”
I am excited by a new project being undertaken by Pattie Maes’s group “Fluid Interfaces Group” at MIT. Titled ”ioMaterials”, it is an umbrella project encompassing a variety of collocated sensing-actuation platforms looking at various aspects of dense sensing for humane communication, memory, and remote awareness. Using dense collocated sensing actuation and sensing, we can change common objects into an interface capable of hiding unobtrusively in plain sight. Relational Pillow and TextureWall are instantiations of this ideal. In the visual below, we see Recorded writing: Playing back the strokes of the sender.
XTual Healing was created in the early days of 2006 by Paul Notzold and has become a collection of interactive public projections and performance formats that encourage creation of dialog through text messaging from mobile phones. Whether interacting with custom digital signage, or live performers TXTual Healing builds community through public story telling via the mobile phone. It is a continuing project, adapting as new technologies and communications approaches emerge.
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Tags: digital signage, interactive, mobile devices, performance, public projections, Sensors | 
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Space Invaders: Art and the Computer Game Environment
FACT, 88 Wood Street, Liverpool, L14DQ www.fact.co.uk
Preview: Thursday, 17 December 2009, 6.00pm – 8.00pm
Booking: rsvp@fact.co.uk
FACT explores the increasingly blurred boundaries between videogame spaces and real spaces with an exhibition featuring artists including Bill Viola, Blast Theory, Aram Bartholl, Cao Fei, Ludic Society and more, alongside playable, commercial games that push the limits of the medium. Space Invaders is part of a season of gaming at FACT which includes interactive games events, competitions and a game-themed film programme.
Gallery 1 & 2, Media Lounge, Public Spaces and online, FREE entry
Space Invaders is open to the public from 18 December 2009 to 21 February 2010
Opening Night 8-Bit Performances
Music shaped by computer game culture selected by Cybersonica; Firebrand Boy(Glasgow) and the Kittenrock label use gameboys, Nintendos and other consoles to get you dancing! Plus a special Marching DS Orchestra with kids, siblings and parents led by Ross Dalziel of SoundNetwork.
Then follow the 8-bit music over to Chameleon for an afterparty:
8.00pm-9.00pm, Soundmatrix – a Liverpool-based musician who makes glitchy, 8-bit beats on a Gameboy running LSDJ
9.00pm-10.00pm, Syphus – a UK-based demoscene and chiptune musician who has been composing and performing for most of his life
Maurice Benayoun and Jean-Baptiste Barrière play the maps of the emotions extracted in real time from the Net. On stage a big screen displays the mixing of the maps of different emotions.
They also have Strozzi – an art installation turns the map of world emotions into a music score
The World Emotional Mapping - real-time maps of world emotions from the Net maps made up of words, words as big as the number of hits related to the 3200 biggest cities emotions around the world.
Mixing-by-Watching
When in the installation, visitors use VR binoculars to visually explore the maps, from inside the globe. They select-by- watching the zones of the world that will reveal their emotional states of minds. And watching, through observing the world, becomes a way to mix up feelings and produce a euphoric, enigmatic, or pathetic music from it.
The Installation
binoculars, and two screens
Screen 1 shows the map of the world, where words are displayed, according to the emotions, that the watchers spot.
Screen 2 presents the globe from outside, increasingly covered by the words, and the never-ending list of the emotional rating of the 3200 cities.
e-Spotting 9/11
The maps watched by the visitors are the maps built on 9/11 2007, by scanning the news on the Net. Six years after, they give an interesting interpretation of how it feels this day through 11 emotions:
Mad, outraged, shocked, terrified, bad, sad, nervous, glad, excited, proud, satisfied The emotions are spread all over the map like obscure data scrutinised as paradoxical feelings waiting for being deciphered by compulsive spotters.
Music by Jean-Baptiste Barrière
Software: Brigit Lichtenegger, Sofiane Souidi
Curator Franzizka Nori, La Strozzina, Palazzo Strozzi,
Then there is the Emotion Vending Machine – Maurice Benayoun, Jean-Baptiste Barrière (musical design) (France) Development: Evolutie (Brigit Lichtenegger), V2 Lab, Artem Baguinski, Paul Girard, Adrien Mazaud.
Emotion Vending Machine looks like a beverage vending machine, where users can select a range of emotions, shaped as dynamic cards, updated in real-time with web data. Users select three from a list of nine emotions, such as “fear”, “joy” or “ecstasy”, and validate their choices. The machine, built around a search-engine application, browses the world network and displays the result in the shape of words representing the previously selected emotions, accompanied by sounds composed by Jean-Baptiste Barrière. Users can then connect their USB flash drive and collect their musical emotional cocktails, each of which is prepared in real-time and therefore unique. This new version of the Vending MAchine provides Ringtones that can be used on cellphones.
Patti Smith and Steven Sebring: Objects of Life
Robert Miller Gallery
Chelsea
524 West 26th Street, 212-366-4774
January 6 – February 6, 2010
Opening: Wednesday, January 6, 7 – 11 PM
Steven Sebring is the writer and director of the documentary film, Patti Smith Dream of Life. The exhibition “Objects of Life,” was inspired by the process of discovery during 11 years of filming. It features a selection of large scale photographs, video, and a rare unseen painting by Patti Smith, as well as personal belongings from both artists, whose collaboration is grounded in their relationship to the film and their individual experiences.
The Birth of The Stone
A New Artists’ Space in the East Village
The Stone is a not-for-profit performance space dedicated to the
EXPERIMENTAL and AVANT-GARDE.
All expenses are paid for by the MUSIC itself – through the online sale of special Limited Edition CDs released yearly on the Tzadik label. Each month a different musician is responsible for curating the programs with 100% of the nightly revenue going directly to the musicians.
Check out this new release:
The Stone—Issue Three
Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, John Zorn
A special concert to benefit The Stone by three legends of the New York Underground! Indisputably one of the greatest and most influential musicians in Rock History, Lou Reed has been exploding and exploring new sounds since the mid sixties. Always with a connection to the avant-garde, Lou here teams up with maverick composer/performer John Zorn for a series of improvisations and sound compositions that will surprise and startle even their hardcore fans. With a special appearance by Laurie Anderson, one of the most original voices of this or any other century, this is one of the most unusual and legendary meetings in the New Music scene. Available online only through the Downtown Music Gallery and Tzadik, all proceeds from the sale of this limited edition CD will go directly to support The Stone. Only with your help can we keep The Stone alive, so be sure to buy all three volumes of these limited edition benefit cds before they go out of print!
At Issue Project Room, 232 3rd Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215
01/06 @ 9:00pm – Jason Lescalleet + Sean Meehan + Pauline Monin
Buy Tickets | Admission: $15 for members
Please note: Doors @ 8:30 show starts at 9
Jason Lescalleet + Sean Meehan
Jason Lescalleet + Pauline Monin
Jason Lescalleet (Berwick, Maine) and Pauline Monin (Lyon, France) are exploring the relationships between the way that sound impacts space and how the body can interpret this for visual stimuli. Jason will be premiering two new compositions of electro-acoustic music this evening, one of which will be accompanied by Pauline Monin’s extended techniques in body movement.
Calling Out Of Context Season
This special edition of The Experiment comes from the ICA Upper Galleries in London, where over eight furiously fulfilling days a temporary recording studio was set up as part of the Calling Out Of Context Season. Listen to tracks from each of the eight days that were conjured up from scratch by participants – either in live collaborative form or solo sample based endeavors with the assistance of Charles Poulet, James Oglivey and Manuel Mera on engineering duties. The podcast begins with a short discussion with Charles, Manuel and the ICA’s music curator Jamie Eastman before providing for your listening enjoyment tracks from sessions curated by Gravid Hands and The Experiment itself – and then work taken from sessions with Michachu, Seb Rochford/Drew McConnell/Pamelia Kurstin,Alexander Tucker, Actress/Lukid from Werk Discs, Woebot and About.
The Experiment would also like to take this opportunity to thank participants from its own curated recording studio session – a wonderful day of cakes and culinary creativity of the highest caliber. !POWER POWER!.
The Experiment is a monthly podcast commissioned by the ICA and presented and produced by Kevin Quigley. Calling Out Of Context was a nine-day season of experimental music and sound at the ICA in conjunction with Jamie Eastman and Charles Poulet.
