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Slide Notes

Jenefi
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Urban Media

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PRESENTATION OUTLINE

URBAN MEDIA

AND PUBLIC SPACE
Jenefi

WHERE IS THE SPACE

  • Where are the public
  • Who are the public
  • How will the public be engaged
  • What is experienced
  • What is imagined
  • What is visualised

PERFORMANCE

URBAN

EARTH SURFACE UP TO SKY
Photo by marfis75

YARN BOMBING

GRAFFITI
Primarily a feminine duty or pastime, knitting has a deliciously rich history of political subversion in fiction and life. As a preemptive measure just prior to the Revolutionary War (1775–1783), American colonists boycotted British goods, spinning their own yarn and knitting and weaving all their own clothing. Madame Defarge, from Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities (1859), knitted constantly in the background; the domestic pastime belied a sinister agenda; readers learn she had been knitting a registry of all those condemned to die in the name of the new republic.

Largely abandoned with the invention of knitting machines, there has been a youth-driven revival of yarn arts in recent decades, a statement against mass production and reclamation of women’s crafts. Activists have begun incorporating large-scale knit and crocheted pieces into political public art statements. Called “yarn bombing” or “yarn graffiti,” these installations may beautify public spaces and add a touch of the handmade to our industrialized environments – drab urban landscapes are the usual targets—if temporarily. More overtly political yarn bombers may target military tanks or relevant statues; for example, Marianne Joergensen stitched a pink blanket over a combat tank to protest Denmark's involvement in the Iraq war in 2006. Contrary to its innocuous grannie associations, knitting can politicize. "

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/tsaconf/696/

Guerilla Knitting and Computer programming
German textile artist Anna Maria Nitthaeck defines guerilla knitting as “a kind of art that is non destructive (other than the usual graffiti), it aims at reclaiming our environment (especially urban space) and it is also a symbol for a typical female craft.” She features a variety of urban knitting on her blog, Random Acts of Knitting.



The practice is, perhaps surprisingly, technically illegal in some areas. The British guerilla knitting group Knit the City was issued a “Stop and Search” notice by London police while working on a cozy that covered a phone booth. They were allowed to complete the project on the condition that it be removed after photographing. But for the most part urban knitting provides knitters with a medium that can be used in public without fear of legal ramifications. After all, if an installation becomes bothersome, it can be easily removed with a pair of scissors.

There are many overlapping issues in the knitting and hacking worlds, we can find that out by taking a look at The history of guerilla knitting at the presentation in Chaos Computer Club by Sociologist Rose White. Here are a few words and links to complete the picture from “We Make Money not Art”


http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2007/24c3-2358-en-guerilla_knitting.htm...

“….but knitting is not difficult so people discovered how to do it and knowledge spread in the community. Knitting then followed two different paths: the industrial production the home made kind, mainly socks and small pieces of clothing.
Late 19th century, Gansy.
Over the course of the next 50 years, attempts to codify knitting patterns, to make them distinguishable and proprietary. The yarn and needles sellers would provide you with a specific type of information: "To make this jumper you will need x balls of our yarns and will have to use this size of our needles." You would not know how many meters of yarn this makes for example. Industry possessed the means and modes of production by the '60s.
Another schism happened at the end of the '60s and beginning '70s. Then enters our heroine: Elizabeth Zimmermann. She was commissioned to make a sweater. She gave it to the company but they re-wrote the patterns using a proprietary system. Disgusted by the process, she started her own company and she'd invite knitters to be the boos of their knitting, distinguishing the "blind followers" from the "thinking knitters." The point was to put the control of what was going on back into the hands of the knitter. It's like Linux versus Windows.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Barbara Walker authored knitting books, which have become landmarks for their comprehensiveness and clarity. She devised knitting instructions which were understandable to all, not just to english speakers…..”

http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2007/12/24c3-the-histor.php#.Uw95...

The most obvious similarities between Computer programming and knitting are both being very geeky activities, and both have very unhealthy gender ratios.

MUSICAL BOX

SCRIPTED, AUTOMATION

MUSICAL LOOM

KINGSLEY NG

ARCHITECTURE

RESPONSIVE

http://www.philipbeesleyarchitect.com/sculptures/1431_Microwave_Hong-Kong/i...

Singular examples of responsive architecture could be traced back to as early as the 1930s. Cedric Price was perhaps the first and most influential of the pre-digital age architects to adopt the early theoretical work in cybernetics and extend it to an architectural concept of "anticipatory architecture." But it took a couple of decades more to get those ideas to sink into practical architecture design.

In the past, this type of architecture has like art, philosophy and literature, experienced periods of unpopularity. All those who went to architecture school are bound to have suffered a certain form of architectural "academicitis" (as J. D. Salinger nicely put it on another occasion) focused much more on aesthetics and avant-garde philosophy than on responsive ability in architecture.


The Bartlett's lecturer and founder of interactivearchitecture.org Ruairi Glynn explains it's importance and gives some insight in to it's future:

I think it's beginning to get wider recognition as a valuable asset to the buildings where it has been used well and as the technology for these kinds of projects become cheaper, more powerful and importantly smaller to the point of becoming invisible, I see it being embedded into wider mainstream architecture. The problem is making architects realize that you can do more with intelligent architecture than just control heating, airflow, and security systems.
He goes on to give a few warnings on possible outcomes:

...Interactive Architecture does one of two things. It either accepts its place in time and serves a function for that period and then either is replaced or it is kept as a historical artifact or it is an open system capable of change so as to adapt to the changing role of the fixed architecture it inhabits. It's important to recognize however that while technological obsolescence can almost be charted on a graph, the cultural obsolescence of existing and future examples of Interactive Architecture are much harder to predict...
Where do you think interactive architecture will go next?

RECLAIMING YOUR CITY

RELATIONAL ARCHITECTURE
http://www.vectorialvancouver.net/live.html

https://vimeo.com/33988779
"Vectorial Elevation" is an interactive art project originally designed to celebrate the arrival of the year 2000 in Mexico City's Zócalo Square. The website www.alzado.net enabled any Internet user to design light sculptures over the city's historic centre, with eighteen searchlights positioned around the square. These searchlights, whose powerful beams could be seen within a 15 kilometers radius, were controlled by an online 3D simulation program and visualised by digital cameras. A personalised webpage was produced for every participant with images of their design and information such as their name, dedication, place of access and comments. These web pages were completely uncensored, allowing participants to leave a wide variety of messages, including love poems, football scores, Zapatistaslogans and twenty-seven marriage proposals. In Mexico, the project attracted 800,000 participants from 89 countries over the course of its two-week duration.

Vectorial Elevation alludes to Sol LeWitt's "art of instructions" as well as László Moholy-Nagy's paintings by telephone in 1922. Another precedent was the teleoperation of the Lindbergh searchlight in Los Angeles in 1928, activated when President Coolidge pressed a telegraph key at his desk at the White House.

NET

VIRTUAL SPACE

LISTENING POST

HOW DOES THE INTERNET SOUND?
Photo by amphalon

GEO GOO

THE MAP IS NOT THE TERRITORY

用雙腳來劃我們的版圖

Andrew and I conceived the idea on Sunday, organised it last minute, and expected only a few friends would run with us to show our support for the students and the pro-democracy movement. What happened was a massive, spontaneous outpouring of support for the protestors.

Hong Kong people from all walks of life joined us, both on the route and online. There was 20-year old pool attendant Andy, who was there at the start and the finish, and just wouldn’t quit. Retired policeman Guy joined us in Sai Kung, while Patrick marched and bagpiped for us at Tai Wai. Yannick and his 40 co-workers organised a mini-carnival at Ma Liu Shui, while four elderly ladies cheered us up Mau Ping. Chris, Yoshi and the two Freds ran further than they have in their lives. Everyone’s determination and passion was just awe inspiring.

All of the runners, though, will tell you that this wasn’t about them. We felt humbled when we ran through Mongkok, Admiralty and Causeway Bay, and the crowds cheered for us – but all we did was run for one day, doing something we love.

The real heroes are the protestors who have slept out on the roads for the past month, the Hong Kong people who have risked violence to show their support, everyone who is working for genuine universal suffrage and a better Hong Kong for everyone. We hear you. We believe in you. We did this for you. Keep fighting the good fight.

Ultra Umbrella Marathon, 29 October 2014
Runners: 150 (approx)
Distance: 114.9km
Elevation: 3,620m
Total time: 16:49:09
http://www.strava.com/activities/213336389

CONNECTING CITIES

URBAN SCREENS
Photo by Cast a Line

SCREEN BASED

WHO OWN THE SCREENS?
Photo by mpalenque

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SHERRY DOBBIN, Public Art Director of the Times Square Alliance:

“New media and new technology have radically expanded the ‘public’ in public art – now an artwork can reach an audience across seven continents simultaneously. We’re excited to be behind this innovation, bringing the Crossroads of the World to the rest of the globe, and we are grateful to the Times Square Advertising Coalition for being the epicenter of this leading technology.


ALAN HIGH, Chairman of the Times Square Advertising Coalition and President & General Manager of Clear Channel Outdoor Spectacolor & Mall Divisions:

“I’m excited to see the Midnight Moment expand beyond Times Square to become a truly worldwide event. The Times Square Advertising Coalition is honored to participate and showcase this gifted and remarkable artist.”


DANIEL WONG, Head of JM Network at Join Merit Media Holdings LTD, Hong Kong:

“We are delighted to be invited by Times Square Alliance and Streaming Museum to participate in this meaningful global collaboration. It has always been our objective to present creative content alongside commercials to enrich the viewing experience of the audience of our LED billboard network.”


ANITA BHALLA, Director Public Space Broadcasting for the BBC:

“We are very excited to be part of this international collaboration. The public service Big Screens based in cities across the UK are a unique way of reaching out of home audiences. Last year the screens were used to bring the Olympics and Paralympics to millions of people, we now look forward to bringing Midnight Moment to our audience.”


CARMEN ANDREI, CEO, Cocor MediaChannel, Bucharest, Romania:

“We are very excited about the project especially since Björk has thousands of fans in Romania and we appreciate very much her messages towards humanity, she’s a great person.”

SCREEN OR NO SCREEN

Touchy

I AM THE MOVING CAMERA

SPACE

WHO OWN THE SPACE?
Photo by Great Beyond

LIVE MOON SMELLING

WE COLONISED THE MOON
Photo by jurvetson

INTERNATIONAL SPACE ORCHESTRA

EXPERIENCE DESIGNER
From nelly ben
http://nellyben.com/workshops/fictitious-islands/
A workshop developed for Split Interactions, University of Split, Croatia, March 2011 See videos and more pictures online here

Kingston University MA (Design Products, Design space,)

Fictitious Islands ( Extract from brief)

An Island is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. An artificial island or man-made
island is an island or archipelago that has been constructed by people rather than formed by natural means. They
are created by expanding existing islets, construction on existing reefs, or amalgamating several natural islets into a
bigger island.

You are asked to reassess the limit between the air and the void, tourism in the air or on a land, and to speculate on
future territories. You are to create a fictitious Island.
What could be the Inhabitants like? Are they recluse ? Where is their island? In the past, in the future, or in the
present? Under water? On mars?….

WONDERS:

This workshop will be the occasion for you to observe your environment considering ‘its full’ and ‘its emptyness’.
-The city is often only seen in its verticality but what about the blocs of air that surrounds it, inhabits it?
-Can you propose us ways to own the airspace? To define it?
-Can you build your own island in the air and define its characters such as in Barthes in the Mythology of the ring?
-What are the dynamics that will be predominant in your fictive city?
-How would you mark boundaries?
-How much Hybrid will it be?
-What could be its money?
-Would it be digital?
-Would it be attached to pigeons and other birds?
– Is it alive, is it in motion like the nautilus of Jules Verne?
-What could be the passions which animate it?
-How would we tell the story of its inhabitants?
-How would they communicate?
-How people and digital/virtual interact together (island has a living membrane – organic island)?
-What are the private and public spaces?
-Can this fictitious island influence our privacy and can it generate new paranoia?
-What is the everyday on the fictitious island made of?
-What are the urban/hybrid myth[s] on the fictitious island?


TRAJECTORY

To assist you in the process of building your fictitious city:
* You are to observe your everyday and define the visible and the invisible, the allowed and the not allowed.
* You are to design and build your own island with its hybrid boundaries, its rules, its money, its manifesto….
* You are to inhabit this island, who is leading in it and how?
* You have to define its ‘hybricity’ and its links to reality
* You have to create your own fiction within the everyday.
* You have to consider communication modes and tools:
* How can we access you island? In a spacecraft? In a bubble? On a ladder?..

PICOSATELITE

RESTRICTED USE?

EARTH SURACE

ANNOTATION AND PHENOMENOLOGY
Situationist
Society of the spectacle
Guy Debord
Psychogeography
Derive
Photo by angermann

THE MAP IS NOT THE TERRITORY

CARTOGRAPHY
Photo by Patrick Q

.WALK

Combined computer code and 'psychogeographic' urban exploration

«.walk» by socialfiction.org raises regimentation to an art form by giving instructions for a walk through a city. These instructions correspond to an algorithm and can be traced back to a simple computer programme:
//Classic.walk
Repeat
[
1 st street left
2 nd street right
2 nd street left
]
The psychogeographical project «.walk» supplies instructions (software) on how to use a city (hardware). In principle, however, this artistic position offers no compelling case for involvement with programmed software, providing instead a general reflection on rules and their use. The artistic interest in this case is concentrated on the instruction.

«If the city is a database of human culture through the ages than generative psychogeography is the query best suited for weaving unconnected facts into a logical dataset.

This is an example of the .walk software psychogeographers will be running during the experiment .

This experiment is Phase 0 in the eventual construction of the UGPC (Universal Generative Psychogeographical Computer).» (socialfiction.org)
Photo by jenny downing

INSTRUCTIONS

Photo by Yanily66

SOFTWARE

THE SCRIPT
Photo by Yu. Samoilov

PARTICIPATORY

DISRUPTION INTO THE PUBLIC SPACE

CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE

FLASH MOB
ahollowbody

http://www.ahollowbody.com/

A Hollow Body is a cinematic experience, a soundtrack for the city. An interactive mobile app with specially composed music score and narration guides you and a companion on a journey through the City of London. Commissioned by the Museum of London as part of their Sherlock Holmes exhibition programme, this is not a typical history walk or tourist guide. Imagine walking through a film where you are the main characters; the streets and narrow alleys of London acting as your cinematic backdrop.
Photo by SBA73

HACKING

http://hackedgadgets.com/

Think about
1. Beauty, design -making artistic choice
2. Functionality
3. Numerous, serious
4. Recycling, upcycling, reuse....
Photo by Arne Hendriks

THEME PARK

SPACE FOR RECREATION
Photo by chavezonico

EXPERIMENT

WITH YOUR SENSES AND BODY

MIXED REALITY

http://fortune.com/2015/06/18/ar-vr-theme-park-china/

Landmark has developed the creative and design concept for the L.I.V.E. Centre (Landmark Interactive Virtual Experience), a combined virtual reality and augmented reality (known as mixed reality) entertainment destination that will launch in China within the next three years.

Christopher says Landmark has spent the past 14 months exploring how virtual reality and augmented reality can be added to traditional entertainment like 3D, projection, surround sound, and special effects.

Fusing art, culture, and retail with virtual reality, augmented reality, and themed architecture and design, each complex will include an interactive museum, a virtual zoo and aquarium, a digital art gallery, a live entertainment stage, an immersive movie theater, and themed experience retail.
Photo by Still Moments

MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA: THE GLOBAL REMAKE

COLLABORATIVE TEXT? WHO OWN THE SCRIPT?
About the single city or the urban life?

Roles of the individual in relation to the city

Documents to imaginary of the city

Perry Bard
Land: us
Year: 2007/Work in progress
The video artist Perry Bard invites people to a collaborative web-based, database-generated montage experiment. Using Dziga Vertovs masterpiece from 1929 as direct inspiration, participants from all over the world can upload footage on the website next to the corresponding scenes from the original film. Uploaded digital media from photo cameras, video recorders and screen-grabs form part of the new interpretation. The lengths and images of submitted videos are synchronised with the original scenes through software, which then rotates the added material every day, ensuring the film may never be the same twice. Bard’s project transports Vertov’s impressions about the Soviet cities in his experimental silent film into the 21st century and becomes, in Vertov’s terms, the “decoding of life as it is.”. dziga.perrybard.net perrybard.nett

BIG DATA

Photo by inky

MOBILE CITY

CONVERGENCE
Photo by telvasaion

INTERVENTION

Photo by SAO!

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http://www.lostateminor.com/2015/02/26/see-usb-flash-drive-embedded-wall-pl...

https://deaddrops.com/

If you have ever come across a USB flash drive embedded in a wall, chances are it belonged to a member of Dead Drops, a group formed by Berlin media artist Aram Bartholl five years ago. Dead Drops is a file sharing network that has its members embed these drives into walls all over the world, welcoming anyone to hook up their smart devices, share, drop or download files.
Inspired by spies who exchanged items in secret locations, Bartholl’s intention is all about having ‘people think about relations, what we do online every day, and how things have changed over the past 10 years (since 9/11)’.

There are now more than 1,200 Dead Drops located from New York to Vietnam. The biggest file currently resides in Sydney, a 120GB drive installed by a Chinese exchange student ‘hoping to help’.

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TRANSMEDIA

The technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and format using current digital technologies, and is not to be confused with traditional cross-platform media franchises sequels or adaptation.
Photo by Kevin Shockey

DOCUMENTARY THEATRE

In its modern form, documentary theatre was pioneered by two famous German authors and directors – Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator in the 1920s, focusing on issues of social conflict, class tensions and power structures. Essentially derived from Brecht and Piscator's Epic Theatre, Piscator developed his own 'Living Newspaper' in the 1930s.

Documentary theater is a movement that attempts to bring social issues to the stage by emphasizing factual information over aesthetic considerations. The creator or playwright is trying to start a dialogue with the audience by focusing on the psychological and interpersonal aspect of a particular event. Documentary drama tries to create itself as a second source or a commentary on an event or person.

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Of Tsui Wen Ying other kinetic sculptures, Upward-Falling Fountain (1979) is the most impressive, creating an illusion that must be seen to be believed. As the water falling from a vibrating shower head is illuminated by a strobe, the droplets are caught dancing in response to sound; at certain strobe speeds, the droplets appear to be moving upwards, violating all rules of gravity. Living Fountain (1980-88) is a yet larger water sculpture, incorporating a showerhead three feet in diameter, plus three concentric circles of water jets, all installed above a basin twelve by sixteen feet. Here the strobe is designed to respond to combinations of changes in audible music, random sensors, audio-feedback controls, and a computer program.[12]

NEW LIFE ON EARTH

rE-SEARCH

1. Playful Identities: The Ludification of Digital Media Cultures

http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=524070

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