The conversation thing

This is an interesting festival, too bad I’ve just found about it today, as the deadline is only a few days away - August 25th. This thursday…. maybe short enough, but I also have to be fast enough to submit a significant work.

That’s one of the last year’s entries. I’d like to see the final exhibits, as the concept is quite challenging.

“THIS YEAR’S THEME: SHORT & FAST. Short and fast digital animations / films / works. We are looking for work that is small in file size and quick in linear time. The exhibits will be held at various airfields in the northern Orkney Isles, home of the “The Worlds Shortest Scheduled Flight”. (more…)

I’ve just read on CNN.com that Google has acquired a stake in Chinese community Web site Tianya.cn.

What seems interesting is that percentages are subject of speculations .. from under 10 to as high as 60.

Cnn also reads that “Google is rushing to close the gap with rival Baidu.com Inc, which dominated the search market in China in the second quarter with a 58.1 percent share, according to research firm Analysys International. Baidu recently won approval to do its own reporting rather than simply show news search results, while Google is promoting a Chinese-language map search service and online word processing programs. Both are trying to build online library services.” (more…)

Last night I had to do some order in my lost lost lost pile of art sketches and courses from university. The “unimportant ones” as the important ones are very well classified :).

Point is, I’ve come to a serious dillema. What does someone do with sketches and paper half drawn or disaster works , most of them done in highschool and university? I mean, I know they are just sketches or derailed works, but, some of them can be rescued, plus it’s my own mind and hand there.

On one hand it’s a lot of paper that takes A LOT of space and who knows who will ever take them into consideration (let’s hope I’ll turn out to be the new millenium genius and those horrible sketches will be regarded as pure gold) on the other hand, how can someone throw away these?

My question to you is: Is an art sketch equal to a simple paper where you make some notes and when you do the final work, they are to be thrown away?

What do you do with works like these?

Later edit: I’d have to admit they look sooo much better on screen than in real life…. Now that might mean that either I underestimate them a little, or photography compliments art …. hmm, still have my dillema …

Interesting idea for women artists. It is open to artwork submission if you are a woman artist over 21 years of age. Interestingly enough, they don’t position themselves as feminists and militants, rather as visual interpreters on womanism so to say. Freedom of interpretation is their key.

Very good web project!

Casey Reas and Ben Fry will release a book on their renowed program Processing at MIT Press this September. I have worked a little bit with Processing, it is really fascinating, point is Romania has no market for it. Or maybe I just haven’t got the insight so far.

The book will turn interesting to designers and developers, I’d like to have one copy when it’s released.

I’ve found an interesting project developed by those at Medialabmadrid, on the social, artistic and cultural applications of data visualization through a broad program of activities including reflection, research and the production of knowledge. The aim is to bring these interpretive keys to new fields of work where their potential uses are many (from investigative journalism to social or environmental activism) and to take an in-depth look at present day artistic production, which has taken on the role of creating this new kind of images suitable for a culture of complexity.

Sounds interesting. They have an open call for offering a presentation for the symposium and presenting a proposal to be carried out at the production workshop. Deadline October 5th, 2007.

What kind of images are appropriate for the needs of a global informational networked society – the society which in all of its areas needs to represent more data, more layers, more connections than the preceding its industrial society? The complex systems which have become super-complex; the easy availability of real-time information coming from news feeds, networks of sensors, surveillance cameras; – all this puts a new pressure on the kinds of images human culture already developed and ultimately calls for the development of new kinds.
Lev Manovich

According to the well-known blogger Jason Kottke, worldwide newspapers publish over 6,000 terabytes of data every day. Technorati, the weblog search engine, keeps up to date with 54 million blog users. Flickr, the famous photo sharing website, has amassed a file of two billion labelled and classified photos in only two years. 70,000 videos are uploaded to YouTube every day. Google now has access to almost nine billion documents and websites. Wikipedia’s volunteer encyclopaedia authors have written one million, four hundred thousand articles, fifteen times more than fit in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. We are flooded with information. And there is no end in sight… read more and contribute here

An interesting event happening in Danmark, at Odense - Robots at play from 23 to 25 August.

The lawn mower that mowes the lawn completely by itself. The therapeutic robotic teddy bear “Huggable”. The toy robot that provokes children to move around. Or the robot that very precisely selects the blood veins best suited for blood testing.

Many of the robotic systems that we think belong to the future have already been realized and can be seen during the Robot Festival in Odense where many fascinating robots will be on display. Both the entertaining ones and the hard working ones. And from many countries. The overall aim of the festival is to spread knowledge about robotics and we look forward to seeing you at this inspiring and fascinating festival where you can enjoy events like robot construction, film presentations, play, learning, a stage show, a conference and a debate on ethics.

Come and join in – and give way to your fascination with robots.

If anyone should attend please leave a comment.
(Autonomous Light Air Vessels see more here )

Daniel Lee is a guy that inspired me a while ago. I am very interested in color processing on digital images, and even though my work is not related to DTP and print, I almost always correct images I have to use on different multimedia presentations so that they have the proper color ratio.

I can say I’m almost obssesed with that. I don’t like cyan in my reds and yellows, nor magenta in my greens that’s me…. color addict, what can I say?!

So at some point, working so much on portait photos adjusting faces … i thought why not reinterpret myself? The result is somewhat strange… i can see it’s still me, but blue eyed? bonde? it’s soooo weird…

I’ve known about Lee’s work especially the one commissioned for Ars Electronica 2005… but looking on some other of his interpretations on portraits …. true art interpretation, the feeling is more accute … strange indeed.

see more here

I first noticed Daniel Rozin when I was searching for a MFA in interactive art at NYU, ITP. [ Got into the program, but didn’t get the scholarship (another story, let’s get back)] … and I saw one of his artworks - Wooden Mirror. It absolutely amazed me at that point. I was at the moment into perception and replicas of eye perception, but his idea of making something digital out of purely analogical stuff … pfeeew!!!!

I’ve seen another mirror of his - Trash Mirror at Ars Electronica in 2005.

Now I see he has pursued this idea of mirroring through all sorts of unorthodox materials so I reckon his series are truly amazing. Enjoy!

a little old, but good to be kept on file