PROJECTS

Bear 71
“Jeremy Mendes and Leanne Allison’s poignant interactive documentary about a bear in the Canadian Rockies illuminates the way humans engage with wildlife in the age of networks, satellites, and digital surveillance.” Funded in part by NFB Canada.
http://vimeo.com/35267742 (trailer)
http://www.nfb.ca/bear71

NFB Canada has a lot of other interesting projects that were mentioned. (http://www.nfb.ca/interactive/) In particular, One Millionth Tower, Highrise, and Welcome to Pine Point.

Interrupt Violence (launching soon)
http://interruptviolence.com/
Companion website for documentary “The Interruptors.”

Star Wars Uncut
http://www.starwarsuncut.com/
crowd-sourced remake of Star Wars

Take This Lollipop
http://www.takethislollipop.com/
Creates a creepy serial killer drama out of your facebook info.

similar to

The Wilderness Downtown
http://thewildernessdowntown.com/
Interactive film by Chris Milk featuring Arcade Fire’s “We Used to Wait.”
Superimposes google maps of your hometown within the narrative. Built in html5

TOOLS

Popcorn.js
http://popcornjs.org/
“Popcorn.js is an HTML5 media framework written in JavaScript for filmmakers, web developers, and anyone who wants to create time-based interactive media on the web.”

Klynt
http://www.klynt.net/
Tool for creating interactive stories, allows for mashups between youtube, vimeo, flickr, and maps.

Korsakow
http://korsakow.org/about
“The Korsakow System (pronounced ‘KOR-SA-KOV’) is an easy-to-use computer program for the creation of database films.”

Cowbird
Cowbird.com
“Cowbird is a small community of storytellers, focused on a deeper, longer-lasting, more personal kind of storytelling than you’re likely to find anywhere else on the Web.”

Groupstream
http://groupstre.am/
(still in beta – example project 18 Days in Egypt (http://18daysinegypt.com/)

Zeega
http://zeega.org/
(still in alpha, not released)
“Zeega is an open-source HTML5 platform for creating interactive documentaries and inventing new forms of storytelling.
Zeega makes it easy to collaboratively produce, curate and publish participatory multimedia projects online, on mobile devices and in physical spaces.”

source:
Working Titles
What do the most industrious people on earth read for fun?
by Leslie T. Chang
Read more

A passage:

The master sign or “five items of the lodge” consists in this: one joins his right leg to the other’s right leg, in such a way that the legs are parallel, although inverted, and come closely together, and the left cheeks are close together. The left hands are placed, still closed, on the back of the other, but the right hand is given in such a way that one closes with the thumb and the baby finger the index finger and the middle finger of the other’s hand. When performing this grasp, one whispers silently Macbenah or simply M in the ear of the other.

(from “Rite Hand In” – Hapers – January 2012)

Interview with Information Scientist Kevin Knight.

and more…

1. ‘White Christmas’ (Case 4). Sung by a choir
2. ‘Rolling Along Together’ Not identified by patient, but recognised by operating-room nurse when patient hummed it on stimulation
3. ‘Hush-a-Bye Baby’ (Case 6). Sung by mother, but also thought to be theme-tune for radio-programme
4. ‘A song he had heard before, a popular one on the radio’ (Case 10)
5. ‘Oh Marie, Oh Marie’ (Case 30).
6. The theme-song of a radio-programme   ‘The War March of the Priests’ (Case 31).
7. This was on the other side of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ on a record belonging to the patient
8. ‘Mother and father singing Christmas carols’ (Case 32)
9. ‘Music from Guys and Dolls’ (Case 37)
10. ‘A song she had heard frequently on the radio’ (Case 45)
11. ‘I’ll Get By’ and ‘You’ll Never Know’ (Case 46).
12. Songs he had often heard on the radio In each case—as with Mrs O’M.—the music was fixed and stereotyped. The same tune (or tunes) were heard again and again, whether in the course of spontaneous seizures.

Penfield W. and Perot P. “The brain’s record of visualand auditory experience: a final summary and discussion.” Brain (1963)

Rotten boroughs were those where a member of Parliament could be elected by a small number of people, as at Bute in Scotland, where just one resident out of fourteen thousand had the right to vote and so obviously could elect himself. Pocket boroughs were constituencies that had no inhabitants at all but that retained a seat in Parliament, which could be sold or given away (to an unemployable son, say) by the person who controlled it. The most celebrated pocket borough was Dunwich, a coastal town in Suffolk that had once been a great port—the third biggest in England—but was washed into the sea during a storm in 1286. Despite its conspicuous nonexistence, it was represented in Parliament until 1832 by a succession of privileged nonentities

via Amazon Kindle: At Home: A Short History of Private Life.

from: At Home: A Short History of Private Life

Thanks to everyone who came out. I look forward to another round…
documentation here

TONIGHT!

Thursday, August 4, 7pm Dumbo Arts Center –  111 Front Street, 212, Brooklyn.

What are the things people want to extend? How did grandparents have sex? How did they kill witches? How did gps work? How did they keep chickens?
What artist sings a certain song? How to compose an angry email? What is the opposite of deja vu? And how do I compliment breasts without making it awkward?

These are all potential answers to win you scores at “Search Engine Friendly Family Feud Game Night,” tonight, 7 p.m, hosted byAngie Waller!

Join us as two teams duke it out and discover the hidden underbelly of the Internet! In an update to the traditional Family Feud format, two teams of contestants will compete to guess which questions are most commonly asked through Google. Rev your search engines – winners will be awarded a selection of fabulous prizes!

Waiting in the Pasaje Esotérico, Feb. 14, 2011. Photo by Mayte Tojim

(click images below to enlarge with translation)

14 February 2011

It was Valentine’s Day and sunny outside. I was a little sad anticipating a day indoors at the mall. A car filled with helium balloons passed us just before the highway exit.

The Pasaje Esotérico (Esoteric Passage) opened at 11AM. When I arrived at 11:20AM, most of the booths were still closed.  I set up my minimal collages on top of purple mylar paper in a weak attempt to blend with the environment. For most of the morning, the area remained desolate with green curtains covering the merchandise.

A tall man with wavy, long black hair was striding by when he paused at my anagram posters. He asked a woman nearby what the posters were about; his brow was furrowed. I interjected  ”jugo de las palabras” (juice of words).  I intended “juego de palabras” (word games). He seemed puzzled and serious. He looked at me intently, long seconds passed. He introduced himself as Brally Sol before disappearing to his booth in a partition underneath fiberglass dolphins.

The woman whom he had spoken to, Gilda, took me under her wing for the day. She gave me Brally’s card and told me he was a famous mentalist with a program on television. I found him on You Tube later and saw him on a trailer for a television show where he goes to an abandoned house and looks for spirits. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU4ghix6fsI)

While we waited for people to arrive, Gilda treated me to a coffee from an automated vending machine in the mall. She was friendly and told me about herself and I listened. She told me that she and her girlfriends were independent of men. She had been on many vacations on her own, such as one to Costa Rica. Gilda said she had been working in the Esoteric Passage for thirteen years. The photos surrounding us on the walls were pictures of her mother, Margarita A. VLA. Her mother looked very old in the photos, often her eyes were heavily made up and only half open. Compared to the ageless, smiling celebrities she was posed with, she seemed rather tired. While I was reading a resin-coated newspaper article about her, she called Gilda to check in. Gilda no longer seemed invincible. I looked up Margarita A. VLA when I got home and noticed she prefers to type in all caps on her Facebook page.

Finally at 1PM, two hours after opening, the ringing of tiny bells could be heard as consultants removed the green veils from their booths and consecrated their merchandise in hopes of many sales.

Esmeralda, an older woman who rented the booth next to Gilda appeared. Her silence and blank stare were intimidating.  I explained my project to her and she was expressionless (most likley because I  didn’t make sense, and partly because her face was puffy from what I assumed to be Botox and Restylane injections).

Esmeralda picked up one of the posters and waved it in the air – it read “Caga Mal Ni” (Shit not bad).  She seemed offended. I hid this one behind the others as if she was a small child who would think it magically disappeared. I tried to avoid her the rest of the day even though she later invited me to eat chicken soup.

I offered my seat to clients who were waiting for readings. Margarita (not Margartita A. VLA but a friend of Gilda’s with the same first name) and Gilda insisted I stay seated. The new clients had to sit on the miniature stools at the round table in the dolphin-decorated area and stare at my posters.

I watched the people coming and going and noticed many techniques I had not previously been aware of. While one client’s friend tapped away on her pink blackberry and waited, I could see Gilda in the background aggressively scratching messages in candles with her fingernails and then wrapping them in brown paper for her client to take home. It was like she was text messaging the spirits.

When I told Gilda that my posters were not for sale and that I was an artist, she assumed martial artist – apparently she is a practitioner in karate in addition to card reading. I clarified “artes plasticas” (visual artist). Throughout the day a few people asked “Cuanto cuesta?” (How much?). I don’t think they were considering buying anything but asked in an effort to understand what the posters were.

At the end of the day, Esmeralda strutted over and I noticed her black t-shirt had the word “Spoiled” rhinestone-d across the chest. She told me I better hurry if I want to make some sales.  I replied “no se vende” (not for sale). She shrugged and walked away.

A group of people in their twenties took turns getting their cards read. It was close to closing time. They looked at the anagram posters while they waited and finally one of the women asked me what they were about. I gave the word games explanation again and she seemed to understand. Then she asked me “why?” In my limited Spanish vocabulary I told her that “la gente va el pasaje en busca de respuestas… yo pienso que es más interesante para presentar preguntas.”   (People visit the Esoteric Passage seeking answers and I thought it would be interesting to present questions.)