Nuclear Anxiety

These are really complex days. The earth itself seems to be revolting. Together with its people: Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria.

Chernobyl nuclear disaster is still in our minds and in the continuous stream of information coming from the media that anyone who lived during those times remembers quite well: the contradicting information about nuclear energy, what was contaminated with radiation, what wasn’t, what you could eat and what you should have avoided.

And now, Fukushima.

And, in the background of both events, as a continuous barely hearable noise, the scenario of this enormous topic for discussion: the energetic future of the world, between oil, nuclear power and new, renewable forms of energy.

This is something that is often discussed in terms of “future”, but it is a future that has already arrived.

The other day we had been discussing about these issues with penelope.di.pixel, and we realized that we didn’t have any answer, and that in that moment all that prevailed was a sustained sense of anxiety. Something that movies, net mythologies, urban legends and all sorts of conspiracy theories have infiltrated in our minds as something believable even if we don’t believe in it.

And penelope wrote this article on ArtsBlog.it about this state of Nuclear Anxiety.

While doing other things, today we created this visualization, called “Nuclear Anxiety”

It is a simple twitter based visualization: while you look at it, it fetches the most recent tweets speaking about “nuclear” in several languages, adds them to a database and plots them on a map using icons.

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Nuclear Anxiety

These are really complex days. The earth itself seems to be revolting.
Together with its people: Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria.

Chernobyl nuclear disaster is still in our minds and in the continuous
stream of information coming from the media that anyone who lived
during those times remembers quite well: the contradicting information
about nuclear energy, what was contaminated with radiation, what
wasn’t, what you could eat and what you should have avoided.

And now, Fukushima.

And, in the background of both events, as a continuous barely hearable
noise, the scenario of this enormous topic for discussion: the
energetic future of the world, between oil, nuclear power and new,
renewable forms of energy.

This is something that is often discussed in terms of “future”, but it
is a future that has already arrived.

The other day we had been discussing about these issues with
penelope.di.pixel, and we realized that we didn’t have any answer, and
that in that moment all that prevailed was a sustained sense of
anxiety. Something that movies, net mythologies, urban legends and all
sorts of conspiracy theories have infiltrated in our minds as
something believable even if we don’t believe in it.

And penelope wrote this article on ArtsBlog.it about this state of
Nuclear Anxiety.

While doing other things, today we created this visualization, called
“Nuclear Anxiety”

It is a simple twitter based visualization: while you look at it, it
fetches the most recent tweets speaking about “nuclear” in several
languages, adds them to a database and plots them on a map using
icons.
Tags: alternative energies, chernobyl, fukushima, infoaesthetics,
nuclear anxiety, nuclear disaster, nuclear energy, realtime
discussion, renewable energy sources, tweets, twitter, visualization

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fakepress wit cityvision mag and wifi art, at circolo degli artisti

FakePress: the next step of publishing.

The book explodes, and in this explosion its pieces disseminate, creating a new form of expression, a new way of writing onto the world.

Not books anymore, at least not in the classical ordinary way. Books become disseminated narratives, ubiquitous contents, traversable, wearable, shareable, interactive, emergent, time-based, location-based, relation-based.

Wearable technologies, Ubiquitous publishing, Augmented Reality, multiple-author, open ended narratives.

FakePress will present new forms of urban interaction and of critical innovation at:

LOVE AND KILL YOUR OWN TOWN

Curated by
Francesco Lipari and Ottavio Cialone

September 19th 2010
CIRCOLO DEGLI ARTISTI
VIA CASILINA VECCHIA 42, ROME

http://www.cityvision-mag.com/
Love and Kill your own town: Facebook event
Press Release
Flyer
Poster

Please link back to: http://www.artisopensource.net/2010/09/09/fakepress-circolo-degli-artisti-cityvision-and-wi-fi-art-rome-september-19th-2010/

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Robot Festival 2010, Bologna, Italy

Augmented Reality can create opportunities for critical reinvention of the world.

Squatting Supermarkets uses augmented reality to break open the codes of commercial communication on the products we use every day. By taking a picture with your mobile phone to the logo of a product, individuas can contribute to a global, disseminated relational discourse on ecology, sustainablity and social responsibility issues of the things we eat, wear and use every day.

The logo gets recognized with computer vision techniques and is used as a fiducial marker that can be used by the Squatting Supermarkets application to create a discussion space onto which people can write their thoughts and interact with other individuals and groups.

An interpretative layer on top of reality where we can express ourselves, bypassing communication control strategies enacted by corporations and governments. Augmented Reality as a new space for self-expression.

FakePress and Art is Open Source present:

Squatting Supermarkets @ RObot Festival 2010

from 15th to 18th September

Bologna, Italy

click here for more info about RobotFest 2010

click here for more info about Squatting Supermarkets

click here for even more info about Squatting Supermarkets

please link back to: http://www.artisopensource.net/2010/09/09/squatting-supermarkets-robot-festival-bologna/

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http://singinst.org/reading/artificialintelligence

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http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.12/lanier_pr.html

and Ray Kurzweil answered like this "One half of an argument":

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kurzweil/kurzweil_print.html

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http://spacecollective.org/sjef/5465/A-Basic-Introduction-to-Singularity-Skepticism

Argument #4: "Hey Ray, your chart sucks!"

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in a recent post on Gizmodo

http://gizmodo.com/5614170/reverse+engin eering-of-human-brain-likely-by-2020

Ray Kurzweil Kurzweil says he will reverse engineer the brain by a couple of decades...

but not everyone agrees:

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The video shows the presentation of the paper titled “Wearing Emotions: Physical representation and visualization of human emotions using wearable technologies” presented at the IV10 (Information Visualization 2010) conference at South Bank‘s college in London, on July 26th, 2010.

he paper and presentation describe a research process focused on the scientific research, design and implementation of wearable devices able todisplay human emotions – be them individual, group or global – on physical bodies.
The devices created in the process have been used to create 3 artistic performances as both proofs of concepts and as innovative forms of artistic and aesthetic expression: Talkers performance, OneAvatar and Conference Biofeedback.

the slides relative to the presentation can be found here:

the video can be found here:

or here

http://www.archive.org/details/WearingEmotionsByFakepressPresentedAtTheIv10ConferenceInLondonJuly

on Art is Open Source:

http://www.artisopensource.net/2010/07/31/wearing-emotions-by-fakepress-presented-at-the-iv10-conference-in-london-july-2010/

OneAvatar, wearable technologies connecting body and avatar

Reference links:

the IV10 conference website:
http://www.graphicslink.co.uk/IV10/

Art is Open Source:
http://www.artisopensource.net/

FakePress:
http://www.fakepress.it/

Talkers Performance:
http://www.artisopensource.net/talkers/

OneAvatar:
http://www.artisopensource.net/OneAvatar/

Conference Biofeedback:

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from:

http://www.artisopensource.net/2010/07/25/squatting-supermarkets-new-interfaces-and-project-development/

A new interface for the squatting supermarkets installation was featured recently at the SMIR project.

Traditional products were added to the system, documenting their history, sustainable production processes and ecologic impacts.

by FakePress, Art is Open Source

produced by SMIR project, Marcovaldo association and Share Festival

Squatting Supermarkets

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from http://www.artisopensource.net/2010/07/25/toys-at-icalt-in-tunisia/

Art is Open Source, together with FakePress have recently participated at the ICALT conference, International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies. We presented Toys++, an augmented reality system allowing you to apply digital contents to the toys people (and especially children) play with, and to visualize them while you assemble them.

Toys++ at ICALT, example representations

The system will soon be released, check out the FakePress website to stay updated on this.

Here is the PDF of the poster we presented at the conference.

Poster of Toys++ presented at ICALTin sousse, tunisia

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From: http://www.artisopensource.net/2010/07/02/a-video-atlante-di-roma-atlas-of-rome/

our friend and magician filmmaker Gianmarco Bonavolontà produced this video of the Atlas we produced for the Festa dell’Architettura a few days ago, a large scale interactive installation for public spaces.

Enjoy!

Atlante di Roma / Atlas of Rome

design by FakePress

implementation by Art is Open Source

curated by Paolo Valente

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From: http://www.artisopensource.net/2010/06/25/how-to-make-a-presentation-with-augmented-reality-using-processing/

This tutorial shows you how you can make a presentation using Augmented Reality. Code is done using Processing, TUIO and reactivision.

See the full gallery on Posterous

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IAR2010

from: http://www.artisopensource.net/2010/06/24/aos-and-fakepress-present-critical-ar-ensemble-at-iar2010/

Art is Open Source and FakePress participated to IAR2010, the first italian event totally dedicated to the themes of Augmented Reality, organized by the folks at JoinPad at the Milan headquarters of the Hub.

AOS @ IAR2010

The event was truly interesting as it covered a wide range of themes and approaches. I must say that I am quite interested in the efforts that marketing is putting on Augmented Reality (AR). It reminds me a lot of the hype that had developed a couple of years ago on proximity marketing and bluetooth.

While the idea of being able to interact with “users” according to their position and to the possibility of delivering contextualized, relevant content just-in-place and just-in-time is quite fascinating and attractive, lots of issues arised in practical applications of proximity marketing: the availability and compatibility of devices, user habits, usability, accessibility, the quality of content to be delivered, invasiveness, responsiveness, interactivity.

the crowd at the HUB Milan

With AR we have gone way beyond those problems, but something’s still missing and, on the other side, people haven’t yet figured out exactly what they want from AR, and how they want it.

Good things first: IAR2010 has been a wonderful experience. Before and during the setup and at the afterparty we had the chance to chat with some really wonderful and creative people who are developing ideas and projects that have AR components in perspectives that encompass wide range of interests and matters.

Mauro Rubin @ IAR2010

Using the presentations as a reference, the first that comes up to mind is Simone Cortesi of OpenStreetMap. With OSM a radical approach is being persued, focused on the creation of a stack of tools collaboratively building a software and content platform and, on the content side, to truly implement a distributed operative environmet which enables for a real stratification of information on the “real” world. Projects such as OSM are truly interesting in that they actually enable people to do something that people are doing since the dawn of times: add meaning and information to the world around them. OSM allows you doing it on a global scale by providing the geographic foundation and by allowing you to freely build on it.

This is a focal point, and it’s the main reason behind me not being *very* excited about the marketing aspects of AR.

With AR we are dealing with a possible paradigm shift: the possibility to making digital, multimedia information accessible directly from the analog physical world.

This is a breathtaking possibility that has been matched, recently, only by the researches on digital and generative fabrication. While this latter model describes a complete reinvention of manufacturing processes (post-post-industry: you bring manufacturing plants at home, you work on opensourced models that you can use/modify and 3d-print) rethinking from the base the ideas of patents, distribution, storage, sustainability, ecology, AR completely (potentially) reinvents the idea of communication, bringing the power of creating information, meaning, symbols, codes and interactions directly to the people, directly in the places/times they walk, live, work, have fun.

This possibility potentially confronts the current hyerarchies and models of communication and information, further enhancing the ones that are currently available through the internet. AR potentially brings the possibility to generate, disseminate and distribute content and information to the people in the physical world, far from their monitors, far from “I Like” buttons and “tweet this” badges.

This is why we named ur contribution to IAR2010 Critical AR Ensemble.

Critical Art Ensemble was a group creating “molecular interventions and semiotic shocks that collectively could diminish the rising intensity of authoritarian culture”. Their work on media and experimentations on the borders and frontiers of technology, biotechnology and extreme practices is something that we feel  very significative in contemporary times.

We borrowed their name, turining it into Critical AR Ensemble, to suggest how Augmented Reality can be thought of as a new space in which to create such “interventions and semiotic shocks”. With AR we imagine a world in which codes can be broken down, infliltrated, reinvented, directly from the people, directly from streets, bodies, objects, times and places, reinventing public spaces, private ones, relations, and communications.

There are technical and conceptual issues to be assessed in all this.

Technically, AR is still very cumbersome: devices, displays, percision, computer vision… everything is not what we would like to have. Too slow, too limited, too reliant on markers.

Conceptually, AR is being mostly used as a next-step advertisment or as a next-step yellow pages. Which is something, but something that resembles using a nuke to kill a fly.

One thing must be said in favor of marketing practices experimenting with AR: they are fast! There’s a dozen new experiments each day: markers on magazines, on cards, on totems, on cars, on tshirts, everywhere. With this progression going on we will soon have critical masses of know-how that will possibly form a foundation for further researchers.

But the most interesting things going on in AR are quite far from marketing. Social networks, art, architecture, sustainability, ecology, disabilities, multi-cultural practices, alternative business models, activism. People reinventing socialization; aesthetics; the spaces we walk through; the places in which we spend our time; the effects of our actions on the world; the possibility to inform ourselves on the products and services we use; the accessibility of the world for people who are not able to hear or see; the possibility to open up dialogues among multiple cultures and to make them interact and coexist; the possibility to create really new business models; the posibility to criticize, express ourselves, promote our autonomies, claim our share of the world.

These are areas in which AR is being researched on with incredible results, and the ones that I personally am most excited about.

Together with FakePress we are approaching these areas of intervention from the point of view of a next-step publishing house.

FakePress next step publishing

What will a publishing house that is aware of these possibilities look like?

We actually don’t know, yet, just as anyone else in these times and conditions. But we’re experimenting on our educated guesses.

“Publishing” will be (and already is) a key term in the near future. Global scale meltin-pots, remixing, mashing-ups, bashing, distracting, assembling, disassembling, fabbing, performing, wearing, touching, retouching. Messing it all up and bringing it back to a state of calm for the next two seconds and then starting up once again with the mashup. A continuous fluid unstable state of remix. Incredibly creative. But also very far from the word “strategy” as we know it. Different skills, methodologies, ambitions and, most of all, imaginaries are required.

Wrapping up: IAR2010 was a wonderful experience. We saw some innovative experiments, some a-bit-less-innovative ones, but focused on the high levels of quality and accessibility designed for the masses, some decent technical solutions, some really interesting theoretical approaches, some great visions, some incredible efforts and, most of all, a wonderful level of curiosity, a definite will to listen to all the available perspectives and a remarkable dedication to being open and accessible, with the clear objective of creating interconnections and collaborations.

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from:
http://www.artisopensource.net/2010/06/07/atlas-of-the-visions-festa-dellarchitettura-index-urbis-rome/

Art is Open Source and Fake Press will be presenting an enormous interactive infoaesthetic environment at the Festa dell’Architettura of Rome, from the 9th to 12th of June 2010.

The interactive environment is named “Atlante di Roma” (Atlas of Rome) and it is an instance of a wider project which will be launched online on the website http://www.atlantedellevisioni.net . The project is curated by Paolo Valente, who practically made everything possible. The Atlas has another component which is called ABC Roma by Giuseppe Stampone.

Index Urbis, the logo of the Festa dell'Architettura

The idea is to create a display/interact environment that is able to let people experience multiple views on the city they live in or that they’re visiting, and to research and investigate on the visions that architects, artists, institutions and, in general, other people have had on urban spaces, through projects, actions, competitions, events, works, performances, research, institutional or political actions.

The system will be open to anyone and is designed to be reused, reshown and re-shared multiple times.

the brochure of the Atlante di Roma

The environment is built from multiple components:

a 35 meters wide projection composed through 8 collaborating servers processing in realtime the interactions coming from the Atlas

on the projection 4 interactive infoaesthetic representations show the visions hosted in the Atlas and the interactions of the individuals choosing to be part of the experience:

Linearity

In Linearity the visions take the form of mechanisms grabbing their life energy from the interactions among individuals and themes. Spheres represent visions and, while moving, they are constantly fed from the themes that they explore.

NeoMap

Neo Map explores territories bypassing their geophysical or toponomastic characteristics, and describes them theough the projects, actions and the lives that exist in them. In the visualization circles represent the visions, dislocated according to their reciprocal geographical locations and connected by subjects, thus creating a new visually semantic geography.

Bridges

Bridges explores interconnections. Visions orbit around the respective themes, in a cyclic procession. Visions and themes dynamically show bridges and interconnections, according to he subjects and actions that they share.

TimeScape

Timescape transforms the passage of time into a landscape. Visions are represented in their time dimension, occupying spaces that are proportional to their duration and sequence. A geography defined through time and correlation is made visible and interactable.

The sounds populating all of the visualizations are completely generated by the contents, interactions and from the emerging data, inferring new relationships among people and projects and representing them in sounds.

4 multitouch screens will allow people to interact with the environment, controlling interfaces that will materialize directly onto the large projection.

come join us at Index Urbis for the Atlante delle Visioni!

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and here we are:

xdxd.vs.xdxd and penelope.di.pixel on Wired Italy

We ended up on the italian edition of Wired Magazine, speaking about augmented reality, love, digital revolutions and jail.

Here’s a PDF for your (and our) reference. Hope the guys at Wired don’t get too mad about me putting it up.

http://www.wired.it

Here is the PDF of the article: xDxD.vs.xDxD and penelope.di.pixel on Wired Italy

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Living CrossMedia

[ITALIANO]

AOS & FakePress

insieme a

Università di Roma La Sapienza, Facoltà di Architettura Ludovico Quaroni, Dipartimento di Disegno Industriale

e con la presenza di

Assessorato alla Cultura e alla Comunicazione del Comune di Roma

presentano:

Living CrossMedia

le opportunità dei nuovi media nei Centri Commerciali e nei nuovi spazi della cultura e dell’aggregazione

Martedì 1 Giugno 2010

Facoltà di Architettura Ludovico Quaroni

Università di Roma “La Sapienza”

via Gianturco 2, Roma

aula G11

dalle 9:30 alle 12:00

Marco Torresan, Direttore del Centro Commerciale “Porta di Roma”

Simona Pantò, Responsabile del Marketing del Centro Commerciale “Porta di Roma”

Alessandro Ferrante, Assessorato alla Cultura e Comunicazione del Comune di Roma

terranno una lecture e dibattito per discutere delle opportunità che, nello scenario contemporaneo, si aprono con la comunicazione e l’interazione multi e cross mediale nei nuovi spazi della socializzazione, dell’aggregazione e della cultura, a partire dalla loro esperienza.

Partendo dall’analisi della trasformazione degli spazi pubblici e commerciali nelle città del nuovo secolo, per arrivare alle suggestioni che vedono display, interazioni con dispositivi mobili ed ubiqui, ambienti interattivi, e nuove forme di comunicazione digitale arricchire la nostra esperienza della città, dei nostri rapporti con le persone, le aziende e gli spazi che percorriamo tutti i giorni.

L’intervento, propositivo anche nel ragionare sulle possibilità di interazione tra ricerca, arte, design e marketing, sarà seguito da un dibattito aperto a tutti gli intervenuti.

L’incontro sarà coordinato da Salvatore Iaconesi (Art is Open Source, FakePress e docente del corso di Sperimentazioni di Tecnologie e Comunicazioni Multimediali della Facoltà di Architettura Ludovico Quaroni dell’Unversità di Roma “La Sapienza”) e Oriana Persico (Art is Open Source, FakePress).

[ENGLISH]

AOS & FakePress

together with

University of Rome La Sapienza, Faculty of Architecture Ludovico Quaroni, Department of Industrial Design

and with the presence of

Culture and Communication Council of the City of Rome

present:

Living CrossMedia

the opportunities for new media in Commercial Centers and in the new spaces for culture and social aggregation

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Faculty of Architecture Ludovico Quaroni

University of Rome “La Sapienza”

via Gianturco 2, Rome

room G11

from 9:30 am to 12:00

Marco Torresan, Director of the Commercial Centre “Porta di Roma”

Simona Pantò, Marketing Responsible of the Commercial Centre “Porta di Roma”

Alessandro Ferrante, Culture and Communication Council of the City of Rome

will hold a lecture and debate to investigate the opportunities opening in the contemporary scenario through the adoption of multi and cross medial communication and interaction in the emerging spaces for socialization, culture and aggregation, starting from their experience.

Starting from the analysis of the current transformation of public and commercial spaces in the cities of the new century, and arriving to the suggestions coming from the wide availability of display technologies, of interactions with mobile and ubiquitous devices, of interactive and responsive environments, and of new forms of digital communication enriching our experience of the city, of our relationships with other people, companies and spaces.

The lecture will also explore the possible interactions among scientific research, art, design and marketing, and will be followed by an open dialogue to which everyone attending the event will be invited to contribute.

The event will be coordinated by Salvatore Iaconesi (Art is Open Source, FakePress and professor of Experiments in Multimedia Technologies and Communications at the Faculty of Architecture “Ludovico Quaroni”  at Rome’s University “La Sapienza”) and by Oriana Persico (Art is Open Source, FakePress).

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The Sancho Plan create new interactive entertainment experiences for the 21st century. Fusing animation, music, gaming, technology and performance, our unique performances and environments form a a series of live, interactive and immersive musical adventures.

Our performances feature a live band in front of or surrounded by screens, the on-stage musicians orchestrating sounds and simultaneously controlling the on-screen animated characters. You can read more about our latest performance piece, The Black Page here.

Our environments might allow the public to interact with our characters or enjoy new immersive spaces. In 2008 we were commissioned to create a new animated-musical experience for the world’s largest permanent 3D stereoscopic theatre at the Ars Electronica Centre in Linz for their year as European Capital of Culture. Read about Jungle Imperator here.

The Sancho Plan is an award-winning collaboration of writers, musicians, animators, designers and computer programmers, whose creative output has been shown in clubs, festivals, cinemas, theatres and on television and computer screens around the world. Through the careful combination of animation, sound, music and interactive technology, we create fantastical worlds in which animated musical characters are triggered by a variety of electronic musical instruments and interfaces.

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