Faith vs. Form

face recognition software

2005-12-11T09:58:00.000-08:00

new face recognition site called "Riya" what's the artistic potential? Here is what a Wired news article had to say:

"The service builds on current multimedia search techniques. With billions of bits of information out there, finding what you want is impossible without good search tools, and there hasn't been a really good way to search multimedia files like photos, video and sound. A common current practice, used by photo sites like Flickr, is to encourage users to tag photos, and then allow text searches of those tags.

Riya also relies on meta tags, but uses facial-recognition software to create them automatically. Subscribers upload photos, and then tell the Riya software who the person is. By repeatedly running the recognition algorithm against multiple photos of the same person, Riya software eventually learns to identify other images of the same face. Once trained, the software will automatically generate meta tags, and users can search their own photos and the photos of other subscribers.

The service currently only searches photos uploaded to its servers. The technology could, however, be deployed across the internet, allowing people to search the web, Flickr, Tribe and Friendster photo sets, regardless of whether the owner or the person photographed wants to be identified."

In more Myspace/death-related news...

2005-12-09T11:43:00.000-08:00

Teenager Posts Suicide Note on Myspace.com

MySpace-related murder

2005-12-08T16:05:00.000-08:00

MSNBC is up in arms about "the blogosphere" because "it" enabled the daughter of a PA couple to meet a homicidal boyfriend. He later shot her parents. "Murder in the Blogosphere"

Map the Architecture of Corporate Power

2005-12-07T07:29:00.001-08:00

They Rule is a piece of software that allows users to map the interconnections between the directors/board members of the most powerful US companies in 2004.

Old architects are actually new media artists!

2005-12-05T22:06:00.000-08:00

I was right! It looks like there were a group of artists behind this MySpace intervention. First, I discovered that there isn't just one faux profile, but a whole group of fake architect profiles. I messaged "Bruno Taut" on MySpace explaining that I'm a student in a new media production/theory class and that I'm interested in the intervention he and his colleagues are taking in MySpace. He wrote back and told me to check out the MySpace group "the Glass Chain", apparently the crux of their project. He also sent me a link to their flickr page which has documentation of the project.

Performing Online

2005-12-01T21:52:00.000-08:00

From Lisa Nakamura's essay Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet:

 “Cyberspace is the newest incarnation of the idea of national boundaries. […] The term ‘cyberspace’ participates in a topographical trope which, as Stone points out, defines the activity of on-line interaction as taking place within a locus, a space, a ‘world’ unto itself. This second ‘world,’ like carnival, possess constantly fluctuating boundaries, frontiers, and dividing lines which separate it from both the realm of the ‘real’ (that which takes place off line) and its corollary, the world of the physical body which gets projected, manipulated, and performed via on-line interaction.”

"Since the 'real' identities of the interlocutors at Lambda are unverifiable (except by crackers and hackers, whose outlaw manipulations of code are unanimousy construed by the Internet's citizens as a violation of both privacy and personal freedom) it can be said that everyone who participates is 'passing,' as it is impossible to tell if a character's description matches a player's physical characteristics"

collaborative internet art?

2005-12-01T09:19:00.000-08:00

interesting site involving community art activism in web-based platforms + interesting use of pseudonyms

Is this art?

2005-12-01T01:05:00.000-08:00

I came across this profile while surfing MySpace. Maybe it is just someone fooling around, but the thought crossed my mind that this could be someone's art project.

Pseudonymous blogger outed!

2005-11-22T20:45:00.000-08:00

The New Yorker outed the blogger, "Article III Groupie," whose blog was a tabloid-esque review of federal judges. The blog was gone not long after. Take a look at the article.
Pseudonymity is certainly problematic.

Friendster's Fakester Buddies

2005-11-13T01:41:00.000-08:00

I found this Wired article from last year which discusses fake profiles on Friendster.

"Creating fake profiles of bogus people has long been a big no-no at Friendster. Now, in an abrupt turnabout, the social-networking company is promoting Anchorman with bios of the film's characters." By Daniel Terdiman.

It's annoying to see a young tech company like Friendster act so completely greedy. But at the same time, I'm interested in the promotional power of Friendster and Myspace and the like. Social network sites are known for being contagious, if not downright addictive. I feel like there is a huge opportunity with these sites to spread knowledge and artwork and ideas- things other than blockbuster studio films. Anchorman doesn't really need any more promotion than it already has anyway.

realm of fear

2005-11-07T08:59:00.000-08:00

Interesting blog post on the role of MySpace in socially constructed fears of/for youth and youth culture. Should socail networking sites be banned?

NYT article on "Screenagers"

2005-11-06T12:30:00.000-08:00

Interesting article on the use of social networking sites like MySpace

German Expressionism

2005-10-29T15:36:00.000-07:00

OK, I know this doesn't have much to do with new media art, but I really thought this essay on German Expressionism was interesting. It was this architecture movement that focused on subjective emotions and organic responses, not just strict (objective) formalism. It almost sounds like the kind of architecture that social networking sites encourage--you know, where you divulge all of your personal experiences and feelings, and where you link to together people and interests based on fluid intuitions rather than structural rules. The German Expressionists were really into mysticism and "spiritual unity"--sites like MySpace (perhaps a "social unity") are similarly idealistic, as they encourage a community united under the structural possibilities of the Internet. The architects were also interested in the latest technologies and design.

camera-toss

2005-10-18T18:42:00.000-07:00

You know how you get a reall cool, swirly picture when you throw your camera in the air while the shutter is open? Well there's this new blog that has a whole bunch of pictures like this. Camera Toss.

Offline Network Artist

2005-09-26T16:12:00.000-07:00

Artist Mark Lombardi interprets major political and financial scandals in vast, linear diagrams of the interconnections between involved figures. In his most controversial work, he illustrated the links between global finance and international terrorism.

Here is what wikipedia has to say:

While for most of his career, Lombardi was an abstract painter, he switched six years before his death to the pencil diagrams of crime and conspiracy networks that he would be come best known for. His art is structurally similar to the sociogram, a diagram drawn from the field of social network analysis; but in Lombardi's diagrams, each node or connection was drawn from news stories from major reputable media organizations. The impact, aesthetically, is unique, with elaborate and delicate spiderwebs illustrating networks of conspiracy.
Lombardi's drawings purport to document financial and political frauds by power brokers. His 1999 drawing, entitled George W. Bush, Harken Energy and Jackson Stephens, ca 1979-90, shows the proved connections between James Bath, the Bush and bin Laden families, and business deals in Texas and around the world.
After two highly successful solo art shows, Mark Lombardi allegedly died of suicide (hanging himself in his Williamsburg, New York studio) in March, 2000.

Here's an article on "Sociograms": http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Sociogram

potatoland.org

2005-08-20T20:12:00.000-07:00

Alright, if you don't know about potatoland.org where have you digitally been all this time? Seriously, there's some really interesting work up there from Shredder to Mark Napier's Black&White.

waves of girls

2005-07-10T09:51:00.000-07:00

Waves of Girls is a pretty standard example of hyperfiction. This one is pretty complex but I'm not sure I really follow the narrative all that well. There are many different lines that you could follow and you can jump from one to the other almost with too much ease. Many words are linked to other lines that have only partial relevance.
This kind of system might work if all the words were links, but as is the piece fails to really create a compelling world. It comes across more like a very limited free-associative project.

The World's First Collaborative Sentence...

2005-06-09T20:35:00.000-07:00

The World's First Collaborative Sentence is a site that claims to be exactly what you think.
My biggest issue with this project is that it takes the definition of a sentece very loosely. Maybe I'm just a stickler for grammar but it bothers me. I know that that is not really the point of this thing, though.
I guess it is kind of interesting conceptually.

Filmtext

2005-05-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

Mark Amerika's Filmtext is really slick. He has made a very sci-fi, cinematic sort of look in this piece and the story progresses in that manner too.
This artist has a history of being pretty egomaniacal I hear and I guess I can see that in his site. He definitely thinks that he is great. That said this piece was pretty skillfully made even if his use of theory is questionable at best.
That's the biggest failure of this piece, it seems like he's trying to impress academics while not really knowing what he's talking about. He throws around various buzzwords that really have no bearing on the work itself.

Appreciate Filmtext for its aesthetic value alone.

vlog

2005-04-16T11:07:00.000-07:00

I came across this vlog the other day. There's some interesting work on there, but over all I'm not too much of a fan.