MachineMachine /stream - tagged with medium http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com Peter Krapp: Noise Channels: Glitch and Error in Digital Culture (2011) http://monoskop.org/log/?p=4169 To err is human; to err in digital culture is design. In the glitches, inefficiencies, and errors that ergonomics and usability engineering strive to surmount, Peter Krapp identifies creative reservoirs of computer-mediated interaction. Throughout new media cultures, he traces a resistance to the heritage of motion studies, ergonomics, and efficiency, showing how creativity is stirred within the networks of digital culture. ]]> Wed, 23 May 2012 09:46:17 -0700 http://monoskop.org/log/?p=4169 In the Digital Era, Publication Isn’t Preservation http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/publication-isnt-preservation/ Publication used to mean preservation but it no longer does. Let me explain. When a print book is published its metadata is literally attached to its content. The author and title, publisher and imprint, price, ISBN and barcode, as well as the size, the shape, the binding are clear, easily referenced at a glance. Part of the complicated process of digitizing books that the Hathi Trust, the Internet Archive, and Google, for example, faced was how to record and connect all of this information to a digital file. For scanned and even more seriously for born-digital e-books, as Digital Book… ]]> Mon, 21 May 2012 10:46:01 -0700 http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/publication-isnt-preservation/ 'Will reading in the digital era erode our ability to understand the world?' No, the world has designs of its own... http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-essay-will-reading-in-the-digital-era-erode-our-ability-to-understand-the-world-7734221.html Quite the opposite, so long as we grasp the fresh routes to knowledge, and connection, that technological change brings, says Nick Harkaway. These are old, old fears in a new form. In ancient Greece, Socrates reportedly didn't fancy a literate society. He felt that people would lose the capacity to think for themselves, simply adopting the perspective of a handy written opinion, and that they would cease to remember what could be written down. To an extent, he was right. We do indeed take on and regurgitate information, sometimes without sufficient analysis, and we do use notes as an aide… ]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 03:38:40 -0700 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-essay-will-reading-in-the-digital-era-erode-our-ability-to-understand-the-world-7734221.html "Videogames are the experience of being ruled" http://killscreendaily.com/articles/essays/will-work-fun/ Revolutions are often thought of in terms of conflict and disorder, but they just as often come on waves of peaceful obsolescence. The old way of doing things is allowed to linger as long as it likes while everyone else gets on with the future. In the last few years the "free-to-play" model— where games are given away on mobile phones or online while the developer makes money through advertisements or the sale of in-game items—has encircled the videogame industry. At first it seemed like a curiosity, a unique idea that made sense in China and Korea, where loot-hoarding games… ]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 03:32:16 -0700 http://killscreendaily.com/articles/essays/will-work-fun/ The New Aesthetic Needs to Get Weirder http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/the-new-aesthetic-needs-to-get-weirder/255838//the-new-aesthetic-needs-to-get-weirder-ian-bogost-technology-the-atlantic The New Aesthetic Needs to Get Weirder : http://t.co/ZyPWq121 by @ibogost ]]> Sat, 14 Apr 2012 08:21:55 -0700 http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/the-new-aesthetic-needs-to-get-weirder/255838//the-new-aesthetic-needs-to-get-weirder-ian-bogost-technology-the-atlantic Digital tendencies http://articles.boston.com/2011-08-07/bostonglobe/29862127_1_computer-art-art-supplies-modern-art From 1961 to 1973, a loosely organized group of artists and scientists coalesced around the radical idea that the emerging technology of the computer could be used to make a different kind of art. Known simply as the New Tendencies, this heterogeneous movement included dozens of men and women from the far reaches of the industrialized world. Often working under collective monikers such as Equipo 57 or Grupo Anonima, most of them were as ambivalent about individual fame as they were about the artistic status of their activities, which they preferred to call “research.”

However they saw… ]]> Fri, 12 Aug 2011 04:59:28 -0700 http://articles.boston.com/2011-08-07/bostonglobe/29862127_1_computer-art-art-supplies-modern-art Accuracy takes power: one man's 3GHz quest to build a perfect SNES emulator http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator.ars Emulators for playing older games are immensely popular online, with regular arguments breaking out over which emulator is best for which game. Today we present another point of view from a gentleman who has created the Super Nintendo emulator bsnes. He wants to share his thoughts on the most important part of the emulation experience: accuracy.

It doesn't take much raw power to play Nintendo or SNES games on a modern PC; emulators could do it in the 1990s with a mere 25MHz of processing power. But emulating those old consoles accurately—well, that's another challenge entirely; accurate… ]]> Thu, 11 Aug 2011 04:25:22 -0700 http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator.ars How Google Dominates Us http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/aug/18/how-google-dominates-us/?pagination=false Most of the time Google does not actually have the answers. When people say, “I looked it up on Google,” they are committing a solecism. When they try to erase their embarrassing personal histories “on Google,” they are barking up the wrong tree. It is seldom right to say that anything is true “according to Google.” Google is the oracle of redirection. Go there for “hamadryad,” and it points you to Wikipedia. Or the Free Online Dictionary. Or the Official Hamadryad Web Site (it’s a rock band, too, wouldn’t you know). Google defines its mission as “to organize the world’s… ]]> Sun, 31 Jul 2011 18:17:11 -0700 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/aug/18/how-google-dominates-us/?pagination=false A Medium for the Masses http://www.cityonahillpress.com/2011/05/05/a-medium-for-the-masses/ The word “meme” first appeared in Richard Dawkins’ 1976 book “The Selfish Gene.” Dawkins defined a meme as being any sort of idea that spreads from person to person within a culture and catches fire. It played on the notion of a gene, as both genes and memes multiply with human-to-human contact. As UC Santa Cruz computer science professor Gerald Moulds put it, “Every idea that manages to self-replicate is a meme.” Internet memes are much the same thing. They spread from website to website, from community to community, from user to user across the Web, mutating and bonding together,… ]]> Mon, 06 Jun 2011 02:25:06 -0700 http://www.cityonahillpress.com/2011/05/05/a-medium-for-the-masses/ Depicting Relationships: The limits of language http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2011/05/depicting-relationships-the-limits-of-language/ The heart of the english sentence (and equivalent sentential forms in other natural languages) lies in connecting ideas together and creating meaning. Like placing two portals from the recent hit sequel by Valve, you are changing the space without necessarily adding or subtracting from it. You’re using what’s already there, but rearranging it; repurposing it. Relying on a complex process of disambiguation to carry through your novel contribution to the whole of spoken or written utterances (as you learn in English grammar classes).

Have you ever considered words to be a bit constraining? I am a self… ]]> Sun, 29 May 2011 15:28:54 -0700 http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2011/05/depicting-relationships-the-limits-of-language/ Technology Of Writing http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2733 Technology of/on/about writing: A huge list of resources ]]> Wed, 11 May 2011 11:03:29 -0700 http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2733 Analogue artists defying the digital age http://guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/apr/24/mavericks-defying-digital-age Dusty vinyl records, vintage film cameras, rickety typewriters and antiquated recording equipment … these are the creative tools being used by some emerging artists. Pure nostalgia? Or a laudable refusal to escape the speed and sanitised perfection of contemporary digital culture? ]]> Sun, 24 Apr 2011 06:39:12 -0700 http://guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/apr/24/mavericks-defying-digital-age Francis Fukuyama on Why Analog Is Often Better Than Digital http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703529004576160300649048270.html Visual and audio reproduction have undergone massive changes as their underlying technologies shifted from analog to digital over the past two decades. It's clear that it is far more convenient to snap photos with a digital point-and-shoot or listen to music on an iPod. But whether the quality of images or music has improved is, however, a highly debatable proposition, one that is contested by legions of enthusiasts who have continued to cling to older technologies not out of Luddite resistance to change, but because they believe the shift to 1's and 0's is actually making things worse.
]]> Wed, 09 Mar 2011 11:02:53 -0700 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703529004576160300649048270.html Infinite Glitch.com http://infiniteglitch.com/ Every day an incomprehensible number of new digital media files are uploaded to hosting sites across the internet. Far too many for any one person to consume. Infinite Glitch is a stream-of-conciousness representation of this overwhelming flood of media, its fractured and degraded sounds and images reflecting how little we as an audience are able to retain from this daily barrage.

Infinite Glitch is an automated system that generates an ever-changing audio/video stream from the constantly increasing mass of media files freely available on the web. Source audio and video files are ripped from a variety of… ]]> Wed, 09 Mar 2011 06:50:45 -0700 http://infiniteglitch.com/ Gif and Take: dump.fm http://artcritical.com/2011/02/28/gif-and-take-dump-fm-where-registered-users-post-and-modify-animated-images/ Dump.fm is a digital version of the old Surrealist genre of the exquisite corpse, a “show and tell” for the polymorphously perverse. The art of dump.fm is genuinely interactive. Social relations are inherent to the entire art making process for these artists, rather than just getting tagged on when a conventional, art world artist begrudgingly begins the promotional stage for their work. The creators of dump.fm have allowed users to post images by pasting URLs into a box or uploading them from users’ computers. There is a convenient interface that allows users to post stills from webcams that dump.fm users… ]]> Wed, 02 Mar 2011 16:05:08 -0700 http://artcritical.com/2011/02/28/gif-and-take-dump-fm-where-registered-users-post-and-modify-animated-images/ Post-Digital Aesthetics and the return to Modernism http://ian-andrews.org/texts/postdig.html What is it that constitutes (a) post-digital art, and how can it be thought in terms of aesthetic theory – or even post-aesthetic theory?

In one sense, post-digital(1) refers to works that reject the hype of the so-called digital revolution.  The familiar digital tropes of purity, pristine sound and images and perfect copies are abandoned in favour of errors, glitches and artefacts.  And in another sense (as in the term post-modernism) it refers to the continuation or completion of that trajectory.  Post-digital music incudes a number of sub-genres: glitch, clicks & cuts, microsound, headphonics, etc.  All are,… ]]> Sun, 27 Feb 2011 05:57:48 -0700 http://ian-andrews.org/texts/postdig.html Errors in Things and “The Friendly Medium” http://machinemachine.net/text/ideas/errors-in-things-and-the-friendly-medium

What is it about a particular media that makes it successful? Drawing a mini history from printing-press smudges to digital compression artefacts this lecture considers the value of error, chance and adaptation in contemporary media. Biological evolution unfolds through error, noise and mistake. Perhaps if we want to maximise the potential of media, of digital text and compressed file formats, we first need to determine their inherent redundancy. Or, more profoundly, to… ]]> Wed, 16 Feb 2011 08:39:59 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/ideas/errors-in-things-and-the-friendly-medium B.S.Johnson - Albert Angelo http://www.bsjohnson.info/novels/content.aspx?title=albert%20angelo&type=home Albert Angelo is the second novel written by the experimental novelist B. S. Johnson (1933–1973). Published in 1964, the book achieved fame for having holes cut in several pages as a narrative technique. It is written in an unusual and pioneering style, frequently changing from first-person narrative to third-person commentary, and often descending into stream-of-consciousness interior monologue. Like all of Johnson's novels it is an auto-biographical work. ]]> Wed, 16 Feb 2011 07:59:53 -0700 http://www.bsjohnson.info/novels/content.aspx?title=albert%20angelo&type=home Open Media (lecture series schedule) http://coventryopenmedia.wordpress.com/schedule/ The concept of openness is often employed as part of a radical critique of the closed-off worlds of what might be called ‘traditional media’. It is variously used to urge for the right to transparency, the ethics of sharing, the value of re-use and the benefits of connecting.

This series of research seminars will explore various aspects of openness. Special attention will be given to the benefits and drawbacks of openness, and to the many possibilities openness offers for the future of media production, use and critique. ]]> Wed, 16 Feb 2011 07:54:36 -0700 http://coventryopenmedia.wordpress.com/schedule/ Alvin Lucier: I am Sitting in a Room http://www.ubu.com/sound/lucier.html "I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice and I am going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any sem- blance of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed. What you will hear, then, are the natural resonant frequencies of the room articulated by speech. I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a physi- cal fact, but more as a way to smooth… ]]> Wed, 16 Feb 2011 07:48:11 -0700 http://www.ubu.com/sound/lucier.html