MachineMachine /stream - tagged with web http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com At ROFLCon, watching memes go mainstream http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/7/3005044/roflcon-when-memes-go-mainstream What is ROFLCon? It's a biennial convention (this year was its third) held to celebrate and discuss internet memes and the celebrity that is often created alongside them. This year's invited guests included Chuck "Nope" Testa, Antoine Dodson, who became famous when he appeared on local news after a home invasion, Paul "Bear" Vasquez, AKA the "Double Rainbow" guy, and "Tron Guy" Jay Maynard. There are also internet celebs of a different ilk — people who have created loved and admired "works," like Chris Torres, creator of Nyan Cat, Matt Oswald, creator of the "Me Gusta" guy, or film editor… ]]> Tue, 08 May 2012 14:17:47 -0700 http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/7/3005044/roflcon-when-memes-go-mainstream The Web Browser As Aesthetic Framework: Why Digital Art Today Looks Different http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/blog/digart-the-web-browser-as-aesthetic-framework-why-digital-art-today-looks-different Collective cultural memory is the foundation on which the significance of a creative practice stands. As summarized in Emerson Rosenthal’s post for #DIGART week, online collections and exhibition spaces have been around since the pre-web BBS years—artists have been online since day one, and this is not to even begin to mention the computer-based creative practices that date back to the mid-20th Century. Then why, in the face of this history, do web-based creative practices (and so too, markets) seem to suffer from a case of eternal amnesia or perpetual newness? In this post for #DIGART week, I propose that… ]]> Tue, 08 May 2012 14:14:43 -0700 http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/blog/digart-the-web-browser-as-aesthetic-framework-why-digital-art-today-looks-different Just how big are porn sites? http://www.extremetech.com/computing/123929-just-how-big-are-porn-sites/just-how-big-are-porn-sites-extremetech "It’s probably not unrealistic to say that porn makes up 30% of the total data transferred across the internet" : http://t.co/T7MFHbvo ]]> Tue, 10 Apr 2012 08:06:36 -0700 http://www.extremetech.com/computing/123929-just-how-big-are-porn-sites/just-how-big-are-porn-sites-extremetech What is the Folk Web? http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/212132 I'm looking for 'Folk' Web Cultures. I am thinking of the recent take-down of Geocities, which seemed to refresh people's love of the naff, kitsch aesthetic it was famous for, as a prime example. What are some other folk cultures still lingering in the dark corners of the web? I use the term 'Folk' in the sense it is used to denote 'common people' cultures, including art, music, dance, songs and stories. The artists Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane collated a Folk Archive for the British Council a few years ago, it really gets to the… ]]> Wed, 04 Apr 2012 06:41:30 -0700 http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/212132 Interactive Fluid Dynamics Rendered in ASCII http://nkwiatek.com//nick-kwiatek-web-amp-interaction-designer-developer Interactive Fluid Dynamics Rendered in ASCII (by @nkwiatek): http://t.co/zwEhxVMJ #code #play #x ]]> Sat, 17 Mar 2012 04:54:35 -0700 http://nkwiatek.com//nick-kwiatek-web-amp-interaction-designer-developer On the trail of the wild and wonderful @Horse_ebooks http://splitsider.com/2012/01/the-ballad-of-horse_ebooks/the-ballad-of-horse-ebooks-splitsider On the trail of the wild and wonderful @Horse_ebooks : http://t.co/QYGn0092 #fb ]]> Tue, 10 Jan 2012 07:06:45 -0700 http://splitsider.com/2012/01/the-ballad-of-horse_ebooks/the-ballad-of-horse-ebooks-splitsider Doctor Who Theme Tune 1963-1969 by Ron Grainer and Delia Derbyshire http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NPJ6GMXM3E&feature=youtube_gdata ]]> Sat, 26 Nov 2011 12:36:30 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NPJ6GMXM3E&feature=youtube_gdata Innovative websites as template for MFA research community http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/196170 I'm looking for examples of websites that have successfully enhanced a research community (academic or artistic) with a dynamic online/social/mutual-portfolio presence. Blog and social media based hubs, perhaps, that showcase the possibilities of web portfolio/research integration for academic and creative purposes. I've been asked to help implement a website/blogging platform for a community of 20 MFA students.

Basically I'd like to gather up some examples of dynamic websites attached to academia (or similar i.e. the arts). These examples will be then passed on to my superiors with an eye to developing our own platform that takes the best… ]]> Fri, 16 Sep 2011 07:26:18 -0700 http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/196170 Animated GIFs Triumphant http://dashes.com/anil/2011/07/animated-gifs-triumphant.html The facts about animated GIFs are stark. They only support a palette of 256 colors. No current browser lists support for animated GIF as a codec for the HTML5 <video> tag. That omission is understandable, as GIF compression of animation isn't particularly efficient. They even lived under an unfashionable cloud of patent uncertainty during the web's formative years. And those are just some of the traits I love about the format.

GIF's origins are modest. The Graphics Interchange Format was introduced by Compuserve in 1987 with a specification published by the late Larry Wood. By just two… ]]> Tue, 12 Jul 2011 07:41:34 -0700 http://dashes.com/anil/2011/07/animated-gifs-triumphant.html Old Internet Getting You Down? Build Your Own! http://www.broadbandexpert.com/blog/wireless-carriers/old-internet-getting-you-down-build-your-own/ The role of social networking in recent rebellions against repressive regimes may have been slightly overstated, but here’s the thing with repressive regimes: they sort of tend to overreact to any perceived threat at the best of times.

Also, repressive regimes watch CNN.

Going on and on about how helpful Twitter was to protesters in Iran or Egypt and even going so far as government requests for Twitter to postpone maintenance so that protesters can use it to communicate was eventually going to clue someone in.

There’s also the small matter… ]]> Tue, 05 Jul 2011 12:22:53 -0700 http://www.broadbandexpert.com/blog/wireless-carriers/old-internet-getting-you-down-build-your-own/ 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/ GlitchBot http://bitsynthesis.com/glitchbot/ GlitchBot is an automated glitch creation / distribution program and persona.
GlitchBot maintains an active presence on flickr, including a profile and photostream, with new images created and uploaded daily.
GlitchBot is not an interactive program. GlitchBot works alone on a fixed schedule, creating a single new glitched image every day and presenting it to the world via the GlitchBot flickr page (see above links) and slideshow (see below).
GlitchBot creates its images by glitching source images pulled from other flickr users' photostreams. Only source images with an appropriate Creative Commons license are used. In order to… ]]> Mon, 30 May 2011 02:17:52 -0700 http://bitsynthesis.com/glitchbot/ The Doctrine of the Similar (GIF GIF GIF) http://machinemachine.net/text/ideas/the-doctrine-of-the-similar-gif-gif-gif

In two short essays – written in 1933 – Walter Benjamin argues that primitive language emerged in magical correspondence with the world. The faculty we all exhibit in childhood play, to impersonate and imitate people and things loses its determining power as language gradually takes over from our “non-sensuous” connection with reality. In a break from Saussurian linguistics, Benjamin decries the loss of this “mimetic faculty”, as it becomes further replaced by the “archive of non-sensuous correspondences” we know as writing.

To put it in simpler terms… Where once we read the world, the stars or the entrails of a… ]]> Wed, 25 May 2011 05:21:34 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/ideas/the-doctrine-of-the-similar-gif-gif-gif GIF Archaeology http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/186002 I'm writing a paper on (animated) GIFs and am trying to track down some of the most (in)famous. I suppose I am talking memes, but I'm more interested in the GIF as an archaeological reference point. I frequent sites like dump.fm, tumblr etc. so am quite tuned in to the glitchy/kitschy side of GIF culture. How theoretical have people got on these wonders of the web? How does one trace the history of an animated GIF? I have a personal take on this (my paper is only short), but would love to find some well recognised, well lauded… ]]> Mon, 16 May 2011 08:17:15 -0700 http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/186002 GLTI.CH Karaoke http://www.flickr.com/photos/huge-entity/5584726853/

Mr. Daniel posted a photo:

GLTI.CH Karaoke

GLTI.CH Karaoke event, hosted 2nd April 2011 at Meanwhile Space, Whitechapel.

See our website: glti.ch or follow us on twitter @gltich for more information!

]]> Sun, 03 Apr 2011 07:04:34 -0700 http://www.flickr.com/photos/huge-entity/5584726853/ Credit in the Straight WWW: "DDDDoomed", Berger, and the Image Aggregator http://2thewalls.com/journal/2011/1/10/credit-in-the-straight-www-ddddoomed-berger-and-the-image-ag.html [ED: Nearly all of the text in this post is taken from R. Gerald Nelson's independently published, occasionally problematic but more often brilliantly concise treatise DDDDoomed. Anyone concerned with issues of and methods pertaining to digital image dissemination, authorship and context should make an effort to purchase and read this chapbook. I cannot recommend it enough.]

"With new blogs springing up every day, beautiful images & words are springing up with them. I try to credit everything I put on this blog. I know sometimes I fail. Many of the images I feature are scanned by me… ]]> Tue, 15 Mar 2011 08:01:21 -0700 http://2thewalls.com/journal/2011/1/10/credit-in-the-straight-www-ddddoomed-berger-and-the-image-ag.html R. Gerald Nelson’s DDDDoomed essay http://www.hyperjunk.net/?p=22 R. Gerald Nelson’s DDDDoomed essay has been making the rounds lately and it sparked a healthy amount of curiosity and note-taking on my part that I felt I wanted to share with some reactions. The essay is published as the first volume of eight in Nelson’s Making Known Img Ctrl series based out of Minneapolis. The image heavy text is “crafted as a speculative fiction that unfolds from the perspective of a future commentator reflecting back and theorizing about the factors that brought about the dysfunctional state of the contemporary image world.” The highlights and corresponding notes aren’t presented in… ]]> Tue, 15 Mar 2011 07:59:20 -0700 http://www.hyperjunk.net/?p=22 North Korea’s Digital Underground http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/1969/12/north-korea-8217-s-digital-underground/8414/ The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the very archetype of a “closed society.” It ranks dead last—196th out of 196 countries—in Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press index. Unlike the citizens of, say, Tunisia or Egypt, to name two countries whose populations recently tapped the power of social media to help upend the existing political order, few North Koreans have access to Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube. In fact, except for a tiny elite, the DPRK’s 25 million inhabitants are not connected to the Internet. Televisions are set to receive only government stations. International radio signals are routinely jammed, and… ]]> Wed, 09 Mar 2011 07:11:43 -0700 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/1969/12/north-korea-8217-s-digital-underground/8414/ 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/ Humans, Version 3.0 http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/humans_version_3.0 This view of the future of humankind is grounded in an appreciation of the biologically innate powers bestowed upon us by hundreds of millions of years of evolution. This deep respect for our powers is sometimes lacking in the sciences, where many are taught to believe that our brains and bodies are taped-together, far-from-optimal kluges. In this view, natural selection is so riddled by accidents and saddled with developmental constraints that the resultant biological hardware and software should be described as a “just good enough” solution rather than as a “fine-tuned machine.” So it is no wonder that, when many… ]]> Sat, 05 Mar 2011 05:01:30 -0700 http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/humans_version_3.0