Blogs Media Lab

Museum411: More than One Game in Town

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My recent post on Acoustiguide’s cell phone offering was not intended as a product plug but confirmation that I think we’re on the right track with Art on Call. That said, I feel remiss in not mentioning another organization that is offering a similar service, namely Sandbox Studios’ Museum411. Scott Sayre, one of the principals [...]

My recent post on Acoustiguide’s cell phone offering was not intended as a product plug but confirmation that I think we’re on the right track with Art on Call. That said, I feel remiss in not mentioning another organization that is offering a similar service, namely Sandbox Studios’ Museum411. Scott Sayre, one of the principals of Sandbox Studios, has been a lead player in the development of the Walker’s Art on Call project. Following the launch of Art on Call, Sandbox Studios entered into a partnership with Plum Voice Portals, the IVR vendor behind the Walker’s system, to form a new division, Museum411, “ specializing in the production of phone-based Interactive Voice Response audio tour/information systems for museums, galleries and sculpture parks.” As other vendors/organizations launch applications similar to Art on Call, they too will be mentioned here or on the project wiki. Art on Call is funded with a National Leadership Grant from IMLS, and one of our measures of success is adoption of the model.

Non-Profits and RSS

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Here is one to read over before we give our talk on blogs and RSS next spring. Make your nonprofit more effective with RSS aggregation source:Beth’s Blog

Interview with Theo Jansen

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Posted at artificial.dk, this interview with Theo Jansen discusses, among other things, his wind powered animals or beach animals which he has been actively working on for the last 15 years. from the interview: After so many years, are you in control of the beach animals or are they really controlling you? They have always [...]

Posted at artificial.dk, this interview with Theo Jansen discusses, among other things, his wind powered animals or beach animals which he has been actively working on for the last 15 years.

from the interview:

After so many years, are you in control of the beach animals or are they really controlling you?

They have always controlled me. I obeyed their laws. Only recently they do what I want.

more on Theo Jansen’s work:

http://www.strandbeest.com/

movies

Podcasting on mnartists.org

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There was an expansion of the podcasting offerings on mnartists.org recently. For an example, go look at the Radio mnartists page. The podcast is the same link as the RSS (the graphic on the right of the header, near the center of the page). Copy the link off that page, or just use the direct [...]

There was an expansion of the podcasting offerings on mnartists.org recently. For an example, go look at the Radio mnartists page. The podcast is the same link as the RSS (the graphic on the right of the header, near the center of the page). Copy the link off that page, or just use the direct link below, and subscribe to the feed in your favorite podcast player.

Direct link to the podcast:

Radio mnartists: http://mnartists.org/resourceList.do?action=rss&rid=82170&pid=219

Subscribing to a podcast with iTunes

Copy the direct link. Open up iTunes. Pull down the “Advanced” menu and go down to “Subscribe to Podcast…” then a window pops up and you paste the url into it and hit return. Then iTunes will automatially check mnartist.org for updates to that set and download them for you.

Bandwidth Throttling & Debugging on Mac, Windows and Linux

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If you want to slow your downloads and your on a Mac I don’t think there are to many options but Charles, a small shareware app just got an upgrade and now works very well with almost no setup. At $50 per individual license it’s a bit expensive by shareware standards but it delivers reasonably [...]

If you want to slow your downloads and your on a Mac I don’t think there are to many options but Charles, a small shareware app just got an upgrade and now works very well with almost no setup. At $50 per individual license it’s a bit expensive by shareware standards but it delivers reasonably on expectations, Charles slowed our blazing fast internal network down to the crawl of a 56k modem with no problems and it lets me monitor exaclty what files my Flash movies are downloading and how fast they are doing it.

charles

Bandwidth Throttling & Debugging on Mac, Windows and Linux

By

If you want to slow your downloads and your on a Mac I don’t think there are to many options but Charles, a small shareware app just got an upgrade and now works very well with almost no setup. At $50 per individual license it’s a bit expensive by shareware standards but it delivers reasonably [...]

If you want to slow your downloads and your on a Mac I don’t think there are to many options but Charles, a small shareware app just got an upgrade and now works very well with almost no setup. At $50 per individual license it’s a bit expensive by shareware standards but it delivers reasonably on expectations, Charles slowed our blazing fast internal network down to the crawl of a 56k modem with no problems and it lets me monitor exaclty what files my Flash movies are downloading and how fast they are doing it.

charles

Acoustiguide Adds Cell Phone Audio Tours to Its Menu

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Acoustiguide, one of the leading producers of museum audio tours, has announced that it’s now offering clients a solution for distributing audio content to cell phone users. Christened the Mobile Touring Service (MTS), I think Art on Call is a much better name.

Acoustiguide, one of the leading producers of museum audio tours, has announced that it’s now offering clients a solution for distributing audio content to cell phone users. Christened the Mobile Touring Service (MTS), I think Art on Call is a much better name.

Social Machines

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Friend and colleague Scott Sayre has been passing along some interesting reading of late, including this article on “ Social Machines” by Wade Roush. Roush posits that technologies like blogging, text messaging, photo sharing, and web access from our phones are “ ushering us into a world of what could be called continuous computing–continuous in [...]

Friend and colleague Scott Sayre has been passing along some interesting reading of late, including this article on “ Social Machines” by Wade Roush. Roush posits that technologies like blogging, text messaging, photo sharing, and web access from our phones are “ ushering us into a world of what could be called continuous computing–continuous in the usual sense of “ uninterrupted,” but also in the sense that it’s continuous with our lives.” His discussion of the social-software boom and it’s reliance on common devices such as mobile phones, computers, digital cameras, and portable music players echoes an approach or emphasis characteristic of several of Walker’s new media initiatives.

Breaking the Game

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I just found out about this workshop taking place in Ghent, Belgium this October and November and online in February. I don’t think any Walker new media folks will be making it to Belgium next month but the online symposium sounds interesting. WORKSPACE UNLIMITED, in collaboration with New York curator Wayne Ashley, are currently organizing [...]

I just found out about this workshop taking place in Ghent, Belgium this October and November and online in February. I don’t think any Walker new media folks will be making it to Belgium next month but the online symposium sounds interesting.

WORKSPACE UNLIMITED, in collaboration with New York curator Wayne Ashley, are currently organizing Breaking the Game, a series of interdisciplinary workshops and online symposium that bring together competing theorists and practitioners to build, debate and reflect on virtual worlds, computer gaming, immersive technologies, and new possibilities for artistic practice and experience. Taking place both online and offline, the workshops will open up the art

of game modification to the contingencies of everyday life, where virtual technologies increasingly mediate physical spaces and human movements in very complex and dynamic ways. Networked across multiple cities, the symposium will be organized around three core themes: “Hybridity”, “Overclocking the city” and “The virtual world as interface to self and society.”

Where: Ghent, New York, Rotterdam, and the Internet

When: October, November & February 2005 – 2006

official website

Podcasts and Catching up.

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The blogs been quiet lately and a lot of exciting things happened while I was on vacation. First our podcast of Art on Call material is up in the iTunes store for you. Because of the way iTunes currently plays podcasts (it stops between segments) listening is easier if you move this into your iTunes [...]

The blogs been quiet lately and a lot of exciting things happened while I was on vacation.

First our podcast of Art on Call material is up in the iTunes store for you. Because of the way iTunes currently plays podcasts (it stops between segments) listening is easier if you move this into your iTunes library or onto your iPod before listening. All the material from the podcast is also now available as a regular mp3 from our Art on Call page.

I also missed the new video iPod. Unfortunately the video iPod will not play our current Channel offerings because they are in Real format not one of the two supported quicktime formats. We’ll have to see if this new technology takes off since converting our archive would require a considerable amount of time. Sorry no vodcasting in our immediate future.