Remix culture is something that I am interested in. Before I worked for the Walker, both of the workshops I co-taught for teen programs as part of The Revolutionary Party dealt with remix culture very directly. In the first workshop, we created remixes of television advertisments. The second workshop remixed a broader range of material, this time with music, in a live event. It looks like Computer Music stumbled upon a couple of remixed tv ads. If you’re a fan of drum and bass music and read Adbusters, you might like it.
For an upcoming project, we want to capture high resolution digital still images onto a computer from a camera. This is a technique used quite often in stop motion animation. A digital still camera is a very inexpensive way to capture images that are many, many times higher resolution than the HD video they will eventually be a part of. A simple method would be to capture a large amount of images onto a camera’s storage card, download them, and them import and compose them in a compositing program such as After Effects.
However, for this project, we need the image capture to be triggered not by the button on the camera, but by the computer the camera is connected to. I initially looked at both FrameTheif and iStopMotion because they support digital still cameras and have an applescript library. However, both have spotty support for remote capture and would want to grab onto any other cameras connected to the system (such as a dv cam). Eventually, I found the gphoto project on sourceforge.
New Media had a mini-renunion last weekend to celebrate a very special occasion. Brent got married. That alone is big news for us but imagine our surprise to see his wedding cake all over the internet the next morning. In case you missed it (already posted on Boing Boing, Joystiq, Flickr, etc) here are some pictures of their amazing Mario & Princess cake. Congratulations Brent and Annette!
Art on Call is constantly being improved to make it more functional and easier to use. Last month we released a new version with revised scripts and features. The script changes are meant to tighten the call flow and correct problems in the navigation (e.g., callers didn't understand that stop numbers could be entered from the root welcome). The new features--TalkBack and breadcrumbing--take advantage of caller id to capture the stops requested by visitors and allow them to leave their own audio commentary.
TalkBack
The option to record your own comments about a work of art is available after listening to an Art on Call stop. Callers can leave one comment per work and retrieve them by entering their phone number at the website (newmedia.walkerart.org/aoc). By leaving a comment, you’re also giving the Walker permission to share your recording with other visitors. Visitor comments selected by Walker staff will appear in the program and on the website.
Breadcrumbing
Art on Call automatically keeps track of the works of art you access so that after your visit, you can retrieve your stops and find additional information as well as any comments you may have saved. Each time you dial Art on Call from the same phone number, we extend the collection of stops. Like TalkBack comments, your collection of Art on Call stops (should we call this a playlist?) is retrieved by entering your phone number in the search box on the project website (newmedia.walkerart.org/aoc).
