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Crazy/Nerdy Computer Art Installations 124

Posted by michael from the wearing-all-black dept.
Gernot Ziegler writes "After having read a report on the fusion of Art and Technology, I somehow ended up on Perry Hoberman's page. I don't know this guy, but I've always been fascinated by techno art, and these ones are clearly intriguing. There is the Workaholic, a pendulum with a bar code scanner over a carpet with bar codes and an attached projector that overlays images on the carpet, or the ZOMBIAC (Zone Of Monitor-Based Inter-Amnesiac Contact) that lures the visitors into thinking that the machines react to them directly. You might also want to have a look at this weird auction (that's where I got this link from) ! :)"
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Crazy/Nerdy Computer Art Installations More

Crazy/Nerdy Computer Art Installations

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  • please don't forget (Score:2, Informative)

    by squarefish ( 561836 ) *
    DeadTech [deadtech.net]

    • Just a little definition for you all... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Gandalf_Greyhame ( 44144 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @02:25AM (#5989809) Journal
      This is an interesting fact which I learnt the other week.

      The word "Techno" actually MEANS "Art"

      Therefore Technology is infact "The study of art." I was distraught when I learnt this, since I am an engineering student and despise those lowly arts students...

      • Re:Just a little definition for you all... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Lemmy Caution ( 8378 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @02:40AM (#5989842) Homepage
        We can undo a lot of your disdain for lowly art students by refering you to the book "Information Arts" by Steven Wilson, who also happens to be one of the editors of Leonardo, the journal of art and technology which is behind the website in the lead story.

        There's a nice little quiz at the beginning of the book, listing a number of research projects and asking which ones were done by artists and which ones by scientists. You'd be quite startled by the answers.
        • Interesting... I don't have a disdain for the arts (art itself that is) but arts classes at universities. AKA the "Bachelor of Attendance." I fail to see the relevance of most of the drivel that exists in those classes. But I think that my greatest complaint with an arts student happened in my first year. In the first fortnight to be precise. At this time I was doing 30+ hours a week at uni, and this bloke was complaining about all of the hours he was going to be spending in class. It transpired that he was

          • Re:Just a little definition for you all(off topic) (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Trinary ( 28446 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @03:47AM (#5989977)
            Bah. So hate that guy, don't generalize about the people working and educating those in the field. My girlfriend is a recently-graduated Art History major, with a secondary focus in studio art, specifically sculpture. She worked HARD for her degree, at a state school, in the art department...and got a good education under professors making a pittance and working in one of the most underfunded departments in the US. (Colorado state school art depts.)

            I've seen her put more hours toward a sculpture piece than I ever put toward a program in the CS curriculum at the same school, one that is reasonably well-respected. I had the same disdain, until I found that most CS students were rock-stupid slackers, and most art students were rock-stupid slackers...

            You'll find lazy people everywhere. Keep that in mind.
            • Good job for your girlfriend. When I was an undergrad, I had a roommate who was majoring in art history and she worked harder than ANYONE I knew going for a more technical or scientific degree, including myself. I would have never been able to handle some of the work she had.

              It takes all types to make the world go around. I'm growing bored of the elitest attitude that so many geeks sport twoards people who move towards a fine arts or a liberal arts field. Lazy and geek are not mutually exclusive just as

      • Certainly, but there's a bit of a difference between an artist and an artisan.

      • Re:Just a little definition for you all... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by sould ( 301844 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @03:49AM (#5989980) Homepage

        The word "Techno" actually MEANS "Art"


        Interesting. This site [reference.com] defines techno as "styles of dance music" derived from the prefix techno (as in technology)


        If however you were talking about the prefix rather then the word, you are still incorrect.


        Techne the greek word the prefix techno comes from, is generally accepted to mean the systematic treatment (ie industrialisation) of arts/crafts (including building, manufacturing, etc) or just skill.

        The idea that it is literally just "art" is one propounded by undergraduate lecturers who haven't the slightest idea about greek culture.


        By the way - Whilst we're on definitions - here [reference.com] is a definition for engineer:
        2. One who operates an engine.


        So any Arts student who rides to school is already an engineer.



        --
        Sorry about the last post - hit submit before checking urls!

        • art can be synonomous with skill.
        • repr. Gr. sevmo-, combining form of sOEvmg art, occurring in technology, etc.; techno-co"mmercial, -eco"nomic adjs.; also in the following terms: "technocomplex Archæol. (see quot. 1968). "technofear = technophobia below. "technofreak [freak n.1 4c], an enthusiast for technology or for the technical complexities of a particular piece of equipment; hence techno-"freakish a. technographic a. technography (-"Qgr@fI) [-graphy], the description of the arts, forming the preliminary stage of technology (techn
      • And it is people like you that make this world an awful place. You can only gain knowledge by looking at the world from multiple perspectives, and you can only gain wisdom by looking at the world holistically.

    • Re:please don't forget (Score:4, Interesting)

      by robdeadtech ( 232013 ) * on Monday May 19, 2003 @03:58AM (#5990003)
      thanks... In attempt to divert some slashdot traffic off my server... *grin*

      interaccess [interaccess.org] in Toronto is an amazing gallery.

      The Seemen [seemen.org] and SRL [srl.org] in San Francisco will blow your ass up.

      xraylab [xraylab.org] in Seattle/Chicago/New York does some great interactive work.

      Norm White [normill.ca] has been kicking art/tech ass for since before you were born.

      David Rokeby's [mac.com] work is totally amazing too.

      Beige Programming Ensemble [beigerecords.com] in Chicago/St. Louis/New York can make your Atari/C64 do backflips.


      And for some amazing reading... Stephen Wilsons information arts [sfsu.edu] book has no comparison.

      rhizome.org [rhizome.com] is a pretty good site for all things art/tech (esp. web art)


      And for validation by the mainstream art world check out the whitney's artport [whitney.org].

      enjoy!

    • oh and of course, MIT's leonardo [mit.edu].

    • Warning: OT (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by hdparm ( 575302 )
      Somebody, please make editors post this already!!! [com.com]

      They should be stopped!

  • Users can attempt to steer the pendulum, but it will always remain somewhat unpredictable. At all times, the scanner/pendulum works as a TOOL that operates on the image below. Sometimes the pendulum acts like a kind of CHISEL or ROUTER, cutting grooves through images to expose other images hidden below. Repeated passes will widen these grooves until certain images become completely exposed and dislodged. At this point the pendulum becomes a kind of MAGNET, dragging bits of images along its path. At other ti
    • I think the image is projected onto the floor. It just makes a flat color and then chisels another color into it with different brushes and effects until its a big mess like a winamp vis plugin I dunno though, it doesn't explain well
    • Ha! Ha! You say you can't understand! You have revealed yourself to be one of the underclass, the lower minds, the kitsch! You are expelled from the coffeehouse forever!

      Everyone knows that when presented with an inexplicable piece of "art", one must immediately feign understanding, lest he be lumped with the great mass of society who can't understand either. You are, of course, better than the rest of society, yes? And if you can't "understand" art exhibitions, you might as well be an animal or a redneck or a cracker! If you don't want to be one of those, make up an explanation of why you think this artwork is deep and immensely thoughtful. And better yet, publish this opinion where others can see it, so that ye may better be recognized at parties as the guy who understood the piece of art that nobody else could appreciate!

    • The pendulum is the mouse pointer. The screen is a photo opened by The Gimp.
      The tool that the pointer represents changes depending on the state of the image. Sometimes it erases a layer and sometimes it paints a layer etc...

    • The caps indicate functions that the "machine" performs in response to the bar codes it reads. The pendulum reads the bar codes, and these control what the overhead projector displays.

  • Check out musical computer art (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jjl ( 514061 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @01:53AM (#5989719) Homepage
    Check out this band [artinfo.ru] - it consists of old 386DX computer having a SB...
    The music is quite fun, as it consists of classics rendered in the adlib-style sounds and top of that the SB speech synthesizer is singing the vocals. :-D

    As can be seen in the pages, they have done many "live concerts" which could be defined also quite nice computer art installations - just the computer sitting on street, playing out its music.

  • One thing certain about Art (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lingqi ( 577227 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @02:12AM (#5989776) Journal
    Anyway - I more or less flunked my Philosophy of Art class, but I got out this one little bit, which makes me look at all modern things called "art" in a whole new light.

    In the old days, art copied things - but as photography came about, the necessity of that dropped away, and art began to *comment* on things.

    One thing that art looooves to do is to comment on art itself. (basically one generation of art comments on the previous generation: e.g. post-modernism art being mostly comments on the modernism, etc (for the nit-pickers - i really forgot which "ism" comments on modern-ism, so if the fact is a little off, don't flame, ja?))

    What it really boils down to is that for many years now, art has been very seclusive stuff - stuff commenting on previous stuff which were themselves comments on ever earlier stuff. For the non artist, besides the above as a background, one very, very important word of caution - unless you intend to keep track of what is the current subject of comment, and understand all the crap that came before that, I'd seriously recommend against spending money on the stuff. Besides very few items that eventually ends up famous for famous' sake (Mona-Lisa, for example, is viewed to be "famous because of it's fame" - that's another thing I got out of the class, btw), all you will be receiving in the end is a comment without any context to go with it, kinda like spending money for a single comment of slashdot, without knowledge of all its beowulf cluster of running jokes, previous stories with evil bits set, and you bought it just because it was moderated highly.

    anyway, for decoration purposes, there are many decorating art you get at even malls these days. let me repeat: don't ever spend money on what *real* artist produces, unless you are very sure of what you are doing. (this in response to the auction site)

    not to mention, most of the real art nowadays are crap [www.cbc.ca] anyways...

    • Re:One thing certain about Art (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The cans should increase in value, too, as they are becoming more rare. At least 45 of the original 90 cans have exploded.

      Sorry, I just loved this... talk about the shit hitting the fan...

  • Art Prices (Score:5, Interesting)

    by iamdrscience ( 541136 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @02:20AM (#5989800) Homepage
    I never really understood the pricing for a lot of art, I mean I can understand why a really nice picture might be worth a couple hundred dollars -- prints cost money, mounting them costs money and the artists needs to make some money on it. I could easily see paying a couple hundred or more for a picture I really like. Some of these though are ridiculous. Like this print [thing.net], it says retail price $1200!!! Besides the fact that I can't imagine anybody actually wanting to own that picture I just don't understand where that value comes from. Anybody could make a picture of a Windows XP dialog box saying something like that... it's not even an original idea! Things like that are put up on the web all the time! This one [thing.net]'s just as bad and it's $2000.

    That's ridiculous.

    • It's worth (Score:4, Interesting)

      by xtal ( 49134 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @02:51AM (#5989874)
      ..what someone will pay.

      Nothing more, nothing less. If you like good art, there are better places to look - chances are if you ask around you can find someone who paints who would be flattered if you wanted one of their pictures.
      • > ..what someone will pay.

        Exactly. And why do rich people pay so much for artwork? Because if you pay $10,000 for a piece, and then keep it for 50 years, it's now going to be worth more to some other rich guy (especially if the artist dies of course). Expensive pieces of art, like land, tends to appreciate in value over the years. That's why rich people go for it so much.

    • That's ridiculous.

      Actually, it's quite a good idea! For use in X I mean, when Linux becomes mainstream. (About 2 months after Duke Nukem Forever is released) But think of the possibilities! Some script kiddie is trying to sound cool in his favorite cracks/scripts channel on DALnet, using excessive leet speak when all of the sudden, a dialog box like that pops up, disconnects IRC, sets a 24 hour sleep() call in init (to be removed after booting once) and reboots! Such simple joys!

    • Re:Art Prices (Score:3, Insightful)

      by anagama ( 611277 )

      Modern art was invented by rich people to make poor people feel stupid.

      Or something like that. It has been 16 years at least since I read Kurt Vonegut's "God Bless You Mr. Rosewater" in highschool, but I think that is a fair paraphrasing of a line in the book made after the city council spent 50 grand on a big green canvas with a stip of orange paint running down one side. Always struck me as quite funny ... in a true way.

      • Re:Art Prices (Score:4, Insightful)

        by whm ( 67844 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @04:53AM (#5990131)
        I believe you're referencing Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, in which exactly what you described occurs. Granted - I haven't read God Bless You Mr. Rosewater. I suppose it wouldn't surprise me much for Vonnegut to do something weird like placing the same event in two books, heh :P

        Regardless, I find it mildly ironic that you reference Vonnegut for that point, considering [vonnegut.com] his [vonnegut.com] focus [vonnegut.com] for at least the last decade. However, while I don't know Vonnegut's opinions on modern art, that sort of clever confliction would seem to almost typify him.

  • ZOMBIAC (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by DrMrLordX ( 559371 )
    The ZOMBIAC is nowhere near as cool as zombo.com!

    Anything is possible at zombo.com!

    The only limit is yourself!
  • I watched a lecture by Jim Andrews who is the author of Vispo.com [vispo.com]. On Vispo, short for visual poetry, he explores the links between new media, technology, and the creative process of poetry.

    Another way technology plays into poetry is Aleatory Poetry [mala.bc.ca]. I experimented with this a bit in this dynamic poem, revelation to pi [rit.edu].

  • some bizarre machines (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Alien Being ( 18488 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @02:43AM (#5989848)
    by Arthur Ganson [arthurganson.com]

  • The meaning of "computer art" (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It is hard to get a handle on the what we mean by "art", let alone "computer art". Some say that art is a representation of the metaphysical. Yet, the very term "metaphysics" is repudiated by many feminist philosophers, especially those engaged primarily with twentieth century French and German philosophy, because it connotes a pretension to ahistorical universalism, as if philosophical accounts of the real could transcend the whole cloth of our cultural, historical, and embodied rootedness. Perhaps rather
  • It looks like this could be used as a random (as opposed to pseudorandom) number generator, or as random seeds for a pseudorandom number generator. Something similar was done by pointing a webcam at a lava lamp. Random unpredictability is important for things like encryption.

  • The Obsolotron 2000 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BHearsum ( 325814 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @04:00AM (#5990007) Homepage
    http://www.somalounge.net/obsolotron.php

    Neat idea.

  • Favorite artists? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by redfood ( 471234 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @04:04AM (#5990017)
    Here a some of my favorite artist working in the interactive media/techno arts: Who are yours?
  • ANIMUSIC [animusic.com] is more than worth checking out. The current DVD and CD is arranged very nicely and the eye candy is amazing. There is going to be a 16:9 and 5.1 (hoping for DTS) release in the early first quarter of 2004.

  • lowtech art (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sparkes ( 125299 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @04:48AM (#5990112) Homepage Journal
    if you sail on over to lowtech.org [lowtech.org] you can see a group in the UK using redundant technology both in art and in society.

    the group a2rt (www.a2rt.org) are also starting up something similar as well.

    The reasoning behind using lowtech computers in art and social projects was given by James Walbank the founder of the lowtech project in this speech [lowtech.org] to an arts conference with the theme of revolution. James correctly pointed out that you can't have a revolution with a price tag of over £1000.

    favourite pieces include redundant array [lowtech.org], and the video wall [lowtech.org] that was reprised in even better fashion here at fort lux [lowtech.org]

    Art is what you make it, found art is what you find and what you make it, lowtech art is finding art in skips.

    sparkes

  • the good old days (Score:2, Interesting)

    by funwithstuff ( 555638 )

    I remember, years ago, when I went along to the AIMIA [aimia.com.au] awards with a friend, on the Gold Coast in Australia. The two of us wandered slowly around the space in white paint-protection suits (very high tech) with Powerbooks running PixelToy [lairware.com] mounted to our chests. People could speak into the screens and see the psychedelic screen change. Fun, and hanging out in the green room with the other weirdos was a laugh.

    Oh, and someone else gave me money to develop an early version of this thing identikit [funwithstuff.com] into what you

  • The original computer art.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CausticWindow ( 632215 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @06:02AM (#5990280)

    Check out scene.org [scene.org] viewing tips.

  • Software art (Score:3, Interesting)

    by plagiarist ( 87743 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @06:06AM (#5990288)
    Another approach to computer art, which recognizes its roots in computer culture as well as in "art" - is software art. Lots of cool stuff over at runme.org [runme.org]... and read_me [m-cult.org], an entire festival devoted to software art, is coming up in a couple weeks in Helsinki..
  • > Users can attempt to steer the pendulum, but it will always remain somewhat unpredictable.

    Users may apply forces to this pendulum while it follows laws of physics and gravitation, but it's still unpredictable.

    What part of a pendulum with forces acting on it is anything but calculatable to a highschool sophomore in a physics class?

    Just because some hippy artist isn't able to figure out that the pendulum is going to move away from him when he pushes it DOESN'T make in unpredictable.

    Now, if it wou

  • more cool art and tech work (Score:3, Interesting)

    by robdeadtech ( 232013 ) * on Monday May 19, 2003 @08:39AM (#5990708)

    interaccess [interaccess.org] in Toronto is an amazing gallery.
    The Seemen [seemen.org] and SRL [srl.org] in San Francisco will blow your ass up.
    xraylab [xraylab.org] in Seattle/Chicago/New York does some great interactive work.
    Norm White [normill.ca] has been kicking art/tech ass for since before you were born.
    David Rokeby's [mac.com] work is totally amazing too.

    Beige Programming Ensemble [beigerecords.com] in Chicago/St. Louis/New York can make your Atari/C64 do backflips.

    and for some amazing reading... Stephen Wilsons information arts [sfsu.edu] book has no comparison.
    rhizome.org [rhizome.com] is a pretty good site for all things art/tech (esp. web art)

    And for validation by the mainstream art world check out the whitney's artport [whitney.org].

  • ...when an online auction site goes down because of a /.ing?

  • hacking == art (Score:3, Informative)

    by scrotch ( 605605 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @09:48AM (#5991032)
    I'm learning programing and System Administration on the job after getting a Masters in sculpture. They're really rather similar fields.

    First, some notes for those that have an out-dated or tv-inspired understanding of the art world:

    Most artists are really very down to earth. Much of what they make is not, but the people themselves are not flaky astrologer hippies. (like most hackers. vs. their television counterparts.)

    Many museum and gallery directors are rather flaky. (like your boss.)

    Art is largely self-referential. Artists make art knowing art history for people that know art history.

    Art is a lot of problem solving - where the artist generates and solves the problem.

    Art has been around for centuries and was changed radically by the camera.

    When hacking is five hundred years old, it will seem a lot more like art that it does even now. Already, an experienced coder is not impressed by some newbie's new chat program (like mine) that introduces no new functionality to the genre.

    But if that chat app made comments on what everyone said, maybe that would be new and interesting. If it added something to the genre of chat apps while commenting on chatting, it would be self referential, new, and interesting. And regular users all over the world would call it elitist, weird and stupid, claiming it was just designed to make them look ignorant.

    Right now, programming is already looking a lot like art. New guys mock Cobol programmers the same way new art school students mock figure painters. No one is interested in my chat program for the same reasons I'm not interested in looking at paintings of mountains - I've seen it a million times before, there's nothing new here.

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