From dorkbot at atwood.org.uk Thu Apr 2 09:57:16 2009 From: dorkbot at atwood.org.uk (Robert A. ) Date: Thu Apr 2 09:57:12 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] Friday drinks as I pack and go to Winchester? Message-ID: <49D4C43C.1040006@atwood.org.uk> Anyoneup for driks tomorrow (fri), as part of the process of me moving to Winchester and leaving my job and moving in with Stephanie and startnig a new job?? I was thinking Foundry .... From fon at iinet.net.au Thu Apr 2 10:13:46 2009 From: fon at iinet.net.au (Adrian Smith) Date: Thu Apr 2 10:14:01 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] Friday drinks as I pack and go to Winchester? In-Reply-To: <49D4C43C.1040006@atwood.org.uk> References: <49D4C43C.1040006@atwood.org.uk> Message-ID: <49D4C81A.80308@iinet.net.au> Sure, sounds good! Adrian Robert A. wrote: > > > Anyoneup for driks tomorrow (fri), as part of the process of me moving > to Winchester and leaving my job and moving in with Stephanie and > startnig a new job?? > > I was thinking Foundry .... > > > > ........................................................................ > .........dorkbot: people doing strange things with electricity.......... > ..........................http://dorkbot.org............................ > ........................................................................ > From a.hadzi at gold.ac.uk Thu Apr 9 12:07:21 2009 From: a.hadzi at gold.ac.uk (adnan hadzi) Date: Thu Apr 9 12:08:26 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] call for TV hacking workshop CUCR/Deptford.TV Message-ID: <49DE1D39.6030105@gold.ac.uk> During May (12th May till 1st June), Deptford.TV will host in collaboration with CUCR, http://dek.spc.org and http://www.bitnik.org a three weeks long hands on database filmmaking workshop, in which we will do some serious tv hacking, editing and uploading to Deptford.TV, a public database of documentary film and video to help annotate the urban change in Deptford and across SE London. We invite you to take part in 4 workshop days over the period of three weeks plus to walk with the !Mediengruppe Bitnik artists through Deptford. The workshops are free but places are limited, to book, please send an email to a.hadzi@gold.ac.uk and state workshop days you want to attend (it is first come first serve & priority is given to those able to attend all four days). cheers, adnan Programme: *Workshop Day #1: A hack a day* Tuesday, 12th May, 11am till 5pm (take your cameras!) After a short introduction to Sousveillance and CCTV film making, we will set out on a walk through Deptford. Equipped with CCTV video signal receivers we will let the incoming surveillance camera signals lead us through the city. The CCTV video signal receivers will catch surveillance camera signals in public and private spaces and make them visible: surveillance becomes sousveillance. By making images visible which normally remain hidden, we gain access to the ?surveillance from above? enabling us to use these images for a personal narrative of the city. Workshop with construction manual for later DIY! Attendance free Whoever has handycam, bring it! (plus cable and fully charged battery!)). *Workshop Day #2: Collaborative Editing* Monday, 18th May, 11am till 5pm (take your laptops!) Introduction into Cinelerra & pure:dyne: "Working with digital video is part of many artistic disciplines. Besides single screen narratives, video productions can range from animation, multiple screen installation to interactive work. Still, many aspects of digital video can be traced back to the history of film. The interface of a timeline editing software such as Cinelerra shows a multitrack timeline, a viewing monitor, a bin for clips; echoing the setup of a flatbed table for editing celluloid." (digital artists handbook) *Workshop Day #3: Deptford.TV database* Monday, 25th May, 11am till 5pm (take your laptops!) Introduction into the Deptford.TV database & how to use the alternative subversion control workflow: "When you start working with free software as a videomaker, it is likely that you need to invest some time and energy in understanding certain basics of the video production process. Sometimes this might mean you have to look for alternative workflows, to dive 'under the hood' of a digital tool, or reconfigure an existing solution to suit your needs. Investigating the tools you use as a video maker is an important part of the job, it can help gain insights, it can be an inspiration to explore new ways of working and imagemaking." (digital artists handbook) *Workshop Day #4: pic nic* Monday, 1st June, in the afternoon (take food & drinks!) If the weather permits we will go to Greenwich Park and screen the films on portable screens while enjoying the spring/summer, tba! The events are free, but places are limited. *to book please email* a.hadzi@gold.ac.uk *supported by:* Arts Council of England http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/ LCACE http://www.lcace.org.uk/ *Further infos:* http://deptford.tv Deptford.TV is a project focusing on collaborative film - initiated by Adnan Hadzi in collaboration with the Deckspace media lab, Bitnik media collective, Boundless project, Liquid Culture initiative, and Goldsmiths College. It is an online media database documenting the urban change of Deptford, in South East London. Deptford TV functions as an open, collaborative platform that allows artists, filmmakers and people living and working around Deptford to store, share, re-edit and redistribute the documentation of the regeneration process. The open and collaborative aspect of the project is of particular importance as it manifests in two ways: a) audiences can become producers by submitting their own footage, b) the interface that is being used enables the contributors to discuss and interact with each other through the database. Deptford TV is a form of "television", since audiences are able to choose edited "time lines" they would like to watch; at the same time they have the option to comment on or change the actual content. Deptford TV makes us of licenses such as the creative commons sa-by and gnu general public license to allow and enhance this politics of sharing. *http://www.bitnik.org* !Mediengruppe Bitnik is a media collective that became notorious, amongst others, by bugging the Zurich opera with radio transmitters and offering free live telephone broadcasts of the opera performances to the neighborhood, aesthetic hacking of movie files, and a pirate TV station based on media illegally downloaded from the Internet. The group does not understand hacking as a cult of technology geeks, but as a social intervention and practice everyone can adopt. To this end, they have been touring with their workshop series ,,A Hack a Day?, inviting and working with local and international artists. *Contact details: * -- adnan hadzi phd media & communications dept media and communications goldsmiths college university of london new cross london, se14 6nw united kingdom tel. +44 20 8816 8166 www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/departments/media-communications www.filmcode.org www.deptford.tv www.liquidculture.eu www.copyleft.org.uk From alex at idoia.com Sat Apr 11 12:54:33 2009 From: alex at idoia.com (Alexandre Garacotche) Date: Sat Apr 11 12:54:52 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] Multiple projectors for 1 PC In-Reply-To: <6E38F231-CA25-4711-B534-79CD01A6FE89@spacedog.biz> References: <6E38F231-CA25-4711-B534-79CD01A6FE89@spacedog.biz> Message-ID: <49E0CB49.3040003@idoia.com> Hy there, I am willing to do an installation with about 10 pico-projectors. I have a couple of question that some of you might answer: - what should I do to connect the 10 projectors to a PC, I guess I need a special PCI card, but I have no idea how to do this, nor if a free software exists to allow me to divide my image into 10 :/ - I have seen somewhere that there were some kind of special material that could be glued to a white-wall to make the image coming from the projector even more brightfull, have I been dreaming or have you heard of such thing ? Thanks Alex From mike at electricstuff.co.uk Sat Apr 11 13:18:52 2009 From: mike at electricstuff.co.uk (Mike Harrison) Date: Sat Apr 11 13:19:15 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] Multiple projectors for 1 PC In-Reply-To: <49E0CB49.3040003@idoia.com> References: <6E38F231-CA25-4711-B534-79CD01A6FE89@spacedog.biz> <49E0CB49.3040003@idoia.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:54:33 +0200, you wrote: >Hy there, > >I am willing to do an installation with about 10 pico-projectors. I have >a couple of question that some of you might answer: >- what should I do to connect the 10 projectors to a PC, I guess I need >a special PCI card, but I have no idea how to do this, nor if a free >software exists to allow me to divide my image into 10 :/ >- I have seen somewhere that there were some kind of special material >that could be glued to a white-wall to make the image coming from the >projector even more brightfull, have I been dreaming or have you heard >of such thing ? >Thanks >Alex > >........................................................................ >.........dorkbot: people doing strange things with electricity.......... >..........................http://dorkbot.org............................ >........................................................................ May be easier to use multiple cheap PCs. I think vvvv (vvvv.org) supports easy distribution of tasks over multiple networked PCs. Matrox make a box that will split one video output to 3 slices - dualhead2go but don't know if it could handle multiples, e.g. take the output of a quad-head card and split each 3 ways. There shouldn't be a problem with overall bandwidth as a 1024x1280 screen can be split in 4 and still have the max resolution of a pico, but not sure if there are any products out there that will do the splitting. Another approach might be to see how many dual-head PCI cards you can get to run at once. Windows supports this in principle but you need cards with drivers that support it, and PCI-era cards (pre AGP) may not. From m at niij.org Sat Apr 11 13:44:38 2009 From: m at niij.org (Michael Zeltner) Date: Sat Apr 11 13:44:50 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] Multiple projectors for 1 PC In-Reply-To: <49E0CB49.3040003@idoia.com> References: <6E38F231-CA25-4711-B534-79CD01A6FE89@spacedog.biz> <49E0CB49.3040003@idoia.com> Message-ID: <22a9ac850904111044r22f0343i4873121b74d2a55e@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/11 Alexandre Garacotche : > I am willing to do an installation with about 10 pico-projectors. I have a > couple of question that some of you might answer: I'm assuming all of the projector will project different material (otherwise you'd just need a VGA splitter) ... > - what should I do to connect the 10 projectors to a PC, I guess I need a > special PCI card, but I have no idea how to do this, nor if a free software > exists to allow me to divide my image into 10 :/ I remember a friend setting up four screens with multiple PCI graphics cards on Linux (if I remember correctly), but personally I have no experience with that. The suggestion that I have is the following: Get a Matrox TripleHead2Go/DualHead2Go. I've used them myself for Ear Cinema - http://earcinema.co.uk/ - they do not add any graphical processing power so you want a good graphics card as a base. If it's a dualhead one, that makes up to 6 screens per machine. If you work with Processing or openFrameworks, there's already a framework for software based video splitting over a network called "Most Pixels Ever": http://code.google.com/p/mostpixelsever/ - I haven't set it up myself (as far as I know it's a little bit of a hassle), but I can imagine how it would be easier than to try to make 10 different screens on Linux. > - I have seen somewhere that there were some kind of special material that > could be glued to a white-wall to make the image coming from the projector > even more brightfull, have I been dreaming or have you heard of such thing ? Well there are materials that reflect better than others - as for something to glue to the wall, I'm not sure about that. Michael -- http://niij.org/ From mike at electricstuff.co.uk Sat Apr 11 13:51:32 2009 From: mike at electricstuff.co.uk (Mike Harrison) Date: Sat Apr 11 13:51:49 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] Multiple projectors for 1 PC In-Reply-To: <49E0CB49.3040003@idoia.com> References: <6E38F231-CA25-4711-B534-79CD01A6FE89@spacedog.biz> <49E0CB49.3040003@idoia.com> Message-ID: >- I have seen somewhere that there were some kind of special material >that could be glued to a white-wall to make the image coming from the >projector even more brightfull, have I been dreaming or have you heard >of such thing ? You can get directional screens - these control the direction of reflected light, so instead of bouncing in all directions, it is directed back towards the projector - obviously this is at the expense of viewing angle. These were popular in the early days of projectors with poor output. You may be able to use retroreflective material ( like used on road signs and safety jackets) but this may give too narrow a viewing angle. From alex at idoia.com Sat Apr 11 13:56:59 2009 From: alex at idoia.com (Alexandre Garacotche) Date: Sat Apr 11 13:57:24 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] Multiple projectors for 1 PC In-Reply-To: <22a9ac850904111044r22f0343i4873121b74d2a55e@mail.gmail.com> References: <6E38F231-CA25-4711-B534-79CD01A6FE89@spacedog.biz> <49E0CB49.3040003@idoia.com> <22a9ac850904111044r22f0343i4873121b74d2a55e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49E0D9EB.2080806@idoia.com> Ok thanks for the info, it sounds great. I do work with Processing and I need to display a graphical animation done with Processing on a screen of about 4m long 0.3 meter high. My idea was to cut the 4m in 10 screen. I understand that with Matrox I would need 2 computer to use 10 screens. I want a very smooth image, so I will have to set the position of the pico very carefully. Thanks for your help Alex Michael Zeltner wrote: > 2009/4/11 Alexandre Garacotche : >> I am willing to do an installation with about 10 pico-projectors. I have a >> couple of question that some of you might answer: > > I'm assuming all of the projector will project different material > (otherwise you'd just need a VGA splitter) ... > >> - what should I do to connect the 10 projectors to a PC, I guess I need a >> special PCI card, but I have no idea how to do this, nor if a free software >> exists to allow me to divide my image into 10 :/ > > I remember a friend setting up four screens with multiple PCI graphics > cards on Linux (if I remember correctly), but personally I have no > experience with that. > > The suggestion that I have is the following: > > Get a Matrox TripleHead2Go/DualHead2Go. I've used them myself for Ear > Cinema - http://earcinema.co.uk/ - they do not add any graphical > processing power so you want a good graphics card as a base. If it's a > dualhead one, that makes up to 6 screens per machine. > > If you work with Processing or openFrameworks, there's already a > framework for software based video splitting over a network called > "Most Pixels Ever": http://code.google.com/p/mostpixelsever/ - I > haven't set it up myself (as far as I know it's a little bit of a > hassle), but I can imagine how it would be easier than to try to make > 10 different screens on Linux. > >> - I have seen somewhere that there were some kind of special material that >> could be glued to a white-wall to make the image coming from the projector >> even more brightfull, have I been dreaming or have you heard of such thing ? > > Well there are materials that reflect better than others - as for > something to glue to the wall, I'm not sure about that. > > Michael From alex at idoia.com Sun Apr 12 05:22:54 2009 From: alex at idoia.com (Alexandre Garacotche) Date: Sun Apr 12 05:23:07 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] Multiple projectors for 1 PC In-Reply-To: <22a9ac850904111044r22f0343i4873121b74d2a55e@mail.gmail.com> References: <6E38F231-CA25-4711-B534-79CD01A6FE89@spacedog.biz> <49E0CB49.3040003@idoia.com> <22a9ac850904111044r22f0343i4873121b74d2a55e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49E1B2EE.5080602@idoia.com> Michael Zeltner wrote: > Get a Matrox TripleHead2Go/DualHead2Go. I've used them myself for Ear > Cinema - http://earcinema.co.uk/ - they do not add any graphical > processing power so you want a good graphics card as a base. If it's a > dualhead one, that makes up to 6 screens per machine. Hi Michael, I have been looking at the Matrox but it says that only 3 screens can be connected , how did you get you 6 ones ? Alex From lists at lowfrequency.org Mon Apr 20 07:11:33 2009 From: lists at lowfrequency.org (evan.raskob [lists]) Date: Mon Apr 20 07:11:26 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] Multiple projectors for 1 PC In-Reply-To: <49E0D9EB.2080806@idoia.com> References: <6E38F231-CA25-4711-B534-79CD01A6FE89@spacedog.biz> <49E0CB49.3040003@idoia.com> <22a9ac850904111044r22f0343i4873121b74d2a55e@mail.gmail.com> <49E0D9EB.2080806@idoia.com> Message-ID: <62B55390-D79B-4532-B0E6-0C5472FFC8C4@lowfrequency.org> If you only want a 0.3 meter high screen, why not use a regular projector and just mask out the rest of the image? Cheers Evan On Apr 11, 2009, at 6:56 PM, Alexandre Garacotche wrote: > Ok thanks for the info, it sounds great. > I do work with Processing and I need to display a graphical > animation done with Processing on a screen of about 4m long 0.3 > meter high. > My idea was to cut the 4m in 10 screen. > From alex at idoia.com Mon Apr 20 13:29:43 2009 From: alex at idoia.com (Alexandre Garacotche) Date: Mon Apr 20 13:30:03 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] Multiple projectors for 1 PC In-Reply-To: <62B55390-D79B-4532-B0E6-0C5472FFC8C4@lowfrequency.org> References: <6E38F231-CA25-4711-B534-79CD01A6FE89@spacedog.biz> <49E0CB49.3040003@idoia.com> <22a9ac850904111044r22f0343i4873121b74d2a55e@mail.gmail.com> <49E0D9EB.2080806@idoia.com> <62B55390-D79B-4532-B0E6-0C5472FFC8C4@lowfrequency.org> Message-ID: <49ECB107.5050506@idoia.com> evan.raskob [lists] wrote: > If you only want a 0.3 meter high screen, why not use a regular > projector and just mask out the rest of the image? Hi evan Well I am looking for a high resolution. so masking out some part of the screen is not an option. However, I might just use regular-size projector and have them very close to the wall. Thanks anyway. Alex > Cheers > Evan > > > > > > On Apr 11, 2009, at 6:56 PM, Alexandre Garacotche wrote: > >> Ok thanks for the info, it sounds great. >> I do work with Processing and I need to display a graphical animation >> done with Processing on a screen of about 4m long 0.3 meter high. >> My idea was to cut the 4m in 10 screen. >> > ........................................................................ > .........dorkbot: people doing strange things with electricity.......... > ..........................http://dorkbot.org............................ > ........................................................................ > From a.hadzi at gold.ac.uk Tue Apr 21 07:11:54 2009 From: a.hadzi at gold.ac.uk (adnan hadzi) Date: Tue Apr 21 07:12:55 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] call for TV hacking workshop CUCR/Deptford.TV Message-ID: <49EDA9FA.9090502@gold.ac.uk> dear all, this is a reminder for the tv hacking workshop. for those of you who booked places & can't come anymore please let us know asap as place is limited. for those of you who wish to book please do so as there's some places left: During May (12th May till 1st June), Deptford.TV will host in collaboration with CUCR, http://dek.spc.org and http://www.bitnik.org a three weeks long hands on database filmmaking workshop, in which we will do some serious tv hacking, editing and uploading to Deptford.TV, a public database of documentary film and video to help annotate the urban change in Deptford and across SE London. We invite you to take part in 4 workshop days over the period of three weeks plus to walk with the !Mediengruppe Bitnik artists through Deptford. The workshops are free but places are limited, to book, please send an email to a.hadzi@gold.ac.uk and state workshop days you want to attend (it is first come first serve & priority is given to those able to attend all four days). cheers, adnan Programme: *Workshop Day #1: A hack a day* Tuesday, 12th May, 11am till 5pm (take your cameras!) After a short introduction to Sousveillance and CCTV film making, we will set out on a walk through Deptford. Equipped with CCTV video signal receivers we will let the incoming surveillance camera signals lead us through the city. The CCTV video signal receivers will catch surveillance camera signals in public and private spaces and make them visible: surveillance becomes sousveillance. By making images visible which normally remain hidden, we gain access to the ?surveillance from above? enabling us to use these images for a personal narrative of the city. Workshop with construction manual for later DIY! Attendance free Whoever has handycam, bring it! (plus cable and fully charged battery!)). *Workshop Day #2: Collaborative Editing* Monday, 18th May, 11am till 5pm (take your laptops!) Introduction into Cinelerra & pure:dyne: "Working with digital video is part of many artistic disciplines. Besides single screen narratives, video productions can range from animation, multiple screen installation to interactive work. Still, many aspects of digital video can be traced back to the history of film. The interface of a timeline editing software such as Cinelerra shows a multitrack timeline, a viewing monitor, a bin for clips; echoing the setup of a flatbed table for editing celluloid." (digital artists handbook) *Workshop Day #3: Deptford.TV database* Monday, 25th May, 11am till 5pm (take your laptops!) Introduction into the Deptford.TV database & how to use the alternative subversion control workflow: "When you start working with free software as a videomaker, it is likely that you need to invest some time and energy in understanding certain basics of the video production process. Sometimes this might mean you have to look for alternative workflows, to dive 'under the hood' of a digital tool, or reconfigure an existing solution to suit your needs. Investigating the tools you use as a video maker is an important part of the job, it can help gain insights, it can be an inspiration to explore new ways of working and imagemaking." (digital artists handbook) *Workshop Day #4: pic nic* Monday, 1st June, in the afternoon (take food & drinks!) If the weather permits we will go to Greenwich Park and screen the films on portable screens while enjoying the spring/summer, tba! The events are free, but places are limited. *to book please email* a.hadzi@gold.ac.uk *supported by:* Arts Council of England http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/ LCACE http://www.lcace.org.uk/ *Further infos:* http://deptford.tv Deptford.TV is a project focusing on collaborative film - initiated by Adnan Hadzi in collaboration with the Deckspace media lab, Bitnik media collective, Boundless project, Liquid Culture initiative, and Goldsmiths College. It is an online media database documenting the urban change of Deptford, in South East London. Deptford TV functions as an open, collaborative platform that allows artists, filmmakers and people living and working around Deptford to store, share, re-edit and redistribute the documentation of the regeneration process. The open and collaborative aspect of the project is of particular importance as it manifests in two ways: a) audiences can become producers by submitting their own footage, b) the interface that is being used enables the contributors to discuss and interact with each other through the database. Deptford TV is a form of "television", since audiences are able to choose edited "time lines" they would like to watch; at the same time they have the option to comment on or change the actual content. Deptford TV makes us of licenses such as the creative commons sa-by and gnu general public license to allow and enhance this politics of sharing. *http://www.bitnik.org* !Mediengruppe Bitnik is a media collective that became notorious, amongst others, by bugging the Zurich opera with radio transmitters and offering free live telephone broadcasts of the opera performances to the neighborhood, aesthetic hacking of movie files, and a pirate TV station based on media illegally downloaded from the Internet. The group does not understand hacking as a cult of technology geeks, but as a social intervention and practice everyone can adopt. To this end, they have been touring with their workshop series ,,A Hack a Day?, inviting and working with local and international artists. *Contact details: * -- adnan hadzi phd media & communications dept media and communications goldsmiths college university of london new cross london, se14 6nw united kingdom tel. +44 20 8816 8166 www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/departments/media-communications www.filmcode.org www.deptford.tv www.liquidculture.eu www.copyleft.org.uk From tim at timcowlishaw.co.uk Sun Apr 26 12:14:41 2009 From: tim at timcowlishaw.co.uk (Tim Cowlishaw) Date: Sun Apr 26 12:15:09 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] London SICP Meetups References: Message-ID: <881A1A42-2EBF-4D42-A965-D91AB91C1B86@timcowlishaw.co.uk> Hey all, Apologies for cross-posting, but i thought this might interest some of you! I'm currently working my way through Abelson and Sussman's 'Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs' (http://mitpress.mit.edu/ sicp/), the first year MIT computer science text, and a generally pretty interesting read. I thought it might be a good idea to find a way for other people in London doing the same thing (particularly anyone from an arts or generally non-Mathematical-or-CS background) to discuss their progress, and perhaps to meet up informally and go through the book and exercises together. I've created a google group for this: http://groups.google.com/group/sicp-learners-london Please sign up if interested, and forward on to anyone else who might like to be involved! Cheers, Tim From dave at pawfal.org Mon Apr 27 04:29:49 2009 From: dave at pawfal.org (Dave Griffiths) Date: Mon Apr 27 04:30:05 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] Slade Technology Faire: Open Call Message-ID: <1240820990.6055.36.camel@kittywake> Hi all, A friend of mine is helping to organise this, the idea is to have quite an informal event, I think there will be some projectors and a PA available for those needing them - just turn up with some stuff to show and be prepared to talk about it a bit: "Slade Research Centre, Woburn Square Thursday 7th May 5-9pm Open Call: Anybody using technology in an interesting way to make art- or trying to make art! Loosely modelled around the format of a science fair, Slade Technology Fayre is an informal non-hierarchical event, which seeks to gather skills and experience into the school and escalate the conversation surrounding work that makes use of technology in an interesting way." http://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/technologyfayre/ cheers, dave From info at mztek.org Mon Apr 27 05:15:08 2009 From: info at mztek.org (MzTEK) Date: Mon Apr 27 05:14:58 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] MzTEK Unplugged: Julie Freeman & Open Source Message-ID: <2BAA37E6-B206-453B-B9E6-B7FA49ABCE00@mztek.org> Hi all, This Wednesday night, join us again around the table for another MzTEK Unplugged sesh. Newbies are most welcome, and techy-ness is not a prerequisite. // This Week // If you were ever curious about Open Source?what it is, who uses it, why and how you can too?artist Julie Freeman will chat about the politics of Open Source software and code, and will introduce some of the useful programs, packages and tools available for artists, and tools she uses in her work. Where: Leon Bankside (directly behind & facing the Tate Modern) - closest tubes: Southwark, London Bridge When: Wednesday, April 29, 7pm ? 9pm // Our Guest // Julie Freeman?s work explores transforming complex processes into sound compositions, objects and visualizations. Her work spans visual, audio and digital art forms and explores the relationship between science, nature and how humans interact with it. For the past 12 years, Julie?s work has focused on using electronic technologies to ?translate nature? ? whether through the sound of torrential rain falling on a giant rhubarb leaf, a pair of mobile concrete speakers lurking in galleries haranguing passers by, or by providing an interactive platform from which to view the flap, twitch, and prick of dogs? ears. Her pioneering artwork, The Lake, used hydrophones, custom software and advanced technology to track electronically tagged fish and translate their movement into an audio- visual experience. Julie holds an MA in Digital Art from the Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts, Middlesex University, and is a NESTA fellow and Wellcome Trust arts awardee. Her work has been exhibited across the UK, including at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Science Museum, and internationally in Brazil, Croatia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Russia, and the USA. http://www.translatingnature.org // MzTEK Unplugged // is a fortnightly talk series running through June 2009. Open to everyone & free. We gather around a table for a drink and interesting conversation, inviting artists and technologists to discuss topics at the intersection of the arts, computing, and politics. Can't make it Wednesday? Check out our calendar of future events: http://www.mztek.org Email us: info@mztek.org From a.hadzi at gold.ac.uk Tue Apr 28 17:50:19 2009 From: a.hadzi at gold.ac.uk (adnan hadzi) Date: Tue Apr 28 17:50:54 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] call for TV hacking workshop CUCR/Deptford.TV Message-ID: <49F77A1B.30702@gold.ac.uk> dear all, this is a reminder for the tv hacking workshop. the single events are booked out. but we still have some places on priority for those who can attend all the 4 days. please rsvp within a wk if you can make all the days: During May (12th May till 1st June), Deptford.TV will host in collaboration with CUCR, http://dek.spc.org and http://www.bitnik.org a three weeks long hands on database filmmaking workshop, in which we will do some serious tv hacking, editing and uploading to Deptford.TV, a public database of documentary film and video to help annotate the urban change in Deptford and across SE London. We invite you to take part in 4 workshop days over the period of three weeks plus to walk with the !Mediengruppe Bitnik artists through Deptford. The workshops are free but places are limited, to book, please send an email to a.hadzi@gold.ac.uk and state workshop days you want to attend (it is first come first serve & priority is given to those able to attend all four days). cheers, adnan Programme: *Workshop Day #1: A hack a day* Tuesday, 12th May, 11am till 5pm (take your cameras!) After a short introduction to Sousveillance and CCTV film making, we will set out on a walk through Deptford. Equipped with CCTV video signal receivers we will let the incoming surveillance camera signals lead us through the city. The CCTV video signal receivers will catch surveillance camera signals in public and private spaces and make them visible: surveillance becomes sousveillance. By making images visible which normally remain hidden, we gain access to the ?surveillance from above? enabling us to use these images for a personal narrative of the city. Workshop with construction manual for later DIY! Attendance free Whoever has handycam, bring it! (plus cable and fully charged battery!)). *Workshop Day #2: Collaborative Editing* Monday, 18th May, 11am till 5pm (take your laptops!) Introduction into Cinelerra & pure:dyne: "Working with digital video is part of many artistic disciplines. Besides single screen narratives, video productions can range from animation, multiple screen installation to interactive work. Still, many aspects of digital video can be traced back to the history of film. The interface of a timeline editing software such as Cinelerra shows a multitrack timeline, a viewing monitor, a bin for clips; echoing the setup of a flatbed table for editing celluloid." (digital artists handbook) *Workshop Day #3: Deptford.TV database* Monday, 25th May, 11am till 5pm (take your laptops!) Introduction into the Deptford.TV database & how to use the alternative subversion control workflow: "When you start working with free software as a videomaker, it is likely that you need to invest some time and energy in understanding certain basics of the video production process. Sometimes this might mean you have to look for alternative workflows, to dive 'under the hood' of a digital tool, or reconfigure an existing solution to suit your needs. Investigating the tools you use as a video maker is an important part of the job, it can help gain insights, it can be an inspiration to explore new ways of working and imagemaking." (digital artists handbook) *Workshop Day #4: pic nic* Monday, 1st June, in the afternoon (take food & drinks!) If the weather permits we will go to Greenwich Park and screen the films on portable screens while enjoying the spring/summer, tba! The events are free, but places are limited. *to book please email* a.hadzi@gold.ac.uk *supported by:* Arts Council of England http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/ LCACE http://www.lcace.org.uk/ *Further infos:* http://deptford.tv Deptford.TV is a project focusing on collaborative film - initiated by Adnan Hadzi in collaboration with the Deckspace media lab, Bitnik media collective, Boundless project, Liquid Culture initiative, and Goldsmiths College. It is an online media database documenting the urban change of Deptford, in South East London. Deptford TV functions as an open, collaborative platform that allows artists, filmmakers and people living and working around Deptford to store, share, re-edit and redistribute the documentation of the regeneration process. The open and collaborative aspect of the project is of particular importance as it manifests in two ways: a) audiences can become producers by submitting their own footage, b) the interface that is being used enables the contributors to discuss and interact with each other through the database. Deptford TV is a form of "television", since audiences are able to choose edited "time lines" they would like to watch; at the same time they have the option to comment on or change the actual content. Deptford TV makes us of licenses such as the creative commons sa-by and gnu general public license to allow and enhance this politics of sharing. *http://www.bitnik.org* !Mediengruppe Bitnik is a media collective that became notorious, amongst others, by bugging the Zurich opera with radio transmitters and offering free live telephone broadcasts of the opera performances to the neighborhood, aesthetic hacking of movie files, and a pirate TV station based on media illegally downloaded from the Internet. The group does not understand hacking as a cult of technology geeks, but as a social intervention and practice everyone can adopt. To this end, they have been touring with their workshop series ,,A Hack a Day?, inviting and working with local and international artists. *Contact details: * -- adnan hadzi phd media & communications dept media and communications goldsmiths college university of london new cross london, se14 6nw united kingdom tel. +44 20 8816 8166 www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/departments/media-communications www.filmcode.org www.deptford.tv www.liquidculture.eu www.copyleft.org.uk From Richard.Colson at tvu.ac.uk Wed Apr 29 04:00:07 2009 From: Richard.Colson at tvu.ac.uk (Richard Colson) Date: Wed Apr 29 04:00:29 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] 4th Takeaway Festival of DIY Media, May 19-21 Dana Centre, Science Museum London Message-ID: <0600C28BCAEA0040896B471C1FF2F3B003F6DA@ehost-45.tvu.ac.uk> Hi everyone I hope to see some of you at this year's festival at the Dana Centre All events are FREE but please pre-book early for each one as places are limited Workshop places are only available on the day and cannot be pre-booked Please see details below All the best Richard Colson Director, Takeaway Festival of DIY Media Reader, Art and Digital Media Practice Thames Valley University The Takeaway Festival of DIY Media www.danacentre.org.uk Control a robot with a travel card, have 30 singers at your beck and call from a piano keyboard and contribute sounds to a live musical performance. Just some of the reasons to visit the Takeaway Festival of Do-It-Yourself Media free and back at the Science Museum?s Dana Centre for its fourth year. A jellyfish becomes an instrument that responds to touch. A robot reads a travel card and then creates a unique movement to interpret it. Changing the position of levers allows the sounds of three cities from across the world to be heard simultaneously. The 4th Takeaway Festival of Do-It-Yourself Media opens on Tuesday 19 May with a celebration of orchestrated metallic sounds and brings together international artists working with the technologies that are part of everyday life. The Takeaway Festival is developed in a partnership between the Science Museum?s Dana Centre and Thames Valley University with the support of an Arts Council Grants for the Arts award and features the Bulb Collective, Marcus Lyall Studio and Ger Ger. A combination of performances, workshops, talks and an exhibition, the two week event is an unparalleled opportunity to experience the work of 30 artists from the US and Europe at the cutting edge of their practice. The festival is a chance to not only interact with exciting work but to learn how to do it yourself too. In a series of free workshops visitors can find out how to create iPhone applications, zines, video for the web and interactive objects. Truly DIY! The series of talks, performance and workshops run from 19 to 21 May. The exhibition runs from 19 to 30 May. Visitor Information Takeaway Festival of DIY Media 19 ? 30 May 2009 Science Museum?s Dana Centre 165 Queen?s Gate, London, SW7 5HD UK Nearest tube: Gloucester Road Events are free and open to anyone aged 18 and over To attend a workshop, please come to the Dana Centre at least one hour before the start time to sign up. Attendance is free but you must pre-book by visiting: www.danacentre.org.uk Workshops, Talks and Performances Tuesday 19 May Workshops 11:00 ? 16:30 Turn up, sign up and get in the know with the Takeaway Festival?s free workshops. This year?s workshops cover iPhone app creation, Arduinos, encoding Flash videos for the web and creating zines using TextPattern. Tuesday 19 May Performance 20:30 ? 21:30 Raw Metal by Bulb Collective Wednesday 20 May Next Generation Collaboration 19:00 ? 21:30 Come and exchange ideas in the first of the Takeaway Festival?s themed evenings. Hear from key thinkers, creatives and practitioners who are rethinking the future of knowledge and how it grows and alters and how best to share it. Gary Stewart, (INIVA), The Owl Project, Leo Ryan (Macmillan Social Media) Wednesday 20 May Performance 20:30 ? 21:30 Sensory Response Systems, by Ryan Jordan and Pitch Control by the Marcus Lyall Studio Thursday 21 May Workshops 11:00 ? 16:30 Turn up, sign up and get in the know with the Takeaway Festival?s free workshop days. This year?s workshops will cover iPhone app creation, Arduinos, encoding Flash videos for the web and creating zines using TextPattern. Thursday 21 May Knowledge Unlimited 19:00 ? 21:30 Come and exchange ideas in the second of the Takeaway Festival?s themed evenings. Hear from key thinkers, creatives and practitioners who are reshaping the way we work together to solve creative problems. Karel Dudesek (Takeaway China), Paula Roush(South Bank University), Brian Degger (Transitlab),Alex Mclean (Dorkbot London) Thursday 21 May Performance 20:30 ? 21:30 Slub Interactives and Exhibits Wednesday 20 ? Saturday 30 May Monday - Friday 10:00 - 17:00, Saturday 23 May 12:00 ? 17:00 and Saturday 30 May 12:00 ? 15:00 Come and explore this two-week exhibition of originally conceived projects that look to RFID (radio frequency identification) tags and the DIY music ethos for their cues. Expect eerie floating choirs and RFID-card-triggered robotics as we open our doors to projects which pull apart and reconnect media and technology in unexpected ways Artists and Installations include: Marcus Lyall (UK): Pitch Control Take a seat, limber up your fingers and play away as keyboard notes are replaced by recorded singing whilst the heads of 30 different singers are projected in the room to form a virtual choir. Alex Zivanovic (UK): RFID gesture-generating robot Swipe a commonly used RFID card and the robot will produce a graceful performance unique to your information. Yoon Chung Han (USA): Jellyfish musical instrument Create your own sound composition over four octaves with Jellyfish, the interactive sound installation. Ryan Jordan (UK): Sensory Response Systems Sensory Response Systems is an exploration of audiovisual performance using an array of sensors responsive to physical movements. It also looks at reshaping and replicating the body through the use of fabric, textiles and technology. Ger Ger, with Jakob Kort (Germany/Austria): SOUND NOMADS The constant search for noises, sounds and rhythms is at the heart of SOUND NOMADS? approach to creating ephemeral - interactive sensor based - playgrounds. Neil Mendoza, Anthony Goh, Simeon Rose (UK): RFID art Swipe your transport card or other RFID-based object and you will be invited to recreate a famous piece of art. The unique nature of the RFID tag will assign an area of the artwork which will flash up on screen. Use your hands to draw your version and feed into the collaborative work. Bart Koppe (Netherlands): Mixing Cities Mixing Cities brings together, in real time, the sounds of several cities in an audiovisual installation. By choosing and switching between the cities you can make your own journey between the cities and get a different experience of distances and space. Martin Howse (UK/Germany): Local Resonance Amplifier Reacting to changes in electromagnetic emissions and signals, the Local Resonance Amplifier acts as a parasitic device revealing the hidden interactions between communications technology, power lines, biological phenomena and geological properties. From eyup.waudy at hotmail.co.uk Thu Apr 30 10:01:16 2009 From: eyup.waudy at hotmail.co.uk (Sean Waud) Date: Thu Apr 30 10:01:30 2009 Subject: [dorkbotlondon-blabber] help with functioning electronic artwork Message-ID: Eyup I?m currently making an artwork with an electronic circuit that basically counts resolutions of an object being pushed around a track. Problem I?m having is getting this circuit made. I have a schematic drawn up but assembling and getting hold of certain components is proving difficult for my novice expertises in the area. The track is circular and the circuit operates on this by counting the objects resolutions only by a full resolution. By this I mean the circuit operates on two relays (NO contact) one at the start and half way so to achieve an output the object must be pushed half way and back to the start again. The output is an electronic counter and a main problem is getting hold of one that doesn?t need programming just connected as an output. I imagine that this means two circuit boards need to be made at the start and mid way point then connected by wires. I have all the components that are on the circuit from previous help someone gave me butting getting this schematic made is a problem. Is there anywhere in London I can get this made from a schematic drawing because I don?t have equipment and the know how to make the boards. Noticed London doesn?t have to many electronic components shops now and maplins haven?t been much help. Thanks someone suggested I give posting on here a try so if anyone thinks they can help, be much appreciated. Thanks Sean _________________________________________________________________ View your Twitter and Flickr updates from one place ? Learn more! http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/137984870/direct/01/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://music.columbia.edu/pipermail/dorkbotlondon-blabber/attachments/20090430/99f1dae0/attachment.html