[-empyre-] in reponse to B Bogart's project on Memory Association Machine

[rtf9 at cornell.edu]

>In response to B.Bogart's post:

I found your responsive Memory Association Machine intriguing as well 
as a note on your bio that mentions you are preparing a New Media 
Curriculum based on open source models.  As an artist I too prefer 
using old media recycled/reinvented to inspire new ideas/projects.

In an art department, It is incredibly frustrating for my students to 
have access to the most up to date programs available in studio and 
then as soon as they graduate they must confront the fact that the 
cost of those same programs are simply not an option for them 
anymore.  As their professor,  I feel I would be doing them a 
disservice by not introducing the open source possibilities available 
on line.  Additionally I encourage them to cross over to the "other 
side" of campus and learn as much about computer programming as they 
possibly can.

That said...just in case you were not aware... this month on the list 
serve New Media Curating they are discussing Open Source models. 
I've been lurking on their list serve this month as I moderate ours 
on Wired Sustainability but the discussions/posts have been in tandem 
with some of the issues that we have been discussing.
Renate

>Hello all,
>
>I've been mostly lurking on the list of a couple years now.
>
>I'm quite interested in the current topic, in particular as it relates
>to some work I'm currently doing and hoping to do in the future.
>
>Its really a research project so it will have a number of different
>artworks associated with it. The current one, "Memory Association
>Machine", is something I'm writing about for my MSc thesis at the School
>of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University, in
>Vancouver Canada.
>
>The project started as an exploration of how a responsive installation
>could relate to its context in a way that is not predetermined by the
>artist. In order to relate to its site the system only uses content
>(visual images in this version) from its environment in the creation of
>a kind of daydream:
>
>http://www.ekran.org/ben/wp/?p=227
>
>The work is meant to be long-term public exhibition. So far it has only
>been installed in gallery store fronts, and in areas of the campus.
>Since these artworks get all their content from the world around them
>they need to be in an interesting and dynamic context that is always
>changing. They are meant to be ambient in that I'm less interested in
>them being the focus of attention and more a lens through which the
>world both the viewer and the artwork occupy is reconsidered and
>rediscovered. The machine's artificial focus on (random) parts of our
>world mean they highlight things we would not normally look at.
>
>The reason I'm posting is that I'm particularly interested (in the much
>longer term) making the project self-sufficient, that is generates its
>own power and runs for 10 years or more independent of infrastructure.
>So far the failure would be the moving parts in the camera that looks
>around, but I'm sure some security cameras would be able to take on the
>long-term constant movement challenge. I find the approach of using old
>technology because it is proven and is known to work for longer periods,
>rather than constantly striving for more computational power. It is
>certainly a restriction of what is visually possible though.
>
>Another aspect of sustainability is the software running the system
>itself. I've committed to an almost 100% open source artistic practise,
>with installations running on Linux and using Pure-Data. The only
>software not open source in my practise is the nvidia driver used to do
>fast openGL on my graphics cards.
>
>Anyone else have any thoughts on open-source software as an aspect of a
>sustainable artistic practise?
>
>B. Bogart
>_______________________________________________
>empyre forum
>empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>http://www.subtle.net/empyre


-- 
Renate Ferro
URL:  http://www.renateferro.net
Email:   <rtf9 at cornell.edu>
Visiting Assistant Professor of Art
Cornell University
Department of Art, Tjaden Hall
Ithaca, NY  14853