Musings of a Rambler

And oh, what vistas of woe and decline, what fretful hauntings of threatening ghosts and phantoms. The central processor chip can fail. The operating system can fail. The language that supports the operating system may be discontinued and no longer supported. Unlike paper, which degrades rather gracefully, computers have sudden, catastrophic failures [1].

On September 2nd of this year, expectations were at a peak for the Playful Interface Cultures exhibition opening. I myself was uncommonly tranquil. After a few years of exhibiting during the Ars Electronica Festival one inevitably comes to realize that there is an inherent praxis to all this process of getting your work ready for being shown – and also to keep it running afterwards – and nervousness is an undeniable part of it. But Rambler had been ready, tested and running for some months then. Furthermore, it had been tested once again a mere two days before the opening. I was tranquil – as much as I can ever be, at least.

Ars Electronica 2009

Another Summer that ended with me rushing off from somewhere to be present at the Ars Electronica festival – but maybe more importantly, at the Interface Culture exhibition.

This year students pushed hard to organize the Royal Interface Culture Masquerade Ball, which took place at the twin building from Kunstuniversitat – also commonly referred to as the Hitler buildings (1). 😛

Anyway, here’s a video of the opening and of a few projects.

White Shadow is Live in Linz

White Shadow, by Team 4040. Commissioned by Ars Electronica Linz.

For three nights now, White Shadow has been serving as a live channel between Mexico City and Linz.

It will be there until July 14. If you live in Linz, please drop by the Hauptplatz after 21:00. If you don’t, you can always check out the live streaming at the Team 4040 website 🙂

Once more, (always) with feeling!

Third time is the charm. Or so they say.

So we got the camera rolling and shot some footage to assemble a documental video of Headbang Hero

Featuring (free!) music from Kevin MacLeod and Slow Death Factory!

Coming to an Open House not so near you…

…are the highly popular (coughs) Headbang Hero and a revised, trimmed-down version of Wolves and Sheep. Why trimmed-down? Well for starters we have only got two phones for running it and also the tangible map table is getting ditched this time for a traditional screen-and-mouse setup.

With all the attention these require – and I was stubborn enough to write an A* algorithm from scratch for WaS – plus giving a course on C++ and OpenFrameworks and the inescapable project for 80+1 what is left of me, I ask, to sit down and read the numerous books I ordered?

I like having work to do, even if most of it are projects and not income sources, but I’m once again way over my head. What happens to the PhD then? And A Red Fable? And I’m sure I’m forgetting something… my health maybe?

Wait, it’s Sunday, let’s not think about that now… I gotta go clean the bathroom, it’s my turn

Headbang Hero at Dorkbot Linz

What a great evening! I guess these Dorkbot meetings should happen more often. Big thanks to Mika Satomi and let’s see if we can keep the spirit alive.

Here you can see Headbang Hero, but you should have seen the other projects… 🙂

Headbang Hero Revealed!

I am happy to announce my latest project together with Andreas Zingerle and  Ricardo Nascimento… Headbang Hero.

Details will follow but let’s say (at least for now) that it’s a tribute of sorts the headbanger culture and also to the whole Guitar Hero phenomenon, as both come together to provide high-scores and nasty neck injuries galore!

And the first time in history that a wig is used as a wearable game controller 😉 

Update: thanks to Owen Good from Kotaku for bringing news of our headbang-goodness to the masses!

Kotaku.com – Rock Out With Your Locks Out

Scenes From 08

I decided to make a small review of last year, as it was quite a good year and has shown me countless times that I need to step up. So I put together some pictures from my Picasa Web Album, partly to force myself to acknowledge my good fortune, places I visited and people I got to know and miss. 

Open Door at Interface Culture

Remind me to develop a collaborative version of Noon.

Last Friday was the “Day of the Open Door” (Tag der Öfennen Tür) at Kunstuni Linz. As usual, Interface Culture set up it’s space to provide visitors and prospective students with a small show of it’s activities.As opposed to just showing stuff we actually encourage visitors to try it out. Once more Noon and Austhority have provided visitors not only a clear demonstration of what is possible to accomplish at IC as well as a loot of fun. I myself am surprised (positively) at the persistence of some of Noon’s players, who would want to keep delving into the Novak family’s tragedy even after the program crashed repeatedly (1). Once again, thank you all for playing!

Jurgen Scheible’s Workshop at Interface Culture

Last February me and T. Wagner (Recipe Table, Atem Raum, Pipesound) took the opportunity to develop the first prototype for a mobile game concept at Jurgen Scheible‘s workshop at Interface Culture. You can check all the very interesting ideas which were prototyped in Python for S60, as explained by their respective authors in a video which Scheible was kind enough to post on YouTube (also embedded here, after the jump).