jill/txt

Just trying to fix my trackbacks. If this pings that, it worked!

Three people have complained that my comments RSS isn’t working. I don’t use RSS readers enough to even quite know what you do with a comments RSS, but obviously it’d be nice if I could make it work. However, I’ve done all I can think of (i.e. upload a fresh version of the Wordpress default template for it) and it still doesn’t work. Perhaps some of the people who want it would like to help fix it? (more…)

Look, PNEK made a website as well as a book: Elektronisk kunst i offentlige rom. In addition to my piece, which is an introductory essay called Kunst i bevegelse, there are descriptions and photos of sixteen electronic artworks in Norwegian public spaces. It’s a great catalogue of interesting work, and it’s going to be translated into English eventually, too.

Better late than never, numedia.edu is another blog that reported from ISEA. And one to start reading, from the look of it.

Going to Oslo this afternoon, to spend an evening with old friends and then tomorrow give a talk about an essay I wrote as an introduction to a catalogue of electronic art in public spaces in Norway. Here’s more information if you’re interested in the book or the talk - and yes, I’ll post the article soon, just not right now, things are so busy! (more…)

Sometimes reading only slightly old books is quite unsettling. In Dream Machines, a book I love on the whole, Nelson quotes what apparently used to be the motto of Electronic Arts, “a software company”, now one of the major producers of video games.

Software should be simple, hot and deep. SIMPLE: the user can get into it easily. HOT: it should be excitingly interactive. DEEP: you’ll be able to use it for years; it will have “new folds” to discover, and thus a long shelf life.

What a ridiculously explicit description of a very objectifying male view of sex with a woman. Men seem to love thinking of machines as somehow equivalent to or replacements for women. Ships are “she”, Turing (though not sexually attracted to women) conceived a test of a kind of AI where a computer would simulate a woman, guys try to create digital beauties and virtual girlfriends. But why? I don’t get it. I wouldn’t even call a dildo “he”. My machines are its, my computer is sexless.

I can’t find this alleged motto of Electronic Arts on the web at all so presumably they came to their senses and eradicated it from history. It’s cited on page 25 of Dream Machines by Ted Nelson, in the 1987 edition. Electronic Arts was founded in 1982.

I signed up for an excursion the Alliance Française is hosting this Saturday. It’s a guided tour of the roses out at the Arboretum - in French of course - and to be followed by a picnic. The website seems welcoming and the point does seem to be to provide an environment for people who aren’t French to speak French in, but I’m terrified. I mean, sure, I can speak French, I spoke nothing but French for two weeks earlier this month, I was happy. I can read Le Monde and even understand most announcements at train stations, but I make so many mistakes, and I can never remember le subjonctif, and they’ll all laugh at me and they’ll be annoyed that I came because my French is so far from perfect and I don’t know anyone there and I suppose if it’s terrible I can just sort of be quiet and go home early.

And if I don’t go I will regret it forever and my French won’t get any better. I’m going.

I did some e-journal surfing and found a couple of useful papers today. Results - with abstracts and links - are below. These articles are in subscription-only journals, so they’re easiest to get if your library subscribes. (more…)

Forget studet plagiarism: in the real world you can fake a grassroots campaign by generating letters to the editor that get printed in hundreds of newspapers.

So someone wondered when I’d be moving to Paris to join my French boyfriend. Good grief. Must have been my I love Paris post set him off, don’t you think? Blogging has hazards I hadn’t even considered. I mean, sure, I love imagining surroundings for bloggers I enjoy reading, but I also realise that that’s where the boundary to fiction lies. Yes, what I blog is (mostly) true, but there is so much that I don’t blog that unless you know me, the idea you have of me from these words probably has more to do with fiction than reality. Your imaginings, not my world. I suspect blogs are smokescreens as much as windows.

What’s really happening? Well, this morning I woke up, missed Scott (who is wonderful and lives by a beach far from Paris), booked tickets to go see him (quite soon, really, just a few weeks), showered, woke my daughter, sang, chatted, packed lunches, got her to school and me to work, made sure the bookstore has all the books for my class and now I’m planning teaching. First lecture of the year is at noon. Afterwards I’ll do my one hour of writing. It would have been better to do it before teaching, but, it’s the first class and… well, you know.

Even with that kind of detail, most of what you imagine of my morning is probably coming from your imagination. Not from my reality. Strange, isn’t it? But you know, even Weez’s stories of dating leave out almost everything, and when Jane’s blog was black for a month after posts about depression she came back with photos of kisses and stories of joy and holidays.

I made a to do list on a large sheet of paper, spatially organised by topic but with enough white space that it still looks calm. This semester I’m going to write consistently, although it’s easy to look at the list of things to do (teaching, admin, ELINOR, our conference) and see that research will be the activity most easily postponed for more immediate deadlines.

My plan is simple: I’ll write an hour a day. That doesn’t sound like much, but I think that might be the beauty of it. I want to work less and get more done, and limiting time will not only make each bout of writing more intense, it will make me much more likely to actually get around to it. And if I’m totally dying to write more in the evening I guess I’ll let myself.

And no, blogging won’t count for the hour-of-writing. This hour will be for intensive, sustained writing, writing of essays. I’m updating my short paper on Links and Politics for Library Trends, I’m writing a paper on distributed narrative for AoIR and another on games and teaching. D’you think an hour a day will suffice?

I’m home from ISEA, I’ve sent my daughter to school, my teaching starts on Wednesday: semester’s starting again. I’m going to spend an hour or two planning my autumn. There are a lot of things I want to do but I’m going to have to pick and choose because I refuse to work round the clock or be laden with guilt. This semester I’m going to be efficient.

I have no idea what Matthew Fuller is talking about in the final session at ISEA. He’s got images flickering above his head, and a terminal window that seems to be picking out words from what he’s saying and searching the web for images “about” that word. It’s totally cool and totally distracting.

I’ll be able to tell you many of the words he used. Slap, virtue, methodology, contemporary, techniques, art, beyond.

Mary Flanagan and Ken Perlin are presenting Rapunsel, a project where they’re getting 11-13 year old girls keen on computers by - with the girls - designing a system where the kids program animated characters to choreograph a dance. From the website:

If you’re a kid, showing and telling things to the smart pets that you share with your friends is very different from writing Java, Python or Logo. It is much more powerful, because it builds on innate social and perceptual skills. It is programming as a first language.

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