"Write now is good."

Living (and maybe writing?) as a virtual other for 28 days

Image: Still taken from the video Behind the Scenes

UPDATE (12/18/14): Please see end of this post for new information.

Artist Mark Farid would like to live for 28 days as another person through an Oculus-Rift-like, virtual reality (VR) device. His project Seeing-I will take place in 2015 at a London gallery, based on the success of its Kickstarter campaign (and additional commercial and public funding).

Why has Farid decided to do this? From The Verge article “How to live for a month in virtual reality”:

"It’s to see if who we are is an individual identity, or if there is just a cultural identity that kind of takes us on,” says Farid. “I’ve grown up in the city my whole life. So everything that I’ve seen—the square gardens that we have, the tree that’s planted in that specific place, the way the wind travels down the road ... all of that is artificially created,” he says. “Every experience that we’re having is synthetic."

I'm curious how he will record these changes in identity. People write in a journal or diary to record personal thoughts or wander through writing in an attempt to solve problems or gain insight as they form their identity in real life (IRL). Could Farid write in a journal during his project?

If Farid were to keep a journal, a virtual reality technology could be an obstacle. With a headset constantly being worn throughout the project that shows another's life, Farid would not be able to see a journal and pen or laptop from his own perspective. This would make it impossible to write.

The desire to become another presents limitations, as well. Removing the headset to write during the project could take him out of the headspace of “Other”—the person whose life he will be virtually experiencing—too much. Doing so could even negate the immersive, identity-blending effects of living virtually as another.

For one hour during each 24-hour period, Farid will talk with a psychologist monitoring his health and well-being. Could he write down his thoughts for a bit during that time? Perhaps a modification in the VR headset could allow this? If so, who would Farid be writing for, and who would he be writing as?

Writing during this project could become an indicator of state of mind throughout it. If his identity is challenged or blended with the “Other” during this time, I think it would show in his writing, even though Farid may not be aware of it at the time. In addition, I wonder about the cognitive changes in his writing process that could occur. After looking through a virtual reality headset for so long, how would it affect his handwriting? Does a shift in the handwriting style signify some sort of identity shift, away from Mark Farid and towards someone else? How does a person attempting to live through another's life express written language, especially since whatpeople write is so tied to their thoughts and how they communicate?

I think adding a writing piece could result in a rich record of what the artist experiences during this project. If Farid cannot write during Seeing-I, he could write about the experience soon afterwards, in sort of a stream of consciousness/"brain-dump" way, to record as much memory, observation, analysis, and emotion from the experience as he can to refer to later.

Looking foward to hearing more about Seeing-I's progress. It hints at the possibility that science fiction offers with present society's beginning attempts to find virtual reality's place in our lives. The outcome could fuel creative imaginations, multimedia art and technology projects, and identity/virtual worlds research, also.

• Interested in being the "Other"? Applications are being accepted here.

• If understanding a brief history of virtual reality art projects intrigues you, read the above mentioned article from The Verge. It contains relevant outbound links to VR/art experiments that I had never heard of and is highly informative.

• After some thought, I have decided to email the Seeing-I project about my ideas from this post, and I will update if I hear anything back that merits an interesting share.

UPDATE (12/18/14): I emailed this post to the Seeing-I project and heard back from Nimrod Vardi, Curator/Director of Arebyte Gallery, which will be hosting it. To clarify some of my questions above, Mr. Vardi explained that at this stage, "Mark cannot be doing any writing as he will not see what or where he is writing." Still, he is completely subject to the Other's activities. If the Other writes, then Mark would write, and the project will have to figure out how to make that work. In addition, Seeing-I will now receive funding from commercial and public sources, plus funds from the Kickstarter campaign. I'll post updates as the project proceeds.

Be part of a global writing community, this Friday, October 19th

Image: "Miss A Writes a Song" by mrsdkrebs

The National Day on Writing takes place on Friday, October 19, 2012. This year, its creator the National Writing Project (NWP) is being joined by the National Council of Teachers of English, the New York Times Learning Network, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), Edutopia, Mozilla Hive Learning Network NYC, and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to expand the day’s reach.

For 2012, the NWP’s focus is on what people write. (Last year’s campaign highlighted why people write.) To participate this year, post your writing online and then share it via social media. From the NWP site:

We're encouraging everyone to share their actual writing in all its forms via Facebook , Twitter , Google+ , Instagram , or NWP Connect.

When tweeting out links to your compositions, include the hashtag #whatiwrite. If you have space, consider including the hashtags #nwp and #dayonwriting. Also include the #whatiwrite hashtag on Google+ and Instagram posts, and as a tag for your own blog or NWP Connect posts.

By using hashtags, anyone can find and then read or join the conversation. As the use of these hashtags increase, the topic trends on Twitter and more people read about it and can join. A community of self-identified writers grows from the communication.

Why join this community? The National Writing Project believes that "...writing, in its many forms, is the signature means of communication in the 21st century." To write well in the many online forms available today means to be heard and acknowledged. Posting writing online and getting feedback from the community helps writers hone their craft, spark new ideas, and create connections with other writers. All of this leads to more writing, and the more anyone writes, the better at it he or she will become.

Having the power to express oneself well through writing, in any community, has become a vital life skill in this digital and social-media-driven age.

This is my post for the 2012 Blog Action Day conversation on "the Power of We". #powerofwe #bad12

Searching for tweet-blogging

Image via Hjem

As I microblog (tweeting here) when I have a lot of non-blog writing to do, I've been looking for a way to feature choice tweets (of mine) on my blog. I tend to tweet interesting links I find, and I've been thinking about having a function to incorporate more lengthy discussion around a tweet.

At this point, there is no fluid integration which allows tweeters/bloggers to pick a tweet and have it automatically published on their blog. The tweet/blog conversation space I would like to see — and I think many others would, too — doesn't exist yet. If anyone knows of this functionality, please drop a comment. Based on comments I read at Get Satisfaction, I think TypePad may be working on this.

A tweet of 140 characters or less is a completely different way of communicating from a thousand-word blog post. A tweet, however, can be a conversation starter, but only if a space exists for users to carry on digitally, instantly, and easily. Also, I'd like to archive some tweets and present them later for further discussion, which is a blog's function, not that of a Twitter account.

Yesterday on Twitter, I followed a link from @anildash's tweet on his blog post "If you didn't blog it, it didn't happen." If you tweet or are simply interested in microblogging, I recommend reading it, as it brings up many issues for writers and technologists to consider about digital publishing in any format.

I also learned from Anil's post that Twitter will let users retrieve only their last 3200 tweets. While my tweet amount falls far below that threshold now, it will continue to move towards that limit. What do I do once I reach it? While I don't need to save all my tweeted minutiae, there are some that I'd like kept. Perhaps Twitter should incorporate an archive function within it, much like the "favorite" function, and a warning to users once they are within their limit, much like an email account (i.e., "You are using 80% of your allotted space. Please consider deleting files."). Anil also mentions ThinkUp, a social issue media app that "captures your posts, replies, retweets, friends, followers, and links on social networks like Twitter and Facebook." For archiving our social media lives, this is definitely on the right track.

When tweeting fluff becomes microblogging short-but-important missives, users will want a way to keep them. My homemade solution is to choose tweets I want to feature on my blog and then manually (not automatically and integrated between sites) make a post around them. This will help me extend the conversation my tweets have started while I'm doing lots of non-blog writing but still want to blog.

If anyone has any other ideas, please drop a comment. Meanwhile, my first tweet-post is in the works.

Time blends: A history and Photoshop gallery

Photo: "Berlin 1945/2010. Wrecked tank "Tiger" in Tiergarten park" by Sergey Larenkov

This photo set by Sergey Larenkov stunningly shows how even though time passes, ghosts or echoes of past events remain. Larenkov's images, including the one featured above, provide eerie glimpses of the violence and cost of World War II in Europe (his pictures focus on Berlin, Moscow and Vienna) merged with contemporary life that has clearly moved forward.

Using these with students could prompt a lot of understanding and discussion about historical events and the nature of history itself. Perhaps the photographer/artist should consider creating an educational book with historical commentary about the events and locations he shows.

A technically masterful use of the powerful tools and artistry in Photoshop, too. Compelling.

Found via Google Reader's shared postings stream — glad I happened upon it!

Mesmerizing: "Stop motion with wolf and pig." and questions about web culture

I found "Stop motion with wolf and pig." (see above) in a round-about way, one which has brought up some interesting considerations about Web culture.

While visiting swissmiss, I saw The PEN Story, a stop-motion video with a very distinctive style. I tweeted about it, I was so impressed by it. Then I read the comments associated with the post, and two commenters said that The PEN Story was a copy of "Stop motion with wolf and pig." I went to YouTube to see if that could be true.

I looked at the YouTube upload dates:

°Wolf and pig. — April 9, 2009
°PEN story — July 2, 2009 (almost 2 months later)

Countless animators use stop-motion techniques, and PEN clearly isn't a copy of Wolf. However, the visual narrative of PEN so completely mirrors Wolf that I'm surprised the follower didn't credit or reference the originator in some way.

Am I missing something? Is there a video created in this style with the same visual anchor points (i.e., envelope, table, room, water, path) even before Wolf? Are so many photographers/animators making videos in this style that its hard to find the precise starting point?

This raised many questions for me about inspiration, remixing and Web ethics in this closely connected and highly fluid digital environment. Anybody have details or thoughts which could help clarify this?

What did it feel like to go to the moon?

As I follow astronauts like Mike Massimino on Twitter as they tweet from space, it's easy to learn bits of what life is like beyond Earth's atmosphere.

Before Internet access and the development of Web 2.0 and social media, there were few widely available, multimedia records of the astronaut experience. Below is a compelling video clip from the documentary For All Mankind, directed by Al Reinert with a musical score by Brian Eno and originally released in 1989. (Its re-release on DVD is now available.) In a 2009 article, Reinert explained his focus behind the movie:

What I wanted to do was make a film that communicated what it felt like to go to the moon. Really put you in the shoes of the astronauts. That's still the kind of movie that I would want to watch.

The powerHouse Arena has just released Spacesuits: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Collection, featuring below image. (So interesting — I would definitely buy a print of this.)

 

Sometimes (actually, pretty regularly) I marvel at amount of quality information available through Web 2.0. I wonder what's next.

Video clip found on YouTube; "Astronaut Style" found at PUBLIC SCHOOL by BMD Love Blog via Gizmodo

Links:

° "Shot on location—'For All Mankind' filmmaker Al Reinert goes walking on the moon one more time" by Robert Faires, The Austin Chronicle, 13 March 2009

° NASA Astronauts / "NASA_Astronauts" on Twitter

Keeping up with Twitter

While I haven't blogged in awhile, I have been busy writing and reading (some online, most brick-and-mortar). One example: I'm closely following news about Twitter and mobile phones because I think they have incredibly potential for communication and creativity.

To keep track of this information for myself and to share with anyone else who is interested, I have started a Twitter articles page. It features links to noteworthy Twitter articles. From the page's intro:

Twitter, the free microblogging service started in 2006, has been used to influence elections in the United States and Iran, break news about natural disasters and political happenings, and gather donations to assist Haitians after the devastating January 2010 earthquake.

While critics deride Twitter, I continually find merit in it. It is powerful in a ground-level way, giving private citizens, companies, organizations and thought leaders (potentially influential) voice on any subject (significant and trivial) they desire. I look forward to seeing how it evolves.

So, will Twitter disappear, as other social networks have? In my opinion, no. It has substantial market share, and while anyone can create their own 140-character microblogging network, terms like "tweet", "tweeting", "followers", "Twitterville", etc. will most likely be synonymous for describing microblogging — referencing the only substantial, well-populated microblogging community existing today.

I read anything I can find about Twitter. Below is my list of noteworthy Twitter articles, including news on new developments, trends and uses of Twitter. It has been sifted to remove much of the fluff: while it's a noteworthy trend that many celebrities have found a comfortable, digital way to constantly communicate with tweet-reading fans, I won't report on it — they are easy enough to find on their own, and are often only "ego-casting" or "life-casting" (brief missives on what they ate for breakfast, what they're wearing, who they're hanging out with, etc.). 

I'll add to this as I find more articles. Questions and comments are always welcome.

(If you want to follow me on Twitter, click here. I don't life-cast, instead focusing on providing useful tech- and creativity-inspired tweets.

I'll announce new articles added in quick posts on this blog.

Regarding life-casting, I found a gem: the Museum of Modern Celebrity Tweets, which shows celebrity life-casting in a humorous light. Above is an illustration of a recent tweet by musician Nick Jonas. Odessa Begay is its illustrator and, I suppose, head curator. Found via Holy Kaw! at Alltop

FYI: My mobile phone articles page is in the works.

A health care news hunt continues at NewsTrust

 

The topic of U.S. health care reform has been top of mind for many. If you live in America, you have a stake in it, whether you're insured or not.

That's why the information we get from the media is so important. If it is well researched, accurately sourced and fair, the news will help us make better informed decisions because it helps us figure out what is really going on. If it is biased, poorly sourced and lacking in solid facts or statistics, it could misguide those of us who read or view it.

This week, NewsTrust and the Huffington Post's Eyes & Ears team have joined forces in a health care news hunt. The communities have found some of the best, most accurate and enlightening news and opinion pieces currently on the Web. Together, they've created an impressive collection which anyone can read and contribute to.

The news hunt runs through this Sunday. Read what the community has reviewed so far. If you'd like to join the hunt, click here.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Please leave a comment -- thanks!

Note: I am co-hosting this news hunt and I'm a NewsTrust staff member.

The Museum of Online Museums—Open 24/7/365

Photo: "Massive doors that weigh 3 tons each." by Daysleeper724

Coudal Partners' MoOM (Museum of Online Museums) gathers 150+ Web sites of museums, galleries and exhibitions into one comprehensive list. Quality ranges from polished sites affiliated with established museum institutions (like MoMA and the Rijksmuseum) to an individual collector's extensive Flickr stream (like vintage European cinema postcards, 1895-1970).

The MoOM offers a semi-curated virtual tour of a vast variety of collections (it is updated quarterly). It is organized yet also proves the Web is both wide and wild; such a diverse list reminds that the WWW expands endlessly and infinitely, unbounded by nothing but imagination's limits—and people's proclivities to put all this online.

A few I surveyed:

- Covers of a few thousand science fiction magazines: an interactive collage created with an inspiring use of Flash.
- The Grocery Lists Collection: almost 2,000 lists featured.
- AirlineMeals.net: the "world's first and leading website on nothing but airline food."
- The 1976 License Plate Retrospective: stunningly comprehensive.
- Record Envelope Gallery: the "little library of factory sleeves."

I could spend hours at Shorpy, a vintage photo blog linked from Plan 59. Whew, indeed.

UPDATE (4/23/09): From the Coudal Partners' email newsletter sent out today -- "Our Museum of Online Museums is currently under renovations for the Spring Exhibitions. Look for a slew of new showings and oddball collections in the next day or two."

PSFK Conference on April 2nd, NYC

Heads up, Creatives! The PSFK Conference in New York City, this Thursday starting at 9AM, offers an inspiring lineup of speakers in digital publishing, tech trends, green design, the arts and communications. A bit about its background:

Tailored for creative professionals, strategists and the media, we will host 12 lectures and panels on topics that include arts & culture, design, digital & mobile technology, marketing & advertising, sustainability, social media and publishing.

Attendees come to our events to share ideas with likeminds, so beyond the talks we will curate interactive experiences in the venue that bring our core themes to life.

PSFK Conference New York is the 8th conference hosted by PSFK following successful installments in London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Singapore.

Past speakers and panelists include creative visionaries and innovators from companies like Apple, BBC, Microsoft, MTV, NASA, Panasonic, Starbucks, Wieden + Kennedy, and the Guardian, and globally-recognized and inspiring creative minds including Shepard Fairey, Kate Moross and Jeff Staple.

Tickets are still available. If anyone reading this attends and blogs about it, drop a comment back by here so I can (a) read your blog post, and (b) link to it so others can read it. Thanks!