fisharepeopletoo

Academic Enquiry*

i/ We want to understand what might be effective tools and techniques
for creating satisfying location aware play/narratives** [and assuming our version of it to be
technologically enabled in some way]

ii/ From the run of Five Trees Forest events (in two office buildings and a sixth form college), start to isolate [in a repeatable and demonstrable way] what those tools and techniques might be.

iii/ Measure how effectively Five Trees Forest deploys those tools and
techniques.

iv/ use that measurement to inform new location aware play.

My guess as to what the effective tools and techniques might be (not
all deployed in Five Trees Forest), is some combination of:

location sensing technology (which technologies might be better or
worse? - is NFC better than GPS, is an SMS keyword better than NFC?)
shared public space
narrative
game play
rules
individual creativity and self expression
communal activity
real world identity/anonymity
presence
peer pressure
face-to-face interactions
web sites
printed paper
mobile phones
archives and databases
screens
sense of place
sense of belonging

which is the sort of list that includes just about everything, ever.

*We've been enquiring into this since 2002 if not before, but not academically.
** My half-arsed (though based on a great deal of practical experience) observations on "What is location aware play?" coming shortly. Whether it's a meaningful or valuable thing to try and create, I might skip for the time being.

Blink in Chinese

Some of Blink's work appears in a new book called Contemporary Art of Science and Technology by Chinese new media artist and academic Zhang Yanxiang.





















The book is funded by the China Association for Science and Technology and the National Philosophy & Social Innovation Base for Sci-Tech History & Sci-Tech Civilization (China), both of which sound pretty hard core to me.








I don't honestly know what that says but it looks good and I'm just pleased that something we've done has got from a small former mill town in the north of England, all the way to China.

Here are the snakes and ladders looking cool as ever, even in black and white:












In glorious technicolour here they are

And if you read Chinese, here are the full details of the book:

Contemporary Art of Science and Technology
ISBN:        978-7-03-020415-8
Press name:  Science Press
Language:      Chinese
660 pages (62 pages in color)

Let's Enchant Us!

"Finally, the third looks at artistic endeavours to re-enchant and contest the urban informational landscape of urban sentience." says Professor Stephen Graham.

Enchant - what a great word.*

To cast a spell over; bewitch.

To attract and delight; entrance.

We could use poems, or monsters, or sprites and witches.

Or anything you want.

"Be not afeard.
                        The isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked, I cried to dream again."

Caliban, The Tempest, William Shakespeare, Act III Scene 2, Lines 138-146

* and let's even let the Professor off with that "re-" [academics love their "re-" "I will now re-heat this pizza, and we will critically contest the extra slice."]

A Nest of Nokia NFC Phones

A nest of Nokia NFC phones to use in Five Trees Forest.

As everyone knows, sprites like to live in mobile phones when they are hiding from the witches because the warm batteries are cosy, and the radio waves make them giggle.

Artists in Residence in World of Warcraft

My friends and DRU colleagues Alison Mealey and Tom Betts are going to be artists in residence in World of Warcraft.

To get the job they had to journey many leagues to a pig farm in the game (not sure why a pig farm) and be interviewed by a panel of wizards, dwarves and other mythical characters, possibly riding giant chickens.

I've never played World of Warcraft, and don't really understand what goes on except it's lots of fighting and you get to travel by chicken, but for some reason I really enjoy hearing about it, it seems to have its own language and lore that are fun to follow in a way that I don't feel about Second Life, which seems, from the same viewpoint of total ignorance, to lack silliness.

Valentine's Day Text Message Love Poems

If you've forgotten to buy a Valentine's card, or want to follow it up with even more luurve, there is a selection of text message sized love poems here (click "thumb love").

SPARKLERS
I write your name:
in traces in the dark;
on flat, wet sand;
in breath on windowpanes.

Bates Mill Motel

Given a fair wind and a bit of cash, Lisa is going to be building her own temporary hotel for people coming to this year's We Love Technology and thirty-first Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

It'll be housed in some of the empty floors in Bates's Mill, which is where we have our desks as part of the DRU and is the venue for the festival's most fantastic bits (and they were most fantastic last year - until you've seen a Latvian hammering six inch nails into a piano keyboard in the name of art in a gigantic hanger-sized former industrial shed you haven't lived).

For the Bates Mill Motel to be built will need things to fall into place quite soon (building your own temporary hotel is no small undertaking), but fingers crossed, and she already has some architects coming over from Rotterdam to have a look at the available floor space.

Even if it doesn't happen, you can see exactly how good it would have been from reading the WLT blog. Louis Vuitton Victorian-era suitcase travelling beds anyone?

Sheffield Wants to Join the Republic

Sheffield decides to join the Republic of M62pia.

(This movement is ready for its first T shirts.)

Smexting

"Smexting v. Texting while smoking, often outside a bar. The phenomenon is being spurred by smoking bans, most recently in the UK."

Having seen the poor smokers shivering outside all winter, this seems instantly recognisable and lovely (even though they are all busy killing themselves at the time.)

Given any in-between moments, we want to tear off and send one of those leaves (no pun) , as a comfort to ourselves as much as the person we are sending to.

It's from here, and I found it here.

Map of England

 

I stole it from a very clever selection of maps on b3ta, where it was posted by this bloke (i think).