as a fan of FMV Quest, I was pleasantly surprised by the pretty serious take in this article about the making and legacy of 1996’s Ripper. don’t worry, there’s still a clip of Christopher Walken swearing as corrupt detective who is very barely outside of the uncanny valley. but it also dives into some interesting issues around preservation of digital works and the extreme labor conditions of digital production, and draws a surprising connection between the two. when your art is made of code and hardware, and no one can maintain either end of it, your art’s not just doomed to disappear – your labor also has to be replicated from scratch by anyone who’s inspired to create in the same direction.
ok, but it’s Monday morning, so if you’re not ready to get totally existential about the nature of digital creation, I recommend just sneaking this FMV play through on your lunch break:
resource roundup!
if you haven’t had enough of the Untitled Goose Game yet, maybe you wanna try hacking together this voice-activated costume controller that really makes those honks count. this tutorial the Adafruit MONSTER M4SK into a USB controller for some truly satisfying honks.
I never give enough love to typography in here, which is a huge part of so many creative experiences! I stumbled upon Collletttivo a few weeks ago, an online digital font publishing platform for type design experiments. all of the designs are free and Open-Source, so go get inspired and think about using one of their fonts in your next project!
as I’ve been tinkering with Blender and Unity over the past few weeks, it’s been inspiring to see how many different ways there are to approach making with these tools. case in point, here’s a lil tutorial from Max Turnbull on how he created his big crunchy pixels look for his upcoming LAUNDRY GAME. check it out!
do you love murder mysteries? do you want to learn SQL? well guess what, there’s been a murder in SQL City! SQL Murder Mystery is a self-directed lesson by Joon Park and Cathy He for learning SQL concepts and commands, and is literally the first time in my life when I’ve wanted to spend unpaid time on SQL queries. there’s even a web-based version so that you don’t have to muck around with the GitHub repo to get started.
did you know that NASA has a Scientific Visualization Studio with amazing resources? case in point, they recently released color and elevation maps of the moon, designed for use in 3D rendering. your project needs a moon! go get it!
? upcoming events!
Saturday, October 19! New River Studios! London, UK: Electrolights AV is an experimental audio-visual night spanning two rooms in New River Studios. it’s an inclusive, non-judgmental party that welcomes everyone who is into auto-visual, experimental dance music, and raw sounds. resident Lia Mice is a personal fav of mine, as is guest A’Bear. the party is a steal at £5 for early bird tickets, so go get yours ASAP. if you can’t make it to the gig, this playlist by A’Bear is some solid music to get you in the mood for making, and I also love this track.
also Sat, October 19! Brooklyn Community Pride Center! Brooklyn, NY USA: Brooklyn Community Pride Center in collaboration with the Tech Learning Collective presents: Digital Defenses for the People: Practical Digital Security. this 2-hour, beginner-friendly introduction to digital safety will cut through the fear, uncertainty and doubt generated by not-so-great depictions of these important concerns in the media. if you are as burned out as I am by Twitter meltdowns and listicles and actually want to learn how to protect yourself in a constructive way, I recommend checking this out! you can learn more and get tickets here, and as always TLC is offering a discounted rate for the suggested donation for queer-identified and femme people.
Wednesday, October 23! Eyebeam! Brooklyn, NY USA: LaJuné McMillian, Yussef Cole, and Aimee Meredith Cox will be in conversation around digitizing Black movement in ethical ways. LaJuné has been developing The Black Movement Project, an online database of motion capture data from Black performers and Black character base models, over the past year as the 2019 Eyebeam Access Resident:
What does it mean to ethically digitize Black movement? How do we protect data that is collected, and how can it better serve and celebrate the community? How can we effectively challenge digital tools that don’t share these values, and gain control and ownership of our collective future?
this event is already waitlisted, but take that as an opportunity to do a much-deserved internet deep dive on LaJuné’s work. you can learn more and join the waitlist here.
Oct 23 – Dec 23! Centre Georges Pompidou! Paris, France: Cosmopolis is back with it’s second edition of residencies, exhibitions, discursive programs, and publications. there’s a full calendar of events running through the end of the year that you can check out here!
Wednesday, Oct 23! Merz Akademie! Stuttgart, Germany: Olia Lialina, net artist, vernacular web researcher, and keeper of the GeoCities Research Institute archive, will be giving a workshop. you can learn more about the workshop and how to apply to attend here. there are also 3 additional dates across Europe.
Saturday, Nov 9! ITP NYU! NYC, NY USA: the computer mouse conference centers around the idea of re-imagine the mouse as an object. the conference will feature 8 artists, 6 speakers, and 3 panelists presenting work on this theme- looks rad and unique! you can learn more and RSVP here!
opportunities!
Res Artis just launched a big redesign of their online platform, and it’s worth checking out if you’re starting to think about residencies for 2020. it’s definitely best viewed on desktop, but the search options are especially useful now, and even include filtering for wheelchair accessibility.
FEM TEK has an open call for 3 virtual residencies with an endowment of 500 euros each: one centering on the idea of “tutorial,” one for a theoretical investigation in progress, and one for a process of investigation via artistic practice. the open call ends on October 27, so get cracking! you can learn more here. (FEM TEK is based in Bilbao, and as such the materials are in Spanish and Basque.)
UCLA Game Lab is hiring for tenure-track assistant or associate professor of games and VR/AR/XR/animation! the deadline for applications is October 20. you can learn more and apply here.
the Internet Yami-Ichi is back, this time as part of the TENTACULAR Festival 2019 in Madrid. participation is free of charge, and you can apply to sell your internet-like things here by November 3.
Arts Catalyst has an open call for artists based in Yorkshire for 2020. you can learn more and apply here by November 1!
a bunch of these wrong biennial open calls are still, well, open, so take a look if it feels like something you’d be into! a few that looked particularly interesting to me: netart ICU, squatted.online, MEGALITH.
the Queerness and Games Conference (QGCON) has an open call for speakers and games for May 2020! submit your proposal by October 15 to be considered for either opportunity. you can learn more about the open call for speakers here and for games here.
Olin College of Engineering is seeking applicants for its creative residency program, an initiative that’s part of Sketch Model. you can learn more and apply by November 15 here.
the European Media Art Platform has an open call for media artists in the fields of digital media with applications due by December 2. you can learn more here.
Rhizome has a rolling open call for their 2019-2020 microgrants! you can learn more & apply here!
just for lulz!
idk this seems like the ideal way to implement hat + cat to me:
*~housekeeping~*
if you have anything in the works that you are excited about (an event, a workshop, a new project), please send me all the details. the next newsletter will cover the week of October 21 – 27, but I’m happy to promote events further in the future as well and keep them on the calendar.
keep an eye out for a special Halloween spooktacular issue THIS WEEK!
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