hey! I think I am going to be sending this out on Tuesdays going forward? Mondays are a lil bit of a day for me to like, ~settle myself~ for the week these days.
ages ago I thought I would do a second newsletter, maybe more about internet history. it came from a nostalgia for when the internet felt “good” (actually weird? actually funny? more than just five websites, each consisting of screenshots of text from the other four?). I wanted to write something about half-remembered, yet iconic memes that reveal a thing that was.
anyway Brian Feldman’s BNet is basically that, with plenty of personal ramblings and oddities, and more relevant contemporary commentary. this week’s has some musings on specialized jacket pockets for technology that no longer exists, but a recent personal fav is this deep dive of internet archaeology dead ends. he makes me wish I could still log into my tumblr account and yet grateful that I don’t have to since he seems to do a pretty good job of separating the wheat from the chaff.
if you want to spend less time on bad screen, BNet is a nice compromise. get some internet highlights straight to your inbox and gtf-offline.
resource roundup!
I am pretty well overwhelmed with a lot of news media right now, for obvious reasons, so I was dreading listening to the latest episode of Reply All. a deep dive into QAnon did not feel like the thing I wanted to be thinking about. I’ve been feeling a little like: am I wrong? am I being too paranoid about the pathways of misinformation and outrage I am seeing? if you’re on that wavelength as well, take a listen here. the subject matter is quite heavy, but I left the episode feeling a strange sense of relief via confirmation. I’m not nuts, and we should all be reexamining the things we are seeing online.
Freya Holmér has been giving a course on math for game dev via Twitch, with videos archived to her Twitch account, with edited recordings coming soon to Youtube2. the next live sessions will be Sept 23, 28, & 30 at 9:00-15:00 UTC+5. check out yesterday’s session here! the course includes assignments so you can practice with some hands-on work. nice!
Harry Alisavakis’ blog has some nice deep dives into his work with shaders in Unity. this recent post on a stylized shader for water is particularly nicely documented, with lots of line by line details on the process to give you a nice grounding for tinkering and finding your own inspiration.
here’s a cute lil project video on circuit bending an SNES to make a video synthesizer, that walks through one creator’s process! “something about circuit bending is that you almost don’t have to know anything about electronics, just connect 2 points together on a circuit board and hope something cool will happen….”:
this little tool by Graham Allan uses the city game tileset by withering systems for building maps in the browser! lots of settings to tinker with for making your own little world.
this Github repo serves as a demo for using Pts to draw poses estimated by tensorflow.js’s PoseNet. neat! you can tinker with it to make things like the Matisse-inspired cut-out above. star this one for later!
open calls!
Pixelles, a non-profit org dedicated to empowering more women to make and change games, has an open call for speakers to give 45 minute webinars to a mixed audience of Gameloft employees and members of the Pixelles community. speakers will receive a remuneration of $500 CAD. learn more and submit by TOMORROW here!
the curators of “In VR we trust,” are seeking works that deal critically with with VR as a medium and question its value as an artistic tool. learn more here and submit by Sept 30.
Babycastles has just announced a new residency for this fall, as a platform for making and presenting new work! applications are due Sept 25, so learn more here and start working on that application!
Hackaday is hosting another Circuit Sculpture Challenge! entries are due by November 10. learn more here.
education opportunities!
Understanding Media Intensive is a 12-part look at Marshall McLuhan’s “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man,” taught by Andrew McLuhan on Oct 3. this sounds like it could be a great way to recenter your relationship with media. learn more here.
+CODE is a Buenos Aires-based organization with a number of virtual Spanish-language workshops, talks, and seminars on the calendar for this fall! you can check out the available programs here.
CUNA, an interdisciplinary school in Mexico City, has kicked off some online programming this month, with classes in English and Spanish! you can learn more here.
School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe also has their roster of online offerings for the fall. check out the full roster here!
HackadayU has pay-as-you-wish classes, with all proceeds going to socially conscious causes. you can check out all the available courses here.
📅 upcoming events!
Sept 23-26! the 6th annual Gray Area Festival, Radical Simulation, starts TOMORROW and is worth your time! the lineup includes an exhibition curated by Salome Asega, daily interactive video lounges, workshops, and more! check out the full schedule and register here! get excited by this preview of the exhibition:
Welcome to the cutting room floor! ✂️🎞I curated a virtual show for this year’s Gray Area Festival (@grayareaorg) launching September 23rd. Bin Ends features video clips, character sketches, sound and textural experiments that didn’t make the final cut from a range of new media projects — short films, animated series, immersive experiences, sound installations, sculptures, and more. These offcuts give us a deeper look into an artist’s iterative and editing process. Think of this show as the special extended edition of your most prized DVD where you’re able to explore the twists and turns an artist takes on the path to building a story and world.
Artists: American Artist, Orian Barki and Meriem Bennani, Margot Bowman, Alfredo Salazar-Caro, E. Jane, Tongkwai Lulin, Romi Ron Morrison, Olivia McKayla Ross, Bassem Saad
Thank you @kelaninichole and @grayareaorg for the invitation. Shout out @nikistyxx and @d0n.xyz for setting us up in the @newart.city virtual gallery 💙
Make sure to check out the full festival because so many of my favs are speaking including @dinkins.studio , @morehshin, @ruha9, @phazero, and @studioamelia.September 18, 2020
Oct 5-11! for this year’s 7×7, Rhizome will be collaborating with Kunsthall Stavanger in Norway for an online-only conference of 7 days of art-tech premieres. the projects engage urgent subjects such as synthetic biology, the circulation of pathogens, quantum computing, virtuality and mixed reality, and rethinking social media dynamics. learn more and RSVP here!
just for lulz!
this is just an oldie but a goodie of a mix that is A+ if you need something to get ur butt wiggling a little this week.
*~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. if you wanna share links or chat, there is now a Discord server that you can use here.
