A SMALL BREAK FROM THE DAILY MIND FOR ANYONE WHO LIKES TO GEEK OUT OVER STREET ART, TECHNOLOGY, SMARTY PANTS INNOVATIONS, EMERGENT MEDIA & OTHER NEW STUFF.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Storytron


Gamers wanting a deeper narrative, story lovers wishing they could step inside the action, or simply anyone interested in the next wave of gaming will want to check out Storytron, software for interactive storytelling that is now available in pre-alpha.

Creative types can use Storytron's Storyworld Authoring Tool (called Swat) to construct a "universe of dramatic possibilities" by establishing the personalities and agendas of a set of characters, along with other elements like locations, props and occurrences. Players within one of these created Storyworlds are story protagonists; their actions shape events.

Some in the gaming community are skeptical of Crawford's efforts but if you're an intrepid early adopter, you can download a version of Swat and start creating your dramas today.

by Jonathan Gottlieb
Check out the full story at Coolhunting.com

Friday, May 11, 2007

hell.com



The idea of net.art has been around for quite some time and is starting to get some attention on the web as several projects become more visible.
Wikipedia defines this kind of Internet art as art projects for which the Net is both a sufficient and necessary condition of viewing/expressing/participating.Net.artists use the web to communicate – often utilising URL addresses as part of the piece or message and also to give the ‘piece of art’ a sense of ownership. And in English... this basically means that if the artwork is made up of a URL and then a clever message on the homepage when The URL loads, then that particular work cannot be reproduced without the URL because the URL is intrinsic to the piece. Got it? Here’s an example – log on to www.hell.com and you will receive the following homepage. This my friends, is net.art.

Whilst some of you will be scratching your heads trying to work out why someone would bother creating that, looking at that or even writing about it, remember that part of being innovative is looking for people who think and approach things differently. Net.art is a completely different approach to not only the idea of art, but also the function of web pages and internet addresses.

So geek out over that.

lonelygirl15



By now we’ve all wasted countless hours downloading video content from Youtube.com, the latest portal in the rise of me-media. Anyone can create video content and upload it onto Youtube where users can search by subject or content creator. One set of videos which has been creating quite a stir of late is LonelyGirl15. The downloads started out as a series of videos apparently filmed and edited by a young teenager who is homeschooled by strict religious parents. The videos appear as if they are “home diaries” fi lmed by her friend Daniel and cover the day to day aspects of her life as a teenager.

Since the videos started airing there has been much controversy online about whether the footage (always tightly scripted, shot and edited) is the work of a professional fi lmmaking group. Adding to the speculation is the URL www.lonelygirl15.com
(currently inactive) which was live and registered 2 weeks before the
first video appeared on YouTube. A quick Google search on “Lonelygirl15” will give you over 2 million links suggesting that this is one project which has captured
the interest of many users online.

Speculation surrounding the ‘project’ suggests that the videos were created by a talent agent company as a ‘microdrama’ using Youtube as a new platform “giving birth to a new artform”. I work in petrol or slippers or pasta I hear you say.... what use is Lonelygirl15 to me? Well... hush a while... Judging by the incredibly high profi le and enormous popularity of the project(go on...do a search yourself) we can
see that an innovative approach to marketing (using a mini-drama narrative
to showcase talent) and an innovative distribution channel (free exposure on
Youtube) can provide more talkability and profile than your average television
spot ever could. And the nice thing about keeping abreast of new media
is that often it takes more guts and creativity than it does dollars. In the
case of Lonelygirl15, it took very few dollars indeed.

Labels: