Constant Association for Art and Media: an interdisciplinary arts-lab
"Constant works in-between media and art and is interested in the culture and ethics of the World Wide Web. The artistic practice of Constant is inspired by the way that technological infrastructures, data-exchange and software determine our daily life. Free software, copyright alternatives and (cyber)feminism are important threads running through the activities of Constant.
Constant organizes workshops, print-parties, walks and 'Verbindingen/Jonctions'-meetings on a regular basis for a public that's into experiments, discussions and all kinds of exchanges."
(Constant)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Learning Communities: new students sharing common experiences
"In their most basic form, learning communities employ a kind of co-registration or block scheduling that enables students to take courses together. The same students register for two or more courses, forming a sort of study team. In a few cases this may mean sharing the entire first-semester curriculum together so that all new students in that learning community are studying the same material. Sometimes it will link all freshmen by tying two courses together for all - most typically a course in writing with a course in selected literature, or biographies, or current social problems. In the larger universities such as the University of Oregon and the University of Washington, students in a learning community attend lectures with 200–300 other students but stay together for a smaller discussion section (Freshman Interest Group) led by a graduate student or upper division student. In a very different setting, Seattle Central Community College students in the Coordinated Studies Program take all their courses together in one block of time so that the community meets two or three times a week for four to six hours at a time."
(Vincent Tinto, 1997, p.2)
1). Vincent Tinto (1997). "Universities as Learning Organizations", About Campus 1(6) January/February 1997, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/abc.v1:6/issuetoc]
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Furtherfield: co-creation, swapping and sharing code, music, images, video and ideas
"Vision: We believe that through creative and critical engagement with practices in art and technology people are inspired and enabled to become active co-creators of their cultures and societies. ...
Mission: Our mission is to co-create extraordinary art that connects with contemporary audiences providing innovative, engaging and inclusive digital and physical spaces for appreciating and participating in practices in art, technology and social change.
Who We Are and What We Do?: Furtherfield was founded by artists Ruth Catlow and Marc Garrett in 1997 and sustained by the work of its community as the Internet took shape as a new public space for internationally connected cultural production.
Furtherfield is now a dynamic, creative and social nerve centre where upwards of 26,000 contributors worldwide have built a visionary culture around co-creation - swapping and sharing code, music, images, video and ideas.
A Not-for-Profit Private Limited Company since 2009, Furtherfield has received regular funding from Arts Council England since 2005 which supports artistic programmes with a local, national and international reach as well as innovative outreach projects and the development of new forms of infrastructure and digitally enabled participation and engagement in the arts.
Digital Communities for Co-creation: Through our online platforms for review, discussion, reflection, sound exploration, conversation and audiovisual mash-ups, specialist and amateur artists, designers, activists, thinkers, and technologists come together to cultivate open, engaging and stimulating contexts for making and thinking."
(Furtherfield)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Continue: from simple bifurcation to a graduated field of complexity
"*_Zu Beginn sind auf dem Bildschirm eine weiße und eine schwarze Fläche sichtbar, in denen Continue bzw. 'quit' geschrieben stehen. Entscheidet man sich per Mausklick für die zweite Möglichkeit verlässt man die Arbeit. Entscheidet man sich für die erste Variante, so verdoppelt sich jeweils die Zahl der Felder. Bald sind die sich stets verkleinernden Flächen nicht mehr als einzelne zu erkennen und mit der Maus ist kein eindeutige Wahl mehr zu treffen.
Continue ist eine minimalistische, konzeptuelle Arbeit, die immer wieder neu die immer gleiche Frage nach dem Fortsetzen des interaktiven Prozesses stellt."
(ZKM)
Fig.1,2,3 Dieter Kiessling (2002). 'Continue', artintact #4/2 in Jeffrey Shaw and Astrid Sommer Eds.'artintact', Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe
[The work progresses from distinct binary divisions identified as 'Quit' or 'Continue' to progressively smaller and smaller subdivisions creating an increasingly cinereous/greyer and more graduated field. In this way the work can be used as a metaphor to illustrate a type of complexity which Basil Bernstein describes as strong classification of discourse where 'the progression will be from concrete local knowledge, to the mastery of simple operations, to more abstract general principles' (2000, p.11).]
Bernstein, Basil. (2000). 'Pedagogy Symbolic Control and Identity, Theory Research Critique'. Oxford, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
The death and rebirth of Duke Nukem Forever: a history
"Duke Nukem Forever was announced in 1997, after its predecessor, Duke Nukem 3D, had rocked the PC market with a hero who liked kicking ass, hanging out with strippers, and murdering alien police officers that were, literally, pigs. It was inappropriate, raunchy, and amazing.
It was also one of the games that gave 3D Realms the success that brought its destruction. Duke Nukem Forever began life as a completely self-funded game; its developer wanted nothing less than perfection, and would chase every update in technology in order to deliver it. The game saw monumental delays, suffered the slings and arrows of a gaming world that was first angry and then tolerant of its favorite whipping boy, had its home taken away, and has since risen from the dead.
Is the public still interested in Duke Nukem? Hell yes it is. This is the story of the gaming industry's favorite joke, and how Duke may finally have the last laugh."
(Ben Kuchera, 7 September 2010)
Fig.1 'Duke Nukem Forever | History of a Legend Episode 1', 2011
Fig.2 trailer from Electronic Entertainment Expo, 1998
Fig.3 video capture of 1991 side-scrolling 'Duke Nukum' version
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
