Monday, May 10, 2004
Congratulations!
It has been a pleasure and a privilege to work with you all this semester. Good luck on your final drafts, and please... keep playing and performing!
It has been a pleasure and a privilege to work with you all this semester. Good luck on your final drafts, and please... keep playing and performing!
Monday, May 03, 2004
Sky Ear
An interesting performance event scheduled for Tuesday night May 5 7 PM London-time, which I believe is 11 AM our time; you're all invited to log on and join in! Here's a description of the high-tech, collective performance:
"Sky Ear will be a one-night event in which a glowing 'cloud' of mobile phones and helium balloons is released into the air so that people can dial into the cloud and listen to the sounds of the sky.
The cloud will be made of one thousand large helium balloons each responding to the electromagnetic environment (created by distant storms, mobile phones, police and ambulance radios, television broadcasts, etc.) with coloured blue, red and yellow lights.
The balloons will be enclosed in a carbon fibre and net structure 25m in diameter tethered to the ground by 6 cables and held aloft at a height of 60m where it will remain for several hours. Using mobile phones people will be able to listen to the actual sounds up high, the electromagnetic sounds of the sky as well as streams of whistlers and spherics (atmospheric electromagnetic phenomena that are the audible equivalent of the Northern Lights).Of course, the action of calling the cloud changes the electromagnetic environment inside and causes the balloons to vary in brightness, colour and intensity. "
Click here for more info and here for the live Webcast!
An interesting performance event scheduled for Tuesday night May 5 7 PM London-time, which I believe is 11 AM our time; you're all invited to log on and join in! Here's a description of the high-tech, collective performance:
"Sky Ear will be a one-night event in which a glowing 'cloud' of mobile phones and helium balloons is released into the air so that people can dial into the cloud and listen to the sounds of the sky.
The cloud will be made of one thousand large helium balloons each responding to the electromagnetic environment (created by distant storms, mobile phones, police and ambulance radios, television broadcasts, etc.) with coloured blue, red and yellow lights.
The balloons will be enclosed in a carbon fibre and net structure 25m in diameter tethered to the ground by 6 cables and held aloft at a height of 60m where it will remain for several hours. Using mobile phones people will be able to listen to the actual sounds up high, the electromagnetic sounds of the sky as well as streams of whistlers and spherics (atmospheric electromagnetic phenomena that are the audible equivalent of the Northern Lights).Of course, the action of calling the cloud changes the electromagnetic environment inside and causes the balloons to vary in brightness, colour and intensity. "
Click here for more info and here for the live Webcast!
Final Creative Intervention Document
For Friday, please bring a final creative intervention document. Your document should include 3 pages of double-spaced text broken up into 3 labeled parts:
1. The Pitch
2. Description and Specifications
3. Analysis
--The pitch is a revised and polished version of your blog pitch. (Of course, if you're working on a completely new idea, it will be a new and polished pitch! Yes, it IS okay to submit an idea you haven't previously posted a pitch for.)
--The description and specifications should address the majority of specifications suggested on your game, performance or theatrical worksheet. Feel free to include other kinds of information and description as you feel necessary!
--The analysis should briefly state the thesis or argument you wish your game to reflect, and should also point out specific details of your design that help you make this argument. Explain how each detail supports your overall thesis.
ADDITIONALLY:
--If you are having fun writing your description and it runs a little long, that's okay. There is no maximum page limit for this assignment. (The research paper DOES have a strict maximum of 12 pages however.)
--You may choose to submit any additional creative materials that help you make your point: a sketch of a costume or set design; a layout of a performance space; a few sample playing cards; a page of dialogue; a logo; use your imagination as wildly as you want. This is definitely NOT REQUIRED, but for those of you so inspired, it will certainly help you make your point more persuasively (and of course, I'd love to see your creative handiwork!)
For Friday, please bring a final creative intervention document. Your document should include 3 pages of double-spaced text broken up into 3 labeled parts:
1. The Pitch
2. Description and Specifications
3. Analysis
--The pitch is a revised and polished version of your blog pitch. (Of course, if you're working on a completely new idea, it will be a new and polished pitch! Yes, it IS okay to submit an idea you haven't previously posted a pitch for.)
--The description and specifications should address the majority of specifications suggested on your game, performance or theatrical worksheet. Feel free to include other kinds of information and description as you feel necessary!
--The analysis should briefly state the thesis or argument you wish your game to reflect, and should also point out specific details of your design that help you make this argument. Explain how each detail supports your overall thesis.
ADDITIONALLY:
--If you are having fun writing your description and it runs a little long, that's okay. There is no maximum page limit for this assignment. (The research paper DOES have a strict maximum of 12 pages however.)
--You may choose to submit any additional creative materials that help you make your point: a sketch of a costume or set design; a layout of a performance space; a few sample playing cards; a page of dialogue; a logo; use your imagination as wildly as you want. This is definitely NOT REQUIRED, but for those of you so inspired, it will certainly help you make your point more persuasively (and of course, I'd love to see your creative handiwork!)
If my project were a theatrical play...
Please post a brief pitch designed to attract an audience for your theatrical intervention! Be sure to add a few explanatory sentences to explain the design connections to the central argument of your research project.
And please remember to give each other feedback before Wednesday 4PM!
Please post a brief pitch designed to attract an audience for your theatrical intervention! Be sure to add a few explanatory sentences to explain the design connections to the central argument of your research project.
And please remember to give each other feedback before Wednesday 4PM!
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Live action Pac Man comes to Berkeley?
Performance meets gaming meets public spectacle... a group of NYU students working under the direction of Frank Lantz (The Big Urban Game and Ironclad, remember them?) have created a set of rules of playing/performing a live action Pac Man game in any city space. They've tested it in Manhattan and are looking for other cities to try it out... so, of course, I'm totally game. 10 players required for a play test; 5 who run through the streets (one pac-man and 4 ghosts) and 5 who stay inside in a "control center" giving directions and strategies to their street partner. Anyone else game? Would probably run it shortly after finals.... and we would probably not do the silly floppy costumes they have... something visually cool and interesting, but maybe not quite so... fluffy.
Performance meets gaming meets public spectacle... a group of NYU students working under the direction of Frank Lantz (The Big Urban Game and Ironclad, remember them?) have created a set of rules of playing/performing a live action Pac Man game in any city space. They've tested it in Manhattan and are looking for other cities to try it out... so, of course, I'm totally game. 10 players required for a play test; 5 who run through the streets (one pac-man and 4 ghosts) and 5 who stay inside in a "control center" giving directions and strategies to their street partner. Anyone else game? Would probably run it shortly after finals.... and we would probably not do the silly floppy costumes they have... something visually cool and interesting, but maybe not quite so... fluffy.
