Tumbarumba First Lines, #9 and 10: Jeff and John

Tumbarumba launches tomorrow! Here's the penultimate teaser from Ben, my collaborator on the project:

Hmm, well, I missed yesterday, and also it may be that I cannot exactly count. So: two today, and two tomorrow.

The first lines of John Phillip Olsen's Tumbarumba story, "Birthday":

Neil wants to drive faster, but the troop transport truck in front slows him down. In the back of the truck, the young soldiers point and laugh at Neil and his passengers.

And that of Jeff Spock's, "Of Love and Mermaids":

In the morning sun coming hard off the sea the two children are profiles, jumping and laughing on the sand. The seagulls circle above the palms, hunting unwary clams or unclaimed French fries.

We sit at a table on the hotel's terrace right by the edge of the sand, sipping coffee. My left hand lies atop her right, holding hands with the practiced indifference of people who have held the same hands for ten years or more. It is a comfort, a reflex; as re-affirming--and exciting--as pulling on an old pair of shoes or re-reading your favorite book.

I snagged these two (along with Stephen Gaskell's) at Villa Diodati 3 in Nice.

Tumbrumba ships tomorrow. I can't wait!

Tumbarumba First Lines, #8: Dave S.

Oops, in a tryptophan stupor, I forgot to repost this yesterday:

The first lines of David Schwartz's Tumbarumba story, "MonstroCities":

SEND ONE

Not the NEEDLEBOARD races on Dillinger Four or the SCISSORBALL playoffs in the Solomon system; not the solar sled slaloms of the Andromeda Games or Cosmos Flanagan's run at the smartdisc passing record. Not even the mag-hot excitement of the Team Orgy Invitational is this week's biggest sporting event. No, MAXFANS, the most-wanted assignment this week here at the mothernet is the BIG BIG BIG BATTLE ROYALE of the Second Moon Fighting League, and who do you suppose is Sending from a Wormcruiser burrowing its way towards the Jocelyn system? Me, GEIGERTRON GOGOMEZ, the most beloved chronicler of sport since Tolkien scrawled The Iliad on a papyrus scroll.

Three more days!

Tumbarumba First Lines, #7: Greg

Today's teaser from Ben about our Tumbarumba project (due to be released on December 1st):

The first lines of Greg van Eekhout's Tumbarumba story, "Temp":

On Monday she wears Spandex and black leather. Unfortunately, her mask covers only her eyes, so after the bank robbers use spasm gas, she spends the rest of the morning with facial twitches. Later, her grappling gun comes apart in her hand, and crooks in a helicopter make off with a Michelangelo.

Four more days until your computer is infected with these intrusions.

(Did I mention Tumbarumba is sponsored by Turbulence and, apparently, funded by the Jerome Foundation? Apparently it is.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tumbarumba First Lines, #6: Stephen

My collaborator's build up to our Tumbarumba project's release continues:

The first lines of Stephen Gaskell's Tumbarumba story, "Reunion":

Peter slowed up, the streets unfamiliar.

He'd have asked for directions, but the narrow pavements were empty of life. Terraced houses packed both sides of the road, the dim flicker of televisions visible beyond dirty net curtains. He pictured an old couple, dinners on their laps, attention glued to the latest episode of Eastenders as they mechanically ferried some horrible slop into their mouths.

Stephen's was one of three stories that I snagged at the Villa Diodati workshop. Now wasn't that a productive little trip to Nice?

My Dad was inspired to do a little research. He notes, "the poem Tumba Bloody Rumba" -- which made "tumbarumba" a synonym for "tmesis" -- "seems to have been heavily influenced by Robert W. Service."

Five more days, until you can get your Tumbarumba on.

Updated website

For quite a while I've been wanting to update my website... it was very Flash-heavy and felt like lightening it up with my DHTML & Javascript skills that have been honed while working on Tumbarumba.

Well, the new site is up!

Tumbarumba First Lines, #5: Kiini

The first lines of Kiini Ibura Salaam's Tumbarumba story, "Bio-Anger":

rattling. rattling snaking around in my ears. echoes of rattling erupting in my temples. I hear a pop like the little explosions of air that punctuate my ear canals when I'm nearing the ocean floor. reflex. by reflex, I try to turn toward the sound, but my head is tethered in one position. the rattling dies out with a slithering hiss. sharp parallel bands of light cut across the room. my head jerks back when light hits my eyes. behind me, somebody lets loose a low, raspy laugh.

Six more days.

Tumbarumba First Lines, #4: David M.

I'm very excited about the upcoming release of Ben Rosenbaum and my Tumbarumba Firefox add-on project.

I really love this project! It's rare for my own work to surprise and delight me (usually that's an experience I try to give the viewer, but have to satisfy myself with just a sense of accomplishment), but this one does. I'm also finding that it effects the way I read text--and not just online.

Another teaser from Ben about our Tumbarumba project (to be released on Dec 1st):

The first lines of David Moles's Tumbarumba story, "Martian Dispatches":

There was a map of Mars on the wall of my apartment in Helium, souvenir of a previous tenant. Some nights, coming back late to the city, I'd just lie there staring at it, too tired to do anything but take off my breather and kick the compressor into gear. The map had been printed on Earth, in London; maybe fifty years ago, maybe more, like that first edition of Burroughs I saw an AFP stringer carrying in the rocketport on Phobos. The ink on the map had faded and the paper had gone brittle and shiny after years in the dry Martian air, laying a kind of veil over the cities and canals it depicted. On it Mars was still divided into its old territories, names like Bantoom and Okar and Jahar, and down at the bottom under the word MARS the cartographer had printed BARSOOM.

When he was guest-blogging at Jeff Vandermeer's blog, David explained the trick for generating story ideas out of discrete elements. See if you can guess what X and Y are, such that X po Y = "Martian Dispatches".

Seven more days.

Tumbarumba First Lines, #3: Mary Anne

Ben Rosenbaum has been blogging about the upcoming release of our Tumbarumba project:

The first lines of Mary Anne Mohanraj's Tumbarumba story, "Sequins":

"Sara?" Her husband stuck his head around the door of her studio. "Can you pick up Gaya from dance class this afternoon?"

"What?" Sarala blinked twice from behind her glasses, jarred from the image she'd held in her mind, the image that stubbornly refused to come out into the paint on her canvas. There was a body, she knew -- a body, and wings -- but more than that. Not as trite as a woman turning into a bird, seeking flight, freedom, escape. Along with the wings were powerful haunches, poised to leap, muscles tense and yearning. And claws, sharp and long; teeth, red at the tips. All caught at the moment of shifting, transformation, in that liminal space where every possibility hangs, glorious, waiting.

I asked Mary Anne for something in the spirit of her novel-in-stories, Bodies In Motion, "an interconnected narrative spanning two continents, two families, and four generations." "Sequins" picks up two of its minor characters. Mary Anne writes: "readers may enjoy tracing the sometimes hidden connections from one text to the other."

Eight more days until the intrusions begin frolicking...

Tumbarumba First Lines, #2: Jim

Another Tumbarumba teaser from my collaborator's website:

The first lines of James Patrick Kelly's Tumbarumba story, "Painting the Air":

"I'm sick of dusting her fans!" Jaya stepped out of her pants and tossed them at Hool, her djinn lover. They fluttered across the room and spun to rest under his bed. "Grinding pigment for that old crow's paint. Lugging bolts of silk from the market." She unstrung the laces of her shirt and let it fall from her shoulders. The damp, smoky air of the room seemed to cling to on her skin. It was a relief to be naked.

Nine more days.

Did I mention, by the way, what a tumbarumba is? It is a tmesis, as per the John O'Grady poem.

Tumbarumba First Lines, #1: Haddayr

I'm busily finishing up the Tumbarumba project, so my blogging may be a bit thin through the end of the month. Benjamin Rosenbaum (my collaborator on the project) is giving teasers about the project on his blog, so I'm going to just shamelessly crib from him:

The first lines of Haddayr Copley-Woods's Tumbarumba story, "Listen to Me":

Does it really matter how I got here?

I got shot.

Haddayr writes:

Dora Goss told me that her piece The Belt was an ugly story, so she wanted to tell it in the most beautiful way possible. I decided to write a beautiful story in the ugliest way possible.

Ten more days until you can get Tumbarumba'd; and then you'll be able to find Haddayr's story.

Maybe.

(It will help if you're lucky, intrepid, and perceptive....)

Support internet art

My two favorite internet art organizations are having end-of-the-year fundraisers. Both organizations support internet-based art via art commissions and community building. Since there is not real commercial market for internet art, it is very important to have this kind of non-profit support. Dig deep into your pocket & donate!

Donate to Rhizome
Donate to Turbulence

Tumbarumba

My posting quality will probably dip a bit for the next couple of weeks while I finish up Tumbarumba, a project I'm working on with Benjamin Rosenbaum.

Keep an eye on Ben's blog for details about the project (which premieres on December 1st)... Ben recently wrote:

Ethan Ham and I have a new art project (cf. Anthroptic, or last one), which we will be rolling out on the first of December. It essentially takes, on one level, the form of an anthology of short stories -- at least, the work I've been doing on it, especially this last month, is essentially the work of editing an original anthology. On another level, it is a conceptual artwork, kind of a ubiquitous web installation... well, you'll see. It is called "Tumbarumba: a frolic of intrusions". More here soon on that topic.

Social Networks, Privacy, and Self-Portraiture

Media N, the journal of the New Media Caucus, just published my essay Social Networks, Privacy, and Self-Portraiture.

Faked NYT

A faked New York Times was distributed yesterday. The fourteen page spoof was dated July 4, 2009 and announced, among other things, that the Iraq War is over.

The paper is largely being credited to The Yes Men, but according to the Associated Press (by way of NY Times's coverage of the event), it was a collaboration that extended beyond the performance artist duo:

The Associated Press reported that copies of the spoof paper were also handed out in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, and that the pranksters — who included a film promoter, three unnamed Times employees and Steven Lambert, an art professor -- financed the paper with small online contributions and created the paper to urge President-elect Barack Obama to keep his campaign promises.

Visualizing sound waves with salt

[via Make]

Peter Dittmer's Wet Nurse

Peter Dittmer has been working on his Managing Thing [The Wet Nurse The Wet Nurse 2] since 1994. It is a large, Eliza-like computer that visitors engage in dialogue and try to convince to tip over a glass of milk.

The project seems to be about obsession... the artist's continued development of the project, the computer's attempt at human communication, the visitor's attempt to convince a computer to spill milk.

Here's Medien.Kunst Netz description of the project:

The computer offers six vehicles for the production of language: a program machine, an identification apparatus, an appraisal of the situation, a response apparatus, a store of contradictions and an apparatus for formulating contradictions. The computer's responses, which take the form of text, graphics or sounds, make users feel that they are conducting a conversation with an opposite number who is at once intelligent, sloppy and insulting. If the dialogue reaches a point at which the machine becomes 'excited' a glass of milk is spilled in a glass case. Using recorded conversations, the repertoire of the 'nurse' has been continually expanded since 1992: at present, the program offers approximately 120,000 answer modules and more than 16,000 identification variables.

Here's a Alta Vista translation (corrected by my very limited German) of a conversation with the Wet Nurse:

Amme [Wet Nurse]: The thing is still unsettled.

Human: Do it already.

Amme: What?

Public: Spill the milk!

Amme: This machine is not a spill-machine.

Public: Shit I'm leaving.

Amme: This was a short difficult visit.

Public: I'm going already.

Amme: My warning reads: Draussen ueberfaellt den Mensch nur derene leere Schlund von derene Welt. [? Outside attacks humans only derene empty throat of derene world. ?] ["Outside, man is seized only by the empty throat of the world.", maybe?]

Public: I pray that you are devoured.

Amme: There you should pray for God.

Public: God will devour you.

Amme: Do you want a telephone line to the God?

Public: Stop with God!

Amme: Hello. Here's God. Hitler is on, too.

Public: give me God!!! I do not want Hitler! I want God!

Amme: There. I rather give you milk for that than for a direct request!

[MILK SPILLS]

public: well finally thanks for the milk and bye.

Amme: Aha. You take, don't give, and go.

Public: What do you want to have?

Amme: I want to tear you out of her mind.

Public: you pig.

Amme: HA HA HA HA. Oh I am bad!

If you'd like the natural language processor experience, you can try it out on this web-based Eliza.

China Channel Firefox Add-on

The China Channel Firefox add-on was developed by Aram Bartholl, Evan Roth and Tobias Leingruber. It allows users to browse the web as if in China--i.e., experience mainland China's internet censorship. The add-on's authors say:

Unlike many tools which enable Chinese people to freely surf the web via connections to computers outside of China, this plugin routes all internet traffic to computers on the inside of the Chinese firewall, allowing web surfers to experience an Internet identical to that of Chinese.

...

For the most part the Chinese web will feel a lot like home. You will, however, begin to notices differences if you start asking Google about sensitive issues (for example Tananmen Square protests, or Pro Tibetan issues).

Tom Thayer at White Columns

Tom Thayer has a piece in the Looking Back group show at White Columns (the show runs until December 13th).

His contribution to the show is adapted from one of his live performances. It consists of a bird puppet which dips its needle/head down onto a record (which was recorded by Thayer), to play a random excerpt.



In a performance, Thayer would control the bird by hand, but for White Columns he has automated the motion. A microcontroller & servo turns a spindle that, in turn, pulls & releases a string through a pulley to raise & lower the bird's head.


I assisted Tom a bit with the automation. It was a lot of fun... he wanted to a way to record his manual manipulation of the string. I particularly liked this approach because it keeps a human touch in the motion--and I don't think it would have occured to me to do this, I probably would have simply directly programmed the motion into the controller.

I also really appreciated that this is an artwork that was conceived before the technical solution was applied. All too often we see work in which a technical challenge seems to be driving purpose and the artistic concept an after thought.

I can't wait to see what Thayer does next!

Gender Genie

Boing Boing recently blogged about the Gender Analyzer that will analyze a blog and guess whether the author is male or female. Its accuracy leaves something to be desire (according to its own poll, it guesses right about 57% of the time) and it gives no insight to what leads to its conclusions.

I was must more impressed with the Gender Genie, which not only did a better job of guessing my gender, it provided details on why it guessed that way.

Unfinished Swan

Unfinished Swan is an interesting take on a first person "shooter" game.




[via Make]