abstractmachine

• Workshop: Mobilité
• Location: Atelier Hypérmedia + Atelier 3D + Méta Atelier, l’École supérieure d’art d’Aix-en-Provence
• Dates: 30 November – 1 December 2009
• Organizers: Ricardo Garcia, Douglas Edric Stanley, Jean-Paul Thibeau
• Conference: Thierry Marcou + Fing, « Villes 2.0 », 30 November 2009
• Development assistance: Memo Akten, Gonzague Defos de Rau, Grégoire Lauvin

Today we began our week-long « Mobility » workshop at the Aix-en-Provence Art School. We kicked off the session this afternoon with a conference from Thierry Marcou, director of the Villes 2.0 project at Fing who gave a general overview of the major issues facing the city as it evolves in the current networked era, as well as techno-social experiments, services and creations illustrating these tendencies.

Then, starting tomorrow, we’ll be working in two groups exploring the question of Mobility from an artistic point of view, using either the iPhone/iPodTouch platform via OpenFrameworks, a specifially-designed GPS platformed designed by the Atelier 3D, or some combination of both.

While Memo Akten couldn’t be here this week (cf. Decode), he nevertheless was able to come two weeks ago to the Atelier Hypermédia and help me (actually, the other way around) write a MapKit addon for the ofxiPhone project. This is a pretty cool little addition which allows you to run the standard Apple+Google MapKit library from within OpenFrameworks, and (magically) without breaking either. This addon is already sitting in the current svn/git of ofxiphone if you’re geek enough, otherwise it should be available within the next few weeks when the OpenFrameworks download is updated.

• Installation: bitPong
• Concept + Development: Douglas Edric Stanley
• Development Platforms: Processing, Wiring
• Location: Fondation Vasarely, Aix-en-Provence (map)
• Festival: Gamerz.05
• Dates: 26 november – 4 december 2009
• Times: 10h – 13h / 14h – 17h

I have finally found a venue to show a decent working version of bitPong, a piece I created some time ago when I was still working on the close relationship with phsyical implementations of data and their aesthetic consequences.

The idea is simple: a two-player game, based on the uber-referenced Pong, here played with 8-bit controllers. When I say « 8-bit controller », I mean literally 8-bit, i.e. 8 buttons, each representing 1-bit of data. Collected together, this byte represents a 256 value variable which is used to control a visual paddle representation within the game. To aid players in the conversion of 1-bit discrete switches into their collective base-two 8-bit value, each button has been labelled: 2^n, i.e. two to the power of zero, two to the power of one, two to the power of two, and so on. This is otherwise known to mere mortals as the values 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, and 128. To move your paddle, you must add each of these values together in order to position it somewhere between position 0 and position 255.

For those who know little about how the computer works internally, this is how the computer moves from the well-known binary 0 | 1 value, to complex values such as the letters you are reading right now: by associating a different value to each bit (the 1 values of « 0 1 0 1 0 1 » get converted to « 0+2+0+4+0+8+0+32 », otherwise known as the value 42) the computer can use a physically limited scheme (0 or 1, on or off, yes or no, true or false) in order to represent a far greater sum of possibilities (here a number from 0 to 255). bitPong plays off of this configuration and brings its dynamics to the surface of the playing field. In order to take control of your paddle, you will have to quickly master binary encoding.

In this Victor Vasarely inspired version of bitPong, hexagons populate the playing field and create an added diversion. Therefore, bitPong has now turned into something like a two-player bitBreakout. I was actually inspired by the following sign which is posted on the wall just next to my installation, indicating the escape routes out of the museum.

I have to admit, even considering the current legal battle of the Fondation, and the related embezzlement of it’s holdings by its president / family members, all leading to the current dilapidated state of this curious monument, it’s still a pretty cool place to show work.

• Presentation: Memo Akten
• Location: Atelier Hypermédia, l’École supérieure d’art d’Aix-en-Provence
• Time + Date: 14h00 | Friday 20 november 2009
• Website: Mega Super Awesome Visuals Company

Memo Akten is currently working in the Atelier Hypermédia in preparation for the Mobility Workshop in December where we will be using (amongst other things) iPhones for their GPS capacities. We are also discussing multitouch for a big project that has just been green-lighted (more on that later) and finally OpenFrameworks development and ofxiPhone for OpenFrameworks.

Tomorrow he will give a presentation of his work to the students of the Atelier as well as anyone else who would like to come and visit.