SubSub blog

The guys at I-Dat, this time with Kurator, continue to educate and entertain, this time with their Social Hacking event.

A number of international artists invaded the public spaces of Plymouth. These artist included The Institute for Applied Autonomy, Mikro Orchestra Project. Ludic Society and c6. They were also joined by Saul and keynote speaker McKenzie Wark (writer of A Hacker Manifesto, an inspirating read during Uni) for the seminar on Saturday.

Personally, The Institute for Applied Autonomy guys seemed the most interesting of the artists, with both their content and techniques. They seem to be somewhere between activists and tool makers. Terminal Air, which can still be seen at the Plymotuth Art Centre (be quick, ends 31st March), is an ‘installation to document the American CIA’s practice of ‘extraordinary rendition’ flights’. I had no idea what extraordinary rendition flights were, and the reality was scary and enlightening. If you can’t make it down to Plymouth be sure to check out the work’s description at a minimum.

The Ludic Society made street gaming a little darker, by tagging 25 individuals with RFID tags, under their skin! The game allowed them to adjust, tag (well un-tag) and react to the city.

The event was wrapped up with a Mikroparty, with both live and DJ performances from Tetine… who rocked in their very special way.

The guy’s who’s have been making the world a better place with their boards, have now come out with a bluetooth version.

In case you haven’t had a chance to play with one yet, Arduino is an open source physical computing platform allowing you quick and easy prototyping using a simple I/O board and a programming language build on top of Processing.

The new BlueTooth version opens up a whole load of possibilities, particularly as it has a Class 1 Bluetooth transmitter/receiver (read that as bigger/better or 100 meters not 10). Not only will the BT allow easily update-able hardware (no more climbing up ladders to update the brain of your hanging robotic monkeys), but they can also transmit and receive vie the programming interface.

The guys have now opened up something a little more official with tinker.it and are offering this and a whole lot more on their site.

I’ve been watching the progress of the TED conference (over the last 6 years or so. Unfortunately always from a far, having never had the finances to pull off a ticket (About £2000). I’ve always been impressed in the way it translates it’s ideals into real practices, something we tried with Submerge, and even though accomplished, never seemed to complete with the same grace. In fact the TED awards went on to inspire our own Industry Awards, and will continue to inspire any other awards to come.

They’ve been publishing online some of their output over the last 3 years, and now have a collection of some very inspirational talks. Most people will have seen the ‘Multi Touch’ display video, shot at TED festival last year, but this is just one of many great performances, talks and demonstrations.

The full collection can be seen either on their site or on YouTube. Below are a few of my favorites. (Each one’s 20 minutes, so you may want to bookmark this and come back, you won’t be disappointed)

Sir Ken Robinson making a greatly entertaining and moving speech about the importance of education, and how we need to start rethinking its application and purpose.

The former Director of MIT Media Lab (and writer of Being Digital, great book), Nicholas Negroponte talking about his One Laptop Per Child campaign.

Malcom Gladwell the author of ‘The Tipping Point’ and ‘Blink’ discusses an interesting turn by companies in understanding human needs. Interesting both philosophically and business wise.

Continuing the Wii posts, I came across this ridiculous use of a Wii remote. Basically boys with access to robots and a little too much time on their hands came up with this… This was originally found on HackADay a constant source of people’s hardware hacks.

Happy new year to everyone, and a happy christmas as well, if you’re not too feed up with the whole thing.  We’re all looking forward to another year of digital frolics.

The gaming community are pretty happy right now with the Wii out already (still waiting for mine!) and the PS3 out in March.  That said, some haven’t been so lucky.Even with the few ‘teething problems’ It’s nice to see new forms of interaction invading the public psyche so successfully, and gets people moving again (Wii Sports Boxing actually gets you sweating!)

Yep, the future is here.  Not only can you have your eye’s lasered, watch robots playing football, you can also enjoy actual holograms…

The guys at Betaminds (seem a clever bunch) are importing them for sale and hire right now.

Check out their promotional video, or even better hire one (and if you do can we come play on it?)