GLOCAL IN SECOND LIFE! Phase One - Promotion and Speculation

Here is a portrait of GLOCAL's Coordinator Newton Dinzeo (Jeremy Owen Turner). Dinzeo is sitting on a tiny GLOCAL ad in the Edmonton-based Second Life property, Canada in SL. This sign may appear relatively insignificant in the grander scheme of things but in the weeks to come, GLOCAL will have a more solid presence in this increasingly mainstream metaverse. The faces on Newton's pants actually belong to the Coordinator himself in RL...His image was filtered via the first version of the Motion Sequencing Application (a free download on this blog) and then was texture-mapped as clothing. Newton Dinzeo has his own blog which you can check out here.

Hello GLOCAL Blog readers!

GLOCAL is finally getting down to entering Second Life and setting down virtually local and global roots there.

We have started with the placement of a tiny ad in the Canada in SL property and will be adding a larger and flashier billboard very shortly. In the long-term, we will also likely have the Surrey Art Gallery's Techlab reproduced in Second Life :-) At the moment, we are beginning the first phase of promotion and property/architectural speculation...Here are some more photos of our first official ventures into this Brave Not-So-New virtual world...

Here is a portrait of Newton sitting on one the GLOCAL signs. You will notice that this particular sign is close enough to the hot dog stand. This placement is intentional since we need to ensure that people will happen to notice our ad while eating their hot dogs! The best ad-placement is always near the refreshments :-)

This picture is not too much different from the last one except that the Coordinator is standing instead of sitting down...

Did we mention that Surrey is also in Canada? Some of you more worldly avatar travelers may have thought we were based somewhere near London but I think this picnic table will be a blatant reminder for you once you come over to visit us in-world and take a few pixel-bites off one of the available hot dogs (while quantities last, of course). One of the reasons we had picked Canada in SL was because they offer free advertising for Canadian non-profits and fortunately for GLOCAL, the project is hosted by the Surrey Art Gallery.

Here is a side view of the Coordinator sitting on the sign... In this picture, you can also get a sneak preview of our future billboard area...Do you see that turret at the top of the mall's plaza located in the middle of this screenshot? We plan to install our first billboard right on top of there...If you still cannot find it, not to worry...We have some more photos for you.

So, here is a close-up of this new billboard location. In this photo, the Coordinator is speculating the billboard area with his palm pilot (which very likely also includes its own GPS). Speaking of close-ups, this photo is a good excuse to show another close up of the Coordinator's official GLOCAL self-portrait-pants. ;-)


This photo is really just an excuse to show the...er... "back end" of the GLOCAL Coordinator's own personal...er...buttressing strategy ;-)

Another reason why we are considering a move to Canada in SL is because this property appears to be virtually quite close to "Vancouver" - well, at least a photo of Vancouver anyway ;-) Photo of Vancouver courtesy of the Graham Guru Photography Gallery.

The photo-shoot took all day because before we knew it, it was night-time...Wow, time accelerates quickly in virtual worlds, eh?

Please stay tuned for more developments on the GLOCAL Project in Second Life!

The Corbis website now offers the opportunity to download, print and assemble various funky paper pinhole cameras.


The Readymech pinhole are available in five designs which are downloadable as colour PDFs, complete with assembly directions - rather than inserting film -> trying placing a digital or cellphone camera on timer into the pinhole box to shoot some low tech looking images.

Toolkit Preview: Motion Sequencer

Throughout the course of the Glocal project, we will be developing and distributing toolkits which will allow artists of all levels to contribute to our content base. Software, hardware, and conceptual toolkits will be available on our website for download as they are completed.

The first software toolkit facilitates creation of the motion sequence grids that we have been posting here and in our Flickr and Facebook groups. Built in Processing, the Motion Sequence Toolkit creates grids from either live webcam input, or from pre-recorded video. In both cases, the application offers a different perspective on motion by separating it into still frames. Here is screenshot of the interface, in standard grid mode:

Here, we are seeing a motion history of the last 6 seconds of motion, displayed on screen as a grid (I'm holding a drinking glass in front of the webcam). You'll notice along the top of the screen that there are some controls (in blue). Using this control bar, we can change frame rate, frame size, and frame arrangement. We can make the frames very large:

Or, very small:



We can achieve a slit-scan effect by reducing the rows to 1:



Or by reducing the columns to 1:



This toolkit gives us a variety of ways to look at motion from new perspectives. Of particular interest is the ability to take pre-recorded video and render it in different forms.

The Motion Sequence Toolkit will be available for public download shortly. In the meantime, if you are an artist or an educator who would like to get ahold of a beta version, please contact our project coordinator and we'll help you out as best as we can.

Time Lapse Imaging

What Do I look like....when I'd really rather be sleeping?

Project work by David Timlin

[Click on the work to see David's portraits from midnight to 9am]

In responding to the Glocal project, David elected to employ time lapse photography. While time lapse photography is traditionally used to track and monitor environmental changes, David decided to use himself as the subject in this work.

In What Do I look like....when I'd really rather be sleeping? - the title alludes to the events that have been documented. In this artwork David mounted his camera off his bedpost and then set his alarm clock throughout the night to wake him hour on the hour. The documents reveal the juxtaposition of the subject being barely awake and responsive to the camera. Much like Vito Acconci's works of the 1970s where his performances reflected on the representation and the act of being psychologically observed, David extends these concepts to how the body can become a material object, gazed and out of context in both time and place.

Glocal - new ways of seeing

A key objective of delivering the Glocal project includes changing how users work and respond to digital technologies. 

In a world where digital recording devices dominate, shooting at eye level seems to be the most natural. What if this was altered? How would these other alternative views appear? 

In this project we look at changing perspectives (ie. by literally placing cameras and recorders at unusual heights or anchored positions) and how can we capture the everyday in unordinary ways.

As an artist assisting in the delivery of the Glocal project - I am interested in addressing the 'HOW' with the support and suggestions of the public. 

Recently I partnered with a series of UK artists to see what would happen when the digital camera was placed off tripod and away from the rational eye.

Below are the first observational works created by artist Sarah Gale. 

Pictures were devised by placing a camera on a timer under a plastic food tray. The results - meal time like no one has ever envisioned! 

 

GLOCAL at Winterfest 2008...

Self-portrait of Jeremy Owen Turner (Project Coordinator - GLOCAL - Surrey Art Gallery) with the other booth participants from the Surrey Art Gallery. For this photo, the Coordinator used the Glocal prototype interface.

Hello GLOCAL Project blog-readers,

As Coordinator, I have finally taken some time to reflect on my Winterfest information presentation on behalf of the Surrey Art Gallery and the Cultural Capitals of Canada Initiative. This mass-media event took place at Central City (Surrey Central) - more specifically, in the foyer of Simon Fraser University's School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT).

As some of you might know, Surrey has been declared Canada's official Cultural Capital of 2008 so this was a landmark opportunity to showcase the latest in interactive digital media art and technology.

The GLOCAL presentation was a huge success. Many onlookers from every demographic description felt compelled to play with this interactive screen... Some kids had even begged their parents to return to my booth to explore the video processing application developed by the GLOCAL team and many people wanted to learn more so I managed to hand out most of the official GLOCAL brochures.

I believe the reason why the GLOCAL booth in particular had such a steady stream of activity throughout the day was due primarily to the fact that this interactive screen directly engaged the audience in realtime. The webcam was also mobile enough for each attendee to casually play with the viewing angles and by doing so, a unique video-mosaic was created straight out of their own imagination.

I think that most people who visited the GLOCAL booth felt they were directly interpreting the shifting sights of the Winterfest as if they were one of the performers being featured at the event.

As a result of this booth presentation, I think there will be sufficient interest from schools and individuals from the Surrey community to engage in both short-term and long-term workshops with the artists that comprise the GLOCAL Team.

I will have more photos from this event in a future blog posting but for now, here are some officially released photos:

Here is a portrait of Dan Nielsen (Project Manager - Surrey 2008 - Cultural Capital of Canada) using the GLOCAL prototype interface.

Photo by Rick Chapman. Here is what the official Winterfest sign looked like...

Photo by Rick Chapman. The GLOCAL Coordinator is pictured on the far right in front of his FUSION information booth. He is wearing a white t-shirt and standing not too far away from an over-saturated white TV screen that is suspended from the ceiling. The computer screen used to display GLOCAL's prototype software application looked really nice in person but the photographer had used a flash so the GLOCAL screen is not very visible in this picture.

Photo by Rick Chapman. Inside that illuminated window was where all our information booths were so you could imagine how powerful and loud the fireworks were since they were practically exploding right next to the building complex's facade. When the explosions first went off, everyone thought someone had detonated a bomb.

Photo by Rick Chapman.Here is another view of the fireworks display that occurred right next to the entrance to the SIAT building.

Photo by Rick Chapman. Here is one last view of the fireworks for Winterfest which by the way, had the keyword FUSION as its theme for this year....

Official GLOCAL Team Workflow Planning Photo...

From left-right: Jeremy Owen Turner (Coordinator), M. Simon Levin (Artist), Jer Thorp (Artist), Sylvia Grace Borda (Artist).
Photo taken by Brian Foreman on January 18, 2008.