Ctrl-N/ journal: repository of texts, research and documents on cities, mapping, networks, psychogeography and the experience of places; Written and maintained by Olivier Ruellet.

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Live train map for the London Underground · June 22nd, 2010

London Underground live map

This map shows all trains (yellow pins) on the London Underground network in approximately real time.

Fetching live departure data from the TfL API, and placing it onto a Google map, this live map project was realised in only a short amount of time at Science Hackday on 19/20th June 2010. A small number of stations are misplaced or missing; occasional trains behave oddly…; some H&C and Circle stations are missing in the TfL feed.

The author of the project is Matthew Somerville (with helpful hinderances from Frances Berriman and James Aylett). Station icon by Tim Diggins. Source code.

http://traintimes.org.uk:81/map/tube/


Animate Projects presents: COMPUTER BAROQUE · April 27th, 2009

defining works in the history of digital moving image – an online exhibition curated by Richard Wright

until 14 July 2009
http://www.animateprojects.org/films/by_project/computer_baroque/baroque

Computer Baroque is an exhibition of films by pioneers of computer animation: Karl Sims, Yoichiro Kawaguchi, William Latham, Beriou, John Tonkin, Chris Landreth, Peter Callas, Simon Biggs, Ruth Lingford, James Duesing, Paul Garrin, Shelley Lake, The Butler Brothers and Jason White & Richard Wright.

Rarely seen, they represent a period – the late 1980s and early 1990s – in which computer animation was the focus for the most audacious and exuberant experiments across all areas of new media, art and technology. The films range from earlier works by Karl Sims and William Latham influenced by scientific ideas to the more ironic and satirical works by Shelley Lake and the Butler Brothers.

Films are accompanied by programme notes and an essay by curator Richard Wright.

“Why characterise this period as ‘Baroque’? I think it was the sense that by the late 1980s we had reached a stage where the power of computers could finally be harnessed by more than a handful of insiders. Artists wanted to push the computer as far as it would go, to create visual transformations that defied previous traditions, to blend image and music and text, to apply scientific ideas as new sources of inspiration. It created a strident kind of image that insisted on the fact of its own realisation, fleeting paeans to the artificial. Yet equally present was a nagging anxiety, that this artifice heralded a world of totalizing control, paranoia and catastrophe”.

Richard Wright


ABSML – a new markup language for automatic writing · February 1st, 2009

A new Turbulence commission by Jeff Crouse, Andrew Mahon, and Steve Lambert.

http://turbulence.org/works/absml/

From Turbulence.org:

“ABSML is a new markup language that enables the creation of complex sentence formulas for 21st century automatic writing. ABSML tags replace parts of speech and sentence components using sophisticated semantic analysis, regular expressions, and web-based resources. In the right combination, the tags create prose that — while based on formulas and code — do not appear formulaic. ABSML is free and open for others to use, both through an online editor and an API (application programming interface).

“ABSML” is a 2008 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from the Jerome Foundation.”

BIOGRAPHIES

JEFF CROUSE creates software and installations that highlight the absurdity of technology in culture. Jeff’s previous works include YouThreebe, a YouTube triptych creator; Invisible Threads, a virtual jeans factory in Second Life; and James Chimpton, a robotic monkey that interviewed the artists of the 2008 Whitney Biennial. He is currently developing BoozBot, a bar tending robot/puppet; and DeleteCity, a Wordpress plug-in that finds and republishes content that has been removed from sites such as Flickr and YouTube. His work has been shown at the Sundance Film Festival, the Futuresonic festival in Manchester, UK, the DC FilmFest, and the Come Out and Play Festival in Amsterdam. Jeff received his MS from the Digital Media program at Georgia Tech in 2006 and then joined Eyebeam as a production fellow in 2007. He is currently a Senior Fellow at Eyebeam, an adjunct professor at the IMA program at Hunter College, and a freelance programmer.

STEVE LAMBERT recently made international news with the The New York Times “Special Edition,” a replica of the grey lady announcing the end of the war and other good news. A Senior Fellow at the Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology in New York, Lambert also teaches at Parsons/The New School and Hunter College. While he never graduated from high school, Steve went on to study sociology and film before receiving a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2000 and a MFA at UC Davis in 2006. He founded the Budget Gallery, an outdoor guerilla art gallery, in 1999 and the Anti-Advertising Agency in 2004 and has collaborated with numerous artists including the Graffiti Research Lab, and the Yes Men. Steve?s projects and art works have won awards from Rhizome/The New Museum, the Creative Work Fund, Adbusters Media Foundation, the California Arts Council, and others. His work has been shown at galleries, art spaces, and museums both nationally and internationally, and was recentl!
y collected by the Library of Congress. Lambert has appeared live on NPR, the BBC, and CNN, and been reported on in multiple outlets including Associated Press, the New York Times, the Guardian, Punk Planet, and Newsweek.

ANDREW MAHON is currently an undergraduate student at Parsons School of Design studying Design + Technology. His interests lie in the architecture of virtual space. Andrew has worked on numerous projects at Eyebeam since 2007, many with Jeff Crouse, including Invisible Threads, a virtual sweatshop, and You3b, a YouTube Triptych maker. Andrew has also worked with Natalie Jeremijenko at the Environmental Health Clinic, creating visualizations of threatened ecosystems. Over the summer of 2008, Andrew participated in Interactivos@Eyebeam, where his interactive installation was later show. Andrew is currently working on algorithmic music visualizations, freelance web programming, and has recently started interning at Area/Code, helping to develop compelling game situations using GPS tracking.