July 2009 - Page 2 of 2 - Near Future Laboratory

Call for Artists — Locative Cinema Commission

The curious architectural articulations of Pann’s Diner in Inglewood, Los Angeles. Allegedly the last original diner in town — original, as in the original structure, not a redo to mimic/hide/erase the old stylings. Recommended. Bring your own Lipitor and have a seat at the counter or the “hot house.”

From the Passing Useful Things Through Division, this one came from curatorial chum Steve Dietz:

The Locative Cinema Commission is a joint project of ZER01: The Art and Technology Network, The Banff New Media Institute, and the New Frontier program at the Sundance Institute We are soliciting proposals that can generalize the platform of specific places such as San Jose, California, Banff, Canada, or Park City, Utah to describe the world that you want people to see. We understand the notion of ‘locative cinema’ as an apparatus through which you can share your vision using place in ways that are both specific and generic or at least transferable. All variations on how to present your work will be considered, from cell phones to the black box of the cinema, from mixed reality to street theatre, from GPS to handhelds, from distributed to ambient. Proposals will be evaluated on their ability to engage people using place as a key element of the experience.

Note bene the impending deadline: Proposal deadline: Monday August 3, 2009. That Is Less Than A Month.

Here is the Locative Cinema Commission.
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Chalkbot Versus GraffitiWriter…Round One! Ready….FIGHT!

From the Laboratory’s Bureau of Historical Precedence comes this dispatch: A colleague here in the studio, in a thread about Jeremy Wood’s GPS Drawing mentioned this ChalkBot robot that Nike has deployed to help promote, well — cancer awareness with the Lance Armstrong tie-in and itself by extension — at the Tour de France road race. When he started describing it, my mind immediately jumped to Josh Kinberg’s “Bikes Against Bush” project in which he used a bicycle-drawn rig to spray chalk on the pavement, in precisely the fashion of the ChalkBot — and Josh got tossed in the Pokey in the bargain! I wrote a note to Josh, curious if he was involved (if only to track and admire the activities of friends, etc) and he reminded me of the Institute for Applied Autonomy‘s GraffitiWriter and StreetWriter projects, which were his inspiration. (The data fragmentation in my human algorithm started clearing a bit.) An hour or two later, this press release appeared on the wonderfully dyspeptic, exceptionally over-sensitive, super grouse-y nettime from one of the IAA’s agents: read on
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Home User Interfaces

A typically baroque arrangement of elements, found at a large house on the perimeter of Koreatown in Los Angeles – by the measures I have heard, the largest population of Korean ex-pats/speakers-of-Korean/culturally-identifying-as-Korean/&c. outside of Korea itself. (The variation I have heard, too — “outside of Seoul.) I believe this was on Crenshaw just off of the 10 heading north.

Why do I blog this? This curious juxtaposition of elements is irresistible to explore — the religious statues of the Virgin Mary, plus gryphons/lions hidden in various corners, the children’s bicycles (and helmets perched nearby), guardians on the rooftops that remind me more of the classic “Minuteman” statues from the American Revolution, potted plants, roof architecture reminiscent of a buddhist shrine, an old Datsun or perhaps a Fiat in the drive, the woman walking past, the hand-made “Yard Sale” sign, &c. It’s like a “Where’s Waldo?” drawing and tells a rich, ornamental story of the occupants. It is an intriguing interface to the world.
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Cash Only

Used to be that “cash only” was a mark of something “under the table” or “off the books” — a way to pay for a service without raising the attention of the authorities (like the tax accessor). With a “above board” “on the books” transaction, records are kept which can be looked through to determine if one or the other of the party has not made an accurate assessment of their business and, subsequently, their taxes owed. Using a credit card forces these sorts of automatic, databased transaction records. PayPal is probably the closest thing to a cash transaction system in the digital world — you can configure it to just pull money from your banking account and this way you do not incur a penalty (psychologically or financially) for holding a debt through a credit card.

Stuck in the dessert? Out of cash? Out of gas? Or, a remain from the lake that was once here, when the dinosaurs weren’t even thinking about their future in our gas tanks?

Here, gas in the desert of Palm Springs can be purchased for cash — you just slip your currency into the little vending machine here. No record is kept unless you use a debit card, which is almost like cash. I heard recently on NPR that service stations can actually lose money from selling gas, which seems crazy. But, at the end of this particular supply chain the guys and gals running the station is in the least beneficial position. The fees they pay for the opportunity to use credit card transaction networks (Mastercard, Visa, American Express) can be a genuine burden on their ability to make a profit, and many open up ancillary businesses based on the fact that they have your attention for a few minutes while you pump — an opportunity for a quick grocery shop or glazed eyeballs watching an advertisement on a nearby flat screen.

Why do I blog this? My eyeballs were glazed while I pumped gas on my way out of the desert and I tried to think of what curious things were going on whilst I waited. But, seriously..cash and its benefits can outweigh those of an electronic transactions. In this case, the ARCO service stations are known in the US for only accepting cash and, for that, you get your dinosaur remains for a couple or few cents cheaper on the gallon than if you use a credit card. The question here is — when and where does cash work better than digital bits to complete a transaction?

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