Posted from: 26-28 Washington Square North, USAFrom Third Rail Coffee, one of my fave coffee joints in the city: nom factor of 10 on a scale of 10 + staff that always cracks me up
A laser tagging station is set up in one city in front of a specific billboard. Users at the station are encouraged to tag on top of the billboard, sharing their comments on the brand, product or implications of the ad. The users’s graphic overlays are saved to an online database. This is done with a number of other billboard ads.
Other participants with cell phones download an augmented reality app. Using the app they find billboards that have been added to the database and which also exist in their city. They go to the billboard and point their cell phone camera at it. The software tracks the ad image and displays a selection of user-created overlays to view. This way users can share their thoughts on a range of advertising images in their environment.
Day 2 and T-3 hours till premiere tonight. As Montzerrat and I walked through the campus of the National University of Colombia this morning, I took photos of some of the graffiti on the buildings. It’s an interesting campus where students really express themselves and it’s evident in the politically charged art everywhere. In the plaza – appropriately titled “Plaza Ché” -there’s a huge image of Ché Guevara and the words: “We’re sons of the revolution. Our souls scream for liberation.”
We’re still setting up the space at the university. The lighting and additional electrical outlets were supposed to have been taken care of this morning, but surprise – they weren’t done. That’s not a diss against any of the Encuentro folks, who have been super-friendly and helpful. They’ve been bending over backwards to fix things. One of the curators that we’ve been working intensely with, Nicolas, has been an absolute doll, and so have the rest of the crew. I know it will all come together.
We’re dressing the space with various and sundry costumes, wigs, and other funky accoutrement so we and visitors to our installation/performance can create different ‘characters’ that will then be recorded into Seesmic and projected. We’ll then use these live+recorded elements to improvise live dance performances, which will then be posted to Seesmic as well, creating a recursive loop of improvised performances. I think we’ll start with projecting some of Tiil’s visual conversations since that was one of the first video conversations that inspired us to create this piece. Both Montzerrat and I love movement, improvising and philosophically questioning the boundaries of performance. The theme of the Encuentro festival is “Staging Citizenship” – so it seems a perfect time and space to be staging our own performance that crosses the borders between on and offline citizenship, from Plaza Ché, with love.
Hello from Bogota! Montzerrat and I are prepping for the Encuentro Festival where we’re premiering Firsthand performances, a multimodal project that fuses physical and online performance and explores performance as dialogue, live and within Seesmic. More on that later, we’re running off to set up the space at the National University of Colombia. Here are some pics of the adorably cute apartment we’re staying in. It’s in La Candelaria, a neighborhood that’s said to be very ‘la boheme’ – an artsy, older part of the city, like the East Village (there’s my attempt to fit everything into New York-centric stereotypes) 🙂
Video & pics of our team doing a series of four 4-way jumps for the Karp Cup ‘09 competition at Skydive Cross Keys. I’m the one with the pink and turquoise container on my back. It was a fun and casual competition, and we got 2nd place in the rookie division – yay!
Kudos to Cherie & Karl Schuch for their massive organization efforts. What I like about competitions like the Karp Cup are that they are a fun way for rookies like me to get in on the action. Those of us with not so much experience feel welcomed and it’s a nice way to learn some new moves while having fun in a competitive environment.
I had a great time and my teammates for the day – Art, Dana, Neal & our cameraguy Dan – were awesome. Special thanks to Neal for showing us the ropes and sharing his 8,000+ jump knowledge. The only wonky thing that happened that day was that on my 4th jump, I had a cutaway (cutaway my main parachute and flew my reserve in) and landed at a golf course next door, but the golfers were really friendly and helpful, and my main parachute and free bag were immediately found, so all in all, it was the best situation for a cutaway scenario.
Later that evening, dinner and drinks and partying ensued around the tiki bar, and the awards were given for the competition along with raffle prizes. Cherie also announced the formation of CK Blue, which will be an ad hoc competitive team. The way it works, as I understand it, is that experienced skydivers who want to compete but don’t have the extra 200-300 hours to dedicate to training, can join CK Blue and compete as a team, without having to commit to practicing. It’s like no-strings-attached competition – I love it! Good luck to all those who join. Enjoy the pics and vid (both by Dan Ortiz). Blue skies!
video of our four 4-way jump series here:
shots from @rikomatic’s talk with my Virtual Learning Environments students. Here he’s taking them on a tour of some of the Global Kids’ projects like I Dig Tanzania and a Roma Archaeological site.
