Bzzzpeek

Bzzzpeek, is a online project by Agatha Jacquillat and Tom Volluschek that explores the difference in the way kids from different countries portray, with noise, the things which are around them.  when you go to the project, you can view many different objects or animals with the flag representing the country on it , and once you click on them, you will hear how that kid from that particular country.  There are up to 17 different choices to choose from .  The project explores the similarity of children from around the world mimicking the sounds of all thats around them.  You get different sounds, though similar in some ways, of the same object.  Most of the kids who participated in this project are between 2-7 years old, and thus it gives the scent of innocence in this project.

I really like this project, I think its very innocent.  Its funny in some ways as well, and its also very innocent since these sounds are coming from children.   A very cute project that explores differences and similarities of the perception of the world around us.  

Scream

Scream is a downloadable computer program that can detect when a user is screaming in real life and flickers windows out of fear.  Created by Amy Alexander, Scream waits for a sound input ad when it does hear sound, such as screaming or yelling, it becomes agitated and flickers the screen in fear and runs away by hiding.  The software can also be used as a music visualizer, and gives many choices for visuals.   In turn, Scream actually allows its users to take out their frustrations on their computer, letting the computer hear the users screams and frustrations at how it is not doing what its supposed to be doing.  

Scream distorts the reality between work and play. Its a cute idea, but I believe those who might not know exactly what it is, might believe it be some sort of virus.  Nevertheless, this piece of work, explores a piece of our human nature, it that we love to vend off out on something when we get frustrated.  

Elephants Dream

Elephant's Dream is a short animated film that was released by the Blender project under the Creative Commons License.  The story follows an old man named Proog and his apprentice Emo.  The film is visually fascinating, it looks dark and bleak and the opposite of a clean and bright pixar film, but nevertheless it looks good.  The modeling and texture look very sharp.   The license is a creative commons license which provides source files for the movie so that anyone can improve on or change the animation themselves.  As a result, many remakes have appeared online.

Much like the Bunny movie that I wrote about earlier, Elephant's Dream lets its viewers edit the movie, if they so wish to do so, and build on their own creativity.  In turn it encourages the creativity of aspiring artist.  

Kill Yourself

Rebecca Cannon, who is described as a game artist, creates many game art, which are more political, cultural, than regular games.  She is also a writer, who design mobile games and machinima clips.  Game art, which has been flourishing recently the past few years, is usually used in order to deliver a message rather than just delivering a fun gaming experience.  Kill Yourself, which was is a java game developed for mobile phones.  It was designed for people who are so board they rather be dead.  Mobile games, mostly are played mostly by those who are incredibly bored.  This game involves choosing a character who looks how you may feel at the time, and then going around and killing them repeatedly.  A parody of some sorts that takes aim at shooters whose main point is killing others and avoiding to be killed.  

The whole "Kill yourself" game concept is pretty weird to me, almost seems like it would tailor to those who are depressed and want to get some anger out.  it kind of disturbed me as well as make me entertained at the same time, especially the beginning where you choose a character based on how you feel about yourself.  Overall a pretty good idea that seems pretty creepy.  

You Are Not Here

The notion that people would love to be two places at once isn't really far fetched with "You are not here."  The project "You are not here", created and developed by Thomas Duc, Kati London, Dan Phiffer, Andrew Schneider, Ran Tao, and Mushon Zer-Aviv, invites people to explore the city of Baghdad through the streets of New York.  People who chose to tour are invited to download and print a map of both New York and Baghdad on a piece of paper.  Afterwards, the tourist begin sight seeing around new york, where there are "you are not here" signs scattered all over the city which provide major tourist sites.  Once arrived at these sites, tourist then call a tourist hotline, where they are guided tours by audio telling of the contemporary Baghdad destination in New York.  

"You are not here" is a pretty cool idea.  If I was living in New York, I would probably consider going on the tour myself.  I think the main thing that this project tries to accomplish is the similarities between the cities of Baghdad and New York.  Instead of being out of touch with Iraq and its culture, since the Iraqi war started, New Yorkers can learn about history, culture, and tour the city without ever entering into the actual war zone.  I like the idea of touring another city without leaving your own, maybe its because I'm a tad lazy, but in a way I think its a pretty clever idea.  

Ripon

Ripon,  an original video game created by artists Troy Richards and Knut Hybinette, is a series of installations integrating with large-scale digital prints that use the setting of a violent broken down society.  The main object of the game is to get players to work together in an almost utopian socialist type fashion.  However, the main objective isn't about winning, it is more about survival.  The players, up to 10 playing at once, are surrounded by huge digital prints of icons from the game in order to heighten the gameplay experience.  Within minutes of starting gameplay, players who don't work together die.  Moreover, Ripon can't be outsmarted by typical mainstream game repetition, players eventually will die in the game and once this has occurred it ends the game and there is no way to continue, unlike most other games.  The game takes away from the focus of the player and shifts it to the environment in which they are playing in.  The game attempts to help take away the notion of "every man for himself".  

Ripon also provides commentary on the breakdown of utopian society.  in addition, Ripon seems to try to indulge the player in the experience rather than by the typical win/lose formula.

I being a huge gamer, like all sorts of video games.  I especially appreciate those game which are thought provoking and take the player on an experience.  Ripon is a great idea in my opinion because many of today's video games don't focus on true issues but they rather create a fantasy world.  Fantasies are not a bad thing of itself, but it helps ignore real problems and the solutions that might take to solve them.  Ripon has an creepy feel to it, like a post apocloyptic type of setting.

Time Slip

Time slip is a visual artwork that displays current event news on its page.  It is similar to the on screen or public display of news tickers one might find on t.v.  Created by Antoine Schmitt,  Time slip constantly updates news up to the minute, but displays it in such a way that in an oracle type fashion as if it was foretelling future events.  With no special effects of any sort, Time slip just delivers its message, or news, in white text overlaying a black background. 

Time slip updates with all the real news but it changes the tense of the selected news from past to future tense.

I think that this is a work that relates to humanity's constant obsession with end times, post apocalyptic events.  All Humans fear the end, wether it is the end of the world or their lives.  I believe this piece sort of builds on our fears of natural and man-made disasters.  once you go to the site, you get an eery feeling.  It's amazing what a change of tense could do to recent reports or past headlines.