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I've been reading a bunch of papers about distributed systems recently, in order to help systematize for myself the thing that we built over the last year [Twitter]. Many of them were originally passed to me by Toby DiPasquale. Here is an annotated list so everyone can benefit.
It helps if you have some algorithms literacy, or have built a system at scale, but don't let that stop you.
http://blog.evanweaver.com/articles/2009/05/04/distributed-systems-primer/
(Temporary|Transnational|Terrestrial|Transdimensional) Organisation for the (Promotion|Proliferation|Permanence|Purity) of Live (Algorithm|Audio|Art|Artistic) Programming
TOPLAP exists to promote the writing and modifying of rules while they are followed. This includes the writing of software while it is being executed, allowing programmers to improvise music and visuals live before an audience as well as conduct exploratory research with live source code.
http://www.toplap.org/index.php/Live_coding_of_graphics http://www.toplap.org/index.php/Live_Coding_Without_Computers http://www.toplap.org/index.php/Main_Page
http://www.pawfal.org/index.php?page=FluxusDocumentation
http://www.mndl.hu/taxonomy/term/23
http://www.runme.org/project/+netartgenerators/
Generator.x is a curatorial platform exploring the use of generative strategies and software processes in digital art, architecture and design. It focuses on a new generation of artists and designers who embrace code as a way of producing new forms of creative expression.
Computational strategies are having an impact in many creative fields. Generator.x was set up to examine the following topics in particular:
http://www.generatorx.no/ http://www.generatorx.no/category/generative-art/
Machine/Process employs computational algorithms to create geometric animations in real-time. The result is an animated, living environment created by continuously changing dynamic graphics. The piece also reveals the invisible, elusive inner working of the real machine through the abstract representation of the flow of machine code instructions/memory accesses.
http://www.google.com/search?q=livecoding+environment
http://transition.turbulence.org/networkedmusicreview/tags/livecoding/
http://hyperyarn.criticalartware.net/
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/nc81/research.php
http://www.pawfal.org/flotsam/
We just want to change the world.
Sure, we may not be known in the in circles. We may not fill the pages of design annuals. And we may never see our names in lights. But, we do know how to save the rain forest with a waterproof book. We do know how to build a park with a postcard. And we know how to bring water to a community with a few pages of newsprint.
We are part of a design movement. We believe that ability equals responsibility. And we are not the only ones. So, we built a lab where designers like you can make a difference. We are building the tools that will build the future. And this is where you come in.
FoAM is committed to growing inclusive, resilient and abundant worlds. We do this by providing a context and a structure to research, design and reflect on transdisciplinary creative practices. By seeking out and connecting people in the interstitial spaces between professional and cultural boundaries, we are smoothing the way for a community of ‘generalists’. This diverse community enables its members to tackle complex challenges, in the cultural, as well as technological environments. While facilitating multi-stakeholder workshops, or mixing digital and physical realities, FoAM steers the creative practices towards ethically and environmentally sustainable practices. Our motto, ‘grow your own worlds’ alludes to our mission; to move from wasteful consumption and mindless dependence to responsible participation in all aspects of our lives.
All FoAM activites are derived from three sets of core principles. [1] FoAM should, through all its activities, foster interdependence between people and their disciplines through transdisciplinary collaboration. We believe that the world is an intricate tangle of realities, which cannot be understood by hacking it into a heap of single issues. By collaborating with various disciplines, we believe that we can better grasp the world in its elegant complexity. [2] Our actions and their outcomes should nourish our cultural and natural environment, as well as sustain ourselves. This can only be accomplished if we foster a culture of sharing, rather than commodifying, where prosperity doesn’t equal property. FoAM is therefore an avid supporter of open-source and copy-left movements, advocating the view that free access to resources stimulates collective creativity and innovation. [3] Working with a diversity of people and sharing resources allows us to discover new things and be amazed by the world on a daily basis. We cherish this curios approach to the world, spicing it up with a hint of irreverence, playfulness and humility.
We live in a world whose social, environmental and economic systems are fundamentally out of balance. From education to politics, from science to arts, cultivation and culture, most these systems today are based on segregation, reductionism and homogeneity. We see a world, not too far in the future, in which building bridges between separate disciplines, cultures and beliefs will become not only a desired talent, but an essential survival skill. Once the bridges are built, we can work together to design a fairer and greener world, that can thrive on interdependence and diversity. Amidst turbulent climate, wasteful consumerism and xenophobic security measures, FoAM is a haven for people who are committed to finding creative solutions to these intricate problems.
As with foam (the preparation), FoAM (the group) is a dynamic entity, able to change shape and scale as required. We can be a transdisciplinary organisation in the morning, a tightly knit family at lunchtime, a learning facility in the afternoon, a loose bunch of philosophers in the evening and a dedicated designers collective by night. Most of our activities occur in FoAM-Labs, our trans-local bases; hybrids between research laboratories and creative studios. FoAM-Labs are designed to encourage reciprocal exchanges of ideas, techniques and experiences. We are organised as a distributed laboratory, with bases and nodes (people, projects and partner -organisations) spread across the globe. This distributed structure allows us to keep the bases (FoAM-Labs) as small and flexible organisations able to incubate and spawn experimental initiatives, while the network can support and develop activities on larger scales.
FoAM develops its activities in a layered structure, as long-term initiatives, yearly thematic projects and short term experiments. This structure allows us to touch on 'burning issues' as they arise, as well as be engaged in projects concerned with slower, long term tendencies. Our activities can be loosely categorised as [1] research and creation, [2] education and learning, [3] dissemination and archiving. In diverse teams of generalists and specialists, we research and create experimental situations, responsive environments, active materials, generative media, culinary performances and other forms of participatory culture. We encourage shared learning and development, by facilitating workshops and hosting public events. We disseminate accumulated knowledge in co-authored publications, on-line and on-site libraries and archives. We are equally inspired by sciences and arts, nature and culture, engineering and design, physical and digital, upholding the values of complexity and whole systems thinking. We create hybrid realities by infusing knowledge with imagination and routine with magic.
Game Mod was a six hour long workshop with the objective of showing the participants that it is not required to understand code to experiment and play with it.
Although they had no experience in coding, the task of each participant was to make a mod (modified version) of a game built in Processing.
A version of the atari game 'Breakout' was built in Processing for the workshop. Unlike common breakout games, in this version the ball bounces on all four sides of the screen, so the game goes on forever, without pauses. This way the game can be modified to the point where its original gaming references are lost, and still maintain a continuous and endless motion. (A cool side-effect is that the player can dribble with the ball).
http://www.trsp.net/teaching/gamemod/
As the cost of fossil-fuel energy continues to escalate and supplies of readily accessible high-grade ores and minerals gradually become depleted, the utilization of nonterrestrial sources of energy and materials and the development of a nonterrestrial industrial capacity become increasingly desirable. The Moon offers plentiful supplies of important minerals and has a number of advantages for manufacturing which make it an attractive candidate factory site compared to Earth. Given the expense and danger associated with the use of human workers in such a remote location, the production environment of a lunar manufacturing facility should be automated to the highest degree feasible. The facility ought also to be flexible, so that its product stream is easily modified by remote control and requires a minimum of human tending. However, sooner or later the factory must exhaust local mineral resources and fall into disrepair or become obsolete or unsuitable for changing human requirements. This will necessitate either replacement or overhaul, again requiring the presence of human construction workers with the associated high costs and physical hazards of such work.
The Replicating Systems Concepts Team proposes that this cycle of repeated construction may possibly be largely eliminated by designing the factory as an automated, multiproduct, remotely controlled, reprogrammable Lunar Manufacturing Facility (LMF) capable of constructing duplicates of itself which would themselves be capable of further replication. Successive new systems need not be exact copies of the original, but could, by remote design and control, be improved, reorganized, or enlarged so as to reflect changing human requirements.
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/chapter5.htm
http://www.urbanhonking.com/ideasfordozens/2009/04/an_aesthetics_reading_list_for.htm
http://harkopen.com/projects/minia
http://antipastohw.blogspot.com/