260615 | Chateaubriand inspects Pompeii

In 1804, the French writer-philosopher suggests that the city should be methodically rebuilt and repaired to stand it once was, rather than being scattered piece by piece into museums. “While walking through this city of the dead, one idea has pursued me. As they clear the different buildings at Pompeii, they remove whatever they discover, […]

260611 | Ars Electronica 2026: “Negotiating Humanity”

Save the date: Ars Electronica 2026 From September 9 to 13, 2026, Linz will once again become an international meeting place for art, technology and society. Under the title “NEGOTIATING HUMANITY”, Ars Electronica 2026 asks how societies can remain capable of dialogue in times of growing polarization, technological transformation and global crises, and how democratic […]

260611 | AI vs Linux, says Linus

*It’s good to hear these things direct from the source, sometimes. https://youtu.be/4_x0USuQ9Ss?si=KhO1RSQ4PJlpYIbN

260603 | Next Nature interviewing Lev Manovich

*Well, that’s bound to be of unusual interest. https://nextnature.org/en/magazine/story/2025/lev-manovich-when-ai-becomes-culture

260602 | Open Call for Art+Science Fellowships – Emergence Festival 2027

Open Call for Art+Science Fellowships – Emergence Festival 2027 Deadline: June 30, 2026 How does complexity arise? How do simple interactions give rise to worlds, structures, behaviours, and forms of collective life? The research consortium Emergence At All Scales (EAAS) invites artists, makers, and collectives to propose new artworks inspired by the theme of emergence. […]

260529 | Artissima 2026

ARTISSIMA 2026 Artissima Internazionale d’Arte Contemporanea di Torino presents its 33rd edition, that will take place at the Oval Lingotto Fiere from Friday 30 October to Sunday 1 November 2026 with the support of the Main Partner Intesa Sanpaolo and with Gallerie d’Italia – Torino, the bank’s museum, joining forces with the fair for the […]

260520 | Meanwhile, in the Iris van Herpen atelier

https://youtu.be/Y9td5AW6y1c?si=Td6M4DLhsNE7JLuU

260520 | Tim Leatherman writes a book about Leatherman

*Well, if you want to read it, you want to read it.

260520 | Transmediale Lattice Labs

https://transmediale.de/en/programme/lattice-labs Working towards the next festival edition, we are excited to announce the open calls for the Lattice Labs 💫 The labs are a process-based educational format for emerging artists, researchers, and practitioners looking to develop their practice in dialogue with others. Building towards transmediale 2027, the five working groups are dedicated to rethinking and […]

260516 | Multitools don’t work well: the perennial multitool story

It’s impressive when you can carry a multitool every day for years and then realize that it doesn’t work. It sort-of works, but you’re fond of it and loyal to it because you got used to it. If you’re freed from it for a while, then the spell breaks. If you’re a regular user of […]

260507 | Meanwhile, in Venice

260506 | The Carlo Ratti Polyamorous Home

*How could this NOT be good? THE POLYAMOROUS HOME CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati presents The Polyamorous Home. As new biological and robotic companions enter our homes, domestic space becomes a site of constant negotiation and coexistence. In this expanded ecology, the home must adapt—functionally and aesthetically. As inaugural Guest Editor of INTERNI (May 2026 issue), Carlo […]

260506 | Open “Creative R&D” Call from Serpentine Galleries and Future Art Ecosystems

Dear Friends, We are delighted to announce the launch of a new Creative R&D fellowship for practitioners working across art and advanced technologies. Taking place over six months from September 2026 to March 2027 and offering a £10,000 stipend to four fellows, the FAE Fellowship is a low-residency programme inviting both individuals and collectives to […]

260506 | Entire Venice Biennale jury resigns over international politics and endemic warfare

*These aren’t jolly times in the art world. https://apnews.com/article/venice-biennale-jury-resigns-russia-dispute-1181764f270dc48bcea488ea30c44d78 MILAN (AP) — The international jury of the Venice Biennale resigned Thursday, just nine days before the world’s oldest and most important contemporary art fair opens, amid tensions over Russia’s participation and the panel’s decision to bar prizes for countries accused of crimes against humanity. The […]

260505 | “New Bad Image” show

https://verse.works/exhibitions/new-bad-image “New Bad Image explores how online culture reshapes identity through endless circulation. In a time where meaning is manufactured by marketing departments and guided by the rule that “attention makes attention,” the exhibition asks what remains of authenticity and authorship. “Many of the artists assemble found and deteriorated imagery scavenged from the web, the […]

260505 | Lidia Poet dead media tie-in

*This has very little do to with Share Festival’s interests in media art, but it’s extremely Turinese. https://youtu.be/ArUjKRz57wg?si=elmNsDG_QmEFZZal

260503 | Industry stats of electronic music 2026

https://youtu.be/4xQ-sghgLZ0?si=u-m9UCHf0wMDPOa8

260503 | Elena Asins, a pioneer Spanish computer artist

https://vimeo.com/32332522?fl=pl&fe=sh

260501 | Gryphon Rue — A Cirque Calder Listening Session | The Whitney Museum of American Art

*Quite edifying, for fans of Alexander Calder. https://youtu.be/pUxdazdHcO0?si=xYSh5D2by_eBb93T

260501 | Reply AI Film Festival

*It’s a press release. Good morning, I hope this email finds you well. Reply, the global tech group listed on the Italian Stock Exchange (market cap exceeding €2.9 billion), is happy to announce the jury for the third edition of the Reply AI Film Festival, the international short film competition where all entries must be […]

260429 | The Functgraph

*It’s Japanese, and also academic, but the core idea here is a 3DPrinter that builds a functioning factory. https://youtu.be/COzBWYkMgyw?si=K1owdJ-KOmqR0t3Z

260429 | Militarized making and hacking with the “People’s Military Industrial Complex”

*As in civilian life, it is easy to start and has low barriers to entry, but it hard to maintain and maybe impossible to institutionalize. https://warontherocks.com/the-strange-rise-and-fall-of-russias-crowd-sourced-defense-industry/ (…) In 2022, to address the needs of the floundering Russian military, numerous Russian individuals, volunteers, and civil society organizations, and eventually small technical teams, took to social media […]

260428 | Meanwhile, at Sedition Art

*Fifteen years has been quite a while. https://seditionart.com/artworks Hi everyone, Thank you to everyone who reached out to me with your questions and feedback over the past week. I really appreciate it. It is incredibly helpful to hear directly from collectors as we continue improving Sedition and building the next chapter of the platform. A […]

260427 | AI video history-simulator explains his creative practice

“Fourteen million views in ninety days,” and so on. https://youtu.be/dNejbCnqfq4?si=HDaCIYiZiDHDD9uH

260425 | Refik Anadol and his Dataland

Hello to our RAS community! We are honored to share some exciting news with you! DATALAND is opening June 20, 2026 in Downtown Los Angeles. Under the artistic leadership of Refik Anadol Studio, DATALAND is conceived as a living museum where architecture is no longer static, but part of an intelligent framework. Built without compromise, […]

260423 | Olia Lialina “Without Us”

*Olia has good ideas. Dear Nettimers, First of all, I’d like to invite those of you who are not too far from Stuttgart to attend the lecture series I’m organizing this semester at Merz Akademie. Secondly, as you can see if you follow the link, the guests and I are trying to create a kind […]

260423 | “Claude Desktop Buddy”

*A rather bizarre physical AI toy, recently made open-source. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-desktop-buddy

260422 | Arduino that runs Linux

*It’s an ad. But, it runs Linux. https://youtube.com/shorts/MJz76lb9D5w?si=QuTIeoiatiqjMhHV

260421 | “Training a Tokenizer That Actually Speaks Italian”

https://medium.com/@fabio_angeletti/training-a-tokenizer-that-actually-speaks-italian-4084919224db (…) Why English Tokenizers Fail at Italian The apostrophe problem In English, apostrophes mark possessives or contractions: “it’s,” “don’t,” “Sarah’s.” They’re grammatically optional — you could rewrite any sentence without them. In Italian, apostrophes are elisions — they mark where two words fuse into a single grammatical unit. “L’intelligenza” means “the intelligence.” “Dell’algoritmo” means […]

260420 | Discussing algorithmic cinema

*That was edifying.

260416 | Meanwhile, at HEK

Dear Friends of HEK, This Friday, 17 April 2026 at 17:00 we warmly invite you to the online opening of After the Dataset on virtual.hek.ch. Selected by the Friends of HEK community,the exhibition by Gazelli Art House is curated by Pegah Hoghoughi. It explores how AI shapes cultural memory and visual knowledge, and how datasets […]

260416 | Neal Stephenson vs the Metaverse

https://nealstephenson.substack.com/p/my-prodigal-brainchild (…) I am, thank God, curiously detached from all this. Four and a half years ago I was minding my own business, cutting metal in my machine shop, when I received a text message from John Gaeta, a former colleague at Magic Leap, reading simply “Sorry for your loss.” At first I thought that […]

260414 | Neural Computers

*It’s a proposal — replacing the programmable computers of the past with Turing-equivalent systems that are based on visual neural-net models. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2604.06425 Introduction Can a single set of weights act as a “computer”? We term this abstraction a Neural Computer (NC): a neural system that unifies computation, memory, and I/O in a learned runtime state. […]

260403 | Share Festival Call for Artists 2026! “Popular Singularity”

*For the people!

260402 | Pi mayhem

*This won’t be pretty, but the causes aren’t pretty, either.

260330 | The Burdensome Multitool Collection

“Thinking About Selling My Multi Tool Collection,” he says on YouTube. https://youtu.be/RIHNVfk2KEU?si=ajh8Ax3oNBnVA-Hw

260321 | Dissecting the latest Mac laptop.

That was edifying. https://youtu.be/NueC1gwGQHs?si=Iz9ZjEE4zGlwqbP-

260312 | Arduino VENTUNO Q Demo at Embedded World 2026

*That device is almost comically huge. https://youtu.be/gVd1qKlfCyY?si=okzmUnSdMuUTnEey

260309 | People’s AI Action manifesto

*We’ve always liked a manifesto here on the weblog. https://peoplesaiaction.com On July 23, the Trump Administration plans to release its AI Action Plan reflecting the Trump White House’s priorities to use government resources to expand the AI industry. The advancement of American AI must deliver first and foremost for the American people. We can’t let […]

260306 | Multimeters

https://youtu.be/oI_CJA31GV4?si=mRQGGbOoE5E7YtEZ

260304 | 120 years of electronic music

*A dead media copper mine. https://120years.net

260304 | Eyebeam open call: Speculating on plurality

EYEBEAM’S 2026 OPEN CALL FOR EMERGING ARTISTS: SPECULATING ON PLURALITY In an era when we are more digitally connected than ever, algorithms and data determine how we experience the world. With the rapid development of new technologies and their near-compulsory integration into our lives, they have permanently altered our relationships with ourselves, with each other, […]

260304 | Inside Brian Eno’s Studio | Zane Lowe Interview

*Interesting shots of the Eno atelier. https://youtu.be/nR4JAonAR4g?si=rR7gbczbQHB330f2

260301 | Instant 3DPrinting

*It’s very technical, but also it’s in NATURE, so they’re not kidding. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10114-5

260228 | Data stored safely for ten thousand years (they speculated)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-10042-w (…) Here, we present Silica, a comprehensive archival digital data storage technology built on femtosecond laser direct writing in glass. Our technology guarantees data integrity (stored data are retrieved without errors), and a storage system using this technology18 guarantees high data durability (data are not lost due to failures). Silica is the first glass-based […]

260228 | A day in the life by Norwegians who read Cory Doctorow

https://youtu.be/T4Upf_B9RLQ?si=iQKVaQRmssHPY9cM

260220 | Meanwhile, in Maker 3DPrinter land, 2026 AD

https://youtu.be/03jO6pAqFuU?si=vlCe7hKA2CiR5z4P

260219 | OpenClaw vs Adafruit

Well, that was edifying. https://youtu.be/fdidNp5IHHI?si=tc3NHicqHrh7elaI

260219 | Bing ChatGPT discussing scientific research

Read these nine rules for scientific research (made up by Carl Sagan many years ago). 1.) Demand independent confirmation of whatever statements are asserted as facts. 2.) Encourage substantive debate from all points of view by those with substantial, relevant expertise. 3.) Don’t accept an argument from an authority because that person is an authority. […]

260214 | A RepRap shaped like a human

260213 | An Ives electric Ferrari

https://www.wired.com/story/ferrari-ev-jony-ive-design/

260204 | Turinese esoteric slopject

260203 | Conference: AI and the Creative Condition

Conference: AI and the Creative Condition https://arts.au.dk/en/text/conference-ai-and-the-creative-condition The conference will take place 23-24 March, 2026 at Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS). It is hosted by Center for Contemporary Cultures of TEXT and Human-AI Collaboration (HAIC-III). Generative AI is not just a technical breakthrough – it’s reshaping how we create, communicate, and understand our cultural […]

260203 | Project Genie rolling out more AI product

https://youtu.be/YxkGdX4WIBE?si=0tC-VA1Rwlub9eQX

260203 | Social chatbot mayhem

https://youtu.be/p9acrso71KU?si=i9Ne3_R-dGBmQx3d

260203 | Autonomous language-image generation loops converge to generic visual motifs

https://www.cell.com/patterns/fulltext/S2666-3899(25)00299-5 The bigger picture As AI systems increasingly generate and evaluate their own creative outputs, they begin to influence not only what we produce but also how creativity itself evolves. Our study shows that when one combines two state-of-the-art models, one describing images and the other regenerating them, and they interact without human input, they […]

260203 | Cultural Collapse: Toward a Generative Formalism for AI Cultural Production

https://anthology.ach.org/volumes/vol0003/cultural-collapse-toward-generative-formalism-for/10.63744@USvuyzSIapvy.pdf What is ‘slop’? Critics of AI have increasingly used this word to express aesthetic embarrass- ment, disappointment, even disgust with generative AI artistic production [9]. Historically, ‘slop’ referred concretely to liquid food for the ill (1658) and pig feed (1805) before metaphorically to sentimentality (1866) and ‘nonsense, rubbish; insolence’ [6]. Today, the rise of […]

260202 | It must be an artwork, then

260201 | Il Moloch dei media morti

260130 | The Moloch of Dead Media

260129 | From AI Image to 3DPrint

https://youtu.be/qBwTPJ3zljA?si=77nSDL2ceeNgD6WX

260128 | Italian Fediverse

https://fediverse.observer/map

260123 | Open Call | Exhibit at Sónar+D 2026

https://youtu.be/aeWq5OJ41Qo?si=3yQWxl6Mxd9TtKot

260121 | AI and Italian earthquakes

*What if the earthquakes are hallucinated? https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/09/ai-model-reveals-hidden-earthquake-swarms-and-faults-italys-campi-flegrei Campi Flegrei is an active volcano located within the densely populated Neapolitan area. This volcanic region, which is home to more than 500,000 people, has experienced episodes of unrest dating back to the late 1950s. The last period of unrest started in 2005, with a significant increase of […]

260119 | The Something-Something Dataset

*It’s almost ten years old. https://www.qualcomm.com/developer/software/something-something-v-2-dataset Your model recognizes certain simple, single-frame gestures like a thumbs-up. But for a truly responsive, accurate system, you want your model to recognize gestures in the context of everyday objects. Is the person pointing to something or wagging their index finger? Is the hand cleaning the display or zooming […]

260117 | MIT Slopjects

https://youtu.be/3BEZYZ86DNQ?si=QuV2RltKqv5Bolqr

260115 | Raspberry Pi “AI Hat”

https://youtu.be/jRQaur0LdLE?si=hU8XgBFLd4aThR67

260115 | Thirty-five Humanoids in Las Vegas

https://youtu.be/5bKaiNxt1KM?si=BDdFjcPpeuN9KXIv

260112 | Open Call: Prix Ars Electronica 2026 – Submit now!

https://youtu.be/wbFxtPbHQ3s?si=Fs2ccFMP2XjrO2DS

260112 | An Italian Humanoid

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” is a wise remark, but what is your action plan if one walks into the room? The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas recently had a walking, dancing squadron of various “humanoids.”

260112 | Italian Humanoids

https://www.therobotreport.com/1x-partners-with-eqt-to-roll-out-humanoids-across-its-portfolio-companies/ 1X Technologies AS this week announced a strategic partnership with EQT, a private equity firm and investor in 1X through EQT Ventures. The companies said they intend to roll out up to 10,000 of 1X’s humanoid robots across EQT’s global portfolio between 2026 and 2030. EQT noted that ultimately each portfolio company will make […]

260109 | The “Reachy” robot atelier in Bordeaux, France

*It looks very Turinese. https://youtu.be/yaQDMt7dl4g?si=w9mWzfh5VF4ysUW9

260109 | Worst of Show CES 2026

https://youtu.be/cxZgILm95BU?si=DxDkVksnFJI1dMhn

260108 | Meanwhile, at Museum Tinguely

*You can get quite famous when you’re dead and 100 years old. Museum Tinguely looks back on an outstanding year. In 2025, Museum Tinguely welcomed 166,133 visitors, the largest number since 1998, bettered only by the two years after the museum’s opening in 1996. Born in 1925, the Swiss artist Jean Tinguely would have turned […]

260107 | Cyberspace Administration of China VS AI companions, 2026

Interim Measures for the Administration of Artificial Intelligence Anthropomorphic Interactive Services (Draft for Public Comments) Chapter I General Provisions Article 1 For the purpose of promoting the sound development and regulated application of artificial intelligence anthropomorphic interactive services, safeguarding national security and the public interest, and protecting the lawful rights and interests of citizens, legal […]

260107 | Submissions Open: Prix Ars Electronica 2026

Submissions Open: Prix Ars Electronica 2026 in Four Categories (Linz, January 7, 2026) Submissions for the Prix Ars Electronica are now open. In 2026, the renowned media art prize is accepting entries in the categories Digital Humanity, Interactive Art +, New Animation Art, and u19—create your world. Participants compete for the four coveted Golden Nicas, […]

260106 | “2025: the year in LLMs”

“Your mileage may vary,” as they say. https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/31/the-year-in-llms/

260102 | Ancient Everyday Weirdness (2026) by Bruce Sterling

I seem to have gotten into the habit of writing a long design essay every year. https://medium.com/@bruces/ancient-everyday-weirdness-591955f40a2d This design essay is part of a series, including “The Homemade Limits of Everyday Weirdness” and “Some Public Limits of Everyday Weirdness.” I release these essays on New Year’s Day. My two earlier essays were about weird domestic […]

251227 | “The Savoyard”

https://youtu.be/gYZ5goV3_vI?si=G5gzuGk5M46Y0UsS

251223 | At Share Festival

Let’s take a minute, before the holidays, to look back together on the period just ended… 2025 was an intense year in which we built a lot It was a year marked by challenges and profound changes, but also by an extraordinary collective energy, in which we felt the presence and strength of the community […]

251221 | Critical AI Literacy

That seems fun. https://olivia.science/ai As we say here, CAIL is: an umbrella for all the prerequisite knowledge required to have an expert-level critical perspective, such as to tell apart nonsense hype from true theoretical computer scientific claims (see our project website). For example, the idea that human-like systems are a sensible or possible goal is […]

251219 | Clouds of impossibility, etc

TH/NGS 2025 – Ling Tan & Usman Haque ThingsCon Dec 19, 2025 MARINETERREIN AMSTERDAM Keynote of Ling Tan & Usman Haque TH/NGS 2025–RESIZE-REMIX-REGEN, CRCL PARK, 12 December 2025 Ling-Usman Video by bartatwork.com

251214 | NOME Gallery in Torino

NOME MOVES ON! It has been 10 amazing years since NOME opened in Berlin. After 56 exhibitions, it’s now time to move on. In 2026, the gallery will relocate to Torino, Italy. I came to Berlin to learn and to give to the city a program of exhibitions, talks, concerts, that came from my heart. […]

251214 | Meanwhile, in Turin’s Medieval Village

251212 | The 1980s: An Institutionalization of the Technologically Tentative

*I’m really enjoying the tech-art gossip in this Garnet Hertz tome. …As time passed, the genre of electronic art—­ lacking formal institutional ­ representation—­ congealed into international subcommunities. The period of the 1980s saw the experimentation of the 1960s and 1970s congeal into a number of relatively stable local organizations that encouraged technologi- cally oriented […]

251212 | Garnet Hertz, “Art + DIY Electronics,” 2023

https://dn721904.ca.archive.org/0/items/mit_press_book_9780262361576/mit_press_book_9780262361576.pdf …We need to resuscitate DIY to save making from itself. My reasons for rejecting making in favor of DIY should now be clear. The inescapable problem with making is that it trades out the cultural, artistic, and controversial components of DIY culture for a more family-­ friendly for- mat for a mass audience palate. […]

251212 | Our Future Memory manifesto

https://ourfuturememory.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/STATEMENT-ON-DIGITAL-RIGHTS-FOR-PROTECTING-MEMORY-INSTITUTIONS-ONLINE-logo.pdf STATEMENT ON DIGITAL RIGHTS FOR PROTECTING MEMORY INSTITUTIONS ONLINE Purpose: In recognition of the irreplaceable value that libraries, archives, and museums (hereinafter “memory institutions”) bring to the public, this document articulates the essential activities in archival collection, preservation, and lending that need protection and support in today’s digital media environment. Together, the signatories call […]

251212 | Jugaad vs Making

These are both terrible coffee-cups. They could be technically improved pretty easily, in terms of their haptics and performance, but I’m drinking coffee out of the new and shiny one anyway.

251212 | East UnBloc

*My, this looks pretty good. https://ngbk.de/en/programm/programm/eastunbloc

251205 | Forthcoming at MUFANT

https://www-fantascienza-com.translate.goog/31311/la-fantascienza-di-primo-levi-dal-versificatore-a-chat-gpt English translation: (…) The Versifier by Bruce Sterling Mufant’s interest in P. Levi’s Versificatore converges with the artistic project of Bruce Sterling , an American science fiction writer, founder of the cyberpunk movement, as well as artistic director of Share Festival, the Turin festival of technological art. Over the last two years, Sterling has […]

251205 | In Other Worlds, the first UK solo exhibition by Liam Young

*How could that not be good? https://www.creativeboom.com/news/barbican-announces-in-other-worlds-the-first-uk-solo-exhibition-by-liam-young/

251201 | Really bad 3DPrint

The terms of art are good: stringing, blobs, layer shift, bad extrusion, elephant foot. https://youtube.com/shorts/2js2i6fXBtM?si=YqTc42L1DYeBS0CF

251130 | I hope this email finds you well

https://youtube.com/shorts/qKs_-uN6SSQ?si=979TsP18lc8oprqD

251128 | Venture capital in Italy

251128 | The latest EDRi-gram

Dear supporters, Last week, a chill down the digital rights community’s spine – and it wasn’t because of the unexpected snow in Brussels. The European Commission’s Digital Omnibus proposals finally landed – and they were as appalling as expected. The proposals massively threaten EU’s core digital protections, especially targeting the GDPR, the ePrivacy Directive and […]

251128 | New Tendencies, Zagreb Yugoslavia, 1961

https://monoskop.org/New_Tendencies

251128 | Balthasar Hacker’s breaking-and-entering multitool, circa 1595 AD

*What a very strange verbal coincidence that a device like this should be built by someone named “Hacker.” Google translation from German website: The iron box, decorated with the figures of Fortuna and Lucretia, features sliding lids and an intermediate shelf and contains fourteen small tools. On one side are three rasps, a pincer, a […]

251128 | Did she get a scriptwriter?

Some kind of conceptual breakthrough here. That’s a funny in-joke for her knife-collector demographic, but it’s also an intensely surreal Youtube short-video. https://youtube.com/shorts/4nNqbQogpCc?si=TqbliqvFEHg9JCS5

251127 | No wonder she’s popular

*Impressive social video skills here. That’s like a comical silent movie that’s intensely focussed on the innermost working of folding-knives. https://youtube.com/shorts/-m2zVyOJU_s?si=VS4wOEfNk9kfwWLY

251126 | “Gentleman’s Tactical”

*Oxymoronic tool categories, a favorite of the blog here.

251121 | Transmediale 2026

** TRANSMEDIALE 2026 ———————————————————— The ethos of the 2026 edition proposes a recalibrated tempo of gathering: recursive, porous, and durational, combining expansive programming with spaces for re-regulation and conviviality. Framed metaphorically through the architecture of a shell, both the festival’s rhythm and its thematic focus center on rethinking infrastructures, digital ways of life, and the […]

251121 | “The Illusion of Thinking” at V2_Lab

https://v2.nl/events/the-illusion-of-thinking The Illusion of Thinking is a group exhibition that explores the overlooked implications of artificial intelligence and its assumed capacity to think and reason. While AI often suggests genuine cognition, it primarily mirrors human ideas through recall and imitation, raising fundamental questions about the nature of understanding itself. As AI systems become increasingly embedded […]

251121 | Walking Through Maker Faire Shenzhen 2025

251119 | That belt sander

*It’s nice when modern people are making modern replicas of pre-iondustrial handmade Italian artifacts, an they haul out the big, shiny, electrically-powered belt-sander. https://youtu.be/mU46upSK-pY?si=XLp2yDY1J6LdxkJe

251118 | Functional sci-fi prop replicas

Rebuilding imaginary futures on YouTube. https://youtu.be/3T6Yu9QF310?si=AnUJMzcmqsb1wlvu

251115 | Disassembling the First FF1 Art Computer (Production Unit 001)

*Looking forward to Share Festival owning one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgveb2iSh08

251114 | Computers and poets writing poetry in 1961, as described by Rodney Brooks

https://rodneybrooks.com/a-prophetic-poem-about-artificial-intelligence-written-in-1961/ A Prophetic Poem about Artificial Intelligence Written in 1961 rodneybrooks.com/a-prophetic-poem-about-artificial-intelligence-written-in-1961/ In early September a poem about AI started circulating on social media, with a publication date of 1961. At first it just seemed too cute to me and I thought it might be fake, or written by an LLM, passed off as written by […]

251113 | Iris van Herpen career retrospective book

*This seems like quite an interesting volume. Maybe if she threw in a free pair of 3DKnitted Iris van Herpen socks. https://www.irisvanherpen.com/boutique/ivh-book

251109 | Ken Rinaldo Reel circa 2025

Who knew? Of course it’s great! https://youtu.be/K3CFILg5OTc?si=_kNZFm0Ke0WipPEX

251109 | Bruce Sterling interviews the Versificatore at Share Festival, 2025

*The Versificatore is being a really good sport about this. *We should all express our gratitude. https://bruces.medium.com/il-versificatore-public-interview-share-festival-2025-85ded7b4b66b

251106 | Well, that was Artissima 32

*It was pretty good. I wish I could have moved in and lived there. In a Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome. ARTISSIMA CHIUDE LA SUA TRENTADUESIMA EDIZIONE Si è conclusa in un clima di entusiasmo e concretezza, la trentaduesima edizione di Artissima Internazionale d’Arte Contemporanea di Torino. Diretta per il quarto anno da Luigi Fassi, Artissima […]

251106 | Is this an archive?

*I don’t know where this meme come from, but the “helmet as archive” is very “design-fiction diegetic-prototype.”

251106 | Christine Schöpf 1948 — 2025

*She founded the Ars Electronica prize. *Alas, at Share Festival we know how it feels to lose a person like that. https://ars.electronica.art/aeblog/en/2025/10/26/christine-schoepf/ It is with great sadness that we bid farewell to Christine Schöpf—a formative figure in media art and for all of us, without whom Ars Electronica would not be what it is today. […]

251102 | Artissima Day 1

Well, I was there on day one, and that’s them, all right. https://youtu.be/VSm11FlW7vM?si=LP0JypZsZ9UYkVMA

251031 | Turin during “Art Week”

*Some peculiar scenes.

251031 | Yancey Strickler opining at Metalabel

*A little odd that he doesn’t mentiion artists who are dead, who also tend to be the most profitable and the most famous and influential artists. https://blog.metalabel.com/whats-the-difference-between-an-artist-and-a-creator/?ref=the-metalabel-blog-newsletter (…) An artist is a self-directed artistic expressor. They work for themselves and express what they want. There’s no one beyond their anxiety looking over their shoulder telling […]

251030 | Share Festival! It’s happening! In Moncalieri!

I was there, I saw it. It’s real!

251030 | xCoAx 2026: 14th International Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics and X

xCoAx 2026 14th International Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics and X 8-10 July 2026 Torino, Italy https://xcoax.org/ Submit before February 1, 2026. xCoAx explores the intersections where computational tools and media meet art and culture in the form of multi-disciplinary enquiries on aesthetics, computation, communication and the elusive X factor that connects and affects them […]

251026 | Meanwhile, at OGR Torino

Quantum Visions, Electric Dreams. At OGR Torino art meets technology with three international exhibitions Laure Prouvost. WE FELT A STAR DYING | Binario 1 ELECTRIC DREAMS. Art & Technology Before the Internet | Binario 2 Erzë Dinarama. DRUMMING FOR LOVE | Binario 3 OPENING | 31 October 2025 7 PM RSVP Dear Bruce, OGR Torino, […]

251015 | Post-Photography

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/P/bo257335397.html From: natasha Subject: book release Date: 12 October 2025 at 17:29:57 GMT+2 Natasha Chuk. Photo Obscura: The Photographic in Post-Photography. Bristol/Chicago: Intellect, 2025. 198 pages. Drawing on photo history, media studies, visual studies, art history, and the digital humanities, Photo Obscura argues that the profound transformation of post-photography is not merely a trend but […]

251009 | README twenty years later

From: Søren Pold Date: Monday, 6 October 2025 at 16:26 To: DARC mailinglist Dear all, We welcome you to this online and Aarhus event celebrating the launch of the archive of the 2004 Readme Dorkbot videos. To mark this occasion and discuss the last 20 years in art, culture and computation, some of the original […]

251008 | Share Festival booting up

Dopo la rivelazione della shortlist finale, condividiamo le opere che saranno esposte durante la diciassettesima edizione di Share Prize. Opere che arrivano dal futuro, nella destinazione neoclassica del Real Collegio San Carlo, dove collaboriamo con Paratissima per il terzo anno consecutivo. Le opere di questa edizione sono: posttomorrow-stwst-wes12.jpg Post-Tomorrowland Morning Post Michael Aschauer Il TomorrowLand […]

251008 | Qualcomm Arduino

*Well, there’s a development. https://makezine.com/article/technology/arduino/live-arduino-announce-uno-q-app-lab-and-qualcomm-acquisition/

251008 | Meanwhile, in Catalonia

*The Catalans like these big communal infrastructure spaces. Hello, dear nettimers, A public service anouncemnt! On October 2, 2025, the New Art Foundation opens the New Art Centre in Reus (Catalonia, Spain) with the inaugural exhibition Hello World! This is not the launch of another museum: the Centre is explicitly conceived as public-service infrastructure for […]

251007 | Engage Rotterdam manifesto 2025

https://www.engagerotterdam.nl/en-us/manifest Rotterdam is under pressure—socially, economically and culturally. Existing systems fail to address the problems many Rotterdammers face. We believe that artists and city shapers play an important role in addressing the big questions of today. engage 2025 is a gathering in which makers, residents, entrepreneurs and activists unite to make these questions visible. It […]

251007 | Artissima prizes in 2025

PRIZES AND ACQUISITIONS FUND Artissima 2025 celebrates its role in the discovery and rediscovery of talents, through the assignment of 13 prizes, honours and supports organized in collaboration with partners, foundations and institutions. Aimed at recognizing the value of the work of artists and galleries, the prizes will be assigned at the fair by international […]

251006 | New Max Casacci sampledelica track

I guess he’s right: grape harvests can be industrial. https://youtu.be/D1LaXCFqR_I?si=VSZ1U40rS56B6HzM

251001 | A Ross Lovegrove “Tech Nouveau” slopject from Google Deep Mind

https://youtu.be/lULd8fmxJC0?si=ioJVLpReXqGkxDDO

250930 | Artissima 2025

Starts on Halloween! LE COORDINATE DI ARTISSIMA 2025 Artissima Internazionale d’Arte Contemporanea di Torino è pronta ad accogliervi negli spazi dell’Oval Lingotto Fiere (45°01’38.4″N 7°39’37.3”E) dal 31 ottobre al 2 novembre 2025. In linea con il tema dell’anno — Manuale operativo per Nave Spaziale Terra — la fiera vuole accompagnarvi in un viaggio di rivelazione […]

250930 | Platform Brutality

Out Now: Platform Brutality by Geert Lovink, Valiz, Amsterdam, September 2025 The internet has become an integral part of all human activities. Its toxic aspects have fully permeated our personal, social and political lives, with people using it to attack others, normalise violence, spread fake news and make propaganda for extrme-right causes, to name just […]

250928 | “Zero-shot visual reasoning”

*That would be strange. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.20328

250927 | Covert escape multitool

https://youtu.be/SB7pbqNJal4?si=gTk0gHOoFFaNx3bP *I wonder if any prisoner during World War II ever successfully escaped actual custody by using a farfetched milspec gadget of this kind.

250926 | Full-color 3D resin printing — on flexible surfaces

https://youtu.be/y4V7OGILaJM?si=nixgNxI_4Tt44lUU

250926 | How sloppy is your slop?

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.19163 REFERENCES Meta AI. Introducing llama 4: Advancing multimodal intelligence, 2024. URL https://ai. meta.com/blog/llama-4-multimodal-intelligence/. Anthropic. Claude 3 model card addendum. Technical report, 2024. URL https://www-cdn. anthropic.com/fed9cc193a14b84131812372d8d5857f8f304c52/Model_ Card_Claude_3_Addendum.pdf. Accessed: 2024-12-30. Kyrtin Atreides and David J Kelley. Cognitive biases in natural language: Automatically detecting, differentiating, and measuring bias in text. Cognitive Systems Research, 88:101304, 2024. Payal Bajaj, […]

250926 | Meanwhile, in Australia

250924 | Large Language Models and human language barriers

*This isn’t “hallucination” exactly, but this is disconcerting. I asked the same question in two different languages, and only the Italian language could provide the answer. *Of course, given that this is an LLM, I’m not yet sure that was an “accurate” answer, but… When was Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel “The Last Days of Pompeii” first […]

250922 | Four (slightly different) Ancient Roman Multitools

https://flic.kr/p/2ruA2sB https://flic.kr/p/2ruFEUr https://flic.kr/p/2ruzYvK https://flic.kr/p/2ruFA3U *How many existed, when this tradition was in its heyday in the 2nd Century AD? Tens? Hundreds? Thousands?

250919 | “European Alternatives”

https://european-alternatives.eu/categories

250917 | Versificatore

250915 | Turinese Scientific Police

*Interesting tool-case there.

250911 | Gogbot 2025 in Enschede

GOGBOT presents SCROLL PANIC REPEAT festival for art | music | technology 60 artists, 9 locations, 4 days 18 – 21 September @ Enschede, NL Next week, GOGBOT Festival 2025: SCROLL PANIC REPEAT, will take over Enschede with art, music, films, tech, controlled chaos and an OVERLOAD of EVERYTHING. Clear your agenda on September 18–21 […]

250911 | Meanwhile, at Feral File

Dear Feral File Community, Today marks a new chapter for Feral File. In a few weeks we’ll open pre-orders for an art computer we call FF1. A computer with one purpose: to explore what it means to live with digital art that responds and evolves every day. This whole journey began as a gift for […]

250911 | At NOME Gallery in Berlin

EXHIBITION N.56 OPENING 11 SEPTEMBER 2025, 6—10 PM 11 SEPTEMBER—01 NOVEMBER 2025 NOME POSTDAMER STR. 72 10785 BERLIN Accurate Misreadings A group show with Camae Ayewa, James Bridle, Paolo Cirio, Cian Dayrit, Goldin+Senneby, Igor Grubić, Voluspa Jarpa, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Dread Scott REQUEST A PREVIEW * As part of Berlin Art Week 2025, NOME is […]

250910 | “Futuristic” neon signage in the museum.

*Dead media. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Sept. 8, 2025 70 YEARS AFTER ITS DEBUT, LAST REMAINING DUNES HOTEL SIGN WILL SHINE AGAIN AT THE NEON MUSEUM Legendary Las Vegas Landmark Returns to the Spotlight as The Neon Museum Honors The Dunes and the Visionaries Who Shaped Its Legacy Public Relighting Ceremony to Take Place Sept. 26 […]

250910 | Google Just Made Photography Obsolete (Nano Banana)

*An interesting counsel-of-despair by the photographer there. https://youtu.be/QrY_WoleAJs?si=ok_a-4TsjQli2jON

250909 | Darkness

250907 | 1910 – Le Téléphone: les appareils téléphoniques

*A “new media” demonstration for the public. https://youtu.be/91-ILBhKaCI?si=uwLKEmMUiOnGy-pP

250828 | The Bitter Lesson

*I’m posting this essay from 2019 because it resembles a manifesto. “It’s no use human coders figuring anything out, you just need bigger faster machines to search-and-learn,” it’s a bitter cry of despair but also a call to arms, and this belief will motivate billionaries to build gigantic data centers full of Big Data. http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html […]

250828 | The Political Economy of AI: a Syllabus

https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-political-economy-of-ai-a-syllabus HENRY FARRELL JUL 12, 2025 As I’ve noted occasionally before, one of the most potentially useful things that academics do is preparing syllabi, and hence organizing information about the world. I’m not aware of any course syllabi on the political economy of AI: here’s one, in draft form, to be taught to international policy […]

250828 | Cornelia Sollfrank in Berlin

Please join us for the upcoming exhibition “Nothing comes without its world! Cornelia Sollfrank & friends” in Berlin Exhibition at Deutsche Künstlerbund Berlin, 12 September – 21 November 2025. Opening Friday, 12 September 2025, 6pm On the occasion of the presentation of the HAP Grieshaber Prize 2025, Cornelia Sollfrank takes the invitation to a solo […]

250824 | Meanwhile, at Serpentine Galleries

Dear Friends, Last month we released Future Art Ecosystems 5: Art x Creative R&D, our latest briefing that charts the evolving landscape of art and advanced technologies. It captures the insights and momentum of practitioners on the ground, galvanising collective efforts and proposing a framework that positions artistic practice as a vital driver of technological […]

250819 | Four hundred of Laura Kampf’s friends

https://youtu.be/xTsuCKFa5TI?si=ZkgxYBkiV6moo276

250819 | NVIDIA at SIGGRAPH

Their “digital twin” ideology is as strange as Meta’s Metaverse.

250818 | “Are Knife Snobs Ruining the Multitool World”?

*I like these moral-crisis videos about the supposed threat of pocket jewelry. From an Italian perspective they really sound funny. https://youtu.be/yrucw1Dx77c?si=c4JPzTGk4vrj-cQO Is there a market for Leatherman tools that cost a thousand dollars (or more)? Yes, that’s a collectors’ market, and it’s quite old and well-established. Many years ago one of Abraham Lincoln’s pocket knives […]

250813 | From product design to special FX to museum-quality replicas

https://youtu.be/UfoDdIATW94?si=cy3qt30K9okqYwkZ *It’s a career path. “Cleaner and better than the original one, or the client is horrified and throws it back!” Yes, I believe that.

250813 | AI Without Bosses

https://ia601403.us.archive.org/14/items/public-syllabus-aug-7-community-syllabus-ai-without-bosses/Public_Syllabus_Aug%207_Community_Syllabus_AI_Without_Bosses.pdf Week 8 (Thursday, October 16, 2025)‬ ‭ WHAT COOPS ARE ALREADY DOING‬ ‭ AI is reshaping economies, institutions, and everyday life—but its development remains tightly‬ ‭ controlled by firms like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta. These companies dominate through‬ ‭ massive infrastructure, extractive data practices, and profit-driven design, often reinforcing‬ ‭ global inequality and ecological […]

250809 | YouTube celebrity specialty EDC fetish

*On Kickstarter, if you’re afflicted with the need to possess such things. https://youtu.be/xbGoesUi48A?si=2PBxsbd8NYYAKYo9 I think this device qualifies, not as “pocket jewelry,” but “influencer jewelry.”

250809 | If one slop-machine can’t slop it, another one will.

*Please generate a photorealistic image of Primo Levi’s Versificator, a retro-futuristic poetry-writing machine, sitting on a writer’s desk. The machine is a marvel of polished dark wood and brass fittings, with glowing amber vacuum tubes and intricate gears visible under a glass dome. A mechanical typewriter is integrated into its front, with a long scroll […]

250809 | For the Large Language Model, writing the poetry is the easy part

Base44.com I’ll create a sophisticated Versificator – an AI poetry machine inspired by Primo Levi’s visionary story. This will be an elegant tool that generates personalized poetry based on themes, styles, and moods you select. Key Features: Theme and style selection for personalized poetry Multiple poetic forms (sonnets, haikus, free verse, etc.) Mood and tone […]

250806 | The Tangpingist manifesto (2021)

*Chinese counterculture. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-tangpingist-manifesto Anonymous Tangpingist Tangpingist Manifesto Tangpingists of the world, unite! Translator’s Introduction 1. Introduction: The great refusal/flat refusal 2. “Fellow Travellers” of Tangpingists 3. The Dilemma of Tangpingists 4. Allies of Tangpingists 5. Alternative Autonomous Communities Translator’s Introduction This piece’s exact origin is hard to discern. It seems to have been either originally […]

250805 | Taoist cutlery handicraft

In the legendary “Zhuangzhi” text of classical Taoism, the master of butchery talks at length about the condition of his handicraft tools. 庖丁為文惠君解牛，手之所觸，肩之所倚，足之所履，膝之所踦，砉然嚮然，奏刀騞然，莫不中音。合於《桑林》之舞，乃中《經首》之會。文惠君曰：「譆！善哉！技蓋至此乎？」庖丁釋刀對曰：「臣之所好者道也，進乎技矣。始臣之解牛之時，所見无非牛者。三年之後，未嘗見全牛也。方今之時，臣以神遇，而不以目視，官知止而神欲行。依乎天理，批大郤，導大窾，因其固然。技經肯綮之未嘗，而況大軱乎！良庖歲更刀，割也；族庖月更刀，折也。今臣之刀十九年矣，所解數千牛矣，而刀刃若新發於硎。彼節者有間，而刀刃者无厚，以无厚入有間，恢恢乎其於遊刃必有餘地矣，是以十九年而刀刃若新發於硎。雖然，每至於族，吾見其難為，怵然為戒，視為止，行為遲。動刀甚微，謋然已解，如土委地。提刀而立，為之四顧，為之躊躇滿志，善刀而藏之。」文惠君曰：「善哉！吾聞庖丁之言，得養生焉。」 Nourishing the Lord of…: His cook was cutting up an ox for the ruler Wen Hui. Whenever he applied his hand, leaned forward with his shoulder, planted his foot, and employed the […]

250804 | Gogbot 2025 in Enschede: SCROLL PANIC REPEAT

GOGBOT presents SCROLL PANIC REPEAT 18 – 21 September @ Enschede, NL From Thursday 18 to Sunday 21 of September, GOGBOT returns to Enschede with a mind-bending journey into the chaotic rhythms of the digital age. With SCROLL PANIC REPEAT, we slice open the black mirror of your dopamine-parched brain, diving into infinite feeds, algorithmic […]

250804 | Andy Goldsworthy after 50 years

*That’s quite a while. https://youtu.be/IvLsCL4ChYA?si=58B-wJt3nhZwf85_

250804 | Ancient Roman Multitool Encounters

I haven’t been blogging about this because I’ve been rather busy doing it. https://www.flickr.com/photos/brucesterling/albums/72177720327696639/

250804 | Laura Kampf upcycling a monobloc chair with a dead skateboard

*That’s pretty impressive. https://youtu.be/lakqZvIoAkY?si=K90soddcE1-DzSxh

250731 | Open source hardware, 3DPrinters, and China

https://makezine.com/article/maker-news/why-is-open-source-hardware-not-working-for-3d-printers/ *Well, it was fun before it got geopolitical.

250729 | Silent Movie Days in Pordenone

*For people who appreciate “new media” more after contemplating old media. ATTENZIONE: Anche quest’anno, una selezione del programma verrà presentata online. Se le interessa seguire il festival in questa modalità, non richieda l’accredito adesso: a metà settembre riceverà una email con tutte le informazioni relative all’abbonamento ai film online. Gentile amico/a, siamo lieti di comunicarle […]

250727 | A YouTube makerspace for making alcoholic drinks

There are no Makertainment power-saws or overhead drills in it, but it’s clearly a closely-related media space. It has a few specialized bartending tools and a lot of components in cabinets. https://youtu.be/XFfyoxy_xUc?si=ZjGmARIi3076VdEd

250727 | Computational Culture, a journal of software studies, July 2025

Computational Culture, a journal of software studies Issue Ten, July 2025 Special Issue: Situated Bayes Edited by Juni Schindler, Goda Klumbytė and Matthew Fuller Special Issue Introduction Juni Schindler, Goda Klumbytė, Matthew Fuller, [Situated Bayes – Feminist and pluriversal perspectives on Bayesian knowledge](http://computationalculture.net/situated-bayes/) Special Issue Articles Clemens Apprich, [Learning How to Learn: Abduction as the […]

250727 | Turinese self-driving cars — maybe

*An interesting article in WIRED USA, but it’s unclear how any such scheme would actually happen. You’d have to pity a robot in the midst of Italian human drivers. https://www.wired.com/story/60-italian-mayors-want-to-be-the-unlikely-solution-to-self-driving-cars-in-europe/ 60 Italian Mayors Want to Be the Unlikely Solution to Self-Driving Cars in Europe A network of local officials in Italy want to turn their […]

250725 | Archival handmade sci-fi prop

They’re proud that it’s not 3DPrinted, and also that it’s outside the Hollywood studio system and the conventional prop collector market. They’re made on demand for connoisseurs. https://youtu.be/_jGd5k5l–E?si=WlCJOYrMpZhv4mbD

250723 | September: Ars Electronica Animation Festival 2025

https://youtu.be/0o4wevl2Sl4?si=kVRxQzcd-BBfDUbv

250722 | Italian tool scholar and his massive collection

https://youtu.be/I2j0EfE_g7k?si=XorTzpLWo-b7R60-

250720 | Meanwhile, in Santa Fe, New Mexico

*The Southwestern equivalent of Share Festival.

250719 | Meanwhile, at NEURAL magazine

“What is real?” (Neural #76) is still available! Only subscribers will get the artists’ intervention: Destructive Circuits by Dani Ploeger, an envelope of hacked everyday digital technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Print Subscription, 3 […]

250719 | Transmediale residencies

After a more than lovely open studio marking the close of our residency month, we are announcing two major open calls. Applications are now open for our 2026 residency programmes and for the curatorial role of the 2027 transmediale exhibition. AI replica girlfriends, Discord lurking, and the affective dimensions of rhythm – this year’s open […]

250719 | Replicated props are much harder than original props

*It makes sense. https://youtu.be/hD7UfaFLUPQ?si=aXz_atlPvsr1zwyS

250715 | Rebuilding extinct humans with contemporary media techniques

https://youtu.be/XlIt8_1AqiA?si=bU_6mwSET-Y0aoHj

250711 | The Barocelli Multitool in its museum

*It must have been in that museum for much longer than it was ever used as a multitool, before it was buried in a Roman necropolis. It was unseen in that grave for about 1,700 years.

250711 | Artissima 2025 is on the way

  Artissima 2025 GALLERIES AND PRIZES   Artissima Internazionale d’Arte Contemporanea di Torino announces the galleries that will participate in its 32nd edition, directed for the fourth year by Luigi Fassi and organized with the support of the Main Partner Intesa Sanpaolo. From Friday 31 October to Sunday 2 November 2025 the spaces of the […]

250710 | The Evan and Katelyn Maker/Youtuber makertainment studio

*Ferocious and prolonged attempts to unify building and filming. If “Vision/Language/Action” AI platforms ever become a big part of manufacturing, there will likely be a lot of this going on. https://youtu.be/1sJk_83lLA0?si=cYsOWuyfYFhB-890

250709 | Paola Antonelli being very Paola Antonelli

I’m so totally in this woman’s corner that I think 3 million people should be watching this. https://youtu.be/dqanmProeGM?si=TiPWPX2rjjRalPj0

250708 | Pondering the ancient Roman multitool

*Some specialized pictures and speculations. https://www.flickr.com/photos/brucesterling/albums/72177720327375872/

250708 | Generative Filboid Studge

*Using Bing/ChatGPT to artificially resurrect imaginary posters from a fantasy story published in 1911. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/sk-studge.html Prompt: Please create an Edwardian, Art Nouveau promotional poster for a British breakfast food named “Filboid Studge.” This sombre poster depicts the Damned in Hell suffering torment from their inability to get at the Filboid Studge, which elegant young fiends […]

250706 | A video costume-play demo of an ancient Roman multitool

*It’s nice to see one of those modern replicas treated in this hands-on fashion. I’ve often wondered if I should own one, just to encourage the trade. The modern replicas cost about as much as a modern Leatherman Arc. *As our Youtuber suggests, this gadget might have been a Roman military tool because (a) the […]

250705 | Pocket jewelry food preparation

*The Leatherman Arc is probably the best multitool ever designed and made, and it is plenty sturdy, has a sharp knife and relatively easy to clean, but I’d be hard put to prepare food with a Leatherman Arc. It seems peculiar somehow. Would the “Slow Food Movement” approve? I don’t see how.

250705 | Radically impractical AI-assisted concept shoes

*What has happened to Nike? Those shoes are overtly silly, and if it’s a publicity stunt, that video has less than two thousand views in a whole year.

250704 | Microsoft Bing inventing artifacts with Arduino Nano and Raspberry Pi

*Hey, way to go with the device art, Bingy. *Please create some instructions for a never-before-described physical object that will, if followed, will create that object. In other words, please invent some new thing and tell me how to make it. Bing Copilot: Absolutely —let’s get inventive. Here’s a blueprint for a brand-new, never-before-seen physical […]

250704 | Turinese experimental music

“It grew from Mana’s idea of making orchestral music that sounds like it’s written and performed by some alien entity that have never seen nor touched an instrument in its life.” *Who is going to buy and listen to something like this? Welll, that would be me. https://mana1.bandcamp.com/album/anemois-lies

250704 | The “YesChat DIY Expert” Large-Language-Model chatbot

*How can I make a good model of a science fiction prop from an old TV show? 2025-07-04 08:20:41 YesChat DIY Expert That sounds like a fun DIY project! Creating a science fiction prop model from an old TV show can be a super rewarding experience—whether you’re building it for cosplay, display, or just as […]

250703 | Italian brain-rot dolls at the Sacramento Walmart

*They’re called “Italian.” They’re not particularly Italian. They tend to have Italian nonsense names. *These are solid resin-plastic AI-generated toy mementos. I wonder if they’re big hits.

250702 | World Labs generated 3D

*That’s not virtual reality. It’s got “object permanence” and some physics.

250702 | Six months of effort on hobby Star Wars animatronics

250701 | Slopjects

“Manufactured objects” “3DPrinting” “Slopjects”

250701 | Ars Electronica Center – The Museum of the Future

*Well, I enjoyed that. *I didn’t go yet, I mean I enjoyed that self-promoting video. https://youtu.be/w6u6XfaKez8?si=xfjE5tMaslM83NC9

250701 | Zoo Design Studio

*What the heck gives with that “text-to-CAD” system? “Get the full power of a professional CAD platform, enhanced with ML through Text-to-CAD. Zoo Design Studio for desktop is free to download and explore.” https://zoo.dev/design-studio

250630 | Makertainment Youtube stars: Adam Savage, Evan & Katelyn

*I guess the business is still ongoing.

250629 | Laura Kampf: self-appointed public repair “Janitor of Los Angeles”

250629 | He makes Canadian junk robot sculptures

*I have an extremely high tolerance for efforts of this kind. “When I look at something, it’s never what it is.”

250628 | “Slopjects”

https://damassets.autodesk.net/content/dam/autodesk/www/pdfs/sketch-a-shape.pdf

250627 | Intelligent metamaterials and metamaterials intelligence

*One of the strangest things I’ve ever seen in a NATURE publication. It’s very Chinese, but it reads like science from another planet. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56122-3

250627 | Turinese Victorinox

These must sell well, since this new edition of a Turinized SAK has the image of the “Mole Antonelliana” on it. But which demographic is larger: Turinese regional patriots who want a localized Turinese multitool, or foreign visitors to Turin who want an exotic memento of the town?

250627 | Pocket jewelry, luxury knives and so on

*It’s a humble Opinel that has been extensively Nipponified, as seen in Turin.

250627 | Meanwhile, at SeditionArt

As the CEO of Sedition, I’m fully committed to making Sedition the most dynamic and trusted platform for digital art in the world. If you’ve already collected works through the platform over the last 13 years – thank you. You’re not only supporting pioneering artists, you’re holding cultural assets with growing relevance and value. I’m […]

250627 | Bing speculates about LLM manufacturing

What other manufacturing processes could benefit from LLM control? Here’s a tour through some manufacturing domains where LLMs could become the brains behind the brawn: Manufacturing Processes Ripe for LLM Integration 1. CNC Machining LLM Role: Interpret natural language specs into G-code, optimize tool paths, and suggest feed/speed adjustments based on material and tool wear. […]

250627 | Bing speculating about AI-controlled 3DPrinters

*If this isn’t actually an act of “speculation,” it certainly reads like speculation. What might a 3D printer fully controlled by LLMs look like? Imagine this: a 3D printer not just following orders—but conversing with you, adapting in real time, and learning from every print job like a seasoned artisan. Here’s a peek into what […]

250626 | There is and never was a standard “R2-D2”

*The various models were build by out-of-work aerospace engineers.

250626 | Engineer who invented an AI-powered way to restore art

*I rather expected this development.

250624 | Fidget dragons, print farms and drop shippers

3DPrinting is old enough for genuine popular jargon now. Also, it now has zero high-tech cachet.

250624 | Fanatical armor re-invention

Better than historically authentic, which is rather common in efforts of this kind.

250624 | Cocktail Maker

*Really de-mystifies and dis-enchants the whole cocktail process. Cocktails Skill Tree

250622 | Teenage Engineering medieval “Instrumentalis Electronicum”

*Oh for heaven’s sake.

250619 | Future Art Ecosystems

*Well, that’s Serpentine for you. https://futureartecosystems.org/briefings/ Dear Friends, The latest Future Art Ecosystems strategic briefing has now been released online! This year’s research has focused on Creative R&D, a unique format that integrates artistic experimentation, technological innovation and cross-sector collaborations. We spoke to over 60 artists, technologists, researchers and organisational leaders across culture, tech and […]

250616 | The “reference teams” who rebuild old props

Eight weeks to build one; three years to rebuild one that looks like the original.

250610 | Cartographic Imaginaries (Paris, 11 Jun 25)

Subject: CONF: Cartographic Imaginaries (Paris, 11 Jun 25) Paris, Île-de-France, FRA, EHESS, Salle 50, Campus Condorcet, 2 Cours des Humanités, Aubervilliers, Jun 11, 2025 Cartographic Imaginaries: Spaces and Images of Central and Eastern Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. In the 20th century, the collapse of empires (Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Russian/Soviet) and multiethnic […]

250609 | Izolatsiya

*That “torture camp” used to be a Makerspace.

250607 | NanoCluster, a tiny supercomputer

*Will it work, well, maybe. A Raspberry Pi supercomputer.

250606 | S+T+ARTS Prize Winners 2025

https://ars.electronica.art/mediaservice/en/2025/06/04/starts-prize-winners-2025/ (Linz/Brussels, June 4, 2025) The European Commission’s 2025 STARTS Prize has been decided on. Now in its tenth year, the initiative received 1,657 submissions from 90 countries. (((That’s a lot!))) This year’s “Grand Prize – Innovative Collaboration,” endowed with €20,000, goes to the LAS Art Foundation (DE) for its artistic research initiative Sensing Quantum. […]

250605 | Simone Giertz Exposed! – Studio Tour & BTS

*Makertainment studios have to be video studios. *Also, production spaces that are under intense video surveillance are quite interesting — “ubiquitous computing,” as they used to call it. Is that worth doing? Under what circumstances? Where are the hazards, what is the payoff, etc.

250605 | The Antikythera Mechanism: Episode 12, Part 1

Episode 12! Part one! *The guy has been publicly making that ancient Greek gizmo since forever. It might be argued that he’s just now getting to the good part.

250604 | Meanwhile, at Artissima

https://d1e6c.emailsp.com/f/rnl.aspx/?idg=vpvoy1&x=pv&:di=tzad&=tpuv/0.49a=7ei39i&x=pp&szh9b&x=pv&33dcz:4h=xxtvNCLM Artissima Internazionale d’Arte Contemporanea di Torino presents the first new developments for its 32nd edition, which will take place at the Oval in Torino from 31 October to 2 November, directed for a fourth year by Luigi Fassi and with the support of the Main Partner Intesa Sanpaolo and Gallerie d’Italia – Torino, the […]

250604 | Lady Ada’s electronic toolkit

*Trade war in a box.

250604 | Augmented Chinese Reality

https://www.chinatalk.media/p/chinas-ar-arms-race (…) China’s VR/AR industry reportedly raised 2.948 billion RMB (~US$340 million) across 30 investment and financing events from January to November 2024. While tech giants like Huawei and Xiaomi have been dabbling in AR, innovation has primarily been driven by the so-called “Five Little Dragons” of the AR industry: XREAL (优奈柯恩), RayNeo (雷鸟创新), Rokid […]

250530 | LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS VOLUME 4 | Inside the Animation: Spider Rose | Netflix

*Hahaha… it doesn’t belong in the Artmaker blog, but how could I not post this?

250529 | Micro Laser Kickstarter Welding Machine

*If you laser-slice your fingers off or weld both your eyes shut, don’t go and cry to the blog here. https://youtu.be/csWDatE2g6w?si=9o-5VZQx-fKSd-8D

250528 | Here comes Artissima

LE PRIME NOVITÀ   Artissima Internazionale d’Arte Contemporanea di Torino svela le prime novità della sua 32esima edizione, che si terrà all’Oval di Torino dal 31 ottobre al 2 novembre, diretta per il quarto anno consecutivo da Luigi Fassi e realizzata con il sostegno del Main Partner Intesa Sanpaolo e con le Gallerie d’Italia – […]

250525 | She put her machine shop in the dining room

*Oh for heaven’s sake. https://youtu.be/JZXtTWSZPCc?si=hKGcGO21KNhjFgei

250522 | Google AI augmented reality

*They’ve been building head-mounted AR glasses for over a decade. *If at first you don’t succeed, kill it and try again.

250521 | Error 417 Expectation Failed at !Mediengruppe Bitnik

Dear friends of Internet art, unexpected infrastructures and better futures, After a long, interesting and sometimes bumpy journey through a surprisingly elusive and sometimes adversarial contemporary bureaucracy, we are finally launching Error 417 Expectation Failed. Error 417 Expectation Failed is an independent foundation to support radically contemporary Internet art and net-based arts practices. So to […]

250520 | The fabricated crisis of art criticism

https://hyperallergic.com/1012944/the-fabricated-crisis-of-art-criticism/\ (…) “The real problem with art criticism today is the profusion of bad-faith actors, useful idiots, vapid scenesters, pitiful star-fuckers, press-release recyclers, dull theorists, hopeless graphomaniacs, paid influencers, cheap provocateurs, and apolitical, nihilist hacks. “But even the abundance of those in our field is a sign of a thriving ecosystem. Every forest has its […]

250519 | “Macchine Inutili 2025”

*He’s hard to beat for kinetic-art erudition.

250518 | A new Dunne and Raby book

…on the subject of speculative design.

250518 | Billian’s “drum and bass sound sculpture”

*The title is “Mekanize.”

250516 | An aesthetic theory of AI art

Problems of the worth and value of generative art aren’t new. What’s new about AI generation is that it tends to disguise itself as artificial human intelligence. Here Cory Doctorow is making a rather John-Ruskin-like argument that a cast-plaster replica of a statue lacks the aesthetic meaning and integrity of a human-carved marble statue. It’s […]

250515 | A job offer from MoMA in NYC

Application deadline: June 15, 2025 The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) 11 West 53rd Street New York, NY 10019 USA Add to Calendar T +1 212 708 9400 www.moma.org The mission of the Emilio Ambasz Institute for the Joint Study of the Built and the Natural Environment at The Museum of Modern Art is to […]

250514 | JSTA Journal: Counteract: practices of artistic resistance, dissidence and furtivity

New luddites are needed!! ✊🏼 I’m co-editing the next JSTA Journal issue, titled Counteract: practices of artistic resistance, dissidence and furtivity, a Scopus-indexed publication. I hope you resonate with the call. In case the theme(s) aligns with some of your interests, please contribute with your insights, reflections, and critical perspectives. I’d be grateful if you […]

250514 | Deglobalized ethnonational tariff pliers

*A strange cousin of luxury multitools, maybe.

250510 | Meanwhile, in Lyon

250505 | Brian Eno x Bloom – Bloom: Living World (Video Edit)

250504 | The science of cacio and pepe sauce

*It’s not art, but it’s Italian and how could we not blog it on ARTMAKER. https://pubs.aip.org/aip/pof/article/37/4/044122/3345324/Phase-behavior-of-Cacio-e-Pepe-sauce?ref=404media.co Pasta alla Cacio e pepe” is a traditional Italian dish made with pasta, pecorino cheese, and pepper. Despite its simple ingredient list, achieving the perfect texture and creaminess of the sauce can be challenging. In this study, we systematically […]

250504 | Sir Walter Scott and “antique fiction”

This inventor of historical fiction was an “antiquary” well before he became a novelist. In this personal narrative by Scott’s disciple Washington Irving, one can see that Scott regards antiques as historically-reversed “diegetic prototypes.” Scott intuits that these mute objects have a narrative. They were what they were, and are what they are, for historical […]

250503 | Some art history

*It’s not for everybody, but it’s the kind of art-history you’d want to read off the website here. https://liseuse.harmattan.fr/9782336465340

250502 | Laura Kampf’s Emotional Support Tool Roll

That’s quite a weird little tool bag. The most interesting thing about it is that it’s designed for Laura Kampf’s long-established personal habit of scroUunging street junk for Makertaimnent purposes. Also, she made a hundred of them and they sold out instantly at a price-point of USD $160, so it’s nice to see this German […]

250502 | Survival Sporran – Best of Historical & Modern EDC in One Pouch

*This YouTube influencer is trying to pastiche the difference between histocial costume-play and high-tech prepper survivalism. *I don’t know if it “works,” but it’s interesting video preppertainment with a remarkable and distinctive look, so to that extent it would probably work for him. https://youtu.be/fmUignz2R6o?si=Y55ACz7sVdFAnQzH

250430 | The “Sir Walter Scott Every Day Carry”

*Includes a pocket-sized “planter’s knife” made in Sheffield, which Scott bought for himself in that city of steel-works, and carried around the extensive fields of Abbotsford, in order to work on pruning his trees. *Scott was a very serious land-developer and he often remarked that “his oaks would outlast his laurels.” Since Scott’s poetic laurels […]

250429 | Meanwhile, in Spain

250427 | Laura Kampf as Maker art-gallerist

*Well, let’s see how that works out. Los Angeles has had a “low-brow art” alternative gallery scene for quite a while. https://youtu.be/RHdGOp9Aers?si=uLYUYP__JmKCdckc

250424 | Photographic image to 3D Model

*Still pretty crude, but onsider the implications of this for, say, objects in movies. https://youtu.be/OrPf7V9FcYs?si=94TgejPO8C910HXr

250422 | “Babbage’s Dancer” by Simon Schaffer

*In which Charles Babbage makes a half-hearted effort to build some popular-entertainment kinetic-art computational contraptions. http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/16/babbages-dancer-by-simon-schaffer/ (…) Calculator or Dancer? ‘They needed a calculator, but a dancer got the job’ (The Marriage of Figaro, 1784) In the steam-punk metropolis of Gibson and Sterling’s Difference Engine, the sickly Keats runs a cinema, Disraeli is a gossip […]

250421 | Walter Scott versus popular mechanics (1825)

Sir Walter Scott is making a general argument here against kids getting taught shop class and becoming hobby makers. Scott is a Scottish laird with a lot of friends in the aristocracy, and his main concern is that dilettante tech-hacking muddles class distinctions. A hobby tinkerer is “a trumpery gim-crack kind of a character who […]

250420 | The Sir Walter Scott Versificator, or, The Dousterswivel Engine

The Sir Walter Scott Versificator For his 1825 historical novel “The Betrothed,” (which, oddly has the same title as Alessandro Manzoni’s historical novel “Promessi Sposi” from 1827) Sir Walter Scott decided to write a comical parody as an introduction. In this fantastic pretense, the book’s author conveys a tavern meeting of his most famous fictional […]

250420 | Origins of heritage tourism and the museum economy

*Italians might remove the name and the novels of “Walter Scott” and substitute the name and the novel of “Alessandro Manzoni.” Also, Scott’s private “Abbotsford” can be better understood in an Italian context as Torino’s public “Borgo Medioevale.” *They are aspects of the same thing.

250419 | Carlo Ratti Olympic torches for 2026

Made-in-Italy, and they look nice. https://www.domusweb.it/en/news/2025/04/15/winter-olympic-2026-torches-carlo-ratti.html

250419 | Coachella installations for 2025

https://www.designboom.com/art/coachella-art-installations-festival-california-04-14-2025/ A standout art installation at Coachella 2025 is Taffy by Stephanie Lin, a mesmerizing work which continues to blur the line between sculpture and environment. Seven cylindrical towers cloaked in scalloped mesh flutter and ripple in the wind, creating flickering moiré patterns that appear and disappear with each gust. Painted in hues borrowed from […]

250419 | Hello, Rhizome World

https://rhizome.org/editorial/2025/apr/03/rhizome-world/ Rhizome World opens this Friday at WSA in New York City! April 18- May 11 WSA, 161 Water Street, New York, NY 10038 Open Fridays 6-9pm and Saturday and Sundays 12-6pm Free with RSVP Introducing Rhizome World, a month-long exhibition and weekly events celebrating software art at WSA in the Financial District of lower […]

250418 | Origins of “heritage tourism”

Sir Walter Scott is said to be the creator of “historical fiction,” “historical romance” or “romantic nationalism,” a literary innovation so popular that Scott became the world’s first international bestselling author. In this letter to one of his many aristocratic cronies, Scott seems to anticipate, and recommend, the invention of “heritage tourism.” You may see […]

250415 | The Art Basel and UBS Art Market Report 2025

https://theartmarket.artbasel.com The Art Basel and UBS Art Market Report “The ninth edition of The Art Basel and UBS Art Market Report, authored by cultural economist Dr. Clare McAndrew, founder of Arts Economics, provides a comprehensive, macroeconomic, benchmark analysis of the state of the global art market in 2024. This annual report examines various segments, including […]

250415 | Eight principles for the future of AI

https://www.newsweek.com/artificial-intelligence-impact-series-principles-future-ai-2058820 With the publication of the first three interviews in the Newsweek AI Impact series, it is a good time to reflect and distill the essence of what we have learned to date. The remarkable thing for me is the level of coherence and alignment among the views of the first three interviewees, despite their […]

250412 | “The Versificatore — Sixty Years Later”

I wrote a parodic sequel to Primo Levi’s story “Il Versificatore,” just now published in ROBOT magazine (in Italian, of course).

250411 | K Allado-McDowell | On Neural Media | Long Now Talks

*It does what it says on the label. https://youtu.be/Eu3ygZh8pY8?si=pnLNRAO5hRKL32_4

250408 | Stories of Your Lives, Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, 1 March – 12 April 2025

“Inspired by Ted Chiang,” that’s interesting. https://www.artuner.com/curations/stories-of-your-lives/ LAST WEEK: Stories of Your Lives Giulia Andreani, Louise Bonnet, Glenn Brown, Manuele Cerutti, Marcus Cope, David Czupryn, Carroll Dunham, Walton Ford, Lenz Geerk, Ernst Yohji Jaeger, Ragnar Kjartansson, Sergey Kononov, Pia Krajewski, Victor Man, Danielle Mckinney, Keita Morimoto, Paulina Olowska, Pietro Roccasalva, Jan-Luka Schmitz, Rinus Van de […]

250408 | Good luck

250402 | Ars Electronica 2025: Panic Yes/No

*Nice one! Ars Electronica Festival 2025 (Linz, April 2, 2025) The hottest year on record. Weather extremes becoming the new normal. Tech utopias driven more by venture capital than by social progress. Eroding trust in institutions – and in the power of democracy to innovate. War in Europe. A fractured transatlantic alliance. Our world is […]

250402 | How a Large Language Model Writes a Poem

*Of interest to Versificatore fans. https://transformer-circuits.pub/2025/attribution-graphs/biology.html#dives-poems How does Claude 3.5 Haiku write a rhyming poem? Writing a poem requires satisfying two constraints at the same time: the lines need to rhyme, and they need to make sense. There are two ways one might imagine a model achieving this: Pure improvisation – the model could write […]

250330 | The future of AI research

*As described by people who know what they’re talking about. https://aaai.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/AAAI-2025-PresPanel-Report-Digital-3.7.25.pdf

250329 | Opinel “Atelier” knife features walnut and ebony

*Classing up the perennial regional farm-tool by adding a chic luxury handle.

250328 | Morakniv knife-factory tour

*Those are some quite cheap but much-respected cutting implements. https://youtu.be/q6KDnGPok2U?si=vZnSeyVM5AL81vOO

250328 | Meanwhile, at Transmediale

As we further step into 2025, we’d like to share some updates. We’re currently in the midst of our selection process for next year’s festival curation, and are heartened by the response 🤍 We have received an overwhelming number of applications from talented curators, collectives, and thinkers. Thank you to all those who have applied! […]

250328 | Share Festival 2025: “Tomorrow Now, Art of 2050 AD” Call for Artists

********** English below ********** Share Festival annuncia la XVII edizione di Share Prize! Share Festival, storica manifestazione italiana dedicata all’arte contemporanea in dialogo con scienza e tecnologia, apre ufficialmente la call for art per Share Prize XVII, il concorso internazionale che premia la sperimentazione artistica e l’innovazione creativa. 🎯TEMA SCELTO PER QUESTA EDIZIONE: TOMORROW NOW: […]

250328 | Star Trek Tricorder “highly accurate fully functional prop replica”

https://www.thewandcompany.com/tricorder/ https://www.thewandcompany.com/tricorder-manual/ The Wand Company ­ Tricorder update #23 It’s time at last ­ Dear Redacted, It’s been a long time coming, but The Wand Company is thrilled to let you know that Tricorder production has started, and finished Tricorders are now rolling off the production line. After the enormously extended development, I am sure […]

250327 | Ancient Roman multitool

https://www.domusartificis.com/en/prodotto/ancient-roman-tool/

250326 | The European Three-Day Survival Kit

*Obviously next to no effort has been put into the design of this EU emergency “bug-out bag,” so I’m very tempted to assemble and promote one with the sponsorship of Share Festival. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_856

250326 | The Public Cloud Manifesto

*Pirate Party activists. https://docs.google.com/document/d/16leSSrAIv93sHu8H-paiHsl1GpPe077OjIjuwRtgq68/edit?tab=t.0 The Public Cloud Manifesto Introduction We hurtling at full speed toward an age where our children will inherit a world perhaps more precarious ever since the 1800’s. If current progress continues, they might very well own nothing & be forced to rent everything. Most aspects of their lives will be digital, […]

250325 | The United Nations Open Source Principles

https://unite.un.org/news/osi-first-endorse-united-nations-open-source-principles The UN Open Source Principles Open by default: Making Open Source the standard approach for projects Contribute back: Encouraging active participation in the Open Source ecosystem Secure by design: Making security a priority in all software projects Foster inclusive participation and community building: Enabling and facilitating diverse and inclusive contributions Design for reusability: Designing […]

250324 | How to turn a “Tesla gun” into a “wizard staff”

*In YouTube Makertainment style.

250323 | Jean Tinguely Centenary

tinguely100 | Programme and Press Kit for the 100th Birthday of Jean Tinguely Dear media representatives, On 22 May 2025, the Swiss artist Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) would have turned one hundred years old. To mark this occasion, his innovative, playful, and still highly relevant work will be celebrated at Museum Tinguely and internationally with a […]

250321 | Processing Foundation Fellowship 2025: Call for Applications

https://processingfoundation.org/fellowships Processing Foundation Fellowship 2025: Call for Applications The Processing Foundation Fellowship is back! This year’s theme, Data Storytelling, invites artists, coders, and researchers to transform data into interactive, visual, and performative storytelling experiences. Fellows receive $10,000, mentorship, and community support. 🌟 New this year! The Extended Realities Fellowship with The Unusual Suspects Theater Company […]

250320 | Turinese baroque-inspired AI-generated greebles

Microsoft Bing AI: Your Turinese Baroque-inspired greebles, now adapted for individual elements and game design, are on their way. I hope they bring the elegance and complexity of 1600s architecture to life in your project!

250320 | Engineering Ubuntu For the Next 20 Years

*Into the tall administrivia weeds of open-source in an extensive screen by a software engineer. https://jnsgr.uk/2025/02/engineering-ubuntu-for-the-next-20-years/ (…) Process is closely tied to automation, but is frequently viewed negatively in software engineering, carrying connotations of bureaucracy and slowdowns. In my experience, a well-designed process empowers people to enact changes with confidence. Ubuntu is built by all […]

250316 | “How to Rebuild an Imaginary Future”

https://medium.com/@bruces/how-to-rebuild-an-imaginary-future-2025-0b14e511e7b6 The “print” version of an extemporaneous speech given in Austin on March 12 at SXSW 2025. Twenty years ago, here at South By Southwest, I was on a panel where the term “design fiction” was made public. Before Julian Bleecker invented and deployed that term, there were many things going on that resembled “design […]

250316 | Next Nature – Enter Spaceship Earth

Next Nature – Enter Spaceship Earth Do you dream of the future of our planet? Do you envision a world where humanity, technology, and nature merge in a revolutionary way? Then this is your chance! Submit your project to the Next Nature Museum’s Open Call by March 31st, and who knows, maybe your project will […]

250309 | Fully automating Arduino development – Giving Claude Code access to hardware

*Uh-oh.

250303 | The “entertainment memorabilia market”

As described by the owner of “Propstore.”

250303 | Art, mere technology, and the Ancien Regime

*These intellectuals of the French “Ancien Regime” are really working the class distinctions between art and technology here. Mere mechanical craft is something you’re forced to do in order to be made to be useful to others, and is mostly crass labor you could do as a repeated routine with a blindfold on. While art […]

250302 | Independent Heritage Documentation: How Digital Tools and Photogrammetry Are Reshaping Preservation Efforts

*They just run out there and 3d-scan the ruins. https://www.archdaily.com/1026993/independent-heritage-documentation-how-digital-tools-and-photogrammetry-are-reshaping-preservation-efforts Written by Mohieldin Gamal Published on February 19, 2025 The use of technology has become vital in the documentation and conservation of heritage, especially in difficult or urgent circumstances. After many landmarks of the historic city of Palmyra were destroyed during Syria’s war in 2015, […]

250302 | AI4Culture – An AI platform for the cultural heritage data space

https://pro.europeana.eu/project/ai4culture-an-ai-platform-for-the-cultural-heritage-data-space ABOUT THE PROJECT The platform will offer access to a pool of AI-related resources (such as openly labelled datasets for training and testing AI models), a set of deployable and reusable tools and capacity building materials. Additionally, the project will customise the platform’s components so that they can be reused by cultural heritage institutions […]

250302 | Specialty props

https://youtu.be/ADR5VRaJ5mY?si=91hSmEBnkU3MQ59_

250302 | Theatrical costume preservation

Perspectiv (Association of Historic Theatres in Europe) https://www.theatermuseum.at/en/backstage/restoration-conservation/

250302 | The oldest public theater in Europe, re-opened to the public

*I wonder what happened to Europe’s oldest theater props. https://youtu.be/aX3fIZSwnA4?si=79Hrr-rj6vIK6R0t

250302 | The Nizhny Tagil Charter For The Industrial Heritage / July, 2003

*This is quite an interesting document when you consider the possible creation, protection and maintenance of any speculative or theatrical “industrial heritage” that was never actually there and never really functioned in the real world. *For instance, the Primo Levi “Versificatore” was supposedly from Fort Kiddiwanee, Oklahoma, an American industrial town that didn’t even exist. […]

250302 | TICCIH (pronounced “ticky”)

https://ticcih.org/about/about-ticcih/ The International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage, better known by the more manageable TICCIH (pronounced “ticky”), is the world organization for industrial heritage. Its goals are to promote international cooperation in preserving, conserving, investigating, documenting, researching, interpreting, and advancing education of the industrial heritage. This wide field includes the material remains […]

250301 | The Baudrillardian Superintelligence Paradox: Capital’s Terminal Simulation

Cade Diehm It is very popular to describe skepticism and rejection of generative artificial intelligence as a form of neoreactionary/”neo-luddite” fear. Such a claim has infested the discourse more widely – from bewildered policymakers to the chittering LinkedIn class and everyone in between. So I am surprised to have had such a visceral reaction to […]

250301 | European Cultural Heritage Strategy for the 21st century (2017)

https://rm.coe.int/16806f6a03 Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers to member States on the European Cultural Heritage Strategy for the 21st century (Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 22 February 2017 at the 1278th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies) (…) FOREWORD The European Cultural Heritage Strategy for the 21st century should be seen against the backdrop […]

250301 | Generative Art Vending Machine

250228 | Tools at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Object Conservation Department

250227 | Expo 1961 Torino (Italia 61)

*The heyday of “Arte Programmata.”

250227 | Turin 1911, the World’s Fair in Italy, the website

*This academic attempt at an across-the-board, multidisciplinary digital restoration, it’s quite an interesting project and seems to have some deep implications. https://italyworldsfairs.org *It doesn’t take much effort to replicate little-known music quite perfectly. That music is upbeat and jolly, it really makes one want to visit the big fair. https://vimeo.com/889985989 https://vimeo.com/876556623 https://vimeo.com/847336148

250227 | How are things going at Maywa Denki

*Yes, that’s pretty much what I expected. Nice to see his YouTube channel.

250227 | “AI Engineering Landscape”

*Your mileage may vary. https://malywut.github.io/ai-engineering-landscape/

250225 | Bitmark NFT as dead media

Curated updates, deep insights, and new ways to experience digital art—delivered directly to your inbox. Before Ethereum, Before NFTs, There Was Bitmark A farewell to Bitmark and how its vision lives on in Ethereum. SEAN MOSS-PULTZ FEB 22 Before we launched Feral File, we built Bitmark. Bitmark was one of the first blockchains designed for […]

250225 | NO LONGER EXISTING STRUCTURES: THE TURIN 1911 PROJECT (2020)

*Well, I can’t say I’m surprised to discover this, because I’m used to the idea that I learn something new in Torino every day. https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLIII-B2-2020/837/2020/isprs-archives-XLIII-B2-2020-837-2020.pdf Nowadays, digital tools allow the reconstruction of no longer visible cultural heritage based on different sources, testing various processes for manifold purposes. The choice of which digital techniques and strategies […]

250225 | Turin1911 Reborn thorough the power of digital technologies

https://youtu.be/VpJtLufB4po?si=9ozCidquFYtldf5p

250225 | “TORINO 1911” PROJECT: EXTENSIVE 3D HERITAGE MODELING (2018)

*My goodness, I wonder what became of this. https://www.academia.edu/68286193/_Torino_1911_Project_A_Contribution_of_a_Slam_Based_Survey_to_Extensive_3D_Heritage_Modeling “TORINO 1911” PROJECT: A CONTRIBUTION OF A SLAM-BASED SURVEY TO EXTENSIVE 3D HERITAGE MODELING (2018) F. Chiabrando , C. Della Coletta, G. Sammartano, A. Spanò , A. Spreafico DAD, Department of Architecture and Design, Politecnico di Torino (filiberto.chiabrando, giulia.sammartano, antonia.spano, alessandra.spreafico)@polito.it DAH, Division of Arts and […]

250225 | Repair tool people who repair repair tools

250223 | AI chatter and its congenial and plausible-sounding generalities

Grok 3 from XTwitter: *What is the story with this Italian spoken-word vinyl record from 1960? Who are these people, where did it come from? We’re seeing some heavy traffic, so we’ve opted for an alternate model to get your answer to you faster. This vinyl record, Il Versificatore / Dove Cresce L’Erba by Primo […]

250220 | We see a lot of things here in Warranty

250220 | A “magazine” breaking down an “phone”

*The magazine’s not a magazine and the phone is no longer a phone, either, but that doesn’t get in the way of the technocultural struggle here.

250220 | Adam Savage repairing old special-effects props

This video is quite interesting in terms of “restoration” theory. A movie prop can be the “original prop,” but it’s not the “original pistol,” because the pistol is fantastic, dramatic and imaginary, never a real pistol. You’ll note that Savage has the plans of the prop-makers of the first prop, but he doesn’t feel driven […]

250220 | Il Versificatore, the spoken-word record

*I had never heard of it. Clearly it exists or existed, though. It also dates to 1960 and has Primo Levi’s name on it, which means that the story was originally circulated under Levi’s name rather than “Damiano Malabaila.”

250216 | The Torino asteroid impact scale

*You have to be a brave city to have sudden-destruction-from-the-sky named after yourself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torino_scale

250214 | 3DPrinted Every Day Carry gear

*Okay, this Artmaker blog post is quite gimmicky — but it’s *less gimmicky* than it might have been a few years ago. https://youtu.be/DzuNgocP8WI?si=jpwQOB4MN6H0xkuQ

250214 | When cybernetics lost the hype war, 1962-63

It’s interesting to see this power-struggle between “cybernetics” and “AI” so frankly addressed by Heinz von Foerster. From Vienna to California: A journey across disciplines: An interview with Heinz von Foerster Article in Kybernetes · January 2005 DOI: 10.1108/03684920510575717 (…) [FG] Indeed, it seems that classical artificial intelligence researchers tend to refrain from getting into […]

250213 | Adam Savage working on the Blade Runner 2049 diegetic prototypes

Of considerable interest to both prop makers and design-fiction aficionados.

250213 | Cristallo di Luce installed in Torino today

ll giorno dell’evento è dietro l’angolo! Luci d’Artista, Environment Park e The Sharing celebrano insieme l’arte, la tecnologia e la sostenibilità. Ti aspettiamo domani alla PRESENTAZIONE DI CRISTALLO DI LUCE OPERA D’ARTE PUBBLICA DI DIEGO SCROPPO prodotta da The Sharing un appuntamento del Public Program di Luci d’Artista giovedì 13 febbraio, h. 18.00 Environment Park […]

250213 | The Eurostack

https://www.euro-stack.info/docs/EuroStack_2025.pdf *This may be the most Francesca Bria document ever.

250210 | Brian Eno x Bloom – Bloom: Living World (Video Edit)

Bloom is an endless music machine, a music box for the 21st Century. You can play it, or you can watch it play itself.” – Brian Eno “Bloom” Developed by Brian Eno & Peter Chilvers. Copyright Controlled by Opal Limited. All rights reserved. Download “Bloom” for iOS or Android: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bloom/i… https://play.google.com/store/apps/de… Additional apps by Brian […]

250210 | The Pavia Document of 1997

Heritage: “guaranteeing its integrity and prolonging its existence.” *I’m guessing that both those ambitious tasks are formally impossible fror humankind, but why should that slow anybody down? “Prolonging” is quite a good term. Not that heritage is eternal, but maybe it can and should be prolonged. I’m thinking that Prosper Merimee would smile at this […]

250210 | The European Heritage Alliance

*These NGOs tend to come-and-go, but that’s how “heritage” often is; there’s a “heritage industry,” with a business model and so on, but also there are things that become heritage, and then become half-forgotten non-heritage, and then become heritage again maybe a century later. Members ACCR (Association des Centres Culturels de Rencontres) ACE (Architects’ Council […]

250210 | “Industrial Heritage Management”

*If you’re into old-fashioned industrial technology-art, this can be an art-preservation issue. https://www.saveindustrialheritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/industrial-heritage-management.pdf “This paper analyzes the IHM interpreted as a new way to generate touristic, social and territorial development, based on the recovery, management and valorization of the industrial heritage. The literature on the subject, although showing an increased interest, appears disarticulated and without […]

250209 | Fantasy model-makers boasting about their industry expansion

*Why not? Disney used to build whole towns.

250209 | A visit to Shaper HQ Germany

*Quite an interesting place, where they have the studio to make the tools for people who demonstrate tools in studios. *Also that Shaper machine that uses augmented-reality tech to determine the precise position of its tool-bits, that’s quite a historically-strange device. https://youtu.be/zl-iiL2PY78?si=UZhv3ANxgybVnZ3k

250207 | “Are We There Yet?” at NOME Gallery

NOME is pleased to announce are we there yet?, a group exhibition that critically examines issues of police brutality, mass incarceration, discrimination, immigration, and state surveillance. The show draws its title from a work by Kameelah Janan Rasheed, whose aphoristic text-based practice often grapples with complex societal questions. As with many of her works, are […]

250207 | CRISTALLO DI LUCE — OPERA D’ARTE PUBBLICA DI DIEGO SCROPPO

“L’arte deve sempre essere pubblica; paradossalmente non appartiene nemmeno all’autore.” Ci piace ricordare la riflessione dell’artista Diego Scroppo, per l’evento a cui abbiamo il piacere di invitarvi: PRESENTAZIONE DI CRISTALLO DI LUCE OPERA D’ARTE PUBBLICA DI DIEGO SCROPPO prodotta da The Sharing un appuntamento del Public Program di Luci d’Artista giovedì 13 febbraio, h. 18.00 […]

250207 | Meanwhile, as the “Pebble” wearable device returns from the dead

*It’s interesting to see this old commercial device publicly vivisected as an open-source project, where the aspects of building and shipping such a thing are on such naked public display. Read this blog post on the web at https://ericmigi.com/blog/how-to-help-build-open-source-pebble-software As you may have heard, last week Google published the source code for PebbleOS. This is […]

250207 | Valentine multi-tool

*Oh come on.

250205 | Web-toy slide rules from the Slide Rule Museum

*If people can make steampunk art out of clocks, I wonder what kind of dieselpunk or atompunk art might be made out of slide rules. https://sliderulemuseum.com/VirtualSR.shtml

250204 | How legally creative is your AI? Depends on sufficient expressive elements

“…the outputs of generative AI can be protected by copyright only where a human author has determined sufficient expressive elements.” https://www.copyright.gov/newsnet/2025/1060.html Copyright Office Releases Part 2 of Artificial Intelligence Report Issue No. 1060 – January 29, 2025 Today, the U.S. Copyright Office is releasing Part 2 of its Report on the legal and policy issues […]

250204 | Early transmedia

*It took quite a while to divide stage theater from the cinema projection hall. From Annette Forster, “Women in the Silent Cinema: Histories of Fame and Fate,” 2017. “This magisterial book offers comprehensive accounts of the professional itineraries of three women in the silent film in the Netherlands, France and North America. Annette Förster presents […]

250203 | Incunables de l’animation Auteurs divers 1833-1897 / 18:25 / Silencieux

*Pre-cinematic motion graphics. https://www.cinematheque.fr/henri/film/144818-incunables-de-l-animation-auteurs-divers-1833-1897/

250202 | “Desktop computers” as Cold War nuclear warheads

*That’s pretty odd, but as a student of the history of cybernetics and computation, I’ve heard odder.

250202 | The origin and unexpected evolution of the word “mainframe”

https://www.righto.com/2025/02/origin-of-mainframe-term.html The origin and unexpected evolution of the word “mainframe” What is the origin of the word “mainframe”, referring to a large, complex computer? Most sources agree that the term is related to the frames that held early computers, but the details are vague.1 It turns out that the history is more interesting and complicated […]

250202 | Trouble at Transmediale

*Because how could there NOT be trouble at Transmediale, given Europe’s, and the planet’s, political scene generally. https://openlettertransmediale.onlyoffice.com/s/nPrbbRCPvBNvLbG Open letter to: transmediale e.V. (Filippo Gianetta & Magdalena Ritter) and the advisory board: Nora Al-Badri, Asia Bazdyrieva, Gabriele Horn, and Jussi Parikka. *Why is transmediale not hiring a new artistic director?* We care about and love […]

250201 | Meanwhile, at HEK

Dear Friends of HEK, How do new digital tools shape artistic creation? What role does artificial intelligence (AI) play in art and culture—and what does this mean for human creativity? How is AI influencing our society? Artists Esther Hunziker, Stefan Karrer, and Alfatih engage with these questions in their work. Last year, the Art Foundation […]

250201 | Cybernetics, Symbolic AI, Neural Networks: Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis

*What the heck gives with this?

250131 | Sixty-year-old science fiction becomes real eight years ago

250131 | Finishing the 1973 Atari Space Race Arcade Replica for our Museum

*It’s a wonderful thing, YouTube “public making.” “How can we make this the most authentic experience possible,” that’s quite a good question. This effort is more like porting game software to a new platform than creating a physically identical replica with 1973-era materials. Check out PCBWay at https://pcbway.com for all your PCB needs! 🛠 When […]

250130 | Blade Runner 2049 auction terms and conditions

Blade Runner 2049 Auction Terms & Conditions Conditions of Sale 1. When making a bid, every bidder acknowledges that such bid is a binding offer to buy the lot at that price (plus the Buyer’s Premium, all applicable taxes and any and all shipping charges). All sales are final. 2. A Buyer’s Premium at a […]

250130 | Screen-matching

*It’s an interesting term of art. https://propstore.com/screen-matching/ What Does It Mean if a Lot Is “Screen-Matched”? The term “screen-matched” refers to identifying unique characteristics of a prop or costume that can be specifically observed on-screen, confirming that the item was definitively used in a particular scene. Common characteristics used for matching include: -Scratches or physical […]

250130 | We Laser Scan and 3D Print a Full Sized #atari Arcade Machine from 1973

250130 | Comical Italian survival multitool

*Surely you didn’t imagine that you would somehow survive all alone with some metal gadget in your purse or pocket.

250130 | DeepSeek on GitHub

*Well, there it is; maybe you should download it and preserve it in a clay Dead Sea Scrolls jar. https://github.com/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-R1/blob/main/DeepSeek_R1.pdf *DeepSeek playing AI “slop chess,” where it just follows the vibe that seems plausible, rather than following legal chess rules.

250129 | Deepseek R1 on a Raspberry Pi

*That’s what he says.

250128 | “My fellow public creators”

*Well, “public creators” is a far more dignified term than “Makertainment YouTuber,” so it’s nice to have that term-of-art if you need to put on the suit-and-tie.

250128 | The DeepSeek V3 model file is ~450 lines of code in MLX LM.

*That’s not much code. I could blog that much code. https://github.com/ml-explore/mlx-examples/blob/main/llms/mlx_lm/models/deepseek_v3.py # Copyright © 2024 Apple Inc. import math from dataclasses import dataclass from typing import Any, Dict, Optional, Tuple import mlx.core as mx import mlx.nn as nn from .base import BaseModelArgs, create_attention_mask, scaled_dot_product_attention from .switch_layers import SwitchGLU @dataclass class ModelArgs(BaseModelArgs): model_type: str = “deepseek_v3” […]

250127 | Mechanical Calculator Repair

*A repairman’s office which has been historically preserved in the Olivetti museum in Ivrea.

250126 | The tool roll must have wings

*That’s an interesting choice of tools for the compact portability of a “tool roll.” None of them are “multitools,” but some have multiple sets or are multiple bits. https://youtu.be/U4h37mZbcsU?si=PYzc6p-ZAiu_-ogk

250125 | Meanwhile, at NOME Gallery

NOME is pleased to announce are we there yet?, a group exhibition that critically examines issues of police brutality, mass incarceration, discrimination, immigration, and state surveillance. The show draws its title from a work by Kameelah Janan Rasheed, whose aphoristic text-based practice often grapples with complex societal questions. As with many of her works, are […]

250125 | Transmediale 2025

** transmediale 2025 (near) near but –– far ———————————————————— ** Jan 29 – Feb 2, 2025 Berlin ———————————————————— near (near) but –– far is close at hand! transmediale 2025 starts on Wednesday, with two days of workshops taking over silent green, leading into the festival weekend. Getting us into the festival spirit, our sister festival […]

250124 | Electronic wire sculpture

Hmmm. Interesting hand-raft there.

250123 | Olivetti Divisumma 24 performing calculation of approximation to PI

*That’s some device. Not one transistor or logic gate to be seen.

250123 | “As a knife reviewer, I cut myself a lot”

Anybody can accidentally cut themselves with pretty much any edged anything.

250120 | Prix Ars Electronica 2025 – submit now!

*That’s a video… but maybe you watch those.

250118 | NVIDIA World Foundation Model

This is a robotics platform, but everything has been re-framed as a newfangled “world foundation model.”

250117 | Artissima Rewind & Forward

 *That’s rather a lot of multimedia from Artissima there. https://d1e6c.emailsp.com/f/rnl.aspx/?idg=vpvoy1&x=pv&:di=tzad&=tpqq/ ARTISSIMA REWIND & FORWARD   Let’s start 2025 with a new cycle of Artissima Rewind, the palimpsest that invites you to rediscover the latest iteration of the fair, while preparations for the next are already underway. We are also launching a new feature, titled 5 […]

250115 | Arte programmata (Enzo Monachesi, 1963)

250115 | Early “new media art,” 1969

*It’s odd how archaic this is, and yet it’s continually refreshed by being re-invented for new forms of hardware.

250114 | The WELL State of the World discussion for 2025

*That’s some world, and it’s in quite a state. https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/551/Bruce-Sterling-and-Jon-Lebkowsky-page01.html

250114 | Olivetti collectible hardware

*That’s a handsome sum.

250113 | Giant urban wildfires vs the art world

*An interesting specialized-take on matters. *It’s Los Angeles now, but it’ll be some other city later. Or, Los Angeles again. Historic Buildings Destroyed in Southern California Blazes

250113 | Model, Metaphor, Analogy: The Computational Imaginary in Arte Programmata’s Experimental Environments, 1964-68

https://www.academia.edu/125720437/Model_Metaphor_Analogy_The_Computational_Imaginary_in_Arte_Programmata_s_Experimental_Environments_1964_68 Model, Metaphor, Analogy: The Computational Imaginary in Arte Programmata’s Experimental Environments, 1964-68 LINDSAY CAPLAN Electronic brains, even if they are still far from producing all the functions of the human brain, are nonetheless capable of providing us with a convincing theoretical model for the most complex processes of our memory, our mental associations, our […]

250112 | S+T+ARTS Prize 2025

https://ars.electronica.art/mediaservice/en/2025/01/08/starts-2025/ Ars Electronica Festival: September 3-7, 2025 (Linz, January 8, 2025) On behalf of the European Commission, Ars Electronica will once again award the renowned STARTS Prize and the STARTS Prize Africa in 2025. The search is on for innovations at the interface between science, technology and the arts. A total of 70,000 euros in […]

250112 | “Tech Go”

That’s an electronics kit cheap enough that one might need two or three of them. https://www.ifixit.com/products/pro-tech-go-toolkit

250112 | The scale problem with screenshots

*This video is itself eight years old, but clearly, creating replica props from old videotape has serious issues. *When Adam Savage discovers an existent historic prop, he immediately abandons several years of estimate work. And, yes, his estimates were close, but no cigar.

250110 | Industrial Tourism

*I did not know that “industrial tourism” exists, but in Italy one learns something new every day. I wonder what a too-successful “industrial over-tourism” might look like. https://www.archiviostoricolivetti.it/en/news-2/second-international-conference-on-industrial-tourism/

250109 | The Jean Tinguely Centennial

*100 years! https://www.tinguely100.com/tinguely100.html Tinguely100 – Follow the artist’s centenary activities around the world On 22 May 2025, the Swiss Artist Jean Tinguely (1925-1991) would have celebrated his 100th birthday. To mark this occasion, his innovative, playful and still topical oeuvre will be honoured across Europe with a range of exhibitions and a multitude of events […]

250105 | Luxury multitool

“I am too scared to ever use it.”

250101 | Some Public Limits of Everyday Weirdness (2025)

*I’m publishing a new design-manifesto here, or, whatever this missive is. Some Public Limits of Everyday Weirdness (2025) https://medium.com/p/754551c54a2d

241231 | Smarter, more secure wallet designs for digital art

*How smart can a wallet be? A Safer Future for Digital Art Ownership Dear Feral File Community, At Feral File, our mission is to make digital art as essential to daily life as books or music. As part of this mission, we’re evolving the Feral File app to focus exclusively on making it easy to […]

241231 | The year 2024 for Refik Anadol

*A hard-working guy. It’s been an exciting year for Refik Anadol Studio (RAS) with installations and exhibitions all over the world, and the announcement of DATALAND opening in 2025 at The Grand LA. We’ve also been hard at work fine-tuning the Large Nature Model (LNM), the foundation on which DATALAND’s first exhibitions will be built, […]

241231 | Imaginary books on display

https://grolierclub.omeka.net/exhibits/show/imaginary-books Imaginary Books: Lost, Unfinished, and Fictive Works Found Only in Other Books December 5, 2024 – February 15, 2025 Second Floor Gallery Imaginary books are necessarily the rarest of rare books, since of course no such objects are to be found in our sublunary world. These works, existing nowhere but in other books, can […]

241229 | The “Jua Kali” informal sector

*From a repressed gray-market toward something like a Maker scene. https://macleki.org/stories/jua-kali-in-kisumu/ (…) Like government officials, scholars began referring to “jua kali” using positive terms such as the “self-employed entrepreneurs,” “the jua kali industry,” “the informal business sector,” and the like. The self-employed “jua kali” entrepreneurs were now seen as hard-working men and women engaged in […]

241226 | Museum repair workshop

241224 | Artificial Life circa 2024

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2412.17799 References Wendy Aguilar, Guillermo Santamar´ıa-Bonfil, Tom Froese, and Carlos Gershenson. The past, present, and future of artificial life. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 1:8, 2014. Jyrki Alakuijala, James Evans, Ben Laurie, Alexander Mordvintsev, Eyvind Niklasson, Ettore Randazzo, Luca Versari, et al. Computational life: How well-formed, self-replicating programs emerge from simpleinteraction. arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.19108, 2024. […]

241223 | Micro-sized Japanese tools…

… and he’s phone-phreak “trashing” Bell Laboratories, so it’s a banner day for Adam Savage.

241220 | MEDIAL DISORDERS. INTERPRETIVE AND NON-STATISTICAL COMPENDIUM OF TECHNOLOGICAL DISORDERS

*How could that not be good? *Two thirds of it is Italian! https://inactual.bigcartel.com/product/medial-disorders-interpretive-and-non-statistical-compendium-of-technological-disorders

241216 | Meanwhile, back in London in 1968

https://nearfuturelaboratory.com/blog/2024/12/cybernetic-serendipity/ …Many of the projects in here (from the late 1960s!) are the kinds of things that we might see today in the context of Design Fiction, speculative design, and the kinds of art+technology practices that are now becoming more common. The catalog is a historical document, a contemporary manifesto, and a guide for the […]

241216 | Ladyada’s new office

*As Maker new office videos tend to go (very braggy, very look-at-me), this is one of the least new-office videos you would ever see. What gives with the camera work and the virtual backgrounds in this? It’s like everything has been fed through an oscilloscope. *What is “gridfinity”? Well, you can try a new storage […]

241213 | Videos of movie props

*As, perhaps, the only way to commemorate certain props, and the only way that the future will see them.

241212 | American electrical tool bag

*I keep an eye on these trades bags, because it’s interesting that they attempt to be comprehensive and specialized at the same time. *It’s also interesting that collector-curator types who assemble “complete” bags seem to need and have four or five quite different “complete” bags. This is clearly related to the “Every Day Carry” enthusiast […]

241211 | Silvio Ceccato, Almanacco Bompiani, Adamo II, translation machines, etc

241211 | Almanacco Letterario Bompiani 1962

*It’s a heck of a thing, and can be scrounged up online here and there — a relic of the heyday of the cybernetics boom and the Italian economic miracle. Abstract (in English): A periodical about the theme of electronic calculators and computers applied to moral sciences and literature, subtitled “Le applicazioni dei calcolatori elettronici […]

241211 | A new pen tool among many pen tools

*An interesting form-factor, especially for travellers. Also, the commentary he gets on his fingernails is of interest. This is a major issue for makers generally: the intrinsic hand damage. It’s like being a professional bicyclist and cracking up every once in a while, no matter how wise and careful you are, or how sleek and […]

241210 | Dino Buzzati and artificial intelligence, 1959

https://laricerca.loescher.it/buzzati-e-lintelligenza-artificiale/ (…) Buzzati è un intellettuale curioso e aperto al progresso, ma anche saturnino, e con un profondo senso del tragico: non può evitare di porsi domande che vanno al di là del suo tempo: Arriverà anche il momento in cui il pensiero dell’automa, per la sua stessa immensa complessità, sfuggirà ai nostri comandi e […]

241209 | Meanwhile, in Italy in 1967

https://pietrogrossi.bandcamp.com/album/electronic-soundtracks

241209 | Art at the OGR in Torino

*They certainly have the space for it. Even the outside walls of the OGR are huge. Le OGR Torino presentano la prima installazione di Surface Tension, nuova serie di commissioni per le facciate della Corte Est delle OGR Torino Rebecca Moccia. Cold As You Are a cura di Iacopo Prinetti Un’opera video commissionata dalle OGR […]

241208 | Modern Versificator news

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-76900-1

241207 | A Strandbeest overview

241207 | “Viral Internet Knife”

*That’s an interesting tool classification; I didn’t realize there was such a thing. *An entire curated *collection* that was exclusively “viral knives,” I bet that would be remarkable.

241206 | Make: Magazine Volume 91 Launch Party: 2025 Boards Guide

*That’s a lot of boards.

241205 | Media Archaeology Lab

What It Takes To Let People Play With the Past Libi Rose keeps obsolete technologies running at the Media Archaeology Lab STEPHEN CASS 23 SEP 2024 The Media Archaeology Lab is one of the largest public collections in the world of obsolete, yet functional, technology. Located on the University of Colorado Boulder campus, the MAL […]

241203 | Ars Electronica — Notre Dame

*Well, if not them, then whom.

241202 | “Our first step toward spatial intelligence”

https://www.worldlabs.ai/blog Most GenAI tools make 2D content like images or videos. Generating in 3D instead improves control and consistency. This will change how we make movies, games, simulators, and other digital manifestations of our physical world. In this post you’ll explore our generated worlds, rendered live in your browser. You’ll also experience different camera effects, […]

241201 | Generative art made by hand, a hundred years ago

*It’s interesting when it’s rules-based but also pre-automated. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/02/15/rhythmical-lines/

241130 | Luxury, limited-edition, collectible gift pliers

*Those can’t be the first, but it’s the first time I’ve seen them.

241129 | Turinese street electronics

241129 | DEAR CORPORATE AI OVERLORDS

If this letter resonates with you add your signature here. We received access to Sora with the promise to be early testers, red teamers and creative partners. However, we believe instead we are being lured into “art washing” to tell the world that Sora is a useful tool for artists. ARTISTS ARE NOT YOUR UNPAID […]

241129 | Tested Team

*Am I going to watch these Californian model-making Maker cranks?  Yes I am.  

241129 | Adam Savage gloating over favorite tools of 2024

*He’s a Californian guru, but he’s well worth a listen. A battery-driven router, a bamboo cotton swab, who knew. Not merely “useful,” but “useful in my process,” an important distinction, especially when you’re trying to persuade yourself to drop a hefty sum on some odd gadget that seems to be particularly nifty just to you.

241128 | Oficios Perdidos

Dying or extinct forms of Spanish handicraft and regional technology. I;m quite the fan of this school of documentary videos, and here’s a new channel that recently appeared. https://www.youtube.com/@OFICIOSPERDIDOS32 “Oficios Perdidos: Rescatando la Historia del Trabajo Tradicional” Este canal está dedicado a explorar y preservar la memoria de los oficios tradicionales que han desaparecido o […]

241126 | A manifesto by the CEO of Anthropic

*We’re fond of manifestos here on the Artmaker blog. https://darioamodei.com/machines-of-loving-grace Dario Amodei Machines of Loving Grace 1 How AI Could Transform the World for the Better October 2024 I think and talk a lot about the risks of powerful AI. The company I’m the CEO of Anthropic, does a lot of research on how to […]

241125 | Campari Artificial Intelligence

*All right, if you say so. *I did not know that Campari employees called themselves “Camparistas.”

241125 | Earthquake kintsugi

*Real-time machine translation is the AI killer-app in my personal existence. I seem to use it more every week. *I’ve seen many kintsugi artifacts, but before this video I hadm’t seen the process done.

241125 | European Maker women in America

*They’re covered in shop filth and they’ve both injured their fingers. *Also, Laura Kampf’s off-the-shelf Los Angeles soundtracks are much, much worse than her rather neat and avant-garde Cologne techno. How did that even happen?

241124 | A wealthy man’s life-extension manifesto

*He’s his own experimental case, and he seems elated with himself — so much so that he imagines and declares himself to be the world’s healthiest human being. *It’ll be interesting if other life-extension enthusiasts also start offering exalted declarations of this kind while accredited medical experts agree with them. From XTwitter, November 22, 2024 […]

241124 | How do tools become “weird”?

*He’s making a brief argument here that the “oddity” is about the context of use rather than the device per se.

241124 | World’s first presumed more-or-less art object

*Seems to be an anthropomorphic pebble picked up, transported and stored by an Australopithecus hominin in Africa. It’s about three million years old. .. in Limpopo Province, forms part of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site (Berger and Hilton-Barber, 2006). A 260 g reddish-brown jasperite cobble excavated at Makapansgat in 1925, first reported by […]

241122 | What Olafur Eliasson is up to lately

*He’s a busy guy. https://design-milk.com/artist-olafur-eliassons-new-psychoacoustic-exhibition/

241122 | The Bricolage Opinel

*This video is six years old and yet I’ve never seen this Opinel model before.

241122 | “Notice the bandage. Too many knife videos”

*My coffee cup is full of pens and pencils, but it’s clear that I need to branch out more.

241122 | Spacetime patches

*Even by the elevated standards of contemporary generator-jargon, that’s pretty strange. At a high level, we turn videos into patches by first compressing videos into a lower-dimensional latent space, and subsequently decomposing the representation into spacetime patches. Video compression network ‘ We train a network that reduces the dimensionality of visual data.20 This network takes […]

241121 | Fastweb MIIA

https://www.fastweb.it/miia/ Fastweb sta realizzando il proprio modello linguistico (LLM – Large Language Model) addestrato nativamente in italiano, in grado di cogliere tutte le specificità linguistiche e culturali del nostro Paese, e che verrà messo a disposizione delle aziende e delle pubbliche amministrazioni. Grazie all’LLM Nazionale garantiremo il controllo e la sovranità dei dati tramite infrastrutture […]

241121 | A CIRCULAR ECONOMY MANIFESTO developed by Carlo Ratti

TOWARDS THE BIENNALE ARCHITETTURA 2025 Carlo Ratti, as the Curator of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, titled Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective (Venice, Arsenale and Giardini, 10 May-23 November 2025), launches a Circular Economy Manifesto developed with guidance from Arup and input from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. This Manifesto calls on […]

241120 | Art Thinking at Ars Electronica

*Okay, why not?

241119 | Designing and building consumer service drones

241114 | Meanwhile, in the Las Vegas luxury art-knife racket

241114 | All things DIY, according to Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_it_yourself#:~:text=The%20phrase%20%22do%20it%20yourself%22%20had%20come%20into,projects%20as%20both%20a%20creative-recreational%20and%20cost-saving%20activity. Subculture See also: Maker culture DIY as a subculture was brought forward by the punk movement of the 1970s.[23] Instead of traditional means of bands reaching their audiences through large music labels, bands began recording, manufacturing albums and merchandise, booking their own tours, and creating opportunities for smaller bands to get wider recognition through […]

241113 | “Nervous System” at MIT

*Yes, that would be them. And the tot, who is one of them.

241113 | Operation Cariatide

https://hyperallergic.com/965760/italy-seizes-over-2000-artworks-linked-to-art-forgery-scheme/ Italian police have seized over 2,100 counterfeit artworks and identified 38 people connected to an international art forgery scheme in a 22-month investigation starting in Pisa. The seized fakes, marketed as works by Banksy, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Pablo Picasso, among others, could have sold for over €200 million (~$212.5 million) if they […]

241113 | Chocolate 3DPrinter

*Something very Turinese about this, although it’s not Turinese.

241113 | M4 Mac Mini teardown

“Who watches stuff like this?” *Well…

241112 | What Bre Pettis has been doing

The Bantam Tools Artframe Art Machine System.

241104 | There went Share Festival VXIII

*The “All-Natural” edition, maybe the prettiest Share Festival ever. The Sharing vi ringrazia per la vostra partecipazione a Share Festival La Torino Contemporary Art Week è stata un’occasione di condivisione davvero speciale. Grazie alla vostra partecipazione, gli artisti della XVIII edizione di Share Festival hanno condiviso con un larghissimo pubblico i risultati della loro ricerca […]

241101 | The “Butterfly Loop”

*It strikes me as odd that this rather simple knot clearly dates to the twentieth century and is strongly associated with both technical Alpine climbers and telephone line maintenance personnel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_loop

241031 | Drawing machines. So, let’s go back 600 years

241031 | Artissima 2024

ARTISSIMA VOICE OVER IS ONLINE   November in Torino: it’s time for Artissima! Tomorrow the 31st iteration of Italy’s most contemporary art fair opens its doors, welcoming visitors with a remarkable calendar of appointments, events and initiatives, with the return of the unmissable platform dedicated to the 3 curated sections: Artissima Voice Over! The curated […]

241031 | Limited-edition Leatherman knife featuring celebrity movie makers

*Another sign of contemporary “luxury tool” dynamics. https://www.leatherman.com/batch-007-malloy-special-721.html

241031 | “Luxury Opinel.” Really? Yes

https://www.opinel.com/en/pocket-knives/luxury-range

241031 | Luxury multitools, scandals, collectors beefing etc

*Interesting social dynamics here. There seems to be some online rage-baiting involved in these collectible marketing issues.

241030 | Meanwhile, in the art world other than Torino

https://pages.artsy.net/index.php/email/emailWebview The Big Picture Your October art market rundown October is always one of the art world’s busiest months, and this year proved no exception. Here, we pace through some of the month’s key events. Click on the links to read our in-depth reporting. The month kicked off with the spirited debut of Atlanta Art […]

241030 | Savoyard craft knife box collection

*Who is the target-market for this completist artefact? *Obviously there is one.

241029 | Sketchfab panic in fab-land

https://www.404media.co/email/c98f7ffc-8a7a-4244-99e6-ef97b080402e/ Archivists Say Fortnite Developer Threatens ‘Cultural Heritage’ By Emanuel Maiberg • 28 Oct 2024 For years, scientists, artists, archivists, and museums have relied on Sketchfab as a way to share 3D models for free for research, education, and preservation. It works much like the 3D model sharing platforms that game developers use, and Sketchfab […]

241029 | Bruno Munari disco machine, Arte Povera natural-carpets, exploding foam, etc

*Well, I’ll have to find out more about this historic Turinese event. https://www.academia.edu/43309628/Piper_Pluriclub_Turin_1966_69_Franco_Toselli_and_the_Art_Scene_in_Milan_Arte_povera_più_azioni_povere_Amalfi_1968_Galleria_Sperone_and_Other_Venues_in_Turin_LAttico_and_Other_Galleries_in_Rome_Rome_Incontri_Internazionali_dArte_and_Contemporanea

241028 | Share Festival is here

L’Opening di Share Festival XVIII si avvicina. Vieni a scoprire i P1113232-min_(1).jpgnostri eventi. In occasione della Torino Contemporary Art Week, Share Festival esplorerà il tema ALL-Natural, in cerca di nuove intersezioni tra arte, tecnologia e natura. Ti aspettiamo mercoledì 30/10 alle 18:30 per l’Opening di Share Festival XVIII – ALL-Natural | Stage S, in fronte […]

241028 | Artissima 2024

  Artissima 2024 PREPARE FOR YOUR VISIT TO THE FAIR!   Only a few days to the opening of Artissima 2024! Italy’s most contemporary art fair reopens its doors to the public at the Oval in Torino, welcoming visitors from 1 to 3 November with 189 galleries from all over the world, 3 curated sections […]

241025 | “Cristallo di Luce” in Torino Environment Park — produced by The Sharing

In occasione della XVIII edizione di Share Festival, vi invitiamo a visitare la scultura d’arte pubblica Cristallo di Luce, di Diego Scroppo, prodotta da The Sharing. L’opera è esposta in forma permanente all’Environment Park di Torino. Apertura non-stop a ingresso libero da Via A. Costaguta 21, Torino. Quest’anno è stata inserita nella prestigiosa rassegna “Luminarie” […]

241023 | Meanwhile, at Feral File

241022 | The core functions and capabilities of the robot artist

*If you reframe this notion as a “synthetic artist,” it becomes a little more interesting, because it’s basically a William Gibson “Idoru.” However, I’m not clear on why these functions and capabilities should ever be “united” in the first place. They’re indeed functions and capabilities, but why should they be bundled into an entity that’s […]

241016 | Meanwhile, at Feral File

*This never happened to my collection of coffee-table art books. Critical Issues Affecting Feral File Android and iPhone Apps. We are writing to inform you about critical issues currently affecting the Feral File app on Android and iOS iPhone. Issues: 1) Android App May Lose Access to Your Wallet Assets The Feral File app on […]

241016 | A Prada spacesuit

*Why not? https://www.axiomspace.com/release/prada-axiom-suit

241015 | A soldering iron. It boots and has a startup screen.

*It’s powered by USB-C.

241012 | Europeans must unite, etc

Europeans must unite against Elon Musk’s influence. If you are in the EU or a supporter of its values, we urge you to sign this petition to ban his platform X. Please sign the petition on Change.org. Your name and data will not be published. The social media platform X must be banned in Europe. […]

241011 | Science fiction exploring the future of art

*The book, or perhaps magazine, is now commercially available.

241008 | Decennale della nomina di Torino Città Creativa UNESCO del Design

https://www.torinodesigncity.it/programma2024/ 13 ottobre – 26 ottobre 2024 In occasione del Decennale della nomina di Torino Città Creativa UNESCO del Design, la Città offrirà un palinsesto di appuntamenti gratuiti dal 13 al 26 ottobre 2024, per promuovere il riconoscimento e accontare le diverse declinazioni del Design a Torino. Saranno previsti incontri dedicati a raccontare le imprese […]

241005 | Toolbox CoWorking “Post-Labor”

L’ECONOMIA DEL POST-LAVORO Finora abbiamo assistito alla rivoluzione di internet e dei computer ma in generale l’automazione è stata relegata per lo più nei processi di produzione nelle fabbriche; ora lo sviluppo dell’intelligenza artificiale generativa sta creando un’iper-abbondanza di lavoro cognitivo e la cosiddetta sostituzione del lavoro umano riguarda compiti fisici e intellettuali indifferentemente. Siamo […]

241004 | Victorinox Replica 1897 Limited Edition Swiss Army Knife

*Nice piece of antiquarian “pocket jewelry” there. You’re going way out of your way to have the oldest, unimproved model, and better yet, it’s brand-new!

241003 | Artissima 2024, prizes and funds

  ALL THE PRIZES AND FUNDS   Artissima 2024, with a focus on this year’s theme The Era of Daydreaming, celebrates its approach of discovery and rediscovery of talents, and the constant pursuit of beauty that has always been its trademark, through the awarding of 13 among prizes, honours and funds. Aimed at highlighting the […]

241003 | Urban arts district mangled by climate crisis

*A hurricane doesn’t much care if there’s art in the buildings of Asheville, North Carolina, USA. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Hurricane Helene Obliterates Asheville’s River Arts District (…) “Two-thirds of the district has been destroyed,” said Jeffrey Burroughs, president of the River Arts District Artists Association, in an interview with Hyperallergic. Hosting over […]

241003 | MetaForum PermaCrises

*I guess the legendary “Transition” is really over, if eastern Europe has somehow transitioned to “PermaCrises.” Embracing the legacy of the three MetaForum conferences (1994-96), MFX continues to highlight the urgent issues of the times with a reflection on contemporary crisis surfing. The theme of PermaCrises examines the persistent breakdown of our political, societal and […]

241002 | Meta Augmented Reality, 50 billion dollars later

240930 | “The stewardship of a choral dataset”

https://ticketing.serpentinegalleries.org/events/0191475a-5a58-1735-c1c1-1d1540d7c150 Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst: The Call Serpentine North, 4 October 2024 – 2 February 2025 Berlin-based artists Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst approach AI as a coordination and communication technology, much like singing has been for millennia. Historically, singing techniques like call and response have been rituals for communication, leading us to build […]

240930 | The Oxford Electric Bell aka Clarendon Pile

*There it is, in its vitrine. *It has been faintly ringing its two bells ever since Charles Babbage first described his Analytical Engine in Torino. https://bruces.medium.com/the-mysterious-visit-of-mr-babbage-by-bruce-sterling-2017-7c941028c4d8

240930 | Oxford Electric Bell replica

*One wonders if this replica is still running. The original device seems to be the world’s oldest functional electrical device, and may have been built as long ago as 1825. *It doesn’t seem to do much, except to create a tiny musical sound billions of times as it very slowly discharges large electrochemical batteries.

240930 | Six thousand dollar Croatian pocket jewelry

*I’m not pointing your attention to the peculiar bespoke art-knife here, but it’s of interest to hear this YouTube influencer going on at such length, and with such emotional fervor, in the specialized modern jargon of “pocket-jewelrese.”

240928 | Art conservator with a multitool

*I rather doubt that she has just one, given this confessional video.

240928 | Swiss Army Knives

*That’s nicely animated. *I’ve been known to get some practical use out of a Swiss Champ, but those other, even-more ultra-large specimens are decorative. *Not that there’s anything wrong with that! There are ancient, prehuman flint tools that took effort to make and lacked practical use.

240928 | Forty years of EU scientific research

*They’ve become quite keen to blow their own trumpet, maybe because there is so little conventional pop-science media left to do that for them. https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/events/special-features/celebrating-40-years-eu-research-and-innovation_en

240927 | Pretty multitools

*It’s an ongoing cultural struggle to prettify them. The user-base really seems bothered. *If they’re covered in militant camou that seems okay — although, if you drop a camouflaged multitool while you are working out in the field, you will never find it.

240924 | The Bellingcat Online Open Source Investigation Toolkit

*As “tools” go, this isn’t so much a toolkit as a way of life. https://bellingcat.gitbook.io/toolkit

240923 | New IPhone 16 is almost kind of repairable

*Seven out of ten in the repairability rankings, says iFixit, as they pull the device to pieces in this blog post. https://www.ifixit.com/News/100352/we-hot-wired-the-iphone-16

240922 | Tools and Fanboys

*This is not a tool issue, this is a social-media issue. *However, if you manufacture and distribute tools, social media people will make it their business to harass you, just like in games, cinema, stock investment and politics.

240920 | Ten years for the Museo Ettore Fico

*A good place to visit in Torino. Il Museo Ettore Fico compie 10 anni! 21 Settembre 2014 – 21 Settembre 2024 Julia Haumont, Sogni, Museo Ettore Fico Il 21 Settembre del 2014 il Museo Ettore Fico iniziava le sue attività espositive, didattiche e culturali. Insediatosi nel contesto urbano di Barriera di Milano, dopo un attento […]

240912 | Alexander Calder show in Lugano

*Thirty Calder works, that’s a lot. https://www.artribune.com/arti-visive/arte-contemporanea/2024/07/mostra-alexander-calder-lugano/ È un’occasione straordinaria quella offerta dal LAC di Lugano, un’immersione totale nell’arte di Alexander Calder uno degli artisti più significativi del XX Secolo. “Calder ha compiuto un passo unico nella storia dell’arte: creare organismi metallici dotati di qualità come la leggerezza e la varietà, in forma di sottili […]

240912 | A design magazine that is literally hard to get

*Obviously that’s part of the appeal, though. If you can’t manage to obtain it, you don’t deserve to read it! Hi, welcome back! The new ARCHIVIO N° 10 – The Design Issue is hot off the press, and we can’t wait for you to discover it. After the success of The Fashion Issue, now sold […]

240912 | It seems fair to say they’re not very “secure”

240911 | The extremes of the Piedmontese “pocket” knife

*That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a regional “Piemontese” knife with those exaggerated, nurderous, Spanish navaja proportions. *I hope he enjoyed making that. It’s a fantasy-weapon more or less, but it really has the attributes of a classic piemontese carried into a context where it doesn’t make a lot of sense. *Here’s a modern […]

240911 | Stop-motion YouTube makertainment video

*That’s a very strange video rhetoric. Maybe it’s effective, though.

240910 | Yes, that must be Ars Electronica

240909 | GOGBOT in Enschede

GOGBOT WANTS YOU! 12 – 15 sep. @ Enschede, NL GOGBOT Festival is kicking off this upcoming Thursday 12 September, and preparations are in full swing! Brace yourself for four days of mind-bending collision of art, music, and tec that’s taking over Enschede and will blow your senses wide open. We’re currently applying the finishing […]

240909 | Maywa Denki Nonsense Machine Exhibition in Okinawa

Maywa Denki Nonsense Machine Exhibition in Okinawa Have you checked out the September 8th edition of the Ryukyu Shimpo yet?

240908 | The Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law

https://rm.coe.int/1680afae3c The member States of the Council of Europe and the other signatories hereto, Considering that the aim of the Council of Europe is to achieve greater unity between its members, based in particular on the respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law; Recognising the value of fostering co-operation between the Parties […]

240908 | The Rodney Brooks Three Laws of Robotics

*Anyone with a serious interest in actual, as opposed to fictional, robotics will always benefit by listening to Prof. Rodney Brooks. https://spectrum.ieee.org/rodney-brooks-three-laws-robotics

240908 | Chi adora le Muse finirà nel Museo.

240906 | Transmediale Open Call for Residencies

** Open Call Residencies 2025 ———————————————————— transmediale is collaborating with one local and three international partners, offering various residency opportunities for next year. The residency programme is part of transmediale’s core activities to establish more sustainable practices and long-term relationships with artists and its community. This year we warmly invite applications for the following programmes: […]

240905 | More Versificatore Propaganda, this time in a podcast

*Maybe I’ll get the thing built, somehow! https://re-creative.ca/the-versifier/ Joe and Mark are joined by the famed cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling, from his studio in Torino (Turin), Italy. Bruce describes himself as is a ‘diaspora kid’ and currently splits his time living in Austin, Belgrade, Torino and Ibiza. “I don’t like doing the same thing over. […]

240831 | The alert and never-tiring Hans Ulrich Obrist

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/curator-hans-ulrich-obrist-artificial-intelligence-serpentine-galleries-london-1234714858/ As artistic director of Serpentine in London, Hans Ulrich Obrist has championed all kinds of future-facing art. This year, Obrist—whom the New Yorker once called “the curator who never sleeps”—took that one step further by declaring a “Year of AI” at the lauded institution. Since joining the gallery’s leadership team in 2006, Obrist has […]

240827 | What is the point of an art gallery on the Moon?

*Posting is slow on the blog here, but I’m not dead, I’m just out in the countryside. https://www.domusweb.it/en/art/gallery/2024/07/25/lunar-codex.html

240815 | A 17th-century “Buckingham Dagger”

That’s a lot of practical utility for a weapon that is fancy, aristocratic “belt jewelry.” Buckingham himself was stabbed to death with a dagger by a disgruntled soldier who had been in one of his lost battles, because, although Buckingham was great at court favoritism, he was a terrible commander out in the field.

240811 | German Maker hacks dead rattlesnake

*That’s a very Californian story. *I’ve eaten rattlesnake. It’s okay. Alligator tends to be better.

240810 | A Processing job

*I’m not gonna do it, but maybe you would. Dear community member, We are excited to share a fully remote job opening at the Processing Foundation! For full consideration apply by Saturday, September 7, 2024 11:59pm EST. The Processing Foundation is looking for applicants who are passionate about open-source software development to apply for the […]

240809 | Elderly Texan pundits pontificating

*About Primo Levi and Frida Kahlo, among other subjects.

240809 | Art Knife Invitational circa 2022

*They’re doing their own publicity here, but clearly this is a central festival for pocket jewelry.

240809 | Pocket jewelry “art knife”

*I don’t doubt that price was being asked, but I wonder if that artifact would hold that value. Does the “art knife” community have enough funding and institutional maturity to support a stable art market? *It’s an interesting term-of-art, “art knife,” and the rather glamorous “Melissa Backwoods” is probably the ideal YouTube influencer to promote […]

240808 | Fifty years of virtual reality

*That’s a long time.

240807 | Ten thousand euros, that’s real money

Open Call announced: CultTech x Ars Electronica Award 2024 (Linz/Vienna, August 6, 2024) For the second year in a row, Ars Electronica and the CultTech Association will present the CultTech x Ars Electronica Award. The award honors entrepreneurial projects and ideas that demonstrate in innovative ways how a responsible approach to technology can enrich the […]

240804 | Pocket jewelry developments

*Protective cover for a mere knife, in the older tradition of the iphone case. *You don’t want to “ding up your knife” because, along with being a pocket knife, it is also jewelry, and therefore it’s simply necessary that it should look pretty.

240803 | The Bridges Archive of art and mathematics

*There seems to be rather a lot going on here, and for quite a while. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/#gsc.tab=0

240801 | Deep-cover Argentine-Slovene “art gallery owner” gets traded back to Russia

*She used to be mildly involved with European digital art, along with whatever it was that she was actually doing. https://theins.ru/en/news/273542

240801 | European Artificial Intelligence Act comes into force

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_24_4123 Today, the European Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act), the world’s first comprehensive regulation on artificial intelligence, enters into force. The AI Act is designed to ensure that AI developed and used in the EU is trustworthy, with safeguards to protect people’s fundamental rights. The regulation aims to establish a harmonised internal market for AI […]

240731 | Paratissima in Torino

*What the heck gives with that?

240731 | CalcGPT

https://calcgpt.io CalcGPT 2023 GPT-3 (babbage-002), HTML, CSS and JS on website Calvin Liang. (((assisted by ChatGPT))) CalcGPT, conceived by an incisive and quirky artist-engineer Calvin Liang, serves as the praxis of satire in a hyper-advanced AI-dominated era. Imbued with an ingenious blend of technology and dry humor, the creation shrewdly prods at the modern world’s […]

240731 | AlphaProof

*It plays Go, only instead it does math. More-or-less. https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/ai-solves-imo-problems-at-silver-medal-level/ (…) AlphaProof: a formal approach to reasoning AlphaProof is a system that trains itself to prove mathematical statements in the formal language Lean. It couples a pre-trained language model with the AlphaZero reinforcement learning algorithm, which previously taught itself how to master the games of […]

240731 | Nine years of YouTube making

*That’s a lot. That almost counts as a profession.

240731 | Otzi the Ice Man Every Day Carry Tool Set

*He was Italian, after all. The flint came from Trentino, the copper came from Tuscany. https://www.iceman.it/en/equipment/

240730 | Share Festival announcement

L’associazione THE SHARING, è lieta di annunciare le sei opere finaliste selezionate per il premio internazionale Share Prize XVI, dal tema ALL-Natural! Ups and Downs II di Heidundgriess (DE) The skin of a tree di Shin Jina (KOR) Love letters without the recipient di Ziyao Lin (CH) Breath di Alexandra Marinova (BUL-ITA) Kinesintesi di Livia […]

240728 | A working steampunk strandbeest

*That’s hard to beat for eccentricity.

240724 | Esposizione di Torino (S. A. Ambrosio, 1911)

*What a fantasy.

240724 | UMWELT in Modena

UMWELT è una mostra a cura di Marco Mancuso e in collaborazione con festivalfilosofia e Smart Life Festival. Il progetto espositivo evidenzia come l’arte e gli artefatti della tecnoscienza ci avvicinano a una più profonda comprensione delle espressioni non-umane di intelligenza, per entrare in relazione con esse, integrarle in un nuovo ambiente collettivo e diffondere […]

240724 | 2024 S + T + ARTS Exhibition

*It’s not lacking for weird. https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBy52K

240719 | Leatherman televised propaganda

*Well, that’s them, though.

240718 | Banal Devices: Everyday technology in globalized technocultures

https://drha.tech/drha-2024/ Banal Devices: Everyday technology in globalized technocultures Munich, Germany 8-10 Sep 2024 Hosted by the University of Music and Theatre Munich Get your ticket for DHRA 2024 What systems and devices are relevant in people’s everyday lives, beyond the globalized dreams and universalising narratives professed by big tech and state bodies in the Global […]

240718 | SIGGRAPH: the next fifty years

*Siggraph 2024 really hauled out the great and the good among the elder computer-graphic sages for their fifty-year event. https://ereyes.github.io/s2024/the_next_50_years/#nickmontfort

240717 | Stampante 3D! ‘Arrives Almost Assembled!’

240714 | Laura Kampf storage philosophy

*Unsurprisingly, that’s very left-handed and intuitive. It privileges getting-it-done with the bricolage-at-hand rather than organizing categories.

240712 | YouTube knife influencer

*You’ll notice that her knives are camera-ready. It’s “becoming a problem,” but it’s not the number of steel implements she has acquired, it’s the need to display them.

240712 | The multitool limited-edition collector market

*Not quite “luxury tactical,” but getting there — a unique set of pliers that can’t be used as pliers without destroying the mint-value of the object.

240712 | Knipex tools augmenting reality

*That’s a rather strange promotional ad.

240712 | Arduino Plug and Make Kit

Build your first IoT devices with this kit by seamlessly integrating hardware and software without diving into complex theory. Plug and Make Kit is the easiest way to get started with Arduino. It includes everything you need for your very first seven projects – as well as many more that our community shares and you […]

240711 | Meanwhile, at Artissima

Artissima, the International Fair of Contemporary Art in Torino announces the galleries that will take part in the 31st edition, directed for the third year by Luigi Fassi and organized with the support of the Main Partner Intesa Sanpaolo. From Friday 1 November to Sunday 3 November 2024 the spaces of the Oval in Torino […]

240711 | Battery-driven power tools

*There are batteries in the electrical utility markets now, and batteries in cars, so why not batteries in power tools? *They look strange by historical standards, but this is a different era for electrical power.

240711 | Big Tech Gobbles Up AI Frontrunners

*How could they not?

240711 | AI & Music powered by S+T+ARTS at Sónar 2024 | Highlights

https://youtu.be/KVZT4RpWmYs?si=I7xXm4PkyxkFeQoI

240709 | Torino (Città) Invisibile

https://torinoinvisibile.coniglioviola.com Torino (Città) Invisibile Kaninchen-Haus e ConiglioViola in collaborazione con il Museo Nazionale del Cinema e la Fondazione Circolo dei Lettori presentano la nuova call per partecipare alla costruzione del progetto “Torino (Città) Invisibile” che trasforma il capolavoro di Italo Calvino in un’opera multimediale da fruire in realtà aumentata attraversando lo spazio pubblico. Torino (città) […]

240709 | Legacies of tactical media since the 1990s

Dear Nettime, This Wednesday, the Centre for Digital Inquiry (CDI) will present a livestream, hybrid conversation with Alexandra Barancova, David Garcia and Eric Kluitenberg on the legacies of tactical media since the 1990s, alongside reflections on emergent trajectories today for media aesthetics and activism in pursuit of the common good. Today, we grapple with escalating […]

240709 | Intellectual Art History in Cold War Eastern Europe (Wien, 24 Oct 24-31 Jan 25, 2024)

rom: Katalin Cseh-Varga Date: Jul 6, 2024 Subject: CFP: Intellectual Art History in Cold War Eastern Europe (Wien, 24 Oct 24-31 Jan 25) Academy of Fine Arts, Institute for Art and Culture Studies, Schillerplatz 3, 1010 Vienna, Austria, Oct 24, 2024–Jan 31, 2025 Deadline: Aug 5, 2024 Intellectual Art History in Cold War Eastern Europe […]

240707 | The LLMs, 2024

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2406.16937

240707 | Fidget Toys

*They’re the primal ancestors of kinetic art.

240705 | Apple unboxing

240703 | Websim AI

In response to prompts, Websim AI instantly creates entire fake simulated websites, complete with “functional” links. Like, for instance, this fake website for a Turin, Italy that’s completely dominated by esoteric magic. Or this Cyberpunk Turin.

240702 | Here comes a tidal wave of semi-legal animated AI meme-cartoons

*That’s what this lecture would seem to imply. https://dougshapiro.substack.com/p/fear-and-loathing-and-hype-and-reality (…) The Legal Issues are a Quagmire I haven’t calculated lawyers per employee in Hollywood, but it’s safe to say legal issues are more important in the entertainment business than in many other industries. Hollywood creates copyrighted information goods, which are subject to piracy and infringement […]

240702 | Victorinox Cyber Tool (Model L)

*It’s cyberpunk pocket jewelry and it’s multitool overkill, but sometimes that’s what one must have.

240702 | The Microsoft AI complex

*So many of these images that pretend to explain their cloud-clusters are AI-generated. They are not the actual hardware, and commonly they don’t even pretend to be real.

240702 | Bing Copilot as a digital art critic

*This is a bit inside-baseball for the Share Festival blog, but it’s remarkable. When asked to create an essay using catch-phrases most commonly used as cliches by AIs, Bing Copilot immediately composes a paean in praise of digital art. Bruce Sterling: Please generate an essay that uses all of these phrases. 1. “It is important […]

240630 | Artificial Intelligence comprehends and explains cyberpunk, 2024 AD

You: Please list the essential graphic elements of a “cyberpunk image,” in order of their importance to a “cyberpunk aesthetic.” Copilot Certainly! The “cyberpunk aesthetic” is characterized by a blend of futuristic and gritty elements that create a unique visual experience. Here are the essential graphic elements, listed in order of their importance to achieving […]

240630 | Tool kit completely lacks functional tools

240629 | Thirty years of NEURAL magazine

*That’s a long time! https://neural.it/2024/03/neural-74-connective-theories-30-years-of-neural-extra-30-artists-celebrate-30-years-of-neural-20-of-cronica/

240628 | Enzo Mari self-production

240626 | Generative AI in Hollywood

*They’ve suffered, but apparently they haven’t suffered enough.

240625 | Boy, that AI-meme generator is mean-tempered

240625 | Text as dead-media

*Since they’re selling generated videos, this needs to be a really good and convincing generated video. 0:00 Intro 1:00 Why Video Matters and Where it’s Heading 4:10 AI Video Assistant 6:08 Express-1 AI Avatars 7:15 Personal Avatars 8:26 Full-body AI Avatars 9:02 Triggers 9:43 AI Screen Recorder 11:01 Live Collaboration 11:27 One-Click Translations 12:40 Multilingual […]

240624 | Non-tool tool makertainment

*Something interestingly decadent about this. It’s like building ships inside a bottle, but for the sake of YouTube traffic. *There’s also something “luxury tactical” about it, especially since the miniature tools pretend to function. https://youtu.be/QRUlOe01108?si=SixEqWnc5agOu9iD

240624 | I want this to look like a plant on Mars and they built this in the 80s to surveill it

*She’s very “private Utopia,” Laura Kampf. I’m a little surprised that she hasn’t built her own private toaster and hand-made her own forks yet.

240624 | Generative Things from ThingsCon

12 & 13 December, we celebrate 10 years of ThingsCon! We return to Amsterdam, to the Volkshotel. Our theme for 2024: Generative Things We are shaping the first plans and will share them over the coming months. They are all inspired by this theme Workshops and talks RIOT publication Specially commissioned exhibition On that last […]

240624 | STARTS Prize 2024

*Wow, Vladan Joler won one. https://ars.electronica.art/mediaservice/en/2024/06/24/starts-winners-2024/ (Linz/Brussels, June 24, 2024) 1,308 submissions from 81 countries were received for the European Commission’s STARTS Prize in 2024. At the end of April, the jury met in the Ars Electronica Center in Linz and chose the winners of the two main prizes, each worth 20,000 euros: The “Grand […]

240622 | Savage Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/shop/adamsavagestested/list/Y5E2Y08S5TL2?ref_=aip_sf_list_spv_ofs_mixed_d

240620 | Marco Tempest vs Ada Lovelace at Augmented World Expo 2024

*That’s kind of fun, isn’t it? Really working the AI-generated steampunk. *It’s nice that it has a brief Turinese sidelight, too. https://medium.com/p/7c941028c4d8

240619 | Gae Aulenti at Triennale Milano

May 22, 2024–January 12, 2025 Triennale Milano Viale Alemagna, 6 20121 Milan Italy Add to Calendar triennale.org Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / YouTube Triennale Milano presents the exhibition Gae Aulenti (1927–2012), staged in collaboration with the Archivio Gae Aulenti and curated by Giovanni Agosti with Nina Artioli, director of the Archivio Gae Aulenti, and […]

240619 | Mai piu senza Torino

*That book’s quite old and out-of-print now. I may do an English-language version of it some day, if the years spare me.

240618 | Philosophy of technology

240617 | Normie Weird Deep Kitsch

*It’s easier to read this than it is to explain it. https://silviolorusso.com/publication/ai-weird-as-the-new-kitsch/

240615 | A new workshop from scratch

*He’s just chatting, but there’s a lot of practical wisdom here.

240614 | Raspberry Pi 5 AI kit

*Why would they not? https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/04/raspberry_pi_ai_kit/ (…) Although the AI Kit represents a big performance leap for the Raspberry Pi 5, the single-board machines already have history in the field. Upton pointed out that long before AI became the Next Big Thing, Raspberry Pi users were already using the technology for things like object detection. The […]

240614 | Deep Dream issue of MIT Technology Review

Book Details

240612 | Raspberry Pi developments

Via tech@inside.com. Low-cost computer maker Raspberry Pi went public on the London Stock Exchange today, with its shares initially priced at £2.80 and rising 32% to £3.70. The IPO generated £166M ($211M), making it the second-largest in Britain this year. More: The public listing valued the British microcomputer maker at nearly £542M ($689M). Founded in […]

240611 | The Art Basel 2024 everyday carry

*Why not a “Swiss Army Knife”? https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-guide-art-basel-2024-experts (…) Once your week starts at Art Basel, it’s unlikely to stop. A portable phone charger was recommended among the must-pack items from most people Artsy spoke to. “Once you leave your hotel, you can really be out and about all day and all night,” said Patricia Amberg, […]

240611 | Large, all-titanium wrench

*Why does anyone need a wrench milled from a solid bar of titanium? *To de-mine a minefield? To repair a Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine? *No. Nobody “needs” one. No one will employ a titanium wrench in situations where titanium is somehow needed. And, despite their high price, and the limited appeal of their 12-inch American […]

240610 | The ants have broken her morale

*It would take a heart of stone not to sympathize with Laura Kampf’s fit of exhaustion over her endless house “renovation” project on YouTube. *This is not the first time that a YouTube influencer has burnt out from the exigencies of doing private digital television. I don’t doubt she’ll soon rally and get over it. […]

240609 | Sónar 2024 | Final lineup released

*That Barcelona event video is quite weird. Especially given that Sonar, for all its creative eccentricities, is basically a music festival with a beer sponsorship.

240608 | Meanwhile, in Venice

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/03/arts/ai-art-overlap.html?unlocked_article_code=1.xE0.i-97._5Sw6SSRcnOB&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare By Farah Nayeri Reporting from Venice June 3, 2024 The skeleton seems to be at the epicenter of a mystifying ritual. In a new work by the French artist Pierre Huyghe, robots powered by artificial intelligence film the unburied remains of a man, and periodically position objects next to it in a ceremony that […]

240608 | Why not just baldly admit that creative software is much worse

240607 | Share Festival entries extended

Call for Art ‘Share Prize XVI ALL-NATURAL has been extended until June 16th 2024, 11:59 PM So far, so many of you have responded to this year’s call for entries and we are delighted that the theme has inspired so many of you. We have therefore decided to extend the call for those who are […]

240606 | Bamboo products for sale on Youtube

*The variety is extensive.

240606 | NOME Gallery at Art Basel 2024

CIAN DAYRIT Art Basel, CH 13-16 June 2024 NOME is pleased to announce a solo presentation of Cian Dayrit at Art Basel Statements 2024, where he will premiere the work Intensified Necropolitical Framework for Ecocidal Ravenous Nation-building Operations (INFERNO). Engaging ethnography, archaeology, history, and mythology, Dayrit’s works often examines the consequences of colonialism, exploring how […]

240606 | Meanwhile, at Artissima

https://www.artissima.art/en/ Artissima the International Fair of Contemporary Art in Torino presents the first new features for its 31st edition, which will take place at the Oval in Torino from 1 to 3 November, directed for a third year by Luigi Fassi and with the support of the Main Partner Intesa Sanpaolo and Gallerie d’Italia – […]

240605 | Cocktail dress makes cocktails

*That’s Anouk Wipprecht of the famous “spider dress.”

240605 | Adam Savage and his zombie apocalypse tools

*You will never be involved in a “zombie apocalypse.” *People who have been in civilian fights with other human beings often claim that improvised tools, like, say, a crowbar, are a wise choice in a fight. They’re of less use in a fight than well-designed weapons, but they’re much more useful in the police station […]

240604 | Meanwhile, with a restored Antikythera Mechanism

*Well, he’s been taking his time about it. He’s especially interested in long-lost tools and processes that might have been used to make this ancient Greek orrery-calculator. That’s quite an interesing Artmaker aspect.

240604 | Orit Halpern: Resilient Futures

*This recent lecture on nature and cybernetics has some clear parallels to the theme of the next Share Festival show, “All-Natural.”

240601 | Yuga & Cryptopunks: The Filth And The Fury

*It’s been a mess for quite a while, and the passage of time isn’t improving it. Yuga & Cryptopunks: The Filth And The Fury Sean Bonner May 31, 2024 Collect [Hi Crowd! This is a blog post I wrote the other day with a couple updates which I thought a few of you might find […]

240529 | Ransomware hackers attacking Christie’s auction house

*Oh dear. https://hyperallergic.com/919790/hacker-group-threatens-to-leak-data-of-over-500k-christies-clients/ The hacker collective known as RansomHub, which claimed responsibility for a cyberattack that led to Christie’s website being down ahead of several high-profile spring season sales this month, has threatened to leak personal data about the auction house’s clients. RansomHub, which was behind another cyberattack last February on the healthcare payment management […]

240529 | “I made it with my own hands”

*Startling amounts of Facebook AI-generated clickbait centers around the English-language catch-phrase, “I made it with my own hands.” *If you’re a Maker who actually makes things with your own hands, you might find this of interest. *I wonder if those phrase was chosen sarcastically by someone who knows that Facebook spam-art is autonomously generated.

240529 | Shrimp Jesus and other afflictions

*This is Facebook AI-generated engagement-bait, for various forms of Facebook scams and malware opportunities. This may be the first form of AI art, generated without direct human intervention, which has a business model. *Not only is it “autonomous art” with no human creative effort, there will be more and more of it unless it is […]

240529 | Share Festival jury 2024

*That’s some kind of jury!

240527 | Barlow pocket knives

It’s interesting when a modest, daily-carry tool with such an extensive, centuries-old heritage suddenly miutates into so many modern forms all at once.

240524 | Tumult in the land of multitools

*The cheap clone is the dark twin of the “luxury multitool.” The underpriced clones are chasing the manufacturers up-market and into the realm of “luxury.” *There are more than a few of these clones — which are now legitimate, because of patent expirations. They’re not mere pirate tools, they’re just copies. *So what would a […]

240520 | Into the tall weeds of modern sci-fi TV props

*The design and engineering detailing here, that’s very contemporary.

240519 | The Frontier Safety Framework Version 1.0

*I have yet to read any “AI Safety” document that made me feel any safer. *Not that I fret all the time about AI safety, it’s that the documents themselves don’t make much sense or inspire any confidence. They read like scholastic theology about angels on pins. https://storage.googleapis.com/deepmind-media/DeepMind.com/Blog/introducing-the-frontier-safety-framework/fsf-technical-report.pdf Frontier Safety Framework Version 1.0 The Frontier […]

240517 | Makertainment studio, but…

… he merely showcases unusual tools rather than making anything with them, which is an interesting development in the Makertainment genre.

240514 | Cory Doctorow: AI “art” and uncanniness

*Getting deep into the tall weeds here. https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/ AI “art” and uncanniness When it comes to AI art (or “art”), it’s hard to find a nuanced position that respects creative workers’ labor rights, free expression, copyright law’s vital exceptions and limitations, and aesthetics. I am, on balance, opposed to AI art, but there are some […]

240514 | Jon Gadget 2024 compact tool kit

*This guy is a YouTuber influencer and also a fanatic, but that is a genuinely impressive tool kit, especially considering its lightness, its multifarious capacities and its tiny, well-nigh covert size.

240513 | A toe-controlled wooden lathe

*This is the oddest, most archaic European tool video that I’ve ever seen. “In 2008, Serafín Serrano was the last member of a family saga of turners from the town of Villarluengo (Teruel) who, with a simple tackle and a handful of chisels, dedicated themselves to turning wood to provide the residents of the area […]

240513 | “We Need to Rewild the Internet”

*That’s an interesting essay, and it’s been attracting some commentary. https://www.noemamag.com/we-need-to-rewild-the-internet/ (…) The internet’s 2010s, its boom years, may have been the first glorious harvest that exhausted a one-time bonanza of diversity. The complex web of human interactions that thrived on the internet’s initial technological diversity is now corralled into globe-spanning data-extraction engines making huge […]

240511 | “All-Natural” wooden nails

240509 | Tomorrow morning at the Salone del Libro

PROSSIMI APPUNTAMENTI Bruce Sterling e Jasmina Tesanovic al Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino 2024 con: L’intelligenza artificiale raccontata dalla Fantascienza – Talk Dal ‘Versificatore’, racconto fantascientifico di Primo Levi, una riflessione condivisa sui modi in cui la fantascienza ha narrato l’intelligenza artificiale e l’effettivo impatto di essa sul mondo contemporaneo. 10 maggio, Ore 10:30-11:30 […]

240509 | Versificatore on the way

*Turin Book Fair, here we come.

240508 | “Natural Histories, a collection of 15 stories by Primo Levi”

This volume of Levi works includes “The Versificator.” https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storie_naturali_(Primo_Levi) Natural Histories (Primo Levi) (*machine-translated by Google, (appropriately enough)) Natural Stories is a collection of 15 stories by Primo Levi, published by Einaudi in 1966 under the pseudonym Damiano Malabaila. They are scientific and science fiction stories, often humorous, but not only. The book won the […]

240507 | Versificator Noises

240507 | Nice set of hardware

240505 | Our (Swedish) robot heritage

*Since robots are over a hundred years old, that’s just part of the heritage, but it’s nevertheless rather a lot.

240504 | Subsonica Augmented Reality beer

*Did I actually see that, or was it just some kind of augment? *Also, it’s an IPA. I don’t drink a lot of “India Pale Ale.”

240504 | Subsonica “Universo” (official video)

*They’re not holding back with the generative-AI video FX, in this single from the new album “Augmented Reality.”

240504 | Subsonica wearing tuxedos

*Because they won a cinema soundtrack award, and also because it’s funny to see Torino’s best-ever rock and roll band wearing tuxedos. Per i Subsonica: “Il respiro armonico di un tema di Boosta potenziato con una vera orchestra di 50 elementi supervisionata dal maestro Fabio Gurian, le obliquità di chitarre che vibrano in modo diverso […]

240503 | Eccentric alleged “pocket knives”

*Somehow including alleged “scissors.”

240501 | Flat Ukrainian multitool

*That’s quite a peculiar set of objects.

240430 | An artist who has spent a whole-lot-of-time with AI

*You won’t hear these experiences and conclusions from just anyone.

240428 | A collection of exceedingly erudite AI-and-physics papers

https://arc.net/folder/D0472A20-9C20-4D3F-B145-D2865C0A9FEE

240427 | Pliers and wrenches

*That was edifying.

240427 | Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board

*Will artists be safe and secure? https://www.dhs.gov/news/2024/04/26/over-20-technology-and-critical-infrastructure-executives-civil-rights-leaders Over 20 Technology and Critical Infrastructure Executives, Civil Rights Leaders, Academics, and Policymakers Join New DHS Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board to Advance AI’s Responsible Development and Deployment Release Date: April 26, 2024 Group Chaired by Secretary Mayorkas Will Consider Ways to Promote Safe and Secure Use […]

240426 | “Fifty bucks. That’s a lot for an American buying a European plier, but…”

*Click. *Subscribe #socialmedia #tools #electrical #electronic

240425 | A hundred years of Man Ray surreal cinema

*That’s a long time.

240425 | Utopian Realism, a speech by Bruce Sterling

*There is also a video of this recent speech of mine at the Politecnico of Torino, but I think that this printed transcript version is a little cleaner and easier to understand. https://medium.com/p/c315be2b0f44

240425 | Adam Savage and the many tools for one task

*I recognize that the machine repair and upgrade was difficult work, but the panoply of highly various tools that he used for one job… there’s just no end to them. *It’s quite startling. Especially when he casually produces one that you’ve never seen in many years of watching makers.

240423 | Meanwhile, on Patrizia’s island

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/04/18/patrizia-sandrettos-venice-venue-nears-completion The island of San Giacomo di Paludo in the Venice lagoon is a short boat trip away from San Marco, but had been abandoned since the 1960s. In 2018 it was bought by the Turin-based collector Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and her husband Agostino, with the aim of turning it into a cultural and […]

240423 | AI Performance Playground Hacklab hosted by Peter Kirn & Cibelle Cavalli Bastos

https://sonar.es/en/activity/ai-performance-playground-hacklab-hosted-by-peter-kirn-and-cibelle-cavali-bastos Learn how to jam with the machine – Open Call deadline for participation midnight 28th April AI & Music powered by S+T+ARTS Apply to participate in the hacklab here. Deadline 28th April. How could machine learning make human interfaces more fluid? Instead of automating human creativity, how could AI-powered media make it easier to […]

240423 | Ars Electronica 2024: HOPE – who will turn the tide

Ars Electronica 2024: HOPE – who will turn the tide (Linz, April 22, 2024) Ars Electronica 2024 will take place in Linz from September 4 to 8 and will be dedicated to the title “HOPE – who will turn the tide”. Like never before, the Linz Festival for Art, Technology and Society will focus on […]

240423 | A good time was had by all

240422 | Utopie Realiste – Paratissima per Biennale Tecnologia

*It’s nice that it’s so pop, just, very Turinese.

240421 | The entirely new Laura Kampf maker space

*In the desert in California. May God help her! Ok, this is mt new series about my shop and life in Los Angeles. Back to documenting everything myself, back to starting from scratch…I hope you love this journey as much as I do! let me know in the comments visit my shop: https://www.laurakampf.shop If you […]

240420 | Versificatore experiments: from scrap, return to scrap

240420 | Versificatore experiments, cardboard, bamboo etc

240420 | Versificatore experiments

240420 | The AI racket, circa March 2024

https://mattturck.com/landscape/mad2024.pdf

240420 | Parmesan spimes

*Of course blockchains had to put in an appearance — but where is the AI? https://wired.me/technology/parmesan-cheese-microchip/ (…) The traceable digital chip is created in collaboration with Kaasmerk Matec, a leading cheesemark producer, and p-Chip Corporation. The p-Chip is an innovative measure to ensure the quality and safety of its product. The microchip is planted inside […]

240419 | Artist patch

*Who needs this? https://www.pinmuseum.org/shop/ai-artist-patch

240416 | Arduino — as if you were in eight grade

*This is IEEE at work rather than Arduino, but these very short videos are actually pretty good.

240415 | Share Festival XVI: “All-Natural” Call for Art!

https://shareproject.cargo.site/SHARE-PRIZE-XVI-ENG

240415 | Joinery

*It’s exceedingly rare for digital production methods to unite products like this, although the complexity should be relatively easy to program and share.

240414 | “I Am Seventy,” as Mark Twain used to say

Threescore years and ten! It is the Scriptural statute of limitations. After that, you owe no active duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time-expired man, to use Kipling’s military phrase: You have served your term, well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are become an honorary member […]

240412 | A new Calder replica

*More of an “hommage,” maybe, since this contraption is not very accurately made and no one would mistake it for an Alexander Calder duplicate. *However, it’s probably the first new, fully-functional one since at least 1952. https://medium.com/@bruces/the-homemade-limits-of-everyday-weirdness-0c7e6bb12abb

240412 | The missing Civic Tower of Torino (1375-1801)

The “Tower of Saint Gregory” stood in downtown Turin since the 1300s, and was the grandest and tallest building in town for many centuries. It was demolished by Napoleon. I’m inclined to think that the tower ought to be restored — mostly for the sake of the Turinese heritage-tourism industry. It’s annoying that “heritage tourism” […]

240411 | Max Casacci sampling a Turinese bar

*This kills me. *I’d probably die even faster if I was dead-drunk in that bar.

240411 | Made in NYC

*These are like “Maker videos” except that Adafruit can mass-produce industrial electronics.

240409 | The Italian-Chinese trade imbalance, 1588 AD

*How is Italy supposed to compete with this overwhelming industrial might? The condition of Italy must be hopeless. Giovanni Botero, “On the Magnificence of Cities”: But let us now come to China. There is not in all the world a kingdom (I speak of united and entire kingdoms) that is either greater, or more populous, […]

240407 | Wow! Ninja’s drum kit!

*All right, fine, call me a Subsonica fan — but the Artmaker- blog here is full of “artmaking,” and these are the working tools of a prominent Turinese musician.

240407 | Torino Capitale della Cultura d’Impresa 2024

*Is someone going to admire this YouTube video, posted two days ago? Yes, that would be me.

240407 | The National Museum of Digital Art in Milano

*Exit through the gift shop! https://www.beniculturali.it/ente/museo-nazionale-dell-arte-digitale The Museum of Digital Art is one of the newest autonomous museums established by the Minister of Culture with DPCM No. 123 of June 24, 2021. The museum, entrusted to the direction of Ilaria Bonacossa, an art historian and curator and former director of Artissima in Turin, will be […]

240407 | Cory Doctorow in Torino April 21

*Knee=deep in the Merdocene

240407 | Maratona IA

*O dio mio.

240407 | Geert Lovink in Torino Sab 20

*I’m now looking over the busy schedule of the forthcoming Technology Biennale, and it looks like I’ll repeatedly have to be in five or six different places at the same time.

240407 | Adam Savage recommending the art of Mark Pauline

*That makes sense, given the Bay Area. It’s interesting to actually hear it said, though. *Also: the most recent time in which I’ve encountered Mark Pauline. That was four years ago, and it was a pleasure to chat with this very influential machine-art veteran.

240406 | Evan and Katelyn Making a Dog-Sized Furby Robot (and taking it on a walk)

*This YouTube stunt is getting pretty close to a tech-art intervention, and wouldn’t seem out-of-place at Transmediale or Ars Electronica. *Some technical details on the project from a YouTube collaborator.

240405 | Subsonica — Mattino di Luce

*AI video FX galore!

240404 | Processing Foundation 2024 Fellowship Program

Application Deadline: Tuesday, May 2, 2024, 11:59 PM EST Dear community member, The Processing Foundation is thrilled to announce the open call for our 2024 Fellowship Program, themed ‘Sustaining Community: Expansion & Access.’ This year, we seek to support innovative projects from artists, designers, activists, educators, engineers, researchers, coders, collectives, and many more, who are […]

240404 | Artificial Intelligence recommends the European Artificial Intelligence Board

You How can I get involved with EAIB initiatives? Copilot Certainly! If you’re interested in participating in European Artificial Intelligence Board (EAIB) initiatives, here are some steps you can take: Stay Informed: Keep an eye on official announcements and updates from the EAIB. Follow their website, social media channels, and newsletters. Attend webinars, conferences, and […]

240403 | Woodworking workshops

*You will notice that these are “jaw-dropping” wood-working spaces. In social media things need to be “jaw-dropping” for the sake of the viral appeal. Otherwise they’d simply be rationally organized, efficient places to work with wood. https://woodandshop.com/workshops/

240403 | Woodworking studio

*This quirky, hands-on assembly space doesn’t look very “Makertainment,” but he gives it away when he refers to one wall of his garage shop as “the backdrop.” *His explanation of the presence of just one plug-in machine tool in his studio, that’s also quite interesting.

240403 | Makertainment studios really don’t look like “normal studios”

240403 | Big-time AI companies

240403 | Tools to throw away

*I’m quite liking this Makertainment sub-genre of “tools that are no good.”

240403 | Xyla Foxlin being particularly Xyla Foxlin

*As a Makertainer, Xyla Foxlin has had repeated, crippling problems with her studios, but the Xyla Foxlin personality-cult is flourishing in this YouTube episode as she lounges in her personal chair in her sunbathing gear.

240403 | A steampunk Makertainment studio

It’s interesting that the entire studio seems to be a giant, personal costume-play effort. When you consider that all Makertainment studios must be video sets (as opposed to efficient locales to make products) this is very sensible and may even be the way forward for this entertainment genre.

240403 | Do you need $5million for some reason?

JUST LAUNCHED: $5M XPRIZE QUANTUM APPLICATIONS! Every day, humanity is confronted with seemingly insurmountable challenges that impact our planet and shape our future. With the emergence of quantum computing, there is the potential opportunity to tackle some of the world’s toughest challenges, and it all starts with an algorithm. Enter our newest competition, XPRIZE Quantum […]

240401 | Digikey electronic tool kit

That plethora of plastic sockets seems oddly restrictive. How can one ever add or subtract any tools?

240401 | Complaining on YouTube about luxury multitools

He’s underselling the technical innovation in that feminized SAK multitool. *It’s really interesting to hear all this said, however. It sounds quite like the ideas of Clayton Christensen, when long-established companies are driven out of the market by appealing to luxury consumers as their original user-base decays. *I’d also remark that multitool fans who become […]

240331 | Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau. The Artwork as a Living System

ZKM | Karlsruhe Sat, May 07, 2022 – Sun, July 31, 2022 The interactive installations in the exhibition tell the story of almost 30 years of artistic work by the Austrian-French artist duo Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau. The exhibition »The Artwork as a Living System« provides an overview of the work of the Austrian-French […]

240330 | Meanwhile, at V2_Lab

V2_Newsletter March-April 2024 We’re back with our monthly newsletters. We have a solo exhibition of Dani Ploeger coming up, Destructive Circuits (opening 28 March) with also an Evening of… (5 April) and a new publication (launch at 11 April) connected to it. There’s two open calls: one for the yearly Summer Sessions residencies, and one […]

240330 | “Air Head,” an AI-animated short film

240326 | The program of the Biennale Tecnologia for 2024

*Only in Torino, ladies and gentlemen. https://www.biennaletecnologia.it/programma/programma-principale/

240325 | Origins of “cybernetics”

*This is a very strange, extensive, quirky memoir. I don’t know what to do with it except to put an excerpt in this blog. http://www.cyberneticians.com/materials/mcculloch-recollections.pdf (…) That was in the academic year 1943-1944, and was followed from 1946 on by the ten Macy meetings on circular causal and feedback systems. I had a fairly free […]

240324 | Meanwhile, in Trieste

240324 | Antique French hand tools

In French, of course. https://www.histoiresdoutilsartisanaux.fr/visite_virtuelle.php

240322 | Meanwhile, at Stability AI

240322 | Meanwhile, after 555 years

International design and innovation firm CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, together with Italo Rota, unveils the installation for the exhibition Il polittico agostiniano riunito, or, The Polyptych of St. Augustine Reunited, bringing together masterpieces by Piero della Francesca held in London, New York, Washington, and Lisbon. For the first time in 555 years, the great altarpiece by […]

240322 | A bucket of Versificators

*That’s not a site one sees every day. *We had to rebuild the makerspace in the Ibizan garage. It’s comical, how often Makers stop all their ongoing projects and rebuild the studio.

240319 | Nervous System at MIT

*How splendid that their union has been blessed with issue. https://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/blog/?p=9493

240319 | NVIDIA Blackwell

*Just look at those CEOs bowing the knee to NVIDIA and their pricey new AI hardware. https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-blackwell-platform-arrives-to-power-a-new-era-of-computing New Blackwell GPU, NVLink and Resilience Technologies Enable Trillion-Parameter-Scale AI Models New Tensor Cores and TensorRT- LLM Compiler Reduce LLM Inference Operating Cost and Energy by up to 25x New Accelerators Enable Breakthroughs in Data Processing, Engineering Simulation, […]

240318 | Bruce Sterling at SXSW2024

https://schedule.sxsw.com/2024/events/PP1145788

240318 | Personal Computer Large Language Models

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/17/ai_pc_local_llm/ How to run an LLM on your PC, not in the cloud, in less than 10 minutes Cut through the hype, keep your data private, find out what all the fuss is about Tobias Mann Sun 17 Mar 2024 // 14:00 UTC HANDS ON With all the talk of massive machine-learning training clusters and […]

240316 | European Union at SXSW 2024

240316 | Piedmontese grissini at SXSW2024 in Austin

*Piedmontese cultural imperialism in Texas.

240315 | Artificial Intelligence Act in the EU

*Feel free to move fast and break it, and also feel free to pay billions of euros in penalties as a sort-of-tax for that privilege. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240308IPR19015/artificial-intelligence-act-meps-adopt-landmark-law On Wednesday, Parliament approved the Artificial Intelligence Act that ensures safety and compliance with fundamental rights, while boosting innovation. The regulation, agreed in negotiations with member states in December […]

240315 | The “Haus Liselotte” Leatherman Micra tool from Laura Kampf

*Probably sold out. *However, Share Festival has one. HAUS LISELOTTE Leatherman micra

240315 | Butchermax

*An interesting technocratic sensibility here. It’s for rendering wild game, and it’s portable, soi you can do that in the wilderness on the spot where the animal died.

240315 | Floating Pliers

*Should I have bought those strange aquatic tools? I have no practical use for them, but maybe they’re worthy of Share Festival research.

240314 | A Japanese robot maintenance tool kit — even yet more

*At SXSW2024, Austin Texas USA, March 2024.

240314 | A Japanese robot maintenance tool kit — yet more

240314 | A Japanese robot maintenance tool kit — more

240314 | A Japanese robot maintenance tool kit

*At the South By South West event in Austin, Texas, March 2024.

240314 | Celebrity art-guitar

*It’s interesting how much high-end luxury fuss these luthiers make about their manufacturing processes. *I wonder if any professional musician will ever play one of these collector’s objects. Gibson Announces Jimmy Page 1969 EDS-1275 Doubleneck Collector’s Edition Limited Edition Custom Shop Guitar Recreates One of the Most Recognized Guitars in Rock History, Hand-Signed and Played […]

240313 | An early Leatherman prototype vs modern gadget

*The price-point on a modern multitool knockoff:

240313 | Making electrical wire by hand

*All right — that spectacle was not easy. It was even silly, but none the less interesting.

240312 | Experiential design-fiction, the trio of adepts

*Nelly Ben Hayoun of University of the Underground, Jasmina Tesanovic of Share Festival, and Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot at SXSW 2024 in Austin. *Also, Schroedinger’s blue rubber cat.

240310 | Meanwhile, at Serpentine Arts Tech

*Via email. Hello Friends, Today we’re excited to launch our new online home for Future Art Ecosystems. Initially, Future Art Ecosystems (FAE) was inspired by the artists we (the Serpentine Arts Tech team) worked with to create artworks that deployed a variety of emerging technologies such as AI, VR and game engines. Through these collaborations […]

240310 | (Sinister) Electrical Memes

240308 | Space art

240307 | The Chinese price-point

240307 | The opposite of the Share Festival “Artmaker” philosophy

240306 | Precursors of the web and social media on Geocities

*It’s like discovering that wax cylinders once held popular music. https://blog.geocities.institute/archives/7358 *Olia Lialina: “Those who don’t remember the web before platforms, tend to believe that for 10 years web users stared at their monitors in anticipation. Actually they were made to believe it. First by Web 2.0 proponents, and nowadays by aggressive Web3 campaigns that […]

240304 | Retnik 6E6 Russian military multitool

*That’s some Russian milspec, all right. They’re in the private market, and they arrive wrapped in protective wax paper and preserved in “arsenal grease.”

240304 | Meanwhile, at Next Nature

Cultivating the future: the evolution and promise of lab-grown food. Remember our 2018 petition rallying for public tastings of in vitro meat? It stirred up quite the storm, even sparking a lively parliamentary debate in the Netherlands. A lot has happened since then. Meat from the lab is already approved to be on the market […]

240304 | “A Coder Considers the Waning Days of the Craft,” in the New Yorker

*I would recommend reading that, because the secondary and tertiary effects of this are just beginning. *Also, archiving today’s digital crafts that will be swiftly forgotten, that will be quite an interesting challenge, much like preserving silent film. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/20/a-coder-considers-the-waning-days-of-the-craft (…) In a 1978 essay titled “On the Foolishness of ‘Natural Language Programming,’ ” the computer […]

240304 | Leatherman’s FIAT car

*This is the broken-down, second-hand Italian car that caused Tim Leatherman to create the original “Leatherman Survival Tool” in the 1970s.

240303 | “We’re knife enthusiasts! We like weird stuff!” he insisted

*Collectors of many different kinds like “curios.” If you’re collecting the gamut, you’re interested in expansions of the gamut. *I’m not even sure that this is an “aesthetic.” It’s more like a scientist diligently searching for “extreme cases” in order to illuminate the phenomenon under study.

240301 | AI woodworking tools

*They don’t yet exist. That is why, by contrast, videos like this do exist.

240301 | Another makertainment workshop video by Xyla Foxlin

*These are core makertainment videos because makertainment isn’t merely about having a working space, it’s about having a video studio. *Also, there is no standardized way to have such a property, so the people who attempt to do it are often thrown out of their rental spaces. This is commonly a bigger problem in California […]

240228 | Turinese urban infrastructure

*That’s a pedestrian cross-walk button, downtown on the Via Garibaldi. I wonder who builds those cicruit boards. *That must be the biggest construction crane that I’ve ever seen in Torino.

240227 | European “pocket jewelry” at the Strasbourg knife show 2024

*Very shiny and glittery, and every blade looks damascened.

240227 | The tall weeds of LLM prompts

*It’s interesting that the cost of prompts and platforms is becoming a major issue. From: The Prompt newsletter https://www.theprompt.io/p/write-great-llm-prompt I’m seeing four things with folks who use LLMs in production right now: GPT-4 can do many things very well, but it can become quite expensive for production. Builders turn to GPT-3.5 Turbo for cost savings, […]

240227 | The Leatherman “Torture Chamber”

*These various tools for assessing and testing multitools are quite interesting. Some of them are decades old. https://www.leatherman.com/blog/enter-the-torture-chamber.html Before any Leatherman multi-tool design is put into production, it must run a gauntlet of stress tests. Some engineers call the room housing these machines the Testing Lab. Tim Leatherman himself has dubbed it something more colorful: […]

240226 | Luxury knives

*It’s interesting how much variety there is in “luxury” knives. There’s the technical-prowess ones, the artsy decorated ones, the rare-materials ones (“mammoth uvory inlays”), the obscure-manufacturing=processes ones, auteur knives from prominent knife designers in the “art knife genre,” and even some knives that function particularly well. *Also, note the Italian manufacturers.

240225 | The New “Rage” in Maker Tools and Techniques according to Adam Savage

*Well, I wouldn’t dismiss those speculations, because the guy has been around.

240221 | Poetry Will Not Optimize; or, What Is Literature to AI? by Michele Elam

https://read.dukeupress.edu/american-literature/article/95/2/281/344231/Poetry-Will-Not-Optimize-or-What-Is-Literature-to Abstract Literature, poetry, and other forms of noncommercial creative expression challenge the techno-instrumentalist approaches to language, the predictive language generation, informing NLP (large natural language processing models) such as GPT-3 or -4 as well as, more generally, generative AI (text to image, video, audio). Claims that AI systems automate and expedite creativity reflect industry […]

240221 | Cory Doctorow explaining his blogging method

*It’s a lot of work. https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/20/fore/#synthesis (…) Blogging has always been a part of this project. For nearly 20 years, I posted nearly every day on Boing Boing – 53,906 posts in all! – taking note of everything that seemed important. Keeping a “writer’s notebook” in public imposes an unbeatable rigor, since you can’t slack […]

240219 | A Brief Report from the Nettime Listening Post

*Today’s version of the California Ideology, etc. Time Passed and Something Happened A Brief Report from the Nettime Listening Post- This is an informal report from the nettime meeting in Berlin of two weeks ago. As it turns out I reluctantly found myself organising and moderating the final stages of the meeting. So this report […]

240216 | Another entry in the Makertainment studio genre

“I am currently sleeping here,” etc.

240216 | A limited edition, anniversary commemorative, gold-plated Leatherman tool

*It’s from several years ago. I wonder if anyone who owns one of these gilded tools has ever used it for any standard tool purpose.

240214 | Meanwhile, at Flipper Zero

https://gizmodo.com/flipper-zero-game-module-controller-raspberry-pi-1851248496 (…) Though the Flipper Zero is best known as a hacking or penetration testing device, you can do a lot more with the Flipper than hack your smart blender. Last year, Flipper Devices launched its own App Store, which is accessible via the tool’s mobile app, and offers various open-source plug-and-play software features. Presumably, […]

240214 | An aeopile

*I’m a little upset that I’ve never owned one or even physically touched one. *Of course there are YouTube tutorials.

240214 | Occupational hazards of the Maker life

*It’s alarming that maker people — including makertainment people — almost always have scarred hands or bandaged fingers. Not only do they commonly have these new or old injuries, they have them *on camera,* which is even more disquieting. *It’s not a matter of mere carelessness, it’s more a statistical matter of some slight risk […]

240211 | “The Savoyard,” a Polyphon disk music box with an organ grinder automaton

*Too bad he’s actually German and not a Made-in-Italy Savoyard from Piemonte. *Excellent set of psychedelic monkeys, however.

240211 | European pocketknife obsessives gather in Maniago, Italia

*This is what they’re like as Europeans, and also what they have in their pockets. https://youtu.be/fwF0Wm9Cxd0?si=WQumD408i2btSfue

240211 | The Mysterious Visit of Mr Babbage, by Bruce Sterling (2017)

https://medium.com/p/7c941028c4d8 First published in “Archivio #1,” Turin Italy, 2017. It seems fantastic that scholars in Torino in 1840 discussed computers, punch cards, programs, data, and memory storage. But the archives prove that they did… Our story is well-known among historians of computing. Mr Charles Babbage and Lady Ada Lovelace are world-famous nowadays. But despite the […]

240211 | Charles Babbage in Torino, 1840: the secret police reports (translated into English)

Charles Babbage in Turin: the secret police reports as published in Memorie e Lettere, Istituto Lombardo, Vol XXX, p83-166, in 1968. Translated by F. Oliveira-Pinto in his article “On a Visit by Charles Babbage to Turin in 1840”, in the Revista da Universidade de Coimbra, Vol XXXVI, pages 479-486, 1991. From: The Royal Command of […]

240210 | Scrap

*We have a lot of “making” on the Artmaker Blog, but “un-making” can also be interesting.

240210 | Let’s ask “Bing Copilot”

*What tools will I find inside the “Share Festival Artmaker Bag?” Copilot: The Share Festival Artmaker Bag is thoughtfully curated for today’s technology-artists. It contains a selection of hand-tools that are both beautiful and elegant, with many of them being manufactured in Italy. While the specific contents may vary from year to year, here are […]

240210 | Luxury multitool of the near future

*That implement might work fine if you have AI-generated fingers.

240210 | The fourteen rules of the “Lockheed Skunk Works”

*These practices can be very handy if you’re in the business of rapidly inventing and building covert spy planes. Lockheed’s 14 Rules The Skunk Works manager must be delegated practically complete control of his program in all aspects. He should report to a division president or higher. Strong but small project offices must be provided […]

240210 | The Leatherman “Europe 75”

*It’s very interesting that the Leatherman company is rapidly getting into limited-edition, high-priced “luxury multitools.” In the case of the “Europe 75” (which is sold out, and no longer commercially available). it’s even a *heritage* “luxury multitool.” *The original Leatherman “Pocket Survival Tool” was a very American gadget indeed, but it was inspired by an […]

240209 | A new project from Marco Tempest

*Marco Tempest is an actual stage magician. So, when Marco starts exploiting new technologies on stage, as he commonly does, the point will be some gosh-wow entertainment.

240207 | The art life for women artists

*This novel is a hundred and thirty years old.

240207 | The Leatherman tool maintenance kit

…with tools for cleaning your multitool.

240206 | The Worst Devices of CES 2024

*I’m touched when people make the effort to select “the worst.”

240206 | “Training the Archive”

Dear All, I’d like to make you aware of our book publication: “Training the Archive” includes four new essays by Hannes Bajohr, Mél Hogan, Moritz Ibing et al., and Giulia Taurino, interviews with experts from the field of artificial intelligence, a collection of material in the form of images, information on prototypes and documentation of […]

240206 | Apple Vision Pro teardown

*Holy cow, those huge, flat processors right in front of the user’s eyeballs,,,

240204 | Three long years of Laura Kampf attempting to makertain a habitable space

*Haus Lise Lotte is not so much a “house” as a very extensive, multi-year video performance — but I was so entertained that, last year, I started contributing money to the cause. *In very similar makertainment news, this is Laura Kampf chief-lieutenant Felix Schelhasse equipping his own makertainment studio with a built-in network of vaccuum […]

240203 | Xyla Foxlin, the mental-health therapist among Youtube makertainers

“Protective equipment is cheaper than hospital bills later,” especially the hospital bills in the USA.

240202 | Advanced manufacturing by Adafruit in 2024

*Well, some people are “makers,” and some people have industries.

240130 | Meanwhile, at the Italian Data Protection Agency vs ChatGPT

https://garanteprivacy.it/home/docweb/-/docweb-display/docweb/9978020 ChatGPT: Garante privacy, notificato a OpenAI l’atto di contestazione per le violazioni alla normativa privacy ChatGPT: Garante privacy, notificato a OpenAI l’atto di contestazione per le violazioni alla normativa privacy Il Garante per la protezione dei dati personali ha notificato a OpenAI, società che gestisce la piattaforma di intelligenza artificiale ChatGPT, l’atto di contestazione […]

240130 | AI video generation — the business

From: CBInsights.com, 29 January 2024 While 2022 kicked off the text-to-image craze and generated some incredibly iconic viral images like The Pope Drip, AI video generation will be a key trend to watch in 2024. The tech will have major impacts across advertising, Hollywood, and other visual media industries. And text-to-video is the new hotness […]

240128 | Industrialized huarache sandals

It’s common around the world to hand-make sandals from defunct car-tires, but I’ve never seen this jugaad handicraft semi-industrialized like this. This workshop has boilers and pressure-cutters, and yet, the upshot — the eventual shoes — are still remarkably ugly.

240125 | Nettime at Transmediale

*Nettime could give lessons on unlikely acts of survival.

240125 | The latest Jonathan Keats effort

*It’s a pleasure to blog this wacky thing. https://hyperallergic.com/867389/jonathon-keats-camera-with-the-1000-year-long-exposure/ (…) Titled “the Millennium Camera,” the project employs photographic devices created out of light-proof copper cylinders that allow only small trickles of light to enter through thin gold sheets punctured with pin-sized holes. As light passes through the device, it will gradually imprint an image onto […]

240125 | EUreka3D: European Union’s REKonstructed content in 3D

*It’s nice that they’re working on long-defunct media equipment.

240125 | Heritage-related projects: call for applications

https://www.europeanheritagehub.eu/call-for-applications-small-grants-scheme-for-heritage-related-projects-led-by-civil-society-in-eu-neighbouring-countries/ Call for Applications: Small Grants Scheme for heritage-related projects led by Civil Society in EU neighbouring countries January 22, 2024 Opening date: 23 January 2024 – Closing date: 31 March 2024 The European Heritage Hub project – co-funded by the European Union and run by a consortium of 20 partners led by Europa Nostra […]

240121 | Here comes Transmediale 2024

** transmediale 2024 you’re doing amazing sweetie ———————————————————— ** Jan 31–Feb 4, 2024 Berlin ———————————————————— The festival week is getting closer – day passes for Seasons 1 & 2 and the Reunion are still available as well as tickets for the closing concert on Saturday evening. Registration for the two workshops (https://transmediale.de/en/2024/partner-programmes-2024) of our partner […]

240121 | “Exploring the Unknown ” by CERN artists in residence

https://arts.cern/article/cern-science-gateway-opens-art-exhibition-exploring-unknown The exhibition features new artworks by four former artists in residence at Arts at CERN. The CERN Science Gateway is a new education and outreach centre that will immerse visitors in the discoveries, science, and technologies of CERN. With three exhibitions, hands-on laboratories, and an auditorium, the Science Gateway becomes both a real and […]

240117 | Epic struggle in the Adam Savage workshop

*It’s war between the means of production and the things he already produced and collected, and, eventually, the tools win. *For the time being, that is.

240117 | Coltellerie Berti 1895 – Our Products – Artisan Exclusive Knives Handmade in Italy

*As I learn more about steel and hand tools, and the business as a whole is demystified to me, I find these artifacts more interesting rather than less. *The fad for twenty-first century “MagnaCut steel” is trampling the conventional knife business, so it’s interesting to think about steel knives that can stain, bend and chip. […]

240117 | More technological variety

240117 | Technological variety

It’s not necessary, but that’s how it is.

240117 | Meanwhile, at the Vestager office in the European Commission

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_24_85 The European Commission has launched today two calls for contributions on competition in virtual worlds and generative artificial intelligence (‘AI’) and sent requests for information to several large digital players. All interested stakeholders are invited to share their experience and provide feedback on the level of competition in the context of virtual worlds and […]

240115 | Felix Schelhasse: “Router to lathe! Sounds logical, doesn’t it?”

*It’s pleasant to see Felix Schelhasse so enthused about his well-equipped Makertaiment studio and its power-tools. You will notice that Felix uses the power-tools in particularly showy ways; even working on the power-tools on camera is an integral part of his ongoing YouTube show. *That’s not unusual in Makertainment, but it is unusual that Felix […]

240115 | Speculating on video about the world in 2024

240114 | The New York Times suing Microsoft and OpenAI

https://nytco-assets.nytimes.com/2023/12/NYT_Complaint_Dec2023.pdf (…) Defendants’ unlawful use of The Times’s work to create artificial intelligence products that compete with it threatens The Times’s ability to provide that service. Defendants’ generative artificial intelligence (“GenAI”) tools rely on large-language models (“LLMs”) that were built by copying and using millions of The Times’s copyrighted news articles, in-depth investigations, opinion pieces, […]

240113 | Twenty Years of Institute of Network Cultures

Dear nettimers, this Friday our Institute of Network Cultures (www.networkcultures.org) celebrates 20 years of our research group being based inside the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA). The party will take place at OT301 with a program featuring our recent activities, followed by a line-up of DJs.You can find the full program here: https://networkcultures.org/events/expanded-publishing-fest/. There […]

240111 | The Journal of Art and Design, Florence, January 26, 1867

http://www.memofonte.it/home/files/pdf/GAZZETTINO_DELLE_ARTI_DEL_DISEGNO.pdf (machine translation) TO OUR READERS «Entry is prohibited.» These words in very clear color are written on the door of all the Appendices of every newspaper, for anyone who sometimes feels it vague to express their opinion about art, which the critics entrenched there as in many fortresses, ruthlessly reject anyone who tries to […]

240111 | Meanwhile, at HEK Haus der Elektronischen Künste

Dear friends of HEK, We hope that you have all had a good start to the new year, one in which many media art highlights await you once again at the HEK. To kick things off, we are showcasing the multifaceted Swiss media art scene by presenting the winners of the Pax Art Awards 2023. […]

240109 | STARTS Prize and STARTS Prize Africa

STARTS Prize & STARTS Prize Africa: Submission windows open (Linz, January 8, 2024) With the S+T+ARTS initiative, the European Commission is supporting pioneering projects that draw on the intersection of science, technology and arts. Outstanding examples of such innovations are awarded the STARTS Prize and the STARTS Prize Africa, which is being announced for the […]

240109 | Design Manifestos

*That seems like plenty. https://designmanifestos.org … S Saatchi & Saatchi (n.d.) How to survive as a Saatchi & Saatchi suit Stefan Sagmeister (2007) Manifesto #09 Stefan Sagmeister (2008) Obsessions Salone del Mobile (2018) Il Manifesto Antonio Sant’Elia (1914) Manifesto of Futurist Architecture SARK (1989) Everyone Is An Artist Francesca Sarti / Arabeschi di Latte (2021) […]

240107 | DOMUS reviewing 2023

*One could spend all day in there. https://www.domusweb.it/en/news/2023/12/19/domus-most-read-articles-in-2023.html *There’s always something to learn from Domus. For example, if elegant and refined “Italian Brutalism” seems strange, then Turinese Brutalism is almost sure to be even weirder.

240104 | “The Homemade Limits of Everyday Weirdness,” by Bruce Sterling

*This is quite a long art and design essay of mine, and too prolix to fit on this blog. *I had a lot on my mind — and still do. https://medium.com/@bruces/the-homemade-limits-of-everyday-weirdness-0c7e6bb12abb “Why did the world’s most famous kinetic artist have a Maker home?” As soon as this question struck me, I knew that I had […]

240102 | Submarine Cable Map 2023 Europe

https://submarine-cable-map-2023.telegeography.com

240102 | The annual WELL State of the World discussion for 2024

*Featuring Bruce Sterling and other interested parties. https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/540/Bruce-Sterling-and-Jon-Lebkowsky-page01.html

240102 | Olia Lialina, circa 2024 AD

“AI where it is now – a whirlwind of crap”! *Yeah, that’s Prof. Olia Lialina, all right. It’s good to hear from Olia. Happy new year, dear nettimers! In the mid of AI summer, I often think back about last spring, and one product, or rather it’s announcement, that brought us to where we are […]

240101 | Alleged Leatherman tableware

*I can understand this, but I find it troubling. It’s like hand-sewing your own Tyvek underwear. It’s your own business, but is it civilized?

231231 | Setting up a new workshop

Well, since you’ve got a new year, you might want to do that.

231230 | Meanwhile, in Refik-land

Welcome to the latest edition of the Refik Anadol Studio newsletter. 2023 has been our biggest year yet with exhibition openings all around the world. Below is a recap of some of the major milestones and a round-up of the incredible places we’ve had the opportunity to show our work. Refik Anadol Studio’s Unsupervised was […]

231228 | Everybody knew about the robots

*From Jed Perl’s Calder biography, volume 1.

231224 | Calderoulette, 1941

This is a very rare example of Alexander Calder making a figurative mobile rather than an abstract one. The viewer will note that this art work looks like a movable wire toy rather than a “mobile sculpture.” Of course Calder was quite well-known for his animated wire toys before he succeeded in establishing any “mobile […]

231223 | 2023, the AI year in review

*Matt Wolfe saw a lot going on. https://futuretools.beehiiv.com/p/ai-year-review Hey there! As the year comes to a close, I’ve been thinking back on all of the crazy AI developments that happened in the last 12 months. Many of the tools and stories I’ve covered recently could’ve been the stuff of sci-fi blockbusters just a few years […]

231221 | Sartre and Calder

*Mobiles don’t get better than Calder, and I suppose I can put up with that, but also art criticism of mobiles doesn’t get better than Sartre, and this bothers me quite a lot.

231220 | Feral File Year in Review 2023

*There’s been a lot going on. Feral File Year in Review With 2023 winding down, we’re looking back on a year full of big things for Feral File. We successfully launched the ambitious MoMA Postcard, an experiment in borderless co-creation initiated through the ongoing collaboration between the Museum of Modern Art and Bitmark. Earlier this […]

231220 | A lot of “tools” are just terrible

*But it’s rare for YouTube Makertainers to admit this and prove it in public.

231220 | The Alexander Calder workshop chaos philosophy

*I’m very much in the Calder camp, but I understand *why* I’m in the Calder camp, and I can also recognize the operational downsides of that. *Adam Savage talks a lot about “order of operations.” Alexander Calder is an intensely iuntuitive creative, so his order of operations is to juggle a lot of scrap and […]

231220 | Adam Savage (endlessly) battling chaos

*He says these guru homilies over and over again, but he’s actually getting better at it. *Also, I listen to him a lot, and I recognize chaos better when I see it now. I don’t always clean it, because my unconscious mind seems to need a lot of options open in untidy ways, but I […]

231219 | Hacking a Swiss Army Knife

*I get a lot of use from the hefty, many-featured Victorinox “WorkChamp with Slide Lock.” It’s thick, heavy, stout and, at 111 millimeters in length, it’s better classed as a multitool than a “pocket knife.” It also ceased production back in 2017. *However, this old tool of mine lacks any Swiss Army pen. So I […]

231219 | Lev Manovich

*Here at the Artmaker blog, don’t say we never gave you anything that was actually given to you by Lev Manovich. http://manovich.net/index.php/projects/cultural-analytics

231218 | Vera Molnar

*Traditionally, the moment when they die is a great time to learn about artists. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/arts/vera-molnar-dead.html

231218 | Bruce Sterling on Bluesky

*Doing some occasional art coverage on the social-media site. https://bsky.app/profile/bruces.bsky.social/post/3kgsgyxfydh2t

231218 | A brief interruption in the Artmaker Blog

*That’s how it goes sometimes. *We seem to be back with no permanent damage, so let’s see how the art-blogging goes.

231111 | METROPOLIS special effects

…from a century ago.

231110 | Meanwhile, on the Bruce Sterling Medium site

https://medium.com/@bruces

231109 | Giant Turinese horse barn to become cultural center

231108 | Turin overwhelmed by art

231107 | The Turinese art-world complex

*The culture-industry foundations and institutions in Torino are getting more muscular. There’s Compagnia di San Paolo (they’re 460 years old), but there’s also Pinacoteca Agnelli, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Fondazione Merz, the Galleria d’Italia e Camera, the OGR (which used to be giant railway repair yard, and now is some giant techno-cultural barn), the GAM […]

231106 | Bruce Sterling doing Makertainment

*I had to repair a lamp that I designed, because its switch broke. *The (C)lamp Lamp is now functional again. *Those who worship the Muses end up in the Museum.

231106 | Meanwhile, at Processing

We are thrilled to announce that the p5.js project has been selected to receive a total of €200,000 funding from the Sovereign Tech Fund to enhance the organization and accessibility of p5.js documentation. This work is part of the Sovereign Tech Fund’s Contribute Back to Open Source Challenges, which will be implemented by December 31, […]

231106 | Sophie Kahn doing bronze statuary

Dear friends and colleagues, If you are in New York next week, I’d love to see you at the unveiling ceremony for my sculpture Portrait of t. This work has been commissioned by the Art Students League of New York, presented as part of the Works in Public program, in partnership with the New York […]

231105 | Artissima Voice Over

*Social media is quite strange nowadays. ARTISSIMA VOICE OVER IS ONLINE! November in Torino: it’s time for Artissima! Tomorrow the 30th iteration of Italy’s most contemporary art fair opens its doors, welcoming visitors with a remarkable calendar of appointments, events and initiatives, with the arrival of a new, indispensable platform: Artissima Voice Over! Today the […]

231105 | Ars Electronica careers

*Gosh, imagine doing that all day every day. https://ars.electronica.art/about/en/careers/ Creating the Future That’s what working at Ars Electronica means. We live for the future. We want to help shaping it. We are artists, curators, scientists, developers, technicians, designers, educators, and more. We are an interdisciplinary and international team. At the interface of art, technology and […]

231102 | The Bletchley Declaration

*We like manifestos here on the Artmaker blog. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-safety-summit-2023-the-bletchley-declaration/the-bletchley-declaration-by-countries-attending-the-ai-safety-summit-1-2-november-2023 Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents enormous global opportunities: it has the potential to transform and enhance human wellbeing, peace and prosperity. To realise this, we affirm that, for the good of all, AI should be designed, developed, deployed, and used, in a manner that is safe, in […]

231101 | Raspberry Pi 5

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/introducing-raspberry-pi-5/ “Bringing Raspberry Pi 5 to life has been a seven-year, $25 million endeavour, involving tens of organisations and hundreds of individuals.”

231031 | UN’OPERA D’ARTE PUBBLICA DI DIEGO SCROPPO

UN’OPERA D’ARTE PUBBLICA DI DIEGO SCROPPO A seguito delle due tappe valdostane, Chamois e Aosta (2022), la scultura di Diego Scroppo arriva finalmente a Torino! Attraverso il bagliore che emana e l’energia che restituisce alla comunità grazie ai suoi pannelli fotovoltaici, Cristallo di Luce si posiziona come un mediatore tra natura e tecnologia, trasfigurando il […]

231031 | Suono nella Luce

SUONO NELLA LUCE Parte della mia arte è stata privatizzata. Come suggerisce lo stesso termine “privata”, è stata tolta al pubblico. Ma l’arte deve essere sempre pubblica, non appartiene neppure al suo autore. Diego Scroppo La riconfigurazione del valore simbolico di beni primari quali luce ed elettricità, sottratti alla sfera economica e privata, si manifesta […]

231031 | Hurray for Us

*And all the new members of our crew. #ShareFestival

231030 | NOME at Artissima

https://mcusercontent.com/7b43d250e13a6730bdcc27590/files/6117c5cd-3deb-a750-4f17-4ecc6ca47efb/Artissima_NOME_Preview.pdf

231030 | MoneyLab 13

More updates here: https://www.neme.org/projects/moneylab13 Moneylab#13 Krypto: Decrypting the Artist, Limmasol/Cyprus Sustaining its interest on presenting insightful new critical ideas on the developments of the digital domain and how that is affecting our society and economy, NeMe, and the Institute of Network Cultures, present the 13th edition of MoneyLab. The overall aim of MoneyLab is to […]

231030 | Meanwhile, at Feral File

Coming November 9: +GRAPH, an exhibition of software + plotter drawings “Fictional Lullaby” by Licia He Two years ago, we opened –GRAPH, what would become an iconic exhibition for Feral File’s first year of existence. In November, we’ll open a continuation of that early show in the form of +GRAPH. Like the original, this new […]

231030 | Behind the scenes at Share Festival 2023

*Hahaha! No matter where the venue may be, Share always looks like this.

231029 | Laura Kampf’s front door

*Laura Kampf is the Youtube duchess of Makertainment screws-and-glue — but that unique, commssioned door, which is almost too heavy for determined human beings to lift and carry, is like a German Green bank vault.

231029 | Here comes Share Festival 2023

*We’re soldering as fast as we can!

231025 | Here comes Share Festival 2023

L’associazione The Sharing è lieta di invitarvi a scoprire la XVII edizione di Share Festival che si terrà dal 31 Ottobre al 5 Novembre 2023 in Cavallerizza Reale, patrimonio UNESCO nel cuore di Torino, nelle sue ultime aperture al pubblico, prima dell’inizio dei grandi restauri. All’interno dell’evento potrete scoprire: SHARE PRIZE XV la mostra con […]

231025 | Another epically large and ambitious Makertainer Youtube studio

*What gives with these British guys?

231025 | Artissima 2023

ARTISSIMA 2023: PREPARE FOR YOUR VISIT TO THE FAIR Less than 10 days to the opening of Artissima 2023! Italy’s most contemporary art fair reopens its doors to the public at the OVAL in Torino, welcoming visitors from 3 to 5 November with 181 galleries from all over the world, 3 curated sections to discover, […]

231024 | The Piedmontese “il food” industry arranges a festival

*This has really gotten systematized and intense. Imagine going out for a breakfast coffee-tasting with a “coffelier” on duty. https://buonissimatorino.it/en/program-23/ BUONISSIMA | PROGRAM EDITION 2023 BUONISSIMA 2023 PREVIEW October 24, 8:30 p.m. | Ristorante Del Cambio – Piazza Carignano 2, Turin MATTEO BARONETTO WITH NIKO ROMITO – REALE With the participation of Michelangelo Pistoletto For […]

231023 | Filippo d’Aglie overwhelmed by architecture

*These huge baroque brick piles were his ultimate stage sets. *One gets the feeling that he was imprisoned by them. Literally imprisoned — for a while, in France — but these megastructures seemed to accumulate around him wherever he went. The huge d’Aglie castle, that he built for his family out in the countryside, doesn’t […]

231022 | That’s a lot of craft knives

*I was using three different craft knives while working at the desk today, and I was beginning to think that maybe the blade use was getting excessive. PS:

231021 | Maker Faire Rome 2023 is under way

https://makerfairerome.eu/it/le-nuove-frontiere-dellai-di-sony-csl-a-maker-faire-rome-2023-il-progetto-artis/

231019 | Marc Andreesen: “Techno-Optimist Manifesto”

*We like a manifesto here on the Artmaker blog. https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ Lies We are being lied to. We are told that technology takes our jobs, reduces our wages, increases inequality, threatens our health, ruins the environment, degrades our society, corrupts our children, impairs our humanity, threatens our future, and is ever on the verge of ruining […]

231019 | Public sculpture by Nervous System

231018 | Meanwhile, at Serpentine Arts Technologies

Dear Friends, We are immensely excited to announce that we are joining forces with Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst on an R&D and exhibition project that will open at Serpentine in the autumn of 2024. Herndon’s and Dryhurst’s expansive practice encompasses pioneering work in music, machine learning, software development and organisational experimentation. In their third […]

231018 | The climate-wrecked Murazzi in Torino, via Carlo Ratti Associati

*It’s a press release. FLOATING ABOVE THE FLOODS CRA redesigns the historic embankments of Turin, Italy, called “Murazzi del Po”. The project aims to address the Po River’s recurring floods — forecast to become increasingly disruptive with climate crisis. It develops innovative floating structures that rise above the water, providing a blueprint for urban climate […]

231018 | JUPITER, the first European exascale supercomputer

https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/procurement-contract-jupiter-first-european-exascale-supercomputer-signed-2023-10-03_en https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/ias/jsc/jupiter JUPITER is set to achieve a significant milestone for European High Performance Computing (HPC) as the first European system capable of one exaflop, or one billion billion calculations per second. To put this into perspective, it means that if each person on Earth completed one calculation per second, it would take more than […]

231015 | Every Day Carry tools for the Magic Lantern user, 1874 AD

231014 | European Digital Deal: 12 Residencies for Artists

https://ars.electronica.art/mediaservice/en/2023/10/04/european-digital-deal/ European Digital Deal: 12 Residencies for Artists (Linz, October 4, 2023) European Digital Deal – a project co-funded by Creative Europe – has just launched an open call for twelve artist residencies exploring the deep entanglement between new technologies and democracy. Applicants are called on to investigate a wide range of topics, from the […]

231014 | Maker Faire Rome 2023

https://makerfairerome.eu/it/

231013 | Leatherman Arc

*It’s an ad. *Can I live without this scandalously expensive American gizmo? I’m not sure.

231013 | The Museum of Obsolete Media

*One lone, heroic hobbyist is running this epic thing. https://obsoletemedia.org/obsolescence-decade/ Media by Date of Obsolescence This is a list of all the media currently in the collection, by approximate date by which it could be considered to have become obsolete. For lists of when media were introduced, visit the audio, video, data or film timelines. […]

231013 | New European flood risk areas viewer

https://discomap.eea.europa.eu/floodsviewer/ Hello, Italy!

231013 | Meanwhile, at the Polytechnic

231012 | A re-built De Loutherbourg Eidophusikon

*One has to wonder if building it was cheaper than re-building it. *It’s not the first time that the Eidophusikon was re-built! 18TH CENTURY MULTIMEDIA: LOUTHERBOURG’S EIDOPHUSIKON [The eighteenth-century Eidophusikon has been variously described as a mechanical theater, a miniature stage, a diorama, a panorama, or a physiorama. Featuring lighting, mechanical motion, sound effects, architectural […]

231012 | The new Mush Room in Torino

*Well, good luck with that. https://ra.co/news/79671 Turin has a new club. Opening its doors late last month, The Mush Room is a two-floor space that incorporates dance floors, bars and recording studios. It’s been launched by a small group of local promoters who’ve spent the last few years throwing parties in the city, and the […]

231012 | Europeans with pocketknives

*All right, it’s not Share Festival technology art, but (a) it’s shot in Italy at a center of craft knife-making and (b) come on, who can’t like this.

231011 | The (Post)human Condition in Times of Crisis: The Interplay between Artificial Intelligence, Otherness, and Environmentalism

*I plan to show up. https://www.consultacinema.org/2023/05/04/the-posthuman-condition-in-times-of-crisis-the-interplay-between-artificial-intelligence-otherness-and-environmentalism/ Il convegno internazionale Electricdreams – Between Fiction and Society II invita a un dibattito su speculative fiction, fantascienza e fantastico nei diversi media per esaminare il legame tra umano, postumano e transumano in scenari di crisi. L’invito è indagare come la nostra società guardi al futuro e tematizzi “orizzonti […]

231011 | Eleonora Duse 1924–2024

*To have been a popular star and be a hundred years old, that’s something, but to have been *dead* for a hundred years and still be remembered fondly, that’s quite a feat. https://duse2024.it

231008 | Makertainer goes industrial scale with barn workshop

*He’s got some impressive backers from the hardware business.

231007 | Political troubles at Processing Foundation

*Open source is a means of production, but it’s by no means a panacea. *Especially when a one-time crypto windfall of ten million dollars shows up. https://mastodon.social/@benfry@information.garden/111176713614540314 Ben Fry: I have made the extremely difficult decision to resign from the Processing Foundation. I am absolutely heartbroken, and have not slept well for months. Casey and […]

231007 | 3DPrint criticism by Adam Savage

*Yes, there are rather a lot of practical and theoretical issues there.

231006 | Improbable battlefield tools

*These pictures are from a late-medieval German “battle book” that is a catalog of real military hardware mixed with the far-fetched and fantastical — still rather typical of tactical catalogs. https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Eyb_Kriegsbuch_(MS_B.26)

231002 | Is Web3 bullshit? she asked, back in 2022

231001 | Dead media hacker lore from Eric Raymond

“Tools generate culture; sometimes, when a tool becomes obsolete, a bit of cultural commonality quietly evaporates.” http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/things-every-hacker-once-knew/ One fine day in January 2017 I was reminded of something I had half-noticed a few times over the previous decade. That is, younger hackers don’t know the bit structure of ASCII and the meaning of the odder […]

230929 | Meanwhile, at Artissima

ARTISSIMA 2023: ALL THE PRIZES AND FUNDS Artissima 2023, with a focus on this year’s theme Relations of Care, chooses to celebrate its approach of discovery and rediscovery of talents, and the constant pursuit of beauty that has always been its trademark, through the awarding of three important prizes, two special honours and six institutional […]

230929 | *Internet Tour: Invisible Infrastructures and AI Hallucinations*

Dear all, (sorry for crossposting) It is a pleasure to invite you to this very special Internet Tour. 4 hours, a fake tech bus, unlimited fun *Internet Tour: Invisible Infrastructures and AI Hallucinations* San Francisco Bay Area. Berkeley, Emeryville, and Oakland. 12 Oct 2023 An in-person journey through the physical Internet infrastructure, a tourist route […]

230928 | Imaginary objects that are inherently Turinese

230927 | The renewed Levi Versificatore, a monument for modern Torino

*It’s a good idea, eh? We’ll give it a try! https://video.italian.tech/dossier/italian-tech-week/itw-23-il-guru-della-fantascienza-bruce-sterling-costruiremo-a-torino-il-versificatore-di-primo-levi/4607/4772

230926 | Here comes Italian Tech Week

*Replete with the tech intelligentsia! https://italiantechweek.com/en/event-info

230923 | The TESTED media-makerspace / office

*Make a cardboard model and think about it.

230921 | “Dead NFTs: the evolving landscape of the NFT market”

*They’re not “evolving” very fast. https://dappgambl.com/nfts/dead-nfts/ The Vast Majority of NFTs are Worthless Of the 73,257 NFT collections we identified, an eye-watering 69,795 of them have a market cap of 0 Ether (ETH). This statistic effectively means that 95% of people holding NFT collections are currently holding onto worthless investments. Having looked into those figures, […]

230920 | SOURCE, a new exhibition from Feral File

Now Open: SOURCE, a 0xDEAFBEEF, Operator, and Casey REAS collaboration SOURCE, an exhibition looking back on the energy and enthusiasm during the last few years around art, code, and blockchains, is now open. Comprising over two dozen artworks selected by curators 0xDEAFBEEF, Casey REAS, and Operator (Ania Catherine, Dejha Ti), SOURCE pauses to take stock […]

230919 | Italian inventions and discoveries

*This must be a fraction of them, but it’s quite interesting nevertheless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Italian_inventions_and_discoveries G Galleon (origins): historical evidence suggests that this iconic type of ship was pioneered by the early 16th century Venetians and later spread to Iberian Peninsula, where it became widely adopted and further developed.[99] Gelato: Procopio Cutò is credited with being the […]

230917 | Non è più fantascienza

https://www.repubblica.it/tecnologia/dossier/speciale-itw-2023/2023/09/16/news/bruce_sterling_la_crisi_climatica_non_e_piu_solo_fantascienza-414726288/

230914 | Developments at nettime list

*Long a favorite of the (mostly) European media-theory crowd. From: Davide Bevilacqua Hi , last weekend during Ars Electronica in Linz we had a local meetup to welcome the list to its new home in Linz at servus.at A few list members and non-yet members were present in a brief discussion round before the traditional […]

230910 | The forthcoming Laura Kampf American makerspace

*My goodness, that’s quite daring. How will it end?

230909 | Gogbot in Enschede, 2023

GOGBOT HAS LAUNCH Kees’ retirement, winner KITT Youngblood Award It was a sweltering night with tropical temperatures, and yesterday GOGBOT once again launched into Enschede orbit for four long days and nights of insane art and music. The evening kicked off with an official opening, where our main man Kees de Groot announced he is […]

230908 | Interview With Daniel Andjuar

*The time-honored nettime list is pondering Artificial Intelligence. Who can’t like a big, intellectually extensive chunk of critical text? Interview With Daniel Andjuar This interview, in the form of a set of long responses to shorter question-like prompts, is carried out in parallel to Daniel Andújar’s (http://danielandujar.org/) recent exhibition at the gallery àngels barcelona (http://angelsbarcelona.com/). […]

230907 | Artissima 2023

230904 | Makertainment philosophy with Evan and Katelyn

*Do you want to instruct people on how to make things, or do you want to be charming YouTube celebrities? *One would have to say that the business militates toward stardom rather than toward popular mechanics.

230904 | Sam Altman showing up in Torino

*This should be interesting. https://www.ansa.it/piemonte/notizie/2023/09/04/allitalian-tech-week-focus-speciale-sullai-con-sam-altman_7a2aa095-3a28-4b52-a2a5-836de161734b.html Cresce l’attesa per la nuova edizione dell’Italian Tech Week, la più importante tech conference italiana che quest’anno si presenta con una nuova formula di tre giorni, dal 27 al 29 settembre alle Ogr Torino, con grandi nomi del mondo dell’innovazione. Dopo l’annuncio dell’ospite speciale Brian Chesky, co-fondatore e amministratore delegato […]

230903 | Shining a Light on the Digital Dark Age

*Long Now Foundation. Quite a lot going on for the long term. https://sg-mktg.com/MTY5MzUwMTQ2OXxtSDlJdWV3R1ZudDVFbWNhRUtmZ3VBS0laeW9VMU5hWnJyVU45a1hWc2RaRktQX29RcDR1RGoxYnVZb0cxOTljZFVEOFo4eGthMG53TEhkMGtFYjRndVFOTGRNelBrbjRjdS0zUnJjU1JIX28yTlNqeE9aeFIyZUZsSEFUQ0xCTW1Gd1BVN1dzNnFRUXRaX0llVzBvZEQtU243aXIybTBnSWt0MV9CdDF4MmZMcm9IZmt6bTQ1MzJ0aURPRUJuQ3JCTjFmN1Z3VDg3VjVaV01PT3Nzel9SRTlMcDhVZjhGRHRuWHlHTklPbHNYQmFfVUk3Z2oxd0lzPXzFHW64tPutj6UTLtpG5nljmproDN28v9RUHJIbypeIdQ== Shining a Light on the Digital Dark Age Without maintenance, most digital information will be lost in just a few decades. How might we secure our data so that it survives for generations? by Adrienne Bernhard The Dead Sea scrolls, made of […]

230901 | Casey Reas discussing Feral File

It’s changed a lot, and I’m guessing it will change even more. https://artreview.com/casey-reas-and-art-after-the-crypto-crash-nft-feral-file/

230831 | Here comes Ars Electronica 2023

*If you’ve never been, I would strongly recommend going. https://ars.electronica.art/who-owns-the-truth/en/highlights/#pre-opening-walk

230830 | Bad art removal request (a satirical meme, hopefully)

230829 | Adam Savage collecting bags

*Adam Savage collecting used bags while designing bags to sell. *At Share Festival we’re quite keen on bags.

230828 | Benedict Evans pondering AI intellectual property in historical context

https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2023/8/27/generative-ai-ad-intellectual-property *I really didn’t expect the venture-capital consultant to refer to Nadar. (…) Similar problems come up in art, and also some interesting cultural differences. If I ask Midjourney for an image in the style of a particular artist, some people consider this obvious and outright theft, but if you chat to the specialists at […]

230827 | Meanwhile, at Nome Gallery

Schemes of Belligerence Cian Dayrit Thursday, 14 September, 6–9 PM / English version / German version below Berlin, 22 August 2023 NOME is pleased to announce Schemes of Belligerence, Cian Dayrit’s third solo exhibition with the gallery. Cian Dayrit’s interdisciplinary practice explores the intersecting narratives of the Philippines’ complex past and present realities. Engaging ethnography, […]

230821 | A Grimes interview in Italian

*It’s her, all right. https://www.wired.it/article/grimes-vuole-morire-su-marte-intervista/

230821 | Clickspring setting up a “home machine shop”

*This is a guy who can rebuild an Antikythera Device in public. *For years.

230819 | Online Alexander Calder archive — by his family

*It’s rather grand. https://calder.org/archive/all/works/

230818 | Adam Savage travel kit

230818 | Meanwhile, at Feral File

230815 | Half an hour restoring a coffee machine

*It’s August in Italy, so nothing else is happening.

230811 | Fanta-Scienza 1, 2, 3 etc

*There’s not a lot of fantascienza coverage here on the Artmaker blog, but this interview would be quite interesting to someone who knew nothing about fantascienza. https://fantascientificast-com.translate.goog/2023/08/07/marco-passarello-2/ *Also, yes, I indeed wrote a fantascienza story to support the effort here. https://medium.com/@bruces/mare-nostrum-by-bruce-sterling-2022-43fe4ed14258

230811 | Meanwhile, in Osaka

*Nice kinetic piece there, unusually soft and delicate for machine-art.

230810 | Primo Levi’s prophetic fantascienza

230808 | 10 Anni nell’Universo Additive [cortometraggio video generato con IA – Intelligenza Artificiale]

230808 | Art war for sanctioned oligarchs

*What a dreadful struggle. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/08/ukraine-creates-database-of-art-linked-to-sanctions-hit-russians From Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi to Andy Warhol’s Four Marilyns, it amounts to an art collection that could grace any gallery in the world. But rather than being the highlights of a blockbuster exhibition at a major gallery, these are just some of the 300, and counting, pieces known […]

230803 | Best issue of Torino Magazine ever!

https://www.torinomagazine.it

230803 | The Processing Community Catalog

*It’s gigantic, and the pdf is free. https://processingfoundation.press/product/processing-community-catalog-copy/ “What does being a part of the Processing community mean to you?” In response to this question from our community of contributors, we’ve created a community catalog to celebrate all we’ve done together with Processing for the last 20 years! This entails a celebration of everything related […]

230802 | Turinese urban AI

https://5bd04d9a352f1308944867ff.trk.mailchef.4dem.it/wbs1.php?p=8a98%2F7mn2%2Frs%2Fse%2Fw7s%2Frs%2Frs Innovazione responsabile, affidabile e incentrata sull’uomo per l’Intelligenza Artificiale in ambito urbano: dai principi alle pratiche industriali Corso di formazione sull’Intelligenza Artificiale in ambito urbano. Iscrizioni aperte – 26/27 settembre Si terrà il 26 e 27 settembre il corso di formazione “Innovazione responsabile, affidabile e incentrata sull’uomo per l’Intelligenza Artificiale in ambito urbano: dai […]

230802 | Transmediale 2024

transmediale 2024 festival: Jan 31–Feb 4 exhibition: Jan 31–April 14 you’re doing amazing sweetie. Exploring the horror of content, the 37th edition of transmediale questions how logics of content production determine and frustrate our relations to technology. Taking place from January 31 to February 4, the 2024 edition features exhibitions, performances, screenings, and talks, and […]

230801 | Adam Savage hacking cruise ships in Italy

*Who knew? And it’s part of a series.

230801 | Glamourized, collectible, limited-edition, anniversary multitools

This isn’t unusual if you’ve seen the vast markets for prestige pocketknives, knives and swords, but it’s a multitool. What happens if you use it and scratch it?

230801 | Rutkowski AI art scandal

*When it bleeds, it leads. https://decrypt.co/150575/greg-rutkowski-removed-from-stable-diffusion-but-brought-back-by-ai-artists (…) Despite being the hottest name in the game, Rutkowski became one of AI art’s fiercest critics. In response to feedback from him and other digital artists, a major change was introduced with the release of Stable Diffusion 2.0. Stability AI chose to remove the ability of emulating the […]

230801 | Meanwhile, at Feral File

FF 2.0 launches with a focus on collaboration In last month’s newsletter, we hinted at a big debut for Feral File, and on July 13 we revealed it: Feral File 2.0, our new model for experiencing and collecting exhibitions (not to mention a totally refreshed look for our website). We’re so excited to finally launch […]

230731 | Maker Faire Rome newsletter

https://makerfairerome.eu/it/newsletter-it/

230730 | Laura Kampf going solar in European climate crisis

230729 | Artificial Intelligence on the cover of “Torino Magazine”

*Well, that’s certainly very image-generator, but it’s also extremely Turinese.

230728 | Share Festival: Elaborator

Siamo lieti di annunciare le sei opere finaliste selezionate per il premio internazionale Share Prize XV, dal tema Elaborator: The Heart of the Artificial Intelligence! Encounters at the Other Side di Jurgis Peters (LV) Expanded Memory di Lorenzo Papanti (IT) Face of Universe di Tatsuru Arai (JPN-DE) Flower study in the style of Audubon after […]

230727 | Adidas 4DFWD 3DPrinted shoes: a review update

Here’s an update on the fate of the Adidas 3DPrinted shoes, as last seen on this blog in February 2023. https://toshareproject.it/artmakerblog/adidas-4dfwd-shoes-a-personal-review/ As you can see (pics or it didn’t happen), after considerable, off-road, rugged service, the structured “Primeknit” fabric in the toes broke on both feet. Will hot glue retard the spreading damage? A little […]

230727 | Manifesto of the “Frontier Model Forum”

The following is a joint announcement and effort with Anthropic, Google and Microsoft. Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI are launching the Frontier Model Forum, an industry body focused on ensuring safe and responsible development of frontier AI models. The Forum aims to help (i) advance AI safety research to promote responsible development of frontier models […]

230726 | Modern folding-pliers multitools

*They’re still evolving.

230725 | Meet the new Eyebeam Org

*Good luck to them! MEET THE NEW EYEBEAM.ORG Eyebeam unveiled an all new eyebeam.org last week at Radical Experiments: Making Space/Breaking Space, a three day showcase highlighting Eyebeam’s recent cohort taking place online and at NYU Tandon @ the Yard. Our redesigned and expanded site is aimed at creating a welcoming, inclusive, and accessible community […]

230719 | Carlo Ratti living in a ruin like Piranesi

*Not literally, but pretty close. LIVING IN A RUIN LIKE PIRANESI CRA breathes new life into a crumbling monastery within a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Northern Italy. The project employs 3D scanners to convert the decaying ruin into a digital point-cloud. A prefab timber skin is then fitted into the old structure, preserving the […]

230717 | Italia 02023

230713 | Meanwhile, at Feral File

Today: Opening of N=12 and the launch of Feral File 2.0 256 Kill-Screen by Daniel Catt The first exhibition in this next phase of Feral File, N=12, a collaborative group show curated by Aaron Penne, is now open! Over the last several months, these twelve artists have been in dialogue across seven different time zones, […]

230703 | V2_Newsletter July 2023

V2_Newsletter July 2023 Summer has started. The Summer Sessions residents for 2023 have been selected and a number of them will start to work at V2_ in the coming weeks. This Thursday 29 June 54 BPM, the graduation show of the Lens-based Media Masters of the Piet Zwart Institute, opens at (a.o.) V2_. Friday 30 […]

230701 | Arduino gear at Maker Faire Rome

https://makerfairerome.eu/it/arduino-uno-r4-wifi/

230629 | The Second Printing of the Manual of Design Fiction

*It’s good to have. https://www.ribution_id=649a457e706c9f0001e27524&attribution_type=postnearfuturelaboratory.com/episode-070-juliana-schneider/

230627 | Laura Kampf laboring on her mobile workshop

*She’s very on top of her jugaad game in this episode.

230626 | Return of Furby

https://gizmodo.com/furby-relaunch-hasbro-25th-anniversary-1850574257

230625 | The Big Hack at Maker Faire Rome 2023

https://2023.thebighack.makerfairerome.eu/challenge/

230622 | Ars Electronica designs ESA Space Pavilion

https://ars.electronica.art/mediaservice/en/2023/06/22/esa-space-pavillon/ (Linz/Paris, 22.6.2023) The “Salon International de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace” (SIAE) in Paris, Le Bourget is one of the world’s largest and most renowned fairs for the aerospace industry. This time, 2,453 international exhibitors present products and innovations on 125,000 square meters, including the European Space Agency, or ESA for short. The Space Pavilion […]

230622 | AI Luminaries, collect them all

https://spectrum.ieee.org/artificial-general-intelligence (..) Below, we’ve put together a kind of scorecard. IEEE Spectrum has distilled the published thoughts and pronouncements of 22 AI luminaries on large language models, the likelihood of an AGI, and the risk of civilizational havoc. We scoured news articles, social media feeds, and books to find public statements by these experts, then […]

230622 | Side FX By K Allado-McDowell

https://www.hauserwirth.com/ursula/41048-side-fx-k-allado-mcdowell/ A new era of art is dawning, characterized by intelligent machines capable of extending human creativity in ways difficult even to imagine. In the past two years alone, we have witnessed the emergence of a revolutionary new class of generative AI systems, named DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. These tools combine online image archives […]

230621 | AI startups circa June 2023

230619 | The new Felix Schelhasse maker workshop

*That brief, hyperactive video took a month and a half to edit, but Felix and the comrades there are hell on wheels when it comes to renovating a basement.

230619 | S+T+ARTS Prize ’23 – Winner announcement

*Way to go, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg. S+T+ARTS Prize ’23 – Winner announcement In the end, Ars Electronica received 1,637 entries from 78 countries for this year’s S+T+ARTS Prize competition between January 11 and March 13, 2023. Two artists from Great Britain and Ireland can look forward to the main prizes of 20,000 euros each. The […]

230618 | Rocket-powered flying Italian robot

*That’s a particularly nutty project. Really entertaining so far, though.

230613 | Interviewing the CEO of Microsoft about artificial intelligence

*That’s really a weird interview. https://www.wired.com/story/microsofts-satya-nadella-is-betting-everything-on-ai/ (…) With AI, are we at one of those inflection points where the deck gets shuffled and formerly entrenched winners become vulnerable? Absolutely. In some sense, each change gets us closer to the vision first presented in Vannevar Bush’s article [“As We May Think,” a 1945 article in The […]

230613 | FOUNDING LAB starts with Open Calls

FOUNDING LAB starts with Open Calls (Linz, 13.6.2023) With the FOUNDING LAB, the Institute of Digital Sciences Austria (IDSA) and Ars Electronica are launching a prototype lab that will focus on new forms of artistic and scientific treatment of the digital transformation. Two open calls for students and experts from the fields of science, art, […]

230612 | Meanwhile, at Izolyatsia

*The world’s first fab lab that was ever repressed by some new self-appointed authorities.

230612 | The Laura Kampf mobile workshop

*Of course it has to be an electric cargo tricycle. *Guest star: Simone Giertz.

230612 | The Golden Nica for 2023

*The Oscars of the tech-art world. Prix Ars Electronica 2023 – these artists will be awarded (Linz, 12.6.2023) 3,176 projects from 98 countries were submitted to the Prix Ars Electronica 2023 in four categories. This year’s Golden Nicas go to artists from South Korea, Hong Kong and Austria, as well as to an international collective. […]

230610 | Meanwhile, in San Francisco

230609 | A.I.C.C.A. the robot dog art critic

https://vimeo.com/onkaos/aiccamarioklingemann

230609 | OpenAI’s GPT best practices

*These tend to be very unstable so it’s nice to have them recorded as ascii some place. https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/gpt-best-practices/strategy-test-changes-systematically GPT best practices This guide shares strategies and tactics for getting better results from GPTs. The methods described here can sometimes be deployed in combination for greater effect. We encourage experimentation to find the methods that work […]

230608 | At Feral File, June 02023

Announcing Two Major Exhibitions Celebrating Two Years of Feral File Feral File is pleased to announce two exhibitions that get at the heart of Feral File’s work over the last two years: The Experiment and Feral File 1.0. To celebrate the launch of Feral File 2.0 — which comprises a refreshed look, a rework of […]

230605 | Racconti fantastici di Primo Levi “Il Versificatore”

The ChatGPT has arrived. A good thing, because otherwise the poetry work goes to Malabaila in Torino, who works cheap and will do it on time.

230605 | Let’s visit the Augmented Reality trade show

*And skip all the speeches and just examine some hardware.

230601 | Generative billions

230601 | Soviet Lithuanian Tech Art

*Not a topic one sees every day. https://varnelis.net/on-an-art-experiment-in-soviet-lithuania/ “The decision to designate the Lithuanian SSR as a special zone for artistic expression signified a clear departure from the norm. It was a move that challenged the traditional model of centralized control over artistic production and expression that had characterized the Soviet cultural policy since the […]

230531 | June on Feral File

June on Feral File: Linda Dounia Rebeiz curates In/Visible, Kim Asendorf show sells out, and big news forthcoming Artwork by Minne Atairu, from the upcoming exhibition In/Visible New group show, works still available, and soon huge news Opening June 12, In/Visible presents new work by ten Black artists that explore AI as a means to […]

230531 | 3DPrinting. It doesn’t mesh with his flow state

*This is what happens when novelty wears off.

230530 | Risk of extinction

https://www.safe.ai/statement-on-ai-risk#open-letter

230530 | Transmediale call for residents

Announcing the second iteration of our residency programmes in collaboration with Chile and Pro Helvetia – submissions are open now! Join us in June at a studio event: our current Vilém Flusser resident Alice Bucknell will be in conversation with Sahej Rahal. From anxieties about AI development to the rapid shifts in atmospheric carbon and […]

230528 | Tree of Large Language Models

https://github.com/Mooler0410/LLMsPracticalGuide A curated (still actively updated) list of practical guide resources of LLMs. It’s based on our survey paper: Harnessing the Power of LLMs in Practice: A Survey on ChatGPT and Beyond and efforts from @xinyadu. The survey is partially based on the second half of this Blog. We also build an evolutionary tree of […]

230527 | The latest V2_Newsletter

V2_Newsletter May–June 2023 Again we have several events coming up: a two-day symposium on Schematism this Friday and Saturday, two online radio programmes by Dennis de Bel, a Tryday with Marjolijn Dijkman on June 2nd, and the Evening of the V2_Archive on June 22nd. There’s also an open call for the PHxV2_ Digital Art Residency, […]

230525 | The current state of Large Language Models

*As YouTube chatter goes, that conference speech is pretty good.

230525 | Eurocrats, the generative AI contingent

230524 | Walter Haupt, a founder of Ars Electronica

*He has died of old age, but he had quite a good run. https://ars.electronica.art/aeblog/en/2023/05/24/walter-haupt-1935-2023/

230520 | Domenico Quaranta and his new book

I have been writing about net art and related issues since about 21 years now, and the time has come for an anthology. Since the book is in Italian, it might be trivial information for my non Italian friends, but nevertheless the book offers a good chance to thank all the artists who inspired these […]

230520 | The Felix Schelhasse domicile and makerspace

*Impressive!

230520 | Felix Schelhasse

*The cameraman has become a Laura Kampf disciple.

230519 | Sakamoto ringtone collection

“The best art is lost art.”

230518 | Geeta Dayal reviewing early art about computers

*That was pretty good. https://4columns.org/dayal-geeta/coded (…) Caplan’s scathing essay brings up many sharp and trenchant criticisms. My overall take is more charitable; despite its limitations, I largely see Coded as a fun exhibition, but occasionally too dense with curatorial and art historical references. For a viewer with a vested interest and background in the subject […]

230518 | A Bruce Sterling speech about AI from six months ago

*This feels like six YEARS ago. *The aesthetic problems haven’t gone away. It impresses me that there’s so much industrial effort in making AI art that “looks real,” as opposed to AI art that looks like AI art. But likely I shouldn’t be surprised at that; it’s closely related to the mighty, ongoing effort to […]

230517 | Slow Lab

*Meanwhile, in Barcelona…

230516 | Annex III High Risk AI Systems

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A52021PC0206&mc_cid=c8c129ac99&mc_eid=c3fa8d8978 ANNEX III HIGH-RISK AI SYSTEMS REFERRED TO IN ARTICLE 6(2) ‘ High-risk AI systems pursuant to Article 6(2) are the AI systems listed in any of the following areas: 1.Biometric identification and categorisation of natural persons: (a) AI systems intended to be used for the ‘real-time’ and ‘post’ remote biometric identification of natural persons; […]

230516 | Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL LAYING DOWN HARMONISED RULES ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ACT)

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A52021PC0206&mc_cid=c8c129ac99&mc_eid=c3fa8d8978 1.CONTEXT OF THE PROPOSAL 1.1.Reasons for and objectives of the proposal This explanatory memorandum accompanies the proposal for a Regulation laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (Artificial Intelligence Act). Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a fast evolving family of technologies that can bring a wide array of economic and societal benefits across the entire […]

230516 | EE: Experimental Emerging Art Magazine, the latest issue

Dear colleagues, It’s with great excitement that we announce the release of the fourth installment of the EE Journal: “Art After AI”. As artificial intelligence continues to transform industries, it’s only natural to question its impact on the art world. How will AI fundamentally change the way we create and experience art? In this issue, […]

230515 | Is it possible to be more “Deep Europe” than this?

etreff: Critical Broadcasting Lab, MIT presents The Pilgrimage / Pionirsko hodočašće at the European Cultural Center Datum: Sun, 14 May 2023 19:01:17 +0000 Von: e-flux Architecture Critical Broadcasting Lab The Pilgrimage / Pionirsko hodočašće May 18–November 26, 2023 Palazzo Mora Strada Nova, 3659 30121 Venice Italy https://criticalbroadcast.net Critical Broadcasting Lab, MIT announces its participation in […]

230509 | Re-creating a remarkably old Italian tool

230509 | Funcon

*It’s not technology art, but it sounds like fun. Ciao Bruce! È iniziato il countdown per la prima edizione di Funcon, la fiera del divertimento! Gli organizzatori di Torino Comics sono lieti di invitarti alla prima edizione di Funcon, l’ evento dedicato a tutti gli appassionati di fumetto, manga, kpop, videogames, games e cosplay. Una […]

230508 | Artist builds a cryptocurrency in less than 30 seconds

*And he’s gone viral. https://decrypt.co/139220/meme-coin-speedrun-goes-viral-sparks-scam-concerns memecoin deploy% speedrun 27s ⏱️ pic.twitter.com/OYaXGb5ITR — whitelights.eth ⌖ (🦇🔊) (@iamwhitelights) May 5, 2023

230508 | Laura Kampf hacking her YouTube live-stream set up

*It’s a bit self-referential, but of course she would eventually turn her bricolage skills onto her video documentation methods. *How will she get that haywire aluminum case through a nervous and skeptical aircraft safety inspection? It’s a common problem for electronic artists; I’ve even had it happen to me, but thankfully, only once. https://youtu.be/N9XLPXVznTQ?t=257

230502 | Europeans pondering nerds

“…one could also see the nerd as a techno-social figure that is produced by societal waves that are interacting with developments inside information technologies. In that way, the nerd starts off as a marginal subculture in the early days of hackers and programmers, morphing from a left-liberal position towards a neo-liberal mainstream in the 1990-2000s, […]

230502 | A GPT app that writes Processing code with text prompts

*Not very well, but it does it. You can try for yourself. https://text-gpt-p5.vercel.app/

230502 | “Welcome back, Italy”

230501 | Art of Computer Animation (1988)

*It’s been a while since these videotapes were circulated.

230501 | Stability AI launches an open-source language model

*The technology is developing very fast, but it’s also impressive how quickly AI *jargon* has developed. It just doesn’t sound much like earlier forms of computational slang. “Transparent, accessible and supportive.” https://stability.ai/blog/stability-ai-launches-the-first-of-its-stablelm-suite-of-language-models Stability AI Launches the First of its StableLM Suite of Language Models 19 Apr 2023 Today, Stability AI released a new open-source language […]

230501 | CVPR 2023 Art Gallery Highlight Reel from Jon Barron

CVPR 2023 Art Gallery Highlight Reel Start – 00:00 RJ’s RATDREAMS – 00:03 Infinite Vibes – 03:25 James E Perlman – 04:22 Grade Eterna – 04:55 William Stanford – 05:28 Jake Oleson – 07:06 Addin Cui – 08:08 Grade Eterna – 09:11 Infinite Vibes – 09:36 Jake Oleson – 10:06 Infinite Vibes – 11:01 Cyrus […]

230428 | Memes

https://networkcultures.org/viralimageculture/2023/04/18/call-for-proposals-critical-meme-reader-iii-breaking-the-meme/ The meme is dead. Or at least that is what opinion pieces, magazine articles, conference presentations, and even memes themselves have declared over the years. Despite this, “meme” is as pervasive a neologism as ever, used to describe a variety of digital media. Everything from bits of internet humor, image-macros, viral videos, to copy-pasta, […]

230423 | The Generative AI Landscape

*It changes almost every day.

230423 | The 2023 Work Kit of Design Fiction

*While supplies last. The Work Kit of Design Fiction — New Augmented & Illuminated Edition Now available — the 2023 Work Kit of Design Fiction! The World’s Only Other Premium Imagination Tool is available in a fresh, full-augmented, 110% illuminated edition. The Manual of Design Fiction – Book Hundred* of prompts across five parameters to […]

230423 | At NOME Gallery in Berlin

Human Zoo Voluspa Jarpa Thursday, April 27, 6–9 PM / English version / German version below NOME is pleased to announce Human Zoo, Voluspa Jarpa’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. The Chilean artist Voluspa Jarpa’s work is based upon a meticulous analysis of political, historical, and social documents, which she uses as a starting […]

230423 | Meanwhile, on SPECTRE List

*Old mailing lists are handy things when you’re unhappy with social media. ——————- Call for Papers ——————- CoPDA 2023 – 7th International Workshop on Cultures of Participation in the Digital Age: Artificial and/or Human Intelligence: Nurturing Computational Fluency in the Digital Age https://homes.di.unimi.it/cslab/copda2023/ June 6th, 2023 – Cagliari, Italy In conjunction with IS-EUD 2023 (https://cg3hci.dmi.unica.it/iseud2023/) […]

230423 | More 3DPrinted shoes — at Paris Fashion Week

*They’ve been around for over a decade, but they’re not getting any less nutty.

230423 | Meanwhile, in glamorous Milano

https://news.artnet.com/market/miart-2023-2286356 Can Milan, the moneyed capital of Lombardy in northern Italy, finally stake its claim as a contemporary art hotspot? The opening of Milan’s Art Week in mid-April, organized around the 27th edition of the art fair Miart, marked a further step in that direction. It’s a slow but steady process that began with the […]

230420 | How could this not be good?

230419 | Get to the flow state with first order retrievability, he says

The Sortimo T-BOXX ships the week of April 24 Made in Germany by Sortimo – www.mysortimo.us Savage industries has released its own Sortimo T-Boxx in my favorite color (orange), with my Savage Industries logo printed on the box lid. Every shop is a philosophy about how to work. My shop philosophy is to engineer the […]

230419 | The complete beginners guide to autonomous agents

https://www.mattprd.com/p/the-complete-beginners-guide-to-autonomous-agents (…) I am CEO and co-founder of Octane AI, where for seven years we have been building conversational AI products, and are more recently building generative AI and autonomous agent solutions for brands. In 2016 I predicted that around now chatbot interfaces would take off and start to replace standard website UI, and now […]

230417 | Ars Electronica 2023: “Who Owns the Truth?”

This is the subject of the Ars Electronica Festival 2023: “Who Owns the Truth? Wem gehört die Wahrheit?” Credit: Created with the AI-System DALL·E2.

230417 | Interview with Francesca Fini

https://www.seditionart.com/magazine/dead-machines-by-francesca-fini Could you please tell us about the concept and making of the new launch Dead Machines? This project is centered around a strong narrative. The four videos in this small collection function as the chapters of a dystopian tale that imagines a time when machines are so advanced that they can even die. Unlike […]

230416 | Laura Kampf’s makertainment trailer-home

*The best part of this summary video is when she casually confesses that she once lived in the back of a van for five years. *It’s an admirable punk DIY structure, especially with its matte-black and chrome color scheme. Personally, I’d worry about sleeping in a place so heavily composed of plywood, adhesive and screws, […]

230416 | SHARE FESTIVAL Call for Artists 2023

SHARE PROJECT is excited to announce the release of the Call for Art for the Share Prize XV, the prestigious award dedicated to contemporary art that explores the intersection wtth technology and science. This year’s theme is: ELABORATOR The Heart of the Artificial Intelligence under the Artistic Direction of Bruce Sterling and the Curator Jasmina […]

230416 | Feral File migrating their NFTs

*This is interesting; I “own” some Feral File NFTs, but I have no “web3 wallet.” It’s time to move your Feral File NFTs and crypto to your web3 wallet Over the last year, we have undergone a massive overhaul of Feral File in order to better support web3 technologies. While we added support for web3 […]

230415 | AutoGPT and BabyAGI

*They’re this week’s wonders in generator-land. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/04/hype-grows-over-autonomous-ai-agents-that-loop-gpt-4-outputs/?utm_brand=arstechnica Since the launch of OpenAI’s GPT-4 API last month to beta testers, a loose group of developers have been experimenting with making agent-like (“agentic”) implementations of the AI model that attempt to carry out multistep tasks with as little human intervention as possible. These homebrew scripts can loop, […]

230415 | Ancestral Spanish hydraulic complex

Five families earned their living from this Spanish creek and its industrial structure of stone and oak. Look at the proportions of it, and the way that it’s hand-hewn from huge forest timbers. It even has an impressively elderly electrical generator.

230415 | Zip-NeRF

*Artificial intelligence and virtual reality, together at last.

230413 | Italian privacy org scolding ChatGPT

*People seem unnecessarily confused about who is doing what to whom and for what reason, but that situation is not surprising in Italy. https://www.garanteprivacy.it/home/docweb/-/docweb-display/docweb/9874751 https://www.garanteprivacy.it/home/docweb/-/docweb-display/docweb/9874751#english

230413 | An open source GPT chatbot

https://venturebeat.com/ai/databricks-releases-dolly-2-0-the-first-open-instruction-following-llm-for-commercial-use/ https://www.databricks.com/blog/2023/04/12/dolly-first-open-commercially-viable-instruction-tuned-llm Two weeks ago, we released Dolly, a large language model (LLM) trained for less than $30 to exhibit ChatGPT-like human interactivity (aka instruction-following). Today, we’re releasing Dolly 2.0, the first open source, instruction-following LLM, fine-tuned on a human-generated instruction dataset licensed for research and commercial use. Dolly 2.0 is a 12B parameter language […]

230411 | BabyAGI plus LangChain

*Oh dear.

230411 | Italians complaining that they are deprived of ChatGPT

https://www.change.org/p/ripristiniamo-chatgpt-e-aggiorniamo-le-norme-sull-ia Nei giorni scorsi il Garante italiano per la protezione dei dati personali ha notificato a Open AI una richiesta di sospensione immediata del trattamento dei dati degli utenti che ha portato al blocco di ChatGPT in Italia. Questa azione ha creato un grave danno a tantissimi cittadini, professionisti e a molte imprese italiane a […]

230411 | An everyday Swiss hardware store

230411 | Victorinox historical models on display

230411 | Felix the Victorinox YouTube guy

*He’s a regular Swiss Army Knife personality, and very productive of Victorinox tool-associated videos.

230410 | Since 1890

230410 | The jumbo Victorinox store

*That was then, this is now.

230410 | The Victorinox Cybertool

*The model to own if you want to impress your friends in “Open Source Hard Ware.”

230410 | The oldest knife store in Lucerne, Switzerland

*It’s old, but has some exceedingly shiny new knives. *The completely matte-black ones, which don’t shine at all, are also of interest.

230409 | A history of digital clip art

*If you were young and had never heard of any this, it would seem quite strange and extreme.

230409 | An upgraded Antikythera Mechanism

*Good luck building that, YouTube Maker fans.

230407 | Feral File is selling poetry

*Well… it’s digital poetry. https://feralfile.com/exhibitions/feralverse-1qa

230406 | Every Machine Has Runout

*A good thing to know.

230401 | Evan and Katelyn as ChatGPT Youtube makertainers

*Technically, they tend to know quite well what they’re doing, but as professional entertainers, they don’t always burden the audience with their erudition.

230331 | An ancient Roman portable multitool

*A traveller’s device, so it might have been carried to Augusta Taurinorum. Thanks to @ticiaverveer & @decimusclaudius I finally visited the Roman theatre in Ventimiglia and the adjacent museum where you have one of only 3 Roman "Swiss army knives"… https://t.co/vJOSkfN3WC pic.twitter.com/qEAQDh7sRT — Arnold Platon (@Arnold_Platon) August 28, 2021

230331 | Intelligenza artificiale: il Garante blocca ChatGPT

*?? https://www.politico.eu/article/italian-privacy-regulator-bans-chatgpt/ https://www.garanteprivacy.it/home/docweb/-/docweb-display/docweb/9870847 ntelligenza artificiale: il Garante blocca ChatGPT Raccolta illecita di dati personali. Assenza di sistemi per la verifica dell’età dei minori Stop a ChatGPT finché non rispetterà la disciplina privacy. Il Garante per la protezione dei dati personali ha disposto, con effetto immediato, la limitazione provvisoria del trattamento dei dati degli utenti italiani […]

230330 | “Remiss in my moral duties as a human”

https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-not-enough/ Pausing AI Developments Isn’t Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down IDEAS BY ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY MARCH 29, 2023 6:01 PM EDT Yudkowsky is a decision theorist from the U.S. and leads research at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. He’s been working on aligning Artificial General Intelligence since 2001 and is widely regarded as […]

230329 | Design Fiction, the book

SOLD OUT! NEW PRINTING COMING SOON! SIGN UP TO BE NOTIFIED HERE https://www.nearfuturelaboratory.com/the-manual-of-design-fiction

230329 | Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

“We call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.” https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/ AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity, as shown by extensive research[1] and acknowledged by top AI labs.[2] As stated in the widely-endorsed Asilomar AI […]

230326 | Tech-art spies from Russia

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/24/suspected-russian-spies-trial-slovenia (…) Mayer’s social media pages show she travelled frequently to promote 5’14 gallery, her online art portal. It is not clear whether she was targeting artistic circles, or merely using the cover job as an excuse to travel and carry out other work. She visited the Zagreb art fair at least twice and also […]

230326 | Laura Kampf makes a tool cabinet

*This may be the most Laura Kampf video ever.

230326 | GPT4 and its sparky so-called intelligence

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2303.12712.pdf

230326 | Death of Gordon Moore

*There can’t be many engineers with so large an effect on the art world. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/technology/gordon-moore-dead.html Gordon E. Moore, a co-founder and former chairman of Intel Corporation, the California semiconductor chip maker that helped give Silicon Valley its name, achieving the kind of industrial dominance once held by the giant American railroad or steel companies of […]

230325 | Meanwhile, in generator-land

230322 | Los Ordenadores

Los Ordenadores (1973) Translation: The Computers. Berenguer, X., Corominas, A., Garriga, J. | Barcelona: Salvat Editores, S.A.

230322 | Bill Gates pondering AI

https://www.gatesnotes.com/The-Age-of-AI-Has-Begun n my lifetime, I’ve seen two demonstrations of technology that struck me as revolutionary. The first time was in 1980, when I was introduced to a graphical user interface—the forerunner of every modern operating system, including Windows. I sat with the person who had shown me the demo, a brilliant programmer named Charles Simonyi, […]

230322 | Art ownership

*Could it get any messier? https://www.radicalxchange.org/media/blog/rethinking-art-ownership/ Art enriches society through the weaving of relations between the cultures that create it, and the cultures that receive it. Conventional ownership and private property rules undermine such interactions in the context of art understood as a public good, constraining liquidity and alienating artists from the very communities that […]

230320 | Lamina1 and its metaverse

Lamina1, co-founded by Snow Crash author Neal Stephenson, announced its first partners in an early access program to develop an open metaverse ecosystem. Lamina1 is a Layer 1 blockchain optimized for the open metaverse. More: Partners include HTC, Dubit, 0.xyz, and Neon Media. They will receive early access to features and support in onboarding to […]

230320 | James Bridle vs the current form of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence in its current form is based on the wholesale appropriation of existing culture, and the notion that it is actually intelligent could be actively dangerous by James Bridle https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/16/the-stupidity-of-ai-artificial-intelligence-dall-e-chatgpt he weirdness of AI image generation exists in the output as well as the input. One user tried typing in nonsense phrases and was […]

230318 | WIRED Italia’s reasons to go to the Zerocalcare show in Milano

*Those are some pretty good reasons. https://www.wired.it/zerocalcare-mostra-milano-biglietti-foto/ (…) E la mostra (ideata da Silvia Barbagallo, prodotta da Arthemisia e organizzata da Minimondi Eventi e Arthemisia in collaborazione con Piuma, promossa dal Comune di Milano e curata da Giulia Ferracci) lo mette in chiaro, esponendo una valanga di materiale che spazia nella sua produzione. Circa 500 […]

230318 | Proof of People: Refraction

*Quite the constellation of art stars.

230316 | Shoggoths as modern memes for Artificial Intelligence

*”Shoggoth” has become a slang term for a Large Language Model — as distinct from its human-friendly interface, which is sometimes called a “shoggoth mask.” *The original “shoggoths” were ancient cosmic monsters from the horror stories of HP Lovecraft. They appeared in several of his stories, but were first invented for the tale “In the […]

230316 | An every day carry set

*Every day carry devotees tend to be fanatics, but the lightness and compactness here is of some interest. Stuffing tiny elements into shrinkwrap tubing, that was new to me. *There must be someone who carries shrinkwrap tubing every day, because it’s quite an interesting material.

230315 | GPT4 developer livestream

*Don’t say you weren’t warned.

230314 | Simone Giertz workshop remake, sponsored by Google

*And co-starring Laura Kampf. That’s some makertainment star power at work here.

230313 | OGR Torino

OGR Torino is pleased to invite you to the opening of Perfect Behaviors. Life redesigned by the algorithm, a group exhibition curated by Giorgio Olivero, scheduled for Wednesday 29 March from 8 pm. Perfect Behaviors will be held in Binario 1 and 2 of OGR Torino from 29 March to 25 June 2023. Thanks to […]

230312 | Meanwhile, at SXSW 2023

230308 | Women in Media Arts worldwide

*What is Eva Mattes doing in Alaska? Besides hacking this interesting database. https://archive.aec.at/womeninmediaarts/

230306 | A 3DPrinted open-source clock

*At Share Festival, we like 3DPrinted clocks.

230306 | Golan Levin lecturing on new media art and creative computation

He’s a teacher, and you can learn a lot from this guy. https://youtube.com/live/uasAPPn3RBM?si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE

230305 | Eccentric hacker clocks

*That sure is a lot of them. https://blog.adafruit.com/category/clocks/

230305 | Photographic bacteria at Università di Roma “Sapienza”, Institute of Nanotechnology

*Making photographs with genetically altered bacteria. That’s a truly eccentric Italian scientific scheme. https://elifesciences.org/articles/36608 Here we demonstrate that millions of bacteria, genetically modified to swim smoothly with a light controllable speed, can be arranged into complex and reconfigurable density patterns using a digital light projector. We show that a homogeneous sea of freely swimming bacteria […]

230305 | Stable Diffusion’s brain visualization

*That’s not an artwork, but it is about human vision, and it’s really quite out-there. https://sites.google.com/view/stablediffusion-with-brain/ Reconstructing visual experiences from human brain activity offers a unique way to understand how the brain represents the world, and to interpret the connection between computer vision models and our visual system. While deep generative models have recently been […]

230302 | The Opinel knife. Hard to beat. People will try, though

230302 | Makers with powered table saws

*Are you entirely sure that you even *need* any electrical saw? There are a lot of manual tools that do take some extra physical effort, but can’t harm you for life in one instant. *If you’re sawing wood with powered devices, and then you go to the gym later, it might be that you’d be […]

230302 | Laura Kampf’s brand-new matte-black and metal house

*Fraulein Kampf’s remarkably punk little house on the caravan there… As Maker shelters go, you really don’t see a “house” like that every day. *It was quite the YouTube saga for her to build that. I understand her motives in building it, and I sympathize, but since it’s mostly plywood and glue, there are a […]

230302 | Museum-grade armor tools

*Some of those are arcane to the point of unearthly.

230301 | On technological optimism and technological pragmatism

*This essay doesn’t have much to do with constructing technology art, but there are some interesting social and artistic implications here. https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/on-technological-optimism-and-technological (…) It has been less than two years since Jack Dorsey insisted bitcoin would bring about world peace. Elon Musk routinely talks about magically transforming the world, rising above both politics and politicians. […]

230226 | Add Matter device via Android app in Home Assistant

*Good luck with the contemporary Internet-of-Things.

230226 | In case some Artificial General Intelligence breaks out

https://openai.com/blog/planning-for-agi-and-beyond/ (…) AGI has the potential to give everyone incredible new capabilities; we can imagine a world where all of us have access to help with almost any cognitive task, providing a great force multiplier for human ingenuity and creativity. On the other hand, AGI would also come with serious risk of misuse, drastic accidents, […]

230223 | The Menace of Mechanical Music, by John Philip Sousa, 1906

The Menace of Mechanical Music John Philip Sousa Originally published in Appleton’s Magazine, Vol. 8 (1906), pp. 278-284. Sweeping across the country with the speed of a transient fashion in slang or Panama hats, political war cries or popular novels, comes now the mechanical device to sing for us a song or play for us […]

230223 | China and chatty artificial intelligences

*The new crop of AIs are not global, they’re geopolitical. *I recommend this newsletter if you’re at all interested in Chinese society and Chinese AIs. ChinAI #213: Why Can’t Chinese users access ChatGPT? Plus, my upcoming testimony at the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission by JEFFREY DING FEB 20 Feature Translation: Why doesn’t ChatGPT […]

230223 | PLANETART Creative Director needed

*If you want to do strange things on the Dutch-German border. VACANCY CREATIVE DIRECTOR WE WANT YOU! Big news: after decennia of contrarian energy and subversive projects PLANETART founder and Creative Director Kees de Groot will be going into retirement later this year. This means we are looking for a new Creative Director to take […]

230222 | Infinite Pong

*What a remarkable hack. https://spectrum.ieee.org/infinite-pong-with-ai THERE IS CURRENTLY A lot of interest in AI tools designed to help programmers write software. GitHub’s Copilot and Amazon’s CodeWhisperer apply deep-learning techniques originally developed for generating natural-language text by adapting it to generate source code. The idea is that programmers can use these tools as a kind of […]

230218 | Evan and Katelyn on top of their maker electronics game

230217 | Adidas 4DFWD shoes, a personal review

by Bruce Sterling *I am currently wearing my pair of Adidas 4DFWD shoes, which is pronounced “Four-dee Forward” by the company and its shoe designer-engineers. I’m accustomed to these shoes, they’ve become my normalized, everyday shoes, even a bit banal, so it’s probably time to write a review about them. These are not the world’s […]

230216 | AI Artists list

*Everybody wants a canon. https://tender.art/ai-artists 1. ICONS & DROPS CURATION Q: What is the purpose of the Icons list? Foremost, we want to capture interest in generative art as a movement and in particular works – whether from someone new to the space, or from an existing collector (of whatever level of dedication). We also […]

230216 | Generated silver spoons

https://oio.store “In 1952 Ernesto Nathan Rogers wrote that by carefully examining an object as simple as a spoon, we could understand the kind of city and society that produced it. Inspired by his words we worked together with algorithmic machines to create a spoon for our times – the Spawn collection. It’s a spoon but […]

230214 | ChatGPT hallucinating chess on YouTube

*ChatGPT was not designed to play chess, so it’s impresive that it can even pretend to do that. You won’t learn much about chess by watching this, but it’s an interesting insight into ChatGPT. “It lies and cheats all the time!!” Well, yes, it does, but not to its own benefit; it’s just building statistical […]

230214 | Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Tools

*Maybe the most Artmaker Blog headline ever. *Unfortunately these language-model AIs are not yet teaching themselves to use Leatherman multitools. They’re merely using application-interfaces for other software “tools.” That seems significant, however. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2302.04761.pdf Language models (LMs) exhibit remarkable abilities to solve new tasks from just a few examples or textual instructions, especially at scale. They […]

230211 | Italian Renaissance warrior-politician seizes means of information

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_da_Montefeltro

230210 | FRIDA the Robot Artist

I’ve seen plenty of robot arms that can paint, but they have a certain charm even when they’re silly. https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/06/fridas-robot-arm-attempts-to-bring-dall-e-style-ai-art-to-real-world-canvases/ One could make a very reasonable argument that FRIDA (Framework and Robotics Initiative for Developing Arts) is as much a thought experiment as it is a research project. Certainly it butts up against similar questions […]

230209 | Into the tall weeds of VR, AR and XR

https://www.matthewball.vc/all/why-vrar-gets-farther-away-as-it-comes-into-focus Modern efforts to build extended reality (XR) devices—i.e., dedicated virtual reality (VR), dedicated augmented reality (AR), hybrid mixed reality (MR)—began more than a decade ago. Magic Leap was founded in 2010, the same year Microsoft started development on its HoloLens platform, which released its first model in 2016, with the second coming in 2019. […]

230207 | Generative AI, an attempt to map the business landscape

https://base10.vc/research/generative-ai

230207 | Meanwhile, at RunwayML

https://research.runwayml.com/gen1 Gen-1 Structure and Content-Guided Video Synthesis with Diffusion Models

230206 | Google hyping their new AI rollout

https://blog.google/technology/ai/bard-google-ai-search-updates/ (…) We’ve been working on an experimental conversational AI service, powered by LaMDA, that we’re calling Bard. And today, we’re taking another step forward by opening it up to trusted testers ahead of making it more widely available to the public in the coming weeks. Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s […]

230206 | Generator web toy

*It shows the principles. https://madebyoll.in/posts/dino_diffusion/ Criteria: plausibility, proportionality, and originality Ideally, we want an image generator to exhibit: Plausibility: individual generated images should be indistinguishable from “real” images (no weird artifacts or glitches). Proportionality: a bunch of randomly-generated images should be indistinguishable from a bunch of randomly-selected real images (no traits should be noticeably over- […]

230205 | Portable costume repair

Various glues, various tapes, velcro, safety pins, baling wire, razors, string, paracord, zip-ties of various sizes, a small saw, touch-up paint, pencils, a sketchbook…

230205 | Really old new media — a cardboard zoetrope

230205 | Albert Robida in Torino

*The nineteenth-century futurist (and architectual historian) breezes through town on his way to gawk at Naples and Venice, among other “old Italian cities.” The year is 1878.

230203 | Generator venture capital

230203 | Meanwhile, at Serpentine Galleries

https://mailchi.mp/serpentinegallery/r-and-d-platform-newsletter-71933?e=100f09b1e6 Dear Friends, We are bringing an exciting line-up of virtual conversations, workshops and podcasts to brighten up your February! Legal Lab Principal Investigator Alana Kushnir and legal scholar and blockchain expert Primavera de Filippi will investigate the evolution of copyright licences in Web3 in the next Legal Lab Live session. Our partnership with RadicalxChange […]

230203 | New parents awake at midnight hacking electronic kid toys

*Good lord, poor things, they both look exhausted. Newborn care is like trench warfare.

230202 | The latest from Feral File

*Including Cibelle Cavalli Bastos, my goodness Now Open: I Know, an exhibition on the aesthetic of truth Turandot 2070, Lovers I by AES+F. Image courtesy of the artist and Feral File. View exhibition Feral File and synthesis gallery are pleased to announce I Know, an exhibition exploring what an aesthetic of truth might be. Curated […]

230131 | An Extremely Intelligent Lava Lamp: Refik Anadol’s A.I. Art Extravaganza

*An art critic confronts a Refik Anadol installation. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/refik-anadol-unsupervised-moma-2242329 “Refik Anadol: Unsupervised” is being touted as Artificial Intelligence’s triumphant arrival in the museum-art canon. So I went to see the splashy installation currently in the Museum of Modern Art’s ground-floor annex with a mission, to get a glimpse of what MoMA-approved A.I. art promises, or […]

230131 | Welcome to Sizecoding

*Consider yourself warned. http://www.sizecoding.org/wiki/Main_Page SizeCoding.org is a wiki dedicated to the art of creating very tiny programs for most popular types of CPUs. As sizecoding is also popular on other hardware, we recently opened the website for other platforms as well, check the links below. By “very tiny programs”, we mean programs that are 256 […]

230131 | Artissima Rewind, the podcasts and videos

*If that’s what you like, why not enjoy it? https://www.artissima.art/artissima-rewind/ Torna online una nuova stagione di #ArtissimaRewind il palinsesto che la fiera dedica all’esplorazione della sua edizione precedente nell’attesa di quella successiva. Tanti gli appuntamenti virtuali, per un programma ricco di contenuti digitali fra cui scegliere: dai video ai podcast, dai tour guidati a quelli […]

230130 | A Raspberry Pi exoskeleton

*It’s good that it *looks* like a Raspberry Pi exoskeleton. https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/exoskeleton-walking-aid-the-magpi-126/ (…) According to the team, exoskeletons of this nature, while proving effective in reducing the energy required to walk, tend to be expensive. They are also usually tethered which, as you can imagine, would be restrictive. The Stanford Biomechatronics Laboratory’s exoskeleton, however, is neither […]

230130 | Fifteen years after the Lilypad

*Curcuits you can sew into clothing. https://makezine.com/projects/make-an-iron-on-textile-circuit-and-learn-all-about-wearables/

230128 | Turinese street-crossing circuitry

230126 | Noj Dot Forest 2 : the “Stoner” Edition by Lulu xXX

*It’s three years old!

230125 | Learning to See, Gloomy Sunday by Memo Akten

*That was five years ago, which shows how far ahead-of-the-curve Memo Akten can be.

230125 | Dior 3DPrinted shoes

*It’s a Dior ad.

230124 | GOAT multitool

*That’s unusual.

230123 | Allegedly better blogging with ChatGPT

*I’m hearing more and more of the likes of this. Probably because ChatGPT is making it up. *I don’t expect the Artmaker blog to get much “better,” at least, not by the standards described here. Better Blogging with ChatGPT Can you really use ChatGPT to write better blogs? First we need to define what we […]

230120 | Behind the scenes at the generator lawsuit

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/ai-art-generators-lawsuit-stable-diffusion-midjourney (…) “If the artists or Getty were able to secure a broad victory, it would significantly undermine the viability of tools like Stable Diffusion,” said Jessica Fjeld, a lecturer on law at Harvard Law School and assistant director of the Cyberlaw Clinic at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. “On the other […]

230119 | Bored Ape art-world “scandal” involving bankrupt crypto mogul

*If this example of real life in the NFT boom can even be called a “scandal.” It doesn’t seem surprising except in retrospect. https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2023/01/sbf-bored-apes-art-world-hangover (…) SBF and the Mystery of the 101 Apes (working title) is emblematic of the art world’s deal-with-the-devil approach to the NFT market, a golden goose cut open and killed by […]

230118 | Cartoons predicting automated cartoonists (2)

Judge Dredd, “2000 AD” comic book in Britain, circa 1980s.

230118 | Cartoons predicting automated cartoonists

1923, forecasting 2023, by American newspaper cartoonist H. T. Webster.

230118 | New Extractivism, the book

https://aksioma.org/new.extractivism.book At this moment in the 21st century, we are witnessing a new form of extractivism well underway: one that reaches into the furthest corners of the biosphere and the deepest layers of man’s cognitive and affective being. – Vladan Joler New Extractivism was the theme of the twelfth edition of Tactics&Practice, a discursive, educational […]

230117 | A new Opinel knife costs twelve euros

*But this is “restoration entertainment.”

230117 | Processing 4.1.2

https://github.com/processing/processing4/releases Contributions Manager The majority of the work for this release went into cleaning up and fixing the Contributions Manager. (What you see when importing Libraries, managing Modes, etc.) Please, please, please help us out and give it a lot of testing. This is old, messy, and important code that is easy to break in […]

230116 | Olivetti, a quite different electronic world

230116 | When Machines Change Art by Aaron Hertzmann

*Historical and cultural continuity, in an essay well worth a look. https://aaronhertzmann.com/2022/12/17/when-tech-changes-art.html At a few times in history, new technologies came along that changed the way we make art. Machines, chemicals, and/or algorithms replaced some of the steps that artists did, changing how we made art—and, sometimes, radically transforming what we thought think art is. […]

230116 | Top Artificial Intelligence (AI) Newsletters To Subscribe In 2023

*That certainly is a lot of them. https://www.marktechpost.com/2023/01/15/top-artificial-intelligence-ai-newsletters-to-subscribe-in-2023/ Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a rapidly evolving field that is shaping the way we live and work. Keeping up with the latest developments in AI can be a daunting task, but there are many newsletters that can help you stay informed. In this article, we will highlight […]

230116 | Videos from Eyeo Festival 2022

*Sure to be edifying for creative coders. https://vimeo.com/eyeofestival

230115 | An American lawsuit against text to image generators

*That seems newsworthy. I wonder if it will work. *I won’t be surprised if the legal results of this action are entirely different from anything expected by the people involved. https://stablediffusionlitigation.com/ Hello. This is Matthew Butterick. I’m a writer, designer, pro­gram­mer, and law­yer. In Novem­ber 2022, I teamed up with the amaz­ingly excel­lent class-action lit­i­ga­tors […]

230111 | Transmediale 2023

https://2023.transmediale.de/ ** transmediale 2023 a model, a map, a fiction ———————————————————— ** 1–5 February 2023 Akademie der Künste, Berlin and across the city ———————————————————— Festival Website Update! Festival days are getting closer and closer! Day Passes and tickets for the Evening Programme are now available – get your tickets for the closing concert of transmediale […]

230111 | ChatGPT e gli altri sistemi di intelligenza artificiale che ci hanno sconvolto nel 2022

https://www.wired.it/article/strumenti-intelligenza-artificiale-2022-dall-e-chatgpt/ Se c’è stato un trend che ha definito in modo predominante la scena del tech nel 2022 è l’intelligenza artificiale generativa: tool come Dall-E o ChatGPT che a partire da istruzioni verbali possono generare immagini, testi, stringhe di codice o video. L’IA creativa non è stata certo inventata quest’anno, ma negli ultimi mesi è […]

230111 | Citizen Science Initiative

100,000 euros in prize money for Citizen Science initiatives New European Union competition launches today (Linz/Brussels, January 10, 2023) For the first time, the European Union is offering a prize of 100,000 euros for best-practice projects in the field of Citizen Science. Submissions are open from today until March 13, 2023. Ars Electronica in Linz […]

230110 | STARTS Prize 2023, call for entries

*You might win. https://starts-prize.aec.at/en/ Grand prize of the European Commission honoring Innovation in Technology, Industry and Society stimulated by the Arts S+T+ARTS = Innovation at the Nexus of Science, Technology, and the ARTS: S+T+ARTS is an initiative of the European Commission to foster alliances of technology and artistic practice that effectively implement European policymaking to […]

230110 | Generative AI

230108 | Eccentric patent “remake”

*This is a genre of Youtube tool video that’s new to me — modern “reproductions” of eccentric tools from failed patents over a hundred years old. *More a work of performance art than a “tool,” but it’s a popular video.

230107 | A LISP interpreter in Conway’s Game of Life

*What is that elaborate structure? A computational artwork? I guess, since it’s “Conway’s Game of Life,” it must be a game.

230106 | Future Paradigms for Electronic Toolkits

*How could that not be good?

230104 | ARDUINO LANCIA UN IOT KIT “TUTTO IN UNO” PER PRINCIPIANTI

https://makerfairerome.eu/it/arduino-lancia-un-iot-kit-tutto-in-uno-per-principianti/

230103 | Stable Diffusion vs Midjourney

*These consumer-user comparisons are interesting. Why are these elaborate systems already so much alike? https://medium.com/mlearning-ai/stable-diffusion-2-vs-midjourney-4-same-prompt-different-results-ccb2398d30d5

230103 | European politicians pondering 2023

WHAT WILL MATTER IN 2023? This week, Playbook brings you an exclusive peek into the topics that will dominate EU politics this year — as predicted by Brussels’ top officials. We’ll start today with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, some of her colleagues, the new Swedish Council presidency and its predecessors. We’ll have […]

230103 | The WELL State of the World 02023

https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/522/State-of-the-World-2023-Bruce-St-page01.html

230103 | Italian NFT art “prediction”

*Do I believe any of this? The year is young, wait and see. https://nftplazas.com/italy-cryptoart-growth/ Italy on the Road for CryptoArt Renaissance Amid Massive NFT Growth CryptoArt News 17 hours ago Experts have predicted that Italy will create a CryptoArt Renaissance within the NFT sphere. Essentially, drawing on its status as an art and culture mecca […]

230102 | Digital artists pondering NFTs after the boom

*It’s still around, but it’s different. https://outland.art/2022-in-review-artists-on-nfts/

221231 | Climate Crisis Torino

*Happy New Year.

221231 | An extensive AI Reading List

*You’d have plenty of work at hand for the New Year if you dared to tackle this one. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bEQM1W-1fzSVWNbS4ne5PopB2b7j8zD4Jc3nm4rbK-U/edit# AI Reading List Music Playlist This is aimed towards the AI curious looking to go down the rabbit hole not the AI expert. It will be updated ~monthly. Recommendations are accepted via DM @JackSoslow Blogs / […]

221230 | The Zerocalcare show in Milan

*That sounds worthwhile. https://www.wired.it/zerocalcare-mostra-milano-biglietti-foto/

221230 | The most expensive artworks of 2022

*Most of them previously owned by a dead tech billionaire. https://news.artnet.com/market/ten-most-expensive-works-sold-auction-2022-2234325 (…) Price: $137.8 million When: November 9 Where: Christie’s New York Why: “When are you going to find another Cézanne La montagne Sainte-Victoire?” dealer Christophe van de Weghe asked Artnet News following the Allen collection evening sale last month. He called the work one […]

221230 | Maker platforms at Maker Faire Rome 2022

*Open source for your open source. https://makerfairerome.eu/en/open-source-solutions-and-projects-from-makers-to-makers-as-seen-at-mfr-2022/ A selection of projects designed to make innovation easier for anyone as presented at the 10th edition of Maker Faire Rome   Makers are without doubts the protagonists of Maker Faire Rome: engineers, artists, students that assemble a veritable community made by people, startups and companies united by […]

221229 | Yet another Generative AI Landscape

https://www.antler.co/blog/generative-ai

221228 | The 10th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology

The 10th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology CALL FOR PAPERS The 10th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology – RE:SOURCE – will celebrate Media Art Histories and the role that its main agents have had in the multiple developments of art, science and technology […]

221226 | The flowers of Italy, adornments for the grave of your love

*It’s hard to be more romantic than the Romantics. Mary Shelley to Teresa Guiccioli, May 16th 1824: (Source: text from LBLI 501-3) My dear friend, How shall I write to you? How can I express to you the immense grief that is breaking my heart? Poor Teresa! So there we are, already sisters in misfortune! […]

221226 | Nano-scale 3DPrinting

https://phys.org/news/2022-12-atom-lab-explores-nanoscale-3d.html (…) Khasanova and her colleagues need the minuscule nozzles to print incredibly tiny three-dimensional metallic structures. This means the nozzles’ openings must be equally tiny—in some cases so small that only a single molecule can squeeze through. “We are trying to take 3D printing to its technological limits,” says Dr. Dmitry Momotenko, who leads […]

221225 | Interview with Refik Anadol

https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/821 (…) What artists inspire you? Do you see yourself working in any particular lineage of art making? My work as a generative artist draws inspiration from the legacies of abstraction, systems art, Surrealism, and Expressionism. The works and the incredible visions of the early pioneers of computer art—such as the geometric abstraction of Vera […]

221224 | A thousand years is a long time

*And that’s just the art history that has good documentation. The primeval Venus of Willendorf is carved out of stone from Italy. https://libreriamedievale.blogspot.com/2022/12/arte-italiana-mille-anni-di-storia.html

221223 | The Generative AI application landscape

*It’s a good effort in a turbulent situation.

221223 | “Decentralized Art” after the NFT boom

*People are still making it and buying it with crypto, or, maybe more to the point, choosing to participate in it. https://www.frieze.com/article/eileen-skyers-decentralized-art-2022 (…) In September, a collaborative experiment by visual artist Tyler Hobbs and crypto-collector Dandelion Wist made headlines after raising nearly USD$17 million in sales. Titled QQL, the project invited collectors to actively contribute […]

221221 | Cables

*Beautiful, or terrible? Sentiment seems to vary.

221220 | Go live in Brno

*Why not? Betreff: Open Call 2023 / Vašulka Kitchen Brno Datum: Tue, 13 Dec 2022 17:17:44 +0100 Von: Vasulka Kitchen Brno Artists in Residence in collaboration with Vašulka Kitchen Brno / Open Call 2023 Brno Artists in Residence and Vašulka Kitchen Brno is pleased to announce the commencement of an international Open Call for artists […]

221218 | The Internet Archive year in review

Our Year In Review 2022 is coming to a close—and as the new year approaches, we’re taking some time to reflect. The Internet Archive’s patrons, partners, and donors have helped us achieve some great things in the past twelve months, and we’re deeply grateful to all those who have supported us. Here are some highlights […]

221217 | It’s a product ad, but….

… what a strange product, by the standards of ten years ago.

221216 | Obsolescence is innovation in reverse

https://aos.arebyte.com/contents/jon-ippolito-on-futures-past/

221215 | Transmediale 2023

** transmediale 2023 a model, a map, a fiction ———————————————————— ** 1–5 February 2023 Akademie der Künste, Berlin and across the city ———————————————————— Presenting the first programme overview and participants of transmediale 2023: a model, a map, a fiction features a festival week of discourse programme, artistic interventions, evening events, and two exhibitions at Akademie […]

221215 | Jon Evans explaining how text-to-image generators work

*That’s a noble effort at explication there, and well worth a read. https://aiascendant.substack.com/p/how-dall-e-works-part-2 (…) This is where the magic happens. Suppose the diffusion process with which you trained your model had 1,000 steps, invariably ending after the thousandth in pure Gaussian noise, seemingly incomprehensible random chaos. Well, if you show your trained model some of […]

221215 | The Destruction of the Kingdom of Doggerland

*Generator-illustrated counterfactual history. https://varnelis.net/on-the-destruction-of-the-kingdom-of-doggerland/

221214 | Stuff Made Here and his tonnage of tools

*I wouldn’t urge you to imitate him, but it’s some epic tool-crank makertainment. The tools used in the video (some links are affiliate links): Autodesk inventor: https://www.autodesk.com/products/inv… Center punch: https://amzn.to/3jmc0w9 Bandsaw: https://www.harborfreight.com/10-amp-… Drill press: https://www.northerntool.com/shop/too… Fractional drills: https://amzn.to/2SyM7Oz Number drills: https://amzn.to/3x8zbxS Belt sander: https://www.harborfreight.com/1-in-x-… Vise: https://amzn.to/3w7QuxM Corded drill: https://www.ebay.com/itm/384234059608 Rusty chisel: https://www.ebay.com/itm/174606926159 Form 3: http://bit.ly/form-3-printer […]

221214 | Rebuilding a relic Spanish water mill

*This device is especially noteworthy because it’s a water-powered industrial device that nobody is going to use. It’s a heritage reconstruction, and rebuilding it exactly was almost a work of performance art. “In the Cantabrian municipality of Vega de Liébana is the small town of Ledantes. There, the stream of Las Viñas supplied the driving […]

221212 | The Arduino Opta

https://emag.directindustry.com/2022/12/06/arduino-launches-opta-a-new-affordable-plc-solution-for-iiot-applications/

221212 | Commonground

https://makerfairerome.eu/it/commonground-aspettando-maker-faire/

221209 | Ariel Waldman and her Antarctica hardware

*Impressively eccentric media gear.

221208 | Generated video, next-frame prediction

221208 | Stable Diffusion v 2.1

*A blistering pace of development. https://stability.ai/blog/stablediffusion2-1-release7-dec-2022 Open-Source Release At Stability we know open is the future of AI and we’re committed to developing current and future versions of Stable Diffusion in the open. Expect more models and more releases to come fast and furious and some amazing new capabilities as generative AI gets more and […]

221204 | Generator steampunk

“An Italian Analytical Engine secretly designed by Charles Babbage for the Royal Navy of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in 1848.” Stable Diffusion 2 is impressive — that imaginary brass computer almost looks Italian.

221204 | Bizarre GPT simulation experiments

*Is it April Fools’ Day in December? How is this even possible? https://www.engraved.blog/building-a-virtual-machine-inside/ (…) So, ChatGPT seems to understand how filesystems work, how files are stored and can be retrieved later. It understands that linux machines are stateful, and correctly retrieves this information and displays it. What else do we use computers for. Programming! That […]

221203 | Nettime mastodon

On 11/30/22 01:34, nettime’s mod squad wrote: Dear nettimers, Nettime was founded at a time when, as quaint as it sounds, email was exciting. That’s long since gone for those who experienced it, let alone for those who didn’t. Discussion-oriented mailing lists like this are, in a word, over, technically *and* culturally. It’s time to […]

221203 | One hundred powerful people of the art world

…According to Art Review, anyway. https://artreview.com/power-100/

221203 | Fantascienza and science fiction in Torino, featuring Bruno Argento

*What’s it about?

221129 | Sophy Wong 3DPrinting some clothing

*It’s plastic, but who can’t like it?  

221128 | Generators — how odd they are

221127 | Fanta-Scienza 2

“Ispiratevi alla scienza e scriverete cose che nessuno ha ancora scritto, se scrivete dei soliti argomenti scoprirete di sicuro che qualcun altro ha già fatto meglio di voi.”   *This does not apply merely to the art of the written word.   https://www.fantascienza.com/28402/marco-passarello-la-fantascienza-aiuta-a-vedere-la-scienza-con-curiosita  

221126 | It seems that 3DPrinters have become decadent

221126 | Programma 101 spot

*It’s pretty good.  

221126 | I primi elaboratori elettronici italiani: early Italian elaborators.

*Some nice info and pictures about Italian mainframes of the 1950s and later. https://www.radiomakers.it/news/informatica/i-primi-elaboratori-elettronici-italiani-gli-albori-dell’informatica-italiana      

221126 | Women in generative art

*That’s rather a lot.   https://www.fxfeed.xyz/women-in-genart/list  

221125 | Extinction Internet

*I happen to be in the Netherlands at the moment.   Extinction Internet is not merely an end-of-the-world phantasy of digital technology that one day will be wiped out by an electromagnetic pulse or the cutting of cables. Rather, Extinction Internet marks the end of an era of possibilities and speculations, when adaptation is no […]

221125 | European Chips

*We’re rather getting into the tall weeds here, but this is one of the reasons why Europe is Europe. *Even if you’re the most ardent European patriot, deglobalizing and seizing the means of production is not as simple as it sounds. *Also, if you’re British, it’s even worse.   https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/24/eu_chips_act_funding/ EU still getting its act […]

221124 | The Long Now Clock

*It exists.  One can’t say they were hasty about it.   https://longnow.org/02022/    

221124 | Meanwhile, at NOME Gallery

Memorabilia group show Friday, November 25, 6–9 PM / English version / German version below NOME is pleased to announce the group exhibition Memorabilia, featuring works by Cian Dayrit, Priscilla Dobler-Dzul, Giovani Fabián Guerrero, and Voluspa Jarpa. The term memorabilia refers to objects associated with memorable people and events. While these items tend to pay […]

221124 | Stable Diffusion 2.0 Release

  “Open source forever,” they say.   https://stability.ai/blog/stable-diffusion-v2-release   “The dynamic team of Robin Rombach (Stability AI) and Patrick Esser (Runway ML) from the CompVis Group at LMU Munich headed by Prof. Dr. Björn Ommer, led the original Stable Diffusion V1 release. They built on their prior work of the lab with Latent Diffusion Models […]

221122 | Awesome Generative AI

  https://github.com/chaosreactor/awesome-generative-ai#-awesome-generative-ai-   💬 Prompt Design CLIP Interrogator – Upload an image and see what prompt might have created it Prompt Extend – Enter an idea for a prompt and get a revised prompt with style cues back 🖼 Visual Alpaca – AI powered photoshop plugin Autoenhance – AI photo editing Avatar AI – Create your own AI-generated avatars Canva Text-to-image – Image […]

221122 | The Code Review Pyramid

*That’s rather pretty.  What would happen if all code artists were forced to work this hard?  

221121 | The generative business

Nine out of ten startups fail.  

221120 | Old posters

Handsome, but old.        

221119 | Gene Kogan generative art interview

*He’s a veteran, to the extent that the field has veterans.   Between Art and Engineering: AI and Expanding What it Means to Create

221119 | Software tycoon had good taste

The Headlines A TEN-FIGURE AFFAIR. On Wednesday evening in New York, at the Rockefeller Center headquarters of Christie’s, 60 works from the collection of the late Microsoft cofounder Paul G. Allen hauled in $1.5 billion, an all-time record for a single auction—by a wide margin. Angelica Villa has a report in ARTnews . (The previous high […]

221119 | News from Feral File

Feral File in Miami, New York City, and other exciting developments As we head toward the end of the year, it’s been a good time to reflect upon the year. Despite the volatility in the world, I’m thankful for the continued support from the wonderful curators and artists in the Feral File community. They have […]

221119 | Kitbashing in theory and practice

Demonstrated by Hollywood special-FX veteran Fon Davis.  Kitbashing in an interestingly punk approach — lots of appropriation, re-purposing, and make-do bricolage.  

221117 | Infinite Nature: Generating 3D Flythroughs from Still Photos

*Generated “natural” photos that are even more endless than the imperilled planet.   https://ai.googleblog.com/2022/11/infinite-nature-generating-3d.html   Background: Learning 3D Flythroughs from Videos To establish the basics of how such a system could work, we’ll describe our first version, “Infinite Nature: Perpetual View Generation of Natural Scenes from a Single Image” (presented at ICCV 2021). In that […]

221117 | Cristallo di Luce

CRISTALLO DI LUCE di Diego Scroppo   vi invita alla Cittadella dei Giovani di Aosta   per ammirare l’opera d’arte pubblica illuminarsi al tramonto e per scoprire il territorio in modo innovativo e divertente, grazie alle biciclette elettriche di Evolvo Mobility Solution alimentate dall’energia prodotta dal Cristallo. Cristallo di Luce, alto 7 metri, è composto di […]

221117 | The Cyberfeminism Index

http://www.inventorypress.com/product/cyberfeminism-index  

221117 | 3DPrinting phone cases

*And breaking them to pieces in stress testing.  

221115 | NFT artists

*They’re not dead, they’re just nowhere near where they were a year ago.  

221113 | Laura Kampf and her upcycled DJ deck

*Laura’s omnipresent YouTube cameraman, Felix, seems to be taking more of a co-star role lately.  

221113 | At the Biennale Tecnologia

221107 | Voiceover Artissima 2022

Art events do strange things online these days.   https://voiceover.artissima.art/

221105 | Generated tools on the pegboard

*They give a first-glance impression of being tools, but on closer study, they’re not tools; instead, they are statistically-generated clusters of pixels from Stable Diffusion.  

221104 | So, what about those NFTs?

Tactics & Practice #13: from COMMONS to NFTs HYBRID CONFERENCE https://aksioma.org/from-commons-to-ntfs/ This event brings together artists, hackers and researchers to critically examine the shift in digital culture from open sharing to crypto-based forms of ownership. Is this the ultimate triumph of financialisation, or are there openings for different property regimes and thus new forms of […]

221104 | Cigno nero

221104 | Hands-on with the image generator

*The compositional difficulties with human hands are already legendary.  Generators have similar troubles with feet and ears.    

221104 | Astronauts riding horses — the accepted cliche of image-generators

*”Stable Diffusion” can certainly draw them — but, as you can see, it can’t effectively count them.    

221104 | Robot Artists (and black swans)

*It seems astonishing that a generator can create such an image in just a few seconds, but those are 63 squares, and also, oblong rectangles are not “squares.”

221102 | A billion simulated particles

*I’m not fond of antic Youtuber enthusiasm, but I’ve been following “particle simulation” for a long time, and a billion simulated particles is really, really a lot. *Simulating the foam voids inside of hot fresh bread.  Well, that is worth seeing.

221102 | Adam Savage and his therapeutic tool creation

*This is close to confessional performance-art here.  Of course he didn’t need to “take this much trouble,” but it was the taking of the trouble that got his mood aligned.  

221102 | The Generative AI application landscape

Either they’re just getting started, or this is the peak of the hype.  

221101 | Stability AI chief executive officer publicly making his case

    “We’re like Switzerland.”  

221101 | Artissima 2922

Having trouble viewing this email? Visit the web version here   ARTISSIMA 2022:  THE SPECIAL PROJECTS Artissima — the most contemporary art fair in Italy — will return in Turin from November 4 to 6. The unique character of Artissima stems from its dual approach, combining a market proposal at the highest level with a cultural […]

221030 | Processing 4

*Decades pass, and they don’t give up.   https://medium.com/@ProcessingOrg/announcing-the-latest-version-of-processing-processing-4-3a1f8b8a7aed   On the 21st anniversary of the very first Processing release (revision 0001), Ben Fry announced the final release of Processing 4.0 (revision 1285). That is the 286th release of the software! Initially created to serve as a software sketchbook and to teach programming fundamentals within […]

221030 | European electronics

*There’s rather a lot.  And maybe more so, as the electronics system de-globalizes into trade-war blocs.   Dear Colleagues Have you seen our parallel conferences inside ELECS 2022 with the IEEE as Publisher www.elecs.org * 6th European Conference on Circuits and Systems * 6th European Conference on Telecommunications * 6th European Conference on Signal Processing […]

221029 | Italian electronics

221028 | Universal Everything

*Their big solo show.   🌱 Lifeforms

221028 | Enjoy

221028 | Call for papers: 12th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design (EvoMUSART)

———————————————— Call for papers for the 12th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design (EvoMUSART) · Please distribute · Apologies for cross-posting ———————————————— The 12th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design (EvoMUSART) will take place in Brno (Czech Republic) between the 12th and 14th of April […]

221028 | Share Artmaker Gallery — hooray for us

  SHARE FESTIVAL @ THE OTHERS presenta   SHARE ARTMAKER GALLERY   3-6 Novembre 2022 Torino Esposizioni, Padiglione 3 Via Francesco Petrarca 39/B, 10126 Torino   !OPENING!  Giovedì 3 Novembre 2022 ore 16.00-23.00   Share Festival, diretto da Bruce Sterling e Chiara Garibaldi, presenta per The Others “Share Artmaker Gallery” con una selezione di 5 opere prodotte nel […]

221028 | National and global computer security issues described by an actual expert

*Digital artists need to know more about these issues.  They’re a major part of the cultural landscape, especially in times of war.   https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/so-long-thanks-for-all-the-bits (…) In cyber security, we come up with exquisite solutions to incredibly hard problems, manage risks that would make most people’s toes curl and get computers to do things nobody thought […]

221027 | Artissima 2022

ARTISSIMA 2022: PREPARE FOR YOUR VISIT TO THE FAIR Less than 10 days to the opening of Artissima 2022! Italy’s most contemporary art fair reopens its doors to the public at the Oval in Turin, welcoming visitors from 4 to 6 November with 174 galleries from all over the world, 3 curated sections to discover, […]

221027 | The latest V2_Lab newsletter

*As long as they’re still doing it, there’s hope!     V2_Newsletter November 2022 The Test_Lab Smart Hybrid Forms on Thursday 27 October is all about artistic research into plants’ sensitivity to light, touch, frequencies, chemicals and electrical signaling. On 9 November we launch Geert Lovink’s new book Stuck on the Platform (Valiz), with a discussion about our […]

221027 | New media art in Canada

*Canada had a ton of odd stuff going on.   https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=58169 > networks.h-net.org Dickey on Century, ‘Northern Sparks: Innovation, Technology Policy, and the Arts in Canada from Expo 67 to the Internet Age’ | H-Sci-Med-Tech Author: Michael Century 9–11 minutes Michael Century. Northern Sparks: Innovation, Technology Policy, and the Arts in Canada from Expo 67 to […]

221025 | Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic

  *It’s entertaining to do these dual public events where you can see the audience visibly wondering, “Could he, or she, possibly be weirder than the other one?”

221025 | “I suffered for my research, now it’s your turn”

221024 | Women generative artists

*Lia, Anna Carreras, Sputniko… say, these are some really good artists.  Quite a handy list here.   https://www.aleksandra.art/featured-story/2022/10/22/nfts-and-generative-art-women-working-with-code

221023 | An actual painting show

*Here at Share Festival, we don’t do a lot about oil on canvas, but we sympathize. https://www.artuner.com/insight/press-release-seasons-in-the-city-group-show-opening-this-november/   Artuner is pleased to present Seasons in the City, a group exhibition presenting new artworks by Marcus Cope, Ana Elisa Egreja, Keita Morimoto, and Shaqúelle Whyte at the Palazzo Capris in Turin. The exhibition will open on […]

221023 | Luba Elliott, AI art curator

*Obviously this talk needs more than two views, which is what it has after just arriving on YouTube.  

221023 | Turinese art galleries — Art Night

221022 | Arduino K-Way Jacket

*Well, I’ll have to get one of those.   Arduino and iconic outdoor brand K-Way, with the support of Edge Impulse, launch a call for developers

221021 | Banzi interview

*There’s always someone who needs to know the story for the first time.   https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/business/22390-q-a-arduino-founder-massimo-banzi.html   (…) HT: How has the company grown? How many people work for you? Massimo Banzi: There are 152, I think right now. And so it’s a lot of people. We are spread out in different countries. We have a big office […]

221020 | The Biennale Tecnologia for 2022

https://www.biennaletecnologia.it/programma/programma-principale    

221020 | The Thing is in Berlin

221020 | Text to video generation

*Well… here it comes.  

221019 | Samantha Cristoforetti returns to surface of her planet

  https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-spacex-crew-4-to-discuss-mission-after-returning-to-earth  

221018 | SymbioticA petition

*These extraordinary bio-artists have been around quite a while. https://www.change.org/p/save-symbiotica SymbioticA, a keystone organization in the eco-system of the international art and science community, is under threat of imminent closure. We, the undersigned without hesitation, recommend that the University of Western Australia continue its support for SymbioticA.  Founded in 2000, by Oron Catts, Miranda Grounds, […]

221018 | The Nomic AI map of Wikipedia

*I don’t even know what to say.   https://home.nomic.ai/visxwiki  

221017 | Meanwhile, in Paris, which is much better than London

https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/news/exhibitions-to-see-during-paris-plus-1234643312/ Paris+, the new arte fair that has shaken up the Parisian and international art scene, opens to VIPs this Wednesday at the Grand Palais Éphémère, the temporary venue of the space that used to host France’s premier art fair FIAC. After Brexit, some of the art world lost faith in the London scene. Post-pandemic, […]

221013 | The Manual of Design Fiction

THE MANUAL OF DESIGN FICTION Available for pre-order now First printing — a Limited First Edition from Near Future Laboratory Publishing 12 years ago I scrawled an essay called “A Short Essay on Design, Science, Fact, and Fiction” wondering how to bring Imagination to contexts in which I was working. I was groping for ways […]

221011 | The “Chiara Garibaldi” cocktail

*The official party cocktail of Share Festival.  

221010 | What’s new with Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo

*I quite enjoyed reading that.   https://www.artnews.com/art-news/opinion/patrizia-sandretto-re-rebaudengo-collector-diary-1234642321/

221010 | Mark Pauline on Cool Tools

*A typical punk deadpan performance by machine performance artist Mark Pauline, who by the standards of Maker culture is truly a dark prince.  

221007 | Artissima prizes for 2022

Artissima 2022, with a focus on this year’s theme Transformative Experience, chooses to celebrate its approach of discovery and rediscovery of talents, and the constant pursuit of beauty that has always been its trademark, through the awarding of 4 important prizes, 2 special honours and 4 institutional supports. Created in collaboration with partners, foundations and institutions, […]

221006 | Wired Next Fest Milano 2022

#It starts tomorrow.   https://nextfest2022-milano.wired.it/

221005 | Arizona State University and Design Fiction

*Those are some veteran design fiction people.   *The science fiction guy had to show up late  because he doesn’t create any design fiction.  

220929 | Meanwhile, at Feral File

*Obviously an occupational hazard in the NFT biz.   Hi BruceS, In the comics weeks, we will replace Feral File’s secondary market with third party secondary market listings (objkt, OpenSea). Your listings on Feral File will no longer function. At the time of this writing, you have active links on Feral File’s secondary market. You […]

220929 | “What is Design Fiction?”

*It’s pretty good.  At least it’s lucid.  

220928 | A Carlo Ratti Associati skyscraper in Singapore

*Torino isn’t fond of skyscrapers, but Singapore is.   Located at the heart of Singapore’s financial district on the site of a former public car park and a hawker center, the 51-storey CapitaSpring is officially completed following four years of construction for CapitaLand Development (CLD), CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust and Mitsubishi Estate Co., Ltd. To […]

220927 | Feral File as curated by Julia Kaganskiy

*A good choice, as Julia Kaganskiy is exceptionally  knowledgeable and perceptive. “For millennia, speculations about how technoscientific innovations could transform living organisms — by accident or design — have animated our imaginaries of cyborgs, mutants, automatons, and replicants. As our environment becomes increasingly synthetic, polluted, and governed by planetary-scale computation, what kind of lifeforms will […]

220927 | Interview with Francesca Fini

*A Share Festival favorite.   https://www.seditionart.com/magazine/coming-soon-a-dream-in-stone-by-francesca-fini   Francesca Fini explains her latest project A Dream in Stone that is created during Fini’s residency at one of the most fascinating castles in Italy, the Rocca Sinibalda Castle. The stunning new project turned the amazing Renaissance frescoes of the Medieval castle into a cutting-edge digital art collection. […]

220926 | A crash course in art and media technology

A Crash Course In Art & Media Technology Are you unfamiliar with the field of media art but interested in how media technologies impact society? Are you a student or young professional working in art, design, dance, theater, music or engineering who’s curious about how these fields cross? Then this Crash Course is for you. […]

220926 | Maker Faire Rome 2022, the program

Programma MFR 2022   PROGRAMMA MFR 2022 Dal 7 al 9 ottobre 2022 torna Maker Faire Rome con l’edizione n.10 Preparati a vivere la decima edizione di Maker Faire Rome! 10 anni di innovazioni e idee che si sono trasformate in progetti concreti, di invenzioni che hanno migliorato e rivoluzionato interi settori della nostra società, […]

220925 | Yann LeCun talking AI and machine learning

*This is very dense, but quite interesting.  The parts where he says he’s given up on certain ideas, those are especially remarkable.   https://www.zdnet.com/article/metas-ai-guru-lecun-most-of-todays-ai-approaches-will-never-lead-to-true-intelligence/   (…)   ZDNet: You will also manage to tick off the Transformer people, the language-first people, at the same time. How can you build this without language first? You may manage […]

220925 | Lamina1 Whitepaper

Lamina1_Whitepaper_1.0

220925 | Adidas 3DPrinted running shoe

*They look a bit outsized and awkward but the engineering is interesting.  

220925 | Swiss Army Knife restoration

*That’s a silly object to restore, since a new one is so cheap and efficient.  However, it’s not bad as “YouTube restoration performance art,” and YouTube has unbelievable amounts of that. *Also. giving it away to the viewers is very social-media.  

220922 | Last chance for entries at ISEA 2023

SUBMISSION DEADLINES EXTENDED ISEA2023 PARIS – FRANCE In the framework of the call for proposals for the 28th edition of the International Symposium on Electronic Art ISEA2023, the ISEA2023 team and its organising committee would like to remind you that the closing dates, initially scheduled for 26th May for artistic proposals and 13th June for […]

220922 | Francesca Fini at Seditionart

*It’s just been released.   A DREAM IN STONE – A DIGITAL CASTLE COLLECTION   We’re delighted to announce Francesca Fini’s latest project; A Dream in Stone, a project that turns the amazing Renaissance frescoes of a Medieval castle near Rome into a cutting-edge Digital Art collection   One of the fascinating castles in Italy, […]

220922 | Gogbot 2022 photos

*They’re pretty good.  

220921 | “Open Circuits” book review

Book Review: Open Circuits   (…) The pages of Open Circuits contain ample inspiration for both novices and grizzled veterans alike. Having been in electronics for four decades, I sometimes worry I’m becoming numb and cynical as I watch the world’s landfills brim with cheap electronics, built without care and purchased (and disposed of) with […]

220920 | Simone Giertz and Laura Kampf in Cologne

*Good lord, what a duo.  

220920 | What’s new in artificial intelligence in 2022 (according to Gartner)

220920 | Manfred Mohr interview

https://www.rightclicksave.com/article/an-interview-with-manfred-mohr   Manfred Mohr: I didn’t wake up one morning and suddenly use code and a computer — it was a very long thinking process in my life. I come from the abstract world of music. Music is always the basis of all my thinking. My early interest in visual art was therefore strongly influenced […]

220919 | Fanta-Scienza 2

220916 | Evan and Katelyn overjoyed by their own skills

*It truly is one of their best YouTube Makertainment efforts.  

220916 | Neal Stephenson, metaverse consultant

https://link.wired.com/view/5bd66d092ddf9c619437c98ahb17a.5fi/0d3466f6   The Plain View Neal Stephenson invented the metaverse. At least from an imagination standpoint. Though other science fiction writers had similar ideas—and the pioneers of VR were already building artificial worlds—Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash not only fleshed out the vision of escaping to a place where digital displaced the physical, it also […]

220915 | The Leatherman Darkside

*It’s interesting to see this new trend toward “couture multitools” in limited editions.   https://www.leatherman.com/batch-002-the-darkside-688.html    

220913 | Torino Art Galleries Art Night

OUVERTURE #13  |  TAG ART NIGHT GIOVEDI’ 15 SETTEMBRE 2022 ore 17,00 – 23,00   L’Associazione TAG – Torino Art Galleries è lieta di annunciare la nuova edizione  di OUVERTURE #13  |  TAG ART NIGHT 2022 che si tiene presso le gallerie associate di Torino giovedì 15 Settembre 2022 dalle ore 17 alle ore 23. […]

220913 | Floppy Totaal

Floppy Totaal, the recurring festival for contemporary floppy disk culture, returns with a two-day program that coincides with the release of their brand new book ‘Floppy Disk Fever’. 16 September, 2022 Talks & Presentations Doors: 20:00 Start Event: 20:30 Entrance: free 17 September, 2022 Music & Book Launch Doors: 20:00 Start Event: 20:30 Entrance: 8 […]

220912 | Ecotone show at FeralFile

https://mailchi.mp/e2fe7cc68c14/presenting-ecotone-a-glitch-community-group-exhibition-minted-on-tezos   Presenting Ecotone – A Glitch Community Group Exhibition, Minted on Tezos     Primavera De Filippi, Stina Gustafsson, and Alex Estorick have curated Ecotone, the new Feral File exhibition showing the entanglements of digital and natural ecologies. Ecotone features artists and technologists from the Glitch community: Sarah Friend Jakob Kudsk Steensen Gene Kogan Kalen Iwamoto aurèce vettier […]

220912 | Shadow theater

220912 | Documents at the Precinema Museum in Padova

220912 | Hurdy-gurdy

220911 | Museo del Precinema, Padova

*Wbat a wonderful place! Homepage

220911 | Gogbot pics

*They’re not mine, which is why they’re pretty good.  

220911 | Enjoying Gogbot

*It’s abrasive, but there’s something comforting about it.  

220909 | Gogbot 2022, Enschede, Netherlands

*It’s good to be here.  Tomorrow I’m doing a presentation. https://2022.gogbot.nl

220907 | STARTS

220905 | Francesco Petrarch and his office — some remarks

Petrarch lived him his “country house” for the last six years of his life, and the building has been a Petrarch shrine for one hundred times that long. I visited the place and took a few photographs, but I confess I’m a little skeptical about the scenes there. That domestic space was very likely his […]

220905 | Francesco Petrarch and his office equipment

220905 | Everything Will Be Fine

  https://tacticaltech.org/everything-will-be-fine-outdoor-exhibition-berlin/   Everything Will Be Fine, an outdoor exhibition by Tactical Tech, co-produced by HAU Hebbel am Ufer Deutsches Technikmuseum: Tempelhofer Ufer / corner to Trebbiner Straße 14 September – 4 October 2022, 10.00-22.00 daily. Admission free Opening Event: 14 Sep, 7:00 pm Outside the German Museum of Technology How do you respond in […]

220905 | Adam Savage doesn’t carry tools around

*He has a multitool on his belt when busy on the set, and he has a professional shop with thousands of tools, but the only tool he has on his own person every day is a little keychain screwdriver no bigger than a normal key.  

220902 | GLI INCONTRI DELLA FABBRICA DEL MONDO

220901 | Luca De Biase

Previsione: domani sera si parlerà di futuro alla Fabbrica del Mondo con Bruce Sterling, Ersilia Vaudo, Sara Segantin, Marta Cuscunà e… Marco Paolini *I show up at events featuring Luca De Biase just to hear what he has to say.

220829 | Ars Electronica publications 2022

*Well, the price is right (free) and that’s hard to beat for groovy.   Download  

220825 | Spetnaz “Werewolf”

*Russian design in a military survival tool.  

220824 | Hi, Seditioner

Hi Seditioner, We have recently opened several new avenues to ensure you can stay connected with us, no matter your preferred platform. DISCORD Discord is a social platform very popular among gamers and the NFT community. Sedition’s Discord is the place where you can engage with artists, collectors and NFT aficionados directly. In addition, Sedition’s […]

220822 | Generated Maker Fab Labs

220822 | Mad Science Laboratories in space and time

Text-to-image style-transfer experiments. https://www.flickr.com/photos/brucesterling/albums/72177720301504793/with/52302713872/        

220821 | Entertainment battle-robot construction

*It’s show business.  

220821 | Comics in the museum

*To be a comic book creator and being in a museum, that’s also quite lucky.   https://fumettineimusei.it/attivita/fantasmi-e-altri-misteri-la-mostra-ai-musei-reali-di-torino/  

220821 | Depero’s Futurist museum

*If you’re any kind oif “futurist” and you have a handsome museum some day, that’s really good luck for you.   https://www.raicultura.it/arte/articoli/2020/05/Casa-dArte-Futurista-Depero-59c5873c-59e2-47c4-babb-2bab1daf3415.html?wt_mc=2.social.tw.raicultura_raicultura.&wt    

220820 | Return of Gogbot

*Wow!  Better go to Enschede!   Summary: – The world is on fire, but GOGBOT Festival in Enschede, NL, makes for a better future! Theme of 2022 = SO FUTURE, FROM SOLARPUNK TO METAF*CK FREE FESTIVAL / XPO / OUTSIDE CYBERPUNK AREA Thursday 8 –  Sunday 11 September 2022 @ Enschede, NL official opening GOGBOT 2022 | complete program MEGA […]

220816 | Feral File: Doppleganger

Doppelganger Announcing a new group show that crosses and fuses notions of digital and physical self, curated by Chris Coleman. Exhibition Opening: August 25, 2022 14:00 UTC (7am Los Angeles, 11am São Paulo, 4pm Berlin, 10pm Shanghai) Collecting begins one hour later See the Price List for complete details. Please join us on Twitter Spaces […]

220816 | Samantha spacewalking

*How could we not?

220816 | Survival Research Labs machines over the years

220816 | AI generative art tools by @pharmapsychotic

*They don’t lack for scale and variety. https://pharmapsychotic.com/tools.html  

220816 | A Scenic Harvest from the Kingdom of Pain

*Survival Research labs at the height of their punk-robot performance-art  powers.  

220815 | Ask Seditionart anything

WANNA GET A FREE NFT? JOIN OUR AMA! Hi Seditioners! We have recently announced that Sedition will enable collectors to start minting artworks as NFTs – and we expect that you may have many questions regarding this… This is why we’re excited to announce our next Ask Me Anything (AMA) session with Sedition’s Director, Rory […]

220814 | Savage Makerverse

*This development does not surprise me.  

220814 | Laura Kampf and her large Maker workshop full of mice

*Not many Makers have a room full of salvaged neon tubes. *Also the entire cabinet dedicated to Leatherman multitools — that is impressive.  At Share Festival, we strongly agree that you should acquire tools, understand them, and give them away.  

220814 | The Prompt Papers

*Scholarly works on prompt engineering for text to image generators.   https://github.com/thunlp/PromptPapers    

220812 | The latest V2 newsletter

*Nice to see them keeping busy.   V2_Newsletter August 2022 The Summer Sessions residencies are in full swing at V2_. On 8 September the artists in residence at V2_ will show their works at the Test_Lab Summer Sessions 2022. Before that, on the 19th of August, we invite you to our place for a Summer Meetup featuring a live performance […]

220812 | Meanwhile, at the Serpentine Gallery

*This seems unusual.   Dear Friends, Next Tuesday 16 August at 6pm BST, join us on Serpentine’s Twitch as artist and scientist, Libby Heaney, inaugurates the first publicly available artistic deployment of Hivemind — a virtual knowledge game created by Trust as Serpentine’s 2021 Arts Technologies Commission. Libby modified the game environment, transforming it into […]

220811 | Stable Diffusion artist studies

*It’s like a style-transfer bazaar.   https://proximacentaurib.notion.site/e2537cbf42c34b7e9a9a4126f81dfd0d?v=7b4a3c03fb654045be324eb71acc57e6  

220810 | Stable Diffusion

https://stability.ai/blog/stable-diffusion-announcement Stability AI and our collaborators are proud to announce the first stage of release of Stable Diffusion to researchers via this form, the model weights are hosted by our friends at Hugging Face once you get access. The code is available here and the model card here. We are working together towards a public […]

220809 | Meanwhile, in Riga

Dear all on Spectre list! We, RIXC in Riga, are preparing the next edition of our annual Art and Science festival, which under the title SPLINTERED REALITIES will take place in Riga and virtually from October 6-8, 2022, including Deep Europe symposium (Syndicate meeting) in Riga, keynotes and featured live streams from Liepaja, Karlsruhe and […]

220809 | Brian Eno and his process for creating “Music for Airports”

*Technology artists who aren’t musicians will benefit by understanding this.   https://reverbmachine.com/blog/deconstructing-brian-eno-music-for-airports/   Music for Airports liner notes contains a graphic score designed by Brian Eno himself. Not a trained musician, and unable to read or write sheet music, Brian Eno instead used graphic symbols to denote each musical phrase or loop. Look closely and […]

220808 | The Prompt Whisperer

*It’s a work of design fiction about the future of text-to-image generators. *It’s pretty good, too.  I recommend a look at that.   https://interconnected.org/home/2022/08/03/whisperer  

220807 | Maker decides to entertain YouTube with a renovated house

*Houses are big.  If you rebuild a house, it’s like enlisting in an army.  

220807 | Paul Saffo and some of his every day carry tools

*I especially admire his well-organized notebook system.  His use of multiple calendars is also a good accomplishment for a strategic forecaster.    

220806 | Intel in Italy

https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-italy-intel-close-5-bln-deal-chip-factory-sources-2022-08-04/ ROME, Aug 4 (Reuters) – Italy is close to clinching a deal initially worth $5 billion with Intel (INTC.O) to build an advanced semiconductor packaging and assembly plant in the country, two sources briefed on discussions told Reuters on Thursday. Intel’s investment in Italy is part of a wider plan announced by the U.S. […]

220806 | TFI Special | Coffee Break in Torino #2: Giuseppe Culicchia presenta il Caffè Al Bicerin dal 1763.

*One could die from how Turinese this is.  

220805 | Raspberry Pi development gossip

*Well, they wouuld be likely to know.   https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/03/pi_4_vulkan/ UPDATED Raspberry Pi supremo Eben Upton has trumpeted the arrival of Vulkan 1.2 conformance for the Raspberry Pi 4. Vulkan is an abstraction layer – like OpenGL – for game devs working on graphics-intensive apps. It’s quite the achievement both for the diminutive computer and Igalia, […]

220804 | Electrical tools

*It seems thorough, though it’s a good thing that one doesn’t have to lift that every day.      

220804 | HEK House of Electronic Art

Dear friends of HEK, Wow, what a summer! The sun is shining non-stop and the cool Rhine water is a blessing for both the body and soul. If you’re looking for a less wet way to cool off, then HEK is the right place to be. The current exhibition «Emmanuel Van der Auwera: Seeing is […]

220804 | Lee Ranaldo at NOME Gallery

VINYL RECORD DRYPONT PRINTS Lee Ranaldo 27 August, 6–9 pm Concert: 27 August at 7 pm Berlin, 28 July 2022 NOME is pleased to announce a concert and exhibition by the American musician and visual artist Lee Ranaldo on August 27th. The vernissage will last from 6-9 pm and at 7 pm Ranaldo will perform […]

220803 | Meanwhile, in Pompeii

  POMPEII COMMITMENT. ARCHAEOLOGICAL MATTERS LAUNCHES TWO NEW PROJECTS FEATURING INTERNATIONAL PARTICIPANTS WHO INVESTIGATE POMPEIAN HERITAGE AND ITS MULTIPLE HISTORIES THROUGH CONTEMPORARY METHODOLOGIES  In autumn 2022, Pompeii Commitment. Archaeological Matters – the first long-term, contemporary art programme, established by the Archaeological Park of Pompeii – launches its first printed publication as well as a new yearly programme of Digital Fellowships, whose inaugural participants are seven […]

220802 | Arthur Jafa show at OGR Torino

  OGR Torino presenta   Una mostra di ARTHUR JAFA In collaborazione con Serpentine, Londra A cura di Claude Adjil e Judith Waldmann con Hans Ulrich Obrist   PREVIEW STAMPA: venerdì 4 novembre, ore 11 – 13 OPENING: venerdì 4 novembre, ore 18 – 24   4 novembre 2022 – 15 gennaio 2023   Nuovi orari […]

220802 | Sedition NFTs

  Dear Seditioners, We’re excited to announce that the Sedition community can now engage with NFTs as a new route to own and enjoy artworks. We have just released a new feature allowing Sedition collectors to mint certain artworks from their Vaults as NFTs. For this initial phase, selected artworks by LIA, Doug Foster and […]

220802 | A new Salvatore Iaconesi website

Salvatore Iaconesi is alive

220801 | Machine Learning allo stato dell’arte per PyTorch, TensorFlow e JAX.

https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers/v4.21.0/it/index   ? Transformers fornisce delle API per scaricare in modo semplice e allenare modelli pre-allenati allo stato dell’arte. L’utilizzo di modelli pre-allenati può ridurre i tuoi costi computazionali, l’impatto ambientale, e farti risparmiare il tempo che utilizzeresti per allenare un modello da zero. I modelli possono essere utilizzati in diverse modalità come ad esempio: […]

220801 | Ask Adam Savage: All About Clamps

  *I know clamps pretty well, but I didn’t know some of these.  Also, spring clamps are like plastic zip ties; if you need one, you need a hundred.

220731 | Meanwhile, at Seditionart

220730 | Tiny Tools

*These tools are odd, and even surreal-looking, but if you have quite small and delicate hands, these might he the hardware choices that make the most sense for you.  

220729 | il simbionte in lutto

Oriana Persico:   ciao List, che peccato poteva durare di più, ma è stato epico fino alla fine è Il Viaggio, così lo abbiamo chiamato: è iniziato il 30 maggio scorso e conoscevamo i rischi. quando Sal/xdxd/messere (e successivamente più volte marito) se ne è andato, stavamo trasformando la casa di mia madre in una […]

220728 | Artissima Summer

ARTISSIMA SUMMER Once again this year, Artissima will be with you all summer! Starting on 1 August, at the fair’s Instagram profile – @ArtissimaFair – you can discover a new column to keep you company during the summer break: #ArtissimaSummer, a special selection of works from the most recent editions of the fair, that evoke […]

220728 | Samantha space-walking

*Well, better her than me.

220728 | A few of the many military robots of the modern world

https://odin.tradoc.army.mil/Search/All/robot

220728 | Renzo Fantoni, maker of cutting tools

Renzo Fantoni Passes Away at 86   Renzo Fantoni, founder of the influential Italian knife company Fantoni Knives, passed away last week at the age of 86. These days, ask any knife person where the best knives in Italy are made and they’ll tell you Maniago. Fantoni helped to establish the city’s reputation for high […]

220727 | Ransomware bandits attacking arts orgs

*Look out for poisoned email. https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/26/wordfly_ransomware_attack/   A ransomware gang has not only taken down WordFly, a mailing list provider for top arts organizations among others, but also siphoned data belonging to the US-based Smithsonian, Canada’s Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. As of right now, WordFly’s main website is […]

220726 | Salvatore Iaconesi has died (1973-2022)

*He was a true friend of Share Festival.   *Salvatore lived ten years after launching an epic open-source fight against a very serious brain cancer.  The disease felled him eventually, but he didn’t waste that time.   *What an interesting guy.  I met him many times, I never knew a dull moment with him.   […]

220726 | Marina Abramovic and her NFTs

*Well, there she goes.   https://nft.circa.art/  

220723 | Tom Sachs in the New York Times

*A contemporary artist with a lot of admirers in the Maker world. ttps://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/22/arts/design/tom-sachs-seoul.html

220722 | Feral File, the p1xelfool: gämma show

p1xelfool: gämma Announcing a new solo exhibition with p1xelfool curated by kerry doran, and the first Feral File exhibition on Tezos. Exhibition Opening: July 28, 2022 14:00 UTC (7am Los Angeles, 11am São Paulo, 4pm Berlin, 10pm Shanghai) Collecting begins one hour later See the Price List for more details. Please join us on Twitter […]

220722 | Holly Herndon interviewing Marina Abramovic

*Hahaha, wow https://interdependence.fm/episodes/marina-abramovi-on-the-parallels-between-performance-art-and-web-3

220721 | A public sculpture from Share Project

*Hurray for us!  Let Turinese artists Make Art!    SHARE PROJECT  è orgogliosa di presentare   Cristallo di Luce di Diego Scroppo è un’installazione itinerante di arte pubblica che genera energia per le comunità locali. Un monumento contemporaneo che innesca spettacoli e azioni performative volte a raccontare modelli possibili di sviluppo sostenibile.   CRISTALLO DI […]

220721 | Claes Oldenburg manifesto

Yesterday at a ripe old age of 93 Claes Oldenburg died. For those who may know him only as a purveyor of bloated corporate pop art of his later years may be surprised just how radical he was when he started out and just how different he was from the pop-artists who bought uncritically into […]

220721 | Ten years of industrial open-source robotics

*It must be time to boast a little.  

220721 | Open-source science software

*Generally speaking, if nobody’s hired to maintain it, nobody maintains it.  This article is from 2019. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02046-0 On 10 April, astrophysicists announced that they had captured the first ever image of a black hole. This was exhilarating news, but none of the giddy headlines mentioned that the image would have been impossible without open-source software. […]

220721 | Minecraft distrusts the NFT business

https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/minecraft-and-nfts (…)… Each of these uses of NFTs and other blockchain technologies creates digital ownership based on scarcity and exclusion, which does not align with Minecraft values of creative inclusion and playing together. NFTs are not inclusive of all our community and create a scenario of the haves and the have-nots. The speculative pricing and […]

220721 | Luca Parmitano, Italian astronaut DJ

*It’s news from 2019, but who knew?   https://mixmag.net/read/italian-astronaut-luca-parmitano-dj-space-news/   (…) Far away from the old site of the legendary Ibiza club you’re probably thinking of, Parmitano was in orbit to play tunes from the International Space Station. By DJing, we mean playing tunes from what looks to be a DJing app on a tablet, of course. […]

220720 | Sudowrite

220719 | “The Model is the Message” by Bratton and Aguera y Arcas

*Not a duo that I expected to see collaborating on a paper.  All the more reason to read it.   (…) “AI and the philosophy of AI have deeply intertwined histories, each bending the other in uneven ways. Just like core AI research, the philosophy of AI goes through phases. Sometimes it is content to […]

220719 | Meta Make-A-Scene

*Interesting that they’ve brought in some AI artists to test their new hardware.  “Make-A-Scene” seems to be a generator intended for use in building Meta metaverses. https://ai.facebook.com/blog/greater-creative-control-for-ai-image-generation/ https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.13131 (…) “So, how exactly would people use Make-A-Scene to bring their imaginations to life? As part of our research and development process, we’re sharing access to our […]

220719 | Wired Italia discovers Craiyon

  https://www.wired.it/gallery/dall-e-mini-trucchi/  (…) Nonostante l’atmosfera scanzonata, Dall-E è il frutto di un duro lavoro da parte del programmatore Boris Dayma che lo ha confezionato nel luglio 2021 partecipando a un contest indetto da Google e dalla A.I. community Hugging Face: per padroneggiare questo strumento servono un po’ di regole molto semplici, che spalancheranno le porte […]

220719 | Lucca Comics and Games

*Quite a fun event if you’re into those subcultures.

220717 | Mojo Augmented Reality Contact Lens

*What a bizarre device to encounter, even as a prototype.  

220717 | Herbert W. Franke

220716 | Training Your Own Unconditional Diffusion Model (With Minimal Coding)

*Meanwhile, in image-generator land: https://hive.blog/hive-158694/@kaliyuga/training-your-own-unconditional-diffusion-model-with-minimal-coding About two years ago, I wrote my first how-to guide for non-coders on training custom AI models. Back then, GANs were the most cutting-edge form of AI art. Today that title belongs to Clip-guided diffusion models, but a lot of the underlying prep work for creating custom models remains similar […]

220715 | Winter in the NFT markets

220714 | Prompt-hacking: an instant tech-art subculture

*This is really quite fun to watch.  So many problems!   https://pitch.com/v/DALL-E-prompt-book-v1-tmd33y      

220712 | Marina Abramovic interview

*About NFTs.  Sort of. https://www.rightclicksave.com/article/an-interview-with-marina-abramovic   (…) Marina Abramović: This question reminds me of an important story. When I was 14, I asked my father to give me oil paints — because oil paints mean you are a serious artist. My father didn’t really care about art but he knew this soldier, Filo Filipović, who became […]

220710 | MIT lectures on art and Artificial Intelligence

https://ali-design.github.io/deepcreativity/  

220710 | EDRi

https://edri.org/annual-report-2021/assets/downloads/EDRI_-_ANNUAL_REPORT_2021.pdf  

220710 | Humanities and Artificial Intelligence

Well, the price is right — it’s free.   https://noemalab.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/HumaniTies-and-Artificial-Intelligence-v1.0.pdf    

220710 | Creative Code News #54

*These always have something interesting.   https://sableraph.notion.site/Creative-Code-News-issue-54-0ee3669e5ebc4b46b7cc01bfb0ff87d7  

220708 | Too many electronics

He confesses early on that he doesn’t tinker with Arduino or Raspberry Pi, and yet there’s nevertheless so much electronic chaos here that there’s something nightmarish about it.  

220707 | Beats on a Budget

*Whatever happens to musicians will happen to everybody.  

220706 | An interview with Sputniko

*She’s hard to describe, but in a good way. https://www.katevassgalerie.com/big-in-japan-an-exclusive-interview-with-sputniko      

220705 | Meanwhile, in orbit

220705 | An epic effort to build a replica Antikythera Machine

*YouTube Maker is still at it.  Maybe he’ll complete it some day!  

220705 | NFTs out of vogue

*Not dead, though. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jul/02/nft-sales-hit-12-month-low-after-cryptocurrency-crash

220703 | Industrial Xray CAT-scanner

*And it can create printable scans.  

220630 | The Byzantine Generals Problem

Dear profiles, avatars, and online flaneurs, Aksioma is summoning you to:   The Byzantine Generals Problem ONLINE EXHIBITION https://aksioma.org/byzantine.generals.problem 4 July 2022–end of the internet distant.gallery   Curated by: Domenico Quaranta   Featuring: Anna Ridler, Ben Grosser, Constant Dullaart, DIS, FaceOrFactory, Kyle McDonald, LaTurbo Avedon, Moxie Marlinspike, Nascent, Rhea Myers, Sarah Friend, Sarah Meyohas, Simon […]

220628 | Call for Makers 2022

https://makerfairerome.eu/it/call-for-makers Chi cerchiamo? A Maker Faire Rome cerchiamo, da sempre, chi sia capace di mostrarci il futuro dietro l’angolo, quello di cui oggi abbiamo ancora più bisogno. Inventori e innovatori: prodotti innovativi, prototipi, brevetti, progetti di ricerca, startup, crowdfunding. Quando un maker si lancia sul mercato, deve passare per Maker Faire Rome! Anno dopo anno […]

220627 | A guide to photogrammetry 3D scanning

*I did not know that.  Spraying objects with chalk dust so scanners can see them, that’s quite an interesting hack.   https://github.com/OpenScanEu/OpenScan2/blob/main/photogrammetry_basics.md    

220625 | Meanwhile, at NOME Gallery

OF DAUGHTERS AND DREAMS Priscilla Dobler Dzul Saturday, 25 June, 6–9 pm / English version / German version below NOME is pleased to announce Of Daughters and Dreams, a solo exhibition by the artist Priscilla Dobler Dzul. Her paintings, sculpture, video, and performance works have addressed notions of belonging, borders, alienation, and social inequality as […]

220625 | DALLE experiments by Herndon and Dryhurst

https://mirror.xyz/herndondryhurst.eth/eZG6mucl9fqU897XvJs0vUUMnm5OITpSWN8S-6KWamY (…)   Analogies are imperfect, but this resembles the leap from the early electronic music period of manually stitching together pieces of tape to collage together a composition to the introduction of the wired synthesizer studio, or Digital Audio Workstation. In the 20th century this progress in musical tools-at-hand took place over half a […]

220623 | VR headsets with all things Mark and Meta

*Hear them out if they’re spending billions with a crowd of engineers; that’s our philosophy here on the Artmaker blog.  

220623 | “What is Design Fiction?”

*Does this really need explaining?  Well, yeah, it does, because if you were born when it got started, you’re an adult now.  

220622 | Meanwhile, in the NFT art markets

*That was then, this is now. ‘It’s Probably Gonna Be a Huge Cry Fest’: Plunging Crypto Markets Cast a Shadow Over NFT.NYC and Its Jittery True Believers     (…) Although OpenSea still holds the position of being the busiest NFT marketplace, its average selling price, the number of traders, and sales volume are all […]

220622 | “The current state of AI generated art”

220622 | DALLEmini showcase

*Text to image generator with prompt hacking online.   https://youtu.be/5XIRU7CHRjw

220620 | The Golden Nicas 2022

*Well, they’re nice to have.   2338 submissions to Prix Ars Electronica 2022: Golden Nicas for artists from Japan, the USA, Taiwan, Colombia and Austria (Linz, June 20, 2022) 2338 artistic projects from 88 countries were submitted to the Prix Ars Electronica 2022. The “Interactive Art +” category received the most submissions with 928 projects, […]

220617 | Nature in the city with Torino Urban Lab

NATURA IN CITTÀ Raccontiamo la città che cambia Arte pubblica Geoportale, Arte per strada Torino e Geografie Metropolitane: tre strumenti complementari per raccontare l’arte pubblica del torinese L’arte urbana torinese da oggi si trova a poter contare su tre piattaforme complementari e interconnesse, che la mappano e raccontano a professionisti, turisti, cittadine e cittadini. Tre sono […]

220617 | Meanwhile, in Milano

https://thedigitalarttimes.substack.com/p/-the-new-atlas-of-digital-art   “The New Atlas of Digital Art” is a conference organised by “MEET Digital Culture Center”, in collaboration with the National Museum of Digital Art in Italy (MAD), and aims to presents a wide-ranging reflection to promote and investigate the jagged scenario of digital art in Europe and highlight the potential of “digital native” […]

220616 | Circus acrobatics inside the Mole Antonelliana in Torino

*Good heavens, one certainly didn’t expect that.     Museo Nazionale del Cinema, 24 giugno – 3 luglio 2022 Cinema e circo, una lunga storia d’amore è il progetto, unico nel suo genere, che Fondazione Cirko Vertigo, in collaborazione con il Museo Nazionale del Cinemarealizzerà fra il 24 giugno e il 3 luglio all’interno degli […]

220616 | Old-school cyberfeminist reunion

*I hope it does well!   15 June 2022 TODAY is the day when the Cyberfeminism Index fundraiser exhibition WETWARE curated by Mindy Seu will be opened @FeralFile. Check out the program, join us on Twitter, and not the least, purchase some NFTs if you want to support the project I am live with Maria […]

220616 | “Wetware” at Feral File

* Matrix, wow.   https://feralfile.com WETWARE: Cyberfeminism Index Benefit Sale Announcing a new exhibition of eleven cyberfeminist works, curated by Mindy Seu. Exhibition Opening: June 15, 2022 14:00 UTC (7am Los Angeles, 11am São Paulo, 4pm Berlin, 10pm Shanghai) Collecting begins one hour later Please join us on Twitter Spaces for a series of conversations with […]

220614 | Critics pondering AI

*There’s a lot to ponder.   Dear Nettimers, one more announcement mail, this time for a series of interviews dealing critically with AI. Hope it is relevant for the list. best, Francis Five Video Interviews about AI with Magda Tyzlik-Carver, Nick Couldry & Ulises Mejias, Adam Harvey, Elisa Giardina Papa and Matteo Pasquinelli »Emotion and […]

220614 | STARTS Prizes 2022

Winners 2022 selected: STARTS Prize of the European Commission for Holly Herndon (US) and Giulia Foscari (IT) (Linz/Brussels, July 13, 2022) The STARTS Prize 2022 attracted a total of 1499 entries from 96 countries, with the top prizes of 20,000 euros each going to Holly Herndon (US) and Giulia Foscari (IT). Their projects were awarded […]

220613 | Seiko Mikami (1996)

220613 | A Piedmontese barachin knife

*The barachin knife is the best-known craft knife of Italy’s Piedmont region (the other knife of local fame being the “Piemontese” pocketknife). After admiring the barachin for 15 years, I finally bought one of my own. *Why?  I already own other knives that are much better than a barachin. The barachin is a farm tool. […]

220610 | Delia Derbyshire, 1968

220608 | In a classroom, explaining the city of Turin to Turinese students

*This isn’t what someone from Turin would say, but I like to think that for someone, it might somehow be helpful.   *This is a “Bruno Argento” lecture here.  Bruno is really engaged with Turin, his affection for the city is long-term and unfeigned.  He pretends to be teaching Politecnico students here, but this is […]

220608 | Share Festival 2022

220608 | Share Festival, women artists 2022

220608 | Subsonica on tour as music scene is no longer in coma

*Subsonica as a transmedia technology-art project (circa 2009):    

220608 | How is it possible that this masterpiece lacks millions of views

220607 | The Share Festival Artmaker Bag for 2022

*The “Searchlight” edition, with some lighting design tools:  

220607 | Share Festival 2022

*This was a festival of recovery after two years of coma in the art world, but I was pleasantly surprised at the buoyant atmosphere, and how much fun people seemed to be having.  

220607 | Share Festival 2022

IMG_3179

220607 | Alessandro Ludovico and Bruce Sterling at Share Festival 2022

Talking about Searchlight – Share Festival con Bruce Sterling e Alessandro Ludovico https://t.co/pPffP0OpjS — Torino Maker Faire (@TOmakerfaire) June 4, 2022

220606 | “House of Mirrors” at HMKV Dortmund

“Artificial Intelligence as Phantasm”   https://www.hmkv.de/files/hmkv/ausstellungen/2022/HOMI/Publikation/House%20Of%20Mirrors%20Magazin%20PDF.pdf   House of Mirrors – Artificial Intelligence as phantasm curated by Inke Arns, Francis Hunger and Marie LechnerThe exhibition takes the common clichés about AI as an opportunity to talk about issues such as hidden human labor, algorithmic bias/discrimination, the problem of categorization and classification, and our fantasies about […]

220603 | An Arduino industrial irrigator

https://www.arduino.cc/pro/case-studies/challenge-agriculture

220603 | “Made in Italy,” says Italian government campaign

  Advanced technologies for Aerospace and Security

220602 | Torino Maker Faire 2022

*I’ll be there!  

220602 | Artists doing “Prompt Engineering”

220531 | Performance art at Feral File

*Golan Levin and Molly Soda, together at last.   https://feralfile.com/exhibitions  

220531 | Hurray for us!

220530 | The Evan & Katelyn “craft streaming room”

A frankly bizarre Youtube makertainment production studio. https://www.youtube.com/c/EvanAndKatelyn

220530 | Science fiction writer describes a computer game, 1963

220530 | Meanwhile, at Rhizome

  As part of Rhizome’s 2022 benefit sponsored by Zora, we are pleased to present Studies in Perception IV: Julie Martin, a 1/1 NFT edition, stored fully on-chain as an SVG file. This work by artist and engineer Ken Knowlton, made with the support of media historian Jim Boulton, was created using a reconstruction of […]

220528 | Easel screen

*It’s merely a prototype, but it’s rather handsome.  

220528 | NFT awards

*They’re struggling to create a canon here. https://www.nft.nyc/awards     Vote in any Category Innovation Most Innovative NFT Projec tAOMetaverse – @AOMetaverse Bored Ape Yacht Club – @BoredApeYC CyberBrokers – @CyberBrokers_ OpenSkyBlue – @OpenSkyBlue NFTRTFKT – @RTFKT Most Innovative NFT Smart Contract CyberBrokers – @CyberBrokers _manifold.xyz – @manifoldxyz Meta Angels – @meta_angels Pak – @muratpak […]

220528 | Imagen from Google AI

*It’s another text-to-image generator, and it’s pretty good.  “Steampunk 3Dprinters”     https://imagen.research.google/   Imagen research highlights We show that large pretrained frozen text encoders are very effective for the text-to-image task. We show that scaling the pretrained text encoder size is more important than scaling the diffusion model size. We introduce a new thresholding […]

220527 | Art, Blockchains, and Object Oriented Ontology

*I really enjoyed this, because this was one of the strangest discussions I’ve ever been involved with.

220526 | 3DPrinting a Nipkow disk

*My goodness. https://spectrum.ieee.org/mechanical-tv Before flat screens, before even cathode-ray tubes, people watched television programs at home thanks to the Nipkow disk. Ninety years ago in places like England and Germany, broadcasters transmitted to commercially produced black-and-white electromechanical television sets, such as the Baird Televisor, that used these disks to produce moving images. This early programming […]

220525 | TAG Art Night 2022

OUVERTURE #12  |  TAG ART NIGHT 28 MAGGIO 2021 ore 18,00 – 23,00 INGRESSO LIBERO L’Associazione TAG – Torino Art Galleries è lieta di annunciare la nuova edizione OUVERTURE #12  |  TAG ART NIGHT 2022 che si tiene in concomitanza con i Torino Photo Days e con THE PHAIR il giorno sabato 28 MAGGIO 2022. In occasione della […]

220525 | Ron Arad interview

*He likes Fiat 500s. https://zine.zora.co/reverse-again-shifting-vision-ron-arad Liam Casey (ZORA): Reverse Again is your first NFT series. Did it come to you clearly early on, or was it a completely abstract concept?   Ron Arad: The mechanism is important for me. The main thing is: For what? In the old days, with architecture, the building of cardboard […]

220525 | Science fiction novels by computer artist Herbert W. Franke

*He wrote three other novels in German.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_W._Franke  

220524 | More about the Apple repair tool kit

220524 | The Apple Self-Repair Tool Kit

*My goodness. https://www.selfservicerepair.com/tool-kit-rental   (…) What is in each kit? The tools may ship in one or two cases. For example, the iPhone 12 tool kit ships in two cases, and the iPhone SE (3rd Generation) tool kit ships in one case. iPhone 12 Case 1 661-17619 – Heated Display Removal Fixture 661-19620 – Heated […]

220524 | Melies goes all-out with the special effects

*This work of early cinema lacks a plot or characters, but it’s almost a catalog of his many and various on-camera stage tricks.  By 1911 he was in the decline of his career and seemed to be heaping stunts up almost at random here. *Melies almost personified the turbulent ups and downs of cinema show-biz. […]

220524 | Italy as seen from the International Space Station

*It may be of limited relevance to the blog here, but who can’t like this?  

220524 | Apple’s extensive anti-repair scheming

*That’s especially interesting if you like to re-purpose electronic components for purposes undreamt-of by the original manufacturers.   https://doctorow.medium.com/apples-cement-overshoes-329856288d13 (…) The alternative was to treat drops, slips, cracks and battery depletion as features, not bugs. Apple could go to war against repair, and in so doing, it could capitalize on those mishaps by selling its […]

220523 | An essay in AI art criticism

*I don’t agree with it, but it’s good to see it.   https://ronancray.medium.com/the-horror-of-ai-art-9296e239d4c2   (…) AI art is derivative, which makes it less than original. You feed the computer a few words, select an established art style, and give it an image to build on. The emotion you feel is derivative, too, trained to appreciate […]

220523 | Sonar Festival in Barcelona, June 2022

*Look at that stellar line-up of speakers.  They’re not even music people, quite a lot of them.  After two cruel years of plague, the culturati in Barcelona haven’t gotten any less hip.   https://sonarplusd.com/ca/programs/barcelona-2022/ponents   *Also, they’re streaming music to create an appetite:  

220523 | Meanwhile, in Beeple’s Twitter account

220522 | Discussing NFTs with Obrist, Anadol, Rozendaal & Segal

  *I did not expect novels to leap front and center here.    

220520 | Maker Faire Rome: call for Makers

https://makerfairerome.eu/en/call-for-makers-en/   That’s right! Maker Faire Rome turns ten this year. Ten years of innovations and ideas that have turned into concrete projects, of inventions that have improved and revolutionised entire sectors of our society, realising things that seemed remote and even unattainable a few years ago. Ten editions that have brought together people, thoughts, […]

220520 | Meanwhile, at the Frieze New York art sales

*An impressive set of the great-and-the-good art-world regulars here.  I can’t see how the jolt of the NFT scene has done these distinguished people any harm at all.  Maybe it was a little surprising when they were locked-down in a plague and their galleries were shuttered.  Otherwise, this is conventional art-business as usual — except […]

220520 | Beeple at SXSW 2022

220519 | Meanwhile, at NVIDIA

220519 | Man Ray news

*Well, it’s definitely one of his better photos.  

220519 | Meanwhile, in the New York art markets

I now see two modes of value making: a traditional system, and a new system, where investment value and critical and aesthetic values get separated and the art is lost. Traditional value making happens over many lifetimes, as an artist goes through a bunch of consensus-making benchmarks: other artists, curators, institutions, academics, collectors. Over time, […]

220518 | Milan Design Week on the way

milan design week 2022: DAAily fair and city guides available now!   https://www.designboom.com/design/milan-design-week-2022-daaily-fair-and-city-guides-05-16-2022/ MILAN DESIGN WEEK: THE FAIR AND CITY GUIDES AVAILABLE NOW! This year, Architonic and ArchDaily join Designboom — the world’s first online magazine (born in Milan!) — in covering the ins-and-outs of Milan Design Week 2022 through the DAAily City and Fair […]

220514 | Creative Code News #46

*That’s well worth a look.   https://sableraph.notion.site/Creative-Code-News-issue-46-763d84f9d40a4efa943055075e124c5e

220513 | Herbert W. Franke and Casey Reas in dialogue

*What a pleasure to read this.  So historic!   https://outland.art/herbert-w-franke-casey-reas/   Herbert W. Franke celebrates his ninety-fifth birthday on May 14. Trained as a theoretical physicist, he approached art as an experimental practice aimed at understanding the fundamental nature of perception. His earliest generative works of the 1950s employed analog techniques—photographing illuminated wires and film […]

220512 | NFTs without blockchains

*It makes all kinds of sense, but it doesn’t have that delightful froth of financial speculation and collapse.   https://blog.mollywhite.net/digital-artists-post-bubble-hopes-for-nfts-dont-need-a-blockchain/ (…) So, it seems to me that there is this group of artists who are yearning for the technical ability to create and sell digitally unique objects with verifiable authenticity in a way that mirrors […]

220512 | Processing and crypto money

*Well, it’s easy come, easy go in cryptoland. https://medium.com/processing-foundation/processing-foundation-funding-update-94cddb25a3d9 Processing Foundation Funding Update The Processing Foundation supports artists, students, and educators through its free and open-source software and public programming driven by the needs of the open-source software communities we serve. We are currently in the process of restructuring and reframing how we work and […]

220512 | Xyla Foxlin and her new Makertainment studio

*The California housing crisis is so severe that she has to live on the couches of her friends, but Xyla Foxlin has some remarkably capable friends.  

220512 | Right click and save

Beeple and his new Madonna portraits.    

220510 | The Bompiani Literary Almanac of 1962

*Boom times for Italian tech art.   http://p-dpa.net/download/almanacco-letterario-bompiani_1962.pdf    

220510 | The Venice Biennale guidebook for 2022

*Not entirely a “normal” art event, but it looks like they’re off their pandemic bed-of-pain, which is good news for the art world in general.  

220510 | Tyler Hobbs interview

*It’s pretty good.   https://www.rightclicksave.com/article/an-interview-with-tyler-hobbs-part-1  

220507 | Declaration for the Future of the Internet

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/04/28/fact-sheet-united-states-and-60-global-partners-launch-declaration-for-the-future-of-the-internet/   https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Declaration-for-the-Future-for-the-Internet_Launch-Event-Signing-Version_FINAL.pdf The Internet has been revolutionary. It provides unprecedented opportunities for people around the world to connect and to express themselves, and continues to transform the global economy, enabling economic opportunities for billions of people. Yet it has also created serious policy challenges. Globally, we are witnessing a trend of rising digital authoritarianism where some states act to repress freedom of expression, censor independent […]

220506 | Geert Lovink’s new book, “Stuck on the Platform”

  I am proud to present you my new book, published in five languages, starting with English (Valiz) and Spanish (Holobionte Ediciones), followed by German (Transcript Verlag), Italian (Nero) and Turkish (İletişim). The original English edition, published by Valiz (Amsterdam) can be ordered now and found in bookstores. More info here: https://valiz.nl/en/publications/stuck-on-the-platform The global book […]

220505 | Beeple in Torino

https://decrypt.co/98910/beeple-next-era-of-nfts-will-focus-on-emotional-connection-and-utility (…) That next project is HUMAN ONE, Beeple’s first digital and physical sculpture. Acquired by Dialectic’s Ryan Zurrer for $29.3 million at a Christie’s evening sale last year, the work has now entered the pantheon of one of Italy’s most recognizable museums, the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art in Turin. It’s being […]

220504 | Meanwhile, in outer space

220504 | Beginners failing at Arduino

*Pay no attention to these warnings!  I’m sure you can do everything all at once all by yourself.  

220503 | Pondering futurity for Alessi in the Torino Fab Lab

220503 | Meanwhile, in the Italian Alps at Brixen

*A big outdoor show with quite a lot of artists. https://www.brixen.org/en/water-light-festival/edition-2022  

220501 | Pulcina coffee maker

*Not to make a big Milanese-design fuss about it, but I own two of these pots and can’t seem to get along without them. *Currently in Belgrade, where I’m forced to drink “instant coffee.”  I’m not going to cry about it, but it’s a trial. *Actually I own two and a half De Lucchi coffeepots […]

220429 | Wise advice from the guru Kevin Kelly

*Easily as useful as wisdom from Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Ruskin, William Morris, Henry Thoreau, Walt Whitman or even Leo Tolstoy.   https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/   Today is my birthday. I turn 70. I’ve learned a few things so far that might be helpful to others. For the past few years, I’ve jotted down bits of unsolicited […]

220426 | News from GogBot

Stanza – The Nemesis Machine GOGBOT Museum of the Future Part #2  with UK artist Stanza and his 36m2 mini-metropolis The Nemesis Machine opening: this Friday April 29 We are looking back at an incredible first month of our Museum of the Future, which opened on April 1. Local talents and internationally renowned artists worked […]

220426 | The ZX Spectrum — forty years old

https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/22/spectrum_at_40/ (…) Over five million of the Z80A-based devices were sold, and its impact cannot be overstated. While over 1.5 million BBC Micros (made by Acorn) may have also been sold during its lifetime, it was the ZX Spectrum that found its way into far more homes across Europe, and its impact continues to resonate […]

220425 | Brian Eno at SXSW 2022

*Prof Eno is a figure well-known in Torino.  

220424 | The worst art the Venice Biennale 2022

*How could “the worst” not be interesting?   https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/04/22/venice-biennale-2022-the-worst-art-on-show-in-the-city (…) “It would be kind to call these works kitsch, but kitsch can have layers, humour and depth of meaning—these seem to compress historical moments into decorative wallpaper for a Miami mansion. And despite the images being in the public domain and often of people who […]

220424 | The Brutally Early Morning Club

*More people in the art world should start these.  It weeds out the lazy people.   MOVERS AND SHAKERS Hans Ulrich Obrist’s ‘Brutally’ Early Morning Club Opens in Venice – Nearly 40 people took up the challenge to rise early on the third preview day of Venice Biennale to attend the Serpentine Gallery director’s “brutally early” […]

220424 | EU Digital Services Act

*It’s gonna make some kind of difference, so I guess I’ll have to watch.   https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_2545   https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/23/23036976/eu-digital-services-act-finalized-algorithms-targeted-advertising

220423 | Patrizia’s island in the Adriatic

*That should be interesting. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/04/22/italian-collector-turns-remote-venetian-island-into-new-art-and-ecology-hub More than 200 art world luminaries—including Tate director Maria Balshaw and Venice Biennale curator Cecilia Alemani—were transported yesterday to a private Venetian island for a sneak peek of an ambitious private project backed by one of Italy’s most prominent collectors. Turin-based Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo plans to turn the island […]

220423 | Ten years of Fablab Torino

*That’s a long time.   Ciao ? , Quest’anno Fablab Torino compie 10 anni! Siamo quindi lieti di invitarti alla nostra festa di compleanno, sabato 7 Maggio.   Sarà una pomeriggio per festeggiare insieme 10 anni di avventure, scoperte, ugelli intasati e tanto ancora ?.   Parleremo del Fablab che è stato e di quello […]

220422 | Bingo in Venice

*These satires are good when they’re accurate.     Your Venice Biennale Bingo Card Has Arrived

220421 | ArtsIT2022 in Portugal

  Dear All   The 11th International Conference Arts & Technology, Interactivity, and Game Creation (ArtsIT2022), will be held at The University of the Algarve, Faro, Portugal November 21-22. Please see https://artsit.eai-conferences.org/2022/ – let us know if you are interested in curating a special track of a specific topic aligned with conference title. Otherwise we hope you consider to […]

220421 | Beeple in Torino

*Well, that sounds fun.   THE GATES OPEN. Beeple, aka Mike Winkelmann, the digital artist who stunned denizens of the old-school art world last year when he sold an NFT for a cool $69 million at Christie’s, is about to display his work in a museum for the first time. In the Wall Street Journal, […]

220421 | Meanwhile, at NOME Gallery

DIALOGUE James Bridle and Jonas Staal Wednesday, 27 April, 6–9 pm Artist talk: 5 pm / English version / German version below Berlin, 20 April 2022 NOME in collaboration with Laveronica Gallery is pleased to announce two parallel solo exhibitions with the artists James Bridle and Jonas Staal, with contributions by lawyer, academic, writer, and […]

220421 | Matt Webb, virtual reality critic

https://interconnected.org/home/2022/04/20/vr   (…) Given all that, here’s what made me gasp on day 1 and what I’m still thinking about. Peeping through passthrough. The way it works is that you “draw” (in VR) a box on the floor. Within that box, you are immersed in 3D virtual reality. Near the edge, you see the box […]

220420 | A Gibsonian “ugly shirt”

*This isn’t the first and it won’t be the last.   https://www.wired.co.uk/article/facial-recognition-t-shirt-block   *Presumably the “Benedict Evans” who deserves credit for this interesting photograph is not the same as the venture capitalist Benedict Evans, although it would be even more interesting if it was.  

220418 | Electrostatic Mylar

*Frail… but pretty!  

220418 | ACM SIGCHI 2022 Teaser – Technical Program

220418 | “Exploding computational requirements”

https://spectrum.ieee.org/nvidias-next-gpu-shows-that-transformers-are-transforming-ai  

220417 | Strandbeest evolution during 2021

*The aerial kite version is new and impressive.  

220416 | Becky Stern lists women makers on YouTube

*That’s rather a lot. Becky Stern https://www.youtube.com/c/BeckyStern Big List of Women Makers on YouTube In no particular order! Please suggest more additions! Laura Kampf Naomi ‘SexyCyborg’ Wu Simone Giertz ijessup Darbin Orvar TheSorryGirls jen foxbot The Minimalist Maker Make It And Fake It DIY Huntress Estefannie Pneumatic Addict Get Hands Dirty Crafts With Ellen Bleeptrack […]

220415 | Metaverse companies

220414 | Web3 is still going great

*This list of ever-increasing woe as one spools down in this website — the spectacle is truly impressive.   https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

220413 | Another book on the future of media

*Maybe it’s the greatest such book ever (among a great many)!  There’s one way to find out.   Dear All,   We have the pleasure to let you know about the publication of our book, The Future of Media, coedited by Goldsmiths Media and myself, which has just come out from Goldsmiths Press.   Here […]

220412 | OpenAI and their “DALL-E 2” demo

*Users have been startling people on Twitter for a couple of weeks now.   https://openai.com/dall-e-2/   “DALL·E 2 can create original, realistic images and art from atext description. It can combine concepts, attributes, and styles.” “A rabbit detective sitting on a park bench and reading a newspaper in a victorian setting”  

220410 | Sedition Art at Paris NFT

Hello Seditioner, We’re excited to announce Sedition’s partnership with Paris NFT Day as a sponsor. Our Director, Rory Blain, will be one of the speakers at Paris NFT Day and will talk about Sedition and our story of the democratisation of art. Sedition will also have a booth at the event. Since we are planning […]

220408 | Ettore Sterling and Jasmina Radice

*It’s just not easy for anyone to be as chic as Milanese design people.

220407 | Geraldine Juarez pondering NFTs

https://paletten.net/artiklar/this-is-financial-advice Under the banner ‘artists should get paid,’ the flag of crypto-finance was planted in the collective imaginary a little more than a year ago: down with gatekeepers, decentralise the art world. Very soon after the sale of a digital file in .jpg format for the equivalent of 69 million dollars in .eth, the promise […]

220406 | Python #1

*For the time being, maybe. https://spectrum.ieee.org/top-programming-languages/

220405 | The Desk of Ladyada – Let’s design a Pico to Arduino Shield converter

*I’ve never seen that done live. That’s quite the behind-the-scenes video situation there.

220405 | Expo Rome 2030

*It’s nice to see plans for an epic Italian exposition, and I guess that’s still far enough away that nobody has to panic yet.

220404 | Open Call: the Feral Palace

via e-flux. Application deadline: April 22, 2022, 11pm Krater SI- Ljubljana Slovenia krater.si Facebook / Instagram Trajna association, in cooperation with the Centre for Creativity, at the Museum of Architecture and Design in Ljubljana, invites architects, landscape architects and designers to The Feral Palace open call. Multispecies Design Challenge introduces principles of zöonomic methodology, multispecies […]

220403 | Enzo Mari【DIY】作業机 Work table episode.1

*I’ve never seen a Mari piece knocked together on the cheap by some innocent person with no idea what they’re doing; building them is always some kind of spiritual practice by somebody associated with the design world.

220403 | Advice from Enzo Mari

*One has to like his air of utter simplicity, as if the viewer has never before experienced the existence of a board or a nail.

220403 | Enzo Mari self-production miniatures

*I once did this myself — I made a small Mari bench out of sliced cardboard, just to prove to myself that it worked. *They work, but they’re bulky, heavy and the simple nailed joinery tends to come apart. Of course you could just pick up the hammer and whack them together again, and if […]

220403 | Toolsets for little kids in Torino, 2022

220403 | Italian electronics plants…

… as UNESCO World Heritage buildings.

220403 | The Race to Archive the Ukrainian Internet

“The Race to Archive the Ukrainian Internet “In times of war, preservation is more critical than ever—cultural artifacts, historical collections, and important records are often targeted and erased. Since Russia invaded Ukraine last month, the Internet Archive has been a crucial member of the effort to preserve Ukrainian websites, datasets, and digital resources before they’re […]

220403 | Go-bags

*They’re not Artmaker bags, but they have similarities. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/apr/02/emergency-bags-packed-for-quick-getaway-activists-fires-floods

220402 | Bruce Sterling addressing IxDA 2022 from a cliff in Ibiza

*I was sick then, but I got better!

220401 | The Fotoplayer sound-FX machine, 1910

*What a fantastic contraption. And over four thousand of them were built! *So farfetched that it might pass for an April Fool’s joke, and yet it’s real.

220401 | Chips of Europe

*One has to wonder about this strange and very expensive experiment in regionalised technology.

220401 | Paola Antonelli and her famous salons

*They’re occurring in-person again! It’s good news for the world! I hope nobody gets sick and dies, but the risk is worth it for the sake of the cause! Dear Bruce, I am happy to invite you to our second event of 2022, MoMA R&D Salon 38: IP: Imperious Property taking place on Monday, April […]

220331 | European Chips Act, a European slide show

*That’s rather informative. https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/repository/document/2022-13/22020329_Chips_Act_Package__Complete_I7LhdGOvIcf7Qbud9zgZlIPiWrA_85575.pdf

220331 | Italian chip fabrication (maybe)

https://supplyframe.com/resources/italy-semiconductor-investment-intel/ The Italian government recently announced a $4.6 billion investment in domestic chip manufacturing, to be completed by 2030. This is a direct attempt to secure the country as the location of Intel’s next European fab site, and all the attending jobs and tax revenues that come along with it. Rome will use tax revenue, […]

220331 | Intel Europe

https://www.reuters.com/technology/intel-spreads-chip-investment-across-six-eu-countries-race-boost-supplies-2022-03-15/ (Reuters) – Intel has picked Germany as the site for a huge new chipmaking complex, giving the first details of a $88 billion investment drive across Europe, which is striving to cut its reliance on imports and ease a supply crunch for manufacturers. The plan is the latest by a major semiconductor maker as […]

220328 | The Internet Ecosystem

https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/who-makes-it-work/

220328 | The European Union space hackathon toolkit

https://hackathons.cassini.eu/tools

220328 | Massimo Banzi interview

https://torino.corriere.it/economia/22_marzo_28/massimo-banzi-scontiamo-limite-culturale-qualcosa-innovativo-se-viene-validato-dall-america-1c310bee-ae6c-11ec-89b4-33ef6a8626b0.shtml (…) Arduino è più noto e utilizzato all’estero che in Italia, il 50 per cento dei ricavi è made in Usa. «Purtroppo ancora oggi scontiamo un limite culturale. Qualcosa è innovativo se viene validato dall’America. A noi è successo così quando la scheda Arduino è stata utilizzata da una Università di New York. Eppure […]

220326 | Strategies for Self-Renewal

Dear friends, Aksioma is proud to present a new publication: (re)programming Strategies for Self-Renewal [A READER] aksioma.org/reprogramming.book Marta Peirano in conversation with Kim Stanley Robinson, Benjamin Bratton, Holly Jean Buck, Anab Jain, Kate Crawford, Joana Moll, Astra Taylor and Eyal Weizman Editors: Marko Bauer, Janez Fakin Janša —– What will it take for humanity to […]

220326 | The European Media Arts Platform: apply for residencies

With the support of the European Union’s Creative Europe programme, and for the next 3 years, the European Media Art Platform (https://emare.eu/) expands its residency program for artists duos, collectives or other artistic collaborations working in the fields of digital art, media art, and bio-art to residencies in 15 countries. European artists or collectives can […]

220326 | Ten years of open-source robotics

*The participants seem pleased with the developments. https://spectrum.ieee.org/open-robotics Ten years ago this week (more or less), the Open Source Robotics Foundation announced that it was spinning out of Willow Garage as a more permanent home for the Robot Operating System. We covered this news at the time (which makes yours truly feel not quite so […]

220324 | Lockdown art

220324 | The Arduino “Braccio” robot arm

220323 | Pandemic claims net-dot-artist

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/tom-moody-dead-1234622521/ Tom Moody, a net artist, musician, blogger, and art critic, died this past Saturday morning from Covid-related complications and pneumonia, according to his gallery, And/Or in Pasadena, California. Moody was in his 60s. Moody was committed to lo-fi internet aesthetics through the use of old software, sometimes termed abandonware, like MSPaintbrush. He was involved […]

220323 | The AI Index for 2022 from the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence

*I won’t read all of this, but I’ll definitely read some of it. https://aiindex.stanford.edu/report/#individual-chapters “The AI Index is an independent initiative at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), led by the AI Index Steering Committee, an interdisciplinary group of experts from across academia and industry. The annual report tracks, collates, distills, and visualizes […]

220323 | Linux Performance Observability Tools

*Enjoy!

220322 | NFT Art Berlin

220322 | A Cray Raspberry Pi

*I know that this is silly. However, it’s also funny.

220321 | Arduino slides, March 21, 02022

220321 | European Innovation Council in Torino

*I should try to figure out what this is, except that, in Torino, it’s impossible to keep up with everything even if you have a staff of one hundred dedicated European researchers.

220321 | Here comes Arduino Week

220321 | All the data structures in Python

*Ouch.

220321 | European Union chip risk factors

*Chips used to be mere commodities that you would cheerfully throw away because Moore’s Law would quickly guaranteed you new and better ones. *Not any more, though. That was then, this is now. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/european-chips-act-communication-regulation-joint-undertaking-and-recommendation (…) Member States should provide to the Commission information for the purpose of mapping factors, trends and events that could lead […]

220321 | Makerfight: French battling robots

*Their event survived the plague and they want new Maker robots for their wars. https://www.makerfight.fr/faq/ https://www.makerfight.fr/blog/makerfight/makerfight-2022-appel-aux-makers-1325/

220321 | Legge Europea Sui Semiconduttori

https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/european-chips-act-factsheet

220321 | Cybersovereign chips

https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-218056?&lg=EN/EN

220321 | The European Chips Act

“Cybersovereignty,” now more than ever, thanks to plague and war. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_729 (…) Members of the College said: Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “The European Chips Act will be a game changer for the global competitiveness of Europe’s single market. In the short term, it will increase our resilience to future crises, by enabling us […]

220318 | Building a chair without using computation or electricity

*It will take quite a while.

220318 | Building wooden chairs

*It’s nice that these are actual chairs, with real lumber and real joinery, as opposed to lasercut-plywood and glue Maker chairs.

220318 | Metaverse as a service

*It’s not another universe, it’s just software. https://www.xrtoday.com/virtual-reality/what-is-metaverse-as-a-service-maas/

220315 | European Union de-platforming Russian state media

*That’s quite a legal and military spectacle. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv%3AOJ.L_.2022.065.01.0001.01.ENG&toc=OJ%3AL%3A2022%3A065%3ATOC COUNCIL REGULATION (EU) 2022/350 of 1 March 2022 amending Regulation (EU) No 833/2014 concerning restrictive measures in view of Russia’s actions destabilising the situation in Ukraine THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular […]

220315 | A 5-axis 3DPrinter

220314 | Il grande puzzle: dove sono i soldi?

https://www.guerredirete.it/il-grande-puzzle-del-metaverso/ (…) La seconda ragione è che nel 2021 Facebook/Meta ha investito nello sviluppo di tecnologie legate al metaverso una tale quantità di denaro che i suoi Reality Labs (la divisione che si occupa delle tecnologie in realtà virtuale e aumentata) hanno fatto segnare 2,2 miliardi di dollari di ricavi e 10 miliardi di perdite […]

220314 | Repower EU

*As Jimmy Carter said many decades ago, an energy crisis is “the moral equivalent of war,” except when it’s an actual war, in which case people tend to forget about the moralising. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_1511 (…) REPowerEU – eliminating our dependence on Russian gas before 2030 Phasing out our dependence on fossil fuels from Russia can be […]

220314 | Margrethe Vestager at SXSW Interactive

*An image from her Twitter stream.

220313 | Olia Lialina disarms Chekhov’s gun

*One of her odder screeds lately. https://pad.profolia.org/s/chekhovs_gun The plan was to write a description for a series of lectures and conversations at Merz Akademie in upcoming semester, but it became a manifesto, I’d like to share with you. Disarming Chekhov’s Gun The mantra passed down from generation to generation “you can’t put a loaded gun […]

220311 | The Refik Anadol Studio Newsletter V.06

*An interesting example of a modern artist’s newsletter for his fans and devotees. In the latter half of 2021, Refik embarked on a whirlwind tour traveling to New York, Miami, Milan, Dubai, London, Barcelona, Berlin, Abu Dhabi, and Glasgow for exhibition openings, installations, art festivals and even a climate conference! We have been extremely fortunate […]

220311 | Clock towers: public display machinery

*Torino has a long-defunct clock-tower machine that could likely be fixed in this way.

220308 | The Arduino Nicla Vision

*It’s a press release. Also, this seems like an unusual device. All eyes on Nicla Vision: the new ultra-compact, low-power solution that combines machine vision and edge computing _ Analyze and process images on the edge, with Arduino Pro’s new ready-to-use, standalone intelligent camera. Arduino PRO announces Nicla Vision, the new addition to its Nicla […]

220307 | Gallerists in Ukraine

*Or fleeing out of it. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-ukraines-art-community-remains-defiant-face-war (…) All of that vanished overnight. In what seemed like an instant, the future Ukrainians had been building for themselves was completely upended. On February 23rd, galleries in Kyiv like Tuasho Gallery, ArtEast Gallery, ArtCult, Triptych, Abramovych Art, Voloshyn Gallery, and many others closed for the evening and did […]

220307 | Meanwhile, at V2 Unstable Media

https://nadd.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en/open-call-network-archives-design-and-digital-culture-research-residency-2022 Open Call: Network Archives Design and Digital Culture Research Residency 2022 The Network Archives Design and Digital Culture invites applications for a Research Residency taking place over the three-month period September – November 2022. The residency programme aims to explore the potential of networked infrastructures for archival practices in design and digital culture. What […]

220307 | “Soft Electronics”, 20th century consumer design

*Adafruit has been getting into antiquarian “dead media” lately, and I deeply appreciate their discoveries like this. *The future-of-electronics is a kind of electronic-history that hasn’t happened yet. https://www.wallpaper.com/design/soft-electronics-book-jaro-gielens-gestalten

220306 | Theo Jansen and his Strandbeests

*What magnificence.

220306 | Raspberry Pi, the legend

220306 | Andy Goldsworthy in San Francisco

*If you have never heard of Andy Goldsworthy, you should research him. Ypu’ll be grateful that I mentioned him, even if you don’t like his profoundly different and unusual artwork. Andy Goldsworthy: Firehouse Opening Reception: Saturday, March 12 | 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM At our new home in Fort Mason Celebrating 30 years of […]

220305 | An opportunity to remember Asia and forget about Russia

https://www.festivaldellorientetorino.it

220305 | Hacker “laws”

*These are more like rules of thumb or proverbs than “laws,” but I’ve heard some of them many times and, having seen some of them in practice, I tend to believe them. https://github.com/dwmkerr/hacker-laws (…) Conway’s Law Conway’s Law on Wikipedia This law suggests that the technical boundaries of a system will reflect the structure of […]

220305 | Apocalypse Now at Toolbox Coworking in Torino

*I hope not. https://mailchi.mp/dc3cac95ba0e/competenze-a-pettine-4939597?e=18c93370d9

220305 | Russian art scene in chaos

*As one would expect, given the circumstances. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/vac-foundation-pushkin-museum-leaders-resign-russia-war-ukraine-1234621033/#recipient_hashed=c390e8ed4db57a34278dcf667f928a643cf769a865c8a8632dcd310412bb9a99 Following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Putin-affiliated trustees at international museums have resigned, blockbuster exhibitions have been suspended, and preparation for both countries’ Venice Biennale pavilions has ground to a halt. This week, it also became clear that the war would have significant impact on the […]

220304 | Laura Kampf and Simone Giertz, 2019

“Being a Maker — it’s a gear sport.”

220303 | Millions and millions of Raspberry Pi machines

https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/28/pi_at_10/ One decade, 46 million units: Happy birthday, Raspberry Pi Eben Upton on RISC-V, supply chains, and what’s next for the dinky computers Richard Speed Mon 28 Feb 2022 // 12:31 UTC INTERVIEW Today marks 10 years since the Raspberry Pi was made available to purchase. We spoke to Pi supremo Eben Upton about the […]

220303 | National chips

*Of course this is the opposite of decades of cheap, globalised chips made by offshored labor and supply chains. *These aren’t market-centric chips; these are militarized chips and part of the military-industrial complex. The government subsidy money (in theory) goes to the most military-centric chips, and not to consumer electronics. *It’s certain to have an […]

220303 | The Internet Society doesn’t want the Internet balkanised

*Many old arguments are rehearsed yet again here. https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2022/03/why-the-world-must-resist-calls-to-undermine-the-internet/ It seems that every time there is a large political event in the world, someone calls for someone else to be excluded from the Internet. The latest call to cut people off comes in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Internet Society must […]

220303 | More war art news via artnews.com

*This sure makes some melancholy reading. The Headlines THE WAR IN UKRAINE. A Russian attack in the area of Babyn Yar Kyiv, the site of a Nazi massacre of Jews, has been condemned by Jewish groups, the New York Times reports. It was not immediately known to what degree a memorial recently unveiled there was […]

220301 | Meanwhile, at the House of Electronic Art

Dear friends of HEK, March not only brings spring vibes, but also a varied programme at HEK. The exhibition «Swiss Media Art: Marc Lee, Chloé Delarue, Laurent Güdel – Pax Art Awards 2021» is still open for you and runs until 24.04.2022. Enough time to immerse yourself in Swiss media art. Speaking of immersion: If […]

220301 | Adafruit Tools Gift Guide

https://www.adafruit.com/explore/tools *They’re Adafruit, that’s why they’re offering lock picks.

220301 | Arduino Week 2022: Call for organizers

https://blog.arduino.cc/2022/02/28/arduino-week-2022-call-for-organizers/ Arduino Week takes place between 21-26 March, 2022, marking the first time we’ve expanded the birthday celebration into a full week of talks, events, launches and presentations. We’re reserving the last day of the week (Saturday, 26th March) for these community-driven events; putting the spotlight on your celebrations for the big finale. We recently […]

220301 | Warfare burning a museum

*Plagues don’t actually set museums on fire, which is why plagues are a little kinder to the art world than war is. *They’re not kinder by much, though. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/maria-prymachenko-paintings-ivankiv-museum-destroyed-1234620348/#recipient_hashed=c390e8ed4db57a34278dcf667f928a643cf769a865c8a8632dcd310412bb9a99

220228 | The effect of new war on the art world

*A pandemic wasn’t bad enough. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/02/28/russian-artists-pull-out-of-venice-biennale-over-war-a76659 The 2022 Venice Biennale, which opens on April 23rd, will no longer have Russian representation. Following the invasion of Ukraine, artists Kirill Savchenkov, Alexandra Sukhareva and curator Raimundas Malašauskas withdrew their participation for Russia’s national Pavilion. On Sunday, in a joint post on social media, Savchenkov and Sukhareva wrote, “There is no […]

220228 | A war in Europe will bring plenty of these

View Exhibition http://vasa-project.com Exhibition Curator: Igor Manko and Yaroslav Solop VASA exhibition by six Ukranian artists: Gera Artemova Fall of Carthage; Melanka Marina Frolova UGLY project. Nikita Viacheslav Poliakov Lviv – Gods Will Kostia Smolyaninov Street Theography Yaroslav_Solop The Last Haven Elena Subach Grandmothers on the Edge of Heaven An artistic mind is intrinsically sensitive […]

220225 | Laura Kampf bought a house

*Also, it’s old, picturesque and decaying, so that ought to be a proper source for endless YouTube Maker videos.

220225 | Handy Geng and his studio

*Geng Shuai or “Handy Geng” is a Chinese video “influencer” from Dinxing county in the Hebei province of China. His comical contraptions have been a popular hit, so in this YouTube video, he gives a tour of his new Maker entertainment space. *Handy Geng does rather a lot of electronics hacking, especially as comedians go. […]

220224 | Arduino week

ARDUINO’S BIGGEST EVER CELEBRATION MARCH 21-26, 2022, IS ARDUINO WEEK, THE WORLDWIDE CELEBRATION OF ARDUINO. _ A week long event full of talks, announcements and presentations to give space to friends, partners and all the entire Arduino community. It’s a mix of official activities organized by Arduino and community events around the globe. A whole […]

220224 | New shows at OGR Torino

Maria Hassabi – HERE curated by Samuele Piazza with Nicola Ricciardi BINARIO 1 Nina Canell – HARDSCAPES curated by Samuele Piazza with Lorenzo Giusti BINARIO 2 From February 25 to March 27, 2022 Free entrance From Thursday to Sunday, from 12 to 8 pm OGR Torino OGR Torino – Corso Castelfidardo 22, Torino www.ogrtorino.it   […]

220224 | Radical: Italian Design 1965–1985

*Americans can’t help but admire this stuff. Radical: Italian Design 1965–1985, The Dennis Freedman Collection February 21–May 7, 2022 Modern Eclecticism: Carlo Mollino Architect & Designer: February 24, 6:30pm, Napoleone Ferrari and Michelangelo Sabatino Yale School of Architecture 180 York Street New Haven, CT 06511 USA www.architecture.yale.edu RSVP Inspired by turbulent global events in the […]

220222 | In Barcelona four years ago

Jasmina was in top form at this event.

220222 | Artisanal “new-retro” computers

https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-craft-of-artisanal-computer-manufacturing It’s a tough time in electronics manufacturing, especially for small outfits. The Great Semiconductor Shortage is driving up the cost of components—if they can be found at all. But Stefany Allaire has not been deterred, delivering products and developing new ones for her dedicated community of customers. Allaire runs Feonix Retro Systems, which caters […]

220222 | Interaction design for artificial intelligence

*This article is impressive. It’s really plunging into the tall weeds. https://becominghuman.ai/a-primer-of-29-interactions-for-ai-866164ab12f0 (…) Regressors “Regression analysis” sounds like some kind of psychology thing, but it’s a math thing. These algorithms look at the relationship between two or more variables to find correlations, allowing them to predict one variable based on the others. This can include […]

220222 | Internet-of-Things sculptures

*Those are remarkable. https://www.bhoite.com/sculptures/

220222 | An articulated metal casting from a 3DPrint

*It looks like it worked.

220222 | Overloaded power strip

*I think I rather need one of these badges, although it’s by no means a good safety practice. https://www.tested-store.com/listing/overloaded-power-strip-badge?product=1789

220221 | Predicting the return of Italian overtourism

*Maybe. https://cultura.gov.it/comunicato/22289 Testo del comunicato “Stiamo lavorando per recuperare dei luoghi bellissimi che potranno diventare dei grandi attrattori di turismo culturale nel futuro. Abbiamo un patrimonio enorme da salvare, da recuperare e da restaurare, non solo nelle grandi città”. È quanto ha dichiarato in diretta al Tg1 il Ministro della Cultura Dario Franceschini. “Il turismo […]

220219 | The golden age of kinetic art is seven years old

220219 | Experiments in Open Science

*This seems like an interesting initiative. https://www.arcadia.science/post/arcadia-and-icor-experiments-in-open-science Arcadia and ICOR: Experiments in Open Science One of the foundational elements of Arcadia is our mission to push the boundaries of open science and to develop new ways of sharing our knowledge and engaging with the broader scientific community. This is a big goal and to achieve […]

220218 | A review of the Raspberry Pi Zero 2

“First, let’s get the specs out of the way,” but the specs never get out of the way, because this is electronics.

220218 | Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller

*Electronics manufactures, what strange people they are. *It took a year for me to catch up with this, but now that I’m in bed sick, I have the time.

220218 | Circuit boards — things of beauty

*These are the simple ones! Children can use them! *Ask a schoolchild near you why a “python” would need “boots.”

220218 | Share Artmaker blogger catches coronavirus

*Let’s hope I don’t share it with anybody.

220218 | Rome in a metaverse

https://news.bitcoin.com/ertha-metaverse-sells-rome-nft-for-record-120k/ (…) Rome no longer belongs to the Romans, but to the buyer who spent $120,000 for the privilege to call one of Europe’s most famous cities their own. Not only do they now have control of world-famous landmarks such as The Colosseum and the Trevi Fountain, but also Vatican City, the home of the […]

220217 | Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

*One of the greatest living tech-artists.

220217 | Adam Savage contemplating film

*An interesting meditation on “dead media” and the nature of technological innovation.

220217 | Token Economics, some writings by various token economists

*If you’re in financial ruins after reading this, it’s entirely your own fault. https://airtable.com/shraQiFHFxU7rm7Wv/tblBVGLgh1XQpun1b

220216 | Desoldering dead electronics

*You never know what you might make from old bones.

220216 | His new electronics lab

*Not bad for a YouTube Makertainer.

220216 | Open-source ferrofluid display

*That’s one of the hairiest open source device-art projects that I’ve ever seen. These guys have been at that labor for years.

220216 | Sparkfun Tinker Kit

*It’s packaged for children, but there’s a lifetime of trouble in there.

220216 | Adam Savage spends half an hour on one blade of his multitool

*This video is verging on self-parody, but if you like shop gizmos, he has them.

220216 | Jasmina Tesanovic at Zeropiu

https://zeropiu.eu/course-view/sul-femminismo

220216 | Forty years of V2 exhibits – the book

https://v2.nl/files/2022/pdf/40-years-of-v2_-english-pdf

220216 | The iFixit Pro Tech tool kit

*Look at all those different screws in electronic consumer devices. What an industry. https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Tools/Pro-Tech-Toolkit/IF145-307

220214 | 意式Moka咖啡壺正確使用方法(含中文字幕）

220214 | The tools and machines inside the Alessi Research Lab

*These backgrounds they’ve chosen are really delightful.

220213 | Achille Castiglioni’s studio

*It’s become a foundation now, but it still has a lot of the maestro’s works on the shelves, along with some of his favorite inspirations.

220213 | Enzo Mari’s atelier

*Wow!

220213 | Michele De Lucchi in his atelier

*How is it even possible that fewer than 800 people have looked at this video? This is fantastic.

220213 | Get the Opinel

*Just don’t get it wet, use it as a hatchet or pry anything with the tip.

220212 | Laura Kampf amusing herself with a junked I-beam

*It’s nice to have a YouTube shop where you can casually slice and punch through large structural-steel construction elements.

220211 | Subsonica, “Strumentale”

*”Mentale Strumentale” is one of the best Subsonica records BECAUSE it had no commercial potential and couldn’t even get released into the Italian pop market. *It may not be possible to be more Turinese than Subsonica.

220211 | NeRF neural radiance fields for entire cities

https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.05263 Submitted on 10 Feb 2022] Block-NeRF: Scalable Large Scene Neural View Synthesis Matthew Tancik, Vincent Casser, Xinchen Yan, Sabeek Pradhan, Ben Mildenhall, Pratul P. Srinivasan, Jonathan T. Barron, Henrik Kretzschmar We present Block-NeRF, a variant of Neural Radiance Fields that can represent large-scale environments. Specifically, we demonstrate that when scaling NeRF to render city-scale […]

220211 | NeRF: Neural Radiance Fields

From 2d snapshots to 3d virtualised reality, with a neural net.

220210 | Music Maker Festival 2022, call for entries

“Call for Music Makers” Now Open Maker Music Festival [and Campus] First Call Open through March 27, 2022 Occidental, CA — February 8, 2022 – Calling all Music Makers! You are invited to participate in the 2nd annual, 2022 edition of the Maker Music Festival [and Campus]. The Maker Music Festival is a VIRTUAL gathering […]

220210 | OGR Torino pictures from the OGR press release

*Hey, these are nice! *Back in the old days of spectacular urban ruin: *Huge renovation project: *It’s glorious!

220210 | Meanwhile, at the Torino OGR building

A golden floor and a carpet of seashells at Binari 1 and 2 of the former Officine Grandi Riparazioni: OGR Torino Art semester begins In Turin, great protagonists of the international contemporary art scene, Maria Hassabi and Nina Canell, collaborations with local, national, and international top-notch organization, up until the project in Venice for the […]

220210 | An NFT art theft website

*They’re not for it; they’re against it, and also, angry about it. https://fuckstealingart.com Has your art been stolen in the form of an NFT? Consult the links on the left to see if this resource can help you. This website is a quickly rushed resource in an attempt to help artists take some sort of […]

220207 | Prix Ars Electronica 2022 open call

“The Award for Digital Humanity,” that seems novel. https://ars.electronica.art/prix/en/opencall/ The Prix Ars Electronica is the world’s most time-honored media arts competition. Winners are eligible for the coveted Golden Nica awards and monetary prizes of up to 10,000 euros in each category. They will also be featured at the Ars Electronica Festival from September 7 to […]

220206 | Makertainer builds her own backyard workshop

*Naturally she adapts the plans of another makertainer who is also active on YouTube.

220205 | Maker Exchange Residencies

https://www.crafthub.eu/maker-exchange-residencies/ Maker Exchange Residencies are a central part of the newly funded EU Craft Hub project which will showcase the wealth of European Craft practice and address sector challenges through artist residencies, training workshops, exhibitions, conferences, and a European Festival of Craft. Between March – July 2022 Craft Hub will run a series of 5 […]

220205 | The late Sylvere Lotringer

*What a character. https://www.artforum.com/print/200304/my-80s-better-than-life-4509 (…) But that immediate embrace was a warning that caused me to set a different course for Semiotext(e) during the ’80s: Success was a sign that the group was becoming closed and too dependent on the opinions of art institutions. (Guattari had written extensively on subject and subjected groups, and I […]

220204 | Neri Oxman at Long Now

Neri Oxman Nature x Humanity Wednesday February 16, 02022 at 7:00pm PT Join us for the upcoming livestream of this talk on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and Long Now Live This talk is presented in conjunction with Neri Oxman’s new exhibition at SFMOMA. Encompassing 40 installations and artworks, the exhibition illuminates her design practice, founded to […]

220204 | Gruppo T: motors, interferences, variations

*What a pleasure to watch this. Heritage is a wonderful thing.

220204 | Terrible fate of innocent moka pot

*Laura Kampf never hesitates to go for the Frankenstein solution.

220202 | A Chinese metaverse

*Have the authorities been informed?

220202 | Meanwhile, on the SPECTRE list

Dear spectrers, Fronte Vacuo, the artist group I co-founded with bioartist and performer Margherita Pevere and media designer Andrea Familari, would like to invite you to experience our new durational performance Humane Methods [∑XHALE], co-produced with Volkstheater Wien, tanzhaus NRW and CTM/Club Transmediale Berlin. Please see the premiere and tour dates below. ∑XHALE is the […]

220201 | Boston Globe glossary of cyber arts

*Art language is rather amusing. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/01/27/arts/human-created-this-guide-cyberarts/

220201 | Right Click Save, a publication about NFTs

https://www.rightclicksave.com/ Right Click Save (RCS) is a new online magazine that seeks to drive critical conversation about art on the blockchain.Its aims are as follows: To engage readers about the ongoing topical and historical importance of NFTs to culture. To give artists and collectors of the NFT space the same level of respect afforded those […]

220131 | Into the tall weeds of CircuitPython

*Maker communities certainly are network-centric. Without some digital sociality, nothing can happen in the “ecosystem.” https://blog.adafruit.com/2022/01/01/circuitpython-in-2022-circuitpython2022-circuitpython/ As 2022 starts, let’s take some time to share our goals for CircuitPython in 2022. Just like past years (full summary 2019, 2020, and 2021), we’d like everyone in the CircuitPython community to contribute by posting their thoughts to […]

220131 | From television entertainment device to collector’s item

As you can see, rather a lot of curatorial problems immediately surface. How do you buy it, maintain it, service it, repair it, deploy it? Also, why would anyone look at it? This YouTube video has well over two million hits.

220131 | Electronics tools

*They cost no more than children’s toys do.

220131 | All the tools in his electronics studio

*I like the informality of this.

220131 | Meanwhile, in Austin, Texas

220130 | The SOG Powerpint (3)

220130 | The SOG Powerpint (2)

“Includes serrated blade, can opener, inch rule, needle nose pliers, bolt gripper, soft wire cutter, straight-edge blade, awl, jewelry driver, hook cutter, file, mm rule, magnetic bit holder, wire crimper, bevel gauge, scissors, bottle opener, #1 Phillips.” https://sogknives.com/powerpint/ The most interesting aspect of this modest multi-tool are the power-assisting gears on the tiny pliers, which […]

220130 | The SOG Powerpint multitool

*I bought one to carry around here in Texas. It’s a decent multitool for its modest size, weight and price.

220129 | A Lia show at a gallery in Turkey

*Lia’s vivid generative art can be a difficult to display, so the way this gallery has arranged that inside what seems to be a traditional Turkish multi-story mansion, that’s quite a curatorial feat. *They’re using a “Matterport 3D Virtual Tour,” among other things. https://www.kalyonkultur.org/lia-hayati-kodlamak/

220126 | The Spanish tin-smith hand-makes a bucket

*This seems like an excellent way to slice your fingers with jagged edges of thin metal, but he is unperturbed, and deploys his specialized implements with great confidence. *This YouTube channel of lost Spanish rural crafts has a lot of interesting work for the scholar of obscure tools.

220126 | Make Magazine’s 2021 year in review

*That was indeed a difficult year, but they’re always up to something. https://makezine.com/2021/12/23/make-2021-year-in-review/

220126 | Adam Savage tabletop smartphone gripper

*Look at that set up. Presumably, along with using that smartphone for handy web searches, he also uses it to record some close-up video of construction processes.

220125 | A Makertainment video about making video of making

*I’m surprised I haven’t seen more of these.

220125 | Processing 4.0 beta 4

https://github.com/processing/processing4/releases/tag/processing-1279-4.0b4 Revision 1279 – 24 January 2022 Loooots of changes under the hood to better support more platforms. And by that, we mean Apple Silicon (now in alpha!) and Raspberry Pi devices (once again). And whatever else gets cooked up in the coming years. For the Windows users, the scaling issues have finally been sorted […]

220123 | 3D Printing on fabric (and illuminated jackets)

*It’s harmless good fun.

220123 | Artificial Aesthetics: A Critical Guide to AI, Media and Design

http://manovich.net/index.php/projects/artificial-aesthetics Chapter 1: Emanuele Arielli. Chapter 1 – Even an AI could do that. Published December 15, 2021 Chapter 2: Lev Manovich. Chapter 2 – Who is an artist in software era? Published January 18, 2022. Book info: Lev Manovich and Emanuele Arielli. Artificial Aesthetics: A Critical Guide to AI, Media and Design. 2021-2022. Book […]

220123 | MoneyLab

Popular search query: “Making Millions with NFTs!” Empowerment or Trap? Jackpot or pocket money? You be the judge. Time to auction off our criticality. In a single year, NFTs have gone from obscurity to superstardom. Are NFTs, DeFi and gamified decentralized apps the new way for the disenfranchised to (finally) get paid? Or are they […]

220121 | The Web3 Stack

*You need a scorecard to name and number the players. *If you end up rugged, rekt or in prison for fraud, don’t blame this blog post. https://blog.coinbase.com/a-simple-guide-to-the-web3-stack-785240e557f0

220121 | Figmin XR reviving Tiltbrush

220121 | This Is Distributed Design

https://distributeddesign.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/This-Is-Distributed-Design-Book-by-Distributed-Design-Platform.pdf

220121 | Blender

220120 | Laura Kampf caught Covid

*Much like her Makertainment colleagues on YouTube, Evan & Katelyn. *When they say “pandemic” they mean it’s for everybody.

220119 | A chart of neural networks

https://towardsdatascience.com/the-mostly-complete-chart-of-neural-networks-explained-3fb6f2367464

220118 | Web3 and its dubious greatness

*She collects news about blockchain and NFT scandals, and she doesn’t lack for material. https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

220117 | The WELL State of the World MMXXII is concluding

*That kept me busy for a while. https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/516/State-of-the-World-2022-page01.html

220115 | Bizarre knife-sharpening gadgets

*Those have more design variety than mousetraps.

220113 | Prix Ars Electronica 2022 begins today

https://ars.electronica.art/prix/en/ Submissions now open: Prix Ars Electronica 2022 begins today (Linz, January 13, 2022) Projects can be submitted for the Prix Ars Electronica from now until March 2, 2022 (inclusive). The world’s longest-running media art competition is looking for outstanding works and projects in the categories “Computer Animation,” “Digital Communities,” “Interactive Art +” and “u19 […]

220113 | Commedia dell’arte in Piemonte

*Where is Gianduja? https://iltorinese.it/2022/01/13/arlecchino-furioso-e-peter-pan-per-un-week-end-di-puro-divertimento/

220113 | Another new Feral File show

Field Guide Announcing a new exhibition of five artists who use generative art to create new universes and breathe life into novel forms. Exhibition Opening: January 20, 2022 14:00 UTC+0 (6am Los Angeles, 11am São Paulo, 3pm Berlin, 10pm Shanghai) Collecting begins one hour later Feral File and Bitmark are pleased to announce the gallery’s […]

220113 | Device art for brutal thrill-seekers

*BattleBots, the American TV series. A highlight reel on Youtube.

220113 | In NFTs, We’re Not All Gonna Make It

https://mirror.xyz/nnimrodd.eth/s4gU0NnIEFBnM0wKcCXyWAcyNHl94ooLCs5RHWdnBiY Wagmi Fallacy by Nimrod Kamer 0xC7D9 January 10th, 2022 How to tame your Web 3 ego while not losing it on Discord Don’t buy art you like, only art you can get rid of. 10% of us are builders. The other 90% should just Connect Wallet and chill. Buy JPGs with an active floor. […]

220111 | STARTS Prize 2022 Submissions Now Open

Science, Technology & Arts – STARTS STARTS Prize 2022 Submissions Now Open (Linz/Brussels, January 11, 2022) The STARTS Prize 2022 of the European Commission is calling on artists, scientists, technologists, institutions, labs and companies to submit their best projects starting today. This year, as every year, we are looking for groundbreaking works at the intersection […]

220111 | Laura Kampf veering into art-world design fiction

*Well, why not her? “The reward for good work is more work.”

220110 | The Ars Electronica Archive

*It certainly is big. REALLY big. *Probably I could do nothing for the rest of my life but pick around in there. https://ars.electronica.art/about/en/archive/

220109 | MRT Virtual in Torino

https://sguardisutorino.blogspot.com/2022/01/con-mrt-virtual-i-musei-reali-di-torino.html L’emergenza sanitaria in cui ci troviamo immersi da quasi due anni ha cambiato il nostro rapporto con il digitale, che è diventato essenziale nella vita lavorativa, ma anche nel modo in cui fruiamo della cultura: mostre, musei, eventi. Dopo una prima fase in cui la modalità a distanza è stata l’unica possibile, oggi il […]

220108 | The least powerful people in the contemporary art world

*This article is better than I expected. https://hyperallergic.com/703310/the-20-most-powerless-people-in-the-art-world-2021-edition/ (…) 9. Afghan Artists at risk — After two decades of American occupation, Afghan artists were left to the mercy of the regressive Taliban regime, with some facing immediate danger to their lives. Afghani groups in the diaspora and their allies have continuously pleaded with the US […]

220107 | “The Savoyard”

*Avanti Savoia!

220106 | New WIRED USA editor having a crisis of conscience

*This doesn’t really belonng here in the Share Festival Artmaker blog, but it’s nevertheless very interesting culturally. *It arrived today in email. In the next few decades, virtually every financial, social, and governmental institution in the world is going to be radically upended by one small but enormously powerful invention: the blockchain. Do you believe […]

220106 | Near Future Laboratory in 2021

https://medium.com/design-fictions/2021-a-year-in-a-list-15a789cdb109 FROM: The Near Future Laboratory SUBJECT: 2021 — A Year In A List The Near Future Laboratory isn’t a ‘normal’ organization by any means — we’re a distributed network of accomplished practitioners based in five different cities in California, Mexico, Switzerland and Spain. We each have our own personal interests but come together through […]

220105 | Evgeny Morozov collecting crypto-NFT analysis and opinions

*It may not be correct, but it’s guaranteed to be brainy. https://the-crypto-syllabus.com/

220104 | The WELL State of the World 2022

*Our much-considered futurist discussion is a tradition decades old! https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/516/State-of-the-World-2022-page01.html

220104 | Current trends in deep learning

*This is from almost a year ago, but there’s still a lot of gimmicky novelties on display here.

220103 | Reviewing contemporary smart glasses

*It’s been ten years since Google Glass. https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/smart-glasses-have-a-lot-of-work-ahead-in-2022/ (…) Will someone figure out how we interact with these glasses? There’s no mouse or trackpad or keyboard for AR. There isn’t even an agreed-upon controller. While VR headsets generally tend to have dual controllers that look like a gamepad split apart, AR headsets tend to either […]

220101 | Street art of 2021

*Street art is not NFTs, and it’s not in the galleries either, but the pandemic doesn’t slow it down much. https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/most-beautiful-murals-2021/47-nerone-new-brighton

220101 | “Metaverse-Ready Gallery Capsules”

*Benvenuti, MMXXII! “Just weeks after being acquired by Nike Inc., NFT studio RTFKT collaborated with leading NFT gallery Oncyber to jointly launch Space Pods.” https://blokt.com/news/space-pods-a-stunning-way-to-show-off-your-nfts-in-the-metaverse 

211231 | Boosta doing NFTs

*Why not? https://www.davidedileo.com/musicisart

211229 | Max Casacci + Studio Clichè

#MFR2021 – Maker Music: Cubo Session Max CASACCI + Studio Clichè Live @ Gazometro Ostiense

211229 | Alessandro Sciaraffa interview

*Wow! https://www.artribune.com/professioni-e-professionisti/who-is-who/2021/12/intervista-alessandro-sciaraffa/

211229 | L’enigma Beeple

https://www.ilgiornaledellarte.com/articoli/la-persona-del-2021-l-enigma-beeple/137688.html

211228 | Another odd Maker soldering station

*This is less than a coincidence. *The business about fraud entering the prop collectible space is also quite interesting. They’re not real, they’re “props,” so how to you get an authentic one?

211228 | Junk construction

*There’s Laura Kampf, whose aesthetic philosophy consistently leads her to make useful objects out of society’s throwaway junk. “That’s a particularly Frankenstein-looking gadget that she’s cobbled up there, even by Laura’s generous standards. *You’ll notice that the guy who inspired this project, “Felix,” gets recruited by Laura as her Youtube videographer. Then she encourages her […]

211228 | Epoxy

*This is not a punk table made of scrapwood and junked electronics; this is a vast slab of epoxy with some scrap wood and electronics suspended inside of it. *Evan and Katelyn are also makertainers who are very given to the use of epoxy; it’s a YouTube trend that’s not so much “machining” as public […]

211226 | Zerocalcare on Netflix

*I always wondered what the armadillo sounded like.

211226 | Edutainment

211225 | Salvatore Iaconesi complaining about NFTs

*Well, I read it, and now you can too. https://xdxd-vs-xdxd.medium.com/nft-12cb8583ca23

211225 | 2021, year of the NFT

*Nice retrospective there. https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/artists/2021-year-of-the-nft-1234614022/

211225 | Torino City Lab 2021

211224 | Tourist Papyrus

*The word “paper” comes from the papyrus plant, but this very ancient written medium certainly has a turbulent modern history. ]https://youtu.be/SBdVhvo2UUM

211222 | Tim O’Reilly discussing Web3

*The guy who coined the term “Web 2.O” discusses Web3, and it’s well worth a look. https://www.oreilly.com/radar/why-its-too-early-to-get-excited-about-web3/

211222 | Share Festival Artmaker Bags on public display!

Oh the joy! Literal years of our curatorial labor! *At Via Egeo 16 in Torino.

211221 | When the running shoe company sells NFTs

*This thread of Twitter remarks deserves some commemoration; it’ll be even more interesting in a few years. @adidasoriginals on Twitter, December 20, 2021 In the metaverse, challenging the impossible is the reality. On Friday we landed in the world of Web3 with one of the most widely-distributed NFT drops in history.  Our intention has always […]

211219 | YouTube Makertainer appears in American cable television show

*She makes a YouTube episode about her appearance on the mainstream show. *Such is the difference between YouTube and conventional television entertainment — note the makeup staffers, professional lighting, costume department, celebrity hosts and so on.

211219 | Adam Savage, design theorist

*He needs better lighting because his shop is a video studio, and he also needs more wall space because his walls are theater sets. *The part about a workshop being a process rather than a destination is well observed. People who are coders sometimes want a physical environment where all the components are static and […]

211217 | Tomorrow morning

211217 | Make your own 100-year-old Thayaht tuta

*Go ahead, I dare you!

211216 | Collaborative ART Archive (CARTA)

*Lots of Americans. Collaborative ART Archive (CARTA) Art historians, critics, curators, humanities scholars and many others rely on the records of artists, galleries, museums, and arts organizations to conduct historical research and to understand and contextualize contemporary artistic practice. Currently, much of the art-related materials that were once published in print form are now available […]

211215 | Nice set of modern fab lab machines

211215 | Thayaht and his labors one hundred years ago

*I really want to see somebody wearing those proto-Maker overalls from 1919.

211215 | “This Is Distributed Design”

*According to Fab Lab Barcelona.

211215 | The Future of Living, Oriana Persico & Salvatore Iaconesi

211215 | Meanwhile, in Brussels, contemplating AI

211214 | CALL FOR PAPERS: The 13th International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC’22)

on behalf of ICCC 2022 CALL FOR PAPERS The 13th International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC’22) June 27 – July 1, 2022, Bozen-Bolzano, Italy (physical event supporting some virtual presence) Call for papers: full regular papers (long papers) https://computationalcreativity.net Please distribute —————————————- Computational Creativity (or CC) is a discipline with its roots in Artificial Intelligence […]

211214 | New book by Olia Lialina

Dear Nettimers It’s a book! TURING COMPLETE USER – RESISTING ALIENATION IN HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION. https://books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/arthistoricum/catalog/book/972 qISBN 978-3-98501-072-1 ISBN 978-3-98501-071-4 (PDF) The following essays were written between 2012 and 2020, a time that will hardly be remembered for any groundbreaking hardware or software inventions. The iPhone, the Tesla Roadster, Web 2.0, even the Infinite Scroll […]

211212 | The Vannevar Bush “Memex,” an animation

*This was a conceptual design for an analog information-processing device that the great man wrote about but never built.

211211 | Contemporary headmounted displays

*That seems like rather a lot of them. Perhaps too many.

211211 | Share Gallery

*Hurray for our home team. On the occasion of the event celebrating the 10th anniversary of the birth of Fablabs in Italy, Share Festival opens the day with a talk by its artistic director Bruce Sterling and presents the Share Gallery exhibition with works by Christoph Laimer, Lia, Diego Scroppo, Laura Viale, Tobias Zimmer and […]

211210 | Meanwhile, at Feral File

*Things are changing fast for them. This time they’re exhibiting the works well beforehand and preparing the auction, which, to date, seems to be blitzing by in nanoseconds. For Your Eyes Only Announcing a new exhibition of artworks exploring the machine gaze and its implications, curated by Domenico Quaranta. Exhibition Opening: December 15, 2021 6pm […]

211210 | An oral history of Processing

*Well, they were there. https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/processing-the-software-that-shaped-creative-coding/ (…) Casey: We saw a potential for learning how to code in a more essential and foundational way—that was really the vision of Processing. I don’t really think that was happening at the time. Instead of, to say it in a really crude way, dumbing down coding so designers can […]

211209 | The Art Review Power 100 for 2021

https://artreview.com/power-100/

211209 | “Mad Scientist” tools and studios, part 4

211209 | “Mad Scientist” tools and studios, part 3

211209 | “Mad Scientist” tools and studios, part 2

211209 | “Mad Scientist” tools and studios

*I collect these. I especially like the comparisons over different cultures and periods of centuries.

211208 | SXSW Interactive 2022

*It looks like they’re determined to have one! SXSW Website: https://www.sxsw.com/news/2021/reggie-fils-aime-julia-cheek-tyler-blevins-maelle-gavet-more-join-sxsw-2022/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SXSWFestival/posts/10158590029148994 Twitter: https://twitter.com/sxsw/status/1468264695731732491 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6874030386641436672 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CXMHX0POogy/

211208 | Transformers

https://e2eml.school/transformers.html Transformers were introduced in this 2017 paper as a tool for sequence transduction—converting one sequence of symbols to another. The most popular examples of this are translation, as in English to German. It has also been modified to perform sequence completion—given a starting prompt, carry on in the same vein and style. They have […]

211208 | Karpathy GPT model on GitHub

*It’s a neural net architecture, but it’s so small and compact. I can put all its python code into one blog post. So, why not? At the Share Artmaker Blog, we’re here to serve! Andrei Karpathy is the director of AI at Tesla, leading the Autopilot Vision team. Previously OpenAI, CS231n, PhD @ Stanford. https://github.com/karpathy/minGPT/blob/master/mingpt/model.py […]

211207 | Wombo, an AI art web-toy

https://app.wombo.art/

211207 | The Italian Museum Economy

*Obviously business is improving. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/12/07/italys-museums-move-to-stop-ticket-touts-post-covid-comeback As tourists return to Florence and Rome, ticket touts are also making a comeback. Now, the Uffizi Galleries’ director Eike Schmidt, who has waged war on touts since taking office in 2015, hopes to deliver a final blow. “We are already working on introducing named tickets,” Schmidt reveals to The […]

211207 | Carlo Ratti as journalist (rather than architect)

*Professor Ratti working his Rem Koolhaas muscles as writer-urbanist. https://www.project-syndicate.org/columnist/carlo-ratti

211207 | Giant Carlo Ratti solar-powered Lavazza coffee pot

*Hahahaha! It’s the greatest. Wish I had one of my own! AKING COFFEE WITH THE SUN CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati and Italo Rota unveil a new café designed for Lavazza at Expo Dubai 2020. Located within the Italian Pavilion, the project features a 2.5-meter-tall Moka pot powered by solar energy that heats up water to make […]

211207 | One has to post this Adam Savage video

*A Leatherman made by an artist in a limited-edition run of 100, but of course he has to own one. Who can blame him? *The mass-market costume play is an interesting social development — why do people want to play in costumes during an epidemic? Why is there enough market demand to pay for injection-molding?

211205 | Next year, at Transmediale in Berlin

https://transmediale.de/de/projects/abandon-all-hope-ye-who-enter-here

211205 | The Beachcomber of Novi Kotor

*I should write more science fiction about robot artists. *Normally I don’t trouble the Artmaker blog with my efforts at fantascienza, but this piece has so many art-world in-jokes in it that it’s actually funny if you’re into tech-art. https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/artificial-labor/140675/the-beachcomber-of-novi-kotor/

211205 | Deep AI’s data science glossary

https://deepai.org/definitions *You have to like the English language to appreciate what AI is doing to it, but AI jargon is quite poetic. This glossary not only lists some of the most weird and beautiful jargon terms, it also explains them. For instance: the wonderfully-named “Exploding Gradient Problem.” What is the Exploding Gradient Problem? In machine […]

211204 | Philip Torrone doing art photography

*If you ever wondered what the offices of “Adafruit” looked like. https://twitter.com/ptorrone/status/1466949942082158593?s=20

211202 | Norm and his video makertainment gear

*You’ll notice that the entire last half of this tool recommendation video is about making videos of your makerspace. *It’s part of the trend from old-school fab-lab to FX and video production unit.

211202 | Favorite tools of Kayte the miniaturist

*Those needle-nose pliers impress me. I like it that they have no branding. *Also the business about archival glue that doesn’t age and ruin everything with its acidity, that’s often overlooked in the heat of the moment.

211202 | Ars Electronica interviews a plastics futurist

*This seems like a very sensible idea, but it’s also alarming to see the European electronic-art world attempting to save the planet. It’s as if you’d recruited all the synthesizer-players and invited them to protect the national forests. *With that said, the volume of plastic on our planet’s land and seas is truly staggering, Maybe […]

211201 | The Mom of Simone Giertz

211201 | Outland dot art

*It’s a platform, it’s a magazine, it may be an NFT retail outlet, but whatever it is, it’s new and it’s remarkably interesting. https://outland.art/

211201 | Arduino’s favorite Arduino Uno projects

*It’s interesting that they are taking the trouble to curate them. https://blog.arduino.cc/2021/11/29/our-12-favorite-arduino-uno-projects/ Our 12 favorite Arduino UNO projects ARDUINO TEAM — November 29th, 2021 The UNO wasn’t Arduino’s first board, and it won’t be its last. There have been many varieties of microcontroller and maker boards before and after the UNO, but none have been […]

211130 | A sermon from Lauren Lee McCarthy

*These sermons get a lot more convincing when people have been actually doing it for twenty years. https://medium.com/processing-foundation/making-p5-js-fd293ba91a32 They want us to think technology is a black box. Accept the terms of service. You can’t know what’s inside. You can’t modify it. You certainly can’t make your own.We didn’t believe it so we made p5.js. […]

211129 | DiResta 3 Makers Mob Compilation

*Jimmy DiResta really tearing it up with the professional Maker gear there. *It’s all about the plans, adhesives and belt-sanders.

211129 | A swivel-mount for your wall-mounted electronic art screen

*Because screens, even when mounted on the wall like a painting, are not the same thing as an analog canvas. https://www.netgear.com/home/digital-art-canvas/swivel-mount/

211129 | Meanwhile, in Kyrgyzstan

The Nomadic Image 2022 The Seventh Transdisciplinary Conference on Imaging at the Intersections of Art, Science, and Culture 23 – 25 September 2022 Virtual and in-person, Naryn, Kyrgyzstan ABSTRACT SUBMISSIONS: Deadline 15 March 2022 CALL FOR ABSTRACTS The Seventh Transdisciplinary Imaging Conference will be held in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan, a country where […]

211129 | Feral File operations

*It’s all about the bridges, this season. FERAL FILEhttps://feralfile.com Our next exhibition, –GRAPH, will open on November 30, 2021 14:00 UTC+0 (10pm Shanghai, 3pm Berlin, 11am São Paulo, 6am Los Angeles), with collecting to begin one hour later. Join us on Discord to engage with other collectors, the artists, and curator Casey Reas. Save this […]

211127 | Meanwhile, in glamorous Milano

211127 | Mint your own NFT at Basel Miami Beach

*With no less a man than Mario Klingemann. https://www.artbasel.com/stories/mint-your-own-nft-at-art-basel-miami-beach At this year’s edition of Art Basel Miami Beach, visitors can dip their toes into the mysterious world of cryptoart and create NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) of their own. The German artist Mario Klingemann, aka Quasimondo, will generate AI portraits of fairgoers who can then use the […]

211126 | Meanwhile, at Feral File

FERAL FILE https://feralfile.com –GRAPH Announcing a new exhibition of software art and plotter drawings, curated by Casey Reas. Exhibition Opening: November 30, 2021 14:00 UTC+0 (10pm Shanghai, 3pm Berlin, 11am São Paulo, 6am Los Angeles) Collecting begins one hour later Feral File and Bitmark are pleased to announce the gallery’s tenth exhibition, featuring plotter drawings […]

211126 | Even more pics of the Arduino limited-edition collectible

211126 | Pics of the Arduino limited collectible

*This kills me. I am hard put not to buy ten of them.

211126 | A limited-edition collectible Arduino

*That’s an interesting development. ARDUINO UNO MINI A LIMITED EDITION COLLECTOR’S PIECE. _ 10 million Arduino UNO boards have been sold to a worldwide community. It’s time to celebrate with a limited edition collectible. The world’s favorite development board has gone mini. Arduino’s most iconic device is reaching the incredible milestone of 10 million boards […]

211126 | UNESCO AI Ethics

*Everybody agreed, so it probably doesn’t say much. *Also, the USA is not a member of UNESCO. Via. AI: Decoded, brought to you every Wednesday by Melissa Heikkilä, POLITICO’s AI Correspondent in London. UNESCO ADOPTS ETHICS RULES FOR AI A world first: Yesterday, 193 countries adopted UNESCO’s recommendation on AI ethics. AI: Decoded spoke with […]

211126 | A 5.11 workshop

*It’s rare for these veteran purveyors of American police and emergency-rescue gear to imagine a workshop full of tools. *This is set-design in a website ad, but it’s interesting anyway.

211126 | The Neri Oxman Cycle of Creativity

*Your guess is as good as mine!

211125 | DART Milano

*That seems fun. https://artemagazine.it/2021/11/16/la-crypto-art-al-museo-della-permanente-di-milano/ MILANO – Dal 23 novembre 2021, DART | Dynamic Art Museum, progetto museale ideato da Piergiulio Lanza e realizzato insieme all’Arch. Riccardo Manfrin, presenta due nuove mostre collettive, presso il Museo della Permanente di Milano. “2121” Al piano terra, si terrà “2121”, il primo grande progetto espositivo dedicato alla Crypto Art […]

211125 | WIRED Italia recommends do-it-yourself tools

*They’re on sale! https://www.wired.it/gallery/black-friday-2021-fai-da-te/

211125 | Call for Young Makers

*Might be great fun if you’re just hanging out in your parents’ garage making stuff out of used tires, melted plastic and leftover packing crates. https://www.arshake.com/en/game-over/game-over-call-for-ideas-5-0/ VILLAM with Arshake. Reinventing Technology is launching an open call for young makers (under 35) who want to take part in a major artistic operation with the opportunity to […]

211123 | LO SPLENDORE DEL MUTO / THE SPLENDOUR OF SILENT CINEMA

*There’s many a time when I wandered into the vast atrium of Torino’s National Cinema Museum, and seen this highlight reel playing on the big screen.

211123 | Critical Making by Garnet Hertz

*That series is eight years old and still intensely interesting. http://conceptlab.com/criticalmaking/ CONTENTS (Version 2012-11-14-1225) Critical Making – Introduction: 14 pages. Garnet Hertz – Making Critical Making (CriticalMaking2012Hertz-Introduction-pp01to10-Hertz-MakingCriticalMaking.pdf) Garnet Hertz – Acknowledgements (CriticalMaking2012Hertz-Introduction-pp11to12-Hertz-Acknowledgements.pdf) Garnet Hertz – How To Cite This Work (CriticalMaking2012Hertz-Introduction-pp13to14-Hertz-HowToCiteThisWork.pdf) Critical Making – Manifestos: 48 pages. Daniel Charny – Power of Making (CriticalMaking2012Hertz-Manifestos-pp01to06-Charny-PowerOfMaking.pdf) Anne […]

211123 | Alice Pasquini decorates a Jaguar

*She’s been known to do street art in Torino. *I wouldn’t have thought that a luxury car gig would be up her alley, but sometimes fame beckons. https://flic.kr/p/eamLsf https://www.artribune.com/television/2021/11/video-la-jaguar-diventa-opera-darte-sostenibile-con-la-street-artist-alice-pasquini/ Alice Pasquini is the Roman street artist known all over the world for her colorful, feminist and ecological art. It could only be she who transformed […]

211122 | Postponed Until Further Notice

*A familiar story. Postponed Until Further Notice DEADLINE EXTENDED [not Until Further Notice but until December 1st] The Wrong Biennale n°5 embassy/pavilion Postponed Until Further Notice is inviting (internet/digital) artists, conceptual designers, meme artists, poets, writers, critics, and other makers and thinkers to become part of a collaborative experiment. Deadline extended: Wednesday, December 1, 2021 […]

211122 | NFT Bay

*Enjoy it, if you’re in the mood for that. Via ARTNews: An artist and programmer, Geoffrey Huntley, has created a torrent site that allows anyone to download more than 15 terabytes worth of NFT works—purportedly every one registered on Ethereum and Solana—for free. Its name: The NFT Bay. Text on the site explains, “As web […]

211122 | Laura Kampf Inspired Bench Build

That’s a seriously punk “guerrilla-built” bench.

211122 | The new Neri Oxman fab lab

*That must be some kinda Manhattan atelier. Neri Oxman launches new studio to “contribute to a better world” Day 15: Architect and designer Oxman used her Dezeen 15 manifesto and an accompanying movie to set out the vision for her new studio. “We envision it as a kind of a Bell Labs of the 21st […]

211121 | Open call for Shemakes labs

*Imagine somebody *paying* you to create a fashion lab. https://shemakes.eu/labs-call Shemakes is holding an open call for 12 new Labs to join our network. Winning labs will each receive €15,000 to carry out community activities that advance the role of women in the fashion, textile and clothing industry. Deadline for applications: November 30, 2021 Funds […]