nadine » tool

Frustrations?

admin — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:42:11 +0000

Plenty of people gathered today to sign a master plan for the future of culture in Brussels.
The Brussels Kunstenoverleg (BKO) and the Réseau des Arts à Bruxelles (RAB) are coordinating this ambitious initiative.
These two cultural networks bring together more than 90 cultural institutions in the Brussels region of Belgium: theatres, companies, art labs, festivals, etcetera; small organizations as well as big institutes.

Since our complex Belgian federal system makes life extremely complicated for cultural initiatives in Brussels, it was about time that all our harsh frustrations and the ideas that rose from this complexity were formulated in a positive, ambitious and grand way.

And here we have it. 2 Years of hard work. Hardly an object to be tucked away in the bookshelf, but a publication to be seen as a writing pad. Yes, a place to scribble away and transform 2 years of ‘talktalk’ into ‘the real thing’! Join forces and attack!

Remote controlled performance

admin — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:06:41 +0000

Push a button and define the interaction between sound, light and the dance during this dance performance.
Mix(ing)redients wants to bring these elements; movement, sound and light to a similar level on stage. Too often one of the elements disappears to the background. The research into this interaction is what drives Maria Karagianni (coordinator, interaction/interface designer), Sjoerd Leijten (coordinator, composer) and Eleni Pierides (dancer).

Sound came from two sources: the main soundtrack came from the speakers and included a sort of movement manual. The other was broadcast through a FM frequency and came from Eleni who had two sound modules linked to radio channels attached to her body. Working on solar cells they could only function when the light on stage was on.

The audience could chose to which of the two they wanted to listen. If they chose Sjoerd’s main soundtrack, Eleni had to obey its instructions, if not, she could move about freely.

The makers conveniently spoke about ‘free time’ and ‘rigid time’. But very naturally the three different elements were fighting for their right to exist. Had every element the chance to show their complexity the way they really should?
They stayed somehow close to ‘rigid time’, offering still a wide range of options in ‘free time’.

This was a thorough research and experiment. We are curious what time and further research will bring as opportunities, to develop some ideas further and steer their fascinating technical processes (see bulk log) in the right direction.

nadine loves wolfram alpha

tine — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:05:02 +0000

Waw, look at this, WolframAlpha got launched.

Not a search engine, no sir, it’s a “computational knowledge engine”. It generates output by doing computations from its own internal knowledge base, instead of searching the web and returning links. (I stole this from the FAQ on http://www.wolframalpha.com/)

We’ll have to wait and see what the future brings for this tool, at the moment it doesn’t know as many keywords yet. But as up to a first level it’s quite fun already.

Some examples,

If you fill in the name of one city (Brussels f.ex) it gives you concrete data (such as humidity, city population, …) about this one city. If you fill in a second city (Brussels Antwerp) it actually makes comparisons, based on actual and concrete data. Impossible to imagine with a normal search engine. I guess if we’re patient enough to let this engine grow bigger and more intelligent that it will be a indispensable item in our online lives. At the moment, maybe stick to using it for entertaining some friends.

Try these:

Where is Waldo?

Where are my keys?

Why did the chicken cross the road?

or simply typ:

Hello.