I’ve set up a new weblog for the audio/visual performance nights I organise with a couple of friends. The first Segmentation Fault gig was held on 11/11/03 I’ll be adding some images and sounds to the new weblog soon. The Segmentation Fault weblog will be updated by all of those involved so it should be interesting to watch the various different perspectives on the process as we prepare for the next.
Monthly Archive for November, 2003
- - - W A X W E B - - - D a v i d _ B l a i r - -
“The first online feature-film since 1993″
I don’t think I could watch this in its intended form so I’m not sure how much I can comment. The idea for the film seems to be a feature length documentary styled narrative which lets you explore a particular scene or idea by clicking on the video. Unfortunately on my computer the result is a javascript error. It is interesting to note how heavily the site promotes a CD-ROM version of the film:
“The movie is much larger and cleaner, the sound is better, and your speed of access will improve.”
I think it sort of makes the whole “first online feature film” a bit misleading. Maybe it was the “first CD-ROM interactive feature film online”. Like many similar projects it seems like a fairly good idea that never really took off, partly because of technological limitations and partly because the work seemed to be a ‘re-re-mediation’ from the start. A film, in a CD-ROM interactive, on the web.
In my research project I am looking to produce works which are specifically designed for the web. These will invlolve re-mediation of techniques and content but hopefully the outcome will be works which are ‘comfortable’ on the web and ‘conscious’ of their medium.
If you can get Waxweb to work please comment!
OK, apologies for the recent lack of action on the blog front. I’ve been busy with a million other things but I’m back on track now (hopefully). Actually, I have a couple of months worth of links and ideas and things that I have stored as drafts with no comments so I’ll start by sorting through them. Some may be backdated so have a browse and check the categories if you are interested.
I have some pictures and things from my trip to Newcastle and Sydney for the Electrofringe Festival and Plaything conference as well as hilights from an experimental music / video night I organised recently so stay tuned (or reload frequently?).
This review/discussion of the popular Playstation 2 game. I really enjoyed playing The Getaway despite its limitiations. The Buzzcut review likens the game to the platypus “both The Getaway and the platypus will remain cousins of the half-done hybrid, glorious in their jammed-together natures and doomed to the eternal status of curiosity.” The reviewer echoes Espen Aarseth’s concerns on narrative/interactive crossover works. As Aarseth wrote in Aporia and Epiphany in Doom and The Speaking Clock: The Temporality of Ergodic Art “? there seems to be a limit to the usefulness of these modal crossovers, in that an audience will want the work to perform as either one or the other, and their own role to be either that of the player or observer.” (Aarseth, 1999).
In my experience the game was much more engaging than many others which attempt such a crossover. In particular I find the similar Enter The Matrix to be almost unplayable. In some parts of the game your entire ‘mission’ seems to be to walk from one side of the screen to the other before waiting for the next room to load. The game asks you to be the player in some situations where a cutscene would suffice.
With other extremely popular and well designed games such as Grand Theft Auto: Vice City exploring this territory it looks like the slightly awkward platypus is becoming a successful genre in itself.
Segmentation Fault 11/11/03 - A night of retro future noise
Terminal: Live visuals
MCRHLP: Improvised analogue noisescapes
hTRKRTIO: Groovy noise, sleazy club tunes
Matt O: Mouth electronics, textural soundscapes
Dumpster Droid: Tape manipulation interludes
FREE 7:30pm @ LOOP, 23 Meyers Place CBD