The Shared Experience

A recent article in The Guardian noted that the perennial concept of the ‘uncanny valley’ has rolled around once more – when human ‘replicas’ cross the line and become too real.  At such a moment, we recognise them as neither fake nor real, and become involuntarily repulsed by them – the corresponding dip in empathy is the uncanny valley.

There are some clear and obvious examples of this, all of which are cited in the article, but it is the “re-imagining” of Tintin where The Guardian claims the ‘uncanny valley’ can be found in full effect.

“Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson hope to make Tintin a global household name with their new animated extravaganza, but in the process, they have brought another obscure term into the mainstream: the uncanny valley. The phrase has cropped up a lot in early reviews of The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, referring to the strange effect created when animated characters look eerily lifelike. As New York magazine put it: “Tintin looks simultaneously too human and not human at all, his face weirdly fetal, his eyes glassy and vacant instead of bursting with animated life.” Many others have agreed.” (Read full article)

Shiven Sharma from the University of Ottawa, Canada, begs to differ, and – in an article from the Wall Street Journal - claims that the reproduction of Tintin remains sufficiently stylised to keep us off the valley floor: “Our mind is more accepting of stylized representations. That’s why the Tintin movie looks so good. They’ve made photorealistic people out of the comic books. But they’re Tintin people—the way they’re shaded, and the way they’re proportioned, is all made to have the same visual style that Hergé created in the comic.” 

Whether it is CGI, sculpture, photorealism or any other artform that aims to perfectly capture the human form, the graph below shows us where we might run into trouble.  If our creation is moving, that’s clearly more problematic. If they happen to exhibit the physical traits of a zombie, then you’re going to find yourself plummeting right to the depths of that valley.  Perhaps Spielberg and Jackson should just bite the bullet and go the distance with this thing – I think Zombie Tintin might well have a better run at the Box Office than the current incarnation.

The graph comes from Wikipedia‘s entry on the uncanny valley, wherein they note: “The name captures the idea that an almost human-looking robot will seem overly “strange” to a human being and thus will fail to evoke the empathic response required for productive human-robot interaction“.   That has to be my favourite phrase of the week – let us all pause for reflection on what “productive human-robot interaction” may actually entail.

Imagining The City is a simple idea, simply executed and simply suggests where storytelling could go from here.

The iPhone app, produced by Queensland University of Technology, tags short stories with relevant Brisbane locations on an in-app map, allowing the reader to delve deeper into the creative geography of place. There have of course been similar ideas in the past – Blast Theory‘s Rider Spoke springs to mind, as does the wider psychogeographic movement – and, whilst this is an easy-to-interpret and straight-forward looking app, it hints at a wider opportunity, yet to be seized.  There are thus far eight stories (which is sadly slight for a city as wildly imaginative as Brisvegas), concentrated in a tight radius.  The tales are rightly short for reading off the iPhone screen, and – as a particularly nice touch – each also has the option to hear the story read by the author themselves.

There is a fantastic concept within this, and I hope that the next iteration will up the ante and deliver on the promise.

Letter To Jane was certainly the first, and remains one of the few indie zines that I’ve read on my iPad. In a cluttered market of Readers Digests and News Limited titles, it’s quite a relief to find something that confidently positions itself as an “indie art magazine”. They are now onto their third issue, and to subsidise development of their fourth , they’re turning to Kickstarter’s crowdfunding platform to raise the necessary $5,000. The intention is to develop the user experience of the iPad magazine into something that is substantially more “interactive and multimedia rich”.

Whilst there’s nothing particularly unusual about their pitch, the rewards for backers is interesting – a pledge of $200 or more will bag you the full source code for the magazine platform once its complete. It’s not a plug-and-play reward – you still need to know your way around the iPad development platform to create your own zine – but for those looking to get a head start on tablet publishing, this looks like a sound opportunity.

And if you just want to peruse a bunch of moody monochrome shots and articles on artists such as Best Coast, Washed Out and Dam Deacon, you can start your collection for 99c right here.

Kickstarter: Letter to Jane Magazine for iPad + Source Code

One of the drawbacks of the all-pervasive nature of the iPhone is the ubiquity of the ‘Xylophone’ ringtone. All too often, I hear its repetitive jingle and instinctively reach for the phone, whilst simultaneously watching another five people perform the same action. Although replacement ringtones are easily purchased through the iTunes store (in the form of buying a single or an album track), there’s a certain bravado attached to having your device announce a new call with a blast of auto-tuned Kanye West or some squealing free-jazz from the house of Sun Ra. And besides, most music is written to be enjoyed at its full length – not in clipped 4 second bursts.

Enter one potential saviour – Locally Toned – described as a “public art / original ringtone creation project”. Their site hosts currently over 280 free, original ringtones, but more than simply being a Xylo-alternative, the ringtones are positioned as miniature works of art. Once downloaded onto our devices, the art work “performs itself” when we receive a call.

The aims of the project, according to creator T. Foley, “are technological empowerment, community service and the substitution of a system of shared creativity for one of commerce.” She notes in a recent Pittsburgh newspaper article, “I’m interested in getting out of the studio to collaborate with others and in sharing my work with the public – outside gallery and museum settings…it’s important for all of us to express our creativity and share it with others in interesting ways. We need more ring tones that sound like bicycle bells and the laughter of little kids than we do music industry tones.” Laudable goals indeed.

Download, share and – most importantly – create your own ringtone at locallytoned.org.

And why the image of a goose to accompany this post? Click here to download your very own ‘American Buff Goose Tone’ recorded by the Uniontown Poultry Association.

Following yesterday’s post on innovations in Edinburgh, here’s something of a follow-up – although this time some kudos for Glasgow, and a local theatre company, Fish & Game. Today’s article in The Independent discusses “how artists are using the latest tablet technology to reboot their creative processes” with an interesting emphasis on Fish & Game’s “iPad theatre”.

“We wanted something that was portable, light and robust but could also offer high-quality visuals and sound for the specially composed score”, says Eilidh MacAskill, [Fish & Game's app] co-creator. “The iPad induces audience members to interact with the performance. From looking at the footprints on the floor afterwards we could tell that people had been following it around the room”.

The rest of the articles meanders into some of the more publicised iPad artworks from artists such as David Hockney, Gorillaz and Bjork, but it’s nonetheless a good starting point for a dive into the tablet art world.

Tablet technology: A touch of creative genius

The first web site I ever worked on was back in 1995, when I produced the first site for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. As the largest arts festival in the world, back then it had a modest 1,200 shows running over three weeks (now considerably more). The collateral was a 160 page brochure, with every show listed in alphabetical order. Listing in this way was seen as being extremely democratic for a Fringe festival, however it was essentially useless for the general public. Thus, the idea of creating a searchable online index, additionally categorised by type and by date, seemed like the obvious way to go.

I pulled in a student developer from Edinburgh University called Evan, and paid him the sum of 750 Pounds – for something that would most likely cost tens of thousands today. In addition to having the full index online, we also decided to allow Fringe audiences to rate and comment on shows, to help other people decide what to see. We thought this was absolutely normal and the right thing to do – apparently, in 1995, it was quite ahead of its time. Sadly I lost touch with Evan after I left Edinburgh – I hope he’s rich and successful, he deserves to be.

Having lived and breathed the Festival for five years, I naturally have an affinity for the place and I keep a close eye on their online activity. A couple of years ago, the collective group of Festivals (twelve of them at last count) came together to set up the Edinburgh Festivals Innovations Lab – a project with the bold aim of bringing Festivals, audiences and partners together to “improve the world’s festival city”, largely through online or technological initiatives. I encourage you to visit festivalslab.com for a regular update on all of the inspiring activity that seem to be endlessly flowing from the hive mind of the Lab.

A current project – and one that we would do well to borrow / steal – is the Edinburgh Festivals Ideas Challenge. It’s a simple (and thus highly effective) way of crowdsourcing and rating ideas for future innovations from audiences and local residents. Once added to the site, ideas are voted upon, with a prize for the Most Popular Idea as voted by the public, and a second prize for the Judges’ favourite. So far, the top ideas include a ‘top up’ swipe card instead of paper tickets, an app allowing you to browse and book based on your location and – one of my favourites – “give local residents a 50% reduction” (yes!). Follow the evolving story, and throw in your two pence worth, at ideas.edinburghfestivals.co.uk. The closing date is fast approaching, ending October 31.

And if you know of Evan’s whereabouts, do say ‘hello’ for me. I probably owe him a pint (or three).

img: via festbuzz

A couple of years ago, Sleeveface become a miniature web phenomenon. The idea was stunningly simple – hold a record sleeve in front of your face, and ‘complete’ the picture.

img: Garth Schilling and the Vinyl Whores

The idea was so simple in fact that  it practically begged you to have a go yourself.  We did have a go at The Nest, with a Sleeveface-inspired community competition for Goldfrapp – complete with obligatory semi-naked shots from the former Eastern Bloc, and a deserved winner from Argentina who managed to dazzle with an amazingly over-the-top sofa cover:

In an acknowledgement that when meme fades another is born, a new site - Dear Photograph - takes its cues from Sleeveface but throws out the vinyl album cover and encourages us to raid our shoe boxes and dusty photo albums for prints from a bygone day.  Once rediscovered, we are told to return to the photo’s original location to ‘complete the picture’.  Contributors are also asked to write a short note about the image, beginning “Dear Photograph…”

Here’s some of my favourite examples:

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Where Sleeveface was largely about humour, Dear Photograph is instead emotionally rich.  Whilst it is undeniably dripping with nostalgia, it nonetheless manages to remain incredibly haunting.  And, in an age of rampant iPhone photography, it’s particularly moving to see old prints being used to such mesmerising effect.  It’s another small example of contemporary digital culture reappraising and re-contextualising the artefacts of the past.