YouTube War is an augmented reality card game that is played in front of a live audience. Before each game, in an offstage bullpen, two players select seven videos that make up their hand. They are each given a special visor and 5 cards (pictured below). Each card is custom-printed with the special marker on the front that can be detected by the webcam mounted on the table. The players take their seats at the ‘Tubing table and and look into their private monitor, where they see their 5 videos playing on their cards. An announcer introduces each player and asks them some questions about their life, a la Jeopardy.

After a countdown, both players put a card into the “ring” – in front of the main camera. In a large projection behind the players, the video plays on Player A’s as if it were attached. Player A then draws another card from the deck, which plays a random YouTube video which they can see in her private monitor. Player B then chooses and throws down one of his cards, which also plays in the large projection, and draws a card from the deck. At that point, there is a 10 second pause as the audience members cast their vote by using lasers to point at a target. Hitting the target makes a meter fill up. The player whose meter fills up first wins the round.

During the game, commentators provide a running commentary on the game much like durring a football or World Series of Poker game. Hopefully we will have time to integrate some cool motion graphics stuff to present stats, biographical info, etc.

We will set up a tournament tree at the beginning of the evening and play through untill we find a winner.

The Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is … a crowdsourcing marketplace that enables computer programs to co-ordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks which computers are unable to do. Requesters, the human beings that write these programs, are able to pose tasks known as HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks), such as choosing the best among several photographs of a storefront, writing product descriptions, or identifying performers on music CDs. Workers … can then browse among existing tasks and complete them for a monetary payment set by the Requester.via wikipedia

Crowded is an as-yet unreleased radio show/podcast that is made up of segments of audio recorded by Mechanical Turk workers.  Each episode has a mechanism, such as:

1. Workers listen to a series of songs, choose one that reminds them of an event in their life, and then tell that story.  The stories are then combined and played on top of the song that they chose.
2. Workers are encouraged to call me and have an argument about a topic I give them.  I edit myself out, leaving only one side of the argument.
3. Workers are asked to call and tell a story/reminisce about something that never actually happened to them.
4. Workers are provided with a conference call line and a character to play.  Two or more workers call in and have to play their character.

The workers call in and are given, on average, $5-$8 to send an audio recording that fits the mechanism.  They are given the option of calling a US phone number and leaving a message, or recording themselves on HoundBite or YouTube.

After doing several projects using crowdsourcing, I wanted to do a project that was about the faceless people who are doing these tasks.  Who are they?  Where do they come from?  Why do they do these jobs?

You could argue that I am still just using them and not really humanizing them so much as exploiting their willingness to tell personal stories for a few bucks.  But you can argue a lot of things.

Come Experience The Amazing New Digital Prayer Enhancement Technology!

Inspired by distributed computing projects such as Folding@Home and SETI@Home, Praying@Home is the name given to a suite of technologies developed by The Institute for Faith-Based Technology, or InFaBat™, innovators in the field of technologically-aided spirituality.  The first development is the PrayerRecorder™ – a USB device that plugs into any PC and allows the user to capture her unique Prayer Signature®, an ultra-frequentic resonance that is “broadcasted” by the human body while praying.  The user simply attaches the InFaBat Senso-Cap to her temples and forehead, presses a small InFaBat Prayer Paddle™ between her hands, and prays on a particular subject.  Meanwhile, the PrayerRecorder captures and records the PrayerSignature to the users’ hard drive.  Then, using the InFaBat PrayerBroadcaster™, we can broadcast her Prayer Signature, somewhat like an FM radio station that only God can hear!  Unlike humans, who need to take breaks from praying to fulfill biological needs, computers need no breaks, resulting in 24/7 prayer output.  Additionally, the PrayerBroadcaster unit is equipped with a SPU (Standard Prayer Unit) Amplifier, which increases the strength of your prayers by up to 54%.  These technologies truly represent a revolutionary breakthrough in the field of Digital Prayer Technology.

Our display at the Expo consists of a small, tastefully decorated booth – 8 feet wide, 6 feet deep, and 8 feet tall, containing a solid white prayer bench facing a white computer screen on a white altar and hundreds of pure white candles: a mix between a confessional and a blood-giving station. An attendant in a white lab coat and a priest’s shirt and collar stands by to help users. Choral music plays from speakers positioned in the far corners of the booth.  Adorning the proscenium of the booth is a large glowing sign that displays the number of Standard Prayer Units (SPUs) that we have collected over the course of the Expo. Our goal for the Eyebeam Mixer Expo is to collect 375,000 SPUs, focused on a variety of urgent problems faced by the world today. Above the SPU meter is a glowing sign with the words “Institute for Faith-Based Technology: Come Experience The Amazing New Digital Prayer Enhancement Technology”.  Atop the booth sits an InFaBat PrayerBroadcaster, which looks a lot like a large set of rabbit ears.  Inside, the both is adorned with religious symbols and imagery.  On the prayer bench is the InFaBat PrayerRecorder with the InFaBat  PrayerPaddle and InFaBat Sens-o-cap.

Visitors are invited to come into the booth and kneel down on our prayer bench facing the computer screen.  A soothing voice leads the user through the initial setup process, explaining how to put on the InFaBat Senso-Cap and position the InFaBat PrayerPaddle properly.  The voice will explain that in order to get a perfectly pure PrayerSignature, un-Christian thoughts must be kept at bay because they can disturb the prayer recording process. The voice will suggest that the user get all un-Christian thourhgs out of their system before starting the recording process.  The voice will then go through a brief explanation of how the technology works, and instruct the user to start praying. Meanwhile, the InFaBat PrayerRecorder senses and records the peaks and valleys of the users Prayer Signature as they whiz by on the screen on the altar.  If, at any time during the process, an un-Christian thought is sensed, an alarm sounds and red lights flash, and the user must start over.  On average, this happens to 1 out of every 3 users.

Once recorded, the Prayer Signature and a 2-frame animated snapshot of the user are uploaded to our InFaBat Worldwide Prayer Visualizer. The visualizer is displayed in the form of a large projection above the prayer booth. Participants who have contributed their Prayer Signature are represented inside the visualization by a bubble-like avatar featuring their animated snapshot and prayer signature. The avatars float in a sparkling stew of ephemeral prayer-related iconography. As their prayer is digitally replicated in the InFaBat Mainframe, participants will be treated to dazzling animations of the SPU’s emanating from their avatars and then projected into the heavens.

When the user is done, they are given a readout of their Signature, a sticker to tell the world that they contributed their Prayer Signature to a good cause, and a pamphlet will be available that describes the technology behind the system and give users information about how they can purchase the Praying@Home PE system and optimize their prayer output by using unused computing cycles on their home PC.

Team

Jeff Crouse (set decoration, audio production, programming, pamphlet design) creates software and installations that highlight the absurdity of technology in culture.  Jeff’s previous work includes YouThreebe, a YouTube triptych creator; Invisible Threads, a virtual jeans factory in Second Life; and James Chimpton, a robotic monkey that interviewed the artists of the 2008 Whitney Biennial. He is currently developing BoozBot, a bar tending robot/puppet; and DeleteCity, a Wordpress plug-in that finds and republishes content that has been taken down from sites such as Flickr and YouTube. His work has been shown at the Sundance Film Festival, the Futuresonic festival in Manchester, UK, the DC FilmFest, and the Come Out and Play Festival in Amsterdam.

Aaron Meyers (software design/programming) is a designer and programmer using generative strategies in the creation of software and moving image. Since earning his MFA at the USC Interactive Media Division in 2007, Meyers worked in the now-defunct Yahoo Design Innovation Team, taught classes at UCLA Design|Media Arts and continues to work on a variety of interactive projects for diverse clients that have included Digg, Radiohead, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

Why?

Praying@Home is a parody of Christianity’s attempt to validate itself in the scientific academy, as seen in “scientific” studies about the effectiveness of prayer, creationism, intelligent design, and faith healing.  Our fictitious group – The Institute for Faith-Based Technology – claims to be interested in finding a link between technology and faith, seeming not to notice that their attempts undermine the very idea of faith – namely that it doesn’t care about evidence.  They believe that praying is a purely mechanical task and should be dealt with like any other task that is such a waste of human effort – by mechanizing it.  In so doing, not only do we save time, but we take advantage of the added efficiency, tirelessness, and networkability of computers to multiply the worlds prayer output infinitely, thus solving all of the worlds problems and creating a utopia on Earth.

The Institute will invite visitors to try out their PrayerRecorder and PrayerBroadcaster technology at the Expo in an attempt to get them to buy the home version.  As a marketing scheme, the Institute has announced that they will try to collect 375,000 “Beckells“, or “Standard Prayer Units” (discovered by Fredrick Beckell in the 1970s) during the Expo.  Each user who volunteers to kneel down in the booth and use the PrayerRecorder contributes a varying number of Beckells depending on the purity of their thought and the strength of their unique Prayer Signature.

The Institute also displays a not-so-subtle favoritism towards Christianity, simply assuming that the Christian God is the “correct” god to pray to, while also imposing their on values on the users by warning them against thinking any un-Christian thoughts while operating the PrayerRecorder.  This very dystopic attitude betrays the fact that the illusion of utopia often hides a darker truth.

In society today, criticizing a persons religion is often seen as un-PC at least, and completely taboo at worst.  Religion is given special privileges in most areas of public life, from politics to casual conversation, where other beliefs, like non-religious pacifism, are not protected by the law.  People treat religion as if it is something immutable, like race or sex, rather than as a choice that a person makes for themselves.  Through this parody, we hope to open a debate that is often enthusiastically avoided by forcefully insisting that religion should be open to criticism just like any other belief.

For the past year, we have been developing the Ecosystem Engine in openFrameworks, although I am once again looking at Ogre3D and a few other engines as a good foundation for Ecosystem.

Another team of volunteers (again, recruited from the communities mentioned above) would write documentation about the process of creating animations for the Ecosystem Engine and creating a website where it will be available for download for all major platforms.  Our hope is that we can eventually attract animators to use Ecosystem and showcase other artists’ projects on the site.

In 2007, I was a finalist for a Rhizome grant for the project. Check out the proposal here.

The Finger Olympics started out asn an idea tossed around at Eyebeam between Friedrich Kirschner and Zach Lieberman, and eventually turned into a playable computer vision project.

For more information, go to fingerolympics.com

ABSML is a markup language that is used in a variety of problems incluing Inside the Artists Studio, Befriend a Recruiter and MadLibs Karaoke, and the winner of a 2008 Turbulence grant.

Here is an example of what some ABSML code looks like:

<sentence id="q-art-14" >Have you considered <pickone>creating, making</pickone> <pickone>more, less</pickone> <library>modifier</library> <library plural="true"><get>medium</get>_outcome</library>?</sentence>

<sentence id="q-art-15">You had an exhibition at <organization><source><get>website</get></source></organization>. Some say this was a turning point in your career. <pickone>Do you agree?, but I have my doubts, I'm curious what you think.</pickone></sentence>

<sentence id="q-art-16">Do you ever <pickone>wonder if this is all, wonder if this could be considered </pickone> all just a big shaam?  and - why do you think so?</sentence>

<sentence id="q-art-17">Tell <pickone>me, our listeners</pickone> about your exhibition last year at <organization><source><get>website</get></source></organization>.</sentence>

<sentence id="q-art-17"><pickone>I will let Alfred know., Alfred sometimes makes mistakes., I will speak to Alfred about this.</pickone></sentence>

<sentence id="q-art-18"><pickone>My youngest son - Alfred, Alfred- my youngest son</pickone> <pickone>is a fan of, enjoys </pickone> <pickone>your earlier work, early work, the work from the beginning of your career </pickone> in <city><source><get>website</get></source></city> <pickone>personally I am not a fan - however, but he is young and has childish tastes </pickone> - <pickone>for the benefit of our listeners, for the radio audience</pickone> <pickone>please tell us, do tell us</pickone> <pickone>about, of </pickone> your early career.</sentence>

<sentence id="q-art-19"><pickone>Tell me more about, Let us discuss, Let us return to </pickone> your relationship to <city><source><get>website</get></source></city>, <pickone>which, which I must say </pickone> <pickone>is one of my favorite cities, holds a special place in my heart, is near and dear to me.</pickone>.  How do you feel about it?</sentence>

<sentence id="q-art-20">What about your <pickone>most recent, latest</pickone> <library plural="false"><get>medium</get>_outcome</library>?</sentence>

<sentence id="q-art-21" >But is that really art?<pickone> or something else entirely?, or a <library>modifier</library> fantasy?</pickone></sentence>

<sentence id="q-art-22" >Tell me about your teaching practice at <organization with="University, College, Academy, Institute, school"><source striptags="true"><get>wesbite</get></source></organization>.</sentence>

Download the 2008 catalog to see what we are offering on the Roadshow this year.

2008 Eyebeam Roadshow Catalog

Delete City uses the ridiculous storage allotment of web hosting services like Dreamhost to cache large amounts of user generated content from sites like YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, etc. and then monitors to see if any of this content is subsequently taken down. When it finds removed content, it automatically posts the content to your WordPress blog. The nature of the content can be customized by the user by site, keyword, and other criteria. Devious? Maybe. But also one step in the fight against censorship.

The DeleteCity plugin is currently in development and should be released in November.