10 AM | 24 Mar

D-Fuse in Melbourne

This week, groundbreaking London media collective D-Fuse will be on the streets in Melbourne with five local artists to produce Surface, a must see sonic live cinema that adds its Melbourne experience to an evolving work with artists across East Asia. http://www.dfuse.com

D-Fuse SURFACE Thursday March 27, 9pm BMW Edge @ Federation Square, Melbourne FREE > tickets required (available on the day from the ACMI Box Office)

Also screening on Sunday March 30 is graphic cities, a collection of short films curated by UK digital producers onedotzero, which compare and contrast urban futures in real and imagined cities, followed by a panel debate with UK creatives Shane Walter (onedotzero Director), Barney Steel (D-Fuse), and Australia’s Marcus Westbury (This Is Not Art festival director, writer and media maker). http://www.acmi.net.au/british_council_screenings.aspx

FREE > tickets required (available on the day from the ACMI Box Office)

10 AM | 24 Mar

‘Rider Spoke’ by Blast Theory

Free event in the 2008 Brighton Festival (UK) from May 8 – 11, 2008

Bookings essential (be quick!)

Renowned for its maverick mix of location-based gaming and interactive performance, Brighton’s BAFTA-nominated Blast Theory excels in off-kilter, off-road theatre! Now, Rider Spoke, developed with the Mixed Reality Lab, is Blast Theory’s latest portable performance, inviting you to literally saddle up and hit the streets.

Use our bikes or bring your own and you’ll be fitted out with a helmet, a handlebar-mounted video consul and headset. Then you’re off! Prompted by the technology, each player embarks on a personal journey, seeking out the city’s secret spaces and hidden sanctuaries, answering questions, recording memories or simply eavesdropping on your fellow players.

Part theatre, part confessional, part interactive installation, Rider Spoke blurs the boundaries between audience and performer, putting your encounters and your experiences at the heart of a unique and intimate drama…

email: info@blasttheory.co.uk

website: www.blasttheory.co.uk

Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 6:00pm End Time:Sunday, May 11, 2008 at 10:00pm Jubilee Square City/Town: Brighton, United Kingdom

05 PM | 16 Mar

Swarm robotics work hundreds of robots into one

Swarm robotics work hundreds of robots into one

By Liz Tay

Forget the conventional notion of human-like androids; researchers are investigating large swarms of up to 10,000 miniature robots which can work together to form a single, artificial life form.

Swarm robotics is a field of study based on the supposition that simple, individual robots can interact and collaborate to form a single artificial organism with more advanced group intelligence.

As a part of an international collaboration dubbed the “Symbiotic Evolutionary Robot Organisms” project, or “Symbrion” for short, researchers from the University of York are developing an artificial immune system which can protect both the individual robots that form part of a swarm, as well as the larger, collective organism.

Researches expect an artificial immune system to be able to detect faults and make recommendations to a high-level control system about corrective action – much like how a person’s adaptive immune system works to keep the body healthy.

Should any faults be detected, individual robots will be able to share the information with others in the robotic swarm. The swarm as a whole will thus be capable of evolving in the face of new problems, just as a natural immune system is able to cope with unfamiliar pathogens.

The multi-robot approach to artificial intelligence is a relatively new one, and has developed from studies of the swarm behaviour of insects such as ants.

Eventually, swarm robotics might be applied to real-world tasks such as rescuing earthquake victims, according to University of York research leader Jon Timmis, of the Intelligent Systems Group in the Department of Electronics.

“This is an increasingly important area of research,” Timmis said. “We may be able to use the collaborative power of many robots in situations where human intervention isn’t possible.”

“For instance, a Symbrion swarm could be released into a collapsed building following an earthquake, and form themselves into teams to lift rubble or search for survivors.”

“This kind of thing is clearly a long way from being realised, but work in this project will allow us to start building the robots of the future,” he said.

Original source

05 PM | 16 Mar

ELECTROFRINGE 2008

Electrofringe 2008 is now calling for proposals for this year’s festival from artists, media makers, curators, researchers, playful experimenters, enthusiasts, writers and producers. Electrofringe is a five day festival of electronic arts and culture occurring as part of This Is Not Art in Newcastle Australia. Electrofringe is dedicated to furthering the creative use of technology and electronic art forms with focus upon skills exchange and development. In 2008 Electrofringe is also including a residency program in Newcastle during the lead up the the festival to allow for the creation of site specific work. Electrofringe is seeking proposals in the following program areas:

Artist and Project Presentations, Panels, Workshops, Site Specific Residencies, Special Events, Electro-Online (web based art) and Electro-Screen (single channel video based works). WORKSHOP, PRESENTATION, PANEL AND RESIDENCY PROPOSALS ARE DUE BY THE 31ST OF MARCH 2008 (please note that Electrofringe cannot assist with travel costs to the festival. If you are interested in presenting at the festival and you live outside of Australia we can assist with letters of support for funding grants)

http://www.electrofringe.net/ 

05 PM | 16 Mar

Robot tutorials

The Society of Robots offers tutorials on how-to make a robot! You’ll have to check this one out for yourselves. I am not going to endorse it. I haven;t sent $50 nor am I sure there aren’t other websites which may offer similar tools and tutorials. I notice the dude who writes the introduction thinks only boys build robots, so I am not so sure how cool he is anyway.

http://www.societyofrobots.com/