coin-operated

This is a picture of what my mouse / trackpad does in a day. The spot on the left is the “check mail” button on my email client and the top left is the “File” menu where I go to open files in apps. I guess I’m pretty predictable. I made this by using the IO app which is cross platform.

This is what I was doing with my MouseTraces project from 2002, although mine was networked with other people so you could see what they were doing simultaneously and draw with them in the background. It would be cool to see this app networked as well!

This is a modded DrawBot called “Lady BeBe” - a rip off Lady Gaga that was built during our Scrapyard Challenge workshop that Katherine and I ran at the “Revolution: Technology as Change” event at Connecticut College. Overall there were some really nice hacks to the bots that were made during the workshop!

I wrote this short story back in 2000 and never published it anywhere.. I think it’s pretty funny, making fun of the whole “Dot-Com” scene.. Here’s the story:

“I’m an Internet Guy” by Jonah Brucker-Cohen, 2000.

I’m an “Internet Guy”, I believe in the long boom, the inpenetrable bubble, hot stocks, net lingo, web surfing, and e-commerce. I guess you could say I’m one of the “digirati” a new breed, the kind of man who will only take out the trash if I can sync my chores to my Palm Pilot. The Net’s like a huge “force”, like an asteroid hurtling through space, destroying all old media in its path, taking no prisoners. I use the web for conveinience: I can pay my bills, rent my movies, order my gifts, and books, play the stock market, enter the lottery, organize my daily routine, check out listings, weather, sports, and more.

You see, I don’t know what I’d do without the “Net” and I forget the time before it. The Web, Internet, whatever you want to call it has opened my eyes to new horizons and possibilities. I love to “Interact”. You click here, there, everywhere, there’s a link and the pages magically appear. I don’t know anything about “commerce” but when it comes to “e-commerce” I know all the tricks of the trade.

I love shopping carts. They are so convenient and they even let you really “shop” like you are at a store. PC’s are fast, I don’t know much about Macs, but I’ve heard they’re “cute”. I can do my bills, answer emails, get pictures, I can even do my taxes online. To me the Internet is everything because it’s all about convenience. You can make your company logo move, like rotate in 3D and be on fire with “real flames” and you can find out how many hits your site has gotten.

It’s pretty remarkable. I’m an “Internet Guy”, yes that’s right.

Here’s the latest edit of the Scrapyard Challenge video, it has footage from Anderson Ranch, workshop we did in Seoul, Korea, and more! Watch Below:

I’m giving a lecture and running a workshop at “Beyond the instrument metaphor: new paradigms for interactive media” at Arizona State University from Feb 19-21st. Other participants include Andrea Polli, Bill Verplank, David Wessel, David Zicarelli, Hans Tutschku, Jaime Oliver, Marc Leman, Mark Danks, Matthias Kriesberg, Miller Puckette, Rand Steiger, Roger Dannenberg, Roger Reynolds, Scott Snibbe, and Sean Ferguson. Should be cool! Please stop by if you are in the area!

Students in the class I teach, “New Media Research Studio” at New York University’s Steinhardt’s Department of Media, Culture, & Communication had the class build a paper version of FaceBook as an assigned in-class activity. The results were pretty chaotic as they would be in normal real life circumstances, but the output was a really nice reminder of how important social networking has become in the last 5 years. Above is a picture of what the class came up with!

I’ll be in Chicago next week for the College Art Association’s 2010 conference. I’m speaking on a panel entitled “New Media/New Terrain: Pioneering a PhD in Creative Research” about artists getting PhDs. Other speakers on the panel include Jessica Walker, Victoria Vesna, and James Coupe. Stop by if you are attending the conference!

Also, I’m giving a public lecture at the University of Illinois at the Art and Architecture Building at 4pm on February 11th about my work that will be a bit different from the CAA talk but will contain some of the same projects. Hope to see people there!

Today’s my birthday, I turn –! pretty cool! nice to see another year go by and looking forward to this year!

Happy New Year Everyone! This is my first post of 2010! that means this blog has been around for 7 years.. Yikes! Looking forward to a great year!

Hope everyone has a good holidays and new year! Follow me on Twitter, not here as much any more. I’ve become less into the full blog. I’m on twitter here.