[sonic]square # 6: Out of the Bedroom
23, 24, 25/10/2002
2 workshops on gaming,
open source software and other bedroom politics as part of a three day event
with concerts, screenings and demonstrations.
Kaaitheaterstudio's,
o-l-v-van-vaakstraat 81 rue n-d-du-sommeil, Brussels
One-day workshop with Christoph Kummerer
:
on gameboy engineering and open source software wednesday 23 october
Pocketnoise version 0.0b is audio software especially written
for the Nintendo Gameboy card with the aim of transforming the young
consumer's most important entertainment device into a noise machine. Christoph
Kummerer has put together an absolutely non-intuitive interface that will
undoubtedly fan the flames of the potential users’ curiosity and sharply
reduce his product’s marketing potential. True to his own motto, why settle
for more?’, Kummerer has built a unique 4-Bit sampler using a mixture of
carefully chosen lo-fi sounds and unpredictable software bugs’. In his own
words: "This buggy piece of code will never leave the alpha stage. Meaning,
the User is in a mental state of feeling lost, like a confused lab rat, and,
at a later stage, may enjoy a world of buzzing noises." Pocketnoise version
0.0b promises to be a challenge to the user, musician and listener again and
again. http://pilot.fm
During [sonic]square
# 6, Christoph Kummerer will be holding a workshop dedicated to
Pocketnoise version 0.0b. He will explain and demonstrate the programme to a
small group and give lessons in its use. Participants will also get an
introduction in other media related open source software like ‘pure data’.
Joining the workshop, which will be given in English, doesn’t mean
participants necessarily need software experience.
Maximum number of
participants: 15. Registration required.
Two-day workshop with Anne-Marie Schleiner:
on game
modifications, patches and hacker art
thursday 24 & friday 25 october
Anne-Marie Schleiner is an artist/cyberanthropologist and
lectures at the Cadre Institute in San Jose, California. For some time she’s
been concentrating on the culture of the computer game and has a soft spot for
it. Now that games are linked more and more to on-line data, they offer - in
contrast to commercial television - a form of entertainment in which there is
room for a creative contribution by the user. According to Schleiner, the time
is ripe for critical intervention by artists, theoreticians and Lora Croft
fans so as to hack the game industry. She's set the ball rolling with a series
of game mods. Mods (short for modifications) are small items of software that
supplement existing games. These additions are part of the marketing strategy
of the producers of Quake’ and Marathon. You can download the extras, subject
to payment, via the Internet. On the other hand Schleiner's mods are intended
to disorganise the game. This means a parasitic plug-in can at any given
moment replace the macho protagonists of a popular shoot-em-up game with
lethargic gawks or androgynous animals. This truly interactive intervention
offers innumerable possibilities for a critical view of the traditional
conventions of the corporate’ computer game. How this hacking at the same time
forges new paths for game interaction, navigation and narration can be seen
from the exhibition that Schleiner curates on the net: Cracking the Maze: Game
Plug-ins and Patches as Hacker Art’ compiles her patchwork’ and that of her
colleagues. http://www.opensorcery.net/
During [sonic]square # 6 Anne-Marie Schleiner will be
giving a two-day workshop on game mods. In a small group she’ll sketch the
history of the ‘genre’ and go more deeply into the aspects of computer game
culture and Hacker Art. The workshop, given in English, will be both
theoretical and practical (on the computer) but participants don’t necessarily
need software experience.
Maximum number of participants: 10. Registration
required.
Information and registration for both
workshops on sonicsquare@skynet.be
Full
program of [sonic]square # 6 soon to be announced on:
www.squarevzw.be
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