networked performance

Feedamass , the “know-it-all” sidekick that fetches information to nearly any device, functions in virtual spaces, Second Life, for instance. A script sends a search query from Second Life chat to Wikipedia, and back in-world as a silent message to the user. It's all contained in a ring worn on your finger ... [via New World Notes]

"Anarchic Openness" Reaps Massive Results

Jason Pontin, Technology Review's editor in chief, introduces and reflects on "Second Earth," the piece by contributing editor Wade Roush that is the July/August issue of the magazine's cover story in this video. Pontin argues that the extraordinary success of virtual worlds, such as Linden Lab's Second Life, and mirror worlds, such as Google Earth, can only partly be explained by new technologies including cheaper bandwidth, graphics cards, and free storage. Much more important was the decision of Linden Lab and Google to support an anarchic openness within their cyberworlds. Both companies have turned over control to users: any user can add almost anything to either environment. This decision has made Second Life and Google Earth into collaborative social communities with millions of registered users. [via]

Are you Living in a Computer Simulation?

ABSTRACT: This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed. Are you Living in a Computer Simulation? by Nick Bostrom, Department of Philosophy, Oxford University.

"Why the Matrix? Why did the machines do it? (Human brains may be many things, but efficient batteries they are not.) How could they justify a world whose inhabitants are systematically deceived about their fundamental reality, ignorant about the reason why they exist, and subject to all the cruelty and suffering that we witness in the world around us?" From Why Make a Matrix? And Why You Might Be In One: by Nick Bostrom.

Also see: Simulism is a concept that deals with the possibility that we are living in a simulation.

link.of.thought_ thought.of.link

TAGallery by CONT3XT.NET extends the idea of a tagged exhibition and transfers the main tasks of noncommercial exhibition spaces to the discourse of an electronic data-space. The method of tagging allows the attribution of artworks to different thematic fields. EXHIBITION_003 was tagged / curated by Ursula Endlicher and Ela Kagel, who started the blog Curating NetArt in May 2006 as ongoing conversations about various topics surrounding media arts. Their exhibition link.of.thought_thought.of.link for TAGallery is an extension of this blog in dialogue-form and a meta-curatorial statement of their perspective on the challenges of curating media / net / art.

With projects / works by: UBERMORGEN / Alessandro Ludovico / Paolo Cirio, Jo-Anne Green / Helen Thorington (Turbulence), Aleksandra Domanovic / Oliver Laric / Christoph Priglinger / Georg Schnitzer, Cornelia Sollfrank, Eva Grubinger / Thomas Kaulmann, 0100101110101101 (Eva and Franco Mattes), Ruth Catlow / Marc Garrett (Furtherfield), Graffiti Research Lab, Mushon Zer-Aviv / Dan Phiffer.

Exhibition :: Curator's dialogue :: Curator's bio/CV :: Curator's blog [posted on newmediafix]

War Games on the Grandest Scale

"Perhaps your real life is so rich you don't have time for another. Even so, the US Department of Defense (DOD) may already be creating a copy of you in an alternate reality to see how long you can go without food or water, or how you will respond to televised propaganda. The DOD is developing a parallel to Planet Earth, with billions of individual "nodes" to reflect every man, woman, and child this side of the dividing line between reality and AR.

Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), it will be a "synthetic mirror of the real world with automated continuous calibration with respect to current real-world information", according to a concept paper for the project. "SWS provides an environment for testing Psychological Operations (PSYOP)," the paper reads, so that military leaders can "develop and test multiple courses of action to anticipate and shape behaviors of adversaries, neutrals, and partners".

SWS also replicates financial institutions, utilities, media outlets, and street corner shops. By applying theories of economics and human psychology, its developers believe they can predict how individuals and mobs will respond to various stressors. Yank a country's water supply. Stage a military coup. SWS will tell you what happens next." Continue reading Sentient world: war games on the grandest scale by Mark Baard.