Brett Stalbaum
Since the beginning
Works in La Jolla, California United States of America

PORTFOLIO (1)
BIO
Brett Stalbaum, Lecturer, LSOE
Coordinator, Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts Major (ICAM)

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
Department of Visual Arts
9500 GILMAN DR. # 0084
La Jolla CA 92093-0084

C5 research theorist (www.c5corp.com) 1997-2007
Graduate (MFA) of the CADRE Digital Media Laboratory at San Jose State
University.
Professional affiliations:
Electronic Disturbance Theater
C5
paintersflat.net

http://www.paintersflat.net/

Latest: The Silver Island Bunker Trail, possibly the first time humans have walked like a game bot. The trail is open to the public for outdoor recreation and enjoyment.
http://silverisland.paintersflat.net
Discussions (117) Opportunities (2) Events (7) Jobs (3)
DISCUSSION

Re: Online games increasingly a place for protest, social activism


You can see Anne-Marie Schleiner's Velvet-Strike project at
opensorcery.net.

If like myself, you don't game much, the screenshots will give you a good
idea.

http://www.opensorcery.net/velvet-strike/

Shoot love bubbles,
Brett

On Mon, 10 Feb 2003, Ryan Griffis wrote:

> i know this has been cross posted (i pulled it from
> Nettime) but thought it was worth reposting for those
> that haven't read it...
>
> NICK WADHAMS
> Canadian Press
>
> Friday, February 07, 2003
>
> NEW YORK (AP) - Gone are the days when playing video
> games online meant
> simply playing a hand of poker or battling your
> buddies to the death in
> a
> giant arena you couldn't control.
>
> Many games are now all about role-playing, and some
> players aren't
> participating to escape terrestrial life. They're
> getting on virtual
> soapboxes and organizing all manner of protests in
> cyberspace. Gamers
> have
> protested the impending war in Iraq, started
> newspapers, gathered
> charitable
> donations - done myriad things they already do, or
> wish they could do,
> in
> the real world.
>
> The line between online gaming and the real world "is
> a lot thinner
> than
> people give it credit for," said Raph Koster, creative
> director of the
> Austin, Texas, office of Sony Entertainment.
>
> At the new online community There.com, gamers can
> clothe their in-game
> marionettes and socialize with others. Already, some
> players angry with
> the
> U.S. policy on Iraq have organized a peace rally and
> clad their
> characters
> with the peace symbol.
>
> Not earth-shattering, to be sure, but exemplary of how
> thousands of
> people
> are using online games to either project their real
> voices or speak up
> as
> they might not in real life.
>
> Players of EverQuest, the most popular online game in
> the United States
> with
> about 85,000 playing at any time, held in-game
> candlelight vigils after
> the
> Sept. 11 attacks and even created memorials within the
> game's universe.
>
> Such games have become "online petri dishes" to show
> how far people
> will go
> in wedding their real and virtual lives, said Amy Jo
> Kim, an
> online-games
> designer involved with There.com.
>
> People have been attacked in real life for killing
> other contestants
> playing
> Lineage, the world's most popular online game with
> four million active
> subscribers. And hundreds of players have gathered
> within the game to
> protest software glitches.
>
> The latest game to hit the market is the Sims Online,
> from Electronic
> Arts.
> Players have control over a character and act out
> real-life fantasies.
> They've built in-game restaurants, created several
> radio stations and
> even a
> newspaper.
>
> And they are not shy about complaining.
>
> Freelance writer Tony Walsh didn't like a deal
> Electronic Arts made to
> insert a McDonald's kiosk into the game, so he
> organized a protest.
>
> Other gamers have no trouble co-opting games entirely.
>
> To protest the possibility of war, Anne-Marie
> Schleiner designed a hack
> for
> Counterstrike, a popular first-person shooter. With
> "Velvet-Strike,"
> players
> could display virtual posters with such messages as
> "Hostage of an
> Online
> Fantasy" and "You are your most dangerous enemy."
>
> It led to some confusion among gamers who didn't want
> reality creeping
> into
> their fantasy world, Schleiner said.
>
> "It was interesting, disturbing and entertaining to
> get so much
> negative
> feedback from all different directions - some pure
> old-fashioned
> misogyny,"
> she said.
>
> Issues of how far gamers can push have yet to be fully
> tested. Like
> movies,
> games are often based on brands, and designers aren't
> necessarily
> willing to
> have their brands co-opted.
>
> Likely to push those limits is the forthcoming Star
> Wars Galaxies,
> which
> will put players inside the George Lucas popular
> universe. That creates
> a
> problem, because the Star Wars world is one of the
> most cherished
> creations
> in the history of fantasy fiction.
>
> "Somebody saying something in the game and being
> witnessed by somebody
> else
> can reflect not just on the game but on Lucasfilm and
> George Lucas,"
> said
> Koster, a lead designer for Galaxies, which is due in
> April. "If
> someone
> started walking around in the San Diego Zoo screaming
> profanity or
> handing
> out Nazi leaflets, the park would remove them from the
> premises. We
> need to
> be able to do that also."
>
> Should free-speech values extend to the online world?
> Will there be a
> future
> lawsuit from someone who claims they were unlawfully
> barred for
> maligning
> George Lucas?
>
> Walsh, for one, believes gamers should have the very
> same freedoms in
> cyberspace that they have in the physical world.
>
> "Why shouldn't people protest?" he said. "Why
> shouldn't freedom of
> speech be
> as alive in the Sims Online as it is the real world?"
>
> Copyright 2003 The Canadian Press
>
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OPPORTUNITY

Publishing opportunity - YLEM journal


Deadline:
Thu Jan 30, 2003 01:00

(Please forward at will)

"The process of harvesting, sequencing and mapping the human genome has
been described as that of a group of people in a dark room fumbling around
not knowing what is in the room, how the room looks or what they are
looking for. Someone bumps into a thing with four sharp corners and starts
to look for other things with four sharp corners. Someone else decides to
move along what seem to be walls and feel their texture, yet another sits
still and waits for the others in the room to pass by, taking notes on
their activities or maybe on their scents."

- Lisa Jevbratt, curatorial notes, Mapping the Web Infome

Hi rhizomers,

I have been invited by YLEM (www.ylem.org) to guest edit an issue of their
print publication, the YLEM journal: Artists Using Science and Technology.
The topic of this issue will be, roughly, artists working with large data.

We all know Moore's law, the famous and prescient prediction that the
speed of CPUs doubles approximately every 18 months. What is less well
understood is the exponential growth of scientific data, and the
relationship between its collection and our ability to process and
understand it. Genomic data is not the only large data set that is
presenting both processing and conceptual challenges to science and
information technology; we can also point to astrophysics, geography,
geology, fusion energy, climatology, nanotechnology and many branches of
materials science as areas of study that are producing quantities of data
that challenge the technical limits of super computers, distributed
computing, grid computing, and superscalar simulation techniques. Even
given Moore's law, semiconductor advances, fast networks, and cheap mass
storage, "The Problem of Large Data" is nevertheless looming larger as our
ability to collect data begins to outpace our ability to process and
digest it.

If you are an artist who is working with extremely large data sets,
particularly those relating to scientific endeavor, we invite you to
submit abstracts for papers to be considered for publication in an
upcoming issue of the YLEM journal. Of particular interest are papers
relating to projects that demonstrate the strategies, traditions, and
practices common to or employed within the practice of art (and
art/science collaboration), that might inform productive and innovative
approaches to "The problem of Large Data".

Please send Abstracts or proposals to:
Brett Stalbaum (beestal@cadre.sjsu.edu)
Deadline: Not really, but review will begin in early March, 2003, for
expected publication during 2003. Average articles run around 1500-2000
words, depending on the number and size of images.


DISCUSSION

NTT/Verio forces News sites to edit articles


It seems that Verio will threaten to unhook anyone from the internet
based on nothing more than a complaint.

From the front page of http://www.officialspin.com/

NTT/Verio forces News sites to edit articles
News reporting on IEQ allegations of fraud, censored by NTT/Verio, as
global networking giant bows to commercial pressure by Seymour Pierce

Englewood, Colorado -- (OfficialSpin.com) -- 18/01/03 -- Since March 2002,
OfficialSpin has been reporting on a story that involves directors of
Seymour Pierce, the City (London) investment banker-to-AIM adviser and
their irrefutable involvement with the ruin of IEQ PLC (formerly
Intermediate Equity plc).

An article published on 5th January 2003 on OfficialSpin entitled "Self
Dealing in the City", which also appeared on a sister site, Business AM
under the same title, and another article published on 7th January 2003
only on Business AM entitled "Non Disclosure at Seymour Pierce" were
objected to by Seymour Pierce on 8th January. Both OfficialSpin PLC and
Business AM Limited are subsidiaries of Kestrel Trading Corporation.

Kestrel receives dedicated server facilities from NTT/Verio, and has
hosted more than 200 of the company's news and e-commerce sites for nearly
three years.

Seymour Pierce's London-based lawyer Memery Crystal wrote to Verio, Inc.
in the USA, where the sites are hosted, and complained venomously.

Verio forwarded the faxes to Kestrel by email on 14th January 2003.
Kestrel immediately replied that they "did not believe the content to be
defamatory", that the content "was factual" and that the writers "would
stand by their stories". Kestrel further undertook in writing to
"indemnify Verio" should Memery Crystal follow through with their threats
of legal action, in London, against Verio UK.

Within 2 hours, Verio's legal department replied that the content must be
removed or they would block access to the sites subject to their
acceptable use policy.

...

DISCUSSION

Worm takes out ATM machines


Maybe the quality problems with microsoft software are finally hitting
close enough to home for people to pay some attention to the hidden costs
of using the MS platform for anything important. Don't get me wrong, I
like windows as a desktop os, but it is a miserable choice for anything
"mission critical".

Imagine what the world would be like if Windows was used for air traffic
control or nuclear power control systems. It would give "Blue Screen of
Death" a whole new meaning.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44238-2003Jan25.html

DISCUSSION

tabbed interface patent


It looks like the strategy is to go after the smaller sites that do not
have the legal resources of an amazon or borders books.

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,57344,00.html
Site Protests Telco Patent Claim
By Joanna Glasner

...the homepage, which features colorful photos of sample products flanked
by navigation buttons on top and down the left margin, resembles dozens of
other e-commerce websites.

That's why Eichinger was caught off guard last week when she received a
letter from the intellectual property division of telecommunications giant
SBC alleging that the Museum Tour site violates two of its patents.

The letter, signed by Harlie Frost, president of SBC Intellectual
Property, alleges that the Museum Tour site infringes on related patents
filed in 1996 covering what the company calls a "structured document
browser."

According to SBC, the Museum Tour site uses several of its patented
navigation features, including "selectors of tabs that correspond to
specific locations in your site document" and "are not lost when a
different part of the document is displayed to the user."

...

Eichinger, however, believes... SBC's claims refer to design features in
her site, such as frames, that were in the public domain before the company
received its patent.

"If we're in jeopardy, then so is Amazon and so is Borders Books and
Lands' End and everyone who does e-commerce," she said.