In conjunction with Rhizome's brand new curated page on Kickstarter, we are featuring select projects from the site on the blog. If you would like to let us know about your fund raising efforts on Kickstarter, shoot us an email at editor(at)rhizome.org
Now in it's 8th year, Bent Festival 2011 will be held at 319 Scholes in Brooklyn, June 23rd – 25th. Bent is an annual electronic art and music festival celebrating circuit bending and its related creative practices: DIY electronics, hardware hacking, glitch, software art, abstract video. Each year artists are welcomed from across the country and around the globe to share their craft through performances, workshops, video screenings, art exhibitions, and installations. The festival, as a whole, showcases the state of the art in DIY electronics and circuit bending culture, with an emphasis on participation, education and exploration.
endarchive is an open archive of urban experience built from the street. Using unique QR code tags collaborators can make their personal experiences of the city accessible in physical space.
After placing a QR sticker on an object or location, the tag is scanned using a QR scanner on a mobile device like an iPhone or Android and an entry is created consisting of text and an image. Anyone on the street can then view the archive entry by scanning the tag or entering the unique URL. Endarchive.com is an online repository of user entries in New York City. We are trying to raise money ($800) to fund the printing of our QR stickers.
►DesignBlocks: Visual Programming for Artists
DesignBlocks is an open-source, web-based visual programming language that makes it easy to control lines, shapes, colors and images to create generative and interactive artworks. It uses the same visual grammar as the Scratch programming language, but has a vocabulary more suited for visual art and design. Inspired by Processing, DesignBlocks aims to make programming more accessible to artists and visually-minded people. This programming environment invites people to try commands and tinker with concepts to make programming more intuitive and discoverable, without relying on obscure syntax or discouraging error messages. The programs can then be shared and viewed through the public DesignBlocks website. With supplemental documentation and teaching materials, DesignBlocks can also be used to explore programming in an educational setting.
DesignBlocks has already been prototyped in Flash ActionScript and tested by a handful of artists and educators. However, in order for DesignBlocks to become more robust and complete, it needs more features, plenty of bug fixes and it needs to be ported to JavaScript/HTML5 (for mobile access). This summer, I'd like to work on DesignBlocks to get it to a suitable state for widespread testing. There are some teachers already planning to use DesignBlocks in their classrooms this fall, and I'd like to get this new version ready for them and also make it more widely available.
►hackNY: 2010 alumni support the 2011 Fellows
We're a group of 12 students from the East Coast who participated in last year's hackNY Fellowship Program. We were placed in some of the city's top startups and really got to spend the summer hacking and exploring the NYC startup scene. It was a truly awesome experience.
This summer, we want to help hackNY expand the program and ensure that the 2011 Fellows have as great a time as we did. For that, all we need is a little over $9000.
We'll use the money to host workshops, organize meetups, and create an environment that will allow the Fellows to be creative and build awesome stuff throughout the entire summer.
Some of last year's class went on to build projects of their own, such as: donteat.at, rooster.am and foursqwhere.
►prnt scrn: towards a new method of photographic output
I want to create a new method of photographic output that approximates screen-based vision; I want photographs to glow in the dark, move, and change after they have left the computer and exist in physical space. I want to build new methods of printing, and examine the effects of various dynamic processes on the photographic print.
The ultimate product of this project will be the development of processes and works that address screen-culture and its impact on contemporary photography and new media by making prints that attempt to address the function and aesthetic of images on screen.