Hack this code: Te Tuhi software goes open source

Douglas Bagnall writes to let us know that he's made his Te Tuhi Video Game system software open source under the GPL (General Public) license. We blogged about the show a few months ago here at Window:Scene, where visitors to Te Tuhi could draw pictures that were analysed by the software and converted to videogames via a set of rules. Opening the code to the community allows these rules to be changed and shifted, but you'll need some technical savvy. With his usual deadpan humour, Bagnall goes straight from step 4, "Try ./tetuhi path/to/some/image.jpg. If everything is working, a window should pop up with a game in it.", to step 5, "But it probably isn't working, so at this point you should subscribe to the mailing list and ask there."

Guilt or pleasure? Infographics convert from one to another

We Make Money Not Art today briefly mentioned two projects from infographics specialist Michael Mandiberg I've taken a closer look at, Oil Standard and Real Costs, both plugins for Mozillas Firefox web browser. Oil Standard converts US currency amounts into their worth in barrels of crude, a simple premise with it's strength lying in the connectedness of the internet. Running online and using RSS feeds, prices are converted in real-time, rising and falling with the world markets. They're also personalised - the concept becomes much more concrete when it appears over an iPod you're buying online or your own credit card transactions.


Real Costs operates in the same way, albeit on a list of very limited travel websites such as AA.com, JetBlue, and Orbitz. Translating jet miles to kg of CO2 directly on the page, that trip from LA to NYC loses some of it's glamour. The plugin does go further than literal guilt tripping however, providing a range of alternatives like public transport, carbon offsets, and carpools.


But is it all a little too earnestly green? Perhaps. Mandiberg hopes the user might shift "from passive consumer to engaged citizen." With the lack of public transport in the US and the large distances between cities, RL might just have the opposite affect - causing apathy and a sense of helplessness in users. After all, who's wants to spend a few days and nights in a Greyhound bus to make the trek across country? Oil Standard seems simpler, more sinister, and - with the addition of live news feeds from Rigzone.com - much more real. Viewed as an art project, the latter is successful precisely because it doesn't prescribe. Instead it causes a vague but definite malaise in the user, and leaves them to work out any concrete actions or lifestyle changes.

Free as in seminar: Creative Commons talk tomorrow

Creative Commons New Zealand is hosting a free all-day seminar tomorrow (28th Oct) at the National Library in Wellington to "build understanding of the new licensing environment in the digital world." Guest speakers from Victoria University and the National Library, as well as CC International, will take you through a range of licenses which steer a middle ground between overly defensive traditional copyright, and simply giving it away. For more info on "Expanding Copyright Horizons through Creative Commons", check out the CC Aotearoa website. A webcast is said to be available tomorrow at this address, (broken for now).

Oliver wins Opensource award, progresses videogame

New Zealander Julian Oliver just won the Open Source for Creativity award for SelectParks, the information-rich website and blog focusing on art-based games we've mentioned in the past. The site is built on open-source software like PHP Nuke, and allows syndication through standards such as RSS.


Oliver's also progressed that Escheresque augmented reality game we blogged about a few months ago. Still in alpha stage, the latest version, titled levelHead is starting to take shape. A simple block with painted identifying marks on each side is placed in front of a camera, which reads these and projects the correct view of the game world. Tilting the block directs the tiny avatar up stairs, through doorways and eventually to an exit in a delightfully simple, practical use of AR.

Artists give it away with new distribution models

I'm moving down the form mechanically, name, email, credit card details. It's your standard online order form. Almost. Next to "price" is a blank field and a ? mark. Clicking it reveals a message "It's up to you", and clicking again reiterates, as if it reassure the awestruck digital consumer, "No really. It's up to you."

The work is Radiohead's latest independently released album, "In Rainbows". Following the completion of their 5 deal contract with UK based Parlophone, the band known for innovation is finally matching their model with their music, throwing down the gauntlent to a recording industry which has been defensive and slow.

Pay What you Want isn't giving it away or donation, a model which bloggers and digital service owners frequently use, asking visitors to "consider" giving via PayPal or other means. By stepping punters through standard credit card forms before they get the goods, Radioheads organisation WASTE sets up an expectation and a context of exchange, however little.

Not that giving it away is pointless. The net is full of success stories of artists working the sharing, viral nature of the medium to their advantage. When Bloc Party played their first series of shows in New York, they were amazed to find fans singing along to song that weren't even released - but that had been leaked months before. OK Go are the treadmilling poster boys for this model, rising from obscurity to fame almost overnight through their innovative music video, which has received 23,282,615 views on YouTube.


Free Culture at NYU ran a Creative Commons art show giving rights to viewers, a model which New Zealander Adam Hyde regularly propounds through initiatives like FLOSS Manuals ("free manuals for free software") and streaming radio workshops. Also locally, we're talking with Annie Bradley about a screensaver work which could be distributed at a Window opening. Picking up on the office theme of the piece, visitors could potentially have it downloaded onto a USB key drive or iPod or burnt to a blank CD.