AlgoMantra 2005: The Crowd as a Computer
PRESS RELEASE April 24, 2005
ALGOMANTRA 2005 : THE CROWD AS A COMPUTER:
Urban research, social gaming and visual arts meet in a 3-day collective experiment
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On Friday, 29th of April, 20 artists and researchers will launch a collective experiment to map out the urban space of Bombay. They will also attempt to remodel their movement and thought in the form of a computer. To filter away the noise of every day life, the festival will take place during a 58-hour vow of silence. The festival will also take place simultaneously in the UK, the US and Finland.
DAY 1: "ORGANIC POETRY" The festival will begin by transforming the wall of a popular Bombay night spot into a large collective experimental artwork. Every participant and audience member will have the chance to contribute words to a two-dimensional organic poem, growing like a virus.
Day 2: "ALGOYATRA" The participants will then be given a computer program with basic instructions on how to move through an area in the city. As this programme mechanically guides the participants in random patters, the familiar areas of the city will become uncanny and surprising. At certain specific locations, sets of actions will be provided. Through this new subjective maps will be be drawn, illuminating the streets of Bombay in unfamiliar ways. The data from this experiment will be used for an interactive art installation about the city that will also be available online.
DAY 3: "ALGOKREEDA" On the last and final day, and perhaps in the most challenging of all the games, participants will engage in an experiment to test the formation and spread of rumor. In a city like Bombay, this experiment will take on interesting dimensions as there is always a tension between rumor and truth. This game will take place on a large area on which a grid is going to be drawn. Participants will be given fragments of a message as they move on the grid according to pre-generated patterns. As the rumor spreads by participants meeting randomly on the grid, a complete message will gradually evolve. This message, once decoded by the participants, signals the end of a round. The data gathered here will be available for future researchers and media houses in order to test how information spreads in a crowd.
Once the game is over on day three, a free-form discussion and celebration will follow into the late evening. This festival will be documented by an international group of film makers, urban researchers, artists and bloggers.
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For further information please contact: + 91 Matti Pohjonen (9819878597) , Angad Chowdhry (9819051983), Rohit Gupta (9819107418) Tatu-Ilari Laukkanen (9833202314)
Project Blog: http://algomantra.blogspot.com
Google Search: algomantra
Email Us: algomantra@googlegroups.com
ALGOMANTRA 2005 : THE CROWD AS A COMPUTER:
Urban research, social gaming and visual arts meet in a 3-day collective experiment
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Friday, 29th of April, 20 artists and researchers will launch a collective experiment to map out the urban space of Bombay. They will also attempt to remodel their movement and thought in the form of a computer. To filter away the noise of every day life, the festival will take place during a 58-hour vow of silence. The festival will also take place simultaneously in the UK, the US and Finland.
DAY 1: "ORGANIC POETRY" The festival will begin by transforming the wall of a popular Bombay night spot into a large collective experimental artwork. Every participant and audience member will have the chance to contribute words to a two-dimensional organic poem, growing like a virus.
Day 2: "ALGOYATRA" The participants will then be given a computer program with basic instructions on how to move through an area in the city. As this programme mechanically guides the participants in random patters, the familiar areas of the city will become uncanny and surprising. At certain specific locations, sets of actions will be provided. Through this new subjective maps will be be drawn, illuminating the streets of Bombay in unfamiliar ways. The data from this experiment will be used for an interactive art installation about the city that will also be available online.
DAY 3: "ALGOKREEDA" On the last and final day, and perhaps in the most challenging of all the games, participants will engage in an experiment to test the formation and spread of rumor. In a city like Bombay, this experiment will take on interesting dimensions as there is always a tension between rumor and truth. This game will take place on a large area on which a grid is going to be drawn. Participants will be given fragments of a message as they move on the grid according to pre-generated patterns. As the rumor spreads by participants meeting randomly on the grid, a complete message will gradually evolve. This message, once decoded by the participants, signals the end of a round. The data gathered here will be available for future researchers and media houses in order to test how information spreads in a crowd.
Once the game is over on day three, a free-form discussion and celebration will follow into the late evening. This festival will be documented by an international group of film makers, urban researchers, artists and bloggers.
---------------------------------------------------------------
For further information please contact: + 91 Matti Pohjonen (9819878597) , Angad Chowdhry (9819051983), Rohit Gupta (9819107418) Tatu-Ilari Laukkanen (9833202314)
Project Blog: http://algomantra.blogspot.com
Google Search: algomantra
Email Us: algomantra@googlegroups.com
Anonymous @ 4/25/2005 08:55:00 AM
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