Along with Augmented Reality, Cloud Computing seems to be one of the more thorough-going technology memes these days. The concept is consistent with the logic of the network. As bandwidth speeds level-up, and bandwidth costs go down (not free, just less, despite what Chris Anderson hypes) the asymptotic extreme appr…

Ian Bogost flagged this one from the netherline — a curious visualization engine called “personas Web” used to create these kinds of colored bands that somehow represent and categorize me based on a comb through of the network, I assume. I might be projecting a bit, but it appears that the principle here is this: th…

var so = new SWFObject(“http://www.db798.com/pictobrowser.swf”, “PictoBrowser”, “500”, “430”, “8”, “#E0E0E0”); so.addVariable(“source”, “sets”); so.addVariable(“names”, “LA Generative Procedural Maps”); so.addVariable(“userName”, “nearfuturelab”); so.addVariable(“userId”, “73737423@N00”); so.addVariable(“ids”, “7215…

While rummaging through a stack of things read and to-be re-read, I came back across this curious paper by Mark Blythe and Peter Wright called “Pastiche Scenarios: Fiction as a Resource for Experience Centred Design”. I believe I was referred to while deep into this business of “design fiction.” It describes an appr…

Just a short note about the Lift Asia 09 conference in a month, September 17-18 2009. I’ll be speaking on something to do with either minor undesired paternity notoriety or, perhaps more likely — building your own world to get the future you deserve.

This arrived in the mail over a week ago and I just now managed to actually watch the thing, mostly because access to a VHS deck is not super easy. There are a few around the studio. Irony Number One: The first one I tried — which I tried because it appears to be connected via some piping of cables into a wall, prob…

The apparatus consists of a very tall pole which is used to gain a unique, portable vantage point to see the world. Two wide field of view cameras are used to capture video from the full height. The video is then processed to highlight specific features of the world below, mostly such things as the movement of people and the movement strategies. Individuals are highlighted using video processing algorithms to accentuate the flow of urban life. The motivation for this project is the noted urbanist, William H. Whyte, who wrote an important, short monograph that went along with a film, both called The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces.
The post processed videos

Times Square Urban Living Room from Julian Bleecker. More Apparatus Videos.

Design Fiction Chronicles: The Final Cut from Julian Bleecker on Vimeo.