Recent Highlights

News

10/11/2008	BCNM Professor Kimiko Ryokai receives NSF Research Grant to study Mobile Learning of Science, Math, and Technology I School assistant professor and BCNM Assoc. Director for Communications Kimiko Ryokai has been awarded a $150 thousand grant by the National Science Foundation for the two-year project "Expanding the Accessibility of NSDL for Mobile Learning," in partnership with Professor Alice Agogino of the mechanical engineering department.
09/18/2008	Computers Fly Radio-Controlled Helicopters In Bold Experiement Prof. Pieter Abbeel
09/15/2008	New Media, Fan Theory, and Participatory Democracy Abigail De Kosnik, BCNM Assoc. Director for Humanities Research After the drawn-out, heated contest for the Democratic Party presidential nomination and Senator Obama's victory over Senator Clinton, a segment of Clinton's supporters are threatening to leave the party rather than fall in line behind the nominee. This essay argues that the battle between Clinton's and Obama's followers is best understood as a war between fan bases, with Obama enthusiasts constituting as the dominant fandom and Clinton voters occupying the position of marginalized fandom. Marginalized fandoms tend to blame the opposing fan base, intermediaries, and The Powers That Be for their fan campaigns' losses, and Clinton's fans are adhering to this pattern. However, the Clinton marginalized fandom's complaints can be regarded as valuable critiques that, if noted rather than dismissed, could greatly strengthen participatory democracy in the United States.
09/08/2008	New Web Site Recommends Charities to Donors Holly Hall, Chronicle of Philanthropy, 8 Sept 2008 ...Created by the Berkeley Center for New Media at the University of California, the Donor Dashboard site works by using software similar to what Amazon.com and other commercial sites use to recommend books, movies, and other products to customers, based on their previous purchases. Ken Goldberg, who heads the Berkeley center unit that developed the Donor Dashboard, says that as more and more donors use the site over time, its ability to match people with causes will improve as information on people's preferences is entered, and the interests of their peers can be factored into its recommendations....
09/04/2008	The Black Cloud: Using Games to Understand Air Quality Nate Berg, Planetizen, 4 Sep 2008 Human behavior and land use affect air quality, and those effects are very distinct at the local level. A new environmental game fusing public participation, air quality sensors and web technology shows how. These local differences don't often play into the common perception of environmental issues like pollution or global warming, according to Greg Niemeyer, an associate professor at the University of California Berkeley's Department of Art Practice and BCNM Associate Director for Graduate Studies. He's hoping to change that perception.
07/21/2008	Maneesh Agrawala wins SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award Maneesh Agrawala, EECS Professor and BCNM Associate Director for Technical and Design Research wins SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award. The Significant New Researcher Award is awarded annually to a researcher who has made a recent significant contribution to the field of computer graphics and interactive techniques, and who is new to the field. The intent is to recognize people early in their careers who have already made a notable contribution and demonstrate the potential to continue to do so. In recognition of his outstanding early contributions of novel visualization techniques and user interaction models across a range of problem domains, SIGGRAPH presents this award in 2008 to Maneesh Agrawala.
07/08/2008	Virtual Sabor Prei Kuk, Cambodia The Virtual Reconstruction Project of the centeral temple at Sambor Prei Kuk, in Cambodia, is an attempt to apply 21st century technology to 7th century cultural heritage. This project is done by UC Berkeley Architecture Professor and BCNM Emeritus Director Yehuda Kalay and his students.
05/27/2008	BCNM Co-sponsors New York Panel on BioArt Date: Thursday, May 29, 2008, 7-9pm Location: Eyebeam, 540 W. 21st Street, New York, NY Steven Kurtz - the artist accused of bioterrorism in federal court-will make his first public appearance following the dismissal of his case. In collaboration with the 2008 World Science Festival and the Berkeley Center for New Media, Eyebeam announces a very special panel on the ethics of scientific and creative research featuring Critical Art Ensemble's Dr. Steven Kurtz alongside science writer Carl Zimmer, bioethicist George Annas and author Eugene Thacker at 7PM on May 29 at Eyebeam. The panel discussion- Kurtz's first public appearance since the US government's controversial case against him was dropped on April 21, 2008, four years after he was first detained-is co-organized with the 2008 World Science Festival and the Berkeley Center for New Media. The Visual Art and Science Advisory Board, World Science Festival members are: Ken Goldberg, Co-Chair, UC Berkeley William Haseltine, Co-Chair, Human Genome Sciences Amanda McDonald Crowley, Eyebeam Zhang Ga, Parsons Peter Galison, Harvard John G. Hanhardt, Smithsonian Caroline Jones, MIT Roger Malina, Berkeley Leonard Shlain, Author Tiffany Shlain, Moxie Institute
05/25/2008	Free Association: A Q&A With BAM's Richard Rinehart What role do museums play in a world where the public can easily access art online? Why should we care about museums when technology allows many of us to be able to copy, disseminate, play with and alter artworks in fun ways that museums usually have prevented? Richard Rinehart, Berkeley Art Museum (BAM) Digital Media Director, adjunct curator of the digital art collection, and BCNM Associate Director for Public Programs and Outreach is trying to answer these questions and others.
05/24/2008	BCNM Designated Emphasis Student Jeremy Hunt completes his PhD in Music TITLE: In_videophone_surround: a Hyper-Prismatic Realtime Audiovisual Performance System for Improvising Pianist In_videophone_surround is essentially hybrid media art—a mix of sound and image. Often the visual component of audiovisual performance art begins with abstract materials and forces an uneasy metaphor between sound and image. in_videophone_surround critiques this practice by offering a new musical aesthetic—one which I call musique concrete visuelle. The physical movements of musicians are considered musical material, and, therefore, they provide the basis for all the musical images of in_videophone_surround. In_videophone_surround makes an equation between the microphone and the video camera. The microphone, used initially as an instrument of documentation and amplification, in the hands of Stockhausen and Grisey became an instrument of magnification—a way to enter not only a new world of sound, but a new dimension of time and music. In like manner, in_videophone_surround makes the video camera a musical instrument of magnification—one that allows a new experience of music and time. However, this magnification comes through multiplication. Several webcams and microphones are used to create a digitally expansive performance space. The musical actions of the performer and their results are captured, manipulated, and re-projected in multiplication back into the performance space in realtime. This is done through simple dataflow algorithms implemented in a custom software application.