So far I have a basic proof of concept using the motion estimation library which, under good conditions will allow you to control the movement of a red square around your screen. The red square, of course, represents an exhibit.

The next stage will be rendering an image with opacity (and possibly animations) which will change as you move around. After that will be placing multiples at different latitude/longitudes. Lastly a GUI will be built on top and the virtual gallery complete.

Now to find some artists. Want to have a go at it?

People have asked me - “Why don’t you set up your own show then?”. Well, I’m too lazy. Ok no, I’m not motivated enough to jump through all the hoops it would require. Mainly around permissions to use sites and the logistics of promoting the event.

What if one could install a virtual exhibition in a public place?

Take Hyde Park for example and imagine it was filled with sculptures, although those sculptures aren’t visible to the naked eye. With the help of a mobile phone with a video camera and some smarts the sculptures would spring to life. Every corner would hide a new one.

You wouldn’t be bound as the organiser to only use the space for a couple of weeks. It could exist forever. It could even be dynamic, with more artworks added daily. Imagine as a tourist being able to visit the installation whenever it suits you.

1. Write the software - iphone and Series 60 phones
2. Find the location - Somewhere busy and that would suit a sculptural exhibit anyway
3. Call for artists
4. Publicise the launch date
5. Launch

More to come

Should I press the button?

More info - http://nocensorship.info/main/  Please try and make it.

The video was shot in a number of locations around Sydney, including my balcony and is partly for the Sydney 2008 8mm project and partly just testing the camera.

The camera is a Sankyo MF-303 and the video was shot on Kodak Ektachrome 64T but processed as if it was ASA 40 film. This has resulted in a slightly underexposed film which Nanolab pointed out. Next time I’ll just get the standard processing. Overall I’m quite pleased with the results and we’ll be getting someone to film our wedding in Super 8 along with photography and digital video.

Instead of writing letters to their pen pals about all the great places they’ve been to like kids would have in the good old days they use Google maps streetview to navigate around a city on the other side of the world. A city they have never been to.

They find strange houses like this one, the old and frail, the mentally disabled and the ridiculously wealthy. Large businesses and important places of government. Even the unfortunate are a target. Instead of learning about these places they do something shocking.  They take a photo of their bottom and mail it to those addresses. They keep doing it until they run out of stamps.

How many people did they manage to traumatise? How many people’s sensibilities were shocked and shattered? All with the aid of Google street view. Is street view a valuable online tool or terrorist’ss aid I ask you.

The first roll finished up with shots of us driving up George st on a Saturday morning. The southern end has changed a bit and back in ‘78 I doubt there were Anonymous protestors having a go at Scientology. The very end came with an aborted shot of the monorail going over Pyrmont bridge.

The first 30 seconds or so of the second roll I sat on the Cahill expressway with Priscilla, after almost having to call an ambulance for a car that blew out a tyre (boy that smelt bad) for 15 minutes doing time lapse photography. It mainly consisted of me mentally trying to time 3 seconds between shots of ferries and Pris asking if we’re done yet. Worst of all I forgot my tripod base.

There are only a few scenes to go so I may just extend Sydney 2008mm to five minutes or it won’t be out until next year.  If you’d like a pass to see the premiere then just comment or send me an email. It might even be on NYE.

As the writer of this article as soon as I hit publish the blogosphere, some would say the precursor to the current generation of social networks will light up. My name will be all over the place associated with my rather controversial blog title. Facebook, myspace, friend feed and all the other re-post services I use
will post a link to the story. My friends, family, followers and followers of followers and finally hundreds of random bored people will stumble across this story.

If I had actually been writing about something unsavoury my name would be mud in minutes There would very likely be police knocking on my door within hours. Even if I deleted the post after realising my mistake most if not all of it would be available somewhere.

As the reader you may think you’re immune and anonymous. You’re not.

Firstly and worst of all, simply by viewing this post you could be endangering yourself. Anyone who subscribes to mybloglog or any similar tracker has automatically exposed that they’ve read this post. Anyone who subscribes to my feed has just exposed that they read my blog and hence are now associated with a very naughty man.

Anyone who comments or does a pingback has exposed their love of illegal porn. People who re-post, social bookmark or republish my RSS would have just placed the title of this post on their pages.

If you Digg me (and please do) you would have alienated yourself from the community. If you buzzed me (once again, do so) and you use Yahoo Messenger you just exposed that you enjoyed my article to all of your messenger friends.

I could keep going. There are just so many ways that you can tell so many people a dark secret or two about yourself.

In conclusion. I am not saying social tools are a bad thing. I’m just asking you all to think a little harder about how you use them and how much about yourself you would like to expose. Go check those privacy settings on facebook, see what you’re comfortable with. I know after this I may have to do the same thing too.

If you’d like to help continue this experiment please leave a comment, digg it, buzz it, share it, follow me, basically spread it around both passively and actively. Come back and share what your networks (both real and virtual) reactions were. Use the sharethis icon on the bottom of the post or follow the links throughout the article.

The primary aim of the movie is to document what Sydney looks like in 2008. What wasn’t there in the heyday of the 8mm format and how it has changed since. By using this old film stock I hope to, rather contradictorily, show Sydney in a timeless fashion, in a medium that hasn’t changed for almost 50 years.

8mm film will give me approximately 3 minutes in which to tell my story and I hope to do it on a single roll. With this limitation in mind; every shot is limited to between three and ten seconds, with five being the ideal.

It’s a 3 step process:

1. Storyboard - Work out what to film, where to film and how to do it
2. Film - Get out there. Setup the camera, dry run and then shoot
3. Processing and telecine. This can take a few weeks
4. Edit the digital master and add music

Storyboard

This is much like drawing a comic. Draw up a grid of cells and fill them with sketches and/or text outlining what the shot is about.

My storyboard:

I’ve only included a few. More story board images are on Flickr

More to come on shooting, processing and editing.

I’m not sure if this is classified as animal cruelty or not.