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The ACTLab is growing! We have taken over the room next door, in a move that will more than double our physical presence in the University. Currently dubbed the ACTLab Annex, this L-shaped room is home to 6 Apple Power Macintosh computers, 3 233MHz Pentium MMX machines and a CDROM burner. In contrast to the somber gray of the original room, the Annex is decked out in purple, red, yellow and cream walls, with a black hanging grid ceiling. We have been holding classes and guest lectures in it. Security is finally coming online to allow 24hr access like the old room. Our teaching staff has likewise doubled, with the addition of Eric Gould, of MonkeyMedia, Austin and San Francisco. Eric brings years of experience in designing interaction and interface applications for major clients. Combined with the theoretical base provided by Director Sandy Stone, the ACTLab is now in a position to provide students with the most comprehensive view of interactive media available. *FLASH* We have just taken over the maintenance and development of an Avatar Virtual World,"Utopia", originally developed by OnLive! Inc. This is a 3D VRML virtual world with a twist--the avatars can talk to each other in stereo space! This is a big coup for the ACTLab, as we beat out some serious competitors, including the MIT Media Lab, to land Utopia. Please take a look at http://www.actlab.us/utopia. Sorry, but only Win95 machines are able to run the Traveller client required.
----- In the Pipeline -----
ZapNet featured in Forbes On-line The Zap-Net project was recently featured in Forbes On-Line .
----- Past Glories ----- Sex Book Signing (Yes, That's right!) The book: "Sex on Campus: The Naked Truth About the Real Sex
Lives of College Students," published by Random House The place: Book People, 6th and
Lamar Multimedia Exhibit To Be Presented at Centro cultural de la Raza's Fourth Annual Latino and Native American Film Festival March 20-22, 1997. As part of its' Fourth Annual Cine Estudiantil Film/Video Festival, the Centro Cultural de la Raza proudly presented the San Diego premiere of a multimedia exhibit entitled "The Revolution Will Be Digitized". This entertaining and informative exhibit was presented Thursday (March 20th) through Saturday (March 22nd) from 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. at The Centro Cultural de la Raza (2125 Park Blvd., San Diego). Produced by the ZapNet Collective located at the University of Texas at Austin, "The Revolution Will Be Digitized" is an interactive CD-ROM and web-site about the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas and the struggle for democracy in Mexico. With access to university resources and the valuable cultural capital of student collaboration, ZapNet makes use of new media to create a vibrant collage of audio, video, animation, mural painting, poetry, letters, reports, and analysis of this historic moment in time. The resulting work, radical in both form and content, explores the Internet as an emerging social space and site of international solidarity. It is a story that begins with the arrival of the conquistadors and stretches into the fleshless future of cyberspace. The ZapNet Collective is a network of academics, students, and journalists based in the world infamous ACTlab at the University of Texas at Austin. ZapNet is responding to the Zapatista call for the creation of a network of alternative communication and to furthering the on-line distribution of grass-roots documentaries and independent news media about the struggle for democracy in Mexico. Accompanying the exhibition will be the producer and co-director of "The Revolution Will Be Digitized", Tamara V. Ford. Emphasizing the importance of the CD ROM Ms. Ford states, "The Revolution Will Be Digitized" was produced because we saw that mainstream media was not covering the important developments taking place in Chiapas with the Zapatista movement. What we have tried to do with this piece is put the Zapatista voices out there. Also, we hope the CD ROM has been designed in a way to entertain and engage people through the use of interactive media." "The Revolution Will Be Digitized" CD ROM will be presented along with the San Diego premiere screening of "Las Companeras Tienen Grado", an informative and thought provoking work exploring the role woman play in the Zapatista movement. This award-winning documentary can be viewed between 2-5 p.m. in the Centro Cultural de la Raza's gallery space Thursday - Saturday (March 20 - 22th). Cine Estudiantil '97 is co-sponsored by San Diego State University's Associated Students, MASSO, CASE, Latin American Studies, Women's Studies, P.S.F.A. and the Centennial Committee; Universidad Autonoma de Baja California; Landmark Theatres, The Mexican Consulate, California Council for the Humanities, Herdez Corporation, The San Diego/Tijuana Sister Society, San Diego Union-Tribune and El Instituto de Cultura de Baja California. The Centro Cultural de la Raza's programming is made possible with support from the City of San Diego's Commission for Arts and Culture, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Performance Network, California Arts Council, The American Festival Project, San Diego City Schools, San Diego Foundation For Change, The Angelica Foundation, San Diego Housing Commission, The Nathan Cummings Foundation and Telesis Foundation. Tickets and information
The ACTLab Booth was a smash at the SXSW MultiMedia Trade Show! The world famous ACTLab was graciously donated a booth by the South by Southwest Multi-Media Trade Show, Mar 9-11. Ron Yokubaitis and Texas.Net provided us with ISDN and net connectivity for the event. We showcased the very best of the work coming out of the ACTLab, and the response was terrific. We are no longer the best kept secret in Austin!
Guerilla Opera Smuggles Aria into SXSW Multimedia Tradeshow AUSTIN--The technologically-inclined and passionate folks from the cyberopera _Honoria and Ciberspazio_ returned to the airwaves and netwaves from the showroom floor of the South by Southwest Multimedia Conference to be held in Austin, Texas this weekend. "We'll have singers and dancers while everyone else has CD-ROM players and disk drives. We're going to smuggle high culture into multimedia!" exclaims Impresaria Madelyn Starbuck also known as honoria. The performance featured soprano Janet Davidson, choreographer/dancer Bryan Green, music from the original score by George Oldziey, and libretto received electronically from virtual collaborators known only as "Scotto" and "Judy." The virtual curtain went up at 3pm (Central) March 9th in front of the Advanced Communication Technologies Laboratory (ACTLAB) booth. The live performance was simulcast internationally on the Internet via CU-SeeMe and Apple Quick Time Conferencing. Internet reception of the performance was free to the public. Information about the Internet reception of the webcast and the necessary free software is available on their website at http://www.cyberopera.org/. ### Honoria in Ciberspazio Contact:
Interdependence and Cyberspace Electric Minds did a profile piece on Willard Uncapher, and his work rethinking and research on boundaries, including the boundariy of online and off. The Actlab was of course mentioned. For registered members at http://www.minds.com/cgi-bin/maslink.cgi/command?content+wwj+flash (registration is free).
Alternative Networks of Communication Geneve Gil of the ZapNet project gave a workshop on Alternative Networks of Communication and the Zapatistas in Cyberspace" at Frontline Feminisms:Women, War and Resistance - Jan 16 - 18, 1997 at UC Riverside's Center for Women in Coalition.
The Cybernetic Buccaneer Storms the Web! The 28 Nov update of Hotwired featured Vernon Reed and his Pirate Utopias project, in an article about Hakim Bey and his theory of Temporary Autonomous Zones.
Whiskey Pete's 8-10 Nov 96: Sandy Stone matched wits with Jean Baudrillard at Whiskey Pete's in the heart of the Nevada Desert(!). You were there, weren't you?
UT-Austin Cyberspace Lab Projects at Spanish VR Conference (AUSTIN)--Two cyberspace research projects from the Advanced Communications Technologies Laboratory (ACTLAB) at UT-Austin have been selected for presentation at a prestigious international conference on virtual reality at the University of Valencia (Spain) on November 4-8, 1996. The conference will feature nineteen presentations from research teams representing commercial and academic organization in 20 countries. The ACTLAB is the only organization to be asked to present more than one project at the conference. The ACTLAB's competing "sister lab," the Media Lab at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, is also sending a project. "This is great recognition of the ACTLAB's efforts," says Richard MacKinnon, the principal investigator for one of the selected research projects. "The MIT Media Lab is a very rich lab which has dominated the field for too long," MacKinnon says. "This conference will put our projects on equal footing and help us in our efforts to generate desperately needed funding support. There are several interesting projects at UT's ACTLAB which are not getting the attention that they deserve." The ACTLAB projects being sent to Valencia are a cyberopera and a studyy on "cyber-pain." The cyberopera, "honoria in ciberspazio," is the first opera in cyberspace. It is about people who fall in love with one another via the internet and the consequences of subsequently meeting in person. The libretto was developed from the contributions of over 60 internet users worldwide. Much of the collaboration was managed from the cyberopera's website at :http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~slatin/opera. To date, the cyberopera has been internationally webcast twice inn full-motion color and sound using freely available computer-based teleconferencing software. The cyberopera team aspires to launch a full-fledged world-travelling opera company. "We have brought the opera to the internet and now it is time to bring the internet to the opera," says Madelyn Starbuck, the team leader and impresaria. MacKinnon's project on "cyber-pain" investigates how pleasure and pain,, which theoretically provide the basic motivation for human behavior, are thrown into flux in virtual reality because touch is not yet possible in VR. "Lacking a consensus on what hurts points to the necessity for a cognitive contract--a relationship which must be understood as prior to the social contract," says MacKinnon. "We must pay more attention to the cognitive contract in VR if we hope to create a civilized cyberspace."
honoria's cyberspace opera "Come to Me: the Birth of a Clone", from Act I, Scene 2 of honoria's cyberspace opera "honoria in ciberspazio" was webcast from the ACTLab on Wed 23 Oct. It was a rousing success, with many more sites trying to access the CU-SeeMe feed than we had allowed spaces for.
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