Pictures at an exhibition: Blood Sugar at UCLA
Digital Humanities, Events, Flex, Wii
Posted 2/1/09 by Erik Loyer
Just wanted to share a few snapshots taken just prior to the opening of the installation of Blood Sugar at the UCLA Art | Science Center (the exhibit runs through February 20). The event went quite well—people seemed to really be engaging with the content of the piece, and we got lots of positive feedback about the use of the Wii remote and nunchuk as controllers. “Feels like Minority Report,” one visitor commented.
One interesting tip that might be of use to other folks wanting to create Wii remote-driven installations using the sensor bar: we found that stacking two sensor bars one on top of the other resulted in significantly more reliable pointer control.
Just before the opening.
You can see the two stacked sensor bars here.
A DVD station provides context for the piece.
MSNBC.com and GameSetWatch on Ruben & Lullaby
Games, iPhone, Opertoon
Posted 1/31/09 by Erik Loyer
MSNBC.com’s article featuring Ruben & Lullaby.
Ruben & Lullaby are finding their relationship under increasing scrutiny from the press… “Citizen Gamer” on MSNBC.com published an article on indie iPhone game development that features the game, and Emily Short’s “Homer in Silicon” column on GameSetWatch this week serves up a very thoughtful review...
Wii remote-enabled documentary Blood Sugar to debut this Thursday (1/29) at UCLA
Announcements, Digital Humanities, Events, Flex, Wii
Posted 1/28/09 by Erik Loyer
A screenshot from Blood Sugar.
This Thursday, January 29 from 5:00 - 7:00 pm, UCLA’s Art | Science Center & Lab [directions] is hosting an opening reception for a three-week exhibit of two documentary projects by Sharon Daniel: Public Secrets and the forthcoming Blood Sugar—any interested Angelenos are welcome. I worked with Sharon designing and programming both projects. Here’s a description of Blood Sugar:
Blood Sugar is a “new media documentary” that examines the social and political construction of poverty, alienation, and addiction in American society through the eyes of those who live it. Blood Sugar provides an interactive interface to an audio archive of conversations with 24 current and former injection drug users recorded at the HIV Education and Prevention Program of Alameda County and in California state prisons. Since addicts must fear encounters with regimes of enforcement, they are afraid to be seen-but they do want to be heard. Theirs are the most important voices in the discourse around addiction, public health, poverty and belonging in America. Through the stories of those most affected by addiction, Blood Sugar challenges us to address question such as, what is the social and political status of the addicted? Is the addict considered fully human, diseased, possessed or wholly “other” and thus rendered ideologically appropriate to her status as less than human?
Barring technical issues, you’ll be able to navigate Blood Sugar with a Wii remote and nunchuk at the opening, which makes for quite an immersive experience. We’d love to see you there.
Ruben & Lullaby a finalist in the “Achievement in Art” category of this year’s IGF Mobile
Announcements, Comics, Games, iPhone, Opertoon
Posted 1/27/09 by Erik Loyer
Got the happy news yesterday that Ruben & Lullaby snagged a nomination in the Independent Games Festival Mobile. A lot of midnight oil was burned trying to make the entry deadline--I’m grateful for the response, and all props to Ezra Claytan Daniels for his beautiful artwork for the game (see this post for links to some of his really excellent graphic novel work). It’s been about 10 years since I was last at the Game Developer’s Conference (while working at Inscape on games like The Dark Eye), so It’ll be good to be there again, especially now that it’s held in San Francisco.
Thanks LA Flash; still working on the new Swing distro
Events, Flex, LA Flash, Wii
Posted 1/27/09 by Erik Loyer
Last week’s event at LA Flash was a lot of fun; thanks to all who attended. I promised while I was there that I would make Swing 2.0 available for download—at the moment this is proving more difficult than I hoped, mainly because as soon as I take the project files out of their Flex project folder, they stop working. It’s not a matter of files being missing or anything, and I’ve seen this with other projects, where the project files must be in the folder FlexBuilder has blessed as the official project folder to work. I’m sure there must be something really simple I’m missing here, but I’m stumped at the moment. Any suggestions would be welcomed!
