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by Nancy Nowacek, Katie Salen, Marina Zurkow

http://01sj.org/content/view/334/49/
http://www.o-matic.com/isea

Karaoke Ice is a delicious pop culture mash-up, an ice cream truck-turned-mobilekaraoke-unit, deployed to unite people in a collective quest to transform the streets of San Jose into a space of community interaction. Participants karaoke for an audience while sitting in the transformed front cab of the vehicle, and use a customized karaoke engine to select, sing, and record a song for later broadcast, as the truck makes it way to a variety of festival locations. Free frozen treats lure prospective performers to participate, distributed by Remedios the Squirrel Cub, who drives the truck and choreographs enigmatic rituals of his own to the tunes emanating from the citizen performers. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Superstition. Heart of Glass. The streets of San Jose transformed through flavor and song.

Karaoke Ice is a commissioned residency proejct by ZeroOne San Jose, San Jose State University, and the Lucas Artists Program at Montalvo.
Overview

Imagine an ice cream truck transformed into a mobile karaoke unit, driven by a squirrel cub with a penchant for cheap magic, deployed to spark spontaneous interaction between festival-goers, locals, and tourists in Cesar Chavez Plaza and surrounding neighborhoods. Customized with karaoke mics, disco ball, and speakers, and aesthetically "dressed" in a language of local vernacular (think lowrider neon, mariachi fringe, Chinese lanterns, and California cool), this "mobile magnet" not only serves as an information node within the festival network, but represents a "metanomad" who wanders the festival grounds, seeking and sharing information, catalyzing play among the Cesar Chavez populous, and delivering cool treats amidst the rays of the bright August sun.

The truck, or Lucci as she is known, is a tasty pop culture hybrid, one that brings two familiar expressions of "network culture" - ice cream trucks and karaoke bars--into conversation with one another. Dressed in song and shimmer, Lucci broadcasts tinny pop songs in endless, repetitive loops as she weaves her way through the zone of the Festival. This then, is her magic. The resulting mix is one that celebrates the power of song to entice and inflame, as well as the sense of community that can be fostered among strangers trapped in a terrestrial network.

Tinged with the themes of deception and illusion, of costume, character, water, and ice, Lucci and her pal Remedios draw participants in through sight, sound, and taste. Unable to resist the temptation to editorialize the festival goings on, she doles out festival news, providing her own sharp brand of observation and opinion on things seen and (over) heard. Patrons can read these printed missives as they are dispatched daily through a slit in Lucci's side. At nighttime, once their work for the day is done, it's time to let loose. They find a party to join, hustle some more karaoke, and enjoy the festival entertainment.

Posted by Stephanie Syjuco at 05:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

http://01sj.org/content/view/181/49/

I hope to collect and compare anecdotes of Mrs. Ba from the Vietnamese diaspora in Vancouver and San Jose and transcribe these oral tales to one cohesive history in Vietnamese and English. This record will be a part of the shrines/installations to be installed in Vietnamese noodle restaurants in San Jose.
Ba Ba is a woman who sells noodle soup at Bai Sau Beach in Qui Nhon, the town in Vietnam where I was born. Many tragedies befell Ba Ba including the suicide drowning in 1971 of her son who had refused to enlist. In 1972 she was gunned down when Bai Sau Beach became a battlefield; while operating on her wounds, the surgeon notes that she was shot by an AK 47, the Soviet-made gun of the advancing North Vietnamese Army - and as well as by an M-16 supplied to the retreating South Vietnamese Armies by the Americans. Betrayed by her two daughters, who had married American soldiers, she was left outside the American embassy in Saigon on that fateful day in June of 1975. Ba Ba returned to Bai Sau Beach and amid accusations from her friends and neighbours of working for the enemy she planned her escape and left Vietnam by boat in the fall of 1976 in search of her daughters. She was never seen again. These tales of Ba Ba's indomitable spirit were invoked by many Vietnamese boat people during the exodus by sea throughout the eighties and early nineties.

Vietnamese altars and shrines are dedicated to many contemporary personages whose stories and deeds are often passed on as shining examples of the human spirit and as well as what to do in such situations. These stories of Ba Ba resonate with many Vietnamese restaurant workers whose struggles mirror her own. Although it is an important and relevant tale, it is gradually fading. The last known shrine to Ba Ba in Vancouver was at Little Saigon Restaurant, which closed in 2003.

My work has always drawn inspiration and clarity from Vietnamese stories and rituals. Many of my works are anchored by personal stories from my mother and her friends, such as recent installations highlighting Lao Noi Kieu (Ancient Citizen) a spirit whose influence includes matters of nation and citizenship. Lao shrines were installed at Banff Centre in 2004 and at the Glenbow Museum in Alberta in 2005. Calling for Ba Ba is an important and necessary extension of my particular interest in creating installations to figures whose deeds inspired and galvanized the Vietnamese community in Canada during its early struggle.

Posted by Stephanie Syjuco at 05:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

http://01sj.org/content/view/182/49/
http://www.breadboardband.org/
Shosei Oishi, Masayuki Akamatsu, Kazuki Saita, Yosuke Hayashi, and Katsuhiko Harada

[Live at IAMAS (10.18.2005)]

The Breadboard Band is a performing band that uses breadboards made of freely constructed electronic circuits to play music. We produce audio and visual expression through the most minimal, fundamental elements in the form of showing the electronic components of an instrument while directly touching and forming the electronic circuit by hand. The electric signals released from hand-made electronic circuits releases extremely rough and ferocious wave patterns. This performance is based on improvisational interplay, and we pull powerful music into shape through each member's operation, while discovering new sounds by hand.

The Breadboard Band is one that uses a breadboard to perform music. A breadboard is a board that is perforated with connector holes into a grid-shape, to which electronic components are inserted in order to build a prototype of an electronic circuit. The electronic components can be inserted or removed with ease, making it simple to change the wiring with jumper cables. Utilizing the features of the breadboard, The Breadboard Band creates audio and visual circuits on the board, and modifies them during performance.

Today, 100 years from the public performance in 1906 of the Telharmonium, the first electronic musical instrument, The Breadboard Band raises objections toward black-box electronic musical instruments and computers. This objection is raised in the form of showing the electronic components of an instrument, directly touching and forming the electric circuit by hand, and producing audio and visual expression through the most minimal, fundamental elements. This can be considered the hardware version of software programming. The circuit change during a performance is called "On-the-fly Wiring".

The performance of the circuits on the breadboard is less than 0.1% of that of electronic audio and video devices offered commercially. The electric signals released from hand-made electronic circuits releases extremely rough and ferocious wave patterns that might destroy a commercial instrument. However, the primal screams of ecstasy released from the electric circuits surge from the depths of modern society that is surrounded by sophisticated information technology, and stirs us with emotion.

The Breadboard Band's performances based on improvisational interplay, and we pull powerful music into shape through each member's operation, while discovering new sounds by hand. Various elements blend together, becoming one from beats made through analog oscillation circuits, riffs made through programmable chips, noises made through magnetic head, scratches made through a hacked iPod, and the videos of changing audio signals. It may be quite humorous to see the serious expressions of the performers as they grapple with small electronic components, but they match any band in vigor and potency.

Posted by Stephanie Syjuco at 05:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

shown in conjunction with ISEA festival, San Jose, 2006

The project examines the private politics behind the corporate world, an environment where competitiveness turns into deceit. It focuses on the covert act of sabotaging office communications and equipment to reduce its efficiency in daily operations. This act creates a suspense in the strange imperfections, the unnerving fault finding performed on the equipment and the growing frustrations by the co-workers.

Weapons for the corporate armoury investigates the possibility of designing a weapon that inflicts trauma on your co-worker in a non-lethal manner, thereby allowing you to get ahead in business. The project examines the private politics behind the corporate world, an environment where competitiveness turns into deceit. It focuses on the covert act of sabotaging office communications and equipment to reduce its efficiency in daily operations. This act creates a suspense in the strange imperfections, the unnerving fault finding performed on the equipment and the growing frustrations by the co-workers.

The narrative
The relationship between the co-workers deteriorate as a result.. The consequences became so drastic that the victim's performance drops and eventually loses his job.

The tools/design
The Firefly tool intercepts the scanning job through the use of intermittent bright flashing lights in the scanner. The frequency of activation causes disturbances to the output. The result is random imperfect quality on the final scanned document.

The Woodpecker tool produces irregular stamping action in the printer. This action is synchronised with the mechanical movement of the print head to create an array of patches in the final printout, rendering it useless.

The Cateye tool is basically the eye of the saboteur. It is a spy camera that [provides a visual overview of the victim's actions and intentions. It has to be strategically placed within the operations area.

Posted by Stephanie Syjuco at 05:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.scrapyardchallenge.com/

ABOUT SCRAPYARD CHALLENGE WORKSHOPS
The Scrapyard Challenge Workshops are intensive workshops where participants build simple electronic projects (both digital and analog inputs) out of found or discarded "junk" (old electronics, clothing, furniture, outdated computer equipment, appliances, turntables, monitors, gadgets, etc..). So far the workshops have been held 14 times in 6 countries with 3 different themes including the MIDI Scrapyard Challenge where participants build simple musical controllers from discarded objects and "junk", DIY Wearable Challenge where they create wearable tech projects from used clothing, and the DIY Urban Challenge where they work on public space interventions and other projects. The MIDI Scrapyard version includes a mini workshop where participants build simple drawing robots or "DrawBots" with small, inexpensive motors, batteries, and drawing markers that can also be connected to Serial or MIDI interface. At the end of the day or evening, the workshop participants have a small performance, concert, or fashion show (depending on the workshop theme) where they demonstrate and preent their creations together as a group. No electronics skills or any experience with technology is necessary to participate in the workshops.

OPEN AND COLLABORATIVE SPACE
The Scrapyard Challenge Workshops are built on the premise of encouraging an open and collaborative space for creative ideas and hands-on prototyping. Workshop attendees learn how to build simple instruments from found and/or discarded objects. We encourage attendance from visitors from multiple backgrounds and all skill levels.

Posted by Stephanie Syjuco at 05:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)