How Indie Video Game Makers Are Changing the Game

in Art, Technology, Video Games | October 5th, 2012

In a fol­low-up to its fea­ture on Glitch Art, which we wrote up in August, PBS’s Off Book series has released this short video pro­mot­ing indie video games. The video packs a lot of infor­ma­tion into a very short time frame, so it’s worth watch­ing twice. Over­all, the take­away here is that indie game design­ers can do inno­v­a­tive, quirky things the big guys–the so-called AAA games–can’t, since the indies can fund their own projects through enti­ties like Kick­starter and Indiegogo. It’s a per­sua­sive mes­sage giv­en the amaz­ing vari­ety of sound and vision on dis­play; in sev­en and a half min­utes, we get a glimpse of over two dozen indie games rang­ing from throw­backs to clas­sic 8‑bit ani­ma­tion to gor­geous, painter­ly envi­ron­ments and land­scapes.

The Off Book video breaks its sub­ject into four basic cat­e­gories, each one cov­ered by dif­fer­ent gam­ing jour­nal­ists or game cre­ators: Mechan­ics, Sound, Visu­als, and Sto­ry­telling. The last cat­e­go­ry is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant since it real­ly is an emo­tion­al engage­ment with a game’s char­ac­ters and plot­lines that push­es peo­ple through the game. At least I can say that’s always been the case for me. My fond­est mem­o­ries of the games I sat up all night with are those that pulled me into a world through, yes, fan­cy graph­ics and com­plex moves, but even more so through nar­ra­tive: from the sim­ple, repet­i­tive tales of the Mega Man series to the glo­be­trot­ting intrigues of Tomb Raider. For some­one who remem­bers the first incar­na­tions of both of those games, it’s excit­ing to see indie game design­ers draw­ing on nostalgia—in graph­ic pre­sen­ta­tion and in the small craft stu­dio pro­duc­tion teams—while also inte­grat­ing con­tem­po­rary sounds and ideas. Like many of their con­tem­po­raries in var­i­ous indie music nich­es, indie game design­ers are push­ing the medi­um for­ward by scal­ing back to basics and by draw­ing on the trea­sures of their past.

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

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The Scotch Pronunciation Guide: Brian Cox Teaches You How To Ask Authentically for 40 Scotches

in Random | October 5th, 2012

Some Scotch names are fair­ly straight­for­ward — Glen­livet, Glen­fid­dich, Laphroaig. Oth­ers not so much. I mean, give Bun­na­hab­hain and Caol Ila a try. Well, if you’re a con­nois­seur strug­gling to get the pro­nun­ci­a­tion right, this will serve you well. Esquire has cre­at­ed “The Amer­i­can Man’s Scotch Pro­nun­ci­a­tion Guide” (though you hard­ly need to be male to prof­it from it), which fea­tures “esteemed actor and proud Scot” Bri­an Cox sipping/talking his way through more than 40 brand names. Catch them all here.

via @PartiallyExLife

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Neil Armstrong’s Parents Appear on the Classic American TV Show “I’ve Got a Secret,” 1962

in Astronomy | October 4th, 2012

“I’ve Got a Secret” was an Amer­i­can game show aired by CBS. By ask­ing a series of ques­tions, a pan­el had to deter­mine the secret of con­tes­tants. On Sep­tem­ber 17, 1962, Stephen Koenig Arm­strong and Vio­la Louise Engel Arm­strong came on the show and har­bored this secret — their son was one of nine men made an astro­naut that very day. Almost sev­en years lat­er, on July 20, 1969, Arm­strong became the first per­son to set foot on the moon. This is why host Gar­ry Moore’s ques­tion is all the more amaz­ing: “Now, how would you feel, Mrs. Arm­strong, if it turned out — of course nobody knows — but if it turns out that your son is the first man to land on the moon? How would you feel?”

Neil Arm­strong died on August 25, 2012 in Cincin­nati, at the age of 82. Here is NASA’s trib­ute to his life and achieve­ments.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

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Alfred Stieglitz: The Eloquent Eye, a Revealing Look at “The Father of Modern Photography”

in Art, Photography | October 4th, 2012

More than any­one else, Alfred Stieglitz helped raise the sta­tus of pho­tog­ra­phy to the lev­el of art. As a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, pub­lish­er and gallery own­er, Stieglitz was a key fig­ure in the birth of Amer­i­can mod­ernism. His own sta­tus as an arbiter of taste in pho­tog­ra­phy was bol­stered by his uncan­ny knack for quick­ly rec­og­niz­ing the great­ness of artists work­ing in oth­er media. He was the first gallery own­er in Amer­i­ca to exhib­it Picas­so, Matisse, Bran­cusi and oth­er great fig­ures in mod­ern art. As the nar­ra­tor of this fas­ci­nat­ing 1999 doc­u­men­tary puts it, Stieglitz opened the eyes of Amer­i­ca to the 20th cen­tu­ry.

Alfred Stieglitz: The Elo­quent Eye was direct­ed by Per­ry Miller Ada­to for the PBS Amer­i­can Mas­ters series, and builds on his ear­li­er doc­u­men­tary work on Stieglitz’s wid­ow, the painter Geor­gia O’Keefe.

Hav­ing shot many reels of film show­ing O’Keefe talk­ing about Stieglitz, Ada­to was a nat­ur­al choice to direct a full-length doc­u­men­tary on Stieglitz. As he told PBS in an inter­view:

We knew we had an ace up our sleeve–unique, invalu­able, nev­er-seen film footage of Geor­gia O’Ke­effe speak­ing about Alfred Stieglitz. In 1980, at the request of O’Ke­effe her­self, I had flown to New Mex­i­co with a small film crew and inter­viewed the artist at great length about Stieglitz.. On cam­era in her home, her gar­den and her stu­dio, she speaks frankly and inti­mate­ly, her rem­i­nis­cences salt­ed with her dry humor. O’Ke­effe talks about Alfred Stieglitz–the stu­dent, the man, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er, the pio­neer in the intro­duc­tion of avant-garde Euro­pean art to Amer­i­ca, the defend­er of strug­gling young Amer­i­can mod­ern artists; her own views on the artists of the famed “Stieglitz cir­cle” and of their life togeth­er. This film, rare dur­ing her life­time, became unique after her death in 1986. The 1980 project for a film about Stieglitz using this footage was nev­er real­ized. For 19 long years, eight large flat reels of 16mm film (work-print and synced mag track) lay buried in the stor­age room of my house in West­port, CT. Buried, but not entire­ly for­got­ten.

The doc­u­men­tary is round­ed out by inter­views with lead­ing Stieglitz schol­ars and muse­um cura­tors. Ada­to told PBS he was con­fi­dent the film would help reawak­en inter­est in Stieglitz, whose fame in recent decades has been over­shad­owed by that of O’Keefe. “It will help to restore his right­ful place in the his­to­ry of 20th cen­tu­ry art and cul­ture,” he said. “We hope that the pro­gram will also reveal Stieglitz as a charis­mat­ic, com­plex and fas­ci­nat­ing indi­vid­ual ‘whose ide­al­ism wres­tled with his human frail­ties.’ ”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Geor­gia O’Keeffe at 92

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The History of Byzantium Podcast Picks Up Where The History of Rome Left Off

in History, Podcasts | October 4th, 2012

In May we post­ed about Mike Dun­can’s The His­to­ry of Rome pod­cast, which, upon reach­ing episode 179, had con­clud­ed the tale of the Roman Empire’s hey­day. Over its five-year run, Dun­can’s show amassed a large, enthu­si­as­tic audi­ence, most of whom have no doubt con­tin­ued their explo­ration of Roman his­to­ry else­where. It has even inspired some to launch his­to­ry pod­casts of their own, one of which presents itself as The His­to­ry of Rome’s direct suc­ces­sor in sub­ject, style, and tone. The His­to­ry of Byzan­tium (RSS — iTunes), which debuted in May, aims to recount the sto­ry of Roman Empire of Late Antiq­ui­ty and the Mid­dle Ages, now bet­ter known as the Byzan­tine Empire, from the years 476 through 1453. Though per­haps less often dis­cussed by the aver­age his­to­ry buff, the Byzan­tine Empire nonethe­less offers a wealth of his­tor­i­cal inter­est, espe­cial­ly, it seems, to pod­cast­ers; you may already have heard Lars Brown­worth’s show 12 Byzan­tine Rulers, which even­tu­al­ly land­ed him a book deal. And many more Byzan­tine sto­ries remain to tell.

Pier­son, by day a tele­vi­son crit­ic, explic­it­ly describes his project as both an unof­fi­cial sequel and an homage to The His­to­ry of Rome. “I liked the sim­pli­fi­ca­tion and expla­na­tion of the Roman sto­ry,” he writes in his intro­duc­to­ry post. “I liked the half an hour length. I liked Mike’s sense of humour and tim­ing. I liked his neu­tral tone which nev­er felt like it was pro­vid­ing an over­bear­ing opin­ion on the nar­ra­tive. When Mike announced he would be stop­ping with the fall of the West in 476 I con­sid­ered whether I could pos­si­bly take on the task of con­tin­u­ing the sto­ry. [ … ] Ini­tial­ly at least I hope to emu­late Mike’s style. I want to keep the rough struc­ture and neu­tral tone estab­lished on The His­to­ry of Rome because I think so high­ly of it. I hope you won’t see it as sim­ply an imi­ta­tion and doubt­less over time my own style will emerge.” This seems as hon­est an account as any of the way cre­ators work off of their inspi­ra­tions, and His­to­ry of Rome fans will no doubt lis­ten with inter­est to The His­to­ry of Byzan­tium for both the devel­op­ments in the tale and in Pier­son­’s way of telling it.

You can sub­scribe to The His­to­ry of Byzan­tium via RSS or iTunes.

And, all of you his­to­ry buffs, remem­ber that you can find free cours­es in the His­to­ry sec­tion of our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es from Great Uni­ver­si­ties.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The His­to­ry of Rome in 179 Pod­casts

The Dig­i­tal Tip­ping Point: The Wild Ride from Pod­cast to Book Deal

The Decline and Fall of the Roman (and Amer­i­can?) Empire: A Free Audio­book

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Higgs Boson, the Musical: CERN Data Turned into Melody

in Music, Science, Technology | October 4th, 2012

When researchers at CERN announced the dis­cov­ery of the Hig­gs Boson this sum­mer, Domeni­co Vic­i­nan­za, a pro­fes­sion­al com­pos­er and par­ti­cle physi­cist at DANTE (Deliv­ery of Advanced Net­work Tech­nol­o­gy to Europe) took the Hig­gs research data and turned it into a melody. He explained how he did it to PRI’s The World:

In order to take a sub­atom­ic par­ti­cle like the Hig­gs Boson and con­vert it into a melody, to notes, what we do is basi­cal­ly take the data and asso­ciate with each one of the numer­ic val­ues a sin­gle note on a score. Melody is fol­low­ing basi­cal­ly exact­ly the same behav­ior the sci­en­tif­ic data is show­ing. So when the piano starts play­ing, you can hear some real­ly real­ly high pitched notes.… They are the sig­na­ture of the Hig­gs Boson melody and they are cor­re­spond­ing to a peak in the sci­en­tif­ic draft research has shown at CERN. The actu­al data points are only the one played by the piano at the begin­ning and then played by piano and marim­ba in the sec­ond rep­e­ti­tion. So the marim­ba was play­ing the low­er notes and the piano was play­ing the high­er notes. So it sounds like a Cuban Habanera but this is clas­si­cal insi­d­ence.… I thor­ough­ly believe that sci­ence can offer musi­cians a won­der­ful way to look for inter­est­ing melodies, inter­est­ing har­monies, inter­est­ing son­ic phe­nom­e­na. They can be tak­en and be used by com­posers to cre­ate some real enter­tain­ment.

Back in 2009, Vic­i­nan­za orig­i­nal­ly caught our atten­tion when he and the ‘Lost Sounds Orches­tra’ gave a unique per­for­mance, play­ing ancient instru­ments live in Stock­holm while the audi­ence watched dancers per­form some 7,000 miles away in Kuala Lumpur on an ultra-fast dis­play screen. You can catch scenes from that per­for­mance right here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Hig­gs Boson and Its Dis­cov­ery Explained with Ani­ma­tion

Demys­ti­fy­ing the Hig­gs Boson with Leonard Susskind, the Father of String The­o­ry

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Listen: Beck Reworks 20 Philip Glass Compositions Into a 20 Minute Song, ‘NYC: 73–78’

in Music | October 4th, 2012

Lat­er this month — Octo­ber 23rd to be pre­cise — the singer-song­writer Beck and fel­low musi­cians will cel­e­brate Philip Glass’ 75th birth­day with the release of Rework: Philip Glass Remixed. The album will be streamed online in its entire­ty on NPR’s First Lis­tens site start­ing next Mon­day.

But you can already catch Beck­’s con­tri­bu­tion to the release. It’s noth­ing oth­er than 20 Philip Glass com­po­si­tions remixed into a 20 minute track, and it’s called ‘NYC: 73–78’. Catch it on NPR’s site or lis­ten below.

If the whole idea of Glass turn­ing 75 makes you feel nos­tal­gic, and if you want to revis­it some vin­tage mate­r­i­al, don’t miss two old chest­nuts: Philip Glass Com­pos­es for Sesame Street (1979) and Philip Glass, Seen and Heard Through the Cin­e­mat­ic Mind of Peter Green­away (1983).

 

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1972 Diane Arbus Documentary Interviews Those Who Knew the American Photographer Best

in Film, Photography | October 4th, 2012

Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Diane (pro­nounced Dee-Ann) Arbus received much new press a few years ago with the release of the high­ly fic­tion­al­ized and mis­guid­ed biopic Fur, star­ring Nicole Kid­man. The movie did not do well, and its crit­i­cal fail­ure may have eclipsed some re-eval­u­a­tion of her work in favor of pruri­ent spec­u­la­tion about the woman behind it. Anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty arrived last year on the 40th anniver­sary of Arbus’s death by sui­cide at age 48, and with the pub­li­ca­tion of William Todd Schultz’s Arbus biog­ra­phy An Emer­gency in Slow Motion. But long before all of this renewed inter­est in Arbus, there was the short doc­u­men­tary Mas­ters of Pho­tog­ra­phy: Diane Arbus (above). Pro­duced in 1972, one year after Arbus’s death, the film is built on inter­views with the peo­ple who knew her best: her daugh­ter Doon, her teacher at the New School, Lisette Mod­el, col­league Mar­vin Israel, and the direc­tor of pho­tog­ra­phy at the time for the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art, John Szarkows­ki. That same year, Arbus became the first Amer­i­can pho­tog­ra­ph­er to be fea­tured, posthu­mous­ly, at the Venice Bien­nale.

Born Diane Nemerov to wealthy par­ents in New York City, Arbus once con­fid­ed to Studs Terkel that she “grew up feel­ing immune and exempt from cir­cum­stance.” “One of the things I suf­fered from,” said Arbus, “was that I nev­er felt adver­si­ty. I was con­firmed in a sense of unre­al­i­ty.” Arbus gained a rep­u­ta­tion for pur­su­ing the seem­ing­ly “unre­al” in the midst of real­i­ty; her pho­to­graph­ic sub­jects were cir­cus “freaks,” social out­siders, eccen­tric per­form­ers, the phys­i­cal­ly dis­abled (whom she called “aris­to­crats”) and just ordi­nary, not very attrac­tive, peo­ple.

Some­times her sub­jects seem unre­al because their warts-and-all ordi­nar­i­ness con­trasts so stark­ly with the glossy denizens of slick, full-col­or magazines–those who can seem more real to us than we do to our­selves. She may have been dri­ven to the mar­gins because of her hatred for the fash­ion pho­tog­ra­phy she and her hus­band, Allan Arbus, did for Vogue, Sev­en­teen, and Glam­our.

Arbus had a unique abil­i­ty to coax pow­er­ful por­traits from her sub­jects, most of whom stare direct­ly at her cam­era, and the view­er, and do not shrink from con­fronta­tion. As with most artists who com­mit sui­cide, a “cult of Arbus” has sprung up to defend her from crit­i­cal scruti­ny, but there are legit­i­mate ques­tions about whether her por­trai­ture human­izes or exploits her sub­jects. Susan Son­tag believed the lat­ter and described her work as “based on dis­tance, on priv­i­lege.” React­ing to her por­trait of him, Nor­man Mail­er found her work dan­ger­ous enough to quip, “Giv­ing a cam­era to Diane Arbus is like giv­ing a hand grenade to a baby.” But Arbus was not naïve: she describes her­self in an audio inter­view above as “kind of two-faced, very ingra­ti­at­ing,” and “a lit­tle too nice” to her sub­jects while she cap­tures their flaws. I’ll admit, it’s a lit­tle hard to make up one’s mind about her moti­va­tions, but the pho­tographs are always deeply com­pelling.

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

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