[TEI 2012 Video Showcase]

Last week I was in Kingston, Ontario, at TEI 2012 — the sixth international conference on tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction. Basically this conference looks at the future of ubiquitous computing, asking questions about how we might use everyday objects that have been imbued with delicious digital magic.

How about a social yoga mat that tells you which position to twist into next or tells your yogi friends you’re practicing right now (and lets you know whether they are, too). Would this mat help you to exercise more?

What if you could create a physical model with your hands while your computer modelled it simultaneously in a program like CAD? Easy peasy, or rather, Easigami. You could design a totally cool light switch — no boring flip switch or commonplace dimmer for you. It could look like a pair of toe shoes or a peony or a chocolate frog. (Okay, I’m jumping a tiny bit ahead of this tool’s current capability, but such research lends itself to extrapolation.)

You wouldn’t even have to put any electronics into your beautiful design. Using dSensingNI software plus a Kinect (to capture your every move in 3D), you would only need to touch that faux chocolate frog and a signal could be sent telling the electricity to turn on or off. And because you’re unencumbered by the vagaries of wiring, you could attach that switch (fake chocolate frog) wherever you wanted — to the wall, the door, the table. (And yes, dSensingNI + Kinect can do this right now.)

Pretty cool, huh?

The first time I attended a TEI conference was in 2010 and I was blown away. First off, it was held at the brand-new Media Lab building at MIT. I have to admit I had stars in my eyes because I was such a fan of the MIT Media Lab. And I wasn’t disappointed. The building was gorgeous — all sparkling glass and white leather couches — that’s how I remember it anyhow. And having no more than a news-story knowledge of ubiquitous computing, I was overwhelmed by the diversity of work that imagined how we might not just stare and type at our digital world, but stroke it, listen to it, even blow bubbles across a bowl of water to navigate it.

So I have to admit that this year was a little disappointing on the holy-crap-it-can-do-what?!! meter. Almost all of the projects presented, discussed and demoed were just chugging along the continuum of poking, stroking, throwing, hearing and splashing. Although there was one art project in particular I still remember, Memory of a Tree, which was beautifully realized. A bare tree branch stands in a glass box. When at least two hands are placed in the handprints at the top of the box, the tree’s shadow begins to flower. When the hands are pulled away, the tree loses its leaves to an invisible wind. As co-creator António Gomes’ explains,

My grandmom who has Alzheimer’s disease often said with awareness of herself that her life is over. [...] People often say that old creatures had their beautiful time before; [but] they are still beautiful like that dead branch is also beautiful. So it seems too hard to define which part of life is more meaningful. Just, through this work, I want to say that all creatures blossom in the beauty of each moments involving the moment which recalls the past.

[The Memory of a Tree, from Oh, Hyun Joo]

There were also several demos that were a pleasure to watch in action or play with, like the TK 730 knitting machine or Machine à Turlute. And the closing keynote, Programming Materiality, by Joanna Berzowska of XS Labs, made me want to leave my job, move to Montreal and join her program at Concordia University.

But nothing lit my brain on fire.

Then I realized that ubiquitous computing is finally becoming, well, ubiquitous. Which is really exciting. Quite a few of the projects presented at TEI 2012 use the sophisticated motion-capture ability of Microsoft’s Kinect, which has become commonplace in many American households. We’re no longer amazed by the fact that we don’t need a controller in one hand in order to interact with a computer program. We’re becoming accustomed to the idea of the digital existing elsewhere, in the “cloud.” And we have no difficulty with the idea of an object existing simultaneously in the digital and physical realms, even if our concepts of what they are overlap. For example, we read books on our e-readers, yet we also read books as books; we’re not confused by a book being on an e-reader and simultaneously a physical object in and of itself.

In fact, over the last two years, our ability to navigate ubiquitous computing has grown at an unprecedented rate. Which actually makes the TEI conference all that much more interesting.

Let’s go back to that light switch for a minute.

Would anyone recognize our fake chocolate frog as a light switch if you didn’t tell them? I think you might have a light switch with a lot of bite marks. And what about putting the switch on a table instead of a wall? Useful or silly? What if the object were somehow recognizable as a light switch and on a table in addition to the wall. Now that might be a good idea. For some people. Which is what the TEI conference is all about: interaction. How we use the digital possibilities already in our world. How we create new embodied hybrids. And how all of this changes us and the world we live in.

Digital interactions are now as much a part of our world as the pine trees in my back yard that grow like weeds. And we need a conference like TEI to help us touch, hear and splash our way forward. Watch the entire conference on Ustream.

Some of my favorite sites — like Instructables, xkcd and Boing Boing — and others I use all the time — like YouTube and Wikipedia — are a product of and are only possible in an open internet that promotes the free exchange of knowledge.

Even a tiny site like mine is only possible in a world where I’m not in legal jeopardy if I link to a site anywhere online that has any links to copyright infringement (how could I possibly police that?).

Legislation currently pending in the US congress — H.R.3261 “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) and S.968 “PROTECT IP” (PIPA) — threaten, at a minimum, to significantly undermine our (that’s all of us on the web, people) ability to communicate with each other and encourage collaborative learning through linking to and direct sharing of resources and ideas. At worst, some of our favorite websites could disappear from the web without warning, and without due process of law.

So PLEASE take just a minute to contact your representatives in congress. For more information about what these bills could mean for the internet, there are more resources over at the EFF.

Thanks!

Last weekend, September 16th and 17th, Slice Magazine held its first ever writers’ conference. Not only was it the first conference for the mag, but it was the first major writers’ conference to be held in Brooklyn — home to many writers, editors and agents, as well as the Brooklyn Book Festival which took place on September 18th. What a great weekend for literature in Brooklyn!

I first read about the conference in Poets & Writers magazine and I have to say I was daunted at the idea of attending a conference in NYC. Not that I’m a afraid of “the big city” (I lived in NYC for 10 years), but I was afraid of being in a writing environment that I remembered as exclusionary and elitist.

Boy, was I wrong.

There aren’t enough superlatives to describe how much I enjoyed and profited from the Slice Literary Writers’ Conference. Because the conference was small and there were so many editors, agents and published writers available, I didn’t feel as though I had to pitch my book every time I talked to someone. And the agents and editors who attended didn’t have to worry about being swarmed every time they stepped out from behind the podium, so they were very accessible. Without even trying, I connected with people with whom I would like to work. I also met and am staying in touch with several fellow writers, one of my goals for the conference. I was relaxed, and listened and learned. And best of all, my novel Antigone Rising is now revived.

I had basically given up after having been rejected by four agents who had read full manuscript. But several agents at the conference were interested in Antigone. So I’ve started a relatively substantive revision based on learning that a debut novel should be 80,000 to 100,000 words; Antigone is currently 134,000 (which I thought was average, not long). I also have a clear idea now of how to fix a big problem in the novel — that there was one big problem looming over everything all the time. A huge thanks for this insight goes to writer Justin Taylor, who led a workshop on character development.

Hopefully, in the next year I’ll be writing here about the wonderful agent who’s sold my book to the wonderful editor who will shepherd it to publication.

Thanks, Slice!

If there ever was a project that reclaimed “authenticity” and “innovation” from their present status of fluff-lined buzzwords and into a genuine ethos, it would be South Indian independent publisher Tara Books, who for the past 16 years has been giving voice to marginalized art and literature through a commune of artists, writers and designers collaborating on remarkable handmade books. Crafted by local artisans in their fair trade workshop in Chennai, the books are hand-bound and each page is painstakingly screen-printed by hand using traditional Indian dyes, whose fresh earthy scent gently oozes from the gorgeous pages of the finished book. Read more

To an unpublished author there are two seemingly insurmountable walls to publication: first, the agent; second, the publisher. Back in the day, it was editors who received unsolicited manuscripts; now it’s agents who receive tens of thousands of queries a year. It’s incredibly difficult to obtain representation. And once an agent has decided to take on your book, he/she then has to shop it around to publishers who may or may not be interested. So why wouldn’t an author be relieved to work with an agent-publisher who has miraculously dissolved that second wall?

Unpublished authors are desperate. I imagine some published authors are equally desperate, worrying that their backlist, which used to be a tiny pension, is now worthless and inaccessible to readers. Published midlist authors may feel as though their publishers have not been looking out for their best interests over the years, so why should they give up even more of the paltry sum they might earn through digital publication? Unpublished authors may come out of the gate wondering what a traditional publisher can do for them when all they read in blog posts in how they won’t be sent on book tours and no advertising or publicity dollars will be spent on them.

Authors are desperate for readers. Most don’t care how it happens.

So, no, I don’t think they care whether agent-publishers can fairly represent them. I don’t think most authors consider the publishing business fair to them in any way.

But they should.

And the agent should be their advocate. This is especially important for those authors most vulnerable to desperation — the unpublished and the medium-to-small sellers. It is the agent’s job to provide the best opportunities possible to the author. It is the job of the publisher (trad or not) to produce that work in the best possible format(s) with the best possible access to readers.

I have to admit that as an unpublished author, I would be relieved to work with an agent-publisher and avoid having to scale that second wall. Because sometimes I feel like I’m standing in a hole up to my waist, flailing my arms at the whole process. But I do deserve fair representation — we all do. And it’s hard to see how an agent-publisher could provide that.

But today I read about The End over at Wonderland (the blog by Alice Taylor, hard-core gamer and wife of writer Cory Doctorow). Even though it’s for kids, it sounds like something I’d like to play. As Alice explains:

I’ve posted about this before because it was a treasured thing to commission – a game about death and philosophy – and has taken a little longer to gestate than I originally anticipated. So, with pleasure, a trailer for The End, from Preloaded, for Channel 4 Education.

Amanda Hocking is that girl you’ve heard about, that 26-year-old who’s made about $2 million selling her self-published books on Amazon. She also recently signed a four-book deal with St. Martin’s Press for another $2 million (reportedly), which is why she was interviewed in NYTimes Magazine last week. (I’m not going to bother with a link to that story because it’s behind the paywall — I read it in hardcopy.)

So the most interesting piece of the interview were her comments about literary versus pop writing. Hocking greatly respects literary writers and used to try to write in that genre (and yes, I’m calling it a genre), until her friend/assistant Eric told her “these books you’re writing aren’t you.”She then began writing the more light-hearted , action-packed, romance-laced novels that have been so popular. This is the interesting comment she makes about the difference between this (her) sort of writing and literary work:

Theirs [e.g., Vonnegut] are not actually character-driven, they’re not books about people. People are just used to explain an idea. And my books are about people — who might happen to have ideas.

How many times have you heard/read/said that the difference between literary and pop fiction is that the former are character-driven and the latter are plot-driven? And yet she’s absolutely right, isn’t she? You might disagree with me, arguing that theme/idea is secondary and character primary in so-called literature, but I think the best you’d be able to prove is equality.

Now, I don’t have a problem with this because I like to read fiction that presents complex ideas through the mouths of interesting characters living difficult lives. But I also enjoy fiction about interesting characters thrown into difficult situations requiring dramatic reaction without any greater theme presented than love conquers all or friends forever whatever. And okay, yes, those are themes/ideas, but you have to admit they’re general and common enough that they’re playing a flat third fiddle to character and plot.

What’s the point here? I have a strong tendency to think of an idea first, then the characters come to me with plot arriving late to the party like it’s some kind of diva. But I’m working on a book now where it’s very much the other way around — the main character and her voice came first, very strongly, with plot galloping in right behind her. But because I’m so used to working the first way, I’ve been slowing myself down, backstepping, trying to cram in some big ideas. Hocking’s comment made me realize that I need to go back to what I was doing initially; I need to let go of the big themes and let the story spool out. The big themes will show themselves. And if they don’t? That’s what revision’s for, right?

“Watch out, research is about to get even geekier! Not only does the new Joe and Rika Mansueto Library at the University of Chicago look like one of the domed ships in “Silent Running,” it’s got a highly automated book storage and retrieval system. The public areas of the library are above ground in a glass and steel dome. But all the books are held underground in a climate controlled area capable of keeping 3.5 million volumes readily accessible. Library patrons email their request to the library and within five minutes the robotic system has found the desired book and sent it up to the pickup area in the reading room. The video below shows the whole process.”

Only one downside as I see it: no browsing the stacks. I’ve found some great authors that way, such as Sherman Alexie (obviously I started at the As). Still, it’s thrilling that this library actually exists and print books are being saved and used. I’m not a Luddite, but I do love me some binded paper.

This is one reason I haven’t had time to post in the past few months — tap and ballet. Today is our recital and the colored tights my teacher lent me are a little too short! Need to buy some new ones before tonight. Otherwise my three “costumes” are all set to go. I have a quick change between ballet performances (pants off, tutu on) and then a full change for tap. Apparently, you’re never to old to pretend to be a ballerina.