ART211W - Entry 5

(click the face to watch the video this entry is about)

Adventure Time was a one-time short animation for the Nicktoon show "Random Cartoons". In this mini show, we are shown what appears to be random nonsense that a crazy, whacked out writer came up with. Originally planned to be shown on television, the episode leaked out onto the internet over two years before it was originally planned to be aired. Normally, such an act would destroy the show's credibility and uniqueness.

However, the exact opposite happened thanks to the widespread, almost viral, showings of this 7 minute cartoon. Hype for the actual showing was staggering, and thanks to most teens having a crude sense of, shall we say, humor (see, anything on CollegeHumor.com), the show became one of the top viewed shorts during it's runtime. So much, so, that Cartoon Network actually picked up Adventure Time, and it's set for a late 2009 airing (13 episodes, each running 22 minutes).

This shows the power of how the internet and social sites, such as Youtube, can boost the popularity and fame of a seemingly unnoticed show. So much, infact, that it's now a "cult classic", being spread all over the internet, colleges and via friends.

ART211W - Entry 4

( link: http://awards.sf.akqa.com/creative/2007/halo3/iris/shell.html )

Iris was an ARG (alternate reality game) designed to promote Halo 3 pre-launch of the game.

With any giant media launch come hype, and as if the Halo franchise hadn't enough steam behind it, Iris had planned on topping the bar. As another alternate way of, perhaps subliminally, promoting the game, Iris took followers from the digital world, to the street, back online, and to the street again with countless mysteries to solve, hidden messages, and a massively confusing "storyline".

Halo 2 had, previously, used a familiar technique with their infamous "ilovebees.com" site (where the xbox.com url switched to ilovebees.com in the original theatrical trailer), so running an ARG was nothing new to Bungie. With the fact the conclusion of the trilogy was Halo 3, though, they decided to go far beyond what almost any ARG had previously done. With months of preperation, Iris finally took form and was released to the public, bit by bit. I remember attempting to follow the events as they progressed, becomming massively confused and springing to fan site to look for clues. Needless to say, I was aleady interested in the Halo series as well, but this ARG had spiked an almost personal need to try to figure out this mystery.

And as saying, I continued to fail.

The site above lists all the steps of this "game" and how they were carried out. It's interesting to see the complexity behind organizing such a complex "social experiment" such as this. The success of this project continued onward promoting the game's storyline, pushing the hype, and depthening the plot of this epic sequal to one of the most anticipated trilogies ever created.

Art 211W - Entry 3

http://stimulant.io/wp/index.php/2009/01/from-the-labs-xray-integrates-apple-iphone-and-microsoft-surface/

Woah! An Apple and Microsoft product working together!

This video/article discusses a homebrew application for the iPhone that interacts with the Microsoft Surface "table computer". The basis for creating such an application was the inspiration from the “SecondLight” technology shown at last year’s Professional Developers Conference. This was an expansion of their original Surface technology to allow a second, “hidden” image to be viewable by simply placing tracing paper over top.

For the owners of the first generation device, though, another alternative was required. Enter XRay. This project takes advantage of a secondary display that can be placed over top of the device, and then having screen images “sent” to it to reflect whatever was underneath.

The possibilities for technology like this are completely endless. The “hidden image” concept can be taken to a completely different level. Imagine seeing an image and being able to see an expanded description by simply holding your phone over it. Another fun concept would be the digital map idea we completed last week. Having a slur of names on a Surface, only being able to hold another device on top to see details for each individual.

These “hidden” displays are a completely new way to provide information, and should be seen more and more often as time progresses.