@Babycastles

The good people at Babycastles have graciously posted the video of 'INNOVATIVE LEISURE: NEW ATARI GAMES', curated by Ian Bogost. I had a wonderful time appearing via Skype, and felt very empowered by the size of the projector screen. My thanks to all involved for the warm reception, and my sincerest apologies for those who tried to play the game poem sans directions!

Innovative Leasure: New Atari Games - Babycastles show curated by Ian Bogost
from Ida C. Benedetto on Vimeo.

-SRT

My 8-bit Daughter

I found a few free moments today, found myself playing with my future phone and an app called PicoEDITOR. Now I know that future phones are notorious for enabling considerable media consumption, but now and then you can find some incredibly efficient tools for creative production. So, with the above-mentioned app, I spent a minute or two creating an 8x8 pixel sprite of my soon-to-be year-old daughter Aria:

Then, I subsequently created a stereoscopic 8x8 drawing:

I know that some of you don't have fancy future phones, but luckily, this type of art is entirely transferable across media. Color some graph paper, or collage some colored paper. To prove the fungibility of this creative exercise, I have cross-stitched my daughter's sprite:

floss on 22-count canvas

Having taken just a few minutes, this constrained form of graphic art is perfect for a daily Moment.

-SRT

Press and Exhibits for Atari Game Poem

I know it's been a while since I've updated everybody regarding my Atari game poetry project, and in light of recent events surrounding this project, I thought that now would be a great time to do so.

First, I wanted to mention that my second Atari game poem, Calm, Mute, Moving, was featured in an article on page 4 of the October 2011 issue of Game Developer Magazine.

Suweeet.

Secondly regarding "CMM," I received a much appreciated "Wow" by Ian Bogost on the AtariAge.com forums, and was subsequently contacted by Mr. Bogost requesting that I include Calm, Mute, Moving in an Atari Art Game exhibition that he is curating at Babycastles on November 13. Ian Bogost is Director of the Graduate Program in Digital Media at Georgia Tech, and is also a game designer (Persuasive Games), author (How to Do Things with Video Games, Racing the Beam), and Atari "game poet" himself (A Slow Year). Babycastles is an independent video games arcade in New York City.

Super suweeet.

Lastly, regarding the project as a whole: I have only sound programming left to do on the third installment of the Atari game poem triptych Monday. Still untitled, the third poem will be premiered, along with the other two pieces, at the Louisville Arcade Expo, March 2-4, 2012 at the Ramada Plaza Hotel, Louisville, Kentucky. Going back upon my original Moment Art concept Monday, this third Atari poem features... well I guess you're going to have to attend the expo to find out! (similey*)! Word is, you'll have a chance to win my entire Monday exhibit in a select game tournament, complete with the game poem cartriges, an Atari, a TV, and all necessary controllers and documentation.

How suweeet is that?

Touched by the positive response that this project has received, it occurs to me that I may not be the only one who appreciates this form of expression, and since there may actually be others besides me reading this blog, I guess I'll post a little teaser shot, from the early stages of development, of the final untitled game poem for the Atari:

Untitled Atari game poem screenshot

Post-Lastly, there are some creative ventures coming your way for those who are enjoying the Daily Moment Art process, so stay tuned for some how-tos!

-SRT

* similey - it's like an emoticon, only a little more textual in context.

[squared]: A Dice Poem

[squared] is not an attempt to reincarnate a chick-v-egg debate. Rather, it is an analog[ue?] vision of a computer generated poem.

More specifically, the 6 faces of each of 3 die display 1 of 18 pieces of prose, and are a tangible means of randomly generating one of my previously untitled generative projects. Should we encounter an EMP, blackout, or summertime power outage, these poetry dice will accommodate unlimited rolling while your CPU remains DOA, thus providing, to the user, endless enjoyment [or what we call in the business "poetic appeasement"].

[We don't really call it that.][I made that up.][Sorry.].

Poetry dice require no coding experience, so this is something that can be done by anyone [and I hope you do!]. Nevertheless, for those interested, here is the .python code for [squared]:

# [squared]
# Sonny Rae Tempest


from random import choice
from time import sleep


dice1=['The middle-aged woman closed the curtains. She then,','The old woman picked up the glass. She then,','The young woman dashed down the stairs. She then,','The old man closed the book. He then,','The middle-aged man put down the shovel. He then,','The young man washed his hands. He then']
dice2=['laughing,','winking,','blushing,','without a word,','sobbing,','shaking,']
dice3=['took the diamond from the middle-aged woman.',"petted the young woman's sandy hair.",'gave the worn pages to the old woman.','tossed the young man the glove.','handed the middle-aged man a folded check.','embraced the old man.']


while True:
print ('\n'+choice(dice1)+' '+choice(dice2)+' '+choice(dice3))
sleep(4)

-SRT

Semantics

-SRT

"Still Worn": A Crayon Poem

8-line crayon poetry using the medium as the canvas.

     Still Worn


     still as restless
     still as bound
     still the son, Father
     still the holy specter
     still with obedience
     still with weight to warrant
     still silent
     still colored


-SRT

Slices

"Mama, can I cut myself a slice of bread?" says my stepdaughter Sharlotte, trying to get a snack before dinner.

I chuckled, because my brain placed inappropriate line breaks in her sentence, which in my head immediately portrayed her as a neo-emo-L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poet.

She got her bread, and I got to checking out Nick Montfort's incredibly creative website about how to best turn this benign sentence into something a little more provoking.

I knew enough Python and Javascript to lift some ideas from Mr. Montfort's The Two, and was able to create some generative poetry based on Sharlotte's sentence.

Essentially, I was able to create 3-line-stanza slices, which in turn are formed by slices of Sharlotte's original sentence. Sure, there are only 3*3*3 possibilities here, and don't necessarily necessitate a computer script to find them all, but I enjoy watching the computer display these different slices at random, each with their own meaning depending upon how the sentence is sliced.

So, I am able to offer you a computer-generated poem called "Slices" in two forms: Python for those who know, and Javascript for those who wish to view it in their browser (Since I cannot afford proper web hosting, you'll have to download the .html page before you can view it. Sorry.).

Slices.py
Slices.html

Here is the Python code for those just wanting to view it, get an idea of its structure, or if you are like me, find it easiest to just copy and paste it:

# Slices
# Sonny Rae Tempest & Sharlotte Higgs

from random import choice
from time import sleep

slices=['Mama','can I cut myself','a slice of bread']

while True:
print ('\n'+choice(slices)+'\n'+choice(slices)+'\n'+choice(slices))
sleep(4)

-SRT