Virtual Death MemorialsWritten by Lala C. Ballatan
On March 27, 2005 at Big Easy’s charmingly bizarre Barrister’s Gallery, artists will experience what afterlife will be in a virtual death memorial group show – Hydriotaphia: New Orleans Artists Design Their Own Funeral Urns. Barrister’s Gallery owner, Andy Antippas will act as curator with artist, Dan Teague. To spice up show and heighten enthusiasm for it, Antippas declared, “What are memorials to dead but touchstones for great post-mortem popularity contest? He whose gravestone draws biggest crowds wins”Digital artist, David Sullivan plays off self-esteem type of virtual death memorial by coming up with his Ego Machine. In order to put fun back into funeral, this project of Sullivan uses Google, as protector of his soul into future. His concept for Ego Machine was that vanity of death memorials levels off with use of internet like a vanity mirror. He had also emphasized today’s geeky technological interests – robots, artificial intelligence, DNA replication and cloning – that somehow are manic on immortality. The Ego Machine has an urn for Sullivan that was visually interesting, gives chance for user involvement and allows citation of his physical body. His remains will be integrated in a computer processor. As a memorial, a virtual agent shall run on computer containing his ashes and scour web for mentions of his name. Once mention of his name increases across web, an image of Sullivan’s younger self will morph on-screen. However, once mention decreases, his on-screen image will age, diminish and ultimately fade away.
| | Streaming Media: Why It WorksWritten by Lala C. Ballatan
Isn’t it more interesting to pay attention on a kind of medium that is complete with valuable data and presented on a creative way with audio-video quality to match? That’s kind of media we sometimes look for before becoming compelled enough on certain products or service offers. Content delivery over Internet is really never guaranteed.Given this, it is easy to understand why streaming media has worked enough to become part of our daily lives. Streaming media is term for enabling real-time distribution of digital media (audio, video and data) over a network that could be internet or a corporate Intranet. Here, digital media are received as a continuous real-time stream. Streaming audio and video demand that delivery is reliable and fast. It is advantageous since it allows multimedia to be downloaded and viewed simultaneously without leaving behind physical files. It is easy to understand why streaming media works for almost everyone since everyone can benefit from it. From new parents wanting to share their child’s first birthday party with long distance relatives to corporations holding live shareholder meetings online – in fact, anything that can be captured, can be streamed. How is streaming media distributed, then? A server transmits streaming media data, presenting it in real-time to a client application running n a PC or other electronic device such as a cellular phone or Personal Digital Assistant. As soon as enough data has been transmitted and stored in client’s buffer, streaming media allows devices to begin playback of multimedia.
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