Julian Bleecker is an artist and technologist with a history developing innovative mobile research projects.
Julian Bleecker is an artist and technologist with a history developing innovative mobile research projects.
Bleecker holds a Ph.D. from the History of Consciousness Program at University of California, Santa Cruz where he studied with Donna Haraway, Angela Davis, Victor Burgin, and James Clifford.
He's been an artist-in-residence at Eyebeam, [1] [2] exhibited work at Ars Electronica, a Research Fellow at the Annenberg Center for Communication and an Assistant Professor at the USC Interactive Media Division.
Bleecker has been active as a researcher in the areas of mobile computing, pervasive networks and near-field interaction systems. In 2006, with Nicolas Nova, he organized a workshop entitled "Networked Objects" at [EPFL | Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne], held in May 2006, exploring his interest in Near-Field Interaction and the Internet of Things.
This vector of research on mobile computing, pervasive networks and near-field or proximity-based interaction systems has been a theme of Bleecker's research and design projects for a number of years. One of his earlier projects in this area was PDPal (2003–2005), a series of technology project that investigated how mobile devices could be integrated into a system to allow people to annotate the experiences they have, as in a location-specific diary. The PDPal series was commissioned by Eyebeam in New York City, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis to find ways for creating art-technology projects that made use of readily available mobile devices, such as PDAs and mobile phones. PDPal was a collaborative project with designers Marina Zurkow and Scott Patterson.
Other more exploratory projects looked at ways to use common technologies, such as WiFi, in unexpected ways. WiFi.Bedouin and WiFi.ArtCache were two projects that use wireless communications networks to create local networks that make digital content available in very location-specific ways. WiFi.ArtCache was invited for exhibition at ISEA 2006 in San Jose, California, and was the winner of the Audience Choice Award. It was also commissioned for exhibition at the group show "Reclaim the Spectrum" in Seville, Spain (2006).
More playful commissioned art-technology projects include "Pussy Weevil", an animated, sensor-based, screen-based character, which was selected for exhibition at Ars Electronica (2005), the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City (2003–2004), and Art Interactive in Boston (2003).
Bleecker was lead technologist on the Sonic Memorial Project, a Peabody Award-winning website and radio documentary based on audio recollections of the events of September 11.
In 2008 he wrote the essay Design Fiction: A Short Essay on Design, Science, Fact and Fiction that lead to the development of the futures design approach Design Fiction.
He founded his cycling product company OMATA in 2014 after working for 7 years at Nokia, and sold it in 2021. He now focuses his time on developing the third evolution of Near Future Laboratory , a multidisciplinary consultancy and global community focused on developing more robust futures practices through Design Fiction. His podcast The Near Future Laboratory Podcast features discussions on the relationship between imagination, creativity, and innovation practices.
Ubiquitous computing is a concept in software engineering, hardware engineering and computer science where computing is made to appear anytime and everywhere. In contrast to desktop computing, ubiquitous computing can occur using any device, in any location, and in any format. A user interacts with the computer, which can exist in many different forms, including laptop computers, tablets, smart phones and terminals in everyday objects such as a refrigerator or a pair of glasses. The underlying technologies to support ubiquitous computing include Internet, advanced middleware, operating system, mobile code, sensors, microprocessors, new I/O and user interfaces, computer networks, mobile protocols, location and positioning, and new materials.
A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking allows homes, telecommunications networks and business installations to avoid the costly process of introducing cables into a building, or as a connection between various equipment locations. Admin telecommunications networks are generally implemented and administered using radio communication. This implementation takes place at the physical level (layer) of the OSI model network structure.
Wi-Fi is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves. These are the most widely used computer networks in the world, used globally in home and small office networks to link devices together and to a wireless router to connect them to the Internet, and in wireless access points in public places like coffee shops, hotels, libraries, and airports to provide visitors with Internet connectivity for their mobile devices.
A wireless mesh network (WMN) is a communications network made up of radio nodes organized in a mesh topology. It can also be a form of wireless ad hoc network.
The Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy (CCLP) at the University of Southern California promotes interdisciplinary research in communications between the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Viterbi School of Engineering, and the separate USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, also funded by Walter Annenberg.
Locative media or location-based media (LBM) is a virtual medium of communication functionally bound to a location. The physical implementation of locative media, however, is not bound to the same location to which the content refers.
Île Sans Fil is a non-profit community wireless network that provides free public wireless Internet access to mobile users in public spaces throughout the island of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The organization works with cafés, restaurants, bars, stores, community organizations, and individuals to provide free Internet access in public spaces. As of April 2010, the network had over 140,000 registered users and over 212 live hotspots. In 2016, the organization changed it operating name to Zone Access Public Montréal
Mundane science fiction (MSF) is a niche literary movement within science fiction that developed in the early 2000s, with principles codified by the "Mundane Manifesto" in 2004, signed by author Geoff Ryman and "The Clarion West 2004 Class". The movement proposes "mundane science fiction" as its own subgenre of science fiction, typically characterized by its setting on Earth or within the Solar System; a lack of interstellar travel, intergalactic travel or human contact with extraterrestrials; and a believable use of technology and science as it exists at the time the story is written or a plausible extension of existing technology. There is debate over the boundaries of MSF and over which works can be considered canonical. Rudy Rucker has noted MSF's similarities to hard science fiction and Ritch Calvin has pointed out MSF's similarities to cyberpunk. Some commentators have identified science fiction films and television series which embody the MSF ethos of near-future realism.
Golan Levin is an American new media artist, composer, performer and engineer interested in developing artifacts and events which explore supple new modes of reactive expression.
A pervasive game is one where the gaming experience is extended out in the real world, or where the fictive world in which the game takes place blends with the physical world. The "It's Alive" mobile games company described pervasive games as "games that surround you", while Montola, Stenros and Waern's book, Pervasive Games defines them as having "one or more salient features that expand the contractual magic circle of play spatially, temporally, or socially." The concept of a "magic circle" draws from the work of Johan Huizinga, who describes the boundaries of play.
Wi-Fi positioning system is a geolocation system that uses the characteristics of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and other wireless access points to discover where a device is located.
The W3C Geolocation API is an effort by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to standardize an interface to retrieve the geographical location information for a client-side device. It defines a set of objects, ECMAScript standard compliant, that executing in the client application give the client's device location through the consulting of Location Information Servers, which are transparent for the application programming interface (API). The most common sources of location information are IP address, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth MAC address, radio-frequency identification (RFID), Wi-Fi connection location, or device Global Positioning System (GPS) and GSM/CDMA cell IDs. The location is returned with a given accuracy depending on the best location information source available.
The Free Art and Technology Lab a.k.a. F.A.T. Lab was a collective of artists, engineers, scientists, lawyers, and musicians, dedicated to the merging of popular culture with open source technology. F.A.T. Lab was known for producing artwork critical of traditional Intellectual Property Law in the realm of new media art and technology. F.A.T. Lab has historically created work intended for the public domain, but has also released work under various open licenses. Their commitment is to support "open values and the public domain through the use of emerging open licenses, support for open entrepreneurship and the admonishment of secrecy, copyright monopolies and patents. F.A.T. Lab's mission has been approached through various methods of placing open ideals into the mainstream popular culture, including work with the New York Times, MTV, the front page of YouTube and in the Museum of Modern Art permanent collection."
Keith N. Hampton is professor of media and information at Michigan State University. His research interests focus on the relationship between information and communication technology, such as the Internet, social networks, and community democratic engagement, social isolation, and participation in the urban environment.
Sabine Seymour is a designer, author, entrepreneur, and researcher, known for her work in fashionable technology and design. She is the director of the Fashionable Technology Lab and Assistant Professor of Fashionable Technology at Parsons the New School for Design. Seymour is the founder of Moondial Inc., a consulting company specializing in the integration of technology and fabrics.
Design fiction is a design practice aiming at exploring and criticising possible futures by creating speculative, and often provocative, scenarios narrated through designed artifacts. It is a way to facilitate and foster debates, as explained by futurist Scott Smith: "... design fiction as a communication and social object creates interactions and dialogues around futures that were missing before. It helps make it real enough for people that you can have a meaningful conversation with".
Addie Wagenknecht is an American artist and researcher living in New York City and Liechtenstein. Her work deals primarily with pop culture, feminist theory, new media and open source software and hardware. She frequently works in collectives, which have included Nortd Labs, F.A.T. lab, and Deep Lab. She has received fellowships and residencies from Eyebeam, Mozilla, The Studio for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University and CERN.
RF CMOS is a metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit (IC) technology that integrates radio-frequency (RF), analog and digital electronics on a mixed-signal CMOS RF circuit chip. It is widely used in modern wireless telecommunications, such as cellular networks, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS receivers, broadcasting, vehicular communication systems, and the radio transceivers in all modern mobile phones and wireless networking devices. RF CMOS technology was pioneered by Pakistani engineer Asad Ali Abidi at UCLA during the late 1980s to early 1990s, and helped bring about the wireless revolution with the introduction of digital signal processing in wireless communications. The development and design of RF CMOS devices was enabled by van der Ziel's FET RF noise model, which was published in the early 1960s and remained largely forgotten until the 1990s.
Moustafa Youssef is an Egyptian computer scientist who was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2019 for contributions to wireless location tracking technologies and a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 2019 for contributions to location tracking algorithms. He is the first and only ACM Fellow in the Middle East and Africa.
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