2002.07_Extreme Computing Festival.pdf

18 Extreme 17/6/02 2:21 pm Page 18

REPORT

EXTREME

Technology meets art meets people

COMPUTING

T he Camden Centre in London’s King’s Cross

The world of

computing has always

had its weird side,

and at the annual

Extreme Computing

show this weird side

is unleashed on the

unsuspecting public.

Colin Murphy plucked

up the courage to

attend

was the home to Extreme Computing 2002 –

an event unlike any other. That’s what the

event’s organisers would have had us believe

before the event, and after? Well, just maybe they

were right.

Extreme Computing was described as “a gigantic

village fete for the 21st century, an off-the-radar

cyber jumble-sale, an all-day celebration of do-it-

yourself technological unusualness”. Geekdom

reigning supreme was the order of the day with a

whole slew of inappropriate technology, and some

appropriate, on display and in use.

The meeting was split into four main parts. The

main hall held theatre style seating for the main

presentations while around the edges were trestle

tables for those with wares to sell or display.

There was the bring and buy sale room to one side

which also featured the cafeteria for food and the

cafeteria for music. For Music? It was here that

visitors could choose from a menu of electronic

tracks, which would be played to them in a private

screening on headphones. For a small extra charge,

they could also opt for the doggie bag feature, and

have their music meal burned to a CD on the spot.

In the opposite corner you could find the slackers

lounge, with its more relaxed atmosphere, away for

the tremendous commotion of the main hall. The

organisers had the foresight to also make this a

family room. Again, the fact that families were there

in strength only goes to show you the range and

diversity that the organisers hoped to attract.

By this point, it was considered that the venue had

run out of suitable corners, so the forth part of the

meeting convened in the pub across the road, and

so, as an adjunct to the main meeting, we had the

Take It Outside event. This did offer people the

chance of quieter surroundings, and proved to be an

ideal venue for small group discussions.

There was a full programme of talks throughout

the day giving the meeting some semblance of a

fixed structure, but it was the breadth of these that

gave you the best indication of the diversity of the

audience: the main ingredients were comedy,

technicality and art. The real challenge was to figure

out exactly which category fitted which presentation.

The talks

Some of the presentations took the role of a panel

discussion, the first of which was “Salute the 20 Years

of the Spectrum”. Rupert Goodwins hosted and chaired

this panel, which consisted of four famous developers

for the Sinclair ZX81 and Spectrum: Nigel Alderton, John

Hollis, Sandy White and Paul Holmes. Much of the

history of the Spectrum and ZX81 hardware

development was laid bare during this time, as well as

what it was about the Sinclair machines and the

domestic computer market that lead to such enormous

growth in such a short time.

After taking part in this panel discussion, John Hollis,

who was better known for writing games such as

Meteor Storm and Time Gate, then revealed to the

massed crowds the delights of “Circuit Bending”. It was

here that John took hold of a very cheap child’s toy

electronic musical instrument, opened it up and

‘fiddled’. Finding the timing circuits, John was able to

make the toy take on a brand new appeal by adding a

variable resister. By adding some flying leads and

skipping one of the audio output sections, the toy took

on a different character. On a wet weekend I can see

the appeal of circuit bending. Some might find

themselves saying “What’s the point?”. The challenge is

quite simple, all John was trying to do is make the toy

do something it wasn’t designed to do – to push the toy

to an extreme.

The extreme concept took on new flavours when Paul

Granjon for Z Lab ( http://www.zprod.org/zLab/ ) took to

the stage. Here we have a technological pursuit that is

performance art. Granjon shared selections of his video

“Two minutes of experimentation and entertainment”

with the audience. His introduction as “The man behind

the ‘The cybernetic parrot sausage’” gave waiting crowd

little to prepare themselves with. Here Paul’s video

showed us ways of fitting the inner workings of ‘Furbee’

type toy to a sausage so that it could move and talk

under its own battery power. As if this wasn’t enough,

Paul went on to show us how he managed to return a

fish steak – the sort of this you would find in a fish

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Issue 22 • 2002

18 Extreme 17/6/02 2:21 pm Page 19

REPORT

hamburger – to the wild oceans by building it an

exoskeleton and giving it a battery powered motor.

From here we had a hard snap back to reality with

the talk “When Science Fiction Becomes Science Fact –

And Then Becomes Science Fiction Again”. Chaired by

cyberpunk author Pat Cadigan, the author Tom

Standage told us about the 18th century chess-playing

automaton “The Turk”, arguing that this marked the

beginning of the study of artificial intelligence and not

developments like Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine.

Sharing the panel were George and Freeman Dyson.

It was here that we were told of the plans of the top-

secret 1950s project to find a peaceful use for US

nuclear weapons. “Project Orion” was being designed

to use the power from nuclear explosions to propel a 40

man spacecraft to the moons of Saturn. George Dyson

was one of the main developers of the project. His son

Freeman, who has recently written a book about

“Project Orion” also fielded questions. Especially

interesting was the fact that NASA, which had cleared

its archive of this project in the ‘70s, was now trying to

buy back as much information about it as possible.

In defence of weblogs was a panel discussion about

the uses and abuses of the phenomenon of online

diaries. Were these “grassroots content management

systems of the future, or just a load of self-obsessed

secret diaries of Adrian Mole?” was the question, to

which no real consensus was arrived at. What did

become apparent was that people don’t write

weblogs to express a ‘different viewpoint’ but are

written in the hope that their viewpoint might be

shared by others and were really searching for

confirmation of that by finding out how many other

weblogs share the same view.

Having had doses of technology, art and science, we

were only left waiting for some politics. Thankfully, this

gap was filled by Cory Docorow from the Electronic

Frontier Foundation, who highlighted the widespread

concerns about the erosion of consumers’ rights to the

fair use of digital media.

Around the hall were many stands to catch the

attention of those passing by. Again, the varied

miscellany of those with something to show is the

important point:

Sounds from a digital past – C64Audio.com

( http://uk.eurorights.org/ ) – fighting draconian copy-

protection measures and legislation in the UK.

Copenhagen Free University

( http://www.infopool.org.uk/ ) – domestic, mutating,

autonomous institution asking what an aesthetics

for life in the knowledge economy might be.

Digital Tables

( http://www.digitaltables.co.uk/home.html ) –

custom-made table-top MAME arcade machines.

Linux (for PlayStation 2) ( http://playstation2-

linux.com/ ) – official Sony port of Linux to the

popular next-gen games console.

The Redundant Technology Initiative

( http://www.lowtech.org/ ) – pro-Linux PC recyclers

from Sheffield.

Sinclair Archaeology

( http://www.etedeschi.ndirect.co.uk/book.htm ) – Sir

Clive-endorsed guide to “every single Sinclair

product ever”.

Thomson & Craighead ( http://www.thomson-

craighead.net/docs/thapf.html ) – commemorative

Web browser tea towels from the digital artist duo.

Wearable computing

( http://the.earth.li/~martin/wearables/ ) – head-

mounted wireless Internet connectivity that fits in

your pocket.

The show has pulled off a remarkable feat – at the end

of the day everyones expectations of the event seem to

have been fulfilled, even though at the start of the day,

no-one was quiet sure what anyone else’s expectations

actually were.

The official figure is that over a 1,000 people

attended throughout the day and I understand that

the organisers would have been happy to see 500.

The buzz factor expressed by everyone who attended

would say it was an absolute success and I can’t wait

for next year.

Alt.Cyberpunk.Chatsubo

( http://www.accanthology.com/ ) were showing their

compilation of Usenet newsgroup written

cyberpunk short stories.

Bricklane TV – a model for Reality TV, but based on

real issues like culture and conflict.

Info

Extreme Computing 2002

http://www.xcom2002.com/

Need to Know

http://www.ntk.net/

Mute Magazine

http://www.metamute.com/

The British Go Association ( http://www.britgo.org/ )

– highlighting the pleasures of simple pursuits with

this ancient board game.

C64Audio.com – CDs of original and remixed

Commodore game themes

( http://www.c64audio.com/ ).

The Campaign for Digital Rights

Gentle pursuits were in evidence, as well as the frantic

Issue 22 • 2002

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