CEDX

From Wallstrip to the Sopranos

Lindsay Campbell from Wallstrip gets a speaking part as AJ's Professor Klein on the Sopranos.  Brava!  My son's former Tae Kwan Do instructor was the girlfriend in "Cleaver" a couple of episodes ago.  Not a speaking part, but nice for her.  Good for Lindsay, and good for web shows like Wallstrip.  That their stars can crossover to mass media validates investment in the shows with substance and good production values, and proves the potential for a larger audience for them.  Lindsay's been in a few commercials and a Law and Order episode, and I'm sure she is destined for a fan base and her own entourage soon.   Take heart waiters and waitresses of New York, the pool of acting gigs is getting a whole lot bigger soon, and consumers, there's going to be a whole lot more channels to choose from over your broadband connection in the next couple of years.

Rich Air - Shu Lea Cheang

In September of 2002, I worked with Shu Lea Cheng and  Creative Time on an art project where we kind of turned the money exchange system inside out, where the physical form of currency was organically grown garlic, carried in a mobile central bank/money exchange.  People built up electronic credit for the garlic via a web app that is long gone.  The original URL for the project, www.rich-air.com has been taken over by a sinkhole of ads for Laser Hair Removal.  I've cobbled together some links that recall some of the flavor of the project, yuk, yuk.  The website seems to be preserved in some form here: http://garlic02.worldofprojects.info/ In the flickr photoset is a scan of a piece on the project by Andrea Gunn in Time Out New York.

www.flickr.com plunkman's Rich-Air photoset

Having been a system manager for Citibank's Funds Transfer Network, it was a fun experience, and I got to meet the Reverend Billy, too, which was a real trip.  I was the tech liaison for the rolling central bank, using nycwireless hotspots and in DUMBO, I setup a temporary hotspot using a DSL line installed in a stable that had been converted to an art gallery. One of the guys that worked on the project, Kenzan Tsutakawa-Chinn, made a short movie about the project, unbeknownst to me until I started digging around for content for this story.  You can see the summary here.  I'm using this post as a jumping-off point to think about the creative ways that wi-fi, location, presence, and networked apps can be used to interact with people.