Uminho no topo

UMinho fica no lugar 300 da maior listagem de rankings alguma vez realizada a nível mundial com 16,000 instituições de ensino superior. O estudo foi realizado pela Webometrics. Antes da UM só a UP que ficou em 271.

O TOP5 do ranking é constituído pelos suspeitos do costume:

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. Stanford University
3. Harvard University
4. University of California Berkeley
5. Cornell University

E o ranking de instituições portuguesas presentes no TOP500 é o que se pode ver aqui abaixo ou na listagem completa.

271. Universidade do Porto
300. Universidade do Minho
374. Universidade Técnica de Lisboa
378. Universidade de Coimbra
479. Universidade de Lisboa

[a partir de CiênciaHoje]

arte interactiva na PS3

A arte interactiva parece querer tomar conta dos novos universos digitais criados pelas consolas de última geração. Linger in Shadows parece ser o mote de partida para novas experiências lúdicas ainda, mas cada vez mais estéticas.

Linger in Shadows is not a game, but rather an experiment into the realm of interactive digital art. Created by a collective of talented artists based in Poland known as Plastic, Linger in Shadows delivers cutting-edge graphics technology and is the first demoscene project to ever hit a home console. Bringing this underground digital art culture exclusively to the PlayStation®Network, it delivers a truly unique journey that will challenge and entertain you, and change the way you think about games and art forever.

Fica aqui também um pequeno tutorial de Maya do colectivo Plastic sobre a realização do videojogo.

história audiovisual

Numa passagem pelo Internet Archive entretive-me a ver as novidades de Moving Images e fiquei estupefacto com a quantidade de obras primas que já por ali se podem ver na integralidade e de graça por pertencerem ao Domínio Público. Claro que nem tudo são rosas, as cópias que aqui vemos foram feitas a partir de películas antigas mal conservadas e por processos de conversão vídeo algo duvidosos. Nos últimos anos e devido ao impulso dado pelo aparecimento dos formatos Laser Disc e DVD todos estes filmes foram restaurados para poderem ser vistos e revistos com a qualidade original. O problema é que as obras restauradas não pertencem ao dominio público, podendo apenas ser disponibilizadas em regime aberto cópias das versões não-restauradas. Pode parecer de somenos importância, mas ver Metropolis na sua cópia restaurada é uma experiência completamente nova que assume todo um deslumbramento estético impossível nas versões envelhecidas.

No meio dessas obras encontrei um documento raro, Nazi Concentration Camps (1945), por mim nunca visto, sobre os campos de concentração Nazis. São 59 minutos construídos a partir de colagens de vários pequenos filmes da altura em que os Aliados entraram nos vários campos de concentração Nazis. Opto por o expor aqui porque não sendo um documento de ficção é um documento audiovisual de uma força extraordinária. Graficamente violento, violento não no seu sentido visual convencionado do sangue e afins mas antes no poder conotacional despoletado pelo facto de se tratar de imagem real. Algo a ver com reservas pelos mais sensíveis, contudo obrigatório. Não foi assim há tanto tempo e se nos lembrarmos que tudo isto surge com uma grande depressão económica... E já agora e para desanuviar o peso das imagens do Holocausto vejam a animação, Make Mine Freedom (1948), de John Sutherland sobre as vantagens do Capitalismo sobre o Comunismo



E para contrabalançar fica aqui a visão oposta "The Communist Manifesto illustrated by Cartoons".



Como alguém diz num comment no YouTube: "If the history of the past two centuries has taught us anything, it is that neither socialism nor capitalism work if taken to extremes."

Não tendo tido tempo para pesquisar tudo, deixo aqui uma lista de apenas algumas obras obrigatórias da história do cinema disponíveis no Internet Archive entre muitas outras.

Le voyage dans la lune de Georges Melies (1902)
The Birth of a Nation de D.W. Griffith (1915)
Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari de Robert Wiene (1919)
The Kid de Charles Chaplin (1921)
Nosferatu de Fritz Lang (1922)
Haxan de Benjamin Christensen (1922)
Metropolis de Fritz Lang (1927)
M de Fritz Lang (1931)
The Man Who Knew Too Much de Alfred Hitchcock (1934)
The 39 Steps de Alfred Hitchcock (1935)
Triumph of the Will de Leni Riefenstahl (1935)
The Gold Rush de Charles Chaplin (1942)
Shadow of a Doubt de Alfred Hitchcock (1943)
The Stranger de Orson Welles (1946)
The Little Shop Of Horrors de Roger Corman (1960)

50 livros sobre videojogos

Listagem realizada pela EDGE sobre os 50 livros que todos deveriam ter na industria do desenvolvimento.


THEORY
Trigger Happy: The Inner Life of Videogames, by Steven Poole
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi
Rules of Play, by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman
Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds, by Jesper Juul
Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism, by Ian Bogost

DESIGN PRACTICE
Fundamentals of Game Design, by Ernest Adams and Andrew Rollings
21st Century Game Design, by Chris Bateman and Richard Boon
Gender-Inclusive Game Design, by Sheri Graner Ray
A Theory of Fun for Game Design, by Raph Koster
Balance of Power: International Politics as the Ultimate Global Game, by Chris Crawford
Digital Game-Based Learning, by Marc Prensky

WRITING
Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames, edited by Chris Bateman

GRAPHIC DESIGN
Creating the Art of the Game, by Matthew Omernick
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Visual Explanations and Envisioning Information, all by Edward Tufte
Pause and Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative, by Mark Stephen Meadows

MUSIC AND AUDIO
The Fat Man on Game Audio: Tasty Morsels of Sonic Goodness, by George Alastair 'The Fat Man' Sanger

ONLINE GAMES AND COMMUNITY
Developing Online Games: An Insider’s Guide, by Jessica Mulligan and Bridgette Petrovsky
Designing Virtual Worlds, by Richard Bartle
Community Building on the Web: Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities, by Amy Jo Kim

THE HISTORY OF GAMES
The Oxford History of Board Games, by David Parlett
The Ultimate History of Video Games, by Steven L. Kent
Supercade: A Visual History of the Videogame Age 1971 - 1984, by Van Burnham

SOCIOLOGY
Joystick Nation, by J.C. Herz
Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence, by Gerard Jones
What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, by James Paul Gee
Everything Bad Is Good for You, by Steven Johnson
From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games, edited by Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins
Pikachu's Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokémon, edited by Joseph Tobin

PEOPLE, PROJECTS AND BUSINESSES
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, by Frederick P. Brooks
Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, 2nd edition by Tom Demarco and Timothy Lister
Postmortems from Game Developer, edited by Austin Grossman
Game Over, Press Start to Continue, by David Sheff, with new material by Andy Eddy
Masters of Doom, by David Kushner
Smartbomb: The Quest for Art, Entertainment, and Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution by Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby
he Xbox 360 Uncloaked by Dean Takahashi

OTHER MEDIA AND USEFUL DISCIPLINES
Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud
Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting, by Robert McKee
A Pattern Language, by Christopher Alexander et al
The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald Norman

DEEP BACKGROUND
Homo Ludens, by Johan Huizinga
Man, Play, and Games, by Roger Caillois
The Ambiguity of Play, by Brian Sutton-Smith
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, by Marshall McLuhan

INSPIRATIONS
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook, by various authors
Star Trek, originated by Gene Roddenberry
The Hunt for Red October, by Tom Clancy
Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell
Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, by Janet H. Murray

humanidades e as ciências da computação

Hello Worlds - Why humanities students should learn to program

Computers should not be black boxes but rather understood as engines for creating powerful and persuasive models of the world around us. The world around us (and inside us) is something we in the humanities have been interested in for a very long time. I believe that, increasingly, an appreciation of how complex ideas can be imagined and expressed as a set of formal procedures — rules, models, algorithms — in the virtual space of a computer will be an essential element of a humanities education. Our students will need to become more at ease reading (and writing) back and forth across the boundaries between natural and artificial languages. Such an education is essential if we are to cultivate critically informed citizens — not just because computers offer new worlds to explore, but because they offer endless vistas in which to see our own world reflected.

por Matthew Kirschenbaum que é Professor Associado de Inglês do Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities na University of Maryland.

videojogos sem crise

Apesar da crise os videojogos bateram todos os recordes em 2008. Conjuntamente hardware e software totalizaram 21,33 mil milhões de doláres nos EUA apenas, ou seja mais 19% do que em 2007, segundo relatório da NPD Group.

Aqui fica a lista dos 10 jogos mais vendidos nos EUA em 2008.

1. Wii Play w/ remote - Wii – Nintendo – 5.28 million
2. Mario Kart Wii w/ wheel – Wii – Nintendo – 5.00 million
3. Wii Fit w/ balance board – Wii – Nintendo – 4.53 million
4. Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Wii – Nintendo – 4.17 million
5. Grand Theft Auto IV - Xbox 360 – Take-Two – 3.29 million
6. Call of Duty: World at War - Xbox 360 – Activision – 2.75 million
7. Gears of War 2 - Xbox 360 – Microsoft – 2.31 million
8. Grand Theft Auto IV - PS3 – Take-Two – 1.89 million
9. Madden NFL '09 - Xbox 360 – Electronic Arts – 1.87 million
10. Mario Kart - DS – Nintendo – 1.65 million

A análise da lista demonstra a esmagadora força da Nintendo, nomeadamente do conceito Wii, evidenciando que afinal abrir o espectro de audiências compensa. Os 4 primeiros lugares são da Nintendo o que é deveras impressionante e a PS3 claramente a perder influência com apenas um jogo na lista.

[a partir de Wral.com]

Jobs #19

Senior Lecturer in Special Effects – Senior Lecturer

School of Games Computing & Creative Technologies

Ref: CCA036AC

The University of Bolton’s degrees in Special Effects Development have proved extremely popular and we are now looking for an individual to join this cross-disciplinary team.

You should ideally have a reputation for developing cutting-edge visual effects using 3D CGI tools (ideally Autodesk Maya and/or 3DS Max) as well as experience in the related fields of compositing and video/film (pre and post production). Industrial experience is essential as you will be expected to mentor students through the production workflow mirroring good practice as much as possible.

The ideal candidate will possess an Honours Degree with industry related practical skills in this area and be ready to contribute to industrial groups in the sector as part of our “Professional University” model. You should be capable of developing and maintaining links with industry as well as raising the profile of the course and the School, nationally and internationally.

The School of Games Computing and Creative Technologies has a history of developing successful courses in the area of Creative Technologies. We are an innovative school and we are looking for the right candidate to help us continue developing.

The School is committed to providing a supportive environment for its staff to enable them to achieve their career aspirations and make a positive contribution to the ongoing development of the University, by offering excellent staff development opportunities.

In addition the successful candidate can expect to benefit from generous leave entitlement of 35 days per annum, plus bank holidays. There is the opportunity to join the Teachers’ Pension scheme. The University promotes well-being initiatives and staff can participate in child-care voucher and eye-care schemes. Subsidised sport facilities are available on site.

Candidates invited for interview will be required to bring along documentary evidence (originals required) of right to work in the United Kingdom, and Award Certificates for verification.

Please note that this appointment is subject to Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) Enhanced Disclosure.

Salary in the range of £32, 238 - £41,409 per annum.

Completed Academic Application Form (available from http://www.bolton.ac.uk/POD/Personnel/A-ZDownloadableForms/Home.aspx) should be returned to the Personnel Office, The University of Bolton, Deane Campus, Deane Road, Bolton BL3 5AB by February 2nd 2009. Interviews will be held at the University. For further information please contact Dr Rachel McLean. r.mclean@bolton.ac.uk

Jobs #18

Assistant Professor, New Media Studies

The Department of Global Communications at The American University of Paris invites applications for a permanent position at the rank of Assistant Professor to begin August 1st, 2009. The department seeks candidates with expertise in new media as well as to teach other more general communications and media courses (such as communication research methods, media globalization, history of communications, PR, political economy of media). Candidates' research and teaching should demonstrate global and cross-cultural understanding. The successful candidate will combine a commitment to scholarship, excellence in teaching, and university service. Candidates should have completed their doctorate at the time of appointment. Fluency in French as well as other languages is an advantage. If a successful candidate does not have the right to work in France, AUP will apply for the appropriate visa. Family relocation, however, depends on French immigration law.

Located in central Paris, The American University of Paris offers an international and multicultural educational environment in the liberal arts tradition, offering both BA and MA programs in Global Communications, taught in English. The department specializes in the international and comparative study of media, communication and culture.

Interested candidates are asked to send applications, to include a brief cover letter, statement of research interests, one writing sample, curriculum vitae, evidence of teaching effectiveness, and three letters of reference by post to Dr. Justin McGuinness, Chair of the Search Committee, Department of Global Communications, The American University of Paris, 6 rue du Colonel Combes, 75007 Paris, France. Any questions regarding the post are to be sent to comsearch@aup.fr. Applications will be considered immediately and until March 7th, 2009.

imaginação e o céu

Uma clara visão francesa realizada por Yoann Lemoine percorre a estética visual e o ritmo sonoro deste anúncio realizado para o canal Tiji (canal cabo para crianças francês), contudo nem é isso que me leva a colocar o anuncio/filme aqui é antes de mais o frisson provocado pela descoberta do propósito (climax) tendo em conta o personagem. Em uma palavra, delicioso.



Para onde vão os balões quando se nos escapam da mão e voam para o céu?


[Versão HD]
[a partir de No Fat clips]