Details at http://www.draves.org. From the New Yorker: The first presenter was a tall man named Spot Draves, whose presentation concerned his Web site, Electric Sheep, on which abstract images constantly change form, in response to information coming from other people’s computers via the Internet. Draves is tall and bald and diffident. “I’m not a big public speaker,” he said. “So I did the program at home, alone, in the dark, which is how I’m most comfortable, and I’m going to play that.” Swirling colors appeared on the wall, and Draves was heard saying mildly, “The project started in ’99. It was based on an algorithm developed in 1992. The title is based on the novel ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,’ by Philip K. Dick.” Draves also said that it represented “the collective dream of sleeping computers all over the Internet.” Now and then he would place his hands at his sides and gather his pant legs, which made his cuffs rise, as if he were preparing to cross a stream. At the end of his talk, he held up a disk and said, “Please buy my DVD. I quit my day job to do this.” |