About
Jeff Watson is an artist, designer, and Assistant Professor of Interactive Media and Games at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.
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Category Archives: Blog
Individuality
A fun little Java applet that allows you to play around in isometric space. Runs in your browser here.
Love: Procedural MMO
The idea of procedurally-generated MMOs has appealed to me for a while. I’ve tried to imagine what such a space might look like and how it might work, but a working prototype is really what’s needed to examine the concept … Continue reading
Flickrvision
Flickrvision shows realtime, geolocated Flickr photos. Just like Twittervision, it’s hypnotic to watch. The map moves around to show the location of the most recent tweet or photo. Both visualizations hail from David Troy, a VOIP consultant who has suddenly … Continue reading
C3: 10 Key Concepts
Sam Ford has helpfully put together a list of ten key concepts that have been articulated in various forms on the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium‘s blog, complete with links to the relevant posts, articles and off-site resources. Here’s the list: … Continue reading
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Tagged convergence culture consortium, mit, sam ford
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Players Make Play For Nothing
An insightful post by David Fono about community-based content generation in ARGs and MMOs: A couple of posts got me thinking about the issue of player generated content recently. Tony Walsh writes generally about players as storytellers as a trend … Continue reading
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Tagged content generation, david fono, play
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Crucial Juncture for Blue Brain
The Blue Brain project is now at a crucial juncture. The first phase of the project—”the feasibility phase”—is coming to a close. The skeptics, for the most part, have been proven wrong. It took less than two years for the … Continue reading
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Tagged artificial intelligence, blue brain project
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ALAVs
Blubber Bots are floating DIY robotic species that navigate autonomously and intelligently. Blubber Bots float, dance, seek and sing. They are light-seeking hellium-filled balloons that graze the landscape in search of light and cellphone signals. Designed into the inflatable form … Continue reading
New York City Waterfalls
“In developing the New York City Waterfalls, I have tried to work with today’s complex notion of public spaces,” said Eliasson. “The Waterfalls appear in the midst of the dense social, environmental, and political tissue that makes up the heart … Continue reading
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Tagged new york city, olafur eliasson, waterfalls
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Death of a column, birth of a movement
Two years ago, I wrote my first column celebrating the best indie games: small, offbeat titles, programmed usually by a single auteur and given away for free. I figured I’d make it an annual affair. For 12 months, I’d scour … Continue reading