Stephen Wilson, Director, Conceptual/Information Arts Program, San Franacisco State Univeristy
50 Points of Light was invited to be presented at the 25th Anniversary "Pioneers in Computer Art" show at Siggraph 98 in Orlando Florida
Artistic Agenda: 50 Points of Light shows 14 world cities simultaneously via live web camera images. It asks viewers to explore the ways these places are different and the ways they are becoming the same. The interactive event invites explorations of panoramas, street scenes, and inside spaces from each city and permits recapitulations in time. World weather, the flow of night and day, and snippets of cultural materials such as art and music provide an information visualization extravaganza.
Operating Protocol: The display is shaped by the combination of user choices.
Technical description: The installation uses 2 networked Macintosh computers connected to the Internet. Every 10 minutes 24 hours a day computer #1 cycles through its 14 cities. It downloads webcam images of panoramas, street scenes, and inside views for each city (if available). It constantly updates the display computer. MacromediaÕs Director was used for both display and Internet access.
There are thousands of web cameras avaiable. Cities were chosen on criteria of world distribution, reliability, and diversity of views availability within a city. Web cameras are in constanat flux. During the event many cameras went offline. A list of webcamera addresses is available below.
Contact Info:
Stephen Wilson, Professor, Conceptual/Information Arts, Art Department, San Francisco State University 415 338-2291 swilson@sfsu.edu http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~swilson/
List of Webcams used in Siggraph 98 installation:
(sc = panorama; st = street scenes; of = inside scenes)
| Berlin
#sc:"http://www.cityscope.de/panoramen/cityscope.jpg",¬ #st:"http://www.BerlinOnline.de/spass/live_kamera/.img/webcam-aktuell.jpg",¬ #of:"http://www.bfz-essen.de/cafekam/CAFEKAM.jpg |
Rio
#sc:"http://www.ez-poa.com.br/NEW_IV_Inetvision.jpg",¬ #st:"http://www.opensite.com.br/~webcam/pi01.JPG",¬ #of:"ftp://ftp.opas.org.br/upload/opas.jpg"] |
| Sydney
#sc:"http://surfcam.ninemsn.com.au/surfcam_narrabeen.jpg",¬ #st:"http://ns.pkf.com.au/bridge.jpg",¬ #of:"http://www.intelligent.com.au/it/images/1.jpg"] |
Helsinki
#sc:"http://nidhog.syh.fi/replot/replot.jpg",¬ #st:"http://www.mtv3.fi/camera/halfsize1.jpg",¬ #of:"http://www.mtv3.fi/camera/fullsize2.jpg"] |
| Cape Town
#sc:"http://152.111.1.32/fullsize.jpg",¬ #st:"http://152.111.1.32/waterfront.jpg ",¬ #of:"no inside scene "] |
Jerusalem
#sc:"nohttp://www.agmonet.co.il/agmonet/district/shenkin/snap.gif",¬ #st:"http://www.thewall.org/thewall.jpg",¬ #of:"no http://indy1.netvision.net.il/~ophir/live.jpg"] |
| Singapore
#sc:"http://203.127.27.66/marriot0336.jpg",¬ #st:"http://203.127.27.66/china0334.jpg",¬ #of:"no inside scene available"] |
Tokyo
#sc:"http://www.sannichi-ybs.co.jp/YBS/SKYEYE/CAM/fuji.jpg",¬ #st:"http://www.educe.com/tower/tower.jpg",¬ #of:"http://www.ichitaka.com/center.jpg"] |
| New York City
#sc:"http://www.earthcam.com/IW/times.jpg",¬ #st:"http://www2.host.net/cgi-bin/getnyc",¬ #of:"http://163.238.208.45/?camera=0;caption=%c;forecolour=white;backcolour=black;transfer=or"] |
Moscow
#sc:"http://195.16.109.1/webkam/kremlin.jpg",¬ #st:"http://www.glasda.ru/window/cam_pictures/spycam.jpg",¬ #of:"http://www.mol.ru/office/picture.jpg"] |
| London
#st:"http://www.fujiint.co.uk/street/FIP.jpg",¬ #sc:"http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/news/dome/domecam.pl",¬ #of:"http://users.deltanet.com/~mdntblu/webcam/webcam.jpg"] |
San Francisco
#sc:"http://www.bankamerica.com/images/tower.jpg",¬ #st:"http://www.waxmuseum.com/waxcam.jpg",¬ #of:"http://www.itec.sfsu.edu/students/fogcam/fogcam.gif" |
| Istanbul
#sc:"http://bogaztv.prizma.net.tr/btv.MWC?images=1",¬ #st:"http://195.174.118.73/btv.MWC?images=1",¬ #of:"http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/5667/q_img.jpg"] |
Paris
#sc:"http://www2.tf1.fr/livecam/images/file321.jpg",¬ #st:"http://visioconf.inforoute.cgs.fr/ETOILE/snaps/322.jpg",¬ #of:"http://www.i-france.com/house/webcam32.jpg" |
Webcam Directories