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Dear List, I'm just back from the Futuresonic conference, and full of impressions that might inform the discussion - I'd like to thank all the people this month who helped to make it one of more successful themes, and to stress that people are very very welcome to carry on the debate for as long as they have the desire to (our next theme doesn't start until June). To start with, one key theme from the conference that springs to mind is: CONTEXT, and CONTROL: The works ran the whole gamut of being very fixed to a particular geography and context, to being rootless and international. And yet ... a highlight of the artworks for me was Akitsugu Maebayashi's piece "Sonic Interface". This involves wandering anywhere with a backpack and headphones/microphones on, and with a companion. The piece distorts the ambient sound in various simple but effective ways, from a delay which renders verbal communication gormless, to stranger effects which make the Arndale Centre a place to do the audio equivalent of standing and staring. So, this was not made for a local context, or site-specific in any way, and yet elegantly manages to make you examine accents and location in a critical way. It does not use GPS or respond to location (the effects simply change over time), but you are free to wander where you will, and unexpected things could happen. This very open system could be contrasted with more closed system of 'command and control' games (such as Blast Theory, who got rather blasted with criticism for failing to differ enough from commercial games and values). Here, movements and even human interaction were highly tracked and manipulated. Here, the context was highly relevant, but to attempt to control that context can be either quixotic or sinister. So, can/should you control context? yours, Beryl -- _________________________________________________________ Beryl Graham Research Fellow in New Media, University of Sunderland Tel: +44 191 515 2896 email: [log in to unmask] CRUMB web resource for curators http://www.newmedia.sunderland.ac.uk/crumb/