Events highlights for the week of June 22 – June 28, 2009

I know what you’re thinking.

You’re thinking, “I wish I could design a map using Twitter that was a good user experience and utilized Google Book Search.”

Well Technically Philly reader, you’re in luck! Our fair city has a diverse slate of events this week that will make your strange hypothetical dream a reality in no time.

Get started after work on Tuesday and join the pun-loving OpenStreetMap enthusiasts over at the Prohibition Tap Room for “Mappy Hour.” Although, you shouldn’t have too much to drink, as it is awfully hard to chart the trails in Fairmount Park when you can’t walk straight.

PhillyCHI (which is not a box score for the upcoming Phillies-Cubs series) is getting together Wednesday to listen to Kyle Soucy, their former chair, talk usability testing. This is the first time in weeks that the group has held an event in city limits, so you best take El out to University City if you have been meaning to catch PhillyCHI in action.

On Thursday, you can either continue the usability theme with the UX Book Club meeting over at P’unk Ave, or you can head to Center City for the June Philly Tweetup.

Round out the week on Friday as University City continues its Google obsession with a meeting about how Google Books and Google Scholar affect librarians. Librarians, whatever you decide, please leave the card catalog alone. That thing is awesome.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more information, or follow us past the jump.
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P’unk Ave Active Intersection sound installation now streaming live

Ashley John Pigford’s Active Intersection sound installation, running this month at P’unk Avenue‘s office in the Passyunk Square neighborhood of South Philadelphia is now streaming live.

We reported on the University of Delaware professor’s installation with near-excruciating detail earlier this month in our Shop Talk series last week.

Pigford’s installation is a trippy experiment that documents, translates and transmits activity in the street outside P’unk Avenue’s office near 9th and Federal streets as sound.

A camera records sound and video of happenings in the intersection. A computer extracts information from the recorded data and outputs it into a droning, fluctuating melody. Then, the re-processed sound then gets synced to a projection of the video recording.

“It’s constantly changing, constantly flowing, which I think is a very positive human experience.” — Ashley John Pigford on his sound installation.

Be sure to check out the live stream—which is quite hypnotizing—and find out how it all works in our coverage.

Shop Talk: P’unk Avenue Active Intersection’s Ashley John Pigford

If you visit P’unk Avenue this month, you may enter an audio/visual time warp. But if you survive, you’ll be in for something special.

Ashley John Pigford is currently showing his Active Intersection sound installation at the space, an electro-organic experience that translates a busy intersection into an audio/visual sense frenzy.

A camera records sound and video happening on the street. A computer extracts information from the recorded data and outputs it into a droning, fluctuating melody. All of the re-processed sound than gets synced to a projection of the video recording.

“Consider it taking real life as data, translating it, and putting it back out to real life,” Pigford said.

It’s trippy. We know.

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