Been so busy this summer with my FERAL COPYRIGHT project, at the metaLAB @ Harvard.
Ironically, been distracted from writing about Art – Tech – L@w because I’ve been so involved in working on Art, Technology, and Law.
A few things that I’ve been working on:
Filming the people at ZEEGA, an awesome new open-source platform that will function as a multimedia tool, to dynamically link (via inline framing) to all sorts of content on the internet so people can make documentaries and remix stuff. It’s still in alpha, but is pretty awesome. I’m making a ZEEGA, on ZEEGA, about ZEEGA. It’s pretty meta.
Working on pulling content together for FERAL COPYRIGHT. As of yet I’ve done a bunch of research and writing (a Feral Researcher, if you will), but we’re also hosting a roundtable discussion next Thursday, July 26 and a Hackathon on August 2. We’re also making a timeline of copyright law and technological innovations, and trying to wireframe stuff for a Feral Workbook, which will basically be a bunch of interactive games that teach/explore copyright issues. And I’ll be pulling together explanatory comics, which I’ll probably put on this blog. Looking forward to blogging on FeralCopyright.org as soon as the page launches, along with Matthew Battles (check out his incredible blog at hilobrow.com).
Researching robots. ’cause they’re cool. More specifically, chatterbots for a Turing Project they’re also doing at metaLAB @ Harvard. In addition, still fleshing out my computational creativity paper on artificial authorship. (check out my Artificial Intelligence and Authorship Rights opinion paper for the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology Digest)
And a shout out to all my awesome collaborators, mentors, and friends who have been helping to make this summer crazy-intense, in a good way:
1) Prof. Shiva Ayyadurai, who’s been taking the time to coauthor the fellowship paper with me despite being in the middle of a PR battle regarding the facts around the origins of email;
2) the FERAL TEAM: Matthew Battles, Anthony Terruso (my teammate and bro for the summer), Zach Davis (who’s been a godsend when it comes to hammering out deliverables), and Yanni Loukissas;
3) My ZEEGA group: Dino Sossi (his mad filming and editing skills are carrying us through that project), Christina Powers and Melody Zhang, as well as Jesse Shapins and the other Zeega team members for putting up with us mulling about their studio;
4) For my AI paper on Computational Creativity: All the guys from MIT who’ve taken the time to sit down and walk me through everything from genetic algorithms, cognitive neuroscience, and machine learning – usually over a beer (Joel Leibo, Nick Dufour, Dustin Smith, and Ben Lewis, to name a few… Richie Kohman was a big help as well);
5) Prof. Christopher Bavitz! My HLS law school mentor/adviser on EVERYTHING. And I mean everything – all these projects have him listed as my adviser. If it wasn’t for him I may have been doomed to work at a firm, and would never have gotten to work with ANY of these other people.[1]
- Last but not least, I would like to thank one particular law student who helps me refine all my ideas but generally wishes to remain anonymous to maintain plausible deniability.↵
