notacon 5

"The Machine", an original invention by project ruori, contains obstacles that ricochet plastic balls until they stochastically fall into one of three baskets. Each of the three baskets corresponds to one of three performers. When a ball drops in a performer's basket, the performer uses a Lightflower to participate musically. Lightflowers (also ruori-built) are photocell-instrument abstractions of flowers. Following the performance, the setup will be left as an installation visitors to the exhibition are free to drop plastic balls into the Machine and to play the Lightflowers.

project ruori:

• is a frustrating neo-constructivist alliance/collective/entity from the Central Ohio area.
• recently released an album of live performances through Paper Is Bad Records, Inc.
• are annual performers at the electro-music event in Philadelphia
• installed and performed at the PURE exhibition in Boston, Massachusetts
• hand-picks music for short sounds to blandish art critics with an overwhelming sensory mind torture.

More info about project ruori.

Our very own int eighty of Dual Core is back for another year at Notacon. After packing some additional shows under his belt (Defcon, CCC Camp, ShmooCon), he returns with all new music for another entertaining set at Notacon 5.

Dual Core consists of an mc, int eighty, and a producer, c64. The duo create and perform a fusion of hip hop influences combined with smart, witty lyrics about a broad range of topics. The songs cover subjects such as Star Wars, Mega Man, MySpace, super heroes, hip hop and hacking.

This performance complements the release of Dual Core's brand new third album, Lost Reality. To get familiar, check out dualcoremusic.com

Highly productive Ohio based sound artists Jeremy Bible & Jason Henry collaborate to fuse elements of musique concrete, electro-acoustic, and electronic music. By means of conceptual, experimental, modern, and algorithmic recording and processing techniques the duo seek to expose a synergetic relationship between real world found sounds, acoustic instrumentation, and electronic sound design. The end result has been described as "paintings of sound", "the aural equivalent of abstract expressionist and minimalist painting", "music with depth and soft command", and "a consolidation of sound that creates an intimate experience transporting the listener to newly fabricated yet oddly nostalgic destinations". Taking over where early pioneers such as John Cage, Pierre Schaeffer, Luc Ferrari, Edgard Varèse, Pierre Henry, Bernard Parmegiani, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, and Morton Subotnick left off by merging the aesthetics of art and science through modern recording technology the duo further examine the relationships between sound, ourselves, and the environment. Through research and experimentation into bioacoustics and the utilization of field recordings alongside traditional instruments and sound design a re-contextualization of everyday sounds occur and by magnifying whatsome may call silence it becomes clear that true silence is a concept that does not exist within the confines of our earth's atmosphere. The duo's creative amalgamation of these elements have caught the attention of recording labels in Russia, Germany, and the United States with a growing number of albums slated for international release. Each of the duos improvisational live performances bring forth new perspectives on their sound and are complemented by an equally significant visual element of large scale projections in a lights out performance environment described as "subtle patterns of breathing white light".

For their performance at Notacon 5 on the night of Saturday April 5th 2008 in Cleveland, Ohio the duo will present a live improvisational composite collage of sound photographs captured throughout that day of Notacon's various panels, speakers, presentations, and site-specificlocation surroundings. Preceding the performance a brief presentation on the subjects of 'Environmental Sound and the Non-Existence of Silence' will be given by Jeremy Bible. The following performance will further illustrate the concepts examined during the presentation.

Too many kids, and a fair share of old farts, think the world runs on cat-5. It just ain't so! From the first smoke-signals and drumbeats of prehistory, to modern muti-gigabit optical links, there's a lot more to communication than just Ethernet frames riding twisted pair. This contest aims to celebrate the long and varied history of communication.

For up to date rules and information, see the Notacon Wiki AbE page.

For 2008, instead of having our usual Talent Show we will interface with Blockparty even further by encouraging those of you who are interested in the talent show to instead participate in the Wildcard Compo. Get your entries ready!

What happens when a good time goes bad? Imagine you are traveling south of the border and are kidnapped by criminals intent on extortion. Could you use your wits, stealth, and a hidden set of lockpicks to escape to freedom?

This year at Notacon, The Open Organization of Lockpickers will be running a scenario-based game in which contestants must use picking skills to free themselves from evil captors in under five minutes.

The course will offer a variety of locks representing a range of difficulty, allowing participation by people of all skill levels. Points will be awarded based on the time of completion as well as the difficulty of locks attempted. Big fun for all involved and a super-kickass prize for the winner.... come and have fun being a Gringo Warrior!

Picture yourself about to give a presentation in front of hundreds of people... lights shining in your eyes, microphones tuned to amplify your every utterance, video and audio recordings to prove that you in fact did just say that. Imagine that your audience is itching to heckle you or otherwise make your life difficult. Realize you have never before seen the slide show you are about to present on, nor know anything about the topic!

Sound like your worst nightmare? NO! This is "Whose Slide is it Anyway?" Borrowed from the Chaos Computer Club's "Powerpoint Karaoke", and loosely from the show of a similar name, where the points don't matter!

Random personalities, presenters, and maybe even YOU (if you are brave enough), will be put on stage and have 5 minutes to successfully present a small random PowerPoint slide show on a randomly chosen topic. Audience members will vote via boos, hisses, claps, shouts and other utterances.

Come for the laughs! Stay for the embarrassment! We have no idea if this is going to work, but it's worth a shot. Hey, if the CCC can do it, why can't we?

Almost everyone has played Starcraft, but not like this!

Rules

• 4 computers will be set up with Starcraft installed.
• A standard map will be used in a 4 player free for all.
• Players will be forced to get up at random intervals and move to another computer.
• Last player standing wins.

The workshop will be a hands on introduction to basic and intermediate networking concepts. We will be covering basics such as CIDR and static routes, interior routing protocols such as OSPF and RIP, as well as the standard exterior routing protocol, BGP. The workshop will begin with examples as we construct a large network, followed by a hands on segment, where attendees will be given a piece of networking equipment, and encouraged to connect it to the larger network using the aforementioned concepts.

Mark Doner attended Bowling Green State University, where he pursued a degree in History, with a minor in Computer Science. He worked as a freelance consultant from 2001 to 2003, at which time he was hired by Amplex Electric, a then small wireless internet service provider. He has been with Amplex ever since, as the company has grown in size by an order of magnitude. He tinkers with networking concepts and implementations in his free time, and is an avid BSD/Linux user.

Daniel Washburn works as a server administrator for the infrastructure group at a large Cleveland-based industrial distributor. He spends his days building and maintaining servers, and his evenings working on his home network. Dan is also the head network engineer for Notacon, a position he's held for the last 3 years.

Joseph Bender is the owner of Bendorius Consulting, LLC, a network engineering and telecom consulting firm located in Michigan. Licensed as a amateur radio operator since 1993, he set up his first TCP/IP connection on amateur packet radio in 1994, and somehow he turned that into a career.

The technology of knitting, originally proprietary information, was reverse-engineered around the fifteenth century, a move which took it out of the control of knitting guilds and put it in the hands of the people. Let's get it in our hands at Notacon. We'll start with basics, casting on and knitting, and as folks get the hang of it, we can move on to purling and casting off. I'll be around all weekend, so the workshop can serve as an introduction, not a last word. I'll also provide lots of links to online resources to help new knitters keep going after the weekend. While the group is practicing, I'll show inspiring photos of fantastic geeky knitting to keep spirits up.

Rose White is a sociology PhD student at Graduate Center-CUNY, in Manhattan, but lives in Brooklyn because that's where all the action is. Her doctoral work is on how bright people break rules (in other words, deviance and technology!) Tell her what you want studied and maybe she'll get on that. She blogs for Monochrom, presented at Arse Elektronika 2007 in San Francisco on unintended consequences of Web 2.0, and once owned a yarn store in Brooklyn, named Yarnivore.

For this edition of Blockparty, we're introducing the idea of camps, extended sessions in a separate area of the party where camp instructors will give you hours to work out your own ideas and education on a couple of subjects. This year, the first two camps will be demo-making and circuit-bending. Come in and attend, even if you've never tried anything like this before... especially if you've never tried this before. -- blockparty

Notacon will again be hosting an offical Fark party in the hotel bar on Saturday the 5th at 9PM. Drew will be there! Those not attending Notacon are welcome to join us! Please check the Hotel & Travel page for information about the hotel's location

All attendees of Notacon are welcomed to join in as we see how many people and instruments we can cram into one mixer, all performing live.

Some instruments will be provided (guitars, keyboards, turntables and who knows what else). However feel free to bring your own instruments, voice, weird electronic toy, bongo drum or whatever else you have lying around that could theoretically play music of some sort. It will be our goal to provide a MIDI sync for digital instrumentation. Please bring extra cables, mixers, etc. and make sure to label everything if you expect it to be returned!

We intend to break the session into different parts to allow each session to have it's own time and space and, hopefully, its own unique feel.

After the jam session, we will open the stage and turntables to DJs wishing to spin records or perform a live set. A sign-up sheet will be provided.

Jason Scott reprises his crowd-pleasing collage of video clips, Flash movies and other foolishness from the past year and beyond. You never know what to expect...except that you will be amazed, entertained and laughing by the time it's done.

WE NEVER SLEEP. AND NEITHER WILL YOU.

Notacon Radio continues its fourth year of existence, broadcasting during Notacon 5. Surely the greatest radio station ever to broadcast at this particular Holiday Inn, NOTACON RADIO invites you to take your big shot at the airwaves. Read the rules of the station and start downing those cough drops in preparation of our non-stop audio calvacade!

Past year's recordings and writeups can be found here.

 

Lock picking is a safe and fun sport that can be shared by anyone. The Packet Sniffers will be hosting a lock picking pagoda where people can buy lock picks, learn how to use them, and try out a large variety of locks. Typical American locks that will be available consist of Master Lock, Brinks, ABUS, American Lock, along with various cabinet locks and chinese knock-offs. Also at the table will be a selection of high security locks and cut-aways including but not limited to: Abloy, Medeco, Mul-T-Lock, EVVA, DOM, Fichet, and a lock that hopefully no one has had to encounter before. We will also have mounted door locks available so people can try out bumping and other lock opening methods. Lastly, a mounted Group 2 Sargent and Greenleaf safe dial will be available for people to inspect and try their hand at safe cracking.

This event is for demonstration and educational purposes only. FTS Conventures and Notacon do not condone breaking state or federal law.

This year Notacon will have it's own special event Ham Radio station, N5C. Please see the Notacon Wiki Ham Radio page for more information on the station and how to get involved.

The station will run the entire weekend of Notacon. Anyone interested in Ham Radio or already licensed is invited to participate.

Amateur Radio License Exam Session - Sunday 9:00 AM

Notacon will feature a amateur radio license exam in the N5C room on the second floor. The exact room is yet to be determined. Walk-ins are welcome. Please register for your FRN the FCC website before coming to the VE exam session, so that you do not have to provide your social secuirty number when registering.

More information is available from arrl.org

After three tireless days working the event, Froggy will clutch the podium for dear life and hand out awards to the remaining Notacon attendees for whatever categories he comes up with at the last minute.

Traveled the furthest to get here? Had the funniest hack of Notacon? You name it, he'll likely think of it, if he's still awake and sane. Prizes will be handed out at his discretion.