1996

DR. TIMOTHY LEARY AT ELECTRONIC CAFE INTERNATIONAL . In a rare public appearance, noted author and cultural icon Dr. Timothy Leary will convein Virtually with participants of the eighth annual Digital Be-In, San Francisco. In a first-time full-motion, color ISDN PictureTel video link, Leary will take participants on a personal tour of his Web site and the evolving digital community. This event will also be cybercast live on the Internet via CU-SeeMe. The CU-SeeMe reflector address will be posted at http://www.be-in.com. ECI Blendo Techniques including video effects and the World Wide Web will be used, enabling audiences at the Electronic Cafe in Santa Monica, the Digital Be-In in San Francisco and those viewing from the CU-SeeMe cybercast to see Leary appear full-body and LIVE within the Dr. Timothy Leary Web Site.

BERTRAM TURETZKY plays bass at ECI, SM with BUN CHING LAM/BERTRAM TURETZKY/MARK DRESSER at ECI, NYC @ THE KITCHEN Uniting Eastern and Western classical traditions, as well as edgy, avant-garde sensibilities, these virtuosos perform an evening of solos, duets and trios on Qin (Chinese 7-string sitar), piano and bass. Audio-visually connected via PictureTel Part of Through the Distance: Musical Connections, a series of multi-site performances between The Kitchen, Electronic Cafe International, The New School And Composers' Forum.

ECI's VIRTUAL REALITY SIG VOICE COMMUNICATIONS IN VRML CHAT WORLDS to AND TELEBOTICS FROM NORTH OF THE BORDER A PictureTel videoconference with ECI @Interaccess in Toronto, featuring guest speakers Graham Smith of Telbotics and Vincent John Vincent of The Vivid Group. Graham talked about some of the unique QuickTime VR projects and tools at Telbotics along with the latest developments in wireless robots controlled via videoconferencing interfaces. Vincent John Vincent and his collaborators at the Vivid Group who have been constantly upgrading the capabilities of their Mandala projection VR Systems discuss the latest developments in real time Blue Screen Projection Virtual Reality.

In Santa Monica John Palacio, Director of Business Development for Integrated Data Systems, a VRML tool developer in Savannah, Georgia demonstrated the "VREALM Builder", a VRML authoring tool for the development of 3D web sites.Additionally, John demonstrated on the Web access to theVREALM Multi User 3-D Media Server, which enables VRML Worlds to become virtual chat environments where the users have avatar representations.

ECI SANTA MONICA AND ECI @ THE KITCHEN IN NYC Play With ECI FRIEND, CYBER-X IN MINNEAPOLIS FOR A 3 CITY, LIVE JENKINS/ EWART/ SMITH INTERACTIVE VIDEO AND CYBER CAST PERFORMANCE . New York and Santa Monica connect via Picture Tel. Cyber X used CUSeeMe between Santa Monica and Minneapolis, Santa Monica would then transmit the CUSeeMe video via the PictureTel to New York.

THREE SITES/MULTIPLE VIEWS: NEW YORK, SANTA MONICA, SANTA FE. Dance/Music/Theater. Five nights of multi-site performances, concerts, dance and teleplays. Curated by electronic music maverick Morton Subotnick. Produced by Electronic Cafe International, Santa Monica, Electronic Cafe @ The Kitchen (New York City) and Site Sante Fe (New Mexico). A special five-day long teleconcert presented byCal Arts' Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology (CEAIT), sponsored by AT&T and featuring work by Morton Subotnick.

PERFORMANCES OVER THE FIVE NIGHTS INCLUDE:

The Electronic Disturbance, inspired by the book of the same name, a 70 minute work that uses four dancers, a singer, an actor, telecommunications and interactive media. The work is by Mark Coniglio and Dawn Stoppiello/Troika Ranch. Joan La Barbara's 73 Poems, a musical setting of artist Kenneth Goldsmith's 79 double-text drawings. Events in the Elsewhere, inspired by the life and work of physicist Stephen Hawking. It is composed and performed by La Barbara, who tells the story of the beginning of the universe. Her voice will activate laser imagery, morphing sequences and a polylingual choir. Carl Stone performed Nyala, an electronic music piece which premiered in Japan last September. And a new work, Wei Fun, for electronics and real-time animation, commissioned for this teleconcert, also premieres. Piano works by composer, Michael Fink, three works by Morton Feldman, and Morton Subotnick's work-in-progresss, "Intimate Immensity". The last concerns two poet philosophers and an angel who create a meditation on the "intimate immensity" of the new cyberspace. Tryst: Playwrights in Exile, produced by Clive Hendrick, a play driven by two "real" characters, but is acted out by the five virtual characters that they created and performed in New York and Santa Monica.

DEAF SIGNING SM-TOKYO, SM-COPENHAGEN. ECI introduces the Deaf community to the joys of video teleconferencing. Deaf poetry slam and poetry between deaf artists in Santa Monica and Tokyo, High School students SM and Copenhagen meet and create projects together . The deaf communiy embraces the joys of visual communication and creative collaboration over distance with a newly accessible extended community.

8TH ANNUAL NEW YEARS EVE TELEBRATION 1996-1997 Short ISDN connections with NYC over Apple QuickTime Conferencing. Vancouver music performance. Greetings around the net via C.U-See Me as everyone is focusing on the year 2000-Countdown to the Millennium!