Rhizome Labs

New to Rhizome

Hello! This week I am joining Rhizome to take over as senior developer. A photobooth selfie seems like the most appropriate introduction:

There are exciting projects ahead, and I’ll continue making technical posts on this blog as things get underway. Happy New Years!

- Matt

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Reanimating Chat Logs with AppleScript

The audience at Seven on Seven watched a projection of David Kravitz’s screen as he chatted with Frances Stark in the Messages app for Mac (known as iChat up until 2012). This was their performance Opening the Kimono, a highlight of the conference. Later we kicked ourselves for not capturing David’s screen during the performance. Our documentation consists of this video and an .ichat log file–which David kindly provided. This post is about playing back Opening the Kimono from the log in real-time using AppleScript. For context about the piece, see this article on Rhizome.

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PyCon Montréal Part 1

I’m at PyCon US 2014 in Montréal (a contradiction, right?). Good Pythonistas relish the opportunity to re-join the pack. I’m seated in a row near the front, in a rare mood to look up tutorials for Emacs Org mode. Maybe this year, I’ll make that leap to a text editor for grown ups.

A lot is different since Atlanta’s 2011 conference, that was my first time. For one, the tech company booths are so much more sophisticated with their branded pre-fab installations, couches, quirky robots and endless supplies of free gadgets. A long-shot from 2011, with its folding tables and foamcore posters, which resembled the poster sessions of academia. The truly nerdy attendees look a little lost. But I’m not reading into it that much, I let my inner net-skeptic go to sleep.

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