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Way ahead of its time: The Remote Lounge NYC (2013)

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Re: Way ahead of its time: The Remote Lounge NYC (2013)

#51

Post by docpop »

nhod wrote: post #10

I actually was the sole developer who wrote all the software that “networked” the custom hardware together. This project was so ahead of its time and yet required some rather arcane programming knowledge. So much fun though. AMA!

Thanks so much for joining this conversation, I’m a big fan of your work! Years before I joined any social network, the Remote Lounge already had me thinking about online sharing, consent, and the future of the web.

I’d really like To know how your experience working on The Remote Lounge affected the way you viewed the rise of Web 2.0 and the way we share our lives online.

Re: Way ahead of its time: The Remote Lounge NYC (2013)

#52

Post by nhod »

supportengineer wrote: post #31
nhod wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How they found me: When I was 18, I was hired by The Disinformation Company (disinfo.com, the subculture search engine, which presaged our now post-truth conspiracy-theory laden world, though now sadly a shadow of its former self) as their Director of Technology. (I was precocious.) Disinfo had a cozy relationship with Razorfish, perhaps the biggest of the new breed of digital transformation consulting companies that…

I would like to know who funded this project, not knowing if it was even possible or not, within their budget?

The founders of Remote (Leo Fernekes and two other partners, Kevin Centanni and Bob Stratton) were some of the funding, and they partnered with a local family who owned and ran a bunch of (very successful) dive bars in the East Village. There may have been other funding too but I think that was the majority of it.

Re: Way ahead of its time: The Remote Lounge NYC (2013)

#53

Post by vxNsr »

donretag wrote: post #22
kilroy123 wrote: post #7

Very cool. I wish I could have visited. I miss wacky theme bars like this. One of my favorite theme bars was a place in Mexico City called "Bang Bang" (closed down years ago). It was Stanley Kubrick themed. There were little black and white TVs everywhere playing weird stuff. Then in the back was a replica 2001: A Space Odyssey bedroom; from the end of the movie. With a glowing white floor. Many people would pile int…

Not too far from the Remote Lounge was a Clockwork Orange themed bar named Korova Milk Bar around the same time.

Just for reference korova is russian for cow.

Re: Way ahead of its time: The Remote Lounge NYC (2013)

#54

Post by nhod »

docpop wrote: post #51
nhod wrote: post #10

I actually was the sole developer who wrote all the software that “networked” the custom hardware together. This project was so ahead of its time and yet required some rather arcane programming knowledge. So much fun though. AMA!

Thanks so much for joining this conversation, I’m a big fan of your work! Years before I joined any social network, the Remote Lounge already had me thinking about online sharing, consent, and the future of the web. I’d really like To know how your experience working on The Remote Lounge affected the way you viewed the rise of Web 2.0 and the way we share our lives online.

This is a good question. Remote (and its ancestor We Live in Public) was way ahead of its time in regards to how public people were going to be about sharing their lives online. In many ways Remote was merely an instance of much larger trends in society that began decades (centuries?) before. Sharing your life with people you have never met; the culture (and cult) of celebrity; the long tail; constructing a persona for the public vs your private life; taking pictures of people without permission or knowledge; meeting people in the same room as you not via talking directly to them but through a technological disintermediation; technology as art... Remote had all of these things and more, all incorporated using the available technology at the time. (The medium is the message!)

Those same trends continued on as technology improved: as hundreds of cameras in a single venue became billions of cameras all around us and in every pocket; as capturing a grainy black and white photo on a single debaucherous night and sharing it via email became sharing high resolution 4k sex videos on Grindr and Tinder; as dressing up infrequently for a single night so as to take advantage of the video and photo technology in an unusual venue became constant "dressing up" via creating an entire persona you constantly curate on various social media platforms; as small-time surveillance you willingly went into for fun became ubiquitous surveillance that made trillions of dollars for new hegemonies and entrenched the other powers that be even further; as the "innocent" early internet culture we started with that was all about freedom and revolution and individual power turned ugly and scary following 9/11 and became walled gardens and centralized control. (As another commenter pointed out, Remote opened shortly after 9/11 — we were supposed to open around 9/13, but then the world ended, and we had to push it back a bit.)

Anyway not sure I answered your question fully but hopefully got in the right neighborhood!

Re: Way ahead of its time: The Remote Lounge NYC (2013)

#55

Post by hackeman300 »

nhod wrote: post #30
nateguchi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give some details on the hardware? What was the image capture device?

Oh, the video capture device: because we had everything on analog CCTV, I had two analog TV tuner video capture cards in the server. Plain old 640x480 black and white analog video. When someone pressed the screen capture button on a Cocktail Console, I changed the channel on the video capture card to the appropriate channel, did a screen grab, and dumped the file in a folder on the server. People pressed it infrequen…

Do those images still live on anywhere? Looks like the original viewer has since been taken down

Re: Way ahead of its time: The Remote Lounge NYC (2013)

#56

Post by nhod »

paulgb wrote: post #2

Neat! In case anyone else is curious where it was, apparently it’s the present-day location of the Bowery Electric. https://www.theboweryelectric.com/

Trivia: it’s called Bowery Electric because for many many years before we moved in with Remote it was a hardware store called… Bowery Electric.

Re: Way ahead of its time: The Remote Lounge NYC (2013)

#57

Post by nhod »

hackeman300 wrote: post #55
nhod wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, the video capture device: because we had everything on analog CCTV, I had two analog TV tuner video capture cards in the server. Plain old 640x480 black and white analog video. When someone pressed the screen capture button on a Cocktail Console, I changed the channel on the video capture card to the appropriate channel, did a screen grab, and dumped the file in a folder on the server. People pressed it infrequen…

Do those images still live on anywhere? Looks like the original viewer has since been taken down

I don’t think so. The Wayback Machine had some at one point but I haven’t kept up with it.

Re: Way ahead of its time: The Remote Lounge NYC (2013)

#58

Post by ckn »

nhod wrote: post #29
CSMastermind wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did they find you an pitch the project to you? You mentioned that the project required some rather arcane programming knowledge. Could you elaborate on this? What areas of programming did you have to delve into that might be considered out of the ordinary? Was there any discussion about privacy when you were implementing it? Were there any features or functionalities that you wanted to implement but couldn't due…

How they found me: When I was 18, I was hired by The Disinformation Company (disinfo.com, the subculture search engine, which presaged our now post-truth conspiracy-theory laden world, though now sadly a shadow of its former self) as their Director of Technology. (I was precocious.) Disinfo had a cozy relationship with Razorfish, perhaps the biggest of the new breed of digital transformation consulting companies that…

Hi Nick, this post was forwarded to me.

Good post, I remember those days well and this exposure we had to all that tech absolutely had its influences for many of us.

The real-world demo of that sms-soda machine was at the Stockholm offices, and one of several why I eventually moved out this way and have stayed.

Though razorfish stuff is pretty spot on except I'm pretty sure Razorfish didnt BUY disinfo, but funded and supported it, IIRC Gary and Richard retained ownership, that was a content play for RSUB, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Razorfish.

...and coincidentally Gary is selling all the brand and contents right now.

ckn (Former IT Director @razorfish 1996-1999, Current Security Champion for R&D @Ericsson)

Re: Way ahead of its time: The Remote Lounge NYC (2013)

#60

Post by chuan_l »

bozhark wrote: post #15

This would be really neat today if there were different bars in different places all linked together like this. No ?, just a really neat concept

Love this post and reading about " remote lounge " ! I ran a night in a Chinatown dive bar here in Melbourne , Australia back in 1998 and inspired by the release of FSOL " ISDN " back then we streamed live performances from another club in Adelaide using 2 - bonded ADSL 128 Kbps links. It worked great despite just having enough bandwidth for decent audio and we ran 2 - small parties that were done like this ..

Though my real vision at the time was to have all 4 - walls projection mapped with video from other locations and perhaps create an " in between " space. That could link with different places around the world. There was a project in the UK around 2005 that tried to do this using a circular ring with cameras. However , am surprised that nobody has attempted more with telepresence in public spaces ..

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