MONDAY 7 FEBRUARY 00 Iris Cinema, 13 Morphett Street, Adelaide   11:00am Welcome Introduction to all participants Participants should introduce themselves, and talk a little bit about what they do and how they see the project. SOUTH AUSTRALIA: Greg Peterkin, Martin Thompson, Carol Biddiss, Gareth Barnes, Jason Sweeney, Elendil, Stephen Pickles ELSEWHERE: Jeremy Hicks (WA), Tina Auer (Austria), Tim Boykett (Austria), Honor Harger (New Zealand), Nik Gaffney (Germany / SA)   1:30pm Introduction to concept of Closing The Loop 2000   3:00 - 5:30pm Introduction to key areas of exploration and inquiry: There are key topics which can help shape the way the group decides to explore this project. These range from conceptual to the technical. Some of these can include: · Overcoming resourcing and technical issues Technological resourcing, tool development and creative approaches to transcending technological problems can be workshopped in the laboratory phase of Closing The Loop 2000. Issues at stake here address the problems that are common to the network collaborations outside large corporate or governmental structures. How can significant collaboration be achieved without massive investment in up to the minute hardware, software and connectivity? What tools are readily available for experiments? KEYS: Free software, pooling resources (such as access to servers), enabling the consumer to become the producer, making easy-to-understand instructions available to users etc. · Gaming as a tool for analysing the properties of network How can games, which usually rely on players being able to quickly respond to one another's actions be played across networks, which often distort the sequence of events, because of network "lag"? Lag is the way something hangs behind something else with which it should have a connection in time. Can we get around this? Are there games that we can play that are not disturbed and distorted by the lag between rounds. Are their tools which we can develop which can control network lag, or are there systems we can make which are sufficienlty low-bandwidth enough to avoid the lag problem? Are there ways in which lag distortion can be incorprated into our games? KEYS: examing the effect of lag on interaction, local network games, low-bandwidth interactions. · Collaboration: using the network to overcome distance On the internet, sound is being used as a way of collapsing geographical boundaries, of extending musical conversations across timezones and cultures, and catalysing new and complex systems of collaboration. What mechanisms can be used to further collaboration across distances? What are the most efficient ways of coiommunicating with co-collaborators? Where does the audience fit in? How does communication KEYS: software for remote networking, mailing lists and documentation of research, the chaos factor .... · Why is sound the prevalant collaborative media online? An analysis of the reasons why sound is easier to work with online, and a break down of the technological thresholds required to manipulate and transmit sound. This examination will hopefully shed light on how effecient techniques for working with sound ccan be transferred to other media, such as video. KEYS: audio compression techniques, how networks operate, looking forward to reintegrating sound and visual media online   6:00pm Revisiting the timetable Additions to the existing schedule, plan for Tuesday - Friday. 6:30pm Dinner (optional)