The Temporary Travel Office produces a variety of services relating to tourism and technology aimed at exploring the non-rational connections existing between public and private spaces. The Travel Office has operated in a variety of locations, including Missouri, Chicago, Southern California and Norway.
Is MySpace a Place?
Networked Performance pointed me toward an interview (download in PDF)with Networked Publics speaker Henry Jenkins and Networked Publics friend danah boyd about Myspace. The site, popular with teenagers, has become increasingly controversial as parents and the press raise concerns about the openness of information on the site and the vulnerability this supposedly poses to predators (Henry points out that only .1% of abductions are by strangers) and the behavior of teens towards each other (certainly nothing new, only now in persistent form). In another essay on Identity Production in Networked Culture, danah suggests that Myspace is popular not only because the technology makes new forms of interaction possible, but because older hang-outs such as the mall and the convenience store are prohibiting teens from congregating and roller rinks and burger joints are disappearing.
This begs the question, is Myspace media or is it space? Architecture theorists have long had this thorn in their side. "This will kill that," wrote Victor Hugo with respect to the book and the building. In the early 1990s, concern about a dwindling public culture and the character of late twentieth century urban space led us to investigate Jürgen Habermas's idea of the public sphere. But the public sphere, for Habermas is a forum, something that, for the most part, emerges in media and in the institutions of the state:
The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labor. The medium of this political confrontation was peculiar and without historical precedent: people's ...
SWITCH: Issue 22
HI everyone. Just wanted to announce the new issue of SWITCH:
SWITCH : The online New Media Art Journal of the CADRE Laboratory for
New Media at San Jose State University
http://switch.sjsu.edu switch@cadre.sjsu.edu
SWITCH Journal is proud to announce the launch of Issue 22: A Special
Preview Edition to ISEA 2006/ ZeroOne San Jose.
As San Jose State University and the CADRE Laboratory are serving as
the academic host for the ZeroOne San Jose /ISEA 2006 Symposium,
SWITCH has dedicated itself to serving as an official media
correspondent of the Festival and Symposium. SWITCH has focused the
past three issues of publication prior to ZeroOne San Jose/ISEA2006
on publishing content reflecting on the themes of the symposium. Our
editorial staff has interviewed and reported on artists, theorists,
and practitioners interested in the intersections of Art & Technology
as related to the themes of ZeroOne San Jose/ ISEA 2006. While some
of those featured in SWITCH are part of the festival and symposium,
others provide a complimentary perspective.
Issue 22 focuses on the intersections of CADRE and ZeroOne San Jose/
ISEA 2006. Over the past year, students at the CADRE Laboratory for
New Media have been working intensely with artists on two different
residency projects for the festival – “Social Networking” with Antoni
Muntadas and the City as Interface Residency, “Karaoke Ice” with
Nancy Nowacek, Marina Zurkow & Katie Salen. Carlos Castellanos,
James Morgan, Aaron Siegel, all give us a sneak preview of their
projects which will be featured at the ISEA 2006 exhibition. Alumni
Sheila Malone introduces ex_XX:: post position, an exhibition
celebrating the 20th anniversary of the CADRE Institute that will run
as a parallel exhibition to ZeroOne San Jose/ ISEA 2006. LeE
Montgomery provides a preview of NPR (Neighborhood Public Radio)
presence at ...
Art & Mapping
The North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) has released a special issue of their journal, Cartographic Perspectives:
Art and Mapping
Issue 53, Winter 2006
Edited by Denis Wood and and John Krygier
Price: $25
The issue includes articles by kanarinka, Denis Wood, Dalia Varanka and John Krygier, and an extensive catalogue of map artists compiled by Denis Wood.
[-empyre-] Liquid Narrative for June 2006
Christina McPhee:
hi all, I am not sure we got this message out to Rhizome!
Please join our guests this month, Dene Grigar (US), Jim Barrett
(AU/SE), Lucio Santaella (BR), and Sergio Basbaum (BR) , with
moderator Marcus Bastos (BR), for a spirited discussion of "Liquid
Narratives" ----- digital media story telling with a dash, perhaps,
of 'aura' .
Here's the intro from Marcus:
The topic of June at the - empyre - mailing list will be Liquid Narratives. The concept of 'liquid narrative' is interesting in that it allows to think about the unfoldings of contemporary languages beyond tech achievements, by relating user controlled applications with formats such as the essay (as described by Adorno in "Der Essay als Form", The essay as a form) and procedures related to the figure of the narrator (as described by Benjamin in his writings about Nikolai Leskov). Both authors are accute critics of modern culture, but a lot of his ideas can be expanded towards contemporary culture. As a matter of fact, one of the main concerns in Benjamin's essay is a description of how the rise of modernism happens on account of an increasing nprivilege of information over knowledge, which is even more intense nowadays. To understand this proposal, it is important to remember how Benjamin distinguishes between an oral oriented knowledge, that results from 'an experience that goes from person to person' and is sometimes anonymous, from the information and authoritative oriented print culture. One of the aspects of this discussion is how contemporary networked culture rescues this 'person to person' dimension, given the distributed and non-authoritative procedures that technologies such as the GPS, mobile phones and others stimulate.state of the planet infographics
a small collection of beautiful information graphics documenting the current state of the planet.
see also gapminder & 3d data globe.
[seedmagazine.com]
FWD: There must be an alternative
THERE MUST BE AN ALTERNATIVE
An exhibition curated by Oliver Ressler
Artists and groups of artists:
Bernadette Corporation (USA/F/D), bureau d'etudes (F), Etcetera
(Argentina), Aernout Mik (NL), Oliver Ressler (A), The Yes Men (USA)
Opening: October 8th, 2004, 9 pm
"There is no alternative." This statement was made by the former
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with regard to the economic
injustices of the 1980's. At the same time the politically wanted
processes of restructuring were continued favoring transnational
companies and the high finance. To describe globalized capitalism as a
sort of fateful factor to which there can be no alternative still is a
popular strategy of neoliberal ideologists.
During the last years the international so called
Anti-Globalization-Movement and various social forums managed to
publicly question the processes of capitalist rule. "There must be an
alternative." This opinion was voiced within some of these forums and
also forms the frame for the artistic contributions of this exhibition
in the Forum Stadtpark. The exhibition assembles artistic positions of
analysis and critique of existing (economic) systems and of resistance
against these systems and zooms in on basic approaches to possible
alternatives to capitalism.
By showing brokers restlessly staring and shocked by a crash in a room
at the stock-market Aernout Mik's video installation "Middlemen"
displays the insecurity which is structurally linked with a capitalist
society. The big posters by bureau d'etudes
(http://bureaudetudes.free.fr) represent the attempt to map the global
operating modes and power structures in capitalism. Etcetera show
cardboard figures designed as political actors from their series "Gente
Armada" previously used in performances in the streets of Buenos Aires.
The Yes Men personated representatives of the World Trade Organization
(www.gatt.org), the video "The Horribly Stupid Stunt" shows their
performance during a congress at the University of Salzburg. For the
Bernadette Corporation taking part in the G8-protests in Genoa 2001 was
the starting point for their video "Get Rid Of Yourself" which
critically questions representation and picks connections between
radical forms of protest and fashion/lifestyle out as a central theme.
In various short videos the work-in-progress project "Alternative
Economics, Alternative Societies" by Oliver Ressler (www.ressler.at)
focuses on different concepts and models for alternative economies and
societies the common ground of which is the rejection of the system of
capitalist rule.
Round table with participating artists: October 10th 2004, 11h
Duration of exhibition till November 28th 2004
Opening hours: Tue
FWD: Yesmen update
Philadelphia, Washington DC, Chicago, Boston
Tickets, theaters: http://theyesmenmovie.com/ (click on "Buy tickets")
Movie page: http://theyesmen.org/movie/
NY party info: 7:30-10pm tonight (Friday, Oct. 1), FREE PIZZA AND BEER
at the Den of Cin, 44 Ave. A at 3rd St., Manhattan. First 20
partygoers get free tickets to 9:50pm screening of "The Yes Men,"
or a copy of our book.
Contact: mailto:movie@theyesmen.org
Dear Yes Men subscriber,
Last Friday, "The Yes Men" opened in three theaters in New York and
LA. With little advertising, it outperformed every other debut film
in per-theater visits, with the sole exception of the hugely promoted
"Motorcycle Diaries."
Because of this success, "The Yes Men" is opening TODAY in 18 new
theaters in Philadelphia, Washington DC, Chicago, Boston, San
Francisco, Seattle, San Diego, and Toronto
(http://theyesmenmovie.com/buy.html). A huge THANK YOU to all who
made this happen!!
But now, the hard part. For "The Yes Men" to go any further, these 18
new theaters will need to fill up this weekend. So if you live near
Seattle, San Diego, San Francisco, Washington DC, Toronto, Boston,
Philadelphia, or Chicago, PLEASE go see "The Yes Men" today or this
weekend. Take your parents. Take your children (it's rated R, but
only because of a bad word or two). And forward this message widely!
Also, if you live in New York, we're throwing a THANK YOU THANK YOU
THANK YOU PARTY tonight (Friday, Oct. 1) at the Den of Cin, 44 Ave. A
at 3rd St. in Manhattan, below Two Boots Video. There will be FREE
PIZZA AND BEER FOR ALL, thanks to The Onion and Two Boots Video. The
first 20 partygoers will receive free passes to the 9:50pm screening
of "The Yes Men" at the Sunshine Theater, just a few blocks away. And
a few copies of our book (http://theyesmen.org/book/) will be given
away by the publisher, Disinformation Books.
Come drink, get stuffed, and say goodbye to two of the Yes Men, Andy
and Mike, as we embark (Saturday morning) on the second leg of our
presidential campaign (http://theyesmen.org/blog/). We'll be back in
November--just like the country!
Your friends,
The Yes Men
ActBlue
Bostonians Benjamin Rahn and Matt DeBergalis think that power should
rest in the hands of individuals, not large PACs. So the two created
ActBlue, a website devoted to helping raise money and promote action on
behalf of Democrats. And these days, ActBlue is doing what no other
organization or website is doing: enabling individuals to act as their
own PAC, raising money for nearly any Democratic candidate they choose
and easily bundling it together with funds raised by others.
induce act passes in the US House
Bad: HR4077 Passed the House
holmes, September 28 3:26PM
The INDUCE Act is just one part of a legislative full-court press by
the major labels. We've been very focused on INDUCE, because it's the
biggest threat, the broadest coalition opposes it, and it's the most
realistically beatable.
But we just found out that HR 4077 passed in the House this afternoon.
This major label dream-law would send people to jail for sharing 1,000
songs, or just one unreleased album. That's right, up to 5 years in
jail for sharing one album. It passed on a voice vote, so you can't
even go see if your Congressperson supported it-- their votes simply
aren't on record. They'll send hundreds kids to jail as a favor to some
corrupt industry but they won't put their names on it. Cowards.
The bill also includes charming things like restrictions on devices
that let you skip commercials (remember, America: if you don't watch
the commercials, you're stealing TV). HR 4077 still has to go through
the Senate, but it could easily sail through. We're doing some thinking
about strategy right now, and we'd appreciate your comments if you have
any thoughts.