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]
New Venezuelan Anarchist Website in English
on nettime
Date: 11 Feb 2003 12:18:29 +0100
From: Quim Gil <qgil@lawebespiral.org>
Subject: <nettime> New Venezuelan Anarchist Website in
English
History shows that paying attention to anarchist
opinions is useful to,
at least, contrast opinions and informations. In the
case of Venezuela
it's also useful to show that the crisis is not just a
bipolarism
between left-people-grassroots and
right-darkpowers-elites.
Quim
(fwd) From: Nelson Mendez mendezn@camelot.rect.ucv.ve
El Libertario website <www.nodo50.org/ellibertario>
voice of the
Comision de Relaciones Anarquistas (CRA) of Venezuela,
has now a section
in English language:
http://www.nodo50.org/ellibertario/seccioningles.htm .
It will allow
those who don't master the Spanish language to know
the essence of the
proposals, analysis and activities of the Venezuelan
libertarian
socialists. As for as we know, this is the first time
a Latin American
anarchist group launches in the web an initiative of
this kind.
CRA was born 1995 and since then it issues the printed
version of El
Libertario being, nowadays, the most regular anarchist
newsletter in
Latin America (5 issues per year) and the most printed
(between 2000
and
3000 issues per edition). It is distributed in
Venezuela and in others
countries of the continent. Since the publication of
issue # 10 the
main
texts of each newsletter are placed in the website
<samizdata.host.sk/LIB.html> and since issue # 29 it
has its own
website. If more information about El Libertario and
CRA is required,
please write (preferably in Spanish) to
<ellibertarionodo50.org> or via
snail mail to: Emilio Tesoro, Apartado Postal 6303,
Carmelitas,
Caracas,
Venezuela.
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Re: about punk rock
i would say the same thing holds true for visual-based art or music.
if you don't have it - get the 20 year document of Dischord records. a pretty good testament to "punk" rock as a viable activity.
best,
ryan
Online games increasingly a place for protest, social activism
Nettime) but thought it was worth reposting for those
that haven't read it...
NICK WADHAMS
Canadian Press
Friday, February 07, 2003
NEW YORK (AP) - Gone are the days when playing video
games online meant
simply playing a hand of poker or battling your
buddies to the death in
a
giant arena you couldn't control.
Many games are now all about role-playing, and some
players aren't
participating to escape terrestrial life. They're
getting on virtual
soapboxes and organizing all manner of protests in
cyberspace. Gamers
have
protested the impending war in Iraq, started
newspapers, gathered
charitable
donations - done myriad things they already do, or
wish they could do,
in
the real world.
The line between online gaming and the real world "is
a lot thinner
than
people give it credit for," said Raph Koster, creative
director of the
Austin, Texas, office of Sony Entertainment.
At the new online community There.com, gamers can
clothe their in-game
marionettes and socialize with others. Already, some
players angry with
the
U.S. policy on Iraq have organized a peace rally and
clad their
characters
with the peace symbol.
Not earth-shattering, to be sure, but exemplary of how
thousands of
people
are using online games to either project their real
voices or speak up
as
they might not in real life.
Players of EverQuest, the most popular online game in
the United States
with
about 85,000 playing at any time, held in-game
candlelight vigils after
the
Sept. 11 attacks and even created memorials within the
game's universe.
Such games have become "online petri dishes" to show
how far people
will go
in wedding their real and virtual lives, said Amy Jo
Kim, an
online-games
designer involved with There.com.
People have been attacked in real life for killing
other contestants
playing
Lineage, the world's most popular online game with
four million active
subscribers. And hundreds of players have gathered
within the game to
protest software glitches.
The latest game to hit the market is the Sims Online,
from Electronic
Arts.
Players have control over a character and act out
real-life fantasies.
They've built in-game restaurants, created several
radio stations and
even a
newspaper.
And they are not shy about complaining.
Freelance writer Tony Walsh didn't like a deal
Electronic Arts made to
insert a McDonald's kiosk into the game, so he
organized a protest.
Other gamers have no trouble co-opting games entirely.
To protest the possibility of war, Anne-Marie
Schleiner designed a hack
for
Counterstrike, a popular first-person shooter. With
"Velvet-Strike,"
players
could display virtual posters with such messages as
"Hostage of an
Online
Fantasy" and "You are your most dangerous enemy."
It led to some confusion among gamers who didn't want
reality creeping
into
their fantasy world, Schleiner said.
"It was interesting, disturbing and entertaining to
get so much
negative
feedback from all different directions - some pure
old-fashioned
misogyny,"
she said.
Issues of how far gamers can push have yet to be fully
tested. Like
movies,
games are often based on brands, and designers aren't
necessarily
willing to
have their brands co-opted.
Likely to push those limits is the forthcoming Star
Wars Galaxies,
which
will put players inside the George Lucas popular
universe. That creates
a
problem, because the Star Wars world is one of the
most cherished
creations
in the history of fantasy fiction.
"Somebody saying something in the game and being
witnessed by somebody
else
can reflect not just on the game but on Lucasfilm and
George Lucas,"
said
Koster, a lead designer for Galaxies, which is due in
April. "If
someone
started walking around in the San Diego Zoo screaming
profanity or
handing
out Nazi leaflets, the park would remove them from the
premises. We
need to
be able to do that also."
Should free-speech values extend to the online world?
Will there be a
future
lawsuit from someone who claims they were unlawfully
barred for
maligning
George Lucas?
Walsh, for one, believes gamers should have the very
same freedoms in
cyberspace that they have in the physical world.
"Why shouldn't people protest?" he said. "Why
shouldn't freedom of
speech be
as alive in the Sims Online as it is the real world?"
Copyright 2003 The Canadian Press
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Bush Orders Guidelines for Cyber-Warfare
Bush Orders Guidelines for Cyber-Warfare - Report
Fri Feb 7,12:48 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web
sites) has ordered the government to draw up
guidelines for cyber- attacks against enemy computer
networks, The Washington Post reported on Friday.
Bush signed a directive last July ordering the
government to develop, for the first time, rules for
deciding when and how the United States would
penetrate and disrupt foreign computer systems, the
newspaper said.
The secret national security directive had not been
publicly disclosed until now, the newspaper reported.
According to the report, cyber-warfare rules were
being prepared amid speculation that the Pentagon
(news - web sites) was considering some offensive
computer operations against Iraq if the president
decides to go to war over Baghdad's banned weapons
programs.
"Whatever might happen in Iraq, you can be assured
that all the appropriate approval mechanisms for
cyber-operations would be followed," an administration
official was quoted as saying. The official declined
to confirm or deny whether such planning was underway,
the newspaper said.
A White House spokesman was not immediately available
for comment.
The Post cited unnamed senior officials as saying that
the United States has never conducted a large-scale,
strategic cyber-attack, but the Pentagon has stepped
up development of cyber-weapons.
Military planners imagine soldiers at computer
terminals silently invading foreign networks to shut
down radars, disable electrical facilities and disrupt
phone services, the newspaper said.
Despite months of discussions involving the Pentagon,
CIA (news - web sites), FBI (news - web sites) and
National Security Agency, officials told the paper a
number of cyber-warfare issues remain to be resolved
and that the president's directive was just an initial
step.
A senior administration official told the newspaper:
"We're trying to be thorough and thoughtful about
this. I expect the process will end in another
directive ... setting the foundation."
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FWD: Iraq independent reporting source
From: Florian Schneider <fls@kein.org>
Subject: <nettime> waiting for the war
Jeremy Scahill is an independent journalist, who
reports for the
nationally syndicated Radio and TV show Democracy Now!
He is currently
based in Baghdad, Iraq, where he and filmmaker Jacquie
Soohen are
coordinating Iraqjournal.org, the only website
providing regular
independent reporting from the ground in Baghdad.
http://www.iraqjournal.org
FOX NEWS: 'The Network America Trusts' (to pay
'Saddam')
Filed February 1, 2003 by Jeremy Scahill
BAGHDAD--The sat phones are lined up. The tents are in
place. Dozens of
languages fill the smoke filled atrium. Every kind of
technical
equipment imaginable is scattered about. The scene
almost resembles an
eerie version of the quick set up for a heavy metal
concert. Welcome to
the Press Center on the ground floor of the Iraqi
Ministry of
Information. Over the last several weeks, low-paid
Iraqi construction
workers have rubbed elbows with journalists from CNN,
BBC, The New York
Times and a slew of other media outlets. The workers
are halfway
through a sizable construction project to expand the
Press Center to
accommodate the influx of the proverbial herds waiting
for the war.
Inside the building, tiny 6' x 6' cubicles are now the
hottest real
estate on the Baghdad market. Officially, the space
will cost you $500
a month. But space is limited and cash is flowing from
the pockets of
the major networks to Iraqi officials and the
government to ensure
access once the bombs start flying. But it is not just
the cubicles.
Under the government guidelines, journalists cough up
a handsome sum of
money to the government and individual officials. Here
are the bare
minimums for journalists operating in Baghdad:
- --$100/ day fee per journalist, cameraperson,
technical staff etc.
- --$150/ day fee for permission to use a satellite
telephone (which
the journalists have to provide themselves)
- --$50-100/ day for a mandatory government escort
- --$50-100/ day for a car and driver (some networks
have a fleet of
vehicles)
- --$75/ day for a room at the Al Rashid Hotel
That's already $500 and that doesn't include the
thousands of dollars
daily for each direct live satellite feed for TV
networks. Nor does it
include the bribes and "tips" shelled out left and
right. Nor does it
include the money handed over at border crossings and
the airport. The
networks don't like to talk about how much they
actually spend, but one
veteran of the media scene here estimated the cost for
a major TV
network at about $100,000 a month. Others say that is
a low estimate.
Almost all of this cash (except a few "tips" here and
there) goes
directly to the Iraqi government. Once you add up the
bill for the TV
networks alone, we're talking perhaps millions of
dollars in revenue a
month for the government.
There is a joke here that the major media outlets are
now competing
with oil smuggling as the number one money-maker for
the Iraqi
government. It is particularly ironic that while
Rupert Murdoch's
"troops" from FOX News Network rally for the war,
dismissing antiwar
activists as dupes of the Iraqi regime, the "network
America trusts" is
paying "Saddam" (as they refer to Iraq) hand over fist
tens of
thousands of dollars every month. But stroll down the
halls of the
press center and you'll see that Rupert's troops have
multiple
battalions. He also owns Sky News (the British version
of FOX), as well
as the Times of London. A bit of research would
probably find that
Murdoch owns other publications operating here as
well. FOX News
reporters (and others as well) like to say "for the
benefit of the
viewers" that their broadcasts are being monitored by
the Iraqi
government. Fair enough. But perhaps the Murdoch
Empire should begin
each of its reports or dispatches from Baghdad by
disclosing how much
money they paid "Saddam" today.
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