Tag Archives: Internet

Re-evaluating the cultural industries

Philip Breek | 12 September 2011, 1:00 pm | 1 comment | tags: , , , , ,

With the rise of the Internet, ‘creative content’ has become an increasingly debated concept with regard to its nature, availability and legality. Within each of these respects severe changes have been seen which altogether have dealt a significant blow to global cultural industries. Whilst this has been thoroughly noted and observed by researchers tuned in to the ever-changing media landscape,…

Live Transmission of Labour Day in Bogota

Fei An Tjan | 04 May 2011, 9:54 pm | tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

I attended the processions of 1 May (Labour day) in Colombia. The idea was as follows: At 8 AM, we would all gather on the square to set up the installation, DJ turntables, waterproof tent (it rains a lot), and of course, the computer and cameras. The performance would be filmed by 2 cameras and then be transmitted live over the Internet.

Nicholas Carr in Amsterdam: “The Net Bombards Us With Distractions”

Caroline Goralczyk | 06 March 2011, 10:03 pm | 3 comments | tags: , , , ,

Last Wednesday, author and journalist Nicholas Carr presented his new book “The Shallows: How the Internet is changing the way we think, read and remember” at the Universiteit van Amsterdam. After his famous 2008 essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, Carr again makes his audience ponder on how contemporary technologies have an immense effect on the way people think.

The BeBook Blues

Fei An Tjan | 18 October 2010, 12:18 pm | tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Last years have been devout to digital publishing and the e-readers. The media made it seem that it was the new big thing and even my mother was considering an iPad. Because I was always annoyed by the enormous spillage of paper during my studies, I too thought it might be time for some digitization of my personal life:…

The Ultimate Boycott of Brains?

Elias van Hees | 01 October 2010, 1:55 pm | tags: , , ,

About the other, less seen, side of Israel: Technology and digital innovation

“People of good conscience have chosen to boycott israeli products and companies supporting the zionist entity.” is stated on the Anti-Israël website inminds.com. Such political statements are not new, in fact Israel has been fighting these attemps (and other attacks too) for decades. Nevertheless,…

Not to get too emotional… but what happened to emotion?

Ilektra Pavlaki | 28 September 2010, 8:35 pm | tags: , , , , , , ,

She’ ll smile to you if you move to the left. No, try a different angle. I don’t know… Is she smiling at all? For over 500 years, viewers and researchers have been trying to interpret Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile. If a half-smile is worth that much attention, that says a lot about the importance of emotions. And maybe even more about the difficulty of their detection.

Internet users, having to deal with the lack of face-to-face interaction and the frequency of misinterpretation, started to convey their feelings with emoticons.

Internet, Policy and Politics Conference in Oxford

ellen sluis | 22 September 2010, 9:04 am | tags: , , , , , ,

Last week I attended a conference on Internet, Policy and Politics at the OII in Oxford. I was invited to present my paper based on my MA research conducted in Brazil, which I finished a couple of weeks ago.

Book review: John Freeman, “The tyranny of e-mail” – The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to your Inbox

Ilektra Pavlaki | 20 September 2010, 12:15 pm | tags: , , , ,

I ‘ve read once a story about a Japanese man who got married to the virtual girlfriend he dated in a Nintendo DS video game called Love Plus- a wedding blessed by a priest and not a virtual one. This is no doubt an eccentric way to declare one’s devotion to a machine. But as…

Book Review: “Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World”

Caroline Goralczyk | 19 September 2010, 6:40 pm | 2 comments | tags: , , ,

Imagine a place where there are no differences among people, everyone is living in a common space where the same language is spoken, borderless communication and free trade is frictionless and the freedom of speech is fully guaranteed. Yes, this could be a sort of paradise and yes, it could have also been the World Wide Web but no – it is neither of them.

Who do you think you are?

Chris Hoogeveen | 15 September 2010, 10:34 pm | tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Review: Karin Spaink, Wie is U?

Ever had a Déjà vu, the feeling that you have experienced something before? It’s a strange feeling. You can’t exactly explain what it is and where it comes from, but it’s there. You know you’ve been somewhere before or heard something before. Mostly the experience lasts only a moment and then it’s gone.…