MyCreativity – Opening Night Screenings
Some visitors of MyCreativity’s opening night might have been a bit surprised when they found out where it took place. The contrast between the friendly squat named Chequepoint at Damrak 16 and the overly capitalist surroundings could hardly have been bigger. The fact that the building used to be a bank might compensate for that.
As the rain came pouring down all different kinds of people, students, academics, professionals, artists and squatters, started mingling upstairs in a gezellige atmosphere entertained by a DJ and free drinks.
The screenings started off with Imbattibili, a 2006 short by Chainworkers showing a report of a protest for better social security held in Milan in 2005. Several demonstrators are asked how they cope with their poverty due to the harsh system in Berlusconi’s Italy suffering from an economic depression. These questions are asked not in a conventional way though, but rather in an inspiring manner; “if you’re able to manage having a decent life under these circumstances”, the protestors are told, “you can’t be less than a superhero!”.
This new context brings a smile to everybody’s face every time, and it gets even more funny when a little cape is given for the superheroes to fly away, making the image complete. You must give some credit to the filmmakers for giving these people some self-respect again, considering the bad social-economic position they’re in.
The second screening, Talent Community: IO Design Office, is also a short report from Lars Nilsson on a system in Sweden in which freelancers get together in a company to benefit from each others creativity, a common brand name and a network, but to avoid the classical hierarchical system of a company. Lars has a quite unconventional way of filming and editing which gives the film a bit of a amateurist feel. But of course I might just be mistaking Swedish dogma-style documentary making with incompetence.
The story is very inspiring though. Who likes to work for a boss anyway? Isn’t this system, which became popular during the industrial revolution, a bit out of date? People tend to work harder if they know they’re solely responsible for their own income, and don’t have somebody else telling them what to do. Still though, they might need the social surroundings offered by a company and the (creative) input of fellow people to get inspiration over a cup of coffee or a game of table tennis. Next to this the collective has one brand name and an extended network which creates better opportunities for everyone involved. This system of a collective of individual CEO’s might turn out to be a good option for the future of the creative industries (in Western Europe anyway).
The last screening, On Blood and Wings, is according to the official description
“about the multitude battling capitalism. Giving a vampire twist to Marx in unveiling the crucial mechanism of capitalism (“to make more and more blood out of blood”), it shows the problems of the Multitude fighting the vampires to conquer capitalism towards a free and just society. The video is put together from found footage out of a dozen different vampire movies. A voice over reads the political text. The video is published under the GNU public license.”
Blatantly anti-capitalist and pro-communist this movie might have fitted in the squat where it was showed, but could hardly be taken serious. The voiceover made the story feel like a production sponsored by Stalin himself. Comparing capitalism with vicious vampires craving for blood is a funny metaphor, and I hope that was all it was; a joke. The idea behind it is interesting, but the way the voice over mentions the “war between capitalism and the Multitude” made me laugh out loud.
On Blood and Wings is available as a MP4 (80MB) download
This week the Innovation Lab workshop ‘Broadband/HD’ takes place. Media Guild initiated this workshop week for ICTRegie in collaboration with EuroLAB and Unexpected Media. The focus is on generation and development of innovative cross-platform applications for optimum use of the Dutch broadband infrastructure. The newly renovated Zwijger Pakhuis in Amsterdam is the location for the Innovation Lab workshop. It is important that the workshop is residential in nature, in order to ensure that the participants can dedicate their time to the innovation process. There are 7 creative teams participating in the workshop. During the intensive week a number of specialists and mentors are available to guide the teams in their process with their expertise. The teams work toward a 10-minute pitch on Friday where they present their project proposals for a jury who selects a winning team. High potential projects are awarded a commission to further develop the project.
Day 1 is introduction day. What projects are participating in Innovation Lab? Who are the teams? Why are they participating? What are the goals of the projects? And how are they going to achieve these goals? Expert in innovative processes, Frank Boyd, is leading today’s session.
Resistant Maps,
artistic actions in the interconnected urban territory.
Villa Croce Contemporary Art Museum,
via Jacopo Ruffini 3, Genoa (Italy)
25-26 November 2006
Resistant Maps, artistic actions in the interconnected urban territory is a conference and exhibition produced by the ‘Leonardi V-Idea’ Association (Genoa, Italy) and curated by Alessandro Ludovico, Gianfranco Pangrazio, Tommaso Tozzi, Marco Villani.
The representation of territory holds a historical role in the privileges of power. Geographical data has always been in its hands. The regaining of this representation goes through description and sharing practices (often in personal perspectives too). This is possible thanks to collaborative tools and the consequent value shifting of maps. Maps are not granted anymore by structures of power, but built by individuals who, drawing on the ideas of the psychogeographical movements, redraw the urban space according to fresh new coordinates.
Day 2 is about users. More specifically today is about understanding and applying user centered design methods. Tracy Currer is leading today’s session. Tracy Currer is an interaction design consultant and is an experienced guide in innovative processes.
The purpose of today is two-folded. The first aim is to get into the mind and shoes of the target users; the second is to pitch it in 5 minutes at the end of the day. To get into the mind of the target users, it is important to define who they are, how the project is going to fit into their lives, and how it is going to enhance the user’s life.
During day 3 and 4 the teams work on their own project. The experts visit the teams during the day to give personal feedback. On day 3 a special guest accompanies the expert group: chairman of the jury Frank Alsema . Day 3 is focused on the question: What is the big idea of the project? The teams are encouraged to think big, but start small. This means on the one hand being very specific and focused in your presentation of the project, and on the other dare to dream about wider uses and implications of the project. The ideas of the projects are to be communicated with visualizations in the form of prototypes, in other words, how to tell a short story with prototypes.
Other topics that are addressed today are technological and business factors that should be addressed in the pitch. The teams are asked to think about whom they’re pitching for – this week it is an expert jury – and why the jury should be persuaded to give money to their project. Why should they select your project and not someone else’s? To persuade the jury the teams are advised to address what their plans are with the money. What is the next step in the project after the pitch? The aim is to make the jury enthusiastic for the project. Furthermore, the teams should address what’s innovative about their project, although it is important not to go too much into detail, especially technological details. Layers of detail can be added in the questions the jury is going to ask after the pitch. The pitch should cover content, technology, and place in the market.
Day 4 is the last day before the big pitch on Friday. Frank Boyd introduces the day with a session on what to think about in the presentation. Today is about pitching. Pitching is about inner preparation, outer preparation, clarification and thinking about the question: at what point did the project pitch you? After this short session the teams go back to work and prepare their presentations. Today all experts are again available for the teams. Frank Boyd and Huib Schwab visit each team for a first rehearsal and to talk about inner drive and values.
> ————————————————-
> UbuWeb: The YouTube of the Avant-Garde
> ————————————————-
> UbuWeb has converted all of its rare and out-of-print film & video
> holdings to on-demand streaming formats a la YouTube, which means that
> you can view everything right in your browser without
> platform-specific software or insanely huge downloads. We offer over
> 300 films & videos from artists such as Vito Acconci, Pipilotti Rist,
> Jean Genet, The Cinema of Transgression, Richard Foreman, Shuji
> Terayama, Jack Smith, Carolee Schneeman, John Lennon and hundreds
> more. Presented in conjunction with our partners at Greylodge.
>
> http://ubu.com/film/
>
> UBUWEB IS ENTIRELY FREE
ubu operates much as youtube: put stuff up without permission and keep it up unless someone objects. there was an interesting article in macleans a couple of weeks ago about youtube. they pointed out that other outfits very similar to youtube haven’t done so well because they were more concerned with copyright issues.
I found these reviews of Alexander Galloway’s book very helpfull. Hopefully there of some use for y’all as well!
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=290
http://www.villagevoice.com/arts/0415,halter,52589,12.html
http://rccs.usfca.edu/bookinfo.asp?ReviewID=307&BookID=260
http://www.dyske.com/index.php?view_id=857&search_wp=galloway
I have found a couple of interesting locative media websites/ articles/ blogs:
These involve geotracing:
Location based mobile phone games (pervasive gaming):
- http://www.in-duce.net/archives/locationbased_mobile_phone_games.php#more
- http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/
- http://www.pervasive-gaming.org/index_swf.html
Article about botfighters, a mobile (location based) multi user game (/pervasive game):
Mobile pacman game:
Blogs:
A N N O U N C E M E N T
Public Authoring – from the margins to the centre
Virtueel Platform Workshop with Giles Lane, 13th December 2006
at the Digital Heritage Conference 2006 – Interactive Heritage
Time: 1.30 pm – 3.15 pm
Location: W2 Platezaal, De Doelen, Rotterdam
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Off-Screen presents: A day out of the life of a Game Researcher, an analysis of the moral panic surrounding games.
This wednesday Off-Screen, the student board (?) of Mediastudies at the UvA organizes a David Nieborg lecture for people interested in what games are, hoe they are being researched and which controversies surround this fascinating (new) medium. Be there!
Place: CREA Theather Time: 20.00 Damage: None!
You don’t need your computer to, y’know, use your computer. Surely there are some nice hacks for this that allow people to get around firewalls and censorware.. Link
By the way, if you look at the article, take note of the spectacular ‘stock photo’ they use to convey the meaning of remote access – I think such photos are an insult to the reader’s intelligence, and propose that if you just have to have a picture in there when it’s unnecessary, at least make it a photo an image (and I do media theory) of Ralph.
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Last Wednesday December 13th BBC’s Newnight had an item about personalized advertizing on mobile tv. You can find it here
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Bio Mapping is a research project which explores new ways that we as individuals can make use of the information we can gather about our own bodies. Instead of security technologies that are designed to control our behaviour, this project envisages new tools that allows people to selectively share and interpret their own biometric data.
The Bio Mapping tool allows the wearer to record their Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), which is a simple indicator of emotional arousal in conjunction with their geographical location. This can be used to plot a map that highlights point of high and low arousal. By sharing this data we can construct maps that visualise where we as a community feel stressed and excited.
How will our perceptions of our community and environment change when we become aware of our own and each others intimate body states?
In this interesting research the university of Tilburg describes two scenarios of security and privacy for the future in the Netherlands. The research has been done in request of the Department of Domestic Affairs and it shows two extreme, but conceivable situations in which either domestic security or privacy solutions get the upperhand. This research will be consluted by the Department of Domestic Affairs for their strategic policy decissions in the future.
For me it is interesting to see what scenarios these (objective) scientists have described. I have found that in the security versus privacy debate people choose one side and their discussions aren’t subjective anymore. They passionately defend their beliefs in the matter. A new technology or policy either leads to a utopia or a dystopia.
The PDF file is available on this page (unfortunately it is only available in Dutch, for as far as I can see):
http://www.uvt.nl/faculteiten/frw/onderzoek/schoordijk/tilt/onderzoek/projecten/priveil/
Since we didn’t have enough time yesterday to do all the presentations, I will give you a summary of the article on flash mobs by Judith Nicholson (2005).
What is a flash mob? According to a definition by the Oxford English Dictionary it’s “A public gathering of complete strangers, organized via internet or mobile phone, who perform a pointless act and then disperse again”. The first flash mob took place in New York in June 2003: one hundred people gathered in Macy’s furniture department around a $10.000 rug to tell the salespeople they all lived in a free-love commune and wanted to buy a ‘love rug’. Other flash mobs followed quickly in cities all over the world. The trend was already declared passé in September 2003. Why was a trend often described as ‘silly fun’ so hotly contested? Nicholson argues that the reason was the conjuncture in flash mobbing of 3 types of mobile communicating: mobile texting, targeted mobbing and public performing. These made the trend a significant moment in the history of mobile communication.
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En 1998, l’iMac d’Apple met de la couleur dans le monde gris de l’informatique.
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(10) L’iMac
En 1998, l’iMac d’Apple met de la couleur dans le monde gris de l’informatique. Ovoïde, translucide et coloré : à sa sortie en 1998, l’iMac fait l’effet d’une bombe dans un marché de l’informatique jusqu’alors voué au beige et au gris. Apple avait déjà misé sur le design pour la série des Macintosh. Avec l’iMac, conçu par le jeune designer Jonathan Ive, l’ordinateur devient encore plus attractif.
An admittedly slightly biased but nevertheless entertaining and informative crash course on computer design. The programme will be broadcasted again on December 19th, at 10.50 pm on Arte TV
The Mediastudies Department of the University of Amsterdam will be starting a new master studying the age old medium of radio. Campus TV interviewed the initiator, Frank van Vree.
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Rhizome | Rhizome News Email
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Rhizome News December 22, 2006 Artists Give Community Something To Talk About The People Speak is a London-based collection utilizing and ‘updating’ various communication techniques to facilitate exchange among residents of the city. They first gained widespread attention, online, for their radio show, ‘Traffic-island disks: sounding out the city,’ in which they stopped pedestrians wearing headphones to chat with them about what they were listening to. The project makes people aware of the protective social and personal spheres they build for themselves, within cities. More recently, ‘Who Wants to Be?’ is a spoof on the American game show ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,’ in which the artists use a game-like system of polls to address questions of democracy within poor communities. TPS’s ‘dicshunary.com’ site tracks the etymology of emergent, locally-used vocabularies, while ‘Directionless Enquiries’ establishes a peer-to-peer network of mobile phone users who can count on each other for help and random advice. The group now offers a downloadable ! toolkit for carrying out community-building DIY media projects in your own neighborhood. Check it out today and start doing good his weekend! – Elizabeth Johnston |
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In 2007 the French will elect a new president. The French newspaper Libération offers a practical guide to net politics. |
The Hug Shirt has been nominated as one of the best Inventions of 2006 by Time Magazine!
How does it work?
The Hug Shirt is a Bluetooth accessory for Java enabled mobile phones. Hug shirts don’t have any assigned phone number, all the data goes from the sensors Bluetooth to your mobile phone and your mobile phone delivers the hug data to your friend’s phone and it is seamlessly transmitted Bluetooth to his or her shirt!
Sending hugs is as easy as sending an SMS and you will be able to send hugs while you are on the move, in the same way and to the same places you are able to make phone calls
more information here:
Placeblogger brings together blogs based on their location. Personally, I really am looking forward to aggregators like this one taking off. Maybe they will change how we perceive the blogosphere (i.e. beyond terms of A-list bloggers and the Long Tail). I remember wishing there was some service like this in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, as there were a number of first-hand witnesses to what was going on, but no way to find them if they had not been mentioned by more mainstream sources..
In any case, how long before Technorati catches on and starts doing location-specific searches? And Google? Or are they already nostalgic for a Web mapped by topic?
See also a previous post on locative media. Found out about placeblogger via Boingboing.
In this project children with serious burns get diverted during the treatment of their injuries. This project has won the Australian national award for collaboration.
From their website:
“ACID is working with the Royal Children’s Hospital Brisbane to develop augmented reality devices for use by kids with serious burns while they undergo painful treatment of their injuries. The devices use colourful 3D adventures to divert the child’s attention from the treatment.
Each year thousands of children suffer serious burns. Treatment can be an excruciating and drawn-out process for both the child and the parents. Adequate pain management is difficult and relies heavily on drug intervention, often requiring complete sedation.