This article/essay by Michael Pollan is an extremely well-framed case-in-point about how a techno-social system (TSS) will — with science leading the way — reconfigure the energy flows (FOOD!) that we are immersed within. And how evolved sub-systems with a Machiavellian stake in the distribution of power in the TSS will fall all over themselves to retain the power they already have, or will develop new ways to siphon the power away from individuals participating in the system. Individual participants, aggregated as “the population” are still the main source of accumulated hierarchic power in the system. Anyone hoping to accumulate a power-base has to, at some level, attract the attention (life-energy/life-time) of that base. The food industry (and its constituent sub-industries) is no exception, nor is the ‘big science’ sector (which has to justify its existence through churning out ‘sensible’ information (nutrition research: always filtered, dumbed-down, by intercessory media voices)) — and neither of these ‘players’ are willing to be ‘regulated’ by the government which subsidizes their existence. Remember all those “drink milk” ads some years back? All the subsidies have gone underground, so is mostly invisible to the undiscerning eye. The consumer only sees the contents of the grocery-store shelves.
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52 Finance and Insurance
521 Monetary Authorities – Central Bank
5211 Monetary Authorities – Central Bank
52111 Monetary Authorities – Central Bank
521110 Monetary Authorities – Central Bank
522 Credit Intermediation and Related Activities
5221 Depository Credit Intermediation
52211 Commercial Banking
522110 Commercial Banking
52212 Savings Institutions
522120 Savings Institutions
52213 Credit Unions
522130 Credit Unions
52219 Other Depository Credit Intermediation
522190 Other Depository Credit Intermediation
5222 Nondepository Credit Intermediation
52221 Credit Card Issuing
522210 Credit Card Issuing
52222 Sales Financing
522220 Sales Financing
52229 Other Nondepository Credit Intermediation
522291 Consumer Lending
522292 Real Estate Credit
522293 International Trade Financing
522294 Secondary Market Financing
522298 All Other Nondepository Credit Intermediation
5223 Activities Related to Credit Intermediation
52231 Mortgage and Nonmortgage Loan Brokers
522310 Mortgage and Nonmortgage Loan Brokers
52232 Financial Transactions Processing, Reserve, and Clearinghouse Activities
522320 Financial Transactions Processing, Reserve, and Clearinghouse Activities
52239 Other Activities Related to Credit Intermediation
522390 Other Activities Related to Credit Intermediation
523 Securities, Commodity Contracts, and Other Financial Investments and Related Activities
5231 Securities and Commodity Contracts Intermediation and Brokerage
52311 Investment Banking and Securities Dealing
523110 Investment Banking and Securities Dealing
52312 Securities Brokerage
523120 Securities Brokerage
52313 Commodity Contracts Dealing
523130 Commodity Contracts Dealing
52314 Commodity Contracts Brokerage
523140 Commodity Contracts Brokerage
5232 Securities and Commodity Exchanges
52321 Securities and Commodity Exchanges
523210 Securities and Commodity Exchanges
5239 Other Financial Investment Activities
52391 Miscellaneous Intermediation
523910 Miscellaneous Intermediation
52392 Portfolio Management
523920 Portfolio Management
52393 Investment Advice
523930 Investment Advice
52399 All Other Financial Investment Activities
523991 Trust, Fiduciary, and Custody Activities
523999 Miscellaneous Financial Investment Activities
524 Insurance Carriers and Related Activities
5241 Insurance Carriers
52411 Direct Life, Health, and Medical Insurance Carriers
524113 Direct Life Insurance Carriers
524114 Direct Health and Medical Insurance Carriers
52412 Direct Insurance (except Life, Health, and Medical) Carriers
524126 Direct Property and Casualty Insurance Carriers
524127 Direct Title Insurance Carriers
524128 Other Direct Insurance (except Life, Health, and Medical) Carriers
52413 Reinsurance Carriers
524130 Reinsurance Carriers
5242 Agencies, Brokerages, and Other Insurance Related Activities
52421 Insurance Agencies and Brokerages
524210 Insurance Agencies and Brokerages
52429 Other Insurance Related Activities
524291 Claims Adjusting
524292 Third Party Administration of Insurance and Pension Funds
524298 All Other Insurance Related Activities
525 Funds, Trusts, and Other Financial Vehicles
5251 Insurance and Employee Benefit Funds
52511 Pension Funds
525110 Pension Funds
52512 Health and Welfare Funds
525120 Health and Welfare Funds
52519 Other Insurance Funds
525190 Other Insurance Funds
5259 Other Investment Pools and Funds
52591 Open-End Investment Funds
525910 Open-End Investment Funds
52592 Trusts, Estates, and Agency Accounts
525920 Trusts, Estates, and Agency Accounts
52593 Real Estate Investment Trusts
525930 Real Estate Investment Trusts
52599 Other Financial Vehicles
525990 Other Financial Vehicles

NAICS code

Your skin is translucent in the still air of this room.
Clay is prerogative; eyes are derivative.
We live in the shadows of immense hands
like death that will take our sex away.

Bridal days and wedding nights of grace and youth
and doors opening in women.

Music is a child of the grass
and teaches us the cost of frostbite.
We can’t separate the misunderstandings
or wash dishes in the music-box.

We talk too much and spend the word on our burning hands.
A cinder of a joke catches in our throat
and you laugh to hold onto the hurrying waters.

A fern is a fan that resembles a rainbow
and the last ghosts of Indians are asking for food
in the amber waves of dying grain.

– Daniela Gioseffi

The greatest joy, and the greatest triumph, in art, comes at the moment when, realizing to the fullest your grip over the medium, you deliberately sacrifice it in the hope of discovering a vital hidden truth within you. It comes like a reward for patience — this freedom of mastery which is born of the hardest discipline. Then no matter what you do or say, you are absolutely right and nobody dare criticize you. I sense this very often in looking at Picasso’s work. The great freedom and spontaneity he reveals is born, one feels, because of the impact, the pressure, the support of the whole being which, for an endless period, has been subservient to the discipline of the spirit. The most careless gesture is as right, as true, as valid, as the most carefully planned strokes. This I know, and nobody could convince me to the contrary. Picasso here is only demonstrating a wisdom of life which the sage practices on another, higher level.

This morning, awake at five o’clock, the room almost dark still, I lay awake quietly meditating about the essay I would get up to write, and at the same time, as though playing a duet, watching the gradual change of colors in my paintings beside the bed, as the light slowly increased. I had the strange sensation then of imagining what might happen to those colors should the light continue to increase in strength beyond full daylight. And from thinking about the unknown color gamut to the forms themselves and then to their significance — what a world of conjecture I explored. In that moment I was able, so to speak, to place myself in a future which may one day be realized. I saw not only what I might one day be able to do, but also I saw this — that the anticipation of the event was an augur of the deed itself. Suddenly I realized how it had been with the struggle to express myself in writing. I saw back to the period when I had the most intense, exalted visions of words written and spoken, but in fact could only mutter brokenly. Today I see that my steadfast desire was alone responsible for whatever progress or mastery I have made. The reality is always there, and it is preceded by vision. And if one keeps looking steadily the vision crystallizes into fact or deed. There is no escaping it. It doesn’t matter what route one travels — every route brings you eventually to the goal. “All roads lead to Heaven,” is the Chinese proverb. If one accepted that fully, one would get there so much more quickly. One should not be worrying about the degree of “success” obtained by each and every effort, but only concentrate on maintaining the vision, keeping it pure and steady. The rest is sleight-of-hand work in the dark, a genuine automatic process, no less somnambulistic because accompanied by pains and aches. — Henry Miller

ALPHANUMERIC
Character set including both letters and numerals and usually other characters. (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)
CONTROL CODE
A fixed length machine encoding of a control code name.
CONTROL CODE NAME
The English alphanumeric expression of security classification and any need-to-know restrictions for an entity of data or program,
CONTROL MODE
Mode in which a processor can execute the full set of operation codes,
DATA BASE
The store of information records being maintained’ for users; includes programs as well.
DESCRIPTOR
Instruction for input/output control processor execution,
ELECTRONIC DATA PROCESSING (EDP)
Data processing by equipment predominantly electronic.
ENTITY
A string of bits, characters, or words having an associated control code.
EXECUTIVE CONTROL PROGRAM (ECP)
Program mat controls the secure execution of user programs by assigning hardware and performing security related operations.
FAIL SAFE
Program or processing operation terminates automatically whenever proper responses to positive checks are not received.
FILE
A related information grouping, e, g, logical records, card images, etc.
FLAG BIT
A bit contained in memory words and used for control purposes rather than actual user processing.
FORMATTED FILE SYSTEM
An information storage and retrieval system using a file design having fixed, periodic, and variable parts.
INPUT/OUTPUT CONTROL PROCESSOR (IOCP)
A limited purpose processor serving as intermediary between main memory and terminal units.
LOGICAL RECORD
A group of related items stored in one or more related physical records, depending upon length.
MODE
Processor condition as determined by state of a redundant set of flip-flops.
MULTIPROCESSING
Executing one or more programs simultaneously on more than one processor.
MULTIPROGRAMMING
Executing more than one program, time interleaved.
OBJECT
A contiguous string of instructions, data, or working storage required by a program.
ON-LINE
A terminal unit having direct connection with a unit buffer in the input/output control processor.
PERIPHERAL UNIT
Any type of input/output equipment connected with a unit buffer in the input/output control processor.
PHYSICAL RECORD
The smallest directly addressable portion of the data base.
PRIVILEGED INSTRUCTION
One executable by a processor only in control mode.
PROGRAM REFERENCE TABLE
Contains the name and/or descriptor for each object referenced by a program, and the base address and memory bounds for objects in high-speed memory.
SECURITY LEVEL
The maximum security classification authorized for information handled by an equipment, as determined by the equipment characteristics or its location.
TERMINAL UNIT
An input or output device in a work station.
THIN-THREAD ANALYSIS
Description of complex system operation or theory by following a single line, step-by-step, from start to finish, ignoring the
secondary branches or ideas involved.
USER
Any authorized equipment operator, maintenance person, or intelligence research analyst. The system supervisor (or supervisors) is an authorizer as well as user.
USER’S CONTROL PROFILE
Completely describes each user’s access authorization for information in the system in terms of control code lists by access type (read only or read and write). It also includes the user’s key pattern information for identification plus authentication information for validating that the user really is who the user’s key pattern indicate.
he is.
USER’S KEY
A physical card or key unique to a user which must be present in the user’s key pattern generator at a work station to permit information
flow with any terminal unit in that work station.
USER’S KEY PATTERN
An electrical logical bit pattern resulting from the user’s key pattern generator at a work station which initiates user identification
and is required for information interchange with any terminal unit in that work station for that user.
USER’S KEY PATTERN GENERATOR
A transducer from user’s key to user’s key pattern.
USER MODE
Mode in which a processor can execute only a partial set of operation codes; excluded are the privileged instructions.
WORK STATION
A separate, physically secure, area with its own user’s key pattern generator in which the terminal units can be operated by only one user at a time.

– SECURITY TECHNIQUES FOR EDP OF MULTILEVEL CLASSIFIED INFORMATION (RADC-TR-65-415)

From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
– Randall Jarrell

This putters through my Inbox:

The Critical Engineer considers Engineering to be the most transformative language of our time, shaping the way we move, communicate and think. It is the work of the Critical Engineer to study and exploit this language, exposing its influence.

The Critical Engineer considers any technology depended upon to be both a challenge and a threat. The greater the dependence on a technology the greater the need to study and expose its inner workings, regardless of ownership or legal provision.
…

more at http://criticalengineering.org/

Yes, engineering is a package of protocols which guide much of the social energies of the present and recent (long!) past. Raising the topic is quite important as a precursor to altering the influence that it imposes (or that we submit to). The nature of the threat includes death as an outcome, the nature of the seduction is life. The challenge is first to bring such ideas as this to the surface for dialogue, and then comes the task of mapping the connections between ‘everyday life’ and the dependencies on (the) engineering (mentality).

I spent an uncomfortable evening with Kittler and a handful of Austrians at a restaurant in Linz back in 1998. It was uncomfortable because of the language gap. My German was worse than his English. He states elsewhere in the interview by John Armitage (excerpted below) how shy he is, and that goes a long way to explaining the dis-comfort. I ended up talking mostly with his American-born assistant before cashing in early to get some sleep — I had to catch a sunrise train from Linz on to Copenhagen.

JA: Virilio argues that war is his ‘laboratory’ and for you too war, it seems, is the ‘mother of all technologies’. Yet, unlike Virilio, you are deeply concerned with war as an international mechanism of technology transfer. What, for you, is the significance of, for example, the transfer of technologies such as Nazi Germany’s V2 rocket programme to America after the Second World War?

FK: What I can tell you is that I believe that war is at least the mother of all high-speed information and communications technologies. Like Pynchon, I am very interested in the topic of technology transfer. The key question for me is, what technologies or which kinds of technology transfer gave rise to the contemporary American Empire? Obviously, the first source of the American Empire is the British Empire which was originally driven by a coal-based fleet system but which has, since the Second World War, been transformed into an oil-based system founded on air power. Naturally, the second source is Nazi Germany, which made great strides in the technological development not merely of the V2 rocket but also of the tank. For instance, by 1939, Nazi Germany was the only country in the world that had a radio in every one of its army’s tanks. Otherwise the Blitzkrieg simply would not have been possible. Of course, it did not take long for the Americans to adopt this idea and by the end of 1942 there were radios in US tanks. But, as we have discussed before, war also has a way of transferring its language too, as when today’s high-technology businesses in particular speak of ‘logistics’, ‘strategy’ and even of ‘duty officers’, terms which all arise from the military-industrial complex. It is for these and other reasons that I think that US President Dwight Eisenhower spoke brilliantly when he coined the term military-industrial complex, for he saw immediately the connections between war, technology and commerce. However, it is difficult for us Europeans to investigate American military and techno-scientific history, a subject that has been well researched by the Americans themselves, as acquiring even declassified documents on the Second World War, and so on is still very hard, as I know from long experience. Yet I must confess that I cannot stand on American soil with much pleasure. In fact, my antipathy to America is one of the main reasons why I often avoid talking about the military-industrial complex since for me to talk about the devil is to talk with the devil. As a good friend of mine said to me lately, we in Germany should not say a word about America’s war on Iraq or speak any longer of the seemingly endless necessity of reforming Germany. We should not so much forget all this as not talk about it. Instead, we should focus on changing ourselves and speak about other things. So I asked him what we should discuss as an alternative and he answered that we should talk about love in Europe.

from Theory Culture Society 2006 23:17

and another piece on Kittler by Tom McCarthy . . . good for the personality profile.

and a long reverie by former student Eugen Leitl . . .

Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group . . . . We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation. — Edward Sapir, ‘The Status of Linguistics as a Science,’ Language, Vol. V, pp. 209-210 (1929).

Another Eisenhower warning in his address to Congress prior to his leaving office in 1961:

One of the deepest concerns of the framers of our Constitution was to make sure that no military group arose to challenge the civil authority, and that no segment of industry be allowed to develop which was permanently and exclusively concerned with building the weapons of war.

For a hundred and sixty years, our military posture was characterized by a very small regular establishment, quickly bolstered in time of emergency by large contingents of militia and reserves, and just as quickly reduced upon the return of peace. There was no armaments industry. The makers of plowshares could, when required, make swords as well. The Army which I joined in 1911 numbered 84,000 — one-tenth of its present strength.

For many reasons, this has all changed. A great and continuing threat to our security made it impossible for us to demobilize after the Korean War in the way we had previously done. Three-and-a-half million Americans continue to be directly and fully engaged in defense activities. In seven and a half years of nominal peace we have spent for defense a sum substantially greater than the cost of World War II, and our national security budget annually exceeds the net income before taxes of all United States corporations. And the direct result of this continued high level of defense expenditures has been to create a permanent armaments industry, of vast proportions, where none had existed before.

The conjunction of a large and permanent military establishment and a large and permanent arms industry is something totally new in American experience. No thinking citizen would deny the need for such a commitment in today’s perilous world; yet none can fail to read its grave implications. For this is power — tremendous economic and political power — with a specific and tangible interest in both national policy and national strategy. Billions of dollars in purchasing power and the livelihood of millions of people are directly involved. Its influence is felt in every city, in every state house, and by every responsible official in the Federal government. We can take comfort in the knowledge that none of our basic safeguards has given way. But let us take nothing for granted. We shall need all the organizing genius we possess to mesh the huge machinery of our defenses with our peace-oriented economy so that liberty and security are both well served. It requires constant vigilance, and a jealous precaution against any move which would weaken the control of civil authority over the military establishment. We must be especially careful to avoid measures which would enable any segment of this vast military-industrial complex to sharpen the focus of its own power at the expense of the sound balance which now prevails. The potential for disastrous abuse of power in this area is great. Let us watch it carefully. — President Dwight D. Eisenhower

The desire to transcend distance and separation has accompanied the history of media technology for many centuries. Various attempts to realize the demand for a presence from a distance have produced beautiful imaginaries such as those of tele-presence and ubiquity, the electronic cottage and the re-invigoration of the oikos, and certainly not least among them the reduction of physical mobility in favor of an ecologically more sustainable connected life style. As current systems of hyper-mobility are confronted with an unfolding energy crisis and collide with severe ecological limits – most prominently in the intense debate on global warming – citizens and organizations in advanced and emerging economies alike are forced to reconsider one of the most daring projects of the information age: that a radical reduction of physical mobility is possible through the use of advanced tele-presence technologies.

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It’s a good example of the affect of mediation on socially-generated practices of any sort [this came into mind when I saw a poster advertising a IEEE conference here in Sydney. The posted contained all the recognized and standardized functions of conferences anywhere on any subject. The cocktail evening cruises on the ________ (fill in the blank) river/harbor/lake. The hospitality suites in the _________ (fill in the blank) hotel. The keynotes by famous personages. The plenaries, the break-outs, the posters, workshops, and seminars. yadda, yadda. Don't people get tired of this endless repetition of heavily coded social protocols?]

The following was downloaded from the UM (University of Minnesota) original Gopher online text retrieval system sometime in the winter of 1991-92. I think it’s the first document (extant) that I downloaded via that new networked document system — the direct precursor of the WWW. Coming around in a very long, very wide circle, from the roots of the digital coming-to-being in the last millennium, breathe deeply:

1. Sit on the forward third of a chair or cushion.

2. Arrange your legs in a position you can maintain comfortably. In the half-lotus position, place your left leg on your right thigh (or vice versa). In the full-lotus position , put your feet on opposite thighs. You may also sit simply with your legs tucked in close to your body, but be sure that your weight is distributed evenly on three points: Both of your knees on the ground and your buttocks on the round cushion. On a chair, keep your knees apart about the width of your shoulders, feet firmly planted on the floor.

3. Straighten and extend your spine, keeping it naturally upright, centering your balance in the lower abdomen. Push your lower back a little forward, open your chest, and tuck your chin in slightly, keeping the head upright, not leaning forward, or backward, or to the side. Sway your body gently from left to right, until you naturally come to a point of stillness on your cushion.

4. Keep your eyes cast on the floor about 3 to 4 feet in front of your body, eyes neither fully opened nor closed. If the eyes are closed, you might start to daydream or visualize things.

5. Keep your lips and teeth together with your tongue resting against the roof of your mouth.

6. Place your hands on your lap with the right palm up and your left hand (pal up) resting on your right hand, thumb-tips lightly touching, forming a horizontal oval. This is the mudra of zazen, in which all things are unified. Place the sides of the little fingers against your abdomen, a few inches below the navel, harmonizing your center of gravity with the mudra.

7. Take a few breaths, exhaling fully. Let your breath settle into its natural rhythm. With proper physical posture, your breathing will flow naturally into your lower abdomen.

8. Sit still and keep your attention on your breath. When your attention wanders, bring it back to the breath again and again — as many times as necessary!

9. Be fully, vitally present. Simply do your very best. At the end of your sitting period, gently sway your body from right to left. Stretch out your legs; be sure they have feeling before standing.

10. Practice every day for ten to fifteen minutes (or more) and you will discover the treasures of your life.

Es mag ein Gott auch, Sterblichen gleich
Erwählen ein Tagewerk und teilen alles das Schicksal
Daß alle sich einander erfahren,
Und wenn die Stille wiederkehret, eine Sprache unter Lebenden sei.
Wie der Meister tritt er dann, aus der Werkstatt
Geringer und größer,
Und ander Gewand nicht denn ein festliches ziehet er an.
Und andere sind noch bei ihm,
Und der Vater thront nimmer oben allein.
Viel hat erfahren der Mensch,
Der Himmlischen viele genannt,
Seit ein Gespräch wir sind
Und hören können voneinander.
Die Gesetze aber,
Die unter den Liebenden gelten,
Die schönausgleichenden sie sind dann allgeltend
Von der Erde bis hoch in den Himmel.

– Friedrich Hölderlin, excerpt from “Versöhnender, der du nimmergeglaubt”

What does the law of maximum entropy production have to do with order production? Given the foregoing, the reader may have already jumped to the correct conclusion, namely, if ordered flow produces entropy faster than disordered flow (as required by the balance equation of the second law), and if the world acts to minimize potentials at the fastest rate given the constraints (the law of maximum entropy production), then the world can be expected to produce order whenever it gets the chance — Rod Swenson

Politic enlarges
a prosthetic order;
it affects
an ignorance
of madness and absurdity.

aAz

[09:]

A spring
an almost summer
and I am here among
these trees
luminous birds
ripe grasses
which gave such incomparable
unknowable
surprising form
to my first decagon of years—-
(surpassing
every schooling)…..

aa/z’

[OWFA:]

Out of this bough

Winds pick

>From pollen cones

A cloud

a)a)
z’

Nature?
That ridiculous,
undifferentiated
conglomerate;
it exists,
it clowns
as vain reflection;
—-it does not live.

Nature,
with its Latin reverberation,
as transportation,
as birth,
yet incises,
knots
a passage.

(juice and syllable)

(bone and ganglion)

An.

sexuality

rims
subtleties

gender
envies

and contemns it

aaa”
z(

with its zero:)

dryness

veils

surveils us

as water

kisses

water

z’(z’(z’
A

wow
bow-wow
and a swoon.

what an exhaustion,
what a prolongation,
what a
yeast-explosion
(souffle)
(implosion)
yesterday
was.

The Past is not dead;
it’s not even past.

Recently,
often enough,
my body has been a
contagious site

for arduous,
tenacious
spirits

for collisions,
elisions, litterings,
erosions,
floods
of certain humours,
certain histories.

Very much
in the Locus
of Mallarme and Naufrage,
Coup de des.

This “present” circumstance
(of intellectual inertia)
is untenable,
is impossible.

It Is Time—-
to cut the Strings
(of the Violin)—-
and to way with the giving Storm,
across the gravelled
waves.

The rigour,
the balance,
the elastic effervescence
of the Sycamore
surpass
every aspect
of the House.

No Need of Nature,
No Need of Art for This—-.

Franz
conceives of a “man”
who awakens in “his” bed
with the body of a scarab
(Old Egypt and its Love
of Puns);
a “man” who yet
(miraculously)
“retains” his human head.

What
might we say of a man,
who neither sleeps nor wakes;
who finds himself
inside
a Mural-Wall,
Wall-inside-a-Forest,
Land
travelling at Sea?

Wall: as Compass.
Forest: as its Clock…..

A….Reader? ….Reader-Hand?

Aestival,
estual,

Rain-Hand

Palus-Reeder?

(As with
*I Ching*—-
Biting-through-the-Sack….

What
kind of Sky?)

An.

– a. zega

the morning tea-making process becomes a variable ritual: implemented across a variety of situations with a variety of tools and procedures, along with different people, it is a core expression. and it sounds different every time.

07 2008′, ’24 188

Rinus makes some nice notes on the Amurikan evening at das kleine field recording festival last week in Kreuzberg.
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Frane the virtual mori gloss
And barm in glory midas tock
Notter fen inbyro pressed
When quinsly Durham bilag lock
Full ennil bhutol durm intact
And japock frocks were kileray
Best green was in a tirade sterm
And murmer played the rudge all day

Then pult oh fromot liport yearned
Was thus the burlap empty cup
Lorn in excess pressed doily mange
Whilst fedro billing looked her up
Bright jiring elements were brash
Pre Raphaelite and over brushed
Through endless graze born phananthrope
In bobbing excess weedy rushed

No more the intent grim and foil
No more bereft than pindle bake
No more the dorey gimble oil
No more the stilted ingress flake

And so to hermane fillet brought
By verbose insight truly lost
Are brackish kalick wishing wrought
For sixpence and a far thing crossed
All lava braut in basket taal
Sought diamonds in the chilling moss
But finding nothing water raal
Was frane the virtual mori gloss

– Rod Summers/VEC, Isleworth, 29 January 2008

from Rod — he thinks it’s a good idea. me too, seems to be, at least (please note that this article has nothing to do with InterCity Express (ICE) trains here in Germany):

We all carry our mobile phones with names & numbers stored in its memory but nobody, other than ourselves, knows which of these numbers belong to our closest family or friends.

If we were to be involved in an accident or were taken ill, the people attending us would have our mobile phone but wouldn’t know who to call. Yes, there are hundreds of numbers stored but which one is the contact person in case of an emergency? Hence this ‘ICE’ (In Case of Emergency) Campaign

The concept of ‘ICE’ is catching on quickly. It is a method of contact during emergency situations. As cell phones are carried by the majority of the population, all you need to do is store the number of a contact person or persons who should be contacted during emergency under the name ‘ICE’ ( In Case Of Emergency).

The idea was thought up by a paramedic who found that when he went to the scenes of accidents, there were always mobile phones with patients, but they didn’t know which number to call. He therefore thought that it would be a good idea if there was a nationally recognized name for this purpose. In an emergency situation, Emergency Service personnel and hospital Staff would be able to quickly contact the right person by simply dialing the number you have stored as ‘ICE.’

For more than one contact name simply enter ICE1, ICE2 and ICE3 etc. A great idea that will make a difference!

Let’s spread the concept of ICE by storing an ICE number in our mobile phones today!

Please forward this. It won’t take too many ‘forwards’ before everybody will know about this. It really could save your life, or put a loved one’s mind at rest.

ICE will speak for you when you are not able to!

I heavily edited the original English translation of the manifesto for Roman and Alexei back in November, and so, here it is, as unveiled at Transmediale 08…

Electroboutique: Media Art 2.0

Today, when any critical artistic statement is drained of its power within the rigid frameworks of the unilateral capitalist world, a critical artist can no longer create while contemptuously looking down at commercial art and design that is governed exclusively by market laws.

At the same time as it becomes smarter and more refined, capitalism intrudes into most revolutionary, autonomous, and secluded areas of human activity. This is not to suggest that avant-garde art creation always stood in opposition to capitalism. The modernists, taking part in the evolution of design, worked in factories developing furniture and fabrics in order to bring art to the masses. Parallel to the evolution of Dada, the ready-made, and later, pop art, the theory and philosophy of art and culture contemplated the balance between the poles of capitalism and art, unique and mass-produced objects, high and low culture, professional and amateur, practical and dysfunctional. As the newest weapon of capitalism, information technologies dictate new social and cultural contexts and within these, uncover new challenges.

Our answer to the dilemma: Media Art 2.0

Media Art 2.0 goes beyond the limits of new media art

New media art today consists overwhelmingly of one-of-a-kind works presented by the authors themselves at festivals and specialized exhibitions. As a rule, such pieces are high-maintenance and complex in configuration — and thus are destined to remain in a media art ghetto. We propose all-in-one plug-and-play solutions. Media Art 2.0 presents art objects as technological products that are ready to be consumed here and now by anyone.

Media Art 2.0 is market-friendly art

We produce a limited number of copies (like Ferrari) and sell them at affordable prices (like Sony). This is possible because we develop our own reliable electronic devices and thus do not depend on overly complex multi-functional digital systems. Each piece has a unique edition number and the authentic signatures of its authors. We also offer limited lifetime warranties for our products.

Media Art 2.0 goes beyond the know-how of IT corporations

These corporations are not capable of transcending the pragmatism of their products. While attempting to enrich their products with artistic qualities, corporate designers follow the path of banal adornment — decoration with gold, Swarowski crystals, and diamonds — which raises the price and renders the products “exclusive.” Such an approach does not make a mobile phone or an MP3 player a work of art. Limited lifetime of electronics contradicts the apparently “eternal” value of the decorative materials.

Media Art 2.0 is the answer to the stagnation of the art market

It proposes a solution when the art market acquiesces to the demands of traditional art forms and is incapable of digesting truly contemporary artistic ideas. Our products harmoniously combine actual art, up-to-date techno-culture, design, and media art. We return to the roots of the avant-garde and occupy our own niche in the system of capitalist production and consumption. We address advanced consumers who are not satisfied by mass products — whether cool design gadgets or the endlessly reproduced traditional art forms.

Media Art 2.0 is the avant-garde of today

We return to art the things that design borrowed from art at the beginning of the 20th century: the search for new form and content; the artistic experiment as play; and the joy of everyday life. We live in a world of visual interfaces. Televisions, print advertisements, politics, shop-windows, show-business, internet services, bank systems are primarily interfaces whose task is to shape the process of information transfer and the translation of ideas. Working with visual interfaces, we make them visible and tangible. We uncover the structures of today’s world. This approach fills our products with a critical charge. In answering the challenges of today, we flush clean the media channels and establish new standards. By infiltrating public spaces and private homes, we bring art and alternative aesthetics into people’s everyday lives.

– Aristarkh Chernyshev, Roman Minaev, Alexei Shulgin.
Moscow, June-September 2007

busy day, at home online all the time — a performance to check out with Helen Varley Jamieson as hosted by Annie Abrahams’ Breaking Solitude project. along with some stream testing with the backyard radio people for the moving forests event later this week (part of Transmediale). meeting Loki for the first time in awhile for a decent conversation. and otherwise heavy multi-tasking that characterizes a day like this — sending out to local nodes my new contact info here in Berlin, trying to figure out when to see people where, and on and on. a brief foray out, taking the long way to another grocery store, walking in increasingly long circles to check out the neighborhood. haven’t found the organic food store yet. a bakery, but no organic grocers. no Turkish shops either. this is definitely different than other neighborhoods that I’ve experienced in Berlin — it is in the former East (ever-lingering eau-de-coal-fired-furnaces in the air) — although many of the apartment blocks have been re-furbished, there is a different vibe. hope to more specifically explore that in the next weeks.

I read with interest this reaction from Malawi from Martin Lucas on the recent iDC list discussion about Nicolas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative. So I asked Martin if I could permanently host the text on neoscenes:

I have been reading with interest the discussion of the ‘hundred-dollar laptop’ and the One Laptop per Child initiative as I sit in Malawi, a small landlocked Southern African nation lodged between Mozambique, Zambia, and Tanzania. According to Wikipedia, the OLPC effort has its philosophical base in the idea that children with laptops will be able to do a certain kind of thinking that isn’t possible without the computer – exploring certain areas – particularly in math and science where computer access offers a qualitatively superior learning experience. Making such machines available at low prices should allow developing countries to bridge the ‘digital divide’, and leapfrog learning. Countries that have signed on include Uruguay. India has given a definite no. Either way, the OLPC initiative is an aspect of ‘development’ even ‘IT for Development.’ How does the initiative square with the reality of a small African nation? … more

former student Sarah lets me reprint this article she wrote recently about her creative practice:

Sarah H. Chung ::
http://www.ropeswingcities.com/hdot :: http://www.myspace.com/sarahhdot

I am an experimental multimedia artist, a student, and a teacher based in Denver, Colorado, USA. My latest artistic pursuits are a combination of various mediums including still image, video, sound, sculpture, light, and performance. Most recently I have been collaborating with another female artist, Heidi Higginbottom, to choreograph audio/visual performances using found objects, homemade instruments, contact microphones, and film loops. We make homemade contact microphones out of easily attainable and affordable materials and use them to amplify the sound of the movement of objects. We have used objects ranging from dishware, tile, typewriters, music boxes, sewing machines, thumb pianos, toys, water, or any curious object we can get our hands on. Our intentions are not to make melodic pieces of “music,” but to isolate and arrange pure commonplace sounds that would normally be easily lost in the proceedings of everyday life. While these objects may be ordinary, they refer to a vast web of associations and marked memories. By arranging them, we create a new resonance in the relationships the objects and symbols have with one another. These relationships are meant to be memory cues that can be triggered by sensory experience. We are in the process of experimenting with different technologies and digital software to incorporating projections, audio delay, editing and looping.

As a studio art major I was largely focused on traditional forms of art such as painting, drawing, and photography. It was about six years ago that I began to pay more attention to the intricate and beguiling aspects of the digital art culture. I was introduced to it from digital art courses being taught by visiting professor, John Hopkins, who is a working artist and has taught and traveled internationally. Projects included collecting and arranging self-generated media and media filtered from outside sources. These included field recordings, videos, still images, and lines of text. I had not dealt with this kind of medium prior to this, so I approached it the same as I would painting and 35mm photography. While the navigation of new software in a limited time span was challenging, the results of the projects left me very intrigued and curious about digital culture. I believe that the success of these projects were due to the non-linear process of collecting media without a finished product as motivation. Filtering media (books, internet, video, music, sound clips, etc.) provides an intuitive process for choosing content. It becomes a dialogue that interacts with an individuals sensibilities and social views. Whether I am drawn to content or pure aesthetic, some aspect of the media strikes me, and I collect it.

With human interaction, technology can be used as a tool to express emotion and the individualized perspectives of human experience. Technology brings with it an efficiency that adds new time-lines within our culture. Ubiquitous media screens flash loaded images and sounds that are intended to influence feelings and opinions about products, services, and perspectives in government. These messages compete with each other and have conditioned us to receive information at an exponentially increasing rate. In a society saturated with advertising, I feel a responsibility to express and tap into more emotive, internalized feelings and memories, and to offer a situation for slowing down. This desire is what caused me to seek out the tools and skills that could connect me with the vast and accessible network I was experiencing.

I believe it is of utmost importance for individuals to be informed about technologies so that they may exercise basic democratic principles. I had been intimidated by technology before, but I felt that placing myself outside of the existence of it is like surrendering my own rights. Technology is propelled by human curiosity, but is often used as a system of control. History is constantly redefined based on documentation. Dominant historical theories are based on those with the power to document and expose others to their material. It is crucial to actively participate in the documentation process of our own history in process.

Links: (check them out!!)
http://www.neoscenes.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~erinys/contactmic.html
http://www.pierrebastien.com/
http://members.chello.nl/j.seegers1/
http://www.mutek.org/
http://www.haamu.com/launau
http://www.colleenplays.org/
http://www.skoltzkolgen.com/

head hanging, I have the distinct mis-pleasure of missing my godson’s Bar Mitzvah this coming weekend. hmmmm. lack of disposable income to increase carbon foot-print-stamp and head East. that’ll come shortly perhaps. but in the meanwhile, Andrea (Simon’s mum) shares her script for the evening (mind you, the photo above post-dates the beginning of this narrative a couple years — around the Buttinsky-Hoppy-Top & Armpit Dancing Era), that’s dad, Bill with big bro Zander along with Simon in his mother’s arms, lil’ sis Maxie is still in the oven):

Simon Arthur gracefully slid into the world on May 2, 1994. He had a powerful set of lungs, but he didn’t get much chance to talk those first few years. Zander was his big brother, and rarely missed an opportunity to speak on Simon’s behalf. Simon had to learn other ways to capture an audience. Silent, sly, comical ways. He innately understood the power of nudity to gain the spotlight, and used it regularly. It was the rare gathering in our house, or anyone elses house for that matter, that Simon did not make the scene if not fully undressed, then in his tiny little briefs. Whether it was his stunningly fast Ninja moves — which often had the unintended result of landing him on his own back — or his oddly endearing Armpit dance, Simon relished entertaining the crowd his way.

His casting as second brother also seemed to give him an ability to communicate empathetically with children all over the world, transcending language. Simon was a little Pied Piper. Somehow he’d end up as the leader of a small gang of kids wherever we went, who drawn by his sweet smile and antics, wanted to be near this brown-headed American boy who could climb like a billy goat (barefoot!), do cool flips and headstands off walls and in the sand, and all kinds of tricks with balls.

Simon always had an uncanny sense of physical perception. I remember a particular moment on the tree-swing out in the backyard. Simon liked me to twist the swing as tightly as I could, then let go, so he could spin at high speed. I could barely watch him without getting sick, but he made it ballet. He slowly rose, like a figure skater coming out of a sit-spin, and in the most elegant way, raised his knee and extended his leg, his head dropped back. It was the most natural artistry, and the kid was 3, maybe 4 years old.

I am stilled awed watching him play lacrosse, how he can move at such high speeds, covered with all that gear, and track that tiny ball and all the other players, moving objects that they are — and still get the ball where it should go. At soccer, even as a little kid, a ball would come sailing on high down the field. Simon would place himself precisely where he had to be to meet that ball with his forehead. I’d picture him with little birdies and stars dancing around his head and swimming before his eyes, and he’d be off for the next play.

And on a mountain. Skiing behind Simon is just pure pleasure. And pride. His speed of perception is so fast, he finds every opportunity — every bump, bank, and chunk?over which to propel himself into a jump, a spin, or a twist. In a terrain park, he takes the bigger guys by surprise, this slim little kid who not only hits the jumps, but nails things like 540s, 720s, and even, this winter, a 900. Those numbers may not mean anything to you, but to Simon they mean everything. It hasn’t hurt his math skills, by the way, to learn to count by 180s. I love to hear the comments of the behemoth teens who populate the terrain park after Simon’s hit a jump. “You see that little kid? __uckin’ 720!” That’s my boy. And, by the way, he did not learn anything like that from me.

Skills. As Napoleon Dynamite explained, you need skills. And Simon’s got them. It makes him an acceptable tag-along with his older brother’s friends, and a special guest star at his younger sister’s play dates. Simon is always welcome, because he always has a game to play.

He still entertains us, but he keeps his clothes on now. His sense of style is, shall we say, still in the early stages of development. Zander uses the word Hobo to describe Simon’s sartorial look. At the end of six weeks of camp, Simon appears tan, but when you look closely, you realize it’s just dirt. His leathery feet are ready to scale the rocky cliffs and rough beaches of Greece, always barefoot. I have never worried watching him climb a steep face in front of me, or ski off some gnarly outcropping. Never. I have total faith in his skills. He knows where his body is and what it has to do. And make it look good.

Simon always takes me by surprise. That’s what happens with the quiet ones. He is funny, though it is always an offstage humor, not to mention off color. Simon can access the exact line from a movie to apply to any situation. I remember him performing the dance finale from The Full Monty, with perfect mimicry. Wish I had gotten that on videotape. I did get this one, though: when he asked if instead of a bed, we could get him a cage, like the dogs, so we could lock him in at night, and let him out in the morning. You can’t, as they say, make this stuff up.

Throughout the whole lead up to his bar mitzvah, Simon, fortunate to be working with friends and with a rabbi he adores, willingly and good naturedly studied, almost daily. I only had to say, “Simon, how about reading your Hebrew,” and he was right at it. Or, he’d beat me to it, and was already done. He’s the same about his homework, his projects, his reading.

I am blessed to have this family, blessed with a husband who not only enriches my life, but takes active involvement in the daily doings of his children. Blessed with three children who love each other, like each other (except when they don’t), teach each other, push each other, and revel in each other’s accomplishments. Simon deserves all the attention he is getting today, and if all continues to go well, he will not have to take his clothes off and do the Armpit Dance. — Andrea Raisfeld (Simon’s mom), Bedford, New York, May 2007

White Heliotrope

The feverish room and that white bed,
The tumbled skirts upon a chair,
The novel flung half-open, where
Hat, hair-pins, puffs, and paints are spread;

The mirror that has sucked your face
Into its secret deep of deeps,
And there mysteriously keeps
Forgotten memories of grace;

And you half dressed and half awake,
Your slant eyes strangely watching me,
And I, who watch you drowsily,
With eyes that, having slept not, ache;

This (need one dread? nay, dare one hope?)
Will rise, a ghost of memory, if
Ever again my handkerchief
Is scented with White Heliotrope.
– Arthur Symons

blast not having a digital copy of this essay, but as it is one that I use in teaching on occasion, and one that brilliantly explores the spiritual dimension of the alienation of the age we are stepping through — so I type it by hand from the catalog printed by the Anthology Film Archives in New York on the occasion of a screening of Elder’s Book of All the Dead in November 1988. I was not present at that screening, but was at the prior premiere of the first 18 hours of the 40+ hour cycle which happened in the Film Studies building at CU-Boulder. there were just three of us who sat through the whole weekend event in an ancient classroom in the now-razed Film Studies Building. a handful of others made parts of the reel-after-reel intensity. it was a transformative experience — from the simple physical immersion that 18 hours of film induced, but also the visual energy from the work itself, and the intellectual rigor that was embedded into the narrative and visual contents. it has resonated for years as a source. neoscenes dreaming and the performative visual-sonic works that came around that impulse owe something deep and intangible to the Book of All the Dead. I was deLighted that Bruce assented to my hosting of the essay, adding to the small collection of ‘third-party‘ essays replicated for interest and convenience.

Mr. Sobol, while mentioning his wonderful gigblog, finds resonance in my travelog and the work of Kenneth Rexroth, and sends one of Rexroth’s works along.

Inversely, As The Square Of Their Distances Apart

It is impossible to see anything
In this dark; but I know this is me, Rexroth,
Plunging through the night on a chilling planet.
It is warm and busy in this vegetable
Darkness where invisible deer feed quietly.
The sky is warm and heavy, even the trees
Over my head cannot be distinguished,
But I know they are knobcone pines, that their cones
Endure unopened on the branches, at last
To grow embedded in the wood, waiting for fire
To open them and reseed the burned forest.
And I am waiting, alone, in the mountains,
In the forest, in the darkness, and the world
Falls swiftly on its measured ellipse.
* * *
It is warm tonight and very still.
The stars are hazy and the river —
Vague and monstrous under the fireflies —
Is hardly audible, resonant
And profound at the edge of hearing.
I can just see your eyes and wet lips.
Invisible, solemn, and fragrant,
Your flesh opens to me in secret.
We shall know no further enigma.
After all the years there is nothing
Stranger than this. We who know ourselves
As one doubled thing, and move our limbs
As deft implements of one fused lust,
Are mysteries in each other’s arms.
* * *
At the wood’s edge in the moonlight
We dropped our clothes and stood naked,
Swaying, shadow mottled, enclosed
In each other and together
Closed in the night. We did not hear
The whip-poor-will, nor the aspen’s
Whisper; the owl flew silently
Or cried out loud, we did not know.
We could not hear beyond the heart.
We could not see the moving dark
And light, the stars that stood or moved,
The stars that fell. Did they all fall
We had not known. We were falling
Like meteors, dark through black cold
Toward each other, and then compact,
Blazing through air into the earth.
* * *
I lie alone in an alien
Bed in a strange house and morning
More cruel than any midnight
Pours its brightness through the window —
Cherry branches with the flowers
Fading, and behind them the gold
Stately baubles of the maple,
And behind them the pure immense
April sky and a white frayed cloud,
And in and behind everything,
The inescapable vacant
Distance of loneliness.

I don’t normally post long passages of other writers, but Alan (Sondheim) posted this to nettime today: it penetrated the fog of hypo-texts that floods a typical day in front of screen-life.

The power grid provides 60 Hz here at approximately 115-117 volts; this is maintained by dynamos driven by steam or coal or oil or hydro held together in a malleable grid. The grid enters the city, where electricity is parceled out through substations to cables continuously maintained and repaired. Here, the cables are below ground. They drive my Japanese Zaurus PDA which utilizes an entire linux operating system on it. The Zaurus connects to the Internet through a wireless card that most often connects to my Linksys router, which is connected both to the power grid and the DSL modem by a cat cable. The DSL is operated by Verizon with its own grid at least nation-wide and continuously-maintained. The DSL of course connects more or less directly to the Internet, which is dependent upon an enormous number of protocol suites for its operation, the most prominent probably TCP/IP. The addresses of the Internet, through which I reach my goal of NOAA weather radar, are maintained by ICANN and other organizations. These organization are run by any number of people, who employ the Net, fax, telephone, and standard mail, to communicate world-wide. (more …)

now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take…

And if when night by day is rent, I’m in one piece and so’s me tent
A better person I will be, and if I can’t do that I’ll have a cup of tea,
milk in first and I’ll sugar it myself ta.
– r.s)

for the record, as the university (of Colorado) no longer publishes nor maintains the archive of this magazine, this is the text of an article done by a CU J-School graduate student, Nicole Gordon.

Visiting artist John Hopkins explores relationship between art and technology

After twelve years of living and lecturing in Europe, digital artist John Hopkins is back in the United States. He’s no stranger to the University of Colorado at Boulder; in fact, he earned his master of fine arts degree from CU-Boulder in 1989. These days, however, Hopkins has returned to campus as a visiting artist rather than a student.

“I’ve always had a deep connection to the physical landscape of the West, and intellectually I find Europe stimulating,” Hopkins said. “I’ve attempted to have both, though in the end, physical location is not always important. What is of primary importance is surrounding oneself with humane and positive people — then anything is possible.”

Hopkins’ interest lies at the intersection of art and technology. He describes his work as “art that is not artifact-oriented, but delves into the unique communicative aspects of global networks.”

“John Hopkins has a long-standing commitment to the art network,” said Jim Johnson, interim chair of the Fine Arts Department. “He brings to the department a dedication to art as an ephemeral human process and his work in the digital community has been a natural outgrowth of that dedication. He has inspired numerous art students to pursue art in the real context of one-to-one communication as opposed to the conventional and isolated production of precious objects.”

Hopkins has been a professional artist since 1985. His career has taken him to Iceland, Finland, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, and Austria as a visiting artist or guest lecturer. His art has been recognized at the prestigious Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria and he has works in numerous private and public collections, including the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art Library in New York City.

At CU-Boulder, Hopkins is teaching introductory and advanced digital art classes, as well as working on individual projects with students and doing international performances.

One of his most recent projects at CU-Boulder, in collaboration with students, is a live, online open-platform happening for creative expression and action called di>fusion. The project, which can be experienced at http://neoscenes.net/projects/difusion1/, simultaneously occupies global network spaces and local physical space with collaborative performance, sonic, music, disc- and video-jockeys, text, poetry-slam, and video events.

“I have done similar projects with students across Europe,” Hopkins said. “And indeed, projects like di>fusion are only partially geographically grounded. Much of the project happens in the space of networks, so there are participants and audiences in many locations.”

Hopkins studied geophysical engineering at the Colorado School of Mines as an undergraduate and worked as a geophysicist before pursuing his art career. He says that art and science aren’t so far apart.

“I worked with electromagnetic fields in geophysics, and I’m basically doing the same in art,” he said.

After receiving his art degree, Hopkins found that the European cultural scene suited his ambitions.

“During the decade of the 90s, while the United States was heavily involved in the dot.com bubble inflation and bursting, there were others in other locations who were looking more critically at technological innovation and the rise of global networks,” he said. “These critical views were often coming out of creative cultural research in Europe.”

Hopkins also noted that funding for arts and culture in Europe is much greater than in the United States.

“There have been many opportunities to get funding for creative projects that could never be realized in the U.S.,” he said. “Scandinavia is generally more advanced than the U.S. in terms of technological implementations society-wide, so naturally there were many interesting things happening on the cultural side related to technology.”

An experienced teacher, Hopkins says that he is committed to the dynamics of the learning environment as a critical and important facet of his work.

“I seek to create vital learning spaces — conceptual and physical zones where the exercise of free expression and spontaneous dialogue take place,” he said.

Examples of Hopkins’ work and more information about him can be accessed on his personal Web site at http://neoscenes.net.

again, heavy weather causes changes in plans — one that keeps me around Loki longer than I expect. despite the slight stress that change makes, I am happy that this happens. no planes taking off yesterday or today, so Loki is stranded with me for at least an extra day. across at the pizza place, a man is vomiting loudly in the bathroom in the early evening while I call the airlines about the flight situation. swimming for a short time. the wind. like yesterday, is intense. this jewel arrives from Varsha by email from half-way around the globe, Bangkok:

A long drive into the hills beyond Kanchanaburi and we unexpectedly arrive as evening falls to a destination on the river Kwai, from where we complete the rest of our journey by long-tail boat deep into the jungle. We are to stay in a raft-house on the river surrounded by sounds of lush nature unbroken by electricity and all the noise created by it. As the sun drops behind the hills, darkness descends quickly and the few boats go silent, unable to ply dark waters in safety. By now the temperature has dropped considerably with an unusual cold spell that we are experiencing.

Lit lanterns provide small pools of intimacy but little warmth as we sit by the fast-flowing river hungrily drinking wine, talking in soft tones and marveling at the surrounding drama. Even as I am soothed, bathed in wonder of this place my mind dwells on the troubled history of these very surroundings. The river — where once prisoners of war had immersed themselves to let fish eat maggots and clean their wounds. We are located in a bend on the Kwai, which meanders between hills, wrapping around and simultaneously molding a landscape as it rushes to the plains. In darkness, the river mysteriously disappears into a black nothingness only to remind us of a constant and lively presence as it gently laps against our moorings and occasionally, jauntily rocks the bamboo beneath our feet. Orchestrating its own choreography — a play of movements, of swaying lanterns, rafts, people and hanging plants in the otherwise seemingly still surroundings.

A night sky in the cold. A brilliantly lit vista of stars against which, the impression of dark hills with all that they contain are visually flattened until rocks, vegetation, all living things are blanketed to carry on in silence until daybreak.

Early morning and mist rises in small puffs of smoke from the surface of the river as if communicating to all present and beyond the secrets and happenings of night. Of a fallen tree carried downstream, of ripened pods scattering seeds, of safe deposits on various banks, of fishes born and eggs laid, nurtured in quiet pools. A rumbling conversation through layers and guts deep into earth, of liaising with winds and infusing and spreading scents they bring from over the mountains.

Rays of sun gently nudge and awaken senses to an increase in tempo, roused by chattering birds, warming to dispelling of cold and night.

On the bobbing bamboo veranda outside as the sun warms through my body, I slowly peel layers and brace to the flow of patterns on me. — Varsha Nair

massive busy-ness over the weekend with the ~/Connected conference at the Lasipalatsi. Tapio had asked me earlier if I could help out with activities on the ground, and although I was pretty busy anyway, I was around to help, then ended up being quite involved in the discussions, and even made a short public presentation at the end in Bio Rex, dealing with best-practice scenarios for education/learning situations. Polar Circuit was held up as that model in learning situations, along with the idea of open-platform, socially balanced situations.

/~Connected press releases for local and translocal use

Cultural industries and independent media cultural production are of primary importance for Finnish policy development, as a new program, “Content Finland” is being drafted during next year. In each European country, goals of both national and transnational media culture have been met with different strategies. Through /~Connected knowledge and shared experience, it is possible to form models of best practice – and principles for both national and European policy.

The driving force behind this event and series of other meetings prior to it is the ECB, European Cultural Backbone (http://ecb.t0.or.at/, http://www.e-c-b.net/). It is a network of media cultural organizations, centers, and active individuals throughout Europe, not only European Union member countries. To quote Dr. Peter Wittmann, Austrian State Secretary for the Arts, “The European Cultural Backbone is the logical extension of this ongoing dialog between cultural practitioners and policy makers regarding strategies of “practice to policy” on both national and European levels.”

The Main organizer of /~Connected, the Lasipalatsi Media Center, also seeks to discuss how European media centers could increasingly collaborate. How to best connect venues of presenting media culture and sites that produce it? Support of networks, bandwidth, mobility, distribution and production are key factors for policy discussion.

Traditionally, in a European democracy, public space has been defined through access to public institutions, freedom to move in city spaces and through the existence of certain democratic instruments such as public libraries and publicly supported broadcast media. New media, Internet in particular, has made it possible to more actively shift content production to smaller units or groups. Creation of public space can mean support for content production and communication that does not focus on a single mass audience, but particular communities (or consumers) and layers within the larger society and the networked world. Major issue for debate is thus to consider, how to best connect various models of best practice and policy that enable cultural production in a networked, changing Europe.

The seminar takes place in the very center of Helsinki, in Lasipalatsi Media Center (http://www.lasipalatsi.fi). Meals during the conference program are provided for by the organizers and there is no attendance fee. We are providing air fare and accommodation for a group of participants that comes from smaller media centers and organizations. We are happy to assist your travel arrangements by providing information on accommodation and flights.

/~CONNECTED brings together practitioners, producers and policy makers within contemporary media culture in Europe. Its attempts to create exchanges of experience and information between organizations and individuals from different fields: media cultural organizations, media centers, policy makers on a local, national and European level, media art organizations, corporate research labs and university researchers.

Following events such as P2P conference in Netherlands and Networking Centers of Innovation in Austria, it explores the ways in which local experiences can be compared, exchanged and rewritten to form models of best practice.

The event will officially launch the ECB, European Cultural Backbone, a network based on trust and a shared interest to promote a rich media cultural practice, which already flourishes in Europe. The network proposes that an Internet Backbone or a set wide bandwidth would be subsidized by the EU in order to enable transnational media production, broadcast transmission of events and inexpensive communications. The ECB acts as an advisory body for the policy makers nationally and within the EU.

/~CONNECTED is very much about the goals of the ECB:

1) Bandwidth for media culture
2) Support for models of best practice
3) Active investigation of what European media culture consists of
4) Enhanced networking between media cultural organizations, individual hubs” and policy makers.

/~CONNECTED refers to the ways in which media cultural local practices and organizations create collaboration, projects, discourse and policy across and partly independent of national borders. Emerging networks, projects and content are no longer international, but translocal by nature, already connected.

the day after Vappu. snow. and more snow. May Day. Kevin has an opening at Louise Bourgeoise’s house in Brooklyn. Stef sends a report:

I’m cc:ing Cam on this one as well since it was such a New York scene. Cam, Kevin is a painter that both John and I know very well and he just had his first major show of works. It was a one day event held at the studio of a famous painter/sculptor, Louise Bourgeois (sp?). She’s in her 80′s or so. Her studio is in Brooklyn. To give you an idea of Kevin’s relationship with her… she renovated her (very large) space just for his one day show. She erected walls and painted the place. He hung sixty of his series of 100 paintings of the Eiffel Tower and the bridge that is in front of the tower. Thus the show was called Bridge and Tower. In addition to having the support of such a great artist, his day job employer, Martha Stewart, came to the show and hosted a dinner for 25 or so people at a very chic bistro in SoHo (Balthazar’s).

The show itself was very impressive. To see all of the images in one place was very cool. Each painting is painted from the same vantage point but in different colors and degrees of clarity. People were asking if he lived in Paris for the year during which he painted this series. I’m not sure how he answered since he painted the Bridge and Tower from a scrap of gift wrapping paper that had various scenes from around the world; Paris, some windmills, London bridge, etc.

After the show we arrived at Balthazar’s where Martha had reserved two large tables. She had decorated the tables with miniatures of the Eiffel tower along with the show announcement cards. The first course was an amazing assortment of shellfish on the half shell, crab legs, conch, etc. At the next table was Gwyneth Paltrow. At another table nearby was Phillipe Starcke (the architect/designer). Betsey Johnson (fashion designer), etc. were also in the restaurant. Of course I would never have picked these folks out. When Gwyneth walked in, I just noticed her as an attractive blond… During the course of the dinner, Martha kept popping up and introducing herself to the various celebrities and marketing to them Kevin’s work by giving them a card and a tower. It was hilarious. I guess being a celebrity herself, she can actually pull it off.

Anyhow… dinner was excellent. The wine was very nice. When Kevin walked in we all applauded. Needless to say, he was embarrassed by the attention.

Bill and Andrea were there. It was nice to see them. They are now both into running marathons… and busy as usual. Bill was just over in Greece earlier this week. Hanna and Chris were there also.

end of the week almost, more meetings, reverberations to the lecture on Tuesday gives feedback and response, (call-and-response). reaction, and, actions. Jörg Meyer from the Kieler Nachtrichten writes this story:

Der “Intenet-Nomade” John Hopkins in Kiel

Zurück zum Dialog

Wer erwartete, daß sich auf dem Computerbildschirm des Intemet-Künstlers John Hopkins allerlei bewegte und tönende Multimedia tummeln würde, sah sich bei dessen Vortrag über Networking & Creativity am Dienstag in der Muthesius Hochschule getäuscht. Mit dem von Intemet-Puristen treffend als “viel bunt, viel Klick” verballhomten Multimedium, das immer mehr Anbieter in deutsche Wohnzimmer bringen wollen, hat auch Hopkins nichts am Hut. Auf seiner Homepage sieht man nur Fenster mit farbig markierten Texten, die wenige Fotos sparsam illustrieren. “Mit einem modernen Computer kann man auf hohem Niveau Bilder und Töne machen, 3D-Animationen, Filme und all das Zeug”, greint Hopkins. Das sei aber absolut nichts Neues, demi derlei “Artwork” war auch schon vor dem Einzug der Digitaltechnik in das Atelier möglich. Das einzige, was den Computer wirklich interessant mache, sei seine Fähigkeit zu vernetzter Kommunikation.

Der “Netz-Nomade”, wie Hopkins sich selbst bezeichnet, hat gerade ein dreiwöchiges Seminar an der Muthesius Hochschule hinter sich. Darin ging es ihm um “so etwas Simples” wie die Vermittlung von Dialogtechniken. Daß Computer und Netz dabei helfen, ist für ihn einfach nur selbstverständlich. “Wenn ich einen Stift benutze, um einen Brief zu schreiben, oder ein Telefon ans Ohr halte, staunt ja auch keiner über diese tollen Werkzeuge.” Hopkins will das neue Médium entzaubern. DaB dièses als etwas Kompliziertes für hippe Technik-Yuppies dargestellt werde, beruhe lediglich auf der Tatsache, daß Kundige damit Geld verdienen und Herrschaft ausüben wollen: “Nichts fürchten Regierungen so sehr wie den freien und offenen Dialog im Netz.” Deren Verwertungswahn könne man nur entgehen, indem man das Netz als “persönlichen Raum” erobere. So gelange man zurück zur Wurzel aller Kommunikation, dem “genuinen Dialog” zweier Personen, die via Sprache “Energie austauschen”. Hightech wie Video-konferenzen im Netz, aber auch Lowtech wie das einfache Hin-und-her von Email-Texten würden dadurch überhaupt erst (wieder) lebendig. Vom im Internet leider verbreiteten “Broadcast”, dem bloßen Senden ohne Feedback, komme man zurück zu dem, was alle Kunst eigentlich will: Kommunikation und Kontakt zwischen “wirklich fleischlichen” Menschen.

Diesen “Fleischfaktor” will Hopkins in seinem neuesten Projekt “neo-scenes occupation 2″ mit den Drähten des Netzes verbinden. Im finnischen Tomio nahe dem Polarkreis werden sich Mitte Juni Internet- und Neue-Medien-Aktivisten ganz leiblich wie auch “telepräsent” versammeln, um Urmenschlichem zu frönen, dem freien Dialog zwischen “persönlichen Räumen”. Im ersten Teil des Projekts, das im letzten Jahr auf der Ars Electronica lief, erfolgte dies über einen mehrtägigen OnIine-Chat. Mitschnitte finden sich noch auf Hopkins’ Laptop: “Aber das lebte nur damals live, jetzt ist das toter Kram.”

morning, cool night (inside) cold (outside). my sister Janet, the family historian, transcribes and sends this story written by my grandfather, George Blodgett Hopkins, of an incident from his childhood in Linn, Missouri in the late 19th century.

Sometime between 1875 and 1877, when I was ten or eleven, a terrible tragedy occurred. My father, sister and older brother had been in California for some time. Mother, brother Walter and myself were still living in the old home. The new Linn courthouse that I had mentioned previously, was completed and part of it was occupied. The basement, composed of numerous rooms, 16 or 18 feet square, was not occupied. The rooms were located on either side of a long hall that extended east and west, the full length of the building. As I recall, the ceilings were about 10 feet hight, the walls were plastered, painted and nicely finished.

There was a family of four, composed of a father, mother, one boy and one girl. The girl was cripple and used one crutch. They came to our home and were anxious to secure rooms. I don’t know what the arrangement with Mother was, but they were occupying one room at the time of the disturbance. All they had were a few grips and sachels, etc. The man, I can’t recall his name now, was rather an elderly gentleman, probably 60 years old, quite good looking and I think was a lawyer. He dressed well and made a fairly good appearance. The woman was in her late 40′s, good looking and dressed rather attractively. The girl, the oldest of the two children, was about 16-18 years old. They called her Addie. The boy was my age, sort of a rough youngster, full of mischief, and was hard to manage. His name was Steve Jefferies. It turned out that the man with this group was not the husband or the father at all. The real husband and father was a Mr. Jefferies, though he was not the father of the girl. The woman had married the man she was now living with and the girl was his daughter. After some time, the couple had separated. The woman had then married Mr. Jefferies and had her son. Later on, they separated. I never knew if the woman had a divorce from either man, all that we ever found out was that the family that had come to our house was trying to keep out of the way of Jefferies. They had come to our little town thinking it would be a refuge for them. Unfortunately, Jefferies was hot on their trail. Only a few days had passed when he appeared on the scene, carrying a rather small hand satchel. Shortly after arriving in Linn, he came directly to our house. The elderly man had gone into town or was away when he arrived, however he made a terrible racket. The woman and girl screamed and cried and finally Jefferies left the house and headed for town. The next we heard of him he had gone to several places in town and finally found the older man in a harness shop across from the courthouse. There were some words between the two men, the older man ran out the front door of the shop and up a slight incline past the corner of the courthouse and possibly 60-70 ft. From out of the harness shop came the younger man, Jefferies, with a big pistol. He laid the pistol across his left forearm, took careful and deliberate aim and shot the old man in the back of his head, close to the top. The wound did not prove to be fatal at once, but the man had fallen and was unconscious. Willing hands soon came and carried him into the southeast corner room of the basement of the courthouse. A cot was procured from somewhere and bedclothes and a pillow were brought from our house to make the old man as comfortable as possible for the time being.

I remember going into this room before the old gentleman passed away. There was not a thing in the room but the couch and the body laying on it. The white painted walls and ceilings of that cheerless, cold room with its victim of a tragedy just enacted not long before lying there before me, brought cold chills all over me. I had expected to find some other people there when I went in and had made several steps before I realized I was there staring at a man that had been shot and was near death, perhaps close to the very moment life was going out. I seemed frozen to the floor for a moment, then realizing where I was, I turned quickly and hurried away, chills running up and down my back. The old man died in that cheerless room. His body lay there until he was buried a day or so later. The woman, girl, and boy left our house soon after. Whether they left town or moved somewhere else, I don’t know. I never seen them again. Jefferies was put in prison and after due process of law, was convicted of murder and sent to the state prison at Jefferson City, Missouri. I never saw this man, Jefferies, and don’t remember how long he was in prison, as we left Linn for California a year or so later. I don’t remember ever hearing this tragedy discussed in our family, though that corner room in the courthouse is vivid in my mind today.

– George Blodgett Hopkins

spent in reformatting and putting a new system on the Powerbook, and continuing the massive work of cleaning and organizing the Macintosh labs at the College. all day pretty much. thank goodness for long weekends. although I never got done what I had intended. downloading several papers that have the potential for use in a critical theory class. Towards SuperLanguage, a paper by Pierre Levy, seems most attractive. in Helsinki at ISEA ’94, I heard him present this paper, but my head was elsewhere, and, if I am not mistaken, the reading of yet another paper put me over the edge of hearing read speech.

Back here at this travelog. I think I will stop it as of the end of this month, making it an even year since I began this rotless jotting. I’ll start off with another passage, this time in German, without translation, from an article by my friend Mathias Fuchs in Vienna. The article appeared in volume 18-20 of the Austrian photography journal EIKON.

John Hopkins, ein in Alaska geborener Photograph und Medienkünstler, der nach Stationen in Arizona und Kalifornien mehrere Jahre an der Kunsthochschule in Reykjavík unterrichtete, beschreibt in seinen “neoscenes” genannten Webpages Reiseerfahrungen und Eindrücke von intensiven Orten, Häusern und Menschen. Die Qualität Hopkinscher Beobachtung liegt in der subtilen Transformation einer ikonographischen Konstante, die sich gleichmässig durch seine Reisestationen zieht, um sich permanent zu wandeln: John Hopkins selbst. Es ist nicht nur die Kleidung, die vom Norweger-pullover zum T-shirt wechselt, oder die Haar- und Bartlänge, sondern auch der Gesichtsausdruck, die Gestik und die Körperhaltung. Auf diese Weise Gleiches stets anders zeigend, weist Hopkins mit den Mitteln serieller Porträtphotographie auf die Möglichkeit, Zeitlichkeit in gefrorener Zeit aufheben zu können. Der Mechanismus, der die Aufmerksamkeit in den Hopkinschen Webseiten auf die leisen Differenzen von Gesichtszügen, Gesten un Klimata lenkt, heisst Artifizialität: Der Bildaufbau der Images gemahnt an Gemälde, nicht an Schnappsschüsse. Bildkonstruktion, Hintergrund, Pose und Licht erscheinen wie gemalt, zumindest sorgsam gewält, nie aber unmittelbar. In diesem Punkt unterscheiden sich die “neoscenes” von den Homepages der Collegeboys und -girls, die sich unmittelbar, unbegriffen und in spontaner Selbstbezüglichkeit aufs Netz und in Netz werfen.

Unfortunately, at the end of the article, my defunct website address in Iceland appeared, but other than that, an interesting passage from a longer article about Web photography collections in an issue dealing with photographic collections in general. So it goes. Mathias sent me a copy, but I can’t read the German title … My back is still giving me some reason to despair. It has not healed at all, so I face further medical consultations if I am to recover ever. I certainly cannot travel at all, so, until this has healed, I cannot move from this place…

man talk

talk(1) User Commands talk(1)

NAME
talk – talk to another user

SYNOPSIS
talk address [ terminal ]

AVAILABILITY
SUNWcsu

DESCRIPTION
The talk utility is a two-way, screen-oriented communication
program.

When first invoked, talk sends a message similar to:

Message from TalkDaemon@ her_machine at time …
talk: connection requested by your_address
talk: respond with: talk your_address
(more …)