Soul Sphíncter

Uffe Elbæk on Social Entrepreneurship

2012-02-21T23:08:00.000+01:00

Uffe Elbæk (born 15 June 1954) is a politician of the Danish Social Liberal Party. Elbæk is the founder and former Principal of the KaosPilots International School of New Business Design and Social Innovation, located in Aarhus. The KaosPilots school inspired the creation of several international schools, located in Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands. From 2007 to 2009, Elbæk served as the CEO for the 2009 World Outgames. In July 2010, Elbæk founded the consulting company Change The Game with the focus on leadership training, political campaigning and social innovation concepts. Elbæk served as special advisor for the leadership team at the KaosPilots and as an academic adviser for the HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity in Hong Kong. Elbæk won a seat in the Folketing for the Danish Social Liberal Party in the 2011 Danish parliamentary election. On 3 October 2011 he was appointed Culture Minister of Denmark in Cabinet of Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

KNUTTE WESTER'S FILM "GZIM REWIND" ON SVT AND MODERNA MUSEET // EXHIBITION AT VÄSTERÅS MUSEUM OF ART

2012-02-21T21:09:00.001+01:00

On Thursday February 23 at 8 pm, Knutte Wester's documentary "Gzim Rewind" will be shown on Swedish public TV, channel 2. I was involved in the pre-production of this film as a consultant for sequences that were to involved machinima film, but became the sketched war scenes.

See a clip from the film and an interview with the artist

Gzim Rewind on SVT:
SVT2 23 feb 2012, 20.00
SVT2 24 feb 2012, 15.50
SVT2 25 feb 2012, 13.15
SVT2 26 feb 2012, 00.05

Additionally, the film will be shown at Moderna museet as part of the documentary film festival Tempo's Balkan program "The Screen of Memory", on March 8 at 3:15 pm. The film had its Swedish premiere at the Gothenburg International Film Festival this year, where it was nominated in the category Best Swedish Documentary.

More about The Screen of Memory

Don't miss Knutte Wester's ongoing exibition at Västerås Museum of Art, until 8 April. The exhibition presents three recent projects.

More about the exhibition

More about Knutte Wester on www.gsa.se

Dialogic Reality II

2012-02-19T20:11:00.001+01:00

In a dialectic process describing the interaction and resolution between multiple paradigms or ideologies, one putative solution establishes primacy over the others. The goal of a dialectic process is to merge point and counterpoint (thesis and antithesis) into a compromise or other state of agreement via conflict and tension (synthesis). "Synthesis that evolves from the opposition between thesis and antithesis." (Eisenstein, "The Dramaturgy of Film Form" 23). Examples of dialectic process can be found in Plato's Republic.

In a dialogic process, various approaches coexist and are comparatively existential and relativistic in their interaction. Here, each ideology can hold more salience in particular circumstances. Changes can be made within these ideologies if a strategy does not have the desired effect. An example of the dialogic process can be found in Nozick's, Anarchy, State, and Utopia.

These two distinctions are observed in studies of personal identity, national identity and group identity.

G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831) introduced the concept of dialectic process to explain the progression of ideas.

M. M. Bakhtin, a Russian philosopher and Literary Critic has been credited with introducing the Dialogical process in Philosophy.

Reading Marx's Capital Vol I with David Harvey

2012-02-18T18:18:00.001+01:00

This is the first in a series of thirteen lectures with Professor David Harvey, a Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), Director of The Center for Place, Culture and Politics, and author of numerous books. He has been teaching Karl Marx's Capital for over 40 years. Read his CV. All of the lectures are online. I am wading though them at the moment. While they are dense, they are very very worthwhile.

Professor Harvey makes an extensive and profound close reading of Capital, enclosing the text is a detailed account of references, arguments, logic and methods according to a historical analysis. Professor Harvey's reading displays a heavy reliance on New Criticism, which contains little evidence of contemporary examples and adaptations to the post-industrial world of global capitalism and information as a commodity.

The page numbers Professor Harvey refers to are valid for both the Penguin Classics and Vintage Books editions of Capital.

Marx as presented by Mark Steele. A nice context to the Labour Theory of Value. Marx seems like a dreamer, a poet who dealt with the hard realities of State power and the ubiquity of capital.

New Yoshikaze Artist in Residence on HUMlab SL Island

2012-02-18T16:07:00.001+01:00

We welcome Pyewacket Kazyanenko as the new artist in residence within the Yoshikaze artists' studio in Second Life, run by Goodwind Seiling aka Sachiko Hayashi and provided by HUMlab. Pyewacket Kazyanenko states in an Outline and Intent for Yoshikaze Residency:

I've spent the last few years working with Stelarc in simple virtual displays and performance. In my virtual work, amongst achievements and satisfying victories , things inevitability go wrong, strange things happen, sculpts appear wrong, scripts and codes don’t work correctly, robots break. Not being much of a coder or a mathematician, my approach to working with code and 3D environments has always had a naive and random quality. In my exploration with the Yoshikaze residency I hope to further my relationship with the 'glitch' in virtual worlds. The genera of digital glitch art has become quite popular but little has been explored in virtual worlds. I will enter the space with an empty pallet, clear mind and simply explore, try and make happen the wrong, the glitch and the obscure, mixed with ongoing adventures and inspirations that happen daily inworld. My research into avatar psychology and the notion of 'artistic role play' will also have some effect on what I will be doing. This brings the digital unconscious into the work with dreams, desires, needs, failures, a sense of humour and a longing for creativity.

We look forward to the coming months. If you would like to keep up to date with what Pye is doing, the Yoshikaze blog is being updated regularly and you can visit Pye in world from 15 February until the 15 May from the slurl to Yoshikaze: http://slurl.com/secondlife/HUMlab/95/215/351

Friday Night Poem

2012-02-10T21:22:00.001+01:00

Silent Violence

I smell rain

But it has been snowing for days

The earth frozen beneath our feet,

Trees shrouded in mourning white

Attend the sad funeral of a life

Lost to ice.

Know your pusher,

Rent out a faded corner

Of couch to the friend

You hate the most and then

Bend over backwards to discover

New domains of pain,

Favoured in the quiet backstreet

Leafy suburban panorama of normal,

The white bread variety of hell

Where we take the names of saints

In our race down to the corpse strewn

Shore of a sea that sail has long since

Left.

Smile, while I offer you

A generous finance plan

For your teeth.

-----------------------------------

For Syria

DJ Mutamassik "Take The Hit"

2012-02-08T23:04:00.000+01:00

I cannot recommend highly enough DJ Mutamassik. This is track #1 from Mutamassik's 2010 LP, "That Which Death Cannot Destroy" The full album is here. This album cannot be bought or sold. All instruments (Cello, Drums, Mazhar, Keyboard, Turntables) & tracks performed, produced & engineered by Mutamassik at G.G.S.S./Rocca AlMileda Studio. 2010 Special guest vox & asst. engineer: Meroe Amade' Memphis Video: G. LOLI

MUTAMASSIK(meaning Stronghold, Tenacity in arabic) is a producer, dj, artist, pioneer of SA'AIDI HARDCORE & BALADI BREAKBEATS. RELENTLESS RHYTHMS FROM THE PAN-AFRABIC IMMIGRANT SOUND SOURCES. AFROASIATIC MOKKASSAR in addition to transcendental sonic experiments. Darq Matter Qubti Funq Punq Demm Baroque Melanqol Met'al Martial SA'AIDI ARABIFIED SWAMP MUSIC FROM THE RUSTBELT+++ Has performed extensively throughout U.S., Africa, Middle East & Europe. Press includes: The Village Voice, The Wire, Le Monde, African Sun Times, New York Times, Bidoun, The Fader, Newsweek (Arabic edition), American Society for Engineering Education, XLR8R, etc. "This is inhuman, brutal, awesome breakcore." Derek Walmsley - The Wire "Mutamassik's pounding Egyptian hip-hop breaks...are serious, sacred, steadfast marching music for the new international breakbeat generation." Ron Nachmann - URB "Dans un melange d', d'electronique et de hip-hop, Mutamassik s'engage dans la reconstruction des . Arabesque, melopees de minarets se croisent dans un magma de sons urbains, structures par d'impressionants alliages rhythmiques." Veronique Mortaigne - Le Monde "Highly regarded post-techno DJ..." - Mtv News " "Before the sounds of the Middle East became de rigueur sampling materials for hip-hop, Mutamassik was exploring ways of fusing various sounds and styles into a compelling, challenging whole, shards a-flying all the while.”

Kristine Schomaker's "My Life as an Avatar: The Gracie Kendal Project" & "1000+Avatars"

2012-01-29T22:09:00.003+01:00

Yoshikaze presents Kristine Schomaker's

"My Life as an Avatar: The Gracie Kendal Project" (http://graciekendal.wordpress.com)

"1000+Avatars" (http://1000avatars.wordpress.com)

via Skype Video

4pm on 30 January 2012, RL HUMlab, Umeå University, Sweden

In "The Gracie Kendal Project" Kristine Schomaker investigates our obsession with the notion of the physical ideal, through her own relation to her alternative ego Gracie Kendal, the Second Life avatar. The interaction between Gracie Kendal and Kristine Schomaker has resulted in virtual dialogues between the two, revealing the conflicts and even dependency of her dual selves, as well as the influences and impacts one has upon the other.

"1000+Avatars" is an off-shoot project from "The Gracie Kendal Project", however, in its own right. By documenting individual portraits of more than 1000 avatars in Second Life, the project bears a testimony to the avatar constructions of our time and witnesses the unique composition of our desires in the pursuit of that construct.

Gracie Kendal/Kristine Schomaker is a new breed of Second Life artist. Rather than pursuing the futuristic vision of the technological possibilities of the virtual, her projects firmly place themselves within the social, historical and psychological context in which ""[t]he avatar becomes a vehicle for personal and public reflection."

Yoshikaze is proud to organise a presentation by Kristine Schomaker on 30 January, 2012. The presentation will be held from 4pm at HUMlab, Umeå University, via Skype video connection with Kristine Schomaker in her location in Los Angeles.

Yoshikaze curator: Goodwind Seiling/Sachiko Hayashi. Yoshikaze is part of SL HUMlab activity.

---------------------------------------

[Description of the Projects by Kristine Schomaker]

In 2006 I began using new media to bring more attention to the obsession our society has with physical appearance. The media is often the hub of this obsession, typified by stars and models with eating disorders, reality TV shows about plastic surgery and advertisements defining the paragon of beauty. This results in an internal conflict between our reality and the idealized.

The Gracie Kendal Project is a close-up daily view of a personal, social and psychological co-existence with my virtual persona. My work deals with the process of becoming self-aware while living in a society obsessed with physical appearance. It is symbolic of the personal anxiety and loss of identity occurring in a world where visually aggressive advertisements dictate who you are supposed to be. In this environment I find it difficult to be comfortable in my own skin.

Every day I would take pictures of both myself and Gracie and place them next to each other comparing the physical with the virtual, the real with the ideal. After observing how we were interacting with each other through photos, I realized there was a dialogue forming. The natural extension in this story was for this dialogue to be realized through actual conversations between Gracie and I.

Through written chat and eventually comic-like banter, we express our inner dialogue in a public way. We have developed a co-dependent relationship in which each of us wishes she were the other. I yearn to have the life she does, the beauty, the success, and independence. She yearns to be free from the constraints of pixels.Using Gracie as a form of self-presentation, I started to explore my relationship with my body as well as question my own identity. I realized that everything going on in my life was manifesting in my body and in the figure of Gracie. Both were becoming a site for anxiety, fear, stress, grief, loneliness and depression. My body and that of my avatar became a source of autobiographical material in which a story was being written.

Comparing the ‘perfect’ Gracie with my real self, I will bring more attention to the obsession our society has with physical appearance. I am hoping to engage with every person who believes they are unattractive, overweight and afraid. I hope young girls will see my project and feel empowered to be brave. I plan to videotape my performances with my avatar and post them on YouTube. I hope to give talks about my project to appropriate organizations and schools, boys and girls clubs and eating disorder groups.

While working on My Life as an Avatar on a personal level, I was compelled to expand my project universally to explore notions of online identity in the construction of other people’s avatars. My 1000+ Avatar project consists of individual portraits of over 1000 avatars within the virtual world of Second Life. This project also questions and explores commonly held assumptions about stereotypes, judgment, self-awareness and those marginalized by race, gender, sexual preference and physical appearance.

The 1000 Avatar portraits zoom in on the complex social and cultural conventions that determine our identity. The avatar becomes a vehicle for personal and public reflection. This series of portraits is a contemporary anthropology of a cross section of avatars from the virtual world of Second Life in the early 21st century. In these portraits, I explore the representation of the avatar as a construct, distinct from any traditional notion of the ‘self’. I examine the sitter’s identity and probe below the avatar surface to reveal and comment upon their character, personality and their diversity.

The subjects are neither simulacra nor characters in a game: they are people, complete, complex identities with defined social roles. The avatar becomes the projection of our identity. Each portrait represents a different personality, a singular life. These people entered the brave new world of virtual environments as explorers, searching for anything and everything, finding a new empowerment- and a new freedom to be themselves. Experimentation is welcome. As an avatar, they are provided with a safe environment which allows everyone to divulge and consider boundaries and barriers that aren’t readily accepted in the physical world.

The Textual Internet

2012-01-27T16:01:00.000+01:00

The Textual Internet on Prezi

Key quotations used in a lesson for Language Consultancy Program in HUMlab yesterday. The full notes for the class are here.

Specialisation is for Insects

2012-01-27T15:55:00.000+01:00

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying. Take orders, give orders, co-operate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialisation is for insects". - Robert Heinlein

I would add play a musical instrument, dance and have a command of at least two languages.

My Online Profile

2012-01-24T18:01:00.003+01:00

Virtual Reflections: avatar self-idenity

2012-01-19T14:19:00.001+01:00

A documentary I helped make about identity and avatars in the online virtual world of Second Life.

Centrum Sonic Lecture 4: Laurent Fintoni - A Boom Bap Continuum

2012-01-17T10:20:00.000+01:00

Centrum Sonic Lecture 4: Laurent Fintoni - A Boom Bap Continuum
19.00 Sonntag, Januar 22 2012

Description

Centrum Gallery Berlin presents Laurent Fintoni Sonic Lecture entitled A Boom Bap Continuum, which looks at the evolution and mutation of hip hop's 'boom bap' sound aesthetic from 1999 to 2009 and beyond. Exploring the sound's early mutations in the 2000s via the work of people like Dabrye, Machinedrum, Prefuse 73 and El-P through to the work of people like Flying Lotus, Hudson Mohawke, Ras G and Mike Slott. Using a chronological backbone, music selection and newly sourced input from some of the early pioneers, the lecture will show how terms like trip hop, glitch hop, IDM and later wonky were ultimately often attempts at pigeon-holing boom bap's mutations into more comfortable boxes and how its sonic evolution was influenced from the soul and funk of the 70s to electronic music, rave and video games which led to its revival and continued popularity. As Laurent says: "A Boom Bap Continuum seeks to trace what I see as the fascinating evolution of hip hop's most enduring sonic aesthetic and how it was influenced by technological evolution, cultural and geographical mutations as well as hip hop's original ethos of 'do what you want with what you have."

Please RSVP to david[@]centrumberlin.com.

Lecture starts at 7pm, please arrive by 6.45pm.

www.aboombapcontinuum.com/
www.centrumberlin.com/
www.centrum-berlin.blogspot.com/

Fau Ferdinand in HUMlab

2012-01-16T09:23:00.001+01:00

Yoshikaze Secodn Life "Up-In-The-Air" Residency presents

Fau Ferdinand aka Yael Gilks

23 - 27 January 2012

@ HUMlab, Umeå University, Sweden

Opening Hours: 8am - 4 pm Weekdays

Opening: 23 January Between 2pm - 4pm

Artist Talk at 2pm

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"On virtual landscapes and real feelings.

Photons, camera lens, screen, eye - mashed then mashed again.

Are landscapes seen from afar not virtual ? I can hardly see a thing but colour anyway, unless it’s on a screen near me soon.

The shrinking field of view, that particular scene affects me - that bird I couldn’t save. The cat too fast and ants have spread the word. Life abounds around death.

I join in, giving up on quality to make believe I’m really there though I was there.

Inflation and deflation of an avatar that was death before processing. Death gets pregnant by Deformation.

The avatar, as the persona, is a battlefield.

I’m what eats me.

Distress grabbed."

(Fau Ferdinand)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fau Ferdinand, a.k.a. Yael Gilks, is an established Second Life performance artist, who has produced memorable works since her entry into SL in 2004. Her work manifests metamorphosis of life, often dealing with the theme of life and death, from one state of existence to another, in a manner almost expressed as surreal. Dissolving in fluidity, her subjects enter her world through the dreamscape which surrounds her Self.

During her residency at Yoshikaze, she has taken a step into a new direction, in which video/machinima proceeds not only as a mere documentation of her virtual performance but as a hybrid medium of the virtual and videoart for which she expands her theme as the end result.

Between 23 - 27 January 2012 at HUMlab, Umeå University, Sweden, Yoshikaze is pleased to present her first independent videowork "Bird Funeral" which she has completed during her Yoshikaze residency. In addition the exhibition offers an opportunity to experience two additional derivative videoworks, into which "Bird Funeral" with the elements from the virtual world has metamorphosed itself through the techniques of moving image.

Currently Fau Ferdinand/Yael Gilks is a co-director and co-curator of SL sim Odyssey. Her work "Bird Funeral" completed at Yoshikaze is online at http://vimeo.com/32119484. The remains of "Bird Funeral" can be experienced inworld at Yoshikaze residency spot: http://www.slurl.com/secondlife/HUMlab/84/216/701.

Curated by Goodwind Seiling/Sachiko Hayashi in collaboration with HUMlab. The poster design by Beatrice Rosberg at HUMlab.

Yoshikaze "Up-in-the-Air" Residency (www.slurl.com/secondlife/HUMlab/95/215/351) is a Second Life residency programme run by Sachiko Hayashi together with SL HUMlab sim manager James Barrett from HUMlab, Umeå University, Sweden. As part of HUMlab, its 3264 sqm land in Second Life supports SL artists in their pursuit of virtual art practices and researches. For inquiries, please contact: goodwind.seiling@gmail.com.

Yoshikaze is funded and hosted by HUMlab, Umeå University, Sweden.

Yoshikaze blog: http://yoshikaze.blogspot.com
Yoshikaze vimeo: http://vimeo.com/yoshikaze

Live Vänliga jättar + Jim Barrett @ Lagmansfestivalen Umeå 2011

2011-12-19T19:46:00.001+01:00

Vänliga jättar + Jim Barrett @ Lagmansfestivalen Umeå 2011 by viktor01

The Whisper Tree (Machinima)

2011-12-17T15:18:00.002+01:00

This machinima was made for the Madrid pavilion at the World's Expo Shanghai 2010.
In Second Life, Bryn Oh was given five islands by Linden Labs for this event. Each island is missing something . Island one is missing love, island two energy, island three color, island four sound and island five is missing light. When an avatar whispers to the tree, it grants a wish. The wish is to return that which is missing on each island.

First life curator Cristina Garcia-Lasuen, owner of the Open This End SL group, and also known as Aino Baar in Second Life, convinced the Spanish officials for the World Expo to showcase Second Life machinima and artists.

Artists Bryn Oh, Glyph Graves, Marcus Inkpen, Colemarie Soleil, Soror Nishi, Kazuhiro Aridian and Desdemona Enfield have each contributed their skills in virtual art to help showcase to the world the importance of the Second Life community.

Island One (no love/emotion) - Bryn Oh
Island Two (no energy) - Glyph Graves
Island Three (no color) - Bryn Oh and Soror Nishi
Island Four (no sound) - Marcus Inkpen
Island Five (no light) - Bryn Oh
Whispering Tree - Kazuhiro Aridian

World Expo Shanghai 2010
http://en.expo2010.cn/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expo_2010
http://www.madrid2010shanghai.com/
www.brynoh.blogspot.com

Music: Johann Pachelbel - Canon in D Major
http://www.incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/

How Focalization Guides the Reading of Egypt: The Book of Going Forth by Day

2011-12-11T22:10:00.001+01:00

The foalizer is of primary importance in the narrative address of Egypt: The Book of Going Forth by Day (Egypt) by M. D. Coverley. The key focalizing point is the narrator, and the specifics of the character influence reading of the work. The role of the focalizer is described by Mieke Bal as “an interpretation, a subjective content. What we see before our mind’s eye has already been interpreted. This makes room for reading of the complex structure of focalization” (Narratology 166). The focalizer of Egypt is Jeanette, a woman who is searching for her brother, Ross, while he searches for an ancient silver coffin, along the course of the River Nile, and against a backdrop of archeology, ancient myth, and colonial nostalgia. One example of how focalization determines address is in a letter written by the narrator to her sister early in the text. Jeanette describes how “I’d be more annoyed about Ross being so elusive, but how like him to be caught up in The Great Drama of the Hour. It seems we knew something of this hide-and-seek game, too, since we are so often trying to find the right magic to follow him” (Egypt, my emphasis). Both the reader and the narrator (“we) are following Ross, and it is necessary for the reader to subscribe to the perspectives of Jeanette in her role as narrator. Accordingly, narrative contexts are developed in Egypt within the relationship of Jeanette and Ross, and the reader encounters them via the device of the focalizer.

The primary focalizer in Egypt restricts readings via the use of reportive speech related to the gendered pair of the narrator and her brother in stereotypical roles.[1] Ross leads the pair, and as a result of the focalizing narrator, the reader as well, through the narrative, performing actions and initiating situations. Jeanette observes and relates the actions of Ross to the reader. This relationship between Ross and Jeanette functions as a dual point for focalization, or as the aperture through which the entire narrative addresses the reader. Jeanette as narrator reports the speech, actions and events related to her brother, often at the expense of her own agency. Ross dominates the relationship he has with his sister by acting instead of speaking (the reader never received his words directly). In a reflective moment of assessing her own agency in the narrative, the narrator reflects, “I was no longer sure exactly why I had come so far. What did I want from my brother? What else was going on here? Had I stumbled into a drama that was already in progress, playing itself out no matter what I did?” (Egypt). Of all the characters this sense of swept-away powerlessness is confined to Jeanette, the only female in the story, who is following Ross despite spectacular events of danger and violence, and never knowing quite why she is doing it. Due to the focalization upon Jeanette as the narrator, the reader only experiences Bal’s “an interpretation, a subjective content” (166) of the narrative from the perspective of Jeanette, forcing a set of restrictions upon reading according to the gender roles and relations between the characters.

The narrator as the focal point results in the reader sharing her visual, spatial and temporal perspective. The narrator functions as a type of avatar in the narrative structure, at the point “where the representation of ourselves is located in the virtual environment” (Jää-Aro 39). During the boat journey down the Nile, at Abydos in the dark of night, the features of the place take over from the knowledge provided by sight, when the narrator describes in the darkness, “the original Temple had been built over a natural spring, and the sacred pool now spilled through the center of the tomb, I didn’t worry too much about the moisture seeping into my shoes” (Egypt). The sensation of moisture in the shoes is all the reader has to interpret the actions from, as the narrator is in the dark. Moving into the light, the moisture is revealed to the reader and the narrator and her companitons to be blood. The reader is thereby restricted in perspective to the space and time of the event, through the words of the focalizing narrator and not the visual imagery or audio of the work. The simultaneous character/reader awareness in narrative operates throughout the narrative, in such examples as when she states, “He gave me a glance that was a question and not a-question. I nodded, to seem agreeable, but I was not sure about what he meant by that look. He probably thought I knew more than I was letting on. Small chance!” (Egypt). In this instance, and through the narrative, the narrator and the reader share the same first-person knowledge of what is going on in the story in the same time frame.

The focus on the narrator influences the reading of the other characters and the events in Egypt. Places take on danger or nostalgia, and other characters become either sinister or helpful depending on the narrator. The narrator’s perspective on events and characters draws the reader’s attention to the state of Ross, based on the anxieties of Jeanette. The concerns of Jeanette that are not related to Ross are confined to passive activities devoid of agency, such as leisure and observation. The resulting agency for the narrator becomes the agency of the reader as when “Ross and Trimble spent all day down in the ‘library’ (really the parlor that had been converted to a serious map room), studying hieroglyphic inscriptions. They shooed me away when I suggested that we should all enjoy some recreation. I sat alone as the towns drifted by, reading Death on the Nile” (Egypt). The low degree of narrator agency produces limitations for the reader based on a dependency upon the perspectives of Jeanette. The consultation of maps by Ross and Trimble produces the next destination in the quest along the Nile, but no insight into why they, the narrator and the reader are going there. As the main focalizer in the narrative, the effect of this arrangement for the reader is, as Bal points out, that the narrative is based on the narrator’s perspective. With a low degree of agency in the focalizing character, in this case the narrator, room is made in the narrative for reader interpretations, but only according to the perimeters set by the degree of narrator’s agency. A level of control is thus asserted over reading via the limitations of the focalizer.

Gender roles assigned to the narrator define much of the reading experience of Egypt. In writing to their sister, Jeanette questions her relationship to her brother Ross as, “I don’t know what the balance is between us. You and I have speculated for twenty years about the meaning of devotion, his intentions and reasons” (Egypt). This devotion by the female narrator to her brother is a dominant subject in narrative. She follows and attempts to keep up with him, and as she does so, so does the reader. The resulting perspectives include key elements in the story that are only revealed simultaneously to Jeanette and to the reader. Ross does not express his own perspectives regarding the events of the narrative. Rather, the perspectives of the narrator are what the reader interprets as she reports on the actions and events related to Ross. These perspectives are defined by the narrator’s roles as younger sister, caregiver, devoted lover, incestuous mother to their child and follower. Based on these roles, focalization aligns reader perspective with that of the narrator.

[1] These gendered elements are emphasized in such passages as, “Ross took a long bath, and I cleaned up the rest of his cuts and bruises, tucked him into bed. He was asleep almost as soon as he was horizontal. I waited until the sun went down, then climbed in beside him” (Egypt).

Works Cited

Bal, Mieke, Narratology: An Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.

Coverley, M. C. Egypt: The Book of Going Forth by Day. Califa 2006. CD-ROM. 16 February 2011, http://califia.us/avegypt.htm

United States Use of Force in Protest

2011-12-04T23:35:00.001+01:00

Icon Indice Symbol

2011-11-18T22:17:00.001+01:00

"Peirce thought that “representations” generate further interpretants in one of three possible ways. First, via “a mere community in some quality” (W2 .56). These he calls likenesses, but they are more familiarly known as icons. Second, those “whose relation to their objects consists in a correspondence in fact” (W2 .56) are termed indices. And finally, those “whose relation to their objects is an imputed character” (W2. 56) are called symbols. Put simply, if we come to interpret a sign as standing for its object in virtue of some shared quality, then the sign is an icon. Peirce's early examples of icons are portraits and noted similarities between the letters p and b (W2. 53–4). If on the other hand, our interpretation comes in virtue of some brute, existential fact, causal connections say, then the sign is an index. Early examples include the weathercock, and the relationship between the murderer and his victim (W2. 53–4). And finally, if we generate an interpretant in virtue of some observed general or conventional connection between sign and object, then the sign is a symbol. Early examples include the words “homme” and “man” sharing a reference. (W2. 53–4)." - Peirce's Theory of Signs

6majik9 is Still Spreading the Fever

2011-11-16T23:49:00.001+01:00

Live in Toowoomba 2008

charles curse- eon phyre - DEMENTED THRUGG: Denigrated Jesus Bomb (Studio recording 2010)

6majik9: I got Sunshine in my Teeth (2011)

6majik9 is a loose collective of lateral acting young moderns who believe if a job is worth doing then it is worth doing invisible. Flight has never been so easy. Take out your hairs and wave them like you don't care. Its 6majik9 and everything is going to be alright.

Frankenstein’s Monster Comes Home: Digital Remix and the Ends of Origin

2011-11-05T23:44:00.001+01:00

Opening of a lecture I gave at Amsterdam University:

'Frankenstein’s Monster Comes Home: Digital Remix and the Ends of Origin'

Prezzi and the links to the videos shown during the presentation

“The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind. ”

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus.

“One text that shows the disaster of the divorce between science and poetry would be the one by Mary Shelley whose name is Frankenstein.”

Avital Ronell, Body/No Body (in conversation with Werner Herzog)

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (published 1818) represents a historical and literary divergence between the poetic and the technical, and is a significant reaction against this split as part of English Romanticism. It is the contention of my presentation that in contemporary digital works of art and narrative we are witnessing a re-marriage of science and poetry. However, this union should be no automatic cause for romantic joy, as the present situation in the education sector of most Western democracies indicates. Today, the natural sciences are separated from and weighted favorably in relation to the production and analysis of culture. There is little to indicate that this is an effective strategy in light of present global ‘network culture’ initiatives. Today, the union of science and poetry in digital media is felt most acutely in reading, or the performative interpretation of imaginative works. Computer games, websites, digital works of literature, apps, virtual worlds, interactive art, and spatial media (GIS, Kinnect, GPS, Wii) are interpreted as they are performed and often require some knowledge of the medium by the user in order for the work to function. This situation represents a form of reading that has not been practiced widely in Western academic and literate circles for several centuries. We are not witnessing a return to what Walter J. Ong famously terms a “secondary orality” (10-11), but rather we are seeing a form of inscription rapidly emerge that is spatial, multi-temporal, performed, place-bound, visual, sonic, and navigated. Two central concepts are important for understanding how digital works are generally interpreted, and these are simulation and remix. Representation has become the domain of mediating objects, both virtual and physical, while reading is as much about arranging and appropriating as it is about reference, symbolism, iconography and interpretation. Based on a relatively small selection of digital works this presentation examines reception practices involving digital media, which suggest an expanded concept of reading where the material technology of a work determines meaning as much as its representative elements do. In this examination I demonstrate how performance, participation, co-authoring, and remix make the reading of the digital works. These works are

Patchwork Girl by Shelley Jackson (1995)

Last Meal Requested by Sachiko Hayashi (2004)

Façade By Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern (2006)

Second Life http://youtu.be/9g-kYvK3P-Q

CONSTRUCT by salevy_oh (2011)

The Celebration by Iris Piers (2011)

Chungking Express: Paradox Waiting

2011-10-30T01:03:00.000+02:00

"beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella," - Isidore Ducasse, known by his pseudonym Comte de Lautréamon (1869)

Chungking Express is a film by Wong Kar-Wai from 1994. It is a beautiful meditation on paradox, absence and the rule of the heart over the mind. The loneliness of crowds peppers the gritty realism of people getting on with life in the famous Chungking Mansions of Hong Kong. In particular He Qiwu, also known as Cop 223 (played by Takeshi Kaneshiro). Qiwu's girlfriend May broke up with him on April 1. His birthday is May 1 and he chooses to wait for May for a month before moving on. Every day he buys a tin of pineapple with an expiration date of May 1. By the end of this time, he feels that he will either be rejoined with his love or that it will have expired forever. Meanwhile, a mysterious woman in a blonde wig (played by Brigitte Lin) tries to survive in the drug underworld after a smuggling operation goes sour. He Qiqu spends time at a snack bar in the crowded Chungking Mansions, using the phone to make hopeless calls to women he does not actually know ("we were in grade four together" or "has it been five years...you have two kids now") and chatting to the owner who attempts to find him a date.

In the second story of the film, the unnamed Cop 663 (played by Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) is similarly dealing with a breakup, this time with a flight attendant (Valerie Chow). He meets Faye, the new girl at the local snack bar (played by Faye Wong). She secretly falls for him. The flight attendant waits for the cop around the snack bar, and finds out he is on his day off. She leaves a letter for the snack bar owner to give to the cop. Everyone in the snack bar reads the letter, which is assumed to be the flight attendant's way of telling the cop that their relationship is over. The envelope also has a spare set of keys to the cop's apartment.

The film revolves around the themes of doubles, replacements or doppelgängers and how or if anyone really knows anyone. The doubles in the first story are not copies but dim reflections, fractured similarities recruited by the protagonists from the pain and loneliness that the original bestows upon them.

The paradox of relationships is fully explored in Chungking Express with a brevity and economy that is at times startling, but always beautiful. "Knowing someone does not mean keeping them" (知道一个人并不意味着保持其) says Brigitte Lin's character as He Qiwu tries desperately to engage her, the mysterious blonde woman who we already know he will fall in love with, in conversation in a bar. But the pair do not meet, even thought they are sitting next to each other, her in her Lolita sun glasses and blonde wig and him stumbling through his words as he wears his heart on his sleeve. People change. He's a cop and she is a drug dealer. They share a hotel room, although he eats and she sleeps. They are miles apart. Upon leaving at sunrise he cleans her shoes with his tie while she continues to sleep, and the world is turned upside down. Surrealism lives and love is madness.

While He Qiwu contemplates his 25th birthday, the blonde woman murders a western man while he waits for another woman in a blonde wig with whom he is intimate. Like a hallucination two dreams collide, one of death and the other of lust. Shadows move off the stage and blood runs with the rain.

There is little between them but they can barely hear each other. Cop 663 and Faye seem to be in two different pictures, but they are speaking to each other. He is elsewhere and she is stuck. Memories betray us. His flight attendant girlfriend has just gone and he is telling us about it in grainy images with audio from the take-off procedure of the flight upon which they met. "Onboard every flight is a stewardess that you long to seduce. This time last year, at 25, 000 feet I actually seduced one" (板载每次飞行是一名空姐，你长的勾引。去年这个时候，在25000英尺，其实我的诱惑之一). Is the truth being told?

Nothing lasts and there is no forever.

Who is leaving who in the sad memories of Cop 663? Soon everyone in the snack bar quarter is reading the letter from the flight attendant to 663, the moment of dissolution is shared before the cop (n)ever reads it. Or has it? His keys in the envelope make Faye the double (s)he does not know (s)he has. Noise between people is part of (mis)understanding.

By this stage of the film we seem to be swimming in clouds. A person is burnt upon the mind of another and they remain as a presence no matter the distance. What was presence in absence for He Qiwu has become absence in presence for Faye and Cop 663. He returns home for lunch, talking to the closet in the words he used for his flight attendant, but she is gone. Who is there?

She is. The double that we all carry. She inhabits the living quarters of the lonely cop. Watering his plants, talking to his stuffed animals, left behind by his love, and eating his food. Shouting to him as he passes by. Like a living ghost. A memory that answers back. How many of you can there be?

While he is absent, she cleans and redecorates. Changing the track of reality for the dreaming cop. "Did I leave the tap running or is the apartment getting more tearful?" (我离开的自来水运行或公寓越来越含泪). He is lost and dreams collide around him. Music she chooses becomes his and he remembers it as something it is not. Objects hold memories and as these change so does the man and his world. And then there is love in crowds...or not. One letter can make all the difference. Where do you want to go?

May the Coming Darkness be Mischievous and Thrilling

2011-10-29T15:29:00.001+02:00

Presentation at Amsterdam University Symposium

2011-10-24T10:44:00.001+02:00

Frankenstein’s Monster Comes Home: Digital Remix and the Ends of Origin on Prezi

Remix in Retrospect: Looking Back to See the Future of Authorship
Invited Symposium at Amsterdam University
21 October 2011

Frankenstein’s Monster Comes Home: Digital Remix and the Ends of Origin

“The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind. ”

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus.

“One text that shows the disaster of the divorce between science and poetry would be the one by Mary Shelley whose name is Frankenstein.”

Avital Ronell, Body/No Body (in conversation with Werner Herzog)

Patchwork Girl by Shelley Jackson (1995)

Last Meal Requested by Sachiko Hayashi (2004)

Façade By Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern (2006)

Second Life http://youtu.be/9g-kYvK3P-Q

CONSTRUCT by salevy_oh (2011)

The Celebration by Iris Piers (2011)

Patchwork Girl is a work of electronic literature by American author Shelley Jackson. It was written in Storyspace and published by Eastgate Systems in 1995. It is often discussed along with Michael Joyce's 'Afternoon, a story' as an important work of hypertext fiction. "Shelley Jackson's brilliantly realized hypertext Patchwork Girl is an electronic fiction that manages to be at once highly original and intensely parasitic on its print predecessors."

The actions of the avatar, which is the identity of its operator in SL, conform to the traditions of Varjrayana Buddhism. The combination of the actions of the avatar and the audio is a two fold signifying structure, with the operator of the avatar at the center. In a simulative sense the operator of the avatar is enacting a practice that is firmly contextualized in religious and social contexts.

Last Meal Requested is an interactive net art work by Japanese/Swedish artist Sachiko Hayashi. It deals with themes of gender, state power, violence and the rhetoric of the image. The original work can be accessed at http://www.e-garde.net/lmr/lmr2.html

Selavy: What happens when you write in a diary? Of course, some people write down “got up at 7am, drank a coffee, had lunch with Jim, went to bed early”, but that’s not the type of diary I’m referring to. It is rather the idea of keeping a record of selected thoughts, feelings, moods, ideas, etc. The important part is, of course, that you do that regularly. And that is exactly what I did in CONSTRUCT: I added one room each day. Every one of the 75 days of the residency has its own room, often relating to the topic of the residency itself, a time capsule of ideas, artifacts, or reference to other work. If you read a diary, you may get an idea about the writer and her life. If you visit CONSTRUCT, you may get an idea about Selavy Oh and her residency.

The Celebration "combines a circular display of flatscreens, reminiscent of a giant zoetrope, containing amateur film footage from the 1910's-1940's with different soundscapes that can be manipulated by the audience" (Piers). How the audience manipulates the various audio and images, and how they combine to create an interactive and immersive space, makes The Celebration an engaging work of interactive digital art. The visitor enters a darkened space, where the only available light comes from the 10 screens showing the films of The Celebration. By moving around the space and judging their own distance, speed of movement, posture and height in relation to the (largely invisible) Arduino trackers, a dance begins with the audio and the cracked black and white images from almost a century ago. Each of the screens that make up The Celebration has an Arduino tracking sensor attached, which maps the movements of the body of a visitor, and implements pre-programmed changes in the presentation of images and sound. Unknown faces stare out from the screens, mostly laughing, talking (unheard) and often looking straight at the camera, and at the audience. As these faces watch, the visitor dodges and weaves, hops and slides, while the images and sounds change. At the same time the visitor is watching the faces, along with their bodies, their families and friends, competitors at sports events and classmates, neighbors and colleagues. It is according to this arrangement that a circuit of movement and gaze is achieved by the programming of The Celebration.

Façade is a prototype of interactive drama, a new genre of character and story-intensive interactive entertainment. Façade is freely downloadable at interactivestory.net. In Façade, you, the player, using your own name and gender, play the character of a longtime friend of Grace and Trip, an attractive and materially successful couple in their early thirties. During an evening get-together at their apartment that quickly turns ugly, you become entangled in the high-conflict dissolution of Grace and Trip’s marriage. No one is safe as the accusations fly, sides are taken and irreversible decisions are forced to be made. By the end of this intense one-act play you will have changed the course of Grace and Trip’s lives – motivating you to re-play the drama to find out how your interaction could make things turn out differently the next time. In this video Facade is used to promote an abstinence program.

8 Films I (Probably Should Not) Have Seen as a Child

2011-10-13T00:07:00.001+02:00

10 movies I should not have seen as a child by Nadine Von Cohen has inspired me to make my own shorter list. I was shocked at first by the mundanity of the films Von Cohan had chosen (Porky's and Cocktail!). I then remembered that my mum and dad did not really restrict me much in what I saw or read. However, I really did not have a lot of film watching when I was a kid. My life was books and British Television (Goodies, Dr Who, Kenny Everett etc). However, I did manage to collect a list of 8 films that scared me in some way in my tender years. These are not arranged in any order, but here are my 8 movies I should not have seen as a child:

Rocky Horror Picture Show (12 Years Old)
I saw Rocky Horror from the back of a station wagon with my mother and her best friend in the front seat. The film must have had an effect on me as I wrote out all the words to Sweet Transvestite on the front of my school ring binder folder. For the following two years I used it for all my classes. Later in high school, when I was about 16, I went to two school socials (dances) dressed as a woman. I am totally amazed I was not beaten up, but I was 189 cms tall when I was 15, so I was a very unconvincing drag queen dressed in a pastel frock and old lady shoes, complete with a bad wig and stockings.

Jaws (10 years old)
On Cavill Avenue at Surfers Paradise I went and saw Jaws with my best friend and afterwards we bought shark's tooth necklaces. Jaws was a totally unpleasant experience for a boy who loved the beach.

Bliss (14 Years old)
At a hippy beach house at Byron Bay my mother rented the video of Bliss by Ray Lawrence. Some of the other mothers staying there called my mother 'sick' for showing it in the public lounge area of the house to children. Its a great film and the book (by Peter Carey) and film changed my life.

The Tragedy of Doctor Faustus (8 years old)
On TV with Richard Burton as Faustus; I was fascinated and terrified at the same time. I remember the first appearance of Satan to Faustus was as a skeleton covered in maggots. The image is incised upon my mind.

Mad Max (11 years old)
This film made me look at Australia (where I spent the first 30 years of my life), differently.It is a brutal account of petrol head culture and the highway was a lot more frightening for me after seeing it.

German Piss Party (15 years old)
I stumbled into 'The Shed', a corrugated iron box at the back of my friend's house used for drinking, darts and a bit or work, to discover his older brother and friends watching a grainy film with people speaking a language I did not understand. What unfolded during the following 30 minutes horrified me. I did not watch another porno for decades, and even then I have never been a fan of it. I blame the urinating Germans in this bizarre document of 80s fetish culture.

Psycho (11 years old)
This is a deeply disturbing classic. I just wish I had not seen it when I was 11 years old.

The Shining (11 years old)
Nothing on the screen scared me as much as The Shining. This film is an exercise in psychological terror.

Soul Sphíncter

Uffe Elbæk on Social Entrepreneurship

KNUTTE WESTER'S FILM "GZIM REWIND" ON SVT AND MODERNA MUSEET // EXHIBITION AT VÄSTERÅS MUSEUM OF ART

On Thursday February 23 at 8 pm, Knutte Wester's documentary "Gzim Rewind" will be shown on Swedish public TV, channel 2. I was involved in the pre-production of this film as a consultant for sequences that were to involved machinima film, but became the sketched war scenes.

See a clip from the film and an interview with the artist

Gzim Rewind on SVT: SVT2 23 feb 2012, 20.00 SVT2 24 feb 2012, 15.50 SVT2 25 feb 2012, 13.15 SVT2 26 feb 2012, 00.05

More about The Screen of Memory

Don't miss Knutte Wester's ongoing exibition at Västerås Museum of Art, until 8 April. The exhibition presents three recent projects.

More about the exhibition

More about Knutte Wester on www.gsa.se

Dialogic Reality II

Reading Marx's Capital Vol I with David Harvey

New Yoshikaze Artist in Residence on HUMlab SL Island

Friday Night Poem

DJ Mutamassik "Take The Hit"

Kristine Schomaker's "My Life as an Avatar: The Gracie Kendal Project" & "1000+Avatars"

The Textual Internet

Specialisation is for Insects

My Online Profile

Virtual Reflections: avatar self-idenity

Centrum Sonic Lecture 4: Laurent Fintoni - A Boom Bap Continuum

Fau Ferdinand in HUMlab

Live Vänliga jättar + Jim Barrett @ Lagmansfestivalen Umeå 2011

The Whisper Tree (Machinima)

How Focalization Guides the Reading of Egypt: The Book of Going Forth by Day

United States Use of Force in Protest

Icon Indice Symbol

6majik9 is Still Spreading the Fever

Frankenstein’s Monster Comes Home: Digital Remix and the Ends of Origin

Chungking Express: Paradox Waiting

May the Coming Darkness be Mischievous and Thrilling

Presentation at Amsterdam University Symposium

Frankenstein’s Monster Comes Home: Digital Remix and the Ends of Origin

8 Films I (Probably Should Not) Have Seen as a Child

Gzim Rewind on SVT:
SVT2 23 feb 2012, 20.00
SVT2 24 feb 2012, 15.50
SVT2 25 feb 2012, 13.15
SVT2 26 feb 2012, 00.05