online video killed the …

Indian Beatles – "Some kinda weird bollywood beatles clones." a bit over-enthusiastic, maybe. [via b3ta]

'The Golden Age of Video' by Ricardo Autobahn – "'The Golden Age Of Video' is a promotional device for the forthcoming untitled Ricardo Autobahn album."

schmooze and abuse

A Common Nomenclature for Lego Families – "Hence, a survey. I asked fellow parents to donate their children for a few minutes, and name a selection of Lego pieces culled from the Lego parts store." i wonder if it the same differences exist in germanspeaking legoplaying families. [via b3ta]

Big Ben (big_ben_clock) on Twitter – "BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG – about 1 hour ago from API" ;P

Why do we have an IMG element? – "On February 25, 1993, Marc Andreessen wrote: I’d like to propose a new, optional HTML tag: IMG Required argument is SRC="url"." that’s how. the answer to why is, because we like pretty pictures of kittens.

Baguette Dropped From Bird's Beak Shuts Down The Large Hadron Collider (Really) – "The Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, just cannot catch a break. First, a coolant leak destroyed some of the magnets that guide the energy beam. Then LHC officials postponed the restart of the machine to add additional safety features. Now, a bird dropping a piece of bread on a section of the accelerator has, according to the Register, shut down the whole operation." one bird and a piece of bread can do that? we are soooo doomed. black hole incoming.

low gravity fail – cute astronaut animation.

The Twitter Times – "The Twitter Times is a real-time personalized newspaper generated from your Twitter account" sort of interesting.

Wu-Note Project – wu-tang clan covers redone as if they were blue note sleeves.

Scientists perform sex change operation on papaya – "Researchers help frustrated farmers by simplifying the complex sex life of this succulent fruit." wait a minute, fruit have sex organs? no way not to remember that next time i eat my daily apple.

Comedy Central orders the Onion TV pilot – "Comedy Central is teaming with satirical newspaper the Onion for a half-hour scripted comedy." sounds like a plan good for a few laughs.

Kerixep – very simple, very nice flash puzzle game, level 26 was toughest for me…

EMI Sues BlueBeat for Selling Beatles Tunes Online – "The entire catalog of stereo Beatles albums will soon be legitimately available in digital, albeit physical, form. Apple Corp. and EMI announced the pre-order availability of 30,000 16-GB Apple-shaped USB drives containing 14 albums in lossless 24-bit FLAC (better than CD quality) and 320 Kbps MP3 formats, 13 short documentary films about the albums, album art, “rare photos” and expanded liner notes, all accessible directly or through a Flash player that automatically loads on Macs and PCs. It’s quite a statement — especially the 24-bit depth of the lossless files, which allows more gradations between volume levels than standard 16-bit (CD-quality) audio files. The only catch — they cost $280. EMI and Apple Corp. plan to release the drives on Dec. 8." when beatles joins the digital “revolution”. i quite like the dongle idea.

anyone gotta bone for Paris? – they both go, yapp yapp yapp yapp yapp yapp…

World of Warcraft ordered to shut down in China again – "A Chinese government agency, the General Administration of Press and Publication, has once again revoked the permit required to operate the game." gold farmers should be happy about this.

Dutch hacker holds jailbroken iPhones "hostage" for €5 (Updated) – "One Dutch hacker managed to find and hack into jailbroken iPhones, though it seems the hacker was more interested in a few euros than malicious ends. However, the incident is another reminder that users of jailbroken iPhones need to be more vigilant about security." cheeky cunt.

Halloween 2009: Making Mario – "They returned home and one mustache later, the Mario brothers were cavorting on the front lawn." i resisted to post any halloween stuff, till luigi and mario were just too adorable.

swiss focus

Einladung zur Piratenversammlung vom 05. Dezember 2009 in Bern | Piratenpartei Schweiz – "Am 5. Dezember findet in Bern die erste ordentliche Piratenversammlung (PV) der Piratenpartei Schweiz statt. "

delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed – with all the typos.

my wife did it

Theater Basel – Jekyll und Hyde – my beautiful partner did the backdrop animations for this theater project in basel.

here’s the schedule:
JEKYLL UND HYDE – stückinformation

and an unreadable review in baseldiitsch just for the lulz:

Claude Bühler – Premiere am Theater Basel – unreadable. swissgerman. outch.

recipe of the week [in german, sorry - l2usegoogletranslate]

Gâteau au raisiné Saft Kuchen aus der Romandie – c’est magnifique!

online video killed the …

Вивальди "времена года",Лето-3часть – ze russian accordeon boy genius. gotta love the headbump.

Cartman Covers Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" – "Cartman singing "Poker Face" over a montage of Stan fighting Japanese whalers." the whale sorry whole episode is great, of course, but this you must watch.

Flintstones in Stop Motion. – "We did this stop motion sequence for Cartoon Network's "Flintstones: On the Rocks" a few of years ago. There have been a number of requests that we post this….Click on the image to watch." winnnrarrrrr!

Jon Stewart on McCain's Anti-Net-Neutrality Bill – "Try as I might, I never quite understood the net neutrality debate. All I knew was nerds cared very deeply about it, so I assumed it had something to do with Cheeto taxes or Real Doll tariffs. But on last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart broke it down into simple terms even a touched halfwit like me can understand." public service. and the website he mentions actually does exist! pro.

schmooze and abuse

World of Warcraft and Philsophy – "Continuing with the ongoing Popular Culture and Philosophy series, World of Warcraft and Philosophy, (Wrath of the Philosopher King) will be hitting bookshelves on November 1st. This collection of essays and short fiction addresses the ethics, economics, and metaphysics of Azeroth and its inhabitants." i ordered this (along with my next game card … o.O.)

Google Wave as an RPG environment – "Ars Technica reports on the nascent Google Wave RPG scene, in which wavesters are amusing themselves by using Google's collaboration tool s a surprisingly effective (for some games) means of keeping track of the action in game"

Motorola Droid – want! finally! smokes the iphone on so many levels. and even the design is growing on me.

Innovation in Open Networks – Creative Commons, the Next Layer of Openness – "A few months ago, McKinsey & Co. asked me to write an article for their online magazine What Matters. The edited article, "Creative Commons: Enabling the next level of innovation" was just posted to their site. Following is the unedited original version." joi does not say a word, but was he unhappy with the edits? maybe?

URBAN CURSOR – "Urban Cursor is a GPS enabled object designed to facilitate social interaction and play in public space."

No Need To UNplug – "It’s not that people are reckless or unconcerned about the environment, but sometimes simple and easy things like this becomes too much of an effort."

Explain DRM to Your Dad – "Then you have your loved ones caught in the middle of a growing debate. How do you explain to your dad why he can't play that music file? " does it work with mums?

Internet addresses set for change – "The internet regulator has approved plans to allow non-Latin-script web addresses, in a move that is set to transform the online world."

Neue Arbeiten von SpY – “I updated my website with new interventions in Madrid, NYC, Rotterdam, Bilbao… this summer I was in NYC and I worked a bit on the streets … I Hope you like it!” we do we do.

Lord Mandelson to ban illegal filesharers – "Lord Mandelson will today set out plans to ban computer users who illegally download music and videos from the internet." and next he’ll announce his marriage to … uhm which pop star? … boy george? like sarkosy and bruni, erm. farfetched? i think not!

Felice Varini's town-sized illusion – "The buildings in the town of Vercorin in the Swiss Alps contribute to an impressive piece by Felice Varini, called Cercle et suite d'éclats. The pattern was projected on the town from the vantage point, then traced and painted."

Scareware launched from tech blog – "Visitors to technology blog Gizmodo are being warned that they could have picked up more than tips about the latest must-have gadget." endgadget is probably having a field day.

Chamber Sues the Yes Men – "The Chamber of Commerce is suing the Yes Men over the parody press conference the group pulled off last week." oh, come on.

Facebook users protest over news feed – "1,175,000 Facebookers have joined the group "Change Facebook back to normal!!", and this is not the only discussion board. "Please give us our old news feed back!" boasts 530,000 member by now. And they still grow. Fast." i joined.

Cybercrooks Trick Gawker Into Serving Malware-Laced Ad – "Remember when the global economic crisis was supposed to drive legions of desperate, unemployed computer programmers into cybercrime? It turns out the real threat comes from unemployed advertising agents."

Tobold's MMORPG Blog: Facebook games: Scam or useful tool? – mmo player analyzes facebook.

Average Internet Speeds and Costs Around the World – infographic.

Crack & Shine: London's graffiti scene – ""Graffiti is .. a controversial subject dividing opinion and rousing powerful debate, yet almost nothing is known about the true motivations and inspirations of the artists themselves. This book offers an exclusive insight into this thriving, contemporary sub-culture,” writes Isobel Evans in the introduction to the new book, Crack and Shine." book.

delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed – with all the typos.

online video killed the …

Google Street View Guys – "Ever wonder what it’s like for the dudes who have to drive those Google camera cars around? I think it’s a little something like this…"

'Chap-Hop History' by Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer – "The history of hip-hop. In five minutes. On the banjolele." odd to the extreme. [via b3ta]

CARDBOARD a cardboard animation! – "Student Graduation Animation by Sjors Vervoort." cardboard stop-motiona [via ze frank]

I Love xkcd – "There are so many things to love in this world. Based on the xkcd comic "xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel"

Drunkest Guy Ever Tries to Buy Beer, Gets Remixed – "now the internet has bequeathed us many, many remixes of the footage, and they're pretty entertaining." i like the third one from the top best, the silent film version. and btw. this guy is probably on pcp.

Swoon – "she is neither a pirate nor a street artist. And even if her real name is known these days, that is also neither here nor there." interview with swoon.

Бешеный автобус – Перми 19.10.2009 9:42 – oh boy

schmooze and abuse

klunk garden – "»Klunk Garden«, 2009 by Gelitin." nice @$$, say wat!

Zweintopf: Imagineering  Kunst im Konsumtempel – group art show in a shopping center

Mediamatic Travel – "Working in the arts? Planning a trip? 45 euros will get you a consultation session of an expert guide at your destination."

Left vs Right – "A concept-map exploring the Left vs Right political spectrum. A collaboration between David McCandless and information artist Stefanie Posavec, taken from my book The Visual Miscellaneum"

Bacon Jam: Its Bacon You Can SPREAD – "Whats better than bacon? Nothing, unless its a new way to get it in my mouth" orilly

Exercise? A fat lot of good that is for weight loss – "In the fight against obesity, we’re urged to get off the couch. Yet new research claims that diet is what counts" now there’s good news

delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed – with all the typos.

online video killed the …

The YES dance – "How to YES." zes queenz…

New Video of the NYSAT – Public Ad Campaign’s New York Street Advertising – the video.

Incredible Time-Lapse Graffiti by Blu and David Ellis – "A masterpiece of a collaboration between Bologna-based street artist and stop-motion painter Blu, and painter, film-maker and music performer David Ellis, COMBO is mesmerising, hands-on time lapse street art the like of which you might not have seen before." i almost fainted so good.

Fight on SF Muni Bus in Chinatown – SFist – "Just another day on Muni… fuc**ng Muni," relents the cameraman shooting this video of a fight between two women on a Chinatown Muni bus.” well, he’s the cunt.

Road Safety: Bleeding Billboard – road sign campaign in new zealand uses bleeding billboards for safer driving. i am not so sure this ain’t a distraction.

schmooze and abuse

Please be patient – This Page is Under Construction! – a collection of "under construction" gifs. [bia b3ta]

Stop Making That Duckface! – "you know that face you make when you're about to take that perfect shot of yourself for myspace? you know, the one where you push your mouth out in that weird combination of a pout and a kissy face make it look like you've got big pouty lips and model-quality cheekbones? it's called "duckface" a worthy mission. or is it? [via b3ta]

They Shoot Porn Stars Don't They . Words & photos by Susannah Breslin – i just might read this.

Drawings on paper towel von Marc Johns – very inspiring.

Polanski 'finishing film in jail' – "Director Roman Polanski is finishing his latest film from jail, according to screenwriter Robert Harris." as you would. and now he is in hospital, i just read.

Bern Design Award 2009 for BD – "We are happy to announce that this years “Berner Design Preis 2009″ from “Bernische Stiftung für angewandte Kunst und Gestaltung” is ours." gratz! i love these guys, they share the price with an upcoming talented graphic design collective.

The Internet is about to die. Literally die! – "One research group continues to claim that the "sky is falling" on the Internet thanks to high data growth rates and that network neutrality means the whole Internet could just "go away." Ars sifts through the hyperbole looking for a kernel of truth." lies.

Peer-to-Peer Passé, Report Finds – "Peer-to-peer file sharing has been the bogeyman of the internet, but a new report suggests it’s destined become a fear of the past — replaced by cheap streaming video." and boy, is that better for bandwidth…

Finland makes 1Mb broadband access a legal right – "Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communications has made 1-megabit broadband Web access a legal right … every person in Finland (a little over 5 million people, according to a 2009 estimate) will have the right of access to a 1Mb broadband connection starting in July"

Skywave Systems | abocmix – a pretty brilliant boards of canada mix.

World's most beautiful object…officially – “The Gyrofocus, designed by the award-winning contemporary fireplace maker Focus, has been named as the World's Most Beautiful Object for the 2008-2009 Pulchra design competition.” want!

'Veggie' spider shuns meat diet – "It is the first-known predominantly vegetarian spider; all of the other known 40,000 spider species are thought to be mainly carnivorous." vegetarian but as ugly as ever.

Five great new browser games to discover – "Anyway, here's a selection of newcomers, all worth a look – while the boss isn't watching, of course…"

Anti-Pirates Scare Kids with Propagandistic Comic Book – "The Motion Picture Association has sent one of its big shot lobbyists to New Zealand to advocate tougher anti-piracy legislation, and to promote a propagandistic comic book set be handed out to thousands of local kids."

Barbie Is Turning 50! – “ChatterBox Arts International presents the San Francisco 7th Annual Altered Barbie Exhibit taking place at Shotwell 50 Studios. Happy 50th Birthday Barbie!” introducing, barbie art.

Girl's death posted on Facebook – "DETAILS of a car crash in which a teenage girl died have been posted on the Facebook social networking site before the her family was informed."

Why France Telecom employees are killing themselves – “In their suicide notes, some of the 24 victims since February 2008 blame the workplace climate.”

Nasty Old People – "get the movie! The movie is released with a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA License."

delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed – with all the typos.

online video killed the …

Post-It Note Atari – "Stop motion animation of Atari games using Post-It Notes"

schmooze and abuse

BoingBoing s Redesign Uncovers the Dark Side of Web Fonts – "Culture news site Boing Boing recently tried a daring experiment — redesign its immensely popular website using some largely untested tools of the open web. Unfortunately for Boing Boing, its ambitious plan resulted in a small disaster."

Nicolas "Copyright" Sarkozy mass-pirates DVDs – "The same French president who has for the second time brought in three strikes to France has for the second time been caught infringing copyright on a large scale. The presidential audiovisual services have produced 400 unauthorized copies of the 52-minute documentary 'A visage decouvert: Nicolas Sarkozy.' This is quite impressive as the producer of the documentary has only shipped 50 copies."

Beck Tries to Kill Parody Website : Dispatches from the Culture Wars – "I don't know if you've ever seen the Did Glenn Beck Rape and Murder a Young Girl in 1990 website, but it's fairly amusing. It's a political satire of the style of argument Glenn Beck likes to engage in, which involves requiring that someone prove a negative"

Annual campaign kickoff — CC remix T-shirt by Shepard Fairey! – "Today marks the launch of Creative Commons’ 5th Annual Fundraising Campaign. This year, more than ever before, it is vital that we all support choice and sharing online."

Best Riot Picture Ever !! – "A farmer sprayed milk on policemen during a protest against falling milk prices outside the E.U.’s headquarters in Brussels" from comments: "Udderly ridiculous"

Yoga above the clouds on Flickr – "Yep, no editing here. Just some wicked jump from RC and Mike, really good timing, and a great background to go with it. "

Public Enemy asking fans to raise $250,000 to help record new album – "Public Enemy are asking fans to help fund the recording of their next album. The rap collective have signed a deal with fan funding engine SellaBand, and are aiming to raise $250,000 in increments of $25 in order to record and release the as-yet-untitled album."

the top 8 of 2008 ceo compensation – "GOOD's executive compensation infographic shows the compensation levels of the business world's top execs, with the number of minimum wage earners each super-suit's take-home pay would support."

The Pirate Bay Relocates to a Nuclear Bunker – "The Pirate Bay is going on a road trip through Europe, one they hope to end today in a former NATO bunker. After a move from Sweden to the Ukraine, The Pirate Bay has now arrived at CyberBunker, an ISP that can provide them with a facility that can resist a nuclear attack as well as electromagnetic pulse bombs."

Anarchist arrested after tweeting out the fuzz to protesters – "If you're the subversive type, you might want to reconsider tweeting the revolution. One Twitter user has been arrested and had his home raided after he allegedly used the service to help others commit crimes, though he may have just been directing them to be cautious during their protests."

Alcohol Abstainers at Higher Risk of Depression – "A study of 38,000 Norwegians suggests a surprising benefit of alcohol for people who drink: an apparently lower risk of depression than people who abstain completely"

Charts to Help You Succeed in Online Dating – "If you're investing your time and money on an online dating service and want to increase your chances of getting a reply from someone you're interested in, don't tell them they're "hot." Instead, tell them you dig zombie movies."

New rules to end 'blogger payola' – "US regulators will for the first time crack down on bloggers who fail to disclose fees or freebies they get from companies for reviewing products." time to find a new job, kottke et al.

England match to be internet only – "England's World Cup qualifier in Ukraine on Saturday will be shown exclusively live to subscribers on the internet who will pay at least £4.99." this scares me

Punkanimals 2 – Worth1000 Contests – blatantly stolen form our http://web-laun.ch/microz/monkeypunx/

Herakut & Style and the Family Tunes on Vimeo – "08-10-009 Schönhauser Allee 8 Livepainting + more…. " Herakut live painting in berlin this week.

“Nothing But”: Outdoor-Gruppenausstellung in Berlin / UPDATE – "llegale Adbusting-Gruppenausstellung in Berlin – und zwar in Form von Citylight-Postern zwischen Neukölln und Mitte." illegal adbusting exhibit in berlin, some very impressive ideas.

(Still_Available) – romanpolanski.ch is, or at least was until very recently, still available. [via rebel:art]

delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed – with all the typos.

music

i own over 5000 vinyl records, yup, still keep them! and 500 or more CDs. so it’s not like i NEED more music. or do i?

looking for music online often is based on a mood, a fluke. it is spur of the moment, and once you set your mind to wanting music by a certain artist you want it fast and you want it in a comfortable way. everything – or almost – is available online now. it would be – will be some day – the ideal place to shop for music. often it is music i own on vinyl that i want in digital form.

i usually do look around if i find music in a legal way. however, iTunes is not an option because of the godawful drm they slap onto their mp3s, amazon does not sell mp3s in switzerland yet, the russian websites are not fully legal, or i have no clue, and i am afraid to submit my credit card data. so i usually end up checking for a torrent. and i usually find it and download it within seconds, great quality, no drm, easy, fast.

give me all music exactly like that and i will gladly pay for it. ideally i think some sort of subscription based model will have the best future, you pay a certain amount per year and have a quota for downloading music. in the meantime i am stuck with having to download music illegally. once a year i donate money to creativecommons to justify this as an “act of private conscientious objection against laws believed to be indefensible”. ha! yeh, that’s a quote from the wired article.

notable alternatives are bleep.com and certain record labels, like ninjatune, or artists selling their music directly online, where i always gladly pay for music and end up spending somewhere between $ 50.- and 100.- per year. this would be another concern i have, if i knew the money went straight to the artists or to labels where artists are treated in a fair way, yes, i would gladly pay for music. but the music industry is a mad old whale. kill it. reinvent it.

give me music with

no drm
fair deals to the artists
good quality
available fast and comfortable
everything available

and i’ll pay for it.

video

not much to add really. give me a comfortable, easy, fast way to download films or tv series drm-free and i will gladly pay for it.

here the main issue i have living in europe are release times. everyone and their dog will be talking about certain movies or tv shows, but here in europe we have to wait. and wait. and wait. and then wait some more. to then sometimes see the shows in their horrible synchronized versions on tv years later? while we could comfortably download the torrents and see it within hours of its original air time? no way.

i mostly download tv series these days. usually 2-3 series at a time, switching over the years. again, give me this service, torrents, fast, good quality, and i will pay for it. in the meantime i am stuck downloading illegally and donating to my favorite charity. till then.

online video killed the …

28 Days Later, in one minute, in one take. – one of them "in one take" videos with a b3ta twist. for more of these see bellow.

Babelgum: Bomb It – The Movie – "Featuring street artists and top graffiti writers from five continents, Bomb It – The Movie updates the story of graffiti with a truly international perspective." watched the whole thing. well done. where’s banksy?

new time vid :: diplomacy – let iran "win", says ze frank.

Skateboarders play human Tetris – "What better way to show off your skateboard line-up than have skaters pelt down a San Francisco slope carrying giant, neon Tetris pieces, all slotting perfectly into place?"

Robin Cooper & family v The Telemarketer – “Telemarketers are constantly calling me at home, so a few months ago I decided to get my own back. When a guy called from some satellite TV sort of company thingy (it’s always so vague) I had a bit of fun. Hope you like…” in fact he wrote a short screenplay featuring 4 family members. excellent!

the c bump – "stephen colbert ( silent "t" ) mashed up into a song about, what else, sugar!!!"

7 Most Amazing One-Take Video Clips – "What is it about one-take video clips that capture our imaginations? Perhaps it's because we've become so cynical about video editings that the pure, raw form of a single, uninterrupted shot truly stands out."

schmooze and abuse

Jennifer, will you marry me? A marriage proposal on telephone poles turns sour – "A mystery woman called Jennifer has become the talk of the town in Bigola, NSW, Australia, after a series of signs appeared on telephone poles along Barrenjoey Rd, the busiest road in the area… " is this pure evil? [via b3ta]

IT Crowd and Peep Show get new series orders – "The new series is set to air next year." imba!

Getting Over It – "What does rape do to you? Afterward? It changed me; there is before and after. Before, a child, playing with Barbies, looking sideways at boys, wondering. After, confusion. Depression. A litany of fuck-ups and fuck-its, whatevers, mistakes, trusting no one, least of all myself. Before, sex was mysterious; after, miasma. I was tarred as a Lolita. I was called jail bait." food for thought regarding this whole polanski mess.

Twitter's Gangster Spam Trap – "Twitter’s innocuous-looking mobster game has turned the micro-messaging service into an unstoppable spam service. And just like the real Mafia, once you join, you can never get out."

MeeHive: About – "MeeHive is your personal newspaper that brings you the latest about what's happening in your world."

New Apps Promise to Find the News in All the News – "The good news is that there are a lot of news sources from which to choose. The bad news: There are a lot of news sources to monitor."

FUCK YOU Cookie – Performance – "Each website installs cookies on the computers of their website users. They cavort to hundreds on every computer, too often without knowing it by the owners. It`s so easy to generate a cookie just to place it unnoticed afterwards. Therefore we have a website, solely for this purpose, programmed. The value of our cookies, as well as the name is set to "FUCK YOU"."

FUCK YOU COOKIE – "FUCK YOU COOKIES FOR FREE You have just get the official "FUCK YOU" cookie! It is the most beautiful cookie ever, and now it is yours! Send this URL simply to all your friends, so that they can get a free "FUCK YOU" cookie, too!"

Links in Print: The Story of a Beautiful Failure – "In January 2009 we were invited to take part in a paid pitch for the print redesign for the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger. All in all five agencies took part in the pitch. We were the only UX oriented agency. The story of a beautiful failure." i agree, more stories like these would be great.

The Emoticon t-shirt that projects your mood – "The ThumbsUp Emoticon T-shirt features four different emoticons and can be changed according to your mood. To change your expression, you simply press the front of the light-up panel on the T-shirt."

Express yourself with a designer barcode – "QR codes – the two-dimensional barcodes that link printed graphics to websites via your web-enabled phone – are becoming artworks in their own right. The codes can contain thousands of characters within their grid. If the amount of data to be conveyed is small, that leaves space free to add images."

Say Oktoberfest-related Phrases in German – "Heading to Oktoberfest? Make sure to brush up on your German and Bavarian slang before you go. Study up, and you'll always know where to find the Heisl, or what to do when invited to play a round of Fingahackln." oh the strange fascination with octoberfest… they even had pretzel and sauerkraut howto recipes on wired this week, eewww…

Polanski notes leaked on to net – "The Associated Press (AP) news agency has accidentally published internal notes about the arrest of film director Roman Polanski instead of a story." and yet again, it's so embarassing to be swiss these days. i mean if he did rape that girl, yes, he is a pig and deserves to get arrested. but why now? and why in switzerland, after so many years that he has been vacationing in gstaad? why in the context of switzerland under pressure by the US regarding other issues (UBS bank)? and why arrest him when he is here to attend the zurich film festival and not when shopping in gstaad?

Sexploitation for the Ears – "Listen to it here. Playlist is after the jump."

delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed – with all the typos.

sage, the kitchen herb, has a really unique flavor, that i absolutely love. yet while there are many meat and some fish recipes that use sage, for vegetarians the options seem rather limited – or so i thought – pasta with butter and sage was all that came to mind. this year, however, i discovered a few other recipes, that use this very special herb.

[all these recipes use fresh green sage. never tried the, with the dried herb]

salbei müsli – sage mice (this is a recipe from zurich, switzerland)

create a batter the way you like it. we use flour, oil, soymilk, salt, pepper, no extra spices, trying to keep it as simple as possible.
take the biggest sage leaves you can find, clean them, leave a good stem on the leaf – this will be the “tail” of the mice ^^.
turn the leaf in the batter, fry till golden brown on both sides in olive oil. enjoy!

sage pesto

instead of basil, use sage and parsley for your pesto – 50/50 – parsley is added mostly to tone the sage flavor down just a little, but don’t worry sage will still be the dominating flavor. we only use olive oil, pine nuts and parmesan in our pesto. garlic might be a little too strong for this mixture. but give it a try, if garlic is your thing.

(we ate this at by pietro leemann’s fantastic restaurant joia in milano. in one of his books we also discovered a version that uses celery leaves. we tried that as well and it’s amazing as well)

bean paste with sage

take very ripe green beans, open the pods and take out the beans.
cook till soft in milk, we use soymilk, which works fine.
in a bowl add the soft beans, splash with some olive oil, add salt, pepper and some sage. blend.
this paste works well on foccacia, bruschette or toast.

(this recipe is from one of vour cook books, but i can’t currently find which, will update it later)

the yes men

YES MEN HONCHO SPRUNG FROM CLINK | The Yes Men – "Balls Across America" direct-action campaign launched NYPD abuse of authority big factor in arrest"

Cops Arrest "Yes Man" Co-Founder in Latest Prank – "Andy Bichlbaum, wearing the giant inflatable orb known as the SurvivaBall, was down by the East River demonstrating its utility as a "self-contained living system" when cops nabbed him and ticketed seven other Yes Men, according to a published report."

New York Post – "According to a high tech study commissioned by a concerned Mayor Bloomberg and generously funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, climate change caused by human-created greenhouse gases is threatening the health, livelihood, and security of New Yorkers—especially those who take the subway to work." fake new york post on the threat of global warming released by the yes men.

online video killed the …

Baby Dancing to Beyonce – "Cory's favourite music video" possibly the cutest thing ever. [via b3ta]

taxman rx – "an outtake from our upcoming release of obama covering the beatles' taxman. "

Ze Frank Throws a Tea Party – "Ze Frank laments that it's tough to throw a tea party these days, and his little party turns ugly fast" slightly disturbing.

Thom Yorke Adds Sonic Catharsis to Moving My Shining Star – "When former Miracle Legion and Polaris front man Mark Mulcahy’s wife, Melissa, died suddenly in 2008, all-star friends Thom Yorke, Black Francis and more banded together to pull him and his young twin daughters through the earth-shattering tragedy. "

Mr. Hair Hat – the title of the video says it all.

Porn equal Art – "What do George Bush, Paris Hilton and Hugh Hefner have in common? Artist Jonathan Yeo has made porn collages of all of them." [via wooster]

Slow Moscow – "Moscow in slow motion Camera and montage – Andrey Stvolinsky Music – Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble" love it.

Thom Yorke – The Hollow Earth – by Raymond Salvatore Harmon – "This is the official music video for the forthcoming release by Thom Yorke. Subliminal imagery appropriated from Banksy"

schmooze and abuse

"Sleepers" – The Latest Series From Mark Jenkins – "Mark Jenkins' "Sleepers" was done in Winston-Salem NC with the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Arts"

Colossal Green Volcano Building Rises in Italy – "A jaw-dropping feat of architecture has risen in the Italian city of Nola, just a stone’s throw away from the cataclysmic Mt. Vesuvius. Designed by Renzo Piano, Vulcano Buono is an epic cone-shaped commercial center crowned with a gorgeous sloping green roof." bern’s already impressive renzo piano building, paul klee zentrum, fades next to this.

One chromosome too many | James Maybe – the last supper "this sequence of 5 images portrays Jesus and his 12 disciples as “sufferers” from Down syndrome…" [via b3ta]

One sentence contained within every HTML tag in alphabetical order. – view the source code.

Sumo Suit Athletics World Championships – "Slower, Lower, Weaker! Can't compete with Usain Bolt over 100m? Not able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? Well have no fear, in a Sumo Suit no one can!" good thinking.

Woofer | Macroblogging – "What are you doing? (minimum 1400 characters)" twitter spoof.

Joi Ito talks about Creative Commons, Twitter, and the White House – "Joi Ito, chief executive of Creative Commons, talks about its licensing – and about how Twitter can make money from mobiles. Full transcript of interview."

Google Sidewiki: Danger – "Google just introduced Sidewiki, which enables anyone to comment on a page using Google’s toolbar. I see danger. Google is trying to take interactivity away from the source and centralize it."

Plastic-Bottle Boat to Set Sail Across the Pacific – "David de Rothschild discusses the building of the Plastiki, a catamaran made entirely of recyclable plastics, that he plans to sail across the Pacific Ocean."

Yoga Instructor Fail – from the comments: " Well – I may be wrong… but I only see chicks in that fancy yoga-studio. I think they like it too… Lets say benefit for all!"

The undefeated 2003/04 Arsenal FC team – "The other one was done after my Arsenal-supporting mate John suggested it: looking at the assembly and disassembly of the undefeated 03/04 Arsenal team."

English Premier League history – "A couple of soccer infographics today. First, there's a look at all the teams that are or have been in the (English) Premier League, and which other divisions they've been in during since the 92/93 season."

Subway Yearbook Photos
"For our latest mission, we installed a photography studio on a random subway car. We claimed that the MTA had hired us to take photos of every single person who rides the subway and that we’d be producing a yearbook at the end of the year."

Video games need a more diverse cast of characters – "The survey reveals that males, adults and white people are over-represented in games. Females, black people, children and the elderly are correspondingly under-represented."

Arse Elektronika 2009 – "We may not forget that mankind is a sexual and tool-using species. And that's why our annual conference Arse Elektronika deals with sex, technology and the future."

Break with Tradition : MJ Tribute – "Our tribute to Michael Jackson, ironically, consists of a list of the best covers we’ve found on youtube by average, acoustic artists who decided to cover Michael Jackson as a tribute to his death."

Emoji Dick — Kickstarter – "This project will fund the production, via crowd sourcing, of a never-before-released translation of Herman Melville's classic Moby Dick in Japanese emoji icons."

Bagless Canister Cyclonic Vacuum – "What if you strip down all world’s ads of all those Passenger’s Seat with 4-way Power Adjustment Odyssey Honda Cars and 9.99c Handmade Glycerin Soap Soaps and Free Delivery Books and Free Nights & No-Fee Flights and Last-minute Deals Big Savings Travel Right Now Flights and Counter-High Office Refrigerators and Two 2.26GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon Nehalem Processors Computers and Titanium Technology Fused Graphite Tennis Racquet Super Sale and Mega Pixel Canon CMOS Sensor Digital High Camera and Leakage Tested Microwaves and 30-Pack Sildenafil Citrate (100mg) Vardenafil (20mg) and Tadalafil (20mg) and Dyson Stowaway Dc20 Bagless Canister Cyclonic Vacuum Cleaner and Super High Resolution Dynamic Contract Ratio Auto Motion Plus SRS TruSurrount Component Composite S Video PC Inputs TV Set and Megatronix Megalarm Viking & Megapage Automobile & Motorcycle Security & Remote Starter Systems Fantastic Bargains and Sales and and and?" yeh, what if?

Google Releases A Nuke. Apple Won’t Win This Fight. – "There’s no longer any question – either Google or Apple is flat out lying to the FCC"

German Youth Would Vote Pirate Party Into Parliament – "Next week the German Pirate Party will compete in the elections for the German Parliament, but this week the country’s youth already cast their votes. In the youth polls nearly 9% of all votes went to the Pirate Party, a result that the party hopes to match in the upcoming election." go go go german youth.

Lift at home | Lift conference, what can the future do for you? – "Every conference has to become more open, letting external contributions in, reaching to global audiences via online talks. Today's conferences are not conferences, they are communities of people who share the same interests and values." a noble initiative.

delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed – with all the typos.

online video killed the …

Incredible, amazing, awesome Apple – "Note: No cuts are repeated." sad, more like.

9.12 DC TEA PARTY – MARCH FOOTAGE WITH INTERVIEWS – "we went to Washington DC to document the Tea Party protests against, well, a lot of things, including health insurance reform, the IRS, abortion, global warming, and our "socialist/communist/fascist/Nazi/Muslim " president, Barack Obama." it is soooo scary what is happening in the US.

schmooze and abuse

MP CHANGE – lets you upload a photo of yourself that will get animated. it’s a bit creepy. [via b3ta]

kanyelicio.us – kayneliced mah website then. [via b3ta]

Net Hoax Convinces Germany of Fake U.S. Suicide Bombing Attempt – "All of Germany was bamboozled Thursday by a bizarre scheme that tricked the country’s main wire service into reporting an attempted suicide bombing in a California town — an attack supposedly perpetrated by a non-existent rap group called the “Berlin Boys.” The work of German filmmakers peddling a satirical movie called Short Cut to Hollywood, the elaborate hoax involved at least two faked websites, a faked Wikipedia entry and California phone numbers for “public safety” officials that were actually being answered by hoaxsters in Germany using Skype." zes germans, sigh.

Big New York Event – Sept. 21 – "Come join the Yes Men and a large coalition of activists in some massive plans to save the world on Monday, September 21 in New York City. It could make a really big difference, and it'll be tons of fun. We can't guarantee making history – but we're sure going to try." sounds exiting. wish i was in NYC. beam me over, scotty.

Robots – The Old Robots Web Site – "DID YOU KNOW : THIS WEB SITE IS USED TO IDENTIFY, RECORD AND RETAIN INFORMATION ON ROBOTS"

Denmark pulls 'promiscuous' video – "A video promoting tourism in Denmark has been removed from YouTube after complaints it promoted promiscuity."

Some Notes On iTunes LP – "Feature-wise, an iTunes LP is a DRM-free album in high-quality 256kbps AAC format, along with digital extras (visualizer(s), photos, videos and interviews) wrapped in a custom WebKit-powered site."

The Putting Lot – "Welcome to The Putting Lot: Bringing miniature golf to Bushwick, Brooklyn for the summer of 2009! The Putting Lot explores the possibilities of vacant lots in the city with an emphasis on community spaces."

swiss/german corner

Watchlist: Princess Hijab – “Ich bin eine visuelle Terroristin”, sagt Princess Hijab, “der Dschihad ist meine Kunst.”

BD Skittles Portrait Photo 2009 – by Rolf Siegenthaler added to BD info pages.

delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed – with all the typos.

francis uprichard – save yourself @ new zealand pavilion – brilliant, funky clay figures, well worth the 2 hours of running around in heavy rain trying to find the pavilion… [photo above]

miranda july – eleven heavy things @ arsenale (behind the italian pavillion) – miranda’s work says “please touch” and as usually she creates pieces that intend to get people to interact. [photo above]

natalie djurberg – experiment – giradini (palazzo delle esposizione) – 3 intense claymation videos set in a dramatically lit fantasy garden.

teresa margolles – what else could we talk about – mexican pavillion – margolles uses the blood of mexican murder victims to create an environment that will haunt you.

gonkar gyatso – the shambala in modern times – arsenale – this tibetan living in london marries the iconic tibetan art of his homeland with western brands and iconography.

also worth a visit: estonian pavillion – kristina norman [photo above], the fear society [photo above], wales pavilion – john cale, australian pavilion – maddestmax imvs, shaun gladwell

ahhh, venice, tons of walking till your feet bleed, terrible food, mosquitos, and rain rain rain. yet always so inspiring… be back in two years, if the city won’t sink into the sea before then.

where we stayed: bed & breakfast fujiyama – a very nice bed & breakfast, close to everything, 5 m. to academia, comfortable rooms in japanese decor cost us 120.- euro per night.
where we ate: restaurant avogaria – good food can be almost impossible to find in venice, this place is a little on the pricy side, but the food is really quite good.
what we will do next visit: rent an appartment for a week and cook our own food!

make sure to pick up the unofficial map/guide produced by british council because the official festival map is unusable this year. it can be dowloaded from artupdate.com/venice [pdf]

online video killed the …

Ze Frank on Labor Day and Socialism – "Ze Frank ponders Labor Day, Socialism, and hats!"

schmooze and abuse

National Flags Made Out of Food – "national flags of participating countries were recreated using popular local foods of each nation." an idea i had before but never did.

Random Thoughts of People Our Age – "Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong." love the list. seems that it got sent 35 x to the author already after he published it…

Solar Powered Skins for iPhones and iPod Touch – "It looks like Apple gadget users will have a new way to charge up iPods and iPhone devices with the sun, thanks to the latest from NovoThink. The company has released the Solar Surge, a skin with an integrated solar cell capable of charging the Apple devices on 100% solar power."

The Unusuals – "The initial series order was for 10 episodes. Show creator Noah Hawley announced via his twitter account in mid-May 2009 that ABC would not be bringing the show back for a second season.[2]" oh noes, i really liked this show!

Yoga Dogz – "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded" thats what you get for getting plugged on boingboing…

Germany's New AIDS-Awareness Ad — Starring Hitler – "Germany's latest AIDS-awareness commercial evokes some strong emotions: shock, disgust, nausea. And that's exactly the point. The controversial ad, which was released online on Sept. 3 and starts running on German TV on Wednesday, Sept. 9, shows a couple having steamy sex in a dimly lit room with menacing music playing in the background. The viewer sees only the back of the man's head until the very end, when the camera pans to his face — to reveal that he's Adolf Hitler. Then the slogan flashes across the screen: "AIDS is a mass murderer." "

Dictator Wars on Facebook – looks promising, not a clue yet how it works

Clickstarter – "aims to let creative people of all kinds — journalists, artists, musicians, game developers, entrepreneurs, bloggers — raise money for their projects by connecting directly with fans, who receive exclusive access and rewards in exchange for their patronage." [via waxy]

Torrage – Torrent Storage Cache – "You can not search or list torrent files that are stored here, you can only access them if you already know the info_hash value of the torrent you want to download. " the beast that cannot be contained part 2

OpenBitTorrent – An open tracker project – "OpenBitTorrent is a bittorrent tracker free for anyone to use. You don't need to register, upload or index a torrent anywhere, all you have to do is to include the OpenBitTorrent tracker URL in your torrent." the beast that cannot be contained part 1

Novelist Douglas Coupland: the man who sees into the future – a new novel, woot.

The Earth Angel, Adult Sex Toy, Vibrators for Sale, Green Sex Toys – “When developing THE EARTH ANGEL, we wanted to produce an environmentally friendly sex toy that appealed to all consumers regardless of gender, age or ethnicity. THE EARTH ANGEL has been in its development stage for the past two years and we are excited that our vision has become the reality.” for guilt-free masturbating!

delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed – with all the typos.

pheew, don’t have to buy a new one ^^

edit: hmm, not too sure. what do you think?

72.500 visitors – 800 Artists and Scientists from 31 Countries With more than 300 individual events, this year’s festival lineup was the most jam-packed in Ars Electronica’s history. This was made possible by 800 artists, scientists and scholars from 31 countries.
565 Media Outlet Representatives from 38 Countries 565 accredited journalists and bloggers from a total of 38 countries paid a visit to the 2009 festival. The figures by country are as follows: Austria (220), Germany (80), Italy (30), Slovenia (29), Japan (23), Poland (22), Slovakia (14), Spain (14), France (12), Denmark (12), the USA (12), England (9), Australia (6), Taiwan (6), Canada (4), the Philippines (3), South Korea (3), Chile (2) et al.
“We’re absolutely thrilled about the positive feedback this very special festival has gotten,” stated Ars Electronica Artistic Director Gerfried Stocker. “And ultimately, that’s the best 30th-anniversary present we could have received!”

mkay. good good. i am happy for you.

sadly i can’t say i agree. for me this was the worst ars electronica festival of the ten that i attended. maybe there was almost too much going on? it might just be me, but i did not meet as many people as in other years, the festival felt much more dispersed than in other years, it felt like it was all over the place, no real center, the topic of the festival, human nature, did not get treated in as serious a way as they usually do. most of all, i am not happy about the change the symposium went through. it was no longer a stand-alone symposium, but was turned into an extended version of the prix ars artist presentations; well, in two categories, hybrid art and interactive art. i hope this change will not persist.

after 10 visits in 10 years it is probably a good idea to take a break now. i will miss my yearly visits to this shitty (no offense) little city at the danube river. but before things get too sappy here, let me just break off with a quick: servus. twas great! kkthxbai.

so if not decided by a jury, how can winners be determined in a competition like the prix ars?

i think there has to be some form of a crowd process envolved. but as christoph rightly pointed out online voting is out of the question. 4chan hackers are only the most public group who have been exploiting online votes.
but there is one model i heard about, that really has great potential. future everything, the media art festival/conference in manchester, has an online community in which every artist who ever visited the festival was asked to create an online profile. not sure, maybe even visitors can create such profiles. at any rate, it is this community that votes for the winners of the competition.

…

…

best things last. most other prix ars categories this year were one huge heap of pointless blah to me, but all the winners in the digital communities category are really great and deserve to win. wikileaks.org allows journalists to upload sensitive documents in an anonymous way. piratebyran.org is the irc community that famously started the pirate bay in sweden. rasmus fleischer gave a really witty talk, pointing out the dangers that receiving 5000.- euro could represent for a group of online friends like piratebyran, ending his talk with: “i want to thank ars electronica for the 5000 euro and i promise it will not last long”. well, maybe, this would sound almost cynical to the winners, hiperbarrio.org, who could certainly use every penny to further their cause of bringing youth to blog in violence ridden medellin, columbia.

its sunday. feels abit like church, listening to schmidt-salomon, beyond good and evil. #ars09

lawrence malstaf, winner of the golden nica in interactive art, made a funny at the end of his presentation: two planets meet somewhere in the universe. one asks: how are you doing? the other says: not too good, i have homo sapiens. responds the first: oh, don’t worry, it will pass.

jens wunderling, winner of an award of distinction in the interactive art category for default to public, plays around with using twitter status messages in a different context, like printing them as stickers or projecting them in public spaces in the streets of berlin. he realised that some people were outraged at this, surprising in a sense, since it is out there on the internet and available to the public anyway.

…

here’s a thought: how come everyone is blogging, twittering, flickring during these conferences yet as soon as the round table public discussions are about to start many get up and leave? sometimes it feels so autistic sitting here surrounded by people yet staring at this screen all the time.

…

yesterday i happened to sit close by when derrick de kerckhove met his friends after the morning session, minutes after finishing his talk. he asked his friends, what did yo think? to go ahead and answer himself “ze german… he was … pheeww” big sigh, significant eye movement, letting the sentence trail off, clearly showing his admiration for, even intimidation by schmidt-salomon

it felt like i got a small glimpse beyond his public persona. here was this guy, considered to be one of the top intellectuals in the field, director of the mcluhan institute, eloquent speaker to boot etc. asf. yet even he gets insecure when he meets another man who seems to be smarter than himself.

…

americans have this expression, if you cant make it, fake it. for them faking is nothing bad, for europeans faking something has a dishonest ring to it. but if you think about it, why should it? if you start faking something, you start to do it. and practice makes perfect, would be another saying that fits here.

…

interesting moment when the jury member asks the winner of the golden nica in the category interactive art, so, what is interactive about your piece? exactly my question. because the answer that lawrence malstaf gave did not satisfy me; all art should hopefully interact with mental processes in the onlooker, that does not make it interactive art.

#arscloud – twitter messages from the listeners in the room are projected onto a screen. not to be confused with #arschloud.

lets see if the cloud can solve my sleep situation

david sasaki @Oso: My slides from #arscloud at http://www.slideshare.net/oso/cloud-intelligence Sources of stats from “Social Media Revolution” video here: http://bit.ly/8yO9H #ars09

davis sasaki preview of todays cloud intelligence symposium

evgeny morozov’s talk on slacktivism

kristen taylor mentioned this article by cory doctorow on cloud computing during her talk: Not every cloud has a silver lining – There’s something you won’t see mentioned by too many advocates of cloud computing – the main attraction is making money from you

twitterfall.com #arscloud

a few thoughts on the cloud intelligence symposium

it was all good, i can’t disagree with any of the viewpoints expressed at todays cloud intelligence symposium. but as usual there is not much one can add to preaching-to-the-choir conferences. of course in countries like iran and china where censorship tries to dominate online communication, the power of the internet is undeniable as a tool to share information and to bring people together. but some of the blue eyed enthusiasm that mostly the american speakers expressed struck me as naive. evgeny morozov, who introduced himself as the one having to play the role of the bad cop, actually gave me the most food for thought. he introduced the concept of slacktivism, activism for slackers. clicking yes to join a few causes on facebook does not exactly make for efficient activism. he cited the example of a danish guy who started a bogus cause on facebook and within a few days was able to get 28′000 people to join, before divulging that the whole issue was made up.

one other thing that bothered me has to do with language. it seemed that many people have started to use the expression “cloud” very loosly to cover almost anything that happens online. while this is not too far a stretch content-wise, when used that way the expression “cloud” could get old faster than “web 2.0″ was.

online video killed the …

Electrical Sockets [VIDEO] – "why things are like they are"

Quarter Pounder with Cheese – MTV Basterdize Tarantino Contest Winner – pulp fiction for the french.

PACMAN – pac man rap.

100 Famous Rock Guitar Riffs – one take – "For the 100 song titles and artists, check out http://www.brodiecumming.com/events.html"

Creepy, weird hippie yoga teacher / farmer – "Meet this creepy yoga teacher, Yogi Oki-Doki, who wears ugly clothes and lives on a farm with Rasta, a Jamaican 7 foot rooster" [via bb]

Thriller México 29 de Agosto !! – an impressive number of mexicans dancing to thriller

schmooze and abuse

Amazon withdraws Man U chants CD- "Amazon have withdrawn a CD of Manchester United chants from sale on its website because of complaints that some of the lyrics are offensive."

foodgawker | feast your eyes – "foodgawker is a gallery where food bloggers can showcase their food and photography skills"

WhatTheInternetKnowsAboutYou: your browser is giving away your history – "The app is an example of using browser history detection to determine personal preferences of Web browser users and is located at http://whattheinternetknowsaboutyou.com. The history detection hack has been known for quite a while; it works by using the CSS :visited pseudoclass to style visited links differently from unvisited ones, in order to figure out which ones are present in the browser's history and does not require JavaScript." CSS is watching you.

Grand Theft Auto game coming to iPhone – "Rockstar Games, the developers behind the Grand Theft Auto series, announced on Monday that Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars will be coming to Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch this fall." weee, i can drive over old ladies on my ipod soon?

Ugly Dance World Cup 2009 – "You say dance? We say ugly! Everyone is informed of the beauty of deformedness. This is why we organize the 1st annual Ugly Dance World Cup 10th of October 2009 in Hamburg City, Germany."

P2 WordPress Theme, like Twitter in a box – "P2 is a theme for WordPress that transforms a mild-mannered blog into a super-blog with features like inline comments on the homepage, a posting form right on the homepage, inline editing of posts and comments, real-time updates so new posts and comments come in without reloading, and much more."

swiss corner

Genipulation Centre PasquArt – “Gentechnik und Manipulation in der zeitgenössischen Kunst”

Scientists baffled as 'suicidal' cows throw themselves off cliff in Switzerland – "Dozens of alpine cows appear to be committing suicide by throwing themselves off a cliff near the small village in the Alps. In the space of just three days, 28 cows and bulls have mysteriously died after they plunged hundreds of metres to rocks below where they were killed instantly." suicidal cows? just think.

delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed – with all the typos.

after a first day at the symposium i am left with mixed feelings. it seems that the symposium has been repositioned closer to the prix ars and the exhibitions of the festival. the morning session was dedicated to hiroshi ishiguro, this years featured artist, the guy who has created geminoid HI-1, an android robot built after himself, his robotic twin really as the name would suggest (see image above). the afternoon session introduced eduardo kac, the winner of the golden nica in the hybrid art category.

i can imagine that this redesign of the symposium was intended to create a more unified festival experience. but for me it comes as a big loss. i used to really enjoy the symposium to be more stand-alone, a place for a more theoretical discourse, not necessarily connected to the art on show here. i personally never cared too much for the prix ars, as i have quite a few doubts about the jury process and i often found many projects much more deserving of golden nicas than the actual winners. zai from etoy just expressed a very similar point of view, he said, and i paraphrase, that he regrets to see the symposium getting moved more and more to the back burner of the festival, that he always came here to listen. and i would add to that, i came here to listen and get inspired.

later steve lambert was here to represent the many people that worked on the new york times – special edition, winner of an award of distinction in the hybrid art category. a pure delight! he said that much of the project was inspired by the book Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy by Stephen Duncombe, very tempted to order that book. click click click? hmm

More Links:
Interview with Hiroshi Ishiguro
Interview with Eduardo Kac

today i visited a bunch of art openings and trust me, i wanted to write about them. but so far nothing has really exited me. i am drawing an almost complete blank here. it’s probably me, i may just be going through a grumpy, jaded phase.

one project that did amuse me was Opera Calling
by swiss !Mediengruppe Bitnik (CH) and Sven König (DE), winner of an award of distinction i the category interactive art. i don’t think i am being chauvinistic here and just plugging my fellow citizens. it really is a fun, subversive idea. i guess that’s also where my problem lies with most other works, i tend to get exited mostly about politically subversive art these days. from the project website:

«Opera Calling» – is an artistic intervention into the cultural system of the Zurich Opera. By means of an unknown number of audio bugs placed within the auditorium of the local opera house, the outside public is given access to the performances on stage. The performances are retransmitted to the public not through broadcasting, but by telephoning each person individually.

the new ars electronica center is very impressive. it is exactly as a friend told me, i so would have enjoyed a museum like this nearby when i was a kid.