:: Saturday, November 27, 2004 ::

Behold the withholden.

According to Alan Sondheim’s 26-point prosetry, “The General Principle of Narrative (Violence) Under Capital,” the first precept is “_withholding._” This blunt, yet impenetrable, dissertation aims to expose the manipulation of the social diegesis through the systematic denial of information with the purpose of elongating the meta-narrative, or rather the creation of such.

Sondheim’s ideas thread together into an absorbing suggestion, yet fall shy of proposing a clear theoretical explication. This is, however, not likely his purpose. Rather, I imagine, this piece seeks to provide a non-inclusive starting point for the consideration of a type of soft-fascism, and to encourage the examination of individual complicity in the, however stilted, telling of our cultural anecdote.

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Presented in the current issue of Kritikos, Volume 1 2004

The purpose of the “ INTERNATIONAL AND INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF POSTMODERN CULTURAL SOUND, TEXT AND IMAGE,” Kritikos, is “to publish work that materializes theoretical and artistic renderings of, and practical approaches to culture.” In particular, Kritikos seeks to publish work that is focused upon the currency of the postmodern, period.

:: [+] ::
...

SYMPOSIUM ANNOUNCEMENT

ISIMD’05: 3rd International Symposium of Interactive Media Design

"ISIMD aims to be an annual meeting platform to discuss the ongoing advances in the field of interactive media design, new technology and techniques in the industry and their impacts on culture and the arts. The third annual meeting is to be held between January 5 - 7, 2005 at Yeditepe University in Istanbul. Hence the program committee of the International Symposium of Interactive Media Design (ISIMD) invites the submission of papers, workshop proposals and art works to ISIMD’05. Official language of the symposium is English, thus all submission should be made accordingly."

Deadline for submissions of abstracts extended to the end of December 2004.

:: [+] ::
...

I was just home - Lisbon - to speak at the Numero Festival conference. The title of the conference? "Gazing at... Lisbon's landscape: new media strategies and policies".

I saw myself in the strange situation of representing the US in my own country :). Eric Sadin (Tokyo Reengineering) was the other international presence. Initially scheduled to speak, Peppino Ortoleva (Italy) and Gerfried Stocker (Austria) had to miss the event, for different reasons. We had Gerfried by video conference though. Among the other Portuguese speakers, I would like to stress Miguel Leal's presentation about artists and institutions working in Portugal.

My main conclusion is that there is a lot to do in Portugal, in the field of new media. Portugal suffers from an undesirable side-effect of living in a small democratic country: when there is a change of direction (which occurs constantly) - and Director bodies - in entities such as the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Science and Technology, it directly affects the definition of policies of support for the arts. Our government (which funds most of the national cultural and artistic endeavors) still has to define a clear policy in this field... one that may inform universities and instituions alike of strategies and approaches to take.

A lot is happening though even in the absence of consistent governmental support. What is taking place in Portugal right now is of top quality - check out www.virose.pt (that i will be talking about later) to see what I mean.

:: ana boa-ventura [+] ::
...

dLux media arts in Sydney, Australia
is calling for master class applications for
its FutureScreen Mobile project.

If you are a video artist, filmmaker or animator, check out
the 3-day ³MovingMovies² master class conducted by the-phone-book
Limited (UK). For new media artists, designers and other creative
researchers, dLux media arts presents the 3-day master class ³Aware,
shared mobile experience(s)² conducted by Aware (Finland).

For more information on FutureScreen Mobile and to apply for the master classes, please visit http://www.dlux.org.au/mobile

:: molly hankwitz [+] ::
...

Selected News

Trojans hit smartphones.

Mozilla on the Rise: users rise to 7% globally

On Fine Art: Computers become the experts.

A music label distributing exclusively online.

Google sued by porn site.

:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
...

Samuel Bianchini has just discussed his PHD thesis at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, a location that allowed him to present at the same time a selection of his artistic works related to the themes he dealt with theoretically in his thesis. A critique of interactive images is the main subject of his research. Temps libre is an example of how the spectator is asked to play an active role, almost dictatorial, in the functioning of the work: a quiet video of a sea landscape is thus disturbed by our voice (through a loudspeaker) that activates a series of small energetic golf players. The more we speak loudly and fast the more the players become energetic, until they reach a nonsensical frenzy completely in opposition to the calmness of the initial scene.

:: Daniele Balit ::
:: Daniele Balit [+] ::
...