:: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 ::

A fake Volkswagen commercial is circulating through the Net, showing a kamikaze who had the bad idea of using a Polo for his suicide action. The Company is planning legal action against the creators, Lee and Dan, who however are authors of several ‘true’ car commercials. This makes someone suspicious: is it a hoax or are we witnessing new advertisement strategies?

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

Upcoming events

FLOATING POINTS 2: NETWORKED ART IN PUBLIC SPACES
Anne Galloway: Playful Mobilities

TONIGHT: Wednesday, January 26, 7:00 p.m. (USA EST)
WHERE: Streamed Live at the Bill Bordy Theatre, 216 Tremont Street, Boston.
Free and open to the public.

Playful Mobilities: Mobile phone usage is already commonplace for many people around the world, and other wireless technologies promise to become just as pervasive in coming decades. As technological development continues apace, scholars and artists have begun in earnest to explore the social and cultural implications of our emerging devices. Mobile and networked computing has the potential to cultivate new opportunities for personal autonomy and collective action, as well as to re-inscribe existing social inequalities and discourage cultural diversity. Bringing together theory, art and technology to critique - and create – these shared spaces is nothing new, but it takes on increasing value and importance as we struggle to negotiate between private and public interests in our technologically saturated daily lives. This presentation will consider what is at stake in these relationships, and what play and creativity can offer in terms of critical approaches to mobility.

-------

ihui - Digital Salon presents Motomichi Nakamura & Marina Zurkow
Thursday, January 27, 2005, 7 - 9 PM
Parsons Design Lab
55 West 13th Street, 9th Fl.
New York, NY 10011
http://agent.netart-init.org


Motomichi Nakamura and Marina Zurkow will present their works in the area of animation and character design. Motomichi will discuss the technical and creative processes involved in creating his digital projects and his interest in expanding to different media.

jihui (the meeting point), a self-regulated digital salon, invites all interested people to send ideas for discussion performance/etc. jihui is where your voice is heard and your vision shared. jihui is made possible through the generous support from the Digital Design Department and Parsons Design Lab of the Parsons School of Design. A joint public program by NETART INITIATIVE and INTELLIGENT AGENT



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

A community reminder of a great opportunity


COMP_05: TURBULENCE JURIED INTERNATIONAL NET ART COMPETITION

New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. is pleased to announce that with the support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, 5 net art projects will be commissioned for the Turbulence web site in a juried international (open to everyone) competition. Each commission will be $5,000 (US).

DEADLINE: March 31, 2005

GUIDELINES: http://turbulence.org/
comp_05/guidelines.htm

JURORS: Wayne Ashley (US), Arcangel Constantini (Mexico), Sara Diamond (Canada), Melinda Rackham (Australia), and Helen Thorington (US).

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

SECOND ANNUAL VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL FESTIVAL

The second annual Vancouver International Digital Festival is back
June 15 - 17, 2005. Our Call for Entries is now open for Digital Film
and Interactive Design. http://www.vidfest.com

DIGITAL FILM

We are looking for diverse projects:

:. short narratives
:. music videos
:. documentaries
:. experimental video
:. game sequences
:. animation

If your work is selected you will also be awarded a VVIP pass -
access to all the activities, conference sessions, and parties of
VIDFEST 2005.

CRITERIA: All images must be captured with digital technology. We are
looking for those works that explore the opportunities that digital
technologies provide in all stages of production. Projects that use
digital technology for particular creative and aesthetic reasons are
encouraged.

Download the entry form
(http://www.vidfest.com/media/
pdf/Film_Entry_Form05.pdf) and submit
before March 15, 2005.


INTERACTIVE DESIGN

Last year we received hundreds of entries from freelancers, design
studios, artists, museums, ad agencies, galleries, broadcasters and
non-profit organizations.

All selected websites will form part of an exhibition online and at
the festival. If your work is selected, you will also receive a VVIP
Pass - access to all the activities, conference sessions, and parties
of VIDFEST.

We are looking for new, creative, and inventive websites in the
following areas:

:. Business [interactive ad, sales presentation, commercial Web site,
product demo]
:. Entertainment [games, books, music]
:. Education [online learning, museum/exhibition guide, public service]
:. Experimental [net art, non-commercial, conceptual sites]

Download the entry form at
http://www.vidfest.com/media/
pdf/ID_Entry_Form05.pdf and submit
before March 15, 2005.
:: molly hankwitz [+] ::
...

Selected News

Grid Computing, what it can do for you: "Today's confluence of commodity components, burgeoning bandwidth and open-source systems software fills in the rest of the picture. Taken together, they make the enterprise case for grid computing, which is the connection of heterogeneous computing nodes using self-administering software that makes the nodes function as a single virtual system." Here's a more recent review.

The media speculates on a possible Google telephony service: "Citing Hewett and the Google job posting, The Times newspaper in London reported on Monday that Google 'looks set to launch a free telephone service.' The "logical use" of building its own network would be to offer such a service, which would pose a competitive challenge to local network operator British Telecommunications PLC, according to the paper."

Firefox keeps inching up on Internet Explorer's market: "How quickly is the Mozilla Organization's Firefox browser gaining steam? Consider this factoid from PCWorld.com's own stats: Firefox only became a shipping product a little over two months ago--and it already accounts for over eighteen percent of traffic to our site. "

It's official, Outlook and Hotmail are now married: "Outlook Live has been designed as a single interface to subscribers' Hotmail accounts so that they can use Outlook Live to access, send and receive email messages and manage their contacts and calendars, says Karin Muskopf, MSN product manager. Changes made using Outlook Live are reflected in the Hotmail accounts."

CNN headlines are appropriated by a new worm: "Virus researchers at Sophos Inc., an anti-virus and anti-spam company based in Lynnfield, Mass., report that the new Crowt-A worm takes its subject lines, message content and attachment names from headlines gathered in real-time from the CNN Website."

127% in Internet sales in Mexico during 2004 due to the increase in net-surfers: "Las ventas a través de Internet han evolucionado en México, por el incremento en la conectividad, al cambio en las edades de los internautas y al aumento en el número de mujeres que realizan sus compras por este medio. En este último punto MercadoLibre.com reportó en 2004 un avance de 127% en la comercialización de diversos artículos respecto a 2003."

Costco online sold a Picasso drawing for $40,000.00. The work of art was authenticated by Picasso's daughter, Maya: "Un dibujo hecho en papel y crayón, firmado y fechado por el malagueño Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) fue adquirido por 40 mil dólares, a través del portal de Internet de la cadena estadounidense de supermercados Costco, que además de bebidas y comestibles ofrece otros productos, como obras de arte y electrónica. "

Google, MSN, and Yahoo set out to battle Comment SPAM in blogs: "Google,avec le soutien actif de MSN et Yahoo! qui l'ont rejoint,a donc décidé de bloquer ces initiatives en mettant au point une balise HTML à inclure avant un lien."


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

The Restructuring of the Australia Council for the Arts webcasted

The announced abolition of the New Media Arts Board in Australia has caused som every negative reactions from the new media commnity around the world. It makes sense, thus, that the meeting where the restructuring of this group will be discussed is webcasted... And indeed it will. All you need is a QuickTime player. Tomorrow Monday January 24, tune to: http://www.va.com.au/webcasts.html
from 6 to 8pm (Australian Eastern Daylight Time, GMT + 11)


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

The weblog with reviews of all lectures and presentations of the conference "A decade of Webdesign" held on januari 21 and 22 in Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Netherlands is now online. The conference was about investigations into the changing culture in webdesign. Speakers were amongst others Peter Lunenfeld, Michael Indergaard, Franziska Nori, Adrian Mackenzie, John Chris Jones and Steven Pemberton.

http://decadeofwebdesign.org/resource



:: Peter Luining [+] ::
...