:: Saturday, March 19, 2005 ::

Selected News

Napster is moving forward. It's latest commercial raises some questions about the way people consume music: the commercial raises a good question: Will you rent albums the way you rent television programming? If it makes financial sense, and if, armed with that knowledge, you can avoid the competing allure of iPod style and the Apple brand, you just might.

Pymusique brings a different tune for mp3s: the big attribute of PyMusique is when it comes to Digital Rights Management - or lack there of. When an individual purchases a song from iTunes using PyMusique, it does not re-encrypt the song using Apple's "FairPlay" DRM scheme. What the end user has is DRM-free AAC file that can be copied, burned or transferred - basically the file can be used any way the owner wishes.

Java closer to open source but not quite: Sun Microsystems wants to send Java closer to the open-source world, yet keep it safe from harm. It will modify its licenses to make access to the Java source code easier, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said Wednesday. But it stopped short of creating an open-source license--something it has resisted, despite calls to do so.

Google creates a site to promote development of google-friendly-tools: The new Google Code will be a repository for source code, application programming interfaces, or APIs, and other tools to assist developers working on Google-related projects, according to a welcome note on Thursday from Chris DiBona, Google's open-source program manager and former editor of "News for Nerds" site Slashdot.

ASCII art is now being used for SPAM. ASCII compositions create images promoting particular products. This approach appears to bypass SPAM blockers: L'éditeur de sécurité Sophos annonce ainsi la découverte d'un nouveau type de spam qui circule actuellement. Il utilise la vieille technique de l'art ASCII qui consiste à reproduire des formes à partir d'une suite de caractères, qui au final forment un message

France celebrates its 8th anniversary of Internet activity, blogs are part of the picture: Diriger par la Délégation aux usages de l'Internet, organisme interministériel, l'édition de cette année traitera des dernières tendances en vogue, comme le phénomène des blogs (carnets de bord) qui connaît un essor considérable, ou encore l'Internet mobile avec l'apparition de la téléphonie de 3e génération (3G). La technologie de aujourd'hui est de plus en plus utiliser avec Internet.

The video game industry is booming in Spain, 790 million Euros last year: La industria española de videojuegos facturó en 2004 un total de 790 millones de euros, según anunció la Asociación Española de Distribuidores y Editores de Software de Entretenimiento (aDeSe).

The catholic church, in Peru, rejects online confessions. Such acts are not be considered actual confessions, people need to be present for the priest to asses their repentance: Las confesiones por internet no son válidas porque para recibir este sacramento es "indispensable" la presencia física del creyente y la manifestación de sus culpas al sacerdote en persona, afirmó la Conferencia Episcopal Peruana, en un mundo en donde la red se abre paso día con día.
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
...

FILE FESTIVAL 2005

FILE - Electronic Language International Festival is opening registrations for its 6th edition. It will be held at SESI Paulista's cultural space, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, from October 3rd to 22nd, 2005. Call for entries are open from march 17th to April 17th, 2005. Submissions are free and open to professionals, researchers and students of the electronic language.

http://www.file.org.br/
file2005ins/english/
file_guidelines.htm
_____

O FILE - Festival Internacional de Linguagem Eletrônica está abrindo inscrições para a sua sexta edição que acontecerá no espaço cultural do Sesi Paulista em São Paulo, Brasil, no período de 3 a 22 de outubro de 2005. As inscrições estão abertas de 17 de março a 17 de abril de 2005. A inscrição é gratuita e aberta a profissionais, pesquisadores e estudantes de linguagem eletrônica de âmbito internacional.

http://www.file.org.br/
file2005ins/
file_guidelines.htm
:: [+] ::
...

FILE FESTIVAL 2005

FILE - Electronic Language International Festival is opening registrations for its 6th edition. It will be held at SESI Paulista's cultural space, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, from October 3rd to 22nd, 2005. Call for entries are open from march 17th to April 17th, 2005. Submissions are free and open to professionals, researchers and students of the electronic language.
_____

O FILE - Festival Internacional de Linguagem Eletrônica está abrindo inscrições para a sua sexta edição que acontecerá no espaço cultural do Sesi Paulista em São Paulo, Brasil, no período de 3 a 22 de outubro de 2005. As inscrições estão abertas de 17 de março a 17 de abril de 2005. A inscrição é gratuita e aberta a profissionais, pesquisadores e estudantes de linguagem eletrônica de âmbito internacional.
:: [+] ::
...

On art, bioart, terrorrism and complex networks

Anna Munster, ("Digitality: Approximate Aesthetics", published by Ctheory) has an excellent reflection on bioart and terrorrism in the last issue of Culture Machine.
In "WHY IS BIOART NOT TERRORISM?: SOME CRITICAL NODES IN THE NETWORKS OF INFORMATIC LIFE", Munster reflects on the indictment of CAE's Steve Kurz on charges of possessing what "could very well be..." materials to produce bio weapons at his home (sarchasm intended...).

Munster warns us how art may be on trial in the still unresolved case. She reminds us of the ‘Art is not Terrorism: Stop Legal Proceedings Against Critical Art Ensemble’ banner that one can still download to include in one's site available on www.caedefensefund.org, (scroll down once on the site to see banner) - this site was setup as a support of Kurz. And she revisits "Molecular Invasion" (Autonomedia, 1998) a core text by Critical Art Ensemble and discusses critical theorizations of networks as those proposed by Eugene Thacker in "Biomedia" (University of Minnesota Press, 2004).
:: ana boa-ventura [+] ::
...

New Media Education and Its Discontents
Conference- Friday, May 6th, 2005
The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Call for Participation
(Submission Deadline March 21, 2005)

Join us for an intensive one-day conference about new media education.
Connect with other new media researchers and educators, present and discuss urgent topics in new media education, exchange syllabi or swap resources. The conference will be podcast and live blogged. Bring your USB memory key and laptop.

conference.newmediaeducation.org

Please mail submissions for consideration by March 21 to Trebor Scholz:
idc [at] distributedcreativity.org
:: Eduardo Navas [+] ::
...

Christina McPhee responds to this month's interview with Raul Ferrera-Balanquet (see left). McPhee adds insight into her own production, and discusses its relationship to Ferrera-Balanquet's process. Click here to read McPhee's letter to NAR.
:: [+] ::
...

Yet another reminder of an important opportunity for net art

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).


----------

**Deadline for submission: 17 March 2005**

Forthcoming Conference: Cinema, War and a Society of Spectacle
9 June 2005, University of Cambridge
http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/
events/2004-5/
cinemawar.html

The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
(CRASSH), in association with the Cambridge University Film Seminar, invite=
s
submissions for a one-day conference on cinema and war.

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

et another reminder of an important opportunity for net art

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).


----------

**Deadline for submission: 17 March 2005**

Forthcoming Conference: Cinema, War and a Society of Spectacle
9 June 2005, University of Cambridge
http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/
events/2004-5/
cinemawar.html

The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
(CRASSH), in association with the Cambridge University Film Seminar, invite=
s
submissions for a one-day conference on cinema and war.

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