The emergence of the internet in the past twenty years has changed the way we communicate, conduct business, and spend our free time. In many ways it has made our lives easier – we have at our fingertips a wealth of information about every topic under the sun – and in many ways it has made our lives more complicated. For some, spending time on the Internet has become more than a hobby; it has become an addiction or compulsion that has become out of their control. Peoples’ brains are becoming hardwired to desire the latest news, newest fashion, and most current Facebook updates. Psychologists who study the science of addiction have just begun to understand this problem, which is affecting people all over the world as the Internet becomes increasingly accessible to the masses. While some research has been conducted on this topic, for those suffering from their constant need to be online, several questions about how that addiction is defined remain to be answered.
The Internet Paradox
In a 1998 study conducted by a group of psychologists from Carnegie Mellon University, the paradox of the Internet is that in the process of removing distance barriers and connecting people, the Internet instead reduces social involvement and psychological well being. The study examined the impact of Internet usage of 169 people in 73 households during their first one to two years online. Originally devised as a pathway to bring the people of the world together, Internet access often caused people to withdraw into themselves and avoid “real life” relationships. In addition, the amount of time spent online – whether it’s spent in chat rooms, playing games, surfing the web, or engaging in social networking – seemed to go beyond the bounds of what might have been considered normal. As a result, the term Internet addiction disorder (IAD) has been coined to define those who are seemingly unable to control their compulsion to be online.
When considering the results of this study, it’s important to point out that the cited addictions occurred as a result from dial-up Internet from 1998. Today, the effects of Internet addictions are certainly exacerbated by our increased access to broadband Internet, constant connectivity through smartphones, and the rigors of work requiring professionals to check their emails 24/7.
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Also from Clinical Psychology:
Bad Science – The Psychology Behind Bad Research
Scientists are some of our most trusted members of society. We depend on them for a great deal of what we know about the world. Unfortunately, recent looks into the world of scientific research and reporting has discovered that many scientists are not as trustworthy as we would like to believe. By engaging in various kinds of scientific misconduct, such as falsifying or fabricating data, scientists are getting the results they want without the honesty and integrity that we expect of the scientific institution. Some fields are worse than others as well, with clinical psychology being a notoriously troublesome area. How do we fix it? Read the infographic below to find out.
Over the last few years, a wide range of new publishing initiatives have developed within the arts and design fields. New book fairs are emerging in major cities, small publishing houses and independent presses are frequently initiated and the alternative bookshop seems to recurrently be reborn in new forms. Something that seems to tie these activities together, is that they are run by practitioners themselves — photographers, artists, authors and graphic designers — often with a visionary idea of how to redefine the world of publishing.
On May 25th 2012, a few of these interesting and inspiring practitioners have been invited to Stockholm to take part in the seminar ‘Publishing as (part-time) Practice’. Confirmed participating publishers are: Elin Maria Olaussen / Karen Christine Tandberg from Torpedo Books and Press (NO), Georg Rutishauser from Edition Fink (CH), Matthew Stadler from Publication Studio (US), Anna Gerber / Britt Iversen from Visual Editions (UK), Nille Svensson from Nilleditions (SE), Jacob Grønbech Jensen / Rikard Heberling / Emi-Simone Zawall from Drucksache (SE) and more to be announced. Andrew Blauvelt from Walker Art Center (US) will introduce the event as well as provide a concluding reflection at the end of the evening.
Founded in 1979 as part of the Dada Archive and Research Center, the International Dada Archive is a scholarly resource for the study of the historic Dada movement. The Archive has compiled a comprehensive collection of documentation and scholarship relating to Dada.
The collection of the International Dada Archive is made up of works by and about the Dadaists including books, articles, microfilmed manuscript collections, videorecordings, sound recordings, and online resources. Primary access to the entire collection is through the International Online Bibliography of Dada, a catalog containing approximately 60,000 titles. This collection is housed in various departments of the University of Iowa Libraries; most of its holdings are in either the Main Library or the Art Library.
Each month, the wonderful Domus Mixtape series brings together musicians, writers, artists and designers to create live sound-based portraits of cities around the world.
“For the first in our series of mixtapes on cities and their sounds, Domus travels to Mexico City, the sprawling Aztec metropolis that today is home to 20 million people. There, Daniel Perlin catches up with this month’s special guest, journalist and blogger Daniel Hernandez, to patch together an audible portrait of the Mexican capital’s underground music scene. The resulting mix is a mélange of Mexican cumbia, ska, rockabilly, hip-hop, tribal guarachero and white noise from the frenetic streets of the Distrito Federal. The mixtape includes tracks by Afrodita, Toy Selectah, Kumbia Queers, Sonido Sonoramico, Los Rebel Cats, Maldita Vecindad, as well as a segment by sound artist Rogelio Sosa and Hernandez reading an ode to the city’s noise from his upcoming book, Down and Delirious in Mexico City. Orale, chilangos!”
Tracklist
1. tepito-5may2010 – Daniel Goldaracena
2. Ni Negrita Si Baila – Sonido Sonoramico
3. Daniel Hernandez_1/Centro 11/27/10 – Daniel Hernandez and Daniel Perlin
4. El Obachere – (3Ball mix) – Erick Rincon & Alan Rosales
5. Quinto Patio Ska – Maldita Vecindad Y Los Hijos Del Quinto Patio
6. Daniel Hernandez_2/Centro 11/27/10 – Daniel Hernandez and Daniel Perlin
7. Chicalango – MC Luka
8. Rayo de Sol – Sonidero Nacional
9. GOTA (Hijo de la Cumbia Remix) – Sekreto feat Morenito de Fuego
10. Te quiero un chingo – Kumbia Queers
11. Daniel Hernandez_3/Centro 11/27/10 – Daniel Hernandez and Daniel Perlin
12. Chica Sensual – Sonido Espectral
13. No Hagas Caso A Tus Papas – Los Rebel Cats
13. Daniel Hernandez_4 – Daniel Hernandez
14. Vaiven No. 1 (Soundinstllation audio v2) – Rogelio Sosa
15. Daniel Hernandez_5/Centro 11/27/10 – Daniel Hernandez and Daniel Perlin
16. Welcome to the Witch House (†‡† Remix)/BESTIA (Toy Selectah Mex-More Remix ) – Mater Suspiria Vision/Helloseahorse
17. pasconcito (dj n-ron rico mix) – Afroditas
“Most Londoners will recognise that walking past four closed pubs on a Sunday lunchtime is a sure sign of impending apocalypse. So when I found myself walking through the antiseptic, empty, nerve-centre of banks and insurance brokers in London’s square mile one weekend, the sheer quantity of unlit supermarkets, shopping centres, clothes shops, cafes, salad bars and pubs was terrifying. The sound of this city was a deafening, noisy, silence.”
Tracklist
01 Softmain – Dream Crown
02 Scanner – Candles + Beatrice Galilee reading
03 We Are Grave – Permanent
04 Salwa Azar – Poseidon Sea
05 si-cut.db – Academic Hit
06 Scanner – Self Same Circuits
07 Bladzez Krome – Liquid
08 Neck Dust – Shrill
09 Brick Lane Buskers
10 Scanner – Night Haunts
“So let’s be clear. I am not from Rio de Janeiro. I am not a Carioca. Even after 18 years of coming and going, 5+ years lived and hours worked, partied, lost, found and wandered, I am not a Carioca. What I have is the serious problem so many gringos have. The idea of Rio has invaded me, left its mark, devoured me and consumed whatever thoughts and sounds resonate in my brain. “Tupi or not Tupi?” Goes the anthropohagic manifesto, and in writing, enunciating the multiplicity of times, spaces, sounds and feelings that is Rio. Rio, of course, does not exist, as no single city exists. It is instead a bricolage, defined geographically by divisions between its largely working-class Zona Norte, and its smaller, wealthier, iconic, Zona Sul. At first impression, its appearance from the ground is conflicted, agonistic, its favelas inescapable from view, requiring a double-consciousness and radical strategies of internal conflict negotiation. And now, annexing the often-gated zones of Barra de Tijuca, Jacaerepagua and on, any attempt to define a homogeneous sound of this city becomes even more remote, even more absurd.”
Tracklist
01. Natureza nº 1 em Mi Maior—Lucas Santtana
02. Eu Nasci Em Angola—Caxambu da Comunidade Sao Jose da Serra-
03. Dizem Que Sou Louco/Frogs, Pops, Rio, Nite —M.V. Bill
04. Orquestra Filarmônica da Favela—DJ Sany Pitbull
05. ta tomado (n-ron tamborclap riddim)—bonde nervoso
06. Alerte Limão—Chelpa Ferro
07. Pau de Arara. Baião de São Sebastião Baião—Luiz Gonzaga & Gonzaguinha
08. Crowd, Rio, Restaurant, Copa Cabana
09. Nao Foi Em Vão (Original Album Version)—Orquestra Imperial
10. Animais Sem Asas/papa capim—+2 Moreno, Domenico & Kassin, Meu Tambor—+2 Moreno, Domenico & Kassin
11. Fuego (Maga Bo Remix)—Bomba Estereo
12. Olha A Virada—Mocidade Independente, rap de felicidade accapella—Mcs Cidinho & Doca
13. Macumbinha/DJBR/toques para celular – abertura dos bailes funk
14. IDogBarks Constant 15. V.V.—B. Negão
16. Bells, Church, RioGloria Evening
17. embalaeu (N-RON and Reganomics mix)—Clementina de Jesus
18. rebichada (N-RON AMENMIX)—Chico Buarque e os trapalhões
19. Radio Samba—Nacão Zumbi
20. love banana—João Brasil
21. Shottas—Leo Justi
22. Angicos (paulo rafael mix)—Chico Science, Fred 04, Siba, Lucio Maia, Paulo Rafael
23. Crowd, Rio, Gávea
24. Vai Saudade—Velha Guarda da Portela
To the biologist Edward O. Wilson, the Metropolitan Museum of Art encapsulates some of the conflicting impulses natural selection has instilled in humans: the innate drive for expression that spurs some of us to make art, the selfishness that motivates others to earn the riches needed to collect it, and the altruism that compels the donation of collections for the public good — as long as the donors’ names are inscribed on the walls too.
But asked to imagine the museum from the perspective of ants, whose intricate social world he has built a towering reputation by studying, Dr. Wilson painted a scene that was less a lesson in evolution than a chaotic free-for-all.
“To them the crowds would just be a flank-to-flank herd of enormous elephants you have to dodge around,” he said with a boyish giggle from the museum’s teeming steps during a recent visit to New York to promote his 27th book, “The Social Conquest of Earth,” which is being published Monday by Liveright. “I don’t think ants would have any aesthetic or intellectual interest in the museum, though they would certainly find a happy home in Central Park.”
Excerpt of an article by JENNIFER SCHUESSLER at NYT. Continue HERE
Intellectuals have been accused of failing to restore a European confidence undermined by crisis. Yet calls for legitimating European narratives – combined with nostalgia for a golden age of Europeanism – remain faithful to the logic of nineteenth-century nation building, argues Jan-Werner Müller. What, then, should Europe’s intellectuals be doing?
Towards the end of last year, as the Eurozone crisis was reaching (yet another) climax, a number of journalists in the German quality press alerted their readers to an aspect of the crisis which had received scant attention so far: the euro crisis marked not only the failure of Europe’s central bankers, or Greek bureaucrats, or Italian non-taxpayers, or Angela Merkel (all depending on one’s perspective) – it also signified a comprehensive failure of intellectuals. Why were they not defending the great achievements of European integration? Why were they not putting forward appealing visions of the continent’s future, instead squandering a great legacy of mutual trust and understanding among Europeans which had been nurtured over many decades? Were they simply sleeping through a crisis that might eventually usher in the return of ugly nationalisms? Or even military conflict, as elder European statesmen like Helmut Kohl never tire of warning?
Excerpt of an article written by Jan-Werner Müller at EUROZINE. Continue HERE
Produced by Ollie Palmer, the Ant Ballet is a 2-year investigation into the parallels between human and ant communication which culminated in the world’s first ballet to exclusively feature ants. It is currently in Phase I of IV.
Using synthesized pheromones (Z9:16Ald Hexadecanol) and highly invasive Linepthinema humile Argentine ants, a robotic arm lays pheromone powder trails that cause the ants to behave in a different way to their usual foraging. Performances in late 2012 will feature mass colony movement testing, and the first intercontinental ant ballet.
The machine is part of a larger study of paranoia, control systems, insects and architecture.
The Ant Ballet will be installed in ZSL London Zoo’s BUGS zone with simulated ants until June 2012, and at FutureEverything festival in Manchester from the 16th – 19th May. The first live Ant Ballet performance will take place as part of Pestival in Sao Paulo later in the year.
Pestival aims to initiate a cultural shift in the way people think, moving them towards a more integrated way of looking at the natural world. Pestival’s lasting legacy is to forge new working relationships between disciplines, communities and species. Pestival says “Insectes Sans Frontières”.
Pestival believes insects are critical to human life on Earth. With over a million insect species, they are the most diverse group of animals on Earth. And yet insects are frequently misunderstood, reviled or, at best, ignored by the majority of the human population.
Pestival has set out to challenge existing stereotypes about insects and to give them their rightful place, for good and bad (vectors and pollinators), in our collective cultural consciousness.
BMW Tate Live: Performance Room is an innovative series of performances broadcast viewable exclusively online around the globe, as they happen.
Five artists each present works for the BMW Tate Live Performance Room beginning with choreographer and dancer Jérôme Bel on 22 March 2012 and continuing monthly with Pablo Bronstein, Harrell Fletcher, Joan Jonas and Emily Roysdon. Audiences can pose questions to the artist and curators, and interact with other viewers via social media.
You are invited to enter the online BMW Tate Live Performance Room via Tate’s YouTube channel at 20.00 hrs in the UK and at exactly the same moment across the globe on the specified dates. So if you are on the East Coast of America, log on at 15.00 hrs for a mid-afternoon art break, if you are located in Europe then join us at 21.00 hrs for an evening performance and for those in Russia, needing some late night art at 23.00 hrs.
A second chance to watch Jerome Bell’s performance and see the conversation with the artist and curators captured live Thursday 22nd March 2012 at Tate Modern.
ICT4D (Information Communication Technology for Development) powerfully frames women’s grassroots video production in the Global South, much of which is distributed widely through YouTube. Often, these videos reproduce racialized and gendered discourses – legacies of colonialism – in their narratives of economic, social, and technological progress. However, there are also videos by women’s groups that defy both the historical linearity and spatial fragmentation of the ICT4D framework. These videos instead remix, reclassify, and globally reconnect women’s experiences in the contemporary moment. Culled from hundreds of online videos produced by ICT4D programs, including those in countries classified as having “Low Human Development” according to the Gender Inequality Index of the United Nations Development Program, these media represent powerful instances of a decolonial aesthetics, an altogether unexpected development. These ICT4D videos make compelling claims for other historical narratives and visions for women’s future lives, identities, and uses of information communication technologies.
Unexpected Development: Decolonial Media Aesthetics and Women’s ICT4D Video Dalida Maria Benfield, Berkman Center Fellow
This event will be webcast Tuesday, April 17, live at 12:30 pm ET.
Berkman Center, 23 Everett Street, second floor
About Dalida:
Dalida María Benfield’s research addresses artists’ and activists’ creative uses of video and other networked digital media towards social justice projects. Her work is focused on the transformational capacities of media art across different scales. As an artist and activist, she has developed production, education, exhibition, and distribution initiatives focused on youth, women, people of color in the U.S., and local and transnational social movements, including co-founding the media collective Video Machete. She received her Ph.D. in 2011 from the University of California-Berkeley in Comparative Ethnic Studies with Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her dissertation, Apparatuses, Globalities, Assemblages: Third Cinema, Now, chaired by Trinh T. Minh-ha, considers contemporary media art theory and practice, including work by Cao Fei, Michelle Dizon, and the Raqs Media Collective, in relation to the Third Cinema movement. As a Fellow at the Berkman Center, she is studying race and gender in the online presence of ICT4D programs, as well as working on collaborative projects with the Networked Cultures Working Group, the Cyberscholars Working Group, and metaLAB(at)Harvard.
Matthew Lasar: The battle over implementation of the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement in Europe is heating up, while the war of words over the Stop Online Privacy Act is still in play. Rightsholders have called critics of these measures “demagogues” and “dirty tricksters,” but the critics show no sign of retreating from their opposition.
The fight against copyright maximalism has largely been negative. To offer something more positive, Public Knowledge (PK for short) has released an Internet Blueprint—six bills that the group says could “help make the internet a better place for everyone” and that “Congress could pass today.”
We’re not expecting Congress to pass them today (or tomorrow), but they’re at least an intriguing start point for debate. Here’s a quick version each.
1. Shorten copyright terms
2. Stop abuses of the DMCA
3. Cracking DRM
4. Stop copyright bullying
5. Make “fair use” fairer
…or maybe 5.
Written by Matthew Lasar, Ars Technica. Read full article HERE
The following is an exploration of the relationship shared between space, relationality, and virtuality as it comes to bear on a particular genre of revolutionary expression: the manifesto. My argument here is in opposition to thinkers like Naomi Klein who have asserted the virtual power of the internet and social media to be the end of the manifesto genre; something like, we have twitter, we have Facebook, therefore manifestos are obsolete. Rather, my argument is in favor of a metamorphosis where the genre is concerned and where revolutionary expression is evolving. To put it another way, I am interested in thinking a politics of the manifesto genre that exceeds its own instrumentality. So the manifesto is being treated here as a provocation toward thinking the shape and character of a radical politics. By way of a brief and somewhat simplified characterization of the genre, I want to think in opposition to, or beyond, two primary problems where the genre is concerned. First, I want to think the function of the manifesto against an ought or revolutionary telos that would name its future and provide the political program to manifest it. Second, I want to problematize the Schmittian character of the genre, the bi-partisan, “friend” vs. “enemy” relation that is so often asserted where the manifesto names a revolutionary telos.
This paper was presented at the 2012 Telos Conference, “Space: Virtuality, Territoriality, Relationality,” held on January 14–15, in New York City.
This conference takes up the “nonhuman turn” that has been emerging in the arts, humanities, and social sciences over the past few decades. Intensifying in the 21st century, this nonhuman turn can be traced to a variety of different intellectual and theoretical developments from the last decades of the 20th century:
actor-network theory, particularly Bruno Latour’s career-long project to articulate technical mediation, nonhuman agency, and the politics of things
affect theory, both in its philosophical and psychological manifestations and as it has been mobilized by queer theory
animal studies, as developed in the work of Donna Haraway, projects for animal rights, and a more general critique of speciesism
the assemblage theory of Gilles Deleuze, Manuel DeLanda, Latour, and others
new brain sciences like neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence
new media theory, especially as it has paid close attention to technical networks, material interfaces, and computational analysis
the new materialism in feminism, philosophy, and marxism
varieties of speculative realism like object-oriented philosophy, vitalism, and panpsychism
and systems theory in its social, technical, and ecological manifestations
Such varied analytical and theoretical formations obviously diverge and disagree in many of their aims, objects, and methodologies. But they are all of a piece in taking up aspects of the nonhuman as critical to the future of 21st century studies in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.
Invited speakers (to date) include:
Jane Bennett (Political Science, Johns Hopkins)
Ian Bogost (Literature, Communication, Culture, Georgia Tech)
Wendy Chun (Media and Modern Culture, Brown)
Mark Hansen (Literature, Duke)
Erin Manning (Philosophy/Dance, Concordia University, Montreal)
Brian Massumi (Philosophy, University of Montreal)
Tim Morton (English, UC-Davis)
Steven Shaviro (English, Wayne State)
Slought Foundation (‘Sl-aw-t’) is a non-profit organization based in Philadelphia that engages the public in dialogue about cultural and socio-political change. We collaborate with a range of partners including artists, communities, universities, and governments to encourage cultural inclusiveness and social activism. Culture means more than preservation or presentation to us; it means the exchange of ideas, the creation of concepts.
From Kwame Anthony Appiah to Helene Cixous, Werner Herzog to Kazuyo Sejima, our programs feature today’s visionaries in conversation about the role of the artist in society, and the potential transformation of social and political structures. In 2010, 450+ hours of recordings from these programs, available online, were downloaded over 125,000 times by visitors from 100 countries.
The term ‘para-academic’ captures the multivalent sense of something that fulfills and/or frustrates the academic from a position of intimate exteriority. Para-academia is that which is beside academia, a place whose logic encompasses many reasons and no reason at all (para-, “alongside, beyond, altered, contrary,” from Greek para-, “beside, near, from, against, contrary to,” cognate with Sanskrit para “beyond”). The para is the domain of: shadow, paradigm, daemon, parasite, supplement, amateur, elite. The para-academic embodies an unofficial excess or extension of the academic that helps, threatens, supports, mocks (par-ody), perfects and/or calls it into question simply by existing next to it. Following a series of classes organized through The Public School New York on the subject of “Para-Academia and Theory Fiction,” this event brings together a group of editors whose work in publishing falls within the para-academic, in one sense or another. Presenters will address the practice and theory of para-academic publishing, its relation to various areas of life (art, pedagogy, politics), and present some of their recent titles.
Panel Discussion on Para-Academic Publishing & Book Party
Observatory
543 Union St., Brooklyn, NY
April 17, 2012
7:00pm
Half a century into the digital era, the profound impact of information technology on intellectual and cultural life is universally acknowledged but still poorly understood. The sheer complexity of the technology coupled with the rapid pace of change makes it increasingly difficult to establish common ground and to promote thoughtful discussion.
Responding to this challenge, Switching Codes brings together leading American and European scholars, scientists, and artists—including Charles Bernstein, Ian Foster, Bruno Latour, Alan Liu, and Richard Powers—to consider how the precipitous growth of digital information and its associated technologies are transforming the ways we think and act. Employing a wide range of forms, including essay, dialogue, short fiction, and game design, this book aims to model and foster discussion between IT specialists, who typically have scant training in the humanities or traditional arts, and scholars and artists, who often understand little about the technologies that are so radically transforming their fields. Switching Codes will be an indispensable volume for anyone seeking to understand the impact of digital technology on contemporary culture, including scientists, educators, policymakers, and artists, alike.
Capital Growth is a partnership initiative between London Food Link, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson, and the Big Lottery’s Local Food Fund. It is championed by the Chair of the London Food Board Rosie Boycott and aims to create 2012 new community food growing spaces across London by the end of 2012. Capital Growth offers practical help, grants, training and support to groups wanting to establish community food growing projects as well as advice to landowners.
The sonic environment is an indicator for the quality of life
One crucial aspect, however, remains open and leads to a multitude of questions: Is this, what our hearing is exposed to, satisfying and enhancing our individual, social, functional, biological, economical, aesthetic and existential needs and endeavors? If not, which concepts exist to “orchestrate” everyday life’s cacophony? Which methods exist to successfully evaluate the quality of soundscapes? Which criteria and values have to be developed, which practical constraints and habits to be dismissed in order to design the everyday as a “Hörenswürdigkeit”, which means: as something worth listening to?
How to improve the Global Composition to make the world more liveable?
Within this process: What role does media play and relation to its commodification of sound? Are there valid approaches to or even successful examples of shaping the soundscape in ways that are beneficial or at least acceptable for a majority? Are there strategies for overcoming the societal, political and economic hindrances that inhibit the inclusion of auditory considerations in the making of a sustainable society? What is the role of art in developing paradigms for auditory solutions applied to our living environments?
How to foster listening abilities within the concert of the senses?
Last but not least, what educational concepts and methods exist for integrating listening abilities into the concert of the senses, and develop auditory faculties as important tools for understanding, criticizing, shaping and designing the global environment? More infos on keynote speakers, conference fees and organisational details will be announced soon.
Proposals are invited for papers/posters, workshops, roundtable discussions, applied and artistic contributions, relating, but not limited to the conference’s main topics. (Please, load down the appropriate form from this page and fill it out.)
Areth: An Architectural Atlas is a projects by Adam Ryder. He is a artist working in photographic mediums in New York City. Much of his work is created in collaboration with Brian Rosa, who together with Ryder contribute to the creative studio Site Unseen.
About The Atlas
The writings and photographs contained in this volume are the product of an expedition to the world of Areth, undertaken by photographer Adam C. Ryder with generous support from the Areth Research Commission (ARC). Created in cooperation with the Sales and Publishing Department, this fourth edition in the series Areth Analyzed documents architectural forms across the three geographic regions of the planet’s super-continent — the Northern Mountains, the Central Basin and the Great Barrens. Analysis of the structures in the text that follows are based on detailed studies provided by the Xeno-Anthropological Research Authority (XARA) and the Architectural Study and Preservation Agency (ASPA) as well as several other departments within the ARC.
Introduction
The circumstances surrounding Areth’s discovery are by this time well-known. What remains unexplained are the circumstances that led to the abandonment of this distant world by its native inhabitants. The architectural relics left behind by a once-great civilization have compounded this mystery. Residential, industrial and scientific structures, even entire cities stand empty, yet intact across the giant Arethean landmass. The complete disappearance of this race has problematized conjecture about their seeming demise. Were the peoples of Areth the victims of an unforeseen tragedy or did they simply decide to leave their world entirely? This volume does not attempt to speculate on these questions but rather seeks to investigate that which is most telling about the Aretheans themselves; their architectural legacy. The images and written analyses that follow highlight those structures deemed to be among the most culturally relevant in understanding the values and customs of this lost civilization.
The Plastics Historical Society was formed in 1986 and was first to draw attention to the heritage of the plastics industry and to celebrate all things plastic.
It is an independent society affiliated to the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining, 1 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5DB, UK and run by a committee elected at the AGM each year.
Membership of PHS is open to anyone interested in plastics, rubbers and other polymers. The society’s international membership is drawn from collectors, industry, education, museum staff, libraries, and auction houses, and represents all age groups.
Aims
To encourage the study of all historical aspects of plastics and other polymers, including synthetic fibres, rubber and elastomers. Everything from Bakelite to Xylonite.
Activities
Members are offered a lively programme of events: In addition, there are two regional sections of the Society which are open to all members – a Western Section covering Wales and the West of England, and an East Midlands Section.
The Society has a library of many hundreds of books which are gradually being assembled at the IOM3.
Publications
Two full colour publications are mailed regularly to members – a Newsletter published six times a year, and a twice yearly journal plastiquarian. Articles and other content from the journal is available on this site. Some articles are reserved for members while some are open to all.
On March 23rd London will host a unique conference on the neuroscience, psychiatry and interpretation of revelatory visionary experiences.
Mental health professionals frequently encounter people who report experiences of God or supernatural beings speaking or acting through them to reveal important truths. In some cases it is difficult to know to what extent such experiences are best explained as ‘illness’, or represent experiences which are accepted and valued within a person’s religious or cultural context. Indeed, revelatory experiences form a key part of the formation and development of major world religions through figures such as prophets, visionaries, and yogins, as well as in the religious practice of shamans and others in traditional smaller scale societies. Why are revelatory experiences and related altered states of consciousness so common across cultures and history? What neural and other processes cause them? When should they be thought of as due to mental illness, as opposed to culturally accepted religious experience? And what value should or can be placed upon them? In this one day conference leading scholars from neuroscience, psychiatry, theology and religious studies, history and anthropology gather to present recent findings, and debate with each other and the audience about these fundamental aspects of human experience.
Who should attend: This one day interdisciplinary conference will be useful to academic psychologists, neuroscientists and humanities scholars interested in understanding the possibilities for interdisciplinary understanding of complex human behavior; as well as psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, nurses and any professionals whose work requires them to make sense of the relations between culture, religion, and mental health.
Confirmed Speakers
Dr Quinton Deeley, Senior Lecturer, Institute of Psychiatry Kings College London, and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist, SLAM
Professor Stephen Pattison, Professor of Religion, Ethics, and Practice at the University of Birmingham
Dr Mitul Mehta, Senior Lecturer, Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London
Dr Eamonn Walsh, Post doctoral Researcher, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London
Professor Chris Rowland, Dean Ireland Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture from Oxford
Professor Roland Littlewood, Professor of Anthropology and Psychiatry at University College London
Professor David Oakley, University College London
The Very Rev Dr Jane Shaw, Dean of Grace Cathedral San Fransisco
Dr Piers Vitebsky, Head of Anthropology and Russian Arctic Studies, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge
Professor Geoffrey Samuel, Religious Studies, University of Cardiff
Unknown Fields is a nomadic studio that throws open the doors of the A A and sets off on an annual expedition to the ends of the earth exploring unreal and forgotten landscapes, alien terrains and obsolete ecologies. Each year we navigate a different global cross-section and map the complex and contradictory realities of the present as a site of strange and extraordinary futures. You will be both visionaries and reporters, part documentarian and part science-fiction soothsayers as the otherworldly sites we encounter will afford us a distanced viewpoint from which to survey the consequences of emerging environmental and technological scenarios.
This year the Division will be heading off on a reconnaissance road trip to chronicle a series of extraterrestrial encounters from the borderlands, black sites, military outposts and folkloric landscapes of the United States. From the ‘illegal aliens’ of the New Mexico border towns we will head north exploring territories of negotiation and conflict, zones of transgression, suspicion and speculation. We will rumble along the UFO highway, past the mythic territories of Area 51, listening to tall tales from conspiracy theorists amidst the sonic booms crackling in the quiet desert air. We will visit covert military test sites and the alien technologies of the aeronautics industry as we shape our own experimental craft to launch in the skies above the psychedelic community of the Burning Man Festival, where our journey ends. By the bonfires we will examine the mysteries and conspiracies that surround what lies off the map, off-grid and below the radar as we propose new truths and expose alternative fictions.
Joining us on our travels will be a troupe of collaborators from the worlds of technology, science and fiction. Together we will form a traveling circus of research visits, field reportage, rolling discussions and impromptu tutorials that will be chronicled in an annual publication and traveling exhibition. Throughout our journey the Division will identify opportunities for tactical intervention and speculative invention as we examine the unknown fields between truth and fiction.
Applications
The deadline for applications is 6 August 2012. All participants traveling from abroad are responsible for securing any visa required. After payment of fees, the AA can provide a letter confirming participation in the workshop. A portfolio or CV is not required, only the online application form and payment.
Fees
The AA Visiting School requires a fee of £695 per participant, which includes a £50 Visiting Membership. If you are already a member, the total fee will be reduced automatically by £50 by the online payment system.
Eligibility
The workshop is open to architecture and design students and professionals worldwide.
Dr. Maya Angelou is one of the most renowned and influential voices of our time. Hailed as a global renaissance woman, Dr. Angelou is a celebrated poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist.
Born on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Angelou was raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. In Stamps, Dr. Angelou experienced the brutality of racial discrimination, but she also absorbed the unshakable faith and values of traditional African-American family, community, and culture.
As a teenager, Dr. Angelou’s love for the arts won her a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco’s Labor School. At 14, she dropped out to become San Francisco’s first African-American female cable car conductor. She later finished high school, giving birth to her son, Guy, a few weeks after graduation. As a young single mother, she supported her son by working as a waitress and cook, however her passion for music, dance, performance, and poetry would soon take center stage.
In 1954 and 1955, Dr. Angelou toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She studied modern dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey on television variety shows and, in 1957, recorded her first album, Calypso Lady. In 1958, she moved to New York, where she joined the Harlem Writers Guild, acted in the historic Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet’s The Blacks and wrote and performed Cabaret for Freedom.
As the last American soldiers left Iraq in December, so, too, did many of the journalists who had covered the war, leaving little in the way of media coverage of post-war Iraq. While there were some notable exceptions — including two fine articles by MIT’s John Tirman that asked how many Iraqis had been killed as a result of the US invasion — overall the American press published few articles on the effects of the occupation, especially the consequences for Iraqis.
As a college professor, I have a special interest in what happened to Iraqi universities under US occupation. The story is not pretty.
Until the 1990s, Iraq had perhaps the best university system in the Middle East. Saddam Hussein’s regime used oil revenues to underwrite free tuition for Iraqi university students — churning out doctors, scientists, and engineers who joined the country’s burgeoning middle class and anchored development. Although political dissent was strictly off-limits, Iraqi universities were professional, secular institutions that were open to the West, and spaces where male and female, Sunni and Shia mingled. Also the schools pushed hard to educate women, who constituted 30 percent of Iraqi university faculties by 1991. (This is, incidentally, better than Princeton was doing as late as 2009.) With a reputation for excellence, Iraqi universities attracted many students from surrounding countries — the same countries that are now sheltering the thousands of Iraqi professors who have fled US-occupied Iraq.
Written by Hugh Gusterson, The Bulletin of Atomic Sciences. Continue HERE
“If you design with a view to optimize anything, it is bound to end up suboptimal, because it can’t cope with change. This applies as much to political constitutions, universities and buildings”
~ Jeff Mulgan
It began as a housing marvel. Two decades later, it ended in rubble. But what happened to those caught in between? The Pruitt-Igoe Myth tells the story of the transformation of the American city in the decades after World War II, through the lens of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing development and the St. Louis residents who called it home. At the film’s historical center is an analysis of the massive impact of the national urban renewal program of the 1950s and 1960s, which prompted the process of mass suburbanization and emptied American cities of their residents, businesses, and industries. Those left behind in the city faced a destitute, rapidly de-industrializing St. Louis , parceled out to downtown interests and increasingly segregated by class and race. The residents of Pruitt-Igoe were among the hardest hit. Their gripping stories of survival, adaptation, and success are at the emotional heart of the film. The domestic turmoil wrought by punitive public welfare policies; the frustrating interactions with a paternalistic and cash-strapped Housing Authority; and the downward spiral of vacancy, vandalism and crime led to resident protest and action during the 1969 Rent Strike, the first in the history of public housing. And yet, despite this complex history, Pruitt-Igoe has often been stereotyped. The world-famous image of its implosion has helped to perpetuate a myth of failure, a failure that has been used to critique Modernist architecture, attack public assistance programs, and stigmatize public housing residents. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth seeks to set the historical record straight. To examine the interests involved in Pruitt-Igoe’s creation. To re-evaluate the rumors and the stigma. To implode the myth.
Speakers: Professor Craig Calhoun, Professor Bruno Latour, Alan Rusbridger, Professor Judy Wajcman, David Adjaye, Professor Geoff Mulgan, Lord Richard Rogers, Polly Toynbee.
This event was recorded on 14 May 2010 in Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building.
In this exciting half-day conference two panels on ‘Public Life and Public Policy’ and ‘Cities and the Public Realm’, discuss these themes in the context of the work of Professor Sennett, the eminent sociologist whose recent books include The Culture of the New Capitalism and The Craftsman.
Amidst society’s hopes for a green future, the power of working with nature is still not sufficiently understood or exploited. Too many visions remain divorced from the end user. Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto, the architects and co-founders of London-based ecoLogicStudio, feel that ‘using and interacting with natural elements in a symbiotic way can become a game with ecological benefits.’ Recently they have focused on the potential of algae—micro-algae are used for energy, while macro-algae—like bio-radars or generative agents—is used for filtering water and making food.
New symbiotic algae and seafood/fish farms generated in Crane Greenhouses
As global regions undergo structural and demographic shifts, agritourism and algae farms have huge potential, but models need testing and feedback from people, so that prototypes can be optimally identified as multi-use educational resources related to their living context. ‘You don’t have so many choices at the moment. There is a detachment of production from consumption, when even recycling can be fun’, say ecoLogicStudio. Their Algae Farm for the Swedish Municipality of Simrishamn demonstrates the interactive potentials for algae-related urban activities and architectural prototypes. Here on the Ostersjiön region of Sweden on the Baltic Sea a decaying fishing industry and aging local population ‘calls for the introduction of a new type of economic and urban system.’
HORTUS (Hydro Organisms Responsive To Urban Stimuli) is a new exhibition from ecoLogicStudio that engages with the notions of urban renewable energy and agriculture through a new gardening prototype. Over a four-week growing period, flows of energy (light radiation), matter (biomass, carbon dioxide) and information (images, tweets, stats) will be triggered to induce multiple mechanisms of self-regulation and evolve novel forms of self-organisation. HORTUS proposes an experimental hands-on engagement with these notions, illustrating their potential applicability to the masterplanning of large regional landscapes and the retrofitting of industrial and rural architectural types, as exemplified in the project ‘Regional Algae Farm’ developed by ecoLogicStudio for the Swedish region of Osterlen.
Architectural Association School students, staff and visitors are invited to engage daily with HORTUS to invent new protocols of urban biogardening. A virtual organism such as this offers the opportunity to capture and build up information and cultivation practices, enriching the material experience of the visitor turned urban ‘cyber-gardener’.
Getting out of the cave and seeing things as they really are: that’s what philosophy is about, according to Almira Ribeiro. Ribeiro teaches the subject in a high school in Itapuã, a beautiful, poor, violent neighborhood on the periphery of Salvador, capital of the state of Bahia in Brazil’s northeast. She is the most philosophically passionate person I’ve ever met.
Most of the four million slaves shipped from Africa to Brazil were sold in Salvador, the first residence of Portugal’s colonial rulers. It’s still Brazil’s blackest city. In Ribeiro’s neighborhood, children play football or do capoeira, pray in Pentecostal Churches or worship African gods. Many are involved with drugs; “every year we lose students to crack,” she tells me. And they study philosophy two hours each week because of a 2008 law that mandates philosophy instruction in all Brazilian high schools. Nine million teenagers now take philosophy classes for three years.
“But seeing things as they really are isn’t enough,” Ribeiro insists. As in Plato’s parable in The Republic, the students must go back to the cave and apply what they’ve learned. Their lives give them rich opportunities for such application. The contrast between the new luxury hotels along the beach and Itapuã’s overcrowded streets gives rise to questions about equality and justice. Children kicking around a can introduce a discussion about democracy: football is one of the few truly democratic practices here; success depends on merit, not class privilege. Moving between philosophy and practice, the students can revise their views in light of what Plato, Hobbes, or Locke had to say about equality, justice, and democracy and discuss their own roles as political agents.
Written by Carlos Fraenkel, Boston Review. Continue HERE
27 Mar 2000, Manhattan, New York, New York, USA – Author Maya Angelou hosts the 2000 annual conference for the Children’s Defense Fund. – Image by ©Najlah Feanny/CORBIS SABA
New symbiotic algae and seafood/fish farms generated in Crane Greenhouses
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