Copa Sonar

Sound Art Performance in Berlin Public Square
Copa Sonar: 5 sound performances broadcast live free beer and wine over a hundred spectators = a public intervention at a highly politicized and contested site in Berlin’s mitte.

Add comment Datestamp: July 29th, 2006

HRD rubbishes MIT’s laptop scheme

The Times of India
NEW DELHI: The HRD ministry has rejected the idea of ‘one-laptop-per-child’ (OLPC) being aggressively marketed by Nicholas Negroponte of MIT Media Laboratory. “India must not allow itself to be used for experimentation with children in this area,” the ministry has said.

The ministry’s detailed objection based on technical, social and financial grounds was sent to the Planning Commission two weeks ago.

Negroponte had made a presentation on OLPC at Yojna Bhavan on April 7 seeking to sell one million laptops at the rate of $100 per unit for children, the cost to be borne by the government.

Add comment Datestamp: July 27th, 2006

FM Radio Map

By Simon Elvins
April 2006 - Screenprint, pencil, modified FM Radio - Edition of 20, prints available

This map plots the location of FM commercial and pirate radio stations within London.The poster works in its own right as a piece of information design, but when connected to the modified radio it becomes part of the interface. Each map is made site specific by connecting only the stations that can be received in that location. This is done by drawing power lines in pencil on the back of the map, which conducts electricity from the radio to the front of the poster.Placing a metal contact onto each point enables us to listen to the sound broadcast live from that location.

Add comment Datestamp: July 20th, 2006

About the Bonobo: Text from Wikipedia

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Sexual intercourse plays a major role in Bonobo society, being used as a greeting, a means of conflict resolution and post-conflict reconciliation, and as favors traded by the females in exchange for food. Bonobos are the only non-human apes to have been observed engaging in all of the following sexual activities: face-to-face genital sex (most frequently female-female, then male-female and male-male), tongue kissing, and oral sex. Bonobos do not form permanent relationships with individual partners. They also do not seem to discriminate in their sexual behavior by gender or age, with the possible exception of sexual intercourse between mothers and their adult sons; some observers believe these pairings are taboo. When Bonobos come upon a new food source or feeding ground, the increased excitement will usually lead to communal sexual activity, assumedly decreasing tension and allowing for peaceful feeding…

Add comment Datestamp: July 18th, 2006

Electrical Walks

Cabinet Magazine Covers Kubisch and Listen to Samples of Raw Sounds
In 2003, Berlin-based sound artist Christina Kubisch began an ongoing project called “Electrical Walks.” This project employs specially built headphones that receive electromagnetic signals from the environment and convert them into sound. Kubisch maps a given territory, noting “hot spots” (ATM machines, security systems, electronic cash registers, subway systems, etc.) where the signals are particularly strong or interesting. She then loans the headphones to the public, allowing participants to undertake an auditory dérive through the invisible network of electromagnetic information.

Add comment Datestamp: July 16th, 2006

Pentagon Plans for Post-Climate Tipping

CLIMATE COLLAPSE: The Pentagon’s Weather Nightmare
When scientists’ work on abrupt climate change popped onto his radar screen, Marshall tapped another eminent visionary, Peter Schwartz, to write a report on the national-security implications of the threat. Schwartz formerly headed planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group and has since consulted with organizations ranging from the CIA to DreamWorks—he helped create futuristic scenarios for Steven Spielberg’s film Minority Report. Schwartz and co-author Doug Randall at the Monitor Group’s Global Business Network, a scenario-planning think tank in Emeryville, Calif., contacted top climate experts and pushed them to talk about what-ifs that they usually shy away from—at least in public.

The result is an unclassified report, completed late last year, that the Pentagon has agreed to share with FORTUNE. It doesn’t pretend to be a forecast. Rather, it sketches a dramatic but plausible scenario to help planners think about coping strategies. Here is an abridged version…

Add comment Datestamp: July 5th, 2006