Nonprofits: Steal This Film For Your Own Purposes
Tiffany Shlain, a filmmaker perhaps best known for the documentary Connected and for founding the Webby Awards, is turning into a fairy godmother for nonprofits in need of new ways to get out their messages. Her latest 10-minute film, Brain Power, could help childhood development-related nonprofits solicit donations, volunteers, and anything else they might need. We’ve written before about Shlain’s project, a series of digital shorts that nonprofits can use for free to further their causes. The first film in the series, A Declaration of Interdependence, was an experiment in what Shlain calls "cloud filmmaking"--where video and art from people around the world is integrated into a film. In Brain Power, Shlain uses research from Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child and the University of Washington’s I-LABS to explore connections between a child’s developing brain and the always-developing brain of the Internet.
Excellent Russell Brand interview on celebrity culture by BBC’s Newsnight
I’m very curious to find out what my American cousins make of Russell Brand. Yes, I know you know he’s a comedian, and it’s pretty obvious that guy has the gift of the gab. His reboot of Arthur has just been released (to some pretty damning reviews) so we’re seeing a lot more of his promotional material at the moment. But have you seen him in a context like this?
vis.mediaartresearch.at/textass/textass.php?id=43
Statement of the [the next idea] Art- and Technology Grant Jury 2005 A New Concept Wilhelm Burger , Horst Hörtner , Gustav Pomberger , Daniela Pühringer , Christa Sommerer 1998 : By integrating its new competition "Cybergeneration u19 - freestyle computing " into the programme, the Prix Ars Electronica directly addressed young people in Austria for the first time. At the time talk revolved around computerage kids who had grown up with computers and new information technologies kids who had, so to speak, imbibed these innovations as "a fifth cultural technique" with their mother's milk.
Max Mathews, electronic music pioneer, RIP
Electronic music pioneer Max V. Mathews died a few days ago at the age of 84. While at BELL Labs in the 1950s, Matthews developed MUSIC, the first popular computer program for generating sound. The multimedia visual programming language Max/MSP was named in part for Mathews. From Wikipedia:
Ars Electronica FESTIVAL
A piece of high-tech equipment like an mp3 player should ideally be able to get across what it’s designed to do and how to operate it just as simply as a wedge, a sledgehammer or a saw does. You have the device in front of you, consider its form, try it out and, after a couple of attempts at most, you have all of its features down pat.Blanket statements like this can get designers, programmers and engineers really worked up. Their critique might well maintain that comparing a highly complex instrument that represents the culmination of thousands of technological advances that this civilization has brought forth—from gramophone cylinders and shellac discs to radio and all the way to fiberglass cables, the PC and digitization—with a simple wedge is pretty farfetched to say the least.But even companies like Microsoft, Intel and Adobe are increasingly coming around to this way of thinking. Design Ethnography on www.gotomedia.com
A mini-doc about the Minimoog
Here’s a cute lil’ doc about the origins and early use of the wondrous Minimoog from the company that brought it into existence. It’s so very easy to take for granted today but this was the very first synth to have a built-in keyboard. I was fascinated to learn that its signature tone, the thing that allows it to cut through any musical setting it’s used in was an unintended excess of overdrive. Credit Moog for realizing what a brilliant mistake they had made and not changing it. Bonus: Two of my favorite funky Minimoog workouts, firstly it’s The Harlem Buck Dance Strut from Les McCann’s 1973 LP Layers:
jonronson.com
Jon Ronson On... Each week in a series of interviews, short location reports, scripted monologues, phone calls etc, Jon Ronson delves into a world of personal stories surrounding the central theme which all shed light on the human condition. Sometimes Jon goes in search of answers and stories himself, sometimes his team of contributors do it for him. The end result is an original, fascinating, funny, poignant and often philosophical journey through the human experience.
Dreams, Telepathy, and Various States of Consciousness
You can read March 2011 issue, Table of Content and Articles We are pleased to present this special edition on Dreams, Telepathy, and Various States of Consciousness. This edition includes a broad array of articles from well-known authors in the field, as well as graduate students whose work also addresses topics such as anomalous experiences of mediums and advanced meditators, shamanic experiences, near-death experiences, experiences related to dreams and body wisdom, and the various ways that anomalous experiences can be conceptualized and categorized. In “Across Cultural Boundaries: Psychophysiological Responses, Absorption and Dissociation Comparison Between Brazilian Spiritists and Advanced Meditators,” Joan Hageman, Stanley Krippner, and Ian Wickramasekera II present results of a study they conducted with two claimant mediums and one non-medium living in Brazil, compared with seven advanced meditators living in North America.
