Artists!

The US Congress is about to pass an internet censorship bill written by the copyright and corporate music and film lobbies, claiming that this bill is written in your name to “protect creativity.” The law would allow the government or corporations to censor entire sites — they just have to convince a judge that the site is “dedicated to copyright infringement.”

In fact, PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are backed and largely written by the Hollywood film industry, namely the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which is trying to sell goods and ideas that are already free. Continue reading

Betabeat wrote: “For anyone who wasn’t aware, there are a few hundred protesters hanging out downtown in a park plaza two blocks from Wall Street. Despite allegations of Twitter censorship, tweets are collating around the hashtags #occupywallst, #occupywallstreet, #ows and #nycga. So when Betabeat walked past an iPad hooked up to a projector showing short hashtagged messages with the occasional photo, we assumed we were looking at a Twitter client. Turns out that’s not what it is. This app is called Vibe, the “new kid on the social media block,” and it’s something different: a Twitter-esque messaging system built by Hazem Sayed, a professional developer from California who built the app as an anonymous alternative to Twitter, reports the New York Daily News…” More >> Related: TXTmob (2004) by the Institute for Applied Autonomy.

[HIV-1, coloured green, budding from a cultured lymphocyte. Photo: HIV-1, coloured green, budding from a cultured lymphocyte. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.] Online gamers crack enzyme riddle, from ABC News:

“Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or World of Warcraft: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade.

The exploit was detailed on Sunday in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, where — exceptionally in scientific publishing — both gamers and researchers are honoured as co-authors.” More >>

New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. is pleased to announce that the following works have been commissioned for Turbulence.org with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts:

• A Temporary Memorial Project for Jobbers Canyon Built with Products of ConAgra by Nicholas O’Brien
• Panemoticon by John Priestley and Ali Miharbi
• Searching for Michelle by Maja Kalogera
• Space Video by Kate Armstrong and Michael Tippett
• Woodear by Peter Traub

Turbulence is the oldest and most consistent net art commissions site in the world. Now celebrating 15 years, it has commissioned, exhibited and archived over 200 works.

R-Shief is a digital platform that provides real-time analysis of opinion in the Arab world about late-breaking issues. By using aggregate data from Twitter and the Web, R-Shief can dissect how people in Egypt are reacting to, say, the latest changes to the constitutional process, or how Libyans perceive the presence of NATO forces and Bahrainis perceive the presence of Saudi military, or how the pro-regime supporters in Syria are acting out on social media platforms. We are achieving this through the results of our Pan-Arab Internet aggregator as well as Twitter data mining tools, and by publishing data visualizations based on findings. Continue reading

Newstweek disrupts the news accessed via wireless hotspots such as cafes, libraries, and airports. Continue reading

Posted by Renate Ferro and Tim Murray on -empyre-:

“Happy New Year to all of our –empyre- subscribers as we prepare to launch our ninth year as a list-serve hosting approximately 1400 subscribers. Since 2002 Melinda Rackham has launched the website from subtle.net. We thank her for all of the energy and support that she has provided in –empyre’s- initial inception and many years of nurturance. Cornell University has agreed to host the site on their library server so you will notice that our URL has changed. Stay tuned to our new URL at empyre.library.cornell.edu and watch our new site evolve over the next few months. Continue reading

Contain this! Leaks, Whistle-Blowers and the Networked News Ecology by Felix Stalder, Eurozine:

WikiLeaks’ series of exposés is causing a very different news and informational landscape to emerge. Whilst acknowledging the structural leakiness of networked organisations, Felix Stalder finds deeper reasons for the crisis of information security and the new distribution of investigative journalism.

WikiLeaks is one of the defining stories of the Internet, which means by now, one of the defining stories of the present, period. At least four large-scale trends which permeate our societies as a whole are fused here into an explosive mixture whose fall-out is far from clear. First is a change in the materiality of communication. Communication becomes more extensive, more recorded, and the records become more mobile. Second is a crisis of institutions, particularly in western democracies, where moralistic rhetoric and the ugliness of daily practice are diverging ever more at the very moment when institutional personnel are being encouraged to think more for themselves. Continue reading

Renewable Network: The Long Bean / Windowfarms — Network for Art and Renewable Energy Technologies was founded in 2009 as a result of event series, that took place in Riga and Latvia, as well as in other Baltic and Nordic countries, focusing on the issues of sustainability — exploring artistic strategies, alternative approach and ecological use of renewable energy and information technologies. Network is now opening up, and those who are interested in “art and renewable energy technologies” are very welcome to join the network and to subscribe to the Renewable mailinglist (initiated and hosted by RIXC, administrated by members of the network). As for more recent activities of this network, this summer various events took place in different locations, that was related to specific “energy” topic — FOOD AS ENERGY: Continue reading