monochrom

"A Serious Man": There is a God and he is pissed

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:03:00 +0000

The Coens have raised the bar with A Serious Man, a sledgehammer allegory delivered in a blizzard of wordplay and imagery so subtle I still don't know what hit me. Nevertheless, I feel reasonably comfortable that, in a big way, the film is an assault upon its intended audience.

As a cine-masochist, I am plum delighted.

A survey of the criticism on imdb suggests three main readings.

1. Political--ASM is a biting take on the foibles of a Hebraic tradition that has become hollow—equated textually to the erosion of the American Dream.
2. Postmodern--The movie is a loving send-up of the same tradition. A moral fable, wherein the existential conundrum is absolved through the proper apprehension of Love and its purported source, Hashem. A fancy turn on the axiomatic 'God is Love', built upon a Kafkaesque reading of the Book of Job.
3. Magical--A parabolic parable upon the nature of uncertainty.

A Serious Man is all of these, I reckon, and more. At once an apparently impossible riddle or Gordian Knot, an emo one-liner and a sort of magic trick, complete with a dazzling punch provided by the use of in situ music by Jefferson Airplane. So to start us off, we have three solid interps, which taken together ought to provide enough fodder for a good variety of critique and analysis well into the future.

But I deduce another and much tougher meaning. A Serious Man is a message, loud and clear and in no uncertain terms: there is a God and he is fucking pissed-off. See, folks have pretty much given up on him, Hashem, God, though some don't know it or won't admit it. The Coens take serious lengths to establish Hashem's unique problems, going so far as to a hint of his ultimate identity.

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What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:57:00 +0000

For those concerned with the fate of the earth, the time has come to face facts: not simply the dire reality of climate change but also the pressing need for social-system change. The failure to arrive at a world climate agreement in Copenhagen in December 2009 was not simply an abdication of world leadership, as is often suggested, but had deeper roots in the inability of the capitalist system to address the accelerating threat to life on the planet. Knowledge of the nature and limits of capitalism, and the means of transcending it, has therefore become a matter of survival. In the words of Fidel Castro in December 2009: "Until very recently, the discussion [on the future of world society] revolved around the kind of society we would have. Today, the discussion centers on whether human society will survive."

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Beyond torture: the future of interrogation?

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:55:00 +0000

Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay: two names that have become synonymous in many people's minds with torture and abuse of human rights by American interrogators. When Barack Obama entered the White House in January 2009, he set out to erase the stain such practices have left on America's image. The High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group established later that year has as one of its stated aims to interrogate without brute force and to employ "scientifically proven" techniques - though without saying what these might be.

It seems like a noble goal, but on closer inspection it raises a host of questions. Can science validate interrogation techniques - and if so, how? What is the effect on the human mind of coercive interrogation that stops short of physical torture? And, crucially, are there any interrogation techniques that can be shown to be both effective and humane?

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Techno(sexual) Bodies / Arse Elektronika in Hong Kong

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:42:00 +0000

Arse Elektronika goes Hong Kong!

Techno(sexual) Bodies: Arse Elektronika X Videotage / Artist Talk @ Dorkbot-HK

Speakers: Johannes Grenzfurthner (founder of monochrom and Arse Elektronika), Heather Kelley (media artist and video game designer), Karen Marcelo (founder of dorkbot-sf).

Date: April 1, 2010 (Thu) Time: 6pm-7pm Venue: Osage Soho; Address: G/F, 45 Caine Road, Central, Hong Kong.

Techno(sexual) Bodies / Arse Elektronika X Videotage / Exhibition

Co-curated by Johannes Grenzfurthner (Austria) and Isaac Leung (HK)

From the simple electronic vibrator to the complex assemblages of cybersex, sex and technology have always intersected. The dynamic relations between sexuality and technology are constantly changing along with the ways in which human beings achieve psychological and bodily pleasure through these devices. By inviting artists who're dealing with various issues of technosexual bodies, we aim not only to examine the unexplored technicalities, functionalities and interfaces of the new technologies and sexualities, but also to formulate a broader understanding of the meanings of the "technosexual".

Participating Artists: Timothy Archibald (USA), Shu Lea Cheang (USA/France), Paul Granjon (UK), Katrien Jacobs (Belgium), Heather Kelley (USA/CAN), Kyle Machulis (USA), monochrom (Austria), Ellen Pau (HK), Stephane Perrin (Japan), Rainer Prohaska (Austria), Allen Stein (USA), Morgan Wong (HK)

Opening Reception: April 2, 2010 (Fri), 6pm
Exhibition Period: April 7-27, 2010
Opening Hour: 12pm-7pm (Tue-Sun except public holidays)
Venue: Videotage (Unit 13, Cattle Depot Artist Village, 63 Ma Tau Kok Road, To Kwa Wan, Kowloon, Hong Kong)

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monochrom nominated for Prix Ars Electronica / Digital Communities

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:48:00 +0000

Nice.

The "Digital Communities" category focuses on the wide-ranging social and artistic impact of the Internet as well as on the latest developments in social software, user generated content, mobile communications, mash-ups and location based services. Digital Communities" focuses on innovation in human coexistence, efforts to bridge the geographical as well as gender-based digital divide, overcoming cultural conflicts and fostering cultural diversity and the freedom of artistic expression. Consideration is also given to projects that advance the practice of sharing and the formation of a "Cloud Intelligence", and that facilitate access to technological-social infrastructure. Digital Communities spotlights the political and artistic potential of digital and networked systems and is thus designed to singled out for recognition a broad spectrum of projects, programs, artworks, initiatives and phenomena in which social and artistic innovation is taking place, as it were, in real time. A Golden Nica, two Awards of Distinction and up to 12 Honorary Mentions will be awarded in the Digital Communities category in 2010.

And here is our announcement:
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Indiginous leaders brought to Quito to watch "Avatar"

noreply@blogger.com (David Fine) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 02:12:00 +0000

From the "it doesn't get more post-modern than this" files:

The Supercines Theater is on one of the busiest streets in Quito. On this afternoon it's filled with indigenous leaders bussed in from the Amazon. They're decked out in their plumes, feathered crowns and jewelry. Some of them look a little overwhelmed but that's not too surprising.

"It left a huge impression on us. For example, the movies are almost real. It's an example that makes us think a lot because the indigenous are defending their rights. We have to defend just as the indigenous so clearly defended in the movie. We had an uprising we had a confrontation with gases; it's the same as what we just saw in the movie."

Others say there was at least one thing in the movie that veered from their reality Achuar leader Luis Vargas says it's where the white guy sweeps in to the rescue. But he says that's to be expected. Vega says just like in Avatar, the Shuar are fighting to protect their land from mining companies. And they're not the only ones.

"This is a Hollywood movie, so it's practically a given that a mestizo comes to the defense and leads (the people) to triumph in the end."

Link (via theworld.org)

Roboexotica in New York Times: "Just Like Mombot Used to Make"

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:29:00 +0000

"A simple rule of robotic personality seems to be: don’t make things the most efficient way," said Magnus Wurzer, who has been running the Vienna-based Roboexotica, a festival where scientists have gone to build, showcase and discuss "cocktail robots" since 1999.

One entry, Beerbot, detects approaching people and asks for beer money. When it acquires enough, it "buys" itself a beer. Bystanders can watch it flow into a transparent bladder. As for other humanizing behaviors, "like a robot that doesn’t stop short at lighting a cigarette but actually goes ahead and smokes it?" Mr. Wurzer says, "We had that.

Roboexotica has inspired a stateside version as well, which just had its third annual celebration in San Francisco.

And in at least one case in Europe, a robot actually got behind a bar. From 1999 to 2002, a scarlet-eyed metal robot named Cynthia poured drinks at Cynthia's Bridge Bar and Lounge in London. But according to Mr. Wurzer, "she was too costly to maintain once the bar was sold by the robot's maker."

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monochrom @ Pomona College

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:15:00 +0000

Where and when?

Pomona College (Pomona, California) at 10:30am on Thursday, February 25th.

We promise greatness.

Kokoromi: Call for One-Button Objects!

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:21:00 +0000

Our friends at Kokoromi have an interesting call out. Just a couple of more days! Join!

What can you do with one button? In an age of ever-more-complex touch interfaces, we'd like to imagine what a single, tangible, hardware button can mean for a design.

[...]

This call seeks to inspire unique hardware/software hacks that integrate playful, one-button interaction within a standalone machine or device. The curators are seeking circuit-bent gadgets, retro-fitted consoles, mechanical constructions, custom electronics, and other one-off creations. During the week of the Game Developers Conference, the Game Objects will be featured in an exhibit at the Gray Area Foundation, a new collaboration and exhibition venue revitalizing the Tenderloin, near the Moscone Center. A selection of these Objects will be shown at the opening night Gamma party, alongside the software-based Gamma4 one-button games, on March 10th at the Mezzanine in SoMa.

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monochrom @ Crashspace LA: Of drunken machines and horny relays

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:36:00 +0000

Sex machines! Cocktail robots! And more! Johannes will host a workshop/talk about how to build DIY hedonistic machines. Don't miss it!

At Crashspace LA, February 24, 2010; 8 PM.

Visual proof! monochrom #26-34 is here!

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:42:00 +0000

Fear!
Today we received a pretty huge delivery. 3 point 2 metric tons.

But happiness predominates!

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Barnold PS2 Cocktail Robot at BarBot 2010

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:00 +0000

Uh yeah! Plasmastaub 2.0 (aka Barnold PS2)!

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Photos: BarBot 2010 in San Francisco

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:28:00 +0000

Here are a few photos Scott Beale shot last night at BarBot 2010, a Roboexotica Spin-Off Festival at DNA Lounge in San Francisco.

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Bar Bot 2010 (inspired by Roboexotica) in San Francisco

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 03:00:00 +0000

Roboexotica spawns! Johannes will be co-hosting Bar Bot 2010 in San Francisco.

In a world where robots and humans struggle together in the fight against boredom...
Only one event ends up with the robots dancing "The Human" while the meat puppets (you) end up singing the praises of RoboBartenders.
This February, come hang out with some alternate life-forms at BarBot 2010.

Wed/Thur Feb 17-18, 2010 - 9pm-2am
21+ with photo ID $10 advance / $15 at door
DNA Lounge - 375 Eleventh St., San Francisco

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21 hour workweek solution

noreply@blogger.com (David Fine) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:57:00 +0000

A report by the influential thinktank, the New Economic Foundation, says over-consumption, rising unemployment, increasing inequality and deteriorating work-life balance can be tackled by radically altering working life.

Reducing the working week could also defuse the pensions time bomb by ensuring employees are healthy enough to work later in life.

"Other than the benefit of having more time, what will happen is a reduction in inequality and the potential to be better-quality friends, partners and parents engaging more with communities."

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Hoozah! Pre-order for monochrom #26-34: Ye Olde Self-Referentiality

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:07:00 +0000

Hard to believe, but monochrom #26-34 will be out March 2010!
500 pages, 55 ounces, for 18 euros / 24 us-dollars.

Release tour:
March 11, 2010 @ MUSA in Vienna (afterparty at Metalab)
April 3, 2010 @ Videotage in Hong Kong
April 27, 2010 @ The Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City
(dates for LA, SFO, London, Munich, Berlin will be announced soon)

Content?

Screws and astronauts. Roundworms and Columbia. Cannibalism at sea. Conlanging 101. The basic mechanisms of New Economy and Neoliberalism. The sketchy world of Elffriede. The status of martial law. RFID. Henry the Halibut. Rieseberg and the emergence of work. Dracula (a poem). Historicity, temporality, and politics in the cinema aesthetics of Deleuze, Rancière and Kracauer. Or-Om's call to the children. The problem with social robots. An (anti)history of Rave. The life of a Swiss banker and fascist anti-imperialist. Considerations by Martin Auer. The Stepford wives and stereotypes of putative perfection. Noise and talk. A little potpourri about amok runners, mass homicide and 80s pop songs. Scratching means life. Mae Saslaw's 10005. Kiki and Bubu and Orwell's 1984. Cybernetics and whatever happened to it. The integrating of the Fringe. Witchcraft and lesbianism. The weirdness (and PR) of the wonders of Oz. Rachel Lovinger's personal journey towards datameaningfulness. Revolution, ads and revolt. A pilot study on the philosophy of life of schizophrenics. Pro Asylum. Bird Ball. Medicine in the Dark Ages (humor, leeches, charms and prayers). Reflections about Ivan Grubanov and Paul Chan. Communism, anti-German criticism and Israel. Surprise findings. Hot, hard cocks and tight, tight unlubricated assholes. Dubbing (Casablanca and forged movies). The treatment of media in H. P. Lovecraft's cosmic horror. The relationship of books and films explained via Capricorn One. Stories about our friends (e.g. whales). The history of Pinball machines. Italy and the incubation of fascism. Consider Phlebas and The Waste Land. The implicit ideology of media activism and its current opportunities. Urban Pilgrims touring Vienna. Ronald McDonald slapping a guy in the face. Text adventures. The Shining (Jack of all Trades, Master of None). Reappropriating architecture and playing with the built city. Recoding LOLcats. Sitcom as Endgame, Tatort out of the Volksempfänger (an attempt to understand the culture industry). Gender, race and film comedy. Neon Bible and its hidden agenda. The SNAFU principle and how hierarchies inhibit communication. The power of disposition over (global) space as a new dimension of class structuration. Lustgas. Stammlager 217 and Israel's popular culture of the 1960s. Supertheory(TM). Adopt a highway. X-Wing penetration, dominatrix fathers and phallic light sabers. Europanto. The Unicorn and the Maiden. Leben macht Spass. How to build a magnificent Boom-Boom. Lots of reviews of deities, personalities, questions, states of mind, culture (as opposed to nature), nature (which cannot be divided from culture), words, social practise, future(s), technological artefacts, experiences, things on a keyboard, and matter. The short story of Pocahontas and Avatar. Walled World. Hacking the Spaces. Sally Grizzell Larson's No. 29. The tyranny of structurelessness. Jack Kirby's top 20 creations. The need of Change (keep your coins). Fehler and Fairchild Semiconductor. Richka's Answering Space and the question about Home. Worm. Future 42.0. Doctorow's row-boat. Bare life innovation. A mnemonic of longing. Etiology of Romero-Fulci Disease (and the case for prions). Campaign for the abolition of personal pronouns. Yahooking. A social-centric, canine-inspired perspective on the placebo effect. Helpless machines and true loving caregivers. Information doesn't work (that's why we need information workers). The myth of Xanadu (reconsidered). John Wilcock and the Manhattan Memories. The Cult of Done. Looking at Gene Wilder. Sweet Home Alabama (and why diamonds are a girls worst nightmare). Pretesting the idea of apparative hermeneutics. Ignorantism. Artistic fears in the age of religious fundamentalism. Smoking against America. The Things of Eternity. After warfare in Yugoslavia (or: moral order of recognition). Existential game-show experiments. The epic of Gilgamesh. Mozart as public relations hype. Las Vegas and its casino traditions. Sikhs. Pornographic coding. Invader and public tiles. Splasher, street art and the Situationist International. MakerBot. Long live the porn flesh. The three rules of sidewalk junk giveaways. Melcus and his maps. Mister plomlompom's embracing of post-privacy. Catty (the baseball player). John Duncan (in: Blind Date). Michayluk's crush of worship of the copy. The Telecommunications History Group. monochrom's initiative for the accomplishment of Total Population. The medieval agricultural year. Office Art. A cartoon that makes neoliberals laugh. A rough guide to number stations. The digital age and ubermorgen.com. Mobile phones and "for whom the SAR tolls". A call for more science... and giant dinosaurs who bite each others head off.

Pre-order? Certainly... please send a mail to mono AT monochrom.at

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Arse Elektronika: Review of "Do Androids Sleep with Electric Sheep?" on The SF Site

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:34:00 +0000

Very detailed review of our Arse Elektronika anthology "Do Androids Sleep with Electric Sheep?" featured on "The SF Site":

Like good science fiction, the material collected in Do Androids Sleep With Electric Sheep? leaves us with more questions than we arrived with; if you can stomach the subject matter (which shouldn't really appall anyone but the most prudish and conservative, to be honest, though my perceptions may be somewhat skewed), this is prime fuel for your imaginatory engines. The focal character of James Tiptree, Jr.'s story "And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side" suggests that, as humans, "we're built to dream outwards" [pp 239], to project our desire onto "the other", whoever or whatever it may happen to be. It's an insight that makes more sense each time you read it, and serves to underline the basic commonality between sex and science fiction, or indeed art in general -- they are both ways in which we try to subsume ourselves into (or control and dominate over) that which we are not.
Love makes us do strange things, after all.

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US of A: The Decline

noreply@blogger.com (David Fine) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:51:00 +0000

An animated map of Recession in the United States. I think less employment would be good for everyone if only they'd still let us live in our houses.
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"Fear the Boom and Bust": a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem

noreply@blogger.com (johl) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:34:00 +0000

John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich August von Hayek summarize their macroeconomic theories in a gangster rap. While Keynes has the stimulus bling-bling, Hayek disses him hard:

Your focus on spending is pushing on thread
In the long run, my friend, it's your theory that's dead
So sorry there, buddy, if that sounds like invective
Prepare to get schooled in my Austrian perspective

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Piracy Kills Local Music. Really?

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:04:00 +0000

In a market that is "rigged by piracy" it is non-English language music which suffers the most when the music industry tightens its belt.

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Sexually explicit jigs were a major part of the attraction of the Elizabethan, Jacobean and Restoration stage

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:01:00 +0000

The crowds who flocked to the London playhouses in the late-16th and early-17th centuries could expect to be amused, amazed and moved. Not only would they experience the drama of some courtly comedy or woeful tragedy but, in many cases, if they stayed on after the play had ended, they would also be treated to a sort of 'B-feature', a rude, lewd farce, commonly known as a 'jig'. Featuring songs, dancing and slapstick, jigs involved far more than the simple Irish folk dance that the word has come to denote. In the playhouses of Elizabethan London dramatic jigs were established as the standard ending or afterpiece to more serious theatrical fare.Not that everyone approved. The playwright Thomas Dekker wrote in 1613:

"I have often seen, after the finishing of some worthy tragedy or catastrophe in the open theatres that the scene after the Epilogue hath been more blacke -- about a nasty bawdy jigge -- than the most horrid scene in the play was."

To the literary world they were an object of disapproval. Ben Jonson (1572-1637) loathed the 'concupiscence of jigs', believing they prevented audiences from appreciating plays. Shakespeare's Hamlet, after drawing Ophelia into a particularly vulgar exchange, apologises to her by calling himself 'Your only jigmaker'. The satirical poet Everard Guilpin (born c. 1572) dismissed the 'whores, bedles, bawds and sergeants' who 'filthily chant Kemps Jigge', noting how, on leaving the playhouse fired up with lust, 'many a cold grey-beard citizen' would sneak into 'some odde noted house of sin': easy to do, as theatres, bear-baiting pits and brothels were situated in close proximity on London's South Bank, outside the formal control of Dancers perform in a circle around musicians in a masque at a banquet held in the home of the courtier Sir Henry Unton (detail, c.1596). Inset: Richard Tarlton, a popular jig-maker and clown, portrayed in a manuscript from 1588. the City authorities. Even Thomas Heywood, a dramatist and actor with the Lord Admiral's Men, felt disgust at these sub-literary dramas. While on the one hand delighting in the comic farces he called 'merry accidents', he wrote in An Apology for Actors (1612): 'I speak not in the defence of any lascivious shrews, scurrilous jeasts, or scandalous invectives. If there be any such I banish them quite from my patronage.'

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Great rant by font designer Erik Spiekermann

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:47:00 +0000

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Straight Outta Compton - Nina Gordon

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:46:00 +0000

I approve.

Link (via dnlplus)

What Came First in the Origin of Life? New Study Contradicts the 'Metabolism First' Hypothesis

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 10:35:00 +0000

A new study published in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences rejects the theory that the origin of life stems from a system of self-catalytic molecules capable of experiencing Darwinian evolution without the need of RNA or DNA and their replication.

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Landmark Human Rights Case in Argentina Puts Torture on Trial

noreply@blogger.com (johannes) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:03:00 +0000

Argentine courts have launched an investigation into crimes committed at the ESMA Navy Mechanics School during the nation's military dictatorship. The landmark human rights trial is one of the most far-reaching attempts to bring crimes of Latin America's bloody past to justice.

For more than three decades, survivors and their families awaited the trial that finally began on Dec. 11, 2009. During Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship, the ESMA Navy Mechanics School served as a clandestine detention center, used to torture and disappear thousands of people. Now 17 former ESMA officers face charges of human rights abuses, torture, and murder.

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