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Soviet Unterzoegersdorf / Sector II: Presentation! 
monochrom content info
Comrades! The presentation of Soviet Unterzoegersdorf: Sector II was a huge success! We only had to remove eight demonstrators, and only four of them need medical care.



We chose sixteen heroes and heroines of betatesting and are glad being able to inform you that Soviet Unterzoegersdorf: Sector II will be available for download in the first week of January.

Link



Music for taking down the Xmas tree 
Xmas is not the same as Christmas. We've taken the Christ out of it, replacing him with the symbol 'X' which seems to stand in place as a wildcard meaning "this, that, or the other thing". The holiday Xmas is a collection of rites including family recipes, wealth swapping, tree decorating, and music designed to compete in the Special Olympics of pop music, the "holiday jingle".

So as you have doubtless been assailed by this festive pseudo-religious music for the last month, now it is time to reverse, rewind, and unwind. Presented here are eight traditional holiday tunes in reverse. We suggest you play them while taking down the Xmas tree in order to mentally cleanse yourself of holiday cheer until next December.

Link (12mb .zip of mp3's)



Soviet Unterzoegersdorf / Sector II: Get ready! 
monochrom content info
December 28, 2008.



Link



Arne Duncan and the Corporate Model of Schooling 
The dismantling of the corporatized and militarized model of schooling should be a top priority under the Obama administration. Unfortunately, Obama has appointed as his secretary of education someone who embodies this utterly punitive, anti-intellectual, corporatized and test-driven model of schooling.
Link



Unionising your workplace 
A ten-step guide to workplace organisation from scratch. By Patrick Smith.
Link



Can Science Help Solve The Economic Crisis? 
Eric Weinstein has spoken about an "economic Manhattan project". This means getting a group of good scientists together, some who know a lot about economics and finance, and others, who have proved themselves in other areas of science but bring fresh minds and perspectives to the challenge, to focus on developing a scientific conceptualization of economic theory and modeling that is reliable enough to be called a science.
Link



Spotless Mind? Unwanted Memories Might Be Erasable Without Harming Other Brain Functions 
In a discovery that may one day lead to the ability to erase debilitating painful memories and addictions from the brain, researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center have found that a molecule known to preserve memories – PKMzeta – specifically stores complex, high-quality memories that provide detailed information about an animal's location, fears, and actions, but does not control the ability to process or express this information. This finding suggests that PKMzeta erasure that is designed to target specific debilitating memories could be effective against the offending memory while sparing the computational function of brain.
Link



A World Enslaved 
There are now more slaves on the planet than at any time in human history. True abolition will elude us until we admit the massive scope of the problem, attack it in all its forms, and empower slaves to help free themselves.
Link



Pope attacks blurring of gender: "an ecology of the human being" 
Pope Benedict XVI has said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.
Link



Roboexotica on twitter 
monochrom content info
The Festival for Cocktail Robotics. Twitter updates about robotics, alcohol and techno-hedonism.



Link



FM4 about Arse Elektronika 
monochrom content info
Robert Glashüttner is reporting about our Arse Elektronika and the Arse Elektronika anthology.
Techno dank Porno
Warum ist das Internet so schnell? Wieso benutzen so viele Menschen digitale Tauschbörsen? Und weshalb sind Videostream-Plattformen so fortgeschritten und beliebt? Jeder weiß die Antwort, bloß sagen trauen es sich nur die wenigsten: Wegen der Pornos natürlich!



Link



Elemental Decomposition 
I thought someone might appreciate this chart listing the elemental decomposition of the human body by weight.
Link



"Kiki and Bubu and The Feelings" on Boing Boing TV... Killing Capitalism with Christmas! 
monochrom content info
Yes, it is a time of crisis, but it is also a time of Christmas. Kiki and Bubu have a present for you.



Link Boing Boing
Link Kiki and Bubu main page



Honzo: the world commiserates! 
monochrom content info
We got some heart-warming tributes to Honzo!

But you don't know Honzo? Well...
In 1952, Austrian big-game hunter and Africa ‘researcher’ Ernst Zwilling (a colonial revisionist and member of the Nazi party) brought a male chimpanzee from Cameroon to Schönbrunn, the Viennese zoo. In his African home, ‘Honzo’ had reportedly been a friendly and amiable animal, but in the zoo he began to show a rather violent temper. Due to his choleric outbreaks, poor Honzo was kept in solitary confinement. The chimpanzee was given beer and cigarettes. He got addicted and died an alcoholic and chain-smoker. After his death, the chimp was taxidermied and put into the Viennese Museum of Natural History. Now people from all over the world stare at him.

We want to create a page that is dedicated to Honzo: the victim, the choleric, the drug abuser.
New tributes, submitted by Christopher Thomas Palmer, Steve Reeder/Motmot Design and Bre Pettis.







But that's by far not enough! Send yours!
Link to all tributes



monochrom @ Touch Me Festival, Zagreb/Croatia 
monochrom content info
monochrom will be part of "Touch Me Festival" 2008 in Zagreb, Croatia.

December 19-23, 2008.

Link



Soviet Unterzoegersdorf / Sector II: Presentation at 25C3 
monochrom content info
A glorious (but short) reminder.

Soviet Unterzoegersdorf: Sector II will be presented at the 25th Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin (December 28, 23:59, Hall 1).



Stay tuned.

Link



Ten Years of Roboexotica: The Catalogue 
monochrom content info
Ten Years of Roboexotica: The Catalogue

Editors: Günther Friesinger, Magnus Wurzer, Johannes Grenzfurthner, Franz Ablinger, Chris Veigl

ROBOEXOTICA

The Festival for Cocktail Robotics

Although today robots have lots of different applications, they are still rarely involved in interactions with human end-users. The steady progress in the development of service and helper robots which has been made in the last couple of years seems very promising, though. While for quite some time now robots have been assembling cars in the blink of an eye, towards the end of the first decade of the 21st century, what we are witnessing is still just the beginning of efforts to be made on introducing robotics to the various cultural environments.
ROBOEXOTICA takes a look at the broadly interpreted field of (modern) cocktail culture along with a variety of arts contributing to it. Until the year 1999 there were no attempts to create a competition of developing technologies or to introduce cocktail robotics as an index for the integration of technological achievements in everyday life and as a means of documenting the creation of new interfaces for man-machine-interaction, a priori dedicated to hedonism. For a whole decade now that void is filled by the ROBOEXOTICA, the Viennese cocktail robotics festival around which a pool of creative people has gathered who, year after year, are actually providing new ideas on the topic.

The ROBOEXOTICA aims at establishing contact between developers in the field of cocktail robotics worldwide and functions as an international platform for everyone interested in the topic.

edition mono / monochrom

Color print. Euro 10.

(European) ISBN: 978-3-9502372-3-8
Order via Amazon.de



pr0nnovation: Pornography and Technological Innovation // Austrian presentation 
monochrom content info
Austrian book presentation,... yes!
It is our pleasure and privilege to present you with the first Arse Elektronika Anthology: "pr0nnovation?"
From the depiction of a vulva in a cave painting to the newest internet porno, technology and sexuality have always been closely linked. No one can predict what the future will bring, but history indicates that sex will continue to play an essential role in technological development. Is it going too far to assume that research in nanotechnology and genetic engineering will be influenced by our sexual needs? The question is not whether these technologies alter humanity, but how they do so.

Edited by Johannes Grenzfurthner, Günther Friesinger, Daniel Fabry.
Published by RE/Search Publications (San Francisco) in cooperation with monochrom.

Featuring: Michael Achenbach, Timothy Archibald, Peter Asaro, Thomas Ballhausen, Binx, Violet Blue, Jonathan Coopersmith, Mark Dery, Thomas Edlinger, Johannes Grenzfurthner, Ema Konstantinova, Tina Lorenz, Stefan Lutschinger, Kyle Machulis, Aaron Muszalski, Annalee Newitz, Carol Queen, Thomas Roche, Autumn Tyr-Salvia, Frank Apunkt Schneider, Katie Vann, Rose White, Amanda Williams, Katherina Zakravsky.
December 16, 2008, 8 PM @ Raum D / Museumsquartier Vienna

Link (amazon.de)



STS-124 Launch: Video from one of the solid rocket boosters 
Great stuff.
Video from one of the solid rocket boosters facing the intertank (middle part of external tank). Not too much going on, except the weird noises of the tank draining, until booster seperation. At the end, the camera switches to a view looking straight up so you can see the parachute deployment. The launch clock is in the upper left corner.


Link (via DaddyD)



Visualizing Data: Isaac Asimov's publications graphed per year 

Scientists extract images directly from brain 
Mind-blowing:
ATR mind reader --

Researchers from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor, it was announced on December 11. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep.

Link



Chill out, producer guy... 
Who fucked up? You did!




Roboexotica on Boing Boing Gadgets 
monochrom content info
Roboexotica on Boing Boing Gadgets.



Link



Roboexotica 2008 flickr group 
monochrom content info
Bre Pettis started a Roboexotica 2008 flickr group. Please join! It's so hard to find all the good pictures! Aaaaah!



Link



Feeling Sorry For Your Left Hand 
I'm a big fan of that british fun-couple that is Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish, or Adam & Joe. They've been making various programmes for TV and Radio for over a decade. These days they're hosting a radio show on BBC 6Music every Saturday morning, and that intro alone is already too long for what I'm actually about to post here.

A couple of weeks ago they asked listeners to tell them about the practice of giving inanimate objects names, perhaps in order to form relationships (in the broadest sense) with their suitcases or spoons. One listener, Kasper, told them about his left hand, and yet another listener made a lovely animation out of this story a week later.

If you can somewhat relate then you are officially a sweet and kind person. Signed: me.




Roboexotica 2008: Opening was a blast! 
monochrom content info


First pictures by Bre Pettis...



Sex in Space on TV 
The History channel has produced an hour long installment of "The Universe" addressing sex in outer space. This was a popular topic at Monochrom's Arse-Elektronica conference last September.
As man moves to colonize the cosmos, the realities of sexual relationships and reproduction need to be addressed. Probe the physiological, psychological and cultural challenges of sex in space. From the sex act through birth, look at how the extreme environments of space exploration might effect copulation, conception and developing human tissues, as well as how issues around sex might impact the emotional lives of astronauts. Get to the bottom of the rumors to find out if space sex has already happened, and look at how the burgeoning space tourism business may soon lead to a boom in space sex.
Link (story)
Link (youtube)



Laughing Squid features Roboexotica 2008 
monochrom content info
Check out Scott's cool blog post.



Link



Wow! Bre Pettis' monochrom shout out 
monochrom content info
Oh my, we are all blushing!
Monochrom is a Vienna-based artist collective. I consider them the most cutting edge contemporary artists. They are 1 part pop culture, 1 part technology, 1 part prankster and 1 part pure awesome.

Art teachers often talk about how artists make people think differently or see things from another perspective. Most art fails at that, but Monochrom hits the mark everytime that you see something they do, you’ll be challenged.
Link



Thingiverse: Digital Designs for Physical Objects 
Awesome!
Thingiverse is a place for you to share your digital designs with the world. We believe that just as computing shifted away from the mainframe into the personal computer that you use today, digital fabrication will share the same path. Infact, it is already happening: laser cutters, cnc machines, 3D printers, and even automated paper cutters are all getting cheaper by the day. These machines are useful for a huge variety of things, but you need to supply them with a digital design in order to get anything useful out of them. We're hoping that together we can create a community of people who create and share designs freely, so that all can benefit from them.
Link



Roboexotica 2008 // 10 Years Of Roboexotica! 
monochrom content info
Roböxotica 2008 -- and 10 YEARS OF ROBÖXOTICA!! -- will take place in Vienna from December 4 thru December 12.

Roboexotica (or Roböxotica) is the first and inevitably leading festival concerned with cocktail robotics.
Until recently, no attempts had been made to publically discuss the role of cocktail robotics as an index for the integration of technological innovations into the human Lebenswelt, or to document the increasing occurrence of radical hedonism in man-machine communication. Roboexotica is an attempt to fill this vacuum. It is the first and, inevitably, the leading festival concerned with cocktail robotics world-wide. A micro mechanical change of paradigm in the age of borderless capital. Alan Turing would doubtless test this out.
Scientists, researchers, computer geeks and artists from all over the world participate to build cocktail robots and discuss about technological innovation, futurology and science fiction.



Link



"Kiki and Bubu and The Feelings" on YouTube 
monochrom content info
Kiki and Bubu like Christmas. But they hate the System. What can they do? They need some music!



Link / YouTube
Link / Kiki and Bubu main page



monochrom's Taugshow #17 
monochrom content info
monochrom presents:
++TAUGSHOW #17++
Roboexotica Special

Friday, Dec 5, 2008 / 8:00 PM @ Metalab, Vienna (presented by Johannes Grenzfurthner und Roland Gratzer)

But who are our guests?

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/// MITCH ALTMAN

Mitch Altman is a San Francisco-based hacker and inventor, best known for co-founding 3ware (with J. Peter Herz and Jim MacDonald), his pioneering work in Virtual Reality at VPL Research and inventing TV-B-Gone. He is also President and CTO of Cornfield Electronics.

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/// EDDIE CODEL

Eddie Codel is a videographer, documentary filmmaker, technologist, political activist, open source evangelist, robot enthusiast and occasional conference organizer who strongly believes in the notion of empowering others through open information exchange. Codel currently resides in San Francisco where he makes online videos for political campaigns, blogs, Internet startups and produces Geek Entertainment TV, a weekly videoblog on passionate geeks.

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/// BRE PETTIS

Bre Pettis makes things. Bre Pettis is a founder of NYCResistor, a hacker collective in Brooklyn and in his recent past he's created new media for Etsy.com and been host of Make: Magazine's Weekend Projects podcast He's also been a schoolteacher, artist, and a puppeteer. Bre is passionate about invention, innovation, and all things DIY.

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/// KRACH DER ROBOT

Da Music Extraordinaire.

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/// Regulars:

EVELYN FÜRLINGER, MA.

Evelyn presents "Wicked Wordz", our regular column about lingustics.
Link




[The Archives]

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monochrom is an art-technology-philosophy group having its seat in Vienna and Zeta Draconis. monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science, context hacking and political activism. Our mission is conducted everywhere, but first and foremost in culture-archeological digs into the seats (and pockets) of ideology and entertainment. monochrom has existed in this (and almost every other) form since 1993.
[more]

Booking monochrom:
[Europe]
[USA]

External monochrom links:
[monochrom Wikipedia]
[monochrom Flickr]
[monochrom blip.tv]
[monochrom GV]
[monochrom Youtube]
[monochrom Facebook]
[monochrom iTunes]
[monochrom Twitter]
 


Soviet Unterzoegersdorf / Sector 2 / The Adventure Game

Climate Training Camp

Krach der Roboter: Hello World!

Slacking is killing the DIY industry (T-Shirt)

Carefully Selected Moments / CD, LP

Freedom is a whore of a word (T-Shirt)

#fullboycott

International Year of Polytheism 2007

Santa Claus Vs. Christkindl: A Mobster Battle

Could It Be (Video clip)

Pot Tin God

Hacking the Spaces

Kiki and Bubu and The Shift / Short film

Kiki and Bubu and The Privilege / Short film

Kiki and Bubu and The Self / Short film

Kiki and Bubu and The Good Plan / Short film

Kiki and Bubu and The Feelings / Short film / Short film

Sculpture Mobs

Nazi Petting Zoo / Short film

The Great Firewall of China

KPMG / Short film

The BRAICIN / Short film

Soviet Unterzoegersdorf / Sector 1 / The Adventure Game

I was a copyright infringement in a previous life (T-Shirt)

Brave New Pong

Leben ist LARPen e.V.

One Minute / Short film

Firing Squad Euro2008 Intervention

RFID Song

A tribute to Honzo

Lessig ist lässig

I can count every star in the heavens above -- The image of computers in popular music

All Tomorrow's Condensations / Puppet show

Bye Bye / Short film

Revaluation

PC/DC patch

Proto-Melodic Comment Squad

myfacespace.com

The Redro Loitzl Story / Short film

Hax0rcise SCO

Law and Second Order (T-Shirt)

They really kicked you out of the Situationist International?

Death Special: Falco

Applicant Fisch / Short film

When I was asked to write about new economy

Taugshow #6

Taugshow #7

Taugshow #9

Taugshow #10

Taugshow #11

Taugshow #14

Taugshow #15

Campfire at Will

Arse Elektronika 2007, 2008, 2009 etc.

The Void's Foaming Ebb / Short film

Remoting Future

When you / Short film

Elf

Free Bariumnitrate

Toyps / Typing Errors

ARAD-II Miami Beach Crisis

The Charcoal Burner / Short film

Digital Culture In Brazil

Hegemonchhichi

Nation of Zombia

Lonely Planet Guide action

CSI Oven Cloth

Dept. of Applied Office Arts

Farewell to Overhead

Google Buttplug

Fieldrecording in Sankt Wechselberg / Short film

Dark Dune Spots

Campaign For The Abolition Of Personal Pronouns

Zeigerpointer

Space Tourism

In the Head of the Gardener

Entertainment (Unterhaltung) / Short film

Cthulhu Goatse

Nicholas Negroponte Memorial Cable

Coke Light Art Edition 06

Experience the Experience! (West Coast USA/Canada Tour 2005)

April 23

Overhead Cumshot

Irark / Short film

Wart

Instant Blitz Copy Fight

A Patriotic Fireman

A Micro Graphic Novel Project

Noise and Talk

The Exhilarator

H&M

SUZOeG Training / Short film

The Flower Currency

Gastro-Art/Gastrokunst

A Holiday in Soviet Unterzoegersdorf

How does the Internet work?

Paraflows 2006 and up

Special Forces

Coca Cola

About Work

Turing Train Terminal

Me / Short Film

Massive Multiplayer Thumb-Wrestling Network

Doormat

Some Code To Die For

The Year Wrap-up

Soviet Unterzoegersdorf Metroblogging

Project Mendel

Display, Retry, Fail

Manifesto of Ignorantism

Actionfilm

Towers of Hanoi

Heisenberg

Opto-Hedonism

Every Five Seconds an Inkjet Printer Dies Somewhere

Milk

Mobutobe

Brandmarker

We know apocalypses

452 x 157 cm² global durability

A Good Haul

Blattoptera / Art for Cockroaches

Minus 24x

Gladiator / Short Film

Eden

An attempt to emulate an attempt

Paschal Duct-Taping

Laptop Crochetication

Russka

Somewhere in the 1930s

Soul Sale

The Department for Criticism against Globalisation

Dot Smoke

Georg Paul Thomann

Nurgel Staring

War On

Let's network it out

Nude

Mackerel Fiddlers

Whales

Disney vs. Chrusov / Short film

Bulk Mail

Easter Celebrations

Mouse Over Matter

Condolence for a Crab

Force Sting

Turning Threshold Countries Into Plows

System

A Noise

A. C. A.

Hopping Overland

Achy Breaky Heart Campaign

Hermeneutic Imperative III

Holy Water / Franchise

Roböxotica // Festival for Cocktail-Robotics

Spears

Engine Hood Cookies

Ikea

The Watch

Creative Industry 2003

This World

Cracked Foundation For The Fine Arts

Sometimes I feel

Fit with INRI

Growing Money

Catapulting Wireless Devices

Buried Alive

Illegal Space Race

Magnetism Party

Brick of Coke

1 Baud

Scrota Contra Vota

Direct Intervention Engine

Oh my God, they use a history which repeats itself! (T-Shirt)

Administrating:

Dorkbot Vienna





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