Nicht zu verwechseln mit der Band! Hier handelt es sich um das Wiener Kulturkritik-Kollektiv (ohne E am Ende)! Erstmalig betätigen sie sich auch auf musikalischem Gebiet und das Ergebnis ist genauso aussergewöhnlich und von exqusitiem Geschmack geprägt, wie es die schriftlichen Veröffentlichungen sind! Grob gesagt, bewegt sich das im weiten Feld der elektronischen Musik, aber auch schräger Pop oder komische Schlager (Gstanzl wär wohl auch ein schöner Begriff dafür). 17 Stücke mit einer Gesamtspielzeit von über 70 Minuten!

Pr0nnovation? Pornography and Technological Innovation, an anthology of lectures from the first Arse Elektronika conference (which I keynoted, in San Francisco, in September 2007), published by the legendary underground press Re/Search in conjunction with conference organizers Monochrom, an "art-tech-philosophy collective" based in Austria.

:: CCalps Salon startet in Wien und Dornbirn :: mit Creative Commons in der Version 3.0

Der ccAlps Salon ist eine Veranstaltung zur Vernetzung von Akteuren aus Wirtschaft, Recht und Kultur zum Thema Copyright im Digitalen Zeitalter.

Allein in Österreich sind bereits 140.000 Werke von Kreativschaffenden mit einer Creative Commons Lizenz versehen. Dieser Lizenzbaukasten stellt auf einfache Weise die Nutzungsbedingungen klar.

Wo wird Creative Commons angewendet? Wie können zukunftsweisende Strategien aussehen, die auch kommerzielle Nutzungen unterstützen und eine Zusammenarbeit mit den Verwertungsgesellschaften ermöglichen? Was bietet die Creative Commons 3.0 Version, die seit kurzem auch in Österreich verfügbar ist?

:: Statements von

* Florian Philapitsch (CC Austria Legal Lead)
* Johannes Grenzfurthner (monochrom)
* Stephan Dorfmeister (G Stone Records, Austrian Music Ambassador AMAN)

:: Erster CCalps Salon

23. Oktober, 19 Uhr 30 - Videobridge Wien - Dornbirn

Wien, Museumsquartier, net culture space
http://lab.netculture.at/kontakt/wien/

As you know I was invited to give a Google Talk at the Google Campus in Mountain View -- and in fact I did a 45 minute lecture performance on July 15. I decided to talk about "Context Hacking: Some Examples of How to Mess with Art, the Media System, Law and the Market" (a talk I already presented at ETech 2008 and various other cons) and it went really well. It got great feedback from attending folks.

Well, I waited for the talk to appear on Google's YouTube stream. And waited. And waited. People actually sent me emails and asked me if I faked the Google Talk. Faking a Google Talk? Oh my, no.

What could be taking them so long?

I asked a friend at Google and it seems a director in the Global Communications and Public Affairs office does not think the content of my talk is appropriate for uploading to YouTube. Quote: "Given the level of profanity, sexual content, and shocking images in it, I do not think it is appropriate for the Google Tech Talks channel on YouTube."

Oh wow.

I guess I briefly mentioned our conference Arse Elektronika, our international conference dealing with sex and technology. Well yes: that's uuhmm kinda "sexual". But what's the shocking images? Maybe Toetse? And what about the profanity? Using the terminus "fuckin'"? Or was it to profane to mention that the Google Campus architecture looks like a neoliberal version of Logan's Run? Or the fence thing?

The irony: part of my talk is dealing with the hard struggle to subvert and provoke in an societal late capitalist environment that actually wants you to be subversive and provocative. Maybe I proved myself semi-wrong...

Anyways... if you want to see the video I suggest to send Google's Global Communications and Public Affairs office an email and ask for a CD. Or better yet, send a handwritten letter with your return address (snail mail freaks techies out) to: Google, Global Communications and Public Affairs, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View.

Cheers!

Violet Blue (San Francisco Chronicle) goes deep undercover to find out why women like to have sex with machines, and why people pay good money to watch.

As this year's international sex and technology conference Arse Elektronika 2008 hit its stride last Saturday -- that's Folsom Street Fair eve here in San Francisco – I found myself on a panel discussing "The Erotic of the Machine" with six men and a sizable audience. The men were an assembly of artists from the Bay Area and Seattle to Austria and France, along with a sex machine maker, a sex machine pornographer and a spokesperson from San Francisco's Kink.com, where the most famous sex machine site hails from. (That's F-ing Machines.com, also here in San Francisco.)

Join monochrom and Laughing Squid for drinks at Lucky 13 in San Francisco tomorrow, Wednesday, October 1st at 8pm. It's your last chance to hang out with the monochrom crew before we head back to Vienna (via Jamaica).