on an idea I have brewing, which I’ll post more about in future. In the meantime, here are some of the dots…

Introducing the Twiller:

Recently, a handful of creators (present company included) have scrapped pen and paper for mobile phone and keypad, and started texting their novels — in real time, just a few characters at a time. Our medium is Twitter, a service that lets you broadcast bursts of 140 characters at a time to be read by people who subscribe to get your updates.In my case, I’ve for the last two months been using Twitter to write a real-time thriller. Hence: Twiller. (Cheap word play is what you get when you disintermediate, as they say, your agent and editor

More silly nonsense with Twitter:

One of the most wonderful things in that game (Left 4 Dead) is the banter between the four player characters. There’s so much dense, specific scripting, and enough dialogue so that it rarely repeats. I thought it would be interesting to see if you could simulate the four players’ dialogue over Twitter, sharing some state between the bots, but also finding a way to make them communicate a little with each other.

Well, a bit later, I worked out how, and this is the result:

At times, watching the bots play together is a little like magic. The first time I saw them talk to each other, cover each other whilst reloading, help each other up after a Boomer attacked, I felt a little (only a little, mind) like a proud father. They’re dumb as a sack of hammers, but they look convincing, and that was the real goal. It’s fun to watch them fight the horde amidst all my other friends on Twitter

The Institute for the Future of the Book:

This blog is the public mind space of the Institute for the Future of the Book, a New York-based think tank dedicated to inventing new forms of discourse for the network age. if:book covers a wide range of concerns, all in some way fitting into the techno-cultural puzzle that is the future of ideas. When we’re not writing this blog, we build open source software and lead publishing experiments with authors, academics, artists and programmers.

Distributed narratives…

Distributed narratives don’t bring media together to make a total artwork. Distributed narratives explode the work altogether, sending fragments and shards across media, through the network and sometimes into the physical spaces that we live in. This project explores this new narrative trend, looking at how narrative is spun across the network and into our lives.

William Gibson on google auras:

Gibson: Well, I google it and get it wrong [laughter]. Or if I’m lucky, Cory Doctorow tells me I’m wrong but gives me a good fix for it. One of the things I discovered while I was writing Pattern Recognition is that I now think that any contemporary novel today has a kind of Google novel aura around it, where somebody’s going to google everything in the text.

ARGs:

Unfiction.com is a comprehensive resource for those interested in Alternate Reality Gaming, both from the players’ perspective and from that of the puppetmasters. It is also intended as a gateway to be used in introducing neophytes to this unique genre of gaming. Unfiction.com offers information about past, current, and upcoming campaigns; tools and resources to use in playing or creating campaigns; articles, editorials, and interviews about the genre; and a forum section for discussion of the site, genre, and game play.

Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should…

Learning to moderate desires and balance consequences is a sign of maturity. I could eat only chocolate for all of my meals, but it doesn’t mean that I should. If I choose to do so anyhow, I might be forced to face consequences that I will not like. “Just because I can doesn’t mean I should” is a decision dilemma and it doesn’t just apply to personal decisions. On a nation-state level, think about the cold war. Just because we could nuke Russia doesn’t mean that we should’ve.

I am worried about the tech industry rhetoric around exposing user data and connections. This is another case of a decision dilemma concerning capability and responsibility. I said this ages ago wrt Facebook’s News Feed, but it is once again relevant with Google’s Social Graph API announcement. In both cases, the sentiment is that this is already public data and the service is only making access easier and more efficient for the end user.

the graphic novels of the street…

hmmm…

Being South African, this subject has always been close to my heart. Diversity is part of our DNA, one of our most celebrated characteristics. The population is made up of about 10 major ethnic groups, each with their own histories and traditions. That, especially when compared to Europe, is a hell of a lot of diversity!

So the question I’ve been pondering is, what does it mean to be South African today? Everyone is well aware of apartheid South Africa’s answer to that question. Who you were, your place in South African society was directly related to the colour of your skin.Identity was intimately tied to the role of oppressed/oppressor. One of the things that saddens me most thinking about home is the lack of national dialogue/debate on this question of identity. We need Steve now more than ever.

Our goal is to build a nation where everyone is free and equal and to get there we need to right the wrongs of the past. But as long as we have policies that are, like affirmative action, based on colour, we are not equal, our society is not equal. This was the central question of the essay, how do you balance the principle of equality with the need to recognize difference (ethnic, gender, economic, etc).

The countries we used as case studies were selected based on how they mapped to the the four central citizenship models -  liberal, republican, participatory and consociational. Britain was chosen as an example of the liberal model and France as an example of the republican model.

I found this quick-and-easy definition of citizenship

The key principle of the republican model is civic self-rule, embodied in classical institutions and practices like the rotation of offices, underpinning Aristotle’s characterization of the citizen as one capable of ruling and being ruled in turn. Citizens are, first and foremost, “those who share in the holding of office” (Aristotle 1958, 1275a8). Civic self-rule is also at the heart of Rousseau’s project in the Contrat Social: it is their co-authoring of the laws via the general will that makes citizens free and laws legitimate.^[8] Active participation in processes of deliberation and decision-making ensures that individuals are citizens, not subjects.^[9] In essence, the republican model emphasizes the second dimension of citizenship, that of political agency.

The liberal model’s origins are traceable to the Roman Empire and early-modern reflections on Roman law (Walzer 1989, 211). The Empire’s expansion resulted in citizenship rights being extended to conquered peoples, profoundly transforming the concept’s meaning. Citizenship meant being protected by the law rather than participating in its formulation or execution. It became an “important but occasional identity, a legal status rather than a fact of everyday life” (Walzer 1989, 215).

I really like republicanism. The idea that everyone is part of a community and can play an active role in shaping it. Sounds great in theory but it’s much harder to realise in reality, just look at the riots in Paris.

After a week of nightly disturbances that have left hundreds of cars and buses torched, and several buildings burned down, the horns echoing off the concrete walls of grim housing projects sounded a broader alarm. The spreading violence has lifted the lid on an ugly stew of poverty, discrimination, and desperation amongst immigrant-descended families that most French citizens have long preferred to ignore.

…

“The kids learn all the French republican values such as equality in school, and then they find in practice that it’s an illusion,” says Ms. Bouzar, who was recently named one of Time magazine’s 50 “European Heroes” as a role model for those seeking to be good Muslims and good French citizens. “There is an enormous gap between theory and practice.”

Europe, unlike South Africa, has always been culturally homogeneous. Nationality, that shared sense of identity has always played a key role in the evolution of the State. So immigration has really thrown these countries a curve ball. How do they they adapt to a suddenly diverse populous?

Britain has done some interesting work on the problem. In 1998 it created the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, which concluded that a commitment to both the principles of equality and the acknowledgement of difference were essential. But again, it’s theory is very far from it’s practise.

As a migrant myself (sounds weird thinking it out loud) I’m very much aware of my position as an outsider, and quiet sensitive to increasingly anti-immigrant sentiment that’s brewing in Britain of late.

(Err, I’ve lost my train of thought, lol)

Equality, freedom, justice. These are things we all believe in. It’s essential to our politics. But equality, freedom and justice for who, and how? The world is changing, countries are changing and we (as in the State) need to find ways toadapt to those changes, without compromising our values.

This course is my attempt to understand the wider historical context of this question/quest, to stand on the shoulders of giants

• Age of Enlightenment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - The Enlightenment is a term used to describe a phase in Western philosophy and cultural life centered upon the eighteenth century, in which Reason was advocated as the primary source and basis of authority. Developing in Germany, France, Britain, the Netherlands, and Italy, the movement spread through much of Europe, including Russia and Scandinavia. The signatories of the American Declaration of Independence, the United States Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen were motivated by “Enlightenment” principles
• Social Contract (Rousseau) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - The Social Contract was a progressive work that helped inspire political reforms or revolutions in Europe, especially in France. The Social Contract finally expelled the myth that the King was appointed by God to legislate; as Rousseau asserts, only the people, in the form of the sovereign, have that all powerful right.
• Polis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - The poleis were not like other primordial ancient city-states like Tyre or Sidon, which were ruled by a king or a small oligarchy, but rather a political entity ruled by its body of citizens.
• National Automated Archival Information Retrieval System - The automation of archival retrieval commenced in 1974 and is an on-going project with approximately 250 000 computer records being added to NAAIRS each year. Currently there are over six million records available on the system. Each of these records refers to an individual archival unit, like a correspondence file. In the case of the National Register of Manuscripts (NAREM) however, each record refers to a collection or group of papers.
• FFFFOUND! - FFFFOUND! is a web service that not only allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, but also dynamically recommends each user’s tastes and interests for an inspirational image-bookmarking experience!!
• Protein® OS - Protein® focuses on the intersection of science and culture by bringing together interesting people and their ideas. Dubbed “the system from which we operate”, Protein® soon established itself as one of the leading UK-based sites thanks to the irreverent and much loved Protein® Feed.
• Body swap research shows that self is a trick of the mind | Science | The Guardian - Things got even weirder when the researchers dispensed with the dummy and put the cameras on the head of another person. After carrying out the same double stroking routine the subjects were convinced that they were occupying another person’s body. The illusion persisted even when the other person came over and shook the subject’s hand, producing the sensation of the subject feeling as if they were shaking hands with themselves.
• allez-allez: principles of geometry - their upcoming album on tigersushi ‘lazare’ is an ambitious album synthesis of decades of electronic music incorporating influences like john carpenter, terry riley, wendy carlos and the aphex twin. this hour long mix gives an idea of the sounds that have influenced them. put simply it is stunning.
• Trapper Jenn MD: You Hear that 808? - When Will High did in fact materialize at the gig, words were exchanged between himself and El-P. Will High claims that Vordul also took pot shots. An indignant Will High would later corner Vordul in the mens bathroom and deliver a sucker punch that broke the rappers jaw. He hightailed it out as security guards prevented the fallen man’s friends from exacting revenge.Cannibal Ox were never the same afterwards.
• MF DOOM Interview in Wax Poetics - STMB - “It’s something like breathing, like inhaling and exhaling. Time between pauses–while you’re inhaling, it’s like absorbing; exhaling is like putting shit out. It’s a process: you’ll have hiatuses, and then it all hits like “Pow.” Plus, those [in between] times is like gathering info; the mind gets a chance to absorb things to express. People expect you to be expressing all the time, but life just don’t work like that. It’s like an inhaling and exhaling kind of thing. Everything breathes like that.”
• Infovore » Momentum - It brings to mind Jump London. If there’s one thing Mirror’s Edge gets right, it’s the feel of the city under your feet. Faith doesn’t just exist as a character in a cutscene or as four disembodied limbs; she lies in the seams between her trainers and the concrete.
• MAKE: Blog: The Culture Jamming gift guide at MAKE - hack, stick, throw, jam and inspire! - Ok, folks, I know not all of you approve of culture jamming shenanigans, but here are some gift ideas for that mischief maker in your life!
  
• Jacob Kirkegaard, Labyrinthitis (Touch) « mapsadaisical - A couple of years ago at a Touch event in South London, I saw CM von Hausswolf exploring a similar concept to this: playing two pure tones, luxuriating in the sensations in the overlap. It was a spellbinding experience, and one that will stay with me for some. Jacob Kirkegaard was in attendance that night too, and it is he who gets to commit it to record, turning this mathematical exercise into something extraordinarily pleasurable
• Guilty Verdict in Cyberbullying Case Provokes Many Questions Over Online Identity - NYTimes.com - “It will be interesting to see if issues of safety and security will eventually trump the hallmark ideology of free, largely anonymous or pseudonymous participation in cyberspace,” said Sameer Hinduja, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida Atlantic University.
• Rushdie’s ‘unfilmable’ Midnight’s Children heads for silver screen | Film | guardian.co.uk - Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie’s panoramic 1981 allegory of the birth of modern India, is heading for the big screen. Deepa Mehta is to direct and co-write the adaptation with the author, and the film is expected to start production in 2010, it was announced in New York yesterday.
• Packs of robots will hunt down uncooperative humans - Short Sharp Science - New Scientist - “What we have here are the beginnings of something designed to enable robots to hunt down humans like a pack of dogs. Once the software is perfected we can reasonably anticipate that they will become autonomous and become armed.” - Steve Wright of Leeds Metropolitan University, expert on police and military technologies
• US forces want man-hunting robot wolfpacks • The Register - There has also been significant research in the game theory community involving pursuit/evasion scenarios. This topic seeks to merge these research areas and develop a software/hardware suite that would enable a multi-robot team, together with a human operator, to search for and detect a non-cooperative human subject.
• Machinefabriek and Stephen Vitiello, Box Music (12k); Machinefabriek, Dauw (Dekorder) « mapsadaisical - Actually, maybe I shouldn’t bother reviewing this, just give you a few words for you to make one yourself. Quiet. Crunchy. Absorbing. Textural. Playful. Chocolate sprinkles. Off you go.
• The bombing of Coventry: the real story - Times Online - Winston Churchill knew of the attack several days in advance but held back the information to protect the most important secret of the war: the breaking of the German Enigma code at Bletchley Park
• Basic Hip Digital Gold - exotica | moog | soundtracks | pop instrumentals | weird stuff | whistling
• on Flickr - Photo Sharing! - Through their glasses I saw Canary Wharf.
  
• As art market bottoms out, a painter gives his work away for nothing - News, Art - The Independent - In his latest exhibition Street Art Action, Neate will be leaving 1,000 artworks around London, for canny collectors to spot, view then pick up and take home this week - totally for free. The exhibition is led by Neate’s desire to exhibit London-wide and to return street art to its urban, free and fun roots, hence You might have to pay up for a taxi though if you’re planning to scoop up a few
• NICO MUHLY, Mother Tongue - Boomkat - Within the space of his short, yet incredibly illustrious career, Nico Muhly has contributed his talents as an arranger to recordings by Bjork, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Rufus Wainwright and The National, while also enjoying a successful sideline as a composer in his own right, presenting works in conjunction with a variety of high profile orchestras - he even finds time to work as a performer and conductor for Philip Glass on his various film soundtracks.
• Londonist: Nature-ist: The SOAS Japanese Roof Garden - This Japanese Roof Garden, on the other hand, looks stunning all year round thanks to a sturdy emphasis on mineral over animal and vegetable.
• Slashdot | Google Exec Hints At Future Open Platform - Google Exec: We’re going to open…. The box!
  People: Open what?
  Google Exec: The box! With… the wires, and blinky lights, and stuff in it!
  People: What’s in the box?
  Google Exec: New and interesting things!
  People: O RLY?
  Google Exec: YA RLY!
  People: …
  Google Exec: Oh look, pretty shiny…
• Scientists discover the chance meeting 1.9bn years ago that led to life on Earth | Mail Online - “It is an astonishing thought that a single random encounter between two tiny cells so long ago could have had such a huge consequence,” said Falkowski.
• Internet black boxes to record every email and website visit - Telegraph - further evidence of the Government’s desire to have the capability to vet every telephone call, email and internet visit made in the UK, which has already provoked an outcry.Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, has described it as a “step too far”.
• Miriam Makeba dies in Italy - Mail & Guardian Online: The smart news source - People gave me that name. At first I said to myself: ‘Why do they want to give me that responsibility, carrying a whole continent?’ Then I understood that they did that affectionately. So I accepted. I am Mama Africa,” she told Agence France-Presse in an interview in 2005.
• Pinay girl writes to Obama, gets response | The Philippine Star - News - News Feature - “Creating change and making the world better is not always easy, and you will probably find in your life that it is more comfortable to ignore injustices that don’t affect you directly. Don’t take that comfortable road. Challenge yourself to make a difference,” Obama wrote.

But winter is here. The cold is setting in. Memories are fading. So, I thought I’d put together a little mixtape to capture some of the highlights. I really like this mix, and I hope you do too…

It’s a real eclectic mix. A little bit of eletronica, some folky stuff, dubstep, hip hop and some ambient thrown in for good measure. Hey, maybe I’ve found my niche, my calling, as an ambientfolksteptronica DJ! lol!

Anyways, here’s the tracklisting…

Machinefabriek - Fonograaf
Dusk and Blackdown - Darker Than East Featuring Target
Iron & Wine - Faded From The Water
Beirut - Gulag Orkestar
Radiohead - Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
Ital Tek - Deep pools
James Blackshaw - Skylark Herald’s Dawn
Bonnie “Prince” Billy - Lay and Love
Leila - Teases Me
Leila - The Exotics
Flying Lotus - Beginners Falafel
J Dilla - Lightworks
Madvillian - Light of the Past
Stars of the Lid - Tippy’s Demise

Download (right click, save as)

*PS Oh, I’ll probably post some more about this later, but for now, mosey on over too my mp3 store http://peoplesmusicstore.com/thehealingarts/

So here it is, hope you’ll find these interesting

• Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker - The Exploit: A Theory of Networks - Neural.it :: media culture, hacktivism - The Exploit thus offers a political theory of networks; how they are controlled and how they might be transformed. The book successfully combines precise ‘material’ analysis, broad theoretical engagement and speculative thought. Such breadth makes for hard going in some sections, as the authors move between cybernetics, political philosophy, bioinformatics, and technical descriptions of internet protocols to name a few. In the age of the network, however, these fields are increasingly aligned.
• AFP: Japan PM complains he’s too busy to read his comics - Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso complained on Sunday he cannot find enough time to devote himself to his lifelong hobby — reading comics.
• AARON HUEY IS A PHOTOGRAPHER - He recently hitchiked across Siberia on a National Geographic Expedition Council Grant. Huey’s site is filled with stunning images, including a photo essay documenting the Afghanistan drug war
• Poladroid project : the easiest and funniest Polaroid Image Maker - Wait… wait…. wait again… or shake the picture.
  Then look at or print your POLADROID picture
• Disquiet » Images of the Week: Ikeda’s Mathic Region - sound artist Ryoji Ikeda’s exhibit V ≠ L, created with mathematician Benedict Gross at Le Laboratoire in Paris

• Ananova - Convict posts himself to freedom - The man packed himself up in a parcel, and other convicts loaded him onto a lorry. Once clear of the prison he broke out of the parcel, jumped off the back of the lorry and fled.
• Twitter: Now Even Thirsty Houseplants Demand Attention With DIY Twitter Kit - when its moisture sensors detect that you’ve been a bit lax in watering it’ll Twitter with a “water me please” prompt. Ignoring it won’t work as it’ll step up the game with an urgent Tweet, and over-watering’ll earn you a scolding.

• The School of Life : On the pleasure of talking to strangers - The School of Life provides diners with a specially designed conversation menu – containing tasks, pictures, quotes and questions to help stimulate conversations about things that really matter in life
• Cockos Reaper DAW - . Don’t be fooled by the tiny 2MB download: this is a powerful application that does a huge amount, is being improved on a daily basis, and already does some things better than most of the competition.
• This happened - 15th November 2008 - United Visual Artists are a collective whose current practice spans permanent architectural installation, live performance and responsive installation.

Royal Opera House: Audience. from rAndom International on Vimeo.

• Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: This post will self-destruct in five minutes - This was the founding meeting of Singularity University, an academic institution whose mission, as founder Dr. Peter Diamandis told the elite audience, would be “to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies (bio, nano, info, etc); and to apply, focus and guide these to the best benefit of humanity and its environment.”
• The New York Times > Magazine > Slide Show > - a slideshow of people shown with their avatars

• » Training Attention and Emotional Self-Regulation - Interview with Michael Posner   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains - We can plan ahead, resist distractions, be goal-oriented. These human characteristics appear to depend upon what we often call “self-regulation.” What is exciting these days is that progress in neuroimaging and in genetics make it possible to think about self-regulation in terms of specific brain-based networks.
• Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy - Our past teaches us about the value in “remix.” We need to relearn the lesson. The present teaches us about the potential in a new “hybrid economy” — one where commercial entities leverage value from sharing economies. That future will benefit both commerce and community. If the lawyers could get out of the way, it could be a future we could celebrate.

It’s almost 4 years since I stopped but hey, I’m not going to bore you with that long story. Suffice to say, I’ve started again, and it feels great to have a creative outlet again.

I’ve adopted Reaktor as my sonic lab of choice and spent the last a few months familiarizing myself with the new surrounds. After all that time and energy, I’ve managed to build an instrument that’s capable of generating some amazing sounds: A granular sampler that delivers a glimpse into the quantum nether regions!

SO! Here’s the result of one of the first experiments. It weighs in at just over 10 minutes, so dim the lights, grab your headphones and make yourself comfortable…

I’ve been working up for for the last few weeks, returning to London for the weekends. Glasgow is a dreary city. It’s rough, industrial, working class reputation is well earned and evident everywhere you look. Not the kinda place you look forward to. It’s shortcomings however, are more than made up for by the warmth and good humor of it’s people.

This morning is a great example. The flight was sh*t and late, Glasgow was cold and windy and I was cranky. The cab driver though - grey haired, wrapped in a huge coat and funny hat - was in great mood. He didn’t mind me being late at all, as it gave him the chance to drive around the airport and have a look at the private jets. It turns out he’s quiet the enthusiastic plane spotter. He had a radio in the car which he tuned in to Glasgow Air Traffic Control. There are two frequencies apparently, one for planes landing at the airport and anothe for planes passing through the airspace.

The cabby explains all this to me as we’re driving along, pausing along the way to take a call from his wife telling him his breakfast was ready and to listen to pilots annouceing their presense 30 000 ft above us.

Sitting there, listening in, I was struck with the throught, ‘we are constantly surrounded by information. Air trafic control, radio and tv stations, wi-fi, cell phones, bluetooth. Information everywhere!’

Then, almost out the blue, a voice came over the speaker, a woman’s voice. Speaking in a breathy, almost whispered, kinda sexy tone. The girl sat on the other side of the glass however, wasn’t saying anything. So I was not sure if it was her speaking or her thoughts being narrated or if the voice was even related to her at all. The monologue was a confession, it was about her desire for intimacy, for something, anything. Anything other than being ignored. Her need to be more than just that invisible random stranger on the tube, bus, street. Her need for you, and in this case, me, to notice.

Sounds really cheesy, but somehow, for the most part it works. After the show I got chat with girl from the other side of the window. It turns out she was just a participant too. On her side of the window I was german (well, the voice was). We’d both gone with friends and the while they sat through their own random encounter, we sat on the pavement drinking beer chatting about ours.

Big cities need more random encounters.

That seems to have been the theme this summer. Random encounters, unexpected intimacies and somewhat abrupt departures. It’s been an great summer. I’ve met people and collected memories that I’ll hold dear for many years to come.

[photo found here]

If you watched the walls long enough, sometimes you might just get to see a story emerge out of the scrawl. That discovery grew into a fascination. These weren’t stories in the traditional sense mind you, the one you’d see in the actual piece. These were the stories about the connections between artist, piece, wall and neighbourhood…

I think (hope!) thesde videos help illustrate my point. This first on was filmed in Jo’burg and features Faith47, who actually happens to the artist that first sparked this fascination…

The stories are not only about the underlying connections behind the piece but also about the how those connections evolve and grow over time.

This incredible piece by BLU! shows that connection perfectly, but with a twist that blurs the lines between graffiti art and animation.

Spotted this last one over at the Wooster Collective. Photographer Martha Cooper, talks about her experiences stumbling across and capturing the New York graffiti scene when it was still in it’s infancy.

The story of how it all started!