media

Transmission Asia-Pacific (TX-AP) : Media Activists from the Asia Pacific gather in Indonesia

2008-05-13T20:44:44+01:00

Video makers, media activists, software developers and artists from 15 countries across the Asia-Pacific will be gathering in Sukabumi, West Java from May 19-25 for an online video skills camp. The goal of the camp is to bring together open source software programmers, video makers and media activists to develop the strategic use of online video distribution for social justice and media democracy.

TX-AP is a joint initiative between media activists in Australia and Indonesia. It is organised collaboratively by EngageMedia (Australia), a video sharing website and free software development, training and networking project and Ruangrupa (Indonesia) a non-profit artist initiative supporting the development of art in the cultural context through events, exhibitions, research and documentation. 50 specially invited media activists and artists will be coming to Indonesia to attend the workshop and share their skills and ideas.

The camp will provide a unique opportunity for artists, video makers, software developers and activists to collaborate and share skills in a global context where on-line video communication skills have become an increasingly important strategy for activists.

Read more for details or visit http://transmission.cc/txap

Andrew Lowenthal of EngageMedia explained "Transmission Asia-Pacific will be a unique face to face meeting between video makers and open source software developers to shape open source online video sharing applications and their strategic use for social aims". He went on to explain "free and open source makes sense for organisations with limited means, both from a strictly economic point of view and also as part of their overall strategic aims, as the system of open collaboration and sharing that free software is based on has a natural philosophical fit with organisations working on environmental or social justice issues".

Participants will attend from around the region, for example participants from from Hong Kong making videos about communities resisting gentrification and over development of urban areas in Hong Kong and China. This group puts video cameras into the hands of those most affected by these policies and then helps them edit and share their work on-line. Projects such as these increase the communication rights of marginalized and displaced peoples allowing them to articulate their concerns to a wider public.

Another media activist from India has been using on-line media distribution to raise awareness of censorship of diverse sexualities in mainstream Indian media outlets. They have produced a satirical and humorous look at queer moments from Bollywood films to draw attention to the marginalisation of these voices within Indian society.

Transmission Asia-Pacific is the 4th in a series of events bringing together video activists and web developers. Previous events have occurred in Rome, London and Amsterdam.

For media access to the camp, stories of individual participants and topics of discussion at the event please contact:

Andrew Lowenthal (EngageMedia): +61 439 093 779 (Australia)
+6281319339823 (Indonesia) http://engagemedia.org

Mirwan Andan (Ruangrupa): +62 813 1924 2965 http://ruangrupa.org

For more information on the workshop: http://transmission.cc/txap

Transmission Asia-Pacific is supported by Hivos and the Open Society Institute

Call For Entries - PopVox - The People's Choice Awards for Digital Media

2008-04-23T18:40:45+01:00

POPVOX - The People's Choice Awards for Digital Media @ The 5th Annual Vancouver International Digital Festival

ONLY 1 WEEK LEFT TO GET YOUR ENTRIES IN!

Submission Deadline - April 30th 5pm PST
Voting Occurs - May 1 -12th
Winners Announced at Gala Awards - May 23rd

BE THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE IN ONE OF 11 CATEGORIES

Best Digital VFX - Best Animated Short - Best Digital/Viral Campaign - Best User Generated / Crowdsourced Content Site - Best Score - Best Game for Console / PC - Best Casual Game - Best Mobile Application - Best Mobile Game - The Do-Gooder Award for Best Venture Dedicated to Social Change - The Homegrown Award for Best BC Based Venture!

The PopVox Peoples Choice Awards for Digital Media have returned for the 2008 season and we invite the digital media community at large to participate in this annual celebration of international talent.

Get involved by submitting your own projects and registering to vote for the 12 days of PopVox running from May 1st - 12th.

DETAILS AND SUBMISSIONS @ WWW.POPVOXAWARDS.COM

Century of the Self - video documentary

2007-10-14T22:58:42+01:00

For the MLA Rushkoff course Technologies of Persuasion last week we had to read a couple of articles and watch a BBC video called Century of the Self. I've watched part 1 so far. it goes into Freud and his nephew Edward Bernays and his prolific Public Relations career. from the 1920s, where he convinced women to smoke cigarettes by creating a media spectacle using female debutantes in a parade and the slogan "Torches of Freedom", which was previously only a man's habit. then later contributed towards the rise of commercialism both prior to and following the stock market crash in 1929. he worked on many campaigns over the duration of his career and advised & created PR campaigns for numerous corporations, business leaders and government officials, in order to control the masses. he didn't think in single person terms - he thought in thousands of people.
he wrote a few books, one called Propaganda, in 1928,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
his most important book, Bernays argued that the manipulation of public opinion was a necessary part of democracy:
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind."
the videos, available on Google Video, clearly show how the masses were and are controlled in America. interesting viewing!
part 1 :
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2637635365191428174
part 2:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-678466363224520614
part 3:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6111922724894802811
part 4:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1122532358497501036

Why Johnny Can't Program audio lecture - week one

2007-10-02T00:04:03+01:00

mind map (so far) of week 1 of Technologies of Persuasion online course.

Why Johnny Can't Program audio lecture - mind map notes. most of these notes are what the speaker, Douglas Rushkoff mentioned in the lecture - I've paraphrased some of it whilst taking notes.

files attached. remove the .txt from .html.txt files (drupal upload seems to be adding the .txt)

one of the other class members, monster (Caroline Jack) has transcribed the audio lecture!, so this would be a more complete / accurate account of it.

bookmark @ 24:54

Expand - Collapse

why johnny can't program
- course website
- throughout time, there have always been small groups of well educated & well meaning people who help to promote cognition & agency.
  - agency
    - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(philosophy)
    - Agency considered in the philosophical sense is the capacity of an agent to act in a world. The agency is considered as belonging to that agent, even if that agent represents a fictitious character, or some other non-existent entity. The capacity to act does not at first imply a specific moral dimension to the ability to make the choice to act. Moral agency addresses issues of these type.
      Human agency is the capacity for human beings to make choices and to impose those choices on the world. It is normally contrasted to natural forces, which are causes involving only unthinking deterministic processes.
      In this it is subtly distinct from the concept of free will, the philosophical doctrine that our choices are not the product of causal chains, but are significantly free or undetermined. Human agency entails the uncontroversial, weaker claim that humans do in fact make decisions and enact them on the world. How humans come to make decisions, by free choice or other processes, is another issue.
      The capacity of a human to act as an agent is personal to that human, though considerations of the outcomes flowing from particular acts of human agency for us and others can then be thought to invest a moral component into a given situation wherein an agent has acted, and thus to involve moral agency. If a situation is the consequence of human decision making, persons may be under a duty to apply value judgements to the consequences of their decisions, and held to be responsible for those decisions. Human agency entitles the observer to ask should this have occurred? in a way that would be nonsensical in circumstances lacking human decisions-makers, for example, the impact of Shoemaker-Levy into Jupiter.
      In certain philosophical traditions (particularly those established by Hegel and Marx), human agency is a collective, historical dynamic, more than a function arising out of individual behavior. Hegel's Geist and Marx's universal class are idealist and materialist expressions of this idea of humans treated as social beings, organized to act in concert.
      A similar use of the term agency can be found in social psychology, referring to the self-efficacy of a person, the ability of a person to act on his own behalf. [1]
- everything stays pretty much the same
- donald trump
  - he doesn't think twice about anything
  - that's where his power really comes from
  - he's got an other type of brain
    - it's this other type of brain that dominates
- media literacy / teachers
  - trying to break 2000 years or more of cultural programming
  - this is the centre of something more radical than any revolution
  - DR: "I don't think we can quite frankly"
- whenever a new medium arises
  - we end up teaching the "literacy of the last one"
    - history : we get text
    - God says to Abraham, "you'll be a nation of priests"
      - which means, you'll be a nation of people who can read and write
      - priests - heiroglyphs - the only people who could read & write; and pharoahs
      - we actually got a small number of rabbis / priests who could read and write, mostly just read..
      - plus a nation of 'hearers'
    - printing press - renaissance period
      - a way to write books
      - did we get a civilisation of 'writers'?
        
        no - we got a civilisation of 'readers'
        
        deconstruct things
    - internet
      - now we get a civilisation of writers
        
        blogs
      - what we should have by now, is a civilisation of programmers
        
        either you're programming, or you're programmed
      - the technology that people are using on internet now, the interface / internet / conduit they are using is still circumscribed by the same corporate interests that controlled your parents
      - time warner / AOL
        
        now, instead of people paying to watch Warner Brothers content, people pay them to upload their own content. who cares? it's the same money - going to the same people
        
        now, instead of doing this thing we think of as consumption, we're doing this other thing, that we think of as production, which is actually consumption
        
        we work during the day, we come home and buy a video camera and pay the ISP and then upload the videos / productions that we made. and maybe they won't sue us for using their ideas & icons from popular culture
        
        crowdsourcing
        
        the money equation is the same
        
        we're not actually looking at money and it's biases and how it's created
        
        people's activity - renaissance / corporate way of creating people's media that we're building
- what is energizing the rhizome?
  - cash !
  - the real currency that is moving through all of this
- kids
  - they speak the language of this new media
  - they are developing the new languages
- adults
  - are we anthropologists?
    - studying the kids? looking for the next big thing
    - or are we looking at the kids from a corporations pov
      - eg how do we subvert this behaviour
      - how do we make what they're doing, about what we're doing?
  - how do we make this communications revolution into a content revolution
    - "content is king" - the message of the past decade
    - first there was devaluing of personal contact & communication between people
    - and instead, value what content the corporations were outputting
    - then people started using that content as a medium of exchange
    - and the corporations replied with 'oh you can't use that - we own that'
    - which shows how little the corporations know about interactivity
    - and how much the corporations know about marketing
  - communications revolution
- childrens tv programmes
  - they needed funding to produce the shows so the plush toys industry was started
  - idea came from Japan where this was already successful, eg Transformers toys
  - biases of media
    - if the bias of the media is to create the promotion & selling of the toys, then the stories themselves will change
      - eg fantasy universes that are unconciously designed to promote the sale of toys
      - that's why evolution became popular in Japan
        
        when you have evolution, you constantly have new models
    - basic media literacy
    - the bias of the media changes
- new media
  - this was the opportunity to change focus
    - when TV was introduced there was an initial small change in focus
      - people watched and produced educational programs
      - but these didn't turn out to be the most popular in the end
  - emails, laptops, computers everywhere
  - problem
    - on one hand, we have these tools that give us an inkling of our power as human beings to be the authors of our reality, of the very society that we're living in
    - on the other hand, we're in a society where we are so pressured to create applicable skills, that we lose sight of that
- education conferences these days
  - are often about creating the "marketable student"; the "marketable graduate"
  - there's a lot of people putting money into creating these marketable skills
  - they're saying "how're we going to compete with the Chinese, the people in Bangalore"
  - but they may have to let students in on the fact that there is a conflict - between trying to promote real lateral thinking and the ability to create, and construct an argument.
  - same things they're trying to do in academy
  - some of the students are asking, 'why do we have to read McLuhan - these old white Europeans'
- Walter J Ong
  - website url
    - http://libraries.slu.edu/sc/ong/
  - Walter Jackson Ong, S.J. (1912-2003) was a professor of English at Saint Louis University for over thirty years. Over the course of his career, Ong wrote a number of groundbreaking studies in the fields of orality and literacy studies. Some of these works include Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, The Presence of the Word, and Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue.
  - Orality and Literacy & Personality
    - http://libraries.slu.edu/sc/ong/digital/texts/lincoln/lincoln02_en.pdf
  - The End of the Age of Literacy
    - http://libraries.slu.edu/sc/ong/digital/audio/ong_audiolecture5.mp3
- ancient languages
  - don't exist any more
  - when you engaged with the computer in that way
    - you thought of the computer as a modelling environment
    - you thought of that as a place where anything could happen
    - that was a radically different way of understanding the tool, for those of us who had been raised on televison
    - because now we didn't think of the tv as a place to get programmed
    - we thought of a tv event, because that's what the monitor was, as a place to build a world
    - and then we started to look at other things in our world and wonder how they were programmed also
    - what else is a social construction
    - why are the roads in my town built this way?
      - it's not that God put them there
      - some people, at some point decided where they would be
      - and those people had certain agendas
      - either they wanted traffic to move quickly
      - they wanted people to stop at stores
    - why are the streetcars gone?
      - so this makes you think, why don't we use streetcars any more?
      - well, because this big company made a lot of money in a sort of corrupt way, and wanted streetcars out so we'd all have to buy cars
    - all of this happened
      - and it's not a matter of studying conspiracy theory
      - it's a matter of understanding, that the world we live in - a lot of it has been intentionally programmed with certain biases
      - and that most of the people who did that programming, are dead
      - and most people living in this world, don't even have access to the way it was programmed, or even to the IDEA that it WAS programmed. to the NOTION that it was programmed. that people had intent
    - so, playing with computers, most importantly, opened that
- the idea that the world we live in has been programmed with certain biases
  - breaking down media opens you to this idea
  - and once you realise how a tv commercial is put together, you can understand how a politicians speech is put together.
  - you understand how everything is put together
  - once you work out how this is done, it's the acid trip moment, that so frightens the people who's money is in mainstream media
  - and that's why they undo all the feedbacks
  - I (Rushkoff) always talk about the effects of the remote control & how it helps to deconstruct media
  - the joystick, which helps us to demistify the interface
  - and the computer keyboard and the mouse that turns it (the computer) from a receiver, into a portal, into a do it yourself medium
  - but fear and money concerns undid this, very skillfully, undid these effects
  - and kids who are using the remote, were considered to have a shortened attention span
  - and they start misusing the diagnosis of ADHD to be applied to anyone who is capable of being resistive to media programming
  - the transparent interfaces of the 1980s and 1990s get replaced with Windows, and what is Windows about?
  - the main communication of Windows is not about "we make the computer easier for you to use"
  - the main communication of Windows is about "stay back", "we will use the computer for you"
  - how do you install a program in Windows?
    - you invoke the Wizard
    - why did they pick the Wizard? it's not the "helper"
    - it's the Wizard. because they're saying this is mysterious
    - this is magical
    - only the Wizard can move the applications into the applications folder
    - do not touch it
    - no user serviceable parts inside
- a shift from contact (to content - on the internet)
  - people were online, and talking to each other
  - in 1994, they found that the average family that had internet connection was watching 9 hours less television a week
  - this was a problem
  - so then they said, "let's not make the internet about contact, let's make it about content"
  - and they start getting us sidetracked from one another, and engaged yet again with their corporate crap
  - and they're all happy with us using it, and sending it around, and being all viral until it gets into their Digital Rights
  - now try using Windows Vista
    - Vista is an operating system literally crippled by it's DRM, it's Digital Rights Management provisions
    - so much so, that I (Rushkoff) think this is the most positive thing to happen to linux since it's inception
    - it's so bad, that you can play something legal that you own, and Windows will come up and say "Windows doesn't think you have the rights to play this video - are you sure you want to proceed"
    - that's scary
- educators
  - in the case of educators, what happens is that the lack of applications

Technologies of Persuasion online course with Douglas Rushkoff @ Maybe Logic Academy

2007-10-01T21:37:16+01:00

I'm doing the Technologies of Persuasion online course with Douglas Rushkoff @ Maybe Logic Academy. it started today. there's already a few discussions happening in the course forums - they're moving so fast!

DRISHTI Media, Arts, Human Rights

2007-04-07T01:50:54+01:00

(from About Drishti Media page)

We are a group of media professionals working on issues of gender justice, human rights and development.

We founded DRISHTI as a Non Profit Public Charitable Trust in 1993, with a firm faith in the ability of video, theatre, radio, other media and the arts to contribute to struggles for a just, humane and peaceful society.

We believe that social communication need not be dry, boring, pedantic or depressing. In fact we believe that good form and technique must be used to communicate issues of social importance more effectively.

We work in partnership with the people whose lives, stories and experiences make the subject of our films. People are not reduced to passive objects of our creative process. They participate in it with a sense of ownership, and get involved in conceptualizing its contents, writing the scripts, acting and making edit selections. In other words, we help communities use the media as a means to articulate their resistance to structures of oppression, to communicate an alternative vision, to put forth their dreams and aspirations. We believe this process itself can be empowering, and therefore is as important as the end product of any project we undertake.

We work to ensure the widest possible dissemination of our films. Through video screenings organized by NGOs and women’s groups amongst small communities, our films create a lateral networking of knowledge and ideas at the grassroots level.

Communicating alternative value frameworks using alternative media does not mean we under-value the power and importance of the mass media, their incredible outreach, along with their ability to impact mainstream and also middle class attitudes. We have worked with the weekly serial format on radio as well as produced public service advertisements for the television networks in India.

Apart from production work in video, theatre and radio, we also undertake training and media planning for campaigns and events.

Drishti is structured as a collective of individuals. We are distinct in our creative identities and areas of concern, yet together in ideology, approach and spirit.

Video Vortex Conference @ Amsterdam

2007-03-17T23:26:56+00:00

Video Vortex Conference: November 30 and December 1 2007, Amsterdam (NL)

Organized by the Institute of Network Cultures

http://www.networkcultures.org/videovortex/

---

More on the Event: http://www.networkcultures.org/videovortex/
List info:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/videovortex_listcultures.org

In response to the increasing potential for video to become a
significant form of personal media on the Internet, this conference
examines the key issues that are emerging around the independent
production and distribution of online video content. What are artists
and activists responses to the popularity of ‘user-generated content’
websites? Is corporate backlash eminent?

After years of talk about digital conversions and crossmedia platforms
we are now witnessing the merger of the Internet and television at a
pace that no one predicted. For the baby boom generation, that
currently forms the film and television establishment, the media
organisations and conglomerates, this unfolds as a complete nightmare.
Not only because of copyright issues but increasingly due to the shift
of audience to vlogging and video-sharing websites as part of the
development of a broader participatory culture.

The opening night will feature live acts, performances and lectures
under the banner of video slamming. We will trace the history from
short film to one-minute videos to the first experiments with streaming
media and online video, along with exploring the way VJs and media
artists are accessing and using online archives.

The Video Vortex conference aims to contextualize these latest
developments through presenting continuities and discontinuities in the
artistic, activist and mainstream perspective of the last few decades.
Unlike the way online video presents itself as the latest and greatest,
there are long threads to be woven into the history of visual art,
cinema and documentary production. The rise of the database as the
dominant form of storing and accessing cultural artifacts has a rich
tradition that still needs to be explored. The conference aims to raise
the following questions:

- How are people utilising the potential to independently produce and
distribute independent video content on the Internet?
- What are the alternatives to the proprietary standards currently
being developed?
- What are the commercial objectives that mass media is imposing on
user-generated content and video-sharing databases?
- What is the underlying economics of online video in the age of
unlimited uploads?
- How autonomous are vloggers within the broader domain of mass media?
- How are cinema, television and video art being affected by the
development of a ubiquitous online video practice?
- What type of aesthetic and narrative issues does the database pose
for online video practice?

Conference themes:

Viral Video critique
Vlogging Critique
Participatory Culture, Participatory Video
Real World Tools and Technologies
Theory & History of the Database
Narrative and the Cinematic
Database Taxonomy and Navigation
Internet Video: Art, Activism, and Public Media
Evening Programme / Exhibition

(see website for details)

Video Vortex Discussion List:

With this discussion list we like to gather responses to the rise of
YouTube and similar online video databases. What does YouTube tell us
about the state of art in visual culture? Is YouTube the corporate
media structure of the 21st century? What are the artist responses to
YouTube aesthetics?

General information about the mailing list is at:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/videovortex_listcultures.org

To post to this list, send your email to:
videovortex(at)listcultures.org

This list is meant for all those interested in the topic, and will
possibly continue after the event in late 2007.

Practical info:

Date
November 30 and December 1, 2007.

Venue
PostCS 11, PostCS building
Oosterdokskade 3-5
1011 AD Amsterdam
T: 020 - 62 55 999
www.ilove11.nl

Organized by
Institute of Network Cultures, HvA Interactive Media, Amsterdam

Editorial team
Geert Lovink, Sabine Niederer, Shirley Niemans

Affiliated researchers
Seth Keen, Vera Tollmann

Production
Shirley Niemans

For further information, please contact
Shirley Niemans, shirley(at)networkcultures.org
_______________________________________________
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is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
http://www.aoir.org/

1st International Congress Art Tech Media

2007-03-11T03:30:04+00:00

visit http://www.artechmedia.net for details

or read the call for submissions at http://www.aliak.com/node/2658

The First International Art Tech Media Congress - call for submissions

2007-03-11T03:21:30+00:00

International Artist Call Art Tech M e d i a 0 7

T h e F i r s t I n t e r n a t i o n a l A r t T e c h M e d i a C o n g r e s s

www.artechmedia.net

Calling on all creatives of the world to participate.
Submissions will be accepted from the following categories:

A
- Video art
- Net-art
- 2D & 3D Computer Animation
- Blog, videoblog
- Creation for mobile platforms
- Digital Music
- Videodance

B
- Digital Communities
- Geospatial storytelling
- Artificial Life, Software art, Transgenic art, Generative art
.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
In a globalised world, dominated by communication technologies, with
countless questions concerning a future that affects our everyday
life, it is essential to make this analysis and to consider, from
different perspectives, how our polyhedral, altered reality is being
effected by the widespread use of new technology as a support for new
ideas and possibilities that are almost infinite. We need to
investigate how this occurs in different societies and cultures and
to propose models that may go beyond what has been known until now.

The First International Art Tech Media Congress has been set up in
order to reflect upon and analyse questions currently being raised
about art and new technological media within an international context.

Within this context, an intensive debate needs to take place on the
influence and transformations that new media is producing in art,
there needs to be a greater understanding of the foundations for more
effective cooperation between the different sectors linked to digital
art, and proposals need to be devised for the development of national
and international collaborative networks in order to improve
production, research, exhibition and promotion.

Last year, Art Tech Media 06 encounters had been held at nine Spanish
museums, and given the great participation and the opinions
collected, its seems clear that this is an ideal time to celebrate
the First International Art Tech Media Conference. It represents a
great opportunity to hold a transversal debate in order to devise
proposals that will lead to greater and better coordination among the
different sectors of art, aimed at strengthening its development.

www.artechmedia.net/artechmedia06.htm

Art Tech Media 06 headquaters: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina
Sofía, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Unión Fenosa, Presidencia Gobierno
de Canarias, Museo Domus Artium 2002, Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte
Contemporáneo Artium, Fundación BilbaoArte, Centro Párraga, Museo de
Arte Moderno y Contemporáneo EsBaluard, Centro de Cultura
Contemporánea de Barcelona.

...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

<<<

GENERAL REGULATIONS Art Tech Media 07 art call

- Works must have been produced after January 1st, 2006.
- The number of submissions is not limited.
- Works may be presented in any language. However, a transcript of dialogues
must be included in either Spanish or English,
- The organization reserves the rights to use parts of the works for
media broadcasting, within the
promotional framework of artechmedia.
- Following the process of selection based on abstratcs, all
participants will be notified in writing of
the result and the required format for the presentationof their work,
preferably on DVD.
- Authors will be responsible for copyright of their works.
- Works selected will be exhibited in artechmedia.
- A electronic catalogue will be produced in Spanish and English,
including all the works.
- Artists with works selected shall agree to assign a copy to
artechmedia, which may be
used in the subsequent exhibitions.
- The organization is not responsible for the content of works in
order to preserve freedom.

Projects:

- Those interested in submitting work in these categories must send a
completed entry form.
- The net-art @blog, videoblog must include the URL address in the entry form.
- A part from the entry form, those interested in taking part in
video art and computer animation
must also send a DVD with their work.
- Digital Music must be sent both in digital format and as a hard copy by post.
- All mail is to be sent to the office central art tech media
Art Tech c/Méndez Nuñez 102, 6ºD. 38001 S/C Tenerife. Canary Island. Spain

DEADLINE: 16th march 2007

SELECTION AND JURY

- Works presented will be selected by a committee of the organization.
- In each category a jury composed of experts will select the works.
- Jury's decision is final, and is not open to appeal.

SELECTED WORKS must include:

- Technical credits.
- Technical requirements for its showing.
- Two colour photographs of every work sent.
- A short biography of author or representative organization.
- A transcript of dialogues in spanish or english.
- All works must include in their front page: the work's title, the
delivery address, and the
data of author or representative organization.
- In case of not providing a correct delivery address, the
organization will not be
responsible for the works.
- Submission of a work implies the acceptance of these regulations.

>registration form> enter
artechmedia@artechmedia.net

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

1st International Congress Art Tech Media www.artechmedia.net
8-9-10-11 th may . Madrid. Spain

______________________________________________
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
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google bombing - playing the search engine game

2006-11-07T18:19:48+00:00

today it's time for the Americans to vote, and I hope they turn out to the polls in droves, if not for themselves but for the other countries who are affected by decisions made in US politics.
as it's that time of year, there's been a few articles floating round the maillists. one which caught my eye was on google bombing, or link bombing as it's also known. the article in the New York Times called Gaming the Search Engine, in a Political Season describes google bombing as :
[quote]
"A GOOGLE bomb — which some Web gurus have suggested is perhaps better called a link bomb, in that it affects most search engines — has typically been thought of as something between a prank and a form of protest. The idea is to select a certain search term or phrase ("borrowed time," for example), and then try to force a certain Web site (say, the Pentagon's official Donald H. Rumsfeld profile) to appear at or near the top of a search engine's results whenever that term is queried."
[/quote]
The article goes on to mention that google bombs have been compared to Greenpeace's founder Bob Hunter's "media mindbombs" by Clifford Tatum, in a paper published in the online journal First Monday (www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_10/).
I guess time will tell if these techniques are effective - from what the article says they're definitely changing the search engine results. But I suspect the key to the campaign is finding the best search phrase to use. Personally I don't think I'd search google for "borrowed time" - I can imagine this being used in a viral email though like the ones in the past where people say type this phrase and hit I feel lucky into google. Perhaps this is a case of preaching to the converted though which is often the problem with activist and social protest issues.
Let's just hope the spammers don't get onto it as well. Hopefully there are algorithms to prevent this in the search engines, though I wouldn't be surprised if this were one of the SEO tools for spam sites!