15THINGS
TECHNOLOGY
VOLUME 01 ISSUE 01 MARCH 2010
Hello World. The first thing you learn in a new programming language is how to write a program that prints out on your computer screen the sentence “Hello World”; I don’t remember how many times I wrote an “Hello World” program, but I’m sure this is the first time I’m writing an article for a webzine, and it’s not an easy job as I’m going to introduce you to 15things.
environment in which we live.
15things is a webzine - yes, another one - and we have choosen that name because this will be a magazine made of 15 articles: 5 regular feature articles about cities, music, food and drink and a twinterview, an interview made via Twitter and 10 about a main topic that will vary on every issue.
As the seasons, 15things will have about 4 issues each year and if you want to receive our newsletter as soon as a new issue is available, just drop us a line: our e-mail address is 15thingsmag@gmail.com and, if you prefer the 140-characters kingdom, our twitter account is @15things. We are not just looking for readers, the same contacts are available for everyone who wants to collaborate with us.
The first issue main topic is the relationships between technology and humanity: how technology is changing us, our behaviors, our habits and the
This webzine is an example of how technology has changed human relationships. I have never met in a face-to-face meeting this issue’s writers and this project is born thanks to direct messages on Twitter, e-mails and web-based collaboration tools.
So, let me say: “Hello World”. EDITORIAL by DANIELE DE COL
[] Cover Image:
1955 Brain Removers by JAMES VAUGHAN http://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/ http://jamesvaughanphoto.com/ 2
C Berlin M In - Sonorization D Stop Talking to Me While I’m Drinking! F Interview with Natalia Valle T with @aiagaia + 1 ME AS COMPUTER 2 LET ME BE YOUR TEDDY NERD 3 COUNTDOWN 2010 e BIODIVERSITY JENGA 4 CONFIDENCE IS WHERE IT’S AT 5 ANOTHER SPARK IN THE (GREAT) FIREWALL 6 NASDAQ 7 FAST FOOD HOT SANDWICHES 8, 9 e 10 TRIPTYCH OF PROSTHESIS
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“All in all it’s just another brick in the wall. All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.” Another Brick in the Wall part 2, Pink Floyd WORDS: DANIELE DE COL PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDREA MUHS and OLIVER ELSER
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More on Contributors: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ restmodern/ http://www.restmodern.de http://www.muhs.de/ http://www.architekturtexte.ch/ 4
suburbs, on the project web site you can read: “The expression of an era cannot be experienced in architectural highlights. It only appears when we take a good look around in the everyday urban greyness”.
Berlin wants to forget what happened between 1945 an 1989, for that reason anything built in this period is often designated as something to be demolished as soon as possible to make room for new buildings. This is true for both the eastern and western parts of town. In 2002 Andreas Muhs, a photographer with many publications in newspapers and magazines, and Oliver Elser, curator at the German Architecture Museum, started to document the builds in risk of demolition. They ignored the ‘icons’ of postwar modernism focusing on
1. Zentrale Tierlaboratorien der FU Berlin, Krahmer Straße, Steglitz /// 2. Wohngebäude, Charlottenburg, Lietzenburger Straße /// 3. Kunst, Marzahn, Helene-Weigel-Platz /// 4. Haus der NGG, Gotzkowskystra&e, Tiergarten /// 5. Feueralarm Oberstufenzentrum, Swinemünder Str., Wedding /// 6. Wohngebäude, Charlottenburg, Bleibtreustraße
During this year’s Berlin Film Festival, 12th February, thanks to the festival art director Dieter Kosslick, the public could be present at a live sonorization of the film Metropolis. This event was made possible thanks to Frank Strobel, a Berliner music artist, in collaboration with the Murnau Foundation which is taking care of this idea since 2001. Frank Strobel mainly directed the attention to the original partiture of the sound-track written by Gottfried Huppertz, but starting from 1984 many other musicians and directors tried to give a new sound to this landmark in the history of the cinema. Many suggestions have been taken also from the project written by Berndt Schultheis in 1964. Strobel worked on seven different versions of the sound-track and he admits the main problem of a live representation during the screening of the movie. As a matter of fact, the sincronization has to be kept during every moment with no space for free improvisation. The original partiture for the movie is one of the first great symphonic arrangement for
“Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.”
thanks to the sound-track. We aren’t used to silent movies anymore and to recreate in our state of mind words and thoughts of the actors, or the entire mood of the opera only thanks to the sound-track.
A great sample of this kind of experience has been Microcosmos the documentary directed by Marie Perennou and Claude Nuridsany Plato, The Republic with the original sound-track of Bruno Colais. In that case even the life of insects cinema and listening to a live could be better rendered thanks to version of it, all its evocative elements found a new life and have great music. been underlined from a presentday taste and attention. Movie sonorization’s art is a new possibility to give space to a music which is grown year after year but bows its head to the power that there is in some silent film’s scene. Many times it’s easier to find musicians that exalts the silence in music and work on it as an alternative expressive way. Just to give some names we can talk about John Cage, William Burroughs or particular ideas of Paul Virilio.
IN SONORIZATION WORDS: BIANCA FERRARI
When we watch a movie we understand the most of sensations 5
Stop talking to me while I’m drinking!
Here we are to suggest some funny games you should do while you’re drinking. There are so many ones you could do to enjoy yourselves. We are proposing five of one’s we consider WORDS: FRANCESCA PIAZZA the best of all.
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ILLUSTRATIONS: BIANCA FERRARI
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7s, 11s, OR DOUBLES
Ingredients: 2 dice, a cup (in the middle of the table), beer and yourselves. At first someone rolls the dice. If he get 7, 11, or doubles on his roll he’ll pick someone else to drink, except the next person. The one who rolled pours beer into the cup in the middle. As soon as the cup is filled the choosen person must drink. While he is drinking the beer the roller has to try to get 7, 11, or doubles before the drinker slams the cup on the table. If the drinker beats the roller the dice go to the next person. But if the roller gets 7, 11, or doubles before the drinker slams the cup down, he refills the cup and go again until the drinker beats the roller. The roller cannot touch the dice before the drinker touches the cup or he has to drink, and if anyone else touches the cup or the dice before the drinker touches the
cup, he has to drink. The drinker can also try to trick someone to touching the cup for him, if he is successful that person has to drink.
The best part of the game is its end, because it’s unforeseeable. We suppose four different ends, with different winners and loosers: first, the drinker falls over (the barman wins); second, the barman punches drinker’s lights BEAT THE BARMAN out (drawn); third, the drinker gets thrown out (drawn); the bar closes Ingredients: a not so crowded pub, a friendly barman (with a great (the drinker wins). sense of humor and lot of time to loose) and yourselves with any plans for the following morning. The drinker approaches the bar and orders a shot drink (whisky, bourbon, vodka...). The drinker pays for the drink with too much money. As the barman goes away to get change, the drinker shoots the shot. When the barman returns with the change, go to step number 1.
BEER - PONG Ingredients: a ping-pong table (or something similar), beer and yourselves. Each player places its filled cup of beer one paddle – width from
the side, in the center. Hitting your opponent’s cup earns you a point and requires the opponent to sip (5 sips a cup). If you get the ball in your opponent’s cup, you are awarded 5 points and the opponent must drink whatever remains in the cup. Remember: no player may touch the ball prior to its hitting the table or a cup; if it hits a cup before hitting the table, it remains in play even after a single bounce on the table. A player may attempt to save point after the ball hits a cup by returning it. Multiple hits count only a single point, except a ball which hits a cup and then bounces inside the cup, or inside the partner’s cup: in this case it counts as a 5-points-inside-the-cup “poofter”.
BUFFALO Ingredients: your hands, yourselves and great attention! Everybody has to use left hand while drinking, except if you are lefty. If you see anyone drinking whit the right end, you have to begin shouting “Buffalo! Buffalo! Buffalo!” and clapping your hands or banging the table in the same rhythm. Then the unfortunate drinker must finish his drink as fast as he can to make you stop shouting. Repeat it until you have to drink...
WALLA – WALLA Ingredients: table, cards, mixed drinks, yourselves.
someone else draws a Jack and becomes the Walla – Walla Moose Master. The Queen is the Question Master. If the person with this card ask a question, the person who answres has to drink. It may be a simple question like “What time is it?”. The King is the Thumb Master. He puts his thumb on the edge of the table. The last person to it has to drink. Both the Question Master and the Thumb Master are that until someone else draws a Queen or King. The Ace is the Rule Master. He can make up any rule he wants. For example, “each time a girl drinks, the boys have to drink as well”, and these rules stick for the duration of the game.
Sit around the table and put a deck of cards in the middle. The first person draws a card. From 2 to 5 is the number of drinks you take, from 6 to 10 is the number of drinks you pass out. The Jack is the Walla – Walla Moose Master: when you pick up it you make moose antlers with your hands and yell “Walla – Walla Moose!”. The last person to do it has to drink. You could do this anytime till 7
D: Hi Natalia, please introduce yourself with a tweet (not more then 140 characters) N: Hi there. I’m a 25 years old selftaught photographer based in Rio de Janeiro.
D: When did you decide to become a photographer? N: It wasn’t something I planned. I always liked photography, at the age of 18 I started taking pictures of my daily life for fun, at that time I had a photo blog and soon people began to say that I should turn the hobby into a profession. Then I was awarded in an international competition, somehow it was an approval that I was looking for, and when I realized I was working as a freelance photographer. I am a QUESTIONS: DANIELE DE COL romantic girl, I like to think that it PHOTOGRAPHY: NATALIA VALLE was meant to be.
Interview with Natalia Valle
D: Who are your main influencers? N: Lately, the food photographers Helene Dujardin, Alexander Landau, France Ruffenach, among others. Cartier-Bresson is one of my eternal idols, Marizilda Cruppe constantly inspires me. 8
D: How do you describe your photographic style? N: I guess I’m still figuring it out.
D: Why food? And how do you decide the subjects? N: I’m terrible when it comes to cooking, shooting is my way to enjoy the food, I love its textures. I could spend all day looking at food pictures, they give me joy. When I was younger I used to buy sweets and desserts not necessarily because I wanted to eat them, but because of their beauty. Ok, who am I kidding? I still do that, but don’t tell everyone.
The subject depends on the needs of each client.
D: Looking at your web site most of your food pics are sushi related. Do you think sushi is more photogenic than other food? Why? N: Not at all. Japanese food is delicious but not always the most photogenic, you must be careful when shooting all kinds of food. Like a good picture stirs the appetite, a bad one can turn a tasteful dish into a disgusting one.
I worked several times for a japanese restaurant, that’s why my web site shows a lot of sushi. In my opnion, the most photogenic foods are sweets and desserts in general. They’re colorful, delicated, sugared fun, and most of people love them.
D: Do you use real food in your pics? N: Yes, I do. You can take great pictures with real food and a good sense of styling. D: What’s the hardest part of shooting food? N: Time. The photographer have to work fast so that the food does not change its appearance with the temperature or other factors.
D: Are your pics “photoshopped”? N: Yes, I usually adjust the brightness in photoshop.
D: What’s the secret that makes a food pic mouthwatering? N: A great photographer and a great chef. It’s important to study the food and know the elements that are more photogenic to compose the picture, as well as working together with the person who will be doing the dish, to make the food visually more appetizing.
D: What advice would you give someone who wanted to become a food photographer? N: Play with food, study the works of other protographers, read books about food photography, ask yourself what makes you like a particular photo and what makes you not like it, connect with local chefs, restaurants, culinary students. Browse cookbooks, usually the best pictures are there. Take a lot of photos, talk to professionals. Be creative. Critique and let be criticized.
D: What other thoughts would you like to share? N: I would like to share a lovely blog I’ve found recently. It’s about everything food related: www.happyladyeats.com
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More on Contributor: http://photovalle.etsy.com http://nataliavalle.com/blog http://www.flickr.com/delvalle 9
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Twinterview with @aiagaia
in @15things? Nice: an original idea, innovative and really interesting. B: So I start point-blanck with the theme: technology. In your opinion do young people watch Web Tvs? G: We hope even younger do! The real problem is that lots of them stops at the chat level instead.
Our aim is to open their eyes, I mean: we’d like having more young people using internet as an active tool. QUESTIONS: BIANCA FERRARI We aren’t pessimist ‘cause there @bia_hvid are already many young people
B: Here we are! Meanwhile many thanks for accepting this deal! You are in our first twinterview. G: OMG, you adulate me using this, right for the launch of @15things. B: We are all so happy and waiting for the issue. G: Then everything will be written 10
who know us and want to join us. I think they could be attracted from our being a young working group, doing active information and enjoying it, in a smart, new and not discounted way, above all. B: You know , I’m kind of pessimist, I’m hard at understanding what can be a good middleway among information tools in the Web...
G: There is something good in between, yes! We can’t forgive that Internet (althought some try to do the contrary) is and has to be a free space in which is possible to express yourself as you like, with no manipulation from traditional medias as thay do too often. But you need to be able in using Internet. B: In your opinion do people read blogs or do they prefer watching Web Tvs?
G: For the moment I think blogs, for two simple reasons. 1 – Web Tvs are new realities here in Italy and we are a bit lazy, in addition, we need some time for the step of taking a camera, using it to create contents about different topics... only starting from our initiative... It’s easier to sit down at home and read or write a blog, even if it’s well done and appealing. B: I totally agree. Many times Internet is misunderstood
aiagaia Name Gaia Roncarelli Location Bologna Web http://www.crossingtv.it/ Bio 20 years old white gemini female with overabundant writing obsessions just to sedate her unsettled mind.
G: 2 – Web Tvs are really recent and (in my concrete experience, in Italy) not so spread, althought many of them aren’t new (e.g. apartment house tv ‘Teletorre 19). B: This is related to the fact that Internet as to be better known. Why is it so difficult to give confidence to new ways of journalism? Maybe also to source not linked to national media... G: In my opinion we have been used to believe that the only real information is the one given from newspapers and Tvs, we have forgiven that newspapers and Tvs are indissolubly bounded to politics, this is a way to distort information as they like.
Concerning who isn’t confident with alternative forms of information, I think the cause could be that most of the sources (for Web Tvs...) are common people, not wellknown anchor men and, who knows, we believe that the ‘dapper’ journalist is clever than us, but often this isn’t true. As it’s false that these ‘dappers’ and who are around them share the same problems like who is involved in documenting a problematic fact and tries to get solutions for it. Often journalists don’t even know what is happening and therefore have difficulties in having the same interest in making clarity or, above all, in doing that kind of sincere information useful to associate with the reader.
We must fight for the freedom of Internet, for the moment is one of the only hopes for a free information.
B: Many problems of lack of information are caused from the structure of main media and daily newspapers. Isn’t it?
B: When you talked about the first Italian Web Tvs you made me think at the meeting ‘Paese che vai’. Have you been there? G: Yes, we have been! :)
G: Absolutely.
G: I’d like to add something to what I said previously...
G: Eheheh, you are right, I answered you before referring to it. People
B: You were talking also about #citizenjournalism: a ‘foreign’ word for Italians as a matter of fact...
look at CJ with a suspicious approach, alas. People deem that ‘self-taught’ information done by each citizen has to be necessarily unprofessional and therefore wrong or innacurate or even sectarian. I’m afraid but this last characteristic is typical also of traditional media and they can’t deny it ;) B: You know that people still want to have their 15 minutes of celebrity, but also have problems in expressing themselves. Why, in you opinion? G: I think that people are too busy to think that in order to have those 15 minutes they need to go along with Tv’s wishes or similar, on the basis of what is asked to audience. Does Tv work with smiling people? Is it satisfied with every silly thing happening? People act like this without asking themselves what is THEIR personal way of expression, what THEY really want to say. Today the main think is appereance, and it is implied like a ‘diktat’ to which the individual doesn’t feel to rise against. I said an enormous banality, but this is my opinion.
B: IMHO this isn’t banal, rather a way of thinking with not much possible opposition because many times there aren’t basis for a concrete conversation... G: I agree. Many people probably don’t even know that it’s possible to express with other tools... B: And strong bias are an everyday topic to deal with! I’d like to end with a last question about media and tech. In this first issue we are talking about technology, have you got a favourite digital tool or application? G: Ahahah, you know ‘on the square’ among the @CrossingTv staff the nerd is another one, my loves are really concrete: I like reading and writing very much, at most I love my iPod but only because it let me to isolate myself thanks to music and, of course, when technology meets your loves I think it’s great :) B: I hope we won’t ever have to bear technologies against our wills :) At last I have to thank you a lot! G: Thank you for this nice possibility! 11
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More on Contributor: http://www.flickr.com/people/ davidkjelkerud http://david.kjelkerud.se/
ME AS COMPUTER PHOTOGRAPHY: DAVID KJELKERUD
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LET ME BE YOUR TEDDY NERD. PHOTOGRAPHY: MATTEO VISENTINI
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More on Contributor: www.flickr.com/photos/matteovisentini 13
The UN declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity (IYB). The celebrations for the International Year of Biodiversity are led by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
COUNTDOWN WRITER: FRANCESCA PIAZZA ARTWORK: STANLEY LEUNG
[] For info and participation:
www.countdown2010.net/ year-biodiversity
[]
More on Contributor: http://surfacexcreation.wordpress.com/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ 28495332@N07/
2010
Countdown 2010 is a partner of the CBD for the IYB. The number of actors ranging from local authorities and businesses to civil society organizations is increasing day by day. With a powerful network of nearly 1,000 partners, Countdown 2010 is one of the leading initiatives mobilizing action for the 2010 Target. It will be a key global actor for IYB in Europe and around the world. Countdown 2010 and its partners will provide one of the main information channels and will be
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a major vehicle for reaching target groups worldwide. All Countdown 2010 partners are encouraged to organize events and set up initiatives for the International Year of Biodiversity. The Countdown 2010 team counts on all of us to make the IYB a successful year in Europe and beyond. There we find three way to partecipate at the Countdown 2010. At first, if you have a great idea for a project, event, or initiative in 2010 which you want to share with other Countdown 2010 partners, you could find a great list of open projects in the website of the project, with the option browse share - vote. You can also send your ideas at office@countdown2010.net. At the same page you could vote for the best ideas for 2010. A great social idea. For the second proposal you have the possibility to send to the main e-mail address the description of your biodiversity achievements, what you have done for increase biodiversity conscience in your community, company or city.
Your story could be a model for future positive action. You could tell your story with a video at the same email, too. All the stories will be posted on the Countdown 2010 website and the best stories will be published in a special magazine.
The last suggestion, but not the least one, is called “Name your Ambassador� , by which you could name any popular figure who is sensitive to environmental issues in your area. This could be useful also to have a benchmark about the work for biodiversity in your own country.
PHOTOGRAPHY and COMMENT: MARTIN SHARMAN
{
OUR DESTRUCTION OF THE TOWER CAN LEAD TO COLLAPSE
BIODIVERSITY JENGA
{
“Where I work they are about to start a campaign using the symbolism of a house of cards. This is crazy. They construct a house of cards knowing that any one of their attempts to construct could end in disaster, and that sooner or later, the whole thing will suddenly collapse. This is a terrible metaphor for our relationship with the living world. We are not trying to create - we are cutting down. Acts of creation do not inevitably lead to disaster, as with the house of cards. The Jenga image is much more appropriate. We take blocks out, one by one. Our destruction of the tower can lead to collapse. But we can also refuse to take a block out, and begin to try to put blocks back. Collapse is not inevitable, unless we continue to remove blocks.”
[] More on Contributor:
http://www.flickr.com/people/sharman/ 15
CONFIDENCE
NEXTED (Urban Dictionary)
Usually on Chatroulette, a new random stranger chat site, when someone clicks the “next” button almost instantly after seeing your face or webcam. The most common nexted individuals are males.
IS WHERE IT’S AT CONCEPT: BIANCA FERRARI PHOTOGRAPHY: MICK VAN MEELEN
[] More on Contributor:
http://wonderingmick.com/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ikmick/
ANOTHER SPARK IN THE (GREAT) FIREWALL WORDS: FRANCESCA PIAZZA ARTWORK: CAIN and TODD BENSON
The power of Google scares the governments. This is almost cristal clear. Most of the newspapers spoke about what the Google management said, and what was the reaction of Chinese government. But what do the Chinese netizens think about the case? The mentioned search engine helped us. Spaceysun, on Flickr.com, has a persevering opinion. “Pornographic materials can be reasonably censored but people should be entitled to freedom of speech. Our government feared
that the Chinese people become too “information-rich”, so they installed the Great Firewall; very effective up till now.” “Intriguingly, Google’s claim has become some kind of a blatant threat or to some extent, an ultimatum to the Chinese government. And this has been utilized by the U.S. government to exert pressure on a diplomatic level. Escalated to such a scenario, I assume Google China is going to be pulled out of mainland China in the near future.”
{
CENSORSHIP HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FIGHT AGAINST PORNOGRAPHY
{
As a matter of fact, the censorship of Chinese government could be seen as a terrorism attack against normal Internet users and the global information security. Actually many of Chinese internet users are freezed and fixed. Lots of Flickr normal photos cannot be seen, for example. This is why Chinese people thinks the censorship has nothing to do with the fight against pornography: it’s a one against every Chinese netizen
who wants to seek better service and more information. A tweet is madly circulated on the internet: Facebook 的原罪是它能让人认识想认识 的人，Twitter 的原罪是它能让人说出想说 的话，Google 的原罪是它能让人找到想 找到的东西，Youtube 的原罪是它能让人 看到想看到的东西… 所以它们都被干掉了
“The sin of facebook is that it helps people know who they wanna know. The sin of Twitter is that it allows people to say what they wanna say. The sin of Google is that it lets people find what they wanna find, and Youtube let us see what we wanna see. So, they are all kicked away.” It directly affects millions of netizens, because since Google’s expansion in China, its search engine, Gmail, and Google Doc have been widely used. A netizen in Xiaonei, which is a social network website popular among young people, was panic: 陆铠 :早上看到新闻说“谷歌将退出中国市 场”... 吓醒了... 我的Gmail，我的Google docs，我的谷歌咨询，我的互联网
“I saw that “Google planned to quit the Chinese market”. I was scared awake… My Gmail, My Google docs, my Google Search, 17
and my internet.” These days are uncommon for Chinese cyberspace. As a Chinese local search engine with the largest market share, Baidu is often compared with Google. Its reputation is blackened because of its stronger censorship and the fact that it has removed search returns about poisonous milk after taking money from the producers. 王子健 :百度该不知道的都不知道，谷歌 不该知道的都知道，他知道的太多了…
“Baidu will show you nothing that you shouldn’t know, but Google is the opposite. It knows too much.” Google is highly praised among internet users: 樊春晓→槑 :谷歌退出中国市场？！谷歌有 骨气，谴责xx一个，没有民主的地方，谷 歌情愿退出，道义、金钱，什么更重要？ 我收回以前说老外没文化的话，现在他们 为我们诠释了什么叫舍身取义，XX，看 看现在的中国人，祖宗的美德一点都没留 下，枉为华夏子孙
Look at the Chinese nowadays, the merit of ancestors were gone. I am ashamed to call us the offspring of the Huaxia Great China”. A sarcastic price of words is getting quite popular around the cyberspace.
“Recently because Google encountered issues such as obscene search returns, infringement on copyrights, it is boycotted by the Chinese netizens. 90后：今天我翻墙，看到一个国外网站叫 Also due to the decreasing revenue, Google的，妈的全是抄袭百度的。00后： it is considering to quit the Chinese 翻墙是什么？ 10后：网站是什么？ 20 market. This is another case of 后：国外是什么？ boycotting a perverted foreign website by Chinese people.” “People born in 90s: Today I So, this was for thinking about stepped out of the Great Firewall young Chinese people, about the and saw a foreign website named digital natives of China. Google. Shit, it is all but a copy of The Internet is too usefull to be Baidu. lost. For them... and for all. Born in 00s: What do you mean by stepping out of Great Firewall? Born in 10s: What do you mean by website? Born in 20s: What is ‘foreign’?” Tang Peng shouted: 唐鹏 :我党威武，我天朝万岁!！谷歌终于 要“自愿”退出中国市场了！！！
“Great Party, Long live the CCP dynasty!! Finally Google would like to quit the Chinese market “Google quit Chinese market?! A ‘voluntarily’!!” People soon make firm of backbone! In a place without up how the state-run media CCTV democracy, Google prefers to quit. might comment on the incident What is more important, money or cctv: morality? I won’t say foreigners are impolite anymore, because they 新闻稿：近日谷歌公司由于黄色搜索，侵 have shown us what it means by 犯中国作家著作权等问题，遭到了中国网 ‘sacrifice oneself for justice’. 民的普遍抵制。由于业绩下滑严重，考虑 18
退出中国市场。这又是一次中国网民抵制 外国不良网络服务商的成功案例！
[] More information at:
http://globalvoicesonline.org/-/world/ east-asia/china/
[] More on Contributors:
http://www.flickr.com/people/ spaceysun/ http://www.flickr.com/people/endworld/ http://endworld.ycool.com/ @endworldshi http://www.flickr.com/people/cainandtoddbenson/
NAS DAQ ARTWORK and CONCEPT: ELIO ROSATI
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FAST FOOD HOT SANDWICHES ARTWORK and CONCEPT: ELIO ROSATI
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‘Who are YOU?’ said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, ‘I--I hardly know, sir, just at present--at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.’ ‘What do you mean by that?’ said the Caterpillar sternly. ‘Explain yourself!’ ‘I can’t explain MYSELF, I’m afraid, sir’ said Alice, ‘because I’m not myself, you see.’¹ Alice is no longer Alice. It’s hard to imagine a bigger solitude than the one of who can’t even find itself. Here start problems: who tries to find itself when the subject indeed vanishes? Probably, someone else. There are alredy two of us. Alice’s reasons: she has changed size too many times and does no longer remember well what she thought she knew. This schizophrenia is more familiar to us. The problem put by the modern technologies, above all the personal-version, is something very similar.
Conditio sine qua non: there are no one-way relationships. Too often you think of a subject that manages, invents, uses and abuses technology. He is static whereas technology moves, changes, evolves, transcends. “Computers will become more human!” shout researchers and, behind them, while they don’t stop admiring “le magnifiche sorti e progressive”, the human beings will become more computer.
In most of cases nothing new is born: we have just potentiated ourselves. My voice can be spread all over the world and at the same time i can perceive the littlest vibration. My eyes can explore at the same time the surface of the globe, the deepness of the univers and the micro-articulations of a molecule. My arm can strike my enemy everywhere and at the same time can perform a microsurgery operation. I can run 300 km/h, I can comunicate at ones, I Darwin thought the species that can know what happens in each survives is the better adapted one: part of the world, I can get any role, this law is true for us too even if I can say my opinion and I can the environment is, for a big part, have a my space. We can be our product. We have created high- gigantic and a minute after very powered weapons, high-powered little, like Alice. We pay dearly computers, high-powered mobile for it in terms of selection and phones, high-powered airplanes, prospective. high-powers cars and highIt’s easy to imagine how our powered fridges: than we have capability to keep a steady horizon adapted. is compromised by all this sudden What are all these things we have changes. Each deformation breaks created? Prosthesis. the prospective, changes the point
of view. What’s mine? We can hardly mediate: we negotiate every moment a vague, temporary, unsteady conition. Nothing strange if then the ideologies come out. The selection comes into play: in order to potentiate we need to select something and not something else. I potentiate my voice, I speak to Cina but that voice is no longer mine. She has become a wave, we have stripped it away from our body. The world sees my face but that face is nothing more than a frame, a fragment in a showcase. Then comes the worst: the selection selects us. If I try to assemble all my chunks something goes wrong: I became mosaic, a cubist collage of an idea about myself. No longe manadn technology but technoman, no longer the subject and his prosthesis but the subjectivity of the prosthesis.
At this point the famous modern paradox “the more we can communicate, the more we feel alone” appears less strange. The subjects characterised by personaltechnology vanish slowly, starting from the top of the tail to end WORDS and ILLUSTRATIONS: with the facebook profile, that will MICHELE MARTINI remain there for a while after the PHOTOGRAPHY: ELIO ROSATI rest will be desappeared.
TRIPTYCH OF PROSTHESIS
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The noise is a relationship among colours. Remember of your childhood. Noise is that thing that made the brigth colours you mixed turn into a brown-grey tone. We might stop a bit before. Musically speaking noise consists in a sound which is characterised by a hardly definable, unsteady frequency: a fashionable mix of frequencies. The sublime (or better, sub-limen) exists for Noise too: just before the “grey-brown collapse”. We need to pay attention to do not mistake our limits for limits of things. Noise itself can be essential only if we are able to get
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close to the limit whitout cross it. Eros. Beyond the limit there are us, our mind and our senses to dissolve. In the everyday life we are exposed to a big quantity of noises we don’t desire. In order to avoid interferences, we create a limit under the which we ignore any stimolous. It’s something like a grey curtain that simultaneously hides the unuseful noises and becomes the background for interesting sounds. Naturally we sit in the stalls and observe. The show begins. What’s up?
SOMETHING goes wrong! Hey, can you moVE to the left a bit...... PleASe!!! Change YOUR (silence) seat! “Sorry MadaME, but order FIRST, eh?” It’s 19.3 9 o’ Than people clock Put down GOSsip... the bottle, God damn it! And please, let my favorite ACTOR go!!
Here is, I know! Noise, behind the curtain, has eaten away the stage, the flap, the public and the stalls. That ‘s how it goes as usual! An actor can act more or less for 5 minutes. He comes in, says an halfcue and immediately something drugs him behind the wings. In the same way sounds, pictures and information disappear. It’s always the same! In later years technological increase (technological increase of our age) has increased the noise. We, unlucky castaways, try to float on interferences. So we amplify sounds, we pump up information,
we fatten images. A vicious circle: in order to emerge from the background, in order to drag out ourselves, in order to have a 5-minute truth. All of a sudden, in the invisible turmoil, from a curtain’s breaking corner slips out the voice of an old news. A mobile phone’s ring evaporates through an unstitching. We catch a glimpse of numerous shadows. Now my desire is to give up war. Turn off amplifiers, monitors and engines. Lay off to make louder in order to define the New on the corpse of a dead yesterday.
Tear up curtain, uproot seats, smash flap, break down stage. Let the Noise of our age, whatever it is, be heard.
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A red light enlightens. A man sees it and pushes a botton. A switch sets off and an electric impulse begins to move through the Net. It passes by other terminals, other lights turn on. Another man, better dressed, sees light. He dials a telephone number. The call goes along the main cable and then deviates towards the secondary net. Another telephon rings and a man picks up the receiver. The man is at office, he shouts something, another man listens and nods. He goes to the console and pushes a series of bottons. Red lights enlightens. The electric impulse begins to move but looses itself in a device: it exits changed into a wave. It flies away to an airplane. It enters into an electric circuit until it gets to pilot’s panel. Some symbols appear: nice wheather upon Hiroshima.
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At the pub the discussion languishes. An old man harasses the barman’s half-potty monkey with the top of the cigarette. He will die in a couple of hours, but he doesn’t know. Ictus, to be precise, and he’ll wet himself. The owner’s little son looks at an old film on television. “That people are dead and buried!” cries a fur-covered half skeleton, trying to get into the pub. “Because we die, in life!”, she says, squeaking like a rusty door. At that moment, I guess, the boy decided to become a raper, to rape the old woman and to end on the electric chair. Enough, at that age. At the same time the monkey, among all those bones, coveted a beautiful femur. It was at least one metre long, white, with a visible bulge on the top. Nothing strange at all but that day the light was different. He imagined for an istant imploding skulls, flying splinter bones and marrow squirting everywhere. He liked it, he named it “Power”. “Stop behaving like an idiot!” “But that man...his head...”
“What’ wrong? Didn’t you study anatomy? If you were under that bus, I assure you things would be the same! And now let us working!” He went away slowly staggering. No rest looking at the sky that day. No rest since long time. At the meantime the others went to be marked. It was for free, they said. Maybe he would do it as well, sooner or later. If you are marked you can keep your house, your car and they give you a ticket for food. It’s acceptable, after all. Mum would be happy for sure. She has been marked twice in order to be safer. The crisis started five days ago. The airlift cannot work, ships cannot leave the harbour. Telephones, televisions and radios are mute. Without any stock Tokyo can resist no more than three days. People will soon begin to starve.
He went, after time, in a monastery. There he found the holy ideograms, god’s gears. The gears of the world were broken, axis were smashed, springs were streched out. The world, like an old carillon, was stuck. At the end the technology of symbols have shown his limits. Nothing fit together, maybe nothing had ever fitted. Everything was a game.There was a hidden gap, a little but iterate imperfection, a viper fed in our womb. Grown, she had put her slimy body into the gears and it was the end.
A technology of symbols which is symbol of technology: a trick of mirrors. Celestial spheres, after long time, still working good. Doubtless a good mechanism. Valeria wants to become your friend. You have 134 common friends. Ignore.
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ISSUE 01 > TECHNOLOGY CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Daniele De Col > @wobbly Bianca Ferrari > @bia_hvid Michele Martini Francesca Piazza > @Persulla Elio Rosati Matteo Visentini > @wuise A special thanks to Francesco Zambelli for helping in copy editing.
CONTRIBUTORS: Cain and Todd Benson Oliver Elser Endworld David Kjelkerud Stanley Leung Andrea Muhs Gaia Roncarelli Martin Sharman Spaceysun Natalia Valle Mick Van Meelen James Vaughan
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