PICNIC07: Highlights & Live Reports

New Look For Newstrust

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:05:00 +0200

I am proud to be on the board of advisors of Newstrust, a non-profit effort to build a non-partisan/bi-partisan community of intelligent news consumers who keep journalists and news publications…

Photos from the first New Media MA Graduation Day: Tuesday the...

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 22:11:56 +0200

Photos from the first New Media MA Graduation Day:

Tuesday the 22nd of September was a big day for both graduating New Media MA students and New Media studies itself. The first official graduation ceremony (which were previously held together with Film and Television studies in Mediastudies) marked the beginning of a new era for New Media within Mediastudies. New Media has grown in both quality and quantity over the past few years and this ceremony illustrated New Media as a mature field of study within Mediastudies.

The Masters themselves organized a graduation day that started with a symposium titled “AMSTERDAM – Creative and Critical Media Futures.” In the symposium Eric Kluitenberg (De Balie – Centre for Culture and Politics) and Floor van Spaendonck (director of Virtueel Platform) addressed the following questions: What is Amsterdam’s role as a center for creative practices and critical discourses pertaining to New Media? What roles can we envision it playing in the future?

Both Kluitenberg and van Spaendonck started their presentation with the importance of De Digitale Stad (the Amsterdam Digital City) within the history of new media in Amsterdam. It brought back memories of my own experiences with the Digital City in 1996 and how it was metaphorically and spatially organized as a city with a main square and where inhabitants would inhabit a house. Of course, the Post Office was my favorite part of the city, along with the chat area. For more information and research on the Digital City see Reinder Rustema’s collection in both English and Dutch.

After the symposium Prof. Frank Van Vree welcomed the audience and graduating MA’s as the Chair of the Department of Media Studies. Marijn de Vries Hoogerwerff (MA New Media, 2009) addressed the audience with a small personal speech about being a New Media MA at the University of Amsterdam.

The diplomas were granted by thesis advisors Prof. Richard Rogers, Jan Simons and Edward Shanken (unfortunately Geert Lovink could not be there). After the diplomas there were drinks, a buffet and a party which marked the end of the graduation day.

The first New Media MA Graduation Day was a big success. Thank you organizers, and congratulations MA students, you are now officially Masters of Media!

More photos on Flickr.

Videos generated by attendees of Picnic 09

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:14:49 +0200

Videos generated by attendees of Picnic 09:

A special collection of videos of this weeks #PICNIC09 (www.picnicnetwork.com) generated by the attendees and collected via twitter by dutch trendwatcher Vincent Everts. Enjoy! Here is his …

Automatic Kite Drawing

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:54:42 +0200

Automatic Kite Drawing:

via todayandtomorrow.net

Automatic is a video and drawing project by William Lamson.

For GOP, revenge is tweet

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:08:44 +0200

For GOP, revenge is tweet:

Politico’s story today about the Republican twitters being nearly twice as many as Democrats may reveal something about political smart mobbing emerging for next year’s elections. One of the 3 GOP…

Entrepreneurial Code of Conduct: Take the Oath…

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:32:45 +0200

Entrepreneurial Code of Conduct: Take the Oath…:

Doctors have the Hippocratic Oath. It is an ethical framework on which they can fall back when they have doubts about the right course of action. I think it must be comforting to have some…

Harvard’s DASH for Open Access

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:12:48 +0200

Harvard’s DASH for Open Access:

A Harvard University Library news story updates the great news of the Harvard research community’s leadership of open access to scholarship through DASH. The release begins:

September 1,…

Facebook must be largest smart mob

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 14:52:28 +0200

Facebook must be largest smart mob:

In a post on his blog edgelings today titled “Facebook Rules the World,” Michael S. Malone says, “The cultural side of technology revolutions have a tendency to sneak up on us.” Social networking…

If Picasso would have been alive today…

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 10:16:40 +0200

If Picasso would have been alive today…:

Was Picasso a great painter or a great artist? I think he was a great artist and used the technologies that were available to him at the time. What would have been his medium of choice…

HandheldLearning 2009 free Free Festival first day

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 08:48:18 +0200

HandheldLearning 2009 free Free Festival first day:

Now in its fifth Year, the HandheldLearning conference assembles the full spectrum of players in the field: Teachers, school governors, parents, employers, accompanied minors and anybody…

PICNIC Amsterdam 23-25 September

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 08:48:17 +0200

PICNIC Amsterdam 23-25 September:

Next week the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam hosts PICNIC ‘09, Europes trendsetting festival with three inspiring days of ideas, fun and sensory stimulation in media, technology, entertainment, art…

Modern version of ‘Der Lauf Der Dinge’

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 03:28:07 +0200

Modern version of ‘Der Lauf Der Dinge’:

via todayandtomorrow.net

I talked about ‘Der Lauf Der Dinge‘ before. The original is a classic but I like this new bluetooth, gsm and infrared powered version too…

Graffiti mob signatures from Paris

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:49:08 +0200

Graffiti mob signatures from Paris:

Graffiti Taxonomy: Paris, 2009 from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

The wonderful Information Aesthetics folks have more from the Grafitti Taxonomy: Paris 2009 current exhibition…

New job and new blog design

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:32:02 +0200

New job and new blog design

Emerging mobile application stores ecosystem

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:27:10 +0200

Emerging mobile application stores ecosystem:

My experience in knowing Ajit Jaokar is that 1) he is one of the most passionate and perceptive advocates of smartmobby mobile matters out there, and 2) he is usually beyond the cutting edge on…

Soundwalk post linked from Carnival of the Mobilists

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:24:16 +0200

Soundwalk post linked from Carnival of the Mobilists:

Host Phil Barrett at BurningTheBacon.com sets up Carnival of the Mobilists #191 around Mobile in Canada, mixing great mobile posts with his insights into the jelling Canadian mobile scene. Phil…

LIke a 1.2 billion pound book

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:24:15 +0200

LIke a 1.2 billion pound book:

This image is from a blog post at CreativeCloud. There are several other related facts, such as: If you printed the internet reading it would take 57,000 years 24/7. Reading it for 10…

Presentation: Anders Sandberg - Cloud Superintelligence

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 23:44:45 +0200

Presentation: Anders Sandberg - Cloud Superintelligence:

Anders Sandberg’s presentation is highly illuminating and shares many parallels with concepts brought about in the book “Smart Mobs.”
Anders Sandberg (SE) is a researcher, science debater,…

EVENTS: “Open Everything” with Michel Bauwens

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:51:41 +0200

EVENTS: “Open Everything” with Michel Bauwens:

In conjunction with the paraflows 09 – Festival for Digital Art and Cultures in Vienna, the Peer-2-Peer theorist Michel Bauwens, (a longtime friend, supporter and colleague of…

RESEARCH: “Why Virtual Worlds - Why NOW? - Leon Cych

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:51:39 +0200

RESEARCH: “Why Virtual Worlds - Why NOW? - Leon Cych:

The pioneering educational technologist Leon Cych has drafted quite possibly the most comprehensive overview of the use and development of Virtual Worlds on Open Source technologies in…