I got email this morning from managing editor of Schmap Guides that one of my Flickr photos - Waag Newmarkt [from Amsterdam set] that I was asked to submit few weeks ago, has been selected for inclusion in the newly released fifth edition of  Schmap Amsterdam Guide. w00t! This is the photo of Waag square, that I took from Waag house last autumn, from the top of the apartment that Waag Institute usually hosts their guests.  It doesn’t pay the bill, but is nice to know that if you use an iPhone or iPod touch, then this same link will take you directly to  the iPhone version of the guide, and looks like this.

Share and enjoy!

This is the name of the presentation on Saturday, October 4, 2008, in O3one Gallery in Belgrade as the part of regular program of  B-LINK festival of New Communications. It was created two years ago as a rare example of an initiative to show and adequately promote creative and innovative tendencies within web environment, primarily in domains of experimental art, web design and now researching new technologies and the impact they have on society.

Social Me section brings ID/Entity where I’ll be presenting with my co-author, visual artist and lecturer Aleksandar Macasev, educational content on Identities (personal, social, national, virtual) using different forms:  video, micro-video forms, blog, live casting.  Co-authored blog - “Me Virtual You” - will be opened for the public after the talk and presentation. We will not be physically present: Aleksandar will tune in from New York (where he works and lives) and I will be at the other geo-spot on BlogOpen meeting giving a talk. This is great opportunity to test communication performances in virtual space with attendeees and partcipants in physical space (gallery) while we are on different geo-places. You are welcomed to come and see what’s in there.

As we moved to new URL, with new layout and RSS feed, I want to announce upcoming events for the next 2 weeks very briefly, as a trailer, more info’s in the days to come. I will talk at the 7th International Science conference at University of Belgrade about open access, digital literacy and e-resources in Web 2.0 world. This year academics  will gather to discuss following topics: electronic libraries in all its aspects, digital repositories, e-services, online databases, the usage of web 2.0 technologies, open access, digital literacy, SNS,  and ipso facto their larger positive impact on the scientific and pedagogical work in Serbia.  I’ll write more about this next week, but some valuable information of the programe is here.

You know that every year (now would be for the third time) in October is festival of new communications called B-LINK. The topic of 2008 B-LINK will be “Virtual me”. You will find out soon what is going on there. I am working on presentation with my co-author Aleksandar on different aspects of [our work] ID/Entity. I expect official program soon.

BlogOpen (4-5th of October) is South East, a regional friendly and professional meeting of bloggers which has, since last fall, been on the calendar of regular annual meetings of all the participants in blogosphere: authors, readers, IT workers and mainstream media. I will write more about BlogOpen and programme very soon, as I am listed as one of the speakers.

Since Blink and BlogOpen are happening on the same day, I was wondering how to be present at two conferences same day, same time, different geo-spots, on both i’m having gigs?! Astral projections and cloning are not the option so I’ve decided since the ‘Virtual me’ event is dealing with digital identities in this space, I will use available social media techs and appear virtually, as for those who are coming to BlogOpen - I will be present in my physical entity.

Stay tuned…

Radiohead just released a new video for its song “House of Cards” from the album “In Rainbows”.

No cameras or lights were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.

Watch the making-of video to learn about how the video was made and the various technologies that were used to capture and render 3D data.

For more information on data visualization (and how you can download it),  you can click on Google code page. It is interesting that this video is published under the mixture of copyrights/lefts: the code is open source licenced to Aaron Koblin, and the data (not the music)  used to produce the House of Cards music video is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

I hope that this wonderful Radiohead song and the video will inspire and gather other visual artists and IT people to use various technologies in making something innovative in the future.

Month of May, month of May -everything is lovely and gay. Culture in Serbia is meeting cold turkey (heard today one landed in Belgrade right from Ireland?!?) and more in preEuroTrash called Eurovision (contest for the best EuroSong). It’s not the fact that the official web site for Eurovision Belgrade 2008 is quite hideous but also the words of ignorance I came across yesterday of P. Schofield (British Broadcasting Corporation) at this Facebook group, where the creator is contemplating EuroSong contest “in Elbonia or wherever it is this year” (even more hideous for someone working in media, no?). Anyway, as I’ve missed this years Belgrade’s Design Week and lectures I wanted to attend ( Ascan Mergenthaler, CH, Herzog & de Meuron - Flowing into Landscape and Daniel Libeskind, US, The Architecture of Memories). But, what I won’t miss is the 5th Museum night (last year was organized through whole Serbia, and this year will be the same) and early drawings of Picasso, Air and Space Museum, History of computers exhibition, video installation, computer animation in Jewish Museum, Italian design in Superspace, Museum of Science&Technology and many other places through the city. Over 63 spots on May 17th from 6pm until the dawn, check the program and enjoy! I’m coming to take you to the Museum: )

Radiohead released today a video broadcasting globally, which aims to raise awareness of human trafficking. The lead singer, Thom Yorke, and his bandmates produced a music video together with MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Trafficking) for “All I Need,” a song from their In Rainbows album. The video was filmed in Australia by Oscar-winning cinematographer John Seale and director Steve Rogers.

The United Nations’ International Labour Organization estimates that there are around 2.5 million people in the world who have been trafficked.

“They’ve produced a video of two parallel stories running, one of a little boy in the West and one of a little boy in a sweatshop in the East, and the boy [in the West] ends up buying the shoes from the sweatshop. It’s actually quite powerful,” Yorke said. “It’s the sort of images I have in my head anyway. Sometimes when you’re walking down High Street and you’re looking at the incredibly cheap [sneakers], you sort of think, ‘Hmmm, well how did they manage to make that so cheaply?’ It sort of reminds me of one of my preoccupations, so I’m touched that the music goes with that. I think it’s great.”

& once again Thom

“I think it’s important for everyone in the West or on High Street to understand the consequences of our economic activity. You must be aware of the level of exploitation that’s going on,” Yorke said. “It’s part of our Western life, and one we should accept responsibility for. There’s no such thing as a free lunch or a free ticket to another country.”

I hope this is just beginning of raising the awareness of this issue around the world and involving more people in the campaign against human trafficking.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=cdrCalO5BDs]

I don’t use Russian language, but I really liked what global advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi (Moscow) created for Google. Their promo video for Gmail suppose to attract more Russian people to use Gmail. This is how looks local version for global web service. Share & enjoy!

And now something completely different that made my day! Howard Rheingold in his Vlog series on digital culture and social media, now presents hilarious video from his archive (1976) posing as Howard K. Martian, extraterrestrial anthropologist. In this cyberpunkerish eposiode with elements of Monty Python & Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, equipped with a radiomike, Howard roamed the streets of the San Francisco examining the automobile cult.

[blip.tv ?posts_id=658063&dest=-1]

The Library of Congress began last year first collaboration with Flickr and now has launched its pilot project called The Commons. Yesterday they announced a partnership that will put photos from the LoC’s collection online in a social environment and users to interact with them. LoC started organizing historical photograph collections through Flickr offering 3000 photos (so far): two sets of digitized photos from the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information and photos from the George Grantham Bain News Service. “The key goals of this pilot project are to firstly give you a taste of the hidden treasures in the huge Library of Congress collection, and secondly to how your input of a tag or two can make the collection even richer.” By tagging or commenting.  From official web site Library of Congress you can find more information about this project, as well as on the blog of LoC.

Also interesting additional information on new tagging initiative - The Commons  says that these photographs from the Library “represent materials for which the Library is not the intellectual property owner. Flickr is working with the Library of Congress to provide an appropriate statement for these materials. It’s called “no known copyright restrictions.”

Actually this quote, that I just grabbed, is the quote for the first 20 days of January 2008. Why only for the first 20 days you ask? Because. One cycle ends, the other begins.

‘Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds’ - Albert Einstein

Since I will be far, far, far away trying hardly to use my mobile gadgets, I have the question:

Can you manage to get completely analogue and turn off your computers for the Holidays? Frankly?

credits: Randall Munroe

Have a great Holidays performance!

Here is the list for recently published texts and articles, readings in the next few days for those who are curious and want to entertain their grey cells:

European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) Media Anthropology Network is discussing working papers about socio-cultural aspects of media technology uses within the scope of e-seminars via the Network’s mailing list. Some of these papers and discussions address internet technologies from a range of different perspectives. The website of the Network also provides annotated bibliographies, information about media anthropology events, and selected discussions from the mailing list as PDF documents.

Another is on social networking via Wired, here as well. More on Facebook via Smart Mobs. Also, very interesting post that will lead you to the International Journal of Communication’s recent special issue on Net Neutrality with entire collection of scholarly articles.

For those who are more alike multimedia, recently released documentary Zeitgeist Movie, official release full film, more about this at the official web site.

And for graphic, design interactive oriented readers, enjoy in this web page.

The sci-fi he novelist, famous for inventing the word ‘cyberspace’, William Gibson, is launching these days his latest book Spook Country . In the interview he reveals the relationship between technology and society ever since his cyberpunk classic Neuromancer, also what he missed in it, why he’s not a technophile, on Second life, hypertext way of writing, corporate futurism… His new novel is set in the present, in fact, the near past. Interesting fact is that one of the characters in the novel is young man name Tito, from Cuba

speaks fluent Russian, lives in one room in a NoLita warehouse, and does delicate jobs involving information transfer.

Someone said that Gibson gives up on the future. I couldn’t agree. Maybe beacuse the present is now?

Seems that tagging and writing memes are popular these days, so I’ve been tagged by Robyn, to write 4 memes on Belgrade, my favourite corners or places, which idea came first from Robert from Middle Zone Musings. This is hard as each corner of the city has its own charm, and those are referred at some extent to me(me).

1. Dorcol, upper side, downtown of Belgrade, near Kalemegdan , near my former Universities, Plato and down to Faculty of Maths, old beautiful streets with it’s own story, all down coming to real Dorcol, its churches and

2. Markets, open lively markets with food and other goods. Someone said that you have to go first to the open market when you visit some city in order to know better the soul of the city and its habitants, people who live there. One of my favourite is Bajloni market, also downtown, market with its own culture. Next to Bajloni is - Bitef Theatre building.

3. Beside cozy small warm caffees and indoor lovely places, one of nice outdoor place to be and enjoy the view is the biggest and the greatest Serbian orthodox temple on Balkans - Saint Sava temple/church. Different view, architecture masterpiece.

4. Plazma keks (special unique kind of bisquit) that every child and adult love. It’s Serbian brand, and wherever I go abroad - I take Plazma keks with me. You can eat it per se, with pancakes and melted chocolate, mix with bananas or make delicious cake from this beurre.

Now I tag 4 people as I would like to know more about their hometowns, 4 memes on their choice, favourite corners, places:

1. Raphaël - Paris

2. Marc - Florida

3. Mirko- Fribourg

4. Alex - San Francisco

Others, who would like to join this ‘4-my home town fact meme’ are welcome to be tagged by me.

Mars na Drinu is the best, my humble opinion, war ex-Yugoslavian film, made in 1964. My favourite, watched it several times on Tv when I was kid. Why this film is special beside this:

The film was made during the communist era of Yugoslavia. Unlike 99% of war movies made during that time, this one doesn’t deal with WW2 and communist revolution, but a historic and epic battle of WW1.

The topic was handled excellently, it was very authentic. For that reason, the film was “shunned” by the official TVs and movie theaters for years.

The topic of this film is the first battle of WW1 that was won by the allies, when small and outnumbered army of Serbian Kingdom defeated Austro-Hungarian invading forces. The plot revolves around a small artillery section, the men and their lives. The cast was excellent and they did their job superbly.

Historically, battles of Drina and Cer, in Serbia, were the first two victories in WW1. Unfortunately, overwhelmed by the invaders, serbian army had to retreat all the way to Greece and wait there until the allies were ready to open the front at Solun.

..there is one great monologue of well known Serbian actor Branislav Jerinic, lovely scene where in the middle of war surrounding during the night while the rain falls, like right now, this Alexa character shares great poetic thoughts with his camarade:

“Bre… Kad pripeče zvezda oko Svetog Ilije, pa misliš – izgore sve! Pa tek će jedne noći kiša… Letnja, plaha, k’o ova. A ja kažem mom Proki… Proko, kiša, burazere. Pa iziđem napolje, pa postojim tamo među šljivama, ono pada – k’o Bog da plače. A ja, mokar već, al’ još k’o ne verujem da pada, pa dignem ruku te pipnem one šljive nad glavom, a one mokre, pa sve kaplje od njih, niz ruku mi curi.”

During the 90’s this monologue was frequently broadcasted at one of the Radio programmes in Belgrade. For those who can read and understand Serbian - great, others -> find film Mars na Drinu. Also, if someone has a copy of this film: tape, DVD, or any other video format, please let me know!

The news via and from LoC, say that first Serbian Poet laureate joins a long line of distinguished US poets. Charles Simic (b.1938, Belgrade) moved in the 60’s to US and began his career working at the Chicago Sun Times. More about his work and selected bibliography here.

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