The Car of the Future

Dear nettime,

Noemalab.org just published the essay "The Car of the Future", by
Alan N. Shapiro and Alan Cholodenko (see link below).

I am sending you one-fourth of the text to publish on nettime.
If you decide to publish it (i hope so), please include the link to the
full text at noemalab.

Best regards,
Alan N. Shapiro

"The Car of the Future" published here:
http://www.noemalab.org/sections/ideas.php

The Car of the Future

by Alan N. Shapiro and Alan Cholodenko

Today we will speak about the "Car of the Future" considered as a trickster 
cyborg or Animatic Automaton situated at the center of a network of 
relationships - an automobile design project.[1] Note that there is a 
crucial distinction between the cyborg as articulated in Star Trek: 
Technologies of Disappearance and the cyborg as depicted in many instances 
of popular culture, including today's typical automobile advertisements.[2] 
The cyborg as thought in the Star Trek book and by iconic cyborg theorist 
Donna J. Haraway is a trickster figure, playing at the boundaries between 
fixed categories, as do Mr. Spock of Star Trek: The Original Series (Vulcan 
and human, logic and emotions) and Seven of Nine of Star Trek: Voyager (Borg 
and human, male and female). The trickster cyborg is ambivalently singular. 

Summer 9 after Holy St Jean Day / L'été 9 après la St Jean

Online signing

French calling For the total prohibition of the use of nonlethal weapons
(Flash-Ball, lbd40, Taser) by law enforcement.

To the Attention of : THE PRESIDENT OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC

Category : Human Rights

I would like to thank all those who have come forward in solidarity,
who have passed on information and who have allowed us to speak of
these acts of unacceptable violence. Two messages have reinforced my
conviction that nonlethal weapons should be outlawed.

The first message comes from the father of a high school student in
Nantes who lost his right eye in similar circumstances. He summed up
the report that was made by the CNDS (commission nationale de
déontologie de la sécurité). We find here the same scenario that was
at Montreuil :

the police officer fires at point-blank range at an unarmed person who
is not threatening him.

the authorities publish false statements.

“The CNDS describes the injury of the young high schooler as extremely
serious, the expected consequences being particularly crippling since
Mr. P. D-L. will never regain the vision in his right eye.”

“Concerning this the CNDS ’deplores’ a false statement given by the

Tableau vivant summer holidays 2009, number 1: Caribbean Paradise Tragedy

The first of an upcoming series of 'tableaux vivants' for the summer  
holidays of the year 2009

The introduction text + link to the original web page can be found  
via my weblog The Limping Messenger.

A week ago there was yet another news item on a disaster with Haitian  
boat migrants of the Caicos Islands in the midst of what is for many  
people the period of their summer holidays. Over one hundred people  
drowned in the water of what is elsewhere often described as a  
Caribbean Paradise. Recently I have started to study (again) the  
migration question as I may construct a mobile monument on the theme  
migration without borders somewhere this year...and so I had  
discovered some video footage at the web site of the American Coast  
Guard ? dating back to 2007 ? showing a primitive overloaded sailing  
boat full of migrants in full sea. The video footage is just after  
first contact between the migrant-boat and the coast guard and as a  
standard precaution procedure swimming vests are given to all boat  
people first. So what you see in the work below is already a tiny bit  
more safe as the actual situation with a boat full of people without  
any safety equipment and many who can not swim.

What gripped me the most was that the people on the boat ? in spite  
of having been discovered and under threat to be send back ? were all  
singing to a rhythm beaten on a djembe drum. And in my mind?s eye I  
combined this scene with the promising imagery of tourist flyers.  
What can be seen on the simple documented web page made for this  
purpose is but a primitive rendering of such a vision?

You can click the image above to see the first of a series of  

Access to Knowledge movement

Access to Knowledge movement

>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Access to Knowledge (A2K) movement is a loose collection
of civil society groups, governments, and individuals
converging on the idea that access to knowledge should be
linked to fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and
economic development.

USEFUL LINKS:

A2K treaty from CPTech:
http://www.cptech.org/a2k/a2k_treaty_may9.pdf

Open access (publishing)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access_(publishing)

Draft Text of the A2K Treaty
http://www.cptech.org/a2k/a2k_treaty_may9.pdf

Consumer Project on Technology's A2K resources
http://www.cptech.org/a2k/

Seed's Freedom from IPR
http://grain.org/i/

Access2Knowledge.org
http://www.access2knowledge.org/

The New Computer Science

Dear nettime,

Choreograph.net just published the essay "A Proposal for Developing Quantum
Computing in Software", by Alan N. Shapiro and Alexis Clancy (see link 
below).
This is an essay on the new computer science, which is based on new 
mathematics.

I am sending you one-fourth of the text to publish on nettime.
If you decide to publish it (i hope so), please include the link to the
full text at Choreograph.net.

Best regards,
Alan N. Shapiro

"A Proposal for Developing Quantum Computing in Software" published here:
http://www.choreograph.net/

A Proposal for Developing Quantum Computing in Software

by Alan N. Shapiro and Alexis Clancy

[We] believe that the invention of a new computer science, one more powerful 
than that which presently exists, is possible; a more powerful computer 
science that often goes by the name of Artificial Intelligence. Shapiro 
Technologies will go beyond the digital or binary computing paradigm that 
has persisted since the seminal work of the Second World War generation of 
information theorists such as Alan Turing, John von Neumann, Norbert Wiener, 
and Claude Shannon, so as to achieve quantum computing.

Some Reflections on Manuel Castells' Book "Communication Power"

Some Reflections on Manuel Castells' Book "Communication Power"

Christian Fuchs

Published in: tripleC (http://www.triple-c.at), 7(1), 94-108.

Abstract: Manuel Castells deals in his book Communication Power with the 
question where power lies in the network society. In this paper, I 
discuss important issues that this book addresses, and connect them, 
where possible, to my own works and reflections. The book is discussed 
along the following lines: the concept of power, web 2.0 and mass 
self-communication, media manipulation, social movements, novelty & society.

Manuel Castells, Communication Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 
2009), 592 pp., 234x156mm, ISBN 978-0-19-956704-1, Hardback, $34.95 / 
£20.00 / €24.99

1. Introduction

The task that Manuel Castells has set himself for his book Comunication 
Power, is to elaborate answers to the question: “where does power lie in 
the global network society?” (p. 42). He tries to show that 
communication is the central power in contemporary society by analyzing 
and presenting numerous empirical examples and by drawing on data from 
many studies. The discussion that follows does not engage with every 
detail of Castells’ voluminous 570 page book because this is in my 
opinion not the task of a reflective review essay. Therefore I will 
concentrate on a selective discussion of those aspects that I personally 
find most important.
In Communication Power, Castells continues the analysis of what he has 

Re: nettime-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 3

on 'the new computer science' article contributed by alan shapiro, fantastic
and really enjoyable read for even the non-scientist like myself. beautiful
summing up.

cecilia dougherty

On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 6:00 AM, <nettime-l-request@...> wrote:

 <...>
> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. The New Computer Science (Alan Shapiro)
 <...>

--

-- 
http://fourlegsgood.blogspot.com/
http://www.ceciliadougherty.com

book offer for nettimers: UBERMORGEN.BOOK, MEDIA HACKING VS. CONCEPTUAL ART

hello dear nettimers and nettimerinnen,

we are glad that we are finally putting our UM.B book out into the wild,

please find attached a short description of the publication with the
contents, including a list of authors and the infos on where to get  
the book..

if you would like to have a review-copy, mailus to  
officeR@...
and we will be glad to send you one. thats for friends, vips and  
press for sure,
so i guess for all of you ;)

or you can get a copy in belfast from us, we will be at ISEA from 24-30,
keynote on the 26th of aug, 5pm, ..plus come see our  "Superenhanced
Military Tribunal" Installation at Golden Thread Gallery Belfast..  
damned
again.. this email is just loaded with promotion (promo gifts)

all the best, enjoy the northern-summer!
hans&&lizvlx&&thekidz

-

UM.B

UBERMORGEN.COM - MEDIA HACKING VS. CONCEPTUAL ART
HANS BERNHARD / LIZVLX
Alessandro Ludovico (Ed.)

Animals & Humans in city parks: whose terrain?

_I Am Transreal_ : [part 2] [_Augmentology.com_]

_I am Transreal_: A Reflection On/Of Becoming Dragon [Part 2]

I am becoming something else. In this moment, this being-in-transition,
I am willfully stepping into the unknown. I am between realities. I can
only imagine what I want to become, and then choose to become that new
thing, but it is radically ungraspable, inconceivable. I can never know
the reality of what I am choosing to become, desiring to become. My
decision to transform can never be the right one, because it is always
based on an illusion, a fantasy, a false conception with only a few
points of data, not the rich details of an embodied life. As the
transformation unfolds, those unknown events begin to occur, like seeing
my breasts in the mirror for the first time after shaving my chest
closely, feeling the movement in my orgasm change into something new or
just walking down the street for a moment as a girl, unnoticed and not
needing any special attention. My decision to become something else is
always a decision to become mythopoetic, because the reality of the new
state is always unknown, imaginary, a construct, a fantasy. Yet I don’t
seek to decry this radical state of uncertainty but to embrace it. The
very moments of everyday perception are also simply intersections of a
real materiality with my symbolic and imaginary processing engines
making sense of them, down to the way that I understand what pleasure is
and what pain is and when the two become too close so as to be confused.
And a choice to not transform is of course still a choice to transform
into a different state, as our bodies are all in permanent transition,
aging, training, consuming, producing, perceiving, creating new folds in
our craniums.

Through this process, I am also becoming an artist. Yet this is simply
another fantasy which I use to structure my desires and find direction.
Artist, porn star, student, professor, father, mother, husband, wife,