This Is Not Art

... just back from the Student Media Conference in Newcastle, a part of the This Is Not Art festival!! I had a lovely time! Me, "Motherfucker', 'Skidmark' and Bob went together, and rented a house there together.

First it was sun, then it was rain, rain and rain, and then it was sun again. I learned a lot, but it's good to be home...

Links and info from the conference and the festival:

Electronic Art Links - go to TASTE

Freedom to write, freedom to read = PEN

http://www.energypeakoil.net

Animal lib

HERE IS NOT FOR CHILDREN

intimate converstations Intimate conversations hopes to capitalise on the wealth stored secretly in your in-box. With the low-tech materials supplied (typewriters, rubberstamps, idiosynchratic stationary ...) , or more contemporary items of your own choosing, we will synthesize our private SMS into (some kinda) public form. How? -is up to you.
Further info: http://tinywords.com, http://www.centrifugalforces.co.uk/web/, http://www.textually.org, http://sistero.sysxorg/sms/sms.html


Undergrowth. 'The future is here, it's just not widely distributed yet'. William Gibson. A nice quote from Undergrowth there, the digital magazine discuss counterculture in the 21th century, social and environmental writing and the challenge of creating a sustainable future. With Anto Skene, Nic Low, Rak Razam and Tim Parish. Check out Shelly Innocence, in Melbourne (all about happiness).

Peer casting. 'The Internet views censorship as a network failture, and routes around it.' John Gilmore. Mark Pesce talked about peer-to-peer technologies for sharing information on the net. A new word: PEER CASTING. Get the software from BitTorrent. More useful tech from DivX and X\eD. His lecture can be obtained from his website, and webearth. QUALITY WILL OUT!

Check out alternative online news: Buzzflash, Truthout, Crikey and GNN. (+ indymedia)

Pesce talked a lot about the new documentary OUTFOXED Rupert Murdochs War on Journalism, which was shown on the conference!! It was really relevant for my thesis, so I have to get a hold on it I think... Interesting is that one can download footage from the film for free (on bazaar). For now, I'll write a small review I think.. Yeah, why not!!

REVIEW:
It's impossible to outfox Fox News in their own game: being a shameless partisan for the Bush government. But OUTFOXED outfoxed Fox (quite a mouthful) in another game, a game that Fox News and Rupert Murdoch have no experience in: THE TRUTH! This documentary is scary - it was actually worse than I thought! Fox News are not doing journalism, they are pretending to be journalists under the shameless slogan 'Fair and Balanced'. It is quite amazing that they can get away with it! I hope this documentary will open some eyes, maybe make people thing! No matter how you stand politically, this is against any democratic idea of a free media. It is worse than the propaganda from the old communist regimes - and they said this in the documentary and I agre - because in USSR people KNEW it was propaganda. Do people know that Fox News are duping them? I hope they will soon!

Other documentaries worth seeing:
Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky zmag, zeitgeist
The Corporation
Control Room
Spellbound

And well, of course, Michael Moore.. and his Roger and Me, Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11.