Ilya Zhitomirskiy by Karinavan Schaardenburg/Flickr

Correct me if I am wrong, but when a project is proposed to the Open Source community, people in the community should work positively to improve the project. Why then when the hyped Facebook rival Diaspora releases it’s source the community turns hateful and vicious? Then suddenly Ilya Zhitomirskiy, the 22-year-old co-founder of Diaspora commits suicide. Who are these haters, trolls? Are they hired corporate thugs or just idiots who don’t know what contributing to the open source community might mean? Maybe I’m naive, I don’t work in the “official” open source community, but I stand behind any initiative that is open, collaborative and that benefits the public.

Read the Gawker article:
Why Did This 22-Year-Old Entrepreneur Commit Suicide? by Adrian Chen

What good is a language not your own? It doesn’t really speak for you, does it? In the Americas its original purpose was for efficiently managing the European colonies. Spanish continues to be the dominant foreign language in a majority of the Americas, but for how much longer? This new report from Al Jazeera shows how the Americas continue their decolonization beyond political rule. Colombia has lifted the ban on teaching indigenous languages allowing for people to tell their story in the language that developed around their culture.

Decolonization in the Americas shouldn’t just mean dismantling political control from foreign rule, real decolonization will begin when all colonizing ideologies are acknowledged and undone in the former colony. In most cases these colonizing ideologies run deep within the frame work of a society. Recently Boliva’s the Department of Decolonization has re-established the right to indigenous unions. Another step toward decolonization. This follow’s the “Rights of Mother Earth” law that Bolivia has recently passed in attempt to push back the abuse of nature, another area ingrained with colonial ideologies.

post script: I’m left thinking what could a deeper decolonization process mean for the northern parts of the Americas?

“The crisis of urbanism is worsening. The construction of neighborhoods, old and new, is obviously at variance with established modes of behavior, and all the more so with the new ways of life we seek. As a result, we are surrounded by a dull and sterile environment.”

“In old neighborhoods, the streets have degenerated into highways, and the leisure is commercialized and adulterated by tourism. Social relations there become impossible. Newly built neighborhoods have only two themes, which govern everything: traffic circulation and household comfort. They are the meager expressions of bourgeois happiness and lack any concern for play” – Constant Nieuwenhuis, International situationiste 3 (December 1959) pp. 37-40

RE-INSCRIBING THE CITY:

Unitary Urbanism today.

A vizKult panel discussion held In conjunction with The 5th Annual NYC Anarchist Book Fair

Saturday April 9th 4:15-5:45pm

Judson Memorial Church (balcony)
55 Washington Square South
New York City, NY

In the late 50s up until about the end of the 60s a group of artist known as the Lettrist/Situationist International (LI/SI) made a desperate attempt to re-inscribe the city so that it’s inhabitants could break free from the bleak urban routine of work and consumption. During this period several strategies were developed under the name of Unitary Urbanism. This panel reflects on the historical importance of these strategies in order to critically examine how they relate to their own work and the possible uses within society today.

MODERATOR: Antonio Serna
PANELIST: Ethan Spiglan, Adeola Enigbokan, Dillon De Give, Blake Morris, The Walk Study Group, and Wilfried Hou Je Bek (via skype)

BIOGRAPHIES

Ethan Spigland received an M.F.A. from the Graduate Film Program at New York University, and a maitrise from the University of Paris VIII under the supervision of Jean-Francois Lyotard and Gilles Deleuze. He has made numerous films and media works including: Luminosity Porosity, based on the work of architect Steven Holl, Elevator Moods, featured in the Sundance Film Festival, and The Strange Case of Balthazar Hyppolite, which won the Gold Medal in the Student Academy Awards.

Adeola Enigbokan. Artist, researcher, writer and teacher based in New York City. Her work is about the experience of living in cities today. Her work has been presented in several diverse venues: at the ConfluxCity Festival, Anthology Film Archive in New York, The Royal Institute for British Architects, London and the Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem. She teaches courses in Urban Studies, Media Studies, Sociology and Anthropology at several universities in New York City. Currently she is completing a doctorate in Environmental Psychology at the City University of New York. Website: http://archivingthecity.com

Dillon de Give started Lah an annual walking project that commemorates the spirit of Hal, a coyote who appeared in Central Park in 2006 and died shortly after being captured by authorities. Lah illustrates how a coyote might find its way into Manhattan with a reverse human journey out of the city: a hike retracing a potential coyote-like path through greenspaces. Citing examples of juvenile coyotes that have made long dispersal trips, the walk averages around 50-60 miles. Website: implausibot.com

Blake Morris uses walking as a core way to engage ideas and space, and also to create community. His last project was a yearlong exploration of the public works of Robert Moses, called The [Robert Moses] Walk Project, which resulted in over 50 walks throughout the NYC area. He also created the [untitled] Walk Project, and is working on Walking up an Appetite, an exploration of walking, food and technology. Currently his work can be seen at the Superfront gallery in LA, as part of Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study.

The Walk Study Group is New York City walking group formed by Blake Morris and Dillon De Give. Each week case studies of strategic walking practice and theory in art, politics, ecology, and philosophy, are combined with specific short walks. The course will result in an understanding both theoretical and practical and culminates with a group walk constructed by the class for the public. Website: http://www.implausibot.com/walkstudy

William Hou Je Bek Wilfried is a ‘culture hacker’ who develops generative psychogeography. Inspired by concepts of drift (dérive) from Romanticism and, later, the Situationists around Guy Debord, Wilfried uses algorithmic routes to explore a city in non-intuitive ways. Hou Je Bek organizes dérives, where people walk through a city by taking computer code as a guideline, using the body as a means to perform software. Website: http://cryptoforest.blogspot.com

Antonio Serna is an artist living and working in New York. With art as his tool, he is constantly comparing and contrasting the human construct of progress with the animal instinct of survival. The results of which have been exhibited in New York, Spain, Mexico, The Netherlands, and Texas. Antonio has also taught and lectured at Parsons School of Design, St. Johns University, and at Brooklyn College as a teaching fellow. Outside of his studio, Antonio Serna enjoys rummaging through the social anthropology of art and visual culture. Website: http://www.antonioserna.com

Optional Texts:

October issue 79: Guy Debord and the Internationale situationniste [PDF 7.8mb]
A Special Issue. Guest editor, Thomas F McDonough. Winter 1997
table of contents:
Rereading Debord, Rereading the Situationists – Thomas F. McDonough
Why Art Can’t Kill the Situationist International – T.J. Clark and Donald Nicholson-Smith
AsgerJorn’s Avant-Garde Archives – Claire Gilman
Angels of Purity – Vincent Kaufmann
Lefebvre on the Situationists: An Interview – Kristin Ross (1983)
Situationist Texts on Visual Culture and Urbanism: A Selection:
Guy Debord – One More Try If You Want to Be Situationists (The S.I. in and against Decomposition)
Guy Debord – Theses on the Cultural Revolution
Michèl Bernstein – In Praise of Pinot-Gallizio
Constant Nieuwenhuis – Extracts from Letters to the Situationist International
Editorial Notes: Absence and Its Costumers
Editorial Notes: The Sense of Decay in Art
Constant Nieuwenhuis – A Different City for a Different Life
Editorial Notes: Critique of Urbanism
Editorial Notes: Once Again, on Decomposition
Raoul Vaneigem - Comments Against Urbanism
Editorial Notes: The Avant-Garde of Presence
Théo Frey – Perspectives for a Generation

In Conversation Raoul Vaneigem – Hans Ulrich Obrist, e-flux article 62, 2009 [PDF 1.1]

About vizKlut: This panel is part of vizKult, a loose band of artist and writers exploring the ‘cult of vision’. This group explores the ways in which the visual operates in our society and the mechanism which manufacture, shape, and control the world around us. In this sense VizKult’s emphasis is on the process rather than the products of our contemporary visual condition. http://www.vizkult.org

Additionally, in conjunction with the 5th Annual NYC Anarchist Book Fair, vizKult is presenting DISCRETE POWER, a group exhibition on display during the book fair weekend. Opening reception April 9th, from 6-8pm on the Judson Church balcony. For more info visit: http://www.vizkult.org/propositions/discretepower and http://www.anarchistbookfair.net

Jan Gossart, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1520–25

I would have thought that the covering of history, whether true of false, was a thing of the past. For a recent exhibition Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart’s Renaissance at the Metropolitan Museum, a restoration paints over a coat of arms that is falsely attributed to this Gossart portrait. Not only does it cover a certain history, it also affects the composition of the painting, creating a dense shadow on the right of the painting. But we’ll have to see it in person to be sure.

More info in the video:

So artist (vidders), jailbreakers, and unlockers, sat on the same side of the court yesterday backed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation as The Copyright Office and the Librarian of Congress push back the harm done by Digital Millennium Copyright Act/Digital Rights Management, in three areas:

• Jailbreaking is alright! Jailbreaking is slang for hacking your iphone  so it can work on any service *you* choose and allow *you* to decide what apps *you* want on *your* phone (read my lips Apple, it’s MY phone!) The ruling states  that jailbreaking is a way of making a phone interoperable and that it isn’t a violation of copyright laws, plus copyright laws should not get in the way of an interoperable world -That’s right!

•  Vidders, aka Amateur Video Remix artist, can now freely remix, rework, and appropriate to make what they want and show it how they want it- as long as it’s noncommercial. So go on, remix that Lady Gaga crap til your heart aches and my eyes bleed, just don’t try to sell it!

• Unlockers can continue to unlock. This is good for recycling programs. The ruling is no fool in recognizing that locking is simply a way to try to get people to stick to a network- not copyright infringement. Unlcking will allow people to choose what ever plan they like. What are telcoms afraid of, competition???

More details and links on LowEndMac, the place to get the skinny on mac products:

EFF Wins New Legal Protections for Video Artists, Cell Phone Jailbreakers, and Unlockers

So apparently Collaborative Strategies were big in Antwerp around the 16th & 17th centuries… I saw this painting “Battle of Amazons” a collaborative painting by Jan Bruegel and P.P. Rubens at the Rubenhuis, in downtown Antwerp.

Earlier this morning I came across another Bruegel collaboration, a painting of the 9 muses meeting with Minerva, the Roman Goddess of War. This painting, which I didn’t get then name of, was housed in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen.

Interesting article plus multimedia in the New York Times last month about a show of the Ceausescu Collection in Romania’s Bucharest’s National Museum of Contemporary Art.  The paintings were all hung at angles or low to the ground to so the show is not interpreted as a tribute.

Romania Shrugs Off Reminder of Its Past (article)
From the Ceausescu Collection (multimedia)

I’m amazed that for the New York Times, Obama’s Democratic Party Nomination is still a “black” and “white” issue. Before I even go there I would like to point out that neither of the two main stories really focus on what Obama’s camp is experiencing, he is after all the victor. The two main stories “Clinton Ready to End Bid and Endorse Obama” and “Many Blacks Find Joy in Unexpected Breakthrough” only talk around his victory, this doesn’t surprise me since the New York Times has endorsed Hilary Clinton. In the Clinton focused story they did however put a small odd and unglamorous photo of Obama -read between the lines- in the backseat of a car.

But what really bothers me is the second article, one that paints a single-sided picture of the Obama supporters, in an weak attempt to draw distinction between the supporters, who can all empathize if not truly sympathize with what his victory mean for someone not of the typical mold. Can you imagine if Hilary would have won, would the New York Times have written “Many Whites are Glad…”?! Seriously, this kind of reportage really dates the Times, it sets them a couple decades back at least. This “black & white” story comes across as subterfuge when we should be looking a lot deeper into what this presidential race is about: a change that is at the core of many people’s hopes, not just for those who look the same, but for all who feel the same.

Raise your hand if you’ve been feeling it for way too long now.

In December 2001, Dean Kamen unveiled his latest invention, The Segway, a two wheeled battery powered scooter that can take people -umm- around the block and back? Not much more efficient than the other two wheeled invention called the bicycle. Many people still see them on the street or on TV and are befuddled by it’s awkwardness.

A couple of months before the Segway is released, American and British forces invade Afghanistan in retaliation for the Sept. 11th bombings, the day is October 7, 2001.

Two years later, March 20, 2003, with the war still being fought in Afghanistan, US decided to invade Iraq. The events that unfold still continue to change the course of world history.
Still the Segway slow to ship at with it’s hefty price tag, $6,000, where do you park it? At the end of 2003, Segway recalled the 6,000 units sold because of power/safety issues, a technological glitch that only made matters worse given that they company projected that they would sell 50,000-100,000 that year.

Fast forward 2008, we’ve been at war for 7 years now. The two wars are still raging, draining life from Iraq, from Afghanistan, from America, despite the lies and lack of progress. A conundrum, a pretzel. Can you fast forward war? I’m sure a great many Americans would love to tiVo the whole thing, fast forward and erase. I’m digressing -sort of, however remote these two diverging stories do eventually collide… in this CNN video report, Segway comes to the service of returning amputee veterans… On the surface technology seems to have saved the day again, but I don’t think that’s the end of it.

- – -

Stories linked in this post:

“Amputee vets see eye-to-eye on Segways” by Paul Courson
May 5, 2008 CNN Video

“Segway sales haven’t transported maker” by Dawn Kawamoto
Sept 29, 2003, C|Net News