Arcade Fire's Whimsical, Poignant, Interactive, Google Map Music Video

Montreal-based Musical Group Arcade Fire, in collaboration with Google Creative, has released a beautiful and sometimes poignant interactive music video billed as an experiment.

Before launching the video, the site asks you to enter the "home address where you grew up." The video then integrates Google Street Maps and satellite images of that neighborhood. I tried a few of the addresses I lived in when I was growing up and found that either there wasn't enough data on the location or the neighborhoods had changed so much that the houses either were no longer there or no longer recognizable. Such is life. And that's part of the poignancy of the experiment: How much of the past is just memory anyway?

While the debate over Google's stance on Net Neutrality hovers like a specter of a dark, no-free-lunch future, this kind demonstration of Google's support of art and creativity is much appreciated!

In our data-rich, social-media-replete, Brave New World, it's great to see how art and music are finding a way to take ubiquitous data and morph it into something incidentally wonderful.

[Arcade Fire: The Wilderness Downtown.]

Be sure and watch to the end where you can write a postcard to your childhood self ...

Debate on "Culture and Class" in London, September 7

If you're in London on September 7, you might want to check out this event, a debate on "Culture and Class" at the arts venue Circus Space hosted by Counterpoint, the in-house think tank of the British Council. Wish I could make it. It looks great. From the flyer:

Join Catherine Fieschi, Director Counterpoint, in a panel debate with author, John Holden, comedian, Natalie Haynes, and guests

How does culture affect social mobility?

Are the new cosmopolitans changing the relationship between culture and class?

Would you eat chips at the opera?

[Counterpoint's September 7 Debate on "Culture and Class"]

EU Parliament Launches Virtual World

The European Union Parliament has just announced the beta release of a new virtual world called, "Citzalia," a civic engagement effort to help EU citizens understand and participate in the EU government.

Using your avatar you can walk around, interact, network, debate the issues of today, propose legislation, vote and learn about how the European Parliament works for citizens. You can be a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), a journalist, a student or any role you want to create.

Others will be able to vote on the quality of your proposals and you will be able to vote on theirs. By earning experience points you will be able move up to new expert levels in Citzalia.

Current Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and European officials will be on hand to guide you through the procedures and provide background information.

Why Citzalia?

Citzalia is a means of understanding how the EU’s democratically elected Parliament works. By participating in debates on issues the European Parliament is currently discussing you will gain insight and expertise into how democracy works in the EU. It is an opportunity to hear how other fellow citizens feel about current issues and about the role of the European Parliament. It is also a platform for debate and discussion of the issues which have been, are or can be addressed by the European Parliament.

I'm glad ideas like this are continuing to be explored. I continue to believe that the definition of "fun" is relative. One person's bureaucracy is another's preferred form of entertainment.

Though it is described as a "Second-Life style" virtual world by some, it looks, from the screenshot above, more like a Habbo Hotel or an 8-bit world. Regardless of the graphics, the challenge will be to make this interesting to the people. Using game mechanics (earning experience points for voting, etc) is one approach. I'll be interested to see how it evolves.

[Beta Release of Citzalia]
[Parliament to launch Second Life-style online assembly]

Creating What You Imagine

“Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.” Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

In 2006, I went on a Civil Rights quest with Lila Cabbil, the President of the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. As we traveled along the path once carved by the dedicated effort of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we stopped at historic locations across multiple states in the Deep South including the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where we heard the story of Joanne Bland who had watched her young sister get beaten by cops during the peaceful protest. You can watch this yourself, if you don't believe Joanne. The beating was documented in Eyes on the Prize.

Sure, I'd grown up hearing about the civil rights movement, but the concentration of so much information during the quest taught me that I didn't really understand, at all, the nuances connecting the murder of Emmitt Till to Rosa Parks' quiet courage, or the murder of Viola Luizzo to the circular sawblades painted with KKK logos to welcome visitors to Alabama towns. This (white) mother of five was murdered by the KKK at the age of 39 after the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches in Alabama.

Her face, and the face of Emmitt Till and the countless other people who have been murdered out of fear, racism and ignorance hovered over Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally in Washington DC, also known as the "I Have a Scheme" rally.

The Washington Post reported on the rally in "Civil Rights' New 'Owner' Glenn Beck," and there's a passage in the article that is required reading for proponents of The Imagination Age:

There is a telling anecdote in Glenn Beck's 2003 memoir about how the cable news host was influenced by the great fantasist Orson Welles. To travel between performances in Manhattan, Beck recounts, Welles hired an ambulance, sirens blaring, to ferry him around town -- not because Welles was ill but because he wanted to avoid traffic.

Most of us would regard this as dishonest, a ploy by the self-confessed charlatan that Welles was. Beck saw it as a model to be emulated. "Welles," he writes, "inspired me to believe that I can create anything that I can see or imagine."

This is a fact. What Beck realizes is that reality is very easy to hack. It is. The irony is that his ability to hack reality requires the construction of a mirage that his followers can latch onto as reality while his opponents mostly rely on publicizing his effort through the prism of criticism, a completely fruitless and self-defeating endeavor.

The trick to hacking reality and creating something real from one's visions is not just the purview of the world's Glenn Becks, but those who are unwilling to use those powers to foment evil, the kind of misguided rage that results in the murders of children, women and innocent men, like the NYC cab driver, Ahmed Sharif, who was just stabbed by a passenger. (The New York City Taxi Workers Alliance is accepting donations for the uninsured driver).

My personal philosophy is that every situation carries with it something that can illuminate a new facet of understanding and human evolution. Glenn Beck, with his comment about creating reality, should serve as the beacon he so desperately wants to be. If he can create reality and get tens of thousands of people to drive through the night with their children to hear him speak about hate, then we need to realize that some of us have yet to tap into our reality-hacking superpowers for the greater good. Beck is proof that anyone can do it.

Some thoughts on Art + Inspiration, Love, Apotheosis and Engineering Divinity by Jason Silva

Some thoughts on Art + Inspiration, Love, Apotheosis and Engineering Divinity from jason silva.

Jason Silva's latest is filled with ideas I love:

We go to the moon and recite poetry when we're up there and then in the end we're just food for worms.

In the meantime let's love each other and suck the marrow out of life while we're here.

You cannot ever possess the goddess, but only bask in her magnificence while you're with her.

New Issue of Longshot Magazine Open for Submissions

Longshot Magazine Issue One: Comeback

A few months ago we got very excited about a new magazine that Robin Sloan and Alexis Madrigal were tweeting about. It was a magazine to be produced in 48 hours. Rita J. King immediately ordered one for the office. The result, which arrived in the mail a few weeks later was an inspired, artistic, wry, witty take on life in an eclectically urban, technologically-shifting, socially intrigued planet.

We loved 48 hours magazine.

Then 48 hours magazine went away, because CBS threatened to sue them for copyright infringement of their teevee show, 48 hours. (Did you know that 19th Century German industry grow increased due to lack of copyright law?)

Enter Longshot Magazine out of the ashes of 48 hours and the copyright hounds. The above video is Longshot's call for submissions. The theme is Comeback. Entries begin today, Friday, August 27, 2010. You have 24 hours.

Go Make Art!

[Longshot Magazine Call for Submissions.]

Cultural Differences in Approach to Airline Tragedies

The August 24, 2010 Henean Airlines crash in China, in which 42 people were killed, opened up an interesting window into cross-cultural approaches to tragedy. The above image is a screenshot from the Henean Airlines website after the crash in which the airline has changed their masthead to one filled with images of the crash.

Imagine if a US or European airline, say United or British Airways, replaced their traditional masthead with one containing images of a recent airline crash. It's almost unfathomable.

Though we don't know the full story on why Henean Airlines changed their masthead to the above image, (id est: was it a prank or intentional?) other interesting stories also appeared, including one in which the Chinese government is forcing the airline to change its name from that of the province by the same name in order to avoid defaming the province.

Cultural relations opportunities abound!

[NYC Aviation: Henan Airlines Plasters Photo of Crashed Plane On Homepage]

The Geographic Evolution of Religion

The above map is a fascinating data visualization tracking the geographic spread of religions from 3,000 BCE to present. As we consider the challenges surrounding efforts to improve global cultural relations against the backdrop of conflict is created by tensions between and around religions, this provides some interesting insight.

It would be interesting to see this map integrated with a map of human population and urban density. Or a map overlaying the access to technology, especially communications technology (mobile, Internet, etc.)

[Maps of War: History of Religion]

Surveillance Satire: A Cat Dumps a Woman in the Trash

Earlier this week, we blogged about the implications of surveillance against the backdrop of a woman in Coventry, England, who dumped a cat in a trash bin.

Today we are faced with the sublime euphoria of watching a satire of that video, in which a giant cat (presumably named Sylvester) dumps a human woman into a trash bin.

Satire needs to stay alive. Otherwise, we start to take each other and ourselves way too seriously.

[Richard Metzger of Dangerous Minds: Cat Dumps Middle-Aged Woman in Trash]

A Mirror that tells you,"It's Going to Be Okay"

Today's Bizarre Etsy Item of the Day begs the question: How many times have you really had it with other humans on this crazy green ball called the Planet Earth. You just couldn't bear to talk to another person. So you resort to looking at yourself in the mirror asking if they have any thoughts on the matter. If you've experienced this, then this Bizarre Etsy Item, A mirror that tells you "It's going to be Okay," is just for you.

Looks like it's already SOLD.

Etsy: The mirror says IT'S GOING TO BE OKAY

Smartphone=Livelihood

In CNN's Be Polite and Put Your Smartphone Down by "sarcastic brains" Brenna Ehrlich and Andrea Bartz, the question is posed: Are we too "stupidly available?"

I won't argue against the idea that it's rude to "stalk some dude's Facebook wall" while in a restaurant with friends, but to assume that's what people are doing makes me wonder who target audience is here and whether Ehrlich and Bartz are making misguided inferences from their own experiences.

It would never occur to me in a million years that someone at dinner was stalking some dude's Facebook wall while we're eating. I don't really care. In fact, I like it when people check their smartphones, because it gives me a chance to check mine, which is a good thing because that's how I keep my business running. Also, I can occupy myself for five minutes if one of my friends or colleagues did prefer to check his or her smartphone for whatever reason. It's only rude if you require your friends to keep you constantly entertained the entire time you're hanging out.

As a writer, I've faced iterations of this problem for my entire life because I've always carried a notebook and I write things down all the time. Is it rude for me to do something other than devote my full attention to the people around me? I don't hang out regularly with people who think it's rude. Similarly, as an entrepreneur, I can't imagine hanging out with people who think it's rude to check the smartphone, especially because that's the main way I take notes these days, and my note-taking habit hasn't slowed at all.

The writers make some good points about when NOT to whip out the smartphones, such as yammering incessantly on the street or texting during sex, which is apparently becoming an issue. But really, if sex is so boring that you need to be entertained while you're at it, then much like finding friends who relate to the need to stay connected, people who text during sex might want to upgrade partners and see if that cures the problem.

The best point in the column:

Manners aside, here's the big danger with packing every spare moment with a cybercheck: Eventually, idle but perfectly interesting moments (sitting on a park bench, people-watching at a café) become excuses to busy yourself with your touch screen.

Common sense and courtesy are always important, but not every check in is about inanity and habit. Sometimes your next contract, or smooth delivery of current work, can depend on it. And if your friends can't keep themselves busy for a minute in the interim, seek new friends.

Lush, Moving Video about Recovering Detroit from Blight

A video portrait of Detroit social activist Jeff DeBruyn by Stephen McGee.

Detroit photographer and cinematographer, Stephen McGee has just released a new series of videos produced for the The Imagination Station in Detroit. The videos lushly capture the emotion and effort going into trying to remove the blight from Detroit and replace it with art and creative redevelopment.

Here's an excerpt of the Imagination Station's vision:

Imagination Station of Roosevelt Park is a nonprofit whose first job is to clean up 2236 and 2230 14th street, two blighted structures on the park facing the epic ruins of Michigan Central Station in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood. The house on the right will be renovated using sustainable green practices. The burned out shell of the house on the left will be disposed of and its boundaries used as a public art space. Through this process, the Imagination Station aims to create a replicable model of redevelopment fueled by traditional partnerships and grant practices, as well as new social media techniques for fundraising, storytelling, and volunteerism

.
There's also an excellent portrait of Jerry Paffendorf, who's Loveland project launched the idea for The Imagination Station.

Wack Dem Weeds from Imagination Station on Vimeo.

[The Imagination Station]

[Detroit: Shrink a City with Wild Imagination]

Chat with an Anonymous Stranger who won't Judge You

Here's an interesting entry into the social media experience: CompassionPit. Compassion Pit aims to help people "Connect with someone who will listen":

You want to share your feelings, but you can't talk to somebody you know - because let's face it, they might judge you for it or use it against you in the future. CompassionPit is the solution to this: get anonymously connected to another compassionate human from around the world.

It might have been subtitled: Imagine a world without trolls. I'll be interested to see if trolls can resist this site.

[CompassionPit]

Miniature Polymer Clay Lawn Gnome

Today's Bizarre Etsy Item of the Day: A miniature polymer clay lawn gnome. This gnome is probably less of a lawn gnome and more of a potted plant gnome as the pictures attest. Either way, it's tiny, it's made of clay and it's a gnome. Yours for the bargain price of US$5.50.

Etsy: Lawn Gnome.

The Future will not be Aesthetically Snappy

"Brooklyn in the Future" by Simon Fraser

I love this drawing by Brooklyn-based comic artist, Simon Fraser, imagining a 23rd Century Brooklyn. Simon is the creator of Lilly Mackenzie and Nikolai Dante.

Simon's vision of the future is real. Technology is added in layers, as cultures will do, not discarding the old for the glitz of the new, but piling it on to the old like a half-finished collage. Sure, we may have jet taxis and transparent bubble buildings. But we also will also (likely) have a worn out MTA trains pulling up to huddled passengers on railway tracks cluttered with detritus, all partitioned off from the new technology by an old technology known as chain link fencing.

[Simon Fraser's Blog: Brooklyn in the Future]

via Jeff Newelt aka jahfurry.

More Provocative Thoughts on a Surveillance Society

The above viral video of a woman casually approaching a cat, petting it and then dropping it into a garbage can and closing the lid, was taken by one of the ubiquitous surveillance cameras in the UK, in Coventry, England. The UK tabloid, The Sun has a write-up.

Earlier Rita J. King blogged an how an entire city is going to track its populace with eye scanners, as an example of the evolution of our surveillance society.

I asked her about what she thought about this video: "The fact that she was surveilled is not necessarily the problem here, it's the fact that she was even acting in this way. The reason why I'm torn about surveillance is because this is but one example of the type of cruelty that most people don't realize is happening (and I don't just mean to cats). While it's a very complicated issue, this is an example of the sort of thing that is eye-opening."

She went on to describe a story today about how Congolese rebels have been routinely raping women in spite of UN Peacekeepers being close by.

[The Sun: Cruel Woman Dumps Cat in Bin.]

[UPDATE: The Sun is reporting that the woman is now under police protection because of an overwhelming number of death threats.]

An Incidental Participant in a Conversation with Strangers

How many times have you been out and overheard or accidentally found yourself an incidental participant a scrap of a conversation that makes you feel like you are in novel? Or maybe it seemed almost cinematic? Either way, you just couldn't get it out of your head.

Just today I was thinking: Wouldn't it be great if there was a website containing all those cinematic/novella conversations that I've caught scraps of on the subway or the train or supermarket? Normally I'd just write them down in a notebook where they'd be lost, over the transom of my mind.

Kio Pio has been blogging them. Check out @kio_pio's Municipal Archive, stories with strangers heard or interacted in while out and about.

Some of them are almost novellas, like this one:

In the bright sun, an old man reads the opening pages of the Brothers Karamazov, then splays the book on the table. He’s got a cupcake the size of a softball in front of him. He slices off the bottom half with great care, breaks it up, and lobs the crumbs a few feet off to his side, as if to feed some invisible animals.

At the other end of the yard, an old woman in a grand sun hat and giant sunglasses whistles birdcalls into the bushes. After a while, she looks up and catches me watching. “Did you happen to find a cell phone?” I shake my head no. “That’s too bad,” she says. “I lost mine.”

Others are almost haiku-like in their rhythm and brevity. Each one transports me, just for a second, into the moment the writer has given us a glimpse into.

Writing worth reading.

[Municipal Archive]

Tiny Skunk, Made of Yarn

Bizarre Etsy Item of the Day: Here's a tiny skunk made entirely of yarn. It's exactly what you need for $35, if you think about it.

[Etsy: Oscar the Skunk]

Take another look! You know you want to.

IRS Approves 501(c)3 Non-Profit Status for Virtual Museum

A recreation of Frank Lloyd Wright's famous "Falling Water" in the virtual world of Second Life.

Here's an interesting turn for the digital culture and a possible sign that the US government is looking more openly and realistically how they define "virtual". The Frank Lloyd Wright Virtual Museum, which exists in the virtual world of Second Life, is reporting that the IRS has approved its request for non-profit, tax-exempt 501(c)3 status, which means it can receive grant funded donations. The virtual museum, which describes itself as having a licensing agreement with the physical world, Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, has built a series of replicas of famous Frank Lloyd Wright creations, including falling water (pictured above).

I'm not sure if this is the first virtual non-profit to receive tax-exempt status, but it's a good move. We still need to do more to redefine the word "virtual" other than to connote something that is not-real. Virtual World experiences are unquestionably real, have real impact on lives and real work is done in and around them. To grant non-profit status is a good step forward.

[Prim Perfect Blog: The Frank Lloyd Wright Virtual Museum is Now Officially a Non-Profit Organization!]

Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger

Not just my favorite new band, but my favorite band of all time. Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl are pure, total magic. Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, I love you.

Entire City to Track People with Public Eye Scanners

The Mexican city of Leon is scanning irises to identify criminals.

Surveillance has always been an issue of interest to me personally, and in the last few years, professionally. It's an extremely complex issue with extremely robust arguments for and against. I'm the sort of person who immediately disables social media features that affect my privacy (click here to learn how to disable the new Facebook Places feature--until you disable it your friends can "check you in"), so I take the idea of being under surveillance seriously.

At this point, however, it's less about whether it's right or wrong and more about the inevitability of being watched, whether it's by the cameras of friends, strangers, corporations, security outfits or the government. And as long as the cameras are in public spaces, which aren't technically private to begin with, is this really such a bad thing?

I recently received my Project Lemon Battery camera to set up surveillance in the garden at the Imagination Age Salon. Alan Languirand, the creator of Project Lemon Battery, is a collaborator of ours on Loveland, an experiment in micro-ownership of real estate currently in full swing in Detroit (recently featured in The New York Times). The camera will capture images and upload them to Flickr, so intruders will have their faces on the internet before they have a chance to try and break in.

I did catch someone breaking in at the end of last year, and the fact is that seeing a gloved hand coming through meticulously chipped glass, reaching for the doorknob with my garden shears in his hand did transform my perspective on security. In the time since, I've installed censors, gates, bars and alarms. The idea of capturing an image of an intruder before he reaches the door, however, is appealing.

Can We Date?

This flowchart is brilliant, hilarious and beautifully designed!

Thanks, @quidquid!

Love in the Time of Cholera

The first cases of cholera have been reported in Pakistan, which is now in the midst of the worst humanitarian disaster in the world. This morning when I posted a link on Twitter, someone from Australia responded that the local news wasn't covering it and my post was the first she'd seen of the crisis. Throughout the day, I've seen many people wonder why Twitter isn't as ablaze with information about how to help the twenty million people who have been driven from their homes by a flood.

UNICEF in Pakistan has warned that relief effort is in jeopardy due to a funding shortage. Without immediate additional support – 6 million children will bear the consequences. UNICEF is providing 1.3 million people with clean water, but the scale of this disaster is unimaginable. Millions more need help. UNICEF's infrastructure is already set up and ready to distribute vaccines, clean water, and hygiene kits.

Click here to donate.

The US State Department is also hosting a relief effort. It's very easy to donate $10 to the effort by texting "SWAT" to 50555. I've done it twice today. When the State Department confirms the donation (which appears on your phone bill and requires no exchange of information via your mobile) you can opt in for informational updates.

This morning, Alex Howard immediately responded to a public request for more information about helping Pakistan and Josh blogged about the maps and other tools being used for the relief effort.. Thanks to you both, and to the people out there working to create the maps that are, increasingly, becoming the territory after all.

Crowd-Sourcing Relief Needs in Pakistan Floods

NGO Ushahidi is trying to crowd-source flood locations to aid relief efforts.

In spite of the devastation from the floods in Pakistan affecting upwards of 15 million people, the crisis has not generated the media or aid response that the recent earthquake in Haiti did. The New York Times reports

German television raised $25 million for Haiti with a telethon a week after the Jan. 12 earthquake. No similar effort has materialized for Pakistan, two weeks into the crisis, although the German government itself raised its initial donation from $1.3 million to nearly $20 million over the weekend. After that announcement, aid organizations said, private donations picked up.

This presents a long-term cultural relations dilemma that needs to be addressed. As the image of the West continues to decline in the eyes of Pakistanis, aid is one of the front-line items that can provide good cultural engagement opportunities. The New York Times continues:

Images of people slogging through water did not generate the same kind of sympathy as a leveled city, even though the dimensions are similar, aid groups noted, especially since, according to the United Nations, more than 15 million people have been affected and are often difficult to reach.

Grassroots efforts are springing up. Organizations like Ushahidi are trying to crowd-source map locations of flooding via text messages. As relief organizations continue to make the case for increased relief support, creative, grassroots efforts, like Ushahidi's, focused on creating connections between and about people in need could help. Text on Tech has a good summary of other efforts like this.

Very Imagination Age.

[Text on Techs: Crowdsourcing Communities attempt to aid Pakistan]

Hat tip to @digiphile and @eric_andersen

Cultures Converge via Dance

DIP collaborators, Battery Dance Company, somehow manage to produce the annual Downtown Dance Festival in New York amidst a worldwide cultural-relations-through-dance travel schedule that rivals any travel schedule I've seen.

There are three good write-ups about the festival in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal that elegantly describe both the cultural relations significance of the gatherings and the unique generosity of Battery Dance's Artistic Director, Jonathan Hollander who is equal parts artist and citizen diplomat. From The New York Times:

The dances from India (traditional Kathakali) and Japan (modern but with specifically Japanese elements) alone would have made the weekend’s performances multicultural. The surprise was that two of the American-based companies were evoking other cultures too. C. Eule Dance, a modern-dance company based in New York City, performed “Passage to Marrakech,” with veils, lanterns, carpets and movement all referring to Morocco. Amy Marshall’s “Vortex,” to music by Rejendra Pressana, though ritualistic and gymnastic, had strong hints of Bollywood.

The Wall Street Journal article touches nicely on the storytelling component of the dance as a vehicle for shared understanding.

Good reads all.

Also see: Rita J. King's video short of Battery Dance's performance interpreting an art gallery installation through dance.


WSJ: Moving Storytelling Takes Center Stage

NYT: Cultures Converge on Battery Park

NYT: Arts calendar.

Can Culture be a Regenerative System?

Saul Kaplan of the Business Innovation Factory (where Rita J. King will be speaking this autumn) has a provocative post exploring the similarities between physical regeneration (à la how some species on Earth have developed regenerative physiological traits) and social systems regeneration:

I think there are parallels at a social system scale. Social systems have also evolved selecting for traits that maximize longevity. Our current education, health care, and energy systems are well intentioned and pedaling very hard to deliver value. The truth is these systems are no longer positioned to deliver value the way we want and need them to. We all know there is a better way. The 21st century screams for system regeneration and yet the best we seem to be able to do is tweak current models and to leverage technology in a sustaining way to coax more life out of systems that are not sustainable. The evolutionary pathway for our current social systems seems to have traded off regeneration in favor of innovation suppression. I know it seems extreme to equate innovation to a cancerous cell in an organization or social system. But hey, I have seen and worked in many organizations and systems, in both the public and private sectors, which have built up incredible defenses to insulate and protect themselves from innovation and change. Tell me you haven’t experienced the same thing? Our social systems have evolved antibodies to attack and wear down innovators. Organization and system leaders fear metastasis of disruptive technologies and seeds of change. They have established an armamentarium of tools to resist and block regeneration.

We don’t need more tweaks. We need system regeneration. Just like tissue engineering and stem cell research is opening up the possibility of regeneration at a biological scale we need to leverage social media and purposeful networks of innovators to enable regeneration at a social system scale. We must design, prototype, and test new systems solutions in the real world to determine what works and can scale. Student, patients, and citizens are waiting. Let’s unleash the newt within.

This also ties in nicely with the conversations Rita J. King has been having with Jason Silva about his work in this area.

This has clear cultural (and cultural relations) implications worth considering. With tensions mounting around the internecine cultural priorities of the Abrahamic Faiths debating the appropriate locales to build places of worship, this post gives cause for reflection: Can we reassess cultural priorities toward a regenerative priority that focuses on shared values, trust and understanding?

[Business Innovation Factory: Sparking Imagination through Storytelling]

[Saul Kaplan: Regeneration, Unleash the Newt Within]

Crowd-Sourced Protein-Folding Research Game

I love this use of games for science. Researchers have created a new multiplayer, collaborative, crowd-sourced research game to help them refine their research on protein structures. From the article in Nature:

A natural polypeptide chain can fold into a native protein in microseconds, but predicting such stable three-dimensional structure from any given amino-acid sequence and first physical principles remains a formidable computational challenge. Aiming to recruit human visual and strategic powers to the task, Seth Cooper, David Baker and colleagues turned their 'Rosetta' structure-prediction algorithm into an online multiplayer game called Foldit, in which thousands of non-scientists competed and collaborated to produce a rich set of new algorithms and search strategies for protein structure refinement. The work shows that even computationally complex scientific problems can be effectively crowd-sourced using interactive multiplayer games.

For readers who haven't read Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" ... Now would be a good time to start.

How much longer will it be before these kinds of efforts are embedded into commercially popular games like World of Warcraft or Star Trek Online? Or are they already?

[FoldIt]

Nature: Protein-Folding Game

Stephen McGee: Lighthouses in Michigan

Stephen McGee, who we wrote about recently, has an excellent photo series up on The New York Times about lighthouses in Michigan. With all the Sturm un Drang around Michigan economically, we think it is appropriate that a photographer in Detroit would be featured in the US Paper of Record with a photo shoot of literal beacons of light.

The New York Times: With Keepers Obsolete, Lighthouse Duties Fall to New Set of Stewards

Middle East Public Diplomacy meets Arab Social Media

It wasn't so long ago that the US government could spend hundreds of millions (or even tens of thousands) of dollars launching a media campaign or teevee station or website targeted at a country outside the US and the audience in question would not have too much that they could do or say about it that would reach either the eyes and ears of the US or the world.

With the rapid boom in social media these days the story is different. Suddenly small countries, small groups of people and businesses feel empowered to compete with the US government. Or, in today's case, protest the US government competing against them.

Today's entry: ArabCrunch, who blogs today "ArabCrunch Under Threats: Hillary Clinton and the State Department To Compete with ArabCrunch!" a post that describes their frustration with a recently-announced US-backed website focused on their region.

Steven R. Koltai State Department announced recently during US Delegation on Entrepreneurship event held in Amman, Jordan at the end of last June that U.S Department of State will launch a competing project to ArabCrunch.NET on its website, the competing project will have mentoring match making targeting Muslims and Arab entrepreneurs. And it comes under the U.S Federal government and Obama’s plan to “support” entrepreneurship in the Arab & Muslim world. As a pillar in a new policy to fight “terrorism” by engaging with people in the region.

ArabCrunch's about page describes itself as "dedicated to profiling and reviewing Arab originated technology startups and existing companies, their products and services, especially in the new Internet, Mobile and Social Media world.We give the biggest slice of coverage to Arab startups and companies or Arabs starting their companies in the west. Sometimes we cover international companies, especially in USA and those who made relevance to the Arab Internet and Mobile users."

Apparently ArabCrunch editors have contacted two US State Department officials one of whom reportedly tried to diminish the issue by saying that the US government wasn't investing too heavily in this effort financially.

It's an interesting issue. Wouldn't it have made more sense for the State Department to partner with ArabCrunch to begin with?

[ArabCrunch: "ArabCrunch Under Threats: Hillary Clinton and the State Department To Compete with ArabCrunch!"]

WORDS

NPR and Radiolab present WORDS. As @chapmanchapman pointed out, it's just completely amazing.

Innovation Watch: Clarion Call for Arts in Education

DIP collaborator Jim Brazell has been tirelessly making the case for the historical role and critical contemporary importance of arts education as a catalyst for technological innovation. His area of focus is on K-12 education, which is especially relevant today in light of yesterday's news about President Obama signing a new act to keep teachers in the US employed amidst the US's crumbled economy. Brazell takes us back to the era of Sputnik where he explains how leading scientists of the day championed arts education as an integral part of the innovation process.

Brazell has just published a five part series on Edutopia, where he describes how and why we should work to save this fundamental part of creating and maintaining a culture of innovation in the United States.

It's a timely read, as we wrap-up our own report on Digital Workforce Preparedness Education.

[Jim Brazell on Edutopia: Connecting STEM and Arts (TEAMS) to Spur U.S. Innovation]

HALKa = Equals "The Hulk" in Bangladesh

Meanwhile, you could be watching Bangladesh's version of The Hulk. If you haven't already taken a few minutes out of your day to do so, why not do it now?

Makerbot Giveaway for Teachers

This looks cool! Bre Pettis of Makerbot-dom just announced he's giving away 10 Makerbots free to teachers. Makerbots are DIY 3D printers. From the call:

Before August 23rd send an email to learning@makerbot.com with the following info. We may publish the ideas/lesson plans on the blog or wiki after the contest ends.

• Your name
  
• Your school’s name
  
• The address you’d like the MakerBot sent to if you are chosen
  
• A paragraph describing how you would integrate the MakerBot into your curriculum.
• Include some description of the learning environment and what you teach
  
• A lesson plan that you will implement if you get a MakerBot

Bre is himself a former art teacher. So he's giving back in a very cool, and informed, way.

[Makerbot: Back to School – MakerBot Teacher Giveaway!]

Are you here for the job?

Choose-Ur-Own-Inchventure: "Are you here for the job?" from Jerry Paffendorf on Vimeo.

I'm casting my vote right now. HELL YES, I am here for the job!

(Be sure and watch the video through to the end.)

Art, Creativity, Detroit

Yes, they made the front page of the arts section of The New York Times this week. But it bears repeating: Out of the ashes of economic collapse are found the pigments of future paintings. This video, of the phenomenal Detroit Party Marching Band, filmed and edited by Rita J. King at the Big Inch Block Party in Detroit is one example. Also see her essay "Shrink a City with Wild Imagination."

Another example, also previously featured here, is the below video by cinematographer Stephen McGee of Detroit Muralist Marianne Burrows at the Imagination Station.

Paint A Burnt House from Imagination Station on Vimeo.

"Bad Things Could Happen"

Jeff Jarvis has a great response to Farhad Manjoo's The New York Times review of Clay Shirky's new book "Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age."Jarvis highlights what seems to be an implicit need in the media to highlight the negatives of the Internet:

Well, yes, Shirky’s examples are of good things because he’s trying to persuade people to consider new behaviors and thus he is arguing their benefits. Buy the punch line, buy the joke. In Manjoo’s school, Jim Fixx should have written running books leading off by arguing that it could give you skin cancer to be outside that much and it will wreck your knees and cars could hit you and dogs could bite you and you look silly in shorts and, oh, yes, you could drop dead of a heart attack. Feel like a run? C’mon! Get up off that couch! Turn off that TV, now!

Rita J. King and I experienced similar pushback in response to our Digital Diplomacy report. Perversely, the culture of fear that is perpetuated by a resistance to what possible good can come from technology for cultural relations seems appropriate alongside the Washingtong Post's recent expose on the contractor-laden behemoth that is the US domestic spy culture, Top Secret America.

[Jeff Jarvis: Bad Things Could Happen.]

Video Arcade Game That Drives Real (Tiny) Car

RACER DEMO 0.1 - video game mashup from sputnic on Vimeo.

One of the arcade games I have enjoyed is "Wipeout". German Designer Malte Jehmlich built a cardboard race track, a toy car with a camera and configured it so you could drive it with the Wipeout interface.

via DJ Geki and GameCulture.

Andy Warhol would have been 82 today.

"Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art."

via Richard Metzger.

Becoming Cyborg

The latest entry in the convert-ourselves-into-cyborgs race: Martin Magnusson, "a researcher and entrepreneur on a mission to advance the state of artificial intelligence in computer games towards the level of a human actor."

Mac Tonnies would have loved this.

[Becoming Cyborg]

Decade 2: New Documentary about Technology and Culture

George Haines a New York City technology teacher "on the elementary level" is coming out with a new documentary called "Decade 2" about the evolving role of technology education and culture in the US. A teaser video is above. Looks fascinating. I'll look forward to seeing the complete video, which comes out next week.

A Valedictorian Speech for the Times

Image credit DiveMasterKing2000

We've written a lot about the changing landscape of education in the US and efforts to revamp the system, especially with regard to improving digital workforce skills. We've reported on how students are trying to address the issues themselves. Relevant to all of this is the following speech in which a graduating high school senior takes to task the tenets of the US educational system and asks whether it is preparing students for today's world.

The following speech was delivered by top of the class student Erica Goldson during the graduation ceremony at Coxsackie-Athens High School on June 25, 2010 in upstate New York.

Here I stand

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, "If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, "Ten years . ." 
The student then said, "But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast -- How long then?" Replied the Master, "Well, twenty years." "But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?" asked the student. "Thirty years," replied the Master. "But, I do not understand," said the disappointed student. "At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?" 
Replied the Master, "When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path."

This is the dilemma I've faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

[Valedictorian Speech Speaks out Against Graduation]

Loveland "Makes" The New York Times

Jerry Paffendorf, Mary Lorene Carter and Alan Languirand of the Loveland Team at the site of Plymouth. (Image credit: The New York Times)

The New York Times reporter Melena Ryzik went to Detroit this week to cover Maker Faire and ended up doing a profile about how artists are surviving and thriving in the shrinking city of Detroit. Rita J. King wrote her own take on the transformation of Detroit in her essay last week, "Detroit: Shrinking City with Wild Imagination."

Wringing Art Out of the Rubble in Detroit profiles a number of artists including our own Jerry Paffendorf's Loveland Project:

Jerry Paffendorf, a newly arrived resident who quickly built himself a niche. Mr. Paffendorf, 28, moved to Detroit from San Francisco by way of Brooklyn last spring, with an expertise in software design and a side of techno-savvy wit. He is behind a project called Loveland, a “micro real estate” enterprise that sells parcels of Detroit that he owns by the square inch for $1 a piece. Mr. Paffendorf bought 3,150 square feet of land for $500 when he arrived; “inchvestors” get a plot in a part of town that might not be well trod otherwise. Proceeds go to organizations that address Detroit’s many problems.

Congratulations Jerry!

[NYT: Wringing Art Out of the Rubble in Detroit]

Looking into the Past

The above image (by jasonepowell) is part of an amazing series on Flickr, Looking into the Past.

Thanks, John Hagel!

TEDxAmazonia Looks Amazing.

TEDxAmazônia - Teaser from TEDxAmazônia on Vimeo.

TEDxAmazonia looks pretty amazing, just from the teaser video above. TEDxAmazonia will be this November 2010 in Manaus, the capital of the Amazon in Brazil. It's being organized by the Helder Araujo and Fernando Barreto of civic engagement empowerment organization Web Citizen and Brazilian search tool, Busk -- same people who did TEDxSãoPaulo, the archives of which are worth a look -- fascinating speakers and beautiful videography.

The TEDxAmazonia venue is the same Amazonas theater featured in Werner Herzog's film Fitzcarraldo.

Expect to have your minds blown.

Speaking of ... Rita J. King spoke at TEDxVolcano in London this past spring. She blogged about her experience here.

[TEDxAmazonia]

New UK Documentary Asks: Can We All Govern?

André Blas has an interesting post at Web Citizen about a new British documentary exploring the issue of whether we can all govern.

The documentary Us Now, produced by Banyak Films (England), shows how self-organizing online networks are generating transformations in governments and challenging predominantly vertical hierarchies. The documentary presents real experiences of the culture of participation that prove that there is a new emerging model where we can work together, seeking ways to question the role of government, and even to participate in it.

Governmental hierarchical structures are being criticized for holding the power and the information, and for making it difficult for citizens to take initiatives and seek solutions for themselves. With the help of the internet, the founding principles of transparency, participation and openness are coming closer and closer to the mainstream of our social and political lives, in which technology catalyzes and permits new and alternative models of behaviour.

The documentary features Don Tapscott and Clay Shirky, among others.

[Us Now]

"Harmonia étnica no Second Life"

The Brazilian company Web Citizen has posted a nice write-up about my recent article in Saudi Aramco World about the Second Life community of Al Andalus. The article, written by friend of The Imagination Age, André Blas, is available in both Portuguese and English.

["Harmonia étnica no Second Life"]