Quim Gil on 2 Mar 2001 20:55:22 -0000


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[nettime-lat] [Fwd: Mutella#1 [FEB_2001]] 

Saludos.

Bueno, esto no está en español pero es fresco, está relacionado con las
temáticas de esta lista y además es algo en lo que estoy liado, ale.  :)

Se trata de la primera edición de un boletín mensual editado por la
revista británica (de papel) Mute. Suscripciones y demás en
http://www.metamute.com   (el 15 de este mes habrá nueva web, lo que hay
ahora es un poco... elemental).

Quim Gil

__|M|U|T|E|L|L|A|__sprrrrrread it!

___________________________________________________#1__28/2/2001_

______________________________________________TABLE__OF__KONTENT_

........1. Editorial [Mutella #1]
........2. Deja Sells Usenet Archives [Nettime thread]
........3. From Rags to Riches, from Skips to Servers [Cube microplex]
........4. New Content Management system [Campware]
........5. Sysop to Sysart [Sterling Software at Transmediale.01]
........6. Nerdy Thrill Seekers Click This Way [Creativebase.com]
........7. Mostly Minimalist [Electronica at bedtime]
........8. Revolution of the Brainstem [Eyestorm's 360 'show']
........9. SOS Alloy! [Silo On Swim]
........10. Listening Ears and Umbilical Cords [Autogen's Acoustic Mirrors]
........11. FOLDOC [Online Computer Dictionary]
........12. Acoustic Space #3 [Xchange that mag!]
........13. Food for Bookworms [aka MuteEyes R bigger than MuteStomachs]
........14. Kool Links for Netzwissenschaftler [courtesy of Reinhold Grether]
........15. ART AND MONEY - ONLINE! [Tate Ventures - where exactly?]

........1...*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*

Hi,

This is the first issue of Mutella - Mute magazine's monthly newsletter.

Mutella is a Mute derivative: a bag of tips, mini themed issues,
investigations, interviews, announcements, rants, reviews and pointers
coming out of, or going into our magazine.

In response to the borders of paperspace, Mutella aims to increase the
circulation of data we receive here at Mute, profile our urban and online
neighbours and share our info-sources - be they large, small, off- or
online.

Running in parallel to the magazine's editorial, Mutella will also provide
a link between the magazine, our internet site Metamute and sister projects
- like Fallout, Mute's Culture and Technology seminars at the Tate Modern
and our meetings at Public Life.

Relating more directly to the day-to-days of what we're doing and where we
are, you could see it as the nuts and bolts, the editorial quickener,
lubricant, gelling agent; the micro to Mute's macro... in fact, whatever
metaphor best fits your state of mind!

Whatever that turns out to be, Mutella is hungry for your goodies. Though
it will *not* function as a listings of 'what's going on in digital
culture', we want your press, news, comments and feedback... at
<mute@metamute.com>.

And now for the protocol bit:

You're on this list either because you subscribed, we subscribed you or you
subscribe to Mute magazine. You can unsubscribe by hitting the reply button
and replacing our subject with yours: UNSUBSCRIBE.

Best, and till soon, from all the mutants:

Pauline van Mourik Broekman, Simon Worthington, Josephine Berry, Hari
Kunzru, James Flint, Jamie King, Chris Darke, Kate Rich, Quim Gil.

Thanks to:

Lisa Haskel, Micz Flor.

........2...*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*

Deja Sells Usenet Archives [Nettime thread]

When Deja.com started archiving Usenet in 1995, for the first time since
its beginnings in 1979, the innumerable messages circulating on this
distributed bulletin board system found a permanent and publicly accessible
home. At the time, when Usenet mailers were adjusting to the unsettling
conversion of this huge quantity of transient communications into a
historical record, nobody really stopped to ask about copyright issues. If
you consider that most mails contain excerpts from pervious ones, the
prospect of attributing the intellectual property of a solitary mail let
alone a single newsgroup makes the brains boil.

But when Deja went into receivership this month and sold the archive on to
Google as a private asset public debate went super nova. Was this sale even
legal? How many other virtual public goods are being co-opted by private
companies? Does it matter, so long as Google runs a good searchable archive
and keeps it publicly accessible? Is it possible to include 'open source'
communication into a proprietary system such as a search engine, if it
can't then be accessed without that proprietary system? Should a public
body be founded to archive the Net's public assets? This debate, seemingly
fairly straightforward to start with, proved to be a real Pandora's box.

For an excellent discussion thread that beats the twists and turns, the
tears and the laughter of a soap like Dallas, see the Nettime debate. To
view this go to the nettime archive
<http://www.nettime.org/nettime.w3archive/> and input the search-words
'usenet' and 'archive'.

W--> The Usenet archive's new location <http://www.groups.google.com>

........3...*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*

From Rags to Riches, from Skips to Servers [Cube microplex]

Bristol's Cube microplex did a great thing with their day-long workshop
'Skip to Server' on Feb. 17th. They invited people to bring an old
computer, any old parts, their tools and their books to use and share, and
just get on with installing a Linux OS. This as a good start towards
building the most important self-publishing tool of the networked age, your
own server. With no workshop leaders, just space, time, people's varying
amounts of knowledge and their willingness to pass it on, plenty of
components to pillage and some print resources lying about, we all had fun,
made friends and pretty much demystified the whole Linux and server thing
for ourselves.

Have a go; it might be the most important thing you do this century ;)

W--> Cube microplex: http://www.cubecinema.com
W--> Debian/Linux/GNU free OS: http://www.debian.org
W--> Apache web server software http://www.apache.org

........4...*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*

New Content Management System [Campware]

News! An open source content management system for independent media with
full support of all languages in unicode font (American English being equal
amongst equals ;).

W--> Campware: http://www.campware.org
Date--> 15th March 2001

........5...*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*

Sysop to Sysart [Sterling Software at Transmediale.01]

Transmediale aims to be a platform for Berlin's digital media community.
The first of its new series of festivals did this by taking on board the
hackeresque moto of DiY and introducing panels focusing on Internet issues
such as free software and new forms of distribution.

On the evening before the conference's main events, Mikro
[http://www.mikro.org] hosted sci-fi author Bruce Sterling who, in
typically brash cyberpunk-wildman fashion, set a benchmark for a notion of
DiY. Offending plenty of people along the way, he very seriously tried to
communicate his conviction that different models of social organisation
need to be experimented with, in opposition to the 'corporate wisdom' that
the Internet is inherently democratic.

The issue of Internet resources being employed to question and replace
existing social organisation carried on into the next day in the panel on
'social software', which covered issues from Internet voting
[http://www.publicus.net] to hot Freesoftware [http://www.fsfeurope.org]
developments in distributed authoring software. For which, see also Thomax
Kaulmann's excellent OVA project [http://ova.zkm.de].

*...
A longer report on Transmediale.01 media arts festival, which was held
between 4-11 Feb 2001 in Berlin, will feature in the next Mute.
*...
For a soon-ish conference on the philosphy of freesoftware between
28.4.2001 and 30.4.2001 go to [http://www.oekonux-konferenz.de]. And to
[http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/CODE/index.html] for CODE, a slightly earlier one
-- organised by the Arts Council and a host of partners -- in our very own
Cambridge.

And Mr. Bruce Sterling will be featuring on Metamute when we relaunch --
interviewed by Ulrich Gutmair and Martin Conrads [http://www.metamute.com]

W--> Transmediale http://www.transmediale.de
W--> Bruce Sterling's Veridian Design Project: http://www.viridiandesign.org


........6...*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*

Nerdy Thrill Seekers Click This Way [Creativebase.com]

If you've got a spare $350 floating around, you might want to become a
member of creativebase.com, a slick new mega-nexus for the WORLD'S CREATIVE
COMMUNITY. Like the upmarket make-up chain, it's even got a 'philosophy':
to end the cold war isolationism of advertising, design, art, architecture,
film, new media etc. etc. by providing a 'forum' for creatives to meet and
mingle between the virtual shelves of a multi-disciplinary Borgesian
database. You can also advertise your company, search for whatever obscure,
specialist company/skill set you might require, buy books and magazines,
order up show reels, read content that rolls over so fast it makes you
sea-sick, and dream of world domination.

But the hidden gem of this site is its flash animated Info-Site Tour which
looks dangerously set to gain a cult following amongst form filling
fetishists. As if in a dream, the animation takes your hand and leads you
on an imaginary tour through the membership application protocol and then
treats you to a mouth-watering glimpse of the power of its database. Is
that a mouse in your pocket or....

W--> Creativebase http://www.creativebase.com
W--> for weird tour go to http://www.creativebase.com/info/membership

........7...*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*

Mostly minimalists [Electronica at bedtime]

From Chicago to Toronto, Berlin to Bergen, everyone's finding that less is
more. From the very minimal to the quite rich and textured actually, here
comes the Mute soundsystem's pick of recent electronica. Let the silences
do the talking.

--
01 Leaf Compilation mixed by Susumu Yokota (Leaf)
--
02 Various komfort.labor 01 - mixed by Pole - (WMF)
--
03 Manitoba - Start Breaking My Heart - (Leaf)
--
04 Broadway Project - Compassion - (Memphis Industries)
--
05 Kim Horth¯y - HeI - (Smalltown supersound)
--
06 Jan Jelinek - Loop-finding jazz records - (~scape)
--
07 Alloy - Silo - (Swim) [for more on which, see below...]
--
08 TV Victor - Timeless Decceleration - (Tresor)
--
09 Uli Troyer - Nok - (Mego)
--
10 Jurgen De Blonde - Hiden Rabbit - (Tomlab)
--

........8...*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*

A Revolution of the Brainstem: 360 Degrees [Eyestorm.com]

Hold on to your go-faster stripes, Velcro shut your utility pockets and
hook your electronic curfew tag to the nearest available railing: this is a
blast from THE FUTURE brought to you by online art-site Eyestorm. You may
think their latest project, 360, looks like a mere gratin of art historical
platitudes layered together with a few nice piccies, Madonna lyrics and
hip-but-deep articles served on a bed of vacuity - just another marketing
gimmick to flog yet more photographic prints - and you'd be absolutely
right.

As they are at pains to insinuate, 360 is a veritable 'revolution' - geddit
- in the same way that Marks & Spencer's introduction of the credit card
system to their shops in the late 1990s could also be called revolutionary.
Over the all-too foreseeable future, new sections will be added to their
cultural map, leading the viewer down an increasingly labyrinthine garden
path. These mini cultural histories include 'Making Faces' - a history of
portraiture based on the blinding insight that "we still want portraits to
provide an insight that actually goes beyond the surface" - and Americana,
an unadulterated paean to the land of the dollar. With art history like
this, who needs advertising agencies, Cosmopolitan magazine or the DTI?

But it's reassuring to read, in the line up of forthcoming attractions,
that "Desire: [is] coming soon".

W--> For the full horror http://www.eyestorm.com/360

........9...*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*

SOS Alloy! [Silo on Swim]

Danish math-rock power-trio Silo release their long-awaited (at least by
those who caught them supporting Godspeed you Black Emperor last year)
follow-up to debut long-player Bulk on Swim Records in March. A
bit-accurate amalgam of Metallica and Tortoise where hard-rock riffing
meets post-rock ambient-drone aesthetics, Alloy is future-rock without a
single 4/4 time signature on display. Great music for driving, or being
driven, that gleams and threatens in equal measure.

W--> http://www.swimhq.com/cds/wm29_0.html


........10..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*

Listening Ears and Umbilical Cords - Mon Dieu! [Lise Autogen's Acoustic
Mirrors]

Standing silent and abandoned, a series of isolated and mysterious concrete
structures lines the South Kent coast of England. Like the British
military's answer to Casper David Friedrich, these forlorn 'acoustic
mirrors' are the vestiges of a great inter-war experiment to create an
early warning system to defend against airborne attacks. The thinking
behind the technology seems so charmingly impractical it makes the British
military look like it needs protection from the harsh realities of life and
the physical universe. The acoustic mirrors were tilted to the sky and
collected sound in giant concrete dishes. They were operated by trained
attendants who endured cold nights at their listening posts, entombed in
concrete bunkers or, more likely, off down the pub sheltering from all the
madness. How close would an enemy aircraft have had to come before the
mirrors and their listeners picked up the sound? In the time it took for
the listeners to make it to the phone, ring HQ and have the message relayed
to London, the bombs would probably have been in free-fall over our proud
capital.

Artist Lise Autogen has come up with a far more fitting use for these great
'listening ears' - not a place for strategic action but for the enjoyment
of random sounds and abstract communication. Autogen is proposing the
construction of two new acoustic mirrors which will be fitted with
"state-of-the-art holographic sound projection technology". One to be
placed in Folkestone (filling a gap in the chain of mirrors along the
English coast) and the other 28 miles away across the channel in the 'twin
town' of Boulogne. Although press release references to the creation of a
communicational 'umbilical cord' between the two cultures have a pious Arts
Council ring to them, the project does promise hours of cross-channel
auditory fun. Standing in a particular spot In Folkestone or Boulogne, les
roast beef and the frogs will be able to hear the sounds of sea and sky
mixing with the each other's equally abstract and charmingly
incomprehensible murmuring. And this confusion won't be attributable of
poor sound quality, because the 'binaural sound image' is promised to be
far superior to a normal stereo - dude.

W--> http://www.stain.org/shoals
W--> http://www.sciencenet.org.uk/database/Technology/9803/t00244d.html

........11..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*

FOLDOC [Online Computer Dictionary]

Suffering from a slight technology komplex? Need help in descrambling words
like 'GNU', 'uucp protocol', or 'computer' for that matter? Your days of
humiliating questions addressed to know-it-all geeks desperate for an
excuse to look down on you are over! The Foldoc online computer dictionary
will have you sounding like a beardy 60s MIT computer genius in seconds.

W--> Change your life at http://www.foldoc.org

........12..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*

Acoustic Space #3 [Xchange that mag!]

The third in an anthemic line of audio culture anthologies compiled by
E-Lab in Riga is out now. A mixture of The Story of Art, Who's Who and
Jennifer's Diary of the underground audio scene, this phat, perfect-bound
magazine is a must read.

W--> http://xchange.re-lab.net/
E--> Rasa Smite on rasa@parks.lv

ACOUSTIC.SPACE 3 for intercultural jamming net.audio issue 2000 ISSN 1407-2858

maintenant disponible ý paris via wkmx.org, 211, rue saint maur | 75010
paris | +33 1 5319 7003 metros: goncourt - république - belleville

........13..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*

Books for Bookworms [MuteEyes R bigger than MuteStomachs]

A selection of books 'n things we've received which, much as they tempt us,
we've either not got round to reading yet or plan to have reviewed in
upcoming issues. Treat it as a rifle round the top layers of our in-box and
a promise of more to come... In no particular order, they are -

*...
[a fairweathering, funseeking, subtly serious and maybe even situationist...]
London Walking, a Handbook for Survival.
By Simon Pope, 2000.
Illustrations by Claudia Schenk.
Publisher: Ellipsis, ISBN 1-84166-056-6
Price: £10 // $15
W--> http://www.ellipsis.co.uk
E--> sales@ellipsis.co.uk
T--> +44 (0)20 7739 3157
*...
[a broad, cut-the-crap, analysis of the prenuptials of pop & politics]
Critique of Exotica: Music, Politics and the Culture Industry
By John Hutnyk, 2000
Publisher: Pluto Press, ISBN 0-7453-1554-2 (hbk.) ISBN 0-7453-1549-6 (pbk.)
Price: £45.00 (hbk.) // £14.99 (pbk.)
W--> http://www.plutobooks.com
*...
[a guntoting, grannygauding, set-the-record-straight type deal...]
Whips & Furs: My Life as a Bon Vivant, Gambler & Love Rat.
By Jesus H. Christ, 2000
Edited and Introduced by Stewart Home
Publisher: ATTACK! (an imprint of Creation Books), ISBN 1-84068-035-0
Price: £6.99
W--> http://www.creationbooks.com
*...
[a politics for foot-and-mouth-suffering Cybersoldiers; plus the rest of us...]
Cyborg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age
By Chris Hables Gray, 2001
Publisher: Routledge, ISBN 0-415-91978-9
Price: £16.99 // $28.00 // $40.00 (Canada)
W--> http://www.routledge.com
*...
[a continuity between old and new electronic media, old and new History]
Snap to Grid: A User's Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Culture
By Peter Lunenfeld, 2000
Publisher: MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-12226-X
Price: £20.50
W--> http://mitpress.mit.edu
*...
[a might-be marketing tool, but still very intriguing noir hyper narrative]
Name: Boobytrap
By: we haven't a clue!
W--> http://boobytrap.org
*...
[experimental audio, lovely idea but, as they themselves say, 'soft launch']
Name: Minicomm
By: MSC Harding, Vicki Bennett, Paul Williams, Mark Blacklock and Bart Van
Looy. Experience coming out of their ears, great idea, hope it stays around
and goes to 'hard launch'.
W--> http://www.minicomm.org


........14..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*

Kool Links for Netzwissenschaftler [courtesy of Reinhold Grether]

For all you *Netzwissenschaftler* out there (that's 'net scientists' in
case you were wondering), take the time to check out this labour of love at
http://www.netzwissenschaft.de/.

This is a rare and careful compliation of links by Reinhold Grether, an
Internet researcher from Constance University whose interest lies in
"establishing net(work) science (Netzwissenschaft) as an autonomous pillar
of the science system". Although this is a German language site, it does
include a lot of English content as well as content in the Universal
Language of Art. The site lays an emphasis on innovative theories of
information and networks [http://www.netzwissenschaft.de/wiss.htm],
includes an exhaustive link history of net artists
[http://www.netzwissenschaft.de/kuenst.htm] as well as a profile of
actually existing Netzwissenschafter
[http://www.netzwissenschaft.de/wiss1.htm]


........15..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*..*

ART AND MONEY - ONLINE! TOGETHER, FOREVER!! [Tate Ventures - where exactly?]

Art and money invite you to enjoy their new franchise, the Tate Britain.
The event is Art and Money Online and, to mark the occasion, Tate have sent
out mauve invitations.

For your diary: Tuesday March 6th 18:30-20:00.

We're all invited. Call Jane Richards to RSVP your delight at the Tate
Millbank or special.events@tate.org.uk Sponsored by Reuters.

W--> No URL available

_________________________________________________________|E|N|D|_


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