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How to make a zombie cockroach
Researchers have worked out the neurological trick used by a species of wasp to turn cockroaches into 'zombie slaves'. The discovery explains why, once stung, cockroaches can be led by a much smaller master towards certain death. Researchers have proven their theory by replicating the effect, and by using an antidote injection to release the cockroaches from their zombie state. Here for
7:14 AM 12/20/07 | UNBLOG


Check Republics
Chess is a game of pure reason, without luck or chance or subjectivity. It has always attracted free spirits... The game of chess has its roots in rationalism. And, like the Enlightenment itself, it's a force for both liberation and tyranny. Here for
11:16 PM 12/08/07 | UNBLOG


Why don't we love science fiction?
Literary snobs say science fiction is badly written. Most of it is, but so is most literary fiction. At least badly written sci fi can communicate interesting new ideas. The British are sniffy about sci-fi, but there is nothing artificial in its ability to convey apprehension about the universe and ourselves.
11:16 PM 12/08/07 | UNBLOG


Is photography dead?
Pixelated into extinction. It used to be called "the art of photography." Now it's one little Photoshop trick after another. Makes it hard to say "gee whiz" anymore... Here for
11:16 PM 12/08/07 | UNBLOG


Emotional Systems
From 30 November 2007 to 3 February 2008. The event marks the inauguration of the CCCS - Centre for Contemporary Culture Centre La Strozzina at the Palazzo Strozzi, a space: created as a platform for the vast range of practices that characterise contemporary art and culture. Here for
11:16 PM 12/08/07 | UNBLOG


Gifts for Every Geek: Shutterbugs, Empty Nesters, Foodies and Urban Commandos
Get it from
11:16 PM 12/08/07 | UNBLOG


Constraint City
The project "the pain of everyday life" is a city-intervention and a digital art performance addressing public and private space within the realm of everyday constraints. It resembles an urban interface for an invisible city, an architecture which is subconsciously perceived and which constantly oscillates as resonant landscape, consisting of electromagnetic waves. Here for
4:23 AM 11/30/07 | UNBLOG


Geometry is all
One of the mysteries of the universe is that it speaks the language of mathematics— in exactly two hundred forty-eight dimensions? Here for
4:23 AM 11/30/07 | UNBLOG


Feed
An interactive installation to show how life is fed by media. The work is composed of two halves. The upper half is a video wall of television screens, each tuned to a different channel and playing at low volume. The lower half is a garden of ferns that can survive under conditions of extreme lighting. The television screens provide light to the plants, which grow towards them in a constricted space, eventually colliding. Here for
4:23 AM 11/30/07 | UNBLOG


Is Modern Art a Left-Wing Conspiracy?
Ask a right winger who is in charge of the arts in Britain and they are likely to tell you that the arts are run by a liberal-left conspiracy— that the BBC, National Theatre, the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Arts Council are all staffed by pinkos who generate propaganda in service of leftie causes. Here for
4:23 AM 11/30/07 | UNBLOG


Privileges
Diane Landry's installation 'Privileges' consists of the readymade object 'book' semantic alteration. A dictionary is in fact changed into an automated flip book in order to animate the education privileges metaphor. Here for
4:23 AM 11/30/07 | UNBLOG


In Blindness Veritas
Don't drink the label, drink the wine. Among the many (unwritten) rules of wine appreciation, this is easily the most important. It's also the hardest one to follow. Even the most discriminating oenophiles find it difficult not to be influenced by the name on the bottle, particularly if the name is a hallowed one. Here for
4:23 AM 11/30/07 | UNBLOG


Sonic Portraits
A 48x64 grid is the canvas used by Polish artist Marcin Ramocki. In this grid there's the bitmap image of a human face which eventually turns into the score of an endless sound loop. Each horizontal line corresponds to an instrument (for a total of 48 instruments) which is activated each time the cathode ray beam hits one of the portrait's pixels. Here for
4:23 AM 11/30/07 | UNBLOG


Finding Time
Four horsemen of our apocalypse: Efficiency, Convenience, Profit, and Security. Their crimes against poetry, pleasure, sociability are constant... Here for
4:23 AM 11/30/07 | UNBLOG


Spinal Rhythms
Autonomous Embodied Evolution of a Biomimetic Robot's Rhythmic Motion Behavior. The robotic art work Spinal Rhythms investigates the qualities and dynamics of physical movement performed by inanimate shapes. The movement becomes the expression of the creature's individualism, the language that communicates its identity. Trained in an autonomous loop without human supervision the robot is granted a certain awareness of its own body. Here for
4:23 AM 11/30/07 | UNBLOG


Enhancing Humanity
The genius of humanity is to establish an identity which lies at an ever-increasing distance from our organic nature. Technology can help us in this. Be not afraid... Here for
4:23 AM 11/30/07 | UNBLOG


Parallel Rhetoric
"A software-driven installation that continuously combines the Inaugural and Farewell speeches of three US Presidents (Johnson, Carter, and Reagan)... A single modified microphone is placed between each pair, wired as a speaker, giving voice to one speech or the other but never both. Whenever there is a moment of mutual silence the sound switches to the other speech, cutting from election-year promises to legacy-conscious revisionism in the blink of an eye." Here for
4:23 AM 11/30/07 | UNBLOG


The Anime Within
Sometimes people are miscast in life. They may appear to be dentists or clerks, but deep down they are actually fierce swordsmen or goddesses with devastating sex appeal. These true selves can emerge in the world of cosplay, the practice of impersonating characters from anime, manga, Japanese video games, and other realms of fiction. Here for
3:20 AM 11/28/07 | UNBLOG


Hindsight & Time-based Mapping
"Trulia Hindsight one of the most poignant examples of time based mapping of information. It allows exploration of historic data in more than half a dozen cities and communities within the United States. The map shows the spatial distribution of real estate related data distributed over time and territories." Here for
3:20 AM 11/28/07 | UNBLOG


Joe Strummer Calling
It's not unsettling to learn that world-renowned punk rocker and Clash front man Joe Strummer was sort of a hippie at heart. It's actually endearing. Julien Temple's 2007 documentary, Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten, illuminates this fact by highlighting a small but meaningful piece of Strummer's personality: the guy loved campfires. Read the Mojo Review:
3:20 AM 11/28/07 | UNBLOG


Buy Nothing Day
"On November 23, we celebrate the fifteenth annual Buy Nothing Day. This year is going to be exceptional. The mainstream has finally woken up to the reality of the environmental crisis, and the responsibility tha lies with us, the planet's most affluent - the upper 20% that consume 80% of the world's resources. Now's our chance to do something about it..." Here for
1:21 AM 11/22/07 | UNBLOG


Death is a Door
Album title: Death is a door/Artist: Titus Toledo/Release date: July 2002/Tracks: 1) we are just a state of mind, 2) spoliarium, 3) bliss, 4) emancipation of emerson cornflake, 5) object not found, 6) killing the buddha, 7) pigue, 8) om, 9) motion with lotion, 10) where angels fear to tread, 11) death is a door, 12) zoroaster x. Download the entire album:
1:21 AM 11/22/07 | UNBLOG


Cinema Fiction vs Physics Reality
Two physicists examine certain features of popular myths regarding ghosts, vampires, and zombies as they appear in film and folklore. "Vampires do not exist. In fact, it seems the nonexistence of vampires is necessary for human existence. Do the math..." Here for
2:00 AM 11/11/07 | UNBLOG


Haydn vs Mozart
If you had taken LSD and suddenly realized your trip was heading seriously south, what music would you put on the stereo to restore your emotional equilibrium and silence your demons? All three of us agreed without hesitation: a Haydn quartet. Almost any Haydn quartet. Here for
2:00 AM 11/11/07 | UNBLOG


Camera Hijacking vs Surveillance
A performance of pure 'urban hacktivism,' held in Poland by Warsaw-based Roch Forowicz. A surveillance camera being used to monitor public space was hijacked and reinstalled in a subway station. The camera was used intentionally to broaden consciousness concerning the problem of increasing lack of privacy. People entering and exiting the station were tracked by the camera, and their "capture" was projected on a station wall. The action was illegal. Here for
2:00 AM 11/11/07 | UNBLOG


Life - Fluid, Invisible, Inaudible
"Life - fluid, invisible, inaudible ..."is a collaboration between world-renowned composer/musician Sakamoto Ryuichi and Takatani Shiro, core member of the Kyoto-based internationally active art group dumb type. While the genesis of this piece is in Sakamoto Ryuichi's opera "Life" (first performed in 1999, for which Takatani Shiro the video aspects) as is evident in the title's "fluid, invisible, inaudible ..." it revisits the resources of sound and vision in "Life" now,several years later, in this new millenium, for an entirely new deconstruction and evolution of the work. Here for
2:00 AM 11/11/07 | UNBLOG


Lovesick Zombies
"Within every action/day/object, space is zombie, a relentless monotone force/dullness which can kill with a touch. This game/artwork lets you love/kill these everyday zombies..." Alarmingly these are not lovesick zombies, a game/artwork by Jason Nelson. Here for
2:00 AM 11/11/07 | UNBLOG





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