two-day public program on RFID and things to come.
19 & 20 OCTOBER 2007
DE BALIE AMSTERDAM
http://www.debalie.nl/recallingrfidd

It’s in travel documents, building passes, pet animals, clothing stores, libraries, public pools, theme parks and prisons… and yet only a few of us know what RFID is. RFID (radio frequency identification) uses radio waves to identify people, animals or objects carrying encoded microchips. For government and industry, RFID signifies economic innovation, while for the futurist it marks the next stage in digital connectivity. RFID’s pervasiveness will only increase in the years to come, forcing shifts in perceptions of the public sphere and private domain.
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From September the 22nd till the 29th, Amsterdam will host PicNic 2007. Picnic is a conference, festival, diy thingie, and much more. Although a lot of hot shots (euhm, interesting speakers) are coming and the program is quite nice, it is quite expensive (come on, +-500 Euros a day??). Fortunately there are good and sometimes free, or cheap, evening and side shows.

Best of all though, is that there will be some 1200 people carrying a RFID badge, linked to a social network. And I can play with it I was invited to join a very interesting group of people at the RFID Hackers Camp. The idea is to think up and realize 6 to 8 projects with the available hardware and data. Mjummy.

We were sent an invitation to talk on the Forum on Quaero in Maastricht because the

Open-Search model offers a feasible and imaginative alternative to the very issue of profit and property – and the resulting politics – apparent in commercially operated search engines now. Conditions that deserve to be mistrusted and investigated (like your practice is doing) once an internet tool, like Google, gets increasingly perceived as ‘neutral’ or part of the given infrastructure of a system. Instead, citizens need to be made aware that here, choices are to be made, and can be made.

Besides the well phrased mission of Open-Search, the conference looks very interesting.
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BeamLab is een platform voor bewegend beeld. Bij BeamLab kun je statements verwachten, debat, innovatieve ideen horen van technici en creatieven, nieuwe samenwerkingen aangaan, toekomstscenario’s horen van fabrikanten en bovenal kun je zelf aan de slag en in gesprek.

Elke 3 weken in Pakhuis de Zwijger. De volgende is op woensdag 30 mei.
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Lezing/presentatie donderdag 31 mei, 20:00, Club 11/SMCS, Amsterdam

SKOR-lezing 4 en presentatie Open 12 over intellectueel eigendom en vrije publieke ruimte

McKenzie Wark pleit voor een verschuiving van een handelseconomie naar een gifteconomie, waar sociale relaties centraal staan in plaats van commerciële. In het licht hiervan analyseert hij het avontuur van zijn eigen boekpublicaties. Hoe te schrijven en te publiceren over intellectueel eigendom zonder zelf auteurschap te claimen?

McKenzie Wark (Australië) is Professor of Cultural and Media Studies aan het Eugene Lang College en de New School for Social Research in New York. Hij is auteur van “A Hacker Manifesto” (2004) en “Gamer Theory” (2006).

Na afloop wordt McKenzie Wark geïnterviewd door Stephen Wright (GB), onderzoeker aan het Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art in Parijs.

Datum: donderdag 31 mei / Adres: Club 11, Post CS-gebouw, 11e verdieping /SMCS, Oosterdokskade 5, Amsterdam

Aanvang: 20:00 uur

I.s.m. Open en Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Reservering: secretariaat@skor.nl of +31 (0)20 672 25 25

Toegang: 7,50 (studenten / students: 5,-)

Meer informatie: SKOR,
T +31 (0)20 672 25 25,
www.skor.nl en www.opencahier.nl

“Goodbye Privacy� is the theme of this year’s Ars Electronica, the festival extraordinaire of art, technology and society in Linz, Austria. September 5–11, 2007, the focus will be on these late-breaking phenomena of a new culture of everyday life being played out between angst-inducing scenarios of seamless surveillance and the zest we bring to staging our public personas via digital media.

In Ars Electronica’s inimitable fashion, elaborations in the form of symposia, exhibits, performances and interventions will proliferate beyond the confines of conference halls and exhibition spaces, and spread across the whole city.

Artists, experienced network nomads, theoreticians, technologists and legal scholars will approach this year’s theme from quite different perspectives:

* What do we have at our disposal to counter the intrusions of control and surveillance technologies?
* How can the new cultural paradigms of Web 2.0 communities be made to generate social dynamics that can also display relevance in the real world?
* How can we prevent the loss of individual control over our digital personas?
* What sorts of new strategies are there to reinvent privacy in the transparent world of digital media?
* How can we shatter the pre-configured virtual public spheres of the entertainment industries and mold new ones ourselves?
* How can we bring the entire cultural diversity of our societies to bear in these newly emerging public, social realms?
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During this event we’ll walk and cycle around Amsterdam with GPS-devices and create and enhance the open and free OpenStreetMap of Amsterdam. Participating is easy, no experience is required and, most of all, it is good fun. Please [join us] for the mapping party! More info at hollandopen.nl.

HollandOpen Conference, June 11 and 12, Amsterdam.

With contributions from Florence Devouard (Wikimedia foundation), Chikai Ohazama (Google Earth), Jim Ayre (European Schoolnet), Guillermo Caudevilla (Vodafone), Antony Satyadas, (IBM), Jason Levitt (Yahoo), Steve Coast (OpenStreetMap) and many many others (incl a poster session of open-search)!

Global Internet Filtering Conference 2007

The OpenNet Initiative is holding its first public conference to discuss the current state of play of Internet filtering worldwide. The conference will be hosted by the Oxford Internet Institute and held at the University of Oxford on May 18, 2007. The conference is free of charge and open to the public.

Results from the first global study of Internet filtering carried out by the OpenNet Initiative (for which govcom.org and I made some analyses and visualisations) will be on the table for a day of discussion involving ICT development experts, speech and human rights advocates, journalists and bloggers, international laywers and scholars, and others interested in state responses to online information flows. We hope you will join us in exploring interpretations and implications of our data and helping to shape the OpenNet Initiative’s evolving research agenda.

The day will conclude with a debate hosted by the Oxford Union – Resolved: the Internet is the greatest force for democracy around the world.

The Dutch Electronic Art Festival (DEAF) is an international and interdisciplinary biennial that focuses on art, technology and society and is organized by V2_, Institute for the Unstable Media, in Rotterdam. program

DEAF presents a wide range of programme segments, including, of course, a large exhibition of interactive artworks and installations. There will also be concerts, performances, seminars, workshops and an academic symposium. The festival is characterized by a thematic approach. Its aim is to bring current developments and themes around art in our technological culture to a diverse audience.

DEAF is one of the most important international festivals focusing on art and media technology, and it can be regarded as a showcase for research for and production of new media art (some specially commissioned).

This festival in Rotterdam is the ideal place for representatives of various networks to meet and inspire each other, and for international critical debate to take place.

Interact or Die! (DEAF07’s Theme)
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