DUTCH GOVERNMENT RAISES TAXES ON ARTS: It was 6% , will be 19%!!!
The planned cuts to arts and culture are totally out of balance!
As expected, the VVD, CDA and PVV parties in the Netherlands have agreed to make deep cuts to government arts funding. Their disastrous new coalition agreement slashes the cultural budget by more than 200 million euros.
The new cabinet’s plans directly threaten the continued existence of countless Dutch cultural institutions. These cuts amount to a quarter of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science’s budget which is only 0.5 percent of the total government budget. ( A bit of motorway…) The arts sector will thus receive a disproportionately hard blow. The result will be a drastic longterm worsening of the artistic and cultural climate in the Netherlands.
Sign the petition protesting the cabinet’s plans on the Stop Culturele Kaalslag (‘Stop Cultural Demolition’) website. More than 60,000 people have signed so far.
The world-wide mobility explosion is an enormous challenge for designers. How can we convince people that current forms of continuous mobility are no longer ecologically sustainable? Should mobility simply be made unaffordably expensive? Or can we design viable alternatives?
As a prelude to the ElectroSmog festival, De Balie in Amsterdam will present a showcase of design proposals, practical projects and design-ideas that should persuade us to start moving less.
With on-line and on-site contributions by among others:
John Thackara, director of Doors of Perception, the international conference and knowledge network which sets new agendas for design, will highlight design projects that try to tackle the question of mobility reduction.
Stefan Agamanolis, director of Distance Lab, Forres (Scotland), will present the specific focus of his organisation on networking rural and remote area’s. The relevant question for the ElectroSmog festival is whether we can live in a sustainable way in the green and still connect to the rest of the world, culturally and economically? http://DistanceLab.org
David van Gent is a managing consultant for IBM on Learning Strategy & Technology, Virtual Worlds, Serious Gaming & Web 2.0. He will talk about and demo the Virtual Offices project of IBM, using open SIM technology (similar to second life):
( See for instancethis CNN item )
Eric Kluitenberg, head of the media department of De Balie and initiator of the ElectroSnog festival, will present the concept behind the festival. Besides exploring the critique of mobility theoretically, ElectroSmog will also address the issue practically. All international presentations in the festival will be realised by means of tele-connections between the different international locations. http://www.ElectroSmogFestival.net
Live & Interactive:
This program will be streamed live on the internet – for details please refer to: http://www.debalie.nl/live
International cross-media connection between De Balie (Amsterdam), Tacheles (Berlin) and Second Life Friday night December 11th from 00:00 to 03:00, the party of the “Big Identity Show” at De Balie (Amsterdam) is experimentally interconnected with the Record Release Party of the group ‘Butterfly’ in the Cultural Center Tacheles (Berlin) . Via partying avatars in the largest user-created virtual world Second Life.
Create 2D & 3D ‘ATOMPUNK’ art for the GOGBOT 2009 Festival! Create 3D Avatars, Vehicles, Environments, Sculptures and any other digital Atompunk things you can think of. Also photo’s, graphic designs, video’s and other ‘2D’ artworks are very welcome to join this exhibition and contest! Digitally manipulated or not.
Invent, create and present what your idea’s about ATOMPUNK are, to the world!
CONTEST:
First Prize: 10000 L$
Second Prize: 5000 L$
Third prize: 3000 L$
Extra prize by the public: 2000 L$ for most favorites in the Flickr ATOMpUnk group on sunday september 13th at 22:00 CEST (= SL 1 pm PDT)
A professional GOGBOT art jury will critically review and judge the digital Atompunk entries on artistic quality, technical quality and originality. At 11th of september the 3 very best Atompunk Digital Artworks will be awarded. This will be announced during the ATOM.LIVE.NU happening in newBERLIN (SL) + ATAK Enschede (NL) These 3 winners will also be exposed on large videoprojections to a ‘RL’ audience at the GOGBOT Festival!
Please also confirm Ze Moo about your participation in this festival if you are going to upload some Atompunk works. CONTACT: IM in SL or send a Flickr mail
More replays on this digital tv channel are possible.
INTERVIEWS: Philip Rosedale (aka Philip Linden of Second Life), Jae-Kyung Song of Lineage, Hilmar Veigar Petursson of EVE Online, Raph Koster of Metaplace and Kevin Alderman /aka/ Stroker Serpentine of Strokerz Toyz
Kevin Alderman (SL: Stroker Serpentine) creating animations for his Adult Second Life business
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This documentary will also be broadcasted TV in more countries: Probably on SBS Australia, NRK Norway, YLE Finland, SVT Sweden and other TV stations.
TRIVIA:
In this Youtube preview there is a scene about virtual worlds money and economics there is a machinima fragment, shot by Sandwoman Petion. Of a burning Dollars sculpture and with an ‘Euro-Avatar’ running passed. These Second Life objects were created by Herman Bergson for the Meta.Live.Nu event at the ‘Goodbye Dollar’ party in Amsterdam, NL. This scene appears not inthe full version.
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The festival premiere was in april 2009 at Hot Docs, Canada.
True Stories presents: Jorien van Nes and Femke Wolting’s fascinating insight into online virtual worlds. Second Life, World of Warcraft, Metaplace, U World – all virtual worlds where the user can create their own paradise, far removed from real life. People can create societies that range from the democratic to the dictatorial, have avatars that resemble their ideal and can engage in actions that their real life personality would never dream of doing, from cyber-sex to virtual crime. But who creates these worlds and are they the right people to be crafting idealised societies that pretend to address and solve the inadequacies of the real world?
The Internet TV premiere was: june 2009, Metaworld2
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The Netherlands TV premiere was: Thursday 30 july 2009, Nederland 2
Voor miljoenen mensen is het virtuele universum een plek die steeds meer vervlochten raakt met hun echte leven. De plek waar makers en spelers hun eigen paradijs kunnen creëren, ver verwijderd van de echte wereld; geheel naar eigen inzicht, variërend van democratie tot dictatuur. Hier leiden de virtuele inwoners een leven waarvan zij vroeger niet durfden te dromen; van warlord tot succesvol cybersex ondernemer.
Maar wie zijn de bedenkers van deze werelden en welke ideeën en ideologieën liggen eraan ten grondslag? Hoe gaat het bouwen van een virtueel utopia in zijn werk? Wat zijn de economische en politieke regels in de virtuele wereld? Is er persvrijheid? Hoe wordt er handel gedreven? Moeten de virtuele inwoners zich aan wetten houden, of zijn zij daar eindelijk helemaal vrij in? Zijn het echt ideale werelden zonder aardse beperkingen?
In deze documentaire gaan Femke Wolting en Jorien van Nes op zoek naar antwoorden op deze vragen.
Zij spreken de oprichters van de grootste virtuele werelden, waaronder Philip Rosedale van Second Life, Jae-Kyung Song van Lineage, Hilmar Veigar Petursson van EVE Online en Raph Koster van Metaplace over de ideeën achter hun werelden.
[The Wellington Railway Station 3D build is part of the art installation: “In the Company of Strangers“ by Mike Baker (aka Rollo Kohime in SL)]
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In “Media Ecologies”, Matthew Fuller called for an embedded approach to digital materials
as they are encountered in different cultural and social contexts. When media systems
interact with art unpredictable things happen. This remote conversation will test the
materials of digital networks, hosts and remote relays to enable an open discussion of
the materiality of the digital. Fuller and Ballard share a concern with digital matter,
and the employment of things digital in concrete engagements with art. They will discuss
the pervasiveness of digital matter, the engagement of art and the digital, and address
the problem of artists in new media art finding their time taken up with attempts to make
their work interesting to contemporary art, creative industries, humanities, etc., and
forgetting to intensify the work that directly engages the crucial aspects of the field.
This conversation is one attempt to rectify this. Through a direct focus on the
materiality of the digital we will engage a discussion of the materiality of
computational and networked digital media.
“Another Perfect World” 
Meta.Live.Nu 
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