October 18, 2008:
Meeting: 12 noon @ Brut Theater Karlsplatz for getting zombie make-up.
And 3 PM the zombies will hit the streets and walk/crawl over to Stefansplatz.

More info

Computer History, once a somewhat strange idea, has now taken the world by storm; a magazine or newsletter merely has to dip their ladle into the piles of nostalgia and older images of computing technology to guarantee readership, commentary and links. But what is it like to live in this just-past world of unusual keyboards, cartridge slots and 256 colors?
Jason Scott describes the process by which he became a collect of online artifacts, the strange twists and turns his journey has taken (both legal and financial) and the lessons he has learned towards the goal of “saving everything”.

Jason Scott is a digital historian and documentary filmmaker based out of the Northeastern US, focusing on bulletin board system culture of the 1970s and 1980s. He often finds himself well outside of that realm and has collected many archives of general computer and software history, which he makes available on various parts of his online archive, TEXTFILES.COM.

- When: Thursday, September 18 2008, 8:30 PM
- Where: Metalab, Rathausstrasse 6, 1010 Vienna

http://www.metalab.at
http://www.paraflows.at

Everything you could possibly want is out there, and soon it will all be digitized. The problem isn’t whether it exists, it’s how you find it. This is the challenge that has plagued the speaker and motivated her to pursue an ambiguous occupation called “Content Strategy.” Her idealized vision of the future of the Internet is the Semantic Web, with its promise of smarter sites that actually understand what content means. In an attempt to answer the question “How did you become interested in datameaningfulness?” Rachel will take a very personal look at the formation of that dream, exposing the cultural, environmental, and historic factors that put her on this path.

Rachel Lovinger works at Avenue A | Razorfish as a Senior Content Strategist, developing ways for global clients to help connect users to the quality content they want and need. She’s particularly interested in relevance, findability, signification, and inherently funny words.

- When: Thursday, September 18 2008, 7:30 PM
- Where: Metalab, Rathausstrasse 6, 1010 Vienna

http://www.metalab.at
http://www.paraflows.at

++TAUGSHOW #16++

Divine Special (Paraflows 08 festival special)

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 / 8:00 PM @ Metalab, Vienna

We are not allowed to talk about the special guest hosts… yet!

But who are our guests?

/// TREVOR PAGLEN
Trevor Paglen is an artist, writer, and experimental geographer working out of the Department of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. His work involves deliberately blurring the lines between social science, contemporary art, and a host of even more obscure disciplines to construct unfamiliar, yet meticulously researched ways to interpret the world around us.

/// JASON SCOTT
Jason Scott is a digital historian and documentary filmmaker based out of the Northeastern US, focusing on bulletin board system culture of the 1970s and 1980s. He often finds himself well outside of that realm and has collected many archives of general computer and software history, which he makes available on various parts of his online archive, TEXTFILES.COM.

/// RACHEL LOVINGER
Rachel Lovinger works at Avenue A | Razorfish as a Senior Content Strategist, developing ways for global clients to help connect users to the quality content they want and need. She’s particularly interested in relevance, findability, signification, and inherently funny words.

/// Regulars:
EVELYN FÜRLINGER, MA.
Evelyn presents “Wicked Wordz”, our regular column about lingustics.

/// Showband
THE INCOHERENT DEITIES
Oh yes.

Link

Trevor Paglen is geographer and artist and he takes us on a road trip through the world of hidden budgets, state secrets, covert military bases, and disappeared people: through a landscape that military and intelligence insiders call the “black world.” Over the course of his talk, Paglen leads us from “non-existent” Air Force and CIA installations in the Nevada desert to secret prisons in Afghanistan and to a collection of even more obscure “black sites” startlingly close to home. Using hundreds of images he has produced and collected over the course of his work, Paglen shows how the black world’s internal contradictions give rise to a peculiar visual, aesthetic, and epistemological grammar with which to think about the contemporary moment.

More info:
Trevor Paglen’s homepage
FM4

Jeder kennt die Unfallkreuze am Rande von Landstraßen und jeder kennt das Dilemma ihrer beiläufigen Wahrnehmung: Kaum hat man sie erfasst und sich gefragt, was da wohl passiert sei, ist man schon wieder ein paar hundert Meter weiter gefahren. So lautet die Botschaft des Kreuzes an den einzelnen Verkehrsteilnehmer “halt an, halt inne, gedenke!”
Andererseits lässt die Verkehrssituation genau das nicht zu.
Unfallkreuze befinden sich am Straßenrand und sie befinden sich am Rande der Wahrnehmung. Es sind Kreuze am Rand.
“Kreuz am Rand” macht Unfallkreuze als Symbole individueller Schicksalsereignisse in ihren Details sichtbar – mit ihren Blumen, Gedichten, Porträtfotos und Kuscheltieren.
Und zwar in Form einer interaktiven Straßenkarte (Google Maps) für Unfallkreuze: kreuz-am-rand.de
Auf der Straße ist die Wahrnehmung des Verkehrsteilnehmers auf den Verkehr konzentriert, das “Kreuz am Rand” muss eine Randerscheinung bleiben. Im Internet aber richtet der User seine Aufmerksamkeit auf den dargestellten Inhalt.
Auf der Straßenkarte werden die Standorte von Unfallkreuzen markiert. Bei Berühren der Kreuze mit der Maus erscheint ein Fenster mit Angaben zum Kreuz, ein Foto des Kreuzes und ein Link auf eine Inhaltsseite, die weitere Fotos und Informationen, etc. zum Kreuz enthält: Unfallhergang, Gedichte, Charakterbeschreibung des/der Verunglückten, etc. Diese Inhalte werden von Angehörigen, Freunden, etc. bereit gestellt. Langfristig werden auch Fotos von “neuen“ Kreuzen, etc. von Usern angelegt (also nicht allein vom Künstler als Websitebetreiber). Schließlich wird kreuz-am-rand.de eine Plattform auf der sich Betroffene untereinander austauschen. Die virtuellen Kreuze leisten hinsichtlich Verfügbarkeit und Informationsfülle potenziell mehr als die realen.

Link

With the title UTOPIA, this year’s festival is following up last year’s topic of UN_SPACE. Starting with the already explored ‘non-spaces’, this year will take a prognostic glimpse at the future. Fantastic, longing, and gloomy visions are the tenor of the exhibition, the symposium and of the supporting programme.

September 11th through October 24th 2008.

Link

THE LOST SPORT OF OLYMPIA

The Ancient Greeks banned it, but we’re playing it anyway!

The Lost Sport of Olympia is a blindfolded labyrinth race, played in ancient times, and then mysteriously banned in 600 BC.

In 2008 AD, the rules of the lost sport have been rediscovered - and now, this summer, teams are training all over the world, from Tokyo to Buenos Aires, Paris to San Francisco, Sao Paulo to London, Singapore to Wellington, New Zealand. Each city hopes to master the game, and to become the world champions of the lost sport!

Now, for the first time in history, the game will be played in Vienna.

You don’t need to be athletic to be good at this game - but you do need courage, trust, collaboration, and the love of a good adventure!

You don’t have to know anything. You don’t have to bring anything. Just come, alone or with friends, and we’ll put you on a team as we try to set a new European record!

Link to more info: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/805373

WHEN: Saturday 5 July 2008, meet at 15:00, start playing at 15:30

WHERE: Meet on Stadtparksteg, the bridge in Stadtpark that crosses the Wienfluss