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[The User] Coincidence Engine One: Universal People's Republic Time

In its most enigmatic form, a work of art facilitates a personal encounter in a space that lies between what is familiar and what is irreparably alien. It is by a process of discovery and investigation, by experimental play and unproven hypothesis, that this uncharted space between what is known and what is obscure is navigated. And it is in the movement between those two poles, that a work of art both reveals and conceals itself.

During his current 12-day stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Guy Laliberté’s unique social/humanitarian mission will have one clear purpose: to raise humanity’s awareness of water-related issues.

The first Poetic Social Mission in Space is a symbolic moment for Laliberté. After 25 years, Cirque du Soleil will be introduced to Russia, the country where Laliberté is training for his voyage and from where the Soyuz TMA-16 rocket will launch him and the Expedition 21 crew into space. The timing could not be more appropriate!

If you think the global financial crisis is bad, think again. The looming environmental collapse associated with global warming will make the current depression in global greed seem like child's play.

Earth Hour 2009 aims to give a voice to all people across the globe and invites everyone to participate in the creation of a stunning and vivid image of our home planet with its lights turnedd off. Be part of the message!

VOTE EARTH!!!
Saturday, March 28, 8:30-9:30pm.

Switch off your lights (and everything else for that matter: tv, radio, ipod, and yes, your computer, too) for just one hour, enjoy the silence, do something in the dark (ideally something that raises our collective consciousness, the choice is yours ... ), and join the world for Earth Hour.

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."
Jimi Hendrix

From July 17th until August 30th, 2008, the Sonic Self is bringing together local and international sound artists, musicians, video/multimedia and performance artists to facilitate the exchange and development of pioneering ideas, innovative skills and practices in contemporary Sound Art discipline.

The Sonic Self- a sound-art related exhibition aims at developing an open and direct audio-visual dialog between video and sound artists in order to expose significant similarities and differences in the growing confluence of audio and visual experiences in the emerging Sonic Culture, where; communication, sound and visual experience merge as significant pattern in the cultural sensibility towards sound and the surrounding persistent, random audio architecture a kind of sonic explosion that can be seen as a breakthrough of the Sonic Itself.

The Sonic world (an audible space); an emerging intersection between the audio and visual experiences, based on increasing internet and digital technology inventions -- gave the sound a significant stage in the surrounding environment in the multimedia environment of contemporary culture then ever before.

Personal homepages and other online presentations offer a new medium in which to define, construct, and express personal identity. The collections and arrangments of text, image, audio and video files that make up a homepage present a bricolage of bits and pieces that reveals (and hides) various aspects of a person’s identity.

And, just as any other articulated construction of personal identity, a personal homepage is essentially a construction – the frequent under construction sign is indicative of the ad hoc, improvised nature of a constructed identity presented in an asynchronous medium. It further reflects the constitutive element of a concrete identity as the interplay and tension between change and continuity.

In her article, Karyn Y. Lu offers an innovative and insightful examination of the role and function of visual identity in virtual communities and networked social settings.

Screening Circle is a new collaborative media artwork by Andy Deck. The piece adapts the cultural tradition of the quilting circle and the participative round table into an online format for producing motion graphics.

Visitors to the site can enter a drawing area to compose loops of graphics. Each person affects and edits each other's screens. In the screening areas, the resulting motion graphics and retrospective footage are on view instantaneously and archived for posterity.

Screening Circle, as Deck explains on the site, was inspired by the tradition of the quilting circle: a group of people who make a quilt together, each producing small squares that are later sewn together.

Screening Circle reinterprets this popular craft tradition in the context of interactive electronic media. As you draw in this circle you may notice icons changing, because other people are drawing at the same time.

"Peace starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us. When our community is in a state of peace, it can share that peace with neighboring communities."

His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama,
1989 Nobel Laureate for Peace

The Missing Peace is a multi-media art exhibition that brings together over 75 well-respected artists, representing more than 25 countries. With the full life of the Dalai Lama as inspiration, the intention for this project is to shift the world's attention towards peace.

The exhibition will be seen in cities around the world starting in the spring of 2006. Participating artists include: Richard Avedon, Ken Aptekar, Laurie Anderson, Guy Buffet, Michael Rovner, Adam Fuss, Jenny Holzer, Katarina Wong and Bill Viola.

Few things are changing as rapidly and dramatically as the Internet. A recent Pew Foundation sponsored study shows that the global use of digital networks continues to grow at an amazing pace.

The study offers some interesting insights, especially in comparison to the Elon University / Pew Foundation project Imagining the Internet: A History and a Forecast, which aims to map the social, cultural, economic, and technical evolution of networked communication systems in an attempt to chart how the accelerating impact of these technologies will change our lives and our world.

Here a few anonymous quotes from participants in the history and forecast surveys: