Communication

The streets of London getting funky on pope Benedict’s XVI speech. Reed his speech in full text on MAZINE

Memories and Reflections

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a moving experience for me to stand and give a lecture at this university podium once again. I think back to those years when, after a pleasant period at the Freisinger Hochschule, I began teaching at the University of Bonn. This was in 1959, in the days of the old university made up of ordinary professors. The various chairs had neither assistants nor secretaries, but in recompense there was much direct contact with students and in particular among the professors themselves. We would meet before and after lessons in the rooms of the teaching staff. There was a lively exchange with historians, philosophers, philologists and, naturally, between the two theological faculties. Once a semester there was a dies academicus, when professors from every faculty appeared before the students of the entire university, making possible a genuine experience of universitas: the reality that despite our specializations which at times make it difficult to communicate with each other, we made up a whole, working in everything on the basis of a single rationality with its various aspects and sharing responsibility for the right use of reason - this reality became a lived experience. The university was also very proud of its two theological faculties. It was clear that, by inquiring about the reasonableness of faith, they too carried out a work which is necessarily part of the "whole" of the universitas scientiarum, even if not everyone could share the faith which theologians seek to correlate with reason as a whole. This profound sense of coherence within the universe of reason was not troubled, even when it was once reported that a colleague had said there was something odd about our university: it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God. That even in the face of such radical scepticism it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason, and to do so in the context of the tradition of the Christian faith: this, within the university as a whole, was accepted without question.

It was quite a contrast to step into the IBC salon a week after attending Ars Electronica. The conference boldly calls itself the biggest international broadcasting event, specially since the American NAB has the N instead of an I; it’s national and not international, and it’s 4 times bigger than the biggest international event. It’s the American way. Anyway, IBC 2006 was quite impressive and reaffirmed how the broadcasting world is excited with new technologies emerging as saviours for the old model of doing things. Moreover, the top-up tradition of doing things seams to be falling in love with some interaction trends.

My last night (meaning beers) in Linz was quite surprising. After a good meal, and finally a goulash (something I was long desiring for), Christian Giorgiano, Chris O'Shea and me headed to a last round at O.K Centre.

As all other situations here at Ars Electronica, once you arrive at a "social pole" like O.K Centre, we started to run into people that at least one of us knew. Suddenly, we are seating in a table with an amazing crew, former members of the group Antirom: Andy Cameron, now head of the interaction department at Fabrica, Andy Allenson, now with his studio Pickled Onion, and Joel Baumann, later one of the founders of Tomato Interactive, now teaching at Kassel University, Germany. Summing up, a big, big table.

Don't forget to check John Maeda's blog, where he's developing what he calls "The Laws of Simplicity".
lawsofsimplicity.com

The research was formatted into a book as well , recently published by MIT Press. The project is sponsored (?) by Philips.

A computer expert has spoken of his astonishment at seeing a taxi driver interviewed on BBC television news in the mistaken belief it was him. Guy Kewney was invited to BBC Television Centre to answer questions on the legal battle between the Beatles' Apple Corps and Apple Computer. As he watched the BBC's News 24 channel in a reception area while waiting to be interviewed, he was gobsmacked to see "Guy Kewney" appear on the screen.

Danny Boyd of the Many2Many multiblog recently scraped Jimmy Wales's response, to the recent uproar over Segenthaler's complaints, from a secluded email list and spread ithere . It's helpful to be reminded of academically approved uses of Wikipedia... that it may be used very well in the place of an encyclopedia but not as a replacement for a bibliography of books, journals etc.

This weekende I visited Paul McCarthy's Lala Land.

Quote:

“You may understand my actions as vented culture.
You may understand my actions as vented fear.”
Paul McCarthy