Chris Joseph

Have you read The Golden Notebook? Did you try it but never quite make it through to the end? Did you love it way back when and wonder what you’d make of it now? Did you hear some of it serialised on Radio 4 recently and think, “I must read that.” Well, now you can read it along with the comments of an international team of readers and an online community around them.

if:book London and Apt, the new media design and marketing consultancy, have collaborated on a groundbreaking project devised and curated by Bob Stein of the Institute for the Future of the Book and supported by Arts Council England.

Bob Stein writes:

“On November 10th, The Institute for the Future of the Book kicks off an experiment in close reading. Seven women will read Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook and carry on a conversation in the margins.

“The idea for the project arose out of my experience re-reading the novel in the summer of 2007 just before Lessing won the Nobel Prize for literature. The Golden Notebook was one of the two or three most influential books of my youth and I decided I wanted to “try it on” again after so many years. It turned out to be one of the most interesting reading experiences of my life. With an interval of thirty-seven years the lens of perception was so different; things that stood out the first-time around were now of lesser importance, and entire themes I missed the first time came front and center.

“When I told my younger colleagues what I was reading, I was surprised that not one of them had read it, not even the ones with degrees in English literature. It occurred to me that it would be very interesting to eavesdrop on a conversation between two readers, one under thirty, one over fifty or sixty, in which they react to the book and to each other’s reactions.

“And then of course I realized that we now actually have the technology to do just that. Thanks to the efforts of Chris Meade, my colleague and director of if:book London, Arts Council England enthusiastically and generously agreed to fund the project. Chris was also the link to Doris Lessing who through her publisher HarperCollins signed on with the rights to putting the entire text of the novel online.

“Fundamentally this is an experiment in how the web might be used as a space for collaborative close-reading. We don’t yet understand how to model a complex conversation in the web’s two-dimensional environment and we’re hoping this experiment will help us learn what’s necessary to make this sort of collaboration work as well as possible. In addition to making comments in the margin, we expect that the readers will also record their reactions to the process in a group blog. In the public forum, everyone who is reading along and following the conversation can post their comments on the book and the process itself.

“I’m writing you now with the hope that you will help spread the word to everyone who might be interested in following along and participating in the forum discussions.

Thank you

Bob Stein

“p.s. One last note. This is not essentially an experiment in online reading itself. Although the online version of the text is quite readable, for now, we believe books made of paper still have a substantial advantage over the screen for sustained reading of a linear narrative. So you may also want to suggest to your readers that they order copies of the book now. Whichever edition of the book someone reads (US, UK or online), there is a navigation bar at the top of the online page will help locate them within the conversation.”

Read about the readers and contribute your thoughts at:

http://www.thegoldennotebook.org

Call for Submissions 2009 Subtle Technologies Festival
Deadline January 5th 2009

The 2009 Subtle Technologies Festival in Toronto is currently seeking submissions for it’s festival under the theme of “networks” . The festival takes place in Toronto from June 11 to June 14th . As in previous years, the 2009 festival will explore it’s theme from a broad cultural and interdisciplinary perspective.

We live in an increasingly connected age, where flow of capital, material goods, people and information occur on a global scale in ever-shortening timescales. This increased flow is accompanied by pollution,contamination, infectious diseases and the rapid dissemination of ideas and economies. Metaphors of connectivity in information technology have matured and found resonance in art, science, and society at large. The availability of massive amounts of data supported by increased computing power and the rapidity of its propagation, has made the idea of interconnectedness more visible to us all. Science has made great strides in helping us to understand the connected age. The so called “small world problem” has revealed the ways networks of people form and become interconnected. Studies of oscillators, insects, heart cells, epilepsy, and crowds has shown us the natural affinity for various networks and systems to synchronize and self organize.The creation of new computer architectures based on biological networks has brought artificial intelligence ever closer to natural intelligence.

With the proliferation of online social networks, Web 2.0 applications such as Facebook, Twitter and Second Life have blurred the boundaries between public and private, virtual and real. Web 3.0 and the “internet of things”, where common household objects will become interconnected, will be one of the next major advances in digital networking. Increased bandwidth has made it possible for media artists to collaborate in online real time networked performances. “Network lag” is slowly disappearing from our vocabulary as our accessibility to bandwidth improves. It is time to critically discuss the network metaphor and how it affects the direction of various disciplines and our societies at large. Under this theme, we will be curating a symposium, exhibition, workshops and performances. Some specific topics which we will address at this years festival include:

* net art
* networked performance
* biological networks
* wireless networks
* social networking
* communication, transportation and economic networks
* virtual worlds
* systems theory
* community networks
* network theory
* collaborative and open source initiatives
* online culture
* “small world problem” and mathematical models
* genetic networks

To make a submission for exhibitions, symposium presentations, workshops, performances and poster presentations please go to http://www.subtletechnologies.com

www.radiator-festival.org

RADIATOR - CALL FOR ARTISTS

Festival | Symposium
Nottingham 13 -18 Jan 2009

EXPLOITS IN THE WIRELESS CITY

OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS - Deadline 25th Nov 2008

Since the abundant proliferation of digital communication technology, our (living) space has been expanded, transformed, reshaped. In our everyday lives we increasingly connect to mediated interfaces, be it consciously or without knowing.

Digital media is increasingly integrated seamlessly into all areas of everyday life and work. The so-called ‘virtual worlds’ created in this way are merging ever more dynamically with our physical environment generating new hybrid spaces, becoming a fixed part of our reality themselves.

Our cities are increasingly pervaded by data networks, watched over by cameras, skinned by media facades, populated by users of mobile communication devices carried around with every step. ‘City’ itself has become a media space, a complex fabric, in which an immaterial layer of data is augmenting the urban landscape, both merging ever more seamlessly.

Radiator continues its investigation into the way that artists engage with locality and site, real and virtual urban space. The ‘Wireless City’ brings deep cultural changes and our traditional spatial coordinates are gradually being superseded by an enhanced network.

Sharing their inferences and conclusions, artists are invited to reflect upon the challenges facing our freedom, the poetry of resistance and also the opportunities the ‘Expanded City’ has to offer.

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