BigShinyThing

After three decades of solo composing, she has now collaborated with the international female laptop group, The Lappetites.

The magazine’s review of the resulting album, Before the Libretto, reads:

Listeners familiar with Radigue’s long haul, subtly complex droneworks may be hard pressed to recognise her contributions to this fleet, fragmented, busy and often bone-crunching set of electronic compositions. The rock dynamics of ‘Kuchen Keiki Cake’ and the opening section of ‘My Within’ are mirrored by the use of heavily chopped up rock music samples on the montage-like ‘Overture’. Many of the other tracks contain delicate moments when the music turns on a dime and drifts into open spaces, but the overall impression is of crunching cacophony.

Ladytron’s Everything You Touch is downloadable via their site. The very nice video is available on Boards.

Wired reports:

Genetically altered mice discovered accidentally at the Wistar Institute in Pennsylvania have the seemingly miraculous ability to regenerate like a salamander, and even regrow vital organs. Researchers systematically amputated digits and damaged various organs of the mice, including the heart, liver and brain, most of which grew back.

The results stunned scientists because if such regeneration is possible in this mammal, it might also be possible in humans.

The researchers also made a remarkable second discovery: When cells from the regenerative mice were injected into normal mice, the normal mice adopted the ability to regenerate. And when the special mice bred with normal mice, their offspring inherited souped-up regeneration capabilities.

Obviously this is exciting news for the medical sciences. Maybe it’s just me, but the phrase ‘most of which grew back’ adds a certain Pet Sematary zombie flavour to the otherwise Utopian vision of a world free of permanent physical damage.

You can watch some of his films in full on the BBC South Africa site.

MIT’s adverblog reports that

Microsoft has applied for a patent for control-based content pricing, which describes a scenario in which viewers are charged higher fees if they skip commercials or replay sports highlights.

Microsoft’s patent application reads:

In an implementation of control-based content pricing, a content server distributes media content to a client device in response to a request from the client device to receive the media content. A valuation application allocates a cost to the client device when the media content is distributed to the client device. The content server receives a view control input from the client device that indicates how the media content is to be rendered and the valuation application adjusts the cost according to the view control input and how the media content is to be rendered.

MIT picked up on the story from TechDirt via AdJab.

The Conference Board reported its index of American consumer confidence had dropped by 19 points in September, the biggest fall in 15 years. Hurricane Katrina and high petrol prices were blamed, but analysts suggested a weakening housing market and inflationary fears may also affect consumers’ long-term confidence. The grim little graph pictured says it all…

The web services company is to begin streaming television broadcasts over the Internet after signing up American broadcasters and holding negotiations with the BBC over the possibility of British content.

Google hopes to amass an online library of programmes which can be searched and viewed online from any computer. It also announced it was teaming up with UPN to exclusively screen Chris Rock’s new vehicle, Everybody Hates Chris.

Although Yahoo! has already done this – with Kirstie Alley’s show Fat Actress last year – the move signals Google’s intent to become a global video recorder - offering consumers streaming video of shows when they want. Peter Chane, senior business product manager f or Google’s video team said that the Rock show was a test of “how many users want to watch the show on the Internet if they didn’t watch it on television.”

Under Construction by designers Us and Us, invites viewers to:

…have your say about what kind of buildings and amenties would improve city life, as well as sharing your thoughts on favourite buildings, haunts, spaces and places – and your least favourite. The designers will be on hand to help you make your mark with a kit of cardboard, pipe cleaners, plasticine, stickers and wire – in the best Blue Peter tradition – as well as brewing you the requisite cup of tea. Be as ambitious or a simple as you like, just so long as you get your point across. Will the public’s view of architecture in our city be the same as the people who are mapping out the future of our city? Will an alternative secret London appear? The final map of London will be photographed and sent to all who participate.

BST visited this week and took the photo above as well as installing our own Big Shiny Thing roughly in the location of Stratford — see our Flickr photostream. This Friday, the entire map will be destroyed as vistors are invited to jump up and down on it.

Under Construction is at The Architecture Foundation’s Yard Gallery, 49 Old Street, London EC1 until 30th September 2005. Tonite’s event starts at 7pm.

The British are no longer a nation of shop keepers – a survey by the New Economic Foundation published in June found that in 2004 more than 2,100 independent corner shops in Britain closed down. Writer and broadcaster Robert Elms has started a campaign on BBC London radio to find the capital’s best independent shops – he says:

Chains are what makes us all the same. You really only notice quaint, cool, odd little shops when they’re gone and they will all go if we don’t use them.

The Independent reports that in 1960, small independent retailers had 60 percent of the share in the food retail market. By 2000, it had reduced to 6 percent. And there’s the fact that £1 out of every £8 UK shoppers spend goes to Tesco…

Weill and Chancel’s London in Store showcases the higgledy piggledy and the downright chaotic of the independent shops, away from the harsh strip lighting and sterility of the chains. Record shops, butchers, wig shops, high end boutiques, army surplus stores, taxidermists and of course the humble corner newsagents. London in Store is published next month by Thames & Hudson. This article is based on a feature in The Independent Magazine, 24th September 2005.

Heineken has enlisted the help of very-hot-at-the-moment Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas to judge and mentor a group of young Spanish artists as part of the first Greenspace event. By tranforming derelict warehouse spaces in the Spanish port of Valencia into vibrant art spaces, the Heineken Greenspace project aims to regenerate the area as well as provide a platform for new talent. Established acts are also getting involved to bring publicity and the opening week which will feature performances from Matthew Herbert, Sonic Youth and Antony and the Johnsons. In an interview with Fact: 10, Koolhaas explained how brands can encourage talent like him to hook up with them:

The more progressive brands are now thinking about how they can be less exclusively commercial. As a result of globalisation, now you not only have to be desirable, but also have good intentions. I see this with Heineken. Rather than sink a huge amount of money into an advertising budget, which at the most gives you a ‘virtual’ return, they are investing in something concrete for the future.

This tactic of creating ‘responsible desire’, of brands giving as well as taking away should be really obvious. But if it is, then why aren’t more brands doing it?

Heineken Greenspace takes place in Valencia, Spain, from October 24-29, 2005. For more information, visit www.heinekengreenspace.com.

The bears featured in this year’s DesignersBlock in London. Photos courtesy of we-make-money-not-art.

Currently, the ads on Microsoft’s MSN’s search engine have been sold by Yahoo! The company now intends that all of its ads will be sold in-house by Spring next year. Microsoft founder Bill Gates will demonstrate his commitment to online advertising as a sector when he opens the inaugural conference of the UK’s internet advertising industry next month (as reported in The Guardian).

Last year online overtook radio advertising in terms of overall share, reaching a level of nearly 4% in the UK – the Internet Advertising Bureau says it is on track to overtake the market size of outdoor by the end of 2007. Last year spending on ad searches, pop-ups and other forms of online advertising rocketed 62% year-on-year to hit £653.3m in 2004, from £407.8m in 2003.

The New York Times reports that the search-based advertising system to be used by MSN aims to improve on the services already offered by Google and Yahoo! by allowing marketers to target users based on their sex, age and location. Microsoft already owns a lot of demographic information on its users gleaned via services such as hotmail and its Passport identity service. Google and Yahoo! only allow a limited targeting of search ads by location, with Google arguing that it doesn’t need demographic data to direct its ads because Web searchers can directly indicate what they may want to buy through their keyword search queries. Tim Armstrong, vice president for advertising at Google, also plays the privacy card: “We are very heavy on user privacy. So our way of targeting advertising relies heavily on what we know about the content people are looking for.” Google already takes into account other factors such as the time of day and the geographical location of the user.

Microsoft also believes it has another advantage over Google: the building of relationships with web site owners, many of whom are users of its software and online services. But Google ads is already an appealing option for small businesses looking to raise their profile online in a cost effective way. It remains to be seen if Microsoft can achieve the same resonance with these entrepreneurs that Google has.

Techdirt reports that TiVo – increasingly in need of extra revenue streams – has experimented with pop up ads, interactive ads, updated old ads – anything to stem the losses incurred when those pesky users fast-forward through commercials. As well as these advertiser-centric follies, TiVo has started to fluff up its cutesy image by locking users into one year contracts and even forceably deleting shows from users’ boxes (when launched, the PVRs saved shows indefinitely). Far from being the consumers’ champion that it first appeared, TiVo has started to placate advertisers and broadcasters by handing power back to them – quietly of course. With additional rumours that TiVo has started to sell privileged information about its users’ viewing patterns to advertisers, TiVo’s jolly-little-telly logo is starting to look less and less friendly.

Go to www.100proof.tv/1percent2.pdf to download the PDF of Issue 2.

Issue 2 features stencil art orginator Blek Le Rat (France), Jonathan Olley (UK), Dize (Italy), Kelsey Brookes (US), The Killer Gerbil (Singapore), Animal New York (US) & 100proof (Global). Plus fiction from Alex Manning; paintings from Adam Stone; The 100proof Curriculum; and ‘The Menz Magic Box’ comic.

Thanks for the tip to 100proof publisher King Adz. Pictured street art is by Blek Le Rat — there is also a short film about him on the 100proof site.

In April, Times Magazine photographer Graham Wood headed out to Las Vegas to photograph discarded casino signage, including the iconic Golden Nuggets sign (pictured) in all its dusty broken glory. Happily, the signs are to be salvaged and put in an art exhibition by Las Vegas resident (and collections manager of the Liberace Museum) Brian Alvarez. Visitors will be asked buy official ‘adopt-a-watt’ certificates to keep them illuminated as works of public art. The so-called neon boneyard has also been photographed close up by Laura Domela.

Meanwhile, Japan’s abandoned theme parks are celebrated in spooky photographs of rusty rollercoasters. Via bldgblog. More photographs are available on the respective sites.

Link via the djmonstermo.blogspot.

The copy reads:

MISSING: levels 26-31. Last seen between levels 25 and 30. If you have any information regarding their whereabouts, please contact www.gravestmor.com as the lawyers on level 33+ are growing anxious…

From Gravetsmor, via Bldgblog Blogspot.

Experts claim that some 36 of the mammals could be packing ‘toxic dart’ guns and present a significant risk to divers and surfers in the area. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes but has refused to confirm that any are missing. Dolphins have been trained in attack-to-kill missions since the Cold War and these US Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels. Their coastal compound was breached during the hurricane, sweeping them out to sea.

Leo Sheridan, 72, a ‘respected accident investigator’ quoted by the paper, said that he had received intelligence from sources close to the US government’s marine fisheries service confirming that dolphins had escaped.

My concern is that they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises. If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber and if equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire. The darts are designed to put the target to sleep so they can be interrogated later, but what happens if the victim is not found for hours?

The full story is published on The Observer site. A Simpsons episode predicting that dolphins would turn on mankind and take over the world was first transmitted in November 2000. We’re also reminded of Grant Morrison’s recent graphic novel We3. Pitched as ‘The Fantastic Journey meets Terminator‘, We3 features an unlikely trio of weaponised lab animals attempting to find their way home when the research project they’re part of gets closed down.

The Onion, however, got the final word back in 2000 with this headline: “Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs: ‘Oh, Shit,’ Says Humanity”

The 200-foot-long toy rabbit lies on the side of the 5,000 foot high Colletto Fava mountain in northern Italy’s Piedmont region. Viennese art group Gelatin designed the giant soft toy and say it was “knitted by dozens of grannies out of pink wool”. Group member Wolfgang Gantner said: “It’s supposed to make you feel small, like Gulliver. You walk around it and you can’t help but smile.” And Gelatin members say the bunny is not just for walking around – they are expecting hikers to climb its 20 foot sides and relax on its belly. The press release reads:

The toilet-paper-pink creature lies on its back: a rabbit-mountain like Gulliver in Lilliput. Happy you feel as you climb up along its ears, almost falling into its cavernous mouth, to the belly-summit and look out over the pink woolen landscape of the rabbit’s body, a country dropped from the sky; ears and limbs sneaking into the distance; from its side flowing heart, liver and intestines. Happily in love you step down the decaying corpse, through the wound, now small like a maggot, over woolen kidney and bowel. Happy you leave like the larva that gets its wings from an innocent carcass at the roadside. Such is the happiness which made this rabbit. i love the rabbit the rabbit loves me.

Yu-huh. The giant rabbit is expected to remain on the mountain side until 2025 and will look pretty sinister when the inevitable rot sets in. Story via Ananova.

Possibly in celebration of Tim Burton’s forthcoming animation Corpse Bride? Photograph from shoot in the current issue of Trace magazine.

Featuring as part of a special project for Black Book magazine, Enright’s digital montage is entitled ‘I just returned from a forest full of thieves’ and is billed as an ‘artist’s reinterpretation, with apologies to Vincent Van Gogh’. In it, the furniture of Van Gogh’s Room at Arles has been re-arranged as if after a wild party. Enright is more well known for his ‘designer kidnappings’ where he extracted thousands of pounds from ‘have it all’ manhattanites who wanted to experience ‘safe fear’. He has an exhibition opening in London at the Vilma Gold gallery today.