Spring city thoughts: Cartwheels on sand. Treetop coffees (byo thermos). Tandem bicycles downhill. Tackling people into rivers. You need the right conditions though: sunshine mainly, and that’s only starting to kick in now, Melbourne style. Likewise the convergence of online distro and DVD burners has meant the conditions for starting your own DVD label have never been better. From short filmmakers through to licensers of major films, here’s a few cats trying to carve out a pixel-niche.

MicroCinema(.com)
One of the better known collectahz, compilahz, screenahz, promotahz and juss-plain quality selektahz of short filmz da globe over~! Deyz bin doin this fo 8 yearz now, amen to dat. ( sorry, headphones b.wired to the mp3 jungle revisits of one soundmurderer – www.rewind-records.com ) Microcinema have a feast of these short films for festival curators or film-fiends to browse and order online, and are continuously pumping their ‘Independent Exposure’ compilations out to various microcinemas and alternative venues / festivals. Latest news is they are starting their own DVD label – which both means you can catch a great selection of weird-assed global flix – but tis also a great place to submit any of your own filmz for selection.

Other Cats : Lo Wave, Addictive & No TV
By no means an exhaustive list, these 3 are prominent enough to mention at the moment. Addictive TV from the UK produce the Mixmasters series and are now up to their 5th episode of VJ meets DJ action, alongside earlier NASA space footage remixes and ambient releases. No TV have 3 releases out : a compilation of vj muso collaborations, a VJ remix of the award winning animation Barcode, and a HI-LO euro-tour collage of strange dancers. Lo Wave(.com ) throw together more of an gritty urban experimentalism, compilations with enough artskool fever to satisfy even the horizontal_stripiest and chunky_fringest of your cafe friends.

Plexifilm(.com)
With recent releases of both Style Wars, the seminal early 80s hip-hop doco, and the cosmic afro majesty of Sun Ra’s ‘Space is the Place’, obviously Plexi have taste, and a bit more distro_clout than your mate with his burner in the bedroom. A step at a time though.
Amongst a dozen of Plexi’s well considered releases, there’s a couple of others worth mentioning:

Fruit of the Vine
If you liked Dogtown and the Z-Boyz, a rosy snapshot of California skate birthing, consider this it’s innerwest cousin. A gritty yet beautifully shot super 8 film by Coan Nichols and Rick Charnoski, Fruits takes you through a tour of what was once the holy grail of skateboarding – pool-riding. Curved concrete and emptied swimming pools get their edges grinded by the punksters of the day, we witness the pool-air taking shape and much of the the outlaw behaviour that goes along with the ’search and destroy’ ethos of the era. Plenty of extras on the disc, and well recommended for peeps remotely fascinated by the sk8r thing.

Mysterious Object At Noon
On the other hand, if a Thai film made using the surrealist myst.jpgstorytelling technique known as ‘exquisite corpse’ is more your style, then have Plexi a film for you~! (E.C. = many writers contributing to an ongoing story one sentence at a time, largely oblivious to what came before) Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, what we got here is a fascinating glimpse of Thailand village life which unfolds in ways which suggest a story rather than spell it out. In the process we maybe learn more about the people than a straight documentary might’ve hoped to reveal.

All Plexifilms are distributed in oz-thru stomp.com.au

Instantly right up there on my weirdest gig ever list, was the label showcase gig for Dual Plover at Electrofringe. A gig where Melbourne’s freak-hop sideshow – Curse of Dialect – looked fun but ordinary. How? The Zombie masks and genitals of ‘Suicidal Rap Orgy’, Brisbane’s Team Plastique in full theatrical mode, Rank Sinatra & Gary Bradbury, the Von-Trapp family sawing through guitars while playing them, their 8 year old son ‘playing’ a pair of chattering false teeth on a snare drum while his mum smashed rekkids, and AC/3P in fine gold silk and star wars robot mask – belting out updated vocals to many a fine classic accadacca tune, tastefully mashed and remixed. Plover-Phonic! Respex overdue : www.dualplover.com.

More Electro-Respex
Pixel Bleeder and beat manipulator for Briz-goth hoppaz, Ghosthype, Luke Illet outdid himself with his Nestune – a circuit bent nintendo graphics remixer that mashes up games on the fly – ‘controllably’ distorts and destroys game graphics. Luke also records damn fine electro as Collapsicon ( see www.ghosthype.net ). While you’re in browser land, check the sites of fest-veteran and prolific Melb pixel masher, Emile Zile – cleansurface.org / bubotic.net. In particular his Quicktime appearance on The Price is Right with Larry Edmur is damn hilarious. www.schizophonia.com by Alex Davies from Sydz also features many a strange interactive and installation, well worth a peek.

Drill N Browse
Missed his sessions, but his site alone is chock full of interesting projects that blur the virtual, physical and networked. The one that got everyone talking was where he set up a drill to a web counter. Every hit the site takes, drills another hole in a wall, takes it closer to collapsing. Hats off to Jonah Brucker-Cohen & his interactive projex>> www.coin-operated.com/projects.

Silly Scope – Surround Sound
The inimitable Robin Fox from Melb has just completed a history of experimental music making in Melbourne during the period 1975-79 and is doing PhD research in exploration of space as structure in electroacoustic and interactive environments. He has recently released Coagulate, produced with Anthony Pateras, available through Synaesthesia records ( www.synrecords.com ) Going solo up North, he wowed many with a sterling multichannel sound effort, finely hooked up to some very visually effective oscilliscopes.

Rock Operatics
Only one winner in this category – the Ladies of the Skipping League, who pulled out many a best move during their epic outdoors pop cultural marathon(g). Unfolding dramas and skipping rope tension. More conflict and resolution than an episode of Home and Away, and all choreographed with 20 or so uniformed dancing, rhyming skippers – with even a ‘touching’ tribute to the recently shuffled away, Robert Palmer.

Joining The Dots
If you’ve already grown bored mapping connections with www.friendster.com, there’s quite a few ’social softwarez’ still poppin up for you to wear your mouse down with. www.tribe.net offers a lot wider functionality though seems to be mostly populated by San Fransisco heads. www.enemyster.com is obvious enough, as is www.fiendster.com (The new way to hate people) but www.fakester.com offers a bit more fun – being inspired by the idea that by being a fake you reveal more about your personality than with a stereotyped profile. Maybe the most on the money though is STD-ster – an online community that connects people through networks of sexual partners for tracking STD contraction.

“You can use STD-ster to: Meet new people to infect, through your friends and their friends, Figure out where that awful rash came from. Motivate yourself to practice abstinence rather than just keep talking about it. Create your own personal and private community, where you can interact with vectors who are connected to you through networks of mutual sexual partners. It’s sleazy and fun! ”

When the Planet Hit the Sun
Berlin’s Zeiss Gross Planetarium sounds like a pretty good place to catch Monolake presenting material from his new album “Momentum” – the planetarium’s projector will light up the sphere with meteroites, stars and galaxies while a special multichannel journey thru the sonic world of Monolake will move the 89 speakers of the venue. See http://www.monolake.de or catch him in Australia come December.

Dec 13th 2003, Positronic, outdoor party @ Bellthorpe near Brisbane, Australia
Dec 19th 2003, location to be announced, Sydney, Australia (to be confirmed)
Dec 20th 2003, location to be announced, Melbourne, Australia
Dec 21st 2003, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne, Australia (to be confirmed)

Maybe you heard about the recent North American black-outs? Or noticed their Energy Outreach program in the Middle East? Sustainability for the vast human project seems locked to energy in cities whatever way you look at it. Sitting on the sunniest continent in the world, it seems timely to reflect on how the energy demands and strategies of a mammoth metropolis like NYC might relate to our own. Cut to the big apple skyline. Zoom in on a solar powered rooftop, and there’s Jeff Perlman from renewablestoday.com and Renewable Brooklyn.com.

What switched you onto renewable energy?
I’ve been dreaming about solar for as long as I can remember. At university (Yale) I built a solar powered car, and raced it in Sunrayce ‘99 (see solar.eng.yale.edu), then went to Australia and participated as an official observer in the 1999 World Solar Challenge. Solar car racing was a wonderful introduction, a great engineering challenge, and whet my appetite to do something truly practical with renewable energy (we won’t be seeing mass produced solar vehicles any time soon).

Now I’m involved in a variety of renewable energy pursuits: providing various forms of technical/investment/business consulting, research on solar companies and costs / benefits of green buildings with Capital E (www.cap-e.com), installing solar electric (photovoltaic) systems on rooftops with Solar Energy Systems (www.solaresystems.com), and NYC public education about the possibilities of solar with BASIC (www.renewablestoday.com/basic).

A ‘Renewable Brooklyn’ – how could it be?
First, Renewable Brooklyn is an artists collective with the purpose of promoting renewable energy and sustainable living/development in Brooklyn (www.renewablebrooklyn.com). As for a truly Renewable Brooklyn, let’s start with where we’re at. Many Brooklynites are quite perturbed at the various proposals to put new electricity generation facilities in. To avoid that, we need to cut peak demand consumption, through a combination of efficiency and renewable energy measures. Many Brooklyn residences are ideally situated for rooftop solar systems. Also the energy we get from the grid can be generated from fossil fuels or from renewable resources. Many firms offer renewably generated energy (mostly wind and clean hydro). You pay a bit more for this energy but it is certified green ( see www.green-e.org). Lastly, there are a number of sustainable architecture, interior design, recycled parts, organic foods, community gardens, co-op supermarkets, etc in Brooklyn in particular and in NYC as a whole. All of this contributes to the sustainability of the city.

Given your recent black-outs in North America, how reliable is renewable energy?
The recent power problems were mostly grid related. As in, our electricity grid is old and poorly maintained. Unfortunately large scale renewable generation won’t much help this. However, small solar/wind installations coupled with battery back-up systems allow buildings to maintain power even when the grid goes down. This is especially valuable for hospitals, mainframe computing centers, air traffic control centers and other critical applications, where any loss of power amounts to serious amounts of money lost every second (not to mention lives at risk).

What have been the most promising renewable energy developments in recent years?
Large-scale wind power production has costs on par with fossil fuel generation and lower than nuclear. In states like Texas, developers have been putting in more wind farms than required to meet the state’s legislation, because of it’s value.

Which renewable energy sources have been more disappointing?
Hydrogen power (fuel cells, etc.) are still more hype than reality, though I have faith the hydrogen economy really is forthcoming. Costs/reliability haven’t gotten to where they need to be yet. But the potential for this ultra-elegant system: power from renewable sources is used to cleanly created hydrogen, which is then cleanly converted back to electricity for cars and homes as needed, is just too great a dream to give up.

Scams or worthwhile – those ‘Green Power’ schemes where energy companies offer renewable energy at extra cost?
WORTHWHILE!!! Individuals can pay a little bit more on a monthly basis (instead of a lot of money at once to install renewable generation) to support the development of renewable energy. If RE is going to succeed, people need to support it. We can’t rely on the government to do it. The people have to put their money where they say they want it to go.

Half the world is urbanised. Some of your favourite energy saving ideas for major cities?
#1 is really just good building design. Windows that take advantage of natural light, buildings designed for natural air flow, etc, etc. I just finished working on a paper about the costs & benefits of green buildings ( www.cap-e.com ). We just waste so much energy that saving it isn’t all that hard. Turn off lights. Don’t run A/C so damn cold. Replace old refrigerators (replacing an old energy-sucking refrigerator with a new efficient one can pay for the cost of the new one in about 2 years just in saved energy costs). Replace large CRT monitors with flat panel displays. Use auto light sensors that turn off lights in public places when no one is there… use LED/compact fluourescents. Etc.

Current obstacles for renewable energy?
Cost. Financing. Getting enough capital so systems of long term value can be purchased despite large up front costs. Getting people to understand all the available options. Getting insurance companies to understand the benefits to the insured. Getting investors to understand the stability of the investment. Getting banks willing to lend because it’s a stable investment. Getting people to understand that they want renewables because otherwise we’ll keep fighting these silly wars, or, worse, start burning more coal, and keep breathing bad air, increasing asthma, etc. Environmentalism doesn’t mean unprogressive or technophobic. Supporting our modern way of life without destroying the environment, requires an initial cash outlay that folks aren’t yet ready to accept. We’re working to change that

Next time you’re in an atmospheric building, imagine it’s a ship. When walking outside again, you’ll be stepping on new shores, a world you hadn’t expected. Things are probably more like that than we realise, even as we wait for the 21st century to pull something ‘not-flat-earthish’ out of the bag. One of the transformative currents we seem to be in the midst of, one we can point to today is the ‘Open Source’ philosophy that borders on a religion amongst those who code. A few tasters and explanations then.

What is Open Source?
As the free Wiki-pedia states ( more on that later ), “the open-source movement is a large movement of programmers and other computer users to give easy access to computer software.” And if you’ll bear with me for a second, you’ll come to see that ‘open source’ is more than just some hacker or warez pirate collective. It’s more a participatory model of getting things done, that allows many people to contribute to particular parts of work, and leaves the results of the work open for further modification by others. This open access approach means that projects may benefit from the combined brainpower and tweaking efforts of thousands of people. Why it seems to be kicking in big now, is simply – the internet – and the means to link the work of remote collaborators together. However the Open Source philosophy resonates with much more than software. It just happens that coders got to it first, living as they tend to, near online.

Who Owns What in the 21st Century
Throughout the information economy and especially controversial tastiger_preserved.jpg
within the biotechnology field, ‘Intellectual Property’ and ‘Copyright’ battles are being fought between large godzilla like corporations, thrashing about in the public sphere. Within science, excessive patenting of ideas and concepts restricts their use to the patent owner, and stifles development. And as we map out the body of human genes, the ownership battles are only intensifying. Within the info.sphere we’ve witnessed companies from last century struggling to come to terms with the idea that their models of ownership and distribution no longer apply. Many are already adapting though.

What’s In It for Me?
Maybe when browsing the web, you might’ve used the quite zippy and well featured Mozilla browser? This was collaboratively developed, and benefits from ongoing debugging and improvements by an extended network of coders the globe over. Behind your browser though, lies an operating system of some sort – which usually cost money and are ‘closed’ to major modification by others. Linux however, is a free operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds with the assistance of developers around the world. And the source code for Linux is freely available to everyone to do with as they wish. Which means there are various types of linux operating systems out there, tailored to different machines and uses. There’s even a version you can use to transform your X-Box into a meaty computer. But again, it’s about more than software.

WikiPedia
Wikipedia is an ‘open content’ encyclopedia of sorts. (When the open source idea is applied outside source code, it tends to be called ‘open content’ ) Founded by the guy who earlier had popularized the idea of web-rings, Wikipedia has grown in 2 years to become a collaboratively built encylopedia with
168548 articles in the English version. Anybody can add an entry. Anybody can edit an entry. Like much ‘open source’ ideas, the application of this depends on good structure for the project, an architecture that maximises collaborative inputs and harnesses feedback. Effective licensing of projects is also a hallmark of open source, which specify in which ways the free content may be used or not. See also creativecommons.org for ways to licence your music so others can use it. And in the end, something must be going ok at Wikipedia, because it now outranks Britannica online in popularity.

Discogs
Also inspired by the success of community built sites such as Slashdot.org, these cats are on a mission to build the biggest and most comprehensive electronic music database (www.discogs.com). Discographies of all labels, all artists, all cross-referenced. The site is constantly under construction as it grows. And you can help! If you’re browsing the site and see something missing, use one of the “Add Label”, “Add Release”, or “Update Information” links. You can also add your comments and feedback on any artist, label, or release. I did a quick check for the relatively recently appearing robot-boy, AC/3P in Sydney – and sure enough he’s there, mentioned as an artist with an appearance on the ‘Ministry of Shit’, CD (Spasticated Records Australia).

And More?
The directors of the film at nothingsostrange.com/open_source are arranging to allow people access to all their material, so they can edit their own versions if they want. It features a Bill Gates assassination, so if you’re keen? Open Cola prints it’s recipe online, and there’s a range of open source projects out there from cookbooks to law and medical projects, all harnessing the brains and work of many, and leaving the results available so others may add to and improve them. Well worth reading up about, over at Wikipedia.

Imagine if Burke & Wills had the internet. Off you go, bold explorer – but watch for the wrist R.S.I. .

Audiotourism
http://www.audiotourism.co.uk is the fine and gorgeous Designer’s Republic website for the fine and delicious album by Freeform, produced after wandering throught Vietnam and China, recording samples on a mini-disc player, returning to London with a mission to mash without destroying recognition of the original sample. The site’ll give a good idea of what Autechre’s stuttery swerve sounds like wok-fried, and the Boards of Canada were Shaolin Monks. Simon Pyke’s homepage has a few downloadables and label links too >> www.freefarm.co.uk.

Bronx Museum Highlights:
The NEXUM ATM is a new interactive video sculpture work presently available for Bronix-ites to wander in and play with. Luckily it’s also available online to play with, or how else would you explore the artist interpretation of the history of aggressive intervention by the United States toward ten small, poor and globally dispersed countries. If an interactive history of imperialism dating back from the 1820’s to the present by the United States, is your cuppa browser friendly tea, by all means click to : http://www.nexumatm.us/

Honey, I Decoded the Genome
Quite likely if you had three children with unfortunate diseases, you might pay more interest to how the human genome is being currently mapped and the implications of it’s possible privatisation. Click thru the www.salon.com Tech features, and the endless ads, and eventually you can read a thoroughly compelling story by John Sundman – who investigates the state of play with genome research and how it impacts his family. Wander to wetmachine.com and you’ll also find a gripping account of his epic self-publishing efforts and obstacles. Try not to order a book from him after reading~!

Video Pills
Aside from omniprescent viagara offers in ever more surreal attention grabbing headlines, I also a weekly dose of email from http://www.wordspy.com/. These usually involve a newly coined word or phrase, with an example citation. ‘Video Pill’ caught my attention recently, describing an ingestable camera approximately the size of a vitamin pill that transmits images from a person’s stomach and intestinal tract. Also known as an “M2A capsule” in the medical biz – refering to the route of the pill through the body.

Recommendo
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/
Website about interesting and useful gadgets hosted by one of the Wired magazine founders, Kevin Kelly. Predictably then, it borders on the fetishistic, when it isn’t drearily banal – gee, a new type of scissors, thanks. There are many provocative gems scattered amongst the oft-updated site though, amongst categories such as “Community, Conceptual Trends, Design, Health, Learning, Livelihood/Workplace, Media, Nomadics, Systems Tools & True Films.”

Stealth Graf & The British TATE Gallery
One of the world’s most famous museums received a ’surprise’ addition to it’s walls recently. Banksy, UK graf & stencil artist, dressed himself up as a pensioner and stuck one of his own creations to the wall, titled ‘Crimewatch UK Has Ruined the Countryside For All of Us’. It wasn’t discovered until the painting fell to the floor some hours later, and was put forward by Banksy as a ’short cut’: “To actually go through the process of having a painting selected must be quite boring. It’s a lot more fun to go and put your own one up. It’s all about cutting out the middle man, or the curator in the case of the Tate.”
A caption glued next to the painting read: “This new acquisition is a beautiful example of the neo post-idiotic style. Little is known about Banksy whose work is inspired by cannabis resin and daytime television.” The painting, the caption adds, was “presented by the artist personally 2003″.