I talked about the artist collective Lichtfaktor a while ago (Let it shine!). Now they released some Lichtfaktor videos on flickr which set their light graffitis in motion. Love the style!
p.s: we say Wow! to the new flickr video feature!
Take a look at Bernhard’s blog which has a pretty good collection of more than 50 traditional Austrian meals. Thanks to his blog I am able to prepare the Kaiserschmarren (“Emperors pancake”) by myself. Just for your information, as a kid I ate one or two per week, deliciously prepared by my grandmother! 
StoryCorps is an organization which is dedicated to recording people’s life stories and memories. Since October 2003 they are installing StoryBooths in public spaces where people can record their own stories in a silent place.
StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening. Follow our facilitators as they collect stories across the country.
I started listening to people’s stories on their web site and I must admit that some stories made me cry. Because the stories are real. And you can feel how the people are emotionally touched by telling their life stories. Of course there are not only sad and dramatic stories, but I think most of them are. The reason may be that in today’s society people are just not listening anymore. Everybody is talking and sharing and expressing. Which is good. But sometimes it’s important to calm down and to just listen… for example what men and women in their seventies tell you about the past and how life was some 50 years ago. It’s good for you to listen and maybe learn something, and it’s good for the story teller to reflect upon what happened.
It’s a great project!
I am following Paul Hayes’ work since a while. I love his swarm-like structures and how these bring movement into rooms. Link
Here is a jazzy music mix by Gilles Peterson, should help you to slow down a little!
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The project “Female Pressure” is having its 10th birthday these days. “Female Pressure” has been founded by Vienna based DJ “Electric Indigo” in order to gain visibility for women who are working as DJs, VJs or producer. The database is counting more than 1000 female artists from around the world and since the beginning the platform is helping women to get booked by party organizers.
They compiled a music dvd for their birthday celebration. And if you get the chance to see Electric Indigo playing live, go there. She is a great DJ! Love her style.
From the album Volta. See the making of here.
If you are about to plan your next holidays in Central and South America, it’s a must to have a look at Whole Travel, who’s mission is:
To provide the best travel opportunities to unique and authentic destinations that preserve the environment, support local cultures and promote sustainable lifestyles.
This sounds promising – take a look at their sustainable tour search engine.
Via CITIZENShift.
An Austrian journalist is criticizing Google and its business practices since a while now. At the end of 2007 he published a document with the title “Report on dangers and opportunities posed by large search engines, particularly Google” (pdf download). The blogosphere was reacting strongly against this document since Google seems to be everyone’s darling (who is not using it on a daily basis?).
Now he published a book called “Die Google Falle” (“The Google trap”) where he is writing about how Google is actively supporting censorship in China and about their data mining (data gathering) practices. And just recently Google share holders asked for a statement by the company concerning human rights and censorship. It looks like that pressure on Google from the public is growing.
In my opinion it is important that there are people who analyze and criticize mainstream online services like Google or others – just to keep the balance! Because these public companies are exposed to huge pressure from share holders which demand constant growth and profit. It is understandable that they will do everything to meet the expectations.
You can find more information to this topic on Altavista or Hotbot.
A british school survey carried out by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers lead to the conclusion that 75% of today’s school children want to become famous sport or pop stars. Boys prefer David Beckham while girls favour Victoria Beckham or Paris Hilton.
The teachers are alarmed, because most of the children will realize that they won’t become the next Beckham or Hilton easily. They will grow up with a feeling of failure or low self-esteem when celebrity status is not achieved.
In my opinion this is not something new at all. Hey, my hero was Captain Kirk
I believe that most of the people nowadays want to become famous in the one or another way too:
being a successful entrepreneur, becoming financially independent (popularly known as “becoming rich”), having a lot of readers on your blog, hundreds of “followers” on Twitter, all these are indicators of the silent wish to be liked, valued and seen by other people.
I think these wishes are natural among all human beings, as long as people don’t suffer from peer community pressure, stress caused by pressure to become “famous”… and that’s where my critique of the “Web 2.0″ comes in:
I think the web tools we are currently using (like blogs, Twitter, MySpace or Facebook) can increase exactly this feeling of peer community pressure, because we are permanently following the life of our new “idols” (a blogger, or someone on Twitter or facebook) and then compare and measure ourself with these “idols”.
These new behaviours can easily result in a feeling of failure and low self-esteem. And beware! Some people are really good at “personal marketing” and trying to increase their community status on behalf of your feelings. Be conscious about it. Just think of it the next time you compare the number of people following you (“followers”) and people you follow (“following”) on Twitter.
On this, i wish you a relaxed day, without any peer community pressure!
(text by Chris Car)
