sp/su 09

On February 3rd in Chennai, India, Google India launched the “internet bus“. It is a mobile bus designed to share the experience of internet as tool for learning, with Individuals throught the state of Tamil Nadu (south India). According to the Google Internet Bus project site, the project is an attempt to educate people about what the internet is and how it may be beneficial to their lives by bringing the internet experience to them. The bus hopes to make the internet less intimidating and much simpler for new users. The concept of the Internet and its possibilities will be shared via videos that illustrate ways individuals can utilize the internet - i.e: grand parents keeping in touch with family members who have migrated to bigger cities via e-mails, or a student from a local school utilizing the web to search for information on a study subject; or a local traditional band using MySpace to share their talent with people all across the globe. .

Altermodernism, if I understand it, is international art that never quite touches down but keeps on moving through places and ideas, made by artists connected across the globe rather than grouped around any central hub such as New York or London. You might take the worldwide web as a model and think in terms of hyperlinks, continuous updates and cultural hybrids. It is most definitely postcolonial, transitional and to some extent provisional, but what it is not, I don't think, is anything as grand, or significant, as a movement.

It is worth paying attention to Nicolas Bourriaud if you are a watcher on the art promontory. He co-founded the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. And he came up with practically the only substantial theory of art in recent years - relational aesthetics, in which art is what you might call user-friendly, creating environments and experiences that are open to all kinds of human relationships rather than just the conventional one-to-one encounter of person with object.

Altermodern declares Postmodernism dead (in case you still had any doubt about that), and that a new form of art is emerging in the 21st century. Bourriaud christens it Altermodern! Altermodern, the 'alternative modern' is the product on non-stop communication, globalization and new forces that shape the way artists operate today.

If early twentieth-century Modernism is characterised as a broadly Western cultural phenomenon, and Postmodernism was shaped by ideas of multi-culturalism, origins and identity, Altermodern is expressed in the language of a global culture. Altermodern artists channel the many different forms of social and technological networks offered by rapidly increasing lines of communication and travel in a globalised world.

China's taste for good Scotch is causing a global shortage at the top end of the market, 12-year-old and older malt whiskies. So much whisky is being exported that distilling companies in Scotland have been forced to to ration supplies.

Worldwide sales of all whiskies in 2007 totaled 495 million liters. The rise in popularity of malt continued in 2008, with a 5% increase in worldwide sales and higher growth in China where sales are booming.

A trend is spreading through small towns across Germany. Tight budgets have forced hard decisions, including turning the lights out at night. No one is on the streets at night anyway, so why pay for the electricity to run the street lights? But residents have revolted. They fear an uptick in crime, or simply for their safety while stumbling through the dark streets to walk the dog or return from a late night out. Proving necessity is the mother of invention, a handful of clever solutions are being implemented; some with interesting consequences.

The solution seems to have started in the small town of Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz in the Erzegebirge. Over one and a half years ago, the 900 citizens of Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz were plunged into darkness each night, but given the option to turn the lights on by mobile telephone. Older citizens were concerned about their ability to master this new technology, but practice makes perfect. The town saves 4000 euros ($5300) per year.

Multiverse, a massive installation by American artist Leo Villareal that features approximately 41,000 LED nodes that run through a 200-foot-long tunnel in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C..

As passerbyers move between the East and West buildings on an airport style people mover, the zillions of lights flickr on and off over head creating rhythmic patterns and abstract configurations. The custom designed software also has an element of chance built into it, so it’s unlikely that anyone will see the same routine twice. The project is Villareal’s largest and most ambitious work to date and will be on display through 2009.

Mobile Industry Review has a mind-blowing video of the Microvision Mobile Projector in action. We originally wrote about Microvision back in 2007, and their efforts have finally come to fruition. The projector is just a little bit bigger than a 3G iPhone, and the quality is incredible. The secret behind the bright display is Microvision’s special technology, which scans a laser beam to paint the picture pixel by pixel.