Random Acts of Elevator Music visit Sydney

Random Acts of Elevator Music at Don’t Look Gallery

Making their first business trip from Melbourne, Random Acts of Elevator Music perform at the experimental new media art space Don’t Look Gallery, 419 New Canterbury Rd, Dulwich Hill, on Friday the 9th of October at 7.30pm.  The show incorporates the acclaimed Random Acts of Elevator Powerpoint display, featuring highlights from office life and rare elevator footage, along with their trademark soothing tones, melodies and oscillations.  Joining them for a rare solo live set is Sydney sound artist Shannon O’Neill.

Random Acts of Elevator Music is the latest project from City Frequencies, a collaboration between Matt Adair and Nick Wilson, who work together on sound projects within the metropolitan environment.

The original City Frequencies installation was a live surround-sound audiovisual performance held at the Melbourne Town Hall for the 2000 Next Wave Festival, utilising the sounds and sights of the Melbourne CBD as source material.  In 2004 City Frequencies recorded the conversations of Fitzroy café-goers at Kent Street Cafe, using the tapes to create the Café Voyeur installation.

Shannon O’Neill is a Sydney sound and multi-media artist.  As well as making sound and music under his own name and as Time Being, he has been a member of the groups Wake Up and Listen, The Splinter Orchestra, Plenum, Projek Lansac and Undermind.  Shannon has been a director of the Electrofringe festival, the Disorientation series and the Sydney Liquid Architecture festival and is the founder and director of Alias Frequencies, an organisation that promotes and publishes music and media art.  He has written extensively on sound and media art.

WHAT: Random Acts of Elevator Music + Shannon O’Neill
WHEN: Friday October 9, 7.30pm
WHERE: Don’t Look Gallery
419 New Canterbury Rd
Dulwich Hill, Sydney, NSW (426/428 bus)
COST: $10

For further information visit: www.akm.net.au/cityfreqs
www.twitter.com/cityfreqs

Online Divas is proud to present M I S S B L O G

M I S S B L O G , a bloggers conference dedicated to teaching women how and why to blog!

Speakers include:
Yiying Lu, creator of the twitter fail whale, will talk to us on the importance of twiiter
Samantha Brett, Australia’s favourite blogger
Kate Kendall, online editor from marketing magazine
Alex Brooks from renovation rescue, SMH’s leading real estate blogger
Hollie Turner – taking you on a beginners guide to blogging for your business survival

For Info visit: http://www.miss–blog.blogspot.com

World Bank breaks rules in lending to palm oil companies

Campaign groups call for a suspension on lending to palm oil plantation developers after critical internal audit. The World Bank has admitted errors in its procedures for lending money and safeguarding against social and environmental abuses.

An internal audit found the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) had mis-categorised loans to the Wilmar Group, one of the world’s largest producers of palm oil and based in Indonesia.

Loans that should have been classified as higher risk were listed as ‘low-risk’ thereby avoiding more comprehensive social and environmental checks.

The Palm Oil industry has been linked to the large-scale destruction of forests in Indonesia – endangering wildlife and increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

More from The Ecologist

Rupert Murdoch is set to charge online readers for news content – but how do you make people part with their money?

Cash for clicks – Kevin Anderson asks what can be learned from the music, video and games industries.

With the recession cutting into profits at News Corp, Rupert Murdoch (sic) has had a change of heart about charging for content online. In 2005, he predicted that the future of content on the internet would be driven by advertising. Now, he believes that if people want their news online, they will have to pay for it.

More people than ever are reading news on the internet, but organisations have yet to find a way to translate those huge audiences into the kind of revenues they had in print. A handful of newspapers, most of them financial papers such as the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, have instituted digital subscriptions – it is as yet undetermined whether the FT’s introduction of a pay-per-view model next summer will replace or exist in conjunction with its subscription service – and the New York Times charges per article for premium content in its archives. But the planned standalone Sunday Times site will be a trial run for general news providers – and with the advertising market dropping, Murdoch is not alone in looking to charge for online content.

But to what extent are users prepared to pay for it? Music, television and film studios, along with newspapers and magazines, are looking for ways to generate revenue from the web. While some consumers seem prepared to pay for premium content and convenience, most industries still haven’t found the magic formula to convince enough of them to do so. Are there any lessons that the various media can learn from one another?

More from The Guardian

Freeplay Independent Games Festival August 14th to 15th at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne

First held in 2004 and supported by the Victorian government, Freeplay aims to help Australian indie games developers as well as educators, game players and industry representatives to interact with each other, share ideas and explore the potential of interactive entertainment.

With the ever-growing interest in the indie sector, and the plethora of easy-to-use development tools for creating games, this year’s Freeplay is certain to be well attended.

Screen Play interview with festival co-director Paul Callaghan explains why you should attend, and why the indie scene is worth supporting.

LAST DAY to bid for the SquatSpace couch at charity auction online

While it’s hard to fathom why we would be involved in a show that is more about giving kudos and advertising to IKEA (!?), we have used the opportunity to criticise the hidden social issues surrounding  IKEA.

And for some reason, that seems to be a bit unsaleable!

So our couch design for the IKEA HOME PROJECT is in its last day at the online auction, and it’s currently going for the crazy low price of $289!  With all proceeds going to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal! Act now!

About our design:
Looking at the planned obsolescence of an IKEA couch, it has FREE TO A GOOD HOME painted large onto its surface, with added drawings of what the homes of ten people who encounter it on its life cycle might look like, from the home of a Swedish designer, thru to a Chinese factory worker, ship worker, IKEA store worker, onwards towards the vagrant that uses it as a home, and the home of a council worker who disposes of it.

With such raw labour and social equity issues exposed right under the nose of IKEA, this couch belongs in the foyer of trade unions, Labor politicians, Greens politicians, politically progressive design agencies, or just your place, dear fan of SquatSpace’s activities.

Remember, all proceed go to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal, and right now the couch is bidding at below basic cost price!

Bid here! or here: http://www.graysonline.com/Lot.aspx?id=3844086

Entrepreneurs Week 7 to 14th August

Entrepreneurship is the practice of starting new businesses or organizations, generally in response to identified opportunities or problems.

Entrepreneurs Week is an initiative of Student Entrepreneurs, a student-run organisation based at the University of Melbourne, in partnership with other organisations committed to promoting entrepreneurship and innovation on university campuses around Melbourne.

Kicking off with the Opening Ceremony on Friday 7 August, the events include presentations by prestigious speakers, panel discussions, workshops, mini-competitions and the signature event of the week, the Innovators’ Challenge in which teams are asked to create as much “value” as possible from an assigned everyday object and implement it in only six days.

Source – EWeek

Pizza Hut iPhone App

This is being touted as the best commercial iPhone App ever, hmmm shame about that. However, if you’re interested and you may well want to try and copy the App for good not evil and animal slaughter. Go configure…

More from DigitalBuzz

MEGA ’09 _ Mobile Enterprise Growth Alliance

What is MEGA?

MEGA is a ground breaking initiative that grows the size and capability of the mobile and allied industries through an entrepreneurship development program. MEGA takes participants from the mobile, digital content and ICT industries through a journey to build their creative, technical and business skills for the development of new products and services for global markets.

Participants form project teams and, guided by industry experts, develop and pitch new products and services to investors, buyers and business identities at a high profile Pitch Day in each state.

Application Closing Dates :
- VIC : C.O.B. this Friday 24th July 2009
- NSW : C.O.B. next Friday 31st July 2009

More from MEGA

Upcoming Military Robot Could Feed on Dead Bodies

It could be a combination of 19th-century mechanics, 21st-century technology — and a 20th-century horror movie.

A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.

Robotic Technology Inc.’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that’s right, “EATR” — “can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable,” reads the company’s Web site.

Source: FoxNews
Editor’s note: Now if only they could develop something to eat Bill O’Reilly. GG