Free seminars on social media marketing by Keren Flavell #geekgirl endorsed!

Creator of wholesome media, Keren Flavell is offering free seminars on using social networking for promoting your social cause.

Hosted at CERES Environment Park (Melbourne) from 7PM – 8PM on Thursday evening (Feb 25th & March 4th) – contact Keren to reserve your place!

First session, will focus on how to set-up and use a Facebook Fan Page. The following week she’ll be talking about Twitter and other social networking sites.

Keren is committed to assisting people who are seeking to create positive change in our world. Be part of the magic.!!

http://wholesomemedia.wordpress.com/

Get your kit off with Spencer Tunick – Opera House – March 1st, 2010. #naked #fb

Internationally renowned artist Spencer Tunick has revealed that he will create an
installation using thousands of nude Australians on the steps of the iconic Sydney Opera
House on the morning of Monday 1 March.

The artist is calling on all Australians interested in taking part to register immediately
at The Base to reserve a place.

Tunick’s installation, called ‘The Base’, will be one of the highlights of this year’s Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival. Participation in the art installation however is
open to all Australians, regardless of sexuality. All nude volunteers will be rewarded with
an official Spencer Tunick photograph of ‘The Base.

The US-based artist is the man responsible for gathering people by the thousand and getting them to strip, en masse, in the name of art. Using a sea of naked bodies as his medium, he moulds his groups of willing volunteers into abstract shapes, in various forms and locations, before capturing it on film. He’s attracted huge crowds the world round,
including 7,000 in Barcelona, and 18,000 in Mexico City.

Less is more - Spencer Tunick

Blog: throw another tofu-burger on the barbie will ya mate. #Geekgirl on behalf of #tcktcktck

Tcktcktck invited me to write a blog on climate change. I knew immediately what I wanted to pen about – animals!

Have you ever tried to get your head around what it actually takes to feed the planet!? It’s something I find difficult to come to terms with.

Even my little shopping village of Northcote, Melbourne, Australia opened a new butcher the other day. Another one! You’d think 4 existing butchers plus all the restaurants in the area would provide enough meat.

I’ve become more educated lately on the nature of food production, and films like Food Inc are a good start to understand the process from pasture to plate.  Although, I still don’t quite understand who is feeding, farming & processing the 60 billion animals we kill each year.

It’s horrific that most of this is inhumane and, to be quite frank, not producing animals that even taste good. I’m not a vegetarian (yet) but I have massively reduced my consumption of meat and although I try and stick to the MOOS principle (Meat Only on Sunday). I have a lot of reverence for what I eat, and I am conscious of what it takes to get my food on the table.

I know most people eat meat for the flavour and texture. And my smart vegie friends know a lot of tricks developed by Asian food producers who provide some meat-tasting alternatives. Unfortunately, most of this is soaked or prepared in soy sauce and as a Coeliac I can’t go there. But, there must be a huge potential in coming up with an alternative to meat, which tastes like meat, but ain’t. As much as the electric or hybrid cars are being driven (excuse the pun) by an industry that has to, perhaps rather than wants to. There’s a huge market in developing electric sheep, too.

As Copenhagen (COP15) rapidly approaches I would think that food production especially animal production would have to be high on the agenda. But, if ordinary folks like me can’t persuade the masses to re-think what they eat, what about politician turned good guy Al Gore, musician Moby or even PETA pet Pamela Anderson?

Australia needs to take part on a moral and uber-logistical stand on this issue. We can no longer farm or export meat in an inhumane fashion. Even if we do get our farming processes to the point it is compassionate, we need to become sustainable: that means all of us need to reduce our consumption of animals! “Throw another tofu burger on the barbie will ya mate”, might have to become our new national saying!

So, consume less & be informed more!

My personal top ten
1) stop live animal exports (join the Humane Chain)
2) make choices that respect animals; don’t eat them – or at least buy free-range, organic etc
3) moderate your meat consumption
4) support organisations that are compassionate re: ‘farming’  like Campaign for a Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare (UDAW)
5) support organisations that also protect our marine life like Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd
6) keep having a go at growing your own food and find out what and when to plant
7) read labels when buying food and insist that labels reflect ingredients like palm oil
(de-forestation is destroying the natural habitats of Orangutans)
8)become a volunteer join local organisations that protect animals and wildlife (Wildlife Victoria)
9) keep informed of campaigns and if need be, write or tweet our Australian politicians

10) On Dec 12, 2009 join the world for a global day of Action

With much love & respect, RosieX

To my Japanese friends you know I love you. Have a #whale of a good time.

With the historic change of government in Japan, Greenpeace is intensifying its efforts to bring whaling to an end. The new Japanese Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has already shown he is more concerned about Japan’s international reputation than his predecessors. Join over 140,000 people and send the new Prime Minister your Origami Whale, asking him to end the corrupt whaling industry once and for all.

Send your Origami Whale

Nancy White in Digital Habits. Stewarding Technology for Communities. Monday 16th Nov, Melbourne

Technology has changed what it means to “be together” for teams, groups and networks. We can now connect and interact across time and space, co-create and share our creations across the globe. This also means we face a dizzying array of tools and platforms which seem to morph and change daily. We all seem to use the tools in different ways, creating gaps and friction in our groups. What’s a person to do? Consider technology stewardship, the practice of scanning for, choosing, implementing and supporting useful practices using technology in a community. Nancy White will share a few frameworks and stories, then we’ll open the conversation.

• What is community technology stewardship?
• What inherent tensions does a steward work with in a community?
• How can we explore a community’s activity orientations as a way of making decisions around technology?

Agenda

6:00-6:30 Networking with other thinking collaborators (over drinks and nibbles).
6:30-7:15 Nancy White: Digital Habitats
7:15-8:00 Informal conversation amongst the group to explore the ideas and concepts.

Venue

RMIT Graduate School of Business, 300 Queen Street. Melbourne
Lecture room 158.1.2B (Ground level – just behind reception).
Ample metered street parking nearby in Queen Street (between La Trobe and Little Lonsdale).

RSVP: by email to melbournekmlf@gmail.com

About Nancy White

Founder of Full Circle Associates, Nancy helps organisations connect through online and offline strategies. Nancy is an online interaction designer, facilitator and coach for distributed communities of practice, online learning, distributed teams and online communities. She has a special interest in the NGO/NPO sector. Nancy blogs as well as teaches, presents and writes on online facilitation and interaction, social architecture and social media. She is co-author with Etienne Wenger and John Smith of Digital Habitats: stewarding technology for communities.

Nancy confesses to online interaction, learning and chocolate addictions. She lives in Seattle with her husband and two grown sons.

More information about available workshops via KMLF – Melbourne Knowledge Management Leadership Forum go here.

Earthsharing Film Competition

Entries are now open for Earthsharing Australia’s 2009 film competition entitled “I Want to Live Here: The war on creativity.” Artists and film makers are asked to respond to issues of gentrification and the difficulty creative communities have when rent increases cause them to move onto cheaper suburbs.

Entries close 4 November

For more information visit http://iwanttolivehere.org.au/

Melbourne Fringe Festival, people and walking tours

“People’s Tours”, are a set of unique audio and walking tours of Melbourne’s local history, starting on Saturday 26 September.

For the first time, walking tours are being done “live” as part of the 2009 Melbourne Fringe Festival as three walking tours every Sunday of Fringe, and one “sit-down” tour at the launch.

The launch is 7 pm  – 9 pm at Horse Bazaar, 397 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne on Saturday 26 September and entry is free.

At the launch there’ll be an introduction to the “People’s Tour” project, an overview of the 13 tours done so far, and then to kick it off, Tour #1 Irine Vela of The Habibis tours the hits, failures and challenges of her life as a working musician in Melbourne.

We’ll visit Irine when she first became entranced with Cat Stevens and his music, and her excitement of hearing the Bouzoukis in his song Ruby My Love. We’ll hear the first song Irine wrote as a bitter sixteen year old, One day I’ll Kill Myself, and follow her life’s journey as she discovers that choosing a life in the arts transgresses a taboo for a Greek-Albanian girl.

And if you can’t make it, you could put on your walking shoes and explore the lesser known histories of Carlton, Brunswick or the Maribyrnong River…

Tour #2 Stencil artist Tom Sevil (Civilian) takes us off the beaten latte track of Lygon Street and into its back alleys to find remnant political graffiti and street art from the 70s to 2009. Sunday 27 September, 1 pm – 2.30 pm. Meet at Readings Bookshop, 309 Lygon Street, Carlton. Find out more…

Tour #3 Making Modern Melbourne author Jenny Lee explores the long history of a short river, the Maribyrnong, in a tour that covers the indigenous history of the area, the old explosives factory, and the river’s changing landscape to the current McMansion invasion. Sunday 4 October, 3 pm – 4.30 pm. Meet at Lily Street Park, Essendon West. Find out more..

Tour #4 Activist and author Iain McIntyre takes us back in time to Brunswick in the Great Depression, when thousands of Melburnians thrown out of their homes. Tour the sites of some of Melbourne’s fiercest anti-eviction battles (now the sites of some of Melbourne’s fiercest real estate battles). Sunday 11 October, 1 pm – 2.30 pm. Meet at Brunswick Town Hall, 233 Sydney Road, Brunswick. Find out more…

Walking tour tickets are $10, pre-sold only and available at Melbourne Fringe Festival website: People’s Tours. The sit-down launch (Tour #1) is free.

The tours are co-produced by 3CR Community Radio and Jane Curtis, and funded by the Local History grant program of the Office of Public Records.

People’s Tours co-producer http://peoplestour.net

Introduction to free software by Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry does his take on understanding free software, and software freedom.

Saturday 19 September is International Software Freedom Day. Software Freedom Day aims to promote and inform about programs that are freely available to everyone to install and use.

For more information:

General information.    http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/
Information about the Canberra events http://softwarefreedomday.org/teams/Canberra
Information on some of the programs being given away http://www.theopendisc.com/programs/
Open Source as alternative      http://www.osalt.com/
One of the distributions of Linux available on the day http://www.ubuntu.com/
Another distribution of Linux available on the day http://fedoraproject.org/

This Is Not Art

A supercharged convergence of writers, performers, thinkers, independent and industry musicians, creative researchers, electronic artists, dilettantes, and DIY culture makers in a showcase featuring over 400 local, national and international artists.

TINA present Australia’s most exciting and emergent exhibitions, screenings, performances, panels, workshops, talks, gigs, interventions, live art and special events in five days of creativity and absolute madness!

Features: Zombie Rights March, Zine Festival,heck way too many to mention. Check out all the This Is Not Art participants here.

This Is Not Art
Office: 3/231 King Street, NEWCASTLE, Australia 2300
Phone: (02) 4927 0675 Fax: +61 2 4927 1475
Email: admin@thisisnotart.org
www.thisisnotart.org

independent, emerging & experimental annual arts & media festival

01 – 05 October 2009
Newcastle, Australia

The Liminal. Universes in transition part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival

THE LIMINAL, Universes in transition
MELBOURNE FRINGE ART EXHIBITION in Book Affair windows (3 new locations)
161 Elgin St, CARLTON  *  287 Smith St, FITZROY  * 149 Sydney Rd, BRUNSWICK

Thursday 24 Sept. – Sunday 11 Oct., 10am to 8pm (& 24/7 from the street)

Opening Parade: 200 Elgin St – Wednesday 23 September 6pm for 6.30pm

ALL FREE

A record, three-day heat wave peaked on January 30 last summer in Melbourne, when the mercury hit 45. Suddenly Book Affair, that rambling and greatly loved second hand bookshop at 200 Elgin St, near the corner of Lygon, seemed to spontaneously combust.

Sparked in an air conditioner, flames soon billowed high above Carlton and the roof of the iconic 25-year-old business was gone. This led to flooding and a mammoth relocation of over 100,000 books. Finally, after hard work, understanding bridging support from staff and vital help and solace from the local community, a three-headed phoenix of three marvelous, specialist second hand Book Affair shops has arisen.

To celebrate this, the Book Affair – perhaps the only bookshop in Melbourne with a permanent Arts Projects Coordinator (Susan Bamford Caleo) and several practicing artists-cum-booksellers on staff – presents The Liminal, a delightful Melbourne Fringe Festival exhibition. Works are sculpted primarily from recycled book paper and bindings, but also incorporating other things such as barbed wire, silk, hemp, ash, cotton, wool, string and wood. It is the second time the Book Affair have appeared in the Fringe Festival; their exhibition last year ‘Bookish’ was very well received (“delightfully playful yet very thoughtful” – Buzzcuts; “drenched in the same sort of charm that one finds in any great bookshop” – Beat).

Led by owner Kaya Prpic, the staff of Book Affair is working with a group of consulting artists (including Shirley Cass, Katherine Connolly, Eliza Donald, Ute Leiner and Waltraud Reiner) on the exhibition, to be displayed in the windows of the three new shops. Sculptured forms and costumes will capture moments of transformation and disorientation, reflecting their experience over the last six months.

The Liminal (from the Latin word līmen, meaning “a threshold”) is inherently unstable, alive with possibility. The myth of Daphne, who morphed from a nymph into a tree and the infinite possibilities of the liminal space that readers enter when they open a book, are some of the early ideas inspiring artworks that incorporate an element that can be worn.

This is a community project for Book Affair staff and friends and is important for morale as well as a marking a tremendous new chapter in the Book Affair story. Hence, a mad and joyous parade of staff and friends will proceed on Wednesday 23rd September at 6.30pm from the old shop (200 Elgin Street) to the seductively new wood-fragranced and sculpture-draped Book Affair HQ at 161 Elgin, to launch the exhibition and celebrate the three new shops. There will be fun, colour and an opportunity to shake off the last of the ash.

The new Book Affair second hand shops are at 161 Elgin St, Carlton (academic), 287 Smith St, Fitzroy (sci-fi, occult, graphic novels) and149 Sydney Rd, Brunswick (military, sport, transport).

For interviews with key personnel and further information, contact:
Publicist:
Jen Jewel Brown
Phone 0408 898 338
email jenjewelbrown@fastmail.fm