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geekgirl (r)osiex aka the metal cupcake publishing about interesting things for a really long time!
Damn I got to hand it to news.com.au another story worth a re-run…also covered by Yahoo, Foxnews, AP and others. I just couldn’t resist this pic, which helped launch the opening of the new Ripley’s Believe it Or Not Odditorium in New York’s Time Square.
Check ’em out. Also educational is wikipedia entry about Robert Ripley and his intentions behind the collection. The official site for Ripley’s Operations is in Orlando.
World of Awe, by media artist Yael Kanarek, is an online travelogue that chronicles a search for lost treasure in a parallel world called Sunset/Sunrise. The project imagines a post-gender and post-national protagonist. Born from an observation that language defines borders and territory on the Internet, Object of Desire examines these borders, as the chapter is written in three languages: English, Arabic and Hebrew. To raise the notion of physicality of the Internet, the fifteen scenes of the online project download from servers in four locations—in Ramallah, Tel Aviv, Izmir and New York.
Some of the world’s leading scientific institutions recently launched the Encyclopedia of Life, an unprecedented global effort to document all 1.8 million named species of animals, plants, and other forms of life on Earth. For the first time in the history of the planet, scientists, students, and citizens will have multi-media access to all known living species, even those that have just been discovered.
A BARBIE website that encourages girls as young as five to “live in an online world just as adults might” has been slammed by child welfare groups.
Billed as “like Second Life but for tweens” barbiegirls.com, launched in Sydney this week, has been criticised for taking adult concepts and encouraging children to apply them online.
The site allows children to live in virtual bedrooms which they decorate themselves.
They are also able to shop for new clothes, pets and furniture, with money they “earn”.
The concept is modelled on the popular Second Life, a 3-D virtual world built and owned by adults.
Already, 1.55 million users have signed up to the Second Life site.
Subscribers are asked to provide their age by clicking on a menu. The youngest age group is listed as “5 or under”, while the eldest is “13+”.
Barbie brand manager Amanda Allegos said the site’s creators had taken a three-pronged approach to security to ensure users were protected.
“We believe it’s a safe environment for girls to play in. It’s an environment that promotes creativity,” she said.
KNOW NO CURE At Theatreworks 14 Acland St, St Kilda, Melbourne
The choices and compromises made in the name of progress since September 11 are explored in a new play, Know No Cure by Adam Broinowski at Theatreworks until 1 July 2007.
Tackling some of the big issues facing societies today, it uses metaphors of medical technology and its quest for immortality, the destruction of the world’s habitat, and the issues of private versus public in celebrity-distracted society.
Know No Cure began in 2000 when Adam Broinowski spent two months in Malaysia as part of an Asialink Performing Arts Residency hosted by Dramalab, one of Malaysia’s leading contemporary theatre companies.
Researching the intricacies of the relationship between the indigenous, urban communities, Islam and the environment, Broinowski held a reading at National Arts Gallery KL. Returning to Melbourne where he was based for 5 years, Know No Cure will premiere in KL in May 2007 where he will be collaborating with Malaysian artists followed by the Australian premiere in Melbourne, starring Matt Crosby and Majid Shokor and supported by a talented team of local designers.