Social Media Blog: News from Several Sources: December 2010
There is so much information out there on social media that my newspapers, magazines, email, list serves, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn and all other connections I may have that I know of, plus those that I don’t know of are overflowing! For me this year has exploded with ACCESS to my known areas of interest to many more that I am now aware of and following... I am staying up later to be informed about friends, sales, deals, entertainment, and all the opportunities that I might be missing if I don’t check! I don’t know about you, but I am still trying to save articles of interest in their original format in case I want to reference them in research or come back to them and reread the information or story more carefully. My files, real and virtual are expanding in the midst of my studio which has several works in progress—when I have the time to focus on them and get into the “flow state” that the creative process brings to me and others who know how to access this state of knowing that draws of another aspect of the brain. Information processing, storage, and small bites seem to tap one or more correctly many resources we humans have and what emotional involvement that we are capable of as well? Simple answers are not possible as evidenced by history and the robust studies in for example one area, neuroscience, which seem to rely on pictures to tell us?? How the brain thinks? How the brain remembers? How the brain handles trauma? Who “reads”, “knows”, “interprets” images and in what language from what cultural context? As we as curious creatures investigate our world inside and out the story becomes even more fascinating that we can imagine.. and we can imagine more that we can do, which droves us on to new discoveries. I can only speak for myself, this is an amazing time to be alive and to have the opportunity to experiment with the tools that are available to us.
For instance, these are a few stories covering a variety of interests, which are using the Internet to go further. Some from The New York Times since I last visited this blog:
12/28/10: Business Day: Scrutiny for Shares of Start-Ups is a article (p. B1, B5) by Peter Lattman in which he notes that the S.E.C. is interested in the trades that are increasing in the social-networking companies, Twitter, Facebook, LindedIn, and Zynga which are all still privately held, i.e. that is not listed on the public stock exchange. Shares are being sold by employees hoping to cash in and investors are speculating as there has been so much $ made and trading is increasing. According to this author these companies are “considered high-risk securities by the S.E.C.” (p. B5). The trading exchange company handling these trades of nonpublic companies is SmartMarket and it is stated here that Facebook is the “most actively traded company..in which $40 million worth of shares changed hands” (p.B5).
12/28/10: Front Page: Cheats Find an Adversary in Technology. Writer, Trip Gabriel writes an interesting article about high school students in Mississippi who had cheated on final exams by using their cellphones, some even texting through their pockets so that proctors could not observe. Companies can now do all sorts of data analysis to determine who is cheating. Red flags turn up when scores differ from previous scores, when a group of students all get correct or incorrect answers and more. Apparently, when students know about this and know they could get caught, the cheating goes down. John Fremer, who is now 71 and helped develop the SAT tests, is a co-founder of Caveon Test Security, which is said to be the only company that has developed security measures to detect cheating. The article goes on to present critics who raise questions that this company has not published in scholarly journals their methods and therefore has not been reviewed. The rebuttal is that they are very busy with clients policing testing and blogs that violate copyright under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Mr. Fremer says that his goal is “prevention” and “fair and valid testing” (p. A1, A3).
12/28/10: The Arts: Patricia Cohen’s article, Scholars Recruit Public for Project: Online Volunteers Transcribe Papers, calls attention to the fact that many original documents by philosophers, scholars, historians, and individuals are not available due to the arduous job of transcription which costs and is extremely time consuming. She writes of The Bentham Project at University College London, which has turned to “crowd-sourcing” (p. C1) as a way of tackling more than 40,000 documents which are unpublished manuscripts by using registered or volunteers users who then transcribe works that are then corrected by editors. Needless to say there are advocates and those from the scholarly field who raise questions, but it is pointed out that this would make so much more available in the humanities where historical and personal documents could be accessible to scholars. See nytimes.com/books for other articles that have been looking at “digital tools that are changing scholarship in history, literature and the arts.” (p. C4).
12/28/10: International: WikiLeaks Founder Signs Deal to Write Autobiography, (p.A8). Ravi Somaiya reports from London that Assange, who is in a “mansion” awaiting a hearing on Jan. 11 for charges brought against him by two women in Stockholm for “rape, unlawful coercion and two counts of sexual molestation over a four-day period last August”, has signed a book deal for his autobiography. Potentially this could be worth $1.7 million, which Mr. Assange is quoted as saying he needs for his lawyers. The British counterpart of Random House, Alfred A. Knopf as well as Canongate Books are said to have signed printing deals with the Australian founder of WikiLeaks. In February, Daniel Domscheit-Berg who was the deputy to Assange will come out with his story in Germany of what went on before he left the WikiLeaks at the end of summer.
12/27/10: Business Day: Technology: Bits: Apple Removes WikiLeaks Apps. Miguel Helft writes that Apple spokeswoman, Trudy Muller, confirmed that the company had removed the WikiLeaks apps for iPhones and iPads because it “violated our developed guidelines....Apps must comply with all local laws and may not put an individual or group in harm’s way.” (p. B4). It is reported that many companies, such as: PayPal, MasterCard, Amazon, and Visa have “cut off services that in some way support WikiLeaks or channel money to the organization” (p. B4).
12/21/10: Front Page: In Youthful World of Messaging, E-Mail Gets Instant Makeover. Matt Richel reports on Facebook’s updating it messaging service to “feel less like e-mail and more like texting”, which will make it faster and be more instantly gratifying. Bosworth, director of engineering, is quoted as saying, “the future of messaging is more real time, more conversational and more casual...The medium isn’t the message. The message is the message.” (p.A1).
12/22/10: Business Day: To Match Profit with Popularity, Skype Looks to New Markets. Verne G. Kopytoff points out that while Skype is one of the most used Internet services in the seven years of its existence with 124 million users, it does not make money because it is free to users. There is a new CEO, Tony Bates of the company headquartered in Luxembourg, who is looking into faster and extended services. It was founded in 2003 as an alternative to expensive telephone costs by a Swede, Zennstrom and a Dane, Friis (p.B1,B2) and sold to eBay and now is mostly owned, 70%, by the Silver Lake Partners. Since many of us use Skype, let’s hope they find a way to stay in business.
12/17/10: Business: A Call for a Federal Odffice to Guide Online Privacy (p. B3). Tanzina Vega reports that he Commerce Department’s task force has advised that a “Privacy Bill of Rights should be created for consumers who are on line as well as a department that is sensitive to U.S. privacy issues worldwide. How information is gathered online would be more “transparent” and an ethical code of conduct would aim to better “practice principles”. The F.T.C. also addressed practice and also emphasized “do not track” options for consumers to prevent third parties to gather data on them. Gary Locke, the Secretary of Commerce stressed the need for preserving “consumer trust in the evolving Internet economy while ensuring the Web remains a platform for innovation, jobs and economic growth” (p.B3). The department estimates that $10 trillion a year is spent on online transactions globally.
12/16/10: Building Case for Conspiracy By Wikileaks by Charlie Savage (Front page, A18). Searching for any evidence of collusion between Pfc. Manning and Assange, the Justice Department investigates possible conspiracy.
12/12/10: Week in Review: Keeping Secrets WikiSafe (Front page, 5). Scott Shane recounts events of “three big WikiLeaks document dumps since July” of classified government documents, “disguised as a Lady Gaga CD”, that Pfc. Bradley Manning “smuggled out of a military intelligence office” (p.1). The story begins .... and will unfold.
Time Magazine’s cover on December 13th had a full page photo of Julian Assange with an American flag taped across his mouth. In the same issue, p. 19, several people who were honorees for 2009 for “Person of the Year”, Ben Bernanke got it, were asked for their suggestions for 2010.
Michael Eavis who is the Founder of Glastonbury Festival chose Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, because “her performance and skill on the world stage have impressed people of all races and genders, and she has added so much to American status and pride..”.
Youk Chhang, who is the Director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, suggested Queen Mother Norodom Monineath Sihanouk of Cambodia because she “is the embodiment of resilience, a beautiful woman who has endured countless hardships with dignity and courage. Through her, we can learn about colonialism, independence, civil was, genocide, democratization and the quest for justice. Her life too will teach us about the complex history of Cambodia, a country often overlooked.”
John C. Bogle, who is Founder of the Vanguard Group, suggested David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, because of the “bold steps to a) build a ‘big society,’ demanding that citizens take greater responsibilities for the communities, and b) set forth a really tough fiscal policy, slashing government expenditures...”.
Mia Farrow, “actress and activist”, suggested Mo Ibrahim who is from the Sudan and has a foundation in London and is described as a “mobile-communications entrepreneur”. The foundation “provides a huge annual prize for responsible leadership in Africa, promotes the peace process in Darfur and security, the rule of law and human rights across Africa. No one has done more to promote peace and food governance in a continent torn apart by corruption, poverty, and violence.”
The December 27th edition of TIME had the co-founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, “The Connector”, on the cover as the Person of the Year 2010. Time’s Managing Editor, Richard Stengel, comments are in his article, Only Connect. Mark Zuckerberg and Facebok are changing how we interact – and what we know about each other” (p. 43). He writes, “Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is a recognition of the power of individuals to shape our world. For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them (something that has never been done before); for creating a new system of exchanging information that has become both indispensable and sometimes a little scary; and finally, for changing how we all live our lives in ways that are innovative and even optimistic, Mark Eliot Zuckerberg is TIME’s 2010 Person of the Year.” In his editorial (p. 8) he mentions his visit to Palo Alto and talk with Zuckerberg on Dec.. 8th which can be found at TIME.com.
In this same issue of TIME, Lev Grossman (p. 44-75) had done a thorough job on the life, personality, and style of Zuckerman as well as incredible statistics on just how Facebook has and is changing our lives and what is happening around our world in real time. Certainly, my views and interests have expanded with my exposure and use of just some of information that is assessable to me. As the end the year approaches and writers and journalists peruse the changes, the events, the discoveries, and the losses of the passing year, I particularly will miss the artist, Louise Bourgeois, who passed away at 98, and is quoted as saying, “Art is a guarantee of sanity. That is the most important thing I have said.” (p. 149)
Sent by email: An artist’s concern...
-----Original Message-----
From: Laurie Arbeiter <larbeiter@hotmail.com>
Sent: Thu, Dec 23, 2010 9:24 am
Subject: Gagosian atrocity
Helloall,
Iam writing to alert people about an incident that happened at the Gagosiangallery Saturday, December 18, 2010, on the last day of the Anselm Kieferexhibition, Next Year In Jerusalem. Anselm Kiefer. Next Year in Jerusalem November 6 - December 18, 2010 ... Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present “Next Year in Jerusalem,” Anselm Kiefer's ...
www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/2010-11-06_anselm-kiefer/ - Cached
Inresponse to the title of the exhibition and the content of the work a smallgroup of artists and activists decided to view the show wearing a shirt with the wordsNext Year In Jerusalem in the three languages Arabic, Hebrew and English. We spent about one to two hours looking at the exhibition, mainly individually,silently and respectfully with full consideration of others viewing the exhibition. We simply worethe words on our shirts and did not engage with anyone unless they struck up aconversation with us. A number of peopleasked some of us about the meaning of the message, gave positive feedback, showed interest, asked where they could get the shirts oroccasionally questioned our political attitude toward Israel and Palestine. Wemade it clear to those who asked that we were not affiliated with the galleryand this was our own personal response to the work. All our conversations wereat a low level, similar to all the other visitors talking with one anotherwhile viewing the show. We neverhad an incident, raised our voices, disrupted anyone, and were not approachedby the multitudes of guards that were there. We took photographs as waspermitted and similar to many other people photographing the work and eachother without flash or disruption to people's passage.We thought we were in anarena of ideas and that words on a t-shirt without any other provocation would be an acceptable method of free expression in response to Kiefer's work. We were so very wrong. Afterabout one and a half hours, half of our group left and four of us remained tocontinue to view the show. Iwalked around on my own looking at the work. I noticed that two other visitorshad engaged two of my friends in a conversationthat was lasting a long time. Curious, I wandered over to where they werestanding to join them. The atmosphere in the gallery was very peaceful andcalm. The conversation that they had struck-up was warm and all of them were very interested talking together. Suddenly, out ofnowhere, two representatives from the gallery approached us. Oneof them asked who our leader was. It was an odd question and Iresponded that we had no leader. She then asked us who was in charge. And again I emphasized that no one was incharge and said that there was nothing happening. She then said that she had toask us to leave the gallery. We, including the lovely couple we had just met,were dumbfounded. At that point, the gallery employee ordered the guards, the same ones that had observed us forclose to two hours with no incident, to surround us and escort us out. I told her that there was no reason to have usremoved. The gallery employee explained that they had received complaints about the words on our shirt, which were causing confusion, and therefore we would have toleave. We then decided to cover thelanguage even though it was very disturbing to do so and we did thisreluctantly, understanding the profound irony against theback-drop of the Kiefer exhibition which embodies a life's work supposedlyconcerned with the horrors of state-sponsored repression, the brutality ofoccupation, racism, abuse of power, fascism and the consequences offorgetting history, not allowing for keen reflection in regard to currentstrains of unchecked power. I mentioned to the gallery employees that I thoughtwe were in the realm of ideas inside the gallery space to which she repliedthat it was a private gallery in the business of selling art and that theywanted us to leave. On principle, something no longer that valued or defendedin the public or private sector, we stayed, acting again in no way that couldbe deemed disruptive. The guards went back to their corners and we went back toour conversation. We thought that the incident was over. To all our shock,several minutes later the police arrived and completely disrupting the calmatmosphere in the gallery began to order us to leave and threatened us witharrest for trespassing.
Withinminutes after the police arrived an incident unfolded that could only bedescribed as brutal. Upon reflection, it waslike a staged scene, depicting what happens when the very forces Kiefer warns us about go unchecked.The police came on very strong and at first directed their warning at us,overseen by the gallery personnel, who pointed us out to them. I asked them toexplain the complaints being made against us and rationale for our expulsion.The only explanation given was that it was a private space just like one's homeand that we were no longer welcome and would need to leave. A woman witnessingthe event and standing at a distance to my left, who I did not know, asked for an explanation as to what washappening. The police officer was very rude and belligerent to her. All this unfolded rather quickly, withinseconds and suddenly I saw him grab her forcefully, pinching the muscle of herarm as he began to drag her from the gallery.It was shocking as she was screaming that she was being hurt and yet he wouldn't remove his grip. Iheard her cry in pain all the way out as she was being removed to the entrance.I couldn't see what happened behind the wall between us but have heard anaccount from another witness that she fell to the floor and wasdragged all the way to the door and outside on the floor by the police without complaint and in full view of thegallery personnel. She was badly bruised and needed medical attention and was taken to ahospital emergency room.
Theseare the facts of my experience as it unfolded. It was and still is traumatizingto recount and to attempt to grapple with all the implications of these eventsunfolding against the backdrop of the Anselm Kiefer exhibition. What happened there can not be explained away simply by thegallery stating that theyreceived complaints. The question should be asked by whom? What was the content of those complaints? What wasthe confusion they pointed to and why couldn't the gallery personnel clearthose issues up? What warranted setting into motion this course of action thatled to a brutal assault by the police andthe shutting down of ideas and speech embodied on a personalt-shirt? These (art) corporations are about money - rank andextreme consumerism. That they invoke theculture of private property as justification for their repression of inconvenient thoughts and ideas mustnot obscure the fact that they have no rightto cause actual physical harm tomembers of the public or to violate the rights of that public. Our peaceful engagement with the Kiefer exhibition was not a demonstration that day in thegallery but the gallery deserves now to be shown what a real demonstration looks like in response to what it did.
I can only wonder what Anselm Kiefer would have to say about whathappened in his exhibition because of the presence of those words that inspiredhim and led to an inspired idea, Next Year In Jerusalem strung together inArabic, Hebrew and English?
Please pass this on and feel free to contact me with any thoughts.Thanks to all those who have shown concern.
Laurie Arbeiter
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