Life a user's manual: argos walk.

"The city is a game board, where every story, every piece stands on its own, but is part of an intricate jigsaw puzzle. Both public physical spaces and private interior spaces contain traces of fragmentary personal [hi]stories tied together by an invisible network of media. How people inhabit the hidden 'image spaces', discovered by a wireless surveillance camera scanner, while at the same time inhabiting physical outdoor spaces, is revealed through the practice of walking.

Dressed up like a bag lady and carrying an antenna made out of a soup can, I push a shopping cart full of televisions along a designated route in the city.

Starting in the red light district, a 2.4 Ghz video receiver that I carry with me is used to scan and display, in real-time, intimate scenes from within the city of Brussels. A prostitute's meeting place, a hallway, two empty streets, a tavern, a restaurant, an entrance, a café, a phone store, a bar, a snack shop, are some of the spaces found along the walk.

The walk ends at Recyclart, a former metro station and currently a performance space, near Gare Midi."

(cartoon by Steve Bell was nicked here)

Cos retro ramones clone bands from outer spain can be really fun:

Si Yo soy un robot y tu eres un robot (link to mp3 - right click and "save target as..")

(More tracks here - gracias a papel continuo)

who passed away two years ago today.

Yesterday, I discovered Rich Gold.

How smart does your bed have to be, before you are afraid to go to sleep at night?

I just came across the work of Félicien Rops, dandy parisian illustrator, friend of Baudelaire and Barbey d'Aurevilly. It made me think of Tanino Liberatore.

Laughter will bury power, an old saying goes. Who knows? For certain, satire can aid in sharpening the mind towards critical thought.

Fink's formerly forbidden fake W. Bush tableau finally makes it onto publicly-viewable American walls. The exhibition, which has upset some, makes brilliant use of the critique made in Wiemar Germany by artists such as Otto Dix and George Grosz, to cast a fashion photography filtered satirical eye on the Bush junta. At times through direct quotation, Fink's recall of 1920s Berlin imagery is both effective and sadly appropriate.

(via conscientious)

Looks like the long established website for the trailer of the film concept is now being applied to books. Douglas Coupland's new novel comes with its own online trailer.

Elsewhere, the Amazon self-review scam unhinges what was never a secret. After all, especially in the field of fiction, is it not fitting for writers to get email accounts for fictional characters destined to write five-star reviews?

Take a toy car a digital camera a sprinkling of perspective and the internet, and go out and play Parking Spots.

(images found here)

Digital artists against digital divide - the second issue of gluebalize is now out.

(screenshot from the pu.pazzi flash piece)

From the CNN to the Hindustan Times, the world is awash with the news of Ken and Barbie's break up. Just hours before Valentine's day, a global society reels in shock as the rumour romp begins: is Blaine the reason why?

(Above: Barbie and Ken back in the early, happy days)

(Brought to you by Blast Theory in collaboration with the Mixed Reality Lab at Nottingham University)

So I'm at home doing some bookshelf gardening, and I come across this bunch of books, not many at all really, sent by publishers when I used to push Knowledge Management - the crack cocaine of wisdom - and stare at a lurid cover wondering why it pavlovianly pisses me off, when I can remember that I've never actually read the bloody thing.

Then it hits me, like a drunken city worker on the central line on a friday night.

The book is called: knowledge assets, securing competitive advantage in the information economy (Oxford, 1998). The preface carries the saddest sentence(x2) dedicated to the art of reading, ever encountered:

"The decision to read a book, any book, is an exercise in cost-benefit analysis, usually conducted under conditions of uncertainty. The prospective reader must try and assess at the outset what kind of return on his or her efforts are likely to be on offer".

This is a seed of the plant that sheds poverty on the concept and experience of our times.

What else can I say? then spit and turn away.

The artwork of Mariko Mori.

(via hallucinations & antics)

Sadness dribbles down escalators, into a trodden can.

Melancholia is the refugee child playing the accordion.

A man stares silently at an idle screen.