Artnodes is a space which focuses on the study of the intersections between art, science and technology and which are articulated via networks and, particularly, on the Web. Artnodes has its structure in the progressive construction of monographic dossiers which, once open, will remain active and interrelate with each other, thus constituting nodes within a network of interrelated knowledge. The november' node is devoted to glocal heterotopies, a reflexion on art, activism and technology.

'Heterotopias' refers to the concept created/used by Michel Foucault, David Harvey, E.Soja or Marc Augé -among others-. "We do not live in a kind of void, inside of which we could place individuals and things. We do not live inside a void that could be colored with diverse shades of light, we live inside a set of relations that delineates sites which are irreducible to one another and absolutely not superimposable on one another... I am interested in certain [spaces] that have the curious property of being in relation with all the other sites, but in such a way as to suspect, neutralize, or invent the set of relations that they happen to designate, mirror, or reflect" (Of Other Spaces by Michel Foucault*. March, 1967). The Panopticon is used by Foucault as a metaphor for a state-system of control over its citizens through geography and architecture; Heterotopies being spaces escaping this system. Movilization against war in Irak can be a real exemple of this kind of spaces.

related context
> artnodes site.
> heterotopies glocals. callús, 2003-2004.
> another world is happening: network-based movements. march 3, 2003
> towards a cultural connectionism: the search for organizational models for a post-web world by roger malina. june 12, 2002

openfriday@straddle3
·······························
heterotopies project by raquel paricio and pau alsina +
navegar.te by jan bechberger and jaime burriel
friday november 28, 2003. 20 h
straddle3. c/ riereta, 32 1-3
barcelona

imago
> e'teros: about other places; dust devil and more

In new studies, scientists are discovering the neurobiological underpinnings of romantic love.

Using brain imaging, researchers Helen Fisher, Arthur Aron, Lucy Brown and colleagues find that feelings of intense romantic love are associated with specific activity in dopamine-rich brain regions associated with reward and motivation. The researchers conclude that romantic love may be best classified as a motivation system or drive associated with a range of emotions.

"We believe romantic love is a developed form of one of three primary brain networks that evolved to direct mammalian reproduction," says researcher Helen Fisher of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. "The sex drive evolved to motivate individuals to seek sex with any appropriate partner. Attraction, the mammalian precursor of romantic love, evolved to enable individuals to pursue preferred mating partners, thereby conserving courtship time and energy. The brain circuitry for male-female attachment evolved to enable individuals to remain with a mate long enough to complete species-specific parenting duties."

"We found specific activity in regions of the right caudate nucleus and right ventral tegmental area. These brain areas are rich in dopamine and are part of the brain's motivation and reward system. Elevated levels of central dopamine produce energy, focused attention on novel stimuli, motivation to win a reward and feelings of elation - some of the core feelings of romantic love. Activity in other regions changed also, including one that another imaging study has shown to became active when people eat chocolate," says researcher Lucy Brown of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

Fisher, Aron, and Brown also found a tendency toward gender differences. Among them, most of the women in this study showed more activity in the body of the caudate, the septum, and posterior parietal cortex, regions associated with reward, emotion and attention; most of the men in this study showed more activity in visual processing areas, including one associated with sexual arousal." >from *Scientists uncover neurobiological basis for romantic love, trust, and self; also discover brain areas involved in understanding intentions of others*. november 10, 2003

related context
> love 'as addictive as cocaine'. november 24, 2003
> rejection affects human brain in same way as physical pain. november 10, 2003
> conflict interaction of couples. october 27, 2003
> neurophysiology of sympathy. december 10, 2002
> guide to flirting: the essential ability to charm. june 7, 2002

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> dopamine pathways spur in romantic roads

Navegar.te is a multimedia project made during the year 2002, inside the Digital Arts Master course at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. A collective work, by Jan Bechberger, Jaime Burriel and Patricia Gorozpe, that shows an interactive 3d on-line environment. Exploration, navigation and interaction into a singular world where the user is able to interact with objects, recopilate them and visualize digital art pieces in a kind of game for amateurs and professional.

Navegarte also means an space of gathering for digital artists, an exhibition platform, like a virtual museum. A common place for digital workers and students, in sume for people involved in this themes. Then, not only interaction and navigation for the user amusement, also as a new way of exploring and showing contents on line. Trying to combinate both contents, navigation and exploration in what we call “new ways of communication”.
Nearly one year after we presented the project, we think its still being an advanced project that explores some of the newest ways of on-line interaction. Very few on-line projects make front to the limitations and difficulties that the 3d work adds to a project made for the internet. Our project is still “under construction”, some parts are not completely finished and we are constantly reconsidering some of his concepts and design.

Next friday, november 28, at the Straddle 3 open fridays we will show the project explaining its key concepts and trying to generate a dialogue about it with the public who comes over, answering to your doubts and questions, and listening to your critics, purposes and ideas. Our will is to make this project as big as we can implicating all the people who can be interested on it.
>view *navegar.te site*

related context
> openfridays@straddle3.

imago
> you are the navigator: look for the tools and play!

Civic TV receives voices from individuals and groups with alternative visions of the urban experience which desperately need to be amplified and broadcasted in Rotterdam. On November 22, the first episode of Civic TV will showcase subjective/subversive strategies which struggle with indoctrinated notions of the urban experience and question the authorities regulating the physical and mental environment. Through presentation, performance and interventions in the city, Civic TV is kaleidoscopic channelling of stories from diverse participants from inside and outside Rotterdam whose instigations atomize the monodimensional vision of civic normality.

CIVIC TV will be a high summit of cultural engineers, anarchitects, urban explorers, peripatic hedonists, squatters, graffiti aficionados, street-artists, generative psychogeographers, space hijackers, folly-builders, invisible city excavators, collaborative mapping gurus and transdimensional tourists for the years to come. Approaches to understand, use & criticise the urban environment and how these practices are sustained. CIVIC TV will be a unique opportunity for those interested in alternative mental and spatial engineering to meet.

The sublime emotion to explore the world , not as a tourist, but as a traveller willing to give up anything in order to find the North-West passage, is what the "Kop van Walk" experiment will try to find in the surroundings of the Poortgebouw.This walk is the outdoor event during CIVIC TV. The psychogeographical experience of the desire to explore, as suggested by the buildings, the bridges, the water, etc will be mapped with PML (Psychogeographical Markup Language).

CIVIC TV is organised by WHY & socialfiction.org. >from *CIVIC TV*. November 22, 2003. via joan

related context
> psy-geo-conflux: the meaning of living in a city. may 14, 2003
> a communism of ideas. towards an open-source architectural practice. article from archis #3 2003
> second manifesto of the space hijackers.
> open source architecture. towards an egoless, cooperative and evolutionary practice of architecture

imago
> entrance to paradise: where do you want to live?

The Earth Simulator supercomputer retains the number one position with its performance of 35.86 Tflop/s ('teraflops' or trillions of calculations per second). It was built by NEC and installed last year at the Earth Simulator Center in Yokohama, Japan.

The number two position is again held by the ASCI Q system at the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory. ASCI Q was built by Hewlett-Packard and is based on the AlphaServer SC computer system. With 13.88 Tflop/s, it was the second system ever to exceed the 10 Tflop/s mark.

The third system ever to exceed the 10 TFflop/s mark is Virginia Tech's X measured at 10.28 TFlop/s. This cluster is built with the Apple G5 as building blocks. It uses a Mellanox network based on the new Infinband technology as interconnect.

The list of cluster systems in the TOP10 has grown impressively to seven systems. These systems are built with workstations or PCs as building blocks and often connected by special high-speed internal networks. The number of clusters in the full TOP500 grew also again strongly, now totaling 208 systems up from 149 six months ago. This makes clustered systems the most common computer architecture seen in the TOP500.

Nine of the TOP10 systems, 50 percent of all 500 systems, and 57 percent of the total performance are installed in the United States. Also, 90 percent of all 500 systems are produced in the United States. These market shares demonstrate the continued and clear leadership of the U.S. in both the production and use of high performance computing. >from *22nd Edition of TOP500 List of World's Fastest Supercomputers Released*. November 16, 2003

related context
> earth simulator.
> asci q (advanced simulation and computing program)
> Virginia Tech's X officially makes the number 3 spot. november 16, 2003
> world's fastest supercomputers: 2002 top500 list released.

imago
> earth simulator habitat composition

A team of researchers in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Alberta has discovered a new way of generating electricity from flowing water.

Research reveals a new method of generating electric power by harnessing the natural electrokinetic properties of a liquid such as ordinary tap water when it is pumped through tiny microchannels. The research team in Edmonton, Canada, has created a new source of clean non-polluting electric power with a variety of possible uses, ranging from powering small electronic devices to contributing to a national power grid.

The research, led by professors Daniel Kwok and Larry Kostiuk, started as a simple conversation between Kostiuk, a thermodynamicist, and Kwok, a nanofabrication researcher. With the assistance of two graduate students, the team was able to illuminate a real light bulb by exploiting the coupling between electrokinetic phenomena and the hydrodynamics of liquid flow.

David T. Lynch, Dean of the Faculty, praised the team for rigor and creativity. "The discovery of an entirely new way of producing power is an incredible fundamental research breakthrough. It has been more than 160 years since the last such fundamental discoveries that have now led to the current applications associated with solar cells and fuel cells. This groundbreaking discovery of an electrokinetic effect that can generate electricity could be equally revolutionary. It will earn these engineering researchers and the University of Alberta a place of prominence in scientific journals and textbooks for decades to come and electrokinetic cells may find significant applications in numerous commercial areas." >from *Let water power your cell phone? University of Alberta engineering researchers discover new source of electricity*. October 20, 2003

related context
> STMicroelectronics announces advanced r&d program targeting low cost solar cells . applying nanotechnology to the development of new solar cell technologies that will eventually be able to compete commercially with conventional electricity generation methods. september 30, 2003
> full spectrum solar cell: unexpected discovery. november 25, 2002
> energy for greenhouse planet: towards a global energy system. november 13, 2002
> microbes to produce power: electricity from organic matter. january 22, 2002

imago
> no electric bill: sign up for free electricity

The opposition to evolution education in USA is a persistent problem for decades.

Sometimes State Boards changed educational requirements by diluting valid science education, and insert a particular theological view (ie Intelligent Design) into the public school curriculum (Science Standards). On November 1, 2003, a statement was released urging the Texas Board of Education to resist pressure on it to undermine the treatment of evolution in biology textbooks now under consideration...

In this context, Steven Weinberg, Nobel prize winner for electroweak theory, addressed their testimony to the Texas State Board of Education. "There's not one Nobel Laureate in biology who takes the view that there's any question about the validity of the theory of evolution through natural selection or that there is any alternative theory that's worth discussing. So by the same standards that are used in the courts, I think it is your responsibility to judge that it is the theory of evolution through natural selection that has won general scientific acceptance. And therefore, it should be presented to students as the consensus view of science, without any alternatives being presented," said Weinberg. >from *Physics Nobelist takes stand on evolution*. September 10. 2003

related context
> National Center for Science Education. Defending the Teaching of Evolution in the Public Schools
> Kansas Citizens for Science. KCFS formation was triggered by the 1999 Kansas State Board of Education's decision to adopt public school science standards that removed key aspects of the theory of evolution as well as other critical concepts. The newly elected BOE of 2001 adopted revised science standards that re-emphasized the theory of evolution and restored the other concepts removed in 1999.
> Texas Citizens for Science. What Texas Schools Need is a Moment of Science!
> The Talk.Origins Archive. explore the creationism/evolution controversy from a mainstream scientific perspective.

imago
> was michelangelo buonarroti, by any chance, illustrating darwin's writings?

In September, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the HIV/AIDS epidemic a global health emergency requiring a rapid scaled-up treatment response, but researchers in British Medical Journal argue that governments should go one step further and treat it as a disaster. In fact, governments should be encouraged and rewarded for adopting a disaster response to HIV and AIDS, they say.

Declaring a state of emergency in a country plagued by HIV and AIDS could speed up the response. It would overcome barriers to co-operation and facilitate access to cheaper drugs. Resources could also be better co-ordinated, eliminating duplication and ensuring everyone is working to the same goal.

However, declaring a state of emergency forces the government to publicly admit that their country is in a vulnerable condition, which may lead to strained international trade ties, add the authors.

"We hope, however, that our suggestions will provide a basis for generating new thinking and a better co-ordinated, more effective and timely response to the mounting HIV/AIDS crisis," they conclude. >from *AIDS epidemic should be treated as a disaster. Reframing HIV and AIDS*. November 6, 2003

related context
> Vatican - condoms don't stop HIV. BBC1 Panorama programme, Sex and the Holy City. october 10, 2003
> World Health Organization says failure to deliver AIDS medicines is a global health emergency. Global AIDS treatment emergency requires urgent response
no more business as usual. "we have the medicines to treat people for a dollar a day or less but these medicines are not getting to the people who need them." september 22, 2003
> world aids day: link and think. december 1, 2001

imago
> do national organizations respond to aids epidemic disaster?

Two key areas of the brain appear to respond to the pain of rejection in the same way as physical pain, a UCLA-led team of psychologists reports.

"While everyone accepts that physical pain is real, people are tempted to think that social pain is just in their heads," said Matthew D. Lieberman, one of the paper's three authors (with Kipling D. Williams and Naomi I. Eisenberger, study's lead author). "But physical and social pain may be more similar than we realized."

"The folks who had the most activity in the prefrontal cortex [associated with thinking about emotions and with self-control] had the least amount of activity in the cingulate [located in the center of the brain, has been implicated in generating the adverse experience of physical pain], making us think that one area is inhibiting one or the other," Lieberman said.

The psychologists theorize that the pain of being rejected may have evolved because of the importance of social bonds for the survival of most mammals. "Going back 50,000 years, social distance from a group could lead to death and it still does for most infant mammals," Lieberman said. "We may have evolved a sensitivity to anything that would indicate that we're being excluded. This automatic alarm may be a signal for us to reestablish social bonds before harm befalls us."

"These findings show how deeply rooted our need is for social connection," Eisenberger said. "There's something about exclusion from others that is perceived as being as harmful to our survival as something that can physically hurt us, and our body automatically knows this." The explanation is consistent with past research on mammals. Hamster mothers with damaged cingulates no longer take steps to keep their pups near and infant squirrel monkeys similarly affected no longer produce a spontaneous cry when separated from their mothers. In human mothers, fMRIs have shown that infant cries increase activity in the cingulate.

The prefrontal cortex, meanwhile, has been found to be key to thinking in words and controlling behavior, urges, emotions and thought. So researchers theorize that the prefrontal cortex may inhibit the cingulate as opposed to the other way around. "Verbalizing distress may partially shut down areas of the brain that register distress," Lieberman said. "The regulating abilities of the prefrontal cortex may be why therapy and expressing painful feelings in poems and diaries is therapeutic." >from *Rejection Affects Human Brain in Same Way as Physical
Pain, Finds UCLA-Led Team*. October 9, 2003

related context
> leisure activities and cognitive function in middle age. a singh-manoux, m richards and m marmot. leisure activity entailing high cognitive effort or social interaction associated with better cognitive ability. november, 2003
> emotion and cognitive skills: how emotion influence brain performance. march 21, 2002
> rejection massively reduces IQ. new scientist, march 15, 2002
> if you can't join them, beat them. CWRU psychologists find rejection causes aggression. august 15, 2001

imago
> courtship rejection by a female holbrookia propinqua on a acute rejection renal pathology background

Amazon.com announced the launch of its latest innovation for customers, Search Inside the Book, an entirely new way for customers to find and discover books by searching the full text inside them, not just matches to author or title keywords.

In collaboration with publishers, Amazon.com is enabling customers to find books at Amazon.com based on every word inside more than 120,000 books -- more than 33 million pages of searchable text. Customers can also preview the inside text of these books. Search Inside the Book is integrated into Amazon.com's standard search and includes books from all genres. >from *Amazon.Com Launches "Search Inside the Book" Enabling Customers to Discover Books by Searching and Previewing the Text Inside. Leading-Edge Search Technology Delivers a Book-Buying Experience Previously Unavailable in the Physical or Online Worlds*. October 23, 2003

related context
> the amazoning of google? search firm looks for book content. steven zeitchik, PW NewsLine, october 28, 2003
> Open WorldCat pilot. makes library resources available from nonlibrary web sites. aims to test the effectiveness of web search engines in guiding users to library-owned materials.
> wikibooks. wikibooks is dedicated to developing and disseminating free, open content textbooks and other classroom texts.
> project gutenberg: net public domain library awarded. october 31, 2002

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> the printer desires the reader to search words

For the first time ever, the Internet offers the possibility of making knowledge universally accessible. As a result, publishing practices and the system of quality assurance used thus far in the sciences and the humanities are expected to undergo considerable changes. In signing the "Berlin Declaration", the research organizations advocate consistently using the Internet for scientific communication and publishing. Their recommendations in favor of open access are directed not only at research institutions but also and to the same extent at cultural institutes such as libraries, archives, and museums.

The Berlin Declaration states that, "Establishing open access as a worthwhile procedure ideally requires the active commitment of each and every individual producer of scientific knowledge and holder of cultural heritage". Open access contributions include original scientific research results, raw and metadata as well as source materials and digital representations of pictorial and graphical materials. The authors and right holders grant to all users a free, irrevocable, and universal right of access to these contributions and allow their work to be used, reproduced, or disseminated in digital form (provided correct attribution of authorship or copyright owner is given). Together with supplemental materials and the declaration of the right of use, the complete version of the work is to be made accessible in at least one electronic online archive. Such an archive can be maintained by academic institutions and federal or private organizations that subscribe to the principles of open access to and long-term archiving of publication material.

The signatories of the Berlin Declaration intend to make progress by
- encouraging their researchers or grant recipients to publish their work according to the principles of open access
- encouraging cultural institutions to support open access by providing their resources on the Internet
- developing means and ways to evaluate open access contributions in
order to maintain the standards of quality assurance and good scientific practice, and by
- advocating that such publications be recognized in promotion and tenure evaluation.
>from *Science and Culture Accessible to all Internet Users*. "Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities" signed. October 22, 2003

related context
> conference on open access to knowledge in the sciences and humanities. max planck society for the advancement of science. berlin, october 20-22, 2003
> will u.s. sanctions have chilling effect on scholarly publishing? by jean kumagai. treasury department ruling puts IEEE on the spot, but could affect other groups, too. IEEE spectrum online, october 15, 2003
> why public library of science became a publisher. october 13, 2003
> xenophobia may slow scientific progress. june 6, 2003
> science commons: building a free flow of knowledge. march 15, 2002
> budapest open access initiative: open access to scholarly journal literature. february 18, 2002

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> athena chariot in defense of earthen wisdom

On October 23rd, a much-publicized initial public offering of futures contracts on conceptual artist Jonathon Keats's brain sold options on an unexpected 71,000,000 neurons. At a strike price of one cent per unit, those contracts alone could net $710,000, upon the artist's death, enough money, some believe, to fund his recently-declared bid for immortality, an enterprise described in a prospectus that can be read here.

To expedite sales, and to inspire ongoing confidence in his brain, Keats himself purchased a contract for 1,000,000 of his own neurons. "At the standard premium of 1/1000 cent per neuron, I spent ten dollars," he says. "It's my first real investment." His purchase was followed by a flurry of orders from 47 others. Investors included neurologists, economists and roboticists. The youngest purchaser, Rachel Bender of Mill Valley, CA, was 8 years old. One speculator, Jeremiah Benjamin Stewart of Oakland, CA, even made a $10 profit when he resold a contract for 1,000,000 neurons to George Coates of Berkeley, CA for $20 (plus the Board of Trade's 10 percent transfer fee). As the neurons optioned thus far represent a mere 1.18 percent of the 6 billion available, active trading at Modernism is expected to continue for at least the next several decades. > from * IPO Success: Conceptual Artist Neurons *. craigblog, october 24, 2003

related context
> the center for cognitive liberty & ethics. protecting the limitless potential of the human mind
> copyright licenses free of charge released by creative commons. december 17, 2002
> illegal art: freedom of expression in the corporate age. october 17, 2002

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> cellbrain motors corporation certificate of stock