Digital #MediaArt(s) Numérique(s)

Six months ago, I wrote some thoughts on the paradigm shift in how museums think about the balance between preserving an artwork and sharing it with the public. My conclusion was this: time-based media art installations do not truly exist until they are installed and, thus, these works must be exhibited — or “exercised” — with a certain degree of regularity.

This is a concept first championed in the conservation field over a decade ago, by Pip Laurenson of Tate. Lovers, by Japanese media artist Teiji Furuhashi(1960–1995), is an excellent example of this. What follows is the story of how our team rescued this important example of early-1990s Japanese media art from a crumbling foundation of obsolete technologies (MS-DOS and LaserDisc, for starters) and ensured that it will live on so that generations long into the future are able to discover and enjoy it.

In museums, where the work of the conservator is often dictated by what is scheduled for exhibition, it is unusual to have the opportunity to conduct in-depth research or conservation treatments on collection works that are not slated to appear in the galleries. There is, however, a rich tradition at The Museum of Modern Art of offsetting this trend through collaborations with academics and researchers. Through this, we are often able to build small-scale research projects that give students incredible real-world experience — and afford museum conservators the sort of research we wish we had more time for...

Flore Berlingen est la directrice de Zero Waste France qui promeut une société sans déchets et sans gaspillages. Elle nous dit en quoi les modèles ouverts et collaboratifs nourrissent (ou pas) cette ambition.

Zero Waste France agit pour réduire l’empreinte des déchets individuels et industriels, quels sont vos constats sur le lien entre modèle économique et réduction des déchets, certains modèles sont-ils plus vertueux que d’autres ?

Le premier constat à faire est que le modèle industriel dominant génère de plus en plus de déchets : de plus en plus d’emballage, des produits à la durée de vie de plus en plus courte, des ressources toujours plus exploitées. On parle d’économie linéaire.

Plus encore, on voit que certains mécanismes d’incitation sensés corriger cette situation ne sont pas efficaces ou même fonctionnent à l’envers. Par exemple, les opérateurs de traitement des déchets en France sont payés en fonction du tonnage traité. Plus ils traitent de tonnes, plus ils sont rémunérés. On a même vu des situations où certaines villes s’engageaient contractuellement à un certain volume et payaient des pénalités si ces volumes n’étaient pas constatés. Certains ont donc un intérêt direct à ce que les déchets soient de plus en plus nombreux.

This is the final episode in a Bits video series, called Robotica, examining how robots are poised to change the way we do business and conduct our daily lives.

TOKYO — They didn’t shed, chew the sofa or bite the postman, but for thousands of people Sony’s Aibo robotic dog was the closest thing to a real canine companion. So when the Japanese company stopped servicing the robots last year, eight years after it ended production, owners faced a wrenching prospect: that their aging “pets” would break down for good.

Revolv is a home automation hub that Google acquired 17 months ago; yesterday, Google announced that as of May 15, it will killswitch all the Revolvs in the field and render them inert. Section 1201 of the DMCA -- the law that prohibits breaking DRM -- means that anyone who tries to make a third-party OS for Revolv faces felony charges and up to 5 years in prison.

Revolv is apparently being killswitched because it doesn't fit in with Google's plan for Nest, the other home automation system it acquired. Google's FAQ tells its customers that this is OK because their warranties have expired, and besides, this is all covered in the fine-print they clicked through, or at least saw, or at least saw a link to...

L'article traduit en français : http://framablog.org/2016/05/10/au-revoir-revolv-bonjour-obsolescence-imposee