behaviour

First post: I'm going to use this blog to reflect on some research I have just embarked on: I'll be looking at emotions, anxieties and desires addressed in spam emails.

I was recently at an unworkshop at the Institute Of Creative Technology, DeMontfort Uni (I'm also dong my phd there, part time). Amongst the attendees were Martin Reiser, Jess Laccetti and others, including Prof Sue Thomas, mine and Jess's supervisor. We were trying to tackle the subject of transliteracy (the ability to think and work across multiple platforms, from orality to new media objects).

The first "women and tech" meeting I ever went to was a weekend workshop in Berlin that was organized by a group of university women there. I read their announcement on the first mailing list I was ever subscribed to, replied that I was interested, and got on a train to Berlin.

From the time I first changed from the mailbox system CrossPoint to email in the mid-90s, the only email program I have used is pine.

I don't usually reblog here but this just looks soooo excellent/disturbing. Far too much to see but worth a try. ============================================== INTIMACY Across Visceral and Digital Performance www.intimateperformance.org Goldsmiths | Laban | The Albany | Home | Online 7, 8 & 9 December THREE DAYS OF PERFORMANCES, WORKSHOPS, SEMINARS, SHOW & TELL PRESENTATIONS, HAPPENINGS and a 1-DAY SYMPOSIUM LOADS OF FREE EVENTS LAUNCH: FRIDAY 7 DEC., 6:30-11PM @ GOLDSMITHS

My 16 year-old sister got her exam results this week. She did brilliantly well, and the whole family were celebrating with her this weekend. Everyone was jubilant, especially as she had often been told by her teachers that she wasn't trying hard enough, that she was going to fail (particularly in sciences) - which she eventually aced. Someone brought out the newspaper and triumphantly pointed out her school, which came number 4 in the league tables of state schools for GCSE results. I then heard her speaking about the other students in her class. She knew what each of them had got, and rattled them off: 'Alistair got 5 A's, 3 B's and a C, the same as Corrie and James, Ellie got 7 A*'s and two A's, the bitch...' then finally this degenerated into 'She got 2 more A*'s than me, but she's got a huge arse, and I know I did well and everything, but all my friends did too and they're thin!'. I should point out that my sister is a beautiful size, perfectly normal and healthy for her age.

Marc and I are here in Banff for Interactive Screen 0.7- User Friendly is Not Enough. The mountains are huge, and all around us, the food is excellent and the programme is an ambitious exploration and critique of web 2.0 by curators, artists, software-developers, game-developers, entrepreneurs, lawyers. A full programme of talks runs alongside an 'intensive' workshop for 14 scholars developing new projects with the support of their peers.

Since yesterday was a holiday in Austria, I rather frivolously decided to take the day off from translating and devote my attention to some things I had been wanting to do for two projects that I am involved. I especially wanted to explore the space where they intersect from opposite directions: "social networking". So I posted some questions and information to the relevant lists and announced that I would be available all day via email, irc or Skype and set off from there to start exploring the kinds of online spaces where people are supposed to be able to connect with one another.

Once upon a time, air travel was glamorous, exciting, something different from everyday ordinary life. Wasn’t it? I think that’s what I remember from my childhood, that’s what it looks like in old films. So how did air travel come to be a form of mass transportation? And an increasingly unpleasant form of mass transportation at that? In fact, I am beginning to suspect that more sinister forces are somehow at work here. I have started developing my own personal conspiracy theory about it.

this week's visitor is much more mundane than the snake. it's left permanent damage (chewing through the seal on the fridge door) but was easier & cheaper to remove: kevin set a wire trap baited with a piece of apple, & sure enough in the morning a large brown rat was frantically trying to get out. louise took it off to some nearby bushy area to release.