Imaginify Community Network :: imagine if i . . . read the good news

Organizations: "Intersection Repair" by The American Public Health Association

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 - 07:06 PM

The American Journal of Public Health recently published a study (field action report) featuring Metamedia collaborator, Mark Lakeman of City Repair Project.
"The Intersection of Urban Planning, Art, and Public Health: The Sunnyside Piazza."

(CC) Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

A Quote from the Abstract:

"...In an attempt to invigorate neighborhood stewardship, the community organized and created a public gathering place; together, they painted a gigantic sunflower in the middle of an intersection and installed several interactive art features. As a result of these collective actions of "place-making," social capital has increased, thus revitalizing the community, and expanded social networks among residents have stimulated a sense of well-being..."
- Jan C. Semenza, PhD, MPH, MS
School of Community Health, College of Urban and Public Affairs, Portland State University, Oregon

View: Abstract | Full Text | Figures Only | Download: PDF

Blogs: Flexibility & Trusting Metaphor

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - 02:48 AM

*NEW* FROM BERKMAN CENTER @ HARVARD LAW
"What Ben Franklin Teaches us about Intellectual Property"
or “I Own Creative Content, Therefore I Am, Not”
MP3 AUDIO | MP4 VIDEO

- Lewis Hyde, Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing, Kenyon College &
Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University
Author: Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art

"We have lived by the assumption that
what was good for us would be good for the world.
We have been wrong.
We must change our lives, so that it will be possible
to live by the contrary assumption that
what is good for the world will be good for us. . .
We must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation
and the ability to be worshipful in its presence.
For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world
that our species will be able to remain in it."
- Wendell Berry, American man of letters, academic and farmer

Organizations: Metropolitan Museum of Art Pioneering Open Access

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 01:52 AM

Initiative to Provide Digital Images to Scholars at No Charge
"In a new initiative designed to assist scholars with teaching, study, and the publication of academic works, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will distribute, free of charge, high-resolution digital images from an expanding array of works in its renowned collection for use in academic publications... effective immediately. Scholars – in higher education and in museums – have been struggling with the question of how digitization might help to enable, rather than hinder, scholarly communications. For all involved, it is obvious that, when faced with an important directional challenge, the Metropolitan is providing decisive leadership."

"...often referred to simply as "the Met", is one of the world's largest and most important art museums." (wikipedia) "It first opened on February 20, 1872 with a mission to collect, preserve, and display works of art spanning 5,000 years of world culture from every part of the globe, and to educate the public about art – is the most comprehensive art museum in the Western Hemisphere with a collection now including more than two million works of art."

Title: Deutsch: Einschiffung nach Kythera
Artist: Watteau, Antoine
Source: Wikipedia, public domain
License: GNU Free Documentation License, The Yorck Project

Projects: Santa Barbara: Art, Science and Community: Analog & Digital Unite

Sunday, January 21, 2007 - 01:52 PM

Come support this event and Help... Heal The Ocean!
The ocean can no longer be used as a dump!

Course of Action: instead of lobbying the government for action on ocean-pollution issues, we study the problem ourselves and recommend practical solutions. We undertake scientific studies to identify sources of pollution - from leaking sewer pipes, offshore sewage disposal, leaking coastal landfills or septic systems.

They test for viruses in the ocean, creeks and groundwater to determine if human sources of pollution are present, and what are the likely sources. In cooperation with Santa Barbara County, Heal the Ocean pioneered both the use of environmental DNA testing and virus testing in the local area.

Blogs: From CounterCulture to CyberCulture to WorldChanging to Customized Courses... news @ infinitum [[UPDATED]]

Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - 05:08 PM

"Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive..."
-StewBrand, The First Hackers' Conference, circa 1984
"At some level, the expression does carry the moral judgement that
"Information should be free": the idea that access to information and
knowledge should not necessitate a class war,
that such access is a basic human right,
and, as technology improves, the whole of humanity
should be able to partake in its gifts and services."
- Wikipedia, circa 2006
(All text is available under the terms of
the GNU Free Documentation License)

From MURL Seminar Archive, Stanford, CA

--- circa 2003 ---
From Counterculture To Cyberculture: How The Whole
Earth Catalog Brought Us "Virtual Community."
VIDEO *

--- circa 2005 ---
Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy: Revisiting
the WELL and the Origins of Virtual Community.

--- circa 2006 ---
From Counterculture to Cyberculture: StewBrand, the Whole
Earth Network and the Rise of Digital Utopianism.
INTRO | EXCERPT **

Synchronisticly, Worldchanging: The Book is being made available NOW!

--- circa late 2006 ---
From The Legacy of the Whole Earth Catalog

Stanford University Libraries & Department of Communication
INVITE | VIDEO

"Leading a Double Life" 10/25/2006
From the Berkman Center at Harvard University.
Their mission is to explore and understand cyberspace,
its development, dynamics, norms, standards,
and need or lack thereof for laws and sanctions.
They are a research center, premised on the observation
that what we seek to learn is not already recorded.
Their method is to build out into cyberspace,
record data as we go, self-study, and publish.
Their mode is entrepreneurial nonprofit.
Presents:
From Counterculture to Cyberculture:
The Rise of Digital Utopianism
MP3 AUDIO | MP4 VIDEO

By Fred Turner [FredTurner]
Department of Communication, Stanford University

--- circa 2007 ---
University of California at Berkeley, School of Information
Howard Rheingold/Qiang Xiao
Participatory Media / Collective Action
Part I: Participatory Media and Theory of Networks
Part II: Communication, Media and Cyberpower
Part III: Networked Activism
"...Instructors and students will discuss finalizing the wiki
we have contructed over the previous ten weeks and publishing it
as a public resource on collective action and participatory media.
We'll discuss how to maintain and grow this resource in the future.
We will speculate about future possibilities, given the technologies,
social forces, and cultural trends discussed during previous weeks,
and about ways in which media can be used to strengthen democracy,
advance human freedom and dignity, and enable sustainable development."

*NEW*
The National Autonomous University of Mexico
Cyberculture and Cybercultur@&lt;/b>

"emphasize three directions of meaning
from the elements that compose the neologism:
the Greek prefix “Κψβερ” (cyber),
the Latin word “cultur”,
and I will take analogically
the spiral form of the sign “@”...
“cybercultur@”
- Jorge A. González, Professor, Latin American Media
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
FlowTV, Vol.5, April 20, 2007