Monday, February 06, 2006

Dada to EPIC

Happy 90th birthday, Dada! The first Cabaret Voltaire was held on February 5th, 1916, at Spiegelgasse 1, Zurich, Switzerland. 391 has a podcast to celebrate the anniversary.
As well the "Google is Evil" campaign continues with "Epic: What is it?" a short video looking at the implications of user driven news content. By a Matrix-like Morpheus voice we are quickly taken through a 30 year history of user driven content in digital media and the possible outcomes of the decline of the fourth estate. I myself, being a refugee from the fourth estate, believe that it not only technology that is driving this thing but broader issues as well such as ownership, literacy, economic gain, identity (particularly global) and the changing nature of the text. It could be said that some of it started at Spiegelgasse 1, Zurich in 1919 with the beginning of the flight from time. Nowadays there is money to be made in showing people how to "be themselves" (whatever that means).

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