Salut!

I am still quite unsure how to introduce these weekly collections of links. What do cyberpunk cat-like whiskers for humans, fablabs, a psychopathic A.I. with disturbing Rorschach tests results, infrared macro photography of cactuses, and most-potent-magic-mushrooms trip reports have in common? You tell me.

1. 👩‍💻 Cyberpunk is not about dark future and noir aesthetic. It can be also be cute and fun!
2. 👨‍💻 Fablabs are at the forefront on how to collect data for citizen action. A key tool for smart city projects. How Barcelona shushed noise-makers with sensors. While the finality of the project might be questionnable, it is still remarkable how data can be used by citizens for a change.
3. 📸 I published a series on anger. They are all analog photographies, without any editing.
4. 🔐 A worrying thread on reddit for anybody traveling to some parts of China near the Uyghur population: Chinese border police install software on a traveller’s Android device.
5. 🔑👩‍💻 Pinar Yanardag, Manuel Cebrian, and Iyad Rahwan , all working at the MIT Media Lab, created an image-captioning AI and fed it with gore images from a subreddit. Once trained, they asked it to caption Rorschach inkblots and compared the results from a standard AI. Results are a bit disturbing!
6. 🔑 An interesting idea and point of view by Paul Stamets: “Plants and mushrooms have intelligence, and they want us to take care of the environment, and so they communicate that to us in a way we can understand.” Why us? “We humans are the most populous bipedal organisms walking around, so some plants and fungi are especially interested in enlisting our support. Michael Pollan on what it’s like to trip on the most potent magic mushroom.
7. 📸 Suprachromacy is a project by Marcus Wendt who used infrared macro photography of cacti to create images questioning our own sense of perception.
8. ℹ️ The cool people at ThePudding ask this question: Are Hit Songs Becoming Less Musically Diverse?and answer with a hell lot of data. Last year, they were also ranking rappers by their vocabulary.

Happy reading,

Marc

Hey,

1. ℹ️ The German police raided homes of „Zwiebelfreunde“ privacy activists this week. Reasons are dubious to say the least.
2. 🎧 Martyn’s new album ‎Voids is out on Ostgut Ton. I love his music.
3. 🔑 Protecting cryptocurrencies correctly is hard. This talk about “Building Crypto Castles” raises interesting points about new security models coming with the Information Age.
4. 👨🏻‍💻 Cryptocurrencies is not only about money. It is also about rare digital collectibles. Collectibles can be purchased on specialized marketplaces like OpenSea or Known Origin. Technically, collectibles are defined by the ERC-721 standard. Don’t know how to code? Don’t worry, the fine people of Smartzprovide free smart-contract code.
5. 👩‍💻👩‍🎨 Crypto-collectibles are huge opportunities for digital-minded artists as they can help expand Patronage Collectibles for Creators.
6. 📺🇫🇷 La nouvelle saison d’Au Service De La France est disponible sur Arte+7. C’est du bonheur! Jean-François Halin prouve encore qu’il est un des meilleurs auteurs comiques Français.

A bientôt,

Marc

Salut!

Do I want to write an intro? No. So here we go with a very futuristic link selection.

1. 👩‍🎨👨‍💻🔑 This is the most fascinating article I ever read on Art, AI, and Blockchain: Does AI Art Belong in the Physical, Digital, or Crypto World?.
2. 🎧 I love this psychedelic groove: Marhaba by Maalem Mahmoud Guinia, Floating Points & James Holden.
3. 🔐 Oli Frost has put all his personal Facebook data on eBay. Yes, you can really bid!
4. 🔐 Nathan Toups has wrote a good article on going completely “Unquantified“. He also wrote a censorship resistant deadman’s switch. Do we live in a cyberpunk world? Absolutely!
5. 👩‍💻👩‍🎨 You have to watch the videos/gifs of Madeline Gannon training industrial robots to use body language to communicate.
6. 🔑 If you’re wondering how I often feel about technology: This is how I feel.
7. 🎧 For some reasons, I spent a few days only listening to FIP (the best musical radio, and it’s french!). I created a playlist with some tunes I like.

Happy reading,

Marc

Salut!

I don’t have much to share this week. I spent less time surfing the web and more time enjoying the real life.

1. Joanna Swirska is a tattoo artist from Poland who creates trippy tattoos with neon-like green and blue.
2. AMA – a short film by Julie Gautier. A beautiful underwater choregraphy by Julie Gautier, a free diving champion.
3. L.B. Dub Corp (a.k.a. Luke Slater) released a techno album called Side Effects on his own imprint Mote Evolver. I love his former album Unknown Origin released in 2013 on Ostgut Ton.
4. SeekSickSound premiered Flore’s Iskaba released on LowUp for their 10th anniversary.
5. Mark Burgess released some Promise Theory notes applied to Blockchain / Consensus.

Happy reading,

Marc

1. La Quadrature du net engagera une action collective contre les GAFAM. Inscrivez-vous !
2. Walls and Skin, a tattoo shop in multiple cities in the Netherlands, offers you to preserve your tattoos after your death. One of the cofounder, Judith Van Bezu, even released a thesis.
3. Childish Gambino released a new music video called “This is America”, directed by Hiro Murai. An analysis on Twitter. The Lyrics and their explanation. The New Yorker article about the video.
4. Spotify removes artists from playlist as part of New Hate Content & Hateful Conduct Policy. L’article en Français.
5. The Sisyphus Kinetic Art Table is a handcrafted, smart, and meditative coffee table. A Raspberry-pi controlled marble continuously draws in Kinetic sand mandala-like drawings. Hypnotic!
6. eVolo‘s 2018 Skyscraper competition winner is a concept for a foldable skyscraper for disaster zones named Skyshelter.zip, by Damian Granosik, Jakub Kulisa, and Piotr Pańczyk.
7. Daniel DeNicola, a Professor of Philosophy at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, argues in a short but dense piece that You don’t have a right to believe whatever you want to.