There is more to life than blogs ;) - and though there is sadly not a lot of activity in the Nordic countries when it comes to producing online and digital literature and poetry, there are some nordic artists and writers out there doing some really beautiful and great work. In the ELINOR (Electronic LIterature in the NORdic countries) network, that I have been part of for the last couple of years, we have had some clever people working with us, collecting what they could find of work within this field. Links and descriptions of all the works are online now at Elinor.nu. The catalogue will be officially launched at the University of Bergen today. A great feature of it is that you can add works to the collection, so if you find any work missing, let us know through the form on the website!

Cutting and pasting from Jill, who has been the network coordinator and who put a lot of work into making the catalogue happen (thanks, Jill!), here is the list of contributors that I also want to extend a thank you:
The descriptions were written by (and most of the works collected by) Marko Niemi (Finland), Karen Wagner (Denmark), Maria Engberg (Sweden) og Hans-Kristian Rustad (Norway). Solveig Smedstad did a lot of work coordinating all this and creating a brochure earlier this year, and she’s also helped migrate the catalogue to its permanent system. Pixelpikene did the design and programming.

The Elinor network for electronic literature in the Nordic countries was initiated by Jill Walker, Susana Tosca, Raine Koskimaa, Patrick Svensson, Søren Pold, Thomas Brevik and yours truly.

Fyi, as a local supplement to elinor.nu, the best place to look for Danish electronic poetry and artwork is AfsnitP, don't forget to visit there once in while!
# posted by Lisbeth at: 13:29 (0) comments

I have returned to ITU for a day to attend "the first european symposium on computer games & emotions", organised by Olli Leino, a Finnish ph.d.student at ITU doing at ph.d. on emotion in games. Speakers include Marc Hassenzahl who has done some interesting work trying to describe (emotional) interactive experiences in general, Jakob de Lemos from a new Danish company producing emotional entertainment technology and Martin Pichlmair who is speaking on design instruments for games.

The talks so far have been interesting, but somewhat hampered by the fact that apparently all speakers feel a need to explain what emotions are, starting from the bottom-up, before they go into their own research. I think this is a typical problem and/or occurrence at "first" conferences. But also interesting to see that people from different academic define and describe emotions very differently.

Puzzling (but not surprising?) fact is also that only 20% of the audience are women (roughly 10 women and 50 men), I would have expected more at an event like this.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 12:11 (0) comments

Never say never - when I did my talk on "Web 2.0" at the end of last month, I claimed that I didn't know of any Danish cultural institutions that used a blog. Shame on me. Not only did I shortly after discover the blog of the Turbotown project, now it turns out that two members of the Royal Opera Choir have been blogging about their life as singers "behind" the scene since early november (thanks, Politiken, for the link). It's a blogspot blog using a standard template, and there are no pictures of the writers, descriptions of or direct links to them, so it comes across as somewhat anonymous (you wonder: who are the voices speaking? don't they want to express anything with their design? etc), but the content seems serious, interesting and engaged at a first glance and that is the most important criteria of success, especially in the beginning, I believe.

On a sidenote, I tried to track down the identity of both writers, but it turns out that two "Ole's" are singing in the choir, so who are you, Ole-blogger? (because Im quite sure that I took singing lessons with the Ole Norup-Ole several years ago, that's how small Denmark is...).
# posted by Lisbeth at: 14:18 (2) comments

Today I appeared briefly on national morning tv, in the slot of TV 2 GoMorgen Danmark (if you have a pc and want to pay, you can even view the clip if you follow the link from the webpage ;)). I was there with two journalists from the newish free newspaper 24timer, to talk about Second Life, one of the largest, if not currently THE largest entertainment & soical world online (SL is NOT a MMOG in anyway, IMO).

What spawned the interview, is the fact that 24timer is about to open an editorial sanctuary inside Second Life, and is the first Danish business to actually set up house there (Innovation Lab, IBM and Computerworld were the first to make a group: "House of Horizons" but they havent created a physical dwelling in the world yet).

24timer's idea is to tell stories from Second Life in the print paper (apparently there are around 5000 Danish users of Second Life, so in terms of reader numbers it does make sense that this iniative is oriented towards readers of the print paper, not world users), and to make it possible for people in the world to read the print paper from the santuary and play around in the house as such . So far the experiment lasts for a week or so - and the journalists I spoke to seem pretty dedicated, so I will hang around to keep track, I think. They have also hired a "house artists" to build and decorate their place, so also as a design project it will be interesting to follow.

The print version of 24timer today features the Second Life initiative on the frontpage, and they have also devoted an entire page inside the paper to the world (you can read the paper as pdf via the website). Progressive move, guys. There are a lot of potential in a world like Second Life, which as world is "famous" for letting users create their own objects and following keep the ownership of them, and it is interesting to see what online world reporting will turn out to be. However what I have seen so far has given me the impression that SL is a extremely commodified space, inhabited mainly by people who are in it for the Linden$. I hope that what the journalists can report from SL will prove me wrong...
# posted by Lisbeth at: 13:52 (2) comments

   
Rock Paper Scissor by Klast                                     Gotan Project by Tinze at Flickr

During the last week, I have had two amazing digital multimedia music experiences. The first happened last friday, where I went to see a showing of Fritz Lang's Frau Am Mond silent movie, with live accompaniment by a Berlin laptop/electronica collective, Rock, Paper, Scissor. Even though I was forced to sit on a narrow bench for three hours in a cold, dark and damp room (the event took place in an old storage room converted to bar & event site), it was worth it. As one who likes classical music and has seen a fair part of classical concerts in brightly lit rooms, I'm still fascinated by the fact that a "concert" can consist of three guys gazing intently into the screen of their laptops in a semi-lit sombre setting for a long period of time. Nevertheless their staring (and of course intense sliding and typing) can produce amazing experiences, especially in combination with a visual backdrop, such as was the case with the Lang concert. I was amazed at the group's ability to emotionally underline - even cue - the events in the film, on both a psychological and physical level. For instance, they had a nice little "leit motif" going for the female lead, and an impressive "rocket launch" dumb bass that almost shook me of my seat. - If you want a soundbite, visit Mondofunza who also covered the event.

Yesterday, I went to another electronic concert, Gotan Project at Store Vega. Gotan project excels in making modern tango music with a pronounced electronica twist, yet drawing on the tradition of Astor Piazzolla and argentine tango culture. What Solal, Makaroff and Muller who founded the group have done, are to draw in musicans playing real instruments, so on the scene yesterday there were 3 violinists, a contrabas player, a digital? grand piano player, a bandoneon player (featured front stage), a classical guitarist and on occasion a female lead singer. The combination of the electonic music with the live performed music was very powerful, but nevertheless the song that was most amazing, was the song with two argentinian rappers, not performing live, but on the big screen that was projected behind and on the stage itself (since all performers dressed in white and all objects were covered in white cloth, projections could be seen on them as well), and filmed in a way, that made us, the audience feel, that they were really there. In fact, there were small "stories" projected on the screen for each song, so also this concert came across as an immersive multimedia experience.
//Fyi, to be a little bit nationalistic, Efterklang is a good example of a Danish ensemble also doing amazing stuff, combining electronica, live musicans and movies//

I'm wondering if we will come to expect - or it is already sort of a genre convention - that digital music/electronica performances include a visual "backdrop" - or perhaps more precisely, component. Has this need to combine electonic music with images grown out of a generation of performers who themselves are used to always having a visual backdrop (the tv) to their playing around with the computer? Has it emerged because the performers have felt a need to actually provide something more entertaining to look at than themselves sitting in front of the computer screens? Is it simply a new way of making and performing music, where you can no longer distinguish between images and the playing of music, because the concert experience just IS the experience of interplay between images and music, a postmodern revival of the combination of silent movies and live music, in which the music controls and defines the images, not the other way round? And how will that impact our understanding of what music is?

Interesting questions to ponder, I think, but the main thing is that the music was great in both cases!
# posted by Lisbeth at: 14:09 (0) comments

Thumbs up for Robert Redford whose Sundance Institute is financing an effort "to bring short films from independent filmakers to mobile phones". Sundance and GSM is co-funding the project the films of which will premier at the 3GSM World Congress in February next year. Redford and guys is definitely on to something, I think, short film made by pros for the breaks where you are bored while waiting for the bus, and fiddling with your phone anyway, might just be a viable concept. It will be interesting to see what visual and narrative strategies they develop in order to storytell with this medium. Read more here: Getting Redford on the Phone.
- Oh, and by the way, this article is the first article, I've seen, that employs the word "mobisodes" (about the "24 hours" series for mobile) - wonder if that term will have staying power?

And finally, talking about mobile phones, today a friend showed me that with the new Ericsson mobile k800i, there is a pre-installed "blog this" option installed as part of the 3MB camera functions. Works instantly, pretty nifty. And if you're more of a Flickr than a Blogger-type, Nokia has teamed up with Flickr for the same kind of functionality, apparently.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 18:53 (0) comments

This week, Copenhagen saw its first "Customer Experience" conference. The Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende has interviewed some of the speakers and one of them is Martin Lindstrøm, a leading "brand guru", at least in a Scandinavian context (I have recommended his books on branding online to my students several times). In his interview: Giv brugeren magten (All Power to the Users, in Danish alas), he discusses how companies have to give up control if they want to have a credible and successful online presence, branding is now longer about controlling the communication of the brand in meticulous detail, but giving up control. He mentions customer-made products (Nike..etc) and the blog of GM as examples of companies that's gotten it "right". In relation to for instance blogs he emphasises that the more power you give your employees (to blog etc), the more power the brand will get, because it is perceived as "human", with flaws, and not trying to appear flawless.

He also says that being online requires a lot of attention; quote "you can't be half online, just as well as you can't be half pregnant"; and that increasingly, companies have to be aware that creating a cool, customer-experience oriented website is only half the work. Being visible and getting "in" there on the top of the Google search list is equally important. Or thinking in terms of "contextual branding", giving the right user the right information at the right point in time (for instance, relevant google adds based on your search pattern); as an example he also mentions a pretty interesting example from Tokyo, where he was called up on his mobile and told that a business connection was in the area, and if he'd like to meet with the guy at the nearby Starbucks, SB would pay the coffee for them. Granted, that's smart..

(longish summary, but since interview in Danish, thought I'd share with the English-reading readers)
# posted by Lisbeth at: 10:09 (0) comments

Artnode, one of the few (if not the only) art collectives contributing to the digital arts scene in Denmark, has organised an interesting looking and unusual seminar this friday on (also digital) art practices, art and copyright - at the House of Politiken, next to the city hall. You can find the programme (in Danish) at the CPH DOX website. Speakers are all artists engaged in art practices challenging the notion of copyright, so it won't be a "theoretical" discussion, but more an insight on how artists in practice works with the concept. Speakers include Olivier Schulbaum (the "Burn Station" project) and Hans Bernard from Ubermorgen, who discusses a new project "Amazon Noir".

I'll be there - so see you around?
# posted by Lisbeth at: 12:19 (0) comments

Later today, Im off for the rest of the week, spending it looking at the beautiful mountains of Bergen, but mostly inside a room on the top of the hill where the Humanties part of the University of Bergen is situated, in the company of those of my guild members and other scholars who are also contributing to an anthology about WoW (World of Warcraft). Two days of discussing and commenting on each others chapter drafts (the chapter drafts I've read so far looks great), socialising with people like Torill, Jill, Hilde and Ragnhild, old friends and colleagues by now, and meeting new people that I have so far only met as WoW characters, who all seem nice and smart. And we might also play WoW, just a little bit, I suspect. It's events like this that makes it great to be a researcher!
# posted by Lisbeth at: 09:53 (1) comments

The first case in Denmark that I have heard of so far: a Danish employee has been fired for thrashing his company and his boss in his private blog. Apparently, this man left a boss-employee talk rather depressed and wrote on his blog that his boss was incompetent and the company broke (or something to that effect). The union that represented him (HK) estimated that he would not win the courtroom case if he sued them for firing him because of these statements, because explicit slandering on the blog of this kind both violates the employee's expected loyalty towards the company and reveals "company secrets" (går imod markedsføringsloven paragraf om erhvervshemmeligheder). So he remained fired, but got a settlement (i.e. sin fratrædelsesgodtgørelse) outside the courtroom.

For the legal technicalities, see this statement on the homepage of the Bender, Von Haller, Dragsted law firm: "Afskediget for at blogge" - they are law firm specialising in IT and one of the partners, Martin von Haller Grønbæk probably one of the people in the Denmark that knows most about laws and regulations in relation to the internet. See also this article in Erhvervsbladet.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 09:47 (0) comments

Earlier this week, when giving my talk about web2.0, I claimed that the only blog I knew about in the Danish theatre world was Kasper Holten's (Creative Manager of the Opera) now deceased blog about the staging of Wagner's Ring. However, I have just come across the blog of the theatre initiative Turbotown, the blog itself simply called TurboTown. Turbotown is not a performance, but an entire crazy universe happening at the "Lille Turbine" scene. It involves the performance of a weekly soap episode (read from teleprompter), ad-hoc performances, reality tv, visits from artists and DJ's etc. That's also the reason why you can buy an all-season access card to the universe, rather than just a ticket for a singular performance. Sounds like an interesting initiative - I look forward to following how they work with building this entire universe. (Via Politiken)
# posted by Lisbeth at: 09:32 (0) comments

Det digitale Fællesskab[The Digital Community]is a book in progress, so far readable - and editable - at the linked webpage. The author, Karsten Bengtsson, a Danish freelance journalist situated in San Francisco, has chosen to make his draft chapters availabe online, for users to co-edit and comment on. In the preface, Karsten writes:
Det har været hensigten – med udgangspunkt i overstående – at skrive en bog, der debatterer den enkelte borgers rolle i det nye mediebillede. Med henvisninger til aktuelle eksperimenter, interviews med ledende forskere og aktører, samt en gennemgang af medie-relevante teknologier – har jeg forsøgt at skabe et ”manifest”, som forhåbentlig kan inspirere alle i mediebranchen . Just perused some of the chapter introduction, it looks like an interesting and solid read about "web2.0", "the social web" etc. It will, according to Ejour, where I found the link, be published by Tiderne Skifter.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 16:09 (0) comments