Victor Burgin recalls some of the cities he has known in a way familiar to all who have traveled, by showing photographs and telling anecdotes. Some Cities gathers places and moments along a life route that the author has taken from the north of England to his present home in northern California. Stops on the way include such disparate sites as London, Berlin and Warsaw; Singapore, Woomera and Tokyo; New York and San Francisco; and the islands of Stromboli and Tobago.

Some Cities is unlike anything Burgin has ever done before, although it explores characteristic themes of his earlier theoretical and visual works, such as the dimensions of politics and sexuality in everyday life.

“Burgin traces his life’s route from the north of England through such metropolises as London, Berlin, Singapore, Tokyo, New York and San Francisco in brilliant black and white photographs and in anecdotes presented in immaculate prose.”—The Guardian

Portsmouth invests money in mother of big brother….
Our social agenda and relationship to city space is being driven, “re-designed”; re engineered without thought by local councillors and policemen who are creating a society of mistrust. Haven’t they got something better to spend money on , ie schools, education, buses etc etc These guys just don’t seem to knowo what to spend the council tax money on so they keep buying and investing in CCTV.

Anti-social behaviour has become a familiar sight in some towns and cities across the country.

Now there’s a new weapon in the fight against it called Smart CCTV. Portsmouth City Council is the first, and so far only, local authority in the UK to try out the new system. It’s a computer programme that has been integrated into the city’s existing network of 152 cameras and has been programmed to spot unusual behaviour in places and at times when it’s not expected. For example, a speeding car being driven around an empty car park could be a joy rider or someone running through a deserted shopping precinct late at night might be a vandal.

When those and similar scenarios are ’spotted’ by the software, using special parameters from programmers, an alarm is sounded which alerts CCTV operators to that particular camera.

It’s already been used in parts of seven cities across America, in places like New York and Washington DC, where the feedback has been positive. Nick Hewitson helped design the version Portsmouth City Council is using.

He said: “It filters out all the rubbish video that you don’t want and lets you see the stuff that you do want. “So you’re using human beings for doing what they do well, making subjective decisions on incomplete data.

“And using computers to do what they do well, process tonnes and tonnes of boring data.”

But not everyone in Portsmouth is as convinced by the new system as Ray Stead and Nick Hewitson.

Samilia Narcho, 19, told Newsbeat: “They are lurking a bit too much into people’s business. It’s a bit unfair on people who aren’t doing anything wrong. “It’s a bit too much invasion of privacy. Big Brother going a bit too far.”

But 18-year-old Chris isn’t worried about being watched. He said: “It doesn’t really bother me because I’m not doing anything wrong, so I’ve got nothing to worry about.” Berry, who’s 24, and 21-year-old Becky Pearson have different opinions on the new CCTV system. Berry said: “I think it’s pretty good because there are a lot of idiots in Portsmouth and they need to be kept under wraps.”

Becky added: “I can see why people think it’s a bit too much, with people being too watched.” The Smart CCTV technology is on trial in Portsmouth but if it proves successful, other UK cities could set up similar systems.

So after the councils lost your money which was “invested” offshore in icelandic banks…now they are investing in developin new softwrae for CCTV cameras. Basically Portsmouth is investing your money in mother of big brother….and the best sort of reporting the BBC can come up with is from chris “But 18-year-old Chris isn’t worried about being watched. He said: “It doesn’t really bother me because I’m not doing anything wrong, so I’ve got nothing to worry about.”……either read a little history or read a little science fiction becauase I think there is plenty here to worry about Chris.

So the question is what sort of society do we want to live in twenty years?

Yes good idea lets go for the one where we don’t trust anyone at all, and have to monitor everyone, everywhere, all the time…..brilliant idea….I wish I had thought of that. But then again if I had a software company or CCTV system I would send my sales team be straight down to the local council to sell these idiots these systems too.

Soundbeam. Commercial performance kit.
Desktop Soundbeam is a USB interface plus a software program embodying all the capabilities of Soundbeam 2, plus many new improvements and additions. Up to four sensors and 8 Switches can be connected to the Desktop Soundbeam’s MIDI Interface; the Interface also incorporates three separate MIDI Inputs and Outputs. An unlimited number of User-defined Set-ups – can now be created and saved, for instant recall and re-activation. Set-ups can also now be programmed to be recalled in any order, and any number can be cycled round in this way – either via two of the 8 Switch inputs, or in the form of MIDI program change messages. So that new users can enjoy making music straight away, a number of factory-preset Set-ups are provided, enabling movements in the Beams and operation of the Switches to articulate the Pitch Sequences and sounds for the various soundscapes. Similarly, an unlimited number of Pitch Sequences can be created in addition to notes and chords, the Divisions of a Pitch Sequence can contain MIDI notes, MIDI program change messages or System Exclusive MIDI messages. A number of factory preset standard scales, arpeggios and chord sequences are supplied with the software.

Users can define their own custom variable System Exclusive messages. These then can be assigned to any beam or switch. For example speed position in a beam could be used to vary say reverberation time. A MIDI file can also be selected and triggered from any beam or switch, for a musical accompaniment.

The Sensor event recorder records the activity of any of the beams or switches. This can be saved for subsequent data analysis.

http://www.soundbeam.co.uk/products/desktop-specs.html

Disembodied voices. Art Project
Disembodied voices is a meditation on the nature of public space. It is a visual representation of how different bodies communicate across space, using cell phones as a metaphor for the new translocal of connected, disembodied voices, linked across space invisibly – forming an unseen network of wanderers, always within reach yet nowhere in sight. We now have private conversations in public – and in so doing, these conversations, or at least half of them, become public events, a half-dialogue that no longer knows such a thing as privacy.

The dialogue of mobile telephony has transformed the nature of public space. We now have private conversations in public – and in so doing, these conversations, or at least half of them, become public events, a half-dialogue that no longer knows such a thing as privacy. Engaged in millions of private dialogues, we make less eye contact, talk less to each other in our own community. The network transports us, and our attention, to far away places – while bringing half of our conversations back to our neighbors, leaving them guessing what the other half said. referenced from. http://www.disembodiedvoices.com

The result is an audio cacophony that seems to be a linear audio file .

The future of Painting. Rfid chips in paint.
Tiny radios embedded in paint could be used to pick up sound, detect whether wine or ice cream has been stored properly or even be painted on the heart to prevent arrhythmias. BAE Systems researchers developed the miniature wireless sensors, which are powered by scavenging ambient radiation from the atmosphere.

Dr Karl Brommer, an engineering fellow at BAE Systems, started exploring this technology based on radio frequency identification (RFID) tags in 2002, and filed patents in 2005. ‘People complain that most of the cost in manufacturing RFID tags is not in making the circuit, it’s in placing the circuit on the seed of the antenna, the tag,’ he said.

Brommer proposed a solution that would work like inkjet printing, squirting an ensemble of identical radios near the seed point to create sensor technology with a range of more sophisticated applications than conventional RFID technology.

Though other companies have investigated similar ideas, BAE Systems’ technology has a unique solution to battery-free operation that gives them an almost indefinite shelf life.

‘They could use ambient radiation from mobile phone and television signals, or an interrogator that you point at the micro-radios,’ said Brommer.

The paint is used to package the radios in a similar way to other tiny electronic components and can be included in flexible plastics, electronic ink or organic electronics that can be synthesised chemically.

‘There is no minimum quantity you need to work together to function,’ said Brommer. ‘If you have more of them you can start to create ensembles of radios that radiate coherently, or you can start to create a communication system where each sensor sends a packet of information.’