Uptown Magazine - February 26/09
The Yes Men Lecture
Legendary culture jammers The Yes Men will be in town for a lecture and Q&A on March 3 at The Winnipeg Art Gallery. Known for their attention- grabbing stunts - which include printing their own version of the New York Times, posing as spokespeople for major corporations on TV and launching several fake websites - The Yes Men have used a variety of methods to thumb their noses at market-driven capitalism. “Delving deep into the question of why we have given the market more power than any other institution to determine our direction as a society, they visit the twisted (and accidentally hilarious) underworld of the free-market think tanks, where they figure out a way to defeat the logic that’s destroying our planet,” explains TheYesMen.org. “And as they appear on the BBC before 300 million viewers, or before 1,000 New Orleans contractors alongside Mayor Ray Nagin, the layers of lies are peeled back to reveal the raw heart of truth - a truth that brings with it hope.”
Twisten
One of the big reasons the use of social-networking and micro-blogging service Twitter has exploded over the past year is third-party applications such as Twisten. Although Facebook has slowly given more control to developers since its start, when it didn’t allow third-party apps, Twitter has taken the notion a step further and given programmers free rein to create stand-alone tools using information pulled from Twitter. Since Twitter’s launch over two years ago, hundreds of applications have gone live. Some of the most popular third-party apps include Twittermap, Tweetscan and Twittervision. Launched this month, Twisten scours and indexes what people are listening to on Twitter. It’s an innovative way to discover new music and many of the tracks can be downloaded for free, while some music is available on-demand and can’t be downloaded. The tool provides an interesting snapshot of what music is being ‘tweeted’ about by the over-6-million users on the third-largest social-networking community on the web.
Qik
With nearly every cell phone on the market equipped with photo and video capabilities, more mobile-sharing tools such as Radar, I Took This on My Phone and Twitpic are popping up. One of the new kids on the block is Qik, which lets you easily share and broadcast video from your mobile phone. Along with working as online storage for your short clips, Qik is quickly becoming the go-to site for mobile digital video content.
Quick Hits
SXSW
Someone has put together a torrent featuring MP3s from nearly every band appearing at the South by Southwest music conference in Austin this spring.
Bird Watchers of North America
Online home of a new collaborative art project between former Winnipegger Tyson Bodnarchuk, and fellow artists Aya Kakeda (New York) and Garrett Van Winkle (Winnipeg).
Jeff Mills interview
Lengthy interview with reclusive Detroit techno DJ Jeff Mills in which he discusses his new album, The Sleeper Wakes, how Expo 67 influenced him as a child, and his vision of the future.
