Lessig at Edinburgh Science Festival

Online Copyright guru and Wired columnist, Lawrence Lessig, is appearing at Edinburgh Science Festival this coming Saturday (2nd April). This is a particularly timely event given that the future of net based file sharing is about to be dramatically affected by the MGM vs Grokster case currently underway in the US Supreme Court. I'll be there.

"Now that information is increasingly in electronic form, contract law may forbid you lending a book to a friend. What effect will this have on public access to ideas and expression? Enter Lawrence Lessig, named a visionary for arguing 'against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation [...]', and champion of 'open source'. Question him and a panel drawn from technology, law and publishing, and discuss crucial issues of policy, regulation and civil liberties."

Transparent Screen

Transparent Screen - thefreak6767
Originally uploaded by w00kie.

Another cool idea seen on Flickr. I know everyone's blogging this just now but some of these are fantastic.

Inmybag

Inmybag001
Originally uploaded by scottr.

The great thing about Flickr is the way ideas just take off and spread like wildfire. I've been enjoying seeing the contents of people's bags. Here's my contribution.

Warhol Self Portraits

The Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh is showing the first exhibition entirely devoted to Andy Warhol's self portraits. I have to confess I burned out on Warhol a few years ago and haven't paid him any serious attention since but this exhibition was a revelation. The self portrait has always been an artist's most reliable source of inspiration, if yr mojo ain't working you always have yrself to work on. This series documents Warhol's examination of himself right through his career from his earliest days at art school to his final works. In many ways he was his own best subject, he was like a blank canvas allowing the painting and printing techniques to supply meaning. His appearance changes dramatically across the works, in some of the early screen prints he looks just like Michael Cain in Get Carter while he's hardly recogniasble in the fright wig and drag series. Great stuff.

Holy Hymnen!

The Triptych festival has gone from strength to strength in it's short lifespan with an expansively eclectic range of performers appearing at venues in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh over four days. This year they've achieved a major coup having secured the services of one Karlheinz Stockhausen. Stockhausen will perform his electronic compositions Kontakte and Octophonie amongst others, in both Glasgow and Edinburgh in April.

I saw him perform his most revolutionary piece, Hymnen at the Stockhausen Festival at London's Barbican a few years ago. There he performed a live multi channel mix with the audience in total darkness. It was a surreal and almost hallucinatory experience, sitting in the dark with several thousand people listening to his mind bending compositions. Triptych promises to be similarly intense.

" An unrivalled sonic innovator whose fascination with technology and contemporary art inspired the genesis of popular music, Stockhausen's legacy has infiltrated and informed popular and alternative culture for almost 70 years."