Moins de vélib qui circulent à Paris quand il fait gris!

I thought that this comment on my old blog was worth sharing with you, for that there is a new blog with data on neo-nomads to feed from. Take a look. The project promises to be cool:

Dear Yasmine Abbas

I tried to find your e-mail address but couldn’t find it, so I try to reach you this way. I m a master student of the Architecture faculty on the TU Delft and at the moment doing a graduation projects on the theme of DigiNomads. Who are people travelling around the world while at the same time executing a job using new communication technologies to keep in touch with the rest of the world. The architectural question I have in this regard is:When living in the global city, what are the implications of living on the edge of global and local identities, for the city networks inside the public realm and the architectural typology of the office and the home?

At the moment I m looking for people that feel a little bit or a lot like the person I described as being a DigiNomad. I would like to ask if you maybe know a way to get in contact with anybody like this or if you could get me in contact with anybody who can tell my about his experiences and in this way help me defining my design constraints better.

For making it possible for all my teachers to follow all the things I m doing I created a blog (http://diginomad.blogspot.com ). And of course for everyone that wants to see what I m doing. Although I m already busy with this project for half a year I only decided to use a blog this past weekend. For now it is still rather empty but I will fill it up from now on and soon it will be not only a communication tool but also a resource bank. I have a weekly poll on my blog, so if you like, feel free to vote, that makes me very happy. The more people vote the better I can from my ideas, so I need people to visit my blog :)

I hope you can help my somehow…

And of course spread the word, you never know where the digital highway will bring you.
Best regards,

Janine Toussaint

tmdenouden@planet.nl

DigiNomad, The Perfect Travel? http://diginomad.blogspot.com

Via the Bartlett Architecture Listing…

Moving into the future?
The next step for mobility
Sunday 28 October, 4.00pm until 5.30pm, Lecture Theatre 2 Salon Debates

Given the opportunity, most people want to travel. Almost any measure of mobility, from car ownership to international flights, shows that we are covering more miles than our parents, and many more than our grandparents. In the past 20 years, the number of trips abroad by UK residents tripled to over 66 million. Whether it’s living further from where we work, spreading our social circle wider, or going on more adventurous holidays, we are embracing the benefits of faster, cheaper transport.But moving around uses energy, and saving energy is the new mantra. Can we, and should we, square the new freedom to move with the desire to reduce the human footprint? Experience shows that making transport more efficient doesn’t save energy, because people simply use that efficiency to make their time and money budget go further - literally.

What mobility should we demand in the future: energy-efficient public transport to tempt more people out of their cars? Smart technology that reduces unnecessary trips through videoconferencing and internet shopping? Or simply more, faster and cheaper ways of getting about that can open up the new freedom to move to everyone on the planet?

Miroir, dis-moi quel est le temps aujourd’hui… Screens invade everyday surfaces. What you see in your mirror is not a simple reflection of an image, maybe not a reflection of the self, but the world outside. Check the Mirror TV developed by Philips Research:

Mirror TV in essence is an LCD display integrated into a mirror, which means that you could surf TV channels, the internet or even view your blood pressure while brushing your teeth or styling you hair, or just admire your reflection.

Cropped image from Philips website.

Un article qui nous fait penser à nos sociétés “on-demand”: Axa veut faire payer l’assuré comme il roule. Dans Challenges! Article du 11-10-2007 par Eric Tréguier. (Merci Mehdi!)

Le principe est simple : la boîte reliée à un GPS transmet régulièrement à l’assureur, via le mobile du client, des statistiques sur l’utilisation du véhicule. La compagnie adapte ensuite la facture. Vous roulez beaucoup et en pleine nuit sur de petites routes ? Vous paierez plus cher que si vous laissez votre voiture au garage ou si vous ne l’utilisez que le midi, du lundi au vendredi. Tout sera détaillé dans votre facture.

Check this fantastic “bahnhof markt” video until the end… a beautiful example of mobility, un clin d’oeil aux frères Lumière, et un beau ballet. Thanks to Sidsel for the info.

bahnhof markt

Long time ago, I was what… 14? 15? Titouan Lamazou came to the Lycée Descartes, the French school of Rabat, to show some of his drawings. Along with the navigator came a gorgeous “brune,” ou “rousse” (du henné peut-être?), une magicienne en falbala, magnifique. I have little memories from my childhood, but this is one of them. Un voyageur-explorateur, Titouan embodied what I always wanted to be… and I haven’t started yet… well…

File from the Hugo Pratt archive

Titouan for me, c’est Corto Maltese, a hero of Hugo Pratt, ou encore Rimbaud (Rimbaud here interpreted by Xavier Pignon-Ernest)… : car à l’age de 17 ans, Titouan décide de créer un carnet de voyage, and to do so embarks on a boat (Rimbaud had not seen the sea when he wrote the Bateau ivre, but was the same age)…

[…] Et Dès lors, je me suis baigné dans le Poème
De la Mer, infusé d’astres, et lactescent,
Dévorant les azurs verts ; où, flottaison blême
Et ravie, un noyé pensif parfois descend ; […]

+ Rimbaud, Le Bateau ivre

Rimbaud par Pignon-Ernest

Check Titouan’s exhibit… Zoé Zoé aura lieu du 11 Octobre 2007 au 30 Mars 2008, à Paris. Au Musée de l’Homme, Titouan parlera de femmes!

Dessin de Titouan Lamazou

Le lien avec mes neo-nomades… l’ IMAGINAIRE

De retour des entretiens des civilisations numériques…

Ci’Num 2007 was the last year of a three-year cycle of conferences involving experts around the world. Invited as expert the first year, and as workshop co-leader and leader this third year, I have to say that I feel that the adventure should not stop here!

This year’s participants elaborated on 4 scenarios [Collapse + Imperialism + New enlightenment + Hundred Thousand Flowers] to imagine their future, and build a world in which they would want to live in:

The mechanics of 2007’s scenarios is based on one major assumption: That the form which our future will take will largely depend on how we address global planetary constraint in terms of environment, climate and exhaustible natural resources.

Scenarios started by the Beijing Olympics and the result of the American election… I know that many of us are impatiently waiting for the current administration to leave :)… but… shouldn’t we think instead about other hot topics like the replacement of fossil fuel? I liked the following maps as they helped navigate the text:

Among the experts: Derrick de Kerckhove, Director of the McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology and Professor in the Department of French at the University of Toronto, Edith Ackermann, Honorary Professor of Developmental Psychology, at the University of Aix-Marseille 1, France. Currently a Visiting Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Siena, Department of Communication. Francis Pisani, consultant in technologies, also known for his influential blog: transnets, Henri Van Damme, director of many research labs at the CNRS before becoming a professor at the Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielle, Isaac Mao, Engineer, the most influential blogger in China and activist, Abdoulah Cissé, law professor at the university of Bambey (Senegal), Izumi Aizu, Deputy Director of the Institute for HyperNetwork Society… Some pictures below…

(Cela dit en passant, I do love taking pictures of screens). Derrick de Kerckhove speaking, and Edith Ackermann at the back, on the right. De Kerkckove gave a beautiful introduction to Ci’Num, inviting us to think about computers as the extension of thoughts… He showed the TED video of Jeff Han.

Mao presented his really interesting concept of “sharism” (not communism or socialism).

Isaac Mao, Edith Ackermann, Abdoulah Cissé, Francis Pisani preparing for the Saturday morning session.

Daniel Kaplan is the creator of the program Ci’Num. He is the “Délégué Général” of the FING (Fondation Internet Nouvelle Génération) and is the President of the European Institute of e-learning, EIfEL. Kaplan, along with Hervé Leguyader, General director of AEC, Agence Aquitaine pour la Societé de l’Information, also did a fantastic job of introducing, presenting, and moderating… the event.

Left, Daniel Kaplan, and Hervé Le Guyader; right, Joël de Rosnay, President of Biotics International and writer, author of 2020: Scenario du futur (2007).

Kaplan elaborated the program with Céline Verchère-Morice, head of usage, and Miguel Aubouy, head of creativity, working at the MINATEC… I can’t help but wanting to let you know what the MINATEC is… It is the Laboratoire d’électronique et de technologie de l’information; Departement Conception et Integration dans les Systèmes; Service Microsystèmes et Objets Communicants, Laboratoire des Idées… (The longest title ever. Sweet ;)

Right, Céline on the foreground; left, Miguel on the foreground.

I co-lead the first workshop with Joël Golder, consultant, Golder Partners, also a collaborator of Daniel Kaplan in the making of the program for Ci’Num. Golder told me that he compiled about 156 methods to lead groups to think creatively. This time, when it came to dissect the scenario and extract ideas for challenges (we had to produce two challenges per scenarios; and we were assigned the following ones: Imperialism and New Enlightenment), Golder asked participants to write on post-its ideas that would play for and against the scenarios… Funny ideas erupted. In a second stage, participants voted for the best ideas to be flushed out to become a challenge.

Some post-its… The TAZ, refers to the text by Hakim Bey: Temporary Autonomous Zone.

Among the total 16 formulated challenges, and after a very long combinatory session, 12 remained to be explored the next day.

I particularly liked Céline and Miguel’s approach to the second day workshop and how they designed it: Participants had to choose a challenge they liked to explore—I was animating the Savoir-vivre la Megapole. The exercise all started by asking participants what was scary about the challenge they chose. The goal was to find solutions, practices, and ways to address fears and by that help people express their desires and decide of actions to take in order to answer their challenge.

Left, on the foreground Dominique Laousse from the RATP, Prospective and Innovative Design; Right, Henri Van Damme sitting, and Joël Golder standing.

Among the challenges and action to take onward, I like the c3rb3r3.net concept, a site for hackers (apparently hackers use the number “3” instead of the letter “E”, so the word is in reality cerbere, the mythological dog with three heads, guardian of the door of Hell) to bring some breath to a sclerosed government; or again the Eden en Réseau project (And not only for the Hell and Paradise association ;) The project intent was to bring people together to learn how to nurture trees, and survey them remotely and in network, like for Tamagotchi, the toy that demands constant attention. These are ideas to be continued… so are the Habemus Corpus, the United Network, the Ethics for Augmentations, the Carbo Dollar, etc…

All actions were presented to the public who was asked to vote for 7 challenges total with the object below:

Voting machine.

I was quite abashed that of the 7 challenges chosen, none was considering the city and its urban environment, and none was attempting to bridge North and South!!! The challenges were presented to politicians on Sunday. As a “concepteur du futur”, I found the reformulation for the politics a little… tamed. I have to say however that I quite admire the ability of Marcel Desvergne, Director of AEC to speak to both the concepteur and the politician ;)

Some action going on… Left, Laurent-Pierre Gilliard from AEC presenting c3rb3r3.net; Right, preparation talk behind the curtains: Eric Culnaert from AEC with Jacques François Marchandise from la FING. Thank you Thierry Ulmet from AEC and Jean-François Laplume for the organization…

Let’s make Ci’Num spread and continue (I did meet wonderful people, and BTW learned that “compteur d’insectes” is a real job, and that every tree in France is tagged!). I certainly think that the three Ci’Num years deserve a well designed publication and for all these projects we thought about to continue and to morph…

Currently attending Ci’Num 2007… More very soon.

A conference held way back then… Mobility in American culture:

The corsortium’s first conference was held at the University of Bologna in June 2002. It explored mobility as a quintessential American ideology. Participants considered sociological, cultural (both popular and high), economic, technological, literary, historical and political approaches to the topic. They discussed how Americans received and resisted the ideology of mobility. They considered mobility in art and film, mobility in racial, ethnic, gender and class formations, and mobility in the 21st century’s context of globalization.