joaoflux / digital / analog / culture

Jungdemokraten / Junge Linke (A left wing political youth organization that is not officially related to a political party in germany) started a project called Safer Privacy. As part of the project Constanze Kurz (Chaos Computer Club - CCC) and Jan Schallaböck (Datenschutzzentrum Schleswig-Holstein) were invited to talk about the state of affairs in privacy. The topic has been discussed extensively in recent media art festivals and other gatherings of that kind, but the mainstream public discussion is somewhat behind. According to Constance Kurz, CCC has identified hype and panic creation as an important tool used by the political forces whose agenda it is to implement new security and surveillance technologies. Despite being very critical of this kind of media manipulation, CCC is considering applying similar strategies to fight the erosion of privacy. Kurz also pointed out that security technologies and laws that get implemented often do not improve the security situation at all or address problems that hardly exist. Scientific research proving this is, according to Kurz, often held back until laws have passed parliament.
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On May 22 we will organize a Pecha Kucha Night at the DMY Festival in Berlin. The weird edition number (Vol. 8.1) is because we don’t want to count the Pecha Kucha Night we organize with or for partners in one line with the ones we do on our own. I actually don’t remember ever discussing the numbering convention with the team. Anyway, someone came up with it and it sure looks hip.

I am pretty certain that we wont need a bug fix release 8.1.1 and I can guarantee that, no matter what the numbering convention is, we made no compromises about the speakers. What is labeled Pecha Kucha Berlin contains 100% Pecha Kucha Berlin, featuring the most exciting people that applied and the best people we could think of ourselves plus some speakers that our partners suggested. Don’t expect that there will only be Designers, just because it’s DMY. The general idea might be called “l’extension du domaine du design”.

The Soundcloud release party (May 11, 2pm - late) was the kind of very Berlin party that is quite rare in Berlin these days. Their office in the attic of Postfuhramt has a terrace from which it is possible to climb on the roof.
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I went to see the “Open Worlds Panel” at “The Philosophy of Computer Games Conference” at the University of Potsdam. The panel was started with a straightforward and, due to the right amount of Douglas Adams style british humor, quite entertaining keynote by Richard Bartle. He he explained two concepts of openness in the context of computer game design. Developers use the term openness when referring the freedom of players to do things outside of defined tasks, while players often use the term when referring to the freedom to change the game.

I was a bit disappointed that he did not mention a third notion of the term, which is common in software desigen and refers to the openness towards other systems. Especially when talking about online worlds where residents can acquire possessions, it seems to a logical question to ask, if and how items can be transferred to other worlds. I would even go as far as looking at the general system of capitalist economy (including legislation) as just one more virtual world. Interoperability with it should in my opinion be seen as part of the game design.
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