CONFERENCES

Territories - a G-77 Conference at Barnes and Noble, Summer 2005.

G-77 members have lately contributed to a number of anthologies, with the likes of international critics like Brian Holmes and Charlotte Day, Paul Virillio, collaborations with C-Theory.net, and community architecture projects like Rem Koolhaas. Here, they will propigate discussions about communities reclaiming urban space. “We have been tracking a number of cultural phenomena, to draw conclusions about how those events impacted the communities. This is a starting point. As every case is different, we look at each individual case and begin building a community reclaimation plan.” The essays delve into these situations and the urban rebuilding plans that they spawned. City repair projects, resource centers, leadership seminars from the community level, and a multi-lateral platform that G-77 created as a model to the community rebuilding projects are going to be part of the focus of tonight.

Exerpt: Territory is typically understood in geopolitical terms. We examine territory as a construct originating from a variety of needs and desires both primal and complex.
Some questions that we ask in our research are: Why is it necessary to establish territories? How are territories demarcated? How are they enforced, and when do they break down? Physical territory, virtual territory, and cognitional territory all come into play. We have been examining tools for controlling space such as maps, reconnaissance and image analysis, surveillance infrastructures, GIS, GPS, and language. The military complex, contemporary economies, and information systems operate with a declining reference to time and geographical distance, thereby reshaping our understanding of space.
As we watch the internet evolve, we have been focusing on its democracy. Where in the past, maps were a reference to imperial conquest, the map is now a democratic tool. Perhaps the time is ripe for this. With the evolution of GIS, and GoogleMaps spawning Flickr, Geobloggers, FoundCity, and Sprol, there is a real movement now for people to define their own maps, their own boundaries and social proximities, their own landmarks, and to see and expose places which have managed to hide from public view due to a basic lack of accessibility. Like language, geography is an art form.
Tentative Geography through the G-Local is a project we have been working on for some time, that involves mapping – typically or artistically - networks of undisclosed borders edified by environmental properties, cultural tendencies, corporate, and state collusion.
We research and come to workable conclusions around the ideas of public/private space, the role of surveillance in urban spaces, working with this and around this.
As much as we examine these spaces, we are also interested in very far-removed and made-to-look-empty places where, for all intents and purposes, humanity imagines an uninhabitable nature, serve as tentative spaces for secrecy, change, and perhaps control quite well. Through our prodding, we enjoy exposing those off-limit landscapes-as-camouflage for the pervasive culture of inscrutability they serve.

MM 2005, The Ecom Group of Public History and Mapping, 2005.

MM 2005, the 11th International Conference on Multimedia's virtual systems. The theme of this conference will be VIRTUAL REALITY AT WORK. It will take a closer look at how Virtual Reality interacts with society, how it affects its users, and how it promotes or directs social change. The theme of the MM2005 Conference is Virtual Reality’s present or potential impact on 21st century society in the fields of Heritage, Education, Applied VR Technology, and Entertainment and the Arts. It will also feature a special session in which The G-77 presents the theme of professional guidelines and health, safety, and usability issues.

G-77 with A New Type - Inticomp, 2004.

'Inticomp' is love between man and his computers. On an ordinary desk, a clipboard and computer monitor sit poised to record the comings and goings of strangers. A placard reads: ‘’All visitors please sign in.’’ As they do, a surveillance camera tracks their movements. The scene, typical of many office and government building lobbies, becomes decidedly atypical if the visitor makes any abrupt motion. Then the screen flashes red, and the camera darts and quivers, turning its gaze anywhere but on the offending intruder. The threat level - as measured in real time on the Dell monitor - clearly has jumped, but it’s the surveillance camera that reacts anxiously.
’’(In)Security Camera’’ is a high-tech show that explores intimacy and human behavior at AICenter in Buenos Aires through Jan. 30. G-77 thinks of the work as a renewed and more contemplative experience from the interaction between the animate and inanimate.

G77 in Houston TX. 2004, 5 November, 3pm, Great Hall West.

This conference is really a two-step TEACH-IN process.
- The wireless mic system (commonly available)
http://tinyurl.com/86sht
or
http://tinyurl.com/cf9d7
coupled with...
- Streaming media - a way to broadcast on the internet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media
We will create, for the first time, an all-in-one solution.
The Streaming media part could be handled by something like this...
http://darkice.sourceforge.net/
http://www.forbidden.co.uk/ (if you want to broadcast video as well)

Keep in mind, however, that there are federal and state laws which  govern the electronic capture of audio. Be very sure that the sounds  you capture and send are from people who are aware and consent.

G-77 |first panel on global nano holdstrongs, in Amsterdam.