Followers

The world of devices that screen flows - of light or sound, of water or information - their attraction, their impact, their strengths & vulnerabilities

NETS Project Coordinators

Valerie Kirk
Annie Trevillian
Sharon Peoples




SUBSCRIBING TO NETWURKS

Up to 100 participating artists/students can dialogue here about Nets - with their posts and comments - by joining Netwurks.

A post doesn't need to be too polished in the first instance. It is a simple matter to return to radically edit it later if desired.

It is a simple process to add images and videos, however, to avoid clogging the blog, an accessible image gallery can also be maintained on a personal website, the link to which can be included in a relevant post.

Ongoing help
with using Netwurks can be provided. Difficulties encountered and general queries can be posted to the blog.


THINKING ABOUT NETS


The function of any net is to separate defined items of interest from a specific flow. They are intrinsically mysterious.


Is the function of a facial veil to screen out or to invite the external gaze?

Blinds and net curtains are covert street surveillance systems, sometimes revealing pretty images, other times odd behaviour. If insiders leave the light on, they are exposed and the outsider hidden from view.

When do those nets that are being strung across the flows of cyberspace - the 'firewalls' - change over from being defensive (stopping 'incoming') to being aggressive? How can the misdeeds of their creators be detected by the outsider?

Nets of lies and half-truths are woven
over events, winding up as 'history'. Before becoming spoken words, means of expression are continually modified by a host of personal and institutional restraints.

Micro-nets block contagions. Fishing nets haul in 'by-catch'
(marine 'collateral damage') with their targeted prey. Good nets, bad nets?








June 7, 2009

WORLD OCEANS DAY



8th of June is World Oceans Day. In the UK, it is also the day of the premiere of The End of the Line, the first major documentary about the devastation of the world’s overfishing.

The world's oceans were very different 200 years ago.

Imagine 27,000 southern right whales teeming in the waters off New Zealand, 30 times what we find there now. Or blue and thresher sharks darkening the waters off Cornwall, England. Or even herds of harbour porpoises pursuing fish up British rivers. These are just some of the revelations that will come out of the 'Census of Marine Life - Oceans Past', a conference bringing together the results of a 10 year project by environmental marine biologists around the globe (80 nations, 3,000 scientists), currently underway in Vancouver, Canada.

A discussion of the project's findings with Ian Poiner, Director of the Australian Institute Of Marine Science, was broadcast on ABC Radio National's 'Breakfast' program on 26th of May, and is available for download:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/stories/2009/2580700.htm

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