Hasta La Creative!

First of all a little present. I’ve got one free pass for a reader interested in attending Mediabistro Circus which takes place in New York on May 20 and 21. The two-day conference focuses on the digital platforms and trends that are changing media today. Just send me an email (reg at this domain’s address) explaining why you’d like to go and i’ll forward the details of the most charming/desperate/convincing reader to the organizers of the event.

An overview of the programme: May 20: the publishing industry’s transition to new media, successful business models, blog power and finally video and social media. May 21: mobile media, the editor of digital news for the New York Times discussing the passage to online publication and user experience design (believe it or not i’m taking part to that panel!)

Scenes from the 2007 edition of Conflux

Next! One of my favourite events on this planet is Conflux, the festival of psychogeography which gathers artists, technologists, psychogeographers, urban explorers and experience designers from around the world in New York every year.

The organizers have recently opened their call for project. Deadline for submission is May 31.

• ArtCal – Long Island City – Dean Project – Cringe
  Conversation about contemporary art and its arbitrary values; like gold, art is only valuable when someone is willing to pay for it. Yet the collecting of art has an intellectual and cultural status far superior to the crass collecting of gold. When consi
• antisocial_notworking
  projects that explore the pseudo-agency of online social platforms The concern is how the Internet is increasingly charactised as a ‘platform’ (or collective machine) for ‘social’ uses, but to question what is meant by the term social in such descriptions
• artforum.com / an-my le
  pictures of the huge hovercraft used to unload returning troops onto American beaches, of small-arms practice on the deck of military ships, and of a woman dressed for combat on the deck of an oil rig off the Iraqi coast.
• YOU OWN ME NOW UNTIL YOU FORGET ABOUT ME.
  website of the exhibition includes the possibility to extend the concept as well as the list of selected works of art. Just go to http://www.youownmenow.net, enter a link of your own choice plus short link-description and submit your preferred work of art
• Elit Alice » Fat Pig
  that chocolate is for me (except that it looks too milky)
• Tate courts controversy with Turner Prize shortlist – Times Online
  "The Tate Britain has announced the 2008 shortlist for the prestigious Turner Prize and once again seems to be courting controversy." i find them all very good though
• I give up, says Brazilian minister who fought to save the rainforest – Climate Change, Environment – The Independent
  The departure of Marina Silva, who admitted she was losing the battle to get green voices heard amidst the rush for economic development, has been greeted with dismay by conservationists.
• Vietnam is the New China: Globalization’s Victors Hunt for the Next Low-Wage Country – International – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News
  What can Western companies do when China’s factory workers start demanding better wages and conditions? Easy — just transfer production to a cheaper country. China’s loss is Vietnam’s gain.
• WorldChanging: A Thousand Little Pieces: A graphic illustration of what we spend our money on
  The New York Times shows what Americans spend their money on — and how fast prices are rising. Check out gasoline: it’s up 26 percent, year over year.

BEIJING – Four agencies are believed to have been shortlisted to handle Dongfeng Peugeot’s mainland creative business, with Publicis, Dentsu and Ogilvy joining incumbent Euro RSCG in the final round.

Censorship is one of the things I hate most, and the most dangerous kind of censorship is the sly and subtle kind that creeps in without making a fuss or grand entrance. It’s the little measures and twisted, undercover ways which go unnoticed and undisputed that abuse people’s rights. That’s …

CONSUMER: Frank PR has won a consumer brief to promote Waitrose online food delivery service Ocado. Ocado will still work with Brunswick on corporate and financial PR.

POLITICS: The Observer’s Whitehall editor Jo Revill has been appointed as a strategic communications adviser to health secretary Alan Johnson.

CONSUMER: Belfast-based MCE PR has been hired to handle public affairs and media relations for the Emerald Infrastructure Development Fund.

CONSUMER: Low-fare airline easyJet has appointed Scottish agency Profile Plus to handle its consumer PR in Scotland. www.prweek.com/uk for the full versions of these stories.

Going for a variation of “having the blood of someone on your hand,” this new campaign for Brita water filtration pitchers and Nalgene refillable bottles warns us that we are murdering our planet and that we have its blood (oil) on our mouths…

The ads depict people with unpleasant-looking cr…

(TrendHunter.com) Atair Aerospace’s EXO-Wing, is the world’s smallest human-piloted jet. The novel gadget is on display right now at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of the Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy Exhibit collection.

“The only thing we know about the EXO-Wing is that the twin micro-turbine-pow…