Nice picture of the Lake at  mirini

dotAtelier has a new exhibition at:

Kings Cross is part of the city of Sydney. It's a nice walk through the botanical gardens to the city from The Cross. Macleay St is one of the best streets in The Cross to have breakfast.

At present the trees in Macleay Street are full of seeds. Early in the morning, white cockatoos come and meet on top of the apartment blocks along the street and fly from tree to tree screeching loudly. It is nice to watch them from above in the tree tops. Sometimes they land on the window sills of the flats and chatter quietly to the other cockatoos.

In Verbindung mit einem Interview mit Prof. Kittler wird der zweite Bildungsweg im Moment heiss diskutiert bei Heise.de unter:

http://www.heise.de/tp/foren/go.shtml?read=1&msg_id=7837492&forum_id=77209

Bekannte Blogger aus dem 2 Bildungsweg wie z.B. Schockwellenreiter könnten vorbeischauen. Ist der 2 Bildungsweg wirklich "minderwertig"? Oder ist Lebenserfahrung vor dem Studium wertvoll. 

Man ist gezwungen eine Identität zu haben für den Job, die Steuer und die Wohnungen. In der virtuellen Welt kann man sich andere Identitäten aneignen und entwickeln. Diese Spiel mit Identitäten fördert die Entwicklung der Persönlichkeit in neuen Richtungen, ohne dass man in einer rigiden Selbstdefinition festgehalten wird.
Wenn du versuchst deine Arbeitskraft zu verkaufen, braucht keiner zu wissen, dass du auch ein Dichter oder Tänzer bist oder dass du gerne minimalistische Musik hörst. Aber diese Tätigkeiten, die du in deiner Freizeit entwickelst, willst du unbedingt mit anderen austauschen im virtuellen Bereich. Nimmst du einen anderen Namen kannst du diese Kommunikation unbeschränkt weiterentwickeln. Dann wird kein Auftraggeber dir Fragen stellen über deinen neuesten Gedichte.

Siehe auch strong current faq.

Im Virtuellen, sehe ich so aus...

1. A powerful motorboat with one water-skier hanging on behind drives back and forward across Sydney Harbour for hours creating a great noise for all those near the water.
2. A hundred mums drive their children to kindergarten in huge four-wheel drive vehicles that only are used in the city.
3. 1000 retired people slash the grassy fields of their country home all day to keep the grass short and to keep themselves busy.
4. 10,000 motorboat freaks drive their large cars with boat trailers across the city and race up and down rivers for "recreation" in beautiful nature reserves.
5. An army of lawn mowing contractors rotate around their target suburbs without end cutting grass like Sisyphus. Unlike Sisyphus, their senseless work will end when the oil of the Earth runs out finally. Sisyphus may still be pushing his rock up the hill.

   

Today I went for a walk. It was Sunday, so I expected a lot of other people. The track followed a creek in a place where Aboriginal people used to live sustainably for thousands of years. But there weren't many other people. It was beautiful and quiet except for the birds and the fish jumping in the water. There were a lot of other people there. But all the others were near their cars, getting their motor boats into the water or driving jet skis. The car parks were full of cars with boat trailers. There were thousands of boats there.
This is what people think of as "recreation". They just burn up scarce oil all day for no good reason and get no physical exercise. They pretend there is no oil crisis.
But I I just read that:
"world oil and gas reserves are as much as 80% less than predicted"  and
"400 gallons of oil equivalents are expended annually to feed each American" (not just the Americans) - see Strong Current.
So these people are driving their boats so that their children will not be able to eat one day.
All this is happening in the middle of a most beautiful national park.
Why not just go for a walk? Keep fit and save the oil for a good purpose, like food production.

There are a lot of parks in this area, as is often the case in most big cities. As opposed to the countryside, cities reserve special spaces for their residents to relax in and recover their energy.

In the northern part of this city, large areas of native vegetation have been declared national parks. Yesterday I went to one which has a wide range of different flora and fauna types. The walk was in a special wildflower corner with the sweet smelling flowers of autumn. The air is crisp and fresh and there is a stillness and silence which you cannot find in other places. Against this silent backdrop is heard the sound of birds communicating to one another. Traces of land animals can be seen in the sand underfoot and from time to time sandstone emerges out of the forests of small trees which are flowering in the cooling air of autumn. Summer is too hot for flowering here. 

VisBlog is an emerging concept in blogging. It refers to visual creations which are not photographic but visualise an idea. The idea may be inspired by the "real" world, focussing the attention of the viewer on a special aspect of the life-world which may often be overlooked. In this way the image or visualisation makes something special which deserves attention. Nature is a good object for this kind of visualisation. Unlike a photo, visualisations do not need to reflect their object. They construct it instead.
When visualisations extend into multimedia, the construction of realities is expanded in its range. Sounds can co-exist with images which are alien to them. Events can be simulated in ways which go beyond everyday experience.  Selection and combination generate new scenarios.
The dotAtelier website creates combined effects which are not seen in nature - a fast eclipse, music from nature, sounds which do not co-exist in real life.
The dotAtelier VisBlog presents a preview of some of the visualisations which can be made without multimedial programmed events.

If you like some of the pictures on this blog and want to see some more with a bit more interactivity and multimedia effects, have a look at the dotAtelier website. This site is programmed in Java. That means if you do not have Java on your computer you will need to download it.

If you have Java and it is activated in your browser, click here.   

If you do not have it, click here and an automatic download will be activated:

Java is useful for many applications on your computer and on the web, so it is a good idea to have it on your computer anyway. The download will take some minutes, so start it and go and water your balcony plants. It should be finished when you get back.

Meeting old friends is a special experience. When you meet people you knew 20 or 30 years ago it is easy to recognise them although their appearance has changed greatly. You could recognise them anywhere. It doesn't have to be a special reunion event. You don't say "you used to be so-and-so", but recognise your old friends to be the same identities as the ones you knew before, although we all have changed.
Friends are important in establishing identity. We become who we are through them. We learn how to handle conflicts as well as how to laugh and cope positively with a tough reality. So with old friends we can immediately laugh and feel comfortable because they are a part of ourselves.
Often we make new friends at times when we are going through major changes in life and learning a lot of new ideas. These friends are special friends and remain with us for life.

Returning to the city was a pleasure after being away in the country for some time. The air is fresher than in many rural places and it is refreshing to see some nice shops and cafés. I spoke to one man who said he tried living in a country setting a couple of times for a more "natural" lifestyle, but always returns to the city for inspiration.
It is true that the neighbours are closer here, but wherever you live the same principle seems to apply: share the negative effects and privatise the good things. Some more positive ethics would improve life in both country and city environments. It is conceivable that life in all contexts could be relaxing and humane. The streets could be quiet, safe and green.