pFiled under: a href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/business/" rel="tag"Business/a/pimg vspace="4" hspace="4" border="0" align="right" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2008/12/surge-logo-really-small.jpg" alt="" /Namco Bandai has announced the formation of "Surge," a new studio and publishing label aimed at "providing cutting-edge, genre-defining games that are targeted at satiating the appetite of western gamers." Much like Square Enix's a href="http://www.joystiq.com/tag/the-last-remnant"recent English-centric efforts/a, Namco hopes to tap into a wider market with several in-development IPs, the first of which are slated to arrive in 2009.br /br /Andrew Lelchuk, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Namco Bandai Games America, dubs Surge a "creative force," one that promises to deliver "compelling content for the discriminating player who is looking for games that are not only groundbreaking but also push the envelope." Surge's first game that is not only groundbreaking but also pushes the envelope? a href="http://www.joystiq.com/tag/afro-samurai"emAfro Samurai/em/a, due on January 27th, 2009.p style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/04/namco-bandai-forms-surge-label-targets-western-gamers/"Namco Bandai forms 'Surge' label, targets Western gamers/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.joystiq.com"Joystiq/a on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./pp style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"nbsp;/ppa href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/04/namco-bandai-forms-surge-label-targets-western-gamers/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.joystiq.com/forward/1391668/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/04/namco-bandai-forms-surge-label-targets-western-gamers/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/4U6GyMZlPVBBJ2P4--mV0fgxmjw/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/4U6GyMZlPVBBJ2P4--mV0fgxmjw/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?a=Bcm5k4UH"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?i=Bcm5k4UH" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?a=ep7E1fvC"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?i=ep7E1fvC" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/joystiq/~4/5WJMa81ArcA" height="1" width="1"/

IBM announced the availability of a "Microsoft alternative" virtual desktop that uses virtualization technology from Virtual Bridges and incorporates Canonical's Ubuntu Linux and IBM's Lotus applications. Based on Virtual Bridges's Virtual Enterprise Remote Desktop Environment (VERDE), the desktop environment is far more affordable than running Microsoft desktops, claims IBM.

br / bAuthor:/b a href='http://forum.newsbin.com/profile.php?mode=viewprofileu=78'obvious/abr /br / bPosted:/b Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:51 ambr /br / br /br / Memory usage seems to be up in B9. Loading a huge group like boneless is taking up just under 4GB of RAM. If any processing is done on the group eg del to mark all old then it pushes it over the edge and I enter page thrash hell.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed Pakistan to cooperate fully in the probe into the Mumbai attacks but she also warned India against any action that could stoke regional conflict.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~f/reuters/topNews?a=kb84XO9H"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/topNews?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~f/reuters/topNews?a=JzHgEzS8"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/topNews?i=JzHgEzS8" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~f/reuters/topNews?a=A3ak8Gii"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/topNews?i=A3ak8Gii" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/reuters/topNews/~4/RmXLMLc4X-o" height="1" width="1"/

File this one under ‘public use of reason 101’.

On 28 November 2008 The Nation, one of Papua New Guinea’s two largest newspapers, ran a story entitled Male Babies Killed To Stop Fights which claimed that women in the Gimi area have decided to kill all their male children in an attempt to stop an ongoing tribal fight by, as it were, cutting off the supply of reinforcements. The story, sensational as it was, got picked up by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and even made its way to Fox News.

Now, on the one hand this story is so outrageously exoticizing, so sensationalistically othering, so reliant on tropes of primitive, savage black people that it pushes all the buttons of Politically Correct Anthropologists. On the other hand, Melanesianists like myself often are wary of overly-eager professors who denounce myths of cannibalism and so forth because, well, Papua New Guinea is a place where cannibalism was practiced, a place where real cultural difference does occur, were there is fighting, and so forth: no one ever told anyone in PNG that we in the academy had developed an elaborate set of rules about how they were supposed to live their lives, if you see what I mean.

But even given these reservations, even given these reservations, this story still sounds absolutely ridiculous to me and stands, in my opinion, as a classic example of Papua New Guinea being trotted out again to serve Australian and American fantasies of primitive savagery.

For one thing, the Salvation Army has been in the Gimi area (so much for being ‘untouched’) and has worked to try to end the dispute, and they are quoted in the original news story. However, in a follow-up story the ABC has reported that the Salvation Army denies that these killings took place. According to this report “the Highlands women are making the point that there are so many murders they might as well kill their newborn boys themselves, rather than go through the pain of losing them in tribal fights.” Now this I believe, as this sounds very much the way that people talk about pain and suffering in PNG.

Moreover, experts on Gimi say that this area fits the pattern that we see in a lot of the world—that female infanticide, not male infanticide, is common. In an email to me Paige West, a professor at Barnard College, wrote
Historically Gimi in Lufa and Unavi practiced infanticide through subtle neglect and exposure if a baby was unwanted or if the mother was simply too overwhelmed by other young children (especially if there was one already breast feeding when the new one was born) to care for the newborn. This was more often than not done with female infants – so much so that in the census reports in the 60s and early 70s there was a marked gender imbalance among Gimi. Gillian Gillison’s work shows that in general in the 70s and 80s first born babies were more likely to die than to survive (See Between Culture and Fantasy: A New Guinea Highlands Mythology for Gillison’s in-depth discussion of Gimi ideas about conception, birth, and death).
Additionally, she writes:
No Gimi person I know would actually attribute the cause of fighting to their own immediate family (if between patrilines), to their own extended family group (if between ‘clans’), to their village (if between villages), or to their ethnic group (if between Gimi and others). They would attribute the cause of the fighting to whomever they were fighting so to kill male offspring in ones own line in order to stop fighting is nonsensical.
and
The thought process that is ascribed to the mothers in the story in some ways seems to be a Foucauldian management of population which is hard to imagine that any Gimi would apply to their own children and kin. The idea that eliminating one’s own child to create some future social benefit to all seems like a kind of governmentality that does not exist in Gimi society. Essentially the extent to which kinship controls social relationships means that that arguement would be a radical departure from Gimi social world views.

In sum, we have a typical story: inaccurate reporting which is picked up on on global media because readers find it exciting to read about Papua New Guineans behaving badly. Is anyone willing to defend the original National article in public? And, more importantly, when are we going to have some positive news coverage of everything that is going right in Papua New Guinea?

UPDATE: Its fascinating to watch this story mutate—now Women on the Web is linking to the original story with the headline Male Infanticide on Rise as Papua New Guinea’s Women Attempt to End War. This headline makes it sound like the whole country is getting into the act (although to be fair the body of the article just repeats what is in the original National article).

centerimg id="image1642" src="http://rhizome.org/imagebase/article/2130/polite-umbrella-2small.gif" alt="polite-umbrella-2small.gif" //centerbr / centerimg id="image1643" src="http://rhizome.org/imagebase/article/2130/politeumbrella1small.gif" alt="politeumbrella1small.gif" //centerbr / centeriImage: JooYoun Paek, Polite Umbrella/i/centerbr / ipa href="http://www.jooyounpaek.com/"JooYoun Paek/a builds small, object-based responses to urban life, transforming the aches and pains we customarily suffer, at the hands of the metropolis, into novel sites of reflection, social courtesy, and rest. The artist's humorous, insightful approach bespeaks her familiarity with her subject; she was raised in Seoul, Korea, and moved to New York in 2005 to attend NYU's a href="http://itp.nyu.edu/itp/"Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP)/a. Fresh from her recent participation in "a href="http://eyebeam.org/engage/engage.php?page=exhibitionsid=190"Untethered/a," at a href="http://eyebeam.org/"Eyebeam/a, and "a href="http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/exhibitions.php?id=5632"Design and the Elastic Mind/a," at a href="http://www.moma.org/"MoMA/a, JooYoun caught up with me at her a href="http://www.lmcc.net/"LMCC/a Workspace Residency studio, on the twenty-ninth floor of the Equitable Building in Manhattan's Financial District. - Tyler Coburn /p/i pbWhat's the difference between wearable technology and what you make?/b/p pThe difference? Well, I never define what I make as wearable technology. I think I'm just doing conceptual work that's wearable. Wearable technology is more about focusing on using new technology and making it fashionable, but also highly functional. I don't think my work was ever designed for utilitarian purposes. But oftentimes the methodologies of what I'm doing and wearable technology overlap, and that's why people think, on the surface, that my work is similar./p bpThat really comes across in a piece like a href="http://www.jooyounpaek.com/politeumbrella.html"iPolite Umbrella/i/a./p/b pYes. I made iPolite Umbrella/i after I came to New York for ITP. ITP isn't really a fine art school. It focuses more on collaborative and innovative practices. We had an assignment of observing daily life and behavior, and I began to observe umbrella usage. Quite interestingly, it was the fall of 2005, which was one of the rainiest times in New York City. October was a record-breaking month. It rained almost every day. This was my first time living in New York, so I thought this was usual. Previously, I had framed myself as an artist working with sculpture and sometimes in performance and photography and video, but after going to ITP, I began to explore design. This didn't bother me that much, because the observation of life was already a part of my creative process, which either came out as very utilitarian or very expressive objects. It always started from the observation of mundane moments./p pbOne of the things that I find interesting about this piece is that I can imagine an umbrella that just condenses uniformly, but your model responds to specific scenarios, such as a particular angle of passing. One or all sides of it can compress. So it's not just something that has a function that’s designed to meet a generic social scenario; it's something you can control on a case-by-case basis. I think that specificity is what pushes it beyond just being a quirky object./b/p pIt's not only helpful to you. It also gives a gesture to other people. I definitely involved the cultural reference of people bowing to one another in this piece./p pbSo you see the compression of the side of the umbrella as a gesture of social politeness?/b/p pYes. It has a morphing gesture, but conceptually it gives other people more space./p pbI can see a similar interest in modifying and improving everyday city life in a href="http://www.jooyounpaek.com/ssc.html"iSelf-Sustainable Chair/i/a, which is also controlled by the user, yet is far more absurdist in conceit./b/p pWith this piece, I was also inspired by New York and walking in the city. I was getting sick and tired of walking the same commute route from my station stop to my home every day while carrying a heavy backpack. I wanted to make something that could make every walk I take more meaningful. The idea was very abstract, so I began to add up the days and minutes of my commute time. My walk ended up being almost fifteen full days per year. That time should be more exciting, so I made this chair. I thought that each step could generate some energy, which can then transform into something else./p centerimg id="image1644" src="http://rhizome.org/imagebase/article/2130/selfsustainablechairsmall.gif" alt="selfsustainablechairsmall.gif" //centerbr / centeriImage: JooYoun Paek, Self-Sustainable Chair/i/centerbr / bpIt punctuates the commutes. No two walks are the same anymore, depending on when you choose to stop or pause or contemplate. I like the way that once the chair becomes full, it not only gives you the option to rest but sort of forces you to. It makes you stop for a minute. It seems like a lot of your work is about using fast-paced technologies to slow down, or as palliatives. The origami project, a href="http://www.jooyounpaek.com/foldloud.html"iFold Loud/i/a, comes to mind. You actually stitched circuits onto sheets of folded paper, such that a given user's manner of folding would close the circuits and release specific human vocal harmonies. The possible combinations aren't just beautiful to the ear; they're soothing./p/b pThere is that kind of notion./p !--more-- pbBut not, as you were saying, in a practical fashion. More in a fanciful fashion. Like iSelf-Sustainable Chair/i, this object presents a far-fetched way of relaxing, which more interestingly offsets our pace of living than an object we could buy from a store for stress relief./b/p pSome people ask about iPolite Umbrella/i, "So when will we see it on the market?" And I groan, "Oh, I don't really think it would work that well on the market."/p bpI think the fact that you're not distributing them as such also lends to how they function conceptually as art-objects – to their being singular ideas manifest./p/b pYeah. I think it's about the statement. You mentioned the origami work. It reflects some of my personality, but this foldout doesn't really tie into my past work./p pbHow do you mean?/b/p pIt's a very design-oriented work. The object isn't really tied into any context./p pbWell, it's tied into a historical context./b/p pYes, it is tied into a historical context, but not necessarily into the daily mundane experiences that a lot of my other work ties into. So I'm having a hard time connecting it to the other work. iFold Loud/i was more about exploring technology with my personality, in my way. I made it as my ITP thesis project. I could have gone more in the direction of fine art, but I wanted to take the chance to use technology and see where it ended up./p bpBut there's also an everyday reference. I grew up in the States and we didn't make origami, but we would play games with folding paper, like predicting our futures. Even origami is something that is made in Japan as a way to pass the time. So while it's definitely more of a niche reference than those in your other works, I think that there's still a connotation of the everyday. But I agree with you. It is more to the side. I don't think this means that it's more of a design object, though. I think it actually very much engages with contemporary conceptual art strategies by taking a method of folding, an idea of sound production, and the idea of origami as hardware, and drawing an axis between these points. This seems like a very contemporary approach. I couldn't speak to how much it engages with the design world, but I think it's very relevant to contemporary art./p/b pYes, thank you./p centerimg id="image1645" src="http://rhizome.org/imagebase/article/2130/foldoudsmall.gif" alt="foldoudsmall.gif" //centerbr / centeriImage: JooYoun Paek, Fold Loud/i/centerbr / bpIn the text on your website, you describe the work as having a "meta-technological aesthetic." What do you mean by that?/p/b pThe technology isn't hidden. It forms the exposed circuits, so you can actually see how it's working. The technology is bubbling up. It has a different sensibility than most devices, where things are hidden behind a button and you don't know how you trigger the events on the screen./p bpSo given that iFold Loud/i marks something of a departure form previous work, has the stuff you've been making since been more in line with it?/p/b pWhat's interesting is that I'm still working in the way I used to, and Fold Loud is developing as a side-project. For the Eyebeam Fall show, "Untethered," I had two pieces. One was called a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/eyebeam/2831757646/in/set-72157607128132407/"iNot-Bicycle Cover/i/a, which is a bicycle cover that camouflages your bike. It's a small cover that looks like a pile of garbage bags that you can unfold, pump up, and inflate. The other project was called a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/eyebeam/2899668716/in/set-72157607128132407/"iNothing In It/i/a. It's a little bag, and when you open it, it releases the sound of objects. When you close it, they disappear. And when you open it again, you hear different sounds. But when you look into the bag, you see that there's nothing in it./p bpAre all the sounds from public, urban space?/p/b pThere are a lot of these sounds. There is also the sound of a ticking clock./p pbWhat informed the sounds that you used?/b/p pI was thinking a lot about this. Should I have the sound of someone telling a story? Should I have the sound of someone singing? I actually tried to minimize that effect and use the sounds of random objects to not convey too much of a specific story. With a story you have to listen from the beginning to the end, but these sounds should make sense anytime you open the bag./p bpAll the sounds are also things that might be heard as the bag is carried around, so it seems appropriate to collapse them into a mobile, personal belonging. It makes it seem like the sounds you hear have actually been collected by the bag./p/b pInteresting./p bpSo I have to ask: how was it practically made, given that you can't see anything inside?/p/b pI ideally wanted everything to be self-contained within the bag, but for this show I had to make it quickly, so the audio system is beneath the pedestal and the bag is made with a zipper sensor. The concept of the piece relates to the idea that what's in the world is only there because of your belief, and if you start to believe in different ways, things will change. So it was about making you recognize the notion of what you’re believing in - that your belief is really creating the world. Nothing else. /pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rhizome-fp/~4/473940998" height="1" width="1"/