Bricophone workshop: Research Gathering with Jean-Noël Montagné and Bricolabs

[resgat-200707]
Research Gathering with Jean-Noël Montagné and Bricolabs
FoAM, Koolmijnenkaai 30-34 Quai des Charbonnages, 1080 Brussels, Belgium
Entrance: Free
RSVP: before Wednesday 26th of September -> maja@fo.am

This is an open call to all developers, artists and activists with and without mobile phones — FoAM invites you to the launch of the first Bricophone workshop – working towards the connected future of open source telephony.

The Bricophone project aims to develop a low-cost Open-Source DIY and independent cellular telephony infrastructure for unequiped areas or special events. The Bricophone gathers different new hardware and software techniques to create a cheap, fast and easy-to-deploy independent cellular telephony infrastructure. The system doesn’t use the actual telephony networks and economy and should include anti-control technologies. Open source hardware and open source software are an alternative to the technical, cultural, political and economical dependency to more and more powerful communication companies in the world.

The principal actors of this open workshop are artists, activists, NGOs,developers and participants of the Bricolabs http://www.bricolabs.net network.

Jean-Noël Montagné from Centre de Ressources Art Sensitif
http://www.craslab.org in Paris will present the Bricophone concepts. A cultural and technical workshop on the topic will follow the presentation, trying to organize the different technical and ethical roadmaps to launch the first hardware, software and communication works.

Supported by the Flemish Government and the VGC
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Motility and agency through and in making things

Reading a book

Thinking Through Things. Theorising Artefacts Ethnographically.
Edited by Amiria Henare, Martin Holbraad and Sari Wastell. Routledge,
2007

to think of our bricolabs network as a network of people and things:

and am delving into Alfred Gell’s theory of Art and Agency.

Having tried to steer away from it, I’ve come to a point where spirituality and the motile qualities of the shaman become essential to the kind of change to overall generic infrastructures we are planning.

Introduction: thinking through things. Amaria Henare, Martin Holbraad
and Sari Wastell. ( p. 1- 32)

Argument: from ethnographic revelations to political revelations

“Even scholars dedicated to re-integrating materiality and culture in response to the Riversian (and earlier Cartesian) segregation continue to struggle with theoretical lanhuages that presume an a priori dinstinction between persons and things, matter and meaning, representation and reality. Like the modish notion of ‘ hybridity’ the impetus towards reconnection turns on the presumption of initial separation.”

“The distinction between concepts and things ( which broadly compasses other familiar dichotomies such as sense versus reference, signified vs signifier, etc.) may be unhelpful, obnscuring theoretical possibilities that might arise were the pre-emption of such contrasts by the artefacts we study taken seriously.”

“With purposeful naïveté, the aim of this method is to take ‘things’ encountered in the field as they present themselves, rather than immediately assuming that they signify, represent, or stand for something else.”

“Motility is a biological term which refers to the ability to move spontaneously and independently. It can apply to either single-celled or multicellular organisms.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motility)

MICROCHIP IMPLANTS CAUSE FAST-GROWING, MALIGNANT TUMORS IN LAB ANIMALS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 8, 2007

[Caspian-newsletter-l] **Breaking story: Microchip implants induce cancer in animals**
caspian-newsletter-l@nocards.org

MICROCHIP IMPLANTS CAUSE FAST-GROWING, MALIGNANT TUMORS IN LAB ANIMALS
Damning research findings could spell the end of VeriChip

The Associated Press will issue a breaking story this weekend revealing that microchip implants have induced cancer in laboratory animals and dogs, says privacy expert and long-time VeriChip opponent Dr. Katherine Albrecht.

As the AP will report, a series of research articles spanning more than a decade found that mice and rats injected with glass-encapsulated RFID transponders developed malignant, fast-growing, lethal cancers in up to 1% to 10% of cases. The tumors originated in the tissue surrounding the microchips and often grew to completely surround the devices, the researchers said.

Albrecht first became aware of the microchip-cancer link when she and her “Spychips” co-author, Liz McIntyre, were contacted by a pet owner whose dog had died from a chip-induced tumor. Albrecht then found medical studies showing a causal link between microchip implants and cancer in other animals. Before she brought the research to the AP’s attention, the studies had received little public notice.

A four-month AP investigation turned up additional documents, several of which had been published before VeriChip’s parent company, Applied Digital Solutions, sought FDA approval to market the implant for humans. The VeriChip received FDA approval in 2004 under the watch of then Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson who later joined the company’s board.

Under FDA policy, it would have been VeriChip’s responsibility to bring the adverse studies to the FDA’s attention, but VeriChip CEO Scott Silverman claims the company was unaware of the research.

Albrecht expressed skepticism that a company like VeriChip, whose primary business is microchip implants, would be unaware of relevant studies in the published literature.

“For Mr. Silverman not to know about this research would be negligent. If he did know about these studies, he certainly had an incentive to keep them quiet,” said Albrecht. “Had the FDA known about the cancer link, they might never have approved his company’s product.”

Since gaining FDA approval, VeriChip has aggressively targeted diabetic and dementia patients, and recently announced that it had chipped 90 Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers in Florida. Employees in the Mexican Attorney General’s Office, workers in a U.S. security firm, and club-goers in Europe have also been implanted.

Albrecht expressed concern for those who have received a chip implant, urging them to get the devices removed as soon as possible.

“These new revelations change everything,” she said. “Why would anyone take the risk of having a cancer chip in their arm?”

And a disturbing report has just appeared on the internet: Coming To A State Near You: Blackwater Air Force

“And a disturbing report has just appeared on the internet (nworeport.com/blackwater.htm) that Blackwater, USA, the private security contractor that has assembled a large mercenary force in Iraq (as part of a governmental privatization scheme to keep the official count of American forces involved artificially low) is now building its own air force in the United States, including the purchase of Super Tucano light combat aircraft from Embraer, a Brazilian company. According to the article, it has one new private military base in San Diego, another in Mount Carroll, IL, and has applied for operating licenses in every coastal U.S. state.

“If you believe in coincidence,” Fetzer said, “then perhaps you consider it to be a remarkable improbability that, just as the American military is being weakened in Iraq, the National Guard is being placed under the President’s direct control, and that ammunition is being cut off from police departments and armed citizens, while air defense units are being deployed to Washington, D.C., and mercenaries are developing their own air force. I’m not so sure. If we have the most capable air force in the world, then why is this one needed? To do things our own air force would not do? All of these developments are troubling and lead me to think that the Kennebunkport Warning may be even better founded than its signers realize.””