Editorial
Deleting is a selective process belonging to our daily life. Both small and significant deletions lead us towards tensions, (e)motions, frustrations or satisfactions, worries or happiness. Every deletion is a radical act. Something disappears forever whether leaving a trace or not. Is it just or unjust? Is it necessary or unnecessary?
Deleting Civility: Uncivil Society in Indonesian New Democracy
Since the revelation of the “Third Wave of Democratization” in the early 1990s, much attention has been focused on the gravity of civil society as the promoter of democracy. Defined as the realm of organized social life that is open, voluntary and self-generating, transition theorists believe that…
AJEG BALI or how to drive away evil spirits
Touring Bali’s beaches and villages, travelling the island’s roads, one realises that this part of the Indonesian archipelago is becoming more and more… Balinese.
Much has been written, and said, about kebalian or “being Balinese”. This concept encompasses aspects of religion …
Overcoming the past without forgetting
Victims and the relatives of Moroccan citizens who suffered torture, involuntary disappearances and selective assassination during the reign of the Alaouite monarch Hassan II appeared at the official invitation of the son of the man who had destroyed their lives, and listened to his address. Before them, King Mohammed VI barely lifted his eyes from the prepared speech with which he informed his subjects of the results of two years of work by the Moroccan Equity and Reconciliation Commission (IER).?
The Disappearance of Fanciful Flourish from World Maps of the Middle Ages
Until the 13th century, European world maps had been devotional objects, intended to evoke God’s harmonious design in a schematic form. They were appropriate, for instance, as altarpieces, but also as a fitting gift to ruling monarchs. They tended, however, to be symbolic representations of the world, most commonly the Christian universe as Jean Germain’s `Spiritual mappamundi’ c. 1450 to Philip the Good of Burgundy testifies.
The disappearance of the objet d'art: becoming as an aesthetic form
"Something really worth remembering is that the last works of certain artists and the paintings they left unfinished (…) are more admired as such than if they had been completed: in them, you can observe the phantom of the missing part and thus perceive the artist's very line of thought. And the regret for the hand that is no longer – that left us when it was busier as never before – beguiles and feeds the public's admiration."
Pliny, Historia Naturalis, XXXV, 145.
Nava Semel on literature, the creative process, the relationship between literature and lyric opera, on editing and deleting
Tel Aviv, December. Europe is snowed in, but here the sun shines and it is quite warm. The coffee shops are open everywhere and it is difficult to find a place at the tables that crowd the pavements. The country is in a pre-election fever. But then Israel is always finding itself in the grip of events that seem destined to decide its future. Everything feels so fateful.
Weeding the Digital Library?
For Paul Valéry, the motto of the library is more about selecting rather than reading (“élire plus que lire”). To withdraw is a critical rejection.
In traditional libraries, this function of de-selection is known as ‘weeding’. As the term suggests, weeding involves removing books that are no longer used. Librarians perform this operation regularly to free up space for more recent acquisitions.
The Attraction of Taking Everything Away
Tim Etchells in conversation with Florian Malzacher about never-ending stories, making things disappear and God deleting the world.
In ‘And On The Thousandth Night …’, a durational performance of six hours, eight performers wearing cardboard crowns and red robes tell stories as if to save their lives. The rule of the game is that any of the performers can interrupt at any time – and start their own story. I remember a performance in Frankfurt where you desperately tried to tell the story of God sitting at a computer trying to drag the icon for the world into the trash …
An e-mail conversation between Korean writer Kim Young-ha and German writer Matthias Göritz
I feel stupid, because I sent you a catalogue of questions three weeks ago, or at least I thought I did, or did I and you did not receive it? Not like it, not believe it? Not answered it?
Anyway, it’s weird with modern times, e-mail sounds to my german ears always a little bit like "Emaille", a shimmering, glittering material, like a pot no one could smoke.
The Nature of (Digital) Being
While tapping the backspace or delete key is a familiar act for every computer user, the question arises: where do all the letters (signs, images, pixels) go? Were they ever ‘here’ at all? What hides behind the deletion?
Farewell to Slovak: Czechs turn their backs on once-traditional bilingualism
The phenomenon of Czech-Slovak bilingualism is, apart from Serbian-Croatian, unique in Europe. Its origins can be traced to the idea of the Czechoslovakian state as it evolved within the national movements of both Czechs and Slovaks from the year 1800 onwards.
Responsible Pesticide Use In The UK - The Voluntary Initiative
Agriculture in the EU, from heavily subsidised cheap food at any cost during the years following the war, to a more market-led industry, has witnessed many changes, not least in the agrochemical sector. Pressure from minority ‘green’ groups has become mainstream and in the wake of BSE and a devastating outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease in the UK in 2001, there has been a perceived need to make all forms of agriculture more accountable.
Rural Renaissance - Building the New Eden
There's a revolution going on in the English countryside, so quiet that to date it has made little impact on the general psyche, but when the future looks back at us it will stand out as radical and significant. It starts as a tale of bone-chilling Cold War tension, the rape of the countryside by the god 'Profit', and ends with hope.
Let’s have some Monkey Mess!
Believe it or not, but someone has conducted a study in order to show how many cookbooks there are in UK households and how often they are being used.
Average seven; never. Those were the results. ...