From October 21st to 26th, Graz’s Elevate Festival once again stimulates new ways of thinking and listening through an extraordinary combination of electronic music, art and political discourse. Elevate highlights the role and importance of social movements as well as progressive initiatives in civil society and the importance of generating positive change in our society as a whole. At the same time, Elevate presents many live acts that offer fascinating odysseys into innovative worlds of sound far off the beaten path.
In a never-ending race to react to minute fluctuations in stock prices faster than anyone else in the world, financial firms have gone to extraordinary lengths to build the fastest possible networks, processors and software.
They measure their success by the nanosecond, which is the amount of time it takes light to travel a scant eight inches through a fiber-optic cable. While that might seem absurd to those of us still stuck on sluggish and overpriced consumer net connections, their obsession will, one day, likely become our gain.
Each day the news confirm the extent to which the global systemic crisis has now entered into the phase of global geopolitical dislocation, even if the media only timidly begin to interpret the historic upheavals which unfold before our own eyes..
For LEAP/E2020, behind the « sophisticated » dissertations on the exit from the crisis and the end of the policies of support for the economy and the financial sector hides a very simple truth, but one which governments and central bankers are unable to express: they don’t know what to do? when to do it? how to do it? and if they should do it alone or with the other big global players? Indeed if the lack of preparation to the start of the crisis resulted from world leaders inability to imagine a crisis could happen, for many months now, it has been their inability to correctly judge the true situation of the world economy and the interaction of the large number of extraordinary measures taken everywhere on the planet which now condemns them to remain passive. Between now and the end of this semester, this lack of action will simply leave the place to mere reactions to social, economic and political events. All this will take place within a framework of complete disorder, reinforcing everyman-for-himself trends which have become clearer and clearer since the end of 2009.
Taking advantage of the ongoing systemic crisis, and of the weakening of the US and of the Western superstructure over which the latter’s might is based, Turkey has entered a process of fundamental redefinition of its key geopolitical interests. The new priorities ready to break out by 2012 will account for Ankara’s most profound reappraisal since the country joined NATO in 1952. This process illustrates a return to the Kemalist vision of Turkey’s vital interests (1) i.e., different from the agenda set for the country by big powers. It is quite ironical that this evolution is initiated by leaders of religious-oriented party, the AKP. There will be substantial geopolitical, economic and commercial consequences to this strategic shift which challenges the traditional vision of a pro-Western Turkey waiting to join the EU.
All kinds of of devices have been dubbed “sonic blasters” — from the Long Range Acoustic Device super loudhailer to the piercing Banshee to the Inferno (“most unbearable, gut-wrenching noise I’ve ever heard in my life” according to Wired.com’s own Sharon Weinberger).
But a new device, developed in Israel, merits the “sonic blaster” label more than most: the Thunder Generator really is a blaster, producing a series of ear-splitting explosions. Some are so loud they could be deadly.
On December 25 US authorities arrested a Nigerian named Abdulmutallab aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on charges of having tried to blow up the plane with smuggled explosives. Since then reports have been broadcast from CNN, the New York Times and other sources that he was “suspected” of having been trained in Yemen for his terror mission. What the world has been subjected to since is the emergence of a new target for the US ‘War on Terror,’ namely a desolate state on the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen. A closer look at the background suggests the Pentagon and US intelligence have a hidden agenda in Yemen.
Timeless describes moments outside of time – moments that exist so deep inside history that they break through that finite grid. Timeless: The Composer/Arranger Series compiled by Mochilla is an homage to the composer-arrangers that have influenced hip-hop in the most literal and profound ways.
