[spectre] Next Nature Newsletter (Modified by Geert Lovink)

[NextNature.net]

We gladly send you a new issue of the Next Nature newsletter, 
containing our most recent explorations and announcements. This 
newsletter is connected to the website www.nextnature.net which 
researches and visualizes our changing relation with nature.

CONTENTS

-Designing for Next Nature: One week left to send in Proposals
-Blog Highlights
-Fake for Real: A Memory Game about Reality
-Biggest Visual Power Show in California on May 17th

DESIGNING FOR NEXT NATURE: ONE WEEK LEFT TO SEND IN PROPOSALS

How should we relate to the nature caused by human culture? How will we 
design? How will we build? How will we live? We call upon designers, 
artists, visionaries, film makers and other creative people to submit 
their visions, statements and ideas on how we will live in next nature. 
The best proposals will be presented at the Biggest Visual Power Show 
in California on May 17th, 2008. Submission deadline: March 10.

http://www.nextnature.net/callforproposals 

BLOG HIGHLIGHTS

Organic Coca-Cola

Diet Coke Plus, the latest addition to Coca Cola product range, is 
fortified with vitamins and minerals to improve your health. Is Coca 
Cola, which was originally marketed as a health drink, returning to its 
roots? And what is this thing with engineered food?
http://www.nextnature.net/?p=2012

Hurricane control causes a storm of lawsuits

According to a recent study, adding dust to Hurricane Katrina’s base 
could have weakened the storm and sent it spinning away from New 
Orleans. Controlling hurricanes could save lots of lives and dollars, 
but who decides where to direct a storm? Will ‘natural disasters’ soon 
be exclusively for the poor and powerless?
http://www.nextnature.net/?p=1886

Bio-mechanical Energy Harvesting

Let’s face it: every time your cell-phone runs empty you feel amputated 
and you quickly run home to connect to a power-adapter. Bionic Power 
Inc. is now developing a knee-brace that can be used to charge small 
devices; the 5-watt electricity output from one knee generator is 
enough to power 10 cell-phones at once.
http://www.nextnature.net/?p=1977

Intelligent Design - A Designers take (video)

A typographical film on the term ‘Intelligent Design’ from a designers 
perspective. Those opposing camps in the intelligent design debate 
might be much closer than they think.
http://www.nextnature.net/?p=2021

Green Blues: Bio-fuels add to Global Warming

It is official: the Green Blues has begun. Almost all bio-fuels used 
today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if 
the full emissions costs of producing these 'green' fuels are taken 
into account, two new studies published in the top-tier journal Science 
have concluded.
http://www.nextnature.net/?p=1992

Retro Future: Magic Highway USA (video)

Nothing makes a person more modest about future speculations than Retro 
Future. The sheer optimism in the 1958 video entitled 'Magic Highway 
USA' is just overwhelming: "It will be our magic carpet to new hopes, 
new dreams and a better way of life, for the future" (yes, they’re 
talking about highways here).
http://www.nextnature.net/?p=1809

FAKE FOR REAL: A MEMORY GAME ABOUT REALITY

The Fake for Real Memory Game playfully visualizes the classical theme 
of Fake vs Real. Is everything that was once directly experienced, in 
our media society now replaced by simulations? Or are reproduction and 
imitation naturally part of life? Can you tell the fake from the real? 
See for yourself! Created by the good people of NextNature.net.

Play the game online: http://www.fakeforreal.com

BIGGEST VISUAL POWER SHOW IN CALIFORNIA ON MAY 17TH

After the successful editions in 2003, 2005 and 2006 in the Netherlands 
and Germany, the event now moves to sunny Southern California. The 
Biggest Visual Power Show is an intellectual show that blends between a 
conference and a pop concert. The show represents a field of mixed 
cultural disciplines presenting visionary statements, radical ideas and 
powerful imagery. The event will take place on May 17 at the Wind 
Tunnel Building in South Pasadena. The list of presenters will be 
announced in the next newsletter.

http://www.nextnature.net/powershow