This Never Happened, a mobile phone free music festival, coming to Australia
25 June 2023
Image courtesy of Pexels.
Should mobile phones be banned at music festivals? What sort of question is that? After all, is not recording the happenings of the day, be it video clips, or photos, and sharing them online, part and parcel of the music festival experience? Well it is, but doing so also has a downside. Just ask anyone who’s standing towards the back of the audience. The wall of held up arms and mobile phones might be about all they see of the show.
How’s that meant to be fun? But that’s not all. Evidence suggests recording certain events or experiences, by filming or photographing them, may diminish our ability to remember said occasions later on. So perhaps live music events would be more memorable, and more enjoyable for all concerned, if everyone left their phones at the ticket office?
That’s what Sydney based Australian event promotor Pia Del Mastro is betting on. Del Mastro is collaborating with American musician and electronic music producer Daniel Goldstein, also known as Lane 8, to bring such a rare creature, a music festival that does not allow the use of mobile phones, to Australia, in July 2023. The event, aptly enough, is called This Never Happened.
Lane 8 has been organising mobile phone free music festivals for several years overseas, and Del Mastro says they would be a first in Australia, in the mobile phone era. Lane 8 observed audiences were more engaged and immersed in the show, and gave their full attention to the bands performing, when they weren’t thinking about a device in their hand, which all makes sense.
It still remains to be seen how Australian festival goers will take to such a radical proposition. I’ve been to the occasional preview film screening, or product launch, where attendees needed to leave their phones at the front desk, but we were only without our devices for a couple of hours.
But This Never Happened will differ. Revellers will instead keep their phone, but be given a sticker to place over the camera lens. Del Mastro expects a degree of peer pressure, together with the phone-free spirit of the event, will see most of those present keep their devices pocketed away.
But we’ll find out soon. The first This Never Happened event takes place in Melbourne, on Friday 14 July 2023. I get the feeling though audiences, once they lose themselves to the music, will embrace the concept with open arms, and open eyes.
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events, music, smartphones, technology
An Oscar Award for film stunts may be on the way
25 June 2023
American filmmaker Chad Stahelski, possibly best known for directing the John Wick films, starring Keanu Reeves, believes an Oscar Award for movie stunts is forthcoming.
While promoting the latest instalment of the franchise, John Wick: Chapter 4, earlier this year, Stahelski, a stunt actor himself, said he spent time talking to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who present the Oscars annually, and described the process as “incredibly positive”:
In a recent interview with ComicBookMovie.com to mark the Blu-ray release of “John Wick: Chapter 4,” Stahelski announced that conversations about a stunt Oscar have finally taken place “in the last couple of months” between the Academy and a contingent of stunt coordinators.
“We’ve been meeting with members of the Academy and actually having these conversations, and, to be honest, it’s been nothing but incredibly positive, incredibly instructional,” Stahelski said. “I think, for the first time, we’ve made real movement forward to making this happen.”
Earlier this year, entertainment and culture magazine Vulture, frustrated by the Academy’s apparent lack of interest in the matter, established their own awards for film stunts. Winners, who were announced in March 2023, included Top Gun: Maverick (surprise, surprise), The Batman, and Nope.
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WikiHouse a possible solution to affordable housing shortages?
25 June 2023
Housing shortages, along with rising interest rates and mortgage repayments, are presently driving up rents and homelessness. To alleviate the problem, the supply of affordable accommodation needs to be increased. But planning and constructing safe, well-built dwellings, takes time.
The WikiHouse project, based in Britain, are designers of sustainable, open-source, modular housing, and may be part of the solution. Long story short, component blocks of durable plywood can be made, which bolt together, in a similar fashion to self-assembly furniture, to create a house.
Perhaps this is something worth looking at?
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community, economics, technology
The best self-help book advice distilled into one blog post
25 June 2023
There are a million self-help books in the world, all filled to the brim with suggestions and methods to somehow make your life easier, better, or happier. But if you’re looking for the type of self-help these titles offer, which one — of the multitudes — do you choose?
Chris Taylor, writing for Mashable, may have saved you a lot of time. Time, you know, that can be invested in making desired improvements, instead of being wasted reading novel length books *.
Taylor has put in the hard yards on your behalf, by reading dozens of such books, and distilling the best of their often overlapping wisdom into a single blog post. Talk about breaking the job down into those much lauded baby-steps.
* this also leaves time to read actual novels instead.
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Why is cancer so hard to beat? Kurzgesagt tells us why
21 June 2023
Kurzgesagt take on the difficult questions, and come back with easy to follow, and entertaining, answers. Some forms of cancer have proved seemingly impossible to treat, but the German animation studio feels confident that will change in the not too distant future. Let’s hope so.
An undead city under siege, soldiers and police ruthlessly shooting down waves of zombies that flood from infected streets, trying to escape and infect more cities. This is what happens when your body fights cancer, more exciting than any movie. How does this battle for survival unfold?
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The Man Who Invented Vegemite, a book by Jamie Callister
21 June 2023
Book cover of The Man Who Invented Vegemite, written by >Jamie Callister.
Strewth, it’s been one hundred years since Australia’s favourite yeast extract, Vegemite, hit the shelves of grocery shops. Although similar (sort of…) to Marmite, which came along in 1902, Vegemite was developed by Cyril Callister, a Melbourne chemist and food technologist in 1922.
In 2012, Jamie Callister, the grandson of Cyril wrote a book, The Man Who Invented Vegemite, to mark what would have been the ninetieth anniversary of Vegemite. And now, ten years later, it looks like the book has been republished to commemorate a century of the viscous, dark brown — and might I add — delicious, spread’s presence in the world.
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The Last Daughter a film by Nathaniel Schmidt, Brenda Matthews
21 June 2023
For decades until the 1970’s, some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were forcibly removed from their families by successive Australian governments. These children became known as the Stolen Generations. Indigenous woman Brenda Matthews was taken from her family aged two, and placed in the care of a white family.
Matthews was later returned to her birth family after her biological mother regained custody of her. The The Last Daughter, trailer, a documentary which Matthews co-directs with Nathaniel Schmidt, recounts her story as she attempts to trace her adoptive, loving, white foster family, while learning more about her Indigenous family.
The Last Daughter is presently screening in selected Australian cinemas.
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Australia, documentary, film, history, Indigenous culture
The Voice to Parliament Handbook, what an Indigenous voice means
21 June 2023
Australians will be participating in a referendum sometime in the next six months to decide whether a change should be made to the constitution, to create an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Such a Voice would take the form of an independent body made up of Indigenous Australians.
Delegates of this body, who would not be elected members of parliament, would be tasked with advising the Australian government and parliament on matters pertaining to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Their input however would not be binding.
Changes to the Australian constitution are never simple or straightforward. The process, and discussion, involved in making amendments, can be confusing and unsettling. To better understand the purpose of the Voice, and what it means, Hardie Grant have published a book called The Voice to Parliament Handbook.
Written by Thomas Mayo, a Torres Strait Islander, and Uluṟu Statement advocate, and journalist Kerry O’Brien, with illustrations by cartoonist Cathy Wilcox, the handbook aims to answer some of the more commonly asked questions about an Indigenous Voice to the Australian parliament:
A handy tool for people inclined to support a ‘yes’ vote in the referendum, The Voice to Parliament Handbook reflects on this historic opportunity for genuine reconciliation, to right the wrongs and heal the ruptured soul of a nation. This guide offers simple explanations, useful anecdotes, historic analogies and visual representations, so you can share it among friends, family and community networks in the build-up to the referendum.
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The 2023 Miles Franklin Australian literary award shortlist
20 June 2023
Book cover of The Lovers, by Yumna Kassab, named on the 2023 Miles Franklin shortlist.
The shortlist of the 2023 Miles Franklin literary award was announced this morning. The following six books have advanced to the next stage of the prestigious Australian literary award:
- Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran
- Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
- Hopeless Kingdom by Kgshak Akec
- Iris by Fiona Kelly McGregor
- Limberlost by Robbie Arnott
- The Lovers by Yumna Kassab
More good news for Jessica Au and Robbie Arnott who continue to not only win literary awards, but be nominated for them. And good to see some not so often seen writers make the shortlist. In a statement, the judges said the shortlisted titles all represent fresh and bold fiction writing:
The 2023 Miles shortlist celebrates six works that delve deeply into archives and memory, play confidently with style and structure and strike new grounds in language and form. From deeply immersive tales to polished jewels of craft, from lyrical mappings of land to convention-breaking chronicles, this is novel-writing at its freshest and boldest.
The winner will be named on Tuesday 25 July 2023.
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Debbie Disrupt, AI newsreader, broadcasting on Disrupt Radio
19 June 2023
Debbie Disrupt, AI newsreader, image via Disrupt Radio.
Entrepreneurial thinkers and business mavericks are in the sights of Disrupt Radio, Australia’s newest national radio network, which goes to air, or a streaming device near you, on Monday 26 June 2023. Australian comedian and broadcaster Libbi Gorr, also known as Elle McFeast and Irish rocker and activist Bob Geldof, will be kick starting proceedings during the station’s first week, with both set to feature on the breakfast show.
Veteran radio and television presenter, George Donikian has been brought on-board to read morning news bulletins, while Debbie Disrupt, an AI radio presenter will take the afternoon news shift. I don’t know if Debbie Disrupt is the first AI newsreader to ever present on a radio show, but her presence has media pundits talking. At the moment they remain unsure whether her participation is a cost consideration, or a publicity stunt.
I’m leaning more to the latter. Any suitably experienced radio presenter could read the news, but having an AI robot that can do the job instead? That’ll bring in the listeners, at least to begin with. I also see an element of expectation here. Something would be wrong if a start-up digital radio station called Disrupt didn’t have at least one AI presenter on the crew.
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