Escaping Screens: A Tech-Free Travel Quest, Part II

A stranded American tourist shares the story of a six-month screen-free quest through India and Nepal just as the coronavirus explodes. Part II.

By Tom Grotewohl | August 12, 2020 | Cognition, Culture, Media, Philosophy, Society, Well-Being | Acceptance, Addiction, Art, Awareness, Boredom, Boundaries, Concentration, Conscientious Tech Use, Consciousness, Convenience, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Creativity, Distraction, Dystopia, Electronic Devices, Experience, Food, Ganges, India, Jungle, Localism, Lockdown, Meditation, music, Nature, Nepal, News, Obsession, Pandemic, Peace, Photography, Presence, Renunciation, Ritual, Sacred, Screen Sabbath, Serendipity, Smartphone, Social Media, Spirituality, Superficiality, Tech-Free, Time, Tranquility, travel, Wisdom, Writing

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Escaping Screens: A Tech-Free Travel Quest, Part I

An American tourist stranded in India shares his story: six months traveling without a screen, only to pick one up again just in time for the global meltdown.

By Tom Grotewohl | July 30, 2020 | Cognition, Culture, Media, Philosophy, Society, Well-Being | Acceptance, Addiction, Art, Awareness, Boredom, Boundaries, Concentration, Conscientious Tech Use, Consciousness, Convenience, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Creativity, Distraction, Dystopia, Electronic Devices, Experience, Food, Ganges, India, Jungle, Localism, Lockdown, Meditation, music, Nature, Nepal, News, Obsession, Pandemic, Peace, Photography, Presence, Renunciation, Ritual, Sacred, Screen Sabbath, Serendipity, Smartphone, Social Media, Spirituality, Superficiality, Tech-Free, Time, Tranquility, travel, Wisdom, Writing

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Podcast #31: Roald Hazelhoff’s Environmental Citizenship

Southern Environmental Center founder Roald Hazelhoff gives us a tour of his unique educational and community-building work.

By Mo Lotman | May 2, 2019 | Community, Culture, Environment, Family, Podcasts | Alabama, Art, Birmingham, Birmingham-Southern College, Children, EcoScape, Education, Endangered Species, Environment, Garbage, Garden, Mosaic, Museums, Native Plants, Partnerships, Pollution, Preservation, Recycling, Reuse, Sculpture, Southern Environmental Center, Stewardship, Stone, Students, Waste, Water

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Podcast #28: Jonathan Taplin on Internet Aggregators

Jonathan Taplin, former music and film professional, tells first-hand what the new rentier economy of Internet aggregators like Google and Facebook has done to the creative arts, journalism, and democracy.

By Mo Lotman | March 13, 2019 | Advertising, Culture, Economics, Journalism, Law, Media, Podcasts, Politics, Society | Addiction, Advertising, Amazon, Annenberg Innovation Lab, Antitrust, Art, Automation, Bing, Bodycams, Cambridge Analytica, Campaign Finance, China, Civil War, Consumers, Copyright, Creative Fields, Decentralization, Democracy, Digitization, Dystopia, Eric Garcetti, Europe, Fake News, Federal Government, GDPR, Google Facebook, Head Tax, Infrastructure, Internet, Jeff Bezos, John Seely Brown, Journalism, LA Times, Larry Page, Law, Levon Helm, Local News, Localism, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Luther King, Middle Class, Musicians, New York Times, Newspapers, Parking Apps, Peter Thiel, Photography, Privacy, Producers, Recommendations, Record Business, Robert Bork, Roger McNamee, Royalties, Safe Harbor, Search Engine, Social Credit, Social Networking, State Politics, surveillance, The Band, The Last Waltz, The Weight, Throat Cancer, Tim Berners-Lee, Tristan Harris, Vint Cerf, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Watchdog Role, Winner-Take-All, Yelp, YouTube

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He Started #DeleteFacebook… Nine Years Ago

Nine years ago, three artists created a controversial site to make a statement about Facebook’s practices. The company sued and accused them of scraping data. Oh, the irony.

By Art Keller | April 11, 2018 | Culture, Ethics, Law, Media, Privacy | Advertising, Apps, Art, Bits of Freedom, Cambridge Analytica, Chris Wylie, Congress, Danja Vasiliev, Dark Patterns, Data Scraping, Data-Mining, Deleting Accounts, Developers, Digital Art, Edward Snowden, EFF, Facebook, Fraud, Gordan Savicic, Manipulation, Mark Zuckerberg, Moddr, Privacy, Privacy Zuckering, Social Commentary, Social Media, Tobias Leingruber, Twitter, Walter Langelaar, Web Suicide Machine

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Art Appreciation Under Pressure: The Evolution of Evaluation

With endless feeds and ubiquitous ratings, connecting with a work of art online in an autonomous, meaningful way has become difficult.

By Adam Balivet | October 18, 2017 | Culture, Economics, Media, Philosophy | Action, Aldous Huxley, Art, Art Appreciation, Contemplation, Culture, Dislike, Drives, Evaluation, Facebook, Film, Friedrich Nietzsche, Instagram, Interpretation, Judgment, Language, Like, Literature, Malcolm Lowry, Meaning, music, Photography, Playlists, Pressure, Social Media, Songs, Spotify, Understanding

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Zines Keep it Real, Defying Digital Trends

The culture of zines, those xeroxed, do-it-yourself pamphlets, goes back decades. Instead of dying with the Internet, it’s as strong as ever.

By Lucy Uprichard | September 27, 2017 | Community, Culture, Journalism, Media, Publishing | Art, Associated Press, Broken Pencil, DIY, Expression, Fairs, Fashion Monitor, Independent Press, Internet, Magazines, New York Times, Pamphlets, Print Media, Publishing, Punks, Radicals, Washington Post, Zines

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For the Feint of Art

Additive manufacturing, colloquially known as 3-D printing, has made an enormous impact in nearly every field, from health and medicine, [...]

By Katherine Vazquez | August 3, 2016 | Automation, Culture | 3-D Printing, Additive Manufacturing, Art, Artists, Painting, Rembrandt, The Jewish Bride, The Next Rembrandt, Tim Zaman, Value

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