MUSHROOMS IN WONDERLAND

MUSHROOMS IN WONDERLAND
Was Alice in Wonderland and Victorian fairy art and lore in general inspired by actual experiences with mind-altering fungi? The first well-documented hallucinogenic mushroom experience in Britain took place in London’s Green Park on 3 October 1799. Like many such experiences before and since,...
March 1st, 2010 | Arts | Read More

BREAKPOINT: terrorists vs. transhumanists

BREAKPOINT: terrorists vs. transhumanists
Former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke’s BREAKPOINT novel, set in the year 2012, is based on emerging technologies. “Globegrid,” a high-speed global network, links supercomputers worldwide. Combined with advanced AI software, it promises to reverse-engineer the brain, revolutionize...
February 17th, 2010 | Big Ideas | Read More

ADVENTURES IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION

ADVENTURES IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION
THE TIME MACHINE AND THE BIRTH OF CINEMA In October 1895, the twenty-nine year old H.G.Wells was in the first flush of his fame and success. The Time Machine, serialised the previous year, had appeared in book form over the summer, and was heading for the Christmas bestseller lists on the back of reviews...
February 11th, 2010 | Arts | Read More

Drugs & the Internet: Cyberdellic (R)evolution

Drugs & the Internet: Cyberdellic (R)evolution
This is a transcript of a talk by Charlotte Walsh at Retox Seminar earlier this month: Drugs & the Internet are inextricably and symbiotically entwined. Indeed, the very origins of the Internet are bound up with the exuberant experimentation with psychedelic drugs that took place in Silicon Valley...
February 4th, 2010 | Science & Technology | Read More

KISS ME / KILL ME

KISS ME / KILL ME
If our understanding of the mechanisms of the world could fit in a library, then ideally ‘Love’ would be a single fat volume on a plinth of its own. Where it would actually be found is printed on a sticker on an interminable shelf in the Reference section. Manuals would be archived chronologically,...
January 28th, 2010 | Arts | Read More

Could you be a Bin Laden Model too?

Could you be a Bin Laden Model too?
Spanish politician to sue FBI over using his face for a hypothetical modern Bin Laden photo The FBI acknowledges having used Gaspar Llamazares as the model in a Bin Laden photo-fit. // Spanish politician Gaspar Llamazares threatens to prosecute the US Federal Bureau of Investigation...
January 22nd, 2010 | Science & Technology | Read More

Is the US Government covering up the truth about UFOs?

Is the US Government covering up the truth about UFOs?
The Disclosure Project is an organization that alleges the existence of a US government cover-up of information relating to unidentified flying objects (UFOs). The Project claims that UFOs are spacecraft piloted by intelligent extraterrestrial life, a fact that the United States government is keeping...
January 20th, 2010 | Big Ideas | Read More

The dark side of the internet

The dark side of the internet
In the ‘deep web’, Freenet software allows users complete anonymity as they share viruses, criminal contacts and child pornography Fourteen years ago, a pasty Irish teenager with a flair for inventions arrived at Edinburgh University to study artificial intelligence and computer science....
January 14th, 2010 | Science & Technology | Read More

Avatar – A mythic masterpiece for our troubled time

Avatar – A mythic masterpiece for our troubled time
In the Avatar film, James Cameron, the maker of Titanic, has taken the new computerized, digital, 3-D technologies to a new astounding level of brilliance and mastery. It’s a story of adventure, space exploration and the wonders of evolution on alien worlds, echoing the best of the Star Wars series;...
January 13th, 2010 | Arts | Read More

Is Psychedelia ‘The New Black’?

Is Psychedelia ‘The New Black’?
Strolling down Kensington High Street last week, for a brief moment I could have sworn I was in San Francisco, circa 1973. By Candida Balfour for The Evening Standard. The windows of American Apparel heaved with neon T-shirts and trippy prints, while Empire of the Sun’s heady synth came...
January 12th, 2010 | Arts | Read More
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