Friday, February 27, 2009

Losers and Winners

A kind of Appendix to Workingmans Death.

400 Chinese workers break down the Kaiserstuhl coke factory in the Ruhr Valley into manageable parts and ship them back to their homeland: disassembly in the West – reassembly in the Far East. Dortmund’s last coke workers find themselves helping the Chinese to dismantle their own workplace.
Read the full film synopsis here: Link

Saturday, February 21, 2009

How Popular Culture is Making us Smarter

"Everything Bad Is Good For You" is the title of Steven Johnson's book about contemporary popular culture. His theory of the "sleeper curve" depicts the high and steady growing cognitive demands of video games, tv-programs, movies, and - surprise surprise: the internet. It is entertaining written but more important: Its a more systematic attempt to understand popular culture than the sensational title suggests.

Steven Johnson, Everything Bad is Good for You. How Popular Culture is Making us Smarter. Penguin Books 2005