This article gives a glimpse into what is likely to be the next trending film on Twitter, after the fuss about Inception has waned. But, what medical issues could possibly arise from this, ‘the most horrific film ever made’ (according to the film’s own production notes)?

I will skip the debate about the ethics of decency and focus instead on the film’s content, which tells the story of a surgeon whose goal is to create a human centipede. This scenario may require a little clarification, which the Director, Tom Six, has been happy to provide in interviews: the human centipede is a series of humans sewn together mouth to ass (See one of the film sketches above).  Perhaps the most obvious place to start is in the field of bioethics and, in particular, within the conversation about human enhancement and posthumanity?

Thus, would a series of humans sewn together in such a fashion be a step too far in our pursuit of human enhancements, or would our most liberal bioethicists be able to find some value in such a modification to our biological characteristics? Would this example be a form of ‘radical transhuman enhancement’ (Miah, 2008) that demonstrates the limit of a liberal approach to human enhancements, or could the creation of a human with 100 legs ever be conceived as an enhancement of our humanity?

What at first glance seems to be a simple case of unethical conduct and a morally dubious aspiration, does, on closer inspection, reveal itself as an example that gets to the heart of the debate over the ethics of human enhancement. Indeed, considering this peculiar case can shed light on the value of more familiar examples of enhancement, which aspire to make us functionally better in more familiar ways, but which also imply a transformation to an aesthetic value of our human condition.  The film also reminds us that our biological characteristics may be conceived as optimal only when our societies are adequately equipped to accommodate radical deviations from a biosocial norm. Often, we fail miserably at such accommodation, as the history of disability studies reveals.

Yet, to really come to terms with the merit of the human centipede as a condition of human existence, it is necessary to delve into the deliciously disgusting detail of this transformation. Just to be clear, the film does not imagine genetically engineering our species to become a new chimera, with anatomy thus positioned. Instead, it depicts cognisant adults, capable of realizing they are being transformed in a way that they are likely to find distasteful at best, but more likely tortuous and degrading. These people will not only have the mental capacity to know the full extent of their suffering, but will also have the sensory experience through which they will perceive the horror of their circumstances.

Consequently, it is an open and closed case in terms of it involving a medical professional taking advantage of other people, but to close the conversation here would be to spoil the fun of this debate. Let us ignore this transgression for the remainder of the discussion, even if it means I will get into trouble for doing so.

Thus, let us suppose that the transformation of individuals into the human centipede were sought on account of it creating an enhanced human. What could this possibly involve? Perhaps having 100 legs would be better than having just two for many tasks we seek to undertake. It may mean we are less likely to fall over and injure ourselves, for instance, or that we could walk more quickly, or move with greater agility to traverse difficult terrain like never before.

Yet, the challenge with providing examples to explain how humans may benefit from being sewn together to form a centipede is that any such change would be considered valuable only in a world that is very different from the one we live in today. In other words, imagining the value of radical transhuman enhancements requires first coming to terms with humanity’s future needs and desires. It also requires understanding how these needs may evolve incrementally, thus leading to a slow uptake of gradual enhancements, until we reach a point which, today, we would consider a radical departure from our species category of homo sapien.

Of course, those ethicists who are closer to the policy making side of medicine and technology, rather than the philosophical debates, will cringe at this argument, asking only for the specific instances in which the modification could, in even the most generous sense, confer value. In short, they would want to know what would be the point of creating a human centipede, before even hearing a case on behalf of its creation? From this perspective, if one cannot imagine such circumstances and thus convey the merit of it coming to effect, then such ethicists would confirm that these changes would be medically unethical, irrespective of the many other issues the example of the human centipede raises.

A further concern involves where we focus our attention, when imagining the dimensions of our humanity that are affected by this metamorphosis. After all, it may be a mistake to focus on the benefit of having extra legs. We might instead focus on the fact that these 25 people – arms and legs function as the centipede’s legs – would only have one bottom to wipe when using the toilet! Alternatively, having 25 brains may confer an advantage or a disadvantage depending on whether and how they are connected, or whether the connection is series or parallel. Indeed, it may matter more whether the 25 people all get on with each other, or if they spend most of the day arguing in circles. Another consideration may be how long a beast of such description would need to spend undertaking daily maintenance tasks, such as eating, simply to remain functional. A daily schedule where 20 hours of a day are spent eating may not be the most enhanced lifestyle we could imagine for humanity.

Clearly, the abhorrent image of the human centipede precludes our seeing it as an unequivocal enhancement of humanity. Moreover, the surgeon’s dementia reminds us more of Dr Frankenstein and every other example of real-life human experimentation that has besieged humanity, to its detriment. The example is made all the more complicated by the proposition that each link in the centipede would have a fully functioning brain with sufficient awareness to realize that it were attached to somebody else’ bottom.

This leads us nicely into debates about conjoined twins and whether the individuals who are conjoined are worse off because of their unique circumstances. Certainly, the health risks of conjoined twins are sufficient to justify intervention in many cases, but where they are less clear, the ethical basis for separation is much more controversial. Rather, such examples remind us of our bias to think of identity as singular and biologically isolated from another sentient being’s identity. This view may reveal a bias in how we think of humanity that requires further questioning, which raises questions about the value of being a singular person.

Admittedly, I am prepared to go only so far in comparing the human centipede to conjoined twins. After all, the film is about a mad scientist with a bizarre fetish, not a remarkable surgeon aiming to improve the lives of his patients. Indeed, this surgeon is unlikely to get his experiment passed his IRB and it is even more unlikely that volunteers would sign up to the procedure, even if it were to benefit medical science. For most of us, it’s hard to get passed the fact that somebody’s lips – perhaps our own – would be sewn to another person’s botty and yet, this extrapolation of what many would regard a remarkably unpleasant permanent state of affairs is predicated on the basis that we have lived lives which do not require such inconvenience. The unpleasantness of the situation is further confirmed when realizing that the mechanism also requires passing excrement via this channel and subsequently through one’s own digestive system, from one link to the next. Indeed, our inquiry needs to be informed by considering not just the functional, but the symbolic importance of both the mouth and the anus in human lives.

Most of what I have said could hardly be construed as a case on behalf of becoming a human centipede and, as such, I am in danger of having set up a straw man argument over a case, which, from the beginning, only barely touched on the field of bioethics. Indeed, some reviews of the film describe it as a comedy – perhaps closer to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind than Extreme Measures.

Nevertheless, the human centipede is a great film through which to discuss bioethical issues for various reasons. First, it presents us with an example of a biological modification that is unlikely to be medically required at any point soon and so does not involve us with the typical social or contextual issues that bioethical debates often face. Thus, to modify humans in this way would require a significant departure from the usual justifications employed that permit individuals to modify themselves. As well, its ambiguous functional value means that considerable work must be done to discern what value might accrue from the change, thus making one’s judgment about its merit highly subjective. Without instrumental explanations for why people might seek such changes, one’s moral compass is thrown off considerably and one may need to delve into the more symbolic dimensions of such a being and the society that surrounds it.

I have no doubt that this may be the only article ever to be written about this film’s implications for bioethics. As noted earlier, if you have a chance to hear Tom Six interviewed, you’ll quickly discern that his Human Centipede may be most suited for remembrance as a comedy, rather than a horror film. Its tongue in cheek claim to being ’100% medically accurate’ may not be untrue, but the sheer fact that the claim is made – along with the other claim I reveal at the start of this article – indicates that the film wishes to trade on the grotesque, as a device not for serious shock, but for creating a form of surreal horror that is more David Lynch than David Cronenberg, or more Salvador Dali than Pablo Picasso.

Bioethicists could learn a lot from the Human Centipede about how we situate our claims about what enhancements do for humanity.  It imagines a world where the least obvious of biological modifications is articulated in a way that challenges what we think of as normal, natural, beautiful and ethical. While it may seem an obvious example of an unethical use of technology, given that it would involve a serious worsening of circumstances for the majority, this may only hold if you happen to be at position 2-25 in the chain. If you are lucky enough to be the head of the centipede, your point of view – literally and metaphorically – is likely to be quite different.

This week, I was interviewed for a feature in the @TimesHigherEd; the opportunity to reflect on my own web presence was just too much to resist. Her are some full answers to the questions I was asked. The THE article can be found here. Thanks to Zoe Corbyn for reaching out.

When did you start your website?, Why did you start it? and what do you use it for?

I designed my first personal website as a PhD student in 1998. Just by chance, I began working with a Professor at my university who was developing the School’s first website portfolio, focused around delivering lecture content via the University’s new digital environment. At this point, I was the one in the school who would deliver intro courses to incoming students about ‘the Internet’. I’d teach concepts that, today, would seem ridiculous to teach – such as, understanding how search engines work, or what hyperlinks do. Although, I wonder how many people would know what code underpins a link. The concept of search engines was still quite new – as was learning about Boolean searches. It all seems extraordinary now. I designed my first site in html, it took another year before we had a wysiwyg – what you see is what you get – software.

It’s hard to remember what prompted me to create my own website – I started by designing sites for academic associations. I think the creative exploration has always been the primary fascination for me. I remember how exciting it felt to design interesting layouts, play with frames, understand templates, design interesting graphics and even create animations on the site. All of that stuff was quite innovative back then and it’s interesting to reflect back on what has changed. I remember when ‘marquee text’ (scrolling right to left) on a site was innovative, then tacky; but if you look now at contemporary media environments – such as 24hr news – marquee text has made a comeback, albeit in a slightly different way. As well, revolving news items in websites has become a core feature of web 2.0 environments – I have a rotating features graphic on my site, for instance.

From very early on I was keen to reach more people with my work. It seemed that the academic world was not particularly great at doing this – I remember one professor telling me that, on average, six people read a single academic article.  I have no idea if that is true, but it sounds plausible given how closed academia can be. So, the idea of opening up to a wider population was a motivation from the start. I think any writer wants their work to be read, whether you are a philosopher or a novelist.

Since 1998, my website has gone through around six or seven re-designs and each of them reflects how the grammar of designing websites changed over the years. At the same time, I think my own desire for change and to learn how to do new things prompts my revisions and each one feels like a refreshing change.

What do you use your website for?

There’s a prior issue I need to address, before explaining what I use my website for, which has to do with how I perceive it as an entity. You mentioned you were not interested in blogs as such, but there’s an important point to make in terms of how content is aggregated now via blogging platform. I think the word blog has become pejorative in certain circles, as if it implies something ephemeral. The reality is that the content management structure that gained prominence through blogs now characterizes every major website. My website www.andymiah.net draws in content from various environments that I use. If you take a peek you will see. It pulls in content from my accounts in Twitter, Flickr and YouTube, Slideshare, Delicious, and other websites I manage. In addition, there is core content – my regular, substantive postings – which are published through the wordpress database structure of my site. WordPress is great at allowing me to integrate these other spaces. I think Flickr beats other platforms for Photo sharing, which is why I’d rather pull in my Flickr feed, than add the photos to my wordpress database.

I guess one of the overarching principles I apply to my own site design and productivity is to consider what allows me to reach more people. Without a doubt, I think Flickr is the best photo-sharing platform to do this and I have had over 300,000 views since it started. Equally, my YouTube platform, which I haven’t used much, has had over 25,000 views since 2007. As well, Twitter is the best microblogging platform out there and posting tweets through my mobile or Tweetdeck means that content is sent both to my website and my Facebook account.  This layering of information is crucial to keeping everything fresh.

With this in mind, I use it for many different things. First, it is a repository for what I have done, such as publications, speaking events and so on. Second, it tells others what I am doing or about to do. For example, I have a Dopplr plug in, which tells people where I am at any point in time. Third, it is a database of my research interests and a back catalogue for what interests me. To this end, I no longer bookmark websites to my browser. Instead, I publish them to my Delicious account, which then makes them available to everyone – these are also displayed on my website.  I also publish content to be found. For example, if there is a conference I am interested in, but cannot attend, I will re-publish their call for papers in part to keep the record, but also so that anyone searching for this conference will find me. Again, this is the power of Web 2.0 – and of working in the world of academia, where few people do this – I can be sure that if I publish an entry in my website that has the title of a conference, it’ll reach the top-10 Google ranking almost immediately, often being the first hit. This is a way of bringing people I’m interested to me, without making direct contact. Who knows whether it really works or not? I’ve never researched it. Undertaking this task is also like keeping memos about things. Usually, I may recall a conference from a couple of years ago, but finding information about it online may no longer be possible, since the info was only on an academic website, which has been deleted. If I have reposted the information, then I’ll always be able to find it, for instance, if I wanted to connect with its organizers

Did you design and build it yourself, or if not then who did? Do you maintain it/update it yourself?

In terms of build and content, yes, I’ve created all my personal websites and I publish all my own content. The present version is based on the Arras theme available in WordPress – one of the big shifts in the last few years has been away from self-designed templates towards themes, the foundation of which is designed by others, – it signals the shift towards open source culture. In any case, I’m not an expert in xml – I wouldn’t dare messing around with some of the code, as it’d be a full time job. I’d also not know how to build a wordpress theme from scratch.

On the other hand, every graphic on my site has been selected, cropped, optimized, inserted and published by me alone and every post is generated by me alone. Most of the time, the image is also taken by me.

I’m self taught in web design, so each time I re-design, I spend a bit of time trawling the web for advice on design and build, but also hoping that if I get into trouble, that I can find my own way out of it by consulting the web or a couple of close friends. This happened most recently with my latest website design. There was a point at which I knew I had to move from a static html server to a dynamic xml server and design, using a content management system, but it had always seemed complicated. One day I just went for it and hoped I’d figure it out. It took a couple of days of having my site down, but I got there in the end – and the world of hosted WordPress is infinite! It really feels like a step forward personally and professionally to have made this move.

What are the challenges of keeping your website and how much time do you devote to it?

In terms of the time I devote to the site, it varies really. Around the time of a redesign, it can be daily task to tweak its elements, which may last a week.

In terms of weekly activity, I guess I spend a few hours a week working on it, but even this is difficult to qualify.  For example, I recently posted an article about Stephen Fry’s twitter account called ‘Is @StephenFry a fake?’.  Posting the article itself didn’t take much time, but writing the articles did. To this end, the majority of the time is on the creative rather than technical side and I see that part of the work as an integral part of my academic research.

Very often, ideas I develop and publish on my website end up in academic research papers. To this extent, my website is a catalyst for my research productivity. I would say that the biggest challenge is technical – computers just aren’t fast enough still. It takes too long to process movie footage and images, especially when compressing.

I could do with one mega-computer that is built for this kind of work and one other, but really this wouldn’t work. For the last 10 years, I’ve only ever used a laptop – and more recently a smart phone – so there’s a trade off here inevitably. But definitely, the biggest challenge is that the computer just can’t keep up, which is the one aspect that slows me down.

Why did you establish it separately from the university?
I suppose it existed before my current university affiliation, so to continue in this way made sense. Equally, universities are not really in a position to facilitate this kind of website, I think it has to be a personal endeavour.  Being an academic is not like being a celebrity; universities don’t see us as their star products to be publicized and there are no dedicated publicists to optimize what any academic could achieve, given the right marketing – yes, academics desperately need better marketing!

I’ve argued for many years that public institutions are terrible at adopting open source platforms and sharing content generation rights and that in a time of such economic scrutiny, the University budget cuts should look first at trying to streamline their web presence by empowering their academics to produce their own content. Platforms like Blackboard are obsolete and we shouldn’t pay for them.

In any case, if you want to be an early adopter of new environments, sadly, the university as a whole is not the place to start. That said, at the departmental level there is a lot of scope to innovate. In my own University, our School of Creative and Cultural Industries has adopted WordPress blogs, Twitter accounts, Flickr and YouTube spaces very early on, but there is a sense of these places being an integral part of our core business.

For my own website, I am sure the university would have given me a domain space, but the flexibility of my own space is the main motivation for keeping it separate.

How essential do you feel it is? / Is it now an imperative for academics to have their own websites?

One of the first things I advise new PhD students is to get their own website. I think it is especially important when starting out as an academic, but I’d also explain this as an obligation and something they will inevitably have. Their decision is whether to leave it to the university to articulate, or to take some ownership over their public profile.

Academics should be obliged to make themselves more visible through websites. I think the fact that we are funded publicly dictates that what we do should be as well publicized as possible to really shape society as we hope to. I also think the progress of software makes this inevitable. Consider how academics research, for instance. We still go to libraries, but print budgets are being cut, most academics use electronic databases to download pdfs and even our system for storing our research is changing. Consider the growing popularity of a platform like Mendeley, which is the first social and intelligent bibliographic platform. This site permits an academic to publish their searches, but also will suggest other readings to the user based on their history – this changes things radically: the academic no longer goes to the library, the library comes to the academic. It’s the next stage after ‘publication alerts’.

Yet, while I think all academics should have their own websites, I realize that my own research interests underpin the amount of time I dedicate to my own site and not all academics are in a similar position.  I think more scientist have developed their own websites since the government has pushed the interest to develop more public engagement dimensions to research. That said, we do see moves towards this – open access publishing obligations with major research grants is one such trajectory.

Clearly, an academic can get by without a website, but there is so much more an academic can do if they have one. The difficulty – as always – is the digital literacy gap, which has trumped the digital divide as the major obstacle in digital culture. We all have access now as academics, but the platforms shift so quickly that understanding what to do requires continual re-training or a willingness to go out there and learn in your own time.

Has your website helped boost your profile?
I’m sure it has. It’s hard to qualify and, of course, it’s only a boost if the website has credibility, but I would expect that I am more well known because of it. Equally, I don’t think this can be the motivation for creating one’s own site. I guess I have faith in it reaching people, but have never studied this and would probably do it regardless.

Have you had any interference from the university? Do they mind you having it?
Far from it. I have never asked whether the university minds or not, but have always felt supported to innovate online. I would hope that universities treat such spaces as an extension of academic freedom and an integral part of being a scholar. Any major outputs of mine go through the corporate marketing office of the university, which can help reach further – but, like many academics, I also help to write my own press releases.

Do you link to your website from your university home page and if not, why not?
Yes, in both directions. I also manage my School’s web assets, so there’s a lot of cross activity and I can dictate what content links where.

How do you balance putting up professional and personal items?

I don’t publish much on my personal life.  I think most of what I put online is about my professional life in some way, though there is a little crossover. For example, I may write something about a film I’ve seen and publish that as an article on my site, but I didn’t go to the film in order to write something. These boundaries are a little fuzzy, but you won’t find any information about what I had for breakfast in my Twitter stream – unless it was really good! Having said that, I have just set up a Twitter account for my new born son, so who knows? I think one’s comfort zone for the professional/public divide also evolves over time.

Any tips for other academics who are thinking about getting a site?
I think academics should think about their web presence on numerous levels. Everything is about aggregation now, so having one space may not do the job. If you’re completely open to getting online and want advice that allows you to go all the way, then a) by your domain name b) by hosted server space c) set up a wordpress powered site, d), create accounts on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr, e) get a computer that has Adobe Creative Suite installed, f) learn a little bit of xml and html, so you can spot errors, but most importantly g) cultivate your online curiousity – I think there’s a lot we can learn from being trained and, indeed, courses that teach us about web production allow us to get a head start. However, it’s most helpful to become the sort of computer user that, when faced with a problem, will be inclined to search for the answer yourself than to log a call with your helpdesk.

Any other academics websites that you particularly like or that inspired yours?

When it comes down to it, it tends to be the academic rather than their website that inspires me. Equally, it tends to be friends whose sites I frequent more often. For example, Nick Bostrom has had a really simple site for many years, just keeps a regularly update with links to pdf papers. Alternatively, going all out geek, Anders Sandberg is one of the generation who keeps things stripped down and linux powered. In science, Richard Jones is one of the people who has committed to doing the public engagement work by publishing on his own site. It has been a while since I’ve felt inspired to design my site, but I have ripped off a few other sites.. I designed my previous site in the style of the BBC News website, for instance. At that time, the node-based layout was just becoming popularized. I think my network of being inspired has changed too. I’m more likely to be inspired by a great photographer’s site or a design company than an academic’s, I guess because web designers, rather than academics, are at the cutting edge of web development in terms of presentation.

One other thing…

I think a couple of other questions are interesting to consider, which I’ve thought about. One is about where we publish as academics. I have often wondered whether I’d be better off if we all just forget academic journals and publish on our websites. This shift has happened a bit – look at all the number of online journals that are out there, which don’t require any subscription. If they can increase their impact factor, then they will hold all the power.

Please retweet: I’ve been checking out a few websites which claim to offer advice about ways to improve your Twitter follower numbers. My adorable 772 (783, 2 days since I posted this) followers need company. I’ve at least gotta break the 1,000 mark soon. It’s difficult to pick one’s way through the best and the worst of Twitter advice lists – and I must admit, I got a bit bored with this half way through – but here are some of them, along with some gems of my own.

By far, the most re-posted seems to be Kevin Rose’s tips, but I found them pretty underwhelming. In fact, as my list shows, most of the tips are pretty uninteresting and I expect most of us already do this, so they don’t really explain how to grow to 1 million followers.  Like all such ‘guru’ advice, there’s a massive gap between what you are advised to do and what actually happens. I suspect that understanding how new media culture and media culture more generally interfaces sill makes a difference.

The principles I employed to survey the ‘top 10′ lists of others the were the following:

1. Search Google for ‘Top 10 ways to increase your followers on Twitter”
2. Take a peek at the first 10  websites that seem to be from credible sources (renowned digital environments or individuals) and which seem to be saying interesting things (but avoid repetition). This took me to about page 35 in the Google ranking.
3. Examine the 10 tips from each website and decide how many out of the 10 are worth doing. Each piece of good advice gets a point. I don’t give a point to a piece of advice that I consider to be obvious or dull (eg. include your bio on your twitter page). Instead, points are awarded to ideas that I had not thought of before.

The rest of this post will layout first my tips, then the ranking for the best top 10 lists out there, followed by different categories of advice they give. You’ll work it out.

My own top 10 tips to grow your followers in Twitter (and maintain credibility) (Twips?)

1. Show that you are listening. Use @ more than you use an original message, replying to people will encourages others to engage.
2. Twitter is as Twitter Does. A lot of the content in Twitter is about social media, so tweeting material about this can help draw people to you .Tweet items that will appeal to Twitter users (ie. about Twitter) or digital communities (eg. Android fans). My ‘Top 50 Android apps’ post has been one of the highest read I’ve published
3. Respect Institutions. Consider which institutions you care about and go follow them. Consider whether you receive digital communications material by other means (eg. email lists) and, if so,  seek out their Twitter account to follow as a priority. Chances are they’ll follow you back, especially if they’re new to Twitter, which many are.
4. Democratize Your Institutions Encourage the institutions you’re a part of to share their Twitter login and password, allowing you to re-tweet your content to their/your broader community, but do so only occasionally and when it’s appropriate. If you run an institution, sack your Website manager unless they make their primary task to empower your staff to take a greater role in spreading your love.
5. Money Can’t Buy You Love Don’t buy followers or use any kind of crap technique to gain auto-followers.
6. Join the Mobile Society. Twitter is a mobile app. While having Tweetdeck on your computer is a must and a valuable route towards dealing with backlogs, Twitter is used mostly on the go. You can buy smartphones pretty cheap these days, but one, you won’t look back. Most are twitter enabled now. I have an HTC using Seesmic, get 145mb a month free, which is plenty for moderate day-to-day use and it gets the most use in my house on my broadband wifi.
7. Set your limits. How many twitter users do you actually want? Do you want to be an information service or part of a community? This decision will affect what goals you set and how you feel about the value of being on Twitter. Being a Twitter celebrity is not necessarily the most enriching path to take.
8. Rock the boat. They say that Web 2.0 is a friendly place, but we shouldn’t always be congenial online. Take a stand, you’ll lose some and gain some, perhaps building the right kind of follower community.
9. Share what you’re browsing. If you’re not sure what content to post to Twitter, focus first on sharing the websites that you think are cool. Like minded people will join in, but make sure you populate the link with title page and hashtags. You can automate this with platforms like Delicious – feed it through Twitterfeed.
10. Utilize old media. Either by having your tweet referenced by a newspaper or on a popular tv programme, but of course, the challenge with this one is knowing how to get into them. I suggest you follow journalists for a start.

and a few more that occurred to me after writing this post (Getting into twitter etiquette, rather than follower growth now):

• 11. Follow your re-tweeter. If somebody re-tweets you, follow them, it’s only polite and they’ll most likely follow you right back. It will also help you know more about your followers.
• 12. Auto-tweet Ethics. If you are going to use the auto-message / auto-return follower trick, then make it interesting, don’t try to sell stuff and don’t get your new follower into any dodgy business
• 13. Retweet who you follow. Rather than just follow someone, also re-tweet something of theirs. it helps them know why you followed, thus providing a starting point for your relationship.
• 14. The 100+ Rule. If you are quite new to Twitter, spend your first week or so getting over 100 tweets out in your account. People may be unlikely to follow you if you are someone who appears never to tweet.

My rank of the best ‘top 10 tips for Twitter’ websites out there.
Just in case you’re unclear, their figure out of 10 is how many of their tips I felt were good, so as you can see there i niot a lot of good, non-obvious advice for a seasoned Twitter User trying to grow their followers.Nobody has more than 3 good, insightful tips.

1. 3/10 Sam Murray, State of Search (2010 March)
2. 3/10 Kevin Rose, Techcrunch (2009)
3. 2/10 Charles Bryant, HowStuffworks (date unknown)
4. 2/10 Good Tweeple (2010, July)
5. 1/10 TwitterVirtue (2010 July)
6. 1/10 Technotip (they actually had 60, so I’ve normalize their rating :) )
7. 1/10 Elistmania (2010 March)
8. 0/10 Bloggers Desire (2010 May)
9. 0/10 Dotcominfoway (2009 aug)
10. 0/10 NiceBlogger (had 25, so normalized figure)

And here are their tips and how i categorize them. Citations follow the tip and can be Googled and are in order of frequency (first listed are those that most often appear in ‘top 10′ lists). The text written is pasted from the first user cited (ie. not my own words):

“Ok, I’ll try that / Will do more”

• Start a contest. @jasoncalacanis offered a free macbook air if he reached the #1 most followed spot. That never happened, but Jason  added thousands of followers…brilliant. (Kevin Rose / Technotip / Good  Tweeple / NiceBlogger)
• Tweet During Rush Hour Ok, well not literally rush hour, but  throughout peak times. Studies  show that top Twitter activity usually  takes place between 10:00 and  16:00pm. Tweeting during those hours will  mean you greater visibility on  your feed. However, the most active  hour for people engaging in the  twittersphere is between 1pm and 2pm  every day, so put down your  sandwich and think of something interesting  to say…. and no not about  what sandwich filling you have gone for  today. (Sam Murray / Technotip / Charles Bryant)
• Reply to/get involved in #hash tag memes. search.twitter.com lists the hot ‘trending topics. Look for the #hash topics and jump in   on the conversation (see #4 for links to #hash instructions). (Kevin  Rose / Dotcominfoway)
• If you are crazy enough, you can put your twitter ID on your vehicle.   This will work because, people like to get connected with others who  are  in the same locality. And you can tweet and start conversation  about  some local events and start sharing your knowledge. Keep your  security  aspects in mind. Some people may use twitter to get lot of  your personal  info and may use it to harm you (Technotip /  TwitterVirtue).
• Use Industry Related Keywords. Use these in your “about  me” page and in your tweets and other social network posts. This will  help get your posts in the search engines. Every bit helps with this (Good Tweeple)
• Use Direct Messages I have thought that using direct messages is just a waste of time,  but not in all cases. If you’re very personal, or you’re always having  one-on-one conversations, you should consider using direct messages  more. This way it will be easier for people to follow your timeline and  see how much value your sharing (TwitterVirtue).
• Send “@Messages’ top Top Users One good way to get noticed is to send something called an  “@message” to top Twitter users. Here’s how it works. If you and your  friend both have Twitter accounts and you both follow each other, you  can send direct messages to each other that aren’t for public  consumption. But you can also send “@messages” to anyone you want,  whether you follow them or not, or they follow you or not. Got that?  Here’s where it gets good — an “@message” is posted on your profile  page for all to see. So if you wanted to send an “@message” to top  Twitter user actor Ashton Kutcher, anybody visiting your profile would  see it. Good luck getting Mr. Kutcher to send a tweet back to you, but  that’s not the point. But if he does feel the urge to re-tweet your  message — or broadcast it to all his followers — 2.9 million people  will see it (as of July 30, 2009). (Charles Bryant)
• Repeat Yourself. This one may surprise you. You’d think that posting something more  than once would only aggravate your followers. But if you’re an avid  tweeter, then chances are, your followers may not be reading each and  every tweet you send out — especially if you’ve disobeyed tip number  nine and posted outside of peak hours. Repeat your best and most  informative tweets several times during the day and see if you get an  increase in followers. Who is reading your posts at the time can make  all the difference in the world. Let’s say you posted about a cool new  iPhone application, and nobody said much. Twitter it again eight hours  later and your luck may change. Don’t overuse this method though. You  don’t want to become known for posting nothing but repeat messages (Charles Bryant)
• If you have some 500+ followers, you can use some service to display it   on your blog, as a social proof. This will defiantly attract more  people  to follow you. Inturn increasing your followers number and  inturn  attracting even more people to follow you (Technotip)
• You can also use your twitter profile URL, while commenting on other blogs (Technotip)
• Get your twitter profile link featured on any famous website. If you are listed in the top 10 re-tweeters, then  you can get still more followers. As people will think that you will  re-tweet even their tweets! (Technotip)
• Treat your twitter profile as you would treat any other website. Send as much traffic as possible to your twitter profile (Technotip)
• Use different other services to know who is following you, and use the  suggestion tool to get the suggested twitter users to follow. By this  you can connect to relevant people around the world and they are most  likely to follow you back, if they find you as relevant (Technotip)
• Target Power Tweeters Begin to target well respected and widely known figures within your  industry through your tweets. Grabbing the attention of these figures  and developing relationships with them can dramatically effect how many  people become aware of your profile and if they like what you say (which  of course they will…) and see you talking to people they follow, they  will follow you. Tweet o Clock lets you know the best time to contact a particular Tweeter and displays their most active timeframes – http://tweetoclock.com (Sam Murray / Good Tweeple)
• Utilise Good Karma Create a list of power tweeters who you want to follow you. Select one a  week to monitor and listen to what they have to say, and then be as  helpful as you can. It is similar to whoring yourself but the rewards  can justify your self loathing and the dirty feeling you have  afterwards. (Sam Murray)
• Track your results. TwitterCounter will show you how many new users you’re adding per day and Qwitter will email you when someone unfollows you after a tweet.

“Suspect this will work, but powerless to achieve?”

• Verify your account as being genuine and original The fastest and the easiest method to increase follower on twitter is  to get your verified as being your original account so that any fake  accounts may not get your share of followers. If you are a popular  personality in your niche market; you will easy have fan following all  along the twitter (BloggersDesire).
• Get in the user suggested list Once you get in the user suggested list of twitter, you will not have  to follow anyone to increase your followers. This will make all those  people follow you by themselves. And you really can witness an increment  in your followers at an impeccable rate per day (BloggersDesire)

“I Already did that”

• Put links to your Twitter profile everywhere. Link  it on  your Digg, LinkedIn, Facebook, blog, email signature, and  everywhere  else you live online. Also, check out the great feedburner-like badges from TwitterCounter for your blog. (Kevin Rose / Technotip / Charles Bryant / Good Tweeple / Niceblogger).
• Start a conversation. One  of the best ways to get noticed is  asking question or starting a  conversation thread. The topic should be  chosen keeping the interest of  your followers. Sometimes it’s easy to  get noticed by talking on  controversial topics. While you are at it  don’t forget to check the  replies you receive. (Elistmania / Technotip /  Charles Bryant / Niceblogger)
• Follow Other People Yes you did read that right, following other  people can lead to you  gaining more followers. Following other people  within your industry lets  them know you exist and gives you a platform  for them to hear your  voice. It increases your exposure and if people  like what you say then  will follow. Similar to the Hollywood  catchphrase “if you build it they  will come”, “if you say it right they  will follow.” (Sam Murray /  Elistmania, TwitterVirtue / NiceBlogger)
• Use a custom background for your twitter profile. This will show that   you are a professional and chances are there, a visitor to your profile   may turn into your follower (Technotip / GoodTweeple / Niceblogger)
• Participate in certain groups. Groups can be created using hashtags.   And some times if the group message is a hot topic, then your tweets   will be listed in “hot trending topics” in search or other famous   twitter services. Ex:- #followfriday (Techhnotip / Niceblogger)
• Invite all your friends in your Gmail, Yahoo mail etc, and they are the most potential followers you can ever get (Technotip / NiceBlogger)
• Focus on your niche and start tweeting. –  You maybe a  blogger,  entrepreneur, service provider or a developer. Be focused.  Choose your  niche and start tweeting about it. You can earn a lot of  followers with  similar interests (dotcominfoway / Charles Bryant)
• Use a relevant Twitter ID. It’s very important to use your real name because you can get more credibility (NiceBlogger).
• Don’t Self-Pamper. Be Neutral. – Don’t keep on  tweeting about your blog or your own stuff. Be neutral and share new  ideas in your niche. You can be a perfect blend of personal and  professional tweets. But do not forget to tweet the breaking news and  the latest happening in your industry to gain more followers. (Dotcominfoway)
• Be more professional than personal. – Twitter was once a  space to express what you were doing. Now, being a powerful social  medium, Twitter is known for knowledge-sharing, connecting to people of  similar interest and a lot more. To increase your followers be  informative and professional (dotcominfoway)
• Write some interesting articles about Twitter on your blog, so that,  people searching for Twitter related things find it useful and start  following you, expecting more such valuable contents and tweets from  you (Technotip)
• When you tweet something worth Re-tweeting, then use less than 140  Characters. Because, if your twitter ID has 5 characters, then a  re-tweet will add a @ symbol and “RT:”   thus making a total of 140+1+3+5=149 characters. So use 125 or 130  characters. Tweets which involve breaking news or some offers/discount  coupons or anything that you think might go viral in twitter.
• Print the twitter profile URL on your business card (technotip).
• Use twitter ID in your email signature, so that your business partners  or others will get to know that you are also using twitter (Technotip / NiceBlogger)
• If you have a website or a blog, display the follow me button at the top or any other highly visible regions (Technotip / Nice blogger)
• Use a “tweet this” button below all your articles or below the articles which you think can go viral in twitter world (Technotip).
• Utilise the Hash Tag Utilise the #hash tag. Some people search twitter through categories, so  if you tweet about  ‘fashion advice’ use the hashtag #fashionadvice.   If others enjoy similar content in which you have posted on they might  follow you for more updates or even a conversation (Sam Murray / Elistmania)
• Be a Resource If you really want people to follow and continue following you, make it  impossible for them to leave by providing them with high quality and  interesting updates. This can be via linking out to an informative  article or by giving a thoughtful opinion in a wider discussion. (Sam Murray)
• Bring your twitter account into the physical world. Every time I give a  talk, speak on a panel, shoot a podcast, present slides, or hand out  business cards, I figure out a way to broadcast or display my twitter  account. (Kevin Rose)
• Write A Good “About Me” Page. Describe who you are,  what you do, and what you offer. Watch your spelling. Be grammatically  correct. Be specific. Get ideas about what goes into a well written  “about me” page, from indust
• Use a good twitter ID. Many people suggest to use their real name and    most of the others suggest to use the business name. In case of    bloggers, people mostly use their blog name inorder to build their brand    recognition. If the twitter ID is somethink special or attractive,   many  people will endup following you without any reason! (technotip)ry leaders (Good Tweeple)

“Not Convinced This will Work”

• Take pictures. Pictures are heavily retweeted/spread around. This one from US Airways Flight 1549 has been viewed 350,000+ times. For mobile pics use iPhone apps such as Tweetie or Twitterific, both which support on the go uploading. (Kevin Rose / Good Tweeple)
• Use your twitter URL at the end of each SMS (Short Messaging Service) from your phone (technotip / Charles Bryant)

“Stating the obvious”

• Tweet about your passions in life and #hash tag them.  Quality content   coupled with an easy way to find it never fails. If others enjoy your   content, they’ll add you.  Learn more about #hash tagging here. (Kevin Rose / Elistmania / Technotip / NiceBlogger)

• Follow other People with the same Interest By following other  people it lets them know you are online and it can  initiate  conversations. If you can begin to communicate with users who  have a  large following it will build up brand or (personal awareness)  and  their followers will start to follow you. (Sam Murray / Elistmania /  BloggersDesire)
• Retweet Such was the popularity of ‘Retweet’ that Twitter  incorporated it in its  service. Retweet is one of the best ways to get  noticed. When you  Retweet someone’s post, you get noticed by the user  immediately.  Everyone likes their tweets to be retweeted and most of  the times this  favor is returned in retweet of your tweet. (Elistmania / Technotip / TwiterVirtue)
• Interact with your Followers, Twitter is a social tool so you  need to be social. Status updates are  good but interaction between  people will have a greater effect. (Sam Murray / TwitterVirtue /  Niceblogger)
• Fill out your bio. Your latest tweets and @replies don’t mean much to  someone that doesn’t know you.  Your bio is the only place you have to  tell people who you are.    Also, your bio is displayed on Twitter’s Suggested Users page. Leaving it blank or non-descriptive doesn’t encourage people to add you. (Kevin Rose / Elistmania / Charles Bryant)
• Be Active And Manage Your Account Well As  your follower number  increases, it becomes more and more difficult to  keep track of your  account. It is very important to use one of the  various tools to  effectively manage your account. When you are one among  hundreds and  thousands, getting noticed is very difficult. The only way  you can be  noticed is by being active. (Elistmania / Technotip)
• Make people Aware Put links to your Twitter profile everywhere. Link it on your blog,  Facebook Fan Page, email signature, and everywhere else you have a  presence online. (Sam Murray)
• Keep your account clean. One of the best things about Twitter was the ease with which you could  follow anyone. The same ease has given rise to high number of spammers  and bots. No one would like to be followed by spammers and in case your  account in inflicted by a lot of spammers, people will want to keep a  distance from your account as well. Make sure to clean your account on a  periodic basis and keep spammers out (Elistmania)
• Use some twitter client or twitter apps or twitter messengers! (rather than from the webpage) (Technotip)

“You’ve gotta be kidding!”

• Do not use annoying profile picture. Using your real photo or  your blog  logo/banner is recommended. Many people use the animated  images, this is  ok as long as its not annoying (Technotip / Charles  Bryant / TwitterVirtue / Niceblogger)
• Follow the top twitter users and watch what they tweet. Pay attention to the type of content they  sent out and how they address their audiences. (Kevin Rose / Technotip)
• Ask People to follow u (TwitterVirtue / NiceBlogger)
• Add an emotional element- become charitableYou can increase your followers, particularly if you are a part of a  big organization which has its credibility and integrity proven; by  announcing that some amount of money will be donated as charity for  every increase in the followers. This will encourage people to become  your follower because they giving charity out, appeals a lot of people  emotionally. And in turn, you will have increased number of followers.  However, this option is not very feasible for individuals because nobody  would believe it (BloggersDesire).
• Explain to your followers what retweeting is and encourage them to retweet your links Retweeting pushes your  @username into foreign social graphs, resulting in clicks back to your  profile. Track your retweets using retweetist. (Kevin Rose)
• You can ask other twitterers to recommend you to their followers and you can recommend them to your followers (technotip)
• Block spammers and other useless automated boots by using the blocking  feature in twitter. By this you will be able to give your attention to  only genuine users and will not get distracted and your twitter  experience will be good. By this you can give more to twitter and get  more followers (Technotip)]

On 30 July, I’ll be one of a number of commentators in a documentary to be screened on the TV channel Arte. The film is about gene doping and is directed by Beat Glogger, an awesome character living in Switzerland. He and I had hoped to work together a few years ago, but it was not to be. The film pulls together a number of views about the likely use of gene transfer in elite sport.

Earlier in the year, Beat came over to Liverpool to film with me at FACT. Beat has known my work for a number of years – he tried to involve me on a WADA publication and met obstacles to my involvement (format, rather than politics I think). Still, my views do not sit well with the World Anti-Doping Agency, although they should.

Our discussions centred on why I think that gene doping would be a good thing for sport and how a culture of ethical performance enhancement would, overall, benefit elite sports industries and bring more credibility to a cultural practice that is harmed by the ongoing uncertainty about what athletes are doing. I look forward to seeing the documentary.

Read more:

Miah, A. (2004) Genetically Modified Athletes: Biomedical Ethics, Gene doping & Sport (Routledge)

also translated into Portuguese by Brazillian publisher, Phorte (‘Atletas Modificados Geneticamente, 2008)

Here’s a reference to a piece I published in the Washington Post in 2008, to give you a snapshot of my views.

And here’s a brief about the film:

Nach zahlreichen Fachartikeln und dem Science-Thriller “Lauf um mein Leben” folgt Beat Gloggers nächstes Werk zum Thema Gendoping. Sein Dokumentarfilm zeigt, was Gendoping ist und warum sich Dopingbekämpfer davor so fürchten.
Und: er zeigt, das Genmanipulation am Menschen nicht nur ein Problem des Sports ist, sondern der gesamten Gesellschaft.

The first public launch of the proposal will take place as part of the Abandon Normal Devices (http://www.andfestival.org.uk) festival of digital culture, an ‘inspired by 2012′ event, based in the Northwest of England.The AND festival is the proposal’s primary advocate and locus of development towards 2012.

If you are interested, please Join the mailing list.

If you like the plan, please tweet: Follow @andymiah Media Blueprint for London 2012 http://bit.ly/media2012 #media2012

and please consider coming to Manchester on 4th October, 2010, the event will be free, we’ll unconference part of it, giving everyone a chance to pitch, have a photo/blog walk, see some great art work, meet amazing people and generally have a good time while making something new happen. To register for the event, please contact hello@andfestival.org.uk If you wish also to propose a presentation for the unconference, please also convey this in your mail.

…and a list of the public meetings where the proposal will be discussed:

• 2010.11.09 Olympic Conference, HLST Annual Conference, Oxford Brookes University
• 2010.10.04: Abandon Normal Devices festival @ Cornerhouse Manchester (proposal launch)

…and here’s a pdf of the proposal

…followed by an html version

Media Blueprint for London 2012
A proposal by
Professor Andy Miah, PhD
University of the West of Scotland

[v1.0, 2010.07.16]

[please comment on the outline, so you can inform the next version]

1. Context

1.1 In 2009, the IOC indicated its intention to develop a new strategy for its role in a time of radical media change. London 2012 will be the first Summer Games to be informed by this new approach to promoting the value of social media

1.2 The London 2012 Games coincide with the scheduled targets set by the Digital Britain report & Race Online 2012, indicating a new era of potential media engagement. This provides an opportunity to re-think the new media infrastructure within the United Kingdom.

1.3 The Games represent the largest media event in the world, with broadcasters from over 200 countries covering what happens.

1.4 I envisage the Games as a media festival rather than a media event, where the media are enabled to report much more than just the sports competition. The Cultural Olympiad should be at the heart of this festival of ideas.

1.5 Olympic & Paralympic media centres have the opportunity to shift from being spaces of information and mediation, to becoming factories for creativity, collaboration, and engagement, which can amplify the Olympic mission.

1.6 The London 2012 Media Landscape will include 13,000 broadcast journalists, 7,000 print journalists, who will cover sport. There will be an additional 12,000+ non-accredited professional journalists who will want cover all non-sport content. However, the largest population of reporters will be citizens, over 60,000,000 with camera phones wanting to report their Games.

1.7 If the Olympic movement can expand media participation without jeopardizing its financial base, then it can more adequately fulfil its role as a progressive social movement.

1.8 Olympic cybercitizens are already taking ownership of reporting their Games and they will need a structure for their participation in 2012.

1.9 In this context, the London 2012 Games can be a moment for realizing a new media legacy for the United Kingdom, built on the idea of citizen media reporting and the recognition that the Games are more than just sports competitions. They are social movements with high humanitarian and cultural aspirations.

1.10 To achieve a broader media participatory culture, it is necessary to develop an extended media network for Games time reporting, which builds on the strategic development of non-accredited media centres at previous Games, linking them to citizen media projects.

1.11 Such a network would be founded on principles of ‘open media’ and will facilitate community legacies and build stories about London, the Nations and the Regions that reach an international audience. It will focus on reporting all non-sporting legacy stories, locating culture and art at the heart of its practice. Its work will transcend national boundaries in ways that no other Games has achieved before, by promoting peer-to-peer conversations.

2. A Nationwide Independent Media Backbone

Reaching out to all regions, with hubs in Glasgow, Manchester, London

2.1 This apolitical dream space will bring into force the full commitment of Olympic ideology to promote social change for the good of humanity. These values accord with the philosophy of Olympism.

2.2 Funding is in place to develop the initial scoping for these infrastructures, by identifying partners and commitments from institutions who would host and stage reporters. Principally, this will involve staging an event for potential partners and contributors at the Abandon Normal Devices digital media Festival on October 4, 2010.

2.3 We will focus discussions on operational challenges, collaboration logistics and infrastructure aiming to bring representation from the IOC and LOCOG and the potential UK partners.

2.4 The media who work in such centres should have a local interest but an aspiration that is based on global values or the desire to build opportunities to share globally. Transcending national boundaries is the biggest task. We’re not yet global, despite digital culture

3. Goals

3.1 Augment the Olympic media narrative towards portraying broader dimensions of the philosophy of Olympism

3.2 Create public engagement around Games time

3.3 Promote community legacy for the nations and regions

4. Research Led

4.1 The centres will function as real-time experiments, providing focal points for understanding the social media community and its interface with mass media.

4.2 Coming to terms with the politics of the citizen journalist will greatly assist future event hosts, like Glasgow 2014, Sochi 2014, Rio 2016 and World Cup 2018

4.3 The International Olympic Committee can focus its conversation with citizen media around these hubs

5. Values

5.1 Through the Olympic & Paralympic Games, we want to create space for intercultural dialogue and collaboration.

5.2 We value the Olympiad as a time to address issues of critical social importance for Britain.

5.3 We will support communities to tell their Olympic & Paralympic stories and work with professional journalists to meet their needs.

5.4 We want to expand media privileges to concerned citizens.

5.5 We promote responsible and fair journalism in an open media culture, where content is shared and power distributed.

5.6 We will respect the right of groups to express their political views and support different voices in being heard

6. Need

6.1 The Olympic & Paralympic media are focused on sports almost exclusively during Games time, but this can and should encompass broader legacy stories.

6.2 Digital media has given rise to a proliferation of citizen journalists who want to report the Games.

6.3 Legacies for the Nations and Regions, along with London’s story need other media centres to have space to explain what the Games have meant to them.

6.4 These centres raise a number of questions. Who should fund them? How should they relate to the Olympic & Paralympic infrastructure more broadly? Can they even exist given their desire to build into the intellectual property of the Olympic & Paralympic Games?”

7. How this fits with the nations’ aspirations for London 2012

7.1 The bid promise from London 2012 was to create a national Games, but we would be the only media centres to tell those stories.

7.2 We celebrate Olympic & Paralympic values by promoting the broad ideology of the Olympic & Paralympic Games as a social movement.

7.3 We are a not-for-profit infrastructure, fostering educational practice and public engagement with the Games.

7.4 Through our network, we will constitute the largest network of social media producers throughout the UK and reinvigorate the core media partners of the Games.

7.5 Our content will reach international networks that other media will not reach.

7.6 Our journalists will produce the largest volume of Olympic content and influence trending topics on social media platform, crating the largest Olympic and Paralympic archive of any Games.

8. Why accredited Olympic media will need us

8.1 Media organizations in the UK will traverse the country around Games time, requiring facilities and stories we can provide, particularly around the torch relay.

8.2 To fully report on the London 2012 Games, it will be necessary to see what is happening in the Nations and Regions.

8.3 The Olympic Games is a social movement, not a sporting event. What happens in the country will become its central legacy

8.3.1 CASE STUDY: For example, NBC is setting up a media space around Birmingham City University, as the USA team will be based here. The local community media can interface with this. For example, NBC is setting up a media space around Birmingham City University, as the USA team will be based here. The local community media can interface with this. As well, the CitizensEye in Leicester will create a community media centre that will operate around Games time. Team GB will be in Loughborough. Creating an infrastructure to bring about media change could markedly change how the Olympics works

8.4 While the proposal should aspire to build a network that includes all nations and regions, it will be useful to begin with a hub of centres based on known interests. Glasgow, Manchester & London presents a backbone for the network.

8.5 These centres will draw stories from each other to communicate what has been happening and what is happening during Games time. However, events should also build on global networks, particularly previous Games experience to develop the idea of a cultural legacy that extends beyond London. Satellite centres will provide programmatic content during the Games.

9. What was achieved at previous Games: Vancouver 2010

9.1 True North Media house accredits a 5 yr old as a journalist and an Olympic mascot.

9.2 W2 is the first independent media centre to work with an Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games.

9.3 VANOC appoints a number of young people to be its official citizen journalism team during the Games

10. What will these media hubs look like?

10.1 The influence of any specific media centre will be restricted by its funding, its technology and its community, but primarily the latter. Hub centres can be high-tech facilities with large venue space, but all should aspire to similar networked facilities to maximize participation. We all should be able to plug into each others’ space at any time to deliver audio, visual and interaction.

10.2 Imagine
• High technology facilities
• Networked Infrastructure
• Community Generated Content
• International Media Attention
• Lasting Media Legacy

11. Opportunity

11.1 As part of the initial scoping, we will identify primary partner vehicles, which may be digital media centres around the UK that could have the capacity to deliver a media centre during Games time. However, communities should also be evaluated on their networked potential ie. How prolific are they online. Amplifying their content will be our biggest asset to achieve our goals.

11.2 With 2 years before the Games, this is the time to establish permissions and funding. However, this is still a relatively short amount of time to build partnerships with larger organizations, those who may decide to allocate their programme budget to such a project. This may be the primary route towards ensuring the proposal is realized.

In closing, this proposal brings together the primary instigators of independent Olympic & Paralympic media centres and creative, artistic practice from the last 10 years of the Olympic & Paralympic Games. With the right support, it has the potential to tell the full story of the London 2012 Games

Stay in touch, join:

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/media2012

About the Author
Professor Miah is Chair of Ethics and Emerging Technologies at the University of the West of Scotland, a Fellow at the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology and part of the Programming Committee for the Abandon Normal Devices Festival, an ‘inspired by 2012’ event, funded by the Legacy Trust.

Professor Miah is an Olympic scholar and writer, having undertaken research into Olympic media at every summer and winter Olympic Games since Sydney 2000, at which he has also worked as a journalist. He has been a visiting Professor at the International Olympic Academy, a Visiting Scholar at the International Olympic Committee museum in Lausanne and teaches Olympic Studies at the University of the West of Scotland, supervising PhD students whose work focuses on Olympic media. While at the Vancouver 2010 Games, he wrote for The Huffington Post, facilitated cultural collaborations between London 2012 and Vancouver 2010 and was on the steering committee for the creation of two independent media centres. He also writes for the Guardian. He is currently completing a book called ‘A Digital Olympics’ for The MIT Press.

@andymiah
email@andymiah.net
+44 (0) 757 898 4147

During the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games, we will organize an underground media zone, accrediting citizen journalists and inviting professional journalists to tell the full legacy story of the nations, regions and host city.

This visualization precedes the articulation of this zone, if you’re social and you like media, then sign up

www.jiscmail.ac.uk/media2012

We will take it from there. For now, mark your calendar for October 4, Manchester, Abandon Normal Devices festival of new cinema and digital culture www.andfestival.org.uk

Andy

A friend of mine mentioned that the IOC gift store in Lausanne is currently stocking a book of mine from 2002, titled above.

It was the first anthology of this kind and, i think, is still very current. It’s great to know that they do too, but as I’ve not received any royalties on it for about 6 years (I can’t even track down the publisher’s details anymore!), I think it’s about time some of it reached the free market, so here’s an introduction essay.

Miah, A. & Eassom, S.B. (2002) Sport Technology: History, Philosophy and Policy. JAI Press.

Editors’ Preface
Andy Miah and Simon Eassom

This volume began some six years ago through the initiative of Dr. J. Nadine Gelberg, then Editor of the special edition and now Director of Harris Interactive.  At the time, the proposition for a journal edition about sport and technology was particularly challenging since very few authors had written on the subject.  Over the years, the journal has remained in preparation and through discussions with Dr. Gelberg, we issued a revised call for papers in 1999, when many more researchers had developed a profile in the subject.  As well, during that year and 2000, the academic community would see a number of conferences focusing their themes specifically on technology and sport particularly making links with sports engineering.  Today, a theme about technology plays an integral part of any international conference interested in the study of sport from a social science and humanities perspective.

These developments have also been complemented by the emergence of a number of undergraduate pathways in Sport Technology and academic research units around the world.  On various levels, research interested in sport and technology appears to have grown extensively in the last five years.  This is particularly interesting for ethicists and policy makers for the opportunities it can afford to make concrete links with the diverse communities in sports, from administrations and fans, to governing bodies and innovators.  The relevance of ethical and policy deliberations in this area of sport has great importance for the way in which sports innovators go about their work as it can have practical implications for what kinds of technologies are deemed legitimate by governing bodies.

Many of the authors in this edition have a background in philosophy and ethics related specifically to sport.  Indeed, the discipline, of which the International Association for the Philosophy of Sport (IAPS) has a leading role, has grown significantly since its formal inception in 1972.  The issues presented within this collection of essays is built upon the basis of literature within the philosophy of sport, notably drawing from the Journal of the Philosophy of Sport as a critical body of work in the field.  Whilst philosophy of sport has concerned itself significantly with the technologies of drug-use and doping in the past, the broader aspects of technology have also been relevant to philosophers of sport.

The increased interest in sport technology from various perspectives can be attributed to a variety of reasons that many of the contributing authors of this volume highlight.  Recreational and elite sport have moved increasingly into a commercialised, highly scientised domain, where the basis for progress has been through technological change.  This is evident from the mass production of equipment, to the global representation of sport through new media, to the complex and sophisticated methods of drug use and doping that are now known, to the most highly technological equipment that is used by elite competitors.  Throughout sport, the relevance of technology is clearly apparent and raises very difficult challenges for sports federations. The philosophical and ethical implications presented by these varied technologies has become increasingly in focus over the last years.

Technology in sport presents a uniquely complex range of issues for philosophers, ethicists, and policy makers of technology in a variety of disciplines.  Unlike in a broader social context, where technology has fewer limits and where we might be interested solely in the most efficient means, within sport, there are supposed to be relatively clear barriers to acceptance. Not anything goes in sport.  Rather, there exist sporting moral norms such as fair play, sportspersonship, and an aspiration for equality or good character.  Thus, governing bodies have been interested in protecting an alleged ethical ‘integrity’ of sport from such methods of performance enhancement as drug-taking, new equipment, and the prospect of genetic engineering. The problematising of such a discourse and questioning what grounds are sufficient to make justifiable policy decisions is, however, a rather undeveloped discourse in respect of sport technologies.  Indeed, the work of Dr. Gelberg in this area has been pioneering and has informed a number of works in this volume.

Perhaps most distinctive of the articles is that their approach reflects the developing interest in the area – a process of defining boundaries and deriving ways of understanding technology in sport is reflective of there being very few articles that have, thus far, examined the problem.  Amidst these ideas are very substantive considerations of ethical and philosophical issues relating to new technology in sport which draw upon a number of backgrounds, including computer ethics and bioethics.  The breadth of interests reflected by the authorship is a tribute to the multi-disciplinary nature of the issues.  In keeping with the journal, ideas about sport and technology are informed by a number of traditions within philosophy, including the philosophy of technology.

A particularly strong theme has emerged throughout the edition to try and conceptualise sport technologies.  Frequently, it is recognised that there are obvious technological associations with artifacts, such as equipment.  However, perhaps more interesting for their subtlety is the accepting of techniques and new skills as forms of technology.  This Ellulian conception, places into focus the problematic task of defining technology within sport and limiting its use.  Further blurring of the biological with artifice is evident from the analyses of technologies of the body, such as doping, diet, and genetics.  The degree to which it is possible to identify the human in sport is rendered sensible only if distinctions are made.  Yet, the sense of distinguishing between the human as a biological entity, machine, or cyborg are infinitely confusing.

The papers have been structured to reflect the development of the discourse. They are also mostly of significant proportions to allow a thorough analysis of the issues from the authors’ perspective.  Whilst it had been tempting to include more contributions each of fewer words, the theoretical content of the contributions seemed a crucial and important aspect of the papers that ought not to have been reduced to accord with standard article length pieces.   Initially, an extensive historical context is provided by  Carolyn de la Peña and Gertrud Pfister.  Peña locates the scientisation of physical activity early in the 19^th Century, drawing from the U.S. and subsequently internationalised gymnasia of Dudley Allen Sargent and Gustav Zander.  Immediately, links with other contributions are apparent from the way in which Zander’s approach to physical education is portrayed.  His recognition of machinery as assisting but not replacing the human body, is a view that would become muddied during subsequent decades, where technological performances would be seen as products of science rather than of nature.  As well, the many examples of early ergometers as described in Zander’s gymnasia provide early forms of simulation that are quite extraordinary.  They identify an interest to replicate the experience of horse riding outside of the known context; an enterprise that continues in contemporary forms of sport through virtual reality simulators.

In the wake of Sargent and Zander’s mechanisation, Pfister’s history of skiing, begins with an historical context from previous centuries. Pfister represents the development of modern skiing within the guise of mass participation sport and, almost indistinguishably, the technologisation of sport.  The case of skiing makes a particularly interesting contribution since it takes an example that is highly technological in a number of respects. Initially, the role of transportation is identified as being a significant determinate in the skiing experiences.  The days of having to climb a slope first without the use of a ski-lift, radically transformed the activity of skiing from one that was more comparable to mountaineering, to a primarily thrill-seeking activity, that required very little exertion before enjoyment could be gained.  Philosophically, what seems most alarming about this trend is that technology has been augmenting the sport of skiing since its inception with a view to making the experience easier.  This is made explicit by the most recent example of piezoelectric skis, which are designed to make skiing a much less uncomfortable experience for the legs, by reducing vibration.

From one extreme sport to another, Ian Borden’s ‘Material Matters’ brings into focus the social content of sport-technology.  Using the example of skateboarding, Borden argues how it makes possible new ways of experiencing one’s body and one’s body in relationship to artifacts.  Additionally, the way in which skateboarders portray themselves through the imagined realities of digital photography is shown to reflect an interest for the photographer to become part of the represented reality.  Thus, through photography the skateboarder is represented in a way that captures the very qualities of skateboarding that make it unique.

The subsequent section provides a theorising of sport and technology, concluding with Loland’s identifications of the moral content of sport technologies.  Shogan begins with the strong statement of sport being necessarily the result of technological intervention – recognised as being technology in both the broad and narrow sense.  The ordering role of technology is identified throughout the construction of sport, from the size of the pitch or court, to the kinds of strategies that are available to a coach during a play. Whilst constraining sports, this disciplinary effect of technology is also what constitutes them and thus, it is inconceivable that the role of technology could be marginal in sport.

Butryn builds upon the ideas presented by Shogan particularly, to assert a conceptualisation of sport technologies that speaks about them in the context of the body.   The concept of the human athlete as a site of boundary-transgressing is the basis for arguing that it makes nonsense to describe athletes as ever having been natural. Moreover, it is their cyborg status that contributes to their being valued.   Thus, establishing what kinds of cyborg are desirable in sport is argued by Butryn as the proper way of addressing the acceptability of technology in sport.  However, Butryn stresses that the process of deliberation should not be confined to officials or experts in technology.  Rather, an open deliberative process is the only way to ensure that any decision making about technology reflects the aspirations of sports as unique practices.

Building upon the deliberative process introduced by Butryn, Alun Hardman provides a conceptual framework within which such decision making can take place.  Utilising a reflective ethnocentric methodology, Hardman derives a tentative pyramid of constraints (moral, aesthetic, structural) that determine how an evaluation of technology takes place in sports.  In application, Hardman argues that the interplay between the various components which influence change are not conducive to clear moral decisions but that it is important for such analyses to take place to ensure a well-formed perspective about any new innovation.  This is made explicit by using golf as a test case for his theory.

A further attempt at elaborating upon the moral content and conceptualisation of sport technologies and that provides content for the approaches of Hardman and Butryn, is Loland’s ‘Moral View.’  The initial caveat is presented by Loland that the discussion will concern only performance enhancing technologies, a distinction that has been implicit of many of the articles.  Loland argues that any deliberative process about sport technologies must depart from a theory of athletic performance.  After articulating three such theories, Loland concludes where current research is also placed – by addressing the difficult business of delimiting a theory of athletic performance that is the product of an open dialogue and which aspires to delimit a pragmatic universalism about sport.

The final part of the volume can be seen as an attempt to derive a theory of athletic performance through a conceptualising of applied cases.  This is achieved by three distinct sections, which reflect present and

future sport technologies.  Initially, Wendy Varney brings the present into focus. Using gymnastics, Varney identifies how technology in sport can and does embody ideology.   This is made explicit from the way in which the rules of gymnastics consistently identify women as being inferior to the physicality of men.  The chapter also speaks to the difficulties of defining the scope of technology and where limits can be drawn on its analysis, raising the question whether technique also falls within the scope of analysis.

The female athlete is also the subject of Magdalinski and Brooks’ ‘Bride of Frankenstein’.   However, the authors wish to locate these ideas in the controversial constructs of the natural or normal body within sport. It is argued that the basis for accepting or rejecting specific kinds of technological augmentation of the human body derives from a self-justifying assumption about naturalness and its associated acceptability.  This is made explicit within the paper, by identifying drug use as a clear example of unacceptable technology due to its unnatural connotations rather than anything to do with fair play.  The story of Zoe Warwick, the British body-builder who died from taking anabolic steroids is theorised to conclude that sport embodies a way of augmenting the female body that is not socially acceptable for reasons to do with presumed gendered distinctions.  In the case of Warwick, the authors consider that public resentment derived from her having become the unfamiliar and monstrous Other, by transgressing the barriers of sexual difference rather than simply difference. Warwick transgressed limits and her death is seen as a warning against attempts at augmenting nature.  Yet, for this reason, the ‘Bride of Frankenstein’ considers that sport can be a site for challenging neat and tidy assumptions about difference and sexual boundaries.

The subsequent section departs from the issue of gender to examine a concept that is only partially related to the previous chapters.  However, there exists one important link that must be stressed and which also ties it to the theoretical approaches of technology in sport.  Whereas the concepts of natural and normal are problematised by Magdalinski and Brooks, the next section about ‘Virtual Reality’, plays with the concepts of reality and meaning.  In part, it responds to a question posed most recently by the 1999 cinematic production ‘The Matrix,’ through its rich analogising of philosophical ideas.  Early within the script, Morpheus asks his prodigy Neo whether he would be prepared to enter into a different world that would entirely contradict his lived experience to date.  He asks whether he would be prepared to see that all that he has lived and what he believes to be real has been a charade.  In doing so, Morpheus asks Neo, “What is Real?  How do you define the real?”

Questions about reality and its presumed relevance in sporting experience are addressed and implied throughout the two articles on virtual reality.  Initially, Clarke, McBride, and Reece present current scientific research that is endeavouring to replicate sporting environments.  In so doing, the authors engage with ideas that have remained controversial within the philosophy of sport since its inception, regarding definitions of sport.

Subsequently, Miah argues that the known-reality of sporting activities is redundant and is but one further example of a mediated-reality, where the media has been (but need not be) the body within a highly sophisticated, tangible simulation.  With the prospect of virtual reality, Miah asserts that the spectator and athlete are destined for substituting their experiences, where the athlete becomes abstracted from the sporting context and the spectator is increasingly immersed into it.

This attempt to virtualise sport is taken on by Fairweather, where he expands upon the sporting virtues embodied by virtual sport.  Arguing that sport in digital environments can be much more morally credible than the non-virtual ones, it is recommended that sports ethics embraces virtual technologies.  Nevertheless, his thesis is couched in a tacit recognition that there is some (in)tangible quality that is afforded by non-virtual sport: the human.

The final section of the edition provides a dialogue about genetic technologies in sport.  Genetic engineering is a subject gaining increasing interest within sport for its possible applications to enhance performance.  Within the broader bioethical discourse, two very clear perspectives are evident, which are also reflective of the way in which most technologies are addressed by ethicists.  Echoing the categorisation made by Hardman’s paper, there is the traditionalist, or conservative view, perhaps better known as cautionary, which advocates the need for inaction in respect of applying genetic engineering techniques to humans.  Such a position provides concludes that there is an insufficient amount of knowledge to warrant a well-considered action.  Alternatively, there is the so-called radical view, which sees that the new technology provides no ethical concern.  To some extent, these ideas are reflected in the three papers within the section about genetics in sport.

Initially, Tamburrini articulates the kinds of genetic technology that could have implications for sport.  He then proceeds with a deliberately provocative inquiry into what could possibly seen as wrong with genetic engineering from which he refutes conventional anti-doping arguments.  Concluding by carefully recognising that some forms of genetic engineering for sports performances are quite in-keeping with sports ethics, Tamburrini argues that genetic enhancement might even be beneficial for sports. Tamburrini argues that there are no good arguments against using genetics in sport save for those that are idealistic and hypocritical – from a sporting perspective.  What seems most pertinent within the consideration of genetic enhancement in sport (and outside of it) is that the radical position points more towards an inadequacy in basing judgements in terms of the ethical positions that currently exist.  Thus, the radical stance forgets to recognise that it is not sufficient to judge the new technology in terms of the ‘old’ ethics.  Rather, a more articulate analysis of the ethical implications is necessary that must develop ethics within sport and outside, to approach a coherent understanding of new genetics.

Tamburrini’s engagement with bioethics in the ethical analysis of genetic engineering in sport presents an appropriate approach for the subsequent dialogue between Miah and Munthe.  Miah’s article provides a cautionary approach to accepting genetic enhancements in sport, responding to Munthe’s seminal article that investigates the ethical implications of genetic enhancement in sport.  Arguing from a position of virtues that warrant a concern for preserving facets of sport that are at least threatened and at worst negated by utilising genetic enhancement, it is suggested that there are good reasons for considering that genetic enhancement is not beneficial for competitive sports.  In his paper, Miah does not provide an extensive inquiry into these virtues, but directs the reader to the weaknesses of the radical stance in favour of accepting performance enhancing genetics in sport.

In conclusion to the section, and the final paper of the edition, Munthe responds to Miah’s critique of his 2000 paper.  Choosing to focus more upon Miah’s projected integration of bioethics with sport philosophy, Munthe recognises that their perspectives are not dissimilar.  Thus, Munthe proceeds to articulate what might be a possible approach for synergising sport philosophy and bioethics in an attempt to provide a coherent analysis of the ethical implications of genetics for sport.  Not convinced that bioethics can provide any arguments that would oppose the use of genetic enhancement in sport, Munthe concludes by recognising that a dialogue is most certainly worth pursuing from both perspectives.

The conclusion of the edition seems an appropriate way to summarise the work about technology in sport. Moving from the present to the near future, and finally to the long-term future of sport, the issues seem to be consistent throughout.  The need for questioning the ways in which technology is used in sports is evident from each of the articles.   The importance that such dialogues continue seems increasingly pressing as sports become increasingly technologised in various ways.  The kinds of issue that become interesting for sports federations and governing bodies will most likely speak to those technologies that have practical implications.  However, it would be mistaken to assume that the problems that can be posed by conceptual technologies are of little or no use.  Indeed, an imagined future can often be far more use to derive core values about sport, then can social circumstances.  Nevertheless, it is important that a discourse of sport and technology from an ethical and philosophical perspective maintains its links with industry and academia.

In contribution to this effort, the creation of the Forum for the Analysis of Sport Technology, the Executive Council of which a number of the contributors to this edition are a part, was arranged to promote a discourse about ethics and sport technologies.  Its ambitions have been relatively modest to date, though has endeavoured to make links within the sports community.  It has departed from a basis of recognising that all members of the sports community have an interest in the way in which technology develops in sport.  As such, it has aimed to provide an inclusive approach to allowing its members to discuss their feelings about new technological developments in sports.  Its relevance for governing bodies and, indeed, its acceptance, will be some reflection of the degree to which sports authorities have an interest in opening their doors to academic critique and support in regard to sport and technology.

It remains only to thank Professor Carl Mitcham, Dr. J. Nadine Gelberg, and, notably, the contributors for their support during the editing of this volume.  The patience of the authors involved in this work has been greatly appreciated and we hope that all will agree that the volume has been a worthwhile, important, and groundbreaking project for its associated disciplines.  Many thanks to Professor Mitcham for so very many things, in particular, his enthusiasm to see this publication come to fruition and his efforts to sustain it through difficult times.  Our appreciation also goes to Dr. Gelberg, who invited us to take on the editorship of this journal and who has been very encouraging throughout the editing process.

Contents

Part One: Historical And Socio-Philosophical Questions Concerning Technology In Sport

Innovations: Past to Present

• Dudley Allen Sargent and Gustav Zander: Health Machines and the Energized Male Body,
  by Carolyn Thomas de la Peña. University of California, Davis, USA.
• From Snow Shoes to Racing Skis: Skiing as an Example of the Connections between Sport, Technology and Society, by Gertrud Pfister, University Copenhagen, Denmark.
• Material Matters:  Technology and the Politics of Differential Space,
  by Iain Borden, University College London, England.

Theorising Technology in Sport

• Disciplinary Technologies of Sport Performance, by Debra Shogan, University of Alberta, Canada.
• Cyborg Horizons: Sport and the Ethics of Self-Technologization,
  by Ted Butryn, San Jose State University, USA.
• Evaluating Changing Sport Technology: An Ethnocentric Approach,
  by Alun Hardman, University of Gloucestershire, England.
• Sport Technologies – A Moral View,
  by Sigmund Loland, Norwegian University for Sport and Physical Education, Norway.

Part Two: Applied Philosophy And Ethics

A. Fearing the Other

• Tumbling into Gendered Territory: Gymnastics and Its Technologies,
  by Wendy Varney, University of Wollongong, Australia.
• Bride of Frankenstein: Technology and the Consumption of the Female Athlete,
  by Tara Magdalinski, & Karen Brooks,  University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia.

B. Virtual Realities and Sport

• All But War is Simulation,
  by Thomas Clarke, University of Central Florida, Dennis McBride, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, Douglas Reece, Science Applications International Corporation.
• Disembodied Sport: Ethical Issues of Virtual Sport, Electronic Games, and Virtual Leisure,
  by Ben Fairweather, De Montfort University, England.Immersion and Abstraction In Virtual Sport, by Andy Miah, University of Paisley, Scotland. Andy Miah

C. Genetic Technologies and Sport

• After doping, what?: The morality of the genetic engineering of athletes,
  by Claudio Tamburrini, Gotëborg University, Sweden.
• Genes, Sports, and Ethics: A Response to Munthe (2000),
  by Andy Miah, University of Paisley, Scotland.
• Reply to Miah (2001): Prospects and Tensions in the Meeting of Bioethics and the Philosophy of Sport,
  by Christian Munthe, Gotëborg University, Sweden.

I’ve been a Prince fan sine I was 16. My musical awakening occurred at the same time as the break up of my family. Like Prince, my father was a troubled alcoholic and workaholic (or maybe that was just his father in Purple Rain). Unlike Prince, I didn’t have a musical bone in my body. Still, O(+> became The One outlet for my adolescent expression and, I guess, his music helped me deal with The Time.

I followed his music throughout the years, from the time when he opened his own Prince shop in Camden Town (and subsequently closed it), way back when, to the unpronounceable Symbol. I also re-lived his early years through the music, right back to 1978 with his first album, with its relentless funk, and even obtained bootleg cassettes. It was a full on affair. I even called 1800-NEW-FUNK and remember playing Sexy MF in my high school art class – we were allowed to choose the music– but we didn’t make it to the end of the track (the teacher intervened after the 20^th MF). I own all of his albums, but stopped short of being an obsessive collector.

I’ve seen Prince live in concert 5 times. The first time was supposed to be the Blenheim Palace, but he cancelled, I forget why. The next time was the first time, at the NEC in Birmingham. The most recent time was the 02 Arena. The best concert was Las Vegas in 2006, I was part of the NPG Music Club and got front row for the sound check, standing just one metre away from the legend, starstruck, though he lost me a little when God entered the arena. I can do the no drugs, no drink thing, but my Fascination for the wee guy stops short of a view that would have me believe that Prince’s talent is not his own making, as opposed to The Work of God.

I am not sure whether his pursuit of the Internet back in the mid-1990s inspired me to get online, but it certainly seemed cool. One of the reasons I liked him was for his ability to herald the times.

I downloaded Cybersingle for Free in 2000, when he asked ‘to be free, or not to be free?’– it seemed then to be the first online musical product. It was a raw, funky tune with lyrics that, like many of his tracks, captured the period. Other web-themed tracks like ‘Emale’ and ‘Computer Blue, made Prince the Internet musician of the time and his contribution prefigured the big Race to occupy the web and own online music. As he did with AIDS back in 1987 with Sign of the Times, he was always right on the money with the web. I remember when he would scan ‘his computer looking for a site…make believe it’s a better world, a better life’. The web would transform the Slave into the Master.  So, what happened?

In 20TEN, Prince announces in The Morning Papers that ‘The Internet is Over’ and his Word becomes a trending topic in Mashable and elsewhere. Of course, those who are online are likely to reply that he is way off with this one, but I can’t just write him off. Others will struggle too. He seemed to know his stuff back in the day. He seemed to have a Crystal Ball and his ideas have led to the Emancipation of other artists. This year, Prince features in TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. He’s still got The Funky Stuff and was writing about the Iraq war (Musicology) at a time when it doesn’t seem fashionable to sing about social or political issues.

So, back to this Internet thing. Do I agree? I think to understand his view – which has led to him shutting down his website – you have to understand the story behind his trajectory online. Early Prince websites were technologically advanced, sporting beautiful designs and Beautiful Strange encounters.

It was apparent from his optimism that the web promised to change the industry. The promise has not been fulfilled. Things have changed, but not far enough. It is not democratized. It is owned by a few people and, most of us online, play within their zone of monetization. People are trapped into using iTunes, which has an Extraordinary influence in terms of how music is consumed.

I often think about The Future of the Internet. My daily engagement with Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Google are constant reminders of how much things change online. I suspect Prince will return to the web at some point, but it will have to be a very different web, one where more independent artists are getting paid.

In some sense he is right. Web 1.0 is over, isn’t it? The web today is very different compared to when he celebrated its arrival. Our personal freedom seems in direct correlation with the rise of  I’m not sure Prince ever got on board with Web 2.0, perhaps he’s waiting for Web 3.0.

On Saturday, I will buy the Mirror in order to get his new album 20TEN. If you don’t you’ll miss out on it as it won’t go on sale anywhere else. Millions of others will do the same in various countries of the world. I didn’t find out about this by the Internet, but by the telephone – my mother gets the Mirror. So maybe old technology is about to kick new technology’s butt. Either way, it’s technology. I Gotcha.

To conclude, here are a few Prince facts you didn’t know, or may have forgotten

• In Wasted Kisses, the sound of Prince’s baby’s heartbeat is played. The child had died at the time of the recording.
• He wrote Manic Monday and Nothing Compares to You.
• He plays 27 instruments, or there abouts.
• In a Chris Rock invu around 15 years ago, when asked about why he didn’t appear in the Michael Jackson ‘Bad’ video – you know, the bit with Wesley Snipes – he replied ‘The first line of that song is ‘Your Butt is Mine’. Now what I wanna know is who’s singing that to who. Coz I sure ain’t singing that to you. And you sure ain’t singing that to me’. Some of the funniest interviews I’ve seen.
• In the same interview, he talks about getting comedy into music, which he has always tried to do.
• In the dispute with Warner Bros, his had a number of names, Tora Tora, The Artist, TAFKAP, and, the Symbol of course.
• Prince Rogers Nelson is his real name.
• When We Are the World was made, he chose not to appear with the group of singers, instead donating a song to the cause ‘4 the tears in your eyes’

Pick up some lesser known Prince tracks that rock:

• 4 the tears in your eyes
• 5 women
• Beautiful Strange
• Don’t Play Me
• Extra Loveable
• Extraordinary
• If I love u 2nite
• Moonbeam Levels
• My Little Pill
• Player

A symposium exploring the culture and ethics of the use and ownership of living material, from the cell to the whole body, in art, science, law and philosophy.

The body is increasingly being transformed into commodity and media, put on display, fragmented, manipulated, preserved and rearranged. Scientists, artists, lawyers, historians and social scientists will come together to trace the radical shifts in our understanding of the body – and life itself – and investigate how these emergent realities influence our notion of being human while simultaneously challenging the relationship to the ‘Other’ that is living or semi-living.
READ MORE

Symposium Details
Date: 6 August 2010
Location: William Lambden Owen Room, Moot Court, Law Building
The University of Western Australia (View Map)
Registration: $110 (including GST) registration. Students and unwaged free
Refreshments included. Download Registration Form
More Information: e-mail: sym@symbiotica.uwa.edu.au | telephone: + 61 8 6488 7116

List of Speakers
Lyn Beazley | Chief Scientist of Western Australia
Ethan Blue | Historian
Oron Catts | SymbioticA Director
Elizabeth Costello | Writer
Kathy High | Artist
Stuart Hodgetts | Scientist
Darren Jorgensen | Art Theorist
Luigi Palombi | Lawyer
Catherine Waldby | Social Scientist
Ionat Zurr | Tissue Culture and Art Project

The notion as well as the practical use of the “body” is increasingly changing and transforming in the light of new knowledge and new technological capabilities. The body is no longer perceived strictly as a unified whole let alone as solely human and bodies and parts of bodies are being traded and manipulated as part of the global economy. “New” bodies are being formed and assembled; from the cellular body; the chimeric body; the transgenic body – to the extent of creating “new kinds of bodies”, technological and synthetic – as hinted at by the case of Synthia – the first cell with a so called artificial genome.

Discussions will include
• Patenting and copy right laws of biological materials and processes and the effects on global distribution and biodiversity, presented by Luigi Palombi

• A feminist-Marxist critique of the distribution and use of parts of bodies, classified as “gift” or “waste,” offered by Catherine Waldby as one of her areas of research

• Renown writer Elizabeth Costello speaks about poetry, philosophy, cruelty and animal welfare;

• The notion of the Other – in its broadest sense – investigated from multifaceted perspectives:
• Ethan Blue investigates power and race relations within the American prison system.
• Kathy High explores the Other animal and interspecies intimate relations in her art
• Ionat Zurr presents the Semi-Living point of view.

• Research scientist Stuart Hodgetts discusses his experience working with animals and artists in the labs

• The use of the body in artistic expression is explored by Darren Jorgensen

• And some of the interdisciplinary hands-on research of SymbioticA residents who address ethics and biology will be dissected by Oron Catts.

These perspectives explore the current phenomenon in which life (consisting of varied, diverse and contested bodies) is increasingly treated as malleable raw material to be engineered. At the same time, new and recurring mindsets regarding what a body is and in what ways and by whom it can be put into use, compete for consensus. This transformation should be observed and debated critically; especially in relation to the objectification and instrumentalism of life and the transformation of its different gradients into currency. However this same transformation can create a niche for fresh perceptions of life in which a more post-anthropocentric view of life can flourish.

The Body/Art/Bioethics symposium aspires to explore, from multidisciplinary perspectives, the emerging ethical perplexes and understandings of scientific and artistic uses of bodies as media. Discussions will investigate and problematise the social, legal, philosophical, and aesthetic issues that arise from the concept of a “Body”.
Speaker Bio

Welcome Address
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
Lyn Beazley
Chief Scientist of Western Australia
A professor in Zoology at the University of Western Australia, Professor Beazley’s research career spans 30 years of studies into regeneration after neurotrauma and colour vision in Australian native animals, including lizards and marsupials. Her past research has also changed clinical practice in the treatment of infants at risk of pre-term delivery. Having graduated from Oxford University, she undertook her doctorate at Edinburgh University. Professor Beazley transferred to Perth in 1976 and built up an internationally renowned research team that focused on recovery from brain damage. A Fellow of the Institute of Biologists, Professor Beazley has served on numerous peak bodies advising State and Federal Governments. Internationally she recently served on a panel assessing research performance for the Swedish Research Council and is a member of the Education Committee of the International Brain Research Organisation. Lyn was a Trustee of the Western Australian Museum from 1999 until 2007 and appointed Chief Scientist of WA in December 2006.
BACK TO TOP

Keynotes
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
Catherine Waldby
University of Sydney & King’s College London
Catherine is Professorial Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney, and Visiting Professor at the Centre for Biomedicine and Society, King’s College London. She researches and publishes in social studies of biomedicine and the life sciences. Her books include AIDS and the Body Politic: Biomedicine and Sexual Difference (1996 Routledge), The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine (2000 Routledge), Tissue Economies: Blood, Organs and Cell Lines in Late Capitalism (with Robert Mitchell, Duke University Press 2006) and The Global Politics of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Science: Regenerative Medicine in Transition, (with Herbert Gottweis and Brian Salter, Palgrave 2009). She is a foundation member of the global biopolitics research group, an international consortium of scholars who investigate the effects of cultural, political and economic globalization on the social relations of biomedicine. She has received national and international research grants for her work on embryonic stem cells, blood donation and biobanking. http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/sociology_social_policy/staff/profiles/catherine_waldby.shtml
BACK TO TOP

Dr Luigi Palombi
Australian National University
Luigi read law between 1977 and 1981 and economics between 1982 and 1985 at the University of Adelaide. He practiced law in Australia between 1982 and 1997, specialising in patent law and biotechnology. He led the Australian litigation team that challenged the validity of a patent which claimed isolated hepatitis C virus nucleotides and polypeptides as inventions. Having led several international patent litigation teams involving litigation in the United States as well as in the UK and Europe (including the European Patent Office), between 1997 and 2001 he advised various organisations around the world with regard to human health, biotechnology and gene related patents. Between 2001 and 2004 he undertook his PhD candidature (The Patenting of Biological Materials in the Context of TRIPS) at the University of New South Wales. After he was awarded his doctorate in 2005, he consulted to Minter Ellison, Australia’s largest law firm, in biotechnology patents. Since 2006 he has headed the Genetic Sequence Right Project at the Australian National University and in 2007 he and Prof Peter Drahos, his colleague at the Regulatory Institutions Network at the ANU, were awarded a three year Australian Research Council Discovery Project Grant entitled The Sustainable Use of Australia’s Biodiversity: Transfer of Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property. He has delivered invited papers and lectures in patent law at international legal conferences and meetings. He has written on various aspects of patent law and gene patents and Edward Elgar (London, New York) and Scribe (Melbourne) have recently published his first book, Gene Cartels: Biotech Patents in the Age of Free Trade, simultaneously in hardback and paperback. http://cgkd.anu.edu.au/menus/people_staff&students.php#palombi
BACK TO TOP

Elizabeth Costello
Writer
Elizabeth is an Australian writer of international renown. She is the author of The House on Eccles Street (1969) and other novels and regularly presents on the lives of animals.
BACK TO TOP

Presenters
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
Ethan Blue
The University of Western Australia
Ethan is an Assistant Professor of History and received a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 2004. His research focuses on the creation and contest of social inequality across political economic formations, with particular interests in the histories of racism, state violence, and punishment. He is also an award-winning teacher. http://www.history.uwa.edu.au/about/staff/ethan_blue
BACK TO TOP

Oron Catts
The University of Western Australia
Oron is an artist, researcher and curator whose work with the Tissue Culture and Art Project has won numerous international awards. In 2000 he co-founded SymbioticA, an artistic research laboratory housed within the Anatomy and Human Biology department at The University of Western Australia. Under Oron’s leadership SymbioticA has gone on to win the 2007 Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in Hybrid Art and became a Centre for Excellence in Biological Art in 2008. In April 2009 Oron (together with Ionat Zurr) was recognised by Icon Magazine (UK) as one of its top 20 Designers, “making the future and transforming the way we work.” His work is included in the New York MoMA design collection and has been exhibited and presented locally and internationally. He has published 13 book chapters and numerous articles. http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/welcome
BACK TO TOP

Kathy High
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York
Kathy is Head and Associate Professor of Video and New Media at the Department of the Arts. She teaches digital video production, history and theory and has been working in the area of documentary and experimental film, video and photography for over twenty years. She produces videos and installations posing queer and feminist inquiries into areas of medicine/bio-science, science fiction, and animal/interspecies collaborations. She has also recently started the BioArts Initiative at Rensselaer, a collaboration between the Arts Department and the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies. http://kathyhigh.com/about/
BACK TO TOP

Stuart Hodgetts
The University of Western Australia
Stuart is currently a Research Assistant Professor at the Eileen Bond Spinal Research Centre in the School of Anatomy and Human Biology. He has extensive knowledge and expertise in cell based transplantation therapies and has been devoted to this area of research for over 10 years. He has considerable expertise in spinal cord injury and a strong interest in the application of stem cell based transplantation therapies as well as immune modulation of the host response to improve donor cell survival in treatments for spinal cord repair. Previously, he worked at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, USA (93-96). In 1998 he began transplantation research as a potential treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy until 2004 when he changed fields to apply his expertise in the repair of spinal cord following injury. He has published 18 peer reviewed papers in high ranking journals and 2 book chapters. He began a long-standing collaboration with SymbioticA around 1998 and has been involved in projects such as “Lifeboat” with Riksutstillinger, SymbioticA, & Sonic Objects, Oslo, Norway (2004), as well as being Scientific Consultant & Adviser to SymbioticA (1998-present). He also lectures in undergraduate courses and supervises many students (undergraduate and postgraduate) and his service to the UWA community includes Chair of the Animal Users Committee, Director of Tissue Culture Facilities at ANHB, Treasurer of the UWA Research Staff Association, Executive Committee Member (ANHB), as well as other committees. https://www.socrates.uwa.edu.au/Staff/StaffProfile.aspx?Person=StuartHodgetts
BACK TO TOP

Darren Jorgensen
The University of Western Australia
Darren lectures in art history in the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts. He largely publishes on science fiction, Aboriginal art and critical theory.
https://www.socrates.uwa.edu.au/Staff/StaffProfile.aspx?Person=DarrenJorgensen
BACK TO TOP

Ionat Zurr
The University of Western Australia
Award winning artist and researcher, Ionat Zurr formed, with Oron Catts, the internationally renowned Tissue Culture and Art Project. She has been an artist in residence in the School of Anatomy and Human Biology since 1996 and was central to the establishment of SymbioticA in 2000. Ionat, who received her PhD, titled “Growing Semi-Living Art” in 2009, is a core researcher and academic co-ordinator at SymbioticA. She is considered a pioneer in the field of biological arts and her work has been exhibited locally and internationally. http://www.tca.uwa.edu.au/
BACK TO TOP

Symposium Image Details

Verena Kaminiarz
may the mice bite me if it is not true
2008-2010
Original Photograph: Bo Wang
Kaminiarz graduated from a Master of Biological Arts at SymbioticA in 2008. Her project focused on mice used in science to model human diseases. The work consists of four mice positioned as living portraits of people who have died from conditions that these mice were developed to model. The resulting mouse portraits were of: Franz Kafka (tuberculosis), Joseph Beuys (natural causes), Felix Gonzalez-Torres (compromised immune system) and Gilles Deleuze (lung cancer). The work re-contextualized laboratory animals, relocating them into a field of cultural and philosophical study. http://www.aedc.ca/verena/may_the_mice_bite/images_may_the_mice_bite.htm

Kira O’Reilly
inthewrongplaceness
2005-2009
Photographer: Axel Heise
O’Reilly was a SymbioticA resident in 2003/2004. A part of her research involved culturing skin tissue taken from a pig being used for bioscientific research. O’Reilly has since performed a number of performance works for one person at a time, inwhich her body is juxtaposed and interacts with the corpse of a female pig; exploring the complicitness, responsibility and connection with the other animal.
http://www.kiraoreilly.com/blog/

Symposium Postcards and Poster Graphic Design by Paul Rayment.