>>we swarm

How to love a continent?

Franziska Weinmann — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 09:26:46 +0000

Is there anyone interested to fall in love, to be part of a traditional and emotional relationship? Who wishes to live a high quality life in peace and prosperity? Who can identify with a multicultural community, full of languages, traditions and culture? Who is dreaming the European dream?
Gabriella Gönczy is member of the civil society movement called “A soul for Europe” where people from all over Europe are shaping the cultural image of this continent.

Twenty-seven governments in twenty-seven countries speaking twenty-three official languages, … read more

Facing Corruption in India: ‘We are techies and we can code so we built an Android app’

Michael Kranixfeld — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 17:03:59 +0000

When I visited Cebit this year, I found Code N, a hall dedicated to young start ups, the most interesting place. Among apps to intelligently plan when to refill your electric car or how to organize car sharing more easy, a stand from India caught my attention. The movement CorruptionTrak presented an android app that makes it easy to report encounters with bribery. A 2005 study conducted by Transparency International in India found that more than 55% of Indians had first-hand experience of paying bribes … read more

Surf your city!

Lea Lang — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 04:01:16 +0000

When did you visit http://www.couchsurfing.org/ the last time? On a journey when all the hostels where booked? Before you started your travel and you didn´t want to spend too much money? Did you ever even think of surfing the couches in your own city?

When I moved to Hildesheim, Germany for my studies in October 2010 I met a lot of lovely people in the university and I entered a shared flat with a colleague I got to know in my part-time job. But after … read more

The internet changed the political process radically

Michael Kranixfeld — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 20:39:39 +0000

Proxy voting or delegated voting is an idea for the reorganization of our public decision making. Neither focusing on direct democracy nor representative democracy, proxy voting tries to combine both sides. It gives everyone the right to take part in every decision directly, but also the possibility to authorize others to vote in their name. This way everyone can keep full control but does not need to pretend to be an expert in all political fields.

The organizational efforts for this method are high and … read more

Young Germans are still welcome to Nida*

Natascha Häutle — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 22:39:22 +0000

In effect, we are living in an increasingly post-idea world – a world in which big, thought-provoking ideas that can´t instantly be monetized are of so little intrinsic value that fewer people are generating them and fewer outlets are disseminating them, the Internet notwithstanding. Bold ideas are almost passé. Neal Gabler

According to its title the exhibition “Postidea” in the Vilnius Art Academy does not offer a new utopia or a new great idea. The show, arranged in collaboration with the European Institute for … read more

Life In A Cloistered Community

Benedictine Sister Renata — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:13:17 +0000

Do you know the image of the African tree of life? It keeps coming back to me when I reflect on the topic of “community”. This Makonde carving depicts a symbolic tree stem, formed by living human beings. A group of people joined to each other as in a circle forms the foundation and on their shoulders yet another group is intertwined, while on their shoulders another circle is formed. Thus the tree stem grows in height – endlessly. It has a safe foundation only … read more

Prosjekt: Konteinarsymjing

Lars Pistasj — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:53:24 +0000

2012 will be a genuine garbage-year. Lars Pistasj and Astrid Bruun Arnesen will, as usual, be eating “garbage” as far as possible. The food will be collected/scavenged from supermarkets in Tromsø, and everything we find will be photographed and documented in a facebook group to everyone’s pleasure, amusement and, hopefully, inspiration.

Here you can see the results so far:

Arctic dumpster diving

Haukur Sigurðsson — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:31:26 +0000

One way to survive in the world’s most expensive country is to dumpsterdive.

One night I followed my flatmate, Sophie, while she went and searched the dumpsters of a supermarket near our house in Tromsø, northern Norway. It’s really amazing what is thrown out by the supermarkets. Sometimes it has expired the same day (and is good to eat for a week after that) but often it’s not even close to expire date. The reason that these fine products are thrown out is unknown to … read more

Are groups smarter?

Tabea Venrath — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 17:16:33 +0000

As individuals we are spending our life in groups and institutions that are designed for communities: In families, kindergartens, schools. In our jobs we often work in teams. History books teach us that humans are social beings and have cooperated ever since. Today I read in the newspaper: The Pirate Party declared „collective intelligence“ regarding their electors. I made use of this observation and started to interview my dad, who works as a groupanalyst and psychoanalyst, in order to figure out: Why seem groups and … read more

>>swarming in the depths of the cities

Lea Lang — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:04:55 +0000

>>we swarm is everywhere. We are happening. We keep on reminding everybody to join our network, to share their stories with us, to think about “community”. So we had to become visible in the city where the most of the core group live – Hildesheim, Germany.

Sunday was the day when some of us got in old clothes, packed their cans, paint rollers and a music box and went to the most frequented bicycle tunnel in here where street-art is allowed and everybody could spray … read more