(compliations of british and US newspaper articles)

The trial began at 8am. David was the first to be injected and the others followed at 10-minute intervals.

The volunteers knew the test had gone wrong within 20 minutes, Khan says.

The men started to undress, even though the ward was cold, he says. They were grabbing their heads, and their breathing became erratic. Khan was sent to the canteen as nurses and doctors tried to relieve the men’s pain. Khan says the man in the next bed pleaded for assistance. `Horrible Scream’ “It was a horrible scream,” Khan says. “He was begging for help, saying `Doc, my head is killing me. My back is killing me.’ He was moving around like a snake, arching his back.”

Within minutes of the last volunteer getting his TGN1412, the first injected recruit had begun to complain of a severe headache, backache, fever and pain. He tore his shirt off and yelled he was burning. ‘An Asian guy next to me started screaming and his breathing went haywire as though he was having a terrible panic attack,’ said one of the volunteers, Raste Khan, who had been given a placebo. ‘They put an oxygen mask on him but he kept tearing it off.

He was shouting “Doctor, doctor, please help me!” He started convulsing, shouting that he was getting shooting pains in his back. People were fainting nd coming back to consciousness. It was terrifying. I kept expecting it to happen to me at any moment. But I felt fine and didn’t know why.’

Within one hour, they were screaming in agony, with fevers and excruciating headaches. One said it felt like rockets in his brain. Rob says: “There was a sense the staff just wanted to get it over with.” Four minutes after restaurant manager Nino Abdelhady’s had his jab, his life became a screaming, agonising nightmare. “Everything just fell apart” as the drug ripped through his body like wildfire, he says. The drug was destroying their immune systems and shutting down their vital organs. Sixteen hours later, the volunteers were finally moved into intensive care. Shocked to the core, it was Nino’s girlfriend, My fanwy Marshall, who described him as the “Elephant Man.”

The first inkling that doctors were facing an unprecedented medical crisis began with a call to the critical care unit at Northwick Park Hospital last Monday afternoon. Patients on the seventh floor were having strange reactions to a new drug, they were told. Some were having breathing difficulties, others were losing consciousness. The news triggered alarm, but nothing more. The unit’s six beds were already occupied by patients who were too ill to be moved. So a separate bay was taken over and the first patients rushed down. It was then that staff realised the nature of the calamity they were up against. Within minutes, the bay was filled with the writhing bodies of young men screaming for help. Consultants were summoned from their homes. All were baffled. Even the team who had administered the test drugs could not explain why the men were slipping in and out of comas, why their heads had puffed up to twice their normal sizes, why some were vomiting, or why some were in such pain. Their only real comfort was provided by an experienced nurse who supervised the installation of drips and ventilators.

The men, who had been contracted by the US drug testing company Parexel to test the anti-cancer drug TGN1412, were put on ventilators. Then some began showing signs of kidney failure. Blood filtration units were brought it to clean out their veins and arteries. Relatives were called and told to expect the worst. Only a miracle would see them through, one was told.

What caused such an extreme reaction in these patients? An article in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that TGN 1412 may have induced a cytokine storm. A cytokine storm is a potentially fatal immune reaction consisting of a positive feedback loop between cytokines and immune cells, with highly elevated levels of various cytokines.

When the immune system is fighting pathogens, cytokines signal immune cells such as T-cells and macrophages to travel to the site of infection. In addition, cytokines activate those cells, stimulating them to produce more cytokines. Normally this feedback loop is kept in check by the body. However, in some instances, the reaction becomes uncontrolled, and too many immune cells are activated in a single place. The precise reason for this is not entirely understood, but may be caused by an exaggerated response when the immune system encounters a new and highly pathogenic invader. Cytokine storms have potential to do significant damage to body tissues and organs. If a cytokine storm occurs in the lungs, for example, fluids and immune cells such as macrophages may accumulate and eventually block off the airways, potentially resulting in death.

Now, more than a month after the incident, doctors frankly don’t know whether the adverse effects are reversible, especially for 20-year-old trial volunteer Ryan Wilson, who is the lone volunteer still hospitalized. Wilson had slipped into a coma for three weeks after taking the drug, and after awakening, discovered that he may lose parts of his fingers and toes, which had turned black because of his reaction to the drug. “I’m told it’s like frostbite and my fingers will just fall off,” Wilson told the UK’s News of the World recently. In addition to being in a coma for nearly a month, Wilson also suffered from heart, liver and kidney failure, septicemia, pneumonia and dry gangrene.

Marshall says her boyfriend — a previously healthy, 28-year-old bar owner in London — had changed beyond recognition immediately after taking TGN1412.

“I went in expecting to see his smiley face and curly, black hair, but he was completely lifeless,” she says. “He’s like a shell of who he is. He can’t even move his eyelids. The machine is pumping out of his lungs. His chest is puffed out. His face is puffed out like the Elephant Man. A day ago, I was talking to him and he was fine, and now they are saying he could die at any moment.”

Today Rob, 32, has been told he is suffering from post-traumatic stress. His blood, he says, is “not how it was” and his immune system remains damaged. He’s had a recurring rash on his legs and arms that feels as though someone’s stabbing him hard with pins. “You end up being paranoid about the smallest things, thinking, ‘God, what if it’s cancer.’”

Oakley, from Ealing, west London, has been told by doctors that he is showing ‘definite early signs’ of lymphoma.

In dem Workshop möchte Jan-Philipp Possmann zum Austausch praktischer dramaturgischer Strategien einladen. Zum anderen schlägt er vor, anhand eines konkreten Beispiels, dramaturgische Fragen praktisch durchzuspielen und Lösungen zu entwickeln.

An drei Tagen sprechen wir jeweils anderthalb Stunden gemeinsam über Erzählstrategien in der Literatur und im Video und analysieren Beispiele.

Parallel sollen kurze Videoarbeiten entstehen, die folgende reale Geschichte bildlich nacherzählen:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGN1412

Mapping Host: Benjamin Jantzen & Swen Seyerlen
Mittwoch 21.03. 19 Uhr Wasserreservoir

Processing Host: Dr. Mo & Stephan Ditgens
Donnerstag 22.03. 14 Uhr Kiosk

Kinect Host: Benjamin Jantzen & Stephan Ditgens
Donnerstag 22.03. 14 Uhr Kaprow

vvvv Host: Cyper & Swen Seyerlen
Freitag 23.03. 14 Uhr

Pepakura Host: Swen Seyerlen
Freitag 23.03. 14 Uhr Kaprow

The eleventh edition of LPM Live Performers Meeting begins on May 31, 2012 in Rome.

LPM offers the unique opportunity to experience 4 days of audiovisual performances, VJing, workshops, panel discussion, product showcases presented by hundreds of VJs, audiovisual artists, new media professionals and thinkers from around the world.

In fact it is this community of artists that made of the 2011 Rome edition a surprising event. We hosted not less than 484 artists, 228 performances, workshops and showcases, recording an overall amount of 32 participant countries: Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Belgium, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, Macedonia, Mexico, New Zealand, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, United States, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, Hungary, Uruguay, Ukraina.

This year LPM returns with a new location: MACRO - Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, inside the spaces of the Center for Cultural Production PELANDA. The MACRO not only gives more prestige to the event, both locally and internationally, but is perfectly suited to accommodate the different souls of the meeting. Again, this XI edition seeks to promote the practice of live video performance, thanks to a rich and unpredictable programme aimed at exploring different themes through new audiovisual languages, techniques and technologies.

The daily schedule of the event:

15:00 to 21:00 Workshops
15:00 to 16:00 Lectures and conferences
16:00 to 18:00 Presentations of projects and products
18:00 to 04:00 AV Performances and VJ / DJ sets

Vj, artists, designers, professionals and the general public will be involved in the manifold planned activities: from experimental audiovisual performances, architectural mapping shows, and DJVJ sets to workshops, roundtables, and presentations of products and hardware, with a special regard for Free and Open Source projects. Meeting areas devoted to the interaction among the hundreds of participants will be the corollary for the whole duration of the event.

Registration to the meeting is FREE and you can subscribe by following the procedures of registration in the participate section of the website. To give the opportunity to host most of the performances we receive, the maximum duration of each show is 30 minutes. Registration is open until March 12, 2012.

Through our 8 years of experience, we were able to draw a conceptual map of the trends that have most influenced the creation of live video performances, and the programme of this XI edition reflects and investigates these trends:

• Live Cinema: works performed exclusively live, capable of demonstrating a narrative and experimental approach; projects in continual tension between perceptive experience and performative act.
• Video Mapping: a technique of video-projection that can animate architectural volumes. The effect is spectacular and exciting, it confuses and seduces our perceptions through the dialogue among images and tridimensional surfaces.
• Digital Freedoms: activism and beauty, aesthetic database, data visualization of public or private data; these forms of artistic expression have been able over time to both inform and activate the consciences of people around the world.
• Visual gender: thanks to the critical tension among gender studies, queer theory and contemporary art, the vision of the body, the sexual identity is disconnected from the stereotype of LGBT and video language becomes an instrument of emancipation of the genre.
• Generative Visual: thanks to an encoding of the active and reactive world around us new digital biospheres offer to the public the experience of complex networks composed of simple sensory-bit binary codes.
• Stereoscopic 3D: stereoscopic vision allows three-dimensional display of standard video content for a complete perceptive immersion. Ad hoc software and technologies are used to manipulate the visual perception of space to create “augmented” worlds.

In addition, this year LPM hosts once again the VJTorna, an international VJing competition that offers to both the performers and the audience a unique and exciting experience. Three days of battles among VJs, an international jury of experts, four categories Pre-production, VJ Champion Battle Champion and Best Live VJ Mapper, an Audience Award and technical sponsors who put their products up for grabs. Born in Budapest in 2004, today the VJTorna is a fixed appointment for VJs worldwide.

LPM is designed as a place of dialogue, comparison and exchange of ideas and information between artists and fans in the field that are accustomed to meet, communicate and interact mostly in the virtual space of the network.

A real meeting place, a space that fulfills an important opportunity for dialogue and exchange, LPM encourages research, experimentation, the encounter between different forms of artistic expression, the interaction of multiple techniques and digital technologies, analog, software and hardware. LPM is an unmissable spectacle during which the audience has the chance to meet the world’s largest selection of artists active in the field of live video performances.

The Meeting aims to promote transnational movement and exchange of ideas, artworks and artists. All funds recovered by LPM are invested to support innovative research and experimentation in the field of live visuals with the latest technologies. LPM is part of AVNODE, whose objective is to improve and promote the veejaying culture worldwide

.

LPM is produced with the support of the Culture Programme of the European Commission and in collaboration with international partners and co-organizers, the project includes a second edition in 2012 in Mexico City, with a series of previews and promotional events focused on live video to be held in France, Hungary, Greece and Italy, during the most important European festivals and cultural events.

LPM is produced and organized by
Flyer Communication
with the support of the Culture Programme of the European Community

co-organized with
Linux Club Italy (IT) FLxER.net (EN) Association Les Reseaux De la Creation - Vision’r (FR) VJ Torna International (HU) NO URBAN Productions Multitrab Profitable Company - Athen’s Video Art Festival (GR) Ambassade de France - Service de Coopération et d’Action Culturelle

in partnership with
BORDER Cultural Center (MX) Juego de Talento, SA (MX)

in association with
Embassy of Mexico in Rome

Hier das Ergebnis.

Wir hoffen Euch zahlreich auf der B-Seite zwischen 17. und 24. März begrüßen zu können …

Swen Seyerlen war auch eingeladen. Er entwarf dafür ein weiteres mal ein Papier-Objekt und zitierte die barocke Bauzeit des Schlosses mittels soundreaktiver Mapping-Projektion und LED-Beleuchtung.

Tim Oberstätter zeigte nochmals seine Mensch-Maschine-Installation “Einstufung” und unsere Freunde vom MadLab waren durch ihren Institutsleiter Prof. Hartmut Wöhlbier mit einer interaktiven Installation vertreten.

Danke an Melanie Wetter für die tolle Organisation.

FREEMOTE 11 : Threshold edition

Electronic Arts & Co-creation Festival
December 07 until December 11 : Utrecht (Holland)

FREEMOTE 11 is a gathering of electronic artists & a shared exposure event in a former railway warehouse in Utrecht (NUtrecht). A stage for contemporary creative communities and enlightened souls. Share & create together on topic.

5 days of (inter)national co-creation, installations, performances, exhibitions, screenings, AV performances and more… Three active festival areas and a extensive place to breath, chill out and create.

To complete the program in october, we invite you to send in proposals and links for AV performances, lectures, workshops & masterclasses, installations, motion graphics and interactive works.

Threshold: We live in turbulent times: tipping points all over > financial systems > ecological systems > shifting of the balance of power > analoque - digital > and many more > en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​Threshold

contact@borndigital.nu

FREEMOTE = FREE & REMOTE collaboration = Cloud Computing = Akasha

FREEMOTE & Partners:
Powered by: Born Digital / City of Utrecht / Treaty of Utrecht / K.F. Hein Fonds
Creative Partners: Verein fur Jetzkultur (Mannheim/DE) / A MAZE (Berlin/DE) / Visual Berlin (Berlin/DE) / roBOt (Bologna/IT) / A-M-B-E-R (Istanbul/TR) / SETUP (Utrecht/NL) / FIBER (Amsterdam/NL) GarageCUBE (CH) /1024 architecture (FR)
Software Partners: Resolume / Madmapper
Educational Partners: Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU) Games & Interaction / Art & Economy
Facility Partner: NUtrecht / Den Eelder (Zuiver Ambachtelijke Zuivel)
Technical Partner: BEAMsystems (video)

____________________________________________________________

Jetzkultur (in Person von Ali Künnemeyer und Swen Seyerlen) war letztes Jahr auch schon vor Ort, dazu gibt’s auch ein kleines Filmchen:

VISION’R VJ FESTIVAL 2012

English Version :

Hi !

After Vision’R 2011 success, focused on nomadic hybridations and local minorities cultures international resistances, for 2012 up to you to express your singularities and alterities, reactive or not to the geo-strategic actual contexts. Resistances and relative autonomies are both singularization sources.

Vision’R 2011 video report here : http://vimeo.com/28497691

Next Vision’R will take place around month of May 2012, with Paris days at the Mercoeur Center based on the May, 12 weekend.

Proposals reception period is open until December 5, 2011.

VJ, as usual, means "Live image scene", with multimedia, VJ, audiovideo performances, body performances with live pictures… human interaction/intention.

Vision’R is the actual VJ scenes collaborative Festival, about moving borders of VJing and exploring well known VJing territories. Democratic Festival with this large shared call, Vision’R programme is deep in the living art creativity of the VJ work in progress core.

Vision’R VJ Festival 2012 waits for your proposals (30 minutes minimum) for :
- experimental performances with live images (indoor with or without screens)
- outdoor performances with or without mapping
- workshops, lectures, meetings, showcases
- altering VJ sets (with musical part)
- VJ - AV contents for youth / kids scenes

Vision’R isn’t open to main or alternative corporate proposals, or entertainment ones.

Send us your proposal (2 maximum and with downloads links if needed) to :
vision-r (at) reseaux-creation.org with the mail object "Vision’R 2012", with descriptions, presentations, images/videos… and these filled elements :
http://vision-r.org/PROJECT2012-VisionR.rtf
http://vision-r.org/TECHNIQUE2012-VisionR.doc

Have good days and evenings !
See you soon
Laurent for Vision’R

Vision’R VJ mailing list : http://www.vision-r.org/?cat=18&lang=en
Vision’R on facebook : https://www.facebook.com/VJfestivalVisionR

See you next year!!!