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Describe this week in one image?

Juha: release of Zero History for the Moon Life Concept Store.

Boris: Old & New, Warm, Thinking, Wait for it, GO!

Where did you get most of your news this week?

Juha: Twitter first, the Guardian second.

Boris: Flipboard for the iPad, an amazing app which turns all of the news you consume into one easy to read magazine format. Giving a zero-resistance way for me to view content from all kinds of sources, curated by Flipboard, my Facebook and twitter contacts and rss feeds from more obscure sources. I will try to write a blog post for De toekomst van de krant about Flipboard, I promise.

Which person would you recommend following on Twitter?

Juha: @cottam for odd futures, @failedarchitect for what went wrong with architecture, @benhammersley for, well, mostly silly jokes.

Boris: @benhammersley - Maybe the best and funniest alternative technology/futurology news source available. Next level thinking combined with some of the best traditionally prepared English humour.

What do you think of the new Facebook overhaul, and while you are at it, the Spotify integration?

Juha: Interesting. I installed the new timeline by following the developer’s instructions and I must admit I am impressed with the overall design. The ticker is another interesting addition, but not uncontroversial. The ticker shows you what your friends are doing and liking all over Facebook. It’s part ambient conversation, par social spyware. There are good sides, but there appear to be as many bad ones too (1, 2). The Spotify integration is probably a huge development for the music industry. Spotify, and with it the musicians and labels, have gained a potential of 800 million new listeners. The cloud music service has gained over 2 million subscribers since the Facebook integration was announced at f8.

Boris: I think it’s amazing how Facebook managed to reimagine the idea of the profile, next to Juha’s new shiny profile mine looks like it was written on the back of the Dead Sea scrolls. Although I have some serious doubts about some of the privacy implications (I listen to things on Spotify I would’nt want the world to know) and think we need to pay some attention to how we handle this the new profile is going to be huge for the way we consume social news, discover music and recognise social weather.

You both organised something on Wednesday. How was it?

Juha: I organised De toekomst van de krant, the future of the newspaper. It was awesome, thanks for asking. We watched the first part of News War, the PBS documentary about the crisis in the American newspaper industry. After the movie, I interviewed Volkskrant journalist Hans Aarsman, about his thoughts on the subject. He was joined by an engaged audience of media professionals from Het Financieel Dagblad and nu.nl. We had a great talk about the role of newspapers, and the need for innovative and disruptive thinking from within the news distribution model.

Boris: I organised the first editorial meeting with everyone working for VPRO Dorst announcing the changes we are going for on the short and the long term, and to give everyone a long overdue refresher about what our values are and why we exist. The group was huge, we were suprised that when we ordered pizza for everyone no one called to ask if we where sure, the pizzas even arrived on time, this made everyone a bit quiet at first but the heated discussions and inspired that followed where surely worth everything.

I used this meeting and the update I prepared to straighten everything out in our vision and mission, and update what our core values mean. So with renewed ideas and direction, VPRO Dorst moves into the future!

Did you meet anyone interesting this week?

Juha: Yes, I had a wonderful lunch with Lorenzo de Rita of the Soon Institute, one of the most charming and creative men in Amsterdam. I loved his idea of publishing a book of an Italian artist that consists of three years of wiretapping records of his convicted criminal father.

Boris: I just met Lorenzo de Rita, someone I think all of us would like to get close to Non-fiction. A bit surreal though since this morning I rewatched his interesting Picnic talk The Best City Never Seen, and wouldnt have expected to see him in real life immediately afterwards.

Are books still relevant in your life?

Juha: Yes sir! I am glad I am still a reader, however difficult it sometimes remains to find the time or the concentration. I am currently reading A Brief History of the Future by Jacques Attali and The Death of the Adversary by Hans Keilson. I should finish the novel in one stretch, but I got distracted by the book with the great title. I haven’t tried an e-reader yet, also because of the tactile sentiments books still have. But I am sure it will happen soon.

Boris: I don’t read. There are two reasons for this: the first is that I am dyslectic and/or lazy and not I don’t want to plow through a gazillion pages filled with symbols; the other is that I hate stuff, and books tend to at some point transform themselves into clutter in one of the corners of my bedroom.

Luckily there are two solutions for this. The solution for the second problem is easy: eBooks, eReaders and eDistribution. The release of the new Amazon Kindles must make this more within reach, but my iPad also functions fine for reading shorter texts.

The solution to my dyslexia/lazyness is audiobooks. Audiobooks give an experience somewhere between being told a story or interesting concept at a fireplace in a romantic wooden cabin and Kuedo’s new album Severant. The problem with this is that a lot of interesting books (Everyware by Adam Greenfield for instance) do not get released as audiobook. Still a lot of beautiful books are available. I recommend writers with great voices like Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion or narrators with great sense of language like the reading of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Stephen Fry.

How about movies?

Juha:  Oh yes. Cinemas are a thing to cherish. My favourite ones in Amsterdam are the Movies and Kriterion. I miss visiting Lantaren/Venster in Rotterdam, but I promise to get over it.

Boris: I love movies, and keep meticulous ratings on everything I see and a complete list of everything I want to see soon. I find documentairy movies to be a great kickstarter for rapid thinking and cinema films great for getting wild ideas and inspiration.

How is the new office?

Juha: It is awesome. You should all come by for a drink on Fridays at 6. We have quite a view.

Boris: Wow, I could live here and I probably would if Juha would just let me move in here. The view, the sounds, the atmosphere and in a few weeks the other tenants will make this the single best office in all of Amsterdam, I’m convinced.

Michiel van Iersel, co-founder of Non-fiction, was asked (and happily agreed) to join the so-called Stad-Forum, which was recently established by the City of Amsterdam as an advisory board, think tank and platform for debate focusing on urban developments and planning issues within the Amsterdam metropolitan area.

The Stad-Forum consists of three key members and a circle of twelve additional members, each with a different background, ranging from entrepreneurs and property developers to scholars, curators and artists. Michiel will focus on such topics as urban regeneration and temporary use of vacant spaces, the role of new and mobile media in the way we perceive and shape our cities and heritage and innovation.

The key members are Karin Laglas (Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at Delft University of Technology), Liesbeth Jansen (Advisor on Redevelopment, Cultural Heritage and Creative Economy) and Wouter Veldhuis (urban designer/architect & partner with MUST).

The aim of Stad-Forum is to identify the most pressing issues and developments that shape the future (appearance) of Amsterdam, facilitate a dialogue between the various stakeholders, and advise the City Council and college of Aldermen on future policy.

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Stad-Forum is linked to The Department of Physical Planning (Dienst Ruimtelijke Ordening, or DRO), one of the City of Amsterdam’s centralized services that focuses on the organization and design of an attractive and spatially coherent city.

From September onwards Stad-Forum will actively address issues of contemporary urban life through public and interdisciplinary programs. Its goal is the exploration of new and innovative ideas, public engagement, and ultimately the creation of progressive solutions for life in Amsterdam.

The first public appearance of Stad-Forum will be at PICNIC Festival 2011.

Visit the website of Stad-Forum for more information (in Dutch only)

You can follow Stad-Forum on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

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It has been an exciting first year (in beta) for us at Non-fiction, with projects ranging from social media strategies for the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ and Tropenmuseum Junior, via new concepts for an illustrious canal house ánd an ancient castle to a range of workshops in a.o. Ljubljana and Zürich. Together with our friends at TrouwAmsterdam we opened the temporary project space ‘De Verdieping‘, hosting a wide range of cultural and social events. The year ended with a cover story in Time Out magazine, giving our co-created vision of Amsterdam in 2020. The start of the next decade promises to be even more innovative, collaborative and challenging..

So what happened in 2009?

At the beginning of the year we worked with the renowned Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, the Concerthall of the 21st Century, helping the organization with their public strategy, new media development and visual identity.

In the months leading up to the summer we organized Aura: an exhibition and a series of events in the historic premises of Castrum Peregrini Foundation, where in WWII young German Jews survived in hiding.

Since March we are responsible for the artistic direction and strategic development of a cultural project space, De Verdieping, in the basement of the Berlin-style club and restaurant TrouwAmsterdam, resulting in a series of lively public discussions, art and architecture exhibitions, experimental performances and film nights in collaboration with half the city (and soon the world).

Around the summer working with the Tropenmuseum Junior (TMJ) in Amsterdam to devise a social strategy for their new exhibition ‘Qi of China‘ and an online game that enables children in the age of 6 – 13 to experience a number of key cultural values in Chinese culture.

Halfway through the year Non-fiction relocated its office from the Scheepvaartmuseum (National Maritime Museum) to the former laboratory of the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage, right in the cultural heart of Amsterdam overlooking Museumplein (Museumsquare).

in July 2009 Non-fiction’s Juha van ‘t Zelfde co-founded VURB, together with Ben Cerveny, design strategist and data visualization theorist and in collaboration with James Burke (Roomware, Narb). VURB is a European framework for policy and design research concerning urban computational systems.

Next spring and summer we will be organizing several projects at Duivenvoorde Castle, a stately museum-mansion and unique parkland (see below) near the city of The Hague. We received a request from the organization to make a contribution to their yearlong celebration of the museum’s 50th anniversary in 2010.

In the past four years, we have been organizing experimental music events at Bimhuis, Melkweg, De Verdieping and TrouwAmsterdam. These nights are organized under our electronic music label Viral Radio, which has a regular show on Dutch public network VPRO‘s 3voor12.

In december we visited lovely Ljubljana to give a presentation and a series of workshops for the Access to Contemporary Art Conservation conference, organized by the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage in collaboration with Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid and kindly hosted by the Moderna Galerija in Ljubljana.

Non-fiction’s Juha participated an intimate workshop in Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in his role as editor of Soundmuseum. ‘Audio Art on the Radio’ was organized by the Institute for Contemporary Arts Research of the Zurich University of the Arts, and focused on the question how open, interactive and democratic radio should be?

Recently the Amsterdam branch of the international city periodical Time Out invited us to come up with a vision of the city in the year 2020, so we decided to provide them with a collaborative urban visions by collecting dozens of thought-provoking Twitter-style messages from our friends and heroes from around the world.  The magazine has just hit the stores, so check it out or contact us if you wish to receive a copy!

Wow, that’s a lot..

And we even forgot to tell you about Curating the City, our night long interview series with museum professionals and artists about ‘the museum in the city and the city as museum’ during the annual Museumnight (n8), and about our latest publications and our friends, new and old, and about the birth of Michiel’s daughter and Juha’s hobbies.

And what are our plans for 2010?

Now the ‘noughties’ make way for a brand new decade, Non-fiction is gearing up for yet another year of recession-defying activities and  intelligent pragmatism. We will continu our exploration of the pro’s and con’s of co-creation, social media, urban interventions, guerilla gardening, data visualization, public accessibility, augmented reality, ubiquitous museums and other innovative ideas that will fundamentally change our lives.

And we will jumpstart the new year with presentations and proposals for such diverse organizations as the local municipality, SNS REAAL Foundation, Binger Filmlab, the Zuidas, PICNIC, ICN, Paradiso, Duivenvoorde and ING. And we are happy to receive more inquiries and invitations, since we can always outsource some of our activities to our man in India.

We will keep you updated on our website and on Facebook and Twitter (and here and here), but please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you are looking for a stimulating conversation, a good laugh or a place to meet kindred spirits.

Please join us for the opening of the new year in De Verdieping with a special sound performance by our dear friend and multi-instrumentalist Machinefabriek on Wednesday 6 January at 8 pm. And later that month, on Thursday 28 January at 8 pm we are hosting the ’2020 vision’ event at De Verdieping in collaboration with Time Out Amsterdam, showcasing different perspectives on the future of Amsterdam by KesselsKramer, LAgroup, Concrete, Benthem Crouwel and… Non-fiction.

Drive and shoot straight on New Year’s Eve!

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