Just back from Amsterdam. Snow along the canals last night near the Lloyd Hotel venue pulled me fully back into European spacetime. The Virtueel Platform organisation - which is the sector institute for digital (or e-) culture in the Netherlands organised a workshop over two days, called the Walled Garden...which brought together international and national practitioners and theorists to consider how artists are (or could be) using networked culture (or how the so-called 'web 2.0' might evolve into a'web 3.0' with input from artists, designers, media researchers etc). The working group I was moderating was about the 'Network as Laboratory' and it proved to be a fascinating experience: our main group concensus was around the importance of finding and establishing 'agency' in online environments. I asked them to explore where and how sites for experimentation existed in these spaces and where the access barriers were. We also looked at the whole internet itself as a laboratory and considered some methods of visualising data transfer and network growth. What became clear in discussing how group members used various social networking sites (mostly proprietary) was the low level of knowledge and awareness among 'most' people of the implications of this use and the need to consider how one's data and profiles might be used in future. Might we see data wars? How can the level of awareness and consciousness (network literacy) be changed? A solution might be to start to build links between independent media organisations and primary schools - to start to teach children how to grow powerful through hands-on activity, to teach them to code and to value their agency (bricoschoollabs)...in online environments. Other groups were moderated by a great mix of researchers and practitioners including Tapio Makela, Matt Ratto, Erin Manning, Sabine Niederer, Adam Somlai-Fischer, Aymeric Mansoux and Tom Kinkowstein.

It's night in Copacabana - this is 'Beachwear Fashion Week' in Rio, though that's not why I am here and across the road some fine looking tents have appeared close to the water no doubt to show off the latest flipflops trunks and bikinis made from the latest materials and what an appropriate site for it this is. On CNN Russell Simmons 'entrepreneur and philanthropist' is telling us that Obama's victory has a lot to do with the hip hop (I'm wondering is that different from the flipflop?) generaton. It's November 5th but in the southern hemisphere there are no fireworks tonight. I sort of missed the Halloween celebrations also last week, on October 31st, when I was in Sao Paulo. No black hats or broomsticks were to seen. Brasil has adopted Father Christmas, snowy trees and all, with total abandon - but the November festivals we take for granted in the UK are nowhere to be seen. And just as well, there is more than enough going on here anyway! The cities teem with an energy that sweep you forward in their flow. Today I walked in the magical Jardim Botanico here in Rio and climbed into the Mata Atlantica forest which borders it to see long-tailed monkeys threading the skyline with sweet abandon. Tomorrow, I head to Ubatuba, right on the Tropic of Capricorn, My visit to Rio has included meetings with Ronaldo Lemos at the Niemeyer designed FGV building near Flamingo, Rejane Spitz and her team at PUC in Gavea and Katia Maciel and Andre Parente from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. I'm doing some work here that allows me to ask these brilliant people dumb questions. They're all generous and responsive. It's Brasil in micro and I am lucky to be here.