Category Archives: New Utopia

Utopia Global, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise data solutions and a long-time SAP partner, has released a new software version of its master data governance solution for enterprise asset management that SAP resells as a solution extension under the name SAP Master Data Governance, enterprise asset management extension by Utopia. The new capabilities in the solution extension will help customers to improve maintenance planning, increase regulatory compliance and advance the delivery of customer services dependent upon high availability of infrastructure, facilities and fleet assets.

This new version of the solution extension adds the ability to create and maintain maintenance plans complete with task lists, items and master data issues commonly associated with preventive and predictive maintenance program work. The enterprise asset management extension introduces the SAP Fiori user experience for selected create, review and approver functions, along with:

The new version of SAP Master Data Governance, enterprise asset management extension is a comprehensive commercially available enterprise asset management extension that integrates with the SAP ERP application and complements existing master data governance data models for material, supplier, customer and finance. It works with the SAP Master Data Governance application, SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA and SAP Fiori, and is designed to work with SAP Asset Intelligence Network.

We believe that master data is the DNA of an enterprise. We are very proud of the new release of this solution extension because it responds to client demand for solutions that accelerate movement to the digital economy, Internet of Things, Big Data analytics and commitments to SAP solutions like SAP HANA and SAP Asset Intelligence Network, said Arvind J. Singh, CEO of Utopia Global. We feel this latest version of SAP Master Data Governance, enterprise asset management extension will provide clients with the best tools and methods to build a trusted bridge to SAP HANA adoption.

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Utopia releases its next version of master data governance solution ... - SDTimes.com

Hows this for a New York Fashion Week party in the age of anxiety? No guest list, no VIP labels, no PR squadron to tussle with at the door. Everything is designed by real people and made in America with ecological sensitivity, and you can buy it on the spot (much of it for less than $100). Anybody can come in off the streetand all sorts of people do.

This was the premise of last nights opening fete for the brand Everybodys new Lower East Side pop-up: fashion as humanist utopia. As part of Informal Shop, a four-day installation hosting experiential commerce and cultural programming in a temporary Henry Street storefront, founders Iris Alonzo and Carolina Crespo gathered friends and strangers for a sort of antiValentines Day, anti-fashion event to celebrate the newest offering in their ongoing series of collaborations with non-trained designers: a tracksuit created by model and activist Adwoa Aboah.

Adwoa Aboah in her Gurls Talk T-shirt, made with Everybody Photo: Courtesy of Everybody

Aboah first worked with Alonzo and Crespo when she asked them to produce the T-shirts for her Gurls Talk feminist action project, which are available at the store.. I just like their aesthetic; I like that they use recycled cotton; I like that theyre women; I like that we talk about our ideas over home-cooked meals, Aboah said.

Alonzo and Crespo also confessed to having a style crush on Aboah. I know shes been called an It girl, Alonzo said, but shes so much more than that.

The tracksuit they designed together consists of a boxy, high-collared sweatshirt top and higher-rise pants in buttery fleece accented by gold zippers with circular pulls. It will debut on Everybodys site this spring and will be sold in black, navy, and pink.

The fit is as effortlessly cool as Aboah herself. I didnt want it to have a saggy crotch; I wanted it to look good on the hips; I wanted it to look good on the bum; I didnt want it to look too girly, she explained of the design. Her references? Roller disco 60s tracksuits meets Wimbledon tennis players meets RunD.M.C.

Photo: Courtesy of Everybody

And though you cant buy the tracksuit yet, the pop-ups other merchandise is equally compelling. We wanted to do something that really felt immersive, where you can escape into some strange fantasyland, Alonzo explained. The brands signature trash teesthick, vintage-style staples made from 100 percent cotton recycled in the U.S. from cutting-floor scraps, priced at $25 eachhang beside a mini-exhibition detailing the industrial process.

To showcase a pair of jaunty mens cotton shirts designed by chess master Prakash Gokalchandwhom Alonzo met by chance in Los Angeless MacArthur Park, where he plays every daya chessboard and chairs rest beneath an enormous palm tree cut-out and a Hockney-esque pool graphic. (Later in the night, a pair of models, or Gen Z-ers who could have been, wearing tracksuits of their ownhers a pink Juicy-ish number paired with rainbow platform sneakers, his a Royal Tenenbaums burgundysat down for a serious match. No, Alonzo insisted, they were not part of the installation, and she had no idea who they were.)

Downstairs, an indigo-belted jacket with pockets galore, designed by artists Mae Elvis Kaufman and Kalen Hollomon, is modeled by mannequins sporting Kaufmans formidable wig collection. (Behind them, posters designed by Hollomon juxtapose 80s-hair-salon-goddess photos with on-point fortune cookie messages: This is not a day to take risks. Diplomacy rules today.) In a neon-lit corner, African-print body pillows shaped like snakes that have swallowed houses, designed by the art collector Jean Pigozzi, were styled as a plush conversation pit. But conversations ground to a halt last night when a pair of go-go boys showed up and stripped down to their contoured briefs, then writhed away before a circle of mostly female onlookers on what became an impromptu dance floor. (Who needs a valentine?)

Photo: Courtesy of Everybody

A table with postcards and stamps for visitors to send handwritten correspondencebright yellow pens at the readyfeels, in the smartphone era, almost like a provocation. Alonzo and Crespo have more where that came from: Tonight, Kaufman and Hollomon will lead a workshop called An Hour of Escapism, in which Kaufman will transform participants with makeup and wigs, with results documented by Hollomon. Tomorrow, landscape architect Margot Jacobs and producer Ed Brachfeldwhose military-style jumpsuit and sturdy cotton outerwear are part of the collectionwill hold court alongside complimentary astrology readings; on Friday, artist and writer Kiki Kudowho designed a little black stretch dress with playful round cut-outs, also available at the storewill serve a Japanese bento breakfast whose probiotic count, Alonzo made a point of noting, will be off the charts.

Is it all some sort of illuminati-grade branding exercise? Or homespun creativity seasoned with a dash of silly fun? Maybe its both. As the crowd thinned out late last night, Aboah, ready to rest up for one more day of runway shows, walked out carrying a plant housed in a pot shaped and painted like a pair of naked boobs. Across the room, a political action plan was hatched.

Open 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. through February 17 at 142 Henry Street, New York; everybody.world .

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Everybody's Pop-Up Shop Throws a Wild AntiFashion Week Party With Adwoa Aboah - Vogue.com

A student-curated exhibition at Jacob Lawrence Gallery envisions political grandiosity.

If life-negating political structures are the result of the suppression of imagination, utopias are visions as pushback. At the University of Washingtons Jacob Lawrence Gallery (The Jake), three new curators, Nadia Ahmed, Sarah Faulk, and Anqi Peng, with support from former director Scott Lawrimore and project assistant Justen Waterhouse, have organized an exhibition series on the conceptions and present-day stakes of utopia. On the 100th anniversary of Jacob Lawrences birth, Utopia Neighborhood Club contextualizes utopia within his life. Faulk states, My hope for the relationship between utopia and the institution this show is happening within is that it can foster a community that encourages imagining radical futures.

Utopia is literally nowhere; the word comes from the Greek roots not and place. Often an ideal against which we compare current reality, utopias imagine societal overhauls into structures where the subjects lives are easier. They are fantastical, such as an island nation where queer women live free from men (but with giant kangaroos) in William Moultons Themyscira, or an alternate reality in which native populations in the Congo had learned about steam technology before Belgiums colonization, as imagined in Seattle author Nisi Shawls Everfair. Utopia as a political premise asks us to imagine something radically outside what we know, like universal basic income and prison abolition, and from there sets direction for programmatic goals. Utopias are multifarious, simultaneous, and even contradictory. When Thomas More wrote Utopia almost exactly 500 years ago, reducing the workday to nine hours was one of his farfetched visions.

Shelter-wear prototypes. Tad Hirsch and Mae Boettcher. Photo Courtesy of Jacob Lawrence Gallery.

Utopias are completely relative, Ahmed tells me. Everyone envisions something different for a perfect world. The exhibition series and public programs demonstrate this expansiveness of perspectives. The first iteration of the series exhibited Tad Hirsch and Mae Boettchers shelter-wear prototypes for homeless people, a versatile poncho formed from Tyvek construction material, which suggested the role of the artist in an idealized society as that of social interventionist. In contrast, Zhi Lins quotidian drawings of a kitchen and bedroom during Chinas Cultural Revolution demonstrated the artists preferred embrace of art for arts sake, to stay away from the intervention of the communist government.

How might Jacob Lawrences life inform our understanding of utopia? With a large exhibition at Seattle Art Museum, his profound impact on this city is experiencing a surge of recognition. Lawrence is celebrated for his depictions of 20th-century black Southern life, specifically for his documentation of the Great Migration, the relocation of more than six million black Americans from the South to the industrial North between the late 1910s and the 1970s. As LadiSasha Jones writes in Temporary Art Review, If we can understand the Great Migration at the turn of the 20th century as a radical spatial imaginary, through this lens, the Black city can be framed as an active collective imagining of utopia. During that era, the many arms of racism were still being flexed via brazen laws such as restrictive housing covenants. In response, Jones writes, Organized networks sprang up all across expanding Black urban enclaves and became a part of the fabric of Black survival and ascension in the city.

It was at Utopia House in Harlem, a community center started by three black women, that young Lawrence took painting classes. Building a utopia involves rearranging social codes to either change laws or sidestep them, and this art club, where Lawrence laid the foundation for his training, was one example of the many outerworlds within the country built for and by black people.

Jacob Lawrence (second from left), Harlem, 1933-34. Photograph by Kenneth F. Space. National Archives, Harmon Foundation, College Park, Maryland

In early 2016, Lawrimore brought in as the Jake Legacy Artist-in-Residence artist Steffani Jemison, whose work is inspired by Utopia House; her show Promise Machine, Jones writes, utilizes utopia as a discourse of abstraction within Lawrences work and a century of imagining the Black city. Jemison drew the connection between Lawrences work and the utopian impulse in collective migration and community network-building: within her project, Jemison created reading groups around books such as Black Utopia: Negro Communal Experiments in America by William Pease, Black Empire by George Schuyler, and Light Ahead for the Negro by Edward A. Johnson.

On the Utopia Neighborhood Club website, a quote from cultural critic Stephen Duncombe reads Utopia is No-Place, and therefore it is left up to all of us to find it. It is clear that the curators placed emphasis on all of us. Public programs pack the exhibition series calendar, such as multiple forums on the meanings of neighborhood and club; How to Organize a Public Library with Professor Michael Swaine; and a workshop on DIY Venue Harm Reduction with architect and curator S. Surface. The exhibition series ends with works by Lawrence, including The Legend of John Brown, a 22-part serigraph series depicting the life and contribution of the important abolitionist, and features a gallery talk by Royal Alley-Barnes, former executive director of Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute and Jacob Lawrences first graduate student.

Utopia Neighborhood Club Opening reception. Courtesy Jacob Lawrence Gallery

Utopianism may seem naive as we question the viability of creating societies separate from the ones weve already clumped together with the bulky shrapnel of history. In recent decades techno-utopianists have dominated the discourse with their zealous belief that technology could bring forth a just society, promising that we can invent our way out of our social problems and that new-media technologies and the Internet contain portals to non-hierarchal cybersocieties. As weve seen this pipe dream rust and corrode, its spirit persists in political partnerships, product marketing, and even art exhibitions that promise disruption of the status quo through invention-solutions.

Nadia Ahmed states her hope that many students outside of the art program will join the conversation: People do not take enough advantage of the Gallery, which is why we wanted to ask what people want from it. What could The Jake become to make itself a more accessible space? This receptiveness to input, instead of a patronizing assertion of solutions, is the first step toward collective accountability.

Im struck by the relationship between the utopian no-place and no-place as a geographic negation, a term for an absence of a national identity by law or faith. There are those with no place in America: the fugitive, the refugee, the immigrant; for these, no-place is the purgatory state of inhabiting a country that has denied your legal stake in it. Utopian thinking carries varying weight depending on whether you believed you ever had a country to lose. When no inhabitable places are in sight, devising new social orders is less an indulgent fantasy exercise than a means of survival.

In America 2017, these ideas are highly relevant. How will Jacob Lawrence Gallery continue to account for the utopian tradition of Lawrences life after this exhibition is over? How can the rich trajectory of utopian thought extend our capacities for imagining and acting beyond what we have known to be possible?

Its useful for me to think of a utopian mindset as one committed to hope, creating new possibilities, and new landscapes, Sarah Faulk says, but with the knowledge an end is probably never going to be in sight. The work never ends. A Student Response Part II The Jake Legacy Residency and The Legend of John Brown + Other Works, Jacob Lawrence Gallery, 1915 N.E. Chelan Lane, jacoblawrencegallery.hotglue.me. Through Sat., March 4. Gallery Talk with Royal Alley-Barnes, 10 11 a.m. Wed., Feb. 15.

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Plotting 'No-Place' in 'Utopia Neighborhood Club' - Seattle Weekly

How does Donald Trump view history and Americas role in shaping it? No one, including Mr. Trump himself, seems able to answer that. To find a grand vision guiding this administration, one must look to Steve Bannon, Trumps chief strategist and the architect of his campaigns final months before his victory via the Electoral College.

On its cover,Time magazine labeled Bannon The Great Manipulator, and in an accompanying article, the magazine asked if he is the second most powerful man in the world, leading the reader to believe indeed he is. Yet at first blush, Bannon does not fit the stereotype of a Washington, D.C., powerbroker. His hair is disheveled, he frequently ditches a tie, and his face is typically full of scruff, giving him the vibe of an absent-minded professor.

The look is intended to reflect Bannons anti-establishment worldview but it conceals his more elitist roots. After seven years in the Navy and a degree from Harvard Business School, Bannon worked as a Goldman Sachs financier and then as an investment banker on his own. He transitioned to producing films, especially conservative documentaries, and then, in 2012, took over Breitbart News, one of the leading voices of fringe and grassroots conservatism. Trump was a frequent guest on his Breitbart radio talk show, and in August 2016, Bannon was appointed Chief Executive of Donald Trumps presidential campaign.

Donald Trumps populist approach to policy seems to blow in the changing winds of public opinion and outrage without much long-term strategic direction. The real guiding anchor for Trumpism comes from Bannon, the man with Trumps ear. Steve Bannon, and therefore Donald Trump, view history as a repeated cycle of civilizations rising and falling. They believe Americas current cycle is in crisis, threatening Western culture itself, and it is their job to rescue it from global elites intent on liberal, secular exploitation of America and its values.

Bannon dubbed these establishment elites the Party of Davos after the Swiss resort where the World Economic Forum meets. In Trumps inaugural address, which Bannon helped write, he said the wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world. Speaking to the Liberty Restoration Foundation in 2011, Bannon complained about the elites socialism for the very wealthy and socialism for the poor at the expense of common sense, practical, middle-class people. For both Trump and Bannon, capitalism is in crisis mode, and it is a consistent theme in their speeches and interviews.

Part of this economic crisis came about through dependence on government programs redistributing wealth, but in their view, global elites also encourage government-dependent immigrants to flock to the U.S. and other Western countries as a source of cheap labor. The Party of Davos can benefit from immigration and leave working class Americans with the responsibility of integrating them into society and dealing with the alleged crime and corruption that comes with it.

Thus, Bannon and Trump believe the Party of Davos created not only an economic crisis but also a cultural one. Bannons documentaries like the 2010 film Generation Zero frequently focus on American values, which, to him, means capitalism built around Judeo-Christian values and a strong sense of nationalism. At a 2016 South Carolina Tea Party convention, Bannon complained the swells, the investment bankers, the guys from the EU are the same guys who have allowed the complete collapse of the Judeo-Christian West in Europe.

Trump and Bannon do not believe in religious tests nor do they believe that everyone must be Christian. In fact, the two rarely attend religious services themselves and seem to care little for theological matters. Instead, their Judeo-Christian values refer more generally to a moral compass opposed to pluralism and relativism. It especially means opposition to immigrants from different cultural and religious backgrounds.

These economic and cultural crises follow an ancient pattern, they believe, and we are due for a monumental battle to resolve it. The Bannon-Trump worldview has deep roots in the classics, and Bannon delights in drawing from it. Ancient statesmen, philosophers, and historians from Lycurgus, to Heraclitus, to Herodotus, and to Plato all believed that history was cyclical. Repeatedly, over and over again, civilizations rise and fall by losing touch with their hard-working, humble traditions.

According to this theme, war is waged by poor and nomadic people, an able leader unites them into a confederation, and they begin to take on richer neighbors. The united front fights and conquers and then begins to take on the rich, soft, effeminate characteristics of luxury. Having abandoned masculine military virtues and the religious values that once united them and helped them succeed, they begin to look down on those who still hold on to traditional values. The conquerors then become the conquered, and the cycle repeats. Each empire and civilization, in turn, gets overrun by its poorer, but more aggressive and fertile, neighbors. The end is always the same: a fallen civilization that lost touch with its noble values.

If there is a recurring theme that political philosophers throughout history keep telling themselves, this is it, and it is one that Bannon and Trump buy into wholeheartedly. The historian Livy, who experienced the Roman Empire at its height, said that Rome was struggling with its own greatness. A century later, the poet Juvenal said, [W]e are now suffering the calamities of a long peace. Luxury, more deadly than any foe, has laid her hand upon us, and avenges a conquered world. Juvenal fretted that success in life used to depend on military excellence but eventually led, instead, through the loins of a rich woman.

Although this mythology draws from the ancient classics, it keeps modern political scientists busy with their own twists to the theme. As the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union disintegrated, President George H.W. Bush triumphantly declared it was the beginning of a new world order. Political scientist Francis Fukuyama viewed the occasion in even grander terms and tried to break free of the traditional cyclical theme, famously proclaiming in 1989 that the end of the Cold War marked the end of history. In Fukuyamas view, World War II represented a massive struggle between three distinct ideologies: liberal democracy, fascism, and communism. The war destroyed fascism, and 50 years later, Soviet communism failed. For him and many political scientists, history was over. Liberal democracy won and was here to stay. Fukuyama admitted that democracy may suffer temporary setbacks but argued, in the long run, it would become more and more prevalent.

Fukuyamas grand theory envisioned that liberal democracys permanence would also bring globalization and a strong middle class. Since democracies engage in less warfare, war itself would even disappear. The new utopia might be a bit boring, but that is a small price to pay for peace and prosperity.

In 1993, just four years after Fukuyamas End of History proclamation, political scientist Samuel Huntington sought a return to the traditional theme with The Clash of Civilizations. Huntington argued that Fukuyama was wrong and that identity, not ideology, shapes the world. These identities are shaped by history, language, culture, tradition, and, most important, religion. These different civilizations are marked by different views on the relations between God and man, the individual and the group, the citizen and the state, parents and children, husband and wife, as well as differing views of the relative importance of rights and responsibilities, liberty and authority, equality and hierarchy. Huntington concluded, These differences are the product of centuries. They will not soon disappear.

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 seemed to bolster Huntingtons thesis, but the American administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama explicitly rejected it, stressing that the United States was fighting violent extremists, not Arabic civilizations or Islam as a religion. However, in Bannon and Trump, we now have an administration, not only believing in that kind of clash of civilizations, but even welcoming it as a way to save the West from an economic and cultural crisis.

For Bannon and Trump, the most powerful theory based on this cycle mythology is one put forward by Neil Howe and William Strauss in their 1997 book The Fourth Turning. Strauss and Howe have a generational theory of American history that predicts repeated cycles lasting about 80 years. Each 80-year cycle has four turnings that are defined by four moods: high, awakening, unraveling, and, finally, crisis.

Following World War II, America experienced a high. The 1960s brought about a tremendous awakening, and then we experienced several decades of unraveling. Now, of course, we must confront the crisis. In Bannons view, this is the fourth time we have confronted the crisis phase, and each time, the stakes and resulting war get more severe. The Strauss-Howe generational theory is featured heavily in Bannons documentaries, and it comes up frequently in his speeches. In a presentation before the Liberty Restoration Foundation, Bannon says, This is the fourth great crisis in American history. We had the revolution, we had the Civil War, we had the Great Depression and World War II. This is the great Fourth Turning in American history.

Subscribing to the latest trendy twist on an old political theory of cycles is not particularly earth-shattering. However, Bannons solution to the supposed crisis has started to gain understandable attention. David Kaiser, the historian interviewed in Generation Zero, told Time magazine, A second, more alarming interaction didnt show up in the film. Bannon had clearly thought a long time both about the domestic potential and the foreign policy implications of Strauss and Howe. More than once during our interview, he pointed out that each of the three preceding crises had involved a great war, and those conflicts had increased in scope from the American Revolution through the Civil War to the Second World War. He expected a new and even bigger war as part of the current crisis, and he did not seem at all fazed by the prospect.

Although Bannon and Trump blame the Party of Davos for causing much of the crisis, the war they envision will not be waged against elites. Instead, the target is radical Islam. In a 2014 Vatican lecture, Bannon said, I think we are in a crisis of the underpinnings of capitalism, and on top of that were now, I believe, at the beginning stages of a global war against Islamic fascism. This may be a little more militant than others. I believe you should take a very, very, very aggressive stance against radical Islam. See whats happening, and you will see were in a war of immense proportions.

Perhaps a global existential war against Islam can be averted, but in Bannon and Trumps view, that will only happen if Americans embrace traditional American values and block those who may not from ever entering the country.

Viewing history through this lens, all of the administrations early goals and executive orders make sense. Ban immigrants from Islamic countries, or at least those most likely to cause trouble. Build a wall along Mexico to stop immigrants and end trade agreements, each viewed as assisting global elites at the expense of the middle class. Bolster the military in preparation for war. In other words, America first.

The Bannon-Trump view of history also accounts for Trumps unusual embrace of Vladimir Putin. Despite Putins many failings, Trump views him as an ally in the war against Islamic extremism. To Trump and Bannon, the European Union seems unaware or uncommitted to addressing the perceived crisis. If they wont stand up for Western civilization, why not enlist Putins help? In his inaugural speech, Trump vowed to unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate from the face of the Earth.

Americans of all political stripes now seem to agree we face a crisis of some sort. Trump and Bannon blame the Party of Davos and radical Islam, while their detractors see a different type of crisis spurred by Trump and Bannon themselves. As David Brooks wrote recently, We are in the midst of a great war of national identity.

Martin Luther King, paraphrasing the 19th-century abolitionist Theodore Parker, famously said, The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Unfortunately, the arc of history seems to be bending toward something other than justice.

Whether you support or oppose Trump and Bannons efforts, the history they seek to bend is fluid. Those who act as if justice or progress is inevitable will be sorely disappointed.

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The Bannon-Trump Arc of History - American Spectator

The Concorde moving into the Bristol museum (Photo: Airbus/Neil Phillips)

Aerospace Bristol has finally moved the Concorde G-BOAF to its new 19 million home. The last ever Concorde made, G-BOAF, was built in Bristol in 1978. An additional 2 million is still needed to finalize the last bits and pieces of construction. The very complex and important move has been years in the making and was conducted by engineers from both British Airways and Airbus.

Iain Gary, Chairman of Aerospace Bristol, comments, We couldnt be more delighted to the welcome Concorde 216 to her new purpose-built home. With such enthusiasm for Concorde in this country, and particularly in Bristol where she was designed, built and landed for the final time, it is only fitting that this magnificent aircraft should have a permanent home at Filton. I would like to thank all of our donors for helping to make Aerospace Bristol a reality and look forward to welcoming our first visitors on board this summer.

Mark Stewart, General Manager and HR Director, Airbus commented on the completion of the transportation of Concorde 216 to its new home adding,Airbus has been the proud custodian for Alpha Foxtrot since 2003 and has been keen that we could find a permanent location for such a fantastic historical exhibit of Filton engineering skills. After 13 years of caring for the aircraft we are pleased to deliver her to Aerospace Bristol so that people can visit and admire her for years to come.

Bristol Filton has a sizable history in aviation which showed in the earliest days of aviation when the Bristol Boxkite biplanes flew from Filton Airport over the Clifton suspension bridge. Aerospace Bristol said that customers will be transported through more than 100 years of aviation history at Filton Airport, depicting how it first opened in 1910 to when it shut down 5 years ago in 2012. The journey takescustomers through both World Wars, the space race and all the way up to when the airfield closed. Hopefully,this will help inspire a new generation of engineers and aircraft designers by showing people the amazing technological achievements that have been made in aviation from Bristol in the 100 years of its life.

G-BOAF, also known as Concorde 216, was built in 1978 and made its maiden flight in 1979. When it was first built it was registered to British Aerospace under the registration G-BFKX, but when a deal for Singapore Airlines to buy it fell through British Airways had the aircraft re-registered under its current number G-BOAF in June 1980.

Concorde 216 had a troubling start to its career in commercial aviation. It was the first ever Concorde to suffer a rudder separation failure, where a part of the upper rudder detached from the aircraft in flight. Over the following years, similar incidents would take place on all British Airways and Air France Concordes. All aircraft were fitted with new upper and lower rudders, which cost both companies millions of pounds in maintenance.

Concorde 216 was also the first Concorde to receive the new design upgrades following the Air France Concorde crash in July 2000.These new upgrades featured the use of fitting out fuel tanks with kevlar and strengthening the electric cables on the aircrafts gear.

After completing these upgrades on all Concorde aircraft, Concorde 216 was used by British Airways to restart the flying initiative. This, however, did not last. In 2003, Concorde made its last commercial service flight from New York John F Kennedy International Airport to London Heathrow, bringing an end to the era of supersonic commercial travel. The last ever flight of a Concordeaircraft was operated by G-BOAF when the aircraft flew for the last time on Nov. 26, 2003 to its final resting place of Filton Airfield, where it has remained since.

G-BOAF was the first British Airways aircraft to be repainted in the then new British Airways Utopia livery and wears the Union Flag scheme, which is officially called the Chatham Historic Dockyard. This new livery was initially only destined to be used on British Airways fleet of Concordes, but would later become the standard livery for all British Airways aircraft. Since Concorde 216 was the first aircraft in this livery, it has been at the forefront of British Airways publicity and air to air photos.

Tomos has had a keen interest in aviation for over 10 years and 4 years ago he decided to take it to the next level. He currently holds a private pilot's license and is working towards his commercial license.

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British Airways Concorde 'Alpha Foxtrot' Arrives at New Bristol Home - AirlineGeeks.com (blog)

Margaret Atwood's dytopian classic The Handmaid's Tale, which is depicted in this promotional photo for the operatic version of the story performed by the Canadian Opera Company, has enjoyed renewed popularity since Donald Trump's election. ( CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY )

Theres something touching in how sales of 1984 have risen since Trump. Amazon is out of stock. Other dystopian novels, like Atwoods The Handmaids Tale, are doing well. Its one way to deal with a shock to the system: buy a book; then, basically, let it sit since it probably wont have much to do with whats spooking you on CNN. Its about the illusion of control.

If you prefer denial, always an option, you could try utopias instead, though they arent selling as briskly. Theres Utopia itself (1516) by Thomas More; Erewhon (1872); News from Nowhere (1890). Glen Newey writes in the London Review that utopias proliferated in the 19th century but today dystopias come a dime a dozen. If youre a rebel, go utopian this season. Of course, there are utopian books and actual utopian experiments.

So Ive been reading Chasing Utopias, by Canadian writer David Leach, a book about an experiment. In 1989, age 20, he lived on an Israeli kibbutz for a year. He isnt Jewish but never mind. For 50 years after Israels founding, a kibbutz, or collective farm, was where youth went to find themselves. It often worked. But that utopian dream crashed as Israel transformed; so 20 years later, Leach returned to see if the magic had died, or just moved along.

There were never many kibbutzim: a few hundred perhaps but they punched above their weight symbolically. They were idealistic and egalitarian: no private property, equal incomes, collective decision-making, and all the kids lived together, separately from parents, since birth.

By 2010, when Leach revisited, most had privatized. No childrens quarters. Equality had vanished, incomes werent identical. Kibbutz members paid fees, like condo owners. Partly, its because Israel abandoned socialist models and became aggressively capitalist.

But the deeper impediment lay in the fact that those idealistic communities were often built, literally, on land that had been unceremoniously taken from Palestinians. Kibbutz members could dig below their homes and find ruins from the village that had been razed. That might be unnerving. Leach describes a kibbutznik who spent the rest of his life trying to force Israelis to confront the ugly reality under their feet. One persons utopia is anothers dystopia- a good reason not to separate the categories rigidly.

The book comes most alive in its second half when Leach, abandoning nostalgia, looks for ways that the idealism of the kibbutz may have funneled into new utopian projects elsewhere in Israel, like a Palestinian architects plan for a 37 km bridge linking Gaza to the West Bank, with benefits for everyone along its way. He sees the vision of utopia rising again.

Hence my preference for utopias; they keep chugging ahead into the future, unlike dystopias, which are meant to forewarn but can as easily depress and demobilize. Both are probably complementary and often flip sides of each other, like a kibbutz winery built over Palestinian olive groves. Dystopias are warnings, utopias are yearnings. Utopias are often well-intended, exhaustively thought-out, yet become disasters. Dystopias are always inadvertent; no one sets out to create a hell, the aim was often a utopia. Thats the charge usually levelled at communist experiments in Cuba, China or the Soviet Union.

One of my favourite utopian books is Fanshen (1966) by U.S. writer and farmer William Hinton. It describes a Chinese village in 1948, as the revolution sweeps through, trying to transform from feudalism to communism, via the deliberations and decisions of its peasant population. They were definitely chasing Utopia. Its fascinating, inconclusive and real. Hinton called it a documentary.

In later years, he returned to the village often, as it stumbled or advanced. He said the problems werent only objective; they lay in ways that the people trying to construct utopia were themselves shaped by nonutopian reality which they could only transcend within limits. So theyd always be inadequate to the task and you should never be surprised by shortfalls, tawdry human failures (including destructive illicit affairs) and screw-ups.

When humans have evolved more, so will their utopias. By then, if the species survives, they might do rather well, so that utopias of our era could start looking unambitious.

Meanwhile do you despair? Retreat into literature and write book versions only? Or go ahead and fail, but be ready to get up and start the chase again. That could be the utopian motto: Go Ahead and Fail.

Rick Salutins column appears every Friday.

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In praise of utopias, not dystopias: Salutin - Toronto Star

Untitled, c. 1970; screenprint on paper; 14 x 22 in.; collection of Lincoln Cushing/Docs Populi Arc

Times of political and social turbulence often foster innovative and creative forms of expression. That was undoubtedly true during the years from 1964 to 1974, the period covered by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archives notable new exhibit, Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia.

The resistance to the buildup of the Vietnam War and the easy availability of mind-altering drugs, glamorized by early counterculture icons such as Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, makes 1964 an apt starting point for the show, while the oil embargo and Nixons resignation in 1974 is an appropriate end date. During those years, the spirit of idealism, mind-expansion, political resistance, new technologies, and electrifying music strongly shaped art, architecture and design, and affected society as a whole. The influence of that period resonates soundly today.

While reducing the era to objects is a tough assignment, Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia effectively displays about 400 well-researched examples, including installations, photographs, fiber art, books, magazines, posters, film and furniture, with about 80 images augmenting the show in Berkeley (it was originally curated by the Walker Art Center of Minneapolis). Efforts have been made to present mixed media from various countries and to include the full range of the artistic and technological efforts of the era. Its a diverse collection and some of the choices seem a bit obscure, albeit intriguing.

Of particular note are: Ira Cohens 1968 color photograph of Jimmy Hendrixs reflections in a Mylar chamber (above); the 1973 Community Memory Terminal, billed as the first public computerized bulletin board system; J.B. Blunks 1965 carved redwood furniture; many psychedelic rock posters; Gorilla Graphics and Kamikaze Designs powerful anti-war posters; the room-sized Knowledge Box in which visitors are surrounded on three sides by sound and images beamed from 24 slide projectors; and of course, a geodesic dome. The Berkeley pieces include memorabilia of The Diggers, The Cockettes and the 1969 to 1971 Alcatraz occupation.

In addition to numerous public programs, the museum presentation is accompanied by Hippie Modernism: Cinema and Counterculture, 1964 1974, an exciting four-month film series at BAMPFAs 232-seat Barbara Osher Theater. The series, which will run through May 2017, includes documentaries, experimental works, and iconic feature films that explore the social, political, and aesthetic interests of the era. Highlights include BAMPFAs newly completed restoration of Steven Arnolds Luminous Procuress, Haskell Wexlers Medium Cool, Peter Watkinss Punishment Park and Michelangelo Antonionis Zabriskie Point. Same-day admission to the museum is free with a movie ticket.

And dont forget to try the cool new augmented reality app, Free the Love (available now on iOS and shortly on Android) created in conjunction with the exhibit by Goodby Silverstein & Partners and Adobe. The app provides a Love Tour of the Bay Area and allows users to release virtual Love Balloons with personal messages.

The word hippie, apparently coined by the late San Francisco Chronicle columnist, Herb Caen, was intended to be derogatory, but it is positively embraced as part of the title of this exhibit. Those who remember their hippie days will experience a bit of nostalgia when viewing the show, while others will receive an education than is distinctly more complex, imaginative and nuanced than the Hollywood version of the era.

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A notable show BAMPFA's 'Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for ... - Berkeleyside

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The village aiming to create a white utopia BBC News The new local legislation bans the wearing of Muslim dress like the hijab and the call to prayer and also outlaws public displays of affection by gay people. Changes are also being brought in to prevent the building of mosques, despite there being only ... 'We don't want Muslims here' Mayor aims to create 'white utopia' and ban 'Islamic culture'Express.co.uk all 11 news articles »

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The village aiming to create a white utopia - BBC News

ASTANA Famous French photographer Jean-Francois Rauzier has created his own supernatural dreamlike Astana. The Hyper Astana photo exhibition featuring his latest works is open at the Palace of Peace and Harmony until Feb. 12.

Rauzier has transformed the city according to his vision, adding magic and grandeur to the modern architecture. Working in some ways like an artist, he has made a collection of artworks depicting all the famous attractions presented in an epic postmodern style.

My first emotional shock was triggered by the citys futuristic buildings. Astana is the utopia of the 21st century in the middle of the steppe, the photographer said.

Inspired by the unusual mixture of Eastern and Western architecture, Rauzier took 80,000 photos or 5,000-10,000 pictures of every building to be able to produce the collection. Using digital technology, Rauzier cut, moved and re-constructed the buildings and created new and fantastic urban landscapes.

The collection is part of his animal series. The images feature exotic animals in the most unexpected places, such as a deer grazing in the Akorda, a giraffe climbing up the Astana Library or an elephant passing by the Palace of Independence, creating an illusion of the world after people.

The photos rarely depict people, except for mysterious man wearing a raincoat and hat with his hands tied behind his back. The image reminds of the photographer himself, who has escaped into a dream.

Rauzier started photography when he was 14. He had to wait for more than thirty years for digital technology to develop to be able to re-create his visions in a photograph.

Rauzier created a hyperphoto in 2012 inspired by hyperrealism, a genre of painting resembling a high-resolutionphotograph. His hyperphoto helps the artist to deal with reality and build an imaginary world where he feels more comfortable. He combines both infinitely large and infinitely small elements in a single image, creating new space and time. The artist also questions common human perceptions of science, progress, utopia, culture, oppression and liberty.

I think the artists mission is to channel new ideas into the world. In some missionary book, I read a quote that said that every person has a role to play: someone nurtures, someone heals, but the most important role is given to the artist. He has the privilege of seeing a small piece of heaven which he can channel here, on Earth, Rauzier told the sputnik.kz.

The Paris-based photographer is internationally acclaimed. His artworks, whimsical photographs and baroque masterpieces have been exhibited in almost every major art venue in Paris, London, New York, Moscow, Los Angeles, Cannes, Istanbul, Brussels, Barcelona, Washington, Hong Kong and Singapore, among others.

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French photographer builds supernatural Astana, calls it Utopia of the 21st Century - Astana Times

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Michael Loong observed that the current government policy of economic and social development is not sustainable, prolonging and exacerbating the current hardships and miseries of its people. In his debut book, he proposes an ideology and the steps to make China a place where its citizens can proudly exclaim, My Eco-World, Made in China (published by Partridge Singapore).

Loong believes that the only way to solve the current numerous problems in China is to build an eco-world. This will then provide unlimited clean water, safe food, cheap housing, free education, unpolluted environment, affordable first class healthcare service, and citizen-centered political system for the countrys residents. The program also seeks to rid the countryside of poverty eternally. China would become the worlds largest exporter of food grains and seafood.

What the author proposes for Chinese populace to achieve their eco-world is a new ideology that incorporates ideas of communism, capitalism and socialism. This new political system encourages intimate regular meetings of government officials with the local citizens; where government positions are filled by candidates with grass-roots experience, passion and commitment elected by locals.

This proposition also stipulates that the local government throughout the country must meet the ISO9001 standard and reviewed by competent independent professionals. This central government also encourages the use of technology and robots in industries and daily life.

The new eco-world is a game-changer for China, Loong says. It offers Chinese citizens equal opportunity to chase the Chinese dream, starting with free education using the latest technology.

My Eco-World, Made in China By Michael Loong Hardcover | 6 x 9in | 236 pages | ISBN 9781482864229 Softcover | 6 x 9in | 236 pages | ISBN 9781482864212 E-Book | 236 pages | ISBN 9781482864236 Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

About the Author Michael Loong was born in Malaysia in 1939 and was educated in Australia with degrees in mechanical and aeronautical engineering. He has worked in the aviation industry for 33 years. He also has lectured in college. He is married, with two children.

Partridge Singapore, an imprint in partnership with Penguin Random House Singapore, aims to help writers in Singapore, Malaysia, and the rest of Southeast Asia become published authors. Partridge Singapore gives authors in the region direct access to a comprehensive range of expert publishing services that meet industry standards but are more accessible to the market. For more information or to publish a book, visit partridgepublishing.com/singapore or call 800 101 2657 (Singapore) or 1 800 81 7340 (Malaysia). For the latest, follow @PartridgeSG on Twitter.

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/MichaelLoong/MyEcoWorldMadeinChina/prweb14057003.htm

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Michael Loong Proposes New, Sustainable Ideology to Achieve Utopia in China - Satellite PR News (press release)