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Art Threat - Political Art Journal

Art Threat - Political Art Journal
Art Threat is a journal of political art. We embrace art that confronts, interrogates, or even shrugs off the status quo, and explore pressing issues affecting art and culture, stimulating debate on the world around us and how it is interpreted.

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Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Articles

Net neutrality in Canada under siege: Bell implements ?traffic shaping? ser
2008-03-31 15:02:00
Bell Canada - Canada's largest internet provider - is going ahead with its plan to undermine net neutrality. They call it ?traffic shaping? and ?traffic management?, but what it adds up to is the end of net neutrality for anyone on the Bell system. This includes Bell customers and non-Bell customers who contract with third party ISPs who use the Bell system. Bell and other Canadian ISPs such as Rogers have been ?traffic managing? for over a year, slowing some kinds of traffic down while privileging others. The data that Bell tends to target for slow down is peer-to-peer and torrent traffic. Last week, Bell applied the same ?traffic shaping? controls to its third party ISPs, service providers who use the Bell system but who are independent companies with their own clients. What this means is that Bell is screwing - not only with its own customers' data, but with the accounts of third party Internet users. Do you know whose system your ISP is using? April 7 is the date Bell...
More About: Traffic , Net Neutrality , Bell , Under Siege

Destroying art to save the environment
2008-03-29 22:29:00
"I can't conceive of anything being more varied and rich and handsome than the planet Earth. And its crowning beauty is the natural world. I want to soak it up, up understand it as well as I can, and to absorb it.... and then I'd like to put it together and express it in my painting. This is the way I want to dedicate my life." The above quote comes from Robert Bateman, and wonderfully summarizes the work of one of Canada's foremost painters and naturalists. During a decades-long career painting beautiful, and often awe-inspiring, depictions of Canada?s wildlife and landscapes he has never pretended to be a detached observer of nature. A self-defined naturalist and conservationist, he has worked with the World Wildlife Fund and been honoured by the Canadian Wildlife Federation and the National Audubon Society. But if you were to ask an average Canadian to name five environmental crusaders, you?d be hard pressed to get Bateman?s name, since he has rarely been seen as a face or he...
More About: Environment , Save , The Environment

New documentary Granny Power finds the political power in old age
2008-03-28 00:48:00
This just in: A new political documentary is about to be unleashed on the world and it just might star your grandmother. Granny Power is a new film from social doc maker and Montreal resident Magnus Isacsson, and it promises to be an inspired journey into the volatile heartland of politicking pensioners. The Raging Grannies have been muckraking and speaking back to power for years, most notably in Vancouver, BC, where their recent actions saw some of their members unjustly landed behind prison bars (see the Art Threat story link below for more). They are such an active, colourful, and political group I often wondered when someone would make a doc on them. Well, Power Grannies has been in the making for three years, and it will indeed be released, but first they need a helping hand. The independent filmmakers behind the project are looking for donations, and for those of you who want to see the Raging Grannies immortalized in cinema, lend them a hand. 78 Year-old Raging Granny senten...
More About: Political , Documentary

Obama's alien
2008-03-26 12:20:00
This cartoon from Mr. Fish is so great, I had to borrow it from the Harper's site and post it here. According to the site: Mr. Fish (mrfishmail@verizon.net) lives in Los Angeles, California. He never asked to be born. Occasionally, he laughs his head off. His mother has no idea what he's up to. She cries easily. For more information, date him.
More About: Hillary Clinton , Alien

Obama's alien
2008-03-21 19:58:00
This cartoon is too great to ignore. It is by "Mr. Fish" and borrowed from Harper's magazine. The bio on the magazine's website states: Mr. Fish (mrfishmail@verizon.net) lives in Los Angeles, California. He never asked to be born. Occasionally, he laughs his head off. His mother has no idea what he's up to. She cries easily. For more information, date him.
More About: Barack Obama , Alien

Japan names robot cat to post of manga ambassador
2008-03-19 22:44:00
Japan always finds a way to make me laugh. Just when I thought human tetris was the most hilarious thing to come out of the country in years, the Japanese government had to go and one up their industrious game show producers. Behold Doraemon, a popular cartoon robot cat Japan has just appointed as global ambassador to animation. He's happy, blue, and loves red bean pancakes?what other qualifications does one need? From the CBC: The appointment is part of Japan's recent effort to harness the power of pop culture in diplomacy. Japan created an International Manga Award last year under comic book enthusiast and former foreign minister Taro Aso, who likened it to a "Nobel Prize" for an artist working abroad. Doraemon will join Astro Boy, the Japanese ambassador for overseas safety, in the quickly expanding costume room of Japan's foreign service.
More About: Japan , Robot , Post , Ambassador

Art censorship alive and well in America: Wafaa Bilal installation shut dow
2008-03-17 08:00:00
Wafaa Bilal has done it again ? his latest art installation Virtual Jihadi has caused an uproar in Troy, New York. The show opened on March 6 at the Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute (RPI) which promptly (the day after the opening) shut the installation down. After reopening a few days later at a another local gallery, city officials closed the gallery citing bylaw infractions. The artwork in question shows Bilal appearing as a character in a tweaked version of the video game The Night of Bush Capturing, a video game that was produced by Al Queda in response to the U.S. made video game Quest for Saddam. Bilal hacked the source code and wrote himself into the script. After the show was closed by RPI, it reopened at the The Sanctuary for Independent Media. A video recording of Bilal's opening remarks is available at the Sanctuary's website. This second opening was also short lived. The gallery received a phone call (recorded and also available for listening at the we...
More About: America , Censorship , Alive , Shut

Awake from your slumber: Patti Smith & Ralph Nader music video
2008-03-15 15:32:00
Ralph Nader and Patti Smith have teamed up to make a music video in support of Ralph Nader's presidential bid ? Awake from your slumber?, available on youtube and a growing number of sites. The posting notes on youtube suggest that the video was posted by the Ralph Nader team. This seems increasingly to be an integral part of U.S. politics, no doubt in part because of the phenomenal success of will-i.am's Barack Obama video ?Yes we can? which has been downloaded over 6 million times and links the Obama campaign with a who's who of cultural literati. What can I say? I am a long time Patti Smith fan ... and Ralph Nader fan (as a Canadian I do not have to make the sticky decision about voting or not voting for Mr. Nader). Check it out.
More About: Video , Music , Music Video , Ralph Nader

Katariina Lillqvist's political puppets illicit hate mail at Tampere Film F
2008-03-14 02:11:00
Katariina Lillqvist's political puppet film recently caused a bit of a ruckus - including hate mail and increased security - in Helsinki before it launched at the Tampere Film Festival, according to the Helsingin Sanomat: The fantastical puppet animation Uralin perhonen (?Butterfly from the Urals?, ?Far from the Urals?) tells in tragi-comic fashion the story of the alleged homosexual relationship between Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim and his Kirghiz valet, but it also delves into the life of members of the Red faction in Tampere during Finland?s bloody Civil War in 1918. Lillqvist wants her film to provoke discussion on the Mannerheim myth, but admits she has been surprised and shocked at the furore that the film has generated in the evening papers even before it had its first screening. The 26-minute puppet animation takes part next week in the Tampere Film Festival. At the advance screening in Tampere on February 29th, there were considerable security measures in place, owi...
More About: Mail , Political , Hate

Building brand loyalty with genocide jokes: Mac ads on aboriginal televisio
2008-03-12 08:00:00
Update: It seems the Mac ads referenced in this blog are spoofs, not real ads at all -- whoops. Had me fooled. Kudos to the makers - nicely done. Sorry for any confusion. I've left my original post for the record. How far we've come in the culture of marketing -- or should I say, the marketing of culture. Brand experience, it seems, now includes marginalized & resistant historical narratives, at least for the folks at Apple it does. For two years running, Apple has been placing PC v. Mac ads (you know the ones, the clever ads that involve a PC dork being humiliated in one way or another by a Mac hipster) on the Aboriginal People's Television Network. The ads cleverly use the colonial history of European / First Nations relations to recreate tensions in the personal computer market through encounters between a whitey PC user and Fist Nations Mac user. I should out myself before going further: I am a whitey Mac-head. And, I find the ads clever and funny, at least on the ...
More About: Jokes , Pod , Building , Genocide

Building brand loyalty with genocide jokes: Mac ads on aboriginal televisio
2008-03-12 08:00:00
Update: It seems the Mac ads referenced in this blog are spoofs, not real ads at all -- which makes them brilliant, and me somewhat foolish. Kudos to the makers - nicely done. Sorry for any confusion. I've left my original post for the record. How far we've come in the culture of marketing -- or should I say, the marketing of culture. Brand experience, it seems, now includes marginalized & resistant historical narratives, at least for the folks at Apple it does. For two years running, Apple has been placing PC v. Mac ads (you know the ones, the clever ads that involve a PC dork being humiliated in one way or another by a Mac hipster) on the Aboriginal People's Television Network. The ads cleverly use the colonial history of European / First Nations relations to recreate tensions in the personal computer market through encounters between a whitey PC user and Fist Nations Mac user. I should out myself before going further: I am a whitey Mac-head. And, I find the ads cl...
More About: Jokes , Pod , Building , Genocide

Alberta tar sands documentary raises questions about the newest bonanza
2008-03-12 02:59:00
As the price of crude oil peaked today and another Hummer rolled out on to the asphalt, another hectare or three was dug up in Alberta , Canada - home to the elusive and mythical tar sands oil reserves. What rapacious oil companies and myopic politicians are calling "solutions" and "progress", others - from environmentalists to Human Rights advocates to First Nations communities - are calling the worst environmental disaster of the 21st Century. In the toxic dust that is the wild west resource grab of Canada's Texas, a small army of media activists and artists have been busy like bees who smell bad honey. Among the many, many media projects emerging from this free-for-all of pollution and profit is a new documentary to air on the CBC this week. The doc is TAR SANDS : THE SELLING OF ALBERTA. Tag line: What price is Canada willing to pay for a stake in this century's greatest energy bonanza? It airs this Thursday, March 13th on CBC television at 9PM Pacific. From the film's press r...
More About: Questions , Documentary , Sands

Banff Centre on Literary Journalism: Residency
2008-03-10 08:00:00
The Banff Centre is offering a program involving off-site manuscript development (April 21 to June 20, 2008) and an on-site residency (July 7 to August 2, 2008). This program offers eight established non-fiction writers an opportunity to develop a major essay, memoir, or feature article. Writers are encouraged to explore new ideas in journalism, or to work on a culturally relevant piece that might otherwise be difficult to complete. In addition to a $3,000 commission, successful applicants may also receive financial assistance to cover the program fee, accommodation, meals, and travel costs. The deadline for application is Friday March 14, 2008. For more information visit the Banff Centre website.
More About: Journalism , Residency , Literary

Mind the funding gap...
2008-03-09 00:16:00
Today is International Women's Day, marked world-wide to celebrate women, but also to stop and consider what obstacles continue to be placed in their way. Last week the International Trade Union Confederation published a massive study showing that women's lots are clearly not as equal as men's. They found that around the world women still earn, on average, 16 percent less than their male colleagues. While the study doesn't single out particular industries, another new study shows that the arts industry is hardly an exception to this rule. A study released Wednesday by Réalisatrices Équitables, a Quebec pressure group composed of women film and television directors whose main objective is equity for women directors in Quebec, reveals women directors are consistently awarded less money by Quebec and Canadian agencies which fund cultural businesses. For example, between 2005 and 2007, while women were accepted for 27 percent of projects at the Canadian Television Fund they were on...
More About: Funding , Mind

Remembering Larry and making media that diversify collective memory
2008-03-06 21:10:00
February 12th is a date permanently etched in my brain and should be on the collective memory of North America. On this date, nearly one month ago, eighth grader Lawrence King was shot in the head by fellow fourteen year old student Brandon David McInerney in the middle of a class lab. King, an incredibly courageous openly queer fifteen year old, had asked McInerney to be his valentine. He was murdered for being queer and it is a story that the media in America had nearly ignored until Ellen Degeneres gave her sombre monologue on the incident on her show just over a week ago. Degeneres told her audience that being gay does not make you a second class citizen, that neither King nor herself were second class citizens. And, barely able to control her emotions, she warned of a culture that sends the message if you?re gay you?ll be murdered. Queer sites, advocacy groups and activists have reported and commented on this story, filling in for a complacent and heteronormative corporate news...
More About: Media , Memory , Larry , Larry King , Remembering

Remembering Larry and making media that diversify collective memory
2008-03-06 21:10:00
February 12th is a date permanently etched in my brain and should be on the collective memory of North America. On this date, nearly one month ago, eighth grader Lawrence King was shot in the head by fellow fourteen year old student Brandon David McInerney in the middle of a class lab. King, an incredibly courageous openly queer fifteen year old, had asked McInerney to be his valentine. He was murdered for being queer and it is a story that the media in America had nearly ignored until Ellen Degeneres gave her sombre monologue on the incident on her show just over a week ago. Degeneres told her audience that being gay does not make you a second class citizen, that neither King nor herself were second class citizens. And, barely able to control her emotions, she warned of a culture that sends the message if you?re gay you?ll be murdered. Queer sites, advocacy groups and activists have reported and commented on this story, filling in for a complacent and heteronormative corporate new...
More About: Media , Memory , Larry , Larry King , Remembering

Kill Bill (C-10) campaign gathers steam; Right-wing Christians mobilizing s
2008-03-06 17:30:00
Image by Eric Drooker The Kill Bill (C-10) firestorm is getting hotter. Canada's television industry has entered the fight telling the government to keep its hands off of Canadian film and television production. The Directors Guild of Canada and ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) are both urging the government to stop Bill C-10, an amendment to the Income Tax Act that would allow the Minister of Heritage to claw back tax credits from any production deemed ?contrary to public policy?. A Facebook page has also been created "Keep Your Censoring Hands Off Of Canadian Film and TV! No to Bill C-10!" to provide information and make it easier for Canadians to contact elected representatives. At the centre of the storm is a relatively new lobby group on Parliament Hill, the Canada Family Action Coalition, a small group of Christians who, according to their website, have a ?vision to see Judeo-Christian moral principles restored in Canada?. The CFAC is...
More About: Campaign , Right Wing , Wing

Kill Bill (C-10) campaign gathers steam; Right-wing Christians mobilizing s
2008-03-06 17:30:00
The Kill Bill (C-10) firestorm is getting hotter. Canada's television industry has entered the fight telling the government to keep its hands off of Canadian film and television production. The Directors Guild of Canada and ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) are both urging the government to stop Bill C-10, an amendment to the Income Tax Act that would allow the Minister of Heritage to claw back tax credits from any production deemed ?contrary to public policy?. A Facebook page has also been created "Keep Your Censoring Hands Off Of Canadian Film and TV! No to Bill C-10!" to provide information and make it easier for Canadians to contact elected representatives. At the centre of the storm is a relatively new lobby group on Parliament Hill, the Canada Family Action Coalition, a small group of Christians who, according to their website, have a ?vision to see Judeo-Christian moral principles restored in Canada?. The CFAC is an anti-abortion, ho...
More About: Campaign , Right Wing , Wing

Call for Proposals : Residency and Co-Production Program at Studio XX
2008-03-06 08:00:00
Studio XX is accepting submissions for its residency and co-production programs. Project selection is made and announced at the end of April each year. Residencies are open to Quebecois and Canadian women. They are intended to offer an environment where artists can conceptualize and develop contemporary networked practices. Residencies are eight weeks in length and include a $750 artist's fee, 45 hours of technical support ($1125 value), access to the Studio's equipment ($3335 rental value), the possibility to participate in certain group workshops ($200-300 value), and distinct working space for the artist and her instructor. For more information about Residencies and co-production visit the Studio XX website.
More About: Production , Studio , Residency , Call , Program

Jack Layton and the NDP weigh in on Bill C-10
2008-03-05 14:46:00
Apologies to all our readers in the US who may not be as interested in this issue, but up here in Canuckland, Bill C-10 and its implications are big news and Art Threat is committed to providing steady updates as they come in. Now a word from the NDP's Jack Layton : Thank you for contacting me about Bill C-10 and the Harper government's plans to censor film in Canada that it finds "offensive". I agree that expanding the criteria used for denying tax credits to artists amounts to censorship and will have devastating consequences for the film and television industry. New Democrats are standing up in Parliament to protect freedom of artistic expression in Canada. NDP House Leader Libby Davies was the first to raise the issue in Question Period and NDP Industry Critic Peggy Nash has made a formal statement in the House of Commons. NDP Culture and Heritage Critic Bill Siksay pushed this matter at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage and in related media interviews. I invite you t...
More About: Ottawa , Weigh

Call for Partnerships and International Projects
2008-03-05 08:00:00
The 8th Biennale of Champ Libre will take place in the Quartier International de Montreal (QIM) from September 24?28, 2008. The theme for the biennale event is Forêt/Forest. Artists, curators, architects, and lecturers are reminded that the deadline to present an artistic project to Champ Libre for this event is the 10th of March 2008. Individuals or organizations working in fields related to art, architecture, new technologies or the public space are invited to submit applications for a partnership project with Champ Libre by March 10, 2008. For more information and the subscription form, visit the Champ Libre website.
More About: Projects , Call

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