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

Russian election mocked in Moscow's art galleries
2008-03-03 13:00:00
While I was milking a free litchi cocktail at the Canadian Centre for Architecture late Saturday night during Montreal's infamous Nuit Blanche, vodka connoisseurs on the opposite side of the Arctic Ocean were busy rubber stamping Vladimir Putin's choice of successor. As president-elect, Dmitry Medvedev's first order of business was publicly promising a "direct continuation" of Putin's policies. Perhaps the only news less surprising was back in Montreal as our bartender announced that the pro-bono booze had run dry. While some Russia n s were filing through the polls, however, others were hitting the art scene, as several galleries boasted election-themed collections. In an ArtInfo article, Valentin Diaconov discusses the artistic climate during the elections, focusing on five Moscow exhibitions that were directly related to the vote. Since Moscow has only fifteen or so contemporary art galleries, this feat is even more impressive. From the article: There is a long tradition here o...
More About: Election , Galleries

Vox Sambou: Haitian hip-hop ambassador
2008-03-03 12:00:00
The self-described "eternal voice of Haiti", Vox Sambou (born Robints Paul) is a Montreal-based emcee and international hip-hop activist whose Creole raps and dancehall chants speak to the thorny political reality that continues to plague his countrymen. After 16 years of spitting rhymes in booming baritone from Haiti to Havana to Toronto's Harbourfront alone or alongside Montreal's Nomadic Massive, Paul is now set to bless us with his debut solo album. The title of the LP is Lakay, the Haitian Creole word for home, which in Paul's case is Litero a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city of Limbe 220 km north of Port au Prince. Also known as 'ti Guinea, the small region is the source of the deep-rooted Caribbean rhythms that punctuated the lives of Paul's great-great grandparents and kept his own head bobbin' before he had ever heard of a thing called hip-hop. As he grew older, Paul also embraced Dancehall and early Reggaetone, but his true heroes were the socially conscio...
More About: Ambassador

Vox Sambou: Haitian hip-hop ambassador
2008-03-03 12:00:00
The self-described "eternal voice of Haiti", Vox Sambou (born Robints Paul) is a Montreal-based emcee and international hip-hop activist whose Creole raps and dancehall chants speak to the thorny political reality that continues to plague his countrymen. After 16 years of spitting rhymes in booming baritone from Haiti to Havana to Toronto's Harbourfront alone or alongside Montreal's Nomadic Massive, Paul is now set to bless us with his debut solo album. The title of the LP is Lakay, the Haitian Creole word for home, which in Paul's case is Litero a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city of Limbe 220 km north of Port au Prince. Also known as 'tit Guinea, the small region is the source of the deep-rooted Caribbean rhythms that punctuated the lives of Paul's great-great grandparents and kept his own head bobbin' before he had ever heard of a thing called hip-hop. As he grew older, Paul also embraced Dancehall and early Reggaetone, but his true heroes were the socially consci...
More About: Ambassador

Broadcasting the panopticon: Art project transforms wireless surveillance i
2008-03-03 09:00:00
Surveillance is a response to fear. A cautious response, perhaps, and sometimes a paranoid response. But what about the product of surveillance? The images and sounds? If the images of people are taken without permission, who owns them? What few owners of wireless video surveillance systems realize is that their security needs are also little television stations broadcasting images to anyone who can find them. Dublin-based artist Benjamin Gaulon is doing just that and using what he finds to subvert assumptions about the public-private nature of surveillance technologies. 2.4 Ghz (the project name) uses simple consumer technologies to pickup and display wireless surveillance camera signals in a local area. Gaulon installs them in public places ? for example, attached to a lamp post in front of a building. What was a private ?taking? of privacy becomes public, a kind of turning inside out of the arrangement of surveillance. The images are eery and, of, course immense...
More About: Wireless , Surveillance , Project , Broadcasting , Panopticon

Broadcasting the panopticon: Art project transforms wireless surveillance i
2008-03-03 09:00:00
Surveillance is a response to fear. A cautious response, perhaps, and sometimes a paranoid response. But what about the product of surveillance? The images and sounds? If the images of people are taken without permission, who owns them? What few owners of wireless video surveillance systems realize is that their security needs are also little television stations broadcasting images to anyone who can find them. Dublin-based artist Benjamin Gaulon is doing just that and using what he finds to subvert assumptions about the public-private nature of surveillance technologies. 2.4 Ghz (the project name) uses simple consumer technologies to pickup and display wireless surveillance camera signals in a local area. Gaulon installs them in public places ? for example, attached to a lamp post in front of a building. What was a private ?taking? of privacy becomes public, a kind of turning inside out of the arrangement of surveillance. The images are eery and, of, course immense...
More About: Wireless , Surveillance , Project , Broadcasting , Panopticon

Intellectual Property Donors will their copyright to expire when they do
2008-03-02 20:38:00
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Public my Intellectual Property to take. OK, so maybe that's not quite as catchy as the old bedtime rhyme. But have you ever thought of what will happen to the work you have created once you've permanently expired? The folks over at ni9e.com have, and the result is their Intellectual Property Donor sticker: Once you pass on, your intellectual property is actually removed from the public sphere for 50 years (in Canada; in the US it's 70 years) making it impossible for anyone to legally build upon or integrate your work into their own. To make sure your ideas outlive your body, download and print your own IP Donor sticker (includes handy instructional video).
More About: Copyright

Intellectual Property Donors will their copyright to expire when they do
2008-03-02 20:38:00
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Public my Intellectual Property to take. OK, so maybe that's not quite as catchy as the old bedtime rhyme. But have you ever thought of what will happen to the work you have created once you've permanently expired? The folks over at ni9e.com have, and the result is their Intellectual Property Donor sticker: Once you pass on, your intellectual property is actually removed from the public sphere for 50 years (in Canada; in the US it's 70 years) making it impossible for anyone to legally build upon or integrate your work into their own. To make sure your ideas outlive your body, download and print your own IP Donor sticker (includes handy instructional video).
More About: Copyright

Hendrix drummer Buddy Miles dead at 60
2008-02-29 16:55:00
Buddy Miles , the drummer in Jimi Hendrix 's Band of Gypsys, died Tuesday of congestive heart failure in his Austin, Texas home. He was 60. A big guy with an even bigger afro, the acclaimed rock drummer made history when he joined Hendrix and bassist Billy Cox to form the Band of Gypsys, the first all black rock group, according the the New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll. The association was short lived, however, as Miles was fired by Hendrix's management in 1988. According to the drummer, the suits were wary of continuing with an all black band. "It had to be a racial thing," Miles told The Times. "I think it had to scare them because of the political aspect at the time." Also of interest: System of a Down screams genocide in controversial doc Radiohead on how music is killing the planet
More About: Buddy , Dead , Drummer

Hendrix drummer Buddy Miles dead at 60
2008-02-29 16:55:00
Buddy Miles , the drummer in Jimi Hendrix 's Band of Gypsys, died Tuesday of congestive heart failure in his Austin, Texas home. He was 60. A big guy with an even bigger afro, the acclaimed rock drummer made history when he joined Hendrix and bassist Billy Cox to form the Band of Gypsys, the first all black rock group, according the the New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll. The association was short lived, however, as Miles was fired by Hendrix's management in 1988. According to the drummer, the suits were wary of continuing with an all black band. "It had to be a racial thing," Miles told The Times. "I think it had to scare them because of the political aspect at the time." Also of interest: System of a Down screams genocide in controversial doc Radiohead on how music is killing the planet
More About: Buddy , Dead , Drummer

Food Fight: the history of war told through culinary carnage
2008-02-29 12:00:00
This isn't your typical middle school mealtime melee. Stefan Nadelman's Food Fight is a short film that uses stop motion animation and food?a whole lotta food?to portray the last 60 years of global armed conflict. From the film's website: Food Fight is an abridged history of war, from World War II to present day, told through the foods of the countries in conflict. Watch as traditional comestibles slug it out for world domination in this chronologically re-enacted smorgasbord of aggression. I had a blast trying to figure out the symbolism, some of which is more obvious than others. If you don't have the patience to keep up with the mass of meaty metaphors, a cheat sheet is available to help you identify the tasty cast members. (Hint: the heaps of beef stroganoff represent the succulent Soviets.) Update: Boing Boing TV has posted a captioned version of Food Fight for the "history-impared"?their words, not mine.
More About: History , Culinary , Told

Food Fight: the history of war told through culinary carnage
2008-02-29 12:00:00
This isn't your typical middle school mealtime melee. Stefan Nadelman's Food Fight is a short film that uses stop motion animation and food?a whole lotta food?to portray the last 60 years of global armed conflict. From the film's website: Food Fight is an abridged history of war, from World War II to present day, told through the foods of the countries in conflict. Watch as traditional comestibles slug it out for world domination in this chronologically re-enacted smorgasbord of aggression. I had a blast trying to figure out the symbolism, some of which is more obvious than others. If you don't have the patience to keep up with the mass of meaty metaphors, a cheat sheet is available to help you identify the tasty cast members. (Hint: the heaps of beef stroganoff represent the succulent Soviets.)
More About: History , Culinary , Told

Oscar-winning Juno not Canadian enough for Canada's Oscars
2008-02-28 22:11:00
In an earlier post I had written about the new Canadian doc Up the Yangtze and the film?s potential for overcoming the nationalist/neoliberal debate in the Canadian culturesphere. Well that film was entirely shot in China about a Chinese family, and made mostly by Canucks. That makes it Canadian enough for the bureaucratic culture-meters north of Hollywood. Now take Juno, a film nominated for several Oscar s (with one win) and winning accolades wherever it is screened. The film was shot in Canada , stars Canadian talent and was made by a Canadian director. With the upcoming Genie awards (Canada?s answer to the Oscars) the film was seen to be a sweeper. Think again. Etan Vlessing reports on Reuters today that because Juno was financed primarily by an LA-based company, it is not Canadian enough to make it into the Genies. However, Cronenberg's new film, Eastern Promises, is. Vlessing writes: Because L.A.-based Mandate Pictures developed and financed "Juno" and Fox Searchlight released...
More About: Los Angeles

Political performance PETA piece pilfered from Perez Hilton
2008-02-28 19:56:00
Animal righters PETA staged a public political performance protesting the slaughter of pigs (yes the alliteration continues) for Mothers Day in Covent Gardens, London today. I was going to pilfer the image of the performance from enemy-cum-friend-to-the-stars celebrity gossiper Perez Hilton , but his version contains his signature chicken scratch commentary over the photo, with a nipple whited out and the word MOO! scrawled near the performers mouth. Unsurprisingly the lean and fit Hilton doesn't like the sight of a little fat on the body - as this does not fit with the slim and vapid imagery of stardom. I guess political performance just can't quite gel with fabuland... For more photos, visit PR Photos.
More About: Performance , Political

Online art galleries visualize 2008 US primaries
2008-02-28 18:29:00
The campaign trail is alight with art! Check out these Flickr galleries: 2008 Elections Graphics, and Obama Street Art for examples of campaign posters, murals and graffiti from around the US. New photos are constantly added, so check back regularly, or submit your own examples.
More About: Online , Galleries , Hillary , Primaries

The 5th Annual NYC Grassroots Media Conference Speaking Truth to Power
2008-02-28 16:11:00
Since 2004, the annual NYC Grassroots Media Conferences feature workshops, skills-sharing, dialogue, debate and strategizing sessions about media making, media policy and how to use media to forward social justice campaigns. Hunter College, 68th Street and Lexington Ave | Entrance via West Building | Hours: 9am-6pm Check out the full day's schedule here. For information on how to register to attend, click here to visit the main conference website. Admission: $20 advance; $30 day of $15 students/seniors; $25 day of $5 youth discount (18 & under)
More About: Truth , Power , New York

Iraq Vets Against the War organize the second Winter Soldier
2008-02-25 16:38:00
Mark your calendars and organize a screening in your community. Let this Winter Soldier gathering March 13-16 in Washington D.C. be the most observed and talked about event this year. The four-day event will bring together veterans from across the country to testify about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan - and present video and photographic evidence. In addition, there will be panels of scholars, veterans, journalists, and other specialists to give context to the testimony. These panels will cover everything from the history of the GI resistance movement to the fight for veterans' health benefits and support. The first Winter Soldier investigation was held in Detroit in 1971 marking the first time Vietnam vets gathered to inform the public of the atrocities and war crimes they witnessed or were ordered to commit. The event was well attended by mainstream media, but they chose to almost completely ignore it. The documentary film Winter Soldier was first released in 1972 ...
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Peace symbol turns 50 today
2008-02-21 19:36:00
Democracy Now reported this morning that the peace symbol turns 50 today. Fifty years ago a British textiles designer created the symbol out of the letters "N" and "D" to stand for nuclear disarmament. The symbol was used in the anti-nuclear campaigns in the UK and quickly spread global, becoming the internationally recognized symbol for peace. Some folks have created a website, Happybirthdaypeace.com dedicated to the symbol's birthday, with oodles of info and media, including various versions of the design from all over the world. Peace .
More About: Britain , Today

Wanted: "What would Jesus buy?"
2008-02-20 22:45:00
From my experience programming Cinema Politica for the past eight years, I am confident when I say that the vast majority of independent filmmakers in the docosphere could not promote their way out of a paper bag. Hollywood is not only exceptional at promotion and marketing because its pockets are deep, but because it has made damn sure that talent in these areas has been nurtured and developed over the years. People have been trained. Networks have been built. Young minds have been taken over like moths smothering a light bulb. And while I certainly do not agree with most of their tactics to "get the word out," I acknowledge that it works. I wish I could say the same for the indies. Documentary filmmakers might just be the worst, no doubt in part because they spend every waking hour writing epic proposals and imploring funders to cover production costs, not to mention real salaries and money for promotion and marketing. But if they want anyone to see their films, they best be devo...
More About: Jesus , Wanted

Dissenting design book needs to be on your shelf
2008-02-20 07:18:00
Nearly two years after this incredible, indispensable, 230 page book was released in paperback I have finally got my muckraking hands on it. Milton Glasher and Mirko Ilic's The Design of Dissent is a phenomenal repository of political poster art (and more) that I've now realized is an essential addition to any shelf, coffee table, library, or revolutionary basement on the planet. The book is visually stunning - a keen eye for layout, mixed with a healthy dose of breathing space and exceptional curatorial decision-making make for 200+ pages of explosive and provocative political art. Divided into sections that range from "Ex-Yugoslavia" to "Food" to "U.S. Presidential Election" this offering from Rockport Publishers is one of the best books illustrating the collusion/confusion of politics and art that I have seen. The images are part historical testament, part marginalized voice, and part pop culture intervention. Together they make up a book that is an essential for anyone interes...
More About: Book , Shelf

Venezuela government supports community television in response to ?savage?
2008-02-18 15:23:00
In a surprise move, the Venezuela government has donated audio-visual production equipment to 69 community television facilities across the country. The Communication and Information Minister Andres Izarra, speaking to over 400 community television representatives in Caracas, said that community television has a crucial role to play in the struggle for truth. The donation comes in response to what has been described as a ?savage? opposition media campaign currently underway by Globovision. The donation has been well received by community television producers, according to Jhonny Pancho, representative of Catia TV, one of Venezuela's oldest community television stations. As for any perceived influence peddling by the government, Pancho and Caita TV president Gabriel Gil were adamant that community television remains independent of government. Community television responds to people's needs rather than government needs, said Gil. More than 70 per cent of the programming is pro...
More About: Television , Government , Savage

New Canadian doc Up The Yangtze offers the chance to overcome the nationali
2008-02-15 18:44:00
In a country where less than two percent of commercial cinema screen space displays its own cultural product, there is cause for celebration when a Canadian doc like Up the Yangtze has a record opening weekend. The producers of this new film about the human ramifications of large-scale industrial projects (in this case the Three Gorges Dam Project in China) recently issued a press release boasting opening weekend numbers that have broke records formerly held by Canada?s last two docbusters, The Corporation and Manufactured Landscapes. Up the Yangtze opens across Canadian theatres over the rest of February, and this gorgeously-shot film from Eye Steel Films offers more than a cinematic and political treat, it gives audiences north of the 49th the rare opportunity to prove wrong the equation put forward by the captains of cultural industry here: people are hungry for non-Hollywood film. Canada?s film history is often constructed as a tension played out between cultural nationalists a...
More About: Chance , Offers , Overcome

VDay "goes big" this year for V to the Tenth Anniversary
2008-02-15 06:00:00
By now most of us have heard of The Vagina Monologues . Eve Ensler?s interview-based compilation of monologues is known for its frankness on women?s sexuality and their experiences of systemic violence. "Cunt", "Hair" and "The Burka" are but a few of the monologues tackled in one night?s production. Since its 1998 premiere, Ensler has travelled the world writing for the causes of various communities of women, from Bosnia to Afghanistan, from Haiti to the Republic of Congo. The VDay campaign has grown to support campus and community productions worldwide, with more than 3000 productions organised by volunteers in over 85 countries this year. Though oft criticised for questions of inclusivity, and for Ensler?s western-white-woman perspective posing problems of representation, Vday continues to evolve and expand with its proponents. What began as Ensler?s one-woman show has most definitely entrenched itself as an effective tool in the global movement to end violence against women and g...
More About: Anniversary , Year

Teacher, poet activist Raul Salinas dies
2008-02-14 14:35:00
Long-time activist and poet Raul Salinas has died at the age of 73 in Austin, Texas. Salinas was considered among the greats of his generation including Miguel Pinero, Oscar Acosta, John Trudell, and Hose Montoya. He was a life-long human rights and social justice activist. He worked with the American Indian Movement, the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee and held writing clinics for at-risk youth in juvenile detention facilities nationwide. Salinas spent approximately 12 years in prison, from 1959 to 1971 on drug related charges. In the late 1960s, he became renown for his prison poetry and for his work inside prisons engaging fellow convicts in politics and literature. At the time of his death, Salinas was an adjunct professor at St. Edwards University, Austin, Texas. In 2002, he received the Louis Reyes Rivera Lifetime Achievement Award, and in March of 2003, he was honored with the Martin Luther, Jr., César Chavez, Rosa Parks Visiting Professorship Award given by the Universi...
More About: Teacher , Poet , Dies

Danish papers reprint Muhammad cartoons in response to alleged assassinatio
2008-02-13 14:29:00
Denmark has not been in the news as of late, so perhaps in a bid to stir up some more interest in the northern European country, major newspapers are, as of early this morning, reprinting the infamous Muhammad cartoons - or if you take their word for it, they are responding to an alleged attempted assassination plot against the original artist, Westergaard. From CBS News this morning: The Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which first published the 12 drawings on Sept. 30, 2005, reprinted Westergaard's cartoon in its print edition Wednesday. Several other major dailies, including Politiken and Berlingske Tidende, also reprinted the drawing. "We are doing this to document what is at stake in this case, and to unambiguously back and support the freedom of speech that we as a newspaper will always defend," said the Copenhagen-based Berlingske Tidende. Tabloid Ekstra Bladet reprinted all 12 drawings. At least three European newspapers - in Sweden, the Netherlands and Spain - also reprinted th...
More About: Cartoons , Denmark , Harpers , Papers

Obama mediamania in the form of a celebrity-packed music video
2008-02-13 04:12:00
Yes We Can Do Politics! The YouTube video below has been viewed over 3.5 million times and is evidence of Barack Obama ?s synergetic use of pop culture, media and politics to parlay a swath of young hip American voters over to the ?change? side. Fresh faces of the young, talented, and semi-talented (sorry Scarlett Johansson) adorn this four and a half minute music video that has musicians and actors from Hollywood?s left mouthing and singing the words to an Obama speech. Obama?s momentum for the democratic leadership is surely greased by the flow of celebrity endorsements and use of media from social networking to viral videos. This particular piece was put together by Black Eyed Peas member will.i.am and Jesse Dylan (the son of the Bob). They claim that the video was not timed with the campaign and that they?re not even sure Obama knows about it (as reported in this ABCnews article). This aw-shucks showmanship also greases the wheels of hope as Obama articulates a populist, simple m...
More About: Video , Music , Celebrity , Music Video

Mapmaking as resistance: The political art of cartography
2008-02-12 09:00:00
Maps are about order ? ordering things and ideas into patterns that help us make sense of the worlds we live in. They are tools for helping us organize material reality, and they are tools for helping us organize the imagination. After all, Columbus' crude maps with their irregular lumps of landmass scratched on pieces of parchment did as much for moving his ships about as they did in organizing imaginations around ideas of colonization. These are the premises for An Atlas of Radical Cartography (ARC): the ability of mapmaking to organize relationships of power, and our ability to challenge who has traditionally had access to these necessarily political cartographic resources. This new publication from The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press is a collection of 10 maps and 10 essays. We find a variety of discussions going on in the maps ? about the politics and corruption of NYC's waste system, about squatter settlements in Kolkata, about American intelligence rendition f...
More About: Political , Resistance

Honk Kong pirate radio station gets OK from High Court
2008-02-11 09:00:00
The Hong Kong government's attempt to shut down pirate radio broadcaster Citizen's Radio was scuttled in a recent decision of the Hong Kong High Court. In the decision, the Court stated that it did not see how the station's broadcasting could jeopardize public safety. In a complicated ongoing legal battle, the Hong Kong government had sought to extend an injunction preventing the station from going to air. Citizen's Radio argued that denial of their application for a license violated their freedom of expression. The unlicensed broadcasts were started in 2005 by a group of pro-democracy activists after their application for a license was denied by the Broadcasting Authority. The station airs phone-ins and discussions about current events and politics, including discussions about Hong Kong's transition to full democracy. In 2006, the station was raided by state agents, members were arrested and equipment confiscated. After resuming broadcasts, the station got under offic...
More About: Pirate , Station

Keiskamma: AIDS and love in a new South African documentary
2008-02-07 17:12:00
The number of amazing political films piling up on my desk to review is crowding out the view of my computer, so I've decided to post a handful of "mini-reviews," short one to two paragraph attempts to capture the essence of the film and pique your interest. Here's the first: KEISKAMMA: A STORY OF LOVE (S.Africa, 2007, 90min) Directed by Miki Redelinghuys This potent vérité does not hide from love as it follows activists and patients in a South African district riddled with the HIV/AIDS virus. Meandering throughout a community forged by the challenges of sickness and poverty, the film captures the collective spirit that comes with intense commitment to mutual aid. Heartbreaking stories slowly emerge such as the tale of Nkululeko, a young boy infected with HIV and covered in sores, who is remiss in his self-disciplined routine of taking pills every day. There are others as well, but the film is focused more on the actions of those helping, caring, and staying strong. Keiskamma is a...
More About: Love , Documentary , South African

The Film Factory wants you: support program for experimental filmmakers
2008-02-07 14:10:00
Montreal's Main Film is looking for artists interested in developing their experimental filmmaking practices. The Film Factory is a year long program whereby Main Film provides the environment, the tools and training for artists to undertake artistic risks in the development, exploration, and experimentation of their own artistic practice of film as an art form. Access to equipment and facilities, workshops and individual training will be provided free of cost. Filmstock will also be provided to artists, but recipients must pay for their own processing. The Film Factory will support: research that contributes to the renewal of formal elements in terms of style, technique or process or contribute the uniqueness of the subject or content of the project, or on the uniqueness of the filmmaker's perspective or process of expression; experimentation with tools and technologies; experimentation with film (hand) craft; productions for which the creative development phase is complete ...
More About: Support , Experimental , Program

Big Business as Usual: New Diversity of Voices Policy for Canadian Media Di
2008-02-06 14:00:00
After weeks of hearings and over 2,000 submissions from Canadians and media companies, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has finally issued their new policy concerning Diversity of Voices in the Canadian broadcasting system. Industry representatives received the new policies warmly while activists and artists have been disappointed. In a recently released summary and analysis of the new policies, the Campaign for Democratic Media (CDM) raises a number of concerns: the new policies will not safeguard diversity of voices in local broadcast markets (diversity is measured on a national scale), and they do not require divestment on the part of Canadian media companies despite Canada having one of the most concentrated media systems in the Western world. "The absence of safeguards for local diversity in broadcasting," says CDM, "runs counter to the Commission?s own suggestion that any benefits related to increased consolidation should include imp...
More About: Business , Big Business , Business As Usual