30 September 2005

International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam

24th November - 4th December

Screening over 200 documentaries annually and attracting audiences of around 60,000, the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA) is one of the most important festivals on the documentary calendar. Australia traditionally has been well represented at this festival with 34 docs (12 feature-length) being screened since 1990.

Running in parallel to IDFA is Docs for Sale (international documentary market) and The Forum (a platform for project-pitching and co-financing).

There are two deadline dates:
Deadline 2: Sept 1st, 2004 (films completed between Apr 1st, 2004-Sep 1st, 2004)
Deadline 1 - May 1st 2005 (films completed between Sept 1st, 2004-Apr 1st, 2005)

http://www.idfa.nl/idfa_en.asp





28 September 2005

september 2005 subject index

General
August Subject Index
early european witch hunts
Witch Trials
UBUWEB
kaas cops
women on waves
Transportation to America and the West Indies, 1615-1776

Kaas
double dutch
Sound Art at the Melkweg
amsterdam gallery guide
Dutch Manners I

Australia
Institute of Modern Art Brisbane
Contemporary Arts Organisations of Australia
Sound Art

Video
The Sneeze
Alexandra Gillespie
call for videos
vlogdir - blakkbyrd

Art Theory & Criticism
guerrilla girls
music to her ears - regendered
art & politics of netporn
Venice Biennale - dutch pavilion reviewed

New Media
Artport - net and digital art
online tv - sopcast
online tv

Sculpture & Installation
Richard Long - Sculpture

August 2005 Subject Index

general
camping with the sioux
stone circles
australia rules!!!!!!!
self portrait
plath drawing
amsterdam toilets

convict transportation

Resources
post modern culture

gogofrog - free 3D websites
download podcast-enabled feed content
I/ON: Internet Video Console
something to read

Video Film etc
Video Data Bank
scriptwriting
Boo Hooray - Video Art
Darwin's Fist Full of Films
found footage in art
greenaway in amsterdam
nasa videos
thought thieves - short film call



art theory & criticism
empyre - wearable technologies
something to read
empyre on blogs & vlogs
stuckists stuck with paintings
art parody
the nude
tracey moffatt reviewed
regender
cyberfeminism

The Girls Project
gender bias - website design

Street Art
stencil links
alley
space invaders bollards
the doors
gezellige graffiti
throwing sneakers
grey area


blogs
this is fun
bellebyrd

Art Scandal
grant boomerang
Kristian Burford - Nude Banned
more (mis)appropriation
art crimes

Calls
call for papers - popular art

new media art
vuspace
synapse database

transmediale
cicada
media art history project
laser buddhas
M/C Journal
eavesdrop
eaf - out of the body encounters
the storr - isle of skye
i ching modernised


Sculpture & installation
burning man
wolfgang laib


double dutch

The Cross Art Projects

JOOP BUIS, JELLE VAN DEN BERG, JUAN DEN POURG & RUDI VOS.
A Gesamtkunstwerk collaborative project. Until 2 October 2005

Jelle van den Berg is interested in how outsider cultures teach us to think completely differently. Double Dutch is a homage to artist Colin McCahon and the first major survey in the Western hemisphere of his work, the exhibition, Colin McCahon – A Question of Faith organised by Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum in late 2002. Despite the best efforts of its organisers, no partners in Europe or North America could be secured, so the show travelled only to galleries in Australia and New Zealand.

However much McCahon transformed writing into painting —"I will need words" — to communicate directly to a provincial public, this legacy is remains ‘Double Dutch’ to cultural mandarins. Cultural communication, however, a two-way flow, as much of the Dutch avant-garde tradition is baffling to us.


ARTISTS

Gesamtkunstwerk promotes a kind of collaborative, collective behaviour and old-fashioned dialogue and critical engagement. Its artist/curator initiator Jelle van den Berg says “It can be hard to see the outcome of working collaboratively when you are looking for a linear process where products are defined by individual expectations, but the process is mostly rewarding in the long term”. Over the past two years, using the Gesamtkunstwerk shopfront in Glebe, van den Berg has shown works in tandem with Juan de Pourg, Rudi Vos, Simon Blau and Robyn Backen and Jackie Redgate.

Rudi Vos
Vos worked as a freelance curator in The Netherlands from 1972 and regularly contributed to exhibitions in Australia since 1998. Vos has been involved in artist collectives in Sydney and Wollongong. Vos’s paintings, representing the effects of sunlight on irregular surfaces, sometimes have been carelessly associated with concrete art.

Joop Buis
Buis worked as a performance artist in the early eighties. He was an apprentice to Herman Lamers in a collective of eight artists in Groningen, The Netherlands, called DE LUI. Here he learned about site-specific installation art and sound-based performance art. Buis trained as a painter and has continued his drawings since his studies at Minerva Academy, Groningen 1975–1980.

Juan Den Pourg
Den Pourg was a student of Martin Tissing and Matthijs Rohling. He settled in Sydney in 1983. He showed his paintings with Rex Irwin, Union Street Gallery, Mori Gallery and Stella Downer Fine Art. He has completed a series of collaborations with Simon Blau, Jacky Redgate and Robyn Backen. He is a staunch ‘romantic painter’.

Jelle van den Berg
In 1983 van den Berg moved to Sydney and continued to be involved with artists' initiatives, he was a Co-director of Union Street Gallery from 1985-1986 with Debra Dawes, Jeff Gibson and Deborah Singleton. He has worked collaboratively with Jacky Redgate and Simon Blau over several years. He has been working on two things since coming to Australia in 1983: a body of work titled Nature Morte and a series titled Pacific. He showed his paintings at Galerie D'Eendt in Amsterdam and currently shows with Galerie Hoogenbosch in The Netherlands. In Sydney his paintings are shown at The Cross Art Projects. He works in the Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong as a painting lecturer.





early european witch hunts


Readings in Witch-craft and witch-hunting in early modern Europe

from Oxford uni history dept

link



22 September 2005

Witch Trials



Patricia Tabram, a cannabis-growing grandmother, said today that she expects to be sent to jail after police discovered four marijuana plants in her home. The 66-year-old, who says that she is "medicating" friends who are sick or in pain because conventional medicines do not work, compared herself to Emmeline Pankhurst, the pioneering suffragist, saying she was willing to face her fate.
"I realise I am going to go to prison," she added. "Emmeline Pankhurst had to go to prison three times before women got the vote so I am not going to be worried about it.

I’m just an old, grey, tubby grandma and I’m going to fight this."

Mrs Tabram, who prides herself on her homemade herbal cookies, casseroles and soups, cuts an unlikely figure as a drug user. She has cooked up treats laced with cannabis for neighbours and friends in her village since being introduced to the Class C drug last year by friends and finding that it helped to alleviate the symptoms of depression, whiplash and neck pain.

Northumbria Police were tipped off about the savoury smells and activities coming from Mrs Tabram’s bungalow and twice raided her house, in May and June last year.

from times online


Sound Art at the Melkweg

*****************************************
ISTANBUL RELOADED

Date: Wed 5th October
Location: De Melkweg, Theaterzaal, Lijnbaansgracht 234 A, Amsterdam

Time:Performances: 20.30 - 22.30 hours
Entrance performances: euro 10,-
Time: Panel: 16.00 - 18.00 hours (free)

Bookings: 020 5318181
URL: www.melkweg.nl (under media)
*****************************************

ISTANBUL RELOADED invites you to reload your sonic perception, and sample
the diversity of Istanbuli experimental sound art.

Istanbul evokes many connotations ranging from the mysterious riches of
Byzantium to the throbbing capital of the Eurasian world Constantinople.
History books and travel guides have imprinted an image on us ranging
from orientalist fairy tale dreams to a modern metropolis negotiating
tradition and future, east and west. We can picture Istanbul visually
with all its landmarks, and have probably eavesdropped on Turkish pop and
traditional music. However, how diversified is that perception?
As the cultural capital of Turkey, Istanbul boasts a small, but
exceptional experimental electronic music scene, probes the new
possibilities real-time processing and other technologies allow for
performance and composition, sometimes merging traditional Turkish
influences and instruments with the aesthetics of contemporary
electronics.
*****************************************
PROGRAM: Wed 5th October

ISTANBUL RELOADED: performance
20.30 - 22.00 hours, entrance: 10
Erdem Helvacioglu (TR)
Cev Edit (TR/NL)
Anabala (Murat Ertel & Ceren Aykut) (TR)

ISTANBUL RELOADED: panel
16.00 - 18.00 hours, entrance: free
Participants: Cevdet Erek (TR/NL), Erdem Helvacioglu (TR), Anabala=20
(Murat Ertel & Ceren Aykut) (TR), Abdullah Hendrik Geels (NL)
Moderation: Nat Muller (NL)

URLs:
http://www.erdemhelvacioglu.com/
http://www.babazula.com/
http://www.audiomaze.com/
*****************************************

ISTANBUL RELOADEDis part of Xeno_Sonic: Experimental Music Mapping in the
Middle East, a project and initiative of Nat Muller in collaboration with
De Melkweg.

ISTANBUL RELOADED is kindly supported by VSBfonds, Mondriaanfonds, Fonds
voor Amateur en Podiumkunsten, Stichting Kulsan, Fonds voor
Podium-Programmering & Marketing. The research phase of Xeno_Sonic was
supported by The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and
Architecture.

Editor's note
For more information, visual material or interviews, contact:
Publiciteit Melkweg: Esther Lagendijk | tel: 020-5318167 | fax:=20
020-5318118 | esther@melkweg.nl


21 September 2005

Institute of Modern Art Brisbane

September 2 – October 8

FlashPlanet2005 & Cities Through Glass
Mischa Kuball
Galleries 1 & 2
Gallery 1 will be used to present a video-moving image projection work to be produced on site in Brisbane, and in response to the urban, built environment of Brisbane. Kuball has produced similar projects: an installation at Neue National Galerie Berlin 1999/2000; City thru Glass', a collaboration between Virgin Cinemas Roppongi Hills x Mori Art Museum Collaboration, Tokyo/Japan, 2004, and Stadt durch Glas (mounted in Moskau / Düsseldorf / Moskau), 2003/2004. Kuball will shoot and produce the video in Brisbane: the IMA will provide the production and support(editing and burning video to DVD), and technical support for presentation.

Gallery 2 will be used to present an extant work, based on Kuball’s ongoing projects that utilise light and text movement generated by modified slide projectors. Examples: "Space-Speech-Speed", 1998; Power of Codes - Space of Speech, Installation at Tokyo National Museum October 1999; and 'Paracities' at the 'Casino Luxembourg' for the exhibition 'Strange Paradises', 2000. Quoting curator Karin Stempel (1998): “letters seem to dart ... across the walls, stretched, bent, and totally isolated from their context, hovering in space, mysteriously appearing and disappearing like the proverbial writing on the wall, the indecipherable transcription of a meaning which cannot assume any form, for movement itself is its form.”

To listen to or download an interview with Mischa click here

The Shadowers

Monika Tichacek
Gallery 4
' The Shadowers’ by Sydney multi-media artist Monika Tichacek, was originally commissioned as a 3 screen video work by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) for ‘2004: Australian Culture Now’, a collaborative exhibition with the National Gallery of Victoria.
Cruelty and oppression with ritualised violence are revealed in phantasmic images expressing Tichacek’s concerns for humanity. Psychological agony is played out in a series of games set against nature, some harmoniously but most brutally. Tichacek is a fore-runner to the real political detention, torture and humiliation exposed in the Abu Ghraib Prison videos – she has forecast the present world horrors in her work.
Tichacek explores a range of media, including video, photography, sculpture, drawing and performance. She meticulously conceives, designs and constructs the sets, costumes and materials used in the performances and personally stars in her videos.
Monika Tichacek is represented by Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne

To listen to or download an interview with Monika click here

Crop

Charles Robb
Crop is an exhibition of vivid figurative “parts” that forms the latest instalment in sculptor Charles Robb’s ongoing project of self portraiture. The works are all life-size and range in effect from the graphic realism of Baroque religious sculpture to the sombre tones of Neo-classical marble. In their representations of the male body, the works in Crop reference a broad spectrum of sculptural representation, including the medical model, the waxworks dummy and the special effects prop. At the heart of the work, however, is Robb’s critique of the male relationship with the world of images and the body itself, revealing that relationship as composite, incomplete and fundamentally narcissistic.

To listen to or download an interview with Charles click here

The Institute of Modern Art is located in the
Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts,
420 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane

link





The Sneeze

In conjunction with the Gazon Rouge Gallery Athens, the artists and curators
Peter Lloyd Lewis (UK) and Natasha Makowski (USA) have brought together a global grouping of eighty invited artists to provide videos of 80 second length each. These have been edited together to form a single work resembling a feature film format length of 106 minutes. This global grouping of artists represents each continent. The exhibition will open in June 2004. The event will coincide with the Olympic Games and relative Cultural Olympiad.

The project refers to the ethos of the Olympic Games where individuals come together to compete and yet form an event that celebrates diversity of cultures but a harmony of intention. The end forms a 'whole', an event.
---------------------------------

The Gazon Rouge Gallery Athens and artists Natasha Makowski and Peter Lloyd Lewis have invited a global grouping of 80 international artists to present videos that together produce one complete work, a celebration of image diversity and unknown connections.

Applying a new equation to art synthesis and artist collaboration.

This project pays homage to and refers to Thomas Edisons innovative kinograph film of a sneeze, a random and connective act. Acknowledging both the importance of the event in moving image history and considering the idea of its experimental reference the sneeze 80 x 80 explores the relationships between video art, feature film, and the idea of connections being made between artists and their work through the questioning of hierarchies, the exploration of narrative and the creative use of time structure. All experienced through the equation of 80 x 80. The concept has not been to form a cohesive and unquestioning result but to use the format for ideas to clash and provoke re-readings of work and their relationships through their placing with the other pieces presented.

link



Contemporary Arts Organisations of Australia


CAOS.org.au

members

24 Hour Art
, NT

Artspace, NSW

Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, VIC

Australian Centre for Photography, NSW

Australian Network for Art and Technology, SA

Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative, NSW

Canberra Contemporary Art Space, ACT

Centre for Contemporary Photography, VIC

Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, SA

Contemporary Arts Services Tasmania, TAS

Experimental Art Foundation, SA

Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, VIC

Institute of Modern Art, QLD

Performance Space, NSW

Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, WA




Sound Art

YOU ARE HERE… entangle features 6 sound installations by local and national artists both internationally renowned and emerging. The works explore defi nitions of spatiality and ontology within our sound environment; how sound entangles identity, locale, biology and memory.

From mobile phones to swarming biomorphs, and sonic hair via 35kg wheel hubs, this exhibition will challenge your perceptive orientation.

Artists:

Rob Muir (WA)
Cat Hope (WA)
Nigel Helyer (NSW)
Alan Lamb (WA)
Hannah Clemen (WA)
Kieran Stewart (WA)
Coordinated by Kylie Ligertwood

Sound surrounds and entangles. The term entanglement is drawn from contemporary physics and is used to describe the interaction between quantum particles, which as they encounter one another, are as a result forever altered. YOU ARE HERE… entangle aims to encourage a similar productive encounter by developing an awareness of the sound environment and acoustics that we inhabit.

The Moores Building Contemporary Art Gallery, 46 Henry St Fremantle
Friday 7th – Sunday 23rd October
Gallery Hours: Monday–Sunday 10am-5pm

Opening:
Thursday 6th October 6.30pm, Performance @ 9pm

Artist Talk:
Wed 12th Oct 6.30pm

link



Alexandra Gillespie




In her study of the motion after effect, Brisbane-based artist Alexandra Gillespie presents an engaging interactive video installation that simulates the residual effects of a journey from urban to non-urban space.

The work explores, and is named after, the illusionary experience of the motion after effect. This physiological phenomenon occurs when a subject moves in one direction continuously, then stops and stares at a fixed point in space; upon stopping the background appears to move in the opposite direction to that the viewer has travelled. The artist has likened this experience to that of journeying out of the city: here the buzz of the city is replaced by the hiss of nature and the sound of singular footsteps.

opening: Wednesday 31 August, 6pm
exhibition: 1 September - 9 October, 2005

Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA)

Alexandra Gillespie is a media artist based in Brisbane. She is interested in exploring the intersection of virtual and actual space and responding to existing sites. Her work often investigates the experience of the everyday utilising, installation, interactivity and projection.




18 September 2005

UBUWEB

UbuWeb was founded in November of 1996, initially as a repository for visual, concrete and, later, sound poetry. Over the years, UbuWeb has embraced all forms of the avant-garde and beyond. Its parameters continue to expand in all directions.



15 September 2005

kaas cops


Couple had sex on police car

Dutch police have arrested a couple for having sex on the bonnet of their patrol car.

The couple, from Groningen, said they hadn't noticed the two policemen sitting in the car.

One of the officers got out of the car and told the couple to stop what they were doing and leave.

The 25-year-old man was arrested after he refused and insulted the policeman, reports Het Laatste Nieuws.

His 33-year-old lover was also arrested after she tried to stop the car from taking her boyfriend away.

A police spokesman said: "The law doesn't say you can't make love on the bonnet of a police car.

"But the policemen have to be available for duty. If the two lovers had left when they were told, nothing would have happened."

from annova



14 September 2005

women on waves




Women on Waves is a non-profit organisation which sets itself the objective of promoting the human rights of the woman and of preventing unwanted pregnancies and unsafe, illegal abortions. One of the foundation’s best-known projects is the Abortion boat. Through cunning use of maritime law, just outside the 12-mile zones of countries where abortion is forbidden women can be helped with information and with actual abortions. These actions are legal according to Dutch law and according to international Maritime law, which is recognised by the countries that are visited. The ship sails under the Dutch flag, and abortions are provided by a team of Dutch medical practitioners on Dutch 'territory'. For the performance of the so-called over time treatment, a medical abortion in the first 6 weeks of pregnancy, official permission from the Minister of Health, Welfare and Sports (VWS) has been granted since 28th June 2002.

Thus, women are actively assisted and local organisations are supported and inspired in their struggle for the legalisation of abortion. You will find more information on www.womenonwaves.org . For press information about the activities of WoW, please refer to the contact addresses on this website.

from mediamatic article on 2003 exhibition



guerrilla girls




Interview





music to her ears - regendered

"Men are less patient than women: they haven't got the time or the inclination to read a 90-page manual and work out how to operate a camera or DVD player. They want instant gratification - simple, user-friendly, intuitive technology that they can take out of the box and use immediately. They lose interest if it doesn't work immediately, whereas women view sussing out a new gadget as a challenge. It's that whole toolshed tradition of taking something apart to see how it works."

Manufacturers will have to take a more girlie approach if they want to get men turned on to the latest gadgets, says Raymond Forder

Would you rip files at a high or low bit-rate? Do you prefer AAC, WMA or MP3? If you are completely baffled by these questions, you are probably a man. The terminology relates to downloading music, and a recent study by the British Phonographic Industry found that 96 per cent of tracks are downloaded by women.

Which is why, in a savvy marketing move, HMV announced last week that it hopes to encourage men to enrol for tuition when the record store launches its online download facility in September.

So why are men less interested in podcasts and playlists than women? In fact, why are they unimpressed with the idea of tinkering with any type of technology?

"I've just started borrowing my wife's iPod, but she had to give me a lesson in how to switch it on and find a track, and I've got two pages of instructions that I take with me whenever I use it," says Lucas Dobbs, editorial director of a publishing company. "I would never attempt to download a song, because I know I'd make a mess of it - I'd probably end up closing down the National Grid."

Mary Bjornsgaard, co-founder of download facility Artists First, says that men are reserving judgment on iTunes.

"Downloading is a relatively new development, and traditionally, the early adopters of new technology are women," she explains. "In five years' time, they will engage in it much more."

Earlier this month, a study by the University of Glamorgan Business School found that men and women have very different tastes in website aesthetics. Men prefer rounded shapes, plenty of colour and informal language. According to Karl Lee, editor of shinyshiny.tv, an online gadget guide for boys, this could be part of the problem. "Designed by women, some download websites are too clinical and uninspiring," he says.

Xfm DJ Laurence Lavern thinks it's a shame that men aren't getting stuck in. "I think a lot of boys are nervous that downloading will be too complicated for them," he says. "But it's actually very straightforward and iPods are so chic and versatile - they are the little black dresses of gadgets. If I go for a run, the music spurs me on, and when I walk down Oxford Street, it saves me from being accosted by people who want to persuade me to go paintballing or have my hair cut."

However, the fact is that most men prefer to spend their lunchhour browsing in Chloé - not Comet. They refuse their girlfriend's offer of a two-player PlayStation bout of Mortal Kombat, even if it's the only way to get some quality time with her. And, although three-quarters carry a mobile phone and 10 per cent of men surveyed recently admitted using their phone to send sexy pictures to their partners, there is little male interest in the new, all-emailing, all-videoing mobiles.

"My mobile phone is a bone of contention between me and my wife," says Samuel Mary, a marketing manager. "Until recently, I had the same phone that I have had since I first got one in 1997. Although it weighed half a stone, it was easy to use and it made calls, and that's all I'm interested in.

"I didn't want to have to learn how to use a new model, so I never upgraded. Since my wife put my sim card in one of her old phones, she has given me three or four lessons in how to send text messages, but I still haven't got the hang of it. I think the reason I can't work it out is that I think it's pointless. If I want to tell someone something, I just call them."

Michelle Brian, acting editor of Stuff, a gadget magazine that has a 95 per cent female readership, says that, like Mary, most men are attracted only to new bits of kit that look nice and serve a purpose.

"Traditionally, technology is a female environment," she says. "Men are less patient than women: they haven't got the time or the inclination to read a 90-page manual and work out how to operate a camera or DVD player. They want instant gratification - simple, user-friendly, intuitive technology that they can take out of the box and use immediately. They lose interest if it doesn't work immediately, whereas women view sussing out a new gadget as a challenge. It's that whole toolshed tradition of taking something apart to see how it works."

Tonya Stephanie, a psychologist and usability expert, agrees. "Men are often discouraged by other men from learning about technology," she says. "They are conditioned by society to want to be seen as different to women. Building Meccano bridges and piecing together model aeroplanes teach girls to enjoy tinkering with things, but boys are encouraged to play with dolls instead.

"This makes them more interested in relationships and how people behave, so they focus on the usefulness of a gadget, not on how it works. For example, they like using mobile phones because they are big talkers, so they see it as helpful to be able to make calls all the time."

Thomas Jourdan, a writer in his mid-thirties, says that his issues with technology are two-fold.

"I bought an iriver [an MP3 player with lots of additional features] in January, and I have spent the last seven months trying to make it work," he explains. "The instruction book was an inch thick and really hard to follow. So I gave up. Even a group effort with all my boyfriends failed. My brain just isn't wired up to deal with the annoying, irritating, sequential precision of technology. Plus, I only came to computers in my twenties and technology moves so fast that I have been playing 'catch up' ever since."

However, like HMV, electrical goods manufacturers seem determined to turn men on to cameras and computers. Apple launched a mini version of the iPod in pastel pink last summer, and this season's desktop must-have is a Hello Kitty mouse. Next month, Dixons is holding men-only shopping nights across the UK.

"Men are more likely to buy digital cameras and mobile phones because of the social element, whereas women buy hardware that is more solitary, such as laptops and gaming devices," says John Illingworth, brand marketing manager of Dixons. "However, manufacturers are working harder at appealing to the men's market by combining style with function and making their technology more gender-neutral. And it works both ways: an advert for a new iron promises that it 'kills creases'."

Lucas Dobbs thinks that no matter how user-friendly technology becomes, he won't be able to shake off his laziness.

"If I'm honest, most of the time I deliberately act helpless, because I know there will always be someone who can help me, whether it's my wife or a female colleague at work," he says. "If I take on board a little of what I am taught about a computer or an iPod, I will have to learn the rest myself. Whenever I hear some new music that I like, I'll just make a list of songs for my wife to download for me."

"It's easy for men to say they don't understand and ask a woman for help," says Tonya Stephanie. "As the saying goes, girls play with toys, and boys play with girls."


regendered from the telegraph




art & politics

September 30 and October 1, 2005
De Badcuyp, Amsterdam
Organized by the Institute of Network Cultures, Katrien Jacobs and Matteo Pasquinelli

************************************************************************************************************************************* The Art and Politics of Netporn is the first major international conference on netporn criticism. It will present multiple perspectives on our growing immersion in pornographic web-based media. A second aim of the conference is to discuss the potential of art and critical research in times of heightened information surveillance, filtering and censorship. The selected research presentations and art projects regard netporn as complex networks, with impact and growth, just as industries and/or indie media operations. Conference presenters will address the 'schizo' climate of hype and censorship, focusing on the ethics and aesthetics of digital media environments and (female and male) activities such as blogging, webcamming, chatting, p2p porn, live journals, confession boards, mailing lists and zines.

A growing number of theoretical and historical porn studies have appeared over the last decades, yet few have focused on porn within digital media environments. Based on the many submissions we have received from scholars and artists, we have come up with five conference themes. Each of the themes will be represented by a mixture of scholarly research and art/media/industry presentations. Keynote speakers will include Mark Dery, Mikita Brottman, and Susanna Paasonen who will analyze cultural obsessions with the 'sexual grotesque,' 'phantom pedophilia' and the political discourses of porn spam. A larger open debate will be hosted by Albert Benschop on the various facets of information filtering and censorship.

The conference speaks to the concerns of a wider public. Netporn and its critics, the pro-porn/anti-porn wars, fluctuating economic business strategies and nation-state politics, Internet governance models and filtering devices --all these aspects of netporn economy and history are affecting our everyday ways of sensing and understanding media and sexuality. We will open the doors to views by those interested in art, scholarship, technology, industry, and debate as 'refreshment'.

Katrien Jacobs
the institute of network cultures, amsterdam

readings

-----------------------------------------------
Supporting Amsterdam's tourist industry no doubt.

Not a subject worthy of criticism otherwise.




call for videos

VideoChannel
http://videochannel.newmediafest.org

relaunches a suit of calls for videos

1. theme: gender identity
2. theme: identity of colour
3. theme: totalitarism

******************************
1. call for videos on theme "gender identity
deadline 31 December 2005
--->
In a times when the traditional role of being "male" and "female" in society
has lost its meaning, a male expresses his female, and a female her male components of
their personality, when sexuality is not reduced to being straight or gay,
but countless mixed forms of human existance can be lived,
defining oneself in a gender specific context may become
an essential question.
The call is inviting artists to reflect their own or the subject of male, female, gay,
lesbian, transgender etc identity via the medium of video.

Details and entry form can be found on
NetEX - internal announcements
http://weblog.nmartproject.net/index.php?blog=8&cat=54
or http://weblog.nmartproject.net/index.php?blog=3&cat=11

2. call for videos on the theme "identity of colour"
deadline 31 December 2005
-->
The theme is going down to the essential role and influence of colour
on any part of human life. The strong symbolism of the colours expresses itself
in language and art, the signal effect of colour is used in advertiosing and design,
colour take psychological influence on the unconsciousness, perception and emotion.
What would be the world without colour? So what is the identity of colour?

Details and entry form can be found on
NetEX - internal announcements
http://weblog.nmartproject.net/index.php?blog=8&cat=54
or http://weblog.nmartproject.net/index.php?blog=3&cat=11

3. call for videos on the theme "totalitarism"
deadline 31 December 2005
As a part of the global networking project [R][R][F]2005--->XP,
the view on "totalitarism" may be historically related as well as reflecting
"totalitarian" structures nowadays.
And while looking closer, one will recognize that traces of totalitarism can be found
anywhere in society, politics and culture and everybody's life.
But totalitarism can only exist if people let it happen actively or passively.

Details and entry form can be found on
NetEX - internal announcements
http://weblog.nmartproject.net/index.php?blog=8&cat=54
or http://weblog.nmartproject.net/index.php?blog=3&cat=11
********************************************
VideoChannel is a joint venture between
Cinematheque at MediaCentre
http://cinematheque.le-musee-divisioniste
and [R][R][F] 2005 - global networking project
http://rrf2005.newmediafest.org
in the framework of
[NewMediaArtProjectNetwork]:||cologne
www.nmartproject.net
and is acting basically online, but also offline in cooperation
with media festivals and other cultural events worldwide.
.
info & contact
info@nmartproject.net
*****************
technical requirements
DSL Internet connection
Flash7 plug-in
cross-bCrowser



06 September 2005

Artport - net and digital art

About ARTPORT

Artport is the Whitney Museum's portal to net art and digital arts, and an online gallery space for commissioned net art projects. The site consists of five major areas:

  • The archive of "gate pages," which function as portals to net artists' works. Each month, an artist is invited to present their work in the form of a gate page with links to the artist's site and most important projects.

  • The "commissions" area, which presents original net art projects commissioned by the Whitney Museum.

  • The "exhibitions" space, which provides access to and information about current and past net art and digital arts exhibitions at the Whitney.

  • The "resources" archive, which links to galleries, networks and museums on the Web; past net art exhibitions at venues world-wide; Web publications relating to net art and digital arts; as well as new media festivals. This archive is constantly evolving as new organizations and resources are added.

  • The "collection" area, which archives the works of net art and digital art in the Whitney Museum's holdings.



online tv - sopcast

What is SopCast?

SopCast is a simple, easy to use system to watch stream media on the Internet. It is a Network Media Broadcasting system based on P2P Technology. It could make any node in the network to act as a retransmitter, and slowdown the media server’s workloads when audiences quantity grows. The SopCast Streaming Over P2P technology is more resilient in case nodes quit and connection fail, it is suitable for broadcasting over the Internet.

You can use SopCast to watch TV, furthermore you can use it to build your own channel. Anyone can build his own personal media on the Internet!

Features:

  • Get stream data from many nodes on the SOP network at the same time(P2P transfer), make the channel more available and stable.
  • Build your own channels and broadcast it over the Internet.
  • Streaming many stream file types, asf, wmv, rm, rmvb. etc.
  • Support for loop file playing.
  • A build-in TV station retransmit the channels from other stream media servers.
  • Support for many stream network transfer protocol. mms, rtsp, http etc.
  • Monitor broadcast source quality and channel quality to help audiences to select a appropriate channel.
  • Record the clips when you are watching it.
  • Total memory cache, no harm to the harddisk.
  • Support for authentication on both the broadcaster and the audiences.
  • Support multiple channels broadcast on the same server.
  • Small green software, no registry change, no system file change.
  • Support URL visit. You can place your URL in your website and the others can earier to view your media.



online tv

PPLive is a free Shareware for online TV programs.

The software integrated the most advanced peer-to-peer technology so it can provide the users with the smoothest TV programs with no interceptions.
In P2P technology, everyone becomes a broadcaster without the cost of traditional streaming. the more users are online, the faster the programs can be loaded. Tell your friends to download PPLive and enjoy the programs.
What’s more, PPLive is a Shareware , and no registration is needed.
Download and have fun!

step 1: Download the PPLive software. Make sure that you have already install the Windows Media Player 9.0 or above edition.
step 2: Open and install the program and update online.
step 3: Run PPLIVE
step 4: Double click the PPLive icon on bottom right and it will brings you to the channel listing. You can also go to the PPLive website or other our partners’ websites to view the channel listing.
step 5: All channel will be listing together with current program showing. Click on the "PLAY" icon behind the channel you wish to view.
step 6: Then the connection information will be shown in the PPLive icon. Now your computer is downloading stream data from other computers. Wait patiently.
step 7: When the buffer data reaches 90% and above, PPLive will automatically start the Media Player and now you can enjoy the show.
step 8: Enjoy the program!



Richard Long - Sculpture








Long translates his deeply personal experiences in the wilderness into sculptures and mud drawings that are created for exhibition spaces and private collections. Pieces composed of flint, slate, feathers, pine needles, sticks, and other rustic materials become metaphors for the paths taken on his ramblings: the spirals, circles, and lines, if extended beyond the gallery walls, would trace actual distances traveled by the artist. The sculptures are not, therefore, representations of nature per se but rather aesthetic documents of Long's engagement with the land and poetic evocations of the beauty and grandeur of the earth.
link

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Having just travelled all over the north of Scotland looking at prehistoric ruins, I'm now relating it back to English environmental art. Hamish Fulton, Richard Long, Andy Goldsworthy, David Nash and so on.




vlogdir - blakkbyrd

On vlogdir.com, you can Add and Discover Videoblogs, Upload Video, Play Video Channels, Save Vlogmarks, Subscribe to RSS or Email Alerts and Leave Comments/Karma. Other Features are Available Now and Forthcoming. Enjoy!

Blakkbyrd's entry
http://vlogdir.com/permalink/750


---------------------

Welcome to vlogdir.com!

VLOGDIR is a new Videoblog Directory Service that allows you to add a link to your videoblog along with descriptive details, RSS feeds for subscribers and also let's you attach media.

VLOGDIR has integrated features such as:

  • click-through tracking (visits to vlogs)
  • Email and RSS subscriptions for alerts of new entries (with category filters)
  • User comments/reviews and karma
  • Member vlogmarks (bookmarks of entries)
  • Integrated RSS Media Aggregator for easy playback of media on vlogdir.com, allowing you to preview vlog content
  • Upload your videoblog poster/logo image and an intro video clip of up to 10mb and/or add a link to a teaser video to show your potential audience a sample of your videoblog.

Registration is free and optional. You can register during the last step of the submission form or choose the stand-alone register link to signup. If you register, you will be able to take advantage of additional features such as persoanl vlogmarks and you can also edit your listing anytime after it has already been submitted.

VLOGDIR.COM
VIDEOBLOGGING.INFO
VIDEOBLOGGERS.ORG





05 September 2005

Dutch Manners I

One of the functions of this blog is to document the experience of living in Amsterdam.

So far I have been (unsucessfully) attacked at knife point, I've been verbally abused many many times, I've been assaulted by a dutch man and I have been pushed off the pavement. I've been shortchanged and given 'the run around'. I've been refused service. I've been subjected to racial vilification and discripmination and sexually harassed.

Dutch manners do not exist. And to illustrate the point, I will commence to blog every incident.

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On the plane.

Last night around midnight arriving in amsterdam after flight delays. Planeload of rude dutch. The usual scrum to exit the plane at landing is intensified. I'm stood in the aisle queuing to exit. Its very crowded.

There's a couple to my left, still in their seats and he (near the window) is pushing over his wife (on the aisle) trying to get his luggage out. He tries to push her into the queuing passagers, but its all tall dutch men. Too big. I'm a petite five foot (150cm) and he targets me as where he is going to push in. When I come alongside, he starts pushing her onto me and I have nowhere to go.
She is going to push me off my feet and I am disabled and unsteady, and its going to cause damage if I fall.

I say, in English, politely but firmly, "wait".

His response was, in english, "c*nt".

So I respond, the equivalent, in dutch, and exited the plane.

The look on her face was priceless. You can't use normal manners here, you will literally get walked on.



Venice Biennale - dutch pavilion reviewed





Venice Biennale - Jeroen de Rijke / Willem de Rooij: Mandarin Ducks

Place: Italy (Venice)
When: 12 Jun 2005 - 06 Nov 2005 (One off; not Mon)
Opening Hours: Tue-Sun 10am-6pm

Dutch artists Jeroen de Rijke and Willem de Rooij represent the Netherlands at the 51st edition of the Venice Biennale. For the occasion the duo has created Mandarin Duck, a film installation that makes use of theatrical artificiality.

Drawing from certain aspects of their early artistic practice, such as the distorted use of narrative, the artists create steady shots presented in a tableau-like style, which gradually feeds the visual information to the viewer.

The plot revolves around ten people meeting in a spacious apartment on a Sunday afternoon and their dialogues cover themes of chaos, abstraction, love, consumption, corruption, charity, ideals and emotional and psychological schism. The work loosely intercuts stylistic references to theatre, sitcom and film and plays for a duration of 36 minutes, shown at regular intervals.

link

________________________________________________________

Free Beer Tomorrow

Resources are scare in the nethelands and it is not uncommon for access to services to be restricted to limited hours. ie. between ten and noon every alternative tuesday. The trick is being able to determine which is the off week, and that varies according to what nationality you are and whether you can speak dutch. Language is used here as a commercial weapon and to give priority to the locals. This is the agenda behind the phrase "double dutch".

So to see the netherlands pavilion displaying a clock saying 'come back later' was highly amusing. Was this yet another device to restrict access to dutch resources? Do you have to present a netherlands passport to get in?

Appartheid is activiely practiced in the netherlands, you just have to look at Bijlmer.

Elementary school ‘De Polsstok’

This 1991 photograph of pupils at the elementary school ‘De Polsstok’ in the area called Amsterdam Zuidoost (Southeast), home to many immigrants, shows children of Surinamese, Antillean, Turkish, Moroccan and Asian descent.

Black schools

The arrival of large groups of immigrants gave rise in Amsterdam to the distinction between so-called ‘white schools’ with a preponderance of white children and ‘black schools’ with mostly immigrant children. The rise of these schools was linked to the distribution of Amsterdam’s population. Many parents feared that their children would fall behind if they attended a black school.
nice looking kids, wonder where they all ended up?



Note that this is a government funded website I'm quoting. Can you imagine this happening in NSW?

It can also be against the law to have any rule or policy that disadvantages more people of your race, ethnic or ethno-religious background, than other people — unless that rule or policy is reasonable.

It is against the law to do this in any of the circumstances listed above.

For example, it is against the law for an employer to make you wear a uniform that does not meet your ethno-religious dress needs — unless doing so is reasonable for the particular job. It is against the law to stop you speaking in your own language at work or when you are studying at college, university and so on — unless speaking in your language stops the work or study being done properly. It is against the law for an employer to insist that you speak English fluently and/or without an accent — unless this type of English/accent is reasonable for the particular job.
Or is it dutch economising? Does the video actually exist, were they really screening it? Who knows? - I certainly didn't see anyone enter the pavilion all afternoon.

I didn't see the film. So reviewing it from its description, I suspect that what we would have, would be a group of people discussing the given topics, as filtered through a dutch perspective. It would then be interesting to compare and contrast the video's text with the commentary on the most popular dutch blog. (see dutch bloggies)

Reading on, I note
"The work loosely intercuts stylistic references to theatre, sitcom and film"
So I suspect it may be a compilation of appropriated text and imagery. I wonder if it reflects my observations on dutch racism and sexism.

I picked up a book on the artists in the biennale showbag pavilion and flicked through it. It referred to a work on carpets. Not netherlands carpets, or original works by the artists, but an appropriation or critique of what appeared to be Islamic art. Intriguing.

How does this relate back to the writings and activities of Theo van Gogh regarding Islam? Was this question addresed by the curator?



This work was part of the Biennale of Sydney 2004. They must have a good publicist.

In a specially designed space at the Museum of Contemporary Art de Rijke/de Rooij show their most recent 35mm-film The point of departure (2002). In this film the artists visually investigate the structure and the patterns of an oriental rug. Scenes slowly unfold to become recognised. It is the passing of time that provides the narrative in de Rijke/de Rooij's work. In a single slow moving shot painterly, photographic and cinematographic elements are consciously combined and played off against one another. De Rijke/de Rooij consider the emptiness of the space of display as vital to the work as the film itself. The film will be shown at set times in regular intervals approximately twice every hour.

Art Gallery of New South Wales

For the Art Gallery of New South Wales de Rijke/de Rooij will design a flower arrangement using a selection of Australian native flowers. This work asks audiences to consider the role of the museum as a container of objects and materials that have been transformed by the human hand. This bouquet also speaks about the immense influence of the still life (nature morte) as an object of contemplation and delight but now not in a canvas.
So they slow photographed someone else's work. Very deep.

I'm not going to comment on flower arrangements.

I have observed that here, as in the USA, appropriation from other cultures for commercial gain is accepted as a normal commercial practice that is not legislated against. So I am interested to explore how the commercial practices that I observing in dutch culture are reflected in dutch commercial art practice. This appears to be a good starting point.

blakkbyrd
writing from amsterdam
------------------------------------------------


02 September 2005

Transportation to America and the West Indies, 1615-1776

Transportation to America and the West Indies, 1615-1776

Legal Records Information 16

1. What Was Transportation?

Transportation was a system that exiled convicts to the American and West Indian colonies for a period of years.

2. Why Was It Introduced?

Until the Restoration in 1660, the only punishment available for people convicted of treason or felony was, with one exception, the death penalty. The exception was petty larceny for which the punishment was to be whipped. Large numbers of those convicted had their lives saved by a legal fiction called benefit of clergy. This originated in the claims of churchmen to be exempt from the jurisdiction of the king's courts, even if they had been accused of ordinary crimes. Benefit of clergy provided a compromise solution, whereby churchmen were tried in the king's courts but were handed over to the ecclesiastical authorities for punishment. After 1576, those who had successfully claimed benefit of clergy were simply discharged.

As early as the fourteenth century, the king's courts were prepared to accept that any male who could read must be a clergyman. Similar privileges were extended to women during the seventeenth century. Claiming benefit of clergy became something of a formality, and it was often granted to illiterate convicts even before the literacy test was formally abandoned in 1706. Even those who were denied benefit of clergy and were therefore sentenced to death had a good chance of securing a royal pardon - which also meant that they would be discharged without further punishment.

Transportation provided a useful compromise for the authorities ensuring that individuals could be punished without actually killing them.

3. When Was It Introduced?

Although benefit of clergy and unconditional pardons continued to be used, after 1615 it became increasingly common for convicted individuals to be offered a pardon on condition of transportation. After 1718 transportation was to America and was standardised at 14 years for those entitled to conditional pardons. Transportation for 7 years was also introduced as a sentence in its own right for non capital offences.

Transportation to the Americas was ended on the outbreak of the rebellion in 1776.

4. Tracing Named Individuals

Start with the book by Peter Wilson Coldham called The Complete Book of Emigrants in Bondage, 1614-1775 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co. Inc, 1988) which contains an alphabetical list of men and women transported in this period. A copy is available in The National Archives Library. This book will also tell you where your person was tried.




01 September 2005

convict transportation

we have established that less than 50% of britain's transported convicts were sent to australia and that the rest were sent to the americas and rhe carribean.

now i'm looking for the figures for exactly how many went to virginia and maryland and the other north american colonies.

this article below is amusing in its insistence that whilst yes they did receive some felons, they were not really' felons', orthey were _good_ felons...

yeah right guys

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Some of the men at that time brought into Virginia from New York as convicts were felons only in the eye of martial law. Thus, previous to the year 1665, the English invaders of Long Island attacked New Amstel on South River. Many of the Dutch colonists they sold as slaves in Virginia.3

....

It would not be safe to reckon the total of involuntary emigrants sent forth from the Old Bailey alone as less than 10,000 between 1717 and 1775.

http://dinsdoc.com/butler-1.htm
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post modern culture


current issue


Articles


Works


Reviews

    R. John Williams, Theory and the Democracy to Come. A review of Jacques Derrida, Rogues: Two Essays on Reason. Trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2001.

    Chad Wickman, A Time for Enlightenment. A review of Giovanna Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2003.

    Robert Oventile, Saint Paul: Friend of Derrida? A review of Theodore W. Jennings, Jr., Reading Derrida/Thinking Paul: On Justice. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2005.

    Mario Ortiz-Robles, Being Jacques Derrida. A review of Jacques Derrida, Without Alibi. Ed. and trans. Peggy Kamuf. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2002.



link