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And Then There Were Only Two: On the Evacuation of Art

Thu, 15 May 2008 20:25:28 GMT

I have recently pondered how to write about war – or armed conflict for that matter – and art, and I have come to the conclusion that I simply cannot do it, when I find myself in the midst of it. It’s all cool and funky to theorise about these matters in the safety of fortress Europe, but when you hear the gunshots out of your window and the sound of RPGs being fired, your perspective changes slightly. A friend once chided me – after my 2006 Lebanon summer war experience – that I simply do not have the genetic make-up for it.

In any case, my endeavour is a priori a failure, because immediately I resort to personal narrative, which pales in comparison to the hardships others have to endure, as my Dutch passport is a sure ticket out of any war zone, sooner or later. My tendency for being overtly emphatic is probably why I will never become a journalist or a war correspondent. So in May 2008 I find myself again in Beirut, and in a similar situation to July 2006: marooned, with access to Syrian borders and airport blocked, following the news wires to the minute, my world reduced to 2 streets. It was a bit of a déjà-vu. The big difference was of course that now it was not the Israelis bombing us, but the Lebanese militias battling each other on the streets of Beirut and beyond. Granted, there’s an enormous difference in scale and severity, yet the other time gunmen roamed the streets of Beirut, they were at it for about 15 years. So if history has the nasty tendency to repeat itself, this was not a very promising start. The other big difference was that I was stuck with 5 other international curators, all participating in the Festival International de Film et Video de Creation. I had participated in this festival before in March 2006, and now was delighted to have co-curated a screening for the festival together with my Dutch colleague Bart Rutten. We had decided on putting together a program focusing on the “seasonal”, in and by itself a recurring and tried subject within the arts, especially in the visual arts and film. We had dubbed our selection “Seasonal Cuts”, wherein we wanted to stretch and twist the idea of the seasonal by redirecting the passage of time into the realm of politics and the realm of the playfully absurd. In addition, the works presented each shared a concern with the technical and aesthetic properties of the moving image, so that the edits and cuts become carefully crafted indicators of moments where the slippage of time marks a condition of stasis, or the other way round, where inertia signifies change. The artists we featured were: Driessens Verstappen, Guido van de Werve, Michael Blum, Meiya Lin, Adel Abidin, Manuel Saiz, and Yane Calovski & Fos. Reading our screening concept in retrospect, I think it actually quite aptly describes the Lebanese political condition, where status quo took a seasonal change for the worst, and inaugurated the violence of summer. This being said, it is equally absurd that our screening, which we still held after some intricate debating with the organisers and our tiny audience, was the last cultural event to be held in Beirut, before things really got nasty. Needless to say that the last 2 days of the festival were cancelled. Also the Spring Festival, organised by Al Mawred, with events running simultaneously in Cairo and in Beirut, had to cancel its Beirut program.

For cultural organisers in the region, political instability is something they just have to grapple with. In Europe we fret about enough funding coming in so we can realise our projects, and we hope to keep our staff and colleagues from succumbing to burn-outs, but in addition to these global stresses of the cultural sector, our colleagues in the more unstable regions of the world have to worry whether the political situation will allow them to realise their projects at all. This is of course very much the case for Lebanon and Palestine.

However, let’s get back to the real story. I was glad that I had broadened my repertoire of war time drinks. In 2006 I resorted to gin&tonic, while now I alternated with white wine and mojitos. As in 2006, we (that patchwork group of 6 international curators, journalists, few tourists, and few brave Lebanese) ventured to the only bar opened in deserted Gemayzeh: Torino. In the morning our routine, after breakfast, would be to read the news wires and blogs, and speculate on the developments. To be honest, I did get a bit fed up with that: there’s nothing more irritating than hearing someone’s political analysis, who has just set foot in a place, and who obviously cannot discern Hizbullah from Mustaqbal, let alone what their tiffs and demands are, and who cannot manage to understand why the sending of the USS Cole into Med waters is bad news. So ignoring other hotel dwellers’ nerves and wild political assessments became a bit of a game I played: how many minutes before I start rolling my eyes up to the heavens in irritated despair. It has to be said: patience is not my best virtue, especially not in conflict situations.

What did keep me more in suspense, were the tireless efforts of the Goethe Institut Beirut and ALBA, on whose invitation we were invited to the Festival, to get us out of Lebanon. (thank you Norbert and Ricardo!) Our itinerary kept changing due to the prolonged closure of the airport and Lebanese/Syrian borders, but eventually we heard we could depart via Tripoli along the Northern border. Unfortunately the site of some heavy fighting. Departure wasn’t as easy as it seemed because we could not squeeze ourselves in the cab they had ordered for us. By now it was 7 of us, a very antsy French script doctor, who kept huffing and puffing the 6,5 hour ride from Beirut to Damascus, had joined us.

I could not help but think that there, divided over two taxis, was the metaphorical evacuation of art. Art and culture are the first things to cave in during conflict, because they are (wrongly) regarded as a luxury, and because – more importantly - they require a minimum of mobility on the part of audiences and artists. Once again I had to hear accounts of Lebanese artists having to cancel participation abroad because they simply could not leave the country, or vice versa international artists not being able to come in.

In Tripoli it was first the Lebanese Army who greeted us, a comforting sight, the guys we met some 400mm later, were not so friendly, shuving their Kalashnikovs in our faces. They looked too scruffy and Islamic to be affiliated with Mustaqbal, and later I read that about 500 Salafist Jihadis were operative around Tripoli. Our cab driver had repeatedly yelled “Ajanib, Ajanib” (foreigners, foreigners) to them. Luckily our car did not get pulled over. I do not want to think what that action would’ve done to our poor nervous French script doctor. At the Syrian border there was surprisingly little traffic, but lots of bribing. The reality of war time economy: my Syrian transit visa cost $15, but $35,- was spent on bribing officials into a “smooth” procedure…which still took over an hour. My fellow co-curators drove further on to Amman, where they had respective flights and hotels awaiting them. I remained in Damascus with friend and colleague, the Norwegian artist and curator Per Platou.

The picture you see is of our hotel lobby in Damascus, because I refuse to take part in the visual commodification of war. I refuse to align Beirut and Lebanon’s image with one generic encompassing visual: that of eroticized militia fighters wielding their guns, rubble in deserted streets, and destroyed buildings. The evacuation of art also means the evacuation of a complex and layered image. As culture workers in and outside of Lebanon (or any mediatised site of conflict), we must prevent this from happening.

[While posting this entry, the airport in Beirut has become operative again and border crossing are being reopened. The Arab League has brokered an agreement between the government and opposition parties, further to be discussed tomorrow in Doha. This post is dedicated to all my friends in Beirut, wishing them all the best, and for calm and common sense to prevail.]

ExTra! next activities

Thu, 15 May 2008 14:16:46 GMT

-10-12 July 2008 in Kaustinen, Finland: The « green music » workshop, organised by the International Yehudi Menuhin Foundationl, will be the meeting of very diverse musical practices, although speaking the same language. The idea of this workshop is to make green musicians (the traditional musicians who use plants, minerals, animal parts to make music), meet various forms of today’s music: traditional music of immigrants, multimedia music (techno etc.), contemporary music, improvised music. The aim of this workshop is to connect modern practices to their very ancient roots, and create new languages.
On 13 July, an "open green workshop" will take place in the frame of the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival.

- Symposium on "Musical traditions: from life to stage: issues and challengesof distribution and creation in the frame of the Intangible Cultural Heritage ".

The symposium will focus on following points:

- "From tradition to performance"
- "Deviation and diversion: from cultic to cultural"
- "Plundering of cultural ressources"

More information on the website of the Association Nationale Culture & Traditions .

On 22 July 2008, 10am - 8pm, Gannat, France

Where you can meet us

Thu, 15 May 2008 11:52:19 GMT

EMC Acting Secretary General Simone Dudt as well as new EMC Chairman Timo Klemettinen will attend the European Symposium for Experts on Arts Education organised by the German Commission for UNESCO.
Tuesday, May 27th - Thursday, May 29th 2008 in Wildbad Kreuth (Germany)

International Guerrilla Video Festival- Milan 2008- Open for Submissions

Wed, 14 May 2008 19:20:21 GMT

Milan 12-14 July 2008

Open Call: All entries must be received by Monday 9 June 2008

www.igvfest.com

The International Guerrilla Video Festival (IGVFest) is a mobile festival integrating video art with the urban and social environment. Removing the technologically complex medium of video out of the institutional situation, the videos are re-positioned as an approachable medium in the public domain. The works engage and reflect the unique historical and interpersonal context of each site in the festival. Touring to different sites each evening the videos are projected directly onto the facades of buildings, monuments and temporary structures.

The International Guerrilla Video Festival Milan 2008 will be held 12-14 July in 3 distinct areas of the city: Isola, Chinatown, and Corso Como. The International Guerrilla Video Festival is open to new single channel videos based on the specific conditions of the areas where the festival will be held. Artists who are active in the areas and artists elsewhere addressing similar situations in a different context are invited to apply. Artists are invited to work directly on site where the festival will be shown or elsewhere with similar conditions in other cities.

The same billboards and advertising have become ubiquitous, transforming the urban setting into a homogenous landscape in every city. The festival aims to re-occupy that space infusing it with a reflexive locality showing work created in concert with the community and focusing on issues related to the site. One of the intentions of the festival is to generate discussion between residents of a community fostering new connections between disparate groups and strengthening existing ties. Beginning with the act of viewing the artworks with a neighbor, the common experience provides an opening to start an informal dialogue and counters the atomizing effects of the urban environment.

The IGVFest engages the public on public territory, integrating art with the social environment while liberating video from the confinement of the 'black box'. The festival collaborates with artists to create work specifically focused on the conditions at each site, approaching each site as a confluence of actors including visible and invisible boundaries, the effect of past and present migrations, physical infrastructure and architecture, and the nodes of exchange present. The site itself becomes an integral part of the presentation as its particular characteristics shape the context of the art while the videos add another layer of identity to the space.

Submission Deadline: 9 June 2008

Submission form and further information at www.igvfest.com/festivals.html

The festival is sponsored by UNIDEE Cittadelarte-Fondazione Pistoletto

ZENSORS

Wed, 14 May 2008 12:39:03 GMT

ZENSORS
A Project by Vanini Belarmino
Supported by the Japan Foundation through Performing Arts Japan
Berlin, Germany
21-30 May 2008

The search for balance between media technology and performance is the focus of ZENSORS. This project will gather esteemed Japanese and European artists specialising in collaborative works in the field of contemporary performing arts, media performance and technology. Scheduled on 21-30 May 2008 at different cultural spaces in Berlin, Germany, ZENSORS aspires to highlight the expertise of Japanese artists engaged in innovative creative media and technology processes and at the same time introduce a fresh way of thinking and working together amongst artists of diverse cultural backgrounds and practices.

ZENSORS, supported by the Japan Foundation through Performing Arts Japan, will invite Japanese media performance artists like Naoto Iina, founding director of Dance and Media Japan; Daito Manabe, internationally recognised sound designer and turntablist; Fuyuki Yamakawa, media performance artist known for his voice and performance installations amplifying the sound of his heartbeat with an electronic stethoscope; and Dumb Type’s Takayuki Fujimoto recognised for his expertise in LED lighting design. The invited Japanese artists will be working and undertaking a process of exchange with European artists like Violinist and DJ, David Canisius; choreographers and creative duo, Matanicola; and photographers/media artists, Walkscreen. During this period, a programme designed to lead towards the development of a collaborative work and a series of public performances and installations will be presented at RADIALSYSTEM V and Cookies.

A series of two-day open workshops led by the Japanese artists will also be hosted at the premises of RADIALSYSTEM V and will welcome a mix of creative practitioners such as DJs, VJs, choreographers, dancers, classical musicians, singers, poets, photographers, visual artists, filmmakers and all other enthusiast interested not only in the exploration on media performance technology but of interdisciplinary art practice. As a part of the process, the workshop will be followed by a jamming session at 103 Studio.

ZENSORS will put not only the Japanese and European artists in close contact with one another but also engage Berlin’s audiences who are deemed to act as active participants in the performance creation.

Vanini Belarmino joins the team of Public Art Lab as producer and curator for ZENSORS. This project is presented in cooperation with Cookies, Dance and Media Japan, DMY 2008, RADIALSYSTEM V and 103 Studio/VORSPIEL with EXBERLINER and ZITTY as its media partners. It received special support from Brunnenstrasse Productions, Cine Plus, Kuchi, Rozalb de Mura and 5th berlin biennale for contemporary arts.

Activities at the Glance:
21 May 2008, 23:00 ZENSORS joins DMY Opening Party at Arena
24 May 2008, 21:00 ZENSORS Performance Party at RADIALSYSTEM V
27 May 2008, 21:00 ZENSORS Performance Party at Cookies
25-26 May 2008, 14:00-22:00 Workshop at RADIALSYSTEM V
28-29 May 2008, 14:00-22:00 Workshop at RADIALSYSTEM V
30 May 2008, 21:00, Zensored Night at 103 Studio

Locations:
RADIALSYSTEM V
Holzmarktstr. 33- 10243 Berlin
Spreeufer am Ostbahnhof

COOKIES
Friedrichstrasse/Unter den Linden
Berlin /Mitte
103 Studio at VORSPIEL
Falckensteinstr 47- 10997 Berlin
Kreuzberg

For more information, visit http://www.myspace.com/zensors

The Puzzle Box, Chapter 4

Tue, 13 May 2008 19:08:35 GMT

"Urizen separated out a region from the rest of eternity, shrank it into solid matter, weighed it in his scales, measured it with his rods and plumblines, circumscribed it with his compasses, and wrote laws for it in his great brass-bound books. This sorry region, the region over which Urizen rules, is the universe in which we live..."

The children are kidnapped, then meet a visionary in a field of skylarks, and hear a new story about the creation of the world. They are pursued by baddies in black cars, who seem to be after the box.

http://www.edwardpicot.com/puzzlebox/

- Edward Picot
http://hyperex.co.uk - The Hyperliterature Exchange
http://edwardpicot.com - personal website

Dynnargh dhe Radyo an Gernewegva!

Mon, 12 May 2008 17:24:40 GMT

Just a quick post to say you can now hear Cornish language and music at Radyo an Gernewegva.

New podcast of music and discussion will be avaliable regularly.

Don't be put off by the Cornish, it's a simple website and you'll soon get to know you're way around.

Follow this link: http://www.radyo.kernewegva.com/index.html

Oll an gwella

LIVERPOOL TO HOST _OPEN SOURCE CITY MICRO- FESTIVAL

Mon, 12 May 2008 16:27:05 GMT

20th to 22nd June 2008

A micro-festival of open source practice in the production of media art and music

folly and SoundNetwork are kicking off the Summer with an exciting collaboration bringing a micro-festival of art and music to Liverpool, as part of the European Capital of Culture.

Liverpool has a strong history of doing innovative things with electricity, from the birth of the power grid (Sebastian Ferranti) to the early computer games industry (Psygnosis, Ocean, and ZTT). Liverpool also has a formidable musical legacy inevitably centred around the pop phenomenon of The Beatles but which spans every musical genre from classical to electro.

Open Source City tips its hat to Liverpool's pioneering spirit by offering a programme of art, workshops, masterclasses, talks and concerts that shed light on the growing impact of Free/Libre Open Source Software on the creative practices of today, in particular in media art and music.

"FLOSS" offers opportunities to users, and developers at every skill level to participate in the creative process, starting from the writing of code all the way up to the final mix of your masterpiece. These are tools that have the power to bring people together through creativity, collaboration, knowledge sharing and, importantly, technology. So, how will Open Source play a part in the music and art scenes of the future? Maybe the answer lies in your hands....take part.

Artists and speakers involved include goto10, Access Space, Polytechnic, Simon Blackmore, Tom Chance, MediaShed and 64 Studio... Talks include "The role of FOSS in urban regeneration" and a brief philosophical tour of "Copyright and Freedom". The hub of the festival is at Mello Mello in the heart of Liverpool's creative quarter; 40-42 Slater St, Liverpool L1 4BX.

To view the whole programme for the festival, please download the pdf Festival Programme, and to book a paid workshop, download the workshop booking form. Both available from folly's website at http://www.folly.co.uk/click/1060/9

Open Source City is a Liverpool European Capital of Culture Commission - a micro-festival of open source practice in media art and music presented by folly and SoundNetwork.

A Cultural Commission for Liverpool 2008 European Capital of Culture. Supported by Arts Council England and P H Holt Trust.

Dublin fringe Festival seeks new Director

Mon, 12 May 2008 12:14:38 GMT

Dublin Fringe Festival Seeks New Director

The Dublin Fringe Festival is one of Ireland’s leading multi-disciplinary festivals, covering theatre, Dance, Visual Art, Spectacle and other disciplines. The Festival is curated by the Director and the team.

This is an exciting opportunity for the right candidate with organisational and leadership skills and the necessary artistic vision and drive.

To request and application pack, including a job description and person specification, please email wendy@fringefest.com

Closing Date fro applications is Friday 23rd May 2008 at 5pm.

Solving the barriers of intercultural communications

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:15:39 GMT

Appreciating that individuals from different cultural backgrounds have different cultural customs, norms and expectations is vital for success in international communication. Interpersonal contacts could happen for private or business reasons and purposes, but intercultural communication is important in both cases.
Reading guides on cultural diversity could immensely help in establishing good intercultural communications. There are many guides and information available on the net and in libraries/bookshops. I have personally contributed to develop one of these guides, "How to speak culturese", putting my experience of an Italian living abroad in use for others. In cultural terms, those guides explain the best ways to make contact, host a meeting, enjoy a meal abroad. The knowledge of cultural differences is also important when meeting foreign guests at home. Nobody wants to offend others unintentionally, and these guides teach those little culture p's and q's.
Cultural awareness guides are also very helpful when communicating on the net, in forums, blogs and chat rooms. The internet is serving as an international communication medium; if you reach the rest of the world with your website/blog/message, your hope is that the rest of the world will then respond in some way, and you must be prepared to it.
Intercultural knowledge is also vital in business when creating a new brand name or logo. For example, Gerber, the name of a baby food maker, is also a French word for vomiting. Simple faux pas can sink you. Learning the customs and culture of a foreign country signals communication competence and shows a great respect for others. Culture speaks louder than words.

“Intercultural dialogue is not only about communication but about working together”

Fri, 09 May 2008 20:13:28 GMT

These words are an extraction from the publication An Alternative Gaze-a shared reflection on cross-Mediterranean cooperation in the arts, which is an outcome of the Mediterranean Reflection group (initiated by the European Cultural Foundation) that took place between 2006-2007. The publication contains sharp, energising and engaging viewpoints and examples of projects that show how cultural cooperation between Europe and the Southern Mediterranean works, what are the challenges and disappointments of curators, artists, journalists, and whether practitioners, funders and policy makers are dealing with the same set of questions.

“Funders can and should do more than simply give money or offer their resources”, say Abdelaziz Taleb and Abdellatif Benfaidoul. This is only one of the many sincere comments in the publication around the shared belief that dialogue, consulting, distribution of results and real partnership between funders and grantees is needed for an effective Euro-Mediterranean cultural cooperation. Here are few more highlights of the stories, essays and interviews in the publication:
- “There is a fear that the region does not become a shopping centre for Western curators”
- “Western contemporary art forms tend to be “imposed” on local audiences”
- “Cultural cooperation is a powerful tool only when considered in a partnership context from the perspective of the “other”
- “Cultural initiatives are successful only in cases of a good cooperation between stakeholders”
- What are the ingredients to make a strong NGO sector and are they different for different regions and countries?
- Usually non-governmental funding for cultural cooperation projects fills a gap left open by the state, but then how big is this gap and does international funding really contributing efficiently there, knowing well the needs?

Read more here. ECF is continuing to advocate, together with other funders and partners, the importance of building real long-term partnership across the Mediterranean. There is an online dossier, in which ECF has collected various documents and interesting material on cross-Mediterranean cooperation in the contemporary arts and culture. It contains essays, portraits, personal stories, interviews with the aim to facilitate new ways of cooperation across borders.

Look at LabforCulture Open Lines to Intercultural Dialogue project (inviting everyone to share personal interpretations of intercultural dialogue) to see is the expression "working together" used to describe this term, and if yes, how many times...

Big news for big urban screens.

Wed, 07 May 2008 21:33:04 GMT

This is an invitation for everyone involded in art for urban screens.

UrbanScreensArt.net can be seen as a marketplace for videos, specially made for urban-screens.

If you are an organization or a curator of a big public screen in search for art, you can find it in our catalogue, and you can present your screen in the Partners section of our site.

If you are a collector, an agent or an organization that wants to let or lend video-works you can become a USA-member. USA-members can contribute to the catalog and let works from their own collection.

Please have a visit and get in contact.

http://www.urbanscreensart.net

Small news about a really small magazine.

Wed, 07 May 2008 21:23:39 GMT

Our website http://www.picozine.com has entered a new stage.
You are invited to have a look. Create your own minimagazine, a 'Pico', or download the Picos of others. Print, fold, staple, cut en distribute.

Living With Jesus - An Experiment

Tue, 06 May 2008 11:12:01 GMT

On April 14th I started a project called "Living With Jesus". Over 6 months I collected 50 Jesus images, prints and paintings on flea markets and on ebay. Not because I'm religious (completely impartial agnostic, me), but simply because I noticed that people were trying to get rid of their Jesus images.

On April 12th I had them placed on the walls of my tiny apartment in Stuttgart. Since Monday 14th I'm spending one day with each Jesus image, I invite and welcome guests who have to fill out a questionnaire and obviously I analyze the gathered data.

The main language of the project is english to be widely understandable and the project makes use of flickr, youtube, vimeo and google maps, besides the actual project space itself.

The project will run until the end of June, every minute of it is documented by a "surveillance camera" placed on one wall, which is set to make one picture every minute. The images will be edited into a time-lapse movie.

A photographer will take portraits of 50 of my guests. These portraits will form an exhibition together with the "original" Jesus images.

To find out more, to participate: http://www.living-with-jesus.com

New EMC Board

Tue, 06 May 2008 09:01:35 GMT

A new Board has been elected by the Annual Meeting in Brno, Czech Republic, 18-20 April 2008.

· Timo Klemettinen – Chairman
(Secretary General of the Finnish Music Council)

· Christian Höppner – Vice-chairman
(Secretary General of the German Music Council)

· Stef Coninx – Treasurer
(Secretary of the International Association of Music Information Centres)

· Petra Mohorčič
(President of Jeunesses Musicales Slovenia)

· Harald Huber
(President of the Austrian Music Council)

· Erling Aksdal
(Head of the Jazz Department, Faculty of Arts at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway)

· Ugis Prauliņš
(Chairman of the Latvian Composers’ Union)

· Daphne Wassink – Co-opted member of the Board
(Chairperson of the Working Group Youth)

Discover the world's largest youth music NGO... Jeunesses Musicales International

Mon, 05 May 2008 13:54:23 GMT

The global network of Jeunesses Musicales International (JMI) is an NGO serving young people since 1945, offering a wide array of projects and programs for young people to discover music and develop their talent.

Its activities are worldwide and diverse - everything from summer music camps to professional training and tours - and now there is one place to find out about all international opportunities and events: www.jmi.net

The new website is being launched 28 April 2008 and reflects the many faces of JMI's member organizations in 45 countries and the 5 million young people who get involved in JMI activities each year.

Huge in scope and packed full of music and videos, the JMI website is a hub of information on member activities and is at the heart of a vibrant global movement, empowering youth and connecting communities through the arts.

Upcoming this season:

The World Youth Choir, a UNESCO Artist for Peace will perform during the opening of the 2008 Olympics at the Equestrian Venue in Hong Kong...

Music Crossroads prepares for Southern Africa's greatest musical showdown - the massive InterRegional Festival and competition this summer in Malawi featuring young bands from Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe!

The exciting World Orchestra of Jeunesses Musicales that received huge acclaim during their last European tour will head to Canada in Summer 2008...

Young, talented and on the move? Get your musical passport today at JMI.net and begin to discover the global network of musical adventures that is waiting for you to jump aboard!

Contact:
Kate Declerck & Matt Clark
JMI Communications
press@jmi.net
www.jmi.net

minutopia - call for NEW 1-minute silent documentaries

Fri, 02 May 2008 19:08:50 GMT

Global Call!

minutopia: new actualities for a new world
Call for new 1-minute silent documentaries of your region.
Postmark Deadline: May 31, 2008
http://silversunscreen.blogspot.com/

***

COCA Center for Outdoor Contemporary Art presents

minutopia: new actualities for a new world

project summary
"minutopia: new actualities for a new world" celebrates the magic and mystery of our viewable world through new artist-made documentaries that creatively explore in minutiae the familiar marvels of our contemporary age. Extending the rich legacy of cinema’s earliest documentary achievements, these new “actualities” offer vivid examples of the hidden poetry and lyricism found in our waking life. Crowds, street-scenes, animals, tasks, transportation, nature, art and architecture – plus curious oddities and events all unfold to offer unexpected insight or passing fancy to audiences of all ages.

more details and guidelines
http://silversunscreen.blogspot.com/

www.cocanow.org

PPYUART: Socialist Modernism and Partisan Culture

Thu, 01 May 2008 23:04:25 GMT

I got interested in 'partisans' through the two projects I was working on at the end of 2001: one was the art historical analysis of the socialist modernist cycle of murals by a Croatian painter Krsto Hegedušić - memorial to the WWII, dedicated to the anti-fascist struggle of Yugoslav Partisans and the principles of sovereignty of Yugoslav Socialist state; the second was the ideological analysis of the cultural policies in Serbia after Milošević and so-called democratic changes on the example of cultural journalism in the newspapers and other press clipping collected by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade. What attracted my attention in the both analysis was a certain political Iconophilia, that is belief in the power of the image - the power of transmission from "representation" to "represented", characteristic for the Orthodox-Christian theory of icon/image. In the first example it was manifested through devastation of the murals during the wars in Bosnia in the 90s. New military formations passing trough were shooting from automatic weapons at the images, demonstrating the belief that ongoing wars and suffers are not caused by them - the active warriors, but precisely by Tito and his partisans, because they kept the nations in the prison of supra-national Yugoslav ideological state, and that therefore they should be punished and removed, even as the pictographic documents. The second example, connected to the representation of culture in the new-democratic Serbian state in the field of popular journalism, has shown that the most attention [the biggest number of articles during the six months period] was dedicated to the modest retrospective of provincial and average painter Mihailo Milovanović, for whom the public should get to know about only because he was executed by the partisans during the WWII. This programmatic fact was highlighted in all the articles. Both examples are showing not only the common cultural strategies of post-socialist revisionist politics, but are created to allegedly liberate the culture from the chains of ideology - and this is the tendency that is at the same time linked to the geopolitical and historical moment, but it is also universal - valid for the dominant framework of aesthetical analysis [from the standpoint of victorious capitalism] in the XX and XXI century. This viewpoint reclaims the tendentious autonomisation of the field of culture and the romantic subject of the authorship. This viewpoint also proclaims partisans to be enemies of culture: they are burning down the libraries, executing painters, expose actor's troupes to exuberant investigations and court of law procedures. [it has been the topic of the numerous TV series, films and texts created during the 90s in all the former Yugoslav states, but also in the international context].

Discussing partisan culture under the term of 'anti-fascist symbolic production', Slovene philosopher Rastko Močnik says that we are capable to observe partisan 'creativity' as culture and art today only because it is finally liberated from its original ideological imprisonment/captivity, and set up in the framework of modern aesthetic ideology [culture today implies distance, disinterest, oblivion and even hypocritical ignorance of its own conditions, possibilities and consequences]. In other words, partisan creativity is more readable and more watchable now because its historical consequences had been removed. Rastko Močnik asserts that 'partisan creativity precisely wanted to act ideologically by artistic means' and that 'therefore the standpoint which in ideology sees the opposition to art or its negation, which the relation between ideology and art sees in the terms of servility, that's why this modern, bourgeois view, remains blind for the historical innovation of partisan creativity'. He explains this historical innovation through the simultaneity of people liberation struggle and cultural revolution: 'partisan cultural revolution is radical not because it transforms the 'inner' formation/order of culture or the very position of 'cultural sphere' in the social structure, but because it removes the cultural sphere which by its own existence embodies barbarity of the classes on power and re-establishes culture in the sphere of human emancipation'.

All these examples and interpretations makes me interested in the discussion about partisans as enemies of culture, or what does it mean to be enemy of culture, and does this tactical approach contains any emancipatory potential today? This question appears to me as a relevant, especially because contemporary culture and contemporary art in their majestatic forms of art biennials and concurrent critical discussions meticulously build and insist upon the concept of international friendship supported by that very field of culture. In this context, any attempt of critique, harsh and engaged critique, easily ends up in the polite representation of the friendship of the all the people of the world. This is just one of the consequences of neo-liberal strategy of culturalisation followed by the export of political issues into the sphere of cultural production and attempts to conceive the culture as the site of [symbolic] overcoming of political problems [... of race, class differences etc]. And this makes contemporary art to be the ultimate symbol of neo-liberal, globalist modernization and is the reason of its recent popularity worldwide.

The second topic worth discussing here is the historical notion of 'socialist modernism' and 'socialist modernization', connected to the Yugoslav governmental concept of 'self-management' and 'relative autonomy of culture', as the possible different/opposite way to join the ongoing discussions about 'XX century modernity', 'art autonomy', 'meaning of form' etc. Arising from the partisan cultural revolution, this language of modernism at the same time resisted the universal, allegedly a-political and de-ideologized tendency of the human progress, as well as purely formalist, contemplative and self-referential status of art.

Contribute to your Europe

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:16:25 GMT

From now until 16 May you can rewrite how Europe should tackle cultural diversity. Help shape the future by going online and responding to a paper produced by the 'Rainbow Platform' (Civil Society Platform for Intercultural Dialogue, an initiative of the ECF and Culture Action Europe (EFAH), facilitated by LabforCulture.

You can comment on the recommendations in the paper and even add your own submissions! Just go to the site http://rainbowplatform.labforculture.org, read Rainbow Paper II and contribute your comments/changes.

This paper brings many issues of intercultural dialogue to the fore. Should there be a system of monitoring and reporting on the practice of intercultural dialogue, and if so, who should do this? Is it right that the EU should 'mainstream' diversity policies in its various programmes? Can there be an agreed 'European standard' for supporting culture?

The set of recommendations is very much a work-in-progress. Your constructive feedback is absolutely vital. The results will be discussed at a plenary meeting of the Rainbow Platform in Brussels on June 4th 2008 - the same date on which the Platform becomes an officially recognised discussion partner with the EU institutions.

The Rainbow Paper process started in January 2008 at the launch of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue and the start of the Slovenian EU Presidency.

Let the platform know your thoughts. The Platform intends to present a set of standard-setting recommendations at the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue 2008 closing colloquium.

To read the paper and contribute: http://rainbowplatform.labforculture.org

Doing the Cairo Crush

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:07:00 GMT

I am celebrating my 10-day anniversary in Cairo. There’s much to celebrate because till now I haven’t been run over by insane traffic (yet), did not succumb to traveller’s illnesses, heat stroke, or to inner city pollution (yet), and have managed to remain (moderately) sane. Cairo, the City Victorious perhaps because she stubbornly refuses to become completely defeated, is a multiple assault on the senses. Noise, smells (not all that good), flashy colours, crowds, dust, dirt, traffic…it is at times a bit too overwhelming, especially if you live in the midst of it all: Downtown. Downtown (or Wust el Balad) is full of beautiful late 19th Century architecture if you can look past the grime and decay. It used to be a bourgeois Parisian-modelled neighbourhood, but now is haunted by tourists visiting the Egyptian Museum, frequenting the many travel agencies, and the area is plagued by far too many cars, and brightly lit shops. Yet as is the case with many things in Cairo, there are pockets of beauty to be found, if you can muster the patience. I have to admit though, that if only the pace of pedestrians would be as rapid as that of the cars roaring at you (except when you’re actually sitting in one, and seem to be stuck in traffic all the time), it would be easier to navigate the sidewalks, and get to your destination. Nevertheless, generosity will be awarded with generosity – at least, that is what I am telling myself.

So my blog reports will slightly shift geography a bit, covering adventures in arts and culture around the Middle East, as I will be curator-in-residence for a full year at the Townhouse Gallery in Cairo and travelling around the region. This being said, nothing is as good a familiarisation of place, as being dropped smack in the middle of a country’s incomprehensible bureaucracy. I always thought The Netherlands were pretty bad, but I might have to revisit that idea after spending half a day at Egypt’s monstrous and malfunctioning bureaucratic heart: the Mugamma. Constructed in the 1950’s, on what’s now Midan Tahrir (ironically Freedom square – though any demonstration is Egypt is violently short-lived), “the complex” was supposed to be the epitome of efficient centralized bureaucracy. 70 years later, the over 1300 offices in its labyrinthine space are impossible to navigate for Egyptians (and definitely foreigners). Actually, many an Egyptian just basically hires someone who knows the way in the maze, and how to pull strings, push bribes or baqsheesh (tips) where necessary in order to speed up things. With over 130.000 (!) people on the meager pay roll, it is hardly as surprise that clerks are completely demotivated and that tips are badly needed in order to top up their low salaries.

In true Kafkaesque style, I wandered through its hallways, and lo and behold, did not detect one single computer. Everything is still handwritten (!) into piles of dusty logs. True paper horror! It is as if the notion of the paperless office much pushed in the early ‘90’s never reached Egypt. It was as if experiencing a time warp: endless rows of numbered counters with bored-looking clerks eating snacks, gossiping with their colleagues, and trying very hard to ignore the people queuing up. The striking thing about the clerks is that many of them are women and seem to share a fondness for layers of make-up, whilst their hair is neatly tucked under their hijab of course. They seem to have become experts in practicing a totally disinterested look and looking right through you, as if you had no body mass whatsoever.

And so it befell me to get a one-year temporary residence, and a multiple entry visa: 2 separate things, but of course you do not know that when you start your adventure; plenty of different counters too visit too, and of course always more fees. This being said: I was double lucky, because on the one hand I had an Egyptian friend with me, who kept telling me numerous times: “ok, Nat, wait here.” And he would scoot off to return with yet another application form, yet another few stamps, or photocopies. My other streak of luck was that I did not hear the much-dreaded “come back tomorrow” mantra. Actually, the whole process only took an exhausting half-day. This being said, my multiple entry visa is only 6 months valid, so in half a year the whole story can recommence again.

In the meantime, I also took a train to Alexandria. Being used to the Dutch NS, which has managed to trigger much of my scorn, I have to say that this first experience of Egyptian railroads was an excellent one. My train even left 2’ early! See, there are surprises everywhere…