Yearly Archives: 2012

Video Vortex #9 – Re:assemblies of Video

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Video Vortex #9, Re:assemblies of Video, is conceived and hosted by the Moving Image Lab and Post-Media Lab of the Innovation Incubator at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany. The conference will be held from February 28 until March 2, 2013. The call for contribution is open until 31 August 2012.

Online video vortices such as Youtube, are assemblages of assemblages: its infrastructure and spheres of use and production again consist of assemblages. The video sphere today is a mesh of different types of elements; we have databases, screens, interfaces, protocols and server farms. Comments, tags, lists and channels, cameras, producers, frames, users and audiences. Last, but not least, money flows, broadcasters, advertisers, property rights, eyeballs and statistics, all add to, and operate in multiple assemblages.

Currently there are new configurations of components in video culture, interacting in new ways and with loose forms of influence. VideoVortex #9 proposes that now is a time to re-engage with a structural and contextual analysis of online video culture.

The Video Vortex encourage critics, theorists, artists, programmers and video makers to look at:

  • 1.)… assemblages of different videos, graphics and texts, be it in material or with a view to new environments of authoring or curation. Such an approach re-poses the question of interactive multi- and hypermedia in the age of html-5, Popcorn, Apps and the likes.
  • 2.)… assemblages of content, interfaces and infrastructures, as found in platforms, with their changing forms and logics of circulation, and to scrutinize media-‘flows’, ‘liveness’, ‘channels’, ‘archives’, ‘lists’, and producing ‘dissolving originals’ and new forms of mash-ups.
  • 3.)… socio-cultural assemblages of producers, owners, curators and perceptive ‘audiences’. The conditions and social realities of video- and TV-production, issues of copyright and re-organization of ‘imaginary’ capital evoke questions as to what extent technology, standards and protocols – and their symbolisms – are taking over the role of what before has been ascribed to ‘culture’.
  • 4.)… assemblages contributing to ruptures and revolts: Indeed „the whole world is watching“ different real or so-called ‘revolutions’: social upheavals are transmitted via video. What does it mean to be an ‘observer’ (individually, socially or scientifically), a ‘participant’ or a ‘witness’? Questions of relevance, media positioning and ‘real virtuality’ are are gaining new urgency.

If you want to know more about it, you can read the Video Vortex_Call_flyer here.

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

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The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts and Festivals Edinburgh team up for a Greener Fringe.

The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts (CSPA) is current taking applications for the 2012 Fringe Festival Award for Sustainable Production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, designed to reward sustainable practice in the production of a fringe show. This, the third, year, the award and programming is being coordinated with Festivals Edinburgh and Creative Carbon Scotland, who have joined forces to create the Edinburgh Festivals Green Venue Guide and will be bringing festival participants a series of high profile events at Fringe Central.

The Award for Sustainable Production looks at public communication and education, resource use and transportation in support of presenting a fringe show. The award has been developed to integrate the ground breaking work of Julie’s Bicycle’s IG Tools and San Diego’s Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company, who has created a comprehensive Green Theater Choices Toolkit. To be considered for the award, a production fills out an online questionnaire with questions that range from an inventory of materials used, to what public transportation lines run close to venues, to how themes about sustainability may be revealed in their shows.

This Monday, the 6th of August, join us for  How to Be a Greener Fringe Show, at 14:00 at Fringe Central (venue #2). It is a practical workshop, getting into the nitty gritty of greener shows including everything from touring to publicity, set design to audience engagement. In addition, Ian Garrett from the CSPA will be on hand after the presentation to answer questions about the award for sustainable production and its application process.

Internationalism and the Environment, at Fringe Central, Saturday 18th August at 11:30, will be a panel discussion with David Grieg, internationally performed playwright, Kate Ward, General Manager of the London International Festival of Theatre, and Ian Garrett, Director of the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts.

Join us for What’s the Big Idea? at Fringe Central on Wednesday 22nd August at 16:00. This session will be an open forum for a chance for you to air your views on how the arts can engage with environmental issue and how can we make next year’s Fringe the greenest Fringe. This event will include provocations from Erica Whyman, Artistic Director of Northern Stage, and Anthony Alderson, Director of the Pleasance Theatre Trust.

To help get the greening of the Fringe going, there will also be two Reuse and Recycle Days on Monday 27th and Tuesday 28th August from 11:00 – 16:00 where you can bring Unused flyers, unwanted props, usable furniture, gorgeous costumes, venue and set construction materials for  A combination recycling depot and free rummage sale at Fringe Center.

IMPORTANT DATES: 

Monday 6th August (14:00)

  • How to Be a Greener Fringe Show - a practical workshop, getting into the nitty gritty of greener shows including everything from touring to publicity, set design to audience engagement.

Saturday 18th August (11:30)

  • Internationalism and the Environment – a panel discussion with David Grieg, internationally-performed playwright, Kate Ward, General Manager of the London International Festival of Theatre, and Ian Garrett, Director of the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts.

Wednesday 22nd August (16:00) 

Monday 27th August (11:00 – 16:00) & Tuesday 28th August (11:00 – 16:00)

  • Reuse and Recycle Days - where you can bring Unused flyers, unwanted props, usable furniture, gorgeous costumes, venue and set construction materials for  A combination recycling depot and free rummage sale.

All events are free and unticketed.

Events are at Fringe Central, Appleton Tower, Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9LE

MORE INFO:

CSPA Fringe Initiatives: https://www.sustainablepractice.org/programs/fringe/

2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe Questionnaire: https://docs.google.com/a/sustainablepractice.org/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFdDS2Z6NXBlQVVDdEROQ0NyMnNMb0E6MQ#gid=0

Edinburgh Festivals Green Venues Guide:  http://www.efgreen.co.uk/

Creative Carbon Scotland: http://www.creativecarbonscotland.com/

For more information on these events, or to find out how to take part in the Edinburgh Festivals’ environmental projects, contact the Environment Officer, Harry Giles at Festivals Edinburgh.

2° Celsius = 565 gigatons but 2,795 gigatons = $27 trillion

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

I normally criticise environmentalists using financial numbers, but Bill McKibben’s argument in August’s Rolling Stone is based on really interesting numbers:

167 countries are signed up to the 2° target (keep the impact of climate change within this range).

565 gigatons is the amount of carbon we can release into the atmosphere (roughly speaking) before we cross the 2° threshold (maybe).  That’s just 16 years on current projections.

2,795 gigatons is what the current reserves of coal and oil based on fossil fuel industry reporting.

$27 trillion is what this represents on the balance sheets of the fossil fuel companies.

Read on here.

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.
Go to EcoArtScotland

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“ID”ographs!

This post comes to you from Cultura21

“ID”ographs is a drawing activity in which you create your own personally meaningful symbol.

It is a publication of ARTSpring, a China-based curatorial hub that brings art practitioners together with organizations that are searching for new ways of carrying out their activities and connecting with people. IDographs was designed as part of an ongoing workshop series held with a group of university and high-school students in Shanghai.

For more information about ARTSpring programs and publications, please visit art-spring.org

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Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

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Greening Shakespeare

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

The Very Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa. Jun 6 – October 13 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Kellie Gutman writes:

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival was founded in 1935 and is one of the oldest and largest non-profit theatres in the United States.  They operate over an eight-and-a-half-month schedule, with eleven plays, three theaters and 780 performances.  Approximately 400,000 persons are in attendance at their facility in Ashland, Oregon.  The OSF has an operating budget of $26 million.

Katie Gomez, Physical Plant Assistant, is the Green Task Force Coordinator. When asked how the OSF promotes ‘greening’ their operations, she writes:

OSF has a long list of things we do to be more sustainably aware and green.  Besides recycling paper, one of the easiest things to do here, we are now recycling batteries, some plastics, and a multitude of items used in building sets.  Many costumes are reworked from many made before, from our vast warehouse of costumes.  We do not sell plastic bottles of water anymore – a container given or purchased is filled from fountains.  The Scene Shop uses denim insulation.  We use CFL whenever possible.  As soon as LED’s are more affordable, we will switch to those.  In some instances we do use them now.  This is just the tip of what we do here.  We are constantly trying to do more.

Katie added that although they have not done a production that is specifically “green”, the Green Task Force is working on promoting this idea to the Artistic Staff.

“ashdenizen blog and twitter are consistently among the best sources for information and reflection on developments in the field of arts and climate change in the UK” (2020 Network)

ashdenizen is edited by Robert Butler, and is the blog associated with the Ashden Directory, a website focusing on environment and performance.
The Ashden Directory is edited by Robert Butler and Wallace Heim, with associate editor Kellie Gutman. The Directory includes features, interviews, news, a timeline and a database of ecologically – themed productions since 1893 in the United Kingdom. Our own projects include ‘New Metaphors for Sustainability’, ‘Flowers Onstage’ and ‘Six ways to look at climate change and theatre’.

The Directory has been live since 2000.

Go to The Ashden Directory

Land Art Generator Initiative

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Saturday 28th August 2012. Staten Island, NY.

LAGI invites the general public to join them for an anonymous preview of the submissions to the 2012 LAGI NYC design competition for Freshkills Park. They will also be providing free copies of  the new version of A Field Guide to Renewable Energy Technologies, a book that details all of the different methods by which clean energy can be safely harnessed from nature.

For more information and to download the book, please visit www.landartgenerator.org

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

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The Reverend Billy says OCCUPY and 350.ORG—You Come Down Here and Embrace!

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

This is the cover story in Brooklyn Rail…

On Henry Street just uptown from Foley Square in Manhattan, there is a church called Mariners’ Temple. One Sunday we were among hundreds of folks listening while Mother Henrietta Carter preached. She stood up there, white-robed, and gestured out across the assembled faithful. “We need to see some embracing today,” Mother Carter said, and then she explained that two families were blessed just recently with newborn babies, in the same week.

She boomed out: “I want you two families—come down here and embrace each other! We’ll wait! Oh, you come down here! I know you two families been quarreling about something, you don’t speak much anymore. Oh we all know about it. Now—You come down here and you embrace each other. You bring those babies with you!”

The two families slowly came to Mother Carter and embraced. They were in tears. People called out “Praise!”

Embrace

As you see from the title of my little sermon, I am asking the people from two movements, 350.org and Occupy Wall Street, to do the same.  Read on…

Also of interest a review of Nature, the new volume in The Whitechapel’s Documents of Contemporary Art series.

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.
Go to EcoArtScotland

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