Radical media, politics and culture.

Culture

February 24, 2005 - 5:39pm -- jim
Reviews
Culture

"In Central Park"

Hal Foster

"The Gates", the orange portals and banners that punctuated many of the paths in Central Park from 12 to 27 February, were greeted with great delight. People were first softened up by the numbers – 7532 portals, 5290 tons of steel, 60 miles of vinyl tubing, 116,389 miles of pleated nylon, 23 miles of trails, $21 million in costs – and then worked over by all the wacky presentations by the Bulgarian-born Christo and his French-born partner Jeanne-Claude (she of the punk-red hair). Contemporary art is big, bright, expensive and eager to please, right? So maximise these qualities, involve as many people as possible (640 paid workers to assemble the gates and 340 volunteer ‘ambassadors’ to open them), and you have a winning formula. Scale of work and size of audience will trump everything else (the hero of the piece might be the head engineer), and the piece will triumph as spectacle. If the actual location of The Gates was the park, its effective site was the global media (including the souvenir market online): that is to say, its site was everywhere.

February 7, 2005 - 8:57am -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Culture

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Paul McCartney, Super Bowl Anarchist?

Anonymous Comrade


Fox and the Super Bowl thought they had it all figured out. They figured they'd avoid controversy all together by featuring unarguably one of, if not the most respected pop musicians of all time. Simple and sweet, one act, a maturing white man playing four of what most would agree are some of the greatest pop songs ever recorded. Classics, (as in Coca Cola Classic) sung by a classic, who laid the groundwork for popular music period. No dancers, no big current names, no young blood, instead a seasoned professional reciting what amounts at this point to elevator music.

Despite this idiot proof plan, despite the projections of patriotic images, Fox/NFL would not get there way so easily. Despite the giant card display that taunted "Na Na Na" in red white and blue at the colonized world, watching from their couches, a statement as controversial if not more than last years was made. The broadcast delay and the censors could do nothing.

February 6, 2005 - 6:01pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Culture

E. Heroux writes:

"The Fascist Church"

E. Heroux

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter." — Adolf Hitler, in a speech on April 12th, 1922.

It goes without saying that only some Christians are fascists; that not all Christians are fascists; that a few Christians went so far as to oppose fascism, for example under the Nazis in Germany. A few openly opposed Hitler's plans even when threatened with punishment of death, as in the tragic case of the Christian intellectual, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. But it doesn't go without saying that most Christians in Germany willingly followed Hitler and supported the rise of the Nazis. And it doesn't go without saying that a substantial number of American Christians are now crypto-fascists as I began to suggest in a previous blog.


It bears repeating this history lesson here as nobody was taught it, (and I do apologize for the seeming cliche of having to drag in tired old Hitler yet again!). Be we live in ahistorical times where the entire past is like some dark basement we've never wondered about, but rather papered over with childish myths and Hollywood fantasies; where "reality-based" is somehow wrongheaded; where people shake their heads in denial when confronted with facts; where ahistoric anachronism rules in vapid ignorance not only of the past but equally of our own present, about which few know anything at all worth knowing. So, off my pulpit and onto just the facts:

January 31, 2005 - 12:36pm -- hydrarchist
Analysis & Polemic
Culture

Alan Moore writes:

From ZNet, the Parecon section
http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm

A Call to Artists: Support Parecon

by Jerry Fresia; December 15, 2004

A history of art over the last 100 years, not as the history of the product, the piece, but as the history of decision making within our industry, is the history of investors acquiring greater control over the distribution, the definition, and the making of art products – and thus over who we are. It is the history of power slipping further from the people who make the piece to the people who profit from the piece. Yes, there are individual art stars aplenty. But as workers in an industry, we are being ground into dust.

January 27, 2005 - 12:10pm -- jim
Announcements
Culture

"Glowlab" New York City Psychogeographers Update

Christina Ray,


Dear friends of Glowlab,


As some of you may know, we've been working behind the scenes for the past several months to build ourselves a brand new website. We're excited to announce that beginning in mid-March, Glowlab will be published in the form of a bi-monthly web-based magazine for psychogeographic projects. Our regular members and guest contributors are getting set to bring you fresh psychogeographic adventures in the form of performances, walks, interventions, multimedia/tech-based work and more. Project documentation and related articles will be published in every issue, and we'll offer a running calendar of offline events for public participation.

January 25, 2005 - 8:51am -- jim
News
Culture

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"Carlos Cortez Dies at Age 81:
Social Issues Inspired Artist"
Chicago Tribune, January 23, 2005

Before Carlos Cortez decided to buy a home, his wife, Mariana, first had to convince him it would be in his best economic interest. He dreaded supporting a capitalist system that he believed cheated the common man out of a living wage.

But buying the home was a decision he would never regret. For the next 30 years, the basement became a studio for Mr. Cortez and his wood- and linoleum-cut graphics, and the living room became a gathering place for strangers who quickly became friends.

There, surrounded by the artist's black and white prints that inspired so many, poets and painters explored how art could incite social change, shed light on poor and disenfranchised populations, celebrate indigenous cultures and promote peace — all principles that inspired Mr. Cortez to create art.

Mr. Cortez, 81, a poet, muralist and graphic artist, whose portrayals of the challenges facing the common man are on display in neighborhood galleries and the Smithsonian Institution, died of heart failure Wednesday, Jan. 19, in his Northwest Side home.

January 19, 2005 - 9:29am -- jim
Events
Culture

CadmusOnez writes:

"Weed and Seed The Village"

New York City, Jan. 26, 2005

Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir

St. Mark's Church in the Bowery

January 26 2005 8:00pm

$10 (no-one turned away), 10th St and 2nd Ave

contact info: Michael ONeil

917-825-3562

bulletin@revbilly.com



Radical Reverend Sows Seeds For Future of Public Space



A city like New York should treasure every inch of greenery, but "developers" constantly harass community gardeners and City Hall provides no defense. Reverend Billy, the Obie Award winning founder of the Church of Stop Shopping, will dedicate his January 26, 2005 performance at St. Mark's Church in the Bowery to supporting these holy horticulturalists and their preservation of public space. "Community gardens are the canary in a coal mine for civic space in New York" warns Bill Talen, aka Reverend Billy.

January 17, 2005 - 6:12am -- nolympics
Reviews
Culture

s0metim3s writes

Australia on the edge

Angela Mitropoulos, reviewing Allaine Cerwonka, Native to the Nation: Disciplining Landscapes and Bodies in Australia, Borderlines 21, University of Minnesota Press, 2004.

Allaine Cerwonka’s Native to the Nation explores the everyday details of claims to ownership of — as well as and belonging in — Australia's postcolonial landscape. The attention to that detail is impressive.

So too are the analytical connections made between landscape, spatial control and geopolitics as Cerwonka puts some of Foucault’s concerns to work in examining how 'contemporary state power depends on the disciplining of territories and 'the production of docile bodies.' What makes Native to the Nation much more than another textbook Foucault is the attention to those details of contingency that Foucault insisted on, in this case: the specificity of the postcolonial territory of Australia, always located precariously on the edge of both ownership and beloning.

January 12, 2005 - 9:24am -- jim
News
Culture

suzanne klotz writes:

"Arizona City Arts and Culture Commissioner Calls for Art Censorship"
Suzanne Klotz


In June 2004 I enrolled as a student in a college digital story telling workshop to create a digital introduction to a book I recently completed. The content of my digital story includes:

1) Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights that I witnessed in Palestine between 1991 and 1995;
2) Quotes by rabbis stating that the Israeli Zionist government falsely represents itself as being affiliated with Judaism and Jews.
3) Excerpts from letters written to Ariel Sharon by Israeli soldiers who are imprisoned because they won't inflict war crimes on the entire Palestinian population.

Knowing this is a sensitive subject I requested that the president of the college view my story on two separate occasions before the college was credited with the production. I was assured both times that it had been viewed and the college wanted and required production credit.

January 1, 2005 - 4:17pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Culture

Michael Bell writes:

"What is Money?"

Michae Bell

Someone once said, or there was a song entitled, “Money is the root of all Evil”. So I ask, “ What is Money?”


* Is it a means of exchange, a facilitator?

* Is it a metal object, a piece of paper, a book entry, a hand shake?

* Is it tangible, solid, structural or is it an illusion?

* is it a commodity, like sheep, like iron ore, like bread?

* Does it grow, is it alive, is it conscious? If not, who creates, directs,
controls it? Is it out of control?

* Does it need control? Will it kill us? Who benefits, who looses?

* Is it a health hazard? Is it responsible for depression? Did it create
or extend gambling? Does it cause excessive or lack of medication?

* Does it support the rich or the poor?

* Does impede creative thinking, support for the impoverished?

* Does it cause poverty, dumping, deprivation, global warming?

* Is it responsible for wars, resource depletion, environmental
degradation, design obsolescence, high technical solutions, structural
decay?

* Does it accelerate the depletion of the earth’s resources, oil, minerals,
soil, rain forests, oceans?

* Does it create or impede progress?

* Is it a catalyst for development?

* Who needs it, banks, multinational corporations, stock markets,
supermarkets, governments, nomads, the people?

* Is it necessary for the proliferation of free trade agreements?

* What does it achieve, growth, booms and busts, inflation,recessions?

* Does money in the form of unearned income create inequities?

* Are compound interest rates the problem or is it money itself?

* Should the use of money be changed?

* Should interest be abolished or should it be replaced by a fee on
transactions?

* Should money be abolished or just taken out of the hands of banks,
and financial institutions, including stock exchanges?

Pages

Subscribe to Culture