Senseless Acts of Beauty

[With thanks to GC in Carson City for the tip:]

Senseless Acts of Beauty

[graphic from Web site. Caption: "San Francisco".]

You Are Here

Aurora Picture Show
Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts

Friday November 30 & Saturday December 1
You Are Here

The map is a device of multiple powers. What happens when this device is purposely redirected by artists?

You Are Here is a symposium featuring leading contemporary artists and researchers exploring the interplay between art and geography, activism and cultural studies. Can investigations of mapping, tracking and tactical media yield new forms of tourism, overwrite official boundaries with local ecologies, expose governmental secrets, and generate new ways of experiencing and understanding our physical environment?

Offered by the University of Houston Mitchell Center for the Arts in collaboration with Aurora Picture Show. Curated by Bree Edwards.

LOCATION: Aurora Picture Show
800 Aurora Street
Houston, TX
Information: 713.743.5548
$6 on Friday; Free admission on Saturday

SCHEDULE:
Friday 9:00 pm
Matt McCormick - Kick off performance by this award winning filmmaker and musician!

Saturday 1:00 - 5:00 pm
Presentations:
Nato Thompson, Curator, Creative Time - "Experimental Geography"
Institute for Applied Autonomy, artist collective - "Terminal Air"
Matthew Coolidge, Founder/Director of the Center for Land Use Interpretation - "Points of Disinterest in the Gulf Coast Region"


[image: screen grab from Aurora Web site.]

FYA | DIY: How to Charge an iPod using electrolytes and an onion

Soft Turns

Neutral Ground
#203 - 1856 Scarth Street
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
S4P 2G3


November 10 - December 8, 2007
Soft Turns
Sarah Jane Gorlitz & Wojciech Olejnik

"This installation is comprised of two videos by Olejnik and Gorlitz: /mm and just add water. The videos were shot in time-lapse and feature a meticulously detailed model of a subway station constructed by the artists from candy and household objects. /mm takes the viewer slowly through the station, while just add water depicts the model slowly filling with water and then draining, peacefully and gently, leaving destruction in its wake.

Sarah Jane Gorlitz and Wojciech Olejnik are an artist duo formerly from Ontario and now based in Berlin whose work addresses, complicates and in some cases contradicts the traditional understanding of the relationship between time and space."

[image from Neutral Ground Web site.]

Grounded?

Southern Exposure
Intersection for the Arts

Grounded? — The Grounded? Public Art/Urban Interventions Day

Saturday, December 1, 11am – 5pm

Admission: FREE
Location: Area around Southern Exposure and Intersection for the Arts

Stacy Asher
The Counter Narrative Society
James Goode
Genine Lentine
Sabina Nieto & Melinda Stone
Kari Orvik
Nancy Popp
Sidney Russell
Markuz Wernil Saito
Joshua Short

"Situate yourself in the public realm for this day of urban interventions and public art projects. The Grounded? Public Art/Urban Interventions Day presents work by artists using the city as a platform for creativity and expression. Pick up a map and schedule locating the selected projects at Southern Exposure or Intersection for the Arts or on our websites and start exploring!"

Projects selected by Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) Program Developer Erik Knutzen.]

[graphic from Southern Exposure Web site.]

[disclosure: The Data Stream editor serves on the advisory board of Southern Exposure.]

Jazz Fest April 25-27 + May 1-4, 2008

Save the dates: The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival!

"Mahalia Jackson, often called the greatest gospel singer, returned to her hometown to appear at the first New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in April of 1970. While attending the Louisiana Heritage Fair in Congo Square (then known as Beauregard Square), she and Duke Ellington, who also appeared at the event, came upon the Eureka Brass Band leading a crowd of second-line revelers through the Festival grounds. George Wein, producer of the Festival, handed Ms. Jackson a microphone, she sang along with the band and joined the parade…and the spirit of Jazz Fest was born."

more | ticket information

[Screen grab and text from the Jazz Fest web site. The 2008 line-up will include the return of New Orleans' native sons, The Neville Brothers, in their tradtional, honored spot as the closing act of the festival.

The 'Stream' will publish the complete schedule, once it is finalized.]

I-10 Witness

I-10 Witness

The I-10 Witness continues to interview New Orleans residents about their storm related experiences. In conjunction with Xavier University's Department of Communications, we recently completed several rounds of interviews at St. Dominic's Church in Lakeview, Mary Queen of Vietnam Church in New Orleans East and the Uptown Shepard's Center. This week we will also continue to collect stories in Gert Town. Last month, we we're proud to collaborate with Mourning Line Productions and the 78th Street Theater in Manhattan, NY for our first public installation of these narratives. The show was seen by several New Yorkers who continue to visit our website. It is our hope that these types of events can keep this story alive in the hearts and minds of people throughout this country. As always, if you or anyone you know is interested in recording their story or helping to gather stories please contact us through the site as we would be happy to meet with you at your convenience.

[graphic: screen grab detail of I-10 Witness web site. Pictured: Verna Thompson; Age: 56; Home: Harvey, LA; Occupation: Custodian. Listen]

OpenLab

25 Nov 2007
2pm till late

OpenLab4
Melange Social Club
281 Kingsland Road
London England E2 8AS

"Openlab 4 will be a whole day event around Free Software as creative means in music, digital arts and performance. The event will provide the general public an opportunity to learn about the potentials and culture of Free Software as well as enabling Openlab activists to showcase their work. The event will start with presentations in the early afternoon and finish with a series of live demonstrations and perfomances in the evening."

source

[image linked from web site for Evan Raskob's earlier Human Patching Live Coding Max workshop.]

Connecting in Kyiv II

[follow-up to an earlier post on this remarkable project from Outpost]

Outpost for Contemporary Art
Los Angeles, California U.S.A.


Connecting in Kyiv II

In June 2007, Outpost sent U.S. artists Jeff Cain, Adam Frelin, and Angie Waller to Kyiv, where they presented their work and ideas at Kyiv’s Center for Contemporary Art. They also created new work in dialog with the Ukraine, and will share their resulting work and experiences with Outpost’s audience during this series of presentations, which will be held at Outpost for Contemporary Art's new community resource center in Highland Park at 6375 N. Figueroa Street in Los Angeles.]

Wednesday, November 28, 7pm
Jeff Cain (Los Angeles, CA) will present “ReConstructivists,” a work-in-progress that documents independent social organizations and enterprising individuals who exemplify Ukrainian ingenuity and a do-it-yourself spirit.

Thursday, December 6, 7pm
Angie Waller (New York, NY) went to Kyiv focused on the Orange Revolution, which was a jumping off point for her research. She will present documentation of the conversations and encounters she had with Ukrainians and discuss the work that is emerging from this experience.

Thursday, December 13, 7pm
Adam Frelin (Albany, NY) spent three weeks in Kyiv shooting a new video called "The Faction.” Adam will present and discuss the work, which was shot in various locations throughout Kyiv and had five members of a military marching band as its cast.

Outpost’s programming through 2009 will focus on Eastern Europe, bringing and sending artists, art works and curators to and from the region, to illuminate contemporary responses to the region’s complex challenges. Our program cycle started with Connecting in Kyiv. In turn, Ukrainian artists Lesja Zajac and Olexander Gnititsky will spend six weeks in Los Angeles beginning January 14, 2008.

[image from a google image search for "Kyiv" found on "Ukraine-Canada Policy and Trade Centre, Ottawa: Ukraine-Canada Relations, Ukraine Embassy in Canada" Web site. Caption: "Independence square (Maydan Nezalezhnosty) on the main Khreschatyk Boulevard in Kyiv - scene of parades and celebrations throughout the year."]

Delayed Patriotism

[follow-up to an earlier post on Performa 07]

Sunday, November 18, 12 - 2pm
Bronx Museum of the Arts

Tania Bruguera: Delayed Patriotism

$5. free for Bronx Museum members

The Bronx Museum of the Arts and Performa 07 are pleased to announce the launch of Delayed Patriotism, the debut New York City performance series by internationally renowned artist Tania Bruguera (Cuba/Chicago). Presented as part of PERFORMA07, the second biennial of new visual art performance, Delayed Patriotism explores the creation of the Party of Migrant People (PMP), an international institution with political aspirations, which defines displacement and migration as a new international culture.

The performance reflects on the idea of belonging while being an immigrant and the process of gaining the rights to be part of that new culture. Audience members will be given the opportunity to interact in Bruguera’s performance through photographic sessions that hope to capture the great American family portrait.

[image from a Bronx Museum press email.]

November 17, 1966

On the occasion of the forty-first anniversary of Jeff Buckley's birth, below is a link to a remarkable video of a performance by Jeff Buckley of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah."

listen

[image from Wikipedia entry for Jeff Buckley. Caption: "Jeff Buckley in 1995."]

NOLA Ladyfest

"November 14-18

LADYFEST NEW ORLEANS is a non-profit, music, spoken word and arts festival organized by local women of all identities to showcase, celebrate and encourage the music, poetry and art of women in New Orleans and to benefit organizations that support women!"

Thursday November 15th's show is 7-11pm at the American Federation of Musicians Union Hall, 2401 Esplanade, New Orleans. Kathy Randels' “Mama Nola” will be the Mistress of Ceremonies for a lineup featuring Banu Gibson, Holly Bendtsen, Gina Forsyth, Poet Marcia Wall, Topsy Chapman & Solid Harmony, Poet Keshia Caldwell, and the "Some Like It Hot Jazz Band." Featured visual artists are Heather MacFarlane,
Lynn Magnuson and Veronique Orsingher.

For more information about please contact 504-949-3001 or
LadyFestNO@gmail.com

Convergence | Quarter Life

Hollywood producers Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, [“My So-Called Life” and "30 Something.'] have launched Quarter Life, a project that combines social networking with conventional television situation drama with online social networking.

Quarter Life

Fresh Air ran a story on Quarter Life on November 13. [listen]

[image: screen grab from the qLife area of the site.]

Performa 07

[in the spirit of better later than never, spotlighted mid-stream:]

Performa 07
Second visual art performance biennial in New York.

This edition features a "focus on several new themes, including the relationship between the avant-garde dance and art worlds, with visual art projects that include choreographic precepts as material for art."

Numerous events. Through November 20.

more

[image: participating Fluxus artist Alison Knowles, from the Performa 07 Web site. Ms. Knowles will premiere SNÖFRID #0 at Smith-Stewart Gallery, 53 Stanton Street, New York, Nov 16, 2007, 8 pm - 11 pm. Admission is free.]

Norman Mailer - We are in love with the word

From the extraordinary Internet Archive, a 1986 two-part, hour long interview with Norman Mailer on the U.S. television series The Open Mind.

Part I

Part II

About the series:

"First Broadcast in May, 1956, The Open Mind is still produced weekly by Richard D. Heffner, host, historian, and University Professor of Communications and Public Policy at Rutgers University. These dialogues with some of the most creative thinkers of the last half-century are a primary resource available to students, teachers, researchers, archivists, librarians, historians, journalists and all who are interested in history, biography, media, communications, news, and public affairs."

A quick perusal of the list of 454 shows online revealed a remarkable range of interviews from William F. Buckley on legalizing drugs, Gloria Steinem on Marilyn Monroe, Stanley Crouch on education to Lou Reed on 'rock 'n roll heart.'

[graphic: screen grab from the Norman Mailer Open Mind interview]

Hollywood by the Numbers

[Below from the Heartland, where the countdown to the Iowa Causes dominates the psychic landscape, we offer an arithmetic weekend diversion from Tinsel Town. Thanks to SMB in Berkeley for the tip!]

Goin' Home

[Click graphic above to enlarge. See right hand column for more information and link to the Tipitina's Foundation. Graphic from their Web site.]

Identity - NOLA VA 2

New Orleans Photo Alliance

Exhibition: Identity
1111 St. Mary Street near Sophie Wright Place
New Orleans.

Gallery hours: Wednesday—Friday 3 p.m. to 6 p.m
Saturday 11a.m. — 4pm or by appointment.

"The New Orleans Photo Alliance presents IDENTITY, an exhibit of contemporary photographic portraiture exploring photography's role in illuminating and defining the persistence and evolution of personal and social identity. The 22 artists represented in IDENTITY invite the viewer to consider the photographic artifact as evidence of life and to reconsider his or her own identity; what it means to be alive in our age, in this place, in our skin on this very day. IDENTITY was juried by Deborah Luster, a highly acclaimed portrait artist who published a book entitled "One Big Self prisoners of Louisiana."

The exhibition will run from October 6th to November 24th with support from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation.


[image and text from Tim Best Web site.]

NOLA VA 1

Barrister's Gallery
2331 St. Claude Ave
New Orleans

Anne Grgich
Nov 10 — Dec 1
Opening: Saturday, Nov 10, 4:00-9:00

[image from Barrister's Web site. Caption: Ode to Frida, 2006, Assemblage, 10 x 6 x 5".]

Twittervision

[follow-up to earlier post regarding Blogger Play:]

Twittervision

What is Twittervision?
["real-time geographic visualization of posts to Twitter."]


text compliment of a sort to Flickrvision

note: both to be included in "Design and the Elastic Mind," a 2008 exhibition at NY MOMA.

[image: screengrab of Twittervision]

Day of the Dead San Francisco 2007

November 2, 2007 - 7:00 p.m.
24th & Bryant Streets in the Mission
Dia de los Muertos
San Francisco

Annual procession, lead by the Rescue Culture Collective.

The procession will end in Garfield Park at the Festival of Altars 8:30 PM at 26th & Harrison.

"Please bring flowers, candles, and remembrances of your loved ones for our community altar. This event is FREE and open to the public, wheel chair accessible.

We invite all community members and artists to participate in this celebration."

more

[graphic from dayofthedeadsf.org Web site. Caption: "Last year's illustration created by Chummy Alexanian. Layout by Tim Ferman."]