Social Innovation + Civic Participation

[From NPR's May 28 Morning Edition]

White House Creates Office Of Innovation
by Pam Fessler

"The Obama administration has created the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. The idea is for the government to work with nonprofit organizations to identify programs that have had proven success in tackling social problems, such as homelessness and joblessness, and then to expand those programs across the country. The office will in effect provide seed money for the most innovative ideas."

Listen

[text from NPR web site. Graphic from Google image search for 'Office of Innovation.' Cross posted to Signal Fire.]

Meliès Cinémix

Jean Vigo Evénements
Meliès Cinémix

Friday, May 29
6:30pm - 8:20pm

Cour Mably
3, rue Mably
Bordeaux, France

Cinéconcert "mix" par Flamen autour de l’intégrale de Georges Meliès, sur des enregistrements de musiques instrumentales de Pierre Thilloy et des sons électroniques de Flamen.

Par le mix, le DJ allie et enchaîne différentes idées musicales pour les faire avancer ensembles, parfois vers un même but : bien souvent la danse...
Pour Guillaume Flamen (DJ producteur/remixeur, pianiste), ce cinéconcert est un cinémix.

L'objectif de ce cinémix est d'accompagner musicalement de façon actuelle des films de Meliès datés de 1905. C'est proposer un mix de musiques et de procédés : le DJaying et l'accompagnement instrumental de films muets ; le déclenchements de fichiers audios et le jeu improvisé ; le soutien ou la destabilisation du sens de l'image.
Les ingrédients de ce cinémix ?
- un cinéma poético-humoristique à effet spéciaux première génération
- une musique instrumentale, de chambre ou symphonique aux sensations fortes, à l'image de péplums grandioses
- des sons electro/minimale/house/ambient empreints de groove old-school et teintés de culture web & blog.

[text from FB event page. Graphic from image search for "Meliès."]

Flamingos Forever for 6:40

May 28 | 7:30 pm [gmt]

David Gale's Peachy Coochy Nites
Toynbee Studios, London
Tel: 020 7650 2350

"Just a projector and 20 images. Just 20 seconds per image. Just Peachy!

Now a monthly staple for all but a few, David Gale’s Peachy Coochy Nites are held on the last Thursday of each month in Artsadmin's Arts Bar & Café, where the merciless Peachy Coochy format is imposed on a fresh succession of showoffs."

"Featured this month: Fake I.D. (Yvan Martinez and Joshua Trees) presenting Flamingos Forever, a sound sculpture slideshow that gives a second chance to supporting characters from John Waters'never-filmed sequel to "Pink Flamingos."

more

[Text and graphic from Toynbee Studios and Fake I.D. Facebook Event page. Long live Pecha-Kucha!]

Market Forces

Gallerie Erna Hecey
Rue des fabriques 1c
1000 Brussels

28 May – 8 August
MARKET FORCES
Curated by Peter Scott

Michael Ashkin, David Baskin, Betty Beaumont, Gretchen Bender, Dara Birnbaum, Jef Geys, Dan Graham, Louise Lawler, Alex MacLean, Diane Nerwen, Filip Noterdaeme, Sigmar Polke, Walter Robinson, Ron Rocheleau, Zoë Sheehan Saldaña, Heidi Schlatter, Peter Scott, Monika Sziladi, Momoyo Torimitsu, JeongMee Yoon

"Market Forces addresses the euphoric consumer culture of the last decade that manifested itself in a seeming overflow of goods and services and an explosion of luxury housing development that now dominates the urban landscape. The term is derived from laissez-faire economic theory and refers to a hands-off approach to the ‘natural order’ of supply and demand. Used in this context, it is meant to invoke skepticism concerning the almost religious belief in, and militant protection of, our god-given right to consume. This two-part exhibition is intended to be as inclusive as the market is pervasive, with work that addresses the influence of consumerism on personality, labor, politics, and the built environment."

more
[Text and graphic from the gallery website. Cross-posted to Signal Fire.]

Mr. Tambourine Man

[From the 1964 Newport Folk Festival Bob Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941. Introduced in this clip by Pete Seeger. Headphones recommended.]

Drawing Contemporaries

Eyebeam
540 W. 21st St.
New York, NY

Drawing Contemporaries
through June 9

"... curated by Eyebeam senior fellow Michael Mandiberg, is an exhibition of work on paper made by a peer group of new media artists who all create drawings, both as a primary object and as an experimental process. For many of the artists, the use of computers and algorithms are the focus in their work. While a number of the artists are Eyebeam affiliated, all are contemporaries whose influences upon each other can be traced in this exhibition."

more

[text and graphic from Eyebeam website.]

A Look at Life

New Orleans Museum of Art
One Collins C. Diboll Circle
City Park
New Orleans, Louisiana 70124

The Art of Caring: A Look at Life through Photography
through October 11

"...a visual discourse on how key life events are celebrated and honored, and how pivotal life decisions are made by a number of different cultures. Each stage of life is depicted by simple everyday situations experienced in moments of joy and gratification as well as by poignant events of passage. The unfathomable scale of devastation inflicted upon humanity and our environment by both man-made and natural disasters also is intrinsic to this life story."

more

[text and image from museum website. Caption: "Joe McNally (American, contemporary); "Bill Ryan, Mike Morrissey." 2001. Color Polaroid. Collection of the artist."]

Love Minus Zero

[Below, a few days in advance of this sixty-eight birthday, Bob Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, performing his composition Love Minus Zero / No Limit, in an excerpt from the brilliant 1967 D. A. Pennebacker documentary "Dont Look Back." The segment is part of a longer segment of the film that explores the competitiveness between Dylan, and U.K. folksinger Donovan, who at the time held a comparable place in popular music. The film leaves little doubt as to which of the two was bound for glory.]

Amazing | Colossal | Man

Nevada Historical Society
1650 N. Virginia St.
Reno, NV 89503

May 19 | 7:00 p.m.
After Dark: The Amazing Colossal Man

"In this 1957 Malibu Productions film, Lt. Col. Glenn Manning is inadvertently exposed to a plutonium bomb blast at Camp Desert Rock. Though burned over 90 percent of his body, he survives, and begins to grow in size....

“The classic film The Amazing Colossal Man is important to Nevada History as it was filmed on location in Boulder City ,” said Eric Moody, Nevada Historical Society acting director. “In addition the film depicts the Las Vegas of the late 1950s.”"

After Dark features classic films that relate to Nevada .

[text from Nevada Department of Cultural Affairs press release and Wikipedia entry for the film. Graphic from image search for 'Amazing Collosal Man." Click to enlarge.]

The Color Pharmacy

Jake Dilley and the Color Pharmacy

The Hexagon Bar
2600 27th Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55406
(612) 722-3454





[graphic from Color Pharmacy Facebook page. Click on image to enlarge.]

Domesticated Men

Transformer
1404 P Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
202-483-1102

Domesticated Men
Al Miner, Curator

Opening May 16
Curator & Artist Talk 4pm | Reception 5 - 8pm


Closing June 20
2 pm Curator & Artist Talk

"Men have historically been posited as providers for and not integrated inhabitants of the home. Notions such as the Victorian period's focus on the matriarch as the "angel of the hearth" and the 1950s ideal of the nuclear family have shaped this perception. While a man's home may still be his castle, his relationship to it has changed. Despite this progress, many photographers today choose to portray women alone in domestic interiors, often with a sexualizing gaze. The photographers of Domesticated - Yolanda del Amo, Amy Elkins, Dru Donovan, and Jamil Hellu - challenge such notions by depicting men in domestic interiors, capturing moments of complex masculinity that can only occur behind the closed doors of the home."

[text and image from Transformer Facebook Event page. Caption: "Amy Elkins. "Kyle, New York, NY, 2008." Courtesy of Yancey Richardson Gallery.]

Eric Burdon

Eric Victor Burdon
Born 11 May, 1941
Newcastle upon Tyne, England

Below, a searing 2:15 performance of the Bennie Benjamin, Gloria Caldwell, Sol Marcus composition "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood:" The Animals - fronted by Eric Burdon performing live "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" at an event produced by the New Musical Express in 1965."



To listen to a more leisurely, indulgent performance by Mr. Burdon of the song at the 2006 Lugano Jazz Festival, some forty years later, click here.

Headphones highly recommended for both viewings|listenings.

Climate Change | Extreme Events

Farmlab
1745 North Spring Street, Unit 4
Los Angeles, CA 90012
1.323.226-1158

Friday, May 8, 2009 @ Noon
Free Admission
Farmlab Public Salon


Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources, Agriculture, and Extreme Events
Jeremy Pal

"Temperature and precipitation are virtually certain to substantially change over the next century in response to anthropogenically enhanced greenhouse forcing. Such changes will impact a wide variety of natural and human systems resulting in dramatic ecological, economic, and sociological consequences. This presentation focuses on the impacts of climate change on water resources, agriculture, and extreme events based on high-resolution climate model projections over North America.

Jeremy Pal, assistant professor of civil engineering and environmental science at Loyola Marymount University, is among the contributing authors on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes (IPCC), an international collaboration of scientists that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. Prior to joining the LMU faculty, Pal worked for the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, an agency that operates under two United Nations Agencies in Trieste, Italy with the mission to foster the growth of research in developing nations. Pal has authored numerous internationally recognized articles on the impacts of climate change."

[text and graphic from Farmlab website. Caption: "Photo illustration for Farmlab by Kate Balug. Graph courtesy Jeremy Pal, copyright IPCC 2007."]

Always for Pleasure

[With the 2009 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival now in the rear view mirror, we hearken back to an earlier moment in the history of the Crescent City with a clip from Always for Pleasure*, Les Blank's brilliant and loving 1978 portrait of the city.]



* Always For Pleasure

"An intense insider's portrait of New Orleans' street celebrations and unique cultural gumbo: Second-line parades, Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest. Features live music from Professor Longhair, the Wild Tchoupitoulas, the Neville Brothers and more. This glorious, soul-satisfying film is among Blank's special masterworks."

The clip features Frankie Ford's hit recording of Huey "Piano" Smith's Sea Cruise.

Netherlands Media Art Institute
Keizersgracht 264
Amsterdam

May 8, 2009
Trouwgebouw Amsterdam
Positions in flux: On the changing role of the artist and institution in the networked society

"The symposium 'Positions in flux: On the changing role of the artist and institution in the networked society' will center on some of the major parameters for the current and future development of contemporary art. In particular it will reflect on the aspect of cultural sustainability of art projects, art and technology initiatives and art curating.

'Positions in flux' will give floor to international artists, theoreticians, critics, cultural producers and aims to initiate a truly critical debate. The symposium is designed for a broad audience working in the field of contemporary culture and art, with a desire to understand what comes ahead and how to respond to these changes on an artistic or institutional level. 'Positions in flux' will provide a platform and “thinkspace” for artists, cultural workers, theoreticians and a broader public to envision the future in our field and to provide us with the necessary information to make choices for a meaningful and sustainable development of society and culture."

more

[text and image from NMI website. Cross-posted to Signal Fire.]