Mexico City

Musâ€™Art Cameroon seeks to twin with arts institution

August 6, 2012Cultura21Art Director, Art Forms, Art Gallery, Arts And Crafts, Arts Institution, Bamboo Work, Berlin Germany, Boys And Girls, Cameroun, Carvers, Copenhagen Denmark, Cozzolino, Cultural Heritage, Email Administration, Fight Unemployment, Francesca, Grass Fields, Heritage Gallery, Kagan, Kajsa, Kanjo, Koefoed, Mexico City, Musa, Nso, Oleg, Paris France, Precious Objects, Rana, Regional Artists, Renown, Sacha, Traditional Caps, Vitality, Wood Carvings

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Since its creation in 1996 Musa Heritage Gallery (shortened Musâ€™Art), named in memory of Nsoâ€™ carvers Daniel Kanjo Musa and his elder son John Yuniwo Musa, has been active in propagating the Nsoâ€™ cultural heritage.

This cultural initiative by the Musa family opened her doors to the public on 18th December, 1996. Musâ€™Art Gallery has a collection of over 400 objects, most of which were created between 1970 and 2000. These varied and diverse objects range from Bamboo work to Wood Carvings, Basketry to Pottery. The museum continues to acquire contemporary Cameroonian arts and crafts while maintaining a major focus on the Western Grass-fields region.

Musâ€™Art Gallery was created in part as to preserve in response to the loss of these precious objects, so the Art of the past is not lost to the region. Its mission is to support the arts and crafts of the Western Grass-fields and to highlight the excellence and diversity of regional artists, past and present, so these may become known nationally and internationally.

The art of Nsoâ€™ traditional wood sculpturing is fast disappearing. Most Nsoâ€™ renown carvers have died. Youngsters are unwilling to learn the art. Musâ€™Art Gallery is interested in a rebirth of Nsoâ€™traditional wood sculpturing as well as other traditional art forms such as weaving, basketry, bamboo work, knitting of traditional caps and other gadgets with raffia leaves or straw. In fact the arts and crafts industry in Nsoâ€™ if revamped can create a lot of jobs for young boys and girls, contribute to economic growth and fight unemployment.

The Musâ€™Art Gallery in Kumbo, Cameroun, is seeking to twin with a museum, gallery or other arts institution abroad, in order to open the door to new ideas, collaboration and joint programmes that will allow both partners to evolve.

Interested museums or art-based organisations may contact Peter Musa, Musâ€™Art Director. Email: administration [at] musartgallery [dot] org

Phone: +237 7937 2652

Address: Bamfem Qtr, P.O Box 21, Kumbo, North West region, Cameroun.

For more information about the museum, please visit http://musartgallery.blogspot.fr/

Video Vortex #9 â€“ Re:assemblies of Video

August 4, 2012Cultura2131 August, Assemblages, Berlin Germany, Contextual Analysis, Copenhagen Denmark, Cozzolino, Curators, Frames Users, Francesca, Hypermedia, Image Lab, Incubator, Kagan, Kajsa, Koefoed, Logics, Mexico City, Money Flows, Moving Image, Oleg, Paris France, Rana, Sacha, Server Farms, Social Realities, Theorists, Ups, Video Culture, Video Makers, Video Vortex, Vitality, Vortex, Vortex 9

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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 LÃ¼neburg, 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.)â€¦ 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.)â€¦ assemblages of content, interfaces and infrastructures, as found in platforms, with their changing forms and logics of circulation, and to scrutinize media-â€˜flowsâ€™, â€˜livenessâ€™, â€˜channelsâ€™, â€˜archivesâ€™, â€˜listsâ€™, and producing â€˜dissolving originalsâ€™ and new forms of mash-ups.
3.)â€¦ socio-cultural assemblages of producers, owners, curators and perceptive â€˜audiencesâ€™. The conditions and social realities of video- and TV-production, issues of copyright and re-organization of â€˜imaginaryâ€™ capital evoke questions as to what extent technology, standards and protocols â€“ and their symbolisms â€“ are taking over the role of what before has been ascribed to â€˜cultureâ€™.
4.)â€¦ assemblages contributing to ruptures and revolts: Indeed â€žthe whole world is watchingâ€œ different real or so-called â€˜revolutionsâ€™: social upheavals are transmitted via video. What does it mean to be an â€˜observerâ€™ (individually, socially or scientifically), a â€˜participantâ€™ or a â€˜witnessâ€™? Questions of relevance, media positioning and â€˜real virtualityâ€™ are are gaining new urgency.

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

â€œIDâ€ographs!

August 2, 2012Cultura21Art Unit, Berlin Germany, China, Copenhagen Denmark, Cozzolino, Drawing, Francesca, High School Students, Hub, Kagan, Kajsa, Koefoed, Meaningful Symbol, Mexico City, New Ways, Oleg, Paris France, Px, Rana, Sacha, Tag Art, Visit Art, Vitality, Workshop Series

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â€œIDâ€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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Land Art Generator Initiative

August 1, 2012Cultura2128th August, Berlin Germany, Clean Energy, Copenhagen Denmark, Cozzolino, Design Competition, Francesca, Free Copies, Initiative, Kagan, Kajsa, Koefoed, Land Art, Mexico City, Oleg, Paris France, Rana, Renewable Energy Technologies, Sacha, Staten Island Ny, Vitality

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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 ofÂ 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

Sonidos de la Tierra â€“ Community and social development through music

July 18, 2012Cultura21Aim, Alliances, Avina Foundation, Berlin Germany, Copenhagen Denmark, Countryside, Cozzolino, Earth, Francesca, Garbage, Good Citizens, Groupings, International Institutions, Kagan, Kajsa, Koefoed, Mexico City, Music Schools, Musical Education, New Economy, Oleg, Paris France, Participants, Rana, Recycled Instruments, Sacha, Scarce Resources, Vitality

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http://youtu.be/cmp5E9gEYvU

Sonidos de la Tierra (Sounds from the Earth) is a project for children and young, created by Luis SzarÃ¡n,through the formation of music schools, musical groupings and cultural associations, it facilitates the shortcut to the musical education to more than 3.000 participants of scarce resources, in communities of the Paraguayan countryside.

Sonidos de la Tierra, is based on the concept of â€œeducation through artsâ€ and began in 2002 in 18 towns, with support from the AVINA Foundation. Today, with alliances with more than 100 other local, national and international institutions, both public and private, the program reaches over 72 communities throughout Paraguay.

In Cateura, one of the many communities where Sonidos de la Tierra has music schools, started a project whose aim is to build musical instruments out of garbage, this city is one of the poorest in Paraguay, and a great amount of garbage is sent daily there.Â People who work in this project say that they arenÂ´t â€œlooking for good musicians, but for good citizensâ€. Last month, the Recycled Instruments Orchestra from Cateura performed at the Entreperneurship Forum in the New Economy during the Rio+20 summit.

To know more about the project, you can visit http://www.sonidosdelatierra.org.py/

Bolivian Animated Film â€œAbuela Grilloâ€ Highlights Water Issues

July 17, 2012Cultura21Animated Film, Animation Workshop, Animators, Berlin Germany, Copenhagen Denmark, Cozzolino, Environmental Exploitation, Francesca, Government Corruption, Hugo Banzer, Kagan, Kajsa, Koefoed, Latin American, Lowlands, Mexico City, Oleg, Paris France, Peaceful Protests, President Hugo Banzer, Privatization Legislation, Raincloud, Rana, Sacha, Short Film, Urban Landscapes, Vitality, Water Issues, Water Politics, Water Privatization, Water Wars

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http://youtu.be/YMM7vM7aiNI

Abuela Grillo, an adorable â€“ though equally tear-jerking â€“ animated short-film, calls attention to Boliviaâ€™s fraught history with water privatization.

The film is a collaboration between Bolivian animators and the Animation Workshop of Denmark. The Abuela Grillo character is based on a myth from the Bolivian lowlands, but the film tells the story of a historic moment in Bolivian water politics.

Water issues reached a boiling point in 2000 after water privatization legislation led to a significant spike in prices for Bolivian citizens. Demonstrations rocked Cochabamba in what is also known as the Cochabamba Water Wars. Though they began as peaceful protests, demonstrations quickly grew violent, leading to dozens of civilian and police injuries and casualties. Then President Hugo Banzer was forced to resign.

This animated film takes you on journey with Abuela Grillo (Grandmother Grasshopper), who walks through rural and urban landscapes with a raincloud constantly looming over her shoulder. She encounters various obstacles as the film weaves a sad â€“ and deeply symbolic â€“ tale of environmental exploitation and government corruption.

Reposted from the Center for Latin American and Caribean Studies at NYU blog.

Bug Cinema USA â€“ An ecological forest art project

July 16, 2012Cultura219 July, Art Commission, Art Project, Berlin Germany, Catskill Mountains, Christy Rupp, Cinema Usa, Copenhagen Denmark, Cornell Agroforestry, Cozzolino, Film Theatre, Gallery Director, Gcca, Greene County, Group Exhibition, Hudson Valley, Kagan, Kajsa, Koefoed, Light And Shadow, Light Sculpture, Mexico City, Model Forest, Moth Species, Oleg, Paris France, Potash, Sacha, Social Sculpture, Social Space, Whale Oil, Whole Foods

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Bug Cinemaâ€™s work-in-progress is located in the Siuslaw Model Forest, from 25 June to 9 July

Bug Cinema is a new ecological forest art commission for the Whale Oil to Whole Foods summer eco-arts festival in Greene County (Hudson Valley), on the edge of the Catskill Mountains, upper New York State. The eco-arts festival consists of a large group exhibition, site specific artworks, and accompanying public events in June/July 2012. Manifest through a collaboration between Greene County Arts and the Cornell Agroforestry Centre, it is curated by eco-artist Christy Rupp and GCCA Catskill Gallery Director, Fawn Potash.

Bug Cinema is revealed to the forest as a portable â€˜glow-labâ€™ ultraviolet solar light sculpture: a trans-disciplinary hybrid of art/entomology and functions as an integrated, collaborative inter-species â€˜social-sculptureâ€™ and biodiversity research project. Essentially, this sculpture embodies a distinctive minimalist aesthetic, playfully combined with a desire to facilitate the observation of moth species living in the forest. Bug Cinema transforms areas of the forest into a film/theatre-like staging of light and shadow, subsequently becoming a social space for moths, humans and other wildlife, through which the â€˜performance of lifeâ€™ is played out.

If you want to know more about the project, please visit http://bugcinemausa.wordpress.com

SIdeways : Artistic laboratory along slow paths

July 15, 2012Cultura21Acceleration, Activism, Backroads, Berlin Germany, Contemporary Arts, Copenhagen Denmark, Cozzolino, Donkey, Festival Weekends, Francesca, International Group, Interstitial Space, Kagan, Kajsa, Kilometres, Knots, Koefoed, Margins, Mexico City, Oleg, Open Space, Paris France, Passages, Rana, Ribbon Development, Sacha, Sideline, Sidetracks, Slowness, Symposia, Terra Incognita, Vitality, Zutendaal

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33 projects in open space, a journey of 334 kilometres, 16 walking days, 5 festival weekends, 2 symposia and 1 multimedia donkey! 17 August â€“ 17 September 2012, Belgium

Sideways is an itinerant festival for contemporary arts and cultural research. In times of acceleration and hypermobility, this nomadic initiative follows a web of slow paths. Artists and public explore different sidetracks in the Belgian landscape: footpaths, alleys, backroads and shortcuts. Behind the ribbon development and in the margins of the ubiquitous car infrastructure, a terra incognita appears; a fluid interstitial space of passages, tracks and stories. From this sideline, the Sideways exploration unfolds, focusing on being on the go, slowness and creation, arts and ecology, im/mobility and activism, spatial un/planning and landscape.

Both in form and content, Sideways engages into an experiment: a 4 week walking journey through Belgium, from west to east, undertaken by the audience as well as an international group of artists. An expedition without a predetermined destination, with room for detours and encounters, mapped and documented via the DonkeyXote multimedia donkey. Different lines of movements are entwined into knots of activity during 5 consecutive festival weekends in Menen (19/8), Herzele (25-26/8), Brussels (1-2/9), Turnhout (8-9/9) and Zutendaal (15-16/9).

For those who are interested, you can read the Catalogue and this Article. And you can visit the Sideways Website.

This post is also available in: Spanish

Michelangelo Pistoletto â€“ The Third Paradise

July 14, 2012Cultura21Artifice, Berlin Germany, Climactic Phase, Connotation, Copenhagen Denmark, Cozzolino, December 21st, Evolutionary Step, Francesca, Human History, Human Intelligence, Human Society, Inaugural Celebration, Inevitable Collapse, Kagan, Kajsa, Koefoed, Mexico City, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Mythologies, New Balance, New Perspective, Oleg, Paris France, Rana, Rebirth, Sacha, Solstice, Summer Solstice, Third Stage, Winter Solstice, Winter Solstice In The Northern Hemisphere

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Rebirth-Day: the first worldwide day of rebirth

A great celebration throughout the worldâ€”a vital, living, breathing symbol of a new beginning.

December 21st, the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere and the summer solstice in the Southern, is a day celebrated by mankind since time immemorial. A fateful â€œend of the worldâ€ connotation, as widespread as it is unfounded, has been attributed to this day in 2012, proposing a theme that is recurrent in mythologies and religions as well as in the literature of fantasy and science fiction.

All imaginative factors aside, this date can take on a symbolic meaning, as it effectively corresponds to a climactic phase of human history. We are progressing steadily toward an inevitable collapseâ€”the science is there to prove it.

The whole of human society is now in the reckoning and so must face a historic transition, a complete change.

Humanity has gone through two paradises. The first, in which it integrated fully with nature; the second, in which it expanded into an artificial world of its own, which grew until it came into conflict with the natural world. It is time to begin the third stage, in which humanity will reconcile and unite nature and artifice, creating a new balance at every level and in every area of society: â€œan evolutionary step in which the human intelligence finds ways to live in harmony with the intelligence of natureâ€ (Michelangelo Pistoletto).

A new perspective opens up that involves everyone, without exception, in the daily effort to implement the process of rebirthâ€”each according to his or her abilities and possibilities.

Cittadellarte â€“ Fondazione Pistoletto invites everyone to join the celebration on 21 December 2012, all you have to do is meet in streets and squares all over the world, and on the Web, to take part in the great inaugural celebration of the Third Paradise.

If you are interested in joining the celebration, you can find more informationÂ at http://www.rebirth-day.org/eng/index.htm

Sense of Planet: The Arts and Ecology at Earth Magnitude

July 13, 2012Conferences, Cultura2125 August, Berlin Germany, Book Sense, Climate Change, Copenhagen Denmark, Cozzolino, Douglas Kahn, Ecological Crises, Environmental Sensor, Francesca, Gabrys, Goldsmiths University Of London, International Array, Jill Bennett, Kagan, Kajsa, Koefoed, Mexico City, Modern Thought, New York University, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Niea, Oleg, Paris France, Rana, Sacha, Santa Barbara Co, Sensor Technologies, Smith Professor, Species Extinction, Stanford University, Technology University, Theorists, Timothy Morton, University Of California At Santa Barbara, Vitality

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NIEA Symposium

Saturday, 25 August 2012, 9:30â€“6:30pm

The acceleration of climate change, species extinction, and other ecological crises enjoins us to find ways of grasping historical and evolving circumstances at earth magnitude. The Sense of Planet symposium concentrates together an international array of artists, eco-theorists, and scholars to address the issues and activities of representing the earth in its entirety, and of representing and self-representing regions or localities amid the complex global systems in which they are enmeshed. The symposium follows the lead taken by Ursula Heise in her book Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global to investigate the possibilities and difficulties of sensing the planet, in all senses of sense.

Invited speakers

Ursula Heise, Professor of English and Director of the Program in Modern Thought & Literature,

Stanford University

The Database and the Ecological Imagination of the Planet

Marko Peljhan, Professor in Art and Media Arts & Technology, University of California at Santa Barbara, Co-director of Arctic Perspective Initiative

One Degree At A Time â€“ Creating Systems of Systems for Interpolar Constructiv(ist)e Engagement

Jennifer Gabrys, Convener of the MA Design and Environment at Goldsmiths, University of London

Environmental Sensor Technologies and the Arts

Nicholas Mirzoeff, Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, New York University

Anthropocene Aesthetics

Timothy Morton, Professor and Rita Shea Guffey Chair in English, Rice University

Of Planet-Sense

Panel discussion

Terry Smith (Professor at Pittsburgh and NIEA, UNSW), Douglas Kahn (Professor of Media & Innovation, NIEA, UNSW), Jill Bennett (Professor and Director, NIEA, UNSW), and others. Convened by Douglas Kahn and Jill Bennett.

Click here to go to the Registration page.