Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Rineke Dijkstra the 53 year old Dutch photographer renowned for her single portraits usually in series of work taking in groups such as adolescents, clubbers, soldiers, recent mothers, or bullfighters; has been profiled by Kyle Chayka in an article published on Artinfo. In the article Chayka states “While working as an editorial photographer on assignment, the artist got into a serious accident. Doctors warned her that if she didn’t exercise extensively she might lose the use of her legs, and so she took to swimming. One day after climbing exhausted out of the pool, she noticed that her eyes were rimmed with red, as if she had been crying. Dijkstra decided to turn that moment into a self-portrait, and the resulting image hangs on the Guggenheim’s gallery wall. …Dijkstra is seen standing against a geometric tiled wall, eyes staring straight ahead at the viewer, worn out yet ferociously self-possessed. It was then that the photographer realized the power of shooting her subjects in moments of distress or suspension, times when the wall between the individual and society comes down and the soul is bared. The strategy pays off viscerally in Dijkstra’s series of portraits of new mothers shot just after birth. The women stand in the hallways of their homes (where Dutch women often give birth) cradling their newborns, faces communicating a captivating mix of shock and bemused joy. … We, of course, are the voyeurs caught spying on their moments of grace. Yet Dijkstra’s accomplishment is that she doesn’t sexualize, idealize, or exoticize what she captures.”

Inspired by Artinfo ow.ly/cECZx image source Twitter ow.ly/cEEfe

Peter Ware Higgs the 83 year old English theoretical physicist and emeritus professor best known for his proposal of broken symmetry in electroweak theory, explaining the origin of mass of elementary particles. His so-called Higgs mechanism predicts the existence of a new particle, the Higgs boson (referred to as the God particle). Higgs has been interviewed by Olivier Dessibourg for LE TEMPS following the CERN announced that experiments had seen strong indications for the presence of a new particle, which could be the Higgs boson. In the interview Higgs states “I was deeply moved. Let’s say it was very emotional moment. Especially near the end… I connected with what was happening to me, and I felt emotionally involved, even though I’d carefully stood apart from all of this for a while. At first, I wasn’t sure this particle would be found during my lifetime. But as experiences gradually went on, first at the LEP [a previous accelerator at the CERN], then at the Fermilab in the United States, the expectation became increasingly realistic. …The most interesting thing now is going to be testing the theories that go beyond the “standard model” for describing the Universe, like “supersymmetry.” Because with the discovery of this new boson, this model is essentially complete.”

Inspired by Olivier Dessibourg ow.ly/c4VrH image source Gert-Martin Greuel ow.ly/c4Vkv

No longer do you rely on the moment (November 4th)

Tacita Dean the 46 year old UK Berlin based YBA visual artist who works primarily with film has unveiled her latest work in the darkened Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern as the 12^th commission of the Unilever series. The work is a looped film installation, entitled Film, and is a homage to the declining analogue film industry under threat from the burgeoning digital and animation technologies. Dean is renowned for her work in analogue film, although she still explores a variety of other alternative media including photography and sound. The catalogue for this exhibition references international directors including as Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese who provide favorable reflections on the power of analogue film. Dean laments the decline of the industry with the pending closure of her favorite London Soho Film Laboratory, announcing it will cease printing her chosen media the 16mm film.

Inspired by Charlotte Higgins http://ow.ly/75ZyR image source Teresa Gleadowe http://ow.ly/75Zwo

Amelia Fraser-McKelvie a 22 year old Australian undergraduate student may have located the ‘missing mass’ of the universe identified in the theory of dark matter. The previously undiscovered ‘baryonic’ mass that Fraser-McKelvie found may be contained in filaments of such large quantities stretching across the enormous expanses of space between galaxy clusters. Working as an intern at the Monash University school of Physics under the supervision of Kevin Pimbblet, the significance of Fraser-McKelvie’s discovery became known when Jasmina Lazendic-Galloway undertook an X-ray analysis of her data collection. The filaments were thought to be at high temperatures and low in density, but only recently has the technology become available to theoretically identify the locations. Discoveries such as this could result in the construction of telescopes specifically designed to pinpoint the mass.

Inspired by Thekla Hritz ow.ly/5aNoJ image source Monash University ow.ly/5aNCh

Carlina Renae White the 23 year old American woman who was abducted as a 19 day old infant from the Harlem Hospital in New York City has been reunited with her biological parents after solving her own kidnapping case 23 years later. White had been raised as “Nejdra Nance” by Ann Pettway but during her teens grew suspicious that Pettway was not her maternal mother due to a lack of physical resemblance. White’s suspicions continued to grow with the lack of any birth certificate or Social Security card. White during the course of her investigation visited the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s Web site, there she found a photo of an infant that resembled both herself as a child and that of her own child.

Inspired by New York Times ow.ly/3MF7U image source lifeisreallybeautiful.com ow.ly/3IXz4

Surreal and was like a Zoolander moment (October 1st)

Sarah Murdoch the host of television show series ‘Next Top Model’ announced the wrong person as the winner of the contest. Murdoch announced initially that Kelsey Martinovich as the winner when Amanda Ware was the actual winner.  Receiving a card from the producer while on camera with the correct result, Murdoch then revealed the mistake.  Later Murdoch claimed her earpiece was silent with no communication so decided to proceed and announce the result she had been previously advised. Martinovich later spoke of her humiliation with the announcement stating that it felt surreal and like a Zoolander moment. Editor Edwina McCann of Harper’s Bazaar accused Foxtel of manipulating the result for publicity.

Political Arts | Ian Bunn Visual Artist

My digital art work is essentially politics and art. It’s about iconic people, places and events of our day.  Recorded visually through daily compilations of manipulated digital images, posted online and disseminated via online media and social networks. The works are diaristic in nature that metaphorically record a spectator’s experience of the contemporary digital age.  The resulting work intentionally has a painterly aesthetic acknowledging my historical painting practice.

Adapting Pop Art’s notion of mass media imagery into a context of the contemporary digital age, the work draws on a myriad points of reference. Utilizing fractured images to provide an allusion to the digital noise pounding away daily into our sub consciousness.  The work is essentially popular culture arts, diverging from the traditional Pop Art notion of a pronounced repetition of a consumer icon, instead this work focuses on the deluge of contemporary digital content. The compilation of the fragmented imagery is vividly distractive, not unlike cable surfing or a jaunt through Times Square.

This digital photo manipulation art work is premised on the basis that Pop art in its beginnings, freeze-framed what consumers of popular culture experienced into iconic visual abstractions. With the advent of the techno age, visual information circulates in such quantities, so rapidly and exponentially, that to comprehend a fraction of it all becomes a kind of production process in itself.  Hence this work considers fragmented elements of Popular Culture through an artistic and conceptual exploration of specific people and events of the day.

www.ianbunn.com

Life has been spent working towards this moment (September 14th)

The revolving door for the top job in Tokyo remained with current Japanese Prime Minister, the 63 year old Naoto Kan.  Kan unlike his predecessors, managed to retain his job as the Prime Minister and head of the ruling DJP (Democratic Party of Japan) after convincingly defeating his challenger Ichiro Ozawa, the somewhat tainted powerbroker of the party, having been challenged after only three months into the job. Japan has suffered from a lack of consistent policy as a result of the leadership changes, exacerbated particularly at a time when this third largest economy of the world has a strengthening currency while in the context of a deflating economy attempting to support significant issues such as escalating aged population and national public debt that is twice the economy’s size.  Kan has vowed to reduce public spending and borrowing.

Political Arts | Ian Bunn Visual Artist

My digital art work is essentially politics and art. It’s about iconic people, places and events of our day.  Recorded visually through daily compilations of manipulated digital images, posted online and disseminated via online media and social networks. The works are diaristic in nature that metaphorically record a spectator’s experience of the contemporary digital age.  The resulting work intentionally has a painterly aesthetic acknowledging my historical painting practice.

Adapting Pop Art’s notion of mass media imagery into a context of the contemporary digital age, the work draws on a myriad points of reference. Utilizing fractured images to provide an allusion to the digital noise pounding away daily into our sub consciousness.  The work is essentially popular culture arts, diverging from the traditional Pop Art notion of a pronounced repetition of a consumer icon, instead this work focuses on the deluge of contemporary digital content. The compilation of the fragmented imagery is vividly distractive, not unlike cable surfing or a jaunt through Times Square.

This digital photo manipulation art work is premised on the basis that Pop art in its beginnings, freeze-framed what consumers of popular culture experienced into iconic visual abstractions. With the advent of the techno age, visual information circulates in such quantities, so rapidly and exponentially, that to comprehend a fraction of it all becomes a kind of production process in itself.  Hence this work considers fragmented elements of Popular Culture through an artistic and conceptual exploration of specific people and events of the day.

www.ianbunn.com

It was a sort of an unforgettable moment (August 10th)

Adapting Pop Art’s notion of mass media imagery into a context of the contemporary digital age, the work draws on a myriad points of reference. Utilizing fractured images to provide an allusion to the digital noise pounding away daily into our sub consciousness.  The work is essentially popular culture arts, diverging from the traditional Pop Art notion of a pronounced repetition of a consumer icon, instead this work focuses on the deluge of contemporary digital content. The compilation of the fragmented imagery is vividly distractive, not unlike cable surfing or a jaunt through Times Square.
www.ianbunn.com

We have arrived at a critical moment (July 5th)

Adapting Pop Art’s notion of mass media imagery into a context of the contemporary digital age, the work draws on a myriad points of reference. Utilizing fractured images to provide an allusion to the digital noise pounding away daily into our sub consciousness.  The work is essentially popular culture arts, diverging from the traditional Pop Art notion of a pronounced repetition of a consumer icon, instead this work focuses on the deluge of contemporary digital content. The compilation of the fragmented imagery is vividly distractive, not unlike cable surfing or a jaunt through Times Square.
www.ianbunn.com

Amanda McGregor the British consultant who works with Directors and Creative professionals in development, creativity and planning has published an article in ArtLyst titled ‘The Energy Frequency Of Creation In Our Relationship To Art’ in which she states “Our dependency on our relationship to art normally starts at a young age. This is prompted through a need to escape to a world of magic and fantasy and be immersed in our creative flow. The ‘flow’ is the energy frequency of ‘creation’ and expression. Through creating moments with ourselves, we allow a freedom of spirit, peace, our truth to be spoken and our true dynamics of experience to be fully expressed, emotionally, in vision and intellectually. With a conceptual focus in the intellectual pursuit of art, we play with the thoughts and perspectives we create, allowing a connection with a larger picture in creation, to play with the logic, sight, experience and the vision of ourselves and others. However this form of play, can be considered a way of muse, a way of entertaining ones inner muse, it’s a form of being a ‘player’. When we grow up, we may find our inner child is still dominating in this playful muse, at the expense of the responsibilities of adult life. We can be a slave to our desires to be creatively free. To be able to live in the space of preferred existence we enter in to a journey in which we hope the ‘art world’ will meet us. The infrastructure of funding, buyers, curators, artist, critic and gallerists is an eco-system of community designed to help protect the sensitive art world of ‘play’. As an adult some artists may be met with a challenge in finding they are beyond a system of understanding, or process, thereby not necessarily supported by ‘art world’ connections…”  Inspired by Amanda McGregor, ArtlystInspired by Amanda McGregor, Artlyst ow.ly/lE7Pj source Twitter ow.ly/lE7yl

Stefanie Ostfeld the American Policy Advisor with Global Witness, an international advocacy organization that works to break the links between natural resource exploitation, conflict and corruption, exposing the ways in which the global financial system enables corrupt public officials to loot and launder state funds. Ostfeld has published an article on Aljazeera titled ‘Why UN arms negotiations must include talk of ending corporate secrecy’, in which she states “There is a need to fix the system that enables illegal arms dealers and other felons to evade law enforcement. As United Nations representatives meet to hammer out a Global Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) …they must take into account the role of corporate secrecy in facilitating illegal arms trafficking and other crimes around the world. Addressing anonymous shell companies and hidden company ownership will be essential to successfully stemming the flow of illegal weapons around the world and protecting the innocent civilians who suffer from their proliferation. …Each year, approximately 2 million corporations are formed in the US under state laws that often allow anonymous incorporation of companies. While some states require listing of shareholders, these can be other companies or “nominees” who serve as front people for the actual shareholder. In many states, less information is collected from individuals seeking to incorporate than is required from people applying for a driver’s licence or registering to vote (which explains how a recent World Bank report found that the US was the favourite destination of corrupt politicians trying to set up such shell companies). …There is a growing momentum in the US and abroad to improve company ownership transparency and end anonymous shell companies. Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that he intends to use the UK presidency of the G8 to address this issue. Now is the perfect time for Congress to end anonymous incorporation in the US and for the Obama administration to act in concert with our international partners to end anonymous incorporation in all G8 countries, and around the world.”

Inspired by Stefanie Ostfeld, Aljazeera ow.ly/kBcvF Image source offshorealert ow.ly/kBdcF

Jeremy Scahill the 38 year old American National Security Correspondent for The Nation magazine and author of the international bestseller Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, has published an article in The Nation titled ‘Inside America’s Dirty Wars’. Scahill states “…Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the oldest son of Anwar al-Awlaki, was born in Denver. Like his father, he spent the first seven years of his life in the United States, attending American schools. After he moved to Yemen with his family, his grandparents—Anwar’s mother and father—played a major role in his upbringing, particularly after Anwar went underground. Anwar “always thought that it is best for Abdulrahman to be with me,” Anwar’s father, Nasser al-Awlaki, told me. Anwar believed that his wife and children “should not be involved at all in his problems.” …Abdulrahman was not his father; he loved hip-hop music and Facebook and hanging out with his friends. They would take pictures of themselves posing as rappers, and when the Yemeni revolution began, Abdulrahman wanted to be a part of it. As massive protests shook Yemen, he would spend hours hanging out in Change Square with the young, nonviolent revolutionaries, sharing his vision for the future and, at times, just goofing off with friends. …As Abdulrahman mourned [his father’s assassination], the boy’s family members in Shabwah tried to comfort him and encouraged him to get out with his cousins …and joined a group of friends outdoors to barbecue. There were a few other people doing the same nearby. It was about 9 pm when the drones pierced the night sky. Moments later, Abdulrahman was dead. So, too, were several other teenage members of his family, including Abdulrahman’s 17-year-old cousin Ahmed. …The Obama administration would fight passionately to keep answers secret, invoking the “state secrets” privilege repeatedly …The consensus that has emerged from various anonymous officials commenting on Abdulrahman’s killing was that it was a mistake.”

Inspired by Jeremy Scahill, The Nation ow.ly/kuEpP Image source Terri M Venesio ow.ly/kuEoO

Androulla Vassiliou the 69 year old Cypriot lawyer and European politician who is the European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, known for being very active in social and cultural fields within the UN and EU, has been subject of an article by Coline Milliard for Boulin Artinfo titled ‘We Can’t Leave Culture to the Market’. Milliard states “Speaking at the first Edinburgh International Culture Summit, EU culture commissioner Androulla Vassiliou reaffirmed the need for EU states to maintain funding for the arts. “Culture represents a public good in which every citizen has a stake and I believe that the case for public intervention is as strong today as it has ever been: the markets alone cannot deliver all that a civilised society needs,” she later said in a press statement. The International Culture Summit … brings together politicians and artists from an array of countries to discuss the role culture can play in encouraging dialogue between nations. …As she inaugurated the summit, Scottish culture minister Fiona Hyslop said that the arts and creative sector were “key to economic and indeed social recovery, rather than a distraction from it,” the EUobserver reported. Vassiliou and Hyslop’s comments arrive at a moment when most European countries are facing severe art funding cuts. Although the Scottish government only reduced its culture spending by 5% since 2010, the rest of the UK experienced cuts of 30%. The European Union is planning to counteract this tendency by increasing its own culture budget by almost 40% for the next EU budgetary cycle in 2014-2020, bringing it up to €1.8b (£1.41b). The “Creative Europe” proposal is currently under discussion at the European parliament, but it is facing firm opposition from Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. A final decision should be reached by early next year. If it goes ahead, an estimated 300,000 artists could benefit from “Creative Europe” funding.”

Inspired by Coline Milliard, Blouin Artinfo ow.ly/hYDej Image source Marina Ofugi ow.ly/hYDcO

Llyn Foulkes the 78 year old American artist creating landscape paintings that utilized the iconography of postcards, vintage landscape photography, and Route 66-inspired hazard signs, returning to his childhood interest in one-man bands and began playing solo with “The Machine,” which he created. Foulkes has been interviewed by Scott Indrisek in an article published in Blouin Artinfo titled ‘Renegade Llyn Foulkes is Making a Comeback With a Major Survey at the Hammer’. Indrisek states “…Foulkes is having his second big moment. The L.A. artist and musician showed with Ferus Gallery in the 1960s and enjoyed early recognition for quirky, detailed oil paintings — an enormous cow, or rocks that sort of looked like people. He later moved on to more complicated mixed-media works, creating intricate scenes that brought together cartoon culture and self-portraiture as well as an ongoing series of grotesque bloody heads. …Foulkes had had a few recent pieces in last year’s Documenta (13) exhibition, where he also sang and performed with his complicated, self-made musical instrument, dubbed the Machine. [in the interview Foulkes states] “…Early on in the ’60s I was pretty well known, and then I gave up what I was doing and tried to go back to what I was doing before. Art changed, Minimalism and installation art and all that stuff came in, and there wasn’t that much in the art magazines about me in the ’80s. I’ve had problems from the stock market of art — let’s put it that way. I’ve always been out of the mainstream because I always talk against what’s going on in art. …I’ve always been pretty much a loner, in the sense that I didn’t really associate with that many other artists…”

Inspired by Scott Indrisek, Blouin Artinfo ow.ly/hMxcu Image source Facebook ow.ly/hMxca

Marco Brambilla the 52 year old Italian – New York based filmmaker and installation artist known for his elaborate recontextualizations of popular and found imagery, has been profiled by Bob Morris for an article published in the New York Times titled ‘Where the Art Is Wild in 3D’. Morris states “…“Creation (Megaplex),” opened at the Nicole Klagsbrun gallery in Chelsea last week, the third of a trilogy that makes art from film. It uses Mr. Brambilla’s lavish sampling of hundreds of movie clips to create a swirling helix in which Maria von Trapp, Yoda, Dr. Strangelove and others seem to be flying through the air overhead before spiraling into a celestial toilet. “It’s about the disposability of film and images in an oversaturated world,” Mr. Brambilla said, explaining his inspiration. “Content in the background to marketing.” He may be a cynic when it comes to aspects of popular culture, but he is also a sunny, sociable and sought-after guest at art and fashion parties these days. It helps that his work is generous and accessible, and it doesn’t hurt that he has had a few mainstream commercial outings, too, with a 15-second Michael Jackson Pepsi spot last September, a Ferrari collaboration in 2011 and a Kanye West video in 2010.  Mr. Brambilla, born in Milan and raised in Canada, even had his moment as a Hollywood player in 1993, when he directed “Demolition Man” at 28. He found the level of compromise discouraging, and refocused his talents on video art. His work has received good reviews and museum shows, and he has seen it projected at a parking lot at Art Basel Miami Beach, a piazza in Rome, film festivals and even in St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral (in NoLIta), where he enjoyed the sight of thousands wearing 3-D glasses…”

Inspired by Bob Morris, New York Times ow.ly/hnJ2G Image source Facebook ow.ly/hnJ1H

Boris Manenti the French journalist with Le Nouvel Observateur has published an article in the monthly magazine ‘Obsession’ on how big data collections could lead to big brother. In the article he states “Big Data is the massive volume of digital data that is so large to process that it needs additional management tools and database processing applications. It is much more than a concept; it’s a whole new technology that promises to “revolutionize our everyday lives.” The term “Big Data” originated from a simple observation. Every day around the world, 2.5 exabytes of data are generated. This data comes from everywhere: social networks, photos and videos posted on the Internet, GPS coordinates from smart phones, weather statistics from every corner of the earth, banking transactions, and so on. This massive amount of information only reveals its full potential after being processed, analyzed and cross-referenced.  …The implications of Big Data are numerous – in theory at least. For the moment, the analysis of massive amounts of data mostly concerns companies who use it as a way to analyze their clients’ consumer habits. …The problem is the public’s acceptance. Big Data cannot be allowed to turn into “Big Brother.” “The users’ trust is crucial,” says Chuck Hollis. “To get the best medical treatment, we give our doctor as much information as we can, because we trust him. Big Data needs to convince its users it can be trusted in the same way.” He adds: “Every new technology creates new fears. Fire, electricity, the Internet, Big Data. With good there is always bad, we just need to keep that in check.”

Inspired by Boris Manenti, Nouvel Observateur ow.ly/gXF3Z Image source Twitter ow.ly/gXF2K

Zachary “Zack” Kopplin the 19 year old American science education activist from Louisiana  known for his campaigns to keep creationism out of public schools and focuses on separation of church and state causes, has been featured by George Dvorsky in an article published on io9 titled ‘How 19-year-old activist Zack Kopplin is making life hell for Louisiana’s creationists’. Dvorsky states “For Zack Kopplin, it all started back in 2008 with the passing of the Louisiana Science Education Act. The bill made it considerably easier for teachers to introduce creationist textbooks into the classroom. Outraged, he wrote a research paper about it for a high school English class. Nearly five years later, the 19-year-old Kopplin has become one of the fiercest — and most feared — advocates for education reform in Louisiana. We recently spoke to him to learn more about how he’s making a difference. Kopplin, who is studying history at Rice University, had good reason to be upset after the passing of the LSEA — an insidious piece of legislation that allows teachers to bring in their own supplemental materials when discussing politically controversial topics like evolution or climate change. Soon after the act was passed, some of his teachers began to not just supplement existing texts, but to rid the classroom of established science books altogether. It was during the process to adopt a new life science textbook in 2010 that creationists barraged Louisiana’s State Board of Education with complaints about the evidence-based science texts. Suddenly, it appeared that they were going to be successful in throwing out science textbooks. “This was a pivotal moment for me,” Kopplin told io9. “I had always been a shy kid and had never spoken out before — I found myself speaking at a meeting of an advisory committee to the State Board of Education and urging them to adopt good science textbooks — and we won.” The LSEA still stood, but at least the science books could stay…”

Inspired by George Dvorsky, io9 ow.ly/gXDfK Image source Facebook ow.ly/gXDbO

Kate Ruggeri the 24 year old American artist, curator, and DJ has been nominated by Blouin Artinfo as an emerging artist in an article titled ‘Painter-Sculptor Kate Ruggeri Finds Heroism in Humble Materials’ by Allison Meier. Meier states “Following a fire that wrecked her studio, Chicago-based artist Kate Ruggeri is persevering by creating work that evokes hope and heroes through the unlikely materials of old clothes, buckets of house paint, and twine. …she’s been experimenting with merging her interests in painting and sculpture into dimensional forms swathed with reclaimed fabric and discarded materials, and coated with thick layers of paint. The results have a scrappy, tactile quality, but also a quiet gravity. … “Joseph Campbell’s monomyth was my main inspiration, since I was little I’ve been interested in myths, adventure stories, and biographies. I don’t think it’s very difficult to identify with a hero at moments in your own life.” …One of Ruggeri’s sculptures, appropriately called “Hero,” strides like a DIY Giacometti, a paint-stained backpack on its shoulders and a walking stick pointing forward. “In the past few months, I have seen great heroics in my friends and community,” she explained. “My roommate had been mugged and shot walking home, and survived. There were a number of tragic deaths in the Chicago community. My studio building had burned down and I had lost all of my work.” … A painter at heart, she started using sculptural constructions as canvases because she was exhausted with looking at blank, flat surfaces. After building a wooden armature, she wraps it with window screens, fabric, found materials, and personal possessions. …“In my work, I try to create homages to human experience,” she said. “I see the viewer on their own journeys, having their own lives, their own struggles, triumphs. It’s a way to be self-reflective.”

Inspired by Allison Meier, Blouin Artinfo ow.ly/gSY54 Image source lawnlike ow.ly/gSY33

Clive Thompson the 44 year old Canadian freelance journalist, blogger and science technology writer has published an article on the Wired titled ‘No Longer Vaporware: The Internet of Things Is Finally Talking’. Thompson states “…The Internet of Things is the long-prophesied phenomenon of everyday devices talking to one another—and us—online, creating odd new behaviors and efficiencies. Fridges that order food when you’re almost out of butter! Houses that sense when you’re gone and power down! Back in the ’90s, big companies built systems to do tricks like this, but they were expensive, hard to use, and vendor-specific. The hype eventually boiled away. The Internet of Things turned out to be vaporware. Until the past few years, that is, when the landscape shifted from below. … After the Fukushima nuclear disaster, many Japanese worried that the government wasn’t providing adequate data on areas outside the evacuation zone. So some hackers designed customized Geiger counters that automatically updated radioactivity levels on an online map. Soon there were more than 300 jury-rigged all over the country, so the public could see real-time radiation levels. “It was the largest nongovernmental radiation-monitoring network in Japan,” says Chris “Akiba” Wang, one of the hackers. A similar example recently emerged in earthquake prone Chile, where a student modded a seismometer to tweet its readings. It quickly amassed more than 300,000 followers, who were grateful for the early alerts. In essence, the Internet of Things is happening because it has reached the “Apple II stage.” This is the moment when a new technology finally becomes easy enough to use that thousands of people start doing experiments to scratch a personal itch—like Sande with his fan. And the pace of experimentation is going to accelerate, as new gear arrives that makes it even cheaper and easier.”

Inspired by Wired ow.ly/g2h7N image source Twitter ow.ly/g2h1M

Antony James Beevor the 65 year old British historian and author has published an article in The Prospect titled ‘Will a continent turn its back on democracy?’ Beevor states”…We again face the danger of a world depression and we are beginning to see mass unemployment in some countries, especially in southern Europe. Last year, Giles Paxman, the British ambassador in Madrid, pointed out how remarkable it was that despite the terrifying levels of youth unemployment in Spain, there had been an astonishingly low level of social disorder. The demonstrations of the “Indignados,” the young Spaniards who have taken to the streets to protest against austerity measures and unemployment, have been passionate but not violent. His theory is that the memory of the horrors of the Spanish civil war is acting like a nuclear threat in the background. He may well be right. Greece also suffered from a civil war, and although there have been a considerable amount of violent protests in Athens, folk memory is likely to hold the country back from outright conflict. …What are the dangers and threats to parliamentary democracy in Europe? Can the fundamental contradictions in the euro project be overcome? The dynamic of the moment seems to be that political integration must be drastically accelerated to make up for the flagrant paradoxes that existed from the euro’s very foundation and were scandalously ignored. The same foreign minister argued to me last autumn that the economic situation was so grave that Europe must adopt a presidential system with direct elections. That idea is now becoming general currency in top European circles. Economic and political control would be drastically centralised with virtually no accountability. This would be nothing less than an elective dictatorship bringing with it the threat of nationalism, the very thing the European project intended to avoid.”

Inspired by The Prospect ow.ly/g2byK image source Twitter ow.ly/g2bw0

Corban Walker the 45 year old Irish Sculptor has been profiled by Blake Gopnik in an article published in The Daily Beast titled ‘Sculptor Corban Walker Explores Size And Scale’. Gopnik states “Corban Walker has something every artist needs: a critic trap, stretched taut across the ground floor of his studio in Brooklyn. A barrier of steel wires runs the width of Walker’s front room, from about chest height to the level of a tall man’s head; in a moment of distraction, this critic almost got his face egg-sliced. Walker, however, doesn’t have to worry about his own safety, because the bottom wire is set at what he calls “Corbanscale”—it barely grazes the top of his head as he passes back and forth underneath. …Walker was born with achondroplasia, the major cause of dwarfism. He is four feet tall. “The core of what I’ve been doing over the last 20 years is about this: my measure and the rule laid out for the average individual,” he says. And his art is about how that “rule” doesn’t fit him. He says that the wire piece, called “Latitude,” is possibly the most confrontational of his works about stature: “You could grate yourself [on it]—but I can’t.” But just about everything he’s made is a nod to his height, or at least to the number four, which describes it. A work in progress in his studio is a latticework cube made of plastic orange rods, designed so that there’s one natural viewpoint at Walker’s eye level and another at a more “standard” level—the confrontation of “Latitude” seeming to yield, in this piece, to conciliation.”

Inspired by Blake Gopnik ow.ly/fKd9N image source Facebook ow.ly/fKd98

Kevin Macdonald the 45 year old Scottish director, best known for his films One Day in September, State of Play, The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void and Marley; has been profiled by Ian Burrell for The Independent in an article titled ‘’The world is full of opinion. What we need is people who go out and find the facts’. Burrell states “Think before you shoot,” is the advice of the Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald to anyone with a newly acquired video camera who fancies themselves as a bit of a film-maker. …at the forefront of exploring the internet-driven phenomenon of amateur documentary making – celebrated in his crowd-sourced film Life in A Day, which was based on 80,000 clips submitted to YouTube, all recorded on 24 July 2010. Yet the remarkable snapshot of modern life, later shown on BBC1, did not convince Macdonald him that the age of the amateur is upon us. “You would find beautiful little moments and very talented people who had done something really special but that was the needle in the haystack,” he says. “It has become as easy to write a blog as it is to make a film or take a photograph – you don’t need any particular skill, you can just do it. There’s a democratising side to it but it also means that a lot of stuff gets sprayed out there. Nobody thinks before they switch on the video recorder.” …Documentary making has become harder than ever, Macdonald maintains. “These days if you had £120,000 for a documentary you would say that’s unbelievable. Today, 18 years later, you are expected to make something for BBC4 on the same subject for £40,000, which is the equivalent of £20,000 back then.”

Inspired by Ian Burrell ow.ly/fmTBk image source BBC ow.ly/fmTt3

Frank Close the 67 year old British particle physicist, Professor and author has published an article in the Prospect Magazine titled ‘The twin child of the Big Bang’ discussing the first moments of the universe, how we may soon find out why matter overpowered antimatter, its mirror opposite. Close states “…We know how the energy in the heat of the Big Bang created the basic seeds of matter, and how over the eons these particles have formed galaxies of stars, including our own Milky Way and solar system. …Matter is not the Big Bang’s only child. It was born with a long-lost twin: antimatter. Matter and antimatter are the yin and yang of reality. … When the energy of the Big Bang congealed into the fundamental particles of matter, an imprint in the form of metaphorical holes, their antimatter siblings, was also formed. …Experiments have shown that quarks are the basic seeds of matter as we know it. There are also exotic forms of matter, containing what are known as strange, charm or bottom quarks, which rarely exist independently, except under very special conditions, such as briefly during or just after the Big Bang. They are unstable and their decays produce the stable forms from which our mature universe is made. …tantalising results are beginning to emerge. As data accumulate, the experiments at Cern will reveal sharper images of the processes at work in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang. Why the Big Bang happened is likely to remain an enigma. Why the universe managed to survive, and evolve, may soon be answered.”

Inspired by Prospect Magazine ow.ly/ebfN3 image source ow.ly/ebfdR

Daan Bauwens the Belgian freelance investigative journalist for the international press agency Inter Press Service, and founder of the documentary film collective “Reach”, has published an article on IPS titled ‘EU Cap Only Boosts Biofuels’. In the article Bauwens states “The European Commission has announced it will limit the amount of crop-based biofuels used in transport, but its newly proposed measures are not nearly enough to curb the disastrous impact of the EU’s biofuel policy around the world. Its effects will only worsen, activists say. …Europe’s hunger for biofuels is pushing up global food prices and driving people off their land, resulting in deeper hunger and malnutrition in poor countries. …despite soy and maize prices being at all-time highs in July and prices of cereals and oil remaining at peak levels in August, the Commission and most governments seemed to turn a blind eye to the devastating impacts that EU biofuels mandates have on food prices and land rights. …“I’m happy the EC is finally recognising the fact that the use of food-crops for fuel is problematic,” says Ruth Kelly, Oxfam’s economic policy advisor and writer of Oxfam’s new report, “but putting a cap of 5 percent on biofuel consumption is ridiculous. At this moment the biofuel use in the EU is only at 4.5 percent. So the new cap of 5 percent is actually an increase of what we’re using at the moment. In 2008 biofuels accounted for 3.5 percent of all transport fuels in the EU. That same year, the land that was required to grow crops for those biofuels could have fed 127 million people.”

Inspired by IPS ow.ly/e09X3 image source ATIT ow.ly/e09Aw

Doug Aitken the 44 year old American multimedia artist whose body of work ranges from photography, sculpture, architectural interventions, narrative films, sound, single & multi-channel video works, and installations; has created his first public installation in the UK for the Liverpool Biennial – titled ‘The Source’. Dave Jennings for LouderThanWar has reviewed the installation, stating “The Source is housed in a temporary pavilion outside Tate Liverpool which was designed by Aitken alongside British Architect David Adjaye OBE and asks 2 simple questions: where does the creative process start and how is it realised? Simple questions they may be, but take a moment to consider and they are actually at the heart of everything we all love in music, art or any other creative process. How often have you asked yourself ‘how did they think of that?’ … or ‘why did they do it that way?’ …Aitken has presented a fascinating study of filmed conversations with a range of participants from different spheres of creativity such as music, art, photography, acting and architecture. These are projected inside the pavilion simultaneously during the day and then outwards from the building after dark. …Aitken’s conversations are projected simultaneously inside the pavilion so you can either wander round and take in different parts or stand in the centre and make a snap judgement which area to head to. You certainly leave the building with your faith in creativity reaffirmed – let people create what they want, when they want to and how they want to do it.”

Inspired by Dave Jennings ow.ly/dPh6K image source artistsbooksandmultiples ow.ly/dPgWJ

Mohamed Morsi Isa El-Ayyat the 61 year old President of Egypt and a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood. He became Chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party when it was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. In an article published on Aljazeera by Hamid Dabashi titled ‘Morsi in Tehran: Crossing the boundaries’, Dabashi states “When during his speech at the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran the Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi declared it an “ethical duty” to support the Syrian people against the “oppressive regime” of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus suddenly, for a clear moment, he became the messenger of the Egyptian Revolution for the Syrian people, and by extension for the rest of the Arab and Muslim world – that Egyptians as a liberated nation stand with them. The utterance, in and of itself, suddenly placed Egypt as the leader of the potentially free and democratic Arab and Muslim world – dismantling the old cliché of the US as the self-designated “leader of the free world”. Morsi spoke with a presiding authority that stems from no religious conviction, but from a moral imperative that only a liberated nation can momentarily invest on their elected officials. …Egypt has emerged as a moral voice from the heart of its revolution and as such it is a force that Morsi’s speech in Tehran made abundantly clear. Beyond anything that any other country or political figure could do, President Morsi’s speech dismantled the entire propaganda machinery of the Islamic Republic, forced its official news agencies deliberately to mistranslate his words, replace the “Syrian government” for where Morsi had said “Syrian people”, and prompted a walkout by the Syrians delegation.”

Inspired by Aljazeera ow.ly/dEq6a image source Press TV ow.ly/dEq1N

April Alliston the American Professor of Comparative Literature and Guggenheim Fellow has published an article on Aljazeera titled ‘Trolling for trolls in Disney World and the real world’ referring to the increase in internet trolling – much of it misogynistic and damaging. Alliston states “You may have thought trolls were those fairytale ogres who lurked under bridges once upon a time, or maybe those vintage naked plastic dolls with the big shocks of brightly-coloured hair that are so ugly they’re cute. But recently, trolls – fictional and nonfictional – are turning up everywhere, from cyberspace to the school bus, on screens large and small, showing us how fantasy can disturb reality, and folks from schoolboys to grannies can turn into trolls. A global outcry faulted British police last week for penalising trolls who use Twitter for hate speech. After his close friends were ridiculed and lambasted online following the stillborn birth of their child, television host Piers Morgan declared this week, “But what I am going to do is go to war with these trolls.” Earlier this summer another global outcry led to the suspension of schoolboys who aped cyber-trolls in person. The one thing that’s clear is how confused we all are about the line between fantasy and reality, words and deeds, victims and trolls. …While speaking out against internet trolls is gaining momentum, shouldn’t the incidents of cruel trolling be decreasing, not increasing? Instead of rewarding their victim by sending her away from the real world, let’s teach everyone – schoolchildren and adults – that trolling isn’t tolerated.”

Inspired by Aljazeera ow.ly/dtAjD image source Facebook ow.ly/dtB0W

Should we nourish him rather than hang him? (April 18th 2012)

Kenan Evren the 94 year old Turkish former General and President of Turkey, assumed as a result of leading the 1980 military coup is to stand trial along with another surviving leader Tahsin Sahinkaya of the bloody coup for executions, mass arrests and crackdowns on political freedoms during his reign. A court in Ankara has began hearing the case against the former dictator where he will be held to account for his actions despite having declared he would prefer to suicide than appear before the court. Evren is in poor health and his testimony is anticipated to be heard via a video hookup in lieu of his appearance before the court. On the first day of the trial, protestors gathered outside of the court calling for justice at this historic moment 30 years after the events, given the trial could not commence without a constitutional amendment to overturn his immunity from prosecution taking place in 2010. During Evren’s three year reign half a million people were arrested, fifty executed and many hundreds dying while in prison or just tortured and disappearing.

Inspired by Cumhuriyet Gazetesi http://ow.ly/ahSaD image source Forumcax http://ow.ly/ahS8D

(April 17th 2012) Dramatic testimony to Occupy's impact

Peter Rothberg the associate Publisher of The Nation magazine has published an article titled the 99% Spring, where he states, “Since Occupy Wall Street emerged last September, debates over its impact have roiled both liberals and conservatives confused by the fact of a (successful yet) leaderless movement lacking concrete demands. But something seems to be working. The 99% Spring is just the latest recent example of OWS’s influence. An impressive coalition of liberal-left groups and organizations, led by MoveOn.org and including the AFL-CIO, Greenpeace, the Working Families Party, 350.org, Campaign for America’s Future, United Students Against Sweatshops, CodePink, Global Exchange and Color of Change aims to recruit and train 100,000 Americans “to tell the story of what happened to our economy, learn the history of non-violent direct action, and use that knowledge to take action on our own campaigns to win change.” A cross-section of the country—from carpenters and stay-at-home moms to business people, students and farmers—has signed up for hundreds of sessions so far, according to an AP report. To me, the simple fact that the cream of the liberal-left establishment is promoting direct action trainings in the six-months before a presidential election rather than focusing all its energies on the electoral horse race is dramatic testimony to Occupy’s impact.”

Inspired by Peter Rothberg http://ow.ly/afWvr image source twitter http://ow.ly/afWLP

One of the most important ingredients in arts (March 2nd)

Datuk Masidi Manjun the Malaysian Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister stated that “One of the most important ingredients in arts is for an artist to have freedom of visual expression… This is important because it allows them to express their visual freedom and I would like to encourage for it to stay that way… With that in mind, I have already made my intentions known to the State government that we would like to put up another art gallery in the city centre at the site where the gutted building (formerly Public Works Department) used to be.  I have tried my very best although there are some legal impediment at the moment, that the site should be reserved for another art gallery for the State…” Masidi made the statement at an Art Patron appreciation ceremony where a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Sabah Cultural Board and Ming Garden Hotel. The objective of the MoU was to promote the development of visual arts in the Sabah State in line with Malaysia’s central government initiatives to raise the profile of art and culture throughout the nation.

Inspired by Daily Express http://ow.ly/9dsoo image source Senjaliza http://ow.ly/9dsaW