Stelarc, futurist performance new media artist

Stelarc...he was my art teacher when I was living in Japan from grades 2-5! I remember he was definitely unique and fascinating and always wore the same outfit. I recall there being a bit of an issue with one of his performances (he did outside of school) where he hung himself from the flesh with hooks.

I looked him up last year and found what he was doing now is pretty spectacular. Wikipedia summed it up quite well (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stelarc):

Stelarc (born Stelios Arcadiou on June 19, 1946) to Greek Cypriot parents is an Australian performance artist whose works focus heavily on futurism and extending the capabilities of the human body. As such, most of his pieces are centered around his concept that the human body is obsolete. He currently serves as Principal Research Fellow in the Performance Arts Digital Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University in Nottingham, England.

Stelarc's idiosyncratic performances often involve robotics or other relatively modern technology integrated with his body somehow. In 25 different performances he has hung himself in flesh hook suspension, often with one of his robotic inventions integrated. In another performance he allowed his body to be controlled remotely by electronic muscle stimulators connected to the internet. He has also performed with a robotic third hand, a robotic third arm, and a pneumatic spider-like six-legged walking machine which sits the user in the center of the legs and allows them to control the machine through arm gestures.

His works have been heralded for their abilities to embrace a wider audience, the best example of this was his allowance for the worldwide audience to log into the exhibition and thus access or control the electrodes his own body was hooked up to.

So check it out! He's doing incredible things with new media and technology. Here is his website: www.stelarc.va.com.au

>Additional info on Stelarc.
>>interview with Stelarc "Extended Body": www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=71
>>interview with Stelarc "Body without Memory": www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=354
>>text about his "Prosthetic Head": http://neme.org/main/252/prosthetic-head
-Filiz emma Soyak

tes

Mr. Wiggles is my hero...

I wondered across to this guy on you tube, and thought his performance was amazing. His Name is Mr. Wiggles and he has been breakdancing since 1976. Puerto Rican and was raised in the Bronx, he started his dancing carrier by "battling" on the streets of New York. His work has been credited by two major movies, Back Street and Wild Style, helping establish Hip Hop. He has guest stared in Sesame Street, videos with Madonna and Miss-E Elliot, and several other programs. His style is amazing and the smoothest break dancing I've seen in a while. Check it out...

He has a web site that has a Hip Hop time line, the history of hip hop, graffitti and hip hop culture. You should click hereHere he shows an amazing short battle.


Enjoy~ Suzi T.

A Girl Like Me

This documentary was produced by Kiri Davis, Director, Reel Works Teen Filmmaking, Producer. She worked with Reel Works Teen Filmmaking.

It was accepted into many festivals, including the Media That Matters Film Festival. From the web site more commentary from the producer:

For my high-school literature class I was constructing an anthology with a wide range of different stories that I believed reflected the black girl’s experience. For the different chapters, I conducted interviews with a variety of black girls in my high school, and a number of issues surfaced concerning the standards of beauty imposed on today’s black girls and how this affects their self-image. I thought this topic would make an interesting film and so when I was accepted into the Reel Works Teen Filmmaking program, I set out to explore these issues.

Documentary: Control Room

This is a remarkable documentary, and a behind the scenes look at news media in wartime, from the perspective of the Al Jazeera Network. Directed by Egyptian American film maker and Harvard Graduate Jehane Noujaim. She had incredible and timely access to Al Jazeera at the time of the beginning of the Iraq War.

Below are a few words from IndieWire

"Most fascinating is Sameer Khader, Al Jazeera senior producer, overworked, chain-smoking, brimming with mischief. Also featured is former BBC reporter Hassan Ibrahim, a witty Sudanese Brit who opposes the U.S. presence in the Middle East, ("you are the most powerful nation on earth... you can crush everyone... but don't ask us to love it as well") while praising American democracy. Young female producer Deema Khatib wryly analyzes Western war coverage from her control booth vantage point. And at nearby U.S. Centcom, American press liaison Lt. John Rushing manfully struggles to justify the American position to the Arab press (and perhaps to himself.)"


Retrieved January 2, 2007 from
http://www.indiewire.com/people/people_040524control.html



-sam smiley

ITVS, shorts and great new documentary

ITVS stands for "Independent Television Service" and it is funded by PBS and based in San Francisco. It funds all kinds of really interested and innovative television programming. You can find it at http://www.itvs.org/

Check out its festival of shorts to see a Barbie Doll makeover! You can see it online at the web site.


Also just released:
HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes takes an in-depth look at manhood in rap music and hip-hop culture—where creative genius, poetic beauty and mad beats collide with misogyny, violence and homophobia.



It is now available on DVD. Its web site is http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/hiphop/. You can purchase it at the Media Education Foundation

-sam smiley

joel peter witkin

I realized this artist's work come to mind when thinking about our class. His work is so controversial and seemingly illegal in some respects that he often works outside the U.S. I never cease to jump when I view his work. Here is an excerpt from his bio on wikipedia, "His work often deals with such themes as death, corpses (or pieces of them) and various outsiders such as dwarfs, transsexuals, hermaphrodites and physically deformed people. His complex tableaux often recall religious episodes or famous classical paintings. Because of the transgressive nature of the contents of his pictures, his works have been labeled exploitative and have sometimes shocked public opinion. His art was often marginalized because of this challenging aspect." Look him up if you'd like to see more. I posted the most "tame" because I did not want to force the more graphic images on people.

This American Life

This American Life is a Chicago Public Radio show hosted by Ira Glass, popularly abbreviated to TAL. Wikipedia describes the hour long show as “primarily a journalistic non-fiction program, although it also features essays, memoirs, field records, short fiction, and found footage.” ... A radio collage. Recently TAL has reinvented itself into a television show for Showtime, it premieres March 22nd.

I listen to this show while I’m cooking, cleaning, and making art. Because it’s audio, you don’t have to stop and really focus on it. Each show usually has 3-4 stories and one theme. Some episodes are funny, sad, inspiring, motivating, and others teach you interesting things. My favorite episodes are The Sanctity of Marriage (which discusses a government funded scientific study on whether couples will stay together and they can actually pretty successfully predict divorce.) Fiasco is really funny, it’s about a play that doesn’t go as planned. Backed Into a Corner is about a man on death row for a murder he didn’t commit, was nearly executed, and after 17 years he got the attention of a lawyer and was freed.

These stories come to life on radio. Fiasco is probably funnier in your head than it was in person. Backed into a Corner is powerful because the man speaking went through 17 years of hell and if we saw him on TV we would probably dismiss him for being a stereotypical ex-inmate, but hearing his voice and tones empowers him and makes us listen.

TAL sells each hour episode on iTunes for 95 cents or you can sit at your computer and listen to a show for free from their website, This American Life where they have archived all of their episodes along with descriptions. Occasionally, TAL tours all major cities and does a live recording! It will actually be in Boston at the Opera House on the 27th of February at 8pm.

Shannon

Craft Boston 2007

Dates:
Friday, March 30, 2007 10am to 7pm
Saturday, March 31, 2007 10am to 6pm
Sunday, April 1, 2007 11am to 5pm

Location:
Seaport World Trade Center
200 Seaport Boulevard
Boston, Massachusetts

Admission is $15 for the whole 3-day show.


After viewing Haitian Art, it would be neat to see all kinds of New England artists in one huge show. Included are lectures, demonstrations, and work for sale.

Craft Boston

Shannon

about Sally Mann

here's an image by sally mann



additional biographical information


More info about Sally Mann

-sam smiley

Termite TV video collective

The TermiteTV video collective http://www.termite.org was founded in 1992. It is a collective of media makers who produce and distribute art and activist video.
We will be watching Native Alien, with coordinating producers Anula Shetty and Dorothea Braemer.

"As borders shift and countries collapse, immigrants travel the globe in search of old roots and new homes. 8 media artists of various ethnic backgrounds and nationalities explore what it means to be native (resident) aleien, an immigrant or simply a citizen of the world"

Work of Michael Ray Charles

Michael Charles is an artist who works with icons and stereotypes from the history of American advertising which deal with the African American image. a bio of him is available at this PBS web site http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/charles/index.html

Forever Free Beware
by Michael Ray Charles
at the Albright Knox Gallery in Buffalo, New York until April 2007
Michael Ray Charles

Kara Walker at Addison Gallery

Kara Walker, an African-American artist known for her amazing visual work with historical images, silouettes, and the antebellum South has a show in Boston at the Addison Gallery at Phillips Academy. The show is called “Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated),” and it is up until April 15.