Artes Mundi

YouTube video: The Visitors | Ragnar Kjartansson @HangarBicocca  

Artes Mundi is an internationally focused arts organisation that identifies, recognises and supports contemporary visual artists who engage with the human condition, social reality and lived experience.

Don't miss the chance to see contemporary art on the subject of 'the human condition'. There are artworks to view in three venues: the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, FfotoGallery at Turner House in Penarth and at Cardiff's Chapter Arts Centre. 

I spent a wonderful hour watching,  listening, sitting, wandering around  Ragnar Kjartansson's  The Visitors (2013). If as I do you enjoy  live music, art and people this is an overwhelming and emotionally affecting work, it  left me feeling rather positive about the human condition . 
http://www.artesmundi.org/en/artists/ragnar-kjartansson



Other works are more difficult and deal in dark subjects, I am thinking particularly of Dutch artist Renzo Martens 'known for his satirical and disturbing video documentaries in which he travels to war-torn countries and places himself narcissistically at the centre of the action, demonstrating how Western spectators consume distant trauma. In 2012, Martens helped found the Institute for Human Activities and initiated its five-year Gentrification Program. By means of strategic inversion Martens comments on the ways in which Western media depict the non-Western world'.
http://www.artesmundi.org/artists/renzo-martens

A Conference will be held at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Straight from the Horse's Mouth, in partnership with Cardiff Metropolitan University School of Art and Design will be a series of talks and conversations offering a rare opportunity to hear the Artes Mundi 6 shortlisted artists speak about core themes and concerns that are central to their practice.

Cardiff Metropolitan University School of Art and Design, Llandaff
Wednesday 21 January 2pm - 6pm
Thursday 22 January 10am - 5pm
Tickets and more information here (conference followed by a social gathering at Chapter, Canton at 7pm).


Read about all the artists here

Artes Mundi employs a team of Live Guides as mediators who have met the shortlisted artists and have extensive knowledge of their work.If you would like to walk and talk with one of the Live Guides in the Museum in Cardiff  join a  tour.  Lasting 45-60 minute the friendly and informative tours are led by one of the  Live Guides and give an overview of the exhibition and its themes.
2pm daily at the Museum (book on arrival at the Information Desk)
For talks and tours at Ffotogallery and Chapter , check their websites for further details.

CC Search (Copyright free images)

from CC Search 

keyword =business meeting

I am often asked to recommend a website to go to for Copyright free images. The Electronic Library at Cardiff Met offers many links to image databases  that we recommend, some (marked with a black or a green copyright symbol)  like Bridgeman Education and Visual Arts Data Service offer copyright free images for educational use.

 I can also recommend a single page to which you can navigate on the internet which will allow you to search a whole selection of different image databases ...not just images of art and design... made available under a  Creative Commons licence.

Creative Common licences all offer, as minimum, permission to copy so long as the image is marked clearly with details of who first created it (attribution). To learn more about Creative Commons licences (which are voluntarily  applied by creators to their works and can apply to text, images , music and all copyrighted materials) you should go here.
To search for all those Creative Commons licensed images  go here. Enter a keyword and select a source to search from the range offered ( various interesting websites ) results will bring back Creative Commons licenced images, moving images and sound.

Reel to Real

'Reel to Real' is a sound curating project, funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund, designed to catalogue, digitise and  make available online, in gallery spaces and beyond, the Pitt Rivers Museum's unique archival field recordings. The content of the recordings ranges from spirits singing in the rainforests of the Central African Republic to children's songs and games in playgrounds throughout Europe.

The project website includes information about and playlists from all of the Museum's original ethnographic recordings, video and interview resources, ethnomusicology seminars, their SoundCloud account and much more. 

Reel to Real Project Website here.

Visualiser combining Bayaka sound waves and images

The related  SoundCloud account can be found here, and customised playlists and sets can be found here.

Product Designs: It's Nice That

BSG's WOOD.b bike

I was looking for a good selection of Product design images and came across It's Nice That.

"Founded in 2007, It’s Nice That is a publishing platform that encompasses several different online, print and events offerings as part of its mission of championing creativity across the art and design world".

The website, updated daily with at least nine new articles has an international readership of around 350,000 unique users a month. They publish a quarterly magazine Printed Pages and The Annual which rounds up some 150 of the most interesting projects to feature on the site in a single year. Their events programme includes annual creative symposium Here and monthly Nicer Tuesdays talks.

First Broadcast is their audio visual site for hosting original content, Company of Parrots a shop for specially-commissioned products and This At There is a dedicated arts and design exhibition listings guide to London. The Jobsboard connects employers and jobseekers in the creative industries.

enjoy great contemporary designs under the following categories

Advertising

Animation

Architecture

Art

Events

Exhibition

Fashion

Film

Furniture Design

Graphic Design

Illustration

Interactive

Miscellaneous

Music

Photography

Product Design

Publication

Sculpture

Set Design

Web

sonic experimentation

 

 

On Thursday 11 APRIL 2013 at  8PM  Russian author Andrey Smirnov will be giving an illustrated talk entitled
'The WIRE Salon: Synthesized Voices of the Revolutionary Utopia:Early Sonic Experiments in the Soviet Union'.

 The talk will mark the official launch of Andrey Smirnov’s book
‘Sound In Z: Experiments In Sound And Electronic Music In Early20th Century Russia’

This publication offers an introduction to Russia’s contribution to the birth of electronic music, sound synthesis and audio technology in the early 20th Century. It is a story of politics and power, of the institution and the avant-garde, of collaboration and personal achievement, of ambition, opportunity and oppression. It is a story of remarkable personalities, curious inventions, astonishing performances, radical ideas, complex mathematics, pioneering electronics, engineering, design and experimentation. It is also a story of patents and funding applications, of success and failure, support and rejection, optimism and disillusionment, hunger and poverty.

The book produced in partnership between Sound & Music, London and Verlag de Buchhandlung Walther Konig, Cologne is currently on order and when received will be added to Howard Gardens Library .
More of Smirnov's projects here including the Laptop Cyber Orchestra (2006), Sound out of Paper (2005) and Brain JAZZ (1985/2001)

The talk and book launch will be at

 Cafe Oto
22 Ashwin Street
London E8 3DL
020 7923 1231
cafeoto.co.uk

Cafe OTO opened in April 2008 with the aim of providing a home for creative new music that exists outside of the mainstream. Cafe OTO is comprised of one large cafe/performance space open during the day as a cafe and hosting an evening programme of adventurous live music almost seven nights a week.

 

Artes Mundi (again)

I have recently attended some very interesting side events for the Artes Mundi Exhibition. A small square leaflet lists these opportunities , there is a web page  listing what's on  and also the facebook page advertises Artes Mundi events. Following these information sources I was able to attend the National Museum this week when the police horses corralled the crowds gathered in the Museum foyer using crowd control techniques, I heard beautiful music in the space occupied by Sheela Gowda's empty tin drums for tar used by Indian roadworkers, I felt sorrow-full in the room with the memorials to the dead of Teresa Margolles as a Welsh Performance artist Kathryn Ashill  counted in Welsh-was she counting the dead? When she stopped counting she whispered into our ears the words Memento Mori-'you too will die'.
 I have also attended an artists parents evening where I was celebrated for my creation (an artist daughter) and talked with other parents of artists and Darius Miksys about art, science , child rearing and mermaids and I watched a play by Miriam Backstrom where 'a director' annoyed 'an actor ' beyond endurance in her efforts to make him be a character she could then reject. I watched two films by Phil Collins and heard him in converstaion about his work afterwards with his old friend Jason Bowman.

I am also signed up for the rest of my life to stand up for any immigrants I see treated badly and not to walk on by. I have a poster and a badge to prove it created by the artist Tania Brughuera.
This years Artes Mundi has afforded me the richest art experiences I have had for a very long time. The art in the exhibition is fascinating, affecting, and says important things. The side events have been stimulating and original. I recommend you go along and investigate yourselves. If you do go to the National Museum to see the work then try go round on one of the  live guide tours. The live guides have all met the artists  and know the work well and will engage with you in talking about what you see and what you think about it.Tours take place daily at 2pm.
Artes Mundi continues until January 13th 2013

UBUWEB

UBUWEB started out in 1996 as a website devoted to concrete poetry, but it has grown to incorporate the functions of a virtual publishing house, record company and, film distributor. Poet, university professor and amateur archivist, Kenneth Goldsmith is the founder and main editor of Ubuweb. An underground project that has no institutional backing or budget of any kind, Ubuweb is an influential repository of avant garde material

Here you can find conceptual writing, dance, electronic music resources, ethnopoetics, film and video art, visual poetry and many special features. Examples include all ten albums from Obscure Records , Brian Eno’s record label from 1975 to 1978 and Six Films by and about Pina Bausch(1975 - 2006)  in UbuWeb's new Dance section (Christopher Walken dancing to Fatboy Slim anyone?) There we can review works from the career of Pina Bausch (1940-2009) including the beautiful  Orpheus und Eurydike (1975) and a documentary by Anne Linsel, Pina Bausch (2006). Other delights include: Maya Deren's complete oeuvre, a montage of Banksy doctoring Paris Hilton CDs for last year's guerrilla art stunt, interviews with Allen Ginsberg, poetry readings by Bukowski and a selection of rare art films and performance videos by artists from Carolee Schneeman and Tracey Emin to Samuel Beckett and ChrisBurden, video of BillieWhitelaw doing Beckett and  excerpts from Peter Greenaway's series of documentaries on modern UScomposers

A full list of resources is here

http://www.ubu.com/resources/index.html

Twitter is @ubuweb

To celebrate the Olympic year of 2012, a temporary building a one-bedroom boat, the Roi des Belges, by David Kohn Architects in collaboration with Fiona Banner has been installed on the roof above the Queen Elizabeth Hall.The building was picked as the winner in an open competition run by Living Architecture and Artangel, in association with the Southbank Centre
The riverboat building was inspired by the riverboat, the Roi des Belges, captained by Joseph Conrad whilst in the Congo in 1890, a journey echoed in his most famous work Heart of Darkness.

There is a deck, a crow's nest, a cabinet of visual curios - and a bed which slides on rails to make the most of the view over London: a panorama that stretches from Big Ben to St Paul's cathedral. An octagonal library with a curated selection of books and with twin desks looking out across the river enables visitors to use the Room as a studio space.

A range of writers, musicians and artists have been invited to stay in A Room for London, using their time there to create new works or performances. During the year the room  will transmit a programme of writing, performance and music.

Podcasts of the music, text and artworks are available to view from here
Fiona Banner’s work for the Room was  a film of a one-off performance of Orson Welles' unmade film Heart of Darkness The screenplay was performed in its entirety on board the Roi des Belges by the actor Brian Cox and is available on the website here until June 30^th

Punk!!

 Last week BBC 4 aired a documentary called 'Evidently...John Cooper Clarke ' (on iplayer until 11th June only) . It records and celebrates the  life and works of John Cooper Clarke, punk poet, looking at his life as a poet, a comedian, a recording artist and revealing how he has remained a significant influence on contemporary culture over four decades.

The John Cooper Clarke  documentary  is just part of  a whole range of  programmes  for a Punk Britannia season to be found on  BBC Four and BBC Radio 6 Music . The season marks 35 years since punk's heyday in 1977,  the year of the Queen's Silver Jubilee.

A new three-part documentary series on BBC4 spanning  1971-1981 maps some of the uncharted as well as the more familiar territory of Punk .

BBC Radio 6 Music is providing a range of curated shows  from some of punk’s most iconic names, alongside a series of themed shows. On Friday 1st June 12am-1am it all kicked off with John Lydon . As a teenager, Rotten Lydon (as he wonderfully refers to himself in the show) announced himself to the world as the focal point of British punk.
This BBC music blog gives more information on Punk Britannia programmes.
Interviews , archive concerts and exclusive new performances from the Punk Britannia season can all be found here

Open Educational Resources at UAL and MIT

There are many free resources on the Internet, we know this;  the ones known as  Open  Educational Resources: (OER's) comprise educational material that can be freely used by anyone without any copyright restrictions. An OER can be anything from a streamed video like this one showing the sand casting process to this link to an entire course on Anthropology

The sandcasting video, is from Process Arts, managed by Chris Follows at University of the Arts London (UAL)  c.follows@arts.ac.uk

Process Arts  focuses on "making" in art and design . This  site shows  insights into the acts of making and encourages users to share knowledge and experience online. You can  go there to explore  traditional and contemporary creative technical processes , and see work and the processes involved in its making online through  video, text, image and sound .

sample stills sequence

here are the most viewed items from Process Arts. Look to the right of the page for a full list of Resources

Interesting courses including bibliographies, online texts and images etc  are available from the MIT site where the Anthropology course linked above was taken from. Courses include many other subject areas of interest such as media studies, history, literature, music and theatre arts, women's and gender studies. MIT is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose mission  is "to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century".

Robots and machines that make music

Last year I enjoyed Paul Granjon’s show at Oriel Davies in Newtown Powys

'Humorous and fun, Granjon’s practice triggers serious reflection upon our relationship with technology. In Oriel Factory he capitalises on the abundance of technological waste and creates an open space for playing, making, learning, thinking and sharing in a way that firmly belongs to the 21st century.'

 Paul has spoken of his  apprehension when regarding the gradual infiltration of machines into human experience. The machines  made for this show are not unnerving rather they are funny and endearing. In the show and workshops that made up ‘Oriel Factory’ Paul and his assistants transformed old machine parts into various musical and locomotive machines.

A documentary by Chris Keenan about the process of Paul Granjon's 'Oriel Factory' from start to finish can be viewed  here. The video takes you from an initial studio visit, to installation at Oriel Davies Gallery and performance by Paul Granjon at the opening event with commentary from Paul Granjon and the 'Factory Workers'.

On a related note here are two musical scanners made by a Youtube contributor posted here to welcome in the New Year with a smile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-1fkQcntTU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht96HJ01SE4

The Arts Desk

Anish Kapoor’s Leviathan, a commission for the Monumenta series at the Paris Grand Palais

Here's a great newletter to keep you up with a wide range of items on what's new and good in the media and the arts . Here you will find theatre and film reviews, features on matters of interest such as  'Is Classical music relevant?'or a list of this year's Festivals , and CD, DVD and book reviews and interviews with people from the arts and a comprehensive listing of whats on in cinemas, theatres, galleries and concert halls. Sign up and get a weekly round up of all this in your inbox. As well as seeing  the very latest in the arts you can also view the archives of the newsletter. To subscribe look for the box on the right hand side of this page halfway down

Smithsonian Folkways

For access to a virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions comprised of an unprecedented variety of online resources go to the Smithsonian Folkways website here. From this webpage you will be able to search and identify recordings of all types of music , or search for recordings of a particular artist or for music using particular instruments. Links from these search results allow you to sample and  if you wish purchase the recordings as digital downloads. The database also includes recordings featuring the spoken word: humour, scientific and historical topics, poetry, birdsong and much more.

For UWIC staff and students: there is a link to this website on  the Subject Guide for  Music Technology

Music, fairy stories, folk practices and ghostly tales from Scotland

Bothy ballads, love songs, children's rhymes, laments and songs composed by village poets along with fairy stories, historical legends and tales of ghosts and kelpies. Birth, life and death customs and work practices , if these things interest you then check out

Tobar an Dualchais

More than 15,000 recordings from Scotland's past are available online on the oral archive, Tobar an Dualchais. The recordings, from all parts of the country,  some dating back more than eight decades, are drawn from the archives of the School of Scottish Studies, the BBC and the National Trust for Scotland's Canna Collection.