NEWSgrist - where spin is art
An e-zine covering the arts since 2000
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Vol.5, no.21
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read it on the blog:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com
Archives:
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Sunday, October 10, 2004
The Strangest Love of All
Image: George C. Scott as Gen. Buck Turgidson in Kubrick's 1964 nuclear
satire, "Dr. Strangelove.'' Urging an all-out pre-emptive strike on the
Soviet Union, he exclaims, "I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair
mussed, but I do say no more than 10-20 million killed, tops!"
via NYTimes:
Truth Stranger Than 'Strangelove'
By FRED KAPLAN
"Dr. Strangelove," Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film about nuclear-war plans run
amok, is widely heralded as one of the greatest satires in American
political or movie history. For its 40th anniversary, Film Forum is
screening a new 35 millimeter print for one week, starting on Friday, and
Columbia TriStar is releasing a two-disc special-edition DVD next month.
One essential point should emerge from all the hoopla: "Strangelove" is
far more than a satire. In its own loopy way, the movie is a remarkably
fact-based and specific guide to some of the oddest, most secretive
chapters of the Cold War.
As countless histories relate, Mr. Kubrick set out to make a serious film
based on a grim novel, "Red Alert," by Peter George, a Royal Air Force
officer. But the more research he did (reading more than 50 books, talking
with a dozen experts), the more lunatic he found the whole subject, so he
made a dark comedy instead. The result was wildly iconoclastic: released
at the height of the cold war, not long after the Cuban missile crisis,
before the escalation in Vietnam, "Dr. Strangelove" dared to suggest -
with yucks! - that our top generals might be bonkers and that our
well-designed system for preserving the peace was in fact a doomsday
machine.
What few people knew, at the time and since, was just how accurate this
film was.[…]
Sunday, October 10, 2004 at 11:17 AM in Film | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/10/strangest_love_.html
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INDUCE Act SHELVED! (but for how long?)
Musicpirate
[image source]
via BoingBoing:
INDUCE Act killed for now! BOO-YAH!
Orrin Hatch's crazy, iPod-criminalizing INDUCE Act has been shelved – for
now. The combined efforts of tech companies, nerds, and grassroots
organizers have stalled it, and Hatch has cancelled plans to introduce the
bill today. The quote from the RIAA positively seethes with frustrated
malevolence.
The chief executive for the Recording Industry Association of America,
Mitch Bainwol, acknowledged Thursday that negotiations need more time.
"So long as illegitimate peer-to-peer services hijack a positive
technology and intentionally offload their legal liability to America's
kids, legislation will be a priority for the creative community," Bainwol
said.
More on the insidious INDUCE Act from Corante/Copyfight:
Induce Act Runs Out of Gas
from Newsday:
Senate Talks Fail on File-Sharing Software
and Wired:
Senate Shelves Induce Review
Sunday, October 10, 2004 at 11:11 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/10/induce_act_shel.html
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VP Debate
[image]
'nuff said. Via BoingBoing.
Sunday, October 10, 2004 at 10:48 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/10/vp_debate.html
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Jacques Derrida Deconstructed
via NYTimes:
Jacques Derrida, Abstruse Theorist, Dies at 74
By JONATHAN KANDELL
Jacques Derrida, the Algerian-born, French intellectual who became one of
the most celebrated and notoriously difficult philosophers of the late
20th century, died Friday at a Paris hospital, the French president's
office announced. He was 74.
The cause of death was pancreatic cancer, according to French television,
The Associated Press reported.
Mr. Derrida was known as the father of deconstruction, the method of
inquiry that asserted that all writing was full of confusion and
contradiction, and that the author's intent could not overcome the
inherent contradictions of language itself, robbing texts - whether
literature, history or philosophy - of truthfulness, absolute meaning and
permanence. The concept was eventually applied to the whole gamut of arts
and social sciences, including linguistics, anthropology, political
science, even architecture.
While he had a huge following - larger in the United States than in Europe
- he was the target of as much anger as admiration. For many Americans, in
particular, he was the personification of a French school of thinking they
felt was undermining many of the traditional standards of classical
education, and one they often associated with divisive political causes.
[…]
More about Derrida:
Derrida Bibliography
Derrida Online
Derrida @ Popcultures.com
Wikipedia: Derrida
Derrida (the movie)
The Three Ages of Jacques Derrida
An interview with the father of Deconstructionism, by Kristine McKenna (LA
Weekly)
Sunday, October 10, 2004 at 10:26 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink:
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Saturday, October 09, 2004
Arrivals + Departures: Terminal 5 Exhibition Goes South
[image: Vanessa Beecroft, Still from VB54 (2004) via Artnet Magazine]
It's been in the news, the blogs, everywhere: if it was a question of
nostalgia the Port Authority would take us back – it's just an unwelcome
throwback to the Giuliani era of art closures.
Here's an overview [xtra links via NEWSgrist]:
What started as censorship– (via Hint Mag)
Oct 1: For artists at the V magazine co-hosted launch party of the
enormous group art show Terminal 5, it really was. Terminated, that is.
Vanessa Beecroft, who showed a video of shackled black women in
exaggerated black paint being ogled by mostly white revellers at a party
the artist held two weeks earlier, found herself on the receiving end of
well-intentioned but unfortunate censorship by JetBlue, one of the event's
sponsors. As did Toland Grinnell, whose gold-plated vibrator was also
pulled from show. But that didn't stop the festivities inside the
sprawling wing of the JFK airport, which really began with a Vanity Fair
gala two nights before. The crowd, packed almost entirely of artists,
spread out among the vast architecture of the old TWA terminal, Eero
Saarinen's soaring modernist masterpiece, taking in all the artwork on
display, including works by Tom Sachs, Douglas Coupland, Tobias Wong,
Jenny Holzer and Dan Graham. Others ventured down the terminal's famous
white tubular hallways (think Catch Me If You Can) before engorging on
crudites from Rice restaurant and Grey Goose served from actual airplane
carts […]
–soon took a turn for the worse (via Artnet mag):
10/7/04: PORT AUTHORITY CENSORS SHOW, SMEARS CURATOR
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has abruptly shut down
"Terminal 5," the contemporary art exhibition organized by the 27-year-old
freelance curator Rachel K. Ward at the landmark TWA terminal at Kennedy
Airport [see "Artnet News," Aug. 31, 2004, and Oct. 4, 2004]. According to
a report in the New York Times, the move was in response to "a raucous
opening night party" that left behind graffiti, broken glass and vomit on
the floor. "We pulled the permit because the curator violated her
agreement," a PA spokesperson told the newspaper.
Art-world observers responded to the tale with skepticism, however. The
exhibition featured several works that were especially made for the site
– and considering New Yorks "Code Orange" mentality, the airport terminal
proved to be a provocative theme, to say the least. Vanessa Beecrofts
installation, which involved scantily clad black models attached to each
other with immigration-style chains, was removed from the show on Monday.
Other works likely to offend a bureaucratic mindset – and the Port
Authority has a reputation for paranoia and timidity when it comes to art
commissions – included a pile of padlocks by Kendell Geers, a travelers
portmanteau containing a gold-plated vibrator by Toland Grinnell, and
"peace bombs" by Tobias Wong in the shows gift shop.
On the "Terminal 5" website, Ward has posted a statement, noting that she
and a team of volunteers worked on the exhibition for more than a year,
investing time and effort into preserving and publicizing the landmark
building. Ward says that she hopes to reopen the show and urges her
supporters to email Ralph Tragale, a Port Authority official, at
[email protected]
[Tunnel]
view of Tunnel.
More about the closing:
via Tom Moody:
From E. Worthy, Early 21st Century Art (New York: Kramer Publishing 2035):
"The death of so-called site specific art came in 2004, at a talked-about
show most people never saw. The concept was that artists would 'respond'
to Eero Saarinen's somewhat overwhelming 1962 terminal building at Kennedy
Airport (considered high Modernist kitsch by some architects), an activity
with roughly the same significance as small lice-eating birds 'responding'
to a rhinoceros. It consisted of such obvious and expected gestures as
running political slogans on the defunct terminal's arrivals and
departures board, piping sound art through the intercom, and so forth.
Once admitted to this vast playground from their usual physically
constraining warrens in Chelsea and Williamsburg, and perhaps because the
art was so familiar as not to hold anyone's attention, the artists went
berserk at an opening night party and trashed the terminal."
From The New York Times:
Port Authority Shuts Art Exhibit in Aftermath of Rowdy Party
By CAROL VOGEL
he Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has shut down an art
exhibition in Terminal 5 of Kennedy Airport after a raucous opening-night
party on Friday that left broken glass on the floor, graffiti on the walls
and further destruction in its wake, the agency said yesterday.
Pasquale DiFulco, a spokesman for the Port Authority, which operates the
airport, said the curator of the show, Rachel K. Ward, had "failed to
control the unlawful behavior of her guests" at the event. "We pulled the
permit because the curator violated her agreement," he said.
Besides smoking in the building and defacing the walls with graffiti, some
guests broke a door leading to a runway, Mr. DiFulco said. Liquor was
being sold at the party without a permit, he added, and Ms. Ward failed to
maintain the space to "an acceptable level of cleanliness." Vomit and
broken glass were on the terminal's floor, he said.
Ms. Ward, who acknowledged that the crowd had exceeded her expectations -
hundreds of people showed up - said she ended the party around 11 p.m., an
hour earlier than planned.
"We have not had an opportunity to respond to these allegations," Ms. Ward
said of the authority's decision to close the show. "My lawyers are in
negotiations. We want to keep the exhibition open as originally planned."
[…]
From the blogosphere:
Gothamist: Terminal Five Terminated For Now
Gawker: JFK Terminal 5 Show Over Before It Starts
"It's so exclusive, you can't even see it."
thickeye: fuck.the.port.authority
[image: Partyterm5]
The Art:
Installation shots (lighteningfield)
Stuff about the party
terminal.5
(via thickeye)
"In the curvaceous aesthetic shadow of that remarkable
modernist-money-shot of a building, it was hard for the art work to make
much of an impression. The open bar of grey goose & champers did not
really help."
Terminal Five Exhibit Preview, JFK Airport, New York
Photos by David F. Gallagher, Sept. 29, 2004.
(via lightentingfield)
Eero Saarinen's TWA Terminal, JFK Airport, New York. (via
lighteningfield):
These are from a preview party for the 'Terminal 5' art exhibit, which
opens today. I had high expectations for the exhibit, and it failed to
meet them. The building, of course, looked great, and it was fun to be
able to explore the lounges and such. But when you let your corporate
sponsors take center stage (literally – not pictured here), it makes the
art look secondary. Not worth a special trip to the airport, but if you're
early for a flight…
The flight information board was taken over by Jenny Holzer. […]
[image]
For what it's worth here's the film schedule for the "Arrivals" portion of
Terminal 5, slated for screenings at Anthology Film Archives. I wonder if
the panels and other ephemeral events will still take place–I hope so.
Saturday, October 09, 2004 at 08:25 PM in Art Exhibitions | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/10/terminal_5_exhi.html
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Wednesday, October 06, 2004
What Barry Says…
[images]
"What Barry Says" is a jaw-droppingly beautiful animation that comes to us
from Knife Party and Swarm Films (UK).
via Eyeteeth:
A devastating new animation critiques the agenda of the neocon hawks'
Project for the New American Century. Melding stunning stencil-style
graphics with content that lays bare the collusion between our nation's
business and govermental leaders, this staggering bit of art activism
redubs the war on terror "a campaign against opposition to US domination."
Wednesday, October 06, 2004 at 04:52 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/10/what_barry_says.html
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Monday, October 04, 2004
Soros Blogs
via The View from Seymour:
Billionaire George Soros is waging his campaign against Bush in every
medium, including this one. GeorgeSoros.com is yet another example of an
advocacy site on the Web.
excerpt from Soros' blog, Sunday, October 3, 2004:
Dear Mr. Soros,
You criticize Bush for invading Iraq (justly so), but what do you propose
for a foreign policy to free the USA from terrorist threats? We can see
the problems with Bush's strategy (trying to implement democracy in the
Middle East), but what do you see as a really good strategy to
prevent/combat terrorism? It's easy to criticize, but without a better
alternative, your argument falls short.
Response:
All my experience has taught me that you can't introduce democracy by
military means. It has to come from the people themselves. You can see
that Russia and some of the other countries of the former Soviet Union are
now regressing to more authoritarian rule. We had an historic opportunity
when the Soviet system collapsed but now we have very little leverage.
The way we invaded Iraq will make the task of spreading democracy more
difficult than it was before. Acting arbitrarily and unilaterally has
undermined our credibility. This is something I am experiencing personally
in the field.
Monday, October 04, 2004 at 05:02 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/10/soros_blogs.html
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Art that Burns Out
[image: I shot AndyWarhol by Cory Arcangel/Beige]
via art.blogging.la:
Time Waits for No Man, or His Art:
"…a super-interesting LA Times article about the degradation of works in
LACMA's (and other's) new media collections. A lot of this would be old
news to anybody in a technology-related field (anybody out there still
have a SyQuest drive around?), but I think it'll be a sobering read for a
lot of folks."
from the LATimes [excerpts]:
Art That Goes on the Blink
- When TVs burn out, videotapes age or wires fray in technology-based
works, which is more important, the medium or the message?
By Alex Pham, Times Staff Writer
When the Los Angeles County Museum of Art acquired "Video Flag Z" in 1986,
the piece by video artist Nam June Paik canonized a culture driven by
technology.
A 6-foot-high grid of 84 white Quasar monitors flashed a changing mosaic
of images that together formed an American flag in pulsating red, white
and blue.
Today, the screens of "Video Flag Z" are dark, victims of the very
modernity to which they paid tribute. The artwork's parts, including the
84 defunct television sets, are packed in the museum's warehouse.
"We can't find replacement parts anymore," said LACMA conservator John
Hirx. "We're a museum. We're not a TV manufacturing plant."
Museums all over the world face similar problems. After decades of
amassing avant-garde works on video, laser discs and other
technology-based media, conservators are plagued with failing disk drives,
burned-out bulbs, scorched wires, indecipherable bits and a host of moving
parts that no longer move.
The collections grew from a movement that began in the 1950s, led by
artists such as Paik, John Cage, Andy Warhol and Bruce Nauman. These
artists seized upon the notion that people felt disconnected by the
onslaught of technology-driven media.
Many of them sought to demystify technology by taking it apart and
introducing human interaction by having people tinker with the pieces.
Cage in 1951, for example, created a piece that involved 12 people
twiddling with the knobs of radios to create a composition. Paik expanded
on the theme in 1963 with a famous piece called "Random Access" in which
viewers can take random bits of magnetic tape and play them on a
dismantled player.
Decades later, countless works like this "are decaying badly, on life
support or turning to dust in a warehouse," said Jon Ippolito, associate
curator of media arts at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. "There's a
looming threat of mass extinction on the media arts landscape. And there's
great debate right now over what to do about it." […]
[…] as technology evolves, media become obsolete in mere decades.
"When we look at the media landscape in the last century, the lifetime of
these formats has shrunk," Ippolito said. "Film in canisters is turning to
powder. Video formats are no longer readable. Web formats go out of date
in a matter of months. My iMac has the lifespan of a hamster. So hanging
on to these formats may not be feasible."
Instead, many museums are investigating options for capturing the artwork
in a way that would allow it to be displayed on future technology. One way
to accomplish this is to transfer data from one format to another, for
example from videotape to DVD. [..]
[…] For another artist in the exhibit, Cory Arcangel, emulation didn't
make sense.
His piece, "I Shot Andy Warhol," featured a modified video game played on
a Nintendo NES console. As characters floated across a cartoon blue sky,
viewers could shoot the characters with a light gun. The game mimicked the
aesthetic of Nintendo Co.'s well-known Mario Bros. game franchise.
"If we had put the piece on a [Macintosh computer], people wouldn't have
any idea what was going on," Arcangel said. "They should see the Nintendo.
They should see the cartridge."
This leaves conservators with the old-fashioned method of interviewing
media artists about their work while they're alive, so when they're dead,
museums have some guidance on repairing or re-creating their works when
things go wrong. […]
Monday, October 04, 2004 at 04:27 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/10/art_that_burns_.html
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Global War + Visual Culture: Eyes Wide Shut?
VISUAL CULTURE IN THE ERA OF GLOBAL WAR
New York University/Cooper Union VISUAL CULTURE SEMINAR
Thursday, October 21 at 6.30 PM
The Department of Art and Art Professions
New York University, The Steinhardt School of Education
34 Stuyvesant Street, Einstein Auditorium
Free & Open to the Public
The panel will consider the impact of the emergence of what has been
described as an era of permanent war on visual culture in practice and in
theory. This event inaugurates the NYU/Cooper Union visual culture seminar
under the co-chairs Nicholas Mirzoeff (NYU) and Maren Stange (Cooper
Union).
Zainab Bahrani (Columbia), a specialist in Mesopotamian art, will report
back from her recent visits to Baghdad on the current state of the Iraq
Museum, the archaeological sites in the country and the effects of the
occupation on contemporary artists in Iraq.
Artist Gregory Sholette (REPOhistory), College Art Association board
member, will describe the effects of the war on terror and the USA PATRIOT
Act on artistic freedom of _expression, particularly the case of Steven
Kurtz of the Critical Art Ensemble.
Nicholas Mirzoeff (NYU) will look at how the era of permanent war changes
the approach of the new field of visual culture to the hypervisuality of
the present and its array of 24/7 visual media.
The panel is chaired by Maren Stange, well-known photo historian.
A reception will follow. Information: 212.998.5799
Monday, October 04, 2004 at 11:40 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/10/global_war_visu.html
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