Dayna McLeod is a Montréal-based performance artist and video maker… and she’s very funny. Winner of many prizes and awards, her work speaks to the masses with rare and powerful humour rooted in visionary feminist politics. It’s very likely that you’ve seen Dayna, but didn’t even know it: she embodies her message everywhere and in every way–from her infamous Santa Beaver to her newer (picture on the right) Monarchy Mama–her art travels far and wide.
[Interview by Mél Hogan for ArtThreat]
AT: Hi Dayna.
So, it's all about tits lately, isn't it?
Dayna: Totally.
FULL STORY + COMMENTS
Posted by Mél Hogan on September 19, 2007 in
From the editors at JOAAP:
Issue #5 of the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest
now available!!!
Contents
1. Issue #5 release! On Speech and talking
2. Upcoming Atlas of Radical Cartography- Journal Press book
Our fifth print issue is a 122 page book edited by Cara Baldwin, Marc Herbst and Christina Ulke. It was designed by Jessica Fleischmann and contains a section of color photos!
From the forward:
“Arguably, today the act of social networking is commodified more visibly and materially than ever before…This commodification shoudn't hinder us to work in relationship to one another and in a social and political context. Social memory with a sense of history and political demands seems to have undergone an accelerated and profound erasure. This rapid memory loss is facilitated by media consolidation and the plundering of public education programs to fund global mercenary actions.”
With this issue, we look at how cultural production (in art, music, speech, writing, interventions, video, and everyday life) attempt to create culturally based alternatives to oppression and war. Within the context of community and grassroots movements creating meaning for their participants and for broader society, again The Journal looks for ways to create counter-narratives and progressive social movements from the bottom up. From the bottom up- often meaning from a position of people having to do-it-themselves (outside traditional governmental or cultural institutions). This act involves trying to remember shared history, discuss potentially shared values, perform immediately shared ideals, and publicly debate or interrupt suspect truths, and on how it is to be together.
This issue is a collection of transcripts, performance transcripts, speeches, analytical essays, campaign critiques, interviews, email conversations and projects. We are not only presenting critical theory, we are also present to you documents and voices for you to critically investigate.
To order a copy, contact editors(at)joaap(dot)org.
Copies will be mailed in early September 2007.
Online version is available here.
Posted by Ezra Winton on August 21, 2007 in
Roshan Houshmand | Submission | "Submission means Islam in Arabic. This painting was made for a Human Rights exhibition. It refers to the sub-human treatment of women in certain Islamic countries...As an Iranian/American having been raised in the Philippines and Iran; and having spent the majority of my artistic life in Spain and the US, I connect to the diverse patterns of culture in search for a universal truth."
Since its inception in 1987, MIX NYC promotes, produces, and preserves experimental media-from film and video to performance and music-that is rooted in the lives, politics, and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and otherwise queer-identified people.
This year, MIX NYC Queer Experimental Film Festival includes for the first time an experimental music and audio component: "Bending Sound: Queer Experiments with Audio". Individuals are invited to submit proposals for performances working with sound and/or multi-media for inclusion in live audio event as part of the festival in Lower Manhattan in November 2007. More information on MIX NYC available online at http://www.mixnyc.org/.
Posted by Mél Hogan on May 9, 2007 in
Now you can give the finger to the real axis of evil, while simultaneously entertaining children at parties! The Unemployed Philosophers Guild has recently released their newest political play things to bookstores and progressive outlets across North America and Europe, the third version of their line of Axis of Evil finger puppets which handily double as fridge magnets. The UPG has oodles of punchy toys, from Karl Marx figurines to the "Revolutionaries" play set (Mandela, Gandhi, Che Guevara and Trotsky - sticking with revolutions of the male variety however) to tins of national EmbarassMints and ImpeachMints (with images of Bush on the lids).
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Posted by Ezra Winton on March 23, 2007 in
Vlogger and filmmaker extraordinaire Brett Gaylor has launched a website for his newest project The Basement Tapes, the world's first mash-up documentary, and he wants YOU to contribute to the mash. The doc is about copyright issues, the music industry and that whole fandangled culture of remix, snack, mash, and bang-up. Gaylor will be challenging copyright laws and big bad corporations with the doc, which is set to come out in March 2008, by including all kinds of media that the powers-that-be maintain is their "intellectual property." It's quite likely that the film could launch a nasty law suit, but hey, that sounds like good PR for an indy doc! Gaylor is currently at the South by Southwest filmfest discussing the issues around open source, public knowledge, remix culture and corporate-friendly copyright. Check out the podcast here.
For those interested in mash-up, visit Gaylor's project site, OpenSourceCinema.org, and contribute to the meta-mash, which will eventually be included in the documentary film. And if you're a lawyer reading this, or someone interested in the constantly misinterpreted laws around copyright and fair use, check out the Creative Commons site, a veritable warehouse of information on these issues.
Posted by Ezra Winton on March 20, 2007 in
Prolific American jazz musician Wynton Marsalis has released one of his most political albums to date with "From the Plantation to the Penitentiary." Mixing his traditionalist jazz technique with spoken word delivered in angry and powerful bouts, this album is a one part indictment of a history of racism that continues in America against its African descendent population and one part call to arms for that population to rise up. Bluenote describes the album of as "uncompromising" and one that offers "looks at the cracks in America's facade of prosperity and happiness. A BBC Jazz review by Matthew Rogers sums up the album best:
Marsalis releases his fury with American culture with the first note of his solo in the title track, seemingly saying: 'sit up and and be righteously angry at these injustices.' By the final cut, “Where Y’all At?”, where a soulful chorus is interrupted by a sharp-tongued Wynton interjecting spoken-word rants before the album’s abrupt end, you'll be shaken. This is powerful stuff.
What is most refreshing is that Marsalis continues to provoke and push the boundaries of jazz - blending his knowledge of classical and traditional jazz with trumpet sounds that pierce the night and punctuate the complacency and inequities that he continues to battle to this day. Marsalis has been a prolific performer with 16 classical albums and over 30 jazz albums to his name, and has matched these efforts with his dedication to civic involvement in politics, most recently emerging as one of New Orleans's most outspoken and outstanding civic leaders in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
To read up on Marsalis, visit his site, or the Wikipedia page on him. To pick up his album, visit bluenote's site.
Posted by Ezra Winton on March 19, 2007 in
MadCat is a highly acclaimed festival that exhibits independent and experimental films and videos directed by women from around the globe. The MadCat Women’s International Film Festival seeks to exhibit provocative and visionary works that are original in their use of the medium. The festival’s goal is to emphasize innovative works by women that challenge the use of sound and image and explore notions of visual storytelling. This international festival advances an alternative vision by emphasizing work that exploits the medium.
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Posted by Mél Hogan on March 17, 2007 in
The deadline has passed for submissions to the Feminism(s) Symposium in film, video, performance and workshops, but it's not too late to attend. The conference takes place in West Hartford, CT, between April 20 and 22nd, and will have the following speakers (among others): Abigail Child, Dara Greenwald, Jeanine Oleson, Maureen Turim and Sasha Waters. Fore more details read on...
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Posted by Ezra Winton on March 16, 2007 in
Peter Wintonick reports in this month's issue of POV magazine that a new project is well under way in Canada's doc community. The Green Code Project, as it's known, applies environmental codes to every stage of making a documentary film to ensure that the process is as progressive as the product. "The code will consist of a set of modest, voluntary, environmentally friendly eco-actions, guidelines, standards and principles that encourage ecological friendly sustainability." Wintonick likens it to a "micro Kyoto Accord" for docs. The idea was started by Quebec documentarians Sylvie Van Brabant and Marie-France Cote and quickly gathered the support of government institutions including the NFB and other production companies across Canada. Docs are famous for their social-issue focuses and their no-nonsense anti-fluff approach to telling hard-hitting political stories, so it makes sense that the process of making docs should take into account and try to reduce ecological footprints. The feature film industry is one of the most wasteful and eco-disgraceful industries out there, with hundreds of bins of first and second growth Mahogany heading to the landfill every day (one of many examples), so it is encouraging to see a group of committed artists organizing and urging their community to break from this kind of practice.
Now that docs are on their way, let's hope this trend makes its way to Hollywood, where the CBC reports 127,000 tonnes of ozone and diesel are pumped into the California air each year alone. For more information on this initiative, visit the Green Code Project site.
Posted by Ezra Winton on March 13, 2007 in
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