Image + Nation, the week-long queer/glbt film fest in Montréal is celebrating 20 years of providing queers with something to get excited about as the days get shorter, colder. 20 Years: that's a long time... and opportunity to reflect back... to think ahead.

SymbioticA will be hosting a three day workshop in Toronto on growing living tissue in 3-dimensional sizes and shapes. The workshop will introduce artists and other interested people (including architects, designers, ethicists, policy makers) to basic principles of tissue culture and tissue engineering, and also to the history of tissue culturing as artistic intervention.

Bioart is the emerging art form that uses the biological as its medium to explore the vast possibilities of biotechnology. The use of tissue engineering for non-medical ends has also been explored in areas such as food production (in-vitro meat), leather replacement, locomotion, research models, and art.

SymbioticA is an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning and critique of life sciences, and is the first research laboratory of its kind in that it enables artists to engage in wet biology practices in a biological science department.

The workshop was developed by Oron Catts, Ionat Zurr and Dr Stuart Hodgetts and is conducted by artist/researcher/curator Oron Catts, the Artistic Director of SymbioticA

Dates & Location: May 18-29 (2007) University of Toronto

There are approximately 25 positions available for this workshop, including up to 5 fully funded scholarships. More information and application procedures are detailed on the website.

At an astroturf event ironically entitled “Less Talk, More Action” where an audience of nearly 6,000 – most of whom were university and college students – were treated to nearly five hours of talk and actually no action, Al Gore convinced me of why I should boycott An Inconvenient Truth. Despite doing a favour for some former friends and programming the über-hyped film this year at a political film series, I have never been a fan of the slide show doc.

Don't get me wrong, it's great that Gore's efforts to alarm the global North to the perils of global warming have been effective - if you consider people talking about it effective. Where Gore and An Inconvenient Truth fail miserably is in inspiring anyone into any concrete action to actually radically transform consumptive behaviour, and hey, maybe even shop less.

That a white, male member of the American corporate elite brings "a grassroots message" to the college kids of the North via personal jets and limos is bad enough, but what Gore said at this latest conference warrants outright boycott (and a small, insecure "boo" from me - the seemingly only detractor in the audience of pumped up college kids).

Gore told the crowd at the end of his mixed-media powerpoint/Apple computer advert that it is time to look to the business world, and "I know it's controversial, but one company that I've been meeting with has shown remarkable innovation and promise in realizing that sustainability and profit are not necessarily at odds." And what is this magnificent, progressive company pray tell? Why, it's none other than Wal-Mart...

Two thumbs down for the World Science Fiction Society. This year’s Hugo Award nominations, traditionally considered one of the most prestigious awards for science fiction writing, have been released and a mere 2 out of 25 nominees for written work are women. This is not the first time Hugo nominations have been mostly men.

There is, however, WisCon, a huge international convention about feminist science fiction. WisCon, started in 1977, celebrates, debates, and discusses ideas relating to feminism, gender, race and class in the world of science fiction. WisCon honors writers, editors and artists whose work explores these themes and whose voices have opened new territory.

This year’s convention is in Madison, Wisconsin, May 25-28. To register or for more information go here.

And if there is any lingering doubt about who is producing science fiction work, there is the Feminist Science Fiction, Fantasy and Utopia website, an archive and database of women contributors to the genre. And there is wikipedia. And there are books on the subject, for instance Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century (2006) edited by Justine Lardbalestier, a collection of 11 stories and 11 essays.

Another fun stop might be the Feminist Science Fiction Blog Carnivals, gatherings of bloggers dedicated to feminist science fiction. Their 12th Annual Blog Carnival can be found here. Links to their archives and everything you might want to know about the Carnivals can be found here. And, if you would like to participate in the 13th Annual Feminist Science Fiction Blog Carnival, the deadline for submissions is March 29. Go here for more info.

Multi-multi political art conference ARTIVISTIC 2007 will take place in Montreal, Quebec between October 25th and 27th, and with the new political shift to the ultra-right in the province following last night's election results, the theme "(un)Occupied Spaces" couldn't be more appropriate. From Artivistic organizers:

We are infiltrating all levels of society. Artists, activists, academics, architects, bureaucrats, the homeless, anarchists, first nations, immigrants, doctors, geeks, lawyers, teachers, witches, philosophers, clowns. Artivistic does not only provide a platform for political artists and artistic activists, but partakes in the very movements that work for change. In the pursuit of temporary moments of pleasure, we move towards freedom, for resistance is perpetual and oppression, ever-changing.

With the growing dominance of profit-based and/or fear-based initiatives in all spheres of life which negate the human(and non-human) value globally, we feel that it is critical to elaborate new and open strategies of expression that allow the flourishing of multivarious communities.

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...

The third chicago.hackmeeting is coming up in – you guessed it – Chicago, March 17-18. This is a gathering of hackers, activists, artists and educators coming together to talk social change. This year’s gathering is loosely themed on education as a component of radical social practice and educational institutions as sites of resistance. Talks and workshops will include: + inside the One Laptop Per Child project +Counter-recruitment in Chicago schools + circuit-bending, net graffiti and electronic civil disobedience + live collaborative coding projects + live performances and screenings. The conference is FREE to attend, which is pretty great. And for those of us who cannot be in Chicago that weekend, we are invited to participate online via discussions on their website, which is also a nice gesture.

For more information and to contact organizers go here.

Deepwireless is a month long celebration of transmission art in Toronto, Canada. The festival presents live radio plays, performance and sound art, workshops, panel discussions, soundwalks and listening sessions throughout the city in the month of May.

At the centre of the festival is the Radio Without Boundaries Conference, May 25-27, a gathering of transmission art luminaries from around the world. This years participants include Robyn Ravlich (producer of the famed Listening Room program on ABC Australia), Hans Urlich Werner, R. Murray Schafer, microradio guru Tetsuo Kogawa, Canadian/Austrian radio art curator Heidi Grundmann, US radio art satirist Gregory Whitehead, and Deep Wireless resident artists Harmon e. Phraisyar,
Eleanor King and Stephen Kelly. The conference presents two days of workshops and discussions about transmission art from some of the most interesting practitioners in the field. Workshops include listening sessions, panel discussions, microradio building, soundwalks, creative documentary production, the art and sound of poetry, the roots of international radio art, script development. Admission for the conference is $150 (see website for discounts).

Other festival highlights include: + Radio in Ambience (May 22), performance by Toronto/Berlin sound artist Robert Hoare and the Halifax duo Stephen Kelly and Eleanor King; + the Radio Art Salon (gallery installation) an alternate sounding universe in 50's style hair salon chairs transformed into radio art listening lounges at the Process Gallery; and performances of radio plays and radio comedy including weekly installments from a radio art comedian visiting from Resonance FM (UK).

For more information and to register for the Conference, go here.

The Modern Language Association has announced it's 2007 Chicago Conference, and this year they will be hosting a panel on one of the greatest political theatre writers of all time - Bertolt Brecht. Considering cultural, political, and technological shifts since 1989, the International Brecht Society seeks papers reassessing the "Brechtian" in cinema and film studies. A focus on historical or more contemporary issues might examine single films or filmmakers, regional aspects or cinematic movements, or theoretical questions. Aspects of Brecht's relevance to international cinema not yet the subject of extensive research are particularly encouraged. The conference session is dedicated to the memory of the important Brechtian director Daniéle Huillet, 1936-2006.

Those who wish to present a 20-minute paper in this session, send a one-page abstract and a brief CV outlining your relevant background by 23 March to Barton Byg, UMass Amherst, byg@german.umass.edu

Note: The MLA Conference will take place in Chicago from Dec. 27-30, 2007. To participate in the panel, you must be an MLA member by April 1, 2007, and pay the conference registration fee by Sept. 1, 2007.

A call for papers and proposals for a conference about developing non-commercial content for large urban displays – LED, LCD, plasma screens, media facades. Themes to include: public displays as channels for alternative public braodcasting, interactive and participatory displays, the political economies of urban screens, evaluating content for public spaces.

Conference organizers are also looking for media proposals for public events and exhibitions exploring: web-based content and streaming media, connecting screen audiences in various places, interactive and participatory works, text pieces, video and animation which suit airing on urban screens, performance-based works including audiovisual performance/Vjing.

The conference will be held in Manchester, UK, Oct 11 and 12, 2007.

Email proposals for papers in the form of a 500 word max abstract and your/the presenter's CV by March 2, 2007 to info@manchesterurbanscreens.org.uk.

Send project proposals in the form of a project description, illustrative material and the author's CV by March 2, 2007 to: CORNERHOUSE, Urban Screens Conference, 70 Oxford Street, Manchester M1 5NH, United Kingdom

For more info: Urban Screens Conference