Jtamsin

Rio + 20 Global Youth Music Contest at Klapp Festival

2012-01-30T14:28:00.000-08:00

We wanted to open the circle to have many people create the meaning for the Music Video "What is to be Done in This world" by making this video as part of the workshops at Klapp Festival in Europark, Salzburg. THis way the video became a truly democratic process. Many voices can be heard. Europark was an apt place to shoot the film, because there, unfortunately, you find mindless consumerism and the song is all about finding our freedom beyond capitalism. What is to be done was originally said by Lenin and is part of the meaning of this song that the way to equality is not just about fighting for working hours or wages, but it is about becoming politicised about the whole dynamic process of capitalism.

and in the beginning was the word....let the creative process begin!

Sara the dancer who symbolises human`s freedom, peace and beauty is here getting professionally made-up by Kathrin Bornmüller who has just done Vampire Sister in Germany and does extreme make-up for films

A very real looking hand...the hairs were real!

The eyes were really important to be smokey in contrast to the pale white face and innocent dress. This was to represent the lighter and darker sides of human nature.

Kathrin`s handbook for film make-up, it really is an art, so many styles, just like art history...

The painters tools :-)

The dancer comes alive synthesising her double nature

the singer and the dancer meet and learn from each other...the third and fourth position, the creative process takes on a life of it`s own

into new realms!

Where`s our freedom gone? Look up!!!!

Look Up!!!

Freedom is out of sight and cold, from the frozen souls of greed in our world..we have to find her!!!

The first hip hop band member giving Dennis some moves, spicing up the performance

It`s cold and late, but the artists work on!

and on...

......and on...

...and finally!

So let`s take a look

how can we piece this jigsaw together?

like this?

or like that?

Wait, we forgot the opening!

but never fear we have a new participant.

The rose petals falling......

......even on the head of the director

Symbolise our freedom and peace we so often miss our lives

The path of freedom

Freedom of our emotions

Poetry Day

2012-01-21T07:46:00.000-08:00

Educating takes on many forms, today, I dedicate this poem to childhood memories on steam trains, model railway sets and night trips through Germany, France and Spain; to my nephew and niece who

I´ll be seeing soon after a year away. They have inherited the same model railway set and have many train trips to look forward to.

Chugg-a-Chugg Chugg

Our Carriage Awaits

We better hurry before it`s too late

Passengers, luggage all steam "Coming Through"!

The seats waiting for us, no further a do

Window down, I lean and wave

we`ll miss you dear ones

Our memories we`ll save

Bigger Than Us

2012-01-16T16:04:00.000-08:00

As I am working on music projects for the Global Youth Music Contest, my mind is filled with music and lyrics, especially late at night. These lyrics are best sung or spoken to the instrumental version of MGMT Electric feel...Only one line in the chorus is lifted from song the rest of the lyrics are fresh.

You and me like dynamite

Holding hands throughout the night

Finding worlds to explore

There`s no darkness anymore

Gradually into the light

There`s no need to feel a fright

Magnificence as I implore

There must be something more
Do what you feel now
Electric feel is how
Do what you feel now
Electric feel is how

With human eyes I am sure

That we can open up that door

Split once

Our time here must be done

So we find our home as one
revealing in our completion

our home once shunned
is now our sun
We have our its time now
To take it further, yes, somehow
Do what you feel now
Electric feel is how
Do what you feel now
Electric feel is how

Rio+20 Global Youth Music Contest at UN in Vienna

2012-01-13T07:30:00.000-08:00

Rio+20 GYMC presented as an instrument to link UN system with civil society/youth by Austrian GYMC coordinator Jessica White and IAAI Secretary Miroslav Polzer at the conference "UN Agencies connecting with Academia and Civil Society http://www.acuns.org/about_us/vienna_liaison_office at UN Office Vienna, Austria — with Michael Platzer.

Mädchen Tanz und Skulptur Projekt

2012-01-13T07:18:00.000-08:00

Mädchen Tag/ Girls Day

2012-01-08T13:23:00.000-08:00

On the 3rd and 4th of Jan. 2012 hosted by the Frauen Büro we explored what it means to be a girl in a two-day workshop. The first day was filled with structured activities, the second with their own creative output. The presentation slides above reveal what we have explored (please press pause to linger on each slide). We focused on incredible women throughout history. By using a time line starting from Cleopatra to present day we explored women that used their skills and abilities to take things further for themselves and the world at large. Interesting Austrian women include the writer Ruth Maier who was captured by the Nazis; Therese Schlesinger-Eckstein a strong political activist and Ida Pfeiffer who traveled the world twice. Amazing girls from present day include Thandiwe Chama and Mayra Avellar Neves from Brazil who fought for the right to education in their own cities despite adversity such as violence and aids as well as Tilly Smith who demonstrated how important education is by saving people lives by recognising a Tsunami was coming.

By using methods such as photo and object elicitation we were able to explore the relationship between the girls values and themselves. This enabled them to connect with each other through their values, therefore exploring deeper the relationships with themselves and each other that are not based on assumptions and appearances alone.

To build trust we worked with Augusto Boal`s Games for Actors and Non-Actors that opened up their senses to each other and helped to build a community spirit between the girls whilst allowing them to still keep their individuality. This really expressed their diversity in a collective.

We explored media messages coming directly from the media campaigns themselves, using stickers that expressed "Girl Respect" or "Girl Disrespect". So the girls had to choose in their groups what images we embracing multi-dimensional representations of girls and what were crude and sexualised images.

We then explored the history of the women`s vote, across diverse countries across the world from New Zealand to Oman. The girls were able to see visually on this time line that they helped to put together that New Zealand had women`s vote over 100 years ago whilst in Oman women had only got the right to vote since 2003. We then linked this activity to their own campaign. They picked a country that had been explored in the time-line and devised a campaign of what they would change if they were the mayor of a town in that country. One group picked Oman, mainly because in the previous activity they had learned that women had only just got the vote and so they wanted to introduce more women`s rights and equality. Each group delivered their campaign to the rest of the group and each group voted for or against in a democratic process. Proposals that were included in the campaigns were: more health services, more services that tackled violence and more informal educational programs provided by the town.

On the final day the girls explored had more chance to create their own interpretations of the previous days activities. A couple of groups chose to do a magazine. The content of these Zine`s varied. There was a Professions Zine, based on what they had wanted to do in 20 years time and exploring women`s professions in their immediate surroundings including the Frauen Büro. Another zine focused on the history of Salzburg then and now. Another Zine explored issues such as how to deal with trauma in war, friendship and a comedy theatre piece that one of the other groups were exploring. Another group presented what was had done over the past two days, reflecting on what they had learned. The other groups did performance pieces. One was a comedy called the Star Museum took an ironic look at Stardom for Teens by playing people such as Justin Biber, but also exploring their own professions within that, since one of them wanted to be a museum director, another an artist, a journalist photographer and a singer. This was a fascinating double exploration at both the consumer and fame saturated landscape that was being channeled out to them but also their chance to look at their own roles within that relating to what they wanted to do 20 years into the future. The final group explored their professions 20 years in the future by creating a "Who Done It" detective story where they all got to play out their own professions whilst giving an interactive detective story to the audience.

It`s impressive what girls can get up to when you give them chance to step fully into their power. They forget about being coy and just be themselves with each other, expressing their talents to the fullest. I can`t wait for the next one.

Light Another Candle

2011-12-24T11:16:00.000-08:00

Often the sense of belonging to any group, country or ethnicity evades me. Wisdom I learn from each, yet, to embrace in totality any singular one, seems somewhat restricting. How can I relinquish diverse wisdom and close myself to the wonder of it all. At this time of year what seems to pervade through all religions, is the need for light, candle light or star light to guide us out of the darkness. Candles lit on the Menorah or in the Christingle service or in November with Diwali and the festival of lights remember strength in darkness, adversity against anger and hurt caused to one another through difference, or lack of tolerance and acceptance of those differences. Then triumph and celebration for hope against destruction or futility and a peace we all long for.
As I take a winter walk through the Yorkshire hills near an old 16th Century Abbey, I delight in finding such diversity of people wondering about enjoying a typical wintery scene, with trees all a bare, except one those evergreens. I find one, covered in paper with written wishes upon it. I´m suddenly taken back to Japan where I first saw outside a temple and was invited to write upon white paper and tie to the tree my souls greatest wish. In delight I find these intercultural influences pervading and enriching our lives. I had always thought that the wish tree I had first seen in Japan was such a wonderful idea, to find it standing proud in the hills of Yorkshire gave me such delight. I feel as humans, we need to learn from each, to not be afraid of the differences, but be curious, inquisitive without judgement and often embrace traditions and rituals with delight, then finding enrichment, universality and diversity simultaneously in the marvelous dynamic of life.

2011-12-24T05:14:00.000-08:00

May the days ahead be filled with light and joy
Beyond the lapsing and falling allurements so coy
Drawing as it does, our souls to play

Leading us completely astray
Knowing our quest is beyond these walls
Though so many spirits to the fire do fall
Guides lead us to a hidden road
Where through our salvation
And solitary contemplation
Our souls interweave with luminaries
That take us beyond our lapsing memories
We start the dance of infinity
There we find divinity

Music Makes the World Go round

2011-12-21T14:33:00.000-08:00

After listening so many times to the 1972 Cabaret song Money Makes the World go Round, I now find myself in the position feeling the transformative potential of music with preparations for the Rio+ 20 Global Song Contest. In Salzburg Denis comes up to me singing "I need a dollar, a dollar is all a need"...."I can`t get the melody right" he says, "What do you think to this one? It`s not mine, but I like the melody" the guys, Denis (16) and Ilker (20) are clearly motivated. Ilker, an intern at Red Bull creative couldn`t get to sleep until he got the beats, melody and chorus "We`re From the Same Soul Family" right. We sat a couple of nights a week having a dialogue through music. I helped them out with lyrics, but the rest comes from themselves. I can feel the energy is gathering momentum and I´m excited to see what happens next. It`s giving me a sense of hope for what you can do with creativity and themes that we really care about and effects society as a whole.

You can see the full article published Salzburger Nachricten here with a video as well you can listen to Ilker`s music on sound cloud here and Denis` lyrics are below and for his music watch this space:

Hello what`s going on in this world

Hello what counts in this world

With money and greed

Without enough to feed

Get past your blind confusion

This world of consumption

We want to bind for the good of humanity

Instead we find ourselves in a bed of insanity

So look around

It all the same in this world

Look around, its so frozen this world

Take it out take it out your voice

Make it right make it right your choice

(Rap)

people are wrong, no body to trust,

They only think “self self”

They get like dust

Why don`t u wake up,

Get Together, Make up

You`re time is up

feel the love tonight

love humans alike

things get better

if you don`t fight

you keep what matters

wake up to your life

instead we go war

but really we can do more

What is to be done? What is to be done?

Capitalist Class

Delivers Austerity

For our sake?

Come on that`s insanity

They take all our cash

Until we`re smashed

We need to live together

Not so separate forever

An individualistic mind-set

It`s a failure don`t forget

We are one

Like sisters and brothers

Feel the power of one

Girls Workshop

2011-12-08T04:40:00.001-08:00

What are We to Do With All this Spectacle?

2011-11-26T04:19:00.001-08:00

This talk was given at the Fachhochschule Salzburg on 24.11.11 with Subnet for multimedia students.

You can see the video version here: http://vimeo.com/34027299 on Subnet website.

We are at a point in history when consumption, reaction and re-representation happen at such a fast rate, it is often difficult to see where influences come from. So we are faced with the emblems without the meaning. This kind of dislocation of signs and symbols from what they signify creates at worst a kind of banal and superficial understanding of our cultural landscape. Random symbols are put together for the purpose of spectacle, the stranger, the more that we can`t understand them, the better, or at other times, the more flashy and more expensive or glamourous the better.

This is a condition of a Dystopia society that several books and films have depicted--and I am sure you have many examples of your own--such as Fahrenheit 451, where the novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start to burn books. I chose this example in particular as the burning of books leads to a perception of knowledge as being composed of dislocated bits of information that have no reference to the context in which they were constructed.

As Cultural practioners here at the FH and when you graduate you have access to some of the most sophisticated tools of production representation presently available in the multi-media industry. It is possible in the position that you guys are in now to re-create and re-represent material artefacts such as music, film, books and games that will in turn influence the super-structure--which are the thoughts and concepts about society, social class, political structure, ideologies: legal, political, religious, artistic, or philosophical. I would say that is pretty exciting. However, with power comes great responsibility.

What I want to say before I go on is what Douglas Adams says on the cover of Hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy. Don`t Panic! Like him, I am saying this because our current situation may seem insanely complicated, but also because I want to remind us all that there is hope. This is not our final destination.

So, this is where we are at now-here we are in cultural landscape that is operated by tiny men and women hiding behind an operation of smoke and mirrors of our cultural landscape, just like in the Wizard Of Oz creating illusions and scaring us to hide from ourselves and our collective history. Arguably what we need is a cultural landscape and education that is able to reveal the “Wings” as Bertolt Brecht used to say. Which means to lift the illusions and reveal the workings of our history so we can be an informed and critical mass otherwise we will keep going round and round in a kind of feedback loop, never really evolving and building upon what has gone before, only repeating.

I would like to now show you an example of some technology that "could" be just seen and used for spectacle, since they are using expensive equipment and working in the paradigm of a potential spectacle environment. However, there are major differences which I will elicit. I want to remind everyone that I chose this example particularly because it is working within the paradigm of a potential spectacle to explore, what can be done if we, as cultural practitioners find ourselves in this kind of environment or paradigm, what can be done to prevent a slipping into focusing solely on the glamour, superficialities and fetishisation of equipment.

If you get past the naive way of presenting and look to what is inside, then the possibilities for youth empowerment are large. There are plenty of spaces out there like this, mobile or otherwise that have advanced technology and so instead of rejecting, ignoring or sneering at it, let`s look at what we can do if we are faced with this kind of environment. Many of us will, being cultural practitioners work with this kind of technology. I also want to make the point that one of the reasons why I chose this example was because so often in Art Education we are given little hand-held cameras and one microphone between five and small budgets, and told that art education is something on the side, something extra. It is difficult to get access into professional artistic environments and it is seen as only the realm of the professionals. The "professional" equipment is seen as something that is an off limits to youth and youth do not get a look into this or chance to explore and re-represent the kind of media that is pumped out to them on a daily basis. Yet, it is integral, and if we give students the opportunity to work in a professional studio with high end equipment, with the guidance of art educators/mentors/producers, then they may have to the opportunity to have their hands on the equipment of the mainstream and to re-represent what they see in their environment. This would be rather than this equipment being in the hands of a few who represent mediocrity or spectacle for them. The technology and equipment is itself is not the actual spectacle, it is neutral and it has the potential to go several ways, in the direction of random symbols that are dislocated and don`t reference back to historical contexts in which the symbols were created within, or to a pastiche of styles, influences, forms and symbols that DO have a political historical referencing. This Education Tour Bus has the potential to go in both directions. I am presenting this to you, to see how, if we are faced to work within this paradigm, how do we make it more to be about giving the youth a context that is about collectivity, empowerment and revolution, rather than just mindless consumerism or spectacle.

Here we are presented with a professional music studio that has be reassembled with John Lennon symbols all around and inside it. This is emphasised with the Peace tower that has been recreated in miniature that is ever present in the bus. However, what I want to emphasise that is is not John Lennon alone that is the ultimate symbol of love and peace, this would be a false representation and as a couple of people mentioned in the talk, they have seen documentaries where John Lennon was not seen as being peaceful to his partner. Like with all signs and symbols and this is a major point that should be noted and specifically relevant to this talk-John Lennon does not = Peace and Love. It is the symbols that reference to a time when it was through the collectivity of the people against repressive social control systems and abusing technology as spectacle that gave way to a revolutionary period expressed through art, music, politics and education. It is this dynamic that we as cultural producers, educators, practitioners have within our hands to bring to youths awareness. It is not the focus on John Lennon = peace and love. This is exactly what I am arguing against-a crude one thing equals another. More it is that we need to think in terms of the symbols, such as John Lennon, ubiquitous throughout the bus as a historical indexing to a time that where a collective and unity in society was possible and one based on peace and love. The symbols are emphasised and placed in context with the replica of the Peace Tower that revealed those dynamics and are placed within the bus, so that we can recreate this within the context of today, using technology of the mainstream today. It was mentioned by people within the audience that this kind of historical context is not clear, perhaps that is up to the role of art educators, music producers cultural practitioners to utilise this historical indexing that is present on the bus and make it evident with the youth that come on board. This can be done with the actual work that is done with the technology. Working with the youth to create work themselves that have symbols that if taken from the past are put together in such a way that contain references to the time and meaning in which they were created within.

Recollecting is in Walter Benjamin’s terms also re-collecting, gathering together the broken pieces and fragments of a culture, not to forge out of them a new organic whole but create something new that includes the memory of their breaking within it. The recollecting has to do with a flash of intuition (ein-blitzen), it has to direct us towards a certain moment, the moment where memory-traces become legible. One could almost say that they do not have a certain or concrete shape but are occasional.  

It is difficult to think dynamically, because we have so often be educated and conditioned to think that one thing= another. One perspective, a high bourgeois ideal. However, it is really important to think in terms of how symbols dynamically interact with each other and it is ONLY through that dynamic interaction that meanings are created. If symbols, such as the John Lennon emblem are recreated in this present context here in the bus, it is needed in the re-assemblage that there be a historically referencing to the time in which the meanings of peace and love were created through the dynamic interaction of many symbols, including, but not exclusive to John Lennon. Fixing the meaning to just John Lennon is falling into the high bourgeois ideal of just one perspective and one belief in one symbol, icon or ideal.

There are many that have gone before starting in the Renaissance and still present in today showing one fixed perspective or one fixed truth/viewpoint. So consumer capitalism is always trying to make us identify with one point, one fixed identity through the fetish of objects, people or technology. This is exactly what I am arguing against. Through the combination of symbols this is indexing the cultural memory of a time when the meaning of collectivity and peace gained global mobilisation of which John Lennon was a part not the sole owner of this meaning. This reassembaleage with historical indexing to that context that the meaning was created, breaks that singular identification and reminds us that it is the meaning of peace and collectivity that we are to recreate in our present context, not the idea of one man holding one meaning like a superstar.

This kind of singular perspective wasn´t always always so prevalent. In the medieval triptych there was the the multiple of perspective that disappeared, appearing only sometimes throughout visual history, fully emerging again, with Cubism and photography and not forgetting film from the multiple perspectives, where their relationship is ever dynamic, interconnected and the key thing here, historically influenced by each other.

Of course it is not always necessary to show hundreds of perspectives in one production, because you may need to go into depth viewpoint to to follow a story, but it is essential to show that there are others that could to be considered, so showing the context of the dynamics interacting with each other is important.

For example you see here with the Breugel "Road to Calvary" painting is actually revealing the superstitious frenzy that is whipped up, giving quite a secular meaning, but if you isolate and just take one part of that, the meaning changes and it could seem like just an average devotional painting. This ripping of one part of something without showing how that part is historically influenced in context has become common place in society and our cultural landscape.

So where did all this illusion and mass individualism come from? Well yes, you guessed it, let`s take a look back in time. Let`s go back to the French Revolution. In 1840`s when there was the Europe Wide economic crisis of 1848. It was the first clear crisis of unemployed surplus capital and surplus labour existing side by side.

with seemingly no way to put it back together again. It struck particularly hard in Paris and the result was an abortive revolution on the part of the unemployed and the utopian Bourgeois who saw a social republic as the antidote to the capitalist greed and inequality that prevailed in the 1830`s and 1840`s. The republican bourgeois violently crushed the revolution but failed to resolve the crisis. This is when Napoleon Bonaparte who engineered a coup in 1851 and he became EMperor Napoleon in 1852. This meant that to survive politically he had to find ways to absorb the capital surplus profitably. Huge rebuilding in Paris went on with Baron Haussman so that workers felt like they were rebuilding something great, as well as authoritarian suppression of the aspirations of the Parisian workers, this became the primary vehicle of social stabilisation. Paris became the city of Light, center of consumption and pleasure, the fashion industry, the opera and the spectacle of court life.

You may see similarities to today`s Occupy Wall Street protests. There was a great deal of euphoria when it first began that manifested on a global scale with the climax of October 15th with protests all around the world. However, the story is quite different now as the police have been more repressive than ever in New York and London, smashing up the protest, finally removing the tents from St. Pauls a policeman who is using pepper spray to peaceful protests in a so called “civilized” society so this is nothing new. This happened again in 1942 in USA. Moses then rebuilt the idea of New York not just in terms of the city but the whole surbanisation of the city and the surrounding areas. In the US it led to an ultimate dependancy on foreign oil sources and perpetual involvements in Middle East politics--the ramifications of which we have seen today in the past twenty years including the Gulf that led to the Iraq War due to oil dependancy. All this suburbanisation led to the hollowing out of city centers, so that there is little sustainable economic basis where minorities were now locked into the inner cities that had been denied access to both suburbs and new prosperity. However, the suburbs also were not idyllic either. The rise of individualism created soul-less everyday life. At the end of the 1960`s feminists and youth that had been subjected to the discontents of this suburban life were now beginning to rise up in revolt that became the protest movements of 1968, burning down the bank of America and joining forces with other marginalised groups rallying against US imperialism-the Vietnam war. The US dollar was collapsing under pressure of excessive pressure. The solution then as it is now and before in 1852 was becoming the problem. In 1975, New York with it`s sprawling affluent suburbs went broke. So what was the solution? The same as it had been in Napoleon's time and again in the 1940`s--A simple recipe: crush the power of labour, initiate wage repression, let the market do the work, while all the while putting the power of the state at the service of capital in general and of investment finance in particular. This was the solution in 1970`s and lies at the root of the crisis of 2008-9.

So after the 1970`s came massive urbanisation. Shopping Malls, Pleasure palaces of all kinds, newly minted cultural institutions along with gated communities and golf courses all debt financed in the midst of urban dormitories for labour reserves of people being mobilised from impoverished rural regions. These huge urbanisation projects continued on such a global scale from New York to China to Dubai. The spectacular became the main vehicle for mopping up capital surpluses arising from oil wealth in the most ridiculous ways such as an indoor ski slope in a hot environment.   

This kind of upgrade in scale of specatular urbanisation, is similar in process to what Haussmann did in the Second empire in Paris. This remaking of urban geographies entails huge transformations in lifestyle. What became the main source of urban political economy in the Second Empire in Paris is still a major aspect of today`s political urban economy that has large effects on the culture, arts and education. The city is a place where consumerism, tourism, niche marketing, cultural and knowledge based industries, as well as perpetual resort to the economy of spectacle, but this time, it is not just in the major cities, it is global. It`s even in Salzburg! Mass individualism, brand and consumer power have swept up femininsim, equality, freedom, the contradiction is they have even swept up the very artists who are trying to undermine the system and to use them in their campaigns!

So what can we do about it?
Well, as always, it`s in our hands, I think. We are at a time when we have access to sophisticated technology to shake up these modes of representation, like I was saying before at the beginning, it is important to use the multiple viewpoints, without falling into spectacle that we have today in our common landscape.

What I was illustrating with the example of the bus was that by historically indexing with a well known symbol that has represented peace and love-such as John Lennon. We can look into the dynamics of that time in which it was created-1968 illustrated historically by the peace tower and attempt to recreate it in the present context. So it is the dynamics of many actors.

Jimi Hendrix, as you all know was a part of this wave and his music has been revisited by an artist that I went to see this last weekend Lenny Kravitz. I found myself being reminded of Led Zeplin, Jimi Hendrix and Bill Withers all at the same. This could be seen as a pastische that are many different ingredients of rock and soul. What`s interesting is that the components are not only recognisable, but they also offered a similar meaning to the 1960`s love reveloution and also the fight for equal rights in the title Black and White America. So the emblems have travelled across space and time to reveal the a very similar if not same meaning in a different context and in a different way of being put together. Soul came out of expression against repression of black equality. So by historically indexing with these two musical genres through re-representation, it is possible to recreate the meanings of love and equality and reveal the dynamics that gave way to meanings and modes of expression. This referencing back to different artists at different times, who were evidently living in similar times and similar dynamics of what we are right now, invites to be aware of the multiple perspectives and interconnectivity going on of people across space and time.

In Film last year there was Midnight in Paris by Woody Allen takes us back to 1920`s Paris where the writer meets his heros Hemmigway and Fitzgerald, in the reconstruction of this 1920`s time Allen reveals the dynamics-social, environmental , economical that made it possible for these artists to come together and create meaning such as Surrealism or the lyrical writing such as Hemmigway and Fitzgerald could, so if you try and see the artists as something great, you get in trouble, because it is the dynamics of the time that create the conditions to make them great. So here in Woody Allen`s intertextual referencing he is also revealing the dynamics that gave birth great art such as surrealism in the first place. The main character`s love interest is also questions the 1920`s as being the best time and challenges him by suggesting the Belle Epoque, the turn of the century was the best time, which they travel back to and explore. By doing this he revels that the process, or the dynamics, reveals the form, which in turn reveals the outcome. Which undermines high borgeouis ideal that offers us a fixed perspective of the world from which your ultimate truth emenates. It undermines the isolated romantic atomised soul that ready to “do business” with others. So by using devices such as inter-texuality you can break away from spectacle and the high borgeouis repressive ideal.

Consumer capital is always trying to make us identify with one viewpoint but devices such as inter-texuality and self-reflexivity is way to reveal that you are constructing the meaning. Take Las Menina by Diego Velasquez 1656, he is playing within the techniques and conventions of Renaissance painting which held the one point perspective as the ultimate truth, however at the same time he undermined it. As soon as you try and find one fixed point in the painting in which to identify you cannot find it the idea of ultimate reality given by the renaissance one perspective position has been shaken up and instead now the question of “reality”-meaning a singular sense of reality comes into question. So as cultural workers we can use the conventions and technology that is in the present landscape of the spectacle, consumer society, just in the way that Velasquez did in order to undermine it. The danger is then that it is not reused, as my early example with Barbara Kruger o advocate the very thing it is trying to undermine. So, as with everything, when gaining the same tools that were used to reinforce, to undermine, we have to be careful that these are not then turned back on us double-fold.

Other devices that cultural workers and artists can use devices such as humour to reveal the repressions and cultural amnesia of society. In the 1970`s film Cabaret Sally Bowles and Joel Grey ridicule the glamour of the 1930`s Germany and the rise of fascism that loved elitism, money and power that went with it  The cabaret originally came from a genre that was part of the burlesque cannon, now today when i say burlesque you may think of Christina Aguilera and her skimpy outfits, but what it actually originally was meant to be was a device for joke and ridicule from the Italian Burla. However, things have been grossly distorted and you only see a cinderella type story. Cabaret like Vaudeville used often several styles with absurd descriptions and grouping unrelated acts together.
One thing I want to end is what Shakespeare expressed in Henry 4th back in 1598 or the in reaction to the modern day Wiki Leaks fiasco which is please, "Don't shoot the messenger". I do not intend to bring bad news, but I have intended in the small time available to available to present a picture of our current cultural climate and how we can influence it, hopefully for the better using devices such as self-reflexivity, pastische, intertextuality humour through cabaret, Burlesque and parody. I do not ask you to take my viewpoint as ultimate truth, as it is just one position of many, that, like others has been carefully selected and constructed. I do not claim to hold any answers, just ideas which can be dialectically explored. I ask you to question and delve deeper into the areas that interest you. I offer you a selection from which you may choose to go further.

I couldn`t find the quote, but one of the historians of the French Revolution of 1789 wrote that it was not the product of poor people but of poor professionals. You can have political/economic setups that disappoint the poor for generations - but if professionals are sitting in their garrets freezing and starving you get revolution. Now, in present time, in their/our garrets we have a laptop and broadband connection access to our own cameras, music studios and instruments. Now is our time to break the cycles by historically indexing and re-representing into the unknown

Freedom or Choice

2011-11-09T07:29:00.000-08:00

Efraim Moskovics
13.11.11
Lauder Business School

Efraim`s photography brings out historical aspects of faith with modernism. This approach experiments with form and draws attention to processes and abstraction. His work is self-conscious and challenges, as Adorno has characterised, conventional surface coherence and appearance of harmony. Yet as Einstein said, as we look at Efraim`s photography it is possible from “Discord to find harmony”. Efraim`s photography is subtle and plays with light to achieve this abstraction, this awakens our interest to see the familiar in an unfamiliar way opening contemporary perceptions.

The Airport Series
In this series, people leaving Jerusalem were taken from behind a screen at the airport. There was intention to have a strong contrast between darkness and light. Silhouettes emphasise this intensity with nothing in between. Perhaps this contrast is a little startling, unnerving, almost too much. This ardor of contraposition between darkness and light allude to Efraim`s religious influences. Often in the greatest darkness there is light; in suffering there is beauty and in contrast, where there is light there can be seeds of downfall.
Film has been a steady influence throughout Efraim`s photographic development. Posters from this art form are often arresting, striking and bold in approach. They capture your attention in an instant and yet, done well, they deliver a narrative through careful composition. In this series, the striking colour against black silhouettes, infers towards these graphic representations of film. Furthermore, Efraim`s hope is to popularise the photographic image so that it will reach a mass audience, rather than a single group or an elite. Cross-referencing with other art forms in this way, echos Andy Warhol and his experiments with a variety of media. Efraim, like Andy Warhol is interested in the cultural and aesthetic associations and through his work questioning structural boundaries and exploring the merging of mediums.

Hat and Graffiti Series
In these series geometrical shapes appear that are created between the stark contrasts. For instance, the white wall and ritual hat that are at once traditional and contemporary. There is a witty aspect to these photographs that seem to be influenced by surrealism, in particular Rene Margrit, with his iconic black hat paintings. You can almost hear Margrit infer to Efraim`s photographs as he says: “It is a union that suggests the essential mystery of the world. Art for me is not an end in itself, but a means of evoking that mystery. ”
— René Magritte on putting seemingly unrelated objects together in juxtaposition

Magritte's work frequently displays a collection of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things. Similarly, in Efraims`s work, this is quite true for both this and the Graffiti series. Seemingly everyday rituals and objects are seen in a new way. Is the man davening (praying) or inspecting a white gallery wall for a photograph to hang for an exhibition giving a self-reflexive quality? It is the former, yet this juxtaposition reveals ambiguity and the precarious balance and witty allusion to both. Similarly in the Graffiti Series, is this a man going about his daily prayer or is he experimenting with street art? This juxtaposition of daily objects and actions in an unusual way is not to make these subjects superficial or to ridicule, quite the opposite it is, like Magritte, to convey poetic imagery. They evoke mystery and you may ask when you see these pictures, “What does this mean”? but like mystery itself you may have to keep asking this question because these photographs infer to the unknowable.

So from art to mysticism, Efraim, among other modernist artists revealed the connections between the two. Efraim sees that an artist and a spiritual leader have to strive for the intangible and so they have communicate grand visions.
“ When a person is spiritual they may want other people to see what they see and to feel what they are feeling you feel like there should be as many people as possible who feel the same way as you do. You are trying to strike a cord with people`s emotions, not to necessarily feel the same way as you do, but more to trigger a thought and emotion. An artist can be similar to a Rabbi, he has tremendous power of inspiring people, he has to speak the people`s language. It is not enough that the Rabbi feels a certain way but that he has to bring it across in a way that speaks to them that evokes feelings in the people. If he doesn`t move his audience then he has failed and in that way the artist and Rabbi are very similar. In the abstract photographs, the intention was on not having the face shown, there are many reasons for this. The photographs are more open to interpretation if you don´t see the face. In religion, sometimes you are in danger of loosing your individuality, however, this is not necessarily a bad thing, because it enables people to gain a sense of unity with one another.” (E.Moskovics; 2011)

Portraits
The face and eyes are prominent in his portraits, so that seemingly small, seemingly `normal` everyday or face in the crowd becomes something special, valuable and unique. He captures what is often overlooked by others with a keen and inquisitive eye. His portraits reveal melancholy and brings from their eyes to ours. After many conversations with Efraim on the subject, it seems as if he wants to draw our attention to those aspects of life that we were aware of as a child and yet, into adulthood we take for granted. If we look a bit closer to those seemingly unnoticeable facets of life, those that are left discarded, there we may find the greatest beauty of all.
What runs through Efraim`s photography is beauty in difficulty. His photographs explore the limitations that people often find themselves in. They are often people who have grand visions and yet are confined by their circumstances in some way. His photography explores how can this beauty can survive, with often unusual juxtapositions in limiting circumstances. Efraim takes familiar rituals and traditions and looks at them in abstraction. Through this abstraction, he enables us as viewers to become participants in his formation process, so he invites us through his photography to challenge form and structure in a peaceful and non-threatening way. This enables a certain freedom. A freedom from constraints, and an ability to look beyond ritualistic elements in their context. From this alternative way of looking, we are able to understand a third interpretation; an interpretation that is fresh and exploring the boundaries of conformity. Perhaps, through this approach, new forms of understanding can come into play. There is a freedom in this voice. Such as the ritual of davening against a wall then abstracting this ritual by juxtaposing a graffitied wall. In each of his photographs, the viewer can feel a need to look at the world from a fresh perspective away from constrictions. This does not mean eradicating traditions and rituals, it means keeping and respecting, but having freedom within them.

Talking Sense

2011-11-08T12:41:00.000-08:00

David Harvey just talks plain and simple sense. I am finally getting round to reading his Enigma of Capital, this brief animation is a starting point to those that want access to his work, and finally some wisdom.

Warming Autumn

2011-11-06T11:44:00.000-08:00

Several days of Salzburg Föhn, watching the first burn orange leaves fall gently from trees like jeweled amber and a visit from Papa has lulled me into a relaxed state. Daily sun and warm weather, a rare pleasure for English folk, has led us to stalk sun spots like lazy lions, finding packed cafes, benches and mountain tops. Our chase for the sun (and out of season closures) meant the so called beneficial Salzburg Card was about as useful as a chocolate teapot. However I did, eventually, with an early morning rise, catch up with the Emil Nolde exhibition at the Museum der Moderne on the Mountain.
Despite the criticism of Nolde`s political orientation, I found his "primitive" paintings frank and lacking in any kind of condescension. In fact quite the opposite. In one of these portraits there seemed to be a striking similarity to teenagers today. One youth, standing with a rolled tobacco leaf hanging casually from his mouth proud, all-knowing, unafraid and provocative; his head-dressed with a couple of orange feathers. Nolde represented this unaffected youth in a bold, block of skin colour paint and thick black outlines to have him standing, defiantly looking slightly down at you. Contrary to what I have read on Nolde, this is not the work of someone who could truly believe in a master race. Perhaps his political affiliation was one rather due to fear and not real commitment. The NSDAP party had much fear, as I would summerise from the selection, that this is an artist that was able to see past the illusion of difference between cultures. So perhaps his sympathy toward this party was just a fearful facade? Art that speaks truthful depths clearly cannot lie and the party quickly in their fear marked Nolde`s works as Degenerate Art. The rest of the portraits in this series we equally interesting as they were diverse. Confident young men who weren`t afraid of looking you in the eye and sporting their latest native head gear, that Nolde represented as splashes of bold red colour. Women, who looked back at you indifferently as anyone who would capture your portrait and in this indifference revealed her curiosity.

His bold blocks of colour that depict a childlike and despondent Adam and Eve separated by the snake slithering down the tree of knowledge trunk reveals an uncanny similarity to story of lost love today. Their banal stare into the middle distance remind me so much of couples I see today sat across from each other looking into their own non-space, disconnected. The modernity of such a painting is at once funny and terribly sad. A real tragic comedy. Shakespeare would be proud. I´m convinced that this man could not be a real NSDAP sympathizer, not with his awareness of timelessness, whereas racial separation insists on temporality.

It is almost as if with Nolde`s portraits, the illusions of social codes are lifted. A peasant man looks regal and dignified with a strong, angular black hat and powerful look that bursts with colour revealing fortitude. The Prophet`s face slowly reveals itself from the shadows seemingly vanishing back in any moment in his dismay. Domesticated average cats are given wood carved black and white masks and a jungle to leap about in, alluding to their natural wild. The "holy night" story, is depicted as a magical feeling that is experienced the world over by just any man and woman who have their first child making their awe turn into an enchanted evening. It seems like this was a man who was well aware of the illusions of life and yet in his art he could lift them so we could see ourselves.

His sea etchings seem to further evoke his feeling of belonging to his birthplace of Seebüll. He almost obsessively sketched and etched away at all the vigourous hustle and bustle of the harbour which is clearly evoked, you can almost hear the ship horns, smell the smoke and feel the enormity of the ship pulling into its dock; yet he wasn`t content with the way in which no sunlight would shine through. If only intuitively and perhaps not fully consciously it seems he grasped the potential for human darkness in their search for industrial "progression" and heimat.

Kokoschka down at the Rupertinum, brought vibrant waved lines of colour to the Austrian mountains. Following the blues, purples, reds and yellows, I looked onto the panorama watching the evening colours dance and change like a rippling river over a crisp snow. His sketched portraits alive in single orange colour breathing life into a dancer looking back playful almost as if she was mimicking Edouard Manet`s woman reclining. Two young friends alive in each other`s presence are depicted by Kokoschka as life coming through in colour. They are ignited like flames, sparking each other to higher and more colourful hues.
It was a good choice to have these exhibitions simultaneously, they both reveal the unexpected and at times contradicts the hundreds of articles written about them both, so their art remains truly alive.

Cannes or Cannot?

2011-11-04T17:18:00.000-07:00

Whilst a game of charades is being played in Cannes and the facades continue all over the world, what we are dealing with here in the local of Salzburg is a state of how to remember that teaching the next generation is not about starting where you are, but about starting where the students are. This means taking a whole different approach to learning and teaching. If you are teacher centered, you will only respond to students that are like you, that can execute your wishes, as you would. Teaching needs to be about taking it further. As a teacher, you must be prepared to look beyond those that just respond in the way you like and the way you expect and you have a responsibility as a teacher to reach out to everyone in your class so that they can find their own way, often in the least way that you would expect. The gem is that the teacher then learns something too.
     So often professionals are good at what they do, but these teaching methods that are often so nuanced are underrated and overlooked. It takes experience, practice and awareness to recognise that you have to let creativity go it`s own way and students learning take you to someplace else. This is real dialogical learning.
     Take the video above for example. Some of the girls respond to the style that they have been taught quicker than others. This is not because they are anymore intelligent or any better than others, it is only that they are closer to the teacher`s expected outcome. What both students and teacher would do well to realise is that the outcome is not to do as expected, but to go beyond into the unexpected, creating new forms of knowledge and as the case is here-art. Otherwise the result on both sides is frustration and the students are forced to accept that there is a dominant expectation and anything that falls short of this is de-valued and discarded. This does not mean though that we should just ignore the curriculum that has been set up, it means devising a curriculum that has clear outcomes, yet that are flexible enough to weave in and out of the students centered development. Complicated? Quite-this is precisely why teachers need to be paid more, for all these details that are so often overlooked but that are essential.
      As teachers it is important not fall into the same mistakes of our own schooling that forced us into an army of ants, that had to follow a known route or die lonely and isolated away from the troop.
   In Cannes, world leaders sit on their fences, blaming Greece and going to back to an old form of scape-goat Nationalism instead of recognising a failed capitalism. Surely the focus needs to be on changing the mode of production, on a local level we must make these changes ourselves. It`s now in our hands to reorganize ourselves, instead of copying tried and failed routes, or are we to sit and wait like the world leaders in Cannes-cannot land blaming the one "nation" that doesn`t fall into dominant line to the confusion of outsiders who cannot make head Obama or tail of it. What you do on a local level does have a larger impact, so if we continue to lead the next generation in to a field of dominant favoritism and Great Expectations, we may find ourselves back again, like Charles Dickens in Hard Times.

Rio + 20 Global Youth Music Contest

2011-10-25T07:38:00.000-07:00

The creative movement has begun. You can start a Youth Music Project in your own country for the Rio + 20 Global Youth Music Contest. Soon the Regional and National coordinators will be posted on the Glocha Website so that you can contact them, but don`t forget you can also see all the submission guidelines here: Rio+20 GYMC Guidelines for Submission and other information!

Just think...you have the chance to put all those creative juices into influencing the world for generations to come. Your work will be viewed by a huge public audience online and where people will vote for you and what you have to say. It`s all about exploring what can be different in the world, you can express your views in a lyric way, through song and verse. You can sing or speak in a combination of English and your own language, or completely in your own language or any other language. You can have English subtitles if you want but it is not necessary. There just needs a short summary in English. We strongly encourage you to take your time to learn more about sustainable development and the Rio+20 United Nations Conference for Sustainable Development before submitting your music video online. There are useful online resources that can help you-you can find these at the bottom of the submission guidelines above-The online resources could enable you to think about concrete ideas on how our world leaders can achieve a sustainable world with your youth contribution. For some inspiration on putting your sustainable themes values into song and words, watch the videos in this post.

As example of how you can start your own music project, we got together, myself with Ilker Çırakoğlu and Denis Maksuti in Salzburg and devised some themes that we care about and want to see solutions to or to transform. From that we got together some beats with a DJ and put that together with some more beats and improvised with them to make up some lyrics in German and English....so far so good! Here is a taste of the themes that were thought up in relation to the RIO + 20 themes. You too can make it happen!

1.Schulden,(staatsschulden): Governmental Debt
2.unnötige ausgaben: Wasting money.
3.Krieg: War
4.sellbstverwirklichung: Self-Actualisation
5.Betrug: Cheating
6.Wirtschaft: Oil American Business /economy
7.Religionsfreiheit: Faith
8.Gier: Greed
9.reichen werden reicher und die armen werden ärmer mittelschicht stirbt aus:rich getting richer and poor getting getting poorer
10.Umwelt weniger atomkraftwere mehr erneuerbare energie: atomic energy
11.zusammenarbeit--Togetherness, team work.
12. wir brauchen keine waffen den waffen sind unser verstand--we don`t need any weapons, our mind is our weapon
13.misstrauischer sein--mistrust
14.die anderen können lachen doch keiner lacht mehr als wir-irony
15.arme länder in der welt-Poverty inclusion
16.wegwerf gesellschaft-Environmental waste
17.Jede spende hilft-foundation
18.wir sind krank lieben cash mehr als tiere und menschen- We love cash more that animals and humans

Just Another Autumnal Day?

2011-10-23T12:32:00.000-07:00

The crisp cold air sweeps past, going so fast, feeling so free. The wheels turn, bumping along the river-side path covered with fallen leaves. Meandering families scattered across the path, I continue at speed, relaxed, a father sweeps his arm around his daughter without even looking back clearing my way ahead. A bridge yawns across the jade river. Stopping to gaze at the sparkling sunlight dancing across the water, the current seems to have captured the sun`s rays, now, like playful fish the silver strips of light flit in and out between each other to their own rhythm. Back along the path, a short cut, a ultra-modern house, a pang of jealousy, an impasse, a re-route, a Hans and Gretel house, a woman with silver-grey hair trailing her feet in circles around and around through a mass of fallen, dry leaves behind her house in her garden; a gaze at the view, ahhhh, so huge even in the distance. Were they always that sharp, piercing the baby blue sky? Balloon dots swing from side to side like the rocking bow of a ship paragliding to earth. Watching them swing, I almost knock over a Sunday meander who voices a high slight "whoop" under her breath as I whizz past. Stopping for water, a whiff of manure brings me whooshing straight back to the Yorkshire Dales, a sleepy child whining as her mother lets her slip from her grasp to walk the rugged path, wakes me up to the moment. A girl, not more than 10, her helmet securely on, defiantly cycles past. A few meters behind, a man with longish, curly, blond hair catches my smile from a couple of seconds behind and mirrors it back, before looking proudly onwards at his girl. A bike-ride after university, in a haze of confusion, my father led me onto country lanes, behind pad-locked fields, over hills and far away from noise and clutter- where did it all get so complicated? I peddle faster, breaking away from the memory and defiance now pushing through, I hold my head up high passing by a child carrying a large bunch of flowers. How sweet, I think, a boy with flowers! He must be visiting grandparents. A second child with another bunch-cannot be? Looking back at these imaginary flowers, all same shape, marigold, gathered from across the floor, just Autumnal mementos. Laughing at my projected synopsis, now changed, is this the new activity of the young? Gather as much as you can? What happened to being buried and burying siblings and running through piles kicking up as much as you can, OK, so maybe it`s the same-am I turning into one of those "It`s not like it used to be"? As the afternoon golden rays penetrate through, the firey red maple leaves burn bright and the river flows on.

E-Glo 2 Learning Opportunity for Youth Leaders

2011-10-19T06:06:00.000-07:00

Being on the E-Glo 2 with Earth Charter was one of the most valuable experiences I had in 2009-2010 for my professional experience which has lead me to work on sustainability issues with Art Education.