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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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Holy shit! this is no good.
On Thursday, April 27th - Two Toronto High School Students from Dante Alighieri Academy, a Catholic High School in North York, were pulled out of their classrooms by immigration officials who barged into the school demanding access to the students. The sister and brother whose family is originally from Costa Rica were ripped out of their respective Grade 9 and Grade 10 classes in front of thier classmates and told by enforcement agents that they will "never come back to this school again"....more at No One is Illegal...
My pal Derek Chadbourne is running for City Idol. He's got some stiff competition, but I think Derek would make a top notch councillor because he is smart, ethical, passionate about his beliefs, isn't afraid to look girly, doesn't sweat the small stuff, and remains uncompromising on big issues. His pro-bike, pro-chick, anti-smog agenda gets my vote! And he just might show up in a funny hat. Plus...plug!... he runs the best darn bike shop in town cause they are friendly, fast, and they do a great job without all the typical bike dude 'tude. Go to the Bike Joint!
note: City Idol is a brilliant idea. Simply scanning the list of candidates makes me feel better about thist town. Tomorrow night is opening night... details at cityidol.to
Two Memorial Rides for Cyclists
Memorial for Hubert van Tol
Thursday, April 27
Meet at Bloor/Spadina, 7:45 a.m., leave at 8:00
Memorial for Bianca
April 27, Meet at Bloor/Spadina, 6:45 p.m.
Leave at 7:00 p.m. on the subway,
Meet at 7:30 p.m. Downsview Station,
All cyclists welcome.
thanks Tino!
Live Without Culture
"If you know any artists, you know that few, if any, resemble underwear models. You also know that making art is a dirty, grubby and anxiety-causing business." -R.M. Vaughan
Two cyclists have just been killed by trucks in Toronto in separate incidents.
Today's Toronto Star says:
"The 16-year-old girl died when she was struck by a transport truck as she cycled to her North York home last night."
"The man was riding south on Avenue Rd. when he was struck by a truck making a right turn onto Cortleigh Blvd. around 8:45 a.m."
I have only two words to say five times:
sideguards (Tino's Bike Lane Diary)
sideguards (Toronto's regional coroner)
sideguards (editorial in Eye Magazine)
sideguards (ARC's wiki)
sideguards (New York's Time's Up)
I am organising this fun performance night for digifest and Harbourfont. It's the same night as the Mods & Rockers opening, come and join us!
Teaching Tech
Performance Lectures on Art and Science
By Susan Bustos and Amos Latteier
Friday, May 12, 2006, 9pm
York Quay Centre
235 Queens Quay West
Art and information meet in an entertaining evening of performative lectures by Susan Bustos and Amos Latteier. Scientist Susan Bustos has performed around the world, adopting the mantle of evil scientist to discuss pseudo-fictions in feminist forms of bio-chemical mutation and other hot topics. For this event she’ll speak about the parallel worlds of knitting and proteins. International performer Amos Latteier has delivered his multi-media performative lectures in Europe and the USA. His ground-breaking work on pigeon aerial photography has achieved wide recognition from artists and geeks alike. Tonight he will inform and enlighten us on the timely topic of Ant and Human Societies.
Susan Bustos is a graduate student in biochemistry at the University of Toronto where she researches the structure and misfunction of mutant red blood cell proteins. She writes and publishes ladyscientist, a zine about women in science, career anxiety and crafty experiments. She likes to knit and is amazed at how the process of knitting parallels protein synthesis in the cell.
Amos Latteier is an interdisciplinary artist who performs PowerPoint lectures and creates interactive public art using technology. He delivers slide lectures on scientific and cultural topics including ant societies, models, statistics, and pigeon aerial photography. He has performed lectures across North America and in Europe. His recent public art projects include a cell phone-controlled slide show, a chainsaw-powered walking machine, a 500 lb potato battery, and several hovercrafts.
I am guest-curating this fun show for digifest and Harbourfont. Come to the opening, and you can also catch the Performance Lectures that same night!
Mods & Rockers
May 12 to July 9, 2006
Opens Friday May 12, 7-9pm
York Quay Centre
235 Queens Quay West
In Britain in the 1960s, mods and rockers frequently clashed in bloody battles. For this exhibition, however, we ask them to merge in the name of art. Four pairs of artists, one Mod and one Rocker per team, will collaborate on art, video and sound works that illuminate the polarities of the partnership. The artist teams are Myfanwy Ashmore & Lorna Mills, Chandra Bulucon & Andrew J. Paterson, Rob Cruickshank & Veronica Verkley, Tom Moody & John Parker.
Myfanwy Ashmore, HΩ (video still), 2006
Myfanwy Ashmore graduated from the Sculpture-Installation department at the Ontario College of Art in 1996, and received her MFA from York University in 1998. Currently, she is working at the Ontario College of Art & Design as a Technician in the Academic Computer Centre. She has exhibited extensively including international exhibitions, in Philadelphia, Chicago, Seoul and Amsterdam. She has also been the recipient of numerous grants from The Toronto Arts Council, The Ontario Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts. In 2003 she was nominated and short-listed for the prestigious K.M. Hunter Award through the Ontario Arts Council.
Lorna Mills, Untitled (video still), 2006
Lorna Mills was born in Yorkton (Saskatchewan) and currently resides in Toronto. She was one of the founding members of The Red Head Gallery, where she mounted four exhibitions: "Space-Time-Colour" (1991), "Retail" (1992), "Literal" (1994) and "Body and Soul" (1996). She works in a variety of media including painting, photography, film, digital animation and video and has recently participated in several collective exhibitions including "Cross-Eyed", Toronto (1998), "The Video Archaeology Festival" Sophia (1999), "Meat/Viande", Montreal (2000), "Great Lakes", Toronto (2001) and "Persona Volare" (2000 & 2004). She presented "Happy Valley" with David Acheson, curated by Corinna Ghaznavi, at the Walter Philips Gallery, Banff Centre for the Arts (Alberta) in 2002, and "Reality Show", curated by Stuart Reid, at the Tom Thompson Memorial Art Gallery, Owen Sound (2003) & The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa (2004). Recent exhibitions include "Canadian Club" w/ Persona Volare at the Centre culturel canadien, Paris (2005) and "Time Lag" curated by Janet Bellotto, Basel (2005).
Chandra Bulucon, THIS IS ME (detail), 2005
Sole proprietor of audio production company Puppy Machine Productions, Chandra Bulucon is also an interdisciplinary artist and a financial advisor. A recent recipient of the Untitled Art Awards, she has shown her work in such places as the AGO, YYZ Artists' Outlet, and the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts. She has also collaborated with groups such as Tops'n'Bottoms, Just Like the Movies and Instant Coffee, and has been featured in eye Weekly, Toronto Star, and the dearly missed Lola Magazine.
Andrew J. Paterson,Mono Logical (performance still), 2003
Andrew J. Paterson is an interdisciplinary media artist and writer based in Toronto. He is the co-founder of the YYZ Books publication Money, Value, Art: State Funding, Free Markets, Big Pictures and his writings have been published in FUSE Magazine, Public, MIX, and Lola. His videos and films have been screened nationally and internationally and are distributed by Vtape (Toronto). More information can be found at www.ccca.ca and www.vtape.org
Robert Cruickshank, Spiral Inscriber (installation detail), 2004
Robert Cruickshank is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist. His work in various media including electronic, kinetic, and robotic installations, sound art, electroacoustic music, and photography have been exhibited in Toronto, and internationally. Much of his work is associated with InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre in Toronto, where he has developed a number of hands-on workshops for artists using electronics., and is currently a member of the Board of Directors. His work combines a knowlege of physical computing with an ongoing fascination with sound, light, and motion. It is as much informed by the kinetic art of the early 20th century as it is by contemporary new media art. Works such as Spiral Incriber (2005) combine microcontrollers with intricate electromechanical systems, reminiscent of early clockwork and mechanical devices, and reflect his interest in obsolete technologies. Many of these works are collaborative in nature, and he has been part of several long-term collaborative projects at Interaccess, such as Space Probe (1998), SenseBus (1999), Art Interface Device (2001-present), as well as being a member of I/O media, a collective of sound and video artists exploring real-time improvised performance.
Veronica Verkley, puppet created for the film Rhinoceros Eyes, 2003
Veronica Verkley is a Toronto sculptor and filmmaker. Her work combines technology, animals, and scavenging techniques; and ranges from the mechanical to the ethereal. She has shown extensively, including a public art commission in the Don Valley, an animated short film, and a Canada Council new media research and production project. She is in the Symbiosis collective, on the board of Subtle Technologies, and she works in film and theatre doing animatronics, puppeteering, & animation. This summer, Veronica is headed to the Yukon to do an installation for 'The Natural & the Manufactured'.
Tom Moody and John Parker, Bathtub Stickers (still from animation), 2006
Tom Moody is an artist based in New York. His low-tech art made with MSPaintbrush, photocopiers, and consumer printers has appeared at Derek Eller Gallery, UP&CO and in numerous group shows. His weblog at http://www.digitalmediatree.com/tommoody, begun in February 2001, was recently recommended in the Art in America article "Art in the Blogosphere." His next solo show will be in May 2006 at artMoving Projects, Brooklyn, NY.
John Parker explores the extreme sonic possibilities afforded by contemporary means of sound production, fusing the controlled and the random into a volatile, ever-twisting whole. He has exhibited alongside the likes of DJ Spooky and Christian Marclay at galleries such as Andrew Kreps, Caren Golden, and vertexList and performed alongside Cave Precise, Denim Venom, and Society Cleaners at venues like CBGB’s and The Kitchen in New York City. John continues to compose and perform music with Man From Planet Risk as well as various side and solo projects, and he shows his sound installations in galleries throughout the world. His work can be heard and seen online at www.eyekhan.com.
In case you haven't heard of mirror neurons, they are very cool. Parts of our brains react the same way whether we are performing an action (say, for example, playing an electric guitar) or whether we are watching someone else perform the same action. Mirror neurons were charismatically and emphatically championed by neurologist Vilyanur S. Ramachandran at edge.org back at the turn of the century (ie: six years ago). A heated exchange followed with animal behaviourist Marc Hauser, anthropologist Milford H. Wolpoff and other experts. I don't know anything about this topic, so each expert completely won my allegiance, in turn. This kind of blow-hard scientific tit-for-tat makes for super entertaining reading! My favourite quote came about after everybody had been shooting off at the mouth about their animals-communicate-like-this and animals-behave-like-that theories. Milford H. Wolpoff reminded us tjat, "...we did not evolve from 'animals', but most directly from a common ancestor with chimpanzees..." Thanks for keeping it real, Milford!
Anyhow... mirror neurons are still big (bigger) news. Edge has an update here, in which Ramachandran, always forthcoming with the florid and entertaining prose, claims that mirror neurons may help us navigate the question of whether we should opt for our real brains over those other hypothetical ones, replicas suspended in vats (yes vats, ŕ la Daniel C. Dennett...), that are programmed to think like "Einstein, Mark Spitz, Bill Gates, Hugh Heffner, and Gandhi, while at the same time preserving your own deeply personal memories and identity." But what if you had more than one brain replica in a vat? Say, five...
The question of whether "you" would continue in multiple parallel brain vats raises issues that come perilously close to the theological notion of souls, but I see no simple way out of the conundrum. Perhaps we need to remain open to the Upanishadic doctrine that the ordinary rules of numerosity and arithmetic, of "one vs. many", or indeed of two-valued, binary yes/no logic, simply doesn't apply to minds — the very notion of a separate "you " or "I" is an illusion, like the passage of time itself.That Ramachandran sure gives Oliver Sacks a run for his money in the Humorous Neurologist category!
We are all merely many reflections in a hall of mirrors of a single cosmic reality (Brahman or "paramatman"). If you find all this too much to swallow just consider the that as you grow older and memories start to fade you may have less in common with, and be less "informationally coupled", to your own youthful self, the chap you once were, than with someone who is now your close personal friend. This is especially true if you consider the barrier-dissolving nature of mirror neurons. There is certain grandeur in this view of life, this enlarged conception of reality, for it is the closest that we humans can come to taking a sip from the well of immortality. (But I fear my colleague Richard Dawkins may suspect me of spiritual leanings of "letting God in through the back door" for saying this.)
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The Images Festival is on now. The program is here. Note: Peggy Anne Berton's excellent film is showing on the 22nd! Also note Deirdre Logue opening tonight at Paul Petro. Tomorrow I'm conducting a marathon gallery tour of the "off screen" projects, meaning stuff that's in galleries rather than in the theatre. Here's the blurb:
A Guided Tour to the Images Festival's Installation Projects
Saturday, April 15, 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Meet at 401 Richmond St. West, suite Suite 448
Join Toronto artist, curator writer and IF tour guide Sally McKay for a free guided walking tour of the installation and new media projects exhibited in this year's Images Off Screen.
Here is the schedule. Yes, we will see 14 galleries in 4 hours! Join us for the whole thing, or pick up the tour along the way...
1:00
Images Office (10min)
401 Richmond, suite 448
Welcome (grab a snack)
1:11
Vtape (15min)
401 Richmond, suite 452
Mieke Bal
short artist talk
1:28
Trinity Square Video (10min)
401 Richmond, suite 376
Michael Campbell
1:41
YYZ (10min)
401 Richmond, suite 140
Laiwan and Kristan Horton
1:52
Prefix (10min)
401 Richmond, suite 124
Annika Larsson
2:03
WARC Gallery (10min)
401 Richmond, suite 122
Alison Chun Ya
short artist talk
2:15
A Space (10min)
401 Richmond, suite 110
Mieke Bal and Sadegh Tirafkan
2:26
Gallery 44 (15min)
401 Richmond, suite 120
Tony Cokes, Chris Curreri and Carol Flax
2:42
Wynick/Tuck (10min)
401 Richmond, suite 128
Takehito Koganezawa
2:52
bathroom break (5min)
3:03
Gallery TPW (10min)
80 Spadina, suite 310
Calum Stirling
(walk west on Queen St.)
3:38
Mercer Union (10min)
37 Lisgar St.
Brian Joseph Davis
3:48
Coffee Break (15min)
4:08
InterAccess (10min)
9 Ossington
Hisako Yamakawa
4:19
Paul Petro (20min)
980 Queen St. W
Deirdre Loque
short artist talk
4:42
Edward Day (10min)
952 Queen St. W
John Oswald
4:53
MOCCA (10min)
952 Queen St. W
Tammy Forsythe, Jeremy Shaw and J.R. Carpenter
5:03
the end! but stay at MOCCA as long as you like...
(performance by Tammy Forsythe at 6:00)
Speaking of courtesy and transportation.... its not the fact that car drivers kill us that pisses me off quite so much as the blatant discourtesy of a civic system that consistently dismisses the safety and (gasp!) pleasure of cyclists and pedestrians.
Since we're on the topic, here's one for the "shoulda' said" department. When the Spadina streetcars were backed up in the middle of a weekday (yesterday) and crowds and crowds of people who'd been waiting for ages including an old guy who fell asleep leaning on his crutches were finally, dismally, filing on to the car that finally, slowly pulled up and the TTC worker admonished us, in a well practiced high pitched camp counsellor tone of utter patronising contempt for the pathetic mob to please "take off our backpacks as a courtesy to the other passengers" I should have suggested that as a courtesy to their paying customers they keep the damn streetcars running on time so we didn't have to all bunch up like this. But I didn't cause the doors were closing and I wanted on the car cause I was late for a paying gig. And then of course we crawled along down Spadina which always gets me into a bit of a stew cause of this....(below)...arrrrrrg...how about putting the stops before the light so we don't all have to wait twice at every intersection?...weep....
Boing Boing has a post complaining about the Dia forbidding people to take photographs of The Lightning Field. I'm basically onside with letting people take pictures of art, but Cory Doctorow neglects to mention anything about the fact that The Lightning Field is not just a roadside attraction, but a bona fide work of art made in 1977 by Walter De Maria (who also made The Earth Room and the Broken Kilometer, also owned by Dia). In fact he neglects to mention Walter De Maria at all! If it was my art I'd say go ahead and take pictures, but please give a little credit where credit is due.
UPDATE: Greg made this point much better than I did.
A lot of you will already be reading Baghdad Burning, the "girl blog from Iraq." We just found out about it through Book Ninja. It's really good, sad and stressful, but as I said to Von Bark, it feels like a big relief to hear a voice from inside the situation. An example from March 18:
I’m sitting here trying to think what makes this year, 2006, so much worse than 2005 or 2004. It’s not the outward differences- things such as electricity, water, dilapidated buildings, broken streets and ugly concrete security walls. Those things are disturbing, but they are fixable. Iraqis have proved again and again that countries can be rebuilt. No- it’s not the obvious that fills us with foreboding.
The real fear is the mentality of so many people lately- the rift that seems to have worked it’s way through the very heart of the country, dividing people. It’s disheartening to talk to acquaintances- sophisticated, civilized people- and hear how Sunnis are like this, and Shia are like that… To watch people pick up their things to move to “Sunni neighborhoods” or “Shia neighborhoods”. How did this happen?
I read constantly analyses mostly written by foreigners or Iraqis who’ve been abroad for decades talking about how there was always a divide between Sunnis and Shia in Iraq (which, ironically, only becomes apparent when you're not actually living amongst Iraqis they claim)… but how under a dictator, nobody saw it or nobody wanted to see it. That is simply not true- if there was a divide, it was between the fanatics on both ends. The extreme Shia and extreme Sunnis. Most people simply didn’t go around making friends or socializing with neighbors based on their sect. People didn't care- you could ask that question, but everyone would look at you like you were silly and rude.
There is a protest going on right now against Canada's "adoption of U.S-style enforcement policies" with regards to illegal immigrants. Portuguese people, among others, are being deported out of Toronto. It's been making the news because of the large number of illegal Portuguese immigrants working in the construction industry. Apparently there were recently raids conducted at Dufferin Mall, where people were stopped and asked for their papers. This is my neighbourhood and these are my neighbours. It feels pretty awful. A colleague of mine said the other day that it is immigrants who will be the first to feel the oppressive tactics of right wing government. For the rest of us the suffering will come later. Here is the mandate from the No One is IIlegal website, the group who organised today's protest:
No One is Illegal (Toronto) is a group of immigrants, refugees and allies who fight for the rights of all migrants to live with dignity and respect. We believe that granting citizenship to a privileged few is part of a racist immigration and border policy designed to exploit and marginalize migrants. We work to oppose these policies, as well as the international economic policies that create the conditions of poverty and war that force migration. At the same time, we also work to support and building alliances with our Indigenous brothers and sisters in their fight against displacement and the ongoing theft of their land.
Our demands:
- National Regularization Program for non-status people
- An end to detentions and deportations
- An immediate end to security certificates and secret trials
- An end to racial or religious profiling
- Recognition of the right to free movement
- Recognition of Indigenous sovereignty
Tom Moody just posted the some sound in progress that he and John Parker are working on for a Mods and Rockers show I'm curating that opens May 12th at York Quay Centre (part of digifest). I'll be putting up a full and proper blurb next week. The artists are working in teams: Myfanwy Ashmore & Lorna Mills, Chandra Bulucon & Andrew J. Paterson, Rob Cruickshank & Veronica Verkley, Tom Moody & John Parker. Tom and John have been posting their work in progress and its fantastic. You can follow their collaboration from the links at www.eyekhan.com.
Yes I do accept assignments...at my discretion. Rob Cruickshank sent me this link to a flying-through-space Christopher Walken with a note: "This effect needs to be overused on your blog, with or without Mr. Walken." Hence the flying pod. It's easy as pie! (Actually its a lot easier than pie. Pie is kind of tricky because you have to make the crust.) The original Space Walken post is at Mighty Optical Illusions. Here's their recipe, pretty much as it was posted by Vurdlak:
This ubercool Illusion of Christopher Walken [green pod in my case] flying through space [over ocean] is our newest submission. Believe it or not, this magical "animated" illusion is a composition of only four frames. The second two are just color-inverted originals (with small modification in shiftment from the original). It gives you opinion Chris [pod] is drifting through galaxy [over ocean], while in fact he's [it's] just leaning milimeter back and fourth for our photo-session ;)
I forgot to mention: the film Rhinocerous Eyes is really really fun. You need a bit of tolerance for f#*cked-up-stalker stories, but the script is really funny, the acting is great and the animation is visually and conceptually satisfying on many levels of detail. I love the nose made out of a spinning blue plastic rabbit. No more spoilers.
