Still from Otolith l ©The Otolith Group 2009, London. Courtesy of Lux.

The impending tsunami of the digital download

 
Record label Flying Nun is explored visually along with other independent
music labels in New Zealand in the next exhibition at Adam Art Gallery.

Opening this August, Object Lessons: A Musical Fiction explores the material and visual legacy of independent music production and distribution in New Zealand.

Five New Zealand artist/musicians have been invited to create new works that ask vital questions about the forms music has taken.

“In the era of the digital download, the exhibition looks at the relationship between the evolution of music and the way it is delivered,” says Assistant Curator Laura Preston.

“It also considers how the music industry will respond to future forms of
dissemination and what implications these will have for those who are
involved in its production.”

Object Lessons developed from investigating the history of the record label Flying Nun, and the media and fan interest directed at the label’s recent resurgence. The other ‘urban myth’ that has informed the exhibition was the day in 1987 when the only vinyl record press in New Zealand ceased production and was dumped in Wellington harbour, forcing the production of vinyl LPs offshore.

“Although the site of vinyl production is now so distant, the ability to digitally download music has changed the face of music production and many independent artists and musicians continue to support the physical music formats for aesthetic, economic and social purposes.

This exhibition project will be presented alongside the work of London based art collective and Turner Prize 2010 nominees The Otolith Group. Exclusive to the Adam Art Gallery, their trilogy of film works A Long Time Between Suns also examines the histories of futurity and the artistic treatment of moving image and sound to give another take on the making of the ‘record’.

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Object Lessons: A Musical Fiction
Fitts & Holderness, DJ $1 Record (aka Bryce Galloway), Caroline Johnston,
Torben Tilly & Robin Watkins, Ronnie van Hout.
Accompanying book project featuring Campbell Kneale, Antony Milton and
Bruce Russell.
Curated by Laura Preston & Mark Williams
The Otolith Group: A Long Time Between Suns
Adam Art Gallery
Victoria University of Wellington
7 August – 10 October 2010
Opening: Friday 6 August 2010, 6pm.
Adam Art Gallery
Victoria University of Wellington
Gate 3, Kelburn Parade
www.adamartgallery.org.nz

White Fungus presents 60X60 in Taipei

WANG FUJUI /王福瑞

DINO

THE LOST WEEKEND

TAIPEI CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER, 7PM, SATURDAY JULY 17

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60×60實驗音樂 – 在地數位藝術家王福瑞,Dino,DJ set by Wellington’s The Lost Weekend – 2010/07/17（六）台北當代藝術中心, 延平南路160之6號 – 白木耳藝術雜誌鉅獻.

60×60實驗音樂計畫源自2003年紐約,由藝術家RobertVoisey所發起,每一年Voisey皆會依循1小時60分鐘,由60個一分鐘的作品所組成,透過廣播,公共演出推廣計畫.每一次的活動,以自身的作品與各城市在地的藝術家現場交流互動演出.截至目前為止,Voisey已在歐洲與北美進行許多次計畫推廣, 今年夏天, 首次亞洲發聲.

Arts magazine White Fungus is about to introduce experimental music dissemination project 60×60 to Taipei with an event at Taipei Contemporary Art Center, No. 160-6, YánPíng South Rd, Jhongjheng District on Saturday, July 17. As well as presenting the latest 60×60 mix, the night will feature performances by local artists Wang Fujui and Dino, plus a DJ set by Wellington’s The Lost Weekend. 

60×60 was founded in New York in 2003 by Robert Voisey. Each year Voisey compiles a one-hour mix of 60 one-minute compositions and presents it to the public via radio, and through events held in cities around the world in collaboration with local artists. Each mix provides a snapshot of the range of contemporary composition; Voisey has received thousands of submissions and created a vast network of composers throughout Europe and North America. This will be the first 60X60 event held in Asia.

Ol’Chanty Reviews White Fungus #11

Scotland’s Ol’Chanty, the online manifestation of former print publication Chanticleer Magazine, has reviewed the current issue of White Fungus.

Most poetry magazines in Britain today have the feel of the ghetto about them. They are about poetry and not much besides. Even their critical practice is all about poetry. You wouldn’t think, reading many of them, that we live in a wider more volatile world which of necessity impacts on poets and poetry. It was not always the case. There were plenty of against the grain magazines in the 60s and 70s. One of the joys of browsing the New York bookshops in the late 70s and early 80s was the plethora of such magazines to be found there. In the mid-80s, Margin appeared in Britain edited by Robin Magowan and Walter Perrie, and did a pretty good job of making up for the shortfall at the time, but it died a death, I think, before the 90s were on us. And there hasn’t really been anything like it since. So I think we should welcome White Fungus as an arts, music and poetry magazine with a decidedly political drift.

Read the rest here (you’ll need to scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the review): http://www.chanticleer-press.com/magazine.html  

Gen Ken Montgomery
Birds + Machines (1980-1989) 

“With the enthusiasm of a born-again composer, I reviewed music I composed in the 80s, giving special attention to pieces that fused electronic sounds with everyday recorded sounds and noisy songs.” – Gen Ken

I knew of Gen Ken Montgomery long before I ever met him, in fact one of the first tracks to attract me to his music is on this cd. And then I did meet him, etc etc. (Ken was a co-founder of Pogus, by the way). So it is with special delight that Pogus can release this cd of Ken’s works from the 1980′s.

I think that what Rene van Peer writes in his notes for this disc sums up much of Ken’s work indeed:

Gen Ken Montgomery’s sound worlds are full of activity. Not in the sense of sinuous melodies and chord progressions that try to set flea-hopping records. The sounds conjure up images and atmospheres of workshops where people busy themselves with assembling and repairing a variety of contraptions. Places where humans and tools intermingle, where technology (both hi and lo) appears as a trusted and respected companion. It is as much accepted as an integral part of the human sphere as a dog or a cat might be – and it sounds equally homely.

That is not to say that all sounds you’ll hear in his music are commonplace, mundane. Many of them are immediately recognizable. Many of them can be traced to their source, even through dense veils of modification. Some derive clearly from instruments, some from birds. But many are absolutely singular, there’s no telling what produced them. And to tell you the truth (my truth): it doesn’t really matter. Regardless what sounds or sources form the components of this music (everyday or extraordinary objects; musical instruments or electronic tools; his own voice or environmental recordings), what is important is the mind that processes them and welds them together into the independent entities that we call songs.

It is evidently an open mind that enjoys toying with sounds. His music sounds as if he works with what he finds. Obviously he has prepared materials to be used. But the way he puts everything together makes the impression of someone following his judgment of the situation on the spot. These are not guided tours, mapped out beforehand. These songs are explorations. Trips into an unknown. They aren’t, however, excursions done in seclusion. Everywhere he goes Ken Montgomery creates a buzz. He creates a sphere of sound around him that feels humane, sociable. A warm cloud of sonic strangeness. But a loud cloud, too, mind you.

www.pogus.com

De Zines at Nota de Prensa

‘De Zines’, tries to reflect what is happening in the contemporary editorial creation on the level of independent
publications, how this area relates to the artistic production and social, cultural and current political environment.
Around 400 international publications have been gathered from most established magazines in the market
until handmade zines and a selection of experimental magazines.
In times of constant technological revolution and immediate access to information through the network, paper,
as a media for the dissemination of culture and information seems destined to disappear. However, the number
of independent publications do not stop growing. In fact, different forms of communication, digital and analogue
can coexist. It’s about different ways, uses and times ranging between the immediacy of digital and the traditional
way of disseminating and consuming cultural creation and art. Its contents tend to be more timeless and
invite paused reflection. Beautiful design and text written with loving care in a continuous search for seamless
integration between content and form. In general, they are still spaces for dissemination, review and reflection
on cultural production. Objects themselves, everlasting, pages of printed paper that can be touched with the fingers,
means of underground cultural expression. In the case of experimental magazines involves a different way
to approach to these publications, full of visual impact, subject to different interpretations, inexhaustible source
of emotions and feelings. They already have a notable presence in art fairs, specialized bookstores and museum
shops.
These editorial projects, heirs of the phenomenon do it yourself culture derived from punk and art movements
such as Dadaism, Surrealism and Fluxus, are living a resurgence. Some have remained fairly true to those
principles, others have grown in distribution, budget and number of prints. They all share an independent spirit
in addressing issues like music, film, fashion, design, art, philosophy, economics, literature, photography … or
closer personal projects to more people. In fact, they are a response to dominant culture, with a clear activist
attitude, trying to spread other ways to understand their relations with society and even with oneself.
Independent publications may be the future of print media. In fact they get a significant speed in the dissemination
of current culture with a democratic way to create and share images, ideas and information. Pages filled
with an impeccable editorial design, a media for freedom of expression of the obsessions and passions their
creators want to communicate, have a voice.
’De Zines’, articulated as a consultation room, a space that does not only creates traffic but a place to stay,
increasing the desire to know, trying to help the audience to find a those issues so that a sense of recognition.
In short, create networks among people with a similar vision in a global and plural world.

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Curators: Roberto Vidal (www.robertovidal.com) and Óscar Martín (www.byoscarmartin.com)
_
Inéditos 2010
La Casa Encendida ( www.lacasaencendida.es/en)
29 June to 29 August 2010 / Room A
Ronda Valencia, 2
28012 Madrid - Spain

Obama the Aggressive, Militaristic Interventionist?

By Robert Dreyfuss, TheNation.com
Posted on May 25, 2010, Printed on May 31, 2010

http://www.alternet.org/story/146995/

A secret military directive signed last September 30 by General David Petraeus, the Centcom commander, authorizes a vast expansion of secret U.S. military special ops from the Horn of Africa to the Middle East to Central Asia and “appears to authorize specific operations in Iran,” according to the New York Times.

If President Obama knew about this, authorized it, and still supports it, then Obama has crossed a red line, and the president will stand revealed as an aggressive, militaristic liberal interventionist who bears a closer resemblance to the president he succeeded than to the ephemeral reformer that he pretended to be in 2008, when he ran for office. If he didn’t know, if he didn’t understand the order, and if he’s unwilling to cancel it now that it’s been publicized, then Obama is a feckless incompetent. Take your pick.

read the rest at…  http://www.alternet.org/story/146995/

White Fungus on-sale at Chapters, Vancouver

Motto Storefront @ Artspeak, Vancouver

May 15 – July 22, 2010

Organized by Artspeak and Fillip, with Motto.

Motto Storefront transforms Artspeak into a temporary space for the sale, presentation, and discussion of contemporary art publishing. The selection of printed matter for the store has been made by Motto, a Berlin and Zürich-based bookstore and distributor specializing in experimental, small run, and self-published artist books, magazines, and fanzines.

Talks and Workshops: Saturdays at 2pm
Motto Storefront provides the context for a series of related public programming intended to create a sustained dialogue within Vancouver on issues related to the production and consumption of art publishing. Formed around an ongoing, ad hoc residency program with international publishers, designers, artists, and booksellers, this series will take the form of weekly talks, workshops, and launches investigating alternative retail models, self-initiated design practices, and small scale publishing initiatives.

Participants will include Alexis Zavialoff (Motto, Berlin); Stuart Bailey (Dexter Sinister, New York); Rob Giampietro (Project Projects, New York); Matthew Stadler and Patricia No (Publication Studio, Portland); Wendy Yao (Ooga Booga, Los Angeles); Andjeas Ejiksson (Geist, Sweden); Stand Up Comedy (Portland); Primary Information (New York); and Abi Huynh and Ross Milne (Working Format, Vancouver), amongst others.

Upcoming Events
May 15: Opening and talk by Alexis Zavialoff at 2pm
May 22: Talk by Stuart Bailey at 2pm
May 29: Talk by Rob Giampietro at 2pm

Nieves Zine Library
As a compliment to Motto Storefront, Artspeak and Fillip are very pleased to present the Nieves Zine Library, a selection of 100 zines published by Nieves, Zürich between 2004 and 2010. Photocopied in editions of only a hundred or a hundred and fifty, and almost all long since out of print, the Nieves Zine Library includes publications by Ari Marcopoulos, Stefan Marx, Olga Prader, Mark DeLong, and many others.

Forms of Stand Up Comedy
For this project, Stand Up Comedy, Portland, has programmed a series of video documentation of lectures, presentations, and conversations conducted by other people. The topics relate to books, and are interpreted by reading, reproduction, and performance. The selections discuss artifact and style as refractive and unreliable measures, and the technique of talking about people by talking about things. Runs daily.

233 Carrall Street
V6B 2J2 Canada
Vancouver, BC
info@artspeak.ca

Tel. 604.688.0051
Tuesday – Saturday, 12-5pm
Admission is free

http://artspeak.ca/

http://fillip.ca/

http://nieves.ch/

http://www.shopstandingup.us/