... and have a very short memory span. Easy to criticize those countries and people who discriminate. Maybe, now and then, we might want to look back and realize...
In our last sample nr. 5 of this series, 'Tales of the Future', robots play music, challenge the human dominance of making music and tweaks your mind on rethinking what sound is supposed to sound like or who is supposed to produce it.
"‘Tales of Future’ is a set of multimedia concert activities that combine music and technology in an innovative approach by including an installation project aiming at establishing a metaphor between the acoustic potential of the Bosphorus and local percussion instruments; and the music album “Tales of Future” by Sinan Bökesoy. A significant feature of this project is the Robot arms which will be engineered specifically for this project to play local percussion instruments for “live” performances."
Women without Men is an award winning movie on the British/American backed coup in Iran. A story about the women surviving those days. From the website:
"In her feature-film debut, renowned visual artist Shirin Neshat offers an exquisitely crafted view of Iran in 1953, when a British- and American-backed coup removed the democratically elected government. Adapted from the novel by Iranian author Shahrnush Parsipur, the film weaves together the stories of five individual women during those traumatic days, whose experiences are shaped by their faith and the social structures in place."
Jaime Mota depicts the cruel reality we often ignore. In an age where information rules, we are capable of ruling out those images that disturb the bubble of our privileged lives. Not Jaime Mota.
Hold your horses, it's about 'Princess Hijab' a controversial anti-consumerist artist. Painting hijab, she confronts us with how we use ads to sell products, how we are consumed by consumption. Does she wears a hijab, is she a Muslim, is she a she... nobody knows. Street art shocking our rusty minds.
In sample nr. 4 of this series, the book "The Art of Writing on The Sky: Mahya" shows the beauty of minarets ridges (mahya): when religion is beautiful. With all the fuzz about fundamentalism, we would not only forget that our entire Western culture is directly dependent on Islam but also that religion sometimes equals art.
Read more here on visit the homepage of 'Istanbul - European Capital of Culture.
Days with my father is a touching photo documentary about a son who lost his mother, his dad who suffers from short-term memory loss and how to live with someone who does not remember the past 10 minutes.
A photo documentary on the risk of Hiait losing its culture, on how it is powerless to prevent the destruction of what is so precious: culture identity.
"Devastated by the loss of its people and its places, Haiti stands on the precipice of losing something more precious — as audacious as that sounds amid all this death — because it is transcendent."
What is Istanbul, as depicted in independent movies. "If Istanbul" has some really interesting movies out there. Don't miss them. In sample nr. 3 of this series, "If Istanbul" reveals some unknown aspects of what we might consider strange and weird.
Read more here on visit the homepage of 'Istanbul - European Capital of Culture.
When oil is a synonym for democracy, we all feel proud of our Western values and principles. Don't shout, we come to steal your oil! A work by Kashya Hildebrand, with one of those few strong political works of art, attacking our clean hands.
What would you buy with $50... if you live in Uganda and are a child? The project "What would you buy with $50" asked children what they would do with the money. From iPods to school fees...
Some people really have to hope winning the lottery to pay for the education of their child. A world of chances? If you're lucky that is. Madeleine Sackler made a documentary called 'The Lottery'. Check the trailer here.
We tried, honestly. But it was hard, not sufficient and life's tough. Haiti suffered, still suffers and we're drinking Coke again. We can't solve it all, but we at least, the very least, should be aware of all that is going wrong. A photo documentary of Damon Winter on Haiti in peril.
"The Project deals with the ways Orient and Occident have been mutually stereotyped and aims at documenting the products of stereotyping as well as the mechanisms active in the stereotyping processes and at opening them to de-construction."
Read more here on visit the homepage of 'Istanbul - European Capital of Culture.
A photo portrait of Haitian prisons,a rare insight in the prison life in Haiti. If you thought that Haiti is suffering now, then think again and realize how it has been suffering for many many years.
"Damon Winter’s photographs answer none of these questions. They don’t mean to. But they do begin to paint a picture of life inside a Haitian prison; a picture that few people have ever seen before."
Liz Filardi explores the trail of identity as created on facebook and other social media platforms. What is your identity, how is transformed through facebook, do you like being watched, does it make you feel good to have many cyber friends?
From the artist:
"Anxious about the lack of ownership and access to my personal history, I explore how the structure of Facebook provides a literal construct of identity, framing the tension between the opacity of image and the multiplicity of being. For several weeks, I clear my Facebook profile of public information only to spontaneously repopulate the fields and clear them again, each time leaving a single link in my “About Me” section. Facebook users who select the link will open a flattened “archive” version of the previously visible profile."
Well, a lot has changed, but we were not always civilized (and some quite rightly question we ever were). This documentary shows the disturbing Canadian racist eviction of a black community back in the '60s.
"This short film depicts Africville, a small black settlement that lay within the city limits of Halifax, Nova Scotia. In the 1960s, the families who lived there were uprooted and their homes demolished in the name of urban renewal and integration. Now, more than twenty years later, the site of the community of Africville is a stark, under-utilized park. Former residents, their descendants and some of the decision-makers, speak out and, with the help of archival photographs and films, tell the story of that painful relocation."
Another work by Lenka Klimešová talks about how relative beauty can be. Strictly speaking she's right: something is beautiful if two people find it indeed beautiful, or is it only 1? What is beauty and in a sense, what is art and does it have to be beauty or is it idea?
You'd think that the colour 'red' is just red, wherever you are. However, there are cultural differences regarding the perception of the colour. Quite a cool book, where e.g. the political 'colout' differs in America vs the World. Yes, it's a strange world. Graphics from 'Information is beautiful'.
The 'Good project' recently had an infographic project, this time about the American Health-care Bill. This bill has stirred up the Americans, and infographics are thought to simplify and make the issues accessible for those who do not like their informational muesli without milk.
There's one fairly simple solution to reduce the plastic waist: use less plastic. That's the simple solution as advocated in the ad of 'Save my Oceans'.
