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Archive for October, 2011

Oct 29

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Interference patterns – Semiconductor

Semiconductor - artist duo Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt – have put their new film ’20HZ’ online.

2oHZ, Semiconductor, 2011

I encountered their early experimental animation work when part of a panel which selected them for an artists’ residency at NASA Space Sciences Lab in Berkeley in 2006. Their mesmerising ‘Brilliant Noise’ (2006), in which grainy black and white images of the sun, using raw satellite data captured by the Soho satellite, presented a radical aesthetic alternative to the glossy, cleaned up, over-coloured cosmological photos produced by NASA, and the witty ‘Do You Think Science …’ (2006) – both embedded below – were part of a remarkable body of work that resulted from that residency. Since then I’ve watched with admiration their steadily growing output of moving image works, which continue to explore the physical universe and the material nature of our world and the scientists who study those.

In ’20HZ’, the pair play with data from a geo-magnetic storm in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, this time captured by the CARISMA radio array, generating sound and moving images, visually reminiscent of some of Woody and Steina Vasulka‘s experimental video works but part of a growing area of astronomy data-generated work. ’20HZ’ is showing as part of the Invisible Fields exhibition at Arts Santa Monica, Barcelona.

Brilliant Noice, Semiconductor, 2011

Do You Think Science …?, Semiconductor, 2011

Oct 28

Street dance for street kids – Catalyst Rwanda

Smiling Rwandan boys

Former street children at Les Enfants de Dieu

I’m gearing up for our first Catalyst Rwanda project, starting on the 10th November. A team of hip hop educators will deliver breakdancing workshops with 130 boys aged 6–18 at Les Enfants de Dieu, a visionary residential rehabilitation centre for street children in Kigali, Rwanda. Catalyst Rwanda is commissioning UK hip hop dance pioneer Pervez to lead the ten-day teaching residency with the boys, all of whom come from incredibly difficult backgrounds. The boys love hip hop and when I was at the centre in January told me how much they would love to learn breakdancing from professional teachers. We’ll also be running masterclasses for local professional dancers, with Ishyo Arts Centre, and working too with Kwetu Film Institute to make a short film of the project.

If you’d like to follow the project more closely, Catalyst Rwanda has its own blog at www.catalystrwanda.org. If you’d like to help the project grow and develop long-term, you can give securely using the donate button below.

Oct 27

Call for art science residency proposals, IMéRA, France

Logo of IMeRA

A rare opportunity with a remarkable new institution. IMéRA is an Institute for Advanced Study in the south of France, which opened in 2008. Its purpose is to offer residency programs for high-level international researchers (scientists and artists), of all disciplines.

The deadline is 15 January 2012 for 2013/14 residencies. Details here.

Oct 21

A Mexican space opera – Juan Jose Infante

A man stands in front of a launch site in the desert

Juan Jose Diaz Infante, initiator of "Ulises I", a Mexican artists' satellite

Mexican artist Juan José Díaz Infante came to visit us in London the other day, to take part in Kosmica and to talk to us about his project to build and launch an artists’ satellite.

You can watch his talk at October’s Kosmica.

In a mid-life crisis, says Juan, some people will buy a Lamborghini, “but I said no, I’m building a satellite”. There have been many satellites launched, but very few launched as an art piece. Juan José’s inspiration was in response also to Mexico’s drug war, which has made everyday life in Mexico very difficult – there have been over 30,000 deaths relating to the drug war. He wanted to make his own reality. The idea of future is different for different generations, he says, and for a child of the 60s, the future had hope, and space was connected to that future.

He read an article in Scientific American on how to make your own satellite, and his talk at Kosmica told us of his achievements, in less than a year, towards making a satellite, and in identifying and securing a launch site for it (he has booked a launch slot at the new Tonga spaceport). He also discussed the satellite as a “poetic experience”. He has put together the Mexican Space Collective – including artists Arcangel Constantini, Iván Puig, Cabezas de Cera, Arturo Márquez, Hugo Solis, Francisco Rivas, Marcela Armas, Gilberto Esparza, Omar Gasca, and Ariel Guzik – who are making works for the satellite. He is using the term ‘opera’ for a new hybrid. The opera will be written as an algorithm, and the satellite designed as a musical instrument to ‘play’ the opera and to interact with the composition.

You can read more about the project here.

Oct 12

Primate Cinema: Apes as Family

Two screen image. On the right, a chimpanzee in a green area near a busy road. On the left, a chimp watches the same image on a TV screen in a zoo enclosure.

Rachel Mayeri's Primate Cinema: Apes as Family (2011). Commissioned by The Arts Catalyst

At The Arts Catalyst, the team is looking forward to the opening of our latest commission, Rachel Mayeri’s Primate Cinema: Apes as Family, showing in our Clerkenwell space in London, from 19 Oct – 13 Nov 2011.

Mayeri’s two-screen video installation juxtaposes a drama enacted by humans in the guise of apes (of a female chimpanzee befriending a group of outsiders) with mesmerising footage of the reactions of its chimpanzee audience at Edinburgh Zoo. As the watchers of the watching chimps, we perceive – or we imagine – fascination, puzzlement, and flashes of anger in their responses. But chimps are not humans, and Mayeri’s artwork says far more about our own reactions and perceptions to what we are watching, than those of the chimps to the film.

To make Primate Cinema: Apes as Family, Rachel Mayeri collaborated with comparative psychologist Dr Sarah-Jane Vick, who studies chimpanzee cognition and behaviour, testing different styles and genres of film to gauge chimps’ responses. DNA sequencing has placed humans firmly within the great apes, so how do our cognitive abilities differ from those of chimpanzees? Do we share basic preferences for novelty and perhaps even form and content with our closest relations? In a symposium, Cinema as Primatology, (4-6pm, Tue 18 October), Rachel Mayeri and Sarah Jane Vick will explore similarities and differences in perception, cognition and socio-emotional behaviour between humans and chimpanzees.

In Mayeri’s film, the intriguing and amusing story-response structure contains dark undercurrents in its contemplation of the lives of our captive close relatives. The Budongo Trail at Edinburgh Zoo is a state-of-the-art facility to provide the best possible conditions for chimpanzees within a zoo environment. But many people are uncomfortable with zoos in any form, and with the idea of making any animal captive.

A fascinating short documentary film about the making of the work will also be shown in the space, which sheds some fascinating light on the chimps’ ambiguous (to us) behaviour.

“Some stimuli do seem to provoke responses … Sex, food, violence – and drumming!” Rachel Mayeri

Oct 11

Zimbabwe in Venice

Misheck Masamvu, Sacred Verse (2011) oil/canvas.

In a deliciously candid symposium at Iniva yesterday, Raphael Chikukwa, curator of the Zimbabwe Pavilion at the Venice Biennale this year, confessed with a twinkle that – through lack of knowledge of procedures – they’d messed up on signage at the start: “We can say that at first 35000 people walked past the Zimbabwe pavilion – and a few hundred came in!”. Chikukwa’s unlikely collaborator and sponsor, Francois Larini of the Nouveau Musee National de Monaco, was similarly frank. His brand new art museum decided to back Zimbabwe’s pavilion because of their interest in African art – and because they did not feel art in Monaco itself could support a pavilion. “There was a Monaco pavilion a few years ago,” Larini said cheerfully, “It was a disaster”.

Now Zimbabwe is offering advice sessions to other African countries wishing to tackle Venice, where the continent is extremely underrepresented. Chikukwa’s choice of artists was certainly skilful, selecting Zimbabwean artists “who were engaging with international arts discourse”. He left out Zimbabwean stone sculpture, preferring artists whose work in photography, film, installation and painting was more likely to appeal to the Biennale opening week crowd.

I loved Misheck Masamvu’s emotional and powerful paintings and was glad to hear him talk about his work, something he said he rarely does. Incorporating animals as symbols into his paintings took me back to conversations with sculptors in the Zimbabwean village where I worked 18 years ago, as the artists there grappled to combine traditional and contemporary beliefs and ideas, often using animal totems. But Masamvu’s descriptions also reminded me of artists in Tehran speaking about their work, in which critique was deeply coded through symbols, making it hard for censors to ‘read’.

The Government of Zimbabwe also financed the pavilion, though a remarkable piece of negotiation by the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. Gallery director Doreen Sibanda noted that officialdom is starting to see the positive side of visual arts, because of the success of Zimbabwean stone sculpture. Quizzed about the level of freedom allowed to artists by the government, she countered: “Some of the work we’ve shown over the last 10-15 years has been really ‘out there’ and has raised eyebrows”. She did not mention that the authorities have arrested several Zimbabwean artists this year, and arrested Owen Maseko last year for an exhibition at the National Gallery’s branch in Bulawayo, which chronicled the Matabeleland atrocities carried out by President Mugabe. Life for artists in Zimbabwe continues to be very difficult, economically and politically.

Owen Maseko

Installation by Owen Maskeko from his exhibition 'Sibathontisele' (2010)

Oct 7

Realities and dreams: Africa in space

A stunning and detailed black and white image of Africa from space

Mosaic of high-res images of Africa captured by Canada's RADARSAT-1 satellite

Today is the last day of the 62nd International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Cape Town, South Africa. The IAC is a vast annual meeting of the space world, organized by the International Astronautical Federation, attended by the heads and senior executives of the world’s space agencies, astronomers, space lawyers, engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs and astronauts. This is the first time it has taken place in an African country.

What is the relevance of space exploration to African countries? African astronomy has a long history, as explored in the excellent documentary Cosmic Africa, made in 2003 with South African astronomer Thebe Medupe. South Africa has been involved in a limited way in space activities since the 1960s. Today, several African nations are emerging as participants in the space technology race. Nigeria, South Africa, Algeria and Egypt have launched their own satellites. A few years ago, Nigeria announced an intention to send the first Nigerian astronaut into space. South Africa already has its own astronaut, Mark Shuttleworth, the second self-funded space `’tourist`’. South Africa is also competing with Australia to host the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), the world’s largest radiotelescope.

Bright projection of a globe apparently onto a transparent screen or floating, behind which a man and woman are seen

Alejo Duque & Joanna Griffin: Bogota Declaration

Economic benefits are obviously the driving force for space technology development in Africa. But there are cultural and political issues around the management and exploitation of space, in which African people should have a voice. The contentious issue of geostationary orbits is one example. A geostationary orbit is where satellites orbit the earth above the equator, such that they appear to be stationary from the earth. Geostationary satellites have revolutionised global communications, and have important defense and intelligence applications. Naturally, early on the United States and the Soviet Union occupied the most valuable and coveted spots in geostationary orbit. In 1976, eight equatorial countries, including Kenya, Congo and Uganda, claimed sovereignty over the geostationary orbit, in the Bogotá Declaration, drawing attention to the inequity of orbital allocations. The Bogotá Declaration is the subject of a project by artists Alejo Duque and Joanna Griffin exploring the poetics of the declaration as well as the “inequalities in technological power, the physics of orbit and its contested spaces”.

The goal of the International Astronautical Federation’s technical activities committee on the cultural utilization of space (ITACCUS), of which I’m co-chair, is to promote a self-reflective space culture that promotes the peaceful use of space. It would be great to see African artists develop a cultural response to the new space drive as it develops. We welcome nominations for new ITACCUS members from African countries who can be liaisons to both African space and cultural organisations.

Picture of installation of paintings and sculpture depicting space themes merging contemporary and traditional Burkina Faso art styles

Work by Marco Boggio Sella and unnamed artist/s from Burkino Faso in the exhibition: Dreams and Nightmares of the African Astronauts

Man standing in desert looking at ancient arrangement of stones on the ground

Calendar circle in the Sahara desert visited by Thebe Medupe in Cosmic Africa

Oct 4

Reunions and resistance – Critical Art Ensemble

Great to meet up with Steve Kurtz at AND festival, Liverpool, last week, recovered from his four-year ordeal of FBI intimidation.

Photo of Steve Kurtz in panel discussion smiling in black jumper and blue jeans

Photo of Steve Kurtz by Steve Reynolds

Kurtz’s story is well-known and much written about. But for those on another planet at the time: in 2004, Kurtz, of art collective Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), together with his scientific collaborator Dr. Robert Ferrell, Professor of Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh, were slapped with charges of bioterrorism by the US Dept of Justice. These were triggered by CAE’s art projects critiquing commercial biotechnology and US biowarfare research, and Kurtz’s biological lab equipment and supplies, discovered because he had called 911 to report that his wife had died of heart failure.

Men in white hazard suits enter a house marked of by yellow warning tape

The FBI searching Kurtz's house


When the bioterrorism charges could not be substantiated – after several months and a pile of public money – the DOJ downgraded the crime to “mail and wire fraud”. These charges involved a minor contractual technicality over Ferrell’s sale of some harmless bacteria to Kurtz for his project “Marching Plague” (commissioned by Arts Catalyst). Under the US Patriot Act the maximum sentence for these charges was five to twenty years. The FBI continued for four years to try to find ways to reinstate the bioterrorism charges.

Critical Art Ensemble, Marching Plague, action on Isle of Lewis (2006), commissioned by The Arts Catalyst)

Ferrell eventually pleaded guilty to these smaller charges to avoid a federal trial, leaving Kurtz to forge on alone for both Team Art and Team Science. Ferrell wasn’t so much scared of the DOJ as just extremely ill. He has had non-Hodgkins lymphoma for the past 30 years, and three strokes since the charges were brought against him.

In 2008, after a long expensive legal battle, a judge finally dismissed all charges against Kurtz.

But has Kurtz really recovered, as he says? He talked at his keynote lecture at AND festival / Rewire conference about the Lacunian “big other”, and the policeman and the lawyer who now sit in his head. Critical Art Ensemble will be at Documenta next year, enfolded into the bosom of the mainstream arts world, presenting critical work that is powerful but covers subject matter that other artists do. Is CAE going to play it safe now? Has the FBI won, in some sense, by quieting their critique and dulling their actions?

What inspired me so much about CAE was their tactical invasion of specialist knowledge economies, such as biotechnology, that are controlled and commodified.

But talking to Steve, I am reassured and immensely cheered. He is a remarkable man, battered but resilient, and absolutely unbroken. Expect more mischief-making and provocations in new and unexpected knowledge domains. I will report.

Three smiling people in a dark bar

Absolutely sober Arts Catalyst / Steve Kurtz reunion at AND festival. Photo:: someone in a bar


Oct 2

Power in outer space

Yesterday, I was one of the speakers at the Power in Outer Space symposium at the University of Brighton. The aim of the symposium was to provide a forum to discuss issues about social power and outer space.

Archive black and white photo of a rocket on a launch scaffolding

Soviet/Russian Buran reusable spacecraft project

The Arts Catalyst has been working on space-related artists’ project for 12 years. One thing that has struck me over the years is how under-examined and critiqued space exploration is across the social sciences and humanities, although there have been some welcome developments in recent years, such as Fraser MacDonald’s 2007 paper “Anti-Astropolitik – outer space and the orbit of geography“, and Peter Dickens and James Ormrod’s 2007 book ‘Cosmic Society: Towards a Sociology of the Universe’.

So this symposium was a welcome development, although it perhaps wasn’t a huge surprise that it wasn’t well attended on the hottest October day on record, because this area hasn’t exactly picked up a big following. But I was particularly glad to see an undergraduate attending clutching a big tome on feminism.

The other speakers were excellent and included convener James Ormrod and Prof Peter Dickens, authors of Cosmic Society, Dr Jill Stuart, an expert in space law from the London School of Economics, and Prof Dave Webb from the Praxis Centre at Leeds Metropolitan University. Topics explored included the use of outer space to control warfare on Earth, the monitoring of social groups through space technology, the commodification of space resources, the control of outer space by nation states, and the risk posed by nuclear space technologies and space debris.

My own paper on “’The Cultural Utilisation of Space” considered the contribution of the alternative perspectives and re-imaginings of artists to developing a new cultural and societal dialogue about space, and explored the activities of contemporary artists working towards the appropriation and conversion of space activities and technologies for civilian and cultural use. I examined our own strategic initiatives, such as the forming of the International Astronautical Federation’s Technical Activities Committee on Cultural Utilisation of Space, and I talked about our work with the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre, Russia, the European Space Agency, and, of course, the exhibitions and events we have organised to bring our work to a wide public, such as Space Soon at the Roundhouse and our forthcoming Republic of the Moon.

Sunset. A line of white geese follow a woman carrying a large moon slung on a stick over her shoulder

Agnes Meyer Brandis, Moon Goose Analogue (2011)