Dial M For Manchester – community art project – (area) code – a project in material monumentality and the (archaeological) layering of social time and memory tied to new media technologies … [Link to (area) code] If this comes off it will be fascinating.
contemporary art
recycled body parts
An art student has sparked outrage with a show of puppets made with dentures and glass eyes from dead people. Karah Benford, 20, is exhibiting the dolls, entitled Death Threads, at The Ultraviolet Contemporary Art Gallery in Southsea, Portsmouth. A vicar at Portsmouth Cathedral has branded the show “gratuitous”, while a local councillor called it…
media archaeology – Stockstock Film Festival
Wired News: Festival Takes Stock of Old Films A group of amateur filmmakers in Seattle has put together a festival that doesn’t require any filming, sets or actors. Instead, the Stockstock Film Festival showcases films made from stock footage – those old educational films, forgotten commercials and other random movies freely available in the public…
quotidian flux
Scanning the excellent detritus.net – dedicated to pratctices of recycling culture – I came across Mark Napier’s work. Barbie dolls (have a look!), found imagery in New York, and “negative space – an attempt to scan my entire appartment”. OK – it doesn’t get very far and is a little too whimsical for me, but…
craft is cool … and archaeological
Guardian UK – Observer article on craft as art Grayson Perry – A Tradition of Bitterness, 2002 “What folk culture goes on in these Barratt homes: deceit, divorce and suicide in Merrie England …” These days craft is cool. After all it was a potter, Grayson Perry, who won the Turner Prize in December. It…
Colin Renfrew and archaeological art
In the wake of Colin Renfrew’s visit to Stanford last month I picked up his book Figuring it Out: The Parallel Visions of Artists and Archaeologists. I only glanced at it when it came out last year. I really like it. There is a wonderful range of questioning and reference. His topic is the human…