I Wish I'd Written This...

....but I am glad Paddy Johnson (Art Fag City) did.

"Dear Arts Canada, Your Website is Broken.
Canadian art websites in the Toronto area seriously need to kick it up a notch. A survey of search results found when preparing for my visit to Toronto today. The result: exasperation."

Taken to task for their crummy websites are ROM, AGO, MoCCA, PowerPlant, and for good measure, The Globe and Mail.

Thanks! Toronto always listens when a New Yorker notices.

Playing For Change

Playing for Change is a charitable organization founded by Grammy award-winning producer and engineer Mark Johnson. The foundation's mission is to "connect the world through music". The bricks-and-mortar part of the mission is to build music schools and art schools around the world. Two projects are well underway in South Africa, and the foundation has also been supporting Tibetan refugee centres in India and Nepal.

This music video produced by Playing for Change is an inspiring demonstration of the internet's creative commons philosophy at its best. "Thirty seven musicians from five continents assemble together to create one unified track. The musicians have never met in person and connect through their music. Each track is added to the song as the musicians are recorded live outside across the globe. The end result is a remarkable human connection and a powerful song."

Last One Out, Please Turn On The Lights

...a survey of London's remaining professional darkrooms.

Richard Nicholson's series of photographs and brief essay seems a very appropriate follow-up to the previous posts.

Darkrooms are disappearing. Polaroid film: going, going, gone. Yet, an increasing number of young photographers are interested in working with these analogue technologies. They are intrigued by the hands-on craft of darkroom work: the engagement of all five senses in the art making process. Something similar accounts for the recent resurgence of respect for painting at art schools in this country. Ditto, the massive interest in DIY and "upcycling" amongst young designers. The zeitgeist is evident at the cutting edge of other academic disciplines as well: ideas like "embodied cognition", and the flourishing of research into mirror neuron systems are two examples from cognitive science and neuroscience, respectively. These ideas have taken off in the context of a society-wide paradigm shift in the technologies we use, and in how we think about communication (Web 2.0, for instance). In a recursive fashion, the technology itself has given legitimacy to areas of exploration which previously were considered "infradig". It has become OK in art, and in science, to seriously explore affect, intuition, empathy, and to give the body it's due. Our embrace of digital technology has left more space around the edges for different sorts of creative thinkers, and that is a good thing.

I'll be returning to this theme over the course of future posts. But for now, let me leave you with this thought:

Obsolescence is a terribly over-rated concept.

Must-See Exhibition

This child is lost in the quiet, personal, and tactile, act of reading. He's made a nest of his newspapers, and is absorbed in a way that can never quite be achieved with the digital "equivalent". This series photographs (by the incomparable Andre Kertesz) was made between 1915 and 1970. The photographs were also published as a book ("On Reading") which has recently been re-printed.

Andre Kertesz: "On Reading"
Stephen Bulger Gallery
Feb 7 to March 7, 2009