Casket Arts:

I am a young german artist from Berlin doing projects that focus on the urban landspace and how it is perceived/used by the citizens for example.

I would like to introduce you a project of mine that is called 'ZAST REAL ESTATE'.

I am mapping a city from the perspective of a street artist/graff writer etc. o find places which habe the potential for a change. To find empty or unused surfaces and other spaces. Photos of the places and all the informations about measurements, material, daily contacts etc. are collected for a real estate catalogue. I am not asking the owners if I can use their building and include it in the catalogue, this is part of the concept.
Then I open up the 'ZAST REAL ESTATE' office and people can come by and inform themselves about places in their own city, thy are invited to choos a place, make up their minds and produce sketches. I am also offering couselling interviews and surveys and technical support to help people to start something, a change or just a little playing maybe.
I am collecting all the sketches and hand them out to persons in public and privat institutions who are dealing with urban space to show them the ideas of those who are not frequently working in this field.

If you find some time one day please check my website for further details and the development of the project.

Zast Real Estate

Tierney Malone, Southern Sounds: Hear My Train A Coming

Go here.

I've started a new participatory website. It's called Some People.

The idea is that people select other people that they know or would like to know and make a web documentary about them. The documented people need to be alive and willing and really interesting in one way or another (and not already well known). My hope is that eventually the site will become a vast archive of interesting people that you most likely otherwise would never find out about.

There are a few documentaries on the site already, but I'm hoping people will start to add more and more--revealing otherwise hidden lives and creating new documentary approaches within the public space of the web.

The plan is that eventually there will also be Some People exhibitions, publications, radio pieces, and video screenings selected from the ever growing content on the Some People site. If anyone has interest in organizing a presentation of that sort please let me know.

Thanks and take care, harrell

"The film is unique in that it is the first feature film to be shot entirely in Aboriginal language (predominantly Ganalbingu), and it is set both in the past (centuries ago, before the coming of white people to Australia) and in the Ganalbingu mythical past.

"It is a tragi-comedy, a cautionary tale of love, lust and revenge gone wrong that, incidental to its central story line, also explores something of the "old ways".

"The film is directed by Rolf de Heer and features the son of David Gulpilil in one of the lead roles: twenty-two year-old Jamie Gulpilil, whose traditional lands fall within the Arafura Swamp area.

"The entire cast are people indigenous to the swamp region, mainly Ganalbingu and related clans, who are also responsible for the making of all the traditional artefacts needed for the film, such as the swamp-specific bark canoes, the spears and other weaponry and the dwellings. Indigenous people from the area are involved at most levels of the production, from input into and editorial control of the script to the casting and selection of locations."

Both the Vertigo Web site and the film's official Web site offer numerous study-guide and other materials.

Vertigo
Ten Canoes

Lumen Eclipse

Matthew Dehaemers

Survey

We hope that the Community Arts Network might consider posting information about our recent event, Exact Change. It was a fantastic afternoon, with folks from around the region traveling to ride on a "performance" bus. Our staff traveled with kids who were riding the bus for the first time; an adult who had been riding the bus for 35 years, but said this would be the ride she would always fondly remember; and many innocent bystanders who were just riding the bus to get to their next stop, but ended up becoming enthralled with the performances. We specifically tried to pick routes that traveled through diverse communities, in an attempt to showcase our talented local performance artists and to bring the arts to diverse communities that don't always have easy access to the arts.

"It's a 'snare guitar,' " one little girl says quite matter-of-factly. Four girls from Julianne Eng's fourth- and fifth-grade class explain the ins and outs of their newest creation, pointing out main features of the design on their drawing, "It's got a button for turning on the snare drum at the top and an amp built in at the bottom - and it's solar-powered."

Eng puts on a CD and Saint-Saëns' Algerian Suite thumps mildly in the background amid the chatter of young voices. While the girls continue embellishing the neck of their snare guitar with flames that would make Ted Nugent proud, the other kids in the comfortably cluttered room at Argonne Alternative Elementary in the Richmond District of San Francisco are working on their own fascinating menagerie of instruments - a "viano," a "clarolin," "drymbals" and other exotic inventions, which they describe with varying degrees of technical detail. One pair of girls is carefully copyrighting their instrument's description, and they casually, but deftly, turn the paper over when I come closer to have a look.

Read the rest of the story right here:

Hi, just wanted to let you know about a new, temporary blog on ArtsJournal called “Program Notes”, built around the National Performing Arts Convention in June. This week, playwright Jason Grote writes on the usefulness (rather, lack of usefulness) of audience surveys in measuring audience response to the performing arts, and I thought your readers would be especially interested:

http://www.artsjournal.com/npac/2008/04/
watching-the-watchers-gaging-a.html

All comments – agreements and arguments alike! - are very welcome on the site.

Best,

Amanda

From Rust Belt to Artist Belt