Singularity
visual culture

From their web site:
“The Exhibitionist is a new journal focusing solely on the practice of exhibition making. The objective is to create a wider platform for the discussion of curatorial concerns, encourage a diversification of curatorial models, and actively contribute to the formation of a theory of curating.

The journal is a publication made by curators for curators and understands itself as a site for critical debate in regards to the practice of exhibition making. The Exhibitionist will be published twice a year and will follow a strict editorial structure that revolves around the analysis and examination of past, present, and future exhibitions and other curatorial ideas. Under the title Curators’ Favorites each issue will present three texts for which three curators will write a personal essay about their favorite exhibition, contemporary or historic. This will be followed by an in-depth look at a historically important exhibition in the section Back in the Day. Assessments will comprise the core of the journal. Here four curators will focus on reviewing one significant contemporary exhibition from different points of view. Typologies opens up the debate around specific exhibition formats. The section Attitudes will feature a text by a member of the editorial board reflecting on the current state of exhibition making while Rear View invites a curator to reflect upon an exhibition s/he has recently curated. Every fourth issue a conversation about past contributions, the content and the form of the journal between some of the past contributors will offer a forum for self-reflexivity.”

Henry Jenkins is the director, Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT. In this viral-info-snack he discusses the power of media in a 21 century trans-mediated world. A world where converging technologies and cultures give rise to a new media landscape.

Coming this Autumn, a magnificent exhibition that will bring to Dublin a taste of the old New York photographed by some big names like Cindy Sherman, Diane Arbus, Berenice Abbot, Alfred Stieglitz, and more.
It will be at IMMA from the 25 Nov 2009 to the 07 Feb 2010.

Picturing New York comprises 150 masterworks from the photographic collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, covering the period from the 1880s to the present day. It celebrates the tradition of photographing New York, a tradition that frames and influences the perception of this vibrant urban centre. Including photographs by such influential photographers as Berenice Abbot, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, Lisette Model, Alfred Stieglitz and Cindy Sherman, it explores both New York and its inhabitants, highlighting associations – from the vast, overwhelming architecture and bright lights, to the diversity of people that lie at the soul of the city.

The photographs reveal New York as a city of contrasts and extremes through images of towering blocks and tenements, party-goers and street-dwellers, hurried groups and solitary individuals. Picturing New York demonstrates the symbiosis between the city’s progression from past to present and the evolution of photography as a medium and as an art form. Additionally, these photographs of New York contribute significantly to the notion that the photograph, as a work of art, is capable of constructing a sense of place and a sense of self.

Picturing New York: Photographs from The Museum of Modern Art is organised by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and is travelling under the auspices of the International Council of MoMA. It is curated by Sarah Meister, Associate Curator, Department of Drawings at MoMA. The exhibition will also be  presented at La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain (26 March to 14 June 2009) and the Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Italy, (11 July to 11 October  2009).

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue produced by Thames & Hudson which includes a foreword by Enrique Juncosa, Director, IMMA, an essay by the curator Sarah Meister, and text by notable New Yorkers.

via IMMA

Joachim. From the exhibition "Under a Grey Sky" at the Gallery of Photography, Dublin, October - November 2009. © Simon Burch

Exciting new work by emerging and established Irish photographers will be displayed at this year’s Photo Rencontres in Arles, France, the biggest event of the international photography calendar.

Supported by the Arts Council and Culture Ireland, the Gallery of Photography is presenting an exciting showcase of Irish photographic talent at the International Photo Rencontres in Arles, France.

The packed programme includes solo presentations by four leading photographers, and a specially curated group show, providing fascinating insights into the social landscape of new Ireland. The featured works are:

Noel Bowler – ‘Iman’. An exploration of the ethnic diversity of Islam in Ireland
Eoin O Conaill – ‘Common Place’. New colour landscapes from throughout Ireland.
Simon Burch – ‘Under a Grey Sky’. Landscapes and portraits from the boglands of the mid-West.
Jackie Nickerson – ‘DOMICILE’. A psychological portrait of a small community in County Louth.

The solo presentations are complemented by a specially-curated group exhibition, ‘Home Economics’. It features seven of the most promising of the next generation of Irish photographic artists, Ciarán Óg Arnold, Martin Cregg, Aislinn Delaney, Peter Doyle, Garvan Gallagher, Kevin Griffin and Daniel Scully. ‘Home Economics’ brings together a vibrant and diverse series of works, which portray the complexity of Ireland’s social transformation during and after the Celtic Tiger years.

The exhibitions will be presented at the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles, France on July 10th 2009.
Venue: 9, Rue du Roure, La Roquette, Arles.
Press reception: July 10th 2009, 9pm.

Supported by Culture Ireland and the Arts Council.

For further information, press scans or to interview the artist, please contact: Tanya Kiang, Gallery of Photography 353-1-6714654, tanya@galleryofphotography.ie

via galleryofphotography.ie

This film illustrates an early example of technologically-mediated visual surveillance: the use of cine cameras by the British police in 1935 in the English town of Chesterfield in an operation to crack down on illegal street betting. The film accompanies an article by Chris Williams in Surveillance & Society 6(1) which explains what was going on and why… You can read the abstract or the full article Police filming English streets in 1935: the limits of mediated identification(Chris A Williams, James Patterson, James Taylor).

Chris A Williams, James Patterson, James Taylor

At the Inaugural Youth Ball, the new President of the United States of (North) America and the First Lady Obama salute the crowd.

What an amazing image!
While the event is happening, we the audience indulge in its consumption by recording it, rather than experiencing the event itself. We engage the media, the channel, the interface, and not the message. This image speaks volumes about how we experience reality, about our relation with the image world, and about ownership. I saw it recently on Coscientious (through TomorrowMuseum, Venture Beat, Ekstasis, Constant Siege). Although we have seem similar images or may have even experience this ourselves, specially during concerts, perhaps because of the event, Obama’s new presidency celebrations, it may have reached global values.

It is obvious that such mass-recorded events could not have taken place last century, without the advent of new technologies that could facilitate both the mass production and the mass distribution of the photographic apparatus. But it was bound to happen, as more and more people become owners of digital cameras.

There is a double intrinsic idea in the photographic act: not only you think it is worth recording, but it is also worth owning. The image Im taking is precious both because I was there and it was important, and because I desire to be the owner of that document.

A while ago I read about Kevin Kelly’s essay Better Than Owning, that arrived to me in a much shorter version in Boing Boing feed, that I read about again in Share Economy, and I think it is worth repeating here:

“Very likely, in the near future, I won’t “own” any music, or books, or movies. Instead I will have immediate access to all music, all books, all movies using an always-on service, via a subscription fee or tax. I won’t buy – as in make a decision to own — any individual music or books because I can simply request to see or hear them on demand from the stream of ALL. I may pay for them in bulk but I won’t own them. The request to enjoy a work is thus separated from the more complicated choice of whether I want to “own” it. I can consume a movie, music or book without having to decide or follow up on ownership.

For many people this type of instant universal access is better than owning. No responsibility of care, backing up, sorting, cataloging, cleaning, or storage. As they gain in public accessibility, books, music and movies are headed to become social goods even though they might not be paid by taxes. It’s not hard to imagine most other intangible goods becoming social goods as well. Games, education, and health info are also headed in that direction.“

It is hard to chew a way forward in terms of a Photographic share economy, though while it seems excessive for mankind to record the same event with millions of cameras, we all want to have one, to take one. Maybe the issue is there, in the sharing. Or perhaps we have to relax and enjoy what we are experiencing rather than recording it (remember how we became slaves of our video-cameras in the 80’s?), is it then a matter of education? a cultural construct?

REAL FANTASIES – New Photography from Switzerland
A highly constructed selection of Swiss photographers with the purpose of identifying trends in Swiss contemporary photography, although some of the work is more than 5 years old. Worth, all the same.

Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art.
Catalogue from the exhibition at the International Center of Photography.

Photography: Crisis of History. JOAN FONTCUBERTA, ED.
A must have.

12. vfg Nachwuchsförderpreis
Was at the opening of the exhibition. Nothing I haven’t seen in Dublin.

Purple Fashion Magazine
With articles about Terry Richardson amongst others. A pretty weird nudity section included.

Photography Now Journal for Photography and Video Art
The best way to digest their humongous web site database.

Eye Magazine
The International Review of Graphic Design. Full of delicious fonts, everywhere.

These are some darn good magazines about Photography and Design I bought in Spain. And a good magazine, has usually a good web site!

NEO2
www.neo2.es

FOAM
www.foammagazine.nl

ETAPES
www.etapes.com/international/
www.ggili.com/etapes/

VISUAL
www.visual.gi

OJO DE PEZ
www.ojodepez.org