[-empyre-] Call and Response

[Irina Contreras]

Welcome to the December discussion, loosely based on "Call and Response"
and other thematics that I hope each week's guests can shed light on in
interesting and innovative ways.

Moderated by Irina Contreras (US) with invited discussants (rough estimates
of dates with possible changes):

December 5th to 11th: Omar Mismar (LB), Sarah Jones (TAS) and Byron Jose
(US)

December 12 to 16th:
Decolonize Your Diet (US), Cake and Eat It (US), Voicewaves (US) and
Dorothy Santos (US)

December 17th to 22: Mitch Brown (US), Juba Kalamka (US), Josh T Franco
(US) and Essex O. Lordes (US)

As Renate has said, the month came together very, very quickly! That said,
thanks for everyone that has joined in. I expect that much like a party or
a salon I can throw, this should be an interesting and juicy (and possibly
haphazard) 3 weeks.

This month I have invited discussants whose work and interests reflect
interests in call and response, whether I feel that it is about the
reframing of a particular viewpoint or the unwanted (and therefore
sometimes messy) contribution to a conversation. For myself, these have
frequently been starting points for my personal performance practice.
Though, I also know it to be something connected to my political practices
and interest as a novice/public archivist. I will slowly bring in my own
work and interests as we begin to delve into each discussant's topics of
interests.

The word "activism" is not present though I expect that it might come up
with various peoples work and given the nature of this site. Also, I have
added a few guests last minute who partake in DJ/musician/soundscape forms,
which I am really excited about as a music nerd. Call and Response, which
is an idea that comes from sound, a distinct succession of phrasing in
which it is apparent that one in fact, is heard as a direct response or in
tandem with another can hopefully be seen as a way in which we as makers,
thinkers, do-ers, writers etc engage in participation and refusal in
public, private and virtual spaces. I will also want to discuss later on
the ways in call and response is a product largely of colonialism, the
trans-atlantic slave trade and civic engagement/revolt.

These guests are inclusive of people I mostly all know who work across
diverse disciplines such as performance, writing, online shenanigans,
dj'ing, music, hip hop, political projects and film.

For this week, we will be chatting with Omar Mismar, Byron Jose and Sarah
Jones. I will introduce them now and wait to see if anyone jumps in!
Otherwise, be back soon!

Irina

--------------------------------

Omar Mismar is a visual artist born in Beirut, Lebanon. He was awarded the
Fulbright scholarship for 2012–2014, and he is currently pursuing an MFA in
Fine Arts and an MA in Visual and Critical Studies at the California
College of the Arts in San Francisco. His interdisciplinary art practice is
fueled by ideas of desire, intimacy, and the everyday: what people do in
the city, how we go about our routines, our free and alone time, our
private versus public lives. Walking, intervening, subverting, resisting,
satirizing, conversing, imagining, narrating, and browsing steer his
practice. He is fascinated by the figure of the detective.

Byron is a filmmaker, performance artist, writer, and educator. As an
immigrant in Los Angeles, Byron creates projects to deconstruct, divert,
and dictate norms, situations, and discourse. Through these works, Byron
presents byproducts struggling to be free. Using film, video projections,
the self, and ordinary occurrences, pieces are created to combat monotonous
expectations of art, while disregarding processes and form.
You can check out a link of Byron's film, Reinas de Los Angeles here:
https://vimeo.com/61485641

Sarah Jones (Perth, 1982) is a writer, artist and curator based in Berlin.
She graduated from the Tasmanian School of Art (UTAS) in 2007 and is
currently completing a Masters of Fine Arts at the Dutch Art Institute
(DAI), Netherlands. Sarah recently participated in the *NOA Language School* at
SMBA, Amsterdam, 2013; *The rise and fall of the continuous cycle*,
DeServiceGarage, Amsterdam, 2013; and*come to life* at the Queen Victoria
Museum and Art Gallery, Tasmania, 2012. Selected curatorial projects
include: *Both sides of everything about something* at Sawtooth ARI,
Launceston; *The Hobart Urban Illumination Project *as part of
ITERATION:AGAIN, Tasmania; *trophywife *at Death Be Kind, Melbourne and
*Erotographomania* at CAST Gallery, Hobart, all 2011.

Sarah was the project coordinator for ITERATION:AGAIN, under the curatorial
direction of David Cross, 2011; project coordinator for the Tasmanian
Regional Arts, Tasmanian Youth Portraiture Prize, 2011; and the Tasmanian
project co-ordinator for the 2012 JUMP Mentorship program, for Contemporary
Art Spaces Tasmania (CAST). In 2010 Sarah received an Arts Tasmania,
Assistance to Individuals Grant for curatorial research. In 2009 she was
awarded the CAST Emerging Curator Mentorship and a NAVA Janet Holmes a
Court Artists Grant. She is a founding member of Hobart based Artist Run
Initiative 10%pending.
you can check out Sarah's work here:
http://sarahjones.net.au/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/attachments/20131204/202c061c/attachment.htm>