[-empyre-] Week 3 on empyre: thoughts about the first two weeks and moving on

Fri Oct 25 22:24:02 EST 2013

Hey Tim!

Ah, they would be familiar names such as Blast Theory and Trevor
Paglen. The fact is that these events are not really committed with
the idea of convergence per se. For instance, Arte.mov was focused on
mobile technologies and culture, while Tropixel deals with
natural/technological resources and tactical media. It is more that
they create good opportunities for critics and practitioners different
areas to converge.

Best!
Menotti

2013/10/23 Timothy Conway Murray <tcm1 at cornell.edu>:
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Thanks, this is really helpful and interesting information for you to share with all of us.  I'm wondering if there are particular artists from Pixelache or Artemov whose experimentations with convergence we all might reference?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Tim
>
>
>
> Director, Society for the Humanities
> Curator, Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art
> Professor of Comparative Literature and English
> A. D. White House
> Cornell University
> Ithaca, New York. 14853
> ________________________________________
> From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au [empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] on behalf of Gabriel Menotti [gabriel.menotti at gmail.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2013 4:16 PM
> To: soft_skinned_space
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Week 3 on empyre: thoughts about the first two weeks and moving on
>
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Hey!
>
> Some years ago, around 2007, there was a lot of institutions dealing
> with media arts in the country, particularly in São Paulo. Looking
> back now, it feels like another intoxicating side-effect of the wave
> of optimism provoked by what seemed another “Brazilian miracle”. That
> is when the Museum of Image and Sound (MIS-SP) reopened under a new
> direction, with a strong international residency programme attached to
> a media lab. However, the lack of popularity of this programme,
> combined with some political disagreements between the museum
> management and SP government, took things some steps back. Right now,
> most exhibitions are ready-made travelling shows imported from abroad,
> repeating the same old topics. Kids love them, though.
>
> Artemov is another interesting case: a festival for locative media
> convened by artists and academics who engaged critically with this
> area (among whom were Lucas Bambozzi and Marcus Bastos, participants
> of the list). Supported by the sponsorship of a local mobile phone
> carrier, it managed to have a quite substantial programme, including
> very good seminars with international guests. These events resulted in
> what I believe to be one of the most updated essay collections on
> media arts and locative technology published in Portuguese - a
> priceless resource for classes. Sadly, the festival is hibernating.
> From what I heard, the said phone carrier cut all of its support for
> cultural programmes.
>
> Smaller and sporadic events are still running, making do with whatever
> they can get. Right now, there is a local edition of Pixelache going
> on in Ubatuba, in the coast. It was quite an adventure for the
> organization to get means of travelling for everyone interested, but
> it worked out in the end (the solution was refunding participants’
> long-distance bus tickets). What prevented me from attending was
> mostly the clash with the classes calendar.
>
> Best!
> Menotti
>
>
> 2013/10/23 Timothy Conway Murray <tcm1 at cornell.edu>:
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> Gabriel,
>>
>> It's interesting that your experience at Socine parallels my thoughts about the Bosun Festival.  You put it well that Bosun, apparently as with Socine, could have been more successful in integrating experimental medial approaches into its programming and discourse.  So that if convergence figured, as it did so prominently as the theme of the Festival Conference, it did so primarily as folded into the screen of more traditional cinema discourse.
>>
>> It's very disconcerting that those organizations most committed to articulating and promoting artistic convergences have fallen on the budgetary chopping block.  Would you be willing to say more about the context and histories of Arte.mov, Prêmio Sérgio Motta, MIS-SP?
>>
>> I suspect that Dale is experiencing an alternative and more robust approach to funding the arts.  Dale, could say something about this and what difference it's making for thinking convergence and alternative approaches to the screen arts?
>>
>> Thanks so much,
>>
>> Tim
>>
>> Director, Society for the Humanities
>> Curator, Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art
>> Professor of Comparative Literature and English
>> A. D. White House
>> Cornell University
>> Ithaca, New York. 14853
>> ________________________________________
>> From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au [empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] on behalf of Gabriel Menotti [gabriel.menotti at gmail.com]
>> Sent: Monday, October 21, 2013 9:41 AM
>> To: soft_skinned_space
>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Week 3 on empyre: thoughts about the first two weeks and moving on
>>
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> Hello, Tim!
>>
>>> So would you mind elaborating a little more specifically about
>>> the particular institutional contexts about which your thinking in Brazil.
>>
>> Oh, sorry if I was unclear. I was referring mostly to academia and
>> academic forums. Particularly, I was thinking about Socine, the
>> biggest cinema/screen/film studies congress in the country, which is
>> fresh in my mind because I was participating of it two weeks ago. I
>> was hoping to see a more heterogeneous event, but it ended up very
>> traditional. The only working group *slightly* opened to convergence
>> (or issues of technology and culture) was the arts & cinema one.
>>
>> I was presenting a paper about piracy and ended up in a panel with
>> someone doing statistical research on the participation of women in
>> the production of Brazilian features in the last 20 years. While there
>> could have been an interesting dialogue between our two projects, if
>> the panel was better planned and chaired, it ended up feeling simply
>> as the place where they throw the misfits. The point being: there is
>> not enough people working in certain areas to constitute productive
>> fields of academic dialogue and criticism.
>>
>> On the other hand, it is interesting to notice how sometimes it is
>> non-academic events and institutions (like FILE) that work as
>> catalysts of thought, creating conditions for the displacement of
>> current research culture. Didi-Huberman, for instance, was brought to
>> Brazil for a lecture by the newly opened Rio Museum of Arts (MAR), and
>> this certainly played an important role in his recent surge of
>> popularity.
>>
>> Such events have the conceptual freedom and necessary fundings to
>> propose new questions/ bring new people. It is a shame that lots of
>> them that were involved with arts & media were recently discontinued
>> due to cuts in cultural budgets (Arte.mov, Prêmio Sérgio Motta,
>> MIS-SP). FILE is one of the few in the area that survived - perhaps
>> because of its popularity with a wider public. Time will tell how
>> negative will be the effects of these cuts to the variety of research.
>>
>> Best!
>> Menotti
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 2013/10/19 Timothy Conway Murray <tcm1 at cornell.edu>:
>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>> Hi, Menotti,
>>>
>>> It's so nice to hear your voice back on -empyre- and to receive it from your home territory of Brazil.  It strikes me as extremely important that you situate the possibilities for or restrictions of convergence in relation to resources or institutions.  In some cultural contexts, it seems like minimal resources might have enhanced the possibility for and necessity for convergence (such as the Arte Povera movement, etc.).  So would you mind elaborating a little more specifically about the particular institutional contexts about which your thinking in Brazil.  Many of our readers, for instance, might associate Brazil with the FILE Festival in Sao Paulo, which historically has been known for celebrating the convergence of artistic medial practice.  Is FILE the exception or do you see FILE being held back economically, etc.?
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Tim
>>>
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