And the moral of the story is... (Part 2)

Curated by Zoë Gray

March 18-20 (see times below)An extract from the eponymous non-stop film program that took place Feb. 4-7, 2010, as part of the year-long Morality project at Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam.With films/videos by: Guy Ben-Ner, Olaf Breuning, Sunah Choi, Martha Colburn, Joost Conijn, Stefan Constantinescu, Chto Delat, Cyprien Gaillard, Ivan Grubanov, Renzo Martens, Valerie Mrejen, Ciprian Muresan, Chim Pom, Julika Rudelius, Deborah Stratman, Pilvi Takala, Stefanos Tsivopoulos, W ...

(reposted from Matrix Magazine issue #85)

The Old Feminism came up with some pretty good slogans. “The Personal is Political,” for instance, still works pretty well! But when the subject of feminism came up in an art history class that I was teaching, I posed this question to my students, most of whom were freshly out of high school: Do you call yourself a feminist? In each class of 30, only one or two students ever said yes, and even then, hesitantly.However! Though this perfectly informal and scientifically un-rigorous survey might dismay the Old Feminists, fear not. Th ...

(reposted from Matrix Magazine issue #85)

The Old Feminism came up with some pretty good slogans. “The Personal is Political,” for instance, still works pretty well! But when the subject of feminism came up in an art history class that I was teaching, I posed this question to my students, most of whom were freshly out of high school: Do you call yourself a feminist? In each class of 30, only one or two students ever said yes, and even then, hesitantly.However! Though this perfectly informal and scientifically un-rigorous survey might dismay the Old Feminists, fear not. Th ...

In this series titled "Composer Dilemmas," I would like to relfect on issues in the process of composition. How deterministic will this piece be, performance-wise? Once 'finished,' does it remain so? How will the scale of the composition, or the forces for which it calls, affect the final experience? These issues, though less discussed in music courses, are much more fundamental than questions such as "should I write a tonal or atonal piece?"

Duration

Duration is a very important consideration in the time-based arts of music, dance, theater, and film. Although the pacing of a ...

Peace Through Music

When I began to write the Song Salam I was told by an ornery, cynical producer that the message was naive. I am a verbose and bookish person whose lyrics are usually critiqued as being too intellectual or not accessible enough. Well, for Salam, I was going for something universal, something everyone could relate to. If dreaming of peace is naïve, well then let me be as puerile as a child. When composing this song I thought of big corp ...

Every Wednesday evening at 7:30, in a dark and funky coffee house at the end of Church Street in Burlington, VT, a group of musicians gather to practice the rare and radical act of showing up. Arthur Brooks, Polly Vanderputten, Nelson Caldwell, Michael Chorney and Anthony Santor are Ensemble V (as in the number, not the letter), an improvising quintet of top drawer/low profile musicians directed by Arthur. On this particular Wednesday, they are joined by fellow improviser and esteemed music heavy, Barry Reese. And I have traveled the two hours from Li ...

 Benyamin Reich 120X120

HomeLessHome will aspire to investigate the relationship between the private home and the state. It will study the formal and functional similarity between the two spaces which enables the definition of both as "home" (the national home), and the difference between them, which traditionally places the former in the private (or natural) sphere and the latter in the political sphere.

The difference will be explor ...

Ellen Rogers' is an embodiment of both the melancholy and mildly fetishistic. All the while, she maintains this level of deep-seeded romanticism - subtle yet powerful. Upon speaking with Rogers, I hoped to gain a better understanding of her process. Come to find out, she prefers to keep her methodology secret, so I began to wonder what exactly about her work strikes me. Was it all process and no substance? Her history in fashion implies that perhaps her images are nothin ...

Every now and then, I take a Myers-Briggs personality quiz. Although many people probably don't like the idea of being "typed," I find it liberating to know that there are other people who function the way I function. For those unfamiliar with the theory, the Myers-Briggs types are a group of 16 labels for personality, based on certain functional preferences. Derived from Carl Jung's book Psychological Types, the labels include the following dichotomies: Extroversion/Introversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, and Judging/Perceiving.

David Keirsey later grouped these labels in ...

Want to learn to dance like Shahid Kapoor or Hritik Roshan?? Bollywood Funk NYC Dance School is proud to introduce HIP-HOP HUNGAMA to our curriculum starting March 6th!!!! The first class of its kind in NewYork City, 'HIP-HOP HUNGAMA will teach pure Hip-Hop dance to today’s hottest urban Bollywood music. Open to dancers and non-dancers of ALL levels. Warm-up, high-energy moves and new choreography each class! A great workout that feels like a party, with moves and grooves to get heads turning on the dance floor!HIP-HOP HUNGAMA: Saturdays 4:00-5:00PM beginning March 6th, Stepping Out S ...