Photophobia 7

Film has traditionally been a tough sell in the city. Until the opening of The Movie Palace on Concession last year, the only venues for rep and avant-garde cinema in the city had been the AGH film series and a few screenings at the (now highly missed) Staircase Café. Adding insult to injury, the major theatre chains in the area have tended to avoid Canadian and foreign films, and even refused to exhibit many of the more interesting higher-profile films coming from America. Cinephiles in Hamilton have been relegated to other theatres in other towns, usually springing for Guelph or Toronto for their fix.

Out of this cinematic void sprung the idea for an outdoor screening festival highlighting short-length work by regional film producers, as well as challenging short work from the rest of the country and elsewhere. With the help of the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton Artists Inc., and the Hamilton and Region Arts Council, Chris and Paul Shannon launched Photophobia in 1999. Over the years, Photophobia has grown in both audience numbers and national and international visibility.

This year’s outing is a three day event beginning with an August 8 screening of the fascinating documentary In the Realms of the Unreal at The Movie Palace. This richly textured film examines the phantasmagoric work of legendary outsider artist Henry Darger, a reclusive janitor who over the course of his life produced a fantasy world in painting and text that rivals the works of Blake or Bosch for its hallucinatory shamanism.

The short film and video screenings will be done August 11 at Photophobia’s traditional location, the newly-renovated Irving Zucker Sculpture Garden at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Both the open-air concept and the open-admission (pay what you can) policy should appeal to both die hard Photophobes and casual passers-by equally. Fifteen films were selected among 270 submissions from around the world. Open-air venues for cinema tend to encourage a more relaxed and social atmosphere than the darkly incubating confines of the indoor theatre. As a further and somewhat unconscious endeavour, events like Photophobia serve to demystify the downtown core, which has traditionally been seen as a dangerous and drug-filled place at night. Community events and art-driven activity are among the most reliable factors which could dispel that fear and bring Hamilton residents back to the core from their suburban somnambulism.

This year’s musical element has been expanded to encompass its own night on August 12 at Hamilton Artists Inc. Beginning with a screening of video work at 7 pm, local musicians including Battleship Ethel and Cadillac Bill will then integrate their audio explorations with film and video work presented by a number of south-western Ontario artists who work in collaboration with The Factory, Hamilton’s most prominent video and film collective.

Claire Meldrum, artistic co-ordinator at The Factory and member of the selection committee for this year’s festival, talked about how many of this year’s selections concern themselves with the degree to which humanity has interpollinated itself with technology. “Many of the films express a feeling of disconnection felt by individuals living with the challenges of an increasingly technological society. Some of the artists embrace technology, and others deconstruct or critique, say, the environmental or identity issues that come with living with technology.”

Arguably, film and video work signify the interdependence of humans with technology better than most media forms. Not only is the cinematic process highly dependent on technological developments, which frequently dictate not only aesthetic concerns but thematic ones as well, but the process of consuming media is dependent on the technologies of presentation. Ironically, “people can be more comfortable with new media,” Meldrum admits. “New media is an inherently social phenomenon, and watching is almost “easy”, so you can get away with tougher subjects” than you can in painting or sculpture. “I think the public thinks that it’s about time for new venues for this kind of thing in the city. Media arts are quickly reaching a critical mass in this city. There’s more awareness, more festivals and screenings. And I think that Hamilton has a highly educated and interested audience community which is key to the success of things like [Photophobia].”

Ian Jarvis, one of the Factory’s directors as well as a member of the Photophobia selection committee, agrees, adding that film festivals such as this meet the social needs of local residents. “With Photophobia, we’ve focusing on a diverse selection of films, representing different classes, races, orientations, and ages. All of the films are struggling to come to terms with the alienating aspects of technology. Film and video kind of bridges that gap, using high-tech to get people to meet again” to watch the films.

With declining box-office sales, it seems that the avant-garde community is not alone in trying to get people out of the comfort of their home theatres. “I think more and more people are getting bored with the blockbusters,” Jarvis quips. Fewer and fewer filmgoers are finding satisfaction with the traditional theatrical experience, preferring the couch-and-fridge convenience of home viewing. As well, the formulaic nature of such commercial films tends to downplay any sense of authenticity or connection that an audience may feel toward the film or its subjects. Instead, many commercial films attempt to blind the viewer’s senses and discourage active interpretation with an overpowering sense of awe: big explosions, big melodrama, big dialog. Photophobia is an attempt to encourage a different model for community within film audiences. “We’re trying to shop at home, looking at regional artists and local cultural stuff. And that gives you a personal touch that I feel lacking in most commercial films. I mean, it’s always nicer when someone bakes you cookies than when they bring home a fast-food meal.”

Let the technology of the home-baked Photophobic goods seduce you, beginning at dusk in the open-air of downtown Hamilton.

Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

Sufjan Stevens
Illinois
Asthmatic Kitty, 2005

Multi-instrumentalist Sufjan Stevens has released several albums over the past five years, with each getting better than the last. Much like his last foray into his project to musically document all 50 of the US states – 2003’s Michigan – Stevens’s new CD is a wonder of lush arrangements and complex songwriting. There is a massive outpouring of joy on every track, with positive lyrics and intoxicating melodies that will keep your body moving and your heart singing.

A few minutes into “Come on! Feel the Illinoise”, Sufjan follows a decent keyboard solo with a passionate yet subdued cathartic moment about crying himself to sleep. If you do not feel your pulse with “Chicago” or “Jacksonville”, then maybe it’s time to give up on collecting records. His lyrics – serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Bible studies, and a girl with bone cancer – are infused with a poignancy that, while not entirely poetic, are certainly touching. All this may sound a little too syrupy, but consider the notion that maybe it’s time for indie music to drop the irony it wears on its cuff and join the joyous rebellion against mediocre music fuelled by band egos. Put Illinois on your stereo over breakfast and let the day open before you.

MP3: Sufjan Stevens - Jacksonville

Steve Mazza - Out of Character (inaction figures)

transit gallery, Hamilton ON 07.19 - 08.28

Flying on Fumes: the plan to bring Hamilton into the 1950s

There have been some interesting recent developments in Hamilton's urban development strategy. The city expects a 20% swell in Hamilton’s population by 2030, with most of the new development envisioned to use the land around the airport. In a nod to B-grade sci-fi movies of the early 1950s, the umbrella term for this development is the Aerotropolis. This business technocrat’s nostalgic wet dream will apparently house 150,000 while employing 50,000. Hamilton airport will be the locus for this project, and will serve as the centre of a network of highways that will increase traffic flows between the Buffalo-Niagara region and the GTA.

The impetus for development seems to be the more family-friendly nature of real estate in Hamilton, as well as the city’s central location relative to nearby urban centres. City planners believe that new residents will flock to Hamilton in order to avoid the high cost of living in Toronto and its neighbouring suburbs. This belief is preceded by two other acts of faith: 1. that Hamilton real estate prices will stay low, and 2. that the price of transportation will also stay low.

So what is this about our low real estate costs in Hamilton? It is true that you can purchase a home in Hamilton for about 2/3 what it would cost in Toronto and maybe 4/5 of its cost in Oakville or Mississauga. Yet, these lower costs have everything to do with the fact that Hamilton skilfully avoided the economic boom of the mid to late 1990s that fuelled the real estate markets of those municipalities. Smart development has begun to reverse that trend to some degree. Many analysts have stated that due to extensive condo development, Toronto, for example, has cooled off as a real estate market, and prices for homes in several areas have actually dropped since 2002.

If Hamilton were indeed to become a hotspot for development, doesn’t it follow that housing prices will increase to match the extra money flowing into the city? Furthermore, we should question what increased property values would mean to Hamilton’s many lower-income families. The increase in property values associated with a booming suburban development would likely mean the continued marginalization of the downtown core.

The development requirements associated with sprawl include more infrastructure than just highways – roads and sidewalks, water and sewage, electricity, garbage collection, education, health and law enforcement services, etc. Currently, property taxes remain high downtown despite the relative weakness of the local economy in relation to suburban shopping centres such as the Meadowlands. Subsidies have been maintained to encourage business development in outlying regions of Hamilton. At the same time, the city must realize its operating budget from somewhere, and consequently core residents currently bear a majority of the tax burden.

The second and perhaps more prescient issue to consider in the aerotropolis debate is of course energy consumption. As has been pointed out in much of the local press, the city’s plan for development requires a high degree of cheap and accessible individual transportation. Increasing dependence on automobiles in order to link car corridors to distant jobs while living and shopping in suburban areas, and ultimately make the aerotropolis plan feasible, requires a cheap and increasing supply of fossil fuels. Additionally, the economic locus of the project – the expansion of the airport itself – requires a boom in the airline industry. As for being cheap, anyone can tell you that oil prices are going in only one direction.

What about all this oil talk? Sure, it’s almost de rigour to belittle oil these days, with opinions on oil’s links to war, terror, and economic subservience finding much ink in the press. Many people quickly tire of the discussion. But one thing both sides should be able to agree on is that as a collective, modern countries are exceedingly good at using oil. Better than we have ever been, in fact. We have made the process of extracting and consuming oil so efficient that nearly every human in industrialized countries has access to a decent supply of it whenever they need it (and perhaps more tellingly, even when they don’t). Consequently, we started taking it for granted on the consumer side of things, thus allowing a great deal of waste. Oil producers get rich no matter how much oil is used, and consumers, well, they get to have a socially acceptable substance addiction.

Everyone was winning until that very famous oil crisis of the 1970s, when prices reached a point that rendered cars inaccessible to many North Americans. What was that about anyway? That’s where the concept of peak oil comes into play.

Peak oil refers to the fact that oil production doesn’t "gush" the way that it does in Looney Tunes. Instead, it follows a bell curve, with production starting slowly, quickly accelerating, levelling off, decelerating slowly, then rapidly declining. Naturally, oil is most expensive when you begin or end the process. Peak oil has already occurred in America’s domestic supply: the U.S. was the gold standard for oil production until it peaked at 11 million barrels a day in 1970, and the country has been in rapid decline since, hence its dependence on foreign sources.
Outside of the US Department of Energy, most industry insiders have calculated that the world will reach peak oil production sometime between 2003 (coincidentally enough, that year was the start of the Iraq war) and 2015. From that point onward, there is no way to avoid a vast increase in oil costs.

As a consequence, any process which relies on oil as an energy source is doomed to becoming increasingly and prohibitively expensive. Being the least fuel-efficient form of transportation available to consumers, aeroplanes are simply not the answer to future development. Air travel will likely return to its roots as a hobby for the rich. This is not to suggest that masses of humans will never fly again, just that until we can make flying vehicles using alternative energy sources, reliance on the industry seems to my eyes a logistical nightmare given the world’s declining stocks of oil.

Maybe just for a second I’ll play the devil’s advocate. It is possible to incorporate mass transit into the proposed development plan. Principally, it is now a perfect time for Canada invest in a high-speed rail network in this country. A corridor in southern Ontario would allow commuters to live in Hamilton and work in Windsor, Toronto, or Ottawa without sacrificing the environment to the blight of highways and their resulting air pollution. Canadian companies such as Bombardier could construct the trains and the infrastructure with steel from Hamilton, thus providing some of those proposed 50,000 aerotropolis jobs. Furthermore, to decrease transportation requirements as a whole, it is time to reintegrate work spaces with domestic spaces, which ironically enough is traditionally what city cores have always done. High-density zoning is the key here, so that we do not have to sacrifice our rich local farmlands to treeless suburban driveways and parking lots as suggested by the current aerotropolis plan.

Maybe Aerotropolis really is a nostalgic dream, back to the highway expansions of the 1950s. Let me complete the metaphor. All those little toy spaceships and cars that signify 1950s Americana, well they were made of American metal back then. Their modern counterparts are plastic, manufactured in China, and engineered to be disposable: three characteristics which signal the increased load we have placed upon our oil supplies, and the increased hubris with which urban planners render economic development as a monolithic and unidirectional entity.

Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas

Guardian Unlimited published an interesting article in May which you can find here .

Launch a local awareness campaign by screening the film End of Suburbia .

Even old guard oil producers like Chevron are getting serious about peak oil.

off/end the street

she writes in blank spaces

the walk was surreptitious and silent
and I remembered how it was made:
we had always swept past each other
going to work, or in play resting
intangible and ever volatile
we met looking sideways

once in walking we passed a year
our bigness dwarfed the whole street
i realized then that the way you move
gives title to moments of pleasure
i took your hand and pressed it to my days
marking the calendar on my wall in bald faces

on this Monday we were going to your place
it was a tea that had filled a week, promised
and poured with my cup handed
when i smiled you stopped, then
burning drops went over my hand caressing

i sentenced you to life for that transgression

Keith Fullerton Whitman - Multiples

Keith Fullerton Whitman
Multiples
(Kranky, 2005)

Sometimes nothing makes one feel more absolutely modern than a nod to an obscure antiquity. Best known for the post-drum&bass digital cut-ups of his Hrvatski moniker, KFW has saved much of his more challenging work for his namesake releases. Multiples follows some of the drone-based themes of 2002's Playthroughs, and accordingly requires a bit of patience to be properly digested. Track titles such as ‘Stereo Music for Serge Modular Prototype’ belie Whitman’s dogmatically intellectual approach that appeals to the history of electronic music as a thoroughly academic enterprise. By focussing on the compositional particularities of each instrument afforded by digital editing and processing, Whitman brings the textural beauty of his sounds to the fore. Hypnotic and highly evocative.

MP3: Keith Fullerton Whitman - Stereo Music for Yamaha Disklavier Prototype, Electric Guitar and Computer

Four Tet - Everything Ecstatic

Four Tet
Everything Ecstatic
(Domino, 2005)

With turns both electronic and acoustic, Kieran Hebden’s music has garnered the laptop beatmaker an ever-increasing following. His new release Everything Ecstatic does little to disprove to listeners the human touch Hebden brings to electronic music. Singable melodies coming from precious sounding instrumentation is the hallmark of Four Tet’s oeuvre, best evidenced on ‘Smile Around the Face’ by a soul vocal sample sped up to Chipmunk levels. And yet, this album marks a development favouring rhythmic devices over melodic sentiment. Opener ‘Joy’ steals a bassline and kick pattern from 90s-era big beat, while ‘Sun Drums and Soil’ wouldn’t sound out of place on a modern Boredoms record. Bring this one with you to the cottage this summer, and play it during a BBQ so you can distract your friends from the fact that you have surreptitiously and exclusively purchased vegetarian burgers.

MP3: Four Tet - Sun Drums and Soil

Jamie Lidell - Multiply

Jamie Lidell
Multiply
(Warp, 2005)

For a half-decade now, Mr. Lidell has been all over the European genre map, with notable stops in the UK post-rave crooner revival, Berlin techno, and Spanish electro-funk scenes. His beats are usually in line with the roboto-funk digital-crunk common to the Warp Records stable, but past excursions into Soul and Funk gave a hint as to where Lidell planned to take us in 2005.

Multiply is absolutely dripping with the Stax funk sound of the mid to late 1970s. Album opener “You Got Me Up” should easily kick-start your summer party with its rolling, ass-shaking groove. “A Little Bit More” sounds as though Marvin Gaye had dropped by for a session of sexual healing. Motown balladeers will find further engagement with “What Is It This Time”, a track sensual enough even for the most demanding backseat car-grope experience.

Is Jamie Lidell the new Prince? Only the doctor at his VD clinic can tell us for sure...

MP3: Jamie Lidell - Music Will Not Last

regime change

It seems that the new president elect of Iran may have taken part in the 1979 US hostage situation. That is if we are to believe some of the captives who are making the claims. According to the Associated Press, four ex-captives are claiming that upon seeing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the newly-elected president of Iran, on television, they are now convinced of his association with their detainment in 1979.

As a side note, check out how the various news networks are quoting the AP, found in its original form here .

CNN's take

Fox "News"

One such hostage, William Dougherty, said: "You know how [President Bush] said, 'You're either for us or you're for the terrorists.' Well, now the leader of Iran is a terrorist."

Funny. I would have thought that 25 years would dilute the memory a little. More importantly, how could these captives know unless they met Ahmadinejad in a more personable manner than on CNN?

Then there's a statement from one of the other hostages: "...Take 20 years off of him. He was there. He was there in the background, more like an adviser." So now Ahmadinejad was there in the background, maybe making some popcorn for the boys or something.

Next we'll hear that Ahmadinejad caused the World Trade Centre attacks, and was a key participant in the bombing of Pearl Harbour. Yes, our man Ahmadinejad is a veritable Where's Waldo through recent American history.

I'd like to think that the US is not going to seek regime change everywhere it wishes to impose colonial rule. Calling a foreign leader "evil" and then using his "evilness" to justify an invasion and occupation of the country? Priceless, and a true component of civil democracies.

Then again maybe the whole "we're doing the same thing each time" strategy would have the intended effect of confusing the masses into thinking that such absurd logic as "hey, there's another evil leader" is indeed representative of how international politics is played.

Not only does such simplistic logic undermine any concerted effort at geo-political analysis on the part of the media, but it also ignores any debate about the taking of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979.

We're learning from the current White House that debate is for pussies. Men of greatness require action. Let hellfire fall from the sky, they say. Evil will be corrected.

So what about those of us who have expanded our notions of good and evil since grade two?

Rock Is.....?

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Toronto Pride 2005

Today was the annual Pride celebration in Toronto. This year was a hell of a lot less hedonistic than in years prior (maybe the 34 degree heat killed off any excess energy that people may have had. One thing that has gone down quite drastically is the extent to which nudity takes over the celebration. In years past, you couldn't look in any direction without seeing a breast or a penis. These days, even in extreme heat, people are keeping their tackle together.

Maybe, just maybe that's a good thing for Toronto Tourism...



















this is what happens when men gather without consequence to female aesthetics...









impressed



not impressed







so what do the elderly think about the liberal changes of late???



You can find the full set of photographs here.

m.a.p.s.

white = water inbibed, North America

pink = soft drinks consumed, as a percentage with water,
North America

purple = sugar in pop turned into fat, as a percentage of pop




America, in going after the heart of terrorism, you are so 2005




plumes and breaks, widgets at the cellular level




we pack tightly, you and i




a father unfurles his wisdom only slowly, and that makes him angry




vulnerability is part of Empire




if it weren't me, it would be wallpaper

frank zappa on CNN

In the 1980s, musician and activist Frank Zappa twice appeared on CNN's Crossfire (thank you Jon Stewart for helping get rid of that abomination) to discuss music censorship. I need say nothing, as these conversations speak for themselves.

Check out the first interview from 1986 here. The best part: ten minutes into the show Zappa suggests that the biggest threat to the country is not Communism but a move toward a fascist theocracy. It's a shame he didn't get to see the world poor little Dweezil, Moon Unit, Diva, and Ahmet Rodan have inherited.

He also made an appearance a year later.

Sometimes, it's important to have authentic voices on the television who do not wish to engage in the conversational rules the medium tends to impose.

In light of the American telecommunications industry being plagued by conservative punditry, clearly the debate is far from over.

and now for some pictures of penises...

'nuff said

and now a word from our sponsors...

Obviously I don't have a single sponsor. It is important to support companies that are doing good work, and performing their function in a manner that doesn't cause a greater harm than good.

Fashion is the first step. It's something that most people take for granted, as in: "that shirt looks nice, it's cheap enough, i'll buy it". There is a larger framework for the manufacturing and distribution of that item of clothing that needs to be considered. Did the workers who made it get paid a fair wage? Are chemicals, such as bleach, used in the production of the fabric and/or item that do environmental harm? Will it really look cool?

Thinking about purchases is the start of an ethical life. Don't just buy whatever is most convenient.

This is becoming an even bigger issue for drinks than clothes. Coke has a history of violently intimidating its non-union production staff, most notably its bottlers in South and Central America who are trying to unionize. Every time you buy a Coke product, and they are legion, you are supporting that particular manufacturing practise, ie: violently oppressing an impoverished workforce.

That being said, when you go to a corner store or restaurant these days, it becomes apparent that Coke has a virtual monopoly on drink distribution. Many convenience stores stock only Coke products, presumably because they then get to use the drink fridge for free.

So what is a good citizen to do? Well, try moving on and finding a drink that doesn't have such attrocious political baggage. Water is free in most public places (although that will change over time I'm sure), so why not give that a try?