The above photograph, taken just prior to Eric Drooker’s performance at the mighty Sala Rossa, does a pretty good job of summarising my feelings on the year that’s been, and my outlook for the one to come. The anticipation of an empty stage, the co-mingling of art, music and politics, and that damn nagging fear that people won’t show up, no matter how much work you put into something. In the end, that night was a beautiful night, but also a striking reminder of how much work still needs to be done.

2011 was an eventful, tumultuous year, personally, professionally, and obviously in the world all around us, filled with equal parts inspiration and tragedy. It was a year of transition for me, from full-time work to self-employment, from the world of corporate advertising and design to a renewed commitment to art and activism, from a long, grey heartbreak to finally feeling good about myself again, from Montréal to Europe (Berlin, how I miss you…) and back again.

Over the course of the year, I completed many design projects of which I am genuinely proud (e.g. see Cinema Politica, Comme des machines, Vox Versus, Bloom, and Cosmodome). With the Howl! Arts Collective, I helped to bring challenging new music to the community, putting on a series of concerts that I hope will become an integral part of the fabric of the independent arts scene here in Montreal for years to come.

(more…)

We don’t often do this on here, but I wanted to share with you a recent poem by Vincent Tinguely, a long-standing ally and friend. It beautifully captures where my heart and mind are at these slow, wintery, Montréal days…

ONE

The swing dance of
The car plants
Bodies interpose themselves
Between arc welded parts
Crashing crushing
Crescendos of consciousness
Swinging through feverish
Interlocking machinery

Electronics and tooled machine parts
Send signals in syncopation
Audience receives the shock wave
And dances

Pyramid schemes
Men at the top
Control a few men who
Control a few more men who
Control a few more men who
Control a few more men who
Know nothing but what they are told

So they invade your country
Or they break your arm
With a police baton

Something in me wouldn’t click
The grain of sand in the gears
Never pulling my weight
I could never fit
In the clack clack machine racket
Flowing through
Work and
War

(more…)

As part of its project entitled Promiscuous Infrastructures, the Artivistic collective invites submissions for the second phase of the project, which will take place from March 9 to April 14, 2012, at Skol, an artist-run centre in Montréal.

What Artivistic is up to
Artivistic is currently in the research-creation phase of a publication tentatively entitled Promiscuous Infrastructures: experiments in art + information + activism. Rooted in the work of Artivistic’s friends, allies, and past participants, the publication sets its sights on “autonomous infrastructures” by looking at radical education & the production of knowledge, intergenerational support systems, as well as sustainable financing.

For Phase 2, we will set up a temporary printing workshop at Skol. This intervention is meant to collectively visualize our concern, obsession perhaps, with what lies behind art, activism and knowledge production: (1) the ways in which we relate to each other, (2) organise to work together, and (3) the conditions in which things are being done. In other words, we are asking:

How do we build value in affective relationships?
How do we organise for that (models, processes, strategies)?
How do we in turn outstretch these in the long-term?

(more…)

Rattle e.11

I’m very happy to announce that Capitalism Kills Love has been featured in the latest e-issue of Rattle Magazine (issue e.11). Since 1996, Rattle has established itself as a key site in print and online for the promotion of contemporary poetry and the development of an active community of poets. Read more about the magazine here.

The project is featured in Dan Waber‘s Eye Contact section where he gives a very insightful review of the series and its context as a piece of visual poetry. I’m honoured to have the work read in this light, and given the timing, as the “occupy” movement(s) spread across North America, I hope more and more people take up the challenge that inspired me to create the work. Capitalism Kills Love and love kills capitalism…

Download Rattle e.11 here

And a loud shout-out to Aram Tanis who provided the original photography for the project!

Fuck Death from plasti75 on Vimeo.

I’d been meaning to post this for a while, but I’m only now getting my tech set up back in order after a little computer mishap in Berlin. But it’s really not such a big deal, because Berlin brought me so many good things, among them the chance to meet the wonderful Lotti Thiesen. Her and her partner (aka Cow Heart) produced this beautiful little experiment for us, with Charlotte reading Nettelbeck’s poem Fuck Death, from our last issue Happy Hour.

The Oddstream festival in Nijmegen brought together an eclectic mix of music, art and education under the loose theme of love and conflict. I’m honoured to have been invited to participate in the festival, helping out with the Memefest workshop and the International Media Training. I met many people during a very intensive week, and have made many new friends. So, first off, many thanks to all those that helped to bring me there, specifically Oliver Vodeb, Doeko Pinxt, and Carola Stahl.

Taking off the rose-tinted glasses for a bit (which is not an easy thing to do considering how much fun I had), it was very unfortunate that more people didn’t turn out. Over the course of the weekend, in front of the stages and on the festival grounds, there was a palpable sense of emptiness. In part this can be attributed to the massive scale of the site, or the electronic music festival that was happening at the same time in Arnhem. As a first festival, this is to be expected I suppose, but it also raises some critical questions, as Sandy Kaltenborn brought up during the Inspiration day. What does this area of “cultural transformation” mean to the city, and what is the festival’s relationship to city marketing and gentrification more generally. Who stays and who goes? It will be an interesting question to ask a few years down the line, if the bills get payed.

(more…)

de Vasim, the site for Oddstream

I’ve been in the beautiful city of Nijmegen for four days now, and the Oddstream festival is getting underway. It’s been an exciting and busy time as I’ve been jumping between mentoring an amazing group of international media students and activists while also participating in Memefest‘s Mapping Socially Responsive Communication workshop. The evenings have been spent reaquainting myself (ie. drinking and drinking some more) with some old friends and collaborators (from declarations days!) and meeting many new ones. My head is swimming, and though genuine insight has yet to set in, I wanted to get some words and images out nonetheless.

(more…)

…not once, but twice this week!

First up, on Art Threat, where I speak to Rob Maguire about Imaging Apartheid: the Poster Project for Palestine. We’ve extended the deadline, so go submit some work!

And then, alongside partner in crime John W. Stuart, on the Kitchen Bang Bang Law on CKUT. We talk to Vincent Tinguely about the ideas behind Four Minutes to Midnight, the latest issue and our upcoming event (!!!). It’s actually rather insightful! Download the mp3 audio archive here, the interview starts about ten minutes in.

Thanks Rob, Vince!

As I was going through my archives tonight, I realised I had never properly posted about this small pamphlet we produced and distributed back in 2008. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the new directions I want to take the magazine in (and the 2356 project generally), and this is a telling touchstone from the past to some of these ideas.

The pamphlet is a transcript of the speech delivered by cultural critic Brian Holmes at the Democracy in America exhibition, presented by Creative Time in New York in 2008. In it he compellingly argues for artists to engage with the radical opportunities presented by the financial crisis. A message as relevant today as it was then.

I first met Brian as part of the Declarations of Interdependence and the Immediacy of Design conference at Concordia University almost ten years ago. It was a heady time for me, with a lot of thinking about the relationship between design, art and activism. As a decade since then rounds out, I find myself thinking deeply about this again, and the position I’m now in to enact those ideas. So, many thanks Brian, for inspiring me in the first place, and allowing us to publish this important work!

Download Financial Crimes by Brian Holmes.