☮ ANGELO says:

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

On the Silver Couch: Anna Franceschini

Artist Anna Franceschini

 Tell us your story of your life in 140 ch

Born in the seventies, lost my father when I was 16, studied engineering, left the faculty, started meditation, the result is in front of you.

Do you see interesting things in our era now?

Plurality! Sometimes I would like to be a recording device myself – ears and eyes enhanced -or be affected by a Savant syndrome of some sort, to be able to treasure every single detail of the era I'm passing through. Plus, my personal experience is often combined with a filmic memory: everything in my mind is so mixed and overlapped that I confuse the so-called phenomenological reality with sequences from movies and video clips and this increases my excitement and joy. And internet too.. I think it's pretty rare to experience a picture - in - picture world, shifting in and out from different perceptual existences. Of course, in this kind of holographic cosmos contradictions and distortions are multiplied too, as if we were in a house of mirrors. I try to be careful but not to back out of it.

What would you like to do in 1 year from now?

Spend more time in the Mediterraneo and have a garden.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

The ∞ INFINITE ◯ Webring of the Eternal Internet Brotherhood

The Eternal Internet Brotherhood website http://eternalinternetbrotherhood.com/ has a new mobile friendly interface designed by PWR Studio

The new interface is called "The ∞ INFINITE ◯ Webring of the Eternal Internet Brotherhood" is neo-archaic, semi-random navigation ⎈ system hand-coded and chain-linked by PWR Studio in the €uro-zone in August 2013. A never-ending loop within the complex coils of the society of control. No Menu. No index.

Through this system you can navigate through extra interviews, essays, and projects done for the Mexico edition during April 2013. Projects by Andreas Angelidakis, Jacinto Astiazaran, Sotiris Bakagiannis, Cibelle Cavalli Bastos, Harry Burke, Vincent Charlebois, Tyler Coburn, Birch Cooper, Rhys Coren, Petra Cortright, Jesse Darling, Zachary Davis, Apache-Theodore Darst, Brian Droitcour, Cecil B. Evans & Yuri Pattison, Rozsa Farkas, Manuel Fernandez, Paul Flannery, Attila Fattori Franchini, Marina Fokidis, Emilio Gomariz, Joe Hamilton, Marc Horowitz, JunkJet, Brian Khek, Mirko de Lisi, Anastasios Logothetis, Michael Manning, Ceci Moss, Theo Michael, Brenna Murphy, Angelo Plessas, PWR Studio, Eva Papamargariti, Rafael Rozendaal, Pascual Sisto, Jasper Spicero, Nicolas Sassoonn, Zak Stone, Hugo Scibetta, Panos Tsagaris, Johannes Thumfart, Priscilla Tea, Mai Ueda + Mike Calvert, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Lance Wakeling, Krist Wood and many more.

Friday, September 13, 2013

On the Silver Couch: Kimberly Bradley

Writer Kimberly Bradley with her daughter Iona

Do you think a real gentrification can happen in the area of Metaxourgeio/Keramikos?

If I think long-term, I can only answer yes. But before this can happen, so many economic, political, and cultural-capital and social-capital factors have to shift. Right now and in the near future, things don’t look so good: Greece is now in its sixth year of crisis, and the EU’s southern countries (I hate using the term “pigs”; I’d rather use the term “gips,” which means “plaster” in German, something much more solid and less derogatory than swine!) are in dire straits. Yet at the same time, looking globally,  inner cities around the world have and continue to experience the kind of valuation that comes when culture leads the way. Here in Germany, one hears (and reads, in major newspapers) that “Athens is the new Berlin” and I know of more than a few non-Greeks who are so excited by the energy of the city’s art and music scenes that they’ve moved there, either temporarily or permanently. Berlin’s eastern center was a ruin 20 years ago (granted, it also had the backing of West Germany’s mammoth economy) and in part was rebuilt with the ideas and capital of people coming from all over the world (to this day, most of my friends earn their money elsewhere, but live here). Another question: what is gentrification? Does it mean a healthy, mixed-income and mixed-purpose neighborhood minus the brothels and drugs and crime, or does it mean endless commerce and cheap bars, like the loud parts of Gazi? These problems are a long way off, but must be taken into consideration. Greece’s byzantine bureaucracies and structures need to change. It has to become easier for young people with ideas to start companies, launch ideas, make things happen. 
Do you think artistic production can buzz in a both divided and extremely financially ridden community?

Yes, absolutely ... there already is a palpable buzz in Athens’ art scene, a kind of DIY, make-it-happen-despite-the-crap tenacity that I still find astonishing. The situation offers in many ways the friction and adversity that art production feeds off of. But as a frequent visitor, not a resident, I am not witness to the day-to-day struggles in Athens. If production only involves struggle, even the best of artists grow fatigued, and search for their dreams elsewhere. I asked a friend who recently left Athens for London whether she missed living in Athens. “Every day,” she answered. “But I knew if I stayed, I wouldn’t be an artist anymore. I’d only be an activist.”