Free Daze

Glasgow writer Daze has received 28 months for brightening up the city.

Show your support at

http://www.myspace.com/free_daze

Fartisan apartments

Simple and to The point.

Life is beautiful

Is The word on The street

You’re Not Barred - 1 Free Ticket to Glasgow Art Fair.

You're Not Barred - 1 Free Ticket to Glasgow Art Fair.

 

Artist activist the vacuum cleaner has made one free ticket for Glasgow Art Fair available on a first come, first served basis.

 

Here's how you can get your hands on it.

 

Beverage company Barr offer a 20 pence refund for returning your empty drinks bottles. You're Not Barred, a sculptural work made from 60 Barr bottles, will be sold at Glasgow Art Fair for £6.

 

If you buy the sculpture and return it to any participating shop, you will net yourself £12. Thus recouping the cost of the artwork and your entrance fee.

 

The work will be available from the Peacock Visual Arts, Stand 38.

http://www.glasgowartfair.com/?node_id=1.2.1&id=565

 

You're Not Barred.

Art Action: Wafaa Bilal's Artwork under attack at RPI

Freedom of artist expression is being compromised at Rensselaer

Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.

An Iraqi born artist, now US citizen, Wafaa Bilal's work was shut
down at the West Hall Art Department Gallery and will now be reopened
tomorrow (March 11), but conservative public pressure threatens to
close it once again.

Wafaa escaped from Iraq in the early 1990's risking his life by
crossing the Iraq/Kuwait border and is now a professor at the School
of Art Institute of Chicago. He was invited to RPI as part of the art
department artist residency program and is exhibiting a work entitled
"Virtual Jihadi" that consists of a "hacked" version of another
commercial video game called "Quest for Saddam." In the real game
players target the ex-Iraqi leader, in Wafaa's modified version the
artist casts himself as a suicide bomber who gets sent on a mission to
assassinate President Bush Jr.

"It feels like a military camp, not an educational institution,"
Bilal, 41, said Thursday night.

The piece is an anti-war allegory, but the public has been misled by a
Times-Union article reprinting accusations by RPI Campus Republicans
that the school's arts department is harboring "terrorists." Bilal
himself is a US citizen and a noted pacifist whose work of the
last several years has been dedicated almost exclusively to ending
violence.

What you can do:

1. write emails to President Jackson president@rpi.edu supporting the
decisions and good judgement of the art department to spark dialogue
about important issues and not necessarily have to agree with the
opinions of all presenters; also to express surprise/concern that even
after the Feds told her this was "not a person of interest" she still
bowed to pressure of the college republicans and republican alumni

2. come to the Sanctuary for Independent Media at 5 pm
tomorrow as the demonstration against the show gathers
http://www.mediasanctuary.org/node/120

MORE ON THE STORY

Associated Press Story
"Suspension of artist's terror-themed work prompts uproar at RPI"
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--

exhibitionsuspend0307mar07,0,3216094,print.story

>From Washington Post
"Terror-Themed Game Suspended Iraqi-Born Artist Asserts Censorship After
Exhibit Is Shut Down"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/

AR2008030703445_pf.html

Article from the Times Union, Albany, NY "RPI suspends 'Virtual
Jihadi'"
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?

storyID=669934&category=REGION&newsdate=3/7/2008&TextPage=1

Wafaa interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGzb6lNLY98

YES MEN APOLOGIZE TO BRITISH PETROLEUM

Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:09:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: Andy Bichlbaum <admin@theyesmen.org>
To: "White, Robert S C" <robert.white2@uk.bp.com>
Subject: Use of a website... infringing copyright on the trademarks
of BP p.l.c.

Dear Mr. White, BP p.l.c.,

Thank you very much indeed for taking the time to write to us in
regard to
your company's website, BP.com.

First of all, please allow me to say that we do completely understand
and
sympathize with the hurt that your company has every right in the
world to
feel, and we deeply apologize for occasioning this emotion.

And although we do know that there can be no excuse at all for this
slight,
I would beg your indulgence for just one minute, so that I might try to
explain our side of the story, such as it is.

Back in 2006, we began preparing some satires on a number of
companies that
we considered to be the world's prime malefactors, in order to help
expose
their monstrous crimes in a humorous way. These companies included
ExxonMobil, Halliburton/KBR, and a number of other entities,
including your
own.

Sadly, while we did get around to fully realizing some of the spoofs -
including the ones on Exxon and Halliburton - we actually *forgot* about
yours shortly after we began work on it, and it thus remained in the
execrable half-finished state in which, to your horror, you found it
last
week. It didn't even have its own URL!

I would like to sincerely apologize to your company on behalf of the Yes
Men. Like morons, we were misled by appearances. Like morons, we
thought -
or rather, felt - that the malefaction of those other companies was
more...
maleficent than your own.

Yes, we can be real morons sometimes. There is no doubt of that.

But I am here to tell you today that we are making efforts. We now
understand that objectively, BP does every bit as much damage to this
planet
as does Exxon, Halliburton, or any other more obviously nefarious
company,
regardless of its carefully engineered professions of decency and
concern.
And we are ready today to prove our maturity, sincerity, and newfound
intelligence by offering you a fully realized spoof of your own:
http://beyond-petrol.com/. We have likewise deleted the offending
pages you refer to below.

I know that our admissions today may be rubbing salt in your wounds,
but I
do hope that this website can in some way make amends. Any relationship,
after all, must start from a place of truth and honesty, not deceit and
subterfuge. This is the honest truth, and so this is where we begin.

Again, please accept our deepest apologies, and our hopes for a better
future.

Yours most faithfully indeed,
The Yes Men

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Use of a website... infringing copyright on the
trademarks of
BP p.l.c.
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:15:09 -0000
From: White, Robert S C <robert.white2@uk.bp.com>

Dear Sirs,
My name is Robert White and I work in Group Trade Marks - part of the
Legal Department of BP p.l.c.

Our responsibilities extend to protecting the BP brand and trade marks
which includes monitoring the internet for infringements and fraudulent
activities.

Our attention has been drawn to the existence of the following web
pages.
http://www.theyesmen.org/agribusiness/beyondpetrol/
You will note that these pages bear a remarkable similarity to the
genuine www.bp.com <http://www.bp.com> website.
You will observe that the webpages in question include multiple
reproductions of the BP logo. BP p.l.c. has not authorised this and
submit that this infringes the copyright in BP's trademarks.

In addition, we are concerned that there is a real risk of that genuine
visitors could be confused and being diverted away from the genuine
www.bp.com <http://www.bp.com> site. For example, please refer to link
to the "Contact Us" page
http://www.theyesmen.org/agribusiness/beyondpetrol/contactusdisplay.html

You will see that there are a number email addresses listed all ending
in "@beyondpetrol.com". BP neither owns the www.beyondpetrol.com
<http://www.beyondpetrol.com> domain and nor the email addresses
attached to the domain.

Whilst we do not object to the www.theyesmen.org
<http://www.theyesmen.org> per se, our concerns relate to the web pages
appearing at the http://www.theyesmen.org/agribusiness/beyondpetrol/
level (and below) in the hierarchy of the site.
[...]

Yours faithfully,

*Robert White*
BP p.l.c.
Group Trade Marks
20 Canada Square
London
E14 5NJ
United Kingdom

Direct Line: +44 (0) 207 948 5726
Fax: +44 (0) 207 948 7723
Email: robert.white2@bp.com <mailto:robert.white2@bp.com>

Kick The Crack

Here's an image from this mornings intervention at tate modern.

Announcing Open Nights Event: Performing in the Zones of Silence

Barby Asante and the Live Art Development Agency warmly invite you to an Open Night at Artsadmin:

Performing in the Zones of Silence

Talk by Gabriela Salgado, Tate Modern curator and La Pocha Nostra member

Wednesday 5th March at 7pm
Court Room, Artsadmin, Toynbee Studios, 28 Commercial Street, London E1 6AB

Please email on@thisisLiveArt.co.uk if you plan to attend this event so that we have an advance idea of numbers.

Gabriela Salgado has been a curator of contemporary art for over 15 years. She has worked in a number of projects across geographical, institutional and disciplinary borders. Her talk will focus on her interest in 'performing in the zones of silence' which was developed from a published conversation with Guillermo Gómez-Peña. It will cover her involvement as a member of the collective La Pocha Nostra in the organisation of performance workshops, participation in talks and live art presentations with the company. The talk will also include an overview of her last project The Fight for Tate Modern with artist Humberto Vélez and her current research interest in participatory forms of art and activism.

Barby Asante has made the idea of participation and dialogue a defining part of her practice, whether it be in her work creating spaces for dialogue for artists, or in creating works such as Journey into the East (Showroom Gallery 2002) or Comfort Zones (Futurology, New Art Gallery, Walsall 2004).  In 2006 she began collaborating with Andrea Encinas on the Funk Chorus, which invites people to share their desire to sing.  She is currently working on a project with older people exploring karaoke and the possibility of this popular activity as an outlet for our personal histories and memories. Barby will be leading the final event of the season which will be a celebration of the Open Nights series as well as an opportunity to map the future on a personal and group level.

This event is part of the Live Art Development Agency's Open Nights series aimed at artists with an interest in culturally engaged practices. Open Nights are informal events designed to stimulate debate and a sense of community among artists who are questioning cultural identity through live and interdisciplinary practices.  Open Nights so far have included presentations and events by George Chakravarthi, Yara El-Sherbini, Sonia Boyce, Oreet Ashery, David A Bailey, Manick Govinda, Ali Zaidi and Janine Antoni.  Events take place at a variety of different London venues and each has a unique structure that encourages new ways of talking, engaging and asking questions. Open Nights are curated by Barby Asante and produced by Rajni Shah. To find out more please drop us a line at on@thisisLiveArt.co.uk or visit www.myspace.com/opennights.

 

Open Nights are part of the Live Art Development Agency's Restock, Rethink, Reflect initiative, a package of artistic and professional development programmes for artists from culturally diverse backgrounds. These events are curated by Barby Asante and produced by Rajni Shah.

 

www.myspace.com/opennights

www.thisisliveart.co.uk/projects/RRR

Chris over heats

General danger dj over heats The amp.