Dream of Life: An Elegantly Impressionistic Portrait of Patti Smith

Reblogged from Et Cetera: Publick and Privat Curiosities:

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Patti Smith: Dream of Life, directed and mostly shot by Steven Sebring, is an elegantly impressionistic portrait of the punk godhead, Patti Smith, which was created over a heroic period of 11-years. The film has barely begun before Patti has offered forth a life’s worth of headline news, a strategy that allows Mr.

Read more… 647 more words, 2 more videos

Bless You: Setting the Hungry Cat Amongst the Pigeons

Reblogged from Et Cetera: Publick and Privat Curiosities:

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Bless You is a delightfully humorous animated short film by Philip Watts. The little film tells the story of an urban architect, who decides his architectural model needs to be spiced up quite a bit. Bless You ends up being a very cunning mix of traditional animation, tilt-shift photography and something pretty much like Flash.

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Only art can save us now

The world needs creative interpretations of global issues, not better descriptions of things people are accustomed to.

by Santiago Zabala

 

Perhaps rather than God, as Martin Heidegger once said, it is art that can save us. After all, artistic creations have always had political, religious and social meanings that also aimed in some way to save us. Certainly, they also express beauty, but this depends very much on the public’s aesthetic taste, which varies according to the cultural environment of each society.But when the political meaning is manifest, aesthetics (our sensations and taste) lose ground in favour of interpretation (knowledge and judgment); that is, instead of inviting us to contemplate its beauty, a work calls us to respond, react and become involved. As it turns out, art – as a channel to express reactions to significant issues – has sometimes worked better than historical or factual reconstructions.

“The radical changes brought about in the advent of global society mean that the artist today must respond to a wider public… one that is concerned with the same global issues.“

Pablo Picasso’s Guernica is the example we all have in mind: painted as a response to the Spanish nationalist forces’ bombing of a town in the Basque country, it was used not only to inform the public but also as a symbol of all the innocent victims of war. This is probably why “aesthetics”, a term coined by the German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten in 1735, refers not only to the study of art but also to sensory experience coupled with feelings regardless of the nature of its object. But can contemporary art, whether through music, conceptual installations or cinema actually save us from the damned circumstances, atrocities and injustices we live among?

As an ontological discipline, philosophy must always pay attention to existential claims, whether they come from science, religion or art. Even though this is now possible, since philosophy (and aesthetics) has overcome metaphysics, that is, objectivist-representational nature (which also limited art’s creations), not all philosophers pay attention to the claims these works make.

If such distinguished thinkers as Arthur Danto and Gianni Vattimo have moved beyond aesthetic representationalism and formalism, it is because of their post-metaphysical positions but also their interest in art’s current existential appeal. Both philosophers seem to agree that the end of art proclaimed by Hegel is not simply a matter of art becoming conceptual – that is, “philosophical”. Rather, the radical changes brought about in the advent of global society mean that the artist today must respond to a wider public than in the past, one that is concerned with the same global issues that affect the artist.

Verdun, April 12, 2013

Can only remember this much snow a couple of times in my life this far into April and probably only in the last 15 years or so. My father was born on April 22 and he always said that his father claimed there was still snow in the backyard the day he was born. My dad would be about 73 before he ever actually saw any snow on April 22.  Miss you, man!

Goverment Talking Corruption Free Turcot

To say I am behind the times on Turcot would be an understatement.  Seems I have drifted into focusing a lot of my online attention into relaying the ongoing tragedy that is our federal government under Stephen Harper via Facebook and occasionally Twitter in recent years. Of course it is all interconnected when you  follow the dots.

A non corrupt Turcot? It sure is an interesting concept, pretty much a fantasy actually. But all of us in Quebec owe the Charbonneau Commission a big tip ‘o the hat for showing us how corrupt the City of Montreal has been. Of course it was never a surprise to someone like yours truly who knew Olympic Stadium concrete was being poured as foundations for new housing developments on the South Shore and elsewhere, as just one odious example.

While a few weeks old this article is something of an update.

Quebec’s integrity test turns Montreal interchange into a symbol of clean dealings

INGRID PERITZ and RHÉAL SÉGUIN

Montreal and Quebec City — The Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Mar. 25 2013, 1:44 PM EDT

Companies hoping to snag a piece of the biggest roadwork contract in Quebec history will first have to prove they’re corruption-free, a major test for the province as it aims to fix its failing infrastructure while tackling graft in the construction industry.

Premier Pauline Marois’s government has set a $3.7-billion ceiling on the cost of rebuilding Montreal’s Turcot interchange, a critical and decrepit spaghetti interchange in the heart of the city that moves 300,000 vehicles daily. Soon, the roadway could stand as a symbolic challenge to Quebec’s promise to carry on business while holding the construction world to account.

Pushing forward with badly needed roadwork without benefiting firms tarred by corruption allegations has become a new dilemma for elected officials in Quebec – a problem sure to recur as the federal government pours billions into infrastructure spending across the country. Last week, Montreal Mayor Michael Applebaum asked Montrealers whether they wanted their city’s potholes plugged by some asphalting companies named before the Charbonneau commission into corruption and collusion.

Nun’s Island Is Awesome!

For years I have been an outspoken critic about the rampant development on Nun’s Island. Every time a new highrise goes up there is at least a couple hundred more cars stepping in line to get on that bridge to somewhere. Too much of a money maker for some in Verdun, and a sign that the community over there is completely uninterested in protecting their own interests. So I have visually thrown in the towel and am going to celebrate the development of Nun’s Island in pictures. I figure it’s the least I can do for all those mainland Verduners that have had their view of the Saint Lawrence totally wrecked over the last 50 years.

Here is a start.

Does Anyone Else See It?

Nun’s Island Is Awesome!

Both images are available at Cafe Victoria until the end of April, are nicely framed 8 x 10′s, and very reasonably priced.

Look for more of these coming soon!

Neath Turcot Exhibition at Cafe Victoria Through April

Hope to see a lot of you at the vernissage this Saturday between 4 and 7, if not, please drop by during the month. I feel this is the best show I have done yet in terms of it’s scope of ideas, blending old projects with new and the ever ongoing.

Neath Turcot

Cafe Victoria

4559 Rue Wellington

Verdun

514-564-8088

Metro de l’Eglise

Vernissage  Saturday, April 6, 4-7