For the children…

If you see this poster, than you’ll see me there – Thur. Dec 17th 6-10pm.
Food, drinks, music, art, video..fun, fun, fun!

Yinka Shonibare, MBE

I had the pleasure of viewing the Yinka Shonibare exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum before the exhibit’s closing. A truly multi-media artist he is. Painting, sculpture, video, fashion, photography, dance…he’s not afraid to express freely, not allowing limitations of any noticeable kind. Mostly, the thing that impressed me was that he treated each work of video art with as much care and consideration one would give to a traditional painting. He inspired me and made me laugh hysterically.

Back to High Art + Gender and the Film Industry

So I’ve been busting my boot-ay lately, grinding on different shoots – paid gigs and from the heart projects of mine, and collaborations. It’s a pretty high time creatively in my corner.
What’s been bothering me, though, is the way gender plays out on shoots. During the “school year” I’m usually inundated with education-based creative environments and I’ve also been going to the non-profit and public media worlds as a source of income for film projects. But 2009 (or “two thousand mine” as my friend Taagen calls it) has been the year of creativity for me. I’ve decided to make some changes in the work I produce, going back to my high art roots. I guess I’d produced one too many social documentaries and needed some conceptual, abstract, avant garde in my life. I hadn’t seen it since the early part of the decade.
What’s resulted are video art projects, experimental shoots, working with more art department stuff on music videos and photo shoots and coming up, my first performance art/video art collaborative show next Wednesday at Webster Hall. Yeah.
Its all very fun, but what’s happened is that now I’m back in the fold of “the industry” – completely different from the non-profit/pubic media/children’s media/education world. There’s no politically correct filter. People in the commercial film/tv industry are unrefined like raw sugar. But I’m accustomed to maple syrup.
On a recent shoot, I ran into a woman I used to work with back in the days. She was a producer on this particular project. As always, she is on top of her game – thorough, kind, considerate, timely. She gets the job done and does it well, with grace and ease. That’s why she’s a producer. But why is it that certain men who she outranks exceedingly still refuse to give her due respect? Maybe they’re just a-holes who don’t know the meaning of respect – wrong! The same guys who mistreat a female producer will give much higher respect to a male production manager.
I hate that this is still an issue, mainly because I hate complaining. But it really is atrocious and unfair. I always notice that there are mostly men on the majority of film/video/photo shoots. The industry is still very obviously male dominated and its rare that any of these men check their male privilege, particularly on set.

I’ve been dragging my feet on forming the all female film collective, but I must not drag any longer. I’m getting it started. I think September will be our kick-off month!

The Revolution Will be Uploaded

Uploaded today via Twitter

I’m trying to figure out if it’s the fact that a lot of American journalists are banned from getting on the ground coverage of the protests following Iran’s obviously rigged elections, or if it’s just a smug praise gesture towards our new media that has turned a devastating injustice into a promotion for twitter, facebook and youtube. How much do people even know about Mir Hussein Moussavi anyway?

As much as I love the power of the people via citizen journalism…I’m just curious…what’s the bigger story? The fact that Ahmadinejad is a tyrant (that’s not news to anybody); the largest Iranian protest in 30 years; or the fact that new media is changing the shape of news in countries where free speech is not encouraged? I really think it’s the latter. Look at me, I’m a blogger blogging about this communication. And it does excite me to know that I can see videos from a peaceful protest in Tehran that are happening right now. And if it weren’t for youtube, this news may not have had the chance to make it out of Iran.

Police attack peaceful student protesters. Tehran, June 14, 2009

Well, I am a journalist. Smug, perhaps. New era. New media. New age.

Ways to stay on top of news developments in Iran:
The Lede
iranriggedelection.blogspot.com
Seach twitter under #iranelection

Dreams

One of my new favorite films, the communally directed “I’ve Been Twelve Forever” is all about the work, life and philosophy of Michel Gondry (one of my heroes of video). He refers very often to his dreams. He remembers them vividly and draws upon them candidly in many of his works. It seems he never gave up trying to dismantle them. The feelings he recalls from dreams he had as a child haunt follow him still today. In this excerpt from the film, he has this to say (clip does not feature his actual voice, but these are his words verbatim, I’m assuming its a legal youtube-y kind of detail):

I have been thinking a lot about this theory these past couple of nights as I wade in the shallow end of the dreamspace. You see, I’m a dreamer. My dreams are vivid and real. I can feel, hear, taste, and maybe even smell in my dreams. And the things I see… My dreams are so adventurous. Sometimes they’re really scary. Other times, they are such amazing but small exchanges I long for in my waking life. A few years ago, I discovered in my memory all these wild excursions that I had no recollection of ever having happened – but emotionally they seemed so real, these memories. They had to have happened. I thought…were these movies I saw? No, they were dreams. I felt a longing for the type of travel and adventure that I’ve come to know in my dreams that I was not finding in my waking life.

In dreamspace I have so many magical moments. My brother and I have often met in dreams. We’ve shared the same dream on the same night on several occasions. Or, one of us will dream something that is physically happening to the other at that same moment. My dear friend and former boyfriend told me once that his mother told him that she had spoken with me recently. She wanted to know some information about her son, so she contacted me and we had a discussion. Now, I knew in my awake life I hadn’t seen or spoken to or even e-mailed this woman in many years. But that night as I lay my head to the pillow…it all came back to me. I had had a conversation with her, about her son – in dreamspace. All the memories came rushing back in. (She’s very skilled and experienced in this type of travel and communication).

I remember as a child, always waking up in the middle of the night to sleep inbetween my parents in their bed. I did this until I was quite a big child. I did the same with my grandparents when I’d spend summers at their house in North Carolina. Eventually I grew out of it and slept in my own bed…although my sister was never very far, in her own bed a few feet away in the same room.

I remember going away to college.. Grown. It was all so new and exciting. I made friends and slowly adjusted to my new surroundings. I hadn’t really realized the significance of what I’m about to say until very recently: it was then, as a freshman in college that I realized I didn’t like to sleep alone. I found a buddy, a guy. He lived in my dorm. And almost every night I would tip-toe from my room down to his, to sleep next to him. We were best friends. And he was such a gentleman – though he later told me that he once stole a kiss from me as I slept!
As the years went on, I moved out of the dorms and into the neighborhood as a housemate to friends of mine. One semester I lived by myself in a studio apartment – I’ve never been so miserable. Even now, I have roommates. At age 29.

It seems quite simple: I don’t care to live alone. Moreover, I really prefer not to have to sleep alone and wake up alone. Sharing a bed may have helped “keep the structure of the family across the millennia” according to Monsieur Gondry.

Bon nuit.

i think my depression is leaving me

it helps to live with it for a few days, then comes the remedy: good friends. phone conversations with fam’ly. circle. creating art. food. a lil’ a-a-a-a-a-alcohol. ice skating. washing your hair. video art. good sleep. yoga. giving thanks. meditation. prayer.

rinse and repeat.

I’m Almost at 10,000 YouTube Views…

…doesn’t that count for SOMEthing?

I mean, aren’t I an authority on culture by some standards? Can at least get 3 minutes of fame off of this? Ha!