Anonymous Comrade writes

This new book attempts to increase leftists' coherence on the topic of corporate marketing and the commercialization and commodification of societies. Strongly recommended by Chomsky, Mark Crispin Miller, and John Stauber.

http://www.press.uillinois.edu/s03/dawson.html

2nd Annual Brooklyn Underground Film Festival

Line-Up of Films, Music and Art

The 2nd annual Brooklyn Underground Film Festival (BUFF) will showcase 97
films from 12 countries between October 8-14 in their DUMBO screening room
and mainspace. BUFF 2003 includes 32 world premiers and 75 New York premiers
of underground films from around the globe. The fest is presented in a
lounge and club atmosphere with nightly music events and daily Happy Hours.

hydrarchist writes:

"Give Sky the 'Boot' "

Telestreet Rome

A flurry of activity has convulsed the Italian Telestreet project in recent days. This coordination of micro-broadcasters first came on air in the summer of 2002 in the form of Orfeo Tv, a neighborhood station based in Bologna, and a slew of others launched shortly thereafter. Transmissions occur on frequencies allocated to commercial broadcasters which lie unused either for reasons of local topography or due to simple lack of interest on the part of the assignee. Given the outlandish concentration of media ownership in Italy - where 90% of the audio-visual media is controlled directly or indirectly by Silvio Berlusconi - this recycling of frequencies has become a flashpoint for the development of critical approaches to information production and distribution. Despite being in breach of the law only one station had encountered legal problems until last thursday. Telefabrica was broadcasting in the area around the Fiat factory in Termini Imerese, where workers were on strike and involved in generalized protests against restructuring and layoffs, when they were closed by the Carabinieri in december of last year. They subsequently went back on air.

Last week the axe fell again, this time in the small town of Sigallia, near Ancona, in central Italy. A voluntary group principally occupied with care for the disabled had been broadcasting with the involvement of local members of the centre-left party, Democratici della Sinistra, under the name "DiscoVolante". The station was raided and closed by the Carabinieri for being in breach of the broadcasting regulations, and the studio sealed. Meanwhile it was learned that another Telestreet, this time in Pechioli near Pisa, would be closed on September 26th. In Pechioli the project is actually supported by the town council. Paradoxically, thus, these two recent targets represent those with strong institutional affiliations who practice a form of broadcasting that would appear to fall within very orthodox definitions of legitimacy. Media insurgents did not let this attack go unpunished, as you will see below, but first a a little context....

NewMediaArtProjectNetwork writes:

Violence Online Festival
is looking for proposals: papers to included in the coming project versions of this successful New Media environment. Currently, more than 300 artists from 40 countries reflect the phenomenon of violence from their artistic view.

"Dying Vagrant Hailed as 'Extraordinary Artistic Talent' "

John Lichfield and Will Bland, The Independent 24 September 2003

A down-and-out artist who has spent the past two years sleeping and
working on the street in Paris has been hailed as an "extraordinary
talent".

Info@glowlab.com writes:

Greetings, fellow psycheogeographers, artists of all stripes, curiosity-seekers, interested bystanders!

Welcome to the first Glowlab newsletter. We'd like to take this opportunity to catch you up on everything that's been going down with us over the summer -- a busy summer, as it turns out (aren't they always?). We bowed to a giant dinosaur, walked with angels, were treated to the unsettling and wondrous sight of a darkened city skyline, and pounded the pavements of Brooklyn seeking hidden vistas.

"Learning To Love Leni"

Slavoj Zizek, In These Times, 9.10.03

The life and work of Leni Riefenstahl, who died on
Monday at age 101, seems to lend itself to a mapping of
a devolution, progressing toward a dark conclusion. It
began with the early "mountain films" of the 1920s that
she starred in and later began directing as well, which
celebrated heroism and bodily effort in the extreme
conditions of mountain climbing. It went on to her
notorious Nazi documentaries in the ‘30s, celebrating
bodily discipline, concentration, and strength of will
in sport as well as in politics. Then, after World War
II, in her photo albums, she rediscovered her ideal of
bodily beauty and graceful self-mastery in the Nuba
African tribe. Finally, in her last decades, she
learned the difficult art of deep sea diving and
started shooting documentaries about the strange life
in the dark depths of the sea.

"Learning To Be Stupid in the Culture of Cash"

Luciana Bohne, 12 August 2003

You might think that reading about a Podunk University's English
teacher's attempt to connect the dots between the poverty of American
education and the gullibility of the American public may be a little
trivial, considering we've embarked on the first, openly-confessed
imperial adventure of senescent capitalism in the US. Bear with me. The
question my experiences in the classroom raise is why have these young
people been educated to such abysmal depths of ignorance.

hydrarchist submits:

Dean Martin Had a Hard-on

By Wu Ming 1



Confusion is the only thing left which makes any sense.


Lester Bangs.



-1-

“So then, here we need a brainstorm to write a story to stick into Flavio’s catalogue, and the idea’s that of a slightly lysergic conversation while looking at one of his paintings...”


This was the first line of my speech. All I remembered when the nurses managed to wake me up with cardiac massages, electric shocks and a shot of adrenaline - “Where am I?” I murmured.

Then the ceiling began to shift as it did in the last scene of Carlito’s Way. An IV needle was pushed into the fold of my left arm shoving God-knows-what into my body.

A hand held my right hand. Wheels were running along under me. Excited voices: “We’ve got to talk to him! It’s a question of life or death!” And other voices that answered, “You can’t now, come back tomorrow!”

I couldn’t feel my legs. I thought, “This time our brainstorm’s gone a bit too far. It had to happen sooner or later. We asked too much of ourselves.”

They took me into a room. Someone said, “He’s a writer, one of the Nameless Group, those who wrote Uh!, Tomahawk and 666.”

“I liked Uh; 666 seemed a bit over the top though...” someone answered.

“Did you read Mater semper certa est pater numquam by Valeriano Apostoli? It’s the new episode in the Limerick series” someone else asked.

“This really isn’t the right time. Call doctor Twain, tomorrow he’ll have to operate on his brain.”

“Shit, it even rhymes! How do you always manage to be so brill...”

The sound of a smack disturbed something; it was as though a necromancer’s hand had fumbled among the neurones, digging out beams of memories.

Two months earlier, Flavio De Marquez, a lanky painter from Apulia, had asked us to write some text for the catalogue for his show.

As further globalcriticos slots are produced this story will be updated and bumped back to the top of the page. Please click on read more for info on previous radio spots.



nolympics submits:



As the WTO ministerial approaches and the streets teem with federales, globalicriticos and phobicos and tourists free radio palapas has produced more spots for local broadcast. As Cancun is a purely neoliberal invention it is a paradise for the WTO in lacking any kind of social relations or movements. Of the 600 000 residents only 1/3 are permanent residents, the rest are seasonal and casual itinerant workers. So the radio spots and various other kinds of contra propaganda are proving useful and popular. Here are a couple more.



Quien es la OMC


Que significa