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The Ultimate Avant-garde: New Tendencies and Bit International

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Since more than 10 years the Croatian media artist Darko Fritz has been researching the archives of the Museum for Contemporary Arts Zagreb to gather material about the New Tendencies series of exhibitions and events in Zagreb, Ex-Yugoslavia, now Croatia, from 1961 to 1973 and the Bit International journal published by that same art movement. An exhibition in 2007 at Neue Galerie Graz and now at ZKM Karlsruhe shows the works of this important but almost lost art movement, were it not for the effort of Darko Fritz. For the Graz exhibition a little catalogue came out with contributions by Peter Weibel, Jesa Denegri and Margit Rosen. I have data mined those articles and present this material in the manner of a literature review for other researchers to study it and draw their own conclusions. All translations from German are my translations.

Tales from the Flexitariat: the sadness of the scientific lamp maker

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My current flexi-job in the Land of Cog involves research on an arts project. It's a good gig – my colleagues/managers are old friends, the hourly rate is better than normal here (AUS $27 per hour), and the work interesting. The core of my work is interviewing artists and tradespeople who have been partnered in a professional exchange project.


Lost Music

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My research today took a poetic wander. In thinking about the electromagnetic environment and how 'on land' we are submerged in modulated mumblings, my thoughts turned to the electromagnetically silent world of the deep, a world where radio and light don't penetrate, a world that can only be felt through other senses; the skin, the emotions, sound. Today I started looking at the Titanic.

Some nights, the roo

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Two solitary campers in the dunes at Antechamber Bay, our first night on the island. The moon is brightful overhead when I'm ripped from my dreams by the presence and weight of a kangaroo on me. A giant roo, so heavy, squashing. I lie with stillness for a long time. When I eventually drag myself up out of my canvas cocoon I can't see him, he's dissolved into the sheltering scrub. Disappointed, relieved, I burrow back into sleep. In the morning Robyn reports her encounter with a wombat when she ventured out for a midnight jish. But this was no wombat sitting on me, it was kangaroo. Something about that heavy tail, those thumper bumper feet, the sweet grassy breath.

Pokémon Masters vs Pakman

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Collect, train, battle.

In a Japanese franchised fantasy game, players capture cute wild creatures called Pokémon, and train them to become members of powerful fighting teams. If a Pokémon cannot escape the confines of the multi-function Poké Ball, it is considered owned by the Trainer. Volition goes out the window, and it must now obey all commands.

The interior of the spherical Poké Ball is designed to make the enslaved Pokémon feel comfortable, but there are no guarantees that this will happen. It's a world of tough luck and tough love.

Rewriting of History - Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici

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Thanks to Doll Yoko for making us aware of Caliban and the Witch - Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation by Silvia Federici. In Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici looks at the transition from feudalism to capitalism from the point of view of 'women, the body and primitive accumulation'. Her key thesis is that the witch hunts of the 16th and 17th century were instrumental to establishing a new capitalist order through 'the development of a 'new sexual division of labour subjugating women's labour and women's reproductive function to the reproduction of the workforce.' Yet by telling the story also from Caliban's point of view, symbol of the 'trans-Atlantic' proleterian, Federici achieves what she claims: to transcend the dichotomy between "gender" and "class". This book is also a brilliant description of the process of primitive accumulation, in particular the enclosures of the common land starting at the end of the middle age and the various forms of resistance to that by renegade women and the 'motley crowd' of the working classes.

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