The Story of Batya M. is the last (and unique) chapter of a fictional Argentinean “telenovela” (soap opera) projected on the screen and experienced as live performance. In a live performance the two leading actors from the film dub the scenes (from Spanish into English). The language they use changes, the translation becomes dubious, the design of the subtitles and the conventions of the genre are also transformed and subverted. The outcome is a unique piece that exists on the border between mass television culture and avant-garde performance.

The Story of Batya M. uses the classic story structure of the telenovela but subverts it through the subtitles which have a central role in this work or through the use of poetic elements from cinema language or the appearance of a melodrama researcher who comments about the work. The Story of Batya M. is a work full of humor, drama, poetics and blinks. The work addresses different audiences because allows different levels of reading: it dialogues with cinema, art and telenovela culture. The work deals with the concepts of migration, culture, social issues, and of course….love and revenge

PITCH the WGBH Lab and P.O.V. your ideas for a compelling, 3-minute video short. Be creative — we want to be surprised! If selected, we’ll give you $2,000 to make it happen. Afterwards we’ll feature it online and we may broadcast it on national TV! Your story could be about an ongoing national or local issue, memories of elections past, or insight on how our NEW president can make a change — you decide! The WGBH Lab will post your idea online, ask the Lab community to vote for their favorites, and discuss your progress as you move forward. This is your opportunity to create content that voices your opinion, tells your story, and shows the world what issues matter to you.

In June, P.O.V. will begin broadcasting their slate of films for the 2008 season, including five documentaries related to the 2008 Presidential election: “Traces of the Trade” by Katrina Browne, “Election Day” by Katie Chevigny, “Campaign” by Kazuhiro Soda; “The Ballad of Esequiel Hernandez” by Kieran Fitzgerald; “Critical Condition” by Roger Weisberg; and “Soldiers of Conscience” by Catherine Ryan and Gary Weimberg. The programs tell stories that deal with critical election issues like voter turnout, healthcare, the Iraq war, race relations, election reform, immigration & border security, and the health of democracy both in America and around the world. As these films roll out, YOUR short may become a part of the conversation taking place around these issues.

The arena of Massive Change - since environmental tipping points are interconnected with other spheres that may have ramifications beyond the environment, into social and political systems - we open up that dialogue with you to interpret and make a proposal.

The intent is to seek permission to upload to C-M.TV for broadcasting around the world. We either link back to your web sites where work is already uploaded or have you upload to our server. The artists have total IP / ownership over their own work on C-M.TV. We act as a curated site, as another venue for the access, as a networking membrane and a collective with a similar context. Go here to the play archive of previously launched cities: New York, Paris, London.

Specs: 5mb - 320 x 240 Quicktime; ‘live’ data or generative content (self contained root folders); Flash; any other media that is sustainable on play. We review your proposals online or via DVD format. Send us links to review proposals via email: info [at] critical-mas.tv or send DVD’s to:

Marcia Lyons
Producer: C-M.TV
Programme Director
Digital Media Design
School of Design
Victoria University of Wellington
New Zealand

My almost week long socio-artistic projects, based on the principle of public showing of film materials at places where they were shot started from “Cheap Television” (Grochów, Chomiczówka – dsitricts of Warsaw 2005). Then came others: “Wiatraczna Street Perspective”, Warsaw 2007; “Housing estate Tv”, Zielona Góra 2007; “Poetical Probe” Warszawa 2007.

Cheap Television: The action was inspired by some ideas by some theoreticians of culture has in mid of 70. – they thought that tv, especially cable tv, could be one of the important tools of changing our society towards being more democratic and open. Now the situation is completely different, usually tv is only the tool at the hands of the big corporations which serves mainly as an earning machine. This action was make up by me in 2005 as a kind of response to this situation, beside other reasons, as much important, including searching for means of integration for local societies and getting to known commentaries of so called everyman about contemporary issues (political, social, existential).

The action starts from building in the yard or against great block provisional “studio” (approximately 5 x 2,5 m) which has one wall of white plastic good for the back projections. The action usually takes 5-6 days and as in professional tv we try to make editing of raw materials very quickly and present it in the evening. Picture is visible from a big distance and those who do not have time or even are ashamed of such strange activities, look at it from their windows. As soon as people realize that projections are about them, neighbourhood and when they see others speaking freely, they start to participate in our news, talking through this means to the entire local society. What is important, that beside themes which appear by themselves, the animators of “Cheap tv” ask the people about this something “else”, this what is beside work and passive leisure. In such way soon we have artists from nearby and we can propose them, in most cases, alive participation at the closing of the project.

Krzysztof Żwirblis: Born 1953 in Warsaw. Artist, free lance curator, historian and art critic. Education: 1972 – 1977 Art History Institute (diploma at 2004), Warsaw University. Since 1976 actor and co-creator of artistic program of experimental theatre Akademia Ruchu (Academy of Movement). 1992 – 1997 curator of A.R. Gallery at the cinema-theatre “Tęcza” in Żoliborz a district of Warsaw. Curator of several group exhibitions i.e.: “Activities with Newspaper” (workshop, exhibition, theatre) old Norblin factory Warsaw 1991; “A.R. Gallery of Friends. Years 1992 – 1996”, Museum of X. Dunikowski, Branch of National Museum in Warsaw 1996; “Parteitag” (on problem of evil in human beings) Contemporary Art Gallery BWA, Katowice 1999; “Power of the People” (about theme of democracy) Arsenal Gallery, Białystok 2002; „Demos kratos – Power of the People”, Cane Fabric, Warsaw 2006, Bielska Gallery BWA 2007, BWA Gallery Zielona Góra 2007. Author of allday projects (performance, artistic actions) on theatre festivals „Art of Street”, Warsaw 2001 – 2003. Also involved in critical writings; mainly for catalogues of exhibitions. Since last year December curator of Studio Gallery in Warsaw.

Individual artistic activity. Realisation of theatre Akademia Ruchu programme (participation in over 600 performances and other theatre actions). Individual exhibition: “Dust” (installation), Warsaw Centre for Culture 1994. Participation in group exhibitions i.e.: “Poland”, Warsaw 2003; “Belmondo” 14. Theatre Festival Malta, Poznań 2004; “Inc. Art Towards Corporate Taking Over Places of Public Expression (in Poland)”, Warsaw, Szczecin 2004, Zielona Góra, Wrocław, Bielsko-Biała, Gdańsk 2005; ”Concrete Legacy - from Le Corbusier to the Homeboys”, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw 2007. Realisation of so called “lectures” illustrated by slides and dance in open air, postindustrial spaces and galleries („Lecture about fountains” since 2001, „Song of the horizon, or lecture about antipathy towards national colours” since 2002). Poetry and performing actions in open air: „Francuska Street of poetry”, Warsaw 2003; „Vibrating Word”, Festival “Poetical Manifestations”, Warsaw 2006. Realisation of week long socio-artistic projects, based on the principle of public showing of film materials at places where they were shot: “Cheap Television” (Grochów, Chomiczówka – dsitricts of Warsaw 2005), “Wiatraczna Street Perspective”, Warsaw 2007; “Housing estate Tv”, Zielona Góra 2007; “Poetical Probe” Warszawa 2007.

Last 3 days action “Disinterested city space - winter garden” at Warszawa Wschodnia railway station, December 2007.

[This work was] inspired by William Cronon’s article, “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” which argues that the concept of wilderness is a historical and cultural construct and relying on it as the basis of environmental ethics fails to imagine new, healthy, and sustainable relationships between humans and the environments they actually inhabit.

Next, CRAB FU, an animated short by I-Wei Huang (crabfu.com). No crustaceans were harmed, we promise.Editor’s note: This BBtv episode is sponsored by Dell’s regeneration.org project — but purely by coincidence, a Dell PDA appears in the opening sequence of “Wilderness Trouble.” This is not product placement or advertorial. EcoArtTech produced this film in 2007, and the air date of this excerpt was not planned to coincide with the sponsorship campaign. [posted on Boing Boing]

Although the commission money has been exhausted, Slocum is still accepting submissions. If you are interested in participating, read the PDF document on the website. Your footage will be added to the video sequence online and exhibited in future gallery exhibitions.

About the Process: In an email he wrote to Helen Thorington (January 11), Slocum describes the difficulties he had finding participants for the project:

Originally I was posting on Internet message boards for Full House, fan film making, and other related topics offering $80 for each completed video, hoping I could get about 18 videos. But nobody was taking the offer so I increased it to $150 and accepted that I had to reduce the number of videos. I ended up having the best results with Craigslist. You can’t post an ad to multiple cities, so I rotated the ad between different locations.

I gradually built a list of people willing to participate, which was complicated to maintain since people frequently expressed interest and later stopped responding to my emails. Most participants did not meet the deadlines I set. I received the first video in early November, and the last three in early January, less than a week before the launch date.

He then goes on to describe the formal challenges he faced:

Originally, I’d wanted the voicing of the dialogue to be so close to the original that it would maintain the hypnotic rhythm of the mockup loop I had created. I specified this in the documentation, but nobody could do it well enough, and the sound from the reshoots didn’t maintain the rhythm of the original concept. I was concerned that the piece wouldn’t work until I had the idea of overlaying the original audio onto the reshoot audio. This maintained the rhythm and emphasized the room reverb (and space) from the reshoots.

I found that the key to making the piece work out was subtle changes. Very slight timing changes made a big difference, equalization of audio, selection between two slightly different takes… Also some of the reshoots did not work aesthetically, but after a lot of experimenting I found that changes in color saturation of the clips could fix problems without changing much about the original authorship of the reshoot. I could bring out colors in dull clips, and control overly complex clips. I also discovered that the transition from under-saturated clips to over-saturated clips can be interesting.

You’re Not My Father is included in Slocum’s solo show “More House” which opens tonight at Dunn and Brown Contemporary, 5020 Tracy Street, Dallas, Texas.

You’re Not My Father is a 2007 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. for Networked_Music_Review. It was made possible with funding from the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

BIOGRAPHY

Paul Slocum is a musician and new media artist living in Dallas. Computers and computer culture are often the medium and subject of his work. Some of his projects are “The Dot Matrix Synth”, an 80’s dot matrix printer with re-programmed firmware to transform it into a musical instrument, “The Century Callback Project”, a phone number that calls you back 8 times in a century, and “The Time-Lapse Homepage”, a video made with HTML. He is also half of the “Tree Wave” project that creates music and video with obsolete assembly-language-programmed computer and video game gear. Paul is the director and co-founder of “And/Or Gallery” in Dallas, a gallery that specializes in new media artwork. Some of Paul’s performances and exhibitions include Transitio MX in Mexico City, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, Deitch Projects, and Eyebeam in New York, Le Confort Moderne in France, README 2005 in Denmark, and The Liverpool Biennial.

… a gift economy in an economy of abundance…

Vernacular Video by Tom Sherman: The technology of video is now as common as a pencil for the middle classes. People who never even considered working seriously in video find themselves with digital camcorders and non-linear video-editing software on their personal computers. They can set up their own “television stations” with video streaming via the Web without much trouble. The revolution in video-display technologies is creating massive, under-utilized screen space and time, as virtually all architecture and surfaces become potential screens. Video-phones will expand video’s ubiquity exponentially. These video tools are incredibly powerful and are nowhere near their zenith. If one wishes to be part of the twenty-first-century, media-saturated world and wants to communicate effectively with others or express one’s position on current affairs in considerable detail, with which technology would one chose to do so, digital video or a pencil? - NOEMA.