Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Monday, August 29, 2016
Sunday, August 28, 2016
'Apocalypse Tourism', 2016 by Hannah Black
On Spanish Beach Towns and the Perpetual End of Days
On the beaches of Nerja, a tourist town in southern Spain, I read about the end of the world in books left by previous visitors. I read Emily St. John Mandel’s novel Section Eleven, about the aftermath of an apocalyptic flu epidemic, and part of The Road by Cormac McCarthy, about the aftermath of an apocalyptic nuclear strike.
Working my way through an undifferentiated shelf, I read only the African and indigenous American myths in a book of myths and legends about the aftermath of creation; I read a book about childhood by a Swiss psychoanalyst. Under the half-pleasant half-punishing glare of the August sun, I read messages from friends, who are falling in love, feeling anxious, or wondering whether to quit their jobs; from my brother, who wonders how I am and can I send money; from a lover, who has lost his watch somewhere in my bedroom at home, very far away; from my ex-boyfriend, describing scenes from his childhood; and from my father, advising me on how to deal with the drip from the air conditioning unit in the apartment upstairs. All this in summary means that the world is not ending, or that it goes on like a zombie, not having noticed its own end.
Books about the post-apocalypse share certain tropes: the implausible presence of globally popular brands in an era after mass commodity production, as detritus or decaying billboards; looting of supermarkets or fast food chains; hostility and violence among survivors. As a child, in a period of political optimism — the fall of the Berlin Wall, which I barely understood; a house party where the adults danced hugely to celebrate the release of Nelson Mandela — I fell out of step with the time, becoming preoccupied with the prospect of global nuclear war. This bad timing was due to conflict and fragmentation in the family, but I didn’t know that then; I just thought the world was about to end. In a sense, this was true, and in a sense, it was not. For a long time I’ve been looking for a third thread to plait these two senses together. “These post-apocalypse books are bourgeois law-and-order fantasies,” I write to my ex-boyfriend. The psychoanalysis book tells me that intellectualization is a popular defense because it is so reliable.
My thoughts freeze up under the hot sun. This is the point of a holiday. Beached on the shore of what feels like an ancient sadness, ancient but trashy, like a bog man in a T-shirt, I cry a lot, sometimes for no reason and sometimes for a reason that’s not the reason, sometimes alone and sometimes in the company of the friend I’m on vacation with. Is this the point of a holiday?
We are both fascinated by the families with small children, by the currents of intensity, cruelty and resentment that swirl among the members of the family unit, by the small sufferings of the children. The little proto-boys are in the process of having direct expressions of emotion repressed and the little proto-girls are undergoing a similar surgery on their physical courage. The children are so small and surrounded by tyrants; it will be years before they can escape. Each family unit enacts its dramas in the weird half-privacy of the beach, sharing habitual snacks under their striped umbrellas. We watch them to confirm what my psychoanalysis book and my friend’s therapist say about the formative power of childhood. We watch them projectively, seeing the outline of our own lacks, losses, desires, failures, feats of survival. The fathers look back at us surreptitiously and the mothers and children hardly at all.
In Granada, we sleep on my friend’s roof terrace, under a bright moon and a city-stained sky. I am frozen and heated by my thoughts of the end of the world, by the impossibility of the world, by the strangeness of the world and my place in it. These are 4am thoughts. At this hour, the hour of alienation, I have no protection from the dark inner sea, which is myself and not mine, and which I am always falling into, and slowly getting out of in the mornings. Long before he bought the apartment by the blue outer sea, my father described this as the most spiritual hour, the most melanated hour of night when the ghosts that swirl in the blood are at the peak of their powers. If lucky enough to be awake at that time, he recommended rising and eating a banana to maximize creative thoughts. He would probably no longer give this advice, but I still remember it.
In the morning, the world is still intact and I queue for an hour to buy a ticket to the gardens of the Alhambra, writing and deleting tweets about the apocalypse the whole time. I think about the twin fears of relating, fear of being abandoned and fear of being annihilated, converging opposite currents that the apocalypse novel surfs on and that have plotted out my life. Don’t hurt me, don’t leave me, don’t look at me, don’t look away. My life is so small on the big planet, so small in its many histories. Can I be loved?
The Alhambra is a city complex built in the 14th century by Moorish rulers, an official wonder of the world, and one of Spain’s biggest tourist attractions. I move through the beautiful gardens with crowds of other tourists. Selfie sticks are popular, as are carefully staged panoramic shots and perspective tricks. The palaces and gardens are thick with image making. The visitors are predominantly white. They speak many different languages but gather to take pictures of themselves exactly where others have done the same; they climb towers to exclaim the same things as the previous visitors to the tower. If I were with someone, I would say the same things too: wow, beautiful, wow, big, wow, high. The keys to Alhambra were handed over to Christian monarchs in 1492, the same famous year that Columbus touched down in the Americas, bringing ruin. What counts as an apocalypse? Now I take part in the triumphal procession of tourists through the fallen citadel.
I pass tour groups, catching fragments of the guides’ descriptions. Outside the Generalife, a woman points at a fountain and says, “Water is so important for Muslim people,” adding, perhaps aware of the absurdity of what she has just said, “and for us.” Overlooking the foundations of what were once the royal quarters, another guide tells her group, “Europeans made palaces with straight lines; the Muslim architecture was like a maze, and that’s why the crusaders were defeated when they first went to Muslim countries.” This us-and-them talk is ambiguous; the ruins of the building are also described as the remnants of a more cosmopolitan and inventive world than the Christian regime that came after, a parallel temporality to the white narrative of smooth progress from barbarity to civilization.
Nevertheless, we are the victors, the guides tell their tour groups. We are the apocalypse that laid waste to this garden-scented place. A world ended here, and a new one sprang up. In this new world, globally capitalized and divided into persons, the apocalypse is a permanent condition.
LINK
Saturday, August 27, 2016
Friday, August 26, 2016
Thursday, August 25, 2016
'Afro-Nowism When The Future Feels Too Far Away', 2016 by Kenyatta JP Garcia
now as much as ever we need space even more.
steel and superpowers.
we been magical
but sorcercery hasn’t been enough.
*
oh lawd, can a nigga get a force field!
*
let’s talk that real pillow talk
holding onto hope
when thoughts and prayers have failed
let’s snuggle up into cybernetic fantasies of nanotech
smarter than the biology of fingers
and tin of badges
*
oh jesus, how much stronger we got to get?
*
whom does the singularity include?
*
why couldn’t creation have just been a myth?
electric memories keep eyes lit
all night long computing
while chains keep bodies in place,
while cells provide shelter
when the streets fill up with the phobia generations in the making.
so long in the making time travel has more dangers
than the edge of the universe.
*
send thoughts and prayers to parallel dimensions.
maybe they’ll be of some use there.
*
maybe the horizon holds another event
the roads of this dystopia
have yet to find.
*
what good are the pistons without the gas and the grease?
what’s a mission mean
as acid rain tears at the hood
revealing rust and the algorithms
of a nation
forcing you to drive onward?
*
what’s left?
what else is there when only space seems safe?
when to leave is the best defense?
because to stay is conflict.
everyday is a casualty.
the struggle is actually an assault.
LINK
steel and superpowers.
we been magical
but sorcercery hasn’t been enough.
*
oh lawd, can a nigga get a force field!
*
let’s talk that real pillow talk
holding onto hope
when thoughts and prayers have failed
let’s snuggle up into cybernetic fantasies of nanotech
smarter than the biology of fingers
and tin of badges
*
oh jesus, how much stronger we got to get?
*
whom does the singularity include?
*
why couldn’t creation have just been a myth?
electric memories keep eyes lit
all night long computing
while chains keep bodies in place,
while cells provide shelter
when the streets fill up with the phobia generations in the making.
so long in the making time travel has more dangers
than the edge of the universe.
*
send thoughts and prayers to parallel dimensions.
maybe they’ll be of some use there.
*
maybe the horizon holds another event
the roads of this dystopia
have yet to find.
*
what good are the pistons without the gas and the grease?
what’s a mission mean
as acid rain tears at the hood
revealing rust and the algorithms
of a nation
forcing you to drive onward?
*
what’s left?
what else is there when only space seems safe?
when to leave is the best defense?
because to stay is conflict.
everyday is a casualty.
the struggle is actually an assault.
LINK
Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter @ New Museum [NYC/USA]
On Sunday, July 10, over one hundred black women artists gathered to form a collective force underground, known as Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter (BWA for BLM). Simone Leigh, the current artist in residence at the New Museum, convened this group in response to the continued inhumane institutionalized violence against black lives. The group will hold a public event in solidarity with Black Lives Matter at the New Museum on September 1.
This dynamic evening will feature collectively organized healing workshops, performances, digital works, participatory exchanges, displays, and the distribution of materials throughout the New Museum Theater, Lobby, Fifth Floor, and Sky Room.
BWA for BLM focuses on the interdependence of care and action, invisibility and visibility, self-defense and self-determination, and desire and possibility in order to highlight and disavow pervasive conditions of racism. For updates and information on BWA for BLM, please follow the group on Twitter (#BWAforBLM) and Instagram (@BWAforBLM).
BWA for BLM includes the following artists:
Elia Alba, Omololu Refilwe Babatunde, Firelei Báez, Chloë Bass, Suhaly Bautista-Carolina, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, Aisha Tandiwe Bell, Joeonna Bellorado-Samuels, Michelle Bishop, Janice Bond, Alicia Boone-Jean-Noel, Charlotte Brathwaite, Sheila Pree Bright, LaKela Brown, Tracy Brown, Rashida Bumbray, Crystal Z. Campbell, Alexis Caputo, Tanisha Christie, Andrea Chung, Elvira Clayton, Pamela Council, Aimee Meredith Cox, Vivian Crockett, Una-Kariim A. Cross, Stephanie A. Cunningham, Tamara Davidson, Joy Davis, Sonia Louise Davis, Danielle Dean, Lisa Dent, Abigail Deville, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, DJ Tara, Abby Dobson, Kimberly Drew, Dominique Duroseau, Tara Duvivier, Minkie English, Nona Faustine, Catherine Feliz, Yance Ford, Tia-Simone Gardner, Ja’Tovia M. Gary, Ebony Noelle Golden, Kearra Amaya Gopee, Stephanie Graham, Adjua Gargi Nzinga Greaves, Kaitlyn Greenidge, Deana Haggag, Carrie Hawks, Robyn Hillman-Harrigan, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Lehna Huie, Rujeko Hockley, Kemi Ilesanmi, Ariel Jackson, Tomashi Jackson, Ashley James, Shani Jamila, E. Jane, Fabiola Jean-Louis, Steffani Jemison, Jacqueline Johnson, Natasha Johnson, Ladi’Sasha Jones, Jay Katelansky, Daniella Rose King, Nsenga Knight, Ya La’Ford, Geraldine Leibot, Toya A. Lillard, Simone Leigh, Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, Helen Marie, Brittany Martow, Nomaduma Rosa Masilela, Tiona McClodden, Paloma McGregor, Nina Angela Mercer, Joiri Minaya, Jasmine Mitchell, Elissa Blount Moorhead, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Shervone Neckles, Jennifer Harrison Newman, Mendi Obadike, Lorraine O’Grady, Adenike Olanrewaju, Sherley C. Olopherne, Jennifer Harrison Packer, Sondra Perry, Shani Peters, Julia Phillips, Sharbreon Plummer, Mary Pryor, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Amber Robles-Gordon, Shellyne Rodriguez, Karen Rose, Clarivel Ruiz, Annie Seaton, Karen Seneferu, Derica Shields, Alexandria Smith, Tiffany Smith, Mikhaile Solomon, Kara Springer, Mary A. Valverde, Sam Vernon, Shannon Wallace, Camille Wanliss, Patrice Renee Washington, Fatimah White, Nafis White, Ayesha Williams, Saya Woolfalk, Lachell Workman, and Akeema-Zane.
Space is limited, and admission to this event is free with RSVP.
This dynamic evening will feature collectively organized healing workshops, performances, digital works, participatory exchanges, displays, and the distribution of materials throughout the New Museum Theater, Lobby, Fifth Floor, and Sky Room.
BWA for BLM focuses on the interdependence of care and action, invisibility and visibility, self-defense and self-determination, and desire and possibility in order to highlight and disavow pervasive conditions of racism. For updates and information on BWA for BLM, please follow the group on Twitter (#BWAforBLM) and Instagram (@BWAforBLM).
BWA for BLM includes the following artists:
Elia Alba, Omololu Refilwe Babatunde, Firelei Báez, Chloë Bass, Suhaly Bautista-Carolina, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, Aisha Tandiwe Bell, Joeonna Bellorado-Samuels, Michelle Bishop, Janice Bond, Alicia Boone-Jean-Noel, Charlotte Brathwaite, Sheila Pree Bright, LaKela Brown, Tracy Brown, Rashida Bumbray, Crystal Z. Campbell, Alexis Caputo, Tanisha Christie, Andrea Chung, Elvira Clayton, Pamela Council, Aimee Meredith Cox, Vivian Crockett, Una-Kariim A. Cross, Stephanie A. Cunningham, Tamara Davidson, Joy Davis, Sonia Louise Davis, Danielle Dean, Lisa Dent, Abigail Deville, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, DJ Tara, Abby Dobson, Kimberly Drew, Dominique Duroseau, Tara Duvivier, Minkie English, Nona Faustine, Catherine Feliz, Yance Ford, Tia-Simone Gardner, Ja’Tovia M. Gary, Ebony Noelle Golden, Kearra Amaya Gopee, Stephanie Graham, Adjua Gargi Nzinga Greaves, Kaitlyn Greenidge, Deana Haggag, Carrie Hawks, Robyn Hillman-Harrigan, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Lehna Huie, Rujeko Hockley, Kemi Ilesanmi, Ariel Jackson, Tomashi Jackson, Ashley James, Shani Jamila, E. Jane, Fabiola Jean-Louis, Steffani Jemison, Jacqueline Johnson, Natasha Johnson, Ladi’Sasha Jones, Jay Katelansky, Daniella Rose King, Nsenga Knight, Ya La’Ford, Geraldine Leibot, Toya A. Lillard, Simone Leigh, Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, Helen Marie, Brittany Martow, Nomaduma Rosa Masilela, Tiona McClodden, Paloma McGregor, Nina Angela Mercer, Joiri Minaya, Jasmine Mitchell, Elissa Blount Moorhead, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Shervone Neckles, Jennifer Harrison Newman, Mendi Obadike, Lorraine O’Grady, Adenike Olanrewaju, Sherley C. Olopherne, Jennifer Harrison Packer, Sondra Perry, Shani Peters, Julia Phillips, Sharbreon Plummer, Mary Pryor, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Amber Robles-Gordon, Shellyne Rodriguez, Karen Rose, Clarivel Ruiz, Annie Seaton, Karen Seneferu, Derica Shields, Alexandria Smith, Tiffany Smith, Mikhaile Solomon, Kara Springer, Mary A. Valverde, Sam Vernon, Shannon Wallace, Camille Wanliss, Patrice Renee Washington, Fatimah White, Nafis White, Ayesha Williams, Saya Woolfalk, Lachell Workman, and Akeema-Zane.
Space is limited, and admission to this event is free with RSVP.
Nyoman Masriadi
I. Paparazzi, 2001 [acrylic on canvas; 120 x 120 cm]
II. Don’t Push Me, 2009 [acrylic on canvas; 206 x 160 cm]
LINK
II. Don’t Push Me, 2009 [acrylic on canvas; 206 x 160 cm]
LINK
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Indira Allegra
I. St. Davis of Savannah, 2011 [cotton, mylar, thread; 44" x 26"]
II. Immortal Word, 2012 [cotton, 18 Karat Gold, mulberry paper, leather, crepe de chine, organza, book board, satin ribbon, wood, ink, bone; 6.5" x 3" x 9.25" closed]
III. & IV. 32 Harnesses Controlled by a Switch, 2014 [calfskin leather, hand dyed silk, thread; 92“ x 5.5”]
V. Plainweave Poem I, 2014 [cotton, wool, linen paper; 18” x 27”]
LINK
II. Immortal Word, 2012 [cotton, 18 Karat Gold, mulberry paper, leather, crepe de chine, organza, book board, satin ribbon, wood, ink, bone; 6.5" x 3" x 9.25" closed]
III. & IV. 32 Harnesses Controlled by a Switch, 2014 [calfskin leather, hand dyed silk, thread; 92“ x 5.5”]
V. Plainweave Poem I, 2014 [cotton, wool, linen paper; 18” x 27”]
LINK
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