support affordable broadband in south africa
from christo doherty, via Marek
This is a genuine petition. Please support the ICASA initiative on combating the excessively high bandwidth costs in this country.
news and politics
Archives
$100 wind-up laptop
“Nicholas Negroponte, the co-founder of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, detailed specifications for a $100 windup-powered laptop targeted at children in developing nations.”
Archives
Brett Kebble murdered
Controversial mining mogul and arts patron, Brett Kebble, was shot and killed last night in Melrose. He was in his car, which was not taken (nor was anything else), so police think it may have been a “hit.” No suspects yet, but it is under investigation.
Altho, like most people, I’ve always had mixed feelings about the man himself, Kebble did great things for the arts, and by bringing foreign investment to the SA mining industry.
Archives
giant steps
tonight, tuesday 27 september, at 7pm, museum africa, 121 bree street, newtown, it’s the world premiere, all visitors to nathaniel’s blog are welcome to attend. if you can’t make it watch the broadcast by sabc1 on monday night at 10pm, 3 october.
Archives
america. the beautiful
Remember when I used to post a ridiculous amount of links to stories, quotes and movements in American politics? I mean, Carine Zaayman even mentioned the blog, and its left leanings, on artthrob.
Well, that was nearly three years ago (the blog will be 3 years old in February!), and I discovered so many sites doing it better – and very few writing about art in South Africa – and so I cut down and changed focus. As of late I’ve been reading so much on Katrina and the US failed president (so many times over I’ve lost count), I thought I’d mention a few of the sites / blogs I read to keep up on “new journalism.”
Got decent bandwidth and a sense of humor? Crooks and Liars often posts video clips of interviews – and the Daily Show – on its blog. One Good Move similarly posts clips, and actually has Jon Stewart stuff almost every day; my favorite one is the blogger/Gannon/Guckert clip.
AmericaBlog has a full-time blogger now (seeking worthy donations), and has been instrumental in the breaking of several important stories over the last year or two. This Katrina re-post is actually what prompted me to write this blog entry.
atrios aka eschaton has the most comprehensive number of links, but is not very good for RSS readers and summations – it’s mostly only links. If you like to surf, it’s the one. NewsGrist is a fanfab combo of art, politics and activist art overall, by Joy Garnett of JoyWar fame – funny enough, I was supporting the JoyWar just went Carine wrote that feature on my blog (pre-NewsGrist)!
These are the main news feeds I keep up with, and I won’t even get into the art & tech feeds! If you want more, well, check out my, or their, blog rolls, usually links @ right….
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art | south africa is powerless
This post is probably related to this other post about the lack of reviews of emerging artists in joburg…
I can’t decide whether I find it amusing or enraging that in art | south africa’s big issue on “power and influence,” they’ve almost completely written themselves out. To quote Sean O’Toole’s (the editor’s) brief introduction:
Why embark on such a self-reflexive enquiry into power and influence? In his book, The Culture Game, Olu Oguibe remarks: “Ironically, the contemporary art ‘world’ is one of the last bastions of backwardness in the west today, which makes it an uneven playground, a formidable terrain of difficulty for artists whose backgrounds locate at the receiving end of intolerance.” Substitute the geographies – west for South Africa – and Oguibe’s statement retains a compelling significance. Of course, anyone who routinely engages the South African art world will know this already, that it is a formidable terrain of difficulty, one in which “institutions, patrons, brokers and promoters peddle not only art but careers, loyalties and fortunes of artists also,” to borrow a sharp statement from Oguibe.
Perhaps I am gambling my own fortune by playing with loyalties here, but is it not a disingenuous “self-reflexive enquiry” if Bell-Roberts, and more importantly, their magazine – art | south africa – are merely a footnote, a caveat, a sidebar? “What about Suzette and Brendon Bell-Roberts?…. it was decided to exclude the duo.” Aside from that statement lacking any agency (“mistakes were made!”), I’m more interested in why publications, and their editors, were left off this list. art | south africa is the only regular, high quality, international print publication in the country.
How much power do writers, gallerists or artists have without being seen in the public eye? art | south africa left out that they ask for, and/or refuse, columns both by and about everyone on their own (and everyone else’s) list. The mag is the (most) public face of our contemporary art, and with that comes power and influence.