“Deadline to apply for cultural grants approaching - Globe Gazette” plus 3 more |
- Deadline to apply for cultural grants approaching - Globe Gazette
- Slide Show: Dr. Lakra Applies an Ink Gun to Mexico's ... - VANITYFAIR
- Set aside cultural differences for air security: US - Raw Story
- Innovation, Anthropology and Cultural Relativity - Huffington Post (blog)
| Deadline to apply for cultural grants approaching - Globe Gazette Posted: 11 Apr 2010 07:01 PM PDT DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs says the deadline for community cultural grant applications is next month. The matching grants are for Iowa organizations and communities that seek funding for the 2011 fiscal year. The money is designed to help organizations and projects that provide jobs and enhance the state's artistic, cultural and historical resources. Examples of projects are museum exhibits, historic restoration and festivals. The matching grants range from $1,000 to $25,000. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Slide Show: Dr. Lakra Applies an Ink Gun to Mexico's ... - VANITYFAIR Posted: 11 Apr 2010 08:55 PM PDT  Dr. Lakra, Sin titulo/Untitled (sillon rojo), 2004, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Having adopted Mexico City as a kind of second home, I see the perpetual tug-of-war between the idiosyncratic vision of Mexican artists and a cosmopolitan sensibility, with work that yo-yos between thrilling inspiration and earnest mimicry (don't get me started on the pop music). While contemporary Mexican art is still under-exhibited in the U.S., visitors to the exhaustive Gabriel Orozco show at MoMA this past winter saw the work of the most influential Mexican artist of the last 20 years. Still, despite art-world efforts to pigeonhole the current Mexican scene, not everyone there remains in thrall to Orozco's brand of pop conceptualism and his avoidance of stereotypically "Mexican" elements. Opening Wednesday at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston is the first U.S. solo show from Dr. Lakra, whose easy-to-love schtick gains resonance through sheer skill and its religious, social, and political references. A hugely successful tattoo artist, Lakra is enjoying increased appreciation for his non-skin work, where he "tattoos" and otherwise transforms such iconographic images and objects as 50s pin-ups, medical illustrations, Japanese prints, wrestlers, superheroes, and children's dolls. While the subversion and wit are readily apparent (if rather one-note) to U.S. eyes, when seen from a Mexican perspective Lakra's seductive work implies such weightier concerns as desecration, criminality, and economic disparity. Lakra's apparent influences include alternative comics of the 80s, Mexican folk art and muralism, graffiti, Asian and African traditions, Chicano gang symbols, Richard Prince, and the Zapotec mythology of his father, famed Oaxacan artist Francisco Toledo. At heart, however, Lakra is an expert draftsman, as can be seen in the massive mural that anchors the show; its dense riot of faces, bodies, and symbols takes comic art into the intricate, fleshy realm of Sue Williams or early Cecily Brown.
Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Set aside cultural differences for air security: US - Raw Story Posted: 11 Apr 2010 04:59 PM PDT Cultural, political and legal differences must be set aside to heighten global aviation security, a senior US official urged African ministers ahead of a regional air security conference opening Monday. Despite privacy concerns and cultural sensitivities to introducing full body scanning technology, "we shouldn't allow these differences to keep us from working towards a common goal" of tighter air security, said US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Nigeria hosts from Monday a three-day meeting of African ministers on aviation security in response to the failed terror attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as it approached Detroit from Amsterdam on Christmas Day. A young Nigerian man was charged with attempting to blow up the plane with plastic explosives strapped to his underwear. In the wake of the botched attack, airports around the world, including in Nigeria, from where the suspected bomber took off, are installing 3-D full body scanners for passengers. The new technology has raised cultural sensitivities and may violate privacy laws in some countries as it produces explicit images of passengers. "Transparency and respect for privacy are fundamental values of all democracies" Napolitano told ministers from 37 African countries and other international experts on the eve of the African regional aviation security conference. "All countries have unique legal traditions, cultural differences and political realities," she said. "But I believe we shouldn't allow these differences to keep us from working towards a common goal and even stronger partnership with respect to security and privacy." Napolitano recommended a wide range of security measures, including information sharing on suspected terrorists and development of screening technology to protect passengers. "This new bomb could not be detected by all technology, therefore let us respond by ushering in the next generation of aviation security technology by coordinating our training and technical assistant efforts," she said. The conference in one of a series being organised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) across five global regions. She said the United States has in recent months worked closely with ICAO and the International Air Transport Association to forge stronger international security standards. "We must have the full engagement not just of government agencies in this effort, but our industry partners around the world," she said. ICAO secretary general Raymond Benjamin vowed "we will step up efforts to find global solutions to these global threats." Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Innovation, Anthropology and Cultural Relativity - Huffington Post (blog) Posted: 11 Apr 2010 02:43 PM PDT Just as large development projects can fail if agencies do not understand their target communities, commercial products can also fail if companies do not understand their customers. Where a sociologist might put together a questionnaire to understand what people think of an object, an anthropologist would immerse themselves in the subject and try to understand it from "within"! With the arrival of micro and nano devices, anthropology has witnessed a mini-renaissance in the 21st century. As our lives become ever more exposed to technology, and companies become much more interested in how technology affects us and how we interface with it, anthropologists have found themselves in increasing demand. Anthropology is the holistic, global, comparative study of human beings and of their interactions with each other and the environment. It increasingly looks at the impact of technological dimensions on humanity's progress and our future development. Anthropology has been a discipline shrouded in mystery, with few people ever questioning what it does. However, now that anthropologists are playing with search engines, mobile phones, satellite navigation and digital television, there is growing interest. In today's high-tech world, anthropologists are becoming much more essential and increasingly visible!  The more technology is integrated into everyday life, the more we are in need of paying attention to its effects. Contemporary studies of the social and cultural effects of the technology of print are a case in point. In history, print-technology permitted the emergence of new scientific disciplines and new ways of thinking including new religions and socio-economic doctrines. The way we acquire, record, transmit and publish data has changed enormously over the last few decades, with many solutions rendered obsolete along the way. Witness the near-death of photographic film in the last few years, as it is completely superseded by new digital media. The study of visual anthropology in the 1970s is an excellent template for mapping the impact of computing in the 1990s and the evolution of cyber culture in the 21st century. The uptake of small electronic devices had radical implications for the conduct of humanity starting a few decades ago. The recent accessibility and portability of information technology, including search engines anywhere and at anytime, is again morphing the digital landscape. This facilitates not only the collection and dissemination of visual and aural data, but its integration with everyday human activities on a scale not previously envisaged. Anthropology is now described as the scientific study of the origin; the behaviour; and the physical, social, and cultural development of humans. It is distinguished from other social sciences -- such as sociology -- by its emphasis on what's called Cultural Relativity! This is the principle that an individual's beliefs and activities should be interpreted in terms of his or her own culture, not that of the observer. Anthropology also offers an in-depth examination of context -- the social and physical conditions under which people live -- and a focus on cross-cultural comparison. That's comparing one culture to another! The body of knowledge that led to the development of Cultural Relativism has its origins in the German Enlightenment. The philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that human beings are not capable of direct, unmediated knowledge of the world. All of our experiences of the world are mediated through the human mind, which universally structures perceptions according to sensibilities concerning time and space. Franz Boas, the Father of American Anthropology, first articulated the principle of Cultural Relativity in the late 19th century: "...civilisation is not something absolute, but...is relative, and...our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilisation goes." The emerging anthropology of cyberspace deals with cybernetic systems, the culturally informed interrelationships between human beings and proliferating technologies. These inter-relationships include the attempts to fuse technological artefacts with human and other biological organisms, with human society, and with culturally shaped environments. When anthropologists started working with microprocessor firms in the late 1990s, they were accused of selling out! Today, anthropologists jump at the chance to help influence future innovation and, for many, working in the technology industry has become THE thing to do. In the technology sector -- particularly within emerging market divisions -- it is now not uncommon to find anthropologists working within the corridors of leading companies including smart chip and mobile device manufacturers. As a result, mobile devices are closing the digital divide across the world in a way the Personal Computer never could. International development agencies are now pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into economic, health and educational initiatives based around mobile devices, phones and technology. The explosive growth of mobile-phone ownership in the developing world is largely attributed to a vibrant recycling market and the arrival of cheap USD 20 phones. Anthropologists working for mobile telephone companies spend increasing amounts of time trying to understand what people living at the "bottom of the pyramid" might want from a phone. In order for mobile devices to reach their full potential, we still need to understand fully what people in developing countries need from their digital communication products and how they can be introduced and applied in a way that has a positive impact on their lives. This is exactly where anthropologists and cultural relativity step into the equation! Follow DK Matai on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DKMatai Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
Sin titulo/Untitled (Simbolo de calidad), 2005, Ink on vintage magazine,Courtesy kurimanzutto gallery, Mexico City.
Sin titulo/Untitled (Cupido), 2004, Tattooed plastic doll, Cesar Cervantes Collection.
Sin titulo/Untitled (Don Getulio Vargas), 2006, Watercolor and pencil on vintage magazine, Collection of Geri and Arnie Obler, New York.
Sin titulo/Untitled (Japonés y cigarro), 2009, Ink and acrylic on Japanese print, Courtesy of the artist and kurimanzutto gallery, Mexico City.
Sin titulo/Untitled (Olanes), 2004, Ink on vintage magazine, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
Sin titulo/Untitled (Shattered), 2009, Ink on vintage lithography, Mexico City.
Sin titulo/Untitled (Vestido negro y collar), 2007, Dried insects on photo-relief portrait on wood, Courtesy of the artist and the kurimanzutto gallery, Mexico City.| You are subscribed to email updates from cultural - Bing News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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