russian posters online

this russian site features a huge number of posters from the 20th century up to the present day, and even some from the 1800s.

not all are as strange as this, "A Children Meeting" (1923) by A.I. Komarav, but all are very interesting and worth a look.

the site is in both russian and english

framing photography

questions i've recently come to think about as central to my work on photographic practice by everyday folk include:

• what do we think we're doing when we make photos to share on Facebook, Flickr, or similar social media?
• what motivates someone to make images either truthfully, authoritatively, ironically, playfully, or with some other value system in mind? how does one know when or why to make images of one kind and not another? what factors contribute to that decision-making process?
  
• what factors, social, economic, or otherwise, deter people from making images in certain capacities, or from making images at all?
  
• what cultural narratives (such as those around art, science, journalism, etc.) contribute to motivating, and what to deterring, people's photographic image production?

although i think there is still rich work to be done with analysis of specific images and forms of imagery, it seems that there's still a paucity of understanding around how we come to images and make sense of them—whether we're materially making them ourselves, or symbolically taking their meaning from others.

for me, social media might play a significant role in understanding personal, interpersonal, and social behaviours surrounding how visual imagery, including photographs, are activated in everyday life. then again, and with wary attention focused squarely on the term "behaviour" and its connotations of effects-laden psychological theory, social media may not be of help at all.

still, with increasingly more individuals centering formerly isolated and private "home mode" communicative practices on networked spaces like those Facebook and Flickr provide, there must be some conclusions that can be drawn about how one makes these photos, how one makes them make sense, and where that leaves us as a society.

notes on copyright reform in canada: bring out the thumbscrews!

in a Toronto Star editorial today, proposed changes to the existing Copyright Act made by the federal minority Conservative government this week were applauded: unequivocally and, unfortunately, uncritically.

before anything, let me point out that copyright infringement has always been with us humans: whether through material forgeries, through any act of fakery or deception, or through less self-evident means like filesharing, sampling, remixing, and the like. i daresay it will always be with us, too: gucci and coach knock-offs keep on coming, that Van Gogh or Monet still graces our desktops, and our homemade t-shirts of rodent-like Walt Disney characters still keep being worn. There's a certain amount of inevitability here that seems ignored: copying will happen and, in many cases, what's really wrong with that?

of course the editorial talks about protecting the rights of businesses and artists, those digital content creators the new law is designed to protect. this certainly has all the trappings of a noble cause, as the production of a nation's artistic community creates an important cultural as well as intellectual heritage.

yet it fundamentally misunderstands the nature of contemporary artistic practice, and narrowly defines what is and isn't art in the process. for one thing, for many artists remnants of the sensory world are core elements of their work: where would the work of Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, or musicians who sample the work of other musicians be if copyright law was strictly enforced?

more insidiously, it suggests a sharp and clearly delineated divide between artists, businesses, and others occupied in the traffic of copyrighted forms and everyone else. with the proliferation of digital technologies, people of all kinds now have the ability to not only create forms (they're long had that ability, notably with cameras), they have the ability to distribute them as well.

the "erosion" of the rights of "'creators'" that the editorial mentions; the "stifling" of the creativity and innovation of "artists:" all this presumes an existing model of distribution that need not, indeed must not, be tampered with. namely, big business and mainstream media conglomerates hold and maintain copyright control, as they should, and as they should continue to do so.

some fancy rhetorical footwork here as "artists" comes to be defined (implicitly at least) as those making and distributing forms within the existing copyright paradigm (i.e. as commissioned to do so in order to earn royalties while others retain, or at least control, copyright; and commissioned with certain expectations about the quality and communicability of the final form). "artists," in other words, are not necessarily those that make images, music, etc. artists can also be big businesses themselves: copyright holders, and those holding the legal right to monopolistically distribute those holdings. this is an archaic interpretation of creative rights, one that assumes artistic production as property to be traded like any other commodity rather than the cultural and human right of any individual, whether or not she has paid to experience it.

there are other options: why not push for copyright laws that protect the rights of creators rather than the rights of their creations? fair wages, arms-length funding, copyright being retained by those who make - not those who distribute - artistic forms: why isn't this a possibility?

perhaps this is the most disturbing element of the editorial, and the legal amendment it so heartily endorses. namely, that artistic creation isn't a universal human right. the right to formulate and express local and unique ways of knowing isn't particularly valuable.

some might argue that this isn't a case about everyone making art forms, that it's about stemming filesharing and other copyright infringements. i'd argue that by taking control of the moral and ethical processes decision-making about what's fair and right in creative production, by increasing surveillance opportunities and imposing punitive policies designed to protect interests instead of empower citizens and communities - in short, by declaring what is and isn't fit for people to have autonomy and self-direction over, it certainly isn't a case of everyone making art forms.

but neither, for that matter, is it simply about filesharing or copyright infringement: instead, it's a far broader issue about what businesses and governments can do to the cultural sovereignty and self-determination of a nation when left unchecked, and about the vastly unequal means that they have at their disposal (e.g. legal systems, educational systems, networked/broadcast communication systems, and so on) with which to do so.

anyway, i'm by no means an expert on this stuff; i'm far more interested in the implications this has on how people make and do things, or are subject to the ideas and interests of those who are more leniently permitted to do so (i.e. corporate conglomerates, more often than not, in a mainstream media market). more sustained and intelligent discussion can be found in the writings of Michael Geist, to name but one:
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3029/125/

camera austria - online photography journal, free access

an interesting contemporary photography journal, camera austria seems to offer all their articles in English as well as in German.

here's a link to their archive, all freely accessible:
http://www.camera-austria.at/ca_archiv.cfm

sydney pollack

i suspect only little blips will appear about Sydney Pollack in the popular press. his career in film and television was too erratic for contemporary tastes so eager to pin down identities and pigeonhole personae to the point of caricature. Pollack, who died yesterday at the age of 73, wasn't best known for anything: he was a sometime actor, a quite successful director at one point—remember Tootsie? it was nominated for an academy award; so was Out of Africa which did, in fact, win (as best picture, and for best direction). In recent years, he was an ambitious producer, helping such compelling and underrated material like The Talented Mr. Ripley or The Quiet American make it to the screen. most recently, he helped produce Michael Clayton, and directed a documentary about architect Frank Gehry.

so it's a shame, then: both the fact of his passing, and the likelihood that his memory will remain shared solely amongst a few friends, family, and industry associates, even though he was an important public figure, particularly in the intellectual and cultural life of the US (if not of the world). yet this shame borders on tragedy; the latter a term reserved for seemingly catastrophic deaths of larger-than-life public figures (Diana, any former president, or Trudeau here in Canada). it borders on tragedy because, despite his efforts, his public opinion never quite reached mythological status; a tragedy because it likely never will.

it's a shame, then, that we're all part of a public that reads so shallowly, experiences so narrowly, and remembers with vividness only very select concerns. Pollack's career was built on subtlety and is difficult to amplify. it's a testament to his character that this is so, and a tragedy it likely won't be regarded as such.

Loud Music, Noise, and Environmental Alternatives

Don't get me wrong: I like to listen to loud music. I don't like all types of music, but I like many, and I do like hearing the subtleties that only close proximity (when it's live) or high volume (when it's recorded) can provide.

Music, after all, is a craft. Singers, musicians, composers, producers—each spends a great deal more time practicing than performing in order to hone and perfect their craft. So even though I cannot name what precisely marks the difference between average and more accomplished musical performances, I'm pretty sure I can recognize when something more than average is happening. I'd like to think, too, that I understand why an author would want to put in differences, subtleties, nuances, or whatever you want to call it (i.e. to stylistically differentiate from others in a highly conventionalized practice, to experiment—innovatively, curiously, and playfully—with what one does and does not know, or to push to the boundaries between what is and is not acceptable in that practice). That said, I hope you don't think me a prude for saying I typically hate other people's loud music.

Let me correct that: other people's indiscriminantly loud music.

Not that people don't have good taste in music, and not that they're not sophisticated people in many other ways (I feel like I'm going to dig myself into a hole, but here goes....) But sometimes people just need to turn it down.

I'd like to think that this rant isn't entirely subjective: I've seen trends in people's tastes for loud music, and I suspect others have seen the same. An obvious one is blaring in order to be seen: teenage boys in their glowingly-modified Honda Civics, their middle-aged counterparts in their own shiny-chromed convertibles... even hawgs on their choppers (choppers on their hawgs?) who all want to announce, in one way or another, their presence and be seen being who they are (or who they pose to be), by using the sound systems in their vehicles primarily as noisemakers. The music is thematic to some degree but, much like a national anthem, is rarely attended to, enjoyed, or studied. It's something for believers to salute; something for the rest to jeer or sit through, patiently until it's over, or when it drives away.

A less obvious trend is loud music played by those who need a constant background track to their lives. Campus bars are notorious for this: music so loud it drowns out conversations. These are places where one would assume studious conditions would be a requisite to conversation (this is an academic institution, isn't it?). Often, beer and wings can be found in place of stimulating conversation, even though they could, in fact, go together rather nicely. A counter-argument, I suppose, is that there's a certain amount of anonymity in a noisy room, where one can try on a variety of theoretical hats without fear of blurting out something embarrassing or, worse, self-implicating in a room suddenly fallen silent with no soundtrack to shield a person from questions of "who said that?!" My counter- counter-argument to this is that maybe we should be held more accountable for the things we say, in recognition that we're probably not all Leopold's or Loeb's in our hearts, even if we're fumbling with words in quite horrifying ways. The background music is padding, then, in a place where sharp corners might be better left open a little more, where thought might be usefully directed at the structures that endanger, and where theorizing about what, collectively and individually, can and should be done about them.

Radios blaring on a back deck, in a garage, or in another room are similar: noise machines to drown out conversation, albeit in our more mundane lives. Here they're more than this, however, since the conversations are fewer. An owner's habitual practice of switching one on, typically on weekends while tinkering or doing chores, makes me think that she'd would rather be somewhere else, in some alternate symbolic or mediated universe parallel to our own: in a commercial for Hawaiian beaches, perhaps, or on a train with some action-romance movie superstar of the opposite (or the same) sex, or even altogether on some entirely different planet. Why else would someone let a random assortment of melodies and banter fill up the space of their resting minutes except for an absolute and paralyzing fear of the mundane, the everyday, the picayune? Being somewhere else—indeed, just dreaming of going somewhere else, imagining being in transit is sufficient—acts to placate a fear of facing up to what habit, routine, and the everyday really are: vast unknowns of social and technological contingency, aleatory webs of massive bureaucratic state and corporate apparatuses over which we have no control, and about the mechanisms of which we have no inkling. Silence would serve to remind us that, beyond all ourselves, this—our fate—still exists, an existential horror vacui in which we play nothing but an interchangeable part for others producing and directing. Thus what might happen were there to be silence for once—paralyzing, total silence—panics a great many of us, mostly below the level of our consciousness. It's the aural equivalent of our cultural fear of the dark, our tactile fear of enclosed spaces, and a constant background soundtrack elicits the same sigh of relief a well-lit street at night, or the elevator door opening after an interminably long wait of minutes; seconds.

If the blackout of '03 taught us anything, it's that we can survive without as much noise as we thought. Or, instead, that what we put on to fill up our personal and social voids can just as easily be filled by real human voices: sing-song voices, laughing voices, passionate whispers, or defiant shouts. It is then that we realize we have more to say than we thought; more to be spoken, and more to be heard. And the silences cease to be oppressive, filled with ominous reminders of things beyond our knowing, and instead become periods of determination; moments of waiting, beautiful moments of patience, in anticipation of what human voice will next speak.

Doctoring C-51

Section 2.3 of the proposed bill C-51, the (Canada) Food and Drugs Act, reads as follows:

2.3 The purpose of this Act is to protect and promote the health and safety of the public and encourage accurate and consistent product representation by prohibiting and regulating certain activities in relation to foods, therapeutic products and cosmetics.

A great deal of resistance to the bill seems to stem from an interpretation that envisions a sudden and sweeping criminalization of naturopathic and homeopathic practitioners and suppliers. This narrative sees regulation as a crackdown: a raiding (metaphorical and, potentially, literal) of formerly legitimate practices, and a very real threat to life and livelihood.

I'd like to suggest a different interpretation, or at least one that spells out the ramifications of a state authority seeking absolute regulatory control that the former never quite names. This interpretation rests on the language of the bill, a kind of vocalization without an identifiable speaker, which neglects to identify the key players who are in fact involved: stakeholders in pharmaceutical companies, medical professionals, and citizens wanting the autonomy to determine what does and does not go into their own bodies and the bodies of their family- and community-members.

First, a little note on method. I'm operating under the assumption that everyone, in any profession, is about as likely to be as corrupt or as honest as anyone else in any other profession. There's nothing intrinsically "good," at least in my view, about someone working at a church or temple, for example, just as there's nothing implicitly "bad" about anyone employed at a strip club. Priests have been charged for sex crimes (rare, of course, but true), while prostitutes have fought for safer working conditions and fairer pay. Simply put, what one does professionally should not be taken to indicate where one points her moral compass: what one does isn't necessarily the same as who one is.

More examples: both lawyers and politicians are often vilified even though many labour primarily for the public good; of teachers, we can all probably name some we've loved, and others we've despised. Our dentists we hate for what they do while we're in their chairs, even if they're great guys before (and after) the freezing, drilling, and so on. (I've had great dentists—and I'm not simply writing this out of fear for the next visit!) And we respect our doctors because of who they are: lifesavers, quite literally.

My argument isn't that nobody's perfect. It's that no profession is, really and truly, populated entirely by perfectly upstanding and ethically integral professionals. "Politician" and "doctor," two of the professions I want to discuss here, are no exceptions. Doctors are sometimes called "quacks," after all, and to be called a politician when one isn't is meant as an insult.

Returning to the bill, the problem with the language here is that "the Act" purports to "protect and promote" the "safety of the public." In reality, of course, such abstract decrees must be enacted by specific agents—the Act alone is only words, and only specific individuals must do the "protecting" or "promoting" of public safety, as the case may be. Individual police officers enforce "the Law" (another abstract concept), just as specific people, involved in specific situations, will translate and implement the general decrees of an Act.

If existing homeopathic practitioners are indeed excluded from the Act, or if their practices are rendered criminal as a result, this is a cause for alarm. It certainly smacks of a early 20th century prohibition, though I have my doubts in this case that OPP or RCMP agents will be busting open barrels of illegally smuggled feverfew or echinacea at the border.

More alarming, however, is the desire to strip self-determination ever increasingly from public control. I see little distinction between control over one's own physical, material body and one's political, social body. Stripping away rights under the premise of public protection, while not a new tactic, is nevertheless alarming. Perhaps instead of fearing widespread public duping by snake-oil (or goji berry) dealers, the government can give its public the benefit of the doubt.

Besides, the premise doesn't hold: the healthcare system in Ontario is overtaxed and overly regionally centralized to the point that state-based, supposedly "regulated," medical care is in tatters. Emergency room deaths make headlines, but are only the tip of the iceberg: more common are the thousands of patients held hostage to the slightest prescription-whims of certain family doctors. While I have no doubt that the vast majority of family physicians want to help their patients and wish only the best for them, I also know (for a fact based on family experience) that others want solely to reap the rewards of kickbacks from prescribing the latest and greatest anti-depressives, anti-coagulants, cholesterol fighters, and muscle relaxants, giving only a shoulder shrug to questions of whether these will interfere with current medication, and threatening to withdraw services if pressed on the issue.

Blanket regulation, then, is not the answer. Nor is, as some on the homeo-/naturopathic side might argue, complete deregulation. What's needed is an injection of public force into the arm of the body politic: greater participation, not simply representation, in developing and refining this legislation. This nation already suffers enough from ailments of excessive individualism.

getting back to it...

after quite a break, i feel like i'm going to have some time to do some creative projects over the summer.

as of the fall, i'll be starting my PhD in Communications/Cultural Studies at Ryerson/York here in Toronto. coursework, teaching, and/or teaching assisting aside, i hope to be in the darkroom and at the keyboard creating worlds of delight once again.

time will tell. in the meantime, i have a few blog entries i'd drafting up about technology and etiquette... essentially about the unwritten rules of society as applied to things technological (and what, today, isn't even partly technological?? big fun...)