Rob Nilsson: indie filmmaker and small format video feature pioneer
"Rob Nilsson pioneered small analog and digital formats and created a low-budget cinematic style called direct action. He established the Tenderloin Action Group (now called the Tenderloin yGroup) in 1990, a drama workshop for homeless people, inner-city San Francisco residents and professional actors. He was the first video maker to blow up small-format video to 35 mm film for international theatrical distribution. His work has screened at festivals in the United States and abroad, including Mill Valley, Toronto, Santa Barbara, San Francisco and Locarno. Nilsson's work has been honored with numerous awards, including the Camera d'Or at Cannes and the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival (he was the first American Director to win both)."
(Media Arts Fellow)
Fig.1 scene from Rob Nilsson (1987). "Heat and Sunlight", Betacam SP to 35mm film transfer.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
David Lange: Nuclear Weapons are Morally Indefensible
"Most New Zealanders watched David Lange contest and win the 1985 Oxford Union debate, arguing the proposition that 'nuclear weapons are morally indefensible' with a mixture of pride and astonishment. After decades of knowing our place, and several years of government by homunculus, suddenly we had a Prime Minister who could stride the international stage with insouciance. And briefly, we seemed to matter.
Although New Zealand's nuclear-free policy did not become law until 1987, it was integral to early years of the fourth Labour government. The 1984 snap election that made Lange Prime Minister was called by Robert Muldoon when National MP Marilyn Waring withdrew her support for her party over the issue of nuclear ship visits. Labour won the election with a nuclear ban as a flagship policy.
The policy was popular among New Zealanders, but not without cost. Our relationship with the US deteriorated in the early weeks of 1985. On the same journey that took him to Oxford, Lange, four days before the debate, met with a US State Department official who outlined the retaliatory measures that the US would be taking against New Zealand. The ANZUS alliance of which New Zealand had been part since 1951 was effectively cancelled at that meeting."
(Public Address, 14 October 2004)
This is the introduction to the transcript of the Rt. Hon. David Lange's 1985 Oxford Debate. The transcript is copyright to Public Address. It was prepared by Russell Brown and Fiona Rae, with the consent of David Lange. Thanks are due to Radio New Zealand’s Sound Archives/Nga Taonga Korero (File: Media Numbers T4705 to T4708), Infofind, the Parliamentary Library and Barry Hartley.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Towards a Performative Aesthetics of Interactivity
"I identify a two-decade period - roughly speaking 1985-2005 - as the pioneering experimental period of (computer based) interactive art. Crucial to the understanding of work in this period is the blindingly rapid development of the technological context. At the beginning of the period the graphical user interface was a novelty, the internet barely existed, the web was a decade away, interactivity was an intriguing concept. The production of acceptably high resolution illusionistic digital pictures (still frames) was an active research area and a megabyte of RAM was something luxurious.
The period neatly brackets the emergence of most of the major technological milestones which now undergird digital culture and ubiquitous computing: WYSIWYG, digital multimedia, hypermedia, virtual reality, the internet, the world wide web, digital video, real-time graphics, digital 3D, mobile telephony, GPS, Bluetooth and other mobile and wireless communication systems. It was a period of rapid technological change, euphoria and hype."
(Simon Penny, 2011)
Simon Penny (2011). "Towards a Performative Aesthetics of Interactivity", Fibreculture Journal, issue 19 2011: Ubiquity.
Fig.1 Sniff and Performative Ecologies were included in Emergence, a show of Artificial Life Art curated by Simon Penny and David Familian at the Beall Center for Art and Technology, University of California Irvine, December 2009 – April 2010. Regrettably Performative Ecologies did not function as designed during the exhibition.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
How Unilever, Coke and the Mini car got it so wrong
"Even the biggest businesses can make big mistakes - and when they do, the result can be a commercial calamity. Companies are constantly striving to improve their products and turn a profit. But changing an existing product can go horribly wrong, leaving customers in revolt and companies in crisis. Mishandled marketing and bungling public relations can make the slickest of businesses look incompetent. And the costs both financially and to reputation can be enormous. Persil, Coca-Cola and the British Motor Corporation have provided some of the most extreme examples as Evan Davis has been finding out for a new BBC Two series."
(BBC News, 8 May 2011)
Business Nightmares with Evan Davis - Doomed Designs will be on BBC Two at 20:00 BST on Monday 9 May 2011
Fig.1 '2009 Mini Cooper Turns Fifty and is Younger than Ever', picture 09ELG550925430AC
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Andy Warhol: The thing that I like most about doing this kind of art on the Amiga is that it looks like my work
"'Long term Amiga users will remember the unveiling of the Commodore A1000 on July 23rd 1985 at the New York Lincoln Centre. As part of the demonstration of the Amigas ability Commodore invited Andy Warhol to create a portrait of Debbie Harry, lead singer of Blondie using Island Graphics Graphicraft. This was accompanied by a full score synthesised by Roger Powell and Mike Boom, author of Musicraft."
(Gareth Knight)
Fig.1,2 Amiga world premiere launch of Amiga 1000, July 23rd 1985 (including Andy Warhol painting Debbie Harry on an Amiga)
Fig.3-8,9 Guy Wright and Glenn Suokko, photography by Edward Judice. 'Andy Warhol: An Artist and His Amiga'. AmigaWorld Magazine, January/February 1986: p.16-21.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
