By now halfway the third day of Sonic Acts XII, if you can’t be (t)here, follow the livestreams and the blogs of our team of bloggers: http://www.sonicacts.com/wordpress/?cat=184/.

One of the reasons for not blogging too much is that I’ve been working on Sonic Acts XII The Cinematic Experience. The festival takes place from 21 – 24 February. Most of my time went into editing the book. Yesterday the book was delivered at the Sonic Acts office – I have not even seen it myself (will pick up a copy later today).

The book will be available during the festival, and can also already be ordered online at: http://www.sim-central.nl/detail.php?id=5757.

More info on the book and the festival at the Sonic Acts XII site: http://www.sonicacts.com/.

Video by Peter Cleutjens: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe3C-B68aZ8, made in the basement of PostCS.

It’s the book from which I learned to play chess: Bobby Fischer, Schaaklessen, geprogrammeerde cursus voor beginners en gevorderden (1974). It was a present for my 9th or 10th birthday. I still remember so much of it that I suspect it had a big influence on my strategic/logical thinking. (In so far as I am able to think logically/strategically…) Bobby Fischer – who became worldchampion in 1972, never lost the title according to himself – died this week. The most controversial chess champion.

The book, I now see, is originally from 1966, entitled Bobby Fischer teaches chess, the co-authors are Stuart Margulies, of Basic Systems Inc. (? Basic the computer language?) and Donn Mosenfelder, a leading figure in ‘programmed instruction’. It was published by Xerox. It’s still available at Amazon.ca: http://www.amazon.ca/Bobby-Fischer-Teaches-Chess/.

On the 25th of January (ah), Loudthings, the first 35mm film of Telcosystems will premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival: http://www.telcosystems.net/index.php/projects/2008-loudthings/.

Screenings are scheduled on friday January 25 at 16:15 in Pathe 6 and sunday January 27 at 22:30 in Venster 2, both times as part of the programme Science and Beauty. Furthermore it will be screened saturday February 2 in the Short Marathon programme.

Is the ‘quality’ of what you are doing reflected in the sites that Google sends you to, acting on your queries?

http://1010.co.uk/index.html
http://www.lfmc.org/
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/index.html

A slideshow of the legendary Hanatarash-concert on 8 – 4 – 1985: http://www5a.biglobe.ne.jp/~gin/rock/japan/hanatarasi/hanatarashi2/hanatarashi2.html. With Yamatsuka Eye (Boredoms, Naked City) on voice and, well, bulldozer. (Thanks Maarten for the link).

Btw: the bulldozer was stolen, the owner of the venue did not know about it, and the entrance of the venue was destroyed: the bulldozer crashed right through it.

I’ll do this in Dutch, because it refers to art in Amsterdam, and is quite specific.

O.K. Het Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst heeft geld voor community arts. Mooi. In het buitenland (met name Angelsakische landen) is community arts een vrij duidelijk gedefinieerd gebied waar veel aandacht naar uit gaat. Het is vooral omdat F. in dit gebied werkzaam is, dat ik er zo langzamerhand aardig wat over weet. F. is een groot project aan het opzetten (Dream Depot), het is gestart in Ierland en heeft daar aardig wat aandacht gehad. Ze wil een volgende fase graag in Amsterdam ‘draaien’ – en heeft daarvoor een goeie samenwerking opgezet met een jongerencentrum in Noord, een jongerenwerker en met Artimobiel. Nu nog geld om het te kunnen draaien.

Het AFK heeft een speciaal traject voor community arts. Mooi. (Want eerder vielen haar projecten al gauw buiten de boot, omdat ze nergens in passen). Gesprekken met de cultuurverkenner en anderen vallen goed.

Maar wat blijkt: het geld voor community arts kan alleen worden aangevraagd als de kunstenaar in kwestie de WIK heeft! (F. is sinds 2 of 3 jaar uit de WIK en weet sindsdien ‘te overleven’).

Met andere woorden: er is community arts in Amsterdam, maar het wordt alleen serieus genomen als manier om kunstenaars uit de WIK aan het werk te krijgen. Zucht.

Natuurlijk, F. kan proberen geld aan te vragen in een ander traject (“talentontwikkeling”), maar het is zo zuur omdat haar project ‘community arts’ in optima forma is.

If you’re in or nearby Groningen: there’s an Audio Office Audio Art Event running from the 9th till the 11th of november (at the Steenhouwerskade 9). Sound art, deejays, installations. With a.o. Steven Jouwersma, Jobbe Holtes, Sjanet Bijker and Pascal Petzinger. More info: http://www.audiooffice.nl/.

Yesterday we had a presentation of JODI in Groningen – as part of the lecture series Future’s Past: Re-Imaging Art and Media, organised by Eric de Bruyn. (We had Alex Galloway two weeks ago, Joost Raessens coming up next week).

Or better, we had a DI-(Dirk Paesmans)-presentation, as Joan Heemskerk couldn’t make it. Dirk and me had ‘stamppot’ and beers beforehand, talking about how the game-art and digital art is doing very well (booming?) now in the NY-art-market, talking about the works of Cory Archangel, and about living in ‘isolated’ Dordrecht.

Here’s some of JODI’s current stuff. Jet Set Willy Variations 1984: http://jetsetwilly.jodi.org/, and they’re part of the Composite Club: http://compositeclub.cc/.