gnosis / knowledge / insight

Erik Davis is teaching another class at MLA called Gnosis Now! from February 23 - April 5 2009.

Gnosis Now! (from MLA course page)

Gnosticism is one of the most potent, complex, and misunderstood elements of western esoteric spirituality. Rooted in the apocalyptic era of early Christianity, gnostic mysticism animates hermeticism, alchemy, and magick, and has profoundly influenced modern pop culture as well (Philip K. Dick, The Matrix, even Scientology). Because gnosticism is rooted in direct experience of the divine, it remains open to many different interpretations; scholars bicker about it constantly.

http://www.maybelogic.org/courses.htm for more info on the course or read more for the reading list

This class proposes to study a few of the most accessible and transformative gnostic texts, both ancient and modern, and to bring their tricky wisdom to bear on the state of consciousness today. In addition to online discussion threads, the course will feature weekly podcasts from Erik Davis, a celebrated speaker, as well as a few group voice-over-IP chats. Modestly-sized texts will include ancient gnostic gospels as well as accessible scholarly interpretations and modern short stories.

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expanded cinema blog

Expanded Cinema is an online platform for experimental film, early video, and sound-based, durational work. All of the material is being curated from available media online, emphasizing an overlooked facet of the archival function of new media. The site has collated videos of Derek Bailey, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Mark Leckey's "Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore (1999)" - a video exploration of subcultures, iconography and dancing with footage from 70s-90s in UK. plus many more. visit http://expandedcinema.blogspot.com for more details

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Apell releases third album "Reconstituted"

"Reconstituted" is the third Apell album and sounds like the groovier half of Amon Tobin sampling George Clinton with a jazzy electric bass. The album features a drum n bass version of Neil Young's "Don't Let it Bring You Down" and a chill out reworking of George Harrison's overlooked gem "Long, Long, Long" from The Beatles White Album. Another album highlight is the track "Dubya" featuring lyrics inspired by inane quotes from President George W Bush's speeches and his life story.

For more information about this album, Apell's music and to listen to audio samples visit http://www.apellmusic.com

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[brisbane] BF09 UNDER THE RADAR - call for applications

After the immense success of "BF08 UNDER THE RADAR", Brisbane Festival 2009 is putting the call out for applications for the 2009 event. A 16 day theatrefest within a festival, BF09 UNDER THE RADAR celebrates the creation of new work, taking risks, self discovery and pushing the boundaries!

BF09 UNDER THE RADAR is now calling for applications from artists and companies with brave, stimulating, relevant and innovative shows that the world needs to see. We're looking for fresh ideas and the crossing of art forms. We’re after stories that explore the big questions or transform the everyday and mundane. It has to be new - the rest is up to you. Surprise us!

plays | burlesque | physical theatre | street theatre | theatre of image | dance theatre | musical theatre | cabaret | junkyard | circus | public performance – all welcome to apply.

Read more or go to www.brisbanefestival.com.au OR www.myspace.com/bf08utr for more information

From Friday 18 September to Saturday 3 October BF09 UNDER THE RADAR will take over Brisbane's Metro Arts building for the third time, aiming the spotlight at young and emerging theatre artists who operate under the radar of the mainstream.

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Bluetech returns with "Phoenix Rising" release

Bluetech returns with his first new material since 2005. after splitting his musical expression into multiple aliases, Phoenix Rising marks his return to eclectic, ecstatic, and emotional electronic music, and exists as a precursor to an expansive album entitled The Divine Invasion coming early 2009 on aleph zero records.

music incubated in dreams, flows of energy from ancestral sources, the shape of the wind.

grab one while they are here, as they are only available from the somnia website and limited to 777 copies worldwide, soy inks on recycled paper, sewn and sealed in wax with incredible cover art by ray massini

Audio samples, digital files and CD available at: http://www.somniasound.com or visit http://www.bluetechonline.com for more details on Bluetech

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ENZYME 7 - Live experimental industrial and electonica in Melbourne. Friday Nov 28.


Non profit underground music entity DEMUS, is proud to announce...

FRIDAY 28th NOV 2008
Blue Velvet - 60 Smith Street Collingwood
8pm Start - $8 at Door

Live music performances by:

SAROPHONY
http://www.myspace.com/sarcophony
Melbourne based Industrial Metal producer is releasing his new CD "TV is Bad For You" on the night, featuring remixes from local and international artists, and rare tracks.

DJ SARCO vc DJCMYTH
Will be playing sets of local music, tracks from the Sarcophony release and a dark range of other goodies.

DJ INFECTIOUS UNEASE
http://www.infectiousuneaseradio.com
Need we introduce the wide ranging Noir tastes of the founder of Infectious Unease Radio?

MxDxM
http://www.kostar8.com
http://www.myspace.com/kostarproductions
MxDxM (aka K.O. StaR) specializes in creating Underground Electronic Metal Dance Music. MxDxM's approach is based on simplicity and minimalism.

SOBRIQUET

Patta Chitra Katha - traditional folk art of storytelling using visual language

Senthil Kumar posted a video on WADI facebook group called "Arjuna the Archer : AD 2008"

he's also posted it to youtube :
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=h-UPtfEkl_o

there's now a facebook page for Patta Chitra Katha

I wanted to find out more about this artform and technique, so I googled (without much luck, due to googling the wrong things) and asked the Sarai Reader list and received lots of helpful information from many people. after reading about it, it reminds me a bit of an equivalent to multi-media, or even video blogging from a few hundred years ago. multiple paintings / panels on scrolls (equating to video frames?) are read and music played whilst they're read, so there's a mixture of images, music, text, written / spoken word. the artists travel to different villages - equivalent to the communication methods / networks of today transmitting the multimedia messages & works. originally the works were made on cloth using vegetable based paints but these days modern paints are used and most works are done on paper. I hope the traditional methods are not lost completely! the style of painting comes from Orissa, West Bengal & Bangladesh. modern artists use both traditional, classical topics as well as current topics & stories - they are trying out new variations of the art too, to keep the method alive and to learn new techniques & skills.

I made a video for VloMo08 day16 explaining how I found out information about Patta Chitra Katha :

VloMo08 : day16 - Patta Chitra Katha - traditional folk art of storytelling using visual language from kath on Vimeo.

read more for information about this special artform ...

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mumbai digital arts, new media & urban research links

looking for digital arts, new media & urban research projects or exhibitions in mumbai - I'm only here for 2 weekends so might not make it to any festivals. here's some I found so far - some are past projects & some are not strictly mumbai based but I came across them whilst following links for mumbai related items

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Comet Media & COSMOS
a non profit group working in educational communication & new media. they have festivals, projects & publications
http://www.cometmedia.org
http://groups.google.com/group/cosmos_mumbai
upcoming events
aliak.com Comet & Cosmos page

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Digital artists - THE WEBMUSEUM CYBERCULTURE RESEARCH LIBRARY page
http://www.lastplace.com/page177.htm

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CRIT
http://crit.org.in

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Women in India & book related links

some links to follow up - mostly relating to the books i've recently purchased here in india - an ongoing list

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Asmita
ASMITA (literally, identity) was established in 1988 as a non-profitable, non-political and non-governmental organization by a nucleus of young enthusiastic women journalists. Its general objective is to fulfill the existing gap in participation, representation and access to media of women. It is committed to find new ways and directions for women's progress. Its major aim is to produce various publications on women in the media. ASMITA is the one and only feminist alternative media organization in the country, and it functions as a pressure group for the advancement of women through media activism. ASMITA Women's Publishing House, Media and Resource Organization (in short, ASMITA) was established in 1988 as a non-profitable, non-political and non-governmental organization by a nucleus of young enthusiastic women journalists, and started to publish the first feminist magazine of Nepal. The magazine was named Asmita which means "dignity" and "identity". In fact, this was the first movement of the organization for Nepali women's human right and empowerment through media.

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Women's World of India
Women's WORLD (India) was set up in July 2002. It is part of Women's WORLD (International), a free speech network of feminist writers, which has ongoing projects in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America. The primary aim of WW(I) is to provide a space for women writers in South Asia to analyse the circumstances in which women write, are published and read in this region, to identify the issues facing women writers here, and to develop a strategy for working on them at the national, regional and international levels.

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Blaft Publications
Blaft Publications is a new independent publishing house based in Chennai, India. Their releases so far include an anthology of Tamil pulp fiction, a translation of an experimental Tamil novel, a book of drawings, and a book of English short stories. However, in the future, Blaft has much wider goals. They are planning to eventually branch out into translations of fiction from other regional languages of South Asia, English fiction, comic books, graphic novels, children's books, non-fiction, textbooks, how-to-manuals, encyclopedias, and kitchen appliances.


The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction
- selected & translated by Pritham Chakravarthy
- edited by Rakesh Khanna

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Feminist Fine Print
A moderately priced, handy new series that offers two, three or four core essays on a single issue, from a critical feminist perspective. The essays may be single-authored or have multiple authorship depending on the issue, its significance within India and South Asia, and its theoretical and political implications.
- http://www.womenunlimited.net/catalogue2.htm for list of book details currently available

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Zubaan Books
An imprint of Kali for women

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Women's resources in Delhi
- a list of organisations

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Yoda Press
YODA PRESS is an independent publishing venture based in New Delhi. With a view to developing dynamic non-fiction lists, both academic as well as popular, which can make available interactive spaces for further discussion, scholarship, and writing, this young venture is currently focusing its attention on areas like urban studies, sexuality and the body, gender, cinema, contemporary art and popular culture, and new perspectives in history. In doing so, the larger YODA PRESS list hopes to effectively capture the non-mainstream, alternative, yet critical reality of contemporary India. The Press invites feedback, constructive criticism, and the ever enriching exchange of ideas, which can often lead to a stunning new publication.


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Sarai
http://www.sarai.net/about-us/introducing-sarai/overview
Sarai researches the urban experience, the city, the publics and practice of (old & new) media, "information and society", free & open source software, language and digital cultures and the interface between urban transformation, contemporary culture, and development. Sarai research has flowed into conferences, books, articles, art Installations and even school textbooks. Our researchers Include scholars and practitioners. Sarai places a premium on the research process as a whole, rather than just the final outcome. This means that Sarai research material continually reaches the public domain through collaborative mailing lists, CD's, small essays, apart from conferences and research articles.

Sarai publishes books (The Sarai Readers, The Deewan-e-Sarai and the Series), pamphlets (The Media Nagar Series), broadsheets (Sarai.txt, Cybermohalla Broadsheets) and occasional publications ('By Lanes', 'The Book Box' etc.) on paper as well as on the web. All Sarai publications are copyleft and maybe freely downloaded for non commercial & edycational use from the Sarai website.

Sarai embodies a continuing engagement with creativity in urban neighbourhoods through the 'Cybermohalla' Project in collaboration with a 'Ankur' Society for Alternatives in Education, a Delhi based NGO with a proven track record of more than two decades of work in the field of critical pedagogy and community mobilization in poor neighbourhoods in the city.

Sarai supports a growing network of independent researchers, practitioners and students all over India through fellowships and stipends. Over the last five years we have supported more than 400 independent researchers from all over the country.Many of these come from small towns such in the hinterland and in spaces marked by conflict such as Jammu and Kashmir and the North East. Half the proposals that have been supported have been sent in by women, a significant proportion of supported candidates belong to ethnic and religious minorities and oppressed communities. All the proposals investigate areas that would find little or no support, either in academia, or in mainstream media, although several of the candidates have gone on to make further meaningful work in academia and the media, to a large measure due to the ground that they were able to cover in the course of the Sarai independent research proposal.

Sarai invites critical reflections on the nature of the contemporary moment, by holding regular screenings and discussion of curated programmes of fiction, documentary and experimental films and video, and by acting as a convivial context for online and offline conversations through discussions, mailing lists and blogs in English and Hindi at the Sarai space and on the Sarai website.

Sarai engages with the Hindi/Hindustani public domain through publications, translation, lists, web content, software localization, events and workshops.

Sarai organises events such as - conferences, seminars, workshops, summer schools, colloquia, colloquia and hosts occasional residencies around themes thatthemes that reflect the programme's intellectual and creative interests.

Sarai produces media (video, audio, print, web) and contemporary art works, CDs, radio and software. Works produced at the Sarai Media Lab have been exhibited in several international venues such as Documenta11, and the Venice, Liverpool and Taipei Biennales.

Sarai collaborates with organizations and initiatives locally, regionally and internationally/globally on events, processes, networks, projects and publications.

Sarai reaches out to students and faculty in colleges, institutes, university departments and student societies to organize talks, discussions, readings, screenings, screenings, informal interactions and conversations.

Sarai archives different facets of contemporary popular culture, urban space and media forms with a view to making information about them available to a wide public of researchers and practitioners.

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The Tract House

The Tract House is a "spread-the-word" project that debuted at the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore on May 31, 2008. The Tract House tracts were written by friends, neighbors, acquaintances, visitors to this website, and friends of friends. While most popular tracts are religious, The Tract House tracts can be nearly anything— manifestos, diatribes, stories, rants, poems, or lyrics. They can be about whatever the writer finds pressing, whether it be something personal, professional, political, domestic, local, or global. Gallery visitors are encouraged to peruse the many tracts and take home what they wish. Visitors of this website are encouraged to print the tracts on their home printers. It is hoped that the tracts will educate, activate, infuriate, obfuscate, titillate, inspire, upset, and irritate. The tracts can be treasured or passed on, crumpled in disgust or venerated, folded up and put through the laundry, or left on a car windshield. visit http://thetracthouse.com for more details

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The Streaming Festival is now Streaming!

Today at 1900hrs (GMT), we opened the 3rd edition of the Streaming Festival. We are proud to announce that this edition contains a variety of artistic films that come from all over the world.

What?
The festival selected 130 filmmakers, and will show 190 films of which 106 are being premièred on the Streaming Festival! All those works were selected by the festival staff and divided into 14 programs, each program lasting from one to two hours.
http://www.streamingfestival.com/program/special-programs

What’s different?
In contrast to previous editions, visitors can now view the films separately from the main program. So, it is possible to enjoy the films one by one, or execute a program of your choice and sit back and relax. Visitors can comment on films on the Streaming Festival forum, or send the filmmaker a personal message.

Video Player
We use the Silverlight player program as our main player. Be sure to install Silverlight to view the films in the best possible quality. If you can’t install Silverlight, try the lightwindow or external player option. However, these seem to work slower.

Finally..
Obviously the rules at an Internet festival are different from those at a regular offline festival. The unique experience of the Streaming Festival is as different for each viewer as much as we each differ from our fellow man and woman.

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Reunion Rave in Brisbane

Reunion Rave @ The MET in Brisbane
10/10/2008

I hadn't been out to a dance club for maybe 4-5 years, about 7 years since being in brisbane, so the Reunion Rave dance party whilst I was up there on holidays was perfect timing. heaps of older crew were there - it was so great to see them all and spend the night dancing as we used to back in the day.

the music was fantastic too - Thief took us back to Magic Roundabout @ Metropolis & the Site (if my memory serves correctly) in the side room & looked like he was enjoying playing the tunes too. "Insomniac - I'm asleep", Moby's "Thousand", Custa knows the rest of the track names - some Rabbit City Records tracks? I remembered that track with the "Reanimator" (movie) sample though I'm not sure what it's called.

Sasha "Injected with a poison - are you listening to me!" later, Paul Holden (is Golden?! :) doing the hand movements to "I kiss your lips and close my eyes - take you away to paradise ... let everybody see that I love you and you love me ..." with the lasers forming whirlpool clouds of different coloured smoke above the dancing crowd in the main room. then "Everybody's Free - to feel love" with starry skies spinning behind him on the screens - reminding me of the Dome and it's starry skies when the retractable ceiling was pulled back (even if the songs were different there)

Rousey & Kesson played heaps of songs towards the end of the night that Dufty & Angus (rip) used to play (which was great but a little sad at the same time). I liked what Rousey said - something like "it's nice to come out to work and see people I know again".

Vision Four 5 played a great live set - hadn't seen them play in years. the videos looked great too - a huge Lolli dancing & singing to Funkify Yourself & Purple Lamp was played later in the set & the block text for Everything You Need. half way through this song I went down the front and after a couple of tracks, some younger people were asking who this great band was, so it's great to see another generation loving the tunes too! Ben & Noel were jumping around like they used to - was so cool to see!

I loved the screens in the different rooms - the videos shown were so crisp & clear & the lasers helped set the mood too.

at the start of the night (I'd gone early to catch Dizzy's set - nice!) I was a little worried as most of the people were wearing really tight clothes and very high stilettos and had trouble finding the beat when dancing but when everyone came later, the tables turned, and some of the younger people dancing seemed to be staring at how the rest of us were dancing - it was almost like they'd never seen it before or been to a dance party ?!?!

I kept forgetting I had the camera as I was too busy talking or dancing (now I remember why I don't have pics from years ago) so there's only a few clips at different parts of the night. the video runs for about 12mins though so is a little long. my camera's not very good in low light, so you can't really see the people - but this video should give you a sample of what the night was like.

thanks to everyone who played & organised the gig and all the people I spoke to & saw out.

can't wait for the next one!!

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A Night Of Theatrical Electro/Pop/Rock

This Saturday 11th October at the Empire Hotel Annandale, Sydney band Super Massive will be headlining a trio of bands that fearlessly deliver performances of extroverted theatricality, whilst exploring their own different blends of electro/pop/rock.

The event will be happening at the Empire Hotel, Cnr Parramatta Rd & Johnston St Annandale. Entertainment begins at 9pm. Entry is $10.

Super Massive take dance rock/pop to new heights with the funkiest live rhythm section in town and powerful songs of recklessness, love and reckless love, guaranteed to make you want to hit the dancefloor.

Led by dynamic frontwoman Malina, whose vocals and stage presence have been compared to Peaches, Shirley Manson and Siouxsie Sioux, and described as 'Kylie's porno double', Super Massive are an underground force to be reckoned with.

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Graffiti Technica - 3D Graffiti electronic art tagging


Graffiti Technica is dedicated to the progression of hardcore electronic art and 3d graffiti. The graffiti designs and lettering on the site are completely digital - to explore new ways of creating pieces.

The site owner & Brisbane based designer Brad Schwede explains some of his influences :

Graffiti has always influenced me since the first time I saw works from trains on the way to the school... All the back industrial lots were covered in styles from generic tagging to intricately designed works. Back and forwards to school gave me loads of time to understand the styles and colors that were being used. It was so far advanced from anything that was in the modern culture that it was no wonder that people didn't understand it.

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Open Frame

OPEN FRAME is room40's annual festival of sound and media. This year it is being held at Brisbane Powerhouse's Rooftop Terrace over two evenings 2nd-3rd October.

Thursday 2 October 2008
* oren ambarchi
* domenico sciajno
* kim myhr
* antony milton

Friday 3 October 2008
* kk null
* lucky dragons
* birchville cat motel
* spartak

Also the works of experimental film maker Makino Takashi will be screened each night - featuring beautiful soundtracks by Jim O'Rourke
Tickets are available from http://www.brisbanepowerhouse.org/events/view/open-frame-1 or visit http://www.room40.org/events.shtml for more details

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