Collaborative art activism ��� a UK perspective

Loraine traced the parallels and divergences between the art activism of Carole Conde and Karl Beveridge and herself, both in her solo practice and earlier work with artist Peter Dunn.

Policy Solutions and International Perspectives on the Funding of Public Service Media Content for Children: A Report for Stakeholders

This project on Policy Solutions and International Perspectives on the Funding of Public Service Media Content for Children began on 8 February 2016 and concludes on 31 May 2016. Its outcomes contribute to the policy-making process around BBC Charter Review, which has raised concerns about the financial sustainability of UK-produced children���s screen content. The aim of this project is to evaluate different funding possibilities for public service children���s content in a more challenging and competitive multiplatform media environment, drawing on experiences outside the UK. The project addresses the following questions: ��� What forms of alternative funding exist to support public service content for children in a transforming multiplatform media environment? ��� What can we learn from the types of funding and support for children���s screen content that are available elsewhere in the world ��� in terms of regulatory foundations, administration, accountability, levels of funding, amounts and types of content supported? ��� How effective are these funding systems and funding sources for supporting domestically produced content (range and numbers of projects supported; audience reach)? This stakeholder report constitutes the main outcome of the project and provides an overview and analysis of alternatives for supporting and funding home-grown children���s screen content across both traditional broadcasting outlets and emerging digital platforms. The report has been made publicly available, so that it can inform policy work and responses to the UK Government White Paper, A BBC for the Future, published by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport in May 2016.

Transformative realism: reflections of reality in political avant-garde and contemporary fine art film - Spanish Labyrinth, south from Granada

A turn towards documentary modes of practice amongst contemporary fine art video and filmmakers towards the end of the 20th Century, led to moving image works that represent current social realities. This drew some comparisons of these forms of art to journalism and industrial documentary. The practical research is embodied in a single screen film that responds to recent political and ecological realities in Spain. These include the mass demonstrations that led to the occupation of Madrid���s Plaza del Sol and Spain���s in 2011 and largest recorded forest fires that spread through Andalusia in August of the following year. The film, titled Spanish Labyrinth, South from Granada, is a response to these events and also relates to political avant-garde film of the 1930���s by re-tracing a journey undertaken by three revolutionary filmmakers, Yves Allegret, Ren�� Naville and Eli Lotar, in 1931. The theoretical research for this project establishes an historical root of artists��� film that responds to current social realities, in contrast to news media, in the Soviet and European avant-garde movements of the 1920s and 1930s. The main aim of this method is to argue the status of the works that I identify, both avant-garde and contemporary, as a form of art that preceded a Griersonian definition of documentary film.

Kahvehane Kongresspark

���Kahvehane (Coffeehouse) Kongresspark���explores the question of transcultural relations and belonging through an artistic exploration of coffee and its cultural history. The project was commissioned as an urban art intervention by the 'Soho in Ottakring' Biennial in Vienna. Organic and fair-trade coffee, sponsored by Kaffee Alt Wien , was served free of charge to the public in specially designed cups and saucers, which were created at the Ceramics Research Centre at the University of Westminster. The designs reflect coffee���s shared multi-ethnic history and the globalization of coffee.The project includes an interactive lecture-performance exploring the many legends about the origins of coffee tracing its journey from Ethiopia, the Arabian peninsula through the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) to Vienna and across the entire globe. While adopting a humorous take on the globalization of coffee, the performance sheds light on the history of colonialism and question the conditions of contemporary trade. The performance was written and performed in collaboration with Bharatanatyam artist and actor Shane Shambhu.

The Art of the State

When we talk of culture we are talking about a source of enormous historical social power. Why did the GLC commitment to Popular Culture upset the rules of the unelected arts and sports quangos? How did the now abolished GLC get politics into arts policy?

Mark E. Smith and The Fall: Art, Music and Politics

This is the first book of critical essays devoted to post-punk legends Mark E Smith and the Fall, examining the group form a number of different perspectives, including their relations with Manchester and the North, post-punk aesthetics cultural politics, fandom and contemporary media. As John Peel famously said, this group was 'always different, yet always the same', and deserving of more academic attention than they have so far received.

Sustainability and Community Networks

Community networks are IP-based computer networks that are operated by a community as a common good. In Europe, the most well-known community networks are Guifi in Catalonia, Freifunk in Berlin, Ninux in Italy, Funkfeuer in Vienna and the Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network in Greece. This paper deals with community networks as alternative forms of Internet access and alternative infrastructures and asks: What does sustainability and unsustainability mean in the context of community networks? What advantages do such networks have over conventional forms of Internet access and infrastructure provided by large telecommunications corporations? In addition what disadvantages do they face at the same time? This article provides a framework for thinking dialectically about the un/sustainability of community networks. It provides a framework of practical questions that can be asked when assessing power structures in the context of Internet infrastructures and access. It presents an overview of environmental, economic, political and cultural contradictions that community networks may face as well as a typology of questions that can be asked in order to identify such contradictions.