WhiteSpace

2011-12-07T03:21:00.000-08:00

Waiting...

2009-11-21T05:17:00.000-08:00

So I guess the speed of Web 2.o has no relation to the speed of the lecturer marking.

g07m0813

2009-10-04T16:55:00.000-07:00

We’ve got bloglobility – a true story based on global events

Somewhere between the late 1990’s and yesterday, the word ‘blog’ got inducted into the global language of the internet, understood by a majority of planet earths inhabitants. A fad, a necessary evil, a means to fame, a ranter’s delight, all of the aforementioned can be categorized alongside a description of what a blog is or rather hopes to be, because after all; “it’s easy, and it only takes a minute” (www.blogger.com) to create. And in an increasingly cyber based existence where speed need not come in the form of a narcotic to ensure addiction, the faster and easier it is to set yourself up on the internet, the faster you’ll be able to reach that high. A high that involves sharing ourselves with the rest of the world seated behind blinking cursors eagerly awaiting approval of cool-factor, a sentiment/disposition that echoes the incessant human need for acceptance and thirst for knowledge be it academic, voyeuristic or just plain useless.

The accessibility provided by what I regard as one of mankind’s greatest inventions after the automobile – the internet - has given individuals another sphere from which to function, free from the confines of social realities. Having a blog has become an extension of the average urban existence/being. And the constantly increasing numbers of fashion, style, culture and art blogs that run rampant in cyberspace are testament to that. Everyone knows where everyone else is partying, what they’re wearing, the latest art exhibition they’re attending or what global cause they’re supporting. The cult of celebrity is no longer a members only club – Andy Warhol’s prophetic musing: a very real truth. We can ALL have our fifteen minutes of fame and claim it too. It is this accessibility that highlights the fact that the world is getting smaller and we truly are living up to the now pre-millennium clichéd term of being a ‘global village’, so much so, Africa hasn’t been left behind this time around in a cloud of third world dust.

From Lagos to Cape Town, Africans are wired and just as technologically savvy as the average American. And more than just technologically aware, a combination of post colonial detritus and modern day repercussions of capitalism has resulted in the archetype 21st century African urbanite – the AFROPOLITAN or as Taiye Tuakli-Wosornu described it on www.theafrobeat.blogspot.com:
…the newest generation of African emigrants, coming soon or collected already at a law firm/chem lab/jazz lounge near you. You’ll know us by our funny blend of London fashion, New York jargon, African ethics, and academic successes. Some of us are ethnic mixes, e.g. Ghanaian and Canadian, Nigerian and Swiss; others merely cultural mutts: American accent, European affect, African ethos. Most of us are multilingual: in addition to English and a Romantic or two, we understand some indigenous tongue and speak a few urban vernaculars. There is at least one place on The African Continent to which we tie our sense of self: be it a nation-state (Ethiopia), a city (Ibadan), or an auntie’s kitchen. Then there’s the G8 city or two (or three) that we know like the backs of our hands, and the various institutions that know us for our famed focus. We are Afropolitans: not citizens, but Africans of the world.

With the latter in mind, it comes as no surprise that the chosen form of existence in this world is through a globally accessible blog. The culture of the Afropolitan becomes a shared reality and not so much a confusing existence. While the internet becomes the permanent home that doesn’t exist for these individuals in real time. So instead of having existential crises for all to see, they celebrate this ‘rootless-ness’, embracing the global urban culture that they know rather than clinging on to a past/culture/present they don’t know, albeit with an afro-centric twist. As is evident in these three blogs:
- Hot Damn!!!: http://isaidhotdamn.blogspot.com/
-Negrita's Chronicles: http://inturire.blogspot.com/
-Africa. Visual_Media: http://forota.net/wordpress/

All three blogs explore their creators personal world view, while simultaneously outlining the creators ‘place’ in these worlds which span Johannesburg, Kigali and New York City. Visual culture is a common thread between the three blogs, urban art and photography especially. Music, fashion and alternative culture feature heavily too – subject matter that is catered toward the tastes and interests of the average Afropolitan to which they can relate and find out more about, whether they’re tuning in from Port Elizabeth or Singapore.

“Hot Damn!!!” is the project of Zee, a South African photographer who spends her time between Johannesburg and Cape Town. “Hot Damn!!!” is her visual diary shared with the world. From inspirational photographs articulating her visual style of the week to the latest album streaming out of her record player, Zee documents her existence and keeps both her immediate world of friends and the greater world of fellow bloggers posted, or as she puts it on http://isaidhotdamn.blogspot.com; “[she]expresses the direction that modern pop African culture is going”.

Her post, “I know this corner of the earth, it makes me smile” (2009: August 19th) illustrates her own photography, however in her text based comments about these photos she highlights an interesting thing about the cult of blog and how the fact that ‘everybody’s doing it’, also means NOT everybody is doing it ‘correctly’; “These two pics were taken in my grandmother's room. They're two of my favourite pics ever taken. I generally don't like the way photographs are compressed on blogspot, so to see the pics in all their glory check them out properly on www.75.co.za/zee”. The highlighted comment sheds light on the fact that while setting up a blog is easy and fashionably hip (especially in the creative circles), maximizing it to make sure you get the most out of it requires basic HTML knowledge. This questions the authenticity of a blog in regard to quality being transmitted. Having a blog has almost become a desperate attempt to show your bones and share your wares, regardless of what you have to show to begin with. Nonetheless another factor to consider in the above comment by Zee is the alternative internet based solution offered, illustrating the vast expanse of the internet in our lives, i.e. options, options, options - the 21st century disposition. A disposition that can only be a good thing for upcoming artists like Zee, to get there work out there and get noticed beyond their MySpace and Facebook page, despite the aesthetic quality of the actual blog.

A similar blog to “Hot Damn!!!” is “Negrita’s Chronicles…the random thoughts and scattered ramblings of a nomadic Afropolitan...”, only Negrita broadens the range of her African urban existence while keeping it grounded in Kigali a city most automatically associate with post apocalyptic warzone imagery. However, courtesy of blogs like Negrita’s the world can be re introduced to a country that is slowly healing from its wounds and asserting itself on the world map as metropolis no different from any other African city. Art happens, music flows, fashion works and life goes on. Ironically, Negrita’s musings and posts highlight a contradictory reality: if it wasn’t for Rwanda’s genocide that forced people like Negrita to flee their homeland and essentially banish them to a life of nomadic tendency, the Afropolitan would not exist and the rich culture that has come of this migrancy would be considerably less layered. The latter would consequently mean the current subject matter on blogs like “Negrita’s Chronicles” would be non-existent too. It’s interesting to note how the internet brings people together to help deal with atrocities like genocide and through blogs its survivors can channel positivity and celebrate the after effects that occurred in lifestyle and broadened their worlds.

“Negrita’s Chronicles”, not only re-presents Rwanda to the global audience, but also Africa as a whole. Her post, “inspired: celebrating Africa” (2009: March 6th) reiterates this well; “having had enough of 'images of starving children, stories of corrupt politicians, famines, etc,' they decided to embark on a road trip around Africa in an attempt to 'celebrate all that is beautiful on the continent from her peoples to her cultures, languages and religions... their mission is to: 'contribute to changing the negative image of Africa and encourage Africans and the world to begin to see the beauty in the continent [and to] promote a sense of identity and unity for Africa’s people.'”. The African art of storytelling lives on in a digital age, stories shared between the blogger and her subject matter and stories re-told by the blogger to her cyber audience.

Story telling is central in this blog whose descriptive sub header “Keeping track of African and Africa-related culture in the media (film, photography, television, and print)” sums up the bloggers claim to Afropolitan rank and file. “AFRICA. VISUAL_MEDIA” is the blog of Kamau Mucoki, whose biography resonates in his postings; “Kenyan, born in the bay area, currently living in New York City. IT project management pays the bills, but music from the African Diaspora and photography feed the soul”.

“AFRICA. VISUAL_MEDIA” lends itself to blog roll recognition with its comfortable aesthetic and generally original content and could very well be THE archetype Afropolitan blog. Kamau shares, re interprets and informs just like Zee and Negrita, but focuses more on the Afropolitan goings on in and around New York City while simultaneously celebrating the African culture that has influenced the photographers, artists, musicians and film makers featured on his blog. In an email interview with him this is what he had to say about the blog:

A little about my blog:
I started it roughly 4 years ago. For the first couple of years, it was offline only I had access to it. I used it to work out my reactions to links that I found about african photography. It was also a place for all the links that I came across on the web that I could go back to sometime. Why did I start it? As a photographer, I am exploring what is important to me as a way to figure out WHAT I would like to shoot (my point of view) ... to figure out what inspires me, what my obsessions are etc. Along the way, I starting uncovering so much about African culture (from the continent and the diaspora) that manifests itself in visual media (film, videos, photography, magazines) that I think should be shared with other people. That is the big reason I decided to make it public, so few of us are aware of the power of our culture and how its influences are so pervasive in Western culture. There are a number of other sites that are doing the same thing; the one that comes most immediately to mind is sci-cultura (http://sci-cultura.com/). That's site's author also blogs because it feeds the process of self-discovery about Africa's culture. Of late, I have been getting to meet other Africans/African-Americans who like me inhabit a cultural/mental space somewhere between Africa, its diaspora and America/Europe and who try to embrace all those places (there are various terms for people like us, Afropolitans, global citizens, third culture kids, etc., etc.)My process:
... is very organic. I have tried (unsuccessfully) to post regular updates to drive up the traffic to the site. But since this is such a personal site, I tend to post stuff only when the inspiration hits me, or I find something that fits the subject matter/themes that are consistent with the site's viewpoint. My sources of information are mostly from the web more from the art/culture sites vs politics), magazines and occasionally from events that I attend here in NYC. I try to focus on film, photography, videos, print media, with some music stuff thrown in. I try to keep the voice personal as much as possible and try to provide a little context/background when I can, although most of the time all I have time for is to post links.

His answer was a wonderful conclusion to my insight into the workings of the Afropolitan state of existence and global position. Kamau’s words illustrate the workings of the internet as a global tool of connection across cultures and borders. And through blogs, people can pick and choose what they prefer their reality to be. There are no limitations, being from Africa is no longer a fateful sentence to being disconnected from the “first world”. The world’s getting smaller but the internet just goes to prove how the world is also simultaneously getting a whole lot larger!

We’ll blame it on the cult of blog for now.

-end-

Mikhael Subotzky around the world

2009-09-30T05:37:00.000-07:00

Mikhael Subotzky around the world
By Samantha Claasen
g07c0523

Web 2.0 is very useful for its information sharing capabilities on the World Wide Web, and it is this very capability that allows bloggers to have discussions and share articles on the Web which can reach millions of people around the world. South African photographer Mikhael Subotzky, who has recently shot to fame with his photo stories on the inside of a prison and on the town of Beaufort West, owes much of his popularity to Web 2.0 and its effectiveness in spreading his name and work. This essay will look at how three different blogs from three different places report on photographer Mikhael Subotzky and the ways in which their reporting techniques and layout styles contrast one another.

The South African blog that was looked at was ArtThrob. ArtThrob claims to report on the “national art scene and the involvement of South African artists in the international art world”. The editor, Sue Williamson posted her article on Subotzky for ArtThrob entitled “Modus Operandi” in August 2007. The article begins by explaining the young artist’s rise to fame, his art background and his current projects. Some of his achievements are being invited to be a Magnum photographer, winning the 2007 City of Perpignan Young Photographer Award, the F25 Award for Concerned Photography and receiving a residency at Fabrica, Treviso. The list goes on. The article also dealt with trying to paint of picture of how Subotzky immerses himself into specific projects, staying with his subjects for months on end before producing a final photo essay product. The article is directly followed by Subotzky’s Curriculum Vitae of his exhibitions, competitions, grants and residences and collections.

Visually the blog is easy to read, with the article placed in the middle, on the left is a column of Subotzky’s photographs and on the right hand side is a column of links to other South African artists. The article was quite short and had sub-headings such as “Artist’s Statement” and “Next Up”. This also makes it easier to read and not too text heavy. It engages with Subotzky’s work purely as art and does not relate it to a photojournalism point of view at all. This blog’s article is less about critically analysing his photographs, and is more about promoting Subotzky and showcasing him as a South African artist to be proud of, and who has been acknowledged internationally for his work.

Mikhael Subotzky, Pasvang, Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison 2004.
The African blog looked at was the Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art which is an internet version of the print published Nka Journal which is released three times a year since 1994. This is a good example of print going digital. Nka states that “where no art history exists, critical journals and other related platforms are crucial to moulding its discourse and involve all the intellectual processes that such an undertaking implies”. Nka is edited by scholars on African art, Okwui Enwezor, Chika Okeke-Agulu and Salah M. Hassan. The article on Mikhael Subotzky posted on the Nka online journal was written by art critic Ivor Powell in April 2008. This article dealt with Subotzky’s photography a lot more critically as well as analytically.
Whereas ArtThrob praised Subotzky’s rise in the art world, Nka’s article regarded it with a more weary perspective, saying that it is “wise to be sceptical of such fairytale success... [because] the burden of recognition can weigh heavily and very dead indeed once the spin stops spinning”. However, the article did go on to praise Subotzky’s talent as an artist and his achievements, but it do not do so by merely providing a list of his achievements, Powell critically engaged with Subotzky’s work and used specific individual photographs for an in depth analysis. This is something that the ArtThrob article did not do, but that made the Nka article more text-heavy.

The Nka article written by Powell gives a lot of historical background to photojournalism in South Africa, from apartheid to present day. Therefore, this article is not only based on analysis, but brings in historical theory too, in order to see the bigger picture, the bigger frame of reference to Subotzky’s work. In Powell’s article he argues that photojournalism in the classic tradition of being responsible for recording of history is more layered than that in the South African context. He says that Subotzky’s practice as a photographer is deeply rooted in the “spiritual history of photogprahy and journalism in the context of the South African psychodrama.”

With regards to using in depth analysis to discuss Subotzky’s work, Powell uses Subotzky’s degree portfolio ‘Die Vier Hoeke’ on Cape Town’s Pollsmoor Prison, as an example of the “uncompromising and palpable rectilinearity that both binds and oppresses the images on an entirely formal level”. Powell says that the heavily weighing straight lines in most of these photographs have the effect of both “formally and actually confining and limiting the action and/or movement of the protagonists”. This is a clear demonstration of how the article on Nka engaged more with Subotzky’s art than the ArtThrob article did. The Nka layout is also a lot easier to read, it is more simplified than ArtThrob and not as clustered with images and text.

Mikhael Subotzky, Cell 33, E Section, Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison 2005.
The international blog that was looked at for the purpose of this essay was Conscientious. Conscientious is a weblog about fine-art photography which was created by Jorg Colberg. His article on Subotzky is the most recent of the three; it was posted on the 18th February, 2009 and entitled “A Conversation with Mikhael Subotzky”. It is an actual interview that Colberg had with Subotzky. Formally, Colberg’s blog is a three page interview with Subotzky’s photographs in between some of the paragraphs. The article is on most of the left hand side of the page and there are two columns of links on the right hand side of the page. Showing the photographs in this way is better than how they appeared on the ArtThrob blog; they were quite small and it was difficult to see detail. On this blog they were larger and actually embedded in the article, therefore they demanded more attention.

What makes Colberg’s blog and his article on Subotzky in particular so different from the other two is that it is an interview with Subotzky himself. Instead of doing a sort of promotional pat-on-the back list of his achievements or an analysis of a selection of some of his photographs, Colberg looks at Subotzky’s works as a whole and questions his motives as a photographer and the South African context within which Subotzky is working. Colberg’s questions to Subotzky came from a non-South African point of view, which made his interview very different from the articles by Sue Williamson and Ivor Powell. Colberg takes an outsiders view by saying: “from the outside - and far away – it seems like South Africa had such a bright moment of hope when apartheid was dismantled and when Nelson Mandela was elected president, and so much has gone wrong since then, for whatever reason.” Colberg asks a few questions about Subotzky’s relation to South Africa, like asking him how he places his work in the context of other photography form South Africa, and the somewhat difficult question of “how would you put photography from South Africa in a larger African context”.

One of the questions Colberg poses to Subotzky is whether he sees it as his responsibility to record what is “going on” in South Africa today. Subotzky replies that he does not believe that photographers can effectively take responsibility for such things. He feels that they have the power to bear witness and he sees the responsibility as a responsibility to oneself, to try to make one “as conscious as possible”. Comparing Colberg’s interview to Powell’s article on Nka, one realises the difference between how Powell has interpreted Subotzky’s art and how Subotzky explains it himself. This is a good example of how the analyser or viewer makes the art mean what it means for them, derived from a basis of their own background, interests and knowledge. Perhaps this is where the ArtThrob blog post of Sue Williamson’s article on Subotzky comes handy, because it is an almost neutral account of his works and achievements, it does not give too much insight into Subotzky or his works, and in so-doing leaves the viewer’s mind largely uninfluenced and therefore clear for their own interpretation of his work. It is not to say that in-depth analysis is not useful here, Powell’s article related Subotzky’s work to South Africa as a whole as well as zooming in and focusing on the formal qualities and their effects on the interpretation of the images.

On the whole, these three different blogs from three different places were not similar in their layout style or their way of reporting. This is a good thing for now one has three diverse views on Mikhael Subotzky and his work, from a list of his achievements and a formal analysis of his photographs to a direct interview with him. Web 2.0 has been one of the tools that has helped Subotzky gain acknowledgement from countries outside of South Africa, by peoples’ ability to harness the sharing of information that is so integral to Web 2.0 and its effectiveness in reaching and connecting people all around the world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. ArtThrob
2. Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art
3. Conscientious

Reporting Ways & Styles on Zimbabwean Politics

2009-09-29T17:26:00.000-07:00

What a mission it has been to start doing this essay. Yet it is an interesting marketing tool that can benefit an artist in the practical world. I enjoy painting, sculpting, surfing on the internet and prefer working out mathematical equations than writing an essay. I find it easier to express one self within those mediums. Even though the motivation has been lacking and the losses can outweigh the benefits of not writing the essay, the prerequisites for the academic qualification always make it unavoidable to write the essay.

This essay looks to investigate the ways and styles of reporting based on the political environment in Zimbabwe and their intentions. It will look at three websites/blogs, basically The ZimDaily- which is internationally based in United Kingdom, New Zimbabwe- based in Zimbabwe and BlogCatalog.com- from South Africa. These websites/blogs make use of Web 2.0 latest add on social networking on their homepages. I will also give a short brief history of web 2.0.

Assessing web 2.0 interactive learning simulations, has made it possible to realise that the art field does not end on the canvas but goes beyond the shelter like the wind. Just as the art of conversation grabs the words and quickly the meaning is transformed into different truths and lies depending with the readers’ initial idea and reaction.

The term Web 2.0 is a technical jargon that was born from Web 1.0 and the main difference in-between the two is that Web 2.0 provides interactive learning and opens up participation of the reader into the main stream of interest and allows one to get lost and get back on point unlike the web 1.0 which did not give much user participation/engagement into the weaving of websites and discussions. In other words, web 2.0 is web-sites that gain from the involvement of its users.

The web 1.0 had a single flow of ‘read only’ information most of the times and internet connections were very slow unlike today where the information is dispersed around with more options like forums, chats and other add-ons coming into existence with the revolutionary ‘semantic’ web2.0. By 1996, the read only web had about forty five million global users with about 250 000 web-sites. Compare that to the semantic web, up to date, it has about one billion users with more than 120 million web-sites. About one tenth size of the published content is user generated compared to the four fifths published-user generated content of 2009.

The ZimDaily website is structured in a more unique and friendly framework as on each and every story, a reader can make a comment about the article. The webpage is user friendly; the pictures are bright, colourful and energetic with reference to their subjects. On the homepage you are greeted with funny cartoons before you go to the main stories. This News website though it may be based internationally in United Kingdom, it seems to be catering for the Zimbabweans who are based internationally and are familiar with the names because for someone who does not know the person(s), they would not get to the full depth of a cartoon or story easily. Those who comment in Shona or Ndebele- which are two major languages in Zimbabwe, restrict other english readers from accessing their comments as no translation is provided by the website. The ZimDaily practices its reporting style in an advocating way as it clearly shows it has an agenda of making almost all politicians who have gone into the deal with the devil ‘Mugabe’ (the formation of the Interim Government of Zanu PF and Movement for Democratic Change).

The website advances its own objectives of hatred as the writers show a point of view and gather evidence or facts in order to make the point strong and clear that the person is what he/she claims to be. For example the heading Jonathan Moyo- A Political Prostitute and Mercenary has strong words used which open up the flood gets of hatred, name calling and destructive behavioural comments. The comments are said that they would be screened off if they are based on obscenity, vulgar, tribalistic and racist grounds but that isn’t the actual story on the ground. On these blog comments, users or readers leave their rude and racist comments in Shona or Ndebele. Either there is no screening process or the enforcing is not being dealt with. The reason for this I think is because the site is itself practicing double standards as the reporter gives the strongest case by all means in support of his/her view point by concentrating on the wounds. The people who comment use anonymous names and people lie their identity as I did on the 31st and the 32nd comment on Moyo’s article. It also gets one to think, are these really other readers who are genuinely commenting in this way or is it the same people posting the stories that are commenting afterwards? Interesting.

If you compare that to the NewZimbabwe blog, which is based in Zimbabwe, you have politicians like Professor Jonathan Moyo who are also bloggers on it. You find that the bloggers try to justify their actions or counter other websites/blogs arguments like ZimDaily by giving their own side of the story. Similarly, these two blogs share the same kind of advocacy and humanistic reporting where the story is entered through one person’s eyes. The blog mainly has an opposing agenda on attacking the so-called ‘West yet at the same time it practices hate speech and personal political attacks on the opposition party members of MDC and other individual opponents or anyone who stands in the old regimes’ road (Zanu PF way).

The blog especially the one posted by Jonathan Moyo entitled Biti: Seeking Sympathy from the Devil seeks to kind of reflect a kind of In-depth/Investigative report that is based on many sources, public resources and constant rechecks yet it is an advocating report when you examine the content that it has his agenda to advance his objectives as he tries to say everything he says is correct. The blog seems to be aimed at de-campaigning the opposition MDC. The comments that are coming from the readers are difficult to take into consideration because the people who run the blogs are in Zimbabwe and the issue of your security and safety under the current President and Zanu PF party makes contributors to the blog comments weary if it is found out whom they are.

Freedom is very limited as the comments are also screened but who screens is the issue, whether it’s the blogger or weblog owners. The procedure is not clear which is unlike the ZimDaily one where your comment immediately goes onto the blog page. The common feature is that all comments are posted below all articles. The NewZimbabwe blog does not unveil who locally started or caused the chaos from the start or who was involved in the most high level corruption that has brought the country to a standstill but the blog focuses on mud slinging opposition politics and works against any form of support the opposition gets from member countries that the former ruling party declared enemies. It is not surprising to hear, if I may propose another theory brought about by victimisation and torture in Zimbabwe, that the government can be behind the construction of these two blogs but it is definite the NewZimbabwe blog, government forces are involved because both are too naïve and ignorant.

When one compares the last two blogging sites/websites to the South African based site blogcatalogog.com, we find the home page is more user friendly and welcoming than any of the other two I have previously mentioned. In other words This site feels like a social space unlike the other two of ZimDaily and NewZimbabwe when you analyse the design layout. It gives room for anyone who visits the site to run through and get going with other sections that may not be of interest to one because the sites pages seek to demand attention from the lookers because it is very attractive.

The site is very open as discussions determine the directions the argument or story goes with lots of twists and turns that there is always constant reminding that there is need to rebuild the country not focus on adding salt to the wounds. This site uses not precisely but close to an In-depth/ Investigative journalism where it takes time by rechecking its facts with the public unlike the ZimDaily and NewZimbabwe blogs. The way the news and writing up on the discussion board is based in a more in-depth/Investigative reporting being found in the public sphere where it is easy to have the information decentralised. The reporting stands to take an objective style where as the blog members goal is to show no bias though it may just fall of objective perfection, but at least the style appeals to a broader audience. For example, if we look at the recent posts, one post under the group discussions; Africa-Awareness, Activism and Discovery which talks about Zimbabwean politics, it asks for people to play their part in changing Zimbabwe to head in a better way! In the same stylistic reporting, new journalism is practiced as the three websites paint their own versions of the truth with the aid of photo journalism and humanistic approach as the stories are negotiated through a one person avenue.

The three sites demonstrate the results coming from the un-filtering and filtering of comments like the advantages of quick feedback and openness to all readers can also backfire when you have the wrong people commenting and lying about their being and the story because of fear of being identified as who they are. Some of the photographs used in the photojournalism are not really necessary and most of these stories are not told in many parts as is the failure to realise the probability of each of them ending up in one viewing avenue.

Therefore in conclusion, I find it easier for one to be drawn to these social blogs/webs because they look more user friendly than the NewZimbabwe and Zimdaily websites but all websites do indeed benefit from the acknowledgement of user participation as the sites grow from the introduction of Web 2.0.

2009-09-25T07:42:00.001-07:00

wtf?? why is there a huge open space?? agh.

The Power of Successful Blogging

2009-09-25T06:43:00.000-07:00

Essay: You are the Power: The Impact of Web 2.0

The Power of Successful Blogging

The phenomenon of the ‘World Wide Web’, perhaps more commonly known as the ‘Internet,’ was developed by Tim Berners-Lee. His vision for the World Wide Web was that it would be a device for gathering and creating access to a mass of information through virtual human interaction and collaboration. Web 2.0 is a stage of development towards Berners-Lee’s ultimate gaol. There are various ‘systems’ that have developed simultaneously with Web 2.0 one of which is Rich Site Summary (RSS). RSS is a format designed to help regular internet users to narrow down information intake to sites that specifically interest them. You will find RSS feeds on more and more sites nowadays, as people are becoming more aware of its benefits. The development of Folksonomy, also known as collaborative tagging, social indexing or social tagging, is a kind-of bookmarking of sites which has become a collaborative way of annotating and categorizing information. Blogging is another system that stems from Web 2.0. It involves the notion of the production of self-published information. The benefits of blogging are broadening and increasing numbers of people are becoming aware its capacities. It can be accessed by millions of people all over the world at virtually no cost. My essay focuses on the blogging with particular reference to four different blogs created by visual artists as a mechanism of self-promotion. Wikis, another interesting system of the internet, is similar to Blogging, in the sense that anyone can create a hub of information and, like blogging, it can be updated and changed so that it doesn't become outmoded in its design, content and style. See http://www.charlesleadbeater.net/cms/xstandard/Web2.0_OVerview.pdf for further information with regards to the power of Web 2.0

Now that all the banal, predictable information has been covered and condensed into one boring introductory paragraph, let’s have a look at what this essay is really about: artists that blog and why? Blogs have become the newsstands of the internet world. In the ‘blogosphere,’ one can find just about anything from up-to-date news coverage, the latest celebrity gossip, sports commentary, fashion/styling tips, political propaganda to ‘how to tie your shoelaces in thirty-seven different ways!!. Different blogs will be analysed and looked at according to their content and style with relation to how they have made use of blogging for networking to benefit themselves. I am also interested in the context of the g with regards to ‘origins’, whether it is South African, African or International. Here, the international ‘blog-artist’ of concern is the infamous Damien Hirst, who is also a part of the well established Young British Artists, (The YBA’s with the other parts including, Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin). Hirst is an example of someone who has used blogging to his advantage. A South African example of a successful blog space, is that of Avant Car Guard, a trio of young men from Johannesburg who work collaboratively towards one goal. Concerning an African blog, i will navigate two examples. Jepchumba, a Nigerian artist living overseas is a digital wiz and is also responsible for the creation of the site called African Digital Art Network. This network is where one will find a link to both her own blog as well as that of Kenneth Shofela Coker.

Avant Car Guard, which started as a group show called At Dirt Contemporary, is made up of Zander Blom, Michael McGarry and Jan-Henri Booyens. Together they encapsulate an aura of silliness which aids the nature of their very different and often very quirky work. In an interview with Robert Sloon, which is posted on Art Heat’s blog – http://artheat.net/?2009/09/avant-car-guard.html- Zander Blom explains what it means to be a part of Avant Car Guard: “It’s a thing of hanging out, getting drunk and coming up with ideas. It’s not sitting down and this is our fucking manifesto, this is what we work with, this is our brand.” Avant Car Guard has their own blog at http://avantcarguard.blogspot.com/. The design of the site is simple but effective comprising a mainly a white background. Their signature mark is a simple logo comprising a triangle, square and circle in primary colours and juxtaposed on top of the three shapes, a hand yielding a sword and a pirate-skull flag. The blog comprises solely of photographs taken at their latest exhibitions/shows. The most recent post is of photos taken at their exhibition at the Johburg Art Fair in April this year, titled ‘WHATIFTHEWORLD.’ The photos show them riding around the gallery space in a golf cart that is covered in A4 pieces of paper, with AVANT CAR GUARD printed in bold letters. It looks like they’re having a pretty fun time, drinks in hand and so on. In fact most of the photos, show them having a couple of drinks and smoking in pretty much whatever they are doing. They have a kind of a ‘rock star’ element about them, although in the interview with Sloon, Blom explains that their ‘look’ is more about a “punk sensibility than a rock band sensibility.” On the Avant Car Guard blog, there are no write-ups or blurbs about their work, it is an endless stream of photos, showing the boys doing their thing, whether it be drinking, working or playing. To them it’s all one thing. It’s what they do. It is Avant Car Guard.

Avant Car Guard, at their exhibition during the Johburg Art Fair, April 2009.

Damien Hirst is said to be the richest living artist of our time. If it has anything to do with his blog it would be understandable as his blog truly fantastic. It is the most virtually interactive blog that will be discussed in this essay. Here one can fill in a poll based on what you think of the artists work. When viewing the statistics, it was interesting to note that the majority of people who answered the question, “What do you think about my art?” chose the option, “I’ll answer you if you pay me.” If one is in the mood for a bit of online shopping, this is also a possibility on Hirst’s blog. There is the option of purchasing ‘the cheapest art in the world!’ which are postcards titled, “For the Love of Paris Forever,” (a photoshopped version of his famous Diamond Skull that was worth 50 million pounds) and “For the Love Of Paris,” an altered iconic image, with the letters ‘You got to love art!’ placed diagonally across the whole image. This is a play on the whole notion of copyrighting images, except it is ironic in Hirst’s context, as the slogan, which he uses often, is placed there on purpose. Hirst’s sense of humour never fails, which is evident here in his little online shop, as he has provided art to buy for ‘the rich,’ and ‘the poor.’ The exact same postcards are shown below each title. While the cheap art only costs 1, 5 euro, the expensive art which is exactly the same as the cheap art, costs 1, 000 000 Euros!! Then for the real Hirst fans, one can purchase an item of “You Got Love Art!” clothing. The clothes come in various styles of t-shirts, hoodies and even boxers and thongs. Like any other blog, one can decide to follow Hirst’s blog, and therefore will receive news on his latest updates. Hirst’s most recent posts, are titled photographs, with rather bizarre descriptions below them. The photographs are part of a series titled, “White Plastic Windowsill."

'For the Love of Paris Forever'

‘For the Love of Paris’

The classic thong, for only 6, 50 pounds.

The two African blogs were found on a site called Global Voices Online, which provided a link to the site called African Digital Art Network. This site, created an artist of the diaspora, Nigerian Jepchumba, is where one will find a link to her own blog as well Kenneth Sofela Coker. Jepchumba’s blog is actually called Afrodigi Studio, which a space where she posts all her work for her fans to view. She works with digital and new media, graphic design, audio/video production, 3D/2D animation. With this range of skills under her belt, it seems only right that Jepchumba would choose the Internet as a platform for self promotion and an ideal place to receive recognition. On Afrodigi Studio, you are offered the option of looking at all of Jepchumba’s artwork, under the genres of videos, web design, artwork and graphic design. There is also the option of contacting the artist, whether it is simply just to communicate with or if want to hire her as she offers a whole range of web services such as; print and web design, audio/visual production and digital media consultation.

An example of Jepchumba's work.

Kenneth Coker’s blog is also an artist of the diaspora. He is 22 years old and from Lagos, Nigeria, although he currently lives in Memphis, Tennesse. He is an animator/illustrator who has successfully created a blog where one can easily view his work and get insight into his artistic endeavours. The purpose of his blog, as he explains in an interview on African Digital Art, is because he is trying to start up a career in the animation industry. He also uses the Internet for inspiration, as it allows him to access sites such as Drawn.ca and Notcot.org, which are also sites that focus on animation. On Coker’s blog one can view his full multimedia portfolio, which is obviously advantageous to someone trying to start up a career.

Example of Kenneth Shofela Coker's animation skills.

The four artists mentioned above have all successfully illustrated the capacity of blogging as a useful instrument and expressive tool of global accessibility. It is also important to note the professionalism and the skill involved in each artists blog, skills which create an available and continual link to their interests as artists. This is because they are able to add and update information that is relevant to the blogs general content, interesting and fresh, all the components needed for a successful blog. From here they can launch their own careers as successful artists in both the virtual and tangible sense.

A platform for promotion

2009-09-25T06:28:00.000-07:00

what an mission to put this up online. the one problem i have with the internet is you have to be invited onto a blog like this and trying to find the person responsible for that took a few days to track down. none the less rather late then never i suppose.

Web 2.0 has revolutionized the way in which we, as the digital generation, communicate today and it is hard to escape. The internet, created by Sir Berners-Lee, has developed in a way in which we can send messages almost with in a split second and can share information without much hassle. In just over decade the world’s knowledge is just a click of a button away, figuratively speaking. In these up and coming times people are adapting to the ways of faster communication and ways of promoting themselves. Most people that frequent the internet would be familiar with social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and most instant messaging programs, all of which are available due to Web 2.0 and all of which have changed the way in which we communicate. More time is now spent looking at a screen talking to people then actually talking to the person face to face. Despite the repercussions it holds for personal relationships and social skills these communication tools can be greatly beneficial as the bridge between countries is getting increasingly smaller and as said knowledge is more accessible to more people. In relation to the art world, the World Wide Web can be a major asset and be used to an artist’s advantage. Some artists even use the web as their canvas to their art works and purely by the amount of views that their site has received have become known for their works.

The topic which I find interesting and I wish to address in this essay/blog is that artists can now use the internet as a tool for promoting themselves and their works. They can expose themselves to the world at a low or no cost at all. Not only can they promote them selves via the web pages but can also find other sites that are looking to promote and broadcast up and coming artists. For an artist that wants to discover what the market would be for their works, this could be a very exciting prospect. There is a huge scope for individuals, which are unsure of how to start and build a name in the art world, by using the tools given by Web 2.0. By just creating a website or setting up a blog page, any one from around the world that comes across the web site will be exposed to that artists work. By looking at three different blogs from around the world, namely South African, African and international blogs respectively, I wish to explore and discuss the different ways in Web 2.0, and mainly the use of blogging could be used to promote or encourage the promotion of local artists.

The ways in which people blog is not necessarily dependent on to their location in the world but rather the reason for the blog. When looking at the ways in which people promote their local artists around the world depends on what aspect of promotion they are trying to achieve. A blog which wanted to raise awareness to a certain artist would post pictures and detailed information about the person in question whereas an organisation which is looking for local artists to promote would approach the blog in a different way which I will address a little later. It would be a major assumption to say that an American, for example would blog in a different way to a South African, although some people do blog in different formats and styles, but isn’t that personal preference and style? What would that have to do with where you live around the world..

Firstly I will look at the South African blog, Brand South Africa Blog. It deals with the promotion of a hat/helmet known as the Makaraba which is common in South African sports supporters’ attire. The main contributing factor of the blog is a YouTube clip taken from Business News 2010 CNBC which explains the whole concept and creation process of the supporter’s helmet. These helmets are constructed from normal everyday construction helmets and are transformed into, what some might view as works of art, which could be worn and later kept as a collector’s item. Each one is hand crafted and unique and originally decorated in the fashion of the different soccer teams, now branching into the national market and incorporating different sports, teams and countries. This blog aims to bring awareness to this product due to the up and coming 2010 Fifa World Cup held in South Africa. The blog also provides a slide show with images, of individuals wearing this product, from Flicka, a site devoted to the upload of people’s photographs. Links are also supplied so that one could follow Brand SA on Twitter (a networking blog). By logging onto this blog one would also be able to make and access the comments written about the product and the general hype about the impending 2010 celebrations.

The African blog that I have chosen to look at and discuss, African Art Online Blog, promotes the local artist in a different light to that of the South African. It addresses not only one but a few artists from around Africa, many of which have traveled over seas and done independent exhibitions with great success. This blog highlights the artists and back rounds with a few images of their works. Links to these artists’ main pages are given too making an interested viewer go and look at their work more in depth. Each of the blogs for each artist is written by the managing director of the web site and organisation behind the blog, Tania Bale. The featured artists are updated every month so that new talent is exposed to the viewers of the blog. One browsing through the page can also search for other topics relating to African craft and issues according to the categories which might interest them more then the featured few.

And finally the last of the blogs which I looked at is an individual’s blog from Lexington, Blueline, which appeals to local artists to display their arts and crafts at the Boomslang Carnival, local to the area. The writing of the blog is very colloquial and is written as if talking to a friend. The main point of the blog is to invite artists from the area to apply to showcase their works at the carnival without any cost, the main point is to display their works to the public and hope to make a name for themselves in the process. The intention is purely to promote talented artist despite the alleged “brain drain” that Lexington is apparently experiencing and to prove that there are still talented people within the community. Although the blog does not appeal or apply to anyone out side of Lexington the blog is still there for the world to see. To be able to share the knowledge to the greater playground of what the web has now become. The blog does not contain any special additions of links, videos or slideshows but it is what a standard blog would appear to be, just someone speaking out to the public about what is going on around them. Promoting and raising awareness of artists could be this easy, someone just letting artists know where there is a platform to expose themselves to the general public.

Comparing all three blogs above shows the different approaches to which one could go about promoting artists on the web, or even the different types of formats for blogs. In the case of the international blog it wouldn’t be necessary to add links to YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and such sites as the focus is more on the up and coming artist in the community unlike the South African blog which consisted mainly of links, video clips and photos from other sites. In the South African blog this was the appropriate approach in relation to the market in which the product is directed. Its positive attributes would be that one wouldn’t have to read the article but rather just watch a 5 minute clip which explained the product entirely. To the lazy viewer this is ideal. These different approaches are directed to the public which would read or view them in a way which would best put across the message and appeal to the directed market. The ways in which one wants to advertise their art is now entirely up to them with great help from the internet.

Essay

2009-09-25T05:15:00.000-07:00

Our world is an ever changing, and developing place, each day new things are discovered and become part of our daily lives. Technology is something that we have come to rely on in all its forms, from electricity in its most basic form, to all modern forms of transport. Technology has served well to make our lives that much more simple. Web 2.0 is probably one of the most innovative inventions of our time, it is dynamic, relevant, highly useful and something that today, most people have come to rely on for various reasons, from research to communication. The internet, or Web 2.0 has opened up hundreds upon thousands of doors that previously were difficult if not impossible to access. In the larger sense it is what connects the world today, and allows it to be referred to as a global village, where everyone and everything is connected. The internet first came about as a means of communication, and is still such, in many forms, from e-mail to facebook to blogging. The last of which shall be discussed and examples of an African, a South African and an international blog will be compared and analysed. Looking at the style of the writing, the aesthetics of the actual blog and the general similarities and differences between these three very different blogs. Blogging involves a process of posting up writings, from stories, to experiences, to memories to essays on the internet, the public is then open to comment on all the writings, giving their opinion as well as encouragement and criticism. A blog can be seen as an online discussion that absolutely anyone can take part in, a truly free-for-all, where freedom of speech is the main component. The three blogs that I have chosen to look at are all art blogs, generally discussing, introducing, and giving recognition to artists from Africa, South Africa and Internationally respectively. Blogs are a way of communications, a way to broadcast or share oneself, or as they are commonly referred to as online diaries. Just as I am now blogging about other available blogs!

The first blog that I will be looking at is entitled African Painters, which gives write ups about several artists from all over Africa, including South Africa, conversationally it discusses their lives and works giving informative blurbs about them in a way that is approachable. It includes artists worth their salts, artists of interest. Its own abstract of the blog is as follows:
Here is a blog about contemporary art on and off the continent of Africa. To push forward the concept of African cultural development I have created this blog but more importantly than that it's a place where we can blow-off steam and discuss the impossible task of defining a continent.

This blog archives back to May 2007, beginning with seven entries, in other words seven artists were first looked at. The blog is in no way narrow minded; it covers artists from all over Africa, in all the art genres, from drawing to sculpture, as well as including a look at fashion on the African continent. Designers as well as artists are given a chance to showcase their work on this blog. The works chosen to put on this blog are both unique and distinctly African, showcasing our distinctive African Heritage. “African Painters” the pseudonym that the writer of this blog has adopted , discusses, in a very approachable style the chosen artists work, talking about style, history, inspiration, medium, as well as making use of appropriate and interesting quotes to give each discussion that much more substance. The blog even looks at our own Jane Alexander, one of South Africa’s most prominent artists, a forerunner really. Artists from as far up as Egypt are given recognition as well, making this blog very cosmopolitan in terms of the African continent.

The next blog that I will be looking at is entitled Arcy Art Original Oil Paintings, originally a look at the work of Rudi Carstens, it has now branched out to look at the work of artists from all around South Africa. It describes itself as: Information on South African art and artist as well as the original oil paintings of South African artist Rudi Carstens. A very simple straight forward blog, that showcases the original artworks of South Africans, and gives large recognition to Carstens. The blog was last updated in 2008, which is a whole year more up-to-date than the African Painters Blog. However this in no way discredits either of these blogs. The blog began in January 2007, and has been frequently updated until September 2008. The blog provides background information, as well as discussing the artists works, their commissions, who they have painted for, as well as the conventional; style, medium and so on. The blog covers art genres from religious painting to wildlife painting, giving the reader a complete coverage, making one feel as though one has gained something of great significance, culturally, from reading the blog. Although all the posts are rather brief, they are thorough in their coverage of the essentials. There are also fewer posts on this particular blog as compared with the African Painters Blog. Again as in the African blog, the writer goes by the pseudonym, of the title of the blog, in this case Arcy Art Original Oil Paintings is the author. By keeping this blog brief and to the point, and by discussing artists that readers would find interesting this author has created a small jem.

The last blog that I chose to look at, an international blog, entitled Contemporary International Artists and Art Works, takes a broad look at artists from all over the globe, giving blurbs, like all of the above about these artists, basically discussing contemporary art in our world today. This blog’s archives date back as far as late 2006, and it is the only one of the three that I have chosen that is up to date, as in September 2009, meaning that all the work shown and discussed is relevant in todays day and age, and is still widely accessible. The blog showcases art work from as far abroad as India, as well as the traditional west and also Eastern Europe. The work shown and written about is of a completely unique nature, aptly falling into and characterizing the contemporary genre. Some of the work is the type where one has to look that much deeper in order to find the desired meaning, or not even the desired meaning, just a meaning that would satisfy the reader, however this is this blogs most wonderful point, and it is in this that I have found it to be the favorite of my chosen three blogs. The works are so different that one cannot help but appreciate them, the more one reads and sees the work featured on this blog, the more one wishes to see, and to carry on. The fact that it is so long and extensive is in no way daunting, as it might be for the African blog I discussed. If one appreciates art in its truest form, one cannot help but read on. I would say that the best part of this blog is the amount of Eastern work it shows. In South Africa, we rarely see such art, being that we are mostly exposed to Western art, along with our own South African art as well as African art. Learning about art, or anything really from the East is a refreshing new outlook on the way we see the world, as generally the West has given us certain preconceived ideas about the East, by mystecising it and attaching certain prejudices to it that we have come to accept as the truth, even though these ideas are so far removed from what the East actually is. (Edward Said’s theory on Orientalism).

All of the above three blogs showcase their wares in the best possible way they, as the authors know how. Each of them show contemporary art of all styles, and all genres within contemporary art. Blogging in itself, as can be gathered from the above is a wonderful way of getting ones work, as the artist, out into the open, letting the world see ones work, and along with the writing shows the public how exactly to appreciate the work for what it is. Blogging is an amazing way to shares oneself as well as ones passion for the world, as well as other things and people, i.e. artists and art. It has in essence opened up a whole new world for the modern artist, shedding new light on art that was never there before. Artists and art appreciators alike can now share their work and passion for one of the greatest achievements of mankind, from the beginning of time, to this very day. With blogging, the art world now seems infinite.

Soap Boxes and African punters.

2009-09-24T12:01:00.000-07:00

In today’s technologically advanced world, putting one’s art and opinions up onto the World Wide Web seems to be a very simple endeavour. If, however, you are one of those unfortunates who are challenged in the area of technology, it is a bit daunting. ‘Blogging’ may be a tool used for many of years now, but to some, it’s as foreign as another country. I fall into the latter category and to be honest, I have paid more or less no attention to the world of blogs. I have never been a fan of technology and would rather have a discussion with some-one face-to-face, than sit in front of a computer for hours- getting a headache. This essay will therefore be my exploration into the ‘blogging’ sphere, using three different blogs as my test-subjects. The South African example is ‘Kelly Berold Photography’, the African one is ‘African Painters’ and the international blog is ‘New Art’. All three blogs deal with art within the countries they originate from. Only the South African one is familiar to me. The other two, I literally had to Google. That’s going to show how little I know about blogging. Incidentally, I’ve decided to write this essay in a more informal and, mostly, in the first person. As a blog ‘newbie’, I personally definitely relate better when the author appears to be speaking to me, not at me. I am going with the general blog aesthetic.

Kelly Berold is actually a friend of mine. This is partly why I chose to explore her blog. She is a UCT film and media graduate and has started her own blog as a platform for her work as well as to advertise her services in the photography and media industry. She has posted quite a few of her photos onto the blog and has given a brief and personalised statement about each different ‘project’. The tone of her blog is informal and colloquial, which is refreshing as a few other blogs that I have perused, have left me bewildered and lost at times with the amount of pretentious art ‘lingo’ being slung around a small and insignificant corner of the cyber world. Berold is not one of the contemporary art heavy-weights (yet), which probably contributes to her unassuming approach to her blog. Her site has colourful text and her photos incorporate lots of colour. It is fun and quirky- reminiscent of Cape Town’s hidden secrets. The talented little jewels-in-the-making, the students that will take on the world. Kelly’s blog is relatively new so she has not made many posts, however, she has still managed to showcase her vast range of talents as well as a professional veneer.
The ‘African Painters’ blog is big. When I say big, I mean there are a lot of posts. There is also a big variety of topics. They all stick to one central theme- Africa. There are mini-biographies on various artists such as Ingrid Mwangi and Eria Sane Nsubuga; ‘New Talent’ biographies on Kossi Ankude, Krisito Assangni and Anagossi Gratien; and quite a few posts reserved for synopses for a host of Alex La Guma’s books: “A Walk in the Night”, “Time of the Butcherbird”, and “In the Fog of the Season's End’. The range of topics is glorious. From Diaspora to African fashion design, it is all pretty much covered. No-one can leave out the subject of politics when it comes to a previously colonised country, and this blog does not disprove that opinion. Representations of ‘blackness’ and ‘Islam’s black slaves’ are just two examples. This blog is definitely more formal and there is a lot of descriptions and art analysis. It is a huge African blog that deals with the age old question, ‘But what does it MEAN?’. To some, that is perfectly acceptable. They have no problem being told what to think. I personally feel that one should make one’s mind up for oneself.

The ‘African Painters’ blog in no way shares the light-hearted feeling that one experiences when looking at the ‘Kelly Berold Photography’ blog. It is all very serious and not really about the promotion of people’s art. ‘African Painters’ is more about promoting other people’s opinions on artworks that they themselves did not make. There is almost a ‘hero-worship’ feeling to it- the bloggers sitting behind their PCs, firing word-bullets with their witty and intensely intellectual statements. There are quotations and articles attached to the posts on the ‘African Painters’ blog, whereas ‘Kelly Berold Photography’ does not have either. The former deals with a whole host of artists and issues, whilst the latter deals with only one person. Kelly’s blog was written by herself as were all the posts. The ‘African Painters’ blog has posts from various and different people.
Both blogs deal with art in different ways and have shown me what is out there in terms of locally as well as in the greater part of Africa. My exploration so far has enhanced my respect for blogs and people who go through the time and effort to set them up. It really is a great way to promote yourself (as in the case of ‘Kelly Berold Photography’) or to learn about new artists (‘African Painters’), as well as expressing your opinion to people other than your long-suffering friends, who have undoubtedly heard it all before.

The international blog, entitled ‘New Art’ is (as far as I can tell) a blog started by a Polish blogger called ‘vvoi’. It deals with mostly Polish art, as well as architecture, exhibitions, music and politics. It is written in the first person and is quite informal. There is an impressive post about Maurizio Cattelan versus Francesca Woodman. A mini expose about copying or ‘referencing’ other people’s artworks for your own. Beautifully clear and interesting photos have been put up to accompany various texts as well as to show the reader a bit about art that we might not know already. Mostly, the blog is focussed on ‘vvoi’s’ opinions and rants. The blog has been running since the year 2000 and is definitely the ‘oldest’ blog I have looked at. There are plenty of posts and comments- mainly from friends or acquaintances of the blogger.
This is an excellent example of what blogging can do. It can not only be a forum for discussion of contentious issues, but it can be used for social networking as well. One’s work or totally random thoughts can be read by others. The result of which is endlessly exciting: job opportunities, etc. It shows how an individual amongst billions of other people, can be heard- can be given a platform. An anonymous and become known.

‘New Art’ offers exactly what it says: art. Any form of creative thinking. In this way, it is the same as the other two blogs discussed previously. It differs in that it is not formal and ‘stiff’ like the ‘African Painters’ blog. It is, in the term of the colloquial, ‘chilled’. It does, however, discuss work that (to my mind) is not focussed on that much- Eastern European and African. Both sectors are really upping the ante as far as exposure and talent is concerned, and blogs like these certainly help with this regard. It also differs from ‘Kelly Berold Photography’ as it is not focussed on a certain individual- nor is it the author’s intention to promote his own work. It’s more a discussion board, which Kelly’s blog is not. It is a well-organised blog and quite easy to access- which, let’s face it, is the most intimidating part of joining the cyber-world. There is nothing worse than sitting in front of a blog and thinking, ‘what is going on here?!’.

My exploration into the scary world of blogs has come to an end. I have read and researched three different blogs- one South African, one African and one international- thus satisfying my essay instructions as well as attempting to conquer my fears of technology. All three these blogs are different in their own ways, but the most prominent difference is the tone used in them, respectively. Going from personal and colloquial, to almost militant in the promotion of African art and the ‘de-colonising issue’, to the laid-back atmosphere of Eastern Europe (who have just cause to lament the fate of their countries, but do not do so).
I do not know if this experiment of mine has changed the way I feel about blogs. On the one hand, it is an amazing tool that can and should be utilized to the fullest extent by those of us who are too poor to hold exhibitions or do not have the connections. And then there are those of us who are studying in the middle of nowhere in the Eastern Cape. On the other, it opens you up to, at times, quite nasty and unnecessary criticism from people you do not know. Also, if you are just too lazy, blogging will not make your life any easier.
To me, blogging is the cyber-age’s answer to standing on a soapbox in Hyde Park, straining to be heard over the jeers of the people whose brains you are trying to infiltrate with your own propaganda.

Liesl Brenzel AHV3
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Newspapers and blogging

2009-09-22T22:46:00.000-07:00

The lecture series You are the Power: The Impact of Web 2.0 couldn’t have come at a better time for me. As a journalism and an art history student and just after this lecture series ended, Highway Africa, one of the biggest journalism conferences in Africa, happened in Grahamstown. The theme for this year’s conference was “Reporting Africa 2010: Development and Democracy” and the key focus was on information and communication technologies (ICTs). Therefore an interesting parallel was drawn between my two subjects: their future and how the Web can help to advance them.

Because of the parallel that was drawn between these two subjects, I decided to focus my essay on newspapers and how blogging can work to enhance them and allow them to reach a bigger audience. For both subjects, blogging allows readers/followers to critically engage with the content being presented to them and with each other. They create new platforms on which to view work and readers can comment on other people’s blogs or create their own platform on which to express their views. Blogs make use of the Web technology known as Web 2.0. This refers to web based on communities that allows its viewers to interact with one another and change the content that is found on the website. In other words, people can own and control the data/media that is on the site.

While the internet is proving to be a threat to the traditional print media, it is helping the art world to grow and become more accessible to the general public rather than keeping it as an elitist subject. The print world has had to adopt New Media into its vocabulary because of the dying nature of print and blogs are one key component to doing this. Nearly all newspapers now days have a blogging outlet for its readers. This means that readers can comment on the daily articles, contribute to the newspaper or read what is going on electronically and thus, you don’t have to be situated in the same area as a newspaper that you would like to read just as you no longer have to have access to a specific gallery if you would like to see a specific work of art.

I chose well known South African, African and international newspapers that have blogging sections to them, namely South Africa’s The Mail & Guardian, Kenya’s The Standard and The USA’s The New York Times. I thought that it would be interesting to see how different countries/continents handled the same concept of blogging and how successful/unsuccessful I find each of their blogs by examining their content, contributors and the user-friendliness of the blogs.

In my opinion, The Mail and Guardian blog – Thought Leader – is extremely successful. The website is easy to navigate and there is a lot of content on it. Thought Leader makes use of opinion and analysis by M&G writers, contributors and by anyone who has interesting, intellectual things to say. Anyone can become a blogger on this site however, people are screened therefore one cannot automatically become one. The site is screened by the M&G editorial team, therefore all of the content is of an extremely high standard. Well known people from the media and other walks of life are bloggers for M&G. Some of these names include Rhodes’ own Guy Berger, head of the School of Journalism, the artist Anthea Buys and politician Patricia de Lille.

Thought Leader breaks its content down well for the reader. There are tabs for the days featured posts, most read and comments. One can also view the different blog entries through specific searches like looking at the most popular entries, the contributors from A-Z, subjects from A-Z or by subject (art, media, sport etc.). While the tone of writing on these blogs is academic, it is not over the readers head and therefore almost anyone can read and enjoy the entries. As there are so many contributors (at least 100), readers can find at least one if not more bloggers that they can identify with or who’s ideas they like or wish to keep track of.

Kenya’s newspaper The Standard has a page that you can visit that has blogs on it, however I feel that it needs a bit more work until it is up to the same standard as Thought Leader. The Standard is not very user friendly at all. Once you have clicked on the ‘blog’ tab at the top of the website, you reach a page that only has five links on it. There are only four regular contributors to the blog, three work for the newspaper namely Rose Nzioka, Kipkirui K'Telwa and Stephen Ndegwa, and the final blog is the Editor's Choice.

The blogs are not broken down into topics or any other sorting mechanism besides who wrote them. One cannot view previous blog entries unless you click on the person’ name and a list of their previous blogs pops up on the side. While most blogs have a little blurb about the person writing it, The Standard’s blog does not. Beyond telling the reader what the person’s position is within the newspaper, there is no more information. While this extra information is not crucial, it is nice for readers to try and connect or find some common interest with the writer themselves.

With all of these criticisms being noted, one must compliment them on the excellent quality and high standard of the blog entries. While they mostly deal with content from the newspaper, they are thought provoking, interesting and they challenge the reader. They are not simply comments on the stories but analysis and intellectual opinions. Although the blog is not very user-friendly, once you get used to it the content makes up for it.

I was expecting great things from The New York Times blog however I was sold short. While there are a lot of different beats covered (arts beat, at war, media decoder…), they are seemingly jumbled and it is hard to search through them for an article that you are interested in because they aren’t listed in any particular order like with Thought Leader. However, under each section are a number of different articles written by multiple authors. These are interesting because they’re all varying lengths and there are often a few that cover the same topic by different contributors which allows for different opinions and analysis. This means that one doesn’t have to trawl through countless blogs to find a few that are on the same topic, they can simply click on the topic they’re after and there will be different views presented to them.

Each blogger does not necessarily write a new entry every day however there are always at least a couple of new entries on varying topics. The New York Times blog has an extremely wide base of topics, some to do with news content and others that are just for fun. The second critique that I have of the blog is if you click on the wrong article that isn’t linked to the blog then it will take you to another section of the website for example, World news. When you click on ‘blog’ on the home page, a new window or tab does not open up but the homepage changes to the blog page. This shows that the blogs are not a separate website as with thought leader but are simply an extension of the site. They do not have their own identity that they can stand on such as a quirkly little name or a catch phrase.

Overall, I feel that blogs really are an excellent way to integrate the readers into news content that is produced, keeping them focuses and keen to read more and thus helping to keep the newspaper industry alive. I expected the African (Kenyan) blog to be slightly behind in terms of technology compared to South Africa and the United States however, I did not expect for the South African site to out strip the American one in terms of user-friendliness and the look and feel of the site. I’m not sure if I’m being biased because I know some of the contributors of Thought Leader or because I’m being patriotic but I really feel that it was the best site if you’re looking for open discussions around news content and more. Web 2.0 has already helped the internet and applications advance by such an extent that I can only wait with baited breath so what is next on the agenda. However, social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter are really helping for journalists to become ‘digital journalists,’ thus reaching wider audiences. Blogs are one of the best ways to reach and keep people hooked on journalism as they are interactive and anyone can participate with them.

Essay

2009-09-22T11:43:00.000-07:00

It seems a rather logical contradictory to post my essay on a blog in which I have already divulged myself of reading almost every single one of my fellow classmates’ essays. But nonetheless, it also seems silly to me to lose my DP this far in the game. So, I will make use of my true devotion to the age of information and quotation and sap all the gathered information into a culmination of my ‘oh so unique’ essay. And then revel in the pleasure of the fact that I cannot be punished for an academic fault in a non-academia field. Namely, the blog.
Oh the joys of knowledge.

Critically discussing three blogs spanning across an entire globe, and in turn relating each to a common characteristic, will be the attempt of this essay. And how wonderfully close lie the themes of a Western blog to that of the ‘African’ blog. An African blog, (not complete without the popular African theme of the Big 5) discussing the ever dying children of their country, wooden pots and curios for sale with limited, if any connectivity to the web seems so banal and unimportant when I could be reading the Western bloggers interest in how some self indulgent celebrity just bought their 4th mansion in the Hampton’s. The same celebrity who advocates giving and helping the less fortunate by buying the wooden pots and curios. I suppose it is important to note that this complete generalization and nihilistic claim has absolutely no substance as I haven’t actually ever read such and such in any blog. But I am almost certain that if I looked, I could find the ever concerned blogger spending all day writing about how said celebrity should be doing something about poverty in this or that African country.
That’s a lovely Mac laptop you’re typing on concerned blogger.

The nihilism herein is not intended to criticise the act of blogging or the moral values and ideals of the bloggers. In actual fact, blogging spaces must certainly be commended for the ability of having created a practically free public domain in which -amongst others- strictly religious fools (I mean folks; Freudian slip for academic purposes) and atheists alike can create anything they please and then battle it out anonymously on the commentary. It definitely serves for entertainment and occasionally, enlightenment. I suppose that to some it may just come across as an easy way of having your say without any physical confrontation, and for others that is exactly its attraction.

Amongst its other various perks, it can include the creation of alternate identities. This brings us to our first website entitled ‘Second Life’. I’m not sure if this could be a South African, African or international blogging site as it could be considered as all three. I’m not sure if it could be considered a blogging space at all, but let’s appropriate and explore for the ongoing prospect of gaining knowledge.
Second Life is a virtual world in which one could literally create a second life or parallel universe. It is accessible to anyone and free of charge (except for the fees Rhodes pays- but it’s on appearance not a physical dent in my pocket, so hey.) It works much the same way in which a blog does. One creates a profile, (fictitious or real) and as evolution goes, it differs from the traditional writing blog in that it enables one to interact virtually with other users across the globe. It is currently the largest user-created 3D virtual community imagined and designed by its residents. Each person, depending on their geographical location, can create their part of the world which allows other people to visit it. So if (in my opinion) I literally create Grahamstown, South Africa, Africa as a tiny bubble in the sky, until someone with a different opinion and same location extends or changes that, everyone in the virtual community will experience it as destination: Grahamstown, tiny bubble in the sky. Besides for that fallacy, much the same as all blogs, the life you create and follow on Second Life could be completely fictitious or anonymous and as extravagant as you please. Think Sims on steroids. For further information on Second Life: Second Life Info

The second blogging space could pass as my international blog. It is another appropriated blogging space that does not fall completely within the confines of the traditional writing blog. It does involve text (mostly) but is orientated towards creating a more ‘personal’ space. The website is called ‘Postsecret’ and involves individuals physically posting postcards with their secrets on them to the editor of the blog, Frank Warren. Frank then picks the top secrets and posts them on the website every Sunday. The fascinating attraction about this website is that people can create and divulge any secret about themselves or others to the public in a creative manner. It is set up as this immaculate ‘personal’ space created just for you. You know- the one where the whole world can read your secret. Right. I suppose the morality of such a ‘blog’ is another matter for another time. But it certainly holds for a brilliantly interesting blog space. People can comment on each postcard, again, much the same as the traditional written blog. For further information on Postsecret: Postsecret blogspot

The third and last blog I have chosen is a South African written blog by a very opinionated lady. Laurian Clemence’s blog is entitled Mushy Peas on Toast and is an account of her ‘true’ everyday day-to-day. The blog has won many awards (yes, there are awards for blogging) of which these include: best new blog, most humorous blog, most original writing, 2nd place in SA blog-off etc etc. I believe that the reason she has won so many awards and why her blog is so successful is not her wonderfully sickening pink background (which I’m almost certain was a joke on her behalf) or her ‘pansy-ing’ around with boring topics. She makes observations of experiences she or friends have had and posts these on her blog. Relatively simple one might think. But I suppose the real success lies in her brutal honesty. Oh- and probably her down right potty mouth. Nonetheless, it is a brilliant read.

The common characteristic I have tried to highlight with this analysis is that all blogs have the potential to hold a secretive quality. They utilise mystery and illusion, perception and creation, alternate identities or universes and the expression thereof.
The relative theme noted in all the above mentioned blogs is also the potential for anonymity and the seeming authorship we have over our ‘creation’: our alternate life in Second Life, our endless creativity in Postsecret, and a true expression of ourselves in the everyday traditional blog such as Laurian Clemence’s devil-may-care one.
As much as these are subject to different ideas again, of morality, blogging is also seen as process of self-reflexivity, exercising desires and the ability to choose to stay anonymous throughout this whole process.
In conclusion, I’d say that blogging with web 2.0 is probably ranked up there as one of the best forms of expression around and it is certainly the most interactive, information sharing tool around.
And it’s free.
Who doesn’t love a bargain?

g07c2484

2009-09-22T09:17:00.000-07:00

kinda was hoping to add these with my submitted "essay"

2009-09-22T05:21:00.000-07:00

student number:g07s5350

Web 2.0 is a form of networking allowing one to receive and distribute information within a certain network for example facebook and youtube. It has drastically affected the dissemination of information on the internet making it easier to find what you are looking for. This essay will discuss the ways in which blogging, which is a form of social networking, can be used as a tool to promote and market visual artists. By comparing three blogs, one international one African and one South African, which either focus on or reference in some way the Johannesburg based art group Avant Car Guard, I will explore ways in which the persona of the art group is marketed.

Avant Car Guard is comprised of three young men Zander Blom, Michael McGarry and Jan-Henri Booyens who joined their art making forces in 2006.They have worked in various art mediums together including photography, performance, painting, video and installation. The first time I heard about the trio was last year in a Blunt magazine-the only thing I can remember was being interested and slightly disheartened by their explanation for their name; there being no currency for the label Avant-Garde in today’s society. Since 2006 they have had many exhibitions in Cape Town and Johannesburg as well as exhibiting in New York and Berlin. In July they had a solo exhibition at the Brodie/Stevenson art gallery in Johannesburg. Within only three years of art making they are now being called the "Holy trinity of the local art scene" with their light-hearted, satirical stance and a knack for mocking the art world. I think their rebellious brand of art as well as their fashionable ‘indie’ persona and their use of marketing it, via blogs, appeals to the younger market. Many critics have stated their lack of faith in the group progressing “It always seemed that Avant Car Guards flippant and irreverent brand of art had a sell-by-date. It is expected for young peripheral artists to challenge the pretentions of the art world they are yet to be embraced by” With the title of their recent exhibition being “Scuse us while we kiss the sky (as in, we’ve hit the ceiling)” it seems they are aware of their ephemeral position, but with their striking, garish new use of aesthetic seen in their paintings their work seems to tell otherwise, suggesting that the threesome might just have a few more tricks up their sleeve.

CHANGETHETHOUGHT is an international blog I will be looking at. It began in 2002 as a portfolio for young American designer Christopher Cox. Since then it has expanded into a resource giving other artists and designers from around the world the opportunity to add and share information on anything arty or of interest (prophecies of alien contact in Alabama or new recipes for cooking a batch of methamphetamine for example of just a few). The Avant Car Guard blog begins with two brightly coloured images, The Bitch who saw tomorrow and Because you’re worth it; paintings exhibited at their recent exhibition. The brief description of the artists and their medium below the images sounded vaguely familiar, upon revisiting the art group’s website via a link given I realised it was a direct quote from their website. This brings me to my first observation upon visiting vast amounts of blogs on the art group. Plagiarism is easy and rampant especially in an environment where sharing is encouraged, there seems to be no structure that protects the ownership of text or images. This could be potentially harmful to an artist. Only later did I discover that Christopher Cox was the master mind behind the Obama advertisement campaign that flooded the media during and after the presidential elections in 2008, considering this I realized the site is probably quite popular and frequently visited, also further assisting the advertisement of the art group. At the end of the blog there is the option to ‘share + bookmark’ the page, I didn’t know what this was at first but with a little exploring I found this option gives the reader the opportunity to pass on the information to anyone one of a range of ‘bookmarking sites’ including ‘stumbleupon’ and ‘digg’ where the information could be disseminated among a different network of art hungry individuals. At the end of the page there is a space for one to leave a comment and share ones thoughts and opinions on the artwork.

The second blog is called 54BEATS which is dedicated to bringing unity to African youth. It is an open space for African writers, journalists and artists to share and locate news concerning politics, economics, arts and culture. The website encourages freedom of speech, expression and activism. In comparison to the last blog this site focuses on communicating up and coming news to the members. The blog on Avant Car Guard is basically an advertisement for the exhibition they had in April at the What-if-the-World gallery in Cape Town, it gives a short description of the exhibition, two images of their work from the exhibition and a photo of the artists. This brings me to my second observation of how blogs can be used to create and promote an artist’s persona- When talking about a persona I am acknowledging that any artist working in the public sphere intentionally or unintentionally creates a personality that can be very helpful to the audience in relating to or orientating themselves around the artist. In Avant car Guarde’s case they are conscious of their group having a ‘punk sensibility’ as described in an interview with Robert Sloon. This punk persona is portrayed through their photograph displayed in the blog, through their posture, clothing and setting. Through this photo one can’t help but think that these guys are “hardcore”. There is also a link given to the Gallery’s website for the reader to find out further information about the exhibition. At the bottom of the page is a space to post comments and start discussions related to the blog.

The South African blog I will be discussing is Avant car Guard’s own blog. They have a myspace page, but the blog that I want to focus on and which I find most interesting is their photoblog. It is frequently updated compared to their myspace blog and I’m guessing it is the most popular being the only blog advertised on their website. Basically the blog is one long strip of photographs arranged in chronological order. To the right of the photos is an archive bar giving the viewer the opportunity to select an exhibition title or month.It gives the viewer the privilege of stepping into their world by being able to view the creation process’ of their art works, the set up of their work in the gallery space, the exhibitions and shows, the after parties and documentation of their travels. This blog best promotes their persona because it is created and updated by the artists themselves. They have control over how they want to be perceived through these images, which is in keeping to their punk sensibility. In a recent interview with Robert Sloon Avant car Guard expressed their views on how they see themselves.

Michael Mcgarry: I don’t think it’s that strategic, we wanted to make things that were very authored and confuse the issue further.

Zander Blom: I think 80% of that was “Fuck lets try this!” a big part of its trying new stuff.

Jan-Henri Booyens: Someone gets an idea and we execute it. Someone says “hey lets build a raft”, then we build a raft.

ZB:It’s a thing of hanging out, getting drunk and coming up with ideas. It’s not sitting down and this is our fucking manifesto, this is what we work with this is our brand.

Avant Car Guard Is a lifestyle an attitude and the photographs on this blog I think do the best promoting for the art group by holding to and displaying their ethos.

Help!

2009-09-21T16:08:00.000-07:00

Why do my links look like this!!!???

Essay: New ways of viewing 'the other'

2009-09-21T15:44:00.000-07:00

student number: 607f2567

A blog is an online diary that consists of entries that take the form of articles writings, photos, web links or other entries made by the blogs' creators, or "bloggers." Blogs can be used for various purposes such as work or even just for fun. Viewers of a blog can respond to the blog by posting comments on the blog page. Blogging is made possible through web 2.0 which is,(according to wikitionary) the second generation of the World Wide Web, especially movement away from static webpages to dynamic and sharable content and social networking. Examples of Web 2.0 include social networking sites such as face book and video sharing sites such as YouTube.

In this essay three blogs will be discussed; one South African, one African and an international blog. The blogs that I have selected deal with the subject of contemporary African artists. The term African artists is often assumed to refer only to ‘black’ African artists. I am taking the viewpoint that ‘contemporary African artist’ broadly includes non Caucasian race groups such as Indian, Asian, Aborigines. The three blogs that I have chosen are the Gogol’s Coat blog, African works blog and the Ashok art gallery blog.

The South African blog that I looked at was entitled Gogol’s Coat, and it was created by a writer who works under the pseudonym Peter Profitt. This blog has archives that only date back to June 2009.Therefore it could be fairly new .The creator of the blog on its homepage adamantly states that “this blog is neither a travel notebook nor a diary…” I find this statement quite interesting considering that a blog by most definitions is a web log aka an online diary. This blog consists of a collection of articles that the creator has collected on various artists. These articles deal with South African artists as well as artists on the African continent. What is engaging about this blog is that it also contains elements of the authors, personal experiences on journeys that he has taken where he encountered various art forms.
The blog has items on not only art in the ‘traditional’ sense but art that is particular to the local people of a particular country
The article ‘The art of trucking, Malian style’ describes one such adventure on which he encounters the tradition of ornately painted lorry trucks that occurs in Mali. There are other contemporary artists such as Moshekwa Langa, also other artists are drawn to my attention-such as photographer Santu Mofokeng. There are also many interesting snippets such as the article on Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave. An observation that I made with this blog is that there are few comments posted in response to articles. I think this is partially due to the fact that this blog is a collection of newspaper and journal articles that have been put together. As a source of information the blog is accurate. The creator of the blog has cited the date and name of the publication which he sourced the article from, therefore one could always go to the publications website to check the validity of a reference. When I clicked on the option to post a comment I found that all comments have to be approved by the creator of the blog, which is a good thing and a bad thing at the same time-because the creator could just choose to allow only the positive comments.

The second blog that I visited(The blog from an African country) was the African works blog and it deals with contemporary art works from Africa. This blog was created by Ed cross, who is based in Kenya and works as a curator/dealer and art collector for a London based art collection. He has a Degree in History of Art from Cambridge University. This blog is primarily an account of the exhibitions that he has curated himself, of work by contemporary African artists and there is also a post about one of his own art shows. The advantage of this site is that it provides information about African artists. I think this is very important, because there are not many institutions that focus on African art. A tertiary institution like ours hardly touches on African art.

I feel we do not learn enough about the art that on this continent that we live in. For instance in this blog there is a post about the Dakar Biennale which I did not know even existed!
The creator of the blog also responds to some of the comments that are made on the blog. An interesting work is that of Freddy Tsimba, from Kinshasa who creates sculptures from welding spoons and bullets. As a sculpture student I find this really interesting not only because of the materials he uses but also on the political commentary that I think his work makes on the maiming of women and children during wars which take place and continue to take place in African countries to this day.

This blog has the feeling of a travel diary, combined with an art review style. This blog brought to my attention terms such as “Ethiopian modernism" which I have never heard of before. What drew my attention to this blog was the fact that it portrays African countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Zimbabwe as countries in which a culture of art-making exists. It allows for a whole new shift in thinking-suddenly countries that are portrayed as comprising of nothing more than a population that is starving and ravaged by AIDS, are seen as creating works of art.

The international blog that I looked at was the Ashok Art Gallery blog. The purpose of this blog it seems is to promote upcoming exhibitions. This site deals particularly with upcoming Indian artists. The home page consists of a description and images of Indian artist Sajal Patra’s work. The post on the page is posted by art historian Dr Pradosh K. Mishra, so it has the quality of an exhibition review. Mishra has also written many of the posts on this blog. In addition to these posts there are also posts that are taken from published media such as newspapers and magazines; this is similar to the Gogol’s Coat blog. This blog also includes links to other media such as videos from YouTube and links to other relevant websites, there are also links to a photographic tour of some of the exhibitions. The images in this blog are copyright protected in comparison to the images on the other blogs which are not, therefore the images can only be viewed, they cannot be copied into other programs or applications. Another interesting item that this blog makes use of is a live traffic feed, which enables one to view the list of different users from around the world that are visiting the blog. Although the entries in this blog are quite long, they are written in a more formal style, which I think is due to the fact that this blog is not so much an online diary but more of a marketing page for the gallery as well as for the artist whose works are on show.
The African works blog combines an academic style together with a colloquial style of writing. The similarity between the African works blog and the Ashok art gallery blog is that they both present a review style of posting regarding the various works or artists that they are blogging about. The blog by Peter Proffit in comparison comprises of mostly collected articles regarding various African as well as other artists, with his personally written posts his writing style becomes similar to that of Ed Cross of the African works blog.

I think that blogs can be useful to a certain extent. With the three blogs that I examined I found that they provided other source material such as links and images about specific artists. The video links of news interviews were particularly insightful. However the advantage of blogs is that they provide information that’s current (not necessarily accurate in some cases), this process of looking through blogs has opened my eyes to a whole new range of work that people are doing and creating. As an art student in Grahamstown I think blogs are incredibly useful as they allow one to view works by other artists from all over the world and see how other artists are tackling issues that one is trying to solve in one’s own art. As a student in Grahamstown it is easy to become stuck in the mentality of living in a ‘bubble’ because it feels like we are disconnected from the ‘real world’.
We have less of an opportunity of seeing works of other artists we seem to be confined to looking at other students’ work instead of the works of other artists.

2009-09-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

essay g07t2774

2009-09-21T15:30:00.000-07:00

I have always wanted to be writer, but alas I was not born with the skill of writing. I used to sit for hours trying to perfect my English creative essays at school, all I wanted to do was to write a literate masterpiece, but unfortunately as much as I tried I just couldn’t do it. One day my art teacher explained that their were just some people who thought in words, some people in images and others perhaps scientifically (but she didn’t know much about that), so I decided if I couldn’t express myself in words I must be an image person, and so I gave up my writing career, but never my passion for the written word, and decided to create images. Last year I went to the Johannesburg art festival, and it was amazing. All or most of the gallery’s of South Africa came together to exhibit some of their best works. It was really hard to take in each artwork as there were hundreds, I was quite overwhelmed. In fact if I think back on the festival I only remember a few artworks and even less actual artists (you would expect more from someone studying fine arts). One of the artists I do remember was Willem Boshoff, all his work that was on show fascinated me. When I saw his name as I walked into the gallery I recognized it as we had spoken about a few of his works at school, but nothing extensive. This I must admit, made me pay more attention to his work. My schooling came in handy as I whipped out the few facts I knew and recognized an artwork much to my aunt (who had taken me to the exhibition and is very arty and intellectual) and her friends delight . Although Bosshofs works had just proved that I wasn’t some 1st year art student who was learning nothing and drinking my life away, and I was actually learning something (which hopefully I prayed my aunt would tell my mom) it was really breathtakingly fascinatingly beautiful.one of the main things that interested me the most, as my aunt her friend and I examined the works was his success in combining the written word, with visual art in the most interesting ways.This made me think that there are more then one way of thinking, in fact there are millions and the combination of more then one way of thinking and seeing can create something so beautiful. When we got this essay and I was thinking of ideas of what I could possibly write about I suddenly thought about Willem Boshoff and decided that with the guidance and inspiration of Boshoff I could surely get somewhere with this essay, perhaps I would even write a master piece.
With my idea entailed and inspiration oozing out of me I began to use my new web 2.0 skills to research as Boshoff. One of the first Blogs I came about was Myrtle street reviews which is a West Oakland based blog ‘about slightly sideways reactions to things’. The Blog is quite interesting and the writer Susanna Varestus proves to be a very entertaining writer. She explains a few of Boshoffs works beautifully showing her obvious passion for words and poetry. Her descriptions of his works are extremely visual. The blog only has one image of Willem Boshoffs work which was disappointing but it has a few links to other websites with the artworks that Suzzane explains. In a way I found the Blog a bit disappointing as it explains that it is reacting to things in a ‘sideways’ manner but the Blog itself is quite boring. I would have loved to have found a Blog that was exciting as the subject matter the Blog discusses here is exciting. Other then that the Blog explains Boshoffs works brilliantly. One of the works she describes is a project Bosshoff did in the eighties. In this work Boshoff worked for 370 days consecutively for seven hours every day, detailing everything he had achieved and done in that day, in a way it could be said to be a diary. He called it wooden calendar when he finally finished the work. Suzanne explains the work and its connection with poetry and words beautifully: “The 370 Days Project seems to me a gorgeous poem about the universe, about the secrets at its root, and about what we can know. A language known only to itself can only reveal itself to us in glimpses, in segments of code, in shapes which we may or may not misinterpret. Finally uninterested in stalking us, having discovered enough entertaining ways to manifest itself through us, language retreats from the garden. We hear only a slight rustle as it, like a jaguar, softly leaps into the great jungle. The story is not something that we can even begin to know. We are left to prune our bushes, plant our flowers in rows and harvest our fruit trees, creating order instead of meaning”. It is these kinds of descriptions of Boshoffs works by Suzzanne that excites me, it shows the magical connection between visual arts and words as well as the mysterious difference between the two. I also really enjoyed this Blog as it shows that via web 2.0 the whole world can be a critic or a writer, this woman has beautiful views on Boshoffs works which perhaps would not been read if it wasn’t for the web.
One of my favorite art works Willem Boshoff created was “Garden of Words’ which he put up in the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. The work is beautiful and was public for all to see. I came upon a few Blogs which discussed the work. There were quite a few random blogs I found which discuss this work. One Blog which focused mainly on food had a small piece written on the work and that is just one example of the many random blogs not relating to art at all which talked about this artwork, every person giving his or her interpretation of the artwork. Dennis Laidlers Climate change, Biodiversity and environmentally sustainability blog even had an article on the artwork. The artwork had a great interest to Dennis (the main blogger) as the artwork deals with extinct and endangered plants and flowers. The installation comprises 15 000 'artificial flowers' representing 15 000 endangered species. Dennis explains that he believes that the artwork is doing a great deal of good as it will make people aware of the reality of problems such as the extinct and endangered species of the world. The rest of the Blog deals with issues of climate change biodiversity, although Boshoffs artwork deals with the effects of perhaps climate change and the effects that we as a society have on the environment, much of what Denniss’s blog deals with, it is an artwork and not something one would expect on such a blog as the one Denniss has created.This to me is inspirational and just shows that the internet today is joining many spheres of study, any one once again can be a critic. Denniss also put up incredible pictures of the Garden of words, they were definitely the best I could find on the internet.
While researching Boshoff on the internet the most exciting thing I came upon was interviews I found with him on YouTube. These were the most direct and I found most interesting as Bishoff describes some of his works and shows as well as explains some of the works he has created. YouTube to me is the most insightful as it is a personal interview with Boshoff. The exciting thing about web 2.0 is that you can get hold of interviews and personal accounts of people and artists such as Willem Boshoff, this is exciting as an interview of an artist and their insight of their ideas on their works as well as getting some sort of feeling about their personality gives me or any other viewer more insight and a better idea of the artist and his/her artworks. Willem Boshoff is an incredible artist and I have learnt a lot from researching him on the internet. Researching Boshoff has also helped me to grasp a better view of just how many people one can inspire and that anyone can write for the world to read an any persons ideas of an art work or an artist. There weren’t that many Blogs about Bosshoff which were very extensive, but there were lots of random arbitrary non art blogs which described and dealt with his works in new and interesting ways with new and interesting words and phrases to describe it. I think that these new descriptions and ideas put across by these bloggers about Willem Boshoff works should be the inspiration for a new art work, or maybe this could be my new inspiration for the beginning of my art meets word masterpiece

African Painters

2009-09-21T14:36:00.000-07:00

student number: g07b3434

Tim O'reilly played a vital role in the inception of the Web 2.0 giving us the opportunity to create new web links and for us to have continuous access to websites such as youTube, Facebook, Wikipeadia etc. which are a few examples of Web 2.0. The web is a place in which people can interact, get information for either research purposes, leisure or entertainment. The speed in which the information can be generated in this web of sites is very fast and easily accessible to many in an instant. The introduction of web 2.0 increased the transmittion and generation on information world wide. That is the reason this place of "network-accessible information" is referred to as the world wide web (known as "WWW', "Web" or "W3") .

Within the WWW there are blogs such as the one we are using presently to display and post things ranging from pictures, comments and videos. An artist such as myself that is interested in painting can easily access and gain information from different art blogs from South Africa, Africa and Internationally. This essay will be discussing, comparing and contrasting the styles and way of reporting that is found in these different art related blogs.

The arttimesjournal.com is an international blog which serves as a journal and resource site for all art related topics. It has reviews, art essays and topics posted under different headings such as"travel and culture" and "speak out" etc. This blogsite allows the user to search for any information by simply typing any word in the "search this site" space. The information comes up on the screen and the user is ready to utilise the information as he sees fit. The art times journal has a serious tone such as that of a newspaper, seeming to appeal to sophisticated and well-informed people. The African painters are not necessarily discussed in detail individually in this blogsite. The focal point for the posted blog is African art as a whole even though I had typed in the words "African painters". Olga B. Spencer, the poster of the blog, focuses on the history and stories that led to the influences on African art. He reports in a very personal and expressive manner. He touches on one African painter named Bela whom he terms 'outstanding' since his style of painting reflected the genuine life in African men and nature. The tone in which Spencer reports is also in a factual, informative tone, without intentions to entertain. Spencer appears well -researched and clear on what he is reporting about. This is evident in his display of good historical background, seemingly precise dates and geographies, and good grammar. The art times journal is more of a website than a blog because one can only access information as it as and cannot alter or post new things as they feel. It has a publisher and one can subscribe to it etc. as one can for newspapers or magazines.

Africanpainters.blogspot.com is more specific and particular about the African painter or artist that is being written about. It is an African blog which is about contemporary art in and around the African continent. From merely reading the heading of this blog one realises that the style of this blog is layed-back and not too serious. According to the creator of the blog he mentions that he has created the blog "to push forward the concept of African cultural development...but most importantly than that its a place where we can blow-off steam..." In other words one can post anything and everything they feel like posting either to share their opinion, express their frustrations or joys, or for mere entertainment's sake. Within this blog one can post videos, comments or information. The layout of the blog is long and not quite interesting to follow. The style of reporting is light-hearted and the grammar used is not very complicated or sophisticated. It has a lot of quotations from the artists themselves and also each artist is discussed briefly. Included in the report on the artist is the artist's influences, inspirations and current affairs. The good thing about this blog is the some of the artists' Awards are mentioned and the achievements they have achieved up to date. The videos and pictures work to the advantage of the blog in that it keeps one interested in the blog and provides appealing visual that accompany the sometimes long passages of information.

The South African Mail&Guardian online is an electronic version of the Mail&Guardian newspaper. This to me is a website which includes blogs within it because there is not much freedom to alter, add or delete information. Most of the information on this site, which I will refer to as a blogsite, is fixed. There is also a "search" space in the page which will lead you straight to the place of interest. In this case I entered 'African painters' once again and entered into a page recoving 1-10 pages of search results. The results did not particularly pick out African painters, but mainly wherever there was the words "painter" or "african" in a title there would be highlights. One had to undergo a long process of choosing the right heading to find the right information. Most of the information in thie Mail&Guardian online seems to be very enlightening and deeply informative. I came across information such as names of African painters such as Jessica Webster, Mark Taylor etc. Their addresses were included, work hours, telephone numbers, city and venue names within their individual pages. This shows how specific and helpful the M&G online aims to be. Information on the artist is well reported, in a formal and definite manner. The page also allows one to share the information on Facebook. The style of reporting in this blogsite is factual, informative and descriptive to the smallest detail.

In conclusion, it is clear that these three art blogs, South African, African and International do share a common goal of making information on the artists accessible to everyone. They try to allow people to have freedom of speech by posting whatever views they have onto the blog. However, they differ in that some of them such as the M&G online and Art times journal have publishers and by that the structure and the style of reporting will tend to be on the formal and serious side. Appealing more to those who are keen on researching instead of mere entertainment.

2009-09-21T13:05:00.001-07:00

i so wanted to title it "The Ramblings of a Confused Art Student....." ha ha

Essay:

2009-09-21T12:46:00.000-07:00

g07k3115

The Internet was created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, in 1990, using a "hyper text mock up language" called HTML for global information sharing. The Internet then moved on into the generation of what is now known as Web 1.0. Web 1.0 is charaterized by the way that it links information from one source to another, and from ther to another.... and so on and so forth. We now live in the internet generation of Web 2.0 whereby information and sites are not just directly linked, but are an intertwining "web" that links various sites through key words and phrases, where resources are freely available through each other and bounce back and forth and not through a "chain" of links, where it is not one person sending out information but many people contributing to a site from opposite ends of the world sending out data simultaneously as well as receiving. Examples of Web 2.0 that are known to most of us are Facebook, youTube, and blogs such as this one...

I will be looking at three art related websites, firstly the South African ArtTimes, secondly the African Asai, and thirdly the International ArtFagCity, and comparing and contrasting them through critiques of how they 1. work well 2. dont work 3. could improve 4. what they do and if it is achieved.

Arttimes is a website that follows the printed publication, it is kept fairly up to date and is informative in the way of feeding readers snippets of news and critiques that are featuring in the publication. The top stories are online and one can view the first few lines and thereafter decide if they wish to view the more of the story. It works well online purely as an "advertising" space for the publication as it is not all encompassing in the South African Art world online, in the way of hyperlinks and links to other related websites etc.... so to that extent it does not take full advantage of Web 2.0. One can engage with the website to a certain degree by being able to view previous weeks articles and stories as well as being able to subscribe for updates via email. It provides information on artists and upcoming or previous/current exhibtions, it also provides news on what one can expect to see at these exhibtions as well as book reviews. There is not a vast amount on this site as there is a publication that the creators would rather have peole subscribe to but for people on the go it is great as they get a few interesting stories to scan over and keep them updated. The site could afford to be more interactive in the way of news feeds and fuller stories online, and possibly have more reviews and feedbacks on the actual website. As far as the pictorial side of the site, it does not have a wide variety, it has the pictures of the week and one or two pictures to view alongside each story. Being a publication that is also online it is refreshing however that the stories are done by various columnists and not one person however one can see through the lack of commenting space that it is primarily a printed publication and that the website is secondary to that publication.

As far as my African website goes, i chose Asai, which is a very interactive and user friendly site, upon entering there is a screen where you click on the topic or category you would like to browse through which has its' own subcategories and links eg : Artists, Events, Bibliographies, Writing with perspective etc... It is primarily an online publication and this shows through bulk of information and links it has, there are fuller stories, conversations, opinions and speeches etc... there are more categories and posts to choose from and the site is pretty easy to navigate around. Asai is very informative in the way of Archives, organisations, Artists and Articles that they post from the book, Third Text Africa. This website aims at rekindling the relationship between the South African Art Scene with the rest of Africa and is directed at those who can't access art information, pictures, exhibtions, publications and reviews and so they are merely a click away from accessing those things now, assuming they have access to the internet. While the site could benefit from more links and feeds from other websites (Web 2.0) and more pictures of exhibtions it works well to fulfill it's primary purpose.

Artfagcity is a New York focussed website that is done in a blog like fashion whereby, there is a list of pictures followed by a story: be it on an artist, exhibition or art news story updates, there are a few links to the fuller versions of the stories and highlights and links within the site but Artfagcity definately does not, in my opinion take advantage of Web 2.0, yes it is applicable to a location specific group, that of artists or art interested people in New York, or people internationally just wanting to see a few subjective highlights on the art scene in new york, but it does not include many feeds or reviews etc.... it is fairly well updated and kept up with current happenings but as far as being interactive goes, this is not the site for that. Many of the titles or links are at the bottom of the page and appear rather muddled - there is not much structure to this site. It does provide a variety of options on accessing the information the site has to offer, just there is no particular layout that allows for easy access to the information on the site. This site would be far more effiecient and beneficial if it were more user friendly and made a greater use of news feeds and information on similiar sites or hyperlinks allowing one to find an abundance of information on the same topic they are discussing...

Through my own critique of the above websites, I would say that yes these sites do serve their purposes but within their own target groups and in order to be more "Web 2.0" compliant that these sites could extend far further into other realms of the online art world and incorporate more information on their focussed groups and feed in even more information from other sites to creat a larger database where whoever may be viewing their site can interact more with the goings on and not just catch snippets of stories or reviews and view more online exhibitions and interact more with other likeminded people and what may be happening all over, simultaneously.

essay

2009-09-21T11:28:00.000-07:00

Student number: 606v0686

The process of doing this particular assignment has been quite frustrating. Firstly, the nature of the assignment is in itself ambiguous. It is not an essay in its' true form, as it is being posted on a blog, which essentially makes it a blog post. No strict academic regulations are enforced for example a plagiarism declaration, reference to academic sources and so forth. Its almost like blog pretending to be an essay. I have already read some of the essays posted on the blog at the time of writing which consciously or not, has already affected my approach to the assignment. What I've ended up with is a quasi essay style blog that is very personal in its response. An unwanted bastard essay if you will. Secondly, the full benefits of the internet are not fully realised in this country as bandwidth is expensive, slow (which been the bane of my life since I started surfing the internet), and limited. Something which is unheard of in other, more developed countries. The internet is a vast resource of knowledge (it also has to be stressed though that it also contains; for lack of a better word; a lot of bullshit) but is not enjoyd by all. This became very apparent when looking for African blog sites. Even the art related blog sites are few in comparison to their international cousins.

The task of comparing three different blog sites from different countries seemed dubious to me in the beginning. Blogs are personal entries and the idea that they will be intrinsically different in style due to geography seemed a bit suspect. In most blogs I frequented I could see no real difference their approach. The main difference consisted in the focus of subject matter etc. For example an African blog named Aachronym, http://aachronym.blogspot.com, shares all the same qualities as any other blog. It states that focuses “on art-equity and cultural patrimony issues, Nollywood and African new media”. The blog is written and maintained by S. Okwunodu Ogbechie who describes himself as a social entrepreneur and is an art historian. He is based in California, U.S.A, which does raise the question of whether it is a truly 'African' blog. What exactly constitutes an African , South African or international blog? Ogbechie writes from his home in California, using the infrastructure installed by Americans on technology most probably manufactured in Asia; about African culture. Globalisation has destabilised former notions of identity, but the focus of this essay is not to find answers for these questions. For all purposes; Ogbechie shares an African identity with African interests. This will suffice in labeling his blog as 'African' for the time being.

As I have mentioned, geography does influence the way an individual use the internet. Not just in terms of connectivity due to infrastructure and other logistical obstacles, but also in terms of focus and law. I read some worrying articles about an Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer who was charged with insulting the Egyptian president and an Islamic institution http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6385849.stm. He was subsequently sent to prison for four years. There are numerous cases similar to this one in different parts of the world. A blog is really a platform where people should be free to express themselves. But as history tells us, conforming to ideologies of freedom are ultimately just a form of self deception. As with any publication there are forms of censorship at work. Whether censoring ones' own blog or by being censored by someone else. But freedom to say what you normally would not say does increase through the use of blogs. A post on artheat.net titled “No Willies” got my attention. The post was written in response to Marijke van Velden's work “Pierneef goes Dulux”. A Work which won the Sasol New Signatures competition. The blogger, Robert Sloon, called for young people to “Show some balls” this inevitably attracted a lot of response and comments. Comments that either defend or slate van Velden. Needless to say a lot of the comments were made anonymously, a feature of blogs. One does not need to take responsibilty for what has been said, which makes it easy to say anything; good or bad. This differs from traditional and established art publications.

A lot of comments on blogs seem to steer completely off the topic. One would think that immediate commentary and debate would be able to provide a platform for serious and in depth debate, however a lot of it just seems to be making jokes and saying crude things. An article I read on Obama http://www.artfagcity.com/2008/07/31/exploding-obama-and-other-public-figures/ made quite interesting comments about the inherent violence which photographs contain when portraying certain celebrities and icons. The writer of the article compared something to Lord of the Rings and described Saurons' eye as a flaming vagina. The only comments were made in reference to this 'flaming vagina'. No thoughts were express in terms of Obama and the article, but the thoughts on Lord of the were enlightening though. This takes us back to our African blogger in California. Mr Ogbechie also wrote a few articles on president Obama. The tone of these articles were quite serious and it was obvious that Ogbechie was relishing in the fact that Obama was elected president. A few comparisons can be made on this subject. The international website offers more critical views and representations of the American president. Often accompanied with humour, while the African blog serves to inform rather. The most I could find on artheat.net however was a photo of a woman's bottom with Obama written on her underwear http://artheat.net/2008/11/obama.html. Which in itself says a lot about the spirit and anticipation of the time.

When comparing these different blogs one should be careful again of the conclusions that can be made. None of these blogs can offer a common national viewpoint. It cannot be said that an African perspective of Obama is serious and jubilant, or that an American or South African viewpoint is more tongue-in-cheek. These are individual people writing with different agendas. Blogs like artheat function on a different level to ones like Aachronym. Artheat for example is set up as the antithesis to the sterile South African art publication, while Aachronym seeks for exposure of African culture. It would be folly to generalise such notions over a broad spectrum of people. Which is often reached when comparing tiny aspects over a vast multitude of different viewpoints and experience. Mr Ogbechie will always write in context to his American experience and will situate his views on African culture within this particular frame.

Blogs are regulated through the comments and responses written on them. It is difficult to trust them if they aren't. Since no scrutiny is is given to arguments before they are posted, like academic journals and similar resources. It is thus clear that a lot of a blogs credibility depends on the nature of the criticism on the blog itself. The internet can be a great resource of knowledge. The evolution of the web into an interactive system which allows for file sharing, and fluent instant networking between people greatly enhances the potential for even more information. As they always say the possibilities are endless. It seems a pity then that my experience of social networking, mainly consists of seeing embarrassing photo's of myself and spending hours downloading obscure and useless information. The information does not present itself in a linear fashion, and its easy to get lost clicking on links and ending up completely somewhere different to where you intended. Often forgetting everything that you have read.

Essay: Comparative essay

2009-09-21T09:38:00.000-07:00

Web 2.0 was designed and set up by a man called Sir Timothy Bernes-Lee. It is considered to be the platform for connecting all spheres of the world in connection to research as well as networking. Web 2.0 is used in our everyday lives through google, Facebook as well as YouTube, it is a social network and push pull technology, as everything is linked making it easier for you to find the information that you are looking for, through the convergence of information and the simplicity of networking.

Blogs are a diary approach on Web 2.0 which allows people to make themselves known as well as create their opinion on certain aspects, while being able to take the approach of being anonymous. Robert Sloon of Art Heat has created an anonymous blog, mainly focusing on art in Cape Town. His blog is known to have had more hits than Art Throb and he has become extremely influential in the art world although he is just a bar tender. During an interview that was held with him in one of our lectures he explained his alias as ‘allowing a democracy of information and an unfiltered approach to express oneself’. He created the blog to close the gap in criticism in South African art, as the gap is large with only two forms of publication; formal and exclusive spaces. The blog opens up the opportunities for young upcoming artists to advertise themselves and get recognized in the large pond of the art world.

In this essay three blogs will be explored and compared, due to their site and their approach on reporting, one from South Africa one from Africa and one International. The three sites that have been chosen all take a News type of approach to blogging, bringing up issues that surround the art world today as well as a space that is open to the public to put up their portfolios of their works to advertise themselves in the art world. All three blogs are not your ‘typical’ blog where it is open for the public to comment but they are considered to be blogs through the links that one can use to further ones research on the ‘hot’ topics. I think I may have chosen the most boring topic, which is quite vividly expressed through the different blogs.

Art Times of South Africa is a blog that keeps us updated in what is happening in the South African art world on a daily basis. It does not only refer to the straight forward types of news that one expects but it also keeps us updated on the ‘gossipy’ news too bringing a Heat Magazine type of feel to the art world. For example the upheaval that surrounded Tretchikoff’s Lost Orchid that was sold at the Kebble Art Auction held by Graham Britz in Johannesburg. It considers whether the painting is original or not and the stigma that is attached to Britz through the upheaval that is created around the issue. When following the links to other articles about this debate, the artwork in many instances has been forgotten and the main focus is turned onto Britz and how he is going to overcome the situation through holding one of the most glitzy 3-day-sales South Africa has ever seen next May.

This blog granted that it is based a News type of reporting (which some people generally find to be boring), is a slightly boring blog. It is very clean and clear cut making it easy for the viewer to find themselves around the site, with news updates every day. The colours are very plain and not vibrant, making the research on the site dull and unattractive. I also think that not allowing the public to add in their thoughts for discussion, as it is something that makes a blog exciting and innovative because it adds a different dimension to the aspect that is being covered, it makes the blog relatively boring. If you compare this to another South African blog Art Throb or Art Heat that are dealing with the same sort of things, are a much more exciting blog to view while also allowing you to put your personal opinion across.

However, there is a blog that I think is worse than this, the international blog that I have chosen. I would have thought that with the diverse cosmopolitan art that the international art world has to offer, this site would be more exciting expressing this of the international art world. However, for some reason this site reminds me of art before the Industrial Revolution, how ironic. It was very plain with the same sort of aspects and ‘add-ons’ as Art Times, South Africa. I suppose if you are surrounded by the issues and aspects that are brought up on this site it would be interesting. Something that is interesting is that there are many articles on artists such as Degas as well as contempory art. When on this site and searching for the topic of the Trechikoff debate, there was nothing relating to it.

The African take on art news reporting it is a lot more colourful and vibrant obviously not only focusing on one country but on all the countries of Africa that have a vibrant art world, some of which we do not think to consider in the study of art for example Mauritiana and Mali. The site is updated every month on the latest news and what’s happening exhibition wise around Africa, this is all shown on the home page of the site. When one scrolls to the bottom of the page all the artists names are there for one to click on to view their portfolio.

I think that I am more biased toward this blog because it is colourful and has a vibrant feeling about it, advertising African art in a positive way. There are many opportunities that the site has to offer; in the side panel there are job opportunities, artist of the month’s portfolio and how to upload your portfolio. This is an important aspect to this blog as it opens the opportunity for people that do not have the opportunity to exhibit their work in an exhibition space, to get themselves out there and advertise themselves in the big sea of the art world. One can view the portfolios, which have been categorized according to your country of origin, including countries such as Mauritiana and Namibia, which we do not consider in the art world. There are many links on the page to help develop you as an artist. The links cover every aspect there is to art from activism, auctions photography and digital art as well as workshop that are on offer. Although there is not a page where one can chat they do have a panel for frequently asked questions, opening up a chat sort of aspect with the columnists and organizers of the blog.

The one aspect that these two had that was different to Art Times is that their main focus was not purely art but all aspects of cultural activities such as theatre and music. This offered a lot more to the blogs as they offered a wider variety to the interests of people. Art Times was more to the point with no other aspects of interest to people in the art world. All that it offers is the update on news, exhibitions, portfolios and obituaries that would interest people; its focus and approach is straight forward.

All three blogs work well as a News type of blog through keeping us updated on the current affairs of the art world. The only thing that doesn’t attract them to me is their banality as it isn’t diverting from the newspapers we already have apart from being digital. I think that this will soon be the way that we get our news as technology advances more and more, as it is convenient and easy to access. People I believe are getting bored of the newspapers as they are the same and not changing, in their layout and size; these blogs are a new and exciting way of accessing News and the current affairs. They also allow one to be open about their feelings towards art giving that person a voice in the wide world, well on those that allow you to comment. They also open many doors to those people who do not have the access to exhibitions yet would like to sell their work and make a name for themselves. They offer a safe space that is open to the public to put up their portfolios of their works to advertise themselves in the art world.

What About Graffiti?

2009-09-21T09:06:00.000-07:00

The sharing of information, the need for artists to become known and the communication of art so as to inspire other artists has always been fundamental to the nature of art world, especially in the 21st century. In the past, the only means by which to access information in the international art world was through heavy hardcover books and journals. The concept of Web2.0, thus, has been a revelation in the art world, allowing for the interaction of people internationally to showcase their work as well as their opinion through the numerous networking sites. These ‘social networking’ sites have become the perfect place for artists to get noticed, feed off other artists and their inspiration, through a vast web of interlinked sources of text, image and multimedia data.

The use of the blog has become an ideal space of interaction. The useful nature of a blog lies in the fact that it is free, completely open and is a space where the anonymous nature of it can lead to the most interesting of discussions. The basic idea of anonymity, hidden identity and a completely free space of expression reminded me of something very similar in concept, the nature of the graffiti.

The discussion surrounding graffiti is ongoing and as someone who grew up in urban Cape Town, where graffiti and urban art seem to thrive, the exposure and influence of graffiti in the fields of art and design are inevitable. The discussion in blogs and articles are broad with regards to graffiti, ranging from documentation and the celebration of the art internationally to the inevitable protest against it and discussion of measures to combat it.

I have found that as an artist, my interest seemed to stray towards blogs concerning the support of graffiti, often arguing against combative articles published about it. I found vast difference in the quantity of blogs concerning graffiti in Africa compared to the international scene and found the majority of my information in South African and international articles. What I found interesting about the African blogs is that they were very sparsely contributed to. They contained interviews with interesting artists such as Solo 7 (the African artist I will be using in this piece) and were not supported by corresponding work or input. The international blogs were interesting in the thorough and academic means by which they were discussed. The arguments covered varying ideas and angles. The two most interesting excerpts I discovered were called “Visual Dissent: Art as Graffiti”(2006) and “Visual Dissent: Graffiti as Art”(2006).
I found the most interesting blog exerpts to be those which were purely interview based, as the nature of graffiti is in essence rather a relatively hidden, underground and withdrawn subjective experience, thus the interviews tend to illustrate enlightening takes on the experience of the Graffiti artist. Thus, my South African blog exert is an interview with South African graffiti artist, Faith47. Below, I will be negotiating a broad outline of the graffiti world, noting the views of the different artists and the logic that supports their will to do graffiti.

The world over, the act of graffiti is seen in the sense of being a deviant form of social process that, in it’s very production, is a civil disobedience. This need for civil disobedience is often a productive repercussion of the enclosure that is the urban environment. The urban environment can often create a platform for the use of drugs and gang membership, especially within the poorer communities. Graffiti art has often been written off in the public eye as being instilled in these social phenomena, thus it has come under scrutiny, been seen as evil and viewed in the same way as theft and violent crime. As many will tell you in the art world, this is not the case but is rather a lazy classification made by those who don’t feel the need to know any better.

From the urban sprawl to city centers, subways to suburbs, night club toilets to classrooms worldwide, graffiti has come into the eyeline of most city-dwellers. It is a continual and, in essence, temporary surge of angst clad rebellion. A mark left by its maker as a means of communication and monologue through the creation and mark of an alternate identity. There are many ranging styles and forms of graffiti, ranging from the a roughly scrawled “James was here” on the cistern of a public toilet, to the scribbled ‘tag’ sprayed on a newly painted suburban wall, to a 6 metre mural donned on a grey vibacrete wall alongside the train tracks. These differing means of what has been grouped as “graffiti” make it difficult to put forward a sustainable, sound argument in favour of it. As a recognized art form, the argument often lies in the support of the creative and artistic means by which graffiti comes about. Writers (or ‘bloggers’) seek to combat its social taboo, be it on the varying blogs or in a more academic manner. With this in mind, the varying opinions of people do contrast greatly to its support.(see nguirado) It is in an interesting debate that includes looks to differing notions of public space, language and text, social outcry and communication.

“Working on the streets is way more experiential” notes Faith 47 in her blogged interview with Matthew J. Faith47, one of Cape Town’s well known graffiti artists looks to, amongst other things, the reasoning behind the use of public space as a canvas with which to work. Her style of caricature and writing is elegant and smooth, a means by which she could quite possibly use the gallery space as a means of exposure, yet she feels the need for a certain integration and experience in her work. She puts her reasoning for the using a range of urban and suburban areas so as to: “Explore my own city. To avoid the inner city bluff. For fame and notoriety. To get up in different areas. To inspire some graffiti to come out of those areas. To get photos that can travel over the seas make people see reality in a different context.”
Her ideas lay open a wide variety of ideas that are inscribed in the context, aesthetic and experience of being a graffiti artist.

A Mural by Faith47

The differing means and reasoning behind the range of graffiti artists is an integral subject when looking to grafitti and its social function. The aesthetic of graffiti, apart from being a social rebellion in itself, often conveys a message and in itself, “performs a role in public debate, cultural life and even city beautification…a protest against everything every successful ad agency stands for: the commodification of public space, the standardization of the built environment, and the permission-based, central control of communication in the form of visual display.” (Visual Dissent: Graffiti as Art.)
Artists such as Faith47 and Solo7, being from very different socio-economic backgrounds, see the functionality of street art and mural making in differing light. Solomon Muyundo, aka Solo7 is an artist residing in Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya. His work displays very differing characteristics to the ‘wildstyle’ method of conventional Western graffiti. Here words are broken down through the facetation and the amplification of word, line and colour to illustrate the artist’s pseudonym identity. His message is in contrast, clear and easy for all to read:”Peace Wanted Alive”, a call for active and sustainable peace within yet another African nation wrought with internal conflict. His work is not done in the light of recognition within a scene, but is rather a call for peace within a previously enraged, fiery political area, a protest to the violent ethnic violence that followed the split power of the December 2008 elections in Kenya. The interview with him has shown a positive light into the art of graffiti from a journalistic point of view and illustrates the dynamic relationship between graffiti and social consciousness. Solo7 at work in Kibera

Graffiti’s role as subject within the media, notably newspaper articles and television reports creates a single-sided perspective, viewing it from a negative angle so as to not degrade the lawful perspective and inspire people towards involvement in ‘illegal’ activity. Thus the blog, in its interactive nature and and anonymous accessibility, allows us to get an all-round perspective. The two Visual Dissent posts explore a notably different perspective to the media, seeing the public as critical towards the notion of graffiti, contributing to the ugliness of the area in which it is made, thus overlooking the use of the technique as an attempt to communicate and internalize within the community the wide range of issues that they face. Faith notes to this regard “cities need a human touch…not adverts and billboards…we as people need to see what other people are thinking and feeling…not what the advertisers would like us to be thinking and feeling” (Faith 47)

The Web2.0 gives us, through sites such as Wooster Collective, The Streets Are Saying Things and Art Crimes, as well as various urban art and graffiti websites and blogs, a range of graffiti imagery, text and multimedia data, which is accessible to a worldwide audience. It is accessibility to an underground world that is viewed as only coming to light in the dark, early hours of the morning, virtually unseen to even the most inquisitive eye.
Web 2.0 allows urban artists from ‘all’ walks of life to capture their work and share it with an international audience, as well as creating a space to voice their opinions and ideals of their work through interviews and blog entries. Thereby setting in permanent record something that was previously seen as aesthetically temporary. This allows the artist to gain whatever it is they want from their art, be it the notoriety within the scene, recognition of their contemporaries, to send out a message of hope or to legitimate the experiencial means from which they feed.

hyper hyper hyperlink

2009-09-21T05:59:00.000-07:00

these hyperlinks are kak irritating!

BATMAN, SUPERMAN AND you

2009-09-21T05:47:00.000-07:00

Student number: g07e3613

Web 2.0 has provided the global community with the means to be in contact with anyone no matter where they may be at that specific time, whether it be another country or province. Internet and email are a great means to stay in touch with peers but blog sites, such as MySpace, Facebook or Twitter, have taken this concept and made it more personal. Now not only can one be in constant contact with friends but we can learn details about other individuals and independent companies that we have only met once or never met at all through personal profile pages that these blog sites allow ourselves to make. Blog sites have created a cyber community on the web making it easier to send and receive information about virtually anything or anyone.
In this essay I will focus on three different websites who make use of Web 2.0 to share in either the art or comic universe. The American based blog site Comic Blog Elite, South African based Vetseun and African Crisis which concentrates mainly on political issues in Africa.
The importance of being able to disseminate information and market oneself as a young up and coming artist is essential. This essay will discuss how crucially important blog sites have become to young creative individuals and comic book lovers as a marketing tool and how the World Wide Web is now a source of unlimited visual references and resources.
Being able to acquire information like this as a young illustrator, hoping to become a comic book artist, is very useful not only can one find out information about events, individuals and products around the world but you can also share information about yourself allowing others to learn more about you and your craft. As a young artist exposure is very important. Being able to get your name out into the art world and be noticed has never before been as accessible and easy as it is today. The process of constantly having to call and meet up with potential clients, curators and gallery owners to present them with a portfolio is very laborious and time consuming. Today an artist’s work can be fully documented on the web, using photographs or scanned images, and be explained through summaries of the work by the artist themselves via a blog site. The personal webpage on the blog site then becomes the artist’s virtual portfolio making it easier for potential buyers or curators to discover younger talent.
As a comic book fan keeping up to date with newly released issues of your favourite comic can be quite problematic especially when you, the fanatic, live in a different country. Today there are many blog sites and web pages created by other comic book fans across the world who constantly share and update information and as an illustrator who uses these comics as a reference for most of his/her subject matter these websites and web pages become very important.
Comic Blog Elite I will use as the example of Web 2.0 abilities as a sophisticated creation of information sharing technology in this essay. Comic Blog Elite is a collection of hundreds of different major comic blog sites contributed by individuals who constantly monitor the comic book world. This web site has divided its blogs into categories from the most important such as: “News and Reviews” to the less important, “Rants and Nonsense”. Comic Blog Elite discusses the activities of major comic book labels and corporations such DC and Marvel Comics and with the hyperlink system always active one can easily jump from the blog to your preferred comic book website. The site is updated everyday through the links it has to all its other websites that it is associated with. So when one of its affiliate websites updates anything, Comic Blog Elite’s link to the affiliate websites is automatically updated. So everyday from all over the world different comic book fans can always keep in touch or engage with what is happening in the greater comic world by posting, reading or commenting on different blogs.
Comic Blog Elite also houses blogs with information about all major and independent illustrators and cover artists, like Steve Dillon (Preacher) or Todd McFarlane (Spawn) their different styles and any up and coming projects that they might be working on. As an illustrator interested in learning about newer trends and styles making waves in the comic world, being able to acquire just such information so easily is big benefit.
Comic Blog Elite is essential to the comic book fan since now, in the time of fast progression in the world of technology, many people have lost interest in reading books. Graphic novels and comic books have recently been considered a dying art form because of its decreasing amount of readers and many of the big corporations (DC and Marvel) have turned to recreating its most popular titles into high budget films, such as The Dark Knight or Spiderman, in an attempt to resurrect comic books back to its former glory as a dominant pop culture.
In South Africa the graphic novel/comic book scene is not that big. Commercial book stores, like CNA, do stock a minimal amount of comic books but if you are a true die hard comic reader you would never find what you looking for in any of these stores. Commercial book stores such as these would not stock the more explicit and mature graphic novels such Preacher and The Boys because these exhibit extremely graphic illustrations of violence, even though they tend to stock Playboys and other adult magazines on their shelves.
In Cape Town there are only two book stores who only exclusively trade in comic books. One of these is The Reader’s Den in Claremont, a small book store with not many daily customers. Another major comic book distributor is Outer Limits in Jo’burg. South African based book stores like The Reader’s Den and Outer Limits require the information about their store and products to be freely available to all potential readers, so even though they do have their own website it is still crucial for fans to independently research through personal blog sites that then link up to established web sites. This is important because as a fan, of any kind of art form, you the viewer would also want a platform to engage with other comic book lovers and book store owners allowing everyone’s interests to be heard so that suppliers can have knowledge of what it is their clients would like to see on the shelves in their stores.
Unfortunately none of the sites I discovered based in South Africa were as sophisticated as that of Comic Blog Elite but they did provide information of the local comic trade, like GothamCentral.co.za and of the independent comic books such as Bitterkomix created by artists Anton Kannemeyer and Conrad Botes.
The blog page i discovered for Bitterkomix was on a local website called Vetseun.co.za. Vetseun provides the reader with a listing of every single issue of Bitterkomix since its official release in 1992. The publication has made many headlines in the South African art world for it’s harsh, over-the-top “take no prisoners” style of writing and illustration. Vetseun’s web page also displays the cover of each of these issues with a brief summary of what each is about and other details like guest contributors. Bitterkomix is not like the conventional story telling illustration that the public is accustomed to because conventionally the illustrations floating around our country are of a political nature. The artist nine out of ten times would usually be Shapiro, not that I am saying he is not a good artist its just that it seems our public seem to only be aware of the one local illustrator.
Which brings me to the African web page called AfricanCrisis which deals with political issues from all over the African continent. AfricanCrisis is not as sophisticated in the Web 2.0 design but string together a collection of different political cartoons and illustrations from around the continent, and the globe, allowing you, the eager illustrator, to not only be politically aware of situations in other countries but, but to get insights into illustrations styles that are not freely available on the mainstream cartoon and comic book universe. Illustrations can be submitted by the public and with each submission of an illustration different visitors to the site can view these cartoons and leave comments about them making this a fairly good blog site since everyone’s voice gets to be heard which is what “blogging” is all about and what Web 2.0 set out to achieve, give everyone a voice.
Web 2.0 is now in control of the way we communicate as a global society. We can access blog sites and web pages from the palm of our hands via cell phones, even gaming consoles like Playstation and Xbox have blogging sites that one can connect to via the console. With that being said all websites should be open to giving the public the freedom to voice how they feel about what is being said, what is happening around the world and on the web. Comic books have been an essential part of the better half of my creativity and the fact that people are now neglecting this dying art form is scary for me. Blog sites provide us die hard comic book readers with a platform to keep engaging with the comic world and fans all around the globe in an attempt to keep this great art form alive so that new and exciting writers, illustrators and readers get given the chance to share in their one common love, COMICS.

Bibliography
www.africancrisis.co.za/article.php?ID=40735&
www.vetseun.co.za/anarkans/skryf/hondbkp.htm
www.comicblogelite.com

Going Digital

2009-09-21T05:37:00.000-07:00

Marylyn Antoinette

Antoinette's Sisters digital collage sheet.

As a technologically impaired lay individual, Web 2.0 technologies contain cryptic jargon, in my view, in relation to the software mechanisms utilised by these programmes. However viewed simply, this technology facilitates novel, expedient and a broader form of communication and interaction on the World Wide Web, as compared to traditional forms of information exchange previously held on this platform. Social networking, sharing of video clips, still images, opinions, facts e.t.c, have developed through Web 2.0 applications to the extent that we are now in the midst information driven virtual cultural revolution. For those who understand the lingo heres a link with the history of Web 2.0.

Using the general theme of Digital Art, this essay seeks to compare and contrast the divergent manner blog sights disseminate information, paying particular attention to content, style, tone, format and ease of interaction with the general public. Blogs from Kenya, United States of America and South Africa respectively will serve as examples in this regard.

African Digital Art was created and developed by Jepchumba, a Kenyan digital artist based in Chicago, with the goal of creating a site for artists (particularly Africans) involved in the various digital mediums, to enable interaction and a platform to show case their creations across the web. The importance of this blog cannot be overemphasised as digital art within Africa is still a burgeoning form of expression as compared to the more traditional forms of painting and sculpture.

As a budding DA student, I found the content of this blog all encompassing with featured artists, projects, interviews, resources (including tutorials), news, jobs and even freebies! The layout is clean and extremely user friendly with exceptionally clear images and videos while the text is unpretentious yet succinct in terms of highlighting and canvassing relevant issues pertaining to African digital art. I also found that an adequate balance was met between text and images in this site and an interesting use of motion graphics which gives the sight a dynamic quality.

Through the use of interviews and images, expo’s on digital artist helming from Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, South Africa and the like introduce up and coming artists who would ordinarily not feature in main stream discourse. The interviews also enable the artists to discuss their works in their own words therefore allowing the wider audience to garner the intentions and goals they have for their craft first hand.

The current topic on the blog for discussion revolves around what it means to be a Digital African, how this technology has influenced artists in creating works of art. As an African digital artist, the opportunities are limitless, my platform and audience has expanded from a little ‘dorpy’ town in South Africa to that of the globe largely due to advances in Web technology. Having said this however the practical challenges in terms of obtaining adequate programmes has been an issue, which our department at Rhodes has fortunately addressed thanks to sheer determination from our DA lecturer Rat Western. As for my art work, watch this space coming soon…

Taking into consideration all of the above one is more inclined to accept the veracity of the information posted on the site as the host herself is intricately involved as a qualified artist in the digital media field.

Itkupilli a Finish artist based in los Angeles profile reads “A Finnish designer and wannabe artist living in LA as a house wife.” This digital art blog was created as a business orientated sight which offers digital design kits and collages to the general public for sale as well as offering tutorials on digital manipulation. In essence this sight aids novices’ to create digitally manipulated images using templates assembled by the artist. The overall theme of this blog from the design to the images and text are imbued with a quirky arts and craft feel and her blogs are written in an informal journal tone. The image posted above illustrates the sense of whimsy the host explores in her creations. Follow the link below for further Marie Antoinette renditions.

Comparatively this sight, as opposed to the first explored, is non education and information based within the digital art rubric but rather hobby driven. The significants of this form of blog lies in drawing individuals who are interested in digital manipulation as a form of leisurely activity. I found the sight refreshing both in format and design, as the hosts light hearted humour and eccentric approach to graphics led to further exploration and interaction in the site.

Art south Africa originally a magazine which expanded into a web application primarily reports on the art scene within South Africa. Maintaining its paperback format, the web version rehashes some of the articles, features and images printed in the magazine which is published quarterly. The target market as stated by the editor Sean O’Toole, “are cross-cultural and academically informed, with genuine interest in the aesthetics especially that of contemporary visual art. The reader is of no defined race, age or gender.”

Although not dealing with digital art specifically the importance of this site lies in its pluralistic coverage of the arts in general within South Africa, including music, theatre, design, fashion and architecture. The key advantage of this site, especially to students, are the reviews often written by curators, critics, art historians and artists. Affording peer reviewed authoritative insights into the pulse of the South African art industry. Having said this however, the tone of some of the articles, at times, is dense and convoluted and the gist of the writer gets lost in translation. From my perspective I also found that the contributors to this site seem to be part of the same academia crowd, not giving enough room for novel interpretations.

The design and format of this site is disappointing as compared to the previous two discussed above. The only intriguing element is the RSS feed of art news headlines. The layout is bland and parochial as compared to the magazine. In fairness, it would seem that this site is primarily used as a small portal into to the magazine rather than as an extension.

An examination of these sites illustrates the divergent manner blogs can be utilised as a medium for exposure, business, leisure and academic purposes. The sheer amount of information is unfathomable, and different styles and content employed by these spaces reflect the divergent hosts and guests that partake in blogging activities. Word of caution though one should always be vigilant in assessing the source and purpose of these sites before subsuming information therein. Conversely we all have a responsibility to respect others opinions and to avoid intentiona misrepresentation at all costs. After all the anonymity that comes with blogging can lead to mischief…

Filming it up in Africa: the African Film Industry

2009-09-21T05:32:00.000-07:00

Very few moviegoers probably realise that Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry is the second largest film industry in the world after the Indian film industry, Bollywood. Nollywood releases approximately 200 movies a month. Nevertheless most of these films are shot on a very low budget. In contrast to Nollywood is the South African film industry which is relatively small. This industry however competes more with Hollywood films than Nollywood. It is a difficult task for these industries to compete with the global giants of Hollywood and Bollywood, especially with the crippling effect of piracy that occurs heavily in Nigeria. This essay will look at these industries through the opinions expressed in various blogs from Africa and the USA. Blogs provide more personal, in-depth accounts about various issues rather than the supposedly objective reporting of journalists. The beauty of blogging is that it interacts with the reader as they are able to comment on the issue they have just read about.

Mr S. Okwunodu Ogbechie is an African art historian who writes about African art on his blog, http://aachronym.blogspot.com/. Although he lives in California, USA the blog specifically deals with African art issues. On the 25 June 2009 Ogbechie posted a report about the Nollywood industry and its current situation; however it was related to a CNN article published by Ms Mairi Mackay. Ogbechie was happy to release information to Ms Mackay provided that he was credited. Unfortunately Ms Mackay failed to credit him properly in her article. This raises another issue- the lack of respect towards African interlocutors. It also shows the West feels that African information is free and shouldn’t come at a cost.

The design of Aachronym is particularly standard with no unusual features. His latest posting appears at the top of the blog and as one scrolls down so does one see the older posts. There is one sidebar on the right hand side that provides information about the blogger, namely Ogbechie. Below this information is a map providing information about the location of visitors to the blog. Below this map is an archive of all the posts by Ogbechie. It is relatively simple to nagivate around the website. Ogbechie posts at least one article a week on his blog.
Ogbechie posted the interview that was carried out between him and Mackay. Ogbechie generally is very optimistic about the development of Nollywood which only began in the 1960’s. This is apparent in his post, http://aachronym.blogspot.com/2009/06/cnn-story-on-nollywood-problems-of.html. He speaks optimistically about how it is the first film industry that is “completely owned and operated by Africans” (Ogbechie, 2009). The films made in Nigeria are very popular throughout Africa and are starting to grab a foothold in other continents such as Latin America. Despite this optimism there are vast challenges facing the industry, which are mainly economic ones. One of the biggest challenges threatening the growth of this industry and many other global industries is piracy. Approximately 50% of the profits from these films are lost to piracy. The minute films are produced copies are sent to China for pirating. Filmmakers are worried that as technology develops, pirates will be able to store more films onto a DVD thus allowing them to sell films at a cheaper price. This consequently will further cripple the industry. As a result of piracy there are very few traditional cinemas left in Nigeria. Most people watch films at home.

A side blog on the Reuters news website, http://blogs.reuters.com/africanews/2009/03/05/is-africa%E2%80%99s-film-industry-losing-its-light/ has a post by Ms Katrina Manson that titled, Is African film industry losing its light? This report reveals the lack of technology available in Africa to shoot movies on 35mm film. As Manson reports, “Currently only North Africa and South Africa have studios equipped for 35mm” (Manson, 2009). The majority of African films are shot on digital thus allowing the films to be edited at home. This is a similar problem in South Africa, where there is little infrastructure for post-production. Much location filming is done in South Africa but then the film is sent to Europe or the USA for post-production. It is significant to note that the comments by readers do not comply with that of the journalist, Manson. A comment by the reader Tilewa accounts for the fact that even if the films don’t win overseas awards they are nevertheless very popular in Africa. The reader, Wirndzerem feels that Nollywood is on the right track by telling African stories for an African audience with the available technology. What is the point of shooting films on 35mm when this technology is unavailable in Africa? This is an example where the blog comments contribute greatly in order to create a much richer glance into the topic at hand.

http://khanya.wordpress.com/is a South African blog. Khanya means ‘shine’ in Zulu and ‘glory’ in Sotho. Mr Steve Hayes who writes the posts describes himself as an Orthodox Christian. It therefore has a strong religious leaning that influences a number of the posts. It was thus ironic to find an in-depth review of District 9, a science fiction film. Hayes decided to move his blogs from Blogger to Wordpress as he was unhappy with the new features on Blogger. This blog is on wordpress unlike Aachronym which is on Blogger. Wordpress is generally very similar to Blogger. The most recent posts like Blogger appear at the top of the website. It also has a sidebar with features such as ‘most recent posts’, ‘top posts’ and ‘recent comments’.

Hayes and his wife went to watch the new film, District 9. His post on District 9 is, http://khanya.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/district-9-science-fiction-as-social-satire/ . This film was produced by the highly successful director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson. In all respects it is a South African film although it was released by Tristar pictures. It was directed by a South African, Neil Blomkamp and the main character, Wikus van der Merwe is played by the South African actor, Sharlton Copley. Hayes’ review is in all respects very informative. His review has captured the themes in the film: a satire on xenophobia and the South African history of forced removals that occurred during the apartheid era. It is highly ironic that whilst they were filming District 9 in Johannesburg, xenophobia attacks were occurring in the same area. In the film set in 1982 citizens of Johannesburg vent feelings of xenophobia against the aliens called prawns who live in an informal settlement on the outskirts of the city. In the film there is also a satire on the Nigerian gangsters who trade with the prawns. Many South African citizens have had dealings and know of the infamous criminals that are prevalent in South Africa. For Hayes who would have lived in South Africa during Apartheid, it is evident in his review that the forced removals of the prawns, “has a whiff of the old apartheid-style ethnic cleansing” (Hayes, 2009). More so there are still forced removals happening in present day South Africa as the government is forcing residents to relocate out of informal settlements so that they can build new houses in the proposed areas.

Although both Hayes’ blog and Ogbechie’s blog deal with African films, one can assume that on an economic standing District 9 has been incredibly successful in comparison to recent Nigerian films. To date District 9 has made $117 million. This is mainly due to the excellent reception it received in the USA. It competed with the other Hollywood movies whereas very few American films or South African films show Nigerian films. Although Nollywood films are incredibly popular in Nigeria they have not made a breakthrough in many other countries around the world. Nevertheless films such as District 9 face similar problems as Nigerian films with regards to piracy and illegal copying of movies. Western critics and interlocutors however do receive the necessary credits whereas African interlocutors obviously do not receive enough credit from the West.

Timothy Burke is a professor at Swarthmore College near Philadelphia in the USA. His blog, http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/, is written in a particularly academic frame of mind which should be expected considering it is written by an academic. His blog post, http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/2009/09/02/district-9/ about District 9 is not merely a review, it questions the way the movie was filmed and the questions it raises. He uses the blog to reiterate the “internal dialogues” going through his mind. Burke is fascinated by the comparison between District 9 and South Africa’s apartheid history. He felt that “it’s a fantastic film to show in a course that deals with cosmopolitan identity, hybridity, and creolization in colonial and postcolonial societies” (Burke, 2009). Unlike Hayes, Burke picked up on another theme- the castaway or abandoned character in alien territory. For Wikus van der Merwe this is certainly is plight has he starts evolving into a prawn alien. Burke confronts this situation and this scenario the protagonist, Wikus does not come out supreme as is the case of Tarzan. Burke also highlights his suspicions of the characterization of the Africans especially the Nigerians in the film. Burke feels that Blomkamp has specifically invoked a theme of South African xenophobia through his portrayal of the Nigerian gangsters. The Mail and Guradian online posted an article, http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-09-20-nigerian-official-rails-against-district-9, in which Nigeria’s information minister Dora Akunyili asked all cinemas in Nigeria to stop screening District 9 as it portrayed Nigerians in a bad light. Furthermore Akunyili asked the filmmakers to edit out the scenes with the Nigerian gansters. Burke is thus right to think it risky to include ‘aliens’ alongside African people in the same film. On the whole Burke is incredibly impressed at the questions that District 9 raises to an audience. For him it is also a very successful science-fiction film. Burke’s blog entitled Easily Distracted is neatly and simply set-out with a focus on the text. There are very few images to support the text. Similar to both other blogs, Easily Distracted contains a sidebar with his archives and linking pages. Burke’s post on a South African movie dealing with South African issues is very insightful but this is coming from a History professor with a focus on Africa. It is fascinating to read the varying opinions and blog styles from one country. For example, a Texan blog, http://ourworldofus.blogspot.com/2009/09/district-9-and-south-africa.html shows how ignorant some people are of Africa. The blogger obviously has no interest in seeing a film related to African issues. To help the ignorant reader, the blogger pointed out that SA stands for South Africa and Joburg is short for Johannesburg.

Film is certainly alive in the African continent, as these blogs have certainly shown. There has been much development is this field over the past 50 years. Blogs offer one the chance to hear people’s opinions and feelings in a world dominated by media in which so-called ‘objectivity’ abounds. It is apparent to see that Nollywood is very successful in Nigeria and other African countries but hasn’t managed to breakthrough on an international scale. Nollywood needs the finances so that they can produce 35mm film and compete with other international movies. Aachronym is a highly informative African blog. Ogbechie has researched Nollywood’s current situation and has highlighted the issues affecting it such as piracy. The Khanya blog provides a detailed review of the South African film, District 9. Unlike most blogs, Hayes provides a straightforward look at the film with few opinions about the film. The American blog, Easily Distracted on the other hand shows Burke’s specific interest in the film’s themes such as xenophobia and creolization. He also makes the reader aware of his perceived weaknesses inherent in the film such as the portrayal of Nigerians as gangsters. This is a sensitive topic as many South African will generalize Nigerians as gangsters. Burke was very impressed with District 9 which can be enjoyed by any science-fiction enthusiast or by someone interested in South Africa’s past history and the themes of forced removals and xenophobia. The design of these three blogs is generally quite similar. It is the content which differs in particular. Aachronym is written in an informed style, Khanya is more informal in its style and Easily Distracted is intellectual and academic, which is appropriate since he is writing about the underlying themes in District 9. According to the views shared by these blogs it is clear to see that much optimism currently abounds in the African film industry.

Essay: g07w2512

2009-09-21T05:23:00.000-07:00

In the words of Rob Walker from the New York Times, “Whether or not Barack Obama would make a good president, it’s clear that he makes an excellent muse.” This is made evident if one simply types in “Obama and art” in a google search. What one would be faced with after pressing enter, is a list of 102 000 000 search results. It is this relationship between the artworks which arose around Obama’s campaign and the influence of Web 2.0 that this essay will primarily be dealing with. The three blogs which this essay will use in order to discuss this differ in content in that they each deal with different issues surrounding the images and imagery of Obama which were made ubiquitous mainly through the use of Web 2.0.

One of the most prevalent and controversial “Obama artworks” was the “HOPE” poster, created by street artist Shepard Fairey which was released around the period of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Despite the controversy surrounding Fairey and the authorship of this particular work, the image is one of the most famous of the many, many artworks which came about in the period. This fame is not only a result of notoriety either – sites such as http://obamiconme.pastemagazine.com/ allow one to transform photo’s of oneself into an image stylistically similar to Fairey’s iconic poster. It is popular reproductions like this which the first website this essay will focus on, used as a springboard for further discussion.

The South African website, http://www.mahala.co.za/, described as “a free South African mouthpiece,” makes use of Web 2.0 functionality in that the site encourages contribution and sharing of opinion. This is made possible through the “Kiff or Kak” voting option, as well as the option of leaving a comment after each post. The site also features links to recommend the posts on StumbleUpon or to allow you to share the posts with your friends on Facebook. On this website, Sean O’Toole wrote an entry titled, The Audacity of Everything which was inspired by a poster advertising a gig by veteran punk rock vocalist Jello Biafra. The poster was stylistically the same as Fairey’s “HOPE” poster (the reference to Obama was made even more obvious with the replacement of the word “HOPE” with “The Audacity of Hype”). In this article, O’Toole attributes the success of Fairey’s poster to its use of the polarized image, a graphic device which alludes not only to artist Andy Warhol, but also to political graphics such as the famous image depicting Che Guevara, or even anti-apartheid posters. For this reason, he describes Fairey’s work as “uncomplicated, arguably even formulaic.” He also makes the suggestion that the message paired with the image borders on propaganda.

The debate around whether some representations of Obama are propagandistic is elaborated in the second article this essay will deal with. This blog post by Chicago-based Warner Todd Huston, can be found on the NewsBusters site and is titled Obama’s Propagandistic Iconography: the Making of a Messiah. In this post, Hudson questions the American media’s unquestioning compliance when it comes to images of Obama in a style so similar to both religious iconography and old style propaganda. These similarities are highlighted in this blog, through the juxtaposition of “Obama art” and photographs with Communist propaganda posters, as well as the through the inclusion of magazine covers which evoke religious representations in what Hudson describes as a photographic essay.

This blog post is similar to the Mahala article in that it too made full use of Web 2.0 functionality. At the bottom of the article, one could recommend the article to sites including Digg.com, Fark.com, Reddit.com, Netscape.com and Tailrank.com. One is also given the option to share the story with one’s Facebook friends, “sphere” the article, post the article on StumbleUpon, add to “Delicious bookmarks” or find related posts on Technorati.com. Below all of these icons, one can also choose to “Take action”, receive “Free email alerts”, or “Read comments”. The post is also presented alongside video clips, links to join on Facebook, Twitter and amazonkindle. There are also links to vote on polls, and other links to comments, other blogs, and to other contributors.

The tone of this blog differs greatly in comparison to the Mahala article. It is more serious, political and persuasive. This contrast is evident even if one clicks on the link which tells one about the website. Whilst NewsBusters is described as “a project of the Media Research Centre (MRC), the leader in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias”, the Mahala site states its intention to “report and represent what’s really happening along the fault line and in the trenches of South African culture”. The tone of the articles, therefore reflect the interests and intentions of the sites. If one compares Mahala’s “Kiff or Kak” poll to the “Take action” link on the NewsBusters article, this contrast is made even more distinct. The different tones of the articles are evident not only in the actual text, but also in the layouts of the sites in general. Whereas the Mahala site is fun, colourful and trendy, the NewsBusters site is more formal in appearance. The Tunisian blog this essay will next deal with, cannot really be compared to these previously mentioned websites in terms of style and tone of writing due to the fact that the posts were written in French. Although Google Translate allows for the blog to be translated into English, the translation is still fairly rough. What this illustrates, however, is one of the numerous possibilities Web 2.0 allows.

Tunisian Mehdi Lamloum’s blog, Pink Lemon, deals with the frenzy of “Obama art” in relation to Obama’s campaign, but more specifically how Obama’s campaign was strengthened through his adoption of Web 2.0 strategies. The latest entry with the label Barack Obama, was a post promoting a video which one can view below the entry, titled Designing Obama. This video chronicles the artwork created during the campaign – in Lamloum’s words, the video gives the “inside story on how design was used by the campaign” and also includes works “created unofficially, by grassroots supporters”.

Other posts on this blog deal more specifically with the role of the Web in relation to Obama’s campaign. Lamloum highlights the various platforms which were used for campaigning - these included an official site, Change.gov, You Tube, Yahoo, MSN, a Twitter account, a Facebook fanpage, a Myspace page, a Flickr account, and even a profile on Linkedin professional. Lamloum also highlights that other sites were born in support of Obama, without having a direct relationship with the campaigning committee- these included sites such as franceforbarackobamablog.com, youbama.com, ohboyobama.com, along with many others. With such a multitude of platforms from which to rally support, Obama’s use of Web 2.0 was firstly, undoubtedly a major factor in his presidential victory, but also has made his image ubiquitous on the Web.

Unlike the first two blogs this essay focused on, this is a personal blog. There are links to Lanloum’s Facebook page, his twitter page and to his video blog work. One can also become a fan of this site on Facebook from this page. The blog also includes pictures, videos and slideshows. It is helpful in that it, unlike the other two, has labels which accompany the entries, making it much easier to search for relevant posts. Like the Mahala site, and the NewsBusters blog, the Pink Lemon blog has links below each post which give one the option to bookmark, email or IM the post, or to share the post with one’s own blog or social networking site. One is also allowed to comment on the posts.

Although these three sources seem to differ quite greatly in content, what they all illustrate is the power of Web 2.0 in broadly disseminating information and imagery. They also show how Web 2.0 allows for a space of freedom of expression and for generating ideas. The Mahala site highlights how the internet has enabled easier access to images, by referring to the reference photograph used by Fairey for his “HOPE” poster, as well by including the Biafra poster, only one of a multitude of altered reproductions based on Fairey’s design, made available to all by sites such as http://obamiconme.pastemagazine.com/. The NewsBuster blog post illustrates to all the power of the web in creating a platform for freedom of expression and a forum for debate, as much as it also allows for one’s personal views to be disseminated. The Pink Lemon blog, which doesn’t convey as much personal opinion as the two previously mentioned blogs, assists one in understanding the influence of Web 2.0 as a marketing tool, both in advertising the Designing Obama book, but also in outlining how Obama’s campaign team made full use of the possibilities of Web 2.0 to gain him the support he needed to win the presidential election. As artists, what seems most relevant here, is for us to recognize the endless possibilities and opportunities available to us through using Web 2.0. It is because of these possibilities that images of Obama, and probably most notably Fairey’s artwork, have become such iconic images. This should give us “HOPE”.

2009-09-21T03:57:00.000-07:00

P.S. I'll sort out my hyperlinks later. Ran out of time now. Ash, when you've copied your essay into the blog post box, you just highlight the word you want to make a link from and click on the little green globe thingy with the link sign on it (on your toolbar next to the text alignment section) and then a box will pop up in which you type the address for the site you want to word to link to. Voila

We all ought to steal his pencils: an essay

2009-09-21T03:45:00.000-07:00

I must admit that I can’t quite get my head around submitting an essay as a blog. Which is why this essay begins as a blog. A blog about an essay. I’m going to start with a stream of consciousness exploration of my thoughts on blogging. Thus far I have not had many. I made my own blog once, a few years ago, and it still exists. It is called Utterances. But it’s strange. Very long winded, contrary to the nature of blogs; contrary to its title. It does not “utter”; rather, it vomits. Not exactly a forum teaming with comments either. But a blog nevertheless.

I was chatting to a friend the other day, and he told me how a friend of his, a young lady journalist here at Rhodes, had recently jetted off to Amsterdam for the weekend for a ‘blogging conference.’ “Well,” I thought. We chatted some more about this, and wondered if the extravagance of travel could perhaps have been avoided by simply holding the conference online? You know, a bit of reflexivity? Kind of like what we’re doing here – blogging about blogs…But then we decided that maybe the conference was all about how to bring blogging to a point of having online conferences. Then again, if it were that advanced, perhaps any such conference would be considered redundant.

I think the notion of blogging is quite fantastic. Primarily because it encourages personal and societal reflexivity, which often results in laughter at our own ridiculous habits and the inescapably hypocritical predicaments we climb into. (Of course, there are some other things worth noting.)

People go out of their way to be funny. I find the web has its own special humour. A kind of universal humour that recognizes who we are as a species and makes the best of our strengths and weaknesses. Actually, that doesn’t make sense at all. Perhaps it just provides opportunity for one to connect with others who have a humour akin to one’s own. For example, a couple of my peers post their essays up some time before the due date, and another, in response, proceeds to post the simple yet sufficiently expressive opinion, “fuck.” I suppose one would have to know something of the spectrum of people studying together in this miniature department within this miniature institution to emit a sly chuckle at this juxtaposition of entries. Or maybe it just appeals to my sense of humour. Either way, it is a lovely example of the freedom that blogs permit. There is a lot of room for wit (and Whitney), for honesty, for play, and for getting over things that are taken too seriously.

I’ve just been reading this article from the Guardian on Damien Hirst getting into a tiz about his property rights. Whilst the article itself is quite entertaining, what interests me more are the comments. Two hundred and fifty four. That seems like rather a lot to me, but then I’m not sure what the norm is. Everyone just had to have their say about the infamous Mister Hirst. I looked at two sites – Art Times, and the Guardian. I didn’t expect to find an African site with anything on this subject, and I didn’t. My guess is that Africans beyond South Africa focus little on the trivialities of British law suits over, say, a box of pencils, and more on problems of their own: identity, racial friction, the dilemma of Diaspora, poverty, etc etc etc etc etc…

I will not describe the story – you can read whatever version you like on the sites. Just click on one of my fantastic hyperlinks (I type this in faith, trusting that when I get to posting this later this morning I will figure out the apparently very basic method of creating a link. If not, you will have to embark on an enormous search in order to find the articles I am referring to.) What I will mention is the approach which these two journalists have taken. Mister Charlie Brooker, who seems to have quite a name for himself amongst people who know, is writing for a general news site with a section on culture. The other writer, whose name I can’t find, is writing for an art newspaper. I’m not sure this makes much difference in this particular case.

Some things I’ve noticed: the South African article is not very well written. It is a little sassy, but a bit trying. Nobody was really interested enough to comment when I last checked. Brooker’s piece, on the other hand, evoked comments which, when combined, would potentially treble the length of his article. Is this because the Brits love Damien, even though they hate him? Is it because South Africans don’t blog, or bloggers don’t visit SA sites? Is it to do with the reputation of the particular journalists involved? I’m not sure. But I did find Brooker’s article a whole lot more enjoyable if that counts for anything. I found the portrait of Damien and his diamond skull positioned alongside the article in the Art Times got me engaged, and thereby interested enough to follow the link to Brooker’s article. Perhaps that’s the whole point of those short Art Times articles? To whet the appetite? But why is there more information on this little irrelevant scandal in a general British newspaper than a South African paper all about art? Maybe it’s just a national thing. Art Times is likely to focus primarily on South African scandals, as art publications so love to do. They just couldn’t resist including a bit of Hirst. He really gets in everywhere. Including our lecture theatre. Which I’m concerned about.

What also interests me is the nature of Brooker’s writing, and who the people are who are commenting on his site. I think he’s more likely to have a much broader audience than Art Times. Many of the comments are not artists or even involved in the art world, but just people catching up on a bit of culture. Because Brooker writes in an easily digestible fashion, he has a bit of a fan club, which is lovely. People are getting involved in silly art scandals, but at least it brings them together over something. I think it’s a good practice to have one’s say in things. Personally I wouldn’t spend my time commenting on such trivial stories as this, but I enjoy the fact that some people do.

Finally, some extracts from a few of my favourite comments, just to prove that a blogger really does take on a certain humourous persona on entering the arena:

“I have a spot on my t shirt from cooking, can it please be sued by Damien for breach of copyright?”

“I love Damien Hirst. But that's because I'm richer than him. If I was poorer then I guess I'd throw my sack in with the rest of you and hate him too.”

“No member of the general public is likely to have the slightest interest in Damien Hirst except as a generic modern art joke, whereas the rich people who buy his stuff might accidentally read this and suddenly start to wonder whether in fact the king is indeed as naked as the day that he was born.”

“And this is what we pay tax for, so that the police can hunt stolen pencils?”

“Damien Hirst is a very useful fellow; like Madonna, he gives the English someone to hate while demanding no engagement whatsoever, and without starting any wars. We need more like him.”

“…Hirst's humourless hissy fits...”

“Anybody can be a Damien, pile a stack of bricks, pickle a sheep or stuff a shark, or call a half demolished building Art.”

And my favourite: “We all ought to steal his pencils. Just think, if enough of us stole a part of a really ugly piece of modern Art, there would be no more modern Art. They couldn't lock us all up…”

2009-09-21T03:40:00.000-07:00

Hey all

Really confused, wrote my document on word and copied and pasted it into the 'post' box, but my hyperlinks are not showing up.
Please someone help me!

Sharpening the Pencils

2009-09-21T03:39:00.001-07:00

Ashley Burgess
g07b1633
Word Count: 1574 words

At the time when the British would traditionally be having their ‘tea’ time, Cartrain had just entered the Modern Tate Museum in London and committed an act of robbery. Thursday the 2nd of July 2009 saw the re-ignition of a feud between the somewhat unknown graffiti artist and Damien Hirst, who needs no further introduction. Cartrain, as he calls himself, stole a box of pencils from Damien Hirst’s installation, titled Pharmacy. Without the internet and the use of Web 2.0 this feud would not be as publicised as it has been. This paper shall seek to explore the very current and ongoing feud between Damien Hirst and Cartrain but more importantly this paper will analyse three different blogs which comment on the issue.

The World Wide Web has enabled an ordinary pleb, like myself, to have access to an ongoing infinity of information. Thirty years ago, you would not have had a mass of people networking over a program like Facebook, or even have considered watching unknown people’s home videos on YouTube. In conjunction with this theme, without the internet there would be no feud between Damien Hirst and Cartrain. Without the internet, the World would not even know who Cartrain is.

With the introduction of Web 2.0, the concept of social networking became a reality. Web 2.0 allows users to have a more ‘social’ connection with peer users on a shared site. Websites such as Facebook and YouTube are prime examples of Web 2.0. With Web 2.0, users can freely communicate with each other as well being able to create a site which reflects the personality they want to portray. The best example of Web 2.0 would be what’s referred to as ‘blogging’. The Online Oxford English Dictionary states that blogging is ‘the activity of writing or maintaining a weblog’. In a nutshell that is what it is but the definition does not do justice to what blogging allows people to do. With blogging and social networks the way the world does business has been completely restructured. Think about it, with the internet you can correspond with someone anywhere else in the world. The possibilities are endless, and this has been recognised by many artists and art opportunists. Cartrain is an artist who until two months ago was generally unknown. With the use of the internet and the media, the whole feud between the two artists has been globally publicised. More notable would be that when the feud began, Cartrain very smartly created his own personal website called the Cartrain Forum – Cartrain v Damien Hirst, which allows an arena for people to discuss what is happening in conjunction with the two artists. The most laughable thing of all is that it is hosted by a free website. So it literally cost him nothing … for so much fame and global exposure.

The seventeen year old artist can owe his public rise to the fame of his public ‘enemy’ Damien Hirst. Hirst is reported to be the wealthiest artist to have lived and holds the record for the highest artwork ever sold. Hirst’s diamond encrusted skull, titled, For the Love of God, which personally cost him fourteen million pounds was sold at auction for fifty million pounds. With access to the internet Cartrain, a graffiti artist, printed images of the diamond encrusted skull. He collaged these into several images. One of the images included the image of the skull with a phone to its ear. Underneath the skull there are dollar notes coming out from it. Cartrain stated in a live interview with an American radio station that he believed that the portrayal of the ‘conceptual’ artist Damien Hirst is representative and ‘sums him up’, as he gets rich whilst people create his works of art. After the altered images, which remind one of Marcel Duchamp’s LHOOQ, were released onto the internet, Cartrain’s Gallery, 100artworks.com, were ordered to remove them, which they did. Hirst also demanded that Cartrain hand back all of the original artworks as well as the 195 pounds he had made as profit. The teenager handed back what was asked for and everything was dormant for a few months. Then at the beginning of July, Cartrain stole the box of Fabre Castle pencils from the Modern Tate Museum in London. The extremely rare and valuable pencils are said to be worth half a million pounds. Since then Cartrain has been arrested and is out on bail. For a spectator this situation seems quite humorous. Cartrain has calmly stated that he will return the pencils only if Hirst will return his artworks back to him or else he states that ‘the pencils will be sharpened’.

Madam Miaow Says is a blog whose main contributor is Madam Miaow herself. She prides herself on being a “poet, writer, broadcaster and all round trouble-maker” as is stated on the blogs website. Her entry titled Cartrain Nicks Damien Hirst's Pencils: Millionaire Artist in a Huff was posted on the 5th of September 2009. She explains the story and ends off with a comment on whether or not this whole saga is a publicity stunt or a real feud between a man and a child. Her blog is very interesting and she has been nominated for several blogging awards. Her archives date back several years and she also covers political issues which have earned her much acclaim. The content of the article is interesting with a lot facts that have been included. As a blogger she successfully portrays a character with the use of her dramatic profile picture and name. Overall her blog is highly impressive and offers valuable insight into the battle of Hirst versus Cartrain.

The South African Art Times is an online website which comments on the local and international art scene. It is blog-like yet differs to the other two which make up the trio being examined. On the 18th of September 2009, an article was added titled Damien Gets Blunt. This piece is a lot briefer than the former article yet it similarly outlines the on goings of the situation between Hirst and Cartrain, yet the authors dislike for Damien Hirst is made apparent. The article begins with the statement “with all the antics associated with contemporary art it is surprising when a top artist can’t take a bit of his own medicine” and ends with “What this drama reveals is the ugly side of success. Is it that Hirst can’t take looking at himself in the mirror, not fully comprehending what he has become?”.

Ironically, having praised the internet for the ability to access information, it has been impossible to find an art blog based in Africa that has commented on the recent feud between the two artists. It would have been highly interesting to have read another blog from Africa, but it is interesting in its own right that there are no African based blogs which are easily accessible that speak on the matter. In lieu of this another blog shall be looked at.

The final art blog under examination is called Fred Hatman. Fred Hatman is a born South African who describes himself as having been ‘diagnosed as SA-positive’. His blog is the most entertaining out of the three being examined in this paper. It is not as factual or as ‘orderly’ as the previous two blogs. His style of writing is not one that is commonly acknowledged. On September 14, Fred Hatman posted an article on his blog titled Damien Hirst: when fart (almost) initiates life. He opens this brief article with stating that he loves ‘the pretentious art world spats almost as much as [he] love watching the fashion world frothing at its collectively far-too-carefully-lipsticked mouth over a slightly-heavier-than-absurdly-underweight model named Lizzie Miller.’ As one can see his style of writing is rather humorous. Hatman carries onto describe Cartrain as a ‘snotty nosed graffiti artist’ who needs ‘parental guidance’ and whose name he cannot remember. Hatman’s description of Hirst is more entertaining describing him as “I’m-so-artistic-I-should-squeeze-myself-into-a-septic-tank-filled-with-formaldehyde-and-slowly-die”. His blog is not mainly based on art news but also covers extremely random stories such as the mother who takes her octuplets to the park and then concludes by telling his readers not to try this at home. In lieu of the whole saga that is under focus with regards to Hirst and Cartrain, this blog is highly original and hilarious.

The use of art blogs, let alone blogs, can be considered empirical to the future development of the art world. Many people have opened up their own online ‘galleries’ in the form of a webpage, which offers its creator the chance to create a ‘space’. This is not a literal area of space but rather a virtual space, one where they can exhibit their own works in a space that they have designed. In reality it just adds a whole new dimension to art. With the internet, images of artworks are often displayed out of their context therefore challenging artists to create artworks that work in the virtual world. Excitingly art blogs allow people who are not artistically trained to comment and become involved in the art world allowing more ‘space’ for freedom of expression in a world of art which is traditionally elitist. By having had examined the three blogs; Madam Miaow Says, The South African Art Times and Fred Hatman, the diversity which comes with blogging has been showed through the use of the feud between Damien Hirst and Cartrain.

Essay

2009-09-21T02:48:00.000-07:00

This essay is written with a sense of trepidation and skepticism, born out of a distrust of the blogger, a sense that anyone who purposefully sits down to air their views in the public domain of the ether, views that would previously be confined to a journal – views that no one would be subject to reading if they remained in said journal - is a narcissistic individual partaking in something akin to public wanking. However in the course of investigating blogs for this essay, I found that there are many blogs dedicated to subjects rather than the ramblings of persons and their inner-most thoughts. Sadly however, these blogs are still often authored by the aforementioned narcissists, so even when specific subjects are discussed it is the views and opinion of these non-authorities that we read. “Amateur hour has arrived and the audience is running the show” from Andrew Keen's book: The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture and Assaulting Our Economy (Keen 2007) describes my feelings about blogs exactly.

The topic for this essay is fashion. Why fashion you may ask? Fashion is frivolous, its not really art – designers don’t labor like artists over conceptual ideas, produce sketches and spend countless hours sourcing the perfect materials to turn their conceptual ideas and 2D sketches into 3D realities which are then exposed to the harsh light of the public and the critics eye – oh wait that’s exactly what fashion is like. You may then be promted to ask: Aren’t fashion obsessions only for the narcissistic? Don’t I proclaim to hate the narcissistic? The truth is I do hate pointless expressions of self idolization i.e. blogs; but the reality is that fashion is the one topic I assumed the web could handle, cutting edge, constant updates and continuous access to pictures, stories, and news on the subject. Also fun frivolous fashion has many resources, out here in the real world to compare the blog sources to. The guide for the twenty-first century “fun fearless female” Cosmopolitan magazine being a favorite, especially since most girls start reading as teens, it is important to be able to hold a blog up in comparison to the magazine, that incidentally you really can hold. Fashion is also one of the few art forms to have an entire DSTV channel dedicated just to its exposure (FTV for the discerning satellite-decoder bound viewer). Films such as the “Devil wears Prada” and the “Sex and the City” movie as well as series, are all about fashion, even entertainment television shows like Top Billing are more obsessed with being fashionable as they review art than they are about the art. There is a reason why the ordinary (wo)man on the street can name more designer and/or fashion houses than they can artists. The topic of fashion is also one of the few that transcends national borders, something that is found world wide, something everyone is affected by regardless if they are aware of it or not.

The three blogs this essay will review are: Linea Academy-South Africa, from SA; The Love of Fashion, from Algeria; and Preppy Fashion, from India.

Linea Academy is a group blog, aimed at informing the South African audience of highlights in the SA fashion scene. One of their big projects is condom fashion, in an attempt to create awareness about HIV and AIDS. Other articles include commentary about the recent textile industry strike as well as reviews on fashion hotspots around the country. This site even includes reviews about movies such as the latest Coco Chanel film, as well as tips on how to better survive in the fashion industry in SA. Overall the site is vey informative and their wide range of topics will keep every SA fashionista in the loop. The Linea website is managed by The ReDress Consultancy-South Africa. Layout and design of the site is pleasant, the black background does become overwhelming though. All pictures on the site are good quality and high resolution and topics and discussions are easily accessible. All links provided on the site are informative and if one wishes to know more about “fashion education and development or more about studying fashion at one of South Africa's most prestigious fashion institutions” – fantastic self advertising – Linea Academy, one can do so through a simple e-mail. My only problem with the site, like all sites, is that the audience they reach is an audience with access to computers and the internet. Being a South African site I think they could do more to celebrate the spirit of SA and have more culturally diverse pictures and articles up on the blog.

The Love of Fashion is a really cool site, very modern and very cutting edge. One of my favorite articles is on the Leaf phone which highlights how the latest technology is being incorporated into fashion. This article proves that it doesn’t matter how cutting edge the world of the techno-geek is, if their inventions are not aesthetically pleasing: no-one will buy them. The site is an amalgamation of articles on fashion, some deal with specific fashion pieces, others about events such as fashion shows and others deal with trends. The site is however a bit simplistic which appeals to some but not to others, the images used on the site are of good quality. Overall this site is great. It does however have a very western out look and for a blog from Algeria I really was expecting more of a focus, or any focus for that matter, on issues or news dealing directly with Africa, if not Algeria itself. It appears that even though the blogs author finds himself in an African country the fashion focus remains on the UK, Paris and NYC, which is sad considering the wealth of textures, fabrics and colours we have in Africa, not to mention the distinct African fashion born out of the diversity of cultures we share here on the continent.

Preppy Fashion is an awesome blog in that it proclaims its Indian status and does so loudly. The site focuses on the fashion of India and issues and trends within the fashion found there. That is not to say that the fashion found in India is not influenced by fashion from other parts of the world. The blog deals with everything, from fashion shows and designers, to traditional textile weaving and key fashion pieces. Trends are discussed, both for young and old, as well as news on the textile industry; there is even an article on quick fixes in fashion emergencies. The sites layout is efficient. It is my feeling however that the images on the site are small and few, the reader would be more excited and better drawn in by bigger and more numerous images. One thing that’s great about the site is how it makes no pretentions to be anything other than what it is, a blog that deals with fashion, as it so cavalierly states “Fashion consists of a constantly changing trend, favored for frivolous rather than practical, logical, or intellectual reasons.”

Overall we find that these blogs are an amalgamation of information from different individuals and/ or sources. Each blog dealt with fashion news by reporting on and creating links to articles its authors felt important. Each blog had different news which indicates that each blog felt some news was more important and worthwhile to their audiences than others. However the blogs from SA and India seemed to be reporting news that they felt would be valuable for audiences from their own country whereas the Algerian blog had more of an international focus. Each blog achieved its aim of informing their audience about fashion highlights and trends. It’s just as well that these blogs only cater to those individuals who have access to computers and the internet, as everyone else wouldn’t be able to afford any of the fashion pieces on display anyway.

So perhaps my skepticism has abated somewhat, these three blogs were not so much an act of narcissism rather just a way of promoting the agendas of each of the authors – both individual and group. The Linea Academy aimed to inform its audience of its existence and promote its own curriculum. The Love of Fashion showed how anyone, including those living in deepest darkest Africa can stay informed about world trends and fashion. Preppy Fashion deals specifically with issues concerning the Indian audience and delivers. What helps is that many of the articles are sourced from news articles and are originally authored by authorities on the subject or at least authorities on reporting/ reviewing subjects. Group authored blogs also seem to be more credible and valuable as there appears to be at least some internal standard set for what appears on the blog. It is still however the opinion of this author that “if we are all amateurs, there are no experts” and I agree fully with Keen that “when anonymous bloggers and videographers, unconstrained by professional standards or editorial filters, can alter the public debate and manipulate public opinion, truth becomes a commodity to be bought, sold, packaged, and reinvented. Where Wikipedia meets MySpace meets YouTube, the democratization of information is undermining truth and belittling expertise, experience and talent” (Keen 2007: dust jacket).

Essay

2009-09-21T02:42:00.000-07:00

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In this essay I will look at how beneficial the web 2.0 has become to artists of this day and age. I will be focusing particularly on the use of blogs by artists and how they act as a niche for upcoming artists to show case their talent, may it be fine art, music, fashion or poetry, and in return receive comments and criticism from their followers.
I have chosen to look at three blogs in particular: a South African blog called between 10and5 , a Kenyan blog called kenyanpoet and a London based blog called behindthescence. By studying these three blogs I will be able to compare the differences and similarities between there blogging styles as well as presentation styles.

The web 2.0 came about as an advance from the world wide web, no actual changes where made to the world wide web only additions which in turn has seen internet usage become more interactive for its users. Applications such as chat rooms, video sharing (e.g. YouTube ), blogging (e.g. Twitter ), and social networking sites (e.g. Facebook) are a few of the new additions making up the web 2.0. A blog refers to a space on the web 2.0 that is usually maintained by one or more persons, by posting regular thoughts, graphics or video’s onto a blog page. These blog pages can be followed and comments can be contributed by friends, fans or people with interests alike. In terms of art, blogs have become a space for artists to exhibit there works, promote themselves as well as other artists. Having a blog allows a follower or fan into the more personal spaces of an artist, the blogger will make regular posts on their thoughts, new work, up and coming exhibitions, gigs, or even controversial media coverage, everything is aimed at informing these followers or fans of what’s happening in the present.

The first blog I will look at called ‘behindthescene ’ is run by South Africans living in London. This blog is maintained and run by a creative company called ‘World War Won’ (WWW). WWW do advertising, graphic design, hold exhibitions, as well as create and sell paintings. When first entering this site I was immediately drawn to the lay out of the blog, being a new blog user the format of the blog was incredibly easy to follow: company name on left hand side with links into WWW’s web page, posts down the centre of the page, and most popular posts down the right hand side. The content of the page is very interesting, as well as amusing. As the page is run by South African’s who have recently relocated to London the posts are generally based on the new discoveries they have made in London for example ‘well informed’, an amusing articles on the events of the London underground, and ‘Chanel No.5’ an article on the queens decision to brand London’s street lamps with the famous logo. The blog content also contains controversial media coverage such as ‘Drawing on Walls’ an article based on the removal of, artist, Banksey’s famous work of the royal family by the city council.
The format of the posts are as follows: an image or article followed by a comment by WWW, on a few occasions they have quoted magazines or lyrics, but for the most part the ideas and thoughts of WWW are central to the blog. Followers are not able to add their own comments to the page but contact details are provided by WWW if one would like to share ideas. The blog page is updated regularly every 2-3 days and on many occasions more than one post a day has been added. Something unique to this specific blog is their clever tag line ‘God save the Dream’; this very appropriate tag line ends off every post made on the blog.

The second blog I will be looking at is a Kenyan based blog called ‘kenyanpoet- a Kenyan artistic space ’. This blog is a space used to showcase Kenyan art, music, poetry, writing as well as emerging art trends. On entering this page I was quit over whelmed with the amount of text on it, every post on this blog is written in the same format as a magazine or newspaper article would be. There is a very diverse range of stories, anything from Kenyan theatre companies to poetry open mic nights to born free foundation art competitions. I like how descriptive the writers are, allot of the posts seem to be existing texts which are posted and maintained by a user named ‘N.W.’, unfortunately no other information is given about N.W. as his/her profile is withheld. The layout of the page has nothing that would typically be a representation of African art; I found the design of the page could have been more symbolic of its heritage or purpose. On the right hand column of the page are the most recent stories posted on kenyanpoets twitter page and links to these articles, as well as other blogs that have similar subject matters that one can become apart of. Most of the posts have links embedded within it, which makes it very easy for a follower to view more photographs, video’s or research a topic further. The ‘Kenyanpoet’ is solely dedicated to the arts in Kenya (e.g. upcoming gigs and exhibitions) which does make it somewhat exclusive, a South African wouldn’t really have much interest in visiting it other than an interest in the poetry or a featured artist of Kenya. The site seems to be a moderately active judging by the amount of comments that have been left after each post; the posts are also updated often on average about 3 times a week.

Thirdly I will be looking at a South African based blog called ‘between 10and5’. This blog is a space for South African artists to showcase their work, making it accessible to the creative industry of South Africa. Their name, ‘between 10and5’, refers to the amount of work a creative can submit onto the site. This site is a place for freelancers, illustrator, agencies and artists to promote their work to the rest of the industry. The formats of the posts are quite uniformed despite the fact that any one can contribute to this blog. The posts consist of an image or video followed by some text explaining it. The image, in most cases, acts as a link to a web site that supply more information on the topic, or is the official web site or blog .The simplistic design of the page makes it look professional and easy to follow. On the right hand column of the blog there are ‘extended categories’ that one could enter, e.g. photography, print, agencies and banners. Each of these extended categories lead you to the submissions of other bloggers of their creative work, one can view the work as well as read about the artist or company. What is nice is that anyone can post comments on the work viewed which makes this blog very interactive. This blog differs from other blogs as it has multiple layers to it, apart from the recent posts on what’s happening in the art world in South African as well as the rest of the world, one can explore the work of other creative’s by category. The idea that one can browse fields of art that interest them makes this blog more appealing to a wider variety of people. Between 10and5 uses Facebook as a way of advertising their blog or events posted on their blog, beneath every post one has the option to share the url address with their friends through their Facebook status. It is also an option to become a fan of between 10and5 on Facebook in the right hand column of the blog. This is a smart way of getting the word out about a blog, especially for a blog like this one where the more people that participate the better. So far the blog seems to be very active judging by the amount of posts which happen daily.

The three blogs that I have looked at differ according to their purpose and target market, but what they all have in common is that they all act as an up to date representation of the art world we live in now. This is such an important culture for upcoming artists to be apart of in order to keep on par with the rest of the world. The three blogs I have looked at in this essay one European, one Kenyan, and one South African each represent the art culture of their country/cities they are based in, showcasing and allowing for a comparison to be made with the rest of the world. The styles of the blogs vary in terms of layout as well as aesthetically, each blog is suited to its intention as well as what they are promoting.

Through blogging a new era of art has been born, we are now able to more freely express ourselves through art and share it with 100’s of 1000’s of people just by the click of the finger. With that in mind it is fare to say that the web 2.0 and the ‘culture’ of blogging have opened up a new dimension of possibilities to artists and creative’s alike.

The World at Your Fingertips

2009-09-21T02:39:00.000-07:00

student number: g07h0599

“The world at your fingertips” takes on a completely different, and literal, meaning when considering the boundless possibilities available to us on the internet. The vast amount of information is suited to everybody’s needs and interests; if you are looking for something, you will find it in this virtual space. The world of blogs, particularly in the art scene, has revolutionized the way one can integrate and interact with what is happening in the art world. Not only does the internet, and blogs alike, benefit the viewers, but also the artists themselves. Blogs allow artists to establish and expose themselves, locally and internationally, while at the same time they allow those that are already established to further develop their career. Mbongeni Buthelezi is a perfect example of an artist that has utilised the internet to his advantage.

Mbongeni Richman Buthelezi is a South African artist who melts various coloured plastics, an innovative substitute for the expensive oil painting medium, originally motivated by a time of economic struggle. Buthelezi has an interesting biography, while not being a particularly well known South African artist, he has exhibited in various galleries in South Africa including the Seippel gallery in Johannesburg, as well as at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. Buthelezi has exhibited in the Cairo Biennale in 2006 as well as in a range of international countries; Amsterdam, Germany and Spain to mention a few over the most recent years.

Considering South Africa plays a small role in the global art scene, South African artists, like Buthelezi, have quite an obstacle when trying to gain international exposure. However, the web 2.0 and blogging are tools that they can use to overcome this. Buthelezi is mentioned in a few international blogs, but one that particularly grabbed my attention was titled Almost Ninja. What I found particularly fascinating is that, taking into account that this blog is Mexican, there is some interest, even if it is miniscule, in an artist like Buthelezi on the opposite side of the world. Creating opportunities for him to expose and promote his work to a market that otherwise one may not even have considered. Buthelezi is mentioned in relation to the Mercedez-Benz Award for South African Art and Culture, presented by the Daimler Art Collection in Berlin. In this Berlin based exhibition they annually “[honour] South African artists working in different disciplines, giving them an opportunity to present their work to an international audience.” The article does not mention the work of each individual, but rather provides an overall description of the award and South Africa in general. There is clearly an international interest in South Africa and an attempt to promote its art and culture is evident- perhaps stemming from the notion of “authentic Africa”. In the blog article, Buthelezi is mentioned alongside some of South Africa’s most well known artists, such as Jane Alexander.

Almost Ninja is accessible from a social networking perspective. You can become a fan of it on Facebook allowing one to receive feeds and updates whenever one logs onto Facebook, whether their profile is set up for personal or career based uses. Twitter, similar to Facebook, is a way of networking and connecting to the people around the world that share similar interests. Almost Ninja not only has a Facebook option, but a Twitter option too, keeping the followers of Almost Ninja up to scratch with the most recent blog articles by following the “tweets” posted. By utilizing these networking tools, blogs such as Almost Ninja expose artists like Buthelezi to the people that are likely to take a keen interest in such artists. Without these networking possibilities it would be impossible to promote and expose the information in these articles to the small, yet desired, market available to artists like Buthelezi. Without realising, blogs are a carefully thought out marketing strategy, designed to draw in people, often a small target market. Almost Ninja, like many blogs, has various links, pictures and random “tit bits” on the side to draw in the attention of the viewer.

Many blogs have a personal touch, and are written by an individual from their own point of view and about their interests. What is amazing about blogs and the use of the internet is that no matter how personal your blog may seem, there will always be a group of people that have the same interests as yourself and will follow and interact with your blog, posts and comments. Brandie is one such person, she developed her blog Out and About Africa for the purpose of sharing and expressing the beauty of Africa from an art, fashion, design and photographic perspective. Out and About Africa is layered with many different facets of art; and Buthelezi features in one of her daily blurbs. The way that Brandie has composed and designed her blog proves to be an accessible manner to the public. Even though her blurb is limited in terms of biographical information, she has a link that takes you directly to a page that further informs you about Buthelezi in terms of his exhibitions, works and a short description of the kind of artist he is. It is these links that are integral to professionals such as Buthelezi. A simple yet eye catching post about Buthelezi on Brandie’s blog can lead one on a virtual trip through the click of a mouse, to a more detailed biography of the artist where you may, in this particular case, find the opportunity to contact Buthelezi himself. Links and networking like this are beneficial for everyone involved; whether one simply takes an interest in Buthelezi, or if one is in it for career orientated reasons. The exposure that Buthelezi is gaining though sites and blogs like Out and About Africa is hugely profitable from his professional perspective, including the message he may be sending through his work about South Africa, not only to local viewers but, to viewers of the world that wouldn’t necessarily have seen his work..

Blogs like Brandie’s allow anyone in the public who may share an interest in art to participate and be a part of the experience, a new approach somewhat different to the heavy academic scholarly material of the past. On the same note, the culture of blog commenting is another way of creating a space for accessible interaction for the regular viewer. Out and About Africa has the possibility to comment on every individual blurb, whether anonymously or not, it is up to the individual to decide. The advantage of having the anonymous option is it encourages the viewers to participate in discussions around the relevant discourse that they may otherwise not have been brave enough to say. Brandie allows for numerous possibilities in the interests of her visiting bloggers. She has set up her blog allowing for the viewers to sift through anything that they will find of particular interest, such as her favourite blogs, as well as links to what the viewer may find interesting in relation to specific blurbs. Similar to Almost Ninja, Brandie uses Twitter as a way of keeping anyone who shares the same interests and passions about Africa up to date with her latest posts.

It comes as no surprise that the South African blog, Post High Def’, covers Buthelezi in most detail, and is most beneficial to those reading the blog and, of course, Buthelezi himself. This blog is set up very much like a news paper reporting on different aspects and stories in South Africa. There are “recent posts” and “top posts” options on the home page, to make viewing and choosing the significant and most up-to-date stories on the site easier for the regular viewer. Buthelezi and his peculiar but novel art making process is covered in a detailed and descriptive post, very much like a journal article titled Blowing Life into Plastic. In the post the reader gets a very good sense of the kind of artist Buthelezi is, through a vivid and thorough description of the work he showcases. The post not only covers Buthelezi as an artist, but also speaks of the concepts behind his work; the racial issues so inherent in the South African history. Although it is a heavy and loaded academic topic, it is spoken about in an accessible manner for the everyday reader, a common benefit of blogging. The comments however, unlike Out and About Africa and Almost Ninja are all located in one separate space, titled in order to associate with their applicable topics. Although there may be some reasons that this may be beneficial, it seems as though the blogs that have their comment spaces attached to their relevant posts contributes to the interactive nature that is associated with blogs. Post High Def’ does give its viewers the Twitter option, just like both Out and About Africa and Almost Ninja do. Similar to Out and About Africa, at the end of specific posts there are links to related topics that may interest the reader. The Blowing Life into Plastic post promotes Buthelezi by discussing his upcoming solo exhibition, creating awareness for anybody who may take an interest in his work.

Blogging and the utilizing of social networking, such as Facebook and Twitter, has created a new space in which anybody that takes an interest in art can participate in discussions without feeling out of the loop, or derided. Art and the art circles have become accessible to anyone who wishes to participate, whether it is actively or passively. Art blogs play an important role from numerous perspectives. From the artist’s perspective, they are being exposed and promoted through all sorts of techniques used on the blogs, particularly through the use of links. As a viewer, you are learning and experiencing about the artist through a virtual space without having to travel to view the exhibitions. This aspect is very beneficial for those that are stuck in small towns, such as Grahamstown, and wish to experience the world of art. The interaction that is created through the commenting on blogs creates an “art clique”, pardon the pun, and opens up infinite possibilities and views that otherwise may not have been recognised. Blogging is part of a new era of art; the opportunities that are presented by the internet, but more specifically web 2.0, are endless and just like anything in life, what you put in is what you get out!

Race to Where?

2009-09-21T02:35:00.000-07:00

Student Number: 607h0493

One of the main appeals of exploring the countless art blogs available is reading the assortment of comments and debates that are often triggered by them. The widespread and heated discussions about ‘race’ are impossible to ignore. Blogs open up a crucial dialogue on ‘race’ that seems to be drowned out in so many other societal spaces. Blogs are not sites for purely academic arguments, as each individual is allowed to express their own view regardless of their ‘qualifications’. In the comparisons and contrasts between a popular South African, African and International blog, it will be shown just how beneficial and well used this culture of blogging has become, and the important role it can play in a move to a post-race era.

Sir Tim Berners Lee invented the original World Wide Web (WWW), which runs as an application over the internet, and is a vast network of information. Web 2.0, an advancement on the possibilities of the WWW, makes the internet ubiquitous and allows individuals worldwide to, instantly and easily, access a wealth of frequently updated knowledge, such as the history of the internet itself. Social networking, made possible through Web 2.0, has become an important part of internet culture. Blogs which is an abbreviation of weblog is where one most typically comments on events in the form of a type of online ‘journal’. Blogs are one of the more popular options of the social networking phenomenon and offer huge potential for discussion and international recognition. For artists alone, the benefits of the ability to use the visual element of the internet to showcase their work and idea’s, internationally, at very little (or at no) cost, are immense. I chose the three particular sites as I wanted popular blogs which I knew would reach a large audience and thus showcase a variety of reader’s opinions too.

Artheat is a controversial and widely followed website that comments on the international art scene, but with a particular focus on the work of contemporary South African artists. The website is relatively young with an archive back to May 2006, yet it has a large number of blogs and links attached to it, offering the viewer an opening to the formerly exclusive art world. The opportunity to follow Artheat and the other blogs associated with it on social networking sites, such as twitter or facebook , increases its appeal and accessibility to a variety of viewers. Mixtape is an interesting assortment of visual and text based blogs, managed by Linda Stupart, a critic and artist based in Cape Town, with a large number of other members that collaborate regularly about a wide range of topics. The particular post that I chose was a review on Nicholas Hlobo’s exhibition, “Umtshotsho”, by Stupart entitled “Grey Carpets in Grahamstown”. What really captured my attention was the large amount of comments that the seemingly innocuous review received. Someone called ‘suckastick’ had initiated an angry back-and-forth racial debate through criticizing Artheat (and institutions such as Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town) for their seeming white monopolization. Ironically, s/he chose the literal white (text) on black (background) space of Mixtape and Artheat to discuss this. The 21 comments, that seem to have been posted in rapid succession, were undeniably more interesting and thought provoking than the blog post itself. In the use of pseudonyms or aliases such as ‘suckastick’, blogging allows people anonymity and thus more freedom to say what they might not otherwise. It is also interesting to note the issue of censorship that comes with blogging, as both Sloon and Stupart have control over which comments they allow. This can be seen in Sloon’s threat to delete a reader’s comment if the ‘polemic’ was not fixed. The debate had become too intense. It stands to reason that in a country with a history as troubled as South Africa’s, with roughly 350 years of colonialism and 50 years of apartheid, that impassioned debates such as this are vital. As Robert Sloon said, “I think it is a good idea for everyone to explore their prejudices”. Artists have always been social commentators and blogging can only accentuate the possibilities, and responsibilities, of that position.

AAchronym is an African blog that offers “Global African Arts with a focus on art-equity and cultural patrimony” written by S. Okwunodu Ogbechie, an Associate Professor of Art History. Ogbechie is the sole contributor to this blog, while the other two blogs are collaborations. Compared to Artheat, AAchronym is a much more internationally focused blog, seeming to look towards America more than the African continent itself. Despite AAchronym’s tagline. It is surely a comment on the growing globalization and resultant Diaspora, that Ogbechie is an African man living in California, USA. The global “Clustr Map” re-enforces this idea of a globalisation as the map pinpoints his readers to all over the world and also shows the world’s relatively recent interest in the African art market. Yet another factor that shows the true power and popularity of blogging worldwide is the application available to translate the blog into a language of the viewer’s choice. The specific post that I was interested in is about race inequalities in American Museums as it echoes the debate of Artheat in the need for change in institutions. In a direct contrast to Artheat however, nobody has commented on this post. Ogbechie himself barely comments on his own blog, as the article was taken from The Art Newspaper and written by Martha Lufkin. The fact that most of the blog posts on this site are originally from other sites is again different from the other two blogs. The small and rare amount of Ogbechie’s writing is of a more serious and formal tone than most blogs. After the African blog leaning towards issues of Race in America, I decided to examine an American blog and search for these issues.

Art Fag City is a very popular America art blog which provides “New York art news, reviews and gossip”, run by Paddy Johnson. The particular blog chosen is entitled Race Card and was written by a guest blogger and artist, Wayne Hodge. The blog post is a fascinating exploration of images used in politics in America which have strong racial implications through American history. Artheat’s ‘race’ debate is mirrored here, only to be furthered when politics is added into the mix too. The blog post was from 8 August 2008, when the arguments between Democrats and Republicans were even more intense than usual, with Barack Obama running for president. Yet the blog post debate of 10 comments dwindled off in the same manner as Artheat, the heated commentary went too far and was threatened with deletion. Further evidence of censorship on this blog can be seen in that no anonymous comments are allowed, which makes the commentators responsible, and therefore less likely, to air their views. It is interesting to note that on both Artheat and Art Fag City, the comments were rarely on the issue of the blog post, but rather on race, a topic obviously begging for and initiating heated dialogue. According to the statistics from the applications from the website, Art Fag city has 3127 readers and 2493 followers on Twitter. This speaks volumes about the attention this American site receives, compared to the 17 followers AAchronym has. Despite the large amount of followers, and the apparent issues about ‘race’ shown through the 10 fiery comments, there is very little result when one searches for blog posts related to racial relations in the art world.

While reading all three of these blogs I could not help be reminded of an interesting module I studied as a part of my Art History and Visual Culture course, led by Ruth Kerkham Simbao, entitled “Unpacking ‘Race’ ”. The course was not the expected lesson in ‘political correctness’. Instead, the in-depth and academic approach knocked all preconceptions and led one to be critical of the most seemingly innocent words, such as ‘white’ or ‘black’. Kwame Anthony Appiah, one of the authors on the modules weighty reading list, went into huge detail to convincingly prove the loaded ideology behind the terms themselves in In My Fathers House in the Philosophy of Culture. Appiah argues that ‘race’ is a “concept”: a social construct, based on arbitrary distinctions and is often used as a metaphor for culture (Appiah, 1992:34). In extreme summary, the white European man saw ‘blackness’ in direct contrast to his civilised and racially supreme ‘whiteness’ (Appiah, 1992:32). It is clear throughout all of the blogs mentioned in this essay, that the terms ‘white’ or ‘black’ are not used critically, or necessarily questioned as terms themselves, as Appiah discusses. It is interesting to note whilst reading the blogs, that regardless of place in the world, what is debated about by an elite group of academics is not what most individuals seem to think, or say. Blogs play an important role in providing a space for the non-academics to present their views, especially in the notoriously ‘clique-ish’ art world. Yet it is a pity that blogs have not yet been fully utilised to merge these two differing worlds together.

When one reads the blogs, and their comments, not only within South Africa with Apartheid or Africa and colonialism, but worldwide, it is apparent that ‘race’ as a concept, and thus ‘racism’, is still deeply embedded in society. There is a sore need for more dialogue in order to begin to resolve these issues. With the endless opportunities blogging opens for discourse, it is surprising that this has not yet been taken full advantage of, particularly by members of the art world. Each player in the art world has an equal responsibility and role to further this discourse and to face these issues head on. It is clear that blogging has the potential to provide the power to achieve this change.

BLOG PROPOSAL (ESSAY) - g07a0770

2009-09-21T00:46:00.000-07:00

Blog Proposal

Instead of writing an essay in which, (honestly), I had little interest and through the writing of which I would put into practice little of what has been taught during our course, I have elected to rather create a blog. This blog would allow me to put into practice much more of what I have learnt, as well as to help the Grahamstown community and my personal art project about stray dogs in Grahamstown.

I believe the creation of this blog will be more helpful to me than the writing of an essay because although Web 2.0 techniques will be used in the creation of the essay, it is an essay which I do not care much for and would not put in the effort needed to fully and comprehensively interact with Web 2.0 and its characteristics. In the creation of a blog, I will be dealing with something which is of interest to me, personally and professionally, and because of this I will put in the maximum effort possible, enabling me to fully interact with Web 2.0. This blog, will also be practical to me, in the understanding of how to create blogs for my advertisement of myself or my interests, (i.e. A blog about my work), how to utilize the accessories of Web 2.0, which can help me access greater resources, as well as to add to a body of work about stray dogs which I am working on. The blog instead of the essay would be more widely and easily accessible as well as being useful. But, I hope the most important aspect in the creation of this blog, is the coverage and help it will provide to those animals who need it, which an essay could not.

There are various ideas which I would like to include in this blog. Some of these would include links to the Grahamstown SPCA, ROAR, Animal Anti-Cruelty League and so on; sites with useful information about stray dogs; how to deal with them and how to solve the stray dog problem, sites in which you can help stray dogs through volunteer programs, donations or by ‘adopting’ animals in shelters around the world, but especially in South Africa. I would like to catalogue, to as great an extent as possible, the stray dogs and animals within Grahamstown, with photos and geotagging, in this way those in Grahamstown who are interested in these animals can map their locations and conditions, ( I am aware that this is a very difficult thing to do as it requires maximum input from the community, but I believe that if everyone who cares tries, then much can be done to help these animals), this will enable us to start determining the number as well as breeding statisticsof the animals in Grahamstown, and help them to be caught, sterilized and released. The creation of an adoption corner would be made, in which regular visits to the SPCA would result in photographs and details of those animals up for adoption; this would have to be regularly updated. Through a more public friendly space, a section of the blog would be dedicated to those animals lost and found in Grahamstown, where the public could post their photos and news of these animals.

On a more national level, this blog would have information and a forum on how to deal specifically with strays in South Africa, what the causes are, what can be done about it,(from small steps like calling the SPCA when an animal is found to a ‘sterilize and release’ program), as well as the issues pertaining to the use of dogs, (especially seen in Grahamstown), as a way to beg for money, (whether this is considered cruelty, if a trade in these animals has arisen and how we can help). I would also like to include in this blog stories of stray animals, whether they are good or bad, to expand people’s view of these animals.

It is through the balance of power and society that the lives of these dogs rest. Although dog is mans best friend, so to is man a dog's worst enemy. The relationship between the poverty of man and that of animals is directly proportional, when man falls the quality of life for animals' falls. It is within our power to help, it is partially because of our society that there is this saddening occurence- we need to use the power we have previously abused for good.

This blog is first and foremost meant to be a tool used to help animals in need and educate the people of Grahamstown.

I will create this blog using blogspot.com, and various relevant inks I find on the internet.

While creating this blog I made use of the following programs: Flickr, (including Flickr Mappr),Delicious, gmail, yahoo, google blog and google alert.

Here is another link to the blog.

Unfortunately I have not been as yet able to create an adoption corner, but this will be done within the next few days.

Thanks

Essay on 2010 blogs

2009-09-21T00:25:00.000-07:00

G07N2903

In this essay the concept of web 2.0 will be introduced in relation to the phenomenon and trend of a blog formerly known as a weblog. A blog is suggestive of an online diary which is a form of a communication device which is obliterating communication barriers around the world. The benefits and changes this form of revolutionary technology has established in and around the world will be discussed using three different blogs namely: a South African, African and International blog. The focus of the blogs being chosen is based on the topic of the 2010 World Cup to be held in South Africa. Different uses of reporting techniques, blogging styles and the use of web 2.0 will be contrasted and compared. The ways that these specific bloggers represent their ideas and views will be intrinsically dissected and analysed to underline similarities and differences in their blogs in promoting the world cup.

It is the first time that this prestigious sporting event has ever been hosted in an African country. This has caused much controversy and speculation to whether a Third World ranked country could make a success of a Eurocentric, Western world dominated event. Due to the global economic crisis there is further uncertainty to whether this event will be a success. Many expected international visitors would possibly not make the trip due to financial circumstances. As this event is an international one, countries across the globe have been articulating their views and opinions over the World Wide Web through the form of Web 2.0.

Tim Berners Lee is the inventor of the World Wide Web. Through his initiatives of such an invention the creation of other web technologies such as web 2.0 were allowed to be introduced. The term web 2.0 is closely linked with Tim O’Reilly due to the O’Reilly media conference which was held in 2004. Web 2.0 is not the latest version of the World Wide Web but rather is the changes in which software developers use the web. Web 2.0 correlates with the concepts of web design and web development which makes possible the interactive user centred design and rapid information sharing. Examples of Web 2.0 include social networking sites, wikis, web applications, Google and blogs. The social networking sites include facebook, Myspace and blogger. Web 2.0 allows users to interrelate with others or to alter content on sites, in comparison to previous non- interactive sites were unreceptive viewing of information is only authorized.

A blog is an interactive online form of a diary or commentary of news or an event. An individual can exhibit their thoughts, and writings on the web in regular entries of commentary. These blogs can be categorised based on topics, events, hobbies, and themes. They can be daily routine like blogs, weekly bogs or even monthly blogs. A blog can be written in a formal or informal manner depending on the bloggers approach or style. They can be personal, subjective, objective, written in a news like manner or even just informative. An important feature of a blog is that readers can leave their comments about the blog. Another intrinsic part of a blog is having links to related sites and other blogs. The growth of blogs has meant that it has become some individual’s jobs to write blogs were as others just use it for hobby purposes. The concept of a blog reduces space, time and distance and allows people from varying parts of the world to be able to communicate with each other in an interactive manner from the comfort of their homes.

The blog from South Africa is “2010 Fifa World Cup readiness update” by Nicholas Whiteley and Sarah Gurney. As this blog is from the hosting country it is expected that the blogs which come from this country are pro 2010 hype and publicity. As a citizen of this country it is only ones patriotic duty to inform the world that their country is ready for the world and the tournament. This tournament is being hosted in an African country for the first time and has thus put immense pressure on South Africa to deliver the same standards of quality that previous European countries have. This blog is a collaborated piece by two Capetonian’s and reflects on numerous aspects regarding the world cup. The layout of the blog has been structured in a formal almost essay like manner: there is an introduction, body and conclusion. In the body of the blog there are several different sub headings such as safety and security, transport, accommodation, Green Point stadium, electricity, Fan fest, Cape Town Tourism ready to welcome visitors, and lastly the 2010 legacy. These bloggers delve into all aspects of scepticism associated with South Africa hosting the world cup. The tone of the writing is informative and positive. It has the flare of a tourism brochure in which the country and the tournament are paraded as must see tourist attractions.

As this blog is written from the perspective of a South African it had tendencies of being perhaps a little biased. At the same time every South African has become a marketing tool for the 2010, in promoting its growing success. The conclusion states that, “Ultimately, the success of the World Cup in Cape Town will depend largely on the welcome visitors receive from Capetonians and on the readiness of citizens to embrace them in our football celebrations. With Cape Town’s excellent reputation for hospitality, it’s a welcome Capetonians are sure to provide!” (South African blog). The use of pictures of the progress of stadiums and the patriotic vukuzela being blown with picturesque Cape Town in the background expels the ideas of readiness and confidence which these bloggers embed into this blog. At the end of the blog the feature of the comment bar has been used by reader Peter Max who states that, “As a sales representative for one of the material suppliers, it is amazing to see how the stadium takes shape upon each visit to the site. I have no doubt in my mind that Cape Town and its soccer/football loving inhabitants will make a success of the upcoming Fifa World Cup 2010. We are ready to welcome the world” (South African blog). This comment reiterates the idea of all South Africans promoting the 2010 which will add a sense of international status to this country.

The blog from an African country is from Nigeria and is called “S Africa strike hits stadia” by the Admin staff at Afrigator. This blog website allows individuals all over Africa to post blogs on any topic thinkable. It was very easy to find a blog from South Africa and an International one but it was a lot more of a search to find a blog from Africa. Afrigator is one of the main blog websites displaying blogs on all topics. It is only expected that a blog from an African country such as Nigeria would be supportive as it is the first time that an African country is hosting this event, “This is the first time the football World Cup will be hosted in Africa”( African blog). However, there might be a hidden sense of jealousy that South Africa was chosen over all the other African countries when it comes to international affairs. The blog has been written more like a hard news story with a striking headline and a hard-hitting first paragraph typed in bold font which introduces a negative tone to the piece, “Some 70, 000 construction workers in South Africa have gone on strike, halting work on stadiums being built for the 2010 World Cup” (African blog).

There is only on dreary looking picture of construction at the stadium site with a caption stating that “Work on the South African stadiums seems to be on schedule so far” (African Blog). This caption does not correlate with the headline of the blog which suggests that construction on the stadiums would be falling behind because of the 70, 000 workers on strike. Both this blog and the blog from South Africa have used the technique of presenting information in a way that the reader reads the blog as containing factual data rather than mere estimates and opinions. This blog is considerably shorter in word count in comparison to the South African and International blog. In antithesis to the other blogs, this blog is the only one which has almost a constant tone of pessimism entrenched in the writing style. However, there is a slight hint of hope in this piece which can be seen through all the negativity which suggests that they still want 2010 to be a success as it is the first time that Africa is hosting the event. They still have a proud feeling knowing that they are part of Africa and Africa is hosting such a prestigious event.

The blog from an International country is from the United Sates of America and has been named “The road to 2010 world cup final” by screen name writer Amunti on Blog Catalog. By using a screen name it is like creating a persona and character for yourself which gives the reader a sense of the unknown. In the first blog the bloggers use their name which suggests a sense of authorship and authenticity. Unlike, the first two blogs which are interested in the construction aspects and readiness of South Africa for 2010. This blog is the journey of the blogger which is explored in the introduction to this blog, “My journey from Brooklyn, New York January 4, 2007 to the world cup final match 11 July, 2010 in South Africa. How will I get there? I have no idea? Join me as I travel around Africa, write a book, make some friends and watch the beautiful game!” (International blog) The title of the blog alone has a different feel when compared to the first two blogs which focus more on the host country and its people. This blogs theme is on the game of soccer and the hype created around this well anticipated tournament. This shows the spatial distance that USA has from SA as there is no mention of scepticism, the electricity load shedding or construction worker strikes. It is as if the blogger has no political agenda but writes for the love of the game.

This blog features the full draw for the 2010 UEFA Champions League, road to 2010 tidbits, latest news on new players, injured players and scandal on players, teams and coaches. This blog is the longest of all three blogs and has the most amount of information available for a reader. There are numerous entries made to update and inform other soccer fans around the globe. In the casual use of language and writing the blog comes across as more as a diary formatted blog in comparison to the other blogs which take on a more formal stance. There are numerous links which allow potential readers other sources of information. The pictures used have mostly been of soccer teams and their logos and the UEFA Champion League Logo. This is vastly different to the previous blogs in which the pictures were mainly of the construction of the stadiums. The blog has been created to inform on an interactive level. It allows the blogger the capacity to allow the world to watch as he makes his trip from Brooklyn to South Africa through the use of a blog. This concept further degrades communication barriers.

In each of these blogs there are similarities and differences which have been noted. The overall view of each blog is as follows: South African blog uses positive tone in which all scepticism is discarded. There is use of formal and informative persuasive writing styles. The writing technique used can be compared to having the flare of tourism brochure which portrays the world cup and South Africa as must see sites. The blog from Africa is drenched in a negative tone as it releases ideas of scepticism, propaganda and portrays information as facts. However, there is still a hint of hope in the blog which suggests that they still want 2010 to be a success as it is the first time that an African country is hosting the world cup. The blog from USA has taken on the blogging style of casual and informal diary entry. Unlike, the previous two blogs which focused on the scepticism and South Africa and its people this blog focuses on the tournament and the love of the game. The overall view is that all these blogs focus on the 2010 world cup from varying aspects whilst still promoting the world cup and its success in their own styles and techniques as it benefits each of them. Each blog employs their role of being part of the phenomenon of the blogging world and web 2.0 in reducing space, time and distance through the breaking down of communication barriers from people around the world.

Essay

2009-09-20T14:35:00.001-07:00

Student no:607s0625

This essay will briefly discuss the impacts of web 2.0 on the world and what it offers as a communication tool. Then it will explain the specific issue that will be discussed in relation to the three blogs. This topic will then be explored by discussing how it has been represented by the South African, African and the international blogs respectively. The differences in style will be examined and show the various functions that a blog can serve for in relation to art and its practice.

Web 2.0 has revolutionized the way in which people communicate. Communication via the web is extremely fast and messages can be sent almost instantly. Our physical location is no longer important as our communication is not limited by it, the World Wide Web as our global playground. The internet is everywhere all one needs is a connection or even a new cellphone, and then one can have unlimited access to an ever expanding store of information. This has had major impacts on the ways in which we send and receive information, as well as giving birth to social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. These sites have enabled people to link up with others from all over the world and converse it also allows for people with similar interests to interact for example via joining groups. Blogs have also emerged out of the creation of web 2.0. Blogs are similar to a web diary, it is a space where one could discuss a topic and people may respond to your post. Like an interactive forum where your comments are uncensored. Blogs have allowed for less formal debate and discussion in almost any topic one can imagine. This has impacts for contemporary art as artists are able to use this space to promote their works, but also allows for a whole lot of critical debate and discussion about art and its place in society.

The specific issue that I have chosen to explore is a conference called Sessions eKapa which is hosted each year by Cape Africa Project. At this conference artists, curators, writers and academics come together to discuss the practice of contemporary art on the African continent. This discussion forum was set up as it was thought necessary for African art to be discussed by Africans in order to address and change the notion of being on the periphery. It also interrogates the power relationships between the local art scene and the global art world as well as possible new spaces for art to impact. This includes rethinking the art institutions and how they function in the African art world. This conference makes a space available for people involved in African art to engage with each other about issues pertinent to art in Africa such as; identity, centre and periphery and the appropriateness of the art institutions in promoting African art. I decided to choose this topic as I found it interesting the way in which each blog expressed views on this concept. I also found it intriguing the way blogs have further served to offer valid critiques of the manner in which this discussion is held as well as the possibilities it has to offer.

The South African blog which has explored this topic is Art South Africa. This blog has a post on Sessions eKapa which is written by Edgar Pieterse who was involved in the discussions at the sessions. Pieterse is critical of the sessions as he believed that the discussions became bitchy. He suggests that this is because the participants were unable to put aside their individuality, that comes with being a creative producer, and think in a collective manner that would be required to solve the problems that were being discussed. Pieterse makes clear that what he states is his opinion, that his article is subjective, and also discusses what he thinks a possible solution to this problem could be. So in relation to this topic the blog has allowed for individual opinion to be expressed but also offers some constructive criticism on how the Sessions eKapa could produce better results going forward. This post uses rather sophisticated language but is still at the same time an informal discussion of an individual’s experience at the conference.

The African blog which mentions this topic is African Colours. This blog has a series of short posts on this topic that serve a different function to the other blogs. The posts supply skeletal information about Sessions eKapa, its purpose and the technical details. This blog also supplied links so that one could research further on the topic and also details about where one could apply to attend the conference. Even though the blog has a number of posts on this issue, there is no critical engagement with the topic. Instead of functioning as a space for critique and debate this blog gives the reader useful information about when and where. So it can be seen that a blog can function in various ways in the art world, it can be a space for debate, discussion and involvement but also provide a means for accessing useful information about the happenings in the art world, as African Colours does in relation to this topic.

The international blog that discusses Session eKapa is the Bag Factory. This blog provides a detailed critical engagement with the topic. However it differs for the South African one as it forms a very engaged discussion with the topic, not just one persons opinion having attended the conference. The article does not only criticize the sessions but also allows the viewer to engage in the debate they put forward. It encourages the reader to take part in the debating process and poses questions. The post is broken down in such a way that, the author has taken extracts from official Sessions eKapa publications and then analysed and questioned what was being said and whether or not things actually functioned that way. Links are also provided to this original text. Also this post did not only critique the way in which the sessions were held, but explored issues about what it meant for the conference to be held in Cape Town and how the sessions were set up in relation to the idea of a biennale. These are deeper critical issues that go over and above the manner in which the participants discussed the issues.

To compare and contrast these blogs it is necessary to explore the different uses for blogs and their fluid function as a space for information and critical engagement, both of which are important in the contemporary art space. In relation to the chosen specific topic one can see the different functions of a blog. The African blog provides information about what is going on in the contemporary African art scene. The South African blog allowed for individual opinion to be expressed on the issue. The international blog provided a space for thought and critical engagement on the topic, emphasizing the importance of people in the art world entering into the debate. Also both the African and international blogs offered links so that the reader is able to go to the original source of information and find out more or further develop an opinion. This shows the diversity of functions that blogs can serve to the art world and discussion about art practice.

In conclusion, the use of web 2.0, social networking tools and interactive websites like blogs has totally changed the way in which we engage with art and the art world. This has led to so many available opportunities whether it be exhibiting ones art on the net or engaging in a discussion about the future of the art world and the overcoming of barriers that are faced by the contemporary art world. The possibilities are endless and most definitely worth exploring.

Essay

2009-09-20T14:35:00.000-07:00

Student no: 607s0625

This essay will briefly discuss the impacts of web 2.0 on the world and what it offers as a communication tool. Then it will explain the specific issue that will be discussed in relation to the three blogs. This topic will then be explored by discussing how it has been represented by the South African, African and the international blogs respectively. The differences in style will be examined and show the various functions that a blog can serve for in relation to art and its practice.

Web 2.0 has revolutionized the way in which people communicate. Communication via the web is extremely fast and messages can be sent almost instantly. Our physical location is no longer important as our communication is not limited by it, the World Wide Web as our global playground. The internet is everywhere all one needs is a connection or even a new cellphone, and then one can have unlimited access to an ever expanding store of information. This has had major impacts on the ways in which we send and receive information, as well as giving birth to social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. These sites have enabled people to link up with others from all over the world and converse it also allows for people with similar interests to interact for example via joining groups. Blogs have also emerged out of the creation of web 2.0. Blogs are similar to a web diary, it is a space where one could discuss a topic and people may respond to your post. Like an interactive forum where your comments are uncensored. Blogs have allowed for less formal debate and discussion in almost any topic one can imagine. This has impacts for contemporary art as artists are able to use this space to promote their works, but also allows for a whole lot of critical debate and discussion about art and its place in society.

The specific issue that I have chosen to explore is a conference called Sessions eKapa which is hosted each year by Cape Africa Project. At this conference artists, curators, writers and academics come together to discuss the practice of contemporary art on the African continent. This discussion forum was set up as it was thought necessary for African art to be discussed by Africans in order to address and change the notion of being on the periphery. It also interrogates the power relationships between the local art scene and the global art world as well as possible new spaces for art to impact. This includes rethinking the art institutions and how they function in the African art world. This conference makes a space available for people involved in African art to engage with each other about issues pertinent to art in Africa such as; identity, centre and periphery and the appropriateness of the art institutions in promoting African art. I decided to choose this topic as I found it interesting the way in which each blog expressed views on this concept. I also found it intriguing the way blogs have further served to offer valid critiques of the manner in which this discussion is held as well as the possibilities it has to offer.

The South African blog which has explored this topic is Art South Africa. This blog has a post on Sessions eKapa which is written by Edgar Pieterse who was involved in the discussions at the sessions. Pieterse is critical of the sessions as he believed that the discussions became bitchy. He suggests that this is because the participants were unable to put aside their individuality, that comes with being a creative producer, and think in a collective manner that would be required to solve the problems that were being discussed. Pieterse makes clear that what he states is his opinion, that his article is subjective, and also discusses what he thinks a possible solution to this problem could be. So in relation to this topic the blog has allowed for individual opinion to be expressed but also offers some constructive criticism on how the Sessions eKapa could produce better results going forward. This post uses rather sophisticated language but is still at the same time an informal discussion of an individual’s experience at the conference.

The African blog which mentions this topic is African Colours. This blog has a series of short posts on this topic that serve a different function to the other blogs. The posts supply skeletal information about Sessions eKapa, its purpose and the technical details. This blog also supplied links so that one could research further on the topic and also details about where one could apply to attend the conference. Even though the blog has a number of posts on this issue, there is no critical engagement with the topic. Instead of functioning as a space for critique and debate this blog gives the reader useful information about when and where. So it can be seen that a blog can function in various ways in the art world, it can be a space for debate, discussion and involvement but also provide a means for accessing useful information about the happenings in the art world, as African Colours does in relation to this topic.

The international blog that discusses Session eKapa is the Bag Factory. This blog provides a detailed critical engagement with the topic. However it differs for the South African one as it forms a very engaged discussion with the topic, not just one persons opinion having attended the conference. The article does not only criticize the sessions but also allows the viewer to engage in the debate they put forward. It encourages the reader to take part in the debating process and poses questions. The post is broken down in such a way that, the author has taken extracts from official Sessions eKapa publications and then analysed and questioned what was being said and whether or not things actually functioned that way. Links are also provided to this original text. Also this post did not only critique the way in which the sessions were held, but explored issues about what it meant for the conference to be held in Cape Town and how the sessions were set up in relation to the idea of a biennale. These are deeper critical issues that go over and above the manner in which the participants discussed the issues.

To compare and contrast these blogs it is necessary to explore the different uses for blogs and their fluid function as a space for information and critical engagement, both of which are important in the contemporary art space. In relation to the chosen specific topic one can see the different functions of a blog. The African blog provides information about what is going on in the contemporary African art scene. The South African blog allowed for individual opinion to be expressed on the issue. The international blog provided a space for thought and critical engagement on the topic, emphasizing the importance of people in the art world entering into the debate. Also both the African and international blogs offered links so that the reader is able to go to the original source of information and find out more or further develop an opinion. This shows the diversity of functions that blogs can serve to the art world and discussion about art practice.

In conclusion, the use of web 2.0, social networking tools and interactive websites like blogs has totally changed the way in which we engage with art and the art world. This has led to so many available opportunities whether it be exhibiting ones art on the net or engaging in a discussion about the future of the art world and the overcoming of barriers that are faced by the contemporary art world. The possibilities are endless and most definitely worth exploring.

Essay

2009-09-20T04:51:00.000-07:00

student number g07r1272
An animation scene:

Blogs are a Web 2.0 phenomenon which is most closely likened to an online diary. On a blog the blogger is able to make numerous posts over a span of time with regard to whatever they feel that others should or would be interested in. These blogs are accessible to anyone on the internet, and also allow the viewer to post comments on the blog. The blog has furthermore been used by companies, bands, and in this case a class to discuss subjects, promote themselves and inform the internet community. Anyone with access to the internet and is computer literate is able to create a blog about anything they would like.

This essay shall discuss three blogs, from South Africa, Africa and the World, which all look at animation from the African continent with respect to the blog itself, and how the blog can be used as a tool for self, and company promotion. When one thinks of animation the first things that come to mind are Walt Disney Pictures, Mickey Mouse, the Warner Bros. and Loony Toons and more recently Pixar Animation Studios with films such as Finding Nemo, and Up. When it comes to South African animation, there really hasn’t been much to see, other than what we might see on television, no major productions have been made that we as South African could say we are proud of. Work such as The Tale of How by the Blackheart gang is most definitely something to sing about, but in terms of commercial animation, films that have a distinct African quality and are produced here, we seem to have been lacking in this respect for some time.

The South African blog being discussed is that of an animation company called Triggerfish Animation Studios, based in South Africa.Triggerfish Animation Studios have been responsible for much of the animation for Takalani Sesame, advertisements for Royco potato bake as well as Plascon Woodcare. They have recently been hard at work on Zambezia and Khumba, animated films which have Southern African characters and are based in the plains of Zimbabwe and the Karoo respectively. The films also feature South African voices, such as Freshly Ground’s Zolani Mahola and SA Comedian of the year 2008, Nik Rabinowitz.

The animation scene in South Africa is primarily white, and the need to address empowerment and transformation has become a project for the Triggerfish team. With the development of the Animation SA website and the animationXchange program which has been set up in Johannesburg and will be coming to Durban and Port Elisabeth soon, has kick started the task of getting animation in South Africa moving to wider audience’s and animators alike. Animation SA is akin to a community where animators can join up and exhibit, comment, and discuss as well as finding jobs, and be informed about upcoming events, in short this website offers the burgeoning animator the chance to see what’s happening on the South African animation scene. So promotion of animation in South Africa is a big part of this blogs purpose. The company has also managed to get international funding and connections, and the blog will help in keeping the sponsors and clients informed. The blog speaks of a professional company who care about their image and promotion.

The Triggerfish blog offers all its posts categorized into easy to find headings which also show the number of posts within the category, for example we can find all the posts on the films Zambezia or Khumba with one click. Other categories include: stop frame animation, studio, jobs and Sesame Street. The posts are clearly separated from the blog add-ons. The blog is bright and has many pictures in the text which helps create interest. One can also search the posts by date, which spans from the present to the year 1997. The blog also provides links to the triggerfish website as well as the Khumba and Zambezia websites.

This is obviously a company blog where the company is keeping any interested parties aware of the developments and goings on in the company. The posts which are exhibited are all about the company and the projects that they are working on, which allows the viewer to see what the company can do and how efficient they may be. This is a good way to keep current investors and customers well informed as well as having an accessible way for prospective clients to observe what the company has to offer.

The blog from the greater world is an individual’s blog, called African Animation. Paula Callus, a lecturer in animation in the United Kingdom, doing her PHD on African animation, created this blog which showcases anything on the animation scene in Africa. Her blog shows bits of the most recent posts in order of date on the home page, with the personal profile of the creator on the left. We immediately know what the blog is about and that it is not just someone waffling on about their personal life as many bloggers’ tend to do. We know that the blog is about African animation and is written by an intellectual. This blog is less colourful a little sparse on the visual side but is to the point with regard to its subject matter. You can access previous posts by date and can search the blog for topics you would like to find, there are also links to relevant sites such as: Africa in Motion, Edinburgh, African Movie Channel: nollywood, artspeakafrica, Berlin Film Festival, Durban International Film Festival, gado's toonz, kenya animation blog, kwame nyongo's kenyan animation, and The South African Animation Directory.

This blog is bringing the viewer interesting, intellectually based articles about a certain subject, informing the viewer. This is different to the Triggerfish blog as the Africa Animation Blog is not promoting a product to the viewer but rather bringing together a forum of interesting media about a certain subject for those who wish to be informed about that subject specifically. The Triggerfish blog is promoting the product, which is the company, in a way in which is interactive with the client or prospective client. The Africa Animation blog is only supplying what is on the blog, there is no other product behind what is seen, unless you consider the blogger and her knowledge as a product.From the African Animation blog we learn that the continent of Africa is not as far behind as one might think in terms of its animation. For example the Kenyan television show, The XYZ show, by Kenyan cartoonist Gado, which uses puppets to critique their local government in a satirical way, has been hugely successful, even getting an article on BBC. ZNews, a similar production, produced by cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro and former television executive Thierry Cassuto in South Africa, has not been allowed to air nationally in South Africa.

The last blog we shall look at is the Kenyanimation blog. In the authors own words this is a blog that is “A place for a few young Kenyan animators to share information, opinions and their work. A space for everyone else to join in the conversation, too.” Set up much like the Triggerfish blog, this blog has all past posts available by date as well as other interesting and related links. It also has the contributors’ information available. This blog has a number of different posts ranging from reviews, interviews and thoughts from the blogger’s. The blog is simple in layout and colouring, not as colourful as the Triggerfish blog, and not as informing as the Africa Animation blog, but to its purpose of providing a forum for animators in Kenya it is functional enough.

The Kenyanimation blog is more of an interests' blog like that of Africa animation’s blog, concentrating on the animation of Kenya specifically. This blog shows us that the animation scene in Africa is not so sparse and is growing in size and reputation in many African countries, the blog allows the animators to come together in a forum where their interests are important and can be discussed with others who have the same interests. This allows for the continual growth and development of the animation scene in Kenya through a way other than the printed media and organizations dedicated to animation could produce.

As we can see from the examples of the Triggerfish, Africa Animation and Kenyanimation blogs the blog is an interesting application which has been used not only as a personal online diary but as a way to promote various subjects, companies, and people. The example that blogger’s all around the world including, the ones we have just discussed, shows us how we can use Web 2.0 to our advantage, as a forum, a promoter of sorts for the self as well as causes and companies or products. The web has opened so many pages to the public with regard to opportunities, resources and information. A blog, although regarded as a personal page, is open to so many people all around the world, being able to get input and comments from complete strangers is a new and novel way to conduct your life or company, and also letting the connections and links to a wider discussion create more opportunities for the blogger to widen their perspective.

2009-09-20T04:22:00.000-07:00

fuck.

Emma Morris Essay

2009-09-20T03:29:00.000-07:00

Student Number g07m1257
Word Count 1800

When the first computers when engineered and-for want of a better word- invented in the 1930's and 40's to help the code breakers at places like Bletchely Park no one knew the extent to which they would develop and change and become a mode of communication and expression. The first computer known as the Colossus which took up an entire room, few thought that they would have evolved the way they did and become such an integral part of the world's daily life. The computer started out life as a way to break codes and save lives no where was it imagined that the computer, along with the Internet would it become a major tool in communication. How ever it was not until the 1970's when what we now call the Internet was first developed. The Internet that we recognise today started out as a networking system that was only able to function on a mainframe model and confined to local communications in one specific area, "Before the wide spread of inter networking that led to the Internet, most communication networks were limited by their nature to only allow communications between the stations on the local network and the prevalent computer networking method was based on the central mainframe computer model." How ever exploration, ingenuity and experimentation with gateways lead to the innovation that was Web 1.0 which is the forefather of web 2.0; the Internet we all know and love. The static private version of Web 1.0 was revolutionised with the advent of web 2.0.

What is web 2.0 and why is it different to web 1.0? Terry Flew, in his 3rd Edition of New Media described what he believed to characterize the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0:
"move from personal websites to blogs and blog site aggregation, from publishing to participation, from web content as the outcome of large up-front investment to an ongoing and interactive process, and from content management systems to links based on tagging (folksonomy)".
The shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 can be seen as a result of technological refinements, which included such adaptations as "broadband, improved browsers, and Ajax, to the rise of Flash application platforms and the mass development of widgetization, such as Flickr and YouTube badges" Where web 1.0 was just a simple tool regarding the retrieving and saving of information web 2.0 is much more than that, it is a way of making the web more personalised and imparting some of your personality onto the information and applications that are out there. The term "Web 2.0" was coined by Darcy DiNucci in 1999. In her article "Fragmented Future," she writes[5]
The Web we know now, which loads into a browser window in essentially static screenfuls, is only an embryo of the Web to come. The first glimmerings of Web 2.0 are beginning to appear, and we are just starting to see how that embryo might develop The Web will be understood not as screenfuls of text and graphics but as a transport mechanism, the ether through which interactivity happens."
How does the Web 2.0 aid an artist living and working in the 21st century? What does the total freedom and access to the information highway mean to the art world. With the total freedom of access to information the Internet has become ones own personalised advertising agency and P.R company. How? With the revolution and trend of the blog-or rather web log, an online "diary" or journal. The main question one needs to ask oneself, is "Why Blog?" according to the site "Microbiologybytes.com" blogging is a way and a place to think and reflect, play with technology, collaborate with others, be thought provoking and irreverent and slightly dangerous-like the blog artheat.net here was a blog that turned the conservative and somewhat traditional art world upside down and brought the power to the people. The blog is all about ideas and communication. What better way for an artist to get his or her work out into the ether and beyond than with a blog. The "blogs" that are going to be discussed today are Africancolours: a blog that deals with the art community on the African continent, Art News Blog: an international art blog and finally Art South Africa: a local blog that concerns itself with South African artists. This essay will deal with the relevance that each blog has to its community of artists, it shall examine how the blogs differ in style and information and how this is linked to the relevance of each blog to the information that it is supplying to the Internet public.
The blog "Art South Africa" is more of a website which deals with local South African art from around the country. The site deals with the usual website stuff such as advertisements and links to sister sites. The format of the blog/ site reminds one of a masthead and contents page of a magazine. This blog/site deals with art and artists who are "homegrown" and it has a very strong tie with the local artists. It has a very formal feeling, the primary colours featured on the site are predominantly black, white and red-which reminds one of that old newspaper joke. And that is what this blog is. A newspaper, or a journal which highlight artistic endeavours, it does not really give a young artist who is confined to a small town much scope to get their work out into the ether.But, and this is interesting there is a link to the magazines facebook page where one would be able to upload images, by way of photographs and pictures and things onto that by way of disseminating ones artwork out into the sub consciousness of the general public. The lay out of the blog is bog-or rather blog standard and is very user friendly with links and scroll down bars. It's not so much image driven as more text orientated, where as the international blog Art News Blog has a more image orientated feel as soon as the page open one is greeted with the image of a giant T-bone steak and a collection of food related images. The South African blog favours links to images and thumbnails-the artwork aspect is more subtle than the other sites. This blog is based in Cape Town as will therefore be more centred around the Cape Town art scene, but with Kalula and Onetime travel is an option. The basic feel of this blog is a contemporary established place-not Euroccentric at all it embraces the "South African" art spirit but is not chaotic in its creativity.
The second site that shall be examined in this essay is the international blog "Art News Blog" this is a more traditional blog in the sense that it reads like a journal entry, with personal touches, but also imparts information and reviews, dates of exhibitions as well as features on various artist's. This site is produced from the Blogging site: "blogspot.com". It is a very visually orientated site, immediately once that page has loaded one is given a selection of food paintings with quirky little comments such as "Potatoes are boring I don't care how they are cooked" next to an image of a painting of potatoes. The comments by the images adds to the relaxed tone of the blog, it is easy going and fun. Not as formal as the South African blog, "Art South Africa" this blog has a more personal connection with the viewer, that is not to say that the South African site was not user friendly-it was. This Blog just seems less formal, more fun and artsy. It just appears more appealing, there are video links to youtube, really making use of the web2.0 applications, where as the South African blog just transfers information, it does not help on create or play with technology. The artists that the blog deal with belong to the international art community, there are artists from Australia and Dallas featured on the blog, along with interviews etc. Giving a heightened sense of the international community. Although the actual features of the blog are fun and web 2.0 orientated the actual colour and lay out of the blog is somewhat bland and white. Which serves to highlight the art showcased on the site. As opposed to the African blog African Colours, the blog reflects the spirit of the canon of the artists and is not merely functional and used to disseminate information. The spirit of art seems to come through the African colours blog.
The third and final blog being discussed in this essay is the art blog based in Kenya, African colours and is a self professed guide to African art and artists. It features artists from all over Africa, Southern Africa included. As opposed to both other blogs this one is full of bright colours and images-almost as if it is embracing the joy and spirit of belonging to the African continent and community. This blog features an extensive range of artists and works, with links to portfolio's and exhibitions. The author of this blog in deeply involved and commit ed to the African art scene. The medium showcased on this blog belong to the wide range of mediums available to the artist, with sculptures and painting, photographs and installations being included. The one important feature that this blog has is a guide as to how to get ones work onto the blog, how to be included as an artist in the showcase. Which as a Young South African artist it would be an important thing to do.
So far this is the blog that makes the most of web2.0, it has the most fun with Internet applications and aspiring artists. It has a sense of fun and joie de vivre.

On the whole the Internet revolution that has lead us to this point, where as artitst's we are able to get ourselves out there with relative ease is far from over. The journey of the Internet has almost paralleled the journey of the computer.Like the Colossus at Bletchely Park, the interconnecting networking systems were confined to one concrete place but now the Internet covers the the length and breadth of the world enabling the information to be played with and not just received. The blog and Internet itself has gone through a remarkable change, it has gone from being available only on a computer, confined to a desk; to a laptop which can be carried anywhere. But now one can access blogs anywhere and everywhere including on ones cellphone. And the blog format has been streamlined, take for example twitter, the on the go anywhere blog. A mere one line to let the world know what you are doing and how you are feeling, and people can upload pictures and videos and receive SMS notifications. The possibilities are endless. The information is certainly no longer static. It can be uploaded any where and downloaded every where.

Essay

2009-09-20T03:24:00.000-07:00

Student Number: 607k1185

The creation of Web 2.0 changed our way of life; the world quite literally became smaller: emails took seconds to be delivered not days or weeks like the posted letter; Facebook and myspace allowed for friends and family spread all over the world to stay in contact at the click of a button; and where there used to be isolation of countries, there is the inclusion of them all as one global unit, as websites are globally accessible to anyone with a computer and an internet connection.

The rise of blogs then permited the public to have greater freedom of speech, as comments could be posted onto them with the author remaining anonymous if they wished.

Blogs let people comment and write on anything that they feel is significant to them, so naturally blogs would appear from all over the world on an issue that impacted the entire globe: the Swine Flu pandemic.

“Blog Lines” is a South African based blog that ran an article posted by “The Times” newspaper of a possible vaccine that could be available for the virus towards the end of the year.

The blog itself is a simple design, with basic fonts being used. It lists the various blogs available on the site down the sides of the webpage, and also advertises ways to download music. It also advertises Mandela Coins that can be bought online and provides the link to get to the mentioned website. Being a South African website I was not surprised to see the Mandela Birthday coins being advertised to be bought online, as Nelson Mandela is a selling point of South Africa, so naturally many South African websites would used that association to their advantage.

This blog post deals specifically with the vaccine and the deaths associated with the virus. By recording the number of deaths around the world, the article tries to emphasise the need for a vaccine of Swine Flu. It doesn’t mention signs and symptoms or any other details of the virus, instead it embeds links to other sites down the side of the webpage that deals with that specific information, if the viewer was interested to read up on it. From reading various magazines and newspapers, South Africa seems to place a great emphasis on the introduction of breakthrough vaccines, especially the possibility of an AIDS vaccine , and with this outbreak of Swine Flu, the country is looking towards a vaccine for it, which is possibly being developed overseas by the United States.

There is the option to comment on the article placed on “Blog Lines”, but in order to do so one must link to another webpage, as both the comments and “pings” have been closed on the website. On this website the reader has to be registered or a member to comment on it, which I feel does not permit a wider range of comments, as only select readers who saw the article can comment on nit. We can see the growing popularity of blogs and the importance of the internet, when newspapers, traditionally a print medium, use it to post articles.

“Smart Kenyan” is a relatively new business and commerce blog created in Kenya that deals with the economics of the African country. The article does not deal with the virus itself, but rather what the impact it has had on the country. Kenya’s primary form of income is from the Tourism industry. And anything that compromises it is a major source of news, and cause for a certain amount of alarm. The economy of the East African Country relies on Tourism, and the outbreak of the Swine Flu pandemic has had a negative impact on the amount of Tourists travelling to it.

Being a blog that deals primarily with the economics of Kenya, it focuses intently on the business and economic impact the virus has had on the country.

The blog itself is simply designed with an austere blue background, indicating the nature of the blog. Similar to the South African “Blog Lines” down the sides of the article, the webpage embeds links to the county’s selling points, which in this case is Tourism; links have been embedded for top travel deals and hotel offers, in the possible hope of readers to look at the potential of spending a future vacation in Kenya. However, all these added links makes the visage of the page look untidy and busy.

There are very few comments if any, posted on the blog although the option is there as well as the option to share it and link it to related articles. The reader has to be registered with the blog before they can post a comment, which in a way limits the range and number of comments that can be posted. If the amount of comments is anything to go by, then there are very few readers who are actually registered with the blog and even less who comment on the available articles.

The blog deals with the specialised subject of economics in Kenya and seems to expect the reader to already be associated or part of that world. The creators have not posted details of the virus itself as there are no links embedded into the webpage to pages with information on the virus. It is simply a business report with links to holiday destinations- Kenya’s main form of income.

The Hutch Report is an American based blog created by Mark Hutcherson that allows the public to comment on leading news stories of the day; and the pandemic of the Swine Flu virus was major news. A very Simply designed blog with very few links embedded’ it has a “clean” and organised visage. Both “Blog Lines” and “Smart Kenyan” are very “busy” in their layout, which makes them look a bit disorganised. Unlike the previously mentioned blogs, one does not have to register with the Hutch Report in order to post a comment on any of the articles. A useful feature that the blog has is a link to its archives , allowing the reader to browse earlier news articles.

The post written by the creator, deals with the potential for the number of Swine flu cases to rise considerably when school term starts again. Millions of children will be in close proximity to each other that will allow for a rapid spreading of the virus. He also mentions the clinical trials that are in progress to generate a vaccine for the virus, here Hutcherson takes an interesting look on it, emphasising the reluctance of some people to take a “fast forwarded”, unproven vaccine especially by the older generation.

This blog allows for the public to comment on issues that affect their lives, it’s written by a member of the public, which in itself is an important factor as it creates a stage for liberal comment.

Swine Flu affected the entire world in a drastic manner, not in the number of deaths associated with the virus (hardly any in comparison with Malaria and AIDS), but rather in the mass hysteria that was whipped up mostly by the media. These three blogs show different ways of reporting on the virus: “Blog Lines” looks at the research and clinical trials that are underway to generate a vaccine for Swine Flu; “Smart Kenyan” reports on the economic impact that the “hysteria” around the virus has had on many countries-Kenya was used as the example- that rely on tourism as their major form of income; and thirdly “The Hutch Report” outlines the drastic manner in which the virus can spread in areas where many people are in close contact with each other, similar to any respiratory infection. These are three of many ways of looking at Swine Flu, but the social and economic impacts were issues that all the blogs reported on.

Essay

2009-09-18T06:25:00.000-07:00

Word count: 1503
Student number: 607t4000

In this essay web 2.0 will be introduced and briefly discussed in relation to the what it offers to the art world. This discussion will also be related to which parts of web 2.0 benefits artists. To develop this discussion more thoroughly 3 different art blogs will be discussed: 1 International, 1 African, and 1 South African. In order to link these three blogs together the cohesive theme in each one is the marketing of artists and art events. Each blog’s style, culture and writers will be discussed in terms of the similarities and differences in each of them.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee created web 2.0, and with this new development sharing files with other people over the Internet became possible. So basically one can with web 2.0 get information, change it then send it out again to various people or the world, this phenomenon is called: Social Networking. With this facet of web 2.0 comes websites such as Facebook, You Tube, Google and a broader field: Blogs. A blog is basically an online diary owned by either one or a group of people who post comments onto it and can also post their art onto it. This brought about new dimensions in the art world when various individuals created their own sites and blogs and through them became famous artists, one such individual is Robert Sloon. The positive thing about this with regards to art and artists is that it is accessible to everybody; anybody can now put their work onto a blog or website and get global recognition. This is a huge asset to artists and to various art communities that are remotely situated in the world and are not in New York or Cape Town, places such as Grahamstown perhaps. Many artists worldwide chose to exhibit their work on a blog or online because it is cheaper as well as faster and many of them succeed. The three chosen blogs show this very well, each one showcases sculpture artist’s work and are very similar in content. The main similarities between these three blogs is that they are obviously all blogs, they are all written by one person and all have share feeds at the end of each post. Mainly, each of the three blogs are advertising something to do with art, be it an exhibition, a tribe’s artworks, or just upcoming events in the local arts circuit. The discussion will start with the International blog: new-art.blogspot.com.

A writer with the screen name of VVOI updates the international blog monthly (approximately one every month), he is from Warsaw, Poland and has a profile in the top right corner of the blog. He himself is an artists and he puts his own artworks onto the blog as he did on Monday the 16th February post on the blog. He basically advertises his exhibition opening giving the reader opportunity to see what the work is about and also preview the work before going to see it. Other artists he showcases and writes about include Jenny Holzer, Tommi Toijda, and exhibitions such as PastForward. This blog is different from the other two in that the writer does not write so much, it is more image based, with each image having a paragraph or two of accompanying text to explain the artwork. It is great for the art lovers viewing the site to see what different exhibitions are out there and new and upcoming artists and/or events. But it is also very helpful to far way people who cannot physically go and view the exhibition, and this element will be seen in each of the three blogs. So for example the first (most recent) post on the San Francisco LAB’s 25th-year-anniversary exhibition, Pastforward, gives the reader a brief background on one of the artworks, and (another feature of web 2.0) it gives the reader click able links to other websites about the exhibition and about the LAB for example. The curatorial note is also embedded in the text and this to is very helpful to the more long distance art lovers (from Grahamstown for example). This is pretty much continued with the other artists and exhibitions on the blog. This blog has been running for quite a long time, the last click able date for older posts is 2000 and it showcases a variety of art mediums, as do the other two blogs. The African art blog is also very interesting and will now be discussed.

The Africa blog, is much more personalized. It is yet again a single author, but this author is much more personable than VVOI. The authors name is not given and not accessible, so I will refer to him/her as the editor as is done on the blog as well. The reason I say this blog is more personal is because the editor has an option on the page for the reader to send their email so that the editor can send the reader images of artworks that the editor thinks is worthwhile. The editor also promises to soon put his/her favorite artists and pieces onto the blog very soon. This blog is also marketing various African sculptures and other African art forms. The editor gives the reader a background in each post about things like African pottery, African figurines and also what other African tribes are making. This background is indeed crucial because most people who are not from the African tribes etc do not really know all that much about the tribes and the history of African art and sculpture. This is also very intriguing for art buyers, having a ‘piece of Africa’ has become very popular in some regions of the world and this stems out into the history of the world even. But once again it is nice for the people who cannot travel to Africa to be able to view the work online and comment on it ad learn more about it. This site can be seen as marketing sculptures from Africa for home décor purposes, but is that not one main element for all art: most artworks end up being displayed in a home, art gallery, museum or even publicly. Another very important facet of this blog in particular is that it is showing Africa’s culture, and is very much cultural based. The blog is updated monthly by the editor and is powered by Word press, as is the South African blog, which will now be discussed.

The South African blog is very similar in content to the international blog because its layout is very similar. South Africa blog editor writes it and once again their identity is withheld. But there is another element here of advertising, strangely hotels are also advertised, supposedly for accommodation to those who want to come along to the Heritage awards or for heritage month as the blog says. This blog is also, as in the Africa blog, very much showcasing the culture of South Africa. Showing festivals such as the Oktoberfest in Cape Town. Even though this blog is arts and culture based, this is still a facet in art and is very important in South Africa. Lets face it, the divers and rich cultural climate in South Africa is the main attraction in the country and on this blog it is being showcased. There are a few other features that are interesting on the blog, such as blogs they read, and a blogroll, which are both click able on the blog. Based on the posts on the blog it is updated weekly if not daily and the first post was in October 2005. It has more of a news-like feel and is once again helpful to those people far away who want to see what is happening in South Africa. A difference that sets this blog apart from the previous two is that there is also a competition for artists posted on the site inviting artists to take part (and offering a substantial amount of prize money), and therefore advertising for the people creating the artworks rather that people who enjoy viewing the art and reading about the artists. Thus one can see this blog as more for the artists among us, as well as the arts and culture lovers.

The way each blog presents their views is as follows, the international blog is more of a news cross personal style of writing, where the writer shows his own and his favorite art as well as talks about events which are up and coming or sometimes already past. The Africa blog is personal and also information based, telling the viewer more about what he/she is looking at. The South Africa blog is very much news feed, telling the viewer about up and coming events and competitions. But the common thread in all these blogs is that they advertise artworks, artists, exhibitions and events in the art and culture world. Each one has its own very important role to play in the very wide world of the web 2.0.

Links for those of you Lost in the Ether.

2009-09-16T01:22:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have been struggling with finding relevent websites here are somethings you may wish to consider. They are not all blogs but they may make use of Web 2.0 functionality or have specific reasons why as publications they work better online than in other media e.g. print or as a compliment to printed versions. Some of these sites are community specific, informal sites whilst others are more established.

South Africa

www.artheat.net
www.artsouthafrica.com
www.arttimes.co.za
ww2.mg.co.za/section/arts
www.news.artsmart.co.za
www.chimurenga.co.za
www.kaganof.com/kagablog/

Africa

www.africancolours.net
www.asai.co.za
www.africanpainters.blogspot.com

International

www.e-flux.com
www.artfagcity.com
www.myartspace.com/blog
www.artnewsblog.com
www.arttimesjournal.com
www.blog.art21.org
www.dvblog.org
www.northern.lights.mn

The list goes on .....

Fantastic News

2009-09-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

Essay due-date extended by one whole week! Great success.

Hope that one week helps...

Bell-Roberts Bye-Bye

2009-08-27T02:25:00.001-07:00

I thought people would like to know that I thought the comments on 'Bell-Roberts Bye-Bye' were quite interesting. Robert Sloon and anonymous were talking about what will happen to ASA now that Bell-Roberts is closing. Also mentioned how much it costs to advertise on the back cover of ASA, something like R35 000. It is also that second gallery to close in SA.

It seems that often the comments posted end up being more interesting than the articles themselves.

Essay

2009-08-26T05:43:00.000-07:00

The essay is as follows:

Select ONE blog from South Africa, ONE blog from Africa other than SA and ONE international blog and compare and contreast their styles and way of reporting / blogging on a specific issue (e.g. Damien Hirst; William Kentridge; the Venice Biennale; the economic crash). Look at what they say as much as how they present their views).

Your refrences and images should be embedded in the text and you should post your essay on the blog.

Due: 14 September 2009
Length: 1500 - 1800 words

Any queries to: polykonart@gmail.com

Welcome

2009-08-20T02:42:00.000-07:00

WhiteSpace is a blog set up as part of Andrew Lamprecht's course in the 3rd Year AVH programme at Rhodes University, Grahamstown South Africa, for students to focus on the issues surrounding Web 2.0. It is hoped that it will grow and become a permanent site for discussion, debate and the sharing of ideas for students.

I will be posting links, feedback and ideas here relating to the lectures and I ask that students in the course do the same. Ultimetely your essayts will also be posted to this blog for comment and feedback.

To get you started here's a link for a brief history of the Web on Wikipedia.

So... get blogging!