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Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Events TEDx is coming to town
Posted By Manoj P Kesavan on Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 8:10 AM
Do you know TED ...? If not, you should!
TED (www.TED.com), which stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, brings together the brightest, the most creative and the most original minds from around the world, to share a stage, to spread their ideas and to "cross-pollinate". Founded in 1982 as a sort of a Silicon Valley think tank of industry leaders, TED grew in scope and reach to become a truly global phenomenon. For example, to take only names that start with the letter G, Peter Gabriel, Bill Gates, Malcolm Gladwell, Jane Goodall, Al Gore and Billy Graham are few of the thought leaders to speak at recent TED conferences (see the full list here).
In 2007, TED started a program called TEDx, which allows cities, schools and other organizations to hold their own independently organized, licensed events under the guidance of TED. Since then every major city across the globe has held a TEDx event. And finally TEDx comes to Charlotte this year on September 24.
The common refrain I've heard since I began this process is "it's about time." At first, I thought it just meant Charlotte should have had its TEDx by now. But now I understand the nuance implied in that statement is that we're a city yearning for leadership and it's high time to do something about it.
The theme for the inaugural TEDxCharlotte is "Big Ideas." Like all TED conferences, it's by invitation only or through an application process. Unlike TED conferences, it's not a commercial venture and guests don't pay to attend. (Attending TED 2010 would have cost you $6,000). Our goal is to bring together creative minds and those who seek to be engaged in order to inspire and connect.
The whole-day program involves speakers who are thought leaders and original creative thinkers and artists from Charlotte and the region who are actively applying their innovative ideas to make our lives better. A lofty endeavor, but more important now than ever before. With the vacuum created by the gradual exit of the "fathers" of modern Charlotte, it's crucial we take a close look at who we are, think about how we should and will evolve, and begin the process of determining who will get us there.
The event aims to be thought-provoking, moving, entertaining, challenging and inspiring. The goal is not to create even more task forces or to undertake studies. The simple beauty of TED is that it's meant to seed thought and discussion, create connections and spark debate. Beyond that, people will take from it and do with it what they will.
For more information, updates and to apply for attending, check out the TEDx Charlotte Web site – or follow the event on Facebook & Twitter.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Save our libraries — a personal plea
Posted By Manoj P Kesavan on Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 10:07 AM
The news came out last Thursday: 12 public library branches in Mecklenburg will be closed in 2 weeks and around 150 employees will lose their jobs. They are trying to raise $2 million in a week in a last ditch effort to avoid that. Since then everything about it has been discussed and argued about in all kinds of media, and there isn’t much left to add to that debate. What I offer here is instead a very personal take on the issue.
I grew up in a family and a culture that valued books and reading. But books were hard to come by. Every major town had a public library. However the shelves were mostly empty, the books dusty, old and falling apart. The only good libraries were those attached to the bigger universities, accessible only to the students enrolled there — which made them very exclusive. So when I moved to the U.S. around 11 years ago, I didn’t even bother to check out the public library in the small Kansas town I had moved to. But when I did, I was really amazed by the facility and the collection. Since then whenever I meet someone who has newly arrived in the U.S., I advice them to first get a library card.
The public library system is one of the best-kept secrets of the United States. We who live here often forget that in such a large country, it is so unusual and extraordinary for every small town, and every neighborhood in a city, to have a well-stocked library. In a country that offers no free lunch, we take for granted one of the few facilities that we enjoy at very low expense. And in the changing world order, it is one of our true advantages that the new rising powers like Brazil, China, India or Russia will find hard to replicate.
Back to Charlotte: Of course things could have been handled better here, in one of the best library systems in the country. There should have been a longer notice than 2 weeks. There should have been a longer term plan, so that a brand new facility wouldn’t have to be closed less than 2 months from its opening. But this is not the time to blame the system — it’s the time to try do something. Let us just hope that the county and the library system realize that this kind of genuine concern, sympathy and goodwill from such a large section of the community is hard to come by. They would lose a huge opportunity if they don’t turn this groundswell of support into a permanent citizen organization that would become a safety net if/when something like this happens again. After all, by all indications, this seems to be only the beginning.
For now, $2 million isn’t a big amount for a city of Charlotte’s size and resources, even in the middle of a bad recession; $2 million will not pay for even the building of the smallest of branches that faces closure — but the damage that the lack of $2 million will cause is incalculable.
Please do whatever you can … and then something more. It might be too late by this time tomorrow.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Visual Art Life’s a (segregated) beach
Posted By Barbara Schreiber on Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 11:18 AM
If you were to view Leisure Space, Juan Logan’s exhibition at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts+Culture, with no wall text, no titles, no clue as to what the work is about, you might be puzzled, but you would still be moved. These map-like, mixed media works on panel — characterized by dense areas of color, evocative use of collage elements and a rich, symbolic language — may not be fully decipherable without some guidance, but they have a beauty and depth that evokes emotion and catharsis.
However, it is imperative to know that Leisure Space, is about something, and that something is important to think about — our country’s historic black beaches, places where African-Americans were allowed to congregate during the Jim Crow era.
Not all of the paintings are about beaches per se, but most are about water — or rather, about conflict and control that are made visible when land meets water. As Logan points out, “If you control the water, you control the land.”
A thoughtful catalogue essay by Andrew W. Kahrl details the history and the outrage that inspired these forceful paintings. It provides the backstory to the unease combined with sheer aesthetic pleasure one experiences in viewing Leisure Space.
Works range from the imposing “Help Me, Save Me, Love Me” — in which thousands of puzzle pieces represent the scattering of New Orleans’ African-American population in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina — to the quiet, chilling “I Almost Didn’t See You” — a monochromatic work in which figures are rendered invisible and silent. The pieces in Leisure Space seem to have aspects both somber and uplifting, condemning the circumstances that created black beaches, but honoring the solidarity they fostered.
Most art worth looking at generates more questions than answers, and Logan’s is no exception. On March 20, 1 p.m., you can meet Logan, hear him discuss his work and ask some of those questions. For details, visit www.ganttcenter.org or call 704-547-3700.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Visual Art / Events / Architecture The (social) media and the new pioneers of our virtual universe
Posted By Manoj P Kesavan on Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 2:11 PM
A special conference/fundraiser was hosted on Feb. 20, 2010. But it did not take place in one place — it started in Tokyo at 5 p.m. their time, and followed the time zones around the globe to end in San Francisco 24 hours later. During that period, tens of thousands of people in 130 cities around the world participated in it. This “largest global distributed conference ever” was the Pecha Kucha for Haiti event, and 100% of the proceeds went to the Haiti rebuilding efforts spearheaded by Architecture for Humanity. Most regular readers of this blog would know that Point8 Forum, the informal grassroots group this blog derives its name from, organizes Pecha Kucha in Charlotte. The series is held in most other cities by similar all-voluntary groups. And even more impressive is the fact that this whole event was planned and executed in around 20 days.
All this was made possible by media that barely existed five years ago; the word was spread through Facebook and Twitter and by various blogs, the event was streamed live on Ustream, with the founders chatting with the organizers and the audience around the world by Skype video. It was perhaps one of those not-too-common instances where the much-hyped “social media” delivered on all its promise.
PK for Haiti used new media for a rather traditional objective. But art isn’t often about tradition, and moreover, about having any immediate or tangible purpose. In fact, what artists often do is use a new medium for purposes it was never intended for, in the process expand the boundaries of that medium.
For example, Charles Westfall and Layet Johnson, two artists from the University of Georgia, set up a life boat with supplies for a day, and at 8:15 p.m. on Jan. 21, paddled off into the Atlantic off the N.C. coast ... on Google Earth! This performance piece, titled "Platonic Voyage" too was live on Ustream through which they stayed in touch with their landbound audience.
Another unconventional — if a bit irreverent — exploration/journey in the virtual world took place on Second Life, as an artist "recreated" Gandhi’s Salt March by advancing his avatar using a treadmill. You can see that and related projects recorded here.
As our connection to our non-immediate surroundings becomes primarily through the electronic screen, and as our socialization turns increasingly virtual, is the vast expanse of cyber space the last frontier? Are our contemporary Daniel Boones and Davy Crocketts out there in the fringes of the internet, staking it out for us less adventurous souls? Check out the art gallery near you to find out ... or just wait for their tweet.
Related: CPCC will be holding a half-day workshop to discuss Social Media and Visual Art on April 13, Tuesday afternoon at their main campus. Contact Alyssa Wood for more details: Alyssa.Wood@cpcc.ed.
