If there’s one thing we know for certain about China in 2019, it’s that people there love their apps. They use WeChat to talk with friends; they spend hours battling virtual enemies on PUBG; they binge-watch short videos on Douyin. And so why shouldn’t the Communist Party get in on the action?
A TYPICAL EPISODE of Journal Rappé begins with Senegalese rapper Makhtar “Xuman” Fall dressed in a suit and seated behind a news desk. At first glance, the show looks like an ordinary newscast. But then Xuman (pronounced human) launches into his intro, rapping in French instead of talking. “Welcome! Make yourself comfortable. These are the news for you. Some good ones and bad ones too. But they’re all news for you.”
A couple weeks ago, the internet’s right-wing outrage machine trained its sights on the small liberal arts school in Wisconsin where I teach. Ripon College had banned 9/11 memorials, venues like the Drudge Report and the Federalist Papers declared, because they might make Muslim students uncomfortable. On Twitter, folks who’d never previously heard of the school inveighed against its reputation, suggesting Ripon must be run by anti-American communists.
In the era of New Media, we share media content with a single click. We co-create the reality of our world, often without thinking how this reality is "real." Nevertheless, what if this reality is sometimes somewhat coloured?
Cut and Paint is a website with free access to a wide variety of visual designs that can be printed out, cut, and used as graffiti stencils anywhere. Access to a variety of resolutions of each design is free for all, and there is a standing invitation for artist-activists to contribute their own designs for others to use.
20-year-old Ilyssa, from New York, sees communism as the only viable alternative, one that will improve the societal issues we currently face. “From a young age, I was very aware of the stark class differences that existed,” she says. “I grew up with a single mother in a very poor family.
During the pandemic of Covid protestors have found many different ways in which they can express themselves. Some examples of which are the BLM rallies that took place in the video game The Sims to the China / Hong Kong protests in Animal Crossing. During the period of time where street protests against anti-black racism was rampant around the world, Animal Crossing players were taking their own stand against racism.
MOTHA is please to participate in the “Bring Your Own Body: transgender between archives and aesthetics“ exhibition at the Glass Curtain gallery in Chicago. Swing by the space to pick up the latest MOTHA newsprint broadside poster and watch the accompanying video slideshow, both entitled “Transvestism in the News,” made especially for the exhibit.
The Scheherazade Project is a Performing Arts Non-profit based in Washington DC. Co-founders Lisa Leibow and Julia Alvarez were inspired by Scheherazade in the Arab classic 1001 Nights and created The Scheherazade Project.
For more information, our website is https://thescheherazadeproject.org/The-Scheherazade-Project
A satirical TV comedy show caused a security alert after coming within yards of George Bush's hotel at a top-level government conference in Australia.
The Chaser's War on Everything, which airs on the ABC network, sent a team to the Apec summit in Sydney with spoof security passes saying "joke", "insecurity" and "It's pretty obvious this isn't a real pass".
Fespaco is a meeting place put to good use to promote the development of black cinematography. From 1973, topics of discussion are introduced at each edition.
Ahead of a recent exhibition at the prestigious modern art museum OCAT Shanghai, the artist Song Ta described the process of creating his multimedia piece “Uglier and Uglier.” After secretly filming thousands of unsuspecting female college students, Song and three assistants painstakingly ranked them by their perceived attractiveness; those deemed most appealing featured early in the show, with the women on display getting progressively “uglier” as the
"White Noise explores the seductive power of extremism. Hatred feels good. But the fix is fleeting. As the film progresses, the subjects reveal the contradictions at the heart of their world. Lauren Southern advocates for traditional gender roles, but resents the misogyny and sexism of her peers. Mike Cernovich warns that “diversity is white genocide,” but has an Iranian wife and biracial kids.
ARTS/CULTURE
FOKAL is the hub in Haiti where locals and international visitors from all walks of life -- artists, writers, citizens, activists-- come together to discuss the most pressing nation- and community-building issues, enjoy cutting edge artistic expressions, and share their ideas.
“He describes it as a “family theme park unsuitable for small children” – and with the Grim Reaper whooping it up on the dodgems and Cinderella horribly mangled in a pumpkin carriage crash, it is easy to see why.
Banksy’s new show, Dismaland, which opened on Thursday on the Weston-super-Mare seafront, is sometimes hilarious, sometimes eye-opening and occasionally breathtakingly shocking.
The aim of the action is to create a fractal network of poets, where their poems will be recited, recorded, set to music, will be activistically acted as performance material in order to resist the censorship of art.
The field of action is the poets who will be born and the network that will be created by the restless artists.
This Girl Can is a campaign launched by England Sports to encourage women to be active no matter how they do it or how they look. In common culture, the trend is to be fit, active, and toned. Social media is filled with women having "the perfect body", sculpted to perfection in every way. Although being healthy and fit is attainable with hard work and dedication, most women struggle to attain their goals.
Ge Yulu’s artistic practice playfully pulls at the strings of a social system that, although seemingly all-encompassing, is in fact a malleable structure consisting of individual human beings. For his 2016 project Eye Contact, Ge positioned himself in front of a surveillance camera and stared directly into the lens for hours, then negotiated with a security guard to buy the footage.
The purpose of this project was the permeate stock images with more depictions of Black people. Stock images are usually easily found and utilized, showcasing people doing everyday activities or scenes. To boost representation of Black people in this particular image field, were left out, so the artist chose to recreate popular stock images with Black models to showcase representation and shed light on the lack of diversity in these photos.
In a video uploaded on Sunday, YouTuber MrBeast announced that he was going to help “1000 blind people see for the first time” by sponsoring their cataract surgeries. “It’s gonna be crazy,” MrBeast says, in front of an audience of applauding patients. Throughout the video, MrBeast—real name Jimmy Donaldson—talks to people about their blurred eyesight before their surgery.
"The traveling mini-exhibition aims to gather a snap-shot of contemporary cultural production.
Editors collect items and contributions are ongoing." (From site.)
A watermelon filter on TikTok is allowing users to raise funds to support civilians in Gaza, where more than 11,000 people have been killed since Israel began an offensive military attack on the Gaza Strip in October, after a Hamas attack killed 1,400 people in Israel and saw roughly 200 civilians taken hostage.