writing

"I once had a winter that was wordless. A time of complicated grief: the kind that can’t be shared. A loss that was private, pained. Not really known to those around me. The sort that had me hold my throat where sound should come, but would not." Beautiful words leading you into the Birds of Firle story and project by @tanyashadrick, founder of Selkie Press and featured on The Clearing.

A single edition book
by TANYA SHADRICK
being shared in sequence with 100 collaborators
GRIEF IS THE THING NO HOPE IS THE THING
21 IMAGES (6CM X 6CM) TO PROMPT
A CUMULATIVE, COMMUNAL RESPONSE

On New Year’s Day 2020, Birds of Firle – a single edition, handmade book – was placed in the post to the first of 100 recipients in the UK and overseas who have committed to respond to it with words, sound, images and artefacts. It is an exercise in slow art – and a cumulative, communal creative practice – initiated by Tanya Shadrick, founder of The Selkie Press.

via https://sites.google.com/site/realtalkthebook

When industry magazine The Music Network asked Australian hip-hop pioneer Urthboy to write about the state of the country's rap scene, his answer took some by surprise. Instead, the Herd member and Elefant Traks boss wrote this: “I was asked to write about the state of hip-hop in Australia. I’d prefer to shine a light on what may be the future of it: Indigenous Hip-Hop. Indigenous artists carry a profoundly engrossing and intriguing story for international audiences, yet it’s barely understood by many Australians.”

This book aims to be an introduction to some of the Aboriginal hip-hop artists out there. All have stories that demand to be heard, from the better-known players like The Last Kinection, Jimblah and Sky’high, to those who are probably too radical for the establishment to handle - such as Provocalz, whose interview ends with the interviewer and interviewee both being questioned by police.

The book is by no means comprehensive - there are about 50 Aboriginal hip-hop artists pumping out quality tracks at the moment, and it speaks to only half of them. But it aims to be a live document, updated at the start of each year. Hopefully it will become more comprehensive as the years tick by. At any rate, readers are encouraged to seek out the artists and follow them in their own, unedited, words.

Reviews:
"A must-read." - I Am Hip-Hop magazine, UK. "A hell of a read - with rappers holding forth on everything from politics to family, books, poetry, activism, homophobia, police brutality... and just about anything else you can think of." - The Koori Mail. "Incredible read." - Jimblah, on the Impossible Odds interview. "Want to read all about me and my thoughts? This is the one right now!" - Briggs. "Amazing interview with Impossible Odds. Everyone should read that interview." - Ozi Batla. "The most articulate and well-researched article on the band I've ever read." - Fred Leone, Impossible Odds. "Probably the most awesome article on Desert Pea Media I have ever seen." - Toby Finlayson, Desert Pea Media. "Of all the interviews we've done - and we've done a hell of a lot - this was, without a doubt, by far the the best." - Kings Konekted. "Best interview I've done. Props." - Provocalz. "Mat always does a good job with the interviews." - Indij hip-hop show founder Munk.

The author, Mat Ward, is a journalist who lives in Sydney. He is not Indigenous. Read more about why he wrote the book here. For more information contact RealTalkTheBook@gmail.com.

The book is available on Amazon (kindle) and all proceeds go to Koori Radio. Visit the book's website to read sample chapters and for more information

For another article on MonkeyMarc and his work with the Barkly community of beat makers and to listen to some of their music, take a look at Boom Bap in the Barkly – Check Australia’s Freshest Desert Beats

CFP: Fans, Videogames and History
via http://blogs.flinders.edu.au/play-it-again/2015/01/20/cfp-fans-videogame...

Over the last two decades, a substantial amount of research has addressed the fan culture phenomenon, particularly in relation to film and television; the focus has centred on the impact that fan communities can and have had on the ‘official’ creative works that are released by film and television studios. More recently, researchers have examined the impact that the internet has played in empowering and expanding the fan network and fan communication structures, and in affecting the production, marketing and audience engagement with the fan object.

Games are now central objects of study within Fan Studies, yet to date there has been only isolated consideration of gaming’s long history of fandom, and fans’ important roles in game history and preservation. Little academic writing has focused on the impact and centrality that fan communities play — as a collective intelligence, as a pool of individual creators of games, and as interested and engaged parties in the collecting and remembering of game history.

For this anthology we seek essays that address issues that come out of the various possible configurations of the terms: fans, games, and history. We invite proposals for chapters addressing one of three broad axes:

• Historicising game fandom
• Fan contributions to game history
• Methodological reflections on studying historic game fandom

We invite abstracts of 500 words that address the relationship between game fans and history. Possible themes and issues may include but are not limited to:

• Fan communities and the preservation of games • Online communities and gamer memories • Digital fandom before the internet • Nostalgia and history • Historicising fans’ creative output • Magazines and fanzines as sources • how to ‘do’ fan history • Fans as authors of game history

Please send an abstract and brief bio to the editors by 30th April, 2015. Full papers to be submitted by 30th August 2015.

Email: playitagain@flinders.edu.au

Editors – Melanie Swalwell, Angela Ndalianis, Helen Stuckey
- See more at: http://blogs.flinders.edu.au/play-it-again/2015/01/20/cfp-fans-videogame...

Engage Media has done incredible work in documenting some of the stories of people & communities in Asia. Some of my favs are the Punks who use their music to do activism and help their communities, and the amazing work Andrew Garton has done with Sarawak, documenting how their traditional lives in forest communities has been changed & is at risk of being lost.

They are crowdfunding via pozible to help more video journalists attend Camp Sambel this year, for training.

It's just over half way funded, pls help it get through, & spread the word to your friends. I think the world needs to hear more of these Voices - they're doing important work

http://www.pozible.com/index.php/archive/index/4673/description/0/0

visit the pozible page for more details, or read more.

Mez has been writing mezangelle / code poetry / netwurks on mail lists and the web since the 1990s. Trauma Wien Art Club has released a new book of Mez' mezangelles from 2003-2011 called "human readable messages - mezangelle 2003-2011" The book will be available at the Trauma Wien site, and also be on amazon in January 2012 (technically December 31st, but with the time difference in Australia, check in January) For those who can't wait (like me), it's also available from Lulu. There's a preview of the book on the Lulu page, including the table of contents. There are mezangelles with titles such as, "_Sub.Mission[s]_", "_Squashed Tele.biology_", "_Dream Fullscreen_" and many more.

Florian Cramer has described mezangelle as (from netwurker.de) :

[quote]As florian cramer says: “The beauty of "mezangelle" is that it uses elements of programming language syntax as material, i.e. reflecting formal programming language without being one. For the reader of mez's "netwurks", it remains all the more an open question whether the "mezangelle" para-code of parentheses and wildcard characters only mimics programming languages or is, at least partially, the product of programmed text filtering.”. Jim Andrews asserts that: “The term 'code poetry' has been used in connection with Mez's writing…as in using the devices often found in computer languages (like deep bracketing) and applying them meaningfully to natural language. These devices, in computer languages, are often used to represent data structures in code (like trees or other 'graphs') and also manage processes on these data structures (like insertion/deletion/tree balancing). Mez takes these ways of representing often non-linear structures and introducing/managing process in these structures and applies/deranges them in natural language--there is little computer language in her work. Like the text contains its own neath text.” les schaffer’s take on mezangelle is “mez's style is just the most delightful play on coding. I think of her as a cross between James Joyce and... Larry Wall – author of the Perl programming language and a linguist by training.....". [/quote]

City Library Street Press is back after a short Summer break with a new program of free workshops starting on March 11th 2009.

City Library Street Press is an opportunity for all of those interested in the many aspects of street press to gather and discuss ideas, techniques and projects. Our last season of Workshops were a roaring success with every session fully booked, covering many topics from zines to creative writing, page layout and cartooning. This season is no exception and the details of the first half of the program can be found below :

11/03/08 : Clem Bastow and friends discusses Blogging
25/03/08 : Al Cossar of the Portable Film festival ponders the role of film in Street Press
08/04/08 : Geoff Lemon talks poetry
22/04/08 : Bernard Caleo from Cardigan Comics encourages everyone to draw, draw and draw some more
06/05/08 : The National Young Writers Festival (TBC)
20/05/08 : The Craft Cartel demonstrate how to spread a message through handmade goodies
03/06/08 : SYN Community radio shows the simple creation of podcasts

The workshops are generally practical in nature and run from 6 - 7.45 at the City Library, 253 Flinders Lane. Contact (03) 9658 9500 for more details and to book a space.

http://www.stickyinstitute.com for more details

Parsons Bookshop located in central Auckland stocks International Art books, Exhibition Catalogues, Art Theory, Design, Photography, Architecture and Fashion books, as well as a large stock of New Zealand, Maori & Pacific books including Fiction, Poetry, Art, Small Press and Limited Edition Titles, Politics, History, Biography and Natural History. http://www.parsons.co.nz for more details