Variant 30 Winter 2007 http://www.variant.org.uk ...the free, independent, arts magazine. In-depth coverage in the context of broader social, political & cultural issues.
text : full issue http://www.variant.org.uk/30texts/issue30.html PDF : full issue http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue30/Variant30.pdf Front cover: Stephen Hackett PDF : http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue30/Cover30.pdf Content * The reality of my desires Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt Provocative review of 'Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority', 'Do it Yourself: A Handbook for Changing our World', 'Rebel Alliances: The Means and Ends of Contemporary British Anarchisms', exploring the critical urgency and shortcomings of the creative dissent... text : http://www.variant.org.uk/30texts/RGN30.html PDF : http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue30/RGN30.pdf * Poster Girl - Billboard Rhetoric Jessica Foley A cyclist's ruminations on Trócaire's Lenten billboard campaign for 'Third World' women's projects and the discrepancy between the language and the political effect of such 'charity' advertising. text : http://www.variant.org.uk/30texts/postergirl.html PDF : http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue30/PosterGirl30.pdf * What dreams may come: (Palestinian) cinema/nation/history Felicia Chan ...reviews 'Dreams of a Nation: On Palestinian Cinema', Edited by Hamid Dabashi. In the formulation of a Palestinian cinema, does "...the understanding of a Palestinian national subjectivity need only be about its struggle for freedom. Are there other ways in which that subjectivity might be constituted or addressed? To express the question in another way: to what degree do nations create cinema, and cinema create nations?" text : http://www.variant.org.uk/30texts/PalestineC.html PDF : http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue30/PalestineC30.pdf * Plink Plink Fizz... Contemporary Art Dissolves the Past Jim Coombes "What is the effect of the promotion of the contemporary artist as mediator in relation to a range of social 'issues'?" Reviewing 'Histrionics' by Buchanan and 'Shotgun Wedding: Scots and the Union of 1707' by MacKenna and Janssen via way of Deller's 'Battle of Orgreave', Coombes examines artists' current preoccupation with a visual anthropology. text : http://www.variant.org.uk/30texts/hist.html PDF : http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue30/Hist30.pdf * Rebel Poets Reloaded Tom Jennings "...50 Cent is now virtually interchangeable with Britney Spears. But away from the chattering classes' disciplinary agendas, cycles of renewal in US hip-hop always juggle pleasure and pain, intelligence, artistry and entertainment..." text : http://www.variant.org.uk/30texts/TJ30.html PDF : http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue30/TJ30.pdf * Distribution of the Sensible Robert Porter ...reviews 'The Future of the Image' by Jacques Rancière: "Rancière detects a clear tendency toward depoliticization in contemporary theorizations of the image. ... a shift away from a critical appreciation of the necessary connection between the aesthetic and the political and a worrying trend toward ... a reactionary reverence for art, one clouded in religion and mysticism." text : http://www.variant.org.uk/30texts/Rancier.html PDF : http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue30/JRancier30.pdf * The High and Mighty John Barker ...reassesses C. Wright Mills' 1956 analysis 'The Power Elite', where Mills describes the "...historical development in which the economic and political power of the military, the militarisation of politics and the dominance of finance capital come together in a formation which may be distinguished from more general understandings of classical oligarchy or the ruling class." As Mills says: 'To use the acquisition of wealth as a sign of ability and then to use ability as an explanation of wealth is merely to play with two words for the same fact: the existence of the very rich'. text : http://www.variant.org.uk/30texts/Jbarker.html PDF : http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue30/CWMills30.pdf * Denialism and the Armenian Genocide Desmond Fernandes Despite all evidence outlined here concerning the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians, governments (such as the USA, UK and Israel), corporations (particularly, but not exclusively, ones related to the 'military industrial complex' in the US), think tanks and lobbying groups have actively chosen not to interpret these 'events' as genocide because of political expediency, ideological biases and/or profits that stand to be made if stances that are 'agreeable' to the denialist Turkish state are adopted... Excerpted from: 'The Kurdish and Armenian Genocides: From Censorship and Denial to Recognition?' text : http://www.variant.org.uk/30texts/AHDenialism.html PDF : http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue30/AHDenial30.pdf * Gordon Brown: From reformism to neoliberalism John Newsinger ...plots Gordon Brown's political trajectory as the principal architect of New Labour -- the product of defeat in the class struggle which for Brown the capitalist class had won, both domestically and globally, with Brown embracing the neoliberal agenda "with all the fervour of the recently converted". text : http://www.variant.org.uk/30texts/GB.html PDF : http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue30/GB30.pdf * Digital Bungling: Realism in an Unreal World Alex Law "...As the case of call centre design shows, digital technologies are being pressed narrowly into the service of accumulation, and with it the furtherance of alienated lifestyles. Might there be other possibilities that lie unexpressed or are rendered marginal by the euphoric reception of digitisation? 'The State of the Real' addresses itself precisely to the critical relationship between digital technology, the real and visual culture." 'The State of the Real: Aesthetics in the Digital Age', Damien Sutton, Susan Brind and Ray McKenzie (eds) text : http://www.variant.org.uk/30texts/ALaw.html PDF : http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue30/Law30.pdf * How the Beast Lives J. Dondan "...One of the consequences of official 'cultural diversity' being driven by the arts bureaucracy is that it not only anthropologises every instance of participation at the level of what used to be called community arts practice, but seems also to subvert critical issues of aesthetics and genre formation and reformation that constitutes real diversity in the arts..." 'The Nature of the Beast: Cultural Diversity and the Visual Arts Sector: A study of policies, initiatives and attitudes 1976-2006' text : http://www.variant.org.uk/30texts/BeastLive.html PDF : http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue30/NBeast30.pdf ----------------------------- Associated Events: Four in One... * Document 5 : International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival Wed 17(launch) - Sun 21 Oct @ CCA, Glasgow Full programme: http://www.docfilmfest.org.uk * Radical Independent Book fair project - Glasgow Thurs 18 - Sun 21 Oct 11am - 10pm, @ CCA, Glasgow http://www.ribproject.org * Broth Mix - free, locally-sourced veg cafe & space for exchange Tue 16 - Sun 21 Oct @ CCA, Glasgow To get involved, see: http://www.brothmix.org * Electron Club Public Lab Week: Tue 16 - Fri 19 Oct Open Day: Sat 20 Oct 2pm-5pm 1st floor at the Scott St. entrance of CCA, Glasgow http://www.electronclub.org --- * Art in the Age of Competitive Cultural Nationalism Discussion event, 2-4pm, Sat 27 Oct Market Gallery, 334 Duke Street, Glasgow, G31 1QZ http://www.variant.org.uk/events/Market30/marketevent.html --- * No Programme Part I: Chronicles from a Bureaucratic Beyond Launch 21 Sept 6.30pm - 8.30pm Finale Event 10 Nov 2pm - 9pm Plymouth Arts Centre, 38 Loose St., Plymouth PL4 0EB http://www.plymouthac.org.uk ----------------------------- Subscribe to the print magazine and receive a complete, 20 years of publishing archive CD ROM. http://www.variant.org.uk/subs.html ----------------------------- ADVERTISING in Variant 2008 15,000 free copies per issue distributed throughout the UK & Ireland at over 420 locations Variant, ISSUE 31 - Spring 2008 Advertising Copy Date: Monday 4th February Publication Date: Monday 25th February Covers: March '08 to & including May '08 For details of advertising in the magazine please see: http://www.variant.org.uk/ads.html To advertise contact Luke Collins, Alastair Frazer Advertising & Marketing on: +44 (0)141 333 9522 or email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------- * A fully accessible archive of back issues is freely available at the Variant web site: http://www.variant.org.uk * Newsprint Magazine Subscription details can be found at: http://www.variant.org.uk/subs.html * Please contact us if you wish to distribute newspaper copies of Variant magazine. 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