Océane Doucet : Week 8

This week, I would like to present you a blog.
It is a blog of the New York Times is about some classicals events, concerts, musicals news.
Everybody can write an aticle and post their favorite magical moments in music. It is in free acces.
This blog permit to discover some musics, videos, composers, and to read some short article and te see notice of no professionnal people.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/category/musical-moments/

 

In this blog I discover this wonderful image of Jilian Tamaki.

 

I make some reseraches about her to discover who is thos man.

 

http://jilliantamaki.com/illustration/

 

She is an American illustrator and cartoonist. She is born in New York.

She as two personnal books. She sells some illustration to publishers, journalists, professionals ...

Jillian Tamaki factories also illustrations on fabric, clothing, capets ...

She develops diffrent form of art and in fact this concpet permit her to win more money, and to fave more financials ressources.

 

 

Her illustration are funny, real, sensitive, she offers a critique of the society, and offers some relfexions.

 

Jillian Tamaki proposes also a Portait Gallery.

Galeria Urban Forms - Elodie Rousselin

« Galeria Urban Forms », a monumental exhibition started in Poland last year (2011), in Lodz' streets. 

Kind of art gallery in public space, the idea to make Lodz in exhibition went from Michael Biezynski, artistic director. The artists engaged in the project made directly on the slide of tenement houses large format art work. Most of the time, they needed a work platform or a crane for achieve their wall paintings, even if it's too much high. And sometimes, it's look more like a building site !

Don't think that it's a vandal action ! On contrary, the city of Lodz co-financed the project, and made available twenty-five walls in the city-centre.

Like more and more towns around the world, Lodz understood that street art could be a real interest for them, in terms of tourism and economical development notably. Street art could be a value and could involve an identity for a town. New York and Berlin are well-known examples. 

By suppporting the project, the municipality show also its volonty to open spaces of exhibitions, and to give opportunies to citizens to access to culture, by an other way, outside out the traditional places of art.

Urban Forms Fondation, the structure who's in charge of the organisation, wants to promote, support and organize cultural actions, acrossing disciplines for a better access to art woks.

Read more about the project

A yesterday town to think the future of cities

Poundbury is a town located on the edge of Dorchester, in the area where suburban usually take place. It counted 5 000 inhabitants in 2007. It has become famous being the town of Prince Charles, where he decided to experiment some urbanistic principles that he's been defending for many years.

As an experimentation town, part of the New Urbanism movement, the Poundbury project follows four lines.

First, Poundbury is said to be built in accordance with its inhabitant rather than the cars. In other words, it's not the ways that set the space up, but actual life. Houses and public buildings are based on traditional designs purposely to fit perfectly the environment and the spirit of that particular place. Then, Poundbury has been built and design according to proximity which define all relations within the city. And to finish, only raw materials extracted from the near territory have been used, so Poundbury organically respects its geographic setting.  All those points make Poundbury an eco-friendly town. 

The Poundbury project has been sorely criticized. But most of the time, critics derive to the lack of both legitimacy and credibility of Prince Charles. Therefore, Poundury is said to be based on old-fashioned ideas not to say outdated principles. 

As a matter of fact, it might be the implementation rather than the global idea that didn't worked out. However the main asset of Poundbury is to drive people to think their city otherwise, and to regard new ways of living urbanity.

>> Read the article from Wikipedia

>> Read the residents' opinions

----------

Amélie Blandeau - Week 8 - 256 words

Food, Transforming the American Table 1950-2000

Mathilde Fourgeot - week 8

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (Washington) presents a new exhibition since November 20: Food, Transforming the American Table 1950-2000. This new exhibition explores the important changes of American food habits. And especially the factors of those changes, for example the new technologies or varied influences too, like the diversity of nationalities in the United States due to an important immigration in this country. Or in short: social and cultural changes in American’s life.

The exhibition is divided into five sections: 
- Julia’s Child kitchen: she’s a legendary cook, which has a very important impact on American food. The Americans know her through her books or TV-shows. This room contains equipment when she began to cook (the late 1940s). It’s an important figure in the American way of eating, Paula Jonhson’s position (the curator) is that she “introduced a new way of thinking about food — French food — but also caring about ingredients,”
- “New and Improved ! ”: It’s an opportunity to reflect on the long-term effects of mass production and consumerism 
- Resetting the Table: this room deals with the immigrants’ influences on American food and taste 
- Wine for the Table: Wine is traditionally linked with Europe. But this room is an opportunity to understand how technologies permitted the Americans to produce wine too and to appropriate a special know-how. 
- Open Table: there is a table and the visitors can take a seat to speak with the others

Food, Transforming the American Table tries to condense a part of the American cultural history. It’s very interesting to see how the American culture, like in a lot of Anglo-Saxons states, feeds on the diversity of nationalities and traditions and how the food could be an indicator to measure or to suggest the diversity in a country and the diversity of a culture.

 Julia Child's kitchen

Sources

http://americanhistory.si.edu/food-introduction

http://americanhistory.si.edu/food-the-exhibition

Presentation : The SOUND-SYSTEM Culture

Born in the 1950's in the streets of Kingston ghettos, the sound system is the foundation of an important part of jamaican cultural history and has being responsible for the rise of modern Jamaican musical styles such as ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub. Its evolution is directly linked to the development of vinyl support but also of Jamaican migration during the second half of the 20 century, particularly in England and the United States.

A sound system is usually composed of one or several disc jockeys, sound engineers and MC's that broadcast standards and musical news of the time. They load their truck operators with a generator, turntables, amplifiers and loudspeekers and set up street parties with heavy bass.

The sound system is before all a mobile device to broadcast the modern music for anyone of a poor population or people which has no traditional listening system. It is also a moment of Exchange and ease of use for a party who permits the investment of the public spaces by its residents.

The most important jamaican's sound-system include those of Coxsone Dodd, Duke Reid, or even Prince Buster.

At the beginning the Dj's played primarily new rhythm ' n Blues of the United States but gradually, in order to limit the costs involved by importing and to propose always more exclusive releases, will produce music directly in Jamaica. While jamaicans proclaimed their independence, they tried to invent a sound that is unique, a typically jamaican musical identity will born. First the Ska, fast and festive music, which represents the music of independence, then Rocksteady music with a slowed rythm that allows dancers of the sound systems to be less quickly tired, and finally the Reggae, influenced by the musicians of Rasta movement that is characterized by an heavy bass in rhythm with the heartbeat.

Then the sound system has been extended through Europe and the United States when jamaicans started to emigrate starting from the 1970s. In England, the movement of the roots and dub sound system has spread and has developed its own identity through artists such as Jah Shaka, Aba Shanti I, or Channel One, and then has evolved to other musical areas such as Dubstep, Drum'n ' bass and the current Dj music...In the United States, Dj Kool Herc, a Jamaican immigrated to the United States, has adapted the concept of sound-system at funk, soul and Rhythm'n ' blues U.S musics to give birth to the first Block-Parties. He is regarded as one of the founders of the Hip-hop movement.

 As we can see, the sound system is a device that allowed the development of new musical forms and continuous to support an important musical history that evolved according to the social, political and historical contexts through various places in the world. To learn more about the sound-system culture I recommend the book Bass Culture of Lloyd Bradley as well as the documentary Musically Mad by Karl Folke.

                                                                                                       Louis Cailliau.

Presentation Forum Theater Justine Barnier

The forum Theater, a political theater...

On the first hand, i will explain the origins of the forum theater.

On the other hand, i will describe a typical session and i will try to identify political dimensions of the forum theater.

It got into France by Augusto BOAL, a man of Brezilian Theater, in the 70’s.

It was inspired by the « théatre de l’Opprimé », a theater with political dimension which was created in Brazil, during the dictatorship of Castelo Branco in the 60’s.

These forms of theater are considered as a tool of political action, for citizen emancipation and autonomy.

So, a forum theater session is very regulate :

It begins with a meeting between actors and spectators. The spectators are the participants.

The actors come on, and act the fist little scene (not more than fifteen minuts)

This little scene concerns a particular issue and the end is pessimistic. The theme is often the reason why participants gathered themselves. It concerns an oppression (domestic violence or descrimation for exemple).

During the scene, the Jocker (an actor) stops the play and speaks with the participants, he initiates a debate between them.

Through this debate, the scene is acted again. Each participant can stop the scene and change the course of event. Participants are actors and are free to intervein. So, the exploitation of the subject is collective.

The political dimension  is very important, it promotes freedom of citizen’s expression.

It’s an emancipation tool against oppression that they suffer.

Forum theater is more used around the world, in schools with teenagers, in firms for management, in arts, culture, politics, psychological medecine…

In Bordeaux, OXO association pratices Forum Theater also, in school, in communautary centers or on public space.

To conclude, I must qualify my speach because it is a very good tool for emancipation and accountability of spectators. It questiones the role of spectator and it is an alternative method to stimulate debate. It is a tool of dialogue between men and women, people of different culture, inside groups…

But, it is very diffult to assess the impact of it.

It is also a simple place of entertainement for people as improvisation or traditional theater does.

Janis Joplin, the « Pearl » - Justine Barnier week 8

Janis Lyn Joplin was born in Texas in January 19th 1943.
First interested in painting, she began to sing Blues and Folk with her friends in secondary school. She got into University of Texas in 1960. She was talented but she didn't receive any diploma. She suffered a lot in this time because she was laughing stock of everybody. But she tried to demonstrate her talent.
During her life, Janis cultivated an image of rebel and proclaimed political values. She fought against traditional America and for Black's rights. She drew her style from Beat Generation, beatnik literature and women's Blues music.

She took drugs a lots and became alcoholic.
After playing music in bars during several years, she joined the Californian band  Big Brother and the Holding Company. They produced together one album and two singles.
During the « Summer of Love », in 1967, this band was programed in the  Monterey International Pop Festival, a very famous event. Janis Joplin remerged from obscurity and became famous, with the band. Her voice win over the world.
In 1968, she leaved the band. She began a solo career and a two other groups accompagnied her : the Kozmic Blues Band and Full Tilt Boogie.
In 1969, she released a solo blues album : I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again, Mama.
Now, she discovers her own style : the « White Blues ». She released other albums. But, her success will be very short...
She died in 1970, at 27 years old, during recording of her album Pearl. It was a really big success.

Later, she will considered like « Queen of Psychedelic Soul ». The Rolling Stones magazine will declare her like one of the best artists in the world.
She lived a chaotic life between suffering and success. But she revolutionized Rock'n'Roll World and inserted women inside.