Queer ancestor of the day

Sophia Starmack: Here is my great-grandmother (also Sophia) with her "friend" at Atlantic City circa 1916. I asked my grandma for some family pictures a few years ago and this is one of the ones she gave me. She said, "The girls were dressing up and having a good time! It's so funny!"But I think we know what's really going on here. My great-grandmother Sophia later got married to an Irish man who sold liquor illegally during the 1930s and had to spend a lot of time hiding from the police. She had a sad life but she liked to dance and drink beer and was still building fences and climbing trees well into her 70's.

Interview with Urša Vidic

It is hard to recognize the bodies on your paintings, who are they?

It is not important who they are, male or female, what kind of a story is behind them. In this way I can avoid the system of the biological determination, which causes the social determination and classification.

Why do you use human figure, what does it speak about?

I use a human body as a mean of language which is different from verbal language. But first of all the body is used as an instrument, it goes through the process of let´s say decomposing, for developing new spaces and forms which are different, strange, abstract.

Your paintings represent just fragment of the bodies and head is usually missing, why?

In this case the head would be too personal, too didactical. My idea was to speak about feelings, emotions, tensions,...in a silent, non verbal manner. So the hand is a very good sign for reading our inner thoughts. Through the gestures you are avoiding the codes of speech, which belongs in a psychological terminology to the man.

What is the relation of the paintings to eroticism or beauty?

My work is not about erotic, it is about sensibility. At the first sight it could be perceived as beautiful, but if you´ d look closer, there is something strange and maybe surprising in the painting. This strangeness comes from partiality, fragmentation of the body. Except for the hand the rest of the body is loosing its proper shape. It is becoming two-dimensional, abstract and it is loosing its function. So I wouldn’t say that decomposing of the body can be erotic.

How do you paint your works – do you use models or photographs?

The paintings are done according to the photographs. It is me and my boyfriend, but this is not important, since I am not using our portraits. From the photography I choose, I decide which part is interesting for me and then I paint it. But I use only details, the rest of the body has to slowly disappear. The result is dreamy, fogy like space, which points on the illusion or wish.

You are also presenting the video. What it is about?

The video presents the journey through the landscape of one body which is made of many human bodies. The camera moves from realy close detail to the bigger plan, and through that you get the sensation you are flying above something, sort of a landscape, which reminds you of the human body. You feel familiar with it, jet it is disturbing, since it brings different, unknown aspects of the human body.

How it is done?

Video was made in collaboration with Lorenka Stropnik and Aron Boršo. We used the photographs that I was using for my painting and made a 3D landscape out of them. Then we just decided how the camera is going to move. It looks simple but you real have to know a lot about the computers.

Paintings of Ursa Vidic is possible to see in Galerija Alkatraz till 29.3. www.kudmreza.org/alkatraz More of her works you can see here: www.uvslike.blogspot.com

Lenka Kukurova

Interview with Austrian artist Evelin Stermitz

How did you come to the idea to create a net art project World of Female Avatars?

I was artist in residence at the Art Center Slovenia when I began to occupy with the topic of female bodies. It was a photographic project combined with interviews and I was asking women what they think about their bodies. I realized it is very hard for them to talk about it, and I also realized that many women live without the consciousness about their body, so I investigated this topic further.

What is the project about?

The aim was to create a kind of world or space for women, as a digital world. It was also a contribution to the feminist discussion and an artistic survey on the female body through the virtual space.

How were the avatars created?

I sent an open call out to women to contribute with their pictures and thoughts about their bodies. The works are anonymous and therefore maybe more truthful. I collected the images of the participants, created digital collages and put them online.

Was it also about the freedom of expression of the body?

In virtual space we can be anybody, it is a question where the freedom of the body is. In our everyday lives we usually repeat stereotypes.

What about male contributions to the project?

I can not control, if only women send the avatars for the project, but that was not the aim. I intended to create an open platform for everyone who has something to say about the female body. It is not possible to control the biological sex of someone virtual. In virtuality some kind of third sex is created.

How would you comment the possible threat of human beings swallowed by virtual reality?

I would not be so much afraid of this. Virtual reality is just another tool we can use, it is a kind of an expanded thinking. It is a new technical reality, we have to learn to live with.

Where do you see the connection between art and activism?

I think it is very crucial for artists to be involved in activism and in reflecting the society. If artists just passively show works in the galleries, it is also just a small part to evolve changes or impacts on society. Activism sees the function of an artist also as a public intellectual and is rooted in performance, installation and more. I think art and feminism needs more public action!

How will the project continue?

The project is still open for submissions as a life time project, you can find it online at http://females.mur.at

Lenka Kukurova

R.G. Gözüm: Notes about e-waste

E-waste is hazardous. E-waste contains over 1000 different substances, many of which are toxic, and creates serious pollution upon disposal.

E-waste produces much higher volumes of waste in comparison to other consumer goods.

European studies estimate that the volume of e-waste is increasing by 3-5% per year, which is almost three times faster than the municpal waste stream is growing generally.

Each year, European cunsumers are producing 8,7 million tons of e-waste.

Between the years 1997 and 2007 experts estimated that there were more than 500 million obsolete computers in the United States.

Where does e-waste go?

Storage. U.S. government researchers estimate that three quarters of all computers ever sold in the United States remain stockpiled, awaiting disposal. Other studies estimate that the number of these unused, stored, computers in the U.S. will soon be as high as 315-680 million units.

Landfill and incineration. It is thought that most households and small businesses that dispose rather than store their obsolete electronic components send their material to landfills or incinerators rather than take them to recyklers.

Re-use. Re-use constitutes direct second-hand use, or use after slight modifications are made to the original functioning equipment.

Domestic recykling. All of the current information regarding e-waste recykling glaringly fails to point out that most of what is called e-waste recycling today involves recykling in a developing country. All of the studies that have been done fail to make a distinction between domestic recykling in developing countries with the gross assumption that all recykling is the same an all is equal from an environmental standpoint.

Prison. An alternative to export to developing countries, there is another high growth area for e-waste emerging in the U.S. New “electronic recykling facilities” are opening in California and other states – in prisons.

Export to developing countries. The most often overlooked and ignored e-waste management option- export to developing countries under the name of “recykling”. Why? The labor costs are very low (China: $1.50 per day); Environmental and occupational regulations are lax or not well enforced; It is legal in the U.S., despite international law to the contrary, to allow export of hazardous e-waste with no controld whatsoever; Europe keep shipping e-waste labelling it as “recykling”.

What are the possible solutions to this environmental tsunami?

1. Ban hazardous waste export.
2. Get the poison out of the products.
3. Exercise precaution – don’t worsen the situation by creating even more poisonous products.
4. Make the producers responsible.
5. Require producers to “take the waste back”.
6. Design for longevity, upgradability, repair and re-use.
7. Design for recykling.

...And recykle with joy! Find pictures from the crash keyboard poetry workshop on the rdece flickr.

Anna Ehrlemark retyping R.G's presentation.

Emelie Röndahl - Angry Ugly Feminist.

Emelie: I'm so fucking tired of being the angry ugly feminist all the time, but it's a dirty job and somebody's got to do it.

Anna: This is a feminist festival, you can take a break for once and let others do the job. You deserve it.

Emelie: Yeah... Fucking feminism. Always having to explain other peoples definitions. Spiritually me and Svetlana are on the same level. She just grabbed for a different position of opposition. Don't know why i'm not as famous as her though...

Anna: Hold your horses. Fame is not what it used to be. You're better off in oblivion. I'm sure Svetlana would agree.

Emelie: Nobody forgets the angry, ugly, feminist. I'm a 20th century icon.

Ehrlemark

car repair workshop - interview with Ksenija Glavac

How the idea to make a car repair workshop at the rdece zore festival came up?
Mostly women are supposed not be able to handle the repairing of their car. But this is something that should be changed, so the idea came up, to give women the possibility to get to know their cars better and to get to know how to fix some basic stuff.

Did you ever such workshop before?
No, never. But then some of the festival came to me, for repairing their car and in our place it is always like this, that you also have a tea or coffee together after fixing the car. So the idea came up that I make the workshop at the festival.

And now, after doing it, what´s you impression of it?
Oh, I really liked it. I think it is necessary that people get to know some more things about fixing the car. Before I asked myself what to tell you...because to for e.g. windsreen wiper is something everybody already knows, so where I should start? But than my daughter said to me, noe I don´t know how to fix it.Therefore I started to explain really basic things. Because for me that is no problem, but if you don´t know it, it can become a problem and it is good if you don´t have to ask for every single thing a mechanic.

What do you like most of your work?
My work is very different every day. Sometime I have to do paperstuff and another day different cars are coming that need to be fixed. It is always something different. I don´t like to do the same every day, and in this job I don´t. And I also don´t like to have a boss. I want to be my own boss and I want to be able to work when I want to and I want to be able to say, today I want to have a day off - that´s what I can do here.

So it is only to say thanks for the interesting workshop and let us see what repairing workshop is going to take place at the next festival.
Antje Höhne

Queer animal of the day

Emelie Röndahl's mother is raising naked guinea pigs. It's a queer destiny indeed. The only reason they excist is because they were used for vivisection, and now people keep them as pets for their kitchy look (a la knee dogs). Her name is Arosa.

Anna Ehrlemark