Japan’s agriculture minister hanged himself Monday amid allegations of bid-rigging and padding government expenses. The following day, an executive allegedly linked to one of the scams leapt to his death. In 2005, 32,552 people killed themselves in Japan—one of the highest suicide rates among industrialized nations. Why are there so many suicides in Japan? There’s no single factor, but experts point to a combination of economic woes, poor mental-health resources, lack of religious prohibition, and cultural acceptance of the practice.*
http://www.slate.com/id/2167295/fr/flyout
Bernard Stiegler is one of the foremost philosophers writing on technology and culture. His major book Technics and Time investigates the essence of technical objects. In Echographies of Television, Stiegler and Jacques Derrida discuss the growth of teletechnologies and their implications for law, privacy and citizenship. Discussion chaired by Charlie Gere (Birkbeck College, author of Digital Culture).
http://www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents/archive/bernard_stiegler/
!! Camp Betty Cinema !!
Friday 8 June 7:00pm for 7:30pm start
At Forepaw, 275 High St, Northcote, Melbourne
Queer film is not just about re-interpreting straight storylines to accommodate ‘gay’ characters – it’s an excuse to play with more than gender and sexuality… super 8, chroma key, sci-fi storylines about aliens and androgynous bisexual nymphomaniac fashion models and remaking Soviet propaganda into a transgender revolution are all examples in our film programme of howqueer film can play with you, and cinema too.
Come for queer shorts, a performance by Gaylourdes invoking the film theory spectre of vagina dentata in song and dance, 2 minutes of infamy for queer film makers and a screening of the cult 80s sci-fi movie Liquid Sky.
MAGGOTS AND MEN (Trailer) by Oakie Treadwell (5 minutes)
In the style of a Soviet Propaganda film Maggots and Men recounts the tragic events of the Kronstadt Uprising (Russia, 1921). This history is combined with fictionalized inter-personal relationships between the sailors.
PHINEAS SLIPPED by Oakie Treadwell (15 minutes)
A boy’s school class and their teacher discuss romance in literature. Each boy has his own interpretation on this. The film is one of the first genderqueer version of schoolboy fantasies, played by genny boys, trans boys and butches.
A GIRL NAMED KAI by Kai Ling Xue (8 minutes)
An autobiographical vignette in three chapters about Kai Ling’s relationships, self discoveries, passions, secrets and dreams. Using digitally-edited Super 8 and 16mm, this experimental short is a journey from the highs of love to the lows of loss, delicately threaded together with original music.
SUPERHERO by Salote Tawale (4 minutes)
A satirical take on the superhero genre. Multiplicities of identity are explored – you can be the hero and the victim in the same moment, play more than one gender/archetype in a story.
INTERMISSION w/ two minutes of filmic infamy and performance by Gaylourdes
LIQUID SKY by Slava Tsukerman (1 hour 52 minutes)
Invisible aliens in a tiny flying saucer come to Earth looking for heroin. They land on top of a New York apartment inhabited by a drug dealer and her female, androgynous, bisexual nymphomaniac lover, a fashion model. The aliens soon find the human pheromones created in the brain during orgasm preferable to heroin, and the model’s casual sex partners begin to disappear. This increasingly bizarre scenario is observed by a lonely woman in the building across the street, a German scientist who is following the aliens, and an equally androgynous, drug-addicted male model. This is a mostly fun movie but does contain scenes that may disturb some viewers.
!! Camp Betty !!
a weekend of radical sex and politics
queen’s birthday weekend 7 – 11 June ’07
http://www.campbetty.net
Otherfilm Bazaar – avant-garde and experimental DVD’s, handmade film
objects.
OtherFilm Bazaar is a brand new Brisbane-based online store specializing in avant-garde and experimental work on many formats (but so far mostly DVD, DVDR, and Viewmaster!)
We are open to all customers 24 hours with paypal and credit card equipped shopping cart (email me if you want to pay by telegram, x-ray, Photosonicneurokineasthography, or cash in the post)
We especially encourage all those connected to academic institutions to make your library’s AV catalogue far more interesting and useful to adventurous students and staff alike by recommending OtherFilm Bazaar stock for
acquisition.
http://www.otherfilm.org
Some new arrivals include:
John Cage – ‘One 11′ with ‘103’ (DVD from Mode) – The first commercial release of Cage’s only major film. ‘A film without subject.’ $35AUD
Frank Scheffer and Andrew Culver – From Zero: Four films on JOHN CAGE (DVD from Mode) – Great collection inspired by and featuring Cage himself made by renowned Dutch director Frank Scheffer in collaboration with Cage’s long-time associate Andrew Culver. $35AUD
Skip Blumberg – Nam June Paik: Lessons from the Video Master (DVD from IMP) – 46 short visually stylized interviews with friends, colleagues, collaborators and protégés; including artists Yoko Ono, Merce Cunningham, Carolee Schneeman, Davidson Gigliotti (Videofreex), Beryl Korot, Liz Phillips, Bill Viola, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Blondell Cummings, Kit Fitzgerald, Shigeko Kubota, Yasunao Tone. And many more. $30AUD
Shoot Shoot Shoot: The London Film-Makers Co-op & British Avant-Garde Film of the 1960s & 1970s (DVD from Lux) – Essential overview of one of the most groundbreaking periods in experimental film featuring Malcolm Le Grice, Guy Sherwin, Peter Gidal, Lis Rhodes, Jeff Keen, John Smith , Mike Legget, Stephen Dwoskin and more. First time these films have been available outside of 16mm. $50AUD
Tenniscoats
http://myspace.com/tenniscoats
Panel of Judges
http://myspace.com/panelofjudges
Scissors for Sparrow
http://dizzydonor.org/s4s/ + http://myspace.com/scissorsforsparrow
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$15; Saturday June 9, 2007 – 7pm
(s4s on first, so come early!)
All ages, no alcohol, plenty of bars nearby though
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Cloud City
23 Prentice St, Brunswick, Melbourne
(A warehouse; near Sydney Rd)
