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Symposium on Wikileaks and Internet Freedom

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Via email from Charles Ferguson:

[Many of us are] interested in / concerned about the Wikileaks situation and its broader context, including both its support and the legal and technological efforts to silence it. Recent events have raised many difficult and important questions including:

• In the digital age, should all information be free?
• Does good government require secrecy, or more openness?
• Can we trust private internet service providers to defend free speech?
• Is Wikileaks a terrorist organization, or the beginning of a new kind of transnational investigative journalism?

Join this fantastic array of journalists, bloggers, futurists and policy mavens for a very timely

Symposium on Wikileaks and Internet Freedom

When: Saturday, December 11, 10:00am - 2:00pm*
Where: Riverpark: A Tom Colicchio Restaurant, 450 East 29th Street (East of 1st Ave, just before the FDR)

Speakers:
 
Emily Bell, Director of the Tow Centre of Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School
Esther Dyson, EDventure
Allison Fine, Co-author, The Networked Nonprofit
Charles Ferguson, Director, Inside Job and No End in Sight
Arianna Huffington, Co-founder and editor-in-chief, The Huffington Post
Jeff Jarvis, Professor, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Andrew Keen, Author of the forthcoming book, Digital Vertigo: An Anti-Social Manifesto
Rebecca MacKinnon, Author of the forthcoming book, Consent of the Networked
Mark Pesce, Author and digital anthropologist
Andrew Rasiej, Co-founder, Personal Democracy Forum
Jack Rosenthal, Senior fellow, Atlantic Philanthropies
Carne Ross, Director, Independent Diplomat and former UK Diplomat
Douglas Rushkoff, Author, Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age
Micah L. Sifry, Co-founder, Personal Democracy Forum
Katrin Verclas, Principal, New Rights Group
Tom Watson, Author, CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World
Dave Winer, Editor, Scripting News and Visiting Scholar, NYU
and more...

Tickets are $10, and space is limited (tickets will not be available at the door). *Coffee and light refreshments will be served.

To register, please visit: http://pdfsymposium.eventbrite.com

The hashtag for the event is #pdfleaks

Joy Garnett's 'Poof' @ CCBF Auction, December 12th at Sotheby's

 
Joy Garnett: 'Poof (2)' 2010. 36 x 24 inches. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Winkleman Gallery, NY

I've donated a small painting, 'Poof', pictured here, from the 'Boom & Bust' series, to the auction benefiting the Children's Cancer & Blood Foundation. On Sunday, December 12th, from 12-2 pm there will be a Cocktail Brunch and Silent auction at Sotheby's located at 1334 York Avenue, New York, NY. Admission will be free. For those who can't attend the brunch, the auction will be available for viewing and bidding at Sotheby's from Friday evening, December 10th to Monday morning December 13th. We will also be accepting absentee bids through email at artauction@childrenscbf.org.
 
Works by Tom Otterness, Hunt Slonem, Zhang Huan, Ellen Harvey, and more, can be previewed here.
 
If you will be joining us on Sunday please RSVP by emailing artauction@childrenscbf.org or by calling 212 297 4336. All attendees must RSVP.

Found Art (Soho): Unmonumental 256

Found Art (Soho): Unmonumental 256, originally uploaded by Joy Garnett (archive).

 

Found Art (Soho): Unmonumental 255

Found Art (Soho): Unmonumental 255, originally uploaded by Joy Garnett (archive).

 

PPOW Issues Press Release: David Wojnarowicz - Smithsonian, National Portrait Gallery - A Fire in My Belly

 

P·P·O·W and The Estate of David Wojnarowicz disagree with the Smithsonian’s decision to withdraw the artist’s 1987 video piece “A Fire in My Belly” from the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition entitled “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture.” P·P·O·W has represented Wojnarowicz’s work since 1988 and maintained a close working relationship with the artist until his death in 1992. The gallery now represents his estate.

On behalf of the estate, the gallery would like to offer the artist’s words to illuminate his original intentions. In a 1989 interview Wojnarowicz spoke about the role of animals as symbolic imagery in his work, stating, “Animals allow us to view certain things that we wouldn’t allow ourselves to see in regard to human activity. In the Mexican photographs with the coins and the clock and the gun and the Christ figure and all that, I used the ants as a metaphor for society because the social structure of the ant world is parallel to ours.”

The call for the removal of “A Fire in My Belly” by Catholic League president William Donahue is based on his misinterpretation that this work was “hate speech pure and simple.” This statement insults the legacy of Wojnarowicz, who dedicated his life to activism and the arts community. David Wojnarowicz’s work is collected by international museums including the Museum of Modern Art, NY, The Whitney Museum, The Library of Congress, The New York Public Library, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Reina Sofia in Madrid, Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, etc. Wojnarowicz is also an established writer; his most well known memoirs are Close to the Knives and Memories That Smell Like Gasoline, which are included on many university syllabi.

In 1992 the artist won a historic Supreme Court case, David Wojnarowicz v. American Family Association. The courts sided with Wojnarowicz after he filed suit against Donald Wildmon and the American Family Association, who copied, distorted and disseminated the artist’s images in a pamphlet to speak out against the NEA’s funding of exhibits that included art works of Wojnarowicz and other artists. We are deeply troubled that the remarks, which led to the removal of David’s work from Hide/Seek, so closely resemble those of the past. Wojnarowicz’s fight for freedom of artistic expression, once supported by the highest court, is now challenged again. In his absence, we know that his community, his supporters, and the many who believe in his work will carry his convictions forward.

Three versions of “A Fire in My Belly” will be posted on P·P·O·W’s YouTube channel for viewing and screening, http://www.youtube.com/user/PPOWGalleryChelsea?feature=mhum. This includes the original 13-minute version edited by Wojnarowicz, a 7-minute posthumously edited and audio re-mix featuring Diamanda Galas, and the 4-minute version shown at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, edited by Jonathan Katz. We invite anyone to download and to screen; please include this statement with any screening and inform P.P.O.W when the film is being shown so we may keep a record and list venues on our website and social media pages.

Additional images of his other works, including “Christ with Ants” and “Untitled (One Day This Kid…)” can be found on his artist’s page: http://ppowgallery.com/selected_work.php?artist=14

For further information or a DVD of these videos please contact the gallery at

(212) 647-1044 or email info@ppowgallery.com

 

Download PDF version of statement here: http://ppowgallery.com/news.php

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Also, here's a snippet from C. Carr's On Edge: Performance at the End of the Twentieth Century (1993):

 

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