Celebrity gawking, fear mongering, and other distractions, oh my! Is spectacle a harmless escape from reality, or something more?

Rulers throughout history have gone to great lengths to communicate and maintain their status. Whether that ruler was a dictator, royalty, religious figure, or democratically elected government, displays of power to validate and reinforce control over the masses declared who to admire, what to believe, and how to behave. Preying on core instincts to create situations that appeared effortlessly natural and self-evident, these displays of power featured elements capable of seducing people into agreement, distracting them from unpleasant truths, and/or scaring them out of rebellion.

Today’s spectacle takes many forms, from big budget events and entertainment to ever-present news media and advertising. It displays lifestyles we should envy and tells us how to succeed. It keeps us busy with news about celebrities and sports scores so we dismiss as boring anything that actually affects our lives. It sensationalizes violence while showing us what might happen if we rock the boat. It is power represented through repetitive sights and sounds, stereotypes and cliches, and other social signals about wealth, fame, and technology, and it all serves to influence general opinion and behaviour to support a consumer society and those who profit from it the most.

Taking cues from blockbuster exhibitions past and present to explore the complex nature of contemporary spectacle, A Total Spectacle is a mini spectacle about spectacle created by Winnipeg-based independent curator, Milena Placentile, in collaboration with local, national, and international artists including: Dayna Danger, Glen Johnson, Joe Johnson, Istvan Kantor, Praba Pilar, Scott Sørli, and Paul Wiersbinski.  The exhibition will be accompanied by texts written by Placentile and Martin Zeilinger.

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The exhibition launched at Atomic Centre (167 Logan Avenue, Winnipeg) on May 17  with an opening ceremony performed by Istvan Kantor with the participation of Ian Mozden and Dita Vendetta.

Regular open hours from May 18 – June 9 are as follows:

• Wednesday to Friday: 3:00 – 7:00 p.m.
• Saturday and Sunday: 12:00 – 4:00 p.m.
• Monday and Tuesday: Closed

There are two more events scheduled to take place in relation to the exhibition:

• Church of the Nano Bio Info Cogno with Reverend Praba Pilar at 167 Logan Avenue: Saturday, May 25, 2103.
  Doors at 8:00 p.m. ; service at 8:30 p.m. No late entry.
• “About Spectacle”, the first lecture in the new series delivered by Glen Johnson called “How to Think”  at 167 Logan Avenue: Saturday, June 1, 2013 at 4:00 p.m.

Admission to the exhibition and all related events is free of charge. Please stay tuned for details!

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This exhibition has been made possible with thanks to generous financial support from the Canada Council for the Arts through a program formerly known as “Independent Critics and Curators in the Visual Arts Program”, which provided opportunities for creative intellectual research and production initiated by curators working beyond conventional institutional frameworks.

The curator and artists would also like to acknowledge the generous in-kind and promotional support of Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art, Martha Street Studios / Manitoba Printmakers Association, Central Canadian Centre for Performance, RAW: Gallery of Architecture and Design, Edge Village and Gallery, and Akimbo.ca =-)

Graphic design by Colourblind Graphic Design.

A Total Spectacle, in partnership with Central Canadian Centre for Performance, is pleased to present “About Spectacle”, the first lecture in a new series by Glen Johnson titled, “How to Think”.

Saturday, June 1, 2013 – 4:00 p.m.
Atomic Centre (167 Logan Avenue)
Admission is Free

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Rulers throughout history have gone to great lengths to communicate and maintain their status. Whether that ruler was a dictator, royalty, religious figure, or democratically elected government, displays of power to validate and reinforce control over the masses declared who to admire, what to believe, and how to behave. Preying on core instincts to create situations that appeared effortlessly natural and self-evident, these displays of power featured elements capable of seducing people into agreement, distracting them from unpleasant truths, and/or scaring them out of rebellion.

While going about his daily business, which involved a good deal of riding on public transit, Glen Johnson noticed that a great number of his fellow citizens seemed to be having trouble using their brains. He thought it behooved him to do something to try and rectify this situation. Now, as a kind of public service, Mr. Johnson has begun a series of lectures which he has entitled How to Think. The first lecture of this series: How to Think About Spectacle will be performed on June 1st at the Atomic Centre. You owe it to yourself to attend.

Biography: Glen Johnson is a Winnipeg-based writer, installation and performance artist whose work invariably involves text (especially when he is writing). Johnson tells stories as “Uncle Glennie” and as himself, he has delivered faux-lectures to stunned audiences in at least three provinces. He has hung a bed on one wall and nailed tiny words to another. In 2011 he created the Artistic Licence Bureau for the Platform Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts. He has exhibited and/or performed at aceartinc, The Annex, Atomic Centre, Gallery 803, Gallery 1C03, Mount Saint Vincent University, The National Gallery of Canada, The Tallest Poppy, Videopool Media Arts Centre and the Winnipeg Art Gallery. He is responsible for the website http://www.persiflage.ca. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Classics from The University of Winnipeg in 1993 and expects that some day they will ask for it back.

This lecture is presented at Atomic Centre in relation to A Total Spectacle, a mini spectacle about spectacle organized by Winnipeg-based independent curator, Milena Placentile, in collaboration with local, national, and international artists. A Total Spectacle runs from May 18 – June 9 at Atomic Centre. Admission to the exhibition and all related events, including this lecture, is free of charge. For more information, please visit: http://www.atomiccentre.net.

A Total Spectacle has been made possible with thanks to generous financial support from the Canada Council for the Arts through a program formerly known as “Independent Critics and Curators in the Visual Arts Program”, which provided opportunities for creative and intellectual research and production initiated by curators working beyond conventional institutional frameworks. The curator and artists would also like to acknowledge the generous in-kind and promotional support of Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art, Martha Street Studios / Manitoba Printmakers Association, Central Canadian Centre for Performance, Edge Gallery and Akimbo.ca

A Total Spectacle, in partnership with Central Canadian Centre for Performance, is pleased to host a Church of Nano Bio Info Cogno service presided over by Her Holiness, Revered Praba Pilar

May 25, 2013
Doors at 8:00 p.m. / Service begins at 8:30 p.m.
No late entry / Free admisson
Atomic Centre (167 Logan Avenue)

Rulers throughout history have gone to great lengths to communicate and maintain their status. Whether that ruler was a dictator, royalty, religious figure, or democratically elected government, displays of power to validate and reinforce control over the masses declared who to admire, what to believe, and how to behave. Preying on core instincts to create situations that appeared effortlessly natural and self-evident, these displays of power featured elements capable of seducing people into agreement, distracting them from unpleasant truths, and/or scaring them out of rebellion.

Reverend Praba Pilar, of the Church of Nano Bio Info Cogno, proclaims a liturgy that drives the divine technologies – Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Neuroscience – further forward into the neoteric millennium. Beware of the Nanarchist during the Velocity! Sinners, prepare for the Singularity by surrendering your Cognitive Memory Banks to Silicon Chips, so that you too can live forever in the realm of cybersex. When it’s all over down here, we will have left the meatware behind and taken up the post-human existence we have dreamt of. We will look back on the time when science, logic and reason – truths divinely inspired by postulates that can be proven – took us beyond the Apocalypse. With ministries around the world, this au courant Church will speed the shock waves of the future.

Biography: Praba Pilar is a Colombian-born/Winnipeg-based performance artist, technologist, and cultural theorist exploring aspects of emerging technologies which generate new forms of economic, environmental and sexual exploitation and erasure. Deeply rooted in Latino communities, she has spent the last decade presenting site works performances, street theatre, writing and websites which provide a counter-narrative to the overarching rhetoric about the beneficence of biotechnology, information technology, and nanotechnology. Pilar has performed and participated in panel presentations at galleries and universities worldwide. She is currently in a doctoral program at UC Davis in Performance Studies, with designated emphases in Practice as Research and in Feminist Theory and Research, and is the recent recipient of the UC Davis President’s Pre-Doctoral Award (2007-2011), a Puffin Foundation Grant (2004), the Creative Capital Foundation Award (2002), and the Zellerbach Family Fund Award (2002), among numerous other honours. In January 2013, Pilar began a Post Doctorate at the University of Winnipeg with the Institute of Women’s and Gender Studies. http://www.prabapilar.com.

* * *

This service is presented at Atomic Centre in relation to A Total Spectacle, a mini spectacle about spectacle organized by Winnipeg-based independent curator, Milena Placentile, in collaboration with local, national, and international artists. A Total Spectacle runs from May 18 – June 9 at Atomic Centre (167 Logan Avenue, Winnipeg) with a grand opening on May 17 beginning at 7:00 p.m. Admission to the exhibition and all related events, including this service, is free of charge. For more information, please visit: http://www.atomiccentre.net.

A Total Spectacle has been made possible with thanks to generous financial support from the Canada Council for the Arts through a program formerly known as “Independent Critics and Curators in the Visual Arts Program”, which provided opportunities for creative and intellectual research and production initiated by curators working beyond conventional institutional frameworks. The curator and artists would also like to acknowledge the generous in-kind and promotional support of Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art, Martha Street Studios / Manitoba Printmakers Association, Central Canadian Centre for Performance, Edge Gallery and Akimbo.ca

The “City With No Animals” is an interactive and immersive installation running April 26th and 27th in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Come visit the White City and learn its history, read its stories, interact with its inhabitants, and play in a world where your only responsibility is to follow your bliss. Experience walking through a city that’s only ever before existed in the imagination, peek into the shops, have tea at the teashop, explore the haunted quarter, have your fortune told at the tree of clouds, and even attend a storytelling performance held in the installation itself. It’ll be something that’s never been see before!

Featured elements:

• The White Tower ~ Where you begin your tour and learn all about the city, is history, and how the people live. You’ll receive a key to start exploring the work.
• The Paper City ~ Visitors will be able to peek inside apartments, shops, and other buildings created from art boxes, paper, glitter, glue, & imagination.
• The Cloud Tree ~ A definitely to scale size tree wrapped in clouds where visitors can play a fortune telling game!
• Beneath the Rose Teashop ~ A teashop where visitors can get a complimentary cup of tea and learn the mysterious history of the city’s favourite theatre, read the weekly newspaper, or other printed materials from the city.
• Oprea Garden ~ A large paper garden that visitors can sit in and curiously, even smell!
• Fourth Quarter Gate ~ Peer inside to see the ghostly forms of the haunted Fourth Quarter!

Friday, April 26th 5:00 -9:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 27th 5:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Storytelling – Saturday at 6:00 p.m. only
$5 admission at door

Tour the installation from 5 – 9 pm both Friday and Saturday evening or join us at 6:00 pm on Saturday only to enjoy a storytelling performance by the characters that live in the city.

Visit http://www.faeriedark.com for more information!

Celebrity gawking, fear mongering, and other distractions, oh my! Is spectacle a harmless escape from reality, or something more?

Rulers throughout history have gone to great lengths to communicate and maintain their status. Whether that ruler was a dictator, royalty, religious figure, or democratically elected government, displays of power to validate and reinforce control over the masses declared who to admire, what to believe, and how to behave. Preying on core instincts to create situations that appeared effortlessly natural and self-evident, these displays of power featured elements capable of seducing people into agreement, distracting them from unpleasant truths, and/or scaring them out of rebellion.

Today’s spectacle takes many forms, from big budget events and entertainment to ever-present news media and advertising. It displays lifestyles we should envy and tells us how to succeed. It keeps us busy with news about celebrities and sports scores so we dismiss as boring anything that actually affects our lives. It sensationalizes violence while showing us what might happen if we rock the boat. It is power represented through repetitive sights and sounds, stereotypes and cliches, and other social signals about wealth, fame, and technology, and it all serves to influence general opinion and behaviour to support a consumer society and those who profit from it the most.

******************

Taking cues from blockbuster exhibitions past and present to explore the complex nature of contemporary spectacle, A Total Spectacle is a mini spectacle about spectacle created by Winnipeg-based independent curator, Milena Placentile, in collaboration with local, national, and international artists including: Dayna Danger, Glen Johnson, Joe Johnson, Istvan Kantor, Praba Pilar, Scott Sørli, and Paul Wiersbinski.

******************

The exhibition launches at Atomic Centre (167 Logan Avenue, Winnipeg) on May 17 from 7:00 – 10:00 p.m., with an opening ceremony beginning promptly at 8:00 p.m.

Regular open hours from May 18 – June 9 are as follows:

• Wednesday to Friday: 3:00 – 7:00 p.m.
• Saturday and Sunday: 12:00 – 4:00 p.m.
• Monday and Tuesday: Closed

The following events will take place in relation to the exhibition:

• Artist talk with Praba Pilar at Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (611 Main Street): Friday, May 3, 2013 at 12:00 p.m.
• Exhibition launch: Friday, May 17 from 7:00 – 10:00 p.m. with opening ceremony perfomed by Istvan Kantor beginning promptly at 8:00 p.m. >>> After party: Central Canadian Centre for Performance’s “Pin It to Win It” at Ozzy’s. Details forthcoming!
• Artist talk with Scott Sørli at RAW: Gallery of Architecture & Design (290 McDermot Avenue): Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 6:00 p.m.
• Church of the Nano Bio Info Cogno at 167 Logan Avenue: Saturday, May 25, 2103. Doors at 8:00 p.m. ; service at 8:30 p.m. No late entry.
• First lecture in the new series “How to Think” delivered by Glen Johnson at 167 Logan Avenue: Saturday, June 1, 2013 at 4:00 p.m.

Admission to the exhibition and all related events is free of charge. Please stay tuned for details!

******************

This exhibition has been made possible with thanks to generous financial support from the Canada Council for the Arts through a program formerly known as “Independent Critics and Curators in the Visual Arts Program”, which provided opportunities for creative intellectual research and production initiated by curators working beyond conventional institutional frameworks.

The curator and artists would also like to acknowledge the generous in-kind and promotional support of Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art, Martha Street Studios / Manitoba Printmakers Association, Central Canadian Centre for Performance, RAW: Gallery of Architecture and Design, Edge Village and Gallery, and Akimbo.ca =-)

Graphic design by Colourblind Graphic Design.

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Background, for those who like details

“La dottrina del fascismo” (“The Doctrine of Fascism”), written by Giovanni Gentile in 1932 and attributed to Benito Mussolini in 1933, describes fascism as the harmonization of business and labour in the interest of the State. Appreciating Mussolini’s commitment to reduced taxation and union busting, wealthy business owners granted him their support before realizing he aimed to personally control Italy’s various industries by means of a dictatorship. As the self-declared undisputed head of state, Mussolini detested bourgeois luxury and ultimately dismissed the authority of business owners as subordinate to his own. Business owners in Germany experienced similar difficulty controlling Adolph Hitler, the dictator they funded as a way to control striking workers by proxy.

Through the course of events associated with World War II, Mussolini’s Fascism and Hitler’s Nazism were dismantled. Around this time, wealthy business owners and other members of the global elite figured something out: why buy social control via individual, charismatic leaders when you can buy the whole system instead? Representing what became known as the Austrian school of Economics, Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises co-organized a meeting in 1947 at Hôtel du Parc, near Vevey, Switzerland, that established a European economic federation called The Mont Pelerin Society. Designed to promote aggressive liberal/anti-socialist ideology through a decentralized network, the Society facilitated the development and funding of think tanks, policy makers, and lobby groups, as well as the grooming of politicians and backing of favourable candidates. Simultaneously, through concentrated ownership of the media producing an increasingly narrow spectrum of discourse, corporatist ideologues have compelled large segments of society into willingly surrender many of the human and environmental rights gained since the end of World War II.

Seduce ‘em with consumer goods. Distract ‘em with vapid entertainment. Control ‘em with fear. That is how to harmonize the workers and the state in the interests of business.

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What are your plans for after the launch of A Total Spectacle? We’ll be going to Pin It to Win It, an amazing one of a kind burlesting event hosted by our friends Central Canadian Centre for Performance. Find all the details right here: https://www.facebook.com/events/646939255332785/?ref=ts&fref=ts. And, don’t forget, coming to A Total Spectacle and obtaining a stamp at the door with get you into the Pin It to Win It for only $10!! How can anyone say no to that?

New York City director Kathleen Amshoff knew little about Winnipeg when she accepted an invitation to come here to create the latest version of a graphic novel for the stage.

Swell is an art comic by American artist Juliacks that has been dramatized by groups of artists around the world before its full-length première last March at Culture Project’s Women Center Stage Festival in Manhattan.

Winnipeg doesn’t typically follow New York City on the avant-garde art-making circuit.

“I think I heard the name when I was in grad school in Pittsburgh,” says Amshoff, who is helming Swell at the Atomic Centre this weekend. “I always had the idea that Winnipeg and Pittsburgh were related cities with a post-industrial legacy and perogies.

“Then I started reading about the work Guy Maddin is doing here. I watched a little bit of My Winnipeg. In my mind, it seems like a centre of experimentation.”

Swell has been developed south of the border, as well as in Australia and Scandinavia. It was in Sweden last year when local curator and writer Milena Placentile met Juliacks and offered to host Swell 2.0 in Winnipeg at the Atomic Centre, a huge multidisciplinary art space at Logan Avenue and Martha Street.

“We plan to keep touring the project both in the States and nationally, in each place collaborating with local artists,” says the Houston-born Amshoff. “It’s a lot more interesting, though a lot more work, than simply dropping down in a city and doing a show.”

SUPPLIED PHOTO Charlene Van Buekenhout (left) and Tanja Woloshen ride a bike in Swell.

The 20-something Juliacks (Julia Stein), who is also coming to Winnipeg, uses the world of comics to explore challenging topics such as death, grief and memory. Swell, the final work of a series called The Tome of Hallow County, is the story of Emmeline, who unexpectedly loses her sister after a strained time in their relationship and goes on a strange, idiosyncratic journey of grief.

In a New York Times review, the actress playing Emmeline was lauded for carrying “you through the story’s emotional netherworld, and you emerge grateful for having made Emmeline’s acquaintance.”

In Winnipeg, with cast members Tanja Woloshen, Coral Maloney, Brenda McLean, Chris Sabel and Charlene Van Buekenhout, Swell is being re-imagined by local designer Barb Choboter with live manipulation of projected images from the book. As with the graphic novel, the dominant colour scheme is back and white.

Since 2008, Swell has been a recurring part of Amshoff’s artistic life. She, like Juliacks, is one of three sisters and could immediately empathize with Emmeline.

“The story and imagery in Swell are one of a kind,” says Amshoff, who, also like Juliacks, is a Fulbright scholar. “I love Juliacks’ drawings: they are primitive, intricate, kaleidoscopic. They capture something about the experience of loss.”

Following the Friday and Saturday evening performances, bereavement consultants and educators will conduct a post-show conversation. Performance artist Lasha Mowchun will be handing out free maps to the afterlife in the lobby.

kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca

Theatre preview

Swell

Atomic Centre, 167 Logan Ave.

Runs tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.

Tickets: $10, reserve at 204-944-1621

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 9, 2012 D3

Emmeline Grouse lives in a small town in Vermont, in a house overlooking an abandoned cemetery where she and her sister Lucy would often play. Adapted from the comic art novel by US-born/Lyon-based artist Juliacks, SWELL explores the memory-shifting and kaleidoscopic journey of grief as Emmeline confronts her fears, dreams and imagination.

Photo by Hunter Canning of the NY production featuring Katey Parker, Emma Galvin and Dan Vidor

The final night of the festival showcased acoustic performances making use of natural materials and phenomena, as well as familiar instruments, as extensions of the body with performances by NMPERIGN (US) and AKIO SUZUKI (JP). Christian Wolff’s Stones was performed by Chris Bauer, Al Conroy, Doreen Girard, Tom Kohut, Shelagh Pizey-Allen, Wendy Rondeau, Curtis Walker and Nathan Zahn. I regret not having photos of their collaborative performance — it both sounded and looked fantastic. Indeed, the whole night was awesome. Thanks for another amazing festival ((( send+receive )))

Featuring: The Rita (van), Tomoko Sauvage (fr/jp), Angela Forget (wpg) and Drip Music (Brecht)

And there’s more to come…
Saturday, October 20, 2012…

CONCERT | 7:30 doors • 8:00 concert | $15 or $25 for Fri/Sat

STONES (CHRISTIAN WOLFF) | NMPERIGN (US) | AKIO SUZUKI (JP)
Atomic Centre, 167 Logan Ave.

The final night of the festival will showcase acoustic performances making use of natural materials and phenomena, as well as familiar instruments, as extensions of the body.

The program will begin with a performance of the composition Stones by eminent American composer Christian Wolff (b. 1934). Wolff is the last living member of the New York School of composers, which included John Cage, Morton Feldman and Earle Brown. This narrative score will be interpreted and performed by the send + receive Temporary Ensemble featuring locals; Chris Bauer, Al Conroy, Doreen Girard, Tom Kohut, Shelagh Pizey-Allen, Wendy Rondeau, Curtis Walker and Nathan Zahn.

American duo Nmperign is composed of soprano saxophone player Bhob Rainey and trumpeter Greg Kelley. This duo has been working together in experimental improvisation for over a decade, exploring terrain shaped by a wide range of influences from classical music to punk rock. Selecting woodwind and horns was of specific interest to us this year as these instruments demand a particular physical engagement with their player, a dependency on the limitations of the body, of the lungs, the breath… Both players have expanded the language of these instruments and taken the possibilities of sound to new ends, creating an exciting and surprising collaboration.

We are honoured to conclude our 14th festival with one of the pioneers of sound art, Japanese artist Akio Suzuki. The artist who motivated the overall theme of this year’s festival, Suzuki embodies an important field of sound exploration that focuses on purposeful listening and a conceptual approach to natural materials and acoustic phenomena. A charming and down to earth artist, his performance will encompass a diversity of materials and invented instruments, creating a uniquely engaging concert experience.

Artist bios here: http://www.sendandreceive.org/artist-bios.html