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The festival’s rallying cry was that time had come to discuss the economy without inviting the economists to the table. The videos of the keynotes are online and i’d like to highlight 2 of them: Frank Trentmann‘s chronicle of the consumerist society and Geerat Vermeij‘s theory about how a closer study of biological ecosystems can teach us more about the economy than we might suspect

A new variety of capitalism is currently taking form on the African continent. States are being remade under the pressures of rapid demographic growth, conflicts over boundaries, security demands, and the offerings of multi-lateral donors and data-processing corporations. Much of this turns to enhanced forms of state surveillance that is common to societies across the globe, but the economic and institutional forms on the African continent are unusual

Project Nimbus is the outcome of 5 years of collaborative research by artist and inventor Dave Lynch and Chemical Physicist & Laser Expert Mike Nix. Using off-the-shelf technology, the team built an experimental device that projects moving images onto clouds. Onto pretty much anything cloudy actually: clouds of course but also cooling towers or urban vents.

Project Nimbus is based on the zoopraxiscope developed by Eadweard Muybridge in 1879 and regarded as the first movie projector

Two of the speakers of the DNL Drone event have or used to have a direct, daily experience of drones.
Asma al-Ghul is a journalist and author from Gaza who writes about human rights, social issues and is never afraid to openly criticize Palestinian ruling authorities. She spoke about everyday life under drone surveillance and sometimes attacks.

The other speaker was Brandon Bryant, a former U.S. Air Force pilot who joined the Predator drone Program in 2006 and left in 2011 when he started questioning the ethics of the program and his own role as a soldier

Fortey believes that the natural progress of evolution is always towards greater richness, and that this is the way our planet is meant to be when Darwinian evolution is allowed to play out naturally. Mistaken ideas about Darwinism have contributed to a view of human life that diminishes rather than enhances richness, particularly in the Weltanschauung of market capitalism

I’ve managed to keep it under control so far but i’ve got quite an obsession with the work of Marcel Dzama. The world he creates mixes childhood nostalgia, violence, sex and history (without necessarily knocking you down with historical references) in the most sinister and seducing way.

Luckily for Londoners, the David Zwirner gallery has just opened a show about Dzama’s latest work: Puppets, Pawns, and Prophets. The main protagonists are helpfully listed in the title

In Tarnac. Le chaos et la grâce, Joachim Olender explores a police and judicial blunder that hit France in November 2008 when a group of policemen wearing black balaclavas stormed into the small village of Tarnac and arrested a group of people who were later accused of being far-left terrorists plotting to overthrow the state

As we develop the tools to manipulate and engineer new forms and systems of life, the exhibition considers our historical and contemporary entanglements with nature, technology and the economy, and how these relationships influence emergent forms in biological and synthetic matter, through new sculpture, installation and moving image works

Last Friday, i spent the evening at the Arts Catalyst for the Kosmica sound night, ‘a social event for artists, scientists and the cosmically curious exploring sound and sonification of space.’ That means drinks, crisps, pop corn, space music and presentations by curator and artist Honor Harger, sound artist and composer Kaffe Matthews and designer slash sound artist Yuri Suzuki. Arts Catalyst uploaded the videos of the whole evening. And i’m adding a summary of the presentations, along with a few links to the projects, historical facts and scientific discoveries mentioned during the presentations

One of the best surprises of this year’s edition of the GAMERZ festival in Aix en Provence was a work that mixed clips from cult movies with gaming dynamics. Using 2 buttons and a joystick, visitors can navigate inside movie sequences from The Shining, Jurassic Park, The Blair Witch Project, Old Boy or Rocky. The main actor becomes an avatar and you can delay the inescapable moment when the little boy in The Shining bumps into the evil-looking twins or you can give a couple of extra kick and lengthen the fight that opposed Bruce Lee to Chuck Norris in Way of the Dragon

eCLIPSe surveys the creativity of music videos with a selection of the 50 videos that may be considered crucial for a proper appreciation of the discipline. Perhaps there are some missing but all that are included are beyond dispute. The clips are divided into several sections, to be screened in separate projections, starting with a historical overview and continuing with monographs devoted to who we believe to be the most seminal video directors: Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham

David O’Reilly is a film director, an artist and i’m not going to add that he’s a genius because everybody’s done that already, including me after i first saw his work at Pictoplasma Berlin back in 2007. The External World had its world premiere at the 67th Venice Film Festival and was shown a few months later at Sundance. It has since won numerous awards. Another of his most awarded short films, Please Say Something, received the Golden Bear at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival. The film was the only animated film to win the title since Pixar’s first short film

The Creator takes you into the surreal dream world of the visionary scientist Alan Turing, the father of the computer age and seed of Thinking Machines. Through Turing’s dream diaries, the Thinking Machines from the future embark on a quest to discover their origins and destiny of the universe

Jeremy Deller does art outside galleries. It thrives in ‘low culture’ and it is usually ambitious, socially-engaged and unexpected. Indeed, most of his career is built on looking for art in the most unpredictable places, working with the public or with people who have particular knowledge or skill but who wouldn’t otherwise be associated with the contemporary art world. They include unemployed miners, brass bands, a campaign banner maker, fans of Depeche Mode, a glam rock wrestler, experts in re-enactments, etc. He even collaborated on an art project with nightclub owner and trendsetter Peter Stringfellow