[accelerate] art as game as machine
Show Room Gallery at NAC
Reception with artist talks beginning at 7PM
Saturday 28 March 2015 7PM-11PM | DJ Marinko
Featuring work by
Hannah Epstein (Pittsburg/Halifax)
Brian Kent Gotro (Toronto/Vancouver)
William Robinson (Montréal)
Andrew Roth (Niagara)
Curated by
Julia Polyck-O’Neill
21st Century Aesthetics:
the blurring of boundaries between the digital and the real, between algorithms and desire, between capitalism and existence, between video games and visual art forms
how have progress narratives infiltrated consciousness?
how have imposed systems and received ideas become pervasive in our thinking and dreaming? and how can we emancipate ourselves?
is it through subversion, inversion, conversion, immersion, diversion, perversion?
the works included in this exhibition propose new narratives, micro and macro, aesthetic, affective, and conceptual, to illustrate how we might seek to understand our position in the contemporary zeitgeist
[d]igitality is with us. It is that which haunts all the messages, all the signs of our societies. The most concrete form you see it in is that of the test, of the question/answer, of the stimulus/response. All content is neutralized by a continual procedure of directed interrogation, of verdicts and ultimatums to decode (Baudrillard, “The Orders of Simulacra”, 115)
what is art? what is a machine? what is a game?
[accelerate] is art as game as machine.
come play.
A LINE IN THE TAR SANDS
Niagara Book Launch
Thursday 26 March 7PM at NAC
Join us for a panel, a spoken word performance, and a discussion about tar sands and environmental justice, with a focus on the Enbridge Line 9 pipeline and related struggles around southern Ontario.
Speakers:
Sâkihitowin Awâsis – Contributor and spoken word artist
Lindsay Gray – Aamjiwnaang and Sarnia Against Pipelines
Toban Black – Co-editor and contributor
Enbridge Line 9 is a 40 year old pipeline that runs across Ontario, passing through Hamilton and downtown Toronto. Line 9 is dangerously close to the Great Lakes, and the pipeline was not designed to carry corrosive tar sands. Without the consent of native or settler communities along the route, Enbridge is moving ahead with plans to send tar sands through Line 9.
A Line in the Tar Sands is a collection of writings from 38 voices in the struggle against a global industry – http://alineinthetarsands.org/
The fight over the tar sands in North America is among the most epic environmental and social justice battles of our time, and one of the first that has managed to quite explicitly connect concerns for frontline communities and immediate local hazards with fears for the future of the entire planet.
Tar sands “development” comes with an enormous environmental and human cost. But tar sands opponents—fighting a powerful international industry—are likened to terrorists, government environmental scientists are muzzled, and public hearings are concealed and rushed.
Yet, despite the massive political and economic power behind the tar sands, many opponents are building international networks of resistance, and challenging pipeline plans, while resisting threats to Indigenous sovereignty and democratic participation. Including leading voices involved in the struggle against the tar sands, offers a critical analysis of the impact of the tar sands and the challenges opponents face in their efforts to organize effective resistance.
Contributors include: Angela Carter, Bill McKibben, Brian Tokar, Christine Leclerc, Clayton Thomas-Muller, Crystal Lameman, Dave Vasey, Emily Coats, Eriel Deranger, Greg Albo, Jeremy Brecher, Jess Worth, Jesse Cardinal, Joshua Kahn Russell, Lilian Yap, Linda Capato, Macdonald Stainsby, Martin Lukacs, Matt Leonard, Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Naomi Klein, Rae Breaux, Randolph Haluza-DeLay, Rex Weyler, Ryan Katz-Rosene, Sâkihitowin Awâsis, Sonia Grant, Stephen D’Arcy, Toban Black, Tony Weis, Tyler McCreary, Winona LaDuke, and Yves Engler.
The editors’ proceeds from this book will be donated to frontline grassroots environmental justice groups and campaigns.
* Event sponsored by the Brock University Department of Sociology and by the Centre for Labour Studies.
PASS THE STAR | Niagara Roller Girls
A Roller Derby Themed Art Auction
Dennis Tourbin Members Gallery at NAC
ON DISPLAY FROM 21-28 March
Closing Reception Saturday 28 March 9PM
Niagara Roller Girls is proud to bring to you a silent art auction with works following the theme of roller derby and roller derby culture! Each piece is created by derby enthusiasts in the Niagara Region and will be on display at the Niagara Artists Centre (NAC) from 21 March through till 28 March.
Works in photography through to sculpture and illustration can be bid on anytime during the week, with half the proceeds supporting the Niagara Roller Girls and the other half going straight to the artist themselves!
Saturday 28 March is the closing reception which will feature NRG’s new skaters for the coming 2015 season, tunes, drinks, and snacks.
UPCOMING WORKSHOPS AT VAN HUIZEN BOOKBINDING
BOOKBINDING 1
We are holding a Bookbinding 1 course on Saturday 11 April. The course will be a single day 9 am – 5 pm with a 30 minute lunch break.
Content of course:
An overview course showing the properties of paper, boards and binding materials. Along with the hand tools and techniques required.
We will make two journals. The first will be a 8 ½ x 5 ½, 40 page single section book, center sewn by hand, ¼ bound in a hard cover using linens. The second book project will be a 9 x 6 multi section journal, hand sewn using ¼ bound style, with a linen spine and marbled paper sides over a hard cover.
There will be several additional binding techniques discussed and demonstrated during the course.
All materials are included. One day course $150 per participant. Minimum 6 participants
BOOKBINDING 2
We are holding a Leather book binding course on Saturday 18 April & Sunday 19 April
9:00 am – 4:00pm with 45 minute lunch break.
Participants will need to have completed bookbinding 1 or equivalent.
Content of Course
We will make two books. A ¼ bound book with leather and hand marbled paper with raised bands and caps on the spine, and a full bound leather book. One will be a journal the other will be a book in reasonable condition, even a favorite paperback to be rebound using leather,
Participants to bring a book in reasonable condition to repair and bind in leather
(I suggest you bring three so I can select a good candidate to be bound)
We will give instruction on the types of leathers and their properties,
Glues (EVA, PVA and Pastes),
Paring knives and leather paring techniques
Also there will be instruction and a hands on session for gold tooling, with new and antique brass hand tools. We will also have a refresher on paper properties, folding and hand sewing.
All materials included
Two day course $250 per participant
Maximum 6 participants
Both courses will be held at Van Huizen Bookbinding,
8 Hiscott Street, Unit 5,
St, Catharines ON, L2R 1C6
For more information or to sign up contact Tony Crowle at 905-682-1221
