When The Caged Fire Talks, Does It Cage Us?

In contrast to the prehistoric discovery of fire as a tool for the creation of leisure time and the opportunity to build culture, contemporary television turns the tables by adapting us to someone else’s idea of what culture is supposed to be. Franklin Street Works’ latest media exhibit, Your Content Will Return Shortly, dissects this seductive and ubiquitous tie between viewer and TV from the perspectives of commerce, technological perception and development, as well as the overall psychological sculpting of society.

“This show was inspired by a desire to connect my own research on historic video exhibitions and readings in media theory—including texts by David Joselit and Marshall McLuhan,” explains Terri C. Smith, the exhibition’s curator, “with observations of our own contemporary relationships with ‘television,’ which for many is streamed at will via a laptop, bypassing the TV set altogether.”

Preceding the 5:30-7 pm artists’ tour and café discussion this evening with Siebren Versteeg and Jeff Ostergrem (both of Brooklyn) and New Haven-based Catherine Ross, Franklin Street Works has arranged with the University of Connecticut to present its second ekphrastic poetry reading beginning at noon, courtesy of Pamela Brown and students from her UConn writing class, whom, as post-VHS/CRT-era  adopters of the latest iteration of technology, like live streaming video, iphones and Blueray DVDs, will offer generation-specific interpretations of the works on display.

Catherine Ross, IFO, 2006, video still, courtesy the artist

Among the eleven artists participating in Your Content, Jeff Ostergren contributed Stimulus,  a timely two-channel video display that uses the details of pharmaceutical ads to demonstrate how, with sirenic finesse, TV delivers viewers to advertisers as a captive audience, while pretending to primarily serve their entertainment and information needs. Sports coverage and sitcoms aside, “commercials ARE the content,” Jeff reminds, as “the programming they surround are sublimated by the lurking capital that funds them, that relates to the content that is geared towards a… focus group-determined viewer.”

Emily Roz, Presidents, 2006, 20 Polaroid prints, courtesy the artist

How TV gets us to compartmentalize elements of current events and fiction with equal rigidity is demonstrated in Emily Roz’s Death by Mel, wherein Polaroid photos of TV images from various films featuring Gibson in the role of a killer are displayed side-by-side, removed from their individual contexts. A complementary sequence of cinematic presidents drives the point home with disturbing impact that, despite the fact most viewers would have more familiarity in their lives with the latter encounter (as mediated via TV news) than the former, the vital distinction between the entertainment industry's interpretation of 'real-life', as opposed to 'realistic' no longer matters: Each piece “brings to mind an entire genre… and (encourages viewers to) accept certain pretexts without question.”

Made possible in part through the support of the Community Arts Partnership Program awarded to Franklin Street Works by the City of Stamford and a two-year grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Your Content Will Return Shortly opened on January 24 and is on display through Sunday, March 24. In addition to Jeff Ostergren’s and Emily Roz’s pieces, the program features the work of Christopher DeLaurenti, Eric Gottesman, Jonathan Horowitz, Sophy Naess, Lucy Raven, Martha Rosler, Catherine Ross, Carmelle Safdie, and Siebren Versteeg.

Situated in an old row house near the UConn campus, Franklin Street Works is less than one hour from New York City via Metro North and about one mile (a 15 minute walk) from the Stamford train station. On-street parking is available on Franklin Street (metered until 6 pm except on Sunday), and paid parking is available nearby in a lot on Franklin Street and in the Summer Street Garage (100 Summer Street), behind Target.

When:

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Noon-1:15 PM, UConn Poetry Reading

5:30-7 PM, Artists’ Walk-Through & Café Discussion

Where:

Franklin Street Works

41 Franklin Street

Stamford, CT 06901

Phone/e-mail:
203-595-5211

info@franklinstreetworks.org

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Additional Information:

Douglas Coupland, Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work!, Atlas (2010)

David Joselit, Feedback: Television Against Democracy, The MIT Press (2010)

Marshall McLuhan, Quentin Fiore & Shepard Fairey, The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects, Gingko Press (2005)

Marshall McLuhan & Lewis P. Lapham, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, The MIT Press (1994)

Michael Parenti, Make-Believe Media: the Politics of Entertainment, St. Martin's Press (1992)

(Silent?) Spring 'Round The Corner

The turmoil of Hurricane Sandy, floods, drought and the inconsistent severity of recent winter storms add a layer of near-frantic anticipation to the annual ritual of turning our clocks forward an hour and its comforting auguring of seasonal transition--while it still remains relatively reliable.

With that sentiment in mind, as it might apply to rebounding Nature, individual opportunity, or engagement in building a more honestly convivial future for one another and the lattice of viability of which we are a part, all are encouraged to share in, or just support, tonight's reading of poetry in celebration of springtime renewal, or whatever is uppermost in readers' minds.

Hosted by Frank Chambers and PoemAlley's Nick Miele, the Barnes & Noble's Open Mic Poetry program meets the second Monday of each month in the cookbook section on the main floor of the bookstore (located in the Stamford Down Center), beginning at 7:15 p.m.

Below, see how near-reckless commitment, hazardous ice spelunking and majesterial arctic vistas make the documentary Chasing Ice a humbling testimony to the engines of macro-scale seasonal change:

For more information, contact:

Barnes & Noble

100 Greyrock Place Suite H009

Stamford, CT 06901

203-323-1248

One Land, Split Destinies

At one time, the whole of Hispaniola
was as lush as the Dominican Republic

Poet and licensed psychotherapist, Marianela Madrano returns to the Stamford area to read selections at Barnes & Noble this evening from Diosas de la Yuca/Goddessof the Yuca (Madrid, Ediciones Torremozas) and newer material delineating the ties between politically-tormented Haiti—the first nation to abolish slavery in the Americas--and its verdant neighbor, the Dominican Republic, and how Western European colonization has perpetuated Hispaniola’s painful dichotomy to this day.

Side-by-side with this narrative is a discourse on the region as seen through the archetypal lens of its original Taino culture—especially as expressed via feminine power and spirituality both then and in the post-Columbian period.

Decades of poverty-induced deforestation
have devastated much of Haiti's ecosystem

A native of the Domincan Republic, Marianela lives in Connecticut with her husband, fellow poet and bibliotherapist Reggie Marra, where, since 1990 she has used writing and literature as tools for healing, social development and creative growth through the Palabra Learning Center.  

Marianela’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies throughout the Americas and in Europe, including Callalo 23.3 (Summer 2000), Sisters of Caliban: Contemporary Women Poets of the Carribean (New York, Azul Editions, 1997) and Revista Surgai (Bilbao, Spain, December 1995).

Besides 2011’s Diosas, her own titles include Curada de Espantos/One Who Has Seen It All (Madrid, Ediciones Torrzaemos, 2002), Regando Esencias/The Scent of Waiting (New York, Alcance, 1998), as well as Prietica, a children’s book to be released this spring.

“The Black Bellybutton of a Bongo” is her contribution to Callalo; also, click here to enjoy some live readings by her and Reggie and other details of their work from the June 12, 2012 PoemAlley blog entry, “A Call To Be A Bodhisattva: Poetry As The Art Of Healing”.

The Black Bellybutton of a Bongo

After contributing troops to the American
revolutionary cause, Hatians repelled
attempted re-colonization by Napoleon's
forces in 1802 

The blue-eyed grandmother 
    blue-black ears 
used to tell tales of boogie men 
    of black boogie men 
Stories of embroidered linen 
    white sheets 
    virginal sex 
    secrets of pots and beans 
    magic wand to cook good fortune 
I lost my crystal slipper in the dust 
And the prince did not soothe my bruises 
Later it was all about cactus -- no tulips-- 
In the time set for war, grandmother 
Your stories slid down my skin 
    -black not trigueña, grandmother 
    -woman not doll, abuela 
Thunder came and lightning frayed the island 
    -it was the drum- 
    -cynical laughter bursting in curls 
    tough curls fighting chemicals 
    singing kinkily and happily in the air 
Black mellow dark beautiful majesty 
I stared it in the eye 
    a wide and indivisible geography 
Since then I am a doubt planting questions 
    sharp arrow is my tongue 
    my entire body 
Before the rust I found my voice 
    my eyelashes dusted time 
I am a heroine in the jungle, grandmother 
    I see the night patrol 
        the palm trees 
            the fire 
        Yemaya with her belly made of water 
            the areito 
                Yocahu-vagua 
a little black girl prays for water 
the baquini multiplies flags 
the box of many colors, did you forget it, abuela? 
The hand closed to your bones 
    shakes a spring of twigs 
    -don't be afraid, abuela- 
Lemba greets you kindly.

Below is the trailer for the 2001 film adaptation of Julia Alvarez’ In the Time of the Butterflies (1994), the fictionalized account of the Mirabal sister’s courageous resistance movement to the terrifying U.S.-supported rule of Raphael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic (1930-1961):

Hosted by Frank Chambers and PoemAlley's Nick Miele, the Barnes & Noble's Open Mic Poetry program meets the second Monday of each month in the cooking section on the main floor of the bookstore (located in the Stamford Town Center), beginning at 7:15 p.m.

 

For more information, contact:

Barnes & Noble

100 Greyrock Place Suite H009

Stamford, CT 06901

203-323-1248

___

Additional Information:

Love in theTime of Butterflies

By Julia Alvarez

Algonquin Books, 2010

Haiti Afterthe Earthquake

Paul Farmer

PublicAffairs, 2011

Uses of Haiti

"          "

Common Courage Press, 2005 

A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Carribean Destiny
Mark Kurlansky
Da Capo Press, 1993

The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus

Irving Rouse

Yale University Press, 1993