Dublin artist investigates biodiversity in the city

(image from Space is the Place curated by Conor McGarrigle & John Buckley, featuring among others the Tresspass project)


Seoidín O’Sullivan is an artist based in Dublin, Ireland. Her art practice investigates sociopolitical and ecological narratives, which she represents in critically engaged and poetic ways.

"TRESPASS (with Aiofe Desmond) is a collaborative project that engages research and action with forgotten urban space, abandoned landscapes and sites under transformation. TRESPASS is a multi-disciplinary project including photography, film, research and socially engaged practice. ... TRESPASS questions the inherent value of wasteland sites. ... The role of nature in wasteland sites is examined in tandem with their human usages. These delicate and interconnected issues can best be examined through a multifaceted collaborative process focused on ecological biodiversity in the city."

"TACTIC (with Ralph Borland) is a cross-national laboratory for tactical art making: TACTIC aims to work cross-nationally between South Africa and Ireland. This work across two countries will reveal the connections between local and global concerns in each place, bringing artists from the two countries together to develop projects and share ideas."

Everything was Alive and Dying

Sarcastic behind her sunglasses in a lumo-green forest preserve, hints of hysteria and grief bubble to the surface as American performance artist, musician and poet Janet Kuypers reads her 1995 poem "Everything Was Alive and Dying".

the poem concludes:
-----

in the wild
you have no power over anyone else

now that we're civilized
we create our own wild

maybe when we have all this power
the only choice we have
is to destroy ourselves

and so we do

----

go to http://www.janetkuypers.com for more poetry, information and details.

"Take Care of Yourself" - Sophie Calle

From MomentEmagazine.com
TateShots Issue 5

When a boyfriend broke-up with her by email, French artist Sophie Calle asked 107 women to read the letter and to analyse it according to their professional interest. more>>

Diana Al-Hadeed

Spun of the Limits of my Lonely Waltz
Diana Al-Hadeed
2006
Mixed media
183 x 164 x 164 cm

See more of her work at http://www.al-hadid.wsdia.com/

5 Psychological Experiments that expose humanity's dark side

by Alexandra Gedrose
Source: cracked.com

Psychologists know you have to be careful when you go poking around the human mind because you're never sure what you'll find there. A number of psychological experiments over the years have yielded terrifying conclusions about the subjects. We're talking about you.

Credo - Pablo Neruda

“I believe that poetry is an action, ephemeral or solemn, in which there enter as equal partners solitude and solidarity, emotion and action, the nearness to oneself, the nearness to mankind and to the secret manifestations of nature. And no less strongly I think that all this is sustained... by an ever-wider sense of community, by an effort which will forever bring together the reality and the dreams in us because it is precisely in this way that poetry unites and mingles them....
“All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song - but in this dance or in this song there are fulfilled the most ancient rites of our conscience in the awareness of being human and of believing in a common destiny.”

Pablo Neruda, Credo, from his Noble Prize speech

for the full speech (in Spanish)

unkonventionally Kathryn

Oh God. I thought they had been eaten by a darkroom somewhere, back in the day when darkrooms still existed. I saw these recently for the first time.

In the grand postmodern tradition of the footnote, comes, well you guessed it. The sincerest form of flattery. A little plot on Kathryn Smith and her exhibition "Euphemism", as winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award. Grahamstown Arts Festival 2004. Emma Taggart. Avri Spilka. Kai Lossgott. Photos by Mathew Rudenberg.

See the full album on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3157563&id=740885169&ref=mf#/album.php?aid=125285&id=740885169

Makes me wonder. Maybe Avant Car Guard is referencing us.

Hello Hokusai

Taxi rank, Cape Town Station, car-wash water, hint of ocean, urine, drainpipes, rotting chicken bones. Hello Hokusai.

The Great Wave at Kanagawa (from 36 views of Mount Fuji). c.1829. Katsushika Hokusai.

Badilisha! (to celebrate - Swahili)

Here I am, all smiles with Seni Seneviratne, a poet and folk singer from the UK whose poetry engages with women's testimony and trauma. For a poet she's a real sunshine person.

Badilisha Poetry Xchange 2009. To be in the company of like-minded people. To witness them as cultural workers and activists in action, on the continent our identities are rooted in. Their shows cut to the heart of what it is to be human. "This is the most African I have ever felt in Cape Town," said performance poet Phillippa Yaa De Villiers, commenting on this city divided by class and racial lines. It was a statement that quickened our hearts and was often repeated. I was left feeling exceptionally priveleged to have been part of this gathering of dynamic personalities.

enough. video poetry performance at Badilisha! Poetry X-Change

Sometimes you’ve had enough. And sometimes you have enough. A fusion of sound and light, Kai Lossgott’s and Mbali Vilakazi’s authentic and intimate multimedia poetry performance "enough" takes you into the dream cycles of obsessive behaviour and uncomfortable truths in the search for wholeness. It is about the breakdown of society, and people at breaking point.

In a lyrical conversation of experimental music and cinema, the poets draw their self-portraits only to erase them, through testimonies that become ciphers in the round-trip between abundance and gratitude, lack and self-pity. Through spoken word, dance, and gesture, they journey with the audience through breathing rhythms of take and give, where insecurity comes up for air and we open like blossoms.

Music by Niklas Zimmer ("here, now") and Mandla Mlangeni

Badilisha! Poetry Xchange website

Mbali exploring a tentative moment during rehearsals at the Theatre Arts Admin Collective in Observatory, Cape Town.

Communication breakdown during the performance, with Mandla Mlangeni on jazz trombone in the background.

The World Outside
by Mbali Vilakazi

what? oh. a cup of tea.
please.
that would be two sugars. a slice of lemon? mmmm. yes. thank you. that would be nice
nothing quite like bitter sweet
oh but to dream
two left feet
that take to the floor
an exquisite masquerade
top hats
foxtrots and what nots
the band plays on
it is a song of pandemonium
and we dance
we dance to the sounds of oblivion
life is a fancy dress party
youll see us all smiles
the world is but outside
this afternoon. we sit inside and shelter our dreams
a cup of tea? yes. that would be nice
in porcelain cups that feign they can contain
when they shatter
we mind our manners and play composure
the world is but outside
phuck it. pass me another crumpet

Buddha Jesus take my lust / no matter how many gold stars I stick onto my forehead / I'll never know enough

if knowledge was power
by Kai Lossgott

if knowledge was power
you wouldn't always be on tv
starring in porn flicks
in your electric chair,
and checking your e-mail
no constant query
to leave you neurotic
if you’re not prepared.

trashed by telepathic touch
pressing, clicking
plugging, unplugging. contact. nothing. nothing.
check check check check
socket check, cable check, adaptor check, wall plug check
nothing nothing nothing.
migrate like a blinking spaceship
laptop plugging in the kitchen
pressing, clicking. nothing, nothing, nothing.

on facebook I will never die
I survive on
two-minute noodles
memory is not required
who needs god when you've got google

trashed by telepathic touch
things I do that didn't
have a name before
grew to be
the most important things I do

fiddling and jiggling
pressing and clicking
two pin plug number two
switchboard. Check. all thumbs up.
test another thing. Ping! green light.
plug computer in. no such luck.
trouble, shooting shooting through my fingers
into every socket.

Trashed by telepathic touch
knowledge is
the child of fear.
headlessness is bliss.
I will sit
I will drink
the sweet fat peace of ignorance.
Let my laptop gather dust.
Buddha, Jesus, take my lust
no matter how many
gold stars I stick on my forehead
teecher teecher
I'll never know enough.

Mbali Vilakazi and Kai Lossgott in the official publicity photographs.
All photos courtesy of the Africa Centre and Cecile Mella.
The Africa Centre's Video channel

home. A performance by Art Pays, Golden Acre, Cape Town

home. A performance by Art Pays coinciding with the Cape 09 Biennale in Cape Town.

A powerful rite of passage. A game of paper houses. And four performance poets speak their hearts on home, to the sound of a jazz violin. Into the rush of Cape Town's largest inner city shopping mall, the Golden Acre, comes a performance about land ownership and forced removals. One performance only.

Daya Heller asleep in the centre of the circle. In the run of the performance she cut off all her hair bit by bit, finally wrapping herself in white cloth and rising in a white dress which she designed and sculpted.

home
by Daya Heller

where the heart is
beneath layers
and painted projections
where i seek. and build
change and become
the place no-one can move me from
home

Ilverse Senteni (above) and Jeisie Bassie improvised in the hip hop style around the theme 'home', Wanelisa Albert sang and read her poem 'she is home', and Khululeka Rulumeni performed in the traditional Xhosa imbongi (praise poet) style, speaking about forced removals and unfulfilled government promises, to much acclaim from the audience.

home
by Ilverse Senteni

im trapped i cant move an inch
my soul is underneath i can smell it
can i still breathe? am i still alive?
is this earth? man its hard to believe
but my legs are packed with fullforce my soul
feels theres a need for my body after all
because my strengh and mind fight in ominous ways
and my soul and i we like 1 2 faced
you cant beat the flesh beat the soul you on a loosing race
yow ill defeat the evil and reach my point
so im ready to face life and ill never get caught
because my soul my heart speaks through lyrical base
and my legs will take me to the maximum wage
im such a sickness to be on air i have to mingle with others
and make life what its suppose to be, so out of that ghetto.

Matchbox houses were arranged patiently in patterns by Rampedi Molefe across the semi-circle of the arena.

Occasionally appearing out of the audience in shades and dinner jacket, Kai Lossgott kicked the houses in all directions, ticking them off on his clipboard as he goes along, only for them to be ordered again by Rampedi, only for them to be kicked away again. This provoked violent outrage from the mostly working class audience, most of whom travel long distances from the slums they live in into the city every day. This is their story, part of the legacy of apartheid carried by millions, of being forced into township life in a country where race still is mostly synonymous with class. These actions are only too resonant in recent government efforts at sanitation and gentrification, moving people out of their homes to rural wastelands without running water, only to build houses they will never be able to afford to live in. It is the rising cost of rent everywhere. It is the old story of the rich taking the land and forcefully removing the poor, and the social and psychological consequences of this displacement.

300 matchbox houses were made, each containing a poem, and given away to the audience at the end of the show. This was a whimsical wish to fulfil the dream of millions of South Africans to have their own house with running water and electricity.

Rampedi, Ilverse, Khululeka and Daya cleaning up after the show, saving some of the houses for the discussion session to be held at the District Six Museum.


Artists: Rampedi Molefe, Kai Lossgott, Daya Heller, Bulelwa Basse; Violinist: Lara Sadler; Lyrical Base Poets: Wanelisa Albert, Ilverse Senteni, Jeisie Bassie, Khululeka Rulumeni
Production Manager: Shamila Rahim

Lyrical Base, an initiative managed by Bulelwa Basse, empowers young people from previously disadvantaged backgrounds through poetry, fostering self-expression and an alternative income through performance.

All photos: Nathan Heller
See full photo album on Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#/album.php?aid=100895&id=670252326&ref=mf

double changers

One big heart stopper. Two miniature chameleons in my lavender bush, pretty much the size in the photo. Change change change is coming fast!

LucyandBart

"LucyandBart is a collaboration between Lucy McRae and Bart Hess described as an instinctual stalking of fashion, architecture, performance and the body. They share a fascination with genetic manipulation and beauty expression. Unconsciously their work touches upon these themes, however it is not their intention to communicate this. They work in a primitive and limitless way creating future human shapes, blindly discovering low – tech prosthetic ways for human enhancement." The images above are from their project "Grow on you". from http://www.lucyandbart.blogspot.com/

click here for more

Death and the Virgin

She likes to cut off people's heads, at least when they're Barbie's sister. New-York based photographer Alison Brady photographs the white female body in stylish, sardonic and often morbid setups, playing on the ambiguous meanings of hair, related both to eroticism and death. By blotting out the identity of these faceless women, she emphasises the aesthetics of their perfect physique, anonymous victims of the whodunnits in which the photographer herself is cast in the role of murderer. for more images click here

Reminds me a bit of some early work by South African artist Kathryn Smith and the history of death, forensics and romanticism she has engaged with.

"alpha" with choreography by Jay Pather

I was intruiged by the dialogue happening between my video alpha and Jay Pather's choreography at the VANSA / PANSA stall representing the arts in the Western Cape during the annual Design Indaba in February. I had always envisioned it as part of a performance, but this one came as a surprise.

Daya Heller in "Nature Lover". Infecting the City 09.

Daya Heller, the original tomboy sculptor, in my performance "Nature Lover". The pick up truck will drive through the streets of Cape Town's inner city on Tuesday 24 and Friday 27 February 2009, as she sprays herself with water and seductively munches a lettuce, spitting pieces of it into the street.

This is part of "Fleet of Art", initiated by Brett Bailey for this year's Infecting the City festival. Each of the collaborators in the main performances were asked to creative their own live performance installation on the back of a "bakkie", a pick up truck. Thanks to the help of Mike Lister, the British water genius, it all worked out. Thanks also for the photo.

Limbo. Infecting the City 09.

"Limbo" is finally out on the streets of Cape Town. Viewers have told me that they found the performance very moving, and were deeply touched by the issues of xenophobia and South African administrative incapacity it adresses. Here are some pics by the festival photographer Sean Wilson.


The dancers in the climactic sequence of the piece, the attempt to pull down the dominating forces of government authority, represented by the statue. Choreographer Brian Geza doubling up as a performer.


Pulling down the statue, with Tossie van Tonder as the Spirit of Migration.

Five dancers were professionals, the rest were paid volunteers. The majority of them were foreign African nationals, refugees themselves, who had personal experience of many of the issues the production deals with.


The aerial dancers, who had five days to learn the art from the master, modern aerial dance pioneer Fabrice Guillot.

Our producer, Themba Stuart, in his role as the man who falls down the building, ending the show.

Infecting the City 09: Kickoff!

Soon to be seen on Church Square, cnr of Parliament and Spin Str, Cape Town (Pic: Fabrice Guillot)

LIMBO - "A New Collaborative Work about today’s foreigners that dangles breathtakingly above the square where white slave-owners bought foreigners."

by Brian Geza, Fabrice Guillot, Kai Lossgott, Julia Raynham

For performance dates, biographies and more on Church Square, click here

Infecting the City 09
HOME AFFAIRS

The Spier Performing Arts Festival
21 - 27 February 2009

pretty pollution

Irridescent colours in the car park, rain and dripping oil. outside Gallery Seippel, Johannesburg.

Working at The Nirox Foundation

Working on a new video at the Nirox Foundation. It was meant to be a sequel to cull'tivate, but it looks like its a sequel to alpha. I'm trusting the process, knowing that it never does what I expect it to do. That's my sister Nadja. She said I shouldn't be in all my films, but she knows I usually just do it because when the idea comes I want to shoot, not mess around with pre-production. She volunteered herself and her boyfriend Neil. So I shot them, both super-pretty and looking like models, and I prayed the work wouldn't get slick and glitzy. She's been very businesslike about it. Guess who got dizzy to the point of nausea recently hanging upside-down and headbanging. There are, after all, benefits to not doing all of this stuff myself.

"you can read the roads in me like rivers". One of nine new drawings for my plant leaf engravings. I've been wanting to get started on these for months, fascinated by the Dada poet Tristan Tzara's statement "the thought is made in the mouth" and my usual exploration of metaphors of life-centredness.

"diving" showing in "Water Preserves", curated by Jan Kather, NY

See my video diving in Water Preserves, curated by Jan Kather at the State of the Art Gallery in Ithaca, New York.

Wednesday, February 4, through Sunday, March 1, 2009
Opening reception: Friday, February 6, 5:00-8:00 pm

"Water Preserves" explores our complex and sometimes precarious relationship with water by visually and aurally examining its beauty, magic, terror, and poetry. The photo/video installation includes a special invitational collaborative piece created from the work of ten international video artists:

Michael Chang, Denmark
Simone Stoll, Germany
Marty McCutcheon, United States
Kika Nicolela, Brazil
Niclas Hallberg, Sweden
Alicia Felberbaum, England
Kai Lossgott, South Africa
Brad Wise, United States
Stina Pehrsdotter, Sweden
Junichiro Shindo, Japan

Diving. 2008. Kai Lossgott. Experimental film. 2 min 24 sec

post Las Meninas

Video Still from “89 seconds at Alcázar” by Eve Sussman and The Rufus Corporation. Photo: Eve Sussman and The Rufus Corporation

"Eve Sussman & Rufus Corporation’s 89 Seconds at Alcázar, inspired by the Western masterpiece Las Meninas painted in 1656 by the Spanish painter Diego Velasquez, is a fluid choreography that brings together visual atmosphere, performance and process. Shot in high definition digital video, a 360º Steadicam take reveals the entire scene in the salon of the Alcázar (Palace of the Hapsburgs). Fluid camera motion and choreography bring together an ensemble of visual atmosphere, performance, and a process. The work allows the eternal moment depicted in the painting to exist as a fleeting gesture, and continue as if the movement had occurred in daily life."

From Alicia Felber's MOMENTe magazine

Cinema Sim - Narratives and Projections
Itau Cultural, Sao Paulo, December 2008

Designer Anna The Red plays with her food

Yes, its all made of food. A rabbit of rice on a bed of lettuce, a mouth of ham, meatballs with eyes. Imagine opening your lunchbox now...
See more at http://www.baekdal.com/design/art/dont-play-with-food/

Diving into the Wreck

by Adrienne Rich

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

dust&scratches on St Mark's Square, Venice

Swiss / Italian performance collective dust&scratches plunder the storehouse of performance art, Romanticism and Classical mythology for a contemporary feminist twist on marriage and more. They almost got arrested this time.

Nirox Artist's Residency

Last night in the dead quiet it dropped down beside my chair. I lay next to the tiny bat on the cement floor and stroked its back. It was tough and hairy. I was anxious not to startle it. The bat's nostrils twitched. It had tiny black eyes.
Two bats live in the rafters. They squeak and flutter through this extensive house at night, hunting flies that have sought refuge here from the swallows in the heat of day.

From the website:

The Nirox Artists Residency is part of a secure estate within 45 minutes drive from central Johannesburg. Accommodation comprises a large principal residence, a separate cottage and 3 large studios set in extensive gardens and waterways.
Resident artists enjoy the inspired gardens of the complex and access to the Khatlhampi Private Reserve offering extensive walks and game trails through unspoiled grasslands, valleys and woods populated with indigenous game including rhino, zebra and antelope.

Art Pays collective launch

"2 dollars for Bokaap. Do I hear two dollars for Bokaap?" Khanyi Mbongwa auctions off Bokaap, Woodstock and District Six to a street audience on the steps of St Georges Church, while Mary Faragher and Kai Lossgott forcefully remove and displace them between circular zones on the pavement. A performance on the ownership of public space and gentrification in the city of Cape Town, this was the launch of the Art Pays collective, in association with Sessions eKapa. Daya Heller was a bride black-facing herself and handing out kisses on serviettes to passers-by. In conclusion, everyone was offered a rolled-up note printed with a dream for the city from one of the performers, and a drawing by the artist Rampedi. Thanks goes to Arts Administrator Shamila Rahim, whose dedication and insight made this possible. Photos: Daya Heller. Click to see more.

Why "Art Pays"

On naming our new artist's collective
by Mary Faragher

The concept of art paying is a positive one for artists and for consumers of the arts. Many people, artists especially, have an idea that in order to produce art you have to suffer in some way. ‘That you have to pay for your art.’ My idea is that art pays you. It pays you to make art and to have art.

People also believe that art is not a necessity and therefore it should be free. But every society needs the healing and building and social commentary that art provides. The positive impact of art cannot be underestimated, and that if we want to make art for society we need to make sure that art is treated as an investment. A personal, financial investment for a buyer, a social investment for a creator, or an investment in yourself as a creator.

Naming our collective "Art Pays" is a positive act. We are putting a positive concept out into the world and making ourselves and others think of art in a positive way.

Chicken fight - fire sculpture, Brendhan Dickerson

Launch of The Gordon Institute for the Creative and Performing Arts (GiPcA), University of Cape Town, 3 December 2008
wait for the whole video to load, then watch it all the way as the chickens spar and burn to cinders

Screening at Klyr Szyft in Warsaw

Armed and Ready. Kai Lossgott. 2004. Video for installation.
screening at KLIR SZYFT! (that's almost-polish for QUEER SHIFT)

27-30.11.2008 Warsaw
A queer, radical, anarchafeminist community building event. An open, friendly, safe space for folks of all sexualities, gender identities, shapes, sizes, ethnic and economic backgrounds. All are welcome to help build a creative and independent environment beyond the norm. The four-day schedule includes d.i.y. workshops, a zine fair, films, concerts, and drag shows

Sunday November 30, UFA, 12:00-22:00, free entrance

A presentation of short films from the archives of Bildwechsel Berlin.

My thanks to Chris Regn and Eva Kietzman!

The day the circus came to town

Here I am sticking up stained glass windows in preparation for the recent Nieu Bethesda Art Day. The event was held on Sunday, 9 November 2008 with the people of Pienaarsig, the township in Nieu Bethesda in South Africa's Great Karoo desert landscape. Nieu Bethesda is where South African outsider artist Helen Martins built her famous Owl House. The event was the result of "The Road to Nieu Bethesda", an intercultural symposium organised by Swiss artists Andrea Saemann and Monika Dillier and made possible with funding from Pro Helvetia. 10 Swiss artists worked with 9 South African artists on ironing out inter-cultural conflicts and conversations and planning an event that incorporated performance art, singing, dancing and storytelling. I have no doubt that despite the ideological challenges of such an undertaking, we created an event that will long be remembered in a remote rural town still very much divided by the legacy of apartheid. Photo above: Monika Dillier. Photos below: Daya Heller



Khanyisile Mbongwa (of the Gugulective) and Bongi Dhlomo brought the crowds out from Pienaarsig. Here Khanyi is singing a song with the kids that she taught them on the way there.


Bongi Dhlomo takes part in a re-enactment of Alison Knowles' performance "Song of My Shoes", in which audience members tell the story of their shoes. The performance was initiated by Andrea Saemann.


I was covered in "tattoos" handing out juice from the bar and participating in the 'food dances' in which we acted like exotic dancers, offering bowls of rice balls to eat.


German artist Chris Regn (co-director of the Hamburg video archive Bildwechsel) alias gallerist Helga Broll in yet another disguise. She later sang an ironic operatic song wearing the wig.


Sus Zwick and Muda Mathis from the Swiss all woman multilingual punk and performance art band Les Reines Prochaines take a break from the action after performing various hilarious songs.

Kids ghosting through the dark during the lantern procession on the way to the township, which ended with storytelling. The lanterns were designed by Daya Heller. At top speed and in record time, she also made large lanterns, the height of some of the smaller kids who were later carrying them.

See more photos at www.daya-art.blogspot.com

find abandon play destroy

For the KAP newsletter: collaboration in the Karoo landscape between performance artist Kai Lossgott and Sus Zwick from the Swiss women only multilingual punk band "Les Reines Prochaines".
click to enlarge.

Interview with Kai Lossgott

Check out this interview with me about my filmmaking practise by German media artist Agricola De Cologne at

http://vip.newmediafest.org/?page_id=130

Perpetual Heros

Perpetual Heros. Paul Birchall. 2008. Ceramic and mixed media assemblage. Edition 1/24.

A large field of cut-outs from old photographs turning on invisible clock parts at the Association of Visual Arts, Cape Town.

Truth Is Both Spirit And Flesh

by Malika Ndlovu
(excerpt published with permission of the poet)

It is the hotel bill or photograph discovered in a pocket
The open mouth saying nothing in defence
It is the fact splattered across the courtroom
Exposed to cameras, microphones and strangers ears
It is the addict at the brink of suicide
Frozen between picking up a fix or the telephone
It is the vibration in your chest and stomach pit
That hits when you read or hear a real guru's words
…It is the written and the unwritten
The space and the line
It is different
It is the same
It is buried
It is the silence before
Beneath and beyond
The lie
It waits for you and I
It will not die
Truth is both spirit and flesh

All Malika's books can be ordered at www.lotsha.co.za

Nkuli sleeping in the bus

Cape Africa Young Curator Nkuli Mlangeni sleeping on the long trip back from Nieu Bethesda to Cape Town. I've tried doing that with my hair, but forget it. It just doesn't work with white people's hair.

Nominated for Audience Prize at Platforma Video 8, Athens

Bawo Thixo Somandla (Almighty Father God). Kai Lossgott | video | 2007 | South Africa | 4:26 | Greek Premiere.

was nominated for the Audience Prize at

Platforma Video 8 International Film Festival, Athens. 7 - 10 Nov 2008.

21st Annual Dallas Video Festival

21st Annual Dallas Video Festival, Angelika Film Center, Dallas. 6 - 9 Nov 2008.

Alpha. Kai Lossgott | video | 2007 | South Africa | 3:19 | US Premiere
Bawo Thixo Somandla (Almighty Father God). Kai Lossgott | video | 2007 | South Africa | 4:26 | US Premiere

Dried Frog, Nieu Bethesda, Great Karoo

INVIDEO XVIII, 12 - 16 Nov 2008, Milan

"Experimental cinema, theatre and electronic art".

Kai Lossgott. alpha, Sudafrica, 2007, 3' 19''

I have always wanted to show at INVIDEO. Its an amazing event which I hope to attend some day.

Go see a still of 'alpha' on their main site, chosen out of the official selection of 63.

Exquisite Corpse Video Project at VANSA 20:20

Kai Lossgott will introduce the screening of The Exquisite Corpse Video Project, an online video art collaboration between 26 artists from 16 countries which was started on artreview.com. The project is named after the semi-blind surrealist game of folded paper and drawn body parts, and the videos were produced sequentially in a similar way. Kai is one of two South African artists who are involved.

The screening will round off the 20:20, a VANSA (Visual Arts Network of South Africa) Networking session. Thursday 30th October 2008 at 19:00. 8 Spin Street, Cape Town.

If you miss it, watch the videos on the YouTube channel.

The other presentations for October include:

Esther Ernst

Jörg Laue

Julia Rosa Clark

Myer Taub

Mwenya Kabwe

Dave Scadden

To discover

To discover, there must be no fear of not surviving.

- Krishnamurti

see more drawings fom Kai Lossgott's series somatosenses, available for purchase as prints

To live with honour

The greatest way to live with honour in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

- Socrates

see more drawings from Kai Lossgott's series somatosenses, available for purchase as prints

Green Porno with Isabella Rossellini

An interview with Isabella Rossellini about her new project on bug sex called Green Porno.

PANSA 48h Festival

Soft. Kai Lossgott and Steve Bandoma. 2008. Performance with video projection.
Photo: PANSA & Hannah Mentz

THE PANSA 48 HOUR FESTIVAL – IT’S BACK AND IT’S BIGGER!
PART OF PANSA’S MONTH OF PERFORMANCE
SUNDAY 21ST SEPTEMBER 2008

What do you get when you put 64 of Cape Town's hottest artists together, throw in some crazy ingredients, and allow to simmer for 48 Hours? You get five brand new plays, four totally original music pieces, four mind boggling dance pieces, and four eye watering pieces of visual art.

Starting on Friday 19 September, writers, choreographers, composers and artists will gather to hear the rules for this year's festival. With talent like last year's winners Nicholas Spagnoletti, Louise Coetzer and Nkosinathi Mgweba, along with interesting new entrants like Steve Pillemer and Fiona Du Plooy, we're sure the results will be worth watching. At 6pm on Saturday 20th, they hand over to directors, get joined by actors, dancers, designers and musicians for another crazy 24 hours. This year's talent includes Thoko Ntshinga, Jaqueline Dommisse, Floyed de Vaal, Gideon van Eeden, Thami Mbongo, Brent Palmer, Erica Glyn-Jones, to name but a few.

And then, on Sunday 21st September at 6pm, the magic begins, as all of the weekends pieces are played out in one crazy night. It's fast, it's fun, it's not for the faint-hearted - PANSA 48 Hour Festival 2008.

Theatre in The District, Chapel St, Woodstock
Tickets R40, available through www.webtickets.co.za
PANSA MONTH OF PERFORMANCE - PLAY YOUR PART www.pansa.org.za
Enquiries: PANSA OFFICE, 0214483513

Kai Lossgott in "Intervention" at the UNISA Gallery, Pretoria

View my plant leaf engraving dyptich "at once its opposite" at the UNISA Gallery in Pretoria until 17 October 2008.

you're changing

Chameleon. Durban Harbour. August 2008.

Amelia love Morne? Forever, so what

fatuous prophecy in Cape Town Station

Ryan Treetin dahling

clip from New York artist Ryan Treetin's supercool over the top feature-length video art piece "I-Be Area"

Kai Lossgott nominated at flEXiff 6 in Sydney

flEXiff 2002-2022 (The First and the Last Experimental International Film Festival)
6th Edition, September 19-21, 2008

BEST SHORT FILM AWARD nomination
Bawo Thixo Somandla Kai Lossgott Animation 4’26” S Africa 2007

SPECIAL FLEXIFF AWARD nomination
Alpha Kai Lossgott Experimental 3’19” S Africa 2007

Kai Lossgott screenings at the 11th annual Antimatter Film Festival

Dedicated to the exhibition and nurturing of film and video as art, Antimatter has grown into the premier showcase of experimental cinema in the west. Encompassing screenings, installations, performances and media hybrids, Antimatter provides a noncompetitive festival setting in Victoria, British Columbia, free from commercial and industry agendas.

Autoportrait
Monday, Sept 22, 9pm at Open Space
Aggregate and fragmentary simulacra from the caprices of [mis]communication, fate and desire.

Alpha
Kai Lossgott | video | 2007 | South Africa | 3:19 | N American Premiere


Burlesque
Sunday, Sept 21, 9pm at Open Space
Unflinching sidelong glances at impropriety, debasement, politics, obsession and decay.

Bawo Thixo Somandla (Almighty Father God)
Kai Lossgott | video | 2007 | South Africa | 4:26 | N American Premiere

Shield

Shield. Bright Eke. 2008. Mixed Media Installation. Dirty plastic water bags.
Experimental Frontiers : South Africa through the eyes of South African and Nigerian Artists. VANSA, Cape Town.

Dawn Garisch on 'talking to the tree outside my window while I sleep'

talking to the tree outside my window while I sleep. Kai Lossgott. 2008. Artist's Book. Laser engraving on plant leaves and pergamano paper, spruce and glass light table.

"They need light behind them in order to be witnessed, yet at the same time that harsh light will cause them ultimately to disintegrate into darkness - the words and figures created out of lines of nothingness blurring, crumbling and merging with voidness. It is in this sense difficult to speak about Kai Lossgott's artist book 'talking to the tree outside my window while I sleep'. It is a reminder that we hold our human shape for such a brief time on the earth."

Dawn Garisch, South African writer and medical doctor
Author of the novel "Once, Two Islands", nominated for the Booker Prize 2008

talking to the tree outside my window while I sleep. Kai Lossgott. 2008. Artist's Book. Laser engraving on plant leaves and pergamano paper, spruce and glass light table.

page through this translucent luminous book at > >
Print '08: Myth, memory and the archive, at the Bell-Roberts Gallery.
Ground Floor of Fairweather House, 176 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, Cape Town
opens Wednesday, August 13, 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM
on weekdays 9:30 - 5 pm, until 22 September 2008

add it up

many many many people. Michael Chang. 2008. Artist Book.

High Voltage

Stephen Hobbs, Bank Gallery, Kwa Zulu Natal
15 May - 7 June 2008
Originally conceived for the former high voltage transformer room at the WITS Substation

Starlings eat Prestik

UCT Campus, Cape Town
its obviously not for the taste
darn students could clean it up themselves

Squashed snake on the road

hot road
Ficksburg, Freestate, SA
one of my morbid moments
poison pressed flowers

Flowers for my Flesh, Joburg Art Gallery

Peter van Heerden in "Flowers for My Flesh" at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, 18 May 2008. (Photo: Christo Doherty) click for Flickr page

Spier Contemporary Opening, Johannesburg

Braving the pouring rain and biting cold, Anthea Moys and Kai Lossgott performed their piece "Unsaid" on a narrow slippery ledge at the top of a fountain in the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Johannesburg audiences had gathered for the opening of the Spier Contemporary 2007. The travelling exhibition arrived in the city in March 2008 as part of the first annual Art Week. visit www.kailossgott.com/unsaid.html for more about the performance

Chuma backstage

Chuma Sopotela getting ready for the performance "uNyawo Alunampumlo (The foot has no nose)" with Mwenya Kabwe and Kemang WaLehulere. Spier Contemporary Art Awards opening, Johannesburg Art Gallery, 15 March 2008. Spier Contemporary Website

Transports Exceptionnels

"Transports Exceptionnels", a "duet for a dancer and an excavator", was performed on Cape Town's Grand Parade by Dominic Boivin from the French dance company Beau Geste. It proved to be a great public favourite at the Spier "Infecting the City" performance festival, which ran in the Cape Town CBD from 26 February - 2 March 2008. Spier Performing Arts Festival "infects the city"

Infecting the City

Performance artist Leila Anderson (front) shows her skill at comic characterisation in the whimsical "22 Minutes & 37 Seconds", directed by Lara Bye at Thibault Square in Cape Town. The performance was part of "Infecting the City", a site-specific performance festival sponsored by the Spier wine estate which ran the city from 26 February - 2 March 2008. Curated by Brett Bailey and Jay Pather, the festival showcased diverse performances in squares, fountains, museums and theatres in the inner city of Cape Town. Spier Performing Arts Festival "infects the city"

Unsaid

Kai Lossgott and Anthea Moys on the roof at WITS University in "Unsaid", a tragi-comic performance about the failure to communicate. "Fear 'chokes us up'," they write. "We 'get a frog in our throat'. This performance is about communication or lack there of - what is said, what can be said, what cannot be said, what we are afraid to say, what bottles us up inside. What we say and how we say it has a ripple effect on the people and the environment around us." Seen at the Spier Contemporary Art Awards 2007 in Stellenbosch and Johannesburg. visit www.kailossgott.com/unsaid.html or www.antheamoys.co.za for more