Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Artful-e: Issue 05

A Collation of Opportunities Sent Almost Every Week
from the good folks at Cairns Festival HQ and Community Partnerships Unit
Cairns Regional Council: Cultural Services & Facilities Branch
 
 
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EDITION FIVE: DAY OF THANKSGIVING
of an Electronic Alert for a Growing List of Creative People in and around Cairns
(514 of you, and counting)
 
 
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05.00
MAKING THE CASE
The week's assignment is to read and study the plan for a new Cairns Cultural Complex, also known as Precinct. Click on the link below to open the PDF version, and print out your own copy of the business case. Highlight favourite aspects. Mark-up the text with your own sentiments. Discuss with friends and neighbours. Then give a copy to the most creative people you know, and ask them to read, highlight, and forward on. There will be no quiz, but an important slice of our future may be at stake...
 
 
05.02
COURT OF THE KING
The Cairns post, and an unelected King, gather a few civic leaders and arts advocates together for an on-line discussion of the possible new Cultural Complex, er Centre, um Precinct. Members of the community chimed in, and there was also mention of sewers and Shakespeare. Read how it all went down...
or go directly to the transcript here
 
 
05.03
CULTURAL PRECINCT BLOGOSPHERICAL
Commentary and ideas are flying about how, what, when, where, why a cultural complex...
so share your thoughts here...
then contact your elected people to give them a piece of your creative mind...
 
 
05.04
NOLAN'S GALLIPOLI
Throughout his artistic career, Sidney Nolan returned intermittently to the theme of Gallipoli. The series of painting begun in 1956 is a powerful slice of Australia’s military history. The trravelling exhibition, courtesy of the Australian War Memorial, opens at Cairns Regional Gallery on 10 December with a reception that evening. Learn more at this link...
 
 
05.05
AUSTRALIA TALKS
ABC Radio convened a panel on events and festival at the annual conference of Events Queensland in Rockhampton last week. Cairns Mayor Val Schier sat on the panel, and spoke well of our lively community. A fulsome discussion ensued, and has been archived as an audio stream for your listening pleasure. Click here...
 
 
05.06
DREAMING TO PARADISE
Stop by H.U.G.S. Artspace in Abbott Street for a look at new works by Malla, Betti Oliver, Vicki Ross, and Amiya Oliver. The exhibition opens on Friday 26 November and remains on view through 12 December. Expect a fusion colour, Aboriginal themes, abstraction, and visual energy (just don't expect a lot of information on the website at this link)...
 
 
05.07
GIG GUIDE HERE
Cairns.com.au, the Interweb disguise of Cairns Post, keeps one heck of an event guide. Click on this link, pick a date, or just peruse all the great gigs and creative events coming up around us. And then make a few of them part of your future.
 
 
05.08
JCU CREATIVE INDUSTRIES OPEN NIGHT
James Cook University is holding an Information Evening on the 1st of December for anyone interested in further details on Creative Industries courses. The evening will provide an opportunity to learn more about the Creative Industries programs in Cairns. Here's the skinny:
 
Wednesday 1 December 2010
Trinity Room, Shangri-La Hotel, Pierpoint at the Marina, Cairns
5pm :  Information session for senior Secondary/TAFE students and teachers
6.00-7.30pm : Information session for Cairns creative industries
RSVP: Elly Murrell | (07) 4781 3142 | soca.events@jcu.edu.au
 
 
05.09
FESTIVAL EXPRESSIONS
Ideas are being accepted for the 2011 Cairns Festival program, and anything is possible. The formal Expression of Information kit will be supplied early in the New Year, but that's no reason to delay your project and event proposals. The upcoming season marks the 50th festival, going all the way back to the 1962 opening of the Green Island jetty. For the 2011 program, we'll be exploring Cairns Past, Present, and Future...and we need artists and creative people to become fellow travellers in the Festival's Far North Time Machine. Those interested in proposing an element for the 2011 Cairns Festival should reply to this email, stop by the Festival HQ in City Place, or contact producer Eric Holowacz on 4044 3086 to set up a sit down and chin wag.
 
 
05.10
BLUNT EDGED ART
Are you ready for the Far North's answer to the Archibald Prize? See what 75+ local artists have been doing to their portrait subjects: each other...
 
 
05.11
BUT FIRST: MOFO
Zines, tee shirts, tiki huts....oh my! And then a slew of music from I-N-I Tuala, Mod Cons, Coopers Hill, and Bad Pharmer is what you'll find at Mofo on Friday night as the final 2010 Mo-Friday is unleashed inside 70 McLeod Street. Doors open at 7pm, and $7 gets you in (and a free zine is part of the deal-io). Have a look, then have a go...
 
 
05.12
CONVERSATIONS WITH
Sam Tupou, Merchants of Fine Objects
 
 
05.13
CATTANA TREES
Council invites you to come along and plant a tree at Cattana Wetlands, now one year old, to celebrate Planet Ark’s Tropical Tree Day. Join in from 8am to10am on Sunday, December 5 at Cattana Wetlands (enter via Dunne Road on the road to  Yorkey's Knob). The morning includes a free sausage sizzle and entertainment for the kids, and a limited number of trees will be available for planting onsite (so arrive early to avoid disappointment). The first 125 people will receive a free native tree as part of Council celebration of 125 years in Local Government.
 
 
05.14
125 YEARS AND COUNTING
Cairns Regional Council celebrates 125 years as a local government entity, and community events and opportunities are afoot. See item above and get your free tree, then click below and find out what other 125th activities are in the works...
 
 
05.15
CAIRNS WIKI-HISTORY
Get to know the background on this Far North place...
 
 
05.16
SOUNDWALK
Cutting the edge of walking and listening. When artists, sounds, voices, and cities come together...
 
 
05.17
NEW CIAF ARTISTIC DIRECTOR NAMED
 
 
05.18
POST-CIAF
Click here for a good summary of the 2010 Cairns Indigenous Art Fair and its cultural importance in the far North, from none other than Anna Bligh...
 
 
05.19
CONVERSATIONS WITH
Ricky Philbin, Cairns Tropical Pride Festival
 
 
05.20
ART IS THE ANSWER TO EVERYTHING
Visit the Tropical Arts website now, read about what local creative people are doing, and become a supporter and member today!
 
 
05.21
SLOWDIVING SOUTH
Claire Marshall's Brisbane production choreographs a new creative environment in a nightclub. And tehn things get weird...
 
 
05.22
CULINARIANS DOT COM
Food bloggers on the rise, and they could be at the next table too...
 
 
05.23
CONVERSATIONS WITH
Nola Craig, Food Writer and Taste Paradise Coordinator
 
 
05.24
PIECE OF YOUR MIND
Tell Arts Queensland what you think about professional development opportunities, but do it before December 3...
 
 
05.25
ALL HAIL THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF WOODFORD!
An ABC interview about the myth, legend, and beautiful reality of Woodford, featuring Ernie Dingo, the Space Cowboy, a vox pop chorus, and festival founder Bill Hauritz...
 
 
05.26
LONG MAY IT REMAIN
Prime Minister speaks of Literary Awards. The Australian Council is there...
 
 
05.27
MEASURING VIBRANCY. WHUH?
Australian Council for the Arts develops kit to measure the magic. Read about it, and a few pertinent essays, here...
 
 
05.28
A DAY ON THE EDGE
Arts Queensland to convene a special free forum on digital platforms and the arts, February 17 in Brisbane. Learn more here...
And thanks to the digital age, a rich dialogue is already brewing..
 
 
05.29
MOTHER FISH
An epic story, authentic cast, and a well crafted cinematic experience. End Credits Film Club brings them all together when it presents Mother Fish, this Sunday at 4:00pm, at the Cairns Centre of Contemporary Art. Click here to learn more...
 
 
05.30
CIRCUS, REAL ARMY BAND, ERSATZ BLUES BROTHERS
See what's on at the Cairns Civic Theatre here...
 
 
05.31
ART MYSTERIES
Pink faces in Paris. Doll heads in Mexico City. The Madonna of the Highway Bridge. The Devil of Madrid.
 
 
05.32
LIONS AND BLUEGRASS AND GOATS, OH MY
We love Julatten's music-making Hillbilly Goats. And we love the Lion's Den Hotel in Helenvale (the Greater Rossville area). The two come together this Saturday, giving you another reason to hit the road and head up North.
 
 
05.33
CONSUMER DECISION JOURNEY
Branding in the digital age, and a few ideas on how to engage, capture, and keep the so-called target...
 
 
05.34
VISIT THE TANKS
New Visitors' Centre construction has begun at the Tanks. Read about it here...
 
 
05.35
UNPLUG THE TANKS ON FRIDAY
 
 
05.36
JAZZ UP (NORTH) YOUR 2011 AT THE TANKS
 
 
05.37
OPRAH. DIRTY SECRETS?
Brace yourself. Live your best life. Self-mythologise. In Oprah we trust...
 
 
05.38
DYNAMIC TICKETS
Looking at the variable pricing model for arts consumers and event ticketing
 
 
05.39
WOMADELAIDE RELEASED
The 2011 Festival announces Sounds of the Planet, and another mighty program...
 
 
05.40
JCU WANTS THE CBD
 
 
05.41
PERPETUAL FUNDING?
 
 
05.42
SUMMER DRAMA FOR KIDS
From Monday December 13th through to Friday January 21st The Young Company have 6 four-day themed short drama programs for children and young people aged 7yrs and over. Participants will develop and extend upon a range of theatre skills including: improvisation, voice and movement, characterisation, acting techniques, film making, singing and dancing, devising and rehearsing scenes, as well as sound, lighting and multi media elements. Program participants will also perform scenes at the end of the week for parents and friends in the TYC Theatre Studio, Cairns City. For more information on TYC’s Summer Drama School please phone 4041 4066, email info@theyoungcompany.com.au or register online www.theyoungcompany.com.au
 
 
05.43
CONSIDER THE BLACK SWAN
Expect the unexpected. Balance complexity with simplicity. Do not count on experts. Make a fritatta with the broken eggs. See this edition's Endnote for more on Nassim Taleb's theory, and click on the Wikipedia entry right below for more info...
 
 
05.44
GRANT ME THIS
Cairns Regional Council revamps its website, and does up its grant-giving section. The deadlines loom. Click here now...
 
 
05.45
WALLWORK WORLD
Amazing post-industrial creatures are now inhabiting the upstairs gallery at KickArts, in the Cairns Centre of Contemporary Art. Go there now to see what artist Daniel Wallwork has been making as part of his Altered Species series. Panels, body parts, and impossible beings glorified in the sheen of automotive paint await inside KickArts. Click here for a quick peek...
 
 
05.46
AND MORNINGTON ISLAND PAINTING PLACE
From now until early March, KickArts is also showing an exhibition of extraordinary works from Mornington Island artists, with over a dozen creative people represented. Chcek out some of the pictures at this link, but go see the real art for yourself and take in a slice of Mornington Island image making on your next visit to KickArts...
 
 
05.47
CAIRNS ART CRAWL
On December 10, a few creative places along Lake Street and City Place will keep their doors open after work and invite the community to a new monthly tradition: the Cairns Art Crawl. A creative stew is being cooked up for the early evening, so look for details to be announced in the next edition of Artful-e.
 
 
05.48
ABOUT ARTIST RESIDENCIES
Ever wanted to spend time at an artists colony in Brazil? Research a dance collaboration in Berlin? Write a new collection of poems while overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Get the low down on creative residencies and artist colonies from the Alliance of Artists Communities, a consortium of several hundred programs that offer time, work space, and lodging for creative people from around the world...
and start your search here
 
 
05.49
INTRODUCING RES ARTIS
For an even wider range of opportunities, check out the global network of Cultural Exchanges and Artist Residencies at Res Artis, here...
 
 
05.50
ABOUT COMMUNITY
The Council's Community Partnerships Unit is cooking up new creative ideas and collaborations. Take a peek at what they've got on the boil here...
 
 
05.51
KIWI KULTURE
The New Zealand based website, The Big Idea, has everything you always wanted to know about Kiwi creative people and projects...
 
 
05.52
CREATIVE GENERATORS GENERATE ACRONYMS
QAC hosts CGF with CICADAS @ RAPAD thanks to Ozco and PRAC, and you can decipher it all here (maybe)...
 
 
05.53
WOODFORDIA
We can't stop thinking about Woodford Folk Festival, which opens in one month as thousands of creative people come together on 500 acres of pure cultural expression. Here's a little bit about the coming of Woodford, as the 25th anniversary looms on the horizon Northwest of Brisbane...
 
 
05.54
SCHOOLS+ART+SHOPFRONTS
Beautiful Art Spaces Offering Display Opportunities for Schools. This Christmas, Beautiful Art Spaces (an initiative of Cairns Regional Council's Community Partnerships Unit) is seeking the art work of local school children and young people, to be displayed in shopfronts in the CBD. This new twist is a great opportunity for children and young people to share their art with the wider community, and will help make our City beautiful for the holiday season. Interested schools and teachers can obtain a complete information kit from Sarah Boulle at the Council's Community Partnerships Unit on 4032 6626
 
 
05.55
DO THE ART-O-MAT
Cairns is now home to the first Art-o-mat machine in the Southern Hemisphere. It joins about 100 other repurposed vending machines from Seattle to Vienna, and a new work of art is yours for a bargain $5. Stop by the Cairns Festival HQ in City Place to meet our Australia's first coin operated affordable art dispensing machine. Learn how to become an Art-o-mat artist and contribute to the global phenomenon here...
 
 
05.56
OF FAIRIES AND THE THEATRE
Aussie theatre great Neil Armfield exits the Belvoir.
 
 
05.57
ARTIST AS INTERNET PUPPET
Become a puppet-master here...
 
 
05.58
CAIRNS ARTFUL-E ARCHIVES
If you missed last week's edition, or want to delve into the archives for a special tidbit of information, find past versions stored here
 
 
 
05.59
CONTACT CAIRNS ARTFUL-E
To be removed from this email list...
To be added...
To submit contents, events, opportunities, or comments to contribute to...
To simply make contact...
e.holowacz@cairns.qld.gov.au
or 07 4044 3086
 
 
This issue of Cairns Artful-e is a melange of creative opportunities, links, happenings, ideas, and instructions. Have a look. It ain't very fancy...yet. Apprehend what you will. Some of this stuff, it is true, will be of no use. Other items might be revelations. Please let us know if you don't want to get this regular email transmission. Pester us if you are receiving it more than once at a time. Send us stuff you want to have mentioned. Forward to a friend. This is our earnest attempt to be helpful, and spread information. So join us in giving thanks, for so many of the creative things around us...and this diverse living, breathing culture we write about...
 
 
05.60
ENDNOTE 1
Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
(originally published in the Financial Times)
 
1. What is fragile should break early while it is still small. Nothing should ever become too big to fail. Evolution in economic life helps those with the maximum amount of hidden risks – and hence the most fragile – become the biggest.
 
2. No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains. Whatever may need to be bailed out should be nationalised; whatever does not need a bail-out should be free, small and risk-bearing. We have managed to combine the worst of capitalism and socialism. In France in the 1980s, the socialists took over the banks. In the US in the 2000s, the banks took over the government. This is surreal.
 
3. People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus. The economics establishment (universities, regulators, central bankers, government officials, various organisations staffed with economists) lost its legitimacy with the failure of the system. It is irresponsible and foolish to put our trust in the ability of such experts to get us out of this mess. Instead, find the smart people whose hands are clean.
 
4. Do not let someone making an “incentive” bonus manage a nuclear plant – or your financial risks. Odds are he would cut every corner on safety to show “profits” while claiming to be “conservative”. Bonuses do not accommodate the hidden risks of blow-ups. It is the asymmetry of the bonus system that got us here. No incentives without disincentives: capitalism is about rewards and punishments, not just rewards.
 
5. Counter-balance complexity with simplicity. Complexity from globalisation and highly networked economic life needs to be countered by simplicity in financial products. The complex economy is already a form of leverage: the leverage of efficiency. Such systems survive thanks to slack and redundancy; adding debt produces wild and dangerous gyrations and leaves no room for error. Capitalism cannot avoid fads and bubbles: equity bubbles (as in 2000) have proved to be mild; debt bubbles are vicious.
 
6. Do not give children sticks of dynamite, even if they come with a warning. Complex derivatives need to be banned because nobody understands them and few are rational enough to know it. Citizens must be protected from themselves, from bankers selling them “hedging” products, and from gullible regulators who listen to economic theorists.
 
7. Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence. Governments should never need to “restore confidence”. Cascading rumours are a product of complex systems. Governments cannot stop the rumours. Simply, we need to be in a position to shrug off rumours, be robust in the face of them.
 
8. Do not give an addict more drugs if he has withdrawal pains. Using leverage to cure the problems of too much leverage is not homeopathy, it is denial. The debt crisis is not a temporary problem, it is a structural one. We need rehab.
 
9. Citizens should not depend on financial assets or fallible “expert” advice for their retirement. Economic life should be definancialised. We should learn not to use markets as storehouses of value: they do not harbour the certainties that normal citizens require. Citizens should experience anxiety about their own businesses (which they control), not their investments (which they do not control).
 
10. Make an omelette with the broken eggs. Finally, this crisis cannot be fixed with makeshift repairs, no more than a boat with a rotten hull can be fixed with ad-hoc patches. We need to rebuild the hull with new (stronger) materials; we will have to remake the system before it does so itself. Let us move voluntarily into Capitalism 2.0 by helping what needs to be broken break on its own, converting debt into equity, marginalising the economics and business school establishments, shutting down the “Nobel” in economics, banning leveraged buyouts, putting bankers where they belong, clawing back the bonuses of those who got us here, and teaching people to navigate a world with fewer certainties.
 
Then we will see an economic life closer to our biological environment: smaller companies, richer ecology, no leverage. A world in which entrepreneurs, not bankers, take the risks and companies are born and die every day without making the news.
 
In other words, a place more resistant to black swans.
 
 
05.61
ENDNOTE 2
After opening a colonial can of whup ass and sending the Red Coats back to their United Kindgdon, the first Yankee chief executive filed this request for a new nation to stop and give thanks. Here's how General Washington put it in 1789...
 
WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANKSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"
NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish Constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.
GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.
(signed) G. Washington
 
 
05.62
ENDNOTE 3
When that order was all but forgotten, in the midst of turning back the Confederate States and their renegade intentions to separate from the Union, President Abraham Lincoln requested that Congress adopt the following proclamation. And thus began the modern American holiday known as Thanksgiving...
 
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
 
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.
 
And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
 
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
 
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.
 
By the President: Abraham Lincoln

posted by Cultural Engineer @ 10:45 am