Ministry of Stories

The Ministry is a writing centre where kids aged 8-18 can get one-to-one tuition with professional writers and other volunteers; with the centres being housed behind fantastical shop fronts designed to fire the kids’ imaginations (and generate income for the writing centres).

In this case, the shop is Hoxton Street Monster Supplies – Purveyor of Quality Goods for Monsters of Every Kind.

source: We Made This
see also: 826 Literacy Project

The Machine is Us/Using Us

Impressionism

Impressionism- Hannah Haas

View more presentations from Ben Dover.

Film making Techniques

Pop Art

Andy Warhol

Andy

Sarah Thornton on Warhol

Critical Theory Goes to the Movies

'One of the things I enjoyed most about studying new media and cultural theory was the juxtaposition of high and low culture. I realised how many of the themes of dense theoretical writing were the very same themes explored in film (and particularly science fiction). There was a certain twisted appeal in taking a fairly unapproachable text and accompanying it with imagery from films that have made me think over the years. While putting it together I was intrigued to discover how many of those films shared common themes, characters and ideas something else that you can see running through the piece.' Brett Rolfe

(Not) Living in Public

Ondi Timoner's documentary 'We Live in Public' is a cautionary tale that documents the crazy projects of dot com bubble millionaire Josh Harris. In the film we get to see the surveillance of one pre-911 art scene in New York: the hedonistic, pointless performances by those who wished to validate their lives by living them on camera. The film highlights some of the tacky aspects of humanity that are played out both on line as well as off line.

Unfortunately the mogul's 'art' projects lack design integrity. His social experiments are intrinsically cruel and paint a very bleak picture. They are devoid of any kind of conscience not to mention basic netiquette. They are to discerning audiences what junk food is to those of us who eat organic. We don't buy it.

It is my hope that we can educate the myspace generation to cherish their privacy and value the communities that support healthy limits.

Amelie

Amelie is a whimsical character. The opening scene is a portrait of her set up by the director using magical realism style with exaggerated effects such as fast-motion.

Fast motion both compresses time and separates the fast motion scene from the rest of the film. It is used when emphasis is intended.

see also Barton Fink

Citizen Cane

The use of dissolves underscores the magnitude of the Kane's estate.

Strangers on a Train

Let's Get Naked

Doing the rounds of art school degree shows in Sydney, I am reminded of the hothouse atmosphere where ideas are fertilised and occasionally new species mutate. There is loads of perverse sexual imagery and juvenile politics as well as an undeniable energy.

I reckon everyone should have a go at art school. If I was queen of the universe it would replace compulsory military service. Imagine a world where everyone was given the opportunity to learn to draw the naked human figure in charcoal.

The Google Generation

We now live in the Age of the Answer, whereas only 10 years ago we still inhabited the Age of the Question. Adults who use Google do so with a critical and analytical conceptual framework that we learned as kids as we sought answers in books and by asking people. Kids use Google without this capacity for discernment, classification and selection of information because they have not yet had the opportunity to learn it.

Acclaimed neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield, spoke today about the evolutionary change humans are currently experiencing. Our brains have an incredibly plastic response to our environments. Studies show that kids in Western cultures now spend an average of 6 hours per day interacting with a screen. In order to learn effective social skills such as empathy, we need warm human connection and contact as children.

She put forward an idea that is very interesting to contemplate. We humans tend to santitise corporeal interactions. Once upon a time not so long ago, every person who ate meat had something to do with the catching and killing, that is, the messiness of it. We are now disconnected from the physical reality of catching and killing the animals we eat; it is presented to us neatly packaged in styrofoam. Just as we now go 'euwww' at the thought of skinning a cow, so too, in the future, we may go 'euwww' at the thought of engaging in communication that involves physicality, preferring our clean controlled on-line personas. Belly-to-belly contact involves pheronomes, body language and heaps of unconscious stuff that is difficult and makes us uncomfortable, it takes time to learn how to do it well.

Heard today on the radio program All In The Mind on ABC Radio National

Download Allinthemind_ABCRadioNational_Susan_Greenfield.mp3 (30 mins 14.1kb)

Teaching the Teacher

I recently completed a 10 week stint teaching in a school that is a repository for the city's violent pre-teens. I gradually lured them towards the experience of a productive classroom using fun activities, trinkets and stickers, firm guidance and oodles of encouragement. They were young enough to warm to a teacher who does not berate or mock them. I feel lucky to have met and worked with them and am sad to let them go.

One student in particular has a severe speech impediment. It was not an impediment to his zest for life and communication though. He confided about his family, telling how it is for him at home, about his Dad being stabbed and that his Mum was only happy when she was really drunk. Kids have a way of telling it like it is when they can see someone is listening. I learned a lot from them about how this is done.

It was hard work for me, with loads of trial, error and tears. The satisfaction in teaching for me is in witnessing connections and progress made. I saw troubled kids getting along with each other, having a go at learning their times tables and even start to enjoy being in a classroom.
Farewell dear students, you have taught me well.

What next? Kids wearing bullet proof vests to school?

In gun-slinging Texas, the local school board at the only school in the small farm town of Harrold, recently decreed that teachers could carry concealed weapons at school and in the classrooms. The climate of paranoia has just risen a few degrees.

"Country people are take-care-of-yourself-people,” explained school superintendent David Thweatt. “They’re not under the illusion that the police are there to protect them.”
The nearest police are based 17 miles away. Lacking funds to hire security guards, the school board decided that letting teachers carry guns would result in better security anyway, since an attacker wouldn’t know who might shoot him.

The armed teachers have received mandatory firearms training and will use special bullets designed to reduce ricocheting—in this case, off chalk boards and desks.

source: the responsibility project

EQ Education

Perhaps most important for the mission of schools, learning, when kids learn to pay attention and calm down, they learn better. We want to help them get in the best brain state for learning and remembering. We need to find ways to help kids be better students – not just learning better, but behaving better, too.
Parents and teachers tell kids countless times to “calm down” or “pay attention.” But the natural course of a child’s development means that the brain’s circuitry for calming and focusing is a work in progress – those neural systems are still growing. They will be shaped by the experiences kids have. We can help by giving children systematic lessons that will strengthen those budding capacities.

Daniel Goleman and Linda Lantieri

A Stroke of Insight

City of Shared Stories

A City of Shared Stories is a project from Spread the Word in the UK supported by the Arts Council of England. It started in March this year and works with London writers at every stage of their development by offering connections and opportunities for writers through a programme of courses, professional development, events and work in schools.
They encourage new and original voices in poetry, fiction, scriptwriting and many other genres.

Writers are invited to submit a short story about their street in London, creating a map in words. The map changes and grows as writers add their words.

source: my art grows around me