2013-06-19T07:54:03-04:00 Julian Vigo http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=julian-vigo Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Julian Vigo Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3438359 2013-06-14T05:08:04-04:00 2013-06-17T07:57:18-04:00

Julian Vigo http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-vigo/


The Facebook page is named Bra-Busters, a term for women with very large--usually fake--breasts. 'I was skeptical at first,' Fitna recounts, 'It seemed like a trap, like he was trying to trick me. So, I asked for a link to get some context and the page was disgusting. A radical feminist looking at that type of content--it was sickening! Fitna explains to me what she found on the Bra-Busters Facebook page: creep shots (also known as up-skirt shots) and various pornographic images of women. She explains that there were 'creep shots taken of women without their knowledge and zoomed in to look at the crotch area. The comments from men were disgusting. I'd say porn, but unfortunately in modern times, some people only consider something pornographic if the woman is being penetrated. It was porn in the Playboy style sense of the word.'

So I went to a radical feminist group and provided a link to them, told them of his proposal.' After Fitna consulted with these other radical feminists, they wondered if she might possibly gain administrative privileges. Fitna was concerned that this was a tactic to 'dox' her. ('Doxing,' a derivative of 'document tracing,' is the sourcing of personal information from the Internet and using it for malicious purposes.) Fitna worried this man was enticing her to join so he could access her Facebook friends and other personal information in order to make a call to action for various MRA's (men's rights activists) noting how women with children have had their information and photos of their children posted on these MRA pages. 'So maybe he has been sent to get one of us,' Fitna notes. 'I also saw an opportunity and I thought that maybe he is ignorant and would make me an admin.' In Facebook if a user gets administrative privileges she can delete the other administrators and so Fitna took the gamble.

So on 30 April, Fitna accepted this stranger's offer to join his Facebook page and Fitna explains, 'Within minutes of him making me admin I deleted him.' Moments after taking over Bra-Busters, Fitna told the other feminists in her group that she was going to trash the page and put in feminist links. 'Immediately we started uploading links to Andrea Dworkin, Mary Daly, Catherine MacKinnon and anti-pornography links to various lectures,' she tells me. Fitna then appointed appointed three other women to administrators and two more later on. Fitna, a resident of Germany, said that all six administrators hail from five different countries and these women quickly collaborated to turn Bra-Busters from a pornographic site into a radical feminist site with the intention of educating and empowering women.



However there was a downside: the men who would frequent Bra-Busters were confused when the pornography was no longer on the Facebook page. 'We had comments like 'You fucking cunts!', 'You're a bitch!' and 'Where are the tits?' We laughed and made bubble photos of them. They were upset that we had taken their porn away,' explains Fitna. Stating that these cyber-pirates never received direct aggression and threats, Fitna recalls how they would receive comments such as: 'You broads are so hot, I want to fuck all of you in the face.' They received so may abusive and violent comments that these women decided to post the comments with the users' Facebook images on a blog called 'Whiny dudes' (http://whineydudes.blogspot.co.uk). Noting how Facebook has not been a very woman-positive environment, Fitna says, 'On Facebook you can report images of women being killed. There was a video of a woman being murdered, beheaded, for cheating. Many women reported this to Facebook and Facebook said it didn't violate their policy.' Although Facebook officially denies that it allows pornography, Fitna confirms that people have found child pornography, rape jokes, and images of women being raped on Facebook. Bra-Busters turned this Facebook paradigm around by successfully pirating a pornography site rendering it 'new and improved.'

The Bra-Busters page is today completely occupied by feminists with over 3,400 members. Fitna explains that they lost 800 likes in the first couple of days after the takeover but they have regained 1000 likes from pro-feminist men and women. 'Now the website has turned into radical feminism since it was thrown into the mainstream,' she says. 'Also women are coming to Bra-Busters who are new to feminism. It is a consciousness-raising site now--a female safe space. We don't allow any men to troll or make threats on the page and women feel pretty safe. We even have women who write private messages saying a guy is harassing her and if we see she is being harassed we get rid of the guy. They can discuss feminism out in the open. All the admins are very vigilant.' Bra-Busters has offered a platform for radical feminists to occupy the space in open dialogue so everyone can have discussions about feminism.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3385693 2013-06-04T18:31:27-04:00 2013-06-05T11:43:45-04:00

Julian Vigo http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-vigo/


With a footprint of 357 square metres, the pavilion is 24 metres at its widest point and 7.05 metres at its highest point from the ground. Lying in front of the Serpentine Gallery, this wonderfully aerial, latticed structure is built entirely of 20 millimetre steel poles which compose two sizes of grids--400 and 800 millimetres. These squares collectively create solid or transparent masses depending upon what angle the subject views or approaches the building: from certain perspectives the pavilion is more diaphanous, from other perspectives it is more opaque or somewhere in between. This structure, as Sou Fujimoto describes, is like a cloud shifting and moving under the sky. And at night this entire structure illuminates from the ground up. Like the repetitive scratches of lines from a pencil drawing which seeks to create density, the grid-like pattern of this pavilion creates various layers which together embody a dimensionality of radiance and darkness, lucidity and closure. In this way space is engaged differently from each vantage, forcing the subject to interact within a fixed social forum at certain moments and in other instances, the participant retains a sense of repose looking outward onto the park. Like a cloud, this construction moves between the abstract and the organic almost imperceptibly such that when the subject manoeuvres through this wondrous pavilion, she feels that space conterminously opens and closes.

In this morning's press conference, Sou Fujimoto recalls his dream of making an architectural installation at the Serpentine Gallery which this Saturday will be officially realised upon the pavilion's public opening. Inspired by the trees and people of Kensington Gardens, Fujimoto strives to create an 'artificial geometry' through a perfect balance between nature and architecture, his passion for the past ten years. Fujimoto relies upon a grid system to compose a sharp, translucent order to replicate the feeling of a forest and a crowd in creating a dichotomy of the artificial and natural order. This year's pavilion incorporates both horizontal and vertical social groupings set within the structural fittings of the white iron grid--its impact is delicate yet strong, its fine lines reach out and ever so gradually end. There is no roof per se in the pavilion; instead, the vertical stretch to the sky subtly terminates. Some areas are more translucent than others, opacity is created by the condensation of grid patterns that are created by the angle of viewing the structure. Fujimoto discusses how his grid design creates open and closed areas to integrate depths for the sunlight as well as social spaces with specific areas to relax since for him architecture should open up the possibilities for people to behave and move as they feel comfortable.



By his own admission Fujimoto concedes that this is a beautiful structure. However different from the digital corpus of the computing cloud, Fujimoto notes that this pavilion is analogue, viewing his creation as a duality of clouds: that of the more visible metallic structure and then the ostensibly invisible polycarbonate circles dispersed throughout the higher elevations which create myriad clusters of miniature, transparent rain barriers. These polycarbonate circles move with the wind and add a nuanced presence of delicacy and near invisibility to an already hyper-beautiful installation.

As I approached the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion this morning I grew increasingly convinced, with each step forward, that there is indeed heaven on earth. And I inhaled its beauty.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2080131 2012-11-05T21:07:02-05:00 2013-01-05T05:12:01-05:00

Julian Vigo http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-vigo/
The London Jazz Festival opens at Southbank Centre with the Robert Glasper Experiment and their signature combination of jazz, hip hop and R&B along with Phantom Limb which brings country and classic R&B together. Joining both groups is MF DOOM, renown British-American hip hop artist. Conterminous to this event is another opening-night gala at the Barbican entitled 'Jazz Voice: Celebrating a Century of Song' which features Imelda May, Patti Austin, Juliet Roberts, Brendan Reilly, Claire Martin, Gwyneth Herbet, Junior Giscombe, Natalie Duncan and Patti Austin.

Other surprises at this year's festival include Finnish group Oddarrang which combines postmodern rock and classical within a jazz format, Seeds Of Creation which offer an innovative approach to jazz, drawing on Arabic and Afro-blues influences, Paco de Lucia, the grand master of flamenco, and Michael Janisch & Aruan Oritz Quintet which features saxophonist Greg Osby. And for those jazz aficionados on a tight budget, there are on average four free concerts daily which can be found at the Barbican, Southbank Centre, Ray's Jazz at Foyles, and Kings Cross St Pancras, among other venues and a plethora of concerts for under £10 daily.

In addition to the 30 nightly concerts throughout the festival, this year's festival premieres films which demonstrate the close collaboration between jazz and film, offering the opportunity to hear from various directors. The 'Feast of Jazz Film' features films on Barbara Thompson, Sonny Rollins, Michel Petrucciani and Afterglow. Also of interest in this year's festival are the various talks and masterclasses including "Hear Me Talkin' To Ya," a series of pre-concert talks which feature Kurt Elling and Sheila Jordan, Jack DeJohnette, Chick Corea and Duncan Heining and Alyn Shipton. 'Jazz in the New Europe' is a major new initiative for 2012 that brings seminal figures together with emerging talent from around the continent in a string of new collaborations and commissions, club nights and panel sessions.

The 2012 London Jazz Festival reveals an eclectic mix of artists and an egalitarian representation of musical forms from around the planet which converge in the capital for the purpose of exploring the wealth of this genre while also testing the limits and flexibility of jazz musical styles.

http://www.londonjazzfestival.org.uk]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1982149 2012-10-18T18:24:38-04:00 2012-12-18T05:12:02-05:00

Julian Vigo http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-vigo/
This year the Serpentine Gallery hosted the Memory Marathon which offered an extraordinary and eclectic range of lectures and art presentations as part of its annual festival of ideas originally inspired by the pavilion commission. Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, this year's Memory Marathon demonstrates once again that this event is one of London's best art happenings of the year.



The Memory Marathon was launched Friday evening with 'La Suite,' a magical five-hour musical performance by Lebanese sound artist Tarek Atoui who assembled fourteen internationally renowned musicians to include the brilliantly deconstructive percussion of Lukas Ligeti and the shamanistic voice of Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe. Using the musical structure of traditional Arab music, Atoui weaves together the wasla (وصلة‎) of over eight movements creating a suite of vocal and instrumental pieces that are set to the same maqam (مقام‎) or melodic modal scales which are both composed and improvised, both metric and non-metric (taqsim, تَقْسِيم‎). Each performer learned of their roles within this wasla only ten minutes before their intervention. 'La Suite' incorporates the musical styles from traditional Egyptian music reminiscent of Om Kalthoum and Mohammed Abdel Wahab to the the minimalist inflections of music inspired by Philip Glass and Steve Reich. As fitting with the theme of memory, 'La Suite' borrows from musical structures of the distant and recent past while debuting an eclectic style of music where East does not necessarily meet West (or vice versa), but rather where musical forms and styles are brought together in a subtle syncretism wherein the spectator is brought to an euphoric and ecstatic state known as tarab (طرب).



The Memory Marathon continued with Julia Peyton-Jones who reminds us that culture is about 'bridging the collective gap through memory' and Hans Ulrich Obrist who invokes Eric Hobsbawm stating that like history, memory is also 'a protest against forgetting.' Israel Rosenfield discusses the inaccuracies of human memory detailing the historical and empirical developments of memory in the theories of Wilder Penfield, a Canadian neurosurgeon whose work on stimulating recall was later debunked through data analysis and DNA evidence which exonerated scores of inmates who had been previously incarcerated due to faulty eye-witness testimony. Elaborating his experiences with blindness and memory, John Hull maintains that there is a strong link between his somatic inability to see and his inability to recall certain information. Hull affirms a link between bodily function and memory stating that 'the sighted world is a projection of their sighted bodies.' Marina Warner expounds upon Shaharazad and 1001 Nights wherein she maintains the nexus between storytelling and history, between the oral and written processes of narration and how memory and repetition functions in such a way that, like the weaving of cloth, 'vicissitudes of structural motifs' are created. Conversely, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger defends the merits of forgetting as he contends that forgetting preserves our ability to forgive, concluding with: 'Let us remember to forget.'

Donald Sassoon's project on constructing historical memories analyses historical emphasis on certain events but not others within the 20th century. Sassoon goes on to interpret Willy Brand's infamous 1970 visit to Warsaw noting how it is the innocent who remember and ask for forgiveness for past tragedies in which they had no part. Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster executes a brilliant performance in which she writes on a 1980s style green on black LED screen merging together fragments of memory from cinema, opera and literature. Gavin Bryars and Etel Adnan create a timeless electronic-poetic collaboration as she recalls: 'I watched cactus grow among your eyelashes.' Hans Ulrich Obrist and John Berger discusses a short film, Ways of Listening, which Berger made in collaboration with Tilda Swinton wherein both recall their fathers' reticence to discuss the wars in which they fought (World Wars I and II respectively). Berger closes this session by reading a poem about the riots in London underlining, 'Looting is consumerism standing on its head with empty pockets.'

Sissel Tolass descants her work on smell and memory and John Giorno recites his poetry, recollecting his experiences with Andy Warhol and William Burrough's death: 'It was one of the best experiences I have had with him.' Michael Stipe presents a performance piece in which he recalls his first published photo as a child in the local newspaper, his being called the 'Maybelline Cowboy' by classmates who made fun of his long eyelashes, and sharing a dressing room with Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev and Cher. On the screen above his head is projected a brightly lit sitting room with a large ventriloquized version of Stipe's face poking out of the sofa, moving its mouth in asynchronism to Stipe's narrative.

Siah Armajani recalls his immigration from Iran to the United States, noting the vast difference in how each culture regards time: 'In Iran we started life with the past tense...In the United States nobody remembers anything.' Eyal Weizman expatiates how memory is filtered through trauma and Alberto Garutti confirms in a post-existentialist manner that 'every step that I have taken in my life has brought me here, now.' Dimitar Sasselov expounds upon cosmic and biosphere memory and Alice Rawsthorn addresses issues between design and desirability, the practical and the aesthetic and between memories and nostalgia. Gilbert and George recite their 'Brussels Alphabet' and Isabel Lewis head bangs her choreography on memory and social dance.

The architects commissioned to design this year's Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, Pierre de Meuron and Jacques Herzog (Ai Weiwei was not permitted to leave China), cover the role of memory in this year's construction. Joined by filmmaker Amos Gitai, all three propose Utopia as an antidote to memory. After the screening one of her film, Will-o'-the-Wisp, Dara Birnbaum expressly rejects Utopian visions contending that it is essential to reflect on history and on memory as a means of better seeing the present reality before us.



Ed Atkins' 'Depression' is a performance piece wherein a digitally altered voice narrates a beautifully crafted story of the brain as it translates melancholy through electronic sounds, blue screen, and microphone. Depression for Atkins is the act of marking, the ability to speak simultaneously of and as: 'This is an attempt to speak of depressions. To speak as depressions. For speech, words, etc. to depress. A coincidence of forms to depress.' One of the closing pieces of the the Me reconciliation mory Marathon is Adam Curtis' presentation of his film The Living Dead wherein he explores how 20th century psychiatry had long pursued tabula rasa theories of the mind in order to set people free from traumatic memories and then as a potential instrument of social control when the Cold War emerged.

Echoing the sentiments of historian Eric Hobsbawm to whom this year's event was dedicated, the Serpentine Gallery's Memory Marathon attests through a heterogeneous cross-section of disciplines from the arts, sciences and humanities that while memory can be both 'complex and sometimes dangerous' it can also be the source of reconstruction, and beauty.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1971242 2012-10-17T15:09:44-04:00 2012-12-17T05:12:02-05:00

Julian Vigo http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-vigo/ I caught up Harry Belafonte at a press conference at the Locarno Film Festival. Mr. Belafonte spoke eloquently about the very important role that art plays in politics, his roots in social activism, music and theatre, and about our common humanity:

Q: I would like to ask since the Preminger Retrospective is the centrepiece of this festival and since Carmen Jones was your first major film, did you sense in Otto Preminger this kind of purpose you have just been talking about?

HB: Yes, I did sense that in Otto Preminger, that he had a purpose in life more than just the pursuit of fame. He had a deep social sensitivity as he came from this part of the world, Austria, and he had an experience with Hitler and the Third Reich and what happened with Naziism. He came to America in the quest for freedom and opportunity and he found in America the opportunity to become an artist. And he used his platform to tell stories that he felt touched a deeper humanity. When he stepped out to do Carmen Jones, he didn't just think it was an idea for a wonderful film, it had a historical and social purpose. In most of cinema history, people of colour -- particularly people of African descent -- had always been pictured as sub-human.

We were never considered to be individuals with dignity, with a history, with a culture, with a story to tell. We were always looked upon as a burden to humanity, were people who always had to be helped, who had to be benevolently treated, that we should be instructed kindly by those who had power. But those who gave us that kind of definition failed to realize that long before they came to be who they were, people of African descent and people of colour had experienced thousands of years of civilizations and the development of civil society and did remarkable things long before Europeans came into their moment of glory and their moment of power. Most of how we were judged was measured by slavery. They found these people who had no humanity, these people who were just a little bit better than the beasts in the jungle: white benevolence, you came to rescue us, to help us find our souls and our dimensions as fellow beings. Of course, that attitude, that view, of Africans led us to be always be viewed as such.

But Otto Preminger came to know us and understand us and he decided to take another approach. When he did Carmen Jones, he saw in that film an opportunity to treat us as anyone else in the world would have been treated who were telling a story of interest, of tragedy, of drama, of humour, a story of humanity. And instead of seeing us as we were always seen -- as servants, as buffoons, as mindless people running around the jungle waiting for Tarzan, the great white hope to come and save us--we were given the opportunity to show our own strength, our own dignity, our own spirit as a people.

In Hollywood at the time, it was considered a very dangerous thing. First of all, there was a large part of our society that never wanted us to be envisioned as a people of a certain purpose and history who, from their point of view even today, are trying to force us to a subhuman place. But there were others who said to try to do this, to change the norm, would be a reckless expenditure of resources. Anybody who would want to make an all black film was doomed to failure because there was no audience for that, nobody would believe that, nobody would understand that. And Otto Preminger said, "I disagree" and he stepped up and used his own resources and with the alliance of Darryl Zanuck and the distribution of Twentieth Century Fox and these men reached out to some young people who were quite famous in their communities to step to the table to become part of this adventure.


Q: In your book, you discuss among many things such as going to the Havana Film Festival and you talk about going to meet Castro and how impressed you were with him. Can you talk about the role of film festivals and what makes them valuable?

I think, like others, I enjoy the anointing, the opportunity to be praised given the generosity of the audiences. But there is an agenda for me -- that is to take advantage of the moment since the audience is willing to hear my voice and to make sure that when they hear that voice I am giving them something that they can think about, something that might inspire them, something that might help them understand things they don't understand.

I was born into poverty and the fact of that experience made me understand why the people in my family --namely my mother -- were treated so cruelly because of their station in life. It was extremely difficult. And because of race, it was extremely difficult to get equal opportunity and I thought very early that if I never did anything else, I would use my life to change that reality, that I should fight against poverty and racial oppression and that I should fight against all oppression. And therefore anointed with this mission everywhere I went and everything I did seemed to be touched by the fact that this was what I wanted to do.

The earliest time of my life was influenced by three people. One was the great woman by the name of Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the president of the United States of America, who was a woman of enormous qualifications: she had a great intellect, a great humanity, and she had inordinate power as the wife of the president to do things to change the plight of people. She felt nobody deserved to be oppressed so she fought for our equality.

When she saw in my young life how I used my life as an artist, she asked me to come and work with her and be part of her mission. And with that opportunity I engaged in her mission for healthcare, for a productive way of life. Then there was a man by the name of Paul Robeson, a man of great force within the African American community who was absolutely stunning -- not only did he have a great intellect but he had a great capacity for language.

He spoke, wrote and could read 22 language among which were Swahili, Zulu, Fula and Susu and many tongues of Chinese dialects. People always loved him for coming to their countries and singing their songs. When I met Dr. King, who was the third person, he was two years younger than I was -- he was 24 when he led the movement in America and I was 26.

That was very young to take on such a large responsibility. But I admired him too: he had a PhD, he studied theology and he was a great religious philosopher. But he was a liberation theologist and he saw religion in the service of humanity, not as a force to command people but to inspire people. He use religion to teach us about the goodness in one another.

From the very earliest moment when I joined him in the cause to liberate us in America, people of colour, he said, "The thing we must remember is that we need to talk with our adversaries. Our friends do not need to hear our voice--we need to talk to those who don't understand us, to those who would crucify us, to those who do not see us as worthy of our space. I found that whenever we went anywhere in the United States of America where it was against the law to sit some place, to sleep some place, to eat some place. It was the United States of America that created the rules of apartheid. South Africa didn't invent that -- as a matter of fact those who created apartheid in South Africa learned from the United States. We invented the rules of the separation of colour and the separation of class. So we always spoke to those we felt we needed to convince to change their belief that we should be oppressed.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1854174 2012-09-06T10:30:06-04:00 2012-11-06T05:12:01-05:00

Julian Vigo http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-vigo/ Little Miss Sunshine, 2006) in Locarno, Switzerland after the screening of their latest film at the Locarno Film Festival. Ruby Sparks (2012) portrays a young novelist, Clive (Paul Dano), whose writer's block leads him to dreaming up the perfect girl, Ruby (Zoe Kazan), who becomes the inspiration for his new novel. Clive not only begins to fall in love with his creation in his dreams, but Ruby materializes as Clive's real-life girlfriend as he continues his novel. To avoid spoiling this dream, Clive stops writing only to tweak at times in order to assure his happiness with Ruby. However, Clive's misguided efforts produce problems as he realizes that Ruby is not independent, forcing him to consider his own relationship to control. Here is my discussion with Dayton and Faris.

Q: This is a human story -- a story about people, about love. It is interesting that independent filmmaking has become about making human stories.

JD: It's unfortunate that human stories aren't interesting for studios because, for whatever reason, they can't makes millions of dollars and they can't sell action figures.

VF: What independent means to us is that we get to make the film the way we want to make it and that we have final cut. There were other films which we were involved with in the past six years where we felt we weren't going to have that control so we decided no to do them. Even though this was produced by Fox Searchlight, it was a studio film in a sense. I still consider an independent film because we had the final say and there were no superheroes in it.

JD: We worked on this one movie with Ben Stiller and Reese Witherspoon that took place in the future. It wasn't a comic book movie, but it was a very high concept movie and we were trying to tell a story. But that was a $17 million movie and it became very clear that we couldn't do the same kind of personal storytelling that we wanted to do.

Q: Ruby Sparks is a human story, but also it is an inhuman story...

JD: That is what was interesting is that we could have our science fiction within a very human story.

Q: The film took metaphorically this idea of the perfect relationship by indirectly showing us that what Hollywood shows in their romantic-comedy films is in fact science fiction.

VF:[laughing] Yes!

Q: It really pulled me in because this film shows the real of relationships with the brother telling the protagonist that the women he imagines are not...

VF: Real... that "quirky, messy women whose problems make them endearing are not real"!

Q: Exactly.

VF: I think that is a reaction to seeing cinema that is supposed to be real that doesn't feel real to us.
Here is what is supposed to happen in the realm of fantasy or his imagination but actually it feels more real to us or more true to life that so many relationships in movies.

Q: Yet, these two characters' relationship starts to go through this fast fragmentation and re-fragmentation as the Calvin would editorialize his novel. As crazy as this was, it was real.

JD: That was the interesting challenge for us was to have what were real responses to a fantastic situation.

VF: For us it always had to feel real. We don't really have that power but we have all had that desire at times to do a little tweak and then it snowballs into something he cannot sustain. Really the fun of this story is that it starts as a little thing but we got to take it to a place where he has to confront something that is ugly or painful.

Q: It is also about power, the power of a relationship, which is very difficult to confront -- what he can do and what he might do...

JD: And would you want it? And of course we don't think we would...ultimately.

VF: Calvin comes to realize it's a burden: he wants Ruby to be happy without making her happy. He is not enjoying that responsibility. What is funny is his brother thinks about the implications of what he could do with that power but Calvin doesn't want to do that. It is just that his trying to fix it gets him into trouble.

JD: And when he runs into his former girlfriend who pushes back and he feels that, he is reminded and realizes that is when he goes home and burns down the house.

Q: What is your opinion about art and the struggle for control, for this film seems to make parallels between art and love?

JD: That was an important theme within the film -- how an artists seek to control his or her work and how that urge can destroy your work. The challenge of the artist is to accept. In seeking to control her Calvin destroys Ruby. As directors you hope a film takes on a life of its own.

VF: What is most fun about creative work is when it starts to speak to you and you are no longer in control. It is not easy but that is the goal to get out of your head and work more intuitively. That is where Calvin is, thinking about his last book, the pressure and then he creates something and ends up destroying it because he still has that urge to control.

Q: But this happens as well in human relationships. Instead of Calvin re-narrating his book, he could have gone to real human lengths such as not calling Ruby for 15 days...

JD: What was fun for us was that in this very simple concept you could explore very real issues between people and in work and there are so many layers. You spend two years of your life on a film.. it is like a tattoo, you better love it because it is with you forever.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1854160 2012-09-05T10:27:10-04:00 2012-11-05T05:12:01-05:00

Julian Vigo http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-vigo/

At the Locarno film festival in August, I had the chance to catch up with and interview Mexican actor Gael García Bernal regarding his starring role in Pablo Larraín's latest film, No (2012). Based on true life events and characters, García Bernal plays an ad executive who comes up with a plan to defeat Pinochet in the 1988 referendum.

Tackling the delicate issues of political repression while demonstrating the necessary pragmatism behind any political campaign, Pablo Larraín's feature smoothly creates a serious drama while the aesthetic layers of the film -- camera, light and colour -- remains faithful to that of 1980s cinema. García Bernal takes his character (René Saveedra) and portrays the subtle nuances of political dialogue and familial complexities. We begin our conversation discussing age, as García Bernal at 33 is one of the youngest recipients of the Locarno Film Festival's Excellence Award.

Q: Isn't it scary to be given an award for your career and you are in your early 30s?

GB: It's scary in a way a little bit but there is something to be added to that scariness which is something quite unconscious because I never thought about doing films so it was never a possibility. I dreamed about doing them, of course, like we all dream about being rock stars or with the Olympics now I want to be a diver, but I never saw it as a real possibility. It was never a possibility. Now that I have passed the age of 30 I have started to wonder about the real and practical reasons behind my becoming an actor and working in films. And for most of this, it is not my fault: it's that people called me and I have put myself "there," you know? I think the reason why I started to make films was because I was going to be able to travel a lot, to meet a lot of people and to have a lot of challenges, to play, to have fun [he laughs] and to learn. Basically you learn a lot. This film gave me -- gave us -- a lot of thought. So these are the real reasons why I wanted to do films. I can't say it's because "I love films and I want to make them," no. I love watching them, yes, but I like doing them for another reason, not because I like watching them. Whenever there has been this kind of recognition it's always really surprising and quite unconscious -- I don't think I'm really aware of this process which is a good thing because it's a celebration and a party and I am really grateful.

Q: So did you ever have a key experience in adulthood where you saw you have a talent for acting? And do you think this award goes to your talent?

GB: The story goes a little bit like this: I didn't want to be an actor because my parents were actors which is quite common not to follow in one's parents' footsteps. I started to study philosophy in Mexico and there was a student strike at the UNAM, the university, and so at that point I decided to travel. I ended up in London. I had never been in Europe before and so it was the first time I went to Europe and I ran out of money. So I started to work in bars and restaurants and then I started to get really bored of just doing that and I wanted to study something in the meantime. I was 18 and I had no idea what I wanted and I went to do a theatre course. Why not? It's England, "the land of theatre" [he enunciates in a dramatic voice] and I started to see the courses and I saw there was the whole career. I said ok, I will audition to get into this school. I think I decided to make more films or rather...for Amores perros I wasn't aware what was happening. I always tell this story but at the end of the shoot I asked for a VHS from the producers so I could show my family the film eventually because those films in Mexico never were seen by anybody, so I wanted to show it to my family. And then Amores perros became what it became and then I did Y tu mama también. Then at that point I remember thinking consciously, "I like doing this" and I liked also the fact that I got to travel, embody a lot and I discovered that I like cinema. But when I say "I like cinema" this is not from an actor's perspective, it's from a producing and directing perspective. That is when I took a conscious decision to get closer to the cinema world or to be there because I want to do it. If I was asked if I prefer to act in a movie or in a play, I would always say a play. If I am asked, "What do you prefer to direct, a movie or a play?" I would always say a movie. Cinema is done more behind the camera. In front of the camera you just put yourself generously there and then there is someone else who can [he gestures to a snip] which is wonderful as well. It is an act of faith. You are playing around and hopefully there is someone there who is a good director.

Q: Does this mean you don't recognise yourself in a movie?

GB: The best case scenario is when you have ownership of a character and later this character has an other life to you. Now, for example, I wonder what Julio form Y tu mama también is doing, you know? What are those characters doing? I am sure Alain Delon with Rocco e I suoi fratelli, they are wondering what has become of you. They become these parallel lives. I like playing that kind of thing where life continues -- you visited, you gave life or you embodied the life of this character that already existed and all of a sudden you are the representation of this character. Then you start to develop a family with brothers. In the best cases this happens and in the worse cases, those characters have no life. I don't even remember them...

Q: You come from a country with its own history such as the massacres of Tlatelolco, where massive student protest occurred in response to government violence, and then contrast this to the horrors of Argentina and Chile. Yet you play a character, René, who had to take the position of how to sell the "No" campaign to Chile, to oust Pinochet in the face of 3,000 desaparecidos (disappeared), whereas in neighbouring Argentina there was no sale necessary in large part to the 30,000 desaparecidos and the anger towards that dictatorship. You play a very subtle character who had to negotiate the passion of politics within the reason of salesmanship. So how did you approach the character of René because he was not an angry, revolutionary type in the least?

GB: I think the character by itself in the script has an existentialist approach. The character is based on two real people, García and Sanzero, the creative people in the campaign who organised and put the group together and moved it all around. But there is a third person here: me being a foreigner, I play an exiled person. This was an element that wasn't considered in the beginning of the film. We found this creates a much more complex character. Basically this gave life to a character and at the same time he sees all the contradictions and ambiguities of democracy and he speaks for us in a way. This is what the world is going through I think. We are at the stage where we have reached a post-adolescence of democracy and now we are seeing that real politics is about the small win is not the total win. It is the small win that opens up the bigger picture.

We were so naïve to think that elections would change everything and elections never have. So some people from Chile might say, "But nothing changed." But this election was won in minor ways. There was a huge campaign that had to happen to register voters and imagine registering voters during a dictatorship, putting your name down. People were really scared. Then they went to vote--they never thought it was going to be a secret vote...at all. So this work that the politicians and activists made was incredible. And what is most incredible is that nobody thought they would win! Imagine a dictator who says, "I am going to do a referendum." But that is something very interesting about Chile--they were the only country that has overthrown a dictatorship with votes, without blood, and it is just incredible. And it is just a fallacy to say that nothing changed. Of course it changed. Pinochet was out! As a foreigner I see a strong link between the student demonstrations in Chile and No vote in 1988. There is a huge connection. Of course a lot of things didn't change, but that is what we are living in a democracy: we think very innocently that the elections are the end of it all. And there is more to it. Radical democracy happens every day, it happens every moment. The optimist message in the movie is not about the elections or the Manichean decision of voting for A, B or C, it is about the ambiguities, complexities and contradictions.

* Photos taken by Raquel Tardivo]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1406480 2012-04-07T00:00:00-04:00 2012-06-06T05:12:01-04:00

Julian Vigo http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-vigo/ Gingerbeer. My experiences on websites like Gingerbeer and gay.com led me to remark a certain force of behavioural homogenization at work within the lesbian community and I quickly fled these spaces with more questions than answers. I wondered why allegedly democratic forums such as social networking sites which rely on the written word as their primary form of communication would attract so many for whom verbal or written communication seems to be a challenge at best.

It seemed quite ironic that those who were able to express themselves with respect towards others in the group were repressed and bullied on a regular basis while those women who tended towards monosyllabic grunts -- "LOL" and "ROTFL" -- dominated the chat rooms. Many who were bullied would simply leave these spaces stating: "I left the closet for this?" and other similar expressions of dismay.

Those harassed were able to perceive what they saw as the need for these bullies to homogenize opinion, to force consensus and to marginalize all those cyber-subjects with whom they did not agree.

Social homogenization is one of the most frightening commonalities I have found within lesbian culture -- in real life and in cyber-space. I wondered why a group of women, many of whom were heretofore oppressed within their own communities and family for reasons of their sexuality, would be so aggressive and unkind towards other women.

I could not avoid analyzing how these tactics of cyber-bullying mirrored those of the previously dominant hetero-normative groups and political structures. I had to wonder if the social perversion of bullying that I had witnessed and was victim to might also be part of a larger continuum of internalised homophobia wherein many lesbians today need to obliterate any type of "difference." The social characteristics that were perceived as a threat from these women were essentially attached to anyone whom they sensed was educated, independent and who did not go along with the bullies' monolithic notions of identity.

Last fall I joined Southbank Surfing, a monthly lesbian event in London. The Facebook page contained a host of topics with threads devoted to sharing salutations, drunken exploits and those members who were Southbank Surfing "virgins" asking to be "devirginized." I found some threads problematic for obvious reasons, but I was happy to find a group of women with whom I could dialogue and meet monthly in a venue that was not a sports' bar.

Some of the women I met at these events seemed friendly and intelligent and we touched base on the Facebook page. I remember many lengthy threads in December focusing on Christmas and vacation plans. However, when I had posted about Hannukah, that post mysteriously disappeared. The next day I saw a new friend, Rose, online and we mentioned a Muslim holiday -- those posts were also deleted. I found it strange that all the posts referring to hangovers, Christmas, personal holidays and even private parties were left up on this website but ours were taken down. The organizers later told us that they were doing "spring cleaning" and these posts were "accidentally deleted."

Then five weeks ago, I noticed posts relating the lack of wheelchair access were removed and we were given a mandate by the "organizers" to follow the "rules" of posting. Here are the rules: no commercial advertisements, no long chats which were "off-topic" and no rudeness or offensive language. It was evident that the posts whose removal I had already witnessed did not violate any of the rules. I posted on the "rules" thread that we should be more tolerant to diversity of posts especially those relating to wheelchair access. From my post over a dozen bullies came on to harass me, telling me to leave, to stop being "negative" and "political" and my personal favourite: "Get a life!"

There were two others who came to our defence and in the end three of us were kicked off the site. While these bullies' elaborations of Christmas plans and drunkenness were deemed acceptable, the request for wheelchair access was not and was construed as "political." In short, these women were threatened because the subject with whom they interact does not replicate the ideas and behaviour which they perceive as normative.

A few weeks before our expulsion, Liz posted this comment an a separate Southbank surfing thread: "Southbank smurfing." At the time this comment seemed inapposite, but after further reflection I realize this was the most fitting of all comments to describe this very homogenizing space given that Smurfs are physically all the same. Similarly the bullies of Southbank Surfing do not accept difference or individuality as they reinforce through brute homophobic vituperation their roles as abusers onto the subjects who merely communicated their difference.
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