Gizmogs

While in Brussels a few days ago, i made a beeline for the Bozar to see an exhibition with a very promising title: Decolonizing Architecture.

The show was way better and more subtle than i could have imagined from a superficial reading of its description.

Military Camp of Oush Grab © Francesco Mattuzzi

The Brussels Biennial has opened its first edition a few weeks ago. The programme is good. A bit severe but really good. However, the whole experience is laborious. The first venue we visited was so cold i almost took no picture afraid as i was to remove my gloves (Brussels i love you and that derelict Post Sorting Center was charming but if you can't afford to heat the place do consider to biennial us in the Summer next time, ok?) The second one was remarkably well hidden. Number three was a bit gloomy and the fourth venue was indicated on the Biennial map as 'the Central Station', easy peasy to locate the station but this is a big train station and where the artworks to see actually were remains a mystery to me.

Shoot An Iraqi, Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun, by Wafaa Bilal, an Iraqi American artist currently an assistant professor at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York Universit and author and journalist Kari Lydersen (Amazon UK and

Two of my favourite mags The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest and Volume are out:

Volume is an architecture and urbanism magazine. It's neither a highly specialized print that mere mortals like me find hard to approach nor is it one of those glossy Vogue-lookalikes with chichi spreads of fashionably 'sustainable' buildings. It's not 'something in between' either.

The Estonian pavilion is on many 'must see' lists. I wouldn't bother to write that you 'must' see it. Truth is you just can't miss it. It's that lemon yellow section of a natural gas pipe that snakes down the Giardini from the German to the Russian pavilion. The sixty-three meters long of real scale elevated gas pipe draws attention to Nord Stream, the controversial Gazprom project to construct a direct pipeline between Russia and Germany. The pipe would run along the Baltic seabed, which could have major political and ecological implications for neighboring countries.

The current crisis has had the effect of making even wider the divide between people who think that they should stay low and eat frugally until merrier times finally come back and those who believe that the recession is just another sign that the system our economy relies on is fucked up and that time has come to look for alternative. More ethical alternatives.

Resist, is bringing you the live webcast of a debate that will try to bring some answers to the question:

The videos of Artur Żmijewski are screened in almost all the major collective exhibitions and biennales these days. I caught a glimpse of his video in one such events and thought 'looks interesting' but i passed my way. In front of art cornucopia, video is always the last on my list and it gets my attention only if there's a seat available for me to have nap in the dark.

But on Thursday i took the train to Utrecht to see the solo exhibition of the Polish artist at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst.

's been a long Summer and i spent it with the usual heap of magazines. Here's some of the best that fell into my hands:

I received the latest edition of Volume over the Summer but it took me a couple of months to go through it. The 16th issue bears the suggestive title Engineering Society and gosh, is it good.

McArthur Universal Corrective Map of the World

Johannes Gees action Salat won a Honorary Mention in the Hybrid Art category of the Prix Ars Electonica 2008.

In the summer of 2007, Gees sneaked automated speakers into famous church towers in various Swiss cities and in one mountain village. At the times of Islamic prayer the call of the muezzin could be heared. The context for this action is the heated debate in Switzerland that ensued after right-wing conservative politicians demanded the ban of minarets.

As i blogged the other day, the Bolzano segment of Manifesta 7 exhibition is located in a disused aluminium factory by the Dolomites mountains. The show is called The Rest of Now and words fail me to express how consistent, intelligent and thought-provoking it is.

Back in June, LABoral Art and Industrial Creation Centre in Gijón was opening Banquete_nodos y redes, Interactions Between Art, Science, Technology and Society in Spain's Digital Culture. The exhibition presents more than 30 digital and interactive works that critically and creatively explore the notion of Network as a shared matrix, not just from a technological perspective but also from a socio-cultural perspective.

The Helga de Alvear gallery in Madrid is currently running a (very timely) exhibition on the controversial topic of Extraordinary Rendition. The expression was coined by the Bush administration to define new legal measures designed to sidestep the existing Human Rights system and deprive some individuals from its protection in the name of the fight against terrorism.

The Barcelona-based group Platoniq (aka Susana Noguero, Oliver Schulbaum, Ignacio García and Joan Villa Puig) gained world fame a few years ago when they launched Burn Station, a mobile self-service system for searching, listening to and copying music and audio files with no charge. Legally and under a Copyleft Licence.

Burn Station

With the motto "taking the Internet to the streets" and inspired by the way the web works, Platoniq explores new models to distribute, shape and share information, knowledge and cultures.