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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
Digital Media Tree this blog's archive OVVLvverk Lorna Mills: Artworks / Persona Volare / contact Sally McKay: GIFS / cv and contact |
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Excerpt from Naomi Klein's article in Harpers (2004), describing in specific terms the US failure to transform Iraq into an unregulated utopia for international corporations.
In one dark corner of the [soap] plant, we came across an old man hunched over a sack filled with white plastic caps. With a thin metal blade lodged in a wedge of wax, he carefully whittled down the edges of each cap, leaving a pile of shavings at his feet. “We don’t have the spare part for the proper mold, so we have to cut them by hand,” his supervisor explained apologetically. “We haven’t received any parts from Germany since the sanctions began.” I noticed that even on the assembly lines that were nominally working there was almost no mechanization: bottles were held under spouts by hand because conveyor belts don’t convey, lids once snapped on by machines were being hammered in place with wooden mallets. Even the water for the factory was drawn from an outdoor well, hoisted by hand, and carried inside.
There is an interesting, critical, conversation-style review of Quantal Strife in the Toronto Star today. I kind of wish "the kid" critic was named (I can only assume the "boomer" is Peter Goddard), but being a blogger I'm getting used to anonymous critiques.
Last night I went to the Spacing film screening. It was really great. I forgot to bring the dang nabbed program home with me. There was a really great film by a guy who lives in Parkdale who's uncle lived and died in Parkdale. He talked about development in the area from a refreshing (historically invested) point of view. But I forget the guy's name. I'll find it soon and post it. Also, as I mentioned in a recent comment thread, Tino's Rick Goes to Crticial Mass totally rocked. Very inspiring and made me laugh all the way through. Granted, Rick is a natural film star, but Tino is a master: great pacing, great tone, great composition, and joie de vivre. It's tight, and it's beautiful. And you can see a tiny quicktime version online!
My little birdmap movie (below) was screened too. That went okay, except I realise that things that are designed to be almost postage-stamp size on a computer screen carry a different weight when imposed large on a bunch of people sitting in a dark room. It was bit heavy-handed at that scale. Oh well. At least it's short!