HANOI — On a recent visit, I asked everyone I met who was remotely involved in Hanoi’s contemporary art scene what the must-see experimental spaces were. Nhà Sàn Collective topped almost every list.
Ben Valentine
Ben Valentine is an independent writer living in Cambodia. Ben has written and spoken on art and culture for SXSW, Salon, SFAQ, the Los Angeles Review of Books, YBCA, ACLU, de Young Museum, and the Museum of the Moving Image, to name a few.
Posted inArt
The Politics of Prisons: Ai Weiwei at Alcatraz
SAN FRANCISCO — Stepping into a dingy and suffocatingly small cell, you’re immersed in an intense soundscape of horns and the chanting of Tibetan monks. It’s overwhelming, and as the noise builds and bounces around the cold cement room, you wonder if this is akin to the feeling of being trapped inside the space for days on end.
Posted inArt
The Radical Power of Classified Pop Music
Ever since Edward Snowden revealed the extent to which the NSA and others have encroached on our privacy, everyone from technologists, reporters, politicians, and voters have been engaging in an international debate around surveillance.
Posted inArt
An Artist Draws the Women of the War on Terror
Artist Sofia Niazi is a Londoner, born and raised. But in a post-9/11 world, Niazi has been troubled by how her city and her country have changed, by how people in her community are being treated.
Posted inOpinion
Net Neutrality Is Crucial for Artists and Arts Organizations
When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) closed its public comment period on the issue of net neutrality earlier this week, the agency counted more than 3 million comments, the greatest volume of such input in its history.
Posted inArt
A New Media Artist Looks to Iranian Spam
Completed in June, “Like Pearls” in as an animated and interactive web-based collage inspired by Farsi spam from Morehshin Allahyari’s inbox.
Posted inArt
The First 100 Years of Camera Advertising
Ever since the invention of photography, we’ve been deeply fascinated by cameras and the images they produce.
Posted inOpinion
Copying an eBook from Cover to Cover
Artist Jesse England’s piece “E-Book Backup” (2014) is a literal copy — a photocopy, from cover to cover — of a Kindle version of George Orwell’s 1984.
Posted inArt
Computers Watching Movies
Ben Grosser’s work is all about how software permeates and affects much of our lives. As we begin to realize the extent to which we rely on algorithms for major societal functions such as search engine results, stock trading, mass surveillance, and more, our focus remains on what the machines are doing for us humans.
Posted inArt
Jon Rafman’s Not-So-Still Life of a Digital Betamale
“As you look at the screen, it is possible to believe you are gazing into eternity,” says an absent, artificial female voice in the beginning of Jon Rafman’s NSFW “Still Life (Betamale)” (2013) video.
Posted inOpinion
F*#!k Graffiti
As with many things in life, I made an animated GIF to help cope with an uninspired “fuck” graffiti epidemic.
Posted inArt
Mapping a Museum’s Collection with Memory
SAN FRANCISCO — “The rhino looks like it has a terrible skin disease,” said Jay Xu, director of the Asian Art Museum (AAM), discussing a rhino vessel in the museum’s collection as part of a project by artist duo Hughen/Starkweather (Amanda Hughen and Jennifer Starkweather).
