Hear more of Dirty Beaches’ own music here (http://dirtybeaches.bandcamp.com/), and his thoughts on the theme and special #NMW Mix are below – download and enjoy!

Dirty Beaches #NMW Mixtape

“The first 4 tracks that open the mix tape are by my peers that all share a weird mixed identity of some sort in our upbringing, or weird choices of cities that we currently reside and dwell in.

In relation to the No More Western theme, this mix tape asks us how far we’ve evolved in our society with the advancement of the internet.  All of a sudden the world didn’t seem as foreign as it once did. The mysteries now unveiled at the click of a youtube channel, shared globally by countless users, uploading the sights and sounds of their streets and cities, of food and cuisine, as they travel across the oceans onto our computer screens.  Of countless blogs, and google searches, we are no longer limited to the biased and prejudiced views from our families or governments. The freedom of self education IS self empowerment.

The rest of the music on this mix tape showcases music from all over the world, some which have more obvious western/American influences, from Indian disco love songs, to Ethiopian Doo Wop, Nigerian desert psych guitars to Chinese lounge songstress’.  If it were 10 or 20 years ago this beautiful music might’ve suffered subjugation to mockery as “cheap” 3rd world imitations of western music.  But as the world evolves, we find ourselves no longer satisfied within the limitations and narrow viewpoints of our own popular culture that sometimes smell of old colonialism shit.  The very existence and popularity of compilations like Sublime Frequencies are proof that our ears are hungry for culture, for non western cultures and music that’s out there inviting us to explore.  The fact that from time to time I end up at some party in Brooklyn, or Montreal or London, or Paris with like minded young people spinning these foreign radical jams, the more it makes me feel like this is some sign of progress of a world society.  Obviously the mainstream folks are still treading and swimming in their own shit, but they are always late.  We’ve moved on yo.  The world is yours, says one Hollywood film starring Al Pacino. I say its OURS. ”

- Dirty Beaches (Alex Zhang Hung-Tai)

The screening started with Eef Hilgers delightful documentary Een Meisje, Jij Weet Zelf (A Girl, Ya Know). For over a year, Hilgers has been following several prolific Youtube vloggers, all girls between about 12 and 16. Their videos are cute, funny, funny in an “oh-I’ve-been-there” sort of way, and at times achingly personal. It’s interesting to see these girls talk in a completely unfiltered manner about their views on life, even if those views are not exactly enlightened. Hilgers goes into the potentially lecherous and strange aspects of publishing what basically amounts to your diary online, but the film never becomes dark or alarmist. Hilgers takes the girls serious enough to just give them space to talk, which is a wise decision. It really creates an atmosphere in which we feel like we get to know these girls.

The second video, Iris Donker’s De Subliminale Waarneming van het Raamloze Televisiestation (The Subliminal Observation of the Windowless Television Station), is about as different from its predecessor as it gets. Over a floaty, droning soundscape, we see a series of surreal images, ranging from a man eating an enormous hamburger to a girl sitting naked in a room with a ghoul mask on. There is a large focus on bodies (specifically on knees), which gives the video a sense of lurid intimacy. It’s very uncomfortable to watch at times. Donker, whose name means ‘dark’ in Dutch, tells us after the screening that the video is a collection of everything she has been making for the past eight years. She makes her art by writing stories from her subconscious, and then filming those. Visibly uncomfortable about speaking in public, she tells us that she hardly understands what her movies are about herself at times.

Following this, it’s impressive that Thomas de Rijk’s Dagelijks Brood (Daily Bread) manages to be even stranger. It starts off as a mockumentary about a young man with game addiction, but changes about halfway through into a sort of absurd acid trip about dancing baguettes in tuxedo’s. De Rijk explains later that the second half tells a symbolic story about breaking free from game addiction, but admits that this might not be immediately clear to everyone.

The longest piece comes from Polish artist Anna Okrasko, who created her film Untitled (Ik kijk naar de film) during her Expodium residency in the Utrecht neighborhood Kanaleneiland. The film focusses mostly on a woman named The Tramp who arrives in Utrecht, but we also see Youtube videos of boys doing tricks on their scooters and a series of atmosphere shots with a voiceover of a man explaining how to fill in a form. It’s an accessible film, but a deceptively multi-faceted one, and I’m not sure I caught on to everything going on in it. The film, and more information about the project, can be found on Okrasko’s blog.

The final video is also the saddest one. Called Me And My Models, it’s simply a slideshow of pictures photographer Jan Hoek has taken over the years, with him providing commentary and anecdotes on the pictures. The pictures themselves already have an almost unbearable poignancy. Hoek uses spotty film and strong flashes to give all his subjects a deer-in-the-headlights view, creating a dressed-down effect which is almost the exact opposite of glamour photography. Throughout, we don’t get a sense that anyone in the pictures is at ease in any way. But the anecdotes, which Hoek tells in his quiet, unassuming voice, are so incredibly sad that they at times become just darkly funny. I remember one story in particular, about the photographer creating a club for lonely people. The twelve people that joined his club became so attached to it, he tells, that he felt far too guilty to tell them it was for an art project. Luckily, the lonely people become so intensely connected so fast that they all started dating, which led to fighting, which led to the club breaking up. Hoek ended up taking pictures of only one man, who was the outcast within the Club of Lonely People. There is a point where things become so awkward that all you can do is laugh.

What’s interesting about these videos is how intimate they all are. Maybe it’s just the contrast with the fierce political works on display at Impakt, but the Young Ones videos almost come across as timid at times. If any of these artists has a very strong opinion about the world or about art, I didn’t pick up on it. Many of them actually seem to be a little confused by what they encounter on their journeys. As Iris Donker put it: “I don’t really understand it myself, either.”

After a bizarre mix-up of Mary Poppins and The Exorcist called Clean Your Room, courtesy of People Like Us, the screening shows three slow, meditative reflections on childhood and identity. Appropriately enough, all three tackle the subjects in a very unique, personal way. Christoph Girardet and Matthias Müller’s Meteor shows a dreamlike collection of grainy science-fiction clips, with a slow, poetic voice-over. The effect reminded me a bit of the films of Terrence Malick, if he would have been more into astronomy.

Katrin Olafsdottir’s Ofaeddur Ungi (which Google Translate tells me means Unborn Young) has a similarly dreamy feeling, but instead of old film clips, Olafsdottir uses surreal 8-mm scenes. Most memorable, perhaps, is the image of a woman covered in oil who is smoking a cigarette. There is a large focus on houses, and the same actors keep returning, which creates a sense of family memories. Think Bergmans’ Wild Strawberries by way of a Sigur Rós video.

Olfa Ben Ali’s N’Être completes this informal trilogy. Although this film also uses associative, memory-like voiceover, it is visually the most unique of the three. Instead of shaky clips, we get stark, fixed-camera takes of the outsides of French apartment complexes, all framed perfectly symmetrical. The only people we see are tiny figures standing on their balconies. Over these images, we hear several women talk about national identity, religion, and memories. Despite the visual focusing mainly on concrete, the feel of the movie is very human, and it offers a beautiful insight in what’s going on behind the exterior.

After these three, we find Hypercrisis, a look inside a Soviet retreat for artists. Inside the most depressingly ugly building I have ever seen, several men and women are sitting around in white coats, apparently doing nothing but eating and cleaning. The only color comes from the sweater of a man who is taking a walk, struggling with writer’s block. The film is almost unbearably slow, which gives us an interesting insight into the soul-crushing ennui of these characters. I’m not sure yet whether it’s the most depressing or the funniest of the entire program.

Next we have Jessie Mott and Steve Reinke’s bizarre animation Blood and Cinnamon. Their characters, all imaginary animals painted in watercolors, talk about pregnancy and parenthood with a distressing matter-of-factness. It creates an atmosphere of almost brutal vulnerability, and although I found it creepy as hell, I was surprised how touched I was at the end of it. This combination of violence and affection is also present in the closing piece of the screening, Piotr Sulkowski’s Rozmowa. In it, he shows us the first conversation between two convicted inmates who have been slowly been building a relationship over mail for the past seven or so years. The conversation is incredibly tender, but Sulkowski doesn’t shy away from the fact that both these people have killed in the past. It’s a fascinating insight into just how broad the human condition really is.

The interesting thing about the idea of ‘Home’ is that it can only be defined by distance. We realize where we came from only when we’ve gone away, something that’s true both in space and in time. Our idea of a home might be nothing more than a cherished memory, and even though we always feel it flowing inside us, trying to define is like catching a flame. Olfa Ben Ali probably described it best in her video: “Childhood is like the air in a bubble of strawberry flavored bubble gum.”

The masterclass was presented by local Meme expert Max Laane and the Chinese Zafka Zhang. I knew Laane already from some classes we had had together at the University, and he was as spirited, witty and clever as ever*. Next to Zhang, however, he seemed almost lethargic. Zhang is an absolute whirlwind of a man. Speaking very fast with a heavy Chinese accent, he started the workshop by barraging the visitors with a massively thorough interpretation of what memes are and how they work, before flashing at top speed through a slideshow of actual Chinese memes.  Like Westerns memes, most of the images seemed like light-hearted, ironic fun, but Zhang made a completely compelling case for taking them as seriously as anything else on the internet.

Speaking to Zhang at lunch (I was on my third cup of coffee of the day, and I still couldn’t follow his speed at times), he predicted that internet memes will become one of the most important means of expressions for our generation. He pointed out that thus far, only high art tends to cross borders, but with internet memes, the netizens have found a way to communicate to each other on a very accessible level. However, the meme goes a lot further than just dirty jokes and pop culture references: as Zhang showed, several Chinese memes actually become quite meaningful if you just take them seriously. Individual identity, social status and even political satire find their way in memes, and through these silly jokes, the netizens connect to each other. Cultural narratives, such as the futile attempts of lonely internet geeks to hook up with pretty girls, become encoded in these memes, whether intentional or not, and create a new set of norms and values for the internet generation. It’s a dazzling development, but Zhang only seemed to become more and more energized by it.

When lunch was done, the masterclass continued, and we decided to make our own meme. It was quickly decided to do something with the festival we were at, and after a few minutes of debate someone brought out one of the festival newspapers. Zhang, Laane and the visitors went to work with the intensity of a group of kindergartners, cutting, pasting, drawing and laughing like crazy all the way through. There was no evaluation, no analysis. Nobody criticized each other. We just did our own stuff. It was very much like making memes online, and it was absolutely exhilarating. The result can be admired (or whatever you want to do with it) in the cafe of Theatre Kikker.

After we were done and all went our separate ways, I wondered how the hell I could have become so energized. After three days of festival and not many more hours of sleep, I wasn’t the only one who was staring vacantly into the distance before the Masterclass. And yet, here I was, trying to get people to make their own contribution to the wall. It might have been the participatory nature of the memes themselves, but that wouldn’t have mattered if it wasn’t for the Masters of the Masterclass. I had had my doubts about how much actual impact the many, many ideas at Impakt were going to have after the festival, but I was a lot more confident that things were going to change when I realized it’s going to be guys like Zhang in charge of making it happen.

* Max Laane also contributed to this very blog, writing this piece about the “Mitt Romney’s Binders full of Women” meme.

According to Gerwin van der Pol, professor at the University of Amsterdam, westerns are “just as common as the weather forecast”. After WOII, of all the American movies that flooded Europe, westerns were by far the most popular. The image of the cowboy is so widespread and ubiquitous, and thus a welcome icon to represent the American dream, be it in films, commercials or art.

Everybody knows The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly or the Marlboro man, but try describe these cowboys. Ten to one you’ll end up naming the items in the toy kit mentioned earlier. A hat, a gun, a horse maybe. It’s a cowboy, the looks say it all. Does anybody, especially if their not American, know the differene between one cowboy and the other? I don’t think so.

One of the videos shown at this screening was Alone by Gerard Freixes, in which footage from The Lone Ranger is cleared of all other characters, making the ranger truly alone. The video gets a lukewarm response, which may have something to do with the fact that to most of the audience, the Lone Ranger is probably just another cowboy. In a way everybody immediately recognizes what he is: a cowboy.

Then again, the behaviour of the cowboy seems harder to recognize. In the piece Bad Luck City Aaike Stuart shows a portrait of an “urban cowboy”, as he calls it. Roaming the streets of Berlin, shooting a gun and riding a horse, his activities are very cowboy-ish. But the main character, wearing a baseball cap and a t-shirt, does not necessarily strike you as a cowboy. Had it not been for the title of the screening, the idea of the cowboy may have never come to mind. It would just be a guy walking around Berlin, shooting a gun, or sitting by a campfire.

The image of the cowboy seems to be clearly imprinted on our collective European memories, and the simple characteristics of his appearance are enough to remind you of all he represents. So if you happen to be in search of a cheap but easy way to signify America’s culture and (in the case of westerns, factually incorrect) history, check out your locl toy store.

Impakt: Could you tell me how Foundland got started, and what you think it means?

I studied together with the girl I’m now working with, who is from Syria. We did a masters in Design together, and I think we both had a similar approach to things, were both interested in political issues. Ever since 2009, we’ve been working together. What we’ve been doing for the past year and half is really trying to look for interesting things that are happening online, mainly on Facebook, to do with the Syrian revolution. In the other exhibiton we did for Impakt, at BAK, we looked at the propaganda images created by the Syrian regime. In this exhibition, we decided to focus on what the Opposition is creating in terms of visual statements.

This is a collection of videos made by the Syrian opposition. Most of them are re-dubbed videos from Syrian childhood. Many Syrian children who grew up in the 80s and 90s knew these anime cartoons, and now they are fighting this revolution, and they are using these cartoons to tell a different story, one they are themselves very active in. This idea of rewriting your own story over things from your childhood was something that we found very fascinating, especially in relation to Western images.

What’s particularly interesting about Syria is that in the 80s there was a very strong regime in power. Censorship was extremely tight, and especially on things that had to do with the West and Israel. But people still remember Mickey Mouse from their childhood. Somehow, those things still managed to infiltrate into society, even though there was such hard censorship.

Impakt: Do you think your work has a political message, or do you just aim to collect and document these videos? I’m asking ask because the name ‘Foundland’ might suggest that you just stumble across these things, and take a neutral stance towards them.

No, that’s not true. Our work is really about creating a vision of how we see things. That’s why we call it Foundland, not because we just found something, but because it’s reclaiming.

 The new video by Ruben Gutierrez, which he has filmed during his residency program at Impakt Foundation in September 2012, is the most twisted post-apocalyptic fantasy you’ll ever encounter.

Gutierrez’s projects always have something to do with absurdity and they often relate to common B-movie clichés of the end of the world or a great cataclysm in a cynical way. His works question the raison d’etre of labels such as post-modernism or conceptualism and even of the value of art and aesthetics in a world that is doomed – the western civilization.

The film The best way to cover up a lie is a fusion of all the ideas that appear in his previous projects and could serve somewhat as a summary of his oeuvre at this point. There is no linear narrative or a story in a classical sense. What we get instead are scenes and characters appearing in the different layers of reality in a mise-en-abyme structure. Applying metanarrative, this very post-modern tool to point out the meaninglessness of all the post-isms is sort of ironic, yet this trick quite prevalent in Gutierrez’s artistic practice – deconstructing a notion by using it.

In his latest film the two protagonists wander relentlessly in the city of Locochonia – a strange fantasyland with a strong apocalyptic atmosphere. We see them running down empty streets, hiding in abandoned buildings, contemplating the horizon covered in the smoke of explosions, experiencing anxiety, fear and hopelessness as they are trying to fight their destiny – a destiny still being written by an author who is also struggling with her own. The relation between the characters is just as uncertain as their reality or their fate. They are all lost and trapped in a way, either physically in this maze-like city, or in the labyrinth of their thoughts that they cannot escape. The labyrinth motif appears throughout the film on different levels of reality, just as the mysterious witch or the conspicuously strange lack of birds in the sky. These recurring motifs and allusions create a rhythm, and give the structure of the film by loosely connecting its layers. A film of such complexity with so many references requires full attention of the viewer and definitely wouldn’t be easy to watch if it wasn’t for Ruben’s sarcastic humor. You can never be sure if he is bluffing or not, but you can’t help this feeling that you’ve been tricked somehow.

At least by reading my interpretation of a film I’ve never seen. Absurdity is.

Panorama Artist in Focus, Friday 26 October 2012, ‘t Hoogt

Kooimans shows that there is such a thing as Americanisation by non-US entities. As examples, he names IKEA, which is Swedish, and The Voice of Holland, which is Dutch. This television program functions on very ‘American’ interpretations of meritocracy and talent, even though it’s not from the US itself. Kooimans goes on to show that pop culture from around the world now tries to play by American rules, even in countries such as China and India. He goes into more detail about this argument in his new book, Fabricating the Absolute Fake, which can be found here (for gratis! Add this to your reading list, Impakters, it’s good stuff). I sat down with Kooimans after the talk for a flash interview about the internet, culture criticism, and age.

Impakt: On the internet, more than perhaps any other medium, the discourse is decided upon by American multinationals. Could it be said for my generation, the digital natives, there is no such thing as a non-Americanized culture in the way there was for your generation?

For the entire post-war generation, American pop culture has always been omnipresent in the Netherlands. So I grew up with American culture as much as you did, even if I’m a pre-digital person. In one way, you could say that the digital age is less Americanized, since mass media has become more diverse. It’s more more difficult for one form of pop culture to be dominant, since there are so many outlets. In my work, I have kind of avoided the digital, since I still see cinema and television as very dominant mass media.

But I don’t think there’s much difference in generations. One of the things I do in my courses on this topic is make students write an autobiographical essay based on Chris Keulemans The American I Never Was [a piece in which the artist describes his life by way of the American pop culture he consumed on the way - red.]. You get really different forms of essays. And there you see that what is considered American is actually really subjective. I gave the example of the talk that for my generation blue jeans were a form of Americanness, and they’re really not anymore. Now there are other things that are signs of Americanism. And yet, for my students, for myself, and for the generation of my parents, it’s very likely that the first film they ever saw was a Disney movie.

Impakt: How do you think that artists can get their message across in the over-saturated media landscape these days?

They have to think about the bombardment of signs, Baudrillard’s term. He argued that this would implode, not explode, because we have such an overload of meaning that it becomes meaningless. And we do have that. But I don’t think we can get out of any system, except if you go live on a deserted island. It’s always a very difficult question.

When I teach my students about neo-Marxism, I think I am preparing them to become independent, critical thinkers. But at the same time, all those media-savvy people that I teach end up working to make the media more savvy. All the people working at multimedia companies all know how to analyze media. They know how it works. And they’re using this to make better films. I’m not saying you have to be cynical, but you have to be realistic.

The morning after his performance at the opening of the Impakt Festival a small group of participants gets the chance to get to know Grey Filastine, as he tells us all about how he has been making music and traveling the world (mostly combining these activities) for decades, and how this is closely connected to the way music for ages has been a stimulating force in warfare. At first with his Infernal Noise Brigade, which provided war rhythms for the global protest movement, and nowadays as a solo producer and performer, using audiovisual means to spread his message.

After elaborating on the ‘why’ of his work, we dig into the ‘how’, as the hands on production masterclass commences.

Literally disecting his songs, Filastine gave an exclusive look behind the scenes of his advanced global bass beats. Even though he uses a laptop to put his songs together, all songs contain analog, liverecorded instruments. Practically every sample used is connected to a story, ranging from recording a fluteplayer on a market in Marrakech to doing a vocal session in an Indonesian forest during the only quiet hour of the day. Doing all of this the hard way, collecting samples on all these locations under difficult circumstances, is an important part of Filastine’s work, since he feels his music needs to maintain a connection to the real world, to the flesh and blood and soul of the people who play it.

Even though his productions can get quite complicated, Filastine emphasizes a good song not neccesarily needs to be difficult. It doesn’t matter if you use twenty-eight tracks or just seven, if you get it to work in the way you want it’s alright. As it turns out, the master himself does not even know all there is to the program we are using, as he confesses he only recently found out about certain options. Like playing an analog instrument, there is always new stuff to learn.

Amidst a whirlwind of shortcuts, tips an tricks Grey walks around and helps out when needed, as the participants put together a short remix of his track Gendjer. And although we might not have done his work any justice in this high-speed production session, inspiration was a plenty after this intimate get-together. So who knows, maybe in time Utrecht will see a new wave of producers combining international beats with local street recordings.

At this moment, I had a flashback. That morning, I had gone to the Village Coffee, a cafe in town, with the intention to write something the video installation Impakt was showing there.  When I arrived at the cafe, however, my enthusiasm for this idea quickly evaporated. For one, the baristas had turned down the music of the videos to play their own (admittedly excellent) music, so the videos were projected soundlessly on the wall. For two, no-one was watching. I sat in the cafe for at least twenty minutes, and in all that time, I never saw anyone give the installation more than a cursory glance. And I understood why: all the patrons of The Village Coffee (hip, urban youngsters) were so accustomed to a constant barrage of video that the installation didn’t even draw attention to itself anymore as something remarkable. We already barely pay attention to music, pictures, and text, and now even moving images have become invisible. At last, we have reached oversaturation in every single medium.

With that thought in my mind, Sorry, This Video Is No Longer Available On Youtube started. The first video was a quite brilliantly made piece of shadow animation from China, dealing with such topics as dicatorship, religion, and environmentalism. The second video was Gangam Style.

Now, I don’t want to get into semantics here, but I think that even the most ardent postmodernist wouldn’t call the Korean monsterhit ‘art’. And yet, that’s how I watched it. I watched it intensely, actively, and curiously. And judging from the looks of the other visitors, I wasn’t the only one. Art, legitimate art, was displayed at the Village, and everyone ignored it with a curious glance. Another group of people, all of whom I could imagine visiting the Village, were intensely watching Gangam Style. Something strange was happening here. And then ms. Taylor’s quote came to mind again:  “What is the difference between something presented in a fine art context and something you just find online?” Well, just that. The context of fine art.

I am by no means an expert on art history, but I do know something about film. And I know that I sometimes find it very difficult to tell apart music videos, from commercials, from concert visuals, from genuine art videos, when the visuals are all I have to go on. More than once, I’ve watched a clip which seemed like a commercial take an ironic turn at the end to make an artistic or political statement, and I have likewise seen surreal pieces of what seemed like video art suddenly end with a corporate logo. We are bombarded with these kinds of videos, every day, in an endless barrage of sound and fury that shows no sings of slowing down at all. The only way to make sense of all this is to be handed the material in a proper context.

Which brings us to that one key point in ms. Taylor’s reflection: a “fine art context”. When we’re talking about the demise of Western society, it’s impossible not to talk about Western conceptions of art. If context is the only thing standing in the way between art and non-art, we need a massive structure around art. But if the global discourse is going to take place on a platform that is as equalizing as Youtube, a site on which you can quite literally watch old Stan Brakhage tapes after watching an amusing cat video, that conception of art might be very well be the first thing we’ll lose in the fire.