Drain Magazine – Power issue and new site

I am happy to announce the launch of the new website for Drain: Journal of Contemporary Art and Culture and the corresponding release of issue #11 POWER, which I co-organized with Avantika Bawa.

POWER, issue #11

This issue of Drain attempts to expose the cultural faciality of power, as well as manifestations of power as simulacra which obfuscate traditional inquiries into its construction. If power connects the virtual and the actual, how does cultural creativity channel or destabilize this connectivity? The corporate-academic-entertainment-military-industrial complex and its front-end, the global information machine floods us with images and images of images, to cause sensory overload, and yet, at the same time, acute sensory deprivation. Most of all, power entrenches a visual literacy that allows us to see only its style, leaving us unable to access other ways of seeing and becoming. How can we parody this visual literacy, and the speed, cadence and grammar of this power and its affects?


Necropolis by Roi Kuper

If the simulation of power is necessary and absolute, can creative acts and molecular politics slip through the surveillance and desensitizing of territorializing systems?


GWOTEM by J.M. Badoud

This issue of Drain presents artworks, essays, and other creative works to actualize answers to these questions and re-channel them into different connectivities, ways of becoming and conceptual production.


The Gift of Giving by Oscar Perez

We are pleased to present Ian Buchanan and Roi Kuper as our feature writer and featured artist. This issue also includes essays by Emma Cocker and Chris Revelle, as well as interviews by Alexander Stewart with artist Andy Roache and Bertha Husband with Blazo Kovacevic. In our Creative Writing section, we present works by Camille Meyer, BT Shaw & Elizabeth Lopeman, Vanessa Norton, Emma Cocker and Morgan Campbell. Art projects works by Jamie Badoud, Diana Heise, Cyrico Lopes, Bob Paris and Oscar Perez.


Past issues

Drain Magazine – Supernature: Call for entries

Drain MagazineSUPERNATURE

Supernature is more than nature as science, or nature as art – it exceeds the boundaries of these classificatory systems and opens up a space where the species of things conjure wonder and curiosity, as well as fear and repugnance.

This issue of Drain calls for a rigorous exploration of the habitual ways by which nature is known to us, a questioning that unfolds the limits of the subsensible imagination.

How does supernature allow us to read the unwieldly connections between nature, art and science? Is it possible to open up to a supernature which creates and lives through us?

Please send submissions to: Celina Jeffery or Avantika Bawa

Submission guidelines

Call for entries: Power

logo_blue2

This issue of Drain attempts to expose the cultural faciality of power, as well as manifestations of power as simulacra, which obfuscate traditional inquiries into its construction. If power connects the virtual and the actual, how does cultural creativity channel or destabilize this connectivity? The corporate-academic-entertainment-military-industrial complex and its front-end, the global information machine floods us with images, and images of images, to cause sensory overload, and yet at the same time, acute sensory deprivation. Most of all, power entrenches a visual literacy that allows us to see only its style, leaving us unable to access other ways of seeing and becoming. How can we parody this visual literacy, and the speed, cadence and grammar of this power and its affects?

If the simulation of power is necessary and absolute, can creative acts and molecular politics slip through the surveillance and desensitizing of territorializing systems?

This issue of Drain invites artwork, papers, and other creative works to actualize answers to these questions and re-channel them into different connectivities, ways of becoming and conceptual production.

Submission deadline: Sep 15, 2010

Please send submissions to:

Owen Mundy owen -at- drainmag -dot- org
or
Avantika Bawa avantika -at- drainmag -dot- org

drain: Journal of Contemporary Art and Culture launches Issue #10 COLD

drain

drain: Journal of Contemporary Art and Culture is pleased to announce the launch of Issue #10 COLD

A collective behavior of baroque, abundant consumption has led to an economic and climatic meltdown. The push toward a frenzied emphasis on growth & mass consumption has manifested a cascade of aesthetic opulence in the form of brightly colored advertisements & plastic disposable goods. In the wake of this recent collapse; the purity, simplicity & refinement of a calmer and cooler culture is now alluring. Can transparent, clear and meditative practice counter this lavish, hot & hysterical culture? Subverting the old notion of icy bureaucratic indifference remediated through hot empathy, might the forces of hot commodity be slowed by an intervening cold? Is it possible for the lucidity of coolness to connect cultures & move us into the future?
This issue of Drain presents a collection of critical writing and art practices that has touched on many continents, climates and cultures to transform the way in which we think about how various degrees of cold collaborate.

We are pleased to present Celina Jeffery and Owen Mundy as our feature writer and artist.

This issue also includes essays by Edwin Janzen and Eduardo Navas, as well as interviews by Scott Waters with artist Andrew Morrow, Shannon Stratton with Michael Milano; reviews by Gean Moreno (on Ernesto Oroza) and Edith-Anne Pageot (on Construction Work: Lorraine Gilbert, Josée Dubeau, Jinny Yu).

In our Creative Writing section, we bring to you works by Adelheid Mers, Ellie Krakow, Kathryn Yusoff and Allison Kudla.

Art projects, include two sections; Freeze – with works by Leah Bailis, Lou Mallozzi, Sally Grizzell Larson, Noelle Mason and Deborah Wing-Sproul and Thaw – with works by Jonathan Van Dyke, Nitin Mukul, Kim Jackson DeBord, Rachel Moore, Adrian Göllner and Living Lenses

While this issue explored Cold as an aesthetic experience and concept of our times, THAW – The Meltdown- A Panel and discussion forum held at Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, took this investigation a step further through conversation that addressed the aftermath of the residual coldness.

We wish you an enjoyable read and look forward to contributions from you for our upcoming issues on Militarism and Rewind respectively.

Drain would not have been possible without the support of you, our patrons. Thank you for your continued support!

This issue was curated by Avantika Bawa and Stuart Keeler.

Managerial board: Avantika Bawa, Celina Jeffery, Adrian Parr

drain – Journal of Contemporary Art and Culture
www.drainmag.com

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