EzraWinton.com | Media arts and politics

A portrait of me done by Amanda McCuaig for ArtThreat.net (we all got them....really) - thanks for making me look ten years younger!!

As March comes to a rainy end, I can finally take a moment to catch my breath. It’s been busier than usual around here, both for Svetla and myself. The book tour has been a real time-sucker, but it’s paid off: we’ve had great launches in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and just a few days ago in Vancouver where over 100 turned up. There’s one left, in Halifax, and Svetla and I will travel with co-editor Tom Waugh on April 15th by train for that one (21 hours - it’s going to be sooooo relaxing). We’re going to turn that trip into a bit of a getaway and stay on the east coast for at least a week. Svetla’s never been to Atlantic Canada, and we need a break as well as a change of scenery (not to mention some of that famous East Coast hospitality).

This past Friday marked the finale of a couple of other major jobs: Cinema Politica passed a referendum question at Concordia to increase our fee levy from two cents per credit per student to seven. This was quite a feat considering all the other fee levy questions failed, and despite still being by far the smallest fee levy on campus we remain subject to unfair attacks from bloggers like Steve Faguy. At any rate, provided it goes through Concordia’s Board of Governors smoothly, we’ve just ensured CP Concordia will be sustainable long after Svetla and I have finally left the school (the mother hens need to leave the nest eventually!). This was incredibly important to us - to make sure the original Cinema Politica chapter has a decent enough budget to hire a coordinator and keep going for as long as students want to show up to see documentaries (last semester we had almost 7,000 come through the doors, so apparently they still do).

The other good news on Friday was that I successfully passed my Second Comprehensive PhD Exam. For the last year I researched and wrote a huge essay on audience theory and research. Because it was largely a literature review, I admittedly struggled with it. On Friday, after several drafts and revisions, I successfully defended the paper to my committee. What is so relieving about this moment is that now I am in the final stretch of my PhD: for the next 12-18 months (I know what you’re thinking: how is that a final stretch?) I will only work on my thesis. The process starts with me writing then defending a 20-25 page thesis proposal, which I’ve already begun researching.

Read the rest of this entry »

Whew!! It’s been a craaaaaaaazy month. Today I finally put the finishing touches on the first draft of my Second Comprehensive Exam Essay for my PhD and sent it off to my fearless supervisor, Ira. It ended up weighing in at 55 pages double spaced, a grand total of 13,000 words. Whether all the words add up to anything intellectually stimulating or not is another story, but I’ve definitely cornered the market on quantity this time around. The paper is on audiences, and much of it was a literature review where I was kind of staking out the terrain. I’m now convinced that I need to include a big section of my PhD thesis on audiences, so as an exercise in moving toward my end goal of finishing this PhD, I’d say it has worked quite well. Ira will get back to me in a week or so with feedback and I’m sincerely hoping he likes it and I can do some edits and submit to my committee. Once I’m done the Second Comps process, I’ll be focusing on my thesis - first the proposal, then the proposal defence, then the big one…

In the last month I also wrote a pretty big article for POV Magazine’s special education issue, which will hit newsstands at the end of January or beginning of February. Pick up a copy and check it out - I argue the case for documentary cinema as a form of critical, alternative education.

The book I spent the last three years working on with Tom Waugh and Mike Baker is finally coming off the presses next week as well. We should be getting our own hard cover copies and soft cover copies in about two weeks time. In the mean time you can actually pre-order the book, Challenge for Change: Activist Documentary at the National Film Board of Canada, from amazon.ca for super cheap ($21). It’s also for sale on the publisher’s site, McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Read the rest of this entry »

Stephen Harper and his Tory-bots are slashing millions from the already beleaguered CBC. This most recent brutal assault on the arts in Canada will have the effect of pushing the broadcaster even closer to a full embrace of the market model. As it is the CBC has been surviving by pretending to be a private media company instead of a public broadcaster, due in large part to cuts and a market ideology that has permeated media and arts in this country since Mulroney set out to remake the country in his own, nasty, privatized, profit-hungry image. Ugh. Adding insult to injury, I hear Harper is planning bail-outs for the private sector. Are Canadians stupid enough to buy this crap? I doubt it. Will we storm the bastions and pull this bastard down? I doubt it. At least Avaaz and the Friends of Candian Broadcasting are doing something.

But, it’s a beautiful day. The sun is shining, the sort-of left won the Concordia Student Union election at Concordia early this morning, ending a long reign of error fashioned by the furor himself, Brent Farrington. Not only has this political Capone been behind the last several right wing idiots messing up the student union, but he apparently makes 80 grand a year working at the Canadian Federation of Students! Oh the corporate sector is the place to be folks…

But where was I? It’s a beautfiul day. Yes. I’m happy like sunshine and puppies happy. So I give you this awesome little video:

Israeli settlers and the Israeli government are illegally occupying Palestine and committing cultural genocide as they do it. It is the Israeli Holocaust, following 60 years, shamefully, on the heels of the Nazi Holocaust. Only this genocide is taking a lot longer to conduct. What they are doing is wrong, illegal, and unconscionable to anyone who gives a damn about human rights. Western media has been complicit in these crimes against the Palestinians, as was recently indicated by the BBC’s refusal to air a humanitarian PSA for the people of Gaza.

But every now and then, a Western media outlet surprises. A recent 60 Minutes show, broadcast on CBS might indicate a shift in that complicity. Kudos to 60 Minutes and Kudos to CBS. The two parts are above.

Yes folks, I spent the day at home watching live TV stream from BBC, Al Jazeera, and the CBC of President Obama’s inauguration. I am not, categorically, NOT, an Obama-cynic. Yes he’s not perfect; yes, he hired a former IDF soldier as a top-end staff position; yes, he’s soft on Israel; yes he “believes in the market”; and yes he’s exercised bellicose rhetoric to issue in the ghosts of Iran, North Korea and other “enemies of America.” But, he’s Obama. He’s a man who went through university on student loans, raised by atheists, in Hawaii, Indonesia, Kenya and America. He’s pro-gay marriage, pro-abortion, against prayer in schools and against school vouchers.

And he’s a whole bunch of other stuff too, but hell, who cares - HE’S NOT THE INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIMINAL GEORGE WALKER BUSH!!! Bush is out, Obama is IN!! Time to rejoice my friends!!! That is why I bring you this news clip that blew my mind. Thank you to Vero for sending it along. Folks, for all my ramblings and rants against Western Corporate Media (WCM) this is an exception to the case. This 8 minute plus rant ran a few days ago on MSNBC - a very much mainstream corporate network. And my good god, I am literally blown away that it ran. Watch it please, and pass it along. It is an amazingly concise tally of Bush’s crimes while in office. Yes, things are left out, but what is included…well, you be the judge…

The internet is facilitating a tidlewave of alternative, off the mainstream map exchange of media on Israel’s attack on Gaza, which has so far claimed the lives of over 1200 Palestinians (one quarter of whom are children and over one half of whom are civilians) and 13 Israelis, four killed by their fellow soldiers. Just this afternoon Svetla, a friend and myself watched a live Al Jazeera television broadcast from Tel Aviv, where the Israeli government announced it would be ceasing its deadly attack at 2AM tonight.

How did we watch this live broadcast without television in our home? Through the internet, by way of an amazing service our friends Chadi and Sabine just told us about: LiveStation. Live Station is a free download player that streams feeds from international news television from all over the world, many in English. This is a GOD SEND. We watched Al Jazeera English all morning and saw things you will NEVER see in Western corporate media (WCM), from a perspective that is well, actually connected to the arab communities they report on. They also tend to focus news on the Global South, the three-quarters of the planet’s population that is usually relegated to stories of famine, war and genocide in WCM. The only problem is, we never leave our home again…

Other media that has been sent to me is an excellent talk by Chomsky at MIT last week. The one hour audio file can be streamed for free here. And many already know this news, but here it is again: The Media Education Foundation (MEF) has taken the unprecedented move and made one of their feature-length documentaries available in its entirety for free download. Visit this link to stream or download Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: US Media and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

Can’t blog…got to…write…two…monster…papers. Ah, it’s that time of the year again and I find myself in lock-down mode writing about the power of the image and critical visual pedagogy. Yes, I’m also confused, but I hope it all makes sense when I hand this sucker in on Monday. For now, please enjoy this oh-so-delicious rant from Rick Mercer, god love ‘im. I know it’s—gasp!—a month old, but who can possibly keep up with everything on the net?

Well I came up with a doozy of an idea recently. The plan: launch a national contest for artists to submit portraits of Stephen Harper that show his “committment” to the arts. This is in the wake of massive cuts to the arts by Harper and his Conservatives and most recently his axing of the National Portrait Gallery. So Rob and Michael and myself are making it happen over at Art Threat. We’ve announced the contest and put together a jury that includes Sheila Copps, the former Minsiters of Heritage! The press release goes out tomorrow, but here’s a description of the contest from the Art Threat site:

Since Stephen Harper cancelled the National Portrait Gallery, we decided to create our own in his honour. We’re inviting artists to submit their portrait of Canada’s Prime Minister for inclusion in the Stephen Harper Portrait Gallery, and their chance to win (minor) fame and riches!

The Conservative Party has made many, many cuts to the arts, so our jury will be looking for portraits that best embody Stephen Harper’s “commitment” to the arts and culture in Canada.

Our favourite entry will win a minimum of $1000! Runners-up will also win loot, with other prizes to be announced shortly. There is no entry fee, and we encourage everyone to participate. Selected works will be put on display in an exhibition in Ottawa and Montreal with possible shows to follow in other Canadian cities.

Recently the Globe and Mail published an angry rant by one of Canada’s finest artists: the very talented and globally celebrated writer Margaret Atwood. Why is she angry? Because Stephen Harper apparently hates the arts and the artists who make the stuff that us “ordinary Canadians” celebrate, interact with and consume every day of our lives, regardless of where we are or who we are. Harper is certainly missing out on a global trend: “new economists” are pointing to a burgeoning new economy called “the knowledge economy” or the “culture industries” - one where jobs are created and where objects are created that are sold, and along the way taxes paid. I’m mostly on side with Ms. Atwood, and before watching tonight’s debate, I suggest reading her missive here in full. You may want to go have a stiff drink when you’re done, or maybe make some art! How about a documentary about the demise of art under fascism? Or a short film about how Stephen Harper’s cement hair actually controls his brain?

And just in case you’re wondering about “strategic voting” on October 14th, visit this site to see if it’s worth compromising your real choice or not: http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/.

To be creative is, in fact, Canadian

Mr. Harper is wrong: There’s more to the arts than a bunch of rich people at galas whining about their grants

From the Globe and Mail, Thursday, September 24, 2008

What sort of country do we want to live in? What sort of country do we already live in? What do we like? Who are we?

At present, we are a very creative country. For decades, we’ve been punching above our weight on the world stage - in writing, in popular music and in many other fields. Canada was once a cultural void on the world map, now it’s a force. In addition, the arts are a large segment of our economy: The Conference Board estimates Canada’s cultural sector generated $46-billion, or 3.8 per cent of Canada’s GDP, in 2007. And, according to the Canada Council, in 2003-2004, the sector accounted for an “estimated 600,000 jobs (roughly the same as agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, oil & gas and utilities combined).”

But we’ve just been sent a signal by Prime Minister Stephen Harper that he gives not a toss for these facts. Tuesday, he told us that some group called “ordinary people” didn’t care about something called “the arts.” His idea of “the arts” is a bunch of rich people gathering at galas whining about their grants. Well, I can count the number of moderately rich writers who live in Canada on the fingers of one hand: I’m one of them, and I’m no Warren Buffett. I don’t whine about my grants because I don’t get any grants. I whine about other grants - grants for young people, that may help them to turn into me, and thus pay to the federal and provincial governments the kinds of taxes I pay, and cover off the salaries of such as Mr. Harper. In fact, less than 10 per cent of writers actually make a living by their writing, however modest that living may be. They have other jobs. But people write, and want to write, and pack into creative writing classes, because they love this activity – not because they think they’ll be millionaires.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was with my little brother Tyrell las week in downtown Montreal, and low-and-behold, in front of the huge shopping mall on St Catharines Street, we saw street stencil art that was clearly done by the infamous Roadsworth. This semester we are showing a film about Roadsworth at Cinema Politica, done by my friend Sergeo Kirby.

The new street art was part of a city project, which surprised me to hear, considering how political it was. There were stencils of fish and text that said “Overfishing, Overshopping” and the ones pictured here with Tyrell that shows tree stumps and the text under “Made from Paper.” Pretty political in a major shopping area for the city of Montreal to rubber stamp. Nice work!