A portrait by friend and collaborator CJ Clarke. ‘Magic Party Place’ is his ongoing project on contemporary Britain.
Page 232 of 328
The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.
Workers said they thought they were just making colourful flags and did not realise their meaning.
But then some of them saw TV images of protesters holding the emblem and they alerted the authorities, according to Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper.
Which is odd, because it means that footage of the Free Tibet Olympic torch harassing in London, Paris or San Francisco must have squeezed past Chinese censors.
The Obama Campaign has an online map, where campaigners can track the wins and losses of the marathon primary season. Andrew Sullivan replicates it approvingly on the Daily Dish, I assume to demonstrate the popularity of the Illinois senator, who he supports.
But this is childsplay – first, because the states vary in population density, so a large swathe of one colour may be less significant than smaller pockets of another. Second, since the Democratic Primary process is no longer modelled on the winner-takes-all system for delegates, the colour of the state is less relevant. I would like to see a county-by-county map.
Many Democrats and even more internationalists will recall the dismay of seeing the electoral map turn bright red in the 2004 Presidential Election, as George W Bush crawled to re-election. I am reminded of a couple of articles I saw around that time: First, the concept of Purple States reminds us just how diverse public opinion can be, even in ‘safe’ Republican States. Related to that is The Stranger’s editorial on the Urban Archipeligo, which shows how political preferences relate to the town-country divide, and shows a county-by-county breakdown of how people voted in 2004. Its the map I show British people when they enmbark on a lazy whine about “stupid Americans“.
What all these maps highlight is the divisiveness of American politics. How the the country is essentially embroiled in a bitter cultural war which began in the 1960s. That’s fine, and probably an accurate portrayal of the political landscape. However, Barack Obama’s campaign is based on the promise of reconciling the “two Americas” in a post-Bush consensus. So its odd that he, of all people, is dealing in this kind of deceptive mappery.
In the Guardian, Lyn Gardner discusses multimedia in theatre, with some kind words for my friend and collaborator Judith Adams, and for Fifty Nine Productions (of which I am a proud, if non-executive, director):
with the technology at their fingertips, answers and images can be conjured by theatre makers immediately during the rehearsal or devising process, sound can be fed directly into the ears of the audiences in pieces such as Small Metal Objects or Judith Adams’ Ghost or Clickwind
Speed and immediacy is one of the key benefits of digital technology. New ideas can be tried out immediately, and discarded or incorporated into the thing being created. The speed at which one can do this means that the train of thought is not interupted, the creative process can continue.
Earlier this year Leo Warner and Mark Grimmer of Fifty Nine Productions – who have contributed brilliant work to Katie Mitchell’s Waves and Attempts on her Life and the projection design for Warhorse – were made the National Theatre’s youngest ever associates. … From what I’ve seen of it so far, Fifty Nine’s contributions to the productions on which they collaborate, whether it is in Black Watch or the adaptation of the cartoon Alex, are integral to the production and always in service of it. But I keep seeing productions in which it appears as if playing with the technologies is the prime interest of the theatre-makers, rather than the show itself. [My links].
Previously, ideas for video and multimedia had to be planned in advance, and video artists would return days or weeks later with the ideas discussed… by which time, the creative process had moved one. Being able to quickly realize a complex idea on screen is probably also part of Fifty Nine’s success. You need quick technology, but you also need a quick mind to grasp what the director wants to see, and why. This, as much as the state-of-the-art technology, is why Leo and Mark were appointed associates at the National Theatre, earlier this year.
As the farcical torch relay reaches India, and Western political leaders fret over whether to boycott the Beijing Games, Adrian Hamilton has a cheeky route out of the impasse:
I have a suggestion for breaking out of the impasse over the issue of Tibet and the Olympics. It is for the West to make the Dalai Lama the arbiter of whether we should attend the opening ceremonies or not.
Did I mention I’d met the Dalai Lama. I did? Oh, well, sorry to have troubled you.