For those wondering if Stinger Sessions was yet another flash-in-the-pan, never fear. We’re still scheming, just dug in to our foxholes for a minute while we deal with an injured essential crew member.

Three days prior to our second event, which was scheduled to be held at Serial Space on September 15, fate stepped in and knee-capped one of our core organizing group, Denise R Gaberman (aka The DRG). Her recovery from a smashed patella (kneecap) has been slow and painful, but she is now undergoing regular physiotherapy and will return to full functionality over the next few months.

We intend to resume Stinger Sessions on a monthly basis in the new year, and strongly encourage artists whose work deals with issues of social justice to submit works for inclusion in upcoming programs.

Thanks for your patience, Sydney. We’ll be back when our knees work.

Image mashed-up by Eddy Rivera http://elusiveconstructs.com/

Stinger Session 02

PWNED:

The Military-Entertainment Complex & You

Tuesday, September 15, 7-9:30PM

Serial Space

33 Wellington St, Chippendale, Sydney

$5 – no one denied entry for lack of funds

Digital technologies have led to the development of new media forms, new methods of distribution, and new relationships between audiences and the arts. Simultaneously, rapid innovation has changed the way militaries fight, how they staff their ranks, and how wars are propagandized.

Stinger Session 02 unpacks the relationships between the military, technology, and the arts, and examines ways in which media is being used to both promote and counter militarism. Join us for an evening of critical viewing and game play.

We began by introducing ourselves and the series, and to frame the type of approach we are bringing to the sessions, we screened Subcomandante Marcos’ address to the Free Media Conference (held in NYC 1997). Then on to the substance of the evening’s program, two videos at the intersection of heavy metal music/culture and social movements (notably anti-colonialism). For fun and some historical context we screened Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills” music video as a short before the feature presentation, Denise Gaberman’s “Welcome to Metal Kingdom”.

Post-screening discussion was lively and more inclusive than I’d dared hope for. Topics ranged all over the shop: working as a woman in male dominated spaces, the viability of creative business in criminalised immigrant communities, satanism as decolonisation, options for distribution in corporate-dominated cyberspace… fun & important stuff.

Thanks to Zanny Begg and Serial Space for hosting the first round, to all those folks who helped get the word out, and to the party people who showed up (from as far away as Canberra!) and made it live.

Watch this space for a call for submissions and announcements leading up to Stinger Sessions 02, to be held sometime mid-September.

Stinger Session 01

Welcome to Metal Kingdom

(+ shorts)

Wednesday, August 12, 7-9PM

Serial Space

33 Wellington St, Chippendale, Sydney

$5 – no one denied entry for lack of funds

The Stinger Sessions kicks off with a roaring challenge to the status quo in Denise Gaberman’s new documentary film, Welcome to Metal Kingdom. Don’t be fooled by the font, non-metalhead audiences will find plenty to enjoy and think about in this personal and surprisingly touching observation of the rise and fall of Metal Kingdom, the hub of New York’s underground pan-latino metal scene.

The documentary’s director will present the film and some shorts. Discussion will be opened up to address some of the film’s key themes:

• migration, ethnicity, and culture
• decolonisation and popular culture
• gender justice in the media field
• obstacles to sustainable self-identified communities

Come out and show your support for the very first Stinger Session to ensure that this type of event continues to happen in the SYD.

It begins because we find ourselves in Sydney and want to find a community of folks who are asking the same questions we are about arts and media and their relationship to power. We have access to great artists making great works in and about a wide range of social issues, and have the ability to put these works in front of audiences and facilitate meaningful discussions about what these works can do in the world.

What we don’t know is if there is an audience interested in engaging in this endeavour on a regular basis. Monthly interaction with media arts coupled with critical discussion of what the works do in the world.

Y’all up for that?