Stephan Erasmus | Reconstruct at NIROXprojects.
re·con·struct tr.v. re·con·struct·ed, re·con·struct·ing, re·con·structs 1. To construct again; rebuild. 2. To assemble or build again mentally; re-create: reconstructed the sequence of events from the evidence. 3. To cause to adopt a new attitude or outlook: a diehard traditionalist who could not be reconstructed. In Stephan Erasmus’s work structure plays an important role with particular focus on the encryption process. In preceding exhibitions he has used encryption systems as structures to turn the selected text into visual love letters addressed to an ever changing muse. In these exhibitions the focus was placed on the final structure as it relates to the muse this can clearly be seen in works from ‘Hartland’ where the final image in some way referenced the manifestation of the muse: the landscape, creating a direct link between the muse as Gaia. In ‘Hartland’ Gaia manifests as South Africa and the exhibition explores the artists relationship with the country as muse, sometimes as a lover and at other times as a rejected and ridiculed lover. ‘Reconstruct’ departs from the muse as the main character as seen in the previous exhibitions. In this exhibition Erasmus continues exploring the act of writing love letters through the sampling of existing text and transforming the text into two dimensional and three dimensional objects. The act of writing love letters into artworks remains a central point around which Erasmus constructs his work. However, the focus moves away from the muse as the intended reader of the love letters, in a form that resembles the muse, and focus of his production is shifting to the act of writing and the encryption of the love letters, where the letter becomes a pattern, an object that entraps the reader/muse. It has been suggested by Nick Cave at a series of lectures that the act of writing love letters can be equated to the binding of the recipient to the writer. Cave speaks of the act of writing as a ‘magical act’ of weaving a web and trapping the beloved in the web, binding the recipient to the writer. In ‘Reconstruct’ Erasmus continues to encrypt selected sections of existing text taken from love songs and poetry. In this body of work the text becomes an incantation to bind the muse to the words. For Erasmus the act of writing/weaving/reconstruction of the text becomes the focus. The process of encryption becomes in a very physical sense the weaving or the building of a web that would entangle the reader. Stephan Erasmus is a Johannesburg based artist. Contact: Neil Nieuwoudt T: +27 72 350 4326 E: neil.nieuwoudt@gmail.com Stephan Erasmus, entitled Reconstruct (20 October – 06 November). Reconstruct opens on...
Jerm joins eNCA.com as the editorial cartoonist!
Jeremy Nell, otherwise known to South Africans as Jerm, is joining eNCA.com as our official editorial cartoonist. His first cartoon will appear on eNCA.com from Tuesday, 08 October. Jerm began his cartoon career in 2005 after leaving his corporate job and he went on to win a number of awards. He’s also been recognised as one of the ‘Top 200 Young South Africans’ and one of the ‘Top 40 under 40’ media personalities during 2013. Jerm’s work has appeared in a number of newspapers, magazines and online publications. He now joins South Africa’s biggest television news network, eNCA. Says Timothy Spira, GM of eNCA Online: “Our association with Jerm slots nicely into this dynamic, providing visual content that will work across both TV and online. It is also a step forward in our ambition to bolster our opinion content, building on a strong base that already includes regular contributions from the likes of Jeremy Maggs and Fred Khumalo. I am tremendously excited to be working with Jerm. His work reflects the same ethos of unflinching examination of contemporary society that has become the hallmark of eNCA”, Says Jeremy Nell, Editorial Cartoonist: “While print media dwindles, I am chuffed to be at the forefront of South Africa’s growing digital cartooning landscape. And it’s even better that eNCA see the value in digital media. I am pretty excited to be working with eNCA”. Jerm’s cartoons will appear on Tuesdays to Fridays on eNCA.com. eNCA.com FACTS eNCA.com is now just six months old and we’re delighted with the performance of the site. In September eNCA.com passed the milestone of half-a-million unique browsers (UBs), with 538,000 total UBs and 395,000 domestic UBs, placing us ahead of news sites that have been around for many years. Our combination of original text and image content, combined with extensive video coverage, is clearly hitting the mark with the South African online news consumer. We’ve also benefitted tremendously from the interplay between TV and the website by providing additional context to TV stories that give viewers a reason to go online. We recently extended this even further with the launch of a new Video section containing all of our online videos in a format that is easy to navigate, and which provides users with access to all current affairs and news content that has run on eNCA’s TV...
Spend an Early Christmas With The Flying Pickets.
The British pop-rock a capella vocal group, The Flying Pickets, will tour South Africa to perform their Christmas with The Flying Pickets show at Carnival City Big Top Arena on Friday, 22 November 2013. The group first enjoyed worldwide success with their debut single, a cover of a Yazoo song Only You in 1983. The single went straight to number one in the UK, and soon found popularity in other countries. This early success led the band to produce no less than 14 albums over the years. The Flying Pickets was founded by Brian Hibbard in 1982, together with a group of actors all with strong socialist political convictions. They put together a musical theatre production that told the story of the 1982 miners strike in the UK, and their unusual name refers to mobile strikers of the time who would travel to join pickets in sympathy with the strikers. The group so enjoyed singing that they began to appear in pubs and clubs in London where they found success not only for their vocal ability, but also for their flamboyant appearance. Since those early days they have continued performing, recording and touring around the world. The show starts at 8pm and tickets are available from Computicket from R285 to R485. The damage is: EVENT Christmas with the Flying Pickets DATE Friday 22 November 2013 VENUE Carnival City – Big Top Arena TIME 20h00 TICKETS R285 to R485 BOOKING...
VODACOM IN THE CITY TAKES JO’BURG FESTIVALS TO THE NEXT LEVEL
“Jo’burg a-r-e you ready?” screeched spirited front-woman Skin to a sea of 11,000 indie rockers at Friday’s Vodacom In the City in downtown Jo’burg’s Mary Fitzgerald Square. As Cass’ bass-beat pulsed through the bodies of the sweat-streaked fans, the air was filled with thousands of cellphones held up to capture Skunk Anansie’s long-awaited return to South Africa. As the unofficial headline act of the evening, they thrilled the crowds with Skin’s crowd surfing, cementing the iconic British band’s performance as one of the best ever seen in SA. The whole vibe of the festival was electric! As the only local act on the line up, Al Bairre played an outstanding opening set, so it’s no surprise that they’d won the Vodacom ‘Open the City’ competition that saw over 18,500 votes from the public. Alternative UK indie rock quartet alt-J were welcomed in traditional alt-J fashion with the crowd displaying the band’s triangle ∆ symbol with their fingers. When the opening chords of their hit single ‘Tesselate’ echoed off the stage, you couldn’t even hear the band for the crowd singing along. Charismatic Swedish rockers The Hives stole the show in their custom tailored mariachi outfits. Previously quoted as saying that they ‘hoped the crowds would go crazy’, they were not disappointed – who wouldn’t go nuts to The Hives’ highly rated live show? ‘Go right ahead’ and ‘Walk Idiot Walk’ were clear favourites and vocalist Pelle Almqvist’s showmanship and scissor kicks went down a treat. The final act of the evening was German DJ Boys Noize, who closed the festival with his techno EDM beats and one final burst of party energy. Presenting sponsor Vodacom’s concert-first free Wi-Fi, recharge stations, sound-proof phone-boxes and photo booths were a hit, as were Jose Cuervo’s Watering Holes that were dotted around the square. Those who tweeted a hashtag of themselves being a party animal stood the chance to win a signed guitar. Revellers flocked to GWM’s recently launched quirky C20R hatchback for the opportunity to win a tablet with Vodacom data. Wrapped in the event’s branding, the affordable crossover added a level of fun to the night. Seed Experiences, the award-winning company behind the event, pulled out all the stops to ensure the best consumer experience ever. Not only did they put the best production and security teams in place, but they installed a 140m bar and booked 300 bar staff to ensure minimum time queuing for drinks to give fans maximum time in front of the stage. Recognised as one of the edgiest and most anticipated music events on the South African calendar, Vodacom In the City 2013 has taken Jo’burg festivals to the next level. Keep your eye on facebook.com/InTheCityJHB...
LIVE: BURNT FRIEDMAN AND TLALE MAKHENE and SOUND MIND LAB: MPHO MOLIKENG
On tour in sub-Saharan Africa, pioneer German electronic musician Burnt Friedman teams up with South African percussion legend Tlale Makhene for a one-off concert – a feast of rhythmic experimentation that will explode the boundaries between electric and acoustic, traditional and experimental, texture and melody. Other dates of the Burnt Friedman Tour in sub-Saharan Africa: 04/10/2013 Lagos, Nigeria 07/10/2013 Nairobi, Kenya, with Otieno Wakake 10/10/2013 Kampala, Uganda, with Hakimu Kiwanuka Burnt Friedman is one of Germany’s most established and highly rated electronic musicians with a career spanning almost 40 years. Born in Coburg, Germany in 1965, he has lived in Berlin since 2009. After initially being a student of art in Kassel in northern Germany, Burnt started to focus exclusively on music from the late 1980s onwards. He went on to attend the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne as a postgraduate student and began to publish his musical works along with his studio productions in 1979. He also began performing live around the same time, and soon attracted the attention of the Cologne electronic music scene. From there he progressed to various notable music collaborations throughout the 1990s on projects with the likes of Jaki Liebezeit, Hayden Chisholm, Root70, Mark Ernestus, Steve Jansen, David Sylvian and Atom™. In 2000 Friedman launched his own record label, Nonplace, with 35 releases to date. Working under the solo artist name of Burnt Friedman, he sought to address public prejudice at that time regarding the authenticity of programmed music. His studio and on-stage partnership with Jaki Liebezeit, the former drummer of CAN, now dates back 13 years; the two musicians have developed pioneering electronic-acoustic music over that period. On the strength of their craft and universal musical vocabulary they have consciously distanced themselves from the traditional formulas of Western European and Anglo-American music. Burnt Friedman’s work has been critically acclaimed by the international music press. Data Transmission in the UK described his recent album release with Jaki Liebezeit as “destined for cult success“. After carrying out a tour in sub-Saharan Africa in association with the GoetheInstitut, Burnt Friedman will be releasing a new album in November 2013. www.burntfriedman.com Born in Soweto, Tlale Makhene moved to Swaziland at a young age and began drumming at the age of four. Today, he is one of South Africa’s most remarkable drumming talents, often referred to as “The Groove Master” because of his amazing practical and conceptual skills as polyrhythmic percussionist. Highly regarded by musicians and musical fans alike, he has been featured in and produced more than 300 jazz and world music albums and is a much sought after indigenous music teacher, musical director, session...
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