Art Around Athens

This weekend, PAM (Perpetual Art Machine), a traveling installation of video art, opened at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, in Gallery 101. Featuring more than 1,000 videos and 600 artists from 60 countries, it also includes an online database of video art and a community for video artists, curators, theorists and educators. PAM moves on to St. Petersburg, Russia, next (it closes here on Oct. 20), so it's kind of a big deal.



Also newly open is ATHICA's exhibition Free Press in Free Fall, which addresses the changing role of the media in today's environment. Here's how ATHICA puts it:

Almost daily we hear about another round of newspaper layoffs, another venerated publication on the brink of bankruptcy or another small town paper ceasing production altogether. In the digital age, while newspapers are incapable of competing with the web's low cost and efficiency, fears of the death of print run rampant--despite boomers' clinging nostalgia for their morning paper over cereal.

Obviously the internet has drastically changed the way that media outlets disseminate information, as well as the way we as a public access that information and how we respond to it. On the surface, the ability for people to engage actively in a dialogue with the media appears to be the pinnacle of what it to means a “public”—or belong to a democracy where citizens can make their voices heard, inspire action and change and hold leaders--and the media--accountable. So why is it that in a media-saturated world, many feel that we’re privy to less information, less 'news?'

The artwork in Free Press in Free Fall asks how we--as citizens of the digital age-- engage responsibly in a dialogue with our press? How do we encourage correct, expansive, or less biased coverage? And when the media fails us, how do we bridge the gap? When faced with an economic crisis, major media outlets are faced with tough choices: Give the public what it needs, or what it wants?

Participating artists include: Wayne Bellamy, Gary Duehr, Melinda Eckley, John English, M. Ho, Franklynn Peterson, Marie Porterfield, Phil Ralston, Kathryn Refi, Hannah Lamar Simmons, Jordan Tate, Michael Thomas Vassallo and our very own Ed Tant, who works as a security guard at the museum and has contributed some of his photographs to the exhibition. Ed is also a noted local political columnist for the Banner-Herald, and his travels have taken him to presidential inaugurations and elsewhere, which he's documented in these photos. ATHICA has many events associated with the exhibition, including a talk by curator Allie Goolrick and artists Kathyrn Refi and John English on Oct. 1 (free), a symposium on rock reporting in the digital age (Oct. 17, $3-6), an evening of songs about the news (Oct. 17, $9-13), a night of news-themed stories and poems (TBA), and several events planned for the closing day, Nov. 8. Check ATHICA's Web site for more details on any of these events and to learn more about Free Press in Free Fall.