OPENS IN CINEMAS ACROSS THE UNITED STATES BEGINNING APRIL 16TH
For Exact Theaters And Showtimes Check The Official Website: http://www.banksyfilm.com

Exit Through the Gift Shop, the first film by renowned graffiti artist Banksy, became the hottest ticket at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival where it made its world debut. Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post—hurricane New Orleans to the separation barrier on the Palestinian West Bank. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. Exit Through the Gift Shop tells the incredible true story of how an eccentric French shop keeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner with spectacular results. The film contains exclusive footage of Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Invader and many of the worlds most infamous graffiti artists at work, on walls and in interview. As Banksy describes it, Its basically the story of how one man set out to film the un—filmable. And failed

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image captured by the iPhone Hipstamatic application

Check out the Hipstamatic website.

Dear Reader,

Royal Dutch Shell is extremely proud to be the first international petrochemical company to publicly say:

We are sorry.

Our Board of Directors, in cooperation with Shell’s newly established Ethical Affairs Committee, has just in time come to the conclusion that Shell’s operations in the Niger Delta need to be subject to a serious, thorough and humbling re-evaluation.

We therefore promise that we shall:

* Make our public commitments to the environment and human rights a
reality;
* Monitor the social and human rights impact of all our operations;
* Disclose information and undertake respectful consultation with affected communities;
* Clean up all the pollution we have caused in the Niger Delta.

The measures shall be effective immediately. A more comprehensive plan of action will be presented at Shell’s Annual General Meeting on Tuesday May 18 in The Hague.

We look forward to apologising some more then!

Bradford Houppe
Vice-President of the Ethical Affairs Committee
Royal Dutch Shell

http://www.shellapologises.com

Bradford Houppe, Vice-President of the Ethical Affairs Committee at Shell, apologises

Key Highlights:

* Facebook reporting nearly 45.3 million active US users in the last 30 days
* Facebook growing in every age/gender demographic. Fastest growing segment: Women over 55, up 175.3% in the last 120 days.
* Facebook growing faster with women than men in almost every age group. Women comprise 56.2% of Facebook’s audience, up from 54.3% late last year.
* 45% of Facebook’s US audience is now 26 years old or older.

More:

Overall, women now outnumber men in every age group on Facebook. In total, women now make up about 56.2% of Facebook’s US audience, up from 54.3% late last year. Women most outnumber men in the 18-25 and 26-34 age groups, where there are 1.4 females for every 1 male on Facebook.

The obvious question is, why? More from InsideFacebook.com

Via ABC News:
Bra Color Status on Facebook Goes Viral
Women Post Bra Colors, Sizes and Saucy Comments to Raise Awareness for Breast Cancer

The trend seemed to have started with a chain e-mail that asked women to forward it to all the female friends in their address book.

“Some fun is going on….just write the colour of your bra in your status..just the colour, nothing else, and send this on to ONLY girls no men… it will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the girls have a color in their status…thanks ladies!”  Read the entire article.

The Facebook phenomenon has allowed you to reconnect with your best friend from elementary school, keep up with your buddy’s travels and get out of hours-long phone conversations with your aunt. It truly is a remarkable tool. However, as with most things, there is a dark side to Facebook. While your male brain may not have tapped in to the full manipulation potential of this seemingly innocuous social networking tool, chances are several of the women you know have. Women are trained in the art of creating, maintaining and controlling relationships, and Facebook is just one more resource they can use to keep tabs on and influence people. Here’s a list of some crazy things women do on facebook.

Read More

SHOW DESCRIPTION:
McNish Gallery, Oxnard College, has asked guest curator Ronald Lopez to put an all women show together for the month of March, 2010. For this occasion Lopez has decided to bring attention to a group of women who deal with issues of social justice, human frailty and global awareness in a show entitled Harmony Reverberates Optimism.

Artist’s include:
SaeRi Cho Dobson
Kristin Ross Lauterbach & Christina Lee Storm
Ofunne Obiamiwe
Lea Redmond
Azadeh Tajpour

Considering the recent woes of our nation, including recession and war; fear and despair might characterize the average American household. Thus, Lopez has decided to curate a show that brings about social awareness and, in turn, can lead to actions that build hope for the future. His aim is to be a positive voice in a sea of pessimistic prognosticators.

Harmony Reverberates Optimism opens to the public on Wednesday, February 24, 4-6pm at Oxnard College’s McNish Gallery and will run from February 24th through March 24th, 2010. Included in the show will be video stills from emerging documentary filmmakers Kristin Ross Lauterbach & Christina Lee Storm who will present “Flesh,” a narrative on women caught in America’s sex trafficking business. SaeRi Cho Dobson’s sculptural installation, entitled “7 Deadly Seams,” is an installation that reveals some of the most revolting lawsuit actions brought against the local “mom and pop” style dry cleaning businesses across our country. Other works include Iranian artist Azadeh Tajpour, who presents subtle installations of shredded paper strewn across the ground that have printed on them the various names of those who have lost their lives in Iraq as well as Ofunne Obiamiwe’s “Status of Women,” an interactive project inspired by Facebook that celebrates contemporary woman and their leading roles in their respective fields. And finally, Lea Redmond attempts to raise social consciousness in her project that “maps” clothing labels around the world. Each of these women brings a passion that seeks to push the envelope in an effort to bring about positive change.

Artist’s Talk:
Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 4:30pm

Film preview and discussion:
“Flesh”
Discussion with Kristin Ross Lauterbach and Christina Lee
Friday, March 12, 2010 at 7pm

Please check out the website for other exhibit related projects at http://www.adenistanbul.net/harm_rev_opt.htm
or call the gallery for more info.: (805) 986-5800, ext. 1929 (please call to make an appointment)

Drinks provided by IZZE Sparkling Juice

Investigating issues of territorialization, gender identity and social class at the intersection of culture, art and technology, “Status of Women” presents profiles of ten diverse women artists living in Los Angeles gleaned from the artist’s Facebook network. The title is a play on ideas, exploring how far women have come at this point in the 21st century—examining the actual condition of women in contemporary society—in relation to what women literally post on their Facebook “walls” as status messages.

Although social networking via the internet purports to be open and democratic, it also entails inherent constraints. In effect, with responses limited to a specific number of typed characters, one is enjoined to share one’s thoughts and feelings in language wherein expressive restrictions apply, by virtue of having to utilize only a certain number of words often addressed to a selective number of interlocutors. And this begs further reflections:

How does the content that women choose to post on Facebook index the current condition of women in contemporary society? With the Facebook page serving as a virtual “room of one’s own” for many women, is their engagement in social networking predicated on the sense (or semblance) of empowerment that it may afford, beyond the expectations of one’s social role? Such questions, as well as considerations of the differential levels of participation, types of interactions, communities, collaborations, and self-construction that women engage in via Facebook, remain intriguing concerns and are deserving of serious exploration.

Featured artists are: Amitis Motevalli, Erika E. Reynoso, Flora Kao, Linda Kunik, Marjan Vayghan, Marissa Mercardo, Michiko Yao, Raksha Parekh, Yong Soon Min and Zeal Harris.
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Status of Women Gallery

On November 10, 1995, writer/activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight members of the Ogoni tribe were hung—despite worldwide protests—for having peacefully challenged oil companies.

The “Oil Change” project is a multimedia installation and practice that aims to illuminate these state-sanctioned killings and the deleterious effect of decades of oil production.

Through an intimate analysis of sociopolitical issues within the Niger Delta, the project seeks to reconcile a colonial past, and to show that systemically (moving beyond body/self to land/environment), art can be a powerful tool for awareness, activism and catharsis.

As witness, I expose the rape of the Niger Delta’s ecosystems and communities. In attempts to reconcile my place in the often-confusing interstice between being of Nigerian heritage and a citizen of the United States, I recognize its story as mine.

Utilizing specific repurposed materials, “Oil Change” invites the viewer to question, to reflect, to empathize, to engage and continue to bear witness. Sculptural elements include a wall-mounted Shell light box, red-stained wood gas pumps, videos, aquariums filled with oil, water and gari (a staple Nigerian flour-like meal made from cassava). The “Hanging Ogonis” installation consists of nine polished black plastic-and steel gas nozzles suspended from the ceiling by nine black 3/4″ x 10″ long rubber hoses. Beneath each nozzle—atop mounds of earth—are piles of rice, feathers, black- eyed beans, cassava, cocoyams, a bowl of red palm oil, kolanuts, a pile of my shaved dreadlocks, and a pile of bones. This simultaneously symbolizes the Ogoni activists and the oil companies that have ruined the land.

“Oil Change” invites viewers to become witnesses through understanding the facts, raising consciousness, writing letters, signing petitions and having discussions about this and other human rights violations.