Bordeaux / Bristol: Building Bridges

 I went to Bordeaux this week, because it was an obvious location to talk about my book.

Bordeaux is in a "twin city" partnership with Bristol (and Hannover, but...) and the two cities share the same history. South-Western ports of wanna-be empires, they played a major role in the colonisation of America and in the slave trade, activities that had a major impact on them, resulting in beautiful buildings constructed by money resulted from the deportation and trade of human beings.

Slavery is not an activity of the past, as the recent events in Libya exposed once again. Poverty neither and most of the poor people in this world live and work in a state of quasi-slavery.

But I also wrote this book also to talk about social change, places and people who decided to stop mistakes when they realize they were, to talk about cultures merging, art and music that came to display a different society, more diverse and more inclusive.

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The local group Bordeaux 2020 invited me to talk about underground culture and to share the details about Bristol's recent history for the arts and music.

Here were the participants:

- Damien Thomas, Bordeaux 2020
- Renaud Cojo, theatre performer and founder of the company 'Ouvre le Chien'
- Ivan Torres, mexican artist
- Pierre Chavot, historian and author
- Philippe Barre, founder of Darwin
- and myself

I was happily surprised by the level of involvement of the audience. It was from the beginning a very participative discussion. And while a couple of men insisted to say that Bordeaux has a vibrant underground scene for music, in informal venues and inside people's homes, most people were interested in how Bordeaux could come to bring more venues and help young people particularly to develop their ideas and find places to rehearse music or theatre.

Our goal is to keep moving into this discussion.

My goal specifically is to create a network of cities discussion the importance of the arts and music for European culture and with the current changes, especially after the Brexit vote and the (illegal) Catalan referendum.

I believe that in times of a globalisation led by trade and goods, people can only keep on acting if they learn to act locally and fight for changes that they can see developing in a not-so-long future. I also believe that in the rise of new forms of nationalism, we need to connect with others, as far as possible, to realize how much connected we are, as different as we are.

I want to start within Europe for now. So I hope we'll have another debate, in Paris maybe, including people from the art world and historians from Belfast, Brussels, Barcelona, on top of Bordeaux and Bristol.

I call this my network of "Cities to B" - trying to Build Bridges! 

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I'm invited in Nantes mid-January to talk about Bristol's art and music scene, then in Paris' Médiathèque, on January 13th, to discuss the role of music in social change in the framework of the exhibition "Nous et les autres" ("Us and Others"), highlighting the increase of creativity brought in cities by newcomers and foreigners over the years, but also displaying the racism these artists were confronted to during their lifetime, quoting the work of Josephine Baker, Nina Simone, Miriam Makeba, Zebda in France and La Rumeur, among others. I'll bring the story of Bristolians.

More on this soon.

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Share your views if you will!

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Meanwhile, I was lucky enough to catch a beautiful retrospective in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux, of the work of Colombian painter Beatriz Gonzalez, opened as begins the Year of France / Colombia. Her painting are a real immersion in the intimacy of the people of her country, their sufferance and especially female pain, in a transmuting act of healing...

I'll share more in the next post.

This has been my main theme since 2014, since I lived in the shattered country of Central African Republic. We can not let ourselves, individually or collectively, get destroyed by our pain and past mistakes. We need to rise again and learn to heal ourselves, to let go of the burden and past wounds...

Healing, guérison en français, art therapy, catharsis in Greek, call it what you like. But in this way, music and art can become an elixir for recovery and rebirth.

AI versus Heart Intelligence

I read almost every week another naively optimistic article about Artificial Intelligence, AI, and the promise of a better world through the use of robots.

After all the science fiction films warning us about building our own man-maid slaves, people with big budgets invest in excessively expensive projects to produce more complex computers and devices... while more than half of the population still live in poverty, under appallingly low circonstances, in Africa, Asia and Latin America mainly.

And the vast majority of the other half of the world population are just slaves to jobs they have not chosen and are only getting them to pay bills for housing, food and other products they don't even know they don't need.

And where are the firms investing in AI? In the richest countries obviously. With which materials are they building their robots and computers? Rare earth elements, gold, cobalt, copper... Most of them stolen in poor countries.

This situation is depressing beyond reason.

While Apple has become a bigger monster that the Microsoft they decried decades ago, not paying their taxing, enslaving Chinese labour and overpricing their devices, other firms are getting ready to do worse and the powerful and educated people of the West encourage them to do so.

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In order to find hope in this sea of blindness, here is an article about a recent initiative to call to bring consciousness in this deregulated, uncontrolled and powerful network of researchers, eating billions of dollars for a technology not promising to cure diseases or feed the hungry but to bring more distraction to the distracted taxpayers...

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UN artificial intelligence summit aims to tackle poverty, humanity's 'grand challenges'

(UN Centre News)

7 June 2017 – Artificial intelligence (AI) is responsible for self-driving cars and voice-recognition smart phones, but the United Nations this week is refocusing AI on sustainable development and assisting global efforts to eliminate poverty and hunger, and to protect the environment. 

Starting today in Geneva, the AI for Good Global Summit, which is co-organized by the UN International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the XPRIZE Foundation, with support for some 20 UN agencies, brings together key innovators in the field with humanitarian actors and academics.

“Artificial Intelligence has the potential to accelerate progress towards a dignified life, in peace and prosperity, for all people,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “The time has arrived for all of us – governments, industry and civil society – to consider how AI will affect our future.” 

In a video message to the summit, Mr. Guterres called AI “a new frontier” with “advances moving at warp speed.” 

He noted that that while AI is “already transforming our world socially, economically and politically,” there are also serious challenges and ethical issues which must be taken into account – including cybersecurity, human rights and privacy. 

Mr. Guterres noted that developing countries can gain from the benefits of artificial intelligence, but are also at the highest risk of being left behind.

“This Summit can help ensure that artificial intelligence charts a course that benefits humanity and bolsters our shared values,” he underscored. 

The opening session of the summit is expected to give voice to the leading minds in AI, with breakout sessions focusing on issues such as sustainable living and poverty reduction. 

ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao, said the event “will assist us in determining how the UN, ITU and other UN agencies can work together with industry and the academic community to promote AI innovation and create a good environment for the development of artificial intelligence.” 

He called the summit a “neutral platform for international dialogue” which can build a common understanding of emerging technologies and how they can apply to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adding that the divers array of thought leaders gathered for the event will weigh in on such topics as “how far AI can go, how much it will improve our lives, and how we can all work together to make it a force for good.” 

The summit will run through Friday, with a closing session on “applying AI for good.”

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Will these promises vanish in the air like most United-Nations calls since the creation of the diplomatic body since the end of WWII? I hope not. But I'm afraid these researchers are delusional when they trust big business is going to do any better than it has been doing the past four centuries.

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Here is one argument: 

'Artificial intelligence is not our friend:' Hillary Clinton is worried about the future of technology

Zoë Bernard

24 Nov 2017, 15:26

In a recent interview, Hillary Clinton expresses worries about the future of artificial intelligence and the role big tech plays in our daily lives. Clinton says that big tech companies are acquiring a trove of personal data that could possibly be manipulated and that Silicon Valley needs to be less opaque about the role their platforms played in the 2016 election. 

Artificial intelligence may be one of the most exciting avenues in technology today, but its advances are causing alarm not only among science and technology elites like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Stephen Hawking, but politicians as well. 

On Wednesday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed her anxieties about the future of artificial intelligence in an interview with Hugh Hewitt about her recently published memoir, What Happened.

"Artificial intelligence is not our friend," said Clinton. "It can assist us in many ways if it is properly understood and contained. But we are racing headfirst into a new era of artificial intelligence that is going to have dramatic effects on how we live, how we think, how we relate to each other."

Clinton's says her worries stem, in part, from the effect the driverless car industry will have on the economy and the potential for millions of people — like cab drivers and delivery drivers — to lose their jobs in the era of autonomous cars. 

"We are totally unprepared for that," Clinton said. "What do we do when we are connected to the internet of things and everything we know and everything we say and everything we write is, you know, recorded somewhere? And it can be manipulated against us."

Clinton said that part of her plan in running for office in 2016 was to create a blue ribbon commission of people with varying expertise who could determine American policy on artificial intelligence.  And despite Clinton's admission that the tech industry is among the country's most admirable developing industries, she expressed concern at the trove of personal data being collected by leading tech companies and the role that sophisticated algorithms play in our day to day lives.

"That information can be used to sell products ... but it can also be used to stalk children, to purvey pornography, or in the case of our elections, to provide the channels for weaponizing information for political purposes," she said.

Clinton said she also had her doubts about tech companies owning up to the role they played in the 2016 election. Her worries are expressed just weeks after Facebook, Google, and Twitter were called upon to testify before Congress regarding the role their platforms played in Russia's interference with the 2016 election. 

"I think we’re kidding ourselves if we don’t know more about the role that the tech companies played," said Clinton.

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Stephen Hawking's views:

AI-NIHLATION

Hawking often speaks about the development of artificial intelligence (AI) as the true perpetrator of the eventual demise of human beings. In an interview with WIRED Hawking said, “The genie is out of the bottle. I fear that AI may replace humans altogether.”

Stephen Hawking Warns A.I. Could End Mankind:

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Interesting summary: 

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Please, think about it.

The main issues is not about the technology itself, it is about how it is produced, where the money comes from, and how it could be use to satisfy the needs of a handful of powerful people who will be able to increase their power through it.

Then there is the issue of the environment. AI is everything but environment-friendly or even -oriented. 

Finally, there is the human dimension of creating super-expensive tools for the extremely rare super-rich... What about common people?

Technology is a tool; by essence, the machine is neutral. Einstein invented the atomic bomb and was the first man to regret it... 

Technology is what humans make of it. And if you look at who is ruling our world nowadays, politically and financially - not forgetting the major issue of tax evasion, which is the real core weakness of this capitalistic system (which could produce less poverty if the evasion was stopped) - are you really willing to give these men such new tools? 

"You're always on my mind" (Ciaran Lavery's cover of 'New Partner')

 I love Irish music. I must have been Irish in another life.
I love the autumn again, just like half a life ago.

There are images of women in tears floating in my head, but I know sadness and melancholy are a vector of transmutation and healing.

I wish you all a great autumnal day.

Ciaran Lavery - 'New Partner' (Live)

Published on 26 Jun 2017

Belfast / Northern Ireland Video Production

Video by http://www.redcap-productions.com/

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Fresh from releasing his excellent ‘Live At The Mac’ album in December of last year, 2016 Northern Ireland Music Prize winner Ciaran Lavery is back with ‘A King At Night’, set for release on the 22nd of April. A collection of Bonnie Prince Billy numbers, the five track EP will be released as a special Record Store Day offering.

Will Oldham is an artist that has long fascinated Lavery and this release acts as ‘a fitting nod of appreciation’ to the legendary songwriter. Given the depth of Oldham’s back catalogue as Bonnie Prince Billy, Ciaran had a wealth of extraordinary tracks to choose from, leading him to plump for ones ‘that sat well within the realms of the world we created in the studio’. ‘New Partner’, the lead track from the EP, is a beautifully delicate rumination on new - found love, while ‘Horses’ features exquisite strings and brass. ‘Bad Man’ is a punchy, brooding number, its sharp electric guitar part adding a menacing undertone. ‘Beast For Thee’ is entirely subtle yet incredibly powerful and perhaps the EP’s most sensitive moment, while closer ‘Miss Me When I Burn’ needs only simple piano, coupled with Ciaran’s sensitive, aching, vocal performance to carry the weight of such an emotional track.

In 2014, Lavery’s Kosher EP and Not Nearly Dark album achieved global acclaim and recognition when the tracks Shame and Left For America racked up more than 29 Million listens on Spotify, on which he now has upwards of 60 Million plays. Ciaran won last year’s Northern Ireland Music Prize for his second full - length album ‘Let Bad In’, the second time he has been up for the award. In 2015 he won the Big Break, a search for Ireland’s hottest talent, set up by Hot Press magazine. A profoundly beautiful tribute to the work of Bonnie Prince Billy, Ciaran Lavery’s ‘A King At Night’ is released through Believe Recordings on the 22nd of April.

“To me personally, Will Oldham defines the modern day artist in that he is always evolving and creating. He never hangs around long enough in one space to become predictable and he lives through his music” Ciaran Lavery

More Info: recordstoreday.co.uk/exclusive-rele…/ciaran-lavery

Release date:

22 April 2017

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Lyrics:

New partner ( Bonnie 'Prince' Billy Cover )

There's a black tinted sunset with the prettiest of skies
Lay back,lay back, rest your head on my thighs
There is some awful action that just breathes from my hand
Just breaths from a deed so exquisetly grand

And you are always on my mind
And you are always on my mind
And you are always on my mind
And you are always on my mind

Well, I would not have moved if I knew you were here
Its some special action with motives unclear
Now you'll haunt me, you'll haunt me
Till I've paid for what I've done
It's a payment which precludes the having of fun

And you are always on my mind
And you are always on my mind
And you are always on my mind
And you are always on my mind
But hello, I've got a new partner riding with me
I'v got a new partner, hello

Now the sun's fading faster, we're ready to go
There's a skirt in the bedroom that's pleasantly low
And the loons on the moor, the fish in the flow
And my friends, my friends still will whisper hello
We all know what we know, it's a hard swath to mow
When you think like a hermit you forget what you know

And you are always on my mind
And you are always on my mind
And you are always on my mind
And you are always on my mind
I've got a new partner, riding with me
I've got a new partner, riding with me
I've got a new partner, riding with me
I've got a new partner now

"Until I find you"...

 Such a lovely day. I'm so lucky, I love what I do so deeply, even if I often wish I could be much, much more useful. Then I tell myself we are not here to be... useful.

I do want you to forgive me though, you all somewhere that I may have hurt while I only tried to help you. Because, most of the time, when we believe we are helping, supporting, even loving, we are indeed only being so selfish.

I found this song today. Though you might like it.

My sort of apologies.

Francois Klark - 'Spaceman' (Official Lyric Video)

Published on 15 Oct 2017

Music video for Spaceman (Official Lyric Video) - Released October 16, 2017. Performed by Francois Klark.

Buy & Stream Now: https://ffm.to/spaceman

http://www.francoisklark.com/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClc1...


SOUNDCLOUD: https://soundcloud.com/francoisklark
INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/francoisklark/
TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/francoisklark?lan...

MUSIC CREDITS
Music & Lyrics - Francois Klark
Production - Kibwe Thomas, Francois Klark
Mix - Brandon Unis (Cylinder Sound, Toronto)
Master - Peter Letros (Wreckhouse Mastering, Toronto)
Produced and recorded at HeavenSound Studio, Toronto.
Piano recorded at Phase One Studio, Toronto.

VIDEO CREDITS
Director & Editor - Miguel Barbosa (YEAH!films, Toronto)
DOP & Colourist - Ryan C Glover


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LYRICS

Last night in my dreams I set off a flare to guide you
as I drifted through the sky on my own in search of you.
To the moon I’d fly if I could my love to see you.
Over far and distant oceans travel to be with you.

No journey too far – I will search for you…
to the edge of the stars I will fight for your heart –
I will be your spaceman baby

To the corners of the universe I will go to look for you.
Where the stars turn cold and the sun burns bold
I will go until I…

Until I find you
Until I find you
Until I find you

In the light of our morning star wanna’ wake beside you.
When the clouds roll heavy overhead wanna be right by you…
so we can dance in the rain on the planet that we’ll call our own.
When your heart beats next to mine I’ll know I’ve found my home.

No journey too far – I will search for you…
to the edge of the stars I will fight for your heart –
I will be your spaceman baby

To the corners of the universe I will go to look for you
Where the stars turn cold and the sun burns bold
I will go until I…

Until I find you
Until I find you
Until I find you

Copyright © 2017 Francois Klark

On the role of the writer

"Obviously, I think of the writer of novels and stories and plays as a moral agent. . . This doesn’t entail moralizing in any direct or crude sense. Serious fiction writers think about moral problems practically. They tell stories. They narrate. They evoke our common humanity in narratives with which we can identify, even though the lives may be remote from our own. They stimulate our imagination. The stories they tell enlarge and complicate—and, therefore, improve—our sympathies. They educate our capacity for moral judgement."

– Susan Sontag

in At the Same Time: The Novelist and Moral Reasoning

Survey reveals that "small indie publishers" report booming sales in the UK

 The article that gives you, at 10:45 a real kick to really start the day!

In my wildest dreams, I didn't think I would read this so soon...

According to this survey: "smaller presses based outside London have found success by reaching markets beyond the white middle classes and recruiting authors from more diverse backgrounds”...

The Guardian:

Small indie publishers report booming sales

In a sector that has struggled elsewhere, figures for 60 of the smallest players in the UK industry show sales up 79% in the last year

Monday 20 November 2017

by Danuta Kean

@Danoosha

Audre Lorde, whose Your Silence Will Not Protect You is one of the success stories highlighted in Inpress’s research. Photograph: Robert Alexander/Getty

Independent publishers have unleashed a boom in sales, according to new research. Latest figures from Inpress, which works with 60 of the smallest players in the books industry, revealed sales up 79% in the last year – a performance hailed by Inpress managing director Sophie O’Neill as phenomenal.

“It’s down to a mix of really good books such as Audre Lorde’s Your Silence Will Not Protect You from the feminist Silver Press,” O’Neill said, “and Dead Ink’s crowdfunded book Know Your Place – which is like The Good Immigrant except about class – and great attention to detail.”

In a market where literary fiction has struggled to find readers, turnover across the Arts Council England-funded portfolio, which includes Seren Books and The Poetry Book Society, surged above its budget by almost £100,000 this year, reaching £277,930. 

According to O’Neill, smaller presses based outside London have found success by reaching markets beyond the white middle classes and recruiting authors from more diverse backgrounds. “It proves that in publishing now, geography is irrelevant,” she said.

At Peepal Tree Press, a member of the Northern Fiction Alliance that specialises in Caribbean writing, operations manager Hannah Bannister said independents were responding to reader demand. “We are offering something that readers want rather than just another novel with a dead girl on a train,” she said. The Leeds-based independent enjoyed critical and sales success this year with Jacob Ross’s The Bone Readers, which won the inaugural Jhalak prize.

Larger houses often base commissioning decisions on past sales figures, Bannister continued, but a sellout event in Manchester for the Northern Fiction Alliance showed there was a thirst for more cutting-edge work. “There were over 100 young people there who wanted to find out about what’s new and interesting. People are tired of being sold books [by large publishers] based on what they bought earlier.”

One reason cited for independents’ success was that they were picking up established authors dropped by large houses after disappointing sales or because they wanted to write in a different genre.

Monique Roffey, who was shortlisted for the Orange prize in 2010, moved to tiny Dodo Ink in Manchester for her latest novel after a larger publisher pulled out.

“Simon & Schuster bought The Tryst in 2013, but got cold feet,” Roffey said. “It’s very sexually explicit.”

Although at first she had misgivings about signing with a small press, Roffey said the experience has been “wonderful … I worried that they would be able to get it into shops, but within two or three months I have sold more copies than my last book did with Simon & Schuster.”

Advances from independents may not be huge, but they compare well with those offered by larger houses for literary fiction without obvious sales potential. And in some cases, they can be higher – And Other Stories is now offering at least £2,500 for each new book.

Independent presses can also take a longer-term view of a writer’s career, Roffey continued, rather than dropping them at the first sniff of failure.

“The worst position you can be in as a writer is if you have been given a lot of money for a book that doesn’t sell,” she said. “That is the common slow death of a writer’s career.”

Topics

• Publishing

• Fiction
 
• news

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Link to article: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/20/small-indie-publishers-report-booming-sales

'Shadows' by Ryan Vail

Ryan Vail - 'Shadows'

Published on 26 Sep 2017

http://www.ryanvail.com

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Description: dark melodic electronica. 

 Ryan Vail is a musical pioneer with vision. The Derry born composer has released three EPs to date and a collaborative album “Sea Legs” with folk singer Ciaran Lavery. 

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Bio:

Ryan blends the worlds of electronica, folk and classical, always experimenting combining classical instruments with unique methods of recording and composition.

In 2014, he composed the soundtrack for a full length BBC2 Documentary entitled “The Longest Night” as part of the BBC’s “True North” series.

In 2015, he composed a solo piano piece for World Piano Day which was chosen for Nils Frahm’s Piano day playlist on SoundCloud.

His 2015, collaborative album with Ciaran Lavery “Sea Legs” has been shortlisted for the NI Music Prize (Best Northern Irish Album of 2015) previous winners have included Foy Vance and Robyn G Shields.

2016 seen Ryan release his debut album For Every Silence. For Every Silence quickly got a lot of attention and became BBC radio 1 Album of the week with Hue Stephens and Phil Taggart. Irish times Album of the week. Finally nominated for the 2016 Ni Music prize (Best Northern Irish Album of 2016).

2017 Ryan released Love is a Crow, a collaborative single with Jealous of the Birds that debuted on Lauren Lavernes 6 music show. Ryan Also featured in Nils Frahms national piano day.

Ryan has had radio play or performed live Sessions with BBC Introducing, Other Voices, Lauren Laverne, Steve Lamauq, Annie Mac, Tom Ravenscroft, Across The Line, Tom Robinson, Phillip Taggart and Zane Lowe.

Ryan has supported many international live acts such as Nils Frahm, Jamie XX, Jon Hopkins, Tycho, David Kitt, Todd Terje, Phil Kieran, Luke Vibert and Orbital.