Journalist at RFI (ex-DW, BBC, CBC, F24...), writer (on art, music, culture...), I work in radio, podcasting, online, on films.
As a writer, I also contributed to the New Arab, Art UK, Byline Times, the i Paper...
Born in Paris, I was based in Prague, Miami, London, Nairobi (covering East Africa), Bangui, and in Bristol, UK. I also reported from Italy, Germany, Haiti, Tunisia, Liberia, Senegal, India, Mexico, Iraq, South Africa...
This blog is to share my work, news and cultural discoveries.
Today is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Here at War on Want, we believe the best way to show solidarity is to take concrete steps to end our government’s complicity in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. Ask your MP to take a stand for the rights of Palestinian children.
Israel holds over 6,000 Palestinians as political prisoners. Over 200 of them are children below the age of 18. Palestinian children, some as young as 9 years old, are arrested and tried in Israeli military courts, detained in prisons and detention centres away from their homes and families, and denied their most basic rights. The UK Government knows about these systematic violations, and it must take action now to stop them. Richard Burden MP has tabled an Early Day Motion calling on the UK Government to pressure Israel to end the widespread and systemic human rights violations suffered by Palestinian children in Israeli military custody This EDM has already been signed by MPs from across political parties. Other MPs can sign on too, so they need to hear from constituents that this issue is important for you.
Please email your MP and ask them to sign the EDM, and to support the call for the UK Government to call Israel to account over its violations.
In Solidarity,
Ryvka Barnard
Senior Campaigner (Militarism and Security), War on Want
*We regret that the gallery is not wheelchair accessible.
War on Want is excited to host an exceptional exhibition of artworks by established and emerging artists based in Gaza, Jerusalem and New York. Memory Metamorphosis: an exhibition on Palestinian memory features painting, collage, film and photography, inspired by interviews with Palestinians in the diaspora about their memories of home.
Memories establish a connection between personal and collective past, heritage and history. They give shape to identity that has been fragmented by displacement and life in exile. There are over 6 million Palestinians living in diaspora; most were displaced or expelled over the past 70 years by war and occupation. When a people’s history, culture and existence are being altered, erased or appropriated, holding onto their memories and creating their own historical record can be seen as an act of resistance.
Alongside this exhibition we will be showcasing the powerful documentary photography of award-winning photographer, author and film-maker Rich Wiles, who has been based in Palestine for many years. His work explores notions of home, identity, resistance, and has been published and exhibited widely.
You can see some of Rich's work here, capturing the stories of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli detention for a project by War on Want and Addameer: Prisoner Support and Human Rights Centre.
On May 5th, 2018, Karl Marx would have been 200 years old.
Today, I had the pleasure to learn that the British Library, in London, is organising a special event.
The British Library was an important place in the life of Karl Marx. Exiled in London from 1848, he researched a lot of his work in that building and later wrote most of theCapital.
The Library will be presenting an exhibition and hosting a series of events on Marx from May 2018 to mark the commemoration of his work and writing.
As part of this season, they may plan an event, which will particularly look at the way Marx has been portrayed in writing, film and on stage...
Among participants are expected Jason Barker, director and producer of the 2011 film Marx Reloaded (and author of the forthcoming novelMarx Returns) and playwrights Richard Bean and/or Clive Coleman, who wrote the playYoung Marx
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Exciting news !
More soon.
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More on our film, The Young Karl Marx, that I still hope will find a distribution in the UK around that time (- Come on, England, you need it!):
We also leant today that Raoul Peck's film will be released on April 29, 2018 in Japan, in a forty cinema, under the title: "Marx · Engels".
As a reminder: in the United States, the release date is confirmed for February 23rd.
If you know me, you know I love this woman like a soul sister.
And that I believe musicians live forever.
She, especially, does live in my heart. She left us at the age I have now.
Thanks to Naomi Klein for putting this song on her list on her interview with BBC Radio 4...
Concert Privé : Lhasa - 'Rising' - Bouffes du Nord
Lhasa interprète "Rising" lors de son concert privé Fnac aux Bouffes du Nord, le 11 mai 2009.
This venue is my favourite theatre hall, by the way.
Lhasa - 'Rising' [Official Music Video]
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Lyrics
I got caught in a storm And carried away I got turned, turned around
I got caught in a storm That's what happened to me So I didn't call And you didn't see me for a while
I was rising up Hitting the ground And breaking and breaking
I was caught in a storm Things were flying around And doors were slamming And windows were breaking And I couldn't hear what you were saying I couldn't hear what you were saying I couldn't hear what you were saying
I was rising up Hitting the ground And breaking and breaking
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.
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
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.
"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.
"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 WIREDHawking said, “The genie is out of the bottle. I fear that AI may replace humans altogether.”
Stephen Hawking Warns A.I. Could End Mankind:
- Interesting summary:
- 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?
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
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
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.
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
