INSTITUTE for Artist Management

Jehad Nga on assignment in Mogadishu

 Mogadishu, Somalia March 2010, TFG soldiers march in formation at a base in downtown Mogadishu. The TFG are saying that they are in the final stages of building their military force to such a degree that they could launch a major offensive to push radical Islamic fighters out of Mogadishu once and for all. Backed by Ugandan Military which are also in the process of building up their number of soldiers on the grounds, the TFG are saying that the launch ins imminent and they are ready. Large numbers of Somalia soldiers have been trained in Sudan for the purpose of preparing for a large-scale attack and to further hold the city should the operation be a success.  Click the image to see Jehad's work from front lines.

Lauren Greenfield's "kids + money" to screen in Cinema du Reel at Centre Pompidou, Paris (18-30th, March 2010)

NEW FEATURE: DATA CENTERS OVERLOAD by Simon Norfolk

Why do we choose to approach the most cutting-edge computer technologies of our brave new world using the language and concepts of cavemen? We talk of loading data 'up' to somewhere – but where do we mean? (Heaven, perhaps?) We transfer data via ethernet cables as if data were 'ethereal.' Developers of tomorrow's computers talk excitedly about a concept called 'cloud' computing. These all seem oddly primitive terms for such an advanced, industrial society. We don't marvel at a Toyota factory and think the outputted cars are the result of magical processes, but when we conceptualise the internet we turn all spiritual and nebulous. I can trace my emails out of my computer as far as a box in the hall near the phone; after that I have no idea where they go, what they do out there or how they come back again. We don't know how or where the web does what it does; but what it does, is childishly wonderful. 

Increasingly our family photos, conversations with friends, the games we play, the videos and music we stream, the applications we use, the way we buy and sell, the societies we are members of; all exist up there - and only up there - on the net. But where is 'there'? 

Norfolk was given a chance to meet the cloud; as it was put to him, 'would you like to go and visit your Hotmails?' This is possible because all the data we produce does not exist nowhere, rather it exists as  memory in row after countless row of computer servers in massive data farms run by the web's biggest players. Norfolk was given access to places like the immense (and immensely secretive) Microsoft facility in Quincy, in rural Washington state. What had been a potato field is now a colossal, half-million square foot, architecturally bland factory. It looks like an agricultural packing plant, except it has the security of a military base or a prison. Nothing outside reveals its inner workings as one of the most important parts of the internet. Inside are hundreds of thousands of computer chips in black cabinets in huge, chilled rooms the size of soccer pitches.

It was surprising for Norfolk to discover that the infrastructure of the Internet Age is as imposing, ugly and 'real' as the cotton mills, mines and factories of Victorian Manchester. Like pulling back the curtain to find that the Wizard of Oz is actually a little old man, the 'cloud' is no more than giant buildings full of computers, air-conditioning units and diesel backup generators; there’s nothing white or fluffy or vaporous about it. It is odd that because we lack the imaginative equipment to talk about the internet, we have persuaded ourselves that 'virtual' is the same as 'non-existent'; that 'invisible' is the same as 'heavenly.' What is it in us that is that, when faced with the unknown, always defaults to the magical?

Zed Nelson: Group Exhibition at Australian Centre for Photography

The Exhibition preview is 6-8pm on Thursday March 11th and LOVE ME opens to the public on March 12.  The show ends on the 24th of April 2010.

Australian Centre for Photography is at 257 Oxford Street, Paddington NSW 2021.

Click the image for further details regarding the event.

Love Me is a collection of images documenting how far people will go for the quest for physical perfection. Negotiating the boundaries of art and documentary photography, this series reflects a world we have created where enormous social, psychological and economic rewards and penalties are attached to the way we look.

Zed Nelson’s subjects are school girls; body builders; Iranian’s queuing for nose jobs; New Yorkers having foot surgery to fit into Jimmy Choo shoes; and South American women undergoing surgery to bring themselves eerily close to Barbie dolls.

INSTITUTE artist Zed Nelson has produced a powerful body of work that forces each and every one of us to question our own place in a culture that compels us to constantly judge, and be judged, by our own appearance.

Polka Magazine issue 8 launch. Cover story by Jodi Bieber

Rob Hornstra photographs Wouter Bos for De Volkskrant Magazine

Lauren Greenfield photographs Arthur Cohn's party for SonntagsBlick Magazin

Gillian Laub in New York Times Magazine

Zed Nelson's "Love Me" awarded Judges' Special Recognition at POYi

Rena Effendi's "Pipe Dreams" published in LUX Magazine (Germany)