There is a quite a buzz surrounding the arrival of a large exhibition of work by General Idea at the Art Gallery of Ontario. GI were a Toronto-based art collective, founded in 1969 and comprised of: AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal. They were renowned for their irreverance and satirical wit – [...]
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10 Ruble Russian Coin featuring cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (Photo by Mike) Today is “Day of the Soviet Space Program (Cosmonautics)” for Russians – a day to remember the cosmonaut and national hero Yuri Gagarin, who on April 12, fifty years ago, was blasted into orbit from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. [...] Illustration by Mike Simpson – Strong-and-Free Update (March 29): Yesterday the band Arcade Fire completed the trifecta – winning Best Group and 3 other awards at the Canadian Juno awards – after bringing home awards at both the British and American music awards shows. Arcade Fire won a Grammy award on Sunday [...] Mike has been an earnest student of film since he studied the “History of Cinema” and “Italian Cinema” at university. Mike is an aspiring filmmaker with a few short videos under his belt. Currently he is working on “City Symphony” – a hybrid documentary / music video that includes music by his alter-ego “Mikooshka.” Here [...] Update: March 2011 – this movie won the Academy Award for Best Documentary at the 2010 Awards ceremony A new documentary is opening – “Inside Job” – a film about the global financial crisis. Positive reviews abound: Rottentomatoes.com gave the flick an amazing 95%! Directed by Charles Ferguson, the doc features Matt Damon as [...] It was with great excitement that one day early this summer a search for “Douglas Coupland” at the Toronto Public Library website yielded an amazing find: “Extraordinary Canadians – Marshall McLuhan.” This is a book by Coupland which explores the life and ideas of a most iconic Canadian. And if you are familiar with Douglas [...] I picked up the September 2010 issue of Wired Magazine and was struck by the amazing cover story and (design!). It boldly declares that the “Web is Dead!” For those of you who would like my take and synopsis, please read on. (Link at end of this blog post). The basic premise of the article [...] The opening ceremony of the 2010 World Cup is taking place right now, and it’s reminiscent of the large-scale ceremonies I remember from the Vancouver and Beijing games. The stadium is ginormous and hundreds of Africans, primarily women, are performing synchronized dancing as performers do songs blended together in medleys. I just saw the singer [...] This movie looks like a “must see.” The director, Kevin McMahon has directed some amazing documentaries, including one of my favorites, “McLuhan’s Wake” – a doc on the Canadian media communications theorist Marshall McLuhan. Green Screens presents WATERLIFE Directed by Kevin McMahon, 2009, 109 minutes. Tuesday June 1 at 7pm FREE NFB Cinema – 150 [...] |
Mike Simpson is a teacher, writer, musician and designer from Toronto, Canada. He is a new media enthusiast and has been "strongandfree" since 1996. Mike is working on new graphic design, developing websites and multimedia, and leading training workshops on weekends. Check out Strong+Free for his Design and Media work. Check out Mike's Edu-Tech Workshop site. Please contact him at this address: mike | strongandfree.ca 
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