AstroDime Transit Authority

Today is the 2nd anniversery of Hurrican Katrina, a storm that broke the levees that devasted New Orleans. Astrodime Transit Authority sees this as a public transportation disaster. Why were so many people left in New Orleans directly after the storm?

Here’s an opinion from Facing South: Blogging for a Progressive South produced by the Institute for Southern Studies, a progressive non-profit based in Durham, North Carolina.

And here’s some videos of people displaced by Katrina produced by colorofchange.org: changing the color of democracy

http://voicesfromthegulf.com/about.html

Finally, here is a seminal music video created right after Katrina in a collaboration between the Legendary K.O. and a video editor by the name of The Black Lantern.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zby0NdFGSPY]

This summer, gina kamentsky and sam smiley checked out the transportation system in Taxco, Morelos, Mexico. Everything is on an incline..the buses and taxi’s are VW buses and Beetles. Buses are cheaper (5 pesos) and more fun, but the taxis are great to watch. here’s a video by sam smiley

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwmRyyulDVQ]

AstroDime Transit Authority is going to set up a temporary communication network on Bumpkin Island in the Boston Harbor Island, this Labor Day weekend. Using tin cans, string, and ingenuity, we will attempt to connect the other artists and visitors to this island via a highly sophisticated telecommunications network. We will provide phone cards, and take surveys as to the effectiveness of this service. At the end of the weekend, we will take our network down. Come visit us on Saturday and Sunday September 1 and 2!

Here’s some information on how to get there:

http://www.bostonislands.org/isle_bumpkin.html

today astrodimers took our old decrepit gear (well actually some of it is pretty good gear) to the MIT Flea Market, to do a fundraiser for FAST WOMEN. Success! we made a fistful of money, enough to press 100 copies of FAST WOMEN and artist fees. Certainly we will be at the next one on Sept 16, so come visit us! we are also looking for reasonably working electronic gear, to donate to us so we can sell it for future issues.
Here’s a picture of the Flea from their web site, next time it will have Mary Ann and me in it. Look for us on Sunday September 16! -sam smiley

Video, documentary and animation entries about code, coding and coders accepted for INtransit V.3, produced by the AstroDime Transit Authority. Code is about patterns, sequences, systems, translations, substitutions. It can bind, trick, and free. How is media coded, historically, culturally, aesthetically? How is metacommentary about race, culture, class, gender expressed within the frames and between them? What is the liminal space of the edit? Where is your secret decoder ring?

The AstroDime Transit Authority is a collective of media artists curators who will be hosting a roundtable at the Society of Literature and Science’s conference in November 2007. Moving image submissions will be compiled into a DVD that will be played throughout the conference. In addition, this compilation will be screened at the 119 Gallery in Lowell, Massachusetts in the winter of 2008, and produced into INtransit V. 3, a video journal. For more info contact sam smiley at rocketscience@virtualberet.net

Please submit your videos to
AstroDime Transit Authority: CODE
119 Chelmsford Street
Lowell, Massachusetts 01851

Submissions for SLSA screening by October 13, 2007
Submissions for 119 Gallery presentation and complete DVD by January 20, 2008.
SLSA submissions will be included on the final DVD.
INtransit V. 3 will be published in the spring of 2008.

More information about the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts:

http://www.slsa07.org/

AstroDime Transit Authority

http://www.virtualberet.net/ata

119 Gallery

http://www.119gallery.org/

To purchase INtransit V. 1

http://119gallery.org/merch/