mediaspace_09
Festival for Expanded Media 22. - 25. January 2009

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Today is the day !!!!

see for mediaspace_09 details >>>>> Mediaspace WIKI

see general Filmwinter Program >>>>> 22. Stuttgarter Filmwinter

see mediaspace_09 Program >>>>> mediaspace_09

Global Downturn ‘Is an Earthquake, not a Tremor’

The recently mentioned Spiegel series brings now an interview with former World Bank President James Wolfensohn, who talks about the global financial crisis and his hope that Barack Obama will be the right president to lead the US out of recession.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Wolfensohn, you are known to be an advocate of socially responsible capitalism. How do you view the Wall Street community these days?

Wolfensohn: Well, I think the Wall Street community is preoccupied by survival. We’re having a downturn of unprecedented proportions, and so it’s not surprising that issues of global social responsibility are pushed to the back. That doesn’t mean that it is correct and it doesn’t mean that we are still not better off in this country than in many other countries.
(continue reading)

Call: Securitisation, Risk and Governance: Understanding Uncertainty in the Age of Finance

First Workshop

Securitisation, Risk and Governance: Understanding Uncertainty in the Age of Finance

City University London, 6-7 May 2009

Confirmed participants: Anastasia Nesvetailova (City), Michael Dillon (Lancaster), Peter Burgess (PRIO), Urs Stäheli (Basel), Marieke de Goede (Amsterdam), Oliver Kessler (Bielefeld), Luis Lobo-Guerrero (Keele), Leonard Seabrooke (Copenhagen), Johnna Montgomerie (Manchester), Samuel Knafo (Sussex) TBC: Michael Pettis (Peking), Paul Langley (Northumbria), Rob Aitken (Alberta), Karel Williams (Manchester)

The global financial crisis of 2007-2008 - the first crisis of the securitisation era - has shown a new face of contemporary finance. While financial securitisation has been heralded by orthodox economists as a celebrated model of risk optimisation, the spectacular turn from risk absorber to risk amplifier in the global crisis raises significant questions about financial innovation, practices of risk-trading and existing modes of regulation and governance.

The mere scope and impact of the global financial crisis exemplifies the need for a new interdisciplinary understanding of securitisation. This workshop aims to stimulate a fruitful dialogue to explore the relationship of finance and security. It is the first of three, to be held at City University London, the University of Amsterdam and the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) during 2009-2010. Contributions are welcome from the fields of (Critical) Security Studies/ International Relations, International Political Economy, International Law, Financial Economics, Accounting, Human Geography, Social Studies of Finance/ Economic Sociology and Literature.

Some of the questions the workshop seeks to address include: How do existing theories of securitisation conceptualise risk and uncertainty? What is ‘security’ in the context of the financial system? How do financial and other conceptualisations of security interact? What is the role of securitisation as provider of (in)security? What effect does securitisation have on financial risk-taking?

We invite submissions that address the above questions, and the following sub-themes:

- Financial security, risk and uncertainty
- The role of credit derivatives and leverage
- Systemic security and liquidity
- Financial calculation and security
- Performative/ governmental analyses of financial security
- Trust, reflexivity and governance

Abstracts of 200-300 words should be sent to Nina Boy (nina@prio.no) by 22 February 2009. We will select contributions by 8 March 2009. Paper drafts should be submitted by 12 April 2009. Work in progress is welcome.

The maelstrom

German magazine ‘Der Spiegel’ started an ongoing series on the global downturn which summarizes some of the facts especially in figures. As well it does not any longer put too much surprise on the global interconnectedness of affairs - so it might be worth to be follow up:

THE INTERNATIONAL DOWNTURN
In the Globalized Crisis, Everyone Shares the Pain

The upheaval in the financial markets has sent shock waves around the globe. Economies in North America, Europe and Asia are closely connected — for better or for worse. But now the threat of a new protectionism is taking shape.

Editor’s Note: This feature is part of a SPIEGEL series that will continue all week on how the economic downturn is affecting people and companies around the world. No other downturn in history has pulled as many of the world’s economies. The current crisis is hitting migrant laborers in China, automobile workers in Detroit, Russians oligarchs and even strong traditional German firms like the chemical giant BASF.

Not A Black Swan

Quoting from Nassim Taleb’s ‘The Black Swan‘:

Globalization creates interlocking fragility, while reducing volatility and giving the appearance of stability. In other words it creates devastating Black Swans. We have never lived before under the threat of a global collapse. Financial Institutions have been merging into a smaller number of very large banks. Almost all banks are interrelated. So the financial ecology is swelling into gigantic, incestuous, bureaucratic banks – when one fails, they all fall. The increased concentration among banks seems to have the effect of making financial crises less likely, but when they happen they are more global in scale and hit us very hard. We have moved from a diversified ecology of small banks, with varied lending policies, to a more homogeneous framework of firms that all resemble one another. True, we now have fewer failures, but when they occur ….I shiver at the thought.

The author is commenting on his own website: “Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (April 2007)

For the last 12 years, I have been telling anyone who would listen to me that we are taking huge risks and massive exposure to rare events. I isolated some areas in which people make bogus claims –epistemologically unsound. The Black Swan is a philosophy book (epistemology, philosophy of history & philosophy of science), but I used banks as a particularly worrisome case of epistemic arrogance –and the use of “science” to measure the risk of rare events, making society dependent on very spurious measurements. To me a banking crisis –worse than what we have ever seen — was unavoidable and NOT A BLACK SWAN, just as a drunk and incompetent pilot would eventually crash the plane.”

in Debt We Trust

So finally some full length film link to watch according to these day’s main theme:
In Debt We Trust discusses the massive debt burden that millions of Americans are struggling with and a presents a forecast of the fiscal crisis that faces our country when the ballooning national debt comes due. Inspired by Robert Manning’s book Credit Card Nation, the film showcases Manning’s insights about the impact of debt on young people and our society. […] In Debt We Trust explains how the mall replaced the factory as America’s dominant economic engine and how big banks and credit card companies are lobbying congress and driving individuals into ever greater debt (excerpt via American Sociological Association) ….

IN DEBT WE TRUST is the latest film from Danny Schechter, “The News Dissector,” director of the internationally distributed and award-winning WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception), an expose of the media’s role in the Iraq War. The Emmy-winning former ABC News and CNN producer’s new hard-hitting documentary investigates why so many Americans are being strangled by debt. It is a journalistic confrontation with what former Reagan advisor Kevin Phillips calls “Financialization”–the “powerful emergence of a debt-and-credit industrial complex.” >>> read on

film website / watch the entire film on video.google here.

Democracy now takes a look onto the subject and film here .. and a german review here.

The Ascent of Money:
A Financial History of the World

“The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World,” is the recent book by Niall Ferguson, which as the NYTimes writes in its review anticipates many aspects of the current financial crisis, which has toppled banks, precipitated gigantic government bailouts and upended global markets.

The book just recently has also been turned into a series for UK’s channel 4 and despite what one might criticize, the episode I have seen so far, has given me real interesting insights. Channel 4 still airs the episodes at the moment and also provides a whole page on the subject … but if you want to enjoy the information itself and dont’t want to read the book … also the elder episodes are findable online ..

.. and here is an extensive interview from youtube with the author:

Selection Media-Space Art-Space

For our exhibition during the 22nd Stuttgart Filmwinter we finished our selection and invited several artists. Have a look at the selection page.

The Dark Bailout

What was: Capital (It Fails Us Now)

Gang Of Four / Capital (It Fails Us Now)

The moment I was born I opened my eyes
I reached out for my credit card
I know I never did my own suit
Capital it fails us now come and let us seize the time x2
On the first day of my life I opened my eyes
Guess where with superstars surrounded by luxury-eagers
I need a prison I need a hot fire
No credit no goods
Come on back I say
They say we’re bankrupt
Capital it fails us now come and let us seize the time x2
Capital it fails us now…
Oh no! I left it in my other suit!
One day all will be living on credit
Bankrupt
I’m still in credit—just
One day all men are living on credit…

.. and a 2005 / 2006 show in Tallinn and Oslo, which used that same title:
Capital (It Fails Us Now)

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