“They make it disappear, they don’t use it anymore. Somehow, they haven’t gotten around to throwing it out,” says deGroot.

The same people are invited to join workshops in which participants will collaborate and discover new uses for those everyday items.

“We [will] engage in unrehearsed games that lead us to seeing them in a different way, like sorting them, dismantling them, and looking at their parts, seeing them in association with others, [and] inventing new stories about these objects,” says deGroot.

“Eventually, I will leave Lethbridge with these objects; the community’s burden will become mine. Maybe I’ll do that in other cities, too; this really has started here, [an] idea born in Lethbridge.”

deGroot has been in countries throughout Europe, and across Canada doing similar projects, all of which require community participation, and that’s by design, it’s how she works as an artist.

“I’ve travelled a lot, because all of these projects bring me to lots of different places. I did a project in a textile factory in Italy. I exhibited in Italy, England, [and France], I speak all three languages,” explains deGroot.

deGroot has been a professional artist for more than 10 years. She finished her Bachelor of Arts and her Masters at the University of Quebec in 1997 in Montreal, where she’s from.

Since then, she’s gone where people and places have inspired her to create her exhibits.  She never knows exactly how each project will end, but in her research, she always knows how it will start.

“I never know how they’re going to end. It’s step by step, like how people are going to respond to what I’m asking them [during a project],” deGroot explains.

When asked what brings her to each community, deGroot says it’s all about networking and connecting with people and with places. It’s not a particular inspiration.

“It’s not the fact that they invite me and I come. It’s a matter of how do I live while I’m here,” says deGroot.
Each project costs money, and so does each plane ticket, not to mention the cost of living in each city.

To solve this, deGroot finds a job within the community to pay for the cost of each project, and in the case of her current Lethbridge project, she was able to obtain a grant to cover her costs of living.

“We’re arranged with the University, [which] is kind of a partner in this project. While I’d be here at the gallery, [I will] also be teaching a course. So, I’m more linked to the community, more grounded,” says deGroot.

“As you might know, the gallery here in closing and they’re renovating. They’re opening, in March, a temporary space. They have this year coming up on exhibitions and projects that deal with this idea of renovation, renewal, and transformation,” says deGroot about why she was invited to show her exhibit at the gallery.

deGroot’s exhibit, The Burden of Objects, will open in the Southern Alberta Art Gallery’s temporary downtown Lethbridge location in early March. The temporary gallery is located at 324-5th Street south (the 3rd Street location is under renovation).

Interested participants can bring their objects in a bag or box, where they will be given a questionnaire to fill out about each object, along with a short description about the item.

People can participate with their objects on March 18 and April 1st from 5pm to 7pm. Everyone in the community can join in. There are no fees to participate.

Originally posted 2009-02-28 20:14:45. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

It seems local stations providing online audio streams isn’t hurting local listenership at all, in fact, it’s helped boost it to unprecedented levels.

“Ratings are showing listeners are near historic levels,” said Rod Schween, general manager at Country 95 and B93 in Lethbridge. “[internet-based radio] can’t provide what we provide locally…news, sports, weather.”

Radio stations have been streaming their music online for years, but not without controversy. Royalties and copyright are a big hurdle many local stations are struggling with, but new laws are making it easier.

“Initially, streaming [brought] lots of questions about copyright in Canada, so we stopped for three to four years. [There were] concerns about advertising and revenue. We started streaming again last summer,” said Schween.

Potential new laws might force local radio stations to pay to stream music in addition to paying revenues from traditional radio, something the radio industry in Canada is concerned about, as the royalties might be backdated, potentially costing a lot of money.

With more people using the internet at work and at home, streaming online has become a necessity. Though local stations don’t seem too worried about competing with internet-based streaming music sites.

Schween explains that his stations (Country 95 and B93) aren’t trying to compete with internet radio, but simply provide another way for listeners to tune into the stations, and that the website’s internet stream has been very well received, and they have also gained listeners from around the world.

“An internet stream is a must. It’s giving the audience the option to listen to what they want in the workplace (and at home),” says Bruce Andrei, program director at The Lounge radio station in Lethbridge. “We want to pull in younger audiences, but we’re still going after [adults].”

A big challenge for local radio stations across North America (and potentially the world) has been providing listeners with the ability to easily start their web browser, go to a radio station’s website, and easily tune in. In recent years, as technologies mature for streaming audio, providing users with a common player that just works is becoming invaluable.
“[We] need to have an easy-to-use player (which local stations do). Make sure you’re using Internet Explorer and have the Flash plug-in installed on your computer,” says Rod Schween, general manager at County 95 and B93.

Most households and workplaces use Microsoft Windows, which has Internet Explorer built in. It’s very easy to download the Adobe Flash player, though some workplaces won’t allow Flash to run due for security reasons (some websites use it for malicious purposes; some games use it, too).

For those in the rural areas, or in workplaces that have poor radio reception, internet radio is a wonderful thing. For those outside of the signal range, or for those living in other parts of the world, providing the streaming audio allows stations to expand their audience worldwide.

“People all around the world are listening to our hockey games. [People living in] Mexico, we even have listeners in the United States,” Andrei says. “People care about what’s happening locally, the combination of music and [local] topical information.”

Originally posted 2009-02-28 20:06:53. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

You may have seen it being talked about or used on CBC or CNN, or as a blue icon or bird logo on many popular websites or blogs. If you’re not tech-savvy, you likely just ignored it, thinking of it as just another tool on the internet, which it is, but it’s one of the more useful tools, and it’s seriously worth taking a look at.

The internet is no longer just about going to a website and reading articles. Users are leaving comments, and in a lot of cases, the comments on articles are more interesting and thought-provoking then the news stories themselves.

People are using tools such as Delicious.com, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Twitter, among others, to share their findings with friends and family, and the people they know online. It’s faster and far easier than simply e-mailing something of interest, and much less annoying, as we all hate sifting through email.

Most of us use Facebook on a regular basis, and we update our “status” as we check the latest news of what’s going on in the life of friends and family. Twitter uses a similar function, but eliminates the extra stuff, like applications, and focuses solely on those small status messages.

Facebook’s  status messages are among a mix of other news feed items, not a part of an ongoing conversation between “friends”. Facebook does not have a simple way to view status messages over time. Twitter, on the other hand, is an ongoing, easy to follow conversation between “friends”.

Twitter uses the same concept that text messages use, using a max of 140 characters to say what you want, and is completely free, unlike text messages. You can use your phone, too, but you must have a “smart phone”, like an iPhone or Blackberry (in Canada, anyway, they allow text messages in the U.S.).

One of the most loved components of Twitter is that it’s instant. Last month, when a plane crashed into the Hudson River in New  York City (no one died), people living in the area started “tweeting” about it a full half-hour before news organizations started talking about it.

The reason I enjoying using Twitter is because it’s like a hive mind, with knowledge, websites links, current events, and more being shared on a real-time basis within the online community. Such items may not be newsworthy, but it‘s of interest to me. Obviously, you’re not going share personal details about yourself, though you can talk to other users directly through private messages, if you wish to.
Unlike Facebook, Twitter can communicate with desktop programs designed to work with the service, such as Tweetdeck, or my personal favourite, Twhirl. So, as I’m working or playing on my computer, I can see what my friends (people I “follow”) are saying in real-time.

It’s also a great marketing tool.  Companies can monitor Twitter conversations through the search function, and respond to what is being said about their company or a product. Ever hear the saying, if people have a bad experience, they’ll tell 10 of their friends? If they have 1000 friends on Twitter, that could be a public relations nightmare.

It’s also an awesome tool to get mass-opinions and perspective on issues in real-time, whether it is thoughts on a new law, or a new trend.

Hash tags (i.e.: #lethbridgehurricanes) are often used to make searching for terms and topics easier. To send another user a message, type “@username” (without the quotes). For example, @kevinlcc (my username).

Barack Obama used Twitter (and Facebook) to communicate with those using the services and to reach the younger crowd who use the internet in their daily lives.
There’s no point in joining Twitter if you’re only going to post things like “I had soup for lunch”. That’s what Facebook’s status updates are for. Twitter is about creating conversation. Instead, say “I’m about to have lunch at Moxies. What the best thing on the menu?”

Its best not to start “following” everyone you can find. Use http://search.twitter.com to find a topic of interest, and ”follow” people who are talking about things you care about, and follow who they follow, and so forth. If you end up following thousands of people, and don’t have many people following you, your account can be deleted for abusing the service, so engage in conversations to avoid this.

Even though Twitter’s page asks “What are you doing?” think of it as asking, “What has your interest?”

Originally posted 2009-02-28 20:00:48. Republished by Blog Post Promoter