Whether you heard the buzz, stumbled in to get out of the weather, or you just like the sound of the name, we're glad you are here.
Artocratic is an online hub for inquiry led by art and art informed by cultural, philosophical and spiritual inquiry.
To get the detailed overview of our purpose and intentions please click on our Manifesto and Submission Guidelines pages.
We'd like to point out the following:
- Artocratic is free
- at this point Artocratic is available on the Internet only
- you can expect to see new content appear here on a quarterly basis, or when the inbox is full, or when the mood strikes us
- we are now seeking submissions for our next installment (April 2010)
Here's what's new as of December 2009:
We're pleased to present two new Artocratic INTERVIEWS – Maria-Jose Soerens discusses the crisis of national identity in her home country of Chile, resulting from the trauma of the Pinochet dictatorship, and how art might play a role in healing it. Ron Hale-Evans gives us a guided tour of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, the novel widely considered to be one of the greatest works of the twentieth century, but actually read by very few.
To inaugurate our new videos section, we have an animated short film from Michael Nagasaka that narratively portrays a perspective on the slippery philosophical concept of "Qualia."
Also in that section, we've posted a video of highlights from our premiere party that was held at Richard Hugo House October 10th, 2009, in Seattle. Several of our contributors gave live readings and performances of their work, adjacent to a mini-gallery of paintings from our local artists.
Another video montage from that evening shows sonic snippets of the insta-compositions created during the outrageous music happening led by Dewanatron (subject of an earlier Artocratic interview). In addition to Brian and Leon Dewan on their Dual Primate Console, the jam featured people playing saws, typewriters and wine bottles as well as a complement of expected instruments... including appearances by a trio of guitar wizards named Mark (Blackwell, Mohrlang and Shephard – we didn't plan that, it just... happened! We also didn't plan the super groovy effect of our slideshow of ARTOCRATIC artists' works projected on people's shirts!).
In our ESSAYS section, philosopher and artist Robert Pepperell contributes "Mind-World-Art: 6 Paintings and 60 Notes" a far-reaching treatise on consciousness and aesthetics, illustrated by his paintings.
New material in the FICTION AND POETRY section includes two poems by David Sklar: "The Decline of the Beat Poets" and "My Last Seattle Poem"; flash fiction by Matt Lawrence: "The Playground"; and "Bodies Fly" a short story by Linda Ceriello.
New "That's AWEsome!" – one woman's tale of being shunned from an airplane because of her jungle funk.
As usual, you will find the pages lovingly decorated with vivid visual ART. This month our splash page art is by Liz Meyer, whose work is built from patterns she creates skating on ice. We are also proud to present work by Melissa Harshman, Rye Twombly, Nico Vassilakis, and returning artist John Howard.
Please feel free to use the comments section at the bottom of every piece, and/or send us an email. Artocratic is free – all we really want is attention and love. And your submissions, for our next installment.
To share general comments about Artocratic, please go to our Contact Page.