Can art change the world? Should it try to change the world? Where is the avant guarde today? Who are the voices, the cutting edge "cultural workers" who, from the confusing clash between our daily life and the daily spectacle of the world stage, can make sense of a seemingly senseless world?

"Art is the inside of the world", once said a theatre artist. This site proposes a weekly video magazine of politics and culture. It will present the world through the eyes of this artist, allowing the video camera to fuse the distinction between TV journalism and art, creating a new art form, perhaps an overtly political art form, yet deeply personal and idiosyncratic.

THE SITE

This site will examine and comment on various topics and persons the players and events the "this" of this week: governments, nations and institutions; individuals from various parts of the world actively involved in social issues (social workers, doctors, police, grassroots organisers, priests, etc.); the so called "victims", (woman forced into prostitution, refugees, street children, the hungry, the prisoner, the accused….etc.); the "evil" doers in the world ( the white slave entrepreneur, the dope pushers, the pornography maker, the illegal arms dealer, the dictator, the cult leader, the bomb throwing "anarchist" or terrorist); and last but not least, the artists (from all mediums and all levels, from underground and emerging, to the already famous.)

Using these topics and events, these videos are thus an intersection of forms with the artist, a woven tapestry of interaction. Brackett proposes that it is just this type of journalistic-artistic-news producing-deciphering process that every individual in the world must do in order to get through his or her daily life.

"But then, doesn't all the world happen just outside our window…" states Brackett in his first This Week's This video. And today where the TV or computer screen is the window on the world par excellence, Brackett thinks the moment is right to present a type of program of the individual that can find a ready and responsive public.


THE FORM

Video art meets TV journalism. The basic form of the videos are the first person narrative. Yet we see an intersection of three elements: the individual testimony, the digital news media and the editing room.

It all springs forth from the singular vision of the artist. Reflections, feelings, hopes, desires, frustration, perceptions and interpretations. In a way it is a diary, but a social and political diary of our times: personal and individual yet focusing on a process of understanding the events of the day. Each week may, or may not, be those events and news-making stories that are found in the mass media. From the field (the world) will be extracted interviews, live video reporting, no comment documentation, and excerpts from the mass digital and print venues. Brackett could for example be present on location (as witness, participant or instigator of events), or, like most of us, only a watcher from his window (screen).

Then, in the editing room, we want to push forward the art form of video: borrowing, stealing and adapting from styles as various as MTV, video art, modern film making and TV journalism. We want to exploit the basic artistic dilemma:it's all about me/it's all about us, ("us" " not in any nationalistic sense- "us", as in all of humanity.) And using cutting edge technology we hope to create an exciting, informative and challenging site.