I have the horrors about actors, which stems from having my peaceful art making studio at Michaelis below the rowdy noise making studio of the drama students. Having to spend entire afternoons listening to humans pretending they are gibbous monkeys (this really happened) is enough to put anyone off for life and then some. Its a pity really, because I'm sure not all of them were idiots. The reason I mention this is because I was on the PANSA(Performance Art Network South Africa) site, and I was blown away by the light years they are ahead of our VANSA. Seriously light years. I was especially struck by this great iniative called BrainBank. Ok, clearly they need someone who understands web design to jack the thing up, but the concept is great. Essentially, it's a non-monetary talent barter system, called a Community Exchange System. You can offer up skills you have, for example directorial advice, and charge for it in the sites internal currency. Someone buys your time/skill with currency they have earned selling their talent (although when you sign up you are allocated a certain amount free). Then you can take what you have earned and exchange it for a different service from a different member, but it doesn't have to be limited to drama stuff, it could be any skill someone has... babysitting, massage, whatever. How nice. Community building, networking, skill building all rolled into one. Now why can't we provide a similar visual art concept? Why aren't we coming up with innovative concepts? Maybe now that VANSA is hiring a project manager, we could hope for some more things interesting to happen.

Labels: Pansa, Vansa