"Bitstreams" Debuts at Whitney Museum
--New York, March 22, 1969 (AP)
In the future, technology will offer new marvels in our day-to-day lives. Liquid lead-filled pencils, hovercars, and wafer-thin TV screens are but a few of the items we will see in coming years. Now, in an exhibit at the Whitney Museum of Art, we can glimpse how science will change the art of the future, today. In "Bitstreams," curated by Lawrence Rinder, artists using computers, electronic cameras, oscillators, and other gadgets offer up a humming, flickering smorgasbord of newfangled art.
"It's fun," says Tommy Rettig, a junior high school student from P.S. 122, working the controls on John Klima's "ecosystm." "I can make the pterodactyls [extinct birdlike dinosaurs] fly up and down and all around." But Klima's work isn't all just fun and games: as the artist explains, it's "an animated representation of real-time global stock market fluctuations, currency volatility, and local weather conditions." Fortunately for Tommy, who justs wants to experience some new art, that brain-bending data can be switched off at the touch of a button!
In an adjacent room, Jim Campbell's pieces not only have great beauty, but they teach you something about optics and physics. In his programmed patterns of lights, figures can be discerned. "The subject can best be seen from straight on," according to the Museum's brochure: "Our eyes fill in 'missing' information between the lights." Other works also teach us about science. In Diana Thater's "Six Color Video Wall," NASA films of the sun, with solar storms and flares boiling like lava, are arbitrarily assigned six different colors.
The exhibit has been drawing record crowds, and director Maxwell Anderson predicts we'll see a lot more technological art. "The show's been very popular. People are genuinely curious to experience the ways science and technology are changing art. We have upcoming exhibits devoted to holography and kinetic art, and even a show of works based entirely on mathematics." Rinder agrees: "This is my first show here, but it's just the beginning of the Whitney's commitment to these exciting new developments in art." Move over, Rembrandt!
"Bitstreams" runs through June 10, 1969. Museum hours are Tuesdays through Sundays, 11:00 - 6:00 pm, with extended hours (til 9:00 pm) on Fridays. Call 1-877-WHITNEY for further information. Photo: "Against Shadows" by Juan Downey and Fred Pitts, 1968.
Providence, RI.
"Dear Visitor, I’m happy to report that the people have selected the oak as their choice for America’s National Tree in the nationwide vote hosted by The National Arbor Day Foundation on this Web site."
Lucinda Williams, preview sound clips from new album : Essence / due out 6/5
"Where Evil Dwells' was about suburban life, kind of crashing in on itself. Ricky Casso was a high school kid. He grew up in the suburbs and he went to some extremes to get some attention. He talked a bunch of his friends into doing these rituals. They killed cats and dogs and shit like that. They tried to get into the satanic world because other kids would be scared of them, fear them, respect them. Ricky eventually killed Gary, who was a friend of his, supposedly because he stole angel dust. So then, Ricky said if he ever got caught,he would chase Gary's soul to hell and track him down. Which is what we did in 'Where Evil Dwells', after the other kid gets killed, he finds Gary and the devil and that's where the movie ends. He's happy; 'cause he like, got what he actually wanted."
- Tommy Turner
and the rest
Prune, an awesome and funky, yet slightly buttery meal
71 Clinton Fresh Foods for a hang and a glass or two
Florent for a crab cake sandwich at 2am
Factory speedfreak Brigid Berlin gets her own documentary, now playing at the Film Forum. It must be included in the films press release because both the NYT and VV pointed out how early on she developed and created art aplications for tape recorder and Polaroid camera (concepts Warhol would pick up and run away with).
but what matters is the taste or is it how sexy the room and the people are next to me-----if i wasnt in the food biz i would go out to eat to eat food i cant cook or dont have the time too or to get something in my belly-----i go out to eat to see whats up, visit clients, entertain, learn...-----for some reason El Cid came to mind today @ 322 W 15th
the wine company i am a partner in is about soul, we try to find the "spirit of wine", this means how does the sun & soil influence the vino, the winemaker is the alchemist or the chemist-----a pure wine is an expression of the vintage on the soil blessed by the energy of a human-----there has been in the last few years many changes in the wine making many of these changes have been called "spoofalations"-----reality may be "spoofed" so maybe wine is ok to be also, but not to me-----food can also be "poshed up" but the soul is still the guiding force
at El Cid i tasted some baby squid in garlic sauce that was pure, a wonderful authentic sauce, the wine list is old school but gen-u-wine, clams in a spicy sauce that needed to be licked dry, no posh, no spoof-----i have seen the twisted modern fermenting technique's, doing the malo in barrel, toasty new oak, very posh, very spoof-----i am blessed to have true un poshed friends whom are searching for soul amongst the spoof--YOU ARE THE BEST
photographed snowflakes in the field on pieces of velvet
Loads of rare color stills and some even rarer production shots make this one of the most beautiful publications I have ever seen on the subject.
As the title implies, Cinefex is dedicated to the subject of special effects. These days of course it mostly focuses on digital effects. It's nice to see 42 pages of text and photo's devoted to the purely analogue mechanics of one of the greatest technical achievments in human history.
$9.50, find it at Barnes and Noble or any comic book shop.
