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Installation shots from my show with Saskia Jorda (who did the sculpture installation on the right in the top photo) at And/Or Gallery in Dallas. More here. Big ups to Paul Slocum and Lauren Gray for the installation, which included Paul's DVD bootlegs of my animated GIFs, shown very effectively on the TVs, I was told by eyewitnesses.
Supreme Court Update
You can follow the efforts to derail the "inevitable" appointment of Samuel Alito, the religious right's man, on this Kos thread. [Update: more recent developments here, but the first link has phone numbers, etc.] Please take a minute to look at the list and see where your Senators stand on this and who might be wavering and in need of a supportive call (the key words are "vote no on cloture"). Clinton and Schumer will vote "no"--meaning they want the nomination to stay open to debate. Menendez is wavering. His staff got an earful from me this morning. 202-224-4744. Keep hitting redial and you'll get through.
Update: A Kos commenter counts 67 for cloture and 22 against. Estimates on the ultimate vote (Alito's appointment as opposed to closing the debate) are 59 for Alito to 41 against, and since a simple majority carries it, that means we get an angry God Squadder on the Supreme Court. I think it's worth expressing your opinion right up until last minute, but that's just me, obviously.
Final tally on the cloture vote.
Just saw the Senate confirmed that pig. Knew it was coming but my stomach flipped over, slightly, at the news. Does anyone reading this blog give a shit? I know a lot of my progressive friends went all soft and cynical after the 2004 election.
Some Georgetown Law students turning their backs on Alberto "Torture and Surveillance" Gonzales, US Attorney General, at his recent appearance at their school:
If you're in the North Texas vicinity, please go check out my show with Saskia Jorda at And/Or Gallery, opening tonight. Below is the preview from the Dallas Observer:
Oompa Loompas--but which version?Local visionaries inaugurate their own gallery
By Sam Machkovech
If you have ever found yourself bored with Dallas arts, then you've obviously never seen the work of local musicians and artists Paul Slocum and Lauren Gray. Whether turning ancient computers and videogame systems into musical instruments while performing as the band Tree Wave or helming the print(f) digital arts series, this hometown duo has little trouble turning its fascination with technology and the archaic into compelling, artistic statements about society. Truly, this fascination is far-reaching—so much so that Slocum and Gray have opened their own art space, the And/Or Gallery, 4221 Bryan St., Suite B. Thankfully, the duo knows better than to glorify its own material in the space, instead choosing to spotlight two out-of-town artists for the gallery's debut exhibit. New York's Tom Moody, a former local who was once involved with the MAC, will present bizarre print media creations that look like the DNA of Oompa Loompas, and former Southside on Lamar resident artist Saskia Jorda will have minimalist found-item sculptures on display. In addition, video jockey Jeremy Johnson will be on hand to pump out pixelated software art on the And/Or walls. The gallery opens at 6 p.m. Entry is free. Call 214-824-2442. Saturdays. Continues through Feb. 28
And/Or Gallery, 4221 Bryan St, Suite B , Dallas
Are you going to let those creepy religious right-wingers dictate the direction of this country? Samuel Alito is their boy, and they want him on the Supreme Court. We have netroots now, we can stop this thing, by pressuring weak Senators to change their votes. I copied this from Steve Gilliard's page. I hate those e-petitions but I signed Kerry's supporting an Alito filibuster. I called my senators last week and will call them again on Monday. Let's keep up the pressure, make a Republican cry next week.
WE CAN STOP ALITO THIS WEEKEND
http://www.democrats.com/we
-can-stop-alito The last two days have been amazing.
Early Thursday afternoon, we broke the news that Senator John Kerry would lead a filibuster against Judge Sam Alito if he could get 41 Senators to sustain the filibuster. Three hours later, CNN confirmed our story.
Naturally, the White House freaked out and told Senator Bill Frist to schedule a cloture vote as quickly as possible - Monday at 4:30 p.m. - to prevent Democrats from uniting behind Kerry.
Then the White House called its media whores at the NY Times (David Kirkpatrick), AP (Jesse Holland), Pentagon Post (Charles Babington), CNN (Miles O'Brien), and MSNBC (Chris Matthews) and told them to trash John Kerry for daring to challenge the will of Emperor Bush, and to repeat over and over that Democrats did not have enough votes to stop Alito.
But even as Karl Rove was doing his dirty work, progressive activists like you were calling your Senators urging them to support John Kerry's filibuster.
And one by one, Democratic Senators began to turn around.
At the start of the day, only Dick Durbin and Debbie Stabenow supported Kerry and Kennedy. Just before noon, Hillary Clinton's office called to say she supported us. Then Harry Reid came on board, along with Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Ron Wyden, Chris Dodd, and (I think) Chuck Schumer.
Most importantly, we even picked up Dianne Feinstein, who just yesterday said she opposed a filibuster.
That's 12 votes for a filibuster - and exactly 12 more votes than we had two days ago!
I believe we really can stop Alito by Monday at 4:30 p.m. - but here's what we must do.
1. Ignore the media whores. Karl Rove is feeding them lies as he always does, and they are swallowing those lies as they always do. The only media that matters is the media we are creating right here by calling each Senator and getting a YES or NO statement from them.
2. Wake up the sleeping bloggers. Where are the biggest blogs, including DailyKos.com, TalkingPointsMemo.com, CrooksandLiars.com, and AmericaBlog.com? (Complaining about how Democrats played last week won't cut it -we're in the Super Bowl and we can win this damn game if we get Democrats to play their best game on Monday - and hopefully the rest of this coming week.) Thanks to Agonist, BobGeiger, The Democratic Daily, DemocraticUnderground, Eschaton, Firedoglake, MakeThemAccountable, Mark Crispin Miller, PoliticalWire, Vichy Democrats and everyone else who's plugging this.
3. Keep calling the Senators who are undecided or opposed to a filibuster. You can call their DC office all weekend and leave polite but firm voicemails urging the Senators to support Kerry's filibuster. When offices open on Monday 9 a.m. ET, make another round of calls. Let's shut down the Capitol switchboard on Monday!
4. Call the DNC (202-863-8000) and the DSCC (202-224-2447) and tell them your 2006 contributions will depend on the success of the Alito filibuster. Tell them they need to get every Democratic Senator on board.
5. Call talk shows like Air America, C-SPAN, etc. and talk about what we're doing on this blog and how we're killing ourselves to stop Alito - and how we can win if everyone who cares about the future of our Democracy joins us.
6. Keep hope alive - because American Democracy is worth it!!!
Saturday, Jan. 28 is the last day of "Breaking and Entering: Art and the Videogame" at PaceWildenstein. Planning to go later today; have held off for two reasons: (1) really more interested in videogames for the music and the visual shortcuts than thinking about them as an art movement; and (2) For blue chip PaceWildenstein, final resting place for nearly-dead canonical artists, to jump on this particular bandwagon is a bit like watching your pot-bellied, combed-over high school chemistry teacher "krumping."
But I want to see the Cory Arcangel installation above: that image looks drop dead gorgeous to me, and I can't believe the artnet reviewer's mildly sniping take on this.
The normally dynamic Cory Arcangel offers a large, static projection of a video game fighter jet and clouds to complement a primitive "found video game" displayed on a small portable laptop. Titled Bomb Iraq, the game depicts a crudely drawn bomb that the user can bring nearer to an outline of Iraq by pressing the arrow keys. Its inclusion is fine as a document of America’s meat-headed relation to the Middle East, but does nothing interesting with it -- except to prove that video games can be used as found objects just like everything else."A static projection of a video and clouds"? Hello, mural painting? James Rosenquist's F-111, maybe? And would it be worth mentioning that the laptop game, originally found on a Mac in a garage sale (see GIF below for a taste), dates to the first Gulf War? That's fifteen years of meat-headedness! Arcangel's pretty post-found object, I'd say. Is this bit of brain-damaged DIY propaganda really in the same category as the arch, Francophone disquisition of say, a Duchamp snow shovel? Perhaps, considered with the wall mural, it's actually a straight-up political statement, reportage from the frontiers of TV-addled suburbia. Maybe when I see the work I won't wonder about any of this. If I'm wrong I'll fess up.
The artnet article by Ben Davis, about current tech art, is otherwise good: it covers Dorkbot and the Superlowrez show at vertexList, in addition to "Breaking and Entering." I like what he said about the inclusive, curious spirit of Dorkbot as opposed to the regular art world's closed-mouth competitiveness (my phrasing). More about that in a later post.
Update: Just saw the show and the Arcangel piece is definitely not "static": the clouds scroll and the jet engines shoot bitchin' flames (that move). One good thing about nearly-dead canonical artists is they generate lots of cash to throw at artist projects. Paper Rad's hyperkinetic video was especially effective in a museum-scale installation. And Jon Haddock's real-world tragedy Sims illustrations looked much better in a huge wall-sized grid than the scattering that were in the Whitney's "BitStreams" show. I was feeling kind of bad about the comb-over reference till I got to the gallery and was met at the door by a big security guard, who lurked not so discreetly while I was looking at the show. Stuffy atmosphere or what?
Update 2: Changed "rich, near-dead white guys" to "nearly-dead canonical artists" since this whole videogame art trend, at least as represented at Pace, while arguably youthful, is very white. I'm keeping the krumping reference because it captures the scene-killing absurdity of what Pace tried to do here.
I have low hopes for V for Vendetta, since Alan Moore comic adaptations to film haven't been good so far, and he's disowned this one. The Wachowsis have some balls, though--this is about a terrorist blowing up buildings in a near-futuristic but Thatcher-like England. It's a really unsettling comic.
Some information about stopping the appointment of Samuel "Mr. White Male Resentment" Alito to the highest court in the land here. The info is already pretty dated but you can use the site to look up your Senators' Capital Hill phone numbers, so you can call them and urge them to filibuster the bastard. That would keep the vote open, possibly shame some Republican "moderates" into voting "no," and at the very least express of the will of, um, the majority of Americans. Remind the Senators that Bush's poll numbers are really, really low now, which means that they don't have to be fwightened of him any more. Offer a spinal transplant to those weak moFos.
"The toroids are exhibiting sexual behavior! Everyone thought they were inanimate! Better get over here quick and look; the images are starting to break up." (Channeling Michael Crichton. Math GIF via Jim and Eyebeam.)
"Scratch Infusion" [mp3 removed]. Move over, Chemical Brothers. Oh, wait, they already did.
"Scratch Infusion (Electro Vers.)" [mp3 removed]. The original tune.
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Blogger Paddy Johnson is correct that the heavies would not be paying attention to Ellen Altfest's semi-photoreal paintings if she were showing at a 57th Street-style gallery like Fishbach or (the late?) Tatistcheff, instead of the Williamsburg-to-Chelsea transplant Bellwether. Finally made it over to see this "hot still life show," the last day, and did find most of the canvases to be rather dully rendered snapshots of cacti, etc. The best paintings were the ones without clearly delineated subject matter--a log, a lump of driftwood, and above, a piece titled Gourd--bulging with near-Gothic accumulations of detail. The vegetable matter appears far gone in a warty state somewhere between advanced decay and an ergot-induced fever dream (Jim, in the comments, thinks it looks like a peyote button). One hyper-rotted urban interior recalled Chicago visionary Ivan Albright's work. Wish there were more of those. Looks like Altfest spent a lot of time on the work, and since the show is a "hit," expect her to be under a lot of pressure now to speed the heck up. Will she succumb? Hire assistants? Stay tuned for part two: "The Sophomore Show." (Actually this is her sophomore show, whatever.)
Update: Continuing to think about the "peyote button" interpretation. This may be that rarest of instances where an artist took the sow's ear of an inability to convincingly render volume and turned it into a silk purse of ultimate psychedelic credibility.
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Jack Abramoff's Dad Defends Masturbation Reference in Son's Name
It's great when Republicans get their boxers in a twist. Below is Frank Abramoff’s "open letter to George Clooney," written after Clooney made fun of Abramoff's crooked lobbyist son Jack on the Golden Globe Awards. Frank is an old Hollywood guy, hence his indignance towards one of the clan, one supposes. It must be tough knowing your son's a degenerate, but talk about misplaced anger. Here's what Sidney Blumenthal recently wrote about Jack: "The graduate of Beverly Hills High School is the son of the president of the franchises division of the Diners Club and close to Ronald Reagan's kitchen cabinet of California millionaires. The father financed young Jack's takeover of the College Republicans. After depleting the treasury of Citizens for America, a conservative group founded by drugstore mogul Lewis Lehrman, [Jack] Abramoff produced a violence-packed, B-grade Cold War movie, 'Red Scorpion.' With the capture of Congress by the Republicans in 1994, he hustled to Washington for the barbecue." Now, here's the Dad's letter to Clooney:
Oh how far Hollywood has fallen. When you rose to accept the Golden Globes best actor award earlier this week, you decided to take a gratuitous slap at my son, my family and even my dear departed father. Is this the tradition of Gable, Bogart, Pacino and Burton? Are you the heir to the dignity and greatness of Hollywood's past, or more likely a portent to a depressing and horrific future?
Your glib and ridiculous attack on my son, Jack, coupled with your obscene query as to the choice his mother and I made in naming him [Clooney alluded to the unfortunate proximity of "Jack" and "off" in the crook's name], brought shame and dishonor on you and your profession. What drove you to this lapse in lucidity, I can never know, but you need to know that your words were deeply hurtful to many innocent and decent people who love my son and who cherish our family.
We have had to endure two years of unmitigated, outrageous falsehood directed at my son and his record of achievement on behalf of his clients and friends. The bloodthirsty media, guilty of untold character assassinations during contemporary times, have even outdone themselves in their lust to create a cartoon which does not come close to resembling this fine man, my son. [Jack Abramoff recently pled guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials.]
The fact that you would spend those few moments accorded to you, as an honor for your work as an actor, bashing his name and his family, is astonishing. How do you sleep at night, other than perhaps with the drink, which you lamented not having at that early hour. Funny, it was very hard for us little people in television land to tell whether you had indulged in the bottle or not.
My son was named after my beloved departed father. His name, too, was Jack Abramoff. And, were he alive today, would be standing firmly behind his namesake, as his entire family and many more true friends than you will ever know.
Not that it matters to you, I am sure, but the worst part of your tirade is that it played out in front of many young people, including my sweet 12-year-old granddaughter, one of Jack's five children. Jack did not waste his time watching the garbage spewing from your mouth, but his daughter did. You drove her to a fit of tears. Are you proud of that?
For four generations, our family has worked hard to serve this country we love. I enlisted as a young man of seventeen into the United States Navy, so I could serve my nation in WWII. My brother did the same, and we both served in South Pacific. My son dedicated his life to patriotic and religious causes, which have made this nation great. He gave unsparingly of his time and resources to help those in need.
You spend your days ridiculing our nation and our traditions. You mock those who serve our nation and its flag. You revile my son and publicly try to humiliate him in front of a national audience. I have news for you George Clooney — one day the truth about my son will come out [What, that his guilty plea was coerced?] and there will be a lot of people in your industry and others lined up to apologize for their efforts to destroy him and our family. You won't be in that line, though, because the plague of arrogance and falsehood will surely continue to blind your eyes and cause your tongue to disgrace the parents who brought you onto the earth.
One wonders how your father would respond, were the roles reversed. One wonders whether your children would delight in someone lampooning your name and besmirching your reputation. You have brought yourself to a low unparalleled by the greats of your profession. Shame on you.
FRANK ABRAMOFF
No, shame on you, Frank. And hail George Clooney! The Republicans are trying to bury Jack Abramoff's name, because his criminal plea revealed how unspeakably corrupt their party is--and there was Clooney putting it in the public eye in a very funny way. I thought it was so cool I went to see Syriana the next day.
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A lot of the (sucky) music you hear today in movies, TV, and advertising is made with software synths and samplers. Sucky not because it's made with virtually but because it's made for business people, who want everything bland (except for the triphop between Adult Swim cartoons--that's good). Nowadays your average PC can imitate any synth and even convincingly reproduce symphonic instruments. 20 years ago a softsynth cost $50,000 and looked like....this.
From a website devoted to the now defunct German company PPG Instruments:
The Realizer may well have been the world's first virtual instrument, yet ironically some feel the stress of its development put PPG out of business. It was the last PPG product, and never got beyond the prototype stage. Still, its features were staggering, even by today's standards. (Check out the photo above to see it emulating a Minimoog.)Hat tip to G.K. Wicker, whose links also led to the images below, of the Space Invaders-style interface to the famous hexagonal Simmons drum kit. (Another defunct company.) Check out the little guy drumming, enlarged in the detail .
From the September 1986 issue of Keyboard Magazine, Dave Frederick wrote an article on the 1986 summer NAMM show stating:
"An impressive exhibit from PPG was the Realizer (about $50,000). This consists of software versions of familiar synthesizer configurations. It allows you to design your own analog, FM digital, and sampled sounds, patch any of the components of one instrument into another instrument, and then sequence or sample the resulting sound. Wolfgang Palm, designer of the Realizer and head of PPG Instruments, earns the the quote-of-the-show award for explaining how he designed it: 'I copied the circuit diagrams into software.' No easy task."
The picture above shows the Realizer control unit only. In addition to it were racks that contained the actual processing hardware.
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"Fear and Tremolo" [mp3 removed]. The same instruments as "Drum Machine" (audio and video), but with a different tune, and a grittier, more industrial texture via the AdrenaLinn II "synchro-trem" beat modulated filter setting.
"Drum Machine (Audio Only)" [mp3 removed].
2005 Internet Top Ten: Special Blogosphere Edition.
Originally posted on Michael Bell-Smith's and Cory Arcangel's Year in the Internet 2005 page. Already started revising it (see below).
SCREENFULL. This blog is now an archived project but what a great run it had. Audiovisual graffiti, deconstruction as Xtreme Sports, internet addiction as a generative principle.
RIP del.ico.us? 2005 saw this link community's rapid rise to stardom and immediate fall into the sweaty embrace of Yahoo! Will the art/geek spirit survive?
Represent or die. Lots of great quirky and f-ed up videos: the flagship del.icio.us channel (for DTV) hopefully will not be turned by Yahoo! into internet MTV, with Quicktime clips of reality shows and beach contests.
Paper Rad Info. Their blog. Prediction: because it's very easy to update it could eclipse their main page. Mine sort of did.
jenghizkhan (John Parker) live at The Front Room. Not a blog; just wanted to mention it. Sub-Troggs, Sub-Stooges fuzzbox-grungy Monomachine and circuit-bent Casio performance clocks in at 33 minutes; chatty audience tries to see if it can make more noise.
Steve Gilliard: the most razor-tongued sunny optimist on the Net. Indispensable political commentary.
WFMU's Beware of the Blog. NY area cult radio station's in-depth music (and everything else) coverage thrives in blog form. One of my favorite past FMU djs returns with a fine conversational blog style: Rise, William Berger, rise.
Rhizome.org. Another welcome addition to the (re)blog world--hopefully they'll start archiving front page content and add comments in the new year.
Other great blogs that have launched or gone into high gear in the last year: Cory Arcangel, Paul Slocum, Michael Bell-Smith.
Flag on the Moon. Blog of Jack Masters, of castlezzt fame. The post specifically linked to, "1/30th of my pictures directory, in chronological order," has been
"Drum Machine" [Quicktime removed -- see embedded .mp4 version]
Regarding my artwork in the previous post, Kara had these questions:
--Have you photographed the backs of any of these? I'd be curious to see this nest of webs.On pieces of this type, I'm using lightfast inks (pigments as opposed to dyes) and framing the work behind UV-resistant plexiGlas. No fading has occurred. I like having them around to look at.
--BTW, how light safe or fade-proof is the ink you're using?
This is the back of a similar piece I posted a while back:
She also wondered what one might be missing by seeing my object-type artwork on the Internet. I'd say what you're getting is about 60% of the experience. But it sure beats mailing f*ing slides.
Cannibalized some older pieces to make this. Lots of scissoring and X-acto knifing. Dimensions are 24 1/2 X 19 inches; it's ink on paper--all rendered with the "vintage" program MSPaintbrush, printed, cut into pieces (repeatedly), and linen-taped on the back in a network resembling a nest of bricolage spiderwebs.
Adrien75, a West Coast turned East Coast turned West Coast musician who has been written about a number of times on this page (glowingly), has posted some new .mp3s. Nice to hear some of that experimental breaks influence come back in from the old days ('99) with "January's Tributaries," along with a dollop of Michael Karoli-like dreamy acid guitar. The pieces are all excellent: atmospheric, catchy, unpredictable, accomplished. If you like the Feelies, Krautrock, the Canterbury scene, and/or The Black Dog this is music you should be listening to. (Those are personal benchmarks anyway--my etymological way of saying "really good.")
Update, Jan 17, holy shit, I forgot to post a link to Adrien75's mp3 page. My five readers (Digby's phrase) need to help me out here a little bit.
Aeon Flux Geek Musings
Started doing some research on writer Mark Mars, an entertaining, somewhat Kim Fowleyesque black leather-clad wild man who livens up the Aeon Flux DVD interviews and commentaries. A friend of series creator Peter Chung's from CalArts in the early '80s, he wrote several key Flux episodes. Found this message board [dead link], where Chung and Mars both post. Which led to a very thoughtful interview with Chung on the Livejournal fan site Monican Spies. And this earlier interview [wayback], given before the Charlize Theron movie came out. Chung had practically nothing to do with the feature film and dislikes it, for its "failure of nerve" in not testing the audience the way the series did--lots of back story and character motivations were added, the usual Hollywood efforts were made to "humanize" the property.
Other things I learned from the Monican Spies interview:
1. Chung revised some of the Aeon episodes for the new DVD because he disagreed with how other directors or writers interpreted the characters, such as an "evil" Trevor Goodchild in the episode "End Sinister"--Chung doesn't see the Breen dictator as evil, just power mad. My earlier question about whether the pool of blood Aeon keeps waking up in in "Chronophasia," tinted grey by MTV, was restored was answered in the negative from the DVD. Chung talks about it quite a bit on the commentary track but for some reason didn't change it. Too bad, as long as things were being revised--would have made the episode more cohesive and even scarier.
2. Chung also went to CalArts with '80s art star Ashley Bickerton. Trevor Goodchild's face is loosely based on a sketch of Bickerton's.
3. One of three admired filmmakers Chung lists is Koji Morimoto, who directed the "Beyond" episode of the Animatrix. In a review posted of that film here, Morimoto's and Chung's were my two favorite shorts.
This stylish work on canvas, by Claire Corey was made with a, um, er, computer. The canvas is canvas, but the brushwork is virtual and the paint is Iris. Corey is showing with a couple of galleries in Europe but her New York space recently closed. Why an artist this good, whose work pushes all kinds of interesting buttons about painting supposedly being the last refuge of authenticity in a synthetic world, was not instantly snapped up in her home town is quite mysterious. But it might have something to do with...the work pushing all kinds of interesting buttons about painting supposedly being the last refuge of authenticity in a synthetic world. Also, because New York is having a "head up its ass moment," with nouveau riche collectors buying art that as January blog has noted reminds them of work by their kids, or the kids they never had:
That last post of mine was pretty cheeky. I don’t think I wanted to critique Zak Smith’s work as much as I wanted to critique the Chelsea/Grad School scene that puts so much machinery behind young artists. It is like collectors want to buy the work that reminds them of their children. The effects are not devastating to art – you can’t kill that. The effects are devastating for individual artists. Zak Smith is already a brand name – his future potential limited by this fact. Those gallery lights are pretty bright and won’t mind burning him and several hundred other kids to a crisp.(Zak Smith replies to that, by the way, and while you would never expect him to agree that maybe he wasn't ready to join the stream of canonical art history [via the Whitney Biennial] on the strength of his illustrations of pages from Gravity's Rainbow, which lots of people have read, by the way, although not me, I only read V and The Crying of Lot 49, it would be nice to hear a stronger self defense based on something other than enjoying the freedom to make tons of paintings and not have to work a day job. What's really at stake in this blotchy, "maximalist" work? What's its theory, not in the sense of regurgitated late 70s French philosophy but in the sense of what does it intend to add to, or change in, the culture and the visual landscape? Are "innovations in the field of rendering or paint-handling" enough now? Are "fascinating women?" OK, well maybe the latter.)
www(dot)pulp(dot)href
Briefly noted, this excellent video/Net DIY collage piece by jimpunk. You need Quicktime 7 to view. The elements of the grid, the composite, and short loops could all be seen in an earlier work, Michael Ensdorf's Momentary Distractions. What jimpunk adds is the ability to mix and match clips, a slew of pop culture and historical references (a pistol-wagging Benicio Del Toro, Flight 93, Jodie Foster panicking), ambitious graphic design in the more psychedelic patterns, snippets of found and/or industrial style music, and an overall sense of anarchic humor. Net Art seems to be evolving here, or perhaps a better metaphor would be morphing into an explosively violent alien entity, like Natasha Henstridge in Species.
Scan of polaroid. Untitled artwork circa 1996, photocopies and linen tape, 88" x 78". Made when I was living in a closet (practically) in Tribeca. Too obvious a Peter Halley reference to show at the time, I always liked it, even though few others did. Ten years later, it seems more in step with the current videogame-as-potholder discourse. Wait, did I just coin something? (See comments.) Eventually I'll get this old work out of my system.
Continuing with our series of antidrug public service announcements...
The "Zeus' Forehead" Award* for Shortest Documented Period of Emergence by an Artist
And the winner is: Gareth James, who was the subject of an Artforum "First Take: 12 New Artists" column in 2004 and is now Chair of the Visual Arts Department at Columbia University. This suggests either that James is an incredibly fast worker or our system of evaluating art and artists needs to go to the shop.
Ironically, two years ago James almost received the "Young Methuselah" Award for Longest Documented Period of Emergence by an Artist, since it appeared he had been around quite a while before his "First Take," which is supposedly for unknowns. (Then-Whitney Museum Curator Debra Singer picked James, who was, for a time, assistant to the director of the Whitney Independent Study Program.) In '04, an ISP alumnus convinced the committee (me) not to give that award because he swore James was still emerging.
*Formerly the Sixth Day Award, after the Schwarzenegger movie where all the clones grow to full maturity in a matter of days.
Just bought a new scanner--stepped on the old one--don't ask--and am trying it out with this photo cut out of Sp1n. Still can't get over that this suburban slob is now the handsomest man alive or whatever. Yes, I know he's an actor, but to me he'll always be This Guy, who I knew back in the day from the pizza restaurant where I worked. He made an imaginary grid in the dining area that only employees (all male) knew about. If a "hot chick" was on the premises he'd come back in the kitchen and yell "A-4!" or "C-3!"
Abe Linkoln suggested collaboration on an animated GIF tattoo, where he works on the tech and I start drawing up some "flashing skulls and snakes folding in on themselves." So I drew this skull, with the vague plan to make an animated snake writhing up its neck and slithering around its mouth and eyesockets. Eeew. Stay tuned to this space to get creeped out! (If I finish it.)
Apple Rant
Have you tried to update your Quicktime player lately? Used to be you clicked once and could view a QT movie right away. Not anymore. You can't get version 7 without accepting a bundled, mandatory download onto your computer of the dreaded iTunes. Which immediately links back to the Apple Store and starts sending you information about stupid pop songs you don't want, and tries to get you to sign up for their proprietary scheme.
Recently a musician sent me a link to iTunes with a complimentary download of his CD (thanks, mon). I clicked the link and was directed to the Apple Store, which insisted I provide an email address and phone number. C'mon, why do they need that from a gift recipient? I balked, and the musician was kind enough to send me a CD in the mail.
I'm using Windows, the people's OS, and play .mp3s on Winamp, which is a very mellow and non-invasive program. I briefly tried out the iTunes player, and found that while it accepted my Winamp playlists, it wouldn't play the songs from their original folders. I had to copy them to an iTunes folder. I play .wav files of my own tunes in Winamp, because not everything gets ripped and besides, they sound nice. To copy them to the iTunes folder meant doubling about 10 gigs of material. I suppose I could have just moved the songs and then played them in Winamp from the Apple folder, but I really resent the use of my computer as contested territory in some brand turf war, so I threw up my hands and uninstalled iTunes.
Update: Jim B. found a page where I could download QT 7. I was trying to do it by upgrading my Firefox plug-in from 6.5, and I swear to you the link took me to a page where I couldn't get QT without accepting iTunes.
An image made with the CebraText teletext editor for eventual transmission on the Boob Tube. As mentioned below, Emma Davidson (Lektrolab) and Paul B. Davis (Lektrolab/BEIGE) are doing a Teletext project that will run on Dutch TV later this month as part of ambientTV.net. Their Teletext TV station is called Microtel, and they are calling for submissions to create simple text and graphics messages. You can download the CebraText program (Windows only) to create the Teletext files and then email the files to Davis and Davidson for TV reformatting. The above artwork, by Davis, is an example; the tutorials on the Microtel site make the process seem pretty painless. I say that because I haven't tried it yet. The interest in near-obsolete media and the reincarnation of old programs in an open source environment I find pretty fascinating; the aesthetics of it are what drew me to the BEIGE project back in the day ('02).
This is from Atrios. Howard Dean stood up to Bush supporter, I mean CNN host Wolf Blitzer. Makes it pretty obvious where Blitzer stands, reading this--that he favors continued war in Iraq and GOP corruption at home. As Atrios notes, the transcript fails to note Blitzer's exasperated sigh as he thanked Dean for his "bluntness and candor." He and his fellow media toadies are trying to make Dean out to be crazy, but we know who's telling the truth here. My only gripe is Dean spews the usual talking point about inadequate body armor--Kerry did that, too. The best way to increase troop longevity is to pull them out of Iraq, which we never should have invaded. As for Blitzer, he's a warmonger who made little whoops of delight when Bush dropped those bombs you and I paid for on Baghdad:
BLITZER: Let's talk a little bit about Iraq. The president sought to reach out to some of his critics earlier in the week, bringing in some former secretaries of state, including Madeleine Albright, among others -- William Cohen, the former defense secretary during the Clinton administration.
Are you satisfied right now that the president's getting enough information from a variety of sources to better move forward as far as the situation in Iraq is concerned?
DEAN: Well, most of the reports that came out of that meeting, Wolf, were that the president engaged in a filibuster of his own in there. He talked at them for some time and then went in for a photo op and really didn't bother to ask most of them for their advice at all.
So, I think these photo op ideas that he's going to get advice and they're really nothing more than photo ops -- I think we're in a big pickle in Iraq.
The president, frankly -- I was disgusted when I read in the New York Times yesterday that 80 percent of the torso injuries and fatalities in the Marine Corps could have been prevented if the Pentagon, the secretary of defense and the president had supplied them with armor that they already had.
They requested that from the field; the Pentagon refused. You know, I, two years ago, thought Secretary Rumsfeld ought to resign. He ought to resign.
These people are not qualified. They haven't served themselves; they don't know what it takes. They ought to protect our troops. Our troops are doing a hell of a job and they deserve better leadership in Washington than what they're getting.
I was incensed when I saw that story, 80 percent of the torso- based wounds that led to fatalities in the Marine Corps -- surely our Marines are worth something more than that.
BLITZER: About a month ago, Senator Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice presidential nominee spoke out, urging his fellow Democrats, including yourself, to restrain themselves in criticizing the president's position on Iraq. Listen to what Lieberman said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be the commander-in-chief for three more critical years, and that, in matters of war, we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: What do you think? Is that advice good advice from Senator Lieberman?
DEAN: No. This president has lacked credibility almost from the day he took office because of the way he took office.
He's not reached out to other people. He's shown he's willing to abuse his power. He's not consulted others. And he's not interested in consulting any others.
And I think, frankly, that Joe is absolutely wrong, that it is incumbent on every American who is patriotic and cares about their country to stand up for what's right and not go along with the president, who is leading us in a wrong direction.
We're going in the wrong direction, economically, at home; we're going in the wrong direction abroad.
...
BLITZER: Should Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, who has now pleaded guilty to bribery charges, among other charges, a Republican lobbyist in Washington, should the Democrat who took money from him give that money to charity or give it back?
DEAN: There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, not one, not one single Democrat. Every person named in this scandal is a Republican. Every person under investigation is a Republican. Every person indicted is a Republican. This is a Republican finance scandal. There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money. And we've looked through all of those FEC reports to make sure that's true.
BLITZER: But through various Abramoff-related organizations and outfits, a bunch of Democrats did take money that presumably originated with Jack Abramoff.
DEAN: That's not true either. There's no evidence for that either. There is no evidence...
BLITZER: What about Senator Byron Dorgan?
DEAN: Senator Byron Dorgan and some others took money from Indian tribes. They're not agents of Jack Abramoff. There's no evidence that I've seen that Jack Abramoff directed any contributions to Democrats. I know the Republican National Committee would like to get the Democrats involved in this. They're scared. They should be scared. They haven't told the truth. They have misled the American people. And now it appears they're stealing from Indian tribes. The Democrats are not involved in this.
BLITZER: Unfortunately Mr. Chairman, we got to leave it right there.
Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic Party, always speaking out bluntly, candidly.
"Goin' Vertical" [4.1 MB .mp3]. Straight up drum and bass, but maybe a little dreamy for the club floor--a dense mesh of interlocking rhythm parts. I may vary the atmospheric pads more and add some kind of drop out or break. Still thinking about it. The melodic material is spare, but this may be the most voices and effects I've ever put in a single piece.
Detail from a work on paper by Erika Somogyi at Monya Rowe Gallery in New York. Somogyi's drawings depict people in ambiguous rural or exurban spaces having Carlos Castaneda-like transcendent moments, merging into the landscape and etherscape, as denoted by vivid whorls and slashes of DayGlo paint. I'm sure they are not using drugs. I've mused before on the perennial return of a hippie aesthetic and the differences between the ultra-ironic use of DayGlo by Peter Halley and Kenny Scharf in the '80s and its rather more committed use by Somogyi and others. Her work is driven, without the complete obliviousness to history usually marked by this kind of project. Further pondering will have to be done on how it escapes self-consciousness but also avoids the better-known outsider cliches.
Went to see
, aka the O Show, curated by MatCh-Art, during the last week of the show's run at SICA, Long Branch, NJ. More on the exhibit here. The top photo is my DVD of OptiDisc, pulsing away to the amusement of a room of empty seats. The bottom one is Nami Yamamoto's installation of foam, vinyl and pins, bubbling up through the solid matter of the gallery's concrete floor.
Above is a proposal page for a project I did around 1990 for Dallas Public Access Cable. Messages 2-6 above were translated into "teletext" (block capitals on blue screens) and aired individually at random times of the day. I made this crude prototype using MacPaint. Clearly, as text-based art the piece owes more to Harvey Kurtzman of Mad than Lawrence Weiner of Dia. Never saw these live because I didn't have cable but remember one anecdote from their run: Due to a technical glitch the "WE COMMAND. YOU OBEY..." screen accidentally ran on an African American affairs channel and the station got a lot of angry complaints. What, black people don't want authoritarian messages coming from their TVs? Seriously, sorry that happened but it was kind of an anti-authoritarian (or a-authoritarian) message.
I was reminded of this because Emma Davidson (Lektrolab) and Paul B. Davis (Lektrolab/BEIGE) are doing a Teletext project that will run on Dutch TV later this month as part of ambientTV.net. Their Teletext TV station is called Microtel, and they are calling for submissions to create simple text and graphics messages. If you saw the Bodenstandig 2000 show at Deitch you saw some of drx's girlie/sex ads done in this format and they looked great--very low res and cheesy. You have to download a program (Windows only) to create the Teletext files and then email the files to Paul and Emma for reformatting.
Michael Bell-Smith and Cory Arcangel present The Year in the Internet '05. More linkz than U can shake a joystiq at. My selection has a blog focus. Eventually I'll repost it here, but for the time being go to their page [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
"ChamberVirus" [mp3 removed]. Tech house Morton Subotnick* using 2 softsamplers and some Access Virus effects sounds and drum hits from the Drat Fink Archive. A musician I know unloaded his Virus synth because he couldn't make interesting enough sounds with it. I dunno, these sound seriously deep to me. (I've been fantasizing about the TI Desktop.)
*changed to be less falsely modest.
Also via NEWSgrist, I was reminded that John Kelsey of the conceptualist art outfit Bernadette Corporation picked for his December 2005 Artforum top ten list...Hurricane Katrina! Please feel free to lambast me in the comments if I ever write anything this insensitive and pretentious:
HURRICANE KATRINA Ask Stockhausen. As if timed for the opening of the Whitney's Robert Smithson retrospective, this was arguably less a natural disaster than a case of Land art gone horribly wrong. An environmental and political tragedy of Spielbergian proportions, Katrina produced images of the sort of "naked life" we'd previously only identified with non-sites like Iraq. The drowned ghetto, the shooting of homeless looters, the police suicides, the forced evacuations, the superdomes filled with refugees—these are visions we can only try to erase. For some reason it was impossible not to imagine the hurricane as a terrorist act. And I guess it was—Made in USA.Yes, Artforum's an art magazine, but that doesn't make every damn thing you mention in it art. Curator Thelma Golden went down the same road a while back, discussing the 2003 blackout as some kind of art event. Oh, and by the way, bloggers, it's Artforum, not ArtForum. Sick of seeing that mistake.
Getting ready to ship work to Dallas for the 2-person show I'm in with Saskia Jorda at and/or gallery. All the above are now wrapped and boxed and ready to go out tomorrow. The exhibit opens January 28. Besides these objects, I'll be showing a couple of videos ("Guitar Solo" and "OptiDisc") and animated GIFs. The GIFs will be looping on small (?) TVs and are being captured from my animation log and burned to DVD by Paul Slocum (thanks, Paul), who is running the space with Lauren Gray. The two are also in the band Tree Wave, featured in the movie 8-Bit, which I've been talking about. I like this kind of long distance gallery interaction. I've done a few shows where I emailed BMP files and they were printed on the exhibiting end. People do this kind of thing every day in their jobs, but it might not be "special" enough or have sufficient "aura" for many conservatarians in the art world. Well, too bad.
Liebovitz Casts Art Stars in Fashion Wizard of Oz
Very, very lame. (via NEWSgrist)
Kristin Lucas sent this Happy New Year card and I decided to borrow it. Throughout the year I will continue to think of artists who have worked with game imagery who should be in 8-Bit: The Kvetcher's Cut--it should certainly include her because she practically invented the scene (the part I like anyway, the "I'm not sure if technology is really our friend" part).
It's 2006 now on the East Coast, so happy new year! I didn't get very many songs posted. mp3 blogging is not like dj'ing. Slow work. More semi-abandoned rhythm tracks:
"Tesla's Tribe" [mp3 removed]. From Reaktor, specifically a drum sequencer called Scenario II, just spat out today, another sparingly tweaked preset. I added the electronic buzz and '80s snare and cowbell samples from the Drat Fink Archive. Might ultimately fade this in or out of something else.
"Eternal Hiphop" [mp3 removed]. A pattern from the Electribe Rmkii rhythm synth played ad infinitum. Digital signal processing but analog filtered to add some exciting panning.
This is Stefan Schwander, one of my personal musical gods, who records as Antonelli Electr., among other aliases. I'm posting 3 tracks (briefly!!!!!) that he recorded under the name Repeat Orchestra. Schwander's gift is knowing when a musical phrase of the barest few notes has enough intrinsic worth to hang an entire 6 or 7 minute song on it. In this sense musical minimalism (of the techno variety) is very different from Minimalism in the art world, where practitioners had a kind of studied indifference to beauty. Sheet metal boxes on the gallery floor and all that. I see this more as how much can you take out and still have something ultimately seductive and danceable?
[tracks removed]
Two orphaned rhythm tracks.
"Limelight Barely Remixed" [mp3 removed]. And I mean barely--it's a Reaktor preset from the Limelight rhythm synth. Both glitchy and loungy--very pretty. About all I did was record it and fade it.
"Super Slow Tango" [mp3 removed]. Not super slow like Super Slow Tetris, just slow for a tango. I made this with the soft sampler Kontakt.
I've decided to mix in assorted unfinished rhythm tracks from my studio with other music on my hard drive tonight. If you have Traktor you can make your own damn DJ event. Some of this material will be removed in the cold, realistic light of January 1 so grab it while you can! Here's a funk carioca track, probably from Brazil--don't know what he's singing but why do I think "valeni" is something dirty?
[track removed]
Fellow artist/bloggers Marisa Olson and Abe Linkoln are ringing in the new year on a page where they are remixing each other's videos. Here's the URL, but it's not working for me--some people say they can see it and others say they can't. Marisa explains the concept of the blog here. One report I got from someone I asked to test the URL: "i can see it. and i watched a video. painful, but fun.* ----- cant see the remix (which is actually pretty interesting) but i can hear it. some problem with quicktime."
Anyway, in the spirit of blogging on New Year's Eve, I think I'm going to post some drum machine tracks I haven't figured out what to do with yet. Bang in the New Year on that Internet thingie, as it were. Hell, I've gone out every year since I can remember, New York being the mad social whirl that it is. This will be a form of symbolic public reclusiveness, with soundtrack. Hope you'll hang around!
*That must be Abe Linkoln's.