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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]