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From the press release for the exhibition RHIZOME ArtBase 101* (Rhizome.org at the New Museum, June 23 - September 10, 2005): "In extreme animalz: the movie: part 1 (2005) by U.S.-based collective Paper Rad and Pittsburgh-based artist Matt Barton, .GIF files of animals, sourced through Google's Image Search, are woven into a digital tapestry that is mirrored by a surrounding cluster of mechanized stuffed animals." [And taxidermied road kill (see detail below). The blurriness in the above photo is from the animals spinning and bobbing on cams and rotors like a carnival booth in the late stages of amphetamine psychosis. The aforementioned .GIFs are on video screens mingled in among the animals. --tm]
More from the press release: "In Dot Matrix Synth (2003), American artist Paul Slocum reprogrammed a dot matrix printer so that it plays electronic notes in accordance with different printing frequencies." [Couldn't hear this over the opening crowd noise, but it was printing away when I walked up. Yes, it makes music and still prints. --tm]
*Update, 2011: The Rhizome link has been changed to http://archive.rhizome.org:8080/exhibition/artbase101/
Rare Blog-like Personal Rant
If you're riding your bike on a public path that includes walkers, skaters, etc, and you yell out "On your left" instead of just slowing down and maneuvering around them, you are an asshole. Your barked-out command (and make no mistake, for most people who use it, it is a command--to stay put or move over) is just as likely to startle the walker you're trying to pass into swerving or going the wrong direction.
If you're in-line skating, weaving all over the path, and a biker comes up behind you and silently passes you, swinging well wide of you and you bark out the command "Call a side," you are an asshole. You are especially an asshole if the biker says, "Nah, I don't do that," and you say, "You're going to get someone killed."
If you do say that, you might hear something like "I've been riding this bike twenty years and haven't killed anyone yet. Calling a side is a control thing, I don't like it." That is, assuming the doppler effect doesn't muffle this rant, delivered in a matter of seconds as I am passing you.
Your Photoshopped Culture...on American Movie Classics
(on cable TV, that is--a service you pay for)
Easy Rider, 1969. Ending scene: Redneck in pickup truck points shotgun at motorcycle rider Dennis Hopper. Hopper responds by raising his arm and showing redneck the back of his glove. Redneck shoots Hopper and leaves him bleeding by the side of the road.
"Dad, why did that man shoot that man?"
"Well, Molly, when the movie originally ran, and was seen by millions, and shaped a generation, the biker 'flipped the bone' at the trucker."
"Dad, what's 'flipped the bone'?" [etc]
Visit part one of "Your Photoshopped Culture...on American Movie Classics," to learn how 'ratfucking,' the word that shocked the nation when revealed to be spoken (and practiced) by the President's Men back in the '70s, was changed to "ratting" to protect a tender cable audience.
Due to self-imposed guidelines the location where this drawing was made cannot be divulged. It is not a place where pictures like this are pinned up within eyeballing distance, waiting to be drawn. It is not a place where all the artist has to work with are the programs on the computer, and a mouse. It is not a place with stretches of downtime. The originator of this photo-image is probably related to originator of the famous, cool photo "String of Puppies."
[update: atom added later]
This is a piece from 2003 called Swarm (53 1/2" X 41 1/2"). Just getting around to scanning the transparency [taken by Bill Orcutt!]. A larger version is here. Photos showing how it was made are here. It's all drawn with MSPaintbrush and run through the printer multiple times. A detail (flipped vertically) of one of the overlaid drawings is below:
More on the egregious Kim's video raid. Bloggy sums it up thus:
And by the way, the next time the NYPD complains about their pay, suggest that their corporate bosses should kick in some money. I guess the War on Terror is under control if they have time to raid Kim's Video looking for mix CDs, and bring along a "representative" of the Recording Industry Association of America to help them round up and arrest five people working at Kim's. They kept them all in jail overnight.The Village Voice has a good follow-up report on this scandal. Apparently the cops were picking out employees at random to arrest, an MPAA thug may also have tagged along, and it was so poorly planned the cops didn't even know that Kim's has more than one store.
Miscellaneous:
Speaking of self-referential artmaking, Jack Masters figured out the right thing to do with Artpad, the creative website with the most onerous terms and conditions you will ever involuntarily agree to just by drawing a pitcher.
Michael Bell-Smith has been cast in an amazing one-act ballet, as a slow moving robot that looks like a cross between Big Bird and a toothbrush.
Travis Hallenbeck (and a bunch of other people on delicio.us) posted the page of a cassette dj with exquisite gear made of particle board.
Paul Slocum has updated his Loopcart ROM, a tracker program for the Atari 2600. Click to load an .mp3 example here. I like the way it starts out videogamy and gets more syncopated and weird.