Steal This Banksy of the Day

 

 

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Steal This Banksy of the Day

via The Daily What by Cheezburger Network on 12/13/11

Steal This Banksy of the Day: Art Series Hotel is holding a rather unique competition, starting this Thursday.

For the following 30 days, a signed and authenticated print of Banksy's "No Ball Games" worth AUS$15,000 will be hiding in different locations throughout the Melbourne-based chain's hotels.

Find it and steal it without getting caught, and it's yours to keep no questions asked.

Art Series chose this particular piece to commemorate the infamous 2007 incident, wherein a section of wall with the original stencil was stolen and sold on eBay for 20,000 pounds. 

[booooooom.]

Tagged: Art Series Hotels, Steal This Banksy

 

 

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Kinect Commercial

Not only does this show ow great the kinect is, and the fact that the open source community is latching onto it, but it also has a rad cover of Pixies "Where is My Mind".

Wolfgang Laib Pours 30,000 Piles of Rice

 

 

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Wolfgang Laib Pours 30,000 Piles of Rice

via Colossal by Christopher Jobson on 12/2/11

For his latest exhibition at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, German artist Wolfgang Laib poured over 30,000 piles of rice and seven piles of pollen to create one of his largest installations ever entitled Unlimited Ocean. Laib worked with several SAIC alumni during a ten day residency in October to pour each small mound resulting in an enormous grid that covers much of the expansive Sullivan North Gallery in downtown Chicago. The work will be on display to the public through December 23, 2011. Photographs by James Prinz courtesy SAIC.

 

 

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Making the Invisible Visible

 

 

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Making the Invisible Visible

via Colossal by Christopher Jobson on 12/5/11

For a second year, street art collective Mentalgassi has partnered with Amnesty International and Wieden + Kennedy creative team Lisa Jelliffe and Kirsten Rutherford to help highlight some of the year's most prominent human rights abuse cases playing out around the world. Via Unurth:

This year the German street art collective have created work that appears in 26 sites across Wales, Ireland, Germany and Denmark. The 6 individuals highlighted in this year's work include Fatima Hussein Badi, who faces the death penalty in Yemen after an unfair trial, Jabbar Savalan, who is in prison in Azerbaijan for his peaceful anti-government activism (including comments he made on Facebook), and Natalia Estemirova, a Russian human rights activist whose murder has not been brought to justice.

Mentalgassi transformed large portaits of each individual into segmented strips that are applied to the slats of fences. At first the images aren't readily visible and only come into focus suddenly from extreme angles, reinforcing the campaign's theme, 'making the invisible visible'. (via unurth)

 

 

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Thirty Six

 

 

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Thirty Six

via today and tomorrow by pieter | today and tomorrow on 12/5/11

"Thirty Six" is a site specific installation made by Nils Völker. It's 36 bags which are inflated and deflated by fans, in a controlled rhythm. You can still go and see it at the Art Lab in Gnesta in Sweden, till December 11th.

 

 

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Fall 2011 Research Quotas

Visiting Artist Studio Visit
- Kevin and Jennifer McCoy
- Zwelethu Mthethwa
- Deke Weaver

6 Visiting Artist/Scholar Lectures
- Kevin and Jennifer McCoy
- Steve Roden
- Deke Weaver
- Zwelethu Mthethwa
- Brad Troemel
- Mika Rottenberg

6 Independent Studio Visits
- Hope Ginsberg

- John Priestley & Nathan Altice

- Stephen Vitiello

- Melanie Buffington
- Brian Ulrich

- Mary Beth Reed

Artist Lecture - Brad Troemel

Brad Troemel, in his lecture "Free Art" (February 4, 2011) at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, discusses that even through Duchamp's Fountain market value has always been the value measure of art.

Beginning with Readymade and three rules the readymade reveals about the arts
- authorship
- context that declares it to be art
- property

These happen to be the same rules that govern capitalism and capitalist exchanges. Aesthetizied commodities and commodified aesthetics. "Our IDEA of what art is follows capitalist policies".

Art's discourse is dictated through the art market's buying power.

We are so reliant on businesses to define art's canon that we as producers lost the ability to define ourselves.

The challenge for art is to unlock its long-tail.

Art is inherently utopian idea, the beauty of art comes from the fact that it's unnecessary. We involve ourselves in art in a way that we've never seen it. The perfect impossibility = utopia.

Art is not a job, it's a utopian fascination.

Profit motivations are a form of self-censorship.

Two different ways that art may be distributed separate from current models = capitalist or socialist (one to many)
- dual sites - decentralized network, selling is not goal or motivation, smaller audiences but more people involved, foot traffic is supplemental to online presence

- rhizome network - art as meme
As an artist is included on more websites, the concentric circles of a viewer-percieved image tug increasingly further from their middle point. This rhizomatic pull is even capable of severing the relation of an artist to a work entirely as each entity lives its own existence without many viewers' recognition of who made the work in the first place. Anonymized art usually comes in the way by images that have been recirculated deep in the networks of web 2.0 users. Just as a tire's treads wear away with use, the contextual backing of an art image is stripped by its own applicability among networked bloggers. In this way, the removal of an artist's name, and work title or date, is the highest honor bestowed upon today's networked producer. It is this art that has resonated so well that its image has preceded its own description.

Studio Visit - Mary Beth Reed

I met with Mary Beth Reed to discuss the tower of computer video structure I had in the case, and the interactive fish piece.

The videos were sketches for the video pieces i had hoped to show in conjunction with the interactive fish piece. These videos are abstract footage of natural riverside scenes. I was hoping to have her talk about suggestions for the visual treatment for the fish piece.

I ended up just going over all my work, and introducing her to my trajectory.

Her feedback was interesting coming from a cinema perspective... the narrative, the arc of the work was missing... considering the reading, how a viewer/participant moved into the work, was moved through the work, and came out the other end experiencing something- was an element that I could examine much more.

Studio Visit - Brian Ulrich

I showed Brian the Electro-bike. He had a lot of feedback, but I feel that the context wasn't proper. The bike needs to be shown in a context of use, by many people, such as at a show opening.

So, out of context, the bike had many issues, (as, I'm sure there are many issues with the bike in context)

- issue of choice - to get on the bike or not get on the bike
- invitiation to physical engagement
- the objectness (as a bike its useless as its locked in place, so its not that inviting)
- seductiveness - should the bike be more seductive
- does the bike actually pull away from the social?
- is the bike uninviting as an object? it looks like a stolen bike.
- how do i want the bike to be read?
- is it to gain control? to manipulate behaviour?
- it's a rude gesture
- short experience, too short maybe?
- issue of display? sustained viewing?

Studio Visit - Stephen Vitiello

I showed Stephen the interactive fish piece, he suggested that I introduce one more variable into the piece, "space age beauty is nice, but an element that cuts against it" would help create contrast, give meaning.

He also suggested that I introduce a way to communicate the way the system works, and also light them more similar or more intentionally.

He liked that the piece has the feeling of temporary/fleeting/impermanence, but it also gives the feeling of being noncommittal.

The camera position guides the viewer's eye, maybe too much. it's good they give the connection cue, but perhaps too strong of a statement, with too little pay off.
- can I push the presence of the camera?
- conceal/reveal with the computers and wires
- project the tracking video outside?

The piece has a religious- tibetian/buddhist feel about it, and lacks no decisive moment.

By playing off of people's expectations, I can look for a better balance of cute/fish, as long as i flesh out (and scale up) the formal elements.

Most importantly, i need to base decisions on conceptual elements

The piece also is in danger of heading towards a non-social experience. I need to stay true to the piece. If it wants to be a social or non social work, then i must work towards that end.

Studio Visit - John Priestley & Nathan Altice

John Priestly & Nathan Altice are both MATX students that Stephen Vitiello recommended I visit with. They have backgrounds in areas that interest and overlap with mine, yet don't fully align. The studio visit with them both was nice as their areas of focus overlap, but their perspectives and expertise don't.

I showed them the fish tracking
John suggested i look into granular synthesis... they both considered the difference in tones to be a little too harsh, and feel like the tone would be more successful if the steps were smoother.

they think a title would really tie the piece together, as well as tip the viewer off to what it was they were looking at, why it was important, and how they were involved. They were worried that the visual and sonic elements of the piece actually pull apart from each other, instead of reinforce. On top of that, they both suggested changing the sonic elements to introduce elements that would add a bit of tension into the tones. Doesn't have to be dramatic, but it would help the smooth tones to have more meaning.

They both recommended utilizing more analogue elements in the work as well, whether it be analogue effects boxes, like the cracklebox, or some sort of acoustic interface/resonator via a programed arduino board.

johnpriestley.net

Nathan Altice's band - Circuit Lions

Studio Visit - Melanie Buffington

Melanie is in the Art Ed program. I went to visit her becuase some of the participation models I was interested in, and which resonated with me, were much closer to the art ed model, than the gallery wall/pedastal model. Melanie's expertise was in the art ed program here, and was able to point me in the direction of some community education agencies.

Art 180
local group, volunteers non-profit
teach after school art K-12
art as activisim - at needy schools

FeastRVA (modeled after Brooklyn)

She also told me about the export group Mayan Arts Program that takes summer school art ed students to Peru to teach art ed in the context of the Mayans' lived realities.

Melanie also put me in touch with Maggie at Quirk who runs their community outreach program. Maggie and I haven't had the chance to meet up yet, but have been emailing.

Studio Visit - Hope Ginsberg

I showed Hope the "I Need you so much Closer Project" site idea. She said one of the biggest problems is that it isn't seductive in design. The design just screams uncommitted project, unrefined idea, and not serious moderator.

She had some ideas regarding the content/process, such as having the experience of visiting the site mirror missing a connection- inconsistent reinforcement, some times have the site partially (or completely) not function.

She also said i need to consider the audience and the message. What's the focus? She suggested I think about the project from the stand point of having to ask for funding for it. That will help me focus/refine what the piece is about, who it's for, and what it does.

She provided a list of links to look up. Lots of community learning/engagement sites.

united nations plaza
Art School (MIT Press)
manifesta6
Trade School
Mildred's Lane
Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP)
Pablo Helguera
Sundown Schoolhouse
Machine Project

LOLspeak Study

Zwelethu Mthethwa

Zwelethu Mthethwa's photo portraits were interesting in content, and well-executed, but the stories he had surrounding those images were far more compelling to me.

Just another example of the stories behind the work being more interesting than the work allows, than the images speak for themselves. That's the whole reason I started drifting away from taking images in the first place. The experience, the performative aspect of taking pictures wasn't coming through in the images. The experience and the image were so different, it was difficult to reconcile them.

I feel that may have been one of the driving elements in Zwelethu's branch out to making videos. They certainly had a perception/reality, image/subtext dialogue built into them. It was interesting to see this expansion into video. Zwelethu's portraits are so traditional, with so much historical foundation, his video works seemed to be by a different artist.

This is where I find myself now... at this crossroads where photography can't (or maybe I can't make it) carry the message I need, and my skills in other disciplines are mediocre, unrefined, and sophomoric.

Visiting Artist Studio Visit - Deke Weaver

My meeting with Deke Weaver went great. I met with him before I saw his lecture, and he came across as such a mild-manner, even-keeled person, it was good for me to not have any presumptions about him. I showed his the documentation of the Inter-spaces (Fish) piece. Quickly he was able to decipher the piece and think out some directions of consideration for it.

Of course the sounds are an important part of the piece, but he felt that all the sounds were too analogous- a common point made in crits- he suggested I try a different sound, look for ways to generate some tension. That will help enhance the harmonious parts, give them more reference, and well as allow the piece to move and grow, maintaining a slower, more interesting read.

Other ways to keep the basic struture/elements of the piece, yet to deepen/enrich it where:
- try to figure out the points of focus and movement through the physical space
- using a particular species of fish intentionally to add to the message
- finding other layers/resonance
- make sure that the piece is operating as more than just a combination of the formal elements

Deke brought up the way Philip Glass's work on "Koyaanisqatsi" (in part) elevates what could be described as some as very mundane uninteresting footage.


Although the work is built on exploring different ways of embodying the world, translating the senses into different senses (in this case particularly sight to sound), he suggested to repeat this formal consideration and perhaps translate other senses as well.

Most of all, he felt that I wasn't sure what do i wanted it to be about? Once I find what the piece is saying to me, I'll be able to edit and revise it so it speaks those things more eloquently.

Deke suggested I read "The Body Artist", by Don Dellilo, saying that it's a sort of ghost story, which taps into sourcing the mundane.

Moving the work forward, Deke recommended I check out the documentary on Jean-Claude and Cristo's "Running Fence" and listen to the artists describe the origins of the work, and how the piece expanded to the monumental thing it became. Not that my piece needs to be monumental, but as a way to consider the expanding growth of artwork.


On my ideas about hosting a larger interactive "instrument" (like the Volkswagen piano stairs), he suggested making sure that the "marketing" about the event/place/situation was just as considered, just as part of the piece as to add to the "thingness" the mythos of the piece. The more saturated the piece is in itself, the more confident, the easier it will to get people to drop their boundaries.

Visiting Artist Lecture - Deke Weaver

Deke Weaver's stage performance was amazing. With minimal props, and no vocal amplification, he commanded the audience so completely. His bizarre stories of animals standing in as metaphor or allusions to stories that root in human nature, or even more specifically Deke's life, felt so understandable, so true. There was a surprising level of accessibility.

There's something so primal about the storyteller. Deke's writing was biting contemporary social/personal commentary, and with his minimal set, he became the modern day Shaman. More than a bard, or jester, his writing is extremely refined, with very little improv in his performance. He writes with a sideways glance at his subject matter- his stories take place around the frame, not within the frame.

Deke uses animals often in his work; his father is wildlife management worker. Having grown up around animals, in proximity to someone who works with animals, they become humanized characters. He's been working on larger series - "The Unreliable Beastiery" based on 26 animals, 1 for each letter of the alphabet.

When asked what was his inspiration for stage work, Deke responded that it was the only place where he could access "really stupid ridiculous ways of catharsis." To him, performance is a place where artists are supposed to be able to do anything. Performance allows him to pursue his interests in texture, in movement, and in playfulness.

The work of his influences- Spalding Grey and Reverend Billy, led him to stage performance, realizing that stage work communicates with a visceral quality that can't be achieved with any other medium.

Artist Lecture - Mika Rottenberg

Mika Rottenberg said that she likes to utilize certain signifiers to actually de-signify, so point to specific ambiguities. In the way that marbled linoleum can reference a store floor, but can be one of many many different kinds of store. In this way, she said she sometimes utilizes this strategy to "erase culture" in a work.

Erasing culture is an interesting idea. Upon hearing her say that, I thought of it in a negative sense, but seeing her use made me realize that erasing culture can make a piece more universal. The strategy is also a fantastic way to work with the hide/reveal balance. I think of other examples of "erasing culture", and the other end of the spectrum presents itself. The multi-culture rich environments of Blade Runner or 5th Element's dystopian future show a muddy, twisted, confused mix and mash of cultural signifiers that seems to signal the melting pot/tossed salad gone haywire. These two ends of a spectrum have their uses, perhaps the subtractive strategy (as opposed to the additive) would be a good element for me to consider in trying to make my works "universal".

Another element of cultural, or at least social, signifier is her use of the marxist extension of people to things, back to people. People made all things, so things can be considered extension of people. Her connection of bodily functions to mechanical functions in very Rube Goldberg-esque machinations certainly illustrates this in a visceral way.

This leads to another method in her work, using the work as a mirror, to show the viewer processes in their own life, and compare/contrast the subjective internal with the objective external. The level of engagement (mostly accomplished with close-up shots of the mechanical and the corporeal, and with high key post sound work) is an element I'm trying to understand. I'd prefer a more subtle approach in my own work, yet have so far found my work to be somewhat lacking in its engagement. While Mika's approach seems (and is appropriate for her work) wildly heavy-handed, I need to add some seductiveness to my work to be more successful with the level of engagement it functions on.

Brad Troemel – Free Art

Paint By Letter of the Day

Paint By Letter of the Day

via The Daily What by Cheezburger Network on 12/4/11

Paint By Letter of the Day: Tyree Callahan's Chromatic Typewriter: A 1937 Underwood Standard modded with color pads and hued labels to produce paintings.
He writes:

This is the Chromatic Typewriter, my entry to the 2012 West Prize competition.  The prize is awarded via popular vote this year. Click [here] to get to the West Collection and to download the West Collection app.  The app will let you browse the amazing entries and to vote on this piece your favorites.  Fellow artists: It's not too late to submit your own work! 

[tyreecallahan / colossal.]