"Art is either plagiarism or revolution." Paul Gauguin
make love not zone And you wonder why we want to move there? I can think of at least three places close to home where this would be easy to do and probably go unnoticed for a good long while.
Speaking of street art, it's warming up outside. I need a roster for this summer's crew. All interested parties should email me directly at digitalbutterfly (dot) net (at) gmail (dot) com.
3-12-08 7:53am -
performance art is not dead Once in a blue moon, I really wish I lived in New York City. I know I wouldn't last more than a year there, but what a year it'd be. Graffiti, public performance art, craptastic theaters in the basement of coffeeshops... Yum times infinity.
A4 This sure beats the hell out of the gamer dice I made:
1-23-08 12:59pm -
I love my Art MoCo feed.
1-9-08 2:59pm -
Artists in Times of War
I recently read a transcript of a lecture Howard Zinn gave to the Mass. College of Art in Boston on October 10, 2001. The talk was named "Artists in Times of War" and I OCR'ed a section to repost here:
During the Vietnam War, there were meetings of historians. While the war was raging in Southeast Asia, the question was, "Should historians take a stand on the war?" There was a big debate about this. Some of us introduced a resolution saying that "We historians think the United States should get out of Vietnam." Other historians objected. They said, "It's not that we don't think the United States should get out, but we are just historians. It's not our business." But whose business is it? The historian says, "It's not my business." The lawyer says, "It's not my business." The businessman says, "It's not my business." And the artist says, "It's not my business." Then whose business is it? Does that mean you are going to leave the business of the most important issues in the world to the people who run the country? How stupid can we be?
Haven't we had enough experience historically with leaving the important decisions to the people in the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, and those who dominate the economy?
There are certain historical moments when learning is more compressed and intense than others. Since September 11, 2001, we have been in such a moment.
One of the things we learned about during the Vietnam War was experts. When the war started, people would ask, "Why are we there?" These experts would come on television and tell us why. The British actor Peter Ustinov spoke out against the war in Vietnam. Then somebody said, "Ustinov? He's an actor. He's not an expert." Ustinov made an important point. He said that there are experts in little things but there are no experts in big things. There are experts in this fact and that fact but there are no moral experts. It's important to remember that. All of us, no matter what we do, have the right to make moral decisions about the world. We must be undeterred by the cries of people who say, "You don't know. You're not an expert. These people up there, they know." It takes only a bit of knowledge of history to realize how dangerous it is to think that the people who run the country know what they are doing. Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, "I see all sorts of people doing this and that but where are the citizens among us?"
Everyone must be involved. There are no experts.
1-04-08 3:35pm -
Let it shine.
My final critique went over very well. Prof kept pushing my meeting time back until everyone else had left the room. It took four or five times the length of my classmates' meetings. He said I always surprised him with my work. He said it was "exceptional" and called me an artist. It's funny how much that sort of thing can still mean to a full-grown adult. He asked me to attend workshops in Gatlinburg, TN as soon as I could (Tennessee? I think maybe the Oregon Coast, possibly the Netherlands would be more my style?). The idea of doing nothing but working in clay all day for several days in a row completely thrills me, especially if I were surrounded by other artists working their asses off. A temporary move to Amsterdam suddenly looks more like something for me to set up than loverboy with his much-needed tech knowledge. I think it'd be totally rad to get us overseas with my art.
Prof assured me that while the catalog clearly states that next term's work will be primarily wheel-thrown, I won't be touching that particular tool much if at all. He's asked me to hide away in the back with the resident artists and work almost completely unassisted. He said he didn't want me to waste my time on the wheel, because, again, I'm not a potter, I'm an artist.
I moved my earthenware from the "student" side of the room to the "artist" side of the room and tacked my name to the outside of a new locker. I've got the freedom to come in over the break and use it up for whatever I'd like to make. And I thought this would be a very dark January. My confidence is up, my inspiration hasn't slowed down a bit, and I can't get this stupid, shit-eating grin off my face. I'm all lit up inside and stuff.
Nils Rainer Schultze is a Berlin lighting designer who transforms the bleak winter nights by using areas that are usually fine weather fountains to produce lighting sculptures. Instead of dispensing water, the fountains shed colourful light that transforms the urban landscape at a time before the solstice when we really appreciate it. Shown above is Winterwolken, an installation that changes colour when people approach. 12-21-07 8:03am -
The Electro-Graf
The unification of electronics, art, and civil disobedience... I love every inch of this. And no soldering!
Anybody got a spare wall they're willing to offer up as a testing lab? I need stencil practice, and this project is totally fucking inspiring me. If no walls appear for me to deface, I'll try this method first. PCBs can get pricey, even if you make them yourself. If I can find this paint around locally, there's trouble in the works. 11-24-07 1:44pm -
Beep.
It will come as no surprise to you, my few, fragmented, darling readers, that I totally dig robots. I like industrial robotic arms, I like Roombas, I like tin toy robots, I like robots in movies, television and science fiction novels. I love them all. I love their forms and their functions. I love robots the way a lot of men love cars.
So it should also not surprise anyone when I announce that I have become obsessed with the idea of robots as art.
This obsession started with Clayton Bailey. What a dirty old man. He makes popguns and penis-shaped coffeemugs. He also, however, makes robots. He's let his "found object" (or "premade") work keep some of its original purpose intact in its new life as a robot, some are clocks, some fans, some radios. One even has a window in its belly, revealing "a high voltage mercury vapor powered digestive tract." If you like this sort of thing (minus the glowing purple robot guts), you might also dig the 'bots over at Bennett Robot Works.
As I scanned gallery after gallery of tin friends, I started to recognize the fine line between artist and the old guy on the farm making people out of mufflers. An easy mark is the functionality of the 'bot, if there is any. On one side of the spectrum we have Clayton Bailey's outmoded idea of robotics as stoic helpers or dominators, without emotion or any sort of depth. On the other, what have been come to be called "artbots" - true robotics serving to further the artistic idea.
Translator II: Grower - Sabrina Raaf
Translator II: Grower hugs the room's walls and responds to the carbon dioxide levels in the air by drawing varying heights of 'grass' on the walls in green ink.
I've been toying with the idea of art that responds to the audience for a few months now, and Nervous really captures the idea. In a world where we sit to get our news told to us, we sit and get our fiction shown to us, we sit and get our food delivered to us, why shouldn't we explore art that crawls inside our heads and places itself where it knows it should be?
I really enjoy watching artists create. We're all so unique in our techniques and processes, we've tailored how we work to get the desired result consistently. It's funny to see how uptight Jeanne Quinn was with the measuring and template-making and tracing paper and so on, because once she sat down with some clay, the objects were vague lumpy forms and a lopsided coil pot. Each precisely planned out ahead of time, each with perfect symmetry. Katheryn Finnerty did all her work from industrial-sized slabs, whacking her clay so hard with a rolling pin I thought I'd heard a gunshot. And her finished work is delicately textured with vines and birds and golden latticework. I adored the contrast in styles (both in work and form).
During the panel discussion, I really got a better feel for Paulus, who hadn't been wearing shoes the entire time, and most likely hasn't been wearing shoes in at least 45 years or so. The guy never shows or sells what he makes, only uses it at home or gives it away. His real gift to the world as an artist is his process and attached philosophy. He made a very interesting point about craft art and how he considers it the true art of the modern age for two reasons: we are desperately trying to fight our own materialism, and art that has a practical use may become more valuable than fine art for its dual purpose. Also because most fine art materials are made from or with toxic chemicals (which he suggests we will not only want to avoid, but will quickly run out of), and nearly all craft art is made from natural material. Interesting.
They gave me free Triscuits and cheeseball with a glass of red wine and a miniature cream puff. So much love.
11-13-07 9:55pm -
This one will take a while.
There are a lot of things I want this page to do, possibly the least of which being a place to show my own work and works in progess. Other things I'll cram into this square will be reviews of exhibits, reports from conferences, sites of other artists I'm grooving on, and information concerning art events in virtual worlds and here on planet earth.
I also want to have a space to discuss ideas in art. Lately, I'm really into virtual art, temporary art (happenings, graffiti, etc.), dètournement, and anything that addresses the bigger picture of life and our individual roles in the universe. This week I'll be looking for a good commenting service or plugin that can be used anonymously so we can chat it up right here.
11-11-07 11:01pm -
