The VCA School of Art Graduate Exhibition 2009 is huge. Space after space filled with art: video installations, sculpture, paintings, drawings, printmaking, installations and things that defied classification, but were called “spatial practice” on the invite. If you are going to see this exhibition, and it is worth seeing, then give yourself over an hour to see it all. It is at the Margaret Lawrence Gallery (named after the Margaret Lawrence Bequest who supported the exhibition); which is all of the studio and workshop spaces at the VCA turned into a gallery.

The entrance is at 40 Dodds St., Southbank, it looked like there was a cue to get in when I arrived shortly after 6pm. It must have been the biggest thing happening in Melbourne’s art scene on that a mild Monday night. There were two long bars in the courtyard with a DJ and hundreds of people. Free wine or buy Mountain Goat beer (a strange kind of sponsorship). Young men with haircuts from 80s new wave bands, fashionably dressed young women, the artists, their parents, their friends, etc. There were thousands of people at the opening doing the gallery shuffle and demonstrating their “spatial practice” by not bumping into people after a few glasses of free wine.

Carmen Reid had sent me an invite to the exhibition (I wrote about her June exhibition at Brunswick Arts ) and I was pleased that I could find her exhibits. Her latest works continue to be enjoyable, the accordion doors “(Fidget) Neither Here Nor There” is like Looney Toons architecture made real. Unfortunately I did not get to talk to Carmen – I think that she was cleaning up broken bits of glass from her work “Limbo” that had been damaged by crowds of people.

Seeing the opening was like stumbling into an art fair, overpowering and diluted at the same time. It was hard to take in all the art because:

a)     there were so many people at the opening

b)    there were so many works of art (the invitation said over 1,000 works and I believe it).

c)     there were so much variety of quality art

The list of “School of Art Awards” ran to two sheets of paper – not that there was any information about the various awards beside the award-winning work.

All the current contemporary art moves are on show, the heat from lights, video projectors, art stirring up dust, plants trying to survive an art installation and visual puns from desperate art students. Although there is likely to be one or two very successful artists amongst this year’s graduating class. This doesn’t mean that they are doing great work now or that all the work in this exhibition is great. Much of the art is going down the plughole. Clare Scalan was painting studio plugholes prognosticating a future for so much paint and artist’s careers. I overheard someone in the crowd saying: “90% of video artists are rubbish.” It is probably true of all the arts graduates.

Still there is plenty of art to enjoy at this exhibition; I liked Graham Brindly’s sculptures. They are elegant, they are like physics experiments and drawing in 3 dimensions. In Brindly’s “Gravities” a plumb bob hangs over a circular pile of black sand.

-Jillian

In the second week of November, Adam Murray and I transformed my apartment at ASU into a temporary recording studio.

Mattresses formed a sound booth (above) while the bed held instruments (below). We screamed, hissed, moaned, and played auto harp and guitar here. Plus the aforementioned celery snarfing.

We set up a nice little work station (above) while the rest of the room was a mess (below).

Sometimes we played nice (above), sometimes we argued over my “illegible” notes (below), and sometimes technology was not our friend (way below).

-Jillian

help me out man

For this 7th edition of the Cimatics festival, we try to go at full throttle again with todays image culture. As an audiovisual festival Cimatics puts the focus both on art, media, design and music. We invite you for a mix of concerts, film-screenings, exhibitions, workshops, conferences, public interventions and parties.

Cimatics is spread out all over the city of Brussels. For 10 days and nights it will be hosted by numerous venues, both underground and above. It intends to be a citywide international festival for advanced creativity, a node where underground, pop and art become mixed in an exciting cultural mash-up.

Cimatics is an ongoing experiment. What was initially a festival for VJing, and soon after for live audiovisual art, has now become an exercise and celebration focusing on ‘advanced creativity’. Todays urban and digital culture in all its diversity

http://www.cimatics.com/festival2009/index.php

The piece of Pamela Z’s that I know best—Geekspeak—is something that may be loosely called a radio documentary, but actually turns into something more like musique concrete and then back to documentary again, with a moment of crazy glitch in the middle that I still wonder about.  It’s a work that documents tech “geeks” during the 90s, but there are moments that challenge an easy picture;  part William Burroughs, part Glenn Gould, her techniques get at the deeper issues and paradoxes of telling a story of technology with technology.  I’ve also seen her do live performance once in some warehouse in NYC’s Chinatown, using her own voice to instigate a variety of complex effects, gauging minute changes and responding in kind.  Her work tends to defy categories . . . in fact one Seattle blog has her Film Forum appearance tagged as an “opera” event, perhaps because she has some classically trained pipes, or maybe because opera itself is just an older word for “intermedia.”  Much of her work emerges from an extended exploration of the voice and language—which is why she also fits into the curation of Writing for Their Lives, the series where you’ll more likely find contemporary poets.  Because she integrates midi controlled devices that help her extend voice into image, gesture into effect, her media work has close affiliations to that of Seattlite Gary Hill, whose work has explored the way in which language becomes concretized in the image by way of new devices.

Pamela Z will give a FREE talk and demo at the Seattle Campus of the University of Washington for the Writing for their Lives Series on Monday, November 23 at 6:30 in Communications 120.  (Other upcoming Writing for their Lives events of interest include language poet Charles Bernstein in January, and performance-writer and media artist Cris Cheek in February.)

Pamela Z’s performance at the Film Forum will be on Tues., November 24 at 8 PM.  This program will combine short, stand-alone pieces with excerpts from many of Ms. Z’s full-evening intermedia performance works – including segments from her latest work-in-progress “Baggage Allowance” –providing a representative survey of an extensive body of work.

Here’s my half of the data mosh project I’m working on with Adam. It’s called Mechanical Monsters. I’m glad I’m making more videos these days. It feels good.

Dear reader,

In the past, my friends will tell you – especially one friend who I debate this with constantly…Scott(:P) – that I’ve been known to be a little more than harsh on hip-hop and rap.

I like a lot of things other white people like in the rap world: Anticon; indie-rock/rap crossovers from people with friendly beards; and even a little Public Enemy; but no, you’d never see me wearing a clock round my neck or using the words ‘nigga’, ‘bitches’, ‘wagwan’, ‘brrrrap brrap’ or other somesuch stuffs without playful irony.

This isn’t only because some of those words are offensive but also because I don’t like a lot of modern rap – I hear JayZ and I think lazy; I don’t think that Kanye West is anyone’s ‘voice’ but his; and let’s not get started on the late 90s where only the Wu-Tang seemed to know how to make interesting ‘urban music’. [Ok, ok, so I used to like Limp Bizkit...but I was a teenager, come on. Do you still own those baggy trousers? Do you? Ok, would you wear them on a night out? No. Didn't think so.] As Heidegger is so fond of saying:

And yet!

Today, my little white world of player-hating was blown away by a man named Kool Keith.

What drew me in was Tom Waits but while waiting for Mr. Waits’ gravelly crimes to come to the fore, I noticed that Mr Kool Keith has a very interesting vernacular and a most gracious cadence! T’was a most pleasing spectacle also!

Behold:

Or not. Check out this & other video art by Mike Celona:

The 2010 IKEA Seattle catalog offers many moments of advice on developing my identity by purchasing furniture:

“‘You’ is the secret ingredient that gives your home that little something extra.”

“Everyone can do their own thing…together.”

“Change in a wink.”

Here, we are offered an opportunity for self-improvement and affirmation. Separated from the catalog, these words appear more like estranged versions of personal advice.  If one were to follow IKEA’s life suggestions, the acquisition of some of the least unique objects in the world will somehow provide answers to the larger questions of self.

When reviewed critically, the words of IKEA’s sales pitch, like so many advertising campaigns, reflects a disconnected relationship between words and meaning: the store offers identity but only sells cheap, mass-produced furniture. A similar disjointedness is also at the forefront of Guy Ben-Ner’s satirical Stealing Beauty, currently on view at Western Bridge. Filmed in various IKEA stores around the world, the work’s “situations” include brief moments in which the artist’s family plays a re-envisioned form of the sitcom family; the Ben-Ners disperse an unconventional set of morals focused on the role of the family in terms of property and productivity. At times, the phrases they speak evoke the IKEA catalog’s own mantras of identity and consumption.

Guy Ben-Ner. Stealing Beauty (excerpt). 2007.

When watching an actual sitcom, there is a tendency to passively absorb the characters, situations and dialogue because television most often prioritizes entertainment value over content.  Ben-Ner’s “characters” do not behave and speak as one would expect in a conventional comedy; instead of going through the situation/conflict/final moral cycle, the artist, his wife and his children exchange Marxist questions, often without any form of resolution.  When all of them speak, there is a feeling of overt scripting and over-acting that creates a rift between the people speaking and what is said.  This effect inspires active viewing of the work.  Because we are so accustomed to the look and feel of television, particularly the highly formulaic sitcom genre, a deviation from expectations is an immediate reason to pay attention and reconsider the images on the screen. This separation is ultimately one between signifier and signified meaning, as the artist employs typically benign vehicles (television and IKEA) to question issues related to capitalist society.

When I came upon Keys to Our Heart by Kalup Linzy at Prospect.1 (who just launched their new website counting down to Prospect.2), I recall experiencing a similar, albeit more dramatic, effect to that of viewing Stealing Beauty.   Although Keys to Our Heart includes more visual cues derived from Hollywood films (black and white medium, a period feel, elaborate costuming and sets), elements from the artist’s earlier body of work with the soap opera television genre (over-acting, archetypal character figures) also appear.

Kalup Linzy. Keys to Our Heart (excerpt) 2008.

Like Ben-Ner’s sitcom, Linzy’s work also utilizes a divide between dialogue and meaning; however, the latter’s rift is most apparent from the artist’s inclusion and manipulation of his own voice, ultimately using it for all characters.  Keys to Our Heart was installed in a crowded gallery of multiple high-impact works at the New Orleans Museum of Art during Prospect.1; yet, many, including myself, were drawn to the cacophony of the spoken dialogue and the way the words being spoken were out of sync with the actors “speaking” them.  In contrast to Ben-Ner’s piece, Linzy’s video is a societal critique more focused on identity politics and stereotyping. However, it is the unspoken dialogue beneath both scripts and sets of characters that reveal the most interesting truths of the works.

In the first edition of DVD magazine Wholphin, a group of five writers independently created five different sets of subtitles for the same episode of Turkish sitcom Tatli Hayat (“The Sweet Life”). The DVD begins with the subtitles included in the actual television program and then provides the episode five additional times with the writers’ new scripts.

The end results of the Tatli Hayat reworkings were not as impactful as the videos by Ben-Ner and Linzy, but they successfully initiate questions regarding the role and manipulation of meaning in television.  Ben- Ner and Linzy then take these questions farther by exploring TV’s covert constructions of identity and societal roles.  All of the works ultimately consider how much actual meaning is created by the intentional and unintentional messages communicated by mainstream media.  While the this inquiry has become increasingly persistent across various disciplines, if an answer resides anywhere, it is in a moment of art TV.

I am certainly going to to try and get to this exhibit. I read about this on Amy Elkins’s Blog The imagery intrigues me greatly. The exhibit is titled Bodies of Light. Bill Viola received his BFA in Experimental Studios from Syracuse University, 1973. BIll  is is internationally recognized as a pioneer in the medium of video art. He has been instrumental in the establishment of video as a vital form of contemporary art, and in so doing has helped to greatly expand its scope in terms of technology, content, and historical reach. This show is up till December 23rd at James Cohan Gallery

Another video made by mangling pieces of video at frame-level. I’ll post a little more info on it in a couple of days.

I am venturing out this Sunday morning to the Greenway at Shelby Bottoms. Anyone that lives in or around the fascinating world of East Nashville is well aware of the natural beauty that surrounds Shelby Bottoms Nature Park. Located just miles from downtown Nashville, some of the area’s best country is a world away from the brightly lit honkytonk dives and songs sung by urban cowboys sporting skinny jeans and fake tans. Plainly put, Shelby Bottoms Nature Park and Greenway is where you can easily spot the country side of our local countryside in which the majority of Nashville is deeply in love.

As if you needed extra incentives besides the tranquil scenery to drive, walk, jog, or ride your bike among other things down to the Park this weekend, feel free to share the news with other outdoor art fans about Erika Wollam’s exhibit at Shelby Bottoms Nature Center. Installation and Video Work Speaks of Wild Nature is a thought-provoking study and reflection of the collective relationship between wildlife, human beings and urban landscape in relation to undeveloped land. Included within the exhibit will be video, installation, and photography taken by the artist Wollam collected during regular walks on location throughout the past four years.

Saturday, November 14th, from 3:30pm-5:30pm, there was a fairly large crowd supporting the reception for the artist at the Shelby Bottoms Nature Center. The exhibit will run thru the end of the year, but the reception was a wonderful opportunity for all who enjoy the Park and Greenway for what it’s worth every chance they have free to be able to ask Wollamquestions about her work and specifically learn how to actively participate with the exhibit anytime by sharing their own experiences at Shelby Bottoms.

If you missed the Saturday opening reception, the exhibit is open to the public during Visitor Center hours, Tuesdays through Fridays, 12-4PM and Saturdays from 10AM to 4PM. For more information,call Shelby Bottoms Nature Center at (615) 862-8539. Don’t get left in the dark with this wonderful exhibit. Seriously, I love me some Shelby Bottoms, BUT it’s definitely on the safer side of things to not allow yourself to get left in the dark while in Shelby Bottoms after the sun goes down on all its beauty and peaceful nature.

There is something I love about these crazy 1990’s XMIX videos. For some reason I have it in my head that MTV used to be good for a time and I remember staying up to watch videos like these at 3 in the morning and thinking they where incredibly cool.

I have this theory that music is like a special kind of language one that sort of prepares our collective unconscious for the mind of the future. This theory is not just limited to techno it applies to all music. I guess it comes from the experience that people enjoy music together without neccesarily having to share a language and so music touches upon something that is common to us all. We can also learn alot very quickly about other cultures values through music. Im not sure what techno would say about us to an alien civilization though. I dont listen to techno much these days but in a way we could think of it as preparing the mind for the emergence of todays technologically oriented society. I picked up these XMIX videos of Laurent Garnier and Dave Angel on VHS in an Oxfam second hand shop a few years ago. God knows where Ive put them but amazingly I found them on youtube. A lot of people I know would not be into this kind of music and in the end all I can say to that is, you werent there man, but um neither was I, well I was a bit of a late comer.

Continuano i videoritratti pubblicati su ritrattidallabirinto.wordpress.com

Nino G. D’Attis

Chiara

3 short video pieces by Eddie Whelan just beautiful – via Dvblog

Yep you heard right…

SMAC nominees ‘Shoot the Player’ are a video production team who invite some of your favourite Indie musicians to shoot an impromptu music clip set in some of Sydney’s renowned landmarks. Each video is recorded spontaneously with a hand held camera so the set up is simple and unadorned compared to what you usually see in music videos but that’s what makes these clips authentic. Rare intimate moments of musicians interacting with the space around them are captured with charm and charisma and you can’t help but feel more connected to the performance. These clips are as close as watching a live set right in the comfort of your own home so please do check it out.

To find out more tune in on Sunday morning because we will be joined by the masterminds behind Shoot the Player, Amelia Tovey and Jonathon Wald.

“Guys, do me favor. Do yourselves a favor, do everyone a favor: don’t make video art. That’s the first thing I’d forbid if I was a dictator.”

This is a dear professor I work with, being the voice of the voiceless. I’m not giving out the name, in case he/she doesn’t want to draw the wrath of the video artists. “Wrath of the Video Artists”… Sounds like an horror movie title. Think about it, two hours of video art in theater…

“Eat ‘Em and Smile” til Dec. 12

I was ready to write this off as a self-indulgent twaddle, but I had been walking around for a while and was happy to sit and just watch.  This piece sneaked up on me…

It’s a video of a woman singing a folk song while playing guitar.  Despite the sincerity and gentle strength of the woman on-screen, it was a bit uncomfortable.  The screen is large.  The distance between myself and the screen is not much, or at least not enough for those with excellent vision (thanks to laser eye surgery) and intimacy issues.

It seems to me that the woman on-screen strumming her guitar and her song with feeling feels some need to confront me.  I guess her schtick is rebellion, but in the peaceful kind of way.  It’s protest music of another era.  When the woman finishes her strong, she pauses and looks at the camera for a few moments.  I wish she wouldn’t.

The next woman isn’t as confrontational.  She’s more matter of fact and has less of an act going.  Not as much an easily pegable type character.  But the thing is, she’s playing a song on an electric guitar and I can’t see any sign of that guitar being plugged in.  In order to get the sound that I’m hearing, that guitar would have been plugged into an amplifier.  I wondered if this woman is faking playing the guitar.

When this performer finishes playing her song, she too looks directly at you (at the camera) and waits.  Is she waiting for feedback on her performance?  Indeed, an audience reaction to a performance is a tradition.  Applause is the standard response.   Unfortunately on film, the singers won’t get feedback from the audience.  At least not right away.

I like how getting to know these character influences the songs that they play. Actually, they’re all singing the same song.  I was so distracted by the performance, I didn’t notice.  And I know what the song is.  I can sing along if I want to, but I just can’t name it.  The singers have changed the music, and the way that the song is performed so that it is so different from the most famous version of this song that it’s rendered almost unrecognizable even though you know the words.

I won’t even tell you what the song is.  It’s to fun to go and figure out what it is by yourself.

Really liking this very cool, morphing and sometimes creepy video for the lulling carousel  song by Grizzly Bear.  Director Allison Schulnik takes claymation to new heights.

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Come to ASU Art Museum tonight – Friday the 13th – for the premiere screening of artist-in-residence and master vampire slayer Jillian Mcdonald’s exhibition project.

The goodbye party is 5:30 – 7pm in the first floor gallery of the museum. Jillian leaves us for home tomorrow so come and help us see her off!

-diane

*The video above, which we’ve titled The Undeath of John Spiak, was an elementary art class project – the kids did their own makeup and their own short film while they were here earlier this week. Is that a cool class or what?