posted
  • place: Cedaredge, Colorado

The Call

[ED: This is a remixed version of a text I wrote in 2009 for Isabelle to accompany a show of her webcam composites at the Cabrillo Gallery in Aptos, California.]

Detail, SPAN 1 (2007-2009) Mike O'Callaghan - Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, Hoover Dam, Nevada webcam composite/ digital Lightjet print, 67.5 in x 93.5 in, Isabelle Jenniches, ©2009.
Detail, SPAN 1 (2007-2009), Mike O’Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, Hoover Dam, Nevada webcam composite/ digital Lightjet print, 67.5″ x 93.5″, Isabelle Jenniches, ©2009.
The Call emerges out of the long-term inter-net-work practice of artist Isabelle Jenniches who has in the past worked in a wide variety of creative net-based activities. “The Call” is one of a number of process-oriented pieces she created based on the availability of generic user-controlled Internet web-cams: remote-controlled tele-vision, as it were. The works are constructed over long periods of time spent observing the selected scenario, remotely. Life-time spent observing the world through a periscope while submerged in the endless flux of data that now flows around us and through us. Thousands of images are made during a methodological process of deep and distant looking through this mediated network eye. The extended seeing and repetitive digital stitching operations on the thousands of gathered images acts to frame a meditative and ultimately grounded daily routine. The cumulative practice approaches the classical Zen expression—there is no web-cam, there is no PhotoShop, there is only the Void—while the creative expression itself arises through the post-Cartesian possibilities of a commonly accessible network interface. This makes for a work that is deeply connected to the extended tele-body of this present era. The eye that sees beyond the horizon, from the silence of her studio under the redwoods. The eye that sees all. It turns this all-seeing eye of the surveillance society into a creative tool to explore an elemental and vivifying aspect of be-ing—as framed by the passage of time. The more things change, the more complexity surfaces through each individual’s model of reality. Formally recalling David Hockney’s early Polaroid SX-70 time-space collage transits, Jenniches’ work presents an intimate and intense personal vision of a scope rarely manifest in the click-through eye-candy world of the net. It demands attention and draws the eye ever closer with the seduction inherent in all high-resolution photographic imagery. And at the precise moment when the viewer is engaged in microscopic interpolation, the work becomes the macroscopic big picture.
John Hopkins, Sydney, August 2009; Colorado 2025 (https://neoscenes.net/blog)
posted
  • author: Victor Burgin

any moment

0
ANY MOMENT PREVIOUS TO
THE PRESENT MOMENT

1
THE PRESENT MOMENT AND
ONLY THE PRESENT MOMENT

2
ALL APARENTLY INDIVIDUAL
OBJECTS DIRECTLY EXPERIENCED
BY YOU AT 1

3
ALL OF YOUR RECOLLECTION AT 1
OF APPARENTLY INDIVIDUAL OBJECTS
DIRECTLY EXPERIENCED BY YOU AT
0 AND KNOWN TO BE IDENTICAL
WITH 2

4
ALL CRITERIA BY WHICH YOU MIGHT
DISTINGUISH BETWEEN MEMBERS OF 3
AND 2

5
ALL OF YOUR EXTRAPOLATION FROM
2 AND 3 CONCERNING THE DISPOSITION
OF 2 AT 0

6
ALL ASPECTS OF THE DISPOSITION
OF YOUR WON BODY AT 1 WHICH
YOU CONSIDER IN WHOLE OR IN
PART STRUCTURALLY ANALOGOUS
WITH THE DISPOSITION OF 2

7
ALL OF YOUR INTENTIONAL BODILY
ACTS PERFORMED UPON ANY MEMBER
OF 2

8
ALL OF YOUR BODILY SENSATIONS
WHICH YOU CONSIDER CONTINGENT
UPON YOUR BODILY CONTACT WITH
ANY MEMBER OF 2

9
ALL EMOTIONS DIRECTLY EXPERIENCED
BY YOU AT 1

10
ALL OF YOUR BODILY SENSATIONS
WHICH YOU CONSIDER CONTINGENT
UPON ANY MEMBER OF 9

11
ALL CRITERIA BY WHICH YOU MIGHT
DISTINGUISH BETWEEN MEMBERS OF
10 AND 9

12
ALL OF YOUR RECOLLECTION AT 1
OTHER THAN 3

13
ALL ASPECTS OF 12 UPON WHICH
YOU CONSIDER ANY MEMBER OF 9
TO BE CONTINGENT

Victor Burgin, 1970
posted
  • place: Denver, Colorado
  • author: Jim Johnson

The Crazed Janitor

[ED: During a visit to his apartment/studio in Denver last month, I asked Jim if he would consent to showing this piece on neoscenes. His art oeuvre is always challenging, humorous, playful, and both linguistically and algorithmically sophisticated!]

THE CRAZED JANITOR, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 18 in X 36 in, Jim Johnson.
THE CRAZED JANITOR, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 18 in X 36 in”, Jim Johnson.
The Crazed Janitor is a pangram, a sentence employing every letter of the alphabet. Pangrams are frequently used to display a specific typeface, in this case, one of my own design—Magic Squares. The letterforms are colored systematically by letter frequency usage, coloring consonants with a range of grays from black to white and assigning spectral colors to the vowels.

The T is colored black as it is the most frequently used consonant in the alphabet. White is assigned to the Z because it is the least frequently used consonant and all of the rest are assigned incremental values of gray between black and white according to their frequency of use. The vowels are assigned colors according to their respective wavelengths, thus Red (of the longest wavelength) is assigned to the E which is the most frequently used vowel. The remaining colors are assigned according to their respective wavelengths and usage, so that Violet (the shortest wavelength) is assigned to Y, the least frequently used vowel.

That the pangram might also represent a form of synesthesia, where some people see individual letters as specifically colored (not all black), is an unintended consequence of the composition.

posted
  • place: Cedaredge, Colorado

Phill Niblock 1933 – 2024

death

Sorry for this text, it’s garbled, but I can’t make it less so in the moment. Check out some of the links below for more considered words and documentation of Phill’s presence and creative expressions. I’m dismayed at the number of obits that are appearing here … sheesh …

The other day I was reviewing older sound recordings on the website, one of which is a remix of sounds recorded at one of Phill Niblock’s annual Solstice events at his and Katherine’s loft in New York. Back in 2007 I was in the NYC area and was able to make it to one of these legendary happenings. A number of ShareNY friends had reminded me of them, and my modus operandi generally is when in town, check stuff out. And if Phill Niblock is doing something, well, there’s no excuse!

Winter Solstice event @ Phill and Katherine's place, New York City, NY, 21 December ©2007 hopkins/neoscenes
Winter Solstice event @ Phill and Katherine’s place, New York City, NY, 21 December ©2007 hopkins/neoscenes

So, it was sad to hear of Phill’s passing. The hundreds, thousands of performances that he made, participated in, or facilitated for other artists—most often within the aegis of the Experimental Intermedia Foundation over the years—had a profound impact on all who experienced them. The annual Winter Solstice events at their loft were especially intense both in the immersive visual-sonic sense, but also in the powerful element of basic human encounter: always a slew of interesting folks attending!

As is noted in other obits, being and doing were things that Phill did with a profuse and personable energy. I was lucky to cross paths repeatedly with he and Katherine on their numerous transAtlantic forays and in NYC related to some ShareNY events.

Phill’s experimental visual and sonic work implemented a solid-and-shimmering tableau of full-on psychic immersion in live performance. The Solstice happening was merely one of the hundreds that Niblock brought into this universe from another, parallel universe, where time, sound, and Light have both more subtle and more tangible presence and energy.

An openness for exploring the profundity of the temporal was something that Bruce Elder and Stan Brakhage exposed me to back in the 80s, so Phill’s monumental 16mm opus, The Movement Of People Working, was immediately, electrically, attractive. It forms a compelling exploration of what human presence and be-ing actually is, not merely how it manifests: this element of lived immediacy imprints itself, over time on the receiver. And, combined with the sonic expressions forms a holistic, immersive experience. (Morton Feldman‘s influence.) Transcendent!

We shared the idea of duration in performance work: perhaps related to our separate instances of experiencing the work of Feldman. Phill often bringing duration to a beautiful extreme that inevitably sparked internal change within the witness/participant (there is no audience in this regard, there is only the Void!).

Condolences dear Katherine, and for our shared loss.

Visit Phill’s website for a deeper plunge. This obit by Lawrence English is especially illuminating. And the NYT obit gives a wide view on Phill’s life.

Further insight into the Solstice Events with some documentation at Roulette; along with a 12-hour video.

posted
  • place: Helsinki, Finland

Minna Tarkka 1960 – 2023

Saddened to receive news from Andrew that friend, colleague, artist, researcher, producer, and facilitator Minna Tarkka had passed, far too young, on 27 August after a very brief illness.

Researcher Minna Tarkka received the state award for media art in December 2017, Helsinki, Finland. Photo credit: Martti Kainulainen / Lehtikuva.
Researcher Minna Tarkka received the state award for media art in December 2017, Helsinki, Finland. Photo credit: Martti Kainulainen / Lehtikuva.

I arrived in Helsinki, Finland, gritty-eyed, after an early morning flight from Reykjavík, in late August, 1994, on the first of many visits, sojourns, gigs, workshops, and residencies. After dropping my luggage at my friend Visa’s print-making studio on Jääkärinkatu, I made my way to Arabianranta and the University of Art and Design Helsinki (Taideteollinen korkeakoulu, or TAIK, now the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture), located then in the old Arabia porcelain factory on Hämeentie. I was in Helsinki for the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) and, later, for an international performance event (Fax You) at the Akademie Bookstore on Helsinki’s Night of the Arts with the Finnish artist, Visa Norros and others. ISEA was being hosted that year by the Media Lab at TAIK and directed by Minna Tarkka, a person who did things, who showed up, and who inspired others to show up and do things.

I first met Minna later that morning at the TAIK Arabianranta building on the 3rd Floor at the Media Lab—actually we collided in the hallway—auspicious and a bit embarrassing! She was dashing from Point A to Point B as Director during the very hectic symposium registration. After both of us proffered sheepish apologies and introduced ourselves, she took me around, introducing me to some of the media arts luminaries attending the symposium and to staff at the Lab. This was the first of many examples of her unsparing generosity. It was during the symposium that I fully entered her energized sphere of influence there in Finland, where we had a number of memorable dialogues around the ethics and creative possibilities of the rapidly expanding field of electronic media in which she was a thought pioneer. As Associate Professor at the Lab, she later facilitated my return in the spring of 1995 to teach a four-week course. And a few years following that, she was totally supportive of the course netculture that I developed and taught at the Lab in 2000-2001. Her parallel trans-disciplinary course, “Cultural Usability,” critically examined new media design that was inclusive of sociological, cultural, and technological perspectives. Years earlier in 1987, she was the founding Director of MUU, the ‘alternative’ arts organization that has since been a major international player in new media arts. And two years later, she was a founding member of AV-arkki yet another power-house media arts resource and artists’ association there in Finland.

In those earlier days of our acquaintance (and of the WWW itself), her research and art work around spatial metaphors in virtuality, the aesthetics of immersion, and the dynamics of interaction and consumption were of special interest to me, as she explored the fundamentals of human relation as mediated by this ‘new’ technology. She made some highly original and deep dives into the aesthetic and ethical dimensions in the design of spaces for interaction. And all the while, she worked as a facilitator of human encounter, organizing, producing, and participating in many subsequent events, culminating with the formation of another cultural NGO, m-cult in 2000. Right up to the present, m-Cult has exerted a strong influence on the international critical engagement of culture with technology, leading with a profound sense of humane social activism. Yet another influential expression of her energies.

I never made a portrait of her and there seem to be only a handful of poor digital traces. She was a bit shy and soft-spoken. I have a vague memory of the epic RinneRadio concert at ISEA and a huge crowd dancing away, Minna included. She knew how to have an expansive time! That she is gone is yet another loss to many of us who are still pacing about this stage. Minna you will be fondly remembered and deeply missed.

[ED: I will add any reflections and comments from others to this posting as they surface. I’ve been reaching out to friends and former colleagues from those former life-changing times.]

posted
  • place: Aachen and Forsbach, Germany

Mary Bauermeister 1934 – 2023

death

Incommunicado, distracted this whole calendar year by exhausting j-o-b tasks, along with endless, heavy, slow physical labor on the property, I completely missed Mary‘s passing in March. Her NYT obit gives some sense of her powerful creative trajectory and persona as an artist and a convener of artists.

In Mary's studio, Forsbach, Germany, June ©2013, hopkins/neoscenes.
In Mary’s studio, Forsbach, Germany, June ©2013, hopkins/neoscenes.

Volker had told me late last year she was declining from cancer and that Simon had moved into the Forsbach house to look after her. But it was too much for him, and she was subsequently moved to a care facility. I had planned to spend some time with her back in March 2020 during my Covid-aborted Germany trip, and now, she’s gone. The last time then, were the days spent in 2013 at Forsbach, the highLight being the day-long Fluxus Akademie meeting that she convened, inviting me along with a number of German academics and artists in her orbit. Her energy was astounding: just shy of 80 y.o., she raced around the house preparing for both the meeting and in the kitchen, a sumptuous luncheon. Helping her as best I could, I almost had a heart attack myself when, at one point, as she ran back and forth from the kitchen to the meeting space, she tripped and fell up the stone steps between the rooms. Showing no injury, she brushed herself off and kept going at high-bustle speed: the indomitable dynamo that she was her entire life! “I provide” as she says below.

We first met in Aachen at the Avantiere* exhibition in 1990 that HaWeBe (Hans Werner Berretz) organized at the Aula Carolina. Mary had a sculptural installation “Zeit”; my installation was “der Apkalyptische Traum” that was wrapped around the massive stone columns of the ancient hall.

I was the oldest daughter. I had an older brother whom I loved very much and four younger sisters. So I was then the provider of the family. I always had to, that is, I wanted to. I thought that was wonderful. I actually provided very early on. Later my children almost resented me for that, because my love is always in providing. I am a human being. If someone tells me you don’t love me, don’t hug me, I provide, I like to provide for people, and my kind of love has to do with providing, not necessarily with cuddling and hugging. That I had to do without that for too long in my life. In order to take that importantly now, I then also learned to put away nicely ascetically. As a child, I saw colors around every object, moving colors. One would call that today aura, above all around living things, but also around stones. Stones were not dead for me. — Mary Bauermeister
"Zeit", mixed media, Mary Bauermeister, Avantiere exhibition, Aachen, Germany, March ©1990 hokins/neoscenes.
“Zeit”, mixed media, Mary Bauermeister, Avantiere exhibition, Aachen, Germany, March ©1990 hopkins/neoscenes.

That’s also where I first connected with Simon Stockhausen, her son. He performed a long improve electronica piece—an hommage to the works in the show—as his then girlfriend, Tina, pulled his synth rig around the space. I unfortunately hadn’t any access to a decent recording device at that juncture, having hopped down to Germany from Reykjavík just a few months after moving there from the US, footloose.

Simon Stockhausen, prepping, Avantiere exhibition, Aachen, Germany, March ©1990 hopkins/neoscenes.
Simon Stockhausen, prepping, Avantiere exhibition, Aachen, Germany, March ©1990 hopkins/neoscenes.

Over the times we crossed paths, I never did a portrait of Mary, it seemed too trivial a gesture in the face of her powerful life-energy (there’s her hearty laughter in my ear!), instead I shot a lot of interiors at her unique house (designed by Erich Schneider-Wessling) there in Rösrath which was, essentially, a working museum. Among countless other objets d’art, stones, crystals, and musical instruments was a set of absolutely huge Tibetan singing bowls. They amplified and resonated with her fundamental life-energy. The garden was also the site of numerous permanent installations including the largest singly terminated quartz crystal I’ve ever had the opportunity to hang around.

in Mary's living room, Forsbach, Germany, June ©2013 hopkins/neoscenes.
in Mary’s living room, Forsbach, Germany, June ©2013 hopkins/neoscenes.

Thank you, Mary, for so freely sharing your prodigious creative energies with so many of us, and thank you for providing.

* Hans Werner introduces Mary and the rest of us starting around 00:15:30 in the video following a long introduction by a critic whose name I can’t recall. I shot this on a borrowed VHS machine that Léo managed to snag from his office. Ancient history!

posted
  • place: Erie, PA and Brainstorms, online

Rick Albertson 1957 – 2022

  • portrait, Rick Albertson, somewhere near Lake Erie, February 2016. Photo credit: Mark Osiecki.
    portrait, Rick Albertson, somewhere near Lake Erie, February 2016. Photo credit: Mark Osiecki.
  • what Rick was really looking at ... somewhere near Lake Erie, February 2016. Photo credit: Mark Osiecki.
    what Rick was really looking at … somewhere near Lake Erie, February 2016. Photo credit: Mark Osiecki.

death

We—Rick Albertson’s colleagues, fellow artists, activists, and friends—are deeply moved by his recent passing. Over many decades, Rick touched each of us in ways as diverse as his many interests, affections, and talents. At one time or another, we all will have been moved by his wit, candor, loyalty, and elan vital. He has indeed been a significant vector for us, nudging the course of our lives about in important ways. Many will have known greater joy, hope, and success on a given day because of Rick. Our debts to him are incalculable…but no matter, as Rick in his usual generous style would have forgiven those anyway!

Rick was an alumnus of the Penn State theater department where he obtained a degree in set design, a passion he had already cultivated by his mid-teens when working for the Erie Civic Theater Association. At that time, Rick was a lighting technician and also performed in the theater’s pit orchestra. Upon graduation, Rick was employed by various staging companies as well as operating one himself. His professional exploits carried him all over the US where he was responsible for staging countless conferences and media events. His colleagues will have known him for his boundless energy, creativity, and hands-on troubleshooting skills. There was no technical competency that Rick didn’t seem to possess. He had a way of bringing a sense of festivity into even the most stressful of working environments.

While based for many years in Atlanta, Rick played electric bass in many well-known jazz, rock, and blues bands, laying down a crucial bottom line at all sorts of performances and events. Forever in search of adrenaline, he was a crew member on the emergency rescue team at Road Atlanta Raceway, and he also managed to infect some of us with his love of whitewater rafting and scuba diving.

A voracious reader of…well…anything he could get his hands on, Rick was also an accomplished writer. He moved to California during the dot-com bubble where he worked for Talk City as an editor and administrator. Following that, Rick went to Boston as Contributing Editor for Senator John Kerry’s web site. Rick was also an active contributor to other sites like Democratic Underground and The Daily KOS. He eventually returned to Pennsylvania where he continued to be active in liberal politics, a lifelong passion of Rick’s where he worked as an activist on many fronts. Rick cherished democracy and seized every opportunity to promote and preserve it.

Rick’s capacity for listening and empathizing was unparalleled. Lastly, he went on to work with the Mental Health Association of Northwestern PA as a Certified Peer Specialist, interacting directly with a diversity of mental health clients…a perfect fit for this energized and energizing, compassionate man. It’s somehow appropriate that he will have touched their lives as he has ours…with affection, humor, love…and an inimitable way of assuring that all can and shall be well!

Andee Baker, Santa Fe, NM, USA; Ann Hyland, Wexford, IRELAND; Anneke Toomey, Loveland, CO, USA; Ari Davidow, Boston, MA, USA; Camille Vahey, Erie, PA, USA; Emily Zielinski, Canandaigua, NY, USA; Howard Rheingold, Mill Valley, CA, USA; Janna Nelson, Albuquerque, NM, USA; Janice MacDonald, Edmonton, AB, CANADA; John Hopkins, Cedaredge, CO, USA; John Mulligan, Silver Spring, MD, USA; John W. Hays, Beldenville, WI, USA; Kate Gilpin, Richmond, CA, USA; Mark Osiecki, Heidelberg, GERMANY; Mary, Seattle, WA, USA; Nan Stefanik, Newfane VT, USA; Michele Armstrong, Cupertino, CA, USA; Richard J. Lee, Oakland, CA, USA; Robert Crosby, Redmond, OR, USA; Sarah Cherry, Melburne, AUSTRALIA; Scott Butki, Austin, TX, USA; Scott Hooker, Albuquerque, NM, USA; Stephen Engel, Portland OR, USA; Susan Uskudarli, Istanbul,TURKEY; Tom Whitmore, Seattle, WA, USA; Valerie Bock, Decatur, IL, USA; Ward Bell,  Minneapolis, MN USA; Will Osiecki, Montreal, QC

posted
  • place: Paonia, Colorado

portrait, Jennifer

portrait, Jennifer, Paonia, Colorado, October ©2021 hopkins/neoscenes.
portrait, Jennifer, Paonia, Colorado, October ©2021 hopkins/neoscenes.

portrait, Jennifer, Paonia, Colorado, October ©2021 hopkins/neoscenes.
portrait, Jennifer, Paonia, Colorado, October ©2021 hopkins/neoscenes.

portrait, Jennifer, Paonia, Colorado, October ©2021 hopkins/neoscenes.
portrait, Jennifer, Paonia, Colorado, October ©2021 hopkins/neoscenes.

posted

Gelassenheit & Dada

Dada is the activated inverse operation of Gelassenheit: what could be more accurate a statement? Now, to completely destabilize it. Mr. Summers says, from Maastricht, “I bought a parachute for my orangutan today. And to celebrate the centenary of Dada I took a plastic sieve for a walk.” There you have it.

posted
  • place: Vienna, Austria

Robert Adrian X 1935 – 2015

TOWARD A DEFINITION OF RADIO ART

Radio art is the use of radio as a medium for art.

Radio happens in the place it is heard and not in the production studio.

Sound quality is secondary to conceptual originality.

Radio is almost always heard combined with other sounds – domestic, traffic, tv, phone calls, playing children etc.

Radio art is not sound art – nor is it music. Radio art is radio.

Sound art and music are not radio art just because they are broadcast on the radio.

Radio space is all the places where radio is heard.

Radio art is composed of sound objects experienced in radio space.

The radio of every listener determines the sound quality of a radio work.

Each listener hears their own final version of a work for radio combined with the ambient sound of their own space.

The radio artist knows that there is no way to control the experience of a radio work.

Radio art is not a combination of radio and art. Radio art is radio by artists.

death

Robert and I got into contact via the Eternal Network more than twenty years ago. He was a networker, and an inspiring telecommunications and radio artist: or as Ars Electronica writes “artist, leading-edge thinker, media art pioneer, telecommunications artist, painter and sculptor.” His partner, Heidi Grundmann, is the founder of KunstRadio on Austrian National Radio.

posted
  • place: Rotterdam, Netherlands

André Gingras 1966 – 2013

portrait, Canadian choreographer André Gingras, Amsterdam, 2007, photograph by Mylène Siegers

I wanted to put something up regarding André’s passing. I didn’t know him well, but did catch one of his dance works that Sher took me to in Amsterdam back in 2007, and then the next evening André and I were guests of Sher and Janine on Waag’s KillerTV program. He impressed me as an incredibly empathetic and intelligent artist, and news of his sudden passing was sad.

deathChoreograaf André Gingras (1966-2013): vrije geest met fascinatie voor het lichaam

André Gingras, de man die zijn fascinatie voor de wetenschap van het lichaam in energieke en bekroonde podiumdans wist om te zetten, is zondagochtend overleden.

Dit weekend is choreograaf André Gingras (46) overleden aan een agressieve vorm van darmkanker. Nog maar twee jaar geleden nam hij als beloftevol artistiek leider van Dance Works Rotterdam het stokje over van voorganger Ton Simons. Hoewel het gezelschap door de bezuinigingen gedwongen werd dit voorjaar te stoppen, was Gingras voornemens door te gaan onder zijn eigen naam. Dat is hem niet meer gegund.

Free running

Gingras, geboren in Canada, was de man die in Nederland het free running naar het professionele danspodium bracht. Hoewel hij zeker niet de eerste was die de dans van de straat naar het theater haalde, wist hij er al snel een aansprekende podiumvorm voor te vinden. In The Autopsy Project, lovend ontvangen in 2007, liet hij dansers duikvluchten maken van beddenframes; ze sprongen en balanceerden op het staal om met een doodsmak te eindigen.

Gingras wist zijn fascinatie voor de wetenschap van het lichaam vaak om te zetten in energieke podiumdans. Hij was minstens zo veel met literatuur en kennis bezig als met beweging en choreografie. Gingras studeerde theater, Engelse literatuur en moderne dans in Toronto, Montreal en New York. Hij werd door theatervernieuwer Robert Wilson verkozen tot een van de leden van zijn creatieve team.

Laboratoriumexperiment

De doorbraak van Gingras in Nederland kwam in 2000, met zijn solo CYP17 voor het CaDance Festival. Deze even bizarre en grappige als ontregelende en onderzoekende solo over een wetenschappelijk laboratoriumexperiment met een man, toerde tot vijf jaar geleden rond de wereld, onder meer langs New York, waar danslegende Mikhail Baryshnikov persoonlijk een staande ovatie gaf.

Naast zijn wetenschappelijke fascinatie voor het lichaam, was Gingras ook gegrepen door de oververhitte adoratie ervan. In Anatomica (2011) maakte hij een ruige choreografie over de fysieke paringsdans van de moderne mens. In dat stuk roken zijn elf dansers seks en dampten ze lust. Hoe we de juiste partner lokken, was ook het onderwerp van Libido, zijn ‘open en bloot’-samenwerking met zijn landgenoot David St. Pierre, het enfant terrible van de moderne dans. Dit duet ging in première in Julidans en kreeg de kop: ‘Veel bloter kan het niet worden’. St. Pierre veegde in Libido een gespierde danser zijn blote billen af met een babydoekje onder de uitspraak: ‘Ik weet nooit waar mijn gezicht nog belandt.’

Vrije geest

Het tekent de vrije geest van de eveneens homoseksuele Gingras dat hij zijn naam verbond aan dit duet over vleselijke lust. In 2010 nam hij de artistieke leiding over van Dance Works Rotterdam. In dat jaar vertoonde zijn lichaam ook de eerste verschijnselen van kanker. Hij hield het, uit angst tijdens de harde bezuinigingen subsidiënten negatief te beïnvloeden, lange tijd verborgen voor de buitenwereld. Zijn levenspartner en echtgenoot maakte zondagochtend het overlijden bekend.

Annette Embrechts, die Volkskrant, 18 February 2013

posted

The antidemocratic makeover of the cultural scene in Hungary

This from Janos in Hungary — in the continuing saga of right-wing

Share and publicize!

Recent legislative steps in Hungary point towards the authoritarian transformation of the institutional structures and funding system of cultural life, by giving an ultra conservative artist group close to the right-wing government, the Hungarian Academy of Arts, an unassailable position of power. As a result of these decisions, the government has endangered the long term autonomy, professionalism and democratic procedures of Hungarian contemporary art. The government established the Hungarian Academy of Arts (MMA) as the preeminent authority in the field of arts through the new constitution or Fundamental Law, which came into force on 1 January, 2012. The Academy, which was originally founded as a private association in 1992, is made up of artists strongly loyal towards the government.
more “The antidemocratic makeover of the cultural scene in Hungary”

posted
  • place: Boulder, Colorado

screening: Jeanne Liotta

Make a pilgrimage to Longmont to the Firehouse Arts Center to catch an evening screening of work by a CU Film Studies faculty-member Jeanne Liotta. I had met her the evening before at another university-sponsored cultural event. Alex had mentioned there was a reception/opening in the Rare Books Room of the Library, and, as a professional nomadic cultural participant (and observer), I thought I’d check it out. Turns out it was the effort of a Humanities class that had curated a small show of works from the collection of artist’s books that Lucy Lippard had given to the University. Strangely enough two of the pieces in the exhibition are from old friend/networker node, Paul Rutkovsky (aka. floridada). I talked to some of the student curators about Paul, Lucy, and about networking. I was lucky to have been doing my MFA at CU-Boulder when Lucy was in residence and received some of her teachings. Age brings the role of information carrier, holder of historical perspective and knowing, story-teller. No corner on wisdom, but at least some stories are related. I query the kids about what their thinking is about the use of photocopy machines as art tools. This is a very novel idea for them (given they only know the digital type of photocopy machines at most, not the old analog devices). Paper output is novel in itself. I don’t have much documentation online of some of the prior (ancien-régime!) photocopy-based projects I’ve run: just The Xerox Book that included mp3 files of the accompanying collaborative audio cassette mix, unfortunately there are no scans of the 300 actual pages … some day I’ll get to that corner of the archive & revive it in the digital zone.

At any rate, Jeanne’s work dances around cosmology, astronomy, and very much the syntax of the various filmic media she plays with — from Second Life pieces to found footage, analog and digital to Ray-o-gram-printed 35mm film stock. The sonic accompaniments well synergize with the visuals. I missed not seeing some of the analog film pieces in their original form (vs digital reproductions), as most of the pieces are (at least in part) deeply about what mediation they are conveyed upon. (Not that that aspect is meant to completely frame them materialistically: it’s only one order of correlation.) There are plenty of other resonant aspects and sources: the eclipse, the sky, the procession of stellar energies, the transposition of Light from various enigmatic sources onto halating film substrates: she always maintains an alchemical and, consequently, an experimental edge through her attention to immediate and spontaneous situation. This sensitivity is combined with an aware curiosity of phenomenon: yielding Light works that are simultaneously playful and yet connected to/suffused with an insistent and sometimes overwhelming gravity. Escaping the gravitational field of be-ing requires an empathy for the intense sadness that pervades our current times: this potential is achieved on occasion and reminded me of the intent of Bruce Elder’s magnum opus “The Book of All the Dead” and the constant struggle against the gravity of it all, in search of Light. It goes ever back to Simone Weil’s “Two forces rule the universe: light and gravity.”

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  • place: Boulder, Colorado

Trans-disciplinary Dialogue and Holistic Knowledge Generation

At its core, trans-disciplinary collaboration is chiefly a test of how to find the words, and within the words, the cumulative meanings that might span what is often a wide gulf in understandings. In general, the use of language in a transdisciplinary space is a particular challenge that, to a significant degree, determines the successful outcome of the attempt to bridge, fuse, or simply transcend disciplinary spaces altogether. Of course, beyond the words, there is the imperative for energized and embodied collaborative action, Freire’s ‘praxis'(1): change is the presumptive goal of the trans-disciplinary encounter. However, what I call the ‘meta-conditions’ of the human encounter are as or even more important than strictly linguistic exchanges. Meta-conditions deeply impress the qualities and potentialities of the human encounter that are the core of learning and change. In this White Paper I will reflect on these meta-conditions necessary to facilitate trans-disciplinary communication and collaboration. I will do this as a former engineer, a practicing ‘media’ artist, and in the context of 25 years of experience(2) teaching across art, design, engineering, and technology. The instance of my own current planning and facilitating of a (pre-existing) course I was invited to teach in the Fall of 2012 will function as an armature for the reflections. A former student of mine, Director of the TAM (Technology, Arts, and Media (3)) Program, that is hosted within the ATLAS Institute (Alliance for Technology, Learning, and Society(4)), offered me one section of “The Meaning of Information Technology”(5) course at the University of Colorado – Boulder.(6) Among other threads, my reflections will touch on re-defining the term ‘technology’ in such a way that allows more powerful critical access to that often-self-obscured aspect of our social existence, regardless of disciplinary background. I will also make some critical observations about what I understand as the deep and problematic assumptions under-girding much of contemporary education.

—————–

1) Freire, P., 2000. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Continuum.
2) https://neoscenes.net/info/cv/
3) https://tam.colorado.edu/
4) https://atlas.colorado.edu/
5) https://tam.colorado.edu/teaching.php (general program requirements for the course)
6) https://colorado.edu

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  • place: Maastricht, Netherlands

The Silence of Summers

Rod Summers, The Silence of Summers Exhibition, Maastricht, Netherlands, July 2012
Rod Summers, The Silence of Summers Exhibition, Maastricht, Netherlands, July 2012.

Rod Summers, Coughin, The Silence of Summers Exhibition, Maastricht, Netherlands, July 2012
Rod Summers, Coughin, The Silence of Summers Exhibition, Maastricht, Netherlands, July 2012.

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  • place: La Trobe bus stop, Bundoora, VIC, Australia

10,000 sounds

the radio aporee ::: maps project reached a downright Taoist level today with the uploading of the 10,000th global collaborative phonography sound sample. I was watching closely as the numbers crept upwards and timed it so that my latest batch would coincide with this day — it seemed auspicious. I’ve uploaded a total of 621 four-minute files from twenty countries. By my accounting, the 10,000th sample, my 615th recording (at the 550 bus stop on the LTU campus in Bundoora at Plenty Road) follows:

If you go to the main interface at aporee::maps and go to ‘search’ in the lower left, and choose the ‘:::maps’ option and type in ‘neoscenes’ (check the ‘place, sound’ button) — you will get a full scrolling list of my contributions. Or, you can simple click on the aporee category in this blog and have the locations come up there as small maps as above.

Kudos to the initiator, artist, phonographer, (cook!), and programmer behind the project, Udo Noll — thanks much for giving all us participants the possibility to … participate … in your creative dreaming!

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  • place: Whanganui, New Zealand

The Green Bench – Day 2 – eNZed

opening, The Greenbench, Whanganui, New Zealand, December 2010

Today is completely packed and busy: cleaning, organizing, and installing the show at the Greenbench for the gallery opening this evening. The title of the show is BURN and the show is obliquely or directly about hydrocarbons — plastics, production, consumption, distribution. Julian had tracked down a collection of oil samples from an early and now spent New Zealand (oil) field nearby (name?). I am surprised, oil — with the tectonic regime here, the foreshore of a plate boundary subduction zone. Ah, maybe the heat flow is actually lower when considering that because the immediate crust is double thickness with the subducting plate, so there is a lower heat gradient from the mantle. Shallow oil, guess I’d never thought of the genesis of such plays.

I use embodied energy to organize and clean the gallery kitchen for the opening, along with having numerous conversations with folks introduced from Julian’s extensive local network. He asks me if I will talk at the opening sharing some anecdotes about working in the oil business. Completely impromptu, though I had a minute to sit with a piece of paper before and write a five- or six-point list of things to remember to talk about. I am not the best story-teller, especially in such a situation, but folks politely listen to a few minutes of my rambling.

Later in the evening, raucous preparations over wine precede delicious dinner back at the house. Definitely some good cooks around!

The question for me becomes — how to keep track of the dialogues, and the warm humans encountered? Julian mentions there is an artist-residency possibility in town. It would be great to hang here for a time. Somehow, it reminds me distantly of Tornio, in Lapland, half-way ’round the world, literally, in the sense of it being a littoral backwater along a river in a small country, but the community here seems quite activated, and the differences between Finns/Lapps and Kiwis/Maori are complex and significant. Similarities do exist — it would be good to have the time to explore. It looks like there will not be any spare time in these 11 days for much autonomous explorations, although this is okay, as the people immediately surrounding Julian and Sophie’s lives provide a rich environment for encounter. And a site for the exchange of inspiration.

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  • place: Ultimo, NSW, Australia

twiddling thumbs for the Knighthood

In art and literature the problem is different. On the one hand, freedom is more possible, because the authorities are not asked to provide expensive apparatus. But on the other hand merit is much more difficult to estimate. The older generation of artists and writers is almost invariably mistaken as to the younger generation: the pundits almost always condemn new men who are subsequently judged to have outstanding merit. For this reason such bodies as the French Academy or the Royal Academy are useless, if not harmful. There is no conceivable method by which the community can recognize the artist until he is old and most of his work is done. The community can only give opportunity and toleration. It can hardly be expected that the community should license every man who says he means to paint, and should support him for his daubs however execrable they may be. I think the only solution is that the artist should support himself by work other than his art, until such time as he gets a knighthood. He should seek ill-paid half-time employment, live austerely, and do his creative work in his spare time. Sometimes less arduous solutions are possible: a dramatist can be an actor, a composer can be a performer. But in any case the artist or writer must, while he is young, keep his creative work outside the economic machine and make his living by work of which the value is obvious to the authorities. For if his creative work affords his official means of livelihood, it will be hampered and impaired by the ignorant censorship of the authorities. The most that can be hoped — and this is much — is that a man who does good work will not be punished for it. — Bertrand Russel (1968, p. 66-67)

Russell, B., 1968. The Impact of Science on Society, New York: AMS Press, Inc.

Thanks for that positive, pragmatic, and ultimately true statement of current affairs. Fifty years later. We can only hope.

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acceptance

Yes, as an originator man is solitary. He stands wholly without bonds in the echoing hall of his deeds. Nor can it help him to leave his solitariness that his achievement is received enthusiastically by the many. He does not know if it is accepted, if his sacrifice is accepted by the anonymous receiver. Only if someone grasps his hand not as a “creator” but as a fellow-creature lost in the world, to be his comrade or friend or lover beyond the arts, does he have an awareness and a share of mutuality. An education based only on the training of the instinct of origination would prepare a new human solaritariness which would be most painful of all. — Martin Buber

Buber, M., 1985. Between Man and Man, New York, NY: Collier Books.

The originatory creative act perhaps requires a (painful) level of social isolation — is this the source of the ‘tortured artist’ syndrome? This in contrast to the integrated flow of socialized encounter with the Other which is (also?) the locus of creative action. hmmm…

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Migrating: Art: Academies: done

MigAA book cover (pdf download)

After eight weeks of intensive effort, sometimes re-writing almost from scratch a wide range of (English-second-language) articles, essays, and academic papers, the second and final book from the MigAA project is done and at the printers. Bravo to the Alfa60 designers, Joseph and Lina in Vilnius — perhaps this book will win awards like the last one did! And big kudos to El Jefe, miga, without whom, none of this would have come to pass, none of it!

This is the jacket blurb I wrote in ten minutes — the day Lina was sending the book to the printers! more “Migrating: Art: Academies: done”

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  • place: Wendover, Utah

CLUI residency — Energy of Situation

Some final words on the residency period:

Energy of Situation

Rather than producing new material configurations of the energized world as a tool for individual continuance and relevance to the wider social system, I chose to concentrate on a fundamental closer to the bone, as it were: the production of new configurations of the energized world as a tool for individual continuance and relevance to the wider social system. What we do changes the cosmos, always, everywhere, (because everywhere’s are not separated nor distinct).

Traditional art production is (merely) the (re)configuration of certain flows in the near (and far) surround of the producer. My approach generally falls under this model but approaches the reconfiguration process from an entirely different path. Entering a ‘residency’ is (merely) moving from one (life)-situation into another: we are constantly doing this in life, transitioning from one semi-stable configuration to another, with periods of more-or-less instability in between. If one leaves traditional temporal and spatial metrics behind, this process may be seen simply as the modulation of a constancy of flowing condition. The particular conditions and configurations of a situation dictate the potential range of reconfigurations possible, given the energy input of the individual and the embodied life-energy/life-time that is available. The configuration is merely a cumulative apprehended set of flows occurring with a reductive purview (and is always relative to the observer!) There is the ‘locally external’ factor of the accessibility of external energy sources for reconfiguring, but if one approaches the situation as a more autonomous and self-contained instance, the range of possibility is limited just as life-time and life-energy is limited. It is along this approach that I undertook this residency. (I will here omit a wider discussion of the framework of my personal model of the cosmos as there isn’t the room here to undertake it even in brief).
more “CLUI residency — Energy of Situation”

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  • place: en route Wendover - Gold Hill - Callao - Dugway, Utah

CLUI: Day Thirty-Three — finale

near Callao, Utah, May 2010

Finally depart, making last-minute passes across all the place. Ship-shape, single-wide shape. Good enough for the next artist coming through. Head out by around noon, tired of waiting on the road to Echo Park to open after these repeated waves of late spring storms rolling through. Head south to follow the southern boundary of the Dugway site, through Gold Hill, in that frontier mode, rough, and the mountains have all been dug up, mined out. Some tough looking abodes, apparently there are a few people who live there year-round, it’s gotta be tough. Join the Pony Express Route at Callao, head east to the Wildlife area, windy more or less, mostly more. Callao is really a frontier outpost. About 8-10 ranch families. No store, no gas, no nuthin,’ just the ranches clustered around some arable land at the foot of the spectacular and rugged Deep Creek Mountains (which are higher than the Wasatch in Eastern Utah! The Pony Express Route is an even more strange communications artifact, but one that resonated long in the US imagination, though it lasted only a couple years in actuality — made obsolete by the telegraph cable. But the idea of riding across this landscape in 12-mile spurts (a healthy horse has to stop after that distance when running full-tilt), well, it’s something.

Over-night at the Dugway Geode Mines, pick around a bit in the gathering twiLight, but am pretty tired after the drive. Quiet night, though there are threatening clouds rolling through from time-to-time. It’s always tough to pick a place out there to camp at there are no accessible trees, nor even vegetation above the knees, hardly the ankles! Always have the feeling of being exposed.

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  • place: Millers Point, NSW, AU

netart 2009 – VisitorsStudio

The following quick essay was for the last and final edition of the annual netarts awards from the Machida Museum in Tokyo:

Grand Prize for this year, the online platform VisitorsStudio, is not a complete newcomer to the netart scene — it’s been running as a live visual-sonic collaboratory for a few years now. As a playground, it offers many degrees of freedom within what appears at first to be a very restrictive environment. But, isn’t it true that all play-places have limits? Your mother would never let you go off just anywhere and play. Your mother would certainly approve of VisitorsStudio. The limits of VisitorsStudio lie primarily in the intriguing area of file sizes (more on that shortly). The interface is intuitive and straight forward, and does not entail a steep learning curve: anyone can create mesmerizing works in no time.

The most obvious elements in digital ‘mash-up’ play are the text, the image (still and moving), and the sound. Participants in VisitorsStudio may gather these elements themselves and using a rich set of live controls make compelling live mixes. There is an existing database of files to work with, or, you can prepare your own media library to upload and play with. This is where each sound, image, or video file is limited to a 200kb maximum size — you will be surprised at what can be done — the result is absolute proof that great things come in small packages.

VisitorsStudio is available for special performances and makes an ideal platform for educators in all settings who wish to stimulate imaginations with real interactive digital art — it’s not simulated and it’s not eye-candy. As a collaborative tool, it does not aggressively take the foreground in the process, but rather works as a solid and supportive background element for seamless play.

Of course, the best way to enjoy a jam session is with a heavy-duty sound system and a 72-inch plasma screen or a video projector. You will be the resident visual-sonic artist. But intimate small-screen solo play is also very satisfying. The best feature is the possibility for live remote partners and audience. Invite your friends half-way around the world to join you in a jam session!

Technically, VisitorsStudio needs only an internet connection and a browser running the latest version of the Flash plugin. And, hey, if we ask, maybe they will port a Wii controller to VisitorsStudio! Wouldn’t that be fun? Let’s play!

One of the Honorable Mentions for the 2009 netart award is SiTO’s gridcosm project which, if there ever was a primordial interactive play-place online, this is it. Gridcosm was initiated by Ed Stasny way back in 1997 as an outgrowth of SiTO’s live online image mash-up collaborations. That’s in the Precambrian era of internet time! It even has its own Wikipedia entry! But gridcosm clearly tapped into something fundamental — with a fresh and accessible interface design; a solid back-end code; and exuding a rare social sensibility of precisely what it means to collaborate online — there are hundreds of contributors. A dozen years later, the collaborative space is continuously full with a vibrant and evolving palette of personalities and plenty evidence of creative juice spilling out onto the screen. The acronym SiTO originally came from OTIS (Operational Term is Stimulate) which was the motto of the nascent online collective collaboratory back in 1994 or so. So, kudos to gridcosm for sheer staying power and what looks to be a lively future. How many layers does an artwork need to have for it to be classified as cosmologically significant? Visit gridcosm and discover the answer to this profound question! It’s an open project for anyone to jump into — as are all the SiTO collaborative projects — so, check it out!

John Hopkins, Sydney, Australia, 15.Nov.2009

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inconsistency

The language is based on joining and dis-joining, you see. That is, it’s a perfectly good language if we could use it properly. It has to be used as an artistic form and not as a rigid tool which is supposed to reflect reality exactly — reflect what is exactly. It’s like the notes in music. They look quite separate, but when they’re played, they’re not separate. — David Bohm, dialogue with E.Nada

A necessary feature of the thesis project is inconsistency. For it to be a rich learning experience, it should be variable or stochastic. How to achieve a creative inconsistency, then? Where changing perspectives and voices and models and worn pathways exists in profusion that is at the same time, not overwhelming. A sequence of statements (each a consistent sound-bite), with threads of difference demarcating their extent, applicability, and style.

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notes prior to Memory Seminar with Andrew Hoskins

The concept of memory is related to my own work and practice — as an artist, part of my work does relate to the creation and preservation of my personal archive. Also, memory is a feature of collective Techno-Social Systems as a mapping of embodied participation in that system over time. It is also a concept to consider in the wider perspective of my work which examines human presence, encounter with the Other, collective social systems and their impact on the individual and finally, creative action.

Memory is the trace of energies from the surrounding situation that literally impress (on) the embodied self. Making the radical assumption framed by the words of physicist David Bohm, that

… there is a universal flux that cannot be defined explicitly but which can be known only implicitly, as indicated by the explicitly definable forms and shapes, some stable and some unstable, that can be abstracted from the universal flux.

Phenomenal events and configurations of these energies pass through the body (as simply another manifestation of this flux), leaving altered states of be-ing. These embodied traces persist in time, but as with all life and being, are transitory. They exist as change, and are often experienced as a fundamental awareness of difference — “I originally felt like that, but now I feel like this, having experienced this event.”

External memory storage situations via digital technological mediation are, by nature, material, reductive, and transitory. They are subject to decay and loss as with any other external (and internal) means.

Three significant issues arise in the process of externalized memory storage. The first is in the process of creating the artifact. As with any pre-digital artifact, making a “memory” artifact requires that the Self (or someone) step out of living and mediate their presence in the operation of the device that creates the artifact. This stepping out applies not only to the making of the artifact but also to the (onerous) process of archiving. This process radically changes the experience of a life-trajectory by an individual. And, as suggested by Quantum ideas, the observer affects that which is observed, the act of making memory artifacts actually affects the scenario that is being recorded.

A second major issue occurs when any of these processes are taken over by extensions of the Techno-Social System, they subject the Self to a loss of autonomy. (i.e., cloud computing as one example of a centralized architecture that removes the trace of the digital artifact wholly out of the purview of the individual (creator, participant).) The levels of loss of autonomy exist on a sliding scale — loss occurs whenever the individual is not in control of the mediatory storage (its provenance, creation, organization, archiving, sustenance, distribution, demise, destruction). Any externalization falls under this regime.

The third issue lies in the maintenance of archive. As a fundamentally ordered system (timely retrieval is critical for a functioning archive), the archive requires an essentially constant energy influx to maintain that order. That energy source is, at base, the human being. How much personal energy will humans participating in a Techno-social system be willing to dispense of or provide/support in order to maintain an ever-growing energy burden of either a collective or individual archive? Is this why the Library of Alexandria burned?

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  • place: Ultimo, NSW, Australia

many impressions, no time

where to start. what to write about (if there ever is time to write here). impressions, expressions, observations, actions. food shopping: Woolworths, Coles, and the thousand-and-one small Asian food shops, and Paddy’s Market, 7-11s for expensive junk food, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Japanese fast-food. vomit stains smeared on black cut-basalt (rhyolite?) sidewalk paving. up-scale-chain consumer fashion depots line George Street, my commuter trajectory. old Ruger, Winchester signs over one empty shop-front, across the street from the Greek guy selling swords, Swat boots, and GI dog tags. the rest of the neighborhood Chinese-owned shops. restaurants with open fronts, tables spilling out onto the sidewalk, with one Lebanese place with hookahs. and the pubs, packed from Thursday through Saturday nights. late. girls with impossibly high-heels limp along tugging down impossibly short skirts that hike up and show pantied crotches at every tottering step. blokes, the NRL blokes, with bulging tee-shirts and vaguely Maori tattoos on biceps. and the suits. the business class. busy, very busy, very very busy. Japanese manga girls or so, adorned, liberally with things and things with accessories and feathered black hair and pale milky skin. Anglos, red patchy skin, (it’s the latitude), sometimes Tilley hats (I can’t bear to wear my new one at risk of appearing like one of these). baseball cap will have to do along with plenty of sunscreen on my UV-challenged nose. more “many impressions, no time”

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  • place: Prescott, Arizona - Berlin-Neukölln, Germany

48-Stunden Neukoellen 2009 : flickering wastelands III

A special live/streamed event, radio aporee presents flickering wastelands III in its long-standing open-house tradition. good foods, good sounds, good people. part of the 48-Stunden-(Berlin-)Neukölln Kunst und Kulturfestival. neoscenes, fresh back from many weeks on the road in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona will take you, with hydrocarbons flaring, on a drifting trajectory through spaces that dwell restlessly between ears and leave traces of soot, soil, and water (listen below!). more “48-Stunden Neukoellen 2009 : flickering wastelands III”

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  • place: Boulder, Colorado

another 50th

I stick around for Chris’ 50th as his folks, John and Barbara, also come into town on their way between Iowa and Tucson. nice to catch up with them. Barbara reminds me about her chocolate-chip cookies when she mentions she doesn’t have any with her. this references the care packages she would send to Chris when he and I were room-mates back at 148 Washington in Golden — she would usually include a tin of her fabulous cookies which Chris would share generously. got to snag the recipe someday. or, film her making them.

all this visiting. catching up. exploring territories. hearing stories. mapping out lives. recitations, prognostications on weather and politics and social systems. sampling lives. and seeing time pass forwards inexorably.

keeping up appearances (the cost of social participation), requires energy. energy paid into the system. (was this the lament of the Man?) versus what? appearing as The Self is and allowing for personal idiosyncrasy, proceed with no particular thought as to impact, just to channel what comes in life.

Only on condition of a radical widening of definitions will it be possible for art and activities related to art [to] provide evidence that art is now the only evolutionary-revolutionary power. Only art is capable of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile social system that continues to totter along the deathline: to dismantle in order to build A SOCIAL ORGANISM AS A WORK OF ART … EVERY HUMAN BEING IS AN ARTIST who — from his state of freedom — the position of freedom that he experiences at first-hand — learns to determine the other positions of the TOTAL ART WORK OF THE FUTURE SOCIAL ORDER. — Joseph Beuys

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  • place: Prescott, Arizona

Reindeer on the Road

mikropaliskunta is back again! An expedition collects artists to explore the nationality of a tourist in Canary Islands 03-10.march.2009 The travel can be followed in real-time at renewed website https://www.mikropaliskunta.net

mikroPaliskunta is a series of interdisciplinary expeditions exploring contemporary imagined nation called Finland and its eco-social changes in a sustainable way. mikroPaliskunta has already made two expeditions: across Finland from north to south by a biodiesel car with a stuffed reindeer in 2006 and around Berlin by bicycles in Germany in 2007. This spring, the group starts a series of expeditions themed The Finnish on Holiday. The first expedition in the hell triangle of tourism is made to Canary Islands – the ever-popular holiday destination and a border shore for African refugees risking their lives to enter European Union. Following two expeditions head to entertain centers in Vantaa and Lapland in Finland The Finnish culture is moved to warm climate in Canary Islands. How does tourism intensify presented national identity in tourists themselves and in local people? Also, the affects of mass tourism from perspective of economic depression and ecological awareness is an interesting subject matter, explains media artist and member of the expedition Mari Keski-Korsu. mikroPaliskunta website is renewed for the Canary Islands expedition. As with the earlier expeditions, also this expedition can be tracked almost in real-time. The artists of the expedition work with their own individual themes producing articles, photographs, videos, maps and a series of performances about coffee drinking as a social phenomenon. All the materials about this and the past expeditions are exhibited at the website. Members of the expedition include media artists Mari Keski-Korsu and Mika Meskanen, photographer Eija Mäkivuoti, author and scriptwriter Taina West. Researcher of sustainable consumption and production Satu Lähteenoja is a special guest of the expedition. mikroPaliskunta is supported by Arts Council of Finland and Finnish Cultural Fund.

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arts birthday tomorrow

This year I didn’t manage to jump into the fray with a live stream, but many other folks did — the party has already started in some places, you can browse the schedule of events here… and at ORF Kunstradio

“Art’s Birthday” is an annual event first proposed in 1963 by French artist Robert Filliou.

He suggested that 1,000,000 years ago, there was no art. But one day, on the 17th of January to be precise, Art was born. According to Filliou, it happened when someone dropped a dry sponge into a bucket of water. Modest beginnings, but look at us now.

Filliou proposed a public holiday to celebrate the presence of art in our lives. In recent years, the idea has been taken up by a loose network of artists and friends around the world. Each year the Eternal Network evolves to include new partners – working with the ideas of exchange and telecommunications-art.

After Filliou’s death in 1987, some artists began to celebrate Art’s Birthday with mail art, fax and slow scan TV events in the spirit of his concept of “The Eternal Network” or “La Fête permanente”. The birthday parties took place in different cities across the world and artists were asked to bring birthday presents for Art — works that could be shared over the network.

Art’s Birthday Party has never been a formal event, but was always organized on an ad hoc basis through the network. Every participating location (and they are different every year) organizes its own party — from a few friends in a private studio to a performance evening in a museum or gallery. Filliou’s invention of Art’s Birthday is wonderfully absurd and humorous in the typical Fluxus tradition of serious fun. So the global birthday party for art has always tried to be fun while paying homage to Robert Filliou’s dream of The Eternal Network. — Robert Adrian

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Nomadic MILK

January 2-22 the NomadicMILK project by GPS artist Esther Polak travels to Nigeria. There she is using the satellite technology to track both the distribution of “Peak” brand milk from harbor city Lagos to the capital of Abuja as well as a nomadic Fulani family of cow herders in Abuja’s vicinity. By showing the people involved their own tracks and videotaping their responses to it she creates a reflection on current nomadic life.

A custom built robot accompanies her to Africa. Once fed the GPS data it draws the people’s recorded routes using sand, allowing large groups of people to gather around the image and reflect communally.

Esther Polak has been following the dairy economy for some time now. During her previous MILK project she tracked how milk from Latvian farmers ended up in Dutch cheese, earning her a Golden Nica award at the Arts Electronica festival. Milk, she says, has always been a fundamental part of our diet and as such has sculpted our lives and our landscapes.

Her activities can be followed live on the nomadicmilk blog as well as via a twitter account she updates via SMS.

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  • place: Prescott, Arizona

Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art)

PROPOSAL :: Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art)

(a) Name, address, URL, email and one page CV of author.

John Hopkins

https://neoscenes.net/

John Hopkins is a networker, artist, and educator occupied across a wide swath of techno-social systems with an extensive global network presence. He is active in numerous global creative networks beginning with the Cassette Underground and the Mail Art networks in the 1980’s and merging seamlessly into the propagating telecommunications networks of the present. He has engaged in many individual and collective dialogues concerning the facilitation of collaborative creative situations, and has facilitated or participated in numerous distributed projects.

https://neoscenes.net/blog/cv-resume

(b) A 1000 word proposal that should be accompanied by an abstract of no more than 250 words and a list of keywords to indicate the subject area of the chapter. [Each of the commissioned chapters will contain text, images, videos, and/or audio.]

ABSTRACT more “Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art)”

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thesis proposal :: Background

Background for Research

While individual human presence in this world has fundamental repercussions on be-ing, it is the ever-present and synergistic exchange between humans — forming what I call a “continuum of relation” — that governs much of life. This energetic field of human relation is sometimes fraught with difficulties and complications in spite of the rich and necessary dynamic it brings to life. Technology, as a ubiquitous factor in mediating human relation, often dominates while presented as providing the only opportunity for mediated connection and interaction between humans.

Presence, as apprehended by the Other, circumscribes a range of sensory inputs that require energy (from the Self) to stimulate and drive. The efficacy and sustainability of human connection builds on the very real and tangible transmissions and receptions of energy between the Self and the Other. An interconnected plurality of dialectic human relation may be described as a network. These networks, made up of a web of Self-Other connections form the base fabric of the continuum of relation. Technology appears in these networks as the mediating pathway that is the carrier of energy from node to node, person to person. Technological systems also appear to apply absolute restraints on and attenuation of the idiosyncratic flows inherent in that continuum of relation. The discrete objects that populate the (technological) landscape of the continuum of relation and that modulate the character of communications are literally artifacts of a materialist point of view. A primary assumption in my research is that a materialist or mechanistic view of the world no longer suffices to adequately circumscribe the phenomena occurring within the continuum of relation. more “thesis proposal :: Background”

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thesis proposal :: A Note on Trans-disciplinarity

Trans-disciplinarity is a popular expression for the need for thinking (and expressing!) outside the cubic space defined by any limited social system or sub-system. Innovative solutions are often found by combining many possible strands of thought from disparate disciplines and points of view. Critical engagement of a plurality of voices is essential when moving in trans-disciplinary spaces, and this will constantly be kept in mind to the degree possible. The use of language in a trans-disciplinary space is a particular challenge which, to a significant degree, determines the successful outcome of the attempt to bridge disciplinary spaces. Indeed, disciplinarity is often defined by the cumulative social use of a specific linguistic system that is exclusive to the discipline. As a former engineer, and now as an educator and artist for the past two decades, I have significant experience in coherently bridging the somewhat isolated linguistic spaces that define those different ‘worlds.’

It is clear that there is a solid need for this kind of inquiry in the trans-disciplinary space of techno-social systems given the intensity of technological development and the complexity of globalized human presence. It is my desire to contribute to the search for sustainable principles and systems that honor first the need for a healthy continuum of human relation instead of placing technological solutions at the forefront. This, at the same time as acknowledging the fundamentally symbiotic inter-relationship of the two concepts.

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thesis proposal :: Methodologies, Background, Timeline, Contexts

Concerning Particular Methodologies

Dialogues, Networks, and Collaboration — Much of my creative practice, research, and indeed, presence is built on the activation of robust and sustained dialogues with a wide range of Others both remote and local. These dialogues form a network. The most powerful situation I can imagine for creative research and production is an open human network. I am keen to engage on the ground with the Australian, Sydney-based, and UTS creative community. I am familiar with the milieu, having been in Sydney for six weeks in 2006 as a visiting artist at COFA, and I very much look forward to being there again. I have an extensive personal/professional network of Antipodal creatives which dates back to the early 1990s that I will be pleased to activate on a more face-to-face basis.

Distributed Performance — My own applied international research in distributed performance and tactical media over the last fifteen years is centered around synchronous live network-based social activities. Engaging a wide range of technical solutions, my work is a direct utilization of amplified digital networks as the locus for creative action. These areas of research experience include a variety of performance-based activities in theater, dance, sonic, and other expressive arts occurring in or augmented by collaborative networked situations. As a self-proclaimed networker, an area of core awareness in my research is the concept of presence — and how that human presence is directly and indirectly affected by any/all technologies that filter and attenuate that presence: how human expression across a network system is precisely formed and informed by the impression of the technologies used.
more “thesis proposal :: Methodologies, Background, Timeline, Contexts”

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  • place: Prescott, Arizona

Tuned City. Between Sound and Space Speculation Reader

The reader from last July’s Tuned City event for sound and architecture is available for order.

Edited by Anne Kockelkorn, Doris Kleilein, Gesine Pagels und Carsten Stabenow. 200 Pages, German/English texts, with Illustrations by Andreas Toepfer. EUR(D) 25,00 / EUR(A) 25,70. ISBN 978-3-937445-36-6. KOOK BOOKS 2008.

Sounds belong to the City. They determine spaces and identities. For years, artists have been using city noises as a material to stage or to question urban space–new territory, however, for most architects and planners within the routines of functional planning procedures. “Tuned City – Between Sound and Space Speculation” searches for a new evaluation of architectural spaces from the perspective of acoustics. This volume presents various positions of architects, artists and theorists to expand the architectural discourse with the dimension of listening.

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  • place: Prescott, Arizona

Studs Turkel 1912 – 2008

A consummate sonic artist and Chicagoan, Studs Turkel moved on to other narratives yesterday. if you have the time, delve into some of the audio archives of his interviews with everyday folks as well as famous people as he illuminated the stories that together weave the history of the US.

a small observation with an important caveat:

I’ve always felt, in all my books, that there’s a deep decency in the American people and a native intelligence — providing they have the facts, providing they have the information. — Studs Turkel