Sabrina Raaf, "Translator II: Grower, 2004-06" curated by Eduardo Navas for Transitio_MX. "It consists of an interactive robot that responds to the level of carbon dioxide in the room. Quite a popular piece in the exhibit; some visitors, upon learning about the work, exhale in front of the sensor to make the lines as long as possible."
industrial robot manufacturer Gibotech A/S, based in Odense to create an installation, where one of Gibotech’s robots is reprogrammed to cut corrugated plastic in large patterns. Over time, the patterns will transform into a sculptural installation spilling out on the floor or the exhibition space, evolving through the exhibition period.
The Stevens Point Sculpture Park is accepting submission of sculpture work for their first annual,three-year outdoor sculpture exhibition. A local jury will choose pieces for display from April 15, 2010 through April 15, 2013.
The Stevens Point Sculpture Park, located in Central Wisconsin, is a 20-acre, city-owned park with nearly a mile of forested trails that are used year-round by people of all ages for biking, skiing, running and walking. The Park offers a wide variety of trees and geographic features including a pond, wetland and forest. It is a zone 4 growing season (which includes cold winters and hot summers).
The Stevens Point Sculpture Park is committed to providing a welcoming and accessible outdoor venue for sculpture and arts exhibitions, activities, and educational programs by enhancing the cultural life of our community and surrounding region through a diverse program of education, collaboration and experimentation.
The Park is located close to elementary, middle and high schools, and the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. The Park’s trails connect to the Stevens Point Green Circle Trail, a nationally recognized 31-mile recreational corridor that encircles the Stevens Point Urban Area (1993 National Park Service Award).
Artist submissions that are selected will receive $750 for a three-year exhibition loan of their piece. Sculpture submissions need to be free standing; foundations or bases are not provided. Delivery, installation, and return of work are the artist’s responsibility (please note in artist’s statement if any special installation needs are expected).
A wide variety of work will be considered, including: site specific work, ephemeral and/or permanent work, work in a variety of scales, art with a performance component, etc. Materials must be appropriate for the environmental location. For more information about the park or visitation requests, please contact Otis McLennon at otism@artsportagecounty.org
Artists may submit up to five pieces for consideration. Submissions must include the following information for each piece submitted:
Artist Name; Address; Phone; Email
Title of piece; Dimensions; Materials/Media
Images – JPEG (1000 pixels on the long side), slides will also be accepted
Artist’s Statement (including any specific installation requirements)
Mail to:
Attn: SPSP Juried Call
Arts Alliance Portage County
PO Box 565
Stevens Point, WI 54481
Or email: otism@artsportagecounty.org
In your submission, please let us know how you heard about this call, to help us better communicate.
All submissions must be received by November 13, 2009.
Electronic and standard mail submissions are accepted.
Calendar:
November 13, 2009 – Submissions due
January 15, 2010 – Notification of works selected (by phone or email with follow-up contract in mail)
January 30, 2010 – Contracts returned by artists
April 15 – May 15, 2010 – Sculpture installations
June 12, 2010 – Park Grand Opening
Forecast Public Art is excited to announce its newest public art project on University Ave, Echoing Voices, abillboard installation by artist, Kao Lee Thao. With support from the Jerome Foundation, Forecast Public Art selected Thao from a pool of local applicants to create a design for a billboard at the intersection of University Avenue and Cleveland in St. Paul. Thao chose to use the public visibility of the project to create a visual dialog about a topic close to her life, the Hmong Secret War.
“I was one of the first Hmong children born in America, each year my birth is a constant reminder of those who were left behind and continue to fight for my freedom. My aspiration was to create a painted billboard that speaks out about the injustices of the remaining Hmong soldiers called Freedom Fighters from the “Secret War†during the Vietnam War.
Inspired by Hmong textiles and vibrant colors of my culture I divided the billboard representing the two worlds I live in. My spirit is still trapped in the Jungles of Laos and my soul is in America living out my dreams. I want to inspire young minds to pursue their passion, but remind us not to forget how we won our freedom to America. I hope someday we can end the “Secret War†and bring peace to those remaining in Laos still fighting…†– Kao Lee Thao,
The Echoing Voices and a companion website (www.echoingvoices.com) will be installed on Monday September 21, 2009 and will remain on view through November at the intersection of University Avenue and Cleveland in St. Paul, MN.
CITY OF SAN JOSE – SAN FERNANDO CORRIDOR PROJECT
Last Sunday, ON SAN FERNANDO, Arcangel Constantini "activated" Brendan Rawson of 1stACT, DJ Tommy Aguilar, and artist Pilar Aguero-Esparza with his electro-shock art "icpiticayotl", which ZER01 presented at the Mariachi Festival. Propose your own activation project on San Fernando.
GENERAL INFORMATION
San Jose Public Art and ZER01 invite artists to submit qualifications and letters of interest to install temporary artworks on the San Fernando Street corridor in Downtown San Jose. These artworks will be installed in June 2010, be a feature of the 3rd 01SJ Biennial (September 15-19, 2010) and will continue their display through October 2010.
ARTIST ELIGIBILITY: U.S. residents are invited to apply, or those who have a US Social Security or Tax Identification Number by the application deadline.
APPLICATION DEADLINE: Submissions (described below) must be received as a complete application in CaFÉ™ by no later than 12 midnight Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) on Thursday, October 8, 2009.
APPLICATION PROCESS: All materials will be submitted online, via CaFÉ™ website (www.callforentry.org). There is no application fee to apply or to use the CaFÉ™ online application system. To view the application, go to www.callforentry.org, register a username and password, navigate to “Apply to Callsâ€, and search the list for “City of San Jose – San Fernando Corridor Projectâ€.
A site specific installation/formation of ghost flags comprised of 50 strategically located flag sculptures, made from reflective silver fabric, and steel flag poles. The flags have no markings or signifiers of conquest or elements of communication. Instead, the flags serve notice that the location has been conquered by time.
Opening Day Performance
Set within Ghost Siege, dancer/choreographer Leah Schrager will dance to music composed by Kenny Aronoff, preeminent drummer and percussionist.
Each year, EAF artists are awarded a grant and a residency in the Park’s outdoor studio and are also provided with technical support and access to tools, materials and equipment to facilitate the production of new sculptures and installations for exhibition in the Park. The artists develop their projects throughout the summer in the open studio and on site in the landscape, offering visitors the opportunity to experience both the creation and presentation of their works. Representing a broad range of materials, working methods and subject matter, the diverse sculptural works in this exhibition are presented against the Park’s spectacular waterfront view of the Manhattan skyline.
I often say that the 01SJ Biennial – I’m the artistic director – is multidisciplinary and medium agnostic. I’m not sure I ever thought that meant we would be programming at a mariachi festival.
Pilar and Dio are San Jose-based artists, and based on the Mariachi Festival’s thematic focus on the Mexican village, I asked them to construct out of recycled materials a tri-partite, temporary “home” for ZER01 and its artists during the festival.
I have always admired Pilar’s structures, such as her Homework House, exhibited at MACLA as part of Beyond Child’s Play or this balloon-filled tent during SubZERO earlier this year or this 2005 doll-ish house at Works/San Jose, and she wanted to work with Dio, a recent grad of the Yale MFA program on this commission, which I’m looking forward to seeing.
Pilar Aguero-Esparza and H. Dio Mendoza. Drawing of temporary home constructed out of recycled materials for ZER01 at the Mariachi Festival.
The structure consists of three parts: a courtyard, a cyberlounge, and a “Lost Time Refund Office.”
CANCIONE Courtyard Dedicaciones Gratis
In the center of the structure, Pilar and Dio proposed the following project:
A papel picado “awning” (Mexican traditional decorative cut tissue paper streamers) connects two house structures and canopies a “courtyard” space between them. This courtyard space serves as a social area where visitors take a break and have the opportunity to request a song played in the tradition of the mariachi bands and trio groups strolling through the courtyards of the historic Plaza de Garibaldi in Mexico City. But instead of live musicians playing requests, visitors request their song to a DJ equipped with a digital music library showcasing Mexican ballads, canciones roma¡nticas, mariachi favorites along with other contemporary Spanish language music. An open-mic will be available for visitors to dedicate their songs for free dedicaciones gratis. If a visitor’s requested song is not on the DJ’s digital library, the DJ will search for the song on-line. As the day goes on, a type of public playlist develops and the requested songs along with the dedications are written down in permanent marker on a vinyl banner that will be hung up against an outside wall of one of the house structures. This banner then remains as evidence of the day’s songs and personal honoring of loved ones.
Gustavo Romano, Lost Time Refund Office
Gustavo Romano, Lost Time Refund Office. Courtesy the artist.
On one side of the courtyard is a project by Buenos Aires-based artist Gustavo Romano, Lost Time Refund Office, where you can exchange stories of your wasted time from 1 minute to 10 years for some artist-designed currency.
Gustavo Romano, Lost Time Refund Office - un minuto. "Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend." - Theophrastus
According to Romano:
The main idea is to collect reasons of time loss. Odd reasons are welcome.
When a person comes to the “office,” the officer explains like this:
“This is a lost time refund office. You tell us how you lost your time, whether because of a wrong decision or something you had to do and you did not want to do, and we refund it with our bills. We have 1 minute, 1 day, 1 year… “
Gustavo Romano, Lost Time Refund Office - diez anos. "Money is institutionalized mistrust." - Michael Hussey
When the person tells his or her reason and the corresponding amount of time needed, the officer enters the information into the computer database and put the bill (or bills) in the printer and presses the “print the reason†button. The printed bill is then stamped with the Time Notes Stamp.
Gustavo Romano lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a director of “Fin del Mundo,â€a virtual platform for circulating net art projects, curator of the Virtual Space of the Cultural Center of Spain in Buenos Aires, and a featured artist on the Museo Tamayo cyberlounge.
Cyberlounge
On the other side of the courtyard, I invited Arcangel Constantini from Mexico City to curate a selection of video games and Internet projects, for a “cyberlounge.”
WORKNET: Labor video games and Internet projects curated by Arcangel Constantini
Inspired by activist Cesar Chavez and the values of integrity, innovation, and empowerment that he championed throughout his lifetime, the ZER01 Cyberlounge invites you to interact with computer-based works by contemporary artists from Mexico, Argentina, and the United States that explore contemporary labor issues.
Mejor Vida Corporation isan Internet-based project that offers a catalog of free products and services such as international student ID cards, subway passes, lottery tickets and barcode stickers that reduce the price of food at supermarkets throughout Mexico City. Using the structure of a corporation, Cuevas investigates social and economic issues and then develops a set of free products that solve everyday problems in her community and beyond.
Minerva Cuevas is a conceptual artist who lives and works in Mexico City, Mexico.
Birgit Eschenlor and Art Vega, Retrofame, 2001
Retrofame is a video game that looks at the illegal second-hand clothing market in Mexico by asking players to direct a worker as they sort and select clothing from a fast moving manufacturing line. The game is a playful attempt to call attention to the large and informal population of workers who labor in this industry on a daily basis.
Fran Ilich and Blas Valdez, Beaner, 2000
Beaner is a computer-based game that appropriates the classic arcade game Frogger, where players must direct a frog across a treacherous road and swiftly moving river to reach an area of safety at the top of the screen. In Ilich and Valdez’s version, players navigate a sombrero through a river, a desert, and a freeway—all critical barriers related to illegal border crossings—to reach the land of opportunity. The reward for a successful crossing is the same fate faced by many migrant workers without papers—backbreaking and poorly paid clandestine work.
Fran Ilich is a Tijuana-based activist and media artist and Blas Valdez is a Mexican-American writer.
Txema Novelo, Playing for Money / Working for Free, 2006
In Playing for Money / Working for Free Txema Novela recasts Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian-born anarchist labor activists who were executed in Massachusetts in 1927, as the Mario Brothers from the classic video game Super Mario Bros. The playful retelling relates the actions within a video game to the reality of the working class.
Txema Novelo is an artist based in Mexico City, Mexico.
In Outsource Me! artist Leonardo Salaas reverses the practice of outsourcing. Typically, companies from developed countries attempt to decrease costs by hiring foreign workers at a lower wage than their U.S. counterparts. But in this project, Solaas issued an open call for ideas and hired the person who submitted the winning proposal to be his employer. Then, he acted as an outsourced worker by creating a special website according to the specifications of the submitted idea. Outsource Me! is the result of the collaboration.
Leonardo Solaas is an artist and computer programmer who lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Vagamundo: A Migrant’s Taleis an online game that uses stereotypes to parallel the plight of undocumented immigrant labor in New York City. Users play the role of a new immigrant and must bag groceries and wait tables to advance through levels. The online game is based on interviews Zúñiga conducted with new immigrants as well as the experience of his parents, who emigrated from Nicaragua to the United States.
Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga is an artist who approaches art as a social practice that seeks to establish dialogue in public spaces. He grew up between Nicaragua and San Francisco.
Dentimundo is a web-based art and research project that serves as an information portal for “border dentistry,†a type of medical tourism that has been steadily growing in popularity along the Mexico-U.S. border. The website documents labor practices along the border while commenting on this very specific example of globalization, where Mexican dentists are increasingly moving their practices to border towns to attract U.S. citizens who are unable or unwilling to pay the skyrocketing health costs on the other side of the border.
Arcangel Constantini, icpiticayotl. Photo: festival transitio ( sintesis libre ) alameda central mexico df 2007
Improvising on an old Mexican tradition, Constantini will also audio-electrocute volunteers with his mobile icpiticayotl box. Náhuatl for electricity, Icpiticayotl uses electroshock to involuntarily contract users’ muscles in sync with sound oscillations to establish synaesthesia, a condition that exists when the stimulation in one sense causes involuntary experiences in a second sense. Constantini’s artistic experiment is designed to give visitors the same adrenalin rush los señores de los toques have been giving cantina patrons as a chaser to their cerveza for centuries. Icpiticayotl is harmless, fun and appropriate for all ages.
Arcangel Constantini is an artist and curator based in Mexico City, Mexico. His artistic practice explores the dynamics of visual and sound works, low-tech installations, propaganda action, performance, hardware hacking, installation, and sound. Constantini is a curator for the cyberlounge at the Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo in Mexico City, and has exhibited his work throughout the world.
[Cyberlounge and Icpiticayotl descriptions, Jaime Austin.]
On September 24-25, 2009 the G-20 Summit will take place in the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, where G-20 leaders, representing 80% of the world’s trade and two-thirds of the world population, will determine policies affecting our economic and financial futures.
To foster engagement despite the insularity of these talks, Osman Khan, an artist, and Elliance, are collaborating to develop heyG20 as a forum that will allow concerned citizen’s of the world to voice their thoughts and opinions to the Leaders of the G20 Summit. The project is an interactive installation that will take place during the G-20 Summit in the windows of Elliance’s offices located directly across the river from the Pittsburgh Convention Center.
Interested participants may tweet their message to @heyG20 (http://twitter.com/heyG20), whereby your messages will be transformed to a multicolored morse code light show, illuminating not only the night sky but also the concerns of the world’s citizens.
Hey G20 does not appear to have quite the visual punch of Johannes Gees’ remarkable hellomrpresident projection onto the mountains outside Davos during the exclusive World Economic Forum in 2002, but it will be interesting to see how/whether the ubiquity of social media like Twitter bump up participation in and the impact of the project.
See also These projects are smokin’! for an earlier post about Germaine Koh’sPrayers and Ali Momeni and Robin Mandel’sSmoke and Hot Air, both of which translate messages – in these cases, datamined rather than Tweeted – into Morse code.
Blast Theory, RiderSpoke at Ars Electronica. Photo: Bruce Charlesworth
A highlight of the final days of Ars Electronica was Rider Spoke, a project by the UK-based collective Blast Theory. Mixing interactive media, installation, live performance, gaming and digital broadcasting, Blast Theory is perhaps best known for Kidnap, in which the winners of a lottery were abducted and held in a secret location for 48 hours. Rider Spoke extends the idea of the group’s search games Can You See Me Now?and Uncle Roy All Around You by asking each participant to ride a bicycle throughout a city after dark, with earphones and a handheld computer mounted on the handlebars.
I struck out away from the start point in the Hauptplatz and, as the sun was setting, pushed up a steep hill overlooking the Danube. While I cycled, melancholic music played and an earnest female voice asked me to reflect on a personal moment in my life and to find a unique “hiding place” where I could record a private response.
The computer screen functions as a positioning device that identifies available hiding places. It also alerts you to nearby source locations of recorded answers by other cyclists. These answers can only be heard on the spot where they were recorded, connecting you to the very recent reflections of anonymous participants. My time on the bike was limited to about an hour — probably due to the battery life of the device — and I came away wanting to be asked more questions and to explore more of the city. Rider Spoke allows for an engagement with the particular context of a city in potentially deep conceptual and emotional ways. My only critique of the system is that it did not pair the listener’s native language with the reflections of other participants speaking the same language.
I can’t claim to have seen everything performative at the Festival, but did see most of the Pursuit of the Unheard program, comprised of performances by the Prix Ars Electronica Digital Musics prizewinners. NABAZ’MOB by Antoine Schmitt and Jean-Jacques Birga is an opera composed for 100 Wi-Fi equipped plastic bunnies that can be programmed to flash colored lights in their bellies, make twinkly music and swivel their ears. The music and choreography, transmitted via Wi-Fi and founded on repetition and time delay, appeared to be controlled by both the artists and the individual and collective rabbits. An earlier version on video of NABAZ’MOB can be seen here:
Other standouts were Tristan Perich’sActive Field for ten violins and ten-channel 1-bit music, performed by Perich and members of the Bruckner Orchester Linz and digitally-created, curtain-like visuals by Kenneth Huff accompanying Alan Hovhaness’ Lousadzak (Coming of Light).Bill Fontana’sSpeeds of Time, a deconstruction of the sounds of Big Ben, was heard outdoors at Bruckner House (also as an installation across the river in the Pfarrkirche Urfahr). This arresting piece is a 12-hour multi-track recording made of a sound sculpture installed at Westminster, which derived from sensors and microphones attached to the clockwork mechanism and near the bells. A recording of Speeds of Time can be heard here.
Flut Fish at Ars Electronica. Photo: Bruce Charlesworth
FLUT(Flood), mentioned in an earlier post, happened on September 5. The lead-in to the main performance was Die Prophezeiung (The Prophesy), during which performers and volunteers puppeted a seemingly endless array of animals made of white upholstery foam. For several hours in the afternoon, everything from snails to T-rexes milled through huge crowds in the Hauptplatz and nearby streets. The puppets were meticulously observed and crafted for shape and movement, and were entertaining to watch. The evening performance, Die Arche (The Ark), took place along the banks of the Danube. This part of FLUT was a mishmash of fireworks, browbeating orchestral music, declamatory videos, floating houses and icebergs. I couldn’t get into it.
Hiroshi Ishiguro, Geminoid H1-1 at Ars Electronica. Photo: Bruce Charlesworth
Finally, I went to a demonstration of Geminoid HI-1 at the Ars Electronica Center. Hiroshi Ishiguro talked a bit about his creation, a sour-faced robot replica of himself that he uses to remotely give lectures in his stead at the University of Osaka. As Ishiguro went upstairs to sit at the control console, several of us in the small audience moved our chairs close to the table opposite Geminoid, in order to ask questions. Once activated, the robot looked around, its mouth opening and closing like a distressed fish. When someone observed that its rather intense facial expressions made it seem a bit frightening, the robot (Ishiguro on microphone) seemed surprised and a bit hurt. Hard questioning of Ishiguro’s goal to imitate human form and behavior were dodged, as was one query about a romantic scenario between two controllers of opposite-sex Geminoids.
Over 100 Incredible Examples of Cargotecture Exhibited At NRW Forum in Düsseldorf Read more: Over 100 Incredible Examples of Cargotecture Exhibited At NRW Forum in Düsseldorf | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World. Via Inhabitat
"This beautiful sunset observatory made from recycled shipping containers was recently constructed in the harbor of Songdo New City in Incheon, South Korea. Designed and built by AnL Studio, “OceanScope” is a composed of five recycled containers, each one angled at a different height to provide 3 distinct views of the harbor."
The existing service ramp will be repurposed as an open-air, studio-lined corridor. Courtesy LOT-EK. via Architects Newspaper
“The Hudson River Park Trust announced a winning plan for Pier 57, the brooding hulk at West 15th Street: a rooftop park crowning a small city of local artisans working out of shipping containers, the vision of developer YoungWoo & Associates with New York architects LOT-EK.“
Danish architects MAPT have erected a striking pavilion composed of a set of old shipping containers stacked up like building blocks.
“As COP15 delegations continue in Copenhagen, Danish architects MAPT have erected a striking pavilion composed of a set of old shipping containers stacked up like building blocks. The recycled pavilion will host an interactive exhibit focusing on urban sustainability, and the interior of the structure is constructed entirely of materials salvaged from the wood and wind turbine industries.” – via Inhabitat
C02 Cube. Image via Obscura Digital via Curbed LA.
“Is there anything shipping containers can’t do? Here they are arranged on a barge in St. Jørgens Lake in Copenhagen to visually represent one metric ton of carbon dioxide stored at standard atmospheric pressure. An average person in an industrialized country puts that amount out monthly.” via Curbed LA
“Pulsing with a dramatic lighting that signals S-O-S in morse code, this towering installation stands thirty-five feet high. Constructed out of shipping containers it addresses the trauma of migration, displacement and change. Influenced by Moshe Safdie’s utopic Habitat housing scheme produced for the 1967 Montreal Exposition and designed to include all people regardless of class, race or gender, this monumental structure reflects on the failure of this ideology and the susceptibility of these social projects to capitalist forces. Future (· · · – – – · · ·) Perfect has a local relevance, reflecting on the politics of gentrification and the displacements inherent to the project of urban renewal.”
Storybox is a site-specific video and music installation that uses two 20ft shipping containers stacked on top of each other. Screens are placed in the frame of the container with imagery back projected from inside the box. The installation is weather proof and secure.
Architects Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano (Lot-ek) talk about their work transforming shipping containers into livable homes at the Postopolis event in NYC.
WPS1 at Art Basel Miami
A striking example of shipping container architecture, Platoon Kunsthalle serves as an exciting and inspiring new exhibit hall and art center in Seoul, Korea. Built from standard shipping containers by Graft Lab Architects,
LiD Architecture wins Dublin’s Parlour Design Competition. LiD Architecture’s winning submission’s simple, strong, clear idea effortlessly addressed the brief. The central concept is to use shipping containers as basic building blocks which will be configured in creative ways to address challenges of containment, movement, art, lighting and art performance. The jury felt that this solution displayed high levels of flexibility, adaptability and toughness in use. The design resonates powerfully with docklands and embraces the temporary nature of the challenge.
"After finding an affordable and convenient warehouse space in the industrial section of Santa Ana, Orange County, local printing company MVP decided to turn part of their premises into an office space. The warehouse wasn’t equipped to accommodate private offices, and the company felt that keeping the whole space climate-controlled would be wasteful, so they decided to group 10 20-foot shipping containers inside the warehouse to act as offices. " via Inhabitat
The boxes were developed by the architecture firm Lo-Tek to create flexible office space in Bohen’s Chelsea gallery. Come summer 2009, the containers will be situated in the newly accessible south Island picnic area with unmatched views of the Statue of Liberty and the New York Harbor.
"Modern Manifesto House Made From Wood Pallets and Shipping Containers" via inhabitat
“The Manifesto House by Infiniski utilizes pre-made materials like shipping containers and wooden pallets to create a totally rad modern house. Infiniski’s mission is to build homes cheaply and quickly using sustainable materials while incorporating renewable energy systems.”
Overcrowded jails and prisons are a growing issue in the US and also globally. This demand can now be filled instantly with modular jail and prison cells made from recycled ISBU shipping containers. via ISBU News
“Nobody loves contemporary networked life more than Christopher Baker. ‘I would absolutely love it if the internet could be truly “free,”‘ the Minneapolis-based new-media artist emails from Hungary. ‘Free of censorship, free of bandwidth restrictions, free of cost, accessible to all, environmentally free, free of the political influence and the weight of capitalism. At the same time, I think it’s extremely important the people realize that it isn’t.’
Christopher Baker, HPVS (Human Phantom Vibration Syndrome), Installation view, Art(ists) On the Verge, Weisman Art Museum. Photo: Rik Sferra
“Baker isn’t just talking out of his beret. This year alone, his web-intensive installations and public works have appeared everywhere from the Weisman to art-tech crucible Kitchen Budapest, where the artist finishes a yearlong residency next month—leaving him just enough time to prepare for the November 20 opening of his first Franklin Art Works solo exhibition. With eight shows in locales ranging from Barnsley, U.K., to Fargo, North Dakota, scheduled for the next six months, the poor devil might perish of exhaustion if not for automation.”
Chris’s work is important – and often mesmerizing – for what it says about the human condition, not because he is a “tech artist,” regardless of how facile.
Here is her official MacArthur profile along with some unofficial photos of Camille in action on projects I have worked with her on.
Camille doing some last minute programming on "Abundance," commissioned for the San Jose City Hall Rotunda by ZER01 and the City of San Jose. Photo: Everett Tassevigen
Camille Utterback is an artist who uses digital technologies to create visually arresting works that redefine how viewers experience and interact with art. Drawing upon traditional media such as painting, photography, and sculpture, she writes computer code that seamlessly blends the interactive elements of each piece with her aesthetic vision. In her 1999 video installation Text Rain, made with Romy Achituv, the interface of video camera and tracking software allows a viewer’s entire body to engage with text. As viewers stand in front of the projection, their shadows interrupt the falling streams of seemingly random words; the words eventually come to rest on the outline of the viewers’ bodies to reveal lines of a poem. With this distinctive and absorbing work, Utterback combines interactivity with a visual and literary experience that captivates people of all ages, including children. While her early work focused on text and movement, in recent years painterly imagery has had a profound influence on a number of her projects. In the External Measures series (2001-2008), she turned the digital medium into abstract pictorial compositions of infinite variety. These dynamic installations react to people’s motions and involve the viewer in the act of creating monumental paintings and drawings.
Camille doing some last minute programming on "Abundance," commissioned for the San Jose City Hall Rotunda by ZER01 and the City of San Jose. Photo: Everett Tassevigen
Utterback’s Abundance (2007), a temporary outdoor video projected onto San Jose’s Richard Meier-designed City Hall dome, transformed an impersonal public space and modern edifice into a vibrant, colorful environment responsive to human presence and movement. With each subsequent project, Utterback is creating works that encourage audiences to take part in new and exciting artistic collaborations and enriching the experience of living in a technological age.
Camille installing, with Alan B. Davidson, the interactive touch railing for her latest project at the West End in St. Louis Park, MN
Camille Utterback received a B.A. (1992) from Williams College and an M.P.S. (1999) from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University. Her work has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibitions at such venues as the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Fabric Workshop, the Netherlands Media Art Institute, and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
Krzysztof Wodiczko, (Projection on South Africa House, Trafalgar Square, London), 1985
Krzysztof Wodiczko is one of the primary inspirations for any public projection art. This is some of what he said about his famed intervention in South Africa, which lasted a mere 2 hours – for almost 25 years now.
“We must stop this ideological ritual,’ interrupt this journey-in-fiction, arrest the somnambulistic movement, restore public focus, a concentration of the building and its architecture. What is implicit about the building must be exposed as explicit; the myth must be visually concretized and unmasked. The absent-mided, hypnotic relation with architecture must be challenged by a conscious and critic public discourse taking place in front of the building.
“Public visualization of this myth can unmask the myth, recognize it ‘physically,’ force it to the surface, and hold it visible, so that the people on the street can observe and celebrate its final formal capitulation.
“This must happen at the very place of myth, on the site of its production, on its body–the building.”
Monday, May 11, 2009 at 11:00pm
Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 2:00am
Location: Istanbul
A socially networked artwork
Please do not spoil the game by telling Henry Jenkins
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
The game – We are throwing bottles in the sea with a message to Henry Jenkins as well as throwing a message in the sea of the information of social networks on Facebook to see if Henry Jenkins will stumble upon the event online first or will receive the message in a bottle. The object of the game is to see if and how he will find out about the project.
Rules of the game – To participate print, copy or download this text, place it in a bottle, on a message board, an announcement list or share it with your Facebook friends. Throw the message in the sea of information systems, and take screenshots or pictures and videos of the bottle in a real space – images can be of any phase – from when you print this message, to when you put it in the bottle or to when you throw the bottle in the river or in the sea of information systems, to when the bottle is traveling in the waters of digital comments. Lastly share the images and videos with me (Lanfranco Aceti) on Facebook. [Please do not throw bottles in the real sea and leave them there adding to the already existing pollution.] The contributions from the audience will become part of an art installation and new video work.
In the chaos of information that characterizes contemporary society, is social networking really making a change? Or does the dissemination and distribution of our lives through social networks add to the sea of information, therefore depriving us of the possibility of making any impact? Are the currents of the seas and the oceans better forms of distribution of information than the speedy currents of contemporary digital media?
The audio, video and photographic records of the game, together with digital artworks and documentation from similar events taking place in Istanbul, Manchester, Rome, London and other locations around the world will be posted on the Internet in order to compare the ‘navigability of the sea of information’ with that of the real waves and chain of events happening in real life.
If you find this message in a bottle, very few were actually placed in the sea, please send it via mail to: Professor Henry Jenkins, Comparative Media Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Building 14N-207, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307, USA.
Please also let Lanfranco Aceti know willhenryjenkinshearaboutit@gmail.com that you have found the real bottle and mailed the message to Henry Jenkins.
Adriene Jenik, SPECFLIC 2.0, part of the 1st 01SJ Biennial, 2006, San Jose Public Library, San Fernando and 4th St.
For Artists
San Fernando Corridor Project – Request for Qualifications
San Jose Public Art and ZER01 invite artists to submit qualifications and letters of interest to install temporary artworks on the San Fernando Street corridor in Downtown San Jose. These artworks will be installed in June 2010, be a feature of the 3rd 01SJ Biennial (September 15-19, 2010) and will be continue their display through October 2010.
Background: San Fernando Street
San Fernando Street is a significant east/west corridor through downtown San Jose that connects Diridon Station, the major train, light rail and bus center on the west side of downtown; continues through the sports, retail and cultural district; and defines the north side of San Jose State University at downtown’s east edge. The street passes from the station, beneath State Highway 87 and over the Guadalupe River before entering the downtown core. As such, the street offers a variety of opportunities for the creation of artworks in different media ranging from static to electronic, sound, projection, light-based, interactive and mobile or networked. The artworks will be accessible to anyone who works, lives or visits downtown San Jose.
Background: 2010 3rd 01SJ Biennial
The 3rd 01SJ Biennial will take place September 15-19, 2010, throughout San Jose and Silicon Valley. Its theme, “Build Your Own World,†is about how powerful ideas and innovative individuals from around the world can make a difference and come together to build a unique, city-wide platform for creative solutions and public engagement. It is about the inspiration needed to build a world we want to live in and are able to live with. The 2010 01SJ Biennial is predicated on the notion that as artists, designers, engineers, architects, marketers, corporations and citizens we have the tools to (re)build the world, conceptually and actually, virtually and physically, poorly and better, aesthetically and pragmatically, in both large and small ways.
PROJECT BUDGETS: Vary depending on site
ARTIST ELIGIBILITY: U.S. residents are invited to apply, or those who have a US Social Security or Tax Identification Number by the application deadline.
APPLICATION DEADLINE: Submissions (described below) must be received as a complete application in CaFÉ™ by no later than 12 midnight Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) on Thursday, October 8, 2009.
APPLICATION PROCESS: All materials will be submitted online, via CaFÉ™ website (www.callforentry.org). There is no application fee to apply or to use the CaFÉ™ online application system. To view the application, go to www.callforentry.org, register a username and password, navigate to “Apply to Callsâ€, and search the list for “City of San Jose – San Fernando Corridor Projectâ€.
