better late than never - CAA Dallas

Here's Yoko doing the Onochord at the College Art Association conference back in February.

It's standing room only, and I'm standing all the way in the back of one of the larger rooms of the Dallas Convention Center. There must be over 500 academics there for art/rock star Yoko's talk, but the power of her charisma reaches every corner of the room. She showed pictures of herself as a very young girl, and talked autobiography into her early days in NYC. It seemed fitting that she reinforce her public persona of childlike innocence through these images. An uncomplicated purity is the best ground for her message of peace. Overall, I think: keep it simple and accept Yoko straight-up as an icon of peace-- its been the focus of her art since early on. The strength of her presence is enough to assuage the small part of me that sees her as a privileged rebel, defying the strict social traditions of her upper-class Japanese milieu.

Yoko's presence was solid, but the receiving environment seemed incongruous. There was something strange about her flashing the I--LOVE--YOU Onochord message from her flashlight on stage to a room-full of academics, as they flashed back. I wasn't able to break through the setting to feel her message-- but that might say more about me than academia or Yoko.



And here is Artlies editor (now acting director) Anjali Gupta on a panel of art critics.

She's answering a question from the audience, saying that the grads from a particular (here unnamed) masters program in art theory/criticism have "had so much smoke blown up their ass" during their time in the program that she requests that they wait at least a year after getting out before asking to write for her publication. Smart, feisty, and not afraid to tell it like it is-- I like that lady!

check out the paper she presented, 'Is Blogging Criticism?' here on Glasstire



And finally, here's Justin Boyd (in shadow on the left) DJing and me VJing (silhouetted on the right), representing for the UTSA New Media Program at the reception for the New Media Caucus at The Dallas Contemporary. For my video mix, I've borrowed all of the cellphone videos from the computers in the current exhibition there. These videos, which have been uploaded on a daily basis by seven different artists and projected into the space, make up the Real Time show. CAA attendees have also been invited to contribute video images for my mix.

My friend Patricia Olynyk showed up and asked if I had received the animated gif she'd emailed. It was easy to retrieve via the wireless internet access, plug it into my VJ software, and throw it up on the screen in no time. This was a terrific moment, opening up a world of possibility for future a performance.