TOUR: California (Southbound Leg)

BAY AREA, Second Pass

Jymn, Ruby, Jay, Jeph

We enjoyed a solid couple days of down-time, powwowing with Jay's old clan from Kalamazoo, who have almost all relocated to the Bay Area over the years. We were a slow-moving, cheery organism, relaxing with only a few cultural objectives in our sights as we partook of awesome meals, went for various drives and walks, and hung-out with the amazing Ruby child.

We hit the SFMOMA for In Collaboration: Early Works from the Media Arts Collection. Highlights were: Steina's "Violin Power," Chris Burden's "Documentation of Selected Works 1971-74," Vito Acconci's "Home Movies," and a Doug Hall closed-circuit installation.

Kubick in his studio with Jay

a subject of Kubick's steady research

Keith Evans, Chris Kubick, Jay, and Anne Walsh

Keith Evans joined us and Chris Kubick for our gig at 21 Grand. He laid out a hybrid contraption of moving objects and small film projections, aimed a video camera at them and projected that image large, on the walls, while conjuring ambient sounds, captivating the audience deeply in his enchanted spell. I experienced that same magic a few years back when his collaborative, silt, came to the University of Michigan and Ann Arbor Film Festival for their last performances and exhibition project before one of their members moved to Europe. Sounds like he and the other California-based member Jeff Warrin may try something out together again soon. I hope so.




LA, Second Pass

Robert Martin, Donna, Jay, and elray at the Getty

We spent a morning at the Getty with fellow displaced-Detroiters Robert Martin and his wife Donna, checking out the California Video exhibition. Robert left Wayne State University to be the chair of the California State University/LA Department of Art around the same time I left Ann Arbor for San Antonio, and he also works with moving image and sound in performance. I met him through my old comrade Julie Meitz, who had been his student, when she invited the both of us to vj with her at Movement/the Detroit Electronic Music Fesitval in 2005. It was a real treat to get to spend a little time together again.

Memorable work from the California Video show includes early B/W Tony Oursler; a 5-channel Diana Thater digital video installation and a Bruce Nauman closed-circuit installation.


Our Materials & Applications show was great close out to the tour.

view from atop the module, the mobile cinema on the sidewalk below.

Giacomo Castagnola brought his mobile cinema, the ABCmobile, from Tijuana. We had fun making new friends and seeing old ones.

The Lady Didier in charge at M&A, with the Lil' Piunisher at her side.

Claire Didier and Jay inside Jimenez Lai's Phalanstery Module

THE RIDE HOME

The longest delay of our entire train journey was pulling into the station in San Antonio. We waited for over an hour sitting about 100 yards from the platform. I didn’t mind.

TOUR: Northern California (Northbound Leg)

Catching the 1:30am bus to Bakersfield for the 4am Coast Starlight saddled with an illness that I'm all-too-happy to forget about was fairly challenging. Jymn and his 20-month-old daughter were at the station when our train pulled up to Oakland in the morning. Mr. Mom, long-longtime friend of Jay, was our perfect facilitator, carting us around town wherever we needed to go in his GPS-enhanced hybrid with the amazing baby Ruby in the back. For me this meant a trip to the health-food store for medicine, dropping me and our luggage at Chris and Anne's open and airy apartment where I promptly laid down on the couch, and a specially delivered steaming-hot phó from the best Vietnamese joint in OK-Town.


OAKLAND:

Chris Kubick performing at the Fractal Mind Hut

After sleeping all day, we went to Ben's place for our gig. Ben sometimes hosts events at his uber-excellent industrial live-work space, known as The Totally Intense Fractal Mind Gaze Hut. I know him from a couple years back when Chris Kubick set up a show at 21 Grand with a bunch of electronic music improvisers from Mills, with whom I mixed set after set on my Videonics MX-1. It's hard to imagine traveling with that old analog set-up, now that my new digital rig fits entirely in one backpack.

Alfonso manning his projector array.

This gig felt like coming home because the audience was already speaking our language. Also on the bill with us were a team made up of electronically modified flute and a custom suitcase-bound electronics array; Chris Kubick; and Alfonso Alvarez (Ann Arbor School) with Suki O'Kane (Ill Corral).

I imagine that experiencing experimental music is easier for more people than taking in experimental film. If so, why? Music is abstract by nature, and there is a willingness to experience and accept that sound can create an emotional and dynamic experience without having to deconstruct it. On the other hand, mainstream moving image media is everywhere (movies, television, internet), filling our field of vision with a very specific visual language that we deeply and intuitively accept. When we are challenged with moving images that diverge from this standard, we become confused and caught up in looking for the "meaning." This is similar to representational vs. abstract painting. Whereas most people can accept a traditional landscape painting as art, faced with a Jackson Pollack they might say: "My two-year old can do that." Or, in response to Barnett Newman's "Be I (second version)," at the Detroit Institute of the Arts, I actually heard: "Someone hangs a ping-pong table on the wall and calls it art."


THE MISSION:

Our good friend Julian Stark carted Jay and our gear over to the other side of the bay to set up at the ATA while me and my virus remained horizontal for the better part of the day. I was sorry to have to miss an afternoon with Craig Baldwin and his whirlwind of energies. My feeble state was accentuated climbing out of the BART station onto 16th Street, as I leaned for a few minutes to regain some breath and strength before embarking on a slow-motion hike over to 992 Valencia Street.

The gig was cooked up by Carl Diehl from Portland to showcase Fortian and similar scientific anomalies in relation to the glitch of the circuit-bender. Craig Baldwin says it was "my best show pic of [the] 08 calendar."

Filmmaker Sam Green engrossed in show-and-tell about a plaster cast of Bigfoot's foot that he'd mail-ordered as a kid (and still possessed).

News from home by way of this powerpoint presentation on UFO current events.

Here's a rare appearance by Son of Sasquatch, who is about to jump up on the table with our laptops and mixers. Notice the lit candelabra with 7 dripping hot-wax generators. We became tense and disturbed for a few moments until he got down.

Circuit-bender Jeff Donaldson, known as noteNdo, in from Brooklyn.

It was a real honor to be live on the Other Cinema bill, with an audience hooked into the deep experimental cinema and culture-jamming traditions of the Bay Area. If our show at the Mind Hut felt like coming home, this was more like connecting back up to the Mothership.

TOUR: Southern California (Northbound Leg)

Nina took us to the train station after we got rid of the rental car, and hung out long enough to absorb the depot vibe before we said our goodbyes. I love the relaxed atmosphere of train travel. We settled into our sleeperette on the Southwest Chief and soon were off. In this first moment of the 108+ hours we would be spending on the train over the next few weeks, I did a little dance in the small space between our seats.

elray on the train

Our train pulled in an hour early the next morning at LA Union Station. It wasn't long before Vera Bruner-Sung, another comrade from the Ann Arbor Film Festival (from now on referred to as "The Ann Arbor School"), scooped us up. Vera is one thesis film away from her masters at Cal Arts, was just completing a review of James Benning's new book, doing lots of yoga, and glowing in the swoon of young love.


It was gray and rainy, and Vera took excellent care of us for the day, helping us to laundry, naps, a ride to the movies (Errol Morris' "Standard Operating Proceedure"), good dialogue, and more.


VENICE:

We made our way out to Venice beach by way of a ride to the Center for Land Use Interpretation (where we said hello to Matt Coolidge, albeit briefly as he was ensconced in tax forms), then bus, then foot. It was one of those gorgeous sunny and mild southern California days. We walked up the boardwalk to Dudley Street and found the 7Dudley Cinema in the middle of the first block in from the beach. Gerry Fialka, also of the Ann Arbor School, was arranging chairs and setting up the projector.

The space was cozy, and our audience an intimate one. Quintessential Venice Beach, there were at least two people present with bare feet.

Deep Venice - Gerry generously offered us the futon-couch at his & Suzy's cozy bungalow, a home-cooked gourmet breakfast, and a ride out to Silver Lake the next day. It was a real treat. Neighborhood locales are essential to life in LA, and Gerry prepared for what seemed to be a major excursion by gathering up a big stack of trash-picked LPs to haul inland to Amoeba Records.

This embroidery on felt is one of the many treasures discovered inside at Gerry & Suzy's place.

Gerry interviewing Jay

one of the many treasures discovered outside at Gerry & Suzy's place

ECHO PARK:

The next thing I remember is going on a bike ride to downtown LA, then a rapid decline into illness just before and during a great meal prepared by my old friend Jenna. I spent the next several days in bed, making my way to and performing at whichever next gig.

After months in flat Texas, I'm excited about the verticality of the LA cityscape.

The Echo Park Film Center was hopping with the energy of numerous kids in tight quarters editing videos when we walked in. This wonderful little community film center, lovingly run by the beautiful couple Lisa and Paolo, is an oasis of real and effective hands-on grass-roots media making. Although I was fairly wiped out from the viral occupation, we truly enjoyed the audience and our show there. Much respect and love to those folks! And long-live the EPFC!

TOUR: New Mexico

We set out in a rental car and drove for half a day to reach Roswell from San Antonio.

ROSWELL


Mimi Kato made sure that this first stop on our tour was a success, hosting us at the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program where she's been living and working since January. Mimi took superb care of us, treated us to her scrumptious home-style Japanese cooking, toured us downtown to the RAIR and UFO Museums, and resourcefully ensured that we had everything we needed for our performance.


Our audience was a wonderful group of artists-in-residence and Roswell townies who were connected to the arts, including a curator and former curator from the Roswell Museum of Art, and a farmer. This sincere and lively group was wholly engaging in an invigorating post-performance Q&A.


TAOS

Skipping up to Taos overnight, I was surprised at how little things have changed in 15 years. We found the old adobe that I'd lived in on Upper Ranchitos Road. It had been recently restored and was for sale. For a moment, we entertained the fantasy of dropping out of everyday civilization for the charmed eternity of Taos. We walked along a stream filled with melted mountain snow in the Sangre de Christos, and found a horse skeleton.


Most Beautiful Steel Bridge, Long Span, designated by the American Institute of Steel Construction in 1966.

(photo from www.redriver.org/cumbres-toltec-railroad)
Where we took the ashes of Hambone.
It seemed fitting to bring him back to where he came from.


SANTA FE

The Steina Vasulka retrospective at Site Santa Fe has given me a much richer understanding of and respect for the grand matron of video art. I am inspired by her practice as she continues to produce relevant and profound work from the arid geography of Northern New Mexico.


ALBUQUERQUE

The good folks in Albuquerque bestowed upon us good times, and a most positive experience.

Basement Films peeps Bryan Konefsky, who I know from his frequent visits to the Ann Arbor Film Festival, and hardworking Keif Henley made it happen at the Verb Collective venue, run by the gallant and dependable Blake Driver.

Here we are after the gig. (Elray, Keif, Jay, Bryan, Patty, Blake)


Film artist Nina Fonoroff, Associate Professor of Cinematic Studies at UNM, kindly allowed us to stay with her in the little corner of paradise that she occupies. I met Nina at the NAMAC conference in Austin last October and was captivated immediately upon hearing of her work with the optical printer. We pried our way into her studio and were treated to a look at parts of a longtime work-in-progress.

The fallout from the digital explosion upon artists fascinates me-- particularly those who have worked with celluloid for a long time. While many of us have taken up the digital tools (willingly or reluctantly), Nina's approach reinforces the physicality of film, moving each single frame into full-out printmaking processes. Awesome.