highlights from LA: particularly great moments

Bree Edwards (Be Johnny) and Roy, Los Angeles in the background

Fat Tuesday dinner at Jenna & Oliver's place (M&A)... with old friends Matt Bakkom and Claire Didier, and new friend Sarah Beetle, who its taken too long to finally meet! Jenna made this awesome gumbo pictured above, and Sarah made the rest of the delicious meal-- some fancy chicken that took a day and a night to cook, only to melt in the mouth like ice cream, but served hot... and an amazing chocolate cake to round it out.

Bree & I went to see Deborah Stratman present her new piece "O'er The Land," along with a couple other short works, at Redcat Theater.  This was a real treat! I was at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in experimental film (for a little over a year) when Deborah was there, but I doubt she would remember me. Looking forward to seeing her piece again at the Ann Arbor Film Festival next week!!

Anjali Gupta, Jay, Patricia Olynyk, and Robert Girou... a nightcap at the hotel bar. Awesome to unwind from the week in utter silliness with these great pals.

highlights from LA: new media caucus (late Feb)

a still from the live mix

"It's going to be hard, but it'll be worth it!" This is the new mantra given to me by my new boss (chair of the UTSA Art & Art History Department) Greg Elliott, at the start of this year. (He says: "I'm not your boss! I'm just the guy you ask for money!") During my time at the conference, I worked my ass off as the New Media Caucus exhibition committee chair! We mounted the exhibition "@" at SCI-Arc, and it was an amalgamation of Second Life and Real World situations/objects.  So it was hard, but it was definitely worth it.

The New Media Caucus is a College Art Association affiliated group that formed in order to focus the potential of the academic new media art contingent in one arena. Many of us are the lone voice in our respective departments, are forging the way with new ideas and media into unrecognizable terrain, and benefit from the backing of an organization sanctioned by the larger academic community.

One of the important things that the NMC has done during its short existence (6 years) was to write the guidelines for review of faculty teaching in new media arts-- something that maybe only those of us in academia can appreciate... but it was a relief to me that this CAA-validated document existed, providing some concrete guidelines for my perplexed colleagues when they review my record.

Anyhow, enough of that... Here's a shot of Johnny Dekam, and Jason. Potter-Belmar Labs got to jam with Be Johnny for the NMC reception of the show "@," and it was a blast-- really great to plug my video signal into Johnny's rig & have a buffer between me and the screen for a change. On account of finally making it to Second Life (to attend meetings with my colleagues for the organization of the exhibition, believe it or not), I ended up sampling a bunch of imagery from that virtual world to use in the mix.  

highlights from LA: M&A (late February)

The College Art Association annual conference happened in LA this time around, and what a treat to see so many old friends both living in town and visiting for the conference.

Jay & Jenna

The last Sunday morning brought us to waffle brunch at Materials & Applications. Jenna texted: "this is a BYO-Breakfast meats and Bloody mary mix! The more the merrier!" 

here's the Lil' Punisher checking out fish in the fountain

Eddy Sykes' Yakuza Lou robotic garden sculpture was taken down the day before-- sad to see it go! but we were able to set up a big table in the space that it had occupied at the center of the front yard.

clockwise from left side: friend of M&A, Jason, Oliver Hess,

Jenna Didier, Claire Didier, Brian, Anjali Gupta

PBL @ "Sala Diaz Is Open," Feb 13

As usual, as soon as the semester began, time and energy evaporated for tending to my beloved online journal. With spring break here, I'll attempt a scattershot approach to updating some of my recent activities.

John Mata invited PBL to contribute to "Sala Diaz Is Open."  Here is a link to Mark Jones' SA Current coverage on John's project, written at the beginning of of the month-long occupation-- the thing that it does not talk about (because it hadn't happened yet) was the life-blood of live performance that charged the place every weekend. This includes a sound performance by Berlin-based Annette Krebs, local artist Randy Wallace's action (read Sarah Fisch's coverage here), as well as a night of our live cinema improv.

We set up across the street in the red van, pointed 4500 lumens of vjFutureWorkerGirl moving light and image and 900 watts of spokeNine ambient sound collage at Sala Diaz.  The Brothers Boyd were inside, mixing dubstep. In the middle of the street was the sweet spot where the soundscape opened into another dimension. 

I had spent the day gathering up images from the local environs to mix up with my general library. Beto Gonzales summed it up when he asked, rhetorically: "Is this Southtown dreaming itself?"

A New Year

The Happy Buddha (2008)

Franco Mondini-Ruiz

Late into the night of Stacey Hill's housewarming party, as we stood in the driveway at her beautiful new dwelling just a mile up the road from my place, Franco and I had talked about a trade. He made it easy for me to ask by complimenting my LANDSCAPES show that was at Blue Star in September, generously saying that it was "world-class," and calling me the "technology diva of San Antonio." Shortly after that, and just prior to a week-long holiday stint in the wintery north, I'd trekked over to Franco's inspired hacienda on the west side with some DVD editions.

It was a gorgeous San Antonio December day. The place was jumping with the activity of his many assistants-- Kurt and Bryson in the studios, and Rosa in the studio kitchen. Over in the main house, we made room in a tiny office that also seemed to be a bedroom, where the tv monitor sat on a desk. As Franco lounged on the chaise, I showed him my videos, sunlight sifting past the trees and into the room through the window. He loved Michigan (Reflecting Pool) that I'd picked out for him, but really fell in love with Comic Bar Scene, saying that the former represented his ideal state of existence, but this one reflected the true energy of his operations there.

Cheery about his acquisition, we perambulated back over to the studio house, and there in the studio kitchen I was delighted to find Lisa Wolf-- she was there to show off her special reuben sandwich-- my timing couldn't have been better! I was treated to an exceptional lunch. But before food, I poked around the studios, trying to find the Franco piece for me. We already have a gorgeous large painting, Texas Tea, which Jason traded for one of his magnetic-paint-on-glass paintings... I realized that we should supplement with a sculpture.

Timing a little off here, though-- Franco has been pushing his 3D work over the holiday season, and being the awesome hustler that he is, had sold out! But... there on the tiny table crammed into the corner of the kitchen that he painted at... a cake plate was heaped with some headless figurines and a big buddha. Knowing that we share a fascination with trans-cultural fusion, and that my mom is Chinese, he suggested that he could finish this one for me!  And finish it he did, as you can see, dear reader, in the picture at the top of this post.

I love my new Happy Buddha! May it pave the way for a happier, lighter, calmer, and most harmonious 2009.

On that note, I'm in the middle of reading Three Cups of Tea, about the mountain climber Greg Mortenson.  It chronicles the saga of his self-made mission to build a school in a tiny, remote village at the foothills of the Himalayas, in Pakistan. It is a remarkable enterprise, and in the passage I read this morning, he describes the great eagerness and impatience he feels to get the job done in a culture that operates on a different sense of time. One morning, the village elder tears Mortenson away from his position as the project's forman, takes him up the mountain for some perspective, and tells him he's got to knock it off.

"That day, Haji Ali taught me the most important lesson I've ever learned in my life.  We Americans think you have to accomplish everything quickly. We're the country of thirty-minute power lunches and two-minute football drills. Our leaders thought their 'shock and awe' campaign could end the war in Iraq before it even started. Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects. He taught me that I had more to learn from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them." (Greg Mortenson)

I hope to be able to improve myself in this respect, particularly in my project of building the New Media Program at UTSA-- to be able to find ways to disengage from the various pressures of my job, to become a less reactive person. My other new years resolutions are: 1 - to spend more time in the physical world, especially outdoors, and 2 - to take more time just to think about things.

UTSA Commencement

Up until a couple weeks ago, the last commencement I attended was an intimate and informal rite held at the University of Michigan School of Art & Design in 1999 that I took my dad to while my mom was traveling in China, and after which we shared a bottle of champagne with my teacher Joseph Grigley and his wife Amy outside behind the Art Building, then directly after that my dad dropped me off at my house where I mowed the lawn until Jason came over in his orange van and we went on our first date which was a walk in the woods with our dogs.

On December 20th, I went to the UTSA Commencement, with my third and fourth New Media undergrad students graduating from our program. Neither of them were in attendance, but it was good for me to check it out, and think about the relevance and importance of group ritual. Art students are by nature outsider, status-quo-questioning entities. I relate personally to what I interpret as an aversion to mainstream mass-ritual, and at the same time couldn't help feeling the potential of what their presence could signify-- in a positive way for both them and their peers in the rest of the College of Liberal and Fine Arts, and the Business School.

"If.." is a film by Lindsay Anderson, starring Malcom McDowell, that I watched recently. Depicted in it are traditional, self-important and overbearing customs of British public school. The story takes a turn at the very end, when McDowell's character violently rebels against the oppressive and stifling circumstance of his environs. The sudden turn of events is unexpected in its extremity, is effective because of it, and cuts a deep question into the facade of brainless, empty conventions. Made in 1968, around the time of the Situationist International, the student uprisings in France, race riots in the States, and other incidents of cultural unrest, the film is a clear reflection of its zeitgeist.

In the first chapter of The Audacity of Hope, our President Elect outlines a trajectory of political and cultural energy from that period (the Sixities) to the present day, illustrating a deterioration over time of the climate in which present day politics is practiced.  Part of Obama's political platform of change is the modification or reclamation of the political process, in the name of the citizens. I'm not sure why, but I see this moment in relation to my deep-felt belief that its time for artists to take up a more meaningful role in society. When most people don't feel any relationship to the art of our moment, I must question the validity of what we, as artists, are doing. Our currency is creativity, and I hope we can use it to find a way to be more socially responsible and connected to every day people. Fortunately, there are a few artists out there who are pioneering new models.

People need aesthetic experiences-- spaces that allow them to move outside of our mediated environment, an ecology designed to amplify our proclivity to consume.  This is a topic for another day...

Only to say, the Mariachi band concluded the ceremony on a most joyful and feisty note:

Seigfried and Roy

Seigfried is Margaret & Scott's new parrot, who I had the pleasure of meeting at their recent sushi party. (YUM!) Here he is on Michele Monseau's shoulder.  

The door to his cage was opened up after dinner, so he hopped onto the table and wandered around saying hello to everyone, eating little scraps, trying to eat the wasabi...  we all thought thought it wouldn't be very good for him to eat the wasabi, except for our much-loved animal authority, Montana!  She reasoned that, unlike a canine, if Seigfried ate something that disagreed with him, he wouldn't keep eating it.

The very next animal that I met was this beautiful shepherd, Roy. Here he is with my friend Bree in her backyard. She was very involved with dog-training, taking Roy to school just about every morning when I was visiting her in LA, and shooting portraits of other person+dog student teams. I even got to meet their very dignified teacher-trainer, who came over to finish up a little drywall patch-job around a window he'd fixed at their place.

While I was in LA, there were big fires on the north side of the city. Serious enough for evacuation, road closures, and many people to lose their homes. This gentleman dog-trainer has a piece of property up there with two dozen of the meanest dogs living out on it, and he had to make a trip up there to evacuate them. I can only imagine a pickup truck brimming with the baddest of dawgs, carting them into the city... I wonder where he ended up putting them all.

Back in Time: AURORA (late October)

We made two trips to Houston at the end October.  The first was for the Aurora Picture Show 10th Anniversary Gala dinner, for which we completed a new single-channel piece, "Double Thunder." A few other artists were also asked to contribute new works to this celebration for a limited edition special DVD given to the guests...  interstingly, half of us were collaborating couples: Magsaman & Hillerbrand (Mary M. and Steve H.); Be Johnny (Bree Edwards and Johnny DeKam); and PBL. John Carrithers, Kara Hearn, and Eileen Maxson are the others.

a Franco Mondini-Ruiz paining occupies a special alcove space at the Fingers' new house

The "Celestial Event" took place at the recently acquired and renovated home of Martha & Richard Finger, backing up into the Buffalo Bayou... and I mean recent--the paint was practically still wet!  I know they worked incredibly hard towards completion, and it was a truly lovely setting for this special night.

Lucky us, we got to stay in the guest room at the Aurora Library! Super-awesome to have access to all of the videos there, with two built-in screening spaces. It reminded me of when I was a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I'd spend my spare time in the Video Data Bank stacks watching everything that seemed remotely interesting! At Aurora I watched documentation from past Media Archeology events like TV Sheriff, Wet Gate, Paper Rad and Cory Arcangel, and single channel works of Takeshi Murata, Joel Schlemowitz, Jackie Goss, and others.

The night after the gala we had the pleasure of seeing Bill Morrision and his work at the Aurora Theater. Bill was in town working on the "Lightning at our Feet" production, in collaboration with the University of Houston Mitchell Center. Best known for his feature-length avant-garde film "Decasia," we were fortunate to see this rare collection of works he had created over the years in cooperation with various of theatrical projects.

We made our return to Houston on Halloween to present Fortune at the Aurora Picture Show Theater, and lots of people came in costume. Aurora Picture Show fickr pix. After the show, we ended up at some nondescript-on-the-outside bar, notorious as a place bosses take their secretaries for a little undercover nookie.  The upstairs was a room filled with vinyl couch-booths. Ew. We hung out downstairs in costume. Matt Coolidge was in town, and having him in the mix was the cherry on the sundae.

The next day, we tooled around Houston bit, and were pleasantly surprised to run into our friend James Craig, who had recently relocated to Houston from San Antonio to work for Deborah Colton at her new gallery space... he eventually sent us over to the project space (where the prior incarnation of her gallery had been) and we were treated to David Adickes presidential busts-- another truly wonderful surprise! The recent hurricane had blown Beatle Paul McCartney over-- somewhat apparent in the picture above.  

here's Jay next to one of his favorite presidents

The rest of our visit passed quickly by way of brunch with cousins, meeting Meg Poissant and her dogs at her gallery space and showing her some of my video work, breakfast with our good friend Tish Stringer and her chip-off-the-old-block daughter (sharp as her mom!), dinner with Patrick Kwaitikowski and his beautiful family, and generally paying witness to hurricane damage in the physical realm and through everyone's stories.

Back In Time: ANTIMATTER (September 26)

It took two days to travel to the Antimatter Film Festival. We flew to Seattle, stayed overnight in the Moore Hotel downtown, then walked down to the pier early in the morning to catch the Victoria Clipper high-speed ferry to the island of Victoria, British Columbia, where we performed Fortune and participated in a panel discussion on Live Cinema.

Autumn weather in charming downtown Victoria was a real treat. 10,000 thank-yous go to festival director Todd Eacrett and curator Deborah De Boer, who ensured that our stay was fantastic. We were put up at Paul's Motor Inn, in a room off the secret courtyard in the back, a very cozy hideout. We could and did walk everywhere. We visited the Victoria Bug Zoo, where I held all kinds of large bugs, from the most regal and sentient praying mantis to the gigantic exotic cockroach, and saw a colony of the amazing leaf-cutter ants. We imbibed at Big Bad John's, where you can throw your peanut shells on the ground, and be startled by phony tarantulas lowered down on your table by the staff.  We ate lots of awesome asian food, and generally just celebrated with the festival folks, including lots of other visiting and local filmmakers and artists.  

photo by Steven Masuch

Here we are with artist/panel moderator John Boehme, and San Francisco filmmaker Kerry Laitala, after the Live Cinema panel. John led us through a lively discussion about filmmaking, performance with the moving image, and art making in contemporary times. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

We saw some great work including Craig Baldwin's new film "Mock Up on Mu," which incorporates a lot more original film into his signature found-footage montage style, solidifying the narrative undercurrent in a positive way. It was also a treat to see "We will live to see these things, or, five pictures of what may come to pass," by Julian Metzer and David Thorne. Our friend Chris Kubick has been working on the soundtrack for many months-- what a nice surprise to see/hear this experimental documentary shot in Syria, in its finished state. "Frank & Cindy" by G.J. Echternkamp is also a very worthwhile feature-length personal documentary about the filmmaker's mother and stepfather, and active relations amongst the three of them influenced by and during the making of the film.

Antimatter is a highly respected and well funded festival due to outstanding programming. The British Columbia Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts are just two of their many sponsors. I admit that I was surprised at the size of the audience.  Quality trumped quantity, however, with the small crowds comprised of many video and film makers, professors, and students. This could be due to the smallness of Victoria, and/or the fact that there was a student-worker strike going on that took down one of the two venues with Antimatter programming, forcing lots of grueling, last-second rescheduling. Another reason may be the tiny festival staff-- it's amazing to witness how much can actually accomplished by such a small group. If they operate like I do, though, publicity is the last hat that I can manage to put on after all of the other important responsibilities.  Whatever the case may be, I wish we had been able to afford (both financially and temporally) to stay for the duration of this exceptional 10-day episode, honoring the cream of the experimental moving-image crop.

Back In Time: LANDSCAPES (September 4)

Whenever school starts, time magically evaporates, and I push to find some even keel for teaching and producing work.   Intense involvement in a project followed by some down-time to recuperate is typical, but I'd gladly trade for a more steady kind of progress.  This writing is a way for me to digest the events of my life, and it typically gets put on hold until the tranquil moment comes.

These images are from way back at the beginning of the term-- Blue Star Contemporary, September First Thursday, at my opening of new video works: LANDSCAPES.

 

From my press release:

Leslie Raymond's new show LANDSCAPES puts the focus on the tired and true theme of the landscape.  A primary genre in painting, landscapes generally depict views from nature.  Here, Raymond presents a contemporary take on the subject.  Broadening the vocabulary of the picture-plane through the use of the moving image, she incorporates video's inevitable language of time.  This group of landscape images embodies artifacts of the passage of time (including lapsed time, movement through time and space, and time pressure) while simultaneously considering composition, color, shape and form.  Each video loop composition in this series is displayed on its own flat-panel monitor, and each is an edition of four.

Emily Morrison expanded on these thoughts beautifully in an essay that she wrote for the show, published as a short-run brochure by Blue Star.  If you want one, get in touch with me & I'll happily pass it on.

Back In Time: Collaborating With My Mom (September)

Many months ago, my mom told me about a dream she'd had. In it, I was projecting video images onto a wall of clay. More than a few years ago she described another dream in which I was coming to her, trying to balance a big, wet slab of clay. How fascinating for an artist mother to dream about her artist daughter in relation to her medium.

When she relayed her more recent dream, my mom invited me to collaborate on a something for her upcoming retrospective at the Birmingham Art Center. She is pictured below, in the middle of the extremely well-attended reception of her show, practically dead-center... though its hard to see her in this small image. My brother took these snapshots. He's the one in the family who did not pursue any kind of career in the arts, and at the same time has an amazing eye for composition. Must be the genes from our architect dad and potter mom. Could also have to do with growing up within an environment that expressed their quintessential modernist sensibilities.

So when I was up in Michigan over the summer, I made a video component for this large wall-piece (approx 55" x 68"). It was a projection of digitally manipulated, somewhat abstracted footage of my mom throwing at the wheel.

An installation-shot.

chocolate and teamwork

It's been such a busy semester. I put up the previous post while working on my materials for the Chocolate Alice fundraiser project at San Antonio Museum of Art.  This was a vjFutureWorkerGirl gig, although I can't find any mention of this online or in print, including the announcement cards. Maybe I'm some kind of egomaniac, but my own identity as an artist apart from my work in Potter-Belmar Labs is so important to me. Collaborating is wonderfully rewarding, and also incredibly challenging at times. Compromise is key. Its enables one to transcend the bounds of the ego. And, as in an any relationship, growth comes out a commitment to the Third Thing-- that thing that is the alchemical combination of the Two.

And still, my creative drive requires unfettered access to the Flow. Sometimes this can be achieved in collaboration, but I find that the negotiating process interrupts it more often than not. And I also find myself more willing more often to concede than to wage war for my ideas, but its part of the reality of our creative enterprise, and something I struggle to overcome.

Chocolate Alice was a lot of fun. When I find some images from the outdoor installations I'll post them and make some more comments. Also looking forward to updating this blog on the myriad of other gigs from these past few months...

the chocolate

Art Guys Talk at UTSA

The Art Guys visited from Houston earlier this week to talk about their work, currently on exhibit in the UTSA Art Gallery at the 1604 campus. This nationally recognized duo has their game down, and they got it down good-- a complex sense of humor, an admirable DIY attitude, ability to effortlessly talk the talk, and they admitted that socializing in the moneyed branch of the art scene comes easily to them. Their broad creative skill-set and refined sense of craft coupled with strong ability in the conceptual arena make this team an effective art force to be reckoned with.

But my question is: effective to what end?

The 20th century showed us two things, generally speaking, concerning art. First, anything can be art, beginning with Duchamp's urinal. And second, that and the individual, self-absorbed artist can be a godlike figure, beholden to nobody but himself. The Art Guys are a pinnacle of this lineage.

The Art Guys take pride in the public nature of much their work, a pride derived from the act of simply putting themselves on display in public space. During the Q&A, I asked what their hope was for the public audience-- for someone who didn't know who the Art Guys were, or who may not look at art at all. They answered that their aim is to challenge the sense of what is normal or allowed. Bravo, let's move on to the 21st century now.

This is the kind of work (and attitude) that has led to a public that is alienated from contemporary art. The last instance, that comes to my mind, of a kind of pride in citizenship amongst artists in the States is the WPA. Somewhere in the middle of the 20th century, artists turned inward and focused on making art for other artists (in addition to that cultured elite with a growing sophistication in trophy-collecting). Is it any wonder that the National Endowment for the Arts went away? Why is everyone so surprised?

The Art Guys are old-fashioned not only because they don't have any sense of commitment to a public audience, but also because they say that the work is fundamentally about the relationship of the two of them. Multiplying the individual artist-as-god premise resonates with an attitude of gross conceit. It is my hope that this stance will die out as artists step up more and more to the challenge of actualizing a better world through a positive evolution of our physical, psychological, and social environments. Look to Beuys for the root of this ideology.

Bearded Child Film Festival, Minneapolis

The good life. Six blocks away from the bike trail system is where we landed in Minneapolis. Our friend David Pitman, a man with many bikes, hosted us at his place in the Seward neighborhood, HQ of the Monoplex and K-ICE. It rained several times, but was mostly cool (compared to San Antonio) and sunny (though not oppressively so, as in south Texas). I biked around a lot. Riding on the Midtown Greenway was like Utopia.

My bike gang, me (not pictured) David and Jay, riding through the Seward neighborhood to breakfast on Sunday morning.

It was a real treat to attend and perform at The Bearded Child Film Festival. After eight years, director Dan Anderson took his Grand Rapids MN experimental film festival for a run in Minneapolis, at the Bedlam Theater. I'm glad he did-- it's time to share the bounty of his unique vision somewhere with the potential for a larger audience.

I was super impressed with the programming-- lots of new talent I'd never seen before, high-quality work selected with a keen eye for the absurd, odd, and/or personal film that challenges the norm. The Bearded Child was awarded an Arrowhead Regional Arts Council grant this year (which is McKnight Foundation money), allowing them to bring in several special guest artists (including PBL), and this was a major component that enriched the wonderful time I was already having.

I had the pleasure of VJ-ing at the opening night after-party just across the light-rail tracks at Medusa with DJ Danny Seligman. We hit a good groove, and it was a lot of fun improvising to his mix of reggae and film soundtrack samples. Before we went on as the closing act, however, I was treated to some really interesting solo acts that combined the hardcore punk energy of my younger days with digital tools. This is a logical evolution, as computers are so integrated with our daily existence nowadays.

Lepercaves, for example, billed as a "spastic blast from Boulder," screached menacingly into a mic over a heavy, grounded beat that was emanating from his laptop. When he started tossing chairs around the room, in traditional combative male rocker style, there was a real tension created (for me) by the fact that his 2000$ laptop was sitting nearby. At one point, his software crashed and he called out to the audience "Ya gotta' love computers-- raise your hand if you have a computer!" Everyone raised their hand and cheered, as he scoffed while waiting for the thing to reboot. I enjoyed his performance, and experiencing the perilousness of his testosterone flailings in such close proximity to that delicate and vulnerable piece of machinery.

Here is the dynamic Matthew Silver (New Jersey) during the performance before a screening of his videos, which are nearly as high-energy as he is in person. He was frantically relaying a bizarre story about being in a plane-crash due to a chicken getting sucked into the engine. He is a doctor, and he discovers a cure for cancer (which both of his parents are afflicted with) while stranded on a tropical island. The whole time, he's running around the room, vigorously flinging his body in dynamic contortions that reflect the absurdity of the story he was telling. He pulled if off brilliantly.


It was a real treat to take in Brent Coughenour's (Milwaukee) live cinema performance "The Indomitable Human Spirit." Over the course of the piece, stunning, pulsating, abstract images that were like a moving painting, very, very slowly shed the extremity of their pixilization and became recognizable forms. Brent manipulated his digital files with what appeared to be a Guitar Hero video game controller. It was a satisfying descent into a zone of relaxed ambience.

Other stand-outs from the week include:

Jodie Mack (Chicago) - "Yard Work is Hard Work," and earlier works

Andrew Wilson (San Francisco) - Spider House

Nate Callahan (St. Louis) - i!

Eric Patrick (Evanston) - Ablution in the "Best Of" screening

Judith Zdesar (Austria) - Images of a Diary of Waiting


Check out this preview article that Minneapolis writer Cindy Collins wrote about our show.

PBL goes to NYC

It's always fantasitc to be in The City. Last year when we did the Lab at the Roger Smith Hotel gig, Eric Dunlap of Forward Motion Theater came by and hung out with us one night. We met Eric several years ago in Detroit when he was in town with some dance gig. He knew the Disassembler, AKA Deon Foster who, along with Jim Ryan, is of one of my all-time favorite AV acts: the Shenanigans and we were there together to play the JOMAS DVD release party at Gallery 555.

When we saw Eric last year, he invited us to play Eyewash, a highly respected showcase for AV artists booked by he and his creative partner, the awesome Holly Daggers. The series is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts. I have nothing but high praise for Eric and Holly. These two are serious Do-ers who are not only excelling at their own art, but are producing a comprehensive and legitimate context for its consideration.

photo by Noelia Santos

Eyewash goes down once a month at Monkeytown in Brooklyn. There's a room in the back which has a big projection screen on each wall, low couches against the walls around the whole room, with low coffee tables so that people can order and eat the excellent food prepared in the Monkeytown kitchen. The artists set up in the middle, playing in-the-round act by act. This is one of the mosts exceptional rooms that we have ever played, and we were in good company with Wetcircuit, Luke DuBois (pictured below), and Guiaumetrix.


I met Sean LaFleur of djnyc after the early set, and he enthusiastically commented about the organic, human feel of our work in comparision with the cool-technological quality of the other acts. "It was like slipping on a pair of worn jeans," he said. And I like that.


SHARE NYC
This was the first time we got in on Share, the regular meet-up and jam session of AV geeks who produce music, visuals, and code. I was the only female participant, although there was another woman with a laptop, she was checking her email.


The picture above looks like it could have been shot at the library, but I had fun playing with my images and talking with others about what they were doing, the hardware and software they were using, and projects they were developing.

special guests from Europe: Alex Gunia, Knut Sævik, Tore Brevik

Dignowity Pushcart Revelry

Here's me with the svelte Ed Saavedra, pushcart driver of the "Lil’ General y La Familia" for 1906. I was a little under-the-weather and had to depart early, but I knew this was the only photo I had to get-- the allegedly "First to Finish" team was first again this year.

You can see it in their form-- Regan with their dark-horse pusher (who joined on only hours before the race) are perfectly in-sync. They could slaughter any 3-legged race team in a heartbeat.

These guys mean business. It's no contest.

And speaking of contest-- a lot of fun was missing this year without a round of all of the pushcarts racing the track together, all at the same time, in a dangerous mix of mayhem and ambition. I imagine the organizers are going for safety... but I say to those who aspire to compete in this punk-ass sport: if you can't deal with the rigor, get off the track.

check out the emvergeoning reportage

Arctic Blast From The North!

David Pitman and Stephen Rife rose to the challenge of the San Antonio summer climate of CAM. The two Northerners set off from the Twin Cities (St.Paul/Minneapolis), pointing their car south on I-35, and after a couple days, pulled up at PBL headquarters in San Antonio to join in the fun of Contemporary Art Month.

Rife, Pitman, and Jay checking out the wall for the second night of the Monoplex, beneath Josephine Street.

David Pitman is the director of the Art Shanty Project, a Northern counterpart to our Contemporary Art Month, only it happens in January and February on a frozen lake in Minnesota. Dozens of artists create small structures, inhabited by art projects for a 6-week stint, attracting thousands of visitors.

Steve Rife is a pyrotechnic artist and filmmaker. Also intensely DIY, like Pitman, these two are unstoppable-- in art-making and the construction biz both. We came to know each other in the early '90s when we all had studios in the infamous Rossmor Building in St.Paul MN.

In addition to an assortment of artists' videos they had in tow, our local community was invited to contribute to the two nights of screenings.

David collects some video by Michele Monseau at her shady abode....

while Michele's cat puts it's scent on Steve:

Mark Jones delivers the goods at PBL HQ, and shows us the broken part of his computer screen.


Rife, Justin Parr, and Pitman

AN ASIDE: The Northerners and PBL were having lunch at the Liberty Bar when Pitman noticed a wooden ketchup bottle affixed to the back of the crosswalk sign out the window on the corner of Josephine and Avenue A, and at that precise moment, Justin Parr called. This photo was taken right after lunch, as Justin let David select an artwork to hang somewhere up north.

the Monoplex lineup

K-ICE Monoplex renegade performance recap by Justin Parr

Big big thanks to Anjali Gupta and Michele Monseau for their assistance with preparations for the Saturday night show!

And to that person who atttended the Friday night show at PBL HQ & took all of our forks: you can keep them, but I just want the one brass fork with my Dad's name on it back.

Steve Rife, Mike Casey, and David Pitman after the show.

Mike Casey made sure that our guests were shown a really swell San Antonio time, making arrangements for us all to head over to the Compound where Chuck Ramirez' hospitality was in full swing. Thanks Mike!

Lyle and Me at Artpace 2 to Watch

photos by Kimberly Aubuchon

Artpace invited me to talk about my work as part of the "2 to Watch" bi-annual series in conjunction with Gemini Ink, San Antonio's premier center for the literary arts. I was honored and fortunate to be paired up with writer Lyle Rosdahl, who started the evening by reading from his in-progress and very engaging mystery novel.

Parameters of his writing process involve drawing from the tarot deck to inspire the evolution of the story. His project and the Potter-Belmar Labs Fortune project both borrow from this divination device as central components in the course of creating the form.



I talked about some large-scale site specific projections I had done, some of the Potter-Belmar Labs projects (the collaboration with my husband), my recent installation at Cactus Bra - "In The Garden," and showed a little preview of some of the work in my upcoming show at Blue Star Contemporary Arts Center in September.


The first question after the talk: Are people collecting video art?

Happily, I reported: Yes they are.

There are people in the States who collect, but Europe seems to be the hotbed for now. Last spring my eyes were opened when I attended the LOOP Barcelona Festival and Fair. LOOP claims to be "The place for video art lovers," and that they are. I was impressed by the high quality of the work in the fair, a three-day event involving 40+ gallerists from Europe, Canada, and the US, each occupying a room in the Hotel Catalonia Ramblas, each representing one or two video artists.

One very memorable event of the festival was a screening from the collection of Marc & Josée Gensollen at the Fundació Suñol. Seeing what these collectors loved enough to own was truly interesting, and this particular selection focused on the body in action, with a documentary-based subset of the long-take of a live subject within a live setting (a church, a cafeteria).

My blog entries from last year: LOOP Fair, LOOP Festival

As for me, I've begun to dispense with my purist ways. Having avidly avoided the art marketplace in my own art practice for 20 years, believing that money is not a very good motivating factor for me to make art, I've finally come around to seeing that money and art do not necessarily have to be at odds. Over this past year I have developed my approach for video editions in DVD, and have had some success at selling! Time will tell whether this can be a thriving enterprise for me.

And finally, a link to Lyle's blog.

Allied Media Conference

DOING BY NOT DOING

There was smooth, balanced, and ongoing momentum to everybody's studio activities at my folks' place. Things were so mellow over there that it seemed as though nothing at all was happening. I wondered what I'd been up to, then was surprised at the effortlessness involved in accomplishing so much in two weeks. I'd helped my mom lay out her catalog, completed a new video loop to be projected on one of her giant wall-hanging pieces, and prepared for & delivered a talk at the Allied Media Conference at Wayne State University in Detroit.


ALLIED MEDIA CONFERENCE

My talk was called "Conversations: Appropriation in 20th Century Western Art." I defined various legal terms essential for a discussion of art, copyright and fair use, then illustrated an overall development of sampling in visual art from Duchamp to Shepard Fairey.

me with fellow presenter Sterling Toles

Artist Sterling Toles played portions of an audio collage artwork of his creation. His sound compositions were woven with audio samples from newscasts to describe his father's personal history as integrated with the history of Detroit from the time of the riots/revolution of the summer of 1967. Detroit has a story to tell, and the world needs to hear it. I envision amazing potential for community media to be broadcast out of Detroit.


The Allied Media crowd is sharp, eager, and feisty. We had a great discussion afterwards, with the audience contributing critical points such as the importance of teaching the other side of copyright law, that is copyright as protection for the artist; and that not only money can cause copyright lawsuits, but also political dissent.

It is such a relief to see so many young people learning about and engaged in independent media production. I love the Allied Media Conference.