Neo-Avant Garde

For Isaac, but maybe of interest to others.

Sven-Olov Wallenstein, "Transformative Technologies," Cabinet, Spring 2001

First paragraph: Is the avant-garde dead, defunct, an attitude belonging to a past whose bearings on the present have been lost once and for all? Or does it always await us, coming toward us from a future whose shape is as yet undetermined and open? The first option seems inevitable if we link the idea of the avant-garde to modernism as it exploded on the scene in the 1920s and 30s, and if we see it as a defined and historically circumscribed style with a definite set of questions that can surely no longer be ours within the space of postmodernity, where the artistic gestures of the early twentieth century seem hopelessly naïve. But if we try to detach the impetus of the avant-garde from what has paradoxically enough become its heritage, if we unearth its problems rather than its solutions, then we could perhaps incline towards the second option: the avant-garde is neither alive nor dead, but always there, virtually, waiting to be redefined and reinvented anew.

Post "Beaches of Agnes" Screening

On Sunday I attended the screening of “Beaches of Agnes” which, as mentioned by Jesse in a previous blog, is an autobiographical film by the French film director Agnes Varda. As an audience member having only seen “Cleo from 5 to 7” it was interesting reflecting on the director’s life without history or foreknowledge of her life and career.

I learned that Varda created around 46 Independent films, and from the clips shown throughout the film it seemed as though Varda constructed contemplative narratives discussing social and humanistic issues.

“Beaches of Agnes” is a colorful, whimsical, playful film that discusses heavier topics revolving around memory, time, love, and loss. During the panel session at the end of the film there was a discussion on how Varda’s self-reflection was based off of the people in which she surrounded herself and with whom she had relationships. Naturally, we all are weaved in our individual contexts. However, I wonder how individual they truly are considering that we all experience the same emotions. In the film Varda says “emotions are something we can not control.” John Dewey argued that “art is an exemplary form of human meaning-making” and Mark Johnson argues that “we must realize that aesthetics is about the conditions of experience as such, and art is a culmination of the possibility of meaning in experience.” I guess my main thought is how our individual circumstances evoke emotions. I wonder how as art-makers we attempt to control our individual emotions, in order to transcend them as a means for discussing origin. Is emotion the basis for all art and how is it that art goes from rationalization of emotion only to, hopefully, evoke emotion? Or is this not always the case…

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2063401497/

Alexander Gutke @ MOCAD

Last week I saw a show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit featuring work by Alexander Gutke.

From MOCAD's website:
Preoccupied with modes of reproduction, self-reflexivity, illusionism and cinema, the work of Alexander Gutke could be characterized by a kind of mystical materialism. His exploration of these concerns moves into a variegated and allegorical territory whose many terrains include space and the void, animation and illusion, and the micro and the macro. Gutke's meticulous and poetic sensibility is that of an unusual storyteller whose works narrate their own material conditions with a sublime economy. More...

I was left absolutely cold by the work, but very interested in the wall text. I'm struggling with formulating a solid opinion of the show and keep thinking about it...Is anyone familiar with his work?

Beaches of Agnes - Sunday at 5:10

As mentioned and emailed, the Bijou is screening The Beaches of Agnes by Agnes Varda, the internationally beloved and respected French geriatric female filmmaker. She's been making international hits since the French New Wave. She's always fun to watch and so are her movies - art and entertainment, what more could we expect of film?

Also, Beaches has been getting monster reviews - http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/film/the_beaches_of_agnes_varda

Be there or be square. You can see it between this Thursday and next Wednsday at the Bijou, but the panel discussion - and myself - will be at the Sunday 5:10 showing (panel after movie).

THE BEACHES OF AGNES
Special Screening with Panel Discussion
Sunday, December 6th, 5:10 PM at the Bijou Theater

The Beaches of Agnes
Directed by Agnes Varda
France, 2008, 110 min, French w/ English subtitles, 35mm

Notable French New Wave filmmaker, Agnes Varda, turns the camera on herself in the autobiographical documentary THE BEACHES OF AGNES. Recounting vivid memories of the French film scene, Varda shares stories of various filmmakers including Alain Resnais and her deceased husband, Jacques Demy. THE BEACHES OF AGNES presents a visual scrapbook of Varda's memories, combining film clips, photos, and whimsical animation to tell her life story.

There will be a panel after the screening with members of he Cinema and Comparative Literature Department:
Prof. Steven Ungar
Prof. Sasha Waters Freyer
Andrew Peterson, Ph.D. candidate

Other times for The Beaches of Agnes can be found on Bijou calendars and at our website.

The Bijou Theater is located in the Iowa Memorial Union - Tickets available day of show for $5 - www.bijoutheater.org - 319-335-3258

Review - The Messenger

Not a masterwork but pretty good, The Messenger tells the story of two messengers of the Army's Casualty Notification Service (CNS) – Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) and Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson). CNS officers (acronyms are a shorthand for military perspective in The Messenger) are assigned to tell the news of a soldier's death to the soldier's next of kin (NOK). Montgomery has just returned from a combat tour and was wounded in battle. He is assigned to work with the more experienced Stone. Though somewhat episodic, the majority of The Messenger concerns the relationship between Montgomery and Stone.

Structurally, the narrative of Montgomery and Stone frames a series of smaller narratives. Every time Montgomery or Stone tells a family member a soldier has died, that telling is a small narrative. Each of those smaller narratives is, in a way, contained within the larger narrative of Montgomery and Stone. As a tactic, this narratives within narrative structure allows The Messenger to portray loss of massive scope – news of death comes to many families in many ways, with the narrative of Montgomery and Stone holding everything together. The larger narrative of Montgomery and Stone is engaging, fairly smart, semi-conventional, and extraordinarily well acted. However, the smaller narratives are more forceful. Knowing this, director Oren Moverman allows these smaller narratives to invade the narrative of Montgomery and Stone, and, eventually, the narratives of the wars themselves. About halfway through the movie, while Stone is watching T.V., a single line reminds us that CNS is nationwide: “I think they oughta put every funeral on T.V.” says Stone. But this is not a political movie – this is a movie about loss.

It's also a strangely meta-filmic movie. Montgomery's and Stone's telling of killings is rigidly scripted by the Army, and Montgomery and Stone attempt to perform the script with detachment. Almost all of the performances go somewhat awry – who, after all, could react rationally to the delivery or reception of such news? This self-reference points to the constructed nature of The Messenger. I'm reminded of something the novelist Orhan Pamuk once said - “I write not to tell a story, but to compose a story.” Another, darker, question arises – are Montgomery's and Stone's performances to the families of killed soldiers related to Foster's and Harrelson's – the movie's – performances to us? As The Messenger relates, the actual news of a soldier's death could be related to the family by email or telegram, but a social want has created the CNS and the assignments of Montgomery and Stone. As “Home, Home on the Range” played over the closing credits, I wondered how our society will further process the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as they drag on, becoming more deadly and abstract.

William S. Burroughs - Thanksgiving Prayer

An all-time favorite. Enjoy the break!
 
Thanksgiving Prayer By: William S. Burroughs

Seek Perfection | MySpace Video

Tree Knees

Here are some pictures of some tree knees (found off the internet). Some of Taryn's forms remind me of them. At Caddo Lake in East Texas they are everywhere...it's almost as if you are surrounded by some sort of mythological creatures...and if you look just right, they'll trick you into thinking they are moving :) But I suppose it's just their reflections in the water.

AC/IC

Hi all. I finally posted the first podcast of Arts & Culture Iowa City on the internets. I'll copy the post here. Enjoy tape-recorded goodness of this month's art walk.

Sara Black (Material Exchange), Visiting Artist

Eric Asboe & John Engelbrecht, Understanding the Understood - Arts Iowa City

Michael Meyers , Musician and Sculptor - Washington & Dubuque

Sean Alexander, Back to the World - Public Space One

Caleb Engstrom, Dia de los Muertos - BS Gallery

Click here to download the program

For the Record

Goblin Valley is actually in Utah
http://photosandsuch.wordpress.com/2007/10/15/goblin-valley-state-park-the-goblins/

Eileen Myles reading

This Tuesday at 7pm at Prairie Lights, the poet Eileen Myles will read from her collection of art essays, The Importance of Being Iceland. Details here: http://www.prairielights.com/eileen-myles

"I Used to Call Myself Elvis"

I just received the email below about a talk next Thursday on Indian call centers. Thought some of you might be interested. Jesse, this could relate to some of your investigations regarding work environment. In this case, the employees are required to wear a mask...


International Programs and the South Asian Studies Program
Present a free public lecture:

“I Used to Call Myself 'Elvis’:
The Politics of Experience in Indian Call Centers”

Aimee Carrillo Rowe
Associate Professor of Rhetoric, POROI (Project on the Rhetoric
Of Inquiry), and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies

Indian call center agents become estranged from their immediate surroundings
as they stretch their imaginations and identities to meet American customers
in the virtual space of the telephone call. Drawing on interviews with fifty
call center workers, this presentation considers the implications of the
particular demands of their transnational labor for agents’ sense of
embodied being.

Thursday, Nov. 19, 4:00 PM
1117 University Capitol Center
Chai and snacks will be served.

For more information on this presentation or for special accommodations to
attend, please contact Heidi Vekemans, Events Coordinator, UI International
Programs, at (319) 335-3862 or heidi-vekemans@uiowa.edu

Reefer Madness opens Nov. 13

My thesis production, Reefer Madness; the Musical, opens this Friday Nov. 13.

All performances are at the theatre building in Mabie Theatre. Tickets are still available, but they are going pretty fast.

There are performances Nov. 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21 at 8 PM. There is also a performance at 2:00 PM on Nov. 15.

Admission is $5 for students. For more info, go to http://www.uiowa.edu/~theatre/season/tickets.htm. You can buy your tickets there or at the Hancher Box Office in the Old Capitol Mall.

Hope to see you there!

SOFA Chicago

The annual Sculpture Objects and Functional Art Expo (SOFA) took place in Chicago this past weekend, November 6-8. True to its name, only objects were included, with jewelry, woodturning, hand blown & cast glass, and ceramics dominating the show. I went to help my boyfriend, a sculptor, set up and take down a piece included in a woodturning exhibit.

Self-described as “The world’s foremost fairs of Contemporary Decorative Arts and Design” (www.sofaexpo.com), SOFA is primarily known as a crafts exhibition. The range of artists is diverse, however, and while some artists fit firmly within the craft tradition, others are clearly engaged in the language of sculpture, installation, and the fine art tradition. Conversations about art and craft abounded, which is a long-standing debate that I do not intend to solve in one blog post. I am interested in that intersection, however, and was expecting to see cutting edge designs of functional objects. But it was disappointing to see the number of overly decorative objects that did not really question that boundary, or function comfortably in either language. For example, ornate hand blown glass teapots that neither function as teapots nor fine art objects seem purposeless as anything other than coffee table decoration. The result is that the most successful works were usually the traditional objects that retain their function. This undercut the wonderful tension that could have happened between traditional functional work, traditional sculptural objects, and hybrids of the two. So if this is not the point, I had to wonder what the point really is.

Being a newbie to SOFA, and an outsider to functional art, the general atmosphere was of great interest to me. High-rolling galleries pay tens of thousands of dollars for a small booth space, with more well-established and wealthy galleries taking up several spaces to show off expensive hand blown glass and other objects. In fact, to even have an artwork anywhere in the expo, including the juried & invitational’s, the artist must be represented by a commercial gallery. And while there were some red dots indicating sold works, for the most part it seemed these galleries must be taking a loss, especially considering the far distances they travel and ship the works to get to Chicago. Indeed, it seems that the whole point is more about bragging rights for galleries than showing new works of functional art. Being at SOFA shows that a gallery has the resources to ship several dozen valuable and fragile objects and representatives halfway across the country. As it turns out, I think this is the over-arching message of SOFA – which galleries can best keep up the appearance of success, in order to hopefully perpetuate it.

Gretel Ehrlich

Gretel Ehrlich will be speaking this Wednesday (tomorrow) at:

101 Becker Communications Building, 7 p.m.

I was introduced to Ehrlich's writing via recommendation from Jeff Porter, who teaches in the English Department. Her book "The Solace of Open Spaces" is an essay about her experiences living in rural Wyoming. After the death of her partner, she left her career as a filmmaker in New York and decided to work on a sheep farm in Wyoming-- in her writings, she wanders from Western culture and rodeos to the relationships, landscape... You can read more about her here:

http://www.parkcentralwebs.com/GretelEhrlich/bio.asp

Lisa Jarnot online

a selection of poems: http://epc.buffalo.edu/ezines/alyric/jarnot.html
http://jacketmagazine.com/06/jarnot.html
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=182438
and interviews: http://www.chicagopostmodernpoetry.com/Jarnot.htm
http://herecomeseverybody.blogspot.com/2004/10/lisa-jarnot-was-born-in-buffalo-new.html

Lisa Jarnot's Ecclesiastical Sensibility

The author of Ecclesiastes begins by declaring that human efforts are to no end--- that, when considered in relation to the vastness and inevitability of the natural world’s cycles, they seem erased.

Because these cycles amount to a seemingly endless process of doing and undoing, neither human vision nor human description can sufficiently capture them (“All such things are wearisome: / No man can ever state them; / The eye never has enough of seeing, / Nor the ear enough of hearing.”).

“There is nothing new / Beneath the sun!” The designation of newness rests upon the impoverished (partial) apprehensions and descriptions of a human subject, inevitably of a broader domain (“Only that shall happen / Which has happened, / Only that occur / Which has occurred;”).

Time is, of course, not only death’s but also song’s first contingency. Lisa Jarnot, in the writing of lyric, anaphoric poems, finds a way of dealing with desire without expressing intention.

In an indexical process oriented by a moving (between the location of the poet’s body, the objects of her direct sight, and a more expansive imaginative sphere) I, the needs and limitations of the body are treated as means (and this index’s sequence determined by sound rather than semantics).

In doing so, this work treats human mortality both as that which separates the speaker from the vast scale of the natural world and its cycles--- ensuring that no person’s vision or speech can ever have a one-to-one relationship with the thing to which it corresponds (Borges tells of an empire that loved map making..)--- and as but one of many things (animals, for example) subjected to the natural world’s cycles of destruction and creation.

a basic definition

"In its most basic definition, ghostriding the whip involves a car in motion with no one operating it. The closest thing that can come to describing ghostriding the whip is perhaps the Chinese fire drill that was popular back in the 1950s. However, unlike the Chinese fire drill the car remains in motion with no urgency to get back into it. In fact, the driver and passengers will walk next to the car as it casually rolls down the street, with thumping music playing at extreme volumes as the riders participate in free-form dance within close proximity to the car. Often the occupants of the vehicle will climb on the hood and roof, expressing themselves in dance high atop the automobile."

Open to Reaction

Open to reaction.

A struggle I have personally been facing, and often feel that swarms of other people, who are drifting around or passing through me as time pulses on are also enduring, is the problem of vacancy. By this I am referring to a state of self that seems devoid of personal value or fulfillment of which encourages the daily spontaneity and excitement of existence. It seems, and perhaps I am prescribing my own sense of inadequacy to the emotional tone of the general public in a sweeping self-referential manner, that life has lost some luster in the face of this abject time period. In reflecting on this sullen sense of self I wandered into the rental store to find some solace in a science fiction film that would perhaps portray future humans in some sort of Utopian escapade flaunting happiness in their strides and conversations. Instead I found a film called “My Dinner with Andre”. This movie turned out to be a philosophical entre that caused me to want seconds. I use this sort of pun only because the entire movie is centered at a dinner table in a chic New York City restaurant, where two men are reunited and as they find their way through the layered courses of the dinner seem to also peel off the layers of their own lives and, unintentionally, explore a philosophical folly of their varied experiences while apart. One, Andre, reflects on the nature of his mystical search and attempts to suture the value of a life spent seeking abroad to the potential adventure and excitement of the daily routine of living in New York City apartment. The other, Wally, seeks to find the purposefulness in expanding his scope and questioning the plausibility of living an open and engaged lifestyle in which he might see the world as it is; in other words removing his narrowed blinders in order to allow the expansiveness of life to present itself within the moment.
Now I don’t feel the need to get into too much detail, as I cannot do justice to the transient poetry of this dialogue. So I will instead include a clip, approximately 9 minutes in length, of which you should not feel obligated to watch in its entirety although I would encourage seeing the whole film. For anyone who has posed the question of honesty or contrivance or intention or authenticity of their work, or life outside their work for that matter, I think should find this to be very inspiring, if not at least interesting. Also before I get to far ahead I would like to propose that this introduction to the clip is not intended to set the stage of a dismally gray posting, but instead is the platform for which hope and encouragement and vivacity are given room to perform and defy the sheepish or remote nature of our personalities, where these things seem to be enveloped at this time and perhaps need some insistence to emerge.

THE TIME TRAVEL PROJECT?

Greetings Chrononauts, during your time travel adventure tonight, check out the online exhibit of the documentation from last years Time Travel Project. If you miss, it there will be a way to view it through the use of archival technique.

Intermedia/New Media Presents Sara Black of the artist collective Material Exchange

Sara Black

Visiting Artist Lecture

Thursday, November 5

6:30-8:00 PM Adler E105

Material Exchange is an artist collective that creates installations, games, designed objects or spaces, and direct exchanges. They say about their work, "The world is filled with things made for a specific purpose. When their purpose has been fulfilled, or their valued properties diminish, there is often some material remainder. Our projects attempt to extract or exploit that history,

-as a celebration of the human and biological labor embedded in materials,
-as a means of investigating the complex relationships between humans and things, objects and images, representations and their referents,
-as an inquiry into the various forms of being,
-as an elaboration of the western interest in found materials from Duchamp's experiments with ready-mades to driftwood figurines, from Rauschenberg's combines to ethnographic artifacts and religious reliquaries,
-as a symbolic or tactical intervention,
-as an antidote to expansionist economics,
-as alternately apocalyptic and utopian"

The projects of Material Exchange have been exhibited at the Smart Museum of Art, The Experimental Station, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, The Betty Rymer Gallery, Gallery 400, The Hyde Park Art Center, Threewalls, Eyebeam, The Park Avenue Armory, The DeVos Art Museum and others. Other projects include collaborative workshops or courses with art and design students at the Northern Michigan University, Illinois Institute of Technology, Harrington College of Design, Braddock Active Arts, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Street Level Youth Media. Material Exchange is Sara Black, Alta Buden, John Preus, and David Wolf. More information available at www.material-exchange.com

Sponsored by the School of Art and Art History, part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact the School of Art and Art History at 335-1771.

The Owls Are Not What They Seem (an open letter to Milla Jovovich

Dear Milla,

I'm not sure how many more chances I can give you, honestly. You never fail to disappoint me with your films, yet I can't deny that I think I've seen every one that you've put out. I can't even really name a good one you've ever made. Maybe The Fifth Element, but the rest have been bombs. Badda big boom, you know?

When I took my lady friend to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show, they gave us both free passes to see your new film, The Fourth Kind, which we did, tonight! You would've been pleased by the turn out.

You would've been less than pleased, I imagine, by some of the laughing during the film. Your new thriller was thrilling, sure, but honestly, it was a bit much at times.

You guys were so concerned with convincing us the film was based on true events that the movie suffered for it. Did you think we'd forgive poor performances if they were dramatizations of "real events", as opposed to poorly acted out dramatizations of scripted events? Did you think your acting would shine when compared to the "actual footage" presented as proof of the veracity of the film's background? Oh, by the way, that "actual footage" was ridiculous. Just pass the word along, it was garbage. I will admit that it was better than the "real" footage most films present, but it was still just too fake. I could elaborate on this, mostly by explaining how the distortion in the video that you all added to make the footage seem more real actually made it obviously fake, but I don't want to get on your case about this too much, as I can't imagine that you, personally, had much to do with it.

Can I just say that you are the least convincing character with a doctoral degree since Tara Reid's turn as an archaelogist in Alone in the Dark. I would worry about offending you with this, but you know I will keep seeing your movies. Though I'm not sure why. I think the fact that I could even make that comparison proves I won't judge you for what can be objectively described as cinematic atrocities. I just wish you would make a good movie or two. I mean, for every Ghost Rider, Nicolas Cage delivers a Leaving Las Vegas.

Consider this a Close Encounter of the Fifth Kind, which is classified as a gentle prodding to stop appearing in stupid movies. I'll be the owl outside your window, cooing as you consider doing a film that will get you out of this funk you've called your career so far.

Hypnotically yours,

Josh

Picturing America

In researching the work of Mark Klett, a contemporary photographer working on a project entitled, “Third View: A rephotographic survey of the American West,” I came across a new initiative from the National Endowment for the Humanities, “Picturing America.” I was surprised that “Picturing America” was a link on Klett’s resource page, although Klett and the NEH’s projects contain similar subject matter—American history and the landscape—these two projects use images in very different ways and have different expectations about how images, whether photographs or “American masterpieces” can function, educate, and serve an agenda. Both projects make me wonder, what can we hope to teach through images? What questions need to be asked of a viewer? How can critical discourse be created around/through images? What is the power of an image, particularly in an image-saturated world? We are inundated with images from print media, television, and the internet— images that are easy on the eyes, easy to digest. So what kind of image (or perhaps, what kind of discourse and critical thinking skills) does it take to make a viewer stop, pay attention, and most importantly, ask questions about what they are seeing?

Although both have educational missions and resources, “Picturing America” is a program that aims too high by making blanket statements about the power of art to “tell the story of the United States through forty of its masterpieces.”

“Picturing America is an innovative program that helps teach American history and provides students with a gateway to the entire universe of the humanities.”

“Perpetuating democracy is difficult… Picturing America conveys our common heritage and ideals by bringing us face to face with the people, places, and events that shaped our country.”

“The selected works of art are accessible yet challenging… Placed side by side around the classroom, they can be grouped to show many perspectives on American history.” The works represent a select demographic of artists and their perspectives—generally educated, upper to middle class individuals. These fixed vantage points encapsulated in each work of art may collectively begin to tell stories, and I can’t argue that showing students art and talking about images isn’t a good thing, but to marry grand narratives about history with individual artworks, symbols and icons seems far reaching and simplistic.

At the same time, it is also a very “safe” program. Like many government funded arts initiatives, “Picturing America” beds art with some other subject matter (here it is history) in order to sell it to policy makers and fiscal agents. Aligning art with anything else, but particularly the “core” subjects—science, math, etc., where quantifiable learning outcomes can be measured through test scores—instantly earns more cache. Now, aligning art with American history and giving it a shot or two of nationalistic and patriotic overtones makes it a sure bet to get funded.

After getting fired up about the “Picturing America” site, I returned to Mark Klett’s work on the American landscape. In contrast, I found the work of Mark Klett to be captivating and elegant, if perhaps a simple conceit— observing places as dynamic and shifting sites transformed by both natural processes and human intervention. For the past thirty years, Klett and a team of photographers have been re-shooting turn-of-the-century American landscape photos. Retracing the paths of photographers such as Eaedward Muybridge, Timothy O’Sullivan, and William Henry Jackson, Klett’s personal investigations of these sites trace what were typically government commissioned photographs by the early U.S. Geological Survey during the years of westward expansion. Klett and his team took care in photographing the sites from the exact same locations, perspectives/point of view, and time of day. His team took a set of photographs in the 70s (Second View) and have been photographing these sites again (Third View).

Rephotographing and revisiting sites for documentation is a trend I have also come across in the work of artists who are interested in the landscape and particularly climate change. I found a book at the Iowa City Public Library (which I cannot recall the name of) in which a photographer traveled throughout the Arctic documenting receding glaciers over a span of several years. The images were strikingly beautiful—crystal blue icebergs floating across a milky green ocean, twisting glaciers at sunset. He clearly stated in the introduction that his hope was for this book to raise awareness about climate change—to visualize the real effects of climate change. I return to the questions about the power of an image and our expectations for what an image can say or do, particularly when it seems that most artists’ impulse, perhaps a result of formal training perhaps the influence of art history, is to make “good looking” images—melting glaciers and seas of ice may be a terrifying reality of climate change, but they can make for beautiful pictures and paintings. Hello sublime. Hello romanticism.

There are many similar projects, like the one of David Buckner, who sailed on a 100-year old Dutch schooner with a dozen artists to make work about the changing climate. Buckland was quoted in an interview with NPR:

“The problem with scientists is that they make these [statements]—you know, the Greenland icecap is going to melt, or the sea level is going to rise, or the temperature is. They are very abstract concepts. But I think what artists did is to find a way of making the stories personal. So if you see a glacier crumbling in front of you, then that is your story—your personal story—that you bring back.”

Just a few days ago I was walking down the sidewalk with someone and we were both admiring the clouds and sunset when he remarked that the effects of global warming on the atmosphere is probably going to be very pretty. Scientifically, I’m not sure if it will spur Turner-esque sunsets and skies, but the landscape and the skies are certainly going to keep shifting and changing, just as the stories we embed into the landscape will keep shifting and changing, and the ways we picture our experiences and make pictures about them keeps changing. Even if an artist works with the intent of documenting the landscape or history or an event, he or she is always narrative-izing it, particularly when done in retrospect, as with “Picturing America.” To neatly fit something as abstract as the story of an entire nation into forty pictures asks an awful lot not only of pictures but puts a lot of power into the hands of all those picture-makers.

You Can Never Go Home Again (Away Games and "I'm Coming Home")

There are some experiences that exist beyond generational or timely concerns. A Hawkeye football victory snatched from the jaws of defeat, for example. Not sure if any of my fellow artists watched the game, or were even vaguely interested, but the often-bumbling, ever-fumbling Iowa football team is now 8-0, extending their perfect season farther and longer than any other squad in our fair school's history. I'll be the first to admit that I know very little about the game, mostly just enough to have a manly conversation with my father and my soon-to-be brother-in-law, but my apartment was full of screams as "we" scored a touchdown with no time left in the fourth quarter, coming from behind, to beat the 300 or so Spartans. My girlfriend, who knows even less about American football than I do, was almost more into the game than I was. This is my sixth season following our team, having been a season ticket holder since 2004, and there is definitely something missing in watching it on tv. Going to the games brings smells, sounds, and familiar faces. One of the amazing things about football here in Iowa City is that people from all over come and every kind of Iowan, and every age group is represented. This makes a lot of sense when one considers that Iowa is not represented by any professional sports teams, and that because of this, Division 1 NCAA football is actually the highest level of play in the state. It seems obvious to me that for many people, and I feel that I will likely feel the same way, Iowa football is a lifetime of experience, not something that is done for a few years in your early 20's and then forgotten.

The same, it seems, could not be said for midnight screenings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I'm sure there are still many places in this great country of ours that showcase lively nights of the rock opera, but Iowa City, as it has become abundantly clear, is not one of them. Well, not anymore. Anyone that has had the "pleasure" of meeting me likely knows that I studied at this University for my undergrad years. Beginning as a freshman, I saw RHPS at the Bijou theater every year around Halloween, and it is one of my fondest memories. The rushing in on water last year, and the rushing out of my undergrad friends meant that I didn't see it last year, and that was something I had been regretting frequently. That is, I was regretting it until tonight. I took my lovely girlfriend, an RHPS virgin, to the Bijou's return to screening the film, and I was highly disappointed. Anything that is based on audience participation lives or dies by the people who attend, and this can be a death sentence if folks just don't come. My worries that no one would show were calmed when the theater actually turned out to be nearly full. In years past, my dreamlike memories recall sold out shows and lines out the door, of which tonight's turnout was certainly not reminiscent, but there did seem to be enough people that one would not feel self-conscious doing the time warp. While there were quite a few people there, they sat silent during the film, occasionally laughing at things in the film that aren't all that funny, quietly humming along to the songs, and just being bores, if I may say so. An agent of the Bijou tried to break the ice and make it a real RHPS experience by yelling some of the call-back lines, but these were fairly few and far between. Also, it's funny when a whole theater yells "slut" every time Susan Sarandon appears on screen, but when it's one guy in the back row, it's really kind of annoying.

I left the theater feeling sad and, having yelled out some of my favorite call-back lines to a nearly silent theater, a bit self-conscious. My girlfriend told me that it must be a generational thing and that younger people just don't get it anymore. Perhaps, but I'm nowhere near old enough for the that argument to make a lick of sense. I guess we've just reached that point. My parents saw RHPS when they were in college and so did I, but a year or two later, it seems that youth are looking for their own movie, their own experience. I've heard Tommy Wiseau's The Room described as this generation's Rocky Horror, and I can certainly see the parallels, but I really don't think it will ever have the wide spread appeal that RHPS. A new champion will rise, I suppose, to take the crown of Midnight Movie Cult Phenomenon, and I hope that I'm not too old (read: cynical) to enjoy and take part in it. I will be really interested to see what it might be. I shiver with antici...

Weekender

The Little Village listed us in their weekender. I sent them the poster, but the words were all them!


FRIDAY

Part 1:

Intermedia Open House | U of I Studio Arts (1375 Hwy 1 West/”Menarts”) | 7-9 pm | FREE

There is nothing quite like the annual Intermedia Open House.

Formerly divided into graduate and undergraduate shows, the School of Art and Art History’s Intermedia department now has enough space to present all the artists at one show.

Certainly worth the trip out to the old Menards — converted last year for use as the U of I Studio Arts building — the Open House will present interactive displays, sound installations, and art that defies categorization. Also, did you know the U of I School of Art and Art History is the true and original home of intermedia, invented in the 60’s by UI Professor Hans Brader?

Picturing America

I came across this Web site for "Picturing America," an initiative from the National Endowment for the Humanities. I pasted some information from the site below. Anyway, I'm up to write on the blog next week and will probably write about Open House, but this may also be a topic for critique... either way, I thought you fellow art makers would be interested in seeing what government funding for the arts is doing these days.
http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/index.php?sec=home

About Picturing America

Great art speaks powerfully, inspires fresh thinking, and connects us to our past.

Picturing America, an exciting new initiative from the National Endowment for the Humanities, brings masterpieces of American art into classrooms and libraries nationwide. Through this innovative program, students and citizens will gain a deeper appreciation of our country’s history and character through the study and understanding of its art.

The nation’s artistic heritage—our paintings, sculpture, architecture, fine crafts, and photography—offers unique insights into the character, ideals, and aspirations of our country.
Picturing America, a far-reaching new program from the National Endowment for the Humanities in cooperation with the American Library Association, brings this vital heritage to all Americans.

By bringing high-quality reproductions of notable American art into public and private schools, libraries, and communities, Picturing America gives participants the opportunity to learn about our nation’s history and culture in a fresh and engaging way. The program uses art as a catalyst for the study of America—the cultural, political, and historical threads woven into our nation’s fabric over time.

Collectively, the masterpieces in Picturing America, used in conjunction with the Teachers Resource Book and program Web site, help students experience the humanity of history and enhance the teaching and understanding of America’s past.

A few notes from today's critiques

I promised to post a few things to the blog for some folks who showed work today.

David: I briefly mentioned the artist Teresa Hak Kyung Cha as someone who worked with language and the difference between spoken and written words. You should also look into some of the image aggregator works by people like George LeGrady and Adriene Jenik.

Isaac and Teresa: I think you both might be interested Michel Chion's work on sound that I mentioned in Teresa's critique today. Also, you might like to see some of the work of Kyle Canterbury, an extremely young artist who has made an impression on some influential people for his poetic ruminations on video.

the Mo+# (pronounced Black Butterfly)

Last night was the second installment of the storytelling event based on The Moth. The theme was terror, and there were five stories. The best spectacle among the bunch was staring at a microphone for five minutes as Josh Eklow phoned in a story from Fright Fest at Six Flags. Here is a photo.

Gurlesque

"the shocking is not 'shocking' in the boring old sense of shocking"..

http://exoskeleton-johannes.blogspot.com/2008/07/gurlesque-brief-note.html

A blog post in slow motion.

So lately, in anticipation of experiencing Intermedia Open House for the first time, I began to think of an essay I read not long ago that did a wonderful job of examining the way we experience art events, and also managed to impact the way I think about artistic production in general (which is a lot for one essay to do.)

"Earthworms Dancing: Notes for a Biennial in Slow Motion", by Raqs Media Collective, appeared in e-flux journal #7 back in June of this year. It is a short read, and I would recommend it to anyone.

"The earthworms take their time; let's take ours".

In the essay, Raqs Media Collective constructs what I think is a lovely analogy comparing artistic production to that of millions of earthworms; patiently ploughing the cultural soil "through multiple acts of turning, burrowing, tunneling, and composting."

Much attention is given to our notions of contemporaneity, specifically an asynchronous contemporaneity that we experience when endless multiple processes are operating simultaneously within their own "time". I find myself agreeing with the argument that as artists we are often expected to feel that certain practices are more contemporary, or true to our times, than others. An example could be the constant, yet rapidly changing, assertions of "new" that have seemed to plague "new media" practice since it was defined as such. Raqs suggests that an openness to the dormant, hibernating, or still-forming processes under the surface of readily apparent reality is crucial to understanding contemporaneity (in contrast to trends, movements, and singularities). Raqs is primarily critiquing the major art institutions and systems of exhibition here, and I become interested in the degree to which these institutional attitudes propel the individual production of the artists that they are exhibiting (I often feel guilty of following trends as well as feeling the anxiety of not being fully up to date and "contemporary").

Despite having never attended a major art festival or Biennale, I have no trouble identifying with Raqs summery of the way these events are experienced: "This slicing-up of attention — attention to different layers of simultaneous and overlapping, or immediately serialized, circuits of exhibition — leads to a rapid acceleration in the experience of artworks. The momentum of the experience of contemporary art then becomes a matter of being borne aloft by the velocities of the strong currents that propel exhibitions and/or artists from one show to another."

When do we allow ourselves to decompress? I think that Raqs impulse to slow down is comforting, and something that I recently tried to grasp as I was overwhelmed standing in front of a magazine rack crammed full of the latest art/culture periodicals, trying to decide which one I needed to read (Can I read them all?). Being overwhelmed by contemporary cultural production is something I think we can all identify with, especially as we desire to assert ourselves in the flow of this rapidly producing machine.

An interesting idea presented in this essay is that of syncopation (an analogy borrowed from music composition). This particular idea underscores what I find very compelling about events such as the recent Works in Progress festival as well as our own Open House event: "To co-inhabit a time is not to establish orders of precedence or chronology, but to create structures and processes by which different rhythms of being and doing can act responsively towards each other."

Raqs idea of moving towards a "biennale in slow motion" could be summed up as drifting away from the continual loop of recovery and anticipation of the event itself, and moving towards a continual process that grows and expands at its own pace. A continual platform "for the development, rather than the statement, of an argument".

Of course, I already see this slow motion biennale taking shape in many ways, and I find myself wanting to participate in it. Thankfully, I haven't missed the deadline.

open house package/program

Hi everyone,

For Open House print materials, Josh has a great poster developed, Teresa and Taryn are working on a punch/stamp card, and I'm trying to create a program that incorporates Josh's design, includes a SA map and holds Teresa & Taryn's card. Below is the first concept of how it can all come together. This is still very much a work in progress... Any thoughts?

Open House Mega-Update

Intermedia Open House, Friday Oct. 23

7-9 PM Studio Arts

Hi everyone!

I want to update you and recap on what we currently have lined up for Intermedia Open House. Thank you all for your enthusiasm and help so far in getting things prepared.

First I want to start off with some important deadlines:

Friday Oct. 9, tomorrow, by the end of the day, please e-mail me if you have not already about your plans for Open House (unless you see your plans mentioned here from our conversation in workshop). I will give a general recap of what projects we have lined up, so if you see that you are missing from this let me know sometime Friday so we can begin the conversation. I need to get an idea of what kind of space everyone will need and what kind of specific equipment will need to be checked out, so make sure to include everything you may possibly need (be as detailed as you can, including pedestals to set projectors on, etc.).

With that said, the deadline to submit equipment requests is 9PM on Wednesday Oct. 14th. Having your requests in by tomorrow (9th) will help to sort out any issues about what equipment is being requested before the final deadline.

By Workshop (3:30) on Monday Oct. 19th I need to have any video work that is going to be included in the video reel and displayed in the screening room (the workshop seminar room). This will allow time to resolve any technical issues, prepare the order, and test things out. You can bring discs to workshop, or you can load footage directly to server in my public drop box. Be sure to label the files with your name so they can be identified.

Also by Workshop on Monday Oct. 19th Katie Hargrave would like to collect your fortunes to include in the fortune cookies she will be making. Bring as many fortunes as you would like. Katie will also let us know when she will be making the cookies, and is inviting people to visit her kitchen and learn firsthand. For any questions about this, e-mail Katie at khargrav@gmail.com

And now, here is a recap of what we have happening:

Screening Room (1703 Seminar Room), Video Reel

This will be assembled by Derek (me).

Listening Room (1705 Sound Studio), Audio Reel

This will be assembled by Katie McGowan.

(Katie, if you would like, post a comment with directions for submitting audio).

Porch Gallery, Sculptural and Video Installation

Space will be shared by Jesse and Nicole. We most likely will have reached the limitations of the Porch gallery space.

So..

For other sculptural work (and additional 2D work), I would be interested in spilling into the large hallway space that runs across the back of Studio Arts along the intermedia area spaces. It may be nice to have some interesting hallway interventions happening.

I just receieved word that David may be rolling in a large display from the design area to show his Processing work somewhere in the hallway space.

Nicole's Intermedia I Class, Cardboard Video Game Set with Audience Interaction, Video and Stop Motion Animation. Looking into using 1 of the photography shooting studios, or setting up in front Atrium.

Mark's Intermedia I Class, Installation Work

Intermedia Classroom and Display Area (1719 & 1717)

Katie McGowan's Intermedia I Class, Glamour Shots

Attempting to secure 1 of the 2 Photography shooting studios.

Katie, let me know what you find out, and we can figure out a backup location if necessary.

Sarah and Katie Hargrave's Intermedia II Class, Curated works

Hallway space in front of doors to loading dock.

Brandon's rehearsal via Skype

Projection on front doors, on dried yogurt.

We need to line out the equipment needs and how this will be coordinated with Brandon's remote presence. Sarah can direct the process of implementing the yogurt if possible, and I am willing to help with what I can.

Josh and Derek

Auto Baron, generative video projection and possible simulated party-zone.

*Update.. Josh's studio

This will be more suitable than setting this up in the atrium, and free up space for more work in this area (like Nicole's class if they can not use a photo studio, or other larger works if needed).

Taryn, Teresa, David

Map and Punch Card System, unique punches collected at each event "site", with the goal of collecting a significant amount and being admitted to a mystery spectacle/installation w/ possible "kit-making" involved.

Location: looking into printmaking staging area or possibly the Intermedia BFA Studio (if not being used). Other options may include a hallway space (nook or cranny not being used). Also considering the integration of David's Map of Open House with the punch card.

Josh, David

Poster/Flyer(s)

Please take a moment to look at the poster Josh submitted to the blog and make suggestions or comments. Currently being discussed is the idea of integrating the poster design with the aforementioned Map and Punch Card System.

Pot Luck, Refreshments, and Custom Fortune Cookies (Katie Hargrave)

Hallway space directly outside Screening Room (1703) by the back doors.

Intermedia Signage, Silk Screen

Nicole will be leading the project to silkscreen Intermedia signage onto the wall space over the Porch Gallery. Please contact Nicole if you would like to help, email: nicole-pietrantoni@uiowa.edu

Documentation, Jesse

Self proclaimed "photo monkey" Jesse will be documenting the evenings festivities.

Isaac, you had mentioned in workshop including video work, would you like to include this in the video reel, or did you have another presentation format envisioned? Let me know what you have in mind.

Ryan, let me know what you have in mind and I will try to help with space.

As I mentioned earlier, I could see something happening in the back hallway or the front atrium, or any additinal place you may have available. Lets talk about what you want to do and figure out the right place.

I think that about covers it. I will no doubt have forgotten something, so please be in touch with me with any concerns you may have or any additional ideas that I have not represented here. We will get the space and equipment needs lined out and things can proceed from there.

Also, aside from the poster, and public announcement that will be released, would someone be willing to help me set up a Facebook event and promote on the social networking front?

This is shaping up to be quite an interesting evening!

For those that may not have it, my e-mail is derek.m.andes@gmail.com OR derek-andes@uiowa.edu and my cell number is 573-220-4128 (I do not get reception at home, it does however work in studio arts).

THANKS EVERYONE!

How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect [not that I endorse needing a reason to be absurd]

By BENEDICT CAREY

Published: October 6, 2009. NYT.

When things don’t add up, the mind goes into high gear.

 

In addition to assorted bad breaks and pleasant surprises, opportunities and insults, life serves up the occasional pink unicorn. The three-dollar bill; the nun with a beard; the sentence, to borrow from the Lewis Carroll poem, that gyres and gimbles in the wabe.

An experience, in short, that violates all logic and expectation. The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote that such anomalies produced a profound “sensation of the absurd,” and he wasn’t the only one who took them seriously. Freud, in an essay called “The Uncanny,” traced the sensation to a fear of death, of castration or of “something that ought to have remained hidden but has come to light.”....

Book of Liz

Here's a little plug for the theatre department's upcoming production directed by one of my colleagues.

The Book of Liz
October 8-18, 2009
By David Sedaris and Amy Sedaris
Directed by Anthony Nelson
David Thayer Theatre

It's a simple recipe: Take one of the funniest satirists around, combine him with his equally funny sister and coax them to write a play. Add a dash of religion, a hint of "The Wizard of Oz". Shake and Bake. That's the essence of The Book of Liz, the story of Sister Elizabeth Donderstock whose cheeseballs are the pride and financial sustenance of her Amish-like community. Feeling underappreciated, Liz decides to set aside the work, the beards, the furniture and the cheeseballs and hit the road, her llama in tow. Irreverent and hilarious, the play pokes fun at the religiously conservative, AA, homosexuality, and the question of what a breakfast burrito really is.

Tickets:
Non-Students: $17
Seniors: $12
Youth: $10
UI Students: $5

a poster

Hey dudes, I made this today while watching TV, what do you think?

This seems quite cool and would likely interest at least one of you

PhotoSketch: Internet Image Montage from tao chen on Vimeo.

Bio-Art and others

Some links to the bioarts people I mentioned in critique today:

Oron Catts: Symbiotica
Adam Zaretsky: Emutagen's Workhorse Zoo
Joe Davis: Genesthetics

The work of these folks and others would be interesting to think about in relation to Ryan's article outlining the differences between an artistic and scientific worldview.

I also mentioned Brian Holmes's article The Flexible Personality, some of the work of Gregory Sholette, and Ned Rossiter and Geert Lovink's My Creativity Reader, which is really about the UK but has some crossover to here.

Late breaking news: I just remembered the name of the Chicago artist Katie Hargrave and I couldn't think of in class: Paul Lloyd Sargent. The project is Echo Loco, from 2004.

Wip Festival Report

This weekend I attended several presentations at the Works-In-Progress Festival, which proved to be an engaging and downright fun event. Regarding overall impressions, the attendance was modest but hearty enough for the spaces (which ranged from the Iowa City Public Library to Public Space One), the presentations were quite varied in terms of media (from more traditional poetry readings to experimental video, performance art and electronic music), and the majority of presenters seemed to be from the film/video production department or the intermedia department/school of art.

The things most worth noting about the event were 1) the critiques/talk backs held at the end of each panel and 2) the performance by Luke Fischbeck on Saturday night (the high point of the event for me). The critique I sat in on was after the "Getting Intermediary" section on Saturday afternoon-- I was surprised by people's candidness and willingness to engage one another about the works. Andrew Peterson, one of the festival coordinators, asked that people keep comments "future-oriented", which at first I thought would lead to brainstorming sessions about how to make someone's art or "finish" a piece, but overall the individuals who spoke about work made critical and pointed comments.

In regards to the performance by Luke Fischbeck, I was fortunate to have a bit of a sneak preview since he was a visiting artist with my Intermedia I students a few days prior-- getting to see his work and also having him explain the technical details was good from a geeky/techy perspective but certainly not crucial to enhancing my experience of it on Saturday night. (I was particularly interested in his piece 'Make a Baby', which operates off of the electro-magnetic energy in people's bodies responding to a series of devices connected to amplifiers and his laptop). He set up in the middle of the concrete floor, sitting in front of his laptop, long cords weaving in and out of each other with rainsticks connected to devices, a pile of rocks, and a series of tambourines, cymbals, and gourds. A video projection of imagery pulsated behind him while he turned knobs and clicked on his computer-- long, deep sounds began pulsating from the speakers, slowly building upon each other. Crawling on his hands and knees, he started playing some of the instruments and moved towards people in the crowd, inviting them to take hold of an instrument. Eventually, nearly every person in the room was participating, whether grasping each other's hands and arms around the 'Make a Baby' sensors, or hovering around the circle of instruments, people, and cords in the center of the floor. The sounds could be described as electronic music, but it was by far one of the most participatory music events I have ever attended-- part music event, part performance art, part community based art. His approach and interaction with the audience as well as the audience members interaction with one another was amazing-- a culture was quickly created that allowed for experimentation and play. The tools and technology piqued interest and granted, the crowd (mostly artists who had presented or performed at other WIP events) was not exactly shy, but in large part I think Luke's approach to the art experience and his gentle, laid-back personality invited this kind of participation and response, which all made for an unusually engaging and exciting night in Iowa City's art scene.

Note from Chicago: Heartland and Everybody

I got back last night from a few days in Chicago around the opening of the Smart Museum's exhibition Heartland. The Compass Group, a collective of 11 people of which my baby daddy and I are a part, had a new project in the show, and I represented the group on a panel at Thursday's opening. Now no longer a fourth trimester blob of sleep, Baby Genesee made it hard to get to everything I had hoped to see, and I had to skip Michael Rakowitz's talk at the Accidental Publics symposium at Northwestern on Friday. However, I did manage to make it to Every Body! at I space. Here's a quick and dirty review.

Heartland is a big project that unfolded over several years. The curators (Charles Esche, Stephanie Smith and Kristen Niemann) conducted a series of research road trips in an area shaped literally as a heart, centered on the Mississippi and extending from New Orleans to Minneapolis, the Delta to to Detroit. The trips served three functions: first, an attempt to reconceptualize a word that typically refers only to a handful of Midwestern states and their amorphous traditional values; second, an inquiry into cultural production as a regional expression; and third, part a new method of finding emerging artists that relied on local networks and word of mouth, rather than the gallery system. Unfortunately, the Smart Museum's temporary exhibition galleries are so small that this interesting curatorial premise was only apparent from the wall text and a small display of binders and photos from the trips. The show, which has a lot of really interesting work, feels a little like a very compressed survey, with radically different ways of working put in exciting, if somewhat disorienting, proximity. Only about half of the work was really about place or the region, which disappointed me as one of the exhibiting artists whose work deals with those themes and who might have liked a more focused curatorial agenda. But the show presents an engaging mix of work being made in/about the center of the nation and a good combination of emerging and established, regional and international artists. I really enjoyed work by Jeremiah Day, Deb Sokolow, Detroit Tree of Heaven Woodshop, and Julika Rudelius. I haven't had a chance to spend much time with the catalog yet, but it looks like it will more than make up for what wasn't possible in the tight space of the show.

The following day, I headed over to I space for "Every Body!" Visual Resistance in Feminist Health Movements, 1969-2009," curated by my friend and collaborator, Bonnie Fortune. In contrast to "Heartland," the show had a very tight agenda and a strongly historical feel, with visual and textual works spanning four decades of activism and education concerning women's health. In light of recent exhibitions that treat the 1960s as style, Every Body! reminds you that there was--and still is--a lot at stake. I particularly enjoyed the trio of works by University of Iowa alumna Faith Wilding, including a minimal and sensitive "central core" drawing from the 70s that is amazingly beautiful and a series of watercolors from the late 1990s based on female circumcision and vaginal reconstruction techniques. When these works are seen in person, the oft-repeated dismissal of these kinds of works as being hopelessly essentialist comes off like a desperate attempt to avoid dealing with the complex feelings of attraction and revulsion such images evoke. The show, which includes drawings, performance work, painting, blogs, zines, video, and posters documenting work by artists and non-artists alike, reminded me how much unfinished business remains in achieving physical health and bodily integrity for women around the world. At the very least, it was the most appropriate exhibition for public breastfeeding that I've ever seen.

The other exhibition at I space was "Glue Factory," a project on aging by the Museum of Contemporary Phenomena. This was a nice little show documenting a series of community- and discussion-based projects in which participants shared their thoughts and fears about growing older. Although I wished to see it in a more public place (like a school or a mall), I really enjoyed the textual and visual components. In addition, the two shows played off each other nicely, which doesn't always happen at I space due to the rotating curation the space uses.

October Artforum

This month's Artforum looks pretty good. The major article is a dialogue between Okwui Enwezor, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri around Hardt & Negri's new book Commonwealth. Their previous two books, Empire and Multitude were hotly debated and enormously influential in politics and culture earlier in this decade.

A Dog's Life

OK, so I didn’t want to have to write about a piece of theatre, but I have so little free time these days that I really had no choice.

Last week I got a chance to see a performance of a “new-ish” musical at Riverside Theatre directed by a colleague of mine, John Kaufmann. A Dog’s Life, which was first produced by the American Heartland Theatre in Kansas City, is a family-oriented piece by Sean Grennan and Leah Okimoto. It’s a pretty small play with only four actors – three of which play dogs. The intent of the play seems to be focused on the celebration of the relationship everyone enjoys with a dog. With Brechtian quotes about dogs from famous people like Groucho Marx framing each scene, the play’s over-riding “message” is that people are able to enjoy an unconditional and uncomplicated love with dogs. Unlike the relationship one has with a friend, parent, significant other, etc, a friendship between a person and a pet is pure and unfettered.

I love dogs. I love most animals. I have two pet bunnies that I’m crazy about. But I left this performance feeling pretty hollow and, in a way, manipulated. It seems that this was an honest attempt at creating family entertainment, but the absence of any real action or dramatic conflict makes this play not much more than a musical revue featuring singing dogs. A better way of describing it might be to liken it to a series of mildly humorous anecdotes about pets. While I have a soft spot for the little critters, I found myself wanting to see actual animals onstage than humans portraying them.

Essentially, the play seems to have no idea what it is. On the one hand, it’s about the lives of three dogs. The authors paint very articulate pictures of the characters of these dogs which led me to believe that we will follow their emotional journeys throughout the piece. Instead, just when I started to become invested in a character, the play would come to a grinding halt for mind-boggling numbers like Three Dog Night that did little to advance the action. Since the performance was really just 2 ½ hours of pure fluff, about 80-90 minutes of this work could be excised. Furthermore, handling a subject as timid as dogs really suggests that this is family entertainment. So when mild swear words get dropped during the piece, I was left wondering exactly who this play was for.

The play’s faults lay mostly with the authors of the piece. Director John Kaufmann did all that he could with the work. His decision to treat the play as a kind of vaudevillian act was an extremely effective one – allowing the audience to better relate to the show. David Tull, a recent graduate of the MFA Acting program at the University of Iowa, did his best as the top dog of the show. His charm was infectious and his sincere depiction of a hapless canine instantly brought to mind the image of every silly dog or bunny I’ve ever known.

Regardless of the play’s many flaws, a genuine sincerity and potent love for the subject matter is ever-present in this musical. The audience is helpless to not love each of these “dogs” and furthermore identify with the dog owner (a charismatic Jim Van Valen). The play’s ending brings to mind the best parts of the disgustingly schmaltzy film Marley & Me – a film I watched almost against my will this summer. The penultimate number “I Have to Go” is, you guessed it, about the end of the dog’s life and his passing. Of course, regardless of the quality of the script, there was not a dry eye in the house (myself included). It was clear that everyone in the theatre was immediately recalling the loss of a pet that happened to them at one point in their life. Only those with a heart of stone could have resisted such heartstring tugging. In this regard, I guess, the play is a success. But I couldn’t help but feel that this was a kind of emotional cheap shot akin to a cheap laugh. Of course the passing of a pet is painful. Who doesn’t get upset when thinking about the loss of their dog, cat, horse, etc? Setting this heartbreak to music was powerful and effective, but it didn’t make up for the previous two hours.

I suppose family entertainment is a tricky affair. When Pixar tackles it with films like WALL-E and Toy Story, we see not only a crowd-pleasing blockbuster but an innovative piece of cinema endeavoring to take the form to new heights. In theatre, however, family entertainment can often miss. Most family shows, or children’s theatre as it is often called, caters to the lowest common denominator. I don’t believe A Dog’s Life does this, but I do think it suffers from a lack of creativity and attention to detail. Their heart is the right place, but their wits need to go along for the ride.

Tiny Bubbles

Oof, had some issues in the studio tonight. First of all, I was still only rockin' one deck tonight, so I wasn't able to cue the records like I really would like to. Secondly, the deck that was working wasn't grounded, so there was a pretty mean buzzing sound all throughout the show. These records may not all necessarily be VG+, but hot damn, they should be sounding better than they were. I saved some records I'd planned on featuring for next week, when the turntables will surely be all better.

I found some excellent records at the local thrift store, got some on eBay, and found quite a few at the fleamarket in What Cheer this weekend! Will definitely be playing some good stuff this upcoming Sunday. The show before VeeGeePlus, Our Majesty's Hour, will be on vacation this week, so you can look forward to a two-hour version of the show Sunday! That means I'll have to bring double the records to the studio, but I could use the workout anyways. Here's the playlist from tonight.

Tiny Bubbles (The Bigger Sound) - Jan and Bill Bigger
Mr. Lucky (Best of Henry Mancini) - Henry Mancini
Three Cool Chicks (Bomb the Twist) - The 5,6,7,8's
Daddy (In Person at the Americana) - Julie London
As Time Goes By (Miss Ponytail) - Pat Suzuki
Quiet Nights (Something Special for Young Lovers) - The Ray Charles Singers
Look Around (Look Around) - Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66
Ricordate Marcellino (Confetti) - Les Baxter
Peter Gunn (Boogie Woogie + Bongos) - Hugo Montenegro
Bittersweet Samba (Whipped Cream and Other Delights) - Herb Albert
La Mer (The Rivieras) - 101 Strings
If We Put Our Heads Together (If We Put Our Heads Together) - Ernest Tubb and Loretta Lynn
Don't Worry 'Bout Me (Organ Moods at Midnight) - Merlin
Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor (The Moog Strikes Bach) - Hans Wurman
Jailbreak (Jailbreak) - Thin Lizzy

You're Tearing Me Apart, Lisa

The Room, Tommy Wieseau said, is the place where you make the rules and where everything is what you want it to be. Unfortunately, The Room is also a film by Wieseau, and it exists in the real world, where one is not so omnipotent.

For those not familiar with Wieseau's film, which he directed, starred in, prodcued, and executive produced, The Room is probably the greatest piece of camp cinema in the past decade and is now viewed at late night screenings, joining the prestigious pantheon of midnight movies with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Pink Flamingos, and Priscilla: Queen of the Desert. Much like RHPS, fans of the film endure repeated viewings, made easier and more fun by yelling out jokes and throwing things at the screen. Unlike RHPS, however, Wiseau's claims that the film is intentional camp, which in most minds would be mutually exclusive), are quite hard to swallow. While RHPS is obviously an homage/pastiche/parody of b-movies and horror cinema, and builds an aesthetic around such a proposition, The Room just seems to be poorly made. However, it is the degree to which it is poorly made that makes it truly a thing of beauty.

The plot is nearly non-existant, featuring a love triangle between Jonny (Wieseau), his "future wife" (for some reason, mostly likely an issue with Wiseau's unattributed and mysterious accent, the word "fiancee" is never used) Lisa (who is beautiful and looks good in a red dress, at least according to every male in the film), and Mark, Jonny's best friend (a fact that Mark mentions ad nauseum, with the highest frequency before his multiple sex scenes with Lisa). Side plots, such as Jonny's young neighbor Denny nearly being killed by a drug dealer and Lisa's mom finding out that she has breast cancer are dropped as quickly and abruptly as they are brought up.

Anyway, as Wiseau would say, I rest my case. I am not merely writing a movie review here. You see, Tommy Wieseau himself was in town on Thursday night to screen his film and to do some question and answer with the audience. Before the film, one of the audience members actually brought up the question of intent that is so often asked in connection with The Room. Had Wiseau actually intended for it to be a black comedy, as he now says, or had he set out to make a dramatic film, as it seems, and merely failed in his honest effort? It is perfectly understandable that Wiseau would take this defensive position when he film became the laughing stock and drunk destination for film buffs in California, and eventually the rest of the world, but his behavior and demeanor make it very hard to believe what he says. Avoiding most questions and answering every other one with non-sequiters (his response to one question about whether he prefers shooting on video or 35MM included "I heard you guys had a flood here before, never mind about that, ok, I rest my case, next one"), and generally acting, as one of the people I have discussed the event with described as, schizophrenic.

I went into the screening holding the firm belief, as many others do, that Wiseau is merely a bad filmmaker trying to be in on the joke, instead of being the butt of it. However, having seen him in person, and having interacted personally with him, I now wonder if maybe the joke isn't on us. There is a nagging suspicion in the back of my mind that we are seeing a character being performed for us, both on the screen and in person. His odd behavior and unwillingness to give simple details about himself (questions about where he and his accent are from are met with an answer of "see, that is a question which one must not ask"), seem less and less like the product of a troubled personality and more, perhaps due to recent works by people like Sacha Baron Cohen, like a put-on.

When asked what the room is referring to, Wiseau always gives the explanation that The Room is where one makes their own rules. I began this writing by saying that Wieseau's film did not exist in the room. He could not make it something that he didn't intend it to be, but if Wiseau is more than he appears, a genius performance artist as opposed to a failed filmmaker, perhaps this really is The Room.

WiP - Thursday

I went to the opening night party for WiPFest 2009 at the Senior Center. It was an entertaining evening, with two choreographed dances: a modern piece based on the poetry cycle Zimmerman performed by The Traveler's Dance Group, a senior dance group; and another modern (but more classical style based) piece performed by young teenage ballerinas.

Also, Craig was in an orange box making orange juice with episodes from his and Florina's web series, Daidaiiao, watchable at www.vimeo.com/4606073. It's well worth your time.

Laura had the following to say about Craig and Florina's instillation:

Florina and Craig's 'Daidairo' orange juice installation was so incredible today! I received orange juice in half an orange with a heart drawn on the bottom, and a small cup of orange juice with pseudo Japanese writing. Craig didn't speak for about 4 hours, during which he took on the persona of one of his many alter egos, "Yoo." He also sat inside a large orange box that seemed to control his every emotion, thought, and ability to access the outside world.

It was pretty amazing.

Open House Proposal Deadline

Hello everyone!

As you know, Open House is quickly approaching. The date has remained, as originally decided, Friday October 23rd (from 8-10 PM).

I will be coordinating the event and helping to make sure everyone has what they need to make Open House successful. In order to do this, I need to set a deadline for proposals for Friday Oct. 9th (One week from tomorrow.) Essentially, what I need to know from everyone is what you are planning to do for the event and what your needs will be as far as space and equipment. We should have the Intermedia classroom spaces, Porch gallery, Grad studios, hallways, and most likely the large open space in the entrance to Studio Arts. Figuring out what everyone has in mind will help determine our need for space, and I can help to arrange what is needed.

I wanted to post this on the blog so that everyone can use this forum to discuss potential works, performances etc. that may possibly interact with each other or involve collaboration (if desired). Feel free to discuss ideas here so that others can respond, or ask questions of the group in general (ex. "does anyone want to help me make this..") or any other general concerns.

For your specific proposals and space/equipment needs, please e-mail me directly at derek.m.andes@gmail.com by the end of the day on Oct. 9th

Among other things, we may have a video reel that could include video work from all that want to submit, that will loop throughout the event. So keep this in mind incase you have work you would like to include on the reel.

We will also need someone (or more than one somebody) to volunteer to design a poster for the event. Let me know if you would like to do this as soon as possible.

Thanks!

Derek

some links to click on

Hi all

Here are a few short readings for my crit this Monday.

1st link is an article from rhizome that I enjoyed, especially where he is discussing the idea of defaults.

2nd link is the complete interview with kevin bewersdorf that I quoted in my slide show earlier in the semester.

3rd link is an excerpt from the artist statement of aids-3d, a duo that i've been interested in recently.

i'll also include 1 paragraph from mckenzie wark's 'a hacker manifesto', which i started reading but have yet to finish..

[128] Information expresses the potential of potential. When unfettered, it releases the latent capacities of all things and people, objects and subjects. Information is the place upon which objects and subjects come into existence as such. It is the plane upon which the potential for the existance of new objects and subjects may be posited. It is where virtuality comes to the surface.

And for good measure, a youtube video that has nothing to do with my work

Cheers!