implicit art

From the Upgrade! Joburg site:

At their permission, Nathaniel Stern will be presenting the work of MTAA, a Brooklyn based digital art duo, most famous for their extremely provocative and quirky networked art:

Artists M. River and T. Whid formed MTAA in 1996 and soon after began to explore the internet as a medium for public art. The duo’s exhibition history includes group shows and screenings at The New Museum of Contemporary Art, Postmasters Gallery and Artists Space, all in New York City, and at The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. International exhibitions include the Seoul Net & Film Festival in Korea and Videozone2 - The 2nd International Video Art Biennial in Israel. In the forthcoming New Media Art (Taschen, 2006), authors Mark Tribe and Reena Jana describe MTAA’s 1 year performance video (aka samHsiehUpdate) as “a deftly transparent demonstration of new media’s ability to manipulate our perceptions of time.” The collaboration has also earned grants and awards from Rhizome.org, Eyebeam, New Radio & Performing Arts, Inc. and The Whitney Museum’s Artport web site.

And Christo’s cool poster:
UPDATE: this awesome poster was made by Arlene Murphy:

Brett Kebble merit award winners, Lara Foot Newton and Gerhard Marx of the internationally acclaimed production Tshepang, team up again to present their new play Hear and Now at the Market Theatre. Following the play’s seasons at The State Theatre and Baxter Theatre in 2005, author Lara Foot Newton has made some revisions to the script bringing further clarity to the story.

Currently enjoying a sold-out tour and rave reviews in Sweden, Hear and Now returns to South Africa for a season on the Market Theatre’s Barney Simon stage.

Combining the theatrical skills of Baxter Theatre Resident Director and Dramaturg, Lara Foot Newton, with the unique talents of fine artist and theatre-maker Gerhard Marx, this tactile play is textured to stimulate all the senses.

TIME: 19H30 for 20H15

TUESDAY 28-Feb 20H15
WEDNESDAY 1-Mar 20H15
THURSDAY 2-Mar 20H15
FRIDAY 3-Mar 20H15
SATURDAY 4-Mar 20H15
SUNDAY 5-Mar 15H15

VENUE: The Barney Simon Theatre

RSVP: Lusanda Zokufa on 011 832 1641 ext 123 or
lusanda@markettheatre.co.za

Some cheeky brats over in Cape Town had their students buy beer for them and wrap them as gifts, all in the name of contemporary art. Pictured: Bruce Gordon and Ed Young receiving gifts from Christian Nerf’s Stellenbosch students.

More pix available on their new blog, that I hope goes beyond this project: http://nerfyoung.blogspot.com/

Why didn’t I think of that?

PS - I’d prefer the URL to be YoungNerf….

So I was at Spier last night with some really cool artists. Not all of them made it on the same night, but amongst the ten finalists selected for their hotel art project are myself, Kim Lieberman, Mustafa Maluka, Matt Hindley, Usha Seejarim, Dorothee Kreutzfeld, Jo O’Connor and Nicolas Hlobo. Had a nice dinner among new friends, great conversation, perhaps some future help and collaborations. I’ll probably propose some Compressionist images for the project - got some great scans on site before my scanner finally died (another one on the way - thank you, ebay!).

James Webb also joined up for dinner, and managed to sneak the two of us into Brett Bailey’s Orpheus, for which he sound designed. We had to drive over the bridge at right. Yes, that’s the best I could do for an image - desperate times….

Sometimes over the top and obvious where unnecessary, and a few of the scenes could have been shorter to get their points across better, but Orpheus was undoubtedly a brilliant piece. The lead narrator, portrayed by Sibongile Khumalo, was an amazing presence with heart-wrenching physical character, and Orpheus (I cannot find the actor’s name) had the haunting singing voice of a dying angel (he did not once speak out of song). The set, the silence, the sound, the politics, even most of the parts that may have been OTT (over-the-top) worked seamlessly. A devastatingly beautiful rendition by all of the artists involved — see it if you can.

On a quick visit, running around like a headless chicken! Been hangin’ with Ralph Borland and Toni Oliver, plus got to see Christian Nerf and Kathryn Smith this morning. Good peoples! Battery died so no pix, and only have a few mins left in this internet cafe, so more later / prob when I get home.  To Spier tonight, to hang with Matt Hindley and James Webb, maybe see Orpheus. Back to Joburg tomorrow… w00+.

^{LED throwies in the streets of NYC}

James Powderly is currently a Research & Development fellow at Eyebeam in Chelsea, NYC - a fantastic gallery-space-like residency program for art-geeks that work in new media, "etc". On a more personal note, when we were grad students, James was a huge friend and resource in helping to set up my first-ever group exhibition (Johnson Museum, upstate New York); he "gave" me the term Compressionism - something he came up with for a series of his own interactive videos about five years ago, but is letting me have for my prints right now; and he videotaped my and Nicole’s wedding (tho I still have not edited that) - just to name a few niceties. So yes, I am biased, but he was also a director at Honeybee Robotics for a number of years, so we know he is ‘wicked smaht.’ One of his many current goings-on:

Robot Clothes is an art and commercial research and development partnership, specializing in robotic systems, interaction design and product prototyping. This partnership, formed in 2002 by Michelle Kempner and James Powderly, utilizes a hybrid fine art and commercial design and engineering approach to support innovative science and technology development efforts for clients including fortune 100 companies, NASA and internationally renowned artists, such as Diller + Scofidio and Miranda July. In addition to contracted research and development efforts, Robot Clothes internally supports fine art projects ranging from a robotic public sculpture for Central Park to an animatronic opera about Crohn’s Disease.

Dude.

Also, James’ Eyebeam crew recently teamed up with the Graffiti Research Lab to produce the above Electro-Graf - a "graffiti piece or throw-up that uses conductive and magnetic paint to embed LED display electronics." Check out the link for an awesome ‘LED Throwies’ video - hit the streets, throw little trinkets at the walls that stick and light up, and so ‘write’ with live LEDs on the sides of buildings!

The awaited launch of the new SA Art Times:

The SA Art Times has evolved from the South African Art Information Directory in fore filling a need to go beyond simply listing and cataloguing the SA Arts community, to actively providing energy, information and news thorough this community.

Has anyone seen it? How is it - any good? If their ‘about’ page on their site (quoted above), and its grammar (and clarity), is any signifier, we are totally f^ck=d. Does anyone know what the above sentence means (fore filling? thorough this community?)? At some point they approached me for some writing, but I’ve been swamped. I’m curious, so maybe I’ll hit them up….

jill ross and richard kilpert

After a morning of various errand - running / personal - admin BS, I began the Real Day with a lunch meeting / brainstorm session starring myself and the ever-inspired and energetic Richie K. He told me a bit about his new iterative photographic - photoshoppy - inkjet process and images, which sound divine, while I shared a bit more on my performative Compressionist prints - and the two seem to work very well together. Kilpert and I are starting to potentially think about two upcoming duo shows (I’d share my Outlet show with him, and he an upcoming exhibition space with me), which would display the complimentary series side by side, maybe include some collaborative efforts as well.

This lead perfectly into our excursion to see Jill Ross at the David Krut gallery and print shop. After being dazzled by Jill’s beautiful work with Wilma Cruise (shown: Jill + Wilma print + Blurry Richard), I attempted to return the dazzle with the Compressionism documentation and some images. We brainstormed through some teamwork possibilities - Jill really is a well of printmaking knowledge, as is Richie, and we’re all pretty excited by the potentials in combining our talents and work.

We ended with all kinds of collaborative printmaking seeds, and I’m hoping to work with Jill and Richie in the near future. Oooooh, I see some New Art coming on…. It’s gonna be H-O-T. Will keep you "posted."

Under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share-Alike license; thanks to Cary Peppermint for being so SUPERCOOL. I know I could not have done this without you. I’m on the path, I know it, I can feel it, cuz I don’t care:

^{nathaniel is SUPERCOOL video link, 424kb, 7 seconds}