karaoke deathmatch 100

Since 1996, Michael Sarff and Tim Whidden have partnered as MTAA, incorporating participatory performances, group installations, aesthetic decision by popular vote and creative collaborations into their worked.

This talk includes a participatory art work!

More info: http://mteww.com/
Sponsored by Peck School of the Arts
Contact: Michael Passmore, passmom@uwm.edu, 414-229-6052

For Sean Fletcher and Isabel Reichert’s Wikipedia Art Remix, two actors perform a scene appropriated from Edward Albee’s play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”.  The dialogue between the iconic characters George and Martha incorporates highlights from the “Articles for Deletion” page of Wikipedia Art, an intervention by Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern on Wikipedia, so the couple’s argument becomes one about whether or not art can exist on Wikipedia.

See a video art version of this upcoming performance piece.

Sean Fletcher and Isabel Reichert have collaborated together on conceptually based performance works, interventions, writings, installations, videos, photography, and prints since meeting each other in 1994.  Their work is about power and vulnerability; how it relates to relationship dynamics, society, and politics. Fletcher and Reichert use collaboration as a tool to integrate the negotiation for power into works of art.

Scott Kildall is an independent artist, who intervenes with objects and actions into various concepts of space. Nathaniel Stern is an artist, teacher, writer and provocateur, who works with interactive, participatory, networked and traditional forms.

“Bad at Sports is a weekly podcast produced in Chicago that features artists talking about art and the community that makes, reviews and critiques it. Shows are usually posted each weekend and can be listened to on any computer with an internet connection and speakers or headphones.”

This audio interview (available streaming from the site, or as a download to your computer or mp3 player) begins with Nathaniel Stern rapping a bit of Beastie Boys / Q-Tip, and quickly degrades to him lovingly poking fun at his dad. It’s actually a great interview, where you can hear some off the cuff chatting with Duncan MacKenzie about hektor.net, Distill Life, Compressionism, Wikipedia Art, Given Time, Doin’ my part to lighten the load, and more. It’s good fun, with lots of tangential stories and jokes, and many mentions of good friends and colleagues. Enjoy!

listen to interview on B@S

happy birthday.

Arrested Time
moved a day later due to snow

An exhibition of works combining contemporary technologies with
traditional drawing and printmaking methods

Nathaniel Stern with Jessica Meuninck-Ganger
Greylock Arts, 93 Summer St, Adams MA
Curated by Jo-Anne Green
27 February 2010 – 3 April 2010

Opening reception Saturday, February 27th 2010, 5:30 – 8:30 pm

About the Works

Nathaniel Stern’s Given Time simultaneously activates and performs two permanently logged-in Second Life avatars, each forever and only seen by and through the other. They hover in mid-air, almost completely still, gazing into one another’s interface. Viewers encounter this networked partnership as a diptych of large-scale (8 feet tall) and facing video projections in a real world gallery, both exhibiting a live view of one avatar, as perceived by the other. To create a visceral aesthetic, these custom-designed and life-sized “bodies” are hand-drawn in subtly animated graphite and charcoal. The audience is invited to physically walk between them; they’re able to hear and see them breathing, witness their hair blowing in the wind, pick up faint sounds such as rushing water or birds crying out from the surrounding simulated environment. Here, an intimate exchange between dual, virtual bodies is transformed into a public meditation on human relationships, bodily mortality, and time’s inevitable flow.

In Distill Life, Stern and Meuninck-Ganger approach both old and new media as form. They permanently mount translucent prints and drawings directly on top of video screens, creating moving images on paper. They incorporate technologies and aesthetics from traditional printmaking – including woodblock, silk screen, etching, lithography, photogravure etc – with the technologies and aesthetics of contemporary digital, video and networked art, to explore images as multidimensional. Their juxtaposition of anachronistic and disparate methods, materials and content – print and video, paper and electronics, real and virtual – enables novel approaches to understanding each. The artists work with subject matter ranging from historical portraiture to current events, from artificial landscapes to socially awkward moments.

With Arrested Time, Green curates an exhibition of Stern’s solo and collaborative work that explores the juxtaposition of old and new media, and illuminates the possibilities and limitations of both. The works hover between stasis and motion, texture and light, line and pixel, past and present, paper and screen, surface and depth, one artist and another.

http://nathanielstern.com
http://jessicameuninck.com
http://greylockarts.net

Greylock Arts, 93 Summer St, Adams MA 01220
Admission is free and open to the public
Saturdays, 12:00 – 4:00 p.m
Otherwise by appointment

Kinnickinnic, 2009, lithograph + LCD with video, 255 x 355 x 50mm

GALLERY AOP (Art on Paper) presents

Passing Between
A collaboration incorporating traditional printmaking and contemporary digital, video and networked art
by Nathaniel Stern and Jessica Meuninck-Ganger

30 January – 27 February 2010
Opening Saturday 30 January from 12:00 to 16:00
Opening address by Prof. Christo Doherty, Wits Digital Arts, at 12:30
The artists will be in attendance at the opening

Walkabout on Saturday 6 February at 12:00
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue and DVD

Nathaniel Stern and Jessica Meuninck-Ganger approach both old and new media as form. They permanently mount translucent prints and drawings directly on top of video screens, creating moving images on paper. They incorporate technologies and aesthetics from traditional printmaking – including woodblock, silk screen, etching, lithography, photogravure, etc – with the technologies and aesthetics of contemporary digital, video and networked art, to explore images as multidimensional. Their juxtaposition of anachronistic and disparate methods, materials and content – print and video, paper and electronics, real and virtual – enables novel approaches to understanding each. The artists work with subject matter ranging from historical portraiture to current events, from artificial landscapes to socially awkward moments.

Jessica Meuninck-Ganger is a Milwaukee-based artist. Her prints, artist’s books and large-scale mixed media works have been exhibited in the USA and in the rest of the world. She received her MFA in Studio Arts from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2004 and is currently Head of Printmaking at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA.

Nathaniel Stern is an installation and video artist, net.artist, printmaker and writer. He has had solo exhibitions at various museums, academic institutions, and commercial and experimental galleries worldwide. He obtained his PhD in Art & Technology from Trinity College, Dublin in 2009 and is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual Art, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA.

Jessica and Nathaniel met at their first University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee Visual Art Faculty Meeting in August 2008, became fast friends, and decided to begin collaborating whilst on a trip to the Milwaukee Zoo with their kids a few months later.

44 Stanley Avenue  Braamfontein Werf   Johannesburg
Tuesday – Friday 10:00 – 17:00  Saturday 10:00 – 15:00

Dear Friends,

As the end of the year draws near, we hope that you will support our many inspiring and innovative projects – Turbulence.org, Networked_Performance, Networked_Music_Review, Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art), Upgrade! Boston, Floating Points, Programmable Media, New American Radio – and the artists, scholars, and writers they support.

Please contribute $10, $25, $50 or more.

No amount is too small! No amount is too large!

Contribute via PayPal on Turbulence or send a check to:

New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.
124 Bourne Street
Roslindale, MA 02131, USA

Thanks for your generous support, and a Happy New Year to you all.

Warm Regards,

Jo-Anne Green and Helen Thorington, Co-Directors
New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.

Woot.

Hi Mike:

Long time fan, first time writer.

As my wife and I were sitting and watching the latest from the Supreme Court’s non-activist judges the other day, we were enraged, again, by the idea that “corporations are people, too” – a historical mistake with dire consequences. But then Nicole – the smarter of us -  wondered aloud, “If they are people, why has the state never tried them for murder?” Sure, companies whose irresponsible actions have ended people’s lives have been sued by individuals for monetary compensation, and there have even been occasional consequences for individuals within various companies on such occasions. But if corporations are people under law, and commit these crimes as a corporation (aka person), should not the corporation be subject to the same rulings as people are? What would it mean for a corporation – as a thing; or rather, a person – to serve 10 years in jail? A life sentence? To get the death penalty? Why can’t we incarcerate one? Has it ever been tried (forgive the pun)? I’d love to see it. I’ve love to help it happen.

How might I, or we, try such a thing?

Keep up the good work! Warmly,

Nathaniel Stern

http://nathanielstern.com

What has 8 hands and 8 feet?
8 Pirates!

… Sussman selected the ARCHOS 5 player for this Compound Edition for its high-fidelity audio and video and internet capability. This last fact will allow collectors of this Compound Edition to continue along the White on White journey in the near future. As episodes of White on White become available fans of the work can collect them and have them streamed to their Archos player – thereby owning a limited edition film-in-progress and simultaneously becoming a co-producer of the final film noir.

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It’s a big risk, but one that seems to be paying off already. Bravo to the artists and gallery for what looks to be a beautiful work – a wonderful hybrid of conceptual, new media, and object-based art.

But I’ve been makin art and teachin instead. I do not tweet, but the book of faces tends to let some know my state (er, state-us). You can find me there. Still, will have pics of the kid and maybe some of the new work with Jessica up in a couple of weeks. We put most of the work together (finally!) only yesterday, and it’s totally awesome, if I do say so myself. Maybe I will put photos on the book of faces, even, as some keep suggesting I do so. Lots of shows coming up!

Some things:

1. cute that all my friends suggest i see district 9 since they know my connection to south africa. it’s hard with a 3 year old, but i’ll try
2. nyc was awesome – family, friends, art, the high line, some new connections. hope to be back again soon. Shane Hope show at Winkleman was as good as everyone says, and the group show at Bitforms (as well as the show in the gallery next door – don’t remember their name) was also a real treat. (Tangential shout out to Ceci Moss at Rhizome – nice to see my bud Goldblatt at the New Museum – and the Kildall and Lichty folks at Eyebeam.)
3. milwaukee is growin on me – for pretty much the same reasons (happy family, good new friends, getting to know the art, some new connections). and although this trip to NY showed me how much I miss it, it also reminded me what a privileged position I am in with my job, my space, my family, etc. Miltown is a bit of alright. i want my peeps to come visit!
4. wasn’t quite ready for classes to start, but have to admit i do love an audience. got some great students this term and lookin forward to seeing what they make
5. welcome to all my new colleagues in the Visual Art Department at UW-Milwaukee!
6. although my blog is only “my” blog now – updates about me, as opposed to the massive amounts of reviews I used to do – i am planning some writing/reviews for rhizome, the journal sentinel and snap-milwaukee in the coming months, so keep a look out!
7. I’m mapping out a good year. Courageously cartographically cool. Hooray.

laters

Upgrade! Milwaukee presents Nadav Assor and Maria Bolivar!
Sunday July 12, 7 – 9 PM
MOCT, 240 E Pittsburgh Ave
Milwaukee, WI 53204

Please come to the second Upgrade! Milwaukee, featuring Nadav Assor (Israel) and Maria Bolivar (Venezuela)!

Nadav Assor, Tunneling (performance)

On Nadav Assor (who was the founder of Upgrade! Tel Aviv):

“I am greatly interested in theories and explorations of urban architectural, emotional and ideological sub-structures. One tactic I use in exposing and reshaping the structures around me is digitization, in the sense of reduction to a primal, reconfigurable matter. The transformed digital matter is recast into its original context, physically manipulated in an ongoing live process that ranges from the absurd to the violent. The outcome often presents various transgressions or inversions of the technological, socio-political structures that served as a starting point. Many of the mechanisms inherent in my work require palpable, physical effort or struggle to manipulate, thus exposing the constant friction between body and media. I do not want my devices to ‘run smoothly’.

My work has been shown in Berlin, Chicago, and in many Israeli venues, including several showings at the Israeli Center for Digital Art, the C.Sides International electronic media festival, the Laptopia festival, the Center for Contemporary Art in Tel-Aviv, The Haifa and Bat Yam Museums and more. I have received a 2006 Leumi (the Israeli national bank) award for excellence in the arts.
I am currently pursuing my MFA with full fellowship in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.”

Maria Bolivar @ UWM

Maria Bolivar was born in Caracas, Venezuela. She was significantly influenced by her father, Cesar Bolivar, who is a well-known film director in Latin America. After attending the most important design academy in Venezuela: El Instituto de Diseño de Caracas, Maria spent three years as a professional designer. Due to the violence and her involvement in the 2002 National Strike in Venezuela, Maria was forced to come to Milwaukee  where she received her BFA in communication design from the Institute of Art and Design (MIAD) in 2006. Maria is currently pursuing a Master’s of Fine Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee with an intermedia focus.

Hope to see you there!

-
Upgrade! Milwaukee is a regular gathering of digital creatives – artists, musicians, performers, writers, curators and the public – that fosters dialogue and creates opportunities for collaboration within the local new media community. It features 1-3 guest speakers at each event, held at a rotating venue: informal, free, and open to all. We welcome suggestions for speakers, panels or gatherings. Upgrade! Milwaukee will continue to grow as a local node within the global Upgrade! International (UI) network.

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Upgrade! is an international, emerging network of autonomous nodes united by art, technology, and a commitment to bridging cultural divides. Its decentralized, non-hierarchical structure ensures that Upgrade! (i) operates according to local interests and their available resources; and (ii) reflects current creative engagement with cutting edge technologies. While individual nodes present new media projects, engage in informal critique, and foster dialogue and collaboration between individual artists, Upgrade! International functions as an online, global network that gathers in different cities to meet one another, showcase local art, and work on the agenda for the following year. There are currently over 30 nodes in UI, across North and South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Second Life.

Hooray for stuff and things! Yay art!

Wikipedia Art – originally an editable encyclopedia entry as art work – applied for and was denied citizenship on Wikipedia. It now seeks refugee status in Venice through the establishment of The Wikipedia Art Embassy. Encyclopedic ambassadors, Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern, invite writings on, and creative remixes and alternative wiki postings of, the Wikipedia Art project itself. Each will be featured on their now infamous site, wikipediaart.org

Wikipedia Art , officially part of Venice Biennale, has been called “more Wikipedia than Wikipedia” by Miltos Manetas, curator of Padiglione Internet (the Internet Pavilion). It is an incorporation of not only the artists’ primary concept, but the debates, biases and power struggles behind how it continues to exist. Now, Kildall and Stern are re-releasing Wikipedia Art – the story, the concept, the logo, its texts and name – under a Creative Commons license (CC-by). They request public remixes, transformative art and derivative works. They offer the piece up to business and info Wikis, to songwriters, fellow artists and filmmakers, to journalists and storytellers. Despite its absence from the number one source of online information, it perseveres in its temporary yet virtual housing in Italy (and Everywhere Else).

Kildall and Stern continue their examination and intervention into how Wikipedia has reframed knowledge, by asking the public to re-look at and re-make Wikipedia’s mode of online knowledge production. Wikipedia is not open to any editor, not a democracy, and in a great position of power. While an amazing resource, as with any powerful institution, its users – the general public – should continuously question Wikipedia’s methodologies and the power brokers that control them. Wikipedia Art re-engages that general audience; it features any artist or writer who wishes to take part; it frames all public discourse and activity as an ongoing intervention into knowledge and authority – on Wikipedia, on the Internet, in Venice and beyond.

Download the call for remixes (pdf)
See the call and the remixes so far

Time Has Come for a Milwaukee Upgrade!

Upgrade! At a point in history when independent artists, collectives, galleries, and small arts organizations are struggling to see their way through this thickly choking economic smog, all the while acutely aware that the endeavors of some of their colleagues have been sadly lost forever, there are still a few discernible rays of hope in the form of a growing number of groups that place an emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration.

Locally, we’ve seen the establishment and continuing success of the creative/tech idea incubator Spreenkler and the foundation of the much anticipated artistic cross-pollinator RedLine Milwaukee, opening in July. In what may enable us to confidently call this a trend o’ our times, we can now happily welcome Upgrade! Milwaukee to our fair city by the Great Lake.

read more…