implicit art

Howdy all. If you remember, early last year I developed a new WordPress theme as part of the launch of SAartsEmerging.org - promoting and critiquing emerging South African artists. That site is now maintained by Bronwyn Lace and Rat Western, and you should keep an eye out for upcoming changes.

Given the popularity of this theme, I’ve decided to release a new, widget-compatible version, and you can expect all future releases to be maintained from this site. I believe the most beneficial aspect of this 2-column design is its easy customization. The zip file includes:

• new design, with different sidebars for posts, pages and single posts - these are now customizable using WordPress’ built-in widgets
• header and footer images using a detail of Nathaniel Stern’s Compressionist work
• layered Photoshop file to put in your own image; includes gradient, curved edges and “pre-cut” slices (and instructions)

Download the zip file. (open source CC/GPL)

As you can see, this blog now also uses the new artsemerging theme (with a “widgetized” sidebar - note that all changes happened in the WP interface - I needed no code in any of the php files to customize this), and this coincides with the announcement of some upcoming changes around here — as I concentrate on my PhD research and writing over the next year, blogging will again pick up pace, mostly concentrating on thoughts and works related to my dissertation topic. You’ll see texts (rants?) that intersect between performance studies, art, embodiment and technology, and eventually a re-design of this whole site to match my thesis (this, over the next 4-5 months). In the meanwhile, note that “nathaniel and the non-aggressive” is no more, and this blog is henceforth to be known as “implicit art.” Enjoy the theme, and the blog, and please let me know if you encounter any problems, in the comments section.

More soon!

(PS Technorati Wordpress and Theme)

Got some pix up on a flickr set of some new friends and their work from the “Organic Motion: Kinetic and Interactive Sculpture” 2-week workshop at the Anderson Ranch out by the Rockies, Colorado. A fun time, and I hope to make it back. Also, click below for a li’l YouTube video of my first kinetic sculpture (I welded! I forged! I chopped and sanded and shaped and worked with motors, gears, drives, shafts, etc!!! Woot!), titled per this blog post…. I probably won’t shoot to push it into a gallery, but many of the ideas brooding, and skills I’ve gathered, certainly will….

I went and updated the Compressionism documentation video a bit, and put it up on YouTube. These are performative prints made by strapping on a scanner, computer and battery pack, then traversing the landscape - sometimes printing digitally, other times transforming the images with hand-made / traditional techniques. The video shows some work, and how it was made, from my Call and Response solo show earlier this year; new digital work is now showing at Haydn Shaughnessy, and here are some new prints (both digital and traditional) I just finished producing for Art on Paper Gallery (Johannesburg).

Not to again mention Winkleman’s appearance on the US telly about the big Warhol sale a few weeks ago, but there are quite a few good reads about the art market on the web as of late. Not gonna list all the ones I’ve seen (one reason being that it’s not really a focus of mine), but I enjoyed quite a few, if for no other reason than their critical eyes on how “the market” effects production, what it means for art now and in the near future. A few:

The Reality of the Collector-Driven Art World (blog post, Ed Winkleman);
Bursting art’s bubble (The Times, South Africa);
The problem with a collector driven market (The Art Newspaper, NYC-based writer);
and shorter, and more outside (and contrary to a few of the points above), Is That a Hirst?, by newcomer Irish gallerist, Haydn Shaughnessy. I thought this last piece also went well with Haydn’s Irish Times article on Digital Art a few weeks ago: Beyond Art and Design.

The Dublin Art and Technology Association, originally founded by Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Nicky Gogan, was re-launched after a year-long hiatus, as as part of this year’s Darklight Festival, last night.

Featured works / artists included:

Paul Makepeace, a technologist who donates much of his income to artists, and encourages others who make decent cash to do the same (we love that); Blackletter.ie, self-publishing for Irish contemporary artists (has not yet reached its full potential, but already a fabulous resource, and I’ve watched it get better already in the short time I’ve been using it…); John Buckey and David Walker - The Kingdom, a 3D space akin to Second Life, but prettier and more art friendly; and Benjamin Gaulon, some of the coolest public art I’ve seen in a while, especially his de pong game, highly recommended by following the relevant links above.

Per usual, folks were invited to “bring your new videos, websites, works in progress!” but I had to jet home to help with the babe befre we got to that part… DATA is a great presentation, resource and discussion group - congrats to the organizers for breathing life into it again. Looking forward to more…

For those if you still unfamiliar with Paddy Johnson and her fabulous blog, artfagcity - “As relevant as Eric Fischl. New York art news, reviews and gossip” - WAKE UP. She’s clever, plugged in, and a great, honest critic with a sometimes snarky and sometimes generous attitude: as a writer should be.

And today, as part of her “Art Intercom” series for iCommons, a 2-part interview I did with Paddy features through her blog to (well, it’s all a little confusing, this whole my re-blogging a cross-blog/re-blog thing, so here’s what she says…):

I was travelling for most of yesterday so I didn’t have a chance to mention that my two part interview with new media artist Nathaniel Stern went up on the icommons blog yesterday. You can read the full discussion here and here, but I’ve included teasers from both interviews below since each part deals with different subject matter. In the first post Stern and I talk about his art work, and in the second, we touch upon how the concerns of the Creative Commons effect artists. Stern speaks with great eloquence on the subject, so our conversation is not to be missed!

Thanks Paddy! See the teasers on Paddy’s blog here (and put her site in your reader), or get the full length interview between here and here (and go ahead and grab the iCommons feed, too).

blossom on the dodder, 220 x 300mm (2007), nathaniel stern & angel shoreditch, 780 x 100 mm (2007) Paul La Rocque

My first Irish exhibition, a duo show entitled Landscapes and Icons, opened at the new Haydn Shaughnessy Gallery for Innovative Contemporary Artists in West Cork on Thursday evening, and it was a great party - drinks, food, 70 or so peops… I even convinced Ralph and a few others to drive out and join, which made for some friendly faces amidst a foreign crowd. I produced a dozen new Compressionist digital prints, which will likely travel to a bit of Europe with Haydn after the summer ends — will post some pics of the opening and more info when my life slows down a bit (may be a while), but click the link above for images, info, etc. Haydn is a rad guy and I hope to be working with him more in the future:

Haydn Shaughnessy Gallery, based in rural Cork, Ireland, specialises in contemporary art created through computing and allied technologies. The gallery’s artists share a common philosophy of using digital technology to encourage us to look again at the world around us.

This week, I’m prepping some new work for the iCommons Summit, residency and exhibition in Croatia and Second Life - which will be a video diptych (a new language lapse) as well as the first in a new site-specific series I’m tentatively calling ’sentimental constructions.’ Watch this space for more on both of those… Oh, and there will also be reciprocal interviews between me and Paddy Johnson (artfagcity) on the iCommons blog in the coming week or two :) Other Commons artists-in-res include Cao Fei (China), Joy Garnett (USA), Ana Husman (Croatia), Kathryn Smith (South Africa), Tim Whidden (representing MTAA, USA) and Jaka Železnikar (Slovenia).

Let’s see, I’m also presenting at a conference this Friday at UCD - ‘perpectives on the body and embodiment’ - in the philosophy department, so things are a bit crazed (can only go to one day of the proceedings, then I leave for Dubrovnik!)… Other exhibitions and residencies go on for the rest of the summer, both exciting and exhausting - plus visits back to both homes in SA and the USA (tho the latter is very brief, on route to a workshop/residency in Colorado) - before I buckle down again and start writing the PhD in Dublin in October. Check out the front page of the site for links to some of my planned hot spots.

More soon, likely from Croatia!

Haydn Shaughnessy Gallery (aka galleryICA - for Innovative Contemporary Artists) launches its website this week, and its first show (featuring me and Paul La Rocque) on 31 May:

We open at 6.30 pm but the party goes on for as long as you wish, downstairs in the Pink Elephant. The women of the chorus of Opera Cork will be there to sing and you can network among some of Cork’s business and art loving community.

More on that show when I have it, but you can get the gallery info and images via the links above. They specialize in artists engaging with technology, and are starting with editioned prints as a focus for this and the next show. Also affiliated with this new space, and showing in the early Fall (Dublin time) is Scott Kildall, aka the Great Escape (from Second Front, the SL performance group). If you don’t know his work, highly recommended (and many thanks to Sasha Harris-Cronin for the e-introduction!).

This past weekend, Haydn Shaughnessy (blogger and regular columnist for the Irish Times) invited me out to the beautiful countryside of West Cork to make some of my site-specific Compressionist prints; we hit the local pubs, beaches, foliage and his garden in order to produce new images. This new series, which also includes some scans from Dublin excursions, will be exhibited at his new Cork-based gallery, opening at the end of next month (along with a few images from my last show in Johannesburg), as part of a duo show with Cork-based, Canadian printmaker Paul LaRocque — my first exhibition in Ireland. Plans are that it’ll travel to Dublin, Amsterdam, maybe elsewhere, too, so I’ll post more images and info as the details pan out over the next while.

sirens’ dillisk, 2007, 610 x 1200 mm lambda print on metallic paper, edition 5

scanning the cliffs and beaches at garrettstown strand, west cork
photo by Haydn Shaughnessy

Oh, and how serendipitous, my little documentary on Compressionist prints was featured on DVblog yesterday! Rock.

Compressionism is a “digital performance and analog archive,” where I traverse bodies, spaces and objects with my scanner face, while its head is in motion. After being Compressed into digital images the size of a small sheet of paper, the files are stretched, cropped and colored by hand, then printed as editioned, archival works. Compressionism is an exploration of media and perception, a transfiguration in time and seeing.