implicit art

belated re-blog about upcoming Top Billing feature:

Artists, celebrities, fashionistas, various creative types and practically anyone swarmed to The pre-Crapalite opening at David Krut Projects this past weekend. Artists Johan Engels and Robert Whitehead have transformed the space into their own pre-Crapalite universe that includes various flamboyant installations; their combined Tele-Pathetic Conception; Engels’ extraordinary Word of Mouth cover designs; Whitehead’s enigmatic monotypes and range of limited edition prints and art works. The enormous crowd that gathered at David Krut Projects on Saturday appeared to be overwhelmed not only by the art works but also by the theatrical antics that were arranged by the pre-Crapalite duo. Such antics included “Daphne de la Rey” perched on a strawberry-decorated pedestal with an outfit to match at the entrance to the space; opening presentations by both Grethe Fox and The Right Honourable Pamela, The Lady Harlech and custom-made hors d’œuvre designed by the pre-Crapalites themselves.

For those that missed the event or are fascinated by this creative duo, The pre-Crapalites will feature on Top Billing Thursday the 28th of June at 19:30 on SABC 3

(more…)

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…

Tom Moody defends Sentimental Construction #1 after Paddy Johnson’s initial slate. Although I tend to take criticism well, and Paddy and I are “still friends” (we met through professional channels, and now I like to think of us as such), I was very pleased to see my name on Tom’s channel in my RSS reader, and I’m a little less mopey about the initial bad review - what with Tom’s taking her to task. (Intellectual Property Spokesperson Tom Chance also had good things to say on the iCommons site, but it means more to me coming from an artist, and on an arts blog I read / like.) Above are better pics of the installation view than Tom (Moody) managed to find (he was just looking in the wrong place - it was on my camera, rather than online anywhere…), and there are direct links to the video and images on the lower right, here.

(Here are another set of parentheses, just to drive home the point that I think in little node-like bubbles.)

Opening went really well last night in Dubrovnik (still open for 2 days if you missed it)! There are a constant stream of pictures on flickr from the iCommons Air stream, as well as write-ups (more coming) on the iCommons site (we love you Paddy). Great turn out and response, and several net stars made the artists giddy (Jimmy Wales, for example, writing “edit this art” in chalk on Joy’s mural).

While this was going on, Sitearm Madonna and Cory (Linden) were finishing up the SL build for that iteration of the exhibition (mostly live now), and M.River, the other half of our AiR team MTAA, is in NYC re-mixing the photo stream, live (check out his copyright story on that here).

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!

Gearing up for an Artist Residency in Croatia, before and at (as an exhibition) the iCommons Summit ‘07. Artists / art bloggers include: myself, Paddy Johnson , Joy Garnett, Ana Husman, Kathryn Smith, MTAA, Jaka Železnikar. There will be simultaneous exhibitions, live feeds, and interactions in Second Life, so we’ve got a front page feature in the Metaverse Messenger this week. Direct download of the magazine here (PDF, just under 6MBs).

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!).

Hey All:

Been in Wales at this conference over the last 5 days or so, and lots has happened in the world since then, so this’ll be a kind of ranty catch-up of random and, depending on who you are and what you like, potentially unimportant things. Nicole and my presentations went pretty well, thanks for thinking of us - I’ll be posting a draft of the paper on implicitbody.net in the coming weeks; most important to me, got some great feedback on where to go from here with the dissertation. And I think Nicole is feeling good about the new directions in her own research. In no particular order:

New South African Art blogs: art matters and midnight kitchen. The former is anonymous and the latter is Rat Western - both are based in Joburg and both seem to be pretty good so far. I am ambiguous about anonymity, given I’m not sure what they are protecting themselves from and, at least with Robert Sloon, it feels like a faux humbleness (everyone knows who he is in “real life” - even tho no one knew who he was before the blog - and he’s more than willing to appear at exhibitions all over the world - mostly to exhibit himself…). What are the reasons, the real reasons, for anonymity in this case? All that said, glad to have more writing on SA art online, especially in joburg - go for it, “Jane” and Rat. Opposed to the former (or at least what she implied on her first post), I think we do need more “irreverent bloggers.” (Tho I question her judgment of “Art Heat’s … frank reportage sans pretension”; I appreciate Art Heat as much as the next guy  - and featured them on my site, and in Contempo, very early on - but until recently you had to wade through so much crap just to get any content at all; it was mostly/only about the Michaelis Clique and its inner-workings….) While I’m at it, SAartsEmerging features MTkidu this month.

Also new online: the networked music review blog, a new one by turbulence; nice piece on Red Burns and my alma mater, ITP, also known as the Harvard of Interactive (in the NY Times; the latter is an older piece from Newsweek)… New MTAA Commons Art Diagram for their iCommons Residence and also a 2-part interview on AFC (1 and 2). New Artthrob up - my fave articles include: thoughtful piece by Tavish McIntosh about Afterlife at Michael Stevenson; Sue Williamson on Gimberg/Nerf/Sacks/Young; Zachary Yorke reviews the companion book to this show, which sounds great and I hope to see it soon - I wonder if mine is the only artwork (as opposed to essay) in the book, or just the only one he mentioned; Michael Smith interviews Anthea Moys and Juliana Smith; finally, Ed Young reviews the Afterlife book, and as usual makes it more about himself than the “book,” but I think this may be the must read of this issue.

I like that most of this post was dedicated to SA Art. I may have something to say about some of the papers in Wales later. Day off today. More soon.

Not sure when I missed this, but it seems that South Africa’s premiere (and apparently accredited) contemporary art mag (um, only printed contemporary art mag, really, tho there are more and more “lifestyle” mags that do some art and design) now has most of its issues and articles online - including the ability to comment! - plus a blog-ish feed of announcements, a few articles and exhibition openings. The RSS seems a bit publish-happy, and I’ve only just added it to my reader (so am not sure if all the new articles from the actual mag go there as they’re finished, or if they are just announced all at once), but it’s a pretty great resource, and you can bet I’ll be starting to read and link online beginning with the next ish. It’s GREAT that there is another serious, mostly online publication for contemporary SA art (the other being artthrob), and it’s very smart of them do to this; my guess is it’ll increase international interest from advertisers, as well as readership, and more and more artists will be linking to their articles, helping sales, ads, the rest of it (not to mention the fact that their galleries represent many of the hot names in the mag’s pages, just in case you didn’t know). And although I don’t know the peops over there very well, I’d be willing to guess they had a bit of wanting to help prop up SA art in general as part of the plan. Rock on you guys.

Check it out: Art South Africa (rss feed on the right of the menu).