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13 August 2006 by nathaniel

a transition (the rumors are true) – updated below

Sorry I have not been blogging much lately. Been a little turned off by complaints, busy with a newborn, and planning for a big move. Which brings me to this:

So, the rumors are true. I’ve been offered a fellowship to study in Dublin, and will be doing a PhD-by-research/production at Trinity College beginning October. My dissertation and artworks will carry on in the vein they always have, with a focus on the implicit body. Here’s the FAQ, so the rumor-mill doesn’t get too out of hand.

yes, my family is of course coming with me
yes, we are coming back – we have not sold our flat, and Nicole is applying for leave from Wits
yes, this is the same department and program that Cape Town artist Ralph Borland is studying in (tho our funding comes from different sources). We are great friends (studied together in New York), and have both been researching departments suitable for our work for a while now, all the while sharing our findings. We’re hoping to continue our collaborative teaching, as well as perhaps start some collaborative art projects, while overseas.
yes, this blog WILL change. Altho I’d love to have more guest bloggers writing about the scene here in Jozi, I can’t help it if no one bites, and won’t be able to do much from Dublin. I’ll do my best to promote SA art there, and will cover any I see in Europe, as well as happily post any SA writings sent my way. I do not know what kind of life I’ll have in Dublin yet, so certainly don’t know what kind of blog I’ll have. Still, my research and art will be my top priorities, so expect less on this site until we return
yes, I’ll still be connected to SA. I already have a show booked for January in Joburg (and am coming back for it), and have another trip planned to be here in September. I hope to travel said exhibition to Cape Town in ’08 if possible, and/or will book another exhibition in Joburg, of newer work. I’m also planning to participate in group shows – Johannesburg is one of the only two places I have ever called home (the other being New York).
yes, atjoburg and SAarts will carry on. The former, along with The Upgrade! Johannesburg, will be run by co-founder Christo Doherty (tho I will consult from afar). The latter will carry on as it has, on a submission basis but edited and run by myself, Simon Gush and Bronwyn Lace.
Surprisingly, a few people have asked me about my Wits teaching, and thought I was "leaving my post." Altho I still occasionally do workshops there, and I helped design the Interactive Arts MA and was its core part-time lecturer for 3 years, I have never been there full-time (or half-time, or with any title), and left the core lecturer part-time job in 2005. As an aside – and just to be clear – Christo (Head of Digital Arts) and I are on more than excellent terms as colleagues and friends (his recommendation helped greatly with my application to Trinity, and we’re planning to do some traveling together in Europe when he’s on leave in the second half of next year), and I hope to be involved with the department again on my return.
update. We expect to be in situ in Ireland for about two years. My funding is for three, but my supervisor has agreed to let me finish up the dissertation at a distance, allowing Nicole to get back to work, and me more time and space to write in SA while getting back into its rhythm…

Let me know if you have any questions or whatever, but please also wish us luck! We leave on 25 October.

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13 August 2006 by nathaniel

the shooting gallery

via site:

a digital ceremony for a war photographer

Literary cult figure and pioneering digital filmmaker, Aryan Kaganof joins Catherine Henegan, Amsterdam based multi-disciplinary artist, for a gripping performance about a war photographer and an insatiable media machine. Also included in the team is James Webb, internationally renowned electronic sound artist who has created an audio landscape for the performance….

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08 August 2006 by nathaniel

the mac pro xeon 64-bit workstation

And, as suspected, the new Apple Mac Pro desktop premiered and was released this week at the WWDC (World Wide Development Conference). Oh, it’s a beauty (check it out here). We all knew that she’d have to be a quad-core, with speeds at least more than that of a G5; and Apple came through. The surprise, however, is that they managed to stick to a 64-bit processor, as well as going with speeds of up to 3.0GHz and 16GB of RAM. Yowza! This probably means that Intel will succeed where IBM failed, and we can expect to see 64-bit model laptops sometime in the (hopefully near, but not too near – since I just bought a MacBook Pro) future.

I await clock speeds ;)

PS – Check out previews of Leopard (more African names!), the next Mac OS (due for release American Spring ’07) here.

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30 July 2006 by nathaniel

ismail farouk and the parking gallery

JHB626GP, on the parking gallery roof. Photo by Christo Doherty
^{JHB626GP, on the parking gallery roof. Photo by Christo Doherty}

JHB626GP, Ismail Farouk’s solo exhibition of a video produced for the Venice architectural biennale and photographs shot of a burning house in Ellis Park, was an amazing testament to the urbane provocations alive and well in downtown johannesburg. Between a great SAarts article by Rat Western and Matthew Krouse’s interview in the M&G, a lot has already been said recently about this entertainer / artist – I highly recommend both of these pieces, and won’t repeat their content here. I will say that his evocative and emotive images resounded with a plea to look again and work at our country, while his stylistic video (I could admittedly have done without the Mendoza track in the sound, but rumour has it that the British producers insisted, believing it to be more ‘authentically’ South African) portrayed a sympathetic but vibrant rhythm to our city.

I am biased, without doubt, but I also think this show concretizes Simon Gush as one of SA’s rising gallerist stars. His experience as an exhibition hanger, dabbling with curatorship, and artistic sensibilities – as well as an innate fearlessness around risks and complex set-ups – helped to create the perfect spaces for Farouk’s cityworks.

Best show I’ve been to in a long while. Congratulations to Ismail, Simon, Rat and Max. (And to Lindsay Bremner, for a great opening speech – a textured and inviting mediation in under 5 minutes, as an opening text should be…. And that was the most unpretentious use of Deleuze I’ve ever heard…. She and Farouk are the leftmost peops in the pic below. Oh, and many thanks to Christo Doherty for the use of his beautiful photos.)

^{Lindsay Bremner and Ismail Farouk, left, in front of the latter’s images at his solo exhibition.
Parking Gallery, Johannesburg. Photo by Christo Doherty}

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25 July 2006 by nathaniel

the Upgrade! Johannesburg and the Wits Digital Soiree present: Catherine Henegan

shooting gallery

the Upgrade! Johannesburg and the Wits Digital Soiree present: Catherine Henegan
Dada goes digital – Media Art in a Theatrical Space

Amsterdam-based multi-disciplinary artist, Catherine Henegan, is the director of The Shooting Gallery, the controversial performance/media art work currently showing at The Market Theatre. Aided by a computer and a projection screen, Catherine is also a performer in the work, editing live content from the Internet into the performance by Aryan Kaganof and against the sound design by James Webb. In this way she tracks in real time the way media constructs and reconstructs news and fiction. She will talk about her approach to the design and direction of this challenging multimedia production.

Images available at:
http://www.the-shootinggallery.com
http://kaganof.com/kagablog/category/the-shooting-gallery/

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19 July 2006 by nathaniel

ABSA (updated below)

^{Ruth Sacks (image from joaoferreiragallery.com)}^{Photographic documentation of Don’t Panic, 21 March 2005, Skywrite, Cape Town CBD, approx. 2 X 18 km. Photo: Mario Todeschini}

For those who haven’t heard, last night’s ABSA L’Atelier went to a deserving Ruth Sacks, who showed video documentation of her clever and beautiful piece, Don’t Panic. From joaoferreiragallery.com:

On Human Right’s Day, March 21 (2005), she paid a pilot to write the words ‘Don’t panic’ in the sky over the Cape Town city bowl. The ‘don’t’ blew away long before the ‘panic’ did.

A mostly strong and diverse show, where merit prize winners include Nathani Luneburg (video), Riason Naidoo (video), Anet Norval (mixed media), James Webb (print that doubles as documentation for a site-specific installation) and Nomusa Mary Makhubu (polyptych of four digital prints that took the Gerard Sekoto prize). On the one hand, I think the awards should be applauded for their recognition of conceptual and new media work – both Webb and Sacks exhibited minimalist art that coupled as documentation for (beautifully executed, IMNSHO) larger-scale interventions already accomplished, and there were several video pieces in the top ten finalists. On the other, it was a bit of a coup for the priveleged – ABSA does not provide equipment for its participants, as the Kebbles used to. (My art "career," for example, basically started thanks to the Kebbles’ recognition of work they had provided the necessary gadgets for, and I still only put prints in other competitions, given lack of such support – contrary to popular belief, I can’t afford to buy my own equipment most of the time, and certainly can’t afford to buy it then lose it for ages. Most media art producers are in the same boat.) This means that our video peops had to provide their own projectors, players and / or screens for about 6 months while decisions were being made – not to mention the site-specific pieces’ probable cost and support needed from the artists and/or third parties. From what I can tell, there were less than a dozen video entries in total, so the fact that so many were awarded makes a statement to both sides of this argument – both ABSA’s committment to recognize, and their lack of support for, new media and large-scale work.

I suppose that the awards have erred on the side of rewarding more "continental" (note intentional euphemism, denoted by quotation marks) art, historically (thus their reasoning behind the Gerard Sekoto prize – for a bit of balance). My own tastes are probably in line with theirs, so I won’t go off on destructive tangents, but given their proclamation of being "the oldest and biggest" competition in SA – with the absence of the Kebbles – perhaps it’s time to offer provisions to those working with advanced media?

Update: just had a glance at the catalogue, and they put my work in it upside down, and said I went to ‘Trisch’ School of the Arts for my Masters. I had a good laugh.