Compressionism

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14 May 2008 by nathaniel

friend of the summit

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a huge supporter of Creative Commons (CC), and more specifically iCommons. The former is an organization dedicated to open source coding and content for creative technologists, designers, artists, musicians, scientists (and more!), and promotes access and re-mixing through distribution licenses that are alternatives to copyright worldwide. The latter (iCommons) is an international community of the same types, all of whom may use or promote CC, copyfight, pirated content/material for activism and/or art, remixing and reusing legally and illegally, or anything around “the commons” of content and community; this is mostly manifested as a yearly summit of amazing individuals talking about and furthering the state of the (communal) arts (and the community itself).

In 2006 and 2007, I participated as an artist in resident (AIR) for iCommons (in Brazil and Croatia, respectively), and in the latter year I ran a larger AIR programme, where there were 6 interdisciplinary artists (and one arts critic!) from 4 continents. Although I’m sitting out this year (Sapporo!), I’m still a friend, as evidenced by the logo/link below and in my sidebar.

I highly recommend checking it out and getting involved – my life, art, networks and activist tendencies are better having been involved, and I’m sure to be participating again in the future.

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23 April 2008 by nathaniel

window: fragments and the image of the week

Haydn Shaughnessy gives a little teaser / preview of his Fragments project today and features my work. For some reason, he put up a tiny image, so here’s a close-up:

window, 8×10 inches, lambda print on metallic paper, edition 100
Window, 8×10 inches, lambda print on metallic paper, edition 100

Saving this for the web unfortunately managed to dull the colors a bit – the blues and reds are wonderfully startling with the real thing. I’m very happy with the project generally; it’s the first time I’ve produced “artist affordable” archival art (€40 / $65 each!). Haydn explains the project, in which he solicits artists to re-work larger projects at the lower-priced editions of 100:

Basically Fragments is a project where I’ve asked artists to go back to a work and select a fragment that in some way typifies the larger work or has special resonance. This fragment is called Window and it is from a street scan called Cathedral by Nathaniel. We have some interesting artists lined up for Fragments more of which later when I’ll also get round to posting Cathedral.

Beat ya to it, buddy! Here’s the original work: Cathedral, lambda print on metallic paper, 20 x 36 inches, edition 5 (also with colors slightly dulled when saved for web, sadly):

Cathedral, lambda print on metallic paper, 20 x 36 inches, edition 5

I really like how the “fragments,” can be details, screen grabs, refigured pieces or collages – Haydn has some really great artists and art works lined up, and I can imagine them flying off the web/wall a set at a time once he launches next month. Keep a look out!

Both Window and Cathedral are part of my ongoing Compressionism series of prints.

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06 March 2008 by nathaniel

@ Nova Straaf Gallery on the SS Galaxy, Second Life

Ireland: Figure, Face, Home
Group show curated by Haydn Shaughnessy
Nova Straaf Gallery on the SS Galaxy, Second Life
opens Saturday 8th March 1- 3 pm SLT
til 31 March

For those not in the know: Nova Straaf Gallery is a gallery on a virtual cruise ship in SL!

sl-art-nathaniel.jpg
Haydn Shaughnessy / traveler Auer views Nathaniel Stern’s work at the Nova Straaf Gallery

Ireland: Figure, Face, Home is a virtual exhibition of works on display at Haydn Shaughnessy Gallery based in Kinsale, Co Cork. (www.galleryica.com). This group show is running at the Nova Straaf Gallery on the SS Galaxy, one of the most highly trafficked areas of Second Life, from Saturday 8th March to the end of the month.

Clare Greene uses the software programme paintbox to capture the fine outlines of her nudes against the background of atonal colour typical of paint programmes. In the process she has created a particularly Irish pop art, focused on the country’s recent quite public rejection of repressed sexuality.

Nathaniel Stern is an interactive installation artist who has created these performance scans of the Irish landscape especially for our gallery. Here you have new technology, the desktop scanner, giving us access to new images of the most painted landscape on earth. Stern’s performative scans and prints are attracting growing attention from serious collectors in Ireland.

Home is the theme of Dearbhail Connon’s oil on canvas work. We normally don’t work artists whose metier is traditional media. Our reasoning is simply that other galleries cater well for this work. In Dearbhail’s case we wanted to exhibit her spiritual search for home. IT fits well with the diversity of work around her.

EJ Carr is an internationally renowned photographer who has been living in Ireland since 2007. His Avalon series is a provocative attempt to capture an important part of history, the Arthurian Legends. In EJ’s work you see the faces of everyday people in and around Bantry, set against the backdrop of mythical Avalon, here in Ireland.

Claire Keating plays tricks with your perceptions For her Illusion series she worked with make-up artists to paint the faces of six models in the style of well known artists. We know from visitors to our gallery that people are often confused over whether they are really paintings or photographs..

Paul La Rocque is our second Irish pop art artist. Paul trawls the Internet for iconic images from around the world and combines them with images he captures from the streets of Cork. This series of icons combines Irish emblems with iconography from China and the USA and signals the arrival of Ireland on the world economic and cultural stage.
– Show quoted text –

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20 February 2008 by nathaniel

Contemporary Irish Art Society and a Birthday Blog (updated below)

sirens' dillisk, lambda print on metallic paper, 2007, 610 x 1200 mm, edition 5Haydn and I gave very brief talks to the the Contemporary Irish Art Society last night, about my recent print work for Art on Paper Gallery (South Africa) and Haydn Shaughnessy Gallery (Ireland and in Second Life). It was really fun to be with an audience who knew nothing of the technologies I normally use (they were so curious and interested when I showed them one of my interactive installations, stuttering, for example), but who could completely appreciate the trajectory coming from that work, and leading into my performative printmaking process. The most buzz from them came out of the art historical referential pieces, such as nude descension and nude descension II, or Joburg Boogie Woogie and Joburg’s Ghost, as well as the locally made works. The Society itself wound up buying sirens’ dillisk (shown right, and a detail is in the header of this blog), a piece produced in West Cork in the middle of last year. They often purchase Irish works that are later donated to museums, galleries, hospitals and other official bodies, so I’m curious to see where it winds up.

Tangentially, today is my blog’s 5th birthday. It’s gone through many refigurings, so I appreciate any and all who have been “with” me for any length of time, as well as newcomers to my work and occasional rants. This means MTAA also had a recent blog birthday – Tim, here’s your yearly reminder.

update: Haydn on his talk last night

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09 February 2008 by nathaniel

Lightwave 2008

lovid.jpg

LoVid gives one of their Hand-Cranked Luminescent Jewelery workshops

Dublin’s new Science Gallery kicked off with HUGE crowds last Friday, and hosted international stars (and a few newcomers) of the media art scene, including the likes of LoVid, Graffiti Research Lab, portable palace and many others (these are just the ones I saw speak at DATA and/or hung out with in my free time and while I was showing some of my Compressionist prints).

I’ve been to enough of these kinds of events/festivals/exhibitions to be able to call this one a resounding success, and I’m looking forward to some of the ideas I’ve already heard spinning about for next year. Well done, y’all – and great to catch up with some old NYC buds, so thanks for bringing them out, too :)

Archives

31 January 2008 by nathaniel

Catch of the day: Second Life’s new gallery

A little press from the Guardian’s art blog, here. Mark Hooper runs a bit cool on SL and its economy, but speaks positively about the gallery itself, and my and the other artists’ work. Snips:

 Three artists are showcasing their art in a new virtual gallery. But is this really the best place to see their work?

Ten Cubed gallery
The perfect art gallery? … a view of Second Life’s Ten Cubed gallery

I’ll be honest. My experience of Second Life is fairly limited. … So you’ll have to forgive me if I’m not as excited as some people about the launch of Ten Cubed, a new art gallery in Second Life, which goes live here today.

The gallery has been developed by Depo Consulting in association with Galleryica. Don’t get me wrong; it all looks very well designed. “Most virtual galleries are like your average website, poorly designed without any sense of optimising a visitor’s experience,” announced Depo CEO and creative director Peter Dunkley. “Ten Cubed has been designed by a professional architect to exploit fully the showcasing opportunities of the virtual medium.”

I’m sure he’s right. The inaugural show features the work of Chris Ashley, Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern, all interesting artists whose use of new technology makes them perfect for this sort of project….

So – nice design, nice publicity stunt. It’s made me check out the artists online anyway, via their own websites. Which is the only place I’d even contemplate buying their art.

The whole article.

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