Ireland Art | implicit art

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30 August 2007 by nathaniel

artsemerging 2.3 wordpress theme – customizable, and now widget compatible

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)

artsemerging wordpress theme screenshot

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)

Archives

21 August 2007 by nathaniel

Scenic Route, 2007

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….

Archives

05 August 2007 by nathaniel

performative digital prints

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).

Archives

17 July 2007 by nathaniel

the ‘market’

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 artâ€™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.

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22 June 2007 by nathaniel

DATA returns!

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…

Archives

07 June 2007 by nathaniel

on Art Fag City

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 didnâ€™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 Iâ€™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).