reminders
This Friday, a collaborative talk at the Museum of Wisconsin Art.
This Sunday, Maria Bolivar and Nadav Assor at MOCT.
See ya there!
pop culture
Archives
July 12 at MOCT: Upgrade! Milwaukee presents Nadav Assor (Israel) and Maria Bolivar (Venezuela)
More information: http://digiwaukee.net/upgrade
Upgrade! Milwaukee presents Nadav Assor and Maria Bolivar!
Sunday July 12, 7 – 9 PM
MOCT, 240 E Pittsburgh Ave
Milwaukee, WI 53204
Please come to the second Upgrade! Milwaukee, featuring Nadav Assor (Israel) and Maria Bolivar (Venezuela)!
Nadav Assor, Tunneling (performance)
On Nadav Assor (who was the founder of Upgrade! Tel Aviv):
“I am greatly interested in theories and explorations of urban architectural, emotional and ideological sub-structures. One tactic I use in exposing and reshaping the structures around me is digitization, in the sense of reduction to a primal, reconfigurable matter. The transformed digital matter is recast into its original context, physically manipulated in an ongoing live process that ranges from the absurd to the violent. The outcome often presents various transgressions or inversions of the technological, socio-political structures that served as a starting point. Many of the mechanisms inherent in my work require palpable, physical effort or struggle to manipulate, thus exposing the constant friction between body and media. I do not want my devices to ‘run smoothly’.
My work has been shown in Berlin, Chicago, and in many Israeli venues, including several showings at the Israeli Center for Digital Art, the C.Sides International electronic media festival, the Laptopia festival, the Center for Contemporary Art in Tel-Aviv, The Haifa and Bat Yam Museums and more. I have received a 2006 Leumi (the Israeli national bank) award for excellence in the arts.
I am currently pursuing my MFA with full fellowship in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.”
Maria Bolivar @ UWM
Maria Bolivar was born in Caracas, Venezuela. She was significantly influenced by her father, Cesar Bolivar, who is a well-known film director in Latin America. After attending the most important design academy in Venezuela: El Instituto de Diseño de Caracas, Maria spent three years as a professional designer. Due to the violence and her involvement in the 2002 National Strike in Venezuela, Maria was forced to come to Milwaukee where she received her BFA in communication design from the Institute of Art and Design (MIAD) in 2006. Maria is currently pursuing a Master’s of Fine Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee with an intermedia focus.
Hope to see you there!
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Upgrade! Milwaukee is a regular gathering of digital creatives – artists, musicians, performers, writers, curators and the public – that fosters dialogue and creates opportunities for collaboration within the local new media community. It features 1-3 guest speakers at each event, held at a rotating venue: informal, free, and open to all. We welcome suggestions for speakers, panels or gatherings. Upgrade! Milwaukee will continue to grow as a local node within the global Upgrade! International (UI) network.
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Upgrade! is an international, emerging network of autonomous nodes united by art, technology, and a commitment to bridging cultural divides. Its decentralized, non-hierarchical structure ensures that Upgrade! (i) operates according to local interests and their available resources; and (ii) reflects current creative engagement with cutting edge technologies. While individual nodes present new media projects, engage in informal critique, and foster dialogue and collaboration between individual artists, Upgrade! International functions as an online, global network that gathers in different cities to meet one another, showcase local art, and work on the agenda for the following year. There are currently over 30 nodes in UI, across North and South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Second Life.
Archives
Deconstructing Wikipedia
Mary Louise Schumacher pens a great piece on Wikipedia Art in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, entitled Deconstructing Wikipedia. Snippet:
Two artists staged an art intervention within Wikipedia, turning the “free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit” into an art medium.
By making a sort of readymade art object from a Wikipedia page, Nathaniel Stern, of Milwaukee, and Scott Kildall, of San Francisco, have challenged the conventions of art in a way that doesn’t happen everyday.
The wikiwar that’s erupted is not unlike the outrage inspired by Marcel Duchamp‘s urinal or Andy Warhol‘s Brillo Boxes.
“Wikipedia Art” was, to the artists’ minds, both an artwork and a legitimate Wikipedia page.
And just for fun:
A Disclaimer
Archives
NYFA Current – Art News for artists and all those who support them
Great article on new directions in the art world – written by Hrag Vartanian, as coverage of a Jerry Saltz lecture – in NYFA.
NYFA Current – Art News for artists and all those who support them
Moneyquote:
The new art world, he conjectured, will be something we won’t recognize, and will be dominated by names that we don’t know today. This transformation may require new styles, approaches, and people rewriting the rules of art and how it is consumed. If the old art world order was controlled by the academy of insular curators and the decadent market hunger for polished trinkets, this brave new world is probably going to be something else entirely. Saltz, in his best American democratic rhetoric, seemed to advocate for an art world that embraces the plurality of the world and recognizes the importance of art beyond a financial investment. “The problem with the art market,†Saltz said returning to the Titanic metaphor “was that we were all in the same boat.†We can only hope that this future art world would probably look like a massive fleet of modest-sized ships, rather than one ill-fated luxury ocean liner.
Archives
Wikipedia Art madness
You probably heard about the threat of a lawsuit from Wikimedia on Wikipedia Art by now, but just in case:
Here’s how we went public, on EFF:
Wikipedia Threatens Artists for Fair Use
Here’s the legal history on our site.
And it exploded, of course, when it got slashdotted.
I urge readers to make their own judgments via the legal history – especially the correspondence that followed their initial letter – rather than taking Wikimedia counsel at their word about the gentleness of their approach to us regarding this issue.
A few more reads on…
Ars Technica
Free Culture News
NeoSeeker
Geniosity
TechDirt
And there’s much more out there now. This piece was always meant to be formed by the public, made through writing and citation, activation and feedback. It’s turning out to be quite a performance.
Archives
Art Connect
Implicit Art gets a thoughtful and good review on Art Connect. It’s rare to see so much time taken to reflect what makes a good blog, or a good art site, and this space does both. Check it.