reviews | implicit art

Turbulence and Gavin Jantjes

^{helen thorington of turbulence.org @ upgrade! johannesburg showing off net.art commissions: Shape of Song by Martin Wattenberg (that’s Jo Green on the far right, too)}

Yesterday was probably the most crowded and exciting, diverse and collaborative, Soiree / Upgrade! event Johannesburg has ever seen. There to hear a kind of biased history of net.art from turbulence, and to briefly learn about Gavin Jantjes’ plans for Trans Cape, the audience ranged from WSOA and Digital Arts students, to top-notch and rising-star artists; we had a full house! Most pleasing was the engaging and intellectual/curious dialogue that progressed, including potential collaborative links made between, not only our two presenters(!), but also most orgs and artists who wanted to be involved in future. Turb’s talk went through, among others, the following works (in chronological order, both historically and in their talk – from 1996 – 2006!):

^{helen thorington of turbulence.org @ upgrade! johannesburg showing off net.art commissions: SMS-Tokyo (Stop Motion Studies) by David Crawford}

turbulence.org – the net.art commissioning hub
networked_performance blog – Millions of visitors monthly, one of the best new media art blogs around
Grimm Tale: Chapter 7 and Grimm Tale: Chapter 10 – their first ever commissioned net.art, by my grad supervisor at ITP, Marianne Petit!
Snuff – early interactive java art that pulled content from live sites
FT2K – quirky "promise of a greater tomorrow" type net.art
Radio Stare – Beautiful, linear, non-narrative piece that pulled from live police frequency streams for its soundtrack; note that some technology on this piece is obsolete and therefore no longer working
Solitaire – random narrative constructions
Culture Map – clever mapping of how we surfed aol and yahoo! back in the day
Imprimatur – make a poster through the web, and print it offline
Shape of Song – beautiful and clever look at visualizations of popular and historical music
Secret Lives of Numbers – Golan Levin’s infamous work that charts the popularity/use of all numbers online – from zero to one million
Data Diaries – Cory Arcangel converts his RAM into video
SMS-Tokyo [1] [2] – gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous stop motion studies on subway trains in Tokyo
1 Year Performance Video – MTAA’s brilliant Sam Hsieh update that I have written about extensively on this site
<event> – slowed down and mediated news to "look at"
Tap Evol-The Setup – interactive, evolutionary visual applet that pulls from a database of tiny movies to produce odd moving imagery on the fly
IN Network – long distance relationship via a blog and podcast
Grafik Dynamo – live blog feeds creating a dynamic Lichtenstein-like panel comic strip; the images and text are a web zeitgeist!

And the list goes on… Discussion ranged from interrogations of performance, art and activism, to questions about access, influence, and surfing habits.

^{Gavin Jantjes presenting Trans Cape}

This was actually a great transition into Gavin’s presentation of his plans for what has come to be known as the kind of new mega-exhibition of South Africa, due up this September. From the sound of it, he’s very interested in focusing on the African diaspora, contemporary African art, education and involvement of local communities, and empowerment through knowledge and creativity. Keep up to date, here. More to come….

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03 April 2006 by nathaniel

The Daily Chronicles

OK, so it’s about day 6 of no phone or internet (re: telkom sucks… Given my lifestyle, I feel like my legs have been cut off), and the Gods of Good Fortune have decided that to make up for those losses, they should also cut off my electricity.

I sh!t you not.

Sigh.

The life of a mediocre blogger can sometimes be Oh So Difficult. I’m taking an hour (or so) out of my morning now to do a bit of blog n’ surf catch-up from Colleen Alborough’s house (she’s away, but I can steal her wireless bandwidth). Thanks, Coll.

^{Jeff Koons and The New Jeff Koons}

Like most of the Joburg art scene, I hit up the Jeff Koons talk last Thursday (tho I had to leave early to see the OBGYN about the B-A-B-Y – 7 more weeks til my life changes forever!). A very inspired talk, with its high and low points and tidbits that made us all laugh or feel uncomfortable or just want to pick the artist’s brain. I think the most amazing part was just how calculated everything he said and did was. Here’s this super sweet ex-pornstar-art King of Kitsch wavering between being about acceptance and tolerance and asking the world for change, and talking about Golden Showers and Ass Pimples. His presentation was more like subversive performance art on a platter for a jaded art world that thinks it "knows him." Very clever chap, that Jeff.

^{Me and Jill Ross working on a Compressionist engraving and lithograph, respectively, at David Krut}

I spent most of Saturday morning, afternoon and night at David Krut, working with Richard Kilpert and Jill Ross on the next iteration of Compressionism. We’re taking some of the works I had printed as lambdas from the series, and turning them into more traditional prints. We started with a polyester plate to make line drawing versions of one of the works (Wet Calla Leaves, drawing here), and ‘that’s me in the corner’ working on a hand engraving of a detail from Emmarentia Lilies (part of a triptych). I’ll be sure to post some stuff to flickr and Rhizome when I have more than one edition done…

^{Bronwyn Lace in front of about 4000 origami for her Outlet exhibition in Pretoria}

Took a break from Krut in the late afternoon / early evening and head out to Pretoria to see Bronwyn Lace’s work at Outlet. A simple and beautiful exhibition that makes you feel small, I recommend hitting up that link there for some info on her work; we still await a guest blog from Bron on her show at KZNSA last month. Hint, Bron.

^{James Webb, Marcus Neustetter, Mikhael Subotzky}

I took most of Sunday off (worked on a proposal for Rhizome for a bit), but did hang out with Marcus Neustetter for an ice cream at Zoo Lake (plus ran a few art errands with him), so got to see James Webb and meet Mikhael Subotzky briefly, while they’re here. It made me feel like a super cool uber artist for about a minute. Mikhael agreed that his prints need frames.

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28 March 2006 by nathaniel

the Jill Ross @ David Krut hook-up

jill ross in front of a colbert mashile print @ david krut

Been chillin’ wit JR and RK (Richard Kilpert) at David Krut’s studio as of late, working on translating some of the Compressionist images into more traditional prints – looking towards using things like silk screen, lithography, engraving and etching. You can check out one preliminary experiment over at the kagablog (I just started the occasional art post over there – thanks, Kags!). Am very excited about this work – RK and JR are inspired!

Gotta mention there’s some nice work by Colbert Mashile o’er thar (Krut) – and that his painting also sold for a ‘nice price’ at the Beeldspraak benefit auction. Worth a shout out or three. The pic is Jill in front of an unintentionally reflective (no pun intended) Mashile print….

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27 March 2006 by nathaniel

interview with Michael Szpakowski and feature on Doung Anwar Jahangeer

There’s a nice interview with Michael Szpakowski on the front page of Rhizome today, conducted by yours truly. It starts:

Michael Szpakowski has spent the last 30 years collaborating across varying theatrical, visual, sonic, and digital media. His vlog, "Scenes of Provincial Life," was recently featured on Rhizome’s Net Art News. Rhizome is our shared community that he claims literally changed his life. We had an e-conversation about his work, philosophies, and interests. read on…

While I’m kicking it to other artists, I forgot to mention the new SAartsEmerging feature on Doung Anwar Jahangeer. A very interesting cat, he’s got a show he co-curated on at the JAG right now. The piece is written by me, Simon Gush and Bronwyn Lace – altogether now ;) Begins something like:

A kind of cultural chameleon of difficult-to-place origins, Doung’s ‘art-work’ is more like a long-term social project that asks us to look again at our preconceptions, stereo-types, and interpersonal relations. Obviously idealistic, a walk through Doung’s efforts is an invitation to believe; it may sound overly-sentimental, seem futile, or even appear condescending at points, but his optimism and faith in humanity are utterly infectious, and his project is more than a gesture towards empowerment: it works. read on…

W00+

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20 March 2006 by nathaniel

Andre SC’s take on Compressionism

There’s been a cross-blogging comment buzz between myself and Andre SC (fellow Jo’burger Andre Clemens – that link is to his prints in discussion) as of late, since he picked up on my Compressionist movement. Trained in information theory and design, Andre has been crossing over into the fine art realm as of late – beginning with his PornAgain and NetPorn series (some featured at GordArt), and now working with ‘Search Engine Compressionism‘. Beautiful and interesting stuff, created using experimental, generative, iterative and sometimes performative algorithms (mixed with aesthetic decision-making here and there).

We’re talking about a live-ish generative net.art collaboration, potentially. Watch this space….
^{Left: Andre SC: Search our Family Photos}

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17 March 2006 by nathaniel

ABSA and Gordart

Stephan Erasmus – tree of sorrows (detail)

My flickr has some nice photos of Vusi Beauchamp and Eric Rintisi at gordart (who promise a new website soon), as well as two of my fave works from the ABSA L’Atelier (joburg entries). I think a good compromise between both spaces was to show an image of this clever piece by Stephan Erasmus, who works at the former and is a finalist in the latter.

I was not too excited by what I saw of the L’Atelier when I first dropped off my work for the competition, but once hung and selected, I can see that it really is an interesting and impressive show of young artists, and await seeing it when we bring the rest of the country’s finalists to Jozi.

I just hope this year’s winner is more impressive and surprising than last year’s (meow!)….