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05 October 2005 by nathaniel

art in JHB and GHT

First off, big ups and big welcomes to AJ Venter, the newest guest blogger on this site. You can catch him, and the occasional post from me (from now on) over at silent coder.

So, this week/end I’m going to be missing a lot of great art and openings. I’ll catch them on the flip, but I thought I’d give y’all the heads up for JHB…

  • VANSA (Visual Arts Network of South Africa) show opened at The Premises last Saturday
  • Ian Waldeck opened at Gordart last Sunday
  • Angus Taylor opened at ArtSpace last Sunday
  • Tonight, new student piece choreographed by Athena Mazarakis opens at Wits. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Athena is probably the most underrated physical theatre director in South Africa
  • Thursday at WITS, Richard Kilpert will be conducting a talk and a slide show of his experience of this year’s IMPACT printmaking conference in Berlin and Poland. (thanks to Jill, over at David Krut, for this) — Appollonia room, Main WSOA, at 12 noon (thanks to Colleen Alborough for further details)
    note: latest word on the street is that this talk has been postponed until 20 Oct, 12:30 – will re-post then
  • Thursday 6 October, 18h00 at Gallery MOMO is a Marco Cianfanelli solo show; he is a beautiful sculptor and fellow major award winner at the Brett Kebble Art Awards, 2004.
  • Friday 7 October, 18h00 at Franchise Gallery, 44 Stanley, is SURFACE, a group show with works by Luan Nel, Virginia MacKenny, Moshekwa Langa, Dorothee Kreutzfeldt, Trasi Henen and Dineo Bopape; this is gonna be H-O-T

And why am I missing all of this? Because I’ll be in Grahamstown giving this talk on interactive video:

The Interactive Video Landscape
Three hour lecture/presentation
Fri: 7th Oct 2005. 2:00 – 5:00pm
Fine Art Dept Lecture Theatre (Painting & Sculpture Building, Upper Rhodes Campus)
ALL WELCOME

This lecture, discussion and demo will survey the interactive video landscape in 2005, and the pioneers who led up to it. We’Äôll take a look at the likes of David Rokeby, Camille Utterback, Golan Levin and others like them over the last 20 years – all artists working with technology and the body. During our time together, we’Äôll also see what kinds of tools are available for potential VJs, artists and musicians who want to produce interactive installations or multimedia performances. Finally, we’Äôll break down, conceptually, how someone might achieve body-tracking, motion tracking or proximity sensing with a simple web cam, and take a quick look at ’Äújitter’Äù (a very popular interactive video development environment for artists), and some projects made with it.

If in GHT, tell your friends. It’ll be followed by a two-day advanced workshop on interactive video (using Jitter), but I’m pretty sure that’s invite only – for members of the Studio for Interactive Sound (yay, Toni Olivier!) and the fine arts department staff (who will hopefully pass it on to students).

next blog (probably) from Grahamstown!

Archives

23 September 2005 by nathaniel

(so tired and) I want my MTAA

I’ve been having a bit of trouble sleeping lately, so sorry for the silence. Admittedly, am also psyched to have more than one guest blogger, and was hoping I would not have to post as much (lazy-boy) to keep my public happy (ha).

Spent some time being utterly WOWed at both David Goldblatt shows recently, and will write more about them later – in the meanwhile, go check them out at the Goodman Gallery and the Johannesburg Art Gallery, if you are in the area, and you will not be disappointed.

In other news, 2005’s Ars Electronica winners have been announced, and Rhizome is looking for membership fees again (not required but appreciated). I’m sure I’ll give something, but this makes me want to give $500 or more (Rhizome is handing over various art to first-come, first-serve hefty donors). Hell, I have trouble making a small donation as it is (tho rhizome rocks, so if you have the money you should donate), but this was such a good idea. And forgive my gushing, but methinks the duo that makes up MTAA is producing some of the most provocative new work around.

Great idea to give art, guys!

Archives

03 September 2005 by nathaniel

Halim and Pauline

Pauline Oliveros jamming in johannesburg

Well, I started my festival day by attending a workshop called The Expanded Instrument System, with electronic music pioneer Pauline Oliveros. For a frame of reference? She’s worked with the likes of David Tudor, Philip Glass, and John Cage in her time, and one of her favorite compositions involved 10 water bottle players, and 5 apple box players, in the sixties. Pauline was experimenting with loops, reverbs and delay well before most working musicians were born. At this workshop she told us a bit about her philosphies and styles, and used some software she’s been developing (shareware!) in Max/MSP.

And the coolest part? She’s extremely maternal and playful. When asked about musicians who dislike their sounds being changed so much, she simply responded, “Well, that’s ok. You either wanna play with me or you don’t. There’s room for more sandboxes.” When asked about non-musicans and how they work with her sounds, she said, “Well, after a while, people start to listen,” implying that when people listen, it’s the first step towards collaboration, play, making music and they can even “begin to improvise” their performance, represented sonically.

Halim El-Dabh was the big headline later that night; and what a sweetheart this guy is! He literally offered to compose music for the party if my wife and I wanted to marry again, and I spent about 30 mins just chatting away to him about his days as a farmer, and how had become an “international composer” overnight after playing with some wire recordings (and before that, he was neither international, nor a composer). The experimental to which I’m referring is circa 1944 (he playe dit alongside some recent work last night), and Halim is widely considered to be the first Electronic Composer (certainly the first African one, coming from Egypt).

Last night, Halim was collaborating with the likes of Blake Tyson, Pops Mohamed and some gymnasts on trampoline. But the real highlight was George Lewis doing some trippy trombone (pictured below, left – thanks Kaganof!). Man that was the highlight of the whole evening. Beautiful ambience that I never knew a trombone could produce.

And most of these dudes are cheeky, funny buggers ;)

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