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01 May 2006 by nathaniel

Time and Seeing @ Outlet gallery, Pretoria

Time and Seeing
an exhibition of Compressionist prints
outlet gallery, 1 May – 12 June
closing reception on Saturday 10 June, 16:00

^{earth (2006), metallic lambda print, 50 x 25 cm}

Time and Seeing exhibits selections from nathaniel stern’s Compressionism – a "digital performance and analog archive.” Stern traverses bodies, spaces and objects with his scanner face, while the head is in motion. After being Compressed into digital images the size of a small sheet of paper, the files are then stretched, cropped and colored by hand. Compressionism is an exploration of media and perception, a transfiguration in Time and Seeing.

^{*The 11 pieces on show at Outlet are a preview for a large-scale exhibition of Compressionist works – ranging from photographic to traditional prints – in negotiation for early next year @ Art on Paper gallery, Johannesburg.}

outlet
24 du Toit Street, Building 10, Projector Room, Arts Faculty, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa
Hours by appointment, +27 82 440 5406, outlet [at] mweb [dot] co [dot] za

more information @ http://compressionism.net and http://nathanielstern.com

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18 April 2006 by sean slemon

MOBA

Yes
The Museum of Bad Art
Its real
It was only a matter of time. Its everywhere. I think they may need to expand their storage rather soon.

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08 April 2006 by nathaniel

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….

Archives

04 April 2006 by nathaniel

The Upgrade! Johannesburg proudly presents: Turbulence.org + Gavin Jantjes

Turbulence.org at Wits Digital Arts
^{Hosted by Wits Digital Arts, University of the Witwatersrand}

Please circulate widely! This is an amazing opportunity for South Africans to learn about online contemporary art from two of its ongoing pioneers and most noteworthy supporters of commissioned work. Live and in person!

The Upgrade! Johannesburg and Wits Digital Arts proudly present: Turbulence.org + Gavin Jantjes
Friday 7 April, 3-5PM at the Digital Convent, WSOA
^{supported by The Trinity Session}

Visiting from the US, Turbulence.org is an internationally renowned net.art commissioning organization – a continuing pioneer in funding contemporary conceptual artists working with networked media. For years, Turbulence.org has been commissioning international online art, including Johannesburg artists Nathaniel Stern and Marcus Neustetter in 2005.

Turbulence is co-directed by Helen Thorington (founder of New Radio and Performing Arts, Turbulence’s mother organization) and Jo-Anne Green (a Wits alumnus!). The two will be presenting a very biased history of web-based artwork, showing projects they have commissioned as well as some of their own, and will then be taking questions.

No knowledge of web technology necessary!
Open to all!

more information:
http://atjoburg.net/upgrade/
http://turbulence.org/
http://new-radio.org/helen
http://new-radio.org/jo

Convent Seminar Room, WSOA, University of the Witwatersrand Free parking available in front of the Convent at WSOA. For directions go to http://www.wits.ac.za/artworks/contact/map.htm

BONUS:
Gavin Jantjes will also be briefly presenting TRANS CAPE at The Upgrade! in order to court interested artists!
TRANS CAPE: South Africa’s first ever large-scale contemporary African Art Exhibition.

The city of Cape Town is set to host TRANS CAPE, the first ever large-scale exhibition of African contemporary art to be staged in South Africa. TRANS CAPE opens on September 23 and runs for four weeks, filling the city with the work of approximately 70 contemporary artists from across Africa and the Diaspora. It is the first in a series of bi annual contemporary African art exhibitions presented by the CAPE Africa Platform.

This year’s exhibition breaks boundaries in several new ways. As counterpoint to the tribal image of Africa that exists in the imagination of the west, TRANS CAPE will show the work of a new generation of African artists.

“A new generation of artists across the continent are creating remarkable contemporary responses to the unique realities of present-day Africa, contemporary African art is on the move,” says CAPE Africa Platform CEO Susan Glanville-Zini.

TRANS CAPE’s artistic director, South African born and internationally acclaimed curator and artist Gavin Jantjes and curators, Gabi Ngcobo from Iziko National Gallery and Khwezi Gule from the Johannesburg Art Gallery aim to capture this energy and movement.

Jantjes explains the title of the exhibition as a metaphor for this sense of movement. “Movement is signalled by the prefix TRANS – transform, translate, transgress, transmit, transfigure, trans-national, transport, transsexual, trans-national, transient are all words that connect processes of exchange and interaction to the exhibition.”

Movement will also be registered through the presentation of artworks and the manner that visitors experience the exhibition. TRANS CAPE will be choreographed across Cape Town, inviting visitors to actively engage and re-read the cities geography; as represented through artistic intervention in the urban fabric, histories and everyday life of the city.

TRANSCAPE will include specially commissioned artworks that deal directly with the urban realities of Cape Town, as well as existing works that address the shifts, alterations, disruptions and re-locations of people across Africa.

The exhibition is conceived as a journey that uses public spaces and locates new site-specific spaces along a route that links the Cape Town city centre, to Khayelithsa, Muizenberg and Stellenbosch.

Moving TRANS CAPE’s audience along this route is an essential part of the curatorial concept. Alongside the traditional public transport system (buses, trains, and taxis.), TRANS CAPE will use vehicles transformed into art projects to transport viewers between locations.

Through these journeys TRANS CAPE will create meeting points for cross cultural exchange and multidisciplinary art experiences that include music events, performances, interventions and film screenings.

For artists who are interested in receiving more information about the exhibition; Gavin Jantjes will be presenting TRANS CAPE at UPGRADE in Johannesburg on Friday 07 April at the Wits Digital Arts School from 15:00 – 17:00.

The curatorial team will select artists and artworks for the exhibition based on an intensive research process and not by open submissions. They are however open to receiving information about artists they do not know and artists are invited to visit the CAPE website at www.capeafrica.org or to phone +27 21 488 3064 for further information.

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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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23 March 2006 by nathaniel

The New American Myth

One of the greatest Myths propagated by the contemporary American neo-conservative powers that be is the idea that Democracy and Capitalism are one and the same, that the former cannot exist without the latter, and, most dangerously, that big company-led Capitalism Uber Alles actually leads to, promotes and protects what the Founding Fathers intended for our Democracy.

Yes, most developed and Democratic countries are regarded as capitalist, but the vast majority of them have some “combination of mixed economies, government-owned means of production, economic interventionism” (paraphrased from Wikipedia) and/or various socialist-inspired policies that insure the well being of their citizens and the world.

The Conservative movement, at least the version I grew up with, used to be based on a core value of small government – a kind of overarching mistrust of big powerhouses that controlled everything. In a government of, by and for the people, it seemed in line with the Revolutionary “no taxation without representation,” except that Conservatives wanted, both, little taxation, and small government: control of your own money, choices, rules – an almost libertarian approach to decision-making, with the occasional foray into public safety (such as Nixon’s commitment to the environment).

But two groups have mostly taken over the Conservative agenda since the 80s: the Christian Right and Corporate America. The former was needed as a base simply to win votes, and is mostly kept happy with ideological rhetoric and a faux born again Christian in the White House (“I guess I’m more of a practical fellow,” in response to the Biblical / Rapture questions around the War on Terror this week). The latter is far more dangerous.

Ironically, the Christian Right goes against my aforementioned base Conservative values. It wants government to restrict a woman’s right to choose, and take rights away from same sex couples, for example. These have become part of core Neo-Conservatism over the years.

But Big Business actually takes hypocrisy to whole new levels. Of course, they are fully behind exporting Democracy (Capitalism). The Iraq war turned, and continues to turn, huge profits for the likes of Halliburton et al, and was also meant to insure oil in our futures, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola in Iraq’s.

On the one hand, we have a 9 trillion dollar deficit, warrant-less wire-tapping, unprovoked war, an obliteration of checks and balances, not to mention the ridiculous subsidies Big Farmers get in our “Free Trade” – basically, the biggest government (and debt) in the history of our nation.

On the other, we have these same “Conservatives” screaming for tax cuts, no regulation on things like pollution, the only developed nation without universal health care – all in the guise of small government.

In between, we have a media mostly maintained by the same corporate sponsors who lobby in Washington by making “donations” to our governmental “representatives” – leaving very little room for accountability.

This is not conspiracy theory; this is Capitalism in the guise of Democratic policy, and it’s no longer controlled by The People if The People are misinformed. In a country where Democracy = Capitalism, Power and Freedom are inextricably linked to Capital: dollars and cents. The main links holding the Neo-Con agenda together are, simply, Corporate America profits. Corporate America has become the powerhouse Conservatism always warned against; but since they are one and the same, they are not complaining.

At a distance, I’m beginning to mourn for my birth-country. We are fighting for principles we do not uphold; we are giving up Freedoms in the name of Freedom; we are enabling commercials to sell us lies, and user-tested rhetoric and taglines to define our government. This is not Democracy; it’s 1984.

If you are not angry, you are not paying attention.