Art Trends Center: July 2005

Saturday, July 30, 2005

Portuguese young talent

Diana Silva, Heart Necklace (2003)

(This is a neckless made with the crochet technique, I believe)

ps.: I have just bought bluetooth for my laptop, at last, which will allow me to post pics and films from my mobile phone. Meaning - expect more terrible quality "new art" photos and films from Portugal! Read more "Portuguese young talent..."

Cities/People/Bodies

Is there a surface that goes beyond itself? How deep does it go? Can we go so far to the surface of the picture, we go beyond it? It is only skin, matched and resampled as in a game, as in a text. And what are they really saying through the skin? This is who we are? This is what we are? Identity? So close? So quick, so easy?

Tokyo I

Berlin

Cape Town I

Buenos Aires

Deception

Selected pictures from The Nude Adrift Portfolio, by Spencer Tunick (at the Guy Hepner Contemporary gallery in London) Read more "Cities/People/Bodies..."

Friday, July 29, 2005

Workshop

I'll be directing a workshop next week in Montemor-o-Velho, entitled "Between Performance and Theater" (Portuguese link). I want to explore the zone between acting, enacting, performing and participating, so it should be a lot of fun and pretty challenging.
Read more "Workshop..."

Birdwatching (1)

During the Serpa seminar, I did some filming. The goal was a specific type of (experimental) documentary, but the bad quality of sound made it unviable. One of the filmed sequences, though, came out amazing: a group of birds flying around in the setting southern sun.

Every time I saw the material, I became fascinated with the moving image, its fluidity, its combination of harmony and power and playfulness, the games of shadows and highlights. The entire scene lasts less than a minute, probably about 30 seconds. On the other hand, it seems just the right amount of starting material.
But for what? Read more "Birdwatching (1)..."

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Blur Building

My girlfriend has made me discover the Blur Building, by Elizabeth Diller and (husband) Ricardo Scofidio (Diller&Scofidio - notice her name comes first, very nice and rare!), or rather, the recordings of it (scroll for the article), as it was disassembled after the Swiss Expo in 2002. It seems like a truly extraordinary project - a building that's a cloud. Witty, poetic, and above all - real!
It reminded me of one of Woody Allen's funniest characters - the man that became out-of-focus in Deconstructing Harry.
Diller&Scofidio have made and collaborated on many other fascinating projects, ranging from performances, to installations, to video art.
Long live artist couples! Read more "Blur Building..."

Portuguese multimedia

The Portuguese center for digital arts Atmosferas has been quite busy recently. First, they made a retrospective net exhibition of Portguese net art in the last years. Now, they (along with Etic, the media art school they are a part of) are starting a 2-year Masters course in Games and Interactive Media. It is a unique program in Portugal, and was created with the support of YDreams, the immensely successful multi-media Portuguese company (with several multi-media installations on their account). I'm really glad things are happening around here. Read more "Portuguese multimedia..."

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

For now

Seyed Alavi, Not Here (1990) Read more "For now..."

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Of art and terror

Art in the age of global terrorism. Read more "Of art and terror..."

Monday, July 25, 2005

Googlography

As part of the Day-to-Day Data exhibition which presents several "artists who collect, list, database and absurdly analyse the data of everyday life" (curated by Ellie Harrison), Jem Finer's On Earth as in Heaven recreates the map of heaven - on earth. The idea is to localize the names of the stars that compose the main star constallations. The names can refer to places, but also objects, people, erotic drawings.

I imagined initially that all the stars would have streets or towns named after them (or themselves be named after terrestrial locations), but this was far from the case. Using Google as a research tool I found that star names were more often than not the name of an object, a document, a person, something transient at a specific time and place…

Using Google as a research tool? This is our world, this is our geography. This is the universe. Of course, I would probably have done the same thing (then again, I might have taken the trouble to check somewhere else, you never know). But it's strange, the way we seem to combine the conviction that we live in a global village with, indeed, a village mentality.
But the work is nice, and the online version quite appreciated by this village person.

Ps.: Jem Finer is also the author of the longest music piece in history: longplayer, which is to play uninterruptedly for a thousand years (it began on January, 1, 2000). You can listen to it (streamed) here. Read more "Googlography..."

Questioning modernism

Art by people like Richard Serra leaves me confused. Not that I'm shocked, not at all. I just find it, well, unconvincing. The huge steel plates, the massive cubes, the imposing shapes... it seems like a simplicity that's, well, out of date. I'm really having difficulty writing about this, as I'm not sure of what I think, feel, or would like to feel. Yet somehow, I find this doubt to be very important for me.
You see, it seems too heavy, too closed, too proudly hermetic. Remember this quote? "Nobody thinks sculpture's going to change the world", but then, Serra's wish is to "change the way you see, even minutely". There is a paradox here, a human one, but one which is no less irritating. What are these blocks of steel? Just this, blocks? In that case, shouldn't I take him seriously and consider them no more important than any other element that would "change the way I see, even minutely"? Wouldn't simple (and cheaper) binoculars do the thing? Do I really need this to change the way I see? And what does it mean, to change the way I see? Can you hear the ever-present note of classic modernism? I'll give you a hole, and you'll lift the world with your sight. Oh, brother. How classic that sounds today. And what are we supposed to do with yesterday's revolutionaries? Their space today seems ridiculous, or worse - funny. The pure form. Pure just doesn't sound right, does it? Their talk, their fafarafa, is good for the art market, which replaces the "beauty-based" language games by "truth-based" ones. And we have the Abramovićs of inner truth, the Serras of object-ive truth, and so on. They had 30, 40 years to read up on philosophy, on arts, on history. Their talk has gotten smoother, it developed into systems, or semi-systems, always open, as the post-structuralists wisely advised. The curators love it, the prices go up. They are now part of art history.
And I, the spectator, yawn. It might be my ignorance, my not taking their ride. Or, to put it in another way, I don't have enough strength for them, I can't handle all this essence. The masters of essence. With their squares and circles, plain surfaces, monochromes and voids. It's not a disliking, it's more a getting-tired, a thirst for content. And I'm not alone. The new artists are here. The little narratives, the concrete, but meaningful (signifying, something), stories, adventures, textures that reveal forms, directions, opinions, origins, contexts, those little narratives develop, combine, they feed off each other, and yes, off the modernist power trips, their dreams of the infinite, their need for space. And, well, (the artistic) now happens. Hesitantly, at first, making tiny, unbalanced steps, swirving and turning, crawling and going sideways, but somehow, it's more up-to-date for me than what the venerable revolutionaries are. It is more open, direct, it's more modest, but more aggressively reaching out. And I like that. I like the rusty marks the tools leave. Serra's, well, I don't know how he does it, but, paradoxically, his works don't stain.
At least not my young and innocent skin. Read more "Questioning modernism..."

Sunday, July 24, 2005

Portuguese folk

Here, have some Portuguese music. This one comes from the north of Portugal. I've discovered it recently, and I was stunned. Its similarity with Corsican poliphony fascinates me. At the same time, it hasn't had the privilege of a commercial promotion, so it is slowly fading away.
And why is it here, on the New Art blog? Well, I have my reasons, but if you find its inadequate, well, live with it. And enjoy. Read more "Portuguese folk..."

Friday, July 22, 2005

A Sudden Gust of Wind

Jeff Wall, A Sudden Gust of Wind (After Hokusai) (1993)

Katsushika Hokusai, Ejiri in Suruga Province (a sudden gust of wind) (19th century)
Read more "A Sudden Gust of Wind..."

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Sweet, sweet art

The Polish National Gallery of Contemporary Art Zachęta has just announced it will have publicity in the form of candy. (No, not a sculpture of candy. Just candy.) This is the result of an open contest, won by Michał Rokita, a 24-year-old architecture student from Krakow. The candy is to be distributed not just to cultural venues, but also to supermarkets. Rokita says he wants it (and Zachęta) to be publicized (a commercial for a commercial?) as a cure for sadness, pessimism, lack of culture and monotony of everyday life. It will be packaged in a similar way to medicine, with a special information note containing the Gallery program. A box of the artsy sweets is to be very cheap, costing about 2 złoty (0,5 euro). The suggested flavor is llemon.

(via Gazeta Wyborcza)
Read more "Sweet, sweet art..."

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Modern-day Bosch?

Alessandro Bavari definitely has the ambitions of being a modern-day Bosch. I'll leave it up to you to judge.

Conservative

It's been a while since my last visit to the angry and consistent Mark Vallen at art-for-a-change. If you feel like your love for the avant-garde needs a clear adversary, pay him a visit. Read more "Conservative..."

Touch yourself

With Mollycoddle, Christine Liu wanted to explore the relationship that people have with their clothes.
Mollycoddle is a dress with a hunger for love and attention. Its wearer needs the dress for obvious (coverage) or nonobvious (personal) reasons, and in turn, the dress needs the wearer. Mollycoddle wants to be touched and caressed by the wearer on a semi-regular basis, but it can be happy being touched by other people, too.

More at we-make-money-not-art.

Monday, July 18, 2005

Digital pinhole

Simple, yet brilliant: create your very own digital pinhole camera (digital camera not included). You can also opt for the alternative polaroid pinhole (a.k.a. pinholaroid). Read more "Digital pinhole..."

A very forced entertainment

I have just mistakenly erased a very large review of Agatha Christie, a show by Teatro Praga.
The below text is all that's left.

Teatro Praga is currently the most popular - and renowned - "experimental" theater in Portugal. The sort of work they do actually aims at being experimental. The formula is the following: take a play (or a text that can be adapted into one), present it in a fairly traditional way making it occupy about 1/3 of the show (time-wise or importance-wise), then add 2/3 of a "chaotic" "experimental ambience, with people saying nonsense, running around, laughing madly and crying (very important!), add some cardboard signs with things hand-written on them (very important, could be a way of identifying the "character", e.g. "sad", or "king of the castle", or "Foucault", or all three), add as many references to contemporary philosophers as you can squeeze in (Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida are welcome no matter what the circumstances), add a story about some "scientific" fact with loads of fiction interwoven into it in such a way that the audience doesn't know what the truth is, and finally, the most important factor: add some profound thoughts about what theater is and isn't.

(The conclusion was something along the lines of: Praga are still scared to abandon the classical theater, or to stop thinking about it and asking questions that are neither original or really relevant for anyone but the theater people themselves (though in Portugal nearly only performing arts people go to theater, so this is not surprizing). They don't make for an excessively good classical theater, and they don't dare to follow the often interesting, fresh and new leads they discover in their work. Instead, we are left with some sort of left-overs from all the Forced Entertainments and Wooster Groups that have done the experimentation work much more extensively, and gone much further. It's a pity. And hopefully they will focus more on the research & development,and aim at creating things, and not just scattering them around.)
Oh, and there was a picture that summed up the show:

(now how often do you get that in a review? ;)) Read more "A very forced entertainment..."

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Hybrid

Calling something "hybrid" is just too easy. The word refers to a combination of two or more species, suggesting some original purity of form which is then combined with other pure forms to create the hybrid.
When applied to the arts, it subtly introduces a biological lecture, hinting at a linear (pluri-linear, but still linear) character of artistic works. Basically: "the work A comes from the combination of styles 1 and 2".

Hybrid, to me, is the beginning. It is the point of departure, it is what we find upon our arrival, it is what me must make sense of when advancing: it is the basic stuff, the original, delightfuly uncomprehensible remix, or entangled panoply of experience. We, I, go through it, cutting away, isolating, naming, framing, sensing. And "the hybrid work of art" is probably just the use of an unexpected tool to get me out of somewhere, of some tiring remix, some hybrid form.

For your viewing pleasure: the art of A.R.Menne. Read more "Hybrid..."

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Remapping the world

Mappingworlds is an initiative of changing social (and international) awareness through redesigning maps through non-geographical criteria, such as hospitality, asylum applications, or rivers and floods (okay, that one's geographic).

Retro innovation

Kee, designed by Shira Miasnik , is a motion-based digital music instrument.

The user modifies the digital output by tilting and rotating the wooden disk.

Movements can define endless parameters: manipulating Kee in different directions, angles and speed changes different qualities of the animation. Pressing the logo button modifies the presets which define the changes in the animation.
It is fairly hard to say from the video how exactly it works, but it seems like a nice combination of "digital" with "retro".

(via)

Friday, July 15, 2005

Send your video art/documentaries now!

22nd Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival
November 8 - 13, 2005
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
LAST CALL FOR ENTRIES
Deadline: August 1st, 2005
Reglement & Application Download: www.filmladen.de/dokfest
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- documentaryFILMVIDEOart screenings
- exhibition MONITORING
- interfiction symposium
- Live visuals

(via) Read more "Send your video art/documentaries now!..."

Earthbed

An old installation of mine. Read more "Earthbed..."

Art Trends Center