Showing posts with label Cao Fei. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cao Fei. Show all posts

January 7, 2009

Grand Opening of Cao Fei's "RMB City" in Second Life

Sat., Jan 10th, here. Per the press release,

Public Opening Ceremony & Celebration in SecondLife
Jan 9, 2009: 6pm-8pm (SecondLife Time)
Jan 10, 2009: 10am-12pm (Beijing Time)
Venue: People's Palace
(RMB City Hall, aka Sigg Castle)
Landmark in Second Life: RMB City 1, RMB City 1 (153, 32,126)

Special Opening Events
* Speech by China Tracy (RL: Cao Fei)
* Inauguration of RMB City Mayor, Mr. Uli Sigg
* Official opening of the city, with public celebration in People's Waterpark
* Opening and tours of "Master Q's Guide to Virtual Feng Shui" in various locations around RMB City, as well as the first exhibition of UCCA in RMB City (People's Aerial Castle)
* Release of "People's Monthly" (Issue #1), the official publication of RMB City, plus other downloads of information and surprises
* Visitors can visit these and other ongoing projects of RMB City, as well as beginning to explore the full city and all its treasures . . .



RMB City is a virtual real estate project created by Ms. Cao within Second Life ("RMB" is a name for the "real" life Chinese currency). The project is described as "a condensed incarnation of contemporary Chinese cities, with most of their characteristics; a series of new Chinese fantasy realms that are highly self-contradictory, inter-permeative, pan-political, extremely entertaining, and laden with irony and suspicion. . . . A rough hybrid of communism, socialism and capitalism, RMB City will be realized in a globalized digital sphere combining overabundant symbols of Chinese reality with cursory imaginings of the country's future."

(As you may recall, the promotional trailer for this project was exhibited in The Program, in which we also screened Ms. Cao's documentary shot in and about 2L, iMirror.) Lots more info about RMB City here.

June 4, 2008

"THE PROGRAM": In the Code

UPDATE: New, much more detailed post here; although as of this addition, I haven't yet had a chance to add images to the new post.

As you may know, the Video Association of Dallas was the first in TX to show video art by Michel Auder, Matthew Barney, Paul Chan, Harun Farocki, Graffiti Research Lab, William Kentridge, Paul McCarthy, Tony Oursler, Pipilotti Rist, Martha Rosler, and Bill Viola, among many others.

The Video Association's Dallas Video Festival is now dividing into two parts. This year for the first time, most of the video- and other media-based art you might normally find in museums or galleries will be presented in a separate, expanded series of exhibitions at Conduit Gallery. The rest of the Fest, including documentaries and other venerable varieties of video, will be presented in October.

The new, video art + other media-based art exhibition series to be shown at Conduit, called THE PROGRAM, starts July 26: 5 shows over 5 weeks, with openings on 5 consecutive Sat. nites, after-parties, etc. etc. Co-curated by me, Charles Dee Mitchell, and Bart Weiss.

Where else can you find this much exciting, recent video art and other media-based art by internationally-recognized artists -- esp. on our near-null budget? (I certainly hope never to work this hard again for negative income.)

This is not a complete listing, and all programming remains subject to change:

Guy Ben-Ner's Moby Dick and his latest, Stealing Beauty (see Postmasters gallery).

John Bock's latest, The Palms (see Anton Kern gallery).

Dena DeCola + Karin E. Wandner's five more minutes (see the Video Data Bank).

Matthew Barney's latest, Drawing Restraint 13 (see Barney's DR site or Gladstone Gallery).

Michael Bell-Smith, t.b.d. (see Foxy Production or and/or gallery).

eteam: with luck, something re- their Rhizome commission proposal, Second Life Dumpster (see their commission proposal site). I personally also loved 1.1 Acre Flat Screen, 'though it's not looking like we'll be able to show it, but you can view it on their website; just click on "videos" and scroll on what opens.

Nathalie Djurberg: her Camels Drink Water, which debut'd at Art Basel Miami just last year, and, I hope, one or more other works (see Zach Feuer Gallery). I'm pretty sure, 200 yrs. from now, if you search for what might help you both survive and forgive humanity, Djurberg's work will pop.

John Michael Boling + Javier Morales (see their site at http://www.gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com).

Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung's animations featuring Al Gore as a polar bear, his Nobel around his neck, deploying solar panels against a BBQ'ing Bush (see Postmasters and Hung's site).

Cao Fei: knock on wood, her Second Life "documentary," iMirror (see Lombard-Freid Projects), which showed at the Venice Biennale, this year, and her newest piece, RMB City.

Guthrie Lonergan: net art from a favorite New Museum alum (see his site).

Shana Moulton's work takes you back to everything you thought you hated about the 80's but now "pine" for (see Country Club gallery).

Tom Moody: appealing and intriguing shorts from a former Dallasite who's shown around the world (see his site).

Meiro Koizumi's latest, The Human Opera. If I say he's the new M. Barney, that's just shorthand for, i.m.h.o., you need to see his work -- it's going to come up again (see Nicole Klagsbrun gallery).

Matt Marello: Marello greenscreens himself into the horror flick that made Charles Dee Mitchell want to be an art writer; plus, Friedrich Nietsche converses with Hogan's Heroes.

Yang Fudong's An Estranged Paradise. This wonderful early piece illumines the work he's made since (see Marian Goodman Gallery).

Yves Netzhammer: evocative 3-D animation from one of my faves from the '07 Venice Biennial (see Galerie Anita Beckers).

Jon Pylypchuk's animations with hotdogs -- not even bacon is better (see Friedrich Petzel Gallery).

Steve Reinke's Hobbit Love is the Greatest Love. Yes, he actually makes it work (see Video Data Bank).

Treewave (Paul Slocum's band) performs live (see his Tree Wave page, Dunn and Brown Contemporary, or and/or gallery).

Ryan Trecartin: A Family Finds Entertainment and Tommy Chat Just E-mailed Me. He may seem hallucino-gen-Y'd, he may even be really fun; he's also profound (see Elizabeth Dee).

Kalup Linzy's Melody Set Me Free and Ride to da Club, both totally smart + fun (see Taxter & Spengemann gallery).

Rick Silva, a.k.a. Abe Linkoln, + jimpunk + Mr. Tamale: a compilation from Triptych TV (also check outAbe + Mo Sing the Blogs: e.g., one blogger's daily psychotropic dosage, à la metal -- and more {here's Rick's site; I also love jimpunk's}).

Clemens Von Wedermeyer: compelling work from one of Europe's stars (see Galerie Jocelyn Wolff).

The main venue for THE PROGRAM will be Conduit Gallery in the Design District, where lots of great galleries are now located (go here for lists by neighborhood with url's, addresses, etc.); and our opening nite, Sat., July 26, will also be "gallery walk" nite in the Design District. The gallery walk hours will be 5-8 pm. We expect to open THE PROGRAM with Matthew Barney's new video, although that's not set in stone, and with Paul Slocum's performance starting around the time the gallery walk winds up (plan to end up back at Conduit).

Then, for our after-party that nite . . . remember Apples in Stereo, whose lead appeared on The Colbert Report with his paean to Stephen? And the inestimable Danette Dufilho, Asst. Dir. at Conduit and Dir. of the Project Room there? Well, her hubby, John Dufilho (of Deathray Davies fame), plays drums in the Apples, and the Apples are playing Big D that very nite, at one of our fave venues, Sons of Hermann Hall, starting after Paul's performance. And strictly betw. us, the Apples might show up at Conduit for Paul's show; and we might be handing out coupons for a discount to get into the show at Sons . . .

And, believe it or not, there's more spectacular stuff in the works! As well as a panel discussion at the Dallas Museum of Art on Sun., August 10 at 1:30 pm and evening screenings in Fort Worth on August 5 and 12. I'll post more details about the schedule as they're firmed up.

I've been working really hard on this, so pls cancel any and all conflicting oblgs, ink us in for the 5 consecutive Sat. nites starting July 26 plus, + tell your friends. (And by the way, if you can't make the opening nites, the shows will remain on exhibit or available for viewing until it's time to install the next week's work.)

Thanks of course to the artists, galleries, and others already mentioned above. I'd like also to go ahead and thank Suzanne Weaver at the DMA for her advice to me over the years, which greatly helped me educate myself, as well as for her support in arranging for our panel discussion to take place at the DMA; the folks at Electronic Art Intermix (esp. Josh Kline), whose advice and screening room have also been invaluable to me; Paul Slocum, who has also generously shared his advice, esp. regarding new media artists; Danette Dufilho and Nancy Whitenack at Conduit, not only for providing us a great space for free but also for their advice, time, and effort in many areas, all of which have been and will continue to be essential to bringing this thing off; volunteers such as LeeAnn Harrington and Emily Ewbank; my co-curators, Bart Weiss and Charles Dee Mitchell, from whom I've also learned so much; and last but not least, our presenting organization, the Video Association of Dallas, which has for over twenty years been one of the foremost proponents of video as a creative medium (please join and support it!).

Until I do a new post based on more definite info, check back here 'cause it's easier for me to just update this post.

February 20, 2008

Cao Fei’s "iMirror"

. . . a documentary “filmed” entirely in Second Life and directed by her SL avatar China Tracy. Including some slightly hilarious avatar disco dancing and rather long credits at the end, Part 3, below, is 9:28 min.



Part 1 opens with a great quote from William J. Mitchell's Me++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City: "I construct, and I am constructed, in a mutually recursive process that continually engages my fluid, permeable boundaries and my endlessly ramifying networks. I am a spatially extended cyborg."

More iMirror: Part 1, Part 2.

Info re- current exhibits of Fei's work at Artkrush, which quotes Fei, "[i]n the end, I think this 3-D world is the future world." Which 3-D world?