[Not sure if this post had a title?]

Dan Colen, TBT, 2012, concrete filled whoopee cushion, 16.5 x 13 x 7 inches. At OHWOW's It Ain't Fair 2012, Art Basel, Miami.

Critical Art Ensemble

You can tell I'm researching for a curatorial project.

Just came across this from CAE, re- their 2012 project, Winning Hearts and Minds, presented at documenta 13:

War zones are as instructive as they are destructive. Since Vietnam, they have beautifully illustrated the contradiction between capitalism and democracy. . . . The establishment of global democracy has never been a goal of global capital. Its preference is for an authoritarian plutocracy that can be labeled a democracy. This is why the psy-ops principle of “winning hearts and minds” could simultaneously exist with the military strategy of “search and destroy.” Now that winning hearts and minds is not just US policy, but NATO policy, we can see it at work in every conflict in which NATO members have a stake; in every case, the idea of winning over the people through the alleged establishment of democratic institutions never has to be reconciled with unprovoked invasion, house-to-house searches, assassinations, torture, or drone attacks . . . .

Cultural institutions in capitalist nations reflect this same disturbing set of contradictions and relationships. In the field of visual arts, museums tend toward a support of plutocracy through collection building and maintaining the value of collections by functioning as a parallel track to the art market. Institutes, Kunsthalles, and major festivals function as corporate alibis for good cultural citizenship, and too often function within the frame of research and development of cultural products in the service of profit and enterprise. At the same time, these institutions have their democratic side, which usually appears in the form of community outreach, public programming, or education programs. These programs are generally the most impoverished, but are staffed by those who genuinely want to create events promoting social change (and are willing to accept poverty as a given condition to do it). This blend of having few resources together with a strong sense of volunteerism leads to the development of low-cost public events that are subsidized by the free labor of those who create them. Or to put it another way, the poor subsidize the creation of a false alibi that signifies the beneficence of [the] plutocracy. And yet, on an immediate person-to-person level, the results of such performances, exhibitions, and events can be inspiring and culturally valuable.

 * * * * *
Two weeks before the festival started, we issued a call for proposals to use the space for one hour each day at noon; there would be one hundred lunchtime events over the one hundred days. Proposals poured in from around the world. Even though we told those who applied that there was no financial support, and even worse, that they would have to bring all their own equipment, the program filled in a matter of weeks. Most of the events we chose were not curatorially viable (which is not to say we didn’t think they were good projects). As usual, the poor and the marginal were subsidizing the wealthy with free programming.

More at Critical Art Ensemble's website.

Soda_Jerk Re- Copyright

Soda_Jerk's site is here.

To Google and My Readers

The new blogger interface imposed by Google is an unmitigated disaster.

I'd have liked to post my curatorial essay re- Expanded Cinema here, but it's apparently become impossible to format it correctly unless I first take the time to learn whatever code it is that Google's now using. Searching for help, I get 11,099,961 hits of "I hate the new blogger interface."

Since I won't be blogging much during the next couple of months anyway, I've decided to defer any drastic action 'til year-end in the hope that Google might perhaps either restore the Blogspot interface or fix some of the biggest problems created with the new one.

But bottom line: if Google doesn't fix the problems by then and I'm going to be forced onto a more Wordpress-like platform, I might as well port to Wordpress, where I can have my privacy.

R. Luke DuBois

Doing some curating for my next project, Co- Re-Creating Spaces, an exhibition opening on Nov. 17 at CentralTrak (in Dallas, TX), and enjoying the research.

The artist explains,

Kiss takes 50 iconic embraces from the history of cinema and re-animates them through a non-photorealistic rendering technique developed by the artist. The technique analyzes the footage by looking at details in the source that resemble the lips of the kissing actors and redrawing them with points tinted to match the colors of the original film. Because the computer schematizes lips in a mathematically abstract, and not particularly accurate, manner, all sorts of details fit this criteria, causing the software to highlight not only lips but hair, details in clothing, and portions of the cinematic backdrop. The artist then creates a vectorization of these 'points of interest' akin to a cats-cradle, connecting all the dots to create a work of moving string-art that entwines the actors performing the kiss in a new, geometric embrace of connecting lines. A deliberate misuse of computer vision, Kiss evokes the embrace-as-viewed, tracing the trajectory of our gaze with an abstract connectivity akin to our mirror neurons firing when we feel the romance underneath these cinematic objects. The soundtrack of the piece subjects the non-diegetic soundtrack of the kissing scenes to an auditory time-lapse effect, creating a feedback network that underscores and propels the imagery.

Fight Bite - Charlotte Iris

Seriously, Google has made it very difficult for me to even get in here to post, let alone format anything.

Anyway, quick share:

(Thanks, Sally!)

I've Got the Pwr

(Thanks, Danette!)

Google Destroying Blogspot?

or just making my life more difficult. We blogspotters have been forced onto an interface that looks more like Wordpress, which as far as I can tell is clunkier and gives us less control. I've considered migrating to Wordpress before – I could host my blogs on my own server and have greater privacy, etc. – but rejected it because the blogspot user interface was superior. Google has chosen to trash that advantage.

Testing image control and positioning with the image right.

Ok, maybe I can get used to this, but where the h*ll do I enter labels? 

"Expanded Cinema"

Sorry to be so scarce here lately; I've been working on another big project. The 25th Dallas VideoFest opens on Sept. 26 with a screening of new video art works created especially for the LED display on the exterior walls of the Omni Dallas Hotel. I'll have a new piece of my own in the program, and have also been the coordinator/compiler for it, and before that, Ben Britt and I also created a template to enable myself and the other artists to make their works. We expect the audio for the initial screening to be simulcast on public radio KXT 91.7 FM public radio.

The show is called Expanded Cinema, in honor of pioneering new media art theorist Gene Youngblood (whose seminal book by the same title is seen as the first to propound video's potential as a fine art medium, and who will speak at the Dallas Museum of Art as part of the fest on Sat., Sept. 29). (Image left shot by Danielle Georgiou at a test screening.)

The show will include works by 14 artists selected by Bart, Michael A. Morris, and me, including Kari Altmann, Frank Campagna, Tim Capper, Rebecca Carter, Jeff Gibbons, Andrea Goldman, Mona Kasra, Kyle Kondas, Phil Lamb, Shane Mecklenburger, Mike Morris, Edward Setina, Jenny Vogel, and me. Expanded Cinema starts at 8:00 PM; pls watch for announcements re- a viewing location (generally, the best views will be from the south near the Houston St. Viaduct and Jefferson St. Bridge, along the far levy from the hotel).

The remaining 4 days of the 25th Dallas VideoFest will take place at the Dallas Museum of Art. The all-fest pass is a steal at $50; tickets here. In past years there've been some 250 videos to choose from; I think there may be slightly fewer this year, but with perhaps a greater proportion of the kinds you might find in an art gallery, for what that's worth, since I, Mike Morris, and Dee Mitchell helped curate in addition to the festival Director, Bart Weiss.

PS: I wrote an article for art+seek in honor of the 25th VideoFest, here, discussing some of my favorite videos shown at VideoFests past and how they relate to some of my favorites in the present, including works by Cindy Sherman, Sadie Benning, Martha Rosler, Mary Reid Kelley, and many more.

UPDATE: You can now see the piece I made for the program, Braille, here. More info about Expanded Cinema and the works in it here.

I Love the Aesthetics of this Video

If you've never seen "Naked tourist in Japanese moat," just go (sadly, embedding is not an option).

Mars

Thanks, NASA! (More at the link.)

Dallas VideoFest 25th Anniversary Party!

I'm throwing a party tonite F-U-N it's called "Experiments in [Video]," bring everything that you own! (paraphrasing one of my fave videos brought to you by the Video Association of Dallas). And it's coming right up, on Sept. 14! But I'm not throwing it, AMS Pictures is; and you don't need to bring everything you own, just $25.

The event will feature a micro-fest of old VideoFest faves, a silent auction, and of course, a preview of what's to come at the 25th Dallas VideoFest! A panel of guests will also discuss their favorite VideoFest moments; the guests include:

Ed Bark, TV critic and blogger
Manny Mendoza, former DMN TV critic and filmmaker
Mark Birnbaum, filmmaker
moi, video artist
Katie Gimenez, Director of Networking at Plano Chamber of Commerce (and former DVF Festival Coordinator)

Come get prep'd for the fest, help re-create the world as a more interesting, fun place (another quote from Treetin: [s]how me something beautiful and I will go on) by contributing to a great organization, and party! – more info here, and tickets here!

Back to the Future of Video Art

The history of video art includes lots of wonderful work, much of which is rarely seen; but you'll have a few chances to catch up soon.

First, the Power Station will host four nights of video art from the past thru the present:

Aug. 30, video art from the 70's, selected by Mike Morris;
Sept. 6, from the 80's, selected by Ben Lima;
Sept. 13, from the 90's, selected by Jenny Vogel;
Sept. 20, from the 00's, selected by Nadav Assor.

All shows start at 7:30PM; the Power Station is located at 3816 Commerce, Dallas.

Meanwhile, on Sept. 14 at 7PM, AMS Pictures will host a 25th anniversary bash for the Dallas VideoFest featuring 3 rooms with screenings of favorites from past festivals, a panel briefly discussing their faves, and a program previewing Director Bart Weiss's picks from this year's festival. Tickets to this fundraiser are only $25 per person or $40 per couple.

And that brings us to the Dallas VideoFest itself, which is making new history by opening on Sept. 26 with a program of video art works created especially for and displayed on the four curved walls of the Omni Hotel, Dallas.

The remaining 4 days of the festival, most of which is dedicated to contemporary works, will take place at the Dallas Museum of Art. The all-fest pass is a steal at $50; tickets here. More details about the VideoFest to come.

New DB12

The new volume, curated by Stephen Lapthisophon, is up here.

Route Opened for Donations to Wikileaks

Per WL Central,

After almost two years of fighting an unlawful banking blockade by U.S financial giants VISA and MasterCard, WikiLeaks has announced it is back open for donations.

After WikiLeaks' publications revealing U.S. war crimes and statecraft in 2010, U.S. financial institutions erected a banking blockade against WikiLeaks wholly outside of any judicial or administrative process. The blockade came during a time of substantial economic growth for WikiLeaks but blocked over 95% of donations, costing the organization in excess of USD 20M.

The Wau Holland Transparency Reports for WikiLeaks' finances, released today, illustrate the financial consequences of 18 consecutive months of economic censorship. For the year 2011, the blockade resulted in WikiLeaks' income falling to just 21% of its operating costs.

WikiLeaks has been forced to run on its cash reserves at the Wau Holland Foundation, which have diminished from EUR 800K at the end of December 2010, to less than EUR 100K at the end of June 2012. As the graph shows, WikiLeaks' reserve funds will expire at the current austere rate of expenditure within a few months. In order to effectively continue its mission, WikiLeaks must raise a minimum of EUR 1M immediately.

More at the link above. You can donate here – that's direct from WL Central and should be reliable; I just donated.

And Now for Some Nomi:

Dallas VideoFest 25

. . . makes a big entrance with a program of new video art created especially for the nearly 200-foot high display system on the exterior walls of the Omni Hotel, Dallas, at 8:30PM on Wednesday, Sept. 26 . The program is entitled, Expanded Cinema, borrowed from the 1970 book of the same title by seminal new media theorist Gene Youngblood (see also this previous post), who will give a lecture at the festival, Secession from the Broadcast: The Internet and the Crisis of Social Control, at 3PM on Sunday at the DMA, Horchow Auditorium.

The image right is from OMNEY, one of the videos to be included in Expanded Cinema, by Shane Mecklenburger, who provided the transcription of Youngblood's talk at the latter link. The Omni display completely wraps the building; hence the weird aspect ratio. (Full disclosure: I'm helping to organize the program and will have a piece in it.)

Because of the unique characteristics of the Omni "screen," most of the artists had to re-invent their approach to an extent perhaps greater than usual, in order to create works that might exploit the potential of this new platform while adapting to its requirements and continuing to explore the concerns with which they prefer to engage in their aesthetic practices. They have risen to the challenge, and the resulting works are gorgeous and fascinating.

The rest of the VideoFest will be at the Dallas Museum of Art, Sept. 26 - 30; block out your calendar! It's shaping up to be one of the best fests yet. As the dates approach, I hope to post more details here, including a chronological schedule with program descriptions all in one page.

But go ahead and buy tickets for the fest (I recommend full immersion), find more info, or (please!) donate at videofest.org. You can also donate via Kickstarter here.

Here's an auditory blast from the past, ca. early Gene Youngblood . . .

An Apparently Rambling Tho' Covertly Somewhat Coherent Post

. . . that allows me to touch on several interesting yet diverse topics while making a few perhaps unexpectedly related points:

I've done virtually nothing to promote this blog; my own family and most of my friends don't read it.

So I was rather pleased and surprised to find recently that Google's Blogspot Stats say that, since Google bought Blogspot ca. May, 2008, c-Blog has averaged ca. 4,000 hits per month. (And I don't think too many could be from spammers, since I rarely receive spam comments.)

My most popular posts have been on the Hajj, the Yes Lab, Matthew Barney and Ryan Trecartin, Obama re- the Holocaust, and the 2009 NYC Art Fairs.

Somehow, my comments on Barney's and Trecartin's works drew 116 page views this week. But the Hajj post remains the all-time big hitter, with the Obama re- the Holocaust post not far behind.

In the Hajj post, I simply gave a short description of Hajj based on info found at Wikipedia: "The Hajj (Arabic: حج‎ Ḥaǧǧ) is a pilgrimage to Mecca. It is currently the largest annual pilgrimage in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a moral obligation that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so. . . ."

In the Obama re- the Holocaust post, I pasted a copy of his words written in the guest book at Israel's Holocaust Memorial (see below).

None of us ever knows really what it is we've managed to do that might actually turn out to have been the most helpful toward whatever we really hoped most to help.

In Coleridge's Biographia Literaria and other writings, he periodically referred to this book he thought he should write, the Logosophia. He never finished that book. But maybe the Biographia, perhaps together with his other works, through indirection, sufficiently constituted the work he thought we needed? At least, it influenced me.

Two years before my father died, he threw his last big tantrum that I witnessed. (It was at that late date that I finally recognized that "tantrum" was what it was that he'd been doing throughout our lives whenever necessary to get his way.) During the only slightly less excruciating, semi-apologetic wind-down, he told me things that made plain he remained utterly deluded as to both his greatest accomplishments and his greatest failings as a parent.

But just because he utterly misunderstood his real accomplishments, didn't mean there weren't any; there were.

A lot of people hoped Obama might help re- the Middle East. Here's a transcript of his hand-written words at the Holocaust Memorial:

I'm grateful to Yad Vashem and all of those responsible for this remarkable institution. At a time of great peril and promise, war and strife, we are blessed to have such a powerful reminder of man's potential for great evil, but also our capacity to rise up from tragedy and remake our world. Let our children come here, and know this history, so that they can add their voices to proclaim "never gain." And may we remember those who perished, not only as victims, but also as individuals who hoped and loved and dreamed like us, and who have become symbols of the human spirit.

We can't know if Obama will ever live up to the promise he showed. All we can do is try to be the promise that he showed.

Far as I can tell . . .

this is factually accurate:

Haruhiko Kawaguchi

I want to squeeze her, too. More at Oddity Central (thanks, Ben!)

Wozniak: Cloud Computing Will Cause "Horrible Problems"

"Wozniak didn't offer much in the way of specifics . . . . [but said, 't]he more we transfer everything onto the web, onto the cloud, the less we're going to have control over it.'" Steve Wozniak was the inventor of the Apple I and Apple II computers.

More at Business Insider. You can find more re- the kinds of problems I worry about by clicking on the label, "Worldbeam," at the bottom of this post.

In honor of the Olympics

Techniques for Covert Manipulation on the Internet

Per Wikipedia,

COINTELPRO (an acronym for Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert, and often illegal,^[2] projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.

* * * * *
The FBI engaged in political repression almost from the time of the agency's inception in 1908, and antecedents to COINTELPRO operated during the FDR and Truman administrations. Centralized operations under COINTELPRO officially began in 1956 with a program designed to "increase factionalism, cause disruption and win defections" inside the Communist Party U.S.A. (CPUSA). However, the program was soon enlarged to include disruption of . . . the entire New Left social/political movement, which included antiwar, community, and religious groups (1968). . . . Official congressional committees and several court cases^[14] have concluded that COINTELPRO operations . . . exceeded statutory limits on FBI activity and violated constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and association.^[2]

Since the conclusion of centralized COINTELPRO operations in 1971, . . . allegations of improper political repression continue.^[15][16]

It's widely believed that COINTELPRO-type activity continues to take place on the internet (as well as elsewhere), and one helpful soul has posted a gentleperson's guide such techniques, here. (Of course, such techniques could be in use by groups not employed by governments, too.) I believe I've personally observed such techniques being used, e.g., on DemocraticUnderground.com, and I think the more of us who are aware of them, the better. Here's an excerpt:

COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum.

There are several techniques for the control and manipulation of a internet forum no matter what, or who is on it. We will go over each technique and demonstrate that only a minimal number of operatives can be used to eventually and effectively gain a control of a 'uncontrolled forum.'

Technique #1 - 'FORUM SLIDING'
If a very sensitive posting of a critical nature has been posted on a forum - it can be quickly removed from public view by 'forum sliding.' In this technique a number of unrelated posts are quietly prepositioned on the forum and allowed to 'age.' Each of these misdirectional forum postings can then be called upon at will to trigger a 'forum slide.' The second requirement is that several fake accounts exist, which can be called upon, to ensure that this technique is not exposed to the public. To trigger a 'forum slide' and 'flush' the critical post out of public view it is simply a matter of logging into each account both real and fake and then 'replying' to prepositined postings with a simple 1 or 2 line comment. This brings the unrelated postings to the top of the forum list, and the critical posting 'slides' down the front page, and quickly out of public view. Although it is difficult or impossible to censor the posting it is now lost in a sea of unrelated and unuseful postings. By this means it becomes effective to keep the readers of the forum reading unrelated and non-issue items.

Technique #2 - 'CONSENSUS CRACKING'
A second highly effective technique (which you can see in operation all the time at www.abovetopsecret.com) is 'consensus cracking.' To develop a consensus crack, the following technique is used. Under the guise of a fake account a posting is made which looks legitimate and is towards the truth is made - but the critical point is that it has a VERY WEAK PREMISE without substantive proof to back the posting. Once this is done then under alternative fake accounts a very strong position in your favour is slowly introduced over the life of the posting. It is IMPERATIVE that both sides are initially presented, so the uninformed reader cannot determine which side is the truth. As postings and replies are made the stronger 'evidence' or disinformation in your favour is slowly 'seeded in.' Thus the uninformed reader will most like develop the same position as you, and if their position is against you their opposition to your posting will be most likely dropped. However in some cases where the forum members are highly educated and can counter your disinformation with real facts and linked postings, you can then 'abort' the consensus cracking by initiating a 'forum slide.'

Technique #3 - 'TOPIC DILUTION'
Topic dilution is not only effective in forum sliding it is also very useful in keeping the forum readers on unrelated and non-productive issues. This is a critical and useful technique to cause a 'RESOURCE BURN.' By implementing continual and non-related postings that distract and disrupt (trolling ) the forum readers they are more effectively stopped from anything of any real productivity. If the intensity of gradual dilution is intense enough, the readers will effectively stop researching and simply slip into a 'gossip mode.' In this state they can be more easily misdirected away from facts towards uninformed conjecture and opinion. The less informed they are the more effective and easy it becomes to control the entire group in the direction that you would desire the group to go in. It must be stressed that a proper assessment of the psychological capabilities and levels of education is first determined of the group to determine at what level to 'drive in the wedge.' By being too far off topic too quickly it may trigger censorship by a forum moderator.

Much more at the link; please read and share.

Choi Xoo-Ang

Click on the image for a larger version; more at redefine.