Extreme Sheep Herding LED Art

The new flashmob:



(Thanks, Ben!)

Re- the Death of Journalism

Excellent article in The Nation, by John Nichols & Robert W. McChesney (much more at the link):

"Our founders never thought that freedom of the press would belong only to those who could afford a press. They would have been horrified at the notion that journalism should be regarded as the private preserve of the Rupert Murdochs and John Malones. The founders would not have entertained, let alone accepted, the current equation that seems to say that if rich people determine there is no good money to be made in the news, then society cannot have news . . . .

"The founders regarded the establishment of a press system, the Fourth Estate, as the first duty of the state. Jefferson and Madison devoted considerable energy to explaining the necessity of the press to a vibrant democracy. The government implemented extraordinary postal subsidies for the distribution of newspapers. It also instituted massive newspaper subsidies through printing contracts and the paid publication of government notices, all with the intent of expanding the number and variety of newspapers. When Tocqueville visited the United States in the 1830s he was struck by the quantity and quality of newspapers and periodicals compared with France, Canada and Britain. It was not an accident. It had little to do with 'free markets.' It was the result of public policy.

"Moreover, when the Supreme Court has taken up matters of freedom of the press, its majority opinions have argued strongly for the necessity of the press as the essential underpinning of our constitutional republic. First Amendment absolutist Hugo Black wrote that the 'Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public, that a free press is a condition of a free society.' Black argued for the right and necessity of the government to counteract private monopolistic control over the media. More recently Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee, argued that 'assuring the public has access to a multiplicity of information sources is a governmental purpose of the highest order.'

"But government support for the press is not merely a matter of history or legal interpretation. Complaints about a government role in fostering journalism invariably overlook the fact that our contemporary media system is anything but an independent 'free market' institution. The government subsidies established by the founders did not end in the eighteenth--or even the nineteenth--century. Today the government doles out tens of billions of dollars in direct and indirect subsidies, including free and essentially permanent monopoly broadcast licenses, monopoly cable and satellite privileges, copyright protection and postal subsidies. (Indeed, this magazine has been working for the past few years with journals of the left and right to assure that those subsidies are available to all publications.) Because the subsidies mostly benefit the wealthy and powerful, they are rarely mentioned in the fictional account of an independent and feisty Fourth Estate. Both the rise and decline of commercial journalism can be attributed in part to government policies, which scrapped the regulations and ownership rules that had encouraged local broadcast journalism and allowed for lax regulation as well as tax deductions for advertising--policies that greatly increased news media revenues."

Bernanke

"is either an astoundingly self-contained man or is on the best meds modern science has to offer." (More from Yves Smith at the link.)

Stewart vs. Cramer

You've prolly seen it by now, but if not, you should, even if you think you probably know what they said.

Stewart: "When are we going to realize in this country that our wealth is WORK . . . ." (The wealthy have always known that -- that's why they've kept us working so hard.)

and "Maybe this is purely ridiculous, but I'm under the assumption that you don't just take their [Paulson's et al.'s] word at face value, that you actually then go around and try to figure it out."

and "So maybe we [you, Cramer] could remove the 'financial expert' and 'in Cramer we trust' and start getting back to fundamentals on the reporting as well, and I can go back to making fart noises . . . "

Warning, Comedy Central's interface is really annoying: no embed, and if you try to move the cursor any distance, you have to watch another commercial.

Stewart has single-handedly done a lot more of the media's and Congress's jobs than they have -- and they know it.

More of Jim Cramer here.

One-Eyed Filmmaker Conceals Camera in Prosthetic

"A one-eyed documentary filmmaker is preparing to work with a video camera concealed inside a prosthetic eye, hoping to secretly record people for a project commenting on the global spread of surveillance cameras.

"Canadian Rob Spence's eye was damaged in a childhood shooting accident and it was removed three years ago. Now, he is in the final stages of developing a camera to turn the handicap into an advantage.

* * * * *
"Spence said he plans to become a 'human surveillance machine' to explore privacy issues and whether people are 'sleepwalking into an Orwellian society.'

* * * * *
"His special equipment will consist of a camera, originally designed for colonoscopies, a battery and a wireless transmitter. It's a challenge to get everything to fit inside the prosthetic eye, but Spence has had help from top engineers . . . ."

More at boston.com.

(Thanks, Ben + Danny!)

2009 Volta NY

More pics and vidis starting here.

As I understand, this show was curated based on the artists -- the curators first selected artists they wanted to include, then invited galleries to show those artists.

Alex Rose's collage-based work was knock-out; I took several pics starting here, but they don't come close to doing it justice.

What may not be obvious from my pics of the Tabula Magica (starting here) is that this very thick volume is filled exclusively with tables of contents of other volumes relating to magic. And the glowing, life-size figure in Fernando Mastrangelo's installation is, I take it, actually made of cocaine.

I also liked a lot of the other work including Troels Carlsen's.

I shot the t-shirt in honor of Misty and Brian!

Note the sign behind Alejandro Diaz's tortilla stand: "MARFA: 1,600 MILES." Finally, Erica Eyres' The Male Epidemic just gets funnier as it goes on from here.

I learned only on the last nite that Volta had curated video screenings every evening, at another location. I caught most of the last one; the pieces I saw were vintage and worthwhile and, I expect, were items that one doesn't often get the chance to see. I hope they'll do video programming again next year.

(B.t.w., in case you can't read it, the sign on Alejandro Diaz's birdcage says, "Lost our Lease.")

2009 Scope NY

More pics and vidis starting here. It didn't hurt that it was smaller, or that the first thing you saw when you walked in said, "Enough with the deer already." Or that they created a couple of goofy, lounge-y spaces (e.g.) where people actually seemed to want to hang out.

My personal experience was also enhanced by encountering the relational Lossy Data Lab (see also here; pics starting here), whose work was not only intelligent but really fun and funny. They had me fill out a questionnaire, on the basis of which their "computer" determined that there is "Lossy data present in [my] readings, which is both good and bad" – just as I feared. And The Poem Store (pics starting here), whose proprietor also offered art reviews; so I commissioned a review of the Lossy Data Lab. I thot his product was pretty fine considering he pounded it out on a 1970's (?) Japanese Olivetti knock-off while maintaining cogent conversation with a constant stream of customers (text of poem/art review reproduced below). Pls see the visuals at the links above for a fuller appreciation of these works.

I also liked the work of EVOL and of the artists at 798 Avant Gallery, among others. It's hard to tell from the pics, but EVOL's paintings are on ordinary corrugated cardboard using silver paint along with a spare palette of other colors; all the tan parts are just the cardboard showing through. Irene Presner's piece was created with a tattoo gun.

A certain pic at the first link above is included solely to doc. another artist inspired, shall we say, by Erick Swenson.






Here's the text of The Poem Store's review of the Lossy Data Lab (pls excuse, I can't reproduce the original format here, which is indented one space more at the beginning of each successive line; see pic here):

the lossy data lab makes
something of information
when given to people
as a return form
causal loop
of seems
pretty
perfect
for its
ineptitude
as visual
interface
but assuredly
thorough and
confident even
in their sprawling
ambiguity and un
conventional
presentation
i think they
are more in line
with the future
of art as a
responsive public
service
intervention
on the
edge of
what anoil [sic]
painting
to do about relational aesthetics

2009 Pulse; Plus New Beecroft at Deitch, and Eyebeam

More pics and vidis starting here.

I began the day at Art in General, where Sandra Skurvida gave a helpful and thought-provoking talk about the show she curated there, Custom Car Commandos (unfortunately now closed, and yes, tipping the hat to Kenneth Anger's Kustom Kar Kommandos showing at P.S. 1 through September 14, 2009). Angie Waller's piece was pretty hilarious, and I esp. liked Lars Mathison's.

I enjoyed the first piece I encountered at Pulse, by Eyebeam alum R. Luke DuBois; he'd made something like "tag clouds" for each of the U.S. Prez's based on their State of the Union speeches, laid out like eye exam charts. (Reminded me of a John Cheever Wapshot tale, in which a the protagonist plugs the complete works of Shakespeare into a program that spits out a list of words in order of most frequent use, which list itself turns out in the Bard's case to constitute a sonnet.) DuBois's results are evocative and sometimes ironic: Washington appealed to our higher selves as "Gentlemen"; Nixon's most-used word was "truly."

I really liked Airan Kang's "illuminated" books -- his and the Bliumis' works evince a trend I'll maybe call nostalgia for old media, including words; Gino Rupert's work; Michael Joaquin Grey's work (starting here); Li Wenqiang's work. And, fellow M.B. fans, don't miss Laurina Paperina's Joseph Kosuth versus Matthew Barney (Barney wins)!

One thing that sounded like a good idea but didn't really work in the setting was Pulse Play: curator Marina Fokidis invited various artists to select their own fave YouTube videos. While the list is appreciated and I hope to explore it, who's going to sit there and watch a faded projection during fair hours when they can see the same quality or better at 4 a.m. in the comfort of my own home.

Also at Pulse, ran into artist Fahamu Pecou (his work was being shown there by Lyons Wirr Ortt, NYC; I originally met him at his Dallas, TX gallery, Conduit) -- thanks for encouraging me to go to everything, Fahamu! Not that I need much pushing.

I left Pulse to catch the new Vanessa Beecroft performance/sculpture at Deitch Projects (see here).

Next, the MIXER performance(s) and party at Eyebeam; and as I go thru the pics and vidis (starting here), I'm pretty knocked out at the talent and effort that went into creating this event. Eyebeam has always been among the most worthwhile destinations for me, and a lot of people deserve a lot of credit.

Re- Mark Shepard: I had to include that vidi, which isn't much, but: he created the umbrellas as part of his project, called Hertzian Rain, and as I understand, the deal was, they were covered with a (radio?-) wave-resistant fabric, and waves were being transmitted from different points in the building, and as you walked around under an umbrella, depending the angle you held it and your location, different sources would come through or be cut out. For more on the performers and attractions, see here.

Eyebeam will welcome new residents 3-26 at 6PM; I will be there.