Drawdio

Thanks, Ben!

Dependent Fair

So you heard about the Independent Fair; but there was also the Dependent Fair, occupying 6 floors of a Comfort Inn on the Lower East Side. The offerings varied widely; OWS even got a room.

The rooms were small and plagued by darkness, glare, and color reflected from yellow walls; nonetheless, many galleries managed to mount interesting mini-exhibitions. I esp. liked the shows installed by Audio Visual Arts, Foxy Production, and Silvershed.

The first image (right) shows part of the "Ministry of Lamination" installation from AVA; the second, a frame of a video by Michael Bell-Smith, from Foxy; the third, offerings from Silvershed. Good articles with photos at Art Fag City and eyes-towards-the-dove; more of my photos here.

More posts on the 2012 Armory week art fairs here.

Worst Album Covers of All Time

. . . or greatest? It was really hard to pick one to show you; you've got to go to the site.

Spring/Break Art Show (NYC Armory Week)

Spring/Break Art Show was a new, curator-driven "this can be a fair," located in Old School, NoLIta and featuring projects by 23 curators; and it may have been my favorite of the shows I saw during Armory week. Among the curators were the fair's founders Andrew Gori and Ambre Kelly, Natalie Kovacs, Patrick Meagher, Eve Sussman, and Chen Tamir. The theme was "Apocalist: A Brief History of The End." The show also has a Facebook page with some photos here; Artinfo has an article with some good photos; Vernissage TV has a 6.5-min. video tour here; and my photos, such as they are, are here.

As usual, I'd have liked to have had more time here – everything I saw seemed to warrant it – but the evening ran out before I made it through the whole thing. Out of the works I saw, some faves were:

1. An installation featuring work by Eve Sussman – the labelling was a bit confusing to me, so I'll quote it: "Eve Sussman, Waiting for an Icon, 2012. Crazy Daisy, 2012, 3 channel site-specific video round with Patricia Thornley, Jeesu Kim, Leslie Thornton, Bat Or Kalo. Eve Sussman's site-specific work at Old School is inspired by a stained glass artwork she has brought back to life, animating it with the projections of several singers attempting the title song from the film Pull My Daisy. The musical rendition of the Neal Cassidy [sic], Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac poem was featured in Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie's 1959 film." You can view the 26-min., classic Pull My Daisy at Ubuweb; the title song lyrics actually modify those of the poem; both are weird and suggestive; and the melody is wonderfully discombobulating and, I'd say, hard to sing. Sussman's projection onto stained glass was flanked on each side by projections of video'd windows through which you sometimes spied a young woman, apparently washing dishes or the like – the "glass" was frosted, except for a circle framing the young woman's head (see here for the layout).

2. Sp33dGuided Art Tour by Dora Budor + Maja Cule was a charming, thoughtfully goofy, iPhone-narrated tour with guide and guidee cuddled awkwardly on one Segway, purportedly touring the art in the show but in fact limited to the courtyard and an attempted trip around the block, although in my case we turned back after a close call involving a tree root and a fence. The artists explained they'd always wanted to try a Segway; me, too! The tour launched from a room featuring twin projections of Earth, positioned like views through a pair of binocs, except the planet spun differently in the two views; but I think this was a separate work.

3. In Sea of Fire by Fall on Your Sword (2012), an antique piano had been hooked up to video equipment in such a way that, in its default mode, the video showed one of those fake statue guys dressed up like the Statue of Liberty; but when you pressed one of the organ keys, this was interrupted by a clip from a disaster movie, with each key seemingly triggering the destruction of the Statue by a different, apocalyptic means – bombing, a tidal wave, alien invasion, etc. It was, simply, awesome. Trailer here; but it's nothing like being able to trigger a Liberty-annihilating tsunami with a key stroke.

I also saw a piece in which purported art objects were incorporated into an improvisational, audience-participatory art performance, which was a lots of fun; apologies that I can't say who deserves credit, except I think it may have been hosted by ArtLog? (I've requested more info and will update this if I get it.)

(Posts on other 2012 Armory week art shows here; three more to come.)

Wind Map

The still at right is from Mar. 21, 2012. Here's a real-time animation of the wind as of right now.

Last night

. . . I had a dream suggesting that the world is a computer and my art projects are software for it.

Find a Non-Violent Action Training Event Near You

One concern w.r.t. activist efforts during the last few years is that it seems that few of us fully understand just what our rights of free speech and peaceable assembly really include and what to say or do when others try to stop us from exercising them. Also, how could those rights be affected by recent legislation (see, e.g., this, this, or this)?

I personally believe that, the more people who understand the answers to these questions, the better off we'll all be. I hope to receive answers at one of the events being organized per the following from National People's Action, re- an effort called the "99% Spring":

During the week of April 9-15, in small towns and big cities all across America, 100,000 people will come together for an unprecedented national nonviolent, direct action training. We'll learn to tell the story of our economy and what went wrong; we'll learn the history of nonviolent direct action; and, we'll learn how we can take action and create great change in this country.

You can find a training event near you, here.

This is a coordinated effort by, among others: Jobs With Justice, United Auto Workers, National Peoples Action, National Domestic Workers Alliance, MoveOn.org Civic Action, New Organizing Institute, Movement Strategy Center, The Other 98%, Service Employees International Union, Rebuild the Dream, UNITE-HERE, Greenpeace, Institute for Policy Studies, United Steel Workers, Working Families Party, Communications Workers of America, United States Student Association, Rainforest Action Network, American Federation of Teachers, Leadership Center for the Common Good, UNITY, National Guestworker Alliance, 350.org, The Ruckus Society, Citizen Engagement Lab, smartMeme Strategy & Training Project, Right to the City Alliance, Pushback Network, Progressive Democrats of America, Change to Win, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Campaign for America’s Future, Fuse Washington, National Day Laborers Organizing Network, Alliance for a Just Society, The Partnership for Working Families, United Students Against Sweatshops, etc.

UPDATE: Here's a helpful article on the origins of this effort. Here's an article expressing reservations about the effort (based on the fact that its statements omit any objection to the US wars in the Middle East).

FURTHER UPDATE: I just learned that Noam Chomsky has endorsed the 99% Spring coalition .

(Note, 99% Spring is separate from but apparently congruent with other Occupiers' May 1st General Strike.)

NASA Video of Solar Flare March 7

"The sun erupted with one of the largest solar flares of this solar cycle on March 6, 2012 at 7PM EST. This flare was categorized as an X5.4, making it the second largest flare . . . since the sun’s activity segued into a period of relatively low activity called solar minimum in early 2007."

The grid did not fry, this time. More info re- the flare at NASA.