3-D Bjork

. . . here. It was a bit glitchy for me, but I prolly just need to restart my browser; and anyway, they're offering free 3-D glasses! If the page doesn't work for you, here's the 2-D YouTube version; pls remember to rate it up:

Dr. Lakra's "Untitled (Vea)"

(2007), ink (and paint?) on vintage mag. From the "Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art," previously blogged here. More Lakra here, here, and here.

THE PROGRAM

Me, Bart Weiss, and Dee Mitchell, co-curators of the DVF ' 08's new, new media and video art series, THE PROGRAM. Ok, yeah; in reality, I'm cuter. (Image scavenged by the superb Danette.)

As you may know, the DVF 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.

This year, the new media and video art portion of the DVF will be presented separately from the rest of the Fest, in an expanded series of programs over a five-week period, with each week's work remaining on exhibit until the next week's is installed.

Nothing's set in stone yet, but it looks like there's a decent chance we'll get to show -- no, I'm afraid of jinxing it. But I will say, I'm really excited about the way the schedule's shaping up.

5 shows over 5 weeks, with openings on 5 consecutive Sat. nites, after-parties, etc. etc. Starting July 26 at Conduit Gallery.

Ink it into your calendar; and tell your friends!

Art Project: Purported Multiple, Deliberately-Induced Pregnancies & Abortions

"A Yale University art student duped the student newspaper with a story about inducing repeated abortions on herself and using the blood for her senior art project, the school said Thursday.

" . . . . The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman's body," said [a] Yale spokeswoman . . . .

"Shvarts' 'performance art' included visual representations, a news release and other narrative materials, Klasky said. When confronted by three senior Yale officials, including two deans, Shvarts acknowledged that she did not seek any abortions. . . .

"The newspaper's account detailed 'a nine-month process during which [Shvarts] artificially inseminated herself 'as often as possible' while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages.'"

Personally, I don't consider an embryo with the I.Q. of a carrot to be a "person" entitled to Constitutional protection. On the other hand, chimps and gorillas can learn and even teach their kids language, but we don't protect them.

More here.

Paul Chan's "Alternumeric" Fonts

I've been looking at some of Paul Chan's stuff for possible inclusion in THE PROGRAM; he's so dam' cool. Something we prolly won't include but that's too fun not to mention is alternumeric fonts that you can download at Chan's site. The pic at left shows how the phrase, "See it here" looks written in "The Future Must Be Sweet" font, which refers to the work of Charles Fourier.

Note that Chan chose "desire" as the central glyph corresponding to the most common letter in the English alphabet, "e."

Unauthorized Group Exhibit in MoMA's Restrooms

On April 4, Jonathan Hartshorn, Brendan Carney, Thury Sigurthorsdottir and Scott Lawrence installed photos, sculptures and other works in an unauthorized exhibit in a the restrooms at MoMA. The photo (by Scott Lawrence) shows Hartshorn's performance piece, in which he crouched under a shower curtain.

As the NYT reports, "The exhibition lasted only from 6 to 6:26 p.m., . . . because a security guard, alerted by concerned bathroomgoers, showed up and tapped on Mr. Hartshorn’s shower curtain . . . and said, ‘I heard there was a mental patient in here.’"

The more enduring part of the exhibit is on the internet. Mr. Carney purchased the domain, "momaexhibitions.org," and replicated MoMA's site exactly, except for adding his own group's restroom show to the list of official exhibitions. The show's listed as, "Group Exhibition Down to Nature."

Take Your Pick

. . . and on and on. Lots more bumper stickers starting here, including, of course, "Bitter Hillary Clinton Supporters for Obama."

United we stand; divided we fall.

Al Gore's New Slide Show

From the first few minutes of Al Gore's recent TED talk:

"If religion, properly understood, is not about belief, [but] about behavior, perhaps we should say the same thing about optimism. . . .

"I'm a big advocate of changing light bulbs, buying hybrids, [etc.]; but as important as it is to change the light bulbs, it's more important to change the laws. And when we change our behavior in our daily lives, we sometimes leave out the citizenship part and the democracy part.

"In order to be optimistic about this, we have to become incredibly active as citizens in our democracy. In order to solve the climate crisis, we have to solve the democracy crisis. And we have one." [Emphasis supplied.]

In this talk, Gore describes some of the evidence that makes scientists think that climate change may now be happening even faster than they were recently predicting, and argues that we must put aside the distractions that engulf us, in order to rise with joy to the challenge and privilege of mobilizing politically and becoming the heroes "[a]bout which, a thousand years from now, philharmonic orchestras and poets and singers will celebrate by saying, 'they were the ones who found it within themselves to solve this crisis and lay the basis for a bright and optimistic human future.'"