Web cam of the install through November 16, 2008 permanent link to this post

As part of my 5 min presentation of Want at the CC art camp this year, I showed the 1ypv. I mentioned my amazement that 24 people have spent a year watching us hanging out in a cell. The next day I was talking with George Fifiel about durational performance / media art and he told about this strange lost game by Penn & Teller from 1995. Part of the game was a driving simulator called “Desert Bus”. In this game you have to drive a beat-up bus through the Nevada desert for eight hours in real-time to reach Las Vegas. Once you get to Vegas, you are told to turn around and drive home. In the game the bus veers to the right so you have to keep your hands on the joystick the entire 16 hour trip.

Love it.

More background on Desert Bus
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Sarah Jessica Parker’s “American Artist” reality show has been picked up by (who else?) Bravo. From The Hollywood Reporter:

Sarah Jessica Parker’s art competition reality show has found a home at Bravo.

The network has picked up “American Artist,” from Parker’s Pretty Matches production company and wunderkin producers Magical Elves, as part of its development slate. Bravo is expected to announce the deal Sunday at the Television Critics Assn. press tour.

The hourlong show has been described by the Elves team of Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz as a “Project Runway”-style competition series that takes on the art world. Aspiring artists compete to produce various styles of artwork (painting, sculpting, etc.), which is then judged by a panel of experts. The network declined to comment.

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Photos from Dana Strasser and Isabella Bruno’s OTO event “Playscape”, are now up on the OTO Flickr set. permanent link to this post

We’re very happy to announce that we’ll be taking part in SFMOMA’s “The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now” November 8 - February 8, 2009.

From the press release:

Organized by SFMOMA Curator of Media Arts Rudolf Frieling, this large thematic presentation gathers more than 70 works by some 50 individual artists and collectives, and will feature projects both on-site and online, as well as several new pieces commissioned specifically for the exhibition. From early performance-based and conceptual art to online works rooted in the multiuser dynamics of Web 2.0 platforms, The Art of Participation reflects on the confluence of audience interaction, utopian politics, and mass media, and reclaims the museum as a space for two-way exchange between artists and viewers.

The exhibition proposes that participatory art is generally based on a notion of indeterminacy—an openness to chance or change, as introduced by John Cage in the early 1950s—and refers to projects that, while initiated by individual artists, can be realized only through the contribution of others. This artistic approach entices the public to join in; questions the conventional divide between artists and their audience; and challenges assumptions about the symbolic value of art, as well as the traditional role of the museum as a container for objects rather than a site for social engagement or art production. Participatory art typically synthesizes a variety of artistic media, emphasizes process over object, and champions the idea of collective authorship.

We’ll be dropping lots more info about this as the exhibition draws nearer. permanent link to this post

You enter a small candlelit library. A crowd of mourners mill about an open coffin in the center of the room. In the coffin rests a body wrapped in a white sheet. The sheet has two black spots painted on for eyes.

T.Whid approaches you dressed in black, two whiskeys in hand. As he offers you a drink, he begins…

T. Whid — Hell. Glad you could make it out tonight, didn’t think you’d make it. Here, have a drink, find a place to stand. M.River is going to start soon. Lauren, Patrick and Luis are already here. I think they’re over at the buffet table. Please, help yourself. Thanks again for coming out.

As you make your way through the crowd to the buffet table, M. River, dressed in a white suit with black armband, climbs onto a chair near the coffin. He raises his arms into the air and begins.

M. River — Dearly Beloved, a few months ago Luis Silva asked T.Whid and I to participate in an email-based exhibition hosted on Rhizome. We had recently been thinking about how Rhizome has, in the past, been used not only as a place to announce and talk about art, but also as a platform to create art. We were also thinking about some MTAA projects like vieweratstar67@yahoo.com, Endnode AKA Printer Tree and Karaoke DeathMatch 100 all of which incorporated open, group interactions.

We were thinking about a key on the floor, a group identity, and an empty room. We were also thinking about, as we often do when we think about the Internet, ghosts.

We worked with Rhizome to set-up an open account using the ghost@rhizome.org email address. We then submitted this text as our work for the FW: Re: Re: exhibition:

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a one-month email haunting of rhizome.org (aka ghost@rhizome.org) user name: ghost@rhizome.org (rhizomeghost@gmail.com)

password: boobooboo 11-07-2008 to 11-08-2008
+++

Less than 24 hours after the ghost was released, it was locked down. The ghost’s password was changed barring the public from interacting with the piece. The ghost’s controller next bombed Rhizome with spam, racist rants and sexist screeds for a few hours then stopped.

Two options presented themselves: 1) continue the project with a smaller group of people or 2) kill the project. Of the two choices, killing the project after 24 hours seemed like the only honest thing to do.

So, here we are one week later to bid farewell to ghost@rhizome.org.

Now, If you would all please raise you glasses with me. A toast! To the belief that utter and complete failure is still a viable option in art. The ghost is dead. Long live the ghost!

As you file out with the sobbing crowd, you notice T.Whid preparing to pound a stake into the ghost’s heart as M.River douses the sheet with gasoline while waving a dead chicken over it.

===

P.S. You can find an archive and comment on all the ghost’s posts over at Rhizome on the BOO thread. permanent link to this post

Hey all. M.River here of MTAA. I’ve been in the studio this summer working on some new paintings. Can’t wait to show them. Wish me luck. permanent link to this post

"Play is the exultation of the possible." - Martin Buber

On July 18th, from 7 to 10pm, OTO is pleased to present a new installation by Dana Strasser and Isabella Bruno.

Strasser and Bruno create a playspace for the adult set using specifically selected, everyday objects in transformative ways. Immerse yourself in a sea of balloons, and let the play happen.

OTO goes on vacation in August and will return in the fall with a new works by Mike Koller, Mike Sarff, Cary Peppermint, Curt Cloninger, Annie Abrahams, and more.

For details and directions check Over The Opening. permanent link to this post

a one-month public haunting of rhizome.org

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From The Art Newspaper:

The final frontier protecting contemporary art galleries from the relentless encroachment of the auction houses has been emphatically breached with the announcement that Damien Hirst is creating an exhibition of new works for display and sale at the London headquarters of Sotheby’s.

via NEWSgrist permanent link to this post

Caspar Stracke responds (.mov 52MB) to Oliver Laric’s “Touch My Body (Green Screen Version)”.

I’ve mashed-up the two together. Here’s some of stills of the video:







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