BIO
Leslie Raymond is an expanded cinema artist living in Detroit, MI.
The hybrid nature of her artwork in the moving image eludes easy categorization. It extends from traditions of both experimental film and video art, embraces contemporary tools and materials, and explores new techniques in the creation of mostly single and multi-channel video, live cinema performance, and multimedia installation.
She and her partner Jason Jay Stevens are known as Potter-Belmar Labs, a collaborative team who have been working together in multimedia performance and installation since 1999.
Her solo and collaborative work has been shown at venues such as the the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (Santa Fe, Argentina), San Antonio Museum of Art, Artpace (San Antonio, TX), the Sheldon Memorial Museum (Lincoln, NE), the McDonough Museum (Youngstown, OH), the Lausanne Underground Film Festival (Switzerland), the Sydney International Film Festival (Australia), Antimatter Underground Film Festival (Victoria, BC, Canada), Media Archeology Festival (Houston, TX), the Ann Arbor Film Festival (Ann Arbor, MI), PDX Film Festival (Portland, OR), Aurora Picture Show (Houston, TX), Chicago Filmmakers (Chicago, IL), Squeaky Wheel (Buffalo, NY), Los Angeles Filmforum, and Other Cinema (San Francisco, CA).
Born in Saint Paul (MN) and raised in Detroit, Raymond received her BFA in film and video from Rhode Island School of Design in 1990, and an MFA from the University of Michigan School of Art & Design in 1999. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.
The hybrid nature of her artwork in the moving image eludes easy categorization. It extends from traditions of both experimental film and video art, embraces contemporary tools and materials, and explores new techniques in the creation of mostly single and multi-channel video, live cinema performance, and multimedia installation.
She and her partner Jason Jay Stevens are known as Potter-Belmar Labs, a collaborative team who have been working together in multimedia performance and installation since 1999.
Her solo and collaborative work has been shown at venues such as the the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (Santa Fe, Argentina), San Antonio Museum of Art, Artpace (San Antonio, TX), the Sheldon Memorial Museum (Lincoln, NE), the McDonough Museum (Youngstown, OH), the Lausanne Underground Film Festival (Switzerland), the Sydney International Film Festival (Australia), Antimatter Underground Film Festival (Victoria, BC, Canada), Media Archeology Festival (Houston, TX), the Ann Arbor Film Festival (Ann Arbor, MI), PDX Film Festival (Portland, OR), Aurora Picture Show (Houston, TX), Chicago Filmmakers (Chicago, IL), Squeaky Wheel (Buffalo, NY), Los Angeles Filmforum, and Other Cinema (San Francisco, CA).
Born in Saint Paul (MN) and raised in Detroit, Raymond received her BFA in film and video from Rhode Island School of Design in 1990, and an MFA from the University of Michigan School of Art & Design in 1999. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.
@
Deadline:
Mon Jan 26, 2009 00:00
“@”
Concurrent with the New Media Caucus panel Space: The New Frontier at the National CAA 2009, “@” is an exhibition that examines space and site.
With simultaneous locations in Los Angeles and Second Life (SL), “@”challenges artists to consider place & placelessness from within the context of networked culture.
The physical gallery space will be replicated within SL, featuring an actual window between the virtual and real worlds to observe and be observed.
The exhibition space will feature a floor-to-ceiling projection and a streaming video camera. This wall will serve as the interface between the Real Life (RL) in the gallery and its replication in Second Life.
The intent for “@” is to exploit the philosophically rich mirroring between RL and SL, as well as the paradoxical condition of being the observer and observed.
CALL FOR WORKS:
Three aspects to the show will be curated separately but are expected to connect conceptually:
1) installation in RL: a heterotopic space - "other space" or "alt space"- that contains the projection from SL and that can be modeled in SL. The artist is not responsible for creating the SL model.
2) video screenings: works concerning space and place vis-à-vis RL and SL. These works will be screened in an adjacent space in RL and streamed in SL
3) works based in SL that may cross RL boundaries. Objects and performances originating in SL that consider and make use of the synergistic interplay of RL/SL localities. Work may exist in either or both spaces.
Exhibition site: Southern California Institute of Architecture, Los Angeles, CA, and Seventh Eye in Second Life.
Installation will take place at the end of February
Formats:
- Works may be in any medium. ( submissions must be web links)
- Physical works MAY be reproduced in the SL space.
- Please consider the exhibition context and propose new and existing works that fit this hybrid space.
- Links to high compression downloadable quicktime are recommended, suggested length is 3-5 minutes.
- The gallery is approximately 20' x 60' (detailed diagram available upon request)
Deadline: January 26
Please send proposals or documentation links to:
gallery@arsvirtua.com
Concurrent with the New Media Caucus panel Space: The New Frontier at the National CAA 2009, “@” is an exhibition that examines space and site.
With simultaneous locations in Los Angeles and Second Life (SL), “@”challenges artists to consider place & placelessness from within the context of networked culture.
The physical gallery space will be replicated within SL, featuring an actual window between the virtual and real worlds to observe and be observed.
The exhibition space will feature a floor-to-ceiling projection and a streaming video camera. This wall will serve as the interface between the Real Life (RL) in the gallery and its replication in Second Life.
The intent for “@” is to exploit the philosophically rich mirroring between RL and SL, as well as the paradoxical condition of being the observer and observed.
CALL FOR WORKS:
Three aspects to the show will be curated separately but are expected to connect conceptually:
1) installation in RL: a heterotopic space - "other space" or "alt space"- that contains the projection from SL and that can be modeled in SL. The artist is not responsible for creating the SL model.
2) video screenings: works concerning space and place vis-à-vis RL and SL. These works will be screened in an adjacent space in RL and streamed in SL
3) works based in SL that may cross RL boundaries. Objects and performances originating in SL that consider and make use of the synergistic interplay of RL/SL localities. Work may exist in either or both spaces.
Exhibition site: Southern California Institute of Architecture, Los Angeles, CA, and Seventh Eye in Second Life.
Installation will take place at the end of February
Formats:
- Works may be in any medium. ( submissions must be web links)
- Physical works MAY be reproduced in the SL space.
- Please consider the exhibition context and propose new and existing works that fit this hybrid space.
- Links to high compression downloadable quicktime are recommended, suggested length is 3-5 minutes.
- The gallery is approximately 20' x 60' (detailed diagram available upon request)
Deadline: January 26
Please send proposals or documentation links to:
gallery@arsvirtua.com
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One Night Eight Years Ago in Knoxville TN...
We were in town to participate in an a/v showdown for the "Unreal Tournament" at the University of Tennessee Knoxville / Downtown Gallery. We were grabbing a sushi special bite before our match against the indomitable Ed Cooper / Projexorcism and splendid Faze Exile on audio.
just for fun
An animated gif I made as an in-class demo for Video Art II, inspired by Terry Gilliam's Do It Yourself Animation Show.
Kiln and Convection Technology
Eighteen years ago during the spring of 1995 on a small island in the Mississippi River off the shores of St. Paul MN at an abandoned power plant a group of artists observed Beltane using the medium of fire.
Without knowing that Beltane translates as "fire of the god"(1), or
that cakes played an important role in Beltane, or that one piece of cake would traditionally be marked and he who received it would be sacrificed to the fire...
I cooked giant pancakes with a marble hidden inside.
Earlier in the day, I had dug a pit and assembled a stove with a sheet of salvaged stainless steel and some bricks.
Earlier in my life, I had unknowingly come to understand convection principles through observing my mom opening and closing the damper to control the heat of the kiln. When my giant pancake stove needed more heat, I intuitively pulled out a brick to create a heat transfer current that would stoke the fire thus raising the temperature of the cooking surface.
I used a snow shovel to flip the pancakes.
Earlier in the day, I had dug a pit and assembled a stove with a sheet of salvaged stainless steel and some bricks.
Earlier in my life, I had unknowingly come to understand convection principles through observing my mom opening and closing the damper to control the heat of the kiln. When my giant pancake stove needed more heat, I intuitively pulled out a brick to create a heat transfer current that would stoke the fire thus raising the temperature of the cooking surface.
I used a snow shovel to flip the pancakes.
Ancient and Contemporary Mediums
This is Jackson Li (Li Jiansheng) director of the Sanbao Ceramic Institute and Museum (Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, China) discussing characteristics of Minyao pottery traditions of present day China. Here he connects the personality of this pot to the work of ceramic artist Marie Woo, from whose collection it comes. Last weekend's Chinese Folk Pottery Symposium at the University of Michigan Museum of Art was the culmination of decades of Marie's research into the traditions of Chinese folk pottery. She has followed this quest deep into China numerous times to uncover the surviving practitioners of ancient ceramic vessel-building and firing techniques. For various reasons, industrialization is bringing about the end of these these centuries-old traditions, creating an imperative to act quickly in regards to their study and documentation.
My mom is Marie Woo. Her ceramic art and research (in tandem with my father's architectural work) is the ground upon which my own art practice stands. I am humbled by the social and cultural history of clay as a material as I extend my reach in the studio with the contemporary digital tools of moving image art.
Most Recent Class
A compressed seven-week term provided a great opportunity to pilot my experimental animation class at Oakland University this summer.
This laboratory-style workshop was designed to support both the study and production of experimental animation. The students studied experimental animation history and contemporary work in the field, and investigated 2D animation techniques incorporating both analog and digital strategies.
Class time was used for lectures and screenings, discussion of animated works viewed as well as readings, technical demonstrations, production and critique. The students undertook a series of structured studies and produced mid-term and final open projects.
The shortened and intensive time frame of the summer term supported an exploration of multiple teaching/learning strategies with a quick turnaround time that made for fluid modification and fine-tuning. On the flip-side, however, the compressed workload did not allow students time for post-critique revision of their work.
It was refreshing to teach a group of advanced students from a variety of disciplines including photography, painting, cinema studies, and new media. The course culminated in a final show at the laSalle Auditorium at Cranbrook Museum of Art, and featured projects made by the students as well as animations by established historic and contemporary artists, selected by the class, that we watched in class or which were posted to their blogs.
It was a great experience and I am looking forward to teaching this class again during the Winter 2013 term.
First Teaching Gig
A newly harvested gourd has skin that is smooth and even or textured with a regular rhythm. Fresh and vibrant color provides evidence of the life energy of its growth cycle.
In the fall of 1996 I was invited to teach secondary-level art for a semester at Kingswood School-Cranbrook. My high school mentor/advisor/art teacher called on me as someone who had taken her entire curriculum and who, she thought at the time, could teach it.
I taught three sections of beginning drawing, three sections of painting, two sections of photography, and one advanced drawing class.
At lunchtime, I would lay down behind my desk and take a nap.
Sixteen years later, I find that the three largest gourds from the study have been enduring in the garage at my parents' house all this time. Seeds and other debris rattle around inside the dried husks, punctured in places and scarred with mildew and other growths. The surfaces are worn, with lots of color, texture and character.
It is very difficult to toss them into the compost, but seems like an opportune time to usher in a new era.
One thing that has remained consistent throughout my teaching career is the satisfaction I derive from positively impacting young artists. Without this, I would have left the profession a long time ago. It is hard to feel like I am doing something useful with so many disparaging opinions of not only post-secondary teaching and the state of arts education, but also of the general value of art to society.
Many outside of the academic system look upon it as bloated and broken, while those inside either struggle against giant bureaucracies to change things for the better, get good at playing politics, or just give up.
Like every one of my teaching peers, I learned how to teach by teaching. There was little-to-no training. Everything I figured out came through a combination of my own experience of being a student, anything I could get my hands on to read, and trial-and-error. After sixteen years (give or take one here or there), I can definitely say that I am now a good teacher. But it didn't come easy.
Yesterday, I walked the grounds at Cranbrook for the first time in many years. Memories emerged of learning the concepts of basic design and how to make a perfectly exposed photograph, then came a feeling of connection to place and lineage both, and a sense of carrying on and expanding the tradition of something greater than myself. It was somehow reassuring. But such a tiny moment amidst giant tides of uncertainty.
A Painting. A Hat. And Kimsooja.
I visit my friend Terrence Campagna at his studio on Cass Avenue in Detroit. We catch up over tea and baklava, relaying to each other the large and small changes in our art practices that have grown out of large and small life changes. We go outside for a walk and immediately encounter two paintings laying on the sidewalk next to the street. Heading up Woodward, I bemoan the fact that I left my hat at home-- misled by the two-day thaw and now the wind leads me to regret. Not one minute goes by before a gentleman is walking our way with a small handful of knit hats for a dollar. "This one is your color," he says, glancing down at my dark plum pants as he hands it over. Ten more steps up Woodward and another gentleman who witnessed the exchange approaches, saying "My turn! Wannaseewhatigot!?" We laugh, walking on to the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.
The day before, I'd been up at school for a meeting and stopped by to pick something up at my office, only had forgotten the key. My neighbor Valerie, a professor in Communications, was there in her office and we smalltaked grading and research until she excitedly told me about a video artist named Kimsooja. Now, coincidentally, with Terrence, at MOCAD, I find myself seeing her work for the first time. And I am finding it refreshing.
We walk back to the studio, and the painting of the grasshopper has been taken.
Guitar, Hand, Fox.
The baby and I are poking around in the closet when we find some of my old business cards from UTSA in an old bag. On the backsides, I draw some pictures of things she knows. Then I remember a scene from the film version of Paul Bowles book, The Sheltering Sky.
After the female protagonist has nursed her husband through a long and drawn out episode of typhoid in the middle of nowhere in the desert, ending in his death, she lets herself drift into a situation where she is a willing detained guest of a fellow with many wives. She has a tiny suitcase of her possessions, including a travel journal that she disassembles, hanging the pages on the rafters to decorate the room of her beatific imprisonment.
The journal is a symbol of a former life, which has given way to chance encounter without a clear path or focused direction any more. I knew that having a baby was going to change my life beyond recognition. And I am grateful for it.
I be cursed and blessed
with an acute aptitude for synthesis. My mind impulsively infiltrates the elements of any given circumstance. It surrounds, infuses and grows connective tissue in the gaps. Organic and fecund. Solve et coagula.
I now resurrect the best bio I ever had, this one here below, which was bestowed upon me, kindly, by my collaborator Jason Jay Stevens, a decade ago.
"Leslie Raymond does not use recipes. All of her efforts are experiments. She approaches a selection of disparate ingredients with the spirit of a pioneer and an inventor. She is an artist without limitations of medium. Those extracategorical spaces are her territory, bringing together material and data--and often other artists--from far reaches and allowing a culture of relationships to grow. She creates art this way, and she generates grand spectacles this way. Leslie Raymond is, herself, one of these experiments, with a line of Russian Jewish heritage in one direction, and Chinese Taoist off in another. Her father is an architect; her mother is a potter. Where these strands come together is where Leslie Raymond begins, experimenting with process, texture, taste, and presentation." -JJS
5953 Investigation
This time, I asked the students to pick an artwork from Digital Art chapter 1, "Digital Technologies as Tool," and find a relationship with three non-digital artworks (one contemporary, one 20th century, one pre-20th century) through a concept, form, aesthetic, etc.
So, again, I'll participate in the investigation myself...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I have become sensitive to internal energetic states of the body throughout my two decades of practicing yoga, t'ai chi, and other body disciplines. Seeing the intangible territories of inner space explicitly represented in two- and three- dimensional form is fascinating to me.
Juan Li
Ovarian Kung Fu (c.1980?)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I have become sensitive to internal energetic states of the body throughout my two decades of practicing yoga, t'ai chi, and other body disciplines. Seeing the intangible territories of inner space explicitly represented in two- and three- dimensional form is fascinating to me.
Michael Rees
Anja Spine (1998)
I am intrigued by the depiction of the chakra system in this Michael Rees sculpture created with rapid prototyping technology. The visceral and physical presence of this form is powerful and full of information that I can easily map onto my own body. Rees exploration of self-termed "spiritual/psychological anatomy" reminds me of Alex Grey's contemporary Sacred Mirror series.
Alex Grey
Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (1986)
21 oil on linen, 84"x46" (frames are polyester resin, fiberglass, wood, illuminated stained glass, 126"x60")
21 oil on linen, 84"x46" (frames are polyester resin, fiberglass, wood, illuminated stained glass, 126"x60")
Like the Rees sculpture, Alex Grey's series of 21 paintings serve as a map of various systems of the body, the chakras being one of them. It is my understanding that Grey's intention was for the viewer to stand in front of each life-sized figure and "download" the visual information onto their own body. Systems depicted include muscle, nerve, viscera, lymph, cardiovascular, chakra (as seen above), psychic energy, spiritual energy, universal mind lattice, and others.
Juan Li
Ovarian Kung Fu (c.1980?)
This 20th century artwork by Juan Li is a diagram of the esoteric Taoist alchemical practice of refining female sexual energy for health purposes. Li is an artist and senior instructor in the Universal Healing Tao Center established by Master Mantak Chia. Like the Rees sculpture and many of Grey's paintings, this image makes visible an invisible system within the body. Despite the lack of concrete physical attributes, these systems are experienced on an energetic or mental level and can have a profound relationship with the physical systems of the body.
Neijing Tu (Illustration of the Inner Circulation) (1886)
ink rubbing
52" x 22"
This Taoist image was pulled as an ink rubbing from a carved wooden tablet created during the Qing dynasty. The "inner circulation" here refers to one of the major pathways through which internal energy, or "chi," flows. On one level, it communicates the classical eastern medical philosophy that the body functions organically, like a garden, with complex interrelationships between the various systems (as opposed to the western school of thinking that the body is more like a machine, with separate parts to be swapped out like parts of a car engine). This ancient practice of inner alchemy is still alive today, and can be traced through contemporary Chinese medicine and internal martial arts practice.
5953 Digital Tools - Online/Fall 2010
First set of questions posed to my graduate students this term:
What is your relationship to digital tools?
What do you hope to get out of the Digital Tools class?
What specific skill or tool do you plan to master this term?
So I thought it a good exercise to answer the questions myself.
*
Apprehensive though curious, I set out to explore digital tools in my art making practice when, in 1996, the high school students I was teaching showed me that our world was becoming a very different place. As a young artist I felt the imperative to engage these developments, and at the same time felt trepidation about grappling with technology. With a full scholarship to the University of Michigan School of Art and Design, I went off to study under Michael Rodemer in his New Genre program. It was my extreme good fortune to be introduced to digital at an institution that had so fully embraced technology on so many fronts.
My aim had been to get my feet wet in digital, then return to a physically based studio practice to see what would remain relevant; what would change; how would things integrate; what would fall by the wayside? Instead, after completing my MFA, I was invited to teach digital media at the U of M SOA&D. Teaching digital has kept me on a constant learning curve as I've evolved as both teacher and artist, constantly grappling with this super-fluid organically morphing and evolving medium called digital.
This term, I look forward to engaging my students in the exploration of another facet of the digital paradigm-- distance learning. While I have some ideas about leading my students in a meaningful direction, exercising and experiencing the living question is what excites me. What has me most energized is implementing the structure that will support the investigation of relationships between the new digital art and the hundreds/thousands of years old history and dialogue of art. Our text, Digital Art by Christiane Paul, necessarily focuses on its namesake, viewing it from several angles, classifying and sorting in order to find meaning and pattern within the discipline... but because art is always evolving, usurping any new tool in order to engage, explore, and be relevant to its particular zeitgeist, it is important to step back from the medium itself, to take in the whole picture, to see the continuum.
As for digital tools/skills mastery these next several months, a recent Potter-Belmar Labs commission has allowed us to purchase MAX/MSP Jitter, and we are currently shifting our activity in live cinema performance into this new programming environment. Lately, I have been bumping up against the limitations of my current video mixing system fairly often, and the need for a forward step has outweighed my trepidation at overcoming yet another technological hurdle.
PBL field trip to the ITC
Here's our assistant Leticia Rocha-Zivadinovic and me flanking a photo from the Small Town Texas exhibit at the Institute of Texan Cultures, featuring photos by UTSA president Ricardo Romo. This is the one shot in the show representing Marfa, and also happens to be, coincidentally, the site that PBL has worked out for the fall 2010 presentation of our Panorama Marfa project, for which we were awarded the Idea Fund grant.
The Church is the studios, home, and exhibition space of web designer Buck Johnston and sculptor Camp Bosworth-- an energetic, down-to-earth couple who allegedly bought the property fairly spontaneously about 5 years ago while on an excursion to Chinati Hotsprings, and moved to Marfa from Dallas. I really appreciated their straightforward and unpretentious demeanor, and am excited that we will be showing our project at their place.
Anyhow, back to San Antonio and the ITC. Potter-Belmar was on a scouting outing last week, taking in the exhibitions in consideration of an RFP that Jason is currently responding to. The Institute is a functioning historical relic built for the 1968 Hemisfair international exhibition as a showcase of the cultures of Texas. It happens to also contain a period multimedia dome, one of the only still in existence, showing the original "Faces and Places of Texas" multi-screen film and slideshow from 40+ years ago. Sounds like all of this is up to be refurbished in the near future to better reflect a contemporary outlook on culture and race.
West Coast: PBL plays Hollywood!
Here's a shot that Adam Hyman took of us just before our Los Angeles Filmforum gig at the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. We played the Spielberg Theater on the lower level for a lovely audience and were honored to have present some members from the pioneering live cinema artist group Single Wing Turquoise Bird, known for their liquid light shows in the mid 60's-early 70's. We performed from the front row, with our gear set up on the narrow ledge that divided us from the pit. Our set felt solid, and we concluded with a lively round of discussion.
Another important thing I want to mention is the fantastic tech assistance we had at the Egyptian! We came prepared with our gear & extra cables, but were treated to expert in-house support. Adam can remind me of our guru's name-- he exuded confidence when we decided to set up in front, and had a long run of ethernet cable(!) that we ran the video signal through. Nice to be introduced to new solutions! Let's hear it for the well-adjusted, fully capable, friendly variety of tech support people! YAY!
Another important thing I want to mention is the fantastic tech assistance we had at the Egyptian! We came prepared with our gear & extra cables, but were treated to expert in-house support. Adam can remind me of our guru's name-- he exuded confidence when we decided to set up in front, and had a long run of ethernet cable(!) that we ran the video signal through. Nice to be introduced to new solutions! Let's hear it for the well-adjusted, fully capable, friendly variety of tech support people! YAY!
West Coast
The Academy was PACKED to the gills, it being raining and a Monday (when other museums are typically closed). Though I felt oppressed by the crowds, the dioramas were definitely worth it.
This is me sitting in a bronze replica of the chair from the famous photograph of Huey Newton where he is holding a shotgun in one hand and a tribal spear in the other. The piece is called "Monument to Huey Newton for the Alamada County Courthouse."
With its integration of art, natural and cultural history, and innovative "interactive" elements, the Oakland Museum has the freshest take on exhibitions that I've seen in a loooong while.
PBL and Craig Baldwin outside Pakwan
It's always such a treat to see Craig! Just prior to our outing for a Pakistani meal in the Mission, Craig entertained us in his basement lair with an amazing clip from a 16mm film about avant-garde art from the late 60's-- one of many new reels in his collection rescued from an educational library in the process of decessioning its celluloid.
The excerpt we watched was of Len Lye showing off his sound sculptures! I had no idea that he was making anything like that. The reel looked to be a good 40 minutes... I wonder what other gems lie therein. This one is destined for Craig's special "pink trunk" which contains the few films in his collection to be spared from the editing room.
Jay with Chris Kubick on top of his strange studio building
After many many months of envisioning this place in my mind's eye, we finally visited with Chris at his studio, housed in a nearly vacant research facility that has been undergoing a long process of dissolution. Hallway after hallway of empty laboratories and offices with rooftop greenhouses devoid of life envelop the creative vital force contained within Chris' studio.
Tiebe and Anne
Our trip featured lots of family action, with many new babies making the scene alongside reconnections with old friends who have been building families for a few years now.
After a night of gallery hopping in Culver City, we ended up at the La Brea Tar Pits and were treated to a visit with this recent Materials & Applications project, Promiscuous Production: Breeding is Bittersweet. With bitter melon set to grow up on one side of the structure and sweet melon on the other, the two fruits have been set-up for interbreeding.
Gerry Fialka and me
My friend Vera Burner-Sung shot this one. We drove out to Venice to visit with Gerry and had a great talk about the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the making of art, and the creative impulse. He made us a fruit salad for lunch. Hanging out with Gerry is consistently gratifying, and invariably built around heartfelt, intelligent debate.
Houston
We went to H-Town for "Co-Existing & Co-Llaborating," an Aurora Picture Show screening featuring the video work of six collaborating couples, and to follow up on Media Archeology biz (we have been invited by Aurora to take part in the 2010 festival, coming up in mid-September). It became apparent that a return trip within the next week or two was going to be inevitable, so heres a mini-report on these goings-on.
Aurora Picture Show director Mary Magsaman introduces the screening to a full house. We had a fun couple days with the McCoys, another collaborating couple with work in the screening, who were there from NYC with their 2 kids.... all of us presenting in Mary's Interdisciplinary Art class at U of H, doing an interview for the KUHF, a lively Q/A session after the screening, and just generally hanging out.
Getting to stay at the Aurora office is always a treat because of the video library! The screening room doubles as a guest room, so we can watch video art projected on the wall across from the bed-- here is the menu screen from a LowVid DVD.
The site we selected for our Media Archeology project is the Heights Theater which was built in 1928 and has some interesting history to it. Functioning as an art gallery nowadays, we worked on securing it as the location for our new piece which will riff off some of that fascinating history-- namely that it was burnt down in the late 60's because it was showing "I am Curious: Yellow."
Here is Jason with Heights Theater owner Gus Kopriva in a storage room at his Redbud Gallery. He is showing us the 35mm film print which looks to be in great condition. For whatever reason, the print was never returned to the distributor and we got to open the cases for he first time since they were closed up over 40 years ago!
The credit goes to our good pal Dr. Tish Stringer for introducing us to the Heights Theater when she took us around Houston months ago on a field trip of potential sites for our project. This picture shows me, Jay, Iris, Tish, and Herb just after a ritual Saturday morning dim-sum session. YUM. Houston has a large Asian population, resulting in awesome dim-sum.
On our way home to San Antonio, we dropped by the Forbidden Gardens, a somewhat forlorn roadside attraction sporting a 1/3 size fiberglass replica of the Xi'an tomb site of Qin Shi Huang-di (along with a few full sized warriors) complete with a park employee in the tedious process of cleaning it; a miniature dilapidated model of the Forbidden City; a rather dusty exhibit of an imperial dinner table complete with imitation foodstuffs; and a room full of traditional weaponry, mostly bolted down to discourage visitors from getting overly interactive.
Chicago again!
We flew to Detroit to spend a couple days visiting family, then hopped the Amtrak Wolverine for a 6-hour ride to Chicago. After dropping our bags in my colleague Paul Catanese's office in the Interdisciplinary Arts Department of Columbia College, we walked to the south end of Millenium Park where I sat by Lake Michigan next to the observatory on the most beautiful spring day while Jay checked out the Planetarium.
Before we gave our presentation in Paul's graduate sound art class, he did a 1-hour lecture on programming Max/MSP for moving sound through a multiple speaker set-up. He was really excited to use the Pythagorean Theorem to work out the distance from signal to speakers.
The next day was also gorgeous, and we walked to Chicago Filmmakers from our digs in Edgewater, stopping for bagels at a Jewish deli along the way. The bike puppet theater was under full swing, attracting a surprisingly huge plethora of kids who were out and about with adult supervision that morning. This was right next to Alamo Shoes (for all of y'all back home in San Antonio).
The day of our gig, I woke up to snow!! Oh yes, to be treated to the midwestern spring tease was a real joy! It was frigid out there, as we discovered when we trekked 2 blocks to the Ethiopian restaurant for lunch with the chill blowing right down into the bones. I didn't have the foresight to bring any long underwear, but did have a pair of wool socks, a knit hat and a scarf. It won't be long before the wall of 100 degree days hits south Texas, so I relished the cold to its fullest extent.
When I was at school for a little while in Chicago in the late 80's/early 90's I spent many many hours in darkened theaters watching film of all kinds-- in class at school, at the Music Box, at Randolph Street Gallery when the Experimental Film Coalition was active, etc. I saw my first Craig Baldwin film at Chicago Filmmakers, so it was an extra-special treat for me get to perform there.
Despite the nasty weather, we had a big audience that included several old friends and acquaintances from the different pasts of out lives, such as Jay's wild days in Kalamazoo and my time adjunct teaching at University of Michigan. An old pal from my stint in Chicago was joining us on his birthday, conjuring up some curious magic for the PBL DVD door prize give-away. The first DVD went to Sean's wife Michelle, and though I mixed up those ticket stubs like a good air mix lottery machine would, the second went to Sean himself, who turned it down and picked the next winner. Strangely, it turned out he was sitting next to a guy who was also celebrating his birthday that night!
We carried a solid performance and it felt great to spin our craft before this crowd of artists, poets, filmmakers, neighbors, and some who were simply out with friends not knowing what they were getting into. Post-performance Q & A drifted down the street to the bar, as a warm front moved into the area.
Todd Lillethun (programmer at Filmmakers) and his partner Brandon (on a Philosophy of Physics fellowship at U of Chicago) were consummate hosts-- we can't thank them enough for their hospitality, which coalesced with a very early Sunday morning ride downtown to Union Station to catch our train back to Detroit.
We spent a little more time with family, including watching the heath care vote with my folks. On one of the huge monitors at the Detroit Metro Airport, we caught the historic moment of Obama signing the bill just before we got on the plane back to San Antonio.
98th Annual College Art Association Conference, Chicago
It was a real treat to have a week of good old winter up in Chicago. Over the years, the conference seems more accessible as my interests have become further defined, and my alliance with the New Media Caucus increasingly rewarding as my relationships strengthen therein.
The New Media Caucus, an official affiliate of the College Art Association, was formed in 2003 as a means for people teaching "new media" at the university-level to form connection. I found the caucus at the 2006 CAA conference, just after my arrival at UTSA where I had landed to begin a New Media Program in the Department of Art & Art History. At that time I was trying to name the program... "digital?" "intermedia?" "new genre?" "transmedia?" ... so I was grateful to have that choice practically made for me by deciding to join forces with the caucus.
This year brought a distinct sense that the New Media Caucus is gaining momentum. Our president Paul Cantanese teaches at Columbia College Chicago, has a lot of energy and vision, and was on the ground in the conference city, which simplified the planning and execution of all our events. In addition to the 1-2 panels we have in the official conference every year, we plan a few at an off-site location as well as an exhibition of some kind.
I really went to town this time around in executing my duties as the chair of the NMC exhibition committee with my brainchild: the Live Cinema Summit. This one night only event featured nine back-to-back realtime demos of A/V performance, with lots of discussion and q/a. The lineup featured Barbara Lattanzi, Sabine Gruffat and Bill Brown, Robert Martin, Potter-Belmar Labs, jonCates, DataIRJ, Jon Satrom, Alessandro Imperato, and Noisefold.
A link to Nicholas Sagan's blog posting on the official CAA conference blog.
Other events that I presented during are the NMC Colloquium Meet and Greet, and the New Media Curriculum Development roundtable discussion, chaired by Mike Salamond.
San Antonio Summit at the Poetry Capital of New Hampshire
The Colonial Theater, where we saw the Alloy Orchestra accompany Von Sternberg's film "Underworld." This would be a great room to play! Maybe next time we get to Bethlehem.
me & George
archives and facilities
At Syracuse University, Department of Transmedia chair, Heath Hanlin, begins our tour in the conference room.
the right half of a Ben Shahn mosaic of Sacco & Vanzetti at Syracuse University
Todd Gustavson, technology curator, shows us a kinetoscope in the Eastman House Technology Collection.
Joseph Struble, photo curator of the Eastman House Photography Collection, brought out the glass magic lantern slides with moving parts.
We wandered into the Visual Studies Workshop in search of Afterimage offices, and met Tate Shaw, VSW director, who is holding an all-cyanotype personal photo album from the school's library.
a few cool things at Alfred University Division of Expanded Media
Jason with prof. Barbara Lattanzi who is showing us a flip camera kit in her 5-walled office. (Tripod not included.)
compact flourescent lighting-rig
reading list of Barbara's colleague Peer Bode
Devon in the EIA with luscious Joseph Scheer moth print (background) and Ann Hamilton mouth series (foreground)
Buffalo
The Burns Building
We stayed in Jax DeLuca's studio in downtown Buffalo with a bird named Jules. The door to his cage was always open, and the cage was next to a huge open window (on the 4th floor-- upper right corner of this photo).
We went to the famed hotbed of media arts culture straightaway. SUNY Buffalo is the place that Dr. Gerry O'Grady started the Center for Media Study in the mid-70's. He brought Paul Sharits, Hollis Frampton, Steina, Woody Vasulka, James Blue, and others together to teach in his center, which is now a "department."
How or why did Dr. O'Grady, a medieval scholar, build such a powerful center for the exploration of contemporary moving image art, and why in Buffalo? Media artist Barbara Lattanzi (UB graduate now teaching at Alfred University) informed us that he had lived in NYC for some time and was socially hooked into Warhol's Factory, and was a close follower of McLuhan, who also happened to be a medieval specialist, and who's legacy lives on in nearby Toronto, where he taught.
Here is Carl Lee, who showed us all around. Carl supports the technical infrastructure of the Department, and is a video installation artist himself. He came to Buffalo when his wife, Dorthea Braemer, took a job as the director of Squeaky Wheel.
Here's one corner of the equipment check-out room. The Department of Media Study is housed in the Center for the Arts building, along with the Department of Visual Arts. The size of Media Study is very similar to the University of Texas at San Antonio Department of Art & Art History (where I teach), only the whole place is focused on media arts, with about 350 undergrads and 40 grad students at any given time.
PBL with Jax DeLuca, Programming Director of Squeaky Wheel. I met her a couple years ago when the NAMAC conference was in Austin.
Dr. O'Grady's chair in the Squeaky microcinema room!! It's got his name on the back. When he founded the Center for Media Study at UB, he also started Media Study Buffalo-- a community media center with equipment access, classes, screenings, etc. In the early '80's a boiler blew in the building that housed it, and forced its closing. Squeaky Wheel was founded out of energy that had been generated from MSB.
The Samma Solo (on the right) is a state-of-the-art media conversion machine, hooked up to the U-matic 3/4" video deck (left). One of the major Squeaky Wheel projects is media conversion, and they are in the process of converting their archives, as well as the Hallwalls archives (which include things like Larie Anderson's first Hallwalls performance). One of the tricky parts of the process is only being able to play these old video tapes one time, because they are so delicate from age that they decompose as they are running through the system.
Jax and Jason in the media conversion room.
Finally, some pictures from the gig on saturday night of Jax' band w ((a)) ou w who warmed up the crowd for us.
Brian Milbrand on the images
Tristan Trump on noise guitar
Jax DeLuca on the knobs.
Jim Abramson is not pictured, but played drums.
fireworks!
New Year's Eve in San Antonio (OK, I know this is 6 months late! but on the occasion of July 4th anyways!)
Rode my bike with Jason, Justin, and Jessica downtown-- there were actually many others when we began our trek out of Southtown, but their names must not have started with "J" so they couldn't keep up with me!
We watched from behind the tower, sitting on a small grassy hill. We could see the people shooting these off in the parking lot across the street from our spot.
Ann Arbor Film Festival: Programming
Before I launch into my rant, I must first commend the special programs at this years festival: Mark Hosler; George Manupelli's talk; Michele Silva presenting the Bruce Connor retrospective; Pat Oleszko's performance; Remixing the Rules panel; Gerry Fialka's Ann Arbor Pioneers lecture; and the Canyon Cinema screening. As for the competition screenings, this year's opening night is a decent example of mixing up a range of styles-- my only critique there is to add something challenging. An example of problematic programming is the last half of the 'Shadows of the Night Sea,' where the works suffer from being stylistically and temporally too similar.
Larry Jordan (lawyer, not the filmmaker), Mark Hosler, and Craig Baldwin
Last year, I wrote about the success of screenings that included multiple genres, and the failure of the programs that grouped like works together. The attitude of the leadership seems to be that change is necessary, and that the "old-timers" are adverse to it. Ruffled feathers aside, the programming of the competition screenings over the past couple years at the festival has generated a heated discussion. It was the subject of Gerry Fialka's McLuhan Tetrad this year during his workshop, and I'm going to add my new thoughts here.
I have nothing against curators-- these folks really work at delineating meaning from a glob of undifferentiated matter, and there are some extremely talented people out there, many of whom were at the festival (Craig Baldwin, Gerry Fialka, David Dinnell, and Adam Hyman, to name a few). I believe there is a place for specialized, themed programming, but it's not at the Ann Arbor Film Festival.
The festival leadership currently professes the need to "get butts into seats." This is a bit of an awkward issue because the chair of the board, Bruce Baker, is also on the board of the Michigan Theater. (see note below) Russ Collins, Michigan Theater Director, is also on the film festival board. Setting this small "conflict of interest" aside, though, the new style of programming is geared to the specialist, so I see this in direct opposition to the stated goal of gaining a larger audience.
One other aside here-- as I have been attending more and more "experimental" festivals over the years, I am constantly surprised at two things: the Michigan Theater as a venue has no equal; and the audience numbers can't be touched-- other festivals are lucky to see 10% of the crowd that comes to the AAFF.
George Manupelli on the Michigan Theater stage
As festival founder George Manupelli stated during his talk as the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker (a special weekly lecture series hosted by the U of M School of Art & Design at the Michigan Theater) on Thursday afternoon: Who does the festival belong to? It doesn't belong to the board of directors-- it belongs to the filmmakers and to the audience. I got teary eyed before he, himself, got choked up on the stage. George expressed later that when they started the festival, they had no idea how it would grow and become something so much larger than themselves.
Pat Oleszko's Saturday night performance on the main stage
Again, the current trend in programming the competition works at the AAFF is geared towards the specialist-- what does this mean? When putting like films together, an audience well-versed in distinguishing the subtleties between similar tempos, textures, and themes could benefit from comparing them in close proximity to each other. This strategy, however, tries the patience of the generalist; someone who does not make "experimental" moving image art a central life interest becomes bored and restless. I admit that many of us who do love experimental work also get bored and restless. Trying to help the audience "get it" becomes a moot point because people are getting impatient.
Let's not alienate our potential converts, who likely constitute the majority of our audience! If the goal is to lure in and convert the generalists, the formula that worked so well in the past (and yes, of course change is inevitable, but please don't throw out the baby with the bath water!) was to mix it up. (e.g. "Freeform"-- it's no accident that AAFF programming echos Ann Arbor radio WCBN's infamous programming style). This kind of programming must come from a deep familiarity with the work, and a willingness to set aside the curator's prerogative in favor of the needs of a larger, generalist audience. Leave room for the audience to find and make the connections. This is what the brain does automatically, anyhow. "Let the people have the power" goes beyond the politics of the 1960's... I believe that its infiltrated the very root of the AAFF, and is one of the reasons for its success.
I ran into Ann Arbor artist Helen Gotleib at a going away BBQ for old friends in Ann Arbor during the festival. She reminded me that, in the past, artists contributing work to the silent auction (yet another casualty to the recent changes) would be given a festival pass. She told me how much she loved being able to jump into any screening and be confronted with the unexpected at all times-- to see things she would never have seen anywhere. This year, she and her partner were reduced to trying to navigate the categories and pick something that might be worthwhile. She reported that she missed the variety, the randomness, and the surprises.
One way to find out what the audiences like and want would be to do a survey. And one way to take advantage of the curatorial talent associated with the festival would be to focus it on serving the audience.
Finally, I must affirm my desire for the competition works to be on the main screen-- the "Silver Screen" as George put it. Many of us were disappointed last year, and this is George's one strongly stated wish for the festival: to prioritize the filmmakers and the continued creation of new work by featuring it on the "Silver Screen." This kind of appreciation can only be demonstrated by concrete action, as we have just witnessed with the Obama administration paying its respects to the arts by including it in the stimulus package.
George Manupelli
The Ann Arbor Film Festival is a part of who I am, and I am a small part of what it has been and is. Over the course of the last 17 years I have watched hundreds of moving image works, been an intern, shown my films in the competition, been on the screening committee, organized and programmed sidebar screenings and special events, won an award, fought in the front lines for opening the festival to digital, led parades, made work for the lobby, hung out in the green room and the back alley, had the honor of calling filmmaker friends when their films screened or were awarded...I could go on... I am all for change, but feel very deeply that this change must serve the integrity and the best interests of the festival.
Meeting the Mayor: Luminaria
Sarah Fisch bartending in the CAM VIP Lounge
First, some pictures:
my kids installing their "Future Utopias" show
(L to R: Mauricio Gudiño, Derek Brown, Alyosha Burkee, Utah Snyder, Joshua Hurt)
John Mata installing his "Room made mostly of cardboard and masking tape, containing various media relating to the idea of New Media and Future Utopia"
entrance to the "Future Utopias" exhibition
Randy Wallace's striking and visceral installation in the basement of the Beauty College
Randy is quickly becoming one of my favorite artists in San Antonio
Buttercup playing at the Beauty College
back at "Future Utopias," Derek Brown's "No Borders" projection installation in the background
onlookers looking at Davis James' "Minute-ness" 2-channel video sculpture
Alyosha Burkee's "Get Schooled" video in the foreground, Utah Snyder's table of handmade goods in the background (mostly gone by this time of the night)
Jennings Sheffield "Separation of Power" in the background, and Mauricio Gudiño's 2-channel video installation in the foreground
OK, now for the story.
Roll of gaffers tape in-hand, I was running around all night closing up the seams in the pipe-and-drape that surrounded the "Future Utopias" show. There was an entrance and a flow designed for the space, but the masses wanted to find any gap and make it into an entrance or exit point. There was something interesting about these porous borders (especially within the context of South Texas), but it was more important to uphold the integrity of the space... besides, it could be downright dangerous to have everyone crashing through the walls at any given moment.
For example, around 11:30pm a couple guys came stumbling through the drape into the show, one guy grabbing onto the wavering pipe, which offered no support to counter his off-balance stance. As I rushed over to seal up the breach, I recognized that this was Mayor Hardberger, who was having a rightfully jolly time in the final half-hour of his second annual and majorly successful city-wide arts festival. I took the opportunity to introduce myself, and we chatted for awhile-- he remembered last year's UTSA New Media Studio exhibition on Houston Street, and cited two specific artworks from memory: Mike Stoltz' 2-channel installation, where a woman in a doorway greets the viewer very warmly; and Gary Wise's "Eat." I made sure that he had my card before he left, and wished later that I had taken advantage of this as a photo op, in which case you'd be seeing a picture of me & the mayor here.
Maybe next year...!
