ADJUNCT PROFESSOR - CONCEPTS IN GAMING, HUNTER COLLEGE, NYC
United States of America
Course Description:
This course surveys the historical basis of and current practices in game design, which is phase one of game development. Just as a study of rhetoric and persuasive argument lays the foundation for effective written communication, the study of game design lays the foundation for an equally effective digital communication. While the structure of games may seem like a small fraction of interactive design, the concepts related in this class should prove fundamental to your ability to design any interactive experience from a simple website to a MMORPG.
This course will take place on Mondays from 7 - 9:40pm and will begin on January 28th through May 20th, a 14 week semester with a final exam meeting.
Applicants should have an MA or MFA and previous college level teaching experience.
Please send a CV and relevant urls to:rmira@hunter.cuny.edu
DEADLINE January 4, 2012
New York Hall of Science Presents ReGeneration
United States of America
Despite the near ubiquity of the term “sustainability,” there remains significant ambiguity about everything from the actual meaning of the term to overarching solutions to the challenges we face as a community. Technology and behavioral changes including energy production, agriculture, recycling and pollution reduction are all on the table as we work to understand and address the challenge of sustainability.
The artists in ReGeneration are Scott Kildall, Shih Chieh Huang, Ricardo Miranda Zuniga, Biomodd, Futurefarmers, The Living + Soft Lab, Zach Lieberman, Nick Yulman, Carl Skelton, Marisa Jahn & Stephanie Rothenberg. Curated by Steve Dietz and Amanda Parkes
Adjunct Professor - Concepts in Gaming, Hunter College, NYC
United States of America
This course surveys the historical basis of and current practices in game design, which is phase one of game development. Just as a study of rhetoric and persuasive argument lays the foundation for effective written communication, the study of game design lays the foundation for an equally effective digital communication. While the structure of games may seem like a small fraction of interactive design, the concepts related in this class should prove fundamental to your ability to design any interactive experience from a simple website to a MMORPG.
This course will take place on Fridays from 2:10 - 5pm and will begin on August 26 through December 22nd, a 14 week semester with a final exam meeting.
Applicants should have an MA or MFA and previous college level teaching experience. Please send a CV and relevant urls to:rmira@hunter.cuny.edu
DEADLINE AUGUST 16, 2010
Miracle of Chile
The Miracle of Chile is a multifaceted art project investigating Milton Friedman's famous phrase "Miracle of Chile." In 1981 Friedman declared the phrase to reflect a transformation of Chile's economy through a neoliberal formula of privatization, deregulation of markets and cuts to social spending.
Today, we live in the midst of a global economic crisis that has lead us to question neoliberal philosophy. The art project consists of a workshop, public situation, bus intervention and a virtual labyrinth. Each element asks participants in Chile (the first country to fully adopt neoliberalism) to identify the Miracle of Chile as reflected in personal lives and civil space. (Tour the virtual labyrinth to see images taken as part of the workshop.)
The project is executed for the exhibition portables at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mall Plaza Vespucio, curated by Ignacio Nieto and on view from 14 August through 19 September. The exhibition includes the work of Michelle Teran, Chimbalab, Alejandra Perez, Carolina Pino, GraphTech, Otto Von Busch, Ricardo Miranda Zuniga and Kurt Olmstead.
Breaking News
Based on the premise that we live in a media-saturated world, the project seeks to investigate how young children digest major world events such as Obama’s election, Michael Jackson’s death, Swine Flu - inescapable "realities" that momentarily consume media outlets and seep into our lives. The content generated by the children in the workshop is integrated into the news media visualization presented as part of the gallery installation. The visualization itself consists of a textual feed of current headlines accompanied by computer-rendered illustrations of personalities who have established an understanding of news media in the United States. The illustrations and text help generate new interpretations of what we consider "the news."
The primary component of the installation is the Breaking News application that is built with Processing. The application is projected onto a wall and controlled via a trackball and push button that are embedded into an office work desk. The application displays a series of 2D illustrations of famous news-related personalities wrapped onto a 3D sphere. Behind the portrait is hidden the logo of the broadcast company that the individual is most closely identified with; the trackball allows users to turn the 3D sphere. When the user pushes the button adjacent to the track ball the virtual sphere spins and stops with a randomly selected portrait and logo or with an iconic news photograph. Famous news photographs are interspersed with the news personalities. Below the 3D sphere are real time news feeds from a variety of online sources. The visuals are accompanied by the theme songs from televised news.
Other elements featured as part of the Breaking News installation are a selection of drawings and collages from the workshop, video and printed content used in the workshop to contextualize specific articles, documentation of the workshop itself as well as other related sculptural objects, such as the radio guns previously created for a street performance and now tuned to broadcasting radio news.
Star Trek into Darkness SUCKS!
I just watched Star Trek Into Darkness and I’m sooo angry. It was boring and everything antithetical to the Trekkie code and I’ve never been a Trekkie, but I do respect them for their pseudoscience. J.J. Abrams is boring, has no imagination and should have never been hired to do this. It was nothing more than a chatty action flick. It lacked any sense of mystery. It’s like NASA reduced to out of atmosphere trips for the very rich.
Worst of all it’s a Khan redo. And even worse Ricardo Montalban isn’t around to do a decent Khan, instead we get the very pale and boring Benedict Cumberbatch, whom I don’t understand why he’s hired to be a scary villain when he lacks any consequence. He’s boring and like Abrams, has no depth. It’s shallow bullshit and for most Hollywood flick, it’s expected, but this is Star Trek and it’s sad, upsetting.
The 80′s movies are so much more interesting. The 60′s was farther ahead of time, this current movie extracts all the innovative qualities of the TV series and the following movies. Whatever you do, don’t waste your money on this movie. It lacks imagination.
Interview with OBTRUSIV
Last Saturday, I met with Keith Estiler and Edgar De La Vega of OBTRUSIV MAG to discuss art. They’ve put the interview on their Art & Culture column, the article is titled – Pricking the Public. Here’s the video:
Ward Shelley, History of Science Fiction
I’m a big fan of Ward Shelley, particularly his performances, but equally love his brain maps. One example I just came across is “The History of Science Fiction, ver. 1:
EXCESS NYC on DNAinfo.com
Sonja Sharp of DNAinfo.com was excited to discover to whom the compost and food rescue bike at the Sterling lot belonged. She got in touch with Brooke and I and ran a story on the project – Bodega Bicycle the Vehicle of Choice for Crown Heights Food Waste Crusaders. It’s perfect timing as we’ve completed our first two weeks of picking up coffee grounds from Lincoln Station.
Hirschhorn’s Laundrette
When visiting Brooke Singer’s prints at the Hudson Valley
Center for Contemporary Art (HVCAA) as part of the ambitious Peekskill Project V, I documented Thomas Hirschhorn’s Laundrette installation that is part of the HVCCA’s permanent collection. I was immediately enthralled by Hirschhorn’s installation as I found it much more approachable than more recent sprawling installations with little way in to the tumultuous sea of media.
Laundrette of course presents a ton of appropriated media from video to magazine, newspaper, audio, book excerpts, stickers, but it is all framed in a laundromat. I spent countless hours of my childhood at a laundromat near the corner of Mission and Kingston or Eugenia Avenue, right near 30th and Mission in San Francisco and Hirschhorn’s Laundrette immediately felt familiar from the variable sized washer and driers to the soap dispensing machine.
I love the framing of this critical content – that immediately alludes to having to wash all our dirty laundry generated by the Capitalism’s insatiable desire for capital. And to inform the audience beyond the video news snippets, day time television excerpts and a gluttony of disturbing media that is being cycled in the washing and drying machines, Laundrette is fortified with quotes and texts from Nietzsche, Spinoza, Klein, Popper, Deleuze and Guatarri. And as usual with this sort of work, I love it, but walk away wondering what the point is. The people viewing it are left leaning artists or collectors that may feel guilt at their wealth, but are comforted by the labor of the artists that they support.
Today – April 10th Immigration Reform March on Washington DC
I can’t be at today’s March for Full Citizenship, Rights for All Immigrants in Washington DC. However after receiving an email from Dream Activists, I took virtual and phone action. If you wish to be heard today as others march go to the Dream Activist’s page and form to help Everilda and keep her from deportation an action that could result in her death. Read her story below:
Everilda has been living in the U.S. since 1998; she was placed into deportation proceedings in 2005 after she went to the border to pick up her 8 and 10 year old kids. Everilda’s family fled Guatemala after Everilda’s sister, father and three nephews were assassinated by a gunman. They were all out-spoken activist and because of that they were killed. If deported, Everilda’s life has already been threatened and she will most likely be killed.
Because of our broken immigration system people like Everilda are being deported left and right. Let’s put a stop to that. Let’s bring Everilda home and show that we are serious in demanding reform.
And if you have time to make a phone call to ICE Director John Morton 202-732-3000 use this sample script:
“I am calling to ask for the immediate release of Everilda Sanchez (A#200-070-769), currently being held at the Calhoun County Jail in Michigan. In 2005 Everilda’s sister, an activist in Guatemala, was murdered. In 2011 Everilda’s son was deported and targeted by the same people who killed her sister. If deported Everilda will be killed. Grant discretion; let her stay!”
EXCESS NYC Documentation
EXCESS is a community-based art project that investigates the large amounts of organic waste in urban centers and creatively employs new tactics to divert food from landfill and back to people to consume or compost. Can we make smarter urban infrastructure where edible food gets eaten, organic waste is turned into compost, compost is used to remediate contaminated lots, vacant lots are transformed into gardens and cities save money while reducing greenhouse emissions? EXCESS NYC is currently active in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.
The food rescue and composting bike will be circulating in downtown Stamford, CT in conjunction with the exhibition Strange Invitation at Franklin Street Works.
EXCESS at Just Food Conference 2013
Today at 10:30am Brooke and I are presenting our neighborhood composting project at the Just Food Conference as part of MAKING ART WITH FOOD IN MIND (ENGAGING NYC COMMUNITIES) panel. We’ve made an initial video cut documenting the project thus far that we’ll be presenting as an introduction and then briefly describe where we are at and how we are moving forward with EXCESS NYC.
EXCEDENTES/EXCESS 2011-2013 from Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga on Vimeo.
About the panel:
10:30-11:45am
Food & Finance High School (Sign outside of the building reads Park West High School)
525 West 50th Street, New York, NY
MAKING ART WITH FOOD IN MIND (ENGAGING NYC COMMUNITIES)
For centuries artists have given us new ways of seeing the world around us through the lens of food. The last decade has been especially rich as artists respond to the challenges and concerns of feeding ourselves by creating models that are local, sustainable and community-oriented. In this workshop, visual artists will offer practical advice on using food creatively while fostering social change.
Speakers: Atom Cianfarani, Co-Author of A Roof Grows in Brooklyn: The Do-It-Yourself Green Roof Workbook; Jason Gaspar, Wyckoff Farmhouse Museum; Lisa Gross, Boston Tree Party; Brooke Singer & Ricardo Miranda Zuniga, collaborating artists on “Excess NYC”; Tattfoo Tan, artist
El Anatsui at the Brooklyn Museum
Following a visit to El Anatsui’s exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum (on view through August 14th) a friend commented – what a great shtick – use discarded material and unskilled labor to produce large scale work that can be folded for easy travel in a globalized art market. I’m paraphrasing here, but the point is clear – the work is formulaic and beautifully executed as high-end commodity. My friend is a Filipino-American artist/academic well versed in post-colonial studies and critical culture. El Anatsui is an African artist born in Ghana, working in Nsukka, Nigeria and trained in Western European Art. The brilliance of the work is applying minimalist conventions while using non-Western materials to create large scale abstraction. It is mesmerizingly beautiful to look at and various meanings may be allotted to the work – so it is aesthetic with theoretical potential.
The minimalist conventions include the use of least possible materials and repetition to create the maximum effect by using discarded mass produced materials such as lids from tin cans, bottle caps, newspaper printing plates… As the mass-produced products are from Nigeria or other African countries, the work presents a distinct quality from parallel work created by U.S. and European artists using recycled American and Western products. The unfamiliar labels and unique colors of these discarded elements adds a veil of the other for a Western art audience. All this said, there is plenty of reason to praise the work – it is aesthetically beautiful, unique, grand in scale, works from a distance as well as up close, reflects waste while recycling the waste and the artist brings racial diversity to a still all too white art world.
In the end, I’m writing about the work because I find it problematic. El Anatsui is embraced by the Art World and in his work, I perceive the colonizing effects of Western Art and Art History. By combining his Western Art training with the products of his culture, he has established a unique niche. In the end the work doesn’t move me. I don’t feel that the various pieces present an entry point. They are nice big objects, neat to look at for a bit, but with little resonance. If I was an art collector, on the other hand, I’m sure I’d buy in to it and see both it’s material and constructed cultural value.
Click on the images below to view at larger dimensions.
El Anatsui at Brooklyn Museum
El Anatsui at Brooklyn Museum
El Anatsui at Brooklyn Museum
El Anatsui at Brooklyn Museum
El Anatsui at Brooklyn Museum
El Anatsui at Brooklyn Museum
El Anatsui at Brooklyn Museum
El Anatsui at Brooklyn Museum
El Anatsui at Brooklyn Museum
El Anatsui at Brooklyn Museum
El Anatsui at Brooklyn Museum
El Anatsui at Brooklyn Museum
