12.01.2010

The Black Balloon Project

Hive Projects in collaboration with City of London presents:
The Black Balloon Project



 ‘Human beings can see nothing around them that is not their own image; everything speaks to them of themselves. Their very landscape is alive‘ Guy Debord, 1959.

With the kind permission of City of London, Hive are pleased to announce the upcoming opening of the public art installation

The Black Balloon - Northbank by Charlie Hope and Jamie Hamilton.

The Black Balloon is a video installation documenting an artistic intervention into London airspace. The piece gives a unique perspective on the city of London which is by turns playful, uplifting and technologically innovative.

A video camera and GPS tracking system were attached to two helium weather balloons and released in the east end of London. The balloons and their payload swiftly ascend, drifting southwest over the city, crossing the river Thames, propelled by the wind, ascending several thousand meters until the balloons reach their apex over southwest London, looking down onto Battersea power station. As altitude increases and air pressure drops, the balloons expand, one exploding when it reaches it’s burst altitude. From here the remaining balloon begins its descent, making its way out, over the changing urban landscape and landing beyond the city limit of the M25 motorway in a field. The locations depicted are on a recognisable stretch of the Thames, the most distinctive landmark of the city when viewed from above.

The piece comprises three synchronised video projections with audio, observable through the windows in the metal façade along Paul’s Walk -pedestrians passing by will trigger the playback of the installation, the three screens will simultaneously play different image sequences from the balloon’s flight - allowing the viewer to form their own narrative of the balloon flight as they pass by.

The video is accompanied by a sound piece consisting of two elements. The wooden panels of the facade resonate, producing ‘Shepard tones’ - a sonic illusion in which we can hear what appears to be a pitch infinitely rising. From within the space we can hear the sound of three violinists, echoing gradually descending phrases back and forth giving the viewer the impression of hearing street-musicians accompanying the film they walk past.

The project has an enjoyable naiveté of child-like exploration that belies the highly calculated nature of it’s production based in the study of meteorological conditions and the employment of the latest technology. Through this we are offered a new perspective on our conventionally structured perception of the built environment of the city as part of Hive’s aim to bring alive idle sites and humanise public spaces as a platform for artists and the public to engage.

11.08.2010

Dérivelab in Paris | DIVERTESSEMENT Performance

DériveLab artist Christopher Collier in collaboration with fellow collective member Attilia Fattori Franchini will present an intervention at 104 - Centquatre, Paris on November 6th.
The work will appear as part of a programme curated by the Winterstory project as part of Jeune Création 2010.

The work entitled Divertissement, mimics the theatrical grammar of the 'intermission', reproducing such an intermission in the performance programme as a device in order to critique notions of affect and the constitution of empathy. It does this not only within performance as a genre but also within the media at large, particularly exploring the manipulation of affect by the international news media in service of political and military ends. In an extension of a Brechtian device from the theatrical field into the pseudo-theatrical, ambiguous constructed reality of the media field the work seeks to draw to the fore the deployment of aesthetic affect as a form of political operation within media spheres.

10.12.2010

HOT FRIEZE

Monday the 11th
Waterloo Bridge | Lazarides Gallery  | Hell's Half Acre | PV 6pm - till late
azarides in collaboration with The Old Vic Tunnels invites you to  our newest off-site exhibition, Hell's Half Acre.

The labyrinth of tunnels beneath Waterloo station will be converted into a large-scale evocation of Dante's Inferno.  Visitors will explore a unique interpretation of the nine circles of hell through the vision of your very favorite Laz artists plus additional contributions from outside the normal roster including: Conor Harrington, Vhils, George Osodi, Antony Micallef, Doug Foster, Todd James, Paul Insect, Mark Jenkins, Boogie, Ian Francis, Polly Morgan, Jonathan Yeo, Zak Ové and many more ... Interaction with the works will be encouraged as part of this multi-sensory experience.
Hell's Half Acre will be open for viewing from 12th to 17th October, 6pm till 11pm Tuesday to Thursday, with extended hours over the weekend. Entry to the exhibition will be free, but as space is limited you will need to book ahead.

Tuesday the 12th
Shoreditch Town Hall | 6pm- 9 pm 

Lisson Gallery | PV Marina Abramovich 6pm- 9pm



Wednesday the 13th
Frieze Art Fair |  private view 6pm- 9pm 

The museum of everything | private view 6pm-10pm
 Sir Peter Blake, the godfather of British pop art and a collector par excellence, whose accumulations of self-taught art, found objects and anonymous artefacts inform and inspire his own oeuvre.
Peter Blake


Thursday the 14th
Frieze Art Fair until Sunday the 17th

Hauser and Wirth | Jason Rhoades 1:12 Perfect World
Fujiwara is this year's Cartier Award winner

Whitechapel Gallery | Walid Raad: Miraculous Beginnings | 6pm - 9pm



Friday the 15th
Christie's London | Postwar and Contemporary Art
AutoItalia, Peckam |  Lucky PDF Tv Launch 10 pm till late

Saturday the 16th and Sunday the 17th
Serpentine Gallery | Map Marathon


Conceived by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Serpentine Gallery Marathons are a unique and innovative series of events that challenge notions of art, culture, science, technology, and methods of public discourse and debate.

9.27.2010

INDEPENDENT CURATORS INTERNATIONAL present: People's Biennal

INDEPENDENT CURATORS INTERNATIONAL

MISSION

Independent Curators International (ICI) produces exhibitions, events, publications, and training opportunities for diverse audiences around the world. A catalyst for independent thinking, ICI connects emerging and established curators, artists, and institutions, to forge international networks and generate new forms of collaboration. Working across disciplines and historical precedents, the organization is a hub that provides access to the people, ideas, and practices that are key to current developments in the field, inspiring fresh ways of seeing and contextualizing contemporary art.

People’s Biennial

Curated by Harrell Fletcher and Jens Hoffmann

For this exhibition, five art institutions in the United States will present a biennial of contemporary art consisting of works by five artists in each of the institutions’ local communities, selected by the show’s guest curators, Harrell Fletcher and Jens Hoffmann. The institutions must be in locations that lie outside mainstream art centers, but in places where art nonetheless thrives. Five appropriate, geographically widespread institutions will be selected on a first-come, first-served basis. The curators will visit each community to choose artists and works, and will be available to conduct round-table discussions at each institution during their stay.
 The Mutant Pinata Show

Artists
Caleb Belden, Mary Bordeaux, Ally Drozd with Judge Evans and the Portland Community Court, Laura Deutch, Gary Freitas, Jorge Figueroa, Sylvia Gray (with the Elsewhere Collaborative), Jim Grosbach, Nicole Harvieux, Warren Hatch, Jake Herman, Maiza Hixson, David Hoelzinger, Howard Kleger, Cymantha Diaz Liakos, Ellen Lesperance, Jonathan Lindsay, Dennis Newell, Bob Newland, Raymond Mariani, Alan Massey, Jim McMillan, Jennifer McCormick, Beatrice Moore and The Mutant Piñata Show (with piñatas by Mike Maas, Ana Forner, Chris Clark, Tom Cooper, and Koryn Woodward), Joseph Perez, Bernie Peterson, Bruce Price, David Rosenak, JJ Ross, Andrew Sgarlet, Robert Smith-Shabazz, Rudy Speerschneider, Andrea Sweet, James Wallner, Presley H. Ward, Paul Wilson

An interesting research

Mixed Signals: Artists Consider Masculinity in Sports

Curated by Christopher Bedford

Photographer Collier Schorr has said, “I want to show the whole temperature of masculinity because—and I can only approach it as a woman—from the outside, masculinity has been depicted in very black-and-white terms.” Accordingly, the artists selected for this exhibition reject such comfortable “black-and-white” imagery. Catherine Opie focuses on the dramatic spectacle of high school football, zeroing in on a tense moment of anticipation just as the players are ready to spring into action, while Brian Jungen sets up a meditative stack of boxes repeating the mesmerizing stare of legendary basketball star, Michael Jordan. Hank Willis Thomas’s photographs deconstruct the ways in which race and sexuality are exploited to brand and market male athletes; and Joe Sola’s video works assume an outsider’s perspective on football, addressing the social exclusivity of competitive athletics through humor and farce. Matthew Barney’s early sculptural work with Vaseline and weight-training equipment, as well as his body-based performance practice, stress the sexual, sometimes abject dimension of athletic training.
Several artists and theorists have argued convincingly that social identities—including race, gender, and sexuality—are performed, coded, and contingent. However, the male athlete has been overlooked by artists, art historians and curators until fairly recently, because it is only in the past decade that a critical mass of art addressing this subject has grown large enough to allow for such an exploration.
Mixed Signals is an expanded version of Contemporary Projects 11: Hard Targets: Masculinity and American Sports, an exhibition organized by Christopher Bedford for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in fall 2008. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with texts by Bedford, Julia Bryan-Wilson and Judith Butler.

9.19.2010

Forward Thinking | e.flux TIME/BANK

 

CONTEMPORY TIME BANKING

There have been other examples of alternative economies in recent history, most notably the "Notgeld" emergency money that appeared in Germany after the hyperinflation of 1923. Notgeld was unofficial "money" issued by cities, boroughs, and even private companies to compensate for a shortage of official coins and bills. As long as Notgeld was accepted, no harm was done, as it was understood to be a valid certificate of debt. Notgeld was actually more stable than real money, since its denomination was often pegged to material goods, such as gold, corn, meat, and so forth. The currency itself was purposefully made to be very pretty to encourage people to save the bills. This way, the debt would never have to be paid. Notgeld was printed on all kinds of material—leather, fabric, porcelain, silk, and tin foil. Since it was not legal tender, the only people who dealt in it were those who wanted to. As a result, it had a stabilizing effect on the official currency, which was still in circulation.

The first successful contemporary time bank was started in 1991 by Paul Glover in Ithaca, New York. Following his idea, people began to exchange time, which led to the creation of a time-based currency—the "Ithaca Hours," which even local businesses began to accept, and which still flourishes. Time banking and service exchange have since developed into a full-fledged movement, usually centered around local communities.
(see links to other time banks)
Time/Bank at e-flux is modeled on existing time banks. Every Time/Bank transaction will allow individuals to request, offer, and pay for services in "Hour Notes." When a task is performed, the credit hours earned may be saved and used at a later date, given to another person, or contributed towards developing larger communal projects. For example, if you happen to be in Beijing or Hamburg and need someone to help you shop for materials or translate a press release, you would be able to draw on resources from Time/Bank without exchanging any money.

Through Time/Bank, we hope to create an immaterial currency and a parallel micro-economy for the cultural community, one that is not geographically bound, and that will create a sense of worth for many of the exchanges that already take place within our field—particularly those that do not produce commodities and often escape the structures that validate only certain forms of exchange as significant or profitable.
Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle e.flux
source http://www.e-flux.com/timebank/about

TRIANGLES

Something to care about. SAVE THE ARTS.

DAVID SHRIGLEY Video Campaign


sign the petition!


http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-the-arts.html
Radical cuts to current levels of arts funding will decimate what has been one of the UK's chief success stories over the past 20 years, and will bring an end to the UK's reign as a global capital for culture.

Arts organisations all accept the need to reduce their budgets. But while the arts can possibly sustain a ten percent funding cut, the 25-30% cuts that the government is currently considering would result in the closure of many smaller arts organizations and would also have a crippling effect on the functioning of the country’s leading arts venues.

SIGN THE PETITION NOW.

TRIANGLES

9.06.2010

Things to Look At: Charlie Woolley's Radio Show


I should actually say things to listen to,
but since there is also an art exhibition we will listening while looking.


03 Sep–16 Oct 2010
Charlie Woolley's Radio Show 
Throughout his exhibition at SPACE London, Charlie Woolley will be broadcasting his radio show live from the gallery space. 

The exhibition is:
NEU! Charlie Woolley - Mysterious Cults 

An exhibition of photo and poster collage, textiles and installation work accompanied by the artist’s ongoing Radio Show project and a cycle of broadcasted events.
This will be Charlie Woolley’s second solo exhibition following I Built My House on Sand (2008) at David Risley Gallery, London.
RADIO SHOW - LISTEN LIVE
Mysterious Cults is the fourth NEU! exhibition at SPACE. Previous exhibitions include: AMAXAMA by Ben Sansbury (May 2010), colourless green ideas sleep furiously by Adam Thomas (March 2010), What I Believe (a Polemical Collection) by Ruth Beale (November 2009) and PROH-SOH’ PA-PEER by Richard John Jones (September 2009). NEU! is an ongoing cycle of solo exhibitions by emerging artists

Charlie Woolley is represented by David Risley Gallery, Copenhagen

SPACE is a multi disciplinary art venue located in east London.
SPACE provides support and resources to artists to make the great art of our day. We are one of the largest arts organisations in England and have been at the vanguard in promoting the role of artists in society since our inception in 1968.

We provide platforms which enable creative people to experiment, develop and thrive, and for a broad public to engage with this creativity. As a result of our activities we cultivate the growth of individuals, support the arts to flourish and nurture a creative, vibrant society.

http://www.spacestudios.org.uk/space

OYABORA, Kismet Projects an Interview with Deniz Unal

East London, a normal summer evening.
Tuesday, maybe a Wednesday, 7.30 maybe 8 pm.
Can you come Atti? Yes I can.
Please be on time, Oh my God on time, Yes, I’ll try.
But where is that? My house, actually my backyard garden.
Have you ever been Atti?
Yes, I guess so, or maybe not.. Don’t worry I’ll figure it out.
I arrived surprisingly in time, bringing a new friend from New York apparently interested in art.
Where are we going? he asked me. I don’t know I’ve answered him, it is like a performance. Oh wow is that in a gallery? No, it is in my friend house, actually in her garden, should be interesting.
The reality is that is not clear either to me what will happen, but I am curios.
At my arrival the house was already full of a mixed audience of friends, art appreciators and curios neighbours. The garden, the main setting of the spectacle, was prepared with pillows, fabrics and a projector, yellow roses appearing and disappearing while the evening flies where questioning what was going on in that corner of London life.

Suddenly a blonde lady sat down in the center and started to perform a conversation, hard and sexy, violent and provocative. At the shout “ “Hei there are some children leaving here!” she had to stop and the audience will never know what happen to that pervert narrator.















That was the first of 5 performances.















 A video installation was set up behind the stairs, various video where showed on the projector while the audience in mortal silence was just enjoying that different setting, that different time, friendly and artistic at the same time, familiar and inspiring like watching a Fellini’s movie for the first time.


Behind all this there is a collective called Kismet Project, we interviewed artist and co-founder Deniz Unal to understand a bit more about the idea behind it.


How the idea of Kismet Project started?
The idea originally began when I started organising group crits where a changing group of artists would come together to show and discuss new work. From there I wanted to make a publication which would bring together new work and ideas from artists that was suited to the printed medium.
Who are the people behind it?
I run the project, there are 5 artists on the website which I see more as the core members, they are involved in decision-making process and I will promote on the website but amongst this there are other artists we have worked with. It is very much an open platform to work with other artists and people.

How international is the collective? Events and art works are created collectively or individually? How much London and its multicultural environment influence your work?
I wouldn’t really describe it as a collective, it’s more of an open project, which is flexible and permeable. We work individually as artists but within this we have worked together in various different collaborations, I have collaborated with all the artists that are on the website on different projects and Kirsty and Grace have worked together before. It is International, the artists are from all different places in the world, the Zine we made is currently in an exhibition in La Casa Encendida in Madrid.


What are the collective sources of inspiration? What are your objectives?
I don’t think there are any particular collectivesources of inspiration…hovever I am friends with all the artists and I think we are all influenced by our peers from the clothes we where , the way we speak to the art we make, so it is unavoidable there are similarities between us.
My personal objectives for this project is very simple; to provide an opportunities to make and show new work through varies different platforms; the Internet, publications, exhibitions and events. To create dialogue and collaboration between artists and to promote the artists on the website.

How would you define your practice as an artist? Does your Turkish background influence it?
I find it really difficult to define my practice in words, though making work I try to discover what I'm into and what I'm about, and this constantly changes. This is what I'm using to describe my practice at the moment

Current relevant words:

Legs

The gaze

Claiming the space

Transcending the mundane to the fantastical

Subversion of Islam

Transformation

Repetition

Tits
I wouldn’t say there is specific Turkish influence in my work, I don’t think I have to make work about Turkishness just because I am Turkish but of course our back round and histories have an underlying influence on the work we make and it does come through on different pieces more than others.


OYABORA was a really peculiar event because was set in a charming back yard garden(of your house), can you explain us this choice?-
I think the recession has a part to play in this, I spend a lot of time at home; I work from home, we eat in and hang out at home so it was only natural that we show work in the home as well. The garden in particular worked well for the show as a lot of the work shown had a direct relation to outdoor domestic space, my piece You Just Don’t Know What You Do To Me Part 1 was filmed there. That garden has a magical feel and reminds me of the garden performances we would do as children. By showing in my own space we were not bound to any space or institution and it was completely free!

OYABORA was made by videos, video installation and performances where the main protagonists, artists and practitioners were female with a focus on female sexual experience and attributes. How is important the gender distinction in your practice? Do identify your work with the topics Third wave of Feminism? Do u believe there is still a feminist practice?
I would not identify my work as specifically feminist; I am a female artist, using my body with work that does address sexual politics and therefore it is unavoidable to describe it in terms of issues of femininity.
Feminism has become a dirty word, people often associate it with men hating and bra burning but feminism to me is essentially striving for equality between men and women and all women should want that.

A lot of the thread in the night had work that dealt with constructs of gender and identity, not all the artists we show would describe their work as feminist. All of the artists on the website are female, Its just the way things have turned out I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, I think its great.

Curiouser and curiouser!Random questions:

* If you would have the possibility to invent something, what would you invent?
Something that could freeze time.
Something to cure major illnesses like AIDs.
Something to get rid of cables between all the gadjets we have everything needs to be wireless and cableless.
When I was little I used to wish that there was a portal in my living room so I could take food over to starving countries, I think I used to watch too much comic relief (aid fundraiser programmes) but a portal would be cool

* if would have the possibility to reborn a random historical time and place, where and when would it be?
I’m really into ancient history, at the moment Ancient Near Eastern history such as Sumerian and Akkadian civilisations that would be interesting to see. Equally interesting would be to living in the late 60’s early 70’s as it seems like an exciting time for changes in art, music and fashion. Or the 20’s just for style I can see myself fitting in there.

* if you could be a contemporary famous artist who would you be? I don’t know but I really admire Louise Bourgeois for her work, longevity and prolificacy
* what affects you most: time or space?
Time time time! I have no sense of time it is one of my biggest problems this is why I am always late, can never meet deadlines, I have no clue why I am running a small organisation and trying to organize events, I guess that is part of the challenge.

7.25.2010

PHANTASMAGORIA at Dérivelab 22.07.2010


Phantasmagoria
Sound Installation and visual memories.

“Men can see nothing around them that is not their own image; everything speaks to them of themselves. Their very landscape is alive.“
Karl Marx
Cities as Labyrinths, cities as playgrounds.
We live in the city that we create. The everyday becomes protean while every street, passage and corner communicates something new about ourselves and reflects what we are in a constant negotiation between external inputs and internal feelings.
Inputs are not just visual: the contemporary urban environment celebrates an astonishing poly-sensoriality made of sounds, smells and feelings. Our reaction to it can be positive, generating something new, engaging with it and its elements or negative rejecting the reality to escape into imaginary places far away from our present. Both forms of experience, in constant dialogue with our reactions create a relationship so fast that is difficult to distinguish from the phantasmagoric.
The sound and visual piece Phantasmagoria attempts to recreate this exchange between genuine urban stimuli and imagined memories in a constant exchange determined by visitors choices and actions.  Through this process it allows an individual and unique engagement with the space and the work.



7.12.2010

MY FRIENDS ARE MINE | PS

From the standpoint of the mirror I discover my absence | Foucault, of Other Spaces 1967

I believe that between utopias and these quite other sites, these heterotopias, there might be a sort of mixed, joint experience, which would be the mirror. The mirror is, after all, a utopia, since it is a placeless place. In the mirror, I see myself there where I am not, in an unreal, virtual space that opens up behind the surface; I am over there, there where I am not, a sort of shadow that gives my own visibility to myself, that enables me to see myself there where I am absent: such is the utopia of the mirror. But it is also a heterotopia in so far as the mirror does exist in reality, where it exerts a sort of counteraction on the position that I occupy. From the standpoint of the mirror I discover my absence from the place where I am since I see myself over there. Starting from this gaze that is, as it were, directed toward me, from the ground of this virtual space that is on the other side of the glass, I come back toward myself; I begin again to direct my eyes toward myself and to reconstitute myself there where I am. The mirror functions as a heterotopia in this respect: it makes this place that I occupy at the moment when I look at myself in the glass at once absolutely real, connected with all the space that surrounds it, and absolutely unreal, since in order to be perceived it has to pass through this virtual point which is over there.