Andrea Carson2013-05-25T03:35:22-04:00Andrea Carsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=andrea-carsonCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Andrea CarsonGood old fashioned elbow grease.Digital Entertainment 'Booster' Program Enters Round Twotag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.32961292013-05-23T16:47:08-04:002013-05-23T16:47:29-04:00Andrea Carsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-carson/ideaBOOST, the Canadian Film Centre's startup business bootcamp that began on May 21st.
Scott Dyer, chief technology officer of Corus addresses the audience. All images courtesy ideaBOOST.
The merging of art with technology is producing some fascinating hybrids, including, in ideaBOOST's first round, multi-platform games The Path and Your Task/Shoot Things; a YouTube video festival the Buffer Film Fest; a quick and dirty video series on how science affects us on a daily basis called asapSCIENCE, and an intriguing architectural revitalization effort, the Ghost Town Project.
John Melchor Valimento, Motion Panel+Mixer
Emerging Canadian digital entertainment companies - including gaming, web series, e-commerce sites, ebooks and hybrids -- can apply at the website. Winners participate in an intensive, four-month prototype development and audience engagement program designed to convert these high potential ventures into successful businesses.
The six companies selected each receive $15,000 in seed capital and they are mentored by top industry people from Shaw Media, Corus and Google.
The winners with Richard Wilks, Director Business and Legal Affairs, Shaw Media; Scott Dyer, Chief Technology Officer, Corus Entertainment and Ipsa Desai, Strategic Partnerships, Google.
I love this program because it really gives a sense of where digital entertainment is headed today in terms of collaborative and multi-platform ideas. The current group includes Instaradio, which allows you to transform your smartphone into a radio station; Alert TV, a program that allows TV producers to measure data in order to more effectively target and engage audiences; Bemused Network, an online service that allows audiences to connect with local performing arts groups; Wondereur, an app that introduces audiences to visual artists and then allows them to purchase their work; Motion Panels, an app for viewers and content creators to transform graphic novels into animations simply by rotating their mobile device and Lightning Platform, a suite of tools that allows developers to design applications by making coding practically effortless.
Check 'em out. You never know, they might well become the next big thing.]]>Canadian Program Launches Hot New Creative Startupstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29257692013-03-22T16:36:02-04:002013-05-22T05:12:01-04:00Andrea Carsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-carson/ideaBOOST, the Canadian Film Centre's exciting program for digital entertainment startups when it launched back in November, and now the first phase of the four-month intensive "bootcamp" has come to a successful close.
CFC Chief Digital Officer Ana Serrano. Image courtesy CFC.
A hugely innovative project of the CFC's MediaLab, ideaBOOST is billed as "a business and creative development lab" designed to help small companies navigate the entertainment and technology startup market by mentoring them with industry leaders across North America.
It's a fantastic process initiated in part through crowdsourcing. Applicants apply and promote their concept through social media. Once they get enough 'votes' by online audiences, projects are shortlisted and the winning companies work with industry mentors to define their business model and prepare them to go to market.
Rollers of the Realm giving their presentation. Image courtesy Justin Young.
On Wednesday evening, members from each of seven teams, including a YouTube video festival, a 3-d pinball video game, an interactive children's app and a transmedia urban archaeology project, got a chance to make their presentations to an audience of industry buyers, partners and investors - including representatives from Corus Entertainment, Google and Shaw Media.
But what's really interesting is that the program provides a rare preview of exceptionally creative and potentially superhot new startups in the field of digital entertainment -- games, festivals and programs that happen on multiple digital platforms like web, television, mobile, and tablet. Now that gaming is moving into the mainstream thanks to initiatives such as plans by New York's Museum of Modern Art to bring videogames into a new branch of its collection, the potential for exciting art and technology hybrids to reach new audiences is about to explode.
Thanks to the program, these companies are now officially names to watch in the technology entertainment industry:
AsapSCIENCE (Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown): A cool way of bringing science to the masses via YouTube, this channel aims to "explain the science behind the coolest things we learned in school, to talk about concepts that really resonate with people."
The Path (SmokeBomb Entertainment): A multi-platform web series that allows the fan community input into various levels including the scripting, casting and story creation.
The BUFFER Film Fest (Aprentice A Productions): An online video festival that will "launch, promote and advance the best creative work from established and emerging YouTube creators."
Rollers of the Realm (Phantom Compass): A 3-d video game-pinball game hybrid, set in a dark and medieval world complete with puzzles and battles within an epic fantasy narrative.
YOUR TASK // SHOOT THINGS (YS // ST Labs): A side-scrolling rhythm tap video role playing game by a Montreal & Toronto based art collective, where 'zany action meets hand-drawn art.'
Ramen Party (Lillian Chan and John Poon): An interactive storybook app designed to engage children with food, music and culture via animated characters based on Japanese Ramen.
The Ghost Town Project (Intuitive Pictures): A transmedia project that aims to bring abandoned buildings in abandoned communities back to life, one project at a time.
The second ideaBOOST is accepting applications now at their website. It will open for public voting on Mar. 25.
The deadline for applications is Apr. 18.]]>The Canadian Program Giving Creative Startups a Boosttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20936752012-11-09T12:13:06-05:002013-01-09T05:12:01-05:00Andrea Carsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-carson/ideaBOOST, designed to assist artists and companies exploring the frontier in digital entertainment.
ideaBOOST. Image courtesy CFC.
For those that aren't familiar with the term, "digital entertainment" refers to entertainment that takes place in or around an online community and on mobile devices. It's gaming-, web television-, tablet-, app- and smartphone-based multi-platform entertainment that will soon include augmented reality and other new technologies.
IdeaBOOST is a "business development lab" but it's much more exciting than that. It's a very cool career-accelerator program for Canadian innovation companies working in the digital sphere.
I'm a big supporter of programs that help Canadian artists, but I'm a bit wary of government grants that can be overly relied upon, and don't necessarily foster excellence. IdeaBOOST brings industry into the equation, and I think that's what makes it such an impressive concept.
CFC Chief Digital Officer Ana Serrano. Image courtesy CFC.
Developed by CFC MediaLab founder and CFC Chief Digital Officer Ana Serrano (who describes it as a "four month intensive boot camp for digital content entrepreneurs") and sponsored by Shaw, Corus and Google, the program will help teams raise financing, but just as importantly, it pairs winning applicants with Executive Mentors offering advice on everything from product development to business strategy and audience engagement.
"We believe that audiences play an integral role in digital entertainment strategy development," says Serrano. "So it's important that the companies that come through the program understand that the...products that they're building are an 'engaged' form of entertainment. We think that 'engaged entertainment' is the future of our business."
The crowd at the CFC event. Image courtesy CFC.
Thirty-nine projects were submitted to a kind of Kickstarter-style social media campaign, 332,000 votes were cast, 850,000 likes, 89,000 tweets and 15 companies were shortlisted. The projects were then judged by a group of industry experts and eight companies were selected as the winners.
Here are several that sounded particularly exciting:
The Buffer Film Festival will be a Canadian-based, internationally recognized annual online video film festival that will "launch, promote and advance videomakers in the online community," according to founder (and full-time YouTuber) Corey Vidal.
The Ghost Town Project is a trans-media project by Intuitive Pictures that will bring the world's abandoned towns back to life, starting with one landmark building in each location. Led by producer Ina Fichman, it will uncover the hows and whys of abandoned sites with a restoration team including historians, architects and conservationists.
The Path, presented by Smokebomb Entertainment, is an eight-part digital fantasy series about a highschool girl who accidentally opens a door into a world of dark, sexy, 21st century fairies. The series is available online, on tablets and phones and allows fans to interact with content, join social groups that compete against each other. What's intriguing is that the community can also participate in scripting, casting, design and story creation. They want to bring the fans and the community right into the show itself.
Loud on Planet X is a platform of rhythm tap games to be incorporated into mobile gaming. Starting with a silent premise where your band is transported onto a strange, silent planet, you must defend yourself by creating your own sounds, including playlists of your own music or newly discovered bands. Team leader is Alex Jansen, owner of Pop Sandbox a production and publishing company that released KENK: A Graphic Portrait.
Ramen Party is an interactive storybook app that introduces children aged 0 - 4 about food, by making each element in a Japanese ramen a fun character who is invited to a party. The child learns about each separate ingredient, and when they finally all come together, you have the complete dish.]]>Marina Abramovic: Being an Artist Means "Lots of Lonely Hotel Rooms"tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13055752012-03-10T12:14:28-05:002012-05-10T05:12:02-04:00Andrea Carsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-carson/The Artist Is Present, a documentary on her work, which screened at the Reel Artists Film Festival. She is also setting up an institute for the preservation of performance art, in Hudson, New York, for performances, as she says: "minimum six hours in duration."
Photo: Marco Anelli. Courtesy Show of Force.
Q: Do you think we are headed toward the fourth dimension -- a new age of awareness where we go beyond the five senses?
A: That's a good question. I believe we are in an entirely new system of truth. I really believe things are different, consciousness is shifting, and it's connected. Most people don't see these things, I mean apart from global warming, apart from the things going on with the planet. I really believe that consciousness is going to another dimension. It's all about energy.
We are going to be aware of things, see things that we haven't seen before. We are on the border of creating a new system. Artists are the antennas of society, we are the function and we have a duty to deliver the messages..
Q: I read an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist where you said the 21st century would be about art without the object. Why is that important?
A: Because we don't need anything. The object is a tool to deliver the truth. You can develop the concept, you don't need object. (For the Artist is Present) I had a very traditional set up of two chairs and a table. I needed two months to remove the table, that is incredibly important. I could not remove the table until I got to the point in my own understanding, when I got to the point where you know the energy is enough. I really think that we use objects to hide ourselves behind. In the end we just need ourselves, that's it.
Q: At what point can we strip away (the artwork) -- so that every moment in life becomes an art?
You know, there's such a huge, huge amount of training and self control, you know every work starts with the first step, and we should start with the ritualization of everyday life. Like you drink the water, walking from here to the window, just being constantly in the present.
Q: Like a meditative present?
A: Yes, in the present. That's really the key to everything. And another key to everything is to learn proper breathing. Breathing is extremely important -- we don't even understand how important. Because in the breath, it gives oxygen to every cell in the body. And how, actually with different patterns of breathing, you can be angry, you can kill somebody, you can fall in love, you can be sick, you can be healthy, all through different patterns of breathing. In a way, this is why to me the Abramovitch Method is so important now. Because Ive spent so much time with different traditions on this planet, and I've tried to see what worked the best and I've made some kind of mixture that I can share with young artists and with the public.
Marina Abramović and Matthew Akers. Photo: David Smoler. Courtesy Show of Force.
AC: So if someone like me was going to New York, I could go and spend the day at your foundation, and have almost a spiritual experience there?
A: Yes, exactly. There's a crystal room and a meditation space. I'm now working on a new work in Brazil, a room with a magnetic field, you can lie on the bed and meditate in the space. This is an artwork -- I call them transitory objects -- which is going to be placed in the foundation permanently, so people can experience all the objects in three basic body positions: standing, lying, and sitting amid crystals.
The show is opening on the 19th in a museum in Milano -- PAC -- and we are going to use the Abramovic method. We'll see how it works, and if there is anything to correct. But we'll make a film about it -- about the principles of the Abramovitch Method.
Q: I often see work by young Canadian artists that, in my opinion, doesn't go far enough. There's no question that you have made a career of going as far as possible in your work. What advice would you give young artists today, who want to become the great artists of the 21st century?
A: Ok first of all, when young artists come to me and want to be rich and famous, well you can forget it. That is number one. Number two, he or she has to ask themselves if they are an artist or not. You know being an artist is like breathing. You know if you don't breathe you die. You have to have over and over again the need to create. That doesn't make you a great artist. That just makes you an artist.
So what makes a great artist? That you have a fever, that you are obsessed. That you are ready to sacrifice everything. And to really have a sense of what the work is about and what you want to do with it, and what it does to the public. And it's just total commitment. And lots of lonely hotel rooms. You know it's kind of a lonely life. This is why I couldn't have children, this is why I couldn't be married, I could not. It's like being a soldier. And if you are ready for all that, and you really have this obsession, then do it. But you know to be famous, or to be rich, it's a side effect. It's not the aim of art. And for me it took a long long time.
For me it's now 40 years of my career, and you know only in the last ten years have I paid my bills. It was a struggle, it was like the first woman walking on the moon, nobody even believed it was art in the first place. It takes a long time. So if you are ready to do that, then do it. Otherwise, do another job.
]]>Necropolis: The Rebirth of Video Arttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12751762012-02-24T13:20:48-05:002012-04-25T05:12:01-04:00Andrea Carsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-carson/Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, is on until April 1st in Toronto and I recommend you see it.
Tasman Richardson, Memorial. All images courtesy the artist.
Conceived in collaboration with curator Rhonda Corvese, the exhibition may make you reconsider what you had previously assumed about video art. The works in the exhibition use his micro editing technique, Jawa whose name is taken from scavenging characters in Star Wars, who, according to Richardson "lived by stealing and rewiring old technology for personal use and for profit."
The installation is very dark and you move between screens, across what feel like bridges and into room after room. None of the pieces have a concrete narrative; rather it's about stopping in the presence of each one. There are six works in total: ANALOGUE TIDE, in which the viewer walks through a group of static-y televisions; FOREVER ENDEAVOUR, an installation between two screens, each showing a woman from a movie (Poltergeist and the Ring) staring at one another. The third work is PARASEC, where dots of light speed down a hallway, creating optical distortions.
MEMORIAL is an installation that looks like the rose window at Notre Dame cathedral, but each 'window' is made up of a video clip of a woman from a film (Joan of Arc) screaming, hissing, and crying. BLIND SPOT, a hole in one wall, is easy to miss but contains a spooky video of snow falling in a desolate forest. PAN, the final and most ambitious piece, is three films designed to be composited as one entirely in the mind of the viewer.
Tasman Richardson, Forever Endeavour.
I had a phone conversation with Richardson, whom I've known since about 1996 when I was impressed by his graduate work at OCAD.
VoCA: This exhibition is unusual in that it's about video but it's also about sound. It's also somewhat architectural in terms of where the viewer is in relation to the screens.
Tasman Richardson: Each room was designed specifically to control light, the angle of light. The order is very specific. It's about having control over something people can normally walk away from.
I'm trying to critique video but also the control of our gaze and our emotions. The best way to do that was to have a controlled environment. I had to construct something people would be forced to move through. The idea was to take time-based media to a more controlled level.
VoCA: What were you trying to achieve with this exhibition? What was the concept?
TR: It's hard to summarize...it's like you are making an argument...Necropolis -- it's about the relationship between video, all of the ways that it redirects your gaze backward, not forward...and how those stories become clichés. I wanted to take it toward an emotional truth.
Tasman Richardson, Parasec.
VoCA: For the viewer/participant, the installation is like a journey -- middle, beginning, end. How much direction did Rhonda give you in terms of setting it up, how the video would be presented? How important is this to the work?
TR: Rhonda came to my studio, wanting to see what I was doing...she was urging me to think about scale, how to do more than just projecting the work. She saw this piece PARSEK when it was in its early stages and asked me to do others to go with it. Rhonda was asking me to investigate how far I could take it. I thought about it for six months, and then I had it down on paper. We worked on it for about two and a half years. She was like a timekeeper. She really kept me on track.
VoCA: I remember when you were working with the artist Jubal Brown, or that's how I first met you -- and even then you were doing micro edits. How did you come up with the idea of Jawa to begin with? How have the technique and your interests evolved since then?
TR: The early stuff was simple, basic rhythms, just straight cut. Originally it was very short pieces, since it was very painstaking, but over time, (our) endurance grew. Since then, software has improved... so the complexity on the part of the viewer has increased.
Originally people would ask why I was bothering with such tiny edits that people wouldn't even see, but I had faith that the audience would eventually catch up. I've tried to make things that are more complex... and there has always been an audience.
You can do to music what you can do with Jawa. You can treat sound like an instrument... I find that the most extreme examples are when it returns to its roots. The last piece in necropolis... PAN with the screens is the most basic form of Jawa at its most extreme.
VoCA: Can you tell me about this piece?
TR: It's three cuts, one frame at a time. You have three bars, each represents one of three films. You take a single frame from each film, one at a time, but in your eye it registers as one single, very complex image, but it's not muddy. Your brain processes it properly.
Because there is no compositing, each frame plays that frame alone. When viewers see it, they mix it in their eyes. The mixing is not in the piece. These sorts of tricks don't get used a lot. And it's a very tedious process; there are thousands of single frame edits. My wife edits with me -- it took a few weeks of working pretty full on for the both of us.
VoCA: How do you envision the future of video art? What's next for you?
TR: I hope people will continue to misuse technology. We have 3D technology that is more advanced than ever... I would love it if people would take these Hollywood escapes and misuse them. Technology is so exciting that it needs to be properly (or improperly) explored.
I think more people need to break technologies -- this will lead to a better type of immersion, so that people will be able to do more with it.
Check out more of Richardson's video work, and more about Jawa technique, at his website HERE.]]>Hits and Misses at Maurizio Cattelan's NYC Showtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12258092012-01-26T16:13:22-05:002012-03-27T05:12:01-04:00Andrea Carsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-carson/Maurizio Cattelan retrospective the day before it closed. It has gotten quite a bit of attention for its unusual installation. The work was hung entirely from the ceiling, down the central atrium, with absolutely nothing on the walls of the notoriously difficult gallery. It transformed Frank Lloyd Wright's museum into a theatre, which made strangely perfect sense.
The viewer/audience on the ramp, looking into the atrium. All images: VoCA. Click images to enlarge.
The atrium, filled with works hung from a metal scaffold. Click images to enlarge.
My first impression was one of awe. It was amazing to see the work all suspended, particularly since some pieces were huge. Cattelan's famous sculpture of a life-size horse coming out of a wall backwards was there, complete with a small piece of wall, for full effect.
Click images to enlarge.
Him, 2001. Click images to enlarge.
In all, it was messy and certainly didn't do the work any favours. It was also dark -- that day, snow had accumulated on the gallery's skylight. I had seen numerous pieces over the years properly installed -- sometimes brilliantly curated, as with Him, the kneeling Hitler at the Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation in Toronto a few years ago. Then there was the Pope being hit by a meteorite at the Royal Academy's notorious Apocalypse show in London in 2000; the miniature Cattelan on a tricycle that was exhibited roaming the Giardini of the Venice Biennale in 2003 and Turisti, an early work consisting of many taxidermy pigeons that was installed on rafters above the gallery-goers, also at Venice. And on and on.
Untitled, 2009. Click images to enlarge.
Turisti (Tourists), 1997. Click images to enlarge.
The jumble of work, none of which you could really get a proper look at, reminded me of the visual information that is coming at us from all directions through TV, print, advertising, art, and the internet. There's too much and either you have to select what to focus on or be overwhelmed. It was the same here.
Frustratingly, the accompanying guide, which claims to feature a diagram showing each work in the exhibition, does not in fact show every work. Key pieces are left out.
Click images to enlarge.
Charlie, 2003. Click images to enlarge.
Untitled, 1997. Click images to enlarge.
Now, 2004. Click images to enlarge.
I also found it brave of Cattelan to risk his work being seen as junk. He must have been sure that the curatorial concept would overshadow the works themselves, but as Schejdahl points out, many of the pieces depend on proper curating to give them their strength. Some of his works are truly unforgettable. But not here. The art is actually rather forgettable here. I'm not sure I would have enjoyed the show had I not been already quite familiar with it.
La Nona Ora, 1999. Click images to enlarge.
Click images to enlarge.
Novecento, 1997. Click images to enlarge.
But at the end of the day, it was an intriguing concept for a difficult space, and it did create a witty, double-take inducing, rather grand spectacle, which is what Cattelan is all about, and which both audiences and institutions seem to love.]]>An Artist's Studio: Rob Davidovitztag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10787702011-11-12T18:04:27-05:002012-01-12T05:12:01-05:00Andrea Carsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-carson/
A woven painting by Rob Davidovitz. All images: VoCA
He mixes paint colours in a kind of pastry tube (more on that below) and squeezes it out in long lines, like thread. Each 'thread' incorporates its own mix of colour that blends nicely in the final piece.They he lets the paint dry and weaves the strips, which he attaches to board. Pretty simple.
Another view.
The work may not be terribly mature (yet) -- he's a young guy, but it's beautiful, and an interesting approach when you consider other artists who have used paint in a sculptural way -- I'm thinking of Kim Dorland's earlier work, for one. It's also interesting that Davidovitz cites the poured paint sculptures of feminist artist Lynda Benglis as an influence. His woven paintings do come off as strangely feminist, meaning that one can comfortably view them through the lens of feminist art -- weaving being a traditionally 'feminine' craft.
The works are seductive -- Davidovitz encourages you to touch and bend them; they're not delicate.
The back of the work. The paint is glued to the board.
Davidovitz went to art school with plans to be a photographer. Believe it or not, he was working in a bakery, making a cake when he came up with the idea of pushing paint through a piping bag. Shortly thereafter he began experimenting, and eventually perfected the technique..
Three smaller finished works.
Are the works paintings or textiles? "I weave paint," says Davidovitz. He's been showing here and there (including at Toronto's Textile Museum) since he graduated in 2005 and is currently preparing for a group show titled Hard Twist at the Gladstone Hotel which opens on Nov. 25. The exhibition, all textile-based work by 40 artists, will feature his largest work to date, an enormous piece that weighs over two hundred pounds and involved over 20 gallons of paint to create.
This is good -- he should be encouraged to think big and beyond, the way Benglis does.
The artist with a single strand from his Gladstone Hotel piece.
Some small strands.
The weaving process.
A close up.
An early, experimental work.
]]>Eve Sussman's Control Issuestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9926942011-10-05T12:22:33-04:002011-12-05T05:12:01-05:00Andrea Carsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-carson/ in the Financial Times recently. Speaking about the practice of being an artist, he says, "What interests me is the part of you that you are stuck with, that you can't control, and it comes out whatever. That's infinitely more profound: you are who you are, even when you don't wish to be -- you can't not do it."
Still from whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir, by Eve Sussman. Image courtesy redartprojects.com
His quote echoes an issue that I've had for some time with much of the emerging art that I see; the idea that the artist must maintain control over it. Of course, ultimately we can never get away from ourselves, so it's true that all art is self-portraiture, but generally speaking, I much prefer art that leaves open what Craig-Martin identifies -- that part that can't be controlled.
Still from whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir, by Eve Sussman. Image courtesy redartprojects.com
You may know Sussman's amazing work 89 Seconds at Alcazar, "a lavish and evocative re-creation of the moments leading up to and immediately following the scene portrayed in the beloved masterpiece Las Meninas (The Maids of Honour) painted by Diego Velásquez in 1656" according to Rice University Art Gallery, which screened the work in 2005.
Sussman's newest and quite different piece, whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir, is billed as an 'experimental film noir.' It is shot in the areas surrounding the Caspian sea, and is made up of a series of very brief film clips. It is a story of a man, on his own, possibly pursuing something or someone. There is an unsettling feeling as if he is running out of words, or is losing the ability to speak. The narrative is deliberately fuzzy, and the intriguing part is that Sussman has custom-programmed a computer to sift through the clips, along with music and voiceovers, in order to 'randomly' select clips that flow together while still maintaining a semblance of narrative (of sorts.)
The film, which is shot absolutely beautifully, is intriguing to watch and keeps you in a state of suspense, since you know that it doesn't really end. And yet you are seduced by the unusual, painterly images of a part of the world -- mostly Kazakhstan -- that most of us won't be particularly familiar with.
Still from whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir, by Eve Sussman. Image courtesy redartprojects.com
That the viewer is engaged in a somewhat unclear, never-ending story that no single person has control over is a lot like life, actually. The computer screen, however is included in the screening room and is visible so that you can see the code running down as searches are performed and executed, one by one and in synch with what you are watching.
I can understand why Sussman would find this approach interesting. It's like a patchwork or like a grand painting using film clips rather than paintstrokes, and it tells us much more about the process of making than about the final product.
Still from whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir, by Eve Sussman. Image courtesy redartprojects.com
Still from whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir, by Eve Sussman. Image courtesy redartprojects.com
The artist creates the pieces and the software puts them together. Of course, the idea of randomness is misleading -- Sussman and her team chose the tag words that allowed the computer to select images, but this would have been necessary likely to ensure a sense of continuity.
In a way, Sussman has found an intriguing and quite modern way of both controlling and relinquishing control of her artwork. It's a great experience and I highly recommend it.
It is presently having it's New York premiere screening at Cristin Tierney Gallery through Oct. 22, and will travel to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in the spring of 2012.]]>Patriotism and Nationalism in Art: 10 Years After 9/11tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9606082011-09-20T12:57:50-04:002011-11-20T05:12:02-05:00Andrea Carsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-carson/MOCCA in Toronto, which opened on Sept. 9, days before the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001.
ANTUAN, Left or Right, (detail). Image: mocca.ca
Titled Patria o Liberdad! On Patriotism, Immigration and Populism, it is a collection of video art that aims, according to curator Paco Barragan, to address "the complexities of the concept of 'nationalism' in a moment in which national identities are being either severely put into question or impetuously vindicated."
Still from Sometimes it makes me wonder what I fought for, Katri Walker, 2009. Image: VoCA
In his catalogue essay, Barragan proposes "the analogy of "nationalism" with "bad patriotism," and "good patriotism" as a personal sentiment or love for your roots, language, family, etc., that is intimate, not obligatory nor prescriptive..." Essentially, he equates "good patriotism" with love of one's ethnocultural heritage, and "bad patriotism" with nationalism.
Still from Sometimes it makes me wonder what I fought for, Katri Walker, 2009. Image: VoCA
I'm not sure I agree with his definition. As is explained here, one can also consider patriotism as a love for one's country and consider nationalism in the cultural or ethnic sense of the word.
I would love to think that in Canada (and much more so in the United States) the two might coexist: patriotism as a love of one's adopted country, while nationalism as a love for one's ethnocultural heritage. And they do co-exist among some people. And not for others -- Quebec and the separatist movement is one example. It's a complicated topic and his essay is worth reading here.
Still from Ivan Candeo, Inertia, 2009. Image: VoCA
In fact, I enjoyed the essay more than the show itself. To me, the curating felt heavy-handed with little space for the viewer to think: women unfurling out of an early American flag, courtesy of American artist Jen DeNike; a piece by Cuban artist Antuan showing a man punching bags printed with the faces of various world leaders (Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Osama bin Laden, George Bush...); Ivan Candeo's Inertia, showing a cyclist on a treadmill in front of a mural of in front of a mural of Bolívar... These were balanced by some more moving piece, particularly Sometimes it makes me wonder what I fought for, by Katri Walker, an intimate study of Jimmy Redpath, an ex-Blackwatch Paratrooper.
A politically-charged show that presented a number of perspectives on a sensitive topic, it asked the viewer for a point of view, while not making it easy -- the entire show was video, most of which required headphones.
Curator Paco Barragan with a friend. Image: VoCA
The exhibition, which has toured to Miami and Amsterdam, will travel to the Stenersen Museum in Oslo next. I wonder how the exhibition locations affect the show's reception, particularly with Miami and Amsterdam's fraught relationship to immigrants. A show like this depends on its context -- it says as much about the viewer as about the exhibition itself.
Complimenting the show nicely was a fantastic video by the gallery's entrance, in a screening room sponsored by the National Gallery of Canada. I had seen this work by the excellent polish artist Artur Zmijewski, at Documenta in Kassel, Germany several years ago. Titled THEM, 2007, it documents a group of people brought together in a craft workshop to create images of a 'symbolic centre' of Poland. Their clashing ideologies come into play, with some destroying the work of others, until the entire 'artwork' is burned and eventually thrown out the window.
Still from Artur Zmijewski THEM, 2007. Image: VoCA
Still from Artur Zmijewski THEM, 2007. Image: VoCA
Still from Artur Zmijewski THEM, 2007. Image: VoCA
]]>Hunter & Cook: The Hub of Toronto's Art Scenetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9503052011-09-09T10:03:12-04:002011-11-09T05:12:02-05:00Andrea Carsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-carson/Bohemian Embassy -- what is with that sign?!) has come a smart new wave of Toronto's downtown art scene.
Hunter & Cook, the magazine. Image: hunterandcook.com
Sam Falls, Mexico 1, Acrylic and pastel on archival pigment print, 9"x11". Image courtesy Hunter & Cook.
These spaces are key players in the city's up-and-coming art scene, and local artist-run art magazine Hunter & Cook, now in it's ninth edition, is there to document it along with an impressively chosen selection of the Canadian art scene across the country. It's a worthwhile magazine to pick up (or subscribe to for 30 bucks!) for artists look at what's hot in Canadian art.
On Sept. 8, Hunter & Cook, which is run by artists Tony Romano and Jay Isaac, will open the doors of its new headquarters at 1082 Queen Street West in Katherine Mulherin's former gallery space.
Inside the space. Image: courtesy Hunter and Cook.
Tony Romano, hard at work. Image: courtesy Hunter and Cook.
The space, which the artists describe as a "hub for the Toronto art scene" will be their office, a gallery space and a shop selling other magazines and artist editions.
The idea is to move the magazine off the printed page and into a brick-and-mortar physical space. The mandate, like that of their magazine, is to show Canadian artists outside of Toronto "through group show and projects in international venues and launches," says Jay Isaac.
The plan is to introduce artists to Toronto -- their opening show will be by New York artist Sam Falls, followed by Kirsten Stoltmann from Los Angeles, Nicole Ondre and Ron Tran from Vancouver.
Meanwhile, they have arranged a group show of Hunter and Cook artists in October in L.A. at Night Gallery. The new issue of the magazine will also launch in New York.
I find it interesting that with more young artists seemingly emerging from art school than ever, it seems to be all about the social network. Artists form international connections -- whether from school, residencies abroad, travels -- and it's not uncommon for a new art school grad to begin showing internationally straight away, actively building up his or her resume in preparation for 'real' commercial representation.
This is one reason why it's become more common for artists to open their own small storefront or studio galleries, showing work by their friends. This practice is important because it keeps them aware of what other artists are doing, and it fosters a place for dialogue about art, which is a vital part of the process.
It's good for the art, and it's great for the city.]]>Visit to Canoe Lake: Tom Thomson's Gravetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9427732011-08-31T12:06:43-04:002011-10-31T05:12:02-04:00Andrea Carsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-carson/
You may recognize the name -- it's well known as the lake where Group of Seven painter Tom Thomson mysteriously died at age 42 in July, 1917. He had left to go on a fishing trip, but after only a few hours his canoe was found floating in the lake. It wasn't until a week or so later that his body was found.
Getting ready to leave.
On our way across Canoe Lake.
Thomson, who was a recognized outdoorsman, spent six months of every year in Algonquin Park hunting, fishing and of course painting. He had worked as a guide and fire ranger in the park, so the fact that his death was declared an accidental drowning on what was a apparently a clear and normal day seems unusual. Even at the time, people couldn't believe it and rumours swirled about suicide and murder.
Little Wapomeo, where his body was found, and my dog Hudson.
The gravesite is in Mowat cemetery, about a 10-minute walk into the bush off the west side of the lake. We took my dog, Hudson. You have to go through people's cottage properties to get there and it's entirely unmarked. You basically go up an unmaintained grassy road to the first big birch, and take a left into the bush, whereupon a faint trail becomes clear.
Walking down the main road.
The turnoff, into the bush.
After about 10 minutes, you arrive at a white picket fenced-in area under an enormously gnarled birch. There are two headstones there; one "In Memory of Ja's Watson," the first white person buried at Canoe Lake, and the other for a child, Alexander Hayhurst.
Mowat Cemetery, with the massive birch tree.
And then there's the question of Thomson's body.
His family had his body exhumed in two days after its burial at Mowat cemetery and moved to Leith, Ontario. Now it is believed by some that the body was never moved.
According to our friend Jackie, whose family has been on the lake for generations (and whose uncle's cottage was visited many times by members of the Group), this photo below is where Thompson is actually buried. There is a white cross nearby which is apparently a relic from a CBC documentary.
The clearing where it is thought Thomson's body is actually buried.
Although Thompson was essentially unschooled as a painter, he was arguably the most impressive of the Group of Seven.
An excellent read about the early days of the Group is the book Defiant Spirits by British Canadian author Ross King. I highly recommend it. You can read my review here.
A great resource for information on the mystery can be found at THIS website.]]>Government Art Grants: Preaching to the Choir?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9320022011-08-24T12:30:34-04:002011-10-24T05:12:01-04:00Andrea Carsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-carson/Rob Ford), maybe it's time we looked at whether the art granting system in Canada could use some reform of its own.
Federal, provincial and municipal arts councils are all arms-length agencies of the government. The Canada Council for the Arts is a Crown corporation chaired by Joseph Rotman, which is funded from Parliament along with endowments and donations. The visual arts are one division, the other five are media arts, dance, music, theatre and writing/publishing. The Ontario Arts Council is a publicly-funded agency of the Ministry of Culture, and the Toronto Arts Council is funded by the City of Toronto.
These granting bodies are necessary to the visual arts community in Canada. We have excellent programs and opportunities for artists because of them. And there are many excellent, even world class artists who use grants for research, travel and production. Grants allow them to advance their careers and to create ambitious, intelligent works of art that the public gets to enjoy. And for many important cultural organizations, government grants form only a part of their funding, much of which comes from private and corporate donors.
I've never applied for a grant, though I've written many grants (successfully) on behalf of others, and have benefited from organizations who receive grants (the Canadian Art Foundation, where I used to work, for one). Our granting system is a pretty decent one, but it's by no means as good as it could be.
One question that occurs to me is who benefits from the granting system? The gallery-going public benefits from grants to galleries, and dance and theatre audiences likewise, and we benefit from many of the cultural organizations whose support comes from grants, but with grants given to individual artists, there isn't always a direct correlation. The system supports artists, but artists come into public view only when their work is exhibited, by a museum, a commercial gallery or within the arts community itself.
In other words, the result of the grant (the artwork) doesn't always have the broad reach with mainstream audiences that it could have. The following are my thoughts on why this may be the case:
The art market (or lack thereof)
Most artists would love to have their work sold by a commercial gallery, make a living and not have to apply for grants. But they can't because we don't have a strong market here. There are far more artists than there are commercial exhibition opportunities. And, the art world isn't democratic. Not every artist makes work that the market considers desirable.
The artist-run centre
Most people I know who are not in the art world don't know what an artist-run centre is, or that they exist. Is this a good thing? Artist-run centres are at least partly government-funded spaces for the exhibition of works by artists who are often funded by the government. The audience tends to be, with rare exception, more of these artists and collectors who are already within the arts community. The challenge is in attracting new audiences. With the rise of Young Patron groups in Toronto, this may be changing.
The media
The other thing that I've noticed changing over the past decade is the profile of the visual arts within the mainstream media. This month, Toronto Life has a feature article on the painter Kent Monkman, and emerging filmmaker Daniel Cockburn was interviewed in the Globe and Mail. In general, the media seems to be celebrating Toronto's cultural community, which is fantastic and has been a long time coming. The more this happens, the more involved and aware of the arts the public will be.
Artists
Again, many artists use grants to create work that they then exhibit widely, but I know of other artists for whom grants seem to be a kind of supplementary income. They make work, but it rarely gets shown. And some of it is brilliant work. If the public can't access the work that grants make possible, isn't there something wrong with the system?
Museums
With the notable exceptions of MOCCA and the Art Gallery of York University (not a major museum), Toronto's public art spaces rarely exhibit work by local artists. Sure, there's a project room -- Toronto Now -- at the AGO, but compared to Montreal and Vancouver, both of whom have had large-scale, well-publicized celebratory and very memorable exhibitions of local artists, this city is deplorable.
What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is our government granting system satisfactory or could it (should it) be improved? What's the purpose of government grants, to and is this purpose being fulfilled?
The granting system is doing a good job at bringing the arts to the art community. But is it doing a good job at bringing the arts to a larger general audience?]]>Haute Culture: General Idea at the AGOtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9115032011-07-28T14:33:47-04:002011-09-27T05:12:01-04:00Andrea Carsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-carson/Haute Culture, the retrospective of famed Canadian artist collective General Idea, which opens this Friday with a free party at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.
AIDS (Gold) 1987, acrylic and gold leaf on canvas. Katharina Faerber Collection, Geneva Image: VoCA
I had a few minutes to chat with AA Bronson, who reminded me of his solo exhibition at Esther Schipper Gallery in Berlin, in which he will be showing large self portraits with diamonds. Not the Warhol-style diamond dust, mind you, but actual diamonds. Though based in New York, AA currently shows only with commercial galleries in Europe, now that his New York gallery John Connelly Presents has closed. And in Canada, it seems our market is just not able to support him. He's never been particularly well embraced in Canada, he says. Hopefully the retrospective will go some way toward changing that. It was supported by some of the city's well-known collectors.
Incidentally, some in the Toronto art world will find it interesting that the retrospective was a project begun by former AGO curator of contemporary art David Moos, when he was still at the AGO.
The GI retrospective comes from La Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris, where it was apparently a big success. Curator Frederic Bonnet explained that it is arranged thematically, rather than chronologically, which in the case of GI, is helpful. The themes are, according to Bonnet: glamour as tool of creation; mass cultures; architecture/archaeology; sexuality/ambiguity and the AIDS project.
The group famously used the mass media as a vehicle for art, putting art on television and printing a magazine FILE. They employed an impressive range of materials, from work in plaster, taxidermy, gold leaf, fluorescent tube... there is even straw on the floor of one fantastic installation, making the gallery smell like a barn. In it, the poodles (the artists) are contemplating the Canis Major constellation in the Milky Way. It's quite funny.
The image of the artists as three poodles is interesting, inserted so often as it is into a broader art history. My favorite piece (not only because I'm a big fan of IKB) was the send up of Yves Klein's Anthropometry works, which they recreated with taxidermy poodles.
They then painted three large X's onto the canvas, which they say (in a nearby video piece) function as "kisses, targets, signatures..."
AIDS 1987, silkscreen wallpaper
AIDS 1988 Gift of Robert and Lynn Simpson, 1997. Photo by Carlo Catenazzi. Image courtesy the Estate of General Idea and the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Untitled (Vantage) (detail) 1986, acrylic and pasta on canvas. Collection of Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Mudam), Luxembourg. Image: VoCA
Untitled (Vantage) 1986 and Untitled (Marlborough) 1985-1986, acrylic and pasta on canvas. Collection of Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Mudam), Luxembourg. Image: VoCA
Pavillion Construction Hoarding 1975, diazotype on acetate over plywood, edition 2 of 5 (not all produced). Purchase, with assistance from Wintario, 1976 Image: VoCA
Pavillion Construction Hoarding 1975 (back). Image: VoCA
The Firewall, 1985. Aniline dye with plaster cast tiles with acrylic on plaster on plywood. Collection of Carmen Lamanna, Toronto Photo: VoCA
Pavillion Poodle Fragments, 1983-1984, installation: various elements, aniline dye on plaster. Collection of General Idea, Toronto/New York. Image: VoCA
While General Idea is of course legendary, I'm quite interested in the work that AA has been doing in his solo career, particularly since his partners Felix Partz and Jorge Zonthal passed away in 1994. He has reinvented himself as AA Bronson: Healer, and curated the School for Young Shamans in 2008 at John Connelly Presents, which I briefly blogged about here. Presently, at New York's Union Theological Seminary he is director of The Institute for Art, Religion and Social Justice, whose mission it is to explore the interrelationship between the three.
Me with AA at the preview. Image: VoCA/Chris Jones]]>What Makes Public Art Good?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9075292011-07-25T12:09:31-04:002011-09-24T05:12:01-04:00Andrea Carsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-carson/
The entrance to the new Sofitel Hotel in Vienna.
I was in Vienna, Austria recently and saw the most fantastic use of art in Jean Nouvel's new Sofitel hotel. Surprisingly unremarkable from the outside, there was an artwork by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist that greeted us at the hotel entrance and really wowed us on the rooftop restaurant. I'm not sure if they have a per cent for art program there, which we have in many cities across North America (it gives a minimum of one per cent of construction costs of significant developments over to public artworks in newly built properties) but the hotel owners really gave an impressively enormous amount of space and visibility over to the artwork.
The awning over the hotel's entrance was lit up from underneath with an image that has viewers peering into Pipilotti's magical 'heaven.' You literally see up her nostrils. Then, you enter the very black elevator up to the rooftop lounge and restaurant.
The restaurant ceiling.
The entire restaurant from the chairs to the carpet, walls and bar is covered in matte, dark grey. The only colour exists in a spectacular ceiling mural by the artist that covers the ENTIRE ceiling, which is also punctured with small circular video screens. Through the screens you can see Pipilotti cavorting around, sticking her fingers down to pull you up into the ceiling.
It's a stunning piece and a wonderful, unconventional use of space. The best thing, though is that it engages your imagination -- it's as if there is a world beyond the ceiling. The bright colours are the perfect foil for Nouvel's austere black building, in which everything is black, minimal and cool. It's the masculine and the feminine, the serious and the playful, the grownup and the childlike.
It's as if the place we really want to be is inside the artwork.
The hotel seen from the exterior.
Closer to home, the city of Vancouver has some wonderful public art pieces -- particularly the large scale sculpture like the birds by local artist Myfanwy MacLeod at the Olympic Plaza in Vancouver's Southeast False Creek Plaza and the enormous raindrop by Berlin art collective Inges Idee at the city's convention centre. Like all successful large scale work (hello, Christo and Jeanne Claude) it draws attention to the environment around us. The street becomes an artwork, and the public becomes complicit.
The Birds by Vancouver artist Myfanwy MacLeod.
As Boris Groys points out in his book of essays Going Public, referring to contemporary means of communication like Facebook and Youtube, "Contemporary art has today become a mass-cultural practice. So the question arises: How can a contemporary artist survive this popular success of contemporary art? How can the artist survive in a world in which everyone can, after all, become an artist?"
The Drop by the group of Berlin artists Inges Idee.
One way is to place the artwork into a location where the viewer is able to properly contemplate it. If audiences for art are passing through museums without stopping to consider the art, then putting art -- at an enormous scale -- on the ceiling of a restaurant, or in the middle of a public space or on the edge of a waterfront view would seems like a good idea.
]]>Post No Bills: Winnipeg's Pop Up Art Gallerytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8941492011-07-11T13:12:13-04:002011-09-10T05:12:01-04:00Andrea Carsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-carson/
We have Nuit Blanche in Montreal and Toronto (which is a good start) and we have art fairs for collectors, but the question is how to get the average non-art person visiting galleries and purchasing work by local artists?
"We felt it was unfortunate that people are not able to find local contemporary artists as easily as in other markets," say the organizers. "Thus, over some drinks we hatched Post No Bills temporary commercial gallery. We hope that this event, in conjunction with the Fringe Festival will help both artists and patrons to meet one another."
I spoke with organizers Joe Kalturnyk and Eric Wood over email the other day:
VoCA: Will the gallery be 'curated' at all? If so, how?
E&J: Yes. Every day. By Eric and sometimes by Joe. We'll begin with trying to show as much work as possible with as much range as well. Established artists that are represented by our three galleries will take center stage and emerging artists will be on display for one to three days of the festival.
VoCA: How will the artwork be displayed? Can you please describe what the 'gallery' will look like, physically?
E&J: The gallery structure is made from material intended to be temporary. The main structure is built from "system scaffolding." The work will be hung onto a thin steel grid that will be fastened to the scaffolding. Then the entire structure will be shrink-wrapped with a recycled white poly. In the end, it will look like a 21' x 14' x 10' tall white cube.
Keith Wood, $450.
VoCA: How will you encourage people to purchase the art, beyond them just liking the work? Will they be able to meet the artists?
E&J: We are offering time payments (a layaway plan) for some of our more expensive works. Seventy-five dollars a month will be the standard payment. (Both Joe and I are collectors and have been taking advantage of time payments for years now.) Also many of our artists have made lesser-priced prints solely for this event. These prints will range from $20 to around $250 and will be presented in 'edition booklets.' Lastly, most artists will have portfolios on site.
A lot of the artists will be volunteering their time so people will have a chance to meet them. Luckily both of us have been involved in the art community for most of our lives and know quite a bit about each artist that is involved and will have no problem explaining and getting people excited about the work/artists.
Doug Smith, $650.
VoCA: If it's a success, would you consider bringing this idea to other festivals in cities/towns across the country?
E&J: Possibly.
Leslie Supnet, You are so far away, 2010, $400.
VoCA: What are your top tips or picks for people attending Post No Bills?
E&J: Come everyday. And every night.
All images courtesy Eric Wood.]]>
