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YouTube Play: Guggenheim Biennial of Creative Video

Trout Monfalco — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 06:45:29 +0000

YouTube and the Guggenheim teamed up to create a respected, juried art show of video work from YouTube. Back in July, anyone could enter a single video hosted on YouTube. A jury of 11 respected artists selected 24 videos, which were unveiled tonight at a Guggenheim event. Here is a complete list of jurors and selected work, with a few sample videos from the winners.

Jurors

Laurie Anderson
musician, inventor, filmmaker, performer

Animal Collective
band

Darren Aronofsky
filmmaker

Douglas Gordon
installation, video and film artist

Marilyn Minter
painter, video artist & photography

Ryan McGinley
photographer

Takashi Murakami
Painter, sculptor, video artist

Shirin Neshat
artist and filmmaker

Stefan Sagmeister
designer

Apichatpong Weerasethakul
filmmaker

Nancy Spector
Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
jury chair

Work Selected by the Jury

Post Newtonianism (War Footage/Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare Footage)
Josh Bricker — sqosh12

Moonwalk
Martin Kohout — lostpostservice

Words
Everynone (Will Hoffman, Daniel Mercadan) — dmercadante1

This Aborted Earth: The Quest Begins
Michael Banowetz, Noah Sodano — thisAbortedEarth

deuce
Monica Cook — monicacook

Strindberg and Helium at the Beach
Eun-Ha Paek, Erin Perkins — ErinPerkins

Die Antwoord — Zef Side
Sean Metelerkamp — stewartridgeway

Bathtub IV
Keith Loutit — keithloutit

Seaweed
Remi Weekes, Luke White — tellno1ne

Gardyn
Nick Bertke (Pogo) — Fagottron

Bear untitled — D.O. Edit
Christen Bach — Christenbach

Le Syndrome du Timide
Pierre-Axel Vuillaume-Prezeau — pehaboy

auspice
Bryce Kretschmann — squomb

I Met the Walrus
Jerry Levitan, Josh Raskin — imetthewalrus

Birdy Nam Nam — The Parachute Endings
Steve Scott, Will Sweeney — Nottoscalelondon

Wonderland Mafia
Lindsay Scoggins — waambat

Synesthesia
Terri Timely (Corey Creasey, Ian Kibbey) — territimely1

Ladybirds’ Requiem digest version
Akino Kondoh — akinokondoh

Notebook
Evelien Lohbeck — evelienlohbeck

Man With A Movie Camera: The Global Remake
Perry Bard — perrybard

Scenic Jogging
Jillian Mayer — JillianMayer

Taxi III Stand Up and Cry Like a Man
Lisa Byrne — lisabyrne700

Luis
Joaquin Cocina, Cristobal Leon, Niles Atalla — futureshorts

The Huber Experiments — Vol 1
Erik Huber, Matthew Huber — ErikHuber

Learn more and see all of the jury’s selections at
YouTube Play: Guggenheim Biennial for Creative Video

What Does Clean Water Have to do with Art? Blog Action Day 2010

Trout Monfalco — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:05:28 +0000

Help give clean water to people who don’t have it. Join our campaign
Water from the Arts

This is easy to answer.

Without clean water artists would die. There would be no one to paint, sing, dance or tell stories.
Without clean water, audiences would die. There would be no one to look at the art that someone might have already made.
Maybe you have some water, but it’s scarce or polluted. If so, you survive, but you are too weak or sick to care one bit about art.
Maybe you can get good water, but you must walk 3 hours to get it, and 3 hours to return. Have you ever carried a fish tank full of water? Think of carrying it for 3 hours. Think of carrying 3-5 times the amount of water, 3-5 times the weight – enough for your family – for 3 hours. After 6 hours, just to get water, you have to get and cook food. By the time you’re done, you’re exhausted. There is no energy left to even consider creating something new.

Art Here and Now has participated in Blog Action Day before, speaking about the Environment and Climate Change. Those are complex issues, with debate surrounding the causes and impacts on the future. But this one is simple.

Without clean water, people can’t live.
If water is available but scarce, a major part of your life is devoted just to getting it and surviving.
There is no time for something more.
This is already happening, right now, throughout the world.

As important as I believe art is to civilization, history and culture, some basic foundations must exist for art and invention to stand on. One part of that foundation is water for drinking, cooking and cleaning.

So that’s depressing.
The good news is, we know how to solve it. We need to get water to people without it.

What can you do?

Get the facts. The more you know, the more you can help and get others involved. The videos on this page give a great overview. You can learn more from Charity:Water and water.org.
Give money to get water to people who need it. We have started a campaign for people who love the arts and want to give water, Water from the Arts.
Communicate. Make art about clean water. If you’re an artist, you are a communicator. Through your work, you can show people the importance of clean water, inspiring people to help. Send links to this story or other pages linked from here. Write your own post.
Don’t pollute. If you’re an artist, follow our tips from a few years ago and create work in less toxic ways. Don’t use bottled water.
Use less water. Take quicker showers. Plant plants which match your local climate (so that they can live completely from natural rain water).
Choose products that take less water to produce. This is called the product’s Water Footprint.

This won’t happen overnight. But our efforts add up to big change.

If you know other ways to connect the arts to providing clean water, let us know and we’ll spread the word.

OnTheBoards.tv – Performance Art On-Demand

Trout Monfalco — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 01:22:54 +0000

Musicians, filmmakers and performing artists all invest a lot of time and money into writing, rehearsal, design, and sometimes character development and technology innovation. This investment can include hard costs and the time of dozens, or even hundreds, of people. For musicians and filmmakers, the fruits of their investment live on. The films and music can be copied and distributed, allowing their work to spread and even earn them a living. If the work is innovative or challenging, the places an audience can find it grow even narrower.

For performing artists, whose investments in time and money are similar, the art only lasts until the end of the show. You have to physically be there with the artists to experience it, and it’s not easily copied. This severely limits who can see the art – usually to sizable cities with performance venues. It also limits the artists ability to earn a living, or even recoup the investment they’ve made in creating the work.

On the Boards in Seattle has presented contemporary performance artists from around the world for over 30 years. Last week, it launched OnTheBoards.tv to present contemporary performances to wherever the audience might be. This is the first site of it’s kind to present complete, sometimes challenging, contemporary performances.

A trailer for Transition by Reggie Watts and Tommy Smith

Several years ago, On the Boards began documenting work in HD using five cameras. The final edit is performed with the cooperation of the artists. These HD videos are available for $5 rental (for 48 hours), or $15 to buy. There are also several subscription packages for the site, starting at $50 for a year of unlimited streaming, up to the educational subscription, allowing an entire institution unlimited streaming for $250. The earnings are split 50/50 with the artists. This is not as generous as other online splits (Apple’s is 30/70 in favor of artists), but On the Boards has been footing the $10,000 bill required to film and edit each performance. Having their shows professionally documented is also a huge benefit to artists. They can provide the online video as worksamples to other venues and funders, without the expense of filming, editing and producing DVDs.

So far there are eight artists represented at OnTheBoards.tv. Seven artists have full performances available, and one artist, Michelle Ellsworth, is delivering video directly online during a one year residency. On the Boards hopes to add 7-8 artists per year, and also hopes to partner with other organizations. PS-122 in New York is already a partner.

Alaska by Diana Szeinblums, shot at PS-122 in New York.

Documentation of many contemporary performances exists only in arts org archives and libraries with very restricted access. Even professional researchers and scholars have trouble accessing these videos and recordings. Especially for well-known and historically significant artists (e.g., Meridith Monk, John Cage, Laurie Anderson), opening this material up to a much wider audience is another goal of OnTheBoards.tv.

The site is new, so currently has a small sampling of work. Hopefully On the Boards will attract funding and partners to add more than 8 artists a year. Music rights remain a tricky obstacle to adding more work, as they are for many online video projects. Artists may clear rights for performances, but don’t have rights for online distribution. On the Boards has to clear music for each production, or the work can’t be included on the site. The bios, performance credits and other artist information is provided in PDF, which is helpful but would be better as a fully integrated part of the site.

Hi There by Melissa Ellsworth, a piece made available directly through the site, part of an OnTheBoards.tv artist in residence.

The basics behind this idea aren’t new. Similar projects have been tried, using DVD and VHS as distribution, and for other types of performance. The cheaper costs of internet delivery and it’s easier access for audiences now makes the idea much more feasible.

Many performing artists believe their art should only exist in the moment, that it’s somehow cheapened or made worse by capturing it, and creating the definitive performance of record. But audiences of the world will get more and more of their art on demand. TV, film and music all move this direction, and audiences will likely not go back. Expanding their audiences, and being able to earn a living so they can continue making work, is a new, amazing opportunity for artists. It doesn’t diminish the power of seeing the artist and the work in person. It just exponentially expands the possibility that someone will be able to see an artist’s work at all. Cumulatively, efforts like this will also give us a historical memory of contemporary performances, that all to often fade away completely.

The site was created with funding from the Wallace Foundation and Dance USA, to test new successful models for sustainably expanding audiences.

Artists on the Site

Learn more

OnTheBoards.tv
Recording Staged Works for All the World to See – The New York Times
PS-122
Digital Theatre
Metropolitan Opera, Live in HD

Art, Artists, & Climate Change, Resources and Inspiration – Blog Action Day 2009

Trout Monfalco — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:30:44 +0000

This is a post for Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change.

A few years ago, I wrote a post for Blog Action Day presenting ideas for creating art in more environmentally friendly ways – Making Art Without Unmaking the Environment. Art supplies and other byproducts of our work is notoriously toxic. Just like businesses and construction are changing to be more green, artists must update their ways of working as well, to minimize their long term affects on our planet.

But artists are more than businesses manufacturing a product. We are cultural messengers. We are here to speak about and reflect things that are important to us and our cultures. One common message we have been signaling, regardless of our country or medium, is that we must pay more attention and care to our planet. The Earth’s climate is changing, and we must take action to stop or reverse it. According to the United Nations, “There is alarming evidence that important tipping points, leading to irreversible changes in major ecosystems and the planetary climate system, may already have been reached or passed.” The Earth is the only home we have, along with the millions of other species who share it with us.

If you disagree with the idea that the climate is changing, or that humans are causing it, I would only ask you to consider the odds and the consequences. Many scientists believe this is happening and it is caused by human action. But what if you’re right, and it was only a 50/50 chance we were responsible. Do you think humanity’s fate, and the fate of many other species, should be decided by the toss of a coin?

So what are artists doing to make a difference? Here are some stories about artists affecting our collective approach to climate change through their work. There are many great stories of well known musicians and filmmakers putting together concerts, films and other events to make a big difference. But I wanted to shine a light on people you might not have heard of.

Portrait of an artist as a climate activist from Grist magazine. Senator Barbara Boxer held up a photograph by Subhankar Banerjee to the full floor of the Senate, to prove the Alaska refuge was not a “flat white nothingness.”
Early artists key to Yellowstone Park’s preservation, helenair.com. The paintings of Thomas Moran and photographs of Henry Jackson were critical to the U.S. Congress creation of Yellowstone, the first national park.
In 2005, Grist pleaded What the warming world needs now is art, sweet art and four years later, followed it up with Climate Art is Hot.
SEED Magazine says The Arts Community is Responding to Climate Change, and Changing the Conversation in the Process.
Green Theater Initiative talks about Addressing Climate Change One Theatre Artist at a Time.
Here is an entire episode of the PBS series Art:21 devoted to Ecology and art.
Climate Change Education has a great Media and Arts section, including great lists of artwork and artists broken down by discipline: painting, sculpture, video and new media, and more.

Now, how can you make a difference? Here are pointers to more information about grants and funding, exhibitions, shows and more. If you know of other resources, or other stories about artists making great work, post a comment below and I’ll continue to update this post.

Climate Change Art Resources

Green Museum informs, inspires and connects people through environmental art and encourages the creation of new work that serves communities and ecosystems.
Ars Natura, nature in art, art in nature.
Strange Weather, a resource hub about climate change for artists, writers and activists.
Landscape and Arts Network brings together landscape architects, engineers, architects, artists, educationalists and ecologists who feel passionate about improving and sustaining the quality of our urban and natural environment.
Free Soil, an international hybrid collaboration of artists, activists, researchers and gardeners who take a participatory role in the transformation of our environment.
Ear to the Earth heightens environmental awareness through sound, inspires engagement in environmental issues, and sustains engagement through ongoing activities. The website is a forum for composers, sound artists, and everyone interested in sound to listen and participate.
RANE – Research in Art Nature and Environment actively seeks creative methods through which art can impact on our current environmental predicament. Using artistic practice the group aims to offer interpretations and models of thinking about the natural world that help to promote a sustainable future.
Eco Arts Online brings together science, environmental, arts, indigenous, and other organizations to offer you a wide variety of events – performances, exhibits, talks, tours, films, fairs, and more.
The Ashden Directory, bringing together environmentalism and the performing arts.

Climate Change Art Exhibitions, shows, festivals

Participate or Die, Wooloo.org. Wooloo.org is organizing the people of Copenhagen to open their homes to thousands of environmental artists during the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference in Denmark this December. By asking artists to develop happenings and reflections for a new life – and then request that thousands of participants implement them – Wooloo.org aims beyond the traditional art exhibition to become an active organizer of experiments in civic engagement and social empowerment.
Lake, a journal which publishes contemporary art that engages with ecological issues.
ecoartspace, promotes a diverse range of artworks that are participatory, collaborative, interdisciplinary and uniquely educational. “Our philosophy embodies a broader concept of art in its relationship to the world and seeks to connect human beings aesthetically with the awareness of larger ecological systems.”

Climate Change Opportunities for Artists
Calls for Artists, Grants, Residencies, Commissions and more

Green Museum, Calls for Artists
Artists Project Earth Funding
Artist as Citizen, connecting art students with donors to help them create projects on social issues.

Get the work of Thomas Moran, Henry Jackson and Subhankar Banerjee.

David Byrne’s Perfect City

Trout Monfalco — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:32:23 +0000

For The Wall Street Journal, David Byrne talks about his version of a perfect city.

There’s an old joke that you know you’re in heaven if the cooks are Italian and the engineering is German. If it’s the other way around you’re in hell.

Read more from The Wall Street Journal: A Talking Head Dreams of a Perfect City

Technology Infrastructure as Artistic Medium

Trout Monfalco — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:00:13 +0000

The New York Times explores the “global movement is hacking, subverting and critiquing the hardware, software, content, visuals — even the philosophy of the wired world.”
This work is created using and hacking the very same technologies and methods it is often commenting on.
Examples include

Hacking Nintendo cartridges to create new games, music and video art
Subversion and satire of sites and online experiences, such as http://www.gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com/
Texts and images are provided in the recreation of a copyshop, allowing everyone to copy and alter any of the artwork

Read more from the New York Times:
At Last, Artists Harness the Internet

Learn more beyond the article:

Beige programming ensemble
Aleksansdra Domanovic
Oliver Laric
Rhizome, aristic practices that engage technology
Superflex
Collectif 1.0.3

The Future of Science… Is Art

Trout Monfalco — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 02:40:17 +0000

Seed Magazine investigates the blind spots of science’s latest frontiers, and how the limits of scientific method and unbiased observation are holding us back.

…before we can unravel these mysteries, our sciences must get past their present limitations. How can we make this happen? My answer is simple: Science needs the arts. We need to find a place for the artist within the experimental process, to rediscover what Bohr observed when he looked at those cubist paintings. The current constraints of science make it clear that the breach between our two cultures is not merely an academic problem that stifles conversation at cocktail parties. Rather, it is a practical problem, and it holds back science’s theories. If we want answers to our most essential questions, then we will need to bridge our cultural divide. By heeding the wisdom of the arts, science can gain the kinds of new insights and perspectives that are the seeds of scientific progress.