Collective Notions

December

Chris Burden’s Beam Drop at the Brazillian Inhotim Instituto de Arte Contemporânea e Jardim Botânico, as documented by Pablo Lobato.

From the (Google) translated Portuguese on this listing, with some guesswork:

[This] video documents the performance made by the artist Chris Burden [at the Inhotim Institute of Contemporary Art and Botanical Gardens], which resulted in the work Inhotim Beam Drop (2008). Directed by Pablo Lobato, the video was produced [for] the Web.

Beam Drop (2008) is a large-format sculpture — located on top of a mountain — made of 71 construction beams thrown by a crane from a height of 45 meters into a ditch full of wet cement during a period of 12 hours. The random pattern of fallen beams formed the work, an interpretation of the gestures of abstract expressionism, while proposing a deconstruction of modern sculpture. This piece is the recreation in larger format of a work originally installed in 1984 at the Art Park in the State of New York, and destroyed in 1987.

(via hyde or die)

This post has 1 note and tag: # art # chris burden # sculpture # brazil .

May

One week left to submit your audio idea to be broadcast from the Foshay!

Northern Spark approaches quickly, and we’re still seeking audio submissions for Station Identification, our one-night project on the observation deck of the Foshay Tower in Minneapolis, MN. We’ll be broadcasting live all night from 9pm June 4th to 6am June 5th, so we’ve got plenty of air time to fill. Some ideas:

Come to the Foshay the night of and tell a story, sing, or do whatever it is you do.
Send us some music you’ve been working on. (We’ll be streaming it so you don’t have to worry about downloads!)
Send us that amazing audio recording you made with your smartphone and have no idea what to do with.
Anything really, just as long as it’s sound!

The deadline is in one week (Monday, May 30th). See the call for submissions for more info, or email your idea to “notioncollective” at gmail.

(photo: Daytime view from the Foshay observation deck by Jennifer Arave)

This post has 17 notes and tag: # foshay # Station Identification # open call # art # Minneapolis # Twin Cities # Minnesota # MPLS # Northern Spark .

October

RR + Neen
Rafaël Rozendaal has a new website out, called towards and beyond .com. I’ve been a member of Rozendaal’s unofficial fan club for a while now, ever since I stumbled upon on a horse .com. Through him I also learned about Neen:

neen piece:

1. a web-based artwork (one-piece-in-a-domain) *

2. a sentimental work made with computer or in reference to computer

3. a self-generated artwork created by an artificial intelligence or a network.

Ever since I’ve been always thinking about single serving sites, but never making them. Here’s hoping that will change soon…

Oh yeah, also I was happy to discover that Rozendaal has turned several of his projects into screensavers. Nice!

—Andy

This post has 2 notes and tag: # Rafaël Rozendaal # Neen # net.art # art # single serving site .

October

(Wall Flower No.1 by Norman Mooney, photo: Candice Heberer)

Bring to Light
This past weekend, Michael and I attended Bring to Light, New York City’s first Nuit Blanche festival. It’s a one-night gathering of artists, performers and musicians that starts at dusk and goes all night. Having been lucky enough to attend similar events in both Toronto and Tel Aviv, I was pretty excited to find out that this festival was taking place in my own backyard, Greenpoint.

Initially, I was a little underwhelmed and even slightly disappointed with the limited scale and breadth of the event, but as I made my way through the streets, I stumbled upon a few pieces that piqued my interest and gave me food for thought in the days after.

The photo above highlights one of the works I was particularly fond of that night. A new work, Wall Flower No.1 by Norman Mooney. His exhibited work included both wall and free-standing sculptures made of cast aluminum and/or resin of various bright colors, as well as large scale carbon drawings on paper. I was personally drawn to the wall sculptures; I like the play between 2D and 3D that is created depending on your distance and angle to the piece. From a distance and straight-on perspective, the sculptures appear as pristine large-scale drawings or paintings of color bursts that appear soft and feel somewhat reserved, but moving to the side or getting closer you are confronted with sharp protruding spikes, which in contrast are loud and imposing. I’m intrigued by the simplicity of form and color and its ability to incorporate such different feelings.

Another piece that I enjoyed (better seen in person) was a light projection by artist Ryan Uzilevsky of Light Harvest. Using a seven-story building as his backdrop, he projected a 6x3 grid of rectangles which fit nicely into the exterior facade and gave the illusion that you were looking into the interior. I’ve heard the content was changing all night, but the loop that I witnessed filtered through a variety of geometric compositions that reminded me of Bauhaus architectural drawings and light value studies. It was minimal, clean and gave new depth to the side of the building.

All in all, I think the night was a good foundation for growth and I’ll be looking forward to next year. In addition, I was happy to see families and kids in attendance. I appreciate events that, whether a goal or not, help to create a more comfortable and approachable venue to view and appreciate art.

—Candice

This post has Notes and tag: # art # Nuit Blanche # light # Bring to Light # Greenpoint # NYC # sculpture .

October

[Flash 10 is required to watch video]

THERE IS STILL TIME…BROTHER by The Wooster Group

I was looking forward to this piece more than any other at TBA largely because, well, it’s the Wooster Group. Ironically I didn’t know what to expect.

Standing inside The Wooster Group’s first interactive, 360-degree war film the audience is surrounded by an exhilaratingly complex narrative space where the action can only be seen and heard through a virtual “peephole” window that scans the circle, controlled by a member of the audience.

Above, the camera follows the “peephole” perspective whose borders appear like blurred darkness. I spent perhaps an hour and a half in the installation absorbed in the surround and wondering what was going on beyond the focus. It was completely satisfying as a spectator, and I didn’t feel the need to drive until the very end.

How the film introduced itself stands out as a memorable. The narrator says something like ‘the problem with making something interactive for more than one person is that you end up voting’, and therefore they chose to make a piece where everyone watches what one person controls. This wisdom is inseparable from what makes the piece compelling.

The only technical weaknesses related to how the captured-edited-and projected video was stitched together. It wasn’t seamless. Not that this detracted from the experience all that much, but it’s always exciting exciting to dream for an impeccable video experience.

Beyond the technical mediation, it was essentially a really entertaining Wooster Group performance. A little crazy and a lot great. How you watched them was icing on the cake.

—Michael

(originally published on MeAT)

This post has 2 notes and tag: # TBA10 # art # Time-Based Art Festival # Wooster Group # Portland .