More Gist shots (Anthony Perullo)

Anthony Perullo as ‘The Henchman’ on set at EMPAC

Filed under: Art , Anthony Perullo, con tricks, David Maurer, EMPAC, spam, The Gist n, The Sting, Tightens

Filming Jim Fletcher for The Gist n

I’ve been filming at the Electronic Media and Performing Arts Centre (EMPAC) for the last couple of days. Working on a project that grew out of the section of my book entitled ‘Spectres of Marks’ (see here) – specifically the part that mentioned the movie ‘The Sting’ and its relationship to David Maurer’s earlier book on language and con tricks, which in turn I’d been interested in in relation to language in spam e-mails. Here are a couple of images from the first session with performer Jim Fletcher. It went really well – set a great tone for the rest of the week. More to follow…

Filed under: Art, News, Uncategorized , con tricks, David Maurer, EMPAC, JIm FLetcher, spam, The Gist n, The Sting, Tightens

The Pass

I’ve been making work using re-programmed ATM machines to customize the receipts.

There’s an example here - which is probably as good a time as any to point out that my website’s been revised and updated – a little easier to find things all in one place right now

Filed under: Art, News , ATM, Graham Parker, receipts, Rimbaud

Parse.ing

One of the most useful tools for making my work in the last few years has been the advent of rules based searches and alerts, allowing me to archive bulk source material to sift through for later artworks.

Unfortunately the interfaces tend to be kind of clunky and unsatisfying for anything more regular than that – I’ve never found a satisfying news alert service for more daily use. I tend to just set searches up in an infrequently checked account and go and get them when it occurs to me rather than monitoring them daily.

So I’m really interested to see how a new service called parse.ly does. It’s just rolling it now, but it’s interface looks really clean and helpful. It offers a range of archiving and ranking abilities for results, modifies future results based on decisions you make with what it gathers and allows you to grade your interests to really customize your results (as well as providing scores for relevance of an article based on your preset favorite terms). I’m looking forward to trying it…

Filed under: Uncategorized , parse.ly, resources

Abe North

Just been to check on the installation of my work in a group show at Hendershot Gallery (547 West 27th St. 6th fl, New York).

‘Abe North’ is an installation involving a false wall and a cash machine…

It’s part of an ongoing strand of work that grows out of the section of my book entitled ‘Spectres of Marks’.

Show is called ‘Architecturally…’ and it takes over much of that floor and the roof of the building with a number of large installations. It opens Thursday @ 6pm.

Filed under: Art, News , Abe North, big stores, Graham Parker, shows, Spectres of Marks

Interview

Short TV interview about Fair Use (notes from spam) for Open Book

Open Book TV: Graham Parker at Brooklyn Navy Yard from Graham Parker on Vimeo.

Filed under: Fair Use (notes from spam), News , 419 spam, Brooklyn, Fair Use (notes from spam), navy yard, Nigeria, Open Book, Petrol Liar

Filming

Been filming screen tests for my forthcoming work. Actors speaking other actors’ heavily edited lines.

They’re speaking fragments of memories of a film or a long con they claim to have enacted years ago. Someone else’s art or crime claimed for their own.

More soon…

Filed under: Art , actors, The Gist n

Michael Mandiberg

I did a studio visit with artist Michael Mandiberg on Monday. He’s currently a research fellow at Eyebeam, where he’s been making a lot of work using a laser cutter. He’d set a bunch of that work up in Eyebeam’s main display space, so it has the look and feel of a solo show. We had a good conversation – particularly about that process of adopting a new technology into your practice – how you negotiate your way past a certain wariness or over-reverent approach to the technology whilst you’re working out what it can do (and more importantly, what it can do for you…).

Michael’s been doing a lot of work with reference books – laser cutting through them with words that add a sometimes brutal comment on these once state-of-the-art information retrieval technologies (a dictionary cut right through with large block letters saying “SPELLCHECK” for example). We talked a little about reaching the stage with the work where he can loosen up the relationship between these cut texts and the material they are carved in – I think I called it “choosing your words less carefully”. Thinking about my own work too, I believe that that initial wary exploration of new tools that I described above can lead us towards solutions that tend to the tautological – the very self-conscious mode of deployment of a new piece of kit, or software, within a workflow is reflected in what we do with it. The results can be over-determined and mannered so that the technology’s presence can dominate too much in ‘the mix’ – not allowing the viewer to see past it. It was interesting in seeing the progression of Michael’s work to watch him work through this – watching the laser become more smoothly integrated into the work, as he learned about its (im)materiality.

I had my video camera with me and at the end of our visit Michael agreed to record a brief tour of his work which you can see on Vimeo here. It’s a little grainy in places since it was a very ad hoc shoot under existing light, but you’ll get an idea of Michael’s work. You can also see more at mandiberg.com or even better, go to the Eyebeam open studios on October 23rd or 24th between 3-6pm.

Filed under: Art , Eyebeam, Michael Mandiberg, studio visits

Reviews / New York Art Book Fair at PS1

Had a nice write up in the new issue of Artforum – just in time for the opening of the Art Book Fair at PS1 (a new venue following their last 2 incarnations at the former DIA space). Hopefully it’ll generate a little interest in the book.

I went by this evening to the opening. Very, very busy. Saw Gavin and James at the hyper minimal Book Works stand (courtesy of US customs zeal rather than curatorial discipline…). Ended up dropping my own copy of the book with them so they had one on the stand. Few more on the RAM stand – nice to put some faces to names too. Ram are the US distributors of Fair Use (notes from spam) and they have a lot of great books.

Nice to see Gabrielle at Dispatch too. Dispatch is one of my favourite small project spaces in New York and they’re showing some very nice limited edition prints in support of their work.

And there’s a strong looking program at Electronic Arts intermix that I’m looking forward to catching properly tomorrow (just as soon as I’ve dropped off a pile of books for Book Works…).

Anyway the Fair Use (notes from spam) page on my website has a link to a few press clippings on it – including the Artforum one.

Filed under: Art, Fair Use (notes from spam), News, Uncategorized , Artforum, Book Works, Dispatch Bureau, EAI, Fair Use (notes from spam), Gabrielle Ciattino, New York, ram

infrastructure messes

I’ve been photographing server rooms – especially the chaos of leads in them – for a few years now. So when my friend (and Fair Use book designer) Stewart Cauley showed me an amazing photo he’d found from the 1917 construction of the Beekman Street Subway, it really struck a chord.

We went back to the street vendor Stewart had found the photo and got some more – you can see some here

Beekman Street subway construction

Filed under: Uncategorized , Beekman, infrastucture, pipes, server rooms, Stewart Cauley, subway