Art & Law show

I recently finished a residency with Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts with a great group of artists and writers, who met every couple of weeks with experts in the fields of Art and Law, to discuss issues relating to these fields and their points of intersection. The conversation ranged from practical issues regarding copyright and trademarking to more abstract discussion on the role of law in society. The conclusion of the residency is a show taking place at Sculpture Center, starting December 8th. I’ll be showing some ATM work and the single screen version of my recent film with Carl Hancock Rux, The Flitter (first showing in New York City). Hope to see some of you there.

Filed under: Art, News, Art and Law, ATM, Carl Hancock Rux, Sculpture Center, The Flitter, VLA

We are Grammar

(Harry Zernike Photography)

Some installation shots from ‘We are Grammar’, a show looking at a ‘third generation’ of visual artists working with language. Its run just finished. It was curated by Dave Beech and Paul O’Neill and ran at Pratt Manhattan Gallery. My contribution was the following receipt from a hacked ATM.

Filed under: Art, News, Dave Beech, language, Paul O Neill, Pratt Manhattan, We are Grammar

Landscape with Computer

This view from my studio window at EMPAC reminds me of a comment by a pensioner in Liverpool, during a Superflex project I was part of some years ago (working with residents of tower blocks in the city to produce their own web tv channel). The pensioner was a lifelong Marxist who was deeply saddened at the tower blocks imminent demolition as now “the churches will be the tallest buildings on the horizon again.”

This in turn makes me think of William Smith, the father of modern geological mapping, articulating the science of geology from the top of the tower of York Minster, as it was the only strategically placed manmade structure that was tall enough for him to confirm his theories about the processes of rock formation.

The desktop picture on my laptop has been a constant through my time at EMPAC. It’s Nicolas Poussin’s “Landscape with Diogenes”. It shows the moment Diogenes discarded his last possession – a piece of technology (supposedly he saw a youth drinking water with cupped hands and threw away his drinking cup, seeing he had no need for it).

And the tapes to the left of the laptop are part of the hundred hours or more of footage that were shot for The giSt n.

The EMPAC show is running till April 30th, but my personal time upstate finishes tomorrow. Just finishing up the principal photography work for a documentary on my work, provisionally entitled “Deface the Currency”…

…that and looking out of the window, with increasingly fragmented thoughts and free associations. The adrenalin I mentioned in an earlier post is pretty much gone now. Time to get back to Brooklyn.

Filed under: Art, News, Uncategorized, Brooklyn, Deface the Currency, Diogenes, EMPAC, geology, Nicolas Poussin, Superchannel, Superflex, The Confidence Man, The Gist n, Troy, William Smith

Been a while…

Haven’t posted for a while. Been taking some time to work on the two big video projects that grew out of Fair Use (notes from spam). Haven’t worked in video for a while either, and it’s been an intense period. My last post had me very excited at just having filmed Carl Hancock Rux for The Flitter. After working on a book project for a couple of years I’d very consciously sought to make the next tactical move be towards a collaborative form and I really enjoyed working with Carl and video artist Ben Tiven on this project and also working with Ben and several other very talented performers and technicians on the other major project, The giSt n.

Both those films were produced at EMPAC, and there was definitely a moment coming back to New York on the train, where I could feel the weight of a 2TB hard drive filled with footage leaning against me in my bag – and an accompanying realization that the intensely discursive and enjoyable collaborative part was over and that this drive and the Final Cut interface were my companions for the coming months.

More on that process soon (maybe!), but for now it’s worth noting that both films are showing as part of my solo show at EMPAC, “The Confidence Man”, which runs until 30th April. I’m also working in the space most weekdays – editing a second screen cut for The giSt n and a mini-docuntary on the show and the work that inspired it. You can see versions of both pieces on the works section of my website, alongside a couple of other new ATM pieces, new newspaper and neon work, and the first piece I ever showed in America, Diogenes – which was in a show curated by Kathleen Forde – who also commissioned The giSt n and the current EMPAC show.

The image is a new piece of work that’s in the show – a hand-painted neon sign called “Social Capital”. It’s based on the bar code from Karl Marx’s “Capital Vol.1″.

Filed under: Art, Fair Use (notes from spam), News, ATM, Benjamin Tiven, Carl Hancock Rux, Diogenes, EMPAC, Fair Use (notes from spam), Karl Marx, Kathleen Forde, neons, New York, Social capital, The Confidence Man, The Flitter, The Gist n, The Sting

The Flitter

Had a great couple of days filming The Flitter with Carl Hancock Rux and Benjamin Tiven last week. Ben also worked with me on The Gist n in January and he’s a great camera operator/general technical supervisor as well as a very good artist in his own right. You can see his work here.

There are a lot of links to Carl on the web – I’d follow any and all of them. He’s an amazing writer/ performer/ musician and an extraordinarily generous talent. I was thrilled he agreed to work on The Flitter with me and he made some very difficult material his own. We’d planned to film in segments but he performed the entire text in a single heroic take of over two hours on Friday morning…

I’m really, really pleased with the result and very grateful to have had two such fantastic collaborators. And of course, none of it would have been possible without the generosity and support of the EMPAC team. Curator Kathleen Forde has been a longstanding supporter of my work and I’m looking forward to working with her on a show of my work next year. And Ian Hamelin and the rest of the technical staff at EMPAC are doing amazing work in demanding circumstances.

On to editing now – a version of The Flitter will be shown at Sketch in London in July. More soon…

Filed under: Art, News, Uncategorized, Benjamin Tiven, Carl Hancock Rux, EMPAC, Ian Hamelin, Kathleen Forde, London, Sketch, spam, The Flitter

Filming upstate (again)

I’m headed back to EMPAC this week to film a monologue with Carl Hancock-Rux. It’s a three hour monologue entitled ‘The Flitter’ based on an automated remix of part of my book Fair Use (notes from spam) – specifically the section called ‘The Wire’.

It’ll be showing as part of my show there next year and possibly as part of my show at Sketch in London in July this year.

Filed under: Art, News, Carl Hancock Rux, EMPAC, The Flitter

Bartleby

Last night I spoke on a panel hosted by Triple Canopy in Brooklyn, following a ‘re-reading’ of Herman Melville’s Bartleby by the theater group Group Theory. The panel was led by neurobiologist Greg Wayne and featured McKenzie Wark (author of A Hacker Manifesto and Gamer Theory) and the artist Molly Springfield. It got me looking at Bartleby again – it’s a text that’s haunted a lot of my own work over the years – the image above is an extremely enlarged detail from a piece I made in 2004 as part of the show Lost in the Telling

Filed under: Art, News, Uncategorized, Bartleby, Greg Wayne, Group Theory, Herman Melville, Lost in the Telling, McKenzie Wark, Molly Springfield, Triple Canopy

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

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