Escape to Reality Part II

In May 2008, more than sixty photographers set out to capture a 24-hour day in Joshua Tree National Park in Twentynine Palms, CA. Taking inspiration from English photographer Eadweard Muybridge’s important work in motion study, the goal was to capture sequential movements and the passages of time, rather than isolated still-life compositions. Each photographer was assigned a 14-minute time slot that would be assembled together into a complete video. The result, Escape to Reality: 24hrs @ 24fps, an experimental video rendered in a drop-frame style.
To view video < click here >

The 40+ photographers featured in it are: Ami Flori, Carlos Puma, MiKenzie Denholtz, Maxene Denholtz, Mike Denholtz, Brenda Denholtz, Myles Denholtz, Darrin Dikes, Jose Beruvides, Laura Araujo-Salinas, Paul Gachot, Alma Lopez, Reggie Woolery, Rex Bruce, Douglas Buckley, Julia Buckley, Carlos Garcia, Corinne Cardenas, Sergio Pina, Melanie Berry, Elda Carraco, C.R. Steyck III, Ralph Carraco, Yareli Figueroa, Andy Chi, Brian Leatart, David Carter, Jim Belsley, Geoff Shaw, Vicki Williams, Joanne Lehmer, Jacalyn Lopez Garcia, Geno Lopez, Pat May, Rita Medina, Breeane Diaz, Barbara May, Eva Soltes, Brad Shyba, Jason Marquez, Ethan Turpin, Margaret Burnett, Sarah Bay Williams, and Bruce Miller.

Upon viewing the 6,000+ images shot in May, the Digital Studio team set about importing the files into Final Cut Pro. Intern Lauren Hisada, an art student from Washington state, was heavily involved logging the images and making notes about the photographers involved. Multi-talented, Lauren also wrote music for the video using Garage Band. Intern Heather Sten, a UC Riverside visual art undergrad and primary assistant editor on the project, came to us via a Gluck Foundation arts fellowship.

After much discussion, we decided to incorporate a 1937 text by socialite Mabel Dodge Luhan Edge of Taos Desert: An Escape to Reality, which described her transformation from avant-garde art patron and salon organizer to disillusioned proponent of modernism. Mabel would leave New York in 1919 and take up residence in the southwest desert of Taos, New Mexico. Though Mabel Luhan’s recollections about the desert in her memoirs can seem utopian, a response to the violence of World War I, they resonate today due to our own current period of social change and immense turmoil inflected by war, economics, and new technologies.

In addition to the words of Luhan, we excerpted quotes from Rebecca Solnit’s study of the transition from photography to cinema, River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (2003), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism and of the Mark Lynton History Prize. Solnit takes us through the “annihilation of time and space” ignited by the speed of railroad travel and the invention of photography. We also follow Eadweard Muybridge’s early collaborations with then Governor Leland Stanford in Sacramento and Palo Alto, his first motion studies, as well as his competition and influence on the Lumiere Brothers, Thomas Edison, and Etienne-Jules Marey.

Once a rough cut of images was assembled, we approached the author of Phantom Seed, poet Ruth Nolan to add her vision of Joshua Tree. Ruth, a resident of Palm Desert, became excited about the video project and set about writing and narrating Joshua Tree Imprimature (excerpted below). She also recorded footsteps walking and running through Joshua Tree, a place she had spent many days and nights growing up. While Mabel Luhan’s memoirs, featured in sub-title form are the voice of Escape to Reality, it is Ruth Nolan’s words that are it’s soul. She paints a picture of the desert that is complex, ironic, mysterious, and beautiful.

To complete the project, we were able to acquire the post-modern music tracks “A Place in the Sun” and “Ripcord” from Texas band Friends of Dean Martinez. Their work was featured in the award-winning documentaries Fast Food Nation and Plagues and Pleasures of the Salton Sea directed by Chris Metzler and narrated by John Waters. New York-based group Ranges provided metal core selections “Bust Out” and “Texas Bling”, with drummer Dan Ranges rendering the electronic opening track “Cool Vibes”. The video credits feature an upbeat piece by Lauren Hisada that montages images of the various photographers in the project with the times they were assigned.

Joshua Tree Imprimature (excerpt)

In Joshua Tree
In the land that crowns its needled glories with sand
In the desert made of pavement fallen from the Milky Way
In the desert made of deep holes, carved by grinding stones
In the desert made of gashed canyons, cut straight through stone
In the desert made of walking rain that the eye can far-off see
In the desert made of fan tree palms
In the desert made of cold
In the desert made of Blinding mirage
In the desert made of light so old it whispers like grooved bones
Where the woolly mammoth and rattlesnake cross time and home,
Oceans of time rising and receding, land quaking in their paths
Where the granite batholiths arch their backs
where the red-tailed hawks vault their hunting songs
by Ruth Nolan

About Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree, a land that stretches over 800,000 acres, has over 700 species of vascular plants, whose inhabitants are coyotes, Tarantulas, and lizards. This is a land shaped by strong winds, sudden torrents of rain, and climatic extremes. Rainfall is sparse and unpredictable. Streambeds are usually dry and waterholes are few. The land here may seem to appear defeated and dead, but within its parched environment are intricate living systems.

Viewed from the roadside, the desert only hints at its hidden vitality -- but to the close observer Joshua Tree National Park is an abundance of wildflowers, wildlife, solitude and a place for self-discovery. Two deserts, two large ecosystems primarily determined by elevation, come together in the park. Few areas more vividly illustrate the contrast between “high” and “low” desert. Below 3000 feet (910 m), the Colorado Desert, occupying the eastern half of the park, is dominated by the abundant creosote bush. Adding interest to this arid land are small stands of spidery ocotillo and cholla cactus. Check out the National Park Service website at: http://www.nps.gov/jotr

JOIN US!

Photograpic Excursion 2009: Joshua Tree National Park is scheduled for the full-moon weekend of May 8-10th. Our goal is to have over 100 photographers, artists and writers descend upon the desert to conduct various types of research, teaching, and art-making. To be a part of it, contact the UCR ARTSblock Education office by April 1, 2009. This is a free family-friendly event. In addition to UCR, we encourage you to check out: High Desert Test Sites (HDTS), a multi-site arts-research event initiated by artist Andrea Zittel (www.highdeserttestsites.com). Also, the Riverside Arts Museum has launched residencies for local and international artists, available annually (www.riversideartmuseum.org). Also, there are Joshua Tree Highlands Houses two-month artist residencies. (info@joshuatreehighlandhouse.com) 310.562.0511

Time Lapse

Edge of Taos Desert: An Escape to Reality published in 1937 by New York socialite Mabel Dodge Luhan exemplifies a late modernist disillusionment with "civilized" culture and class. Luhan, who had set up salons of notable writers, artists and authors in Florence, Greenwich Village, and later Taos New Mexico, gave up her prior fictions to re-claim life on the edge.While the image of desert can mean many things to many people, it has been said that easterners in particular conjure primativist notions of an exotic nature and its rural inhabitants.

Such was the case with Mabel Luhan. Yet, her utopian vision did lure D.H. Lawrence and Georgia O'Keeffe to the desert and win her the respect of photographer friend Ansel Adams. The video project "Escape to Reality: 24hrs @ 24fps" borrows narrative elements from Mabel Dodge Luhan's memoirs combining them with the poetry of Palm Desert resident Ruth Nolan, images from Eadweard Muybridge's 1870s Palo Alto motion studies, post-modern music, tourist travelogues taken in New York, California, and Pearl Harbor in 1930s, along with the images of photographers who roamed Joshua Tree National Park for a 24-hour period in May 2008.

Escape to Reality montages time periods and styles marking the transition between East and West, day and night, sophisticated urbanity and isolated desert, class comfort and new realities, war to peace, still camera to cinematic, from analog film to digital device. Join us for a reception and screening, November 6th, 6:00pm www.artsblock.ucr.edu digitalstudioinfo@ucr.edu rsvp at: 951.827-4796

Riverside Here and Now

As part of A Sense of Place: Remembering Riverside's Chinatowns Sweeney Art Gallery hosted an incredible dance performance and presentation at Bre Dance Studios. The space is located on 9th Street & Orange in downtown Riverside, the former site of the 1880s Chinese Quarter. The audience was treated to choreographed hip-hop dance and Chinese traditional dance put together by Clifford Breland and Szu-Ching Chang respectively. Storyteller and singer Karen Wilson followed with a moving narrative tying together the diasporic journeys in America of both Chinese and African immigrants. Afterward, there was a buffet Chinese dinner and street music. On the political front, a Riverside City Council meeting on 10/07/08 will determine the fate of Riverside's second Chinatown site on Tequesquite and Brockton Avenues. Grassroots activists hope to have the land saved for further excavation and a memorial park.


The co-chair of the Riverside Chinatown Cultural Preservation Committee (RCCPC), Dr. Deborah Wong professor of music at UCR talked with Ching-In Chen about the history of Chinese immigrants in Riverside and the on-going controversy surrounding development on the Chinatown site. Check out the podcast interview on KCET.org as part of ARTSblock Live! available throughout the month of October. KCET, also Asian American Riverside.


The next ARTSblock Live! podcast slated for November will feature "desert noir" author Ruth Nolan who is currently leading a series of workshops for the Inlandia Institute focusing on desert region writers. Ruth is also developing narration for an upcoming experimental video on Joshua Tree National Park with images taken as part of the annual Photographic Excursions project sponsored by UCR/CMP. The video is scheduled to premiere during 1st Thursday ARTSwalk on 11/06/08 at 7:00pm. Check out Inlandia!

Auf Wiedersehen

Riversiders took part in “Project Runway" (IE style) through a portrait studio set up by local photographer Michael J. Elderman at UCR California Museum of Photography on 10/05/08. Elderman dug out his old Hasselblad 2 1/4 camera along with a digital SLR to capture the runway action. This 1st Sunday arts event aimed to highlight the 10/25 opening of Leicas and Hasselblads curated by Jonathan Green at UCR/CMP, featuring cameras from the David J. Hearst Foundation Collection. Over 100 fashion backward folks showed for the mod 60s and 70s theme shoot, styled by upcoming designer Michele Woolery. Participants received a free CD of their shoot afterwards. Michael J. Elderman has been a freelance commercial photographer and a photographic artist since the mid-1970’s exhibiting his work throughout the United States and Canada. His assistant during the shoot was Michael Papavero of Redlands.


The next 1st Sunday event will take place on 11/02/08. Day of the Dead (El Dia de Los Muertos) is a Mexican celebration that pays homage to loved ones who have died, yet are still remembered. The celebration is sponsored by the Riverside Cultural Consortium and organized by Division 9 director Cosme Cordova. As a run up to the event, local photographer Carlos Puma will hold a digi-photo workshop at UCR/CMP on Thursday evening 10/23 for those interested in working the Museum's Dead Portrait studio located among the festivities on Mission Inn Avenue. Selected images from the Day of the Dead photo shoots will be featured in the Digital Studio Gallery during 1st Thursday ARTSwalk 11/6 between 6-9pm. For more info, contact the UCR ARTSblock Ed office at: digitalstudioinfo@ucr.edu or call (951) 827-4796. www.artsblock.ucr.edu

Forest 4 the Trees

Winners of the recent Micro Macro photo contest sponsored by UC Riverside California Museum of Photography hail from beaches of SoCal to the mountains of New Zealand. Curators were impressed by the diversity of images that met the theme's premise of a world seemingly both near and far. Works include conceptual scenes, fictional renderings, loving snapshots, and microscopic discoveries -- uniquely capturing the irony and intimacy of daily life.

Photographers: Catherine Pinal, Cheryl Orndorf, Corrine Cardenas, Dalton Tarver, Diane Bush, Domenico Foschi, Heather Sten, Jami Hofstee, Kenny James, Mike O'Brien, Otana Jakpor, Sakiko Tsukamoto, Sandy Flores Winston, Sasha Venola, Ted Norton, Twila Stofer, and Ralph Ansel. Click here > to preview exhibit<

An opening reception for Micro Macro will take place at UCR/CMP on Thursday September 4th from 6:00 - 8:00pm. The show will run from September 3rd - November 5th in the Digital Studio Gallery, 3rd Floor. UCR ARTSblock, 3800 Main Street and University, downtown Riverside (951) 827-4796 Check out the website at: www.artsblock.ucr.edu

72hrs @ 24fps in LA

Selected images from "24hrs @ 24fps Over Joshua Tree" photo shoot will be featured at the Spring Arts Collective Gallery as part of DigitalArt.LA, sponsored by Los Angeles Center for Digital Art taking place August 14-16 in downtown LA.

Among the amateur and professional photographers featured are Ami Flori, Carlos Puma, miKenzie Denholtz, Maxene Denholtz, Mike Denholtz, Brenda Denholtz, Darrin Dikes, Myles Denholtz, Jose Beruvides, Laura Araujo-Salinas, Paul Gachot, Sarah Bay Williams, Alma Lopez, Rex Bruce, Reggie Woolery, Douglas Buckley, Julia Buckley, Carlos Garcia, Corrine Cardenas, Sergio Pina, Melanie Berry, Elda Carraco, Yareli Figueroa, Andy Chi, Brian Leatart, Jim Belsley, Grace Bagwell, Geoff Shaw, Vicki Williams, Joanne Lehmer, Jacalyn Garcia Lopez, Geno Lopez, Pat May, Rita Medina, Breeane Diaz, Margaret Burnett, C.R. Stecyk, Eva Soltes, Brad Shyba, Jason Marquez, Barbara May, and Ethan Turpin. For info, see: digitalart.la

YO!

YO > Youth Media Showcase celebrates the stories, images, and graphic design work of talented teens within the IE who use their digital media art to make their communities come alive.


Event I: ARTSWalk Thursday, August 7th 6:00 - 8:00pm @ UCR/CMP, Main St at University Ave, downtown Riverside.
Event II: How I See It Saturday, August 16th, 1:00 - 3:00pm @ Riverside Public Library, Mission Inn Ave at Orange St, Riverside.

These projects, produced during the 2007-08 year, were sponsored by California State Library, Project BRIDGE, Califa, Eyebeam, Adobe Systems, O1SJ Festival, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, California Council for the Humanities, Gluck Foundation, Poly HS, JW North HS, Summit HS, and UCR CHASS. Download the invite > here< . For more info, check out the UCR ARTSblock website: www.artsblock.ucr.edu

Home & the World

Micro-Macro a new photo contest sponsored by the UCR ARTSblock Digital Studio Gallery has been announced.

"In this time of ours, things at once seem paradoxically out of control and out of reach, yet equally knowable, touchable, and observable. For this contest, we are hoping that the unique vision provided by the camera lens can bring specific meaning to this metaphor. We are seeking works by photographers who use the camera to capture what is near or far, documenting reality or constructing fictions, at the point of extreme. It is expected that some artists will achieve this outcome using a camera lens and someone else by using computer technique."

Deadline for entries is Friday August 15th, with winners announced on August 22nd. An exhibition of the 24 selected finalists will open on Thursday September 4th, @ 6pm at UCR California Museum of Photography. For more information, email: digitalstudioinfo@ucr.edu or call the ARTSblock Ed office at: 951.827.4796.

Riverside's History

Located just behind UCR Sweeney Art Gallery and California Museum of Photography is Riverside's original Chinatown established in the early 1880s. When the thriving bachelor community was forced out of downtown due to anti-immigrant sentiment, they eventually migrated west to a site on Brockton and Tequesquite Avenues. This location was excavated in 1985, providing remarkable artifacts as well as opening a window to a key period in Riverside's development. A third, smaller Chinese community was formed away from these sites at Magnolia and Adams. See Asian American Riverside.

Last month, The Grier Pavilion was inaugurated atop the Mayor's Office in downtown Riverside featuring short historical videos on prior residents of Riverside, including Chinatown's George Wong. To learn more, check out the exhibit: A Sense of Place - Remembering Riverside's Chinatowns at Sweeney Art Gallery running in conjunction with Absurb Recreation: New Art from China, July 26 - October 4. Also, on YouTube there are profiles of other important Riverside civil rights luminaries such as Johnny Sotelo, Oscar Medina, Dr. Barnett and Eleanor Jean Grier, Rupert and Jeannette Costo, among others.

0101 Youth 0101 Media 0101

FIELD TRIP!!! UCR Digital Studio mural crew took a trip to San Jose, June 5-7 to take part in the 01SJ Festival at The Tech Museum and surrounding arts sites, featuring new media works by established artists and emerging teens, sponsored by a micro-grant from Eyebeam and Adobe Systems. Students took in street festivals, art galleries, and special digital works by their peers. San Jose was a blast and the drive home down the scenic Hwy1 was also the ticket. Check out our pix on Flickr.

Outland Empyre

A listserve that rocks with guest artists, critical dialogue, international collegiality, and very rare instances of scholarly bullying. Empypre, online.

Long Hot Summer!

May
Latin American Film Fest @ UCR, 5/20 - 5/27
This year's program features award-winning films looking at socio-political developments in Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, and Venezuela. Films include: Against the Grain - An Artist's Survival Guide to Peru; Cartoneros; Los Ultimos zapatistas; State of Fear; Machuca; ¿Puedo Hablar? May I Speak?; Social Genocide. Contact: Daniel Polk (daniel.polk@ucr.edu)

Frances Negron-Muntaner, The Young Lords, 5/28
3:00-5:00pm Latin American Studies Department, UC Riverside
Contact: Marta Hernandez Salvan (mhernandezsalvan@yahoo.com)

June
Photo-Graphic 0.8, 6/5-7/2 Featuring graphic design, photo-based illustration and other works from students of the newly established Art Institute of California of the Inland Empire based in San Bernardino. Reception, 6/5/08 from 6:00-9:00pm. UCR/CMP Digital Studio Gallery.


How I See It, 6/16-8/5 The Riverside Public Library and UCR ARTSblock Digital Studio team up to present this unique photography-based summer session funded in-part by a grant from the California Council for the Humanities California Stories Fund. 1:00-3:00pm daily, RSPL & UCR/CMP. Contact: Alicia Doktor (adoktor@riversideca.gov)

July
MyGlobalVillage, 7/9-8/17
Our 2nd annual high school summer program presented with support from Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. Students screen award-winning social issues films and respond with media messages of their own. 9:00am-1:00pm daily, UCR/CMP. Contact: UCR ARTSblock Ed (digitalstudioinfo@ucr.edu)

August
Sense of Place, 7/26-10/4
A series of workshops and historical reflections on Riverside's Chinatowns of the late 1800's run alongside the Sweeney Art Gallery exhibition, Absurd Recreation: Contemporary Art from China featuring artists Chen Chieh-jen, Hong Hao, Zhao Liang, Xu Ruotao, Chen Wei, Wang Wei, Ai Weiwei, Xiaoze Xie, and Xu Zhen. Contact: UCR ARTSblock Ed (digitalstudioinfo@ucr.edu)

Podcast Rat

ARTblock Live! podcast series features the work of three Riverside art center directors in May and June, starting with Jonathan Green, executive director of UCR/ARTSblock. Also featured are Tyler Stallings of UCR Sweeney Art Gallery and Cosme Cordova of Division 9 Gallery. In addition to el tres hombres, there is an interview with UCR professor of English Laila Lalami of Morocco, talking to host Gabriela Jauregui about her lastest book, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits.

LA Strips

Funny bizness is the focus of happenings over at KCET.org digital media department with their multimedia series on SoCal graphic novel and comix artists Jaime Hernandez, Carol Lay, Esther Watson with Mark Todd, and Johnny Ryan. You get video profiles, animations of actual strips, and a brief overview of the scene during the last 25 years. As always, of high rate. (www.kcet.org/explore-ca/web-stories/graphic_novels/)

Emerging Artists

Students from the University of Redlands digital photo and black & white film courses are presenting the best of their work in a year-end show at the Digital Studio Gallery of UCR/CMP entitled SELECTIONS. The courses were taught and the exhibition curated by Brit photographer Terry Long. Works in Selections follow personal themes as well as showcase commercial skills. The exhibition is on view from March 24 - May 30th. (www.artsblock.ucr.edu) Works here by Laura Argonza and Kiesten Kranberg.

Hollywood Swingers

List of Curators 2008

INTERNATIONAL
Magali Arriola is an art critic and independent curator sharing her time between Mexico City, Istanbul and the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art in San Francisco.
Muu Blanco has been producing works that highlight performative multimedia arts since the mid Œ90s.
Suhjung Hur is a curator and writer based in Seoul, Korea.
Antonio Pasolini is a Brazilian film writer and video maker based in London as well as the editor of kamera.co.uk.
Jennifer Teets is an independent curator.

LOS ANGELES
Ciara Ennis (M.A., Royal College of Art, London, UK), is the Director/Curator, Pitzer Art Galleries at Pitzer College.
Kenneth Rogers has taught history of photography, experimental film, video art, and new media at New York University and UC Riverside and is the co-founder of Chatham Arts, a new exhibition space in Pittsburgh, PA.
Chris Scoates, Executive Director of CSULB University Art Museum, has focused on a wide variety of genres, artists and issues.
Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Executive Director of Third World Majority is a filmmaker, singer, grassroots media organizer, and second generation Tamil Untouchable Dalit woman striving for forums to widen their base of resistance.
Reggie Woolery, a visual artist and writer, is currently Curator of Education for the University of Riverside California Museum of Photography on ARTSblock.
Anne Bray is an artist, teacher and founding director of Freewaves, a media arts organization and biennial festival in Los Angeles.

Selected festival works in Hollywould... will be installed in LA's urban hall of mirrors as well as screening rooms, art centers, stores, vacant walls – intersecting with audiences where they live, recreate and shop.

Youth Voices

2nd Biennial 01SJ Festival

Based on the theories of Muhammad Yunus (Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty, 1999) and with the generous support of Adobe Systems, Inc., ZERO1 is seizing the opportunity of the 2nd Biennial 01SJ Festival to facilitate a global youth digital arts production initiative via a micro-grant program. This project will fund 19 different international artists, arts collectives and established non-profit arts organizations and institutions to support the creation of new work by young digital artists (ages 11- 21 years) during the months leading up to the 01SJ Festival. “Youth International” will culminate in an exhibition at the Tech Museum of Innovation during the 01SJ Festival in June 2008, featuring the work generated by the youth, as well as the stories and process of each of the groups in receipt of their micro-grants.

This year UCR/CMP Digital Studio has been working with six teens from Riverside and affiliated with gang interventionists Project B.R.I.D.G.E. to produce digital murals. In November, the students travelled to LA and Crewest Gallery to check out panel discussions and work by ground-breaking muralists from the 1970s and 80s. They then set about documenting their community, scanning, and assembling. The final works, supported by a micro-grant from Eyebeam.org will show at O1SJ Festival in San Jose at the Youth Voices exhibition, June 7th.

24 hrs @ 24 fps

UCR ARTSblock is seeking photographers for its annual Photographic Excursion into Joshua Tree National Park in Twentynine Palms. 24 hrs @ 24 fps Over Joshua Tree takes place on Saturday May 3rd through Sunday, May 4th. This year's project emphasizes time-based collaboration and experimentation as an estimated five hundred photographers are being recruited to this desert wilderness to shoot discrete three-minute segments of a twenty-four hour day, or a record 2,073,600 photographic images.

24 hrs @ 24 fps Over Joshua Tree draws inspiration from photographer Eadweard Muybridge, specifically his groundbreaking work with motion studies, capturing mechanically what the human eye could only roughly perceive. These early experiments were foundational to the invention of what we now know today as cinema. In order for 24 fps to achieve such an ambitious goal, a number of southern California arts institutions are partnering with ARTSblock to recruit artists and share in the editing and screening of the final video.

Participants in 24 hrs @ 24 fps Over Joshua Tree must register with ARTSblock Ed (www.artsblock.ucr.edu) in order to receive their photo assignment, park pass, and recommended supplies list. those wishing to shoot at Joshua Tree separate from the film project, should check in as well. For info, email: digitalstudioinfo@gmail.com. To check out Joshua Tree click here. Photo by Sandi Wheaton.

Eclecticism

Eclectic People 2008 - organized from submissions to an international open call, celebrates images by artists working in portraiture, and whose lens focus on people that are individuals -- the quirky, the unique, the offbeat, the exotic, the rebel, and the loner. 

Artists featured include Mao Yu of China, Corrine Cardenas, Carolyn Schutten, Michael J. Elderman, Kenny James, Heather Sten, Ilse Ungeheuer of Germany, Agina Sedler, Sarah Nodelman, Lis J. Schwitters, David Stumpp, Mike O'Brien, Julia Granton Buckley, Brian VanderVeen, Jose Beruvides and G. Wigler.  The exhibition takes place in the Digital Studio Gallery at UCR/CMP from 3/22 - 4/24.  There is an opening reception on 4/3 from 6-7:00pm.  Eclectic People - online.

Digital + Portrait + Studio

Saturday and Sunday, Feb 2-3 were official dress-up days in downtown Riverside. First, the annual Dickens Festival along Mission Inn Avenue encouraged participants to role-play in full 19th century period ware -- then take part in short plays and re-creations. A tent with backdrop for portrait sittings was hosted by UCR Artsblock and Riverside Public Library along Oliver's Alley. While Sunday's Dickens event was rained out, UCR/CMP planned ahead for 1st Sunday Family Fun Day and invited Santa Barbara photographer Bob Debris to snap pix in the style of his current show at the museum, Trans-Personae. Think boas and glitter!

About Town

Gabriela Jauregui is a woman about town these days.  Well, maybe not about Riverside, as she spent most of the summer in Mexico City completing a book of poetry, CONTROLLED DECAY to be published in June 2008.  Rather than being here in-studio at CMP recording the next KCET.org hosted ARTSblock Live! monthly podcast, which Gaby happens to co-produce and moderate, the creative writing grad student is away gaining inspiration in Deutschland. The only way to catch up with her is online, as in her recent Bomb Online interview with novelist Daniel Alarcon about LOST CITY RADIO. We will just have to wait I guess. You can check out past ARTSblock Live podcasts featuring Rickerby Hinds, Nicole Entebi, Juan Felipe Herrera, Chris Metzler, Ky-Phong Tran, Chris Abani, Alex Espinoza, Paulo Chagas, and Susan Straight -- until sista' returns.

Art Avant-Garde @ Getty

Was a big week for seeing art. On 1/16, I weathered 2.5 hours of traffic from the IE to the LA for African-American Avant Garde, 1965 - 1990 at the Getty Center. The panel featured west coast experimental artists working in sculpture, performance, and video during the 1960s and 70s -- Maren Hassinger, artist and director of the Rinehart School of Sculpture; Ulysses Jenkins, artist and associate professor of art, UC Irvine; Barbara McCullough, artist and filmmaker; and Senga Nengudi, artist and lecturer in the Department of Visual and Performing
Arts, University of Colorado. The panel was co-moderated by Kelli Jones, associate professor of art history, Columbia University; and independent curator and historian, Judith Wilson, PhD. The audience was peppered with many individuals and artists who were around during this turbulent period and took part in many of the experimental happenings with the panelists.

Thus the panel was more of a homecoming and celebration of visibility then a theoretic untangling of seemingly contradictory visual arts practices taking place in the Black community during the 1960s and 70s. Afterall, what were these folks doing not making (obvious) "protest art" when the rest of Black American sought to set communities ablaze. Yet, to paraphrase Jenkins, "we embodied that same desire for personal freedom, that was being expressed collectively in the streets." A book project is surely in the works!

Buck World

I had a chance on Sunday 1/20 to check out a great performance of "krump" dancing at UC Riverside's University Theater, BUCK WORLD One. The program was created by Professor of Theater Rickerby Hinds, featuring a number of youth from around San Bernardino county. The theme ran from creation of the universe through to life on the streets for youth African-American men. Though they weren't dancers, young Black women played major parts as narrators and interpretors of the urban scene. The sets were sparse with mood and environment communicated through lighting and video projections above. This allowed the energy and power of "getting buck" to come through in stellar individual and group performances, spotlighting men as slave cargo, in the back of police cars, as fodder for gang warfare. If you have a chance to check out BUCK WORLD during its college tour, it will renew your faith, both in youth and also in theater. If not, here's a review from the Riverside Press-Enterprise.

BLUE

The UCR ARTSblock Digital Studio is partnering with the Visual Arts Department at LaSierra University to present an exhibition of video and paintings under the title, BLUE: I DREAM A WORLD, January 14 - Feburary 8th. Beatriz Mejia-Krumbein, chair of visual arts and curator of the Brandstater Gallery approached UCR California Museum of Photography about a show loosely tied to the theme of peace. BLUE came to mind as a metaphor for transcendence, despair, and music; as well blue video screens pulsating within the gallery. The image above is from the improvisational dance piece DISTURBANCE, created by Anna Scott and Ritsu Katsumata, that was performed collaboratively in December 2007 at UCR/CMP and Bucknell University across iChat. An excerpt of this piece is projected through translucent scrims hanging in the Brandstater Gallery. This work as well as other videos by young people are featured as part of BLUE: I Dream A World. The three-channel video installation GULF IN THE WAR, produced by curator Reggie Woolery, will be on view both on UCR ARTSblock and at LaSierra University. "Words of War and Poetry of Peace" will take place at Brandstater Gallery on January 23rd at 5:00pm.

To get a copy of the BLUE: I Dream A World program, click here. For a list of other peace-related events at LaSierra, click here. To see a view of the gallery, click the picture above.

As a preview to the exhibition CUBA VA featuring the images of Roberto Fumagalli as well as current shows focused on stereo imaging, the ARTSblock education department is sponsoring a day of activities focused on Cuba and early photographic processes.

Participants review a CUBA-IN-3D website featuring a selection of stereo images taken in Cuba during the 1900s from the CMP’s Keystone-Mast Collection (www.cmp.ucr.edu > Collections > Search: Cuba). Also, museum intern Aldo Mercado has researched and added a number of important events and facts about Cuba, giving us additional insight to the pictures. These historical images have been turned into 3-D anaglyphs for viewing over the computer using special glasses. (see anaglyph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereoscopy#3D_glasses)

Next, visitors have two portraits taken by CMP staffers. The first portrait is taken using a digital camera allowing us to create anaglyphs using Adobe Photoshop. The second picture is taken using a 1950s Kodak stereo film camera in order to create old style stereographs. To view the portraits, check the CMP website under EDUCATION in a couple weeks.