Digital Design

Decode: Digital Design Sensations looks back at the history of computer-based art. The show which also features newer artist creations is on view at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The interactive work SPLASH by Mehmet Akten allows visitors to splash virtual paint on a canvas through mere gesture. See the NYTimes review here.

Diversity in photography

En Foco is a non-profit organization that nurtures and supports contemporary fine art and documentary photographers of diverse cultures, primarily U.S. residents of Latino, African and Asian heritage, and Native Peoples of the Americas and the Pacific.

This year is En Foco's 35th Anniversary, and it has remained a leader in documenting the artistic journeys created by artists often overlooked by the mainstream art world. Through our visual arts programs, including Nueva Luz photographic journal, artists are free to explore or reinvent cultural traditions, challenge preconceived notions, and engage audiences in a manner that honors all.

Real Images

The Centre for Documentary Practice (CDP), under the auspice of Griffith University in Australia, hopes to provoke debate about issues pertinent to journalism and documentary practice and act as a resource for research and storytelling by providing exemplars to this community through it's publication, The Australian PhotoJournalist and its website. The publications aim to give a voice to the marginalised and the vulnerable, to celebrate our successes and reveal our excesses. For more information and to view featured stories visit:http://cdp.edu.au/

She's a jolly good Fellow!

Good news regarding a classmate of my alma mater, New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program. Camille Utterbeck has been selected as a 2009 MacArthur Foundation Fellow for her ground-breaking digital media art which beautifully takes advantage of user-input to create new non-linear works. 

Here's the announcement on the MacArthur Foundation website: 

Camille Utterback is an artist who uses digital technologies to create visually arresting works that redefine how viewers experience and interact with art. Drawing upon traditional media such as painting, photography, and sculpture, she writes computer code that seamlessly blends the interactive elements of each piece with her aesthetic vision. In her 1999 video installation Text Rain, made with Romy Achituv, the interface of video camera and tracking software allows a viewer’s entire body to engage with text. As viewers stand in front of the projection, their shadows interrupt the falling streams of seemingly random words; the words eventually come to rest on the outline of the viewers’ bodies to reveal lines of a poem. With this distinctive and absorbing work, Utterback combines interactivity with a visual and literary experience that captivates people of all ages, including children. While her early work focused on text and movement, in recent years painterly imagery has had a profound influence on a number of her projects. 

In the External Measures series (2001-2008), she turned the digital medium into abstract pictorial compositions of infinite variety. These dynamic installations react to people’s motions and involve the viewer in the act of creating monumental paintings and drawings. Utterback’s Abundance (2007), a temporary outdoor video projected onto San Jose’s Richard Meier-designed City Hall dome, transformed an impersonal public space and modern edifice into a vibrant, colorful environment responsive to human presence and movement. With each subsequent project, Utterback is creating works that encourage audiences to take part in new and exciting artistic collaborations and enriching the experience of living in a technological age.

Camille Utterback received a B.A. (1992) from Williams College and an M.P.S. (1999) from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University. Her work has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibitions at such venues as the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Fabric Workshop, the Netherlands Media Art Institute, and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.  For more, see: Rhizome site

Maximum Grid

APERTURE FOUNDATION Portfolio Prize announcement

All of us at Aperture Foundation would like to thank everyone who submitted work to the 2009 Aperture Portfolio Prize. This year, Aperture’s editorial and limited-edition print departments—four staff members and three work scholars in all—reviewed over seven hundred portfolios. Our challenge was to select one top prize and five honorable mentions from this overwhelming response. Thus, we are pleased to present Alexander Gronsky’s The Edge/Pastoral as this year’s winner. 

Congratulations also to Keliy Anderson-Staley, Off the Grid; Alejandro Cartagena, Lost Rivers; Maureen Drennan, Meet Me in the Green Glen; Jason Hanasik, He Opened Up Somewhere Along the Eastern Shore; and Mark Lyon, Landscapes for the People. 

Keliy's work is currently on-view at UCR California Museum of Photography's Digital Studio Gallery. 

Art Types

On Friday October 2, and Monday October 5, New York-based artist Keliy Anderson-Staley created original tintype portraits of Riverside residents. Each subject sat for 8-15 seconds while the lens cap was removed from Staley's 19th century replica box camera. 

She then removed the plate and developed it inside a re-fashioned cardboard box darkroom. Each print first emerged as a solar negative then slowly transformed into its contrast positive state. It was bit magical, even for the photo savants and digirati. You can see the entire collection of works on her website: http://tiny.cc/CMP_tintypes 

Keliy Anderson-Staley's dual exhibitions "-Americans" featuring more tintypes, and "Off the Grid" looking at the communities and communes that choose to live without water and electricity, borne of alternative visions and philosophies -- are on view through December at UCR California Museum of Photography. For info see: http://cmp.ucr.edu/exhibitions/Anderson-Staley/

Yo! Youth Media Showcase

Get the poster!

For more info, see: www.artsblock.ucr.edu

Yo! Media is the Message

(Riverside) – YO! Youth Media Showcase 2009 celebrates the stories, images, and graphic design work of talented teenagers who use their artistic visions to bring their communities alive. The works on view were produced during 2008-09 through the Digital Studio located within the California Museum of Photography in downtown Riverside. A reception will take place during 1st Thursday ARTSwalk, September 3rd, from 6:00 – 8:00pm. The youth artists will be present and refreshments served.

 

     The projects include a video by Janelle and Janon Vincent featuring a song by pop music star JOJO, and portraits by students in the Tech Tuesday Saturated Media Workshop. There will also be a screening of short documentaries, public service announcements, and autobiographical digital stories by participants in this summer’s MyGlobalVillage social media camp. MGV 2009 witnessed its strongest enrollment to date with over fifty young people ages 14-19, taking part. Yo! will run through Friday, October 30th. 

 

 Students participating include Jasmine Mull, Amy Soto, Amara Channer, Amanda Carrigan, Natalie Valdepena, Richardo Viayra, Danny Bennett, Marquis Harbor, Eugene Allen, Derrick Harris, Andrew Gomez, Jerome Mosley, Elena Carillo, Angelica Ocampo, Walter Elliot, Megan Bonhomme, Nick Villa, Andrew Garcia, Zahirra Garcia, Jasper Bernbaum, Sarinah Simons, Michael Walcott, Sara Galeas, Matthew Nelson, Julian Gomez, Tyler Major, Crystal Condit, Hassan Saouli, Brianna Neathery, Carlos Martin Perez, Cindy Jurado, and Caroline Mooney. Production support from Adonay Sanchez, Chalise Gadson, M. Paige Taylor, Caroline Johnson, Kristina Garza, Daniel Gohman, Elena Perez, Christian Suarez, and Rebecca Garza.

   Youth participation would not have been possible without the support of Digital Studio project partners and sponsors UCR Gluck Foundation for the Arts, Riverside Public Library, Human Rights Watch International Film Festival High School Program, Arlington High School, Inlandia Institute, Black Voice News, The Hearst Foundation, Target Foundation, Riverside Unified School District, City of Riverside Youth Opportunity Center, Riverside Arts Council and UCR College of Arts and Social Science (CHASS).

 

     UCR ARTSblock’s Digital Studio program works with local and regional arts organizations, businesses, and teachers to develop engaging media-based programs, lectures, and family-friendly events that serve as lifelong learning opportunities for all ages.  In the Digital Studio computer lab and gallery, visiting artists, educators and the general public are able to work with leading-edge media technology through access, residencies, and professional training on a regular basis.

     

     For more information, contact the Digital Studio office at (951) 827-4796 or digitalstudioinfo@ucr.edu. For UCR ARTSblock events, see: www.artsblock.ucr.edu 

(graphic images above by: Amy Soto, Richardo Viayra, and Amanda Carrigan)

ARTSBlock Live - Mexico

Interview with Oaxaca photographer Gerardo Nigenda from Sight Unseen: International Photography by Blind Artists and poet Gabriela Jauregui of the recently published Controlled Decay. ARTSblock Live is a monthly podcast series produced by the Digital Studio on UCR ARTSblock in collaboration with the new media department of KCET - LA. Download the interview or hear it streaming on KCET.

MGV 2009

Students in the MyGlobalVillage 2009 high school summer session have been busy. Since July 6th, they've screened the acclaimed and award-winning documentaries -- Born into Brothels (outcast youth in India), An Inconvenient Truth (the effects of global warming), Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes (sexism and misogyny in music), Al Otro Lado (immigration and the US/Mexico border), and a series of short international works, titled Youth Producing Change. In the coming weeks, they'll view My Country, My Country (Iraqi citizens on the war), Lioness (women military units in Ramadi), Rize (roots of krump dancing), Life and Debt (globalized poverty) and Lumo (women in a war-torn country). As a response, participants in MGV are creating mini posters, short videos, and t-shirt graphics to share concerns and views on the social and political environment for young people, locally and globally. >>Meet the students and sample their work.

A screening and exhibition of completed works will take place in the Digital Studio gallery on Thursday, September 3rd 6:00-8:00pm @ UCR California Museum of Photography. For more info, email: digitalstudioinfo@ucr.edu or www.artsblock.ucr.edu

Video Conferencing

Re:live

Third International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology
Melbourne 26-29 November 2009

Third International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology.The next iteration of the Media Art History conference is Re:live which is to be held in Melbourne, Victoria in 2009. The event follows the success of the two previous Media Art History conferences, re:fresh (Banff 2005) and re:place (Berlin 2007). The conference series is an initiative of Leonardo/ISAST (International Society for Art, Science and Technology) whose International Advisory Committee will publicise the event and referee papers. 

Australia provides an excellent geographic, geopolitical and geocultural space for hosting this conference. It connects regionally with both Asian and Pacific cultures and the ongoing exchange of media arts between, northern and southern hemispheres. Sponsored by Leonardo and the Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne)

Following the success of Media Art History 05 Re:fresh in Banff and Media Art History 07 Re:place in Berlin, Media Art History 09 Re:live in Melbourne will host three days of keynotes, panels and poster sessions Media Art History 09 - Re:live, a refereed conference, is calling for papers, panels and posters on the histories of digital, electronic and technological media arts. With the theme of Re:live we are especially interested in expanding the range of topics to include sustainability, live arts and the technological arts of life, both organic and nonorganic.

How do the media arts change? Through innovation, accident, discovery, mutation or crisis? How did contemporary media arts come to look and sound like they do? What options and potentialities and eccentricities in the history of media have been lost or overlooked or suppressed? What hopes have been realised and which dashed? What is the history of speculation on alternate histories, and how have they altered the course of media art history? 

Re:live
Third International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology
Melbourne 26-29 November 2009
http://www.mediaarthistory.org

Questions of Capital

Open call for juried exhibition

Guest Juror: Daniel Joseph Martinez

The Center for Social Inquiry at Pitzer College and the Pitzer Art Galleries are pleased to announce an open call for art works addressing the broad theme of "CAPITALISM IN QUESTION (because it is)."

The rampant capitalism of the last decade, and its recent catastrophic crisis, has left us in a peculiar and unfamiliar space. Capitalist economic ideology and practices are suddenly under renewed scrutiny. "CAPITALISM IN QUESTION (because it is)" invites artists to explore our current economic predicament and to consider a range of alternatives to it. Visual artwork in all media—painting, installation, sculpture and photography—is encouraged.

All materials for consideration should be submitted by 7/20/2009 to:

Ciara Ennis, Director, Pitzer Art Galleries, 1050 North Mills Ave., Claremont, CA 91711 FMI:CapinQuestArt@Pitzer.Edu. Please make submissions in the following format: cd with images, dvd or powerpoint. Send artist statement and c.v.

During the 2009-2010 academic year, the Center for Social Inquiry at Pitzer College will be sponsoring a series of lectures and seminars that re-open questions about capitalism and its discontents—rather than treating capitalism, or "markets," as the all-purpose answer to social questions, as has been increasingly common since the 1980s in both American society and the larger global economy. This thematic inquiry will look backward in time to examine the most recent and earlier "busts" following capitalist "booms," and will look forward in time to consider the range of forms, both desirable and undesirable, that might emerge when the global capitalist economy "recovers" from its current collapse.

About Pitzer College

Pitzer College is a nationally top-ranked undergraduate college of the liberal arts and sciences. A member of The Claremont Colleges, Pitzer offers a distinctive approach to a liberal education by emphasizing interdisciplinary studies, intercultural understanding, and social responsibility.

City of Arts & 4 Closure

(clip from KCET.org) 2008

Fast Forward - Retro

After high school, I was fortunate to spend the years 1978 to 1993 in New York City and surrounding provinces -- moving all the time between new apartments art galleries among friends on subway trains transported through the beats of gospel, jazz, reggae, rap -- and the cultural presence now known as hip hop. Arriving from Motown, I have to admit that Harlem, Brooklyn, the boogie down Bronx, Queens, and (ok) Staten Island's dress, slang, and expressive forms were to new to me -- even queer. Afterall, what was all this braggadocio posturing, graffiti vandalism, and spinning around on the head out in the public space? And most of all, who were these no-name, non-Marvin Gaye crooners rockin' the mike? Ohmygod, wassup? It was funky though. Run DMC, LL, Slick, Lyte, mixed in with some New Jack Swing. Downtown had punk. Uptown had the makings of a form that still lays sway on kids of the kids of the kids of the rap revolution.  This month UC Riverside's Sweeney Art Gallery features a po-mo reflection on the legacy of Hip Hop iconography in Uncovered: A Pageant of Hip Hop Masters. This living exhibit at the interstices of performance and painting allows participants to integrate themselves into a new conception of visual memory. The project is the brainchild of Rickerby Hinds, professor of theater at UCR -- local Hip Hop-theater innovator and advocate.  Some of the albums being considered for the living tableaux include Queen Latifah, Salt-N-Pepa, Run-DMC and LL Cool J. Check out a clip > here <  July 23 - August 1 at UCR SAG  www.artsblock.ucr.edu

Nocturnal Desert

Joshua Tree Photographic Excursion 2009 weekend actually began in Palms Springs with a conversation between Colin Westerbeck, director of UCR/CMP, and photo collector David Knaus at his home, sharing a diverse collection of desert photographs from around the world.  After a provocative presentation highlighting formal concerns, the assembled group made its way to Twentynine Palms for a workshop on night photography led by photojournalist Carlos Puma.  Participants were able to train their lenses on a brilliant full moon shone over Joshua Tree during the entire three days. Finally, in between forays into the park to snap pictures, photographers gathered at the Tumbleweed Gallery in Morongo Valley for a local photo show.

The final exhibit of classically styled landscapes and abstract floral renderings opened June 1st and will run thru August 30th. Photographers represented in Joshua Tree 2009 include: Alma Lopez, Ami Flori, Andrea Price, Angelique Galvan, Anthony Rosales, Barbara May, Beatriz Mejia-Krumbein, Bruce Miller, CR Stecyk, Carlos Garcia, Carlos Puma, Corinne Cardenas, D’Arcy Curwen, Debera LaFave, Diane Calder, Doug Buckley, Michael J. Elderman, Eszter Delgado-Betz, Geno Lopez, Geoff, Shaw, Isabel Delgado, Jacalyn Lopez Garcia, Jason Ejercito, Jim Belsley, Jose Beruvides, Julia Buckley, Julian Cuevas, Justin Kenward, Katelin Johnson, Laura Araujo, Mary Maurry, Mateo Delgado-Betz, Memo Cuevas, Pat May, Peter Krumbein, Rex Bruce, Reggie Woolery, Rhoda Lewis, Susanne Melanie Berry, and Thom Cameron.

For info on other UC Riverside ARTSblock events see: www.artsblock.ucr.edu

Socal + Global

This year's MyGlobalVillage High School Summer Session  has over 60 youth registered for the six weeks of workshops, field trips, and screenings. There are also 12 college students who have come forward to serve as facilitators and production interns. Some of the old and new documentaries to be screened are Underground Undergrads: Undocumented Immigrants Speak Out (US), My Country, My Country (Iraq), Al Otra Lado (Mexico), Born into Brothels (India), Life and Debt (Jamaica), Rize (US), Afghan Star (Afghanistan), Firaaq (India), Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes (US), and a compilation of videos from around the world under the title Youth Producing Change. 

MGV, developed by the Digital Studio Program @ UCR ARTSblock, is an interactive educational summer program in which participants screen award-winning documentaries each week focused on social issues affecting young people around the world, co-sponsored by Human Rights Watch Film Festival High School Program. After discussion of documentaries, student create a media-related response, either for the web, the street or the classroom.  For more info, email: digitalstudioinfo@ucr.edu or check our website: www.artsblock.ucr.edu

Commercial Modern

Last week, I made it out to the Getty Museum to take in a conversation on the future of museums (rather than the future of art) featuring a fantastic keynote by Ivan Gaskell who holds the title Margaret S. Winthrop Curator of Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts in the Harvard Art Museum, and Senior Lecturer on History. During lunch, I ran across the work of photographer Paul Outerbridge.  Aside from his images' striking resemblance to modernist paintings, Outerbridge's is credited with developing a multi-step color process, which gave his work the "aura of the new" both in his commercial work and art photography. In the exhibition, the lines blur between these two impulses. 

To develop interest in Outerbridge, the Getty is organizing a course around the exhibition. The course is titled "Paul Outerbridge: An American Photo Modernist," where curator and photography scholar Graham Howe will look deeper at his work. The course will include a lecture on Outerbridge, plus dedicated tours and discussion of the exhibition Paul Outerbridge: Command Performance, which presents over 100 photographs from all periods of his career. For tickets or detailed information on this event you can call 310/440.7300 

If you make it to the Getty, see the show its paired with, Jo Ann Callis: Woman Twirling, for a comparison of modern and post-modern approaches to figures and grounds. Admission to the Getty is always free. Admission for the course Paul Outerbridge: An American Photo Modernist is $20. Parking is $10.  J. Paul Getty Trust 1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 403 Los Angeles, CA 90049. 

UCR ARTSblock Live!

UC Riverside/California Museum of Photography, Culver Center of the Arts, and Sweeney Art Gallery present monthly features of music, lectures, interviews and literary readings. Guests featured include Nigerian-born writer Chris Abani, award-winning poet Juan Felipe Herrera, artist Nicole Antebi, novelist Susan Straight, Division 9 Gallery director Cosme Cordova, author Laila Lamami, ethnomusicologist Deborah Wong, filmmakers Chris Metzler and Enid Baxter Blader, writers Ky-Phong Tran and Alex Espinosa, as well as ARTSblock directors Tyler Stallings and Jonathan Green. Hosted by KCET.org Los Angeles (www.artsblock.ucr.edu)

Coming UP: LA Avant-Garde Cinema - Blur + Sharpen

Coming UP: LA Avant-Garde Cinema - Blur + Sharpen

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Theme Shows

This weekend I served as a judge for TOP 40, an annual showcase of new digital art organized by Los Angeles Center for Digital Art.  This exhibit, which will open in LA  later in the month then travel to CMP this summer, still has a raw quality, notwithstanding the high production values. Of the forty images chosen, there are varied genres and hybrids of digital design -- straight documentary photography, op art graphic design, narrative illustration, fractal 3-D, and conceptual collages.  (see website)

Artists include:  Alex and Felix Gertschen, Ariel Marte, Arthur Pinkham, Barbara Kossy, Berndnaut Smilde, Carol Dragon, Christopher Robin Blum, David George, David Molander, Dayvid LeMmon, Frank Mullaney, Gary Wornell, Gerry Millet, Hoon Dong Chung, Hyun Ji Shim, Izumu Ito, J.C. Jaress, J.F. Heurtaux, Jeffrey Burke, John Klof, Jonathan Bagby, Keith Dillon, Kurney Ramsey, Latham Robertson, Marika Krissman Tsircou, Matthew C Lange, Matthew Krueger, Meng'Kok Tan, Ondrej Rudavsky, Ori Bahat, Patty Carroll, Phillip Hua, Rebecca Beard, Robert Hustead, Robin Layton, Rocky Reasoner, Sergio Fasola, Stuart Sperling, Tim Portlock, Trevor Messersmith, and Viktor Sykora.

LACDA is a smallish space with major ambitions, the brainchild of artist and director Rex Bruce who's recent personal exhibit Inversions exemplifies his deep dedication to furthering the dialogue on the digital. Bruce's landscaped canvases of empty skies through streaked and stained bus windows are evocative in themselves, but also for him serve as a performative protest against environmental pollution.  Rex's apocalytic vision was shot with a variety of devices including high-low res digital cameras as well as cellphones. 

UCR ARTSblock photo contests Micro Macro and Extreme Places bring in artists from around the Inland Empire region, while TOP 40 brings in many international artists as well as those in LA urban studios.  See TOP 40 at: www.lacda.com and www.artsblock.ucr.edu.

Early Processes

UCR ARTSblock is joining with other downtown Riverside arts organizations to present First Sunday - Family Fun Days each month. On Sunday, April 5, 1:00-4:00pm, there will be a hands-on activity entitled Kineographs: Flipbook Animations.  Here's the description: "Photographs can exist as more than still, stand-alone images. They can work together as a sequence to create animated scenes. Join us this Sunday as participants create moving picture flipbooks also known as kineographs." This is a project for all ages. Free - UCR California Museum of Photography, 3824 Main Street, Riverside

On Sunday, May 3, 1:00-4:00pm the theme is Sunprints. "Early photographic pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot considered himself a failed artist. He sought a process to fix nature's beauty in a technical way, rather than by drawing.  Join us as participants create light-based drawings or photo-graphs using the sun's rays on chemically-treated paper. Free and open to the public. For info email: digitalstudioinfo@ucr.edu

Tumbleweed

It's that time again already -- Joshua Tree 2009 Photographic Excursion sponsored by UCR ARTSblock. Participant's in this year's photo project will collaborate to produce a mammoth virtual image of the desert's mountains, valleys, hills, vegetation, and wildlife. Photographers should bring or will be supplied with GPS devices to chart their land coordinates in the park. 

This should also be a cool weekend as its a full moon, great for night photography. Submitted images will be collaged into a mega zoom-able photograph of Joshua Tree, complete with annotations -- accessible byway of the Internet and an on-site California Museum of Photography exhibition. Registration has already begun. Deadline April 1 for workshops, April 15 for joining the project in JT. Orientation sessions will take place in Los Angeles and Riverside during the third week in April. Stay tuned! 

This year there will be three related activities. 

For Images of the Desert Palm Springs photo collector David Knaus will host at his home a private viewing of desert photography from his own collection. Knaus and Colin Westerbeck, Director of UCR CMP, will discuss the prints selected, which range from the 19th century to the present. Friday, May 8, 4pm. Limited to 25. Phone rsvp required.

The Nocturne Photo Workshop allows photographers to get tips on taking shots in the dark. Participants should bring along their film and digital cameras. Friday, May 8, 7pm. Free - Location: TBA

A gathering of artists will meet at the Tumbleweed Photo Gallery in Yucca Valley to celebrate the closing of this 1st Annual Morongo Basin Photographic Show. Saturday, May 9th, 3pm. 57490 Palms Highway, Yucca Valley

For info, download the flyer at www.artsblock.ucr.edu, or call: 951.827.4796  email: digitalstudioinfo@ucr.edu

Extremist

The annual Extreme Places photo contest sponsored by UC Riverside California Museum of Photography's Digital Studio Gallery received 129 amazing entries from 49 emerging and established photographers. For a quick look, see: SmugMug and enter the password - extreme. Works consist of straight documentary photography of exotic and surreal places as well as works manipulated through collage techniques, virtual paint, lens filters and special computer effects.

Entries have come primarily from southern California, but also include works from China and Amsterdam. An exhibition of the selected winners will take place at UCR CMP on Thursday April 2nd, 6:00-7:30pm. For more info email: digitalstudioinfo@ucr.edu or call: 951.827-4796