Newgrange Winter Solstice 2008

On the 21st December 2008, the Office of Public Works were proud to present a live webstream of the 2008 Winter Solstice at Newgrange, County Meath.

Moonbow

Last night, the full Moon was as close as it gets to the Earth in quite awhile.  30% larger from my vantage point in Boulder, it made a Moon Halo appear that I've never seen before.  Apogee and Perigree, are phases of the moon I've just been made newly aware of.

-Duh.  I should have realized what I mindlessly wrote above.  It's been pointed out that apogee and perigree are not phases of the moon, but rather an effect of it's elliptical orbit.  I knew that already, but thanks "rare writer."

I'd like to also point to a post about Obama's choice of inaugural poet on Alan Sullivan's weblog, www.seablogger.com.  I didn't get to spend alot of time with him and Tim Murphy in Fargo, but it was an important formative time for me, and I still treasure their sense of artistic responsibility.  It rubbed off on me, and while it has made it difficult to put up with all the shit I'm told I should take seriously, it taught me that part of my job as an artists is the affirmation of integrity.  We can make all kinds of "stuff," but if we don't create integrity about and in the work, integrity won't exist.  I can imagine a world without it, and then I realize it looks a lot like the contemporary art world.  So thanks Alan, you guys made it harder for me to get faculty support in grad school, but easier for me to get out of bed in the morning knowing what I do is important.  

I Bet She's Amost 100yrs. Old.

Catherine Cater
I doubt that one ever is wise. I don’t really know what wisdom is.
I like obstacles.
I’m a rotten cook.
Absolutes are very difficult to come by.
I used to bat (tennis) balls around. It was always love-nothing.
Ideas are not all equal, but there are many varieties of ideas. It is extremely important to examine all aspects of ideas.
Being a teacher is very serious work, but lots of fun.
Students are very fond of the question, “Who am I and what is the meaning of life?”
The success of the student usually prevails. Occasionally it doesn’t.
Suspension of judgment is a very important part of learning.
Discerning facts from knowledge is most important.
Data are less significant than the integration of ideas and data that may produce, or may not produce, knowledge.
I do like John Donne. ‘Go ahead and catch a falling star’ is a lovely line.
NDSU is a public institution to which students 17, 18 and on up as old as they get can actually talk with a professor without fear of condescension for the most part and where they can question not only their own thinking but question the ideas of other people.
I think what we do is introduce students to what they will think about 100 years hence.
This emphasis on computer science is a phase we’ll get over, because we’ll use computers more wisely.
I have a principle—I don’t teach in the summer. It’s a period of restoration.
I have found travel very restorative, indeed. One sees other people, other places that distract one from whatever problems one has.
I like to write verse. I don’t say poetry. Verse is on a lower level.
Now I have the best of all worlds because I don’t have to go to meetings. I can concentrate on students.

Catherine Cater has been an educator since 1940. She joined the English faculty at North Dakota State University in 1962, and though she officially retired in 1982, has remained very active in students’ lives. The Catherine Cater Humanities Lecture Series was established in 1986 in recognition of her advocacy of humanities in higher education.

MAW

Minneapolis Art on Wheels and a whole bunch of video projection projects.  I've put my projector experiments on the back burner while I work on my thesis project.  Lately I've been seeing more and more of this kind of work popping up on the web.

Classical Education

I seem to spend a hell of a lot more time defending classical training in both my teaching and in my work than I ever thought I was going to have to.  I keep away from the politically correct "sermonizing," as this article so aptly puts it, but often find myself having to hold my tongue or edit what I say in class in order to be sure it's not offensive to the myriad social group subscribers that pack our rooms.  One example is how we can always talk seriously (or are at least told we have to) about "women's issues," but you'll never find a classroom discussing mens issues.  Not that I'd want to play that game of entitlement that got this started in the first place.  I'm biased due to my undergrad degree in (primarily western) philosophy, so this critique of the demise of classical training in contemporary university cirricula hits pretty close to home.  As a respect for the history of western culture gets dismissed, so goes a foundation for learning.  Picked up via www.seablogger.com.

First Snow of the Year

Happy Birthday to Matthew Campbell, who accurately predicted the first snow fall of the season.  When those big slow balls of snow are falling from above, I like to listen to a few warm abiding songs;

Piano Man; Billy Joel, and

The Weight; The Band.

Micro-Machines

It's a Lilliputian world after all, according to Keith Loutit's videos on Vimeo, exemplifying an effect described as "tilt-shift" I've never seen before.  Another great example is this Flight Over San Francisco, which is a mash-up of a Google Earth fly-over with a tilt-shift after-effect.  Amazing.

The Mean of 1 and the Square Root of 5

Also known as the Golden Section:
The length of the entire section is the same ratio to the longer of the two split sections, as the longer of the two smaller split sections is to the shorter.  That's it.  Extending every direction forever.The length of the entire section is the same ratio to the longer of the two split sections, as the longer of the two smaller split sections is to the shorter.  That's it.  Extending every direction forever.  Entire section is the same ratio to the longer of the two split sections, direction forever.  Honesty and truth are the magnetic core that my compass points towards.

DK

Just tonight I found out that Douglas Kent Hall (1938-2008) passed away.  Doug, or DK to his friends, was one of the most rare and wonderful of people.  For years he shot photographs for Rolling Stone magazine.  Hendrix, The Who, James Brown, you name it; you've seen his photos somewhere.  I met Doug in Albuquerque at the Factory on 5 studios, where he had a large studio separate from where mine was, but in the same old transfer station.  He moved out when he and his wife decided to add on a studio to their home, which was just being completed when I moved from Abq to Boulder a few years ago.  DK was one of three who wrote a letter of recommendation for me to get into grad school, and that he had that sort of confidence in me, I'll continue to make proud.  Susie and I were invited to wine filled nights of dining at the Hall's home, with Dawn, Devon, and Sam.  It's maybe never too soon to leave this world, but too soon to leave us.  Cheers to a husband, father, friend, and to the memory of a great man.  A fitting obituary here.

You Said it Jeff

"Isn't most of the new Chinese art that's getting attention basically like Chinese export porcelain from the 19th century?  It's bad figurative art made for an unsophisticated western market and largely bought by western speculators."  You've gotta like Jeffrey Deitch.  Check out the rest of this panel discussion from fora.tv.  Check out Deitch Projects on the links menu.

Black Planet

Black Racists.

White Planet

White racists.

Pockets Full of Posers

I've never been able to swallow any of the bullshit "keepin it real," urban toy making children that can't grow up and make sensible art.  However, I think I'm actually kind of proud of these vandals for trying to bring the issue to the artists ripping off their own genre.  These are the people these artists really have to answer to, not me.  Thinking of you, Dustin.

The Legislation of Authenticity

Enlightening interview.  I've got an innate need to reject, or at least question, whatever the prevailing social prescription around me happens to be.  Maybe it's left over from my angsty teenage years, but it's a helpful tool to have living in Boulder where as you may know, or guess, P.C.ism and many manifestations of hard left thinking are the primary foreground of any political discussion.  A young, primarily privileged, university aged crowd that has been indoctrinated by the left over hippie majority that squatted here in the 60's and 70's is quick to vilify any form of conservative thinking, debating, of course, in the most irrational forms.  I hear things like "Palin is Satan," and so on....  At any rate, it's not often I post an entry like this, but it is well done and you can decide for yourself if it provides an antidote to the poison you white males are supposedly forever carrying around and infecting people with.

Square One TV

Another creation of the Childrens Television Workshop, Square One TV was one of only a couple of t.v. station we could tune in, out in the middle of North Dakota.  I was particularly fond of Mathnet, where the story you are about to see is a fib; but it's short.  The names are made up, but the problems are real..... also, don't forget Mathman.  But of course then there's Pee Wee's Playhouse with Martin Denny theme music, Alf, Parker Lewis Can't Lose, and lastly, getting small with firepower on Super Mario Bros.

"The Proposal"

Update October 2008:

Above are time lapse photos of this projection described below on a canyon wall west of Boulder.  Should give you an idea of what it looked like.

I've spent more than a month on a spinning diamond projection that has been designed to shoot on the furthest north blade of the Flatirons on the west side of Boulder.  "The Proposal" was created as a symbolic gesture existing on the 105th meridian (UTC-07;) to act as both the act of proposing a marriage and accepting; in this case between the Great Plains region and the Rocky Mountain ecosystems.  Rained out, it was originally scheduled for September 5th. Rescheduled for last night, September 12th, it was rained out again.  This is an incredibly ambitious project, and I of course got phone calls at 9 last night asking what happened.  What nobody understands is that this is not just a matter of going outside and flipping a switch; it demands the coordinated effort of my friends who have jobs, so I couldn't in right conscience ask them to take another entire day off of work (like last week) to sit around, cross their fingers, and hope for a break in the weather with me.  Add to that the reality that making this projection happen requires hauling two 75 lbs. 6V DC batteries up a rock face, along with a 50lb. projector, inverter, cords, cameras, etc...   Forecast called for thunderstorms last night.

Busy....

I'm too busy to do any posting, but I threw up a few new links that I've been looking at and should serve as portals.

Series of Tubes

Coons Age,  Whig Party,  Second Bank of the United States,  McCulloch vs. Maryland...

Art from Nature Exhibition

Exposure

In order for this gimmick to work, it has to be extremely well done.  These people do it right.

Easy Money

One day I'm going to do this.

Hot Stuff

New work by Tara Zalewsky.  I've always had an inclination that one of the reasons Rembrant's paintings are so great is because of the religious subject matter becoming a jumping off point.  The painting was really his church, the act his religion.  There's an entire real and rich tradition of subtle material consciousness acting as a proxy for the subject.  Not to sell her short, but for me, Tara exemplifies this notion.  The painted mark becomes analogous to a woven construction, you see the "hand" in it, the metaphor snowballs.  Tara has mentioned she's getting a website up soon.  When she's does, I'll link it up.  

I read this same phenomena in the work of Dan Colen, specifically the Birdshit paintings.

Bonhomme Richard

The Bonhomme Richard. My dad was on a 9 month deployment aboard this ship as an aircraft ordinanceman during the Vietnam War.  It was interesting to watch the superbly produced documentary, Carrier, aired on PBS, to get a glimpse into what his life was like as a young man.

Medina, North Dakota

Two bars, Six churches.

3-2-1 Contact

Theme Song/Intro.  Anyone 27-32 years old is going get pretty nostalgic hearing this little tune.  321 C was a production of the Children's Television Workshop.

Oceanic Crustal Plates

Subduction zones, the great recycler in/of the ground.  

Pepper's Ghost

An old school illusion.  I wrote this on my studio wall because I was thinking of a farm dog we had when I was a kid, then Tim Foss came over, saw the name, and asked if I knew this meaning.  I didn't.  Thanks Tim.

Adorno

I will, over a number of days, be citing recent passages I've been reading from 'Aesthetic Theory," by Theodore Adorno.  Same post, often updated, to come.

Computer Controller CNC Machine

At Sears, none-the-less.  Wow.  I really want one.

Moth Visit

While I was camping in Utah for the outdoor studio this summer, I had a jarring encounter with a moth.  For most of the trip I slept in the back open box of my truck, seemingly safe from the critters.  The particular areas that we stayed in, as most of the desert southwest, are densely populated by small lizards, known locally as "skinks."  After hitting the sack at the Maze Overlook, the end of a particularly long day that saw Chuck's truck break down and him handing off a lot of responsibility to me, I stretched out under the clear pierced blanket of stars and fell down in dreams.  Suddenly, I woke up to what felt like two strides of tiny reptilian hands bounding across my nose and forehead.  I immediately sat up, lit my lantern, and began the search.  After ten minutes of fumbling around half conscious, I killed the light and laid down, only to immediately hear a small animal struggling under a gear box next to me.  Again up, again no discovery.  Light back off, and immediately, same struggling sound.  I had enough.  I took everything out of the box of the truck that was there with me; boxes, gear boxes, food, burners, tables, coolers, chairs, all of it; at three a.m. waking my fellow campers.  Of course under the last box I lift, out flys a tiny brown moth.  Most likely either a Common Gluphisia or a member of the Sphinx family.  Alit on my face, it became an animal of interest that, for the next two weeks, regularly visited with me out on site.

Did you know the primary difference between a moth and a butterfly is that moths have filamentous antenna, and butterflies have singular club-ended feelers?  Really there's not much difference, except to me, moths are the more beautiful, deluxe, beastial version of the two.

George Orwell

This series could be very interesting to follow.  Orwell's diary from August 9th 1938 on to the early 40's, as Europe degenerates into war.  Beginning the same day, one entry per day  70 years later.  Did you know he was shot in the neck fighting in the Spanish Civil War?

Also:  Some asshole posing with Bob Newhart.

Mad Lib

All the time, so long ago.  Lately, I had a dream where you knew I was dreaming and saved me from being crushed.  Good reason is never the best bet in dreams.  We're too busy being lost in the world of self-referentiality.  I'm really quite amazed that more people don't see the artist referencing himself in these old ______.   The Apollonian man has no task greater than re-introducing his _________-__________.

Eliseo Posse

I'm absolutely enamored with this artist's work.

Talisman.

A Talisman is a small amulet or other object, often bearing magical symbols, worn for protection against evil spirits or the supernatural.

May also mean:

• Talisman or amulet, a small object intended to bring good luck and/or protection to its owner

Heritage

A visual post on my specific geographic heritage.  Upper Rhine River, Germany.

Gag Me with a Spoon

"His art overcomes boundaries," she said. "People may say, 'Well, he's a folk artist. I don't like folk art.' But if you ever meet him, there is such life in what he creates, and you can't look at one of his paintings without seeing that smile, without seeing that gentle man."   

Barf out.  This shit media coverage of visual arts is the same reason why you'll never see a decent artist even on The Daily Show.  If only there was a way to educate these journalists, but I suppose it's fairly obvious the media doesn't aim to educate, but rather to reinforce familiarity.  On this one they'd be better off listening to Wittgenstein, "those things about which we cannot speak, we must pass over in silence," instead it's "oh look at him he's old and pathetic, isn't that cuuuutte!"  Ugh, clean up in aisle Andy.

Plagiarism

Another example of this the most heinous of art crimes, via art blog inkydreadfuls.  The symptoms increase in veracity.  The plague more widespread.

New Painting in Process

So this started out on the theme of feeling meeting mind.  A material of rationality (concrete) containing a sensational material (rainbow colored worms.)  It's now taken on a life of it's own, and I'm not so sure I can attribute the concept anymore.

Titanic

The Titanic didn't fail because there were too many people assigned to do a few simple things, the committee is still a great invention in theory, and when the tough gets going, the weak tend to form them.  Usually they're a colossal failure, as it takes alot of commitment to do anything more than plan the next meeting.  But it still up to the guy steering the boat to not run into any icebergs.

123

This is post one hundred and twenty three.   123.

Spider's Gossamer Net

Gleaming blue diamonds,

like those spiral ends 

I spin off my tips.

Pink.

Soft.

Skin.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the most rude offense that anyone makes against a working artist concerned with the sanctity of sincerity.  But at what point is it plagiarism?  If I were to tell somebody in passing, a joke, and they were to take it seriously and then benefit from my dumbass comment; are they plagiarizing?  Something I thought so foul and stupid it couldn't be seen as more than a joke?  But then they went on to convince others of it's derisive value, and were rewarded?  If I were to come up with a symbolic designation, say a name of a program, and someone else were to rip it off and name their program the same after they heard me say it (from my mouth,) is that plagiarism?  If I were to design a systematic program for the benefit of many, get no credit, get screwed on monetary compensation, and be left out of subsequent decisions about said program, would it be plagiarism?

Or would I just have been made a fool of?

hmm.....

I wonder how much of this phenomena is the direct result of the lack of any kind of authority or criteria concerning contemporary visual arts.  I see this kind of behavior as a symptom, an illness of spirit, of an endeavour that is being exploited for some individual benefit.  I came to this discipline to be a student and a steward of it.  Granted I am a romantic, but I strive to work for the larger idea, not just what I can get out of it, which so easily becomes the same bourgeois notion of using up anything for your own selfish benefit.  Become like the work, don't make the work like you.  Otherwise there's a good chance you'll end up with an acute case of kalopsia.

Proposal for Flat Irons Projection

I'm hoping to secure needed permission to project on the Flat Irons right on the edge of Boulder for our upcoming Art from Nature exhibition.  Fingers crossed.

Legoland

Patching failing brick walls with lego's.  Why not?

Martian Tornado

A photo taken from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, posted at geology.com showing the trails of dust devils, as large as Earth's tornado's.  Unreal.

Barr

Libertarian United States Presidential Candidate Bob Barr.

Anton Ehrenzweig

For the longest time I was researching the what and why any art is made.   I read The Hidden Order of Art, and got a very well written account of what it is in Freudian psychoanalytic terms.

Art from Nature

Our pet project, Art from Nature, a summer outdoor studio based seminar, has begun.

Greg Brown

www.myspace.com/gregbrown

I Know

I'm sour.

Sam Flegel

I used to be an altar boy.  There were only a few of us that were catholic; Justin and Adam Hofmann (Adam now my brother in law,) Steve English, Kurt Rettig, and Chris and Sam Flegel.  Sam was in the class above me, but young because he was a summer baby, more my age.  I became fast friends with he and Chad Moser whilst knockin around a baseball in 1988, later in the cold winter of 1991 on hockey skates.  I was forced to participate in a school team sport of my choosing in high school in order to fulfill a mandate laid down by my mother.  I choose track, simply because it was an obvious waste of time where I could shoot the bull, draw, dream about my girlfriend in peace, etc.  At track 'practice' I would walk over to the Flegel's with Sam and one day when I was twelve or thirteen, when I was of course supposed to be running he turned on ESPN.  There was Jeff Stanton and Jean Michel Bayle running out the last couple of laps on a supercross race.  I was hooked.  I went on to race myself and always remember Sam for getting excited about showing me this thing he'd seen on t.v.  Sadly, although I actually sold Sam my mx helmet so he could wear it while he drove local derby cars, he didn't wear it the night he hopped on an old scooter, sloshed, to go pick up more beer at a party.  This old altar boy who I had served so many Sundays, Holy Days, Lenten Services with fell, hit his head on a rock, had to crawl in mud for 4 hours, then collapsed and fell into a coma from which he never recovered.  Death became him, but his organ donation lives on.  Now his guts are inside and sustaining another human, Scott Bowles reporter for USA Today.  Sam never got the chance to be older than a kid, but he was my best friend as one.

Real Issue

Don Fodness is a current mfa'er @ cu in the p&d dept.  One of the few doing what he says and saying what he does.  And then putting up with me asking what the hell it is.

Handmade Music Makers

Dork out!

Goosebumps

The 18th century British philosopher, Edmund Burke, speculated that "sublime" aesthetic experiences (such as the experience of awe) are related to the evoking of fear.  Burke's speculations arose from informal observations, but modern neuroscience provides a more detailed and compelling account of four major emotional responses to aesthetic stimuli that are consistent with Burke's intuitions. 

(1) frission (characterized by chills, shivers, and piloerection)

(2) laughter (characterized by what Provine has called "socialized panting")

(3) awe (characterized by gasping or breath-holding)

(4) weeping (characterized by tears, nasal congestion and laryngeal constriction)

It is noted that these four responses closely resemble the four classic physiological patterns observed in vertebrate responses to fear:

(1) fight (defensive aggression)

(2) flight (withdrawl or escape)

(3) freeze (immobility)

(4) submission (appeasement) 

A Load of Shit

This is an actual load of shit.  Also the payloader I used to build motocross tracks, back on the farm in Medina, ND. 

Prayer for Tom Waits Tickets

No jinx.

Candles light.

Staying home from work

in the morning,

to meet the dream 

knit by a lying 

friendly stitch.

Getting would be going,

if only we get hitched 

to a tiny little wish.

To care,

to all,

to luck in the draw.

Tomorrow 

we will call.

Update:  It worked, I just got 2 tickets for Suz and I, 4th row center, Tom Waits in El Paso June 20th.

Myspace

I've got a myspace site set up again @ www.myspace.com/nolandsman2000 music made on my own on my computer or with friends, all improv, then remixed.

RIP

Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) passed away.  Pioneer of many application techniques, rubbings with spirits of wintergreen, three d/two d work, and performance.  We've witnessed the passing of a great artist.

Boredom's Not a Burden Anyone Should Bear

In grad school, I still get graded like anyone paying for an education.  Only difference is that I can't get lower than a B on the A-F scale without 'flunking.'  Next semester, there will not be one male on staff in the painting and drawing dept., and I find it interesting that I've only gotten minus (-) grades from female faculty thus far, and only straight A's from the males.  Exclusively, only minus (-) from female, only straight from male.  Interesting, especially in face of the fact that the sex war is still being waged against somebody.  Whoever it is.  

A little Tool for your sense of manliness anyone?

Hooker with a Penis: I've got some advice for you little buddy; before you point your finger you should know that I'm the man.  I'm the man, and you're the man, and he's the man as well, so you can point that finger up your ass.

Shut up and buy my new record.

Also, if you've never listened to tool; 46 & 2.

And Stinkfist, from aenima, an album that blew up my speakers.

Caveat: this post no longer holds true, to my suprise.

Waiting for Tom

Tom Waits press conference. On tour NOW. 

Andrew Curtis

Take a load off.

Mama

Being a mother can't be easy.  To care so much about providing a healthy environment for a kid to grow up in is a just about impossible task, let alone actually going through the process of birthing one of those little mellon heads.  I hope all men can attest to having a mother as wonderful as mine.  Growing up as a middle child of 8 brothers and sisters, my mother quickly learned about taking care of the others around her.  She passed it off to me in a certain distilled form that I try to understand and cultivate with and for my friends and the people around me.  I love this great woman and thank her for her understanding through all the years.  Happy Mothers Day, my dear mother Elly, my sister Tara, and Cheryl.

black velvet wunzie

a.k.a. Matthew Campbell

Glass Blowing

Deryk Riveland and Matthew Campbell

5/3/08

The semester is over.  Recently, I've put most of my energy into writing grant and scholarship proposals for this summer's outdoor studio, only to have all of them rejected.  I've been fishing for material support that seems to just not be there, so it's a relief to at least know it, and be done.  I've started working for an old friend, Deryk Riveland, a local general contractor, and from here will be funding my project on my own, which I probably just should have done in the first place.  Deryk's a jack of all trades and has invited me to learn glass blowing at a studio near where he lives in Coal Creek Canyon, about 30 miles southwest of Boulder.  It's a enviable mountain community development, and I look forward to many more days of learning this craft.

Studio

Take a gander at the Rembrandt Yard website, where I currently have my studio.

Well Are You?

I've wondered this last year where the line gets drawn between human and cyborg, natural and modified; I wear glasses, I've been inoculated; does that mean I'm a hybrid?  I've also wondered about the increasing impotency of the male sex, but never quite asked myself; Are you a man, or are you a mouse?  From the Guardian of all places.

Repost

 Bushwick Farms.

Project Projection

I've been sketching with GIMP to come up with possible scenarios the portable projection could create in remote sites.  Here's a couple of them.

Mother of Invention

I'm looking for portable solar power to juice a data projector/computer and whatever else I and others might need power for on this upcoming outdoor studio excursion.  I was lead to this ken solar unit through a dialogue about the necessity of such a product, and am happy to find that it can be patronized in a number of interesting ways.  I needed something quiet more than I needed something green, but because it's green, it will come in handy for other uses as well.  I'm looking forward to this investment. 

Panofsky's Rhetoric

I'm under no obligation to defend systematic perspective in representational forms of image making, but it's something I've used and always found intuitively symbolic.  There is, of course, much backlash against this notion in many academic art institutions, including many tier 1 schools such as CU where this form is accused (rightly, perhaps) of being a tool of euro-centric empiricism.  Here's the last two paragraphs of Erwin Panofsky's Perspective as Symbolic Form, which nicely sums up a counter-intuitive notion of how it functions:

-It is now finally clear that the perspectival view of space (and not merely perspectival construction) could also be contested from two quite different sides: Plato condemned it already in its modest beginnings because it distorted the "true proportions: of things, and replaced reality and nomos (law) with subjective appearance and arbitrariness; whereas the most modern aesthetic thinking accuses it, on the contrary, of being the tool of a limited and limiting rationalism.  The ancient Near East, classical antiquity, the Middle Ages and indeed any archaizing art (for example Botticelli) all more or less completely rejected perspective, for it seemed to introduce an individualistic and accidental factor into an extra- or supersubjective world.  Experessionism (for recently there has indeed been yet another shift in direction) avoided it, conversely, because it affirms and secures that remnant of objectivity which even Impressionism was still obliged to withhold from the individual "formative will" - namely real three dimensional space.  But this polarity is really the double face of one and the same issue, and those objections are in fact aimed at one and the same point:  the perspectival view, whether it is evaluated and interpreted more in the sense of rationality and the objective, or more in the sense of contingency and the subjective, rests on the will to construct pictorial space, in principle, out of the elements of, and according to the plan of, empirical visual space (although still abstracted considerably from the psychophysiological "givens").  Perspective mathematizes this visual space, and yet it is very much visual space that it mathematizes; it is an ordering, but an ordering of the visual phenomenon.  Whether one reproaches perspective for evaporating "true being" into a mere manifestation of seen things, or rather for anchoring the free and, as it were, spiritual idea of form to a manifestation of mere seen things, is in the end little more than a question of emphasis.

Through this peculiar carrying over of artistic objectivity into the domain of the phenomenal, perspective seals off religious art from the realm of the magical, where the work of art itself works the miracle, and from the realm of the dogmatic and symbolic, where the work bears witness to, or foretells, the miraculous.  But then it opens it to something entirely new:  the realm of the visionary, where the miraculous becomes a direct experience of the beholder, in that the supernatural events in a sense erupt into his own, apparently natural, visual space and so permit him really to "internalize" their supernaturalness.  Perspective, finally, opens art to the realm of the psychological, in the highest sense, where the miraculous finds its last refuge in the soul of the human being represented in the work of art; not only the great phantasmagorias of the Baroque - which in the final analysis were prepared by Rapheal, Durer, and Giotto, but also the late paintings of Rembrandt would not have been possible without the perspectival view of space.  Perspective, in transforming the ousia (reality) into the phainomeneon (appearance), seems to reduce the divine to a mere subject matter for human consciousness; but for that very reason, conversely, it expands human consciousness into a vessel for the divine.  It is thus no accident if this perspectival view of space has already succeeded twice in the course of the evolution of art:  the first time as the sign of an ending, when antique theocracy crumbled; the second time as the sign of a beginning, when modern "anthropocracy" first reared itself.

 

Painting Archive

I've purchased the domain andrewrising.com and am in the process of setting up another blogspot site to carry that title soon.  Here I'll post the archive of my paintings and other work.  I have a few already up at it's current url. 

Where it's At

Update on this slowly evolving study.  I'm gearing up for a large series and spending alot of time doing research and gathering material towards it, but in the mean time I have to try to figure out how to paint somewhat realistically again.  These are loose support structures painted on a loose support structure; a garbage bag, canvas, curtains, paper, and fur, plus a receding scale representation of itself, all painted on a big unsupported canvas.

Got Wood?

I'm getting to sketching and collage towards a new series of paintings, part of which involves using woodgrain as an overlay, somedays I marvel at the web.

Common Ground

During my undergrad days, I was side-swiped by a one year long public art class offered by NDSU, taught by Terry Jelsing.  Common Ground was my first exposure to a larger idea of art-like-life, and I wouldn't be anywhere near where I am now without it.

Notes on the Grid

I've been re-reading a number of essays and run across fresh insight into what some of these paintings I've been working on are pointing at.  One concept in particular is the grid, and in an essay by Rosalind Krauss:

-the grid possesses several structural properties which make it inherently susceptible to vanguard appropriation.  One of these is the grid's imperviousness to language.  "Silence, exile, and cunning," were Stephen Dedalus' passwords: commands that in Paul Goodman's view express the self-imposed code of the avant-garde artist.  The grid promotes this silence, expressing it moreover as a refusal of speech.  The absolute stasis of the grid, its lack of hierarchy, of center, of inflection, emphasizes not only in anti referential character, but-more importantly- its hostility to narrative.  This structure, impervious both to time and to incident, will not permit the projection of language into the domain of the visual, and result is silence.

This silence is not due simply to the extreme effectiveness of the grid as a barricade against speech, but to the protectiveness of its mesh against all intrusions from outside.  And in this new-found quiet, what many artists thought they could hear was the beginning, the origins of Art.

-While for those for whom the origins of art are not to be found in the ideas of pure disinterest so much as in an empirically grounded unity, the grid's power lies in its capacity to figure forth the material ground of the pictorial object, simultaneously inscribing and depicting it, so that the image of the pictorial surface can be seen to be born out of the organization of pictorial matter.  For these artists, the grid-scored surface is the image of an absolute beginning.

Perhaps it is because of this sense of a beginning, a fresh start, a ground zero, that artist after artist has taken up the grid as the medium within which to work, always taking it up as though he were just discovering it, as though the origin he had found by peeling back layer after layer of representation to come at last to this schematized reduction, this graph-paper ground, were his origin, and his finding it an act of originality.  Waves of abstract artists "discover" the grid; part of its structure one could say is that in its revelatory character it is always a new, a unique discovery.

Although so much of my previous work has been about natural locations, wilderness time, and organic aspects of painting, since grad school its focus has shifted to more abstract notions of form as content and structuralist expose'.  I know these issues have popped up before, but I appreciate parts of this essay so much precisely because she's stating how I came to care about this mode of working.  It was never because I paged through a contemporary art history book and thought, 'oh, Agnes Martin, that's neat' and then proceeded to make work that is similar; no, it was quite a bit more like, 'holy shit there's something else going on here that informs what all paintings are, how do I go about figuring that out' and viola, the grid appeared.  

Notes on a Philosophy of Teaching

I've always considered teaching as a career path, up until a few weeks ago, at least.  CAA really opened my eyes to the idea that teaching is a 100% full time commitment.  Along with budgets, art school faculties are subject to cuts with additional tasks shared among those remaining, and a teaching load of 4 classes a semester is normal many places.  This can easily result in many undergraduate students being treated as consumers, with no concern about what they do with what they've bought.  This was hammered home talking to Jim Jacobs at UNM, who kept plainly stating to me that, "students come here to buy a product, the more of that product that I can sell them, the more money we make; don't fool yourself, this is a business."  I can't argue with the reality of this situation, but the crassness of the approach really bristles my hair.  I have seen way to many undergraduates treated this way, even in North Dakota, where I can't be absolutely sure, but if I'm not the only alma mata, I'm only one of a couple who've gone on to graduate school.  The rest of the people I know had to make ends meet other ways, or have made use of other practical pursuits they took on in college.  So what happens to the rest?   The outdoor studio that I put forward to the program is happening this summer, and I'm so relieved that the chance was taken.  I can't imagine teaching any more important subject matter than the idea that becoming a better artist is about becoming a better human being.  I've seen this work before and the outdoor setting is an ideal space for it.  Get people away from the artificiality of school, with all of its safety nets and make them be responsible for feeding each other, give them some real risk and they can have chance to gain some real reward.  This is the kind of training that the 90% of undergraduates who are never going to pick up a paint brush ever again can take to the other pursuits in their life.  It's my (our) responsibility to make sure these people aren't dealt with as a consumers, they're young idealists, many of whom came to 'Art' because they perceive the mystique that surrounds it and want a taste.  What we do with them in class shapes the perception they will have of art and artists for the rest of their lives, and in this capacity we act as ambassadors for the larger goal at hand.   

UNM Grads

After visiting with Robert, I started to think of a couple other UNM grad students who I got to know while doing non-degree status grad work in Albuquerque. The image above is a Tara Zalewsky painting that hangs on the wall of my home, the second by Trevor Lucero. Trevor always seemed to me to be part Clint Eastwood, part Charles Manson. I miss these people as they would have been my peers had I accepted the offer at UNM. Witness Trevor shred his old sketchbooks.

Rick Silva

http://www.ricksilva.net/ is home to a recent CU MFA grad currently living in Athens GA. I ran into Rick at CAA and was reminded of just how lovely his piece for the MFA show last year was.

The Marrow

Phil Solomon is teaching Avante-Garde Film and the Arts at CU Boulder, which I'm currently enrolled in. Every time I sit through this class I feel like I've been scalped. While painting remains for me a contemplative practice, the moving image has a visceral effect much like music, raising the hair on the back of my neck, drawing me into a trance, and so on. I had no inclination of the existence of Stan Brakhage, Ken Jacobs, and the like before this. Unreal and recommended, especially for the uninitiated. Plus Phil always looks like he just walked into class from deer camp, and for some reason I trust that kind of style.  Check out philsolomon.com.

What It Is

New work in process about supports. Canvas, paper, drapes, hide, curtains, all loose material that gets stretched and painted on. All of these images are on one big unstretched canvas, 6'x10'. I'm really enjoying the challenge of (attempting) some good old fashion trompe l'oeil, but paired with the idea of form as content, I hope is an authentic contribution to 'P'ainting.

GEB

Ever since the coalbed installation/tape recording/the twins, I've been digging into the idea of self-reference and reflexivity as a continuance of late modernist ideals that are yet to be explored. One resource has been the book Godel, Escher, and Bach An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. If you're interested here's a preview.

Compadre

On the way home from my recent trip to Texas, I swung through Albuquerque to visit some friends. I met Robert Redus through a mutual acquaintance and we became fast friends. I have fond memories of tooling around New Mexico with Robert looking for John Wenger and the 'Wengnuts' camping out in the middle of nowhere as a part of John's Outdoor Studio program at UNM. Robert is currently showing at Sumner&Dene in Albuquerque and I congratulate him on his persistence about creating a life and supporting himself through his work. The top image is of Robert's work, a thoroughly layered acrylic that can be viewed through 3d glasses for an incredible sense of deep veiled spaces. Second is an oil by John, who is a man impossible to sum up, but to give you an idea once told me: let your paintings be that magic talisman that goes off into the future and creates your life the way you want it to be, then become that person; that's the power of painting.

CAA

I just returned from a six day trip to Dallas/FW for the annual College Art Association conference. All major university art departments looking to hire faculty are here interviewing potential candidates, seminars are given on all ranges of subjects, and hobnobbers are here hobnobbing to the hilt. I went for a sneek peek at what I can expect in the future if I end up interviewing for a job here. It was unbelievable. All I can say about CAA is that there's nothing I can say about CAA, you just have to see it for yourself. Although the interview level was partitioned off, I managed to grab a shot while I was riding down the escalator.

Virtual Reality Wii Hack

This Wii VR System that responds to head movement is going to keep me up at night considering the possibilities.

The Twins

More new work, the challenge being how to make a diptych that was two seperate pieces that were identical and complete opposites at the same time. The half that looks like raw canvas is actually built of wood and the weave is painted on, and the other half that looks like raw wood is actually paint on unmounted canvas. Get it? The Twins.

Tape Recording

Finally, I put this painting to rest, here it is, looking to the left and right in the studio.

The Zen of Cynicism

A significant cross section of painting and ceramic students, including myself, are currently enrolled in a grad seminar with Deborah Haynes. The emphasis seems to be going in the direction of fostering mindful studio practice. This is going to be an interesting class because the bullshit flags started waving immediately. Boulder may be known for its population of aloof zensters, but there are many in this program who want none of it. There's an ever amounting cynicism among the grads to any of this kind of wishy-washy-ness that doesn't seem to be based just on being rebellious or contrarian. Rather, I get the impression many of them are broken-hearted that there isn't a more concrete path to follow, more tangible answers to the questions they have about their futures. It's interesting too, that many of those who are most vocal about what a load of crap being an artist is, tend to be those artists whose work is the most experimental, absurd, and informal; all the things they rail about. I tend to just pick out the concepts that I can incorporate into my practice, so I think I'll be hanging back a little in this class to watch the battle of the cynics vs. ideologists unfold. I doubt you can teach a cynic to be vulnerable to obtuse ideas, but maybe Deborah's got some magic. An example of an assignment: eat a tangerine one section at a time.

Coalbed

At long last, here's some video of the Coalbed installation. In a dark room is an approximately 6'x 9' bed of marble chips with a projection of a burning bed of coals shot on it from a data projector on the ceiling. As one walks across it, or moves their hands over it, an overhead camera connected to a program I wrote then redirects the image to spark particles from around their location. This was alot of work, but I'm thrilled to have pulled it off.

Stunt Man

This x-ray looks almost identical to one I have of my own arm taken a little over 10 years ago. Next time I go home, I'll get it and post the real thing.

Nowism

I'll go ahead and blow it up about what modernism means to me. I love illusion. What Modernism with a CAPItAL M supplies is the ever important idea that the work that is done directly contributes\creates to/ the field that surrounds it. I get crits on how hard it is to see "me" in my work, but the formality of what I'm concerned with encompasses almost all of what I'm thinking. The little metaphor that's left is probably too self evident to be stunning. Finally it's not just about me.

click-o-rama

www.neatorama.com has all the bells and whistles.

Bones

Jesus is only a couple thousand years old. Dinosaurs are only buried a few hundred feet under the surface. I wonder what else we could dig up if we just dug a little deeper.

Robot Love

The Strange Case of the Electronic Lover by Lindsey Van Gelder is the account of an early text-based chatroom love affair(s) conducted by a male psychologist posing as a disabled gay female. It was not clear to those that she(he) interacted with that this persona was a rouse, eventually realized with traumatic effects for those who had formed close relationships with 'Joan.' I find this only interesting in the sense that as a first case study it probably did come as a shock that they had been manipulated by a lie this psychologist made up, but I can't believe anyone would be so naive anymore. Save for the 'To Catch a Predator' bunch.

Society of the Spectacle

Guy Debord wants us to know that we can't ever have a connection to the real, and are only always participating in and making manifest spectacle. We are at the very least at one-remove from the real experience of life and this description is a kind of history of modern society in the terms of how our current mass assumptions may appear to a more evolved civilization in the future. Our relationship to the function of spectacle may indeed one day appear to another the way that ancient relationships to deities appear to us today. Not backwards, not an unintelligent conjuring of a system of thinking, but never the less a total and consuming world view for which there is little relief.

Panoptics

Foucault describes the Panopticon as a way of structuring a community where all the occupants or 'inmates' can be seen by a central monitor but not seen by each other, assuring a constant automatic functioning of the central power without the possibility of the collective joining forces in any way. The effect is not only to disindividualize power but also mutualize paranoia, and to reduce subjects to objects of information. So it is, as in the opacity of most forms of government.

Telematic Embrace

Another reason I continue to appreciate the Theory of Digital Art class I'm in, is that I'm exposed to a new language and way of writing about digital media and electronic communication at large. For example in Roy Ascott's essay, where he so aptly describes the ubiquitous spread of computer communication as a 'subtle body,' a psychic envelope around the world. It's this kind of poetic description that aids in a new found respect and awarness concerning this subject.

Telematic Dreaming

The video piece Telematic Dreaming is a great example of how easily video and digital communication allows us to explore complex meta-content. It's a fairly simple set up and activity, but so is falling asleep. But the more you think about it, the more interesting it becomes. Also like falling asleep. We do it all the time and probably don't think twice about it, but when you do think about it, you've got to admit it's strange we all just pass out unconscious everyday at about the same time.

New Work

So I've got a new painting going. It's a big one at 7' x 16'. The image is of my studio with the painting itself in an early stage up on the wall with tape painted on it that I used to tape out the space in the painting. Does your head hurt? Mine does. I'm going to finish it out simply by painting a roll of tape unused over on the right wall, and title it 'Tape Recording.' The concept here is again the Rite of Passage form. The anticipation and preparation, the moment of activity and tension of negotiating the performance of doing, and finally the repose and debriefing. Here the representation of that act being the tape roll unopened, the tape stretched across the panel, and the tape piled up on the floor. The best part of working on this is that because it is a painting of what really is in the environment that it is in, it gives me the strangest uncanny sense that if I paint something in the depicted space, it may just show up in the real space. It's wild. The images are pieced together since I can't get far enough away from it to really shoot it, but should give you an idea. Also bear in mind that it's not finished. Comments on this are welcome.

A Rape in Cyberspace

Julian Dibbell's account of an incident and subsequent mediation surrounding an attack committed by the character Mr. Bungle on LambdaMOO an early online community environment. Mr. Bungle "built" his character as a lecherous clown and brutalized several other persona's in a virtual rampage. The conversation which followed about how to deal with Mr. Bungle was an investigation about where the real and the virtual interface that continues to this day. I can sort of understand how one could be pulled into the virtual world to the degree some of LambdaMoo's participants do because of my similar experience with painting, but find it hard to understand, because of my outsider status, of why anyone would take it soooo seriously. Would I be hurt if I character showed up in one of my paintings from inside it and screwed it up? That would be interesting.

Repost

I have to repost Sorefeet. Tim is Time.

Hello, helloo, hell oo...

Check out Amy's last blog post Worth While. I don't why the hell she's crying, or even what it's a parody of, but it's brave. It's enivitable, as a group who didn't know each other well, but now can go on as compadres, the cycle of another semester is winding down. I'm now completing what is the half-way mark of my time at CU, and I realize how tired I am. I've been bumping around the country for more than three years, and taking a week off from school for Thanksgiving is a well deserved break. However, there's never rest for the studio, more on my latest painting project soon....

Tara Rising

My older sister Tara just had her birthday, Nov. 16th. No shit, that's really her given name. The now Tara Hofmann is expecting the arrival of her second child shortly, and we anxiously await healthy baby girl/boy. I can't understand why anyone would want to wait until the birth to find out the sex of the kid, but it ain't mine. According to Wikipedia, apparently nothing good besides Maggie Gyllenhaal's birth has coincided with my sister's birthdate. What a dire picture of the date they paint, and how wrong the macrocosms of information can be. Tara-ism has been good for everyone she's come in contact with. Happy Birthday my dear sister.

NoSpace

Myspace inexplicably dumped my music site. I just found out. Hold off on punching it for a few days and I'll get it back.

The Art of Sport

Paul Pfeiffer is a video artist concerned with the spectacle of sport. His work is as clever as it is hard to find, so look for yourself.

Offing the Author

In Death of the Author, Barthes states that unpacking a reading by trying to understand the author's personality no longer can be used as a landmark of criticism. Rather than being the result of one individual experience, writing is in fact and inter-contextual play of language encoding done by the author to be decoded by the reader. The tendency of the author to be idealized as a singular, authoritative, even theological voice is dispersed into the diaspora of macro-contextual use.

In Case You're Wondering What I've Been Up To

Processing is an incredible, but endlessly frustrating open source java based language environment I'm learning (getting migranes from) in order to turn the coalbed into an interactive digitally projected environment. Download the program from the website (easy, free,) hook up your webcam (difficult on windows, easy on mac,) and input the following code to get an old version of one layer of my project, where this video is what's being projected from the ceiling onto a bed of white rocks to make them look like a burning coal bed (and this is just one of many layers I'm working on):

import processing.video.*;
float increment = 0.01;
// The noise function's 3rd argument, a global variable that increments once per cyclefloat zoff = 0.0;
// We will increment zoff differently than xoff and yofffloat zincrement = 0.02;
// Size of each cell in the gridint cellSize = 20;
// Number of columns and rows in our systemint cols, rows;
// Variable for capture deviceCapture video;
void setup() {
size(640, 480, P3D);
frameRate(100);
cols = width / cellSize; rows = height / cellSize;
colorMode(RGB, 255, 255, 255, 100);
// Uses the default video input, see the reference if this causes an error
video = new Capture(this, width, height, 12);
background(0);}
void draw() {
//background(0);
if (video.available()) {
video.read();
video.loadPixels();
float xoff = 0.0;
// Start xoff at 0 {
if (video.available()) {
video.read();
video.loadPixels();
//code for coalbed2
fill(215, 10,0);
rect(width/2, height/2, width, height);
// Begin loop for columns
for (int i = 0; i < cols;i++) {
// Begin loop for rows
for (int j = 0; j < rows;j++) {
// Where are we, pixel-wise?
int x = i * cellSize;
int y = j * cellSize;
int loc = (video.width - x - 1) + y*video.width;
// Reversing x to mirror the image
// Each rect is colored white with a size determined by brightness
color c = video.pixels[loc];
float sz = (brightness(c) / 200.0) * cellSize;
fill(230, 100,0);
noStroke();
ellipse(x + cellSize/1.5, y + cellSize/1.5, sz, sz);
} } } }
//code for noise
// For every x,y coordinate in a 2D space, calculate a noise value and produce a brightness value for (int x = 0; x < width; x++) {
loadPixels();
float yoff = 0.0f;
// For every xoff, start yoff at 0
for (int y = 0; y < height; y++) {
yoff += increment;
// Increment yoff
// Calculate noise and scale by 255
//float bright = noise(xoff,yoff,zoff)*255;
// Try using this line instead float bright = random(0,255);
// Set each pixel onscreen to a grayscale value
pixels[x+y*width] = color(bright,bright,bright);
} }
updatePixels();
zoff += zincrement;
// Increment zoff
//code for coalbed
// Not bothering to clear background
// background(0);
// Begin loop for columns
for (int i = 0; i < cols; i++) {
// Begin loop for rows
for (int j = 0; j < rows; j++) {
// Where are we, pixel-wise?
int x = i*cellSize;
int y = j*cellSize;
int loc = (video.width - x - 1) + y*video.width;
// Reversing x to mirror the image
float r = red(video.pixels[loc]);
float g = green(50);
float b = blue(10);
// Make a new color with an alpha component
color c = color(r, g, b, 53);
// Code for drawing a single rect
// Using translate in order for rotation to work properly
pushMatrix();
translate(x+cellSize/1.1, y+cellSize/1.1);
// Rotation formula based on brightness
rotate((1.5 * PI * brightness(c) / 25.0));
rectMode(CENTER);
fill(c);
noStroke();
// Rects are larger than the cell for some overlap
rect(0, 0, cellSize+16, cellSize+16);
popMatrix();
} } }}

Balloon Fiesta

Around this time of year the Balloon Fiesta kicks off in Albuquerque. This is a video from Reno, but this is what I woke up to many mornings in Abq. The things we do......

Stranger in a Strange Land

The world's a big strange place right from the start. Think about the fact that the first thing that happened to me and most males in this country is that right after we born, we had part of our unit cut off. Yeesh. It's an appropriate welcome. Artists tend to come from a couple of general camps. One that wants their work to make sense to the world, and another that use their work to make the world make sense to them. Because I'm perpetually awestruck by the incredible dichotomy of the human experience, I tend towards the latter group. I'm interested in realism, but not necessarily because I want to get in line with a classical tradition, but rather, because the idea of illusion is so intriguing. If I can buy into the illusion of a flat surface transforming into space, I can certainly suspend judgement long enough to get into it's content. I'm not interested in landscape painting because I want to be the next Bierstadt, but because flat surfaces with paint on them so naturally want to become spatial, the marks want to become form, so why not build on it as a strength? I constantly get asked, why paint? Why not realize these ideas in other forms? The answer is fairly straight-forward. The content of my work has shown up as a result of this investigation into the nature of what a painting is, not applied as an overlay from outside that realm. Dropping the medium means dropping the content. Dropping the content means dropping the understanding. Losing the understanding is losing the power. Losing the power is like getting the rest of my junk cut off. Well, maybe not exactly.

Vannevar Bush

In the context of such prolific information, we need to be sure that this availability doesn't lead to dissolution of research, that having too many choices doesn't have the result of paralysis of thought and complete dependence on the mechanical wonders that have been created. Seems to be what I'm getting out of As We May Think.

Borges

The Garden of Forking Paths by Borges is a non linear narrative that turns the form of storytelling into the content of the story itself. The reader is dropped in unannounced in first person perspective and the story remains unclear until the last couple of lines. The form of the labyrinth in the story refers to the structure of the story itself as well as the activity the writing describes. All possible outcomes of the protagonist's decisions are physically manifest in him as an 'intangible swarming' at the edge of perception, and in the end he chooses a divergent outcome that immediately becomes the only option he has for successfully communicating his information.

Good Night

Digital/Analog

The Reconfigured Eye by William J. Mitchell describes in layman's terms the significant difference between digital and traditional (analog) photography methods. In fact digital image production should not properly be referred to as a photo at all. Where as traditional photo production has at its smallest elemental building block a molecule of exposed chemical on a paper surface creating an gradation of tone in the analog sense, digital images rely on a finite grid of pixels, each containing a finite integer referring to a pre-programmed tone, each relying upon it's neighbor and larger grid to produce the image. Digital images are transmitted and stored as sets of instructions of how to build the image each time it is displayed, whereas traditional methods rely on the light impression upon the medium itself. I, however, find the similarities between the pixel and the mark (painted or drawn) interesting ground to mine, and am in fact currently working on a digital environment based on one of my last paintings. It is remarkable how innovative traditional photography was for it's time, and just as remarkable how in just 150 years it has been rendered obsolete for most applications.

Sontag

Susan Sontag, In Plato’s Cave from the book: On Photography is an interesting read pondering what possible reasons performing the act of photography supplies the artist. She covers the role of photography in supplying evidence for being, tokenism, and most interesting to me, the psychological effect of 'shooting' a photo. How the camera acts as an aggressive eye that obliterates and consumes that which become it's objects. This view conflates Freudian drives and the creative process, a popular mode of thinking for artists last century, but no matter, I'm always interested when writers try to breakdown the motivation for artistic work.

Along the Path

It's rare even in grad school to encounter artists of exceptional perception and sensitivity. An example is Sorefeet, a blog by Tim Foss, a first year grad, about walking what he calls Mt. Sanity. Landscape, especially the Colorado landscape, offers so much in the way of peripatitic understanding of place. I'm delighted to have a fellow grad interested in this common pursuit. Happy travels.

Myspace

I have a myspace page specifically to give a taste of the selection of music I've been involved with making in the last couple of years. If you're interested check out the link.

Web Junk

I try not to post ancillary web junk on this blog, but this video nicely illustrates the power of illusion.

The Tracking Project

The Tracking Project is dedicated to working with community educators and Native elders from around the world to design a series of teachings which connect individuals directly to the natural world. These programs of natural and cultural awareness include a wide range of skills from traditional tracking and survival skills to music, storytelling, dance, peacemaking and martial arts training. The name Arts of Life was chosen to describe these programs which emphasize indigenous knowledge, the lessons of Nature and the power of art. Back in New Mex, I was able to meet and spend a day with TTP's founder John Stokes, a true modern day shaman. I admire this man and the program he's built, and it's one of the few models that I can look to when structuring the Outdoor Studio Program in the works for our department.

Where did the BRC go?

The Big Rock Cult was a group I started up with Alvin Gregorio last year as an experimental artist/student group intent on touring, showing, and connecting with other University art programs. I spent alot of time setting up and facilitating events under this guise last year. The payoff was almost nothing. I wrongly assumed other art students would jump at the chance like I did to create such events, but nobody participated in the self-sanctioning roles that the BRC made up. After participating students got a nick on their resume, that was the end of it. I hate to admit it, but apparently administrators need to be sanctimoniously assigned by current administrations before others recognize their power. That's where the BRC went.

Rock Art

Petroglyphs seen in person are so different than their representation in field guides. Etched deeply, with symbolic purpose, and reflecting location, the pg's in Abq are slowly getting overrun by suburbanites who don't care about these specific intricacies. Ironically enough, I helped paint a petroglyph mural/breakfast nook for a family who expressed their vote to tear down a part of Petroglyph National Monument in order to extend a street on the west mesa to increase traffic flow to their neighborhood, all the while defending the real thing as an artifact. They got a painting in their kitchen, but lost the petroglyphs that were literally in their back yard. Necessary, but unfortunate.

Agnes Denes

8 Weeks on the Coals

2 months have paid off. I've come to an understanding about the importance of my constant invocation of rites of passage. Gaze upon the Coal Bed. If I walk across a bed of coals as a rite of passage it takes 5 seconds. If it takes me 2 months to make the painting, I'm on the coals the entire time.

Boulder

I realized I haven't posted many images of Boulder and the surrounding area for those of you who've never visited. The first two Suz took the other day running on the Creek Path next to our place. The next two I shot up on a hike to Arapahoe Peak, and more of my studio and our residence will be posted soon.

Scott

Because I raced motocross competively, I still losely follow mx/enduro/bike/4x/bmx/skate...etc... As I was digging around the AMA website one day I happened upon a Superbike finish order that included a familiar name, Scott Jensen. At first I was sure it couldn't be one of the first friends I ever had, but I looked into it and turns out it was. Scott lived right across the street from me when I was a kid in Davenport, ND and recently he sent me an email about his imminent move to Longmont, CO, 15 miles from where I live. I hope we'll have a chance to catch up. Lately I've been watching him race Superbike and Superstock (?) Class on SPEED and ESPN.

Bushwick Farms

Bushwick Farms is an inexplicable art/life project being lived by a couple I was fortunate enough to meet and spend time with in Albuquerque. Tara and Stewart were always welcomed guests in our apartment, and Susie and I got to spend too few evenings dining, chatting, and just enjoying their company. I remember when I got engaged many of my 'guy' friends looked at me a little crooked and couldn't understand why, but these two helped us understand just how great marriage can be. I can't recall Stewart telling us how he cried when they got married for a second time in Vegas by a Elvis impersonator without smiling. Bushwick Farms, however, just has to be seen to be believed.

Institutional

During my time in New Mex, I became friends with some who have printed at the Tamarind Institute, an internationally renown printing facility at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. However, I was recently dissapointed to learn that a Tamarind fellow who recently toured CU as a visiting aritist approached our department chair and informed him that the work of CU art grads isn't up to snuff. As a grad student I have the option of having the touring visiting artists critique my work, and quite frankly, after seeing Duane Slick's presentation of his own work, I didn't want to have anything to do with his opinion. I find devisive racial extremists operating under the guise of cultural ideologists offensive at this point. Not because I don't value difference, but because I'm tired of the artifice of superiority/inferiority that accompanies it. It's too confusing to take seriously. It seems not only dangerous, but also dellusional in the sense that the goal is to establish some kind of socio-ontological impunity. Life dosen't work that way and I'm suprised that there isn't more backlash against these over the top b.s. academics. I didn't catch much of Duane's speech after he talked about coaching a student organization called the wagon burners he advised at a college in Sante Fe. It's far past time that we ditch these so called "culture warriors" and learn how to provide for and foster real humanism as soon as possible.

Keepin' It Fake

Simulacra and Simulations by Jean Baudrillard is a twisty logical game displaying as much as describing the discordant relationship between sign and referent, representation and the represented. The climax of this exposition being that the simulated permits stronger belief than the real thing it may refer to. This pretty much makes sense to me. Baudrillard seems to paint this as human arrogance, which could very well be true, but it cannot be overlooked that these artificial and abstracted constructions of knowledge find their application in empirical research. Science is of course also an artform, and it's here that this kind of abstract modelling can find this application in the 'real.' The flip side is that if we weren't so inclined to believe in the illusion, the WWF wouldn't exist, which would only make my life better.

Latest

Here's a shot of the latest project. I'm trying to get this thing to look like a bed of hot coals used in firewalking. Be sure to zoom in. Does it look hot?

WWMS?

What Will Mahmoud Say to the Iranians when he goes home? I and all the other dolts am waiting in complete disbelief to see these politics materialize in human casualties once again.

Murphy

I can't help but say there's alot I've learned from this old dog. Timothy Murphy has been a mentor and lately a companion to me in my journey from farm kid to contemporary painter. I'm burdened, as he, by oneness of vision, but not yet, and hopefully not for a time, by health or recognition. I admire Tim's resolve thoroughly, and am inspired by his sheer veracity. Here's a poem of his I've not yet seen before, posted by Alan just this morning.

Father of the Man

Last night I sought the lost scout in my dreams.
After a twilight slog
I found him in a bog
sobbing amid a maze of braided streams.

Bloodied by leeches, maddened by the buzz
of deerflies round his ears
and half-blinded by tears,
the lad had no notion where he was—

yards from a hummock which two pathways crossed.
His small hand holds me fast
though thirty years have passed
and I confuse the searcher with the lost.

— Timothy Murphy

Here, Here.

There's no way to translate the aura of the Rocky Mountains. To be an artist concerned with that particular translation presents many frustrations. Thankfully, there are so many opportunities here to experience the real thing I don't have to fret much. I've been working with Chuck Forsman in order to create a outdoor based studio seminar for advanced undergrads and grad students at CU. This studio is the golden marriage of place and application. I can't wait.

Uber-romantics

Really, these psychedelic roses are too pretty to be taken seriously, but colored by hypodermic injections, present interesting possibilities.......

Rhizome

I have just completed curating an online exhibition titled Zero dB featuring selections from the Rhizome database. This exhibition is specific to artist's working in the genre of contemporary soundscape. For additional reading relating to Debra Swack's 95 Chimes, check out Sympathetic Vibratory Physics. Enjoy.

Podcast

Betasso Foot Race Podcast
I invite you to race me. This is a binaural recording of me racing on foot beginning at the Boulder Canyon Link Trail connecting to Betasso Trail and ending at the first bench on the west side of the loop. If you've been there you may know it. If you've never been there the you can check the trail on Google Earth. Race start is 40° 0'25.85"N, 105°19'59.89"W. The race end is 40° 1'24.97"N, 105°20'49.40"W. Remember this is a binaural recording, so wear stereophones. Good luck-

Geocache

I went on an easter easter egg hunt today for Geocached items. The first was a space walk landscape feature, N 40' 00.222/W 105' 15.905, the second a small encapsulate at N 40' 00.739/W 105' 15.350, the third a art piece by Boulder Creek at N 40' 00.655/W 105' 15.493.

The Hired Man

Sprouted on the Plains,
I grew up tromping through rows of feather'd leaves,
corn kernals,
and flax seed.
Folding time outside
in a small yard.
But I can't forget
the first night my folks
left me and Tara alone.
I was scared like the flu,
Fueled cold by nightmares.
I got my tiny shotgun that only popped air,
and waited for Clyde,
The Hired-Man.
I cocked my pop gun,
anticipated the raid,
And aimed to shoot'm
right in the face.
"Just the Milkman!,"
he shouted through the screen door.
But we still called my Aunt,
and asked her
if we should
put down
the gun.

Fresh Bilge

Having a source of critical insight is very refreshing. www.seablogger.com is a site run by Alan Sullivan that I highly recommend.

Decorative Swords Will Cut You Wide Open

You might be the smartest guy on the block, but if you have a decorative sword, Trip Fisk wants you to know that sword will cut you right in half. This is completely vulgar, but a great example of a internet persona. If the first one makes you laugh, make sure you watch all the episodes.

Chase Lake

Chase Lake is a pelican habitat preserve sixteen miles north of Medina, N.D. I spent an afternoon tooling up and down this gentle rolling canvas, mid-June 2007, in central NoDak. Be sure to click the pics to get the full size.

Ag Pilot

My stepfather has been a pilot almost as long as he's been legal to drive a car. These days my mother and he operate a crop-dusting buisness on the plains of North Dakota. My mother caught this shot last spring when they filled the hopper with multi-colored dye in order to visualize the spray pattern.

Losing Weight

I'm anxiously waiting to hear the explanation for losing weight.......

Fatalist Manifesto

The Futurist Manifesto is a manic ode to lust for life. It's a wonder any of these people got anything worthwhile done before they died of exaggeration.

Master Blaster

I have to link Lee Wiesenfled's homepage. Lee's also completing his MFA and is a good friend. I admire his work and enjoy collaborating with him. Big brained and multi-talented, Lee's a fearless but considerate artist. Enjoy-

Weather Report

Chrissie Orr is an artist originally from Scotland I had the pleasure to briefly assist as she worked on her site specific work in Boulder this week. Grown as a part of the Weather Report exhibition curated by Lucy Lippard opening next week, the raised steel and mulch rivulets meander along the topography of a shallow berm by the Boulder Creek. I was eager to take part in what seems to be one of the most comprehensive eco art surveys yet assembled, and charmed to find Chrissie not only warm and inviting, but also a transplant to Santa Fe. Since I lived in Albuquerque for two years and frequented, we had much in common. Really though, it was getting my hands dirty, sweating, and laboring with others for that common goal that I was probably just as eager for.

Vermeer In Bosnia

Lawrence Weschler wrote an incredible perspective on Vermeer in a work titled "Vermeer In Bosnia." In a conversation with Antionio Cassese, an Italian who at the time was a jurist at the preliminary hearings of the Yugoslov War Crimes Tribunal, Weschler establishes a common bond through the proximate Vermeer works at The Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis. These are worthwhile comments on Vermeer's "conspicuous exclusion" of themes that are saturatingly present but only as felt absence. The affect being "in times of storm, we musn't allow the storm to enter ourselves; rather we have to find peace inside ourselves and then breathe it out." Inspiring.

Modernist Painting

Greenberg's Modernist Painting promotes the application of Kantian techniques of self-criticism to the particular areas of fine art mediums. He calls for the extrication of logical ends-in-themselves pursuits that can be applied to painting in particular. The assumption that painting is flat and square leads to the conclusion that it is these basic formal qualities wherein lies the path to pure painting. Under this banner of formalism many artists attempted to breakdown conventional notions of illustration and naturalism, instead focusing on color interaction and optical illusion. Currently, Greenbergian theory is overrun by post-modernist theory of the individuals responsibility to inject subjectivity back into the mass consciousness. I think now the "Great Call" to form mass movements like Greenberg was doing are now approached with suspicion because artists are easily scared their humanity is going to be disregarded in favor of some pseudo-scientific formalist requirement. Perhaps if Greenberg himself possessed any of this fear, artist's wouldn't have to be so protective of their ego's now.

The Mirror Stage

The Mirror Stage is a concept Jacques Lacan described as the moment when a child first recognizes it's own reflected image and wherein is established a permanent sense of subjectivity. The creation of the ego begins with this sight identification with the other imaginary order that is similar and reciprocal to the child. There are other insights that Lacan brings up which can be applied to the psychology of the creative process as well, such as the unconscious being structured like language, where meaning isn't inherent in the signifier, but rather is generated in the relationships between signifiers. Shades of Freud, stinking of Heidegger. So how does any of this apply to artists. The brief obvious overlay is that artists identify with the objects we produce in a symbiotic way, we are a part of them and they are a part of us. We rely on the interdependence of our own particular application techniques in order for the work to generate meaning. Is it important to flush out in the language of psychological analysis the reason for the act itself? Is psycho-analysis so steeped in symbolic language that we can say it relies on the same principles it attempts to deconstruct? I can personally vouch for the primacy of memory and association in some of the work I do. But I am an maker before I am an analyst.

3D Sound

I've been experimenting with a digital field recorder and binaural microphones. Binaural mics produce the audio equivalent of what the stereoscope produces for vision. It's a simple, but incredibly effective idea. Two microphones are used but are placed in the ears just like headphones. When headphones are used to listen back to the recording, a fully immersing three dimensional soundscape is represented. Direction and distance are easily discernable and the result is a ghostly sound experience. I've been using the house mics from the Sound Professionals and although I had to buy an additional interface to make it compatible with my Zoom H4 field recorder, I've been very pleased with the results. The link provided has sound samples, but remember to listen with headphones for the full effect.

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/binaural_microphone.html

Fake Landscapes

Having grown up on a farm, I became proficient at operating a pay loader. Removing manure from beef cattle corrals in the spring was the primary chore I was taught to run it for, but because I also grew up racing motocross and had an understanding stepfather, I was able to build my own elaborate practice track. It wasn't until after some exposure to art that I began to think about that project as a fairly complex earth work. These abstract models of hyper-landscapes become a space for adventure for many young men, along with a social club with it's own hierarchy (if you've ever been to a skate park you understand,) and a place to challenge yourself. Now I appreciate these spaces as landscape with an aesthetic all their own. Here's nice overhead of a skate park.

Suiseki

Sui=water, seki=stone, also known as scholar's stones, are small rocks mounted on a base representing in miniature large natural geological phenomena. I remember the first time I ever visited the Minneapolis Institute of Art, I came across one of these tucked very far back in the Asian arts exhibit and it was a primary experience I've never forgot. I made subsequent 4 hour drives back just to see it. I always felt a bit odd about going through so much effort to look at a rock, but it has become more and more important to how I think about and work with natural models. There are many sites dedicated to this amazing form, and here are a couple with the link to the site they came from.


http://www.felixrivera-suiseki.com/My%20Classic%20Suiseki.html

History and Theory of Digital Art

I'm currently enrolled in a History and Theory of Digital Art seminar, for which this is a primary blog. Michael Mages is teaching this class and his blog covering a spectrum of digital art and design is found at www.asomatic.net

Latest Landscape

Latest Landscape

Directions for Real/Data Space Game

1. Co-construction of American flag in the brain by etching between 3d microphones.

2. Drawing game keeping in line with the direction north, if deviated, switch to east, south, and west. Keeping in line for the longest length of time wins.

3. Taking a toothbrush or sandpaper to a shape the size of a human brain or interior of the skull and 'cleaning' it between the 3d mic system.

4. Explosions between mics, blowing your mind.

5. Soundtrack for a race reciting the elevation of the terrain in 3d.

Being a Painter in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Walter Benjamin's famous essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction brings up many objective insights into what reproducability is and will do to the objects that artists make. One point he makes that I'm intimitely concerned with is the 'aura' of the original work of art. Benjamin states not only that reproducability destroys the primary experience of an actual object's (or space's) aura, but also demands that in an objects design, it also include the consciousness of reproducability. Considerations such as how it will look in a different scale, in what format it is available to be reproduced in (etching, photo, digital file,) etc. Whereas objects preceding this age had magical or ritualistic value, today and in recent history, readying the object for consumption by factoring in a sense of universal equality of things and cultural liquidation is sought as a primary value with authenticity secondary. I've seen this over and over again when the object is no longer looked to in order to provide insight into the primal functions they perform, which I refer to as 'patina envy,' but rather are thought of as provisional devices in order to convey an academic or theoretical concept. The philosophical cry "back to the world of things" seems to apply less and less in the realm of art and art training, resulting in disposable anti-historical scenes or states of personal vanity masked as ambition or clever game negotiation. There are however still remaining strands of regional thinking and production I've found that are conscientiously emboldened by this state of affairs. Artists working outside of the academic and professional politics that are content to contribute to the consciousness of a particular tradition, albeit with or without the accolades our culture lavishes upon the makers of reproducible spectacles.

What Would Karl Do?

In his essay's on the ruling class and ruling ideas, Marx posits that all of social history is the history of class struggles. The ruling class of a society hoards economic power and therefore is able to control the ruling ideas within a particular society. These ideas are at best half-truths proliferated as universal and eternal to a lower class of producers of goods who haven't got the time to contemplate such matters, and eventually lead to hostility and revolution in order to regain economic equilibrium.
So what if Marx were alive today, where individual labor is mediated at an even greater distance because of virtual economic and social space? I suppose he'd think about the adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Although the medium of the Internet has increased our ability to communicate and educate ourselves, it has also resulted in even more apathy because of it's abuse by the new controlling class to constantly bombard the working class with the mindless ideology of throw away consumerism. Now practically all economic statistics and social news can be accessed at the push of a button, but rather than resulting in demand for economic equilibrium, it has continued to further the gap between the two, as capitalism has spread in order to exploit labor now on a global scale. I doubt Marx would be a fan of NAFTA.

I have a blog.

Check it.