sanity Disobedience
for @ new frontier
I.
nuts and bolts
Sanity Disobedience for a new frontier Artists: Allen Cordell, Tom Moody, Jamie Oshea, Sophia Peer, Tristan Perich, Meridith Pingree, David Prince, Janos Stone. Curator: Rod Malin Camel Art Space October 23 -November 28 2010 Rod Malin (www.malinstudio.com) Allen Cordell (www.allencordell.com), Tom Moody (www.tommoody.us/), Jamie Oshea (www.substitutematerials.com), Sophia Peer (www.sophiapeer.com), Tristan Perich (www.tristanperich.com), Meridith Pingree (www.meridithpingree.com), David Prince (www.davidprince.org), Janos Stone (www.janosstone.com)
II.
curator
Rod Malin has been a media specialist for the last five years for Marian Goodman Gallery, Bronx Museum of the Arts and various Contemporary artists. Simultaneously, Malin has been working on a self accredited PhD on liminal cultural studies while maintaining his own projects at M A L I N S T U D I O a space that explores ephemeral and contextual ideas. Malin has work with several curators including Lance Fung (Fung Galley NYC), Erin Riley Lopez (Bronx Museum of Art), Catherine de Zegher (The Drawing Center). His wide variety of expertise in theater design, film and fine arts has landed him to work both in the arena of independent and commercial cliental, not to mention his own public work as an conceptual artist that utilizes new media and technology. Malin has ability to be versatile both as a media specialist, artist, and curator could be seen in his recent exploration in “Curating the Virtual”, drawing over 7000 visitors from all over the world to his Invisible Museum of Post Contemporary Art.
III.
rational
Is there a fundamental relationship between artists’ practices of exploration and society’s definition of sanity? What does it mean to be sane? How does a common, culturally reinforced definition of “sanity” influence how we perceive art? When viewed beyond the context of the traditional institutional infrastructure, does the concept of sanity take on new layers of meaning? An investigation and juxtaposition of various theoretical art-making practices and processes that tap into the artist’s psyche will reveal how we might relate these concepts to the digital age. The exhibition will feature artists exploring definitions which relate either to full immersion into new media and/or those that explore caution or resistance. Being “Sane” is defined as ones ability to be rational. Thus the ability to understand is determined to be a key signifier of being sane. We live in a society where the ability to multitask is a daily exercise, where the “urgency” factor as a business model heavily reflects the institutional business infrastructure and is reflective of our cultural institutions. However, there is little to no research done to prove that multitasking is even an effective approach. Some of the only focused research, conducted by Professor Clifford Nass of Stanford University, suggests that people that multitask are significantly slower in individual task completion, their memory is disorganized, and they are worse at analytical reasoning. So why does society tend to recognize the ability to multitask as quality of a highly effective person? Living in the digital age presents constant inhibitions to critical examination of the built environment. The wealth of instant information that is at our fingertips can be accessed with the greatest of ease, whenever and wherever we are. Our minds are always active, yet we have little time to fully process and rationalize all that has been presented. This suggests that maybe we are implementing an immediate response society, where rationality takes a second seat. Consequently, a society that views itself as being contemporary might actually be becoming a non-rationalized culture. The technology-enabled ability to provide a state of “as it happens”, where there is a constant flow of information and with emphasis on the “Now,” produces media parasites that prey on the contemporary.
IV.
raw meat
ALLEN CORDELL BIO Artist/filmmaker Allen Cordell was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1978 and moved to the United States at the age of 4. He received his B.F.A. from SUNY Purchase (2002) in the school’s competitive filmmaking conservatory. His work has been seen at film festivals around the world including the Edinburgh International Film Festival, The Revelation Perth International Film Festival, The Indie Music Video Festival and the Boston Underground Film Festival. His projects have been screened and exhibited at Scalo Project Space (New York, NY), CANADA (New York, NY), Gallery Homeland (Portland, OR), Boffo (Brooklyn, NY), Grace Exhibition Space (Brooklyn, NY), The Current Gallery (Baltimore, MD), The Baltimore Museum of Art as well as The Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
TOM MOODY
Tom Moody is a visual artist and musician based in New York City. His low-tech art made with simple imaging programs, photocopiers, and consumer printers has been exhibited at artMovingProjects in New York as well as galleries and museums in the US, UK, and Europe. His videos have been screened in the New York Underground Film Festival, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Dallas Film Festival, and other venues, and he and his work appear in the film 8 BIT, which premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His blog, commenced in February 2001, was recommended in the 2005 Art in America article “Art in the Blogosphere.� A CD of his music collaborations with earcon (John Parker), titled Scratch Ambulance, is available on iTunes and at cdbaby.com.
"I'm amused by the lingering rhetoric of futurism--the Buck Rogers, 'machineswill-change-our-lives' spieling--that continues to surround digital production in our society. The computer is a tool, not magic, and possesses its own tragicomic limitations as well as offering new means of expression and communication. I am intrigued by the idea of making some kind of advanced art with this apparatus-objects, images, and installations that hold up to prolonged scrutiny in real space. At the same time, I am drawn to 'cyber-kitsch' in all its forms, whether in old programs such as MSPaintbrush, the amateur imagery that abounds on the Web, or the unintended poetry of technical glitches. My work proudly inhabits the 'lo-fi' or 'abject' end of the digital spectrum."
Jamie O'Shea is an inventor. He makes semantic machines, and believes that all machines are semantic. He loves the things, like memory, that cannot be automated, and strives in vain to automate them. He believes that boredom is a crucial defense mechanism, and should be celebrated. He also writes fiction. Jamie lives in Brooklyn and has participated this year in the Bemis Center Residency and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Swing Space. His work lives mostly on the web and in conversation, but has appeared this year at Exit Art, the Pixel festival, and the Conflux festival, and the Bemis Underground.
To honor NASA's lost Mars Phoenix lander, a mission was launched to the myrdalsjokull glacier in Iceland, where dust covers ice as is it does at the phoenix lander site on Mars.
SOPHIA PEER
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN SOPHIA PEER AND MONUMENTMUSEUM. MM: I FOUND YOUR WORK THROUGH THE ‘CELEBRATE THE BODY ELECTRIC (IT CAME FROM AN ANGEL)’ MUSIC VIDEO YOU MADE FOR THE BALTIMORE BASED BAND ‘PONYTAIL’ WHICH WAS SHOWN AT CANADA GALLERY IN NEW YORK CITY LAST SUMMER. AT THE MONUENT THIS VIDEO IS ALSO FEATURED ON THE VIDEO SECTION OF ARTFORUM.COM. I ENJOYED THE WAY THE DOUBLE DUTCH WAS EDITED TO THE RHYTHM OF THE GUITAR. THROUGH THIS VIDEO I FOUND YOUR SERIES ‘THAT IS NOT THIS’ FROM 2009 IN WHICH YOU ACT OUT SCENES FROM POPULAR 80’S AND 90‘S SITCOMS WITH YOUR PARENTS. WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO THIS IDEA? SP: THANK YOU. THE VIDEO FOR ‘CELEBRATE THE BODY ELECTRIC’ INVOLVED ELEVEN DIFFERENT SHOOTS AND MONTHS OF EDITING, SO I’M GLAD TO GET THE POSITIVE FEEDBACK. MY INITIAL INTEREST IN WORKING WITH MY PARENTS WAS IN THE BANAL ROUTINE AND THE REDUNDANCY OF THEIR LIVES AS THEY WERE GROWING OLDER TOGETHER. THEIR HOUSE SEEMS LIKE A VACUUM SOMETIMES, ISOLATING THEM IN FLUSHING, QUEENS. I WANTED TO BRING THE IDIOSYNCRASIES OF THEIR HOME LIFE INTO THE SPOTLIGHT SOMEHOW. I WOULD POSE AND PHOTOGRAPH THEM TO MATCH REAL MOMENTS I HAD SEEN THEM IN, DAY AFTER DAY. LATER I MADE VIDEOS COMBINING THAT APPROACH WITH FICTIONAL ELEMENTS, LIKE MY MOTHER SINGING AND DANCING UNDER MY DIRECTION. IT WAS SORT OF A NATURAL PROGRESSION TO USING SITCOM SCRIPTS AND CHEAP WIGS. THE WORK COMES OUT OF THIS UNIVERSAL DESIRE TO CHANGE THE PEOPLE CLOSEST TO YOU. I FEEL DISCONNECTED FROM MY PARENTS IN A WAY BEING THE FIRST MEMBER OF MY FAMILY BORN IN AMERICA AND HAVING A LARGE GENERATIONAL GAP, SINCE MY PARENTS HAD ME IN THEIR 40’S. I THINK ONE OF THE MOTIVATION BEHIND THE WORK IS SHARING THEM AND MAKING THEM PART OF MY LIFE AND ART PRACTICE. MM: YOUR PARENTS PLAY ALONG REALLY WELL AND IT ALL LOOKS LIKE A LOT OF FUN TO MAKE. THIS ‘VACUUM’ YOU MENTIONED IS ALSO PRESENT IN THE SITCOMS WE TALKED ABOUT. FOR EXAMPLE, IN WHO’S THE BOSS YOU SEE CAN SEE TONY, ANGELA AND THE KIDS OUTSIDE THEIR HOUSE BUT IN THE CLOSED ENVIRONMENTS OF A FILM SET. AND IN MOST SITCOMS, THE CHARACTERS RARELY WATCH TV THEMSELVES. I THINK THAT YOU WITH ‘THAT IS NOT THIS’ YOU SUCCEED TO PHYSICAL BREAK THROUGH THIS VACUUM. DO YOU FEEL THAT YOUR VIDEOS ARE SOMEHOW MORE CONNECTED TO REALITY THAN MOST SITCOMS? SP: PART OF WHY I MAKE THIS WORK IS TO TAKE MY PARENTS OUT OF THE VACUUM. I DON’T INTEND TO CREATE A SITCOM. I WANT TO HIGHLIGHT THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MY PARENTS AND THE PEOPLE I WANT THEM TO BE OR WISHED THEY WERE. THE PERFORMANCES BRING OUT WHO MY PARENTS REALLY ARE MORE THAN DISGUISE THEM. THE POINT WAS NEVER TO MAKE A MORE REALISTIC SITCOM OR TO BRING A ‘REAL’ FAMILY TO THE WORLD OF SITCOMS. MM: I CAN IMAGINE THAT THE HOUSE YOU GREW UP IN MUST BE A SECURE PLACE FOR YOU TO FILM AND ALSO THE IDEAL SET FOR YOU TO LIVE THE SITCOM LIFE WITH YOUR OWN PARENTS. IT MAKES ME THINK OF THE EARLY WORKS OF BRUCE NAUMAN WHERE HE IS EXPLORING AND FILMING HIS OWN STUDIO. DO YOU THINK YOU’RE EXPLORING YOUR YOUTH AND/OR FUTURE THROUGH THIS WORK? SP: I NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT IT IN RELATION TO NAUMAN’S VIDEOS IN HIS STUDIO BUT I CAN SEE WHY YOU WOULD BE REMINDED OF THEM WITH ALL THE RESTLESS ENERGY, INCESSANT MOVEMENTS AND LONELINESS. I THINK THE VIDEOS HAVE A LOT TO DO WITH LIFE, DEATH, IDLENESS AND ISOLATION AS DOES MY WORK WITH MY PARENTS. I WOULDN’T NECESSARILY SAY MY HOUSE FEELS LIKE A SECURE PLACE BUT IT CERTAINLY FEELS FAMILIAR AND PREDICTABLE. IT CAN BE DIFFICULT TO REVISIT THE HOUSE I GREW UP IN AND SPEND TIME WITH MY PARENTS. THE OLDER I GET AND THE OLDER THEY GET, THE FURTHER THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US. BUT WHEN I GO BACK HOME I’M DEFINITELY REMINDED OF MY CHILDHOOD WHEN I DID PINE FORPARENTS THAT WERE MORE LIKE THE KEATONS, SEAVERS, COSBYS, BOWERS, TANNERS, ETC. A PART OF ME IS STILL UPSET ABOUT WHAT I DIDN'T GET THEN AND THEREFORE WHAT I DON’T HAVE NOW AND WILL NEVER GET FROM THEM. MM: BUT LIFE I LIKE THAT RIGHT? IT’S ALL ABOUT ACCEPTANCE. YOU LIVE IN THE SAME CITY AS YOUR PARENTS AND DANCE AROUND WITH THEM IN THEIR LIVING ROOM. THAT GIVES ME THE IMPRESSION THAT YOU MUST HAVE A PRETTY GOOD RELATIONSHIP. DO YOU FEEL MORE CONNECTED TO YOUR PARENTS AFTER MAKING THESE VIDEOS? SP: I THINK, IN PART, I’M EXAMINING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PHYSICAL PROXIMITY AND EMOTIONAL CONNECTION. MY PARENTS’ LIVES, AND THE PATHS THEY TOOK ARE SO DISCONNECTED FROM MY LIFE THAT I’LL ALWAYS FEEL A LITTLE ALONE AND MISUNDERSTOOD AROUND THEM. I THINK THAT’S THE CASE WITH A LOT OF PEOPLE AND THEIR FAMILIES. YES. IT’S REALLY FUN DANCING AROUND WITH THEM AND BEING SILLY AND I APPRECIATE HOW SPECIAL IT IS THAT THEY ARE WILLING TO PARTICIPATE IN MY WORK BUT THEY’LL NEVER FULLY UNDERSTAND WHY I’M DOING IT. LIFE IS ABOUT ACCEPTANCE, YES, BUT THIS WORK IS ABOUT THE OPPOSITE. I’M FORCING MY PARENTS INTO THESE SITUATIONS THAT ARE ROOTED IN FANTASY CONSTRUCTED FROM FICTIONAL FAMILIES THAT I IDOLIZED. MM: FAMILIES HAVE A FUNDAMENTAL INFLUENCE ON THE WAY WE STAND IN THIS WORLD. WHAT IS YOUR IDEA OF THE FUNCTION A MONUMENT CAN HAVE NOWADAYS? SP: I GUESS ALL MONUMENTS, WITH ALL THEIR INTENTIONS OF OUTLIVING WHO OR WHAT THEY MEMORIALIZE, FADE EVENTUALLY, BUT A MONUMENT IS THE ULTIMATE VALIDATION OF SOMETHING OR SOMEONE’S EXISTENCE; A MARKER LEAVING A LASTING PRESENCE THAT OUTLAST ONE’S MORTALITY. BY THOSE STANDARDS ALL TYPES OF MEDIA THAT CAN OUTLIVE ITS SUBJECT CAN FIT IN THAT CATEGORY. I THINK THIS DESIRE TO CONFIRM THE PURPOSE OF YOUR EXISTENCE IS BEHIND MANY OF THE TINY MONUMENTS FOUND ONLINE, ON FILM, ON AIR, IN MUSIC, IN ART, ETC. MM: DO YOU THINK THERE IS A PHYSICAL MONUMENT FOR THE FAMILY? SP: I TOOK MY PARENTS TO A SEARS PORTRAIT STUDIO AND HAD SOME PHOTOSHOP WORK DONE SO NONE OF US HAD WRINKLES OR CIRCLES UNDER OUR EYES. MAYBE THAT’S ALL YOU NEED FOR A FAMILY MONUMENT: A BIG RETOUCHED PHOTO OF YOUR FAMILY IN MATCHING OUTFITS IN FRONT OF A BACKDROP. A GOLD FRAME IS A PLUS.
http://www.monumentmuseum.com/DanGraham.htm
TRISTAN PERICH
New York-based Tristan Perich is inspired by the aesthetics of math and physics, and works with simple forms and complex systems. The challenge of elegance provokes his work in acoustic and electronic music, and physical and digital art. The WIRE Magazine describes his compositions as "an austere meeting of electronic and organic." His works for soloist, ensemble and orchestra have been performed internationally by ensembles including Bang on a Can, Calder Quartet and Meehan/Perkins at venues from the Whitney Museum, P.S.1, Merkin Hall, the Stone and Joe's Pub to Los Angeles’ Zipper Hall and Lentos in Austria. He has received commissions from Bang on a Can, Dither Quartet, Yarn/Wire and Transit New Music. In 2004 he began work on 1-Bit Music to experiment with the foundations of electronic sound, culminating in a physical "album," a music-generating circuit packaged inside a standard CD jewel case, available from Cantaloupe Music. His new circuit album, 1-Bit Symphony, is a long-form electronic composition in five movements. As a visual artist, Perich has had solo exhibitions at bitforms gallery (NYC) and Mikrogalleriet (Copenhagen) in 2009, and Museo Carandente (Spoleto) in 2010. His Machine Drawings, pen-on-paper drawings executed by machine, were described as "elegantly delicate" by BOMB Magazine. His work with 1-bit video, including Eighteen Linear Constructions, exhibited in 2009 at Issue Project Room, employs binary electrical pulses to create images on cathode ray televisions. His artwork has been included in group shows at LABoral (Barcelona), iMAL (Brussels), MCLA's Gallery 51 (MA), ABC No Rio (NY), the Philoctetes Center (NY), and Greylock Arts (MA) and a traveling science museum exhibit in Arkansas. His experimental music group, the Loud Objects (with Kunal Gupta and Katie Shima), perform electronic music by soldering their own noise-making circuits, live, from scratch in front of the audience. They have performed and exhibited at festivals around the world, and received a 2009 commission from Turbulence.org to create a networked noise toy development tool. He received the Prix Ars Electronica in 2009 and will be a featured artist at Sonar 2010 in Barcelona. Rhizome awarded him a 2010 comission for a microtonal audio installation with 1,500 speakers. He was artist in residence at Issue Project Room in 2008, at Mikrogalleriet in Copenhagen in 2010, and at the Addison Gallery in Fall 2010. He has spoken about his work and taught workshops around the world. He studied music, math and computer science at Columbia University, and electronic art at ITP/Tisch.
MERIDITH PINGREE
MERIDITH PINGREE My artwork physically tracks human behavior and traffic patterns using quasi-scientific, homespun, reactive sculptures. I use sensors to pick up on people’s energy and movement throughout a space. My work exists as amplifications of this subtle energy, creating unconventional, complex portraits of people and spaces. The work functions in a way that is similar to many quasi-scientific devices like aura cameras and mood rings. The realization of each piece inevitably sets up a study. Action within the sprawling electronic systems of brains and guts creates a force to react against as the piece simultaneously responds back in a cyclical, chaotic nature. Meridith Pingree is a brooklyn based artist known for her quirky reactive sculptures, and squishy geometric forms. Her work has been shown in recent solo exhibitions at Fringe Exhibitions in Los Angeles, and Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Other recent exhibitions included her work at the Bronx Museum, Smack Mellon, The Soap Factory, BravinLee Programs, Triple Candie, Heskin Contemporary, and Gallery Satori among others. A hanging kinetic piece was recently commisioned by BakerIE.org. She received her MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in sculpture and an alumni of Skowhegan. Pingree's work has been written about in the New York Times, Art Week, The Brooklyn Rail, Vellum Magazine, Art Fag City and KCLOG among others.
D a v i d Prince is
a
sculptor,
explorer, lumberjack, amateur scientist, community advocate, and inventor, creating artworks in a wide variety of materials and media. His subject matter frequents the topics of ecology, heroism, civic engagement, and impermanence. He received an MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006 and a BA from Colorado College in 2001. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA and is a part-time nomad, living and working from his minivan-studio.
Wainting, 2005 Grant Park, Chicago, IL Materials: Shoes, Ice
Ouroboros, March 2010
butterhenge on the Clonehenge Blog
JANOS
STONE
Social networking websites are where we find love and companionship. Interaction online occurs through our digital ambassadors; our avatars, who make real emotional contact in the Internet possible. When one billion dollars is spent annually in the online search for companionship and Stranger Chat allows for instant connectivity with a random person, questions arise. Yet, the digital has only changed the look and feel of life, not life itself. Janos Stone specializes in creating sculpture that is this hybrid of humanity, emotion and technology. In his new work, the relationships of couples he personally knows who met using networking sites have been imbued into Sheetrock. A material that as he delicately hand carves becomes a metaphor for life online. Stone uses his unique/rare abilities to look inside contemporary materials and techniques and pull out the soft supple qualities of humanity and balance them against the rigid mathematics of the pixilated world. His work is what we see when we look at the Internet: function and communication well as the fingerprint of the human creator. Stone holds an MFA in sculpture from Boston University, Boston, MA, and a BFA in sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI. Stone also currently teaches at SUNY University of Buffalo, NY as a lecturer and critic.
V.
discourse:
Bas Jan Ader “I’m too sad to tell you” Bas Jan Ader, 1942 - 1975 Dutch/Californian artist Bas Jan Ader was last seen in 1975 when he took off in what would have been the smallest sailboat ever to cross the Atlantic. He left behind a small oeuvre, often using gravity as a medium, which more than 30 years after his disappearance at sea is more influential than ever before. Bas Jan Ader was born to idealistic ministers in the Dutch Reformed Church on April 19, 1942. His father was executed by the Nazis for harboring Jewish refugees when Ader was only two years old. A rebellious student, he failed art school at the Rietveld Academy, where friend Ger van Elk recalls that he would use a single piece of paper for the entire semester, erasing his drawings as soon as they were finished. At the age of 19 he hitchhiked to Morocco, where he signed on as a deckhand on a yacht heading for America. The yacht shipwrecked off the coast of California, and Ader stayed in Los Angeles where he enrolled at Otis Art Institute. There he met Mary Sue Andersen, the daughter of the director of the school. They married in Las Vegas, where he used a set of crutches to symbolically prop himself up during the ceremony. Ader then taught art and studied philosophy at Claremont Graduate School. In 1970 he entered the most productive period of his career, beginning with his first fall film, which showed him seated on a chair, tumbling from the roof of his two-story house in the Inland Empire. In 1975 Ader embarked on what he called “a very long sailing trip.” The voyage was to be the middle part of a triptych called “In Search of the Miraculous,” a daring attempt to cross the Atlantic in a 12½ foot sailboat. He claimed it would
Chris Crocker “Leave Britney Alone” Chris Crocker (born December 7, 1987) is an American internet celebrity. Crocker gained international fame in September 2007 from his viral video Leave Britney Alone tearfully defending pop singer Britney Spears's comeback performance at the MTV Video Music Awards; his video had over four million views in two days. The video received international media attention, hundreds of parodies and criticism for Crocker. He is a self-described "edutainer" who produces and acts in multiple transgressive videos. In almost all of Crocker's work he presents himself as an openly gay and effeminate Southern adolescent in a "smallminded town" in the Bible Belt where his sexual orientation and outspokenness are a "subtext... rarely addressed directly and never completely accepted." The Tennessee-based Crocker, a stage name, keeps his identity and exact location private because according to him, and as seen in the public comments to his work, there are safety concerns and death threats in response to his YouTube and MySpace video blogs and profile. According to his MySpace profile, Crocker lives in Los Angeles as of January 2008. His work consists mainly of short-form self-directed "monologues about life" shot in his grandparents' home.[19] As of May 2009[update], Crocker's videos have received a combined 49.5 million plays on MySpace, and his vlog channel on YouTube is the 18th most viewed of all time in all categories, with over 153 million views. Crocker's detractors and critics have accused him of narcissism, melodramatics, histrionics, and using Spears' personal shortcomings to bolster his own fame. Others have accused Crocker of acting in the Leave Britney Alone video, although he insisted it was genuine on a September 2007 appearance on Maury Povich's Maury show.
SANITY DISOBEDIENCE FOR A NEW FRONTIER OCT 23- NOV 28 2010