MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
Link to BLU

VOTEMOS.US the site that questions what the 2008 U.S. presidential elections would look like if all residents in the U.S. could vote will now feature weekly video interviews with U.S. immigrants and Mexico City residents concerning the presidential elections and general relations between the United States and Latin America.

Although VOTEMOS.US is a Spanish-language site, the videos have English language subtitles so that U.S. citizens may have an insight into the views of their Spanish speaking neighbors within the country as well as those south of the border. The weekly video interviews are available on the site, as a podcast or rss feed:

This week Argentine Jose Antonio Lazzari relaxing in the park Alameda Central located in the historical center of Mexico City states that he would not vote for Obama, Hillary or McCain and he questions who the leftist candidates are in the U.S… Jose Antonio goes on to point out that the United States is controlled by the transnational companies that are making a fortune in Iraq.

We had a lengthy conversation with Jose Antonio Lazzari, a theater actor and educator who runs a free school in Argentina. Sections of this conversation will be published over the next few weeks. Past interviews with NYC undocumented resident Raymundo are also available and all videos will be archived on the site.

I’m too tired to comment much, but I’ve got lots of images accumulating without sharing. There’s been so much art in NYC lately that the work I shoot just ends up on my desktop. Here are a few from today:

I’ll never understand Murakami’s stuff - as long as people can’t ride it, what’s the point… well, other than making lots and lots of money. Takashi Murakami has a show at the Brooklyn Museum, I haven’t checked it out, but was briefly visually entertained by what’s in the lobby. Even the kids stare in awe, but it fades fast once they realized they can’t touch or ride the stuff… crazy eye candy.

Hopefully he’ll open an amusement park that hands out free acid upon entry.

Afterwards, I hiked it over to Wall Street to catch the tale end of Pia Lindeman’s Soapbox Event, where kids took turns outside of Federal Hall to get people’s attention and inspire participation.

And inside participants were given a nice new soapbox to stand on and exercise their freedom of speech. Assuming that there really wasn’t much of a point in addressing the ongoing wars that US citizens contribute to and allow to continue while hundreds of thousands of innocent people die along with several thousand US military… I complained about the dog shit and piss that litters the streets of NYC.

By the time I got there, most of the audience were the assistants, but given all the boxes on the floor, it was clear that there was lots of participation.  It seems as if the street would present a stronger venue.

And at the end of the afternoon, I made it to Martha Wilson’s exhibition at Mitchell Algus Gallery. On exhibit are a few of Martha’s early works, executed between 1971-74. It’s the work of a young woman, a feminist, a critical thinker that remains powerful today. The NY Times has an excellent review of the show.

After a week of tearing up radios, building small noise circuits and preparing wooden guns for the insurgency act of Moving Forest, it finally came together on Friday and it was great fun. View documentation of the Radio Gun Revolt.

Shu Lea Cheang and Martin Howse organized the Moving Forest, a 12 hour sonic performance for transmediale that ocurred Friday from 11am to 11pm. Moving Forest is a reinterpretation of the final 12 minutes of Akira Kurosawa’s “Throne of Blood”, a film based on Macbeth - a premise for a sound performance that is all too fitting for the 2008 transmediale as the theme this year is CONSPIRACY

Previously I had been working on a project involving an electronic circuit and wooden guns, Martin liked the guns very much and asked me if I’d bring them to transmediale. However, the only sound on the circuits is a beep, so for Moving Forest, I replaced the original circuit with radios and other circuits that merely make noise and with 20 volunteers we marched from Siegessauele, Berlin’s Victory Column to transmediale, meeting up other armies of insurgency along the way and we stormed the castle - Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of World Culture). Each group was transmitting its own broadcast (I was transmitting from my backpack to the immediate area), but upon gathering before the stairs of HKW we all switched to the same transition for one noisy insurgency. Here are a few still from a video documentation of the insurgency:

I’ve been a fan of Guy Ben-Ner’s work since first seeing it, about three years ago at what I think was his first Postmaster’s show and with each new video my admiration grows. The latest video that I thoroughly enjoyed is titled “Stealing Beauty” shot entirely at IKEA show rooms with his family. As in his past videos, Ben-Ner works with his kids to create narratives that question or deconstruct elements of our society.

“Stealing Beauty” features the traditional modern nuclear family unit. They go about regular daily activities, showering, sleeping, watching television, checking email, reading, washing dishes, sharing a meal, however throughout the 20 minute video is an ongoing discussion between the individuals. This is a discussion that primarily revolves around a lecture by Ben-Ner to his kids proclaiming the virtues of Capitalism:

“Private property creates borders… Some day this [the IKEA show room] will all be yours through inheritance… Love holds the family together and the family keeps the property from leaking out, family is like a big piggy bank,… Sharing is primitive… We evolved to rise on our feet and point at things to say this is mine. We freed our fingers to count…”

As the video proceeds there are traces of rebellion by the daughter, she questions if she is owned by her parents, she demands her freedom and at one point Ben-Ner grounds her. The video concludes with the reading of a Manifesto by the children… “Children of the world unite” calling children to claim what they want, to steal from parents, to claim their free will.

Although the water doesn’t flow from the sinks or shower head and the television and computer aren’t turned on, the family inhabits any number of IKEA show rooms as if everything functioned. They get into the beds, sit at the dinning room or in the living room and play out the script as shoppers walk by. At one point a woman peers into the video camera and pokes at it, someone behind the camera asks her to not touch the camera and re-positions it to focus on the co-opted stage.

The entire work is pieced together from any number of show rooms to the extent that a single exchange is assembled from various shoots. I left wondering if this was so, because they shot the video without permission and had to assemble the video from different IKEAs as they would be pulled from the show rooms. And indeed this is the case - it “was shot without permission at numerous IKEA stores around New York, Berlin and Tel Aviv.”

The dialogue doesn’t present any ground breaking ideas, however juxtaposing the script against the sets available at IKEA’s idealized show rooms is brilliant!

Growing up in the Mission (San Francisco, CA), my dad loved cruising Mission street on Friday and Saturday evenings when it was packed with lowriders and girls running from car to car, guys trying to prove who had the superior car. My brother and I were too young to really appreciate it. I found the bouncing cars entertaining for the first 10 minutes, but as cars inched along we’d be stuck between 25th and 26th Streets for nearly an hour, way too long for me. However, when I see an incredible lowrider, it reminds me of that period and evokes a bit of nostalgia. (This was before the SF police cracked down on cruising, the lowriders moved to Daly City at that point, early 80s.) The artists John Jota Leaños and Artemio Rodriquez have teamed up to create a beautifully painted lowrider with motifs indicative of today’s reality - motifs that point to war, disaster and death.

“The fully functioning mobile art installation includes four animations from the New Media Opera, Imperial Silence that plays on the LCD movie screen in the car as well as radio programs from ¡Radio Muerto!, a specially curated radio dial with content from dozens of artists, writers, youth, and everyday Californians.” Go to John’s site to check out the full description: El Muertorider.

In the midst of being thrown out of my home by NYC and staying with friends and family, it took me a while to assemble some documentation of the recent commission I completed for a festival in Mexico City:
http://www.ambriente.com/carreta_nagua/

The animation “Arbol que nace torcido, nunca su rama enderece” (Tree that is born twisted, never straightens) is available online:
http://www.ambriente.com/carreta_nagua/animation.php
The animation is about 8 and a half minutes long and features El Chapulin Colorado and Ultraman discussing the effects of globalization, immigration and personal loss due to cultural transitions. The script is based on my parent’s current reality as they move back to Nicaragua after 45 years in San Francisco, CA. The animation was featured on a rickshaw as passengers were offered a tour of the colonial park Alameda Central in the historical center of Mexico City. The title of the project is “Carreta Nagua, Siglo 21″, a description of the project and explanation of the title is also available online as well as plenty of images:
http://www.ambriente.com/carreta_nagua/

The tour and animation generated excellent discussion and lots of local press, primarily on television and is still on view at the museum - Laboratorio Arte Alameda - http://www.artealameda.inba.gob.mx/
So if you are in Mexico City, please stop by to see the exhibition. It’s an excellent exhibition that I discussed in my blog while in Mexico City:
TRANSITIO at Laboratorio Arte Alameda

El Parque Alameda Central is filled with people on Sundays.  Musicians, merchants, families, tourists and this Sunday was a beautiful clear day, perfect for a nice tour through the park on a rickshaw.  Most people questioned the fact that the ride would be free, but once a few people were convinced many more waited to be taken for a ride and watch the animation.  People seemed to enjoy the animated narrative that featured El Chapulin Colorado and Ultraman discussing personal changes due to migration.

The cart is finalized with rooftop, panel for the display, painted and ready to take people on tours of the park.

Putting the final pieces of the frame work of the cart, before painting and adding all the details.