Structural Patterns

I don’t know who this performance artist is or who she is protesting against, whether it’s the Colombian government, or multinationals or power in general, but it’s exciting to see (in more ways than one), particularly the street actions, such as the performance on Bolivar’s Monument below.

Eventually she stops dancing and merely sits on the edge of the monument. The video states:

Eventually a police man forced me to step down from the Bolivar’s monument because he felt that my body on the monument’s steps was vulgar and I was ruining the tourist photos. So I continued the action without erotic dancing.

You can see more of artist’s work at: http://www.lafulminante.com or her YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/LaFulminantexxx

Brooke Gladstone of “On the Media” recently collaborated with cartoonist Josh Neufeld on a graphic book titled The Influencing Machine. Here’s a great animated sequence using Gladstone’s words and Neufeld’s graphics to give you a sense of the nature of the book.

I had to take a bit of time out to create a small animation describing how I feel about online advertising and Capitalism’s consumption of the web…

If you’d like view it as a SWF (much larger, sharper and quicker download), CLICK HERE

Imagine this crazy, detailed mess of small motors, gator clamps, cables, seemingly fragile steel armature constituting a kinetic sculpture set against a beaming light that projects elements of the sculpture onto a backdrop. These sculptures are part of the staging or more appropriately actors of Verdensteatret’s performance titled “And All the Question Marks Started to Sing” which was at Dance Theater Workshop this past week. As a performance, I hated the piece and wanted to leave ten minutes into it, but I would have very much enjoyed the work as an installation. I loved the kinetic sculptures and portions of the interactions between the sculptures and animations projected onto the walls, but as a performance, it was painfully dull.

I enjoy experimental work, but if I’m expected to sit in a seat for nearly an hour, I expect to be given something that I can follow, get lost in, or will take me somewhere. There were elements of “And All the Question Marks Started to Sing” which were exciting, but as a whole it seemed disjointed. There was no anchor or narrative that allowed me to follow the work as a staged linear performance. Perhaps it was merely presented in the wrong venue, rather than a seated stage performance, the piece seems to be produced for a gallery or museum environment in which the audience may come and go as well as walk through the staging. Better yet, I would have loved to have interacted with the sculptures and manipulated the playing of the animations and sound.

There were four actors that worked with the sculptures to seemingly manipulate video and animation projected onto the walls as well as the sound in the environment. There were a couple spoken portions, but they were not translated into English, so I had no idea what the actors were saying.

Once again, last semester I had a talented group of aspiring animators in my introductory 2D animation class. Here are a few select links:

Links to several other animations are available on my Hunter page, enjoy!

Since we’re spending the holidays in San Francisco, we drove to San Jose to check out Vagamundo currently installed as part of San Jose Museum of Art’s Retro Tech exhibition. A couple months ago I had to ship out a new joystick and in trying out the game, it’s still running or at least running as well as it ever did! The show looks great. It was fun to watch my son desperately trying to play the game.

Job Title: Assistant, Associate or Full Professor – Film and Media Studies

Job ID: 2389
Location: Hunter College
Full/Part Time: Full-Time
Regular/Temporary: Regular

GENERAL DUTIES
Performs teaching, research, and guidance duties in area(s) of expertise as noted below. Shares responsibility for committee and department assignments, performing administrative, supervisory, and other functions as may be assigned.

CAMPUS SPECIFIC INFORMATION
Hunter College’s Department of Film and Media Studies, which combines analytical and theoretical analysis with creative practice using an interdisciplinary approach to media, seeks applications for a scholar and practitioner of new media. The position calls for a candidate who has an understanding of the cultural effects of new media and Internet technologies.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
Ph.D. degree in area(s) of expertise, or equivalent as noted below. Also required are the ability to teach successfully, interest in productive scholarship or creative achievement, and ability to cooperate with others for the good of the institution.

OTHER QUALIFICATIONS
A record of publications related to computer and Internet technologies and a mix of theory and practice is desirable. Extensive teaching experience is essential. A PhD, M.F.A. or professional equivalent are required.

COMPENSATION
Commensurate with rank, education, accomplishments and experience.

BENEFITS
CUNY offers a comprehensive benefits package to employees and eligible dependents based on job title and classification. Employees are also offered pension and Tax-Deferred Savings Plans. Part-time employees must meet a weekly or semester work hour criteria to be eligible for health benefits. Health benefits are also extended to retirees who meet the eligibility criteria.

HOW TO APPLY
ALL APPLICATIONS MUST BE RECEIVED BY MAIL or E-MAIL. DO NOT APPLY ON LINE AT THIS JOB BOARD.
Include letter of application with teaching/artistic/professional philosophy, curriculum vitae, list of three references sent to:
digitalmediasearch@hunter.cuny.edu
-OR-
Professor
James Roman, Chair
Department of Film and Media Studies
Hunter College, CUNY
695 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10065

CLOSING DATE
Open until filled with review of resumes to begin November 15, 2010.

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY
The City University of New York is an Equal Opportunity Employer which complies with all applicable laws and regulations, and encourages inclusive excellence in its employment practices.

I plugged my camera into my computer to download a few recent images and found a ton of images from the past two months that I’ve ignored, so I’m putting them all up today, starting with a few from the Maker Faire at the New York Hall of Science from September 26th.

I’m not sure who would ever want this thing, perhaps a corporate lobby or some entity that wants to make sure that you know you are being watched. This over the top giant mirror had embedded masks with robotic eyes that were being controlled by webcam vision software. Above is the back of the mirror on the left – a whole lot of servos and on the right is the front of the mirror with the masks and the reflection. They were advertising Mondomatrix.

Another cool but pointless interactive sculpture/display – designatum by Muhammad Hafiz. It’s more of a display, because it doesn’t have the creative framework to call it a sculpture. People can type into a keyboard that is wired up to a matrix of LCDs and see their message show up between the various LCDs. The project is titled I felt as if I was at a ITP open house.

ArcAttack at Maker Faire, NYC 2010, pretty cool spectacle.

Amongst my favorite things that I cam across is the “mobile science laboratory” BioBus.

Studying biology inside and outside. The bus is geared up for lots of microscopic lessons.

DNA Extract Party!

And lastly, the cool roof top garden on top of the bus (you can just see the green tips), presents a proposal to the MTA to plant gardens on all NYC buses, or better on all buses world wide, to help the air quality.

The Temporary Travel Office has published a set of artist audio works as audio tours of sites in North America. Last winter, Ryan Griffis contacted me to contribute to the publication by revisiting Dentimundo, a 2005 project commissioned for inSite05 that investigates medical tourism in the form of US citizens traveling to Mexican dentists along the border for dental care that is unaffordable in the United States. For the project, I traveled the length of the U.S./Mexico border and met with dentists and patients to learn about this detail of the border economy and relations.

For the publication “Stories in Reserve,” I revisited all of my old files, photographs, interviews, research and writing to compose a narrated audio work. I recently received the publication that also includes America Ponds by Sarah Kanouse and Siting Expositions:Vancouver by Ryan Griffis, Lize Mogel and Sarah Ross. The publication includes a full color booklet with statements by the artists and translations of the works as necessary along with three CDs for each of the pieces. It’s a great little publication and worth checking out online for free – Volume One.

Nicolás Spencer N, produced a video documenting the various projects on view as part of the exhibition “portables” curated by Ignacio Nieto for El Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago Chile. The video is presented as a component of the exhibition since all of the projects are intended for the public space or for performance.