W.o.r.d.p.r.e.s.s.

[Yes I wrote it like that because I received a bunch of spam comments right after I posted it when I wrote it normal. Hmmmmmmm]
Wordpress is supposed to be AMAZING! SO EASY TO USE! Well, I thought I would install it and see if I could move my blog to my website. I consider myself to be pretty savvy, despite the fact that I don't really do any web design anymore. If nothing else, I am real good at following directions from a manual or readme file. So I install it. I set up a new database on my server, blah blah blah. When I go to actually install the database and USE it, I continually get the message in the image below. ARGH. I do some research (not too much luckily) and find out that the problem is Leopard. What the? Come on - NOW!?! STILL!?! Really this is too much. It turns out that MySQL still hasn't updated what they need to to work with Leopard. I realized that it was just too much crap to deal with just to 'test' it. I can wait - until they clear this all up. Of course by then I will have probably updated my OS to the next best thing.... Whatever. I am just bummed.

Beets

So, my friend always makes this great beet and feta cheese recipe. I made it for my parents once. Also, maybe even in the same week or something, I made another beet recipe. This one had carrots and topped fresh greens. My mom mixed them up and tried to make it the other day. Somehow the beets didn't get cooked and she completely forgot about the Balsamic Vinegar. I emailed my friend to get the 'real' recipe. This is what I received:

i always just threw together roasted
beets, goat cheese, fresth basil and beet greens, toasted walnuts,
olive oil and balsamic vinegar in proportions that seemed good to me.

I guess that won't help my mom much.

Aïda Ruilova

As written in my post below, this woman makes some short videos (which is súper exciting!!). Her website is a little difficult to navigate, but if you mess around enough, you can figure out how to actually watch the videos.

The shorties are pretty nice. She has taken a small group of sounds (or phrases) and had the actors repeat them in different manners. Simultaneously employing jolting jump-cuts as her editing method. This all makes for some uncomfortable videos - in a good way. The sounds and image edits are both very purposeful, which establishes a disturbing atmosphere. Luckily none of the videos are longer than a minute, thus this uneasiness ends quickly. Ironically, you will want to watch the videos again. I don't know about more than twice or thrice, but definitely twice.

I did some research on Ruilova and these works. Her inspiration comes from early vampire movies and 70's horror flicks. That seems appropriate.

Now. What is she doing? The videos have gotten longer as she tackles new projects (the short videos are almost 10 years old!), but they are still on the short side. She is young, was in the Whitney Biennial in 2004, and is continuing to show and make interesting work - yea for good art !!

She makes short videos

Aïda Ruilova.
Back in 1999 she made some very short videos.
My review to follow, but in the meantime - check out the site (see if you can find the videos....)

You Are a Perpetual Tourist

Finally, we have finalized everything!! Yipeeee! My next exhibition is You are a perpetual tourist. The reception is at the E.H. Fine Arts Center, Friday August 8, 6 - 9pm. I will be sure to blog the opening.

P.S. my internet connection is going to be better starting tomorrow. I will be able to blog a bit more often - hopefully I will have something interesting to report. ciao

Qwertyuiop

It started as a flip book. I asked several people
who have another native tongue to ask the
question, 'Where are you from?" in their native
language. Focusing only on their mouths, I video
taped the phrases. I am interested in the movements
of their mouths and the relationship to the
phonetics/pronunciation. I thought I would make
the flip books as travel phrase books. This mutated.
With the flip books in hand, I went out to the street
asking people to TRY to pronounce the phrases.
They flipped the book a few times and genuinely
tried to pronounce solely based on the mouth
movements they saw in the book.
I recorded these attempts.

While compiling another flip book, I decided to make
an animation. And having fun with AfterEffects,
I stumbled the above animation (Chinese-Mandarin).
I am now animating the others: Danish, Greek,
Korean, Norwegian, Polish, and Spanish.