nicole rademacher

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Watch it now!!! aSpecificProposal


Starting on December the 1st

From the 1st till the 5th, this five day videoart extravaganza will screen around 150 experimental, underground and obscure videos from more than 125 independent artists from all over the world. The festival takes place once a year, and this year it will have its official opening at the PaardCafe in The Hague - the Netherlands as well as at the [.BOX] in Milan - Italy. 
Watch my newest video aSpecificProposal with Kajza Ekberg.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

aSpecificProposal at Streaming Festival, 5th edition, 2010

aSpecificProposal, starring Kajza Ekberg, has been selected to be a part of the Streaming Festival, 5th edition, 2010 taking place online and at The Paardcafe in The Hague. The exhibition will take place December 1 - 5 and you can all watch it online - if you don't live near The Hague, that is!!!

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Chilean Video Art RIGHT NOW!

Back in June of this year I was invited to curate a session of videos for a First Friday at Hudson Beach Glass Gallery in Philly. Jenna Efrein, the events coordinator, gave me complete freedom with the theme. I thought long and hard and decided that I wanted to show some of what I have been seeing from the video art sector in Chile, thus "Chilean Video Art RIGHT NOW!" was born. While the selection for Hudson Beach was rich, I felt there was a cohesion among the pieces that was missing, so when I was given another opportunity to show them while I was in Paris, I decided to make another call for more work - to create a stronger and more complete selection. I continued to stress the diversity of the work, because I think that is something rich in the culture and landscape of Chile that also permeates to its art. The work was well received in Paris (at an underground space), but somehow I didn't think it would go any further, that is until I read an open call for the III Festival de Videoarte Camagüey.

I was perusing open call sites, as I do at least once a week, looking for opportunities to show some of my work. Initially I was thinking about which videos of mine would fit into the festival, but then I read the call a bit more completely: If you are interested and you are an indpendent artist, art gallery or art institution representative, a curator, an art critics or anyone close to these areas, it will be a pleasure to count on your participation. We encourage you to prepare a proposal for this Festival III Edition.
When I re-read the word "curator" I thought, it's hard to find festivals that allow open submission for their curated sections - so ... why not?! I made a DVD of Chilean Video Art RIGHT NOW!, filled out the application and sent it off - granted I was in last minute mode so I did end up literally running to the post office to make it there before 6pm the day of the postmark deadline.

That was in August. To be honest I kind of forgot about it, which is really the best way to be about these things, but lo and behold Sunday morning I received an email from a Ms. Teresa Bustillo inviting my selection to be a part of La Próxima Resistencia, which is the curated area of the festival where the videos are not a part of the competition but are screened/exhibited - with pleasure I replied!!

So here we are. I am waiting for a reply from DIRAC, the department of foreign relations for Chile; they give financial support for these types of trips - the problem is: it is the end of the year = no money left in the budget, but they are looking into it and we are crossing our fingers in hopes that I can go and represent the selection and the works. Either way this is a fantastic opportunity for all involved and it reminds me that it is important to GET YOURSELF OUT THERE!!! It's easy to forget that during the day to day hullabaloo.

Below you will find my curatorial statement (in English, currently translating it to Spanish and adding to it) and image stills with the artists' info.

Chile is the skinny country next to Argentina, at least that is what Chile always was to me until I finally visited for the first time in 2007. And it is true: it is a skinny country that shares a border with Argentina, but it also shares a border with Peru, Bolivia, and (a long one) with the Pacific Ocean. Its landscape is infinitely diverse, and visually clashing. These bizarre juxtapositions are also found in its capital city of Santiago where changing political climates and economic crises have placed one story homes built in the 30s next to 20 story condos built last year. Or perhaps you will notice it as you walk down a decidedly urban street where at almost any moment you can see the gigantic snow capped mountains towering above you. The visual (and political) contradictions, and sometimes confrontations, are present in the Chilean culture and thus in its art.

While Chile is a country with one foot in the developing world and the other in the developed, video art is still quite new on the curriculum. Before it was more common for these artists (i.e. Juan Downey) to go to places in the world where the community of video artists was blossoming. Now, this isn't necessarily so. There is a rich and diverse community of makers and educators. And enthusiasm is growing.

This program aims to show you exactly what the titles says - RIGHT NOW, what are video artists making in Chile? The eight videos in the program are as diverse as the Chilean terrain itself, creating a dialogue between looming capitalism and commonplace non-violent robbery, ideas of the absurd and thoughtful meditations on landscape. What is it exactly that they are making down there in that skinny country?

Nicole Rademacher
Santiago, Chile 2010


ERRORvideo 2
2009
1:54
ERRORvideos
(Esteban Cabezas & Joaquín Fernández)






Palomas
2009
1:00
Rafael Guendelman Hales








DOWNLOAD ERROR
2009
1:35
Terror Videos
(Rodrigo Dueñas & Francisco Schultz)






En tránsito
2009
4:32
Constanza Gazmuri










Dollar
2009
1:00
Macarena Molina











De la serie "la hora del te"
2009
1:41
Bernardita Bennett









Robo Sin Violencia
2010
3:47
Luis R. Hermosilla











De Potestate Maleficarum
2010
3:44
Pancho Schultz

Monday, November 8, 2010

Video Art For All (VAFA)

the Delay has been selected to be a part of the MOVEMENT VS NON MOVEMENT program for VAFA Exhibition 2010 in Macau, China. The exhibition will take place November 12 - December 3 at Orient Foundation, Casa Garden Temporary Exhibitions Gallery. The following is a list of the works (and artists) that the Delay will be presented with:

GIORDANA GUERRIERO, FRANCESCA MACCARRONE, PATRIZIA MONZANI, NICOLA TRABUCCO – Embers – Italy
NICOLE RADEMACHER – The Delay – USA
MURIEL MONTINI – Children’s Games – France
GIANFRANCO FOSHINO – The Waiting – Chile
DIEGO FIORI – Donate Silence – Italy

Video Art For All exhibition website.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Just a lil update.

Well, August is almost over and I feel like it just started. I have been super busy, so I thought I would take some time to catch you up and share some thoughts (this one is kinda long, so go get a warm-up on your coffee).

Since my return to Santiago I have been in contact with BLOC/Tutorías de Arte, which is an artists' space and educational residency - a really new thing here in Santiago. I would write more, but I am writing an article about them for I Love Chile (another new connection), an all English news and media source, and I want to save all the juicy details for my article (of course I am supposed to be finishing that up right now - perhaps I am using the blog post to get the juices flowing ... or to procrastinate - what would you wager?). The artists at BLOC have been really fantastic in talking with me and also in sharing their space with me. On the 15th I did a workshop there. It wasn't a personal workshop, it was part of my collaboration with AREA Chicago on their project Notes for a People's Atlas (the link is to the Chicago version).

The project is simple: AREA Chicago furnishes blank maps, basic outlines, of the city and the inhabitants fill it in. What can they fill it with? Anything. The idea is to get the people to make their city their own, to say that what is important to them (restaurants, places they walk their dog, sites of demonstrations, public sculpture...) are important for everyone to know - and then share those experiences, histories, and stories. When confronted with the blank map, most people just starred and asked for examples. This was great because we could show other maps that had been done - already starting to show other people's experiences of the city. Between the workshop at BLOC and smaller workshops done by volunteers with VE-global (a Santiago-based American NGO who I have been in contact with since April), about thirty maps, so far, have been made for Notes for a People's Atlas of Santiago, aka Notas para un Atlas por la Gente de Santiago. We should make more, Santiago !!! Thanks again, BLOC.


BLOC has also been a bit inspiring. They (and Die Ecke Gallery) hosted three Australian artists and one Aussie curator for 2 weeks. The ladies came to make work for an exhibition: Risk Potential - and then, of course, to have the exhibition; and they also presented their work (both past work and the work they made specifically for the show) last Monday at BLOC. It was a very thoughtful talk. The artists brought us through their process, allowing us to see the visualization of their thoughts, how they negotiate parameters and form for their work, and the place of "drawing" in their work. I have been trying to figure out exactly why I post these images from Fotolandia. Bridie Lunney, one of the invited artists, showed some photos as sketches - instead of the drawings and/or mark making that the other two artists shared. Now, I know I use video as a form of sketching, but I had never been aware that I too use photography as a form of sketching. I know, seems obvious, right? I guess sometimes you can be blinded by concentration of your own process. So, this talk was a big "Ah Ha!" moment for me, which are always delightful. But again, like I said above, I don't want to give too much away because this is all supposed to be a part of that article ...

I Love Chile. The media hub. I came upon it quite randomly - chatting with a former colleague on gmail. He had met the owner in a bar (one of those gringo bars that I don't ever go to because I am scared of my gringo-ness), and he was looking for contributors. At the time when I was chatting with my friend, I was looking for interesting things to do (that earn money, though I currently write pro bono). So I contacted him and met him the following day. He said that what he wants are people that are "excited about writing". That's me! I want to make some of the not-so-apparent things of Santiago to be a bit more inviting to us Anglophones. So I am going to write about all things artsy. Of course, like most of my projects, I start out with really great hopes, then I loose steam, only to find the momentum again, but at normal speed. That's where I am now: normal speed. I have only written one article (tragic, really) so far, but if I can crank out this one about BLOC - that will be two! And this week there should be lots of openings ...

Additionally, I have been weeding through the footage and photos from the bi-cultural project (we really need to find, if even, a working-title for this thing). I knew that we didn't have much - which has to do with the ambitiousness of the project and the time constraints for such an ambitious project. In other words, it was bad planning on our part, but that doesn't matter since it wasn't obligatory to finish the project during the residency. We have several hours of footage, but it really wasn't until the last meeting - maybe the second to last - where we got mostly usable footage. It all has to deal with building rapport, right? I really have to commend our participants for letting us into their personal lives. Now that I am watching the footage, even from the first meeting, it is very personal and intimate. I am excited about what the final product may be, but I do see that as being some time away.

More? Really? Yep. The video sketch below (that I posted the other day) is tied to an old project, one that I started a very long time ago, one that is very personal. It has taken some time for me to be more objective with the work/topic, so that I can make work rather than (just) therapy. Personal themes in my work come and go. Of course it is always personal, but not always directly related to personal events. Some of my first self-portraits were this: personal, self-reflective, raw. (Next time I'm back in Charlotte I will have to scan those and add them to the still in-process archive.) While these self-portraits were not about these events for the new piece (yes, I am being deliberately vague), there are ties. I wanted the same "raw-ness", but I don't want the work to be self-reflective. Instead I am looking to find points in the "story" that have a universal relationship, that while you may never have experienced these same specific events, you can relate them to your own personal events - empathy, basically. Perhaps that is what I am always looking for with my work, or what we are all looking for... Anyhow, I am once again tackling this project (I have a feeling that it will be a body of work rather than one or two pieces) - wish me luck! I'm looking at some of Sadie Benning's diary work, any other suggestions?

There is more going on, but that should tide you over for now. and yes, I promise to send a link to the article about BLOC and once I get a blog (for documentation) of Notas, I will also send a link.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

in FotoLandia ...

While continuing my study of lines and spaces,













I found some squares in fields today.













Just some ideas.













There will be time to edit later.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Looking and Finding


















I know, it's a vague title for a post. I am feeling vague.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Retreiving Humanity TONIGHT!!

Hi and sorry for the late post. I was internet-less for 2 whole days!!! I know, I myself was frightened for my well-being as well.

I was invited to collaborate with Parallel Flux on their Retrieving Humanity interactive performance and installation in Santa Fe, New Mexico TONIGHT! Many of you perhaps don't live in Santa Fe and won't have the opportunity to go, but I am sure that Parallel Flux will be documenting like crazy.

Retrieving Humanity will address the difference between viewing culture from the outside or engaging with it as a participant. The audience will be encouraged to explore these differing attitudes and test the traditional boundary between audience and performer by becoming a participant. Santa Fe Complex will be transformed into an immersive space with a promenade of six kiosks, each with unique video and audio from around the world. At the end of the promenade will be a large screen displaying a mix of this visual information.

As participants approach each kiosk they witness various live scenes from around the world: from my living room we will be transmitting an Once (which is a dinner, of sorts). The other participants are as follows:

Ipoh, Malaysia – Kamal Sabran

Brisbane, Australia – Rozina Suliman with LALITCS

Seoul, South Korea – Bo Kyung Suh

Lagos, Nigeria – Emeka Ogboh

Bern, Switzerland – Michael Spahr

Should make for an exciting event.

Please stay tuned for more updates about this exhibition and other things of the like.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

My how easy it is to forget how great museums are ...

I've been spending a lot time at the Centre Pompidou. I keep trying to "finish" the permanent collection, but have yet to do so. I think I have spent a total of 10 hours there, which is epic for me (my attention span at museums is getting better). So, all those art history lectures start swirling around in my brain again. Without being burdened by essays, or god forbid a quiz, I can concentrate on the work and reflect on its influence in my work - funny how that is;).

Pierre Restany. That's it, that's all I can to say. But I do want to post an article that was printed in Artforum International Magazine in 2003 upon his death. This is a reminder to me, and also I will be able to call upon this article when I please.

Object lessons: Nicolas Bourriaud on Pierre Restany - Passages - Critical Essay

"PIERRE RESTANY? A MYTH." That was Andy Warhol's laudatory reply when asked his opinion of the inventor of Nouveau Realisme, who died in Paris in May. Restany was much more than a curator or a critic as we understand the terms today: He was at once a champion of artists and an entrepreneur of concepts, which he defended with all the power of his conviction. He is mostly remembered for founding the movement, with Yves Klein, Christo, and Jean Tinguely, in the late '50s. Less known is his more recent and discreet engagement with a new generation of largely European artists--from Pierre Huyghe to Rirkrit Tiravanija, Philippe Parreno to Olafur Eliasson--in whom he recognized the legacy of his theories on "technological humanism," ecology, and the appropriation of the sociological real. At the end of his life, Restany surprised young, informed curators and critics with his geo-strategic analyses of art, particularly its globalization, a theme he had mastered through his incessant travels to the four corners of the earth.

His legacy? The conceptual tools Restany forged in the late '50s are still effective today in approaching the art of our time. In his 1960 essay "Le Nouveau realisme," he wrote: "The allure of an object, of the household rubbish or the scraps of the dining-room, of the unleashing of mechanical susceptibility, of the diffusion of the sensibility beyond the limits of its perception [represents] the common good of all human activity." Farther down, he defines these practices: Ours, he writes, is "the great republic of our social exchanges, of our commerce in society." Thus my interest in Restany, and his interest in me, when I began to think about relational aesthetics almost a decade ago: In my theories, he saw above all and not incorrectly--extensions of his own reflections on art and communication. The concept of relations allowed him to bring his globalizing and planetary vision of art, expressed more in lectures and roundtable discussions than in print, back into the public eye.

But the name Pierre Restany will remain linked to a now commonplace idea that was so explosive in the late '50s: "the expressive autonomy of the real." It was a coup de force: to start from the readymade in order to establish a vocabulary, to think of the history of art in terms of use. Nouveau Realisme was Dadaism considered as a tool. At a time when one spoke of "neo Dada" in reference to Johns, Rauschenberg, and John Chamberlain, Restany asserted that the new art would be situated "forty degrees above the Dada zero." In other words, Dada could now serve as a basis for a new vocabulary, well beyond any sort of revival. To Restany, art represented a "cleansing of vision"--that is, not a set of more or less well-made objects but an optical device that allowed us to look at the new world surrounding us, whether that meant supermarkets or streets. The European artists then associated with Nouveau Realisme went a bit further than their more aestheticizing American counterparts. Cesar, who left the composition of his works to a machine, was more radical than Chamberlain, who "arranged" forms. That is what the "New Realists" exhibition in 1962 at Sidney Janis Gallery was intended to prove, by comparing the European and American new waves; but the show was a misfire. (Restany would later say that his vision had been watered down by the dealer.) All-powerful in European critical circles but unable to forge good alliances in America, Restany lost his war against New York.

Throughout his life, Restany developed an ethical project summed up rather well by the term "technological humanism." He contributed to the Prague Spring by ensuring the flow of French correspondence to Czech art magazines, protested the Brazilian military by resigning from his post as a curator of the Bienal de Sao Paulo in 1967, and published Le Petit Livre rouge de la revolution picturale (The Little Red Book of Pictorial Revolution) in 1968. Above all, he was the author in 1978 of the "Manifeste du Rio Negro" (Rio Negro Manifesto), which inaugurated the artistic debate on marginal cultures and on ecology in art. From then on, Restany's career was marked by his shift to the so-called periphery. He spent more time in countries like Argentina and South Korea (where he organized a large contemporary art exhibition in 1988) more frequently than the United States, Germany, or even France, where he only recently received institutional recognition. But if that recognition was slow in coming, the future should be one in which Restany's legacy is shown to be much richer than we believed. Let's bring his books back into print and make a date for later this century--a century sure to be more Restanian than the one before.

Nicolas Bourriaud is codirector of Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Translated from French by Jeanine Herman.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Artforum International Magazine, Inc. COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group

Monday, June 7, 2010

Chile reconfiguration

Whoever said that you can't re-edit old work? Ok, no one, but anyhow. Have a - still yet to be officially officially confirmed - show at La Maison du Chili in Paris for July. I will be showing videos from You are a Perpetual Tourist (also known as An Infinite Ordered Set of Events, gosh that's confusing), but only ones that I shot in Chile.



While initially making this work, there was a round where I played with meshing the videos together. In the end, it never panned out, but I am definitely sure that for these particular ones, this is where the installation needs to be. Here is a simple sample, I have more intricate combinations I am working with. I will post another sneak peek one, the sequences are more firmed up - oh and one the show is more firmed up.

P.S. don't mind the pixelation.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

I have no idea what title to give this post.

So here I am, 2am and with insomnia - ok, not real insomnia, more like anxious thinking keeping me awake, but you know me: I like to self-diagnose. Lots of news and work to share - don't know where to begin.

The residency is going well. The project itself has had a lot of false starts (due, unfortunately to participants backing out or just simply not returning calls and/or answering emails - thank you to those of you who have), but I think we are finally getting going. Despite the material specifically for the project we have been researching in and around the city and we have each started our own projects. Matías has started these photo-portrait-collages. Not sure how to describe them, but once his website gets finished - they'll be up there and you can check them out. I have been doing some drawings, writings, and video-ing. Oh and I have been taking pictures. Ya know, taking in all that there is to offer here. And yet another "unfortunately" there is nothing sufficient enough to post, YET!

The drawings are based on gestures of couples: couples that I have seen interacting on the streets (then drawn by memory), or from images that I have taken. Some aren't even real couples, they are just a "couple o' people". The drawings are, of course, abstract - really, what would you expect?? I'll have to take pictures of a few and post them. [Yet, another thing on my list of things to do tomorrow - always tomorrow, but tomorrow really does get here quick!]

The photos are the same things you have always seen from me: funny juxtapositions, people on the street, pretty buildings ... I have been looking at them trying to find a camino, but one hasn't revealed itself yet.

The writings started as things on the computer, then mutated to actual physical writing in my sketch book (really, should I still call it that?? "sketch" when have you know me to sketch?), and then they became transcriptions from pretending that I am talking to an old friend (not anyone in particular, maybe I should choose someone).

Do you feel like this post is as anti-climatic as I feel it is? Oh well. I am in the smack-dab middle of the damn residency - what can one expect, really?

Oh the videos. These I am excited about. Not that I am not excited about the other things, but I feel like these have started to take a bit more form, even though I haven't actually touched any of the footage yet. Or maybe it is just because I think with these I am straying a bit from the gestures, or rather looking at them in a different way - AND starting to work with narrative again (that's how those texts started). In intimate situations (someone's home) I have been taking a lot of mise-en-scène (like how I am working on my French?) shots, which is something out of the norm for me. I have also been clandestinely recording these people's conversations. I don't know how this will all come together, but I like breaking out of my current usual. Who knows, maybe it won't turn into anything.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Alva Noë, again.



As I am updating some things on my website, without my original files, I have to find my references again on the internet. And so I am reminded of Alva Noë. His work/lectures are a great influence in my work.

I've embedded this from blip.tv.

Embodied Techne Series
02
Marlon Barrios Solano interviewed the philosopher of Alva Noë in his brief visit to NYC. He explains his line of inquiry on perception and action and why dance (and human movement) is relevant for the understanding of cognition. He also talks about his experience with the Lisa Nelson's "Tunning Scores" joint workshop and how certain approaches to dance training and composition can collaborate with science and philosophy in generating knowledge from an embodied perspective.

Enjoy.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

To Wait

I started a new video about a week ago. It is moving slowly. In part this is due to the fact that I am slowing down part of the video A LOT and then exporting that and slowing it down again, blah blah halb. And the other reason I attribute it to (besides having a million and one things going on right now, this video and Paris are only two of the many) is building a relationship with the video. It is about - get ready, this is new - perception. There is this waiting, this expectation, this subdued, controlled frenzy of anticipation. Then after the event the people scatter; there is a chaotic exodus. Basically I have been playing with cutting between the two, using two channels, changing speeds to introduce certain characters ... I think all three of them will come into play.



When I started this video, I wanted it to be a "quick-video" - you know, one of those that I make to make things happen, one of those that I haven't been able to make in over a year. Well, obviously this isn't going to be one of those.
I find something magical in this waiting that we are all so familiar with. The wait that leads to the let down, to the anticlimax. Children are notorious for embracing that wait. They don't even seem to notice it. The new toy, the new movie, the new episode, the new whatever. It happens, you see it, you buy it. And then, it is just over. The amazing part is that it doesn't bother them; thankfully, they still have yet to understand this particular type of loss.

Many of the adult situations of waiting are different (yet, I find similarities in weddings, graduations, and the like, but we will save that discussion for when I get my PhD in cultural practices and performance ... ha ha ha.). Perhaps with the anticipated flight (you know, the one to Paris) I am thinking more and more about my travel experiences: waiting just to wait some more. You wait to check-in, to wait to go through security, to wait to sit at the gate, to wait to board, to wait to sit on the plane, to wait for a drink or snack or movie or to use your approved electronic device, to wait to land, to wait to de-board, to wait to get your luggage, to wait to ...

Now that I think about it, I guess it is really the same as all the others, but there isn't a "celebrated" event around any of that waiting. Your anticipation is all about the arrival, and on the way to the arrival you have different stages of waiting. But it is that arrival that is key - because that is when everything changes.

Back to the topic at hand. Slow video.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

It's over.

Well, it is finally finished (Zapatos, that is). OMFs have been exported. Why OMFs? Well, your friend Nicole is a little green with the official protocols of movie making - oh, I remember a time when I thought I was gonna "snap" get a job at a production studio, sigh. The story is, that as hard as I tried to make it easier for the sound engineer, I should have just asked him - exactly what format do you want everything in? But I didn't. This of course caused me to have to go to the studio, hang out, chit-chat, and just create general camaraderie with the techs. In the end I figure it was better.

And now I have no excuses to get on the ball with my own work.

Mati is the executive producer for this documentary, that is still looking for funding. I came in at the end of his meeting with the director on Monday. It got me thinking about "Chapter One" or "Prologue" or whatever the hell it was that I was going to call the piece about finding my birth family and the hullabaloo (after using that word for the subtitles of Zapatos, I have decided that it really needs to become a part of our vocabulary again) around it - and of course still swirling around the event.

So, there is this genre of autobiographical documentaries, but the key is that even though these projects are COMPLETELY therapeutic for the director - how to make the piece without it only being therapy. I have written about it before - in sketchbooks and a few here on the blog. I am desperately looking for the "clave". But it isn't about looking, is it? I know that. I have always known that, but for some reason it is easier to keep looking - it's that procrastination trap that we all fall into.

Why am I into this "final thought" business???? The final thought for the post - GET TO IT!

Saturday, April 3, 2010

the Holy Weekend

Well, it is Easter (or I guess officially it is tomorrow). Here they play religious movies non-stop on all the TV channels. We have extensive choices ranging from Cleopatra (the 1999 made-for-TV-version), Moses: the Laws, Jesus of Nazareth ... I'm not quite sure exactly why Cleopatra is being shown - I guess her connection with the Roman Empire .... hmmmm. And needless to say they are all dubbed versions, which indeed is my favorite way to watch movies. In fact, I wish that every movie that I watch from now on would be dubbed - in any language - hell, in Quechua.



The good thing about this is that it is rather nostalgic for me, since I was subjected to Catholic schools for 11 years of my life and Sunday school before then. It is kinda delightful remembering the stories - and they are truly rich stories. I have even started picking out my favorite - King Solomon by far! He was everything a Jew was not supposed to be, yet king. His riches, the temple, his wives ... I do so enjoy contradictions.



Anyway, that's it, just a simple musing on nostalgia and the great stories that we (in the universal sense) have grown up with. I assume that every culture has their own counterparts. I bet if I googled King Solomon and equivalents, I would find many. Or Moses. Even thinking about it, Jesus.

Happy Easter - or whatever holiday you prefer to celebrate!

Thursday, April 1, 2010

The Video Ed It Or ... what?

I started the way I had started my most recent videos. Of course since my most recent videos are experimental documentaries where I look for and thus carve out the narrative and/or "experience" (can I be so bold as to use that word?), it didn't quite work out so well.

So I reorganized. Remembering a time when each cut needed to be planned. I did what I had done so many times before: logged each shot, making markers and then planning the edit. That got the job done - and pretty much only that. I soon realized that none of my "education" (I seem to be really unto using quotes lately) was going to help me. Experience was going to help me, but that was indeed what I lacked.

Often I think that given my age (32) I should be much more accomplished than I am, that my experience should be greater than my learning. And in many ways it is, but not for structured, narrative, cinema editing.

I keep struggling with trying to find the correct word for the difference between what my experience is and the experience that I am lacking. A word that specifically and perfectly describes it. What am I lacking? commercial style? cinema style? structured? Structured isn't it, because I have done structured work before (I know, many of you who went to school with me, or have had a look at my sketchbooks probably have very large question marks over your heads - structured? Nicole?), not too often, I have to admit - I am having a hard time coming up with LOTS of examples. Maybe the difference is that in my personal projects I never really envision the end product? - No, that's not it - because the rough cut we have now looks nothing like the rough cut we had before (the rough cut where I drew footage maps, cut, and combined). I don't really know what the difference is, but there definitely is one.

Maybe someone can help me figure out what difference is ... Anyhow. In the meantime, check out the preliminary maps and subsequent notes thus far.












OH WAIT! I almost forgot the moral of the post: never think too far ahead.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Residency at the Cité

Mati and I have an artist residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris this May and June.

Our project is vague. I mean, I figure that is ok, since the point is to develop the project during the residency and it will take more form between now and then and during then and after then.

Shall I copy and paste the proposal (in French)? Why the hell not:

Nous avons tous les deux un fort intérêt pour la communication et les méthodes de communication. Nous allons confronter nos idées et notre vision sur la perception et la réalité de la communication. En étudiant la façon dont les couples internationaux (c'est-à-dire les couples qui sont originaires de différents pays) surmontent la difficulté d'une communication simple et / ou des questions culturelles, notre idée n'est pas nécessairement de faire un documentaire, mais d'obtenir plein d'informations sur ce sujet à partir desquels nous pourrons construire notre exposition de retour à Santiago.

En outre, nous avons l'accord d'un couple, franco-américain (ayant des racines cubaines et mexicaines),qui vit actuellement à Paris.

This couple I speak of in the proposal, they don't really know that we are going to "study" them, and, honestly, I haven't decided if we should tell them or not (they are, obviously, friends of mine).

So, as vague as it is, we have started a blog (you can either click on the link on the left side panel or just click on the word blog - the latter or the former). Need I repeat that the project is in its infancy? Probably not, I have been pretty redundant about that - perhaps I am feeling inadequate. Oh well. Or should I say: tant pis.

The flights haven't been bought yet, but soon, yes soon. The residency is slated for May 3rd - June 28th. Ah, Paris in the springtime...

I no us preocupáis, esperem fer un viatge cap a BCN. Només cal treure una raó del no-res, vull dir una raó per "treball" és a dir del projecte. (Yes, google translate had to help me. Damn my català is so rusty, sigh)

Friday, March 5, 2010

3:34 am

I never really imagined what an earthquake was like. In fact, it took me a while to figure out exactly what was going on, with the blue glow of the moon through the bedroom windows, watching my house dance as if we were on a boat during a storm.

Mati was telling me - put on some shoes - get dressed - go outside. With no lights it was hard to find clothes and shoes. I ended up with a dress on over my pj's and Mati found a pair of my shoes for me.
I took the dog and just stood there on the sidewalk trembling, and kinda cold too. I watched as people popped out of their houses. The older lady next door stood on her doorstep smoking a cigarette. Eventually Mati found the flashlight and had surveyed the - lack of - damage in the house and joined me outside.
Sitting there I noticed the layer of dust, from the ground to above the roofs.

I immediately went inside to grab the cameras.

I never got a picture of the dust because I was too busy trying to document the fallen and sprawled things in the house.

Around 6am we fell back asleep. I remember asking Matías what magnitude he thought that was, he said 6. A friend called at 10am. That was when we found out it was an 8 or greater. We immediately got up and turned on the news.

As cliché as it is, the terremoto (earthquake in Spanish, just the sound of the word is fitting) has made me realize the more important things in life.

And seeing as we have now returned to life as it was before (minus a few glasses), I can't help but feel guilty (perhaps that isn't the right word to describe the emotion): this has been quite devastating for so many people, even here in Santiago, and we walk away with barely a scratch.

We watch the news the same as my friends and family in other countries; we gape at the horrible devastation. In the afternoon when we take our dog to the park, we walk by piles of rubble on the sidewalk next to buildings that look like nothing has happened, but the piles of bricks and plaster had to come from somewhere. I fail to understand the hardship of so many of the people around me. And that really bothers me.

We have turned off the news (that runs almost 24/7). Are we shutting it out? Going back to our lives trying not to think about those around us? No. It's the news. The images have been fearful and quite sensationalist. Letters by TV executives have been written to the newsrooms deploring them for their coverage over the last week. There was one (actually two shown successively) of a foot and then of a hand, both being torn from the destruction, both from bodies that have since lost their breath. These images put me between crying and vomiting.

The favorite word of newscasters and TV commentators has been "dantesca" (horrific, shocking, gruesome). While the journalist is interviewing people gathering water from the nearby lake in Concepción, because they have no running water - water that they have to boil and then add a few drops of bleach before they can consume it - tells them that this situation is terrible. These journalists are completely irresponsible! Firstly, the public knows that the situation is horrific, that is clear by the un-edited images that are shown. Secondly, the people living through the "dantesca" events know that this is terrible. Your responsibility as a journalist is not to tell them that or sensationalize it to the public more - placing more fear upon the events. Your responsibility is to observe, report, and document - objectively.

Ok. I have gotten off of my high horse. My next post will be about the trials and tribulations of editing a short film - or perhaps something else, but art related, I promise.

By the way, this epidemic of sensationalism in journalism is not Chilean.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Always a work in progress

Statement :

I am an artist, polyglot, promoter of polyglot-ism and creative-ness. Communication and language are vital in my work; they are the impetus. Gesture and perception are concepts that shape it. Hinting at longing and melancholy, my work asks the viewer to question how they perceive. With perception as a key concept, duration consistently carries a lead role in how my work takes form.

Audio-visually, I take leads from Peter Kubelka and Mona Hatoum, among others. Conceptually, anthropologists, cultural academics, and philosophers such as Claude Lévi-Strauss, Néstor García Canclini, and Alva Nöe give shape and inspiration to my work.

Recently I have been more interested in observation and allowing the story to tell itself rather than inventing characters, scenarios, and plots. I am a firm believer that reality is much more interesting than fiction, but we have to be alert to the stories it tells.

~Nicole Rademacher, February 2010.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

The Process of Padding Video

First, thinking back to that summer semester corset-making class in 2003, I lined up all my pieces, and then I went to town and stuffed the section. But, um, to my surprise I made a pillow instead of a section of a cozy.... ah the trials and tribulations that Nicole has making 3-dimensional objects (let us not forget that she is an architecture school drop-out).

No worries. I figured it out, and below is about half of it. Yes, I realize that I started it last week, and, really, I should be done, but I got an invite to go to the beach for the week and enjoy a bit of this thing called summer. So I put all on hold and jumped on the first bus out there!











Documentation and thoughts about impulsive beach trip to come.





















Friday, January 29, 2010

video camera snuggly-cozy

I brought my sewing machine down to Santiago with these lofty aspirations of using it. So these last two weeks I have bought some supplies. I have literally broken it out once, but I have been planning - I promise.
My lofty aspirations include: clothes, hand bags, eye blinder things, puff covers, and camera/external hard drive/laptop/ipod bags/sleeves/cozies.
I have been doing research online, looking for the perfect (free) pattern, but they all seem to be very "bag-ish" or how to reconfigure a messenger bag to be a super duper camera bag. But today, I got this amazing idea (insert sarcastic font): why not just make a wrap-like-thing for my camera!!!!
So I measured and decided which panels would be from which fabrics (the scraps) that I bought. Then at the bottom of my (still very small) supply bag, I saw my old socks. And you know me and (trying to) recycle old clothes ... so my next plan of action was to use the sock and make the padding for that - blah blah blah. That was until I tried to fit the camera in the sock. Obviously the thought part of it was profoundly more exciting that the result. Also considering I then realized why they were "old" (notice hole in the toe).
And then after documentation of setback, I realized that my still camera lens hadn't been cleaned in ages.

Well, back to cutting fabric.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Zapatos. cortemetraje por Matías Muñoz Rodriguez

My house has been turned into a production studio.
only for a few weeks.



















Monday, January 25, 2010

On entering

It was raw. Raw, but allowed you to enter in. It made me think about a prior piece I was working on - well several actually, that all revolve around the same thing: that story, you know the beautiful one that grinds something deep and fierce in me. Making raw work (or at least this piece) where people can still enter.

Is it enough to allow you to feel, and cringe, when the finger nails scratch slowly down the chalk board?

I want to make you cry with me, and I want to make you feel those deep and beautiful emotions that I feel - the ones that I still can't explain - the ones that are extraordinary and astounding - the ones that rub against each other to produce that spark. I want you to wash yourself in the bathtub and realize who you are. I want you to see yourself in the mirror and have it all make sense. I want you to see a picture and burst into tears. And not stop. I want your tears of confusion to pour down forming puddles on the bathroom floor. I want your wondrous tears to mutate into ones of spectacular joy. 

It was raw, like I said. Life is raw. Raw and crude.

Where do you enter? You enter in the sameness you feel, when the differentness has been broken down, when the exoticism has been surpassed because you know that this person is human too. And you think about your life, and how these events would affect you. You enter when you picture your reactions. You enter when it makes you treasure your own life whether because of the sameness or differentness. You enter when you see yourself  differently. You enter when the contact point has been made.

When you realize that you are not the only one and empathy trumps sympathy, that is when they enter, that is when you enter.