Serendipitous Misadventures

Common Ground: exploring domestic ritual in Kenya

2011-11-17T10:23:00.000-03:00

I just did a pre-launch for an indiegogo campaign!! Check out the video, I'm super proud of it!!! And the campaign is now in OFFICIAL LAUNCH MODE.

Help me GET THERE!! Join in the fun by contributing (I have a heirarchy of "perks" set up for monetary donations - you should note that my project is sponsored by Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. So contributions to support Common Ground are tax-deductible!!) and/or spreading the word.

JUST GO CRAZY! and send share this post, post/tag/comment in facebook, tweet about it ...

Other ways you can help is to get the word out there: word of mouth is the best!!

Visit my website: nicolerademacher.com
Like me on Facebook: facebook.com/nic.rademacher - if you haven't already ;)
Tweet about the project and follow me on twitter: @nicrademacher
Follow this blog: nicolerademacher.blogspot.com (I know, silly to post it here, but just in case)
Join the my mailing list to stay up-to-date on the progress of the project and my work!

THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT!!

6 - 12 November 2011

2011-11-12T15:43:00.000-03:00

What a week! Phew, glad it is over and with great results!!

First I want to share my photo contribution for this week to Eyes Everywhere (see link in the side bar or just click the words). Every month there is a new theme to collaborate on - from our separate parts of the world. November is SELF PORTRAIT: IN YOUR USUAL PLACE.

This photo was taken during the third shoot for my promo video for my SOON TO BE LAUNCHED indiegogo.com campaign to help raise funds so that I can GET TO KENYA... (those three dots are so that you know that more info is to come - same bat-time, same bat-channel)

Another exciting news item : the photo above was taken yesterday at Aguafuerte Taller de Dibujo y Grabado, where I am currently an artist-in-residence - developing a series of lithographs for "Potential Spaces". But this photo is with Chilean artist Mariana Tocornal. I've been invited to participate in an exhibition entitled "Seis=Doce" (Six=Twelve), organized by Paula Cortés, director, Galeria Espora (Santiago de Chile). The prints that Mariana and I will make (printed by master printer and Aguafuerte director Iván Lecaros) will be paired together as a diptych! Paula paired us together even though we didn't know one another before yesterday - of, that is a lie, we met briefly at a dinner party at American artist Melissa Wyman's apartment when she was living in Santiago. Anyhow, I think Paula has great intuition. Mariana and I chatted for a long time yesterday - explaining our work and process to one another. We definitely have a lot in common, even outside of the visual similarities. I'm super excited!! More news about this show to come. P.S. other artist pairings: Melissa Wyman & Iván Lecaros, Felipe Santander & Paulo Toledo.

That's all the update for now - I think... I hope didn't forget anything, I've been doing that a lot recently. Thanks for reading! Woot woot! If you haven't already hit "like" on my facebook page, please do! And tell your friends! Gonna make this residency at Lake Victoria Arts Residency Program in February/March HAPPEN and I am going to need all the help I can get to spread the word!

until next time ...

Taller Clik

2011-10-14T17:02:00.000-03:00

VE Global Blog Post
I know, I have to make you work a bit to see it, but in the meantime, I will leave you with some nice imagery made by these super amazingly creative kids that I work with:

Les Amoureux au Ban Public

2011-10-12T13:26:00.000-03:00

While in Paris, Matías and I worked with two bicultural couples who are both part of this group for the Potential Spaces piece. One of these couples is featured in this documentary. Please watch.

How to communicate in a digital age with no common language

2011-08-23T23:50:00.000-03:00

From a chat conversation with my friend at an artist residency in Beijing.

I asked him how he was getting on communicating himself.

his reply (translated into English) was:

for example, when I got to eat I take pictures and if I go back ... i them to them.

"por ejemplo cuando voy a comer hago fotos del plato y si vuelvo...se la muestro"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65987575@N03/6011654452/

2011-06-18T20:42:00.002-04:00

2011-06-01T10:32:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday I went to a march here, in Santiago, in support of stopping the construction of the HydroAysén in Chilean Patagonia. If you don't know what I am talking about I would tell you check out the New York Times, but from what I can tell (way down here) there has been little coverage of it in the States. Instead I'll suggest IPS News; fact there is an article that just came out today.

I took my camera with me, obviously - prepared for the worst. The protests here are usually riddled with destruction ... and tear gas. But surprisingly (and perhaps because so many children attended), it was peaceful (well, that is until night fell and the families left, but still there was less destruction than normal).

2011-05-24T11:20:00.000-04:00

For sometime I have always loved playgrounds, taking pictures of playgrounds, cross-processing pictures of playgrounds - empty ones - at night... The other day I started bringing my camera with me to the plaza where I take Fu twice a day. One day this dog showed up and behind came a girl calling him "manchas" (spots). When I thought about what "manchas" are I thought it was really cute and then I thought about the translation and I thought, "well, not original, but at least it sounds more eloquent.

She started climbing on the bars where I was taking decidedly boring photos but enjoying myself nonetheless. We had a long discussion about the monkey bars - one of my favorites as well.

I snapped this at the beginning of our discussion. The colors are rich and it is as if she is in the middle of a kip or perhaps she is just floating.

Yesterday

2011-05-03T10:57:00.000-03:00

Just a quick thought about recent global events:

Yesterday I received an email from the US Embassy in Chile, to be more cautious: "the enhanced potential for anti-American violence following recent counter-terrorism activity in Pakistan. Given the uncertainty and volatility of the current situation, U.S. citizens in areas where recent events could cause anti-American violence are strongly urged to limit their travel outside of their homes and hotels and avoid mass gatherings and demonstrations." Ok, granted I don't actually live in a country where "recent events could cause anti-American violence", but it begs the question - why are we celebrating on the streets? what the hell did we win? More fear?

What I didn't have time for, but really wish I had.

2011-04-30T18:47:00.000-03:00

Olafur Eliasson
Documentation of the exhibition at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 2010

Earth Rotations

2011-04-14T17:17:00.000-03:00

As many of you know I have been collaborating with a collective photo project since July 2009: Eyes Everywhere // Ojos por todos lados. It was started in January 2007, by Elizabeth Ross (Mexican artist) and Ayanna Jolivet McCloud (American artist); they invited other women artists, spread through out the globe, to participate: to dialogue each week through images. Every week the artists post images from their location. Every month the theme changes. The project has involved artists from Mexico, USA, Spain, Uruguay, Malaysia, Argentina, the Netherlands, Dubai, Austria, Norway and France.
The image here is my post for this week (it's a sneak preview - do you feel lucky?? it will be officially posted on Saturday). The theme this month is "Earth rotations": We normally say that the sun sets up and down. I [Agnes, the artist who proposed the theme for April] say the horizon sets up and down. Can you [the other artists who participate] with your pictures let us see how the earth rotates by the means of simple observations?
What a challenge. The first week I posted a thoughtful, yet rather boring photo. Last week .... um I was a very bad collaborator and I didn't send my image in on time. But this week, this is my image and I think it says a lot about earth rotations, life movements, and how nature affects us.
Obviously in nature itself you can see this evidence (hence the photo), but this photo - or this theme, rather - has led me to delve a bit further and question where this is evident in my own personal work. Small things/events, gesture - considering gesture as a supposedly insignificant thing, or perhaps better stated "unnoticed". My research is about the unnoticed, but nevertheless perceived/received.
Gosh, I don't know if I really have a point, but I wanted to share this - this week's EYES photo and my thoughts about my image, with you. Maybe this logic only makes sense to me ...
I hope that you can take some time to think about the unnoticed changes that you have experienced recently - or long ago.

Where am I?

2011-02-23T10:28:00.001-03:00

extra sound for Verano

Apparently I am now a once a month post-er. Slack, I know. There has been lots of action here in the skinny country next to Argentina.

Summer came in a threw me into "action-mode", and I will soon have my acting debut - ha! I was an extra in the next film by José Luis Torres Leiva, called Verano.

Nevertheless, juices started flowing and I have picked up speed on several projects and added a few others in case I get bored.

Along with working comes writing and reflection. The bicultural couples piece (as you can see from the image) is turning into prints - very much in process, but I like where they are going. The lost files and then recovered corrupt ones - from my images in Cuba, opened me up (because sometimes you forget about all the possibilities) to new thoughts and ideas with this material.

in-process BiCultural

While many of the images were recovered without damages there were several that were corrupt. They weren't just corrupt, they were mixed with other images found on the drive. Obviously this led me to think of this mixing and colliding in the bicultural couples piece (I really need a better title, suggestions welcome). So, manually, I have been going through the photos, finding moments - similar to the moments I looked for in the You are a Perpetual Tourist video series. But now I am stripping away and collaging. Like I said, these are in-process, so the stripping away part is what has got me hung up a bit. What am I stripping away? I haven't figured out why I've turned to that method. Anyhow, the image below is one of the "inspiration" images from Cuba and some-other-photo.

corruption inspiration

Meanwhile in the land of Nicole, which sometimes becomes a fantastic land of looking for new and interesting ways to procrastinate, I have started a food blog - you will notice the new link on the left. It is aptly called "FOOD". Currently it is hosted by Wordpress, because at first it was just a distraction, but I am now taking it seriously and improving my food fotography skills.

food fotography

I am planning on moving it to a sub-domain of my website (and this blog too), which do you prefer: food.nicolerademacher.com or kitchen.nicolerademacher.com? The crappy thing is that Wordpress makes you pay to redirect your blog to a subdomain, so I guess I am just going to have to reconstruct it - good thing I just started it.

Ok, so I can't guarantee that I will be posting every day (such a love/hate relationship with you, blog-o-mine) or every week, but I will be posting more often.

Using improv as material

2011-01-26T11:40:00.000-03:00

Originally I was writing a post about process, in particular my process, meanwhile I would take breaks - since I can never focus and just do one thing anymore - to work on this new piece. Actually, I am not so sure it is a piece as an investigation.

Do you ever do that? I think it is kind of like tinkering, right? You find something interesting so you have to take it apart part by part and play around with different combinations - to keep the creative juices flowing. So that is just what I started doing. The video is by no means complete - as with all the videos/work I post here, but again it is a thought, a way of tinkering.

It all started when I began to help my friend prepare a DVD portfolio (the friend in the video). As I was asked to do something traditional with an improvisation, I began to realize that as the camera-girl I not only needed to do something traditional, but also improvise. So, we made the traditional video for her portfolio and now I am re-examining the work, looking, tinkering with her movements. It is an exploration of movement and gesture as an explicit symbol, not as an unconscious, yet deliberate, communication.

(don't mind the interlaced-ness) I am thinking about the relationship of dance to pedestrian movement, the ideas that dancers and choreographers use interpreting themes, concepts, ideas as movement and the relationship that these ideas have to quotidian movements - as a viewer, as image, as moving image.

Rather than consistently resisting traditional practices and opting for experimental, this work is accepting of a more linear way of thinking. I see this as another branch, an extension, of my work. I hope that it will organically open itself to ideas of a more experimental nature in due course.

Watch it now!!! aSpecificProposal

2010-12-04T20:45:00.001-03:00

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.

aSpecificProposal at Streaming Festival, 5th edition, 2010

2010-11-14T22:11:00.000-03:00

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!!!

Chilean Video Art RIGHT NOW!

2010-11-09T13:47:00.000-03:00

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

Video Art For All (VAFA)

2010-11-08T23:13:00.000-03:00

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.

Just a lil update.

2010-08-29T23:53:00.000-04:00

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.

a Sketch, a thought, something I am following

2010-08-25T10:31:00.006-04:00

in FotoLandia ...

2010-08-07T20:52:00.003-04:00

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.

Lines n Spaces

2010-08-05T22:38:00.001-04:00

Looking and Finding

2010-08-03T00:59:00.005-04:00

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

Retreiving Humanity TONIGHT!!

2010-07-30T16:39:00.006-04:00

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.

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

2010-06-24T04:00:00.005-04:00

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

Chile reconfiguration

2010-06-07T19:02:00.004-04:00

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.

Photo Thoughts: France: round "un"

2010-05-31T16:30:00.003-04:00

I have no idea what title to give this post.

2010-05-25T19:59:00.002-04:00

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.

Alva Noë, again.

2010-05-08T09:59:00.002-04:00

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.

To Wait

2010-04-21T10:35:00.005-04:00

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.

It's over.

2010-04-14T12:15:00.001-04:00

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!

the Holy Weekend

2010-04-03T13:20:00.003-03:00

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!

The Video Ed It Or ... what?

2010-04-01T16:27:00.005-03:00

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.

Residency at the Cité

2010-03-17T01:07:00.004-03:00

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)

3:34 am

2010-03-05T10:52:00.013-03:00

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.

Always a work in progress

2010-02-17T12:22:00.000-03:00

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.

The Process of Padding Video

2010-02-06T10:40:00.009-03:00

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.

video camera snuggly-cozy

2010-01-29T15:15:00.003-03:00

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.

Zapatos. cortemetraje por Matías Muñoz Rodriguez

2010-01-28T17:39:00.000-03:00

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

On entering

2010-01-25T23:47:00.000-03:00

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.

Claude Lévi-Strauss

2009-11-22T13:13:00.004-03:00

1908 - 2009

Now you can actually flip through them!!

2009-11-21T22:00:00.000-03:00

Yipeeeeee!

I published my books on issuu.com andit gives you this fancy-schmancy flash movie to embed everywhere!!!

Watch out everyone!! I just might start producing my own online magazine! - ooh what a great idea! what should it be about?

Ok. Longing & Distance: through gesture:

and Milwaukee after coming to Milwaukee from California:

or alternatively you could view the pages on my website: Longing and Milwaukee

Well, it is all pretty fancy, if you ask me.

Just a lil' revamp

2009-11-17T23:15:00.000-03:00

As you can tell from the face-lift on this-here blog, I did a lil' revamp to the design of my website. Nothing drastic, just updating the design a bit, since it was a year old.

It is, of course, much cleaner, and the lines make more sense.

Let me know if you have any thoughts!!!

www.nicolerademacher.com

The poetry of the documentary

2009-11-17T12:21:00.002-03:00

Paul Chan made this beautiful documentary of Lynne Stewart in 2006.

Here is an excerpt:

Watch the whole video.

Not just Etgar Keret

2009-11-14T18:24:00.005-03:00

So here I am: lazy, sunny, spring Saturday afternoon (in the southern hemisphere). Randomly between working on things, looking for opportunities, cleaning up the house, and chatting with friends online. WBEZ again, I just can't leave Chicago behind. This American Life, again - it IS addicting, isn't it? (damn there is that question tag that I told the Brits that I just simply don't use!!)

So, Ira Glass (who my friend Paula has a devastating crush on) is interviewing Etgar Keret. I was introduced to Keret's work by a friend of mine, well, a former student, she's kinda like my lil' sister - but a dear friend nonetheless. Obviously this headline: Ira Glass interviews Etgar Keret caught my eye. I clicked on all the numerous clicks (perhaps there were just two) to get to the video - I thought, when given the option, "Damn, the video would be better than just the audio." My, how I am so adjusted to the media . . .

The clicks led me to the video, which wasn't just the video of Etgar Keret, but of a lot of interviews. And the interesting thing is that the Artist in Residence at the NY Public Library (Flash Rosenberg) draws during the interviews. Hence the video is her drawings. I don't want to give any adjectives - that would just spoil the fun. Watch the video. Or download it and fast-forward to certain parts. It is rather long, but there are some gems.

Here is a preview - with John Lithgow (personal favorite)

Or watch the whole thing from the NY Public Library.

VIDEO ARTE Y LA INTERSECCIÓN CON EL DOCUMENTAL: charla de Nicole Rademacher

2009-11-12T09:23:00.003-03:00

Presenta
Félix Lazo, profesor de Arte Digital y Video Arte, Escuela de Artes Visuales Universidad Mayor.

VIDEO ARTE Y LA INTERSECCIÓN CON EL DOCUMENTAL
Charla de Nicole Rademacher, artista estadounidense que desarrolla obras con nuevas tecnologías, se dictará en la Facultad de Arte de la Universidad Mayor.

La actividad se realizará este 13 de noviembre, a las 12:00 horas, en la Catedra 1

Nicole Rademacher es una artista que trabaja con nuevos medios de comunicación, empezó a estudiar arquitectura, pero recibió una beca de la Escuela del Instituto de Arte de Chicago en 2004, hizo su Maestría en artes electrónicas integradas

Su trabajo está inspirado en la comunicación y en la falta de comunicación, pero en realidad su interés principal es la percepción.

Ha exhibido su trabajo internacionalmente en Festivales de Video Arte como Transmediale, LOOP Video Art Festival, re-nuevo foro de arte digital, Streaming Festival, Colonia OFF, y Primavera Fotográfica, entre otros.

LA ENTRADA ES LIBERADA

El enigmático mundo de Nicole Rademacher

2009-11-09T12:39:00.003-03:00

A fantastic post by Antonio Lirio Barajas (professor of Digital Video at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona) about some of my videos.

sí es en castellano ....
http://uklanor.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/el-enigmatico-mundo-de-nicole-rademacher/

un artículo ....

2009-10-30T22:03:00.001-03:00

Invitada por el Departamento de Artes Visuales:

Artista estadounidense dicta charla en Sala Adolfo Couve

Este martes 3 de noviembre, a las 11:00 hrs., Nicole Rademacher dictará la charla "Activado por la percepción" en la Sala Adolfo Couve de la Facultad de Artes.

"Cuando abordo una obra, nunca sé en qué medio voy a trabajar", dice Nicole Rademacher sobre su metodología de trabajo.

Enlaces relacionados
	Sitio web de Nicole Rademacher

"Activado por la percepción" es el nombre de la charla que Nicole Rademacher, artista estadounidense que desarrolla obras con nuevas tecnologías, dictará en la Sala Adolfo Couve de la sede Las Encinas de la Facultad de Artes. La actividad se realizará este 3 de noviembre, a las 11:00 horas, con entrada liberada.

"Últimamente, y también en las obras que voy a presentar, mi interés está en la intersección de la percepción con la comunicación. Es decir, en cómo la comunicación -en el caso de mi trabajo, el gesto- es percibida. De esta manera, abordo la comunicación ubicada en el gesto", explica la artista estadounidense Nicole Rademacher, Licenciada en Bellas Artes de la School of the Art Institute of Chicago y Máster en Artes Electrónicos Integrados del New York State College of Ceramics (NYSCC) de la Alfred University.

Será ella quien este martes 3 de noviembre, a las 11:00 horas, dictará la charla "Activado por la percepción" en la Sala Adolfo Couve de la Facultad de Artes. Invitada por el Departamento de Artes Visuales de la Universidad de Chile, la artista estadounidense presentará y hablará sobre algunos de sus trabajos y sus relaciones con la percepción. "La idea era armar una charla donde pudiese presentar mi trabajo ante los estudiantes. Tengo muchas ganas de trabajar con los alumnos, pues en mi país trabajé con estudiantes en dos universidades y me faltaba ese tipo de interacción en Chile", dice.

Esta mujer, que reside hace poco menos de un año en nuestro país, comenzó a trabajar con nuevas tecnologías a partir de su desplazamiento desde la fotografía, transición que, según cuenta, "fue muy orgánica". Y agrega respecto a su metodología de trabajo: "Todo es una parte del proceso. Cuando abordo una obra, nunca sé en qué medio voy a trabajar. Son las ideas las que me propulsan hacia una técnica u otra, y había momentos, en obras previas, en los que las ideas necesitaban algo distinto; éstas me llevaron a buscar otras maneras para realizarlas, manifestarlas, desarrollarlas".

Sobre el título de su charla, Nicole Rademacher explica que lo vio "como una oportunidad para reflexionar y resumir mis ideas para la charla. Entonces, vi que el ímpetu de estas obras era simplemente mi interés en la percepción. Entiendo que está mal dicho, pero al final del proceso, tratando de traducirlo bien, sin perder algo, decidí que soy gringa, por lo tanto, está bien tener un título un poco mal dicho. Además, eso es uno de mis intereses de la comunicación-mal comunicación, que no es posible traducir todo perfectamente y ni siquiera entender perfectamente (eso me encanta). Por lo demás, sólo es un título, lo más importante es el contenido de la charla".

La charla "Activado por la percepción" se realizará, con entrada liberada, este próximo martes 3 de noviembre, a las 11:00 hora, en la Sala Adolfo Couve de la Facultad de Artes (Las Encinas 3370, Ñuñoa). Sobre las expectativas de esta actividad, Nicole Rademacher concluye: "Espero que algo de lo que diga o muestre pueda desencadenar algo en los estudiantes, relacionado con sus trabajos y/o estudios en general".

Texto: Isis Díaz López/ Periodista Facultad de Artes

Visiting Artist Lecture at the Universidad de Chile

2009-10-30T10:12:00.002-03:00

Desde el otro lado

2009-10-29T17:40:00.002-03:00

close and f a r a w a y

2009-10-28T00:20:00.004-03:00

uP and Down

2009-10-25T22:09:00.004-03:00

Video Takeover: Borna Sammak's "Best Buy"

2009-10-13T15:19:00.004-03:00

origianlly posted on rhizome.org: By Ceci Moss on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 10:30 am.

Borna Sammak's debut solo show "Best Buy" took place last night for an exclusive two hour stint in the Soho location of electronics mega-retailer Best Buy. Thirteen of his vibrant and hallucinogenic high-definition "video paintings" were displayed on every single television on the lower level floor, making for an incredible (and gloriously surreal) sight. I snapped a few photos of the installation, below. To read the full backstory behind the show, check this interview with Borna Sammak and curator Thomas McDonell, conducted by artist Kari Altmann.

Alva Noë interview June 2008

2009-10-03T20:27:00.001-04:00

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

Nothing

2009-09-22T11:25:00.004-04:00

I feel like I have nothing and nothing is going absolutely no where.

Nothing seems to make sense, but I keep looking for something. I don't think you can see the subtleties of this video with this resolution. There is disturbance, something unsettling. It feels like nothing.

I am hoping that this nothing will manifest towards something, if not into something. Every ten minutes I have, I watch it again. I move things. I write. I try to make sense of why I keep toying with this footage. Is it the footage or the idea?

Just a little bit every day, right? That will steer the gray matter.

a Chilean September 11th

2009-09-13T14:08:00.004-04:00

We were on our way to a barbecue, to commemorate the day that the Pinochet took power in 1973 and many people went missing, were killed, tortured ... The idea of this happening is foreign to me. The smiles and lollipops land warns of terrorism and "fights" it abroad so that it will never reach our soil. It is so removed from my consciousness.

So the bus we took passed by Estadio Nacional: one of the torture camps run by the dictatorship. The stadium is still used today for soccer games. To me, I thought that was horrible - the American that I am who must sensationalize everything, but the Chileans explained it as "moving on", not allowing the past to dictate what we do in the present. Anyhow, we were passing the stadium and the bus stopped and I said, This is what September 11th is - as we watched the vigil. Do you want to get off?, Mati asked me. We jumped out of our seats and out the door.

in fact, I know.

2009-08-06T14:06:00.005-04:00

I realize that my last few posts have not only been few and far between, but also much more like news announcements (actually, they have been just that) rather than blog posts. I don't like it either.

Life is funny though. Even when you are seemingly not busy, these things that you enjoy so much, seem as though you can't do them. Perhaps your brain won't relax enough for it to happen, or perhaps you just feel that you want to give it your all and you just simply don't have the time for it. But all the while, you truly aren't that busy ...

The winter here in Santiago is rough. It isn't really that cold, especially considering the time I spent in Chicago and Alfred, but it is bone cold inside the buildings. Energy gets sucked from you. I find myself overcome with exhaustion in the middle of the day. I even make "I'm cold" sounds, when it isn't that cold - just habit, by now, I guess.

The pollution will wipe one out as well. I come home and am amazed at how dirty my clothes have become after just one wear. Every time I wash my hands, I almost cringe at the dark, black, and gray running water from them. I try to keep my nails as short as possible otherwise the dirt and grime gets stuck, almost immediately upon leaving the house.

You would think that after the loooooooong and hard winters I have endured in other places (mentioned above), the mild weather conditions would be welcome. And yes, they are! I enjoy the fact that I don't need a winter coat, my fall jacket and a scarf work just fine. But with the experiences mentioned earlier, I am all too eager for spring to show its face. Do they have Groundhog's Day here?

I have said before that Santiago is a city of contradictions. Its winter is more proof of my very premature theory.

New on VideoChannel: One Minute Film Collection (OMFC)

2009-08-06T14:01:00.002-04:00

VideoChannel - video project environments - is happy to launch on 3 August 2009 another highlight online.

OMFC (One Minute Film Collection) is an ongoing project initiative chief curated
by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne featuring at its start
67 films and videos with a duration of exactly one minute.

There are several thematic sections. Here is where "the Delay" is found:

A Matter of Time (rather appropriate grouping for it, don't ya think?)

Johanna Reich (Germany), Anders Weberg (SWE), Ron Diorio (USA),
Bill Domonkos (USA), Xenia Vargova (Bulgaria), Alison Williams (SA)
Walter Van Rijn (UK), Nicole Rademacher (USA)
Baptist Coelho (India), Milica Rakic (Serbia)

Final Program for Macau

2009-07-23T20:10:00.005-04:00

Exhibition: Human Emotion Project (HEP)
Venue: AFA @ Portuguese Bookshop Gallery
Date: August 8 to September 5
Hours: 11AM to 7PM
Media: Video
Curator: José Drummond

Video is one of the most prolific visual mediums in use today. The Human Emotion Project (HEP) Macau selection links together more than 40 voices from all over the world. Presented in 4 weeks, each with a different program exploring different topics.
“Paradox”, “Loss & Desire”, “Transformation” and “Fantasy” are the chosen topics for understanding video art, its own multiplicity and the reunion around the imaginative subject of The Human Emotion Project (HEP).

Paradox – August 8 to August 14
The artists in “Paradox” investigate the contradictions between documentary and performance, fact and fiction, order & chaos. What is real and what is staged? The absurdity of real life, the ambiguity of movement and the enigma of space are some of the perceptions raised in “Paradox”.

Dave Swensen Until Death Parts Us 01:23 - USA
Nicole Rademacher Walk With Me 01:16 - USA
Khairy Hirzalla Looking for 01:54 - Jordan
Hakan Akcura Catharsis 05:25 - Turkey/Sweden
Larry Caveney Arm Wresting Intervention 08:51 - USA
Kim Miller Thanx for Meeting Me Here 03:11 - USA
Vienne Chan Nightdance 05:53 - HK/Canada
Basmati Corpus Tracks 05:17 - Italy
Irina Gabiani Samaia or Triamzikamno 06:26 - Luxembourg
Xenia Vargova Tutu 03:10 - Bulgaria
Ng Fong Chao Redemption 10:55 - Macau

Loss & Desire - August 15 to August 21
“Loss & Desire” explores the ambiguity of misplaced feelings from the philosophical aspect to the emotional. The strong deficit of engagement, the desire for connection and the interior struggle for clarity are permanent in each work.

Gaia Bartolini Unseen Dialogue 07:21 - Italy
Daniel Chavez Self Examination – I Am Nothing 02:38 - USA
Wilfried Agricola de Cologne Silent Cry 03:05 - Germany
Richard Jochum Mama 01:34 - USA
Alison Williams Cage-panic 01:46 - RSA
José Drummond The Skeptic 02:13 - Macau
Debbie Douez Two in One 03:18 - Spain
Manfred Marburger Proud 02:15 - UK
Gili Avissar Self portrait-Dead artist 00:34 - Israel
Jose Drummond The Illusionist 01:58 - Macau
Masha Yozefpolsky Deep Freeze - Israel
Bianca Lei Won Ton noodles, I love …… IT ! 13:00 - Macau

Transformation - August 22 to August 28
The power of “Transformation” is a vibrant and integral part of our lives. The mystery of life changing, the spirituality of isolated gestures and sounds and the manipulation of these elements compose a space of reflection and intimacy.

Amina Bech Tranquility Inverted 03:40 - Norway
Bill Millett The Book 06:46 - UK
Anders Weberg Undisclosed beauty 03:13 - Sweden
Glenn Church Fragility 05:33 - UK
Alison Williams/Anders Weberg Mirror mirror 02:30 – RSA/Sweden
Christy Walsh Isolation 03:28 - USA
Alberto Guerreiro Transcendent 04:30 - Portugal
Alicia Felberbaum There and Back 02:47 - UK
Sue Pam-grant Portrait 03:26 - RSA
Danny Germansen Alienation & loneliness 01:59 - Denmark
Alice Kok The Duet 03:21 - Macau

Fantasy - August 29 to September 4
“Fantasy” draws inspiration from the apparent fascination of lively graphic imagery. The looping of the modern era, the provocation of literature, the encounter with the fantastical and the employment of technology contribute to the process making of these visual stories.

Adamo Macri OOC 05:51 - Canada
Ebert Brothers Bluescape 02:57 - Germany
Verena Stenke/Andrea Pagnes Crossing 02:44 - Italy
Robertina Sebjanic Bubble 06:02 - Slovenia
Niclas Hallberg The Crying Man 01:23 - Sweden
Michael Chang Concerto Azzurro 06:10 - Denmark
Paolo Bonfiglio Mater 07:20 - Italy
João Ricardo Scarleet 07:04 - Portugal
Cindy Ng Walking 09:25 - China

Sleep

2009-07-18T21:50:00.000-04:00

I've been sleeping a lot lately.
I used to always remember my dreams, at least right after I woke up. Now I find that I don't. All that seems to remain is a sensation of the last feeling that I had.

Eyes Everywhere

2009-07-13T11:26:00.003-04:00

I am participating in a new project: Eyes Everywhere (Ojos por Todos Lados).

Eyes Everywhere is a collective photo project in which women around the world dialogue through images. Every week artists post images from their location. Every month the theme changes. The project currently involves artists from Mexico, USA, Spain, Uruguay, Malaysia, Argentina, the Netherlands, Dubai, Austria and France. Every Saturday images and place speak, not words.

The images posted from Santiago de Chile are mine.

Enjoy!

What the rain brought

2009-06-29T19:59:00.009-04:00

The past week has been dreary, rainy, gray, and cold.
Starting Friday night and not letting up until late Saturday evening we had an utter downpour.
But after the rain, the smog cleared and the view was magnificent, spectacular, and, yes, breath-taking.

The city was quiet (ok, fine, it was a holiday anyway). I think I saw smiles on people's faces - even though I suspect that the Chileans barely notice their fantastic physical location (this is backed-up by an experience the last time the rain cleared the smog: ¡Mira la vista! I said. ¡Tan bonita! ¡Impresionante! my chilean friend's response was, ¿Qué?)

New Media

2009-06-28T01:44:00.004-04:00

I think this one speaks for itself:

or maybe you can't see all the digital cameras ------------------------>

Gesture and Contrived Realities

2009-05-26T00:52:00.008-04:00

Much of the last week has been spent remastering and re-exporting videos for the web. As mentioned in yesterday's entry, I finally uploaded videos to my vimeo profile. And of course I am using them (well, the ones that have better quality) for my site - ah free bandwidth.

This has given me an extraordinary chance to truly look at the videos I have made over the years (even the in-camera edited one from 2002 - or maybe it was 2001). I found that even though I find text and language fascinating, I rarely use it in my work - or the dialogue that is present, I have not employed for its meaning, but rather for its noise or symbolism.

In When I grow up ... in particular, the words hold no meaning on their own, they tell no story. They story is in the gesture, in the symbolism, in the nonsense.

Similarily in día, the words only give the viewer reference to time of day and place in the world. The story is told through the order of the shots, the repetition of the actions, the gesture and acting.

This continues through every video, up to my most current work - where my MFA thesis (of 2008, which I think I may still be battling with) specifically and opening looks at gesture and its ability to tell a story - to construct a story, in fact.

I started constructing my stories through gesture, and now I document the gestures and allow them to construct their own stories. The gestures lead me to tell you what I see.

Walk with me, for instance, was nothing more than boredom on my friend's balcony in Barcelona. I saw that the women were walking in sync. I tried three times to get the right shot. I used their motions to guide me through the editing, to direct me (rather than me being the director), to reveal their story to me and thus to the viewer.

I am putting together (aka writing) a proposal for a residency, here in Chile. I have been looking at my work and the work of others (in particular Eija-Liisa Ahtila [just google her]), trying to make sense of things - ya know, in a cohesive and somewhat logical fashion. I always knew that something was missing from that series of 62 videos, but the question was: what? My thesis committee (and other faculty members) pushed me to figure that out. Unfortunately, things come when the come for me - be it slow or immediately. The missing part for this came about a year too late. I think I am a late bloomer when it comes to things of the mind, but that is besides the point. So, they pushed and pushed, and what came out? Writing: semi-poetic writing about the videos, attempts to explain in English what I saw and felt, an attempt to give the viewer more direction on how to see my work.

An aside would be how I feel about "telling" people how to see my work, but we can save that topic for another post - preferable one that isn't at almost 2am.

All in all, I think that what I wrote during those months (see thesis books) is very valid. In fact, that is where I am at with this body of work. I am interested in sucking the narrative out of the videos and finding the words. After the words have been extracted, I will need to refine them, to let them show me how their story plays out.

Well, I guess I should try to get some sleep. Any thoughts, as always, are welcome.
.

Vimeo - for real!

2009-05-25T13:03:00.001-04:00

So I finally uploaded videos to my vimeo account.

You can see all the new ones and some oldies. In fact you can see the entire version of día ... aw memories...

re-new 2009

2009-05-18T00:18:00.003-04:00

It opens tomorrow (or later on today, if you are in Europe)!!

Interruptions (2007) and Walk with me (2007) will both be screened on the Monolith: a 6.72 meters wide, 11.69 meters high, and 1.50 meters deep video screen made from 10mm SMD LED video tiles with an embedded, hi-powered d&b PA system.
It all looks pretty sweet!

I am very excited to be included in the festival. Below is a list of the other artist who have work that will be screened on the Monolith as well:

Paulo Barros, Giulia Berto, Bruno Bresani, Vienne Chan, Marina Chernikowa, Giada Ghiringhelli, Tilman Küntzel, Hye Yeon Nam, Murat Onol, Alex Potts, Nicole Rademacher, Elizabeth Riley, Michele Santini, Raoul Simpson, Marcel Wierckx, Mattias Wright, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Salla Tykkä, Marita Liulia, Fanni Niemi-Junkola, Anders Weberg, Andreas Bertilsson, Eva Olsson, Gustaf Broms, Mai Hofstad Gunnes, Endre Tveitan, Auður Jónsdóttir, Sigurdur Gudjonsson, Magnús Árnason, Patrik Svensson, Jorgen Skogmo, Simon Løvind.

(d)espere in Armenia!

2009-05-12T08:16:00.001-04:00

CologneOFF - Cologne Online Film Festival
http://coff.newmediafrest.org
is invited to present a selection from
VideoChannel's One Minute Film Collection
http://videochannel.newmediafest.org/blog/?page_id=242
on
7th International Film Festival Yerevan/Armenia
One Minute - One Shot - 17-24 May 2009
www.accea.info

CologneOFF - One Minute Film Collection I
Special selection -duration 22 minutes
Curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
Presented on
7th International Film Festival Yerevan 2009
One Minute – One Shot – 17-24 May 2009
1. Sonja Vuk (CR) –> My Way, 2005
2. Antti Savela (SWE) –> Mother, 2008
3. Kaspars Groshevs (LAT) —> Tomorrow, 2007
4. Agricola de Cologne (GER) —> Burning Phantom, 2009
5. Wolf Nkole Helzle (Ger) - Egoshooter III, 2008
6. Nicole Rademacher (USA) - (d)espere, 2006
7. Fumiko Matsuyama (Japan)–> “An Application As Self-portrait”, 2005
8. Yoko Taketani (Japan) –> Wall of China, 2008
9. Antony Rousseau (FR) –> Sanatorium, 2005
10. Sean Burn (UK) eyes ov honey, 2009
11. Lukas Mateijka (SK) –> 20m, 2008
12. Katherine Sweetman (USA) –> Dating in LA, 2008
13. Grace Graupe-Pillard (USA) –> Photobooth Snap - Months into One Minute, 2008
14. Kriss Salmanis (Latvia) –> Shower, 2007
15. Toni Mestrovic (Croatia) –> Continuum Continuus (Trailer), 2007
16. Lin Fangsuo (China) —> White, 2008
17. Roderick Coover & Nick Montfort (USA) —> J.R., 2007
18. Luisa Mizzoni (IT)–> “When I’ll grow up”, 2000
19. Anders Weberg (SWE) —> “Dejected”, 2008
20. Sahra Bhimji (USA) —> “La Ghost”, 2008
21. Harald Rettich (Ger) Portrait of Alex, 2008

UPDATESupdatesUPDATES

2009-05-02T21:02:00.002-04:00

I recently updated my bio and statement online (long over due, really).

What do you think?

bio:
I was born in one place, but grew up in another. Then, I left the latter. I consistently swap cities and/or continents. Currently I find myself in Santiago de Chile. My work work relies on these alterations of my physical and cultural environment.
I have worked in several different mediums. My education started in architecture and engineering; soon I migrated to photography. Between photography and video: I switched continents (twice), learned Spanish, and developed some installation tendencies (amongst other habits). I received my BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, finally, in 2004. Almost forthwith, I swapped Chicago for Nantes and then Nantes for my first love, Barcelona - all the while developing my practice and learning new media. Recently, I completed my MFA (New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University) in Electronic Integrated Arts where fusion and synthesis forced focus (perhaps it was the freezing climate, too). Hovering in "new media", my work tackles communication in all of its varied forms.

I have exhibited and screened work mostly in North America and Europe, but most recently in Asia, Australia, and South America as well. See NEWS, RESUME, or BLOG for the latest info.

statement:

My point of departure in my artistic practice is communication and language. Language reveals itself in a menagerie of embodiments: spoken, written, body, ... I look at these forms, dissect, and shift them. My interests span from an unintelligible utterance and a fleeting hand movement to the complex grammatical structures that exist in spoken languages that have no written form.
My videos hint at longing and melancholy. I observe and show you what I see, how I see it. Walls and distance (between the viewer and the subject or between "characters") are ever present. Duration consistently carries a lead role, but the characters have not been cast.

RePost from Rhizome

2009-05-02T19:33:00.004-04:00

This is a re-post from Rhizome (if you don't know what rhizome is, you really should).

After the Amateur: Notes

By Ed Halter on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 1:00 pm.

Film, video and photography once fell easily into two categories: professional or amateur.

Professionals mastered their crafts, often through guild-like programs of training, and sought to make a living from their abilities.

Amateurs learned on their own, or through informal clubs of like-minded aficionados, and pursued their arts for reasons other than money or wide-ranging prestige.

Professionals pursued careers. Amateurs pursued hobbies.

Professionals made images for public consumption. Amateurs made images for private use. (“The amateur is not necessarily defined by a lesser knowledge, an imperfect technique…but rather by this: he is the one who does not exhibit, the one who does not make himself heard.” Roland Barthes, “Réquichot and the Body,” 1973)

Corporations created products specifically geared for the amateur in mind—simplified, less expensive, stripped-down versions of professional equipment. Thus Kodak introduced the Brownie in 1900, initially priced at one dollar. Later in the century, 8mm and then Super-8 were promoted to the home-movie market; more adventurous amateur filmmakers took on 16mm.

Technology marketed for amateurs generally did not require as much skill or training as professional equipment. Most amateur gear produced what would be considered a lesser image quality by professionals—in the case of motion pictures, a smaller strip of film than the industry-standard 35mm, thus capable of only lower resolution.

Amateurs were those who did not need to learn, or learned only what they needed.

Professionals demanded certain levels of technical precision in order to reinforce their status as professionals. Amateurs might strive for similar levels of precision, but failing to achieve such a goal would not, of course, preclude their status as amateurs. (Nonetheless, to paraphrase Barthes, there would be no contradiction to say that someone was an “extremely skilled amateur.”)

One can fail to be a professional, but one cannot fail to be an amateur.

Where the artist fit into the scheme of amateur versus professional became open to debate.

In the American avant-garde cinema, filmmakers chose to align themselves with the amateur. They sought to reverse conventional value judgments of professional over amateur.

“The very classification ‘amateur’ has an apologetic ring. But that very word—from the Latin amator, ‘lover’—means one who does something for the love of the thing rather than for economic reasons or necessity. And this is the meaning from which the amateur filmmaker should take his cue. Instead of envying the script and dialogue writers, the trained actors, the elaborate staffs and sets, the enormous production budgets of the professional film, the amateur should make use of the one great advantage which all professionals envy him, namely, freedom—both artistic and physical.” – Maya Deren, “Amateur Versus Professional,” Movie Makers Annual, 1959

“The day is close when the 8mm home-movie footage will be collected and appreciated as folk art, like songs and the lyric poetry that was created by the people." – Jonas Mekas, “Movie Journal,” The Village Voice, 1963

“[I] have come to be called a ‘professional,’ an ‘artist’ and an ‘amateur.’ Of those three terms—‘amateur’—is the one I am truly most honored by… Why have they come to make ‘amateur’ mean: ‘inexperienced,’ ‘clumsy,’ ‘dull,’ or even ‘dangerous’? It is because an amateur is one who really lives his life—not one who simply ‘performs his duty’—and as such he experiences his work while he’s working—rather than going to school to learn his work so he can spend the rest of his life just doing it dutifully.”— Stan Brakhage, “In Defence of Amateur,” 1971

The adoption of the amateur contributed to a greater post-war project: the dissolution of borders between art and everyday life, or more specifically (pace Parker Tyler) art and lifestyle.

Filmmakers celebrated the separation of art from commercial enterprise, repositioning this separation as a kind of freedom, both spiritual and formal. For filmmakers like Deren, Mekas and Brakhage, the amateur was a true “lover” of film who engaged with the technology in a passionate fervor of poesis rather than within the impersonal structures of the capitalist industry.

For photography, however, critics looked differently at the relationship of the artist to the amateur—perhaps because amateur photography enjoyed a longer, broader history as a hobby, akin to painting watercolors and throwing pottery.

Art photographers were often professional photographers who created non-commercial pictures on the side. They brought professional standards to unusual or evocative subject matter (e.g. Edward Weston, White Radish, 1933).

“In photography’s early decades, photographs were expected to be idealized images,” Susan Sontag wrote in On Photography, published in 1977. “This is still the aim of amateur photographers, for whom a beautiful photograph is a photograph of something beautiful, like a woman, a sunset.” For Sontag, the amateur strives merely for conventionally pretty pictures, and not beyond that. The amateur photographer is the baseline of photographic aesthetics, above which both professional and artist must rise.

Writing on MOMA curator John Szarkowski’s 1966 exhibit and book The Photographer’s Eye—the first major curatorial endeavor to mix established art photography with supposedly non-art forms like journalistic photography, home pictures, Victorian cartes de visite and so on—Janet Malcolm read the event as a threat to the newly-won integrity of art photography:

“Perusing The Photographer’s Eye is a shattering experience for the advocate of photography’s claims as an art form. The accepted notion that in the hands of a great talent, and by dint of long study and extraordinary effort, photography can overcome its mechanical nature and ascend to the level of art is overturned by Szarkowski’s anthology, whose every specimen is (or as the case may be, isn’t) a work of art. (Malcolm, “Diana and Nikon,” 1976)

Malcolm and Sontag both wrote on photography at a time when the form saw an unprecedented boom in gallery sales and exhibition. Suddenly making a critical or curatorial judgment on a photograph could have an actual monetary value.

2b.

Despite hopes and fears that, as part of the post-war involution of high and low, the amateur would overturn the professional, in contemporary everyday parlance “amateur” has ultimately resisted reclassification into a term of praise.

When we today criticize artworks as “amateurish” we (still) mean: naïve, studenty, dilletantish, unlearned, uncouth, unworthy of exhibition.

But—while we might praise artists themselves for being “professional” (that is, easy for curators to work with), we use equivalents of the same word as dismissals: we don’t like work that is “too slick,” “too commercial.” Or even: “too self-aware.”

Unlike Deren, Brakhage, et al, we live in a society in which the role of the artist has become largely professionalized. That professionalization occurs at the level of the MFA program, and by extension, the academic convention of the Curriculum Vitae.

The culture of MFA programs: a simultaneous embrace and disavowal of professional status, even as the degree functions specifically to enforce and validate a categorical distinction from the amateur.

(amateur = “too sloppy”, professional = “too perfect” ?)
(amateur = “not careful enough”, professional = “too careful” ?)
(amateur = “not finished enough”, professional = “too finished” ?)

While amateurishness and slickness can be recouped as conceptual maneuvers, a distancing and thus partial disavowal of one’s own production, this gesture itself might be denounced as “too studied.”

Investigate the category in order to abandon it: does “amateur” still work as a descriptor for user-generated content on the internet?

If artists can take apart obsolete technology, critics can take apart obsolete vocabulary.

Look through the idea of amateur as a different approach to the idea of defaults.

We can still find traditional “amateur photography” online (flowers, sunsets, nudes, etc.) but this isn’t the kind of work that artists engaged with the internet are drawn to. Perhaps we need a new category of “sub-amateur” or “ultra-amateur” to describe what’s happening.

Theories create names for patterns. The main goal of introducing a category like “sub-amateur” is not to impose a taxonomy (this is sub-amateur, that is amateur) but rather to begin to develop a more nuanced vocabulary to discuss observable tendencies.

But first—to backtrack:

In “Diana and Nikon,” Malcolm finds it necessary to use another classification, distinct from “amateur,” to describe a new trend in art photography of the 1970s. Now, she writes, a generation of photographers takes as its “starting point, model, and guide…the most inartistic (and presumably most purely photographic) form of all—the home snapshot.”

“The attributes previously sought by photographers—strong design, orderly composition, control over tonal values, lucidity of content, good print quality—have been stood on their heads, and the qualities now courted are formlessness, rawness, clutter, accident, and other manifestations of the camera’s formidable capacity for imposing disorder on reality—for transforming, say, a serene gathering of nice-looking people in pleasant surroundings (as one had perceived it) into a chaotic mess of lamp cords, rumpled Kleenexes, ugly food, ill-fitting clothes, grotesque gestures, and vapid expressions.”

The price of a snapshot’s ease is a loss of control. The world seeps back into the frame like the messy monsters of the unconscious.

Thus, “Robert Frank’s terrible Polaroid pictures of his friends are like anyone else’s terrible Polaroid pictures”—save, Malcolm argues, for the Duchampian valence that emerges in the gallery context.

As Sontag or Deren defined them, amateurs are lovers of beauty. They invest a certain level of devotion to the technologies they employ—so much that a talented amateur may achieve the same level of technical sophistication as the professional, even if they miss the subtlety of art.

But as the very word reveals, the snapshot is the epitome of photography at its most automatic (its “most purely photographic”—but only in one sense). Snapshots are the result of corporate interest in broadening the market for photography as widely as possible by lowering the learning curve for the successful use of cameras.

Similar motivations can be found in film: the devolution from 35mm to 16mm to 8mm to Super-8 to the video camcorder to the webcam is driven by a desire to increase user-friendliness and decrease the need for learning the technology.

The ideal camera would be one that involved no training whatsoever. Lack of formal control is traded for the assurance of image-capturing. This is the greater socio-economic mechanism that produces the default.

This historical process allows for—and encourages—the removal of the amateur’s “love” that had always been implicated in the devotion necessary to learn the technology.

The amateur enjoyed spending time with the camera, and thus could become caught up in its formal possibilities; the sub-amateur sees the camera in terms of pure and immediate functionality.

Nietzsche valorized a “belief in form, but disbelief in content” in aphorisms. The sub-amateur prefers a belief in content, and a disbelief in form.

The artist appropriating sub-amateur practice often chooses to reveal this forgotten form.

Consider some familiar examples of contemporary internet art.

Guthrie Lonergan’s Internet Group Shot (2006) reveals that the snapshot imposes its own social defaults. The convention of the group shot becomes a non-technological default setting for the snapshot.

Double Happiness’s Baldy Steady Peepin (2009) ignores the functional center of the photographic set—the water-skier—in favor of the tops of heads peeping into the frame. They become enigmatic and funny in their repetition—as if the trend constituted an accidental formal default.

Oliver Laric’s 50 50 (2007) makes visible formal differences between a social-default convention of the YouTube lip-dub: variations in image and sound compression, lighting, and composition become as individually expressive as the performers themselves. These elements had been, of course, invisible or irrelevant to the original creators of each clip.

Petra Cortright’s vvebcam (2007) exposes the gap between defaults and emotive expression. Dancing pizza slices and zapping electric arcs clash with the user’s blank stare back into the monitor as she records herself.

The practice of re-reading errors and automatic settings as formal elements was already apparent in Malcolm’s 1976 discussion of the snapshot as Duchampian fodder. “Removed from their normal context of the playroom wastebasket,” she writes, artists’ snapshots “assume the aspect of elegant, ironic studies of pattern, light, texture, and special relations.” She implies that a non-artist’s snapshot would do so just as well.

A quote from Lonergan’s lecture We Did It Ourselves! that can be read as contra Malcolm: “I’m in love with the struggle of something real coming through this structure.”

Defaults reveal personality or other aspects of reality—perhaps even truth—despite being defaults, rather than merely providing analogs for the formal conventions of art.

Perhaps a peculiar frisson emerges in work that does both things simultaneously, quivering between the cool form of art and the warm touch of reality.

These notes will not fall into the critical trap of simply stating, “I recognize this. It has been done before.”

Lonergan’s definition of defaults from his lecture : “Using the most widely available software for the creation of content—like MS Paint or iMovie or YouTube or Google—at the most basic user level, mostly in the way they were meant to be used, relying heavily on built-in presets.”

The concept, he said, emerged from his interest in “certain qualities” made visible from “normal people participating in this DIY internet thing.” The shift from a DIY music subculture to a DIY internet mass culture.

If the idea of defaults grows specifically out of software-based technologies, then the concept of the sub-amateur is about how that tendency already began with pre-digital technologies such as still and motion picture cameras. (Doubtlessly the concept could be extended to music production, graphic design, perhaps even writing.)

In his talk, Lonergan pointed out the webpage ChrisReid’s Super Soaker Collection, saying, “I really like how he presents this collection.” (Barthes’s observation that the amateur is “the one who does not exhibit” clearly no longer applies to the sub-amateur.)

The point here is not to look at ChrisReid as a latter-day Eugène Atget, producing a compelling, art-like formal exercise in the course of workaday documentation.

Rather, the photos must be seen as equal to the data provided in his Excel spreadsheet. The fascination comes from the absolute lack of aesthetic property, in the pure use-value of the image, rather than ironic misrecognition.

The phenomenon of defaults point to the end of the amateur, and the emergence of a new category that has always lurked within it: one that completely ignores the formal properties of images in favor of their raw instrumentality.

In order understand the sub-amateur, we need not a vocabulary of forms, but a vocabulary of functions.

Ed Halter is a critic and curator living in New York City. His writing has appeared in Artforum, Arthur, The Believer, Cinema Scope, Kunstforum, Millennium Film Journal, Moving Image Source, Rhizome, the Village Voice and elsewhere. From 1995 to 2005, he programmed and oversaw the New York Underground Film Festival, and has organized screenings and exhibitions for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Cinematexas, Eyebeam, the Flaherty Film Seminar, the Museum of Modern Art, and San Francisco Cinematheque. He currently teaches in the Film and Electronic Arts department at Bard College, and has lectured at Harvard, NYU, Yale, and other schools as well as at Art in General, Aurora Picture Show, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, the Images Festival, the Impakt Festival, and Pacific Film Archive. His book From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games was published by Thunder's Mouth Press in 2006. With Andrea Grover, he is currently editing the collection A Microcinema Primer: A Brief History of Small Cinemas. He is a founder and director of Light Industry, a venue for film and electronic art in Brooklyn, New York.

Would you like to read the original (even though this is an exact replica)?

Au revoir

2009-04-24T22:14:00.006-04:00

I had to say good-bye to piece of metal that had resided in my mouth since December 31st 2004.

It took him three sessions to kill all the nerve, to scrape it all out. By the end of it the right side of my face was tender, sore, and not happy. The last session took place on New Year's Eve. I went to a réveillon that night, being that I was in France, and could only give half of my usual kisses, as my right side was too tender to share the New Year's love with the traditional 4 kisses allotted in Nantes.

Eventually it healed. But I always had this metallic taste in my mouth.

About a year later I went to the dentist again (this time in Spain) because, as I learned, I was grinding my teeth during my sleep. She took some x-rays. Her, not so positive, comment about the work of this particular root canal was, "no está mal" (it's not bad). The stress was placed on "mal" as if to say that it was close to "bad" but not quite there, perhaps if I [I'm talking as if I am my dentist] inspected it more I could use the word "bad" but, for the moment, I will stay with the thought that it is not "mal", but perhaps could be - how 'bout I just don't look at it any more then we don't have to find out if it is "mal" or not?? Yeah, let's do that!

Later I returned to the States. Dental care wasn't included in my student health plan, but my mother found a dental "plan" for me. So, I paid some hundred and fifty dollars or so - just in case. A sunny yet bitterly cold Friday in February of 2007, I went to the Foundations class I was TA for even though I hadn't gotten much sleep because I was awoken at 2am, or so, with a horrible toothache and couldn't get back to sleep. By noon I had taken more than the recommended amount of Ibuprofen that an adult should take in a 24-hour period. I went to health services and they gave me a list of dentists in the area - none of whom would accept my dental "plan". I found one 35 minutes away (by car) that could see me in a few hours.

After some prodding and an x-ray I was told that I would need a root-canal (for the tooth next to my expensive metallic French accessory - that was the trouble-causer this time). I have to admit, it was emotional: I had instant memories of the three excruciating sessions I had endured at the end of 2004 with its neighbor. Using some muscle relaxation techniques, I finally calmed down and called my mother to lend me the thousand dollars to pay for the procedure.

It was simple and not even really painful, uncomfortable, but not painful. They used a dental damn and hence I slobbered all over myself. Needless to say, crying and slobbering in front of complete strangers is a humbling experience.

But, the dentist mentioned the French neighbor. He couldn't be certain, but there seemed to be either a shadow or an infection on the French gum line. There seemed to be missing bone. Missing bone? But he wasn't sure if it was an infection or a shadow?? That sounded fishy. He said the only way to find out would be to cut off the crown and have a look. Hmmmm. Another thousand dollars (or more) to see if there was something wrong was not in my budget. Funny enough in January of 2008 the crown popped off while in Chile (on vacation). I inspected it - no infection that I could see!! I went to a "drive-thru dentist" and got the crown re-cemented on.

Full-time jobs come with benefits, and sometimes those benefits include dental coverage. In November of 2008 I went to get my teeth cleaned (that was the only thing on my agenda for that visit). While spending a long time chipping away at plaque, the dental hygienist thought there might be something funny with that number trente; so, an x-ray was taken. A similar fickle diagnosis was given. This dentist wanted to monitor it. Unfortunately I had to tell him that I was moving out of the country in two months. I got a copy of the x-ray and went abroad.

Mid-March, while eating a chocolate breakfast bar (not for breakfast), I felt something small and hard in my mouth. It was conspicuous because these particular breakfast bars didn't have hard and crunchies. I skillfully sifted through the food with my tongue and fished out the culprit: a small piece of tooth colored porcelain. I looked in the mirror and I could see that part of my "half porcelain/half metal" French accessory was missing some porcelain. Curious as it was, I wasn't too concerned. I decided that this would have to wait until my new dental benefits kicked in (May). I just brushed, flossed, and swished with Listerine more often.

But after a few weeks I just couldn't knock that newly strong metallic taste in my mouth. I got concerned. I decided to go to a dentist. Of course I forgot to bring the copies I had made of my x-rays, so new ones were taken. "Está tan claro como agua" (It is crystal clear), my new Chilean dentist said (yes, this is the fourth country that has dealt with this tooth or its neighbor, who I think only had a problem because of the shotty job that was done with Trente): the post that was put in penetrated the tooth into the gum and has been eating away at the bone. He saw that directly from the x-ray. I have had 3 x-rays of that thing since the horrific and terrifying experience of late 2004.

That's besides the point. So, we talk about my options: cut off the French accessory, clean out the problem, replace the post, mend the hole, get a new ALL PORCELAIN crown - yeah, there was only one option: do it. Luckily he is a friend of a friend so I only paid about half of what it would really cost, but nonetheless it is still an enormous amount to pay at one go. I paid it. At least this time I didn't have to do any muscle relaxation techniques or call my mother.

The procedure is taking longer than I expected. He gets out a small blow torch. He seems to be rushing a bit. I felt pain. He gave me another shot of Novocaine directly into the tooth bed. Turns out the implicated post that penetrated into my gum was made of Mercury. So, there was more blood than expected and a nerve had been pinched, which is what caused my pain. All in all, the French job was more botched than expected.

Since the repairs have been made, I have had a temporary crown that, of course, split in two the second day. Don't worry, I got that replaced. Now I am waiting for my perfect, purty porcelain crown to arrive.

No more metal for me.
.

Reflections

2009-04-18T23:41:00.004-04:00

Snapshot of our imaginary life superimposed on our actual life.

Connections

2009-04-18T22:36:00.007-04:00

There are two worlds (well, really there are many, but it is easier to focus on two at a time). They are supposed to be the opposite of one another, to create the friction. They are supposed to contradict one another, to build the plot. And they do. They always do. But it seems to me that it may be more interesting if you looked at the intersections, at their similarities.

I can't quite work out how they fit together, but I know that they do; I can feel it, like when you can feel mucus drip down your nose when you are in the middle of an important meeting. What do you do? Stop talking and search for a tissue? Sniff? Keep going? Either way you know it is there. nagging. always nagging.

Usually I just start digging through my purse while I am talking. Nose drip is too important to ignore.
.

Santiaguino Contradictions (one of many to come)

2009-04-12T17:53:00.003-04:00

Looks kinda like a collage, doesn't it?

Translation notes

2009-04-05T09:59:00.003-04:00

Hallucinogenic complex = Drug paraphernalia

I was recently asked to translate a Code and Conduct and Health and Safety Regulation pamphlet. I am not a translator. I have translated before. I do a pretty good job. I do a better job when the jargon is at least in my field of expertise.

So, it got me thinking: you read "hallucinogenic complex" and understand what they are trying to say. Maybe "drug paraphernalia" doesn't immediately come to mind, but either way you get it. But, once "drug paraphernalia" is said (or occurs to you) suddenly everything becomes clearer.

I read the Normas de Orden and I understand what they are trying to say, but it remains in this abstract realm (which I am completely comfortable with), until I find the correct translation (sometimes I have to look for synonyms then leave the phrase/paragraph for a while until the correct way to say it in English dawns on me). It all becomes abundantly clear when this happens.

I am not sure if it is my faulty and severely-gapped knowledge of Spanish or just a peculiarity of my personal thought proceses; in any case I am not sure what I am getting at.

This has just been a recent observation I have had about translation...
.

Santiago de Chile

2009-03-30T02:03:00.005-04:00

Santiago is a city of confrontations and contradictions: the architecture, the people, the politics, the religion(s). It sounds like an overwhelming and unconsidered statement, but it has been swimming around in my brain since I arrived.
The people are open and hospitable, like none I have ever seen or met. Yet, there is this an astounding feeling of separation - from you and them and amongst themselves. There is a middle class, unlike many South American countries (so I have heard), but the separations between the classes is much greater than I am used to. There is a clear divide between the haves and the have nots. There is a clear divide between the mountains and the sea, that is where Santiago lies. There is a clear divide between the architecture of the 60s and now, hmmm yet they are situated right next to one another.
There is a quite uneasiness with the history of the Pinochet regime (I realize this is a very touchy subject here) and yet, there isn't. I definitely do not understand how all of this is.
The balancing act is precarious, yet they seem to almost cancel each other out. They are hiding something. Or are they?
I need to investigate.
I almost feel like I cannot post this.

Just some thoughts

2009-03-26T20:05:00.005-04:00

Some of you may be wondering just what is it that I have been up to on the other side of the world.

I've been thinking (amongst other things). I thought I would post a few thoughts. Still working with the lil' fuji - I love the exposures, but I certainly don't luv the un-user-friendly-ness of the menus. My new LUMIX should arrive in the next week or so. Hopefully the menus will be easier to navigate.
Additionally this lil' lumix will give me access to better shots. Why? Santiago (and Valparaíso) are notorious for pickpockets and theives of the like. The smaller the camera, the less conspicuous I look. I hope the camera is all that the reviewers said it was....
You may be wondering what you are looking at. Well, there is the fish market, Kate, a certain perspective in Valpo, somewhere on Irarrazaval (yeah, took me a while to figure out how to say the name of that street correctly) waiting, an almost deserted beach after days of rainstorms in Chuy, Uruguay, some debris from a day of neglect in Uruguay (before the rainstorms), and just a corner house with the Andes in the background - respectively.
I figure, even if I don't really have the time to make work, I can at least work visually through ideas.
Do you think I should write more so that all of the images have some text in between them? Hmmmmmm......

Alfred University in LOOP Video Art Festival '09

2009-03-25T20:46:00.005-04:00

It's done! It's done!! We (Victoria Bradbury, Stephanie McMahon, and I) watched 56 videos last Friday night and chose 12 of them to participate as the Alfred University 2009 Selection for the Programa de las Escuelas at the LOOP Video Art Festival in Barcelona, Spain this May (May 21 - 31). It was mighty difficult this year, I have to tell you. But we finally made some decisions and here they are (in the order they will be screened):

Stephen Rooney, Surreal Alfred in Winter, 2008, 4:25
Gia Michael, anx, 2008, 2:43
Colleen Keough, aggwessive, 2008, 1:47
Terese Longva, RE-producing the Original Me, 2008, 9:09
Woody Packard, Why I am Late, 2008, 2:49
Jason Bernagozzi, Recitation/Reception, 2008, 5:54
Joe Bigley, A Western Man's Rejection of Convenience,2008, 2:36
Chris McDaniel with Chang Chun and Zhang Jing, Covergence/Divergence,2008, 4:53
Elena Grajek, basil, 2008, 0:45
Lauren Graves, just the yolks, 2009, 4:23
Moyi Zhang, Organ city, 2009, 9:26
Elena Grajek, Lane's Brain, 2009, 2:04

I'm currently exporting a version so that I can post it here .... maybe it will be up later on tonight!!

Thank you to everyone who submitted!!!

New Curatorial Work for Me! Yipee!

2009-03-14T23:24:00.002-04:00

Just a quick note: I'm on the curatorial team for the digital art and photography biennale in San Francisco del Monte de Oro in the province of San Luís in Argentina! In commemoration of the the bicentennial of the May Revolution, the municipality of San Francisco del Monte de Oro is organizing several events and the biennale is one of them. The exhibit will open there in March of 2010 and then travel to the capital of the province, Cordoba, Rosario, and finally Buenos Aires!

Submissions will be taken from April to December of 2009. Stay tuned!

2009-02-17T18:15:00.002-03:00

Life is a series of breaking down and building up. But do we have to break down in order to build up? Can you build on top of something that has already been established? I guess (now remember, I dropped out of architecture school) with buildings that would only be possible if you adjusted the foundation. Is that the same with us?

During my educational journey I have spent a lot of time rebuilding my process, my thinking process. I think there were points when it was torn down and completely rebuilt. Now, at almost thirty-one, I'm not sure if this type of demolition could ever happen. Something happens with age (yes, I know I am not old, but I am older). Currently, I am doing a course which is pushing me to a different way of processing information. Sometimes I think that this process is very similar to the one that was obliterated a while ago. Is it the same? Or only similar? And, should I be fighting against this?

Things come and go in our lives for different reasons. People, places, pets, thoughts, interests, tastes ... Why can't we exchange ways of thinking periodically during our lives? Choosing to change one later in life for one we had earlier? And when we do, why is it so painful and difficult?

New Screening - New Traveling Exhibition

2009-02-11T18:30:00.002-03:00

I am super excited to tell you that Walk with me has been accepted to participate in Human Emotion Project 2009, with its launch in Melbourne Australia Febuary 24th!! HEP is a non-for-profit project/event organized by Allison Williams and is traveling for several physical screenings, including Italy, Spain, and Greece.

HUMAN Emotion documented visually by international artists using film/video. LAUNCH 6pm AUSTRALIA 24 FEB - Exhibition runs @ Guildford Lane Gallery Melbourne 25 Feb - 8 March 2009

Stay tuned for more updates!!

Washington Wasn't Only a President

2009-02-05T07:50:00.001-03:00

I arrived at the station and the turquoise charter bus was running. The driver, and the man that always rides with him, were outside waiting. There were impatient looks on their faces. Did they know I was coming? How could they be waiting for me?

"Montevideo?" they asked.

I confirmed, ready to hand over my luggage.

"Primero coche?"

Hmmm. Primero coche? I hadn't checked. I was too concerned with waking myself up at 4am and waiting for Washington (the Brazilian taxi driver) a little impatiently, than to check my ticket for all the specifics of my voyage. I searched through my purse for my ticket, and there it was "Segundo Coche."

"No," I said, "Segundo."

So, I waited. It was already 5 minutes after the time of departure. There seemed to be a bit of confusion amongst the two men outside and the man behind the counter inside.

The station (if you want to call it that) was pretty bare. Besides the poster of the schedule, printed in large lettering with uniquely 80s graphic design on the right wall as you walk in, there was nothing. About 30 feet from the entrance were the counters. I guess all that space was originally intended for long lines, but at 5am on the last Saturday of the high season in a rather sleepy border town, there were no lines. There were only three men trying to figure out if they had another man's cell phone number.

As I waited outside, I zoned out for a while reading the posters, on the windows, telling of festivals and some group that has been around for twelve years that will be performing the following Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. When I came to, the two men were hopping in the bus.

The short stout one yelled to me, [say the following phrase as if they were English words) "Dga vee-en-ay!" (¡Ya viene! - Spanish translation) [It's on its way! - English translation]

Yet, five minutes after the Primer Coche had left, the Segundo had still not arrived. I started to get a little worried that I hadn't understood, or rather, that I had misunderstood. Then it occurred to me that they had taken advantage of the "gringa": now, I would have to buy another ticket to Montevideo. But these people aren't mean-spirited, I thought to myself. And what would they have gained from this trap?

Just then a Radio Taxi arrived out of nowhere and out popped Washington, as if to confirm the thought I had just had. I told him about the two Coches for the 5am bus. He looked concerned, but didn't have time to say anything. My eyes had wandered behind him to the turquoise charter bus rounding the small street corner.

I thanked him again as he got in his taxi. I can only assume that he went back home to get some more sleep.

Thinking in photos

2009-01-14T15:23:00.004-03:00

Media is like languages. For some time I have been in VideoLandia: everything I thought came out in video. Soon I visited BookLandia (and would subsequently live between the two). Now I have returned to PhotoLandia, maybe just for a visit. Perhaps I will make a mountain home here.

Here are a few thoughts from PhotoLandia:

Maybe one day they will form a community so that I will not have to change currency every time I cross a border.

Two Weeks In ...

2009-01-09T13:53:00.000-03:00

Once again I have found myself in the cultural cross-roads. It seems that I freely choose to be in this predicament. It seems that perhaps I enjoy the difficulty. Almost two weeks and barely an English conversation. The same frustrations that I have experienced in the past have resurfaced. Yet, there is a new relationship with them. Maybe it is because I have been through similar situations, but this time I can look at it in an objective manner, or rather, from a more educated position.

Somehow I identify as a fake Spaniard, as a fake Catalan. I don't want to give up what I know, what is familiar to me. When I walk into a store my instinct is to greet everyone with "Bon día" and when I leave "Adeu". Every once in a while a word wants to come out in Catalan. I don't want to say " Buenos días." I don't want to have to re-think what comes natural to me in a Spanish speaking country. I don't want to use the choclo for corn. I don't like it. I like maíz. I like how it rolls of the tongue. "Choclo" is to choppy. Maaaaaeeeeeeeeeeez. The dipthong phonetic connection feels nice in the mouth. Not only do I not want to use the word, but I want everyone to know that I don't want to use the word, that I know and prefer a different word - as if I needed something else to help solidify my foreignness.

As if I needed something besides the slight Castillian accent and frequent errors. As if I needed something other than the slightly different gait, or preference to cross at a crosswalk, yet not wait for the light. As if I needed something other than my inability to tell the difference between a 500 peso coin and a 100 peso coin. As if I needed something other than everything that I am.

I don't want to lose my foreignness. It is part of my identity, in every culture. Sometimes it was a bit irritating when people in my home town would ask me where I was from, thinking I was even from a foreign country, but I would have probably been more offended if they thought that I was from there.

From there. From where? That is one thing that I find quite striking about Santiago. In Barcelona there were many Catalans, yet many had traveled quite a bit (if only in Europe, or the surrounding countries). Most people are from Santiago and have barely traveled. They don't find it too strange that a foreigner wants to make a home for themselves in their city, yet most (at least from what I can tell as of yet) do not feel that they would not be able to answer that question: where are you from?

For many people I know, that question is perplexing. Not only Americans, but others alike. Yet, I think that even Americans in America, well many, have trouble answering. Where do you identify your home as? With what people do you identify? While you may have been raised in one place, there are other places that are a part of your adult life. These places, at least from where you are standing now, have moulded you into who you see as yourself now much more than a place where you learned to ride your bike, yet have no visible identifying marks.

Next, I ask, why do you fight it so much? There was a point when the experience was about the experience. Now, what is the experience about?

2008-12-25T20:25:00.001-03:00

Launch it! Cologne OFF IV - Here we are!

2008-12-15T10:34:00.000-03:00

Happy Video! - Merry Christmas !!
------------------------------

-------
15 December 2008

VideoChannel - video project environments
is happy to launch online just in time before Christmas 2008
//
"Here We Are! - the 4th festival edition of
CologneOFF - Cologne Online Film Festival
\\
presenting until now the largest festival program
featuring 142 selected short films and videos.

CologneOFF is a new mobile type of film and video festival ,
taking place simultaneously online and
in physical space in cooperation with partner festivals.

This year, the world premiere took already place in October at Museum of Contemporary Art MACZUL
in Maracaibo/Venezuela, in the framework of the annual digital art festival, the German premiere
in the framework of 24 Hours of Nuremberg Film Festival im November 2008

"Here We Are!" - is offerering the visitors the entire heavenly festival program in three sections online
//
1. -->OFF - the offical festival program inclusing 35 Films
2. -->LAB - the laboratory for 80 films under different thematical aspects
--> (de)materialization LAB
--> memory LAB
--> identitymix LAB
--> (de)(re)socialization LAB
--> re-performance LAB
--> re-naturation LAB
3. -->MOTHER - a special program of 27 films on the theme of "mother"
//
For each section an individual PDF catalogue is dowbloadable from the festival site.
\\
Enter the festival via --> http://coff.newmediafest.org
//
The launch of CologneOFF IV represents also the occasion for publishing
50 interviews on VIP - VideoChannel Interviews Project
with authors participating in CologneOFF IV, intending to give the visitors
interesting background information about video art creating.
\\
Further, VideoChannel is starting a new tool,
i.e. VAD - Video Art Database -
in order to manage the comprehensive collection of hundreds of videos
included in the project platforms of [NewMediaArtProjectNetwork]:||cologne -
in this way all videos can be accessed in future also individually.
//

Cologne OFF Launch Monday!

2008-12-13T17:01:00.003-03:00

Two videos of mine: (d)espere [2006] and Walk with me [2007] are being screened in the fourth edition of the Cologne OFF Festival.

(d)espere is a part of the LAB section and Walk with me is a part of the Mother section. This Monday will be the online launch (yipeeeeee), while the world premier was in Venezuela in October.

Here is a list of the other artists participating in the festival. Stay tuned - Monday I will post the link.

Hasta el lunes ...

Choices

2008-12-13T01:11:00.003-03:00

toss; trash; throw away; dispose of; abandon; cast; cast off; chase; clear; discard; dismiss; dispense with; ditch; drop; dump; eject; eliminate; evict; extrude; free oneself of; get rid of; jettison; junk; lose; refuse; reject; rid oneself of; scrap; shake off; shed; shuck; slip; throw off; throw out; turn down; unburden; get rid of; abandon; relinquish; shed; do away with; dump

I think this is the opposite of collecting. Hmmmm first, you have to collect what you want to dump.

What is the residue of abandonment?
.

Messes of Life Mixed Up with Systems of Messes

2008-12-12T19:05:00.003-03:00

One mess of things to take and another of things to leave behind. Packing up a life into a couple of suitcases just isn't possible. I guess that is why we have family members - to store what doesn't fit.
Why am I keeping all of that crap? Why am I still collecting crap?

This leads me to think about something I heard recently that collecting and individuality aren't as interesting as system and principle. So collecting is synonymous with individuality? Is that true? I had always thought of collecting as about groups, but each component of a collection is individual. Usually people say that the individual components make up a whole. Can the individual components stand on their own?
You ask that question often as an artist, especially if you work with dipyichs/triptychs, or anything that may be a series. Can those pieces stand on their own? And do they need to? If they stand on their own, does it make the whole piece redundant?

But back to this whole more interesting thing. System and principle are more interesting than collection and individual. The principle for your system of collection; you collect individual things.

...

I tried to write a story about this. I do mean "tried". The concept of deconstructing collection and system seemed so abstract as to not lend itself to narrative. Now this seems odd. Narrative exists in everything, even non-narrative (I can touch on that in a later post).
Here is an except: I didn't think that any of them were particularly interesting. The seemed pretty boring; a few were gray-ish, some were brown-ish; some were large-ish, some were small-ish. From what I could tell he may as well have collected them moments before our encounter.
I plan to finish that story one day. A narrative must exist somewhere. Even if it is only a non-narrative.

...

This begs the question: what is my system of collection? is it still valid? WHAT NEEDS TO BE THROWN OUT?

The order of DisOrder

2008-12-12T11:43:00.003-03:00

Why I haven't been posting.

2008-12-08T09:26:00.002-03:00

Online Interview for Cologne OFF

2008-12-01T17:14:00.000-03:00

VIP - VideoChannel Interview Project
http://vip.newmediafest.org/

published the 4th series of interviews with new videoartists

//
David Jakubovic (USA),
Miri Nishri (Israel), Irina Novarese (Italy)
Nicole Rademacher (USA), Arthur Reynolds (USA)
Daniel Rodrigo (Spain), Pekka Ruuska (FI),
Mark Ramsel Salvatus (Philippines)
Antti Savela (Sweden), Daniel Slattnes (Norway,
Sumit Roy (India), Daniel Tesy (Hungary)

\\
During the following weeks until the official online launch of
CologneOFF - Cologne Online Film Festival
4th edition - "Here We Are!" - on 11 December 2008
http://coff.newmediafest.org -
each week another couple of new interviews will be posted.

See you next week!

------------------------------

-------------
VideoChannel - video project environments
http://videochannel.newmediafest.org
-------------------------------------------
corporate part of
[NewMediaArtProjectNetwork]:||cologne
http://www.nmartproject.net
the experimental platform for art and new media
from Cologne/Germany

Writing

2008-12-01T12:23:00.003-03:00

I think writing on the computer, as my sole form of writing, makes me feel like everything is final.

It seems that what I type is not personal and is published for the world to see. It is/will be. That is the nature of the blog, but somehow when I write on paper it seems more personal.
Why is that?

ana v digi v ana v digi v

2008-11-19T17:28:00.003-03:00

There is a revelation that occurs the first time you pull your film out of the development tank and look at it in the light - even if there is nothing on it. A transformation occurred that you made happen. If nothing came out, or your exposure was off, there is no apple (or control) + z, no undo button, no revert to saved, no save in increments, no back up. You must figure out where you went wrong and redo it, hoping that you did indeed figure out where you went wrong. (ok, sometimes it could be a faulty camera) Yet, you will not know for sure until you pull the newly developed, dripping in photo-flo, film out of the developing tank again. Similarly, you are the sole person/thing responsible for it. You can only loose it if you physically misplace the film. No crash, no accidental delete, no system freeze in the middle. You are responsible and there is no one and nothing else to blame.

The revelation doesn't occur on the computer, where if you don't like the filter you just applied, you can undo. This is fine for those of us who have experienced the revelation, at least once. But those who have never experienced it have been deprived of a significant event, a feeling of satisfaction and positive reinforcement from oneself. Those of us who have been privy to the revelation perhaps imagine a small one each time we learn new tools or discover new methods in our current digital practice.

If all I knew was apple+z, would I be as fulfilled with working in the intangible? How did I ever give up control over my work to a finicky computer that is perhaps subject to frequent crashes and irreversible deletions?

. . .

A lil less thoughtful ...

2008-11-19T03:46:00.002-03:00

The excitement
literally
As the days get shorter my anticipation g r o w s

yes, again literally - for both you and me
Soon the climate will change

Life will seem back on track, but when was my life knot

Tied up
In knots
Bundled
Tight
Bound
errrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Goals may be clear

Or perhaps just as hay zee butt bottom derière quite contraire

Clear that each end begins a new knew what I was missing miss

ing Eye In Geezzzzzzzz

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

It's time.

Tie me.

Untie me.

Un Knot.

Writing

2008-11-12T22:22:00.004-03:00

Written language is an artifice.

I have recently been listening to a class. There are 36 lectures in the whole thing (I downloaded it as an audiobook); I started this past Saturday, and I am already on Lecture 19. I told a friend that it is a class I have always wanted to take, but I was too busy being an "artiste" when I was in school (both/all times). Needless to say, I am a bit obsessed.

It is titled The Story of Human Language and it is taught by John McWhorter. He is one of my new heroes. It is probably much healthier to have him as a hero than some of my other current heroes because (a) he is alive, (b) I don't agree with everything that he says, and (c) he has demystified some things - which in turn has taken some ignorant theories of mine and shown that they have already been disproved. I downloaded the lecture series from The Teaching Company. I am in love with them too.

Back to the class. At the end of lecture eighteen he says that "written language is an artifice." Immediately I remembered it as "written language is a fallacy." In fact, I did not realize that he said "artifice" until I started writing this post. Artifice, fallacy. Fallacy, artifice. Contrived, deceptive. Skillful, false. Subtle deception, a false notion. The more I think about the words, the more I find them to be similar, which, of course, agrees with the fact that I perceived him to say one and not the other. Yet, when I initially thought about those two words I found them to be quite distinct in meaning. Not that they have become the same word, but their meanings seem to be growing closer (and closer).

Through this class ideas/theories I had about language, dialects, time, culture, immigration ... have been debunked. All of these theories were fallacies. I now realize just how stunted my education is. Here I am with an MFA, yet what do I truly know and what can I do with that? No, I am not feeling sorry for myself - quite the opposite, actually. I am trying to rationally and objectively look at my education (both formal and informal) and analyze the gaps. As Dr. McWhorter talks about high languages and low languages, dialects and standards, I have begun to simply look at my language learning experiences (and language teaching experiences). All three languages that I speak I learned in three very different manners and use them and very different ways. My "highness" and "lowness" (and my comfort with speaking/writing/reading in the way that I do) of these languages oscillates greatly. Is that good or bad is neither here nor there. The difference is what is significantly important. Yet, I am not sure why (but that doesn't matter). To look at it is important. To think about how you communicate and how you perceive your communication is important. To understand the means of your communication is important.

Written language is a fallacy. It is an artifice. It is completely contrived. Everything that you write is contrived and self-conscious. Most of my "artistic" life I have been urged, by my professors and therefore by myself, to not be self-conscious, yet I don't recall ever wondering (a) why am I self-conscious or (b) why is being self-conscious bad -i.e what is taking away from or how is it corrupting?

Why am I self-conscious? Well, obviously, we are self-conscious whenever we put something on the page because that is not an instinctual or intuitive act [this being one of the reasons why I think that working intuitively is ever so important, but of course you must step back after the fact to look objectively]. You actually think before you form the words with a pen or type them on a keyboard. Blogging and email make writing a bit more intuitive because we, as a society, are much more forgiving (and lazy) with spelling and grammatical errors that we read (write) in emails, im chats, and blogs. But, all in all, the word is not your thought. As an aside, I know that there are many arguments about how we think. One theory states that we think in what is called "mentalese", therefore any (recognizable) language that we use is secondary and requires yet another layer. Thus, writing is even another layer farther removed from the actual, pure thought. So, too is making: sculpting, drawing, painting, constructing ... This said - how could one NOT be self-conscious? Is it possible to truly work intuitively? Can you actually work un-self-consciously? Is working self-consciously an artifice? Who or what is it tricking? Is the trickery OK? Sometimes trickery is OK, right?

Politics

2008-11-06T12:56:00.006-03:00

While traditionally I am not a political person, I feel that the results of the election require a comment, especially after reading a note a friend of mine posted on Facebook:

How come you supported Obama?

I'm not trying to start a fight. I'm just curious. I've already had a few people drop me from their friend's list because of different political beliefs, and I've been called a racist several times because I don't support Obama.

I am SURE that someone out there can do better than that. So could someone please tell me on what issues they side with Obama? I ask because I cannot find a single issue that anyone would rationally say, "yes, I agree with him and I believe that is the best course of action for our nation".

Or does it really just boil down to one of the following:
-yes, we can
-change
-a vote for Obama is a vote against Bush

Please, give me hope that we voted him into office for reasons other than those.

This was my response (which didn't fit on one comment space, so I had to post two!):

They may have dropped you because of how you are making your comments, rather than your support of McCain.

I, too, am a registered independent, and I voted for someone who I believe can actually change our country back to what we grew up believing it was. I have felt completely estranged from American politics and America for years (hence my constant living abroad). In the past few days I have received emails from non-US friends of mine encouraging me to vote for Obama and also congratulating me after Tuesday night. I think that the world's perspective of our country and us as Americans is important; it is quite amazing how much an effect our president has on other countries and on how they view us - whether or not you feel that is a valid relationship, that is a relationship that the world makes. This election and hence the results are about so much more than just who we want in office for the next four years. I don't necessarily support all of what Obama supports, nor do I think that he will be able to complete all of the promises that he has made, but I believe in him. I believe that he (and, let's be honest, his team) will be able to help us through this financial crisis, find a way for us to pull out of Iraq successfully and peacefully, and find our place in the world not as a THE world power, but a power among many, which is our place.

I hope that makes sense to you. I am sorry that your heart has broken and that someone who you supported so whole-heartedly didn't win. But, I hope that you can come to terms and realize how historical these results are - not just because he is our first black president. He had so many supporters from all walks of life, all races, all ages ... yeah, sure some of the people who voted for him voted blindly for change or an African-American, but some people who voted for McCain made similar decisions. Many people who voted for the first time because they have felt disenfranchised with the political system and voted for Obama now feel that their vote truly can make a difference. This is important to the future of our country. A country where the people (all the people) matter is the country that I thought I grew up in, but as I became an adult I did not see it that way.

P.S. i would never drop you from my fb friends, in fact even though some things you have written infuriate me, it is wonderful to hear your opinions because they would absolutely NEVER occur to me.

This event is not about race, but about opportunity and the since defunct American Dream. There is a new energy in the American people. Even though I don't like to repeat rhetoric (especially political rhetoric), but it is about hope. A hope that was lost when JFK was killed. A hope that died when Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot. A hope that some Americans never even knew they had.

Review

2008-11-04T14:46:00.001-03:00

New Atlanta art blog, Burn Away, reviewed Le Flash and the One Minute/One Night videos.

One Minute/One Night

2008-10-29T12:11:00.003-03:00

In Atlanta, this past Friday (24 Oct), it was rainy. People in the Castleberry neighborhood for the monthly fourth Friday gallery walk were dressed in ponchos and clutching umbrellas. It wasn't rained out, but the people were a bit soggy under the conditions.

My video (d)espere was a part of a screening curated by Carolyn Carr and Michael Gibson of Garage Projects. In the whole production, there were 28 videos. Projected in the Garage Projects space, there were four:

The video calls only stated limitation was that each work was to be 1 minute long. And the randomness out of this loose restriction resulted in a natural communality in content, context and style. The artist being presented here all share everyday mundane affairs by way of waiting, watching and being watched.

* Nelson Hallonquist
* Tonia Hughes and Lisa McGuire
* Nicole Rademacher
* Ziad Naccache

In between

2008-10-29T11:37:00.005-03:00

Ha! You thought I took another trip to the mountains or someplace semi-remote, didn't you?

Corporate America has its perks: little pieces of nature in the office park.

As summer draws to a close (I'm sure for some of you it has already ended, but here in the south, summer lingers), I am enjoying the brisk weather and soaking up the vitamin D.

Two years of bleak, gray winter days (nine months out of the year) forces a person to truly appreciate streaks of sun through leaves, if only in the middle of manufactured nature walks in the middle of an office park near the Charlotte Douglas Airport.

Autumn is here, upon us fully. The wind is sharp, punctuated with bites of chill, reminding me that colder weather is to come. The sun rises later and sets earlier, abbreviating my days more than they already are with the variable schedule that I keep and my inconsistent hours: rising when I wake and falling when my eyes close.

Soon I will wake in full darkness and finish work in full darkness. I will only breath the outside air in between my steps from my home to my car; I will insert a breath with each step from car to place of work. The air will chill my insides. I will shiver as I enter the tropical climate of the building.

I will shiver as I enter a summer on a corresponding side of the globe.

Words That I Question

2008-10-27T23:50:00.000-03:00

feasible
construct (verb)
trappings
standard

¿

2008-10-27T22:35:00.003-03:00

Why is it that even though I am most definitely an image-maker, while designing my website I seem to only be using text? And I am severely drawn to text?

In fact, in a recent online interview (I'll post a link, when it is up), I cited literature as my biggest influence. Authors (and poets) are always such great storytellers.

I strive to be a storyteller like them. Perhaps I am really a writer stuck in a visual artist....