Alfred University in LOOP Video Art Festival '09

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!

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!

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

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

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

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 ...

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?