NEWSgrist: "AUTOMOTIVE" Vol. 3, no. 14 (Sept. 16, 2002)
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NEWSgrist
where spin is art
http://newsgrist.net
{bi-weekly news digest}
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Vol. 3, no. 14 (Sept. 16, 2002)
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CONTENTS:
- *Splash* Ben Neill's "Automotive" CD Launches
- *Quote/s* Disparate Documentas?
- *Url/s* Get Your War On; Dollars…;Eyeball Marfa
- *Spot On* Spotlight on Turbulence: New works
- *Falling Water* Spiral Jetty Emerges!
- *Reel Episodes* Thundergulch series; AIR moves…
- *Obit* Stuart Morgan: Britain's most significant art writer
- *Book Grist* Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet Culture
- *Classified* Wanted: Artists Who Surf
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*Splash*
VOLKSWAGEN and SIX DEGREES RECORDS
celebrate Ben Neill's new CD:
AUTOMOTIVE
with a live performance by
Ben Neill (Six Degrees Records) - mutantrumpet/laptops
Bill Jones (Sandra Gering Gallery) - laptop/live midi controlled video
Wednesday September 18, 2002
REMOTE LOUNGE
also performing:
DJ Ben Butler (Mole, Plastic City, UCMGNY)
DJ Eric Calvi
327 Bowery above 2nd Street, New York City
9:00pm / no cover / ages 21+ / 212 228 0228
Ben Neill melds the worlds of electronic dance culture, jazz,
art music, and visual media. His new CD Automotive features
expanded arrangements of music he has created for a series
of groundbreaking Volkswagen television ads.
splash page: http://newsgrist.net
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*Quote/s*
It is my opinion that the current documenta is indebted to the fine
groundwork laid out by the previous director, Catherine David. She
successfully established a documenta based on a social/political model,
albeit one grounded heavily within a western-european vision scope. It
is widely understood that the staff of curators headed by Okwui Enwezor
has moved documenta beyond this point into the realm of the global via
the postcolonial - this being understood in a broader sense. Quite
simply, I believe that this is what they were supposed to do, and they
have done this convincingly.
For myself, the success of the current documenta lies in the following
point: In the fact that people are arming themselves with new
information, knowledge and insight into and about the current state
of art and culture as it is being engaged within the main-world
exhibition centers of aesthetic discourse (biennals/museums/galleries,
etc.). Whether one is for or against this current documenta, it is
clear that the polemics this exhibition is creating has invigorated an international debate on art and culture like no other exhibition has
done in recent years.
The questions being raised now are truly great, and what can be made of
them is even greater still.
-Odili Donald Odita
(posted to nettime 08/28/02)
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…and from Art Forum online:
http://www.artforum.com/news/week 0237#news3397
In his lengthy assessment, Gregor Wedekind questions what he views as
Enwezor's "credo of universal realism." "Okwui Enwezor looked for a way
that would make it possible to redefine the function and position of
contemporary art as a form of cultural exchange. It was no longer about
the current state of artas it always was earlier in Documenta but rather
about making visible the political and social problems of the current
global social order." After much consideration and debate, Wedekind is
clearly unimpressed. "The darling of the global curator jet set has
catapulted himself to this position with his critical maneuvers. Now
he's the general secretary of all emerging cultural citizens. In a
pinstriped suit he creates networks with influential people,
represented side by side with other powerful figures. And in Kassel
there's a professionally curated exhibition to be seenone that has
been conservatively presented. An expansive mega-event of the
cultural industry."
(Jennifer Allen: ArtForum Online, EVALUATING DOCUMENTA11, 9/9/02)
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*Url/s*
1)
"Get Your War On"
by David Rees, author of the hit self-published titles "my new fighting
technique is unstoppable" and "my new filing technique is unstoppable."
http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/war11.html
(…Book coming out soon-Oct 2002?-from Soft Skull Press):
http://softskull.com/cgi-bin/SoftCart.100.exe/?E+scstore
2)
Dollars For Your Thoughts (on Terror)
by David Greg Harth
http://www.davidgregharth.com/dollars
3)
Hoping to Inspire Talk, Artist Ignites Debate
By JIM YARDLEY (NYTimes, September 5, 2002)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/05/national/05ART.html
And: One of the Eyeball series: Marfa, Texas
http://cryptome.org/marfa-eyeball.htm
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*Spot On*
TURBULENCE
http://turbulence.org
For immediate release: September 12, 2002
Spotlight on works by Canadian artists JIM ANDREWS
and DAVID JHAVE JOHNSTON
Visit SPOTLIGHT
http://turbulence.org/#spot
on the Turbulence site for new works:
1. ARTEROIDS 2.02 by Jim Andrews is a literary computer game for
the Web: "the battle of poetry against itself and the forces of
dullness." (Andrews).
2. LIP SERVICE and IRRECONCILABLE by David Jhave Johnston:
two "mobile text" works.
JIM ANDREWS is a web artist, multimedia developer, visual poet,
mathematician, and essayist who, since 1995, has published his
site Vispo ~ Langu(im)age at http://vispo.com - It contains work
in Java, DHTML, Shockwave, Delphi, and Visual Basic in which
poetry meets the visual, aural, and interactive in a very big way.
Vispo ~ Langu(im)age is the center of Andrews' artistic output.
Andrews is interested in the synthesis of arts possible with
digital and web technology, as well as the synthesis of media and
coding: "Each poet will integrate everything with everything."
He's the founder of the webartery.com group, a collective of
web artists.
DAVID JHAVE JOHNSTON is a multimedia-poet currently living in
Montreal. Among other artistic activities, he has exhibited
site-specific installations with the Symbiosis Collective,
written and directed multi-media theater with the Collective
Unconscious Collective, and recorded spoken-word electronica for
the now-defunct underground ZOI label. He is currently
contributing to a CD-ROM project entitled Navigateur, modifying
video for the Transmedia 2002 festival, working on a Kali-scope
projection project, completing a music video for Brian
Sanderson, speaking at conferences on web art, and studying
computer science at Concordia University. Before devoting
himself completely to digital creation in 1998, Jhave finished
a six-year exploratory-font project of handwritten mixed-
media which was entitled Book. The web project NomadLingo-a
year long exploration of digitally-generated mobile-text
work-was created from April1/'00 to April 1/'01 and exhibited
as monthly installments at www.year01.com
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*Falling Water*
Back From Sleep in the Deep
The Salt Lake Tribune, Aug. 8 2002
http://www.sltrib.com/2002/aug/08282002/utah/utah.htm
The Great Salt Lake's falling water level has revealed the "Spiral
Jetty" for the first time in years. It was created in 1970. (FranciscoKjolseth/The Salt Lake Tribune)
BY LORI BUTTARS lori@sltrib.com
Art does not have to be dry, but sometimes it helps.
For instance, the Great Salt Lake's falling water level has given rise
to Robert Smithson's "Spiral Jetty," a master earthwork that has
been submerged near the inland sea's northern shores for more than
a decade.
"Smithson's own writings talk about the jetty submerging and
re-emerging as part of the work of art because it changes every time it
reappears," said University of Utah art professor Nathan Winters, who
has written several articles about the enigmatic creation.
Built in 1970, three years before Smithson's death in a Texas plane
crash, "Spiral Jetty" is considered his last masterpiece.
"It's not only Smithson's masterpiece, it is Utah's masterpiece,"
Winters said Tuesday. "For all the sculptures and paintings of the Pony
Express and the Great American West in Utah, you won't find any of
those in the journals of art. But you will find the jetty. It is
recognized all over the world as one of the premier pieces of
earthwork."
Unfurling 16 miles west of Golden Spike National Historic Site in Box
Elder County, the jetty had long been invisible until this year's
drought revealed it. The ride to the lakeshore attraction is a rocky
one, but that has not stopped a steady stream of art aficionados from
going there.
"We have absolutely nothing to do with it, but we probably get about
three to 10 calls a week from people asking for directions," said
interpretive ranger Bonnie Crossen.
Rangers typically give visitors a crude map, some driving instructions
and send them on their way.
"We ask them to let us know if they see anything and, about a week
ago, we had a guy stop by and say it was about one-third visible,"
Crossen said.
Researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey say the jetty has
resurfaced because the northern Great Salt Lake has dropped to
about 4,000 feet above sea level, its lowest point in nearly a
decade.
Smithson supposedly chose the spot for the earthwork because of its
unique rose-colored water, the result of the chemistry of the briny
landlocked lake.
The earthwork's 15-foot-band stretches 1,500 feet from the shore.
It was built by bulldozers and made from black basalt rock that has
turned white with crystallized salt through the years.
An 1850s Mormon legend about a whirlpool in the middle of the Great
Salt Lake leading to the ocean is said to have inspired the artist to
choose the spiral design.
Smithson believed that earth art was meant to be experienced, not
whispered about in museums, Winters says.
Visitors are allowed to walk out onto the jetty if they so desire.
"I'd hate to see crowds of people out there traipsing around, but the
pilgrimage to see it is very much part of the experience," Winters said.
"The best view, however, is by plane or helicopter."
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*Reel Episodes*
Artnet News, 9/13/02
http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/news/artnetnews2/artnetnews9-12-02.asp?C=1
9/11 AT THE KITCHEN
New York video maven Kathy Brew, whose Thundergulch organization put
together new-media art shows in downtown Manhattan since 1997, has
now curated "9/11 Episodes," an exhibition of videos at the Kitchen Art
Gallery on West 19th Street, Sept. 4-28, 2002. The offerings include
Scenes from an Endless War by Norman Cowie, Brooklyn Promenade by Mark
Street, To the Workers of the World by Tami Gold and tapes by Tony
Oursler, Kristin Lucas and about 15 others. Several of the videos,
which are mostly only a few minutes long, aired earlier this year as
part of the "Reel New York" series on PBS in New York. Locals can drop
by the Kitchen at 6 p.m. on Sept. 18 for a "Digital Happy Hour," when
some of the artists will talk about their work.
A.I.R. MOVES TO CHELSEA
After 30 years in SoHo, A.I.R. Gallery – the first artist-run,
nonprofit gallery for women artists – has relocated to a 2,000-
square-foot space in the Whitehall Building at 511 West 25th Street,
suite 301. A collaboration with the Third Wave Foundation, a grant-
making group for young women's initiatives, helped make the move
possible. A.I.R. inaugurates its new space on Sept. 14, 2002, with
a reception for "New Space, New Work," a selection from the
organization's national members program. For more info: http://www.airnyc.org
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*Obit*
Stuart Morgan:
Britain's most significant writer on contemporary art, an erudite and
humane critical voice engaged in a search for meaning
by Ian Hunt and Adrian Searle
The Guardian, August 30, 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,783032,00.html
Stuart Morgan, who has died aged 54, became known during the 1980s in
Europe and the United States as the most significant British writer on
contemporary art. When he started writing in the 1970s, he knew that, in
a country not receptive to contemporary art, the mediating role of
criticism needed defending, and he brought to it refinement and
audacity. His cadences moved through Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Max Miller, Nathanael West and his beloved William Empson, often in the same essay.
The liveliness he brought to his work endeared him to students and those
artists whose inner lives he fathomed.
Born in Newport, Gwent, he was an able linguist at Newport Hall school.
He graduated from Southampton University, and after completing an MA at
Sussex University began doctoral work on American literature. In
Brighton he walked past the art school's window and, attracted by the
people he saw through it - unlike any he had met at the university
