Time, Twitter Art, and Self-Promotion

I, Boris Ostrerov, am starting my latest project titled, “Twitter Installation” at the Walkers Point Center for the Arts (WPCA) Annual Member’s Show on view from June 5^th until July 2^nd 2009.

the Twitter Installation:

Start with the username “installation1” on Twitter.  Do not tweet on this account.

Publicize this project outside of twitter before the first day of the show.

Follow all the people that chose to follow the “installation1” username.

Gather all the tweets of all the people I follow and print out on translucent paper (1x5in. strips).

Bring the tweets on the paper to the gallery each day and drop over the same spot on the floor every day.

Photograph the installation daily.

At the end of the installation the tweets are glued together into a sphere.

I will post pics daily on my site:  www.borisfineart.com

In the “Twitter Installation,” I am materializing tweets among the Twitter community, into a physical semitransparent mountain or puddle-like form.  Starting from literally nothing on the first day of the show, the pile of tweets will grow in size depending on the amount of followers the username “Installation1” gains and the amount of times each follower tweets.  Please spread the word and contribute in the growth of the mountain of tweets by following the username “Installation1” on Twitter.com and tweeting.  If enough people are involved, this installation can grow exponentially to a gigantic form, filling up so much space in the gallery that it encroaches on other artworks or blocks a walking path.   At the end of the show I will glue all the translucent strips of vellum paper into a sphere, solidifying countless conversations of a past moment in history.

Show: Friday, June 5 through July 2, 2009. Opening Reception: Friday, June 5, 5–9pm.

a song from the past about the future by a great (song)writer & poet

New Beauty?

ORGANIZATION

I feel like I have seen something like this before, but this is done particularly well. I love the drummer. and the kid with the trumpet.  and when the kids say “yeah!”. The unintentionally collaborative opportunity of YouTube cannot be underestimated.  This types of shit will for-certain become more common place.  I’m not sure if I would be so in love with it if I couldn’t see it, but I just can’t take my eyes away to find out.

REMOVAL OF EXPECTATION

Frank Zappa was continually trying to break the molds of “Rock Star” and “Composer”.  Here, he adds one more: modern dance.  I have had the album this was on for years, but had no idea there was dance accompaniment. Aside from being an incredible composition (written for synclavier, arranged for orchestra), the dance is continually surprising (note: approximately 4 “lifts” done by the woman). Leave it to Frank to bring Sex, Ballet and “Classical Music” together.

REVEALING THE NEW WORLD

As artists, critics, historians, writers and curators (etc.) it is important to take note of scientific discovery and the ways it propels our tools of analysis.  How have we never seen this thing before? I had to watch this several times before being able to look at it like a short alligator instead of a sad, mopey dolphin.

RECONTEXTUALIZED PASTICHE

I don’t know anything about this really.  Only that it isn’t lightning bolt. and it’s awesome.

CONTROL

The composer of this piece is now 25 years old. The shear amount of control that one must exercise to perform this piece is shear beauty. Though the quality of other videos is inferior, his ideas are amazing, and I highly recommend checking his other work.

DISCIPLINE

it is easy to forget that sports and art have a lot in common.  anyone oriented towards achieving goals through practice and discipline is alright in my book.

http://newbeautycouncil.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

About the New Beauty Council
Written by Annika Enqvist
Monday, 15 December 2008

Coming from different backgrounds and having diverse opinions on what is good or bad, beautiful or ugly, tiring or exciting, the citizen’s of a city have one thing in common – the shared public space. At odds or finding a consensus, the public realm is a stage for constant negotiation. The New Beauty Council investigates what concepts like the public consists of and how beauty and ugliness can be (re-)defined, as well as how user’s experience of the city is influenced by different conditions.

The project studies institutions and authorities, which form and have the privilege to interpret cities’ appearance and functions. The New Beauty Council wants to bring into consideration new perspectives on how public space can be used and look, not through promoting one single point of view, but by opening up new ways of experiencing the public sphere and concepts of beauty.

The founding members are Annika Enqvist, Anna Kharkina, Thérèse Kristiansson and Kristoffer Svenberg.

IN THE FUTURE

Hello, all, this is my disembodied voice from March 12, 2009 at approximately 3 PM! I am writing this a week in advance, minus 6 hours, because there’s no way I would actually write anything cogent–much less be awake–at 9 AM, because I am a loser, but future Nicole is a changed woman.

Anyway, things to think about that I don’t feel like elaborating quite yet.

-The system of pattern/randomness being more relevant than absence/presence.

mind separated from matter- KRANG

“The very definition of ‘information,’ then encodes the distinction between materiality and information that was becoming important in molecular biology during this period.”

“Abstracting information from a material base meant that information could become free-floating, unaffected by changes in context.”

“As Carolyn Marvin notes, a decontextualized construction of information has important ideological implications, including an anglo-american ethnocentrism that regards digital information as more important than more context-bound analog information”

“My dream is a version of the posthuman that embraces the possibilities of information technologies without being seduced by fantasies of unlimited power and disembodied immortality, that recognizes and celebrates finitude as a condition of human being, and that understands human life is embedded in a material world of great complexity, one on which we depend on our continued survival.”

N. Katherine Hayles

New Exhibitions Opening at (MoCAD) Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit

Two New Exhibitions are opening this Friday February 13 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. Below  are the exhibition descriptions, taken from MoCAD’s website. Anyone in the area should make it out to see these shows. I will write and post more after I get to see the show, so more to come…

The above images left to right top to bottom are as follows: Ceal Floyer, Ceal Floyer, Hans Schabus, Hans Schabus, Tris Vonna-Michell. (All images are from previous exhibitions)

BLACK IS, BLACK AIN’T
Curated by Hamza Walker and organized by the Renaissance Society of Chicago, Black Is, Black Ain’t is made possible by an Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award.
February 13 – May 3, 2009

Black Is, Black Ain’t examines the topic of race from a fresh perspective and in the context of a post-Civil Rights era, where discussions of race have shifted from a focus on inclusion and equality as expressed in the dreams of Martin Luther King Jr., to a concerted but open-ended effort to make race socially and politically irrelevant.

The exhibition features works by over 20 African-American and non-African-American artists who thoughtfully and provocatively touch and reflect on subjects such as race, gender, sexuality, representation and language. History and class also feature prominently, offering a unique opportunity to revisit and rethink these important topics of race through the eyes of exceptional contemporary artists.

I REPEAT MYSELF WHEN UNDER STRESS
Curated by Trevor Smith, Curator of Contemporary Art, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, and Thomas Trummer, Project Manager for the Visual Arts at Siemens Arts Program, I Repeat Myself When Under Stress is presented in collaboration with the Siemens Arts Program.
February 13 – May 03, 2009

I Repeat Myself When Under Stress examines the ways that contemporary artists compulsively duplicate visual, narrative and formal elements in their work. Repetition and reproduction have been recurrent themes in artistic practice since 1945—as a means of embracing medium hybridity and as a stylistic device—revealing both the compulsions of consumption and the psychological constraints artists face in climates of economic and political uncertainty.
In the exhibition, Ceal Floyer, known for her extremely precise and subtle interventions in exhibition spaces, presents already existing works. Hans Schabus has created a site-specific installation on a simultaneously micro- and mega-scale, and Tris Vonna-Michell has expanded a work created in response to his encounters with the social history and revolutionary potential of the City of Detroit.

The artists, both individually and collectively, reflect and focus on repetition, a concept that acquires special significance in the context of Detroit—the city where the assembly line was invented. Once a great symbol of modernity and automatization, this industrial process relied on an inherent linearity and repetitiveness that over time has, without significant adaptations, become virtually obsolete, particularly in an increasingly interconnected world.

Container Space project

1978 shipping container

I wanted to share an in-process project, [container(space)], I’ve been working on for a few months at my university, GMU, with a couple fellow artists. Click the link above to view the blog about the process and as a document of the project, also hoping that it will generate new threads in our thought processes/generate more new work.

We have undertaken a re‐construction and research project focused on a discarded shipping container. Challenged several months ago by Tom Ashcraft to investigate the properties of this object for a transition
from global shipping container into a versatile exhibition space for art. As a response, we have initiated an adaptive re-use of the container from global economic relic to student run experimental gallery space, keeping the project as sustainable as possible from an environmental perspective.

We envision this project as a long‐term sustainable work with tremendous educational/outreach benefits. Alongside the practical and technological issues that exist, we are approaching this endeavor as a conceptual artwork. Presenting the (re)design in an aesthetically interesting way that highlights the container’s architectural and historical assets is an essential aspect of our project. We are also researching the uniqueness/ubiquity of the container as an industrial product and using this as a departure point for the creation of related artwork. The container is an contemporary artifact of globalization that exists as an object and metaphor for the exchange of commodities between nations. We are curious about the geographic reach of this object from the time of its creation to its placement on GMU’s campus. This as emerged also as an investigation from the macro to the micro, or better, the global to the local.  As an object, this container can be defined in many ways, from materials to architecture to content. We plan to investigate these ideas, put them in motion, and allow for new perspectives to emerge regarding its role and implications in our culture and society. Follow the blog for developments like the solar power implementation, the final installation of our custom skylights, and our recycled “pallet parquet” floors…

-daniel

(A downloadable proposal can be found here)

	Ok, so, these are a couple favorite scenes of lots of cavalry riding all over the place.
–	I think the one from Waterloo is the biggest scene ever filmed, like most extras or something.
–	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBiUWQ5YLQ4
–	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4gTt6rptTU
–	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwy9g18SE7s
–	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97dBfdNrf9A

Selling Ideas as Artwork

I created an event called “Do Nothing or Do Not Do Anything.” (the rules are self-explanatory.) When it came time to document me doing this event, I became cautious of documentation due to the nature of the event. But if I didn’t document it there would be little record of it ever happening. This inspired my thinking about selling intangible ideas (for example if I was to sell the instructions of the do nothing event as a work of art) outlined below.

It is very hard to sell an idea. In particular I’m talking about a conceptual art idea. You are selling an abstraction that can only be realized with imagination but nevertheless will always remain in ephemeral form. Someone may decide to execute the idea and it’s execution may, (depending on the idea) or may not create a product. But if it does not create a product it becomes even harder to sell it. On top of these difficulties lies the challenge of finding a willing buyer—not necessarily in terms of money but more in terms of believing in the art, the artist and the art theories which create value for the idea that is being offered. In order to put this idea up for sale, it must not be known. This means the idea is kept secret until the buyer pays for it—only then it is revealed to the buyer much like Tino Sehgal’s work. The buyer must therefore be convinced that whatever he is buying is valuable. In the “real” world—outside of conceptual art we inspect products before we buy them to know what exactly we will be paying for and to compare it to other products. The packaging largely assists in this along with branding and the company’s marketing. However, ideas do not have the same kind of packaging or marketing. Their packaging and marketing are controlled by the artist, the person representing the artist or work and the venue representing the artist or work. If you have a name like Gagosion behind your work telling the buyer how significant and important this idea is, the idea will increase in monetary value. On the other hand if you are just entering the art scene and have not made a “name” for yourself—your name is not a brand—then the value of your idea is very low. It can be very difficult to start out as a conceptual artist who makes ephemeral art because you will have a hard time finding an audience, buyers, making money and finding a venue to display your work. A big factor in being an artist who sells ideas is gaining popularity and a celebrity status. In order to make decent money selling paintings you need to be a decent painter, but in order to make money selling ideas you need to be an excellent idea originator, entrepreneur and marketer.

IN SHORT, if you document the idea and present it to the buyer, then there is no reason for the buyer to buy it because you just gave him the product (the idea). But if you do not show him the product, or idea, then how do you get the buyer to believe in it? And by revealing it to more than one person you are making it less singular and less precious in a way which could drive the price down. Help me think out with this issue. What is your take?

Microcosms as Macrocosms?

I have a feeling that I will be using this mainly as a medium for ideas with the hope that others will comment with follow up ideas.  This being my first post, I’m starting with the most abstract, confusing idea so that it may be muddled over for the next few months.

Quantum Physics:

Two disparate, but connected ideas exist for me:  macrocosoms and microcosms.  I consider the macrocosm as space, like the universe, with planets, gravity, galaxies, and too much physics to wrap my head around.  I consider the microcosm as the small parts of our world, like atoms.

Macrocosoms seem abstract.  I find it difficult to turn abstract thought into physical reality and so trend toward realism, but space allows some fantasy.  Because we know relatively little about space, anything could exist.  For example, the fourth dimension.  It can be described as time, or a literal fourth dimension. Here is a link to describe in further detail: 4D.  These are a couple of images showing how geometry would behave in 4 dimensions.

Again, I wish that I could some how take these ideas and form them into something tangible.  I suppose that some things are meant to remain mysteries….

The microcosmic world of particles and sublimation and absolute zero captures a very tangible, concrete part of my mind. I can grasp onto these ideas and make some something definite from the ideas.  I’ve recently been throwing around the ideas of solid, liquid, and gas.  Moving materials from one state to another with a captured essence of color.  Water color ice cubes and steam paintings have started my fascination with atoms.  I haven’t fully explored the possibilities of each, but the ideas are formed.  Here is a video of one of the microcosmic abstract ideas that makes my mind explode:

However abstract the Bose–Einstein Condensate may seem, the point when the particles are every where at once makes me want to cry with joy.  Because every particle is everywhere, they become one.  It’s like a microcosmic world of atoms acting as the macrocosmic universe.

Does anyone know where I can obtain a freezer that will make my paint approach absolute zero?