SLESP

I've been collaborating on a project in the virtual Eastside Projects in Second Life that Michael Takeo Magruder has been developing with them. Myself, Antonio Roberts and some students from BIADs MA Digital Arts in Performance have been using the space and the virtual objects left there to explore the possibilities for this kind of exhibition.

My slot has been this week, and I've taken phrases that suggest control, persuasion and compliance from Liam Gillick's plays (that are being performed for his exhibition in the RL space), and scripted them into objects for avatars to sit in.

I'm interested in whether we can use this rather structured environment to produce new relations, so feel free interact with any other avatars you see, perhaps responding to the space, the phrases, or the context.

It would help me if you could document your visit somehow, maybe take a snapshot and forward the chat log, if you get time you could make a few notes about your response.

This link takes you to the door of the main virtual Eastside Projects, assuming you have Second Life set up on your computer, and you need to walk along the wall to get to the 'twin' space where we've been doing things.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Transitional%20Space/140/133/51

My SL name: Ana Vemo






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EP:VV

Changing Room
23 November 2009 - 23 January 2010

Changing Room is an evolving mixed-reality installation that considers the mutability and reusability of artefacts, concepts and situations in the Digital Age. Lead artist Michael Takeo Magruder will collaborate with Extra Special People artists Ana Benlloch, Iona Makiola, Antonio Roberts, Lee Scott, Zhao Wei and Selma Wong to develop a new collaborative space.

Blending the shared virtual environment of Second Life with the shared physical environment of Eastside Projects, the artwork will facilitate the realisation, curation and documentation of seven distinct - yet interrelated - art projects arising from a common pool of virtual and physical resources.

Experience the artwork's physical component at Eastside Projects alongside Liam Gillick's Two Short Plays, a new solo exhibition (27 November 2009 to 23 January 2010) and the virtual environment in Second Life). For further information please visit: www.takeo.org.

Changing Room is an experimental prototype for EP:VV (Eastside Projects: Virtualised and Visualised) - a new space for imagining ideas about Art. EP:VV will develop online, multi-user virtual worlds that afford new models for participation and representation of the gallery's artworks and initiatives. For more information about EP:VV and its ongoing development, visit: www.eastsideprojects.org or email info@eastsideprojects.org

Ever felt there’s something missing in your life?

The Event is upon us and we'll be spending the next 5 days changing our name every 6 hours, wearing hand decorated dungarees, playing thought-stopping games, eating brightly coloured food, asking questions, strengthening our Dantien, collective dreaming, strumming red, yellow, green and blue ukuleles, finding portals, calling rainbows, going to the top, chanting punk meditation, making friends, sleeping in pods, giving out flowers, love-bombing, and having all the fun we can cram into the day.

Want to join us?

http://theotherplaceportal.net/family/

Wunderkammer

Wunderkammer curated by Kate Pennington-Wilson and Charlie Levine at BIAD, Margaret St Birmingham was a 'cabinet of curiosities' made up from the archives there and current student's work. David Miller and Edward Wakefield were lying inside perspex cabinets as characters drawn from when they were students at Margaret Street. Ed was lying in state, with audio playing (unfortunately you couldn't hear this very well with all the noise) and David was writhing ineffectually in his white ribbon bondage.

Charlie Levine Wunderkammer page (on her website)
Charlie Levine Wunderkammer page (on her blog)

The Institute of Psychoplasmics

Did a performance for the opening night of The Institute of Psychoplasmics (as undercover as staff at the Institute looking for friends that had gone missing there). We decided to experiment with Twitter for updating it as it was going on, which seemed to work quite well: http://twitter.com/aasgroup We also had an audio piece in the stairwell.

There's a great video by Pil and Galia to do with a cult-like group that developed after the catastrophic Ikea riots and some amazing sculptures by Diann Bauer of merged people after some ambiguous Science Fiction disaster

The Institute of Psychoplasmics curated by Pil and Galia Kollectiv
Pump House Gallery, Battersea Park, London, SW11 4NJ
9 April - 26 May 2008
Featuring: a.a.s. / Insectoid / Diann Bauer / Amanda Beech / Mikko Canini / Seth Coston / Rod Dickinson / Pil and Galia Kollectiv / Tai Shani / Francis Upritchard / Roman Vasseur

Pil and Galia Kollectiv Psychoplasmics page
a.a.s. Psychoplasmics page

Remote Victim

I've been looking at the effects of being 'cruel' to avatars for a while, and have just made this video in Sims as a bit of an experiment. I've called it an Avatar Endurance Performance, but of course the main victim was myself, as I nearly gave myself RSI by repeatedly making the Sim do what I needed it to until it was right.



Link to YouTube page

Cory Arcangel

Went to the opening of A couple thousand short films about Glenn Gould at the Castlefield Gallery in Manchester. On the way I spotted some of those mosaics based on pixel imagery that you see around lots of places. They stuck in my head this time, considering the show I was going to see, particularly as the second one reminded me of the famous piece by this artist Super Mario Clouds (2002).

I'm a big fan of Cory Arcangel (Best. Name. Ever.) and was really looking forward to his new piece, where a piece of music was constructed from clips of video from YouTube etc. The images flashed past rapidly, each note a separate blip from a video, amateurs flipped to professionals flipped to cats playing piano. It was hypnotic and fascinating.

Older pieces were also on show, Permanent Vacation (2007) was a cute log-jam of two computers batting 'Away' auto-response emails to each other.

I Shot Andy Warhol (2002) was developed by hacking Hogan's Alley (the 1980s Nintendo cartridge) to create a bizarre shoot-em-up. There's an tongue-in-cheek connection between Warhol's work on iconic portraits, and Arcangel's use of people you can still recognise when they are simplified pixel sprites.

I was even lucky enough to talk to the artist in this lengthy exchange:
Cory Arcangel: Is this the queue for the restroom?
Me: Yes

Cory's blissfully retro blog

Castlefield Gallery

The Nagual

a.a.s. performance at Crowd 6 Christmas event Mistletoe and Mingling. We dressed in festive red velvet and decorations then chanted as we went around a Christmas tree. At the appointed time, we pulled our tinsel entrails out of our stomachs, and started to wrap them around the tree. Spent, after the extertion of the ritual we fell to the floor, then we crawled off, only our animal spirit left. The tree remained all night, dripping 'blood' as a reminder of our sacrifice.

Here's a link to the YouTube video if the embed doesn't work
Larger versions of photos on the a.a.s. Flickr page

I AM The Great Grock

We (a.a.s.) did a performance at the Royal Standard Turner Prize Extravaganza protesting against our own inclusion in the show as an homage to The Stuckists, who protest against the Turner Prize most years (but not this year)

Here's a link to the YouTube video if the embed doesn't work
Larger photos on the a.a.s. Flickr page

DY-66

I've been busy with the a.a.s. installation at Five Years Gallery, Unit 66, Regent Studios, 8 Andrews Rd, E8 4QN. It runs 29th September - 7th October 2007, gallery open Sat - Sun 1-6pm. The installation was based on a spy game that started in Birmingham (as KR-36 - part of The Event) and has evolved into a London mission as well.

Photos of events from Birmigham and London became merged in an overall story, there was a key to the photos on an old rolodex and a microfiche with slides of Birmingham gas mains

Visitors playing Cat's Cradle, an important metaphor in the show, as there were lots of threads tying things together, but they were always shifting and uncertain. We'd also been talking about Schrödinger's Cat, so this visitor was perfect

There's some information here, we'll add more after the show has come down.

*News: DY-66 reviewed by Lucinda M Holmes here

a.a.s.
Five Years
DY-66 on YouTube
Photos from a.a.s. Flickr page

How To Make A Difference

Freee art collective have got a show at IPS in Bourneville (27 September to 3 November 2007). We helped them with a performance where they read out their manifesto and we joined in the bits we agreed with to make a spoken-word choir. It was exhausting but I think it's a great artwork, it really made me read the text carefully, and the conversations I had with Stuart about it to choose sections to read were just as much part of the piece as the consensus achieved during the reading itself.

The space was filled with billboard works, and large scale reinterpretations of slogan pieces such as "Protest Is Beautiful" and "The social function of public art is to subject us to civic behaviour".

The small text behind Gavin Wade and David Beech is "The function of public art for the gallery is to preserve the distinction between art and the rest of culture by establishing a legitamate form of exception on art's own terms". I also liked the way they had placards piled in the corner, not displayed like valuable art objects.

Oddly, the Birmingham Comedy Festival has picked up on this event, presumably because of the "Have You Heard The One About The Public Sphere?" video featuring Norman Collier (1970s northern comedian, known for a 'faulty microphone' routine and chicken impressions). They may also have seen the other Freee video pieces, as there is a humour in them, I particularly like the "How To Talk To Public Art" video, where they visit sculptures in Manchester and display slogans in front of them. I won't spoil the punchlines though.

Freee
International Project Space
View photos at Artstalking 2 Flickr page