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Ryota Kuwakubo The Tenth Sentiment
'Ryota Kuwakubo‘s ‘The Tenth Sentiment’ is a kinetic installation that creates it’s own landscape out of moving shadows. Kuwakubo, a Japaenses multi media artist, has been creating work for over 10 years based on the themes of relationships formed across various boundaries such as analog and digital, humans and machines and information transmitters and receivers. In ‘The Tenth Sentiment’ viewers walk around a room as a model train with an LED light maneuvers along a set a of tracks, focusing a light at commonplace objects on the ground which subsequently cast large shadows on the walls of the room. These shadows change from crowds of people, to cityscapes, to tunnels as the piece continues. What’s more because the light is in constant motion the shadows give the audience the impression they’re watching a moving landscape out of the window of the train.'-- Mutantspace
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Christian Partos E.L.O.
'Swedish artist Christian Partos' piece E.L.O. (I am assuming a clever reference to, and/or appropriation of the name, the Electric Light Orchestra) consists of a roomful of light bulbs essentially dancing in the gallery. This is a permanent installation at the Borusan Music House (that’s the translation).'-- goodmorningandgoodnight
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Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Vectorial Elevation
'"Vectorial Elevation" is an interactive art project originally designed to celebrate the arrival of the year 2000 in Mexico City's Zócalo Square. A website enabled any Internet user to design light sculptures over the city's historic centre, with eighteen searchlights positioned around the square. These searchlights, whose powerful beams could be seen within a 15 kilometers radius, were controlled by an online 3D simulation program and visualised by digital cameras. A personalised webpage was produced for every participant with images of their design and information such as their name, dedication, place of access and comments. These web pages were completely uncensored, allowing participants to leave a wide variety of messages, including love poems, football scores, Zapatistaslogans and twenty-seven marriage proposals. In Mexico, the project attracted 800,000 participants from 89 countries over the course of its two-week duration.'-- Foundation Langlois
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Lis Rhodes Light Music
'In this groundbreaking work, Rhodes plays with our preconception of film by presenting the soundtrack as a series of horizontal and vertical lines that were drawn with pen and ink on the optical edge of the filmstrip. These are projected onto two opposite facing screens in a hazy room. As the films roll, they appear as an ‘optical soundtrack’. What the viewer hears, on the other hand, is the audible equivalent of the alternating images on thescreens. The space between the two screens turns the beams into airy sculptural forms consisting of light, shadow and smoke, which encourages the viewer to move around the room. This in turns destroys conventional film watching codes and turns the film into a collective practice where the audience is expected to intervene into the work and thus, become the performer.' -- The Culture Trip
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Iannis Xenakis Persepolis(recreation)
'In 1971 the Shah of Iran commissioned Xenakis to compose a piece for the 2500 anniversary celebration of Irans founding by Cyrus. The piece was to be performed at the ancient city of Persepolis and so Xenakis titled his piece after that great old capital of the Persian empire. The music he composed was of similarly epic proportions. The shear monolithic scale of this 60+ minute single index piece cannot be understated. Similar in sound perhaps to la legende dee’r and in force to Bohor but Persepolis has an all consuming power all it’s own. Essentially a musique concrete work for 8 track tape the music was designed to play during a light show using multiple lasers and mirrors. I would imagine the experience of being present at the performance to be quite overwhelming.'-- nightoftheworld.com
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Kitty Kraus Untitled
'In an ongoing untitled series of works, artist Kitty Kraus encases the glass portions of light bulbs in blocks of ink-stained ice. The smaller ice lamps – single household bulbs housed in tiny, frosty black cubes – are compact, self-contained systems that resemble improvised explosive devices or dud firecrackers; the larger versions, which contain neon tubes, start out as hefty cubes that uncannily recall cement blocks. After the lamps are plugged in, the ice block inevitably begins to melt and, within hours or days, the initial sculpture transforms into something dissipated and forlorn – a lone, black cord attached to a bare, illuminated (or sometimes broken) bulb on the floor, trailed by inky, swirling pools of stained water. It is these topographic puddles that refuse to let the ice lamps become an act of total dematerialization, instead pushing them toward deliberate, though roundabout, attempts at painting. Originally Kraus tried freezing the lamps in ice without ink – when she discovered the miniature landscapes created by the water and dirt on the gallery floor, she began adding ink to the ice to make the puddles more visible.'-- Frieze
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Anthony McCall Line Describing a Cone
'"Line Describing a Cone" (1973) is described best as "one of the simplest, most elegant and most effective ideas ever committed to film. Starting with a dot at the bottom of the frame, a single line is drawn on the screen, taking the 30-minute running time to form a complete circle. Meanwhile, in the fogged room, the same line gradually forms a cone, with the base of the cone at the screen and the apex at the projector lens. The screen functions mostly to "tell the time" of the movie -- one need only note how much of the circle is there to tell how much of the movie is left. It is the space in between the projector and the screen that is most important -- in this space, the audience moves about, interacting with the cone of light and moving along the beam to get different perspectives...."'-- Andy Ditzler
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Jim Campbell Taxi Ride To Sarah's Studio
'LED lights are strung along 9 foot tall hanging wires at varying intervals, facing the wall. The lights become exponentially fewer and farther apart as the wires spread to the right. The video-based imagery created by the flickering LEDs is from footage shot by the artist from the window of a taxi as he rode from the West Side of Manhattan to Brooklyn. The moving images are more perceptible on the left side of the piece where the LEDs are more condensed, and become less perceptible to the right. The video was shot at an angle to the left, towards the taxi's destination; traffic and the landscape seem to rush out from the vortex-like vanishing point on the horizon. Between the dense source of motion on one side and the fading ripples of light on the other, remarkable levels of detail emerge from the scant digital information supplied.' -- collaged
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Philippe Parreno Marquee
'Interactive Scape has produced and installed the electronic components in almost a dozen Theatre Marquees for artist Philippe Parreno. Most of the Marquees are meant to evoke a feeling of ghostliness, of times past, while another sparkles and radiates heat like a fire. They often accompany other sculptures, drawings, or films, but are also shown as artworks themselves, frequently over doorways, as if to create a portal from one time to another. The works combine lighting techniques that are almost a thing of the past (such as incandescent bulbs and neon tubes), with modern acrylics that are milled, shaped and formed with the latest plastic fabrication methods.' -- Interactive Scape
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Katie Paterson Streetlight Storm, Deal Pier
'At any one time there are around 6000 lightning storms happening across the world, amounting to some 16 million storms each year. Such dizzying statistics are useful to hold in mind while experiencing Streetlight Storm, a new artwork by Katie Paterson. For one month on Deal Pier in Kent, during the hours of darkness, the pier lamps will flicker in time with lightning strikes happening live in different parts of the world. Lightning signals from as far away as the North Pole or North Africa are received by an antenna on the pier and translated into light. As the pattern of lightning strikes changes, so the pier lights oscillate correspondingly, with a subtlety that contrasts with the power and drama of the storms they reflect.' -- collaged
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Conrad Shawcross Slow Arc Inside a Cube IV
'Conrad Shawcross's kinetic sculpture Slow Arc Inside a Cube IV (2009) consists of a dense metal cage from whose interior a fiercely bright light practically spits abstract shadows. A light on a mechanical arm within the cube structure moved in an arc shape and cast shadows across the room. The shape of the arc made the pattern sides of the cube perceive the room to shrink and expand as it moved, making the viewer feel a similar sensation to the Alice in Wonderland experience of shrinking and growing.'-- collaged
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James Turrell Burning Bridges
'In his first week of teaching at the Claremont graduate school in 1971, James Turrell created a rather loud false alarm. He was planting road flares and aluminum reflectors in alcoves behind the columns of Bridges Auditorium (above) in a performance art piece in which the building appeared to have caught on fire. “What happened is it was so effective that the fire department was called out,” he said, telling the story by phone Monday. "All of a sudden I heard the sirens approaching." He said he left Roland Reiss, the new head of the program, holding the bag; he had to rush off to join his students at another performance.'-- LA Times
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p.s. Hey. ** Squeaky, Hi, Darrell! Yeah, I've been ogling pix of that abandoned amusement park in Berlin with drool-esque in my mouth's corners. You great? ** Un Cœur Blanc, Hi! I missed you too! I do indeed have an abandoned things fetish of sorts. Seems to be a fairly widespread love. I wonder what that's about? You stay well too! ** Misanthrope, Maybe reanimate them in their ruined states. Zombie places. I could get into that, even if I can't quite picture that. ** Wolf, Hi, Wolfy! No, I haven't been to any of those. Wait, I did drive by the Flintstones one once, but I was in a hurry for some forgotten reason. Definitely going to check out Chateau de Noisy. Zac and I want to buy a chateau and build our own utopian theme park/world there, and that seems like a great candidate, assuming they, whoever 'they' are, would just give it to us for free, which surely they would. Gonna try to see Hashima where, yes, apparently they did film that Bond movie that I didn't see, but time might be too tight, I don't know. I saw that Cracked round-up in my searching for the post, and yes (!) about those two. I should do a sequel post. You good? What's the latest? ** David Ehrenstein, Marvelous about your review! I'll read that when I'm finished here, as usual. Yesterday was John Waters' 67th birthday. Crazy. Everyone, the one, the only David Ehrenstein has written about the new documentary 'I Am Divine', and you should obviously go read what he wrote, and you can so easily. Yeah, France has a contingent of far right lunatics just like everywhere else, it turns out. It has gotten spookier in the last week. But they're very fringe, and their evil acts are only making support for public support same-sex marriage rise quickly in the polls, to see the silver lining aspect. ** Rewritedept, Hi. The abandoned Belgian castle/chateau is on my agenda for the near future, obviously. Ah, driving on a suspended license. Ugh, but at least not too seriously ugh, I guess. No, I totally forgot until last night that I'm going to Belgium on Thursday morning to work on the theater piece, so we'll have to Skype at the weekend maybe once I'm back. I didn't know that Pharoah's Kingdom had gone defunct. It was alive the last time I saw it from the highway. Wow, next time I'm out there, I'll cruise by that for sure. ** Cobaltfram, Hi ... Johnny. That felt weird. Mm, I think I've enjoyed a reasonable number of memoirs, but I can't remember which ones they were, which might be telling. I'll jog my memory if I can. I greatly prefer oral biographies. Now, there's a pretty great form. Wouldn't work of your book, and nor for mine, unfortunately. The abandoned places post was certainly a crowd pleaser, and that's something. I'll always prefer posts where I have an aesthetic hand in their construction, even though they're never the most popular posts, but I would, wouldn't I? Anyway, glad you dug it so much! Thanks! ** Tosh, Hi, Tosh! I'll be keeping my eye way out and my camera at ready for abandoned places on the upcoming Japan trip, for sure. Thank you so much for sending the pdf! I read half of the book yesterday, and it's just fantastic! I'm almost finished putting the post together, and it'll launch here on Saturday, May 4th. Thank you, Tosh! It's a great honor! Oh, my address, no problem, and thank you! It's: c/o Centre International des Recollets, 150 rue du Faubourg St. Martin, 75010 Paris, France. ** Scunnard, Hi, J. Great news about Lizz's post. (Thank you, Lizz!) Uh, good question about that convergence with your tastes when I'm running out of ideas, and what in the world could that mean, if it's true? It's no ploy, though. Now that I have a rich real life, the blog is harder to do. Later, gator. ** Grant maierhofer, Hi, man! I loved your HTMLG post about Earl M. Rauch book. Nice companion to the abandoned places post, actually. Literary erotica, cool. I've never gotten the Henry Miller thing. I always think his novels are kind of great for the first 10 pages or so, and then they start irritating and boring me. I like him a lot better than Durrell, though. Now there's a writer I really, really don't get. I'm good, thanks. I hope you are, and you sound like you are. ** Pilgarlic, Hey! Chico's Monkey Farm, cool. I googled that, and I found a few images. Looks trippy. I totally agree with you that that sign would have been a very cool capture. ** Heliotrope, Hi, Mark! Ah, thanks, man. I'm going to try to see that Chateau in person soonish, and I'll let you know if it lives up in 3D. Love to you! ** Steevee, Love shut down malls. So satisfying, and yet ... Yes, the far right crazies in France are going a bit crazy at the moment. Between now and the next while -- it looks like the same sex marriage law will pass in a couple of days -- it could be a little intense, we'll see. ** S. Two stacks in almost one shot. Holy shit. I like how they're growing contextually. Pretty stuff, man. And I spy Cody Weston Viers in there. He's an FB friend of mine. Sweet guy. Everyone, today you have two, count them, two Emo stacks from S. to scroll your way through, and, yes, now or very soon would be the time do that by tapping on this. Oh, wait, I think one of them got deleted. Finicky S., it seems. So, go check out the survivor. I'm determined to be immortal, so I'm, like, 'Give it your best shot, death'. Actually, I'm, like, 'Please, please, please don't even try with me, I beg of you'. That's more like it. Ratt has their 'defenders of the artfulness' contingent. It's interesting. I should try them again sometime. Emos aren't that into Bright Eyes as a rule, as far as I can tell. ** Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben! Nice! Was the triangle her idea or yours. Very fetching indeed. ** Nemo, Hey! Well, ditto, man! Probably the weekend for Skypeing since, as I told Rewritedept up above, I forgot until last night that I go out of town to work on a theater piece on Thursday. So, yeah, the weekend? Love, me. ** Sypha, Ah, I do remember you linking to those monuments now that you mention it. I thought they looked familiar. So glad you love the McCourt. 'Time Remaining' is really hard and expensive to come by, yeah, but he's always fantastic, so you can't lose with any of his novels. I am seeking guest days, yes, I am, and I would love to have one of any shape, size, and content from you, should making one give you pleasure. Thanks, James. I know of Jake Bugg, yeah. I've heard a little. Didn't do much of anything for me. But, yeah, I get why a bunch of my gay friends are suddenly interested in him, ha ha. ** Richard chiem, Hi, Richard! What a great pleasure it is for me to see you! Cool about the projection. Are you great? Are you writing? All respect to you, sir. ** Will C., Hi, Will. I've been very good, thank you. Applications to what jobs? Anything you're actually really hoping to get for reasons in addition to the money part? Thanks a lot about the post, man. ** Lee Vincent, Hi, Lee. Thanks about the post. And for saying nice things about my Bresson piece. Yeah, suicide by people I love has been a real factor in my life, and I'm sure that interest and the style/nature of Bresson's portrayal has impacted my reverence for him. Did you like 'Hadewijch'? I did. How is 'Reflections in a Golden Eye'? I like McCullers a lot, but some reason I've never read that one. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Thanks, Jeff. I'm going to google that Oz theme park asap, as you can imagine. I saw this morning that Mud Luscious is shutting down. That's really sad news. Such a great press! Do you know if Blue Square is dying too? Man, that sucks. I think I'll do a Mud Luscious post in memoriam. Yeah, I think I'll do that. No, I don't know anything about why it's folding. I guess we'll know soon. Really sad. Damn. I was excited that Shane Jones is with Two Dollar Radio. Man, that press is on fucking fire. Well, I assume the reason Penguin axed him is that his books didn't make the money they'd hoped. That's always the final reason, I think, but I don't know. I think they might have paid a bundle for 'Light Boxes'. I know there was a bidding war for it. HP not only bid and lost, they asked me to try to talk Shane into publishing with them. Anyway, fuck Penguin, I say. I'll go check that link re: The Fall. Thanks a bunch! ** James, Glad you liked it. I don't agree about it being better than the BM post, but, hey, the public have spoken. The public knows best, right, ha ha. No, thank you! I'm just being whatever. ** Okay. Artists who work with light. That's the long and short of today's post. Hope it's of interest. See you tomorrow.