'Dina Kelberman’s original website features an ever-growing grid of gifs (at the time of launch, there are seven hundred total)—each one an image of smoke or fire excerpted from an iconic cartoon (the list now includes The Smurfs, The Simpsons, Tom & Jerry, Darkwing Duck, Rocky & Bullwinkle, and many more). The project is hatched out of the artist’s obsessive online surfing—for this project, she located and sampled hundreds of cartoons out of the thousands that she chose—as well as out of a desire to order and rearrange the seemingly endless amount of information available to her. The gif images are linked not strictly by subject matter but also through more free-form visual associations, like form, color, and shape. The resulting work is a psychic tour of disasters as they are pictured to children (and/or other cartoon enthusiasts). Here, the successive images of smoke and fire pose no threat.
'Much has been written about the withering aspects of the web’s surfeit of information. But for Kelberman, like so many other artists, this visual excess and the process of surfing through it is an inspiration. On [Kelberman's work], Quaranta has written: “Mass media has now been replaced by a mass of mediators. Art is not responding to what they [the mediators] do with a more professional and technically advanced use of the same tools, but is instead refining its own languages and codes.” His point is key to contextualizing Kelberman in a history of appropriation and within contemporary practice. Where earlier artists unveiled the inherent politics or ideologies in TV or advertising, often artists today engage amateur (i.e., consumer) engagements with pop culture by amplifying the impulses to collect and re-represent aspects of it.
'Smoke & Fire, and previous works by Kelberman, manifest the feeling of drifting or surfing online by compiling images along lines that reflect the way we wander through information online, which can either follow or work against the way images are indexed by search engines. For instance, I’m Google (2011–ongoing) is a tumblr blog in which Kelberman compiles batches of images and videos into a stream-of-consciousness grid that moves seamlessly from one subject to the next, from uniformed workers standing in formation, to sand castles, to craters, to mountains. For Blue Clouds (2012), Kelberman blurred screenshots of the Star Trek the Next Generation credits, turning each one into what looks like a blue-tinted, erased line in the sky. In Kelberman’s practice, surfing, searching, saving, and reordering merge into a broader artistic practice that distills shared preoccupations or ways of seeing the world.'-- The New Museum
____
Further
(Dina Kelberman)
I'm Google
Important Comics by Dina Kelberman
Dina Kelberman Web Design
'DINA KELBERMAN'S "I'M GOOGLE" FINDS THE ART IN WEB SURFING'
DINA KELBERMAN: What Is In It
Dina Kelberman's comics @ Tony Mix Tapes
Dina Kelberman @ Idle Screenings
'Trapped By The Web — But For How Long? Take the Kelberman Challenge'
Dina Kelberman interviewed @ Claw Claw
Dina Kelberman interviewed @ Electric Objects
___
Works
Cloud Formations, 2012
Marjorie Morningstar
Seminole
Saskatchewan
Tumbleweed
The Black Knight
Thine Own Self
They Came to Cordura
Dirt
Private House of the SS
The Babysitter
The Last Chase
The Prince and the Showgirl
Gunfight at the OK Corral
Night Passage
The Secret Life of Plants
Over the Edge
The Day After
Roller Boogie
The Apple Dumpling Gang
Sleepaway Camp
The Pursuit of DB Cooper
Smoke & Fire, 2013
Here
Doors, 2012
Garfield Halloween Special, 2011
GHS-CIRCLE, Animated GIF made of consequtive screen caps
Simpsons Gifs, 2009
Spin
Storm
Splash
Blinds 1
Island
Flash
Snow Falling
Finger
Ghost
Log
Breathe
The Boys
Train
Treehouse
Water
House
Shorts
Sparkle
Night
Door
*
p.s. Hey. As always in these situations, apologies for the slow page loading time, perhaps quite slow in this case, and thank you for your patience. ** Thomas Moronic, T, sir, maestro. My couple of days have been as quiet as a mouse. Until someone explained it to me the other night, I had always thought that Boxing Day referred to, you know, boxing, Muhammad Ali, etc., and not boxing as in boxes. I'm so much more interested in it now. Do you box or de-box something? Is that what you do on Boxing Day? See, that's one of my ideas of a good time. Seriously. ** Jonathan, Hi, J. Man, your photos of Xmas in Norway on FB are so intensely Xmas-y. They made Paris Xmas, which is pretty Xmas-y, seem like mere Thanksgiving. No, the guy who interviewed me probably wanted to give me his autograph. Oh, thanks a lot for sending you-know-what. You-know-who has it now and I'm sure you-know-who is really happy about you-know-what. When do you get back? ** Kier, Hi, K-word! Ha ha, Denzoid is good. I'm going to make everyone call me that from now on. Yeah, I find it really, really difficult to talk about what I do and how I do it and especially why because I do it precisely because I don't know why, but when you tell people that, they're never satisfied. 'Why' has to be the most overrated concept. I mean, do you know why you do what you do? No, right? Hooray about the digital camera! I love the mental image of your parents being introduced to the animals. Awwww. My Xmas was almost nothing at all. I got no presents, not a one. That's okay. Uh, what did I do? Oh, I got a fucking virus on my computer. A malware thing. I really wanted a particular song, and it's rare, so I decided I would need to go steal it from some torrent mp3 site, and so I tried, and I couldn't get the song, but apparently I got malware instead, and suddenly there were pop up ads appearing everywhere, really, everywhere. On my emails, all over the blog, all over Facebook, ... It was like a swarm of angry bee-like pop up ads chasing me everywhere. So I spent a couple of hours trying to figure out how to get rid of it, and, thankfully, I did. Phew. It was horrible. What else ... I listened to lots and lots of Guided by Voices as a gift to myself, and it made me very happy, and I sang and kind of danced around my room. I went for a walk, and Paris was like a tomb in the good way. Incredibly empty and quiet. I worked a little. I had hoped to get a really cool Buche, but I waited too long, and every single remotely fun or crazy-looking but was sold out, so I ended up having to get one of the blah looking normal ones, but it tasted quite good. I ate a piece of that. Yury slept all day until about 7 pm, and then he ate some Buche, and I tried to talk him into giving me a haircut because my hair has gotten to the 'mad scientist' stage, but he wouldn't do it. Grr. I made a couple of blog posts, including the one day because the blog's storage tank was literally completely empty. I think that was the entirety of my Xmas. Voila. How did the post-Xmas world begin for you? Love, me. ** Derek McCormack, Derek! Great Derek! Mighty Derek! Happy just-post Xmas to you! I bet you had one that was really done all up. Am I right? Oh, I bought your ltd. ed. little book, and it's genius, and it's so beautiful! ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, D. I hope Xmas is fading away lustrously in your neck of the world. 'Champagne" was blocked in my country. The Jessye Norman song is very beautiful. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. Ooh, a books list. You read a lot, and the ones I know are ones I fave also, and the ones I don't know intrigue me. Donald Fagan wrote a book? What in the world is that? Anyway, I've noted the unknowns. Thank you! Oh, wait, music too. Yum from top to bottom. I haven't listened to those Momus Bowie covers. I've meaning to. I will pronto. Thank you, big T. ** Steevee, So, did actually watch 'The Interview'? If so, and .... ? It sure seems like some place will be interested in your piece. I mean, that film is the viral topic du jour. Or at least du yesterday. See, having scrolled down, I was right, and Cineaste is an excellent context, obviously. ** Tender prey, Marc! Wow, I've missed you a whole fucking lot, man! It's incredibly good to see you! Wow, this is very cool! I hope you'll consider an ongoing reentry so we can catch up properly. The novel coming out on the 15th is not the novel I've working on so for long. That novel is still in progress. It's novel made up animated gifs that I've been working on for months. It is part of the new novel cycle that I'm working on that will include the other, text-based novel too. We finished the shooting of the movie and now we're madly editing it hoping to get it finished in time for the Berlin Film Festival where there is a chance it might premiere. At the moment, I think we might not get it finished in time, but it's still possible. I'm still at the Recollets but not for much longer. Maybe for another couple of months. Anyway, man, it is greatness to see you! Any plans to come to Paris? Major love, Dennis. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Was it the quiet Xmas you anticipated? Mine couldn't have been quieter. I don't know the Bruce Morrisette book unless I know the book and have forgotten the author's name. I'll check. Cool. ** Sypha, I saw your Xmas loot on FB. Nice. I'm kind of scared of horses 'cos a few of them threw me off their backs when I was much younger, but they're cool things. Very nice 2014 reading list. Characteristically and admirably eclectic. Thanks, James. ** Bill, You're aways in Hong Kong, or else my imagination is playing tricks with my memory, which happens. God, those huge, long flights. Congrats on the audiovisual anthology inclusion and birth. Do send out an alert when it gets freed up. What's Ho Chi Minh City like? It's so legendary. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Someone told me his Facebook password. Does that mean he gets fisted by Zuckerberg or does that mean I do? I hope it's him for various reasons, ha ha. I got coffee. It doesn't fair that your part of the bargain wasn't upheld. I would go find a vomitorium and equalize our situations, but I don't think that coffee is in my stomach anymore. That wasn't boring. You're not a slag. Are you enjoying the four days? ** Mark Gluth, Hi, Mark. There are so many wonderful Milhauser books. I mean 'Edwin Mulhouse' is god. I love 'In The Penny Arcade', 'The Barnum Museum', 'Little Kingdoms', ... really all of them. He's singularly amazing. Favorite sentences of my own? Wow. I think I would have to dig into either my deepest memories or the books themselves to remember. But I do, yes. Or I have, at times, thought of sentences I've written, and gone, Whoa. Do you have favorite sentences of yours? I'm warm, are you? Hope so. ** Hyemin kim, Hi. Oh, shit, I spaced out due to the effect of all the film editing. I promise I will send you the interview before the clocks in France strike 12 today. Sorry. ** Keaton, Man, Xmas proven to be quite a muse for you. Cool, I'll go get the latest. Loved the one the other day. Masterful. Everyone, Keaton wished everyone here and, by proxy, on earth, a Merry Christmas in his inimitable fashion, and it's not too late to be granted that wish, and you deserve it. Here. Thanks about my trees. My Xmas was nothing, but it was good. Do you have all of our fruits? Do we have all of your fruits? I have no idea. ** Cal Graves, Hi, Cal. My Xmas was not much of anything in particular. I told Kier about it up north. Certain people under the tree, right, ooh ... I didn't even think about that possibility. A small pile of certain people. Wow, that would be sweet. You're disappearing for Xmas-related stuff? Seems like a decent guess? Have fun. Come back soon. ** _Black_Acrylic, Thank you for the good Xmas wish. Yours sounds to have been quite nice, relaxing, a little spicy, a little political, filling, and basically everything a Xmas should have been. ** Kyler, Howdy, K. Bernstein ... ? Oh, Leonard. Yeah, he was famous for jumping around a lot, right? Ah, shit, about the arising of the negative aspect of a family Xmas that you were hoping to avoid. I'm sorry. But, yeah, make it into a masterpiece. Perfecto. ** Okay. I'm sure it doesn't take a particle physicist to figure out why Dina Kelberman's work interests me. But the question is, am I alone? See you tomorrow.