{Re}HAPPENING

In case you’re living under a rock and haven’t seen a poster yet, Gene Felice is throwing a happening this Saturday at Black Mountain College. Admission is cheaper if you’re part of MAP. There are so many artists on the roster that blogging about what they all do individually would be overwhelming. But I’m in there, and so is Lorraine Walsh, and I’ve seen what Queen Mae and The Bells can do, and I’d say it’s worth going for them alone.

(click for full view)

Gallery of Black Mountain College photos

{Re}HAPPENING Artists:

NEW MEDIA:
Mark Hanf & Marnie Muller
Scott Fur
Megan McKissack
Mark Koven
Lorraine Walsh
Lei Han
Wray Bowling
Gene Felice

CULINARY ARTS:
Mark Rosenstein

DANCE / MOVEMENT:
Claire Elizabeth Barratt / Cilla Vee Life Arts
Julie Becton Gillum
Sara Baird

PERFORMANCE:
Tina Matthews & Eve Warnock (AWESOME)
http://www.evewarnock.com/
http://www.queenmaeandthebells.com/

Elisa Faires

Poetix Vanguard: Graham Hackett – Spoken Word
http://www.poetixonline.com/The-Poetix-Vanguard.html
http://www.philmechanicstudios.com/graham_hackett.html

Madison J. Cripps – Puppeteer – Strings Attached Puppet Show

SCULPTURE:
Jinx aka “Sean Pace” (link 1, link 2)

Melissa Terrezza – ceramics

SOUND:
Wayne Kirby
Greg Olson
Dave Hamilton – Moog Foundation Creative Director

Ross Gentry & Chris Ballard
http://www.myspace.com/headwaycollective
http://www.myspace.com/ventriclessounds

Salvatore D’Angio – Audio Installation

Kima Moore
http://www.last.fm/music/Kimathi+Moore
http://www.myspace.com/kimamoore

Chandra Shukla – Sound Performance
http://www.erototoxdecodings.com/xambuca.html
http://www.myspace.com/xambuca

So Hard

Sam Witherspoon is not average by any means. Perhaps it’s his upbringing. My father listened to a lot of strange musicians in his day too, and I think we revere that common ground. All this backlog is no reason for me to make attempts at over-hyping something. I’m not like that. No. This article is about Sam Witherspoon because he impressed me. He impressed me because he tried…

He’s going to kill me if I make any more bad punny write-up. To be very to-the-point: This site is about one thing and one thing only. Taking this design 101 mentality:

No symbols. Symbols are too strong. – Chris McKee

and rudely shoving it up your ass. In his “About me” section, Sam writes

∆ ≠ ‡ † 卐 ∑ ╬ ∆

And then, the art itself is just stunning. There’s everything from oddly 80’s 3D graphics be they like poster graphics or something that looks like it came straight out of Powerpoint ala Microsoft Powerpoint ’95

And what’s more, it’s a style that has persisted consistently from Sam. In many of his previous projects, the aim was to use a music group as the vehicle, but in the form of a blog it’s clear to see that the aim is to stick a tack under your visual-context.

It’s also cool to see that he’s a big fan of Zach’s data-destryoing processing script.

Data Corrupter

I mocked up this little data-destructor in Processing last night.  Hope you guys like it.

//image destroyer
//works for movie files too!
//load files into same directory as program.
//sometimes it doesn't work.

String img = “ronaldreagan”; //file name
String ext = “.jpg”; //file extension

for(int num = 1; num <= 10; num++) { //10 iterations
byte[] data=loadBytes(img+ext);
for(int i=0;i<100;i++) //100 changes
{
int loc=(int)random(128,data.length);
data[loc]=(byte)random(255);
}
saveBytes(img+num+ext,data); //won’t overwrite
}

exit();

John Kerr: Magic Boots

I got on John’s case the other day about not having more of his amazing video work online. It turned out he did have some of it online already, but then I talked him in to getting a Vimeo account. So as of yesterday, his 320 short entitled “Magic Boots” is up in 720p HD, and if you have an account yourself, and jump on the link before the 30-day period, you can download the full 1080i HD video at the bottom. (I love Vimeo!)

Beautiful baby Bird ain’t half bad either. I imagine that the future will hold even more IceHorse, and wacky-natured video backflips.

Wray Bowling: Digital Puppetry

I do what I can not to write about myself because it makes me feel vain and pompous, but this time I’m proud of myself. The presentation I gave in Amsterdam last month is finally online for everyone to see. Enjoy it!

you’ll have to skip ahead to roughly the middle.

Back to Schhool

Crap.

Thats all I can really say.  Go away school.  I was having fun golfing and going to the beach before you got here.  Now you’re here and I find myself waking up before 11 and now Im thinking about bed at 9:19.

summer summary

Ok, I guess Im ready for school to be back.  Dont get me wrong, my summer was fun-filled with sailing and making fun of yancey – but i feel like i should be doing more tooo you know, advance myself.  Because you see making fun of yancey is fun and  simple – but its not exactly landing me a job.

It’s my senior year (time to get down).  And Im going to get down.  I have started thinking about my undergrad research and ive concluded (after reconsidering furniture design for a brief moment) that I am going to do a documentary on Asheville.  Everyone reading this (you you you) should go to our site and tell us how much we suck.  Me and a hairy man named adam (history grad) are teaming up for this one with high hopes.  I will call upon all of you to help me… (especially you).

Ifff you havent noticed we also have a feature article on unca.edu.  Your name (or face) might be there somewhere… – and if you haven’t heared yet unca is redesigning their website.  They are having some sneak peak listening sessions this week around lunchtime with a new look at some of the new advances they have made on the site – i plan on taking a date (me and kristen are complicated right now).  Soo you should come with me.

Im sure we will have a MAC meeting shortly and give an update on things.  One thing I plan on trying to do this spring is have a multi-club water fight on the quad.  I kind of see it going down like this:

Also, those processing peoples out there should check out this competition.  Your sketch has to have only 200 characters and it has to be cool.  I havent touched processing since curts internet art class but i may dabble and see what I come up with for this.

Well fellow countrymen and women Im off to bed.  No drinky tonight – i have school in the morning.  I hoope you all had a good summer and are ready to see my face on a consistent basis.  Good Day.

i said GOOD DAY!

unca.edu 2.0 Talk

Tonight, from 7:00pm  to 8:00pm in Highsmith 221 the design firm that’s revamping the campus website is taking suggestions from students. Questions they are asking us to think about include:

• What’s good about the current site?
• What are some improvements you’d like to see?
• Who are the audiences we want to reach?
• What kind of information about UNC Asheville is most important?
• What technologies or Web 2.0 applications might we include?

There are other talks scheduled all day for Faculty, Staff, Alumni, Community, and even an “everyone” session from 4-5 in the Whitman Room in the library

The current front page doesn’t fill in any other pages yet, or finalize the design, but initial reactions to the progress so far have been chiefly positive.  There’s even a blog covering the progress of the redesign.

Capstrat is the name of the firm. Their index.html might make you dizzy, so I suggest hitting their website reel if you’re interested in their previous design choices. Many of their clients are companies that are based in the Research Tirangle Park. I think if we try to get anything across to them it should be that UNC Asheville is very different from the business-suit hotspot of the south east.

Jordan Skowronski’s “Wish You Were Here”

On display this week outside Zeis is Jordan Skowronski’s senior capstone project entitled “Wish You Were Here.” Jordan gave this project, like most of his work, a real tongue and cheek approach that captures the awkward excitement of visiting a place, being a tourist, and taking a souvenir with you to remember the moment. There hasn’t been word yet on whether tomorrow’s presentation will include “get your photo taken with the exhibit,” but it was part of the original plan. Below are a few photos. Since the exhibit is meant to be a lot like a “tourist attraction”, link any photos you happen to take of it here, show people that you’ve been there, and put it in your CV under the “Travel” category.

“Wish You Were Here” even got a publication on the Media Arts Project blog. That’s impressive.