{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.

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.