AFH UPDATE (September/October, 2017): AFH Studio BK 4.0

Since moving into my East Williamsburg studio in August, I have to-date completed nearly sixty speculative paintings.  In art quantity output is not necessarily anything to brag about. It depends. Scarcity in the market can impact valuation. Quality of each artwork can be assessed objectively by an expert or subjectively by anyone. Good versus Bad is the binary of aesthetic judgment. I am confident that the pace of studio production at AFH Studio BK 4.0 is not only defensible, but predictable. Past experience shows that any prolonged absence from the studio in my case is followed by a period of massive artistic output. While I was writing my Ph.d BETA draft, I did not maintain a proper studio, and only painted - in "small," concentrated series - during breaks between books. Then, my application to Oxford/Ruskin (which was rejected) cost another six months' and thousands of simoleans. To understate, it is a tremendous relief to have a studio, and a beautiful one at that, and to be painting again!

At this point I am in discussions regarding potential presentation/exchange vehicles for these pieces. I hope to be able to share more details soon. The range of options is broadly diverse. The three shortlisted vehicles fundamentally belong to three divergent economies. Each projection model of the three vehicles suggests consequent evolutionary patterns for me and my work, and whichever associations I pursue. None of three intertwine. I'm trying to take my time deciding on one, given the stakes. Most NYC artists do not have the luxury of patience.

The completion of my doctoral thesis is a pretext to this art. The paintings are forming series that have progressive features, and the most prominent features of the painting sequence are Referential, Direct and Directional. I think of the array of paintings in the studio as intertwined representation, but never illustrative. The painting structures suggest layers of actions and undefined relativity.

Initially I considered refusing to name any of the new art, but decided to follow the given protocols as a matter of practicality, or as a tactical diversion. The first painting has a working title ("Network"), but I reserve the "right" to edit any title at a later date. The figurative series is currently titled "Weird/Wired Man." The textured abstractions are called "Topos." The set of small panels is titled "'GRID' [Bots, bugs, N-tities, Forms...] and/or 'MEDIA DREAMS.'" Collectively, the whole set is titled "I-M-mate-REALITY." The "SELFIE/USSIE" set of digitally manipulated mobile phone photos I presented in the CTC Creative Technologies course I took this past summer (New Media, New Forms) are - in my mind - integrated into the pre-presentation model for the exhibit I imagine emerging from the new painting set(s). The pattern paintings that I showed in "For Paris" last year also seem connected to the new work in some way, and may find their way into a future combinative array of new paintings, media work and a selection of relevant older work. One supposes it will depend on spatial considerations, curatorial preference and conceptual focus, etc.

The paintings are made with vinyl paints, mostly, with some adhesive vinyl and charcoal pencil/acrylic medium used on "'GRID'....'MEDIA DREAMS.'" The substrates are diverse. Some paintings (e.g., "Network") are painted on fresh canvases or panels. Some painting substrates are cover-ups of older work. The compositions - a perfunctory term here - are drawn from diverse 4D+ practices I have developed over three decades, plus those techniques that other artists and 1-4D practitioners have developed which I have found to be sufficiently applicable to the task at hand. As usual the technical craft hinges on routine and procedural experimentation, with a hefty dose of improvisation. I am enjoying toggling between appropriation or re-appropriation, and invention. As I work the metaphysical aspects of painting are coursing through my consciousness like a voice-over, without any requisite that the thinking follow any concept-to-object trajectory, devolve into subjective deconstruction or reductive critique. Certainly the influence of psychology writ large is herein moot by 4D+ Choice and neutralizing effects available to any anti-psych agent-artist today. The content is mechanical, as it were, and the overarching aesthetics are symbolic-representational. There are advantages and liabilities in this modality. Signage is not meaningful as such, in these paintings, but the signature is. The extent to which traditional methods fold into the infinite matrices of 4D+ events - imagine it as uncharted territory without limits - for the non-contingent object/artistic action is purely a question of time and energy, aside from the contemporary problems of pragmatism. Oh, and the relative "fact" of measurements for each painting. ...At one point I pondered non-rectilinear substrates, but why distract from what's really happening inside the lines, edges, borders, end-points, and so on?

The theoretical context of "I-M-mate-REALITY" is sourced from post-Internet analysis and media philosophy, some useful optical science and chemistry, and other intelligence. The execution itself is almost entirely analog. I have a laptop on hand for checking e-mail, and an overhead projector, which I have yet to turn on. The virtual expresses itself here post-facto, and I postponed that development as long as possible. I have reduced externalities and random inputs significantly, compared to previous AFH extended studio productions (e.g., AFHGC). The thinking is part of the seen art, floating within the generative flow processes whereby each painting "constructs itself," with my "help." I realize this description is pure metaphor. The appearance of the paintings can be rightly perceived as a snapshot of confluence, and also - simultaneously - evidence of the Thing itself, a construct with the quality of stasis. It's important to attach this notation to a consideration of "studio-time." Even if that concrete feature of the object is suspect, and can be said to be illusory, due to the time-element, in the seeing-moment, the painting is real-enough to be comparatively trustworthy, as a sense stimulant and conversation starter at minimum. The reality of each painting prefigures its existence as "idea," and this is an outright rejection of the Ideal as a pre-ordinant superimposition on the art-medium, as determined by Classical (philosophical/aesthetic/political) projections for art by non-artists. In the instance of "I-M-mate-REALITY," much more is involved, because the platform for the in-studio creative enterprise is both "free-style" and style-free. The platform allows for only internal determination. The foundation of this art is sound, big as History can be, but non-definitive, and withal the language floating around the art itself, not-literal. Nor is the art numerical beyond the commonest metrics.The "true" architecture of this art is complicated, what I call Woven-form. The movement of this art, in a 4D+ system, is convoluted. Color is immanent in this art, and its dynamic nature is multi-faceted with the systematic array. Which is to say, color in 4D systems is itself multi-dimensional, and color is itself a spectral phenomenon therein. One note I meant to include in this introduction to "I-M-mate-REALITY:" Stipulating the virtual, the Image as such is digital until such time that the person actually encounters the art. The rules of virtuality apply to the perceptual nature of the Image - any image - up to the moment that the art acquires the nature of shared presence with the viewer. Worth considering is the extent throughout the process of the role of the artist in facilitating the interaction between art and viewer(s), and participating in the derivative discourse among those sharing said experience with the art in all its potential modalities, and evaluating the variant qualities of art in its programmatic interactive state for engaging viewership. And so on.

AFH UPDATE [August 2017]

This edition of the AFH Update is dedicated to the memory of Glenn Campbell, the only Campbell man about whom I ever gave a dang.

In conformity with the auld journo practicum, we will present the most important information in this text first thing. The rest is as they say, "just conversation." Given the blog format, it's fair to describe the architecture of the post as being "in descending order," but forgive me if I choose not to conceive of it as such. My conception of the text is more along the lines of "in defense of the unreasonable," with a nod to the late, great Yvor Winters. That notion gelled during today's fairly uneventful drive from Bushwick to the beach, since most of the congestion, except for a few tight spots on Flushing and the LIE, occurred on the other side of the highway or byway. I digress. I have opened a new Brooklyn studio, through which I hope to reconstitute or revive a bunch of previous AFH undertakings, including Good Faith Space, Occupational Art School, The Society for the Prevention of Creative Obsolescence, and of course AFH Studio B.K [v.4], plus more. I am even entertaining the idea of finally producing the AFH podcast some folks in the AFH circle(s) have been pushing me to do, well, since podcasts happened. Before that we did radio shows, like ArtTalk, ArtRadio & ArtWaves. Here are some documentation photos of the space, which I found through the Listings Project, after many months' fruitless search that spanned the USA and other lands:

The sole person picture in the gallery/image carousel above is not yours truly [PJM], but rather my godkid Misha, who is a recent graduate of Bates College and newly transplanted in BK. He is also the only actual human in the set that follows, which focuses on the first delivery to my studio, a 6' x 8' canvas manufactured by SOHO Materials, whose Brooklyn location is just around the block from my pad. Check out that bitchin' Tri-Mar custom aluminum stretcher, yo! During the pre-production phase following our securing the studio, I had considered a massive Blick order of pre-stretched canvases and a prolonged painting-endurance test to commence the day the goods arrived at the studio door. I am fairly certain that the brutally long period between my last studio-occupation and this one - a year+, the longest such disconnect in my adult/professional life - played strong in my fever-dream of piles of ready materials & sleepless nights burning out on mad painting sessions. Instead I inhaled/exhaled deeply and chose another objective. There's something to be said for getting older & wiser, and if I said it, it would probably be in blurry, confused and/complicated dimensional long-form, and contain words like "shift," "layers," "dimension," and so on. Ultimately, on a practical/production note, purchasing expensive artist materials is a purely speculative exercise for all but a few lads and ladies, and many of the remainder (the commissioned) are relegated to the informal professional category of order-fillers and commercial designers for a fractional select clientele. 

The last gallery/carousel documents the space post-move-in, which move was performed with excellence by my good friends at Metropolis Moving. This is the second time I've hired Metropolis with transporting my inventory & art-making materials, and I am again nothing but impressed. As a veteran/survivor of a stint at LA Packing Crating & Transport  [If you follow the link, and watch the vertical slideshow in right sidebar of LA Packing's homepage, that's me with my back to the camera, back in the day installing Jonathon Borofsky numbers] I deeply appreciate relying on a crew of dudes to handle my beloved art/matter, which in August is a sweaty, demanding workout that also requires mindfulness. Metropolis movers are up the task.

And as Forrest Gump mumbled dumbly, "That's all I have to say about that" for now. I will begin posting notices for upcoming events/projects etc., via nodes on the AFH platform, shortly. STAY TUNED!

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Opening a studio in a high-rent/overhead location in August 2017 is essentially an irrational act. I'm not the Lone Ranger in this regard! My good pal Dane Carder just opened one (a studio/multi-use arts production/presentation facility in Nashville! NUTS! Best of luck in your new venture, amigo! Long live DCS! Check out his notices:

To juxtapose my course of action and Dane's with other artists can be a problematic, if entertaining exercise. I guess we could be taking pokes at President Donald, which is one angle to leverage mass attention for those who are so inclined, and as proofs that free expression has not been entirely snuffed out in present day America. See here, here, here, here, here, etc, etc. Artists trolling Trump in all media is emerging as a bonafide (trans., "good faith") genre in the arts industrial complex! Some of us recall the high hopes America's artists had for the freshly elected first-term President Obama. Many of us imagined the restoration of the National Endowment of the Arts' individual artist grants for [ugh, visual] artists, and - Athena/Minerva be praised - possibly a new iteration of those impressive AIA/WPA programs of the New Deal era... Well, that all went to hell in a handbasket, and quick, courtesy Molly McGuire-esque Patrick Courrielche and dickhead Glenn Beck! NEA caved, one assumes because Big O support disappeared, and Rocco Landesman turned out to be a spineless, dud, and Obama threw Shep under the bus, and the rest of us, too, after he got the juice he needed to get to the Oval Office. We soon learned with which characteristics of Athena/Minerva Obama sought to align. He went with War/Money, peace prize and justice be damned. Those of us at OWS/arts & culture who believed Obama would not behave as a behind-the-curtain/MGR of the anti-Occupy crackdowns and clearances, who believed he couldn't actually be an anti-art/free speech authoritarian/tyrant, were demonstrably put on notice. In 2014, as Obama's second term was winding down, WaPo's terrific Philip Kennicott reviewed President 44's #SAD arts/culture legacy for Americans, given the promise/potential his administration presented for the country, especially artists, who'd been candidate Obama's most obvious advocates...

44 ~ An Art Historical Perspective [iPhone photo of a plate from Novad MEGAZINE, End of the World Edition, vol.ø, No.1 (From the DIM TIM "Pimps of Davos" series by PJM, 2012)]

So, yah, I get it. The Don = #BAD [but good for ("art")business], which, if you look at it another way, might be called "inpiration," meaning, Trump is an art-inspiring figure for a generation of artsies. Further, one can ponder when the at-depth analysis of Obama's crap legacy for the arts/culture in America kicks off. Even further, as in down the rabbit hole of despair and disbelief, one can be grateful that neither of them is George W. Bush - unpunished war criminal and ARTIST.

Robert Moses State Park/Beach (PJM 2017)

The Dog Days of summer are upon us, but they're not really that doggy, and the surf of Robert Moses Beach is beckoning over the din of everyday Brooklyn's wholesale conversion into a cosmo Creative Class campus. Which always makes me think of Henry Miller. I heard from a trustworthy source the jellyfish won't be plentiful at the Robert Moses bathers' break for a few weeks. Not like 20 years ago. The seaside water temperature is lovely (@70˙), the heat is generally moderate (in the 70s), tanning does not yet feel blistery dangerous, and the locals are still fairly friendly, by Long Island standards (an unquantifiable metric). The storms come and go, but they do bring nice waves.

BEACH (PJM, 2017)

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We occupy a spinning blue-green orb in a Yuge-niverse, and the wondrous-myriad of celestial bodies and physical forces in play in the cosmos affect our wet planet's matrix of tidal dynamics, if you believe Science. Water is the medium for dreaming, the Old Ones told me, so I pay attention to the arcs of fluidity and their sometimes mighty crashes, the ripples of disruption, and the detritus that floats on the surface. I try to let Flow wash over me. The froth of churning waters, the bubbles, the sheen the rain leaves on the road, the film left behind by a fine spritz, the coincidental rainbows floating in spray, tears...endless watery forms, transient in nature, carving rock, alternating states between ice, fluid and steam. Water is poetry and a Pisces loves to frolic or wallow in either and both.

VR/Wovenform[s] (PJM, 2017)

Being fishy myself, I find it enigmatic that post-birth, people can only breathe underwater by artificial/mechanical means, sometimes in dreams, and of course in the imagination. I suspect I've discovered a curious thread leading to a clue that might solve a Big Mystery, but until I figure out which Mystery I'm on to, I'll stick to the task at hand, which is the temporal technical imaginary, prefaced with the opening lines of Sorley MacLean's poem The Choice:

I walked with my reason
out beside the sea.
We were together but it was
keeping a little distance from me.

Throughout this post we'll be checking in to see what some of our AFH friends are up in the summer of 2017. Our preface linked seasonal fluidity and the [ir-]rational or Not-Reason, culminating in a poetic interlude, so let's begin our mini-AFH survey by peeking at the progress of one of our favorite projects ever, The Voyage of the Hippo [VotH]! Our intrepid crew have returned to the vaunted vessel for another installment of its epic journeys. Shane Kennedy, on the rebound from his excursions in the Orient, is a key veteran member of Hippo's elite team of artist-sailors, whose captain in Clemens Poole. AFH hosted homecoming presentations for VotH at Occupational Art School at Bat Haus, and again at Good Faith Space at Standard Toykraft. We will keep y'all posted for any news about an upcoming third session this Fall. For those of you who want to track the Hippo's fantastic adventure, they post updates when possible on both Instagram and Tumblr.

Captain Clemens shared in an Hippo Tumblr entry what I would say is a poignant, on-topic meditation for those of us applying cost-benefit analysis to our urges and impulses to engage the irrational, especially in its "dangerous adventure" form and modality. Prioritizing responsibilities in a managed world that emphasizes productivity, consistency, risk-aversion, conformity, comfort, consumption, etc., is naturally an exercise that routinely marginalizes an enterprise like Hippo. Not that there's a project "like" Hippo anywhere. Here's an excerpt from Clemens' post, "Back Aboard" :

Years passed. Work, school, money all kept me from putting together a new voyage. These are all reasonable excuses. However, this past year, living and studying in London, I began to consider that these excuses had a familiar ring to them. They are the same excuses that potential shipmates would use to decline my father’s offers to sail aboard Hippo during his decade bouncing around Europe. They were reasonable excuses then too, but now it occurs to me that there is very little about Hippo that is “reasonable” in that sense. Her world is fundamentally unreasonable in the context of contemporary responsibilities. Sure, with my father gone, it’s no longer simply the absence of responsibilities that allows me to jump on a plane and head to whatever funky harbor Hippo finds herself in. Now, to create this experience I have to make her seaworthy, I have to organize a crew, I have to find that harbor. All of this in spite of the pressures of work, school, money and everything else. 

∞

Let's these deep waters behind us and move into a different current: Today we shall be down-layering VR, up-fronting the output of tools like the new version of Corel Painter (2018) that I downloaded this week and am using to build a bunch of the images for this blog, and touching on a range of strategies for envisioning culture as a crucial, if mysterious, means by which we can enhance our collective odds of survival. Setting aside the temporarily down-topic VR, can we talk about Painter immediately, since I so rarely do anything like "product review," unless we apply that critical genre ID term to my sharing assessments of art shows? Impressions, after a week of Painter 2018 use:

• The first thing I noticed was the disappearance of the "movie" option, prompted upon opening a new document. I used Painter in the past to build animated gifs/simple animations that were a staple in my 4D+ arrays. My initial usage of this animation feature in Painter (1998-9) was directed toward solving the issue of Motion in Western Art. #SAD
• My Mac mouse is clearly and in some aspects annoyingly insufficient for working in the Painter modality. I will have to pop for a stylus. The mouse causes the canvas view to zoom in and out while I shift the cursor during use. #FRUSTRATING
• Many of the most powerful features of Painter are not executable through intuitive processing. The user must learn the actions and familiarize herself with the manual, the workspace, and shortcuts, etc., to get at the best tools in the toolbox. Integration of these features in one's workflow will only result from a dedicated study of the program and its use-designs, which I find tedious in some respects, and not similar to cultivating craft in actual studio painting. #DIVERGENT
• Painter has many fantastic correlates to studio painting, though, refined over years of program upgrades, add-ons and modifications. This is evident primarily in the "brushes" and other media application instruments, including the virtual substrates and their integral behaviors. One can work with Painter extensively and still uncover novel means for building images in the software. However, Corel continues to bundle some of its coolest inventions - for instance, bitchin' hawt brushes - in for-purchase add-on packages, ostensibly as a revenue booster. #LAME
• I bought Painter instead of Photoshop, because Corel did not replicate Adobe's subscription model for the program's users. GOOD FOR YOU (& US) COREL!!! The P-shop model is horrid for many reasons, which I will discuss elsewhere. #EVIL
• I appreciate that Painter maintains its GUI architecture through many upgrades. Having interrupted a nearly 20 year-old computer-based 4D+ art practice to focus on the doctoral thesis composition, and returning to the platform, Painter's interface consistency means I am still oriented, even after a few years away. I cannot say the same with respect to Photoshop and Final Cut, for instance. Thank you, Corel! #HUMANE
• SUMMARY: Painter remains awesome! [Four MILOs out of Five]

"Screengrab" (Software-enhanced smartphone photo by PJM, 2017)

∞

Developments (VR; & artist software like the venerable Painter, the first such digital media program I tried, back in the early 90s - in Santa Fe, at a recorded-for-broadcast Studio X demo by Ash Black and another practitioner whose name I can't recall; and ...O... let's say, the recently, brutally hacked/gamed Game of Thrones) suggest in the virtual realms most anything we can think of and code can be visualized, can be sensitized, can be experienced/manifested sufficient to the extent of an object-oriented desire-satisfaction - and hacked/exploited. Which brings to mind my EGS instructor Lev Manovich. He was recently interviewed on a Chelsea rooftop by Hunter O'Hanian for the CAA News Today. Lev had some choice words for contemporary art:   

[(SCREEN GRAB) "Lev Manovich in Conversation with Hunter O’Hanian," CAA News, posted 18 July, 2017]

Lev drifts through a lot of territory in his conversation with Hunter. He seems largely unfazed by the general trauma afflicting Russo-American relations, the convulsive condition of immigrant discourse, the harried moral turpitude of Big Data Industries and their Police/Surveillance State partners, currently. And why should Lev be fazed!? It's a gorgeous summer in NYC and the digi-cultural life is grand! & in case you were curious, dear reader, this analyst has concluded there is no truth to the mean-spirited rumors that Lev somehow is involved in putting President Donald in office, or that he has any connection to Wikileaks. The same conclusion holds for the e-flux gang, by the way. They're focused on "The New Brutality" over the break - as opposed to the "Old" one(s) - and one can guess that novelty works for brutality as it does for immateriality generally, click-click. Another one of my favorite EGSers, Geert Lovink, contributes an absolutely ESSENTIAL text to the latest edition of E-FJ: "Overcoming Internet Disillusionment: On the Principles of Meme Design;" if you are going to consume any theory before class resumes in the fall, this is the pièce de résistance AFH recommends! Reading Geert's dynamite essay is like getting smashed in the mouth with 4oz. gloves by Conor McGregor [MILO: Can the Notorious do it again August 26th?]. Lovink targets the frivolity and impotence of a spectrum of culturati tactics, which largely fail to effectively stymie the onslaught of tyranny in the ballyhooed Technological [and/or] Information Age. He asks us a lot of sharp questions:

We’re overwhelmed by media events that unfold in real time. Is this spectacle a smoke screen for more drastic, long-term measures? What’s our own plan? The politically correct strategies of “civil society” are all well-meaning and target important issues, but they seem to operate in a parallel universe, unable to respond to the cynical meme design that is rapidly taking over key sites of power. Are there ways to not just hit back but also be one step ahead? What’s on our minds? How can we move from data to Dada and become a twenty-first-century avant-garde, one that truly understands the technological imperative and shows that “we are the social in social media”? How do we develop, and then scale up, critical concepts and bring together politics and aesthetics in a way that speaks to the online millions? Let’s identify the hurdles, knowing that it’s time to act. We know that making fun of the petty world of xenophobes isn’t working. What can we do other than coming together? Can we expect anything from the designer as lone wolf? How do we organize this type of political labor? Do we need even more tools that bring us together? Have you already used Meetup, Diaspora, DemocracyOS, and Loomio? Do we perhaps need a collective dating site for political activism? How can we design, and then mobilize, a collective networked desire that unites us in a “deep diversity”? Is the promise of open, distributed networks going to do the job, or are you look for strong ties—with consequences?

And Geert reaches out to a bunch of smart folks for answers, people like Nick Srnicek, Alex Galloway and Gabriele Coleman. Whereas Lev offers keen observations of the current scene(s), and valuable tech/art/culture/educational historical insight, and a progressive trans-nationalist/political perspective on vital issues, such as the subsumption of art by ubiquitous technology, the power of platform over the white cube, the momentum of mass affecting programming in a bunch of cultural systems and institutions, Geert does not appear to read the tea leaves of change with the same level of acceptance that Lev conveys in his comments and responses. &, much to my joy, Lovink memes Baudrillard hard! But if this neat topological survey (Lev, e-flux, Lovink) so far is all skewed toward a commie plotting of the graph, never fear, beloved AFHer, we'll be getting to the Red State (HA!) American state of the arts soon enough. If you're desire for additional concentrated doses of DIM TIM-sanctioned brutal-edge fare in small-chunk format (for the beach, y'all), play a little catch-up with the spring issue of N + 1, and remember, as DT himself sez, "It can always get worse!"

"It Can Always Get Worse" (AFH Studio documentation, 2012)

∞

Except when it gets better! I'm sure many of you are wondering how the middle finger of my left hand is healing. Well, the power of art to precipitate positive change is evident in the analog-digital, too! Witness:

SELFIE #9 (PJM, August 2017)

∞

That image/project-update [CONTENT!] will serve perfectly as we segue to more serious, stuff! Jim Carrey has come out of the closet/studio, and is joining the ranks of celebrity amateur artists, many of them actors, one of them a former President, some musicians and even dead ones. Carrey's emergence via social video yielded mixed reviews. The range of responses is itself phenomenal. My favorite is the critique posted on Sir Elton John's YouTube channel with a clipped version of Carrey's promotional material/high-production value video, or "documentary" :

This short six-minute documentary about Jim Carrey’s passion for art was surprisingly delightful. The video from SGG goes behind-the-scenes to explore Carrey’s creative talents in painting. The video takes a rather fascinating look into Carrey’s artistic side and travels into his inner artistic persona. The video, which is narrated by Carrey, goes inside his head and delves into what fuels the comedian’s art.

We have known Carrey to be a brilliant comedic mind, but in this Vimeo video titled “I Need Color” we are treated to Jim Carrey the artist as he spills his heart onto the canvas. Carrey has been drawing and painting since he was a young child and he continues to create art as a 55-year-old man. Carrey’s paintings are definitely not bad for someone who used his ass cheeks to talk to people in his movies.

Which reminds me, I really need to update my NOT-ARTISTS tumblr. I have so many entries to add! Sir Elton is already done, however:

"SIR ELTON JOHN: NOT AN ARTIST (He is a musician)" - virtual content enhancement; digital image (P-shopped jpeg) sampling found/source material, integrated with studio documentation, + text, exhibited in blog format; for AFH NOT-ARTISTS tumblr, posted February 22nd, 2010. [Click-thru to see in "original" context]

As serious as the Carrey trauma is, the art industry disruption generated by comedian Adam Conover's "How the Fine Art Market Is a Scam" is seriouser. Here's the fairly serious artnet fact-check of Conover's send-up. I'm going to refrain from commenting, and instead post this video:

FUNNY! Here, however is some late-breaking news that is clearly unfunny, and reveals finally how tense the cultural atmosphere is in the good ole USA, and by extension, the world. The tension has even popped at GOOGLE, a/k/a GOOLAG!

Meanwhile...The Big "A" Big Apple Art "world" is proportionally gone even more global than usual, with its diaspora attending the fairs and/or biennials and whatnot, or yondering in the Hamptons, or wherever the yachts and private jets port/park. ArtForum's Diary is the go-to chronicle of the wayfaring art-elites. In many of Manhattan's Brick & Mortar artspaces, reliable Dark Matter minions and mostly-unpaid interns are tending the white-cubic fields of artsy dreams, while the players play. Anyway, that's the line the heavies pitch as they name- and destination-drop among themselves and the adoring, tag-along big A art press, and any plebes within earshot. Tis the season (traditionally) for the Group Show, and crazy episodes of angsty abandon and sweat-drenched wildlife - or so I hear. Staying cool in the cultural jungle of NYC in summertime is a state replete with obvious contradictions. For those inclined to simplify their frenetic lifestyle like the Man in the Yellow Hat used to do via station wagon or other more modern transport, take heed: Lyme disease is the cloud hovering over the Hudson Valley/Upstate pre-school-starting getaway; pandemic-scale climate change is materializing as a poppy seed-sized bloodsucker!

Tick (PJM, August 2017)

Not everyone blew town to GTFO of NYC. Core DDDD member, ca. Y2K, Brent Stewart and his buddy Willie Stewart put on a helluva project at Pioneer Works in BK, titled Grand Ole Opry. The notices were splashed across the art presses, and the reviews were excellent! Shane told me about the installation/performance series late in the exhibit run, and I didn't manage to visit PW until the final day, which was a gorgeous Sunday in Red Hook. Director/curator Gabriel introduced himself while I was chatting with the receptionist. We talked about Kauai (I was sporting Lauren's "Hanalei is my BAE" cap), Nashville, the Stewarts, and more. It was my first time at PW and my experience was super, thanks to Gabe and the PW staff! Later, Gabe put me together with Willie (Stewart), who had been relaxing upstairs after the long night Saturday, with its stacked and packed power lineup of muso acts. Willie and I talked about Shane Kandy, Party Cannon, Springwater (where Willie had last seen me) and that was that.

Screenshot

Here's a sample of what Brent was up to, back in Nashville, when we collaborated in our 4D+ collective days.

These are strange days indeed. But "strange" is a relative term, as anyone who ever saw the real Party Cannon knows. To quote DIM TIM again, "It can always get stranger!"

August 2017 will feature a couple of eclipses, one of which promises to be a major American spectacle. If you lend credence to the narratives of some hopeful stargazers, who mark August 8 as the Lion's Gate portal and denote the interstitial phase between the August lunar and solar eclipses as a profound period, a great opportunity for spiritual progress, for courage to blossom. etc. Which is TIMELY, because the apocryphal rackets apparently threaten to engulf the existential mundane or even consume it entirely, forever. A shared Normal seems to not be possible ever again in the caterwauling American mass consciousness [LOL - whatever those things ("Normal"/"American mass consciousness") are, Joe! I might as well be referring to Griffins & Jabberwocks]. Political tensions are relentlessly tightening in the chaos swirling around Trumpian gridlock, the stock market is bubbling to record heights (22000+), and, of course, Mayweather and McGregor are slated to fight in Las Vegas August 26th, 5 days after the total solar eclipse, and murders/collapse/missiles/bankruptcy/investigations/ODs/fires and so on, plus lots of music festivals, and identity-rooted A-List scandals! Plus WW3 could go ballistic - no, really! USA v. North Korea/Russia/China... Like, at any second! Read the story in the SUN!

How could you have missed the absolutely mad controversies swirling about the ICA Boston Dana Schutz exhibit, or the fake-Indian mess enveloping Jimmie Durham's show at the Hammer? Maybe you were too busy reading other artnet News stories, like the one about Seattle Art Fair organizers shilling "Old Fashioned Art" to the Tech Collector (whoever the F**k that may be - surely not the gnomic, pilfering Gates or Zsuckerbug, since the latter is saving his piles of Bitcoin for a 2020 Presidential run... Remember: "It can always get worse!"). Or maybe you were reading the one about Cindy Sherman's Instagram launch, which is sooooo SELFIE/USSIE! Or you might be the more down-type of art-newser, and instead scanned this one, titled "Sorry, We’re Closed: Dealers Explain the Painful Process of Shutting Down an Art Gallery." Anything's better than following the slow-mo train wreck of American health care legislation, or the plight of Mississippi auto workers trying to unionize a Nissan plant. If there's one thing that's consistent throughout the turmoil, it's that we don't have to wonder what Bernie Would Do (#WWBD).

Black light poster (edition of 200) by Kii Arens

By the way, Bernie has a webpage listing artists who support him. I noticed Shepard Fairey's name on that list. I also noticed that almost all of the accomplished creative people listed are not artists (painters, sculptors, etc.) - which is something I would make a YUGE deal about normally. Except it's Bern. Please take a moment and visit the Artists for Bernie site. You'll feel like you're chillin' at Robert Moses, catchin' waves, gettin' wet, dreamin'. As the Illuminator said, "ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE." Cue our final quote, a huckleberry by the aforementioned Yvor W:

Thus we see that the poet, in striving toward an ideal of poetic
form at which he has arrived through the study of other poets, is
actually striving to perfect a moral attitude toward that range of
experience of which he is aware.

In closing our 4D+ scan of the fraught arts & culture topology, can we all agree that for most anyone it all adds up to a confusing mess. If you happen to feel fed up with the way things are shaping up, you ought not despair in isolation. Whether one is primarily concerned with politics, economics, society, or the intangible spirit of the moment and its representation or expression, the confusion and messiness are pervasive and sustained - which is a mediated perception. Any excellent Novad learns the intricacies of design reality to parse the fiction and its parallax effects. To wit: Really, the only winners right now are identifiable, and they include the prime beneficiaries of the burgeoning (22000+) stock market's complexities. The status quo is, to put it simply, complexly designed to enrich and empower a tiny fraction of humanity at the expense of everyone else, and that complex apparatus is functioning amazingly well. The rest of the chitter-chatter is a distracting force-field camouflaging this fact. The ArtWorld writ large is complicit in the masquerade, which is why Lev's contention that no one (he knows) takes it (contemporary art) seriously is disingenuous, to put it nicely. Even if it's true that the definition-resistant/retarding "ArtWorld" and "contemporary art" - a straw man which Liam Gillick loves to outsmart and punish - are not entirely equivalent, neither are they divergent. They occupy the same fractional fringes and central institutions and interstitial zones that network them and facilitate the flows of money and power that drive said network. You see, the exclusive "AW" and "con.art" matrix consists not just of abstractions, systematic forms and architectures. The matrix is populated by actual people who lead partly virtual existences in the .gov/.com/.org and /.art media-spheres for real action and quid pro quo/status quo influence. It's not all that hard to find out who those people are. For one thing, they frequently love to put their Big Names on shit. For a second, they love to appear on prestige lists and at premier events. Even the ones who don't for legal reasons usually have to at times come clean about their interests, investments and derivative fortunes. Only the outlaw oligarchs must operate entirely off-grid, but every now and then somebody slips up and a good analyst catches a whiff of the particulars and shares them with the hoi poloi. The practice of discovering who's who is similar to finding ticks on a dog or child, or your own body, or your lover's.

AFH UPDATE [July 4 Weekend, 2017]

Whether independence and freedom are equivalent or facets of the same immaterial "thing" is an open, 4D+ question, here, today. We Americans are deep in the thrall of Trump and his MAGA meme, and the world is reeling in the venomous recoil, the shock of unpredictability, precipitated by President Donald's clash with, well, most everybody, one moment to the next. An obvious, contraindicated if temporary remedy is for one to wonder WWBD (What Would Bernie Do?), whenever the next appalling, repulsive, horrifying, totally avoidable predicament appears, courtesy the Donald and/or his (or our) many enemies. Which doesn't mean we as a people should forget the point of the July 4 celebration. It's probably harder to forefront in consciousness an authentic notion of the impact of the emerging USA's stipulated claim to of-a-sudden autonomy from its colonial monarchy, way back then in 1776, in the dense clouds of sulfurous smoke and booming crashes of bombs bursting in air, this evening across this great land. The scene in Bushwick, for example, was intense: 360 degree conflagrations, cops with lights-on slowly patrolling the streets, trying to identify the fireworkers atop block-length building-rooftops, densely packed with reveler spectators, scrambling to find the ideal PoV to take in the pumped-up Macy's display blasting the heavens above the River...

Bushwick sidewalk tag, 2017 (PJM)

Having consumed vast quantities of drugs and alcohol, burgers and franks, apple pie and such, most Americans will be happy to be seduced by the fireworks displays lighting up the country's night skies from NYC to LA (and beyond). Most of us won't be reflecting on stuff like the explosives' grotesque, banal and ironic backstory. Fewer still will pause to consider the flows and ebbs of independence/freedom in this nation's ever-strange history, which is in fact all-directional. I, however, will absolutely be doing just that (with a shout-out to my friend Howard, whose input about the holiday proved immensely helpful)! And applying these reflections to my own multi-modal progress, activities, interests, in a seasonal State-of-the-State blogpost.  

Bushwick, BK, NYC, USA (PJM 2017)

America is big by many metrics, and the "space"/place within America I occupy is miniscule, relatively speaking. For a bunch of reasons I'm aware of that comparative architecture, the size-matters dimension of the citizen profile, which connects to one's neighborhood, town, city, state, region, then USA, then the World, as such. It can be a positive and/or (alternating) negative juxtaposition, depending. But we can modify the selfie-to-ussie dynamic just by turning the machine around, by the hand to the eye, plus a button punch, whether the composition is singular or plural! Given it's 2017, in a deft technical media move, I can swing the camera round at myself or us, and BOOM: America is just my/our immediate backdrop, the setting for my/our action, my/our story. In a funny twist, Bushwick, which is American - LOL - is the stage for this post, and its author. As settings go, My/Our 'hood is photogenic, popular, and, if you believe the News isn't completely Fake, ready-for-primetime! Bushwick on the 4th is teeming with young, attractive folks, transiting from many destinations via the L Train, to the Jefferson Street stop, and from there to Vander-Ende Onderdonk House, where House of Yes is hosting a Dance Party & BBQ. Lauren and Lachlan strolled past the festie, and Lula reported seeing through the V-EOH back-fence, a tent for meditations, clothes sales, pastoral scenes of brew sipping conversations among the hip circles of neo-culturati. My neighbor, walking his dog, said he saw a "bunch of transvestites" there, already. At least in this corner of the USA, for this one afternoon, the Trump Effect is on vacation. Plenty of Selfies and Ussies will be taken through the smart phone camera lenses of the diverse crowd celebrating Independence Day, 2017 [and posted to an array of social media platforms]! Then there's THIS kind of 4th of July soiree!

LDM Fridge-Art [multimedia] (PJM 2017)

Lulz, "Social Media"... That term seems very quaint, and means, exactly - What?! The last few months have been eye-popping with respect to the New/Social/Media/Economy-scape!! In case you missed, below is a sampler of game-changers:

• “Facebook and Twitter are being used to manipulate public opinion – report/Nine-country study finds widespread use of social media for promoting lies, misinformation and propaganda by governments and individuals” by Alex Hern (June 19, 2017) and ALSO see the cascades of excellent, ongoing Facebook/soc.med reportage at Guardian
• “Google fined $2.7BN for EU antitrust violations over shopping searches”
  by Natasha Lomas for Tech Crunch (Jun 27, 2017)
• “Google Is About To Start Tracking Your Offline Behavior, Too” by Josie Wales/TheAntiMedia.org, re-posted at ZeroHedge by Tyler Durden (May 26, 2017)
• “Amazon to Buy Whole Foods for $13.4 Billion” By Nick Wingfield and Michael J. de la Merced for NY Times/Dealbook (June 16, 2017)
• “You Are Now Paying Internet Companies to Sell Your Browsing History to Advertisers/Thanks, Trump!” by Sarah Leonard [@Moyers & company (April 8, 2017), first published at The Nation] and ALSO

We might as well stop there, but that list is by no means more than a teeny surface scratch. I do feel obligated to mention that the President referred to his tweeting habit as "MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL" (ALL-CAPS his), a MAGA technic. You just couldn't make any of this more fictional, could you?

SELFIE #2 (Shane Kennedy 2017)

Shane is for now in Thailand, on a dimensional, proportionally artistic, mission (see SK ink paintings above). He shared the image above as an afterthought to the AFH "SELFIE" project (see below). He also uploaded a post to his Instagram feed documenting a fascinating if unintentional Thai variation on our American 4 July party thang. The Selfie (and its plural "USSIE") will figure significantly throughout this composition. The diligent AFH News follower will of course recognize immediately how this media phenomenon (selfie/ussie) conforms to some dominant 4D+ doctoral theses I've been immersed in for some time. But in this bloggy snapshot we won't be pursuing any thorough analysis or at-depth diagnosis on this massive camera-generated genre, no matter how tempting that proposition might be. All in good time, dear reader!

I suppose we ought to share a very brief scan of "art world" notices and observations, for contextual reasons, before we dig into the main course. The art press focus this summer has turned to Europe's big to-do's in Venice, and to the problematic documenta 14, which AFH favorite Ben Davis compellingly reviews HERE. I enjoyed Yanis Varoufakis' barbed take on the spectacle HERE: 

“I have to say that I am not very happy about the idea that part of documenta will take place in Athens - it is like crisis tourism. It’s a gimmick by which to exploit the tragedy in Greece in order to massage the consciences of some people from documenta. It’s like rich Americans taking a tour in a poor African country, doing a safari, going on a humanitarian tourism crusade. I find it unhelpful both artistically and politically.”

— Yanis Varoufakis - from a SPIKE ART Magazine interview (Leon Kahane)

O Mark Bradford ["– black, gay, liberal, wondering how he could represent a government that no longer represented him – has turned the rotunda of the White House, as the neoclassical US pavilion is nicknamed, into a barely convincing ruin. Far stronger is the colossal hull of claggy paint you have to duck beneath on entering; look closely and you see it’s a mass of immigration documents and ab-ex brushstrokes." (from Laura Cumming's Guardian review linked above)]! Cumming's framing of Bradford's representation conundrum and proposition ignores another question - When's the last time America's pavilion at VB represented America in a manner that would represent America to our liking, or at least in a way that might project respect for the American experiment and our conceptual democratic prospectus? That's a question that might invite a sober accounting for all those hot-red MAGA hats, and the cultural divide that separates creative elites/celebrities from their "populist" countrymen. Then, from the provincial "empire" where Her Majesty yet reigns, there Hirst's whopper! OUCH!

The top-heavy art industry is wobbly like a drunken sailor, due to burgeoning inequality effects and a plethora of not-unrelated, unresolved internal contradictions. The May 2017 auctions were a roaring success (Christie's $448MM, Sotheby's $319) - O Basquiat! - but the year-over-year cracks in the market's seams are showing, as the reformation of the global exchange modality continues to distort in favor of the richest fractional cohort, as most of them (exchanges) are. Small, mid-sized, even long-lived Name galleries are shuttering in droves, and the survivalist solutions for anyone not in the Big 5 or 10 MEGA-galleries, even those proposed by resourceful clever agents and dealer collectives, strike this practical observer as canary-in-a-coal-mine band-aids. To put it in perspective, I caught on to a different flavor trend happening on another band in the art production spectrum: storage units being marketed as artist studios! Over the past five years or so the storage industrial complex has been pushing this meme, which is finally ripening, as in this story coming to us from Pittsburgh's STORExpress/448 Studios (via storageunit.com). Words fail - but let the CREATIVITY begin!

Let's get started with the AFH UPDATE!

SELFIE #1 [Selfie Series (FINGER), PJM 2017]

I completed my first class, a summer intensive with program director Professor Richard Jochum, at Columbia Teachers College in the Creative Technologies course on June 24. Titled "New Media, New Forms (NMNF)," the class served as a playful-practical introductory survey to the integrated field of Art/Tech/Education. Each of the students was assigned the task of creating and maintaining a blog for sharing homework, reflections, course-related production, and so on. Mine is HERE. NMNF convened in CTC's Media Lab and Thingspace - the college's nicely equipped makerspaces. If you are unfamiliar with that hot edu-buzzword, a clicky search will yield lots of good results and link to loads of explanatory essays, resources and examples. A couple of projects and class sessions in NMNF required usage of the Media Lab/Thingspace 3D printers and Laser Cutter. Fun! Having spent most of the past 5 years on doctoral work and, when generating art for exhibit and other purposes, doing so (for the most part) with analog/traditional tools, I was keen to finally run those bleeding edge - HA! - tools through the paces. My first attempts, for good and ill, are chronicled in my NMNF blog. Another notable assignment involved adding my/our contribution to Richard's ongoing IMPACT 25. I produced a soc-med dittie called "SELFIE," which is inspiring consequent iterations/re-directions, post-course-completion, for this student-artist. First, I have continued to work with the images sent me by the participants I invited to collaborate on "SELFIE." Here is the second SELFIE iteration:

For the above SquareSpace "Carousel" gallery, I pulled up some old viztrix from the early daze, including decorative elements first deployed in "sliders" - anyone recall slider.com? - and some technics developed around the time I was producing stuff for the LA-based collective Gramatica Parda for our ANDlab show, especially the animation/print set "BONE." Each of the images in the "SELFIE" Series #2 sequence also exists as a standalone digi-file that can be output as an 8.5"x11"/300dpi color print, which I plan on sharing with the participants, who are friends and relatives from several hoops. The image-processing for this "SELFIE" Series included the creation of big bitmaps used in one of each picture's layers. Next, I am thinking I'll output the scaled-up bitmap version of these autoportraits on a paintable substrate and add analog color. & Obviously, by adding to the pool of selfies later, I should be able to create an image database sufficient for animation purposes. And so on. Nice thing about digital stuff: the generative possibilities are practically infinite. Over the Independence Day weekend, as I toiled at the ancient AFH iBook laptop here in Bushwick to make "SELFIE" Series #2, a production concept percolated and popped in my brain, probably through the mangled left middle finger I smashed in my buddy's truck door, during a journey to Kauai for an ohana holiday by way of SoCali. The first stab at that idea yielded the finger(digital)-selfies sprinkled throughout the text and the "treated" sequenced published as a slider concluding the ID2017 post (see below).

SELFIE #2 - Finger on the Red Button [Selfie Series (FINGER), PJM 2017]

Okay. The AFH SELFIE is turning out to be my kind of BIG Concept, new/fresh but plenty done-over in bezillions of variances in as many contexts, and I won't kill my take with artspeak while the thingy goulash is fomenting, gestating and percolating in the so-called mind's eye. I will share a bit of vision with you, though, my faithful AFH readers, ye who've been with me all these years/decades, now, through teh tick n tin. The vizzy looks like a fair collection of old-fashioned paintin's made with new-fangled materials, a raft of big & small prints and combines, maybe a book or two, monumental/plop-art 3D-print sculptures, moving images, the ubiquitous glossy AFH web platform, the whole shebang proliferating & pollinating oodles of collaborative opportunies. Plus a fierce manifesto-ey document, apropo our Times. Something like that, or the usual -- venue TBD, harhar. The [heheh animal] Spirit of the Concept, as I see it, is pre-figured by rebel MMA icons, the brothers Nate/Nick Diaz, flipping "the Bird" as only they can do... It's ("it" being the mighty & spunky finger waggle) a SIGN attached like resonance to the signified ultra-modern/global, penultimate homo indomitus, a gesture, linked by a mysterious, tribal subterranean potency to that which this digital move is empty without - ultimately - NAMELY, a consequent BLUDGEONING, spilling of blood, a battering, a bruising, the emblem of brutal loss but also the survival of all that [anti-]SPORT[sport], which is war-play and its actual (doubling) negation... Geometric, in many scenarios, you will note (ringed squares, octagons and so forth) ...plus the juicy crazy joy of upending hype and status quo narratives with upset, disruption, and sheer junkyard doggedness. The improbability of success in spite of management, in contradiction of the generic heroic, as the prohibitive not-favorite is what the Diaz Bros have come to represent. But I'm rambling and overexcited, the way I get watching UFC on any given Saturday night over the past couple of years, during which I've done more spectating than training, for the first time ever in my adult life, or youth come to think on it - so, ever. Let me try to unscramble the egg, for your sake dear reader.

Nate Diaz [PHOTO: James Law (LINK)]

The potent essence of the Diaz Broz meme parallels a facet of my autobiography, which infuses my perspective/perceptions on other aspects of worlds I visit and sometimes inhabit, including the Academy, the "art world" and the Science Labs (including the Political Science one). Spending a fair proportion of one's adult life in combat sports "gyms" and other, variously complementary training facilities - my latest membership is with Renzo Gracie Fight Academy in Brooklyn - colors a person's comprehension of human interaction, from the particular to the general. It's only natural, as much as it is fictional and metaphorically so. For an example with respect to my peculiar reaction to a seemingly unrelated event: Having Oxford/Ruskin turn me down for the practice-led DPhil course (see my application/portfolio, for the time being HERE), given the way that went down, was a bashing blow, but, now, with you as my witness, the recovery/ricochet effect is happening, day by day. Being mangled by an unfolding project you volunteered for does weirdness to your confidence (game). The connection is ART, whether of the martial or fine varieties. No way around it, in either instance - if one dares to dream, to manifest that dream, and indulges the urgency of expectation, the effects of failure or rejection are inevitably amplified. Without question a hematoma is not a damaged or diminished CV. Which doesn't mean all beatdowns share no resemblance. Anyone who has suffered a diversity of wounds will recognize all have their scales of authenticity and, subsequent to the injury, whatever it is, protocols for healing. Depending on the ouchy boo boo, time is another factor and presence to consider, a matter that could take this brief introductory discourse in many - maybe any -  direction. I am thinking of Manny Pacquiao just now.

For this portion of the promotion, let's be satisfied by wrapping up (bandaging) the squished and oozing middle fingertip/SELFIE autonarrative, juxtaposed with a lovely new version of the collective SELFIE project, underpinned with a mass-media phenomenon (the Diaz Broz), plus more, including the prospects for bringing NEW tech to bear on the elemental mash-up to produce notable future SHOWS! This AFH News blogpost suggests a precursory takeaway, with respect to the meaning of that which is unfolding before our eyes, behind the scenes and under the surface - all phrases, in quotes. This be a a feisty historical yarn for a globally combative era... Arguably the Finger is the prime fiction of the past decade+, and the mangled Bird is the "reward" for expressing resistance to Power, for digitally "speaking Truth" to It. For many of us of a certain profile (Holla, Novads!),  2017 Independence Day is bittersweet, an exercise in dark-colorized reflection. Which is nuts, given how pretty it is today in Bushwick, on ID Eve, with all the cosmo tours gawking at the Collective's updated murals and miscellaneous tags, with the easy parking, with the full cafes, etc.

LDM's current map of Bushwick/Williamsburg BK, also Lion-Bird (Photo PJM)

...Because the lesson is now, Sure, it's invigorating in the moment to holler FUCK YOU at one's nemesis, to wave your fisted finger in defiance at him/her/them/the whole lot. But what if that nemesis is fronted by thugs in tactical gear, including all manner of non-/lethal devices, and those minions are commissioned or sanctioned or permitted (whatever) to practice their craft on your ass, which is massively worse than Hell's Angel notorious style, by virtue of the incorporated, recent+ancient scientific advances in high-design mayhem/maiming/murther. Postscript: Poor middle finger, poor selfie...

SELFIE #1 [Selfie Series (FINGER), PJM 2017]

I guess I'm finally ready to share my own take on what's happening in the streaming current, post-Occupy and perhaps more importantly, to come multiverse... Before beginning the second, completion, phase of my 4D+ doctoral work. Of course, dear reader, this concept's narrative is fiction-based. As I noted above, I smashed my digit in a freak accident on a mountaintop in California, on a beach destination trajectory. A truck door got me. ...But this is the weird thing about the artist-mind, Yes? Somehow all this context madly swirls like an imaginary storm, eventually forming through these hands and eyes, bodily, into echoing objects with durational features, becoming the occurrence of the metaphysical in the Real (Time+Space/Place). The process indeed is Universal, if anything but transcendent. If the phenomenon in sum is trans- at all, it is embracing of the transmorphological, in native 4D+.

AFH UPDATE [February 2017]

Since my last post, I completed the first [BETA] draft of the dissertation thesis. I don't think I'll pre-publish much, if any of it. Most of the text was handwritten in notebooks at OSLO coffee shop in Williamsburg (Brooklyn, NYC) over a period of eighteen months or so. Periodically, my reader Chris Moylan and I would meet to discuss the book, project, progress, and ongoing Novadic developments, as well. I owe Chris a tremendous debt of gratitude for his participation, suggestions, observations and good will. A note on process, that is relevant to the site-activity for AFH nodes like this one. When I commenced the writing phase of the dissertation, I consulted Geert Lovink (Video Vortex, EGS, etc.), and he recommended I get a cabin upstate and settle in til the work was done. I find the image of the isolated scholar in nature thinking - prototype Walden - to be a lovely, romantic trope. Having lived in rural settings for a fair portion of my adulthood, the romanticism is informed by practical experience. I chose a different path. Instead of shacking up north of Hudson in the Catskills, or somewhere in the Adirondacks, or up in coastal Maine or woodsy Vermont, I stayed in Bushwick (7th coolest neighborhood on Earth, according to Vogue, at the time), shut off the social media, quit updating the AFH network, closed AFH studio and put pen to paper.

Some old friends assumed I had died, or imagined some other dramatic scenarios. The adjustments were practical, media-tactical and not more than that, really. Nonetheless, the experience was informative. Auto-imposition of restraints in the virtual network exchange yielded a bounty of anecdotal material, tied to the effort required to maintain a digitized presence in the social - and the consequences of opting out. I may as well have moved into the analog Wilderness. The effects of the two conditions (virtual Outsider, actual Outsider) on important aspects of my relationships (business, personal, political, and so on) were oddly similar. I can say that, having done both. I plan to write more about this phenomenon later.

AFH UPDATE [September 2014]

If Scotland votes YES to independence from England, I'll be applying for citizenship as soon as possible and moving there. Saor Alba.

Since the DLGN show, I have been writing a book. Actually, the story kernel is something penned for "Code Duello, Old Hick + A Big Bang." It's a cyberpunk-/Rob't E. Howard-inspired, novadic, asymmetrical preface to my doctoral paper, which I'll be starting to compose soon [more on that in a bit]. The first two chapters of Urbane Savage are the fall entry for the 4Dimensions Blog.

DIM TIM is running as a write-in candidate in all USA elections. I'm considering performance material in support. Stay tuned.

I've settled on the subject of the EGS dissertation. After many, many shunts and feints, the winner is the Matterhorn Project. That was a big, long circle or spiral, to get back to where this project started.

[Pattern]M-horn, digital file + output print, exhibited in 2010 at ANDLAB with Gramatica Parda collective. 

Nice Press for Last Month's Expo at DLG-N + Art Talk Synopsis

Check out other articles & press for the show at the 4dpop's links page HERE - including this nice one by MiChelle Jones for the Tennessean.

Last Saturday's gallery talk (7-26) for the closing was good times. Folks from the Hermitage dropped by beforehand, plus old Nashville photog-artsy pal Mark Tucker - now in LA - & gallery artist Mary Hackett, Noteables' Scott Davis & a few others mostly listened patiently while I spent a half hour listing what I've been up to, since leaving the Music City in the early 00s, asked a few rhetorical questions about art & artists (1a & 1b = what is art/what is it for? 2b = who's an artist?), made a brief intro to 4D art, etc. Thanks to Dane & David & the DLG staff for the opportunity & support!

DLG [Memphis + Nashville Galleries' Summer X-trava-GonzO]

DLG will be presenting my small ink on poly Code Duello pieces in its flagship and new Nashville locations...

Rockin' Old Hick Song + Animation Remix

Something fun I did for the web expo component for my David Lusk Gallery Nashville show over the weekend. Plus, check out the "Code Duello, Old Hick & a Big Bang" makeover at 4D Pop!

Code Duello, Old Hick & a Big Bang

A lovely installation curated by Dane Carder and David Lusk. The exhibition also features the animation "A Big Bang," which is projected onto the rear of the transition wall separating the main and second galleries. The opening was excellent and well-attended, coinciding with Wedgewood art district First Saturday Art Crawl (and the 4th of July weekend). The event featured a mixologist, who researched a special concoction related to Old Hickory. I hope to post some photos from the evening here soon. 

"Code Duello, Old Hick & a Big Bang" opens at DLG Nashville

In his first solo exhibition in Nashville in over a decade, on view at David Lusk Gallery from July 5 through July 26, Brooklyn-based artist Paul McLean will present a rich body of new paintings and supporting media focused on the life and times of President Andrew Jackson ("Old Hickory"), and other stories from the past, here and now. For “Code Duello, Old Hick & A Big Bang,” McLean will exhibit interlinking series of mixed media on canvas, sculptural or dimensional wall-mounted pieces and ink-on-polyester works, plus digital animations and texts. The show’s subject matter will cover a spectrum of compelling narratives, including President Jackson’s colorful and controversial history, the practice of dueling in America and the art and science of the universe’s origins, as represented in modern technology through computer-enabled data visualization. "Code Duello, Old Hick & A Big Bang" opens Saturday July 5, with an artist's reception from 6-9PM

Bazooka Joe Pink Old Hick / 55" x 50" / Acrylic and Ink on Canvas / 2014

McLean’s unique approach, which he has termed “4D,” or “4th Dimensional art” since the early 80s, provides an integrative framework for layered techniques, timelines, spatial concerns and concepts. Most of the images in “Code Duello, Old Hick & A Big Bang” consist of the figure on and/or in abstraction, but operate as a kind of perceptual projection device confronting space and time beyond the limits of strict 3D and 2D pictorial architectures. Throughout his career, McLean has created art in both solo and collective platforms, and in this exhibition, the artist partners with long-time collaborator Shane Kennedy, a Tennessee native and recent graduate of The Cooper Union. McLean and Kennedy created a series of innovative pull-paintings during a residency at Chanorth in upstate New York in Fall 2013, as part of the “Code Duello” set. Kennedy also prepared lush surfaces for some of the paintings for the Jackson series, and provided substantial technical support for McLean’s project. Additional fabrication services for “Code Duello, Old Hick & A Big Bang” came by way of the robust and bustling artisanal networks in Brooklyn, especially the Bushwick district, where McLean’s current studio is located. McLean’s impetus for weaving the Big Bang into the discourse underpinning the show arose from his doctoral course work at the European Graduate School, and an encounter with NYU’s Tim Maudlin, whose specialty is combining physics and philosophy in exploring the nature of relations to the cosmos. 

"Wallpaper" / 10" x 8" / Acrylic and Ink on Panel / 2014

Ultimately, “Code Duello, Old Hick & A Big Bang” is an exposition on questions we have about what it means to be “A Man of the Times,” how we stylize our experiences for the purposes of representation, and what we consider to be meaningful action. It is McLean’s general contention that the arts - and especially visual art - give us a worthy vehicle for sharing our most profound encounters with the complex world in which we live out our lives. The artist has the means to combine craft with theory to generate singular objects that simultaneously reflect and embody our perceptions of existence and what we value most. As a valuable expression the art thus conceived can be passed down, generation to generation, as an act of hope - a “real” reminder of, meditation on, and hedge against our individual mortality.

"Untitled" / Ink on Polyester / 2014

The Artist's Zoo [e-blast]

ABOUT FLETCHER LIEGEROT
Fletcher has performed with Lilac Theater Co., Nature Theater of Oklahoma, and Lightbox. He has studied with Raïna Von Waldenburg, Steve Wangh and SITI co.  He has been on Law and Order. He performed at the Public Theater and on the F train. He also plays the drums. He is a dad.

ABOUT ARTIST'S ZOO

The Artist's Zoo is a 4D art production, applying technical approaches of conceptual art, experimental theater, new media & net.art + other dimensional forms of Live Art Event or Happening in a set piece sited at the AFHstudioBK for Bushwick Open Studios 2014. Featuring C. Fletcher Liegerot as "The Artist," The Artist's Zoo [TAZ] is the first version of what we envision to be a progressive, evolving project to confront the preconceptions, prejudices, behavioral tropes and separations extant in the relationship between artist, viewer and the society in which both operate as an artificial or contrived binary. Art for Humans lead artist Paul McLean will serve as facilitator, conduit, explicator and scriptwriter/anarchivist for TAZ. His working studio, currently containing new work for his upcoming exhibit "Code Duello, Old Hick & a Big Bang" (David Lusk Gallery Nashville, opening July 5, 2014), will host the unfolding event. Supplemental material and content will be transmitted and recorded via electronic networked devices during and between live sessions of the "performance." Fletcher and McLean are framing this phase of TAZ as a "workshop" for generating and percolating the dimensional narratives attaching to the base or pre-production concepts, to hammer out logistical issues, a clarification process that will both establish protocols and erase unnecessary definitions stitching to the elements contained in our set of concerns. "Most important are the questions that emerge, moving forward," says project consultant Milo Santini. "The term 'curating' has no importance in the environment we are creating. The principles we are most obligated to are not aesthetic, and certainly have no critical relevance. The last thing the players want to do is negation." Any artwork made during the workshop phase of TAZ will be donated to science. 

New paintings [Old Hick + A Big Bang]

The new series of paintings is taking shape. Most of the latest ones extend the Code Duello collaborative approach that Shane & I brought to the ink-on-polyester works executed last fall at chanorth to acrylic+ (e.g., inks, varnishes, other materials) on canvas. Very rarely have I attempted to systematically paint on canvas with another artist [only twice before, over a 30+ -year span] operating collaboratively. Which isn't to say I haven't co-opted other painter's canvases and re-appropriated them before. I have. Nearly my entire undergrad senior show at Notre Dame was executed on a trove of pre-stretched canvases some guy had left in my apartment complex's storage area! My creative relationship with Shane is unique though, due to the long-term shared studio proximity, access, 4D discourse, actualization and production - which makes this undertaking feasible. He's aware of what will and won't work in the toggling process. Shane delivered a half dozen canvases he'd additively texturized/dimensionally underpainted [beautifully] during course studies at Cooper, and I began overworking them. Shane's excellent usage of Guerra pigments contributes a lot to the ease of integrating his prep-elements with the subsequent layers. I won't go much more here into detail describing the exchange process, but I will present in the journal some photo-documentation of the development of these pieces, minus commentary, at least for the time being. (I likely will present a talk on this at DLG-Nashville in July.)

Suffice to say, Shane & I have already begun to discuss consequent steps, continuing the project. Exciting!

As for the 4D painting approach I'm employing: The Old Hick series seems to be emerging from a specific painting [see "Kittler" in the Dim Tim series]; but it also revives a way of building images that I practiced in the late 80s. ...Lots of push-pull, over-under, tricky color, perspective-play and so on, using perspectival and perceptual expectations to activate complex surfaces. I'm thinking in particular of a big body of work that I produced while inhabiting one of those awesome artist studios in Gypsy Alley, off Canyon Road in Santa Fe. I don't think I have any chronicle of those paintings at all, which is a bummer. There were many of them, but I have no idea where they are now. It's a very strange feeling. Anyway, the mash-up of simple composition (informed maybe by a media philosophy of concision, if not precision) with "drametric" effects is in itself new territory to move through. 

[Click the image to view the non-chronological sequence. The pictures aren't edited in any way.]

Duelling pistol (in process)

BOS 2014 Benefit Gala + Auction

On Sunday, May 5, AiB/BOS 2014 held a fundraiser that was as great & fun as any I've attended over the past three decades. Bushwick just rox! The raw space on Ten Eyck Street had been transformed by the event volunteers into a wild, innovatively curated pop-up installation, sectioned for multi-purposed presenting of Bushwick art, supplying guests with treats, and facilitating the auction. The raffle format was excellent, with an $80 buy-in that didn't exclude precarious artists from playing. The rooms were packed when Shane & I arrived, and the happy-buzz was churning. The springtime NYC weather was (thank the heavens) lovely, & I'm sure that had something to do with the good vibes. I'm posting a few phone snaps below.

New Animation for Bold Jez Audio

http://youtu.be/CVqRDc8-mCY

Click on the link above to view the video on YouTube. The animation consists of images drawn from a database containing content from collaborations with Jez over a 2-year timeline, including NovadZINE, Novad Library, Anarchives at OAS/Bat Haus, OWS Arts & Culture, Spatial Occupation at Hyperallergic, and more. Jez has been generating a singular body of work, ranging from gathered sound, DIY music & video production, tactical & web-based net-art, texts/research, social media campaigns + cetera. His phenomenal contributions to epic ana-arts & theory in the Occupied art world(s) include performance in an astonishing spectrum of "venues" - on the street, in Novadic salons, at storied Magic Mountain, onstage... pretty much wherever the spirit moves.  At this point, Bold Jez has operated in enforced & oppressed invisibility, even though his voice, concepts and actions are as potent & valuable as anything being produced anywhere by anyone today. We are working on an an animated album of ten or so pieces, one song at a time. 

Animation still. 

BOS2014 Benefit

The Arts in Bushwick/Bushwick Open Studios 2014 Benefit Tumblr is online now. What an impressive array of contributions. Again, I say this annual collective project is the best of its kind anywhere. Featuring the art of 193 Bushwick-based artists, the benefit will generate funds for BOS2014 through a raffle that only costs $80 per ticket. The organizers admit it's a paltry amount, but say the raffle fare is priced low, so artists can afford to purchase the tickets. Here's more info: 

ABOUT the Benefit
 
Please come to see it and have fun on May 4th at Storefront Ten Eyck:

Storefront Ten Eyck 324 Ten Eyck St, Brooklyn NY 11206. 6-9PM
 
All the artists are invited and you are very welcome to bring friends and family, it is all open the public but we are going to have a donation suggestion of $5.00 for the non-artists.
 
The benefit is going to be by raffle at $80.00 per ticket (we know it's not a lot but we want make sure artists are able to purchase art).
 

If you'd like to have more info about the benefit go to:
 
http://artsinbushwick.org/bos2014/benefit-2014/

2014 BOS Benefit Committee:

• Jessica Hargreaves
• Christopher Stout
• Jennifer Hitchings
• Taylor Langone
• Cibele Vieira
• Sessa Englund

New AFH Studio, BOS2014 news, DLG-N exhibit update, & more

I moved into a new studio in Bushwick. It's an enclave for artists, and I love my new neighbors. I'll post more about the community soon. The production on my upcoming exhibit at David Lusk Gallery in Nashville has commenced. For those of you keeping track, the timing of the show has been changed. The exhibit [working title: "Code Duello, Old Hick + A Big BANG"] has been pushed back to the first week in July. Also, this will be a solo exhibit, now (not a two-person show). 

"COOL DEPUTY"; 10.25" X 10.25"; Acrylic paint, ink, silver tape, woodblock print, digital prints (on canvas and adhesive paper), Plexiglas and frame (fixative, varnish layers); 2013 (1997-2013)

I will be contributing a piece to the BOS2014 Benefit this year, to support Arts in Bushwick ("Cool Deputy," see image above). I am getting really excited about the tour and all the community-building events associated with it. The text and images posted in this month's (April 2014) 4Dimensions blog were generated for Pickthorn BK. I'll be participating again this year in Pickthorn's weekend-long activities for BOS2014. Their 2014 theme, appropriately enough, given Chelsey's accomplishments as a colorist in her field, is "COLOR." So far, I've been helping Jocelyn percolate ideas, in pre-production popcorning sessions, and we'll see what else develops. It's going to be fantastic! I'll be posting more info as we get closer to the event(s).

Upcoming AFH in 2014

A couple of recent developments:

• I've been slated for a 2-person show at DLG-Nashville in June. The tentative working title is "Old Hick & a Big Bang." The idea is to mash-up Andrew Jackson and some new material on the origins of the universe [see link to an article in today's New York Times for one of them]. The exhibit narrative draws from research data gathered for the Code Duello series executed at my chashama/Chanorth residency, and on my recent trip to Tennessee, which included a visit to the Hermitage, Jackson's historic cotton plantation and residence. 

"I killed the bank." - Andrew Jackson (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

• I'll be working with Arts in Bushwick on this year's iteration of Bushwick Open Studios, the 8th one, NYC's biggest/best, and - arguably - the world's most rad artist zoo. I've attended a couple of BOS2014 mixers, and signed up for the Press Team, and may also be producing some AiB Blog entries, if all works out. At this point, I'm not sure what my BOS2014 studio presentation will feature. Stay tuned. 

A scene from AFH BOS2013 at Brooklyn Fire Proof, which included wall paintings by Shane Kennedy for the Society for the Prevention of Creative Obsolescence (not pictured).

• My old friend, boss saxophonist and composer Max Abrams, who has an awesome new record out [Sway], contacted me around the trip to Nashville. He's evidently up in Manitoba on some crazy muso mission, but we e-chatted, and Max invited me to create moving images for an as-yet-undetermined selection from Sway. I of course agreed and am close-listening to several, which he suggested. One is the title song, featuring Mavericks (etc) star Raul Malo. Neat enough, during my stay in the Music City, which included a few evenings at Dane Carder's great studio at Chestnut, the Mavs were rehearsing a couple doors down on the same floor. What great moments, to pass by in the hall, taking in the sounds of those great performers, including old pals Jerry Dale and Robert (I'm assuming - I didn't knock and interrupt their practice to say hi, although mutual friends assured me I should've; ...next time...) ∞ Anyway, I will post updates on project progress here.

• When it rains, it pours. The collaboration with Max will run concurrent with ongoing and similar work with both Wilson Novitzki and Bold Jez. Wilson is about to leave on another European tour with R. Stevie Moore, and he has a really compelling photography project piggybacked on those plans. Check out his Kickstarter for more info (and to donate to this worthy creative cause). Wilson and I haven't sat down and hashed out a plan, but I'm hoping we do a DisciplineAriel 2.0 project. Jez has forwarded me several songs he recorded recently (which you can listen to at his Soundcloud). In my mind, Jez is one of most remarkable and unique talents I've encountered in three+ decades of wanderings & encounters amongst the Mighty Unfettered, the authentic and true snowflakes & fearless. We discussed my creating a full album's worth of 4Danimations (10 Songs). He's doing his works with majesty & dignity. My turn's coming. 

Jez + Pemakar [PJM2014]

Wilson @GFS, 2013, during installation of "Reliability"

Opening Night Photos at DLG Nashville [+ a link to a nice article in StyleBlueprint]

Photos by DLG artist Huger Foote.

LINK: 

David Lusk Gallery: A New Star in Nashville’s Art Scene

March 17, 2014 By Elizabeth Fox

"Nashville is the recipient of a true gem with the arrival of David Lusk Gallery Nashville(DLG). On March 1, DLG Nashville opened its doors to the public in the burgeoning Wedgewood/Houston neighborhood."

Invite for upcoming exhibits at DLG Nashville

The private opening and artists' get-together will be Saturday, February 22.

David Lusk Gallery opens space in Nashville

My longtime friend Dane Carder will be directing a new gallery owned by Memphis-based gallerist David Lusk in Nashville. A private opening will be held February 22, and a public opening will launch the beautiful exhibit space on March 1. I'll be showing recent and new work with DSL in 2014. Below is the press release (click-through, to see all 3 pages), and an image of the gallery, in progress.

Note from Dane: "floors won't be quite so shiny... getting closer."