Archive for August, 2008
"AVATAR the new you"
I’ll show “First Person Shooter” at the Australian Centre for Photography in the exhibition “AVATAR the new you”.
5 September – 4 October 2008
Australian Centre for Photography
www.acp.org.au
257 Oxford Street Paddington NSW 2021
Sydney
Pic: Daniel Handal “Anita and Pink Wall” 2006
MYFANWY ASHMORE (CANADA), ARAM BARTHOLL (GERMANY), TOBIAS BERNSTRUP (SWEDEN), ZENG HAN & YANG CHANGHONG (CHINA), DANIEL HANDAL (USA), CLAUDIA HART (USA), CEES-JAN KIEWIET / WYRIHAXIMUS (NETHERLANDS), DAVID MELÉNDEZ (MEXICO), STEVE MILLER / ARAHAN CLAVEAU (UK), MELISSA RAMOS & , RHYS TURNER (AUSTRALIA), JUSTIN SHOULDER (AUSTRALIA) TALE OF TALES GAME DESIGN FORUM (BELGIUM). CURATED BY MALCOLM SMITH
The original Avatars came from Indian mythology; they were the bodies the Gods used when they chose to walk upon the earth. Today the term Avatar is more commonly associated with the graphical action figures we use when we play games in online worlds. Like virtual alter-egos, our avatars can be whoever we want them to be; musclebound commandos, lithe blood elves, penguins or Pokemon. If you are on Facebook, Myspace, a dating site or if you can Google yourself, you have a virtual identity. As more and more of our time is spent online; socialising, conducting business, broadcasting our opinions or looking for love; the way we are perceived there is becoming as important as in real life. Avatars are more than a puppet or a plaything; they are the new you. The artists in this exhibition are inspired by Popular Culture rather than High Art, through games such as World of Warcraft or Half Life, virtual environments such as Second Life or the Sims, or content sharing sites such as Flickr, and Youtube. They question conventional attitudes towards gender, spirituality, violence, technology,sexualitt and identity, examining how these issues have been transformed by online technologies.
MinorUrbanDisasters
Hi all! I am back from holidays and finally online again. On the left a souvenir from the baltic sea / Rügen. A beautiful detail of ‘pavement art’.
Of course this pic is now part of the famous MinorUrbanDisasters flickr pool, founded by Ariel.
Mörder Closed!
Oh my good! Toenjes closed the cafe and took off for holidays till end of August. How can he do that to us?!? Where are we supposed to hang out all day while we ‘work’ ? ;-)
The only solution is to take some days off too. The beach is waiting. Talk to you in September!
Playing Revolution
(The burning car series in Berlin is on again. Found on Gartenstr. , Berlin)
Stumbling Blocks / Stolpersteine
Since I blog quite a lot about “street”-art I would like to point out one of my favorite public art projects (which is maybe not so well known out of germany/europe). This is beyond the current streetart-craze …
As an ongoing project the german artist Gunter Demnig is installing since 1994 “Stolpersteine” (Stumbling Blocks) as individual locative mini-memorials for the Holocaust victims in Germany during the second World War. Each 8 by 8 cm brass plate installed in the pavement represents a woman, man or child which has been deported by the Nazis from that specific location (house) to one of the concentration camps. More than 15.000 of these “Stolpersteine” (Stumbling Blocks) were installed in Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Hungaria since 1994. A documentation of this ongoing work will be shown in November 2008.
Actually words fail me to express how much I like this project. But “Stolpersteine” (Stumbling Blocks) shows in a very good way how to remember individual victims of that horrible time in our day to day life. There would be a lot more to say …
more info
“Stolpersteine” – Wikipedia
“Holocaust” – Wikipedia
Offical site (german)
Upcoming movie documentation article (german)
(pic found again on Gipsstr. Berlin)
Indoor Streetart
(An Oxymoron found on Gipsstr. Berlin. Gallery Circleculture , Artist?)
Talk to the wood!
Yesterday I visited Ariel in his studio and he gave me a sneakpreview on his latest works. Nice!!!
But suddenly he was talking to a piece of wood!?!?
Crazy artist?
Not yet. ;-) But the piece of wood turned out to be actually a very nice cell phone case mod.
Ariel Schlesinger
his blog with great DIY projects www.vvank.com, his beautiful pictures on flickr.com, Gallery Gregor Podnar represents him and his Graffiti Printer.
Pile of trash
A very nice piece by Arend deGruyter-Helfer student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. All the trash of Facebook. :-)
facebook gifts arranged in a pile, 2008
via Jon Cates (no, it s not a broken link. his website just does look like this)
thx for the link Jon!
The Suspect Backpack
Another interesting urban intervention. Somaya Langley presented her Suspect Backpack at ISEA two weeks ago.
Disclaimer: Don’t try this at the Airport. ;-)
“The Suspect Backpack is a wearable media sound art experience – inspired by post-2005 London Underground bombing events, including the arrest of innocent civilian David Mery, for suspected terrorism. Further information see: www.criticalsenses.com/suspect/ or the blog: suspectbackpack.blogspot.com”
de-Gentrify
Yeh, a nice new project by urban hacking expert and Eyebeam research fellow Geraldine Juarez.
“Dissident infrastructure for make yuppie neighborhoods look ghetto. :)
de-Gentrify!!!”
I am looking forward to see some pics of wrapped up urban landscape, Jerry!