« April 2008 | Main | June 2008 »
May 27, 2008
The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal
We first encountered this film "The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal" as an installation at CCAC (now CCA) in San Francisco. Created by Matt McCormick in 2001, its premise lies in the concept that "emerging from the human psyche and showing characteristics of abstract expressionism, minimalism and Russian constructivism, graffiti removal has secured its place in the history of modern art while being created by artists who are unconscious of their artistic achievements." It was nice to stumble across this 5 minute clip on YouTube. The original, shot on 16mm film, runs for 16 minutes. Check it out.
Posted by Brian at 06:52 PM | Comments (0)
Sound and Visions at On the Corner Music this Friday
SOUND & VISIONS
A San Jose Group Photography Show
featuring: Aaron Choe, Kim Hoang, Junior Sanchez, Rachel Olmstead, Tomek, Jennifer Anderson, Andrew Peejack, Dave Imlay, Lucia Espinoza, and Whitney
Friday, May 30th from 8pm 'til Midnight
On the Corner Music
530 East Campbell Ave (downtown Campbell)
Posted by Brian at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)
May 21, 2008
Dig Dug returns Thursday, May 29th!
DIG DUG returns...
A Record Swap and Listening Party featuring
DJs:
David Ma (Wax Poetics, wttmradio.com)
Mr. Ma is a well-respected and widely published hip-hop writer who specializes in interviews with classic and emerging artists in the field. As a selector his tastes run toward 60's soul, Bowie, and the occasional party jam.
Chief Xcel: Core Collector
Justin Torres (Re-Joint Records, All Bay Productions)
Mr. Torres has held it down as a vendor for many of the past Dig Dug events, and we are very excited to hear some selections from his legendary collection. Though a specialist in soul and funk from the Bay Area, we're not quite sure what to expect when he takes the decks.
The Break Up Letters
DJ Platurn (Oakland Faders, Music Machine)
Platurnipus is one of the finest DJs in the Bay area and beyond. He is a prolific and award-winning battle DJ, mixtape DJ and, more recently, club rocker. He has promised to bring out the funk records that he loves but can't play anywhere else.
From Oakland to Iceland
Vendors:
Jeff Jagged from On the Corner Music in Campbell
Geraldine from www.fmgvinyl.com
King Most, in-demand DJ/Producer (Plug Label)
San Jose legend Joey Meyers
...and more
Posted by Brian at 12:43 PM | Comments (0)
May 20, 2008
Patch a Signal by Gretel Prinn
I have a feeling we'll be hearing more from Gretel Prinn in the coming days. Listen up... If you know anything more about this release, please share.
Posted by Brian at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)
May 17, 2008
Homouroboros lights up San Jose tonight!

Homouroboros at Burning Man 2007
UPDATE: Homouroboros Dedication Ceremony May 17th!!
Please join burners, press and public for the Black Rock Arts Foundation ribbon-cutting ceremony for Peter Hudson's Homouroboros installation! This will be the official kick-off for the Zero1 festival, and the beginning of an entire month of monkey business in downtown San Jose.
The dedication will take place at 6pm on Saturday, May 17th at the Children's Discovery Museum - Discovery Meadow (directions here). Once the ribbon is cut by Melissa Alexander, Executive Director of BRAF, and Peter Hudson, the artist and creator of Homouroboros, the drums will start to pound and the zoetrope will start to spin. Get ready for what Wired Magazine called the winner of the "WOW, did you see that?" survey at Burning Man 2007.
Reception follows the ceremony, 7pm - 9pm at Anno Domini gallery with food and refreshments. Be sure to see this incredible zoetrope at its best ... in full dark ... to appreciate the effects under the strobe lights of what scientists call "the persistence of vision". We'll all walk over to the monkeys at 9pm for a full night experience!

Homouroboros by Peter Hudson in San Jose
And don't forget, this piece will be in Discovery Meadow from May 15th - June 15th. Come by during the day, too (we'll have special daytime viewers available). Bring friends, family, kids, neighbors and co-workers! It's free to the public and a perfect fulfillment of BRAF's mission to place experimental, highly interactive art in public settings.
===================================
Volunteer Docents Needed To Host Homouroboros!
The Black Rock Arts Foundation is about to install a huge animated zoetrope full of life-sized monkeys in Discovery Meadow from May 15 to June 15, and we need some unique volunteer help to ensure the public touches it!
Wired Magazine called Peter Hudson’s Homouroboros winner of the 2007 “Wow, did you see that?” award at Burning Man, among hundreds of unconventional expressions of radical creativity. Triggered by the public playing drums, the 24’ high 30’ wide spinning installation features strobe lights at night and shutter glasses by day to give the appearance the monkeys are swinging through a giant Victorian-era tree sculpture.
Homouroboros is perhaps the most interactive, viscerally intense, and engaging public art most people have encountered. It is coming to the park, not a museum, as an experiment, because San Jose is one of the most diverse cities in the nation and this free gift is for everyone. To support an amazing public experience with high-tech art so unconventional, we seek docents to staff the installation, invite folks to play with it, answer questions, and call our support team of Monkey Wrenches if anything breaks. Won’t you help? Please email: southbay@burningman.com.
We especially need docents during daytime hours, beginning 10AM, and we would especially love groups from companies, schools, cultural, or community organizations to host for a shift or two. We expect crowds 10AM-10:30PM since Homouroboros will be actively promoted as a preview to the 2nd Biennial 01SJ Global Festival of Art on the Edge, coming June 4-8 - don’t miss that!
Engaging passers-by who are totally amazed by a giant art installation we’re hosting is an experience we love, and invite you to know. We also invite you to know us, since this installation and the Black Rock Arts Foundation are both about stimulating community and civic participation through art. We deeply appreciate Anno Domini and Phantom Galleries' strong support of this project and our mission.
Project Page: http://www.blackrockarts.org/projects/homouroboros
Team Site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BigMonkeyBusiness/
Images: http://tinyurl.com/63ar4e
Video: http://tinyurl.com/5fh7c8
Posted by Brian at 12:12 PM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2008
MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU
Just came across this short film by Blu, considered an ambiguous animation painted on public walls. It was made in Buenos Aires and in Baden (fantoche). The music by Andrea Martignoni. It was produced by Mercurio Film with assistant Sibe.
Posted by Brian at 10:31 PM | Comments (0)
Good Hustle's "Stegosaur-hus" animated by PJ Gaviglio
Check out this new video made for Good Hustle animated by artist PJ Gaviglio. Great stuff!
Ben Henderson will be performing with Dan McKee (of good hustle) at the Space Gallery this Friday, May 16th. Henderson and McKee will be playing solo sets and collaborating on a few tunes. Also performing will be David Knight, Rick Halverson and Tyler Cripe. This show is an art opening for the people at Monkeys with Human Haircuts . The event is free (21+) and begins at 8:30pm.
Posted by Brian at 09:10 AM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2008
LISTEN/VISION 03 Wednesday, May 14th at SFAI!
LISTEN/VISION 03
The third installment of LISTEN/VISION presents a very special evening with live performances by the three principal members of the German arts platform Raster-Noton: Carsten Nicolai, Frank Bretschneider, and Olaf Bender. Each artist will perform individually, and collectively as Signal. These artists are considered by many to be some of the most important and influential individuals working within the field of experimental electronic audiovisual performance today.
May 14, 2008
San Francisco Art Institute
800 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
7pm-midnight
Tickets are $15 for the general public, free for SFAI Students (limit one per student).
Tickets will be sold the night of the performance at the venue, advance tickets may be purchased online here: www.volumeprojects.org
Raster-Noton: Archiv Für Ton Und Nichtton is a platform, a network covering the overlapping border areas of pop, art, and science. After surviving the storm that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall, East German sound manipulators Carsten Nicolai, Frank Bretschneider, and Olaf Bender pooled their resources as Raster-Noton and jacked into international art currents. Their minimalist electronic CDs and sound objects have sent power surges through a global grid connecting like-minded artists from Coil’s ElpH to Tokyo’s Ryoji Ikeda.
Carsten Nicolai
Carsten Nicolai is an artist who works intensively in the transitional area between art and science. For several years now he has also experimented with sound under the pseudonym Noto to create his own code of signs, acoustic and visual symbols. As Alva Noto he leads those experiments into the field of electronic music.
Among others, Nicolai already performed as Alva Noto at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, at Centre Pompidou in Paris, at Kunsthaus Graz and at Tate Modern in London. Additionally he has projects with diverse artists such as Ryoji Ikeda (cyclo), Mika Vainio or Thomas Knak (opto); recently he toured with Ryuichi Sakamoto through Europe, Australia and Asia.
Olaf Bender
Germany-based Olaf Bender is one of three founders of the Raster-Noton imprint. Beside the management of Raster-Noton, Olaf Bender is responsible for the graphic design and public appearance of the label and its products. He often records under such aliases as Byetone and Lumen for solo projects, and together with Komet and Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto) forms the laptop microsound trio Signal. His output is extremely sparse, with his sole full-length contributions being a disc in the prize-winning 20' to 2000 series and 2003's Feld, released on Raster-affiliated label Binemusic.
Frank Bretschneider
Frank Bretschneider works as a musician, composer and video artist in Berlin. His work is known for precise sound placement, complex, interwoven rhythm structures and its minimal, flowing approach. Bretschneider‘s subtle and detailed music is echoed by his visuals: perfect translated realizations of the qualities found in music within visual phenomena.
After the fall of the wall, he and Olaf Bender founded the record label Rastermusic which finally merged with Carsten Nicolai‘s Noton to form Raster-Noton in 1999. He has performed at music and new media festivals such as Ars Electronica, Cut & Splice, Mutek, Offf, Sonar, Steirischer Herbst, Transmediale, Ultima, etc. In addition to his solo work he has collaborated with artists such as with Taylor Deupree, Olafur Eliasson, Steve Roden, and Ralph Steinbrüchel.
Posted by Brian at 10:47 PM | Comments (0)
May 07, 2008
Andy Gouveia & Pellet at Broken Door Espresso
Artists Andy Gouveia and Kyle of Pellet Factory will have new works at Broken Door Espresso this Friday. It'll also be your last chance to see Kyle's mural in the space as it's about to be redone by another artist soon.
Hooping by Rachel Radness and live music by The Meting Face Trio.
Friday, May 9th, 8pm 'til late.
Broken Door Espresso
231 E.Santa Clara Street (across from City Hall)
San Jose, CA
Posted by Cherri at 10:46 PM | Comments (0)
What do you consider art?
Posted by Brian at 10:07 PM | Comments (0)