speaking of vhs . . .

I came across these two Australian artists Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, who make collaborative work.

This Piece is called 'Life Span' 
Offsite Australian submission for the 53rd Venice Biennale

Installation view, 2009. 175, 218 VHS video cassettes are arranged to form a solid block in the deconsecrated chapel of a former nunnery. The combined running time of these cassettes, if played consecutively, would be 60.1 years, the average human life span in 1976 – the year that the VHS was released.

'Par Avion'
Installation view, 2011, Cessna 172, deconstructed and airmailed from Roma to San Francisco. 

'Drunken Clarity'
Installation view, 2011, broken beer bottles, putty, 24 carat gold, gum arabic.

Just something interesting that made me think of that project Sean once almost start

http://www.100abandonedhouses.com/

Personal Update

UGH.
Hi Guys, It's me Hunter. I have not died. I have had a stressful couple of weeks and haven't been very good at updating/commenting the blog. The two main shitty things in my life right now are 1. My computer is the biggest piece of shit ever. I really need to take it into the magical apple store and have them do their apple magicks on it. 2. I'm moving this weekend and have been stressed packing and figuring out how the fuck you move shit in a city.

First thing's first. Here's a picture of Cliff:  (after all it is a picture blog)

He's been hard at work on a show that opens next week?! (cliff! we want pictures and details!) Anyways, my friend Veve is in the class with him and sent me this the other day and said "Cliff and I buying 49 VHS tapes."

Second thing's second. I wanted to update you all on my living situation. I will be moving into a gigantic "art-fuck factory" style loft in the west loop. Here: http://goo.gl/maps/nAj5e

This was a risky un-hunter like choice. I don't know any of the people that live there, and have no idea how it will turn out. The space is a huge factory style loft with a gigantic work space, gallery space, and 7 oddly shaped bedrooms. The main roommate who "runs" the space invited me to move into the space in hopes of turning the space into more of a working artistic community. Currently the space is full of interesting people that aren't using the space for what he thinks it should be used for. Many of them are moving out in the next couple of months and he's trying to fill the space with serious working artists that will make use of the gallery and work space. (eh? cliff? george? wanna move to chicago?)

If we want to go the "art-fuck factory" route for our show we could potentially do it in this space I'm moving into. I think it might be more beneficial to go with a space that already has a bit of a following, but that is something we can talk about down the road.

So. I will take pictures of the space and let you all know how it goes. The main two advantages of moving into this space are space to work, and money saved on rent. The first thing I'm going to buy is a printer. (does anyone have any printer suggestions? maybe that should be an entire separate topic of discussion?) I plan to start working much more regularly starting next month. I promise I will be posting more frequently and will have work to show.

Spaces in Chicago

A friend in Chicago recommended these spaces as a starting point to look into.'Hunter, I have a feeling you probably have been to them all. Anything promising or worth Persuing? Whats your gut tell you? Her hunch was that Happy Dog and Roxanoxen might be a bit on the, to put it in her words, "art-fuck factory" for our purposes.
Also I found out
That I will definitely be in Chicago for ten days or so in december and I am happy to devote time to looking into spaces--if Chicago is still a place we want to seriously look into.


http://lvl3gallery.com/

Plaines project -- http://plainesproject.wordpress.com/

Roxaboxen --
http://roxaboxenexhibitions.blogspot.com.br/?m=1

Happy dog --
http://happydoggallery.tumblr.com/

from the archive. . . .

I spent the last couple of days in the photography archive in Noumea, New Caledonia.   I came across this amateur photographer named Nicolas Ratzel (self portrait above).   They are autochromes.  Unfortunately the individual works are not dated, but the collection as a whole is dated 1920-1940.  I (of course) was struck by the flower still lives and interiors, but the portrait of the two women is also interesting (that is not the right word).

Notre salon, Baie de l’Orphelinat, commune de Nouméa.

Bégonias et chrysanthèmes.

Vase orange et fleurs.

Maman et Popée.

World Map

Some pictures from today.

And another from yesterday to perpetuate that conversation about weird iterations of Disney.

Group Picture Sketch 01

I was thinking about George's comment wondering how our work would look like together after not working in close contact for a couple of years now. I finished up all of my work-work early today, so I put together a super quick html "sketch." It's super simple code, and I just threw a bunch of our images together to see how they looked liked right up against each other in an isolated virtual environment. I just used mine, Kate's, and George's work because it was the only work I had easy online access too. I used images from this blog, my site, kate's island blog, and george's travel blog. I wanted to use some of Adrienne's work as well, but her site is all flash, so I couldn't easily grab the image files.

http://0hunter.com/picture-sketch/default.html

I decided I would just quickly put ten images together (most are diptychs, so closer to 20.) I tried not to put anyone's work next to another piece of their's, in order to break up the space more randomly to see how the work flows together.

Any thoughts on this technique? I thought it was a quick and interesting way to see the work together and get the gears turning. I tried to make my decisions as intuitive as possible. I didn't think too long about the pairings to try keep them half "random" and half intuitive.

Also, moving on to Kate's idea of actual collaboration over just a group show of our separate work. (I prefer something in between - but I'm a maximalist and think that the best solution to anything is just to do everything.) Would anyone be interested in trying out a quick exquisite corpse type thing on here? I'm open to any ideas. It could be as simple as starting with a photograph and passing it along, or giving a non edited photograph to someone else for them to process. Something simple, low pressure, not time consuming. Just to get the ball rolling.

Meta Show

I thought I would go ahead and bring up the first idea for a show that I have been playing around with. I'm not attached to the idea at all - it's more of a thought exercise than anything, so feel free to add comments/rip it apart. If this is too Charlie Kaufman-esque please tell me - but what would a collaborative art show look like if it was an art show about making art.

This seems trite and simple at first, but when fleshed out would actually be conceptually endless. I'm not talking about just printing the posts from this blog and framing them, or making videos of us making art, or showing step A, B, and C of our pieces. I'm talking about really exploring and deconstructing the process conceptually and trying to see how that would manifest visually. I mean the meta shit has been around for hundreds of years - mostly in plays and movies I suppose. The first example that comes to my mind is Synecdoche, New York. It ranges from Midsummers Night Dream and through to more mainstream examples like 30 Rock. I'm sure there are a million better examples. In those examples it's explicitly clear that it is a "show" about a "show" or a "play" within a "play." I'm just wondering if there is a more abstract (yuck word) or conceptual way of exploring this same idea.

I may be bringing up a nearly impossible idea, but I think it's worth talking about at least. Especially if we are a group of artists trying to get together to make some sort of something. Maybe making it means more than the actual product. Could making it and the made be the same?

I'm sure there are many examples of this concept in the A(capital a)rt canon - I'm sure the rest of you could point out better examples, but I thought I would start the conversation.

Trying to make "real" "pictures"

I recently stole DePaul's Canon 5D. Whenever I have to use the internet communications department's 5D to take photographs for the website, I usually work it out so I can take it home for the night. Here are a couple shots from a recent shoot with the 5D. I've been experimenting with making Ikebana inspired flower arrangements with dead/dying flowers. I also forced my boyfriend to let me photograph him - which he was not a fan of. I have a lot of "disclaimers" with these, but I figured I would just post them. Oh one disclaimer. I have much higher-res nondestructive .cr2 .psd versions of these, but I used photoshop CS1 to resize them, which doesn't have the ability to edit camera raw files. The color/quality is not what I want - but it's close enough for the blog. I've had more desire to make "real" "pictures" recently. I don't think any of you saw work like this from me in any of our critiques.

Hunter - I am adding to your post - cause I think this picture is germane to the conversation.   Sorry.

I have been calling it 'Hermit' because I think it sort of looks like a hermit crab.   But I was also trying to speak to an isolation similar to 'the little prince' (did you all grow up reading that book?) or a desert island.  

This may also be related - I have thought about this one less - there is no title.