Thursday, October 20, 2011

What, what! Remember, no class next week. But then! The following week, NOVEMBER 2ND, is our final workshop. I have yet to meet with a bunch of you and in the next few days I'm going to set up studio visits for when I get back. If you've emailed and I haven't gotten back, please email again.
CINEMA INDIGENE PRESENTS TKARONTO



And in Toronto this weekend...

In the Ghost Land

2010, USA, 6 min, MiniDV, PG
Director: Eve-Lauryn Little Shell LaFountain

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

This Land Is Your (Occupied) Land by Rebecca Solnit
Shadi Ghadirian
Vivian Maier
marcusaurelius.psd


lennybruce1.psd


cioran1.psd

A Fire in My Belly from ppow_gallery on Vimeo.

Citibank
Afterall
Fay Weldon


Iris Murdoch
TheWork of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Walter Benjamin
(1935)
Arty Bollocks Generator

Do you hate having to write your artist statement?
Invisible Borders Trans-African Photographic Initiative

Monday, October 17, 2011

"I'm writing to share a new project I've started at my Visiting Artist-in-Residence position at USF Tampa.

I am creating reproductions of the handmade Occupy Wall Street signs mined from the internet, signs from occupations in cities across the states, re-creating them in terms of scale, content, aesthetic, and wear. The signs are meant to be spirited recreations of the original.

The goal is to create 400 in my stay down here in Tampa that ends mid-December.

I need help!
1. I need cardboard of all shapes, sizes, and colors for my studio, FAH 134...in addition, any extra posterboard, markers, or paints are in need as well
2. Please send me any jpgs of signs you really respond to, I'd love to see what I might not have in my internet searches
3. Labor! I'm interested in students/artists dropping my and making a sign or two or more...it helps to have different hands participate in these recreations. Please email me and my project assistant John (JSHIRK@mail.usf.edu)

and last, if you're far away from me, i'm interested in your ideas/expertise/art-historical references i may consider for thinking about the project, this feedback would be amazing!

We may have a pizza night or two at the studio where we feed helpers in exchange for spending an hour or so in the studio! stay tuned!

attached is an install shot of the first 3 signs my project assistant John Shirk and i made last night in the studio...they take longer than expected, but the labor is joyous!
3 down, 397 to go!

trying harder, jason"


Email from my friend Jason today. There's a number of questions that this project poses, and not a lot of easy answers.
The Center for the Study of Political Graphics

Political Posters from the United States, Cuba and Viet Nam: 1965-1975


Hannah Hoch


John Heartfield

Martha Rosler
'Rebels in Paradise' by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp


LA Times review.
Jeff Wall

27 Nov—19 Jan 2008
Mason's Yard







"Now there are seven kinds of Coke
500 kinds of cigarettes
This freedom of choice in the USA drives everybody crazy"
Hard to see how Sheriff Baca escapes blame
by Steve Lopez
October 16, 2011



LA news.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village

Bottle Village
Watts Towers
California’s Changing Landscape By Lyra Kilston for Time Magazine
Seismic Shift | Lewis Baltz, Joe Deal and California Landscape Photography, 1944-1984
The Most Curious Thing

Exposure
The woman behind the camera at Abu Ghraib.
by Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris


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And for anyone like me who can never pronounce Abu Ghraib correctly...

Abu Ghraib
Phonetic Pronunciation: ah-BOO-grehb

Joe Deal


Robert Adams, Colorado Springs, CA 1968

Robert Adams



Ernst Haas, Route 66, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1969, 20 x 30 inch Dye transfer print

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The 5, October 2011


Aerial View of Notre-Dame Cathedral, from Google Earth

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Kryptonite, Mark Bradford 2006
A Closer Reading of Roman Vishniac

Roman Vishniac
The Many Lives of Hazel Bryan

Thursday, October 13, 2011






I brought these books with me to make copies of essays for all you guys. Despite it being the second week, I have yet to figure out how I can get the copies made. Not to worry, I'll get them to you.
Last thing for the night, I have decided to put up links and brief text here with no indication as to who it's intended for... check it out and if it seems irrelevant to you, rest assured one of your classmates has expressed interest in the subject. Sometimes direct. Sometimes oblique.
visiting artists apartment_1820 web

visiting artists apartment_1829 web


visiting artist apartment_1815 web


visiting artists apartment_1834 web
Here's something important I learned today... the predominant tree here on campus Eucalyptus Globulus, also known as the widow maker, is actually categorized as an invasive species.
This is not related to a discussion I've had personally with someone in the workshop, and it's not from a group discussion in class, but think you all might be interested in the implications of this "study"... Up the Career Ladder, Lipstick In Hand.

You know what? At this point, I just do not give a fuck about the original structure of the workshop. We are going to do something new and, hopefully, more intimate and long lasting. Certainly we are doing something I'm much more invested in. I hope that will be beneficial to all.

I bought a bunch of books at Goodwill today to leave for the next person who comes to the Visiting Artist's Apartment and I'm going to work out how we're going to activate the space as both a comfortable and hospitable space for whoever comes next. And then how to present a cohesive and thoughtfully curated view of your ideas about the space you're currently inhabiting here in Southern California. Some of you are from across the Atlantic Ocean and others are from walking distance to the campus. Suffice it to say, it's going to be great.
Hi Workshop Participants!


1. Could you guys please start finding and saving art magazines that might be laying around campus, or saving them from recycling, or keeping ones that you yourself might toss? Because they need to all go into the Visiting Artists Apartment. Date makes no difference whatsoever.

2. Also! If you see any postcards from around here, gas station or convenience store ones, grab one or two that are compelling. The postcards don't have to be visually appealing or ironic, just something that you are instinctively drawn to... good, bad or no idea why you want it.

3. I will write up a long thing tomorrow about our last class, but I'm kind of beat and not that articulate right now, sorry for the delay.

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Check it out! Here's the mockup for my next book! Straight from the Calarts mail room right to my guest suite. Great, but two full days of work I hadn't planned on.

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4. Because of the format change of the workshop, I'm going to write up something more formal about how this blog will be used during or remaining time here. I kind of see it as ongoing long past the last class, if you guys are into it.

5. The workshop is happening at the end of the day when many of you are exhausted and ready to make your escape from a windowless room with fluorescent lights. I want to figure out a few other ways of discussion so that when everyone is fading at 7:30, we can have a different outlet for discussing ideas.

6. Notice how these points are become disjointed the closer 10PM comes? That's because I'm now sound asleep.









"Nestled near Niagara Falls is Nightmares Fear Factory, a haunted house that has been running for over 30 years. In addition to actors wearing Halloween costumes, the haunted house has a huge, huge, huge amount of animated props. One of those props is a car that explodes out of the darkness and accelerates quickly toward you. Right when the car should run you over, it stops, and a photo is taken of your reaction."

From http://www.frightcatalog.com/blog
30 jailers punished for inmate beatings.


"Untitled" (Perfect Lovers)
Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Hello Workshop Participants,

1. Thanks for staying late.

2. I probably should have made it clear that when I put things up here as links, it doesn't necessarily mean I "like" it or agree with it. It solely means I think it's of interest to someone in the workshop in relation to the discussions I've had with you guys, both collectively and individually. Actually, I should have probably put forth that I'm going to put some crazy shit here. I have complete confidence that some of the more "problematic" links will be insightful, even if you take issue with the content. For some, especially if you take issue with the content. So get ready.

3. An email tomorrow. Good night, my friends!
la brea tar pits
"Los Angeles Stakes Its Claim as a World Art Center" says New York.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

RAISE HIGH THE ROOF BEAM, CARPENTERS
by J. D. Salinger
NOVEMBER 19, 1955



Raise high the roofbeams, carpenters! Fragment 27 by Sappho circa 500 BCE/BC
Huntsville Unit


Dash Snow Poloroids
Larry Sultan


Tina Barney
Rhyolite, Nevada

from: los angeles to: rhyolite NV
El Espinazo Del Diablo

Jung and the Native American Moon Cycles: Rhythms of Influence
The Perfect Medium
Photography and the Occult
Oliver Sacks


The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat By Oliver Sacks

An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks
1992 Los Angeles Riots/ Uprising

Apr 29, 1992:
Riots erupt in Los Angeles






1965 LA Riots/Uprising

The Watts Riot

Watts Riots, 40 Years Later: LA Times, August 11, 2005
Olafur Eliasson
Cory Arcangel


"¡No pasarĂ¡n!"


El Salvador: Tiempo de victoria
FMLN
INTERVIEW: “Extending the Frame: An Interview with Susan Meiselas”


We Are CA: Salvadorans
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler


Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler
Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut


The full title-

"Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, a Fourth-Generation German-American Now Living in Easy Circumstances on Cape Cod [and Smoking Too Much], Who, as an American Infantry Scout Hors de Combat, as a Prisoner of War, Witnessed the Fire Bombing of Dresden, Germany, ‘The Florence of the Elbe,’ a Long Time Ago, and Survived to Tell the Tale. This Is a Novel Somewhat in the Telegraphic Schizophrenic Manner of Tales of the Planet Tralfamadore, Where the Flying Saucers Come From. Peace."
Mark Cohen (American, b. 1943)
New Topographics
by Britt Salvesen, Alison Nordstrom
Arrangements by Randy West

Reconstruction by Randy West
Jason Lazarus
Recordings ("Big Storm" January 30, 1967, Mom)

The 'Recordings' series features found snapshots with writing on the back. Thse images are collected, archived, and curated into dimensions-variable installations.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Studio Visits

Monday

2:30 Scott Oshima Mezzanine 6


Tuesday

10 Heather O'Brien BB5 - #12.

10:30 Roslyn Cohen BB5 #2.

11 Eve-Lauryn LaFountain BB5-7

11:30 Joni Noe BB5-5

12:00 Christopher Hahn Mezzanine #17

12:30 Lily Gottlieb C104-C

3:00 Johann Mun c106

4:00 Jess Castillo Mezzanine 5

4:30 Katrin Winkler BB5- 18

After 6, time tbd, Leah Case


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options_1487_1 web

Recommended for Scott

Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer by Peter Turchi


You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination by Katharine Harmon
sluggo on labrynths


Sluggo Agonistes


Hope everyone is ready for a long rant about entitlement.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Santa Clarita, CA, Whole Foods

whole foods parking lot moon for calarts workshop_1392 web


whole foods parking lot moon for calarts workshop_1396 web

whole foods parking lot moon for calarts workshop_1401 web


whole foods parking lot moon for calarts workshop_1406 web


whole foods parking lot moon for calarts workshop_1408 web

whole foods parking lot moon for calarts workshop_1410 web


whole foods parking lot moon for calarts workshop_1411 web



whole foods parking lot moon for calarts workshop_1415 web


whole foods parking lot moon for calarts workshop_1428 web


whole foods parking lot moon for calarts workshop_1440 web


whole foods parking lot moon for calarts workshop_1442 web


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Text by Alison Feldish


Some more generally intense experiences usually consisted of the expression of extreme wealth disparity - mostly middle-aged ladies coming in almost DAILY to spend $50+ on fresh cut flowers. One more eccentric, affluent older gentleman frequently made a point of acknowledging that the $30/lb gourmet cheese he was buying was for his cat.

Then there were more specific instances. Like the confrontation I once had with a woman who insisted on putting her empty shopping basket on my checkout counter. When I kindly asked her to pivot her hips ninety degrees and drop it into the retrieval pile with a huge sign on it exclaiming that baskets are to be returned there, she refused to do it and explained it was because she "doesn't work here." I couldn't help but laugh at her outright. She filed a complaint against me which I inevitably was written up for.

But my opinions on Whole Foods outside of working there are mixed for many major reasons. One being that they do not necessarily always sell the most healthy foods and, in fact, specifically do not label their brand a "health food" store. This doesn't change the public's perception of it, however, which could most aptly be marked by the instance in which a lady traveling through my checkout line told me very proudly that, "I shop here because I don't have to think." LITERALLY.

That being said, the average food choices at Whole Foods are of higher, more nutrient-dense quality than the majority of the options in more general grocery stores. Which brings me to my second point: food not laced with poison or refined sugar is a right. You shouldn't have to seek out food that specifically isn't killing you because food that kills you should be illegal. But it's not. It's "conventional." So because of this fucked up system, to buy food that doesn't kill you is a luxury. And the prices at Whole Foods are outrageous. Partly because of a basic supply/demand model being on the low-end - the wealthiest people being the smallest group of people - but also partly because there is so little of organic food grown. Organic cropland still only makes up roughly .07% of all U.S. cropland.

However where Whole Foods is a GOOD thing is that because they participate in a basic large-scale corporate system, bringing health (somewhat) food to the masses, they are now forcing other competitive stores to up their standards. Grocery stores in the middle of nowhere even now usually have the smallest "organic section" in them. Which theoretically means that that .07% could be significantly raised if it became clear that the U.S. consumer population actually wanted more healthy foods. Which would then drive down costs OR just even them out a little more. That being said, whether these competitive stores, or even Whole Foods Market for that matter, would actually provide healthy options or just submit to the general "greenwashing" trend that is going on right now is a whole other conversation about the sick, fucked up world of marketing.
I Love My Job, But It Made Me Poorer by JD Samson


Some workshop changes have been made for this coming Wednesday.
Important questions that have to be answered by someone in the workshop: When was Chouinard Hall built? Who was the architect?
I've got to know those 2 things. If you actually live at Chouinard Hall, get on that!


And a more research intensive question is, over the years, has use of the space in Chouinard Hall changed from the original concept for use of the building? Have spaces been repurposed?

Wednesday, October 5, 2011



Drawing by Daniel Johnston for "Hi, How Are You."


"Hi, How Are You: The Unfinished Album is the sixth self-released music cassette album by singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston, recorded in September 1983. It is arguably his most popular album. Johnston claims he almost had a nervous breakdown recording it and calls this his 'unfinished album.'"


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hi, how are you cloud_0565 web

Here's a photo of a cloud from my flight to LA.