EQUALS? Until the answer is YES, we must never stop asking.

video: WeAreEquals

JR is 2011 TED prize winner

Pretty amazing stuff!

Gringos Living in Tijuana by Katherine Sweetman

Very interesting 15 minutes, I cannot wait to see the feature-length version. What a great idea! A very much needed fresh look at Tijuana.


This is a 15 minute version of a feature-length documentary

"Gringos Living in Tijuana" provides a glimpse into the lives of seven, very unusual inhabitants of the city of Tijuana, Mexico. Derrik, Gerda, Jodi, Jason, Michael, Iana, and Jenny are not Hispanic, and they don't exactly appear as though they would "blend in" in the Mexican border town that has been called one the most dirty and dangerous cities of North America. Yet this film follows these gringos, in their daily activities, while they show and explain why they chose to live in the city they love-- Tijuana.
Katherine Sweetman

Screening at La Casa delTunel, Tijuana - coming soon

Lucent at the Office of Research Affairs, University of California, San Diego by Katherine Sweetman and Owen Mundy

Collaborative project by artists Owen Mundy and Katherine Sweetman

From the website:

"LUCENT is an interactive installation commissioned by the Office of Research Affairs, University of California, San Diego. The LUCENT system creates image sequences by associating words from a subset of records in the university library database with tagged images on Flickr. The particular subset of library texts was chosen by the artists, and includes all titles that contain words dealing with "light" for example, "light", "lucent", "illuminate", "illuminated" etc.

When the system is in its passive state, it shows only a live-feed of the sky as seen through a skylight in the building.

Special Thanks to Harrison Watts at the Office of Research Affairs."

Katherine Sweetman

San Diego Art Journal

courtesy San Diego Art Journal

I met John Lidot, owner and publisher of the San Diego Art journal, on the occasion of "Meet the Press" an interesting talk which took place at Art Produce Gallery in North last Saturday. I did not know about this website, specialized in videos about the San Diego art scene.

From the SDAJ website:
"Our mission: Build a visual journal into one of the fastest growing art scenes in this country. Build a foundation where communication between emerging artist and collector is enhanced. Build an incubation platform for emerging artists. Build a window with perspective for the savvy art collector.

In short we strive to build a place where art collectors can look closer into the making of San Diego's emerging artist and where artists can find access and insight to critical commentary and resources."

Publisher - John Lidot

San Diego Art Journal
contact john Lidot: john@sandiegoartjournal.com

Joshua Allen Harris' Inflatable Bags

Iphone drawing on the cover of The New Yorker

The New Yorker

The Infinity Lab presents "NineTransient Things" at Voz Alta Project

I've been wanted to go for a while to Voz Alta Project in Barrio Logan. Saturday I decided that going to see the last work by the The Infinity Lab was the good occasion. I was attracted by the title of the show and I also read strange things about that group of artists which made me want to know more. The Infinity Lab is run by three loco doctors: Dr. Cuddles With Cats, Dr. Niku and Dr. Hueso. I checked out some of their videos online, on their YouTube channel. Their work, strangely, seems to me at the same time pretty serious and rather silly - well, I guess, in that sense it is very Dada. In their videos, the doctors of the Infinity Lab always appear with masks and costumes, so it is impossible to recognize them. Dr Cuddles with Cats: "Adopting a different costume can change the way you interact with the world, and the way the world interacts with you".


The Infinity Lab: Dr. Niku, Dr. Hueso and Dr. Cuddles With Cats,
with their costumes: hats, sunglasses and masks,
holding their props and wearing red.
San Diego City Beat - cover- August 2008

I like that the three doctors have a mysterious identity. The "Lab" concept offers them endless possibilities to experiment in various directions. They seem to have a good time doing what they are doing which is great. Also there is an aspect of their work which is irreverent, I like that.
Check out that video: "Blue Chip Special #4: The Infinity Lab does Jeff Koons. Special Guest Performer: Dr. La Bone. Jeff Koons oversees the creation of the sacred cow."



So, the show! Nice place, nice vibe. The three doctors were there, but totally incognito!
DJ Dan Camacho was operating in the back room.


DJ Dan Camacho


"Mask"


"Gloves"

On the walls are displayed nine 3' square drawings on paper made with exclusively Crayola crayons. The nine transient things are: "Peppermint" (the cat), "Bone", "Ms. Meatcow", "Ears", "Hat", "Antennae", "Mask", "Glasses" and "Gloves".

But the very first ones I see on the right are the mask and the gloves. In the midst of the swine flu hysteria (Saturday, May 2, was right at the pick of it), I cannot not make the link with what is going on. I am very interested in artwork related to "here and now", so this sends a good signal about how perceptive the doctors of the Infinity Lab are - although they made the work before the "outbreak". But it is around, in our subconsciousness. The fear of contamination, the need for protection.


From left to right: antennae, mask and glasses.


Peppermint


Hat


Ms Meatcow

On the left end of the room are hanging the three objects, symbols of the three doctors: The cat, "Peppermint", is Dr. Cuddles with Cats', the cow, Ms. Meatcow, is Dr. Niku's and the bone is Dr. Hueso's.


"Peppermint", Ms. Meatcow and the bone

On the right end of the gallery, an 18mn video runs on a loop.



I watch the video about Peppermint, Ms. Meatcow and Bone going from California to New York and back. They are overlaid on different pictures of the places they go to (Las Vegas, the desert, Texas, Mount Rushmore...). Along the way the trio finds and takes the 6 other transient things (the ears, the hat, the antennae, the mask, the glasses and the gloves). For example they find the mask in New York at Ground Zero.



Next to the video, there is a triangle shaped shelf with, on top of it: Crayola crayons boxes, Crayola crayons protective papers in a jar and Crayola crayons shavings in another one.
Dr. Cuddles with Cats: "There's this artist, Haim Steinbach, who makes shelves, and we made a parody shelf. In the animation, the characters: Peppermint, Ms Meatcow, and Bone go to New York and they find Haim and they trade all the things they found on their journey and themselves for the shelf. The same shelf in the animation is [here] in the gallery."


"Blue Chip Haim Steinbach Special."

If you missed the opening reception, go to the closing one - DJ Dan Camacho will be there again.

Closing Reception: Saturday, May 16, 2009 from 7pm -11pm
Exhibit dates: May 2-May 16th.
For more information:
vozaltaproject.org or myspace.com/theinfinitylab
The Infinity Lab
The Infinity Lab / YouTube



Voz Alta Project
Neighborhood: Barrio Logan
1754 National Ave
(between Sigsbee St & Beardsley St)
San Diego, CA 92113
(619) 230-1869

Shoot an Iraqi

A stunning program yesterday on KPBS about an installation/performance by artist Wafaa Bilal which took place in 2007 in an internet gallery in Chicago. Wafaa Bilal made himself the human target for a live internet shooting gallery. People around the globe took aim and fired real paintballs at him for a month.

From Bilal's website:
"Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun

Wafaa Bilal's childhood in Iraq was defined by the horrific rule of Saddam Hussein, two wars, a bloody uprising, and time spent interned in chaotic refugee camps in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Bilal eventually made it to the U.S. to become a professor and a successful artist, but when his brother was killed at a U.S. checkpoint in 2005, he decided to use his art to confront those in the comfort zone with the realities of life in a conflict zone.

Thus the creation and staging of "Domestic Tension," an unsettling interactive performancepiece: for one month, Bilal lived alone in a prison cell-sized room in the line of fire of a remote-controlled paintball gun and a camera that connected him to internet viewers around the world. Visitors to the gallery and a virtual audience that grew by the thousands could shoot at him 24 hours a day.

The project received overwhelming worldwide attention, garnering the praise of the Chicago Tribune, which called it "one of the sharpest works of political art to be seen in a long time," and Newsweek's assessment "breathtaking." It spawned provocative online debates and ultimately, Bilal was awarded the Chicago Tribune's Artist of the Year Award."

I visited theworld.com to get the video.

Thank you Kevin for your comment. I did not know about the book and I am very interested in reading it. I ordered it on Amazon.

Things, things, things! (tis the season)

From "Into the Wild", Sean Penn, 2007

"Change has come to America"

Randy Pausch Last Lecture

Professor Randy Pausch died today of cancer, he was 48 years old. He gave his last lecture at the Carnegie Mellon University September 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. Randy Pausch says: "I am dying soon, and I am choosing to have fun today, tomorrow and every other day I have left".
I would like to share this inspiring lecture with you.

Jill Bolte Taylor: the clarity of the present moment

A few days ago I heard on the radio the astonishing story of Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain researcher who suffered a massive stroke and "studied" it as it was happening. She witnessed from the inside the sudden silence of her left hemisphere (analytical, verbal, logical). It took her eight years to fully recover and her perception of Humanity changed drastically. The video I found on internet is quite long but worth listening to.

"In that instant, I suddenly felt vulnerable, and I noticed that the constant brain chatter that routinely familiarized me with my surroundings was no longer a predictable and constant flow of conversation. Instead, my verbal thoughts were now inconsistent, fragmented, and interrupted by an intermittent silence.

As my brain chatter began to disintegrate, I felt an odd sense of isolation. My blood pressure must have been dropping as a result of the bleeding in my brain because I felt as if all of my systems, including my mind's ability to instigate movement, were moving into a slow mode of operation. Yet, even though my thoughts were no longer a constant stream of chatter about the external world and my relationship to it, I was conscious and constantly present within my mind."

Listen to Jill Bolte Taylor's Interview with Terry Gross / Fresh Air on NPR.
Watch the video