Tuesday, June 25, 2013

#404 Not Found


#404 Not Found
Curated by Miguel Cortez from Antena

Opening Friday August 30, 2013 from 6pm-10pm
Show runs until September 8th
"Skin has become inadequate in interfacing with reality. Technology has become the body's new membrane of existence." - Nam June Paik

The 404 Not Found is an HTTP web error message indicating that the client was able to communicate with the server, but the server could not find what was requested. Humans created this entity called the Internet which has no physicality but it is a collective forum for our ideas, comments and cat videos. This show is about artists using technology as an art form, from video, web, animated GIFS, social networks, virtual reality, etc.


Co-Prosperity Sphere
3219-21 South Morgan Street
Chicago Illinois, 60608
http://coprosperity.org

Artist Bios:
Channel TWo (CH2)
Adam Trowbridge (b 1972) and Jessica Westbrook (b 1974) collaborate as Channel TWo (CH2), a studio/research construct focused on mixed reality, media, design, development, and distribution, authorized formats + unauthorized ideas, systems of control + radical togetherness. Channel TWo is loosely aligned with the concept of over-identification, Slavoj Žižek’s description of a tactic intended to reveal the hidden nature of dominant ideologies -- not by pointing to them but by becoming extreme forms of them. CH2 projects intersect joyful/play-oriented aesthetic experiences and user interfaces with challenging critical undercurrents. CH2's most recent projects involve interactive landscapes/game environments, and computer viruses. In 2012 CH2 was awarded a Rhizome Commission, a Turbulence Commission in 2011, and a Terminal Commission in 2009 for projects involving education, systems design, and net art. In addition to exhibitions and commissions, CH2 contributes to panels, platforms, publications, and collaborative programs involving new media, and social practices. Both Trowbridge and Westbrook are Assistant Professors at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where they teach courses in the Department of Contemporary Practices and the Department of Art and Technology Studies. Trowbridge received an MFA in Electronic Visualization from the University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL (2008). Westbrook received an MFA in Photography from Temple University's Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA (1998). http://www.onchanneltwo.com/

Jeff Kolar is an audio artist working in Chicago, USA. His work, described as "speaker-shredding" (Half Letter Press) and "wonderfully strange" (John Corbett), includes cross-platform collaboration, low-powered radio, and live performance. Jeff is a free103point9 Transmission Artist, and also the director of Radius, an experimental radio broadcast platform.

His work has been released on Panospria (Canada), HAK Lo-Fi Record (France), free103point9 (USA), and has appeared in compilations by Furthernoise.org (Australia) and Sonic Circuits (USA). His video work was published in the DVD journal ASPECT: The Chronicle of New Media Art. He presents at festivals, radio programs, exhibitions, and performance venues which recently include GLI.TC/H, KUNSTRADIO, and The Kitchen; and in Argentina, Mexico, and the Netherlands, among others internationally. http://www.jeffkolar.us/
 
Emilie Gervais
Girl living the life, living the internet and all. If i lose this current skin, it's scary like #404voidBB. http://emiliegervais.com/

Jon Satrom is a constructive deconstructivist, a creative problematizer, a collaborative agitator and a systems spelunker. His realtime A/V performances, experimental video-works, net.art and artware have been consumed within various space-times across multiple planes. Satrom co-founded the r4wb1t5! microFestival framework and the GLI.TC/H conference/festival/gathering. He has taught and developed courses in the new-media path of the Department of Film Video New Media Animation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and directs the Chicago-based boutique digital studio studiothread. Sharing, bringing folks together, creative problem creating and investigating structures though failure, kludges, and glitches fuel his endeavors. http://jonsatrom.com

Rob Ray examines technology in public/outdoor spaces and creates interactive public artworks, experimental videos and sound compositions. His interactive work, GET LOST! was commissioned by the Abandon Normal Devices Festival in Manchester, UK and has exhibited at Conflux 2012 in New York and the Tracing Mobility festival in Berlin, Germany. His video game disguised as ATM, Bucky's Animal Spirit, was selected for the art.tech exhibition at The Lab (San Francisco), and the (re)load exhibition at Antena (Chicago).

Rob also collaborates with Jason Soliday and Jon Satrom as a member of the Chicago-based circuit-bent multimedia noise trio I Love Presets. I Love Presets has performed at the GLI.TC/H 2011 and 2012 festivals, The SAIC's Conversations at the Edge series and the Chicago Underground Film Festival.

From 1999 to 2008, Rob was founding curator of the DEADTECH electronic arts center in Chicago, IL, USA. DEADTECH's unique curatorial vision, residency facilities, workshop facilities and exhibition space were custom created to cater to the specific needs of the electronic artist and performer. DEADTECH exhibited artists from across the globe including the Beige Programming Ensemble, Institute for Applied Autonomy, Trevor Paglen, Norman White, Kevin Drumm, T.V. Pow and Kazuyuki K. Null. In 2010, Rob received his MFA in Electronic Arts from Rensselear Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. http://robray.net/

Patrick Lichty is a technologically-based media artist, writer, independent curator, co-founder of the performance art group Second Front, animator for the activist group, The Yes Men, and Executive Editor of Intelligent Agent Magazine. He began showing technological media art in 1989, and deals with works and writing that explore the social relations between us and media. Venues in which Lichty has been involved with solo and collaborative works include the Whitney & Turin Biennials, Maribor Triennial, Performa Performance Biennial, Ars Electronica, and the International Symposium on the Electronic Arts (ISEA). He is also an Assistant Professor of Interactive Arts & Media at Columbia College Chicago. http://patricklichty.com/


Jake Myers is a Chicago-based artist, athlete and educator. "His work gratuitously merges art and sports, homoeroticism and hypermasculinity, and heroism and existential suffering." (M. Devlin) http://jakemyers.us


Amelia Winger-Bearskin works with modeling (as defined by agent based computer programming) as a conceptual prompt in her performance work, she has developed a concept of Open Source Performance Art (OSPA), she has spoken about OSPA at various academic conferences and performance festivals since 2010. She has been a solo performer at numerous international performance festivals since 2008 in cities not limited to: Beijing, China, Manila, Philippines, Seoul, South Korea, Sao Paulo, Brazil, New York NY and Washington, DC. She participated in the 2012 Gwangju Biennial as a performance artist and recently returned from an artist residency at the University of Tasmania in Australia. http://www.studioamelia.com/

Miguel Cortez is an artist/curator living in Chicago and born in Guanajuato, Mexico. He has studied filmmaking at Columbia College and art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He currently runs Antena, an alternative art space located in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. His artwork has been shown at Gallery 414 in Fort Worth, Texas, at the Krannert Museum and at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago. Other shows included exhibits in Dallas at Mighty Fine Arts Gallery, Glass Curtain Gallery and at VU Space in Melbourne, Australia. http://www.mcortez.com/
Public Transportation Options: (CTA)
Take the HALSTED BUS (8) south to 31st or 32nd Street. Walk 4 blocks West to Morgan.
ORANGE LINE to Halsted/Archer, catch the HALSTED BUS to 31st.
RED LINE to Sox/35th, take the 35th STREET BUS (35) West to Morgan. Walk north.

Saturday, January 05, 2013

2013 Predictions


my predictions for 2013:

1.smartphones will continue to be larger(phablets) because very few people actually make calls anymore. Luddites/Hipsters continue looking for payphones and carry 50 cents in their pockets at all times.

2. Al Gore will try to sell his soul on ebay. No one bids on it.

3.The CBS network will finally cease to exist. All the old viewers will be confused and just watch CSPAN thinking it's a new episode of Matlock.

4. Fox will finally cancel all those damn sunday night cartoons and replace them with 2 hours of Howard Stern.

5. New alternative apartment art spaces will pop up and disappear.

6. Religious freaks will continue knocking on your door but Google will invent the star trek "tricorder" so they will be able to scan your place and see that people are home and ignoring the knock on the door.

7. Anonymous will finally be the TIME mag person of the year.

8. No one will care anymore about the Kardashians. TV shows canceled. They become the Vanilla Ice of reality TV. Kanye's music sales take a dive too. He goes nuts and just kills all of them. Bruce Jenner's face survives. Kanye gets life in prison.

9. Michelle Bachmann finally realizes her husband is gay and supports gay rights. No one cares.

10. Blackberry 10 is released and no one cares. RIM goes out of business but on their way out they release a youtube video of their executives singing  a Frankie Goes To Hollywood song. The web site REDDIT loves it and it becomes a MEME.

11. An artist installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art accidentally blows up the building.

Friday, January 04, 2013

dream 1-04-2013, 3:51am

Had a dream of walking to an outdoor one day art show in this decayed industrial area with destroyed buildings and walls leftover standing. This conceptual/graffiti female artist who went by the name "happy?" was showing installations using materials that blended with the raw industrial surroundings.

I was with a group of people, some of whom I recognized. The artist was explaining an installation in front of us which was a huge 300sq foot square made up of dirt, rocks and stuff sticking out which looked like metal hangers twisted into various shapes.


She invited the group to step into the installation and reshape the metal sculptures. So we did. I noticed as the crowd was stepping all over the dirt and rocks, that a few larger rocks looked like they were moved so I proceeded to move them back into place. The artist came by me and started yelling and saying, "Those are part of the installation and should not be moved voluntarily. You should only reshape the metal sculptures that I just explained!"


I apologized and after this ordeal the artist pointed to where we could get some drinks. It was an opening on the floor with a metal chute that lead down to a basement level. It did not look safe but most of us in the group slid down for drinks and further art chit chat.


After a while we walked back up to leave and there was a half demolished wall with an abstract mural with the name "happy?" spray painted below it. Next to it it said "next art opening: Barry McGee."