miguel cortez

taking a nap

2012-01-10T18:15:00.002-06:00

I found this at a local thrift store

2012-01-06T19:44:00.001-06:00

recycle your ideas

2011-11-08T20:43:00.002-06:00

early 1900s

2011-10-27T19:24:00.002-05:00

scene from Breaking Bad

2011-10-12T21:33:00.002-05:00

Art and Technology in Chicago

2011-09-28T05:03:00.001-05:00

Art and Technology in Chicago
by Miguel Cortez
(published in Contratiempo, October 2011)

"Skin has become inadequate in interfacing with reality. Technology has become the body's new membrane of existence." - Nam June Paik

This article is by no means a history of New Media Art, but will focus on a few artists using new technologies in Chicago.

New Media Art's roots can be traced back as far as to the mid to late 1800s with the invention of animation projectors such as the "zoetrope" and the "praxinoscope" and continued on to the use of experimental sound instruments called "intonarumori" by the Italian Futurists in 1913.

It evolved and expanded as new technologies came about such as the invention of video and affordable video cameras such as the Sony Portapak introduced in 1967. Nam June Paik is considered to be the first artist to use this technology. Although early computers were mostly used by engineers, scientists and computer programmers in universities, artists also found this technology as a new tool for expression. The origins of computer art dates back to 1960 with the invention of the Henry Drawing Machine by Desmond Paul Henry. This led to him having a solo show in London in 1962.

Nowadays artists use 3D virtual social environments to create sculptures or interactive performances. One such artist, Patrick Lichty uses Second Life as a virtual performance space with his group Second Front. They explain on their web site: "Second Front creates theatres of the absurd that challenge notions of virtual embodiment, online performance and the formation of virtual narrative." In a separate art piece Lichty recreated in Second Life the sculpture titled Spindle by the artist Dustin Shuler which existed in Berwyn, Illinois from 1989 until its demolition in May of 2008. It consisted of eight cars impaled on a 50 foot spike. The sculpture was removed to make way for a Walgreen's drive-thru window but now thanks to Lichty, it exists in a virtual world.

A local group called I Love Presets consisting of Jon Sartrom, Rob Ray and Jason Soliday create physical(not virtual) multimedia performances consisting of digital video, circuit bent electronics, custom video games and audio software. A review of a performance at the Gene Siskel Film Center explains, "The trio chops up and recontextualizes bits of digital ephemera into new processes, sounds, and even games; it may sound a bit techy, but one look at Ray's ultra-provocative Guilty Party installation or ILP's labyrinthine website, and it becomes clear that the gadgetry's impressive, but the concepts are just as fully formed."

In 2009 Ben Chang did an installation of two virtual characters doing a performance using telegraph machines and video projectors. Each computer generated character is seen tapping on their virtual telegraphs while next to the two projections a real antique telegraph equipment produces the sound. It is a love performance between two virtual characters that uses old antiquated instruments alongside the new and in my opinion gives an homage to the origins of technology.

The use of the internet has also been used by artists. Earlier this year artists Adam Trowbridge and Jessica Westbrook organized a one night show of web performances at Antena in Pilsen called Daisy Chain. Using multiple projectors and computers they filled the space with a continuous array of moving images, pictures, sound and text. This also included a gallery performance by Jeff Kolar manipulating the sound of Hallmark sound greeting cards.

We are not limited to the media that I listed before. We live in a time period were technology is evolving at a rapid scale. Computer chips are becoming smaller and holding more memory which in turn give us access to faster computers, tablets and smartphones. Pretty soon we may be able to create nanobots which will help heal and repair the human body at the cellular level or we may create life-size holodeck simulated virtual environments. As all these developments occur I am sure artists will find a way to use them for experimentation.

Links:
Patrick Lichty: http://www.voyd.com/
Second Front: http://www.secondfront.org
I Love Presets: http://ilovepresets.net/
Ben Chang: http://www.bcchang.com/art/sounderandrelay/index.php
Daisy Chain by Adam Trowbridge and Jessica Westbrook: http://antenapilsen.com/exhibit28.html

-------------------------------

Arte y tecnología en Chicago

“La piel se ha vuelto inadecuada para interactuar con la realidad.
La tecnología se ha convertido en la nueva membrana existencial del cuerpo”.
Nam June Paik

Este artículo en modo alguno constituye una historia del arte de nuevos medios, sino que se enfocará en unos cuantos artistas que utilizan tecnologías nuevas en Chicago. Las raíces del arte de nuevos medios se remontan inclusive a la segunda mitad del siglo XIX con la invención de proyectores de animación como el zoótropo o el praxinoscopio, y continúan hasta 1913 con el uso de instrumentos de sonido experimentales, como los llamados “intonarumori” usados por los futuristas italianos.

Estos medios evolucionaron y se expandieron en la medida en que aparecían nuevas tecnologías, como el vídeo, o a partir de la popularización de las cámaras de vídeo, a partir de la introducción de la Sony Portapak en 1967. Nam June Paik está considerado como uno de los primeros artistas en usar esta tecnología. Si bien las primeras computadoras eran usadas más que nada por ingenieros, científicos y programadores en las universidades, los artistas también encontraron esta tecnología como una nueva herramienta para la expresión. Los orígenes del arte por computadora se remontan a 1960 con la invención de la Máquina de Dibujo Henry por parte de Desmond Paul Henry, quien la presentó por vez primera en una exhibición en Londres en 1962.

Hoy en día, los artistas usan ambientes sociales virtuales en 3D para crear esculturas o llevar a cabo performances interactivas. Uno de estos artistas, Patrick Lichty, usa el programa Second Life como espacio para una performance virtual junto con su grupo Second Front. El grupo explica en su página Web que Second Front “crea teatros del absurdo que prueban hasta el límite los conceptos de encarnación virtual, online performance y la formación de la narrativa virtual”. En otra pieza, Lichty recreó en Second Life la escultura llamada “Spindle” de Dustin Shuler, que estuvo puesta en un centro comercial de Berwyn, suburbio de Chicago, entre 1989 hasta su demolición en mayo de 2008, y que consistía en ocho automóviles empalados sobre una pica de 17 metros de altura. La escultura fue eliminada para darle paso a la ventanilla para automovilistas de un nuevo Walgreen’s, pero ahora, gracias a Lichty, existe en el mundo virtual.

Un grupo local llamado “I Love Presets”, formado por Jon Sartorm, Rob Ray y Jason Soliday, han creado performances multimedia en vivo que consisten en vídeo digital, efectos electrónicos de circuit bent, vídeo juegos adaptados y software de audio. Una reciente reseña de su trabajo en el Gene Siskel Film Center indicaba que “el trío rebana y recontextualiza efímeros bits digitales, convirtiéndolos en procesos, sonidos y hasta juegos nuevos. Puede que suene un poco techy, pero una mirada a la instalación ultraprovocadora Guilty Party, de Ray, o al laberíntico sitio Web de ILP, y nos queda claro que la parafernalia es impresionante, pero que sus conceptos están plenamente formados”.

En el 2009, Ben Chang montó una instalación de dos personajes virtuales que hacían un performance usando telégrafos y proyectores de vídeo. Cada personaje generado por computadora aparecía aporreando el teclado de sus telégrafos virtuales, en tanto que al lado de las dos proyecciones había un auténtico equipo telegráfico que producía el sonido. Era una performance de amor entre dos personajes virtuales que usaban instrumentos anticuados e instrumentos nuevos, algo que en mi opinión rinde homenaje a los orígenes de la tecnología.

El uso del Internet ha sido también frecuentado por los artistas. A principios de año, Adam Trowbridge y Jessica Westbrook montaron un show de una sola noche de performances Web, llamado Daisy Chain, que se presentó en el Antena de Pilsen. Usando múltiples proyectores y computadoras, llenaron el espacio con una gama continua de imágenes en movimiento, fotografías, sonido y texto. Esto incluía también una performance de galería a cargo de Jeff Kolar, quien manipulaba el sonido de las tarjetas de felicitación sonoras de Hallmark.

No estamos limitados a los medios descritos hasta ahora. Vivimos en una era en la que la tecnología evoluciona a una veloz escala. Los chips de computadora son cada vez más pequeños y cargan cada vez más memoria, lo que a su vez nos da acceso a computadoras más rápidas, tabletas y smartphones. Pronto, seremos capaces de crear nanobots que nos ayudarán a curar y reparar el cuerpo humano a nivel celular, o podremos crear ambientes virtuales simulados a escala real. Conforme estos conceptos se vuelven realidad, estoy seguro que los artistas los usarán para su experimentación.

Algunos enlaces:
Patrick Lichty
Second Front
I Love Presets
Ben Chang
Daisy Chain de Adam Trowbridge y Jessica Westbrook

Miguel Cortez es un artista y curador, nacido en la ciudad mexicana de Guanajuato y residente en Chicago. Estudió cine en Columbia College, y arte en el School of the Art Institute. Está a cargo de Antena, un espacio de arte alternativo en el barrio de Pilsen. Su obra ha sido exhibida en Gallery 414 de Fort Worth, Texas, el Krannert Museum y el Museo Nacional de Arte Mexicano de Chicago. También ha presentado obra en la Mighty Fine Arts Gallery de Dallas, la Glass Curtain Gallery y el VU Space de Melbourne, Australia.

http://contratiempo.net/2011/10/arte-y-tecnologia-en-chicago/

Article in ArtSlant

2011-08-10T05:45:00.002-05:00

Antena & Miguel Cortez

by Joel Kuennen

Renovation Creep: Joe Cassan, Dan Bruttig and Erin Thurlow

Joe Cassan, Dan Bruttig and Erin Thurlow

Antena

1765 S. Laflin St., Chicago, IL 60608

August 5, 2011 - September 3, 2011

Antena (the Spanish spelling of “antenna”) is a project space run by Miguel Cortez of the now-defunct Polvo collective and magazine. Located in Pilsen, Antena has a history of presenting new and interesting work that has given it a reputation of excellent curation representative of young artists and emerging work at the intersection of genres most important to the contemporary moment. Mr. Cortez points to his laissez-faire approach to curating as the key to keeping artists and patrons interested in Antena. “I allow artists to alter the space for their experimentation. Artists can paint the walls, put up bathroom tile (like the current show “Renovation Creep”) and even build walls. For a show about two years ago this artist wanted more wall space for his paintings so he had an L-shaped wall built. At the end of the show I left it in place for future artists to use.”

Antena is itself an apartment gallery following in the long tradition that has defined Chicago’s art scene for years. Both because of the prevalence of two large art school institutions that bring in a rotating cast of artists and curators, the apartment gallery is kept as a transient phenomenon. Cortez takes advantage of this through allowing the space to reflect each show. The apartment renews with each exhibition.

Installation view of "Renovation Creep" at Antena. Image courtesy of Antena

Much of the contemporary art scene in Chicago is a cloud of alternative gallery spaces that come into existence for a year or two and then disappear. Some transition into more permanent institutions, others are lost to time and the revolving door of the city. Sometimes, as is the case with Miguel Cortez, the closing of one space, Polvo, leads to the opening of another, Antena.

Cortez says of the consecutive galleries; “Both were very similar and it was just a natural transition. Polvo was run by a collective. Once the collective disbanded then I decided to continue using my apartment to showcase art under a different name.” The mission didn’t change however. What has changed is the frequency of shows as well as their make-up. “With Antena there are fewer shows a year and most are one person shows (with the exception of the current show). Antena runs six-to-eight shows a year as opposed to twelve shows a year and more group shows during the Polvo years.”

“Renovation Creep,” is on view (by appointment) until September 3^rd and will be followed by an exhibition by a local group of female crafters called El Stitch y Bitch, following Antena’s mission “as a cultural space that transmits/broadcasts symbolically art ideas, new media and installation projects on a local and global scale.”

-Joel Kuennen, ArtSlant Staff Writer
http://www.artslant.com/chi/articles/picklist#p24566

"Is this thing on?: The art of comedy"

2011-07-15T01:35:00.001-05:00

"Is this thing on?: The art of comedy"
Guest Curator: Miguel Cortez from Antena

Opening Friday August 12 from 6pm-10pm
August 12-28, 2011

"If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses."
- Lenny Bruce

Contemporary art is too serious sometimes. This show will focus on the lightheartedness and humor in art. Most of us are part of the system and work 40+ hours a week and by the weekend we just want to unwind and be entertained. Then this show is just for you. These artists use irony, goofiness, satire, and sarcasm in their work.

Artists:
Andy Detskas
Ben Pederson
Catie Olson
Chris Silva
Darrell Luce
David Leggett
Lauren Feece
Meg Duguid
Nick Black
Nicole Marroquin
Paul Shortt
Rick Huggett
Sarah Perez

Born June 3rd, 1975, Andy Detskas grew up hopping around the Midwest, deep South and East coast. Like many artists, Andy began to work at a young age exploring drawing, painting and sculpture. Since graduating from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2000 Andy's work has varied as much as the places he grew up; exploring themes of human scale, urban ruin, defacement, landscape, ghosts, robots and typography. Andy's current body of work is focused on using discarded motel landscape paintings as a canvas for hand-drawn typography and strange comedic characters. http://andyandyandy.com/

Ben Pederson was born in 1979 in Grand Rapids Michigan and received his B.A. in Studio art from Aquinas College in 2003. He went on to obtain his M.F.A. in Sculpture from the University of Massachusetts, which he received in 2007. After graduate school, Ben moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he worked as an art handler and continued to make and show work. Now residing in Madison, WI, he has shown in Chicago and throughout the midwest as well as staying involved with shows and screenings on the east coast. http://benforceblog.blogspot.com/

Catie Olson is multi-disciplinary artist born in Decatur, Illinois, the pleasant home of two chicken cars. She received her BS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1995 in Agriculture, ventured to Chicago and received her BFA at the School of the Art Institute in 2000. Catie organizes SpiderBug, a mobile short film festival, along with her husband, EC Brown. The pair also run Floor Length and Tux, an apartment art space. Catie has an animation that will be shown in the International Pancake Film Festival in Boston upcoming in July. She has shown work in Chicago including Heaven, Swimming Pool, antena and minidutch galleries. http://www.catieolson.com, http://www.floorlengthandtux.com, http://www.spiderbug.org

Christopher Tavares Silva is a multi-disciplinary artist who has been cold rockin' shit since his little monkey feet touched down on Planet Earth. Having recently returned to Chicago from a 4 year vision quest in the jungles of Puerto Rico, Chris is splitting his energy between creating collaborative and heart-warming works of art and music with his expansive band of misfit slackers - and charging ever onward with his tireless passion for data entry. Chris's work has been exhibited and published in places that would make you shit your pants, and since most of us prefer to shit our pants in the privacy of our own homes (I know - there's nothing greater) the details will be spared. It's simple - buy one of these reasonably priced pieces of supreme quality visual funk...or live a life full of regret. Pussy. http://chrissilva.com/

Darrell Luce, b. circa 1963, probably in San Francisco. Luce is the wild man of the workshop, which he joined in 1996, at the request of Alma de la Serra. He either refuses to discuss his past or concocts sly stories that in retrospect cannot possibly be true. A realist in more ways than one, Luce paints in an expressionistic style that borrows freely from old masters, publicity stills, and cartooning. His sarcastically entitled 'Life of Ignotus' series documents his skepticism with regard to Ignotus's ideas--which Ignotus fully shares. His series of paintings of de la Serra apparently documents his relationship with her, though no one has yet figured out exactly what that relationship is, since Luce never gives a straight answer and de la Serra limits herself to saying "you either trust Darrell completely or not at all."

David Leggett was born in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1980. He received his Bachelors of Fine Arts from Savannah College of Art and Design (2003), and a Masters of Fine Arts form the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007). He also attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2010). His work is influenced by relationships, both personal and cultural. Popular culture and imagery are often used in his work. He has shown his work throughout the United States and internationally. He received the visual artist award from 3Arts in 2009. http://www.davidleggettart.com/

Lauren Feece
I have always loved making things and I have spent most of my life happily tucked away in my beloved studio. It helped to make me a bit unprepared for real life but completely comfortable with life in my sketchbooks and paintings. In my youth I struck out for success in the city of Chicago. Waitressing and pursuing a career as a working artist kept me very busy. One night on my way to an art opening with friends I met a very interesting musical and visual artist named Chris Silva. I like to think in hindsight that at that moment I knew I was meeting my future husband, but even if it wasn't entirely clear back then I knew instantly I was meeting someone very special. We were hardly apart and soon we had combined our lives, our living and studio spaces. We made our first attempts at collaborative work. Life was beautiful and full of art making.

For years we put art making first and "real jobs" second. Living simply and working hard we happily enjoyed life as full time artists. Over time, our energies focused on making and selling art work for years, began to run down. We wanted to recharge so in 2006 we moved on to a new opportunity. The Silva Family property in Moca, Puerto Rico was without a caretaker and we left The Windy City to take on that job.

From December 2006 to September 2010 we learned more than we had planned on. We encountered many trials as the abandoned house became a home. We got to be more green as the well was dug and the solar were panels installed. We learned how hard it is to grow a garden in the tropics. We learned to listen to the birds, bugs, and frogs, and to see the stars again. This was a life with many new challenges, but through it we got back to art making with a recharged and refreshed perspective.

In the fall of 2010 we returned to our sweet home in Chicago. Continuing to make a life full of love, we are wiser from our travels, and more committed than ever to our human responsibility to the earth, the animals, and especially to one another.

I continue to be motivated by the challenge of being present in the moment. The paintings and drawings I make are thoughts about the nature of things, musings on the everyday, and studies of the layers of meaning just under the surface. In my work I continue to be inspired by the connection of the artistic process to ritual, myth, and meditation. My work is a dance of brushstroke, line, swirls, drips, explosions and movements of paint. As I dance, I remember life, birds, clouds, color, flowers, trees, light, lace, pattern, people, blooms, webs, waves, vines, twilight, leaves, sunrise and sunsets... http://laurenfeece.com/

Meg Duguid was raised in Columbus, Ohio, and received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MFA in from Bard College. She has performed and exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, the DUMBO Arts Festival in Brooklyn, and 667 Shotwell in San Francsiso. Duguid has screened work at Synthetic Zero in New York, Spiderbug in Chicago, and at the Last Supper Festival in Brooklyn. Duguid lives and works in Chicago, IL where she runs Clutch Gallery, a 25 square-inch white cube located in the heart of her purse. http://megduguid.com/, http://clutchgallery.blogspot.com/

Nick Black was born in Chicago in 1958. He has attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, DePaul University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Massachusetts College of Art. Recent exhibitions include Byron Cohen Gallery, Kansas City, Uncle Freddy's Gallery, Highland, IN, and Joymore, Buddy Space, and Klein Art Works, all in Chicago. Nick has had key works at Art Chicago, the Stray Show, Version Fest, and the New Chicagoans. http://www.flickr.com/photos/nbtoy/sets/72157607672560085/

Nicole Marroquin is an interdisciplinary artist whose creative practice includes collaboration, studio art, research, teaching, and strategic intervention. As a classroom art teacher in Chicago and Detroit, Marroquin taught and collaborated with youth on art-based action research projects. She makes art, exhibits and writes about participatory cultural production with youth and in communities. Marroquin recieved her MFA from the University of Michigan in 2008 and is now living in Pilsen in Chicago. She is an Assistant Professor of Art Education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. nicolemarroquin.com

Rick Huggett
Raised in shrimpy Chagrin Falls, Ohio, the starting place for plenty of jokers including; Tim Conway and Tom Watterson (Calvin & Hobbs), I graduated from high school there and then attended Kent State University for a degree in Graphic Design. Four weeks before graduating I took a job in advertising and never completed my degree. I worked in advertising for two years before it dawned on me that I was both starving and penniless. Moved to Canton, Ohio after taking a job selling material handling systems to the steel and aluminum industries and did the 50-60 hour work week grind for the next 20+ years. During that time I acquired a wife, a house, 3 children, a dog, and a business degree from Malone University in Canton, Ohio. Now retired from sales I am currently pursuing a B.A. in Arts at Malone University with an emphasis in painting. In other words, I am a 52-year old undergraduate who will graduate in December of 2011, so long as I pay off all of my parking fines.

Paul Shortt (b. 1981) received his BFA in Painting from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2009. He has been in numerous group shows in Chicago, Nebraska, Kansas City, and Minneapolis. From 2009-2010, he directed a monthly, year-long series of performance art at the Fishtank Performance Studio in Kansas City, Missouri, called The Paul Shortt Invitational Performances. He has participated in the Charlotte Street Foundation residency program in Kansas City, and spoken about his work at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Shortt currently is pursing his MFA in New Media at The University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, and expects to graduate in 2013. http://www.paulshortt.com/

Sarah Perez
Born in the suburbs of Chicago, I lived for most of my childhood in a tiny, one-bedroom apartment with my mother, father and younger sister. My entire family relies on love and humor to get through tough times, which has been a continued inspiration. I feel this evident in my work, in addition to the combination of real and surreal that creates a delicate balance in our day-to-day lives. http://www.sarahperez.net/gallery.html

----------------------
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 include exhibits in Dallas at Mighty Fine Arts Gallery, Glass Curtain Gallery and at VU Space in Melbourne, Australia. http://www.mcortez.com/

Cobalt Studio is an artist run space. Studio artists, Adriana Baltazar and Antonio Martinez work separately and collaborate on occasion to produce thoughtful public art that is meaningful for it's communities. As a project/exhibition space, Cobalt's key purpose is to provide exceptional artists, established and emerging, with an opportunity to showcase their work in a gallery-like atmosphere minus the commercial pressures and b.s.

Cobalt Studio
1950 W. 21st St.
Chicago, IL 60608
http://cobaltartstudio.blogspot.com/

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Is this thing on?: the art of comedy

2011-06-10T20:34:00.007-05:00

I am curating this art exhibit. Feel free to submit work. /////MC

A call for artists/comedians:
Is this thing on?: the art of comedy
Art exhibit at Cobalt Art Studio in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, August 2011

Deadline: July 15, 2011

"If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses."
- Lenny Bruce

Art is too serious sometimes. This show will focus on what makes us laugh. Most of us are part of the system and work 40+ hours a week and by the weekend we just want to unwind and be entertained. Artists will create work for you that is funny and absurd but will make you think.

Acceptable formats include: video, performance, installation, audio, painting and drawings. You can submit 4-5 pieces. There is no fee. email submissions with video/audio links or jpeg attachments to antenapilsen@gmail.com

May 7, 2011

2011-05-07T05:06:00.001-05:00

"The wind is my friend"
GIF, 2011

phone app

2011-04-16T04:58:00.001-05:00

i want to do an augmented reality phone app where one can place a status update and people see it on their phone in real time. So when one walks into a cafe/bar your phone scans the room and tells you people's status updates.

I am in this show!

2011-04-09T06:10:00.002-05:00

THE OCTAGON presents
TWEEN
a one night event, 7-10pm, Saturday, May 7th

TWEEN is a survey of responses to the animated GIF via animated GIF-the bastard child of early motion picture technology and most pesky annoyance generator capable of rendering the most sober of images into perpetual ridicule. Local, national, and international cultural workers were asked to either create or curate an animated GIF. The show is divided in two parts.

1.THE RACE
Emphasizing the personal computer as the frame for production and consumption, 30 animated GIFS will play simultaneously by a diverse yet local slew of artists, designers, curators, writers, art historians, and cat fanciers, as they all race their animated GIF to personal computer battery death via an ad hoc computer lab.

2.TWEEN SCREEN
Projecting the animated GIF to a monumental scale via the 15' TWEEN SCREEN; the wee GIF file will reach new lofty proportions that are incapable of experiencing at home in your mom's basement.

TWEEN is a one night event and all GIFS and documentation, as well as a text by Steven Pate, will have an eternal afterlife where you can revel in its planned obsolescence at tweenchicago.tumblr.com. TWEEN is a project in collaboration between artist Christopher Smith and Octagon Gallery.

Participants include:
Aaron Orsini,   Adam Farcus, Adam Grossi, Alberto Aguilar, Alicja Zelazko, Angeline Evans, Arielle Bielak, Adam Trowbridge, Ben Russell, Big Bad Ron, Brandon Alvendia, Brian Wadford, Burak Birinci, Chris Hammes, E. Aaron Ross, Eric Fleischauer, Emily Keuhn, Hooliganship, Isak Berbic, Jake Myers, Jesse Avina, Jon Satrom, Kevin Jennings, Kevin Robinson, Kirsten Leenars, Kyle Fletcher, Laura Boban, Lara Unnerstall, Mark Sansone, Michael Radziewicz, Miguel Cortez, PaperRad, Philip Parcellano, Philip von Zweck, Rob Ray, Silas Reeves, Steven Pate, Tim Pigot, Tom Burtonwood, Theo Darst, and many more!

THE OCTAGON gallery and screening space
1318 N Milwaukee
Apt 300
Chicago, IL, 60622
http://theoctagongallery.tumblr.com/

exist

2011-01-29T12:56:00.002-06:00

1-28-2011

2011-01-28T17:51:00.003-06:00

As i was driving home south on Laflin St. and came to the viaduct on 15th St. I noticed that there was some construction on my right side(a truck blocking that side and some workers), so I drove on the left side of the viaduct which has the traffic coming the opposite way. As i was passing the viaduct i saw a cop car on the left side waiting to go north on that side. I became nervous but kept driving south and then moved to the right lane past the cops on 16th St.

They did a u-turn and flashed the lights so i moved the car to the far right and stopped. This burly latino cop driver came out and walked towards my car. At that same moment I noticed his partner was also opening his door and slowly was also about to walk towards my car. Now I started to think of what to say and also I do not have a license nor car insurance, so i was thinking about the future consequences of me in jail, etc...(I am also a burly and a tall mexican with a shaved head and could be mistaken for a gangbanger driving an old Ford Crown Victoria...?)

I lowered my window as the latino cop came over. I said "Hello, sir."
and he asked "Why where you driving on the opposite side over there?"

I answered, "There was road construction."
He then said, "Good excuse." and made a gesture to continue on my way.

installing at Cobalt Studio

2011-01-12T20:23:00.003-06:00

I installed my latest photographs at Cobalt Studio in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood tonight and hung out for a bit with Antonio and Adriana who run the space. You can check out my 2 photographs and more info on my ongoing project here: http://recycle-ideas.blogspot.com/

Below is info on the show:

Artifice//Artifact- Every Photo tells a Story

Sarah Best, Ira S. Murfin, Ernesto De Anda, Miguel Cortez, Linda Prieto, Rosy 'Campanita Torres, Thelma Uranga, Antonio Martinez, Leonel Hernandez, Anthony Marcos Rea, Jackie Orozco, Marisa Moy, Adriana Baltazar

Every Photo Tells a Story

Inquiry into artifacts and photography as a medium to represent facts or to construct them frame the theme of this exhibit. Pulling from various interests and backgrounds, each artist will present a freshly made narrative.The subject of these narratives vary according to each artist's directive.

Opening Friday, January 14, 2011 from 6:00pm - 10:00pm

Cobalt Studio

1950 W. 21st St
Chicago, IL 60608
http://cobaltartstudio.blogspot.com/

strange lucid dream january 12, 2011

2011-01-11T09:26:00.000-06:00

last night I dreamt I was living in this house that was on the edge of a mountain and at certain intervals 1/2 part of the house separated and would float down with wires and across to another mountain and attach to another building. I was with several other people and we opened a door to go into the next building and that housed several medieval sculptures and corridors.

The sculptures started moving and throwing rocks and objects at us so we started running and climbed up some stairs and onto the roof. There we saw that there was a river between the 2 mountains and we were trying to figure out how to cross back to the other side. Upon waiting a few minutes we noticed the river would drain and then fill back up. So we ran across during one of these intervals and on the bottom side on the adjacent mountain there was an entire array of mostly commercial stores inside the mountain. We ran into one of the stores and the manager kept telling us to climb up the mountain because the river will fill back up.

We looked for stairways or ladders but could not find any. This other person came into the store and told us we would be safe if we followed him underground and he walked us to a spot which was now a cave and pointed at this area that resembled quicksand. He jumped in first and several of my friends followed but I decided not to and instead went outside to look for another way. I woke up and it was 4:57am.

predictions 2011

2010-12-30T21:50:00.000-06:00

1. Nick Black will get a show at the MCA.
2. Obama will open the borders and announce massive immigration initiatives.
3. Android is going to take over your phones other than Apple.
4. More apartment galleries will open and close.
5. Alaska residents will tell Sarah Palin to fuck off.
6. GW Bush will not write any more books(or at least his ghost writers).
7. No one cares about Microsoft anymore. Linux is going to take over the spot. Russia will be the beginning.
8. People will finally realize Disney was founded by a Nazi and will instead go to Epcot Center.
9. People will learn more Chinese. TV show Firefly predicted it.
10. People will stop posting dumb videos on youtube.

Cellphone photos

2010-09-30T20:35:00.000-05:00

Summer 2010
Cellphone photos printed on vinyl
2010

Google finishes my sentences.

2010-09-25T13:51:00.001-05:00

Google finishes my sentences.
Digital print on vinyl
2010

Boomerang

2009-12-30T18:17:00.003-06:00

One of my paintings was used in the current book of poetry by Brenda Cardenas called "Boomerang". You can check out the Bilingual Review/Press web site for more info on the book. Here's the original jpeg from my web site: http://mcortez.com/2007/micro03.jpg

thinking back

2009-11-07T09:48:00.004-06:00

I remember so clearly summer 1984 when one of my sisters married. On our way home from the reception in my parent's car this song was playing.

Jesus appeared on my wrist X-rays

2009-10-28T22:22:00.001-05:00

Jesus appeared on my wrist X-rays
Digital print, dimensions variable
2009

Structural Persuasions of Beauty

2009-10-20T21:46:00.006-05:00

Structural Persuasions of Beauty: The paintings of Miguel Cortez
by Leticia Cortez

How can one begin to describe them? As one starts to see them visually; the elements he uses, consisting of thick acrylic layers, oils, plaster smoldered with kitsch, biodegradable paper, vintage photographs and found objects, begin to take shape as they are studied, seen, and absorbed. The presence or hints of images of fishes, nudes, self-portraits are executed on a background palette of rich, earthy sanguine colors ranging from burnt siennas, dark crimsons through violets and exquisite browns.

“Premonition 5” features among his first abstract landscapes with figurative nudes. In this painting, the artist seems intrigued with the dynamics associated with the futurist movement .The analytical thought process in which music is used as a source to make apparent a physical and aesthetic manifestation. Musical harmony is thus found in “Premonition 5”. The rhythmic pattern of ink and oil washes is a technique Miguel manages to define as his artistic trademark. The washes in this painting allude to a certain space, unsure if it’s the foreground or the background. A nude female figure is positioned off center among textured rock-like formations, a geological landscape made from acrylic layers and gesso. This is what first captures the viewer’s eyes. As the interior space emerges through these rock formations other forms and shapes slowly transform themselves. A light bulb and horn emerge. The space filled with red, magenta and orange colors foretelling other shapes and forms to be transformed.

Elements of frottage, interior/exterior spaces, undefined shapes, nudes and textured landscapes become a premonition of what is to come in the artistic terrain. A premonition of what is evolving in the artistic development of Miguel Cortez’s private visions. He has been influenced by artists such as: Julio Galan, Alfredo Castañeda and Marcel Duchamp. He feels these artists mastered their own distinct technique though appropriating kitsch objects into their own language, thus transforming them and making each object an independent act in order to portray parts of the artist’s internal worlds.

Miguel’s other works titled: “Cycle,” “Windows,” “Suicide of a Chair,” and “The Birth of Lilith” completed in 1993-1994 show this influence in which he also adopts new techniques or ways to convey his patterns of thought. His creation of abstract landscapes fuses new elements as his palette widens, adding certain realities as other environments start to take shape, coming as splashes of recognition of familiar items in the canvass. Through his use of color images appear as in dreams. I have tried to translate into words, sentences what I experience viewing his work. In the midst of the inherent splendor of his strokes here, color there, everything comes alive, triggering all it encounters; the new, the imaginary into a fusion of hypnotic textures.

How’s your identity?

2009-09-17T22:26:00.005-05:00

How’s your identity?
digital print documenting an online web project
2009

Identity theft occurs all the time. People's credit cards/bank account info gets stolen through the internet as web scams or malware directly from one's computer. Other times people impersonate celebrities on social networks. Is this also part of identity theft or a form of flattery for the celebrity? As a test I opened an account in Facebook as the Pilsen Alderman Danny Solis. This web project lasted 2 1/2 weeks before Facebook deleted the account. Below is a high-res PDF of the entire print and includes the most interesting responses to fake Danny's posts.

http://mcortez.com/2009/D-layout.pdf

Imagining the Tenth Dimension

2009-08-19T19:59:00.001-05:00

Thirsty

2009-07-17T19:20:00.001-05:00

RUSE at Ben Russell Gallery

2009-07-09T06:41:00.004-05:00

by: Corinna Kirsch

Walking along Morgan Street in East Pilsen, it’s difficult to tell which brownstone might house an art space, but for the opening of RUSE, the second exhibition at Ben Russell Gallery, the eponymous Ben Russell made it easy—sitting on a plastic lawn chair outside his front door, he welcomed visitors while over the course of the evening, his arms held a rotating cast of objects: a dog, a beer, even fireworks.

Russell, an already established filmmaker and curator, alongside co-curator Brandon Alvendia, began putting the front two rooms of his apartment and environs to use as an exhibition space this past May. The premise of each show is predicated upon a set of limitations that includes the following: one artist must produce a wall-mounted work that fills at least three quarters of the 13 x 10 ft. wall of the main exhibition space and another must make a 15-30 minute long performance. The sermon-like list of commandments goes on, but the project of Ben Russell Gallery is meta: it’s an apartment gallery, but also a curatorial project that makes transparent the boundaries of putting on exhibitions in an apartment. Why not turn a backyard into a sculpture garden, use the alleyway as a performance space, and a closet—okay, maybe it’s a tiny, windowless bedroom—into a screening room instead of disguising its existence?

In the larger of the two indoor rooms, Miguel Cortez’s surveillance project “Quien te esta mirando?” consisted of a closed-circuit camera that transmitted its video to a website, http://www.mcortez.com/webcam.html . I accessed the website, but it wasn’t showing a live-feed at the time—maybe this was part of the ruse? Propped up against the wall across from Cortez’s installation was Kelly Kaczynski’s wooden maquette of a stage, See It Always Falls Around (The Sky). The stage’s diminished scale and vertical format severed it from any functional ties and instead showed the structure’s quasi-Minimalist, gridded underside. These motifs, of surveillance and multiple points of view, continued into the screening room playing Paul Chan’s Re: The_Operation (2002) from his Tin Drum Trilogy. Bruised and wounded cartoon heads of military officials from the Bush-era introduced a montage of footage and audio culled from a variety of sources, mashing up fiction, reality, and half-truths into an endless video loop.

After the sun set, Roxanne Hopper and Julie Rudder began their alleyway performance, No One Alive Today Will Ever See This Again. The performance included a moonlight sonata that left a usually talkative crowd quiet, with the whisper-tone hush of the words Ohhhh! Beautiful! Romantic! as the audience’s epilogue that closed the evening. Perhaps RUSE was a misnomer—there was no deceit, just a humorous, playful, and candid approach to the rules of art and exhibition as a game.

Ben Russell Gallery is located at 1716 S Morgan #2F.

Original post from Art Talk Chicago: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/art-talk-chicago/2009/07/the-weekend-in-review-73-75.html

one f my fav songs

2009-02-28T20:46:00.001-06:00

Wisconsin

2009-02-07T18:58:00.000-06:00

I am in a show at Walker Arts Center in Wisconsin in March.

snowstorm this morning

2008-12-19T19:38:00.001-06:00

I'm heading to Miami Dec 4th!

2008-11-19T20:35:00.001-06:00

Antena @ Bridge Art Fair Miami Beach
December 4-7, 2008

BRIDGE MIAMI BEACH
Following its enormous critical and commercial successes in 2006 and 2007, Bridge is pleased to announce our third installment in Miami Beach. Held at both the Catalina and Maxine Hotels, Bridge Miami leads the South Beach satellite art market, located a mere two blocks from Art Basel. Visitors can browse nearly 80 rooms of the freshest and most innovative works in international emerging and contemporary art.

Arguably the largest convergence of contemporary art and design takes place during Art Basel Miami in this annual, star-studded, citywide celebration of new art internationalism. Consistently a muscular destination market, Miami shows absolutely no signs of stopping, and continues to astound as far and beyond the top-performing art-fair circuit in the United States.

The Catalina and Maxine Hotels
1732 Collins Avenue
Miami, Florida
GOOGLE MAP

ANTENA
Room #201

Artists exhibiting with Antena:
Edra Soto
Gisela Insuaste
Gretel Garcia
Huong Ngo
Jaime Mendoza
Jesus Oviedo
Miguel Cortez
Paola Cabal
Saul Aguirre

See full schedule HERE

Promt article

2008-10-30T18:12:00.002-05:00

Sabina Ott wrote a great article on several artists in Chicago, yours truly included, in the current issue of PROMT Magazine. You can download the article HERE. It's a 1.7MB PDF.

another weird dream---last night

2008-08-22T22:12:00.003-05:00

i dreamt i was at a party in someone's backyard and i was hanging out at the end by an area with a cement ground. From my view there were people dancing and socializing on the grass/yard. I noticed that from the grass emanated something and people started gasping for air and panicking. The people standing on the cement area were fine. From my viewpoint I saw the invisible substance come from within the grass and upward and affect the people on the grass.

weird dream

2008-08-19T16:54:00.002-05:00

I dreamt this morning that I was able to lift cars, turn them vertical and bounce them around like basketballs. And in the dream I had my digital camera and was filming the event. I wonder what my subconscious is trying to tell me??

Pilsen fire

2008-08-11T18:11:00.004-05:00

Practical Revolutions: WORK

2008-08-08T17:32:00.005-05:00

I am going be in an article in a new art journal called PROMT and below is an excerpt from the mag which features my work. If the writer sends me the entire article then I will post it later:

Practical Revolutions: WORK
by Sabina Ott

Artists Burtonwood & Holmes, Miguel Cortez, Joan Giroux, Myra Greene, Anni Holm, Friedhard Kiekeben, localStyle (Marlena Novak and Jay Alan Yim), and Tracy Taylor don’t privilege one practice over others that they engage in, instead, they approach all their activities as an interlocking set of art practices. These artists work across a range of platforms including sound and installation, object and video making, curation and criticism. They explore social activism and identity formation, embodying a connectivist approach toward art that is non hierarchical and fluid. Over time, the art object in and of itself becomes one of a range of practices. In this new paradigm, the network, not only the making is privileged. At the heart of such relational art is a devotion to expanding what artists do and what artists can do in the social realm, a practical revolution to be sure. Displacing the solo artist, the collective, as well as the collaborative team is one of the ways these artists seek replace traditional means of exchange between maker and viewer. Many of these artists also take the role of curator and producer, further extending the reach of their production.

Born in Guanajuato, Mexico, Chicago artist Miguel Cortez also embraces a fluid relationship between various roles as artist (the situationist kind), curator, and founding member of the art collective Polvo. Polvo began in 1996 and opened an exhibition space (2003-2007) in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. Cortez has just started antena, a new project space dedicated to new media and installation projects on a local and global scale. Cortez’s art in all of its manifestations radically revises the role of the artist from solo practitioner to viral warrior. Some form of networking produces most of Cortez’s work –literally. His works are interactive- often made by
participants downloading stickers from the web and placing them in the urban landscape, thus de-centering the process of artistic production. “Recycle Your Ideas” is an ongoing project, in which the artist places decals at various locations, then photographs the site, draws or paints it and then generates an animation to be viewed online. Each incarnation influences the next one, and each piece is simultaneously independent and connected. His recent exhibitions include the Krannert Museum, Champaign, IL; the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago; VU Space in Melbourne, Australia. and at Mighty Fine Arts Gallery in Dallas.

See my "Recycle Your Ideas" project here: http://recycle-ideas.blogspot.com/
Purchase PROMT from the Chicago Artist's Coalition web site: http://www.caconline.org/default.asp?page=Prompt_Main

Public Enemy

2008-06-19T17:20:00.005-05:00

The movie "Public Enemy" about John Dillinger and starring Johnny Depp has been filming in Chicago lately and today they were filming in Pilsen.

Burtonwood & Holmes - “I Support the War / The War Supports Me

2008-06-17T19:39:00.005-05:00

Burtonwood and Holmes created a new wall installation at Gardenfresh and they invited over 20 artists to hang their work on top of it. I hung one of my surveillance computer prints. See below:

You can see a full set of photographs from the show here: http://www-us.flickr.com/photos/burtoholmes/sets/72157605329748211/

5 Years on the Run

2008-05-31T11:48:00.003-05:00

June 7 – September 13, 2008

The Orleans Street Gallery celebrates 5 years of exhibiting contemporary Chicago art with an anniversary exhibition highlighting breakout artists, many of whom, have since exhibited nationally and internationally. Reception attendees will have the opportunity to meet many of the artists and learn about their work first-hand. Featuring live painting by Violet Jaffe (Arlington Heights), and Elizabeth Parker (Rolling Meadows), a happening by Chicago based performance artist Chris Roberts – and an opportunity to trade a T-Shirt for an original “I am Trying to Figure out Where I Fit In” T-Shirt by Nathan Keay.

Prominent artists include: Miguel Cortez, Mary Ellen Croteau, Kazuki Eguchi, Erik Fabian, Nathan Keay, Makeba Kedem-DuBose, Industry of the Ordinary, Anne Lass, Aimee Lee, Jason Reblando, Chris Roberts, Brandon Sorg, Brian Sorg and many more. Art Wall: Paintings by Rachel Weaver Rivera

The Five Years on the Run Anniversary Reception will be held on Saturday, June 7, 2008 from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. The exhibit will conclude September 13, 2008. Orleans Street Gallery is located in the Bourbon Street section of Pheasant Run Resort, 4051 East Main Street, St. Charles, IL 60174. Gallery hours are Thurs. 12–7 pm, Fri. & Sat. 12–8 pm, Sun. 11–4 pm. For more information contact Gallery Director Anni Holm at art @OrleansStreetGallery.com or 630.524.5048. Free and open to the public.

Opening Saturday June 7, from 6-10pm

Orleans Street Gallery
630.524.5048
art@OrleansStreetGallery.com
Located off Bourbon Street at Pheasant Run Resort
4051 East Main Street
St. Charles, IL 60174

Chupacabras: The Myth in the Era of the Internet

2008-05-26T13:44:00.006-05:00

I came across this review online about an art show that I am currently participating in.

/mc
-------------------------------------------------
contratiempo
number 54, march 2008

Chupacabras: The Myth in the Era of the Internet
Julio Rangel

Myths and legends have always been a vehicle by which civilizations have gained understanding of themselves and of other things. Studying them implies a stirring up of its deeper cultural mechanisms. In the era of the Internet, that resonating chamber in which rumors spread at light-speed, urban legends can be offered to everyone for examination, like an animal going under the scalpel of sociologists, anthropologists, and above all artists.

The exhibition, “Chupacabras (Artists Reinterpret the Myth)”, presented at the National Museum of Mexican Art offers a reinterpretation of this legend by a group of young artists that during the 1990’s spread throughout Latin America, and which apparently originated in . The entity, ubiquitous and monstrous, the Chupacabra has been seen stealing chickens, and attacking livestock like goats and cattle; resulting in peasants everywhere losing a good night’s sleep.

It was to be expected that the majority of these artists would opt to apply a political metaphor. Like the Judas figures that are burned during Holy Week, dressed up as Uncle Sam or some corrupt government official, they provide a catharsis for people. Here the Chupacabra takes on the form of George Bush (in the oil painting by Antonio Pazaran), the former president of Mexico, Carlos Salinas de Gortari (in the collage by Salvador Jiménez), multinational companies (in the painting of Patricia Acosta), and of NAFTA (Ricardo González), etc. Diverse leeches of society, represented in diverse degrees of fortune from the obvious to the proactive.

Two works are really outstanding, they are “My Chupacabras Escaped”, a digital image on fabric and decal by Miguel Cortez and “Chupacabra Gothic” by Judithe Hernández. The first one is a fresh and imaginative play on urban imagery and the physical limits of the space of the work. Slippery like the myth, out of its setting, Cortez’s Chupacabras is a decal glued to the wall that mocks the rectangular margin of the work, leaving an empty silhouette where its image should be.

The second is an allusion to “American Gothic”, a painting by Grant Wood that has attained the level of icon. His portrait of the quintessential spirit of Midwestern America has been parodied in a thousand ways. Hernández’s work, a very fine pastel (on paper), features the figure of a goat and a man dressed as a politician or Wall Street executive with his head covered by an American-like flag. The figures are united by a blood transfusion that drains the blood of the poor quadruped, while filling in the red stripes of the flag. In the background, bordered by a prodigious blue, is the immensity of the fields where immigrant workers labor (giving their life’s blood). It is in this work that the political background is most solid and of the greatest breadth: the humor, reflection, and formal resolution are united in a truly sucessful manner.

Also interesting is “San Chupa”, a mixed-media work by Juan Compean. It alludes to the tradition of religious stained-glass windows and its line quality recalls the engravings of Leopoldo Mendez.

As it has happened in other exhibitions at this museum, one would like to see the same care given to the Spanish texts that are given to the English texts. However, this group exhibition is definitely worth making the effort to see and to choose the work you like the best.

interview in Gaper's Block

2008-05-23T10:32:00.002-05:00

Can you explain the Recycle-Your-Idea project?

It's a project that started 2 years ago and it pokes fun at the art making process; how artists come up with an idea for let's say a painting, that idea then manifests into a finished piece. The artist then repeats the same idea/ the same painting style over and over until the art no longer has the substance that it had at the begining. It now becomes a decorative pattern/product.

Is it just you, or others?

This is an individual project, but on the blog/site people can to request stickers to then post in their city, document them and then they can send me a digital image.

What was the inspiration?

I wanted to create a series or artworks that would not be limited to just one media. I think of it more like a tree branch. It started out with stickers. Once I placed several at various sites I documented them. I then traced the photos on the computer and the finished drawings became computer prints(these where shown at the Krannert Museum). After this I created a Flash animation piece for online viewing, plus others.... and so forth. Each piece influences the next one and they are independent but are still connected. So the series keeps growing.

What examples of idea-recycling come to mind when you describe your project?

You can probably compare it to the idea of re-use and recycling of actual materials like paper, plastic, glass, etc but on a conceptual level.

I mean, all art's recycled in some way, so how to differentiate between art that would fit with your project, and art in
general?

Yeah most art concepts nowadays are recycled from the past or taken from individual experiences. The end result may be innovative such as in cases where artists use new technology. Some have started to utilize new media to create fresh new work, such as creating art for cell phones, online projects, computer programs, mp3s, video for ipods, 3D environments for Second Life, etc...

How do you choose the locations for your stickers?

It's random. Wherever I go and if I have one I place one.

What was shown at Krannert -- the pictures of the stickers as placed?

I showed 2 computer drawings taken from previous documentations. Originally the museum wanted to show and distribute the stickers, but it turned out, some university people complained and felt the university students would paste stickers all over the campus, so instead the museum made business cards.

What is the ultimate project goal?

It will keep on growing until I become sick ot it.

-----------
Part of the "Recycle Your Ideas" project is being shown at The Krannert Art Museum in Champaign, IL until July 27th in a show called Landscapes of Experience and Imagination: Explorations by Midwest Latina/o Artists (www.kam.uiuc.edu). You can see the blog at: http://recycle-ideas.blogspot.com

micro-projector for handheld devices

2008-05-14T20:33:00.004-05:00

I just saw this article at engadget.com about a tiny projector being built into handheld devices. I had this idea about an ipod projector in 2006 and did a sketch. Check out my old post:
http://lapsus5.blogspot.com/2006/05/ipod-projector.html

/mc
------------
3M to showcase a micro-projector for handheld devices at CES

by Nilay Patel, posted Jan 4th 2008 at 2:45PM

The idea of stuffing a tiny projector into a handheld device isn't a new one -- we've seen a couple different takes on the idea -- but it looks like it might be hitting the mainstream soon, as 3M has announced plans to demo a half-inch wide projection unit at CES that can put up a 40-inch image. The LCoS projector is about the size of a wireless headset, according to 3M, and tops out at VGA resolution -- which seems adequate, given the QVGA resolution of most handhelds. Apparently we'll be seeing devices with the projector built in later this year, and hopefully we'll get a chance to play with a couple at CES -- you'll know as soon as we do.

ST. PAUL, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--3M is now providing consumer electronics manufacturers with a revolutionary advancement in the emerging field of miniature projection technology. 3M scientists developed a breakthrough ultra-compact, LED-illuminated projection engine designed for integration into virtually any personal electronic device. Roughly the size of a wireless earpiece and less than half an inch thick, the 3M mobile projection engine delivers brilliant VGA resolution images and is available today.

With the expansion of digital media now accessible by mobile devices, consumers need the convenience of larger displays. “3M mobile projection engines achieve the size, efficiency, image quality and affordability needed for consumer adoption of this promising new product category,” said Mike Kelly, executive vice president, 3M Display and Graphics Business. “This development continues 3M’s long history as a global leader in advanced projection display technology. What is really exciting is that this technology is available now.”

When deployed in a host platform, such as a mobile phone, 3M’s technology can project a 40-inch or larger image with no-speckle and a high-fill factor that ensures superior image quality. Each engine uses an advanced liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) electronic imager in conjunction with proprietary 3M optics technology.

3M is partnering with leading consumer electronics companies that plan to launch products in early 2008. 3M Mobile Projection Technology will be shown in the Advanced Display Technologies Zone, booths 25727 and 25627, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), in Las Vegas, January 7-10, 2008.

For more information on 3M, visit 3M.com.

Pop artist Robert Rauschenberg dies in Fla. at 82

2008-05-13T17:54:00.004-05:00

By MITCH STACY

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Pop artist Robert Rauschenberg's mediums knew few bounds.

One of his most famous works or "combines" was "Bed," created when he woke up in the mood to paint but had no money for a canvas. His solution was to take the quilt off his bed and use paint, toothpaste and fingernail polish for his creation. He was also a sculptor and a choreographer.

Rauschenberg died Monday of heart failure at 82, it was announced Tuesday by Jennifer Joy, his representative at PaceWildenstein gallery in New York. His use of odd and everyday articles earned him regard as a pioneer in pop art, first gaining fame in the 1950s.

"The most famous thing he said was that he worked in the gap between art and life," said John Elderfield, chief curator of painting and sculpture at New York's Museum of Modern Art. "I think what he meant by this is life was his materials as much as art was his materials."

Rauschenberg didn't mine popular culture wholesale as Andy Warhol (Campbell's Soup cans) and Roy Lichtenstein (comic books) did, but his combines — incongruous combinations of three-dimensional objects and paint — shared pop's blurring of art and objects from modern life.

He also responded to his pop colleagues and began incorporating up-to-the-minute photographed images in his works in the 1960s, including, memorably, pictures of John F. Kennedy. He even won a 1984 Grammy Award for best album package for the Talking Heads album "Speaking in Tongues."

"I'm curious," he said in 1997 in one of the few interviews he granted in later years. "It's very rewarding. I'm still discovering things every day."

Nan Rosenthal, who curated "Robert Rauschenberg: Combines," a joint exhibition by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, called Rauschenberg a "tremendously imaginative artist."

Rosenthal said she believed Rauschenberg would be best remembered for his series of all-white, all-black and all-red paintings, as well as the combines. The Met owns about 25 Rauschenberg paintings and about 75 drawings and prints.

"A lot of the time he was tremendously ebullient, a kind of irrepressible person," who was also "quite a wonderful host and cook," she said.

Rauschenberg's more than 50 years in art produced such a varied and prolific collection that it consumed both uptown and downtown locations during a 1998 retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Time magazine art critic Robert Hughes, in his book "American Visions," called Rauschenberg "a protean genius who showed America that all of life could be open to art. ... Rauschenberg didn't give a fig for consistency, or curating his reputation; his taste was always facile, omnivorous, and hit-or-miss, yet he had a bigness of soul and a richness of temperament that recalled Walt Whitman."

Rauschenberg split his time between New York and Captiva Island in Florida, where he kept a house stocked with his and his friends' art.

"I like things that are almost souvenirs of a creation, as opposed to being an artwork," he said in a 1997 Harper's Bazaar interview, "because the process is more interesting than completing the stuff."

He studied painting at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1947. He later took his studies to Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where he studied under master Josef Albers (who supposedly hated his work), and alongside contemporary artists such as choreographer Merce Cunningham and musician John Cage. He also studied at the Art Students League in New York City.

Rauschenberg's first paintings in the early 1950s comprised a series of all-white and all-black surfaces underlaid with wrinkled newspaper. In later works he began making art from what others would consider junk — old soda bottles, traffic barricades, and stuffed birds and calling them "combine" paintings.

One of Rauschenberg's first and most famous combines was titled "Monogram," a 1959 work consisting of a stuffed angora goat, a tire, a police barrier, the heel of a shoe, a tennis ball, and paint.

"Initially, these were thought to be ugly and unpleasant, but as happens ... in time they are perceived as being beautiful," Elderfield said. "It's more than that these things were beautiful" but that he was using them to tell stories.

"Not in the way we are used to having stories told in narration, but more like the contents of a person's purse, you could tell the personality from the objects collected," he said.

By the mid-1950s, Rauschenberg was also designing sets and costumes for dance companies and window displays for Tiffany and Bonwit Teller.

He met Jasper Johns in 1954. He and the younger artist, both destined to become world famous, became lovers and influenced each other's work. According to the book "Lives of the Great 20th Century Artists," Rauschenberg told biographer Calvin Tomkins that "Jasper and I literally traded ideas. He would say, `I've got a terrific idea for you,' and then I'd have to find one for him."

Born Milton Rauschenberg in 1925 in Port Arthur, Texas, and raised a Christian fundamentalist, Rauschenberg wanted to be a minister but gave it up because his church banned dancing.

"I was considered slow," he once said "While my classmates were reading their textbooks, I drew in the margins."

He was drafted into the U.S. Navy during World War II and knew little about art until a chance visit to an art museum where he saw his first painting at age 18. He drew portraits of his fellow sailors for them to send home.

When his time in the service was up, Rauschenberg used the GI Bill to pay his tuition at art school. He changed his name to Robert because it sounded more artistic.

In recent years he founded the organization Change Inc., which helps struggling artists pay medical bills.

"I don't ever want to go," he told Harper's Bazaar in 1997 when asked of his own death. "I don't have a sense of great reality about the next world; my feet are too ugly to wear those golden slippers. But I'm working on my fear of it. And my fear is that something interesting will happen, and I'll miss it."

Associated Press Writer Ula Ilnytzky in New York contributed to this story.

Obama and PBR

2008-05-07T17:55:00.001-05:00

Here's an image of Obama drinking a Pabst Blue Ribbon at the Raleigh Times Bar in Raleigh, North Carolina. And supposedly... Barack tipped $18 on a $2 Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Chicago ARTEahora adds Latin side dish to art fair

2008-05-01T17:58:00.003-05:00

I was quoted in this article.../mc

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Chicago ARTEahora adds Latin side dish to art fair

By Lauren Viera | Tribune reporter
April 25, 2008

There's nothing like Chicago in the springtime: Tulips blooming on Michigan Avenue, boats casting off into the lake and, in late-April, more art events that you can shake a paintbrush at.

This year, add one more to the mix: Chicago ARTEahora. Scheduled to coincide with Artropolis—the multifaceted celebration of art-related festivals and events that descends on the city each April—ARTEahora (which means "art now") is billing itself as "The First Chicago Latin American Art Fair," which Latin art gallery owners say is an accurate claim. And a telling one.

The unofficial center of Chicago's Latin arts community is the Near South Side neighborhood of Pilsen, its semigentrified east side lined with galleries and its more rustic west side crammed with studios. But the Pilsen community has not been involved with Artropolis or its premier fair, Art Chicago.

It can't afford to, says Miguel Cortez, an artist, gallerist and longtime member of Pilsen's art community.

"[Artropolis] is a very commercial venue with huge fees that many artists living in Pilsen cannot afford," he says.

Artropolis, which begins Friday, draws an international audience of thousands to a half-dozen fairs, including the massive and mainstream Art Chicago, the indie-centric NEXT fair and the Outsider Art-oriented Intuit Show. Most featured artists in the past have been American and European, with a sprinkling of East Asian and Latino artists.

ARTEahora and its producers hope to broaden the horizons on their own terms.

"Because Latin American art has historically in Chicago had a very little voice, it is good for the general public and collectors to see more," says ARTEahora founder and co-curator Aldo Castillo, who has run his eponymous gallery in the River North neighborhood since 1993. Castillo's gallery was rejected from partaking in Art Chicago no less than nine times. That was back when Art Chicago was run by Thomas Blackman Associates, which sold to the Merchandise Mart in a last-minute financial crisis three days before the 2006 fair.

"I always respected [Blackman's] decision, but that rejection inspired me to create my own art fair," says Castillo. "[The Merchandise Mart] is very aware of that incident so they are trying to be friendly with me, and they advertised [ARTEahora] in their program despite the fact that it can be seen as competitive."

Merchandise Mart confirmed that Artropolis is including ARTEahora in its listings. A spokesperson said an all-encompassing approach is being taken to this weekend's events: Artropolis' objective is to celebrate the arts in Chicago, instead of advertising solely what's officially included in the fair.

Castillo and co-curator Thomas Monahan, who consults on Latin American artists for Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses, wanted a fair that focused on artists, not galleries. The pair handpicked work from contemporary Latin American artists ranging from Jose Luis Cuevas, who has a namesake museum in Mexico City, to Baltazar Castillo, a mixed-media artist who works out of a studio in Wicker Park.

Programs will be on tap too. Monahan will present a lecture on Chilean 20th Century artist Roberto Matta, whose work he has represented; Alexander Slato, associate director of the Museum of Latin American Art (MoLAA) in Long Beach, Calif., will discuss collecting Latin American art; and art critic Michael Weinstein will lead a lecture on modern Cuban photography.

"This is my city, where I have lived for 21 years," Castillo says. "I came to Chicago and studied at the Art Institute, and by living here I knew what the city was missing, and I feel like this is my contribution to my home."

lviera@tribune.com

Version 08-NFO XPO

2008-04-30T19:33:00.010-05:00

Miguel Cortez

Miguel Cortez

Miguel Cortez

Jaime Mendoza

Jaime Mendoza

Jaime Mendoza

Edra Soto

Edra Soto

the loop

2008-04-18T16:48:00.001-05:00

i travelled downtown this morning on my way to repair my mac and took some pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/lapsus05/CABRIDE

new photos

2008-04-11T17:28:00.006-05:00

I took these photos on my way to work today.

Version 08

2008-04-07T15:20:00.004-05:00

I'll be in this alternative art fair called NFO XPO organized by Version 08

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http://www.versionfest.org/nfoxpo.html

NFO XPO DIRECTORY

April 19 & 20, 2008

NFO XPO
Viaduct Theater
3111 N. Western (link)

Hours: 1pm to 3am on Saturday
1pm to 2am on Sunday
$8 ($10 for 2-day pass)

Polvo @ NFO XPO

Participating artists:
Miguel Cortez Edra Soto Jaime Mendoza

Miguel Cortez will be showing an ongoing project of mixed media artworks dealing with the concept of "recycling" that began in 2006. I am taking this idea and creating multi-media works, such as digital photos, computer drawings, Flash animation, business cards, and bumper stickers. In April part of this project will be shown at the Krannert Museum in Champaign IL in a show titled "Landscapes of Experience and Imagination: Explorations by Midwest Latina/Latino Artists". For more info on this series go to: http://recycle-ideas.blogspot.com/

Edra Soto will exhibit her "Greatest Companions(series)

Krannert Art Museum

2008-04-06T16:21:00.012-05:00

Gisela Insuaste, Judy Fox(curator) and Edra Soto

Installation by Gisela Insuaste

prints by Miguel Cortez and photo installation by Edra Soto

"Recycle your ideas #4 and 5", computer drawings by Miguel Cortez

photo wall installation by Edra Soto

my next art opening April 4th

2008-03-25T21:33:00.003-05:00

Landscapes of Experience and Imagination: Explorations by Midwest Latina/o Artists
curated by Judy Fox
April 4 through July 27, 2008

Artists participating:
Edra Soto
Gisela Insuaste
Miguel Cortez
Paul Sierra
Gabriel Villa
Alejandro Lugo

Opening April 4, 2008 @ 4pm - 11pm

This exhibition highlights and explores the ways that eight, largely Chicago and mid-west based Latina/o artists have developed the theme of landscape through mixed and new narrative media installations, as well as through more traditional means of drawing, painting and sculpture. The exhibition examines their responses, through a variety of pictorial forms, to the natural and built environment. The works included will address the memories or imaginings of a tropical forest, the suburbs, or the density of urbanscapes, as well as the artists' own self-identities, or understandings of Latina/o presences in the United States. This collection will present a broad range, "from the rich, expressionistic painterly work of Paul Sierra to the conceptual performance-based work of Miguel Cortez."

For more info Contact Luis Caballero (217) 333-2778, lcaballe@uiuc.edu

Krannert Art Museum
500 E. Peabody Dr.
Champaign,IL,61820
(217) 333.2778
http://www.kam.uiuc.edu/

this what i showed

The Onion is the best!

2008-03-24T21:23:00.001-05:00

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

my son in an independent movie

2008-03-24T05:18:00.002-05:00

My son was in an independent horror film called The Lower Circle and here is his part. You can find more info on the movie at htttp://www.myspace.com/lowercircle

Writer Arthur C Clarke dies at 90

2008-03-19T17:12:00.002-05:00

British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died in his adopted home of Sri Lanka at the age of 90.

The Somerset-born author came to fame in 1968 when short story The Sentinel was made into the film 2001: A Space Odyssey by director Stanley Kubrick.

His visions of space travel and computing sparked the imagination of readers and scientists alike.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse paid tribute, hailing the writer as a "great visionary".

Since 1995, the author had been largely confined to a wheelchair by post-polio syndrome.

He died at 0130 local time (2000 GMT) of respiratory complications and heart failure, according to his aide, Rohan De Silva.

Far-seeing scientist

"Sir Arthur has left written instructions that his funeral be strictly secular," his secretary, Nalaka Gunawardene, was quoted as saying by news agency AFP.

She said the author had requested "absolutely no religious rites of any kind".

A farmer's son, Sir Arthur was educated at Huish's Grammar School in Taunton before joining the civil service.

He served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, and foresaw the concept of communication satellites.

Sir Arthur's detailed descriptions of space shuttles, super-computers and rapid communications systems inspired millions of readers.

When asked why he never patented his idea for communication satellites, he said: "I did not get a patent because I never thought it will happen in my lifetime."

In the 1940s, he maintained man would reach the moon by the year 2000, an idea dismissed at the time.

He was the author of more than 100 fiction and non-fiction books, and his writings are credited by many observers with giving science fiction a human and practical face. He collaborated on the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey with Kubrick.

'Great prophet'

British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore had known Sir Arthur since they met as teenagers at the British Interplanetary Society.

Sir Patrick paid tribute to his friend, remembering him as "a very sincere person" with "a strong sense of humour".

Tributes have also come from George Whitesides, the executive director of the National Space Society, where Sir Arthur served on the board of governors, and fellow science fiction writer Terry Pratchett. HAVE YOUR SAY His writing inspired many people to wonder what might be possible Pratik, California

The author married in 1953, and was divorced in 1964. He had no children.

He moved to the Indian Ocean island of Sri Lanka in 1956 after embarking on a study of the Great Barrier Reef.

There, he pursued his interest in scuba diving, even setting up a diving school at Hikkaduwa, near the capital, Colombo.

"Sometimes I am asked how I would like to be remembered," he recalled recently.

"I have had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer and space promoter. Of all these, I would like to be remembered as a writer."

A statement from Sir Arthur's office said he had recently reviewed the final manuscript of his latest novel.

The Last Theorem, co-written with Frederik Pohl, will be published later this year, it said.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/7304004.stm

Obama's speech on race 3-18-08

2008-03-19T05:39:00.002-05:00

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: 'A More Perfect Union'

Philadelphia, PA | March 18, 2008
As Prepared for Delivery

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naÃ¯ve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

my chupacabra escaped!

2008-01-31T20:26:00.001-06:00

My Chupacabra escaped!
computer print on canvas with wall sticker
Miguel Cortez, 2008
currently showing at the National Museum of Mexican Art

Photos from my New Orleans trip Jan 23-26, 2008

2008-01-26T19:06:00.001-06:00

New Orleans Jan 23-26, 2008

below is video of the plane landing in Chicago on Jan 26, 2008---cold day

art show at Trinity College

2008-01-16T16:38:00.001-06:00

This show ran from Nov-Dec 2007 at Trinity College.

Strange dream

2008-01-11T05:54:00.000-06:00

I just woke up this morning and remember a weird dream. In my dream I was living with my family in a 3 flat house in what seemed to be somewhere on the south side of Chicago but I've never seen it in real life. I was in the living room talking to one of my sisters and all of a sudden I hear someone talking and singing outside. I look out the window and there is a dog with a human head running around in the neighbor's yard talking and singing to himself.

The Lower Circle

2008-01-08T17:16:00.000-06:00

I donated a piece to this benefit...

------------

a silent art auction to benefit the political sci-fi/horror film:
The Lower Circle

Selections of the film will be projected at the cafe and a discussion with directors is possible.

Artwork donated by Miguel Cortez, Juan Compean, Rebecca Wolfram, Cesar Casas, T.S. Sibley and others.

Saturday, January 12, from 5-8pm

Efebos cafe
1640 Blue Island Ave
Pilsen Chicago, IL 60608

Please come and invite friends and foes. Chicago. Clips from the film can be viewed at: www.myspace.com/lowercircle

i am in this art show...

2008-01-07T17:59:00.000-06:00

Chupacabras! Artists Reinterpret the Myth
Artists explore a transnational figure that defies real and imaginary borders.

The legend of the Chupacabras has penetrated the Latino and American myth/reality landscape for almost two decades. In this exhibition, Chicago artists interpret the lasting impact that Chupacabras sightings have had on the Latin American and North American psyche.

Opening night reception
Friday, January 25, 2008
6-8:30PM

Exhibition runs through July 20, 2008

Participating Artists:
Patricia Acosta
Cirilo Esquivel
Ricardo Gonzalez
Luis de la Torre
Judithe Hernandez
Salvador Jimenez
Miguel Cortez
Juan Compean
Ricardo Compean
Antonio Pazaran

National Museum of Mexican Art
1852 W. 19Th Street Chicago IL 60608 312.738.1503
www.nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org

Curated by the Kraft Chicago Gallery Committee:
Jose Luis Gutierrez, Claudia Herrera, Cristina Jimenez, Oscar Sanchez & Gabriel Villa

my catalog is online

2007-12-26T15:24:00.000-06:00

Check out my most recent work in a 16 page catalog that you can buy or download a PDF file.

Chicago panorama view from our design studio

2007-12-26T12:50:00.000-06:00

painting is not dead!

2007-12-21T21:46:00.000-06:00

I started to paint tonight after 2 months of slacking off....

snow

2007-12-15T09:03:00.001-06:00

more snow today....

CannonBall this saturday!!

2007-12-12T19:01:00.000-06:00

I donated an art piece for this benefit/auction.

Ahoy!

Annual Fundraiser and Holiday Party
Saturday December 15, 2007 8PM-12AM

Join us, for steins of Grog and get loaded to the gunwales! Shiver me Timbers! It’s a pirate Holiday Party!

Entertainment includes music by DJ Mr. E, a Hidden Treasure Photo Booth with Pirate Santa, Duncan MacKenzie. Ross Moreno will be up to no good, and there will be fortunetellers encouraging you to drink up, have fun, and support your favorite artist residency. Best costume gets a prize!

Admission is to the event is FREE. Collectable Chris Millar and Frank Haines artist-editioned beer steins can be purchased for an all-you-can-drink $25. Otherwise beer is $5 and mulled wine will be $3.

Silent auction will close at 10:30PM (cash or check due that night) and includes art by:
Miguel Cortez, Elise Rasmussen, Chelsea Tonelli Knight, Bernard Williams, Ann Toebbe, Lisa Boumstein-Smalley, Marc Hauser, Scott Anderson, Amy Mayfield, Elizabeth Lopez, Vincent Como, Heather Mekkelson, Barbara Koenen and more.

Three Walls
119 N. Peoria, 2A, 2D
Chicago, IL

Randa Xmas luncheon

2007-12-07T17:58:00.000-06:00

Today was our annual Christmas luncheon and it took place at Fogo de Chao restaurant in River North, Chicago. Below are some pics of the event.

snowstorm in Chicago!

2007-12-05T17:16:00.001-06:00

This is just for you...

2007-11-08T21:59:00.001-06:00

"This is just for you..."
series of 400 cards
Miguel Cortez, 2007

This piece was shown at Happy Dog Gallery on November 10, 2007 and organized by Deadline Projects.

Happy Dog Gallery

2007-11-08T21:50:00.001-06:00

"a gift for you, my dear..."
mixed media
Miguel Cortez, 2007

This piece was in a show titled "This is for you..." organized by Deadline Projects and took place at Happy Dog Gallery in November 2007.

Halloween in Pilsen

2007-11-01T20:47:00.001-05:00

photos oct. 18, 2007

2007-10-18T20:19:00.001-05:00

I was doing laundry across the street from my apartment and it started raining so I took the photos below.

feature in centerstagechicago.com

2007-10-15T21:55:00.000-05:00

Living the Art Life, Literally
Five gallerists tell all about living and working in one small space.
Friday Oct 12, 2007
By Alicia Eler

The adage says you shouldn't combine work with pleasure, but sometimes it's best to buck the establishment and do your own thing; in this case, we're talking about opening an art gallery in the space where you live. Despite saving big bucks, this venture is risky business, sometimes making it impossible to find privacy or peace of mind. We tracked down five gallerists who "live their art" on a daily basis to find out if they'd do it all over again.

Britton Bertran of Gallery 40000
The gallery-filled building at 119 North Peoria Street in the West Loop usually empties out around 6 p.m., but one guy hangs around. No, he didn't get locked in; he lives there. Behind Britton Bertran's cube-like gallery space, filled with cutting-edge work by local and national artists, sits a bedroom littered with contemporary art. "It's a necessary thing if I'm going to give this gallery thing a go," says Bertran. Problems arise mostly during openings, when people want to use his bathroom, but he says the positives, like the fact that his room can serve as a VIP place for artists to relax during stressful showings, trump the negatives. His five-year plan is to eventually move into a separate space, but for now he goes with the flow, trying not to work on Sundays and Mondays. "I literally cover my eyes when I walk through the gallery," he says about his days off.

Dubhe Carreno of Dubhe Carreno Gallery
When Dubhe Carreno came to Chicago in 1999 to complete an MFA in ceramics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she never envisioned opening her own space dedicated exclusively to that art form. But after she found a great live-in/work space in Pilsen, everything just clicked. Large white platforms display hand-crafted ceramic vases, and Carreno greets patrons from behind a front desk. She says that the positives of her living situation heavily outweigh the negatives. "With sculpture, [most] people [don't really know] how to live with it," she says. "They have [this] assumption that you need a pedestal or something to elevate it. It really helps when they see my home space [in the back], which is full of sculptures."

Lisa Flores of All Rise Gallery

It's not easy transforming a once-adolescent art co-op, aptly named High School, into the mature All Rise Gallery, especially when the entire loft building used to be hipster party central. Owner Lisa Flores admits the past two years have been hard. But visitors who climb three flights of rickety stairs to her Wicker Park space (that's easily twice the size of most galleries) could never tell she did a massive overhaul. Today, All Rise is finally gaining notoriety, thanks in part to Flores being uniquely connected to artists all over North America. Living at your workspace isn't easy, though. "It's hard being tied down to the space everyday…and it feels like I'm always working," she says. But on the up side: "It's great because there's always so much to do. And if I need to hang a show all night long, I can work until 3 a.m. without interruption."

Marco Logsdon of Logsdon 1909 Gallery & Studio
Marco Logsdon moved to Chicago from Kentucky a few years ago and opened a gallery and studio space for his own work. But in September 2006, after a few successful shows, he decided to start showing other artists' pieces, too; he now rotates exhibits (mostly mixed-media, drawings and paintings) in the front and shows his work in the back. In line with the nature of most Pilsen galleries, Logsdon's space is only open on Saturdays and the second Friday of every month. With slim to none walk-in traffic, he's able to have some privacy though, "[I've always] got to be ready for people, so I can't be a slob," he says. Though keeping tidy isn't very fun, drawing a curtain at the halfway point of the gallery ensures his privacy.

Miguel Cortez of Polvo

For the past four years, Miguel Cortez has displayed challenging installation, new media and performance art in his gallery/home space, with white walls, wooden floors, TVs showing experimental video work and a kitchen right in the open. "The only downside is my loss of privacy; it's a minor inconvenience," says Cortez. But since living and working in the same space means only paying one rent, Cortez says it's "easier and cheaper to keep things going." It's been a while since he took a vacation, so after hosting a few more shows in 2007, he's going to take a well-deserved six-month break. Although Cortez juggles running Polvo on the weekends and working as a graphic designer during the week, he's received a tremendous amount of acclaim that many full-time gallerists could never live up to.

interviewed in culturalchicago.com

2007-10-15T21:54:00.000-05:00

I was interviewed by culturalchicago.com recently.
/mc
------------------

“We felt that Pilsen needed a contemporary cultural space,” says Polvo co-founder Miguel Cortez, “where artists could be free to experiment.” Among the most long-running artists’ organizations in the Chicago area, Cortez formed the Polvo conglomeration over a decade ago, in 1996, with the assistance of partners Jesus Macarena-Avila and Elvia Rodriguez-Ochoa. The three met in the early 1990s through their mutual affiliation with alternative artist spaces Casa de Arte y Cultura/Calles y Sueños and Taller Mexicano de Grabado. Through these affiliations, the three recognized a void in the local art scene of the time in its lack of outlets for contemporary Latino art; such artists were typically relegated to commercial Latino galleries or the Mexican Fine Arts Museum while the art which interested Cortez and his partners was too experimental to gain recognition at such venues.

The group’s first action was to begin a zine in 1996 to publish the art they found interesting as well as bilingual poetry. This venture led to the opening of Polvo in storefront gallery form three years later, establishing a venue for the collective to showcase the sort of avant-garde Latino art they hoped to promote in the Pilsen community. Faced with financial difficulties, the gallery was forced to close soon after and the group instead focused on developing a noticeable presence on the internet and promoting their zine. The success of these ventures resulted in the opening of the current Polvo space in 2003, which has shown a continuous stream of exhibitions since.

For their gallery, Polvo’s founders logically chose Pilsen, Chicago’s nexus of Mexican-American culture. They were drawn to the neighborhood due to its mutually supportive combination of working class families and artistic community. Additionally, Pilsen’s rich history over the past century—including, Cortez cites, artistic subcultures from the Bohemians to the Mexican muralists—made the location a unique setting for the sort of organization into which he and his colleagues hoped Polvo would develop.

Cortez describes the second show in Polvo’s current venue as a turning point in media coverage for the space. “We were the first space/gallery in Chicago to organize an anti-war show against the Iraq War,” he states. “Our show opened the week that the US started bombing.” The critical attention and dialogue earned by the exhibition set the course for Polvo’s agenda in the years since; the collective has exhibited thematic group shows by artists who deal with such politically charged issues as gentrification, the environment, and surveillance.
Despite the increasing attention Polvo has received in past years, Cortez, Macarena-Avila, and Rodriguez-Ochoa still aim to exhibit work by emerging artists, to serve as a springboard for the career of such local and international figures. The work of such practitioners is complemented by work by more established artists from such locales as South Africa, Australia, and Mexico. They are likely attracted to Polvo due to the space’s focus on diversity. “I don't mean ethnicity but also types of media and art making,” explains Cortez. “We needed a space where artists could be free to not just hang 2-D work on the walls.” Artists exhibiting at the gallery have shown work of a variety of media including new media and installation art, among others.

On November 16, an exhibition entitled “Goin’ Mobile,” curated by Kimberly Aubuchon and dealing with the theme of travel will open and run through December 15. The show will be the last in Polvo’s physical space, which will close at the end of 2007 and, instead, exist primarily as a webspace and curatorial endeavor. (Britany Salsbury of www.culturalchicago.com)

This is for you...

2007-10-15T21:43:00.001-05:00

This is for you...

James Beckman
Holly Sabin
Stephen Shapiro
Kyra Termini
Miguel Cortez
Sarah Perez
Arielle Bielak
Marc Salha
Michael Una
Renee Prisble Una
Nikki Hollander
Blake Lewis

Saturday November 10 (7PM)

Happy Dog Gallery
1542 N. Milwaukee Ave. , Chicago, IL

toninght's closing reception

2007-10-06T04:38:00.001-05:00

Landscapes of Experience and Imagination: Explorations by Midwest Latina/o Artists

2007-10-06T01:04:00.000-05:00

Landscapes of Experience and Imagination: Explorations by Midwest Latina/o Artists
April 4 through July 27, 2008

Curator: Judith Hoos Fox
Research Assistance: Oscar E. Vázquez and David Dorta

Paul Sierra, Afternoon Landscape

This exhibition highlights and explores the ways that eight, largely Chicago and mid-west based Latina/o artists have developed the theme of landscape through mixed and new narrative media installations, as well as through more traditional means of drawing, painting and sculpture. The exhibition examines their responses, through a variety of pictorial forms, to the natural and built environment. The works included will address the memories or imaginings of a tropical forest, the suburbs, or the density of urbanscapes, as well as the artists' own self-identities, or understandings of Latina/o presences in the United States.

http://www.kam.uiuc.edu/

artXposium

2007-09-11T17:53:00.000-05:00

artXposium 2007 in West Chicago
September 21-23, 2007
http://artxposium.org/

ArtXposium, a 3-day multimedia art experience created by more than 50 artists. Local, National and International talent will come together to display a variety of art work ranging from traditional painting and sculpture, to interactive and multimedia installations.

Some of the artists involved:
Jeffery Byrd, IA
Miguel Cortez, IL
Stephanie Dean, IL
Kristina Dziedzic Wright, IL
Kazuki Eguchi, PA/Japan
Mary Farmilant, IL
Deborah Gúzman Meyer, IL
Annie Heckman, IL
Anni Holm, IL/Denmark
Irena Knezevic, IL
Jennifer Litterer, TX
Lindsay Obermeyer, IL
Irene Pérez, IL/Spain
Mark Porter, IL
Naomi Pridjian, IL
Jason Reblando, IL
Brian Reis, IL
Brandon Sorg, IL
Brian Sorg, IL
Edra Soto Fernandez, IL
Genevieve Waller, NY
Rachel Weaver Rivera, IL
Nyok-Mei Wong, Malaysia
Margaret Wright, IL

ArtXposium
103 W. Washington St.
West Chicago,IL

ArtXposium Hours: Friday 6-11pm, Saturday 12-11pm, Sunday 11-4pm. This event is open to the general public and free (suggested donation $2). In conjunction with ArtXposium, Gallery 200 and West Chicago City Museum will also feature gallery hours. Gallery 200 artists will demonstrate various techniques in art with hands-on experiences for all ages and the West Chicago City Museum will offer tours of its current exhibition.

loose change

2007-09-11T05:40:00.000-05:00

Galaxie 500 - Tugboat

2007-09-08T12:25:00.001-05:00

Micro worlds 1-3

2007-09-07T11:29:00.002-05:00

Micro worlds 1-3
Oil and acrylic on canvas
Miguel Cortez, 2007

Several years ago I did a series of paintings that dealt with imaginary aerial landscapes. With this new series of work I go to the opposite end and imagine microscopic environments plus imaginary abstract forms and shapes. For inspiration I looked at decaying textures that I came across such as found rusted and cracked objects, paint peeling off walls and buildings, oils stains on the pavement and other examples of urban/nature decay. - Miguel Cortez, August 2007

See a review of these paintings in labotanica.org

Aerial landscape 4-5

2007-09-07T11:29:00.001-05:00

Aerial landscape 4-5
computer prints with found object
Miguel Cortez, 2007

In my quest to compare shapes and forms that are minute and microscopic I came across a found street object(mounted on wall) with intricate linear patterns that resembled a street map viewed from above. This inspired me to sketch it and I then transferred it to the computer and traced it.This reminded me of the Chaos Theory and Fractals which says that everything is connected to each other from the smallest of atoms/energy/strings to universes and at that different levels forms and shapes seem to repeat themselves. For example moss on the ground may look like an aerial view of a huge forest landscape.

Exist Within Your Timeline 2

2007-09-07T11:29:00.000-05:00

Exist Within Your Timeline 2
heat embossed belts and wallet
Miguel Cortez, 2007

Series statement
I've always wondered about humanity's never ending quest to define existence throughout the ages via religion or philosophy and I started asking myself these questions back in May: Where was I before I was born? We are born on such a year and then die on such a year in linear time. Did our consciousness/soul exist before and will it exist after? Or are we limited to exist just in our designated timeline? From these questions arose this series of artwork.

One is a plastic sign, similar to signs you may see in buildings that inform and guide you. The second is poking fun at consumerism and products; How a phrase or brand impulses you to buy certain things. And the third is a simple computer animation which uses technology to blast a message that is forever distorted on screen.

Photo August 24, 2007, 4:17pm

2007-08-27T21:01:00.000-05:00

some Pilsen pics

2007-08-15T18:08:00.001-05:00

...more surveillance

2007-08-06T17:50:00.000-05:00

Bush Signs Law Widening Reach for Wiretapping
By James Risen
The New York Times

Monday 06 August 2007

Washington - President Bush signed into law on Sunday legislation that broadly expanded the government's authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.

Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government's ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.

They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens.

"This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who has studied the new legislation.

Previously, the government needed search warrants approved by a special intelligence court to eavesdrop on telephone conversations, e-mail messages and other electronic communications between individuals inside the United States and people overseas, if the government conducted the surveillance inside the United States.

Today, most international telephone conversations to and from the United States are conducted over fiber-optic cables, and the most efficient way for the government to eavesdrop on them is to latch on to giant telecommunications switches located in the United States.

By changing the legal definition of what is considered "electronic surveillance," the new law allows the government to eavesdrop on those conversations without warrants - latching on to those giant switches - as long as the target of the government's surveillance is "reasonably believed" to be overseas.

For example, if a person in Indianapolis calls someone in London, the National Security Agency can eavesdrop on that conversation without a warrant, as long as the N.S.A.'s target is the person in London.

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said Sunday in an interview that the new law went beyond fixing the foreign-to-foreign problem, potentially allowing the government to listen to Americans calling overseas.

But he stressed that the objective of the new law is to give the government greater flexibility in focusing on foreign suspects overseas, not to go after Americans.

"It's foreign, that's the point," Mr. Fratto said. "What you want to make sure is that you are getting the foreign target."

The legislation to change the surveillance act was rushed through both the House and Senate in the last days before the August recess began.

The White House's push for the change was driven in part by a still-classified ruling earlier this year by the special intelligence court, which said the government needed to seek court-approved warrants to monitor those international calls going through American switches.

The new law, which is intended as a stopgap and expires in six months, also represents a power shift in terms of the oversight and regulation of government surveillance.

The new law gives the attorney general and the director of national intelligence the power to approve the international surveillance, rather than the special intelligence court. The court's only role will be to review and approve the procedures used by the government in the surveillance after it has been conducted. It will not scrutinize the cases of the individuals being monitored.

The law also gave the administration greater power to force telecommunications companies to cooperate with such spying operations. The companies can now be compelled to cooperate by orders from the attorney general and the director of national intelligence.

Democratic Congressional aides said Sunday that some telecommunications company officials had told Congressional leaders that they were unhappy with that provision in the bill and might challenge the new law in court. The aides said the telecommunications companies had told lawmakers that they would rather have a court-approved warrant ordering them to comply.

In fact, pressure from the telecommunications companies on the Bush administration has apparently played a major hidden role in the political battle over the surveillance issue over the past few months.

In January, the administration placed the N.S.A.'s warrantless wiretapping program under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and subjected it for the first time to the scrutiny of the FISA court.

Democratic Congressional aides said Sunday that they believed that pressure from major telecommunications companies on the White House was a major factor in persuading the Bush administration to do that. Those companies were facing major lawsuits for having secretly cooperated with the warrantless wiretapping program, and now wanted greater legal protections before cooperating further.

But the change suddenly swamped the court with an enormous volume of search warrant applications, leading, in turn, to the administration's decision to seek the new legislation.

my father's 71st birthday

2007-08-05T11:49:00.001-05:00

J.G. Ballard

2007-07-29T13:12:00.000-05:00

excerpt from a BBC interview with J.G. Ballard:

"Virtual reality is something slightly different. I mean I take for granted that eventually virtual reality systems will be available to us which create a simulated reality that is more convincing than that which our central nervous systems create. I mean one must remember the brain is itself a virtual reality machine, the illusion we have of the real world, of factories and streets and office blocks and other people talking to us is itself a virtual reality simulation generated by our brains.

I think when the first true virtual reality systems become available, and contain more visual information and are more visually convincing than ordinary reality, the temptation for the human race will be to enter this virtual reality system and close the door behind it. I mean, I think there's a danger there because one will really be able to enter into a fantasy world which, unlike all fantasies in the past, would be more convincing than everyday reality."

Robot unravels mystery of walking

2007-07-14T03:53:00.000-05:00

Runbot can adapt to changes in the terrain (Credit: Manoonpong et al)

Runbot in action

Roboticists are using the lessons of a 1930s human physiologist to build the world's fastest walking robot.

RunBot is a self-learning, dynamic robot, which has been built around the theories of Nikolai Bernstein.

"Getting a robot to walk like a human requires a dynamic machine," said Professor Florentin Woergoetter.

RunBot is a small, biped robot which can move at speeds of more than three leg lengths per second, slightly slower than the fastest walking human.

Bernstein said that animal movement was not under the total control of the brain but rather, "local circuits" did most of the command and control work.

The brain was involved in the process of walking, he said, only when the understood parameters were altered, such as moving from one type of terrain to another, or dealing with uneven surfaces.

The basic walking steps of RunBot, which has been built by scientists co-operating across Europe, are controlled by reflex information received by peripheral sensors on the joints and feet of the robot, as well as an accelerometer which monitors the pitch of the machine.

These sensors pass data on to local neural loops - the equivalent of local circuits - which analyse the information and make adjustments to the gait of the robot in real time.

How does RunBot walk?

Information from sensors is constantly created by the interaction of the robot with the terrain so that RunBot can adjust its step if there is a change in the environment.

As the robot takes each step, control circuits ensure that the joints are not overstretched and that the next step begins.

But if the robot encounters an obstacle, or a dramatic change in the terrain, such as a slope, then the higher level functions of the robot - the learning circuitries - are used.

About half of the time during a gait cycle we are not doing anything, just falling forward

Prof Florentin Worgotter

The latest findings of the robot research study are presented in the Public Library of Science Computational Biology journal.

Four other scientists - Poramate Manoonpong, Tao Geng, Tomas Kulvicius and Bernd Porr - are also involved in the project, which has been running for the last four years.

Professor Woergoetter, of the University of Gottingen, in Germany, said: "When RunBot first encounters a slope these low level control circuits 'believe' they can continue to walk up the slope without having to change anything.

"But this is misguided and as a consequence the machine falls backwards. This triggers the other sensors and the highest loop we have built into RunBot - the learning circuitry - and from that experience of falling the machine knows that something needs to be changed."

Dynamic process

He said human walking was a dynamic process.

"About half of the time during a gait cycle we are not doing anything, just falling forward. We are propelling ourselves over and over again - like releasing a spring.

"In a robot, the difficulty lies in releasing the spring-like movement at the right moment in time - calculated in milliseconds - and to get the dampening right so that the robot does not fall forward and crash.

"These parameters are very difficult to handle," he said.

All these big machines stomp around like robots

Prof Florentin Worgotter

RunBot walks in a very different way from robots like Asimo, star of the Honda TV adverts, said Prof Woergoetter.

"They are kinematic walkers - they walk step by step and calculate every single angle, every millisecond.

"That can be handled through engineering but it is very clumsy. No human would walk like that. All these big machines stomp around like robots - we want our robot to walk like a human."

The first step in building RunBot was creating a biomechanical frame that could support passive walking patterns.

Passive walkers can walk down a slope unaided, propelled by gravity and kept upright and moving through the correct mechanical physiology.

Prof Woergoetter said: "Passive walking looks pretty realistic - but that's level one. On top of this we have local circuits, nested neural loops, which operate between the muscles (the joints of the robot) and the spinal cord (the spinal reflex of RunBot)."

He said RunBot learned from its mistakes, much in the same way as a human baby.

"Babies use a lot of their brains to train local circuits but once they are trained they are fairly autonomous.

"Only when it comes to more difficult things - such as a change of terrain - that's when the brain steps in and says 'now we are moving from ice to sand and I have to change something'.

"This is a good model because you are easing the load of control - if your brain had to think all the time about walking, it's doubtful you could have a conversation at the same time."

Nervous system

The principle was first discussed in the human nervous system by Russian physiologist Nikolai Bernstein.

Prof Woergoetter said: "He said it made sense that local agents, local networks, do the basic job, but the brain exerted control whenever necessary."

So using the information from its local circuits RunBot can walk on flat surfaces at speeds of more than three leg lengths per second.

Prof Woergoetter said RunBot was able to learn new walking patterns after only a few trials.

"If walking uphill, the gait becomes shorter, the robot's upper body weight shifts forward," he said.

The key lesson from the study, he said, was that the nested loop design first proposed by Bernstein more than 70 years ago "worked and was efficient".

He said the challenge was now to make RunBot bigger, more adaptive and to better anticipate situations like change of terrain.

Frames 1 - 3: The robot's momentum causes the robot to rise on its standing leg and a motor moves the swinging leg into position

Frame 3: The stretch sensor of the swinging leg is activated, which triggers the knee joint to straighten

Frames 3-6: The robot falls forward naturally, with no motor functions being used, and catches itself on the next standing leg

Frame 6: As the swinging leg touches the ground, the ground contact sensor in the foot triggers the hip extensor and the knee joint of the standing leg and the hip and knee joints of the swinging leg to swap roles

push and shove

2007-07-07T20:40:00.000-05:00

a short video i shot on July 7, 2007 which pokes fun at capitalism. This is a kid's game where they are taught how to gamble. Tokens are put in an the kid tries to gain more coins by manipulating the various controlled gadgets.

my son's b-day party today

2007-07-07T19:22:00.000-05:00

My son Xul turned 11 today on July 7, 2007 and we had a party for him at this local small theme /game park called Haunted Trails here in Chicago's southwest side. Below are some pics.

His cousin Isaiah

His cousin Jasmine and friend from grammar school.

My father Adolfo.

My mother Soledad (Solitude in english)

view from our design department

2007-06-28T20:45:00.000-05:00

FBI's 9/11 Saudi Flight Documents Released

2007-06-22T13:07:00.000-05:00

By Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t Report

Newly released documents reveal the FBI suspected that a plane hired to transport members of the bin Laden family from the United States back to Saudi Arabia might have been chartered by Osama bin Laden himself. The documents raise new questions about the FBI investigation into the 9/11 attacks.

Truthout reviewed the 224 pages of newly released documents over the past two days.

A heavily redacted FBI report on the incident begins by describing a private jet that was hired to pick up members of the bin Laden family that were in the US eight days after the 9/11 attacks. "The plane was chartered either by the Saudi Arabian Royal Family or Osama bin Laden," according to the declassified pages of the FBI investigation titled PENTTBOMB (page 3).

Subsequent references to the chartered flight in the released documents state that it was "chartered by the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, DC" (page 106). The possibility that the flight was arranged or paid for by Osama bin Laden was not addressed again in the subsequent 221 pages released by the FBI.

The FBI report was prepared in response to an October 2003 Vanity Fair magazine article by Craig Unger which raised questions about the FBI procedures after 9/11 that allowed six planes of Middle Eastern nationals to fly out of the United States. Most of the people on these planes were members of the Saudi Royal family, the wealthy rulers of Saudi Arabia, who have high-level contacts with the Bush administration. One plane, Ryan International Flight 441, made four stops around the country on September 19, 2001 to pick up members of the bin Laden family. According to the FBI, these individuals were half-siblings or the children of half-siblings of Osama bin Laden with no connections to the international terrorist. Critics accuse the FBI and possibly the White House of being complicit in allowing individuals with direct connections to Osama bin Laden to flee the country after the attacks. The FBI maintains that their interviews, conducted primarily at airports right before the nationals were to board planes, were sufficient and did not garner any actionable intelligence or warrant the detention of any of the nationals.

A set of documents compiled by the FBI in 2003 sheds some light on the procedures the FBI followed prior to allowing the bin Laden family members and other Saudi nationals to leave the country in the weeks following 9/11. The documents also raise new questions.

An internal FBI email described the effort to collect and compile all of the information about the Saudi nationals. "The point of this mess is a sort of damage assessment of those people leaving the US" (page 136).
The documents were obtained by the conservative government watchdog group Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act. These documents had previously been released but all mention of Osama bin Laden and the bin Laden family were blacked-out by the FBI. After a protracted legal fight, these FBI redactions and their accompanying explanations were ruled unacceptable by a Washington, DC District Court judge, who ordered the FBI to reassess the redactions and re-release the report.

Judicial Watch made the re-released report public on Wednesday, with many of the blacked-out sections restored. All mention of Osama bin Laden or the bin Laden family were made readable, revealing the sentence stating that Osama bin Laden may have chartered the flight that collected members of the bin Laden family in the days following the attacks.

FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko responded to the renewed questions regarding the bin Laden family flight by saying, "There is no new information here. Osama bin Laden did not charter a flight out of the US." Kolko continued, "This is just an inflammatory headline by Judicial Watch to catch people's attention. This was thoroughly investigated by the FBI."

In a statement, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton was highly critical of the FBI handling of the Saudi nationals after 9/11: "Eight days after the worst terrorist attack in US history, Osama bin Laden possibly charters a flight to whisk his family out of the country, and it's not worth more than a luggage search and a few brief interviews?" Fitton was referring to the screening procedures and short interviews of members of the bin Laden family conducted by the FBI prior to their flight back to Saudi Arabia.

According to the executive summary of the FBI report, the FBI "conducted interviews, database checks and security sweeps prior to allowing any of the flights to depart the US. Before departure, all passengers' identities were confirmed and compared against watch lists. Investigators verified that there were no unauthorized passengers aboard any flights, and swept the aircraft and luggage for prohibited items. Further investigation was conducted following departure where it was determined to be necessary. No information of investigative value was learned from the interviews or following the departure of these individuals" (page 28).
Fitton claims that an examination of the report calls these conclusions into question. According to Fitton, "These documents prove the FBI conducted a slapdash investigation of these Saudi flights. We'll never know how many investigative leads were lost due to the FBI's lack of diligence."

An examination of the previously blacked-out names and sentences revealed new information. According to FBI agents who interviewed a member of the bin Laden family, when the family "disowned" Osama in 1994, they did not take away his share of the massive construction company owned and controlled by the bin Laden family. A female member of the bin Laden family indicated to investigators that "when [Osama bin Laden] was disowned by the family, he was given a percentage of the family business" (page 110). Previously blacked-out, this sentence is not further addressed in the FBI report.

The report points out that the FBI did not have records for at least one Saudi nationals who was listed on the flight manifests. A passenger, who's name was redacted in the report, was listed on the official flight documentation but she was never interviewed by the FBI. "If [redacted] was interviewed, it is unknown as to why no record of that interview can be found ... It is possible that [redacted] did not board the aircraft at all" (page 170).

Another reference to a missing passenger raised questions for an FBI agent who was tasked with reviewing the draft of the report. On page 171, the draft report states: "We assess that [redacted] did not travel on 09/19/2001 despite being listed on the passenger manifest. Her name does not appear in any FBI records regarding this flight." This sentence appeared inaccurate to a reviewer who identified this as a typo. On page 174 the reviewer questioned the assertion that this missing passenger was a woman. The reviewer wrote "Page 16 2nd paragraph, '... passenger manifest. Her[??] name does not appear ..." (emphasis original).

The FBI admitted that individuals who might have been useful for their investigation could easily have left the US in the weeks following the 9/11 attacks. The report concluded that "although the FBI took all possible steps to prevent any individuals who were involved in or had knowledge of the 09/11/2001 attacks from leaving the US before they could be interviewed, it is not possible to state conclusively that no such individuals left the US without FBI knowledge. Upon lifting of flight restrictions on 9/14/2001, any individual with a valid passport and sufficient funds to purchase flight tickets or charter an aircraft could leave the US" (page 156).

DOWNLOAD FBI REPORT HERE

My son the actor

2007-06-20T21:00:00.001-05:00

My son Xul acted in a scene for an upcoming independent movie called "The Lower Circle" that deals with "Dante's Inferno"in a modern setting. I embedded the video trailer below.

Lower Circle Trailer

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Humphreys reunion

2007-06-20T20:53:00.001-05:00

I work for Randa Accessories and today a few of us had lunch with some old time friends and ex-co-workers from Humphreys Inc. Humphreys Inc was bought by Randa in 2001 and then re-named Randa Accessories in 2006.

Jerry Wu and Maria Bink-Hennings

Sam Finlay and Scott Linde

Mark Young and Silvia Vega

Workings of an ancient computer

2007-06-17T06:13:00.000-05:00

Scientists have uncovered the workings of an ancient computer called the Antikythera Mechanism. Built at the end of the second century B.C.E, the device was used to calculate and display moon phases and a luni-solar calendar. Its exact workings have been something of a mystery since it was first found in 1901 at the site of a Roman shipwreck. Now, researchers from the UK, Greece, and US report that high-resolution imaging have revealed the function of the gears and the partial inscriptions on the body of the machine. They report their findings in this week's issue of the scientific journal Nature.

From the New York Times:
They said their findings showed that the inscriptions related to lunar-solar motions and the gears were a mechanical representation of the irregularities of the Moon’s orbital course across the sky, as theorized by the astronomer Hipparchos. They established the date of the mechanism at 150-100 B.C...

Historians of technology think the instrument is technically more complex than any known device for at least a millennium afterward.

The mechanism, presumably used in preparing calendars for seasons of planting and harvesting and fixing religious festivals, had at least 30, possibly 37, hand-cut bronze gear-wheels, the researchers reported. An ingenious pin-and-slot device connecting two gear-wheels induced variations in the representation of lunar motions according to the Hipparchos model of the Moon’s elliptical orbit around Earth.

Link to NYT article, Link to abstract at Nature

2007-05-25T15:36:00.000-05:00

This morning I took some photos while on my way to work. This is the Pilsen neighborhood in Chicago.

Frank Lambert's experimental clock from 1878

2007-05-18T21:33:00.000-05:00

check this out; the earliest form of recorded experimental music from 1878....where where you then???

http://www.pong-story.com/lambert/

George Bush visits Kansas after tornado

2007-05-10T15:33:00.000-05:00

President George W. Bush joins townspeople in prayer Wednesday, May 9, 2007, as he toured a neighborhood in the tornado-ravaged community of Greensburg, Kansas. At least 10 people died in the Friday night storm that destroyed nearly 95 percent of the town. Yet during Katrina, he watches thru a window on airforce one down to New Orleans. Why does he react differently to both events? Is it racial?

my new art piece

2007-05-01T19:02:00.001-05:00

exist within your timeline
braille engraved plastic sign
2007

Where where you before you were born? We are born on such a year and then die on such a year in linear time. Did our consciousness/soul exist before and will it exist after? Or are we limited to exist just in our designated timeline?
-mc, may 1, 2007