Video, performance, and installation artist Kate Gilmore often draws on pop culture and musical lyrics to frame her work. We think, then, that she might not mind our saying that the elaborate, yet beautifully and sophisticatedly straightforward challenges she designs for herself might best be described by reciting the first words of the theme song for perpetually syndicated sitcom, Cheers: "Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got." This melancholy refrain is the perfect truism against which to witness Gilmore's physical testimony to the facts that life is hard, the life of an artist is hard, and the life of a female artist is, well... hard. But of course, Gilmore manages to make clear--in a way that channels Valie Export as much as Charlie Chaplin--that there's no reason that one can't have fun climbing whatever furniture piles life may throw in one's way. In fact, if one dolls themselves up in slick satins and slathers themselves in the lipstick befitting a lady, then snaking one's way through the kinds of trap doors and tumultuous tunnels the artist creates in her work is nearly a piece of cake--not that she doesn't put a pot of elbow grease into conquering every such obstacle. On September 5th, Philadelphia's Institute for Contemporary Art will open a solo exhibition of Gilmore's work. It will survey previous projects and present a new entry to this trademark series in which installation, performance, and video documentation commingle. - Marisa Olson

Image: Kate Gilmore, Every Girl Loves Pink, 2006, Video

http://www.icaphila.org/exhibitions/gilmore.php

• This Life by Amelia Jones (from Frieze Magazine)- Lengthy review of Lynn Hershman Leeson's exhibit "Autonomous Agents: The Art and Films of Lynn Hershman Leeson" at the Whitworth Art Gallery, from the September 08 issue.
  
  
• David Byrne bike racks, NYC (from Wallpaper*)- David Byrne collaborates with the NYC Department of Transportation to create nine original bike racks around the city.
  
  
• anna lundh (from i heart photograph)- "swedish artist anna lundh's 'hollywood internet.' as she explains about the project, "a collage of footage from various hollywood movies from mid-90s and on, where internet is portrayed. what is shown is obviously not the real internet, but rather a meta internet, fabricated to work in favor of a certain plot or narrative. the imagery isn't necessarily very authentic, yet we have no difficulty interpreting this imaginary aesthetic."
  
  
• Air Quality Case Study: Echo Park (from machine project)- "On Saturday, August 30, at 8pm, the Black Cloud Citizen Science League will present the results of a week-long air quality study of Echo Park. For the study, the League positioned environmental sensors in 12 distinct locations along Sunset Boulevard -- everywhere from the League's Machine Project home base to a corner gas station to a nail salon."
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Montreal-based artist Matthew Biederman is daring to speak out about what he sees as military and government hijacking of what is "arguably one of Earth's most important, and only inexhaustible resources": air waves. Whereas radio was once intended as a many-to-many mode of communication, tight regulation of frequencies has led to a scenario in which the few (mostly corporate entities) are entitled to speak to the masses. His project, DAREDX, "seeks to re-establish the public's presence and right of occupation within the radio spectrum." In an effort to restore some of the utopian ideals initially associated with radio, the project will connect the public with the voices that float in the air around them and yet often go unheard: the voices of amateur broadcasters. Working almost like an astronomer, Biederman (under the call sign VA2XBX) will pluck transmissions out of the night sky, playing them back in Montreal's Cabot Square and logging and mapping them online. Drawing a connection between free public speech and the right of public assembly, DAREDX will amplify the voice of the people. Radioheads will be excited to know that non-vocal signals will also be charted, as the artist will "work with digital communications on HF, in order to send and receive SSTV (SlowScan Televsion), WEFAX (from NOAA Satellites), PSK31, Hellschrieber, and many more." In case you don't feel dialed-in enough to understand what that means, consider attending one of the talks, walks, or workshops associated with the project--including the one on how to build and take home your own FM transmitter! - Marisa Olson

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• Tactical Landscaping and Terrain Deformation (from BLDGBLOG)-
  "But a more interesting, and wide-ranging, question is whether designing videogame environments is not something of a missed opportunity for today's architecture studios. After all, how might architects relay complex ideas about space, landscape, and the design of new terrains if they were to stop using academic essays and even project renderings and turn instead to videogames? It seems like you can take your ideas about terrain deformation and instant landscapes and nomadic geology and you can license it to LucasArts, knowing that tens of thousands of people will soon be interacting with your ideas all over the world; or you can just pin some images up on the wall of an architecture class, make no money at all, and be forced to get a job rendering buildings for Frank Gehry. So would more people understand Rem Koolhaas's thoughts on cities if he stopped writing 1000-page books and started designing videogames - games set in some strange quasi-Asiatic desert world of Koolhaasian urbanism? Or do all of these questions simply mistake popularity for engaged comprehension?"
  
  
  
• Four More Years? (from DMAX)-
  "In 1972, San Francisco-based radical television collective TVTV (Top Value Television) made Four More Years, the first independently produced videotape ever broadcast on television. TVTV's coverage of the Nixon nomination is a groundbreaking challenge to commercially produced news: rather than watching the scripted, variety-show nomination spectacle, the TVTV reporters trawl the convention floor with their lightweight Porta Pak cameras."
  
  
  
• Interview: Jeff Talman (by Peter Traub) (from Networked Music Review)-
  "Jeff Talman's sound installations focus on notions of "self-reflexive resonance", often using no other sound source than the natural ambient resonance of the installation site. His works also have a strong visual component, owing to his dual backgrounds in music and the visual arts. His latest work, "A Play of Flows" premiers on October 23, 2008 at the Galleria Mazzini in Genoa, Italy."
  
  
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Incomplete version of The Computer Generation, a 1972 documentary featuring the artist Stan Vanderbeek.

In the first decades after film was invented, its practitioners wrote brilliant, poetic essays debating whether what they had on their hands was a new medium or simply a tool for furthering existing practices like theater or painting. These artists very often used the words "magic" and "wizardry" to describe what they were up to in creating moving images. Today's films use devices further removed from the real to give us the illusion of reality and whether to perpetuate the appearance of seamlessness or to assuage the ADD-addled minds of contemporary net-surfing viewers, everything is way way sped up. Enter Kurt Ralske. He'd like to slow things down. The Boston-based artist's video installations, performances, digital prints, and software art have long addressed the formal questions many people have ceased asking about film, particularly the relationship between sound and image and stillness versus motion. This was the case with his "Alphaville" (Motion-Extraction-Reanimation), in which he reprocessed elements of Godard's famous film and stretched and repeated them across a wider plane, questioning the function of surface and duration in the original piece. In a new project entitled Zero Frames Per Second, Ralske has dissected the films of Godard, Kubrick, Murnau, and others into a series of still images. Each film is represented by two frames--one condensing all motion into a single image and the other accumulating all moments of non-movement. The artist explains that, "Within these images the cinematic experience is freed from duration, narrative, and signification, producing a visually abstract record of the information from the 150,000 or so frames per film." The works free the mind to quickly take in a film in the slowest of slow-motions. They are on view at New York's School of Visual Arts through September 12th. - Marisa Olson

Link »

• This is a Magazine 23 - "Video-object 23 of This is a magazine is now channeling to you." Featuring new work by a.a.s, Aids-3d, Grant Willing, Petra Cortright, and Yoshi Sodeoka.
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• Club Internet reopening August 29th - Club Internet is currently installing its newest show, but in the meantime be sure to check out Justin Kemp's piece Ribbon which is occupying the domain until the new show opens.
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• Incredible Sonovox - Kay Kyser (1940) - A short featuring an early talk box known as the Sonovox invented by Gilbert Wright. More info on the Sonovox can be found on Wendy Carlos Vocoder Q&A.
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• Roulette TV - UbuWeb announces a new partnership with Roulette. RouletteTV is "...an on-going, innovative video series which presents unique contemporary music in compelling and engaging performances given by the creators themselves. Each performance is followed by an insightful interview with the artist."
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• Sentences on Conceptual Art - This text by Sol Lewitt remains a must-read decades after it was first published in 1969.
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"Intended as a critical approach to the social-networking systems popular in these years. We are still working on it, for the moment: I am not your friend"
More work by Donnachie + Simionato

Constant Dullaart's series "YouTube as Subject" plays with the image of the arrow-in-a-square button that appears in an embedded YouTube video. When clicked, Dullaart's videos retain their initial black backgrounds, but the arrow-buttons remain, plummeting, strobing, trembling, or turning into a mini-disco light show. In true YouTube spirit, Ben Coonley recently posted his own series as response, this time appropriating the spinning wheel of dots that eager viewers need to sit through as a video loads—in keeping with his longstanding interest in media breakdowns and frustrations. Coonley's dot-wheel now drifts off into the distance, accelerates rotation, and (betraying Coonley's Providence-scene roots) expands into a psychedelic black-and-white OpArt swirl. Better not put off watching Dullaart and Coonley's 'tubed conversation, however. Cory Arcangel's Blue Tube, made only last year, has quickly become near-obsolete. Back then, YouTube embedded a logo bug in the corner of its videos, and Blue Tube simply turned that logo blue. Now, however, after its host site's redesign, it doesn't always function in quite the right way. Who knows how long our friends arrow-button and spinning-wheel-thingy will last? - Ed Halter

Image: Constant Dullaart, "YouTube Disco" from the series "YouTube as Subject", 2008

In this work by Pascual Sisto, a plastic bag obstructs the Google Maps Street View of Minnie Street in Fairbanks, Alaska. Discovered while researching Google Maps Street View, Sisto preserves this "found object" by redirecting it to its own url, lastbreathinalaska.com, as well as capturing it as a back-up video, in case Google decides to reshoot the location. Swirling on a constant panoramic loop, the movement of the camera gives the abstract image an almost 3D-like quality. The piece documents Google's fraught attempt to supply an accurate representation of Minnie Street, and, as such, Sisto sees Last Breath in Alaska (Found Object) as a response to the purportedly omniscient eye of the Street View feature, and the issues of transparency and privacy it raises. - Ceci Moss

NYC - "Heavy Light" (08.23.08)
Tomorrow evening, head to Deitch Projects on Grand St for "Heavy Light" organized by artist Takeshi Murata. New videos by Yoshi Sodeoka, Ben Jones, Devin Flynn, Eric Wareheim and Tim Heidecker, Eric Fensler, Ara Peterson and Dave Fischer, Melissa Brown and Siebren Versteeg, Billy Grant and Takeshi Murata will be screened, along with animations by Adam Beckett projected on 16mm film. There will also be a live video performance by Nate Boyce and a live audio performance by Robert Beatty. This event is free.

1ypv -- q and a
MTAA conduct a Q&A session with viewers of their 1 year performance video (1ypv). This work was exhibited in Rhizome's 2005 exhibition Rhizome Artbase 101 at the New Museum.

Carrall Street by Althea Thauberger
"Althea Thauberger's one-night performance will present the street (brightly lit like a film set at nighttime) as a stage, or zone of illumination where the roles of participant and spectator blur. The interweaving of organized performers, random passers-by and audience members will allow for unforeseen interactions to take place, resulting in a destabilized form of community theatre that reveals the street's history, its current successes and stresses, as well as its future."

Walead Beshty
From i heart photograph, "photos of the abandoned iraqi embassy in the former east berlin echo the ruined tableau depicted after being damaged by airport x-rays." Post links to Beshty interview from the Whitney Biennial, definitely worth the watch.

Josh Mannis Interview
Interview with video artist Josh Mannis, from Fecal Face:
"My degree from SAIC was in Fiber and Materials Studies actually - so basically what I was doing then was making clothes that ended up in performance videos. The second one of those I ever made, which was called "Master of the Immortal Arts", necessitated some special effects, like for example doing it against a blue screen and then keying it in Final Cut Pro, and some editing, like for example cutting it up and making it into an effective loop. I began to get more and obsessed with the post production side of it, and by the time I graduated, most of the work was almost entirely made out of post production tricks, like special effects and collaging together source materials. The way I was thinking about it then was that the performance metaphor was moving from me as "star" to me as "producer / director", and more importantly it seemed like sitting in front of the computer and just going down the tunnel with it, was a more authentic analog to the experience a viewer would have sitting in front of a piece and going down the tunnel with it on that side."

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More work by Hayley Silverman

The ongoing US Presidential race is coming to such a head that even media stories about media coverage of the campaigns are flooding the wires. But how does this grand spectacle translate abroad? Given that America is so invested in branding itself as an exporter of democracy, the elections are a key opportunity to transmit this ideology. A new performance exchange project initiated by artist Elana Mann, entitled "Exchange Rate," invites artists from Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, Israel, Lithuania, Mexico, Nicaragua, Portugal, Scotland, South Korea, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and, of course, the USA to collaborate on "producing, exchanging and interpreting performance directions related to the election campaign." Towing the choose or lose line, the participants will post instructions for creative acts that other artists will elect to perform. Part of the effort is to see how the further development of mass media has effected the evolution of collaborative artistic models borne in the Fluxus era, by strategically conflating artistic media, the communicative media by which the work is broadcast, and the news media through which the President is arguably elected. The resulting performances will be highlighted in partnership with the upcoming UnConvention project, with Trade & Row's "Campaign Trail" series, and in other online and offline events. Stay tuned to see if "Exchange Rate" can bring new meaning to the phrase "making change." - Marisa Olson

http://exchangerate2008.com/blog/

Way back before most people had even heard of new media art, one publication (a classy zine, really) was charting the rise of the field. Intelligent Agent was founded in 1996, still the early days of the net for all intensive purposes, by a smart German woman named Dr. Christiane Paul-- she'd later go on to become new media curator at the Whitney. Like many such DIY ventures, the publication has gone through a series of phase changes, from print to online, to hiatus, and back. Now edited by artist and media scholar Patrick Lichty, under Paul's guidance as publisher, the venerable magazine is available in both print and PDF formats. It continues to present the front wave of art and theory, and the most recent issue, which is built around the catalog for the "Social Fabrics" exhibition curated by Lichty and Susan Ryan, is no exception. While big fashion magazines busy themselves with the production of some of the fattest ad-driven issues of the year, IA's latest free PDF will give readers a chance to see projects by a handful of forward-thinking artist/designers who not only design wearable art that marries textiles and technology, but also push fashion from the realm of pop culture into deeper social engagement. The resulting portfolios, interviews, and essays offer critical insight into the work and, in keeping with the fashion mag analogy, posit trend alerts for the future of media art. - Marisa Olson

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By Rob Wittig, Patric King, with Rick Valicenti

Yacht's "Summer Song" Music Video
New music video for "Summer Song" by Yacht (Claire Evans and Jona Bechtolt). Evans and Bechtolt, along with Aaron "Flint" Jamison, won a Rhizome commission for their Marfa Webring project.

Martijn Hendriks: Interview by committee.
From ARTLURKER:
"For the purpose of this feature we decided to interview Martijn by committee; to give him not only the chance to write about aspects of his work that interested him most but also the choice not to write about other aspects, which although no where near as interesting as what he has to say, is interesting in itself."

Language Barrier by Alina and Jeff Blumis
From the LMCC's blog:
"Language Barrier is an ongoing project by Alina and Jeff Bliumis, artists originally from the former Soviet Union. For the site-specific Language Barrier, Lower Manhattan, the artists selected five different locations, each chosen for its contemporary and historical significance and will intervene along various corridors with piles of foam dictionaries. Practical and theoretical considerations meet formally during this ephemeral urban intervention, making visible our daily negotiation of barriers both physical and social."

FREE POWDERLY
Following the detainment of James Powderly, Jake Dobkin created a "Free Powderly" banner.

"Call -- Response" by Hiroyo Tanaka and Macoto Cuhara.

Waterdrop
Waterdrop by Héctor Serrano Studio on Pixelsumo:
"The central piece is a representation of the beautiful experience of a drop falling into water, creating an enigmatic movement and ripples. The installation uses innovative and sophisticated technology in an unexpected and inventive way to capture this captivating natural phenomenon."

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Click here for more work by Eugenio Ampudia

Image: Marta de Menezes, Nature? (Modified butterfly from installation/performance), 2007

Marta de Menezes is a Portuguese artist working at the intersection between art and biology. Last year, Menezes founded Ectopia, an experimental laboratory and artist residency housed at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência in Oeiras, Portugal. The program fosters collaboration and discussion between the Institute's scientists and participating artists. In this interview, conducted by Rhizome Curatorial Fellow Luis Silva, Menezes discusses her experience with Ectopia and her larger body of work. - Ceci Moss

Luis Silva: Ectopia, the artistic laboratory within the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência that you founded in 2007 and currently run, is an unusual operation, as it allows artists to create and develop projects in close relation to scientists. Its name, "Ectopia", which is a term referring to the abnormal position of an organ or body part, roughly relates to a certain "out-of-placeness." I would like to start this conversation by asking if you think art is out of place, or misplaced, within a scientific research context.

Marta de Menezes: First let me tell you, you're the first to actually ask that question!

I don't think art is out of place in the field of science, and definitely not misplaced within a scientific research facility. If I did, I wouldn't be working in this area, or trying to implement my ideas in a laboratory space. Ectopia, a singular initiative in a "hard science" or a basic research environment like the Research Institute, exists to promote the collaborative research projects between artists and scientists, so that both the arena of art and science can gain, grow and flourish in a new interdisciplinary environment.

Why did you decide to approach the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência with the idea of Ectopia?

A lot of my Portuguese scientist friends had some connection to the IGC at some point in their lives. And even I had already been there, presenting a workshop some years ago with Joe Davis. So, I already knew who to talk to and I knew I could propose the director with the idea. It was not too difficult to arrange. But it also felt like an ideal place to create something like Ectopia. The Gulbenkian Foundation has always been one of the most active institutions to support the arts and sciences, so the IGC was the obvious perfect choice for an experimental art laboratory.

What do art projects and scientific research have to gain from an interdisciplinary environment? Or stated differently, is there a common ground of understanding between scientists and artists, one which would allow a real and fertile collaboration between them?

I feel these are two different questions, so I'll answer both. First, I'm not sure exactly how art benefits from collaborative science projects. It is not, in my opinion, a given fact that art can and will benefit automatically from one project in the broad area described as "art and science." It is my biased opinion that the truly collaborative projects will stand a better chance for real profit and growth from the interaction because of their collaborative nature -- not just because they are situated in the realm of art&science. The same can be said from the scientific perspective. If a project is interesting, and based on a quality interaction between the science, scientists, science technologies, artistic concepts and expression, then it is in a better position to be challenging and rewarding for the scientists, but, more importantly, for the broader field of scientific inquiry itself.

To answer the second question, based on personal experience, I've found that it's very likely for artists and scientists to find a common ground of understanding. All of my projects are very similar in some ways, but also very diverse in terms of the techniques, labs and, of course, the scientists involved. But, in every case, I found that they were very fertile and rewarding for both sides. I suppose that the fact that some of those labs, like the one in Leiden, Holland, still refers to me as "their" artist in residence after 7 years lets me think they are still very content with our collaboration.

Can you give me a couple of examples of such collaborative projects taking place right now, or that have happened recently, thanks to Ectopia?

Ectopia is new, only a year old, so not that many projects are happening right now, yet. All projects (lots of them) will start in the near future (I hope). I am currently one of the artists in residence at Ectopia, I have just finished (not really finished, but made the first exhibition of the piece) Decon. In this project, I used microbiology techniques and bacteria that degrade color from replicas (in agar) of Mondrian paintings. Find out more in www.wikibiotics.net. Also, I worked with a couple of artists to prepare exhibitions for the Polar Year Celebrations in 2008/09. The other artist in residence is Maria Manuela Lopes, who will begin soon. Manuela is starting her PhD project in the U.K. and she will use her residency to develop her work in science labs with different specifications.

In the future, Ectopia will be coordinating a European network of curators and cultural agencies that have been developing work on art, science and technology. It will strategically work for the development, research, production and exhibition of projects of art and science.

Also, we are expecting the participation of lots of international artists in the residency program over the next few years, groups such as Tissue Culture & Art (Australia), and Biotecnika (Canada), artists like Polona Tratnik (Slovenia) and Arcangel Constantini (Mexico).

How did you become interested in the artistic properties/characteristics of biotechnology, having a background and education in traditional fine arts?

It all happened on its own. When I was still in the fourth year of my Fine Arts Degree, I started dating an old friend of mine, Luis Grac, who was finishing his internship for a Medical Degree and was applying to a grant from the Gulbenkian Foudation for a Doctorate in Biomedical Sciences. He got it and started his first year in the IGC before going abroad. During this period, I met many of his teachers, many coming from all over the world to teach at ICG, and was very much immersed in that scientific environment. I guess this was crucial. Luis is now my husband and the connection between science and my thinking process is still very present. I have constant access to developments in basic scientific research, and it inspires me to think about possible art projects to develop.

What interests you most about working with biotechnologies?

The best part is that I can ask lots of questions, try to solve some of them and, in the meanwhile, try out some of the most amazing techniques to produce my work. I also think that we are now living in a time where a lot of our metaphors are of scientific and even biological origin. We use expressions like "it's genetic" without really knowing what it means. We, humans, are facing lots of challenges from our actions and their consequences for our planet, for our health, for our lives in general, and being knowledgeable about biology seems to be the best bet to find solutions.

So for me, both as a person and as an artist, it is very important that I strive to learn more, and working with biotechnology is very relevant!

What do you think is