"the future is not what is used to be" @ Postmasters

February 28 – April 4, 2009

"the future is not what is used to be"

Opening: saturday, february 28th 6-8 pm

"the future is not what is used to be” brings together artists engaged in the Internet shaped culture. Through drawings, photographs, sculpture, video, and online projects they explore social interaction in a networked world, reflection in the times of speed, new communication tools and smart technologies affecting cultural and sociopolitical reality, sustainable strategies for contemporary life, connectivity and dis-connect, digital/analog divide, instantaneity and obsolescence, the web as the largest image depository ever, and new forms of appropriation, means of production, and modes of political engagement.

What we do today shapes our tomorrows.

Kevin Bewertsdorf conducts Google searches for images that he then orders printed onto variety of objects employing online services like walgreens.com. These remotely made “Promotional Objects” transcend banality of its origins as private found imagery: from infinite web space onto a limited product, the unwitting subjects are made physical once again, staring at you across time and space.

http://www.maximumsorrow.com/

Charles Broskoski’s "Films" reverse the culture of image overload. On his site, six well known films (Pulp Fiction, Terminator 2 and When Harry Met Sally among them) play continuously on a fixed daily schedule. There is a catch: the screen is black save only for the subtitles of the dialog; an absurd comfort of knowing that the movies are always there to serve as a catalyst for visual memory.

http://www.supercentral.org/9/

Marc Horowitz found an analog way to connect with his fellow twitterers: "for the next 100 people that add me on twitter ( twitter.com/ineedtostopsoon ) I'll send you a small drawing.” The 100 drawings on view will be mailed out at the end of the show. In addition every afternoon Horowitz will broadcast “AnHourADay.me” - a livestream video and chat talkshow with scheduled field trips, interviews, concerts, covert meetings, cooking instruction, comedians, reviews, round tables, celebrity guests, LA artist studio visits, road trips, and more

http://www.ineedtostopsoon.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/marchorowitz/sets/72157607123055883/

Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung has been called “the John Heartfield of the digital era” His collages and animations composed entirely of imagery appropriated from the web deliver a biting political satire. New series -“In God We Trust” - presents global and domestic challenges facing the new Obama administration with the savior president cast as different deities (Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Krishna, prophet Abraham, Yoruba Orisha Trickster God Elegua/Eshu, Buddha, and Guadalupe)

http://www.111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111.com/

http://www.tinkin.com/

Kristin Lucas pays hommage to the ever-replacable technological marvels: maclassic, a 25 years old icon of personal computing, and other nearly forgotten hardware objects are cast in colored wax as beautiful yet perishable candles

http://www169.pair.com/klucas/archive/

Michael Mandiberg’s altered encyclopedias, dictionaries, and newspapers, words incised into them with a laser cutter, highlight the loosing battle of printmedia at a time of rapid online delivery and the never ending newness of information. Everyday a fresh copy of The New York Times with the words “old news” cut onto it will be delivered to the gallery, a stack accumulating over the course of the exhibition.

http://www.mandiberg.com/

Eva and Franco Mattes (0100101110101101.org) inject new synthetic life into art long gone. Their avatars in a virtual world Second Life re-enact seminal performance works from the seventies. Gilbert and George’s “The Singing Sculpture” and Marina Abramovic and Ulay’s “Imponderabilia” are staged for a very different audience.

http://www.0100101110101101.org/

Joe McKay finds the ghosts of Google Street View van and Mapjack car. His photographs recreate these stealth vehicles from partial reflections in store windows in San Francisco.

http://homepage.mac.com/joester5/art/

JooYoun Paek’s inflatable objects are smart appliances for urban survival. A bicycle cover made from garbage bags provides inconspicuous “blend-in” protection for a city cyclist, and a self-sustainable chair inflated by walking offers its user an independence from the urban infrastructure.

http://www.jooyounpaek.com/

Sharing and communal nature and of online engagement has lead to formation of surfing clubs: group blogging sites with fast-paced conceptual exchange based on treatment and analysis of online material. Marcin Ramocki & Paul Slocum (with Spiritsurfers) will present “Where is it?,” a short video based on the blog posts of Spiritsurfers.

http://www.spiritsurfers.net/

http://ramocki.net/surfing-clubs.html

*The title of this show is a quote from Paul Valery

Postmasters Gallery located at 459 west 19th Street between 9 and 10 Avenues is open Tuesday through Saturday 11 - 6 pm.

Postmasters Gallery 459 W 19th Street New York, NY 10011 212 727 3323 postmasters@thing.net

Obsolescence/Invention conference @ NSCAD

Michelle Gay, "Error Code", hand stiched computer crash

"Obsolescence and the Culture of Human Invention" was a conference / related group exhibition(".txt"), which I attended last week in Halifax, Canada. The participants included artists Robert Bean, David Clark, Michelle Gay, Jillian McDonald, Michael Maranda, Luke Murphy, Marcin Ramocki, Ilan Sandler and the keynote speaker N. Katherine Hayles. Katherine gave an excellent and slightly scary talk on transhumanism: a political/philosophical movement interested in replacing humans with technological beings.

works by researchers Robert Bean and Ilan Sandler


Obsolescence and the Culture of Human Invention will cover a three-year investigation into language, technology and artistic production in the context of digital media. It involves researchers, artists and Cultural Studies scholars.

some Nasty Nets posts

I have put together a paper/presentation about the art practice of net surfing clubs, specifically discussing Nasty Nets, Loshadka, Spirit Surfers and Double Happiness. I guess I was trying to make sense out of it for myself for a while... and this piece is an outcome. During my talk I discussed the topic in much greater detail, but this text is a good outline and an introduction to the subject (I hope).

"Surfing Clubs: organized notes and comments"

this is a 4.5 Mb pdf file.
if you prefer a smaller, crappy and ugly looking html without links I have it here.

Paul Slocum on Spirit Surfers

spiritsurfers.net launch + Bubblyfish performance

Paul and Kevin putting final touches on spiritsurfers.net

The INFOspirit

The INFOmonk is often disinterested in physical art and is not always fulfilled by objects. Rightfully, the INFOmonk turns to the spirit world for fulfillment, surfing for boons that will give him clarity. The INFObrats still believe in physical masterpieces. The INFObrats try to produce physical masterpieces, and they even use Google to search for physical masterpieces so that they can go visit them or purchase them.

The greater masterpiece isn't something that can be found on Google. The greater masterpiece is the INFOspirit that constructs all of Google. The greater masterpiece is the INFOspirit that constructs all YouTube videos and all celebrity gossip blog posts and all jpegs of Van Gogh paintings and all of officemax.com and all net art yet made. While the physical connections of copper and silicon that contain the web could be destroyed, the INFOspirit cannot be destroyed. The INFOspirit is not bound by the constraints of the universe. The INFOspirit reveals to us an art that is unreachable, but right at our fingertips -- an art that is infinitely sized, but as simple as a cigar box of thimbles.

The goal of spiritsurfers.net is equally simple: surfers, reveal to others the majesty of the INFOspirit.

fragment from "Spirit Surfing" by Kevin Bewersdorf

Wonderful game boy set by Bubblyfish :)