stephen black vs. the arts

the second weekend in December, 2006

2006-12-11T08:11:00.000-08:00

The Singapore Biennale has come and gone and I have not written anything about it.

Weekends start on Friday and last Friday at 5 pm I was finishing a game as a contestant in the Code-a-thon sponsored by the Asian Game Developers Association. We made a game about the fat content in foods.
I rushed back to the temple in Hougang. The men cracked whips and the gods dragged chains with links as big as fists. They offered me a shirt and the chance to ride to Geylang in the neon covered trucks.

I met her instead.

She had returned from Sweden and I was very happy.

Stelarc had arrived and I caught him the minute he walked into his hotel room.

Saturday I sold a tshirt at the instinc flea market, taught a gamemaking class, rushed back to the flea market, then rushed to the Science Center to meet Stelarc and go over the preparations needed for his presentation. I also ran to Beadhub, where Alex kindly allowed me to see if his power cord could be used as a temporary replacement.
Stelarc and I caught up and had pizza and shrimp. We found the power cord in his room and I then went to return Alex's cord...and then after a rambling walk in Little India, we came home.

Sunday-flea market. Science Center opening, with champagne in test tubes. Home, emails and then to bed.

To add the meat to the skeleton of these records would take more energy than I presently have, but here are a few nouns: Segways, prosthetics, bites, bangs, a prosthetic head, arrogance, kindness, humidity, tshirts, donuts, the morgue, taxis and Legos.

Oh yes, today at Stelarc's presentation he wired my arms and entered electricity into my muscles so that my arms moved and contracted involuntarily.

I was happy that Stelarc was able to come to Singapore. Thank you Science Center.
http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/

I promise I will later write something about machinima......

a flame and the sound of a bell

2006-07-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

Despite the Photography of Bankers

2006-06-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

The show a few weeks ago in the Atrium of the MICA building was a treat. A group show of contemporary Indian painters, featuring many powerful abstractions.

I am writing this on my lunch hour; unfortunately I cannot enter the state of mind to properly describe the works. To say they were composed beautifully and full of lively yet meditative colors just doesn't sound right. They were more than that.
I hope I can see the show again, this time with notebook in hand.

Your Mother Gallery and the Other House and P-10 and the 100 tent project for Indonesia...thank you. PKW...thank you too.

The Migration Show....I wish the person behind the desk would have at least looked up when I walked in.
The white installation at the back didn't seem to be working.
The show seemed empty and a bit tired, except for the video piece by Naho Kawabe, a light-hearted conceptual piece on how she can imagine what a jungle is like though she has never been in one.....

Tokyo Photographer's Gallery...I miss you already.

The title of this entry refers to those lucky people who can travel because of their jobs. I hope that they can create culture-bridging, technically precise works of art which go beyond superficial "first world tourist collecting 'Asian' moments"...and that if ever they make booklets that they are worth the paper they are printed on....
I'm sorry.... I am not being very clear or pleasant here.....someone knows exactly why.

(It is no longer about the money owed, it is about respect for relationships. Interesting, however, that you are now in the money business.
Actually, I just reread this entry...why don't you buy a large number of tents for the Indonesian earthquake victims...I am sure many of them are still desperate for shelter.

Anyway......moving on.....from an incident which started in Tokyo 15+ years ago.

2006-06-18T03:18:00.000-07:00

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Fiction@ Love (Singapore Art Museum May 11

2006-05-14T05:16:00.000-07:00

Could someone explain the title to me again?

One contributor to the show’s brochure quotes lyrics from Tori Amos, Thirteen Senses and Lisa Germano… is there a point in using a quote if it doesn’t have an obvious relationship to the text? And what does it say that a Singaporean/Shanghai art show uses the lyrics of American and British musicians?

Also from the brochure:
...”the work speaks of the protrusions built on the outside of the pieces reaching up in an attempt to create discordance between the two towers just as the strangely as paradox of irony twisting the mental image of the innocuous mind frame and as well as a manifestation of progression towards the ideal that lies beyond the pervading darkness of youthful cynicism.”

yep……

Also in the brochure was Victoria Lu’s Curatorial Statement. She also spoke at the opening. Here is what I liked about her presentation:

She knows what she doing and what she is talking about.
She began speaking in Chinese and then spoke in English. She defined a new art movement called animamix and mentioned that the word will likely end up in English dictionaries. (Animamix Art is defined as animation + comics.)

With this declarative statement, it appears that Shanghai is determined to be the driving force of the international art industry and is displaying the mindset that made Pop Art a cultural standard-and a good investment.

She acknowledges the groups which utilize technology to create art and suggests group networks will be creating the most significant art of the future. She mentioned the Disney Company’s Mickey Mouse, Pixar, multiplayer online games and the role of Nokia in promoting portable downloadable art.

“Contemporary art has become a social game between elite groups, an arbitrary area less and less friendly, and one that has been losing public concern and participation.”

“Artists of the 21st century will step out of the ivory tower of pure art and high art to act as the Creative Directors of the future and conduct cross-field reorganization of resources. The creation and marketing of art will be part of the global creative industry.”

On the minus side, there was no mention of spirituality, environmental or social concerns; animamix could be perceived as pretty lights(pixels) constructing fantasies for an audience with the mindset of children…backed up with huge marketing campaigns, of course.

The show, however, frightened me with its incoherence and shallowness…I felt as if I was in a nice café featuring the latest works by graphic designers and toy makers. I love graphic design, especially when it goes beyond just being “cool” and generates emotional responses. Except for the pieces by ffurious and ZERO, there was little acknowledgement of the artist’s role in commenting upon society.
The fuzzy rabbits, cute costumes and updated Pop Art pieces were as exciting as a meal of old candy. This is the future of art?

I am extremely curious as to what the ‘parent’show in Shanghai is like.

Where were the Japanese artists? The brochure lists China, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia and others, but there is no mention of Japan-the birthplace of manga and anime. The inside cover of the brochure shows a work by Yoshitaka Amano-but doesn’t mention where the artist is from.

Collection of the Artist…when you see these words it means the show organizers did not have enough money to buy the work or rent it from a gallery….if this event was supposed to be defining the future of art, wouldn’t the pieces that were exhibited have value as art commodities(investments) as well as pieces to be studied and viewed by future generations? Why are they not part of the museum’s collection? Or a local gallery’s collection?
Seven of the pieces shown in the brochure were from the collection of the artist…..

Closing on a (mostly) positive note, the blue and white illustration (oops! artwork) of the innocent child in the blue and white pattern of flowers was excellent, combining a peaceful knowledge of color (similar to that of a Matisse cut out) with a traditional pattern(Japanese?) and the innocence of a manga line drawing.
The simple white and blue image nicely embodies the qualities that the show attempted to highlight.
(Unfortunately the artist is not credited in the brochure nor on the invitation card.)

Fukushima Gmail Art Project

2006-04-03T21:34:00.000-07:00

I have been experimenting with Gmail as a means of making images.

I started with the invisible idiot, the name of a band I like.
(www.popwars.com First, you are invited to take a look at my Voice of Pieces project & then go the music section where you can download a taste of the invisible idiot)

Then I did something with the unseen guest, another band I like.
(www.unseenguest.com)

If you want to see these images, drop me a line.

Then I did something called "Nude Sleeping on Bed." It is a personal image and I don't feel like sharing it now.

I did a few more.

Lately, I realize how much I miss the cherry blossoms of Japan, especially those of Miharu in Fukushima Prefecture. The blossoms are open as I write this...

That's the story behind this project.

OK , technical stuff...
-When you get it you have to open and spread it out a bit. Corruption may have occurred and you may have to move things around.

-Feel free to remake the image and pass it. Send me a copy.

-I really wanted to post the cherry blossom image here. But I don't have the time to play with transferring it into photoshop. I tried it once and it seemed like I was remaking the image. So,if you want to see the gmail cherry tree in blossom , send me your email address-gmail of course.(Maybe it will work in other email services-who knows?)

-If you send me you address, it goes nowhere else. If you look over this blog and check my others(go to profile down at the bottom), you will see that I am doing a lot of things in gaming, art, education, photography etc-but there is no way I am going to give out your address to anyone.

-if anyone knows of a gmail gallery, please let me know. It would be cool to see a gallery made up of just works created with gmail....

Ok, if you want to be one of the 100 to receive this project, send an email to blacksteps2010@gmail.com

thanks for stopping by

SB
at the very bottom you will see links to some of my other projects....

Poetry Event at Singapore National Library

2006-03-28T04:58:00.000-08:00

tatami

2006-03-17T21:39:00.000-08:00

I Love Hansel

2006-02-10T17:41:00.000-08:00

Images created for Joh Soh, fashion designer. www.ilovehansel.com

one evening in the year of the dog

2006-02-09T06:53:00.000-08:00

I recently attended a very interesting art event at P10 here in Singapore.
I found the evening interesting because "high art and pop culture" were presented and discussed fairly equally. It should be noted however, that most of the presentation was in the form of a video about the project known as Moc Moc. The two artists who created the character called Moc Moc are from a company called Com Com.

I arrived late and the video was in progress. The video was very well made and seemed to show many sides of the Moc Moc story.
Simplified, the Moc Moc story is this: a remote village in Switzerland wanted a piece of public art for the square near their train station. The duo from the Com Com company won the competition and created the legend of a fish/dragon hybrid called Moc Moc. This is a very simplified explanation, but half of the village loved it and half of the village hated it. This was demonstrated by a vote in which the people of the village voted to keep Moc Moc in its initial location. About 49% of the village hated Moc Moc so much that they had wanted it moved to a less public place.
The video presented many sides of this heated debate. I assume they were not allowed to vote, but the children of the village appeared to love Moc Moc, as did a local confectioner who made a dessert based on the Moc Moc design.
The videomakers used a technique in which a child asked an elderly man questions about Moc Moc's history.

After the video was shown, questions were asked and it was stated that Moc Moc, in a project related to the Singapore Biennal, will be appearing in some project with the Merlion, Singapore's lion/fish mascot.

I enjoyed the presentation very much. It was challenging on several levels. Whose idea, for example, was it to create a project combining Moc Moc and the Merlion? Who is paying for this? How much is being paid? The theme of Singapore's first Biennale is "Belief" and it will be interesting to see how this project unfolds and what it will lead us to 'believe'.

As the links to my other sites show, my relationship with the Monja Kids characters is not altogether different from the relationship the Com Com people have with Moc Moc. I did not create the Monja Kids, however. They were the idea of Akihito Seki. I often say that he was a true artist.
I have no definitive point to make here. I just enjoy thinking of the Merlion, Moc Moc and the Monja Kids. They are all so similiar in a way, and yet so different. Commercialism, high art, entertainment, politics, culture...who really decides what is what? Can anyone actually say what is and isn't high art? Doesn't it always come down to who is paying how much for what?
BLOGGER DOESN'T SEEM TO WANT TO UPLOAD IMAGES THIS EVENING, SO PLEASE IMAGINE:
-Warhol's Mickey Mouse Silkscreen
-The Merlion
-The Monja Kids
-Moc Moc

The following is from the Singapore Biennale website.

Johannes M. Hedinger and Marcus Gossolt founded the art label Commercial Communication in 1997. Their films, art, theatrical pieces, music, books and monuments thematise the border between high art and pop culture. They parasitically occupy the communication channels of advertising and mass media to enact performances of the concepts of 'original' and 'counterfeit.'
Though primarily based in the Swiss cities of Zurich and St.Gallen, Commercial Communication's work has been shown in over 70 exhibitions (among them the Biennials of Venice in 2001, Turin in 2002 and Sharjah in 2005). Despite solo exhibitions all over the world (Kunsthaus Zürich 2000, Govett Brewster Gallery New Zealand 2001, Kunstwerke KW Berlin 2003 and many more), this will be their first visit to Singapore! The Singapore Biennale Secretariat is proud to include them into the programming of our educational talks and would like to share our excitement with you.

x and latin

2005-11-07T06:56:00.000-08:00

yes, it was