Collected Images

Odilon Redon

Collected Images: White

Jacob Sutton

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Antonio Carrillo López

NASA (public domain)

Collected Images: Light

Sam Javanrouh

Jones Oliver

FFFF-ck ffffound!

I'm so tired of having to look at sexist, exploitative images on ffffound! Here's some inspiration images for you, from ffffound and elsewhere without the T and A and crotch shots.  Luckily, Pinterest is edging into the image collecting space, which obviously has a much different dynamic since it's so female dominated and doesn't allow nudity. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against tasteful nudity or an honest exploration of the human body, but that's not what is on fffound and its always women who are spread eagle or rearing tits heaven/lens-ward, and very occasionally men. I think I can hear the diehard fffound devotees now scoffing into their hipster mustaches about how cheesy and commercial or just plain ditzy they find Pinterest.  Not for people who are "serious" about art. And that's fine. The what is art conversation is a whole different ball of wax.  I would agree that for a certain guy posting endless "artsy" pictures of naked women may not seem too different from some women posting endless images of shoes and chocolate.  But shoes and chocolate actually are objects... whereas the naked women aren't.

 

Waiting for Lightning Poster

Poster for Waiting for Lightning, designed by Yogi Proctor. Should have posted this before.

Good first screening this morning.  Very happy and excited with SXSW so far.  Three more screenings of Waiting for Lightning to come.

PREMIERE SCREENINGS

SATURDAY, March 10, 2012
11:00am - 12:20PM
Paramount Theatre

SUNDAY, March 11, 2012
9:45Pm - 11:05PM
Alamo Village

TUESDAY, March 13, 2012
7:45Pm - 9:05PM
Canon Screening Room

SATURDAY, March 17, 2012
2:45Pm - 4:05PM

Stateside Theatre

Inspiration: "Scissors" Gallery

Scissors is one of many collections or online galleries of photos and images collected from various sources and updated on a regular basis. It's similar to the popular fffound.com, except its images are collected only by one person instead of a social network.  I love Scissors because the curator Adam Miller usually chooses images that appeal to my aesthetic, that feel honest and visually interesting.  Like fffound, Scissors does have a lot of imagery that I consider exploitative as well, but there are some gems amongst them.  Both are a good resource for treatments and mood boards.  Here's some of my recent favorites from Scissors (talk about a meta post).

glow 2010

This was the second time Santa Monica has hosted "glow," an all night art festival featuring large scale modern art installations sprinkled along the beach and in the parks around the Santa Monica Pier. The first festival was in 2008 and was modeled after Nuit Blanche, which started in Europe in the late 1990's. In 2008, we ventured into the world of glow, not knowing what to expect. While numerous exhibits were underwhelming, a couple were visually and conceptually awesome.  My favorite '08 installation by far was Shih Chieh Huang's  deep sea creatures made from trash installation under the pier (http://www.messymix.com/showvideo/exse08.php).

This year, we hoped to see something equally mind-blowing, but were severely disappointed.  While certain pieces were well executed, nothing was as spectacular as the sea creatures, and many things were not only conceptually boring, but they were so poorly executed that it led one to believe tonight was the first time the artist even actually tested their idea.  Projections weren't strong enough, many installations depended on "feedback" from crowd movement, but didn't really bring anything interesting or unique, and some pieces still weren't functioning or even present at 10:30pm (three and a half hours after the beginning of glow).  Among the better pieces were Hadrian Predock & John Frane's Luminous Passage, a "land bridge" leading the from solid ground to the edge of the ocean; Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Sandbox, an interactive piece that actually worked; 18th St Art Center & LA Commons' Howling at the Sun, an enactment of a Native American myth about the battle between the Sun and Coyote; and Steve Roden's coast lines; two projections of vibrantly colored hand drawn Pacific coastlines, one heading north and one heading south.

DNA Sequencer by Syyn Labs
Would have been cool if it responded to touch and light as promised.
Instead, just a basically a light show to music.

Overall, the whole thing began to take on the feeling of a giant spread out rave.  Drunken teens roaming aimlessly with glow sticks in their hair.  The feeling of rogue creativity of 2008 wasn't even really present and no exhibit really stood up to the night.  It felt like there just wasn't enough light.  I hate to say this, but glow 2010 did not learn from glow 2008.  Despite my ardent hopes to the contrary, glow 2010 was an artistic and cultural failure.