Yesterday was a full an fun day. I woke up early and did my ISEA trajectory. My plan was to do three artist talks, two keynote panels, and four panels/presentations. I ended up canceling one artist talk (sorry Meredith, could not find a way to get to the location quickly), but added a new one. The first one I went to was Xtina Burroughs, and her browser work that used Jack Kirouac's famous book was pretty interesting; I immediately recalled Julie Sando's work, and told her I will put them in touch (note to self). This took place in the hotel, so when it was done, I walked over to the museum to see a couple presentations.
The first one was not very interesting to me, to the point I forgot about it and had to look it up. Again, the "artist" presented in too much detail all his ideas and research and implementation of it in his given area of interest (in this case, people with disability), and went on and on about what happened - but there was no outcome. He never showed us what the tools he created actually produced and what he planned on doing with them. He played an audio file of one of the people he was working with singing a song, but that could have been done without all the prosthetics he was creating, and I did not understand what he was trying to get to, though of course the nobility of his cause left little room for criticism. His presentation is somewhat typical of this conference, no visible use of findings into an actual art practice (it is as if for them talking about it and showing images is the actual work, but those were somewhat mundane). The second presentation that morning (these were 25 minutes, as opposed to the 20 minutes for the artists), revolved around the gaming and alternate realities as critical pedagogical tools. The presenter was a young-looking college professor, that talked a lot like students (with lots of "likes" and "sort ofs", two of my pet peeves). His ideas were interesting, but again, he only talked about what he believe were not working with current strategies, and he did provide a few solutions and outcomes, but all of them are still not actualized (in fact his background is not in science or art, so he will serve as a consultant to a new game about climate change). In my humble opinion if one wants to change the world one can get off the computer and actually do work and help their community and world (and not necessarily make it part of one's career). This really made me think of a conversation I had during lunch last summer with Amy Franceschini, from Future Farmers, when she told me that at times she felt she should stop making art and just work on the farms (her kind of social practice I am totally behind, because it happens in many levels, in and out of an art context, and there are actual interferences happening in the communities they work on).
I walked back to the hotel to I see and meet Jody Zellen, at net.artist whom I curated into an exhibition back in 2009, and it was great to see how her work has moved towards apps since then. Later on I downloaded all her four apps, all free, called Spine Sonnet, 4 Square, Urban Rhythms and Art Swipe - they work both for the iPad and iPhone. Her talk started late, the guy before her, making some very disturbing work combining animal parts and robotics, went over 20 minutes and cut into her entire time. It was so rude. And like many presenters here, there were tech problems with laptops and projectors. Because her presentation ended up 50 minutes later than expected, I had to skip one keynote speaker. I also wanted to see the late-added presentation by Annette Barbier that took place in the hotel at noon. After spending some time with her in the first two days of the conference, it was great seeing her work. She is the nicest, sweetest, and most calming person you will ever meet, and her work was simply beautiful, a delicate arrangement of very complicated situations. She is interested in invasive species and their effects on her local ecology; she employs actual leaves of trees that have almost disappeared in her part of Illinois and have them laser etched with photographic representations of the invasive plants. She also showed us some work with Canadian goose feathers and extinct bird information, also laser etched, to juxtapose what has already been lost and the failed attempt to eradicate and then reintroduce this still present bird group. She also showed us this collaborative work with augmented reality she did around the city of Chicago, very cool. At the end of her presentation she said she felt her work was not doing enough to actually change the situations she was addressing, but in fact I found the opposite. Because she was making things, and things that would not only reflect the times we are in and persist beyond our own lifetimes, but also because they posed questions and required critical thinking and curiosity from the audience in order to derive meaning (instead of someone from the outside telling people what to do). I believe her feeling was a direct response of the presentations we saw on the first day of the conference.
After that I walked back to the Museum and grabbed a sandwich, before going to a presentation where curators talked about their experiences with the Biennials in the world. One of the presenters was Irene Hoffman, whom I later introduced myself to. She was very nice, the director and chief curator of SITE Santa Fe. She used to live in the Detroit Metro area, and because of her new media interest, I was told I should introduce myself. She told me she was coming to Detroit in a week, and maybe our paths will cross. Her presentation was followed by a keynote by Fritz Haeg, who created the now known project Edible Estates (look it up, very interesting), and his new work/series of interventions called Animal Estates. I ran into Cris and Annica at the museum lobby, and we made plans to get together later.
Walked back to the hotel for the last panel presentation of the day (starting at 4:15 pm), about Anonymous and authorship. I penciled that in because I wanted to finally meet Jon Cates in person, but alas it was not meant to happen, as he presented via Skype. His presentation was actually the most succinct in the bunch (one moderator and three presenters). Marco Deseriis, probably the most handsome man in the entire conference (with a great Italian accent to boot) talked so quickly that I had a hard time to follow (he started his talk by premising that he turned an extensive paper into 4 pages very recently. The other presenter was a sweet guy, who showed his engagement with web communities, but overall I felt that the question the panel posed was not very clear, at least to me, and no solid answers were provided. In the Q&A things got clearer, but I still felt that much more needed to happen there.
My next stop was my room, and on the way to the elevator I ran into Paul; he said he'd text me when he was back so we could drive to the Gala reception at the Balloon Museum. We later met around 6:30, and drove to the somewhat distant location while the sun set at the end of the road, this gorgeous huge red ball of fire. The museum was very impressive, and we all had a great time there. I actually spent a lot of time with Paul Hertz and one of his friends, and even longer time with Cris and Annica. The three of us laughed so much, it was a lot of fun. There were quite a few projects on display at this museum, in addition to tons of yummy food and drinks. The highlights were the #tweetsinspace piece, which was conceptually solid but lacked actual presence, and "myth and infrastructure", a live projection/performance that was extremely visual, seductive and lush, but lacked any conceptual and critical underpinning (though it did provide us with some great laughs, we were all acting like little kids, not making fun of the piece per se, but making sassy references to some of the symbols). Eventually we ran into Ben and Silvia, and the six of us decided to meet back at the Q Bar at the hotel.
While the last time we were there the music was Salsa, this time it was booty music. At one point I looked at Paul and asked "are they playing the OPP?" (yeah you know me!). Sure indeed, they were. Even though the place was extremely loud, we all had tons of fun, but by 11:30 I was fading away, so I bid my adieu and went back to the room. Really looking forward to today!
- posted via iPad
Location:Hotel Albuquerque, Rio Grande Blvd NW,Albuquerque,United States
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