Shooting Wide Open

Dennis Culver

Click on the image to go to the original high res version.

Gotta love it. I was tempted to dress up as a character from The Wire for Halloween, but alas, there are no prominent female Asian characters…

Trailer for There Once was an Island: Te Henua e Nnoho from On The Level Productions on Vimeo.

One of our documentary film MFA students, Briar March, has just screened her film, There Once Was an Island, about climate change’s effects on a tiny Polynesian island as a part of the UN Film Festival. I wasn’t able to make it since I had to shoot for the paper in the middle of it, but mark my words I am going to have to wrangle a way to see this film…

Atsuko Morita

Another body of work seen at the Camerawork crit. These were large scale photogravures. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen Nikki S. Lee’s work, but it was immediately clear that this was the artist herself in all of the pictures. I like the androgyny of something like this, and the quality of the prints was incredible, which does not come through very well online through small files.

Igor Urisman

Last month I attended a members’ crit at SF Camerawork and saw some pretty impressive work. One of projects I liked best was Igor’s nude portraits in the desert. Maybe I just love the look of the desert, the bright surfaces and strange barrenness. It’s too bad though that some of the most compelling work is offline since the subjects are not always comfortable with having these sort of portraits publically available. Hopefully Igor will have a show or make a book at some point…

Hot rod, Twin Falls

The photo above is a snapshot from the Yellowstone trip – while we were lunching at a spot with a grand view of the Snake River, I stumbled onto a man taking pictures of his crazy hot rod in the parking lot in preparation for the hot rod show that was happening in a few weeks. If this is an example of what you’d see in that show, I am sorry we missed it.

But speak of Yellowstone…

Another grant cycle has concluded and I showed a selection of eight prints at Party On the Edge last week at the Cantor Center. Word is that 2700 some people came through. Maybe that’s not so many in the grand scheme of things, but for me that’s a whoa. Then immediately afterward, I carted the frames over to the art dept. where we’ve just installed a group show of work done during and inspired by the Yellowstone trip. I’ve got five prints up in the Cummings lobby and some snapshots documenting the trip in the subgallery in the Welton building.

Before a show opens, the thought of showing work to actual people makes me want to puke a little, but it always ends up being a positive experience. Apparently everyone loves the Eruption photo. As do I. It’s nice when people like and what you love match up, isn’t it?

It’s been a crazily busy term. I’m in five classes, including a sculpture and a video class, plus an art history course on post-WWII European movements like SI and Fluxus. On top of that I’m still photo editing at the Daily, and I just met a dance group this week whose concept to performance process I’d really love to document. Even on top of that I’m hoping to work with Futurefarmers on a wonderful video + book project that’s just the sort of combination of art and science that I’m most happy working with. Cross my fingers that the scheduling works out.

Blake Andrews

Mike Avina

A couple of things came in the mail this month… the second one in exchange for this flag picture.

You know how you can like someone so much you’re nervous to be around them? Well, I’m starting to think this applies to music too. Maybe there isn’t a brown frequency, but there sure is a dopamine frequency. The bassline in this song hits the spot for me. I like it so much it makes me nervous to listen to it. Good thing Big Chief plays it all the time…

I love this song, if you can call it that. I thought the video was a bit gimmicky at first, but that voice and that guitar noise just pulled me in and left me half-witted and stunned. (Parts around the 3m mark are mildly NSFW.)

Pipilotti Rist, I Want to See How You See

Thanks again to Jeremiah. “Heeeey, mama!”

So funny yet so sad. You have to watch til the end for the full effect. Does make you wonder why Hollywood hasn’t adopted the perpetually looping explosion…

Dara Birnbaum, Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978)

Thanks to Jeremiah!