tranqui yanqui

Fashion Show by our Fusion friend Nick Mashie aka Tranqui Yanqui in Buenos Aires

Etsy/Nature Lab

Jeanne Jo in Low Lives

Low Lives :: August 8, 2009; 6:00 – 9:00 pm EST :: FiveMyles Brooklyn, Diaspora Vibe Gallery Miami, and labotanica Houston.

Low Lives is a one-night exhibition of live performance-based works transmitted via the internet and projected in real time at three venues in the U.S.: FiveMyles, Brooklyn; Diaspora Vibe Gallery, Miami; and labotanica, Houston in partnership with Project Row Houses. Low Lives examines works that explore the potential of performance practice presented live through online broadcasting networks. These networks, though seldom utilized for performance art, provide a new alternative and efficient medium for presenting and viewing performances.

Curated by Brooklyn-based artist and curator, Jorge Rojas, Low Lives embraces works with a lo-fi aesthetic such as low pixel image and sound quality, contributing to a raw, DIY and sometimes voyeuristic quality in the transmission and reception of the work. The artists and artist collectives participating in this exhibition will transmit their performances from countries including Argentina, Austria, Canada, England, France, Germany, Macedonia, Mexico, United States, Vietnam and Wales.

“Low Lives is about not simply the presentation of performative gestures at a particular place and time but also about the transmission of these moments and what gets lost, conveyed, blurred, and reconfigured when utilizing this medium,” states Curator Jorge Rojas. Rojas, whose artwork has increasingly involved performative elements, proposed this exhibition to FiveMyles, Diaspora Vibe Gallery, and labotanica because of their commitment to experimental art and framing local and international art-making.

Artists include Abby Donovan; Adam Trowbridge; Amanda Alfieri; Bishop Bishop; Carlos Rodal; Carol & Jonas Pereira-Olson; Carolina Vasquez & Bethan Marlow; Caroline Boileau; Danielle Abrams; Denise Prince; Eden Mazer & Rachel Frank; ErikAndTheAnimals; Eseohe Arhebamen / edoheart; Flounder Lee; Franko B; Fred Koenig; Genevieve Erin O’Brien; Igor Josifov; Inge Hoonte & Michelle Tupko; Javier A. Lara, Rose DiSalvo, Chris; Jeanne Jo; Joe Nanashe; Johanna Reich; Kelly Kleinschrodt; Kenya Robinson; Mark L. Stafford; Profesor Bazuco; Robert Crosse; Rosamond S. King; Rotliebend: Johanna Bruckner & Melissa Steckbauer; Sergio Lamanna; Y. E. Torres ms.YET & Sandy Ewen.

For additional information on this exhibition, please contact Curator, Jorge Rojas at keoqui [at] gmail.com. High resolution photos available upon request.

FiveMyles, 558 St. Johns Place, Brooklyn, NY; Diaspora Vibe Gallery, 3938 North Miami Ave, Miami, FL; and labotanica in partnership with Project Row Houses, 2521 Holman, Houston, TX.

via Networked_Performance — Live Stage: Low Lives [Brooklyn, Miami, Houston].

nike's chalkbot strikingly similar to IAA's streetwriter

via Networked Performancce
This week Nike unveiled a cool “new” chalk-writing robot used to print messages on the road during the Tour de France bicycle race. The trouble is, the robot isn’t so new after all. The Nike Chalkbot is nearly identical to the Streetwriter we began developing ten years ago.

Since 1998, the Institute for Applied Autonomy has been inventing and building robots to protest the militarization of robotics research and to reassert the public’s ownership of public space. Among the machines we produced were GraffitiWriter, a small remote controlled robot capable of printing high-speed text graffiti on the pavement while driving, StreetWriter, a black cargo van capable of printing large text messages the width of a traffic lane while driving, and SWX a more compact trailer version of the same. Largely without permission, these robots were used to print politically controversial messages in 6 countries and major cities across the US. In 2004 the StreetWriter project was deployed as the SWX in protest against the first DARPA Grand Challenge where its mission was to print Isaac Asimov’s First Rule of Robotics (i.e.: “A ROBOT MUST NOT KILL”) at the starting line of the military robotics event.

In pointing out that the Nike Chalkbot is a higher-resolution/higher-budget but otherwise obvious descendant of the StreetWriter (SWX), we do not claim any sort of ownership over the project or the idea. We have always been very open about the inner working of our machines, publishing “how-to” plans and helping other artists and activists build similar devices. While we have long expected our anti-corporate project to one day be reappropriated as an advertising scheme, we are surprised that in this case, the culprits are close associates. According to sources close to the project, Chalkbot was built by an early IAA member working under contract for Deeplocal, a startup company founded by a onetime “hacktivist”. Deeplocal in turn is under contract with the Wieden+Kennedy PR agency, which was in turn hired by Nike. The IAA was neither contacted nor consulted on the Chalkbot.

Beyond wanting to reassure our friends that the IAA had nothing to do with the Nike project, we issue this release because we are concerned by the corporate appropriation of ‘outsider’ research projects without acknowledgement of the amateur, collective, hobbyist, and activist communities upon which projects like Chalkbot are built. Young people witnessing the Chalkbot on television need to know this was not handed down from a corporate research lab, but was made on nights and weekends by the hard work of people not unlike themselves.

We certainly understand our friends’ decision to work for Nike — we all have bills to pay. It is unfortunate that as they enriched themselves, they were unable to also enrich the communities that nurtured their own development. We see this primarily as a failure of imagination, which we understand is a common side effect of working too closely with corporate sponsors. We helpfully suggest the following remedial “karma-cleansing” activities:

• Publish their plans + code, in keeping with the open nature of the project.
• Feature a historical accounting of the technical and ideological origins of the robot prominently on their website and related publications.
• Make the Chalkbot available for use by anti-corporate activists, free of charge.
• Provide proportional financial support to new projects that share the anti-authoritarian and anti-commercial aims from which this project emerged.

For more about the Institute for Applied Autonomy please visit: www.appliedautonomy.com

gros jambon

Thanks for some Berlin facebook friends for posting this.

lifting meet

I had another meet this weekend in Westerly RI. It made for a fun weekend since I was able to stay at my cousin's place and hang out with my mom.

I didn't do as well as I would have liked but my totals increased and I did increase in each lift. 89kg total (I was hoping for something in the 90s) (I could make some excuses here but I won't.)

It was my mom's first exposure to the lifting scene and after she also mentioned how interesting it was and how great it was to see so many people just trying to do their personal best and going after personal goals.

Weirdest moment: After my first lift a very short boy (high school aged or possibly early college) said something to me while I had my backed turned. I said, "Sorry what?" and he said, "Nice snatchers" This was immediately alarming and but I actually think he was sincere since Snatch is the name of the first lift which I had just completed. It is not uncommon for people to say, " Nice lift" or offer words of encouragement. This just caught me off guard.

I got some new kicks especially designed for weightlifting (they look like crazy orthotics)

After the meet my mom and I got a Dell's since we were in Lil Rhody and then we went to Mystic CT.

Virtual Street Corners

From Cyberarts:
We're delighted to report that "Virtual Street Corners," a digital media public art project by John Ewing, has been awarded a Challenge Grant from the Knight Foundation, which supports innovative projects that use technology to distribute news in local communities.

Beginning in June 2010, storefronts in Coolidge Corner in Brookline, and Dudley Square in Roxbury will be transformed into large video screens, providing pedestrians of each neighborhood with a portal into one another's worlds. Running 24/7, life-size screen images and AV technology will enable real-time chat between residents of the two neighborhoods. These portals would also act as media centers for news collection and dissemination. In this way, the viewing and sharing of news is brought out of private spheres and into a public forum - a kind of virtual town hall meeting.

The project is being organized by John Ewing, in collaboration with Carmen Montoya, Kevin Patton, Christopher Robbins and Minotte Romulus.


Yay John!

billie tweets

via npr

and jeanne


billie tweets

great catch

vvork MJ art

vvork has some links to MJ art

white glove tracking

and king by candice breitz