🏷️ art

Today while eating crabcakes at globe market, I spotted some nice looking pottery. Its all set up around these local art displays, so I assumed it was local art.

The one brown vase and the aorta one both struck my fancy and both were reasonably priced. The brown one was really heavy. Both had a tag on them for some artist/dealer on hertel.

They both look pretty orginal and I was all set on buying both or either.





That was until I flipped them over and saw they were from Vietnam and China.

On Saturday night we went to the Hallwalls Artists and Models fundraiser at the Central Terminal. @terry, @matthew and I went with @imk2 and @mike went with @jill. We all met up there. Saw a bunch of other peeps there.

There were thousands of people. Check out these shots of the crowd. Here I am standing in the middle and took a pic facing each direction.




Most of the art was really lame. Some of it was pretty cool. One of the most interesting pieces in the show was the release of all these red, white and blue balloons onto the veiling. Each one had the name of a soldier that died in the war. They slowly descended to the ground over the night. People were hitting them around and playing with them till they realized what they were. It was interesting to see the number quantified in something other than digits.



I decided to take the picture to look him up afterwards. It is creepy weird that I could find his funeral on youtube. Are all the soldier's funerals on youtube?



@imk2 and I had fun in the asbestos closet that was not an actual event but a closet that was just gross. It had a label on the door that said Canadian Customs.





Then we had fun in the bi-polar room. @imk2 explains it well with her facial expression. I just like the way the other pic came out with the slow lens speed.

@holly and her boyfriends Brian did a pretty sweet interactive, multimedia experience piece. I forgot to get a picture of @robin's video but it was great as always. Somehow, I realized as we left that I missed @liz's piece or at least I am not sure which one it was? Anyone know?


There was another interactive installation that involved nurses, I could never get close enough to figure out what they were doing.


The highlight was the burlesque show. It was at that point that I discovered how much better @imk2's camera was than mine. I am now going to get a new one. Her pics were crytal clear while mine were blurry and crappy. We were the same distance away, both with all auto on but her camera is like 2 years younger that mine.


I captured this amazing performance for @metalpeter, I thought he would enjoy it. They did a blond vs brunette dance to the tune of "Dueling Banjos"
[flv]0608/BlondVsBrunettes0602.flv[/flv]

He is now free according to this A.P article. I always wondered how long they would drag this out. I wonder if the whole thing was really good for his career in the end but probably, bad for his blood pressure.

Biomaterial charges against N.Y. art professor dismissed

Apr 21, 2008

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - A judge threw out charges Monday against a college art professor accused of improperly obtaining biological materials for an exhibit protesting U.S. government food policies.

U.S. District Judge Richard Arcara ruled that the 2004 mail and wire fraud indictment against Steven Kurtz, a University at Buffalo professor, was "insufficient on its face."

Kurtz is a founding member of the Critical Art Ensemble, which has used human DNA and other biological materials in works intended to draw attention to political and social issues. His arrest drew protests from artists in several countries who called the charges an intrusion on artistic freedom.

Not phone sketch pad. @lilho is back in town. See you all tomorrow night.

I went to go see the Steve Kurtz documentary called Strange Culture on Saturday with @holly. I felt bad for him. I still think @paul #30948 he made some bad choice at a bad time.



I mean I support the freedom of expression in art through the use of biotechnolgy, and I especially support their project testing organic foods for GMO content, but I still think it would have been a lot more legit, if he did the science stuff at school instead of at his home. It would have been so much less suspicious in such over suspect filled times.

It's not that he would have had to censor the project so much as make the production more public, like in a lab at school. That way he probably would have been able to continue his work and spread his message further instead of having been dragged though all this drama.

It is so ridiculous what he government has put him through at this point. You can read all about it here

Afterwards, we went to the Squeaky wheel animation festival. It was outdoors and involved a theremin.

Here they are setting up on Main next to Squeaky Wheel.


Here it was in at night while th film was running. I tookt his with a long exposure.

After programming today, I was going through an old hardrive with my ten thousand art projects and misc stuff on them and found some of the video files were 0k. Argh, I was so mad, so I decided to take some of the video that I have already put on the web or on other harddrives and put it on youtube too. That way hopefully, one place or another it will exist.

Okay this is so fuckin rediculous that I can't even believe I did it. I remember I ran out of time to video edit at school so I was left with windows movie maker at work. It sucks so bad, but now it is kind of funny looking back. All the movements and stuff were scripted. If only I had a mac during that phase ;( but that was after the powerbook died.





I also foudn lots of video we took documenting our life and about 10,000 more pictures to add to my 1,000,000 pictures. Back in 1999-2000 @terry , @jacob , and I took this crazy trip from flagstaff, AZ to Vancouver and then across Canada back to Buffalo. I wrote about it lots of times and all the crazy shit that happend but now I lost half the video thanks to a harddrive failure. I am so mad. At least this half will exists on youtube.

I am now going to go crazy trying to find everything else.




Making my Mii for the Wii

We went to go see @tina 's final art thesis show at the Central Terminal. I have no idea how I end up in the god forsaken building so much.

It always looks like it is going to be great and then you realiize how fucking freezing and nasty it is in there. I think playing it in as a kid was more fun that going in it now.









The art show itself was pretty awesome.



@tina and @lilho


Here are @tina 's prints - I really like them.


I tried to take more close ups of them but it was hard with the light reflecting off the glass. @matthew might have gotten some better pics with the fancier camera.


I didn't understand the carpet puffs but I liked the visual they created



The plastic wrapped bride. I felt bad for her that it was so cold, she had a heater right on her but still.


I hate this dirt pile. It was so completely lame.


Here is the description for it.


Frankly, I thought this wood pile directly across from it was much more compelling although it was not even a display.



This one reminds me of something @robin would make. I wonder if they were inspired by her work.


I really liked the look of this one but the interaction was ueber lame. It was a maya 3D scene rendered to quicktime VR, which is no where near as cool as it sound. The visuals were way too dark too.



This guy Tom was trying to make himself famous online as his project. Being a famous online personality I could understand his desire but he was a little too cheesy.

Well TJ now that your an alcoholic celebrity its probably gonna be even harder to stop drinking.

Ironically, I got this picture of him at the beer tap.


Some of the comments people left on his site are so mean. e.g.

Cathy wrote
at 5:58pm on March 10th, 2007
TJ I miss you come back to me. I even miss the smell of your farts you sick little leprechaun. Just kidding, I hate you, die.

This one reads, "Local Internet Celebrity @lilho seen in front of some anonyous man at the Buffalo Central Terminal."



The eyeballs were compelling to look at, but eyes are generally so compelling that it wasn't surprising. Still, I liked it. My favorite were these paintings made with dirt, animal parts, and hair. I know that sounds sick but they were amazing and I forgot to take a picture of them. Tom is in it too. I wonder if my stalkerish picture talking made him feel more celebtritiesque.



Here we got @mike in glasses.


@terry looking cafeinated

Had a nice dinner party with chris and his mother. Bekah also stopped by. It was nice to see her. I haven't seen her in a long time. Having a visitor from the mansion down the street made me think that North street is making a comeback, lol.

Took the s7c out to take some nighttime pics of the icestorm. I am posting the original and my crops of each photo.

The holly leaf original


Two crops - you should have seen the whole thing upclose in hires. These were taken at 5MP compressed and the camera can do 7MP raw.

The three buds - the original



The crops - they look like superheros

The frozen stick



The crops

Misc

Frozen dripping penis?
On a side note I went to go see @terry and chris sing kerioki last night and it was fun.

This journal is realy a combination of the Squeaky Wheel Peep Show and the Geek Meet.



When I first got to the geek meet I seriously thought no one was gonna come. The screens weren't set up and I was convinced we didn't have enough speakers. I was definately wrong because we went way almost till 9PM and the discussion room was packed most of the time.

It actually seemed like a really sucessful show accept for the crappy sales pitch from 3created. Unlike @kara [inlink]kara,35[/inlink] I have no problem saying that I thought that his work totally sucked. He offered nothing new or particularly original and was a sales. You guys know how I feel about that.

I got a couple job offers not that I ever plan on leaving my wonderful state job at Roswell Park.



My talk was about AJAX. It was really hard to balance getting into details with being general enough to keep peoples attentions. I think I did a good job of balancing the two. It is hard to describe a complicated set of tehcnologies in twenty minutes.



The night before was the Squeeky Wheel Peep Show at The Hotel Lenox. Each room of the eigth floor of the hotel was an installation with the them of a peep show. I really felt at home at this event because I knew some of the particpants and becaus eit was in a hotel where I was wearing pajamas. @robin's exhibit encourage the viewer to get into pajamas and lay on her bed with her. Needless to say I drank too much Tequilla for me first time drinking tequilla. It made my head hurt really bad in the morning, thanfully it went away by the geek meet.











After the hotel we I went we the epeepettes to the pink and the towne restaurant. When I came hoem @robin and @terry were playing with the sugar gliders. All in all it was a nice weekend.

This hotel art party is frakin insane. I am currently in pajamas in robins room sitting next to someone's sneakers and drinking tequilla. This remeinded me of twisted.