Day de Dada "Dream Inscription" at new Staten Island Artist Building

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/13/nyregion/art-on-staten-island.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

had a small posting on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2013 

for some of the Second Saturday Art events, 

but missed the grand opening of the SIABC 

Staten Island Artist Building with the event I-Land 

(artists, musicians and performers offer self portraits 

that reflect on their relationship to Staten Island) 

curated by Melanie Cohn, Executive Director of SI Arts.

Despite the stormy weather a good crowd showed up.

Day de Dada Performance Art Collective presented 

a new piece "Dream Inscription" in which 

Milenka relaxed people- gave them a spot of "eyebright" tea 

and a dab of Keith Jacobsen's Berryzflow vision oil. 

Then they lay down and closed their eyes, 

Viv de Dada drew out their dreams of Staten Island. 

Words from this were added to a map of Staten Island.

The exhibition will be on display until Jan. 3, 2014. 

And can be viewed Monday-Friday 9am - 5pm 

Ring the bell at 73 Wave Street.

Nevermore Evermore, a Day de Dada Poe event

OutLOUD, a Staten Island group that organizes public reading of literature received a NEA Big Read grant to produce a series of the "Stories and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe". They asked Day de Dada performance art collective to produce one of the events and it occurred Sunday Sept. 29, 2013 at the Unitarian Church of Staten Island in conjunction with the church's Arts Committee programming. 

The event began with the audience entering through the garden gate greeted by Day de Dada artists who read poems, invited them to wear raven wings and create their own mad lib version with sections of the Poe poem "The Raven". A group of Butoh dancers then entered the garden and executed an extremely slow, meditative walk along the path that encircles the memorial garden. Eventually the dancers made their way into the church parish hall and the audience was invited to join them, which many did. A version of another Poe poem "Dreamland" was read at that point and the group then moved into the church sanctuary where "the Raven" poem was recited completely, with the audience invited to say the Nevermore raven lines.

overheardontheferry

 


Lately I've been connecting to new art mostly on the internet, through emails that I get, stuff that pops up on Pinterest and doing random searches of sights. 

One of the first pages I started following when I joined tumblr was overheardontheferry and it never fails me. This is my landscape, my portrait. 

The author was a mystery which I soon was trying to detect. Okay, so here is a cool, creative person who rides the boat the same time as I do and sees the queer and ordinary and just puts it out there. I had finally decided that it must be the girl who had the blue hair at one time (I was jealous because I wanted dark blue hair like hers). I had seen her on the boat with her iphone out all the time and figured she must be taking pictures discreetly. I planned to confront her the next time that I saw her, but our paths have not crossed since then. 

Today when I decided to do an Art on Staten Island post for overheardontheferry I checked out the page more closely and found Instagram and Twitter links. Nothing on the Instagram page for clues, but oh no! the heading on the Twitter page was "Born and raised Staten Islander, Associate Director at an advertising agency in Manhattan, and a really cool guy"... a GUY... so my theory of the creator was wrong! Will this change how i see the posts now? Will I still relate to them? My message in a bottle.

Anyway... Tumblr Art

At the Tumblr Art Symposium Christiane Paul, professor of visual arts at The New School, defined Tumblr as platform that many artists share their work through, but the collection of collages, video art, engagements and reblogs are not a united art form. That was my original thought, the authors were curators of what they liked or wanted to communicate, and the pages that were sited as Tumblr art didn't seem much more evolved than that. I was looking too hard for a creative layout or use of images. But i'm starting to see some of the pages as more innovative output, like an artist book or a Fluxus action- record a specific thing daily, etc. Those are the Tumblr art pieces, more subtle so harder to dig up.

What does it all mean?

Steven Lapcevis's "V I R U S" Video Installation.  

"The installation intends to explore the detrimental effects of the excessive consumption of nonessential information through mainstream media outlets and how it ultimately distorts and poisons our views of reality."

Thoughts can be similar to objects in that they 
sometimes bounce off and other times stick to a thing.



So much visual information. (U.S. converted McDonald's flag, Commercial references, Cereal, Guns, Hypnotic rolling of pills, signs, vibrating type) 
So much is happening. (The voice- it doesn't matter what it is saying, Rolling dollar signs, black bodies ejected into the sky at the airport, but the music is hopeful so you know they are headed someplace good, canned laughter.) How can you take your eyes off the big screen to see what's happening on the side? Two smaller screens, mr boulder head and, the floating smoking one eyed puppet.

Lapcevic's old icons were there- pig headed men with chattering teeth, spoiled or angry child. Of course I love the new image - the eye- bounces off the edge of it's lid and all of the other iterations.

Okay, I'm tapping my foot to the jingle the second time through, but the whole audience is getting nervous now- "You will spend money"

Saturday, August 3, 2013, 10:00PM at the Full Cup.

Monica at Staten Island Arts created an infographic from the data that Day de Dada Illuminating Inquizitors collected at Lumen Festival in June.  

Here is a part of it, you can see it all in their blog post- 

statenislandarts.org/who-came-out-to-lumen-festival-2013/#more-5461

Kristopher Johnson photographed people at Lumen andhere is his great photo of the Day de Dada Illuminating Inquizitors.

“XFR STN” at the New Museum

“XFR STN” at the New Museum July 17 - September 8, 2013 has many affiliations with Staten Island.

“XFR STN” initially arose from the need to preserve the Monday/Wednesday/Friday Video Club distribution project. MWF was a co-op “store” of the NYC artists ́ group Colab (Collaborative Projects, Inc.). Directed by Alan Moore and Michael Carter from 1986–2000, MWF showed and sold artists’ and independent films and videos on VHS at consumer prices.

Moore, a former Staten Island resident, directed the distribution service during the 1980's in his NYC East Village apartment. MWF had an open house every Monday evening and you never knew who would show up or what would be playing on the video monitor. The club also presented special video programs throughout Manhattan.

In the 1990's the video club moved to New Brighton, Staten Island and continued programing limited special screenings, but it became primarily an online source. When Moore moved to Madrid in 2010 the video collection went into a Stapleton storage unit.

“XFR STN” at the New Museum will also address the wider need in the community of artists for access to media capture and migration services as a means to preserve creative productions stored in aging and obsolete audiovisual and digital formats.

In keeping with the original policies of the MWF Video Club, “XFR STN” will be open to any artist-originated moving image or born-digital materials whose formats have become obsolete. The exhibition/lab will operate publically, informally exhibiting the material that is transferred, as well as rendering it available online through archive.org, an internet library whose mission includes offering permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format.

“XFR STN” will serve as a collection and dissemination point for artist-produced content, as well as a hub for information about these past projects (including production materials and personal recollections).



Graphics from the MWF video collection designed by Staten Island resident Mary Campbell will be included in the project display.

Also, Staten Island resident Phil Sanders of the experimental East Village art and technology art space RYO will be digitizing videos from the 80’s, including compilations from EVTV and ArtMix ’87.

“XFR STN” is a project by Alan W. Moore with Staten Island resident Taylor Moore, Alexis Bhagat, and the artists of Collaborative Projects, supported by the Solo Foundation. It is organized by Johanna Burton, Keith Haring Director and Curator of Education and Public Engagement, with Ben Fino-Radin, Digital Conservator, Rhizome; Tara Hart, Digital Archivist, New Museum; Jen Song, Associate Director of Education, New Museum; and Ethan Swan, Coordinator, Bowery Artists Tribute.

One of my favorite things to do is to go into the PS1, James Turrell installation Meeting, a square room with a rectangular opening cut into the ceiling. The images produced in that square never bore me. And it increases respect and awe of the universe.

So I was very excited to go to the Guggenheim to see the exhibit there. And the rotunda installions is great. A few years ago I purchased a string of holiday lights that were 2" balls that changed color and the Fort Place Deli on S.I. recently renovated their front signage to changing color lights. It is so calming to sit and watch the colors slowly change from pink to orange to yellow to green to blue to purple and then do it again. At the guggenheim the ceiling installation is set with lighting that similarly changes and is a meditative experience.

The museum also has several light installions on the second floor, one that definitely plays with your vision. Are you looking at light going into the wall or is it a glowing 3D cube?

To see the installation on the fifth floor required a wait of over an hour for us. As we approached the entrance a man exiting the installation told us that we would be better to leave now and not bother waiting any longer. We laughed at him, of course he could not be an appreciator of Turrell's minimal creations like we were, and so would not understand. But the room was an let down. A grey rectangle on the wall, a few lights projecting onto the side walls, the back wall was the best with a glow on the exit.

I went to MoMA last week to see the Rain Room and was told there was a six hour wait, but could see it from the side and get in within a few minutes. Going the quick route made me happy I did not do the long wait.

So the question is after you wait over an hour for entrance to an art installation, what should you be rewarded with? How big does the prize have to be?

 

Phil Sanders at Figment on Governors Island

This was the first year that Day de Dada did not participate in Figment since the first one in 2007. So I was excited when I found that Phil Sanders project was part of Figment! Phil has been in several Day de Dada events, so we consider him part of the team. He always brings an amazing way of creating images using new technology. A digital and interactive media artist, educator, and curator, creating computer art and interactive electronic installations, he has a long resume of well respected venues.

His project "Blue Sky Palace" is based on a chalk drawing piece that he did at Snug Harbor Cultural Center for Connect the Dots in 2009, from a hand-digitized photograph of a Tibetan monk from the early 20th century. 

The Figment process included a photo portrait being taken, digitized, highly pixelated and then rendered in chalk. The  image here shows my chalk portrait and you can see in the right top corner the print of the digitized image that was used. The black chalk was running out so we got creative with the background color. A very abstracted Mary...

Here is Phil digitizing the photo

Creating the grid

And another chalk portrait

A wonderful sculpture by Victoria Bellinger. I own a few of her pieces and may have to get this one too! 

Googled her and found out that her intension is to express humanity in humor and pain. Born in Brooklyn, she has lived in every NYC borough. She trained as a painter but has been making sculpture for more than 20 years, and has illustrated 40 childrens books under the name of Victoria de Larrea.

This is at the Art By The Ferry exhibit at 60 Bay Street until July 30, 2013 along with the great capricious spirits she has created with Everet.

Okay, inspired by reading "Blogging for Bliss" by Tara Frey. Going to start posting some S.I. artworks again. Enjoy! & thanks for looking! Mary