Monthly Archives: December 2008

Laoban Soundsystem: Xmas Mixing Event at CPU:798

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My friends at the Laoban Soundsystem will be installed in the Gallery tonight presenting their new venture, the Laoban Soundsystem. This is an open invite to all artists, musicians etc. to come along and show off what they are working on. Should be an exciting, energetic evening! Come along and see works in progress.

Laoban Soundsystem 1.0 Holiday Mixing Event at CPU:798

Friday, December 12, 8 PM – 12 Midnight, Free and Open to the Public

We invite all to come out to the launch of version 1.0 of the Laoban Soundsystem for a special Holiday Mixing Event at CPU:798. This is a new type of media event where all are welcome to join, bring media, laptops, video players, cameras, and other recording devices. The goal is to mix media, explore what artists, DJs, musicians, designers, and architects are working on RIGHT NOW — successes, failures, and rough edges are welcome at Laoban events! The ultimate plan is for consumers to be producers by both mixing media, and by tagging any recordings they have with “laoban” when posting onto twitter.com, flickr.com, or other places.

identi.ca dents for 2008-12-09

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  • But about pure expression? About the a movement from the mind to the world? #
  • A grappling with reality through expression of thought, even where abstraction has it’s source in reality (what are we thinking of?) #
  • I think it’s time to move on… #
  • i like the idea of ephemeral materials used for sculpture/installation #
  • esp. natural materials, somehow shaped, formed by human hands #
  • water, air, etc. #
  • In the gallery we just had a launch for a show which will take place next year, one part of which conceptualises air as a sculpture #
  • embodying, as it were, the space of communication between people, a joint area which the participants are feeling their way around #
  • in search of understanding, understanding in this case being a concretisation of this invisible sculpture, I think #
  • understanding as an object which is understood equally, shared in this way #
  • this is something which immediately interested me about the project, although it is but a small part of the actual piece #
  • and next year, we will be hosting another artist who is working with smoke as part of her practice #
  • using it as a material to be worked on and with, forming it and letting it take it’s form within specific conditions #
  • here we have a much more formal working with the material, as opposed to the former artists who are using this more as a metaphor #
  • of course this working with intangibles has a long history in Western art #
  • in the 20thC, there was Marcel Duchamp (e.g. air de Paris), Yves Klein emphasised it’s immaterial and spritual side, Hans Haacke … #
  • … it’s ecoological/political side #
  • it’s a contradiction in terms, I know, but air seems to be the perfect medium for the development of conceptual art in the 60’s #
  • is there a WordPress plugin that works like TwitterTools, but for identi.ca? #
  • this seems to do the trick, testing it out now: http://is.gd/1Iqb #
  • jesus, after all that stuff about air, I completely forgot about what I meant to say, and which that was just a prelude to #
  • this is my theory of the friction of spaces #
  • when you see dust collecting in corners, or leaves arranging themselves in collections, or eddys of air or water, #
  • this is a direct effect of the friction of an area, creating an invisible structure which loose particles fall into #
  • so by arranging solid objects one can work at a distance with particle systems which reveal the expanded effects of the solids #
  • much like magnetic fields affecting iron filings #
  • it also has an effect on desire lines, those paths of dirt which appear in grassed areas, where the supplied paths are not satisfactory #
  • and people make their own ways #
  • i once read that landscape architects should just grass the area around buildings, leave it for a month, #
  • and then the paths that reflect people’s necessary routes are ‘naturally’ formed, and which they can then work around #
  • apparently, the concept of desire lines come from the Gaston Bachelard, in his ‘The Poetics of Space’ http://is.gd/aP68 #
  • which is a great book, by the way, and one which seems to resurface at irregular intervals in my life #
  • cooking soup, for myself, may have put too many ingredients in the pan, but who cares? #
  • forecast is for snow in BJ tomorrow #

Damien Hirst piece for Vogue China

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An edited Chinese-language translation of a piece I wrote was published in Vogue China in November 20081. These are my original texts in response to the questions the editor proposed as the structure for the piece:

Damien Hirst

Please write down why you picked Damien Hirst?

Hirst is a controversial character who gives a writer a lot of material to get their teeth into. Whatever else you think about him and whether or not you think what he does is serious, I think you have to admit he’s making some serious points about his practice as an artist and the role of art for humanity. He’s also not shy of confronting the art world’s workings and it’s position in society.

His work has gone through many stages. It has a tendency towards the theatrical or cinematic in the sense that many of the larger works create settings in which there is a gap available for the human figure to take it’s place so we become part of the work. This sumptuous theatricality tends to overshadow the fact the Hirst is primarily a conceptual artist, concerned more with the idea behind the work than the absolute form the work takes. For him craftsmanship or artistic style are all subservient to the idea behind the work – but the effectiveness of the form often leads to his work being misunderstood (especially by the tabloid press in Britain) as semi-decorative and lacking in any deep meaning. This isn’t helped by Hirst himself who can often appear flippant when asked to justify his work.

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