Category: Art

Camp Pixelache in Helsinki – A Weekend of Art, Activism, Sustainability and Technology

Camp Pixelache in Helsinki – A Weekend of Art, Activism, Sustainability and Technology

When I read the description about Camp Pixelache this Winter, an event where technology, art, activism and subcultures meet each year in Helsinki, Finland, I said to myself, “These are my people.”  I submitted a presentation topic, and went to present at the event.   I just came back from Helsinki, and have came back with lots of thing to write about, and with lots of friends and new contacts  who are doing projects related to building community, cultural production, art technology, sustainability, and activism from various countries.

This year, Camp Pixelache had a core theme of “Do It With Others” (D.I.W.O) and explored the question of “How can artists, makers, cultural producers, researchers and activists work collaboratively with each other and audiences, to create new co-production models for artifacts/events with sustainability as the core goal?”

A series of presentations around 4 core themes were organized which include Do It With Others (D.I.W.O), Creative Neighborhood Skills, The Art of Gathering Environmental Data, and Social Identity and Augmented Reality.  There also were demonstrations of electronic art and design including various open source, re/upcycling, and other “trashlab” and “hacklab” projects.

Other events at the festival included a keynote presentation, a live performance club event, and a series of professional workshops. The events were held at Arbis, a Swedish-language adult education center that is located close to the Finnish National Museum, in central Helsinki.

I gave a presentation in the early afternoon titled Powerformance which was in the festival’s track, Do It With Others (D.I.W.O.)  In my talk, I talked about the potential that interactive performance has to generate awareness and promote social change.  I made a special stretchable Euro paycheck –which we stretched at the end of my presentation.

The weekend was amazing.  I met so many interesting people and talked to others about art, technology, hope for the future, and other topics. I met others from Sweden, France, Latvia, Estonia, Germany, Finland, Portugal and England at the event.

Some of the main speakers and facilitators of the conference tracks included Marc Garrett, (Furtherfield.org, London), Pedro Soler (root.ps, Barcelona) Jennifer Gabrys, (Goldsmiths University, London) and  Owen Kelly  (Arcadia University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki) and members of the Bio Art Society of Finland.

The dialogue and presentations were engaging and exciting.  I will be posting for probably several weeks about the people, projects, and presentations that I met, experienced, and saw.     I am currently unpacking, doing laundry, and preparing my receipts.  Tomorrow I will start typing up my notes, compiling the information I got, and also connecting with others that I met at the conference.  Get ready to hear more about Camp Pixelache in future posts!

Image Source:
Pixelache website

Links:

Camp Pixelache Website

Pixelache website

Camp Pixelache Video:

 

 

 

 

 

Stretch Your Paycheck at Lunch On Friday at CIA – Pictures are up!

Stretch Your Paycheck at Lunch On Friday at CIA – Pictures are up!

Stretch your paycheck is an interactive performance where you can stretch your paycheck and get a souvenir picture that you can download, print, and share. Send to your boss, your congressman, or to the bill collector!

On Friday March 9th,  Stretch Your Paycheck was at the the Cleveland Institute of Art Lunch on Friday.

If you got your picture taken stretching your paycheck – you can download your picture at the Stretch Your Paycheck website.

 

Links:

stretchpaycheck.tumblr.com/

 

 

 

 

Stretch Your Euro Paycheck – Heading to Helsinki, Finland

Stretch Your Euro Paycheck – Heading to Helsinki, Finland

This week I made a new large stretchable  image for my Stretch Your Paycheck interactive performance.  The new money image is a Euro paycheck that features a 100 Euro bill.

I am heading to Helsinki this weekend for Camp Pixelache, a festival/conference event where I will be presenting my work, and also plan to invite others to stretch their paycheck. The event focuses on the main theme of “DIWO” – or Do It With Others – and I am interested to see how stretching the Euro translates and is received and interpreted.  This year, the Euro has been critiqued and discussed, and it will be interesting to see what meaning the piece has to others.  There are others coming to the festival from Spain, England, France, Finland, Sweden, Hungary and other countries – so it will be interesting to see what money slogans and sayings other countries have.

Stretch Your Paycheck is a interactive performance where individuals are invited to stretch a large latex image of money, get their picture taken that they can later download as a souvenir picture online.  The pictures can be saved or sent to a bill collector, Senator, or your boss.

Links:

http://stretchpaycheck.tumblr.com/

 

You Are Here – A Tree Trunk of a Different Matter

You Are Here – A Tree Trunk of a Different Matter

In March, a new public art piece was installed in Portland, OR near the Jeld-Wen Field soccer stadium which is a cast bronze sculpture that depicts a large 9-foot diameter slice of a tree trunk.  The sculpture, made by Rob Baron,  is titled “You Are Here”  and is a cast of a large tree trunk slice with growth rings, an  edge of bark, and objects embedded into it.

Instead of dots to recognize specific years or time periods, the tree is covered with small sculptural figures  and symbols that reference the history of the stadium site and the surrounding neighborhood called Goose Hollow.  The work also refer to the lumber industry that sustained Oregon’s economy for over a century and also helped build Portland into the city that it is today.

The objects in the piece came from Portland’s secondhand stores and were selected so that they referred to the culture, commerce, and sports events at the site.  Some of the objects include a tennis racket, soccer ball, a trophy, vegetables, baseball hat and glove, a Timber Jim bobble head doll, some greyhounds and a collection of cat figures (the stadium has a population of feral cats nearby.)

Baron’s idea for the piece came a Portland Timbers’ soccer game, where he saw the team’s mascot, Timber Joey, cut a slab from a log with a chainsaw each time the team scored a goal.  The wood slabs are presented to the team members who scored the goal after each match.

The sculpture was supported by the Percent-for-Art program, which supports the policy requiring that 2 percent of the budget on large projects be spent on permanent public art installations.

Image Source:
artsamerica.org

 

Links:

www.ronbaron.net/

artsamerica.org

Kbaumlier’s Food Images to be Shown on Billboard in Detroit, MI

Kbaumlier’s Food Images to be Shown on Billboard in Detroit, MI

Today I just submitted 45 images to the Digital Billboard Art Project, a project where artists can submit images to be displayed on a public digital billboard.  My images will be shown from May 28 – June 24, 2012 in the Detroit Metro area (Macomb County), MI.

I submitted slides about food – and made a series of images where foods are shown in both abstract and recognizable views, combined with words and slogans often used by advertisers to promote packaged food.  A tomato with the word “SAME GREAT TASTE,” a papaya with the words “50% LESS FAT*” and images of rice, soybeans, a peach, and cheese are in the series.

Each of the food featured in the series has an interesting story related to genetic engineering or modern farming practices.  I am interested to have the images show in Detroit, a city where it is reported that over half of the residents do not have easy access to nutritious food.

The Billboard Art Project is a project that acquires digital billboards normally used for advertising and repurposes them as roadside galleries – showing images from artists. Types of work that may be displayed include images created specifically for the billboard as well as images of previously made art adapted to the format. No two Billboard Art Project shows are alike; each city features new work.

The project was started by David Morrison, who got interested in this venue when seeing test images on a new billboard being played in 2005.   He writes, “ Advertising is so epidemic and pervasive that people pay good money for clothes so that they can advertise corporate entities like Polo, Tommy Hilfiger, and their favorite sports team… So, when you see a billboard that isn’t telling you what to buy or who to trust, it carries the impact of the unexpected.”

In 2010, he acquired 24 hours of time from Lamar Advertising in October 2010. The billboard time was purchased and a date set.  When he was discussing the project with a friend, he immediately asked to participate, and soon a call for artists was sent out through email.  At this first project, the Richmond Virginia Art project had over 30 participants with images that ranged from being serious to comical.

This year upcoming shows include other locations such as Richmond, VA; Salem, OR; Albany, NY, and Atlanta, GA.  The Detroit show is unique in that the images will be up in a month.  I will post again when the show opens, and also when the documentation of the billboard is up.

 

Links:

Billboard Art Project