CHECK OUT FOOTAGE OF THE PARASITE:
"The Phoenix of Hosts"
Smith and Copenhaver Information
2011 OKMOZART VISUAL ARTIST
Craig Smith is currently in residence as the 2011 OK Mozart Festival visiting artist. The festival will host an exhibition by Smith of new photomontages visually exploring competitive sports, athletic venues, and serene Oklahoma vistas. The exhibition will take place from June 10-June 18, 2011 at the Lyon Gallery in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
EXHIBITION INFORMATION HERE
The 2011 OK Mozart Festival will also feature two live music performances including Smith:
The 2011 OK Mozart Festival will also feature two live music performances including Smith:
The Parasite: A Sound and Text Composition
Craig Smith and Dave Copenhaver
Wednesday, June 15th, 9:30pm
The Copper Bar at the Price Tower Arts Center
A live set combing original sound work by Smith and Copenhaver with adaptations of The Parasite by Michel Serres. New Album Release of The Parasite on CD and 180 Gram LP available from Lunacy Records!!!
An incredible reunion of Oklahoma musicians including former band members of Blemish and the Chainsaw Kittens.
Craig Smith and Dave Copenhaver
Wednesday, June 15th, 9:30pm
The Copper Bar at the Price Tower Arts Center
A live set combing original sound work by Smith and Copenhaver with adaptations of The Parasite by Michel Serres. New Album Release of The Parasite on CD and 180 Gram LP available from Lunacy Records!!!
Links:
LUNACY RECORDS
PRICE TOWER ARTS CENTER (COPPER BAR)
THE PARASITE BY MICHEL SERRES
The Reverand Omatic Big Band
Craig Smith, Kevin O'Brian, Mark Metzger, Dave Copenhaver, Aaron McGoldrick
Saturday, June 18th, 10:00pm
Frank and Lola's
LUNACY RECORDS
PRICE TOWER ARTS CENTER (COPPER BAR)
THE PARASITE BY MICHEL SERRES
The Reverand Omatic Big Band
Craig Smith, Kevin O'Brian, Mark Metzger, Dave Copenhaver, Aaron McGoldrick
Saturday, June 18th, 10:00pm
Frank and Lola's
An incredible reunion of Oklahoma musicians including former band members of Blemish and the Chainsaw Kittens.
Links:
THE PARASITE: ALBUM RELEASE JUNE 2011
The Parasite: A Sound and Text Composition
New Album Available in June from Lunacy Records
CD and Ltd. Edition, 180 Gram Vinyl
New Album Available in June from Lunacy Records
CD and Ltd. Edition, 180 Gram Vinyl
CRAIG SMITH : NEW YORK CITY 2011
Craig Smith will be featured with W.J.T. Mitchell, Anne Marie Oliver, Wiebke Leister, and others at the College Art Association's National Conference (NYC) in February, 2011.
The event will be entitled: "What is Visual Studies? An Open Forum"
Date and Program information to follow.
CRAIG SMITH: INTERFACE REGIONALS
Craig Smith will be presenting an illustrated lecture entitled Interface; the Move to Global Participation as part of the upcoming regional conferences of the Society for Photographic Education hosted by Western Michigan University and Florida State University.
Conference information is available at the links featured below.
SPE MW Regionals
Western Michigan University:
http://www.midwestspe.org/
SPE SE Regionals
Florida State University:
http://spese2010.blogspot.com/
CRAIG SMITH - SAN DIEGO 2010
Crowd Responsibility:
Time, Endurance, and Spectatorship in Participatory Culture
Organizer and Moderator: Craig Smith, University of Florida (c.smith@ufl.edu)
Nov. 4-6, 2010
San Diego, USA
This conference session and live, visual presentation event considers audience participation in live sporting events (i.e., organized, collegelevel sports or simultaneous displays of multiple events in one venue as is the case in athletics, swimming, gymnastics, equestrian trials, chess tournaments or high-school wrestling).
The session will focus on multiple ‘forms’ of audience participation and spectatorship as ‘usertechnology’ relations for social interactivity and most specifically those conducted through technological systems (Bijker, 1997).
Audience participation in the time and space of a sports event will be considered for its affective capacities and integration into the manner and results of the events. Presentations will establish distinct theoretical positions for: (a) the reification of passive, beholden viewing at live sports events; (b) physical engagement and technologically mediated interactivity for spectators; and/or (c) technologies of immersion and interactivity for contemporary sports venues and installations of art exhibitions.
Participants Include:
Craig Smith (University of Florida)
Goetz Bachmann (University of London) and Rufus Weston (BBC, UK)
Colin Beatty (PricewaterhouseCoopers)
Sam Morris (the Ohio State University)
The event is hosted by the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport.
Event Information:
http://www.nasss.org/
CRAIG SMITH: SYDNEY 2010
Talking HEADS
An exhibition by Craig Smith
Opening Tuesday evening April 13th, 2010
(Oratory in gallery on April 12th.)
SCA Gallery, Sydney College of Arts
Rozelle, Sydney
Australia
Smith's exhibition will include an installation of photographic 'lyrics' in the basketball court of a former state mental asylum (now the campus of the Sydney College of the Arts) and a live action 'on court' throughout the day on the 12th of April.The exhibition will use both printed and time-based media which combine human-performed oratories with computer-moderated language systems. An installation of small books created by the artist while in residence at ARTSPACE (2010) will be used to create a unique ‘reading’ of lyrical verses featuring didactic and motivational aphorisms. A selection of these lyrical verses will also be included as 2-D printed works installed on the walls of the SCA Gallery. The lyrics in both book and 2-D media attempt to classify the potential and necessity of social engagement in cultural production.
Photograph by Sach, 2010
CRAIG SMITH: HONG KONG 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
"How Do We Recognize Interactivity?"
A lecture by the artist Craig Smith hosted by the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong.
"How Do We Recognize Interactivity?"
A lecture by the artist Craig Smith hosted by the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
On the Subject: The Photographic in Digital Culture
A workshop led by Dr. Craig Smith and hosted by the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong.
On the Subject: The Photographic in Digital Culture
A workshop led by Dr. Craig Smith and hosted by the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong.
FAILURE IN THE ARTS: Buffalo NY USA
What: A Conference on Failure In The Arts
Who: Colin Beatty, Karen Lewis, Gary Nickard, Craig Smith, Ben Van Dyke, & Gayle Young,
Where: The CFA 112 (Screening Room) - State University of New York at Buffalo
When: Friday, February 12
10:30AM Panel Discussion
12:00 PM Lunch Break
1:30 Keynote Presentation
In a culture seemingly enthralled by the mythology of Horatio Alger and Cinderella stories, “failure” has become a dirty word. The American Dream is predicated upon “success” in all things especially in the realms of business and celebrity. The arts are not immune to this obsessive pursuit and since the “boom years” of the 1990’s, many artists have adopted a business model for their practice and have embraced ambition and careerism as a central tenant of their art.
What do radioactivity, stainless steel and penicillin all have in common? They were discovered as a consequence of accident and the failure of the original planned outcome. In the world of science it is well recognized that monumental disasters can lead to unbelievably important discoveries. Science is based upon the idea of the experiment – and intrinsic to the experiment is the possibility of failure! If success was to always be expected scientists wouldn’t use the term experiment – they would call it “engineering.” Yet in the arts why is there no similar embrace of not only the possibility of failure, but also its enormous potential as a creative act?
It takes a creative and critical mind to see the possibilities of something wonderful in failure. In the past avant-garde and conceptual Artists have embraced the possibility of error and failure – examples range from Jean Tinguley’s self-destructing sculptures to Bruce Nauman’s futile attempts to levitate off the floor of his studio.
Can failure be embraced as a creative act? Why is failure considered unsuccessful in the first place and how can it be transformed into something meaningful? Can an unforeseen mishap or even an unmitigated disaster be a radical departure from the predictable outcome and lead to a moment of extraordinary discovery? In this light success seems more to be conformity with expectations and the banality of the “tried and true.”
This conference will feature a keynote presentation by:
Karen Lewis, an Assistant Professor of Architecture at The Ohio State University whose design research examines the intersection of graphic and infrastructural systems. Recent projects include Stock Exchange, an analysis, exhibition and proposal for the Bluegrass Stockyard, the largest stockyard East of the Mississippi River; Yellowtown, an examination of the relationship between signage, urban development and race; and Start / Gap, which visualizes human trafficking patterns and proposes ways to interrupt this exchange. Most recently, Professor Lewis was awarded the ACSA New Faculty Teaching Award. In 2006 Professor Lewis began a professional practice, Influx Studio, with Jason Kentner, Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Ohio State University. Influx Studio has been recognized in several international competitions. Their proposal, Memory Trail, was selected as one of five final designs for the Flight 93 9/11 Memorial in Somerset, PA. 110% Juice, a collaborative design for an off-shore wind farm in Cape Cod, was recognized by the Boston Society of Architects. This past fall, their proposal for The Bronx Grand Concourse Intersections competition, Inner Space, was exhibited at the Architecture Center in New York. Karen Lewis holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Architecture from Wellesley College and a Master of Architecture degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
The Panelists will include:
Colin Beatty is an artist and healthcare consultant; Currently, Colin is in the US Healthcare Provider Practice for PricewaterhouseCoopers’ and is based in Boston. Colin obtained his M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, additionally holds a Maters degree in Fine Arts from Stanford University, an EMT certification from UCLA medical, was a studio participant of the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York, and has been an exhibiting artist of a range of media including painting, sculpture, installation, ongoing participation in works organized by Craig Smith, and more recently, self production of parafictional performance work in such venues as banking institutions, government healthcare agencies, and national regulatory groups.
Gary Nickard explores the space between visual art and literature while engaging such diverse topics as science, philosophy, psychoanalysis and various historical knowledge systems. He works in photography, installation and various time-based media as well as electronic music. He joined the UB Art Department in 1995. He received a Bachelor of Arts (1978), Master of Arts Humanities (1982), and a Master of Fine Arts (1986), Master of Arts (2004) and Doctor of Philosophy (2006) in Comparative Literature, all from the University at Buffalo. His prior professional experience includes stints as Executive Director / Curator of CEPA Gallery Buffalo, NY (81-88), Associate Curator, Alternative Museum, New York, NY (88-90), Director, Burden Gallery Aperture Foundation, New York, NY (90-91) and Director of Programs / Curator, Artists Space, New York, NY (92-94). He has published a number of critical essays in Afterimage, Exposure and Border Crossings Magazines (among others) and has done editorial work for Aperture Magazine.
Craig Smith is a London-based media artist whose art and research focuses on the process, aesthetics, and ethics of human-to-human interactivity in contemporary art. Smith’s practice includes the production of photography, performance art, video, writing and lectures. He has been featured at an international range of venues including the PS1,MOMA Contemporary Art Institute, The Tate Modern, The George Eastman House, The Hudson River Museum and galleries including Galerie Schuster Photo (Berlin), RARE Art (New York), The Kent Gallery and White Columns (New York). Smith’s practice and research has been supported through foundation awards, grants, fellowships and residencies. His work is also supported through close collaborations with a group of artists including the performance group C (with Lilah Freedland and Matthew Bakkom) and SmithBeatty(with Colin Beatty).
Benjamin Van Dyke received his MFA from the University of Michigan in 2006 and between 1997 and 2003, he worked as an Art Director in Western Michigan. Since running like hell from the advertising industry in 2003, he has been involved in more than 40 typography and Design exhibitions in North America, Europe, and Asia. In 2006, Van Dyke was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to The Netherlands. During this time, he was an Artist-in-Residence at NLXL in The Hague and worked on design projects for clients such as the European Space Agency, DOK Architecten, Weiden + Kennedy Amsterdam, PTT, Holland NS, The Koorenhuis, KPN, and The Roderick Danstheater. Following his work in The Netherlands, Van Dyke was invited to join the Visual Studies faculty at The State University of New York at Buffalo, where he is Head of the Graphic Design program.
Gayle Young began in the late 1970s to present concerts as a composer/performer, playing microtonal music on two acoustic instruments of her own design. She has also been involved in soundscape — a term parallel to ‘landscape’ which brings attention to sonic surroundings — and has used pre-recorded and audio in her work. She often discusses the intentions of her music with audiences, and has written many articles on her own work and that of other artists, addressing issues related to contemporary sound arts. Young wrote the biography of Hugh Le Caine (1914-1977), an early inventor of electronic music instruments, and created an oral history of the early years of electronic music while undertaking research for this book. She has collaborated with visual artist Reinhard Retizenstein on several sound installations, and continues her activity as composer, performer and writer, speculating most recently about limits imposed by cultural constructs such as language on the imagination. She is the publisher of Musicworks Magazine.
CRAIG SMITH-PARIS 2009
Recent Works by Smith including collaborations with Colin Beatty.
Parsons Paris-November 16-28, 2009
http://www.craigsmithparis2009.com
This exhibition will include selections from recent bodies of work by Craig Smith. These include the ‘HRM Drawings’ produced with Colin Beatty and ‘Tag South.’
The series HRM Drawings were produced in a live, collaborative art event produced by Craig Smith and Colin Beatty. The event, staged during the summer of 2007, was held in the ‘Riverama’ exhibition space of the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers NY. This space is used by the museum as a permanent teaching gallery. The gallery features a section of the historic Hudson River (Northeastern United States) represented through a ten metre long diorama. The diorama is marked with numbered sections illustrating particular botanical and geologic features of the actual river system.
Smith and Beatty created this series of ink drawings, carbon transfers and graphite rubbings on the surface of the diorama, following a series of performance operations established by the artists in relation to the exhibition space. The operations included flying remote control helicopters throughout the exhibition space and over the representation of the river system. After landing the helicopters on the diorama each landing area was numbered to its corresponding area. These numbers correspond to those appearing in the drawings, linking the diorama, the actions of the performance, and the drawings. Further, each landing area on the diorama differed in its geological representation or ‘surface conditions.’ The surface conditions directed further marks (rubbings and tracings) by the artists onto each drawing; marks which demonstrate a human body adapting to the conditions of the actual river system.
The Tag South diptych presents two separate surfaces upon which physical, sporting engagement is possible. Instead of imaging such engagement, the images remain surfaces for potential engagement, that which has happened or has yet to happen. Like the damming of water systems in the American Midwest, Tag South has been created in locations resulting from physical interaction. Tag South was created between the boundaries of university intramural athletic fields in the state of Florida, USA. The state of Florida produces a repeating ‘set’ of high-tier athletes each year in their public high schools and universities. Additionally, the state benefits economically from a generous arrangement of professional sports facilities and recreation areas. Thus Tag South is an assembly that combines the space and time for particular, physical activities by human bodies with economic affects and pedagogical impact.
Craig Smith uses the photographic to provide a comprehensive ‘demonstration’ image. The ‘demonstration’ image is an organised, totalised set of procedural methods. These methods are intended to outline the successive steps necessary to stage an audience’s encounter with an artwork and with an artist. A demonstration image allows the photograph to operate like a witness, calling out with an exaggerated sense of the circumstances leading to its production. This application of the photographic as a ‘demonstration’ is therefore an attempt by the artist to visually compose the total and complete system of a relational artwork. Such a composition includes a visual record of the event and of the sentiment and dialogue that can exist between an image and a viewer.
http://fatalfieldgoal.blogspot.com/
http://www.craigsmithparis2009.com/
http://www.parisphoto.fr/
Parsons Paris-November 16-28, 2009
http://www.
This exhibition will include selections from recent bodies of work by Craig Smith. These include the ‘HRM Drawings’ produced with Colin Beatty and ‘Tag South.’
The series HRM Drawings were produced in a live, collaborative art event produced by Craig Smith and Colin Beatty. The event, staged during the summer of 2007, was held in the ‘Riverama’ exhibition space of the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers NY. This space is used by the museum as a permanent teaching gallery. The gallery features a section of the historic Hudson River (Northeastern United States) represented through a ten metre long diorama. The diorama is marked with numbered sections illustrating particular botanical and geologic features of the actual river system.
Smith and Beatty created this series of ink drawings, carbon transfers and graphite rubbings on the surface of the diorama, following a series of performance operations established by the artists in relation to the exhibition space. The operations included flying remote control helicopters throughout the exhibition space and over the representation of the river system. After landing the helicopters on the diorama each landing area was numbered to its corresponding area. These numbers correspond to those appearing in the drawings, linking the diorama, the actions of the performance, and the drawings. Further, each landing area on the diorama differed in its geological representation or ‘surface conditions.’ The surface conditions directed further marks (rubbings and tracings) by the artists onto each drawing; marks which demonstrate a human body adapting to the conditions of the actual river system.
The Tag South diptych presents two separate surfaces upon which physical, sporting engagement is possible. Instead of imaging such engagement, the images remain surfaces for potential engagement, that which has happened or has yet to happen. Like the damming of water systems in the American Midwest, Tag South has been created in locations resulting from physical interaction. Tag South was created between the boundaries of university intramural athletic fields in the state of Florida, USA. The state of Florida produces a repeating ‘set’ of high-tier athletes each year in their public high schools and universities. Additionally, the state benefits economically from a generous arrangement of professional sports facilities and recreation areas. Thus Tag South is an assembly that combines the space and time for particular, physical activities by human bodies with economic affects and pedagogical impact.
Craig Smith uses the photographic to provide a comprehensive ‘demonstration’ image. The ‘demonstration’ image is an organised, totalised set of procedural methods. These methods are intended to outline the successive steps necessary to stage an audience’s encounter with an artwork and with an artist. A demonstration image allows the photograph to operate like a witness, calling out with an exaggerated sense of the circumstances leading to its production. This application of the photographic as a ‘demonstration’ is therefore an attempt by the artist to visually compose the total and complete system of a relational artwork. Such a composition includes a visual record of the event and of the sentiment and dialogue that can exist between an image and a viewer.
http://fatalfieldgoal.
http://www.craigsmithparis2009.com/
http://www.parisphoto.fr/
MONSTERS OF NATURE AND DESIGN III
FRIDAY JUNE 26 2009
Craig Smith, Colin Beatty, Gary Nickard, Reinhard Reitzenstein, and the Vorechestra.
Big Orbit Gallery is pleased to present,
in collaboration with the Burchfield-Penney Art Center, Monsters of Nature and Design III.
FROM TOP: The Burchfield Penney Art Centre, Photography by Biff Heinrich
Monsters of Nature and Design III, Photography by Amy Luraschi
Monsters of Nature and Design III (Smith/Beatty). Photography by Sean Donaher
Monsters of Nature and Design III (Nickard, Reitzenstein) Photography by Julie Knox.
Click here to see video documentation:
Click below for previews and discussion:
http://www.buffalorising.com/2009/06/monsters-of-nature-and-design-iii-critiques-sports-at-burchfield-penney.html
http://www.buffalonews.com/entertainment/story/717269.html
http://blogs.buffalonews.com/artsbeat/2009/06/monsters-of-nature-and-design.html
Craig Smith's Training Manual for Relational Art was exhibited at the Big Orbit Gallery between May and July, 2009.
Craig Smith, Colin Beatty, Gary Nickard, Reinhard Reitzenstein, and the Vorechestra.
Big Orbit Gallery is pleased to present,
in collaboration with the Burchfield-Penney Art Center, Monsters of Nature and Design III.
FROM TOP: The Burchfield Penney Art Centre, Photography by Biff Heinrich
Monsters of Nature and Design III, Photography by Amy Luraschi
Monsters of Nature and Design III (Smith/Beatty). Photography by Sean Donaher
Monsters of Nature and Design III (Nickard, Reitzenstein) Photography by Julie Knox.
Click here to see video documentation:
Click below for previews and discussion:
http://www.buffalorising.com/2009/06/monsters-of-nature-and-design-iii-critiques-sports-at-burchfield-penney.html
http://www.buffalonews.com/entertainment/story/717269.html
http://blogs.buffalonews.com/artsbeat/2009/06/monsters-of-nature-and-design.html
Craig Smith's Training Manual for Relational Art was exhibited at the Big Orbit Gallery between May and July, 2009.
TRAINING MANUAL FOR RELATIONAL ART
In 2009 the Big Orbit Gallery will host an exhibition of photography, video and installation artworks by London based artist Craig Smith. The exhibition has been accompanied by the publication of a catalog with essays by the curator Sean Donaher and by Craig Smith. (Catalogs available through Big Orbit Gallery.)
The photographs have been produced, in part, through three distinct, water-borne performances by Smith and his collaborator Colin Beatty (Boston USA). The performances feature the two men engaged in a series of push and pull activities coordinating the machinic action of chartered Niagara Falls helicopters and New England tug boats.
The coordination of these activities has been based on the measurable force(s) exerted by the human body with and against the machinic force of the helicopters and tugboats. The images also feature the texture and colour coding of communication between machine and human body. These forms for communication include coloured smoke, wind shear, momentum, and wireless/ mobile speaking and recording devices. The performer’s bodies can be seen in moments of extreme struggle but also at times of smooth, synchronized, coordinated movement and connection with the machines that sustain them.
The research context for this exhibition includes recent theoretical and historical publications on the 1966 installation, peformance and collaborative exhbition entitled: 9 Evenings (NYC Armoury, USA). The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's List Visual Arts Centre published a catalogue of essays and image reproductions focused on this 1966 event in its 2006 exhibition entitled: 9 Evenings Reconsidered: Art, Theatre and Engineering (curated by Catherine Morris and supported, in part, by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts). 9 Evenings was a multiple-day series of performances utilizing physical action including dance, tennis and the playing of music by artists collaborating with technicians from Bell Laboratories (USA). Their collaborations aimed to produce multi-sensory experiences for the viewer, combining the aesthetics of the live art event simultaneously with that of a visual art exhibition.
In all of these new and contextual foundations for the exhbition, the images the performances coordinating human and machinic forces propose a differentiation of strictly land-bound or terrestrial modes to explore site-specificity and endurance artworks. Thus, the atmosphere (helicopter) and the water (tugboat) have been employed as two areas in which the human body is ‘immersed’ through the action of performance. Immersion becomes a category for classifying and formalizing the integration of human body and machine at the time of the action as well as in the context of an exhibition of contemporary, visual art forms. The result of producing ‘immersion’ as a new contextual or classification category for contemporary performance and visual art will be realized in a published monograph accompanying the exhibition. This monograph will feature articles developing a literary articulation of ‘immersion’ and photographic reproductions of the performances to further illustrate and clarify this contextual category.
http://www.bigorbitgallery.org/
The photographs have been produced, in part, through three distinct, water-borne performances by Smith and his collaborator Colin Beatty (Boston USA). The performances feature the two men engaged in a series of push and pull activities coordinating the machinic action of chartered Niagara Falls helicopters and New England tug boats.
The coordination of these activities has been based on the measurable force(s) exerted by the human body with and against the machinic force of the helicopters and tugboats. The images also feature the texture and colour coding of communication between machine and human body. These forms for communication include coloured smoke, wind shear, momentum, and wireless/ mobile speaking and recording devices. The performer’s bodies can be seen in moments of extreme struggle but also at times of smooth, synchronized, coordinated movement and connection with the machines that sustain them.
The research context for this exhibition includes recent theoretical and historical publications on the 1966 installation, peformance and collaborative exhbition entitled: 9 Evenings (NYC Armoury, USA). The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's List Visual Arts Centre published a catalogue of essays and image reproductions focused on this 1966 event in its 2006 exhibition entitled: 9 Evenings Reconsidered: Art, Theatre and Engineering (curated by Catherine Morris and supported, in part, by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts). 9 Evenings was a multiple-day series of performances utilizing physical action including dance, tennis and the playing of music by artists collaborating with technicians from Bell Laboratories (USA). Their collaborations aimed to produce multi-sensory experiences for the viewer, combining the aesthetics of the live art event simultaneously with that of a visual art exhibition.
In all of these new and contextual foundations for the exhbition, the images the performances coordinating human and machinic forces propose a differentiation of strictly land-bound or terrestrial modes to explore site-specificity and endurance artworks. Thus, the atmosphere (helicopter) and the water (tugboat) have been employed as two areas in which the human body is ‘immersed’ through the action of performance. Immersion becomes a category for classifying and formalizing the integration of human body and machine at the time of the action as well as in the context of an exhibition of contemporary, visual art forms. The result of producing ‘immersion’ as a new contextual or classification category for contemporary performance and visual art will be realized in a published monograph accompanying the exhibition. This monograph will feature articles developing a literary articulation of ‘immersion’ and photographic reproductions of the performances to further illustrate and clarify this contextual category.
http://www.bigorbitgallery.org/
SMITHBEATTY: PARTNERWORK
Craig Smith and Colin Beatty, Live in London!
9 Hours of continuous action in the gymnasium at St. Martin's Lane Hotel.
9 Hours of continuous action in the gymnasium at St. Martin's Lane Hotel.
CRAIG SMITH: DUNDEE SCOTLAND 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
A lecture by Craig Smith at the 2009 Film-Philosophy Conference on the theoretical and technological construct of 'interface.'
This presentation is hosted by the University of Dundee and the journal Film-Philosophy. The conference keynote speaker will be: Alain Badiou.
A lecture by Craig Smith at the 2009 Film-Philosophy Conference on the theoretical and technological construct of 'interface.'
This presentation is hosted by the University of Dundee and the journal Film-Philosophy. The conference keynote speaker will be: Alain Badiou.
TOP: Craig Smith riding Matthew Bakkom's Cinevator. (Photography by Matthew Bakkom)
BOTTOM: George Romero's Night of the Living Dead.
BOTTOM: George Romero's Night of the Living Dead.
Abstract:
This paper uses examples from the work of American artist Matthew Bakkom (Born 1968) and of Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (Born 1967) to demonstrate significant differences between models of ‘interface’ and those of ‘interactivity’ in contemporary installations of projected film, video and photographic media. This media includes both traditional forms of projected celluloid film (Bakkom) as well as midi-synthesized and responsive forms of electronic and digital media including, but not limited to, video (Lozano-Hemmer).
The paper will seek to define and demonstrate ‘interface’ as a specific construct that has perpetuated the evolution of cinematic events into relational forms conducted through theories and practices of audience participation (Kaprow, Agamben), duration (Viola, Bergson) and site-specificity (Kwon, Deleuze). The paper will emphasize that the interface of relational forms designates a significant conceptual shift from user-to-technology (interactive) engagements to the instrumentalisation of a globally distributed "participant team." This "team" is simultaneously engaged with the event of time-based media across multiple locations in successive or simultaneous arrangements. The paper considers these works as those which take a relational approach, following the 21st Century, multi-national curating of Nicolas Bourriaud who applies David Harvey’s concepts of the dynamics of human value to the contradictions inherent in the relations of capital.
The paper will use visual illustrations and diagrams of two artworks by Matthew Bakkom (The Intimacy Machine, 1998 and The Cinevator, 2000) and one repeating installation of work (originally commissioned by the East Midlands Development Agency) by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (Under Scan, 2005-present). The artists’ works create references across media formats in their critique and application of projected, interactive film and projected media requiring community participation. Under the dynamic theme of interactivity, the artists’ work references a diverse range of ideals for community participation such as self-betterment, democracy, populism, truth, contingency, nationalism and representation. A crucial aspect shared by these three illustrated examples is each artwork’s inability to function without the participation of an audience (group) or viewer (individual). The paper will recount successive moments of participation and describe the dynamic actions of participation for each of these artworks. These moments and actions of participation, as well as the technological forms that structure such participation, will be mapped upon one of the two categories of ‘interactivity’ and ‘interface.’
The author hopes that the mapping of these categories can be applied by artists, curators and other researchers to distinguish ‘interface’ in theories of expanded cinema and related lens-based, projected media practices from those practices and audience engagements traditionally defined as ‘interactive.’
The paper will seek to define and demonstrate ‘interface’ as a specific construct that has perpetuated the evolution of cinematic events into relational forms conducted through theories and practices of audience participation (Kaprow, Agamben), duration (Viola, Bergson) and site-specificity (Kwon, Deleuze). The paper will emphasize that the interface of relational forms designates a significant conceptual shift from user-to-technology (interactive) engagements to the instrumentalisation of a globally distributed "participant team." This "team" is simultaneously engaged with the event of time-based media across multiple locations in successive or simultaneous arrangements. The paper considers these works as those which take a relational approach, following the 21st Century, multi-national curating of Nicolas Bourriaud who applies David Harvey’s concepts of the dynamics of human value to the contradictions inherent in the relations of capital.
The paper will use visual illustrations and diagrams of two artworks by Matthew Bakkom (The Intimacy Machine, 1998 and The Cinevator, 2000) and one repeating installation of work (originally commissioned by the East Midlands Development Agency) by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (Under Scan, 2005-present). The artists’ works create references across media formats in their critique and application of projected, interactive film and projected media requiring community participation. Under the dynamic theme of interactivity, the artists’ work references a diverse range of ideals for community participation such as self-betterment, democracy, populism, truth, contingency, nationalism and representation. A crucial aspect shared by these three illustrated examples is each artwork’s inability to function without the participation of an audience (group) or viewer (individual). The paper will recount successive moments of participation and describe the dynamic actions of participation for each of these artworks. These moments and actions of participation, as well as the technological forms that structure such participation, will be mapped upon one of the two categories of ‘interactivity’ and ‘interface.’
The author hopes that the mapping of these categories can be applied by artists, curators and other researchers to distinguish ‘interface’ in theories of expanded cinema and related lens-based, projected media practices from those practices and audience engagements traditionally defined as ‘interactive.’
Registration and Programme Information:
http://www.film-philosophy.com/conference/
Support for INTERFACE: THE MOVE TO GLOBAL PARTICIPATION provided in part by the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London.
http://www.film-philosophy.com/conference/
Support for INTERFACE: THE MOVE TO GLOBAL PARTICIPATION provided in part by the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London.
SMITHBEATTY SWIM TURNS
Craig Smith uses the photographic to provide a comprehensive ‘demonstration’ image. The ‘demonstration’ image is an organised, totalised set of procedural methods. These methods are intended to outline the successive steps necessary to stage an audience’s encounter with an artwork and with an artist. A demonstration image allows the photograph to operate like a witness, calling out with an exaggerated sense of the circumstances leading to its production.
In the Swim Turns Craig Smith and Colin Beatty used the momentum of Massachusetts Water Taxis to suspend themselves upon the surface of the Boston Harbor. Upon suspension the artists performed a series of choreographed movements along with newly emerging, spontaneous movements. These movements were intended to moderate the visual demonstration of the human body opposed or in confluence with forces of gravity and sources of momentum.
Turnaround/ Stepover. Boston Harbour 2008. Digital C-Print
Stepover 2. Boston Harbour 2008. Digital C-Print
By doing so Smith and Beatty's move erupt upon the surface which suspends them. Not aerial, not submerged, but suspended through repeating, durational exercises. This application of the photographic as a ‘demonstration’ of the body and surface is an attempt by the artist to visually compose the total and complete system of a relational artwork. Such a composition includes a visual record of the event and of the sentiment and dialogue that can exist between an image and a viewer.
MAKING MAKING MAKING: C at RARE GALLERY - NEW YORK
C is Matthew Bakkom, Lilah Freedland and Craig Smith.
Performance and exhibition at RARE, NEW YORK CITY.
Performance and exhibition at RARE, NEW YORK CITY.
PRESENTATION/ REPRESENTATION
Craig Smith presents:
Presentation and Representation in Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer
Theatricality and Delinquency in Michel Foucault's Discpline and Punish
A seminar for the London College of Communication, Faculty of Media, October 2009.
Smith convening Fine Art Graduate Seminar.
State University of New York at Buffalo. 4/2009
References:
Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer; Sovereign Power and Bare Life. (Trans. By Daniel Heller-Roazen.) Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish; The Birth of the Prison. (Trans. by Alan Sheridan.) London: Penguin Books, 1991 (1977).
Presentation and Representation in Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer
Theatricality and Delinquency in Michel Foucault's Discpline and Punish
A seminar for the London College of Communication, Faculty of Media, October 2009.
Smith convening Fine Art Graduate Seminar.
State University of New York at Buffalo. 4/2009
Some intentions of the seminar and the artist:
I am invested in the creation and analysis (through my art practice and research) of Relational Art practices or those practices named as art by the practitioner, starting from a conceptual origin and realized in the time/ space and event of an exhibition, performance, or any specific time/space to be encountered (that which is designated or made ‘sacred’ by the artist). These practices often include the use of the artist himself/ herself; not as a self-portrait but as a ‘social representative’ involved in an aesthetic arrangement that parallels and eventually intersects real, lived life. Relational Art practices also situate a change in the consideration of the art audience. This is a change from considering the audience as a ‘beholder’ of images and instead posits the audience as being an integral, formal element used in the making of the work. The audience is being combined with the artist in the making material or actualizing of the conceptual framework for the artwork.
With this interest, and coming to performance and media art practices from a background in music composition I am trying to understand or at least to make trouble for dominant writings on the media object that treat it solely as a medium for ‘representation.’ I wonder what else can it do in an era of free-market capitalism- or at least during the tail end of such an era. What do global communication networks, virtual aesthetics and relayed theatrical productions of dynamic media make possible for informed, political practice? The economy and notion of spectacle in 2009 is different than that of 1968….but the ‘limits’ posed on the manner in which/ and the categories through which these issues are discussed has been similar over the 40 years.
One of the things this brings up for me, for my use and analysis of media, are relations to ‘truth’ (gasp)….to represent the real….we can deconstruct this yes, through the application of Jacques Derrida’s analysis of cruel theatre and of the postcard and of the act of writing….but I’m curious for all that deconstruction, the ‘real’ and the ‘representation’ of the real continue to be a dominant force in the writing and expectations (curating, historical writing) of media art production.
This is why the Agamben….as he looks at processes, truth processes, for the application of late 19th century scientific methods (the use of photography among them) to consider the plight of the human body engaged in events that are both representational of truth and of a model for mankind to emulate, but also a presentation of unintelligible realities, horrors or revolting potentials that have yet to be lived by the reader, viewer or receiver of the image / message.
I am invested in the creation and analysis (through my art practice and research) of Relational Art practices or those practices named as art by the practitioner, starting from a conceptual origin and realized in the time/ space and event of an exhibition, performance, or any specific time/space to be encountered (that which is designated or made ‘sacred’ by the artist). These practices often include the use of the artist himself/ herself; not as a self-portrait but as a ‘social representative’ involved in an aesthetic arrangement that parallels and eventually intersects real, lived life. Relational Art practices also situate a change in the consideration of the art audience. This is a change from considering the audience as a ‘beholder’ of images and instead posits the audience as being an integral, formal element used in the making of the work. The audience is being combined with the artist in the making material or actualizing of the conceptual framework for the artwork.
With this interest, and coming to performance and media art practices from a background in music composition I am trying to understand or at least to make trouble for dominant writings on the media object that treat it solely as a medium for ‘representation.’ I wonder what else can it do in an era of free-market capitalism- or at least during the tail end of such an era. What do global communication networks, virtual aesthetics and relayed theatrical productions of dynamic media make possible for informed, political practice? The economy and notion of spectacle in 2009 is different than that of 1968….but the ‘limits’ posed on the manner in which/ and the categories through which these issues are discussed has been similar over the 40 years.
One of the things this brings up for me, for my use and analysis of media, are relations to ‘truth’ (gasp)….to represent the real….we can deconstruct this yes, through the application of Jacques Derrida’s analysis of cruel theatre and of the postcard and of the act of writing….but I’m curious for all that deconstruction, the ‘real’ and the ‘representation’ of the real continue to be a dominant force in the writing and expectations (curating, historical writing) of media art production.
This is why the Agamben….as he looks at processes, truth processes, for the application of late 19th century scientific methods (the use of photography among them) to consider the plight of the human body engaged in events that are both representational of truth and of a model for mankind to emulate, but also a presentation of unintelligible realities, horrors or revolting potentials that have yet to be lived by the reader, viewer or receiver of the image / message.
References:
Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer; Sovereign Power and Bare Life. (Trans. By Daniel Heller-Roazen.) Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish; The Birth of the Prison. (Trans. by Alan Sheridan.) London: Penguin Books, 1991 (1977).
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