Off to the Woods

Heading out to the ACRE residency in Wisconsin today. Very much looking forward to eleven days of meeting new people, creating new work, and getting away from the smelly city.

The Documentation of "If Nature Could Talk"

For those who did not get a chance to make it to the event/exhibition of If Nature Could Talk. Installation, details, and photographs follows. Click on images for larger views. 

Spoke Gallery

119 N. Peoria St.

3D

Chicago, IL

Bridgewater, New Hampshire: Dr. Kerry Nixon, Clean Coal Technology

Dr. Kerry Nixon’s invention introduces the cheap and effective means for everyday individuals to produce their own clean coal. Presented will be three samples of Nixon’s various means in producing clean coal. Coinciding with the presentation visitors will have the opportunity to try the simple means of Nixon’s clean coal invention. Accompanying the three samples visitors are invited to participate and experience the easy to use means of producing clean coal. 

Austin, Texas: Ronald Johnson, Talking Plants

Ronald Johnson invention is a plant translator designed to transmit electrical impulses of plant life into electrical signals. These signals are then translated into corresponding words. Viewers will get a chance to listen in on three separate plants internal dialog.

 Ozark, Missouri: Jeanette Ambs, Fortune Tree

Jeanette Ambs invention introduces what could only be called a fortune tree. The tree was designed in Ambs Fenton based greenhouse through painstaking grafting techniques and splicing of several RNA strands from various trees. The unique tree is designed to bud on the full moon of every month producing several bulbs containing what Ambs states resemble small typed messages. The messages are usually composed of only a few words with content that resembles the tiny messages one finds in fortune cookies. Visitors will have the opportunity to pluck the uncanny fruit from the fortune tree.

Prescott, New Mexico: Abitha Simon, Seed Bomb

Abitha Simon’s invention uses mold, seed bombs, and grass to decipher what plants want to tell us. Simon’s starts with a grafting process that introduces classic literary works with either mold or seeds. After weeks of cultivation the texts are removed from the greenhouse and screened for those parts of the page that remain free of plant or microbial life. With a simple manner of deduction what letters and words are left untouched are the subtle communications of a plant life “natural” communication.

Pevely, Missouri: Denise Brooks, Natural Symbolism

 

Denise Brook’s invention couples psychologist Hermann Rorschach inkblot experiments, and three unique sources of light to deduce the characteristics or thought patterns of nature. A simple device projects light onto the plant casting its shadow onto a piece of paper. The user traces the shadow resulting in a kind of drawn shadowgram. Visitors will be allowed to project one of three light sources (tungsten, fluorescent, daylight balanced) towards a plant and trace the resulting shadow. 

If Nature Could Talk

I am pleased to announce an upcoming exhibition at Spoke gallery titled, If Nature Could Talk. The three-night event will feature photographs that document five new pseudo scientific inventions. Visitors are invited to come and encouraged to interact with the objects and their uncanny results.

“If Nature Could Talk,” is an interactive event that explores the uncanny relationship between art, science, and nature. Based on the investigation of Human/Nature dynamics through marks, traces and symbols of pseudo- scientific experiments, the work suggests what nature might be thinking and feeling in an evidentiary context. Chicago based artist, Grant W. Ray has photographed these strange attempts at communicating with nature. He will be presenting this historic archive and five extraordinary inventions for two nights only at Spoke Gallery. Participants will be invited to interact with ordinary objects that have extraordinary functions such as, “Ronald Johnson’s Talking Plants,” which reportedly translates the thoughts of domesticated houseplants into a language you can understand.

Spoke
119 Peoria
3D
Chicago, IL 60607

Opening Reception: July 23rd 6pm - 9pm
Open hours July 24th, 25th 10am - 6pm

Upcoming Exhibit: In leaves no step had trodden black curated by Eric Weeks

I am proud to announce the inclusion of two photographs from the Uncanny Imagination series for the upcoming exhibition at the Visual Arts Museum in New York "In leaves no step had trodden black" curated by Eric Weeks. It is both an honor and a privilege to be showing alongside such talented photographers.

"Borrowing a line from the well-known Robert Frost poem “The Road Not Taken,” the title of the exhibition suggests the innumerable possibilities of implying narrative with photography, as well as the choices each exhibiting artist has made in their use of the medium. Implied narrative can be constructed, found or merely hinted at through the artist’s process."

Visual Arts Museum
209 East 23 Street
NY, NY 10010
July 6th thru July 20th
Reception July 6, 6pm - 8pm

Exhibiting Artist:
Tracy Baran
Ted Barron
Monica Bradley
Jesse Chan
Lisa Elmaleh
Nicholas Fevelo
Brian Finke
Lauren Fleishman
Ayala Gazit
Sean Gutowski
Barclay Hughes
Danny Kim
Matt Kushan
Greg Miller
Katie Murray
Orit Raff
Grant W. Ray
Katie Nicole Smith
Christina Thurston
Corinne Wilber
Richard Williamson

artXposium Skie Mall (Sky Mall) curated by Anni Holm

I am pleased to announce the inclusion of two of my photographs in Skie Mall curated by Anni Holm. It will be an honor and privilege to exhibit work along side these fellow international and local artist

"On May 15, 2010, in conjunction with the annual West Chicago Blooming Fest, the STUDIO, located at 203 Turner Court behind Main Street, will open its doors to the 4th biannual artXposium. This multimedia art experience, organized by People Made Visible, Inc. featuring regional, national and international artists who will display a variety of art work inspired by the inflight SkyMall catalog.

In addition to the SkieMall, artXposium events and exhibitions will take place in front of the 19th century CB&Q Depot, at the West Chicago City Museum and on Main Street. Saturday, May 15 the exhibition opens at 9am, with an artist reception from 6 to 9 pm which will feature a performance by Alison Rhoades along with food, drinks and a silent auction. (Full program available at artxposium.org.)

New to the program this year is a tent among Blooming Fest vendors hosting the West Chicago International Artist in Residency Program featuring Gitte Bog’s project: Fusion Foods.

Featured artists include: Claus Ankersen (DK), Lise Haller Baggesen (DK/NL/US), Tom Burtonwood (UK/US), Mario Contreras (US), Gemma Correll (UK), Diana Gabriel (US), Aron Gent (US), Richard Holland (US), Holly Holmes (US), Matt Logan (US), Mark Osterman (US), Sara Phalen (US), Grant Ray (US), Alison Rhoades (US), Andrew Rigsby (US), Steve Ruiz (US), Victor Yanez-Lazcano (US) and Matt Austin (US). This year's exhibition has been curated by Anni Holm.

artXposium Hours: Saturday 9am-9pm & Sunday 10am-2pm. This event is free and open to the public. (Suggested donation $2)."

Start Time: Saturday, May 15, 2010 at 9:00am
End Time: Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 2:00pm
Location: 203 Turner Court, West Chicago, IL 60185

A sample...

"New York, New York: MTVs Top Ten Videos 1981, 1991, 2001", from the Uncanny Imagination series received a spot in Feature Shoot "singles" blog section.


Feature Shoot "Singles" section.

The Two Photography’s

Interesting essay by Paul Graham titled "the Unreasonable Apple" about a quote from Michael Fried’s recent book “Why Photography Matters as Art and Never Before”

Carefully constructing his pictures as provocative often open ended vignettes, instead of just snapping his surroundings”
Michael Fried

Graham’s essay “the Unreasonable Apple”, takes issue with Fried’s seemingly sophomoric malaise in referring to straight photography as that of merely “snapping pictures”. Graham sets out to establish that there is more happening in the work of “straight” photographers than merely “snapping pictures”. He posits the question what is that “something” that happens when photographers like Robert Adams, Stephen Shore, Diane Arbus took their photographs. The essay goes on to lament what Graham sees as the absence of “straight” photography from critical attention and ends with a mandate seeking photographers, writers, dealers, collectors, and curators, to write critically about what that “something” is. How ever noble the intent the essay inadvertently manages to establish a dialectic between what he sees as “straight” photographers and those photographers who make/synthesis their subject matter for the camera thus fracturing the photographic medium into two types of photography. One is a serious business with a practice and processes beyond Fried’s “snapping pictures” a point of Graham’s I strongly agree with. The other photography is made, synthesized, constructed, and easily explained to the buyers, collectors, dealers, and curators as simply stuff set up for the camera to be photographed.

It is Graham’s choice of language that complicates his call to action. His style of writing, and structure hints at the old modes of modernist photography. There are ways to write about photographic practice in constructive and culturally relevant ways without the need to inadvertently or otherwise tear down other practices of photography. Sadly, especially given the context for this essay, Graham’s "the Unreasonable Apple" is not one of them. For that question to be fairly addressed we can be thankful for SFMOMA and their upcoming symposium "Is Photography Over".