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RSS/XML: http://public-access.org/feed/ Public AccessDeclassification Art by Jenny Holzer @ Yvon Lambert, ParisJenny Holzer made an interesting use of declassified documents to critically display a situation regarding global terrorism management (that must be a discipline) that she expose in her show at Yvon Lambert gallery. The impression you get at the end of this exhibition can be the same after you discover a new huge playground next to the flat or house you lived in for 10 or 20 years: huge, unknown, yet very present sum of details that show that something exists and you hadn’t any clue: tons of names in declassified Emails with 10s of different FBI sections in cc:, absurdity in declassification, notes that project you at the heart of global politics. Fresh and, … not boring.
Horitzo.tv - Free and Independent television in BarcelonaPedro Soler introduced me to a project called horitzo.tv. This is a free and independent television project in Barcelona. It is produced and operated in complete independence by its team. They broadcast on the web, videos and live stream as well. The project is up and running, using free softwares and self made hardware. You can contact them if you are interested in building this kind of project yourself or if you need specific hardware. Check the website to watch horitzo and here you have a video showing you how it looks like and how it works. Horitzo is in spanish and catalan but they were kind enough to speak english in this video, don’t be affraid though it starts in spanish. Music by BIAS. Japanese contemporary ceramics @ Sevres Museum, FranceHurry up, this exhibition is not going to last forever. Contemporary arts can use either old or new materials, in this exhibition the materials used are among the oldest ones: clay, sand, stoneware. Yet, the result is compelling and contemporary: works from prestigious institutions like Ariana Museum or prizes from Faenza, Vallauris and Chateauroux biennale have been gathered for this event to show the progression of Japanese ceramics over 50 years. One very appreciable fact is the freedom to photograph or draw within the exhibition. At the opposite of some conservative museums, Sevres Museum allows the visitors to behave freely in a well organized venue. The works displayed show at the same time a quality that is typical from the Japanese production, a high technical level in their realization and a pleasing creativity. The following piece by Mr. Sakiyama Takayuki is an excellent example of such combination: The touch of Japanese contemporary creators can be clearly felt in these works, showing at the same time a deft play between material aspects and the graphic design that most pieces display. One of such work is this piece by Eisuke Kamiya: The world of ceramics seem to open-up at some places and blossoms into wonderful creations that links worlds as diverse as sculpture, lighting, design, sound and performances. Such openness in the area of ceramics will undoubtedly trigger more openness from the contemporary art scene toward techniques that are “not new”. Let’s hope to see exhibitions of this quality in the future combined with other fields for a more transdisciplinary approach. (End of show: Feb 26, 2007) Tom Sachs @ Thaddeus Ropac, Paris, France.Discovering a new artist that rocks is always a pleasing experience. Tom Sachs is my recent inclusion in my list, and i’d love to share it with you. When I walk all the art galleries of one town, usually on 20 or 30 galleries, I find only one or two that shows work I like. Tom Sacks shows a personal world of chaos, illegal stuff, society judgement on things. He manages to be demonstrative and yet not anecdotical nor trivial. I like that. Fun is one force of his fun, irony too. The result is an hindsight into some things you may not acknowledge immediately about where we live. Yet, he speaks about now.
A must see: Labyrinthe - a performance and installation by Luis Pasina
This one is an installation made by Luis Pasina in his squat called “Le Theatre de Verre”. Luis and the people living in this squat left it during the summer of 2006 because they were about to be evicted by the police who finally never came. This squat was known for the political engagement towards the life of the neighboorhood. Every sunday there was a “Parilla” where everybody was welcome to eat some argentinian food. This squat had some good relations with some official people of the city but I guess it was not enough to save them. This installation is about the death of the mass consumption and is called “Labyrinthe” (Labyrinth). It was made by Luis with various objects and lots of cables, most of the stuffs there are suspended in the air. The materials used for the installation feel very heavy, rough and hard, it’s often stuffs like concrete or metal, stones and electricity. And for the time of a performance this environment is filled with human flesh, I mean the performers. But not only, the public isn’t a far observer of what is happening, as you can see in the video we are taken in the street by a strange woman to the back door of the squat which opens and let people get in, “on the right for girls and on the left for boys”. Once we get in, the overall feeling is that of an anarchic bohemian world suspended in time. There are lots of performers, it takes time to discover them all, feel what they have to offer, sometimes they are even hidden… There is no beginning and no end, it’s a moment in life. Some of the themes are related to the human body, the pop culture, experimental arts like video / electricity, public administration and the way we live in this society… I don’t know if my video editing work is worth it but their performance definitly deserves the next 15 minutes you’re going to take to watch this!
All my photos about Theatre de Verre (50) http://www.flickr.com/photos/bastien/tags/theatredeverre/ Crash Test Caddy - Pierre Bamford
This installation is part of an exhibition of ex students of the art school of the city. It’s taking place in Emmetrop (http://www.emmetrop.fr.tm) @ “Antre Peaux”.
Turzi - the Disciplinary Rock Band
What you’re going to see on this video is a french psyche rock band called Turzi. There’s nothing else but pure guitars, drums and organs sound. This is just an excerpt from the “Nuit blanche” festival in Paris curated by the city of Paris. I didn’t intend to go there but Orevo offered me to be her partner during this night to shoot a documentary about the making of. So what was supposed to be a boring festival turned out to be a very exciting run into a network of very promising artists. From the very hot and multi ethnic “goutte d’or” neighborhood in the north of Paris to the extremely cold south of the city where the streets are even not finished yet. We shot several hours of what can be great footage. We hope to make some crazy shit with this and hopefully sell it. If you’re interested or think you know someone who knows a friend… just drop an e-mail to orevo@orevo.com. Turzi and his friends decided to take the rock path and I think they did the right choice. They found other people with similar background on their way like Marc Teissier du Cros, the French boss of Record Makers (air…) to produce them. They deliver a rich atmosphere of repetitive rock sounds to help your soul on its way to elevation. Let me tell you their souls are way ahead but you can try to catch on.
edit type : quick and dirty Watch the VIDEO here : ?Signal sur Bruit? Festival - Bourges (fr)
The festival runs until november 25 so try to go there and if you can’t there’s the stream; they talk (in french) about art and freedom, free licences, how to produce and stay free. They also stream all the concerts and performances. the ?Placard? festival - interview with Erik Minkkinen
Listening to the sound with headphones wasn’t just due to a technical issue though. It goes with Erik Minkkinen’s ideas of the festival. Erik is the creator of the Placard and that maid’s room was actually his room, which became a workshop and even hosted the first edition of the festival. Erik clearly lives in a subculture which he is reinventing at the same time. Naming that subculture can quickly become a tough game but words like world wide web, internet relay chat, electronica, streaming, apple laptop, webcam, web design, record label… would definitely be part of the tags. The ideas behind the “Placard” are based on that subculture; at the time of the first “Placard” it was not very common to find people making some electronic experimental music so setting up a festival to promote this and meeting new people was not the easy business of that time. So musicians and public (often the same people) had to be very volunteer and had to be ready to do unpredictable efforts to set up the show or even to get to the show. For instance at the first “Placard” only 6 people could be in the room at the same time, the others had to wait at the bar downstairs until someone leaves the room! And the other main idea is the intimacy that headphones give between the musician and the public, it’s not a matter of playing loud here, but you’re rather giving your sound directly to someone, like a gift. And when someone takes a pair of headphones it means someone else has to wait if no other headphones are free at the moment so you can’t be passive here like in a traditional concert with loudspeakers where it doesn’t matter if you’re listening or not, here you are an active listener. In the video you will see how the “Placard” looks like in its 9th edition, Erik will explain how we got here from the first “Placard” with the evolutions that took place like how it started as a 72 hours non stop festival and is now lasting 3 months. You’ll see Jan Zimmermann recording vinyls in live! Jan has an incredible knowledge about the process of recording vinyls, he is making some experimental recordings by using the vinyl’s sonic pecularities. Along with some performances including a guitar performance with Erik. The festival is in a different place every year, this time it was @ “La Generale”, a kind of squatt in Paris, a huge place which is hosting different projects. Some related links :
The Sensitive Art Lab. - interview with Jean-Noel Montagne
In the video you will see Jean Noel explaining how it works and how the project could finally exist after about 5 years of political fighting, during the interview you will see the process of actually building the room with the different people involved and at the end the public opening.
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Pierre Bamford is an artist living and working in the city of Bourges, in the middle of France. He decided to focus on the dangers of mass consumption. “Crash Test Caddy” is a performance and installation involving a crash test dummy but not in a car, he is instead thrown into a wall inside a caddy usually found in supermarkets. Pierre built the crash test dummy himself in wood from the few informations he found on the internet. According to him it’s quite hard to find informations about them since the market is so lucrative, everything is kept secret. His dummy is nonetheless very convincing albeit a bit heavy on the arms as you can see in the video. All the elements used in this installation are coming from supermarkets (except the wooden dummy).
No time. That’s what you get when you start to be involved in many projects. And that’s what happened to me. And I don’t like it. So just a word to let you know that I’m dropping some projects to put more energy and focus on videos. Like my project of videos of artistic squats in Paris. I’m running into some kinds of problems since the squats I was working on are getting evicted by the French government one after the other. But the people remain and I can still talk to them. I got almost 2 videos ready and one in the making. I’m going to start releasing them soon.
I was invited in Bourges (fr) by Sylvain Daval and Terence Meunier to make a sound performance based on low frequencies and body sounds with Philippe Langlois. We also talked on their radio which is available through stream when something is going on (no permanent playlist). I discovered a place that I’ve heard about but never saw by myself. It is run by a non profit organisation called “Bandits-Mages”. They help Sylvain and Terence to produce their festival. This place is full of good will and energy, they are definitly active in producing contemporary art events and helping people get together for projects.
“Placard” in french means cupboard, and that’s the best comparison you can find with the parisians “maid’s room” which are basically a bedroom with everything inside (bed, kitchen…) on the last floor of a building, just under the roof. With an average of 9 to 12 square meters, these places are rented as a real flat, often to students but also to anybody who can’t afford the incredible price of the parisians flat. And that’s where the first edition of the “Placard” festival took place in 1999! That’s how it was born, and of course it wasn’t the ideal place for a big sound system so the festival could welcome 6 people and they could enjoy the sound with headphones for 72 hours non stop.
Today I grant you with a video I made in a laboratory called “