Talks, Tapes, and Other Dates

{Note: some updates, here, as of 11/29:)

Ok, get yer calendars out! Here's some stuff I'm doing or attending, in the next few days, starting Tuesday. Please scroll all the way down, for the Monkeytown benefit & La Superette! (p.s. I heart NYC!)

Weds, 11/29 - I'm moderating a casual discussion with James Deavin and Eva & Franco Mattes (a.k.a. 0100101110101101.ORG)--both of whom have been making work in Second Life--at Jen Bekman Gallery. Deavin's work is mostly landscapes and interior shots, showing now at the gallery. The Matteses' portrait series, 13 Most Beautiful Avatars, is showing now at Ars Virtua Gallery in a show I curated for the Time Shares series co-presented by Rhizome and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and will be in a "real world" show opening on 11/30 at the Italian Academy, at Columbia. Please join us for this chat! Updates: Time: drinx at 6, talk at 7, ends at 8. RSVP: recommended. rsvp(at)jenbekman.com.



Thurs 11/30th - Big night! Eva & Franco Mattes have their opening @ Columbia (see above); Darmstadt ("classics of the avant garde performance series) celebrates their 2nd anniversary @ Galapagos with Zach Layton, Nick Hallett, Ray Sweeten, Luke DuBois, David Linton, and a TON of other awesome people, performing Terry Riley's In C. Also, the Unisex Salon series (organized by Earl Dax & James Coppola, and friends) starts tonight, at The Delancey, and the Blip Fest celebration of all things 8-bit starts tonight and runs through 12/3.


Fri 12/1 - Jon Brumit is visiting from Oakland and doing this: "i've been working on the soundtrack for a 'store' with my friend sean (meadows) and by opening time friday the piece will play repeatedly for six months until an entirely new collection is presented in the space, we're finishing up a long series of micro-compositions which will shuffle endlessly, using samples of the pieces in the collection and extensive use of object-based processed feedback via fm radio through the soundsystem in the space." 6-11 pm 1565 lexington ave @ e 100th, opening of anthony deluca's 'shopshop.'

Sat 12/2 - The autumn Harkness Salon... Actually, just kidding, this was cancelled!!!


Sun 12/3 (8pm) - New event! One of my studio assistants, Daniel Iglesia (a music genius getting his PhD at Columbia) has a piece for string quartet and live electronics in a FREE concert at Lincoln Center. He says: 'It’s in one of their other 20-some venues: the Rose Studio, a small chamber music space in the Rose Building at W 65th and Amsterdam (NE corner), 10th Floor. (NOT to be confused with Rose Theater, which is a L.C. venue at the Time Warner Center.) It is free, no ticketing, with five other chamber pieces by Columbia colleagues, some others with electronics as well.' Fun!

Mon, 12/4 (6:30pm) - Rhizome panel on open source issues (organized by Lauren Cornell), at the Vera List Ctr. Panelists include Daniel Mayer, co-founder, Wikipedia; Cory Arcangel, artist; and Joy Garnett, artist; and Laura Quilter, founder, Fair Use Network. Moderated by Christiane Paul, adjunct curator of New Media Arts, Whitney Museum of American Art. Note updated time (not 7pm!)--thanks JG!


Weds, 12/6 (7pm) - Rick Silva, Sam Freeman, and I present our work at Dorkbot, at Location One, in Soho. Descriptions at the link. I'm scared...


Thurs, 12/7th (8pm-2am) - Totally super awesome Monkeytown benefit/ holiday party, featuring performances by the amazing My Robot Friend, Dynasty Handbag, Nicklcat, and others... Monkeytown is a one-of-a-kind art venue and awesome restaurant and they need our support, right now! If they disappear, it will be a huge loss to the arts in NY/Bklyn!!


Sat, 12/9 - Tali Hinkis (Lovid), et al's La Superette! This is a holiday shop at which you can pick up artists' projects, clothes, zines, and other good stuff. I'm co-starring in Tali's artists' dvd cookbook, and I'll also present some brand new tapes in my series of Self-Personalized a Cappella Serenades, custom audio cassettes with secret, sealed serenades and instructions for Self-Personalization and Optimal Serenade Enjoyment. The fun happens at Eyebeam, this year.

Then, over the weekend, I speak at an entertainment conference at a comedy club in Times Square, where the founders of MTV and E! will also be speaking.... Surreal... And then I sleep!!! :) {Uhh... except that I'm about to start a new video performance blog for the holiday season!!} But I hope to see you before then!

Dorkbot-NYC talk Dec 6

Hi! I'm doing something scary.... I'm talking about a complicated new project on which I've barely started research, and playing samples for public scrutiny. Yikes! I'm not sure how this happened, but here are the details... It's for Dorkbot (awesome series!), and Rick Silva (aka my frequent collaborator, Abe Linkoln!! shhhh....) and Sam Freeman will also be presenting. Also, Daniel Iglesia, one of my two amazing studio assistants (more on this soon!) will be on hand to break down the technical details, with me. (Check out his great work!) Ok, so info here:

DORKBOT-NYC: Sam Freeman, Marisa Olson, Rick Silva
Wednesday, December 6th, 2006, at 7pm at Location One in SoHo.

My excerpt....

Marisa Olson: Oh.Yeah.I.Love.You.Baby
Marisa's work deals with popular music and the cultural history of technology. She's just started research on her first sound art album, "Oh.Yeah.I.Love.You.Baby," in which each word in the album title is also the title of a respective track whose lyrics consist solely of that word. To her, these words are the "greatest hits" of pop lyrics, and each utterance of them is culled from hours and days of pop music samples. Of course, Marisa's work is also often about failure, humiliation, and a lack of talent. Accordingly, she's not sure whether her project sucks or not. She could use a little feedback on this work in progress.

Black or White

I just uploaded a new video to utoob, called Black or White. In it, the audio signals from Michael Jackson's song, "Black or White," modify the processing of a video of me listening to the song, via Nam June Paik's rasterizer/"wobulator." I made this on my summer visit to the Experimental Television Center and it's one of many headphone pieces in which I perform the act of listening. The B/W question is tongue-in-cheek, but I was really inspired by the song's original music video, in which a series of faces/video portraits morph into each other... There are actually a few different versions of this video, with nice feedback loops and color processing, and it will eventually be a multi-channel installation, but for now, here's the "original."

13 Most Beautiful Avatars

I've just worked with Eva and Franco Mattes (a.k.a. 0100101110101101.ORG) and James Morgan, founder of the Ars Virtua gallery, to organize an exhibit in the online game world of Second Life. 13 Most Beautiful Avatars, captures the most visually dynamic and celebrated "stars" of Second Life. The Matteses have been living in this virtual world for over a year, exploring its terrain and interacting with its peculiar inhabitants. The result of their "video-game flanerie" is this series of portraits. The 13 Most Beautiful Avatars images will be exhibited, in the real-world, at the Italian Academy at New York's Columbia University. For the Ars Virtua show, in Second Life, a 3D replica of this physical exhibition space has been recreated for presentation of an exhibition identical to the "real" one. This show is the newest installment in Time Shares, a series of online exhibitions dedicated to exploring the diversity of contemporary art based on the Internet, organized by Rhizome and co-presented by the New Museum of Contemporary Art. This link will transport you directly to the exhibition site in Second Life. Viewing the show requires user registration and a software plug-in.

Coming Attractions

A sneak preview of a piece I'm working on, at ETC, right this second.......

Thanks and shout-outs to David Webber, my Zombie Lazer Technician for the week. (He picked his title and it's spelling!)